Skein Poems | Examples

Gunner

Gunner

What has woken you, Gunner? What is it you hear?
Can you sense the beat of heavy engines drawing near?

There’s been no alert, Gunner, the lads are all at ease.
But you know something’s up, don’t you? Won’t you tell us please?

I heard that little growl, Gunner, low and in your chest.
Is the time right now, Gunner? Should we end our rest?

You’re straining at the sky now Gunner. What is it you see?
A skein of passing geese, or our dreaded enemy?

I see your hackles raised Gunner, it’s time to ring the bell.
The other guns will follow suit, they trust your instincts well.

The crews are all closed up, Gunner, before the siren’s wail,
We all know you were right from the twitching of your tail.

There they are above, Gunner, just like your growl predicted,
And thanks to you, we’ve limited the damage they’ve inflicted.

The enemy has fled, Gunner, they’ve turned around and run.
Now go and get your well-earned rest, underneath our gun.

When Autumn Speaks

Leaves descend on whispered breath,  
Like letters lost, unsent, unread,  
The earth exhales a chilled caress,  
Where fading days in silence tread.

October threads its smoky skein,  
Weaving tales in dusk's embrace,  
Each word a leaf, a fleeting stain,  
Drifting slow through time and space.

Cold winds hum in hollow halls,  
Where promises dissolve to mist,  
The twilight's pulse in shadows falls,  
A hollow song the dusk has kissed.

Yet dawn replies with softened voice,  
A cardinal's sharp cry unfolds,  
It speaks of loss, it speaks of choice,  
Of whispered love the season holds.

One amber morn, the trees converse,  
Their leaves like whispers, bold and free,  
Not just decay, but verse and verse—  
When autumn speaks, it speaks to me.

Birds Of A Feather

Is it a gaggle of geese
as the sky turns red
or skein of ducks
flying overhead instead
into the wild blue yonder
and as the crow flies
it's not a murder
nor a tidings of magpies
there's more than one
(for sorrow)
the question I did surely ponder
as they flew into the setting sun
with sparrows I have no quarrel
and yet with the wisdom of owls
for this hunter with his gun
it's like shooting fish in a barrel

Borrowed Time

We spend our time on wasted days
And cheaply sell our souls for ways
To cheat the forms of our decline
And stretch the skein of borrowed time

Shed

I have shed my skin
Not once or twice
But time and time again

Each a metamorphosis
Drama to drama
And skin to skin –

Blue-eyed blind I am
Molting on the rocks 
I dash myself against

Wrapped inside the tangled skein
Of the latest self
I now proclaim

Unwell

It was a sleepless night
Harnessed with discomforts
Soft cushions felt like rocks of ages
Body felt as cracks of thirsty dams

Finally got up and crawled
Downstairs to the kitchen
In search of edibles
Took coffee with a chilly pie

Mesmerized by the sound of wind
I tiptoed outside to catch a sight
Got a snarl of feelings
Like a skein of thread

Stared at the night sky
Quite in sound and loud in lights
Freaky crickets chirp 
From beneath grasses.

Leaning on the glass rails,
A cool breeze struck through 
This had me now in jumpsuits. 
Got a little comfort until sunrise

I felt chills in the morning
Had to visit a physician 
The numerous beeps posed fright 
Yet it was unavoidable 

Multiple tests were conducted
Results revealed parasites in blood
Got a connection with a drip
I was very unwell.

Lakeside, the Music Plays On

The lake has its own orchestrated acoustics.
The quaking of oboes and the bassoon-ing honks
of a skein of geese 
conduct a loosely scored morning air.

Rustling reeds chime in fluted stems, 
a wind section throats through its hollow notes,

and then there is you.

you who hesitantly strum 
within each lip-breathing earshot

nevertheless

your strings are tuned high
to the vibrating moment.

All this ‘a cappella’ is inside you now
like a chick cracking though its own eggshell.

You look around your shoulders
searching for the composer
see nothing, only a naught that imagines
paused fingertips above a keyboard.

Will you sing now or depart unfinished?

The ensemble of the assembled
has left.
You can try again
when your inner metronome
is less bolted to its mechanical tongue,

but for a time
harmony nest elsewhere.

