Poetry and Prose for any season

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Evil That Always Takes Its Toll

Remember where hot lightning bolts flash down,
Its sun-fire heat burning in a tragic strike!
There perished mother and her little tyke;
Tragedy there, where the angels cry and frown,
And sing their saddest songs upon the waves:
Doom and gloom a sad fruit to be born
Taken long before Gabriel blows his horn.
Judged by Fate no power in Universe ever saves,
Yet no man lives that can ever be so sure,
That misery will forget to take its toll
Upon the peace that stirs the blessed soul!
There was peace: yet no peace can insure,
Paradise will be waiting for its fair guests,
The great promise, its most fantastic lure!
Security of life and limb of angels so pure:
Or protection from Evil that eternally infests.

Robert J. Lindley, August , 1973

Note: A poem from my private journal, from back when I wrote a bit more in the old style.
Sometimes I dearly miss writing like this..... and that muse that raced so far away!

p.s. My first wife(future ex) thought this my best poem ever.
At that time I had several hundred written. -Tyr

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

I Walked A Long Summer Lane


I walked a long summer lane
immune from the usual pain
A spirit was inside of me
so dark but good as could be!

Awaiting that call to fight
embraced by courage of light
As I strolled grace emerged
all my fear soundly purged

No rhyme or reason of the why
just no damn fear to ever die
I had a purpose to sacrifice
fight it dirty hell with nice

Was it the future, was it now
be damn if it mattered anyhow
What mattered was win the fight
battled as day turned into night

Only remember felt good to kill
evil and its dark was a thrill
Never wrong when defending good
would have died if I ever could

Woke to the alarm clock ring
I remembered almost everything
Slay the evil darkened forces
call upon the guardian forces

Was it real or just more dreams
so very real each time it seems
Why me, I certainly am no saint
not evil but very good I ain't

I walked a long summer lane
immune from the usual pain
A spirit was inside of me
so dark but good as could be!

Robert J. Lindley, 05-03-2015


Note : A recurring dream that baffles me all to hell.
Imagination or a real trip into hell. I know there are
other dimensions, alien worlds and spiritual realms.
I wonder, what if?

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

In Due Season
by John McCrae


If night should come and find me at my toil,
When all Life's day I had, tho' faintly, wrought,
And shallow furrows, cleft in stony soil
Were all my labour: Shall I count it naught

If only one poor gleaner, weak of hand,
Shall pick a scanty sheaf where I have sown?
"Nay, for of thee the Master doth demand
Thy work: the harvest rests with Him alone."
------------------------------------------------

Eventide
by John McCrae


The day is past and the toilers cease;
The land grows dim 'mid the shadows grey,
And hearts are glad, for the dark brings peace
At the close of day.

Each weary toiler, with lingering pace,
As he homeward turns, with the long day done,
Looks out to the west, with the light on his face
Of the setting sun.

Yet some see not (with their sin-dimmed eyes)
The promise of rest in the fading light;
But the clouds loom dark in the angry skies
At the fall of night.

And some see only a golden sky
Where the elms their welcoming arms stretch wide
To the calling rooks, as they homeward fly
At the eventide.

It speaks of peace that comes after strife,
Of the rest He sends to the hearts He tried,
Of the calm that follows the stormiest life --
God's eventide.
------------------------------------------------

Anarchy
by John McCrae


I saw a city filled with lust and shame,
Where men, like wolves, slunk through the grim half-light;
And sudden, in the midst of it, there came
One who spoke boldly for the cause of Right.

And speaking, fell before that brutish race
Like some poor wren that shrieking eagles tear,
While brute Dishonour, with her bloodless face
Stood by and smote his lips that moved in prayer.

