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rooked row

Submitted by Esker on Fri, 2017-05-12 06:48

weathers
warmed the life in woods
and worn through ways
the weary greys
Birdsong in overcast
and grasses resume the
green
and rising shoots of color
stray their faces to the sky
resuming the life slept beneath
their seasons
while others fade

more the welcome to the sun
and longer days beyond this
sheen of bleak and damp
walled within the quieter year
where even the crows are walking
attending to the quiet of their meals

..

Editing stage: 
Editing - rough draft

Comments

jane210660

Fri, 2017-05-12 10:41

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This is wonderful, superb, I love it. For me, one of the best poems I've read for a long time.
Are you putting it up for the contest?

------------
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Don't forget to offer critique on poems you read.

Esker

Fri, 2017-05-12 15:22

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but thank U!

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Eumolpus

Fri, 2017-05-12 11:55

Eumolpus's picture

Tight, concise, focused, fabulous imagery and music.

Small opinion- the flag is the only human object or reference in the poem. I don't think we need it. To me flags have a political connotation, that of nation or tribe. I love the image of them singing in overcast, but not in this poem.

Congratulations on this truly magical poem

Eumolpus
I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing
than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance
ee cummings

Esker

Fri, 2017-05-12 15:26

Esker's picture

I hear you on the connotation...but for me its just a measurement of wind velocity...
banner......maybe.....but....i have worked for many
over the years..the old loyalist in me
because thats what i MYSELF stood for
of that old era.....just in me...dude im fifty four
.....Love your works by the way...and equally understand
the issue...

Mr Wolf

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Esker

Fri, 2017-05-12 15:27

Esker's picture

so when i see the wild ones
hopping about i say hello to them
and ravens too......

thank U..
mr w

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Geezer

Fri, 2017-05-12 12:52

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the flags. I simply thought of them rippling in the overcast breeze; that soft fluttering sound. I love the image of the crows walking along inspecting the new grass for tidbits. They have a quiet grace and being all dressed in black, look like they are out on the town. As usual, you tell a great story. ~ Gee

There is value to commenting and critique, tell us how you feel about our work.
This must be the place, 'cause there ain't no place like this place anywhere near this place.

Esker

Fri, 2017-05-12 15:35

Esker's picture

all the flags do is tell me the wind
the sky the rest........
not really political
but long long ago in our political
indoctrination of war news on vietnam
i always said...I would have gone in
belief of country....principle
might be the wrong reason but for me
at twelve it was reason enough!

if you cant stand for your land and country
at twelve.......what can you stand for
your hood......your family..
we had the twilight zone
and anti war movies galore
i FLY a canadian flag outside this place
........
my father was an american
...........there is idealism and then there
is the primitive tribal existentialism
either way I would have been excluded
on all levels of physical and mental
disqualifications where many apt and
intelligent would have been expected
to do the duty that many did..
and those that revoked......
i was not of the revoke class.....
never was.....

thank U..

W

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Sparrow

Fri, 2017-05-12 18:41

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Another great write of your thoughts,
that some have to trouble their normally stagnant thoughts is really good.
Your poetry has to be read and felt, it is how things should be written.
Thank you for your thoughts on Spring or a new beginning.
Could be that many of us need a new beginning, where we can assess all the yesterdays and make for a better now and tomorrow.
But I guess that it would be so hard for most to do, cluttered thoughts of many years fester in most, and only in death can they see things as they should be, there to judge all the things done and the final weigh in where I hope my scales will be heavier on the good side.
Thank you young Wolf and it is a joy to be part of your thoughts when possible,
Look out for that Eagle it is just a symbol of being able to see things clearly..
Yours as always, Ian..

