"arbour" poems
There's an ancient, ancient garden that I see sometimes in dreams,
Where the very Maytime sunlight plays and glows with spectral gleams;
Where the gaudy-tinted blossoms seem to wither into grey,
And the crumbling walls and pillars waken thoughts of yesterday.
There are vines in nooks and crannies, and there's moss about the pool,
And the tangled weedy thicket chokes the arbour dark and cool:
In the silent sunken pathways springs a herbage sparse and spare,
Where the musty scent of dead things dulls the fragrance of the air.
There is not a living creature in the lonely space arouna,
And the hedge~encompass'd d quiet never echoes to a sound.
As I walk, and wait, and listen, I will often seek to find
When it was I knew that garden in an age long left behind;
I will oft conjure a vision of a day that is no more,
As I gaze upon the grey, grey scenes I feel I knew before.
Then a sadness settles o'er me, and a tremor seems to start -
For I know the flow'rs are shrivell'd hopes - the garden is my heart.
14.5k
Standing resplendent in a baroque topiary,
Under a florid arbour as an arched canopy,
Her pulchritude in moonlight, is the plenary
Picture of, the muse, the Goddess Calliope.
My heart’s reminiscence of our first encounter,
Like a fragrance in my mind wafts around,
Whose Pareidolia in every-thing sketches her
Face, to which it is entirely spellbound.
Were the Fates to keep us apart,
As the sculptor Pygmalion I would be.
But Aphrodite won’t breathe life into my art,
For not my Galatea, I love my Calliope.
Jan 27, 2013
Jan 27, 2013 at 11:06 AM UTC
I wake and the light of this fine day edges round the curtain.
The birds have chorused and my left foot lies cold outside the sheets.
Standing in my nightgown I draw the curtains and look out at my garden.
Let me pad downstairs, open the front door and walk brief steps
to the arbour of ferns and shells. From a cane chair
I shall view my private corner with its tiny pool and privet hedge:
whilst there is still a little dew; whilst the cobwebs still glisten;
whilst there is no wind, just a grumble of the surf at Porth Neigwl,
the sound my father makes dozing over his paper.
Miniature, enclosed, protected I will place my thoughts
in this dolls’ house garden, amongst the dank, dark shadows
of its many rooms, its parterred spaces.
You don’t walk in this garden; you take a step . . .
and you are elsewhere. Take three steps and you are quite lost.
I hear the kitchen door bang in the manor house,
Meriel is taking breakfast to my sisters.
I think I shall stay here a moment longer.
Aug 28, 2012
Aug 28, 2012 at 2:33 AM UTC
#*Paper flowers bloom
Lush Fuchsia bougainvillea
Cover the arbour*#
Mar 19, 2019
Mar 19, 2019 at 9:06 AM UTC
lush cornucopia of greens
and overlapping canopies.
rays filtered through
somewhat a broken lens.
an arbour found
which carelessly took root.
calling out,
inviting,
offering sanctuary
from the shrill calls
of the turbulent outside.
a harbour
to which my heart
had taken to.
and had intended to stay.
but such is the nature
of man.
*no other man's peace
can be left unruffled.
no other man's cocoon
can be left unravelled.
no other man's haven
can be left uninvaded.
and no other man's trove
can be left unraided.*
like before I'll have to go.
and just like man's exploratory nature,
I leave seeking another
unfound recluse.
inadvertently,
paving the way for more to come.
Apr 30, 2017
Apr 30, 2017 at 10:14 PM UTC
To the west of Mulranny,
Past Spanish Point.
Where dark, dark Minaun,
Cast's her cold shadow.
There is a fast sound,
Dangerous as a true sin
As many a Navy man Royal found
And many a clever islander too.
And the land runs,
down to her gently.
It glides, as if a sea bird
down to the shallow sound,
From both sides,
right, then left
Giving somewhat -
the impression of a cosy valley.
With warm homesteads close-by,
together at dusk
But they are seperate, in truth
by land, long and strewn
Many many miles
hard walking.
By sea, a ten minute walk
would suffice;
But no-one would
ever talk of such a stroll,
For they would never tell
of anything
Again.
