Poetry by Wingnut

[Wingnut]

RAINFOREST


A wondrous hidden realm exists

Within this world of emerald dreams,

Where spirits of the forest sigh

As ancient giants touch the sky

And summon forth the swirling mists...


Then nature's mystery unfolds

Inside this pristine paradise,

For when the mists so gently fall,

The forest spirits, one and all,

Descend from arborescent eaves

To stand beneath the dripping leaves

And breathe the precious breath of life.


So grateful for this fleeting chance

To join the elemental dance,

From side to side they softly sway,

And then they slowly turn away,

To disappear with silent steps

Into the jungle's darkest depths.

 

[Wingnut]

THE NORSEMEN


They sail their ships to distant shores,

And there they disembark in scores,

To venture forth in martial stride

And terrorize the countryside!

They send fierce landsmen to their graves,

And seize the fairest girls as slaves;

They ransack villages in turn,

And what remains, remains to burn!

They gather all that they can take,

And leave destruction in their wake.

Then they upon slain creatures dine,

And slake their thirst with stolen wine;

And after they consume their draft,

They stagger back to board their craft

And sail home to northern lands,

The spoils of combat in their hands.

 

[Wingnut]

THE HUMMINGBIRD


His agile form streaks into sight,

Then hovers there before your eyes;

This fragile master of the skies

Discovers blossoms in delight!

He savors nectar while in flight,

This clever bird of enterprise;

He wavers, then he swiftly flies,

And never once does he alight!


This gorgeous gleaming jewel so fair,

With whirring wings and wondrous ways,

Has bearing far beyond compare!

And for just seconds, he conveys

A stirring gift to those who share

His daring aerial displays!

 

[Wingnut]

BERSERKER


The murder rages in his eyes,

His mighty hands wield bloody sword;

The scourge of the retreating horde,

He pierces hearts with savage cries!

He cares not if he lives or dies,

This fearsome frenzied martial lord;

The thrill of combat his reward,

His violence intensifies!


Beneath his feet thrash stricken foes,

Before him men withdraw in fright;

He crushes all with mortal blows!

He scorns his weak opponents' plight

And expedites their dying throes;

He revels in eternal fight!

 

[Wingnut]

DERELICT


Inside a tenement where no one cares,

Within a darkened slum of forlorn hopes,

A quiv'ring alcoholic blindly gropes,

Then slowly tumbles headlong down the stairs.

He feels no pain, and yet his temper flares,

And shortly, he in sullen anger mopes;

With his new circumstance he simply copes,

The situation he already bears.


He knows that he must make it to the store,

And so he awkwardly regains his feet;

Unsteadily, he staggers out the door.

He weaves in drunken stupor down the street,

Forever driven by the urge for more;

His empty stomach soon will feel the heat.

 

[ClemKadiddlehopper]

BERSERKER


The murder rages in his eyes,

His mighty hands wield bloody sword;

The scourge of the retreating horde,

He pierces hearts with savage cries!

He cares not if he lives or dies,

This fearsome frenzied martial lord;

The thrill of combat his reward,

His violence intensifies!


Beneath his feet thrash stricken foes,

Before him men withdraw in fright;

He crushes all with mortal blows!

He scorns his weak opponents' plight

And expedites their dying throes;

He revels in eternal fight!

This one hits too close to home. Today seems to be a day for bringing out old baggage.

 

[Pearl]

Is alcohol involved

 

[Amish Heart]

Either that, or what he's growing.

 

[jazzy]

wingnut, its nice to see you from the other place.

 

[Spikedriver]

@Wingnut thanks for sharing. Perhaps we could start a poetry thread for all members to share anything they come up with. I myself am not poetic in the least but my great grandmother wrote many poems about life on the farm from the '20s to the '50s. Her granddaughters collected the poems and put them in a book. There are a couple copies of it at Pop's house. If I can find it I'll share some...

 

[viking]

Is alcohol involved

Vikings/ berserkers, drank honey mead from dried out skulls of their enemies, yeah alcohol was partook of for sure.

