"brims" poems
We're forced, each man, to walk a trialed path—
resisted trek, uphill through blinding daze
that shrouds with crucible's perplexing haze
till fog-white skies yield quick to black clouds' wrath.
Affliction brims a thorny pack to bear
whilst dewy darkness drenches in the night,
but where is calming lamp to lend us sight?
And who will come to give us saving care?
Here through veil is heard a whisper certain,
then o'er the mountain creeps the dawning day
and with clear eyes we see the brume give way
as God retracts His theatre's curtain,
unsheathing velvet waves whose morning sheen
beyond grey mist splays vast and wondrous green.
Aug 31, 2018
Aug 31, 2018 at 12:51 AM UTC
Out of lemon flowers
loosed
on the moonlight, love's
lashed and insatiable
essences,
sodden with fragrance,
the lemon tree's yellow
emerges,
the lemons
move down
from the tree's planetarium
Delicate merchandise!
The harbors are big with it-
bazaars
for the light and the
barbarous gold.
We open
the halves
of a miracle,
and a clotting of acids
brims
into the starry
divisions:
creation's
original juices,
irreducible, changeless,
alive:
so the freshness lives on
in a lemon,
in the sweet-smelling house of the rind,
the proportions, arcane and acerb.
Cutting the lemon
the knife
leaves a little cathedral:
alcoves unguessed by the eye
that open acidulous glass
to the light; topazes
riding the droplets,
altars,
aromatic facades.
So, while the hand
holds the cut of the lemon,
half a world
on a trencher,
the gold of the universe
wells
to your touch:
a cup yellow
with miracles,
a breast and a ******
perfuming the earth;
a flashing made fruitage,
the diminutive fire of a planet.
42k
A message heart delivered by a musing troubadour
left footprints upon a well weathered rivers’ rocky shoal
the lazy days of the summer’s simmering
ethereal breezes lazily waft astir
Unknown distance ‘tween yonder skies azure;
thoughts of nebulous distances fearlessly ignored to be sure,
connectedness sown and deference’s soar from high above,
yet beyond vast breadth afar the great divide
His brimful heart in hand fulfills passersby thirst
needing love here, hearts on sleeves sincere,
wellspring sensibilities handed out willingly here
voids filled by word of quill …
right now is the known needed time
Glasses half empty suffused to their half full brims;
do unto others you will reap just what ye sow,
a poet beyond the bounds of his own demure,
bearing immense understanding
The quintessential essence of family love
drips from heart like heavens rain,
testifies the heart's purpose for being
A poet’s voice speaks in soul’s timeless tongues
unknown breaths from another understanding realm
too deep for words;
yet the word sayer struggles to see his forest ‘s poetic beauty
for to see beyond the pendant beauty
within its magnificent grandeur
of his own gifted heart’s nurtured trees.
~
The Twist
This poem was not written by me.
It was written almost four years ago,
lying fallow in some passing cloud.
Writ for me by someone effervescently more talented than I,
and one of the poets whose quality of work, and command of our shared language is something to which all of us should aspire.
I post it now as yet another homage to the true author.
For in reading it, never was a poem was far more clearly,
an unwitting self-portrait.
**It was written on August 21st, 2013
by Harlon Rivers**
by Nat Lipstadt
Apr 15, 2017
Apr 15, 2017 at 12:53 PM UTC
The fiscal snare is drawing tight
Putin’s day... now courting night,
Rouble tilts vertiginously
To Satan’s **** religiously.
Fiscal snare is drawing blood
A trickle then... is now a flood,
Russia’s central bank adjusts
But ineffectually, combusts.
Hard line prospects elbow dance
Aligning for assasins lance.
Perhaps….
Better now, the Devil known
Than facing down an Unknown throne…..
Facing down an Iron call
With finger poised in nuclear thrall.
What choice now for ego’s Prince
Retreat from Eastern Ukraine’s wince?
Retreat Crimea’s balmy shores
To face the nationalistic howl of hordes?
Brinkmanship…the other way
A gamble that the West might sway?
Either way the game is up
Now bitter wine brims Russia’s cup.
