Short Sentries Poems

Staight-backed grass sentries
Guarding the night and the air
Bowing to the wind...

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crystal, clear, blue skies
grace ermine laden birch trees…
silent, bowed sentries...

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 towering cliffs dark
carved sculptures frozen in time~
the unpaid sentries ...

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Shackles chafe wrists ruby.
Bars break-up summer skies.
Sentries snub a pained plea.
“I’m innocent” chained cries....

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Hover, above me
I see myself below, still
Arms reached out, floating
Dark hooded sentries, shuffle
Entering, safe, distant light...

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Titans tilting, tangibly human windmills
Swaying sentries, harboring haloed witness 
  Lofted coal mines, timber canary cages  
            Whispers from redwoods


    Bite Size Poem no34 Poetry Contest...

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Smiling down on His creation,
evergreen sentries gave Him peace.
Turquoise lake held the reflection
of Rocky Mountains with snow’s fleece.
Nature’s beauty is leased to man
by an Artist with a loving plan...

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Dogs
                   loyal, friendly
             licking, playing, rescuing
     companions, sentries, threats, enemies
             barking, biting, mauling
                   mean, mangy
                        Curs...

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 Sentries stationed at the height

Celestial wayfarers of the night

Dancing damsels with the light

Fading phantoms at Phoebes’ sight

 
Placed First
A Strand's (1064) Poetry Contest
Sponsor. Brian Strand...

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Jutting far beyond date palms and dunes,
East of somewhere and west of nowhere,
Bound by rocks along sparse vegetations,
Endless rows of towering tors and ridges,
Lonely backdrop against cloudless skies,
Silent sentries amidst desolate wasteland....

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English Gazal:
(RADIF:AT NIGHT)
(KAFIA:surrounds,rounds,hounds,sounds)

Darkness surrounds at night
Sentries take rounds at night

Night is exclusively meant for owls
Remain awake hounds at night

When everything is calm and drowsy
Jackals make strange sounds at night...

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Freshly liberated from an overgrown bushy trail,
I saw myself skimming waist-deep in Lavender,
Sentries to the rear, Hollyhocks, and Foxgloves,
Bougainvillea to the left and, to the right of me,
Chose a meadow of Prairie Smoke and Daisies,
Held at a water lily pond airs Rainbow butterfly....

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Who are these people?
Faces posted on the web
  by family and friends and others.
People I haven't got a clue to who
 but someone in my list knows them well.
Oh well,
 I scroll the list and all its entries
 wondering if they are mere sentries
in the running faces streamed
 of the tangled internet hub of history scenes....

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my mind is a jumble,
a kaleidoscope of colors
capturing me so I cannot escape,
each time I look for a door,
I am stopped by a force of 
Crayola sentries holding onto
spear-like paint brushes
threatening to insert me into
a jumbo coloring book where 
I will turn into a mindless 
page of fill-in-the-blanks with 
a picture to color...

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In river tombs, patrolled by bull shark sentries,
sifting through the heartbeat of centuries
for fossilized teeth of terrifying behemoths
who never laid eyes on the many faces of man
would have devoured him if given the chance
a mineralized tooth and homo sapien hand
meeting where oceans and rivers dance
in the silt of Pliocene dreams....

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Stoic sentries mourn the scarecrow’s plight
entombed within a world slow turned to stone
yet instinct will demand they soon take flight
into a distant loneliness they’ve known.

Bent trees will sing the hymns of his demise
iced winds consume his breathless final sighs.


©9/29/2019

Make IT Six Poetry Contest
Joseph May – sponsor
photo #2...

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Where they laid my love to rest there are crows -

two sentries standing at the large white cross

which marks his grave. I shout as chill wind blows:

Show me, my Love, how I can bear this loss.

To heaven soar above, dark-feathered birds.

Deliver to him my beseeching words!


Sept. 30, 2019 for Joseph May's Make It Six Poetry Contest
PICTURE #2...

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your frightened sense is enough,
valor-wrapped
in braincell’s guts, 
and this
because -

(two clicks watch)
one
man just went; and
I have drenched
your two dry sentries' 
arteries
in a blood-shot tide.

precious rises
time and pressure
presses the vena cava;
will you split-run
at zero hours,
or lie alive,
(save one pump) 
and bunk with  
penitence?...

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Ancient ruins stand alone, 
tired sentries over ancient lands; 
 they watch and remember their glory days.  
Testaments to their builders; 
do they ever wish a glorious revivification?

History tells their stories when 
they need them heard but, 
the, “horses mouth” can tell them better.  
Visit them and share their lives; 
they do love company.
...

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VIGILANTES

The elder trees stretch skyward in a lace of silent bark.  Wands of rising branches become dancing silhouettes in the pale moonlight. The wind dies, and the limbs cease their movement. Then, like sentries they stand perfectly still, silencing the clocks.  
trees their vigil keep
whisper secrets to the wind
moonlight filters down
...

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Old sentries standing guard for centuries
Exposed rocky ledges staring outward
Like true natives with rugged determination,
Nature's hieroglyphics in emerald green
Reflect gold splintered sparkling gems
High above savage river's ragged edges,
Far below the sounds of rapids whooshing
Unaware the circling echo of eagle overhead.

written February 13, 2022...

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If life was a game of cards
I would choose the Ace of Spades
And march on like a Crusade
I would move from Hand to Hand
And become like a Jack of all Trades
Then I would pick the Queen of Hearts
And  dress her up in Clubs or  Flowers
I would build a castle of Hard Rock Diamond
And send the pack of sentries
In six and nine and twenty
All around they would march
Till we all fell down like a pack of cards...

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smoke curls,
dividing us
into lonely
sentries by the fire,
as we watch the embers die,
in silence

black words
drifting upwards
from the ashes,
cast shadows on the moon
stinging the eyes of the night
with despair






__________________________________________________
For the contest sponsered by Nette: "Views from a Vignette"
Carrie Richards 10/30/12    note: "fire" used as two syllables)...

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Grown Up

I weep
now and then
simple things
a song lyric or
an old photo
touching me
in raw places
sliding past
thinking parts
that used to be
sentries at the gate
protecting me
from hot-wired
exposure to myself
instead
defenseless in the 
heat of contemplation
glacial walls melt
frozen anguish and
freeze-dried pleasures
transform
set in motion
once again
animated
newly weightless and
simply passing through......

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I wait by the mine
Outside the camp.
Between us, the pinyons
Slash and partition
Your fire, like fence posts.
They keep me at bay.

Here in the shadows, 
I think I know you.
But, in the flame of life, 
You dance with all.
I won't be to you
One other to twirl.

If you should feel
The pull of the silence, 
The call of a private heart, 
You'll venture beyond
The grove of sentries.
Then we together
Might prospect for gold....

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