"ardour" poems
My friend Amelia (real name, of course, redacted)
is something of a pained Ophelia.
The play's the thing, the part brilliantly acted;
She stands alone by Hamlet's side,
She sighs and moans and pouts and pines,
and waits for him to be attracted.
But Hamlet I know; He's a friend of mine,
and for her heart, he doesn't pine. He's out to solve his father's ******
Let him go, Ophelia. It's all right. He won't be dissuaded by your ardour;
your love won't keep him long distracted.
Senpai; My Liege; it all rings far more familiar than it aught.
"Notice me!"
"Notice me!"
or then again...
not.
Jan 20, 2015
Jan 20, 2015 at 7:10 PM UTC
Laying on a bed of sand
Soft as feather downing
You take hold of my hand
I am floating, drowning
Feeling the blue salt fill me
Your breath kisses my eye
Taking me down to see
Where the turtles fly
Amongst rainbow coral
And fish, timid and shy
Hide amongst a skeletons hull
Gossamer clouds waft over
Driven by a sun tanned breeze
As we lay, cocooned in our ardour
Surrounded by quiet seas
I can feel the blue salt fill me
As your breath kisses my eye
And it’s taking me down to see
Where the turtles fly
Amongst the rainbow coral
And see the fish so shy
Hiding in a shipwrecked hull
Aug 22, 2018
Aug 22, 2018 at 6:18 PM UTC
I
From you, Beethoven, Bach, Mozart,
The substance of my dreams took fire.
You built cathedrals in my heart,
And lit my pinnacled desire.
You were the ardour and the bright
Procession of my thoughts toward prayer.
You were the wrath of storm, the light
On distant citadels aflare.
II
Great names, I cannot find you now
In these loud years of youth that strives
Through doom toward peace: upon my brow
I wear a wreath of banished lives.
You have no part with lads who fought
And laughed and suffered at my side.
Your fugues and symphonies have brought
No memory of my friends who died.
III
For when my brain is on their track,
In slangy speech I call them back.
With fox-trot tunes their ghosts I charm.
‘Another little drink won’t do us any harm.’
I think of rag-time; a bit of rag-time;
And see their faces crowding round
To the sound of the syncopated beat.
They’ve got such jolly things to tell,
Home from hell with a Blighty wound so neat...
. . . .
And so the song breaks off; and I’m alone.
They’re dead ... For God’s sake stop that gramophone.
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I contemplate these crossings illuminated by clouds
between a shape of thought and its veils
we didn't invent a screen-reality
it was already there, in the scriptorium of mind
I contemplate this geography known only by fingertips
unworded broken lines in tense bodies
I wonder about the lineage of tears, of hopes
how we grow old in this ardour, in the burning of bridges
I nod, I frown at the glaze of time
I move to the center of seeing like a novice
I gaze at the poliphony of being
at our Janus faced trade with flames
I say to myself it's good to decenter the "I" in this poem
however, there is no purity of words
height after height and depth after depth
we betray a simple evidence: we belong to the same air
will we regret our rush towards the malaise of thought,
will we be rowing over the theft of light?
an invisible will is building up, an antifragile declamation,
the soul's defamation
Sep 23, 2025
Sep 23, 2025 at 3:11 PM UTC
.
*Lead me not into temptation of thee,
taunt me not with memory of thy desire,
tease me not with thy seduction of lust,
for thou hast cast a *** spell I admire.
Come hither, bring the grail of thy body,
take me as thy man and mark me,
cast thy symbol 'cross my naked skin,
submit to thy urge and smile at me darkly.
Cut deep, wield thy passion with honour,
thy tongue my ardour to bring alive,
thou employ wicked witchy womens ways
and I see Need deep within thine eyes.
Come hither, bring the paragon of thy want,
give nymph chance to thy beating soul,
shatter me softly with thy perfumes,
take thy fill of love and sagely lose control.*
© Pagan Paul (11/11/17)
Nov 12, 2017
Nov 12, 2017 at 10:08 AM UTC
Rain drops
extinguise not
the fervent ardour
They only
magnify
Apr 18, 2012
Apr 18, 2012 at 7:03 AM UTC
Lo! where the rosy-bosomed Hours,
Fair Venus’ train, appear,
Disclose the long-expecting flowers,
And wake the purple year!