However deft
However brave
For the sound takes
What it owns.
One evening, I drove to the right of her,
And the red Oche sun painted for me
Scenes on the hills,
Great battles history -
Wars of celtic gods, christian saints
And the old Gods before people
And the God's older still
Who have no names anymore.
But bear all on their backs
This land is, in truth, those Gods' land.
It changes with each ray of light
That passes this way through the
broad deep ocean,
green and milk topped
fresh as a breeze
blowing through a green arbour
Or black as terror , with white cresendo
Black rocks shot with reds and quartz's
Sharpened by water
It is not a place for faint of heart
Or unsure of foot
And at Achill beg can be seen
Man's footprint,
long here
Strange barrows,
and dry walls
That deep time
has made anonymous
To the prying eyes
of modern time
But past 8,000 years
have our people
Lived in this place,
guarded, hounded
By the Atlantics' cruel force
And I swear
if I had freedom to choose
a place to live,
without concern
And a place to die,
without worry
It would
Be here.
Apr 3, 2014
Apr 3, 2014 at 5:38 PM UTC
the stream is a pretty
mirror, the sky, sweet
sister to the moon,
slumbers in her
arbour where roses
flower mightily, in
love with the night
and the cloud.
Jun 24, 2022
Jun 24, 2022 at 11:40 AM UTC
Sweet Angelica,
An overwhelm of your leafy
ramifications, waxed verdure
affections for a wayward wind.
My eyes caught the emerald glint;
now they glisten green
in a poetic apotheosis.
Should I deem you guilty
that 'twas the devil's walking stick
that sired you,
as virid envelope,
so delicate that every leaflet
would blend to a fine herb repast.
So I brave your prickly defences
in my manner of white tailed deer
and nibble of your leafy poetry.
A half mouthed curse that you sting
but your arbour rose
where none grew and I thought
you bloomed especially for me.
Rhizomes spiralled for life,
and the taste of muddied rain.
Other wanderers tried pillage
those jejune early fronds and
you recoiled in thorny armament,
a conflicted poetry I read on you.
Look at you now ...
largest leaf than any other in a North wind,
towering panicles that draw
a chorus of winged angels, quills.
These be the battlements of love
that will shed for life, in beauty
for when Summer leaves, there'll be Fall,
then the long rest of seasons.
Jun 21, 2021
Jun 21, 2021 at 12:12 PM UTC
Distant traffic noise
Coming from all sides
Pine tree arbour
In the middle of the fields
It's where you reside, where you reside, where you reside
At night
Suburban ghost
You freak me out
With the wind waves
Making the dried leaves sound
It's when I forget, when I forget, when I forget
I am going to die
Little rain drops
Coming down
On the wet wood
In the burning fire
It's where I reside, where I reside, where I reside
At night
Almost sleeping
And beer drunk
Tripping over
Lying on the ground
It's when I forget, when I forget, when I forget
I am going to die
On the bench
In the pine tree arbour
Birds are singing
In the morning breeze
It's where I reside, where I reside, where I reside
Thinking over
Feeding the brain
With my brother
Smoking and
Singing with the birds
It's when I forget, when I forget, when I forget
Soon all will be over
Jun 19, 2015
Jun 19, 2015 at 10:57 PM UTC
She came unburdened
with gentle meadowsweet
drifting amongst the arbour
the paeans noted.
Aug 16, 2012
Aug 16, 2012 at 5:50 PM UTC
Weeping sonatas haunt the patio
Underlined with your twisting fingertips
Once ablur and tracing Beethoven Debussy
Mozart and Bach and it's all gone now—
I still recall your grey eyes as clearly as the rusted
and snagged red wood that forms the old arbour
Where we use to sit and trade stories.
Still here and seeming
A relic that should have been forgotten.—
I watch the sun turn the wood white
Then crackle crisply into night, I can still
Hear your spectral steps from the day you
Left us.
I slept in the bed that used to be yours wondering
why.
Sep 10, 2019
Sep 10, 2019 at 5:03 PM UTC