the birds with lights collided....passengers fell
into cold potomac
in pennsylvania chill another bird crashed....
mangled more sad losses
the perished soar to god....so far aloft
of the humbled earthly flights
Categories:
potomac, 6th grade, 7th grade,
Form: Monoku
The incentive to write the following verses came from my thoughts
at the moment the 'president' addressed the country about the
tragedy that took place over DC.
The night many witnessed a collision over Washington, DC
A terrible fate and loss of lives. It could've been you or me.
"Acceptable" the description of traffic control at that hour
Then, "not normal" twas said of those manning the tower.
In a burst of flames, Blackhawk and AA fell into the river
A national tragedy witnessed that caused many to shiver.
Sixty-seven in the cold Potomac... what a horrific way to die
Left behind, their family and friends, many tears they'd cry.
Except for one... While tears flowed in hours of mourning,
The President's heartless speech, I found worthy of scorning.
He read words without emotion, no compassion in his droll voice
A Republican elephant, more like an a.s.s. ~ the people's choice.
He made it worse by pointing a crooked finger, narcissist fool,
blaming Dems for the crash. Greed and power make him drool.
A President without a heart cannot display grief and empathy.
What kind of man is totally void of showing an ounce of sympathy?
Categories:
potomac, how i feel,
Form: Rhyme
Nothing rivaled the lemonade in Georgia.
Now, you could also find some damn good lemonade in the neighboring state of South Carolina. Virginians liked to think they too made fine lemonade, and it was better than anything north of the Potomac.
But the best was in Georgia.
And people in the good old days really did drink their lemonade on a lazy, late summer afternoon on the front porch of their wooden house as their kindly old dog, usually a Labrador or a golden retriever, lay down by their feet.
It happened exactly like that.
Just the way you’ve always pictured it.
Categories:
potomac, america, history, mythology,
Form: Free verse
Everywhere, clusters of clowns gathering about.
Plotting behind painted smiles
Dancing to the quickening of our demise.
They gather upon star spangled hill.
Behind giant mahogany desks.
Sharpening knives on middle class breasts.
The reddish howl of the globalist-echoing the fall.
Muffling the voices of we the feeble.
Hope bleeding out into the A hole of the Potomac.
Along the banks. clusters of pigs and clowns.
Green dripping from Saturn sized snouts.
Stomping their hooves- disrupting citizen heartbeats.
Everywhere you look. clusters of manic menace.
Void of substance.
Void of anything...really.
Categories:
potomac, corruption,
Form: Free verse
I was blessed to have been adopted at age thirteen.
When hunting after a torrential rain I slipped into the Potomac river and by holding onto my pellet gun, when it slapped the mud, the cocking mechanism sprang open, locking onto a stump allowing me to pull myself free from certain death in that wild rushing chocolate brown Potomac river.
Blessed to have survived a heavy weapon-laden military aircraft engine loss and fell five hundred feet before regaining our altitude, a truly horrific experience.
Blessed to have a bullet aimed at me pass through an open passenger window of a car, passed right in front of my nose, and smashed the driver's side window instead of passing through my head.
After being wrongly accused and facing twenty years in prison I was blessed by a man who saved me from committing suicide, and all charges were dropped.
After all of this and that, there must be a good reason for me still remaining among the living, for I am blessed and highly favored.
Categories:
potomac, 9th grade,
Form: Free verse
That great river, the Potomac.
Means so very much to me.
In our nation's capitol,it's full
of American history and glory!
As a teen, our high school
visited that famous city in
this great American nation.
Such an excited class with
Samsonite luggage at that
train station!
All dressed in nice skirts and
sweaters.
Actual, leather shoes, made
in this nation.
Nuns for companions, they
were good women and kind
And of course, to be sure, we
stayed morally in line.
The monuments, granite and
marble, took your breath away.
Pride in my American soul,
will never stray.
Of course, I am aware how
some Americans and others
cannot see through my eyes.
To them..America and its
citizenry are something to
despise!
