"arboreal" poems
Alluring courage is complicated
The voices not wanting to circumvent,
And the people who aren't appeased
Makes the pressure even bigger and stronger
I need to burnish my confidence,
But the arboreal confidence is stuck on a vine
The affronts given to me, their expression is what's frightening
The archaic words I receive everytime when I go up, I don't wish for it to repeat
I just wish I was able to avert when I really needed to
Mar 2, 2015
Mar 2, 2015 at 1:29 AM UTC
Webster was much possessed by death
And saw the skull beneath the skin;
And breastless creatures under ground
Leaned backward with a lipless grin.
Daffodil bulbs instead of *****
Stared from the sockets of the eyes!
He knew that thought clings round dead limbs
Tightening its lusts and luxuries.
Donne, I suppose, was such another
Who found no substitute for sense,
To seize and clutch and penetrate;
Expert beyond experience,
He knew the anguish of the marrow
The ague of the skeleton;
No contact possible to flesh
Allayed the fever of the bone.
. . . . .
Grishkin is nice: her Russian eye
Is underlined for emphasis;
Uncorseted, her friendly bust
Gives promise of pneumatic bliss.
The couched Brazilian jaguar
Compels the scampering marmoset
With subtle effluence of cat;
Grishkin has a maisonette;
The sleek Brazilian jaguar
Does not in its arboreal gloom
Distil so rank a feline smell
As Grishkin in a drawing-room.
And even the Abstract Entities
Circumambulate her charm;
But our lot crawls between dry ribs
To keep our metaphysics warm.
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Angelic minds, they say, by simple intelligence
Behold the Forms of nature. They discern
Unerringly the Archtypes, all the verities
Which mortals lack or indirectly learn.
Transparent in primordial truth, unvarying,
Pure Earthness and right Stonehood from their clear,
High eminence are seen; unveiled, the seminal
Huge Principles appear.
The Tree-ness of the tree they know-the meaning of
Arboreal life, how from earth's salty lap
The solar beam uplifts it; all the holiness
Enacted by leaves' fall and rising sap;
But never an angel knows the knife-edged severance
Of sun from shadow where the trees begin,
The blessed cool at every pore caressing us
-An angel has no skin.
They see the Form of Air; but mortals breathing it
Drink the whole summer down into the breast.
The lavish pinks, the field new-mown, the ravishing
Sea-smells, the wood-fire smoke that whispers Rest.
The tremor on the rippled pool of memory
That from each smell in widening circles goes,
The pleasure and the pang --can angels measure it?
An angel has no nose.
The nourishing of life, and how it flourishes
On death, and why, they utterly know; but not
The hill-born, earthy spring, the dark cold bilberries.
The ripe peach from the southern wall still hot
Full-bellied tankards foamy-topped, the delicate
Half-lyric lamb, a new loaf's billowy curves,
Nor porridge, nor the tingling taste of oranges.
—An angel has no nerves.
Far richer they! I know the senses' witchery
Guards us like air, from heavens too big to see;
Imminent death to man that barb'd sublimity
And dazzling edge of beauty unsheathed would be.
Yet here, within this tiny, charmed interior,
This parlour of the brain, their Maker shares
With living men some secrets in a privacy
Forever ours, not theirs.
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Parallel tremors follow your heavy footsteps through the moss that carpets a maze of tired oak. Solemn warnings calcify soft thoughts and point you at the coal on the horizon. Its splinterglow peeks hot squints through the arboreal tangle. Topaz streams convene and braid themselves around your spine. The stones in the riverbed grow smoother and each becomes a grain of sand. You let the sand console your roots as you curl your toes and fall asleep.
Mar 15, 2013
Mar 15, 2013 at 6:58 PM UTC
to hold a photograph in my hand
and believe what is presented,
take is at it already is – why not?
if I close my mind’s shuttering eye,
will you be as candid as before?
unrestricted, unsorted from the hullaballoo,
you, freer than what is imagined, closing
in like a bullet from yesterday shot out
of the sky’s contrived clearing –
to hold a photograph in my hand
and tug closer by the mouth of the fringe
as if to pour water on a broken glass,
slithering now, a shadow of moon
at the very dull end of my cup;
you are closer than any rehearsed moment
ready to catch the inner canthus of the eye:
this relentless picture-passing, tense and
fervent, avid like bankiva to air,
water to chrysanthemum: behind thick shrub
of crepuscular, an arboreal locomotion
shatters loose, your frantic figure.
to hold a photograph in my hand
and size it down to the dimensions
of this home – there is potential in this
comparison: flaring out like smoke from
where it infinitely burns, I seek an ache
and hence place a finger to shush,
to hold this photograph in my hand
and confabulate a soft blow to the gut
and feel it realer than any dagger or berretta
held at one’s life-edge: this delusory intimation,
a slipshod work of feeling. to feel it rejoin
me somewhere I ought to be back again.
