Hill by hill, a travail climbing.
Which new outlooks give birth to
Wider, brighter, a mountain valley's.
Deep sighing, as we breathe through.
On a grander appreciative scale
Those life-stepped that culminate
Heaven-reached, soul-released, eying
Earth; rained on compassionate.
Categories:
travail, mountains,
Form: Rhyme
In the dead of night,
I heard the cry of death;
A shrill cry it was,
But a faint cry,
As of a heart fainting of strength.
It oozed out in a steady stream
Of soul-rending shrill
As of unending wail and groan
From a house lately frequented by the grim reaper.
"Owailo", mother had muttered in education,
Was in travail!
Her own slice of cross she must bear,
Of the divine curse of travail appointed
To all eves.
Owailo travails unto death!
The divine malediction of travail
Becomes for Owailo,
The inevitable appointment with death
For her offspring she must never behold
Even as the offspring lives.
Oh hapless Owailo!
The ill-fated reptile of the shrubbery,
Who else has beheld your fate
To plead your cause before the Law Giver
Before whom mercy and grace abound?
Categories:
travail, africa, animal, baby, bereavement,
Form: Narrative
In the dead of night,
I heard the cry of agony;
A shrill cry it was,
But a faint cry,
As of a heart fainting of strength.
It oozed out in a steady stream
Of soul-rending shrill
As of unending wail and groan
From a house lately frequented by the grim reaper.
"Owailo", mother had muttered in education,
Was wallowing in travail!
Her own slice of cross
she must bear,
Of the divine curse
Of travail appointed
To all eves.
Owailo travails unto death!
The divine malediction of travail
Becomes for Owailo,
The inevitable appointment with death
For her offspring she must never behold
Even as the offspring lives.
Oh hapless Owailo!
The ill-fated reptile of the shrubbery,
Who else has beheld your fate
To plead your cause before the Law Giver
Before whom mercy and grace abound?
THOUGHT OUT BY
CHRIS EDACHE AGBITI, ESQ
Categories:
travail, allegory, analogy, animal, bereavement,
Form: Pastoral
TRAVAIL
place your bets then roll dice twice
test the tale of death and life
call forth a need for God
plains of trust not doubt
pray tell us please
as it is
fill my
needs…
where that
sad heart bleeds
like stale sick jokes
that form the march
to raise pure white flags
in time like dark dire rhyme
lift me out of my own ways
up to the light that plays my soul
© Kim van Breda—6 July 2015 (8-1-8 “INFINITIAN”— NEW FORMAT by Ian Guyler)
Categories:
travail, identity,
Form: Cowboy Poetry
The day presents a journey, waiting to begin,
a font of wisdom in a strange new land,
each personage a soul to take apart,
although one never knew those traveler delights;
the things to love,
the mystery to probe--
that vague excitement beating,
beating in a viscous river, not the heart,
but deeper rumbling, forcing through
and past denial, echos of a distant consciousness
suspended in time's ether.
It is as art in powdered fragment,
crushed between the feet of desperation
as a history is wiped away; as in Iraq,
concentric blips of insight
clamor still, though now in whisper...
that dissecting souls is hazardous,
transforming, alien.
One soul
that would not breathe again,
that would not echo,
offers up its own creation--
poverty that we might not have known.
What was that beating?
More than history is gone.
Was it a sigh retreating
when the blackness won?
~
Categories:
travail, art, history,
Form: Free verse