"arbors" poems
1
It was one of those clear,sharp.mustless days
That summer and man delight in.
Never had Heaven seemed quite so high,
Never had earth seemed quite so green,
Never had the world seemed quite so clean
Or sky so nigh.
And I heard the Deity’s voice in
The sun’s warm rays,
And the white cloud’s intricate maze,
And the blue sky’s beautiful sheen.
2
I looked to the heavens and saw him there,—
A black speck downward drifting,
Nearer and nearer he steadily sailed,
Nearer and nearer he slid through space,
In an unending aerial race,
This sailor who hailed
From the Clime of the Clouds.—Ever shifting,
On billows of air
And the blue sky seemed never so fair,
And the rest of the world kept pace.
3
On the white of his head the sun flashed bright;
And he battled the wind with wide pinions,
Clearer and clearer the gale whistled loud,
Clearer and clearer he came into view,—
Bigger and blacker against the blue.
Then a dragon of cloud
Gathering all its minions
Rushed to the fight,
And swallowed him up in a bite;
And the sky lay empty clear through.
4
Long I watched. And at last afar
Caught sight of a speck in the vastness;
Ever smaller,ever decreasing,
Ever drifting,drifting awayInto the endless realms of day;
Finally ceasing.
So into Heaven’s vast fastness
Vanished that bar
Of black,as a fluttering star
Goes out while still on its way.
5
So I lost him. But I shall always see
In my mind
The warm,yellow sun,and the ether free;
The vista’s sky,and the white cloud trailing,
Trailing behind,—
And below the young earth’s summer-green arbors,
And on high the eagle,—sailing,sailing
Into far skies and unknown harbors
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*Endearing is the moon tonight
and through its silver glow,
She whispers secrets of the things
that only she could know.
Of lover's trysts on summer nights
of kisses ‘neath her smile,
Of secret murmurs begging "friends"
to stay a little while.
Of sweet caresses cherished
in the fog of memories,
Of moonlit walks in arbors sweet
'neath swaying groves of trees,
Of shadows cast by clasping hands
of hearts that feel desire,
and unrequited love
that feels like death
from friendly fire.
Of promises in passion made,
with no chance to fulfill,
Of loneliness, of happiness,
of parting's bitter pill,
She whispers of the romance,
of the love that's hot and cold,
Like love that loses passion
but sustains us getting old.
She passes in the evening sky
and frolics with the stars,
And leaves this mortal on the porch
to mend life’s wounded scars.
Yet, never does she realize,
the secrets that she'd shared,
Are common knowledge
here on earth,
where love has all ensnared.*
Dec 4, 2017
Dec 4, 2017 at 12:17 AM UTC
Some man unworthy to be possessor
Of old or new love, himself being false or weak,
Thought his pain and shame would be lesser
If on womankind he might his anger wreak,
And thence a law did grow,
One might but one man know;
But are other creatures so?
Are Sun, Moon, or Stars by law forbidden
To smile where they list, or lend away their light?
Are birds divorced, or are they chidden
If they leave their mate, or lie abroad a-night?
Beasts do no jointures lose
Though they new lovers choose,
But we are made worse than those.
Who e’er rigged fair ship to lie in harbours
And not to seek new lands, or not to deal withal?
Or built fair houses, set trees, and arbors,
Only to lock up, or else to let them fall?
Good is not good unless
A thousand it possess,
But dost waste with greediness.
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she exists now in a dream state
unaware of the horror and the passage of time
wind rushes through broken panes
moaning mournfully
floors creak and door hinges speak
announcing her presence
this was her house
once a place of light and love
full of family and friends
cotillions resonating with music and dance
and lively conversation
a grand kitchen to prepare the feasts
of pheasant under glass
a gazebo for laughing in the rain
arbors for moonlit meetings with owls
a pond for lilies and croaking frogs
gardens for picking her favorite peonies
a nursery for her children
all this now nothing but ruins
from happiness to a home for bugs and bats
crawling with silverfish, centipedes and black widows
shrouded in cobwebs
drowning in dust
suffocating in stench of rotting wood and desolation
decorated with 100 year old bloodstains
she never saw her killer
never saw the spurting of her arteries
never heard her children’s screams and death rales
she sees her house as it was
and every night she roams the rooms
calling her children’s names in long, haunting whispers
Oct 26, 2010
Oct 26, 2010 at 9:12 AM UTC
~
*Springtime sings of wondrous things
Of warmer days and robin’s wings
Of daffodils and playground swings
Of sunny morning wanderings
Of fishing poles and wedding rings
Of family picnic gatherings
Of arbors blooming jasmine clings
Of sweetly scented offerings
Of firefly meanderings
Of stardust moonlit ponderings
Of all the happiness it brings
Yes springtime sings of wondrous things*
Apr 29, 2016
Apr 29, 2016 at 10:06 AM UTC
Shall we dance to melodies
that only we can hear?
