Rambled Poems | Examples

Ivory Flutes

I played the flute for a rampaging elephant
she hesitated then flashed a forlorn tusk
and rambled on...
She trampled a greed pocked society
gored its steel hook wielding keeper
and his forty-year reign of chained isolation.
 
Men with rifles arrived, expert at finalizing freedom.
It took 200 bullets, give or take, to bend her ancient knee.
She trumpeted to her kin, long ago marked for death...
profits cut away from their gray mountain heads.

I played an Ivory flute for an angel elephant
as she slid into the mist of a sunflower ascension.

Victorian Christmas Past

Upon a grassy hill, so long ago,
our lovely, old Victorian-style home
was built in eighteen eighty-six, aglow
with cozy rooms and firesides burning bright. 
So charming were the winding stairs that flared
neath the cathedral ceiling's chandelier.
Outdoors, a rolling lawn and gardens spread
beside a stony brook that rambled on.

A time I still remember- Christmas Day
in nineteen fifty-three- age fourteen then,
and I recall those very special hours
at home, so cozy, warm with my loved ones
of many generations, happily
around the sparkling tree with old-time trim
of bubble lights, glass balls, and Christmas songs
playing softly on the record player.

Extended family- my mom and dad,
grandparents, brother, cousins, uncles, aunts-
spent happy hours, and such a blessed time
was shared as peace and love were felt by all
as I, once the youngest, now the oldest
generation, carry on that spirit
and make traditions last, to someday be
my children and grandchildren’s Christmas past.

A teacher's recurring nightmare

Today again, I went to go teach, totally unprepared.
And fearing the principal would come observe me had me so scared,
I rambled through the room, floundering and fluttering.
And then a student asked, "Mr J, why are you muttering?
Do I sense maybe ~ you're just a little bit impaired?"

Bojangles

I swore
over and over
and
over and over
Forever
to love her
no matter
the whim

But time
after time
as each siren
would call  
I rambled
and left her
my nose
— in the wind

(Dreamsleep: December, 2024)

HMO Will Only Pay for a Witch Doctor

We all stood up to let the witch-doctor work
He rambled and cried, and screeched with a jerk
Her HMO would pay for no other service but his
He has a contract with them, and it is a whiz

Other doctors stood around watching him shake
Recognizing now the sound his rattles make
He howled like a wolf and pounded the bed like a bear
No doubt the frightened lady was getting great care

advice from the front seat

prim and proper she sits in the back seat
going to a birthday party is always a treat
Her parents were throwing advice her way
She did not care, she was here to play

She knew the birthday girl really well
The party would be super fun and swell
They rambled on and on in the front seat
She did not care, going to a party was a treat.

The Rambler

His soul alive when he rambled
Hours and hours upon end
Being alone with mother nature
His one and only true friend

Confined, suffocated between four walls
He needed to roam free
Through the mountainous hills and countryside
Of wildlife, rivers and trees

He was a loner by choice
A rambling spirit since a child
Innate to his whole being
His heart and home the wild

The local folk called him “The Rambler”
As no-one knew him or his name
Sometimes at dusk high on a hill 
A distant silhouette is seen rambling the rugged terrain

To Make a Long Story Short

I asked about her family.
She started to say “to make a long story short.
her story went on and on and on
There was a barn, a country road, a duck pond.
It rambled and ambled,
My eyes were scrambled.
It was my third yawn.
She reiterated “to make a long story short”.
I was fighting the fight but my eyes were closing.
This was the most boringest boring speaker I had ever heard talk aloud.
I was snoring soundly the third time I heard her say,
“to make a long story short.”
The next time I will ask her to please make a short story long
or...
I will simply run screaming in the opposite direction.

Many Words, Many Words

Whenever I look upon his poems
I wonder: Why so many words today,
words concerning so many things, expressed
so aimlessly as if to meet a deadline?

He must have so drifted, rambled,
this way or that, who knows?
Today - or was it yesterday? -
he wrote of the creature who lives next door.

Oh, human, of course, but this is how he thinks.
This week - or was it last?
Is this the way poets work,
writing many words, throwing some away, using few?

Perhaps he astounds his own senses.
Neighbours always seem like that.
Neighbours! They always seem to be
there and here and there.

