Reversing – haiku by Dennis Allen Lange

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Life goes on.
You can bend back with
Reflections.

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The photo is mine of a view near the Green River Covered Bridge,
Guilford, Vermont.

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* The haiku I write are lines of 3-5-3 syllables instead of 5-7-5.

See Haiku article here for explanation, if needed: https://thebardonthehill.wordpress.com/2011/08/08/haiku/
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© Dennis Allen Lange, 2019.

 

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Derelict by Young Ewing Allison

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Fifteen men on the Dead Man’s Chest-
Drink and the devil had done for the rest-
The mate was fixed by the bos’n’s pike,
The bos’n brained with a marlin spike,
And Cookey’s throat was marked belike
It had been gripped
By fingers ten;
And there they lay,
All good dead men
Like break-o’-day in a boozing-ken-
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!

Fifteen men of the whole ship’s list-
Dead and be damned and the rest gone whist!-
The skipper lay with his nob in gore
Where the scullion’s axe his cheek had shore-
And the scullion he was stabbed times four.
And there they lay,
And the soggy skies
Dripped all day long
In upstaring eyes-
In murk sunset and at foul sunrise-
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!

Fifteen men of ’em stiff and stark-
Ten of the crew had the Murder mark-
‘Twas a cutlass swipe or an ounce of lead,
Or a yawing hole in a battered head-
And the scuppers glut with a rotting red
And there they lay-
Aye, damn my eyes-
All lookouts clapped
On paradise-
All souls bound just contrariwise-
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum.

Fifteen men of ’em good and true-
Every man jack could ha’ sailed with Old Pew-
There was chest on chest full of Spanish gold,
With a ton of plate in the middle hold,
And the cabins riot of stuff untold,
And they lay there,
That had took the plum,
With sightless glare
And their lips struck dumb,
While we shared all by the rule of thumb-
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!

More was seen through the stern light screen-
Chartings no doubt where a woman had been!-
A flimsy shift on a bunker cot,
With a thin dirk slot through the bosom spot
And the lace stiff dry in a purplish blot.
Oh was she wench…
Or some shuddering maid…?
That dared the knife-
And took the blade!
By God! she was stuff for a plucky jade-
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!

Fifteen men on the Dead Man’s Chest-
Drink and the devil had done for the rest-
We wrapped ’em all in a mains’l tight
With twice ten turns of a hawser’s bight
And we heaved ’em over and out of sight-
With a Yo-Heave-Ho!
And a fare-you-well!
And a sullen plunge
In the sullen swell,
Ten fathoms deep on the road to hell!
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!

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Robert Louis Stevenson wrote a fragment of a poem in his book,
Treasure Island.  Young Ewing Allison took those brief lines and
finished the poem.

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song (3:00) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrsifI9382k

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Quarantine Madness by Dennis Allen Lange

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Some Britons have lost all their senses
In saying that lads may have menses.
…For the sake of the sane
…And those with a brain,
Keep fools far away with good fences.

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https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2018/12/16/schools-eight-year-olds-boys-periods/?utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR0ZChSkw3PmcvdLGnJDWwm46bjoCHnk_LwgUMQ6bWWhgyRxSXBmf6YUAXs

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photo by Jo Spargo at http://www.rgbstock.com/photo/n6zjt9Y/Silverton+2

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© Dennis Allen Lange, 2019.

 

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Sonnet 19 by William Shakespeare

Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion’s paws
And make the earth devour her own sweet brood;
Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger’s jaws
And burn the long-liv’d phoenix in her blood;
Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleets,
And do whate’er thou wilt, swift-footed Time,
To the wide world and all her fading sweets;
But I forbid thee one most heinous crime:
O, carve not with thy hours my love’s fair brow,
Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen!
Him in thy course untainted to allow
For beauty’s pattern to succeeding men.
…Yet do thy worst, old Time! Despite thy wrong,
…My love shall in my verse ever live young.