M.
Dec 17, 2014
Dec 17, 2014 at 11:39 PM UTC
You may say you don't
but you know me; of me
and my swelling quiet
and they may say
over and over
in a low rumble
not to write of love
I know, I know
I close my eyes
the sanguine lids
like a heart
throbbing
In ink it spills
brims over like tears withheld
and stains the stark white page
your whiskers at dusk
the fine lines in your lips
Your eyes drip like jewels
heavy and sparkling
This smudge of words
I would die in
if I could not write
what I cannot speak
Jul 20, 2013
Jul 20, 2013 at 8:18 AM UTC
Guilty pleasure
But time I treasure
Just you and I
No kids' screaming cry
No wife to bark orders
As we seek new borders
I stroke your limbs
My ego brims
You ride me away
From stresses in my day
Your frame is so light
I ride you just right
You transport my life
In a different way than my wife
I love the both of you
To you both I'll be true
But with you I'm physical
My wife is mystical
You create such sweat
The drips make you soaking wet
As I crank you on ascents
And coast down long descents
I get light headed
Nothing you do is dreaded
You carry me away
So I just needed to say
You are my mistress, my queen
I don't want to be obscene
But if loving you is wrong
Why does my wife sometimes ride along
Sep 7, 2013
Sep 7, 2013 at 8:49 PM UTC
The eye can hardly pick them out
From the cold shade they shelter in,
Till wind distresses tail and main;
Then one crops grass, and moves about
- The other seeming to look on -
And stands anonymous again
Yet fifteen years ago, perhaps
Two dozen distances surficed
To fable them : faint afternoons
Of Cups and Stakes and Handicaps,
Whereby their names were artificed
To inlay faded, classic Junes -
Silks at the start : against the sky
Numbers and parasols : outside,
Squadrons of empty cars, and heat,
And littered grass : then the long cry
Hanging unhushed till it subside
To stop-press columns on the street.
Do memories plague their ears like flies?
They shake their heads. Dusk brims the shadows.
Summer by summer all stole away,
The starting-gates, the crowd and cries -
All but the unmolesting meadows.
Almanacked, their names live; they
Have slipped their names, and stand at ease,
Or gallop for what must be joy,
And not a fieldglass sees them home,
Or curious stop-watch prophesies :
Only the grooms, and the grooms boy,
With bridles in the evening come.
4k
She is the world to me,
An infinite source of eternal glee…
She is the pinnacle of compassion,
God’s greatest creation…
Looking into her eyes gets you transfixed,
Into a world where love, joy and sanguinity is mixed…
Her voice, my rhythm divine,
Which makes me glad to know she’s mine…
Her heart, that’s the sole reason for my being,
Since she’s into the habit of heart stealing….
Her smile that inspires me into motion,
Her mind that brims me up with every positive emotion…
She doesn’t realize, she’s worth lava to a volcano,
The fish to every Eskimo…
She thinks I’m joking, but she’s my life’s repertoire,
My one and only true desire…
She’s as sweet as candy,
And as intoxicating as brandy…
She’s my sweetheart, one of very few,
Who makes every day of my like adventurous and new…
She means everything to me,
For now until all eternity…
Nov 5, 2010
Nov 5, 2010 at 10:35 AM UTC
Goliath:
You buy your love with bourbon creams,
cans of beans and full cupboard brims;
steal clothes to hide a torso of lies
twist that in with teaspoon brown eyes,
deeper than any holy bible’s spine:
found in hotel drawers,
away from the preachy, needy, cast iron shrine.
David:
Whilst the girl you’re with has nothing to give,
no family member nor money splendour,
you battle on with the train rides
cross country,
cross country train track guides.
