"blazon" poems
Side by side, their faces blurred,
The earl and countess lie in stone,
Their proper habits vaguely shown
As jointed armour, stiffened pleat,
And that faint hint of the absurd -
The little dogs under their feet.
Such plainness of the pre-baroque
Hardly involves the eye, until
It meets his left-hand gauntlet, still
Clasped empty in the other; and
One sees, with a sharp tender shock,
His hand withdrawn, holding her hand.
They would not think to lie so long.
Such faithfulness in effigy
Was just a detail friends would see:
A sculptor's sweet commissioned grace
Thrown off in helping to prolong
The Latin names around the base.
They would no guess how early in
Their supine stationary voyage
The air would change to soundless damage,
Turn the old tenantry away;
How soon succeeding eyes begin
To look, not read. Rigidly they
Persisted, linked, through lengths and breadths
Of time. Snow fell, undated. Light
Each summer thronged the grass. A bright
Litter of birdcalls strewed the same
Bone-littered ground. And up the paths
The endless altered people came,
Washing at their identity.
Now, helpless in the hollow of
An unarmorial age, a trough
Of smoke in slow suspended skeins
Above their scrap of history,
Only an attitude remains:
Time has transfigures them into
Untruth. The stone fidelity
They hardly meant has come to be
Their final blazon, and to prove
Our almost-instinct almost true:
What will survive of us is love.
8.8k
If I should labor through daylight and dark,
Consecrate, valorous, serious, true,
Then on the world I may blazon my mark;
And what if I don't, and what if I do?
5k
MESSENGER
Now at the Seventh Gate the seventh chief,
Thy proper mother's son, I will announce,
What fortune for this city, for himself,
With curses he invoketh:--on the walls
Ascending, heralded as king, to stand,
With paeans for their capture; then with thee
To fight, and either slaying near thee die,
Or thee, who wronged him, chasing forth alive,
Requite in kind his proper banishment.
Such words he shouts, and calls upon the gods
Who o'er his race preside and Fatherland,
With gracious eye to look upon his prayers.
A well-wrought buckler, newly forged, he bears,
With twofold blazon riveted thereon,
For there a woman leads, with sober mien,
A mailed warrior, enchased in gold;
Justice her style, and thus the legend speaks:--
'This man I will restore, and he shall hold
The city and his father's palace homes.'
Such the devices of the hostile chiefs.
'Tis for thyself to choose whom thou wilt send;
But never shalt thou blame my herald-words.
To guide the rudder of the State be thine!
ETEOCLES
O heaven-demented race of Oedipus,
My race, tear-fraught, detested of the gods!
Alas, our father's curses now bear fruit.
But it beseems not to lament or weep,
Lest lamentations sadder still be born.
For him, too truly Polyneikes named,--
What his device will work we soon shall know;
Whether his braggart words, with madness fraught,
Gold-blazoned on his shield, shall lead him back.
Hath Justice communed with, or claimed him hers,
Guided his deeds and thoughts, this might have been;
But neither when he fled the darksome womb,
Or in his childhood, or in youth's fair prime,
Or when the hair thick gathered on his chin,
Hath Justice communed with, or claimed him hers,
Nor in this outrage on his Fatherland
Deem I she now beside him deigns to stand.
For Justice would in sooth belie her name,
Did she with this all-daring man consort.
In these regards confiding will I go,
Myself will meet him. Who with better right?
Brother to brother, chieftain against chief,
Foeman to foe, I'll stand. Quick, bring my spear,
My greaves, and armor, bulwark against stones.
4.8k
When in the chronicle of wasted time
I see descriptions of the fairest wights,
And beauty making beautiful old rhyme
In praise of ladies dead, and lovely knights,
Then, in the blazon of sweet beauty’s best,
Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,
I see their antique pen would have expressed
Even such a beauty as you master now.
So all their praises are but prophecies
Of this our time, all you prefiguring;
And, for they looked but with divining eyes,
They had not skill enough your worth to sing.
For we, which now behold these present days,
Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.
2.7k
The poet sang of a battle-field
Where doughty deeds were done,
Where stout blows rang on helm and shield
And a kingdom's fate was spun
With the scarlet thread of victory,
And honor from death's grim revelry
Like a flame-red flower was won!
