R.I.P.
Should I even say this?
R.I.P
Do you really want me to spell it out?
Like the literal REST IN PEACE?!
Reaching for ink, this feels like a seal of accepting how real this is.
These imaginations of a field untilled, with scattered papers; blank with stories waiting to be told, yet the heart growing cold.
Death's but a pause, a break, a different kind of rest; the sleep we dread!
It's like a closed book, hidden from this noise called life, where every word within are but secrets its deep sleep keeps.
R.I.P
Return If Possible.
Don't let your thunder shiver out of cold, while these blank pages are eager for your rebirth.
R.I.P
Return If Possible
Though, it's dark, but your dark is kind of bright.
Let it breakforth.
R.I.P
Return If Possible.
Some vacuums are unworthy, unnecessary, un...
While I wait for this silence to end, and this quiet to lose its claim,
I will stand on this field, and where the river bends,
I will stand and wait till you're washed up again, to this side of life, where the ink makes everything beautiful.
But till then,
R.I.P
Return If Possible
NEW WAVE ASCENDS
Workers waul at leaders sold
who rush to airports cold
in hospitals wan women wallow
tattered children nothing to swallow
ideals trickling through untilled soil
will dreams and intentions expire
before patient arthritic grandmothers tire
softly rain filters Earth’s corners
nourishing hills, herbs and mourners
life follows death singing afresh
surely New Wave ascends roaring
freedom showers cool us alluring
in Golden Age Heart rules
teens dance while lovers drool
reach within, be no fool
In the Spring
memories blow like wind
through the corners of my soul
replacing the dark winter
which time has now beset
Playing its distant lute
change is thrust upon me
rebirthing what fall had rightly claimed
and buried in the past
Visions of dancing June bugs
they fervently surround me
mating my wonderment with joy
as summer waits untilled
The whirlwind dharma
that so haunts my dreams
left comatose and vacant
freeing me for what’s to come
—and what has always been
(Bryn Mawr College: March, 2023)
AUTHENTIC VOICES
sources of memory
in haunting musicality
celebrating sensuality
&pleasure
so remarkable
enchanting
engrossing
in an untilled terrain
such modest
proposals combine
to resource
&create insights
to bring interpretation
to the fore
to a
sensitive poet's soul
THIS IS AN OPEN(organic) FORM VERSE without grammatical symbols the ' open' relies upon 'the one breath limitation' & so inherently requires the 'reader' (reciter) to input and respond thus making the form a two way interplay and often a unique interpretation by the enigma so derived
There seems little hope when the tires won't hold air.
Did God forsake us somewhere,
along the long and dusty path?
you and I, got wires crossed in despair...
left to suffer this day alone,
in His wrath.
Oh lord..
I carry my hammer low, lower still..
my nails all crooked,
torn away from oaken boards.
The back forty waylaid,
in early dawn's frost.
Still remembering strength..
that faltered, when all hope
seemed lost.
Don't tread on me heard once in the wind's voice.
The plowshare's greying field,
left forgotten and untilled,
so little left of youth's free choice.
Garden of a Meager Harvest
By David J Walker
The rusted remains
of the old farm truck
Remain on the untilled patch
of prairie grass plains
as long as I
can remember
The old Farmall tractor
Planted on the southside of a
Long row to hoe
that I know
All too well
A windmill unused for years
Squeals and creeks in a wind
That still tries in vain to
Turn its blades
For a cool drink of water
Monuments held
captive inside a
barbed wire fence
as if to prevent an escape
The trusted truck stands ready
As if it’s rusted out bed could
Carry to market the fruit of
A summers labor
The remains of the old
Pick-up lost its windows
Long ago
Field mice have nested under
The bench seat and eat
Everything that isn’t rusted metal
How long before its tires
Finally expire
exhaling rust
Giving up the ghost
Of a dusty last breath
Of a garden's meager harvest
The ignorance servitude harnesses
The zero burdened grave race
That forbid shaving sovereign hairs
Packed close in considerable layers
Underneath national flagpoles
lay the maiden demands in barrels
like untilled tracts in grabbers souls
wants and the needs tore brothels
Behind pregnant men and women
underlies machine guns of must gain
That punched the citizenry in tatters
And the torn voices of the Anthem
so brilliant meritocratic idea present
that all nationals can sing in torment
under the radiant guardian rays pay
And really propelling the repellent sway
Listen: The Lyrical Lilt
that lilac
and lavender
lend to our language,
like leased luggage purposefully lost,
unrolls from lifted
tongue
to level the valley
and shallow
the depths of the gorge.
* * *
A full closet of linens,
I oftentimes find
the beach in symphony;
the hour arching shoreline a stable bow
whose melody is fizz of the ocean.
It is there, beneath a balcony of velvet celebrity,
the sand receives the water,
bends at the lunar altar,
and acknowledges a driftwood cloud.
* * *
There is a weed of sadness woven
through untilled soil
in this garden of thorns kept far from their rose,
where, still, I cannot help
but to tap my feet to the hum of this ancient rhythm,
anxious for movements left uncomposed,
my ear tightly pressed to a frail pink shell,
swelling in ghostly lullaby.
