Poet's Corner

[midcan5]

Don't recall what I posted last 4th but.....

'Independence'

Mussoorie, Uttar Pradesh, India, l947

"When I am nine, the British quit
India. Headmaster says, "The Great
Mutiny started it." We repeat,
The Great Mutiny of 1857
in our booming voices. Even
Akbar was Great, even Catherine,
Great! We titter over History. His back
turns: we see his pink spotty neck.

Sorry, the British leaving? we beg.
"This is hardly a joke or a quiz --
sit up and stay alert," he spits.
"It is about the trains and ships
you love and city names. As for me,
I'm old, I'll end in a library,
I began in trade." But you must stay,
we tell him. He lived here as we have lived

but longer. He says he was alive
in Calcutta in 1890. He didn't have
a rich father. A third son, he came with
the Tea Company: we saw a statement
in his office. The company built
the railroads to take the tea "home
to England" so that Darjeeling and Assam
could be sipped by everyone, us and them.

They sold our southern neighbor Ceylon,
silk, pepper, diamonds, cotton.
We make a trade of course. In England
there is only wool and salt and
snobs and foggy weather, Shakespeare."

Reetika Vazirani

 

[SFC Ollie]

Paul Revere's Ride
Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.

He said to his friend, "If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light,--
One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country folk to be up and to arm."

Then he said "Good-night!" and with muffled oar
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,
Just as the moon rose over the bay,
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay
The Somerset, British man-of-war;
A phantom ship, with each mast and spar
Across the moon like a prison bar,
And a huge black hulk, that was magnified
By its own reflection in the tide.

Meanwhile, his friend through alley and street
Wanders and watches, with eager ears,
Till in the silence around him he hears
The muster of men at the barrack door,
The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,
And the measured tread of the grenadiers,
Marching down to their boats on the shore.

Then he climbed the tower of the Old North Church,
By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,
To the belfry chamber overhead,
And startled the pigeons from their perch
On the sombre rafters, that round him made
Masses and moving shapes of shade,--
By the trembling ladder, steep and tall,
To the highest window in the wall,
Where he paused to listen and look down
A moment on the roofs of the town
And the moonlight flowing over all.

Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead,
In their night encampment on the hill,
Wrapped in silence so deep and still
That he could hear, like a sentinel's tread,
The watchful night-wind, as it went
Creeping along from tent to tent,
And seeming to whisper, "All is well!"
A moment only he feels the spell
Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread
Of the lonely belfry and the dead;
For suddenly all his thoughts are bent
On a shadowy something far away,
Where the river widens to meet the bay,--
A line of black that bends and floats
On the rising tide like a bridge of boats.

Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.
Now he patted his horse's side,
Now he gazed at the landscape far and near,
Then, impetuous, stamped the earth,
And turned and tightened his saddle girth;
But mostly he watched with eager search
The belfry tower of the Old North Church,
As it rose above the graves on the hill,
Lonely and spectral and sombre and still.
And lo! as he looks, on the belfry's height
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight
A second lamp in the belfry burns.

A hurry of hoofs in a village street,
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet;
That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night;
And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight,
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.
He has left the village and mounted the steep,
And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep,
Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides;
And under the alders that skirt its edge,
Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge,
Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides.

It was twelve by the village clock
When he crossed the bridge into Medford town.
He heard the crowing of the cock,
And the barking of the farmer's dog,
And felt the damp of the river fog,
That rises after the sun goes down.

It was one by the village clock,
When he galloped into Lexington.
He saw the gilded weathercock
Swim in the moonlight as he passed,
And the meeting-house windows, black and bare,
Gaze at him with a spectral glare,
As if they already stood aghast
At the bloody work they would look upon.

It was two by the village clock,
When he came to the bridge in Concord town.
He heard the bleating of the flock,
And the twitter of birds among the trees,
And felt the breath of the morning breeze
Blowing over the meadow brown.
And one was safe and asleep in his bed
Who at the bridge would be first to fall,
Who that day would be lying dead,
Pierced by a British musket ball.