The Attic warbler pours her throat,
Responsive to the cuckoo’s note,
The untaught harmony of spring:
While, whisp’ring pleasure as they fly,
Cool Zephyrs thro’ the clear blue sky
Their gathered fragrance fling.
Where’er the oak’s thick branches stretch
A broader browner shade,
Where’er the rude and moss-grown beech
O’er-canopies the glade,
Beside some water’s rushy brink
With me the Muse shall sit, and think
(At ease reclined in rustic state)
How vain the ardour of the Crowd,
How low, how little are the Proud,
How indigent the Great!
Still is the toiling hand of Care;
The panting herds repose:
Yet hark, how through the peopled air
The busy murmur glows!
The insect-youth are on the wing,
Eager to taste the honied spring
And float amid the liquid noon:
Some lightly o’er the current skim,
Some show their gayly-gilded trim
Quick-glancing to the sun.
To Contemplation’s sober eye
Such is the race of Man:
And they that creep, and they that fly,
Shall end where they began.
Alike the Busy and the Gay
But flutter thro’ life’s little day,
In Fortune’s varying colours drest:
Brushed by the hand of rough Mischance,
Or chilled by Age, their airy dance
They leave, in dust to rest.
Methinks I hear, in accents low,
The sportive kind reply:
Poor moralist! and what art thou?
A solitary fly!
Thy joys no glittering female meets,
No hive hast thou of hoarded sweets,
No painted plumage to display:
On hasty wings thy youth is flown;
Thy sun is set, thy spring is gone—
We frolic while ’tis May.
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Come, my darling, let us dance
To the moon that beckons us
To dissolve our love in trance
Heedless of the hideous
Heat & hate of Sirius-
Shun his baneful brilliance!
Let us dance beneath the palm
Moving in the moonlight, frond
Wooing frond above the calm
Of the ocean diamond
Sparkling to the sky beyond
The enchantment of our psalm.
Let us dance, my mirror of
Perfect passion won to peace,
Let us dance, my treasure trove,
On the marble terraces
Carved in pallid embroeideries
For the vestal veil of Love.
Heaven awakes to encompass us,
Hell awakes its jubilance
In our hearts mysterious
Marriage of the azure expanse,
With the scarlet brilliance
Of the Moon with Sirius.
Velvet swatches our lissome limbs
Languid lapped by sky & sea
Soul through sense & spirit swims
Through the pregnant porphyry
Dome of lapiz-lazuli:-
Heart of silence, hush our hymns.
Come my darling; let us dance
Through the golden galaxies
Rhythmic swell of circumstance
Beaming passion’s argosies:
Ecstacy entwined with ease,
Terrene joy transcending trance!
Thou my scarlet concubine
Draining heart’s blood to the lees
To empurple those divine
Lips with living luxuries
Life importunate to appease
Drought insatiable of wine!
Tunis in the tremendous trance
Rests from day’s incestuous
Traffic with the radiance
Of her sire-& over us
Gleams the intoxicating glance
Of the Moon & Sirius.
Take the ardour of my impearled
Essence that my shoulders seek
To intensify the curled
Candour of the eyes oblique,
Eyes that see the seraphic sleek
Lust bewitch the wanton world.
Come, my love, my dove, & pour
From thy cup the serpent wine
Brimmed & breathless -secret store
Of my crimson concubine
Surfeit spirit in the shrine-
Devil -Goddess ****** *****
Afric sands ensorcel us,
Afric seas & skies entrance
Velvet, lewd & luminous
Night surveys our soul askance!
Come my love, & let us dance
To the Moon and Sirius!
2.9k
You couldn't relate to my life if you tried
Degenerate pride, in my pride, the family all died
I took a trip, slip from the front door
Walking to the house of a man with some more
Of the poison of my mother, the mater, my pater, the father
My brothers and sisters slumped against a wall, injecting
It gets harder
I'm a martyr
But I fall farther
Brown brings ardour
In the haze of detestable days, bus journey raves
To the estates, I'm in a state, I hate fate
Try and place blame, struggle to get straight
But straight to the point, you're a mate
Pass the plate, and the joint
I'll do a line, get straight
Straight to the point...