"Speak not of God! In centuries that word
Hath not been uttered! Our own king are we."
And God stretched forth his finger as He heard
And o'er it cast a thousand leagues of sea.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Pity, The Bread Where Sorrow Rests


The night is long, hours drag on by
can not forgive, even though I try
All is dark with bold shadows black
telling me of the compassion I lack

We see with eyes filled with sin
this world our heart rests within
Never seeing the sun in every sky
Or the promised life after we die

The night is long, I beat on stones
with burning ache deep in my bones
The crying rocks scream for more
from behind that blue misery door

I that knows why the eagle flies
cloak myself in dark little lies

Pity, the bread where sorrow rests
a poor fare for any wayward guests
I ponder thoughts best hidden away
unforgiving this night, thus I pay

The night is long, hours drag on by
can not forgive, even though I try
All is dark with bold shadows black
telling me of the compassion I lack

Robert J. Lindley, 05-04-2015

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

To Althea, From Prison
by Richard Lovelace

When love with unconfined wings
Hovers within my gates,
And my divine Althea brings
To whisper at the grates;
When I lie tangled in her hair,
And fettered to her eye,
The birds that wanton in the air
Know no such liberty.

When flowing cups run swiftly round
With no allaying Thames,
Our careless heads with roses bound,
Our hearts with loyal flames;
When thirsty grief in wine we steep,
When healths and draughts go free,
Fishes that tipple in the deep
Know no such liberty.

When, like committed linnets, I
With shriller throat shall sing
The sweetness, mercy, majesty,
And glories of my King;
When I shall voice aloud how good

He is, how great should be,
Enlarged winds that curl the flood
Know no such liberty.

Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for an hermitage;
If I have freedom in my love,
And in my soul am free,
Angels alone, that soar above,
Enjoy such liberty
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


To Lucasta, Going To The Wars
by Richard Lovelace

Tell me not, Sweet, I am unkind,
That from the nunnery
Of thy chaste breasts, and quiet mind,
To war and arms I fly.

True, a new mistress now I chase,
The first foe in the field;
And with a stronger faith embrace
A sword, a horse, a shield.

Yet this inconstancy is such,
As you too shall adore;
I could not love thee, Dear, so much,
Loved I not honour more

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Woke up and wrote this about 3 am this morning. Had refused to write it when earlier inspired that day.
I tell you, my muse is one very forceful and stubborn ruler!--Tyr



Off With Their Filthy Heads


Should one dare oppose the arrogant kings
cry out with pride so it soundly rings
Stand with sweet honor, our hat in hand
fight corruption in this freedom's land

Those that say nay are simply afraid
going against the massive power laid
What power, have any over the Soul
death is always the unavoidable toll

A man walks his very own selfish path
bringing on misery and darkened wrath
Why not step off that selfish trail
avoid the sending one deep into Hell

Every king served a spiritual master
bad deed brought judgment ever faster
Yet having power over life and death
was a stone choking their every breath

Shall you be stalwart and honor true
let your gentle heart judge only you
Leave others to see your honoring him
or walk blindly with their light so dim

Should one dare oppose the arrogant kings
cry out with pride so it soundly rings
Stand with sweet honor, our hat in hand
fight corruption in this freedom's land

Yes, we dare to oppose those tyrant Kings
Slay them , give that filthy crown a fling
Off their heads with true justice abated
justice the goal never with vengeance hated!

Robert J. Lindley, 05-06-2015

Note: The term King is used to denote great power and not necessarily royalty
in its usual interpretation.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Just wrote this for a contest.
Hope you may enjoy and be it known that "free verse poetry" is not my usual fare...,. Tyr

A Tomb Built For A Fool



Where shall I rest my head,
Upon a lofty mountaintop with snow
In a green valley far, far below
Or buried deep within the evergreen pines
Nestled in with sleeping cones
Racing about with morbid afterthoughts.
With dark fire of delightful vengeance
The manna of desperation and glee
A fury of dead tortured spirits,
Eating upon a plain of loneliness;
Nay, the bitter is not in the brine,
A basket of rotten fruits still serves,
The appetite of the flies,
And the sickness that it deserves
vomits out the sins of the tiresome day,
A relentless thirst never satisfied,
Ever leaps into darkness,
Of despair and greedy lusts built on it
Where shall I rest my head,
Within a dark corner behind that stone
A shelter that eats my decaying heart,
This darkness of my Soul being all alone
A tomb built for a fool,
sour grapes smashed into wine
A CHILD born out of time,
With a needle in its right eye-
seeing, seeing but only halfway blind...

