"aspen" poems
A halo of transfigured light.
spanned the hills and autumn gold
of scores of aspen groves
basking in the morning sun.
But what is this thing we call a rainbow?
For all our science talk of vapor,
refraction and angle of the sun
we surrender still in willing captivity
to its beauty, mystery and myth.
Rainbows beguile by their fleeting rarity
as ephemeral as life itself -
temporal blessings suspended in time
unintended and undeserved,
spectral bridges between here and there -
between what is and what should be.
Nov 11, 2016
Nov 11, 2016 at 9:11 AM UTC
Through an open window, I hear
the Big Thompson's steady music
drifting up from the valley below.
May breezes and gentle rains
coax the snow-capped peaks
to surrender their alabaster cloaks
downslope into gathering streams.
Silhouetted by light from the waxing moon,
a cinnamon bear lopes along water’s edge,
pauses for a draught and meanders on.
A bull elk newly coifed with velvet antlers
folds his legs beneath its belly
and kneels into grasses beside a tranquil pond.
while the Big Thompson rushes on.
Spring beauties, calypso orchids and geraniums
shake off their winter's sleep and
dot every vagabond trail and verdant hill
while fresh new leaves adorn the aspen boughs.
The Big Thompson inexorably presses on
bound for rendezvous with time and space
and tumbles into the always patient sea.
© 2017 by Robert Charles Howard
May 28, 2017
May 28, 2017 at 8:57 AM UTC
I could run away to you, world.
drink in your every scent, the dust
the hurt.
backpedal through Venetian streets,
high-five Buddhist monks,
paddle softly through the Dead Sea,
eat Vietnamese fish with blind children,
pound out piles of dough in back-alley German bakeries,
kiss the single root of an aspen tree
and post it all online.
grinning like a devil, silently screaming
*my life is better than yours
my life is better than yours*
Nov 25, 2013
Nov 25, 2013 at 12:14 PM UTC
*as winter acquiesces to the blazing sun
a soothing breeze softly grazes tips of aspen
gently shedding past liaisons
a perfect panacea
allowing wild freedom for summer’s dawn
healing from the ominous night
a flower gingerly releases its grasp
leaning into golden rays of summertime
keenly aware of newfound vulnerability
it yawns into the light
a rousing essence induces
a silhouette of life once thought lost
prodding river’s rigid ice blue crystals
to melt and flow with buoyant wonder
kaleidoscopic-like waves
having weathered near annihilation
a sculptured consciousness remains
painting summer clouds with soft-hued wisdom
all awakens from the dream
and should the cold return once more
the sun will shine again
©2016janetaylor
Apr 30, 2016
Apr 30, 2016 at 3:23 AM UTC
autumn mist rises
across the glazen waters
through the aspen grove
Aug 12, 2018
Aug 12, 2018 at 3:05 PM UTC
Flow down, cold rivulet, to the sea,
Thy tribute wave deliver:
No more by thee my steps shall be,
For ever and for ever.
Flow, softly flow, by lawn and lea,
A rivulet then a river:
Nowhere by thee my steps shall be
For ever and for ever.
But here will sigh thine alder tree
And here thine aspen shiver;
And here by thee will hum the bee,
For ever and for ever.
A thousand suns will stream on thee,
A thousand moons will quiver;
But not by thee my steps shall be,
For ever and for ever.
