"advancing" poems
You see me suspended in space-time
as I’m passing the 89th floor
Falling headlong, my form is impressive.
Sadly, no one will be holding up scores.
Just moments ago I was standing
at a Morton’s Fork in the road:
The fires of hell were advancing
where I stood on the 98th Floor.
Well can you imagine my terror
when I came face to face with the flames.
I don’t know why I chose as I did;
Souls in torment can never explain.
The day of my death predetermined,
but which death would provide me less pain?.
My choice, which was no “choice” at all
was to smash through the window and fall.
Then the only thing that could “save” me
was the camera that captured it all
Dec 18, 2011
Dec 18, 2011 at 7:42 PM UTC
Crows and corn chips, Squirrels and beer sips…
Lazy hammock and Hemming-way,
our rabbits mowing the grass today...
A nap under the advancing stars,
A Paradise in our Backyard!
Raccoons love the chicken bones,
everynight, a fox visits our home,
Fish guts and crab-leg shells,
opossum out there giving-‘em-Hell,
Casting corn and some bird seed,
for Mother Nature everything she needs,
God’s aces and a Wild Card!
A Paradise in our Backyard!
Ohhh! In summer a Bar-be-que,
and you the prettiest girl I ever Knew!
Couple ‘o kids and a swimming pool,
mini-van and Cadillac-cool,
Love the beaches and mountains,
of Carolina and my country-kin,
Wouldn’t trade it for the whole of Mars,
A Paradise in our Backyard!
You and me under the stars,
our home, children and a dream of ours,
Leo, Virgo, Aries and Mars,
I thank the Lord for your tender heart.
Our life amazing, though a, rough start,
A Paradise in our Backyard!
Oo-oh -a paradise in our Backyard!
You and me under the stars,
Our home and children; a dream of ours,
Leo, Virgo, Aries and Mars,
I thank the Lord for your tender heart...
...a Paradise in our Backyard!
Some people say it’s just a yard,
...this paradise under the stars,
Leo, Virgo, Aries and Mars,
you, me, children of ours.
Our home, children, a dream of ours,
I thank you Jesus for your tender heart;
Paradise in our Backyard!
A Paradise in our Backyard!
Oooh -a paradise in our Backyard!
You and me under the stars,
Our home and children a dream of ours,
Leo and Virgo, Aries and Mars,
A Paradise in our Backyard!
Praise Jesus and NAS-CAR!
You and me under the stars,
our home and children a dream of ours,
Leo and Virgo, Aries and Mars,
some people say it’s just a yard?
You and me under the stars
-and a Paradise in our Backyard!
*A Paradise in our Backyard!
A Paradise in our Backyard!
A Paradise in our Backyard!*
<musical break>
I love you,
heaven: Hea Anna
Jul 19, 2016
Jul 19, 2016 at 11:59 PM UTC
It hurts me because my countries worries of ETHNICITY creates nation wide incompatibility. Which creates no mobility.
That gives us no capability of advancing our society.
Oct 28, 2014
Oct 28, 2014 at 1:23 PM UTC
Passed a neglected garden of late.
It seemed in quite a sorry state.
Some men came to make some notes.
But seemed to give it little thought.
Up on high the grasses grow.
Beneath the windows row by row.
The other plants just cry with pain.
I guess we'll never grow again.
They have taken up our space on the ground
Like an advancing army I'll be bound.
They are taking our water Oh my.
As they journey to the sky.
Perhaps it soon will be resolved.
And peace will reign.
Once again
Keith Wilson Windermere. UK. 2016.
Aug 1, 2016
Aug 1, 2016 at 2:08 PM UTC
Summer's warm currents retreat
the advancing brisk amber sunsets.
Submerging the world under
the reign of enduring starry nights.
The maples blush as Autumn whispers
the gentle lullaby of Winter's sweet breath.
Erasing Summer's memory with a crimson brush
preparing the golden landscape's long frigid rest.
~~~
Aug 31, 2014
Aug 31, 2014 at 12:35 PM UTC
Come thou, thou last one, whom I recognize,
unbearable pain throughout this body's fabric:
as I in my spirit burned, see, I now burn in thee:
the wood that long resisted the advancing flames
which thou kept flaring, I now am nourishing
and burn in thee.