You know the rest. In the books you have read
How the British Regulars fired and fled,---
How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
From behind each fence and farmyard wall,
Chasing the redcoats down the lane,
Then crossing the fields to emerge again
Under the trees at the turn of the road,
And only pausing to fire and load.

So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm,---
A cry of defiance, and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo for evermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)

 

[freedombecki]

Paul Revere's Ride
Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.

He said to his friend, "If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light,--
One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country folk to be up and to arm."

Then he said "Good-night!" and with muffled oar
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,
Just as the moon rose over the bay,
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay
The Somerset, British man-of-war;
A phantom ship, with each mast and spar
Across the moon like a prison bar,
And a huge black hulk, that was magnified
By its own reflection in the tide.

Meanwhile, his friend through alley and street
Wanders and watches, with eager ears,
Till in the silence around him he hears
The muster of men at the barrack door,
The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,
And the measured tread of the grenadiers,
Marching down to their boats on the shore.

Then he climbed the tower of the Old North Church,
By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,
To the belfry chamber overhead,
And startled the pigeons from their perch
On the sombre rafters, that round him made
Masses and moving shapes of shade,--
By the trembling ladder, steep and tall,
To the highest window in the wall,
Where he paused to listen and look down
A moment on the roofs of the town
And the moonlight flowing over all.

Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead,
In their night encampment on the hill,
Wrapped in silence so deep and still
That he could hear, like a sentinel's tread,
The watchful night-wind, as it went
Creeping along from tent to tent,
And seeming to whisper, "All is well!"
A moment only he feels the spell
Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread
Of the lonely belfry and the dead;
For suddenly all his thoughts are bent
On a shadowy something far away,
Where the river widens to meet the bay,--
A line of black that bends and floats
On the rising tide like a bridge of boats.

Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.
Now he patted his horse's side,
Now he gazed at the landscape far and near,
Then, impetuous, stamped the earth,
And turned and tightened his saddle girth;
But mostly he watched with eager search
The belfry tower of the Old North Church,
As it rose above the graves on the hill,
Lonely and spectral and sombre and still.
And lo! as he looks, on the belfry's height
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight
A second lamp in the belfry burns.

A hurry of hoofs in a village street,
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet;
That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night;
And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight,
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.
He has left the village and mounted the steep,
And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep,
Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides;
And under the alders that skirt its edge,
Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge,
Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides.

It was twelve by the village clock
When he crossed the bridge into Medford town.
He heard the crowing of the cock,
And the barking of the farmer's dog,
And felt the damp of the river fog,
That rises after the sun goes down.

It was one by the village clock,
When he galloped into Lexington.
He saw the gilded weathercock
Swim in the moonlight as he passed,
And the meeting-house windows, black and bare,
Gaze at him with a spectral glare,
As if they already stood aghast
At the bloody work they would look upon.

It was two by the village clock,
When he came to the bridge in Concord town.
He heard the bleating of the flock,
And the twitter of birds among the trees,
And felt the breath of the morning breeze
Blowing over the meadow brown.
And one was safe and asleep in his bed
Who at the bridge would be first to fall,
Who that day would be lying dead,
Pierced by a British musket ball.

You know the rest. In the books you have read
How the British Regulars fired and fled,---
How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
From behind each fence and farmyard wall,
Chasing the redcoats down the lane,
Then crossing the fields to emerge again
Under the trees at the turn of the road,
And only pausing to fire and load.

So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm,---
A cry of defiance, and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo for evermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)

SFC Ollie, as I was rereading that, it occurred to me that Paul Revere could've died for doing that. He was an ordinary tradesman, yet the yearn for freedom and his devotion to his fellow Americans caused him to not only look out for the good of his immediate area, but others who were threatened with retaliation for their nerve of requesting representation from a heartless oppressor.

 

[SFC Ollie]

Paul Revere's Ride
Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.

He said to his friend, "If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light,--
One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country folk to be up and to arm."

