Stolid Poems

Listen to the Wind

The wind off the cold North Atlantic ocean
smells of piquant seawater on its breath,
agreeably pungent, brackish and moist.
The legendary Nor'easter off Newfoundland,
the bane of so, so many ships at sea,
is not a breeze with a soft, caressing hand.
It kicks and knocks and slaps and whacks and thwacks,
pummels and punches, pinches and pushes.
The stolid, sturdy imperturbable island
sits there and puts up with the abuses.

The northeasterly wind is very resentful
of its odiferous reputation.
At night, it simmers and seethes and smolders,
writhes and trembles, weeps and whines, stirs and sulks.
But, like the song says, the wind and sea smells
are "perfume to my soul". I stand alone on shore
and listen to the ocean's roar, wind's whoosh,
and my mind decompresses, destresses;
this is my peace, my serenity. I am home.

Hitler's Watercolours

This one’s a castle; that’s a customs-house.
They’re stolid, listless, just a little dull.
The sky supports an arbitrary gull.
The languidness of Liszt, the style of Strauss

are wholly absent. Colours are metallic.
The eye sweeps over cornice, turret, steeple,
then it dawns on us – there are no people.
Clock towers, mountains, minarets, all phallic,

are void of human life.  Stark, empty chairs
adorn each arid, motionless interior.
As we apprise, eyes sneeringly superior,
we note acerbically his love of stairs –

A Will to Power, ever pushing up.
One daub there is, however, gives us pause:
it dates long before Enabling Laws,
before he dreamed of Kesselring or Krupp:

a bridge that’s quite impossible to cross,
going nowhere, has never carried traffic.
With a boy sitting on it. Startling, graphic,
without a hint of Schadenfreude or Schloss.

Self-portrait, this? What features may we trace?
What’s here vouchsafed? Incipient racist brute?
Hardly. A disarmingly awful suit,
and most revealingly of all – he has no face.

Public Clocks

At first his anger was hotter than July
Or, rather, he was plundered by the weight of
Sorrow —heavier than the ice of January;
The kind of stolid ice that thickened Niagara Falls
Like frozen soup.
He was tall and lissome, bespectacled, in
Dark suits, a brown hat, worn-out shoes of fraternity.
A folded umbrella accompanied him like a touring child.
No wristwatch.
He doesn’t wear them.
Asked why, he normally replies, “There are many public clocks”.
Stocks have plunged
Every expert he asked shared the same opinion?
Stocks are like seesaws —
They rise and fall.
Before then he had assumed that “rise-and-fall”
Was only for dictators,
And of course empires.
And every public clock he glanced up at
Had the same opinion on time? it ticks away,
Slowly, but perfectly.
And if you want to do time,
Then hurry over life importunately.

When is a dream not reality?

A setted carving, 
   Written by privation 
      Words that leak through unfilled ink 
         Gawping empty between ridges. 
            Then those canyon cliffs retreat again 
               Back down to their weary plains
            Brothers undo brothers, as
         All plains worn away. 
      And those letters of privation 
   Are gone, as empty were their valley hollows 
Their hollow fame ungained. 

         Vectors collide head into head, their 
      Perpendicular paths to ruin 
   Skidding, crashing, melting, bubbling, 
Paths fuse and fissure, which spitter into nothing. 

In death’s head shell, a poltergeist cackle
   A ghoul of concave echo walls
      It throws flaming cocktails to profuse undo 
         And set alight the beams of memory.

            And knowledge stolid, solid meals, 
         Waste to famine, thoughts
      To hollow dreams, not recollections, 
   What deceit 
Are believed imaginations. 

Set alight those beams 
   And worn down hollows of privation 
      I am left with hollow dreams, 
   Not recollections. What deceit
Are believed imaginations.

Gratitude Attitude

Behold the Good that is already there,
But! Give one’s nod,
In Thanking G-d the “Sharer!”
Because ‘tis truly odd,
To receive care,
Despite being a “Dud”,
Even naked & bare,
Without a merit “Mother Lode”,
“Thanks!” is song, a soulful “Aire”,
Keeping us “Solid!”,
If “Thanks!” be rare,
We take for granted, grow “Stolid”,
Breathe callous air,
Paying debts is a lid,
Which opens fare,
Ticket to Hearts 14 karat gold,
“Thanks!” Non-coexistent with despair,
Nor arrogance, nor a selfish “Id”,
Gratitude rain blossoms “Life Fertile!”

Recycle Bin

my recycle bin
impassive, stolid sentinel...
suddenly submerged,
glutted with Christmas flyers
screaming consumerism

Kentucky Mustang

October gallops in as stolid as a gray mare,
a blunt wind snorts furiously through autumnal trees.
Foliage rattles, but does not fall, it clings still
to green stems.

Appalachian backwoods have tough roots,
shod as they are into an earth salted
with a dark gritty ore.

Bears are foraging and reaping,
their black silky pelts clamber over gusting winds
to reach the furthest fruits
before first snows overburden stoic pines.

