"blanching" poems
PROMETHEUS (alone)
O holy Aether, and swift-winged Winds,
And River-wells, and laughter innumerous
Of yon Sea-waves! Earth, mother of us all,
And all-viewing cyclic Sun, I cry on you,--
Behold me a god, what I endure from gods!
Behold, with throe on throe,
How, wasted by this woe,
I wrestle down the myriad years of Time!
Behold, how fast around me
The new King of the happy ones sublime
Has flung the chain he forged, has shamed and bound me!
Woe, woe! to-day's woe and the coming morrow's
I cover with one groan. And where is found me
A limit to these sorrows?
And yet what word do I say? I have foreknown
Clearly all things that should be; nothing done
Comes sudden to my soul--and I must bear
What is ordained with patience, being aware
Necessity doth front the universe
With an invincible gesture. Yet this curse
Which strikes me now, I find it hard to brave
In silence or in speech. Because I gave
Honor to mortals, I have yoked my soul
To this compelling fate. Because I stole
The secret fount of fire, whose bubbles went
Over the ferrule's brim, and manward sent
Art's mighty means and perfect rudiment,
That sin I expiate in this agony,
Hung here in fetters, 'neath the blanching sky.
Ah, ah me! what a sound,
What a fragrance sweeps up from a pinion unseen
Of a god, or a mortal, or nature between,
Sweeping up to this rock where the earth has her bound,
To have sight of my pangs, or some guerdon obtain--
Lo, a god in the anguish, a god in the chain!
The god Zeus hateth sore,
And his gods hate again,
As many as tread on his glorified floor,
Because I loved mortals too much evermore.
Alas me! what a murmur and motion I hear,
As of birds flying near!
And the air undersings
The light stroke of their wings--
And all life that approaches I wait for in fear.
5.5k
Into the crimson surfeit
lust enters
a burst of borrowed intimacy
until the blanching rust
of familiarity
slows the soft flow of love.
into all lust enters
dying with the first light...............
Jan 1, 2016
Jan 1, 2016 at 10:51 AM UTC
Tell me not here, it needs not saying,
What tune the enchantress plays
In aftermaths of soft September
Or under blanching mays,
For she and I were long acquainted
And I knew all her ways.
On russet floors, by waters idle,
The pine lets fall its cone;
The cuckoo shouts all day at nothing
In leafy dells alone;
And traveller's joy beguiles in autumn
Hearts that have lost their own.
On acres of the seeded grasses
The changing burnish heaves;
Or marshalled under moons of harvest
Stand still all night the sheaves;
Or beeches strip in storms for winter
And stain the wind with leaves.
Posses, as I possessed a season,
The countries I resign,
Where over elmy plains the highway
Would mount the hills and shine,
And full of shade the pillared forest
Would murmur and be mine.
For nature, heartless, witless nature,
Will neither care nor know
What stranger's feet may find the meadow
And trespass there and go,
Nor ask amid the dews of morning
If they are mine or no.
2.9k
I tell you hopeless grief is passionless,
That only men incredulous of despair,
Half-taught in anguish, through the midnight air
Beat upward to God’s throne in loud access
Of shrieking and reproach. Full desertness
In souls, as countries, lieth silent-bare
Under the blanching, vertical eye-glare
Of the absolute heavens. Deep-hearted man, express
Grief for thy dead in silence like to death—
Most like a monumental statue set
In everlasting watch and moveless woe
Till itself crumble to the dust beneath.
Touch it; the marble eyelids are not wet;
If it could weep, it could arise and go.
2.7k
The woman holds a letter
crumpled and crumbling at the tip like insanity taking its first few licks at calm
and liking it
brushing black-inked words beneath her fingers
like she's contemplating some black haired deed
like anger
or hate
or ******
and maybe she is.
The woman lifts her hands unto the skies
crying for help from a darkness that won't help her at all
but she wants it
banishing her innocence and taking up home
in the old, abandoned shack of spite and malice
wanting blood
wanting love
wanting power
but not just for her.
The woman meets her husband
taunting and teasing and twisting his words into a sadistic mockery of what they were
and he believes her
with a slap across morality he agrees with her
takes her outstretched hand to show that
jealousy is married
determination binds
it was his idea first
and weakness is sin.
The woman turns and faints
blanching so white it's like the evil wasn't ever there
it's hiding
waiting, longing to consume her whole
she'd thought she'd washed away the deed
with just
a little
spot of
water.
The woman enters the banquet hall
hanging off her husband's arm like the weight of the crime that holds her down
she's shaking
trying to hurl off all the lonely isolation
as her husband lo and talks to ghosts
and kills
not just
men but
her as well.
