"assails" poems
Blood red plain of killing fields.
Lioness stalks her prey.
Tragic zebra separated from the herd.
As lady lion quiet as bird.
Creeps through concealing long grass.
Undergrowth.
Undercover.
Trying not to rustle.
Lioness has savvy.
Not Zebra mares' saviour today.
No games.
She flies.
Hear the wildebeest scatter.
They know she's there.
The birds, made them aware.
Assails from the side.
One fell swoop and zebra's down.
The other quadrupeds return from their scarper and scatter.
No fear today.
The lioness is fed.
She is not greedy.
Nature beat her quarry.
From the trees emerge her cubs to take their fill.
The laws of the wild instilled!
By ladylivvi1
© 2013 ladylivvi1 (All rights reserved)
Sep 15, 2013
Sep 15, 2013 at 10:03 AM UTC
it was the Cubist who created the space and color that
everywhere today assails our eyes
in uniform architecture and monotonous
design; the various branches of modern art
through tedious & exhaustive experiment
& research creating a massive cultural sinkhole
whose banal discoveries unveil for all the sameness
of form, line and color;
Quote from Gorky's 'Camouflage', 1942: I like the heat;
the tenderness; the edible; the lusciousness;
the song of a single person
in a bathtub full of water.
I like Ucello, Grunewald, Ingres,
the drawings and sketches for paintings
of Seurat and that man Pablo Picasso;
I measure all things by weight.
In text for MoMA, describing the 'Garden in Sochi' - series,
26 June 1942
I love Mougouch, Gorky's wife. What about papa Cézanne;
I like the wheat fields, the plow, the apricots,
those flirts of the sun. And bread above all.
My lever is the purple; About 194 feet away
from our house in Armenia on the road to the
spring my father had a little garden with
a few apple trees which had retired
from giving fruit;
this garden was identified as the _'Garden of Wish Fulfillment'_
often I had seen my mother and the other village women
exposing their naked bosoms, taking the soft,
dependable ******* in their hands &
rubbing them on the rocks; above all this
standing an enormous tree all bleached
under the sun, rain & cold, deprived of leaves.
This was the Holy Tree [quoted in 1942]
In text for MoMA, describing the 'Garden in Sochi' - series,
26 June 1942
I don't like that word 'finished'.
When something is finished,
that means it's dead, doesn't it?
I believe in everlastingness;
I never finish a painting – I just stop
working on it for a while.
I like painting because it's something
I can never come to the end of;
sometimes I paint a picture,
then I paint it all out. Sometimes
I'm working on fifteen or twenty
pictures at the same time; I do that
b/c I want to – b/c I change my
mind so often; The thing to do is
always to keep starting to paint;
never finishing the painting [quoted in 1948]
Aug 20, 2018
Aug 20, 2018 at 4:39 PM UTC
day long meaningless
the monday machine rolls
i like the way the sun is
and it’s cold out and it’s raining
something assails the daybreak
fluttering in the chutes
abstraction in the boring monotony
wispy, hazy and ambivalent
by you, wondering what you’ll do next
while i wait for the mystery
to open up in the swirled world
Apr 9, 2018
Apr 9, 2018 at 10:58 PM UTC
Sable, the swallow rising
as it banks over the white conduits
of marrow in the body, rain
slashes through the honey locust,
along the long ellipse of its hunt
as savage dragonflies rise from stems
to cling, a deep sienna of doeskin tremors
over their sting, catkins,
an aftermath, melancholy to the skin
soaked in white calla,
its reticence assails
the sleeping orchards of the heart,
in its darkest sheaves,
to cleave apart the soft joining of lips
and silence me;
for eternity
is this moment,
and the light you give
cloaks me in a coat of flames,
the burnt locust of slaughter, taunt
the rubric of Christs hidden scriptures,
as I night,
the body, solely a vessel
of shadow, returning
through a field of windfall,
ripe with wasps,
echo you
in me,
a dream of a dream dream't,
in the dim recess of light
your lips close
like a sutra over mine,
a brutality of moments
ground out of thick pine,
as the fine agony
of cricket ballets rise
shivering, to stillness,
this silence is a lotus,
a blue psalm,
throttles the throat,
as a quorum of swallows
gather between the swathes
of sunlight and skewed shadows,
and lift as one body, subsumed
by our abandoned depths,
out of exile, you
have made me a homeland
of truant light and as I night,
lightning opens like scripture,
a black plea, poured over some sore refuge,
and so that I may never be restored,
cloak me in a coat of flames,
suffering an ecstasy of moments hardened in amber,
over the white conduits of marrow
in the savage body, writhe
a black throng of swallows,
assail the sleeping orchards of the heart,
in its darkest sheaves, to cleave
apart the soft joining of lips
and silence me....
