A garden gate unlocked but rusted shut
evokes what memory plays on stringless lyres
Between the furrowed hedgerows standing witness
there lives a fated wish of heart’s desire
Alone unvisited throughout the seasons
to weather scorching sun — inclement rain
The loneliness of what once was grows ere despondence
waiting on an unkept promise made in vain
(Dreamsleep: March, 2026)
Spring has sprung
Songbirds echoing calls
Welcoming the new season
Warmth and growing buds
Snow melted briskly
And though brown
Soon green will flood
A carpet of ambience
Fresh and clean
Leaves small and almost
Nonexistent reach
For the new dawning sun
A yellow jacket
Buzzing by flying
Stringless in the sky
Time to breath
The fresh and
Warm filled air
At morning’s wake
The sun expands
Life luster to
All the lands
Trees and plants
Creatures as well
Absorb the warmth
From where rays fell
Crimson beauty
Up in the sky
Far be it to judge
Or ask us why
At days end
The colors fade
Orange and crimson
To blue and jade
A silent beauty
Stringless and round
Without the sun
No life would
Be found
Today you warmed my soul
Orange ball of flame
Floating stringless in
The sky of blue and white
Unlike nothing else
You are my sentinel
Of utter bountiful
Heat and glory
I praise you for this
Unselfish gift
You reflect to
Nature and i
Sleepless I listen,
a muted winter magnifies
the slightest sound.
Snow falling,
snow walking over snow,
snow speaking -
wordless
as it plays a stringless harp.
Whispers of peace and death,
still night,
an ice sculptured air.
When dawn slips into
its many coated reality,
this silent symphony;
the unread simplicity
of falling snow
will have to bury its tongue.
Aging puppet
When I opened my eyes, I recall the weirdest dream
I was an aging puppet time breaking my strings
Years ago, I enjoyed a younger life
Now my strings are being cut by an age-old knife
Being young and healthy is our biggest prize
Five years ten years disappear in front of your eyes
Celebrate your youth in a healthy way
Your aging strings will wear thin someday
One string, two strings break, you lose your walk
More lines break you can barely talk
Five strings, six strings, your flat on the ground
Without the strings of speech, you utter no sound
Rows are wearing thin that made you strong
Before too much longer, your strings will be gone
The life we live will someday end
Strong strings through time will eventually thin
Some sell their souls for a new spool of strings
But it doesn't change what old age brings
The stringless puppet vanishes without making a sound
Strings break, he falls hard to the ground
He lays helpless, no movement at all
He's finally taking his life-ending fall.
Lpickard
Copyright © William Pickard
To love with a smile is real skill,
that in you I do most admire,
I see devotion your face fill,
and your eyes shine with love’s fire!
warmth of love is like furnace lit,
that hums and glows to cheer the heart,
glow that comes from you I admit,
shines bright from your heart’s sweetest part!
your love does shine without embers,
much said without a spoken word,
like an ink less pen writing verse,
from a stringless chord music heard!
gentle touch, a few words of love,
conveys all that our heart desires,
to love with a smile is real skill,
that in you I do most admire!
6th place win
Written 15/04/2021
Shine poetry competition
Constance La France sponsored
8 lines each line
4 quatrains with alternate line rhyme
A cold hard rain soaks the tree
denudes its flailing branches
stamps a season's exclamation point
on the edge of approaching frost.
Leafs flutter - stringless kites adrift
floating on a mindless wind
whistling through shivering steeples
mocking the silence of dormant church bells.
Wet feathered sparrows taunt the wind
cling to the hope of trembling limbs
gentle strength against the fury
acquiescence without surrender.
Darkness falls on a raging gale
shrieking in its emptiness
seeking an unknown destination.
A cold hard rain soaks the tree.
John G. Lawless
11/30/2020
More than anyone else
you complete me
patched the breach in the circle
showed me the mental math
of the waves and angles of life
Patched this broken raft.
You know what I'm thinking
before I'm prepared to think.
When the heart jumps
I know you're close by.
When you're gone, I'm just a stringless harp
fingered by a dirty-nailed vagabond.
Dear self...please come back to me.
Since the first bomb blast in my town,
I began talking to winds in strange languages.
Since bayonets had been replaced by rapist-soldiers,
I started building tin-nests on tall branches.
Since bullets became drunk with madness of
Trigger happy men in uniform, I have exiled
My death to another place where love only
Does the killing, where I could die sweetly,
With no feelings of hatred or revenge.
And to bring me back to the land of hypocrites,
Mothers denuded themselves in the market-place,
In broad daylight, and a sister of mine fasted for years,
Only to be discarded as a torn flag after electoral mandates.
Since my kid brother disappeared, without reasons
Or questions,
I keep looking at mirrors, searching for his face which Blurred away in cliched identity cards of a nation,
Where my vers libre floats in void spaces,
Like a stringless kite.
within my mind like stringless mimes
reside the voices of discontent
discussing in their troubled tones
the conundrum of implied intent
“I’ll say this”, and “he’ll say that”
“she’ll do thus”, and “I’ll do so”
no invites to cerebral tea
for conversations of “me with me”
for all the puppets in my head
dance to tunes I choose to play
none have the voice to boldly say
“move on, you dwell in yesterday”
©6/18/2018
for Ventriloquist Poetry Contest/Anthony Slausen
POETS
Seems we be a restless,
often rootless, band
we poets.
Annuals
bursting forth
in fullness
only to fade,
blown away
on fickle winds.
Stringless kites
anchored
in the ethereal.
Voices adrift
on the mind’s
muse.
Tumbleweeds
in torment
pursued
by the winds
of our future.
©2/18/2018
submitted to – CONTEST NO 400
sponsor – Brian Strand
Haiku 2/2/2018
attuned to itself
reveling in dustdreams
a stringless violin
John G. Lawless
©2/2/2018
Once we were in the mother's lap,
We used to smile our legs up.
The mother used to treat us kissing our feet,
The lap's of our mom was the best playground.
Sometimes we used to cry,
Our mother would pat on our back with her cold hands.
We used to watch mother's face repeatedly,
We used to be absolutely overjoyed.
When the alphabet used to come out of her mouth,
It had seemed like a stringless garland.
She taught us how to weave images of the dreams,
I wish I could become a great poet only for her.
New Year
Dreams lie unfulfilled in my rueful nights,
the seconds, minutes, hours and days all draw
empty boxes, lists inked on paper white,
promises of plans I made, stout hearted,
in ignorance of the years gone before
when youth's resolve lay stillborn, unstarted.
With new old resolutions, stringless kites
fly out in fanfare on each New year's day,
'till deaf to all applause they fade from sight
to jink and ride the winds of circumstance.
'Just like last year', the well meaning friends say
knowing full well that none stood any chance.
Dreams lie unfulfilled in my rueful nights,
with new old resolutions, stringless kites.
For contest 'Cornish Sonnet', sponsored by, coincidentally, Craig Cornish
December 20th 2015
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