"anemones" poems
The beautiful, the fair, the elegant,
Is that which pleases us, says Kant,
Without a thought of interest or advantage.
I used to watch men when they spoke of beauty
And measure their enthusiasm. One
An old man, seeing a ( ) setting sun,
Praised it ( ) a certain sense of duty
To the calm evening and his time of life.
I know another man that never says a Beauty
But of a horse; ( )
Men seldom speak of beauty, beauty as such,
Not even lovers think about it much.
Women of course consider it for hours
In mirrors; ( )
A shrapnel ball -
Just where the wet skin glistened when he swam -
Like a fully-opened sea-anemone.
We both said 'What a beauty! What a beauty, lad'
I knew that in that flower he saw a hope
Of living on, and seeing again the roses of his home.
Beauty is that which pleases and delights,
Not bringing personal advantage - Kant.
But later on I heard
A canker worked into that crimson flower
And that he sank with it
And laid it with the anemones off Dover
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I love her with the seasons, with the winds,
As the stars worship, as anemones
Shudder in secret for the sun, as bees
Buzz round an open flower: in all kinds
My love is perfect, and in each she finds
Herself the goal: then why, intent to teaze
And rob her delicate spirit of its ease,
Hastes she to range me with inconstant minds?
If she should die, if I were left at large
On earth without her-I, on earth, the same
Quick mortal with a thousand cries, her spell
She fears would break. And I confront the charge
As sorrowing, and as careless of my fame
As Christ intact before the infidel.
5.2k
I love my own city Simply because it means a lot for me ... I love my city's anemones Simply because they remind me of My early childhood's memories ... I love all my city' streets and roads Simply because they are so dear to me ... I love my city's whole people Simply because they're all members of my family ... I love everyone and everything In my city Anytime,anywhere,and everywhere ...
Mar 6, 2015
Mar 6, 2015 at 6:26 AM UTC
Envoy to Palestine
BY YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA
I’ve come to this one grassy hill
in Ramallah, off Tokyo Street,
to place a few red anemones . . .
Mar 13, 2014
Mar 13, 2014 at 8:43 PM UTC
i still feel like my purpose is higher
than what i’m living now.
i’m supposed to be swinging in the breeze,
reflecting time,
changing perspectives as a bird,
living in anemones.
how is that i have turned into a secondary color?
i’m more of a roadblock to human life,
my cycle is to serve, support, and help move on. be a learning experience, to help one grow.
i think my soul was put into the wrong vessel,
maybe i was supposed to be a tree (as my name suggests)
or a bird or fish.
or maybe something much more discreet like branches on a tree, or myelin from a mushroom (to help connect).
that’s me: in time, in reality, in relativity. in the womb, out the womb. i’m supposed to be woven into nature and out of sight, not supposed to be heard, behind the scene, hushed stage crew.
but then you try and take me and make me the star of your scene.
maybe that’s where i’m supposed to be, in space, in a star, or maybe a star. to burn out after years, and bloom again (like a flower, since stars and flowers and us are very alike.)
yeah that’s all i am, shades of colors and soft dust. star dust. distant yet so close.
if you love me and hold me, i’ll be okay if you leave me. for i am not supposed to be here.
I’m supposed to limpid, colorful, and skyey;
die in winter, born in spring.
That is supposed to be me (for eternity).
May 4, 2018
May 4, 2018 at 6:05 PM UTC
The men kept to themselves:
they were waiting for the swiftness of the last cyclists.
The women kept to themselves:
they were expecting the death of a boy on a Japanese schooner.
They all kepy to themselves-
dreaming of the open beaks of dying birds,
the sharp parasol that punctures
a recently flattened toad,
beneath silence with a thousand ears
and tiny mouths of water
in the canyons that resist
the violent attack on the moon.
The boy on the schooner was crying and hearts were breaking
in anguish for the witness and vigilance of all things,
and because of the sky blue ground of black footprints,
obscure names, saliva, and chrome radios were still crying.
It doesn't matter if the boy grows silent when stuck with the last pin,
or if the breeze is defeated in cupped cotton flowers,
because there is a world of death whose perpetual sailors will appear in the arches and
freeze you from behind the trees.
it's useless to look for the bend
where night loses its way
and to wait in ambush for a silence that has no
torn clothes, no shells, and no tears,
because even the tiny banquet of a spider
is enough to upset the entire equilibrium of the sky.
