I’m on this side of the door
Only God knows what’s on the other side
I’m on this side of Eternity
Only God knows where I’ll reside
All we need to do
Is to open the door
And all we need to heed
Is to open our heart more and more
We are face to face with God
His face the sky
And ours the Earth’s face of multi-race
The sky His blue eye
Can we see face to face
Can we see eye to eye
Only by God’s grace
Yonder, will we get over by and by
There may be many wild horses
But we have bridles and stanchions
For the broken and contrite heart
In My Father’s house are many mansions
The devil says
“You know how romance is
You don’t get no second chances”
God says
“You will get many second chances
I will release you from the stanchions”
Half flesh, half steel, sinews and twined wire,
Begotten in the heat of half-love, tempered
By hatred and the axe, fathered by one
Who killed her mother, the male chauvinist boar
Whose eye-teeth, razor-sharp, saw through the spine,
Joy-sword in sheath. Wrought iron, blood vessels,
Bone and cable, one part conceived, the other forged
On the hard anvil where gusts of blood are seed
Of all the axeman most does fear – cast iron woman
With stanchions for a trunk, iron breastplate,
A malleable black heart, a metallic chastity belt
No man may boast of stealing and still live,
Who beats men at their own battle games,
A dab hand with the axe herself, as salty tears
And globules of mercury exude from grey glands
Sycamores standing bold and naked
Leafless limbs facing the chilly breeze
Without broad leaves appear wasted,
Sycamores standing bold and naked
As stanchions are almost over-rated,
Still the most imposing of all the trees
Sycamores standing bold and naked
Leafless limbs facing the chilly breeze.
Written November 15, 2022
Purple mountains, majestic against an azure sky,
Rise to greet the passing rain-filled nimbus clouds
Above the verdant forests along the canyon rim,
Where sparrow hawks and other birds of prey drift
The surging updrafts from the river valley far below.
Rays of the sun find paths through thick pine stands
And glint from the silver stanchions of the bridge,
Hover over the pensive grandeur of the scenic view.
I long for my home near the edge of the park lands
Where wildflowers bloomed next to our cottage there,
And memories accumulated over the ensuing years
Continually bring me back to childhood adventures,
So free, so happy-go-lucky, during hot summer days
In the wild, wonderful wilderness of West Virginia.
Originally written July 5, 2021
Edited for All Poetry.com
Chosen as Cover Poem for All Poetry.com
March 18, 2022
FIRST PLACE WINNER
Brian Strand 1096 Poetry Contest
March 20, 2022
there's a spot on the horizon
in the ripple of the sun
where railway lines and stanchions fuse
and merge becoming one.
I was staring from the platform
when a distant dot appeared
it grew in size and shape and form
and sounded as it neared.
I caught blurred faces turning
as they thundered by so fast
to briefly glimpse where strangers met
each thursday in the past.
back then the steam and music
lit up life's black and white
- by tugging strings when love went wrong
rachmaninoff was right.
High above gray Manhattan’s marge,
‘Midst toothsome towers in the sky,
A construction crane there looms large,
Dwarfing the crowds of passersby.
A new building grows, rising high,
Clouding another patch of sky.
A tower for trade will arrive
Where businesses may fail or thrive.
An unsung Mohawk warrior,
And an iron-ribbed Spartan crane,
Raising stanchions; bolting girders,
Work in harmony on the frame.
Clutching the cables of the crane,
Beam rider goes where most aren’t fain;
Riding angled steel slabs, held tight,
High aloft, nearly out of sight.
In their union, we may marvel:
From out of an architect’s dreams,
Row by row; level by level,
They unfold a right-angled frame.
And when the beam rider has gone,
Who will recall his days bygone?
For those who make real others’ dreams,
That is the way it goes, it seems.
from down on the flats we can see
high-on-the-hills poetry
sonnets like mansions
sestinas in stanchions
they fill our dulled hearts with much glee
10236 Charing Cross Road
Holmby Hills, CA. 90077
To go where young rabbits frolic and dance
Would be a sweet treat if I had the chance
To swim in the water where famous cottontails get wet
Where champagne bubbles are spilled by the elite jet set
Maybe I might win a million dollar lotto
That could be my ticket to enter the grotto
Past muscle bound bouncers, inside velvet ropes and stanchions
To ogle, google and spill my own bubbles at The Playboy Mansion
To escape normality and alter reality before I grow old
Playing with Playmates and Bunnies and this months Centerfold
10236 Charing Cross Road, Holmby Hills CA. 90077
Without a doubt this is the address of Heaven
Thank you
Mr. Hefner
Bankrupt Inner Lives
by Odin Roark
At night
The vacuous feel only their emptiness
Lining up in the dark
Beside stanchions of velvet rope
As condor sentries lift anchor-like hooks
Time’s soulless theme park is open
Clamorous the surge
The decay of centuries past
Swirl their biting dust storms
Vying for another chance
Surging through the dervish-like desperation
A continued vacillate turnover of todays
Crowding the ceremonial skin shedding
Like a pit of serpents struggling to dislodge
The torn
Lifeless
Parasitic past
Trusting the new will provide survival
As light breaks such a dawn
The ravaged and bruised spineless
Merge upon barren landscapes
Raven guides screech welcoming echoes
As undulating mirages of immortality
Invade their delusions of control
Lulling them into drug-like satisfaction
Such continues the stratagem
A parched enigma forever waiting
Another group of self-deceivers
Endlessly visiting their
Inner life wasteland
Clueless
The wolf wind rakes its teeth
across the stanchions of paper birches
seeming to peel strips of bark
rolling back the pristine white flesh
to the tanned heart.
Sometimes the chaos of the world invades
and shells of home and skin are not enough.
And we must find a safety deep inside
within the rhythm of the breath.
Move with intention
like a tree supple in the breeze
stanchions strong on nimble limbs
mantra’s giving geas.
Stimulate the nascent soul with balance.
Still the whirling top of mind.
Extend each tendriled thought within
gaining harmony in exhale,
within the rhythm of the breath.
Clean, purge, polish, shine
The sluggish blood, the worrisome nerve
The jewel faceted form we’re given
mind, body and spirit serve.
A distant dampness wrings the air.
A weight most profound presses chest
as indrawn breath holds silent;
in the stonehedge of overwhelming gloom.
So, the mighty have fallen
auguries of a mortal doom.
Without missive,
bluestone bones, stanchions silhouette
onto a plane of pastel sky.
Gargantuan, they rise, a tomb.
So, the mighty have fallen
auguries of a mortal doom.
Brittle brown blood expunged
by millennium three,
the still, symbolic, oak forest rises.
Frozen sarsens, five, forming an open grove.
Megaliths beaconing a golden eastern dawn
So, the multitude will rise within the circle
without earthly substance, soul;
through green grasslands loam
ashen augury of a different tome.
A sea of tents, stood side by side,
raised at the Dragon’s Gate.
And bonfires roared, red firefly light,
as round them Giants ate.
Maids and Matrons decked in gilt,
chemise ‘bout bosoms and knees;
came to and fro with cup and bowl,
to serve the giants’ feast.
The warriors held the stanchions straight,
while beauties tasted treats.
The bards sang sad, songs, with a sigh,
and faint hearts felt defeat.
Goblets gave surcease from pain,
as darkness did retreat;
for fair maids with undone hair,
charged valiantly to the breach.
And as the sun rose in the East,
each dragon banked their fire,
then one and all proud and tall
Havens Clan retired.
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