View Full Version : Some of my poetry
Regrets To Inform
She dreads the unhappy rap,
spades on coffin lids,
denies the ashen envelope,
military stamp,
sleepless eyes
are misted damp,
and lowered,
with the heavy sigh
of shuddered loss,
that floods full this
pool of grief,
fuller to brimming eyes,
his fading light
within her dies.
The fading light of sons,
sons setting
on mortal plains,
fallen with leaden
shock of pain,
pain of bullets,
wet thud of bullets
rending flesh,
groaning, sealing
his final breath,
gazed forlorn on
that face of death,
treading too soon
those silent halls,
for him the bugler's
last post calls.
March 2014
Musings On A Park Bench
All the lonely people,
buffeted on aimless winds,
like discarded love letters.
They wander the hollow
ache of empty parks,
strangers with autumn eyes.
The hum of smart phones,
vibrate only for themselves,
while I kill time,
between the high
street's faceless crowds,
and a silent house.
February 2014
The Seedling
Time to wake my little one,
from seed case split your miracle begun
to stir the thaw in winter's chill,
verdant thrust on window sill
to shame a diamond's lifeless stone,
this living jewel is all your own
to hurry the sun into his sky,
and trap the morning in your dewdrop eye.
February 2014
Stories for Boys
Along forgotten paths let's escape again,
now the fleeting years have left us men,
over the hills to our own secret wood,
or so we believed when we had stood,
beneath her boughs and leafy shade,
about her trunk, tree camps we had made,
built of pride and hopes a lifetime wide,
scrambling ladders of rope to see inside,
where we are boys all over again,
before fleeting years had left us men.
June 2013
The Fell Walker (for Nick)
The fells remain, for us to roam again,
up there, up up where the raven flies,
where wisdom in his black eye shines,
when we would gaze from mountain top,
and witness all our unlived days,
reflected true in mirrored lakes.
For time, he does not stop,
but wanders the winding valley road,
with weary feet,
to the inn and firesides of beer and cheer,
where all the walker's ways will meet.
April 2013
Wonderful fishman xAww thanks Carnation.
You are very talented, fishman. Do you find writing poetry therapeutic in times of high anxiety?
Now I think you should consider composing an ode to Rafa?:)
You are very talented, fishman. Do you find writing poetry therapeutic in times of high anxiety?
Now I think you should consider composing an ode to Rafa?:)Shucks Pulisa, you're very kind. Tbh I haven't written any for quite a while, I kind of thought I'd taken it as far as I could. Though I did self-publish a book in 2016, it sold about 7 copies!! Self publishing is very easy, but you have to do your own marketing which is the make or break part. By the time the website (FeedaRead) and the printers have taken their cuts, it doesn't leave much.
Writing can be therapeutic but whilst anxiety is active it can be a hindrance to creativity. You need to get 'in the zone' as they say. As to a poem for Mr Benitez, offensive language gets edited out on here?
Agoraphobia
I stole this one day,
loosened your bonds,
and paraded them
upon the hilltop of freedom.
A day to fill my
lungs with the sky,
inhale bird's wing breezes,
feel the earth turn.
A day lit with the
hope of spring,
while you sulked
in the valley below,
gnashing upon my chains.
March 2017
Dread
The dead beat of leaden feet,
tread the dread way.
The aisles where strangers meet,
lead the path,
to the checkout's trap
and my dismay.
Rising bile chokes panic's first bite,
to utter the speech expected,
that ceremony agonising,
when I can only think of flight.
October 2016
The Stream of Time
I am driving by,
in this moment,
this heartbeat.
Drifting past houses,
haunted with
sepia flickered clips,
some resolute,
defying fate's tide,
others a distant forgetting,
devoured by years.
This day's reminiscing,
is for the memories of friends,
that like spiralling leaves,
fell into the stream of time,
carried to unreachable shores,
to other worlds.
May 2016
Of Aging
The new intrudes
upon my reverie,
the familiar crowded out,
in a wilderness of strange.
Known faces fade
through blurred lifetimes,
and worn out used to be's,
the once treasured
sleeps beneath dust.
While memories gather
in the dead ends of solitude,
where the careless
youth lingers still,
frittering those long
summers now ripe for regret.
And all the youless days,
that stretch to bleak horizons,
are marked by faceless clocks,
ticking away each breath.
April 2015
Swan Lake
She is splendour,
gliding galleon-like,
the curve of whiteness,
smooth on silver waters,
where the sun hides
his face in shame,
and the willows arch
their necks in wonder.
