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poetry
Satish Verma, 27 march 2019
Your Half-Open Eyes
Moon dust was sprinkled
once more on mangroves
to extend the war
across the border.
This was an intricate rite
after the sad error, of
changing the itinerary
to pathless liberation.
The violence has spilled
over in the city of roses.
There was no water left
in the turbid estuary.
The herd was coming
to cross the sands of time.
Satish Verma, 25 march 2019
Pryingly
Nomadic words
do not stay with me
for long, after the betting.
The gamble was
pivotal, to find the
peace in jungle.
The alacrity to
remove the claudication,
when the heart stopped.
Objectively, a truth
will be dissected
to take out the lie.
Immoral was the
podium, which allowed
you, to stand for a sermon.
Satish Verma, 24 march 2019
Long-Feared Night
Eyes half-shut, you are seeing,
unseeing to house the failing light.
When the tornado writhes down, will
you come to clean the rubble?
And splash the bird, the sky in purple?
I am afraid of myself
to explore the craft of non-living.
When the silence descends, I will
know myself, like the bone of Buddha.
The words will not give
any relief, whipped into terror.
Satish Verma, 23 march 2019
Half-Drowned
The knot was broken
from the waist,
as if we were struck
by a bolt.
Thinking must stop.
Violence was there within
the pods, to explode and
eject the seeds.
The silent rape of a
sleeping book. You cannot
tear off the pages,
limb by limb.
You will not read the
past. Would not write
the future. The present roars
through the window starting a brush fire.
Satish Verma, 22 march 2019
Black Script
After the skin, the corti
were trying to measure the silence
before the cloudburst.
The white noises were
very accurate, disciplined shouts
ready to pull down the stapes.
A cochlear fall from the
great heights of vesuvian peak.
No matter how big was the chasm.
You have given up yourself
to broken stirrups. The planets
begin the dance without the god Apollo.
The road never ends. The
rider stands alone to ride the moon
gliding over the empty sea.
Satish Verma, 21 march 2019
Kaleidoscopic
In shadow of the moon, why
an illict bone, indentured
to the spirit of Buddha?
The footsteps were retraced
to find out the angst
of disappearing grass.
The blue eyes must remain
unclosed to print the
image of a pink cloud.
This desperate retraction.
I will not be able―
to write a single poem.
The unholy exit was
damaging the steel of a
proud man, still standing erect.
Roy Davenport, 20 march 2019
The Watch
He wore it faithfully for over sixty years,
A gift from his first small flock…tick tock,
To show their love for this man of God
Who had shared the Good News, tick tock.
But he shared more than just Good News.
He shared their joys and grief…tick tock
When words failed but love and friendship didn’t
The times when just being there was enough…..tick tock
From flock to flock, place to place he went where called
And always on his wrist, the watch kept him on time….tick tock
For weddings, funerals, joys and sorrows,just different faces
of the greater flock needing a gentle shepherd…tick tock
Oh what a price to be paid being a simple shepherd
.Each flock left its’ scars from bearing so many burdens….tick tock
But through it all a sense of calling kept him moving forward
While the watch ticked off, seconds, minutes, hours… tick tock
Without conscious thought he would wind the stem,
Note the time and go on serving, uninterrupted…. tick tock
Closer day by day to his promised reward for faithfulness
But always questioning his worthiness….. tick tock
That day came too soon, unexpected, but not unprepared for.
To the end his concern was for others despite the news…. tick tock
His great heart, his gentle soul made ready by years of service Came to rest just like the watch, faithful to the end, tick tock tick tock t…
RDavenport ©2010
Roy Davenport, 20 march 2019
Interrupted
Life was interrupted in March by a call that no one ever wants.
Despite countless brushes with eternity, we couldn't believe he was gone,
or perhaps it was just that you can never prepare for that kind of loss.
So now we count days since he left us and shred the occasional tear,
reminded daily by memories stirred by familiar faces or songs penned by
his God-given gift of music he lovingly shared with all.
But life goes on and we accept the loss and let time soothe our hearts.
The pain never leaves completely but becomes like an old friend,
silent, always in the background, looking for ways to remind us.
But just as surely as evening follows day, life follows death
and the circle, never ending, completes another rotation.
New life is breathed into existence, filling our hearts again with joy.
So it goes, on and on, life and death, God's plan being fulfilled.
Souls passing in the coming and going accompanied both ways
by Angelic presence watching and sharing in the grief and joy.
So we wait in anticipation of new life, foretold by a soothsayer to
a fostering family who waited with open arms the little angel
who had innocently joined this circle of life.
So without understanding but leaning solely on faith
we welcome every new day filled with grief, pain, joy
and resolve to move forward if only just a step or two.
For each step is a link in that never-ending circle of life that binds us to yesterday and tomorrow and forever.
There’s no circumventing that circle of life
that binds us to each other, to eternity,
to all that is humanity.
For Scott and Livia
RDavenport 2015 ©
Roy Davenport, 20 march 2019
In A Little While
In a little while
Today will be tonight
There will be darkness
Where before there was light.
In a little while
It will be tomorrow
Bringing us unexpected things
Perhaps of joy, maybe sorrow.