Dec 4, 2012
Dec 4, 2012 at 4:05 PM UTC
a snort of derision
assails my ears
a gift from the slack-pants boy
that walked by me
i apologize for existing
fellow classmate
WAIT
no i don't.
Apr 23, 2013
Apr 23, 2013 at 12:31 PM UTC
Bunny suit
white cuffs and collar
she's cute
you pay the extra dollar
black silk bunny ears
black stillettoes
she smiles at your jeers
always the pro
White pom pom tail
wiggles when she walks
your senses she assails
her ex-boyfriend stalks
Treat this bunny well
or in your drink she spits
she's ringing your bell
but to her your the pits
Dec 3, 2013
Dec 3, 2013 at 7:44 AM UTC
In the cold of my car I shivered,
as the engine ran,
I sat still hoping to
dispense with the chill,
but my will said, 'accept it you are a wimp and an old cold one at that"
I was wearing my hat and my coat with light gloves,
I loves to wear, they separate my fingers
from the cold,
knitted grey and bold,
they let me hold,
objects of metal like keys to hearts, objects of stone like me very own heart,
objects of desire, that I keep secret until something transpires
which warms better than fires,
on a dark and lonely night under the stars bright, wait was that my tire?
Oh where did I wonder off too,
as I was in thought, now lost,
my wit, not sharp as the nail in my tire, the cost,
on a dark night in November, as six speeding police cars swoop past me,
on an urgent mission to stop a crime, their sirens wail as I am a
counterintuitive pantomime against the noise that assails me while
I am changing
a tire but remain the same,
metal tire rod tool in my hand, stone cold heart beating, against my ribs,
as I labor in disbelief that where I live is across from where I stand,
and with all technology you have to get on your hands and knees to
change a tire, I sneeze, I am not sure which is worse,
my situation or these verse,
which decorate the night, not like stars,
as when spoken aloud every other word is profane,
while two homeless push there wares by me and laugh
with disdain.
For in these transactions they have more street cred than I,
and I would give them a bitcoin of my thoughts, but they
are two and I am one, alone and without a cell phone, and
this poem rolling around like lug nuts in a hubcap, as frost
creeps closer than the creeps who wish to reap of my misfortune.
Of which I now have some, that I can mix with theirs and then
I notice their bloodthirsty stares, so I begin to recite this poetry
and expound on the woe in me and send them packing covering their
ears with out attacking my hapless now three wheeled car.
When I was done I was nuttier than those lugs,
"good news" it was too cold for bugs,
and with good conscience you, from this, can unplug.
©DWE112013
Nov 20, 2013
Nov 20, 2013 at 11:02 PM UTC
You don't much like me visits there
But scarce do you lament
For, I bring you home the finest cuts
To sizzle in the pan.....
The lovely ladies behind the counter there
One grin vies to meet me, all doe-eyed
If you knew she had a one-tooth denture
I guess you'd smirk away, ungreen ....
But I get the chops I want to eat
Nicely packed pink; no seeping blood
And succulent steaks indulged on me
Saucy supervisor slips me secret smiles.....