 

[Pearl]

I started a thread called "our poetry (inspired by Wingnut)! Curious where it may take us!!

 

[Wingnut]

So some of ya liked my poetry, lol... I went through a phase long ago, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, and I wrote a passel of poems. Sonnets are probably my favorite, they appeal to my orderly nature... and they're not always that easy to write! For instance, look at 'The Hummingbird'---that is a technical marvel, with a deliberately mismatched internal rhyme scheme to offset the end rhyme scheme. In other words, there are two completely different rhyme schemes in that poem: in the sextet, 'gorgeous' and 'for just' were as close as I could get, lol. Go back and read it again and you'll see what I mean, it's much more complex than ya probably thought at first, lol.

And for those who think poetry is for sidewalk sissies, PFFFFFFFT... man up and write a poem, it can be about ANYTHING under the sun. I wrote those Viking poems for the heck of it, but I was younger & scrappier at the time. The 'Derelict' poem? Why NOT write about some drunken bum? Is there a law against it? Of course not... though it's not the most ROMANTIC poem ever written, BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Dang, sometimes I slay myself... now where was I? Oh, yeah, my 'Rainforest' poem was inspired by Jungle Training down at Fort Sherman, Panama, back when I was an Infantry soldier: we were learning how to kill the enemy in the jungle, lol, but my greatest takeaway was the beauty of the rainforest.

Maybe I should say my greatest takeaway over the decades... my memories of the triple-canopy jungle down there are powerful, even to this day. And the jungle can be a harsh place in which to survive, with all kinds of venomous critters, lol. Huge spiders & snakes, fire ants galore, vampire bats, the whole nine yards. Those Bushmaster snakes were bad, made the boas look like household pets, lol. And the ants were crazy, they'd clear highways across the jungle floor with 'lanes' traveling in each direction... looked like I-5 during rush hour, lol. Maybe the 405, aye? I'd never seen anything like it... and haven't since I left Panama, go figure. Peanut, those Gulf Coast states gots NOTHIN' on Panama for snakes, lol...

One of my favorite memories of Panama involves riding in these old rust bucket Hueys, open door over the canopy while flying contour... at one point, the pilot(s) took us over this cliff on the Caribbean side, with the canopy directly below the skids suddenly being replaced by a vertical drop of 250' or so. The chopper banked hard and we were staring straight down at these beautiful multicolored reefs & shallows, like something out of a postcard, lol. The Hueys vibrated so badly that it felt like the "Jesus nut" was about to come off at any second, lol... thankfully, I never had a problem with heights, though some of the troops didn't like flying. White-knuckle thrill rides, some of those chopper flights... beat walking though, lol.

Well, I'd better quit reminiscing and post this, I learned a great technique today for watering trees in drought zones, some hand who owns a business dealing with this problem stopped to talk for a few moments while I was waiting for the welder to repair my bike. This guy was an expert on making trees grow in the high desert... so I paid attention to everything he said and followed his advice once I dropped the bike back at the house. I'll go into more detail once I start another thread, as this technique may help folks here at this website. Tomorrow morning, when it's nice and cool out, I'm gonna put that guy's advice to work in my yard, I bought everything I need to get started, lol. Let me post this and move on to other things...

 

[SheepDog]

From the emergence of an out of body experience while meditating:

The MAGICIAN
by Michael de Pheonix

As I float in this candles flame
the color slowly begins to change.
From yellow, to gold, to crystal white
and then to implode in clear blue light.

An instants thought tells of years
struggle, strife, millions of tears.
Practitioner's herbs and jars of stuff,
a book of spells, a life so rough.

A name that lives in history.
A man who said all things can be.
He made a peasant into a king
and traveled time with pendant and ring.

A long blue robe and purple coat,
sandaled feet, a bag to tote.
A man of time with crumpled hat,
Merlin's here, Imagine that!