The woman walks and talks asleep
scratches skin and tries to scrub away the sticking-plaster guilt
but still it stays
forces of darkness she invited
staying long past their welcome and
not just
eating all
the food
but her as well.
The woman recognises blood
splattering the deceased's names across her arms in swirling crimson lines like marker pen
that won't wash off
maybe she'd be better off dead than praying
wishing she could drown her err
in just
a little
spot of
water.
Dec 14, 2014
Dec 14, 2014 at 6:21 AM UTC
Amongst an array of dusty old recipe books
And a micellany of utensils
Stood a thin silhouette
Of the Sleepy Old Man.
Conducting a show
Of his culinary orchestra
Stirring,Blanching
Baking,Frying
Seasoning and Tasting
With that grace
Like a ballerina
Dancing
As he prepares the glaze.
He packs the orders
Takes another 10
And tosses a biscuit to a dog.
Writes a message
At the back of the bill
While drinking Chocolate Eggnog
A smile
Always a smile
He wears as his armour
Leading
A Red Army
Delivering not only food
But also a message to mankind
Feeding not only their mouths
But also their mind.
Mar 29, 2014
Mar 29, 2014 at 11:51 AM UTC
even from afar I could feel
his eyes on me; he seem
to mouth, come love let
me breathe my essence
between your lips;
allow my effluvium
to fill you with my misty
enchantment inhaling
my sweet aroma as it
floats from the snowcaps
of yesteryear so, I can melt
between fertile breast;
branching out stem to stem
affecting every capillary upon
entrance to your portal; I take
a double take blanching from
his stare, I cover my olfactory
senses; masking disdain
with every whiff of assault;
letting him know my lungs
are clearly off limits
Feb 19, 2013
Feb 19, 2013 at 12:45 PM UTC
I am a dream dancer.
My strings are taut
over the vaults of the sky so soft.
Like a quiet muse I hear
the silent night breaking in.
Like marble, strands of clouds shine brightly,
in shades of rosé and nacre here,
those anxious sounds are getting lost,
now blanching in rust and debris near.
I am a dream dancer,
staggeringly floating in the sea of the world,
wobbling and falling on thin ropes,
spoiled in nothingness and oh so empty,
despicably holding the here in fear.
I am a dream dancer.
And I fall
As an eternal bliss truant
To the ground.
© fey (28/12/17)
Sep 14, 2020
Sep 14, 2020 at 2:23 AM UTC
a snow falls upon us
blanching our being
in throes of starkness
silently we shiver
as crystallized tears
slice our eyes
icicles of
random fate
pierce our
hearts
shredding
the last strongholds
of youth blessed hope
draining reservoirs
of love into tepid
pools of blood
growing at our feet
our prayers fail
to keep the deadly
blizzards at bay
bearing this days
daily pestilence
ravaging the
fragile semblance
of our crumbling
humanity
what winds
bring this snow?
these terrible
clouds descending
upon us
drowns us in groaning
waves of desolation
with such startling
finality
for the children, teachers, parents and community of Newtown CT
Music Selection: Prokofiev, Peter and the Wolf
jbm
12/14/12
Savannah, GA
Feb 18, 2013
Feb 18, 2013 at 5:53 PM UTC
Was it a divine sign amongst the creation –
A revelation so lightsome and pregnant –
That a blanching feather’s unforeseen descent
Made my poetic soul blench for evocation?
Surely, t’was from some celestial spheres, –
Angelic wings of cherubs and seraphim –
So long been soaking in firmamental affairs
That human mental senses but morphine.
A feather if eatable, a matter of addiction –
Plucking and plucking without satiety –
If been drinkable, a matter of intoxication
Leading humans into ever inebriety.
---
O’ glorious feathers who hover with mystery –
Over skyey dreams and unearthly visions –
Which land on the earth with vice and misery,
Lending the haver only vain aspirations.
O’ one-time ornaments of the seven heavens –
Brightness and whiteness of all times –
Have you no shame on the dirt of your pens
Writing worldly prose and heretic rhymes?
By-the-way, your heaven is no heaven but a sky –
As well as not every brightening is holy –
Just as Icarus has fallen from and by your high
As others are mystified by your fake glory.
---
Whether art thou the sinister poker of Iblis –
Leading by a dancing feather in the hand –
Human arts like the one that let fall Ibn Idris
Calling with fair words to the Fallen’s land?
Whether divine inspirations in form of an aura –
Blown on the poor’s brow as enlightenment –
Art thou as the freshening science of soul and soma
Kindling the minds’ muscles as a tea of mint?
