Run Aground
Arr, Matey! Me ship has run aground,
In this shallow world, I search for character, but none to be found.
Through me spyglass, a foggy, distant world, unclear,
This incessant devil bird squawking in me ear.
A chest full of silver, gold, and jewels galore,
But what I treasure most is a love forevermore.
Where mind sews cobwebs,
I take out a dissolving spyglass.
The space between this self
looks back seeing nothing.
That which holds,
rolls over mind-clouds,
finding no anchors.
The day will take me soon,
make me be what I claim to be,
but in any next pre-dawn
surfacing,
I will know again,
that I am not.
There’s an old canal close by where I live,
and an empty lock made of stones massive,
traipsing around there, the place can amaze
just seeing how the whole of it was made.
There’s no mortar here, between these great stones,
they align perfect, no a gap is shown;
to do this with hand tools and draft oxen,
not just one lock, but again and again…
There are still hollow where great doors did swing,
sealing the lock up to keep water in,
holding it back without concrete of steel,
and no great engines, just pullies and wheels.
The canal itself, so humanely straight,
by spyglass and spring they made it this way,
with but shovel and pick to prove their own worth
they dug a river across the damn Earth!
Two centuries later it still remains,
two hundred years on who would know my name?
Sure, I write poems, but poems are talk,
these men carved themselves in the very rock,
the canal they built now sanctuary
for birds, fishes, turtles swimming lazily,
the towpath they built no a walking trail,
where kids ride their bikes when weather is hale,
seeing what grandfathers built back in time,
what men do with hard work and focus of mind.
Fleeing nefarious intent
As watched through a spyglass
Running for forest's protection
With fast steps of chasse
Rifle in his hands aimed, ready
Will the quick shot be heard?
What will he do with a body?
Suddenly vision blurred
How can murder be on his mind
Once his love for her shone
But now hardness upon his face
Matching his heart of stone
He'd lost control of her he knew
She was now in the way
Now she's beyond his reach
He'd find her in a few days
Escaped by magic so it seemed
His life now out of control
He could not rest in peace, eat, or
Think, his power she stole
How will this thickening plot end
I cannot really say
Only a snapshot of the scene shown
I think she got away
Written: December 30, 2022
Contest: Beyond Reach
Sponsor: Mystic Rose
Little Burrito
You're quite a lass
Please don't stumble
You might break your -- last
set of ankles you'll ever have
Oh, Little Burrito
You're full of class
Much better to have that
than a great big ole -- tank of gas
Little Burrito
Please stay on the grass
I wouldn't want to have to whack you
right there in your -- spyglass
Well, little burrito
We've managed to amass
a whole bevy of gawkers, just-a
hopin' to read the word -- BASS
I've seen some ugly faces
I've thought some ugly thoughts
I've lost some ugly battles
I never should've fought
I've worn some ugly styles
I've written ugly songs
I've tried to find the places
To keep ugly where it belongs
It takes a sharp eye and a tender heart
To recognize the ugly in it
Now you may say that beautiful
All boils down to taste
That one man's treasure is another's
Refuse, trash or waste
But me, I've got my spyglass
And I'm locked into the world
And I'll be just fine so long as I
Can spot the ugly girls
It takes a sharp eye…
I've always heard these voices
That never made no sense
And I've made a couple choices --
I still come to their defense
Now the house is dark, the walls are plain
There's sackcloth on the mirrors
My face is old, but the cares of old
have begun to disappear
And the words that define beautiful
Have faded into the past
So I won't be so struck by the ugly
When I finally uncover the glass
TEMPORAL CRISIS, ACT I
The present is not life
it's just the act of resisting ...
The future without spyglass,
it won't be easy to exist ...
What I was, today I am not ...
What I will be is not consistent.
Moving forward is not agitation,
Not knowing yourself ahead,
port-loneliness ...
Today, only the past exists,
only the memory insists ...
Everything else is vain ...
Everything is just an illusion ...!
I’m not holding on to anything
not the body or dreams,
or dream-bodies.
Where mind sews cobwebs
I take out a dissolving spyglass.
The spaces between myself
look back seeing nothing.
That which holds this 'I' together
rolls over mind-clouds finding no anchors.
I leave and return.
The sun is rising behind winter trees,
trees that are somewhere
over a horizon in a head
that has yet to find itself.
The day will take me soon,
make me be what I claim to be,
but in the next pre-dawn,
the next surfacing,
I will know again
that I am not.
