Lavender drifts along the castle road,
its scent rising over the castle keep.
Far off, the sun spills gold
across the armor of a passing knight,
A horn sounds from the watchtower,
rolling through the valley like a slow-moving tide.
Hooves answer the rhythmic trot of a rider
returning home after drinking too many tankards of mead.
And the whole kingdom exhales,
wrapped in lavender air and fading gold.
Busty shaped and large of hip
the busy winds of October
buffet my brain
within its whistling cave.
Around the shoulders
of every lumpy molehill
taverns and tankards
bloom in a russet corner of light.
September leaves
leave, shaking their brittle cuffs
and frills,
they fly sideways
riding upon broken rafts
of tangled sticks.
October blusters as it bustles,
its wide-spread mouth warmed-over
by wafts and beery blasts.
Now is the time to flap long coats,
to run ahead of a creaking moon
as it rolls drunkenly
into winters nippy
and thin-lipped ice.
gather wares for market day
and cauldrons of the land
baneful stock for the boiling pot
before the evening’s end
tankards spill and taverns heave
upon these Beltane days
see magic folk and sorcerers
on an otherwise malaise
then pack the carts and disappear
before the robin sees
and woe betide the straddlers
caught there on Gallows’ Eve
we met in glass jars
on the Beagle in the Pacific
I'd never seen anything
like you before, your hair, your smile,
your huggable eyes, thrown together
by beards and tankards
grabbed from every sun, but
you reflected curves onto my glass
and maimed my stopper for oceans
now we sit on different shelves
but I can still hear you sing
in the darkened storages
and that's more or less
how it was between us
for hundreds
if not thousands
of years
she would sing with birds
known to set many records
drank many tankards?
she sure seemed so fine
my vivacious valentine
drank big Ballentine
Have you ever heard of
Ballentine Beer Before
we were researching
trump lies that had been learching
on big nose perching
had many close shaves
trump would make many big waves
we became his slaves
(stabbed him with some staves)
(he never behaves)
(leads us to our graves)
(we became his knaves)
(often us depraves)
(does grunt when he raves)
(owns atlanta braves)
How about that for quite
a few laughs with warm bathes
then travelled on Trump
putrid paths.
`
O’ crooked branch and magpie’s claw,
yon rusted chains a’ sway this night
Clutch tight a sign “The Seagull's Squall”
of splintered wood and storm clouds fight
Old tavern lone this craggy shore
where angered waves accost the sand
and drenching rains from heavens pour,
whilst thunder boasts its loud command
On creaking stools with painted legs
'long the bar, a gathered crew
Expected flow from aging kegs
a frothy crown this lagered brew
Fills tankards held of one now gone
'midst pewter death in golden ale
In drunk'n stupor sorrows shown
lost at sea, his soul last sailed
Watching cloaked of shadowed mist
in darkened corner, lingered smoke
O’er long goodbyes on echoes twist
and couraged voices soundly spoke
Weaving tales a' journeys past,
voyages beyond the deep
Ports o’ call and forth day cast,
of treasures that abound to reap
When one, a glass above his head
beckons silence, moments slow
Respect, our mate now swallow'd dead,
entombed within the depths below
Then hearty cheers and farewell speak,
this touching scene if one would be
A ghostly tear now falls my cheek,
this fallen mate they cheer is me
Jo King loved frothy tankards of beer
Which she drank every day of the year
Interred in a keg
She swallowed each dreg
So her tombstone reads, "Wish you were here!"
Everyone who has money
should drop it in a vat and
anyone who needs money
should take what they need
a Swede, a Dane and two
Norwegians tell Fred, also an
economist who flew in from Yale.
After a three-day seminar in the
Antarctic, the four men sit down
with tankards of ale, each comfy
in a chaise lounge chair on
an ice floe slowly melting.
Back at Yale, CNN interviews Fred
about his book on the seminar.
The CIA is now investigating.
Donal Mahoney
(A Salute to Emily Dickinson)
I taste a liquor never brewed
In structured vats of men
Not all the tankards ever filled
Could reign this nectar in
Inebriate of Christ am I
His words I’m sipping from
Of life, of love, of power
Drunken worlds to overcome
When clergy slips and cannot rise
When churches close their door
I shall not move toward recant
I shall but drink the more
Till angels lay aside their song
Till saints the rainbows shun
This fervent tippler ever stays
to lean against the Son!