The creator knew no restraint,
when he fashioned her,
from the stars that
explode in her wake;
and tossing her head,
in elegant grace,
half turns, and beholds a
hint of beauty's mirrored face.
July 2012
Thank you for sharing these.
Thank you for sharing these.You're very welcome Catkins.
Loss
Restless swallows
skimmed ruffled lakes,
riding the last breaths
of summer beneath
their dipping wings.
A summer that
breathed as you,
you who were emerald
trees turned gold,
gold to red to black,
the black of mourning,
and this terrible winter's chill.
August 2016
Gartree
I gobble you up,
bad apples feed
these entrails.
You are all
broken toys,
flotsam on society's
gushing wounds.
Your misery,
crammed into my blocks
of time-watching banality.
Locked up hearts
beat away the days,
your hope strung up,
on my razor wire's iron teeth.
Lights out,
the lights of your
ended lives,
constricted in the noose
of my towering walls,
walls that stretch
to the heavens,
and way down to hell,
to the unwashed floor
of your shrinking cell.
September 2016
National Lottery
The dull ache of Monday,
drifts to Friday's hope,
on to Saturday's salvation,
and the six numbered sanctuary,
the numbers to keep
his neck from the rope.
No more high rise concrete boxes,
or sink estate misery,
nor the loan shark knocking
before he's out of bed,
his ticket the route
away from this dread.
Away from the existence
of futureless hell,
from the druggies that
crowd a graffitied stairwell,
the TV is on, the wheel spins,
he begs this time, this time he wins.
July 2016
Road Kill
You were someone's
light in the morning.
Someone's warm nuzzle,
fallen beneath the
clank of speeding iron.
Your dying,
the squeal of hot rubber.
Bearing down
to crush a love,
a love purring in the
laps of the bereft.
In now cold firesides,
and saucers of milk,
untouched.
October 2015
Letters of Love
Abed by night,
the stark ceiling my page,
I write letters of love
with these eyes.
Eyes that search
for remnants of you,
for your face that flits,
as shadows in
dreams of longing.
And still, still
that turn of your head,
those silken tresses,
about pale shoulders falling,
like tears, through all the years between us.
October 2015
In a Daughter's Gaze
Mementos of me
may you keep,
gathering years
in back pockets,
or held hidden
within lockets.
And I would never say,
do not weep,
if I came to you
in troubled sleep.
But let me live on,
in a daughter's gaze,
in her smile,
her being,
her gentle ways.
May 2015
A Childhood Haunting
That house crouches still,
even today, daring us,
cemented in long ago memory.
White washed pale,
and black staring eyes.
A mouth gaping,
with the glow of
a hag's lantern.
It's repute was whispered
in schoolboy gossip,
glowering from below
that wooded hill.
A house on the
edge of our world,
perched upon the
rim of our childhoods.
We pointed,
amid dropped
penny chews.
Scarpering,
bicycles frantic for
the safe way home.
May 2015
Flight of the Kingfisher
Bullet blue on
whirring wings,
scores a river's
wrinkled face
of diamond rings.
That flash and gleam
in a languid breeze,
below the arms
of dozing willow trees.
The minnows in
their teeming hoards,
corralled by perch
that lunge and tease.
Like a banded swarm
of aquatic bees,
in a scaled and
feathered brotherhood,
beneath the kingfisher's
grateful ease.
But harpoon blue
in plunging pleasure,
breaks the truce in
search of treasure,
scattering perch
and minnow in
equal measure.
He shatters the
water's crystal glass,
in a furious explosion
of liquid shards.
And emerging in a
myriad burst of stars,
tosses a minnow
with a flip and juggle,
in nature's brutal,
eternal struggle.
August 2012
Brilliant fishman.
I particularly like Letters of Love and in a Daughter's Gaze. Very touching and moving.
Brilliant fishman.
I particularly like Letters of Love and in a Daughter's Gaze. Very touching and moving.Bless you Carnation :hugs: You're very kind.
Fishman…you do not disappoint:yesyes: So glad we discovered this talent during our trip to middle earth last night.
Road Kill bought tears to my eyes.
Many thanks for your kind words Darksky. I’m sorry Roadkill upset you, sadly it’s an all too familiar scenario.
Not upset…a good poem is supposed to bring out emotions in its readers. They are meant to feel the anger, pain, sorrow or whatever the subject matter may be. As you say with Roadkill, it’s familiar to me having been through it so the emotion was easily bought up.
Optimism
Optimism, he strides
with the youth now.
through the sunlit
meadows of morning.