COPYRIGHT (c) 1985 Michael de Pheonix​

 

[Pearl]

So some of ya liked my poetry, lol... I went through a phase long ago, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, and I wrote a passel of poems. Sonnets are probably my favorite, they appeal to my orderly nature... and they're not always that easy to write! For instance, look at 'The Hummingbird'---that is a technical marvel, with a deliberately mismatched internal rhyme scheme to offset the end rhyme scheme. In other words, there are two completely different rhyme schemes in that poem: in the sextet, 'gorgeous' and 'for just' were as close as I could get, lol. Go back and read it again and you'll see what I mean, it's much more complex than ya probably thought at first, lol.

And for those who think poetry is for sidewalk sissies, PFFFFFFFT... man up and write a poem, it can be about ANYTHING under the sun. I wrote those Viking poems for the heck of it, but I was younger & scrappier at the time. The 'Derelict' poem? Why NOT write about some drunken bum? Is there a law against it? Of course not... though it's not the most ROMANTIC poem ever written, BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Dang, sometimes I slay myself... now where was I? Oh, yeah, my 'Rainforest' poem was inspired by Jungle Training down at Fort Sherman, Panama, back when I was an Infantry soldier: we were learning how to kill the enemy in the jungle, lol, but my greatest takeaway was the beauty of the rainforest.

Maybe I should say my greatest takeaway over the decades... my memories of the triple-canopy jungle down there are powerful, even to this day. And the jungle can be a harsh place in which to survive, with all kinds of venomous critters, lol. Huge spiders & snakes, fire ants galore, vampire bats, the whole nine yards. Those Bushmaster snakes were bad, made the boas look like household pets, lol. And the ants were crazy, they'd clear highways across the jungle floor with 'lanes' traveling in each direction... looked like I-5 during rush hour, lol. Maybe the 405, aye? I'd never seen anything like it... and haven't since I left Panama, go figure. Peanut, those Gulf Coast states gots NOTHIN' on Panama for snakes, lol...

One of my favorite memories of Panama involves riding in these old rust bucket Hueys, open door over the canopy while flying contour... at one point, the pilot(s) took us over this cliff on the Caribbean side, with the canopy directly below the skids suddenly being replaced by a vertical drop of 250' or so. The chopper banked hard and we were staring straight down at these beautiful multicolored reefs & shallows, like something out of a postcard, lol. The Hueys vibrated so badly that it felt like the "Jesus nut" was about to come off at any second, lol... thankfully, I never had a problem with heights, though some of the troops didn't like flying. White-knuckle thrill rides, some of those chopper flights... beat walking though, lol.

Well, I'd better quit reminiscing and post this, I learned a great technique today for watering trees in drought zones, some hand who owns a business dealing with this problem stopped to talk for a few moments while I was waiting for the welder to repair my bike. This guy was an expert on making trees grow in the high desert... so I paid attention to everything he said and followed his advice once I dropped the bike back at the house. I'll go into more detail once I start another thread, as this technique may help folks here at this website. Tomorrow morning, when it's nice and cool out, I'm gonna put that guy's advice to work in my yard, I bought everything I need to get started, lol. Let me post this and move on to other things...

Keep it coming!!

 

[Wingnut]

Meh, the rest are kinda sappy, too much failed romance involved, lol... makes me wonder where those gals are NOW with all the BS going on in our current gubmint? Those (formerly) sweet young gals are probably dead or in prison, part of that whole "jailhouse funding scam" costing taxpayers BILLIONS in the Socialist Republik of Kalifornia, lol. When the privatization of jails becomes a hot new investment opportunity, ya know something ain't RIGHT, "10-DASH-FO'?"

I'm NOT writing off the possibility of posting other poems, but I think I'll segue into some of my written stories, which are indeed POETRY by any fool's standards, lol. Funnier than bejesus, most of those stories... and they offer a glimpse into a better era when there wasn't so much POLITICAL BS & MANUFACTURED GRIEF in our lives, aye? Let's start with a few chosen links that give readers a glimpse into that separate reality known as OTR Truck Driving, lol...

Mohawk Mountain Madness

Salt Lake Skeeter Saga

Monkey Business In Manhattan

Triple Treat

Isla Norte

Internet Rambo!!!

