Short Shingle Poems

His final shingle.

                                      Covers a moonlight sliver

                                         The exhausting day...

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Step by step
pebble on pebble
shingle to sand
the rattle of scree
displaced
            forever
one day sand
      they will be..
deep,deep in the sea...

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Taking the vaccine for shingles
Two shot series, not a single
They say the second more than tingles
Makes you not want to intermingle
That’s okay, I’ll write a jingle
About an empty can of Pringles...

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WINTER
in
anger-
whips up the waves,
pounds the shingle
shore
SPRING
in
action-
brings to life
and feathers its
nest
SUMMER
so 
lazy-
rests the soul
and flowers the
land
AUTUMN
so
mellow-
scents and sounds
in the harvest
home....

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WINTER
in
anger-
whips up the waves,
pounds the shingle
shore
SPRING
in
action-
brings to life
and feathers its
nest
SUMMER
so 
lazy-
rests the soul
and flowers the
land
AUTUMN
so
mellow-
scents and sounds
in the harvest
home....

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WINTER
in
anger-
whips up the waves,
pounds the shingle
shore
SPRING
in
action-
brings to life
and feathers its
nest
SUMMER
so 
lazy-
rests the soul
and flowers the
land
AUTUMN
so
mellow-
scents and sounds
in the harvest
home....

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WINTER
in
anger-
whips up the waves,
pounds the shingle
shore
SPRING
in
action-
brings to life
and feathers its
nest
SUMMER
so 
lazy-
rests the soul
and flowers the
land
AUTUMN
so
mellow-
scents and sounds
in the harvest
home....

Read More

WINTER
in
anger-
whips up the waves,
pounds the shingle
shore
SPRING
in
action-
brings to life
and feathers its
nest
SUMMER
so 
lazy-
rests the soul
and flowers the
land
AUTUMN
so
mellow-
scents and sounds
in the harvest
home....

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A desolate shore reaches,
its gritty scree taunts
a green and tumbling sea.

Breakers slap an
umpteenth juncture.

Kelp sea pods dilate,
foam swirls in the shingle,
barren wombs drink.

Krill churns out
of a sandy dross.

Waves carry their children away....

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Little wavelets played across the lake

Dancing their way towards the shore.

Such pretty patterns did they make

As the heightening wind created more.

In a hurried rush, across they sped

The ones behind pushed those who led.

Their destination finally reached,

They crashed, upon the shingle beach....

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WINTER
in
anger-
whips up the waves,
pounds the shingle
shore
SPRING
in
action-
brings to life
and feathers its
nest
SUMMER
so 
lazy-
rests the soul
and flowers the
land
AUTUMN
so
mellow-
scents and sounds
in the harvest
home.

Quaternion maybe in any form ,this one about the Four seasons is in the lanterne form....

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quaternion looks poetically (using any form)at a topic from 4 aspects -

in this example seasons 

WINTER
in
anger-
whips up the waves,
pounds the shingle
shore
SPRING
in
action-
brings to life
and feathers its
nest
SUMMER
so 
lazy-
rests the soul
and flowers the
land
AUTUMN
so
mellow-
scents and sounds
in the harvest
home....

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Alexander leaves now shiny green,
Young stems for a tender cusine;
Lambs lettuce in a salad course
Jacj in the Hedge with mutton sauce;
Sweet Cicely , Marjoram mix and thrive
On shingle bankswhere sa beet survives;
Tansy's spice scented for full flavour
Flowers in omlettes soon to savour;
Seasonal plants of an English clime
Medicine,herbs since ancient time....

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Step aside,slightly,
               from a beach beside
               cold moving water.

A sighting in rain,
               hooked on a line,
               empty as a fallen bell,
               an open window, opaque.

If I am distant to myself
               I am lost, aware
               of room, the soft crunch of shingle.

Steps of a known stranger, a shell....

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Let me love your imperfections
(That suggest I've chance to win.)
Makeup, jewels, fancy hairdos
Cover multitudes of sin,

Cleanliness the highest virtue
That I still aspire to reach.
All the rest need heavy lifting,
Something few men learn or teach!

Love me, though humility's not
Appellation I deserve.
Win your trust? My tombstone's shingle -
"Lonely heart - desires to serve!"

Long Tooth
May 14, 2019...

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Ever moving
The migration by wind and water
As the sands shift with time
Changing the face
The feel
The look.
As sea laps, wind blows
Longshore drift
Collect
Deposit
Ever moving sands
Passing us by
Marking time
Ever soft and smooth
Nature abhorring a vacuum
Growth and life
Migrating
Evolving
Flourish and wilt
Flower and dieback.
Fixed to an ever-moving
Ever changing due. Clinging to the lip of the sea....

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Waltzing on bracken and shingle,
Dirt scuffed and spun in the air,
As the blood and the dust devils mingle,
Drying, infused with despair.
The crackling twigs in the campfires
Spat out the legends of old;
The wind blew the ash of those campfires
Until all those ashes grew cold.
Whispered in tongues of black humour,
Polemics of demons and dread,
And freedom became but a rumour, 
Butchered dreams in a dead man’s head....

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BEACH GROWTH


He was an 18 year old boy.
Vomiting from fear,
Surrounded by confusion,
Focused on a 20 foot radius of immediacy
Where death could be instant
Or life might depend on a shingle bank,
Reaching the safety of a shell hole.  
He became an 18 year old man
On Omaha Beach.


………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Written after hearing the first hand experiences of  veterans of the 1944  Omaha Beach assault....

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I have walked
              on the grinding edge
of my wind-sharpened shores,
              have talked of myself
beside the surf of myself.

I am grown thin in the service of
        speaking thoughts out loud.

Where the shingle washes
beached starfish,
long-drowned words uncoil
                to raise my voice
above a roaring silence.

Still, an in-coming tide
swallows and forgets,
        swallows and forgets....

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The Summer sun sings
Above shingle-shine,
Simmering while sinking,
Casting cool shadows
On heated concrete

The playful breeze blowing,
Catches foam cascades,
And tossing wild mists,
Crashes raw delight
On sunburned faces

The fountain rushes forth,
Spring-spouting,
Water on water,
Pelting stony slabs
With falling force

Echoing in tune,
Splash-patter footsteps
Sprint a rippled run,
Drowning the day with
Saturated sound....

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