So bravely he sang that all who heard
With the sting of the fight and the triumph were stirred,
And they cried, "Let us blazon his name on high,
He has sung a song that will never die!"
Again, full throated, he sang of fame
And ambition's honeyed lure,
Of the chaplet that garlands a mighty name,
Till his listeners fired with the god-like flame
To do, to dare, to endure!
The thirsty lips of the world were fain
The cup of glamor he vaunted to drain,
And the people murmured as he went by,
"He has sung a song that will never die !"
And once more he sang, all low and apart,
A song of the love that was born in his heart:
Thinking to voice in unfettered strain
Its sweet delight and its sweeter pain;
Nothing he cared what the throngs might say
Who passed him unheeding from day to day,
For he only longed with his melodies
The soul of the one beloved to please.
The song of war that he sang is as naught,
For the field and its heroes are long forgot,
And the song he sang of fame and power
Was never remembered beyond its hour!
Only to-day his name is known
By the song he sang apart and alone,
And the great world pauses with joy to hear
The notes that were strung for a lover's ear.
1.9k
You carry in your eyes pure childlike wonder
Still you want to see world and just to explore
Youth has many options to commit blunder
When entire universe desires to love and adore
Stars are in eyes and blazon sun in her chest
She wants to conquer entire world in her prime
Under any definition she just remains the best
She with her graces remains queen of the time
Her beauty haunts me where ever I go, I look
She makes her surroundings so colorful,so good
She has taken me over with celebrated outlook
All praise even if she keep her beauty withstood
Col Muhammad Khalid Khan
Copyright 2016 Golden Glow
Oct 1, 2016
Oct 1, 2016 at 1:17 AM UTC
What are we as human beings.
To continue this charade.
Feelings don’t reflect emotion.
A constant broken reproduction.
Something alien.
Stuffing toilet paper in our ears to avoid the sound.
Like a radio wave you reach me.
Through brick walls and curtain calls.
Never believing our names weren’t meant to be blazon in neon.
Your voice echoes through canyons.
Street lights and passersbys.
From dandelion pistols.
From candy cane hair.
I found you like a fossil.
Buried deep in my past.
Gasping for air.
Breathing resentment.
“I think you should go.”
“I think you should stay.”
Forever.
Jan 22, 2015
Jan 22, 2015 at 6:06 AM UTC
My sweetheart wants me to be in my arms
For her beauty my love will forget norms
Only an atheist can ignore all her charms
Let me face her graces just in violent storms
She loves me and wants to be my princess
Her beauty has snatched away my senses
My heart is restless and my soul is anxious
Intensity of love makes both of us breathless
Let my love and kiss me your lips one on one
Let us take in the hands your each moon , sun
My sweetheart my gardenia flower my jasmine
Come in my arms let your beauty go to blazon
Col Muhammad Khalid Khan
Copyright 2016 Golden Glow
Oct 11, 2016
Oct 11, 2016 at 6:45 AM UTC
There's always been something
so Hollywood about her--
and I don't mean
21st Century ********
I'm talkin'
Judy Garland,
you're the bee's knees
type of Hollywood.
Now, listen'--
this girl--
I'm talkin'
Bombshell-Cutie
(she'll blow your
fuckin'socks off).
I'm talkin'
Cinematic Beauty Queen;
skin freckled with film grain
the same way the night sky
is freckled with constellation,
mouth parted like velvet curtains,
only to reveal the sweetest prose.
She is Mystique-Fatale,
blazon in colour
among dull, sepia tones--
an Oz among all
the dreary Kansases.
She is allure and poeticism,
hair curled grand,
dressed to the nines
in lace and satin
(they wonder
what lies beyond the
half moons of her *******
and the slit in her gown,
if the butterflies
run rampant
between her knees
like everyone says).
Do not underestimate her--
she is both
Shirley-Temple-Sweetheart
(her kindness
does not falter)
and Pinup-Girl-Honey
(one would not think
to challenge--
to break--
a woman
so prolifically brazen,
but they try anyway).