Then he said "Good-night!" and with muffled oar
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,
Just as the moon rose over the bay,
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay
The Somerset, British man-of-war;
A phantom ship, with each mast and spar
Across the moon like a prison bar,
And a huge black hulk, that was magnified
By its own reflection in the tide.

Meanwhile, his friend through alley and street
Wanders and watches, with eager ears,
Till in the silence around him he hears
The muster of men at the barrack door,
The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,
And the measured tread of the grenadiers,
Marching down to their boats on the shore.

Then he climbed the tower of the Old North Church,
By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,
To the belfry chamber overhead,
And startled the pigeons from their perch
On the sombre rafters, that round him made
Masses and moving shapes of shade,--
By the trembling ladder, steep and tall,
To the highest window in the wall,
Where he paused to listen and look down
A moment on the roofs of the town
And the moonlight flowing over all.

Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead,
In their night encampment on the hill,
Wrapped in silence so deep and still
That he could hear, like a sentinel's tread,
The watchful night-wind, as it went
Creeping along from tent to tent,
And seeming to whisper, "All is well!"
A moment only he feels the spell
Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread
Of the lonely belfry and the dead;
For suddenly all his thoughts are bent
On a shadowy something far away,
Where the river widens to meet the bay,--
A line of black that bends and floats
On the rising tide like a bridge of boats.

Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.
Now he patted his horse's side,
Now he gazed at the landscape far and near,
Then, impetuous, stamped the earth,
And turned and tightened his saddle girth;
But mostly he watched with eager search
The belfry tower of the Old North Church,
As it rose above the graves on the hill,
Lonely and spectral and sombre and still.
And lo! as he looks, on the belfry's height
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight
A second lamp in the belfry burns.

A hurry of hoofs in a village street,
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet;
That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night;
And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight,
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.
He has left the village and mounted the steep,
And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep,
Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides;
And under the alders that skirt its edge,
Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge,
Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides.

It was twelve by the village clock
When he crossed the bridge into Medford town.
He heard the crowing of the cock,
And the barking of the farmer's dog,
And felt the damp of the river fog,
That rises after the sun goes down.

It was one by the village clock,
When he galloped into Lexington.
He saw the gilded weathercock
Swim in the moonlight as he passed,
And the meeting-house windows, black and bare,
Gaze at him with a spectral glare,
As if they already stood aghast
At the bloody work they would look upon.

It was two by the village clock,
When he came to the bridge in Concord town.
He heard the bleating of the flock,
And the twitter of birds among the trees,
And felt the breath of the morning breeze
Blowing over the meadow brown.
And one was safe and asleep in his bed
Who at the bridge would be first to fall,
Who that day would be lying dead,
Pierced by a British musket ball.

You know the rest. In the books you have read
How the British Regulars fired and fled,---
How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
From behind each fence and farmyard wall,
Chasing the redcoats down the lane,
Then crossing the fields to emerge again
Under the trees at the turn of the road,
And only pausing to fire and load.

So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm,---
A cry of defiance, and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo for evermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)

SFC Ollie, as I was rereading that, it occurred to me that Paul Revere could've died for doing that. He was an ordinary tradesman, yet the yearn for freedom and his devotion to his fellow Americans caused him to not only look out for the good of his immediate area, but others who were threatened with retaliation for their nerve of requesting representation from a heartless oppressor.

What so few understand is that Mr Revere was one of our first true patriots. He was in on the organization of and participation in the Boston Tea party. And it was his initial warning of the British making repairs to their landing craft that set up the system for himself and two others to actually make their night time warning rides which prepared the farmers at Lexington and Concord to be prepared for the first battles of the revolution.