Robert J. Lindley, 05-06-2015

Note: Free verse, my muse warned me not to wade into such waters....
I being a stubborn mule , shot back-- "so what my feet are dirty, need
cleaning and water is so damn often so very , very coooooooooool"..
A fool an his folly may embrace same as a great lover and his lady...

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Where The Owls Roost, The Moon Shines Brightest


Where the owls roost, the moon shines bright
The old withered oak stands beaten and proud
Scars, proud medals of its strength and might
night owls hooting , often not so very loud

Where the moonlight streams onto life below
Seas move with that mighty Titan's commands
In wonder, the earth watches the light show
Racing, racing onward across all the lands

Where the sky dances with glowing splendor
The night paints shadows with joyous glee
In awe, man watches stars as they surrender
Moonbeams shining upon owls in ancient tree

As dawn approaches the Titan slips on away
Gracefully as King retreating to another view
Generous to the Sun's birth of each new day
And brighter light that sustains me and you!

Robert J. Lindley-- 05-06-2015

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Where The Owls Roost, The Moon Shines Brightest


Where the owls roost, the moon shines bright
The old withered oak stands beaten and proud
Scars, proud medals of its strength and might
night owls hooting , often not so very loud

Where the moonlight streams onto life below
Seas move with that mighty Titan's commands
In wonder, the earth watches the light show
Racing, racing onward across all the lands

Where the sky dances with glowing splendor
The night paints shadows with joyous glee
In awe, man watches stars as they surrender
Moonbeams shining upon owls in ancient tree

As dawn approaches the Titan slips on away
Gracefully as King retreating to another view
Generous to the Sun's birth of each new day
And brighter light that sustains me and you!

Robert J. Lindley-- 05-06-2015

Edited version, changed the closing verse.... ------------------------------------------


Where The Owls Roost, The Moon Shines Brightest

Where the owls roost, the moon shines bright
The old withered oak stands beaten and proud
Scars, proud medals of its strength and might
night owls hooting , often not so very loud

Where the moonlight streams onto life below
Seas move with that mighty Titan's commands
In wonder, the earth watches the light show
Racing, racing onward across all the lands

Where the sky dances with glowing splendor
The night paints shadows with joyous glee
In awe, man watches stars as they surrender
Moonbeams shining upon owls in ancient tree

As dawn approaches the Titan slips on away
Gracefully as King retreating to another view
Generous to the Sun's birth of each new day
Upon green grass thirsty for its morning dew!

Robert J. Lindley-- 05-06-2015

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

The Lonely Hill

Wild grow the poppies in Tunisian vale
Gracing the green of a fertile land
And here comes "Peace" to lay her veil
On the hill of the foes last stand. .

Out of the Plain reared the lonely hill
Like a breast bared to the sky
Its slopes clasped the fallen ever still
And its bosom echoed the swallow's cry. .

Small sanctuary of a fallen dream
Last bastion to Enfidaville
Your crumbled fort is a desolate scene
Where all but the winds are still. .

The winds will rise and the tall grass bend
To ripple like waves of the sea
And time will take the scars to mend
On the lonely hill of the free.

- RA Harris

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

In That Red Haze, Brave Men Weep And Moan

Blast your trumpets, on blood soaked ground!
In that red haze, brave men weep and moan,
Yet, brutal war echoes pain in every sound.
Down lay spirits of mortal men forever gone
Days of youthful hopes turned to patches of dust,
dirt covered , forever residing all alone
fool's gold now turned to blackened rust.

Look ye, for a reason for fools to fight and die
sing out to duty , duty of warriors bold
remain aloft, blind to widows left to cry.
Price matters not, heroes destined to never grow old
War, testament to courage and man's great folly
sacrifice, death feeding tales retold
life goes on, this world is quite jolly.

War, the engine driving men straight into hell
For breakfast and eggs, must first break the shell!