My gentle and mild being through thy ruthless fury
has turned into a raging hell that is not from here.
Quite pure, quite free of future planning, I mounted
the tangled funeral pyre built for my suffering,
so sure of nothing more to buy for future needs,
while in my heart the stored reserves kept silent.
Is it still I, who there past all recognition burn?
Memories I do not seize and bring inside.
O life! O living! O to be outside!
And I in flames. And no one here who knows me.
5.2k
No option, but to be perceived
Violent, Aggressive, Irrational
Identity becoming an other
Words of malice, they mystify
Words of ignorance, they vilify
Subverting consciousness and articulation
Our identities, fighting to be
Autonomous landscapes
Hoping in anticipation for liberation
No real notion of we or me
Implicating it's inhuman to be foreign
When they represent as much of we and me
Scandalizing alternative identities as subversive
Advancing erasures in favor of hegemony
Propaganda favoring what is most white
Amelioration for the obliteration of cunning identity?
No more cooperation, ****** the euphemisms
That cover up, and help justify marginalization
Our identities, fighting to be
Autonomous landscapes
Hoping in anticipation for liberation
Time to **** ****** massacre eurocentric ideology
We preach no violence, being not them, just we
But cannot request to be free, must tear it out by force
Eurocentric ideological pandemic inhabiting, inhibiting the soul of mankind
Unthinkable abomination concealed in the veil of appropriated minds
Necessitating exorcism for the incarcerated conscious mind
When we completely violate mandates of eurocentric ideology
When only we appropriate our own identity
When we all nullify the color of our skin
As profanity or inadequacy
Our identities, fighting to be
Autonomous landscapes
Hoping in anticipation for liberation
Will be awaiting purgation from alienation
Feb 1, 2013
Feb 1, 2013 at 6:25 PM UTC
My moments .....
*****************
Moments of joy,moments of bliss
Moments of love ,moments of Happiness
Moments of share,moments of care
Moments of hope,moments of despair
Moments of tears ,moments of cheer
Moments of mine,moments of yours
Moments of us, moments of ours
I pack these tiny moments
In my heart
The small treasure house !
My whole life is safe n secure
In these tiny moments,
And I pull them out
When I need them most.
When the road is long
And I am not strong.
When my eyes are blurred
Tears are too tiered to flow!
I am frightened to look at
Those dark shadows
Advancing rapidly
To unsettle me .
Helplessly when
I watch
Like sand ,life slip thru,
These tiny moments
My precious ,
My cherished moments
Come to my rescue!
Surround me
Hold my hands
And console me
Lift me up from the lowest of lows
Ever so graciously !
Copyright(C) Bhargavi Ravindra....
Aug 27, 2019
Aug 27, 2019 at 6:53 AM UTC
Determined petals
Pierce the snow,
Refusing to wait.
Shades of violet,
Red, then yellow;
Mocking folded crepe paper,
On white marble floors
Advancing to overtake the scene;
An insurgent force,
So lithe, so pure.
Conquering in swaths,
With delicate bravado,
As if to challenge
The old mans icy grip,
While placating senses
Of the observant few;
Such a display
Of resistance,
To winter's rule
Now, slowly waning;
As the moments nigh,
But will return once again,
To defy a February's
Cruelty.
Feb 28, 2013
Feb 28, 2013 at 12:08 PM UTC
~
late winter’s dusting,
on tarnished ores;
a dreamer’s seeds,
these rails once bore.
rain-washed colors,
on sun-warped steel;
their conjured hopes,
an age once real;
oxidized
by rust and time
blackened timbers,
no longer bind;
what still remains
are worn out ties,
a distant memory,
of centuries gone by,
now mere after-sighs.
structures standing,
but just by chance...
a gust may blow them down;
these buildings where
men’s dreams once danced,
now a ghost, this town.
though no soul is left inside,
still a body here resides.
so long ago
her carried goods,
these rails rode,
to distant homes,
built dreams of wood;
like dandelion wishes,
scattered... gone,
tracks going nowhere,
now a fading ode,
just another dusty song.
for advancing progress
never fails to leave
someone's dying dream behind.