Audiobook it; listen to it; learn it and write it,
write the letter she deserves, explaining
the ins and outs of your hidden nerves:
the nerves entitled ‘I don’t love you anymore’
My first poetry pamphlet, 'Homeland & Borderland' is still available to buy for only 3.00 GBP with free P+P to anywhere in the world. Both handmade and self published>> http://www.coffeeshoppoems.com/2012/11/it-is-here-homeland-borderland.html
Nov 7, 2012
Nov 7, 2012 at 5:30 AM UTC
sinking echoes lined upon
the purple skin of night
past a curtain of her dreams
strewn into lumpy skies
a wave of solemn emptiness
a taste of seeping prayer
be melt into a blue of dreams
and banished to despair
truly this core of twisted mind
karma in disguise
feeds upon my every pore
and trace the stony eyes
you linger on as traces still
vignette of phantom love
but into the shades of gray
chased upon by world
yet know my muse the arms of sea
were made to hold the sky
when brims of time fade to dust
my love shall survive
Dec 4, 2013
Dec 4, 2013 at 3:46 PM UTC
I saw a golden river,
You see it only in dreams
I am no special than you are,
But the river, oh it streams.
In curls where the locks lie,
The unstoppable river slowly strides,
Down the silver mount of hope
Into the chasm it merrily rides.
In the darkest point where ever you are,
It glows with great exuberance,
It shines, it's northern star,
With darkness it summons for a dance.
Its shiny pearls ray on roofs,
Of the deepest parts where you hide,
You've lived a lie, you see that proof?
the truth illuminated by northern lights.
The blissful river brims and swells,
Where you can't reach it, it pardons,
Though it's a dream it may somewhere,
Steal from the gardens,
It may be obscure, hidden behind,
Oh, it steals from my mind.
It was a partial sober bliss,
To seek a heaven on earth but in sleep,
My haze vision was sweetly kissed
And pulled out from the river so deep.
Oh, the river of golden hills,
I'll find you if I have to keep my breath still
Oh, the river of golden hills,
You will forever echo in me with your sweet trills.
Oh the river of golden hills.
May 26, 2015
May 26, 2015 at 12:30 AM UTC
Rain falls
Trees shake
A storm brims
Hearts quake
Clouds fold
Days haze
Light the sky
Watch it blaze
Feb 17, 2015
Feb 17, 2015 at 2:47 PM UTC
Lust, when it grips us, is a sudden swell,
occasional in a mountain river flowing downhill,
from the high ranges of inflamed emotions.
The ecstatic roar while the discharge is easily forgotten ,
the river runs dry soon enough , when the torrents abruptly stop,
as the winds chase away the clouds, all of a sudden.
But those pools, your blue,beautiful eyes, clearly defy,
rules of seasons,brims invariably with love pure, all along,
and yes,it gets replenished,from the deep well springs
of your heart, it remains full whether I am far or near.
Nov 26, 2015
Nov 26, 2015 at 8:18 AM UTC
Her eyes and lips and waist are sad poems,
which he finds pretty, but hard to look at, due to
the fact that unlike anyone else in the world, he's
indulged himself in the words she's composed of;
he's ran his fingers over the black print covering her
skin, and, mesmerized by her story, found solace in the
melancholic stanzas of optimistic sadness.
A girl with eyes as wide as the moon, maybe even wider,
hides behind books and songs and movies,
which prove nicer than the real world.
He stands tall and silent, one epic poem too long for
the world to read. However,while he's
fast asleep, she runs her fingers over the words and
pictures he's made visible to the world. One long,
sad poem about the world, one the rebels would marvel
at, about what it really is and what it never was.
Tattoos starting at the nape of his neck,
traveling down his arms and back, ink spilled upon a
lonely canvas, displaying a sad but accurate portrayal
of him: the boy who grew up too fast..
They're both odd and difficult to understand;
they are the poems that do not rhyme, the ones with
breaks midway through lines. Scriptures written along
the brims of both their beings, about a precocious boy
with tattoos and a naïve girl with dreams.
Love and dreams and perfume and flowers,
stars and books and blood and tears,
tears and blood and fire and angst,
want and drugs and needles and hate.
But that's okay.
In their affair of little talks, awkward silences,
holding hands beneath tables and speaking with their eyes,
they make beautiful silk webs of words, which hang from
the ceilings, are strewn along the walls and cover them in
their sleep.
Words to lines to stanzas to poems to stories.
Never had there been a more bitter-sweet relationship than
that of two beautifully sad poems in love.