Robert J. Lindley, 05-07-2015

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

http://www.cprw.com/stalking-the-typical-poem

Stalking the Typical Poem

Posted on 15 May 2014
When I tell people I teach and – God help me – even write poetry, they often say, “I wish you could explain modern poetry to me. I just don’t understand most of it.” My response is usually to talk to them about the kinds of modern poem you can understand, among which I include my own, and to give reassurances that with sufficient patience and care they’ll find it’s not such a jungle out there after all.
But that’s a cop-out, in a way, because when you look at the scene squarely, you have to recognize that many modern poems are enigmatic in the extreme, and this quality is – let’s be generous – not the result of incompetence but a deliberate choice stemming from a particular aesthetic. What does that aesthetic consist of? Let’s step back for a moment and consider the qualities of language that poets and readers pay particular attention to. I would isolate three dimensions: diction, rhetoric, and form. Diction can range from colloquial to elevated, rhetoric from plain to figurative or ornate, and form from relatively unstructured to tightly structured.

Let’s talk about diction first. American poetry of the twentieth century (and the twenty-first so far) operates in a very narrow range of diction: virtually all poets publishing in journals write the standard English of educated speakers. This diction contrasts markedly with that of, say, country-and-western songs, which imitate a semi-literate rural dialect, or certain types of rap, which are based on an inner-city patois. But within the precincts of this standard form of the language, great variation is still possible and often in evidence. The diction may be more or less formal (the less formal style permitting casual usages and eschewing inversions), more or less latinate; it may use longer or shorter sentences, academic precision or a studied approximation of workaday prose. The contrary tendencies can be illustrated in a quotation from Louise Bogan showing the use of the offhand colloquial style –
And like as not when they take life over their door-sills
They should let it go by.
(“Women”)
– and in a passage from a poem by Gwendolyn Brooks in which she explains why white soldiers during the Second World War put up less resistance than expected to black soldiers in their midst:
… Besides, it taxed
Time and the temper to remember those
Congenital iniquities that cause
Disfavor of the darkness.
(“The white troops had their orders
but the Negroes looked like men”)
A few stylists deliberately distort syntax, invent words, scatter puns, and in other ways make linguistic contrivance an expressive tool, as does John Berryman in “The Poet’s Final Instructions”:
Dog-tired, suisired, will now my body down
near Cedar Avenue in Minneap,
when my crime comes. I am blazing with hope.
Do me glory, come the whole way across town.

Similarly, the poems of Seamus Heaney abound in old words, regionalisms, and onomatopoeia: “Old cobwebbed reins and hames and eye-patched winkers” (“The Harrow-Pin”); “a wiper’s strong absolving slumps and flits” (“In Iowa”). But such exuberant invention is exceptional. The banishment of rhyme from much poetry of the twentieth century severely curtailed the possibilities for such frivolities as Frost’s “The first tool I step on / Turned into a weapon.” The recent restoration of meter as a principle governing the verse line has encouraged poets to rediscover the range of effects possible when phrases are stretched across line endings (though parallel effects are also possible in free verse). In this passage from Derek Walcott’s “The Arkansas Testament”) the meaning of the question is transformed by the phrase at the start of the fifth line:
Can I bring a palm to my heart
and sing, with eyes on the pole
whose manuscript banner boasts
of the Union with thirteen stars
crossed out … ?
… a wily description of the Confederate flag.

