In a nearby place I frequent,
a quiet country road -
paddy fields stretching either side.
the road broken and pitted with potholes.
I rode there time and again,
often drove that road,
enjoying the peace and the countryside’s scene..
Jungle mynas often walked
striding along the roadside
while a cha - bora restaurant stood nearby,
run by a lone woman.
There, my wife and I would sit together,
relaxing over cups of tea and eating bora
watching the quiet countryside pass by.
But as time went on
private schools and houses began to rise
upon the paddy fields,
violating the laws -
but no one came.
Instead more and more buildings
continued to spring up –
motor workshops,shops,petrol pumps, restaurants-
along the edges of the paddy fields
by the roadside
The paddy fields began to vanish;
the wandering mynas were nowhere to be seen.
So, the little cha bora restaurant-
The countryside’s agrarian character
and its peaceful rhythm have vanished.
During National Poetry Month each year,
grand festivals are held throughout this land.
Excitement increases when time is near.
Variety is key. No event will be bland.
heartfelt
greeting
starts the
meeting
time is
fleeting
MC’s
leading
schedule
heeding
poets
sharing
deep thoughts
baring
scrumptious
dinners
contest
winners
speakers
first-rate
wise words
they state
short breaks
workshops
soon the
fun stops
all’s done
fest ends
homeward
each wends
April
next year
poets’
good cheer
will be
spreading
we’ll be
heading
to a
grand fête
that’s a
long wait!
In Germany's dusk, the fourteenth century fell
Disorder in the shadows, and village anger will swell
Where towns blossomed once, now chaos reigned
All rights tangled, privileges weren’t gained
Classes divided, old alliances torn
Princes and estates where conflict was born
Fields and workshops, commerce and trade
All swept up in strife that no one could evade
Country folk suffered, their fortunes declined
Feuds and famine ominously combined
Villages vanished only names remain
Echoes of lives lost to hunger and pain
Unrest and lawlessness, violence and fear
Only the strong could persevere
No ruler to unify, no guiding hand
Germany's turmoil swept across the land
So peaked the chaos the harbingers said
The way of order whimpered and fled
They would not do the same in The Western Land
They learned from how Germany had mistakenly band
“O’!, work, work, work away,—ignore your thirst
and shovel steadily—keep nourrishing the coals
of locomotive life!(the cost is but your souls);
All other occupations?—to hell dispersed!
“Amen! your bosses, with cash (to be disbursed),
busy their hands with myriad controls
made to mold you for your determined roles;
Yes… yes!, because the silence would be worst!
“Aye! Men! your calling is made manifest!
my stores, my mines, my workshops, factories
come crawling, groveling on their sore knees
to beg: ‘Please! healthy muscle![sic]—invest!’
What else would you do with your God given time
if not that I could earn you my damn dime?”
Homage To The Leaf
Miracle Man
10/28/2024
From buds they sprout in early spring,
providing the tree with its summer wear.
They shade the songbirds as they sing,
and provide an escape from summers glare.
Powered by sunlight photosynthesis occurs,
they’re living food workshops for the tree.
Each coming spring this phenomenon recurs,
they provide a shade for drinking iced tea.
From naked branches leaves sprout and cling,
Little attention is given until colors turn.
For only once each year they do their thing,
Each autumn, I rake, I bag, mulch or burn,
“Poems are made by fools like me,
but only God can make a tree”
Joyce Kilmer
I am a beer taster it's an odd job
Beers are like nuts, they're tasty, nuts do soothe the hops
I drink a lot of beers , I drink them with cheer
My skills i learned with glee at many workshops.
I smell them note thier quality I love beer.
I taste the feel . These shops do have the chops
An oatmeal stout and, ales of cream are the top
A Lambic ale is fruity Drink them with peers
An oatmeal stout,dark, tastes of cocoa I state,
An oatmeal stout does taste like coffee, it's great .
You like cream that's whipped ?Cream ale a dream.
I do love brown fruity tasting wheat ale .
This ale is light it tastes like whip cream
A ale of fruity wheat on tap will never fail.
And many tastes this brownish ale's theme
I check out findings raptly for each beer,
I taste the ales and beers ,my job my career
The Retreat: Part 9
Coming Down The Hill
We were warned
That the high upon high
May not hold or be well-received
By the mere mortals below
Yet Cliff's Band of Merrymen
And bonus babes
March forth from Santa's workshops
To conquer, resettle
The islands of misfits
The planets of normies
Like vets returning from battle
The wars at home continue
Some nuclear
But mostly whack-a-mole
Requiring each sentinel
To cover each shift and flank
With desperate precision
Because PTSD
Pleading Towards Sobriety Daily
Isn't as glamorous as it sounds.
(3/26/17)
OLD BELFAST
No hooters belch and screech in the mornings anymore
Industry has disappeared from the City’s working core
The Factories have all closed their gates a long, long time ago
Now silent shadows fill the space where workers used to go
Steam cranes bow across the lough, an entry on a page
Decayed tired buildings line the Docks, relics of an age
Rows of broken windows where he silence trickles out
As nature now takes over where grass and nettles sprout
The workshops have been stripped and only carcasses remain
Moss grows on the floor where the roof lets in the rain
Miles of red brick walls which somehow now look grey
Blackened muddy puddles where singed old timbers lay
Grand imposing structures, much too big for modern use
Now crumpling and eroded from dereliction and abuse
Spectres from a Victorian age now roam these soulless lanes
You can hear their whistles on the wind. Their presence still remains
That Salad Went Right Through Me
I've always wanted to write a poem called
“That Salad Went Right Through Me”.
And I would wager upon its best destiny:
To begin with, there is the Universal Theme--
For who has not gurgled around a conference table
at half past the last radish scrap?