Hot and heavy glances jet my way
By sly lady-workers in the back row
When you turn your skeptic back
Regarded by none, but cautious me......
Cute cashier rises on fleshy thighs
Slow she sits; lets her skirt ride high
She eyes me hooded, lashes long
Then, downcast when you join me.....
Can feel the electric tingle from her touch
As I fumble redly, to pay the coins
Deliberate counting, her scent assails
Her hungry heartbeat..... oozing charm.....
But, for all the alluring looks and promising smiles
There's you, my love..... to grill my viands
And hardly home, I fall on you...famished;
Devour every morsel, shred and piece of you!
Star Toucher, 27 March 2013
Mar 26, 2013
Mar 26, 2013 at 8:43 PM UTC
I gathered the pores of my being
And came to perfume them with your own fragrance
Only to discover that you are an oleander -- a rosebay
While in the memory of unease and apprehension
I trace some features that resemble no one but you
An image has its own dimensions
And, when hopelessness assails me, I have roads
That never cease to pull and lead me toward you
And while in the nook of anxiety
I fancy a preordained timing
For events that never materialize
The image draws near
And I talk to it
About the tons of heavy separation
That oppress the seasons of my life
I have recited you as rain
Yet your lightning never came near me
Alienation gathered thick
Translated by Mahmoud Abbas Masoud
May 7, 2016
May 7, 2016 at 6:26 PM UTC
A cry assails my window
a child has a broken heart,
life is harsh and she's afraid,
mother said a harsh word
she fell down, the world
too big, too cruel
she wails,
drops her bottle,
she wails
stumps her toe,
she wails
her favorite doll ruined,
she wails,
palms bruised and scratched
she wails
and no one hesitates.
Father walks too far ahead
she teeters to stand,
her wails carried on the wind
no one picks her up,
she must learn to endure
life's obstacles,
she gains footing and
stands , bursts forward
on wobbling legs,
Father turns and smiles
waits to dust her off,
takes her hand,
and the world begins
again.
Sep 23, 2015
Sep 23, 2015 at 7:07 PM UTC
She sits on a piano bench,
in the basement of a church,
the church she once graduated in,
with the boy who has died,
died the day before,
much after going to school,
with the girl who now sits on a piano bench,
in the basement of a church,
the church she once graduated in.
Reality does not hit her at first,
but four days later it assails,
crushing her skull and collapsing her lungs.
She stands holding a candle,
holding a candle in a pew,
in the church she once graduated in,
at the funeral of a boy who she graduated with,
remembering him in a blue dress shirt,
and glasses, with a round face
and tears stream from her eyes
and she feels the weight,
of a life lost too soon.
May 5, 2013
May 5, 2013 at 11:24 PM UTC
He drowns in the ashes of his own existence,
He breathes the bitter charcoal imbued in gas
And only the flame of love could've ignited the wings of knowledge.
The colors of our merging were painting his new destiny
When he looked at the sky and didn't speak anymore;
He had his mouth sewn and his body tied with a thread of sound
And darkness feathers and the soul of us:
He sewed it himself with his necrotic hand
Because only in death we could've existed as a being.
I've tasted the abyss which trickled on his fingers,
But he couldn't resist it so he conquered the exil.
He fell in the univers, leaving behind a flaming arrow
To burn my sky and life, burying me in the ashes of a past love.
None but the thought left by you helps me find my hope,
Only the illusion of love still burns inside me with purple flames,
And my blood started to ignite our memory,
Covered by the fog of pain and happiness moans.
When black whispers fill my heart and soul,
His violet touch crushing my mellow bones,
Shaped and painted also by him,
Then just the yearning assails me and I remeber
....you'll be next to me, still in the hot sheets from last night.
Jun 14, 2019
Jun 14, 2019 at 10:19 AM UTC
They will never take my crown,
nor the faith, I have, in You;
You've been with me far too long,
and have always, seen me through.
