"caverns" poems
Ilion gray
poet extraordinary
is away
learning the codes hidden in raindrops
no reason for surprise;
for the mountains of Brooklyn, the Manhattan caverns of Sunhenge^, corridors of narrow focus for trapping the declining sun rays,
neither high enough, narrow blinding,
to keep a good man from doing good things that life provides as opportunities
to do the right thing
he muses that it took five years for the other poets to understand our
poem-dreams;
avant-garde he says,
but I laugh,
never felt more misunderstood
and reply take care, be
en garde!
no matter for he is learning a new language,
the codes hidden in raindrops in a land of wheat
once called Indian Territory and eager
await his return so we may
walk along the Brooklyn shoreline,
beginning from under the Brooklyn Bridge
where Washington’s men escaped a British trap
and he can decode for me the whispery thunderous noises of
NY
showers that come up so sudden, so roughened, but right now,
the seductive sun blinks in Manhattan windowed towers reflecting back on to our East River as golden blinks of nature
We will walk lost in the absorption of our
different commonalities, holding the hands of
his young son, and my Wendy,
both of them equal in possession of round saucer eyes
that give us poems
He calls me me friend,
I call him brother, teacher, master, better than the best,
well recalling a late night message that bred
a five year conversation ongoing
not everything need be coded
what you read here
it is not coded,
for the raindrops come clear and clean
and the poems land on our tongues
bounce on the foreheads and eyes of the babes, all stored and saved for the future blessings spoken in a single tongue
7/18/18
^https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattanhenge
Jul 18, 2018
Jul 18, 2018 at 10:41 PM UTC
Babels of blocks to the high heavens towering
Flames of futility swirling below;
Poisonous fungi in brick and stone flowering,
Lanterns that shudder and death-lights that glow.
Black monstrous bridges across oily rivers,
Cobwebs of cable to nameless things spun;
Catacomb deeps whose dank chaos delivers
Streams of live foetor that rots in the sun.
Colour and splendour, disease and decaying,
Shrieking and ringing and crawling insane,
Rabbles exotic to stranger-gods praying,
Jumbles of odour that stifle the brain.
Legions of cats from the alleys nocturnal.
Howling and lean in the glare of the moon,
Screaming the future with mouthings infernal,
Yelling the Garden of Pluto's red rune.
Tall towers and pyramids ivy'd and crumbling,
Bats that swoop low in the weed-cumber'd streets;
Bleak Arkham bridges o'er rivers whose rumbling
Joins with no voice as the thick horde retreats.
Belfries that buckle against the moon totter,
Caverns whose mouths are by mosses effac'd,
And living to answer the wind and the water,
Only the lean cats that howl in the wastes.
15.8k
In Nero’s private stage,
Disaster was
His audience. Rome mimics fallen Troy in play.
What was reflected in Nero’s eyes
when he sang of the swirling patterns
of fire? When Rome was caught burning;
When conspiring led to its fall.
Fire engulfed Rome with fiery teeth.
The clouds hide or faint into black smoke.
The skies bleed heavily with rust
Its brassy color mixing with the
*** of burning seas, like oceans melting
Could you not feel the sun’s weight?
Now it is incomparable to
Molten seas and softened lead!
Blood spilt from sea-point, waves wallow the cries
Of the fallen. Like a bellowing sound marching
Against caverns of ears, Copper soldiers
Melt into clouds oozing with emotion,
Shattering their now empty metal hearts,
Hollow hearts that outlive the muteness.
It is awakened when
Spark and light is absent.