Shall we kiss in arbors green
when no one else is near?
Shall we catch a rainbow
when the storm has passed us by?
Shall we share a dream of clouds
and sail upon the sky?
Shall we listen to the leaves
'neath melancholy trees
That watch us as we use their shade
to just enjoy the breeze?
Shall we look back on the years
and sigh with mild regret
Or look toward the laughter
in the years that we have yet?
Shall we try to count the stars
that wheel above our head?
Or shall we find our sweet repose
together in our bed?
Shall we discover all the things
we've never lost?
Shall we risk our everything
and never count the cost?
Shall we count the petals
in a game of "Love's me not"?
What a waste of time is that
for answers never sought.
For I will love you, rest assure
and if you did not know
My love for you is in all things
and it can only grow.
Sep 22, 2017
Sep 22, 2017 at 8:03 PM UTC
Playing her parchment moon
Precosia comes
along a watery path of laurels and crystal lights.
The starless silence, fleeing
from her rhythmic tambourine,
falls where the sea whips and sings,
his night filled with silvery swarms.
High atop the mountain peaks
the sentinels are weeping;
they guard the tall white towers
of the English consulate.
And gypsies of the water
for their pleasure *****
little castles of conch shells
and arbors of greening pine.
Playing her parchment moon
Precosia comes.
The wind sees her and rises,
the wind that never slumbers.
Naked Saint Christopher swells,
watching the girl as he plays
with tongues of celestial bells
on an invisible bagpipe.
Gypsy, let me lift your skift
and have a look at you.
Open in my ancient fingers
the blue rose of your womb.
Precosia throws the tambourine
and runs away in terror.
But the virile wind pursues her
with his breahing and burning sword.
The sea darkens and roars,
while the olive trees turn pale.
The flutes of darkness sound,
and a muted gong of the snow.
Precosia, run, Precosia!
Of the green wind will catch you!
Precosia, run, Precosia!
And look how fast he comes!
A satyr of low-born stars
with their long and glistening tongues.
Precosia, filled with fear
now makes her way to that house
beyond the tall green pines
where the English consul lives.
Alarmed by the anguished cries,
three riflemen come running,
their black capes tightly drawn,
and berets down over their brow.
The Englishman gives the gypsy
a glass of tepid milk
and a shot of Holland gin
which Precosia does not drink.
And while she tells them, weeping,
of her strange adventure,
the wind furiously gnashes
against the slate roof tiles.
2k
.
I choose to breathe for every breath is free
Calmly bound of tempted drizzled fears
Slow dancing on the desperate dying wind
Placing endless hope against the flow
This does come
beyond iron gates of broken trances
to sing
undying wishes upon deaf ears
Fractured in meanings and senses known,
these wrinkles form a favored mask
Donned in apprehension of a wilted feeling
Sleek and slender, along a poisoned vine they grow
Challenging
in endless streams of sorted need
Stead fast
with chains of charmed tethered truth
Cartoon headstones with scribbled crayon names
cast darker shadows beneath the edges of sanity
Ripped and tattered these empty voices scream
my name in echoes bearing nothing more than seen
As I cry
my tears sprout wings and flee from my face
I fall to my knees
finding only the jagged earth to rest
Desires cling to the massive arbors of life
Dreams falter along a winding creviced cliff
Nothing laughs like the air upon my sorrowed face
and I choose to breathe for every breath is free
Jun 4, 2016
Jun 4, 2016 at 2:53 PM UTC
*Draw hither golden blade , brother to sassafras and veronica
Purveyor of delicate , sanguine architects in pastoral visage
Of ebony cloth cooling evergreen shadows within -
Rosin incense , spearmint infused morning dew seasoning
o'er felled timber escarpments , Summer rain infusions of
petit , lavender violet corsage and August whimsy
Petrichor , Persimmon Clover bouquets , juvenile , song filled
brook-sides , poetic diamond studded sandbars , Chattahoochee
Crayfish , Shellcracker , Blue Heron land of Creek and Cherokee
fathers
Of Towaliga , Bear , Moccasin , Indian streams
Emerald swept low country isles , songbird arbors , peridot waterways
beside whitewashed shoreline* ...
