Proclaim liberty throughout the land
to dig, explore and discover
to live free in America and love her
to create and innovate ~
To Remake America Great!
everyday i sweep the leaves off
the porch with
full knowledge that
come tomorrow
their brothers and sisters
will rise up in
rebellion
angels sweeping out flakes
lackadaisically
successive shift:
fast and furious
angels on break
storehouse still
to be emptied
funniest sight?
a full-size snowman
drops from the clouds
foreman’s mad
he smiles though
at the cheeriest
curveball snow
angel’s never angry more
than a millisecond
heaven’s work a joy
yesterday, today and forever
Nov 2022
Red
Yellow
Leaves fall down
Sweep left, sweep right
Gather them in Autumn’s wicker baskets
Nature’s colourful treasures swirling down
Ground set afire
Rake in hand
Garden
Cleared
08.25.2021
Photo #3
For Eve Roper's "Double Tetractys 8" contest
M-ake a sweeping gesture,
E-agerly move in gladness;
I-nstead of unpleasant acts, perform in sheer happiness.
M-ake a sweeping gesture,
E-rase the unwelcome mime;
I-n morn October second, show sign for a better time.
L-et your motion make mirth,
E-cstasy, thrill and pleasure;
E-liminate the wobbling wave
I-n making a sweeping gesture.
Only the moon
wanders around the farm now –
a dog barking.
Once I saw the dark and cold night creeping,
slowly pushing out warm daylight seeping;
heard the blaring, hopeless sounds of sleeping
echoing despair’s sad, woeful weeping.
Felt the pain of fruitless daydreams heaping
deep inside my heart and soul now reaping
nighttime's empty stillness crying, keeping
silent tears within me forming, steeping.
Then I saw the morning sun safekeeping
warm and brilliant rays aglow now peeping.
Darkest ghosts of night were chased, sent leaping
from the hope of brand new day now sweeping.
Sandra M. Haight
~2nd Place~
Contest: Monorhyme Mania
Sponsor: John Hamilton
Judged: 08/29/2016
(Iambic Pentameter) 10 syllables per line, five feet per line
Feminine endings, (last syllable unstressed),
and first syllable stressed.
/ _ / _ / _ / _ / _
The hills to the west were looking at me and whispering.
I moved out a little further and turned back to measure the trajectory and speed of their shadow.
The sun put her hand on my shoulder and said “Things have gotten a bit crazy, we’re going to have to reschedule”
A tattooed cloud took the sunglasses from my face and handed them to me, as more clouds stepped over me, “excuse me” and kept going.
I missed last call, and a stiff breeze was already sweeping up around her goosebumped skin. I tried filling her lungs with my beer laden exhaust but she just lay there motionless on a drenched and cold beach towel.
Through the chain link fence the school bus looked on at me with pity.
A sweeping truck came down my street today;
its brooms and brushes whirling on the ground.
Wetting the pavement and making thin mud.
Gathering stones, dirt, lost buttons and leaves.
Up and down the street blocks and along the roads.
Gathering sand from the winter and from people who litter.
And every mile or two it will empty its bin,
then whirl back to life and continue again.
A squat little truck with a person inside.
Driving real slow and pirouetting around cars.
I saw it stop at a hydrant while the man got out,
to lock on a hose so that the sprayer filled up.
Who created these things that comes 'round once a year?
Broom Bear and Elgin. Mobil and Johnson.
Their genius at making parts all work together
so the street can look nicer and neighbors feel better.
Sweeping and cleaning in autumn day:
Why is the sweeper sweating in cold ?
A place unstuffed is stuffed again.
Where comes the silly dirt?
Down the streets and up the trees.
What can now the sweeper do?
Sweeping not against the wind.
The club that stamps authority
when in its Zenith
Chelsea!
The club with a zero tolerance
even in a zero percent ball possession.
Chelsea!
Breaks, makes and keeps records.
86 consecutive home games unbeaten, for instance.
Chelsea!
Splashes the cash as money talks,
raping all other teams as Trophies walk
who else would it be?
Chelsea!
Who wants to challenge us?
Who are you by the way?
Oh! Pathetic Arsenal!
We need no manual
to give you some rough ****.
No wonder you cannot remember your last final.
Cover your shame with a wig.
The hole needed to hide, you must dig.
Acquiring a Trophy, for you,
Is like bathing a Pig,
cos you will still go back to your trophy-less ways.
When you stamp your name on the champion's league
then, would we consider you, big.
i left today for the last time
it was almost surreal
i almost think its sad
that none of them know
how much they mean to me
and that its finally okay
that i know i dont mean as much to them
even though they were the only thing
that held me together
for so, so long
but i would never say
and maybe they will never know
that i could never have made it
but i swept this all away
and i put on my happy smile
while i drove away
and i cried until i was home
and for so much longer
and even though i will never forget them
its okay that i might be forgotten
Walking home from work, one windy autumn eve
I noticed some workmen sweeping up leaves,
The more leaves they swept, the more the wind blew
So I stopped to watch for a moment or two
One man swept the leaves into piles on the street
But the wind would sweep them from under his feet,
Another put the leaves into sacks that he had
I thought the whole scene was comically sad
Mother Nature had worked hard, for most of the year
Producing the leaves on the trees for us to share
Now they were being swept away without a care
As the wind blew the leaves away again, I was glad.
Perhaps the wind was Mother Nature’s only way of fighting back
She didn’t want to be reduced to life within a sack
To go from splendour, to squalor, in the space of just one season
She wasn’t going to disappear, not without good reason
The wind blew again, with all of its might
That’s when the workmen gave up for the night
As they packed their tools and left the scene, I carried on for home
The wind began to die away; Mother Nature’s fight was won.
There is something strangely satisfying
About sweeping leaves in the wind.
A pure and pristine panacea for the soul.
As the impish zephyrs play
With a rustle of laughter
Tumbling through;
Sometimes for,
Some against, the action of my toil.
With the rhythmic swish of my broom
The breeze blows and the branches bow,
Scattering Nature's confetti.
A tree lives a lifetime every year.
From the youth of Spring through Summer's prime,
To the regal twilight of Autumn,
Reminding us that there is such beauty in old age.
As a child I saw
In my mind's eye,
The word AUTUMN written
in the russets and ochres of the falling leaves.
Colours so bright, but with an earthiness that grounded,
Enveloping in the warmth of Nature.
Akin to wood smoke and open hearths,
Unlike the flashy pomp of Summer's gaudiness.
Autumn awakens sleeping memories,
Turning my thoughts to the magic of childhood
And how I used to play at being grown up
As, in youthful innocence,
I attempted the futile task
Of sweeping leaves in the wind.