Where was I?
Back in the house, forgot how I got here
The emptiness too much to bear
I miss my family being here
My mother the seer
My father drinking beer
I close my eyes, open, hope they appear
The loneliness of the kitchen feels so queer
I pop a few pills and realise its been a year
Since I saw them here
Fading to black and I awake in a wrack
Fiending for some smack, panic attack
Light up a pipe, smoke some pale crack
Keep me going on this lonesome track
So I pack my bag, down a glass of Jack
And get back on the beaten path
To the corner where I find her, solemn in a slump
Hard night's day, I give her cash and we arrange the jump
Pump pump, I dump my junk and feeling drunk
Walk silently in a grump, she re-adjusts her skirt
and returns to her bunk
To her lifelong funk
before being packed into another John's trunk
The streetlights are cruel in the winter night's haze
What beautiful days, in a daze, feeling amazed
Clasp my hands and I pray, am I crazed
or is this mournful delay
A year ago today,
my love took my family away
Sep 1, 2013
Sep 1, 2013 at 6:01 PM UTC
The cuckoo-throb, the heartbeat of the Spring;
The rosebud’s blush that leaves it as it grows
Into the full-eyed fair unblushing rose;
The summer clouds that visit every wing
With fires of sunrise and of sunsetting;
The furtive flickering streams to light re-born
’Mid airs new-fledged and valorous lusts of morn,
While all the daughters of the daybreak sing:—
These ardour loves, and memory: and when flown
All joys, and through dark forest-boughs in flight
The wind swoops onward brandishing the light,
Even yet the rose-tree’s verdure left alone
Will flush all ruddy though the rose be gone;
With ditties and with dirges infinite.
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(From a Persian Carpet)
Ash and strewments, the first moth-wings, pale
Ardour of brief evenings, on the fecund wind;
Or all a wing, less than wind,
Breath of low herbs upfloats, petal or wing,
Haunting the musk precincts of burial.
For the season of newer riches moves triumphing,
Of the evanescence of deaths. These potpourris
Earth-tinctured, jet insect-bead, cinder of bloom—
How weigh while a great summer knows increase,
Ceaselessly risen, what there entombs?—
Of candour fallen from the slight stems of Mays,
Corrupt of the rim a blue shades, pensively:
So a fatigue of wishes will young eyes.
And brightened, unpurged eyes of revery, now
Not to glance to fabulous groves again!
For now deep presence is, and binds its close,
And closes down the wreathed alleys escape of sighs.
And now rich time is weaving, hidden tree,
The fable of orient threads from bough to bough.
Old rinded wood, whose lissomeness within
Has reached from nothing to its covering
These many corymbs’ flourish!—And the green
Shells which wait amber, breathing, wrought
Towards the still trance of summer’s centering,
Motives by ravished humble fingers set,
Each in a noon of its own infinite.
And here is leant the branch and its repose
of the deep leaf to the pilgrim plume. Repose,
Inflections brilliant and mute of the voyager, light!
And here the nests, and freshet throats resume
Notes over and over found, names
For the silvery ascensions of joy. Nothing is here
But moss and its bells now of the root’s night;
But the beetle’s bower, and arc from grass to grass
For the flight in gauze. Now its fresh lair,
Grass-deep, nestles the cool eft to stir
Vague newborn limbs, and the bud’s dark winding has
Access of day. Now on the subtle noon
Time’s image, at pause with being, labours free
Of all its charge, for each in coverts laid,
Of clement kind; and everlastingly,
In some elision of bright moments is known,
Changed wide as Eden, the branch whose silence sways
Dazzle of the murmurous leaves to continual tone;
Its separations, sighing to own again
Being of the ignorant wish; and sways to sight,
Waked from it nighted, the marvelous foundlings of light;
Risen and weaving from the ceaseless root
A divine ease whispers toward fruitfulness,
While all a summer’s conscience tempts the fruit.
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I am grounded by my own ignorance, he thought, and here, by the sheer complexity of things. This pebble at my feet seems the very centre of a radius - of marks and pathways. Possibilities. It is a thing that connects itself with me. It is very early, before the sun has touched the horizon’s sky.