~
*post script.
Oregon’s hills and back country hide these relics of a time when a nation’s spirit was fed by the sounds of industry, steel and steam, the whir of saws, and men calling, “timber”... long before the age of wood and rail were left in a saw-dusty bin of history by the sweeping hand of time. i could easily be persuaded that this change was for the best, yet this can't erase the longing sense, left beneath my breast... advances do not come without leaving something or someone behind.*
Mar 12, 2017
Mar 12, 2017 at 4:11 PM UTC
When the arc of his watch hands
reached the top of the hour
Sam pushed the throttle forward.
Engine 138 thundered
out of Blossburg station
like an iron dragon
breathing smoke and steam -
whistle shrilling over the Tioga valley.
Powered by coal
the train carried coal
to the waiting city of Elmira
where Sam would press his mother's hand -
perhaps for the final time.
The wheels churning iron on iron
across Pennsylvania farmlands,
turned like other wheels before
moving settlers west
to break its ready earth -
wheels beneath his grandfather's oxcart
turning toward Lycoming's verdant hills.
New wheels now carried America
to urban landscapes
drawing us like electro-magnets
to streetlamps - factories - dry good stores -
new crops for a modern age.
Elmira’s silhouette expanded on the horizon.
and Sam pulled the train in on time -
brakes screeching through billowing steam.
His wife, Jenny and his sister's Sam
came in a horseless carriage
with Zoe, Marie and Edward,
children now grown at their sides.
They all gathered by Hannah's bed
now approaching her final hours
soft voices and fragile smiles
cradled the truth beyond all telling:
Time, ever advancing
like the hands of a fine old watch,
holds us all in its circling sway
© 2006 by Robert Charles Howard
Aug 25, 2017
Aug 25, 2017 at 10:58 AM UTC
There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried. Not for nothing one face, one character, one fact, makes much impression on him, and another none. This sculpture in the memory is not without preestablished harmony. The eye was placed where one ray should fall, that it might testify of that particular ray. We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents. It may be safely trusted as proportionate and of good issues, so it be faithfully imparted, but God will not have his work made manifest by cowards. A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best; but what he has said or done otherwise, shall give him no peace. It is a deliverance which does not deliver. In the attempt his genius deserts him; no muse befriends; no invention, no hope.
Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events. Great men have always done so, and confided themselves childlike to the genius of their age, betraying their perception that the absolutely trustworthy was seated at their heart, working through their hands, predominating in all their being. And we are now men, and must accept in the highest mind the same transcendent destiny; and not minors and invalids in a protected corner, not cowards fleeing before a revolution, but guides, redeemers, and benefactors, obeying the Almighty effort, and advancing on Chaos and the Dark.
Sep 21, 2014
Sep 21, 2014 at 2:08 PM UTC
My moments .....
*****************
Moments of joy,moments of bliss
Moments of love ,moments of Happiness
Moments of share,moments of care
Moments of hope,moments of despair
Moments of tears ,moments of cheer
Moments of mine,moments of yours
Moments of us, moments of ours
I pack these tiny moments
In my heart
The small treasure house !
My whole life is safe n secure
In these tiny moments,
And I pull them out
When I need them most.
When the road is long
And I am not strong.
When my eyes are blurred
Tears are too tiered to flow!
I am frightened to look at
Those dark shadows
Advancing rapidly
To unsettle me .
Helplessly when
I watch
Like sand ,life slip thru,
These tiny moments
My precious ,
My cherished moments
Come to my rescue!
Surround me
Hold my hands
And console me
Lift me up from the lowest of lows
Ever so graciously !
(C) Bhargavi Ravindra....May 2018 ..
Aug 27, 2019
Aug 27, 2019 at 12:20 AM UTC
Tes pas, enfants de mon silence,
Saintement, lentement placés,
Vers le lit de ma vigilance
Procèdent muets et glacés.
Personne pure, ombre divine,
Qu’ils sont doux, tes pas retenus !
Dieux !… tous les dons que je devine
Viennent à moi sur ces pieds nus !