Aug 19, 2016
Aug 19, 2016 at 3:29 PM UTC
Powdered Sugar Daydreams
All time becomes invisible, ceasing to matter
as this place in all its magic and wonder
blooms upon the gardens of our imagination
playing like birds on a sky of opal blue, wandering streets of old
Where rising suns on aqua horizons shift,
singing of a new day which is happily part of the prior,
extending beyond any view offered along the rocky shoreline,
as we stroll on delta desires and riverboat reveries
Brick paved streets, uneven but smoothly polished greet us,
a sidewalk table, warm cuppa, green on white awning shade,
sweet treats beneath wings of powdered sugar and tender kisses
within the eyes of all passing, and we without a care
Music fills the square with harmony in our heart beats,
a three piece jazz ensemble plays melodic romance
while your hand, your fingers, tightly holding mine
and I feel your pulse tap out the rhythm of our days
Jasmine arbors bound by geranium breezes
invite us to be one, as love springs forth
in cool waters from passion’s fountain of forever
and we daydream together eternally
May 12, 2014
May 12, 2014 at 10:38 AM UTC
THE GARDEN OF ACCEPTANCE
Shadows are my friends these days.
Nobody can see me crying in the dark.
While the others lie around in the sun
I seek out somber arbors in the park.
The muted light of leaves and limbs
Caress the aches within my heart
And whisper to me to just relax
And let the healing grieving start.
Sometimes I hear some music there
Playing so softly in my inner soul.
I hope to find the inner strength
To think I might someday be whole
Instead of this half a person here
Who doesn’t even notice a sunrise
That spends its multicolor glory
Like a painted cathedral for my eyes.
If people pass and I notice them
They don’t serve to make me sad
Seeing them so happy together
Being contented or even a bit glad,
Because I am here in this serenity
I include them in my private reverie.
The message that life goes on does
Brings restful meditation to me.
But, mostly it’s the natural things;
The birds and the variegated leaves,
The flowers, and cool green lawns
That soothe, and comfort and please.
They slowly help me to realize
That the world in not all about me.
We have to let our sadness fall behind
To truly understand how to be free.
Brent Kincaid
4/3/2015
Apr 3, 2015
Apr 3, 2015 at 7:09 AM UTC
*Evergreen soldiers at the whim of Alraus
I've had a recurrent dream of the enlisted warriors
abandoning their post , occupying the fertile grassland
in a chess type move to gain control
Free of shade , of root-bound thirst , of choking
moss gathering unchallenged in overpopulated arbors
A celebration courtesy of the Robin Knights , the Chickadee troubadours ,
the Cardinal gentlemen at the Court of Queen Chestnut
Slash , sugar , loblolly and white oak
Persimmon , hickory , honey locust and dogwood
The myrrh of gardenia , magnolia , honeysuckle and tea rose
Earthen red clay , white sand , black loam and kaolin
Grasshopper cellist , cricket flautist , a chuckling crow with a
Spanish guitar
The toad trombones , a bluebird violin solo , a mockingbird reads
a touching poem that even sways the worker ants into a brief pause
The Old Forest becomes pasture and the grassland young woodland
The dove cue the night , the katydids croon to the moon ,
the bullfrogs 'pooka-dooka' and the lovers swoon* ...
Oct 20, 2016
Oct 20, 2016 at 5:24 PM UTC
*plots of land that dance in spasms
slam dancing
bed frames with slots of wood
parallel lines on the oud
should i bother
with all this fruit
i choose to rot a while
in style of course
so much nonsense
this is truly ***********
a store bought chemical wedding
a slow decline into nothing
ship me your wisdom
and i’ll fly you to the moon
we’re departing sooner than you thought
you dream until noon
selves are made from solitude
i command you to commune with your soul
solid is a word
worlds are frozen in dreams
after the apocalypse
there is ice cream for supper
among the rubber and the forest
there is a carpet of grasses and herbs
left to dry in the dehydrator
upon the lowest setting i am making
the bed and taking my shirt off
stores demand consumption
yet in purchasing you are corrupted
assumptions of negligence
thread our hearts with your effulgence
i sense you are suffering
forever there is a differential
a disintegration of the essential
once upon a time i spoke in rhythm
made sense and could suspend judgement
now there are no more words
only thoughts
when the thoughts end nothing will be left
i’ll be suspended
like a balloon or a parachute
like a woman who seeks to become president
can you show me evidence that we are not asleep
the blossoming rose
has stolen my clothes and returned our damages
shelves of shadows on hungry tiptoes
i seek necessity in your eyebrows
streaks of lightning shape your features
i see incandescence throughout your water
you are a natural teacher
seeking meaning for the most high
blessings upon the eternal
in splendor the triumphant allegory
crowns thy falsehood victorious over demons
we dwell in the arbors of willows
as complacent shadows fall upon
the rubied lips of all of our relationships*
Feb 22, 2018
Feb 22, 2018 at 11:46 PM UTC
Ween will mend inertia
with a flair, only a care or attribute
in conglomeration can reticulate their spin
and thus their ardor abound
in meadow by a brook then
will allude a castle if white sand
will morph butter and
may implore horizon
to only stake catalog
with green arbors there
yet magnitude of the nation
largely reactionary in latitude again.