Just like these, oh so many quite odd words,
today or yesterday or tomorrow.
What rambling, meandering!
Is there no way to halt, stop, cease?


(9 Oct 2023)

Eve

Eve was the one woman not born of a woman.
Was she then a magical sprite or a demon?
No, she was a unique creation from the rib of man.
Meticulously fashioned as per God’s special plan.

She became Adam’s companion and mate.
His sense of loneliness she did abate.
In the Garden of Eden, they rambled free.
In its centre there stood a fruit laden tree.
 
God forbid them from eating its fruits. 
But Satan told them, it had great attributes.
Fools they were to fall into his temptation,
They ate it incurring God’s condemnation!

The Paranoia Poetry Club Revisited

Got my Dictionary of Quotations,
The Greek Myths of Robert Graves,
Plutarch for beginners’
How The Ancient World Behaves;

Back at the Paranoia Poetry Club,
Local Intellectual Branch
And that collection of books
Might just give me a chance
Of understanding the words and
What on earth they’re talking about
Because the first time I went 
I understood precisely nowt.

Must spoke with cultured voices, 
Some rambled and some muttered,
Word following word following word
Crammed and packed and cluttered.  
But all spoken with confidence
About what they felt mattered
And, my ignorance being exposed,
I sat both deflated and shattered

I’ve got the book of Popular Philosophy
The Book of Modern Scientific thought
Gambling on the hope and presumtion
That wisdom can be bought.

First Love

I could not let go, I was in love.
She’s not for you they told me,
But I was deaf and perhaps dumb.
I just could not let go.

She sauntered along the street,
Flaunting her new dress and yet
She did not look at me even though
She knew I was watching her every 
Curve, her slim figure, her lovely eyes.

Go on, they said.  We dare you,
Ask her out, a dinner or a dance.
But I was a daydreamer and dared not.
I would have hated her saying “No”.

Thus the days just rambled by.
Dejected I simply stared and yearned.
Went to places she would frequent,
Knowing she had eyes for all
But she never even glanced at me.

Then something sparked and I crossed
To the other side of the street,
Calling her name.  Still dazed
I did not see a car driving straight at me.
The injury was slight, all would be well.
For near my side she sat in anxiety
Hoping we’d be able to talk
And become what I had always hoped:
My very first true beautiful love.

Wild Tusks

Yesterday was lush and green
Tomorrow will be baron
They’ve arrived, with cunning
How do we continue on, endure
After these creatures of the night
Have rambled through
Nothing can grow here
Will never flourish again
A perennial disenchantment
They’ve poached the roots
Eaten them greedily, wildly
This habitat trampled away
Moving across, multiplying
A tedious landslide nocturnal
The more we hunt them
The quicker they learn
Boastful tusks challenging
A successful vendetta
Completed only by being
Being what they are
Doing what they do
Why exhaust a hoof
When you can starve the hand
A hand that time and again
And again and again
Has done the very same
Creature of the night, if you could say
We’d know it was ourselves
That showed you how to defeat us
Knocking at the door
Blowing it down

Led Zeppelin Sonnet

It’s been a long time since they’re rock-and-rolled,
but the music still remains what is was,
a broken levee of thunder and sound
so vital that it defies all time’s laws.
A whole lot of love remains to this day,
from those born after the band rambled on,
greatness perseveres, and still has a say,
after centuries, or just ten years gone.
The wailing voice that’s moving through Kashmir,
the awesome page that we don’t want to turn,
thundering drums that could make the gods fear,
still grasps the mind, and make our spirits burn
with heartbreaking memory of true youth,
when things seemed more dazed, but far less confused.

No Harm Done

. for public domain

Stepping aside for a small field spider,
walking across a barren country road,
I snatched a reed to hurry it along,
to save it being squashed by a car tire's load.

Yet traffic these days was light and easy.
Few wagons, if any, rambled through this way.
A hot sunny day, no reason to rush.
Yet I feared the onslaught of a Chevrolet.

The spider scurried off into the side brush,
without a complaint, or "Hey! What's the rush?"
I, somewhat red faced, found no apology,
for my behavior and the dread within me.

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