Poems by Ken Allan Dronsfield

Waltz of the Scarecrow

That which gives often…may receive nothing in return.

Do not be deceived by the words etched in stones.

Corn often grows taller than words;

words often grow taller than deeds.

The Scarecrow walks the fields at night through stalks

of corn taller than tales told by the fire.

We take our cache and fill silos; forty suns each field.

Mule shoes and wagons cut furrows in the black soil.

Geese feed in flocks as tendrils of wispy fog surrounds them.

Took one for our bellies and put it to spit and hot coals.

At dusk, we sit by the fire and drink our ale and watch as

women gather husk and stubble for rope.

A full moon rises high above, as a Scarecrow waltzes in

the clods of earth while mice search for seed and try

not to succumb to the Great Owl.

Starlings and ravens pick clean all the cob and stubble

as the sun warms our bones.

And within the breath of a wise man,

the sun falls and the scarecrow smiles once again.

 

Sonnet 33, A Timeless Splendor

My gnarly bent fingers gripping tightly,

the buttered, black raspberry jam covered,

hot freshly toasted burnt english muffin.

Sunrise has arrived with a cool spring breeze;

my hot coffee patiently waits as does

my excitable, little chihuahua.

So off we go out through the sliding doors

slippers on with mug, pen and pad in hand.

Blue jays joust over old sunflower seeds.

On the back porch I watch the little dog

chasing the ghostly hoodoos and whatsits

throughout the grass around the fenced yard but

barista’s aren’t here so inside we go;

for another cup of timeless splendor.

 

The Yearning

In this lifetime full of yearning

through which came wishing and dreaming

within many splendid, unquiet enthusiasms

a voice murmured back the word, ‘prayer!’

I was needy and you were solicitous,

my mind always straying to paradoxes.

Instead I uncovered brazen devotion,

the perkiness brought such euphoria

and so, I screamed, ‘Is that a blessing?’

Mattering and assaultive within theodicy

Urging and purging within my slyness,

shyness or otherness, I could not awaken.

Tossing its ghost into all desires,

‘It’s that barrenness,’ I muttered

Queryingly back into my memories

craving the eccentric, eclectic fantasies

the yearning, an essential evanescence

an evolutionist laughed at me in retort.

‘It’s that piety,’ I whispered.

The saintliness simply smiled.

 

Ellipse

At sunrise the heron soars effortlessly upon the breeze

as waves roll in and crash upon the rocks and beaches

rising tides reach high upon the sands slowly fading away

the sun breaks through my window and kisses my cheek

 

Round and round and round the great circle of life travels;

much like a whirlpool of bubbles in a small woodland stream.

As the day turns to night, and night to day, while the tide rises,

as the cloudy morning brings the bell and the death bed flow.

 

Into autumn’s burnt ashes and all the saddened masses;

It was winter’s chill when my spirit lifted; my heart thrived

from a dead, frozen shard and my soul was forever freed.

Just because you’re breathing doesn’t mean you’re alive.

 

At sunset the heron soars effortlessly into a colorful twilight

the waves now whisper to the rocks and sandy beaches

great tides fall slowly as the full moon rises in a pink sky

a lullaby rocks me to sleep as moonlight kisses my cheek.

 

The Beeman

As geese slowly cruise around the edge

of the pond, small gosling’s hurry to keep up.

The first light of the new day begins to peek

above the horizon.

A man with his coffee sits upon the deck

and ponders his day.

Mists of the early morning move like tendrils

across the water and dew twinkles in the

green grass of the yard.

The Beeman, donning hat and veil, slowly

walks the path towards the apiary just as

a peach sunrise ignites a Georgia sky.

 

Ken Allan Dronsfield is a disabled veteran and prize winning poet from New Hampshire, now residing in Oklahoma. A proud member of the Poetry Society of New Hampshire, he has five poetry collections to date; ‘The Cellaring’, ‘A Taint of Pity’, ‘Zephyr’s Whisper’, ‘The Cellaring, Second Edition’ and ‘Sonnets and Scribbles’. Ken’s been nominated three times for the Pushcart Prize and six times for Best of the Net. He was First Prize Winner for the 2018 and 2019, Realistic Poetry International Nature Poetry Contests. Ken has been published in magazines, journals, reviews and anthologies world-wide. He enjoys spending time with family and his cats Willa and Yumpy.