Feb 4, 2017
Feb 4, 2017 at 8:40 AM UTC
Up the hills, past villas, small groves and arbors. And by the Duomo, which, I swear, moved into our path no matter where we went. The fifteenth century refuses to yield.
That giant rival, Milan, now resembles Hartford: large and gaunt. Rome, thief of the renaissance, remembers Mussolini and Berlusconi more than Leo X, who yet lives in Florence, returned to his Medici home.
Florence is the butter of civilization’s milk; nourishment of the flesh churned by hand. The art, the food, the social structure, even the soccer sated in turned, sweet cream.
Fresh oil, fresh wine. Old recipes. The bread remains salt free. The tripe looks ancient. The streets forever too narrow.
Jan 5, 2017
Jan 5, 2017 at 7:37 AM UTC
How will you know
When you pass through a forest
If your eyes are
Glued to the road
How will you see all the life
That abounds
If your eyes are
Always closed
How will you hear
All the sounds in the air
How will you witness
The beauty that’s there
If you can’t spare a minute
For the red breasted Linnet
Or the little green Finch
And her operatic pitch
Or just for a moment
Stop to admire
The dappled twig arbors
And the great blue sky
Heaven has spilled out
All of her flavors
And all of this beauty
Is just yours to savor
If you stop for a second
The Larks song is pliant
Her cantor an echo
That her fledglings can follow.
Jun 14, 2015
Jun 14, 2015 at 6:11 PM UTC
Enclosed by arbors of armor - Celery trees
But once lightning struck, one split like a banana
This violent wind moves leaves like meteors
Spiders cling to their structured creations
Feet sink like quicksand in a swamp
You let the earth’s tears heal your grief which made you wild and ravenous
It falls like the nauseating thud of a body but keeps falling until you marvel and turn yourself inside out
It falls like a fleet of soldiers dropping from a parachute cloud
It transforms the rotten into Einsteins
It puts a spark in your *****
The blinding shield of water makes your mind zig-zag between moist and dry places
Up and down the twisted staircase and up and down again
Nostalgia kills but you forget rare flavors of memories
In the storm, you learn to breathe
A burning heart is cooled and cleansed
Sorrow returns only when the sun shines in
And you find yourself a wet dog surrounded by tiger lilies
Jul 4, 2012
Jul 4, 2012 at 11:56 AM UTC
We want heroes,
stars, emperors,
and sun kings
to lead us out
of Darkness.
We want
Mommy & Daddy
to make
the hurt go away.
But what can I give?
I'm just a bit player
like David says
in the pilot
of a new sitcom on
the Comedy Channel.
At first, I make whole
my career a foot
like Wesley's child.
One day, I pull myself
up with a thousand hands
twirling, connecting
in dendritic arbors.
I stand at last bare
face against Absurd face,
naked as a rolling Stone.
Sep 5, 2013
Sep 5, 2013 at 11:18 PM UTC
.
Like crooked wheels our lives stumble
between the chapters we write
Corners seem dark and teeming with doubt,
alleyways call in echoes of our name,
as if tempting us to crawl when we cannot walk
“Fear begins the parade at our fragile hearts”
Fear begins as shades are drawn
and slotted with eyes watching,
voices ring the halls of the buildings looming large,
rumors of pointed fingers find our ears
in colander fashion, dripping fear at our feet
“We long to speak as waves conduct sound, crashing violently as we hear”
We long to speak but we cry,
hoping these tears will
somehow wash the pain,
fill the gutters and move out to sea,
casting waves upon unsuspecting shores
“Wishes, more waste than want at least of these eyes”
Wishes, more waste when
from the shadows a touch,
softly at first, then strong upon our shoulders fall,
comfort leaps to our hearts in sing song praise,
wishes become goals and finish line adventures
“What is this light, soft yet sure, found within?”
