Holding Holden’s shoulders,
Until he gets scolded,
Shuddering,
Folded,
Rolling messed up boulders,
So, we can be told what is bold,
Rolling them uphill again-
My friend,
Kin...
I would lend a hand again & again,
Until then,
It is an amends I need to make,
Take a break,
For Heaven or Hades’ sake,
Wait!!!
It is MUCH past 2 late,
I still do NOT hate.
Fate!!!
Dominoes aligned in a row
Dots white on black mix and match
Offshoots branch out into tangents
Wordku: 5-7-5 words
AP: 1st place 2025
They do not march now,
but they still stand--
shoulder to shoulder
in quiet granite lines.
Each flag breathes
like a memory fluttering
in the hush between heartbeats.
They are not just names,
not just dates--
they are echoes of last letters,
mud-heavy boots,
songs sung beneath a foreign sky.
We walk between them,
heads bowed,
and feel the weight of freedom
we never had to earn.
This silence is not empty.
It is full--
with sacrifice,
with honor,
with a debt
we can only repay in remembrance.
Noise
Noise is not anger.
Noise is not aggression.
Not like my father shouting
My sister crying and my mother.
Moaning and me begging
For the noise to stop
The rows to subside.
For peace to reign.
Noise can be satisfying.
Like a Ferrari exhaust.
A plane roaring down the runway
Best of all passion
And the purr of the cat.
Yet noise still affects me
A cold shower that shakes
A churn of the stomach
Noise. Be quiet!
Silence is golden,
David Cox 13/03/24
IN THE GARDEN
Plant
Flowers
Marigold
Splash of bright orange
Shades of red roses
A bed full of pansies
Don't forget rows of sweet peas
Hyacinth and daffodils too
Lilacs and Lilies fill up a space
Fragrance and beauty grow in my garden
Copyright, Kathryn Search
The Relevance of Last Winter
David J Walker
The acrid odor of a
Butane fueled
space heater
Seemed better
than freezing
In the sub-frigid air
of a February
prairie
winters
day
We set fire
To dried mesquit limbs
Cleared from
an adjacent pasture
last summer
It seemed better
than freezing
In the March wind
Bending its way
Into a town of little interest
By 4 pm
The light was failing
ice was forming
On the tractors casings
Ours
Were the only lives
Exposed
To the
Mercies of the miseries
Of a winter storm
The small farmhouse
Stood alone
The warm refuge
At the end of a field
Of long fallow rows
Awaiting
The next seasons
Best efforts
the winding road is cold my darling
there are footprints here and there in the new fallen white-
your flowers have blown away among the snowy rows
my darling
______________________
January 24, 2022
Poetry/Imagism/snowy rows
Copyright Protected, ID 01-142-158-24
All Rights Reserved, 2022, Constance La Frane
Written for the Standard contest, A Strand (1059)
sponsor, Brian Strand, Judged 01/26/2022
First Place
1st Grade With Miss Harvison at Thatcher Elementary
David Walker
I
Miss Harvison’s smile greeted each taker of
An assigned seat of big kids desks
in our very first First Grade class
at Thatcher Elementary
It was early in September after a
Long summer and a
Successful year of half-day kindergarten
The beginning of numbered grades
All in a row
12 years was my first glimpse of forever
II
Miss Harvison was no taller than the
Tallest boys among us
And I was proudly one among them
Gray hair and pale blue eyes
Thin with the skin of an aging angel
She made learning fun
She made us want to come
For another chapter of Dick & Jane
And adding numbers
III
Miss Harvison never married
But by 1960 knew 50 years of children
She was 25 when she first arrived
And had her first 30 in a
Baptism of fire
She knew everyone
by name and by heart
It was the start of a life-long
love affair with teaching and learning
IV
Miss Harvison has always lived in the
Memories of a thousand and a half
Half-pints seated in neat rows
The children who became her students
Her treasures
Her measures of a meaningful life
gilded hours’
intense writing,
sunrise
through twilight years.
fine riffling through strange*
fodder, of
poets,
i call friends.
mind-blown’
evident
sharpening
tool - seed-sown’ harvest.
in rows of yellow corn
we
stand TALL together.
