Gathering Place Poets

JERRY APPLETON

They may be viewed on this site only.

Permission to use any poem must be obtained

before it can be reprinted, broadcast,

or used for any commercial purpose.

contents:

Time Rains Gently

Waves

Barren Words

I Pray A Song

return to main menu

Time Rains Gently

When time rains gently on the mind

Step aside and travel time

Race ahead where you don't belong

Tell the masses they're fucking wrong

That's not the way it was done

In the time you come from

Or lag behind with bypassed time

Spying on ancestral lines

Seeking spots where family lore

Bends the truth a little more

Either way escape the grind

When time rains gently on the mind

Nail this time to the road

Seeking ways of doing good

Share this time with those in need

Ease their burden with this deed

This plants the seed of future hope

To ease the need and better cope

For when these seeds leaves unfurl

With the promise of a better world

It centers the mind in its time

So time rains gently on the mind

Not monsoon time drowning hope

Torrential rain on kharmic rope

This piece of time on the line

Vibrates the line past its time

Think of deeds eternally

Rippling time through you to me

A chain of hands, eternity

Which needs your hands to complete

Make your deeds seeds of hope

Sprouting on a kharmic rope

Entwining vines of heady wine

In gentle reign of timeless mind

contents

Waves

Sibilant waves slide on sand

Hush, sshh

Susurrant scouts of the abyss

Spit salty spume at my feet

Testament to Ouroboros' reach.

I patiently wait at edge of worlds

With Adam's apple, venom's burl

I shall spit in serpent's eye.

O vile beast

I await your show of vaunted terror

Medusan horrors in hypnotic stare

Come ashore if you dare

Taste the poison of my spit.

Flee scouts to the abyss

Tell your master here I sit

In his girth now defiant.

The tortoise shell of Orpheus' lyre

Has whispered promises in my ear

Of escape, e'en from hell.

Come serpent for I've grown mighty

In this prison you have fed me.

Come, I'm saving, savouring spit

Spit grown mighty and plenteous

Drooling, dripping from my chin

Slavering, rabid, Cerberus.

I'll disembowel, decapitate

Leave one head to contemplate

Adam's apple in serpent's mouth.

Hush, sh, susurrant scouts

Witness now my escape.

contents

Barren Words

Barren words await the command

To attain the abrasion of paper and sand

And rain the dust of truth

On shavings of years.

What a workshop this life,

Carving a living on the death of a life,

Rounding the sharp experience of fear

To a 'semblance of remembrance held dear.

Death through the years

Something once feared

Will be held dear

When dusted with truth.

A 'semblance of remembrance a carving of life

In this wonderful workshop midst forests of time.

A sharpness of fears in forests of years

With time as a plane shaving at fears,

Dusted with truth become the kindling

Warming the workshop rounding the carving

here in my hand.

Come now words

Attain the abrasion of paper and sand

Round a truth from barrens of man.

contents

I Pray A Song

Man I pray slack the reins

You've placed on God,

Let Him rise fill the sky

Shed the skin of a sterile guise.

A fertile God enriching lives

In mayfly seeds spiking wine

And golden seeds sown in rain.

Triumphant seeds of rampant swans

Scattered seed on sunlit ponds

Seeds of awe to promise all.

Sow in me oh fertile God

Seeds to see the gentle deed

Of humble words bearing praise.

I pray a song of fertile God

Not sterile words in fear of awe.

Man I pray slack the reins

Constraining God,

Let Him rise fill the sky

Rain a child enrapture I,

Trumpet songs in rampant swans

Sing of life in sunlit ponds

Round the wheel to promise dawn.

Oh sterile man in fear of God

Let go your fear live in awe

Ripple praise on words of song

Shower gold on sunlit ponds.

Sprout oh seed your secret word

Breathe the life of virgin birth

Rise oh God in fertile song

Be the word on lips in awe.

Man I pray slack the reins

You've placed on God,

You stagnate ponds, slaughter swans

Steal the gold from day at dawn,

Slay the seed another's sown

Sterile preach a fear of God.

I pray a song oh fertile God

For a child still to come

With the word mouthed in song

Slacking reins restraining God.

A child showered on sunlit pond

Who prays the rays awake at dawn.

For promise sown in every child

I dimple cheeks in a smile

Pray a song of fertile God,

I pary oh God this humble song

For a child with the tongue

To sing the fear from praise of God.

Man I pray slack the reins

Constraining God.

Triumphant swans on fertile ponds

Have the wings to raise a child

Carry word to ripple song

Pray the reins off of God.

Til then I sing of rampant swans

In golden rain on sunlit ponds,

Of mayfly wine toasting life

With the promise in every child

Of another step nearer God.