Where he won’t say ‘I love you’, and she swears she understands,
and he sits on the sidelines drinking, while she waits to be asked to dance.
Mar 29, 2014
Mar 29, 2014 at 4:23 PM UTC
"Ähoy" a sudden call, that speaks so much ; looking up I see,
a face familiar for ages,up above the dark, sturdy Palmyra tree,
thirty feet high, amidst the lush canopy of thick green leaves,
his toddy tapper's gear, unchanged for generations, around his waist,
just a breast plate to protect from the rough trunk, while crawling up,
a broad smile, time couldn't wither, on that countenance.
An ancient avatar, he jumps out from a favorite story book,
of childhood, he animated a lot of memories of those times,
walking through the narrow path among trees,a loud "Ähoy"
would unexpectedly greet dad and I, from where the wind reigns,
unaware there is world above, ready to reach us, any time,
cut in to our animated talk on atlas moths with broad wings,
or amazing things, Malabar squirrels that fly from tree to tree.
"Ähoy! Raman!how'z toddy flow today? All fine?"
his voice booming from below, dad would cheer our friend;
more like talking to the wind and trees, pleasantly surreal.
"Ähoy"makes all fall in place, Raman hasn't changed a bit,
time flows only down here, up there it seems standing still,
my little village too has a trap, I suspect, time has no way to escape,
if it makes the river languid, no, Raman seems not to mind!
"Master" the old familiar endearment, "Ẅhat's the matter?
from here, above the clouds, I can see those brooding eyes,
The city, shall I say took all those smiles, you would gift
as a village boy , going to school with your chums, this way"
I know what comes next, fresh toddy served with love as an antidote,
right here under the tree, a brew that brims with memories
of many guilty pleasures of adolescence,can I ever reject?
No worry lines on that gentle face, Raman is ageless, cool,
we sit on a pre historic rock, that extends seating arrangement,
in to container, he made with braided Palmyra leaf,
Raman pours limitless love that for others would look like toddy,
to me this milky liquid, is a magic potion tapped from memories,
of a past that I thought has winged away from me but still here.
I gulp it and get transported to a time, I don't want to forget,
Now the wind, I can hear hums an old haunting tune,familiar
In mild intoxication, we chorus the wind's song on Palmyra leaves.
Sep 6, 2015
Sep 6, 2015 at 11:04 AM UTC
Wake: the silver dusk returning
Up the beach of darkness brims,
And the ship of sunrise burning
Strands upon the eastern rims.
Wake: the vaulted shadow shatters,
Trampled to the floor it spanned,
And the tent of night in tatters
Straws the sky-pavilioned land.
Up, lad, up, 'tis late for lying:
Hear the drums of morning play;
Hark, the empty highways crying
"Who'll beyond the hills away?"
Towns and countries woo together,
Forelands beacon, belfries call;
Never lad that trod on leather
Lived to feast his heart with all.
Up, lad: thews that lie and cumber
Sunlit pallets never thrive;
Morns abed and daylight slumber
Were not meant for man alive.
Clay lies still, but blood's a rover;
Breath's a ware that will not keep.
Up, lad: when the journey's over
There'll be time enough to sleep.
2k
When powers she wields
river she breaks homes
floods paddy fields
Swords of rains
swells her hurt pride
boils her veins
Vengeful she brims
breaks the lock gate
cultivator's dreams
Gone is sweet flow
in the moonlight
soft silver glow
Simmers her soul
raging red hot
she burns like coal
With inflamed tides
she devours the crop
growing on her sides
River now a curse
she wouldn't recede
without leaving scars
She can't be blamed at all
men have only ravaged her
taken her all.
Sep 12, 2016
Sep 12, 2016 at 9:24 AM UTC
Curve of tangent brims on rune of cosmic quantum,
as sparkling rays reel through dew drops at dawn,
for green to enlighten creation by bounty of joy,
meadow grass seems to tumble drinking solace,
resonance of love sprees like beauty of blossom.
speckles of white crystal repose in home of blue,
eyes bespeaks of ethereal exist to seek beyond,
sun awakens earth to uplift from sheath of night,
as if hale of eternity expands to abound beyond ,
petal draws portrait of spark to inflame fragrance.
silence quells grief of soul to emblazon by the journey,
for each drop of tear to absolve guilt of own delusion,
light of love wakes heart to disown from quailing grace,
cry of call genuflects at foothill of warmth to yield unity,
synergy of art evolves to form by sanity of confluence.
