"alights" poems
A late hour indeed, darkness over land, but
A bright light shines from a moon above
As a shadow sweeps across the surface.
For a moment, it stands emblazoned, precarious
Adumbrated phoenix in the sky,
But it does not flare out.
Sweeping lower, the form resolves,
Alights narrowly on a fine branch.
For a moment, it struggles for balance
But soon it finds a niche, stands true;
Visage of wisdom in the night
But not without flaw
Not the swiftest, lacking in grace
Lost territories in cunctation.
Still, secure in its plumage,
Into the night, ready to fly:
Hunter poised in the trees
It soars aloft
Nearby, another branch inhabited
Not a vision this one, a voice.
A lighter weight, a softer presence
Harmonious to the calm
Tones of beauty to the air
It rings forth
Awhile, this one too struggled
It tried the songs of the mockingbird
Some rang esthetic, others strange,
But now its own song found:
Anthem sung for the heart
Chorus all may hear
Birds of the night. Dark to dawn
Their habits thus have been.
Now with the new morning,
A change in the season;
Mind and Song together to the sky
Light out for the lit horizon …
~D.B. Guy (May 2008)
Nov 3, 2012
Nov 3, 2012 at 2:23 AM UTC
Out across the open lakes I stare,
Transfixed by the colour,
Grace and dignity; relaxed with no cares,
Pink plumes could get no fuller.
A swan sparkling with more class,
The brightness against the barren African plain,
The power of the landscape is hard to pass,
But the ocean of pink alights the darkest of grain.
Aug 28, 2012
Aug 28, 2012 at 5:59 AM UTC
*The blue song bird
mellifluous singer admired
for her songs that melt
even hearts of rock,
riding the crust
of the adoring wind,
swoop,
down,
down,
down
without a thought
suddenly alights,
heroically tries to sit,
on a high tension power line;
yet another of her
impromptu acts like before,
she labors to convince everyone
in a shrill chirping sound
that dangerously she lives
taking life in her own hands.
East wind, her companion tells
she is mistaken; he tries to push
her away from the lethal wire
on which death awaits with its dark hum
"young and wayward bird
you tell me you learn so quickly
from your mistakes, alright
from now and the moment next
lies an unknown chasm
in a jiffy if you decide to fathom it
no time is left for unlearning what it teaches
and reverse your journey
to the winter land of darkness
from where no migratory bird has ever come back"
The bird so deaf to wind's words,
still hovers above the wire
the wind in warning hums a sad tune aloud.*
Jan 9, 2014
Jan 9, 2014 at 11:18 AM UTC
I walk along a path
I do not know
But falter left nor right,
And, welcoming the light
Of birches, still and white
As sleeping snow,
A raven, coat that shimmers
Soft as coal,
Beside me flutters square
And, drawn like to a snare,
Alights upon the air
As on a knoll.
A ripened chestnut, trapped
Within his maw
And hard as ancient ice,
Is tightened by the vise
And shatters at the slicing
Of his jaw
To crumble into dust,
Which quick cascades
And settles, as it slows,
To carefully compose
The shape of raven toes
Where he parades.
The raven flies ahead
And, with a stamp,
His talons take a grip
Atop a wooden tip
Of birches, dead and stripped
To form a ramp.
I stumble after, fixed
Through field of black
As in a telescope,
And, clawing at the slope,
I climb it with a hope
To touch his back
And ****** a hand ahead
Just as he slumps,
Both limp but stiff, to lie
Upon his side and die.
I meet his cloudy eye
Upon the stump,
Then lift my head to find
A willow sprig,
A tendril hanging free
For me to grip. Indeed,
I climb the strip of tree,
The little twig,
And swivel in the air,
As if by choice.
I hear a humming, low,
Resounding from below—
The raven’s eyes, aglow
With Odin’s voice.
Like lightbulbs flicker, dim
with yellow light,
They sharpen with the tones
That bellow from his bones—
This god and poet moans
His heavy spite:
He damns me to the lifetime
of a bird.
My sin, I do not know
But bear the bitter woe
And close my eyes to focus
On this word:
Saṃsāra. So I feel my
Senses spill
Upon the ground
And flood out all around
And swallow every sound
Till all is still.
Feb 26, 2014
Feb 26, 2014 at 5:50 PM UTC
The cottage is old and the garden trees have overgrown,
The long missed smells of mother’s food…
Oh, what joy to eventually come home!
Shrill morning breaks to the call of crows
As the sun rises from behind prison walls.
