Ballooner, blink in the hot air.
Wink, O noonday sun.
On the brink, is life unfair?
Drink and be as one!
Supreme being, I imbibe!
Above god and man!
Dervish, deus, diatribe!
Lengthen, every span!
Grim-faced, O my spectres?
Well, that's the way it goes.
Singulars and hectares!
Core cone, thy carrion crows!
Trammell the enameling?
O nightingale, sing sweet.
O sky above, thy paneling!
O lion, at thy feet!
Yellow priestess, ritual.
Of this what knoweth ye?
Barrel out the brazen bull!
Fling out, fancy-free!
Rhyme and riddle, rill on roll.
Drums, thy wargods beat.
Goddess of the asherah pole!
Chosen to complete!
Tyrant of tomorrow?
An image wrought in spark.
Brindle, bindle, broken bow!
Gold, fluoresce in dark!
Hone thy skill, O warrior!
Dare not to drop thy tools!
Skyscraper, art free and sure?
Toss away thy rules...
I recall by chance the astuteness of rain
When the thin smoke from charged pulses of cold haze
Befriended the weeded way . . .
Leering further into the viscera of the village,
Clouds of old beginnings heaved potent sighs,
Loud, frenetic and full of powder.
I revelled in the warmth of acid lightning,
Quick to mirror the village in its own image.
The grey breath was intense,
Fusing teethed mirth with grim spheres.
Then came the vitrined harmony of fleeing spectres!
Tricks were revealed.
Tenebrous paths came to light.
And the rumps of sensuous fowls stood stark
Before the reality of weaned souls.
I recall lighting up a cigarette.
Adding to the atmospheric smoke,
I held on to the banter of coyness, flat,
Resolute, and with rummaged blessedness of initial stages
Blending well with the greed of May.
I remember the grief in Samuel
when Saul failed,
like the grief in Nile
when blood crept into it —
just like it creeps into the bones of
this earth.
The rage in grief is distant but distinct,
escorted by bits of frozen nuts
and wizened grains of desert sand,
white assembly of killing spectres in
a background of black eclipse with
lunar talons
and swords of claws
and jars of cold tears.
Oh, how Samuel grieved for Saul!
The mourning is immense . . .
Sempervirence fossilised
along abbeys forayed with hot silt
and Dane guns of lewd hunters
Pulsations and acrid fever,
with the disease of camels, are frequented by
a recrudescence of the mastodon,
In liaison with his extended kinsmen the dinosaurs.
We are livid with mourning,
for the soul of a toothless one
gone from us
this grey day of elegy
and season of potent grief.
Fetters exist, and persist, swinging in
our faces like treasures of hell
where we hear that bug-ridden mats
are spread for us;
there, chants of elegy
hoot,
and black furnaces boil
and smelt
the repast we are to devour.
Sitting death a corpse of times loss in drips
I'll wait, she said in eons voice while zealots rage
His source of pride lay as dust once adorned
Pendulums swing marking time dresses in rust
Her echo of words speaks in his minds hollow
Soon the decay will banish her to tumble
The bend of limbs absent flesh to move
The signs of sanity melt the madness of his face
This shining vigil remains on a promise of return
His decrepit chair and spinal pour becomes one
The morass of synapse dissolves her face.
Banished the last of a believed memory
Halloweens gestures come and go in spectres
Why do I remain? The question roars
Last command with thoughts to leave results
.....in a quiet elbows creak.
In the old city of St. John's,
in the older neighborhoods,
there are haunted houses...
residences with revenants...
apartments with apparitions...
even schools with spectres;
and there is one edifice with an eidolon
that I know well:
a softhearted shadow
very benevolent,
not at all maleficent.
It is supposedly the ghost of a child
who passed many years before;
a tale from days of yore
not well-known in local folklore.
This ghost is known to close
latches, doors and windows,
as if the occupants are being told
"Please keep out the damp and cold!" -
a phenomenon inexplicable
by a force completely invisible.
Some years ago, I observed this first-hand
and I'm sure I did not fully understand,
but I quickly deduced that it would be most
polite to say "Thank you" to the ghost -
a sudden burst of intuition
to please and placate this amiable apparition!
Creepy crawlies and heebie-jeebies
raw ripples on your skin kafkaesque;
You peek at that dark monstrosity,
cannot tell if it’s a trick or treat;
Nerves taunt with chimerical spectres;
Weepy eyes are stung by angry bees,
‘Pshaw!’ escapes a story so grotesque;
Flew through your mouth unable to flee,
caught swelled saliva starts to secrete;
Serves well scripts of macabre directors.
From the chartreuse scene to a dusty bronze land.
This the sky’s calling for their wings to soar, to disband.
The sun is their shadow, they bathe in her honey-stained glory.
Under the silence of the stars, they never surrender their flight story.
The days are long, they travel beyond all rhyme or reason
This is their journey, in life and in season.
Fragile hearts drum on in tawny twilight.
From feathered soldiers by day, to winged spectres of night.
Come morning, they are ushered, ablaze by warm, crimson skies
In earthly kingdoms below, they are but the envy of every land creature’s eyes.
The compass points north, over mountain and rooftop they climb.
Beyond sun kissed valleys and storm swept seas they glide.
This the tale of the swallow, for in every heart of one, they do lovingly sing.
A voyage of courage is what the swallow bird does bring.