I stood at Lincoln's overwhelming
feet and I had to just smile.
Because from that moment on,
I became, forevermore....
America's blessed child!
4/1&/2021
Categories:
potomac, beautiful, inspiration,
Form: Rhyme
Topple the monuments of the founders
for all of their shortcomings and sins
rip their portraits of museum walls
toss them into the Potomac River,
Splatter paint over their granite heads
erect monuments to your perfect selves
for you're the self- anointed god for all ages.
Kick old lady liberty in the teeth again
demand things-dwell on only the negative
If America is a broth of systemic racism
I wonder why they risk their lives to get in
to live their days in the shadows of white privilege?
..once they do get in they want to change the very
things that brought them here in the first place
Categories:
potomac, freedom,
Form: Free verse
With apologies to Robby Burns and Sweet Afton - in celebration of Spring, and the return of our Bald Eagle family to their Great Falls home on the bonnie banks O’Burn Potomac:
Oh to be in Great Falls,
Now that Spring is on us,
Hearing baby eaglet calls,
A break from BREXIT chaos,
…and Trumpish walls and childish flaws,
…the wallaper, numpty, fanny baws “in Chief” - such grief.
So find your peace from the newest leaf of Spring,
…and singing eagle parents soaring on the wing
…bringing tasty scran to their eager eaglet fledgling
To illustrate this poem there are picture's of a Bald Eagle's nest with parent and two youngsters, Trump in Scotland, spring foliage and cherry blossoms along the Potomac. But I could not copy and paste here.
Categories:
potomac, bird, inspirational, political, river,
Form: Ballad
Antietam Creek, Maryland
Antietam was fought on Maryland ground
at the foothills of Appalachia.
There McClellan, Lee and Jackson were found
with troops from Potomac and Virginia.
McClellan shrewdly, saved some of his men,
while Lee sent the entire army forward.
Does blood cry out as the withered grass bends?
Should they be buried facing home, southward?
Victors of Antietam, we wonder who?
At Sharpsburg gray clad soldiers left the town.
When all was done and McClellan was through,
Lincoln knew that the Union was still sound.
Route 70 crosses Antietam Creek
where war stories dwell in its murky deep.
12/31/18
Categories:
potomac, history, war,
Form: Sonnet
A DREAM
By David F. Henrie
Last night I dreamed, but not of Manderlay.
It was instead of the Oak Ridge Cemetery, in Springfield,
where death somehow evokes life.
The moon bathed everything with silver.
It was easy to find my way through rows of grave markers.
I was drawn inexplicably to the large tomb
with its tall obelisk, a smaller version of the one by
the Potomac in Washington, DC.
I heard sounds coming from within and walked by his statue.
Entering, I stood by the massive granite cenotaph over his grave and the sounds grew louder.
Abe Lincoln was sobbing in his grave.
His bright summer promise of four score and seven
has become our dark winter of deception and fear.
davidfhenrie1@gmail.com - Scottsdale, AZ
Categories:
potomac, america,
Form: Narrative
Does God make slightly reject people?
We may think so, but He never did
Quite apart from Mephibosheth, lame prince, son of Jonathan,
In hiding when Saul died (the nurse hid baby Mephibosheth from King David)
Who merely sought to make Jonathan's last heir his Royal Guest for life!
There are those heroes and sheroes who rise above disability
Joni Erickkson Tada, dashing teen, dove into the Potomac decades ago
And lived with a broken neck (wheelchair-bound paraplegic since)
Married an American from Hawaii, and both teach uplifting lessons on Faith
The LORD God does not make rejects (though we may CHOOSE darkness)
Your ... our circumstances may be heavy. Do not let heavy events take your Focus off from WHO and whose you are: the light of creation is inside you
More than in that exotic orchid or rose, more than in a rare eagle or lyre bird
If you have loved a child, another person, or helped even one stranger ...