10/6/2021
Yalto is a form invented by Edward Ibeh
Line 1-15: 3,4,2,4, 5,3,2,3, 2,3,3,5, 6,1,5 syllables
*Strange as in unknown, from a stranger
Crop Rows as The Way Things Ought to Grow
David J Walker
Your rain falls uniformly in a
Row on gardens that grow in a
Straight-line while
Mine is subject to the
Wind and sun and falls in
Layers of composted Ataxia
Keeping in mind
The perception of the aesthetics
of perfection that is packaged
in the planning of crop rows
as the way things ought to grow
there is a lull of stillness
a hush of soothing calm and tranquility
and a thousand birds chirping
among the rows
and rows of graves and graves
and quiet stone statues
I see some birds have made their nests
in some very odd places
could be a blue jay
a warbler
a sparrow
a chickadee
perhaps a finch
or robin
or cardinal
their voices mingle in the trees
and there is a peace on the green paths
among the rows
_________________________
June 1, 2020
Poetry/Free Verse/among the rows
Copyright Protected, ID 20-1257-535-03
All Rights Reserved, 2020, Constance La France
It was a Wednesday;
a day woven
into prison blankets and dish towels.
A day to assess hours unnoticed.
A time of trivial hungers.
The hard heft of earlier times: -
not fitting into anything,
teenage fluff and huff. Heartbreak,
rearing and loss. The fallow traipse of age.
The clinical clunk of clay feet.
Making room in a grave-yard moon,
for faces mislaid.
Those hard rows were all well hoed.
Washing a closed face in a misty mirror.
Listening to the coffee percolator.
trying to shave before its last burble,
ears catching the dark drops of a winter rain,
he creeps again too close
to a hole in his mind.
He should not be doing this still,
but the hole keeps tugging him.
He must keep throwing raw meat
into that roaring silence.
The hole is deep, and the end of it, is no end.
He wishes he could at least,
install an elevator.
for his ghosts to ride up and down on.
It would give him time
to drink more coffee, and write
some polite, well-adjusted poetry.
Deo
Conservator, Investigator, Pastor, Diplomat-Truth-Teller
Sibling of a Royal Priesthood, a CHOSEN Generation, Adopted by Abba
Lover of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
We are inclined to slavery; addicted to mental processes; hating Silences!
Fears our tomorrows will be stillborn - we awake churning old thoughts, hates
I'd like to slow down body and thinking before bed, watch that mind, love
In ReNewEd Earth, State of Grace
FORGIVEN
I watch the magic happening
As yarn becomes a shawl;
The knitting needles of my aunt
Are at her beck and call.
Her fingers wind the wool around
Without her even thinking
And rows and rows of stitches show
Without her even blinking.
Her expertise is such that
I just really can't compare it,
But best of all is when she's done,
Then I will get to wear it!
Rows Of Houses
Rows of houses,
line of sight,
Helmet rooves
about knee height,
Squinting windows,
barrel of gun,
War in the garden
had begun.
Traipsing boots
in blooming red,
Spike the spear,
a rose lay dead,
Gullies, trenches,
rows of fence,
Dared the battle
to commence.
Rambling thorn
and injured men,
Muddied faces
in a badgers den,
Shell shocked sycamore
fluttered dim,
Love, the enemy
withered grim.
Twigs and limbs
were neatly pruned
Crazy paved,
the earth doomed,
Smoky pires,
incendiary bombs,
My love and spring
lay in tombs.
Children digging,
banners waving,
Mums and dads
under crazy paving,
Rows of houses,
gone askew
Yet in the garden
a poppy grew.
© RJVHorton2016
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