 

[midcan5]

'A Story'

"Everyone loves a story. Let's begin with a house.
We can fill it with careful rooms and fill the rooms
with things—tables, chairs, cupboards, drawers
closed to hide tiny beds where children once slept
or big drawers that yawn open to reveal
precisely folded garments washed half to death,
unsoiled, stale, and waiting to be worn out.
There must be a kitchen, and the kitchen
must have a stove, perhaps a big iron one
with a fat black pipe that vanishes into the ceiling
to reach the sky and exhale its smells and collusions.
This was the center of whatever family life
was here, this and the sink gone yellow
around the drain where the water, dirty or pure,
ran off with no explanation, somehow like the point
of this, the story we promised and may yet deliver.
Make no mistake, a family was here. You see
the path worn into the linoleum where the wood,
gray and certainly pine, shows through.
Father stood there in the middle of his life
to call to the heavens he imagined above the roof
must surely be listening. When no one answered
you can see where his heel came down again
and again, even though he'd been taught
never to demand. Not that life was especially cruel;
they had well water they pumped at first,
a stove that gave heat, a mother who stood
at the sink at all hours and gazed longingly
to where the woods once held the voices
of small bears—themselves a family—and the songs
of birds long fled once the deep woods surrendered
one tree at a time after the workmen arrived
with jugs of hot coffee. The worn spot on the sill
is where Mother rested her head when no one saw,
those two stained ridges were handholds
she relied on; they never let her down.
Where is she now? You think you have a right
to know everything? The children tiny enough
to inhabit cupboards, large enough to have rooms
of their own and to abandon them, the father
with his right hand raised against the sky?
If those questions are too personal, then tell us,
where are the woods? They had to have been
because the continent was clothed in trees.
We all read that in school and knew it to be true.
Yet all we see are houses, rows and rows
of houses as far as sight, and where sight vanishes
into nothing, into the new world no one has seen,
there has to be more than dust, wind-borne particles
of burning earth, the earth we lost, and nothing else."

Philip Levine

 

[midcan5]

'In the Mushroom Summer'

"Colorado turns Kyoto in a shower,
mist in the pines so thick the crows delight
(or seem to), winging in obscurity.
The ineffectual panic of a squirrel
who chattered at my passing gave me pause
to watch his Ponderosa come and go—
long needles scratching cloud. I’d summited
but knew it only by the wildflower meadow,
the muted harebells, paintbrush, gentian,
scattered among the locoweed and sage.
Today my grief abated like water soaking
underground, its scar a little path
of twigs and needles winding ahead of me
downhill to the next bend. Today I let
the rain soak through my shirt and was unharmed."

David Mason

 

[midcan5]

'4% Of Everything Or Nothing'

"On the seat of the Humvee, I find this magazine
with an article on dark energy and
I think it will be nice to kill some time as I am
moving in a line of 5 tons and tankers,
across an endless sea of red dirt.

The physicists make it too easy
74% dark energy
22% dark matter
96% of the universe unknown,
possibly unknowable
just out there somewhere—
but right here all around us too
as gossamer as ghosts.

That leaves 4%—
4%, all the stuff we struggle trying to know
something about but know hardly anything about.
And they say all this darkness may be growing
and the little we barely know is growing smaller
and smaller. Damn scientists.
One can almost hear them snickering,
knowing how the damn romantics will be inclined
to read more into the tea leaves of their data
than can ever be there.
But if they are honest, they know they can’t resist
the temptation themselves, 4% hardly known;
96% unknown and possibly unknowable—
dark energy pushing things apart, pushing whole worlds
farther and farther apart at faster and faster speeds,
no respect for even light.
Farther and farther apart, colder and colder
into the nothing that is everything.

I am inclined to think that there is no data;
that this theory comes from their own personal miseries:
the divorces, their kids on drugs and resenting them,
the latest heartbreak, every reminder of old age and mortality,
the reasons the grant didn’t get funded—
96% unknown and possibly unknowable
4% barely known.

Or it may just be science taking another cynical turn
reminding everyone not to be so smug,
not to be so sure of anything,
not to ever underestimate your ignorance,
or your unfathomable smallness in the scheme of things.