What is this, darkness hints at light
and skies blush among prism colors
and soft breezes collecting on our
damp cheeks and drying the aftermath
of our understanding of reality
“Dreams of these nightmares fade into happiness”
Dreams of footprints in the dirt,
two which are not our own, closely, affectionately
following our way and bringing direction
to our souls, yet the nightmares still flourish
but we do not feel so alone
“Fences built may keep us in yet, may keep us out”
Fences built fall, as this hand, from a distance,
climbing mountains and fording rivers
leads our hearts to the safety of love just beyond
the bricked wall, the ivy covered monolith,
the chain link disaster which once stood locked
“Finding that a breath may exhale peace, again”
Finding that a breath, neath arbors of hibiscus blooms
and teapot pourings, exhales open and
hopeful of the coming truth once lost beyond our dreams,
and we breathe for it feels right to breathe
while facing the darkness, no longer alone
Sep 21, 2016
Sep 21, 2016 at 9:57 AM UTC
*Sorghum Fall , October blue windfelt opera
of curious Winter tapping November's hardwood door
Days of colorful wishes falling to Earth
They meet in oakwood harbors , perform
in the crystal sunrise ballet , pie pans
ring in crabapple arbors , withered corn songs
crackle exquisitely , they echo o'er hayfield terrace ,
red , brown and golden forest
Hillandale , windballad allegories , butterscotch fields
suing for frosted cover
Warm cabin firewood symphonies , cider and cinnamon
Hereford morning bawl , early wren catcalls
Oak chair and fescue pillow* ....
Oct 21, 2016
Oct 21, 2016 at 2:49 PM UTC
An elderly , regional dame in a pretty lavender and white flannel coat checks her mailbox with the help of a metallic walker ... Her yard remains meticulously coifed and maintained just like the persnickety , perfect hairstyle she's worn for the last fifteen years ...
A stunning , curled cotton mane with impeccable , multi -colored dresses for church on Wednesday and Sunday , the Queen of a small town in middle , rural Georgia ..
Her castle is a sixties period brick ranch with beautiful Hostas and Tulips on all four corners ... Cherokee roses and Azaleas , Honey Locust and well kept Concord Grape arbors ..
A gas light stands guard by the front door , her prized chihuahua patrols the front of the estate from a kitchen window ..
On Spring days she waves from her white rocker on the front porch ..
Early Summer mornings she can be found tending her flowers , giving the grass a brief shower , reading her Bible beneath the carport and chatting with family and friends on the telephone ....
Feb 15, 2016
Feb 15, 2016 at 3:27 PM UTC
And I choose to breathe
And I choose to breathe for every breath is free
Calmly bound of tempted drizzled fears
Slow dancing on the desperate dying wind
Placing endless hope against the flow
This does come
beyond iron gates of broken trances
to sing
undying wishes upon the deaf ears
Fractured in meanings and senses known,
these wrinkles form a flavored mask
Donned in apprehension of a wilted feeling
Sleek and slender, along a poisoned vine they grow
Challenging
in endless streams of sorted need
Stead fast
with chains of charmed tethered truth
Cartoon headstones with scribbled crayon’d names
cast darker shadows beneath the edges of sanity
Ripped and tattered these empty voices scream
my name in echoes bearing nothing more than seen
As I cry
my tears sprout wings and flee from my face
to my knees
finding only the jagged earth to rest
Desires cling to the massive arbors of life
Dreams falter along a winding creviced cliff
Nothing laughs like the air upon my sorrowed face
and I choose to breathe for every breath is free
May 1, 2014
May 1, 2014 at 9:19 AM UTC
Rain. Quenching summer’s green thirst, flaking hills rust. Pitted iron. Old bone beeches, alabaster reaching finger trunks and damp obsidian spines round crowns bronzed, pebbled umber arbors released, fluttering mast patina of carotenoids and iron browned and burnished from months of sun. Golden feathers molt from stands of birches, aluminum wire ghosts. First hard frost smokes up from the cinnamon stick curls of cherry leaves,
and stainless pines in scrap metal hills.
Jan 18, 2016
Jan 18, 2016 at 1:00 PM UTC
*Dead grass crunches beneath our feet
Wild onion rules the breeze
Winter arbors lay exposed and barren
Gravel roads are hard packed , abandoned
Capricious Blackbirds hold their power line
perch , day runs quiet across the frozen earth* ..
Sep 15, 2016
Sep 15, 2016 at 10:11 PM UTC
There is a place
It is heaven and it is hell
The place inside my head
Where no one can reach me there
I can imagine butterflies
I can imagine dragons
I can see me as the princess of Albion
Or see me fed to the Lions
With books, in my head I imagine
A world with fairies and armors
Garden with daisies and arbors
With pain, in my head I imagine
A world with cries and tears
Rivers of lies and fears
If I find myself sliding into my head
With a frown on my face, and a heart that aches
Do pull me back
As the dangerous den to be
Is a place, called my head
Khayrsouf|Aplacecalledmyhead
Jul 8, 2019
Jul 8, 2019 at 10:17 AM UTC