Shingled Poems | Examples

House I Carry

I carry a house upon my back,
A fragile frame of dreams and stone.
Its windows cracked, its timbers black,
But still I walk, and still alone.

Each wall is built from words unsaid,
From nights I stitched with fraying thread.
Its roof is shingled with the dread
Of all the tears I never shed.

I pass through valleys, rivers wide,
This house sways gently as I climb.
It holds the ones I left behind,
The echoes trapped in rooms of time.

It shelters me from bitter rain,
Yet weighs me down with silent years.
A monument to love and pain,
A quiet vault of hopes and fears.

I cannot leave it on the shore,
No matter how I long to flee.
It is my burden, evermore,
It is the marrow under me.

And still I rise, though shadows press,
And still I breathe beneath its beams.
I learn to walk with weight and mess,
To carve new roads from broken dreams.

For though I carry walls of glass,
I also carry seeds of spring.
And somewhere deep, beyond the past,
I carry hope. I carry wings.

Web

such artistry, tied to two trees
background of a neighbor’s house
which one is mere majestic
you’d say unhesitatingly, the web
but did you know my neighbor

they shingled and painted
their whole house themselves
it was something else

you’d look at it and think
it’s boring brown, but
I see deeper into their lot

the spider’d disagree
my analysis is persistently
annoying because her web
appears as a soccer net

or football for those nuts
in the UK - don’t disparage
you say - but they are nuts
for football, aren’t they

the world wide web would AI
something achingly intricate
but it needs to mind its own
because we all find in small things
something quite beautiful

case in point, fireworks I couldn’t see
but I could hear the one’s next door
as I sat outdoors (and the only time
this year) I saw, lit up like a gathering
of fairies, in my little woods, fireflies

don’t argue, just nod, nod off
and be human instead

Crumbling Roofs

A tin rain ticks between
the scrabble of pigeon claws.
Time drips off a shingled edge.
In moments you can land years behind
as just the shrunken rolling head
of a whole decade.
Eyes open, you watch,
a bushel of owls hooting
as aftershocks shake
a crumbling roof -
one you are no longer under.
Listening as if on a phone,
sliding into the woe-be-gone,
you are now,
back in the backyard of nowhere.
Pigeon wings clatter,
a rain softens,
to a slow
measured splattering.

May Rain

Red shingled roofs rise and sink,
slickly buoyant with new showers.
Cars drive behind cloud-skyscrapers.

The park is soggy with small dogs,
colorful umbrellas are set aside
beside paddling pigeons.

Dewdrops slide over hanging buds,
while lush leaves
breathe their own green aroma.

By evenings tide, an amber shine,
has walked us through a dripping sky,
we are both empty and full,
beneath the warm spill of moist thimbles.

Above us, the washed-out mural of a rainbow,
remains to fish in low ponds of mist.
Wispy showers spray a disappearing horizon.

A soft falling rain lingers between us and tomorrow,
weeping’s that by the early light are rinsed away
by fresh tree-dancing winds,
and the bright beams of children at play.

Threefold Flame of Christ

Spirit of the Abba Father rested on him -
Perfect wisdom filled his heart and mind to the brim;
Knowledge, like flesh-and-blood, mixed with divinity,
Drew humans into oceans of infinity...! 

Power of mysterious godliness entwined,
Beyond mundane; cosmos of compassion combined;
Heaven heralded messianic marvels mingled, 
Sacrifice, suffering and salvation shingled...! 

Love so tender; love so warm; perpetual; true;
Pure; powerful; beyond mad-love of mother too;
Completion of love's impressions and expressions,
Beyond skies; yet, measures oceanic cessions...!

Amalgamation of these flames kindles mortals,
Conscience and consciousness turn enlightened portals;
Graces fill; flow; shatter every ill behavior, 
Physic and psyche turn vessels of the savior...!


26 June 2022
Threefold flame of Christ Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Unseeking Seeker

Winter Winds

Winter winds blustery, keen, and bold
Blast their way across denuded meadow
Ushering in north’s bitter cold

Shaking their fists with much bravado
Bending low the towering sages
Leaving not a trace of phantom shadow

Like summer’s violent thunderstorm rages
Frightening all the furry little creatures
Scurrying about in various stages

Most feared of all the winter features
The scary, howling through a shingled roof
Like a Sunday morning’s manic preachers

Though unseen they need no proof
The winter winds do not remain aloof.

Just a Bunch of Scattered Thoughts

Tinkling sounds of rain falling on shingled roofs 
wild winds and chestnut horses galloping with hooves 
Spruce trees breathing in the navy sky of June 
Shimmering stars of heavenly bliss scintillating view 
Rivers gurgling aside the brook as dusk arrives 
A solitary lotus floating on the waters of China 
Japanese lanterns and crepe paper magic 
Night songs of longing and bravelings that cry 
May I invite you for a walk across my wish bridge
together we can find the syncronocity of life.