There is no cure for the moaning from a Japanese schooner,
nor for those shadowy people who stumble on the curbs.
The countryside bites its own tail in order to gather a bunch of roots
and a ball of yarn looks anxiously in the grass for unrealized longitude.
The Moon! The police. The foghorns of the ocean liners!
Facades of ***** of smoke, anemones, rubber gloves.
Everything is shattered in the night
that spread its legs on the terraces.
Everything is shatter in the tepid faucets
of a terrible silent fountain.
Oh, crowds! Loose women! Soldiers!
We will have to journey through the eyes of idiots,
open country where the docile cobras, coiled like wire, hiss,
landscapes full of graves that yield the freshest apples,
so that uncontrollable light will arrive
to frighten the rich behind their magnifying glasses-
the odor of a single corpse from the double source of lily and rat-
and so that fire will consume those crowds still able to **** around a moan
or on the crystals in which each inimitable wave is understood.
2.3k
at midnight, i dreamt
that i became one with the earth
that my skin grew roots
buried myself deep into the soil
mingling with the wriggling of the worms
that each time i would breathe,
sprouts of my favourite flowers would bloom
emerging from the ground in thousands
of where i am buried
at midnight, i dreamt
that i became one with the sea
swimming into the depths with the whales
dragging myself across the seafloor
kicking up sand
that my bones became coral,
my hair swaying with the anemones
my eyes lighting up in bioluminescence
like bright blue stars in an empty galaxy of water
at midnight, i dreamt
that i became one with space
crumbling into stardust and space debris,
i would orbit the moon like saturn's rings
and fling myself across the milky way
becoming one with the stars,
just as i was
many, many years ago.
Mar 21, 2023
Mar 21, 2023 at 5:47 AM UTC
63
If pain for peace prepares
Lo, what “Augustan” years
Our feet await!
If springs from winter rise,
Can the Anemones
Be reckoned up?
If night stands fast—then noon
To gird us for the sun,
What gaze!
When from a thousand skies
On our developed eyes
Noons blaze!
2.2k
Why does the sea moan evermore?
Shut out from heaven it makes its moan,
It frets against the boundary shore;
All earth's full rivers cannot fill
The sea, that drinking thirsteth still.
Sheer miracles of loveliness
Lie hid in its unlooked-on bed:
Anemones, salt, passionless,
Blow flower-like; just enough alive
To blow and multiply and thrive.
Shells quaint with curve, or spot, or spike,
Encrusted live things argus-eyed,
All fair alike, yet all unlike,
Are born without a pang, and die
Without a pang, and so pass by.
2k
The fat lady came out first,
tearing our roots and moistening drumskins.
The fat lady
who turns dying octopuses inside out.
The fat lady, the moon's antagonist,
was running through the streets and deserted buildings
and leaving tiny skulls of pigeons in the corners
and stirring up the furies of the last centuries' feasts
and summinging the demon of bread through the sky's clean-swept hills
and filtering a longing for light into subterranean tunnels.
The graveyards, yes the graveyards
and the sorrow of the kitchens buried in sand,
and dead, pheasants and apples of another era,
pushing it into our throat.
There were murmurings from the jungle of *****
with the empty women, with hot wax children,
with fermtented trees and tireless waiters
who serve platters of salt beneath harps of saliva.
There's no other way, my son, ***** There's no other way.
It's not the ***** of hussars on the ******* of their ******
nor the ***** of cats that inadvertently swallowed frogs,
but the dead who scratch with clay hands
on flint gates where clouds and desserts decay.
The fat lady came first
with the crowds from the ships,s taverns, and parks.
***** was delicately shaking its drums
among a few little girls of blood
who were begging the moon for protection.
Who could imagine my sadness?
The look on my face was mine, but now isn't me,
the naked look on my face, trembling for alcohol
and launching incredible ships
through the anemones of the piers.
I protect myself with this look
that flows from waves where no dawn would go.
I, poet without arms, lost
in the vomiting multitude,
with no effusive horse to shear
the thick moss from my temples.
The fat lady went first
and the crowds kept looking for pharmacies
where the bitter tropics could be found.
Only when a flag went up and the first dogs arrived
did the entire city rush to the railings of the boardwalk.