I recall a poem telling of the perfection of pebbles, their being equal to themselves, mindful of their limits, filled exactly with a pebbly meaning, with a scent which does not remind one of anything, does not frighten anything away, does not arouse desire, its ardour and coldness full of dignity.
I now remember another poem, portraying a pebble placed in a child’s hand, picked up on a pebble ridge. A pebble to place in the pocket where we finger it until it becomes warm. Its shape and certainty is firm and sure. It consoles us. And, as we change and decay, it remains lodged with us: a thing that contains nothing save the mystery of life.
And there is a long prose poem devoted to the pebble. It starts at the beginning of time itself with a condensed cosmogony, describing the formation of the first rock as an allegory of The Fall. It ventures through the expulsion of life, to cooling, to those large tectonic plates, and all the way down to the pebble itself, or, as the poet says, the "kind of stone that I can pick it up and turn it over in my hand". Time is everywhere in this poem: Stone as Time, where the great wheel of stone rolls ever on as plant life, animals, gases and liquids revolve quite rapidly in their cycles of dying. Take this as the poet’s view of humanity: to consider all things as unknown, and to begin again right from the beginning.
We need to take the side of things, he thought. Here, this pebble is time, and where this pebble lies, with its radii of marks, seems at the very centre of things. It was brought anonymously by the tide one stormy night to lie at our feet, and looks at us with a calm and very clear eye.
Jul 7, 2013
Jul 7, 2013 at 1:49 AM UTC
Sometime it flyaway to the sky
Passing through enclosure of cloud!
Sometime it climbs through the ladder of hope with wind
Reach in the peak of dream for eloquence of love....
Love for self.....life.... people....land and soil..........!
Sometime it swims in the ocean of felony and transgression
Searching gone astray generosity and candour!
Consistently it is vivacious and brings new notion to ponder!
Sometime it coverts contemplation to allure
Allure to aspiration
Aspiration to act upon
Then to poignant feat with great ecstasy!
May 26, 2014
May 26, 2014 at 2:27 AM UTC
floral effervescence
wafts around you
thy theo black temperament rose iq
ushers lulabies as playful amor kru
apollo is falling for the aquamarine
rays, reflecting the sea's craved ardour
and our love is like a cyclamen oleandro
the fascinating, dissolving, poisonous sleep
inwardly unaware of the whitest clouds oro
seducing the beauty of a ceruelan absolute ~
if i were the wave i would foam your dream
if you were a black panther i'd be your kaa
for a day to experience your mighty paws
to tremble like open window shutters, strickened
by the fire, by light, by thunderbolt's love flame
oh, come on, come on sweet man of the fantasia
i've got to tell you i ain't foolin' around those dim
alleys at nights like this; luscious calls lure hello
at least, hear my hearts deepest throbbings, hear
them, embrace them, conquer my world's cream
taste the strawberry sweeteness on a tip of me, u
trickle your tongue against my open buoyancy
write kaligrafic words of love's invisible tint
beautify the untouched pergament, maestro
write like there's no time nor tomorrow's no;
inaugure every christmas crickets flash mob
within you and awaken me from a slumber,
deeply rooted, lovely and mild as wood's chi
and I will cherish you, praise and love long
forgotten wild forest's animals as panacea
for the dissolving salt upon a love wound
which torchered your solitude for who's
pleasure, for what reason, for a slick slap
of an epic trustful faith as lux aeterna
crashing the myth of a love superior;
a desolation of waning touches soma
hiding its fragility in madmind's attempt
to overcome what's earth's given inferno;
to die in a lustful blazing heat of creatio
contemplating about heavenly key lock
how to forge a golden key to your anima,
gracefully giving a hand to her emperor
to dance on a verge of an existence' folie
to blossom upon hushed world's meridian
in dreamy space n' time, first darlin' flush
the prime animus dances, dares, waters~
Feb 17, 2016
Feb 17, 2016 at 3:50 PM UTC
The stark realization that you're not here but rather, you were here in this bed, in these sheets, these arms....it hits me like a wave of lightning.
