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WELCOME TO THIS POET’S
CORNER!
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| My Inner Child Picture! - You Choose An Old Photo That You Think Best Captures Your Spirit! |
Welcome to my site. I have so many
divers and sundry interests that it is hard to keep up with myself. I’m cursed to be an artist both visual and if you
dare to stay and sample a few, I hope with some knack for poetry. I’m not sure at how good I am at any of these, but
as it is the some total of my torture and my bliss, I warrant I best make the best of it all, it being my life- that life
being lived as I will live it and my opinions how little weight they merit what I will reckon from the muddle of my brow and
the brain behind it. I will leave you to
it now adding just a few bits more, so that before you lick the ink you may be forewarned to move on if you’d
prefer; I am a patriot, and I am liberal. Either I am so far to the left I may fall off the edge of the earth or most of the
world has moved so far to the right, in my lifetime, I fear, they’ve fallen into a sort of hell. I am an unapologetic Homosexual and like so many of these, more than you
might suspect a father and a grandfather. I only hope that when I die, I’ve been the best of all of these that I could
be. Finally, I am descended from the original nine families that founded Smiths and Tangier Islands smack dab in the middle
of the Chesapeake Bay. My grandmother was born there but was moved then to the tip of St. Mary’s County sometime around
the turn of the century. I was there that by happenstance and a good fortune, so similar to Truman Capote’s, I was raised
by a magical and duly dysfunctional family on a peninsula that is today St. Mary’s State Park-that is to say that much
of my boyhood, mostly the long hot summers, were spent on the sandy shores of where the Potomac and Chesapeake Collide. And
now, if you please, I would be honored if you would tarry and read. E. D. Ridgell
________________________________________________________________________________ Credits:
I wrote my first poem in 1999, in that year of the death of my significant other. I immediately
knew I had embarked on that search for the soul or the solid self that is so broken at the loss of someone we truly love.
In short, I knew poetry was a medium for reinventing myself.
Since those beginnings, I have read poetry hosted
by The Samaritan Counseling Center of Lancaster Pa.
For awhile. I was a movie and event's critic for Walt's World an
online GLBT 'zine' on the social network site Journalspace. Some of these 'crits' can be read on pages 18 through 20 along
with some short stories.
I've also delved into the short story, commentary, etc.
For some two years, I acted as a moderator at Wordflair, another online zine that is part of the Yuku network more British
than American. I led a forum on Wordflair called "Taking Risks" where I encouraged my peers to "try to think
out of the box"- to realize that to create anything remotely new and unexperienced you must first destroy what has fossilized
into the academic rules and proprieties that must never be broken. I'm not a rebel. I am a simple artist.
Six poems
appear in 'A Bouquet of Poetry' an anthology compiled by S.M.Zang and Jean Lewis, c.2007. The word "bouguet" is
derived from the Greek meaning "a collection of". Details on ordering can be found at the bottom of page 5. ________________________________________________________________________________
All poems, original art work, prose, etc. are copyrighted under the name, E.D. Ridgell. Should
you wish to use any of the material you find here, contact me, and usually concur. This should not be assumed. The pictures and some of the multi-media are not always my
own and may be subject to the copyright and ownership of others, and should anyone object to their use, please contact
me, and I will promptly delete them. No plagiarism is intended. Anything submitted to other sites, contests, etc. is
published here, first, so as to establish copyright. Thank you.
© 2008-2010 by E.D. Ridgell
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| The Pier Out Back Of My Father's Place In Exmore Va...circa 1970 |
Exmore Virginia
Rain seemed
fast fleeting netting nothing
’cept a dizzyingly white and dazzling sunlight
leaving me happily harbored
in crisp clean colors.
The Bay froze over just the one year,
backing the house to an icy black mirror of
creek;
a miracle to marvel and one I’ve nary seen since.
In spring, spreading out o’er a quarter
mile
grew nurseries of azalea and rhododendron
stopped short at eroded cliffs breaking on your reason.
Green and yellow tufted mustard fields
growing wild either side the road waked the ride.
The honk at the turn
often startled a partridge or a bobwhite.
Georgia Gal, the shepherd friend to your old age,
guarding the
white washed house so comfortable,
barked a greeting pretending not to be glad.
Each summer had goals to mark those years;
Masons' breakfasts, garden victories, and churchly things- harvesting by
right the immigrant neighbor’s crab pots.
You drifted there to stay some years before,
to dry dock and
wait your turn at being a Bay ghost,
a merchant mariner as dignified as The Cleo fading away 'side the road.
Everything about you bespoke lower Bay.
Coming home that fall to the Delmarva
chronicled you; bow high, into
the family log.
And anchored there, you found the blue green harmony
resonant of that water ring round this
land,
so flat, sandy, and scented of high tide.
Reckoning my life amidst these grassy shores,
I too
love this tribal land and claim my marshy share,
your grateful son and heir to the Chesepiooc.