.
Give critique to help keep Neopoet great.
Unconditional love to you all.
"Learn to love yourself first"
Yours as always, Ian.T, Sparrow, and Yenti

vandiemenspeak

Sat, 2017-05-13 10:02

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of observational pulse, with many subtle observations. I like the change of pace and style, more in the line like this, than first glance:

resuming the life slept beneath
their seasons

and the crows attending to their meals - depiction of the slow processional picking, the indifference of nature, crows the world over, see the same behaviour here, in the green paddocks at dawn.

This time of year, we hear great congregations of them in the gum trees, harsh sqwarking choirs that fill the air.

Great piece Esk..

Thanks,

Chris.

Chris Hall - Tasmania

Grossbooted draymen rolled barrels dullthudding out of Prince's stores and bumped them up on the brewery float. On the brewery float bumped dullthudding barrels rolled by grossbooted draymen out of Prince's stores.

Esker

Thu, 2017-05-18 23:29

Esker's picture

town was busy..weekend coming...my row of mates downtown
gathered...got a new muse...female..top notch...perfect card to
me...we get closer and closer like stars colliding....
loss of dog..the spring summer loss of the tormented continues
I cannot write the reality of fiction..she is real....
I do like my woman....Love is a stranger i like to say...
reading up on much..just came across 'Filth'
the novelist...as im part scot its interesting..
'Spud'....my daughter is a cool artist..did a pencil portrait
of Spud...our town has characters...they are filming some
movie...trailers all about..its as soothing chaotic as
archie conklins carnival of rides set up in Lee Park
..all of this and the new muse arrives...
but we are comfortable her and I....shes made mention
of her previous ex who died....the black modonna i call
her secretly....my flaming green skulls t shirt..sunburned
face.wild hair..bruised arm...torn jeans...
her perfume is exquisite...
we are a good pair..
but so much going on already..

then the storm hit..i slept.
woke up an hour ago
slept after hearing about audioslaves front
man dying...
sad...

but trainspotting comes back again
the reference....
marvelous pic....

all the brilliant minds...

thanks Chris....
my life evolving day by day

Mr Wolf!

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vandiemenspeak

Fri, 2017-05-19 10:20

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I liked Soundgarden when I was in my teens, 90s UK, listening to John Peel, on Radio One BBC Peel sessions, would tune in every week, before the weekend, and all huddle around my warm, all in one laminate record player in the bedroom, all smokes, and pre town cheap sherry, withering winter coming on, heading down town in the dark, icy hill, in 1950s style trench coats, Echo and the Bunnymen hair, strange ideas, books, outsiders, L'Etranger - all had big plans, full wit, a rowdy rabble of odd end, square pegs, heading into the town of Newark on Trent below, avoind all the wine bars and the yuppie scene.
Only time I catch them now is occasionally on social media, some died, some married then divorced, some travelled (like me) and ended up in collective farms in Israel, others still do the great round trip, always on the road, from the midlands, round Europe on the cheap, Paris on the cheap (down and out) - round the block - up over the Pyrenees , up to Las Rochelle, Southampton, London, train up to Edinburgh, fringe festival, - living the trainspotting dream - they still do it.

I hope to get back there one day, just to show my lad, the old haunts, the places you can't go to any more.. but then I know self pity, it starts with nostalgia..time to move on.

Black Madonnas! New flames, burnishing hot black metal, back to Sound Garden, Nirvana, Tad, just played him 'Black Hole Sun' - just the beginning of a new sound adventure - he likes the old sound, the deep rough hum, the shabby edges of human music, made back then, the beautiful loneliness instilled in moments, intimately given over in the bedroom apparatus, hasty assembled amplifiers, turntables, Joy division, best savoured alone, like a cold Mancunian vodka.

Sterility in modes of production abounds the sound today, I have a friend in the UK, bought an old Ambulance to live in, decked it out with wooden panelling - did everything from IT phone support, paramedic (too much carnage for a young mind) through to his final calling, a sound engineer..
He did production job on T'Pau (Give a little heart and soul) if you remember them, and also toured with the Pogues doing their sound desk...left the industry for a while, hard living, hard on his lovely girl, don't know how she put up with him, but they got through, 3 kids, still living the hippies dream over there. Survivor.