A reminder yet again, Light alights in sleeping hours,
Daylight brings hell, the unvoiced tortured wails
Which cry out for the Light.
But it plays tantalizing games at night
And leaves the mornings in the hand of the jailor.
No friend, no foe, no merchant nor sailor
Will ever come to see…
We’re alone in our six square feet cells
Us, and the haunting drum roll of the surrounding sea.
Sep 27, 2014
Sep 27, 2014 at 5:14 AM UTC
Behold!
that drawing in
of breath
a minty
entanglement
of starlit senses
How they curl
like the opposite
of smoke
over the very
insides
of my
earthen throat
crackle of
autumnal breezes
whooshing through
like a beacon
And in that
split-second
right before
deep freeze
my molecules
rise and fall
in the rhythm
of snowflakes
each one a
unique entity
dusting the
solid soil
with loamy richness
and simultaneous
feather impressions
of relief
Now
like silk draped
alabaster
I am cooled
Like sweet
river water
I flow
rocked by
the slow
churn of
growing freedom
that alights my pores
arises in tender
stillness
through the
looming forests
of my skin
penetrates the
unseen journey of
my night
as demulcent
and persistent
as the balmy petals
of a
raging,
fiery
bloom
Nov 6, 2016
Nov 6, 2016 at 5:17 PM UTC
If I could love, I would take the best of marble and dove,
And craft her eyes like inlaid tombs in stone skyward flight.
Just so, the Egyptian khamsin wind, by way of Rhodes,
Alights with evenness on the trullo stone of Alberobello.
Just so, the weighing of the heart lies between marble and dove.
Dec 7, 2021
Dec 7, 2021 at 9:27 PM UTC
A flaw in the crystal spire
Of our deeply entwined hearts,
Much like the flaws of corundum,
Alights a ruby's fire.
May 9, 2016
May 9, 2016 at 1:04 PM UTC
It's morning,
and I'm mourning,
the sleep I lost the night before.
I watch the light,
as it alights,
upon my bedroom floor.
Never do I care,
to take care,
of myself anymore.
I always alter,
what I place on my altar,
and I sleep less, forevermore.
******
Jul 15, 2014
Jul 15, 2014 at 3:45 AM UTC
Aloft upon some distant shore
The seabird sets her wings to soar
The salt sea tang of crested breeze
Or howling gale of winters freeze,
Through oceans, mountainous or not
Or sea Sargasso flat and hot,
In dancing wavelets sparkling clear
Where hunted mackerel school in fear,
Where natives in their dugout boats
Caste out their nets and balsa floats,
That tiny bird will soar adrift
Negotiating each wind shift.
One wonders how a thing so small
Can fly against the wind at all;
But sweep she does and plunge and veer
In gracious symmetry to steer
Across the oceans vastness too,
To land right there, right next to you.
In squawking lightness, dancing swings
Sea bird alights ….and folds her wings.
Marshalg
Mangere Bridge
8th. December 2007
Feb 2, 2010
Feb 2, 2010 at 10:49 PM UTC
Hope alights like a new dawn
Springing forth on young legs like a fawn.
We are yet in darkness and despair
So, unseeing, we are not yet aware
Of the light that lies just beyond.
Before too long a new day has dawned.
Hope flies on the wings of tomorrow
Where we begin to let go of our pain and sorrow.
A single ray of light in the darkest night can pierce,
And a single small flame can burn all the more fierce.
Like a river will eventually find its way to the sea,
We follow our hope to the source that makes our hearts free.
Brighter days are soon to come;
Spreading hope to everyone.
Sep 1, 2017
Sep 1, 2017 at 6:31 PM UTC
<•>
BusBusNYC (A Live Love Bus App)
•<>•
if you made it this far, so fare one,
be undressed with thyself and impressed as well,
for thou joints me in holy matrimony upon a living map
where our presences can meet
in virtual real time as if eye new what that meant
but that blue dot is where this body possessed can be located by the nearest satellite finger snaking down from the heavens to Cain mark my foreheads location,
just like on Game of Thrones
don't you desire me, or rather,
the knowledge of mine
whereabouts?
the who of me, that very useful information, can best be
seen moving crosstown on the M72,
which is a mythological bus for in twenty years eye never
seen it come, go, though all its stops clearly marked
see me moving in fits and spurts of bursts of movement,
leaping streets and avenues in a single
unbounded, unstoppable superbus leap
in a city of anonymity where all who walk it streets,
ride the tides of its buses,
all ask a single Job-like question,
regardless of age,
"I am desirable, do you want me?"