5.6k
Upper East Side
The Hamptons
Aspen, Colorado
The plastic people
Follow each other
Moving in herds
Like cattle to the
Slaughter
Drifting
Floating
Shifting focus
From one charity event
To another
Whatever’s trendy
Whatever’s fashionable
Whatever’s happ’ning
Whatever’s the need
Tainted new artists
Society’s rejects
The film-maker who fits in with
The flavor of the month
The disease or the cause
That captures the moment
Stigmas overlooked
Deformities relieved
By one hyper exertion
By one pseudo good deed
Changing bedrooms
Changing partners
New alliances
Noblesse oblige
Mrs. Astor’s
Four hundred
Reinvented forever
Reinvented with fervor
On the edge
Of hypocrisy
Keeping up with the Jones’s
Maintaining the houses
Paris, Rome, Cote du Jura
Malibu, Palm Beach
Couture fashion
Madison, Rodeo
Worth avenues united
Avenues of the liege
Location, location, location
The right address unspoken
Dinner in the right places
Sporting events to be seen
Three martini luncheons
Halcion evenings
Business is business
Where money’s retrieved
Look to plastic people
For fashionable guidance
No matter the moment
No matter the need
Remember to catch them
While jetting to Santa Barbara
Saint Maarten, San Troupe
San Marco, warp speed
They live in their milieu
Can’t function outside it
Can’t follow a shadow
That others believe
It’s easy to find them
They leave behind footprints
But barely a mem’ry
Or singular creed
Other than finding
The latest in fashion
The latest persona
Or new plastic breed
Aug 8, 2018
Aug 8, 2018 at 8:19 AM UTC
Two billion years ago
the river we call Colorado
opened a **** in the Kaibab Plateau
sculpting sandstone, granite, and limestone spectra
on the rugged canyon walls -
reflecting the seering Arizona sun.
Millennial torrents scoured the surface.
Juniper and Aspen, torn from the expanding banks,
****** into the river's red-stained vortex.
All the while the restless Colorado,
obedient to gravity's law,
scoured its bed a mile below the rim.
The last dinosaur perished - choked by volcanic soot.
Pangaea rumbled, groaned and split
and an eye-blink ago our African parents
stood to take their first faltering steps.
Their progeny crossed the Bering bridge
roaming south to build stone shelters
tucked against these canyon walls.
Did the Havasupai huddle in fright
of the jagged firelight searing the skies -
pounding the air across the hollows?
And emerging at storm’s end
did they gaze at the rainbow mist
spread over the buttes and valleys?
After dusk, with fires withering to embers,
did they rest supine,
heads pillowed on their arms,
pondering the jewel case universe above?
November, 2006
Jul 4, 2015
Jul 4, 2015 at 10:51 AM UTC
Come walk with me to that tranquil place
That beautiful sunlit glade
Where we can sit and watch the aspen leaves
Dancing to the magic music carried on the breeze
There you will smell the freedom of the autumn scented air
Sit in natures solitude and peaceful thoughts to share
Once you've experienced that peaceful place
The magic will always call you back
Once more to see the aspen leaves
Dancing above the the place where once you sat
Sep 11, 2014
Sep 11, 2014 at 2:50 AM UTC
Her voice is strained.
Her skin is fair.
Her ******* lay on the countertop.
I **** her until my thoughts stop.
She rejects the notion of love for all,
as she leans against my kitchen wall,
with a cigarette and an unbuttoned blouse-
she wants to be homeless in my house.
She keeps me in her necklace's locket,
and I keep her in the wallet in my pocket.
Her toes kiss the linoleum,
she walks like she's made of helium.
She mumbles that I taste like mint chocolate chip,
as she rubs against my hip.
Her breath smells like Malboro Lights,
and I hope she decides to stay the night.
Milky Ways and Vanilla Cakes,
she likes the way my body shakes,
as we lay and eat our troubles away.
Hurried words slow the day.
She asks me about my stretch marks and scars,
and if I've ever been hit by a car.
And I say no, but I've been hit by love before,
and it feels like getting your hand caught in a door.
Hurried smiles and bathroom stalls,
she likes the way my family never calls.
The words escape between her plump lips,
as my hand travels between her hips.
We move until we forget
that the world is moving faster.
Nov 16, 2014
Nov 16, 2014 at 12:20 PM UTC
Is this a time to be cloudy and sad,
When our mother Nature laughs around;
When even the deep blue heavens look glad,
And gladness breathes from the blossoming ground?
There are notes of joy from the hang-bird and wren,
And the gossip of swallows through all the sky;
The ground-squirrel gayly chirps by his den,
And the wilding bee hums merrily by.
The clouds are at play in the azure space,
And their shadows at play on the bright green vale,
And here they stretch to the frolic chase,
And there they roll on the easy gale.