While I cling to
the rockface of age.
his grey skin cracked
with a thousand cares.
and his stone bone-cold,
whispering of death.
August 2022
Dying Star
Our star once
had burned so bright,
fed by bursting comets,
it's heart aflame,
it's soul alight.
Yet treacherous time,
he came on colluding feet,
smirking his lust for you,
leeching us to
flickered remnants,
to black holes,
to eternal night.
January 2019
For Eternity Burned
She exists,
in the pause
between my thoughts,
haunts the dark
labyrinths of my dreams,
paces the unforgiving void,
flirts in the mirror at my back.
Hers are the words
I do not say,
frozen on my lips,
hers the touch
my skin still yearns,
traced in arcs of love.
In the absence of her,
too much now for
one heart to bear,
a heart now of stone,
where I would drown in her eyes,
my soul for eternity burned.
October 2016
The Sculptor
I am made of clay,
moulded,
pulled to fit
her schemes,
the clay become flesh,
the flesh become
mind and soul.
The will pliable,
shaped to her desire,
her wish, her command.
Queen manipulator,
of teased out emotion,
of the guilt-tripped whim.
And now the tears,
tears to get her way,
tears to wet this
unwilling clay,
to melt the last
bastion of resistance.
October 2015
Red Kite
She rides the high winds,
no strings for she,
untethered heart,
a heart that beats with
the wings of the free.
She glides the gust
without anchored thread,
caresses the clouds
above my head,
captures the cosmos
in her unblinking eye,
I plod the earth,
she owns the sky.
February 2016
Goldfinches
Rosy cheeked fellows,
wing sash of gold,
stout little hearts put
to flight January's cold.
At your twittered joy the
canary hangs his head,
my garden's sleeping seed heads
have returned from the dead,
roused of winter's slumber,
with the shock of your glee,
when you dance upon my vista,
a blessed company,
a moment I would frame,
for all eternity.
January 2015
More thoughtful stuff Fishman…particularly like Red Kite
More thoughtful stuff Fishman…particularly like Red KiteA very belated thank you Darksky.
Bindweed
Your vines
about my throat,
as you scrambled through
my soul, like bindweed.
Your pure white
trumpet flowers,
that promised
sweet nectar,
were deception for
this trusting fool.
My breath you
took away,
cloying tendrils
throttled these lungs.
And pierced this heart.
September 2022
I like Goldfinches :yesyes:
Oooh I like this new one :yesyes:
I feel your poetry is not about the actual subject directly. It’s a representation of inner meaning.
I like Goldfinches :yesyes:That pleases me Carnation :) There's something about a flock of goldfinches that raises the spirits. No wonder its a 'charm' of them in a flock.
Oooh I like this new one :yesyes:
I feel your poetry is not about the actual subject directly. It’s a representation of inner meaning.You're right Darksky. The bindweed is a metaphor. It could be a representation of a person or experience. I'm trying to get back into my poetry, 'Optimism' and 'Bindweed' are the first in a long time. And thank you.
On Gibbet Hill
Stroll up yon track
to gibbet hill,
on winter nights
of moonlit still,
through all the long
remembering trees,
recalling highwaymen
brought to their knees..
Up there the hangman
once had stood,
where now crowds close
the watching wood,
when the writhing guilty
stretched taut the noose,
and unleashed those
wicked spirits wayward loose.
Grasping at fools
unwary there,
hands of skeleton twigs
running through their hair,
lurk the restless
dead of gibbet hill,
on winter nights
of moonlit still.
December 2014
A Love Hushed
I will remember you always,
though you never knew,
nor held my gaze,
flirting as you believed,
in your harmless ways.
To your heart my
love had rushed,
a love that must
stay silent, hushed.
A love that broke down,
in the 'cannot' between us,
for away to he,
lucky he you must.
December 2014
I believe I’ve only just seen these two….I’m going to make a big statement. These are your best so far. Not downing on your others but these two are a new level. December 14 must have been a productive time.
Gibbet Hill..really creepy, ghostly stuff…just up my street, as you may guess.
And how sad is A love hushed…unrequited love, hidden away not allowed or just unable to bloom.
My favourite poem btw is The Listeners by Walter De La Mare. I read it first at school and it has stuck with me. I expect you know it. Creepy stuff about ghostly inhabitants of a house…just listening to a visitor.
Thank you Darksky, that is high praise indeed. December 2014 wasn't a good time. 'A Love Hushed' is autobiographical, poetry comes more easily when it is lived.
I had never read 'The Listeners'. Not sure how that escaped me as Walter De La Mare was a fine poet. Not to mention his ghost stories.