As to rhetoric, it is possible, both in metered and in free verse, to write a language unadorned by rhetorical tropes, a language that nevertheless, in its very simplicity and its judicious choice of words, carries considerable emotional force. Such a style is often called, for lack of a better term, the plain style. Louise Glück, in her book Vita Nova, provides a striking example:
We are all human—
we protect ourselves
as well as we can
even to the point of denying
clarity, the point
of self-deception
And yet, within this deception,
true happiness occurred.
So that I believe I would
repeat these errors exactly.
Nor does it seem to me
crucial to know
whether or not such happiness
is built on illusion:
it has its own reality.
And in either case, it will end.
Contrast this with the final three stanzas of Robert Lowell’s “Water” :
The sea drenched the rock
at our feet all day,
and kept tearing away
flake after flake.
One night you dreamed
you were a mermaid clinging to a wharf pile,
and trying to pull
off the barnacles with your hands.
We wished our two souls
might return like gulls
to the rock. In the end
the water was too cold for us.
The subject is closely related to Glück’s theme: the near-impossibility of sustaining intimacy (though Glück more explicitly contrasts the ethic of traditional marriage with the more fluid mode of the contemporary “relationship”). But Lowell’s verse deals with the difficulty metaphorically – with references to the sea, to gulls, a mermaid, barnacles, rocks, and a wharf. The point of juxtaposing the two rhetorical styles is not to express a preference for one over another – each can be handled well or badly – but to illustrate the range of options open to poets in our time, together with the challenges these options pose to readers.
But form is where the real battles begin. Traditionally form has been considered a defining characteristic of poetry, in that poems were compositions in metered lines. However, in the twentieth century a concerted effort was made to alter the definition, removing meter as a criterion. The effort was so successful, in fact, that in many quarters traditional metered verse came to be considered a kind of anti-poetry – the very model of unacceptable writing.
Nevertheless, a few extremely dexterous practitioners of the craft were born and flourished in the twentieth century, keeping the tradition alive against heavy contrary pressures. Richard Wilbur’s “Hamlen Brook” may be profitably compared with the Louise Glück poem quoted above, as an example of writing within the confines of rhyme and meter that remains as comfortably idiomatic as Glück’s writing outside those confines. In this poem Wilbur is describing the action of looking into a brook that reflects the world above it –

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Poetry is Art and Art is for fools.
All that matters is the sharpness of the blade, the steel in the heart,
ALL else is blather for useless tools........ my quote from back in 1969, age 15........
Some of us actually grow a bit wiser as we age...

Vanity

I once worshiped speed and strength as twin Gods,
now I see vanity in the storm
Arrogance was my holding onto lightning rods,
believing my hating life was the norm
Life teaches vanity is the fuel for the fight
yet we dare struggle, struggle against the odds!

Robert J. Lindley, 05-08-2015

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

My Last Sonnet

Friends of yesteryears, so long ago
Faded spirits often dance in disrepute,
Sadly, the best of people that I know,-
Tossed away honor in favor of the loot!

Friends of yesteryears, now a dream
Lingering ghosts racing deep in my head,
Truly, walking dead or so it did seem,-
Rambling where even angels fear to tread!

My friends of yesteryears, know so well
Courage I clung to from my great fears,
Shame, the elixir of my darkest hell-
Adding bitter salts to my dreaded tears!

Ghosts of moments, set in hardened stone.
Ghosts of moments, will I die all alone!

Robert J. Lindley , 05-08-2015

Note: This is my last sonnet.. Written on
the relationship I had with some very bad friends,
over 40 years ago. All four of them have passed on
now and trust me that is a blessing for this world.

[LongTermGuy]

My Last Sonnet

Friends of yesteryears, so long ago
Faded spirits often dance in disrepute,
Sadly, the best of people that I know,-
Tossed away honor in favor of the loot!

Friends of yesteryears, now a dream
Lingering ghosts racing deep in my head,
Truly, walking dead or so it did seem,-
Rambling where even angels fear to tread!

My friends of yesteryears, know so well
Courage I clung to from my great fears,
Shame, the elixir of my darkest hell-
Adding bitter salts to my dreaded tears!

Ghosts of moments, set in hardened stone.
Ghosts of moments, will I die all alone!

Robert J. Lindley , 05-08-2015Yes the Ghost pof

Note: This is my last sonnet.. Written on
the relationship I had with some very bad friends,
over 40 years ago. All four of them have passed on
now and trust me that is a blessing for this world.

***********
`...Ahhhh...enjoying `my` cup of Friday evening Coffee Tyr....and decided I would pay your page a visit...

...Yes..."The ghosts of moments, set in hard stone...Ghosts of moments....will die in hard stone" ..."Friends of yesteryear's now a dream"....what a delightful poem brought to my mind of days gone past....well done!