There's a dance of leaves in that aspen bower,
There's a titter of winds in that beechen tree,
There's a smile on the fruit, and a smile on the flower,
And a laugh from the brook that runs to the sea.
And look at the broad-faced sun, how he smiles
On the dewy earth that smiles in his ray,
On the leaping waters and gay young isles;
Ay, look, and he'll smile thy gloom away.
2.9k
The turgid brown ***** rolling river
But above the Aspen stands tall
Leaves quivering, shaking, falling
But Aspen roots go deep
Aspens do not fall
Each leaf that in the water drifts
Another life does fade
Each leaf that on the soil lands
Another life regained
Feb 7, 2016
Feb 7, 2016 at 3:15 PM UTC
Calm moving sounds of rustling leaves,
Aspen trees in Spring's strong winds,
They calm be, call me, bring me peace,
They only ask for me to sit for a bit,
Closed eyes and warn sun's kiss,
Sitting quietly lost in thought,
The Aspen's song the only sound,
A smile it plays across my lips,
My soul at rest, my soul at peace,
A sanctuary older than any church,
A grove of power, a grove of love,
Apart from all I sit so still,
But one with every leaf and twig,
Forever lost, forever found,
The Aspen's call, the Aspen's Song.
Jul 8, 2012
Jul 8, 2012 at 5:32 AM UTC
The barron earth seems barron still,
The snow is gone but green lost still,
But on the Aspens, the catkins grow,
The male, the female, each in the wind,
The grow and grow and ask to be seen,
A sign of life in a barron land,
The males they dangle, the females *****
A source of life, before the leaves,
Winter's gone and Spring has rose,
The Aspen Moon approaches full,
A few small leaves upon the ground,
A strawberry, a flower, some blades of grass,
As the Apsen Moon begins to wain,
Fast rushes Springtime just like the Bull,
The catkins promise, the leaves fulfill,
New life, new living, the Aspen Moon.
Jul 8, 2012
Jul 8, 2012 at 12:40 PM UTC
He woke, as before, a boy.
She told him he would be a man,
As his father was out cutting turf,
And his mother told him the story,
He had heard before by the fire.
No pages to this book, not a leaf.
When he was younger, this boy
Had once cut, alone, the turf.
But upon placing it in the fire,
He decided instead to burn the mother of the leaf,
And that he did not want to be a man.
He couldn’t tell himself her story.
He saw his mother, an aspen leaf
Trembling by the fire,
As what was deemed a man
Turned her blackened eyes into a story.
He had always resembled a boy
Even to his own son, who pressed his tear-stained face into the turf.
His father tried to prove the boy a man
But found instead that he was hardly even boy.
So drink hid him from the story
While the not-boy cried by the fire
Knowing that he could not touch his fathers turf.
It was not like a man to shake as if a leaf.
The not-boy decided again not to be a man,
And lying in the earth found a fire
Inside that showed him a story
He had told himself as a boy
In which those who were only leaves
Could not have their own turf.
He was not the only boy
Who did not understand “man”
None did, and instead told a story
About how only the strongest leaf
Would cut the turf
And that only women would tend the fire.
Boys do not cut turf.
Leaves fall and we still tell stories
Of how fire somehow makes a man.
