Excerpt for Poems 1 by Peter Rehard, available in its entirety at Smashwords

Poems I

Peter Rehard

Poems I
Peter Rehard

Poems 1 2011

Smashwords edition

The Rain Song

Cigarettes

Ruby ring

Vinegar

Fish

Through eyes of Love

What word

Hope

Rape

Cernnunos

Similarity

The Rain Song


An old man stands beside the street corner,

Spitting through the rain,

holding my mirror

saying: no one could stand all this water.


I.

The boy grows

It is law despite Ponce.

A fruit rots,

It is called the Fall.


But Lord, how is the dripping:

Drooling, viscid; slippery,

Salutations which I never knew,

By-gone’s, gone by a time I never knew.


Oh, I Know what it is, and respect,

Because I see its remnants

In two gray stones of marble

Dulled from an azure.


I Swim in the film;

Drips, drips, drips,

It trickles

Across a conversation.


It is the liquid

Drunk from life’s breast.

More acerbic than dead breath;

Sugar should be sweet!


Occurrences and chance meets with little to say,

But a desire to dry the mouth and lips,

As one spitting on a wet noon.

Blue has never seemed so pale.


It could explain strength,

Why lovers bathe in each others eyes;

How a pall becomes a blind

When age has the butt end of the rope length.


“There is hope, yes, Oh, there is hope!”

And then, before, in short:

“There was a time, there was a time!”

When he was in the dumps.

“Man often finds himself in the trash dumps.”


I say, I make my home in the trash dump.

And have known nothing more or less,

Except dreams

And the passer byes, with regret.


In respect, myself, I linger,

Who flees the Old Bear,

When he runs his craw

And directs you in a glossed stare?


If it means at you to bite,

Because it has suffered

In the woodland-city traps—

The old creature has that right.


II.

I am locked in the claws,

And will watch the level rise

With my repose to foe and friend ,

And the gray dim.


In the mucous, muck

Of turning water;

Once so bright gleam

And now—oh no matter.


“My daughter has been married six-teen years.”

Reciting quickly after:

“My son in law, he is a man of means.

They have wintered in—it is no matter!”


Singing in hoarse tone,

My only daughter,

“She has vacationed in Rome!”

But of me, my friend there is no matter.


***

I take my box of cigarettes


I take my box of cigarettes.

Now I am content possessed

for all the good and bad

to be drawn in

with a tobacco breath.


I am to say, adept to deal

with all the questions dropped

and laid about ones feet

like rotting thoughts and peals.


Go about the streets

among the shops and parks

to acquaintances and friends

and cross-roads which lead

to broken ends.


To exhale out the refuse

of gutter—the mutters

which are littered about those streets

and pass the lamp shadow’s

whistling entreats.


***

Ruby Ring


He bought her a ruby ring,

a jeweler’s baby boy.

She thanked him with a smile,

a good-you-did-oooh—kay!


And by-the-by

women could make claim the world.

If they got together

and jointly split their Jewels.


I woke in the morning—

to the grass I plucked beading dew,

and trapped three light rays

bending them into an ethereal chain.


Saying: “Here you are my Dear,

“it is Jehovah’s burning Joy.”

It is Liquid,

It is natural Bee-You-T-Eye


***


Vinegar


What is this, this love it stinks

of a long forgotten nether region

which now bears the salty brunt,

smelling of redundant seas.


O, Lord, I see

the heart shaped pulse

beneath her burning breast

which so longing tempts me.


What a foul feminine reek

that lets me waft so tender

on the bellow of her breath

before our two lips meet.


***

The Pisces Fish


I lost My self somewhere among

The side-streets and two-bit homes—

And the beautiful women who frown,

And the echo

Of my own voice

Reiterated in

A hollow throat.


Realizing it was never there

In the mirror,

that my mind was played an awful trick

And told by memory

There was a reflection in.


In the back-road

Shouted some strange vocal

Vaguely reminiscent,

And it persistent.

It sounded among the breaks

And the Swish-sh of the ebb on my feet.


Hearing daily, the called name

In broken tone

Of a voice cut

In a passage-way quickly shut.