©cfa 7/4/2016
driven by a painful stain i say yes to
1/2 empty Bukowski tankards
full of dusty nothings meanwhile sitting
in shallow quicksand @ 96 sweaty degrees
in this emerging limbo
of rent-per-hour eye blinks
flicking rusty milagros erecting
indifferent sentinels to guard
against a past-due event
of forgettable magnitude
breathing as if here but not really
there feeling all kinda so sharp
betrayal yet acutely bland as if
a still deeper black
could hide the stitches
if maybe kinda as though
the pain of being discarded
could fade to fuzzy
and not hurt like a blunt knife
cutting with careless regret
and lack of purpose
Searchin' the waves for sight of a sail.
Throwin' back hearty tankards of ale.
" Sails to port, " the lookout did call.
So excited was he that he nearly did fall.
Closin' in on the prey excitement grows.
In less than an hour we'll come to blows.
Ocean spray feels good on my face.
Closer and closer we're winnin' the race.
" Weapons in hand, " I cry from the poop.
My wolves get ready as we near the sloop.
The vessel did gleam, she's a true beauty.
My blood is boilin' for my pirates booty.
" At her lads, " I yell through a death grin.
We swarmed so fast the fight did barely begin.
The fight was swift but it was bloody.
After spyin' the treasure I knew we'd been lucky.
Out of the chest gold spilled to the deck.
Loot her and burn her, we'll sink this wreck.
Back to our ship we take our loot.
Survivors on the plank their gettin' the boot.
Twas just another day in a pirates life.
You've got to be quick and sharp as a knife.
Welcome to the Hogs head
The local ye olde pub
The ale tastes like urine
And there's maggots
In the grub.
There's straw on the floor
A pee bucket by the door
And rats scurry in groups of ten or more.
The busty wenches serve the ale
And over the centuries
There's been spoken
Many a tale
Gossip soon gets far
Tankards flow with ale.
There by the fireside
Is a secret door where
Dick Turpin often hides.
Over by the bar is Robin Hood
And his merry men
Their very merry
And drunk again.
The place is a den of iniquity
Pickpockets and theif's
You can always get a
Stolen purse
or sheep real cheap before you leave.
The regular drinkers often burst into song
In a drunken stuper their often out of tune
And the words come out wrong.
The place is really smelly
And you have to watch your step you do
Just in case you step on and get pig poo on your shoe.
The place never closes
And all the posh folk
Turn up their noses
at such a hovel.
But your always welcome
Why not come on down
And give it a go
Or you'll never know.
Peter Dome.copyright.2014.June.
The sea gathered her voice
on the crest of the waves
as dark clouds were herded
by the wind as he raved
in a symphony orchestrated
through elements of sound
composed by the air
from his drafty compound.
By the drum of the surf
on the beat of the waves
a crescendo that climbed
with the sea as she raged
while the wind as the maestro
pulled pockets of sound
from the whistles and moans
as he swept ‘cross the ground.
Soprano! cried the killdeer
Tenor! screeched the gulls
as a baritone foghorn
boomed from the hull
of a ship that swayed
drunkenly atop of the surf
staying clear of the breakers
that crashed on the turf
The ship creaked a response
as it groaned a refrain
but the deft hand of a shipwright
would keep it sustained
for he’d hewn and he’d whittled
great emblems of love
carving an angel for the figurehead
and atop the masthead, a dove.
When the wind stopped his jostling
and the sea spent her ire
the ship slipped back to its haven
of warm hearths and bright fires
where the men mused and wondered
over great tankards of ale
if the hymns and hosannas..
had been but, the wind in the sails?
There once was a mermaid named Lea
Claimed delusional sailors at sea
So a captain set sail
Hopeful the tale to dispel
But returned with kelp on his knee
Once t'was a captain with kelp on his knee
Decided to pay sailors a fee
The ship they all dubbed
And the decks were scrubbed
As he sought the mermaid named Lea
Once was a sailor with story to tell
If he drank tankards of ale for a spell
His captain gone daft
Cast off on a raft
And there was Lea in the swell
In the spiritual quest for all that is best
I discover another who is seeking it too.
A superior material that's ripe for a touch,
To feel it and test it and kneel with it much.
And our fingertips linger and our palms are like psalms,
Measuring treasure, holding with pleasure,
The body so real of our holy ideal.
And the words pop, and the seekings stop.
O perfect independent, resplendent, so fine,
I draw you within me to drink you like wine.
And the feast of a lifetime thrills at our lips
And the sparkles are felt and the bubbles dealt.
One hundred percent proof is our stunning truth
And we are the drunkards full of our tankards.
O calm, clear-sighted, rational sun,
Material superior, integrity spun,
A new year is dawning, new life rushing on,
Achievements and profits, new promises sung,
And I have you and you have me,
And we are the bottle pouring so free!
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