Until the End of Days

When the last wild tree has fallen,
Concrete covered last bare earth,
When we've finally completed
Rape of the Mother Earth,
When the last bird has flown freely,
The last wild animal safely caged,
Will we be proud of the warfare
Against nature mankind has waged.
When the earth is one big city
With an outlook bare and bleak
Will we have finally achieved
The victory we seem to seek,
The natural world confined in
Glassed arboretum, in zoos
And nature is reduced to manicured
Manufactured sterile views,
When machines have pumped oxygen
Cleansing carbon oxides from the air,
Oceans been cleansed of the garbage
We had in the past thrown in there.
When global  warming is controlled
And the climate has settled down
Wondering if life will be of value
If, when looking around 
The only view is the buildings
Of  the one big sprawling town.
No more swinging swaying
Freely whispering trees
To accompany the birdsong
Drifting on a spring breeze.
Or a poignant scene
So hard to forget,
A skein of wild geese flying
Against an autumn sunset

Les Braves

Les Braves

(Iambic Pentameter)

Tan sands conceal deep furrows of their pain,
As churned emotions scream on the light breeze.
The rushing lather bubbles with red stain,
While mortar clouds suppress the dying wheeze,
That madly dared to reach the cliffs in vain.

The hostile bluff still taunts a flying skein,
Where warriors bravely tried to scale the crest.
The rock secretes long tales of plaintive strain,
Of ones that fought abreast for the oppressed,
and finally achieved the winning gain.

Yet no win comes without a shocking loss,
As the escarpment holds the treasured sons,
That fought the menace of the iron cross,
to fall heroic to opponents’ guns,
but proudly rest in peace ‘neath the grave’s moss


Note:  Just came back from a visit to the D Day beaches and the American cemetery at Colleville-sur-mer, a great place of reverence.

3rd place trophy winner

10.21.22
Contest: 3 stanza poem in quintain (Sicilian)
Sponsor: L. Milton Hankins

Skein of Montrose Basin

Flying wedge-like
as wool feathers the wind,
the geese are leaving the basin.

Where do they go?
How long till they arrive?
Will the plump make stops on the way?

At first a few
will arise together.
Later thousands flock to the sky.

Who leads the skein
and rides the windy tides
to the land of their winter dreams?

If I could fly,
wings soaring up with them,
I’d write poems with my pink feet.

And send all my pals a post card: “Wish you were here!”

Second Skein

First boost given by childhood privilege
Level defined by class, income 
Indicate potential, an esteemed image
Gains permit exclusive decorum
Height obtained owes society's support
Top promotion opens rosy resort

Tariff emphasis applies gradual gravity
Wherewithal relies on deals won
Obligated to uphold palpable authority

Freedom creeps halting, a lizard
Lured from dimness, limbs doused in sun
Impulse to replenish is permission
Granted by spider vagabond home spun
Hung in a piano accordion alter
Tumult affords torn threads a small falter

Takeoff administered via mishap 
Waiver sails on wind universe determines
Oracle unfolds glory, God's map



       Sixteenth June 2022

   Written for Contest: Flight Two
    
  Sponsor: Chantelle Anne Cooke

Threads of Life

In the flashes, the acts...
       continuous skein of days
       the needle sews  the tears,
         love heals wounds...!

Super Goose

One solitary goose was not part of the team
One solitary goose had high self esteem
One solitary goose had a scheme due to a dream
Of flying solo to steal the show
He flew high and higher than the others
Winging down his sisters and brothers
And now his remains stuck on a planes propellor 
Poor super goose, poor little fella
Whilst in the distance a skein flies free
Together and onwards from solitary he.

In Town

Who will be first to climb the dawn light?
Daybreak stretches its gray tendons
to high windows,
dim reflections foreshadow
strings of geese -
all is a leaving.

Some wake up in cardboard boxes.
Some drive ahead of themselves,
the overheated skid backwards into empty garages.
Cops in Irish pubs drink whisky
with black morning coffee.
The night is slow to die.

There’s a virus going around they say.
Some wake up dying,
some night-walkers go home
to their daydreams.
The town will wear a different mask for a while,
on the freeway rubber rolls to elsewhere.

A limp light gutters,
shadows run low, scuttle into dank corners.
A last skein of geese has passed.

I am at my window watching,
some concrete cells are empty,
some watchers will not sleep again,
not before the next gasp of night
steals their breath away.

November Time Slip

It snowed last night;
taking out the trash,
there I am, dozing in a garden swing set
deep within July.

It could be another year.
July in a London park
lying next to her,
wisps of gentleness in a public place,
dandelion seeds parachuting upwards.
Snow falls onto my eyelids.

The trash I am hefting
is from Madrid
there are straw hats and the ruins
of several cathedrals in it.
It should be heavier
but the Iberian condors add a weightlessness
to all things too heavy to bear
across a snowy backyard asphalt.

Chill bones rattle on the swing set,
icicles weep from its wrought iron frame.

She is singing in the kitchen,
coral lips savoring what she has yet to cook.

A skein of geese are crossing over
heaped frozen spires.

Summer shorts and a T
rustle in a summer breeze, then freeze.

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