Finishing hours late

After the tide had changed.


Screaming, Screaming, Screaming

Words were holding on

To a rope hung

Over a crag in cliff.

In repeat it pulled itself up—

In succession the gaps slimmed.


Until then, there he stood,

Behind my back—the world behind my back!

My eyes east, him now next to me.


This is where you have been...

All-along...I-I-searched hard long—

I walked alone far—

I cried alone...

But my friend we are home, Ha, Ha, Ha!’


Among the morning sprayed dawn.


***

Through eyes of Love!


She holds the corner

with her mixed child.

The women towers the corner

in her crooked smile.


She is no lady of me,

no Gentile blonde with dark-blue eyes,

of fair, fair skin by light-blond hair,

a multitude of freckles,

of medium build—

of medium mind and height,

with a rasp tongue

capable of deep lust moans,

able to chide;

a future mom!


Oh, no, no, no this is not her.

She would not draw my eyes one inch

by the bosom shake or rump tight fit;

she filled the corner with her waste

she split the traffic with her face.

Her man loved her with eyes of greed—

this man saw her a bud of grace.


He loved the eyes swollen with drink

and the rather stumped feet,

the top the did not fit,

the pants with holes—

and more:

The dumpy cheeks, and plump pig nose—

with no profile, no better light;

perhaps except upon the night.


He would lie her upon the—bed did shake.

They would envelope through and through

glamor, slim, sheen opinion paramount

to a empty meadow...

Releasing back to a dark lit room.


I see something creeping along the street,

groping through the walk sections

beneath people’s feet...

He sees a flower bloomed

drifting through green-grass field...

‘nothin’ smell sweater!’

***

What word


They say—everything will be okay

as if the words could drop scarps upon our plates

“It will all work out fine”

but one who does not live the life knows nothing of the fight.


I know the soulless shoes and worn out clothing,

the late night meals of bread,

and days of nothing done—

worse dreams rising in sheetless beds.


Told in frail empathy,

nothing past words rolled

from cold tongues of one

who does not feel torn to plight.


Ah yes but it is life!

The one I took on the chin.

to my sure-grin it is the only one I have:

to struggle fast for tomorrow’s unkindly grasp.


And, then reach the future at last

in which I can say such words

to young boys broken

and small girls with hearts of glass:


“Everything will truly be fine”

and mean it with my whole soul;

like a saint of sinned bedlam—

but know I will make it so for them.

***
Hope

To stand strong and silent

for what I do not know.

The monstrance of my soul

had been given—driven empty.


In the selfish, selfless struggle,

gripped grimly in my death throes—

I suffer second on the second

for what I do not know.


Eloquently reciting my epitaph.

Oh, woe, what wonder to behold:

to battle tearless a vague future.

Of what I do not know.

***

Rape

These women tempt me;

Sent the vine and grapes

to bloom and harden in the sun,

to grow stinging fecund.


I see their walking lust.

Striding voluptuous swagger

which I think I would take—

if it wasn’t a ten year wait.


(During which my gears would dull

then crack exposed

when women pass

from out my virile grasp)


Like the animal held beta last,

He alpha springs in fiery laughs

upon the running dear—

the bedded doe, he makes her fear


And laughs in distorted snorts

While her muscles contract.

Brandishing horn as he thrust, Thrust, THRUSTS!

Upon her back his musk.


So I admit it takes to hold back

all little boy nerve.

If I tore her clothes off

She might say: now you.


If I caressed her piercing breast—

God forbid, she begins to eat grapes

and frowns smiling at the taste;

Saying again: now you.


These women I would not touch

with a metal pole covered by rust,

nor ever meet their eyes in stair

during the maelstrom of tossed blond hair.


But it does remain:

the Troglodyte in mammoth skin rug

who Fights with his lips

and Kissed with his club.


Who takes it all

before it is given

who has copulation

because it is driven.


***

I sat taking drags of the night

breathing so strongly the humid air

condensed in my lungs;

I spat out a mist of languid loneliness.


The world sat quietly in the sky.