Read it…I revisited it the other day…it’s an excellent poem.
Read it…I revisited it the other day…it’s an excellent poem.I did read it. Very chilling. You had that urge to tell the chap to get back on his horse. And ride off pretty quickly.
Virus
Drill to the head,
anvils and hammers
hung over my bed,
fire and ice in
shivers spread,
hellish red,
luminous glowing
with light of the dead.
White hot steel
the hammers beat,
blasted furnace,
racking cough
breathes the heat.
Burning flesh,
sweat slick skin,
flames lick
walls closing in,
volcanic rising,
fevered yammering.
the hammers,
hammers hammering.
March 2014
A Country Summer
The village green afternoon teas,
children romping and grazing knees,
pub regulars at restful ease,
ploughman's lunch of chutney and cheese,
sparrows chirping below the eaves,
sweet-scented honeysuckle breeze,
harmonious humming honeybees,
blazing sun golden barley seas,
cool beer beneath the chestnut trees,
dappled rays through lush verdant leaves,
a country summer all of these.
July 2012
The Wailing Gull
Do you mourn them,
those that lay at rest,
far far below the
wave's horsetail crest.
Do you wail your
lament, grieving gull,
for bones that stare
with limpet skull,
eternal laid in
rusted hull.
Do you wail, wail
for the lost at sea,
how broken for them
can your salt heart be.
December 2013
If I hadn’t seen the date I would have though Virus was about your dalliance with covid:winks:
The fact that A Loved Hushed was autobiographical makes it all the sadder I think.
You say that you have to live poems to write well but I disagree. The wailing Gull and On Gibbet Hill are two of your best. Of course their subject is totally what I’m into. But these have come from nowhere, no life experiences to draw on. At least I hope not. :ohmy:
I wish my command of English was better, I itch to write.
Sorry Darksky, I got distracted watching two episodes of 'The Crown'.
Well yes that's true about not necessarily having to live something to write about it. Though having experienced the subject matter can give it an extra edge, in the sense that those feelings are totally genuine. I can only imagine what a gull might think about deceased sailors?
A Love Hushed was a good few years ago now, though unrequited love does leave scars. As the majority of us can testify.
I love ‘Country Summer’ fishman :yesyes:
I love ‘Country Summer’ fishman :yesyes:A very belated thank you Carnation.
Dysfunctional
Stubborn heads butting,
outrageous opinion, rubbed raw.
Pick picking the sore,
festered argument rising,
cutting through
your hot air,
rancid thought
made breath.
You accuse,
foul mouthed lips
articulate the insult,
that explodes,
in a thousand
expletive shards.
January 2023
Domestic Colosseum
All roads lead to
the living room's arena,
this domestic colosseum.
Accusations loaded,
spat through gritted teeth,
punch a towering hole
in walls of silence.
As the locked horns,
thrusting obstinance,
skull ever grinding skull,
to iron rigid stalemates.
April 2023
I wish I didn’t understand this.
But I do. Every word.
Sending the usual.
Oh dear, is that really your suffering fishman :hugs:
Thank you both for your very kind words :hugs:
The Fledgling and the Magpie
I bore witness to your maiden flight,
I and your mother,
hers a frantic despair,
saw in silent horror
your hopeless fight.
A dandy assassin,
suited in black and white,
cackling,
straddling your
trembling form.
Where pity died with you,
hack hack hacked
with pick-axe bill,
bright eyes dulled
to opaque,
your bold spirit defeated,
little wings still.
May 2019
Futile
I would have followed you,
to the end of time.
True and summer kissed,
not this hollow mime.
Your lies engraved upon my brow,
where chill winter winds caress us now.
Too numb to cry, you and I,
crumpled and spiralling,
to the sad tide of fate,
all your sorrys come too late.
January 2019
Martin
Could you have known,
such vibrations you set rolling,
when you walked your
own mind's perilous bridge,
creaking ropes above
your tempest ocean.
Your ego's earthquake,
to keep all those whom you knew,
forever these nights awake,
their joy not yours to take.
Hosepipes and car exhausts,
all your reasons unanswered,
you should be going grey like me,
yet you chose everlasting youth,
stolen from the hearts
of those who loved you.
January 2018
I wish I hadn’t dragged that Magpie from your memory Fishman. I really do dislike them. Now my animosity towards them has reached new levels.
As for the other two… I have a lump in my throat. :weep:
I wish I hadn’t dragged that Magpie from your memory Fishman. I really do dislike them. Now my animosity towards them has reached new levels.