2.1k
Bliss
lives
at
one
furlong
from
me.
My
neighbors
are
anemones,
amaryllises,
roses,
lilies.
Oct 12, 2012
Oct 12, 2012 at 1:02 AM UTC
Scrambling upon slimy rocks
Pocketful of glistening pebbles
Wellies damp from taking just one too many steps
Tiny soft mottled green shelled crab
Held delicately between forefinger and thumb
Smell of salt air on your jumper
Knees scuffed red raw from exploring
Daring adventures of a boy
Down upon St. Mary's Isle
Teasing little sisters with monsters from
Recently refilled rock pools,
Sea anemones, all shiny slippery jelly
A dead lobster with only one claw
Amazing treasure from a world, he knew well
Early morning, cold breeze cutting through
A green jumper, mother shouting at the gate
Something about being warm, he didn't really hear
Skipping over seaweed covered rocks,
Net and rod grasped firmly in hand
Off to catch a monster, fish from beyond
The edge of an island, where magical things occur
Like weathered, washed up wood, from
An imagined wreck, or
Bright blue netting, and seaweed cage
A sharks purse contained within
The salty, sweet taste of the sea air,
And the splash of frothing white spray
As the seventh wave hits the rock
A boy or a man in paradise
A simple boy in paradise, skipping over rocks
Discovering seaside treasure, by the rocky shore
Nov 5, 2014
Nov 5, 2014 at 2:39 PM UTC
I'm struggling to comprehend this desire to be desired
The forces of nature and evolution in which we're mired
No matter how far we travel into space,
Or how many organs we manage to replace
We cannot transcend the basic instinct
To preserve the species from going extinct
The world keeps spinning at a whirlwind pace,
No time for contemplation, it's the human race
If you don't keep up you'll vanish without a trace
A terrible fate that we can't seem to face
Is to have ourselves and our lives erased
Is this all there is then?
For this great species of women and men
We've struggled, survived and conquered
But our genes are still our masters
We splice study and duplicate
And try to decipher the codes
But must make time to find a mate,
Before we're too old
We've been to the moon and travelled back
We've fought world wars and pandemic attacks
We've studied the brain and consciousness
We've challenged society's prejudices
But no matter what we achieve, build or transcend
We're haunted by the spectre of being barren
The ant, elephant and amoeba
Redwood, fungus and bacteria
The chimp, owl and lowly cockroach
May not have weighty subjects to broach
But for all our millennia of evolution
The name of the game's still reproduction
I wonder if we'll ever be
Even as evolved as sea anemones!
May 28, 2015
May 28, 2015 at 7:24 AM UTC
Standing beside a tree, near the warm and calm sea.
I pondered at the wonders of the life beneath, was it a heath or sheath?
Dazzling on a rock, grappling me along,
greeting with pleasure, leading me to the treasure
- a mermaid
The squid and the jellyfish came with a glow
paved the way with light, like the winters moonlight.
Deep underneath, like cold and dark night.
Shivering all the way, with the mermaid I go.
Anemones covered me like a blanket of snow,
and then let me slow.
Wading through the sponges,
On a strong coral, by the brittle sea star,
without a quarrel I sat.
The feather dusters moved with ease
making me freeze.
Came a shark,
very near and I trembled with fear.
Soon with a lift, away it shift.
The octopus and the butterfly fish,
what a splendid sight!
With pleasure I write.
Cared and shared my little wonderland,
In the lovely hands
away from the thunder lands.
Mar 19, 2021
Mar 19, 2021 at 4:38 AM UTC
the seas of pain hurt before dawn,
before returning itself to the ocean,
escaping from the light it turns to blue anemones,
to be lost in a wave or waves of the memories,
discord turns in stillness,
the thought of ourselves hurt long before
and still after the first death,
men
women
dressed in the color of the soul breathe under
cover(s),
the children of our imagination laugh like a
bird of freedom dipping its wings into the sun
some of the winds of words sleep after the hurricane
Mar 25, 2021
Mar 25, 2021 at 9:57 PM UTC
At high tide, the sea ejects
foam and glass fishing floats.
We wait for the waters to recede,
tiptoe around anemones and *****
I spot a small green globe.
She says it belongs to a Japanese goddess,
her eyes plucked out by a vengeful lover
and cast into the deep.
