Australia takes her pen in hand
To write a line to you,
To let you fellows understand
How proud we are of you.
...
There was a whispering in my hearth,
A sigh of the coal.
Grown wistful of a former earth
It might recall.
...
Summer pleasures they are gone like to visions every one
And the cloudy days of autumn and of winter cometh on
I tried to call them back but unbidden they are gone
Far away from heart and eye and for ever far away
...
It was over at Coolgardie that a mining speculator,
Who was going down the township just to make a bit o' chink,
Went off to hire a camel from a camel propagator,
And the Afghan said he'd lend it if he'd stand the beast a drink.
...
PROLOGUE
There's something in a flying horse,
There's something in a huge balloon;
...
STARTING from fish-shape Paumanok, where I was born,
Well-begotten, and rais'd by a perfect mother;
After roaming many lands--lover of populous pavements;
...
AFTER all, not to create only, or found only,
But to bring, perhaps from afar, what is already founded,
To give it our own identity, average, limitless, free;
...
WEAPON, shapely, naked, wan!
Head from the mother's bowels drawn!
Wooded flesh and metal bone! limb only one, and lip only one!
...
There's many a schoolboy's bat and ball that are gathering dust at home,
For he hears a voice in the future call, and he trains for the war to come;
A serious light in his eyes is seen as he comes from the schoolhouse gate;
He keeps his kit and his rifle clean, and he sees that his back is straight.
...
Under starry skies she paints canvas of Vincent's life
Each shiny star a glimmer of hope in his tragic life
A falling star like a teardrop falls on her wet canvas
Her moist eyes holding back so many tears of endured pain
...
The ship that took my mother to Ellis Island
Eighty-three years ago was named "The Mercy."
She remembers trying to eat a banana
without first peeling it and seeing her first orange
...
(Note: — Pocahontas is buried at Gravesend, England.)
"Pocahontas' body, lovely as a poplar, sweet as a red haw in November or a pawpaw in May — did she wonder? does she remember — in the dust — in the cool tombs?"
...
I remember those long hot Summers as if they were yesterday,
When the sun shone down on our street, the place I loved to play.
For many a window glistened, cleaned well to a sparkling shine,
Where starched white shirts blew gaily, on many a washing line.
...
Back in his room at Denise's bakery,
Vincent placed his new drawings on the table.
Looking at it, he felt he had made shabby sketches.
He copied them into a new sheet of paper,
...
Vincent had to take a quick decision!
He should either run away from the Borinage,
Or stay in Borinage and live like the miners,
To serve the miners, not just by preaching alone,
...
The Blue Horizon wuz a mine us fellers all thought well uv,
And there befell the episode I now perpose to tell uv;
'T wuz in the year uv sixty-nine,--somewhere along in summer,--
There hove in sight one afternoon a new and curious comer;
...
The life of a miner anywhere in the world is pathetic,
Most of their lives, they live in darkness!
Deep down in the mine, it is dark, black and suffocating.
The air around them is full of coal dust and poisonous gas.
...
I remember reading the book - ‘ Lust for life'
Penned by Irving Stone, some years back.
It was so engrossing and stimulating!
I just could not keep the book down.
...
Wagon wheel gap is a place I never saw
And Red Horse Gulch and the chutes of Cripple Creek.
Red-shirted miners picking in the sluices,
...
Oh! Mercifull God
I do see the services of
Jawans in the frontiers keeping vigil
Protecting the sovereignty of the holy soil
...
Vincent did not write to his father or to his brother Theo
Of what he was doing presently in this miner's town.
Theo had not written to him for a whole year.
His family was very upset with him.
...
She says modernity goes
Literature is a collage earthen
New names brought to the village
Hundred years in amnesia
...
By the East River and the Bronx
boys were singing, exposing their waists
with the wheel, with oil, leather, and the hammer.
Ninety thousand miners taking silver from the rocks
...
Vincent returned to Petit Wasmes by rail.