As for the other two… I have a lump in my throat. :weep:Sorry Darksky :hugs: Poetic licence and all that. I'll write another one about a Goshawk slamming into it from behind :yesyes:
Make it a peregrine and I’m hooked:yesyes:
Your poetry is flowing like a stream fishman :yesyes:
Bless you both, my two loyal fans.
Darksky, last year a chap from the local nature group got high enough on the church to assess what kind of prey the peregrines were taking. There were the remains of two magpies below the nest site, a mallard too. Not much will survive being hit in the back at 200mph.
Goshawks would take a magpie easily, they can take a crow.
Darksky, last year a chap from the local nature group got high enough on the church to assess what kind of prey the peregrines were taking. There were the remains of two magpies below the nest site, a mallard too. Not much will survive being hit in the back at 200mph.
.
True. They are magnificent birds aren’t they? I still watch the nest.
Eternity
Time plunders
his own flesh,
grinding broken
dreams to
powdered bone,
starving the
roots of his soul.
His lungs cough
dust of winters past,
memories recede,
grey to silver-white.
A plucked and wrinkled
fruit he has become,
wizened, of thinning blood.
All his hopes have run,
in ridged veins to the sea,
to dwell there for all eternity.
February 2014
Ripples
Do her eyes still hold the light,
of those remembered summer days,
do you recall the little things she said,
that she would wait for you forever.
You had cast pebbles for each other,
into undisturbed farmyard pools,
holding hands as the stones
broke the heat shimmered mirror,
another splash for another year,
the ripples passing,
never to return.
July 2014
Thug
Casual violence runs
through your veins,
basement intellect,
the creativity
is in the fist,
and the lying tongue,
your eyes ever to
flicker flashing blue light.
Your children are
bottle-fed crime,
while the wife
bleats ignorance,
in her Jeremy Kyle accent.
July 2014
Potential trigger warning.
The Broken Garden
A bleached sun
filters to a colourless earth.
Sickly blooms writhe
in death throes,
their colours wan,
in abject mockery.
Your poisoned chalice
is the sickened rose,
leaves black,
contorted.
And all the dead roots,
strung like ashen nooses,
about our bulging necks.
April 2023
Meadow
Man's gaping steel jaws
would have you gone,
kaleidoscope hues,
a joy to look upon.
Swaying scarlet
of poppy seas,
caressed with a
loving summer breeze.
Cornflower blue
corn marigold yellow,
your nodding grace
my mood to mellow,
far from the human
stain that mars,
a universe of bursting,
earthbound stars.
March 2015
Arbeit Macht Frei
Winter trees are lined up
on the far perimeter,
their leaves stripped
and confiscated,
flinching and falling back,
under cudgels of wind,
stretching skeletal hands,
to a heaven they
believe exists.
Yet what God could
look lamely on,
at such an earthly
horror as this,
an earth that retches
up her seething dead,
arbeit macht frei, they said.
January 2015
Clinical Anxiety Disorder
There is a shadow,
a ghost to trouble my way,
to lace my soul with darkest dread,
no matter whether I lay abed,
or brave the fearful day.
January 2015
Leviathan
Leviathan of the deep he calls,
to rebound his song from pacific walls,
where hammerhead prowls in ravenous pack,
schooling mackerel mass attack.
Leviathan breathes the deep blue sea,
Poseidon's trident not meant for he,
who soars through all of time and space,
and scores the contours of the ocean's face.
Beyond human reckoning he is wise,
the soul of nature within his eyes,
look to the heart of the ocean's deeps,
and behold the sorrow leviathan keeps.
February 2014
The Raging Sea
Timber creaked and salt encrusted,
treasure chest lock flaking rusted,
on albatross wing they sought to fly,
but came the squall on seaward sky.
To time and men he pays no heed,
tossing foam over scalps of swaying seaweed,
pulling drowsy sailors from shaken bunk,
down to spiralling depths where anchor is sunk.
With wayward compass and spinning free,
the siren's song has sung for thee,
ride the swell no more when crashing waves,
have dragged those boys to watery graves.
February 2014
Photograph Album
Near forgotten faces,
stare eternal in sepia frozen,
born from the nudge of
half familiar places,
of lives lived,
or in false hope,
unlived.
And when memory
grows dim,
with nineteen seventies
gaudy colour faded,
the heavy sigh
of long years,
breathes with a coming
of unsought tears,
stripped back,
in regret's sudden pang.