I see only an old sake bottle
crafted into a sphere,
etched with sand and netting patterns.
Tomorrow, I will look for agates
while she searches for the goddess’s other eye.
Jan 5, 2021
Jan 5, 2021 at 8:16 PM UTC
You carve your trade
Above your door
The chisel bright and keen
Looking for work
Like a collie dog
Mallet wagging
Weightless in your hand
Rounding the letters
The letters speak of rowan
Fetched from a'side
A mountain burn
Fed by snow-melt
Even in summer
Hot sun through thin air
Burnishing each day
The wild, burred grain
Adorned with marquetry anemones
Each petal in fine horn
Further etched with pewter
And you will love that sign
The thought of that sign
Even if you never carve a single letter
Nor ever hang it until
You have something to trade
Apr 16, 2011
Apr 16, 2011 at 11:32 PM UTC
The solution to pollution
Is to cease affluent effluent.
In other words make the rich
Live in their ecological excrement.
Force them to drink only from
Their permanently poisoned pipes
And turn a deaf ear, as they did
To any of their constituent’s gripes.
The enemies of the anemones
Fought their way to the deep
To censure and make sure
The sea creatures had no sleep.
It seems the corporations
Don’t realize what they’re doing.
If we **** off the plankton, then
We’re headed for planetary ruin.
It was bad enough when someone,
Without telling us, sold our land
And then they chopped down trees
For a reason anyone can understand;
Greed. That was the proper word.
They wanted more money in the bank.
So when the land erodes and dies
We’ll have the corporations to thank.
They cover up their eco-crimes
By declaring illegal military forays
And pretend they are taking us back
To those good old, happier days.
But in between bombing villages
It can always plainly be seen
That we and our country are
Slowly being picked totally clean.
And when we object, cry out loud
That something is wrong with all this;
They start to call us unpatriotic,
Call us who starve are the neurotics.
So, don’t listen to their lying rhetoric,
Instead look at what they are doing.
The sonsabitches are Macbeth’s witches,
And they have a lot of poison brewing.
Feb 8, 2016
Feb 8, 2016 at 10:44 PM UTC
Sea stars, urchins and anemones
ride the tidal waters at Rialto Beach
swirling into shallow pools -
clad in shades of blue, emerald and violet.
Gnarls of ancient driftwood line the beach
up to the rainforest’s edge just beyond the rise.
Pulsing waves dash and roar against the sea stacks
where the Pacific adjoins the California shore.
Legions of seagulls circle above
piercing the misted air with their cries
and the tide, beckoned by the Sky Queen,
begins to ebb and regain the open sea.
As the sun sinks into the western sky –
the towers of Split Rock and Hole in the Wall
are silhouetted against the horizon
pasteled in gold, orange and burgundy hues.
Gray whales and dolphins breach the surface
before plunging into the sacred depths
where the ocean beats pulse on and on -
sounding resonant cadences
through timeless hallows of infinity.
Aug 24, 2020
Aug 24, 2020 at 6:16 PM UTC
I was watching the fish a few days ago, and decided to join them.
Their flickering fins slowly glinted as the sun sank beside me.
I came prepared: purple swimsuit, goggles, and a glowstick
But I left behind a life preserver.
It was on the shore, just in case, but as my feet graced the waves it no longer felt necessary to take precautions.
The golden red hues faded as the water got cold and I continued to drift.
My glowstick glanced off scales and shells, and my hair dye ran like blood around me.
Humans aren't supposed to be able to live without oxygen.
The body will shut down in at least four minutes with severe brain damage, and the possibility of death,
But how can one think of that in moments like this?
Even when all that is left is green, man-made light,
Waiting two seconds in murky liquid, the water comes alive.
Anemones waved as I sunk deeper, their glow penetrating the black.
Schools of fish twirled between my thighs as I landed softly on a coral bed, then slipped off into the sand.
Bubbles brewed from my nose.
Eyes burning as my gaze roved
I was blind in the darkness.
My chest began to tighten,
But who cared?
I had been watching fish, and found myself instead.
Mar 27, 2017
Mar 27, 2017 at 5:02 AM UTC
Day one,
and there was light.
A path out of chaos.
A radiant beam of hope.
I opened my eyes to the unconceived.