Today the sky is unharnessed
and racing at full tilt
It whips my raw lips like a wet mane,
it rears up to stamp down upon its own
animated onslaught.

I adjust my rucksack and reshoulder a shotgun
grin, eyes watering
caught under the stampeding gale,
buffeted now by its muscular flanks.

I need to bridle this striding wind,
to halter its headlong charge,
or better yet just surrender -
turn my back on it,

let it ride me 
as we leap down from the hilltops
whooping it up like cowboys.

Great Outdoors

it's teeth
some jaw around 
my head, biting
baiting an air beast
wintering wind
anaconda squeeze
of miserly monsters
that I'm dragging
as I walk and wings
whose tips stipple 
cheeks, reddening
through slow-mo
torture but somehow
that winter stroll
hidden critters galore 
is a glorious break
beckoning staleness
from stolid afternoons

Rendezvous'

Rendezvous'

If the callous fingers of stolid silence could but stir me 
To rise with the bright radiant ever-changing flight of moon
And await new birth of sea fairies dancing to Neptune's wake
Wherein the majestic blue sea cries out mightily to flee.

Robert J. Lindley. April 2nd 1971
Quatrain

A Leader Can Never Be a Stolid Follower

A leader is, of course, solid not a blind follower
A leader is a true, real, genuine and patient analyzer
A leader usually leads the pack or the caucus
Follows common sense, the rules and laws of nature
Comprehends the consequences of having a failed procedure
The full process of achieving positive results at the terminus
After everything is laid, said and done, when nada is left?
A real leader has broad shoulders to withstand the storms
A brave man fears nothing, no man or woman on the left
Or on the right. A leader follows the principles, the norms
And the logic of things. Few men or women are natural leaders
Even if they were haphazardly elected or selected as such
Real leaders are occasionally as calm as hunting tigers
A genuine leader will fight for what is proper, not for the mulch
Which can be found in countless stores. A leader is strong
Bright, brave and humble. A leader admits when he is wrong
In our current unusual environment, men and women can lead
Effectively, since and hence the world has many mouths to feed.

Copyright © February 2020, Hébert Logerie, All rights reserved.
Hébert Logerie is the author of several poetry collections.

Instances of Awareness

Meditation may be silent prayer with a motive
Behaviors that influence mood are complex
Wealth addiction never reaches its apex
As a vital insight, Oozes is notably zen-positive.

The mirror of integrity calms interior thoughts,
scary to smother, stifle, or deny consciousness
In the need for insight, thought-rested awareness
Things related to scrutiny are tying you up in knots.
 
It's as a careless awakening from a deep slumber,
intense bedtime twists, and spiritual closeness
Cosmos moves in a pure sign of sublime oneness
No stochastic or endless motion in a stark number.

Bestow intellect and heart into harmony for love,
Attain stolid calm, dissolving shape and space
The mind produces awareness, sharing, and grace
To be in-articulable, bereft of a void as a dove.

Written: December 06, 2022

Thought Rested Awareness Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Unseeking Seeker

Old Tower Clock

A glint of sunlight from its prismed face
Catches the eye of the weary beholder,
For years occupying a hallowed space
The old tower clock still chimes bolder,
Stolid guardian marking time and place
As hours pass slowly in the marketplace.

It clearly tolls and lonely, too, at midnight
When townfolks are at home sound asleep,
Year after year its appointed hour’s respite
A time to live, a time to die, tolling complete
Seeming to know the proper tonality
When pealing for one's funereal finality.

Written September 20, 2022

Love Achieves

“Love Achieves”

Ife my love a sea can touch
Where words and love cannot confess
The very shadows of the soul
Or find the rose of all desire
No flaw or flame thus to know
That time concedes upon the heart
The chain of sorrow’s crimson kiss
That makes each moment paradise
And leads us to eternal bliss
Ife one vivid line of love
Which shares with nature autumn’s last
Stolid lancing redolent glance
Cast at length upon the place
Where hearts and stars cannot so die
Like a vampire serene within a tomb
Long bereft of sunlight’s smile
But death has waited every mile
And every mile I have dreamed
Dreamed as much as lovers when
Walking on some golden shore
Kiss and find that love is more
Than all that man has yet aspired
In science or technology
For there my love I find the blush
The rose that’s cast upon the sea
And sails across to be with thee
But in pursuit of loving best
I die within my soul
For what pen or poet cannot know
That love achieves 
All forgiveness

Inhale

Inhale


my heartbeat slows,
blood sluggish
through stenotic vessels
unwilling to expand,
to breathe
to let blood flow

untenable, this suffocation
this dampening
it speaks of tired eyes,
of stolid limbs,
of stultified need

torpid blood,
when will you give up
your self-imposed stricture,
your closely guarded fear,
your wariness

and inhale

Yonder Lighthouse

She’s a stolid sentinel standing on the rugged knoll
Standing silently, alone, like an old, weathered soul,
Over many years she has seen taken a dreaded toll
Many an admirer of hers has championed her goal.

written January 25, 2022

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