 

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First Touch – haiku by Dennis Allen Lange

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Visited,
Surrounded, pampered –
Plymouth Rock.

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The picture is mine of Plymouth Rock at Plymouth, Massachusetts.

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* The haiku I write are lines of 3-5-3 syllables instead of 5-7-5.

See Haiku article here for explanation, if needed: https://thebardonthehill.wordpress.com/2011/08/08/haiku/
——————–

© Dennis Allen Lange, 2019.

 

 

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My First Womern by James Whitcomb Riley

I buried my first womern
In the spring; and in the fall
I was married to my second,
And hain’t settled yit at all! –
Fer I’m allus thinkin’ – thinkin’
Of the first one’s peaceful ways,
A-bilin’ soap and singin’
Of the Lord’s amazin’ grace.

And I’m thinkin’ of her, constant,
Dyin’ carpet-chain and stuff,
And a-makin’ up rag carpets,
When the floor was good enough!
And I mind her he’p a-feedin’
And I riccollect her now
A-drappin’ corn, and keepin’
Clos’t behind me and the plow!

And I’m allus thinkin’ of her
Reddin’ up around the house;
Er cookin’ fer the farm-hands;
Er a-drivin’ up the cows, –
And there she lays out yander
By the lower medder fence,
Where the cows was barely grazin’,
And they’re usin’ ever sence.

And when I look acrost there –
Say it’s when the clover’s ripe,
And I’m settin’, in the evenin’,
On the porch here, with my pipe,
And the other’n hollers “Henry!” –
W’y they ain’t no sadder thing
Than to think of my first womern
And her funeral last spring
Was a year ago –

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Fake News National Enquirer Style by Dennis Allen Lange

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The headline drips blood and is gory;
Alarmingly tells of lost glory.
…Read deeper, you’ll find
…‘Twas merely a line.
The title ne’er matches the story.

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photo by Dez Pain at http://www.rgbstock.com/photo/2dyVpde/News+Headlines

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© Dennis Allen Lange, 2019.

 

 

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To An English Friend by Oliver Wendell Holmes

The seed that wasteful autumn cast
To waver on its stormy blast,
Long o’er the wintry desert tost,
Its living germ has never lost.
Dropped by the weary tempest’s wing,
It feels the kindling ray of spring,
And, starting from its dream of death,
Pours on the air its perfumed breath. 

So, parted by the rolling flood,
The love that springs from common blood
Needs but a single sunlit hour
Of mingling smiles to bud and flower;
Unharmed its slumbering life has flown,
From shore to shore, from zone to zone,
Where summer’s falling roses stain
The tepid waves of Pontchartrain,
Or where the lichen creeps below
Katahdin’s wreaths of whirling snow. 

Though fiery sun and stiffening cold
May change the fair ancestral mould,
No winter chills, no summer drains
The life-blood drawn from English veins,
Still bearing whereso’er it flows
The love that with its fountain rose,
Unchanged by space, unwronged by time,
From age to age, from clime to clime!

 

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In The Distance – haiku by Dennis Allen Lange

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Take a hike;
Risk fallen arches
To see arch.

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The photo is mine, of Delicate Arch in Arches National Park in Utah.

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* The haiku I write are lines of 3-5-3 syllables instead of 5-7-5.

See Haiku article here for explanation, if needed: https://thebardonthehill.wordpress.com/2011/08/08/haiku/
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© Dennis Allen Lange, 2019.

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Dream-Pedlary by Thomas Beddoes

If there were dreams to sell, 
What would you buy?
Some cost a passing bell;
Some a light sigh,
That shakes from Life’s fresh crown
Only a rose-leaf down.
If there were dreams to sell,
Merry and sad to tell,
And the crier rang the bell,
What would you buy?

A cottage lone and still,
With bowers nigh,
Shadowy, my woes to still,
Until I die.
Such pearl from Life’s fresh crown
Fain would I shake me down.
Were dreams to have at will,
This would best heal my ill,
This would I buy.

 

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