Okay, I slipped a nautical tale of adventure in there as well, and that last link is just some blurb I wrote to address the whole CB & Internet Rambo scene... it's pretty funny, I'm sure those of you who've driven a truck will appreciate it, lol. Y'all be good, I'm about to mix another tall rum drink and surf the web, AYE? SOMEBODY has to do it, and this ugly job has MY name written ALL over it, lol. Meh, ya win some, ya lose some, that's just the way it goes in this crazy life...

 

[Wingnut]

ODE TO A GOATHEAD


I hope to God I never see

This noxious weed, the Devil's Thorn,

The scourge of floral harmony

Which countless gardeners do scorn!

For once the puncturevines invade

A property, they multiply;

Like trained commandos on a raid,

They overrun and seldom die!


Exploding, these weeds never quit,

They'll put your patience to the test!

Each newfound vine, another hit,

A blow to ego and to rest...

You just can't get rid of the $h!t,

I reckon napalm would be best!

 

[Wingnut]

There, don't say I never do y'all any favors, lol. Here's a poem I wrote many years ago about a dying soldier... but now that I read it again, it's quite clear to me, the soldier was dealing with GOATHEADS, lol. It wasn't a mortar round after all, it was those pesky goatheads!!!


THE MEDIC'S TEARS


A badly-wounded soldier lay

Upon the field where he fell;

The fragments of a mortar shell

Had paralyzed him in the fray!

I knew he had not long to stay

Before he left this living hell;

I bade this brave young man farewell,

And yet his eyes still looked my way!


I knew he was in agony,

And so I couldn't leave his side;

I longed for death to set him free!

In painful misery, I cried...

While he just watched me quietly;

Then, ever quietly, he died.

 

[Wingnut]

Okay, this poem was actually written by 'Ned Buntline'---the pen name of Edward Zane Carroll Judson, the 'King of the Dime Novels' back when the Wild West was still being tamed, lol. But it's a pretty cool poem, so I'm gonna put it right here in this thread where I can find it later if necessary. I'm currently reading one of the 'West Of The Big River' series of novels, and this book is a biographical novel of Ned Buntline and his adventurous life, he actually DID exist and made literary history with his dime novels, which were distributed across the country (and probably overseas, at least to England where many folks were interested in Western lore).

Now, Ol' Ned made heaps of money by writing over 500 dime novels during the latter half of the 19th Century: no lie, he made over $20K per year at the peak of his writing career, and that was a fortune in those days, aye? So he lived well, and he had a primo home built which he called 'The Eagle's Nest' in Stamford, NY---not Stamford, CT--- but an earlier version was a simple cabin on a hunting preserve somewhere. This poem I'm about to share with y'all is titled 'THE EAGLE'S NEST' but I don't think Ol' Ned was referring to his own home, I think this was his IDEAL of what a Western man's home SHOULD BE, yeah? As I read it last night, I thought of y'all and I vowed to post the poem here, lol...

Here we go with 'THE EAGLE'S NEST'---pretty cool poem, I reckon, puts me right where I want to be! ENJOY!!!

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THE EAGLE'S NEST


Where the silvery gleam of the rushing stream

Is so brightly seen o'er the rocks dark green,

Where the white pink grows by the wild red rose

And the blue bird sings till the welkin rings.


Where the red deer leaps and the panther creeps,

And the eagles scream over cliff and stream,

Where the lilies bow their heads of snow,

And the hemlocks tall throw a shade o'er all.


Where the rolling surf leaves the emerald turf,

Where the trout leaps high at the hovering fly,

Where the sportive fawn crops the soft green lawn,

And the crows' shrill cry bodes a tempest nigh---

There is my home---my wildwood home.


Where no step intrudes in the dense dark woods,

Here no song is heard but of breeze and bird;

Where the world's foul scum can never come;

Where friends are so few that all are true---

There is my home---my wildwood home.


Ned Buntline (1821-1886)

'King of the Dime Novels'