Jan 27, 2016
Jan 27, 2016 at 2:48 AM UTC
A tattered bird had a made a tomb
in tepid water, it was a puddle
near the framework of a half-built room—
but the soul’s a swerving tunnel
and the dead are waiting at the end:
all sorts of animals huddled at the fringe
where littered pine needles stand
and creep inside the sandy construction site,
pale in the morning light,
the tractors dug aesthetic swirls in the sand—
a culvert keeps the brook alive,
it flows into the forest, which learns to mend
its scars with the festering of its things:
kingfishers’ **** on the berries and branches,
if the plants could undo their own stink
the heart wouldn’t die on its haunches—
the morning’s dew resolves to hoary ice,
its killing the greenery,
but the sandblasters lean, arranged by the outhouse, like
a dream, the first worker arrives early
he rests against a smooth-planed board—
flood the mind, but be sure to drain it out,
its his breakfast cup of tea that stores
his knowledge of beauty
past the place where the bushes are thin
there is an apple orchard, plucked to pieces at the end of fall—
trees arranged in ranks, held up with wires and strings:
a dementia arboreal—
the smells from the orchard meet
the smells from the machines and hover
above the building-zone, mixing with the bite
of cold humidity—a cruel kind of vapor
Feb 1, 2010
Feb 1, 2010 at 9:10 PM UTC
Upon the arboreal dozed and limb,
Extended coccyx serpentine loose,
Throne of inspection, tenet and dumb
Stillness hunts akin stealthy Mongoose;
Except for the natal locomotive
Soft deep sufficiently immense purr
Emanating from some industry; effective
In the cover of the thick supple fur.
The lord of his unconquered empire,
Thrives on flesh and quenches on milk,
Wintering unperturbed reading the fire
That flickers, gleaming his bed of silk.
Ever landing on appendage quadruple
Acrobatic athlete not soiling once his back
Consummating in strict concealment marble
Couch of perpetual indulgence buried black.
Jun 23, 2012
Jun 23, 2012 at 5:35 AM UTC
Ach so! thou much-praised and lauded Milwaukee,
Thou delightful Wisconsin Stadt of boundless pulchritude,
Verily hath History endowed thy blessed name
With the noisomely beery breath of immortality!
And thank the benign Almighty in highest Heav’n
That thy delectable streets and arboreal squares
Doth remain heretofore untouched by unseemly civic strife,
Despite thy renown as veritable midwife to Sewer Socialism!
Yet, tear-inducing recollections have I of this dwelling-place
And herewith followeth heart-rending remembrances
Of what transpired when I inveigled a plump young Mädchen there
For a brief sojourn of untrammelled concupiscence.
Alas, alack, after gorging her impetuous appetites
On a gargantuan repast of mitteleuropäische delicacies,
Methinks her poor heart gave up survival’s uneven battle
And, warbling a soft piffero-reminiscent sigh, she expired.
‘Twas too tragic thus to depart this happy welkin in mid-prandials,
Emitting a final flatus, sweet adieu, from her rearmost aperture,
Leaving me, her poor forlorn swain, bereft and solitary,
Faced with mine host’s request for instant monetary rendition.
From that naughty place of my bereavement fled I,
Clutching to my ***** the contents of her silken purse,
Determined to partake in untrammelled ***** licence elsewhere,
Ere the chanticleer’s dawn croak wake the inebriated citizens.
Dec 5, 2014
Dec 5, 2014 at 12:21 PM UTC
Like a patterned rug
Beaten to be rid of dust and
Flopped over a balcony railing, a leopard
Hangs her hefty hands beneath a bough.
Head lolling lazily, she awakens.
Fingers like silent meteorites dig
Craters in the loose, dry earth.
From the grasses emerge many warm black eyes, unseen
And vicious: floral pockmarks on
Her carpeted exterior: cruel camouflage.
Deftly lugging her **** back
Into the branches to feed on its flesh:
Patterned rug stained.
Ears ***** and whiskers twitch
As boughs creak and twigtips reach
For the ground: the impala’s weight
Has weakened her arboreal home.
She panics not.
She slinks softly back into
The grasses: better to sidle away unscathed
From immediate danger.
Pride and body intact, she will **** again
Elsewhere.