Pietersen had given him the railway fare
And a pair of old shoes as well.
Vincent received them with gratitude.
...
After six hours in Marcasse with Jacques, from lack of air,
Vincent felt faint, panting, choking, with heat and dust.
He felt he could not endure this torture anymore.
He was thankful to Jacques when they decided to return.
...
A boy was born a miner's son
He never knew him well,
For his father died when he was young
Within that pit of hell,
...
Achievin' sech distinction with his moddel tabble dote
Ez to make his Red Hoss Mountain restauraw a place uv note,
Our old friend Casey innovated somewhat round the place,
In hopes he would ameliorate the sufferin's uv the race;
...
For Vincent or for any man, who has enjoyed sunshine,
And experienced fresh breath of air, each morning,
Going down the Marcasse mine, exploring the caves,
Was not a picnic or a pleasant trip around a windy beach.
...
For a while Vincent was so shaken up when he heard
That he was disqualified by the Evangelist Committee.
He was perplexed. What should he do next?
That's when God entered his mind to guide him.
...
When we look at the paintings of Van Gogh.
We see the pain, suffering on the face of people,
The hopeless life of struggle and slavery,
A life without sunshine or any joy -
...
WHAT song is best for the soldiers?
Take no heed of the words, nor choose yon the style of the story;
Let it burst out from the heart like a spring from the womb of a mountain,
Natural, clear, resistless, leaping its way to the levels;
...
After feverishly painting for over two months,
Without a break in his little hut in miner's village,
Once again, Vincent had a desire to meet
And talk to an established artiste.
...
April month arrived
With a glimpse of sunlight,
The black fields became visible,
As the white sheet of snow melted away.
...
Vincent shifted from the little room in the bakery,
To a large house of his own, known as Salon du Bebe
At the bottom of ravine, surrounded by the pine woods.
He was an authorized evangelist now! In this place,
...
What's better than gold?
A heart of gold and a golden rule
Thus donot over the mined thing drool.
...
Men of all the lands Australian from the Gulf to Derwent River,
From the Heads of Sydney Harbour to the waters of the West,
There’s a spirit loudly calling where the saplings dip and quiver,
Where the city crowds are thronging, and the range uplifts its crest!
...
Life is like a boat,
It appears to move calmly in serene lake.
That's when you feel
Like a swan moving in tranquil water.
...
I heard this day, as I may no more,
The world's heart throb at my workshop door.
The sun was keen, and the day was still;
...
The mountain brook sung lonesomelike, and loitered on its way
Ez if it waited for a child to jine it in its play;
The wild-flowers uv the hillside bent down their heads to hear
The music uv the little feet that had somehow grown so dear;
...
On a November lazy afternoon,
Vincent went out for a walk,
Along the fields towards the Marcasse.
He found an old rusty iron wheel and sat on it.
...
Vincent went head over ears with his sketches,
He wanted to catch the little quirks, strange habits,
The typical character of the Borains on his paper.
He knew them well, had the experience
...
The day approached when Fortune should decide
The important enterprise, and give the bride;
For now the rivals round the world had sought,
...
Australia takes her pen in hand
To write a line to you,
To let you fellows understand
How proud we are of you.
...
DIXON, a Choctaw, twenty years of age,
Had killed a miner in a Leadville brawl;
Tried and condemned, the rough-beards curb their rage,
And watch him stride in freedom from the hall.
...
There are bright spots in dark life
Like the glow worms in dark nights!
Petit Wasmes became a brighter place,
...
The final snow of the year, riddled and hard,
assailed by wind and rain, still covers the field,
while heaven above, a milky upturned ashtray,
lingers like a promise never fulfilled.
...
’TIS the tale of Simon Steven, braceman at the Odd-and-Even,
At The Nations, in the gully. They were sinking in the rock.
...
Holland, that scarce deserves the name of Land,
As but th'Off-scouring of the Brittish Sand;
And so much Earth as was contributed
By English Pilots when they heav'd the Lead;
...