©
2006 E.D. Ridgell
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Her Devoted Bow-Front
For so
long she has entrusted me with Scribbled secrets and rhyming recipes- Now at death she has no more right to these Than the felled, pine tree that gave form to me. I’ve been robbed of pigeon carry Scooped from the top three- I’ll be damned if I’ll surrender Her pensive, scripts, ribbon
wrapped in the bottom! Tug and pull faithful to
her final fancies- The heat waves of mischief flowing o’er me. Swell my final bastion’s walls- I’ll wait out this designee’s impulsivity! How I’ll miss the gentle tug of her- The considerate closing of the parts of
me, And the
reflective sweep of that small hand Upon veneers wed to her devoted bow-front. © 2008 by E.D. Ridgell *The photo [ Emily Dickinson's Bowfront ] is the property of
The President and Fellows of Harvard College
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AT THE MOMA 2005
___________________________________________________________
Courbet and Those Roe Deer
Guy dubbed you
fat, dirty, and greasy,
awestruck at
your drunken wave.
Green grottos, deep,
centered to black holes,
Sapho’s sisters’
wish-fulfillments,
captured me;
held me there,
light headed.
Perceiving you were
complete by your own design,
bail bonded my return;
dead mentored to
canvas again
crude hanging rows.
I stared at those mineral
oily,
roe deer,
perpetual,
yet primordial.
You slashed, and left undisguised,
rabbit skinned
ground. At times,
you bristled at any hair;
your knife was left
not wiped.
Forbearing and unglazed,
hind limply down,
strung as on the spit,
you persevered. I understood,
there was so little time.
©2007
by E.D. Ridgell
The above poem is very significant for me. I had occasion to see an exhibit of Courbet's and noticed how
crudely some deer were rendered in some of his paintings. Upon research I found that Courbet came late to the vocation of
painting and consequently had no formal training. I have come to the art of writing late, not until the age of fifty.
I
was formally trained as a visual artist and for some thirty years the vocabulary I brought to any work of art was that of
the elements and principles of design as used to describe painting or sculpture- the fine arts. That does not matter, however,
as these are universal to all forms of art. The words are often different, however. The term meter and movement, for example
would mean the same thing. Alliteration is simply a kind of pattern. I'll never have time to learn the extensive vocabulary
that is unique to poetry and writing alone, but like Courbet I will use the time remaining to me to try and do so, while concentrating
principally on the making of good written works without any real formal training in literature or writing. To some degree,
I think this may very well work in my favor as I have less restrictions and presumed expectations to live up to. Art is universal
and can be reduced to simple and easily understood principles and elements of design, but change in art often comes from thinking
outside the box and by sheer accident resulting, in my opinion from the artist embracing the untried- the habit of taking
risks. EDR.
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The Demise of the Mandarin
See my little wing quiver so As I lie here atop the snow! Water is surely free I think.
I only wanted a tiny drink. Something is broke within I know. I can not lift and rise to go. So happy was I on the brink Eager at a dawn’s early pink; Very frightened, left alone, Lamenting others who have flown- Fled
they so high into a sky Never more into will
I fly. What
rudely broke my perfect wing So swift and sudden
came the sting, Dropping me from an upward lift Leaving regal feathers rudely rift?
Something struck me swift and cruel, Sharp tipped from side a northern pool, Amidst the warnings of little swallows Urging me to flap and follow. And where’s gone fidelity In the face of so little pity, Here now in a shadow of Showa, Falling
fast with a final, “Q
U
A”?
© 2009 E.D.Ridgell
 Stings for the Kinsmen
The whimbly, wambly kinsfolk
little knew
the letters faint yet folded with caring
and tossed into trash bin, an act to rue,
yet were treasured
writs of love so daring.
Sometimes a tolling bell is the siren,
sounding need for rash and hasty action,
as
locks go changing and time does upend
leaving doubtful future expectation.
The reasons cliquey-tricky they soon
see,
speed a griever’s misgivings aplenty;
and into the lock of grief goes a key
as anger turns unlocking
no bounty.
Like to poisoned kisses sent on the wings
swiftly quills do leave kinsmen many stings.
© 2007
by E.D. Ridgell
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Besses
Heralding
down spring Hooves
from court brought hard news of Wilting
English rose;
Tudor’s demise, Bess bestow
‘Fore closing her golden gaze. On that long winter Women wagged worrisome ‘Tween sundry weak men. When with
summary thoughts left
Memories of axe and fire. Came summer’s reigning Company of divers men Hunting and whoring, Until she victorious In death
ushered a fall. With time a new House, And then another Much
Change married to no change,
The New World takes the best
And leaves the rest to stand the time. Every season Men
thought only to war on Lovely
fields in France.
Again pray a Bess bequeaths
Her anni mirabiles.
© 2010 E.D. Ridgell http://www.britroyals.com/ Shellfish Bay Reflections
The waves break o’er me, Billowy
in this latest tempest; A red tide of events and mortals. The undertow could carry me out but for luck And
that pluck to anchor firm, Until what, I do not know or fear.