In a world filled
with actresses--
please, darlings,
save the acting for
the stage,
******* it--
she is so ineffably herself.
She does not reserve
her emotion for
the theatre alone;
she is not afraid
to cry, and--
Jesus--
when she cries
the earth shakes
with the very profusions
of an opera singer's vibrato.
And, God,
you should hear
her poetry,
brimmed with images
picturesque and tragic,
straight outta the movies
it would seem.
Yet, her words
ring with something
so inconceivably real.
And that's what
you've always loved
best about her--
she is the truest person
you've ever met.
It's a shame, then,
that you wouldn't stay
for the grand finale.
But,
with or without you,
this show must go on.
(and it has).
Jan 15, 2019
Jan 15, 2019 at 9:34 PM UTC
I have come to realize that sunsets are
archways into a mourning and deft Earth.
Urban streets become hunting grounds –
growling crass echoes to her ears;
eerie red eyes.
Swimming in this sea, the fish come to feed –
fields upon fields of endless black concrete
caulked with hands reaching from shadows
shan't see us. Artificial lights,
like showers, swing.
She is unyielding: a light in nothing,
null to the very gravity she bends.
Belle, eyes that swallow fireflies,
fight a darkness that dawned in her:
hurt by dulled sheen.
Walking close enough, providing armor,
our coats barely touch: nylon on her wool
would give a warmth street lights can't give.
Gifted by moon's light, only then –
then I see her.
A flower, healing yellow, on her cheek
chiefly blazon the frailty of her skin.
Skiffs could take her from bottom,
but, she’s sun grayed; a soft hidden
hymn of the moon.
Oct 31, 2014
Oct 31, 2014 at 10:39 AM UTC
He closes his eyes as usual. That starts it.
Gallon blackness against thin skin but split,
Suffused with a million rushed and serene
Shades of purple and sickly, retinal green.
Squares and curves, utterly vertical rounds
Imprinted obsidian spheres, half-sounds.
A vague intimation of abyssal, milk white:
Horizontal paradigms on the coast of sight.
Yes, indeed the whiteness on the horizon
Flutters scop-musical like a lark’s blazon.
How it snatches up the blackness, losing
Clarity of its edge like madmen’s choosing.
It ceases growing yet consumes all within
The poor man’s eyes, traversing the din.
A pure, blank line that is born in the mind
Fills the soul nacreous, leaves him behind.
Goes it beyond him and stretches open.
Straight wide. Too wide. Much too wide!
The teeth he hadn’t noticed crush him dog-brightly
And pull him fast inside.
He opens his eyes as usual. That ends it.
May 18, 2010
May 18, 2010 at 11:21 AM UTC
I past beside the reverend walls
In which of old I wore the gown;
I roved at random thro' the town,
And saw the tumult of the halls;
And heard one more in college fanes
The storm their high-built organs make,
And thunder-music, rolling, shake
The prophet blazon'd on the panes;
And caught one more the distant shout,
The measured pulse of racing oars
Among the willows; paced the shores
And many a bridge, and all about
The same gray flats again, and felt
The same, but not the same; and last
Up that long walk of limes I past
To see the rooms in which he dwelt.
Another name was on the door:
I linger'd; all within was noise
Of songs, and clapping hands, and boys
That crash'd the glass and beat the floor;
Where once we held debate, a band
Of youthful friends, on mind and art,
And labour, and the changing mart,
And all the framework of the land;
When one would aim an arrow fair,
But send it slackly from the string;
And one would pierce an outer ring,
And one an inner, here and there;
And last the master-bowman, he,
Would cleave the mark. A willing ear
We lent him. Who, but hung to hear
The rapt oration flowing free
From point to point, with power and grace
And music in the bounds of law,
To those conclusions when we saw
The God within him light his face,
And seem to lift the form, and glow
In azure orbits heavenly wise;
And over those ethereal eyes
The bar of Michael Angelo.
1.1k
walking hearts the long way
up mountains
down mud ice rock
carrying anima
and animal as needed
with intent sensitive agility
and brilliant sullen creation
beyond my comprehension
walking bliss walking
no where home
no lack
I hold the needs
as you walk free
Oct 28, 2014
Oct 28, 2014 at 5:46 AM UTC
The spring's winds here in the south
hold the magnolia hint upon the air
The warm day's rays conquers the mornings chill
And the vapors of the day seem to dance upon the mind.