eye say the ayes have it,
no,
this is not a great poem
but!
this live bus map app is the dating site ever created by
geeky human cells
alll this virtual meeting possibly leading to coitus
with a stranger while Pandora serenades
with perfect synchronicity, playing and plying us with
Romance for a Violin and Orchestra in F Minor,
a combination musical **** work of
Dvorak-Mehta-Midori
this bus app is
the social media's most immediate,
so meet me on the bus
at Broadway and 86 Street
where our metro cards can be
merged and we will be recognized
as a legal couple(ing)
in the eyes of MTA,
a multi-state agency and be bound in bustrimony
(legally married when riding on a city bus, only)
jeez, a crazy poem, not just, not a good one
but a true tale from the one who rides the buses and only
alights and delights with regaling tales and tellings
of love sortie sorrow maybe tomorrow the busbusNYC
app wil apply itself a smidgen better and
let me love you even with
a good under the hood
bus poem
but!
someday we will,
this, thy poet,
who does desire youalone,
will hijack you and a NYC bus,
and visit the poets from India and
the Great Northwest
won't that be a fabulous poem!
Jul 17, 2017
Jul 17, 2017 at 6:16 PM UTC
A kite—that's something I would like.
When ground is damp and lambs are born,
The kite floats up to lofty height.
When sky is fleeced and trees are crisp,
The kite is pulled up forks of light.
When brittle leaves are shed and blown,
The kite is thrown into their flight.
When dewy grass is glazed in rime,
The kite on frosty field alights.
When frost creeps over, all is white.
Dec 14, 2013
Dec 14, 2013 at 6:45 AM UTC
Fat midnight bats feast, gnawing gnats, and flit away serene
while on the trails in distant dales the lonesome wolverine
sate appetites as dawn alights and daytime's crystalline.
A migrant feeds on rotting seeds with fingers far from clean
and thereby’s blessed with barren breast (the easier to wean) -
her baby ***** an arid flux and fades away unseen.
Jul 3, 2013
Jul 3, 2013 at 4:14 PM UTC
She is spontaneous poetry, no need to be written,
a dam burst of emotions subtle,on what I float along,
a whirlwind at an unpredictable time of the season
looking for an intimate space to churn and churn and churn.
By now, I know this without her even hinting,
all her dark clouds will rain in torrents nonstop
in to my landscape, sultry, broad and tranquil
I am an open sky, a stage ready for changing realities
a cloudless calm now in meditative expansiveness,
ready to change from dark, cloudy turgidity
to it's contrast, white feathery fluff that's dreamy.
This time round, when she visited,she did lie naked
on my bed supine, looking at me wistfully for a while
in my mind's sky beams of morning sun criss- crossed
all the nine openings of my body tightly shut, I sat meditating.
But I felt her chaotic presence in the energy field spreading,
she hurriedly removed her clothes one by one,smiling
in the buff she alights on my lap,a butterfly on a flower was her,
by and by a sweet heaviness enveloped my ***** in union with hers
I hear the primordial boom of the big bang, refining as an "Om"
travelling sans any medium it goes outwards to expanding universe.
to the 1"Chidakasha" where everything begins and go beyond.
Her storm energy, Tantric, seeks alleviation of existential pain,
I hear my glowing inner eye whispering in light to the far galaxies,
In one form she is so much, past present and future converged,
She is 2"Mahatripurasundari", great enchantress of the three worlds.
Shakthi, the feminine energy that moves earth, heaven and hell,
Kali, the dark energy, seeking sublimation through catharsis.
On me she moves like a tortoise deliberately,my nervous system reads,
She would defeat the hare and win the laurel, in yogic, trance I discern.
Nov 18, 2015
Nov 18, 2015 at 12:46 PM UTC
Sway seconds ecstatic bliss
The taste of lime and salt
Skin glows, criss crossed shadows
and a panic of lights.
Shifting music
Rhythm intoxication and
Shifting energy
Boldness alights
like a flock of crows gliding in at dusk,
landing on the shoulders
cast in neon-disco light
They fan feathered-dollar bills
With prospects of revelry and dancing
odes to debauchery and youth
and feigning adoration
from the swaying, neon hips.
Subtle chants and hungry eyes
We deserve this
We deserve this
We deserve--
Disappearing in her act,
She arises, in the fame of a dove
Unburdened and free
in the whitest of lights.