In a little while
This year will be last
As weeks becomes months
years become centuries so fast
In a little while
The weather will turn hot
Global warming they tell us
that’s the weather we’ve got.
In a little while
a job became a career
Not what I had planned
But better than I feared
In a little while
My children will be grown
Growing up way too fast
having children of their own.
In a little while
My old joints will get stiff
And raising my tired old head
Is all I’ll be able to lift
In a little while
My brown hair will turn gray
Maybe distinguished salt and pepper
or it might just fall away.
In a little while
My parents will be gone
Both my Mother and Father
facing life on my own.
In a little while
My mind will start to fail
And memories will vanish
Fading like fog on the dale.
In a little while
As time marches on
On a day only God knows
I will be gone………………..in a little while.
RDavenport 2019 ©
Roy Davenport, 20 march 2019
Five String Eddie
I met Eddie on a cold, wet December morning in 2005.
He was sitting on a bench in a public park quietly humming
Lying beside him was an old beat up Martin guitar
that he slowly picked up, smiled and started strumming.
He was tall and lanky and wore dirty, shabby clothes
that looked a size too big for his bent slender frame.
His face was leathered and told a story of a hard life.
His boots were well beyond keeping out cold or rain.
When he saw me sitting nearby he held up his guitar
and asked me if I had a request or favorite song
That’s when I noticed the guitar only had five strings
He was missing the little E string…it was completely gone
I asked him how he could play with only five strings.
He said he had gotten use to just five and asked if I was ready
“don’t know what I’d do with that sixth string….he laughed.
Besides he said, I’m partial to my nickname….”Five String Eddie”.
I told him I had no particular request and told him to pick
so he began to play the hymn “ Amazing Grace”.
Five String Eddie would never win on “America’s Got Talent”
But I had never seen so much joy on such a tired old face.
When he was through I tipped him a couple of dollars and left.
Over the next couple of weeks I looked forward to his playing
Each time he asked if I had a request, each time I let him choose.
and when he played old gospel tunes it was like almost like praying.
Out of curiosity one day I asked if he was a religious man.
He pulled out a small New Testament, and held up two fingers
“Me and the Lord’s just like this,” he said with a twinkle in his eye
I’m his favorite guitar player he laughed but not his favorite singer.”
It was hard to tell Eddie’s age, his hard life showed on his face.
On one occasion he told me that he left home when he was 14.
His address was a cardboard box in a grove of trees in the park.
He had lived on the street for years where life could be mean.
He survived by the kindness of strangers, moved by his music
or who tipped him out of annoyance. Either way they got a song.
He never begged or asked anyone for money, he had his pride
His audience was always just a few and never a throng.
In early January I came to the park hoping for an uplifting song
always feeling better after listening to him. But no Eddie played.
In fact he didn’t show all of that week or even the next two
It had been brutally cold and I wondered where he had stayed
I checked with some friends who worked in the courthouse
which stood directly across the street from his daily venue
but no one knew anything except he was called Five String Eddie.
The next day was a cold and rainy but I knew what I had to do
I checked with a friend of mine who worked in the Police Department.
“Yes”, He knew about Five String Eddie he said, then deeply sighed,
“They found his frozen body last week in some trees over by the park.”
Five String Eddie, my lunchtime companion and friend had died.
No family claimed his body so he was buried in a pauper’s plot
on the outskirts of town with no headstone to mark his simple grave.
The cemetery led me to believe that nobody visited there much anyway.
and my mood matched the weather that no one else had braved.
In an old Andy Griffith show Opie kills a mother bird with his slingshot
and Andy makes him raise the baby birds until they’re old enough to fly
When the day comes when he has to release the birds from the cage and as the baby birds, now grown, flap their wings and take to the sky.
Opie sadly states that the cage sure does look empty now
but Andy in his downhome wisdom points out how full the trees are
There’s no Five String Eddie playing and singing in the park anymore
but I imagine music in Heaven sounds fuller accompanied by a five string guitar.
RDavenport 2008 (C)
Poems by Roy Davenport : 5 / 18
Latest comments:
8 july 2025
jeśli tylko
o skierowanie całkiem łatwo, właśnie to przećwiczyłam,
8 july 2025
sam53
mam nadzieję że to jeden ptaszek... ale jeśli
8 july 2025
jeśli wiatrem i deszczem to halka niepotrzebna...
8 july 2025
może troszkę optymizmu... za kilka dni wyjrzy
8 july 2025
wiesz jak trudno o skierowanie do sanatorium...
8 july 2025
tej pieszczoty po pewnym czasie się nie zauważa...
8 july 2025
postrzeganie życia.. jest w nas..
8 july 2025
a może go.. nie zauważać..
8 july 2025
kontakt.. albo (o)mijanie... ;))
8 july 2025
Jaga
"to my wozimy ten aceton "
8 july 2025
Rymy nie są niczym zdrożnym.
8 july 2025
Dziękuje. Pozdrawiam :)
7 july 2025
jeśli tylko
5 july 2025
jeśli tylko
4 july 2025
Jaga
27 june 2025
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Atanazy Pernat
23 june 2025
ajw
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16 june 2025
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14 june 2025
ajw