Who, once stalled, has not
persistently punched the flusher
to muffle the borborygmus din?
But on a loftier note, I prefer
to think of my paean emblazoned
in the annals of first line indexes,
where, as one wanders lonely as a cloud
over dactyls and tropes,
“That salad went right through me”
trots right off the page
demanding a fervid flip to its leaf.
And future discourse plied at workshops,
and other such rarefied privies of poesy
might thusly include:
"Did you write a poem for the class today?"
Yes...“That Salad Went Right Through Me”
"Well then, you should consider the cheesecake."
Art galleries are to me ...
a) like coming home as it always feels right
b) it is a place to let go of all tension
c) it inspires my mind in so many positive ways
d) and makes my mind wander to beautiful places
e) all of the above
Art galleries bring out my creativity ...
a) by viewing art I am left in awe
b) they provide me with a window into the past
c) I analyse the skill, brushstrokes and colors used by the artists
d) and I contemplate the scenes, mood and even the frames
e) all of the above
Art galleries give me great knowledge ...
a) I learn about artist from the past and the new artists of now
b) I develop by taking tours and learning the histories of the art
c) and I take advantage of special exhibits and workshops offered
d) and the daily lectures are very informative
e) all of the above
____________________
February 09, 2023
Poetry/List/The Art Gallery Test
Copyright Protected, ID 02-1524-255-09
All Rights Reserved, 2023, Constance La Franc
Written for the Standard contest, Multiple Choice
sponsor, Suzanne Delaney, Judged 03/07/2023
Second Place
I’m the Seller of Rainbows
Purveyor of such Delights
Adding joy and pleasure to
So many Rituals and Rites.
Sliding through the portals
In connected webs of space
Physically always staying
In the very same place.
Just changing perceptions
Of the merged multiverse
Carrying skeins of Rainbows
In states many and diverse.
Never truly certain which
Would be the preferred form
In this current version
Of any perceived norm.
Aurals and Orals, Tangibles,
And the latest sensory flows
All to be added to traditional
Seven coloured visual shows
Keeping all the Workshops
Working at a breakneck speed
To fulfil the mass of orders that
Help to meet the constant need
For the Rainbows of Nirvana
That bring delight and pleasure
To the many forms of beings
To their many forms of leisure.
The Workshops of Nirvana
In such a convenient place
At the Centre of the Universe,
Confluence of Time and Space.
He records the works of his life, the ephemera
he once scrawled onto the tissue thin,
thinking them indelible blueprints.
Most were fables told to a dying legend,
Pastimes, that were chariot wheels
for his little red wagon.
He is an inventor of sorts, an engineer
of impossibilities.
He accumulates metallurgical oddments
for mechanical artifacts
that have no purpose or point;
contrivances with strange gears.
attachments that bolt on to
only missing parts.
They are pieces of an assemblage
made to represent an unknowable idea.
He structures these devises
on the leeched rims of endless visions.
His minds darkened workshops
flicker with the light of kerosene lamps.
He needs shadows and the gleam of
yet undreamed dreams,
he needs gaslight eyes
while shaping the formless.
Nuts, bolts, levers, and steam driven
small brass sprockets
for the calibration of improbable elements
are his articles of faith.
A life he once constructed
falls apart little by little.
He now searches for stronger,
less breakable mechanisms
to put together, no matter that they
serve no purpose, other than
to girder and frame
featherweight straws in the wind.
I was pulled out of the school; doomed into hard labor,
To my home, at budding age, I became a life-saver...!
When kids of my age, with stylish satchels, proceed to school,
I, in cracker-workshops noxious, chemicals heat and cool...!
With my tender hands, I shape cute beautiful fire-works,
When I see, you crack them, my wish to do so, within sparks...!
The fumes and toxins I breath, I know, are deadly harmful,
I cannot just shun them, as life toward me is scornful...!
I am squeezed in often, into damp, cramped throttling spaces,
Where, doctors say, children catch incurable diseases...!
My fingers and hands get blisters; they often itch and bleed,
I cry loud within often, who could, my soundless noise, heed...?
When I, owing extreme aches, from mounting duties relax,
Manhandling me, my master, like a galled gory goose, quacks...!
Rules and laws, they say, made for our benefits, are, many,
They remain in books, and for us, never earn a penny...!
I have just one request, to you, dear friend, who's of my age,
When you meet one shabby like me, do not flare-up in rage...!
18 March 2022
I
Now nearing that age of no hair, & more
No hair on head, more hair in ears & nose
I do a daily discipline of Matthew 6: 9-13
Then a Psalm, before a recorded sermon
In my youth, girls not God, got attention
II
When I greet kids on way to school
and adults off to do or find work
I say, "n gesieente dag, hallelujah" -
In Afrikaans, Dutch-turned African,
Widely used in The Cape, more here
In Newtown, mixed-race township
Each day is like Sunday: hello-hallelujah
Plus when I do prayer workshops when
requested - we pray post- breakfast
Till lunch break, at least till noon ...
But daily, the kids say. "Dankie Jesus, amen,"
As I grant tiny requests for a morsel of victual
III
Jesus alerted us: look to prayer quality
In the praying heart, not quaint quantity
She broke the graffiti exclusive’s boys club in 1979
Painting subway trains in New York City
She would have been fifteen at that time
A cult figure in a hip hop culture
She had her first solo show at twenty-one
Through artistic self-expression, a rebellion of one
Her parents called her Sandra, she was born in Equator
But she was the talk of New York
“Lady Pink” as she is referred to in graffiti circles
is today at the age of fifty-seven
Established in the world of fine art
She holds mural workshops
But at night, I bet she is still painting subway trains.
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