Affable unflappable an incomparable parable & fable
Telegraph path defending ending era sending a cable
As Indian power does deflower our Test tower of Babel
Reliant on our defiant thoroughbred in the Kiwi stable
Does what says on the label as Kane so keen and able
Hushed kudos so humble yet giant sat at the top table
Hardy a great first rate trait played ball late almost tardy
Held aloft by hands so soft weaving his third man spree
Inner fire to the wire winner desire is Kane down to a tee
Outwitting Kohli and sitting pretty on top of the WTC tree
Fitting in his twilight dimming the limelight is not about me
Travesty not to marvel at artistry & majesty of his tapestry
Heavenly ability with angelic humility part of a holy trinity
Stoic & heroic Martin's successor a professor still ego free
With Crowe & Hadlee bestow Black cap history our nobility
Affinity for infinity for all three so totally Kiwi simply divinity
She sits in the marrow of the
quiet house,
stirring cappuccino coffee unit it
grows cold under her
thumb.
His closet door stands wide,
an open throat
exhaling the faint, stolen
scent of cedar and old wool,
while across town, his keys
clink on a different kitchen
counter.
She watches the dust motes
drift through the heavy
shafts of afternoon light,
each one a tiny, forgotten
universe slowing down to
die,
trapped inside the stillness
he left behind when he
chose a younger woman.
The telegraph has forgotten
how to ring, so she speaks
only to the walls,
her voice a thin scraping of
dry leaves against the
floorboards.
She does not wash the
mirror because her own
eyes look back like
strangers,
hollowed out by the shadow
of the woman who took her
place.
When darkness falls, she
wraps herself in the heavy
quilt of her own grief,
listening to the house creak
and settle into its permanent
isolation.
She closes her eyes not to
sleep, but disappear,
wishing the night would
swallow the remainder of her name.
Entrepreneur Estée Lauder.
Foundation, concealer, and powder.
Advertising worth more than toman*:
"Telephone, telegraph, tell a woman."
The grass waved hello
the birds called back.
Telegraph poles stood still
like tall slender trees.
the birds liked that.
the crickets a constant tickle in the ear,
swathes of brown grass bouncing back after drought,
three troughs haphazard on a patch without
any grass. Bare dark earth.
the raven makes its cry
under a bright grey sky,
on a swampy, sweaty day .
my dog companion at my feet
"Come on then, let's go home."
The man was
handsome, intelligent,
and good in bed.
But he just
had nothing
to say.
And all of his days
were the same.
Monochromatic
introspection followed
by a sort of smothered
self-expression.
He never
felt like himself.
And he always felt
worried about what
other people thought
about him.
Who even was
he?
His routine?
His career?
His interests?
His beliefs?
Beliefs?
The man had
no beliefs, the
man didn’t need
to believe.
For if he started believing
in something, he may have
actually needed
to start existing.
And that idea
scared the
hell out of
him.
Words were spoken mind to mind
as pictures floated over head
The liquid eyes were full of tears
deeper than sleepy ocean beds
I could see the souls mighty struggle
to hold back its salty drops
When it rains it tends to pour seeming
as though it'll never stop
Regret surfaced from murky depths
showing itself from miles away
They say that eyes never lie & always
show what they want to say
I telegraph my forgiveness for I understand
they knew it not
The eyes are doors to hidden thoughts
& let you in without a knock
They painted pictures without a brush
laying bare what wasn't said
They never said what they were thinking
but I could see inside the head
I forgive but I don't forget what the eyes
want me to see
When they show it, you must believe even if
they mask what isn't seen
You see the sunlight amongst the scree
There was a man
who couldn't tell me anything
Where there was once the comfort
of the evenings telegraph line
he runs wild amongst shops turned into flatlets
Keep on a straight line
he has changed his mind
where once basson roamed
he guesses himself unfree
fortitude follows the wind
"early Buggles"
the telephone killed the telegraph wire
"and the birds twitter like whispering violins" - Constance La France
SEMIQUAVERS
In the warm, late summer day, I lie in the verdant meadow,
Head cushioned on my discarded jacket.
Way up above, the drone of a small plane
Seems only to accentuate the stillness of the day.
I close my eyes and, in my mind,
I see you standing there, that haunting smile upon your lips.
That haunting smile I long to see again.
A new sound wakes me from my reverie
And, opening my eyes I see
A swoop of swallows circling in a confusion of patterns
Before settling on the overhead telegraph wires,
Looking for all the world like semiquavers on a music score.
The drone of the plane fades away
"and the birds twitter like whispering violins.’