But I have that disturbing resonance of a romantic’s heart,
the irresistible urge to generalize, a pretending to know:
all of human history—a 4% of distorted recollections,
96% unknown and possibly unknowable;
the universe of love—a 4% desperately grasped
but the 96% still and always unknowable;
my life, my memories, my only true universe,
I am barely aware of 4%,
the 96% unknown and possibly unknowable;
this moment, the infinite now, I barely see
4% of anything and…

Suddenly none of this sounds new.
And of course, possibly there is no connection between any of it.
Perhaps, the dark energy has already pushed things so far apart
that nothing can ever be connected again.
There can only be zeros and ones, tentative conclusions
that are neither dark nor light, simply there drifting
farther and farther from every other idea and feeling
faster and faster from every hope and fear,
everything transforming into a cold dark unknown
surrounding us like spirits.
Maybe, there is no message here at all, just
4% and decreasing every moment, 96% and increasing
every moment, unknown and possibly unknowable.

The helicopter gunships are flying
like crazed giant wasps above us.
I imagine ancient armies crossing this dust,
ancient conquests, the empires as forgotten
as the battles fought for them.
The 4% now is only this Humvee in an ocean of nothing,
my three traveling companions in their Kevlar
and interceptor jackets locked in silence
by the steady drone of the engine.
We are it, trying to make it to another point—
all the love there is,
as simple as a thin black line
scratched across a red tablet,
as simple as thinking of home,
that something we can believe we know,
the 4% of everything and nothing."

Ray Emanuel

 

[midcan5]

'What My Father Left Behind'

"Jam jar of cigarette ends and ashes on his workbench,
hammer he nailed our address to a stump with,
balsa wood steamship, half-finished—

is that him, waving from the stern? Well, good luck to him.
Slur of sunlight filling the backyard, August’s high wattage,
white blossoming, it’s a curve, it comes back. My mother

in a patio chair, leaning forward, squinting, threading
her needle again, her eye lifts to the roof, to my brother,
who stands and jerks his arm upward—he might be

insulting the sky, but he’s only letting go
a bit of green, a molded plastic soldier
tied to a parachute, thin as a bread bag, it rises, it arcs

against the blue—good luck to it—my sister and I below,
heads tilted back as we stand in the grass, good
luck to all of us, still here, still in love with it."

Chris Forhan

 

[freedombecki]

Paul Revere's Ride
Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.

He said to his friend, "If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light,--
One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country folk to be up and to arm."

Then he said "Good-night!" and with muffled oar
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,
Just as the moon rose over the bay,
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay
The Somerset, British man-of-war;
A phantom ship, with each mast and spar
Across the moon like a prison bar,
And a huge black hulk, that was magnified
By its own reflection in the tide.

Meanwhile, his friend through alley and street
Wanders and watches, with eager ears,
Till in the silence around him he hears
The muster of men at the barrack door,
The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,
And the measured tread of the grenadiers,
Marching down to their boats on the shore.

Then he climbed the tower of the Old North Church,
By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,
To the belfry chamber overhead,
And startled the pigeons from their perch
On the sombre rafters, that round him made
Masses and moving shapes of shade,--
By the trembling ladder, steep and tall,
To the highest window in the wall,
Where he paused to listen and look down
A moment on the roofs of the town
And the moonlight flowing over all.

Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead,
In their night encampment on the hill,
Wrapped in silence so deep and still
That he could hear, like a sentinel's tread,
The watchful night-wind, as it went
Creeping along from tent to tent,
And seeming to whisper, "All is well!"
A moment only he feels the spell
Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread
Of the lonely belfry and the dead;
For suddenly all his thoughts are bent
On a shadowy something far away,
Where the river widens to meet the bay,--
A line of black that bends and floats
On the rising tide like a bridge of boats.

Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.
Now he patted his horse's side,
Now he gazed at the landscape far and near,
Then, impetuous, stamped the earth,
And turned and tightened his saddle girth;
But mostly he watched with eager search
The belfry tower of the Old North Church,
As it rose above the graves on the hill,
Lonely and spectral and sombre and still.
And lo! as he looks, on the belfry's height
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight
A second lamp in the belfry burns.

A hurry of hoofs in a village street,
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet;
That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night;
And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight,
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.
He has left the village and mounted the steep,
And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep,
Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides;
And under the alders that skirt its edge,
Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge,
Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides.