Dare I say I be the captain of this unmanned ship?
Wandering through the foam of merciless waves?
I shot my parrot with my grandfather's pistol:
A burst of blood and red, green, and yellow feathers
Across my cabin, which once beheld jewels of discovered islands
That now are named after a dead man who passed a parrot along to me.
Dare I allow myself to rest my hands upon the cherished wheel?
Dare I hold the sextant, the spyglass, the captain's hat?
Dare I release these sails and leave the watery grave of my former master?
I shall not see the demonic eyes of a siren, as he did.
I shall see the glint of gold in a chest of someone forgotten.
My own eyes in the glint of gold.
a fable
With rake in hand, I had a mission clear -
to rid my yard of piles of rotting leaves
before their musty smell got out of hand.
My ancient oak trees are prolific still.
Providing fruit and leaves with great success,
both shed in full abundance ev'ry year.
One wicked swipe of weaponry I thought
revealed a broken bottle nonetheless
it was instead a lens, a spyglass lost.
I picked it up, discov'ring life anew -
its closer focus found a seedling rare
had sprouted, taking root within the loam.
What I had thought was useless held a prize,
All winter long the dying leaves had giv'n
a careful shelter for one special seed.
I took my weapon back and in the shed
I found a cage-of-sorts that fit my plan.
The moral here, don't be so quick to clean
what nature has provided as a shield.
November 5, 2016
What do bugs reach for,
when they start to sneeze?
They use an outdoor tissue,
and blow their noses on the leaves.
One day while looking through
my super size spyglass,
I saw a little snail.
I think he must have had a cold,
because he left a sticky trail!
You will never, ever have to
give a tissue to a bug.
Because if one is in your house,
he'd rather use your mother's rug.
This self evident truth that all men are created equal ?
Never quite able as to escape these questions which arrive
Time's comical in ludicrous exposes: today as yesterday imagining
Her high courts turning unto a constitution defining something or another....
Ever evolving his living breathing documents cross fire spatial skies skeleton keys rogue
Renegades watermark tinsel town, treason from their graves these founding fathers proclaim
Antartic circles western worlds mediums her causeway's english channel I see dead people a baby's
Sixth sense the headless horseman thirty shekels of silver his broken bell premonition sheol's starveling
Shepherd spyglass mechants totem pole slave ship shackles spindrift spinsters who framed this, your amendments.
Mariann was an extraordinary woman who’d been blessed with second sight,
So she soon came to be in the employ of the King to add to his power and might.
But she was like a spyglass that could only see where it was aimed,
She could only see where she was told and view where her sight was trained.
But once she knew what she was looking for there’d be no place left to hide,
She could see into a person’s very soul and know if he’d truthed or lied.
This made the whole of the King’s household more than a little nervous,
So the King made her a wife to the conjurer but kept her in his service.
So now they live a humble life inside their woodland cottage,
And will visit the King, at his command, to amplify to his knowledge.
T'was the month of July
should've been sailing upon calm sea,
brightest sunshine
blue sky so clear.
For days and days, it rained and rained
As if the sky's afallin' away,
Bounced wildly about on wall like waves
T'was death we came to face.
Tied ourselves with ropes around our waist
To not to sea be blown and swallowed away
The only thing for us all to do, was pray
Then mates and the capt'n their voices did raise.
Began singing aloud sailor's songs of old
Drowning out their dread in the sea's assault
Sudden shower of sunbeams began to pour right out
Of the opening heavens by gushes of wind, parting clouds.
Hope returned about the crew
They knew the sea would be subdued
Looking through his spyglass out to sea
The capt'n saw our destination appear.
By CarolineCécile
Copyright © 05.16.11
Buoyant on the North west winds;
Shredded clouds expose a half moon eye.
An eye that stares cautiously at
The hyphens of cars below.
Stratus sunsets trace the highway,
That leads to my refuge,
and shields me from the voyeur and the oncoming night.
I sit upright against unforgiving vinyl,
on the back of a bus that rebounds daily,
between New York City and my nightly abode.
I watch the cirrus race the Greyhound
and the Mustangs running in packs of three.
A spyglass has formed within a white nimbus,
an oval window into the crowded heavens.
The clotheslines of the Gods turn to skyrockets,
Shooting masterful projections upward,
Now, composed as arrows that hasten
An antelopes final good night.
Clouds drift away without shadow or fault.
The clouds, the clouds
I alone with my burden,
Where do they go?
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