Oh, Only God knows of Ma’at’s Hall of gloom –
If one’s deeds worth a feather morrow –
So, I seek only Deus’ forgiving, life-giving plume
To pardon my feather on the mortal pillow.
Oct 5, 2019
Oct 5, 2019 at 1:13 AM UTC
High upon a basalt cliff,
carpeted round with lily fields
and blanching poppys' lips,
high upon a basalt throne,
Persephone sits.
Frail as lily wands,
lithe as Syrinx songs upon a reed.
And there, below,
grim Sisyphus,
and there the Centaur-sire
spins upon a wheel of fire.
And there, Tantalus sits grinning
mumbling prayers of sin and sinning,
hunkered down to steal the peach
which quickly leaps beyond his reach.
Or there, a hundred weary sisters
with a hundred leaking jugs
and a cistern dry as bone.
High upon the basalt cliff,
still as infant breath upon the air,
Persphone, sits and stares.
Feb 1, 2017
Feb 1, 2017 at 12:31 PM UTC
pain is temporary
still I crave its fuel
feeding hunger, burning
through darkness,
wafer moon teases
naked trees
blanching sleek limbs
running away
from desperate crowds
that sting my senses,
from curses singeing
midnight nerves,
I am
a warrior
in No Man's Land
Feb 13, 2021
Feb 13, 2021 at 11:43 AM UTC
...With much ancestral barking, and
loaded quieting, the ghosts sat down
to paint.
Color renounced the spectrum...
blanching their translucent shrouds
as the firmament flailed maniacally,
bludgeoning the telltale signs of lives
painted by number.
A fractal engorged upon itself...the
ghosts foisted their vision.
As refracted tunnel lights upon the
cyclopic eye of a subway train...from
front to rear.
Went through both ends of The Tunnel,
broad daylight...broadening, and
broadening--till the ghosts sat down to
paint...tethered color snapped loose.
Oct 28, 2013
Oct 28, 2013 at 2:06 PM UTC
The typical person—
Strives to become better and good
Will always see that they have some advantage in the matter
Enjoys art, in some form (the species-specific expression of humanity)
Seeks comfort, and pleasure in its way,
Seeks love, a bare necessity for flourishing survival
Gives love, by instinct, causation, or personal values
Would give much to have the answers to everything and all
Still, in the exhaustion of panic unearthed,
Constricted chest muscles, proverbial blanching ache
And anguishing doubt
Just them same—
We will only partake
In beliefs without pain
Jul 20, 2014
Jul 20, 2014 at 11:12 PM UTC
Calm clam
I command you
DANCE,
for all the world is shivering
and your foot
is a fire
a-tingle
with wood and
what some say sorcery
others say forgiveness
and Blood like mine
is far from wine,
but made for blanching
snow, - -
to fall
deep
-lee
into ropes,
oh stretching
cords wrapped deepened
from my lungs,
all my organs build a latch,
a gate, a sink,
a house,
a humble mansion
for a crumble-man:sinned
and
tor
che
d/// to spirits
of
a
liquor.
To build again a fire,
not flames,
but a W(Holy)
consumption,
"I am not dead yet", but once soon I will.
Apr 9, 2013
Apr 9, 2013 at 12:32 AM UTC
There was one one question, that would not leave my side.
As though when you left me, you gave me this question,
And with it you wanted me to flourish and to grow
But instead, with the weight of this question
I am drowning
Breathing self-doubt,
Inhaling self-loathing,
Exhaling fumes of venomous disappointment.
“Who am I now?”
It plays and plays and plays in my head,
A broken record,
An anthem of ugly truth.
“Who am I now?”
It lives in my shadows,
Stalking me at day,
And it fuels itself with my sleep,
Plaguing my nights.
This burden of a question,
Yet sickeningly,
It is where I find solace.
“Who am I now?”
I could be like her,
Kind, compassionate,
Charismatic and defiant.
I could.
Yet I can't.
“Who am I now?”
Because I am all but what she was,
I have this awful habit you see,
Of making every aspect of me,
A colossal- unmistakable- dissappointment.
There was one one question, that would not leave my side.
As though when you left me, you gave me this question,
And with it you wanted me to flourish and to grow
But instead, with the weight of this question
I am drowning.
Blanching,
at how I **** everything up.
I should be better,
I must be.
But in my wake,
In the wake of your death,
All that remains is chaos.
Carnage.
Anarchy.
Inside,
All is lost,
There is no hope.
I have no hope.
My mind is a map that's been
Scribbled over by a child,
With a black crayon-
No. Charcoal.