The Black Madonnas - I read a book on the cult of them in France, and the legend of Renne Le Chateau - missing parchments, Merovingian kings, blood lines, got lost down that rabbit hole of Templars and strange Scottish cults of Sinclair, masons buried in an ancient abbey near Edinburgh under skull and bones (sign of a Templar burial) went looking around some of the little places, where they had excavated - loved all that.
This weekend I have more plans with a notepad and a chainsaw..have to get the winter wood in, reading Les Murray - Vernacular Republic - to read him is to know this country, and some of its mystery.
Another Scott as it happens, - it's all coming back to Scotland, your roots! ya Hameland! Rabbie Burns, Ode to a mouse - I read in an irish pub called the plough Inn on Burns night years ago, could hardly stand up, yet got a standing ovation, strange rapt attention, words can bring in the old pubs..
My old man would take me down the Kings Arms on Kirk gate, and in there, would be one of his old welding buddies, strong tall grey haired, semi retires, proud, strong voice, kind soul, would be in mid-conversation and he would burst into an old Irish ballad, or a rendition of Yetas Down by the Sally Gardens, whole pub would stop and lend ear-
I was talking with Poddle, my Daughter - and her being a millennial and all, was trying to convey what it was like, then it struck me the time reference I was talking about - the last century, literary songs and lives and loves of the last century, it must seem strange to them, it feels like a labyrinthine story to me, I don't know how many layers of it i lived, how many I hid in, how many years i filled in, it all lead me to here,

Tomorrow light will come to the valley,
I will rise and greet it then,
lowered head, revered as though
entering the sanctum of outside,
I will ride the hill down
Blow through the towns,
Stop and find one corner
I've never seen,
like a new word of place learned
each day.

Rain in the afternoon, rush to gutters, all hands, tanks are nearly dry, hopefully get enough, before the waterman comes.

Keep well mate,

Post soon,

Chris.

Chris Hall - Tasmania

Grossbooted draymen rolled barrels dullthudding out of Prince's stores and bumped them up on the brewery float. On the brewery float bumped dullthudding barrels rolled by grossbooted draymen out of Prince's stores.

Esker

Fri, 2017-05-19 21:49

Esker's picture

my fuel inject carb spring washer broke...my fair fine mare they put beneath me
I was driven to an island causeway magician...somehow he and I connected...helping
him in the labrynth of instruments..we tig welded the broken tag ..ground up the artifice
back to an artifact ..good as brand new....I barely knowing the order put it back together
my chum who helped me jealous of the connect between the wizard and I...yet we worked
...perhaps ambition spoilt it for my chum....it has its way of stealing the joy of the impulse.

you either are the artful dodgers or the wanting wallys...

Blondie..I write on Chris Stiens photos of fb...listen to blondies new tunes..I like monster
We were young in eighty five...we reposed via my chum with Nikon photos ...joy division
on the bridge..echo and the bunnymen on their trees....we were all skinny....long coats
from sally ann...the freaks of the town....cranked Joy Division at the shoppe on cold
winter moonlight nites..my chum working on the franken GTO convertible...the woodstove
cracklng..hot chocolate and Gibsons Finest Whiskey...he put in a small electric heater
bar for my feet..and built a desk..I moved the electric from the house...and wrote poetry
short stories..horror..sci fi there...and memes....drawings...paintings...then I though it
valueless and worthless...today its all mainstream...there are more artists thEN I could
have imagined....and the new young females we wished for then are alive and well
Loving doors...and the old bent crew....more then happy to the be throwback retro muses..
of those old enough to have tasted the authenticity of the past....

many a bone numbing glittering snow night we would come out to watch the moon
glass in hand...hot smoke pouring from the low slope shoppe roof
then back inside for insanely loud music...driven to rebuilt the car and create some
Lovecraft Poe Stephen King works.....till I met my old lady new in a bar...a day later
after a sleepless passion filled night she came..swept in and took me away in her
car...to the nest...waterbed..cozy apt...chaise lounge...antiques...turntable in its
corner with little light...television bed couch....utopia.....more stories then time for
telling...