OLD BELFAST
No hooters belch and screech in the mornings anymore
Industry has disappeared from the City’s working core
The Factories have all closed their gates a long, long time ago
Now silent shadows fill the space where workers used to go
Steam cranes bow across the lough, an entry on a page
Decayed tired buildings line the Docks, relics of an age
Rows of broken windows where he silence trickles out
As nature now takes over where grass and nettles sprout
The workshops have been stripped and only carcasses remain
Moss grows on the floor where the roof lets in the rain
Miles of red brick walls which somehow now look grey
Blackened muddy puddles where singed old timbers lay
Grand imposing structures, much too big for modern use
Now crumpling and eroded from dereliction and abuse
Spectres from a Victorian age now roam these soulless lanes
You can hear their whistles on the wind. Their presence still remains
For generations raps, taps and table turnings were
the signs of a spirit calling; the ghoul of you trying to
deliver a message - to finish unfinished business and
sleep an everlasting slumber in the clouds above.
The presence of a loved one floated in white light,
apparitions waving at the end of a tunnel bright. Icy mists
hovered around graveyards, phantoms clawing and cawing at
sanctified earth. Spectres clinked chains with warnings dire.
Clocks stopped. Widows wore black. Families, trapped in the
amber of grief, took portraits with their beloved deceased.
A memento of the living.
Now, you just ghost me on Tinder.
Four Billion years or thereabouts
Earth has orbited its appointed place
Slowly and surely developing into
A safe and hospitable living space
What a strange year this has been
Year Two Thousand and Twenty Two
You seem to have bern so long passing
And I’m so glad to see the back of you.
A year of invasion and Warfare
Of bullies flexing their might
Seeming secure in their belief
That might alone is right.
A year of political spectres
Of crooks, spivs and ghouls
Carelessly showing to the world we
Are lead by blatant self seeking fools.
The greedy and avaricious seem
To want, and take, more and more
Leaving even less for the peasants
To fight and grub for off the floor.
The rich man in his castle still,
Security light and guard at his gate,
More and more decrying the excesses
Of the battered remnant Welfare State.
So goodbye twenty twenty two
Heaven only knows what we’ll see,
More of the same and worse I think, when
They usher in year Twenty Twenty Three.
Four thousand years give a century or two
That’s just about as long as it’s taken
For man to abuse Earth’s delicate balance
And leave it stunned and badly shaken
There was not in the sky one small patch painted blue
when the sun wrapped in clouds set unnoticed unseen.
Eerie sounds; what they were, he did not have a clue
but in darkness it’s known that the spectres convene.
Rolls of thunder ensued in the pursuit of light
then the droplets of rain soon increased, landed hard.
Swishy beating of wings betrayed shaitans in flight…
He stopped dead in his tracks as they caught him off guard.
Then a split in the clouds let the moonlight appear,
to the hamlet he strode, ghouls he tried to avoid.
With a spring in his step, shedding aura of fear,
niggly doubts were dispelled. He got back his sangfroid.
Midnight struck and at last every curtain he drew.
An inversion of roles: Jekyll sipped on his brew.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
An English Sonnet in anapestic tetrameter
rhyme scheme (abab-cdcd-efef-gg)
All Hallows’ Evening Poetry Contest
Sponsored by Craig Cornish
© 8 November 2022
Nightmares
N Nighttime deep within your subconscious minds
I In shadows and abyssal emotions of many kinds
G Ghostly effigies seemingly coming to life
H Haunting fearfully like the point of a knife
T The taunting of people from long past events
M Making you wonder what all this represents
A Angst of all kinds consuming all your fears
R Raging anger and confusion of all that appears
E Enveloping into everything that totally scares
S Spectres and lost loves within your nightmares
Ghosts live within skin as pale memories that
swim across a body seemingly no longer touched
by sunlight. Words from years gone by twist and
gather form, they gain strength from nostalgia shaking
the remembering witness to the core. Syllable
spirits spiral slowly, unravel at a pace time tried
to forget long ago. Questions haunt, hovering
like spectres hanging answers-possible and
resolutions-perhaps, from fingertips frozen in the
ice of a yesterday remembered tomorrow. Ghosts
live within flesh wounds, white faces rearing up
in the steam of a coffee, in the mirrored fog of a
shower’s condensation. In the misty breath of a bedroom,
cold. Ghosts live within scars, half-moon scars, which
hold funerals for the dead that do not die: before a
wake, for the haunting past which embodies the
ever-painful present.
Why hate me
when you despise,
I never get too much
Why love me
when you can adore,
it’s great but not enough
Why choke me
with this addiction,
have another cigarette
Why kill me
you can watch me suffer,
in glamorous death
Why bury me
i’m already burning,
blackness inside my chest
Why cover me
with fentanyl patches,
benign persuasion’s best
Why leave me
when I don’t want you,
please stay by my side
Why remember me
between your dreams,
in open space I reside
Indifferent to my ways
unable to keep,
an open mind
The spectre’s lost its spirit
all that’s left,
now walks behind
Wanting my eyes
but failed to embrace
accepted then declined
By
David Kavanagh
Excerpts from the compilation: “Prayer” 8
Sensitivity, Curiousity, Intelligence
I wish that we can all practice nurturing
and nourishing
our Sensitivity,
Never stop being Curious
and asking uncomfortable questions,
Have the courage to wake up
and use our Intelligence
And take great care
that we are not “Numbed” or “Overwhelmed”.
Especially:
By the huge amount of companies, apps and services
That “apparently” cost us nothing,
But whose (not so secret) objectives are
To hypnotise, control, manipulate and sell –
Especially to our children.
Or by the endless amount of mostly,
sensation seeking media
Controlled by the spectres,
some of whom we call leaders,
That work best in the shadows
And only trust the light of day
When they hide behind their grand titles
and practiced, smiling masks,
Feeding their hungry egos and lust for power
By creating separation,
Panic, drama
and questionable regulations and laws.
Who together
Are slowly, secretly removing our hard fought
Foundations and monuments of freedom:
Brick by brick...
© Sangeet Portals 2020
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