Everything I saw to be my future
And the happiness of the past
Is going up in flames,
Roaring flames of burning sunset
And I am sat by the fire
Warming my icy fingers,
The blood drained from each one-
And I watch my life go up in a hazy smoke of blackness
Why?
At least now,
I can bask in the glory,
In the self-doubt.
I don't know who I am.
I don't know who I am.
I want to make you proud.
I want to stop,
Stop hurting,
And still-
I will not let the pain go. In the pain lives,
Your truest memories,
Your purest form.
I will not let go,
I promise.
This **** question,
Will not let me go.
“Who am I now?”
Inside all is lost.
I am groping and grasping,
Clasping and scratching,
At thin air,
Making a humourous, feeble attempt,
At finding,
Peace. Maybe?
Real happiness.
My hands turn up empty,
Tired of trying so hard,
To just be alright.
It's alright.
The happiness stays
At a safe distance
Knowing if it comes too near,
I will pounce.
And I will crush it in my palm,
Because a voice inside screams
I don't deserve it
And I listen
Drunk on painting myself to be,
A colossal- unmistakable- dissappointment.
“Who am I now?”
I know,
I know now.
My mind is a map that's been
Scribbled over by a child,
With a black crayon-
No. Charcoal.
I am the child.
I am the charcoal,
I am the fire,
That is devouring everything I love,
And that includes my sanity,
I am she,
Who pulls the first brick in the wall,
The wall labelled me,
Watching myself crumble,
Basking in the anguish-
I am she.
The enemy avowed,
The snatcher of my peace.
I know who I am now,
I know,
I know.
Mar 22, 2019
Mar 22, 2019 at 7:29 PM UTC
As if pair of faded curtains my life draws to it's end.
Hopefully not too soon, I guess.
Bearing the wind through the overt windows
Teased by blanching sunlight,
Ripped by pulling fingers.
Dated tassels hung from saggy hems.
Wrinkled, in need of ironing.
Life is but one pressing engagement, leading to another.
Long fringe dresses my brow line,
Curtains that inhibit future vision.
Time for a hair cut perhaps.
Lighten the load.
(C) LIVVI
Jul 21, 2016
Jul 21, 2016 at 5:59 PM UTC
My retinas severed one weary, darkened night,
I could no longer stand in my own fright,
My cuticles lost to some melancholy lore
Flipping through pages I used to adore,
The blanching of the atoms, each and every cell within,
I could not hope to pursue what lies therein,
Some weakened, hollow shell of the man I used to be,
I would keep looking for you,
But, alas, I cannot see.
I once thought that my mind would eat itself,
Every forlorn synapse, fighting amongst themselves,
When the doubt came clouded, and my head gave in to rot,
The rain became too crowded, each drop is what I sought,
The creation of this December, so cold and without morn,
Gave birth to iced embers somewhere inside to scorn,
I personified malice and yet still my hatred grew,
All but one living thing I wanted to undo,
I wanted you to see me at my most evil worst,
I wanted you to breathe my name as curse,
But now that I have seceded to the inner most retainer,
I see how worthless the person is your body keeps contained here,
Your **** heart locks love like loose lace,
Spilled wind chills fill your killed embrace,
The frail, pale gales pierce your assailed bones,
As your shit-shining ship sinks, think of home.
Aug 31, 2016
Aug 31, 2016 at 7:11 PM UTC
ONE SMALL STEP
The moon delights
in its shadow play
wantonly displays herself
now coyly hides
behind the flimsiest of clouds
making light of dark...dark light.
Teases
our senses
acts out
our romantic notions
as if a poet
had hung her there
suspended in time
and thought
created only of words
& our desires
this orb
an actor
in our play
THE ART OF LOVE.
She belongs
in songs
exclusively the month
of June
a banal rhyme.
Here
on our honeymoon
men walk
across her face
bringing her back
to reality
as if she had gone
insane
believing she was
a poet’s plaything.
Blanching now the wood:
“I have also relied on the kindness of poets!”
All her reflected glory
lost
amongst dust and rocks
little steps and giant steps.
Was it just a tale
I heard told
of Persian storytellers
suing NASA
for spoiling how
she should be seen?
Behold!
Bold as a newly minted
wife
I unbind the moon
set her loose
let her run free
again in the wilderness
of
imaginations
free from scientific
discourse
as I dance with
my newly acquired husband.
A mariachi band plays
MOONLIGHT SERENADE
in our chiaroscuro
of love
the moon
smiling down on
our dreams
( our dreams ).
Aug 9, 2017
Aug 9, 2017 at 7:16 PM UTC