Innocence blushes like cadence of hope to run a muck
quest still falters to know very principle of uncertainty
mystery baffles truth of reason to reason out belief
as tendered mellow soft weaves to gather web of love
yet don't we need to learn theory of quantum solace?.
Oct 1, 2015
Oct 1, 2015 at 7:08 PM UTC
Drink of love, my love
I sip through every drop
Hooks on pang of desire
Stirs that venom of passion
Drink of love, my love
Sparks the jar of life
That brims with monotony
Oozes from edges so hazy
Drink of love, my love
Every thread of eagerness
Soaked in fervor so poisonous
Turns crimson gently
Drink of love, my love!
Jun 3, 2015
Jun 3, 2015 at 4:45 AM UTC
When I was born,
From all the seas of strength Fate filled a chalice,
Saying, This be thy portion, child; this chalice,
Less than a lily's, thou shalt daily draw
From my great arteries; nor less, nor more.
All substances the cunning chemist Time
Melts down into that liquor of my life,
Friends, foes, joys, fortunes, beauty, and disgust,
And whether I am angry or content,
Indebted or insulted, loved or hurt,
All he distils into sidereal wine,
And brims my little cup; heedless, alas!
Of all he sheds how little it will hold,
How much runs over on the desert sands.
If a new muse draw me with splendid ray,
And I uplift myself into her heaven,
The needs of the first sight absorb my blood,
And all the following hours of the day
Drag a ridiculous age.
To-day, when friends approach, and every hour
Brings book or starbright scroll of genius,
The tiny cup will hold not a bead more,
And all the costly liquor runs to waste,
Nor gives the jealous time one diamond drop
So to be husbanded for poorer days.
Why need I volumes, if one word suffice?
Why need I galleries, when a pupil's draught
After the master's sketch, fills and o'erfills
My apprehension? Why should I roam,
Who cannot circumnavigate the sea
Of thoughts and things at home, but still adjourn
The nearest matters to another moon?
Why see new men
Who have not understood the old?
1.9k
[Dedicated to Horace Sheridan-Bickers]
A vision of flushed faces, shining limbs,
The madness of the music that entrances
All life in its delirium of dances!
The white world glitters in the void, and swims
Through the infinite seas of transcendental trances.
Yea! all the hoarded seed of all my fancies
Bursts in a shower of suns! The wine-cup brims
And bubbles over; I drink deep hymns
Of sorceries, of spells, of necromancies;
And all my spirit shudders; dew bedims
My sight -these girls and their alluring glances!
Their eyes that burn like dawn's lascivious lances
Walking all earth to love -to love! Life skims
The cream of joy. If God could see what man sees,
(Intoxicating Nellies, Mauds and Nances!)
I see Him leave the sapphrine expanses,
The choir serene and the celestial air
To swoon into their sacramental hair!
1.9k
I
Tired
the long road ends
by a sea wall
The engine dies
to cries of estuary birds
to halyards’ **** and tinge
A lake of light set in night’s cloudscape
brims over the western marshland
to seaward a dense darkness
On the ferry’s step
ear close to the brown water
a part-song sings the ebb tide’s flow
II
Threading into the marshland
a braid of cloud-reflected water
of oval sedge and common reed
In amongst the brown canes perspective vanishes
only by mind’s foreshortening or body’s levitation
is there sight beyond the creeping rootstock
By the river path a leaf
pearled with glazed dew glistening
dew grabbing the photographic eye
Standing backs to the horizon
a sculpted triad of bronzed ancestors
watch over the summer rites of music
III
This ****** field
moves clamorously under the feet
waiting waiting for the sea’s kiss
Proud-coloured the boats here
resting poised on railway sleepers
beside their tractored guardians
How to know which way to turn
which view to hold for memory’s stamp
this patient sky this slow exhaling sea
This foreground flow of white-grey-brown pebbles
each sensibly-sized for the hand in the pocket
yet substantially-singular on the window’s sill
Dec 30, 2012
Dec 30, 2012 at 4:12 AM UTC
Gravity...