It was twelve by the village clock
When he crossed the bridge into Medford town.
He heard the crowing of the cock,
And the barking of the farmer's dog,
And felt the damp of the river fog,
That rises after the sun goes down.

It was one by the village clock,
When he galloped into Lexington.
He saw the gilded weathercock
Swim in the moonlight as he passed,
And the meeting-house windows, black and bare,
Gaze at him with a spectral glare,
As if they already stood aghast
At the bloody work they would look upon.

It was two by the village clock,
When he came to the bridge in Concord town.
He heard the bleating of the flock,
And the twitter of birds among the trees,
And felt the breath of the morning breeze
Blowing over the meadow brown.
And one was safe and asleep in his bed
Who at the bridge would be first to fall,
Who that day would be lying dead,
Pierced by a British musket ball.

You know the rest. In the books you have read
How the British Regulars fired and fled,---
How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
From behind each fence and farmyard wall,
Chasing the redcoats down the lane,
Then crossing the fields to emerge again
Under the trees at the turn of the road,
And only pausing to fire and load.

So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm,---
A cry of defiance, and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo for evermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)

SFC Ollie, as I was rereading that, it occurred to me that Paul Revere could've died for doing that. He was an ordinary tradesman, yet the yearn for freedom and his devotion to his fellow Americans caused him to not only look out for the good of his immediate area, but others who were threatened with retaliation for their nerve of requesting representation from a heartless oppressor.

What so few understand is that Mr Revere was one of our first true patriots. He was in on the organization of and participation in the Boston Tea party. And it was his initial warning of the British making repairs to their landing craft that set up the system for himself and two others to actually make their night time warning rides which prepared the farmers at Lexington and Concord to be prepared for the first battles of the revolution.

Hmm. so that's how we got the Brits off our backs. Thanks, SFC Ollie.

 

[midcan5]

'Conversation'

"Daddy, what are these?
my three year old daughter asks,
pointing to the car grill
and the dozens of insects
we have smashed
while driving around.

I want to say “spots”
or “nothing” or
“I don’t know.”
I want to put off discussions
like this until she’s older
or at least with her mother,
but I know I can’t.

Bugs, I say, Just bugs.

Why are they there?

We hit them.

She knows this is bad;
a boy down the street
was hit by a car
and taken away
in an ambulance.

Should we take them
to the hospital?

No. They’re dead.

We carry the bags
into the house
and unload the groceries.
Later, after dinner
and the evening bath,
we work on a puzzle,
and as she tries
to figure out
how the sky
fits together,
she says
without turning around

They don’t want to be dead,
do they?

No, I say, No, they don’t."


Joe Mills

 

[midcan5]

'The Summer I Was Sixteen'

"The turquoise pool rose up to meet us,
its slide a silver afterthought down which
we plunged, screaming, into a mirage of bubbles.
We did not exist beyond the gaze of a boy.

Shaking water off our limbs, we lifted
up from ladder rungs across the fern-cool
lip of rim. Afternoon. Oiled and sated,
we sunbathed, rose and paraded the concrete,

danced to the low beat of “Duke of Earl”.
Past cherry colas, hot-dogs, Dreamsicles,
we came to the counter where bees staggered
into root beer cups and drowned. We gobbled

cotton candy torches, sweet as furtive kisses,
shared on benches beneath summer shadows.
Cherry. Elm. Sycamore. We spread our chenille
blankets across grass, pressed radios to our ears,

mouthing the old words, then loosened
thin bikini straps and rubbed baby oil with iodine
across sunburned shoulders, tossing a glance
through the chain link at an improbable world."

Geraldine Connolly

 

[midcan5]

'Arguments About The World'

"The things you said were untrue:
there is not a reality that exists
outside of me. No life somehow
more authentic than this one.
If you know so much about the world

then tell me where to find it.
Was it the world that I touched

each time I touched an oil-soaked metal flange
in the giant industrial warehouse?
It didn’t feel real, but maybe
I wasn’t paying enough attention.
Was it that my coworkers were racist

and unhappy; that this was the only job
they would ever have, for all the years
of their lives? Or just that there was no heat
in winter, no cooling in summer, making all work
more difficult, pained? And the work itself—mundane and particular:
line up all these metal pieces and count them, or
box up this many pieces and take them
to this factory.