Tough times come and tough times go,
there are many tribulations;
still, I bow my knee to You,
in my constant admiration.
They will never take my crown,
for You, will not, forsake me;
their wounds are fast and fleeting,
yet, my soul, is singing free.
Nations fall and nations rise,
yet Your word, it never fails;
I stand firm in solid hope,
whatever the assails.
They will never take my crown,
although the body falls;
although the body dies,
the Spirits soul stands tall.
Jan 29, 2017
Jan 29, 2017 at 5:12 PM UTC
Musty, salt smell, of a deserted home,
sitting by the seawall, viewing sand and foam,
assails the nostrils when you open the door.
See dust motes fly, spiders scurry on the floor.
Curtains hang as tattered rags and swaying,
in the breeze, through the cracks, like old flags waving.
As if wearily, signaling for a truce,
between the sea and the decay induced.
Sand comes down from ceiling beams as proof,
as to the storm worn holes, in the roof.
Of shingles blown off, during cold winter blasts,
sand trickles down, as if from an hour glass.
Time and the elements have dulled the shine,
of the woodwork and trim of knotty pine.
Cast iron water pipes, rusted out in places.
The claw foot tub, rest on it's Eagle braces.
Porcelain surface, chipped and cracked,
lath and plaster of the walls needing patched.
The little house sitting by the seawall,
that leans to the left and ready to fall.
Bulldozer sits ready, engine at idle,
to be let loose, push it into a pile.
Along with others like it in a row,
that once held town folks and saw children grow.
A new hotel made of metal and glass,
sterile exterior, no style nor class.
Will take their place, sitting by the sea wall.
Years ago, an oil spill caused the fall,
of this sleepy tourist town full of charm.
No one realized, the long arm of the harm.
They filtered the sand, skimmed off the water,
it was to late, the economy faltered.
Waiting out there, like vultures that scavenge,
was the Corporations, watching it happen.
When the town gasped, gave it's last dying breath,
in they did swoop, living off a towns death.
Aug 8, 2010
Aug 8, 2010 at 5:43 PM UTC
If I had you in my hands,
petal,
cradled from the rot
guarded from the corruption
the world assails you with,
I would hold you firmly
and never let you go...
Never let you go.
Mar 16, 2015
Mar 16, 2015 at 1:01 AM UTC
I know the eternity of midnight
where the days don't light the days and the night
stays tight against my wrinkling skin,and the only way out is the way you got in,but you can't find the way and you're lost,
so you stay.
And midnight never ends,this eternity wends its way slowly to your core,clambers clumsily in through each and every pore,and though you try to reach the sun,for some the sun will never come and here you stay,
Crumpled, where the night becomes the only way to live,
crumpled, where the night feeds on you,so you give,and
pleading silently for this eternity to end,
for one brief moment to pretend things will work out, but doubt assails you and you flail wildly,
childlike,sadly stuck
so you sit and **** your thumbs until eternity makes up its mind and comes,
whenever that may be.
Nov 2, 2013
Nov 2, 2013 at 7:26 PM UTC
nibbling on the rainbow the saffron flag
is swaying, bearing
a crooked smiley emoticon these days
sometime ago…
the land beamed with pride
as happy lips of backgrounds varied
in jingles of diversity revelled
but no more, no more today…
scars mar in face of fading acceptance
spirit of songs of oneness being muffled by
voices intimidating, dominant and intolerant
for birds of minorities
dark clouds smear the skies
and fear assails their hearts
to spread their wings too wide to fly
mob lynching awaits if ‘wrong’ meat
found on your plate
and your verses of dissent
could be your gateway to prison
or invite a cold ****** at your door-step
Sep 5, 2017
Sep 5, 2017 at 11:38 PM UTC
I am a house, says Senlin, locked and darkened,
Sealed from the sun with wall and door and blind.
Summon me loudly, and you'll hear slow footsteps
Ring far and faint in the galleries of my mind.