January 2014
Loch Ness
I freeze the bones
and gouge the flesh,
of ancient mountains
where eagles nest;
as my body runs cold
I see your figure stand,
leaning to the breeze
on my stony strand.
My vastness transcends
all time and space,
and will outlast
your human race;
before your kind
was even born,
I could suck the darkness
from a thunderstorm.
When Pictish clans
would tell my story,
long centuries before
you ever knew my glory.
Thus I counsel you
southern interloper,
to stand and quail
at my appalling grandeur;
and contemplate the souls
that have fed my waters,
in long ago forgotten slaughters.
And yet, in the blackened vortex
of my creaking depths,
something stirs.
July 2012
Favourites? Loch Ness and Leviathan. I suppose because they are more fantasy driven in their content, which I suppose is unsurprising for me. They are all very good though.:yesyes:
I like the raging sea fishman
The more I read Leviathan the more I like it. I’m already weaving fantasy images around it. I’ve stuff to do but once my imagination is spiked I’m lost for a good hour. Wild imagination is a curse isn’t it?:winks:
Leviathan breathes the deep blue sea
Poseidon’s trident not meant for he….
Shivery stuff, Fishman, shivery stuff.
He is totally wasted isn’t he Mrs.C? And I don’t mean falling over in the gutter.
Gosh you two!! I can add you to my list of fans. So that’s three what with our black lab as well 😊
Currently watching tennis with Dad, the volume is set to maximum.
Turn it down!!!
I can’t stand those grunting women :lac:
Only on day 3 of tennis viewing and bored already :D
All that ooh, ahh is reminding me of my aches and pains.
Yes darksky, maybe fishman could go on tour in his spare time around small theatres. 'One Man and a Dog' :yesyes:
I rather like the grunts from the women strangely :blush:
As I'm now on borrowed time I've written the bare bones of a new poem today.
Red Planet
Arid red,
global atacama,
freeze dried under
a feeble sun.
Your flushed
face pockmarked,
red with rage,
or stained with
the blood, of some
ancient galactic war.
Distant brother
of our mother Earth,
unsullied by man's
infinite churning garbage.
Where no human
witnessed your
violent birth,
or blemished
your hostile purity.
Rainless winds sweep
your rusting hull,
and leave a
rabble of scars.
Where our clumsy
robots toil, in your
ever thirsting soil.
Fidgeting for eternities,
like ants at the edge of deserts.
August 2012
The Last Dance
Her perfume lingers,
where it caressed my skin,
in the morning's sudden remembering.
Of last night's slow dance,
her magnetic gaze and hypnotic glance.
That play on my senses still,
like her gentle grace and feminine thrill.
Clasped about my waist,
the frisson of closeness
and too-brief haste.
When she tossed her
silken mane and said goodbye,
I felt my heart would stop,
and my soul would die.
October 2012
Don’t tell porkies Fishman…. I know Brian Cox wrote the first one. It was entitled Mars Attacks, which in turn became a quite a good film.:winks:
The second, well it’s very you. That’s a compliment by the way.
Actually I could do with a Mars right now, the bar I think :blush:
Couldn’t eat a whole one.:ohmy:
The Spider Garden
She scurries
the high wire,
pendulous swings,
eight-legged clings.
Arachnid acrobat,
lurid sac, bloated fat,
garish streaks
upon her back.
Gathering of sisters,
spin each their web,
throughout dawn's
luminous flow and ebb.
Elastic nets
cast and stretched,
along the dewy
smothered hedge,
deadly veil of
lace and pearls.
Unwary fly,
funnelled death,
high-pitched buzz
his last breath.
Crawl and snip,
tuck and nip,
immobilise,
rend and rip.
July 2012
Endings
It was never to be when
our worlds would collide.
'In another life', you said,
'then we may as well try
catching sunbeams' I replied,
as you broke down and cried.
Yet I longed for you
to be at my side,
not an eternity away,
where no stars this night
would come out to play.
Under a cold moon,
and a thousand years alone.
April 2013
Alzheimer's
All the days of your
long life, about turned,
folded in on themselves,
for destination childhood.
Was it God who pressed
rewind, when all the myriad
memories, the long goodbyes,
were sucked back to a blur,
erased, and to the womb,
as if you never were.
April 2013
Ungoliant and two rather sad ones.
Why is so much of your poetry tortured? The way of the artist I suppose
It’s because I’m a miserable git Darksky
Well now that’s ruined it. How unromantic.
There was I thinking you were a solitary genius, starving in a cold, dismal garret. Where the wild winds whistled under the roof tiles and kept you awake. Your only company the ghost of the serving wench that inhabited your lodgings in days gone by. How you developed a stoop from crouching below the steeply sloping roof, peering out of your broken window on your little corner of the world. Dismal, grey and reeking of poverty.