Why do we lie
’Why do we lie,’ she questioned, her warm eyes
on the grey Autumn wind and its coursing,
...
Once upon a time,
Jesus, who called himself the true vine,
turned water into wine
in an act of love.
...
1
IT was the time when geese despond,
And turkeys make their wills;
The time when Christians, to a man,
...
A heroic story I will unfold,
Concerning Jenny Carrister, a heroine bold,
Who lived in Australia, at a gold mine called Lucknow,
And Jenny was beloved by the the miners, somehow.
...
SEE how it flashes,
This grape-blood fine!—
Our beards it splashes,
O comrade mine!—
...
WHEN the white sun scorches the fair, green land in the rage of his fierce desires,
Or looms blood red on the Western hills, through the smoke
...
THERE’S a sudden, fierce clang of the knocker, then the sound of a voice in the shaft,
Shrieking words that drum hard on the centres, and the
...
It was over at Coolgardie that a mining speculator,
Who was going down the township just to make a bit o' chink,
Went off to hire a camel from a camel propagator,
And the Afghan said he'd lend it if he'd stand the beast a drink.
...
Dargo is a dark-haired lass
Prone to independent ways;
Few men know her, fewer pass,
Where her pleasant river plays
...
Brothers!....
(That is to say, those of you that are.
For, even in the most altruistic mood, there are some I bar.)
Brothers!
Workers, shirkers, writers, skiters, philosophers and others,
Attend. I address myself only to those
...
Attend, all ye who list to hear our noble England's praise;
I tell of the thrice famous deeds she wrought in ancient days,
...
My chair is rocking back and forth,
Gazing at the scarred mountain slope.
Behold - an inactive mine and coal breaker
And a mound of refuse with little hope.
...
Relics of castles and mines fill the eye
Of the curious here, tell their own tale
With colourful mixture of 'truth and lie'
Known as legend. This allure never fails
...
And, feeling round him, lo, upon the mould
A pick and spade cast down by accident.
And Adrian laughed when in those engines cold
...
Across the harbour, above the ranges
clouds appeared as fluffy ducks with angel wings
racing West towards Australia..
perhaps they were flying off Virgin Blue’s
...
Bri's quest to be a poet-different on P H does survive.
NOW, a fine new idea, for showcases, does, to me, arrive.
In the new month of JUNE I'll display only female works,
and hope, to me, it brings MANY attractive P H Perks.
...
What conversazzhyonies wuz I really did not know,
For that, you must remember, wuz a powerful spell ago;
The camp wuz new 'nd noisy, 'nd only modrit sized,
So fashionable sossiety wuz hardly crystallized.
...
They had driven off only two miners of gold.
Their attack had worked and was considered quite bold.
The gossip had spread and now more miners came armed.
It would be harder to live now, men had been harmed.
...
The Earth our hollow host
There's nothing to bank and boast
The Earth our hovering home
We are the apparitions, her ghost
...
The war between the miners and Shewolves went on.
Both sides raged on, determined the other be gone.
The three Shewolves were hunted, and sought refuge now.
They loved their homeland, and hated now to kowtow.
...
The miners liked fun so they hired an artist.
She had great talent and the guile of the smartest.
She brought a small troupe to help with risqué stage plays.
They cheered this fair woman, she set their hearts ablaze.
...
The return south went quickly and was now complete.
The village was near; the pack knew well, where to eat.
The miners weren't afraid, because they saw no threat.
The gold was so plentiful that they didn't fret.
...
The humans were encroaching on their hunting ground.
They'd have to send a dire message, which would be found.
They didn't want to fight or start a deadly war.
They were only three Shewolves, but were used to gore.
...
She picked up the dishes and put them into a wash basin to be taken outside later for washing and came back to stand before me.
Mr. Houser touched me from behind and indicating that I was to follow Mrs. Windsor upstairs.
...
The Truth!
So difficult to find
So difficult to tell!
Hidden Miners,
...