You'll hear soft steps on an old and dusty stairway;
Peer darkly through some corner of a pane,
You'll see me with a faint light coming slowly,
Pausing above some gallery of the brain . . .
I am a city . . . In the blue light of evening
Wind wanders among my streets and makes them fair;
I am a room of rock . . . a maiden dances
Lifting her hands, tossing her golden hair.
She combs her hair, the room of rock is darkened,
She extends herself in me, and I am sleep.
It is my pride that starlight is above me;
I dream amid waves of air, my walls are deep.
I am a door . . . before me roils the darkness,
Behind me ring clear waves of sound and light.
Stand in the shadowy street outside, and listen--
The crying of violins assails the night . . .
My walls are deep, but the cries of music pierce them;
They shake with the sound of drums . . . yet it is strange
That I should know so little what means this music,
Hearing it always within me change and change.
Knock on the door,--and you shall have an answer.
Open the heavy walls to set me free,
And blow a horn to call me into the sunlight,--
And startled, then, what a strange thing you will see!
Nuns, murderers, and drunkards, saints and sinners,
Lover and dancing girl and sage and clown
Will laugh upon you, and you will find me nowhere.
I am a room, a house, a street, a town.
837
I walk the broken road,
with my heart in my hands,
trying to lessen my load,
while following others demands,
My hopes still remain,
but my fear does as well,
like an iron chain,
my pain begins to swell,
slowly i turn,
to face the beast that trails,
I look into its eyes that burn,
and feel as it assails,
Its long claws,
try to pierce my very soul,
But i face it with my flaws,
but this begins to take a toll,
But I refuse to give way,
I stand proud and vein,
and slowly it backs away,
and looks at me with disdain,
I know I have won,
but the journey is not finished,
for this battle is just one,
in many only slightly diminished,
So I will never give way,
for this is a battle I did not choose,
I will fight it every day,
depression may just become my muse...
Mar 23, 2015
Mar 23, 2015 at 4:23 PM UTC
With never a thought for the shadow of corrosion
nor the fertile breeding ground
of eel slime and rabbit guts,
we took adventure’s companion:
the pocket-knife,
and sliced our thumbs.
A fragment of pain
much less than its apprehension;
to watch
the rubyed jewel of life
swell
then run to kiss the earth with salty gravity.
Pressing our thumbs together,
blood into blood,
we made a symbol of our bond.
This was a time
when blood was blood
and not more virulent
than rats in Renaissance Europe.
When “Magic” Johnson was a messiah.
When dentists and doctors probed with impunity.
Before plasma was a Trojan Horse for haemophiliacs.
Now
even the mosquito’s drone assails our mortality
yet we are loath
to shipwreck its cargo of strange blood.
The body once a temple
now a fortress.
But what is to be our vigilance
when the enemy lies within?
Feb 20, 2015
Feb 20, 2015 at 2:52 AM UTC
*i feel your steady gaze
in the eyes of my heart
you whose business it is
to take note of the goings-on
in the arena of human affairs
spare me the dissection
of your scalpel eyes
i tremble like one condemned
life, oh careless life,
what will my poor children do?
