Haiku 5
Down float lazy flakes,
Thunder frenzied snow blankets -
Lawn mower ready.
Super Bowl action,
Foreign Texan soil they play -
Who wins ? Money does !
Horizons beckon,
In the distance lures our dreams -
T.V. stifles them.
Zhivago winter,
Ice, snow, Siberian bleak -
Vodka ! All around.
Bright golden sunshine,
Indicates warmth, early spring -
A false conclusion.
Ronald C. Downie
Monday, January 31, 2011
Friday, January 28, 2011
Song Tune
Song Tune
The song,
The song of life,
The song of life is played
In the key of time.
Seconds tick minutes into hours for days to find
As weeks couple bearing months that years combine
Into passing decades etched forever on the mind.
Friends, in chorus, help harmonize the melody divine.
But,
But the tune,
The tune is ours
The tune is ours alone,
But the tune is ours, ours, all alone to find.
Ronald C.Downie
The song,
The song of life,
The song of life is played
In the key of time.
Seconds tick minutes into hours for days to find
As weeks couple bearing months that years combine
Into passing decades etched forever on the mind.
Friends, in chorus, help harmonize the melody divine.
But,
But the tune,
The tune is ours
The tune is ours alone,
But the tune is ours, ours, all alone to find.
Ronald C.Downie
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Thoughts of OBX Nights
While sitting here looking out the front windows at an ever increasing intensity of snow coming down, my mind drifted back to some years ago. Connie, my wife,is of the Hall Family who had a family reunion down at The Outer Banks, North Carolina, about eight years back.
The days were fine but the nights struck my mind as being special. Light pollution at night in Pottstown is so bad few if any stars can be readily seen by me from my home. I do recognize the planets that shine more brightly though.
Viewing a rising Moon coming up from the horizon Of ocean meeting the eastern sky took my breah away. It was a full moon at that which dominated the heavens for me. But,never since I was a very young boy before World War Two had I seen stars as numerous and so sharply bright.
The following poem, "An OBX Night", captures some of my feelings which I thought about that first night and the others of that eventful week.
Ronald C. Downie
The days were fine but the nights struck my mind as being special. Light pollution at night in Pottstown is so bad few if any stars can be readily seen by me from my home. I do recognize the planets that shine more brightly though.
Viewing a rising Moon coming up from the horizon Of ocean meeting the eastern sky took my breah away. It was a full moon at that which dominated the heavens for me. But,never since I was a very young boy before World War Two had I seen stars as numerous and so sharply bright.
The following poem, "An OBX Night", captures some of my feelings which I thought about that first night and the others of that eventful week.
Ronald C. Downie
An OBX Night
An O. B. X. Night
Way out there where the inky ocean meets
The eastern night sky,
A red sphere silvers
As it lifts from the waves to
Begin its nightly grand arc
Across the heavens
Bringing moon light
To a sleeping dark planet .
When full, the silvery moon
Gathers up to swell the tide high by
Raising lapping waves above normal .
Does this same moon cycle draw fluids
Up in life forms as it does with water?
Can abnormalities in beasts and humans
Be traced to full moon cycles ?
Are stories bordering on the macabre
A certainty of a full moon's power ?
Do you, as I do, look up on a clear moon lit night and wonder
While viewing visible craters that creates a bright faced full moon
What is this force that causes changes here on Earth ?
A clear night at the Outer Banks enables keen sight .
Sight that is keen is not always a big picture's answer.
Insight that moves beyond the senses, beyond the obvious,
Has more of a chance to capture what we call Spirit sense.
Ronald C. Downie
Way out there where the inky ocean meets
The eastern night sky,
A red sphere silvers
As it lifts from the waves to
Begin its nightly grand arc
Across the heavens
Bringing moon light
To a sleeping dark planet .
When full, the silvery moon
Gathers up to swell the tide high by
Raising lapping waves above normal .
Does this same moon cycle draw fluids
Up in life forms as it does with water?
Can abnormalities in beasts and humans
Be traced to full moon cycles ?
Are stories bordering on the macabre
A certainty of a full moon's power ?
Do you, as I do, look up on a clear moon lit night and wonder
While viewing visible craters that creates a bright faced full moon
What is this force that causes changes here on Earth ?