Sep 8, 2014
Sep 8, 2014 at 5:42 PM UTC
*stepping back into the west
chills reverberate up and down my spine
chiseling open obsolescent padlocks
dangling with dust
on ancient treasure chests
pallid colors in the attic release
a blossoming familiarity
faint hints of retrospections float on faded paper
granting me access to roads
where no map is needed
as i peruse the streets
my heart flows coalescing with the vicinity
caressing each detail i transform to fluid
and fuse with the past
through fresh strokes of watercolored memories
recollections flash before my eyes
revealing antiquated stories
though thought forgotten
an etched history endeavors to define me
renewing itself as i turn each corner
i shudder at some remembrances while encompassing others
through synchronicity realization hits
that I am all of it
yet none of it
at the same time
familiar faces paint meaning onto me
no longer do they know me
yet they airbrush vestiges of yesteryear
and coat me with connotations
i allow them to think i am whatever they imagine
i morph into their canvas temporarily
then break free in multi-dimensionality
they don't hear me with a new listening
no longer invested in their projections
once sharp triggers now appear in soft focus
an auspicious mist lies around the edges
of my former life
it is as if i never left
yet traces of the east lie sandpapered in me
a maturation commingles with my former self
flushing out on my skin
tethering newfound emotions
a gentle gratitude for home territory
nestles softly
inward
i listen to the clicks
of my scuffed cowboy boots
on acquainted yet somehow distant sidewalks
the echoes layering multiple impressions
glimmering with the utter beauty of this terrain
as I wander through the majestic rocky mountains
drinking in the quaking aspen's crimson edges
interfacing the evergreens
hushed whispers of autumn loftily rest
juxtaposed neatly against futures waiting to unfurl in the wind
an amalgamation of intimate sights and scents
dance in open wounds
dazzling
homesickness cured
a wholeness returned
as winter's crystal dawn blooms
i realize the depth of my growth
for in leaving here and returning
i cherish the west
my home
©2016 janetaylor
May 1, 2016
May 1, 2016 at 3:50 AM UTC
I have wished for years
That my collarbones would make themselves
Known.
That my muscles would
Atrophy.
And my skin would become
Paper thin.
All for the sake of exposing the calcified lattice
That holds me together.
Holds me down.
I have wished to see my ribs
So that I could better understand the bars that my heart
Beats so fiercely against.
I have wished my spine to rise from beneath sinew
Form peaks against my skin
Just so I can see
What makes a man
What backbone is
See what makes me
Stand
Against those things that I do not desire.
Yet here I am.
Synapses stretched between
Head
And
Heart
Eyes sundered, seeing what my heart can't take.
What my fragile fingers fail to grasp.
I am a graveyard.
Made of stars that decided they were meant for other tasks.
Rub your charcol across my bones
Just to see what stories the universe has told.
For it has lived and died a thousand times, and now
And now, this time around it chooses to call this body
Home.
So although there are days I wish my hip bones would rise like
Mountains
In the desert,
That this soft skin would part and give
Rise
To bones like Aspen trees,
I will accept that my
Clavicles
Are the bottom of the sea bed.
And I am
Mile
Upon
Mile
Of stormy ocean.
Still waiting to explored.
Apr 14, 2016
Apr 14, 2016 at 1:32 PM UTC
but I’m playing my favorite song for you I know
you can’t hear it cuz you’re
too far away I sink into
the beats and my arms are
solid blocks Moving hurts from
missing
you
it’s my turn to stay now, and gently flip
my heart over, a warm toasted
color like the burnt amber
taste aspen leaves get at the end of spring
missing you is the white hot color
of fire yet the bubbles
of yesterday pop
their ice on my eyes You’re chuckling softly
I’m the words and melodies of our simple
bytimes, when you were here, once
singing and burning and becoming
Oct 11, 2015
Oct 11, 2015 at 2:54 PM UTC
Where the air is thin and flowers grow a plenty
take me where it hurts to breathe
where the sun embraces me, so gently
and the towns are quiet but friendly.
We shall fashion daisies into wreaths,
watch as the aspen births her leaves
into crimson colors, so many.
Apr 28, 2023
Apr 28, 2023 at 12:57 AM UTC
In Nineva, in melted days of yore,
In a very distant verdant realm
Of a shadowy enchanted Moor,
There rolled a nectar stream.
And whoever ever drunk from it
Whilst the sun rained her golden light,
Craved nevermore to drink nor eat
But perpetually dwelt in delight.
Once, upon her banks strolled a couple
Majestically holding each other's hand.
Golden robbed with plush ribbons purple,
All the way from a very far away land
Where dwelleth many a mandrill,
A realm of many a precious stone
And many a verdant rolling hill,
Though creatures there all but forlorn.
King and queen of Merindrill they were,
On a golden quest for perpetual youth
Akin to the luster of many a fiery star
Whose mystery none knows the truth.