Tears turn to snow, fears turn to a numbing glow, and I miss you... Yet I know the rising operatic voices of the symphony of hope that plays in the background of my life's video game will rise higher than the brightest sunset and deepest tidal wave...because ironically, you miss me too. Through all my faults and accidentally elbowing you in the stomach and growling at you just because I know you hate it....you still miss me. How, I don't quite understand, and no matter how many times you try to show me, I'll still never get it, I'll just be mesmerized by the rave lights dancing in your eyes pulsing to the beat of my jack rabbit heart. Why can't we slow? Why can't we insist this isn't real, that we are going to wake up, why can't we agree to pinch each other to prove that reality is indeed upon us, that awakening to smell the roses is better than dreaming about them? Yet I find myself amidst the ardour of their smell and realize it is in fact an olfactory experience, and not a shift of the bored, school-ridden mind. Yes, you are real, far away- 1700 miles, in fact- but you are real; my fingers could touch a screen against your digitized fingerprints and somewhere, some way, you'd feel something pressing back gently as the dew. Because I'm here. And I love you.
And I don't want us to end. Ever.
Mar 2, 2017
Mar 2, 2017 at 2:09 PM UTC
Oh, here I am confined to the walls of my sadness!
I am lean and weary,
my heart thin and dreary.
Oh, how I've longt to wander yon mountainous hills again,
this time with thee,
descending the steeps, our bare foots brushing against the heath beneath
blending into the hilly surroundings
under the laughter of the joyful heavens -
o how riveting the bank underneath shall be!
O how delicacy shall reign my frame abruptly -
bequeathing its foreign spirit gladly,
so that I am showered with its frantic idyll
with adversity whose love can never forget!
O how this joy shall conquer any rivers of indignation,
drive their disdained yoke away
along with those conceited tears
of sullenness, hatred, and amorous gluttony!
But unreachable art thou!
O Kozarev, my prince, sole prince in these silent wintry dreams,
how thou appeareth like a gleaming apparition,
soothing my reposes, making whose armours complete,
with smiles can bear all my gloominess away,
whose lovely jests are warmth to my soul, my yearning and choking soul,
in the deathlike bursts of this misty day!
O Kozarev, in today's laborious air I shall think of thee,
thy stately figure, thy youth of ardour!
Thy grin the star to the fading sun;
thy words that calmeth sorrow; and sendth thrills through my bones!
O mumbling lips, o trembling horns!
My little treasure, if only thou could hear my earnest longing
my very earnest desire; sincere yet tempestuous
that I shalt lift my hands around thee
Just how those rocks stand firm on the glaring sea
Cheers in its coldness; praises its bland waviness
Like a small boat unyielding to the melodious storm
when the last harmony is no longer sounding!
O, how I long to share this fondness with thee!
Kozarev, my demure pleasure, my belated fate!
My firing snow, my blazing sun,
the handsomest flower of my being!
My lithe little heart might be of nothing to thee
I am unworthy, yet I yearn for thee so willingly!
Kozarev, amidst the rolls of my dreams I devour thee,
wherein dwells the upmost of our affection
and sits our sheepish little village!
And adjacent to the gentle fireside
upon our wooden squeaking chair
brimmed with love, smeared with laughs
I should rock by thee
sew thee into my very own loveliness
and ****** thy grace
to the faint redness of my lips.
Nov 30, 2012
Nov 30, 2012 at 5:55 AM UTC
You are so **** and hot to look at
When you gorge on that strawberry
I remember the time you showed me
How you like your fruit to be -
You licked it making sure it’s wet
I gasped when the coldness hit me
You nipped and peeled the skin gently
My ***** heaved wantonly at the touch
You ****** with ardour all the juices
My mind ran havoc not knowing what to do -
You stare and wink at me naughtily
That devilish grin now you just make
You know that I recall what you did
When you tasted and I was your fruit
Jul 24, 2016
Jul 24, 2016 at 10:21 PM UTC
*staring through heat wave shimmer
baring to the sky
thoughts unseen*
1.
watching
picking of peaches in drop-day sun
rows and rows of others
neat aligning synchrony - laden baskets
like well-oiled piston-joints
2.