A clear night at the Outer Banks enables keen sight .
Sight that is keen is not always a big picture's answer.
Insight that moves beyond the senses, beyond the obvious,
Has more of a chance to capture what we call Spirit sense.
Ronald C. Downie
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Robert Burns On His Birthday's Anniversary
Robert Burns
Born in Alloway, Scotland, on January 25, 1759, Robert Burns was the first of William and Agnes Burnes' seven children. His father, a tenant farmer, educated his children at home. Burns also attended one year of mathematics schooling and, between 1765 and 1768, he attended an "adventure" school established by his father and John Murdock. His father died in bankruptcy in 1784, and Burns and his brother Gilbert took over farm. This hard labor later contributed to the heart trouble that Burns' suffered as an adult.
At the age of fifteen, he fell in love and shortly thereafter he wrote his first poem. As a young man, Burns pursued both love and poetry with uncommon zeal. In 1785, he fathered the first of his fourteen children. His biographer, DeLancey Ferguson, had said, "it was not so much that he was conspicuously sinful as that he sinned conspicuously." Between 1784 and 1785, Burns also wrote many of the poems collected in his first book, Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, which was printed in 1786 and paid for by subscriptions. This collection was an immediate success and Burns was celebrated throughout England and Scotland as a great "peasant-poet."
In 1788, he and his wife, Jean Armour, settled in Ellisland, where Burns was given a commission as an excise officer. He also began to assist James Johnson in collecting folk songs for an anthology entitled The Scots Musical Museum. Burns' spent the final twelve years of his life editing and imitating traditional folk songs for this volume and for Select Collection of Original Scottish Airs. These volumes were essential in preserving parts of Scotland's cultural heritage and include such well-known songs as "My Luve is Like a Red Red Rose" and "Auld Land Syne." Robert Burns died from heart disease at the age of thirty-seven. On the day of his death, Jean Armour gave birth to his last son, Maxwell.
Most of Burns' poems were written in Scots. They document and celebrate traditional Scottish culture, expressions of farm life, and class and religious distinctions. Burns wrote in a variety of forms: epistles to friends, ballads, and songs. His best-known poem is the mock-heroic Tam o' Shanter. He is also well known for the over three hundred songs he wrote which celebrate love, friendship, work, and drink with often hilarious and tender sympathy. Even today, he is often referred to as the National Bard of Scotland.
A Selected Bibliography
Poetry
Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect (1786)
Tam O' Shanter (1795)
The Cotters Saturday Night (1795)
The Jolly Beggars (1799)
Burns' Poetical Works (1824)
Born in Alloway, Scotland, on January 25, 1759, Robert Burns was the first of William and Agnes Burnes' seven children. His father, a tenant farmer, educated his children at home. Burns also attended one year of mathematics schooling and, between 1765 and 1768, he attended an "adventure" school established by his father and John Murdock. His father died in bankruptcy in 1784, and Burns and his brother Gilbert took over farm. This hard labor later contributed to the heart trouble that Burns' suffered as an adult.
At the age of fifteen, he fell in love and shortly thereafter he wrote his first poem. As a young man, Burns pursued both love and poetry with uncommon zeal. In 1785, he fathered the first of his fourteen children. His biographer, DeLancey Ferguson, had said, "it was not so much that he was conspicuously sinful as that he sinned conspicuously." Between 1784 and 1785, Burns also wrote many of the poems collected in his first book, Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, which was printed in 1786 and paid for by subscriptions. This collection was an immediate success and Burns was celebrated throughout England and Scotland as a great "peasant-poet."
In 1788, he and his wife, Jean Armour, settled in Ellisland, where Burns was given a commission as an excise officer. He also began to assist James Johnson in collecting folk songs for an anthology entitled The Scots Musical Museum. Burns' spent the final twelve years of his life editing and imitating traditional folk songs for this volume and for Select Collection of Original Scottish Airs. These volumes were essential in preserving parts of Scotland's cultural heritage and include such well-known songs as "My Luve is Like a Red Red Rose" and "Auld Land Syne." Robert Burns died from heart disease at the age of thirty-seven. On the day of his death, Jean Armour gave birth to his last son, Maxwell.