(Paolo Jerome D. Cristobal / June 26, 2009 - Alabang)
Aug 11, 2014
Aug 11, 2014 at 7:09 AM UTC
euphoric paranoia
accompanies your touch
as you finger your way
under my skin
shadows on the curve
of your neck
jitters of reality
involuntary fantasy
caverns in my body
unrecognizable reflections
disintegrating away
maybe its your love
maybe its ****
Mar 30, 2014
Mar 30, 2014 at 10:05 PM UTC
I came to liberate lions from dungeons
I came to share and not stare at you
I came to actualize powers within me
I intend to distribute resources equally
I came to reiterate that all beings are beautiful
I came to make an impact like mountains do
I came to create music with my attitude
I intend that symphonies surround me with their melodies
I intend that children feel safe to open up to me
I came to empower dancers in perpetual motion
I intend to be a witness to the miracles of life’s radiance
I came to scream love songs into forests
I came to hear my own voice echoed by hollow caverns
I intend to create portals that we can travel through
I came to bring back the aurora borealis at all latitudes
Jan 5, 2017
Jan 5, 2017 at 12:42 PM UTC
The laughter of leaves
whisper testament
over cool caverns,
ancient moss
the absurdity of clocks
dashed upon rocks
while they dance,
backlit with sunglow,
at the true speed
of life
daring us to defy
the timeless tapestry
in which all are woven
Do stones large and small
not rustle
like leaves
in the eye of the mountain?
and is the leaf not as solid
as stone, to the aphid?
And what lives between
two lover-friends?
It is no brief candle
measured with ticks
on numbered dials
It moves not with the flash
of a single spark
Nor with the slow glow
of dawn
In gentle illumination
it is a soft gentle kiss
drifting on mist,
and it moves
at the speed of love,
with the rhythm of life
Copyright © 2016 K. Rush
Dec 1, 2016
Dec 1, 2016 at 7:28 AM UTC
Seek freedom from the anxious mind
For, you have the freedom to choose
Break the shackles of intimidation
Claim your freedom for the sleeping madness
Wake up to a world of freedom, for it’s yours
Freedom for the prejudices and the dogmas
Claim your freedom for the untrusting world
Freedom beckons you from the deepest caverns
Thwart the advances of violence, and seize freedom
Do not pay heed to the abusive words
As your freedom to speak up is jeopardized
The weakest of hearts and minds, resort to violence
And their abode inside is wrecked by loss of freedom
You freedom will come when you walk out
Opening the gates of your heart to freedom
The weak personalities seeks to strangle freedom
To dominate the beautiful souls, as they feel threatened
Assert your freedom; this is becoming a puppet’s world
Always made to act when the strings are pulled
There is a world full of love and freedom waiting for you
You just have to cross the threshold of the murky world
Only you can win your freedom, if you choose to
Seek freedom, and slam the door on the world of captivity
© Amitav (Radiance)
May 8, 2014
May 8, 2014 at 5:56 AM UTC
Our last connection with the mythic.
My mother remembers the day as a girl
she jumped across a little spruce
that now overtops the sandstone house
where still she lives; her face delights
at the thought of her years translated
into wood so tall, into so mighty
a peer of the birds and the wind.
Too, the old farmer still stout of step
treads through the orchard he has outlasted
but for some hollow-trunked much-lopped
apples and Bartlett pears. The dogwood
planted to mark my birth flowers each April,
a soundless explosion. We tell its story
time after time: the drizzling day,
the fragile sapling that had to be staked.
At the back of our acre here, my wife and I,
freshly moved in, freshly together,
transplanted two hemlocks that guarded our door
gloomily, green gnomes a meter high.
One died, gray as sagebrush next spring.
The other lives on and some day will dominate
this view no longer mine, its great
lazy feathery hemlock limbs down-drooping,
its tent-shaped caverns resinous and deep.
Then may I return, an old man, a trespasser,
and remember and marvel to see
our small deed, that hurried day,
so amplified, like a story through layers of air
told over and over, spreading.
9.5k
*I roar with a bravado
that echoes throughout
the deepest caverns
of brave souls
yet with every time
there lies a risk
of my own reverberations
shattering my heart
I am fragile glass
fashioned into
the fearsome form
of a lion
I have been chiseled at by
Father Time and Mother Earth,
carved away by my pains
and my worries.
I am no façade;
there is nothing ornate
about me designed to
hide something heinous
I can shatter
just as easily
as my mother’s
prized china set
But I roar on
even as I chip away;
my joints creaking
and my body scorched.
Do not mistake my
scratches and cracks
for weakness,
I have demons of my own.
I walk this ground
with the hope
that my roars,
in spite of my fragility,
will instill a sense of hope
into all of you
with glass hearts
such as mine.*
Jul 28, 2015
Jul 28, 2015 at 12:26 AM UTC
My heart is a cave,
a home...