Though the stream galloped in gladness,
Though meadow larks chirped in ecstasy,
A roving wind eerily rustled in sadness
As it danced about aspen leaves all sassy.
All birds of evil omen graced the heaven
Whilst darkling clouds blotted heavens' bed
But unto none did it seem a bad omen.
Dyadic ravens perched upon their head.
"Quaff, quaff, oh quaff not from the river,"
Unto the king quoth the first raven.
"In that river deep thou shalt dwell forever,"
Unto the queen quoth the second raven.
"Quaff, quaff, oh quaff not," they didst spoof
At the ravens whilst as quick as drops of rain
Plummeting from earths' eternal dewy roof,
In such haste, they quaffed again, and again.
And 'tis for that reason that all men know
From the ***** of that sweet rollin' river
Did the fanciful couple now as cold as snow
Ever leave, but there dost live forever.
©Kikodinho Edward Alexandros,
Los Angeles, California, USA.
06/Nov/2018.
Nov 6, 2018
Nov 6, 2018 at 6:38 PM UTC
I have often turned within my grave to ponder of the reason why
Upon the date of my birth, you took me to your secret hide
Underneath an aspen tree within the deadest of nights
You took to me like a moth to a ball of flickering light
With the devils own smile plastered upon your face and the slightest of hand
You produced a sanguineous jar of hearts and an ominous jar of black sand
You grasped my hands in your work enured and fairly calloused paws
Looked me in the eyes, and told me to forever leave my pale hands raw
"Never soil your untouched hands, your hands and eyes you shall avert'
"Never bruise, nor ever hurt, nor shall they be ever touched by dirt,
"Never touch a rose, nor touch a bee, as danger is an all you see,
"Close your eyes my little darling, and all of life shall be but a dream."
With the trust of a mothers child, I kept my eyes tightly squeezed
Wished upon the star within the midnight sky, wavering in the breeze
Held my hands up to my chest, hoping the fluttering and staggered slips
Not to be seen by your face within the light of moon as from the sun it dines and sips
Of a heart that had only once been given to me and should have forever stayed mine
But the greed inside all mens' hearts want, and reaches out to grasp a young new 'hind'
With another slight of those calloused hands, you took my life for your own pleasure
And stole what was rightfully derived as mine; a beating heart, you took your leisure
A working mind, once a clock, now fully had come to a skidding stop
You took my bones and my teeth and used them as a fertilizing crop
The very worst thing that you did, you took my pride when you took my skin
Shaved off clean with a diamond edged razor and worn as if you were mockeries twin
Burried underneath that beautiful aspen tree, I've been given the time to remold
But my life had been stolen, the soul forced out before the bells had tolled
In the time it had taken for my pieces to remold, I had realised something then and there;
There were always things that were meant to go untold, but the truth is ringing upon the open air
You wanted more than what was offered and had bitten off all you could chew
But if I'd known back then what I know now, I'd know real good men only come in few
Jun 18, 2013
Jun 18, 2013 at 10:50 PM UTC
Hungry stones line the narrows
a jagged, muddy trail
aspen trees as pharaohs
gaunt columns of massive scale
Broken wagon pieces lie
testament to treachery
splintered axles cry
hopeless dwell in reverie
only insects fly
Lonely road disintegrate
loose shades of beige and brown
fallen roadsigns instigate
nature steal the crown
Hungry stones in narrows
still are left unfed
bodies strewn with arrows
death they do not dread.
Jan 13, 2011
Jan 13, 2011 at 3:07 PM UTC
Today I observed the flaming trees,
The flakes of gold drifting in the wind,
Like sleepy fairies,
And I thought,
I want to die like a maple,
die like an aspen in the fall,
as my strength is stripped away,
the underlying poetry of my veins is exposed,
and the tough skin peels back,
to show my unsung melodies,
Every note!
and it is a song,
blending beautifully with the cosmos,
Oh, that I would die like a tree,
when you see my barren body,
remember my last red moment,
full of auroreatic brilliance,
Oct 28, 2014
Oct 28, 2014 at 2:36 PM UTC