and when you think nobody looks
a sudden-bite into fleshy-soft ardour
taste oh
of swollen heaven-fruit
*oh ******
accordion-vision spilling of the unexpected
(drip.. drip.. splash.. sink.. )
onto the collar of your cotton-blouse
in slightly off-white splendour
arms thrown up in harvest-fervour
a semi-circle of moist petal
winks at me
from arm-pit labour
a deep flush on cheeks as your locket-eye feels a touch unready
finding my mild-gaze resting on your
rubiest-lips ever seen
3.
later
it is sure
a plumb-matching of that pretty furtive-stain
will be rather fetching
on your light-green peasant-frock
hark now!
the winds will howl in least protest
and
waves off southern-cliff coast
where hardy-souls dare go
will quite steadfast
roar..
in unison
*oh, ice-rains may fall and squalls may blow
yet finest moment-dawning will be
much like..
picking at the ripe-time*
S T - 20 sept
Sep 20, 2013
Sep 20, 2013 at 4:48 AM UTC
sparrows, three
now four, sit
chirking,
on the cherrywood
branch....
if i were a fanciful poet,
i would suggest they gossip,
but i think it is more, base
than that.....
it appears that three, vie
for the attentions of one...
it is then, a matter of courtship...
as they bounce
and fly and sing.....
and me a ******
...marveling.
at the ardour of the dusty fluffs of feathers
....and the uncanny joy,
their antics bring....
must be the romance,
fluttering in the air....
Dec 1, 2014
Dec 1, 2014 at 7:00 PM UTC
This pearl. Ah, this beautiful, precious pearl.
Creamy, buttery; rich and velvety.
A teardrop. Wrought beneath the churning swirl
Of a deep and unfathomable sea.
A tear shed for unobserved injury
Penetrating calcareous armour;
Weeping silently; seeking serenity
And embracing quietude with ardour.
The injured life gives way to a treasure
Near unimaginable. Beguiling.
A jewel in life beyond true measure.
Natural and pure. A gift of being.
The world is our oyster. Imperfect. Whole.
The pearl - a lithe and unencumbered soul.
Nov 22, 2010
Nov 22, 2010 at 6:00 PM UTC
*Softly swishing on the air, a breeze gets caught in my room.
The gentle air does little to cool the fire ablaze on the bed.
Shallow breathing fans my ear, as I lie across your chest.
The rise and fall of your torso remind me of the rise and
fall of us during, this, our final night alone.
Summer is turning to autumn, soon the leaves will brown
and fall. How quickly a summer's night breeze can cool ardour.
Passion, heat, intensity all have seen the inside of this room.
What happens when they leave? Do they leave on the last breeze?
Tracing your body with my nails, I feel you stir, yet you murmur
her name. You moan and arc your back, a droplet of sweat rolls
down your neck, catches in the hollow, glistening, listening.
I lift my head and dart my tongue to your neck, lick the sweet sweat,
and know that when the weather breaks, and the breeze turns clouds darker with rain, you and I will be here again*
May 12, 2014
May 12, 2014 at 9:01 PM UTC
By thine own tears thy song must tears beget,
O Singer! Magic mirror thou hast none
Except thy manifest heart; and save thine own
Anguish or ardour, else no amulet.
Cisterned in Pride, verse is the feathery jet
Of soulless air-flung fountains; nay, more dry
Than the Dead Sea for throats that thirst and sigh,
That song o’er which no singer’s lids grew wet.
The Song-god—He the Sun-god—is no slave
Of thine: thy Hunter he, who for thy soul
Fledges his shaft: to no august control
Of thy skilled hand his quivered store he gave:
But if thy lips’ loud cry leap to his smart,
The inspir’d recoil shall pierce thy brother’s heart.
1.5k
The warmth
your grasp provides to
my hip.
Hair
scattered as vines
growing around one another.
Find your way
through.
Gentle lips landing
spreading passion
down through the delicate bone structure.
Finally
I feel again
your tender touch,
genuine sincerity.
Pure bliss
so secure.
Such a beauty it is,
the time spent
in your presence
bed
arms.
Immeasurable ardour.
Infinite euphoria.
Immense passion,
increasing exponentially.
Aug 29, 2012
Aug 29, 2012 at 5:31 AM UTC
I am a mortal
And there is no shame in that
I am not perfect
And I feel no shame in that
For my love is without stain
Mar 29, 2015
Mar 29, 2015 at 5:34 PM UTC