7/9/2019
Submitted for: Music Themed Poetry Anthology
Sponsored by: Geraldine Taylor
Hollow as a crooked pipe conducting waste to the corroded sewer
Vacant and obscure like a Freudian void on a cold lavatory seat
Hollow as a piper’s flute waiting for nimble charming fingers
Vacant like a comatose stare reflecting mindless nothingness
Shallow as a muddy puddle pummelled by boots from wet feet
Superficial like a scratch on a bubble conceding trivial defeat
Shallow as a trickling tributary succumbed to inarticulate drought
Superficial like a crowded scream never leaving mute fears
Fallow as unwanted seeds swirling around into darkness
Dormant like a sleepy reminder of night mares fighting for victory
Fallow as untilled soil longing for cultivated surrender
Dormant like a tired tramp homeless and halting suspense
Mellow as marsh mallows molten on deep cutting sticks
Bitter sweet like a camp fire sending smoke into nowhere
Mellow only in that as it rhymes with bellow and gallows
Sweet bitter and numb like waste in a lone piper’s dream
Orchards of Opportunity
Alone in the orchard of opportunities
surveying the ripened potential
I pondered the fruitful labor of others
enviously sniffing the succulence of success.
Knowing that their success was only mine
in theory, in dreams, in unlimited potential.
Before me lay the future’s untilled fields
awaiting a touch, a vision, an awakening.
Planting a thought, a theory, an inspiration,
tending it, winnowing the weeds of doubt,
nurturing a simple truth long dormant
in the arable corners of an open mind.
10/24/2016
submitted to – Opportunities – Poetry Contest
UNTILLED GROUND
untilled ground however rich
produces only prickly thorns
like the minds of simple men
never giving thought to their
steps
rash behaviour hasty choices
acting whims without restraint
going with the currents flow
that seems appealing at first
glance
tossed around on waves of
passing tides and ideologies
easily deceived they believe
in questionable doctrines
lies
we need to change thought patterns
God’s promises directing our steps
a fundamental change within
not just act the part we should
believe
discipleship begins within
not by a quick magic trick
requiring training to correct
our faulty thinking and be
aware
© Kim van Breda—15 December 2014
Gardens
A lovely Tomato, to brighten up my days.
A beautiful Sun Flower, to lighten my ways.
A Rose, of brilliant passions to delight my dreams.
A haunting – nightmare – pain filled thorns – streams
into consciousness on beams of light – acknowledgement
of all that grows in a stark, garden basement.
There is this Fertilizer, - food for growth – for this Garden,
this Gardener needs – the water of life dries up – harden
the soil, leaving it untilled, unseeded, to dust and barren.
This Life, Tomato, Sun Flower, Rose, nourish the dreams,
feeds this Gardeners, old soul’s desire for life beyond, seems
to be beneath this Flower’s, desire, - passions buried asunder.
This Garden’s, heart beats to the rhythms or crashing thunder
praying for lightening to ignite the Spirit, grow out from under.
B. J. “A” 2
April 3rd 2008
Since spring forgot to come and winter stayed,
My garden is untilled, seeding delayed.
A sodden March ran damply through each day.
I hope for April to remove the gray.
Each April is reserved for tulip tours.
The brilliant colors are delightful lures.
The tulips are attracting avid fans,
While other crops fill in as also rans.
Our valley is a beauty in the spring,
But spring is not here yet and that’s the thing.
We pray the sun comes out and is on time
For merchants to attract the tourist’s dime.
So now it’s up to April to perform
To give us days that are spring like and warm.
So tourists can find beauty and some fun
And I at last can get my yard work done.
Have you ever imagined the world we live without women?
It is like a lung without some oxygen, agonizing and inevitably dead,
A face never with a smile, boring and unfriendly.
A cup of tea without some grains of sugar, bitter and foul,
A pool without some water, dry and empty,
A good ride on a bad untilled road, rough and uninteresting,
The earth without some drops of rain, an inescapable famine,
But how come with the great number of women on planet earth?
We still live to cry as a reggae legend sang “no woman no cry”,
It is because they permit evil as much as they permit good,
Gullible and instrumental in the hand of the wicked ones,
Ugly and nice, beautiful and dangerous,
Cunning like serpents, deceitful like chameleon,
Holy but liars, having a form of godliness but highly ungodly,
Lovely like little puppies, sweet like bees honey,
Women, an invincible force in our our world today.
(c) 2010
Falling from forty clouds,
ticking clocks melting time.
Penguins that waddle backwards,
church bells that never chime.
Costume heros reading books,
birds parting their horizon sea.
Rabbit hole adventures haunted,
this evening spent sipping tea.
Ghosts passing into limestone,
children snickering in silence.
Belvedere on high with royalty,
that command games of violence.
Skyscrapers that penetrate heaven,
wings of angels messengering hope.
Widespread fields are left untilled,
criminals hanging from common rope.
Knives enchanted by prosperity,
fortresses unbroken in brutal war.
Bronze bodies remain countless,
adding mortar to Poseidon's shore.
Tunnels of thought approaches,
blood seeping through the cracks.
Flesh and bone now disappearing,
from the lifeless city made of wax.
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