Apr 15, 2014
Apr 15, 2014 at 4:50 PM UTC
*he says:
I want to hear the sun..
on me*
1.
cover the width of a personal compostela
the yellow-and-black bird
flitting
branch to branch
endless
square patterns of light
half-cut
into shades of green
and slant
oblique
2.
making headway now
companions on the path
passing by
auburn creature with lolling tongue
looks with such kind eyes
glittering diamonds
sun sits on tip of wet nose
he seems to be saying something...
some evanescent message
thoughts are ventilated
tones of silence seep in
wild flowers in amaranthine bloom
sway in nature's perpetual dance
always moving
3.
what happens to arboreal ghosts
when we prove efficiency by cutting the arms of living trees
and with it
extended family of foliage?
monk passes slow
nods in quiet greeting
a bare half-smile
enough to reach
yet just truncated enough
maybe
to prune
is needed /
4.
how many more steps to tread
before the why becomes clear?
trod so far
sought so wide
read so much
travelled so intense
this journey alone
proves so arduous
5.
alone...
struggled with hidden pain he discovered beneath the layers of happiness....
suffered hunger and thirst along the way....
washed in ***** rivers with no soap....
had to clean his **** with dusty leaves in the eve....
and remembering to eat
what to eat...but berries in the dark
and he cried, oh how he cried
from a place no man should see
such a dark place
demented and wicked souls at the doorstep
of hell
would shrink at
but first
in order to do all that
he had to wrestle with himself
and die inside
he could no longer fail to consent
no wistful little prayers
or wide-eyed flower-eyes
nor awe born in luxury
yet
for all that...
6.
in a little while
you will get what you want
if you give enough people
what they want
pray in secret
in the sun
*the boy with the Jesus sandals
walks on
his journey
has
begun*....
S T, (thursday:) 4 July 2013
Jul 4, 2013
Jul 4, 2013 at 6:26 AM UTC
arboreal
capitulation
to the last saw;
just lying there,
rusting and dull,
a senile serial killer.
a dirt water droplet
circlestalks the sun
like a vulture.
wild flowers
split the concrete
like jackhammers and
the vines hang low
over city streets,
while unmaintained
botanical gardens
shrivel and decay,
breeding mushy immensities.
bears hibernate in subways
and deer flock in herds
and oh, the birds..
the birds.
spiders hang webs
from ancient clock towers
while moth returns
to chasing moon.
dams crumble,
the water flows,
sea reclaims the shore.
but the
eldest
trees
still weep
when memory pains,
and so surrender
to the saw,
however harmless
out of hand.
Apr 18, 2010
Apr 18, 2010 at 1:43 PM UTC
The hiker cannot dwell there long,
concealed on a high gull-lined cliff,
overlooking the grey of the Sound.
Framed in a solemn March day,
two curiously juxtaposed species hold her gaze.
Silent as a fawn she watches
a black wolf beneath her arboreal outpost,
hunched in the fashion of Asian street vendors,
observing the other creatures.
Great humpbacks frolic in icy waters ---
spouting volcano plumes of spray
that catch the freshened wind ---
riding white-capped waves,
till entropy dissolves their mist to atomized brine.
Whale-song, too distant for the hiker's gentle ears,
comes rolling in tsunami-like
to the aurally attuned wolf,
which ***** its head and nods
in musical agreement with the odes.
Then little lupine brother
rears back his head and howls,
so sorrowful a moan, as she has ever heard ---
answering his water-brethren,
hunters of krill upon the seas.
Giggling at the incongruity of this lone celebrant
singing pack-songs to leviathans,
she hurries on her way,
lone wolf herself returning to the pack.
Jul 15, 2012
Jul 15, 2012 at 10:12 PM UTC
Upon the arboreal dozed and limb,
Extended coccyx serpentine loose,
Throne of inspection, tenet and dumb
Stillness hunts akin stealthy Mongoose;
Except for the natal locomotive
Soft deep sufficiently immense purr
Emanating from some industry; effective
In the cover of the thick supple fur.
The lord of his unconquered empire,
Thrives on flesh and quenches on milk,
Wintering unperturbed reading the fire
That flickers, gleaming his bed of silk.
Ever landing on appendage quadruple
Acrobatic athlete not soiling once his back
Consummating in strict concealment marble
Couch of perpetual indulgence buried black
Feb 13, 2012
Feb 13, 2012 at 6:46 AM UTC
autumnal leaves scent your hair
weaving the reverie of stranger summers
of smoke and arboreal decay
bone-fingers, ceramic mug
shivering *** under the wool
these septembers bewitch me,
their wincing smile-
how good it is
to feel so sad.
Sep 24, 2012
Sep 24, 2012 at 8:52 PM UTC
I recall hearing that term once in high school,
"Urban forestry", a paradox, seemingly and yet,
That is exactly what it is.
Strips of land sanction to be aesthetically pleasing.
For whom, I have not a clue.
I would have preferred a lane or so,
Over the regular 8' by 1' square of trimmed trees.
I also grimace within the grace
Of those knotted furled fists toward a sky asking WHY!?