Si, de tes lèvres avancées,
Tu prépares pour l’apaiser,
À l’habitant de mes pensées
La nourriture d’un baiser,
Ne hâte pas cet acte tendre,
Douceur d’être et de n’être pas,
Car j’ai vécu de vous attendre,
Et mon coeur n’était que vos pas.
In English:
Your footsteps, children of my silence,
Saintly, slowly placed
Towards the bed of my watchfulness,
Approach, muted and frozen.
Pure one, divine shadow,
How gentle, your cautious steps are!
Gods! …all the gifts that I can guess
Come to me on those naked feet!
If, with your lips advancing,
You are preparing to appease
The inhabitant of my thoughts
With the sustenance of a kiss,
Do not hurry this tender act,
Bliss of being and not being,
For I have lived for waiting for you,
And my heart was only your footsteps.
Nov 21, 2015
Nov 21, 2015 at 6:18 AM UTC
I lived my half dictionary life before I could
comprehend compulsory compromises.
Collectors arise, disguises and devices beeping,
chastising my blindness.
Gather geography from Afghanistan and Myanmar
graciously growing gold gilded gift horses,
gleefully gloating about floating far away.
My hoof beats above concrete match my heart’s defeat
across borders and mountains
embroidering cardboard cut-outs
calling deserts, decorating front covers.
Exhaling handcrafted letters for my missing half,
half demanding highest caliber commanders and half commanding completion.
Jade jays joyfully lay arrays of bouquets
fragile flowers decay faraway
in jawbones and jail cells.
Begging farewells in a hotel’s lobby
began my hobby,
early morning coffee and carbon copies
concurringly cocky around his dead body.
Gang ciphers for cartels are
Christmas bells hissing at collars,
half dollars embellishing bar crawlers
godfathers hollering at car haulers.
Atrocities across cities attack,
attachable atrophies audibly ambush arthritic anthologies.
Anomalies begin apologies between apostrophes,
advancing autonomy arousing ancient animosities.
All eluding Antarctica,
giant frozen crests, multi-coloured ice
hidden in my illustrations
anxious for my distant half.
Friday cassettes and cigarettes
deliberately making bets following “M”.
Breaking bindings and finding “beta” in alphabet,
may feasibly end in debt.
Feb 17, 2013
Feb 17, 2013 at 1:51 PM UTC
I
LEAGUERED in fire
The wild black promontories of the coast extend
Their savage silhouettes;
The sun in universal carnage sets,
And, halting higher,
The motionless storm-clouds mass their sullen threats,
Like an advancing mob in sword-points penned,
That, balked, yet stands at bay.
Mid-zenith hangs the fascinated day
In wind-lustrated hollows crystalline,
A wan valkyrie whose wide pinions shine
Across the ensanguined ruins of the fray,
And in her lifted hand swings high o'erhead,
Above the waste of war,
The silver torch-light of the evening star
Wherewith to search the faces of the dead.
II
Lagooned in gold,
Seem not those jetty promontories rather
The outposts of some ancient land forlorn,
Uncomforted of morn,
Where old oblivions gather,
The melancholy, unconsoling fold
Of all things that go utterly to death
And mix no more, no more
With life's perpetually awakening breath?
Shall Time not ferry me to such a shore,
Over such sailless seas,
To walk with hope's slain importunities
In miserable marriage? Nay, shall not
All things be there forgot,
Save the sea's golden barrier and the black
Closecrouching promontories?
Dead to all shames, forgotten of all glories,
Shall I not wander there, a shadow's shade,
A spectre self-destroyed,
So purged of all remembrance and ****** back
Into the primal void,
That should we on that shore phantasmal meet
I should not know the coming of your feet?
3.7k
*Windchimes
In my advancing years
Clarity eludes me now and then.
I sit quietly in the gazebo.
Your book and glasses
not yet removed from your seat.
Drifting into sleep
I awaken suddenly.
with confusion reigning again.
I quietly call your name
The need to see you is overwhelming.
I search the gardens for you
Panic setting in to my heart.
Then in the cool evening summer breeze.