Oh, my; she came striding past

a young girl whose life was the rose blurred black.

She paused in her path, smiling: “hi.”


I felt blood burn and run.

And bid her hello, offering a cigarette.

Beside me she crouched then puffed

as I lit the smoke and drew her name.


“Veronica. What are you doing tonight?”

With a teething smiling, offering.

“This night like all will simply pass—

‘till tomorrow’s darkness poses the same question to be asked.”


Her clothes molested her body tight!

“Perhaps tonight you and I can...”

“My dear,” extending my hand

taking her into the room arid and bright.


As a soul who wanders lost,

the vagabond beat-down, spiteful;

Yet empathetic as a body can will.

I laid her down next to my self so low in the ground.


Commencing degradation with all my might,

next to the bible in the table stand.

Seeing lust as a sin, clouded in mind;

and its primal essence manifesting in our moans.


Thus my body sown! In religious; shall I say: disdain.

Lord you give us path to our most seductive pleasurable pains.

Tempting us with an apple so sweet and down-sour

no snake-ly angel down or up would have resist and power.


***

Oh my! A young girl’s body is so taught

and resilient to the short coming of man.

She is pardoned from cupid’s binding Lust.

Love is but a crime-less rape.


I plucked a grape from off the vine and drunk myself;

she took me off the alley-street and of a measly price;---

relieving me of sexual frust—

Taking it like the bull-eyed buck.


Yes, yes I was tight! Be it no excuse.

To use it as a means of soul diffuse.

It is the carnal weakness

and her ample fill thrilled my will.


We drank Chablis from plastic glasses—

payed her away—kissing her once more

thanking her for her time,

and bidding a safe good-bye.


***


Cernunnos


2000: Millennium, on the Ilse Anglesey;

It is witching.

Aside the high altar they call him!


I.

The Holy Glade has a fresh fire.

Ooh ah ho hoo hoo

Pine, Holly, and Mistletoe;

The forest is breathing.


Promenade of chants.

Old; the tone holds.

Oha ho ha hoo

Among priest, women,

Antlers and emblem;

It is Samhain.


In the rite smoke—

Congregate by the left spring,

Faun from out the river-hill.


Walking the granite alter;

Red print marks,

Wet dirt;

Sheep laid “Bah!” bled.


Weaving smoke to a cloak

Blanketing the night’s air.


Oh oh oh ah hoo


Here we go round the hallow,

Here we go ‘he,’ and holler,

For the past man of

Nature, wild: enchanted.


Moaning the moon

Hold now—

Hold the tone mad,

Scream lads and ladies

Until they cry back.


Passing through the ember

Ha! Faster, Faster.

Drinking the jonquil wine

In distort laughter

Ba ra ba ha haa


The faun come,

Tempting Doe, Rabbit, and Pheasant;

A forgot name.


II.

Raise all upon the plain

Of proven ground:

The sacred ground;

Exultance here we go round.

Men moan Oh ha ro bo haa

Over the animal and bones,

The mistletoe branches waved

“Come, Come.” in tenor.

With harp base

Pronouncing each letter.


Rest upon the wooden seats

And rock beds,

Among the fabled,

Along with animal—

It was time.


III.

The women use a crisp alto,

Of cold morning falls.

Resurrect the day.

Cutting in alto.

Fa la ma la haa


Coercing the trees

Into an antiquity

Long passed through these roots.

Wind blew, from the coasts

Rolling the water-river spring—

And the world ceased.

Silence drew in among the wood.

Stirring hair, settling on feet.


IV.

From Beneath the alter,

In rumble, mist plumes.

From Beneath!

Out rose horns

And wilderness,

Shadows of

Runeing, words,

Natural, life, enchanted;

Of spell, of a past world—

A birth!


***

Similarity

I have lived this day before,

and oh wrote these same words.

I have lived this life of mine

and counted a wall a score.


And cried to many times

over what I did not know.

And been pondered

what cognizance has to lately shown.


If perhaps I could envision,

through derision and delusion;

the reflection in the hour glass.

It could be prevented and adjured.


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