Most of Burns' poems were written in Scots. They document and celebrate traditional Scottish culture, expressions of farm life, and class and religious distinctions. Burns wrote in a variety of forms: epistles to friends, ballads, and songs. His best-known poem is the mock-heroic Tam o' Shanter. He is also well known for the over three hundred songs he wrote which celebrate love, friendship, work, and drink with often hilarious and tender sympathy. Even today, he is often referred to as the National Bard of Scotland.
A Selected Bibliography
Poetry
Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect (1786)
Tam O' Shanter (1795)
The Cotters Saturday Night (1795)
The Jolly Beggars (1799)
Burns' Poetical Works (1824)
Monday, January 24, 2011
This Love Affair
This Love Affair
This love affair's been going on for years !
What ? What fuels a flame that endears
A relationship to outlast earthly fears
Of outward affection, of overt tears ?
Cordwood stacked by fore bearers, I suppose,
Or chestnut coal nugget parents at repose,
Maybe, a pilot flame honor which we chose,
Or warm sun rays coaxing forth a fragrant rose .
Out in the open in the bright light of day
Dressing and disrobing simple back yard play
That everyone observing is so fond to say,
" What loving affection this public display."
South of the railroad I look to the right,
The end of the garden absorbs my sight,
Dancing and swaying to a breeze calling night,
Late autumn season brings passions to height.
I'm timid to stop and just ask their name ,
Their aim to live simple without any shame .
But why do I write ? I seek them no fame .
To grow the best fig tree in town - their game .
Ronald C. Downie
This love affair's been going on for years !
What ? What fuels a flame that endears
A relationship to outlast earthly fears
Of outward affection, of overt tears ?
Cordwood stacked by fore bearers, I suppose,
Or chestnut coal nugget parents at repose,
Maybe, a pilot flame honor which we chose,
Or warm sun rays coaxing forth a fragrant rose .
Out in the open in the bright light of day
Dressing and disrobing simple back yard play
That everyone observing is so fond to say,
" What loving affection this public display."
South of the railroad I look to the right,
The end of the garden absorbs my sight,
Dancing and swaying to a breeze calling night,
Late autumn season brings passions to height.
I'm timid to stop and just ask their name ,
Their aim to live simple without any shame .
But why do I write ? I seek them no fame .
To grow the best fig tree in town - their game .
Ronald C. Downie
Sunday, January 23, 2011
This Day
This Day
You nihilist, night,
Cloaked in shadows
Darkened until light
Marauds horizons east
And lips rolling seas and lands,
Crouching tiger, demon beast .
Dollop madrigals, sun beams,
Wind and rain, painful sorrows,
Exhilaration, troubled dreams,
When logged, lock boxed
Safe as Social Security,
Morning's Sopranos out foxed.
Mercurial High Noon Azimuth
Plotted, slipping ever west
Drowns in punch bowel vermouth,
Sweet and dry, a sobering song,
Evening stars, lightning strikes,
Twelve step prayers to come along .
Jim Lehrer, C Span, Brokaw Live,
Copland and Bird, Frank and Barbara,
Recliner, refrigerator, back again, TV's jive?
Of all the days, this damned day, today
Is begging for its very existence .
The shades drawn, it ends in anonymity .
Ronald C . Downie
You nihilist, night,
Cloaked in shadows
Darkened until light
Marauds horizons east
And lips rolling seas and lands,
Crouching tiger, demon beast .
Dollop madrigals, sun beams,
Wind and rain, painful sorrows,
Exhilaration, troubled dreams,
When logged, lock boxed
Safe as Social Security,
Morning's Sopranos out foxed.
Mercurial High Noon Azimuth
Plotted, slipping ever west
Drowns in punch bowel vermouth,
Sweet and dry, a sobering song,
Evening stars, lightning strikes,
Twelve step prayers to come along .
Jim Lehrer, C Span, Brokaw Live,
Copland and Bird, Frank and Barbara,
Recliner, refrigerator, back again, TV's jive?
Of all the days, this damned day, today
Is begging for its very existence .
The shades drawn, it ends in anonymity .
Ronald C . Downie
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