If I Write Down Words

If I write down words
that pour from me like
water rushing from a rusty gutter
carrying my cries in the flood
with decaying leaves and
the smattering off the roof
of droppings from so many
prominently perched pigeons,
is that a poetry of sorts?

If the aged shingled roof leaks
at its eaves (like my eyes)
when wind blows the rain
nearly horizontal and the house
beams creak and  sound like 
corroded hinges when 
seldom-used doors are opened,
has a trope occurred?

And, is anything -- honestly -- 
more than almost senseless patter?
Does it really even matter?

Shadow Worlds In Faint Disguise

Sometimes shadows creep across the distant meadow
Casting a pall over the broad field of aster and daisy
Before drifting across the fence row to our bungalow
Where strange apparitions appear on the siding hazy
And float across the shingled roofing and chimney top
Before dissipating from my sight on the other side
Like a kaleidoscope of grays, they dance the hip-hop
Shimmering reflections of sunrays shifting they glide
Yon meadow to a marshy glen awaiting their demise
These light and shadowy mystical ghosts born where
The sun’s slanting rays shine through, to our surprise,
Tall oak and maple trees beyond the lea, over there—
Funny how these shapes and forms make of our eyes
Windows into vaporous distant worlds in faint disguise. 

FIRST PLACE WINNER
written June 12, 2021
Brian Strand's "All Yours" Poetry Contest

Charcoal Spirits

A lone black crow
sits on a limb of a tree

amongst a crowd of trees
that surround the townhouses.

The trees' silhouettes 
are drawn on the brick; 

on the shingled roofs;
by the Sun this Late January. 

The dark shape of the crow
is starker than the trees' cast

of the night color; it is spectre-like, 
within the arms of the spectator-like trees.

The branches are frosted with yesterday's spitting snowflakes.

Their bark is the tint of stones; 
or the grains of sand on an Irish shore,

viewed on the one rainy day
of a journey so long ago.
             
A squirrel scurrying up the tree 
is the same color-

of the rough or smooth stone,
bleached by the Sun;

of the wet sand of the shore in Ireland,
whose dunes crouch to watch the tides ebb,

to see the pull of the floating Moon.

The squirrel blends into the mourning dove
tinctures as if he were a captive 

of the Winter day..
or brushstroked into an oil painting.

The crow, hue of a cold desert night,
lifts to fly away. 

The shadows become new shapes 
in the shifting sunlight..

they become charcoal spirits
in her sketch of an agued morn'.

Image Muffled Haze-

Never spent signs painted hue 
Conspiring challenges never proved 
Aloft the addicts spreading 2x4 beams 
Clouded streams broken dreams 
High ceiling roofs attire 
Shingled hay and wire clay dirt 
In the window pane
 a threshold mange panes
 we both shingles that closes the eyes 
Views of the painted skies 
Blue white smoke gray hues yet remain
A muffled haze



12/14/20
Written words by James Edward Lee Sr © 2020

The Blue Jay Wants To Fly

The blue jay wants to fly,
Or glide to and perch on a barren twig,
Or rise and find one of a feather 
On a mossy, asphalt shingled roof.

As the world grows cold and dark,
He thinks of his weathered, old grass hut,
And his growling belly
That can wait.

Jade Butterflies

Sloth-toed ivy flutters
in lissome breeze,
each pentagram the pinion
of a jade butterfly
clustered on a brick wall.
In the throes of spring
they sojourn
from dark loam
toward shingled firmament,
past celestial windows
pewter with light
as they besmirch
diaphanous peril,
imagining
when they reach heaven
they will repose like angels
in the shimmering damask
of God's aura.

5/23/18

Beauty Which Say I Love You

Ooh wee
Cause I want chocolate and cream
my cake to tower like mansions
each roof shingled with chocolate
and nuts for windows
I wanna get that goowy feeling that makes
every envy
and wish they had a love like mine
I want the people to say, ooh when
they roll out the cake
and wish they had a piece of mine!

Still Life

Still Life

Here is a picture, painted well
of nature and man, a story to tell.
Daily the time is quiet and still.
The sun sets low on rolling hills.
While all around the lake serene
depicts a canopy of scene.

By the lake, there is a home
of shingled roof and umber tones.
Through a window, a kettle boils
in rooms where lady hands must toil.
A painting lovely, this will be
depicting life’s totality.

Beside the house in close detail
we see a pond on which to sail
paper boats in winds of spring
with ducks, swans and pretty things
all on a canvas of delight
a painting rightly called, “Still Life.”

2/20/18

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