YOU have made the Universe smile (it began to live out its Eternal Dream)
Some call it Higher Awareness ... Jesus called it, "The Abundant Life"
As seen from Heaven's riches ... LORD'S Prayer, we have Daily Bread & more
Categories:
potomac, allegory, appreciation, flower, giving,
Form: Didactic
The creek meanders down from Pennsilvani-ay
Caresses Sharpsburg as it goes.
To give its water to Potomac as it flows.
And so, the river knows
What happens on the land above each day.
But something terrible is happening this day.
The air is filled with fire and lead.
The corn is burning and the animals have fled.
The water's turning red.
And now the men have turned and marched away.
The creek meanders down from Pennsilvani-ay
And washes Sharpsburg as it goes.
To dump its blood into Potomac as it flows.
And so, the river knows
That men have yet to find the thing they seek.
They'll take their dead, and move ahead
And shed their blood into another creek.
Categories:
potomac, river, war,
Form: Ballad
Towers stabbing tall into the sky,
Broadway plays that catch the eye,
finance’s center, here it lies…
Manhattan is a city that works
(but it’s filled with loud, self-important jerks).
Sun-bathed coat and silver screens,
glitz and glamour and action scenes,
the city of lights, the city of dreams…
You should come by and stay a while
(especially if a rapist or pedophile).
Maple-tappers working in spring,
hordes of tourists gone skiing,
small, quaint towns, so relaxing…
Green Mountains, pleasant to the eye
(this is where old hippies go to die).
Coal mines fueling this great land,
hollows, moonshine, and deer stands,
a place where work makes the man…
Where you can still find an old homestead,
(just ignore the opioids and meth heads).
Monuments tall, for heroes past,
Potomac waters, well-manicured grass,
elected folk of wisdom and class…
working hard for freedom and good,
(they’d put us all in camps, if they could).
Categories:
potomac, city, culture, how i
Form: Rhyme
In crowds bigly
And comparatively small
The Barker
Shot poisoned grammar arrows
At apple pie heads
Crowds roared with baked smiles
At milestones tossed
Across potomac alters
The Barker
Injected his virus
With mucus spray; tanned
With ease, aimed to please
He opened
His lips to fervid ears,
"Gather my trodden prey
Drink in this wolfish day,
I'm offered upon your crowns
Thorned by your bidding".
The Barker slithered his tongue
Wet with promise
And aimed
Arrow tipped sovereignty at the crowd.
He warned of witch hunts
Casting cosmopolitan spells
He bent the ears
Of youthful virtue
And glazed the past with boos
He spoke of imaginary signals
That praised his plans
He pledged to build things great again
Bigger than before
Skillfully he hides
Under tall silk hats
That cover colonial cranium worms
Each day his ego is fed
By the thoughts in his own head
And as the virus looms
One by one his goons
Believe all that is said.
Categories:
potomac, hero,
Form: I do not know?
Kilmarnock is two places split by Atlantic
one in Virginia other in Ayrshire
they are of different character straits
all bringing their own dimensions higher
The Virginia brand settled way back in early 1600s
originally known as ‘the Crossroads’ as it began
this charming small town is on east Peninsula
between Potomac and Rappahannock waters have ran
The Ayrshire version sits seven miles from coast
the largest town in all of Ayrshire county
famous for it’s whisky, carpets and bonnet making
becoming a royal burgh in 1672 was it’s bounty
In America’s ‘Killie’ town to admire so much
join the Chesapeake Bay wine trail few miles away
see the birth place of Washington and Robert E. Lee
so much to enjoy never fill it in a whole day
In Scotland’s ‘Killie’ town they remember
their national bard Robert Burns no less
his first printed works called ‘Kilmarnock’ edition
to read Rabbie’s words is a sure bless!
(Having recently came to know of a Kilmarnock in USA and having lived my first 36 years in Kilmarnock in Scotland, so thought I would try and bring their respective highs together in written form.)
(KILLIE- is Scots nickname for Kilmarnock)
Categories:
potomac, america, history,
Form: Rhyme
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