Mouldering Poems

Dungeness

copper burns across an endless sky
competing caws claim salt, surf and sand 
sailing high above slowly sagging carcasses 
long forgotten at the edge of the world 

buckled rails swim over a shimmering shingle sea
the largest of its kind, hinting at some other time; 
engines once chugged to billingsgate from this beach
herring bound for the cinque ports

and they say women dragged each boat -
pulled them down to that shore’s faithless embrace;
the muttered prayers of mothers and daughters
casting their men out on fortune’s dark waters

now nets, set for a tide that came and went, lay
mouldering among those collapsing clinkers
as if the fisherfolk just left one night, fled
granting the gulls sole control of that desolate dominion

their toil and trade, the legacy of our fathers’ fathers
still lays there on that beach; haunts that huge cove
rich history, like in so many places, fading away 
rotting, rusting, ruined

Treacle

Sickly sickly treacle trickley
seeps on, mouldering down the crock.
Stickily sticky it steadily, trickily
keeps on for many a round of the clock.

I wonder I wonder if I would turn green
Should I gutsily plunder its festering urn,
Or should I desecrate such a picnic-y scene
If I’d gently expire or clamorously burn.

Quickly quickly treacle slickly
Drippily dribbles down onto the floor—
‘Fore I can supply my sick wonder
The trickley treacle has trickled off and is no more.

Types of Taking

Time's admirer hijacks sections
Rips strings of delicious from fattest flesh
Imbibes fibres provided sublimely 
Licks fingers with shameless relish 

Nature's passenger adequately dazzled
Rides intention piloted by passivity
Waterwheel which in turn feeds many 
Delivers ceaseless needed energy

Rise makes way to fall: a pair inevitable
Weaving a trail mountainside as goat
Supplied segment of cycle's spectacle
Leaving views acceptance of what follows

Leaf litter tickets event for fantastic next 
Mouldering grows mushrooms quickly
Spring brings surprise unrivalled gifts
Finds a shape, adopts a place unchecked 

Become slowly resplendent in your realm
Adoration wells from inclusive depiction
Autumn acknowledges drifting's worth
Inactivity observes thriving of parallels

Sonnet 2

This burden, that you place upon my back, 
grows heavier with time's passing, pressing hand. 
My strength is stretched; my faith fails on the rack 
of knowing that, in spite of all, like sand 
escaping from a powerless, open sieve, 
in two short words, from blameless lips and hearts, 
my hopes might vanish; all that I believe 
sunk like a wreck marked, mouldering, on the charts. 
Sometimes the fear is physical and makes 
my leaden legs to drag, my heart to sink 
within my chest; sometimes the form it takes, 
cold, black and dead, clouds out my power to think. 
These times the thought of what may soon be lost 
ten million times can multiply the cost.

Kim Helen James
11/8/95

Sorrow O'Er Youth and Young Love Lost

When I look on my life that's now half-spent,
     I sigh the loss of youth that's forever past,
wishing myself better Fortune's consent,
     love, friends, and wealth with naught to lose or waste, 

but for the mean expense of young love lost;
     despising this, I oft' bemoan the loss
of vestal company's first time the most;
     for matrons offend like mouldering moss,

which, like Time's sure, inexorable march,
     destroys the juvenescence of life's spring
year by year till extinguishing Youth's torch,
     a dead flame for which I am most desiring.

If I could live and love anew once more,
I'd not err this time: and lay a rude whore.

Hobson's Choice

"To die.To sleep?Perchance to dream?"
There is but one we will know
If immortality is in life's scheme.
If mortality is the only show
Then will our bodies turn to dust
Mouldering in slow decay
Only in memory will we be discussed
And even reminiscence will pass away.

Hope or despair,survival or extinction
Will wait until the veil of life is drawn
Lean towards one means the soul's destruction
No one will  then know the truth ,once gone.

One path offers much more comfort
The other being so bleak
Religions offer the crutch of support
Humanism the second prefers to seek

I would pray for the life eternal
With its hope of renewal and complete bliss
The other option to me reeks of the infernal
With its  impersonal  emptiness

Twice Struck

There he lay, mouldering,
We thought him buried well.
But there he was, unearthed.
Again, struck by a shell.

It was though they killed him twice,
Oh how the devil played.
We buried him but a week ago,
And we will again today.

But I had no time to grieve
The dying, of my friend.
We were busy dodging shells,
Would this madness never end.

But if it finally does,
And by some miracle, I'm saved.
I'll come back and find him,
With flowers for his grave.

For always he'll be with me,
All throughout my life.
A truer friend I never had,
A friend, I buried twice.

Why Should I Want Them

Why should I want the holy moment of birth,when it will be finished with mouldering?
 Why should I like the developement and cultivation,when the result is utter devestation.
 Why should I be happy,for the lovers meeting,when it will be ended up with seperation.