All along, a doubt nagged and kept gnawing
Deep inside the psyche of Vincent,
Even during the period of his learning
To become a priest or a preacher.
...
As autumn arrived with leaves turning orange yellow,
Margot and Vincent became closer and intimate.
Margot spent the whole day with Vincent.
The people of Nuenen watched them curiously,
...
Abstract no.1: On Dating
Why has the mining process
become more enjoyable and valuable than the gemstone itself, when rationally speaking it should be vice-versa?
...
Holy Month
It is a month of fasting
Observed by all Mohammedan
...
My simple story is of those times ere the magic power of steam
First whirled the traveller o’er the plains with the swiftness of a dream,
...
When M,Ginnis struck the mining camp at Jamberoora Creek
His behaviour was appreciated highly;
For, although he was a quiet man, in manner mild and meek,
Not like ordinary swagmen with a monumental cheek,
...
Raised in a small mining village,
My love for my hometown's still strong,
Many old buildings demolished,
But the memories forever go on.
...
It is over forty years since I lived here,
at first in the miners' hostel over there:
I had a single room with a single bed,
just across the tracks from the college.
...
After a good night's rest,
Vincent went to Pietersen's house.
He was so hungry that he pounced on the food
And literally gobbled all the food laid on the table,
...
Two months passed by, after Vincent's arrival in Petit Wasmes.
Jacques felt that Vincent should know the miners even more closely.
So far, Vincent had seen miner's life above the ground- in 'Terril',
To know deeply he should descend down the mines, see for himself,
...
THE NIGHT descends in glory, and adown the purple west
The young moon, like a crescent skiff, upon some fairy quest,
Has dropped below the opal lights that linger low and far
To havens that are beaconed by the Pilot’s evening star;
...
Dusty field is mindless horror reigned
And the blood is flowing like a Nile river in Marikina's dusty field.
Contemporary history is full of repetition
There is massacre in our mist again
...
After nursing Vincent back to health,
Theo decided to take Vincent back to their home in Etten.
Vincent wondered what good that would be?
His whole family looked at him with complete distrust,
...
Number ONE:
Eroticism: A Limerick …. [about Eroticism; VERY SHORT; well, it IS a LIMERICK! ]
...
What’s unseen may not exist—
Or so those secret powers insist
That prowl past nightfall,
Enabled by the brain’s blacklist
...
At fourteen years old, he went down the mine
Like his Dad before him, it was his time
He was issued, with a hat and a lamp
Way below ground its hot and its damp
...
At the start of the Miners holidays,
In the Welsh seaside town of Porthcawl,
Many families would flock in their hundreds,
For a hard earned break from the coal.
...
Sailing in the 'Endeavour', Captain Cook
named White Island in the Bay of Plenty,
'because that is how it appeared to us'.
Cook noted prophetically 'The island blew steam
...
The clover was in blossom, an' the year was at the June,
When Flap-jack Billy hit the town, likewise O'Flynn's saloon.
The frost was on the fodder an' the wind was growin' keen,
When Billy got to seein' snakes in Sullivan's shebeen.
...
That night, in a dream,
I found myself on a hill's skull
overlooking a quiet, dimly remembered, hamlet
hemmed by untrod expanse of sprightly vegetation
...
The great millennium is at hand.
Redder apples grow on the tree.
A saxophone is in ev’ry band.
Brandy no longer taints our tea.
...
It was Christmas eve in the valley
The miners came up from the pit,
They came out of the cage picked up their wage
And went home for a shower and a shave.
...
From fabrication springs the spiral stair
up which the wakeful princess climbs to find
the source of blanching light that conjured her
...
Revolution is dead,
buried next door to God
I Got his son's autograph,
at the souvenir shop
...
Rough, tough and yet so light
Ever ready for a touristy fight
Cushy insides and comfy tight
...
Just when a thin ray of light creeped
Into the miner's lives, a sudden calamity,
In the mines, crushed all hopes and joys!
Vincent was up in Marcasse with children,
...