Has the guilt of my everything.
Forbiding the only chance to be free,
Chaining my thoughts to the ground.
Hysterical laughs on charcoal leaves flew around,
Disturbing serene sadness of my glee.
Awaken worlds in life's little things
Forsake my tender thoughts to the nothingness wings
Dissipating with velocity
In the hands of Gravity.
Gravity...
It's like an occult religion
With all its strange ways.
Devouring miscellanous levitating dreams
Spreading mercyless comtempt to the ones on the banned brims -
The ones who dared to fly on the Sun's sacred rays.
Gravity is the vermillion
Murderer of all the ancient hopes fallen in the
Slush of eternity.
I've been cursed forever
With the evanescent living...
I've been forbided to say "never";
But my words flew anxiously away...through the ceiling
Despite Gravity.
Nov 21, 2010
Nov 21, 2010 at 7:55 AM UTC
It's Sunday again for you cloistered patricians
aloof from the madness, the magic and myth;
who trust in your wisdom, investments, physicians
unready to answer forthwith:
"Why bother with worship—in church or the zoo—
why weaken the links with a dull set of tools ?"
you ask yourself over your high-end Tarrazu,
bemused at the fables of fools.
You've bartered salvation for New York Times articles,
sipping on bitterness (shade-grown organic).
You settle for molecules, atoms and particles
unfairly-traded, satanic—
while you celebrate emptiness, general futility
musing on nothingness, sure of specifics
ensconced in your kitchen of pampered gentility
flirting with atheist physics.
Those simple plebeians: you'd love to enlighten them
help them, like you, to become a free-thinker
but you remain tasteful, for boldness might frighten them
reeling in fairy tales: hook, line and sinker.
Yet somebody, somewhere has uttered your sentence
(though you abhor judgement, let's read it again).
Sheba and Nineveh, versed in repentance
await you—not whether but when.
The darkness is brewing unholy filtration;
the wine of the harlot approaches the rim;
your guilt is augmenting in slow percolation;
you shrug it all off on a whim.
The souls of Assyria rise from your paper
they watch in amazement, prepare your abyss.
Your coffee now brims a more sulfurous vapor;
oh sinner—there's something amiss:
The crypts of Marib and the tombs of the Axumites
shudder and groan while you're reading the Times...
(immune to the words that some Christarded poet writes
mixing psychosis with rhymes.)
Royal Sheba will chastise your erudite unbelief,
smug self-importance and cynical squawk.
Then she'll sigh with immense Ethiopian grief
and her Highness Queen Bilqis will talk.
It is Sunday in Babylon. What if your sunlight ends...
why are there mobs in the streets of the nation?
Shall you have breakfast—or calculate dividends...
what would you pay for salvation?
Mar 25, 2016
Mar 25, 2016 at 10:30 AM UTC
Washed ashore
By the angry ebb
Of lost Atlantis,
The ocean brims
In liquid Jade
And grains of gold.
The sun won't sleep
Under the blanket
Of the vast horizon,
But dances with
The velvet moon
At heaven's feet.
Divine rays pierce
The prismic clouds
Bleeding spectrum,
Rain that seethed
At the apex
Of nature's bossom.
They gushed forth
Like raging horses
To a thirsty basin,
That slithered down
The silver rivers
And shallow streams.
Neon vines
Creep in the floor
Of the sleeping forest
Cradled by the songs
Of Mockingjays
And willow dryads.
The zephyr hums
A joyful song
In the laughing thickets
As flowers bloom
Like newborn stars
In the undergrowth.
In the mellow heart
Of the deep forest
A vixen's cry
Echoed woes
Of the hidden land
And its deadly curse.
Jun 17, 2013
Jun 17, 2013 at 8:03 AM UTC