We'Re All Good, Evil

We are all good 
Are made so
We are all evil
Tho’ we do not know,
‘Tis veiled fantasy
Cloaked between soul and the skin
For a self ignorant
Chasing good and the sin,
Against a triumph that defies us
Denies us a tranquil breath
And lingers upon the morose heads
Like slothful beasts in a mournful wreath,
Thriving for recognition
In a lonesome longevity,
We seek a survival 
Till we are laid to rest
In some heath,
Where the sighs go screaming
Screams fade unheard,
Flattened once, one after another;
Every single plea mouldering away
From a lip that shall not enquire,
An exigency knowing no impunity
Except for a soul that sought
Amidst a burgeoning appetite
Piety, in all the false life
Proved mistaken to seek naught,
But Plentitude!

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies grow;
Their roots reach down to twine amongst the bones,
The mouldering bones.

Each skull in grinning disbelief voices 
Its eternal question, for what? And no answer comes,
No answer comes.

There are no lungs to find;
Long rotted from within, from gasping breaths of gas,
From choking gas.

No flesh remains to clothe the 
Bones; torn from limbs by hammer blows of fate,
Cruel, indifferent fate.

No heroes these, but common men
Who selfless thought to serve, to do the right thing,
Unquestioned right thing.

Their souls now wait deep underground;
Deep amongst the rusting, shattered fragments of twisting Death,
Of youthful Death.

Only the Sun kissed faces red;
That wave upon the land above, serve to remind,
Ever remind us.

In Flanders fields the poppies grow.

(With acknowledgement for inspiration to Lt Col John McCrae)

To the memory of my Grandfather, who endured the Somme and spoke not a word of it. Each year, he and my Grandmother made thousands of poppies to sell on Armistice Day for the survivors of that Contemptible Little Army.

Autumn Memories

across tree-lined yards
leaves dance in colorful frocks --
distant school bell chimes

through open windows
the scent of pumpkin spice drifts --
an orange moon rises 

under charcoal skies 
rain dampens mouldering leaves --
a lone snowflake falls


By Rhonda Johnson-Saunders, August 29, 2012
for Autumn Splendor Contest (Russell Sivey)

Petrifying Peace

Like a rose lacking its pedals,
My tranquility disregards its fascinating smells
Like a tree shaking off dashes of its mangled leaves 
The switch of seasons interweaves... 
You infuriate me with petrifying peace
You unlocked the gate... unsealing healing doom

Miniscule doom rummages through the town,
Wreckage brings peace, making us whole,
Stumbling down by our enrapturing gown
Polishing the mayhem, what a fine world...
You ate away at my purifying peace
You unfasten my fate... concealing chilling doom

Like a guitar tattered and out of tune,
The havoc that I observe is merely a mouldering misfortune
Like a drum busted open during the afternoon,
The peace that I yearn for has expired again...
You hesitate to gather refreshing peace
You unwind my misery state... unraveling incorruptible doom

Prison Earth

Prison Earth,
 where the levels hurt,
Depending on your location,
Deeper do do, 
Afghanistan worse,
The prison’s of our creation.

What is this place,
in mouldering time,
where I see it not at all,
on the prison earth,
right from my birth,
a criminal oh so small.

will ya trip n fall,
on the bladder gall,
at the abbatoir,
dunno?!?

Get anudder job,
Be a bloody snob
Shut yer gob
yer hopeless so n so …

Don Johnson 28-sep-11

The Mentally Ill

Mental Illness
 


We are the last 
vestiage of the 
ostracized.  

We are the lepers 
of the moon who
walk among the 
unforgiving innocent
with luminous sores.

We are hieratic stones 
that mark a trail to divinity,
unaware of mediocrity. 

We are the nightmare 
and cuirass of your 
terminal souls.

We are the delicate, 
immortelles flowers
of creation's jewellery 
and dwell within 
the mouldering caverns 
of apocalyptic chaos.

We reject gods because
they reject our sacerdotal
dominion over gods.

We are the magical
diseased who feed upon
the blue-burn fire of stars.

We are the watchers 
of the withered minds
who try and quantify 
our grandiosity.

We are pre-eminent
progeny of parsimonius
preternatural wombs.

We are magmatic, quantum 
lepton neutrinos of sub-atomic 
galaxies where altruistic Eros
regenerates the living force of life.

We are the you in us and the us in you.

We are infinite truth.

We are!

The Way

We move through the hollows of everyday life,
Shaking and quaking and searching for spice.

Round and round a day we make,
To some we give, others we take.

Mouldering, soldiering, passing ways,
Folded pieces hidden for remembered days.

Solid state and filled with cracks,
All full things have a point which lacks.

Truth is a truth, a lie is a lie,
So it goes 'til the day you die.

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