O you winds of unfulfilled hopes
when sometime you blow their way
gently whisper of my undying love
bid them neither to crumble nor weep
though double jeopardy assails them
father and mother lost to bottomless time
O you bards from all ages
let your word tapestries be their balm and comfort
let there be wisdom, discernment and resilience
in their oft-pained lives, some happier day
children, treasure what life gave us in our time together
and weep not children, it will be your world, one day*
Dec 24, 2015
Dec 24, 2015 at 10:23 AM UTC
There’s an edge on the air
With a taste of despair
There are shadows where sunshine should be
And a tinkling sound
From the frost on the ground
Lends a sparkle to all that I see
The colours are deep
And the bees are asleep
The drizzle is clouding my eyes
So bare me away
To a place I can stay
Where the seas are as blue as the skies
Such a terrible thing
With the geese on the wing
And the sun barely over the trees
There’s a nip to the night
When the wise take flight
As their noses and fingertips freeze
My intention revealed
With a voice I’ve concealed
A lament which I sing to the sun
So take me from here
To a distant frontier
Where the races are yet to be run
With a trembling hand
At her chilly command
And her eyelashes beaded with ice
The winter assails
With her icicle nails
And a sound like a rattle of dice
The windows are barred
The dog’s in the yard
And the horse is all warm in the stable
So carry me past
Where the shadow is cast
To where breakfast is fresh on the table
Feb 7, 2013
Feb 7, 2013 at 5:50 PM UTC
A sea, you are, regrets that wash ashore
Incessant waves of mem'ries stinging salt
Each rush assails her heart forevermore
Envaulting swells that fill her lungs with fault
A woman's love assaulted by her sea
Thus born to bear what men on boats deny
compassion deep that weeps eternally
Thus born to grieve, reproached by men who lie
Lo' billows raised by wind unbraids her hair
On wings of prayer that fearless love foresees
She lifts to lofty realms all men who dare
to rescue fools who sail on wormwood seas
Her love doth foam with swirling discontent
as countless souls to ocean's graves are sent
gv feb.19.17
A Shakespearian sonnet. Iambic pentameter
I
May 4, 2017
May 4, 2017 at 6:35 PM UTC
awesome apothecary addressed as Agamemnon
alleviates anxiety, and alimentary aggravation
anodyne appeasement arrests ailment
amphetamines acquaintanceship assuages
agonizing aches also advocates amorousness
assiduously activating admiration
aggressive attacks assault air afoul
affable affinity affects adumbration
anatomical accidental addiction attested as academic,
although afterward abnegation absolutely arduous,
affianced attired apparently as an anomaly
Ares and Abyssinian Astarte admixture
acquiescence affliction affected adroitly,
and abruptly abends accessible
altruistic alms axed
albeit admonishing, alluding,
and attributing authored
autonomous anonymous adroit arriviste agents
accompanying as accomplished accomplices
accredited ace advertisers
applaud ascendent assaults amidst agonizing appeals
acting all acrimoniously apropos
avowedly ardently, and antagonistically, agitating
appositely advocating ancillary assistance
addict adrift afloat anchors away
assails along, among, and an alias archenemy -
adorned abominable assassin alters ambition
adroitly, aggressively, absolutely
addict announces asseveration
against avid admonishment
alarmingly annulling authentic affiliation
anew anonymous ability acclaims alignment
aegis actually adversarial abetting attrition appetite
acceleration ascendent after aplenty anesthetization
additionally activating arced analogous arrow
advancing added abdominal and arterial agony
abject ambivalence arrests accomplishments attainable
any artistic avocation absconded
asper auditorial approbation, animadversion
artificial aggrandizement abrogates astuteness
appropriate adjudication affronted
alternative afforded amnesty about acing audioslave
as aerosmith ambition assumes arriviste affectation
already appalling alacrity awakens amendment
although Awol administration adamant
acrimonious affront agonizingly attributable
announces another afterworld
apparent ailing apparition
ardent allegiance asking anyone appreciable affix
apathy abounds attending apriorism allotment.
Feb 25, 2018
Feb 25, 2018 at 6:46 PM UTC
[by Edna St. Vincent Millay]
Pity me not because the light of day
At close of day no longer walks the sky;
Pity me not for beauties passed away
From field and thicket as the year goes by.
Pity me not the waning of the moon,
Or that the ebbing tide goes out to sea,
Or that a man's desire is hushed so soon,
And you no longer look with love on me.
This have I always known: Love is no more
Than the wide blossom which the wind assails,
Than the great tide that treads the shifting shore,
Strewing fresh wreckage gathered in the gales.
Pity me that the heart is slow to learn
What the swift mind beholds at every turn.
Sep 20, 2017
Sep 20, 2017 at 5:05 PM UTC