Driven, why so driven? Why weigh against the waves? Tether this tempest and Idle
side the shore 'o the Bay awhile. Rarely, does the Bay Reflect a dead calmed, mirror of sky To
tarry and measure feelings that wake o’er me, Storm-tossed ‘fore
this self levied lull. The Bay is a rite to me. The Bay sweats from pours of me; Mine,
salty glands of drowned-down ‘watermen’. Surely as
the Full Flower Moon salutes the night Are these pauses welcome markers In the ebb and flow as “I
follow on the water”.
© 2010 by E.D. Ridgell Buy! Buy! Buy! Greece,
the cradle of democracy, is rioting in the streets, Spain is in debt up to its sweet meats; In Russia the President is actually rumored to be sober- The old world wobbles on the weight of entitled
miscreants. In Washington the Senators suffer the smell of their underarms,
And representatives
chase their own tails, tongues wagging wobbly. The President is hated for reasons rational men can not discern, And the people read rags while focusing on a wily Fox!
The gods shake the floors selectively, reckoning past sins, And the stars come out at night, but briefly. Gallop polls prove their never has
been any warming, And
quitters in tight leather still chant, “Drill baby drill”! Broad
and Wall will have their bonuses, Thumbing their noses at poorer mere common shareholders. Blood runs in the streets. The hour glass gives up a final grain. History’s indicators could not be clearer.
Buy! Buy! Buy!
© 2010 by E.D. Ridgell The Beaver Are Gone The
beaver are gone. You are
ashes and crushed bone. I
walked the trail today. I’ve
avoided it for ten years. The
dam that is no more Was my
feigned destination, But
I really wanted this walk Again
with you. “Vittle” is old now and nothing About him is brisk. I’m tired. The waves still come occasionally. I cope. So many have died or are dying. I grieve differently now, and I Have no fear of death. © 2010 by E.D. Ridgell
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The Dungaree Doll
Under
a dark pall
On the silken road
South an ancient wall
Robes of the yellow
Caress worn red tiles
Aligned all just so
With Her face white
For a final opera
Under the majestic moonlight
As the dragons fight
Amid the celestial clouds
Round the imperial kite
The queued men kowtow
Side bound lotus feet
All foreheads ground low
Borne into a Hall
For the Manchu rites
Dictates
of ancestral law
Seal closed the tomb
Litter Pu Yi away
Barren of Her womb
Force the perfect
pearl
Out a lock-jawed mouth
Spoils unto some earl
Sullied grandfathers in shame
Of the dungaree
doll
Unseeded brother can't blame
A slit eyed whore
Docent on that square
Giving foreigners
the tour
With plans to woo
But a single son
She's chosen on Bidu
Olive fatiqued comrades
sleep
Heavily donned in stars
As angry ancestors weep
© 2006 E.D.Ridgell 
I Am The Eagle,
the stark predator
back dropped by the dazzling sun.
I measure and reckon upon details;
the direction and velocity of winds.
My
talons clutch in a last grip
and the beak, razor edged, rips and tears.
The aerie lies near the lake
in the shadow of the high mountain,
unlike the hawk roosting in the valley nearby,
deep within the screeching
woodland.
Many take no heed of me
bewaring nothing soaring so faraway,
meandering in a distance too foreign
for them to see, or fear.
But, coming into that geography,
the boundary and parameter of my sharp sight,
I only need to pounce in a lightning catch and
swoop them up into some convenient perch.
Unlike them, trapped
in a scheme
not of their making, no carrion do I seek.
No trap awaits me.
They are sited movement caught
by my eye,
a tribute to be taken; ripped and torn,
pieced just so, for ripe and particular appetites.
The
first course is mine and measured to my need.
The second, gleanings of the harvested carcass,
the smaller, savory
pieces, I deliver to
frenzied, nestled eaglets hungry for my return.
I am forever soaring above,
seeking
an unguarded opportunity,
when they chance a safety that does not exist.
This is my eminent rank. This is their
lower link.
They feed me and mine according to that covenant,
governing all things, including me the eagle.
© 2009 by E.D. Ridgell
Watersheds of the Chesapioc
With leathered hide and
liver spots,
like a bay bobcat,
I melt into these surroundings.
Comfortable and well heeled as you were,
some half a century ago,
I watched you shoplift for the sport of it.
You nick’d the immigrant’s
crab pots,
well within the eye of his spy glass, both content
in friendship and your discretion’s count.
All those flat, sandy, fields of bounty-
you were due a small measure of,
by right of lineage, a small sober
tally.
How many a capsizing did you dupe
with your disciplined dog paddle?
How many folk did you grieve
down-drowned?
These lands derived from our clans-
We harvested both soil and water ‘fore settling
into soggy graves more unmarked than not.
Slowly stewed in brine and blood,
your setting son, takes his
turn at the wheel,
well seasoned for his watch, and
steers these careworn, waked waters;
navigates his generation’s storms-
in watersheds of a once, shellfish full Chesapioc.
©
2009 by E.D. Ridgell
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