Blondie...it was Clem Burke I think who was an ambulance driver too...love nicolas
cage..scorcese's Bringing out the Dead....

I know many of the old chums still dyed in the wool bohemians...they ask of me
and a visit south will be sixty dollars...I should do it.....
the old town where it all began...

thanks Chris!

Mr Wolf!

author comment

Esker

Tue, 2017-05-23 05:15

Esker's picture

well..poets be....the flag noticer..is correct...ian the ruffler of poet thought wakener
being ME...all correct...got a new muse...been some time working with a new mind
up close....not sure what its about or up too...but i shook hands to her proper
today...means i shall accept the challenge...
i only deal with the extreme cases....

but shes teaching me to look at things
beyond just look..

i crank out these works in minutes
if I have to write them down think about them
its lost....my mind does not retain much
anything outside the eye of the hurricane
within gets swept away out of that eye
of calmness
not a bad thing
all these years ive come to know it
live with it around it

its all organic...the entire poem
not to say the flag is synthetic
could be chinese silk
no era is described

but it IS the only human connotation
other then reader
and its starts with WOODS

could be a grass...branches..
rustlng...whistling wind
but a flag...
and yet..on personal note
the flag reminds me of the wind
which in turn reminded me of
all the other elements
and
a friend of mine would tell
her of the walk and the only
thing that drew my attention
was her description of flags
at her waterfront
i dont care what they are for
truly....the fluid of air moving
about them is what I like
but thats easy

its harder to try to incorporate
the organic impact
the humanless truth of being
in the natural environment

abstract poetry writing is how
i view the woods....abstract
i have lived urban for seventeen
years....

anyway....yadda yadda boo
i see how it would be an organic
poem without the flag.simple
all that for that..

learning something new yet again!

thanks man...
ever greatful
Wolf!

author comment

Esker

Tue, 2017-05-23 05:19

Esker's picture

removed flag!
put in birdsong
easy peasy!

W

author comment

Eumolpus

Tue, 2017-05-23 11:11

Eumolpus's picture

I am very honored to have been a small catalyst for you to make a minor adjustment to this really very very fine poem. I think we are all trying honestly to respect our first gut reaction to a reading, and the flag thing was mine...Interesting how many different points of view came out of it!

Obviously you are a very prolific and fertile writer, what a great joy to spill out all these great images and moods in your works and comments! With such a huge opus, I would think it is hard to get into multiple revisions. But after this edit, the piece seems still very spontaneous and a complete work of great craft.

Eumolpus
I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing
than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance
ee cummings

Esker

Tue, 2017-05-23 13:08

Esker's picture

Jim morrison was a pompous baffoon...an arti cinema film drop out
who got picked up by the geniuse of the band who needed the
anti theme..anti hero to douse their charismatic dark mood of the times
to lead into light and back into dark
Like the band said...We were not singing Mersey on the Jersey
but morrison did respect his team
and paid due
lets say unlike a certian axle of a battle wagon band
who fell into shit and did not emerge smelling like roses
no matter how social or democratic
all chinese to me
a racist connotation....but it fits the pun and wit
at my cost and intended
i shall refrain from the slurs

the translation to nature the organic was a detail
i missed..my defense of the 'flag' idealogy in theme
was a learning experience....
the poem on re-edit smoothens out
so I thank U very much
must be something in the air
or i'm more receptive to this
I apologize to others from past works
who tried to show me these little
things....I am know for my stubborn
ego and confrontational idealogies
and maybe I do have a respect for
my poetic works....it must be
there is a season turn turn turn
and a purpose for anything

thank U

w

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