Is suffering the world, or boredom?

And those years spent living downtown
among the poor and crazy, each day
the adventure of leaving the apartment—
who would be using our stoop as a resting place,
would they be passed-out
or awake, move aside
so I could wheel my bike by,
or try to say something
in that common, broken language?

The girl there breast-feeding at 6 a.m.—
she is not feeding, is merely
bothering her child, who wants to sleep.
Ragged, tranced-out, wild
from sleeping the night
against our porch column—was she real? Did she think
she was the world? Had I touched her
would I have known what it was like,
what you’ve been telling me all these years?

* * *

I have to return now to the empty classroom
and teach Roy Redman how to speak English.

I have to atone for my sins.

He stands at my desk and wants to know why
I circled chirren, in red,
a hundred times in 5 pages, his essay
about being a young father, he says
when you’re a mom or dad you got chirren.
I spelled out children at the top of the page
and he mouthed the word there, over and over,
another class dragging in, the next teacher
erasing my words from the board behind me.
I gave him nothing and it’s too late now
to go back. I gave him nothing

and it’s too late. He dropped out,
came to my office just once, to tell me—
fists trembling—that his papers were A’s,
not F’s, and that he knows how to talk,
doesn’t need anyone helping him.
I can handle my business, he kept saying,
nobody can handle my business but me.

Chirren, children, the vague threat
in my office, tell me quickly: which part of this
was not the world?

* * *

Dear ____________,
How did you learn so much about all of this,
and how did I miss it? How will I know the world
when I see it; by what markings
is it identified?

I confess: it feels real
as I walk through it, even as it’s terribly beautiful,
and I pass the fountains or sculpture,
it seems like the world. But
this isn’t about me, my days; it’s about you,
and all the things you said. I’m trying
to get you to be quiet.
I keep filling up the pages
until you’ve had enough."

Craig Beaven

 

[midcan5]

'Back from the Fields'

"Until nightfall my son ran in the fields,
looking for God knows what.
Flowers, perhaps. Odd birds on the wing.
Something to fill an empty spot.
Maybe a luminous angel
or a country girl with a secret dark.
He came back empty-handed,
or so I thought.

Now I find them:
thistles, goatheads,
the barbed weeds
all those with hooks or horns
the snaggle-toothed, the grinning ones
those wearing lantern jaws,
old ones in beards, leapers
in silk leggings, the multiple
pocked moons and spiny satellites, all those
with juices and saps
like the fingers of thieves
nation after nation of grasses
that dig in, that burrow, that hug winds
and grab handholds
in whatever lean place.

It’s been a good day."

Peter Everwine

 

[midcan5]

I was amazed recently to see this thread has over forty thousand views, now go out and buy some poetry books so we can support an art form that is sometimes neglected in our too busy modern world.

'Picture Puzzle Piece'

"One picture puzzle piece
Lyin’ on the sidewalk,
One picture puzzle piece
Soakin’ in the rain.
It might be a button of blue
On the coat of the woman
Who lived in a shoe.
It might be a magical bean,
Or a fold in the red
Velvet robe of a queen.
It might be the one little bite
Of the apple her stepmother
Gave to Snow White.
It might be the veil of a bride
Or a bottle with some evil genie inside.
It might be a small tuft of hair
On the big bouncy belly
Of Bobo the Bear.
It might be a bit of the cloak
Of the Witch of the West
As she melted to smoke.
It might be a shadowy trace
Of a tear that runs down an angel’s face.
Nothing has more possibilities
Than one old wet picture puzzle piece."

Shel Silverstein

 

[midcan5]

'The Very Old Man'

"When he met himself
beside the road,
he could not be sure

he'd ever really been the boy
he was, so happy to be alive
and nothing more.

