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Jason Horsler Poem
Who dares rouse Leviathan,
the Giant beneath the heaving deeps?
This world now teams with Ahabs
whose heaping anger never sleeps.
Each one wants to hook its jaw
and each to press its tongue;
to try its rich and fragrant oil
and see it bound and beached and dumb.
Poor soul captains on fragile ships
vainly sharpening the barbless spear.
The Whale scoffs beneath the waves,
rising to teach all wisdom through fear.
Soon the Brute will breach and blow
and send each Pequod down below.
Copyright © Jason Horsler | Year Posted 2023
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Jason Horsler Poem
In the final week they still swept their floors.
A gate was mended on the third last day -
the people in the village so stuck in their way,
that some, in leaving, even locked their doors
as if to keep back the dam tide -
frail wooden levees that will not hold.
They die hard: the habits of old,
and cannot be casually cast aside.
There is a nephilim here, in the leafy dark,
staking his plants and pulling out weeds,
though the distant coffer dam is broken.
As in the days of Noah and his ark,
the gardener labours in vain for vain needs,
ignoring the government prophecy spoken.
Copyright © Jason Horsler | Year Posted 2023
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Jason Horsler Poem
I judge a painting on a simple term,
one benchmark that covers them all -
considering everything else I ask:
‘would I have this up on my wall?’
I love to read other's poetry
and I hope that they love to read mine.
There's much to be gained and lost (only time)
and iron, it is writ, sharpens iron.
And yes, I can list the things I insist
make a poem a wonderful thing:
what does it say and without cliche;
does it rhyme when it's read, does it ring?
Does it resonate, this topic they chose?
Is their point belaboured or brief?
What image was used to start a thought?
What thread runs through the motif?
Criteria piles up and gets in the way -
are there artless gauges or signs?
Perhaps, in the end, did it make me say:
‘How I wish I had written these lines’?
Copyright © Jason Horsler | Year Posted 2024
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Jason Horsler Poem
In its place, not on a cart,
rutted and mixed with dung;
consistent too, in its purpose
as it was when the world was young.
No shame attached that from it came
fell man who disobeyed.
Man, who needed an ark and law;
who brought the curse and strayed.
The ox had stumbled in the mud;
the ox who pulled the cart,
which, though brand new and garlanded,
should not have played a part
in returning the holy object;
and as it slid to fall to the road,
Uzzah thought his hand more pure
and reached to steady the load.
Profane flesh touched pure gold
instead of wet chaste earth;
when a man thought too much of himself;
too much of his own worth.
He died right there with good intent,
and cheering turned to mourning
when mud was better than man
and God gave us His warning.
Copyright © Jason Horsler | Year Posted 2026
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Jason Horsler Poem
Only when we have felt, even once,
the clawed caress of strife,
do we value the soft warm hand
of peaceful days in our life.
Give me boredom and humdrum
over adventure and interesting times;
a quiet corner in a calm house
to write and edit my rhymes.
Oh, war has driven the pen stroke
and sorrow versed in the bomb strike,
but I’d rather read all about it
in a book and only imagine what it’s like,
than breathe the smoke of burning -
the death scent of a home.
I do not need to personally bleed
to scratch out a war-time poem.
Better to write of cows and apples,
than Flanders field and poppies;
to write of a Luve like a red, red rose,
than a requiem for the Croppies;
and though the poet much values his words
I’ll bet that each war-torn bard
would’ve chosen to write first hand in the soft
than ink pain in the trench of the hard.
Copyright © Jason Horsler | Year Posted 2026
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Jason Horsler Poem
High up I heard the adolescent honk
of their ragged V formation.
I tried to count them as they tore above,
but they rippled and none held neat station.
Was it panting I heard or the whirling of wings
to add whisper to their emphatic call?
One V became two and some ends were crushed
while the middle was rounded by sprawl.
But I must write this quickly
for how soon they pass.
What are they saying,
I wonder at last?
Perhaps all their cries -
to-ing and fro-ing -
are pure encouragement:
Keep going! Keep going!
Copyright © Jason Horsler | Year Posted 2026
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Jason Horsler Poem
‘When will I anchor here again?’
The sailor’s heart then cried.
He asked it of the wind and wave,
but ‘shh’, the sea replied.
The horizon called and still he stalled,
looking long from the landward side.
He wanted to shout his farewell out,
but ‘shh’, the sea replied.
The mist began to veil the hills
where he left his weeping bride.
Would she hear his wretched sad goodbye?
But ‘shh’, the sea replied.
The captain’s call and the bosun’s pipe
could not now be denied -
so he whispered prayer to return back there,
but ‘shh’, the sea replied.
And for all the moons and different stars
and a thousand change of tide,
he raged to be away from home,
but ‘shh’, the sea replied.
The storms blew and the cannons roared
and somehow our sailor died.
His bonnie over the ocean wept
and ‘shh’, the sea replied.
Copyright © Jason Horsler | Year Posted 2026
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Jason Horsler Poem
Soft spoken, the small grey dove,
far below the raptor’s eye,
flew low by a naked cliff-face
and thought it good to fly
and ride the rising winds,
forever looking down
at the world beneath her gentle wings,
unaware of falcon’s frown.
Then death came stooping down
at the pale bird far below -
the fastest thing alive -
prepared the killing blow.
For to cast into the wind
the feathers of his prey,
this fleshy missile on folded wings -
another death another day.
But the dove was much too canny
and swerved above a rock
at the very final moment,
falcon hit the earth in shock.
Instant death and gladly dealt
for between these birds, no love.
The falcon’s feathers blew that day
and the blow came from the dove.
Copyright © Jason Horsler | Year Posted 2026
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Jason Horsler Poem
See the tent in Egypt and the refugees -
the carpenter, his wife and his son -
gathered in a peaceful moment,
though hunted and on the run.
A joyful scene one evening:
held up by the man’s gentle hands,
the toddler took his first stand
on the soil of the slave-maker’s lands.
One small step for a human,
more profound than Armstrong’s deed.
A giant leap for all mankind
made to fulfil our greatest need.
For that boy just kept on walking
all the way to the cross and His doom.
So much greater that God stepped on earth
than ever man walked on the moon.
Copyright © Jason Horsler | Year Posted 2026
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Jason Horsler Poem
Two roads diverged as they often do
and at the fork a skeleton lay -
a traveller who stood and thought it through;
as around his feet the bindweed grew.
He stayed too long to choose a way
Seeing both paths equal - foul or fair -
I wonder how his thinking went
that had him starved and rooted there;
caught in vacillation’s snare
until his life was vainly spent.
We may say this fool deserved to die;
this ignoramus had no wit,
but for God’s grace stay you or I
who do not lack the Lord’s supply;
for decision has faith at the soul of it.
I shall be singing this by and by
somewhere many ages hence:
two roads diverged and it was not I
who made no choice except to die
and thus show God indifference.
Copyright © Jason Horsler | Year Posted 2026
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