But no…..you’re just a miserable git.:winks:
LOL bless you Darksky, that description is worthy of a round of applause in itself. In it's accuracy too!!
I know, I ought to write a book :roflmao:
All good fishman but sorry I couldn't read the spider one :scared15:
Sorry Carnation it’s not a pleasant topic for arachnophobes is it.
Yes Darksky time you let the cat out of the bag regarding writing books!! 😉
WiredIncorrectly
16-09-23, 14:52
Very talented Fishman. I enjoyed reading the last 3. I never noticed this thread until now. Looking forward to more :)
And yes, publish into a book, release on Amazon print on demand. Quids in.
I love spiders. I've got some tarantulas in my basket, but can't place order until I'm back home. Ofc I will create a thread when they arrive.
I've already published it James. Here https://www.feedaread.com/search/books.aspx?keywords=The%20Poppy%20Fields
It's sold about 7 copies I think. And thank you for your kind words.
WiredIncorrectly
23-09-23, 12:27
I've already published it James. Here https://www.feedaread.com/search/books.aspx?keywords=The%20Poppy%20Fields
It's sold about 7 copies I think. And thank you for your kind words.
Have you made this available on Amazon too? That's awesome, you could sell more with a bit of work. Let me know if you want to discuss that I have experience and knowledge in the marketing and advertising area.
I will purchase a copy when I am paid. I just read a sample. Love the Swan Lake poem.
Roses (for Dad)
Who will prune your roses now,
those loved flowers,
remembered in the
furrows of your brow.
That wisdom of your eyes,
reflecting true, your
childhood's bluest skies.
Father, Grandfather,
the loving soul of all our hearts,
spreads his wings,
and one last time,
departs.
December 2023
Beautiful :hugs:Carnation, thank you :hugs:
This really ought to be printed in the order of service. A personal remembrance.
I know exactly what you’ll say to that idea. In fact I can almost hear the sharp intake of breath from here.
I can also hear your very valid reasons why it shouldn’t. I agree with you but in a different anxiety free world, it really should.
Bless you Darksky. Family are already saying exactly what you have.
I assumed that was what you were going to do anyway fishman. I did something similar for my both my mum and dad. The first time I got the vicar to read it and wished I'd done it myself. The second time I did.
You'll be amazed how you find the strength to do this fishman x
So that’s agreed then, to hell with anxiety and it’s going in.:yesyes:
It'll be a walk in the park :D
Well the issue has been decided for me, the poem has been dropped in favour of Wordsworth and Tennyson. You can't really blame them.
MyNameIsTerry
17-12-23, 08:17
A heartfelt dedication by the son who looked after him in his last years or something more grandiose with no real connection? Seems a no brainer to me what your dad would prefer.
It was a beautiful poem.
If you want to say something at the funeral, it's your right fishman. All you have to do is say you'd like to say a few words. If you feel you can't, then maybe write them down and put them on the flowers. It's important you have your own farewell message or dedication. :hugs:
I understand that Wordsworth and Tennyson are the authors of his favourite poems so yes it’s fitting that they should be there. However your poem, like Terry said is more important to the day, so it deserves a place as well.
You have every right to say a few words if you wish at the service. It’s a good idea of Mrs.Cs….if you feel you can’t stand up, write the poem on the flower card. In any case, it’s here, in memory of him so it’s not lost.:hugs:
Bless all three of you :hugs: I think the problem was that his lady friend suggested too many alternatives to mine. I did ask pointedly that the poem be printed in the leaflet, if not read out. And afaik even that hasn't happened.
The irony is that he was my biggest fan. Yes he was a great admirer of Tennyson and Wordsworth, but he'd have chosen mine. If I'd written 'the cat sat on the mat' he'd have chosen it. But there you go, its all politics.
OK this poem is a joint effort between myself and Darksky.
Phantasmagoria
He crunches his stride through fallen leaves,
hurried he fears the shadow's fall,
the forest path among great trunks it weaves,
where mighty oaks and pines tower tall.
He remembers the stories spoken of old,
of a maiden's love so cruelly spurned,
his footsteps quicken through ice-breath cold,
with sudden terror upon his soul burned.
For the awful gaze of she the rumours tell,
struck dreadful upon his stumbling frame,
and blocking his path a vision of hell,
from her smooth white throat a whisper came.