Lost in the beauty of their chorus,
I could swear they were playing our tune.
15th May 2023
Writing Challenge A Quotes poetry contest
Sponsor - Constance Le France
Can't keep refusing it's on the hands of you
Is this the haunting image of hell I view?
So, to care or plead for my discreet silence
Weak hands are calling to you for guidance
Praying to get help for feelings that permeate
Like watching, hurting, rolled down a sewer grate
Gentle hands tapping a telegraph in dotted code
Seek to find salvation before all these feelings erode
Scared to run, diseases like this don't seem to phase you
Are the answers to it all, I read, found in a hard wooden pew
I wish I had your faults, there aren't many, but I have found a few
Wringing hands, no answers, come fly around my hell, all a skew
No blasphemy intended, no one nailed to the board
Once written, answers in time, by the pearl gate lord
Crow
Singer Songwriter Poet
Crow
Crow Crow is here
A soldier on the wire
A Telegraph To let me know
You are here
You are the Crow
Crow is here
A soldier on the wire
Violet black darkness descends
Dawn of a day
Indigo white light
Rises to the Skies
Crow is here
A soldier on the wire
The keepers of the street
Marching morning web feet
Seeking Hiding
Beaks on earth to eat
In a mist amongst the trees
where the horses nay to heel
Crow is here
A soldier on the wire
Free like the winds in the hills
Whistling from the telegraph poles
We are free to be
Birds of Mother Earth
Perching claws
Foot soldiers laws
Amongst the blessed fields
Cracking a call
Goodnorning
Goodmorning
Goodmoring to you all ....
AUTUMN UNTOLD STORY
Sense the tiny bite of crispness in the air
September ends and school again begins
Crows on the telegraph lines just stare
The old guy at the corner leans and grins
September ends and school again begins
The parents’ Volvos wait to drop and go
The old guy at the corner leans and grins
For a reason that most will never know
The parents’ Volvos wait to drop and go
Kids with an emotional burden to carry
For a reason that most may never know
Walking past the man and never tarry
Kids with an emotional burden to carry
Not yet acute enough to raise concerns
Walking past the man and never tarry
The memory of that encounter burns
An Andaree Form (Unrhymed)
Swaying to the swishing of an ice-cold wind
Wooden fingers belonging stout limbs
While Telegraph wires wail
Fear impending storm,
Wilful oak
Guards
Though naked
In winter’s shackles,
Rides in natures carousel
Where the end begins the beginning
Swaying to the swishing of an ice-cold wind.
© Harry J Horsman 2021
Berkeley Beckoning Me
I grew up
In Berkeley, California
In the early 70s
A wild and crazy time
Berkeley shaped my soul
And my heart will always
Long for my home land
Berkeley was always
A wild and zany place
Filled with original characters
Drawn to the city by the bay
The hills overlooking the city
The campus filled with students
The downtown shopping area
The suburban housing
The street people
The vendors on Telegraph
The smell of marijuana
Hanging in the air
Long before it was legal
In some ways
Berkeley seems stuck
In a time wrap
A certain corner
Seems to be forever
Stuck in 1969
The city has changed
Over the years
Like most places
It has become harder
And harder for the working class
To afford to live there
The yuppies took over
Decades ago
But despite that the city
Continues to be home
To a diverse population
Little India emerged
Along with Berkeley’s Chinatown
The old black neighborhoods
Still manages to somehow
Thrive amid the gentrification
And so as my life winds down
My thoughts keep returning
To my ancestral home
The homeland
Where I wish to die
Eye rowed my hoarse
won summer’s day
My horse went hoarse
and wood knot nay
I whisted my turds to make him laugh
Butt Muffin choked and started coffin
I said Muffin you’re having a giraffe
A lass I kneed a coffin two carry him off in
Eye road my hoarse won summer’s day
My hoarse went horse and wood knot nay
Pleas can ewe tell me wear two berry a hoarse
Knot inn the knackers yard ore on a race coarse
My hoarse went horse won summer’s day
Butt now he’s dead watt can eye say
I’d whisted my turds to make him laugh
Eye will put hiss obituary inn the telegraph
Eye’ll miss old Muffin my trusty hoarse
Butt Muffin choked and now he’s dead
Aye wish my hoarse had staid the coarse
I’ll bye a donkey and ride hymn instead
Butt my donkey was in fact a mule
Aye didn’t no the difference I’m a fool
Now Muffin the mule’s ran out of fuel
Eye should have listened moor inn school!
Word Play Poems with Play-on-Words raison d'etre -- Poetry Contest
Sponsored by John Anderson
07/18/21
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