He wanted to talk
about what lay ahead,
to warn himself somehow

of the losses
and the griefs
and how the heart grows cold.

But words failed as they always had
and in the silent room
he woke:

in the boy-less dark,
alone with nothing
but his body in his arms."

Patrick Phillips

 

[freedombecki]

starting

in the deepened shades of morning there are glimpses of light
showing mirrored blues and verdance reminiscent of night
as the golden pinks refracting the new day's promised gifts
thoughts of loved ones watching over heal the heart's unruly rifts
​

by freedombecki

 

[freedombecki]

Added to chill some of these hot August days...

Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening
by Robert Frost


Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

 

[midcan5]

'More Lies'

"Sometimes I say I’m going to meet my sister at the cafe´—
even though I have no sister—just because it’s such
a beautiful thing to say. I’ve always thought so, ever since

I read a novel in which two sisters were constantly meeting
in cafe´s. Today, for example, I walked alone
on the wet sidewalk, wearing my rain boots, expecting

someone might ask where I was headed. I bought
a steno pad and a watch battery, the store windows
fogged up. Rain in April is a kind of promise, and it costs

nothing. I carried a bag of books to the cafe´ and ordered
tea. I like a place that’s lit by lamps. I like a place
where you can hear people talk about small things,

like the difference between azure and cerulean,
and the price of tulips. It’s going down. I watched
someone who could be my sister walk in, shaking the rain

from her hair. I thought, even now florists are filling
their coolers with tulips, five dollars a bundle. All over
the city there are sisters. Any one of them could be mine."

Karin Gottshall

 

[derk]

Her soft light skin delicate to touch.
Her firm resolve soon to flinch, as
her will, slips a bit. She finds it
hard to let it go and fund the deep
within her soul.

A word a phrase or some, slight smell
his musk the leather, who can tell?
This session, as before works to call
attention to her resolve. Loosed and
drawn within for now.

She beckons to call her self to
task to fall in the place, that
never shall last. Visiting
invitations to inward journey's
thru this sense of time.

With feelings wrought in self
delight and sensual fright.
Rushes of quivers form her skin
as she is touched again.

Light fond pangs emerge
abating slowly, as she waits,
they form like ripples in a pond.
She delights the awful pain.
Rising to its worst fine place
it stops slightly, only to lose its grace.
Another fell swoop delights and then the
rivers of warmth rush over her again.

What power she holds over her flesh.
To will it for her erotic self. Falling
in this place again, pains fine stings
to burns and then? Awakening her
passion to wonder for pleasure, she
feels aroused and incensed for more.

The lustful haze feels her mind
Her pain becomes so very fine.
Entranced she hears and feels
not much, but, becomes the
place where she is touched.
A strangely vague erotic
notion a place a thing,
a feeding motion.

Ecstasies river runs
deep, with the currents
she now feeds. These
movements liven
her sage, and help her to
this other place.

Her torment now proudly worn.
She blossoms like a rose,
whose petals, soft and moist
a showy gloss now shine.
Unfolding one layer at a time.
Her inner self revealed she’s
Taken and made to kneel.

Ritualistic passions invade her
every move. Now the," clay of loves
torturous mold", her souls renewed.
Her lips, some dry, others wet.

Swells begin still yet. Her breathing
labored, while this moment is savored.
Pleasure is as common place in this
lustful tryst of roles now played.

He the master and she the slave?
Delighting both sub and dom.
A dance of flesh and blissful tones,
their needs are shared and sought as one.
So Give she must. And on an on.

 

[freedombecki]

continued, w.i.p.

starting

in the deepened shades of morning there are glimpses of light
showing mirrored blues and verdance reminiscent of night
golden sunrise pinks refracting the new day's promised gifts
thoughts of loved ones watching over heal heart's unruly rifts

midday

wasps rush above windowsills overlooking rust-gold field
mockingbirds boldly flitting 'round the fence where ivies yield
potent berries merry-wine green periwinkle and white
dragonfly darts by muddied waters hot as midday bright​

​

​