She thinks briefly of flying away.
Dec 14, 2013
Dec 14, 2013 at 7:10 PM UTC
Magpie alights on the eaves
tonguing a bitter wild berry
***** head left,
right,
decides against this spot
and relocates to a new one
out of sight.
Autumn happened today,
again.
Same as every year.
I was under the shade of the porch,
coffee in hand,
and smelt a change in the taste of the wind.
It's been at least ten degrees cooler
and I've donned the first piece of warm clothing
since April.
Magpie perches on the red wooden
fence on my right,
still gently squeezing that berry-
as if testing its ripeness.
Head ***** left,
head ***** right,
magpie flies away.
The leaves will start to turn this week.
Maybe next.
My coffee is lukewarm now,
same as the air.
Magpie sits in the yard
and carefully sets his lunch down,
prods his beak into the soil,
picks it back up,
and buries it for later.
Magpie flies away.
A rush of cold air sweeps through me.
Same as every year.
I rise and walk,
mug in hand,
back inside.
Sep 8, 2015
Sep 8, 2015 at 2:16 PM UTC
Telescope
looks through the
distance
alights
on hope,
focuses.
Eyeglass,
I pass through the scope and
***** for the video switch
there's a hitch.
this is no prerecording
so I look back on in
to
the telescope
all hope gone,
dismal back on.
Binoculars are better
an 'i' is just
one letter.
Nov 12, 2015
Nov 12, 2015 at 8:43 AM UTC
The winter has set in early; monsoon a memory now,
the trees are all dusty by the all-day din.
This morning, the taxis ply early, eager to get the office-goers in.
Tea fumes in the mist.
The lady in the bungalow alights from her car
with her child, early from school.
Vegetables still asleep on the pushcart.
An eighties number mingles with the wind.
A van loaded with kerosene cans parks at the gates:
there is a tenement at the basement.
Dec 12, 2013
Dec 12, 2013 at 12:19 AM UTC
Stars shoot across the midnight sky
And the drunkards shout outside my window,
Screaming about nonsense that I don’t hear,
Because I am dreaming . . .
Behind my lids lies blackness,
But in front of my eyes I see wonderful sights;
I am an adventurer, strong and fearless.
I have wings.
I am me, unhindered by this-worldly chains -
Chains like time and space and gravity
(Which together are quite a tragedy) –
Watching as the universe unfolds.
Suspended in mid-air, haunted by places of the past
And impossible visions of an invisible future,
I see faces familiar and faces strange,
Mixing the stages of a conscious life.
Snuggled in the warmth of my worn blankets,
I feel the comfort of your unseen arms around me,
Holding me tight in my dream-world bright
In a corner of indiscernible dark.
I watch as the plot unwinds and thickens
And disappears again to a timeline surreal.
But the adventure grows stronger and the will more determined
And I watch more vividly as my consciousness begins to stir.
But before the war is won and the kiss received,
Before I say the words unspoken,
Before I die a victim of tragic death,
The wish remains unwished.
My eyes open and I’m left to the sound of alarm
And the light of a morning too bright.
My heart is beating fast, captivated
By the wish it made that can never come true.
A smile alights my waking-up face,
Remembering fondly the adventures of my mind.
But the day is to begin and will take from my memory
The dream that has already disappeared.
Feb 10, 2013
Feb 10, 2013 at 10:10 PM UTC
A spark is lit in cinders
That alights into a ball of outrage
True to the cause. "They
are at fault, this much is known,"
But is quickly forgotten. Like magpies,
Utterly self-removed, we forget
And collect more shiny things.
Women of ice dance in glass trays
As society's polite reminder:
'Be distracted, please.'
Nov 11, 2018
Nov 11, 2018 at 7:21 AM UTC
XXI. TO APOLLO (5 lines)
(ll. 1-4) Phoebus, of you even the swan sings with clear voice to
the beating of his wings, as he alights upon the bank by the
eddying river Peneus; and of you the sweet-tongued minstrel,
holding his high-pitched lyre, always sings both first and last.
(l. 5) And so hail to you, lord! I seek your favour with my
song.
1.6k
A voice echoes through my head--
My name, sounding
Over and over again.
A thought flits across my mind,
And a smile alights on my face.
"Maybe it's my soulmate,"
My heart thinks.
My head shakes,
Dispelling the romantic fantasy.
Because hearts don't think,
And a stranger's voice can't speak in my head.
Jun 24, 2014
Jun 24, 2014 at 2:23 PM UTC