The gentle chiming of the windchimes
Calm my panic as your soft words once did.
Then under the blooming arches
of the rose arbor I see you.
A basket of flowers hang from your arm.
The fading light from the evening sun.
Frames a halo about your long hair.
My eyes mist
So sweet so astoundingly beautiful
As calm as the mist on a summer's morn.
You smile at me
The windchimes ****** softly in the air.
You tell me the sweet wudruff is taking over
The hollyhocks need trimming
And the roses need pruning
You tell me all of these things.
But all I see is your
sweet heart of purest gold.
The rose arbor framing the light of my life.
Glowing as the sun
at the Centre of my small universe.
I fall to my knees to pay homage.
As you fade into the evening shadows.
Just the lilt of the windchimes
Dance over the perfumed bounty
Of our flowering gardens*
Dec 23, 2015
Dec 23, 2015 at 1:01 PM UTC
For nine days the artillery barrage
rained down on us
that June of summer in the Somme
machine gunners like me waited
in our concrete bunkers deep in the earth
When the shelling stopped
we rushed to the surface
and began our job of mowing down
the slow walking British Infantry
stoically advancing as if in another war
in another time where they might choose
to die bravely and with honour
a hero fighting for his life
his king and country
But here he dies unknown
by the chance turning of my gun
in his direction at that one moment
and the random number of bullets
left to fire.
© M.L.Emmett
Nov 10, 2015
Nov 10, 2015 at 12:26 PM UTC
The clouds as I see them, rising
urgently, roseate in the
mounting of somber power
surging in evening haste over
roofs and hermetic
grim walls—
Last night
As if death had lit a pale light
in your flesh, your flesh
was cold to my touch, or not cold
but cool, cooling, as if the last traces
of warmth were still fading in you.
My thigh burned in cold fear where
yours touched it.
But I forced to mind my vision of a sky
close and enclosed, unlike the space in which these clouds move—
a sky of gray mist it appeared—
and how looking intently at it we saw
its gray was not gray but a milky white
in which radiant traces of opal greens,
fiery blues, gleamed, faded, gleamed again,
and how only then, seeing the color in the gray,
a field sprang into sight, extending
between where we stood and the horizon,
a field of freshest deep spiring grass
starred with dandelions,
green and gold
gold and green alternating in closewoven
chords, madrigal field.
Is death’s chill that visited our bed
other than what it seemed, is it
a gray to be watched keenly?
Wiping my glasses and leaning westward,
clearing my mind of the day’s mist and leaning
into myself to see
the colors of truth
I watch the clouds as I see them
in pomp advancing, pursuing
the fallen sun.
3.3k
Humanity argues over the most inept subjects
I'm convinced that we like to converse in circles
And try to tell ourselves we're advancing when we're still arguing over the most irrelevant things to ever grace the earth.
Nov 3, 2015
Nov 3, 2015 at 3:20 AM UTC
Exiled to dusk,
Fractions of the sun
Begin to lift away,
In concealment
We shudder,
Casting our reels
Into a pond of uncertainty,
Clock hands bend
With advancing shadow,
And speak of time
Only in past tense.
I so want everything
I ever felt for you
Preserved for posterity,
Even should forever
Be far less than
We imagined.
Jul 21, 2020
Jul 21, 2020 at 10:52 AM UTC
Dans le fond des forêts votre image me suit.
RACINE
There is a panther stalks me down:
One day I'll have my death of him;
His greed has set the woods aflame,
He prowls more lordly than the sun.
Most soft, most suavely glides that step,
Advancing always at my back;
From gaunt hemlock, rooks croak havoc:
The hunt is on, and sprung the trap.
Flayed by thorns I trek the rocks,
Haggard through the hot white noon.
Along red network of his veins
What fires run, what craving wakes?
Insatiate, he ransacks the land
Condemned by our ancestral fault,
Crying: blood, let blood be spilt;
Meat must glut his mouth's raw wound.
Keen the rending teeth and sweet
The singeing fury of his fur;
His kisses parch, each paw's a briar,
Doom consummates that appetite.
In the wake of this fierce cat,
Kindled like torches for his joy,
Charred and ravened women lie,
Become his starving body's bait.