A fiery hand
touched my palm,
leading me to unknown paths.
Ninth hour of the morning!
I was born in the sea.
I am unvisible, unseen.
Plankton they call me.
Chance met shells
and anemones my companions.
I played with the sand,
was one with the waves,
sipped at oxygen and salt.
The Eternal God told me:
"Before night comes you will have become food".
I didn't unedrstand it.
I was afraid
"You are unfinite.
You will be reborn in the morning".
This reassured me.
But who can wait for the morrow?
I saw a glowing star.
It slipped to the horizon.
"That must be my soul
ready to take flight.
The Moon laughed at me with bitterness.
"I' m sorry for that".
Weeping,
I drifted into the redeeming arms of sleep
Day two.
Morning.
Death spat me into the bowels of a great whale.
It is called "Leviathan".
I am reborn.
"I inhabit a green seaweed.
It tickles my body and I arise".
I saw the light which transpierced me.
Creation is a cycle.
Creation in its cycle engenders All.
Aug 23, 2013
Aug 23, 2013 at 7:35 AM UTC
oh, the surface tension,
holding the wild beneath,
where I float, buoyant,
the cool water kisses my skin,
a sweet moment of clarity,
where i'm a welcome guest,
the deeper i go.
fish dart around
homes in coral,
sea anemones swaying,
little dancers in the blue haze,
snakes gliding on the sandy floor,
that octopus, oh, the octopus!
the wizard of disguise,
hiding beneath the shells,
soft moss a velvet carpet.
the turtles,
gentle giants, drifting,
letting the current cradle their shells,
the waves pulse and heave,
wild and electric,
all of us,
the fish, the plants,
in syncopation,
we flow together,
drifting this way,
and that way.
Sep 30, 2024
Sep 30, 2024 at 2:00 PM UTC
I came close to sight of a place once called Home.
I know in the crevices, our hearts beat together.
In the grass where we rolled,
in the trees where we climbed,
on the roads that we walked,
and, once, made art upon,
in the water we ran through,
and swam in,
and, once, dunked each other into, and, once, poured over each other,
on the coach where we laid,
whispering solacing words to keep ourselves refreshed,
In the kitchen where you worked hard to accomplish and I worked hard to distract,
on the floor where we rested at the edge of a day,
In the snow which we absorbed through cotton clothing and malleable minds,
Through the flowers where we ran, skipped, and took a few resplendent bluets or chaste anemones,
Yes - Even under the blankets where our love echoed
the sheets and reverberated back to
ourselves in a transient moment,
By the fire we would build before a cool summer night (which we then gazed at the heavens above)
but, under the clouds we watched and the stars we mapped.
In these crevices our hearts beat.
That is why, as you can see, our hearts beat poorly now:
They still beat in all of those crevices.
And as I got closer and closer to approaching your house, sitting next to a driver who looked upon me realizing (but probably not understanding why) that I was in a mental breakdown,
and I whispered love words to you through a foggy glass window,
A panic knocked the air from my lungs and a fear knocked me flat on my back,
-until, that is, we turned opposing roads and retreated back,
my tail beneath my leg.
And now that my chance is gone, I long to see home again.
So, and it is, so my heart can feel at ease and rest once more.
My dearest desire, my rambunctious "Fish"
(If you recall that story)
Does your heart still beat alongside mine?
Are the tears that stain your face, dripping onto the floor, forming just as quick as mine?
Are the hours passing as slowly for you as for me?
Do you miss home?
Oct 31, 2011
Oct 31, 2011 at 11:27 PM UTC
I love all kinds of anemones Simply because they remind me Greatly and wonderfully of my earliest days Of my childhood ... I used to see them during Springtime In the Patos Orchard ... I used to pick some of them to my loved ones ... Anemones got spread Here and there brilliantly For everyone to enjoy their red colors anytime ... I do love them in truth ... _______________________________________________________________
Mar 12, 2015
Mar 12, 2015 at 8:29 AM UTC
dig up my bones and
tell me they’re beautiful,
while you dust the dirt off
your tough-man hands
and tilt your eyes like skies
to the undone grave.
tell me they’re as
flowers, sprung silvery-petaled
from the earth, beautiful;
and i’ll tell you
you’re as the earth --
all.
Aug 16, 2013
Aug 16, 2013 at 2:27 AM UTC