Seems all in Tennessee draws upon its hush
The little market stores holds the laid back expression
The old men still linger around the corners
with the chewing tobacco stains the pavement
And all the while the sun beats upon beat
the blazon rays of a springs radiance
and drops upon the frown of an offer
Of sweetened tea and apple pie.
Alisdaire O'Caoimph
Mar 24, 2011
Mar 24, 2011 at 1:22 PM UTC
I walked out on a limb for you
My fascination with the view
Lead me to my reject my nest
First one foot and then the next
My balance shrill and ill-disposed
Harmonized while wind composed
A tragic song of aching words
That first seemed sweet and then the birds
Realized rootless I had stepped
No wings to right the disconnect
Between the branch and the great tree
The limb it trembled underneath
The quake unseen by your dark head
My faith a testament instead
To cold and unforgiving stone
Far beneath the branch that moaned
Unable to support the weight
Of trusting, willing, twisted faith
My nest was warm and safe and fine
Until your words mingled with mine
And then it seemed an empty mound
Of sticks and twigs so unprofound
That stepping out was only right
My boldness such a blazon sight
And then you sharpened your sweet axe
So swift and fierce was your attack
Jan 6, 2012
Jan 6, 2012 at 7:11 PM UTC
When love proposes action beauty surpasses reflection
Only survives enchanting chain remaining goes to none
When beloved is in arms then universe seems crimson
Love is in my blood like my innocent, violent passion
Love is when you that you are not but love is all around
When love is in line of beauty then one becomes bound
To see what all is real to listen to the inner eternal sound
Then all is on horizon and nothing remains on the ground
My beloved let me taste what all your beauty is to portray
Tear me in to pieces and enter like blazon burning sun ray
You are like darkness of my life you are like dawn of the day
Let us embrace in sheer trance and let us sing and let us pray
It is oneness which remains it is a flower which is to bloom
It is only one tinkling of heart while both of us we are in room
In all this vacuum it is love and beauty which need to resume
Do not measure my love, you will never ever measure its volume
Col Muhammad Khalid Khan
Copyright 2016 Golden Glow
Jul 19, 2016
Jul 19, 2016 at 1:36 AM UTC
Beloved
fur sheen black as skin is pink
eyes unnatural green glow
who rubs against our legs and stays
tail wrapped in ownership around
intelligence honed by games razor sharp
whose lungs fill with fluid now like an old smoking man
and must be given drugs
and must be slept with
for he must not die ignored
my heart aches with his
Jul 19, 2014
Jul 19, 2014 at 7:27 AM UTC
A Blazon sonnet?
That’s the one an
Elizabethan lover
would turn his
Elizabethan Miss
into a
list
itemise her attributes
(hidden or otherwise)
& tick ‘em off
bit by bit
like a ledger clerk
closing an account.
From the colour
of her eyes
(always had to be blue)
to the colour of her
hair(always a blonde)
from toes to ***
in one hit.
Sincere...not
the least little bit!
Yawn...stop me if you have heard this one!
A fashion accessory
for the gay young blade about town
already fallen out of fashion
before it had barely begun.