Now hills hatch menace, spawning shade;
Midnight cloaks the sultry grove;
The black marauder, hauled by love
On fluent haunches, keeps my speed.
Behind snarled thickets of my eyes
Lurks the lithe one; in dreams' ambush
Bright those claws that mar the flesh
And hungry, hungry, those taut thighs.
His ardor snares me, lights the trees,
And I run flaring in my skin;
What lull, what cool can lap me in
When burns and brands that yellow gaze?
I hurl my heart to halt his pace,
To quench his thirst I squander blook;
He eats, and still his need seeks food,
Compels a total sacrifice.
His voice waylays me, spells a trance,
The gutted forest falls to ash;
Appalled by secret want, I rush
From such assault of radiance.
Entering the tower of my fears,
I shut my doors on that dark guilt,
I bolt the door, each door I bolt.
Blood quickens, gonging in my ears:
The panther's tread is on the stairs,
Coming up and up the stairs.
3k
*Windchimes
A story of advancing years
And loss
By
Jude kyrie
In my advancing years
Clarity eludes me now and then
I sit quietly in the gazebo.
Your book and glasses
not yet removed from your seat.
Drifting into sleep I awaken suddenly.
with confusion reigning again.
I quietly call your name
The need to see you is overwhelming.
I search the gardens for you
Panic setting in to my confused heart.
Then in the cool evening summer breeze.
The gentle chiming of the windchimes
Calm my panic as your soft gentle words once did.
Then under the fragrant blooming arches
of the rose arbor I see you.
A basket of cut flowers hang from your arm.
The fading light from the evening sun.
Frames a halo about your long hair.
My eyes mist
So sweet so astoundingly beautiful.
As calm as the mist on a summer's morn.
You smile at me
The windchimes chime softly in the still air.
You tell me
the sweet wudruff is taking over
The hollyhocks need trimming
And the roses need pruning
You tell me all of these things.
But all I see is your sweet heart of purest gold.
The rose arbor framing the light of my life.
Glowing as the sun
at the Centre of my small universe.
I fall to my knees to pay homage to you.
As you fade away into the evening shadows.
Just the lilt of the windchimes
Dance softlly over the perfumed bounty
of our flowering gardens*
Oct 16, 2016
Oct 16, 2016 at 9:20 AM UTC
at the end of the pier
no one is fishing
a couple from Jersey
leans out over the
rail looking down into
the brown swill
rolling under the
weathered boards
The wife remarked
“Belmar's water
is much nicer.”
on the Gulf’s edge
unhappy gulls convene,
plaintively gazing
over gray waves
ebbing at their feet
Brown Pelican crews
fly in long
ordered formations
incessantly circling
in widening rounds
seemingly reluctant to
plunge into the
endless depletion
of this aquatic
dead zone
I speak with a
Jefferson Parish employee
working a shovel
to regrade disturbed sand
boasting a consistency
of moist drying cement
“How did the Gulf oil spill
affect this place?” I ask
“It took evarding.” she said
With a slight Cajun accent,
“dig down a foot or two in da sand
you hit earl. It nevar goes away. Nevar.
“I live down bay side
near forty years.
Had’nt been in de water fer
twenty five. The ******
******** took evarding.
They should go back
to Englund”
She went back to
tilling the sand.
Deepwater Horizon
yet festers a short
forty miles out to sea
is now covered by
an advancing storm
swelling in the Gulf
standing at the end
of the long pier
my hands grasp the
sun bleached lumber
straining my eyes
peering into a
dark avalanche
the serenade
of bird songs
have been replaced
by the motorized drone
of tenders servicing
offshore rigs
sounding
a constant refrain
filling my ears
with a disquieting
seaside symphony
the taste of
light sweet crude
dances on my tongue
the pungent sting
of disbursements
climbs into nostrils
rends my face
prickles my eyes
grandeur is a
conditional state
never permanent
forever temporary
Music Selection:
Cajun Music:
Hippy To-Yo
Grand Isle
2/20/17
jbm
Mar 3, 2017
Mar 3, 2017 at 5:52 PM UTC