Memory like thirst
Every urge a first
How I remember thinking
wet sin
Red silk pink ribbon
You manage a word
Yes .
Embraced first kiss
Outlandish desire
Pulling harder
Whimpers first
Kiss turns worst
Now there
Sweet
Drips pouring down sheets
I came to watch
As ideas from thoughts
Turn hands low
Shh.. I know
Trickle, river fickle.
Step lively by the side.
Fate, thy strictures tickle!
Hell, Heaven, woe betide!
Wind atop the high cliff wall?
Funeral, thy pall.
Cherry blossoms, heft to haul.
End Times, give a call...
Thunderbolt, hover above.
Levee, fail to hold.
Fit, misfortune! O my glove!
Coals within, glow gold...
Will of human beings?
It must not have the clout.
Everybody, pack thy things!
Doubt, begin thy bout!
Ruin, cover all our world.
Dim hope, flee from here.
Dark fire, lava, how you hurled!
Grind them, O my gear...
Ravine out back, what to pack?
Stuff it in a crack!
Failure, will you? Fade to black?
Turn about and tack!
Sullen honeysuckle?
How better to make wine?
Bridge, beneath their feet buckle!
Doom, undying dine...
whirl …
where waters mingle -
the inky black that pulls down
swallows … enfolds …
the ballet breaks -
sun’s golden coins a-dancing,
birthing pixies to the brine
to draw the gaze with dazzled magic …
the glassy smooth that
dopplegangs a billowy azure and a
quivery, star-daubed vault …
the ruffled swells -
turning masts to pendulum poets,
ticking time as the hulls roll …
and rock … and roll …
and the foaming rage -
surf that breaks reefs to ruin
and howls at Calypso,
the salty sirens screaming at
her for just a taste of
jagged justice …
the seas roar and ebb and
sunder suns to ache
the rills run to the low to find them
and feed the confluences
water weaves and wells and works to
be the All of life -
the precious matter, miraculous
the shaper and sater and savior of
everything that actuates
yet …
the oceans, and washes, wild
and weeping heavens
in all their splendor and abundance
can not hope to accommodate
the love, sorrow, spirit, or
significance
of one single, solitary
child’s …
tear.
Copyright © Gregory Richard Barden, July 27, 2024
Blurred bushes rush by
Brain bends
Time out far across the fens
A solitary heron flaps
The pterodactyl lazy loads
A flyover of long strokes
Of reed brushes
Eels writhe
A dog trotting
Leaps across the dyke
A wand of estuary birds
Cast up from the land
Coloured sand vast across the morning sky
The power when it comes
Succumb
The trickle of Wicken Fen.
When we hear it fall so softly to our feet,
do we not feel a softness in our brain?
A tiny yellow trickle like butterfly's tears.
Softly, softly, we walk in the sand.
We hear it fall from our hands, as a tiny cascade,
feel its gentle caress, a gesture of fondness,
a touch of tenderness, like the softest of music,
as we see it gently released to our feet.
It is a journey from our hand to our toe.
We feel its music as a soothing ointment,
an answer to our suffering - so it cries.
Is this a trick, or indeed a trickle?
(14 Dec 2022)
The car radio drizzles out some slow music.
The reception's not great around here,
too many high rise and deep lows.
Luckily I know this tune
so I fill in some dead air.
Back home
I found the song on YouTube.
Turns out I got the lyrics wrong
and the band's name.
Words tend to drop down
a list of forgotten things
that's getting longer every day.
To compensate
I whistle a deaf tune
only my humming brain
can hear.
The sound of a cow peeing
is the wettest sound, let go
like a bucket slush on a barn slab
or so my grandfather used to
say. When my son comes home
I hear his fire hose upstairs
and remember how it was to
decompress so quickly. Grandad
once came out of the men’s
room shaking his head, and when
I asked why, he said that the room
was full of old men, half of which
couldn’t get started, and the other half
couldn’t stop. It’s my date with the moon
tonight--out the window of the master loo
at 3am. Perfect view, the creek trickling on.
The current comes streaming down
The road as I tread the steep.
In the past I used to frown
Upon this carver of ravines deep.
Today it's a trickling stream
But it's how ravines are born
To quell which takes many a team
Or to the sea chunks of earth are borne!
Water needs to run downhill;
And it does so beautifully.
Surely, no one can show ill will
To things that work so adorably!
Ours being a mount'nous land,
We must just counsel ourselves
And adopt a softer stand
With the ways in which nature behaves!
Am I charmed by this torrent
That is coursing down the road
And saying it's innocent
While it gnaws away at our abode?
Trickle to torrent, feel deep thrill
Magnetic heat surprise
Voids within, with joy overspill
Rapture curve on the rise
Heart acceptant joyful
Unfoldments wonderful
God bestowed miracle
Vibrant bliss current
Trickle to torrent
23-September-2021
Quietus
I can feel the tear trickle down my cheek
and hang from my jaw line
but somehow
wiping it
seems like such
a waste of time
Nope, benefits for the wealthy does not
trickle down to middle-class
and the poor, that's nonsense.
Enriching captains of industry? Please.
What about the little guys?
They deserve a leg up!
Date written: 01/24/2021
The old man gave the boy
half of his sandwich.
The boy gave the cur dog
half of his half.
John G. Lawless
1/6/2021
Should i have told him
What would he say
When do i not notice him
there is not a day
can you see my hope
trickle away
Trickle of Hammer and Cycle
Down theory there has been a trickle,
And are afraid of hammer and sickle;
Trump frown,
World renown,
And again as usual we are in a pickle.
Jim Horn
salt droplet runs
between heaving chest
lovers now at rest
Related Poems