“Oi...darling! ”
“Yeah...you love! ”
“Get your ruff on
...you’ve pulled! ”
“I got 14 lines
Petrarchan or Shakespearean
...know wot I mean? ! ”
And a clever
clearheaded Elizabethan lady
would more than likely
(but politely)
tell ‘em
“Oh...f***est thou
off! ”
Jun 7, 2015
Jun 7, 2015 at 4:25 PM UTC
Beyond the blue the Almighty lives
His geography clue the universe never leaves
Loving and kind at church they say
In the incandescent city he bears sway
King of kings He reigns supreme
Angels sing of His majesty sublime
A rod of iron with dazzling crown
Infinite mercies reach the trim of His gown
His blazon feet on pavement of gold rest
The land of knowledge where wisdom nests
There all tribulations are under arrest
And none of this here ever wrest
And He bows down the world beneath
Watching affairs down the Earth
He hears the cry of a dying world
Holding loose His hopeful immutable word
Down here pain and injustice reign
Anarchy and fear hold the reins
And righteousness and love never rain
Its tribunals and magistrates give lain
I saw it all in this little boy
Calamity and misfortune keep him abuoy
His skin wrinkled and tender flesh crusted
Where poverty is built a niche and clustered
Hardly walking and can hardly breath
Amidst town people who walk by in blithe
And so fights on till exhausted he gives in
And lays him forever silent in nature’s inn
Feb 1, 2012
Feb 1, 2012 at 8:24 AM UTC
He started tinkling in my heart and became just heart
My soul is a streak of light from that eternal fountain
He has taken over me never ever to leave or to depart
I am just a burning amber he is unlimited blazon sun
He is an umbrella and I am in his strong cover to exist
When he takes me over I remain no more but a shadow
It is great kindness on his part which I can not resist
I am just a tiny beam in that eternal ever growing glow
He loves me I love him and this is all what I can share
I am bestowed by his mercy And no one can dare to be
I am just a particle of dust he is the ever loving glare
In his presence I just see, see him to lose myself in thee
Col Muhammad Khalid Khan
Copyright 2016 Golden Glow
Nov 22, 2016
Nov 22, 2016 at 3:38 AM UTC
I am thirsty of your love take me to the fountain
Sprinkle beauty on me and just make me fertile
Be mine and leave the world to make me sustain
Come to my arms embrace even just for a while
My miseries and troubles given me lot of pain
I have lost all my confidence help me to bloom
Love my love has taken over my heart and brain
I see darkness all around in dejection and gloom
Life travels with you give your image to blazon
Spread your beauty all around just for my solace
Take my heart and mend since it is totally broken
Come just to my arms and have a lovely embrace
Col Muhammad Khalid Khan
Copyright 2016 Golden Glow
Sep 4, 2016
Sep 4, 2016 at 1:26 AM UTC
Blood-rich, vibrant, swirling petals dance, swing
Around breezes, tremble petulantly,
Feeling power course: green heartfelt stems sing,
Wearing thorn-mail, blazon, nonchalantly.
Cruel thoughts drift timidly toward the wood,
Shady under-shadows conceal pollen,
Ash bees sing the Roses’ song- Ruby food
Feeding volcanic hearts, single chronons
Bounce between young cupid’s glass heart garden,
Dream half coloured mirage: Wood-Nirvana.
Water drips and sputters, flower haven
Calls from woodlands as Father to Maiden,
Calling gently to sail, meander home.
Rest safe in the halls of horticulture.
Sep 18, 2019
Sep 18, 2019 at 10:33 AM UTC
Face of the fallen . . .
Morning after our parting,
. . . Full moon in daylight.
Aug 27, 2014
Aug 27, 2014 at 9:28 PM UTC
My Jasmine
My sweetheart wants me to be in my arms
For her beauty my love will forget norms
Only an atheist can ignore all her charms
Let me face her graces just in violent storms
She loves me and wants to be my princess
Her beauty has snatched away my senses
My heart is restless and my soul is anxious
Intensity of love makes both of us breathless
Let my love and kiss me your lips one on one
Let us take in the hands your each moon , sun
My sweetheart my gardenia flower my jasmine
Come in my arms let your beauty go to blazon
Col Muhammad Khalid Khan
Copyright 2016 Golden Glow
Feb 25, 2017
Feb 25, 2017 at 4:24 PM UTC
I weave words within
an ephemeral
tapestry. a seamstress,
or a scribe of sorts.
either way you hear it;
the song remains
the same.
I understand and I do
not: a simultaneous
quantum superposition
(or superstition) for
an unutterable blazon of
infinity, encapsulated
within a granule of sand amidst
the eye of a great tempest.
I cannot claim a prophet.
no. I do not merit
such bravado.
no testament to my
works and days,
nor presumptuous air
of religiosity.
my fingers sketch out a
tempo through the
c
u
r
v
e
s
of letters,
a form which
sings and dances
for those who cannot.
Feb 1, 2019
Feb 1, 2019 at 3:48 PM UTC