After a much calmer gardener had pondered the same word
Underneath his humming chainsaw
(Though probably for a more debatable material world)
Amongst other cuboid amputations.
Not to mention those solid soldiers
Whose attention is really standing dead in plain sight until
Wrinkled pavement is not enough ground to hold.
Then our hero makes local news in an inhumane, absolutely atrocious,
Final act of trespassing, vandalism, homicide, and suicide.
Of course nobody saw it coming.
Undetected and decayed for half a decade.
With so so many Ys it is easier to yelp for for those Xs
Crossing against our assumed perfect grids and parallels
To those stories of stacking passed from older cries
For HELP! Though those did not settle quite so well
So I proceed passing over a particularly loud leaf
Amidst this dry pondering
And snap out of the whats and whys and wheres
To take another look around at my illustrious
Urban Forest.
Unto a more practical pensive test,
Which side of that phrase,
Burdens the winning emphasis?
Well, still warblers and sparrows to inspire a song
For how this within time shall also pass along.
Jan 17, 2013
Jan 17, 2013 at 6:48 AM UTC
forgotten are
those bright
autumnal colours
of the freshly fallen
no longer able
to offer
a crisp rustling
with each step
a whisper that
invites child
and adult alike
to kick
and shuffle
playfully
ignoring the bite
of frost
unwelcomed
by noses
and fingertips
those downbeat leaves
lately of such
seasonal delight
have been rejected
by bough
and branch
drifting meekly
without protest
or wrenched
from arboreal familiarity
by gusting wind
or gloved hand
turned to mulch
by constant downpours
muddily trodden upon
without second thought
clinging to any
passing boot
trainer or shoe
only to be scraped
and scuffed
on pavement
or curb
stomped in a puddle
left behind
Nov 22, 2022
Nov 22, 2022 at 7:37 AM UTC
I’m reddish-brown and gorgeous,
My long arms can hold and swing,
I’m the largest arboreal animal,
And my loud call I often sing,
It’s no surprise I’m “person of the forest”,
With my fingers and my thumbs,
I have a natural rhythm,
My body is full of the beating of the drum.
Aug 28, 2012
Aug 28, 2012 at 6:19 AM UTC
Personality disordered,
untamed ardor explores
every river delta
and corner forked;
borderline morphs.
Formless torment disorients,
roaring torrent force
forging its course,
divorcing arboreal forest floor
into a gorge.
Clear mirror
gorgeously adorned
with floral orchard, adored;
stream looks on in horror, forlorn-
shore a formidable fortress stormed,
water waging war on
brambles, thorny swords,
and flourishing orchids scorned;
armored only by rain's discord
and fresh petrichor worn.
Sep 10, 2023
Sep 10, 2023 at 8:56 PM UTC
a refugee from wealth,
he and his Dartmouth degree found the spot
farthest from his New England roots, and the first roots
he saw there were those of a banyan tree, giant gray tentacles
piercing the Asian earth, imploring the black soil
for atonement, he thought
the natives said the tree was older than God
immortal, but cursed with some blight that bedeviled them
and that prudent pruning of ailing arms would be wise
the man had only a Swiss Army knife
with its minuscule saw, but soon he set about the task
of trimming the behemoth, one mad millimeter at a time,
and mad was all the natives saw
this white creature, high in the canopy,
often from dawn until the sun sank in the jungle behind him
sawing away, a half branch a day, treating the gargantuan arboreal
like a prize bonsai
villagers would come, hunker, watch in the shade of the tree
once in a great while, they would see a branch crash on the ground,
at which time they cheered the pitifully patient woodsman
many offered to help, some leaving bow saws,
axes at the banyans' base, but he would have none of that
over and over he received new red knives with their tiny saws
these parcels the only mail he got
even during monsoon rains,
the man's labors did not desist
though his audience waned
appearing to defy physics' uncertain laws
the tree was nearly felled, but the man disappeared
before his colossal task was done, the locals claiming he climbed
into the thinned canopy one day and never came down
not even a well worn blade was found
allowing the witnesses to aver he was yet high in the heavens
resting after love's labor had wearied his hands
but perchance healed his heart
Nov 17, 2015
Nov 17, 2015 at 2:46 PM UTC
Rice, Potatoes, Wheat and corn-
All starch and sugars, I contend.
They go right to your bottom line,
contributing to fat rear ends.
Those sugary drinks you gulp in gallons,
And all those meals you eat in haste-
Contribute to your lack of tone,
those rolls of fat about your waist.
Ancestors on arboreal plains
walked all day in search of meat.
We drive to the convenience store
to keep the weight off our sore feet.
Exercise some sort of will
And don’t resort to diet pills.
Eat lean protein, please don’t scoff
when your talking scale says “Please get off!”
Apr 14, 2012
Apr 14, 2012 at 5:14 PM UTC