'To my spider you are my fly,
I snare you now with silken thread,
and struggling for life you futile try,
with my dark heart I mark you dead'.
And yet as she foretells his doom,
a fragment of her dark soul relents,
for once she loved a boy, a wedding groom,
who loved her true, his heart intense.
Thus at the maelstrom of his demise,
she lessens the grip of her demonic hand,
and gazes on the man with pitying eyes,
to forsake the murder she had planned.
'Go then young man, I spare your life,
yet hark the warning I speak,
love a woman well and make her your wife,
or upon you grief I shall wreak.'
And within a swirling fog she rose,
that lingered on a woodland breeze,
returning to where the wild wind blows,
with he alone, upon his knees.
January 2024
Yes, I can tell who did which bits :yesyes:
Well done you two!
Aww thank you Carnation :hugs: I'll let Darksky give you her own hug when she gets here.
Thank you very much Mrs.C. I enjoyed getting involved. It was nice to channel my raging imagination into something solid. Ive not been involved in poetry before. Literature yes, but not poetry. Thank you Fishman for the collaboration.
Oh wow that is amazing you two, well done, and Fishman I just read the first two pages of this thread, wow, wow, and triple wow so good, have you gotten any published or thought about publishing?
Sorry guys I forgot to respond here. Yes it was fun wasn't it Darksky.
Pkstracy, I self published a book which can be found here https://www.feedaread.com/books/The-Poppy-Fields-9781786972521.aspx
It sold about 7 or 8 copies. With self publishing you have to do your own marketing, and even then the website and printers take the lion's share of any money made on a sale. I suppose I could buy about 500 copies and stand outside our local co-op. 'Hear Ye, Hear Ye'. 'Book of poetry for sale'. But how many people would take a risk on some bloke they'd never heard of? And poetry? Unless I wore a dress and wig saying I was Katie Price, in which case it would sell by the ton.
Yes but I doubt Katie Price penned a single word of anything she ever ‘wrote’. Maybe you could don a ginger wig, moan about your brother and the cruel establishment and try your luck with that one?
Apparently JK Rowling couldn't get a publisher when she first started out :winks:
I've worked in the book industry and its not easy or cheap to publish your writings. It's all basically been done before.
If you've got a gimmick, off-the-wall situation or have some sort of disability that has challenged you then you stand more chance these days. Unfortunately talent on its own isn't enough. Its more appealing from a marketing point of view to promote the person as opposed to the talent of one's work.
So put yourself out there as the guy who kicks anxiety into oblivion and puts his feelings into words.
' The Builder who turned to the Pen'.
I do apologise Carnation for completely missing this lovely post. That tells you how long its been since I viewed this thread. Yes its getting a foot on that ladder, some only become known posthumously. Edgar Allen Poe springs to mind, he died penniless on a park bench.
OK yesterday I knocked together a poem for Darksky, in light of her recent loss...
For Lost Mothers
A daughter that hope had forsook,
she kneels beside the tumbling brook,
and weeps anew for the mother taken,
all comfort it feels for her forsaken.
And yet upon an oaken leaf,
and through the tears of her grief,
she lays her mother's soul to rest,
and with a final kiss was blessed.
And carried on the brook's unending flow,
spinning in eddies, she will endless go,
no sadness now, nor fear for she,
far far, into the arms of the sea.
April 2024
Oh fishman, that made me cry, so it must be good.
I'm sure Darksky will be very touched by those words as I was.
Thank you Fishman, I shall treasure it. It means a lot at this time and the fact you bought in her favourite poem is lovely.
xxxx
OK well another very belated reply here from myself. Carnation thank you for your very kind words :hugs: And of course, Darksky :hugs: It was an honour for me to write it and hopefully gives you at least, a degree of comfort. There is something timeless and eternal about streams/rivers, forever running, on and on.
Right, I've just finished another poem 'Robin'. The other day I sat with suet pellets in my hand, and a Robin snatched one pellet. But yesterday he perched about 4 times on my palm, on 2 occasions for maybe 5 or 6 seconds. It was an amazing and I felt, honourable experience. Will type up now.
Robin
Your chain of silver notes,
adorn my senses,
poured, fluid as
waterfalls.
When you alight upon
my outstretched fingers,
as if upon my heart.
And in your bright eye
my reflection lingers,
little thinker,
wondrous spirit,
knower of my soul.
April 2024
Lovely, I think the extra length makes it perfect.
Adorable poem fishman.
I love Robins.
Thank you both :hugs:
They both take pellets from my hand now. I only ever seem to see one at any one time, but they're definitely a pair because one has no tail.
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