Horses in Snow -YOUR FAVOURITE POEM

They are a gift I have wanted again.

Wanted: One moment in mountains

when winter got so cold

the oil froze before it could burn.

I chopped ferns of hoarfrost from all the windows   

and peered up at pines, a wedding cake

by a baker gone mad. Swirls by the thousand   

shimmered above me until a cloud

lumbered over a ridge,

bringing the heavier white of more flurries.

I believed, I believed, I believed

it would last, that when you went out

to test the black ice or to dig out a Volkswagon   

filled with rich women, you’d return

and we’d sputter like oil,

match after match, warm in the making.

Wisconsin’s flat farmland never approved:

I hid in cornfields far into October,

listening to music that whirled from my thumbprint.   

When sunset played havoc with bright leaves of alders,

I never mentioned longing or fear.

I crouched like a good refugee in brown creeks

and forgot why Autumn is harder than Spring.   

But snug on the western slope of that mountain   

I’d accept every terror, break open seals

to release love’s headwaters to unhurried sunlight.   

Weren’t we Big Hearts? Through some trick of silver   

we held one another, believing each motion the real one,   

ah, lover, why were dark sources bundled up

in our eyes? Each owned an agate,

marbled with anguish, a heart or its echo,   

we hardly knew. Lips touching lips,   

did that break my horizon

as much as those horses broke my belief?   

You drove off and I walked the old road,   

scolding the doubles that wanted so much.

The chestnut mare whinnied a cloud into scrub pine.   

In a windless corner of a corral,

four horses fit like puzzle pieces.

Their dark eyes and lashes defined by the white.

The colt kicked his hind, loped from the fence.   

The mares and a stallion galloped behind,   

lifting and leaping, finding each other

in full accord with the earth and their bodies.   

No harm ever touched them once they cut loose,   

snorting at flurries falling again.

How little our chances for feeling ourselves.   

They vanished so quickly—one flick of a tail.   

Where do their mountains and moments begin?   

I stood a long time in sharpening wind.

Roberta Hill Whiteman

YOUR FAVOURITE POEM

SENT BY YOU WHAT’S YOUR’S

RUNNING LATE

steam engine designed by Thomas Newcomen 

It has been said that a watched pot never boils,

But that is a saying which is easy to gainsay,

For we are told that James Watt sat and watched the kettle boil,

And this led to the steam engines that we know today.

 

A steam engine had been designed by Thomas Newcomen many years ago,

It was used to lift water from out of his coalmine,

James Watt was employed to repair this machine,

From this he developed the modern steam condensing engine.

 

This idea was later adapted by George Stephenson,

Who designed the Rocket in collaboration with Robert his son,

History tells us that this was the first steam engine,

And that it ran on a track from Stockton to Darlington .

 

The development of the steam engine for use in transport,

Was the most important development since the invention of the wheel,

Since then there have been many innovations,

Who knows what the future will reveal?

 

We know that trains are running faster,

Their design is constantly being brought up to a date,

The rail system is forever being modernised,

Are these the reasons that so many of them are running late?

 

Train breakdowns, signal delays, power failure or the weather,

These are the excuses given to explain the delay,

Rail travellers are not impressed with the improvements,

What a pity the Stephenson and James Watt are not alive today.

Ron Martin

“Time” – Promote Yourself

 

 

 

Time

 

comes on like a storm

 

Leaving the mind mettled,

muddled, and full of metal,

 

leaves us like the artist

too soon

and full

of self-doubt

 

leaves us to return

with the reasons

we find

to soundlessly

yet hopefully

carry on

.Hello, my name is Thomas Skahill and I live in the United States. . My blog can be found at skahillthomas.wordpress.com

Mammy’s Fever. Promote Yourself

Her small hands lift the cool, white sheets


their pastried skin,

glazed

opalescent

Beneath folding, looping veins

bones of steel.

. . . .

Fingers

thoughtful fingers

tapping lightly in little rhythms

begin gathering the cool sheets for rehearsal.

. . . .

Moving through time

they trace

the patterns of the life they now describe

. . . .

Outside the window,

the cat

that was never there

vanishes;

Mammy  dreams

.

in her hospital bed,

.

making pleats.

© Ruth Ann Scanzillo, professional cellist/pianist from Pennsylvania; amateur poet/essayist.

Amnesia Behind Enemy Lines-promote yourself

(I had a vision on the ride in to work this one morning, of a single tear that refused to fall. As I peered deeper…it grew to encompass myself and envelop all that surrounded me.
An entire separate reality… another world… within a single tear)
The tear that would not fall …
too proud to let go. In dry deserted places he found comfort among the lost and broken. A tenuous fellowship, for he still remained a bit of an outsider even among them. He could roam freely here and they made a way for him, allowed him free access within a perverse reality. A curiosity among curiosities, a point of ridicule that stood out among the ridiculous. Made them feel better about themselves to have him around and he happy to be accepted, obliged.
But… that tear continued to grow and still did not fall. His head began to stoop, his legs grew weak from the gravity of it all. And he stood out even more, a sad tragic comedy even among the heartless. He was good for a laugh, perhaps that’s why he was left alone. Even satan himself doesn’t kick a dead horse. In his condition they assumed he was no real threat to them and entertaining to keep around. No one knew where he came from, he just kind of wandered in disoriented one day, and seemed to almost fit in. He certainly was good for comic relief, sometimes outright hilarity and pratfalls. Till one day he stumbled on a rock and the tear was jarred loose. It seemed to fall in slow motion and they all turned to look and screamed Nooooooo! They scrambled and dove to catch it but it fell upon the dry encrusted earth and was immediately absorbed. They ganged up on him and bullied him to a pulp where he stood all the while shouting, “What have you done… you fool?!” He lay there bleeding on the ground left for dead. Below him, a crackle and spark, the ground beneath him tremored, almost seemed to groan. A seed that had lain dormant awoke. Over the following years it flourished, wrapped around him, lifted him up, eventually bearing fruit. A strange sight now that stood out and could be seen from afar across “miles and miles of desolation”. To some, still a bit of an enigma. Other’s called him “a walking miracle”. Some were afraid of him, other’s detested him. Many thought him to be demon possessed. Not too concerned anymore about those who lean on their own understanding. Not even given a second thought. Very misunderstood was he. Either way, a spectacle that still drew the eye. On his own he could not answer the call,
but his tormented silent prayers were at last delivered Welled up…
In the tear that would not fall.

• anthony gomez

Spider in the Bed! -Promote Yourself

Turn the covers
Down
And scream – (in delight!)

Run to living room
parents’ –  (romantic meal)
interrupted.

Settled down
Barefoot one
Pyjamad
Little peep
I’m thirsty

Water given

Settled down
Barefoot two
Pyjamad
Little peep
I can’t sleep

You haven’t tried

Back down
Bated breath
Count to ten
Dare we
Try again

Barefeet
Pyjamad
Little peeps

Wrath raised
100 metre sprint
high jump
horse bolted
door not
bottom line
kin skin
tingling…

silence…
two bodies
shaking
snorting silent laughter
knowing loved…
if not liked…

Cheryl Bhagwandin
http://www.cheryl62blog.wordpress.com

Seagulls Cry

The wind blows on cliffs so high

All you can hear is the seagulls cry

The crashing waves

Echoes in the smugglers caves

Children walking on the cobbled beach

You can hear the crunching

Beneath their feet

Fisherman trawling

Crabs are crawling

To escape

The fisherman’s bait

The sea is rolling waves so high

All you can hear is the seagulls cry

They sit and wait for the fisherman’s trawl

On Hastings cobbled beach at early dawn

Gillian Sims