For animals who live in shadows,
my pathos,
which once shined upon,
removes all doubt,
glowing as a ghost-white sun.
Remove this light of your love,
and these shadows crawl back into their hole,
the caverns within the cave of my heart,
where there lives my long lost soul.
If you continue with the light,
that emits from your charitable love,
you can hold my hand through this fight.
Lead me through this maze,
into resurrection,
implode my heart,
devouring itself.
Yet I am reborn from the ashes of my past,
like a phoenix in the sky,
with you as my guide,
I fly with my wings spread vast,
a redeeming cry,
and you by my side.
And nothing could be better.
Nov 17, 2014
Nov 17, 2014 at 1:02 PM UTC
For half a revolution she spends her days
in caliginous caverns
where worms like silver thread
weave through moistened walls.
Water, endless dripping,
howling, whining, stalagmite fangs.
It began with a stranger,
shrouded with shadows.
Petrichor breath,
and beetle black eyes,
twisted root fingers,
and scattered seeds.
It was lonely at first,
death and loss and
weary wayfarers with tired souls.
An estranged husband,
a trio of rumbling growls,
and the lonesome echo of her own footsteps.
Waiting for a someday,
that will never come,
her titles, a mantra,
repeat in her head;
daughter, lover, mother and wife,
stealer of souls and giver of life.
So when the daffodils bud,
and the world awakens,
when she blinks through sunshine
and steps into the light,
she holds her head high.
She is Queen of the Underworld,
bolder than before,
she will evade their pity,
and transcend them all.
Jan 10, 2018
Jan 10, 2018 at 5:54 AM UTC
Saturday
Sounds like the pattering
Of bare feet
On a dusty concrete yard,
Smells of chimney smoke
And jagged coal heath,
Sheep-scent and
Wiry wool on a barbed fence,
Saturday
Is a jangly guitar
In a rickety truck
On a gravel road,
With a gravel voice
Rough as grit,
Deep as the caverns
Between the peaks,
Saturday
Is sunlight on an enamel ***
A tin kettle
And its blood metal tea,
It is blackberry-bitten legs
and iodine streams,
A canopy of heady bracken
Below penny-marked trees,
Then Sunday,
Slantwise
Against the setting sun
Away again.
Jan 12, 2018
Jan 12, 2018 at 6:09 PM UTC
Family what is family.
The people that decide to catch you before you fall.
Or the people that decide to pick up the broken pieces when you’ve been smashed into millions.
The millions of millions that no one else would be willing to pick up.
Even if those millions of millions was just a game to pick up a few missing parts.
They are the ones that will build a fortress around you and tell you the world is not safe for you my child.
But they will let down that gate, even knowing that the world isn’t good enough for you.
Family will have left the gate open for you to leave, but they will always beg for you not to go.
Even after you’ve left that mighty fortress they built all for you, they will cast themselves out to watch over you.
They will be the birds spying over your life, seeming to always be there, singing along to your tune of life.
Although family will also be the birds waiting above in the trees, ruining the new wash done to your car.
They will always mean to do their best; they will give all of what they can give and more.
No matter if they have to fight off the jackals of fate to speak to you once more, they will find a way.
If you are in another castle they will travel once more and once more until they find you again.
No matter how lost you become they will find the light in the deepest of caverns.
And if there is no light they will bring their own, because they know what will lighten you up.
Understanding they will be, knowing that tough times are tough to get out of.
With that knowledge they will be the best to have around, they are the ones that will accept that we all sometimes frown.
They are the blessing of life not only because they build fortresses around you, but have the ability to let you live.
No, they are a blessing because whenever you finally find out that they were the reason to so much happiness.
They will be there wondering, **** how did you just find out?
Mar 16, 2013
Mar 16, 2013 at 4:16 AM UTC
how far must she travel
to rediscover
her purpose
her purpose
what a preposterous concept
neither rest nor return
are purpose
neither love nor hate
are purpose
neither this nor that
so then what
what is it
what is the answer
to this unquantifiable question
perhaps it rests
in the caverns of her dreams
in the caverns of her subconscious
synesthetic
mind
seeing colors for numbers
and mango puddles in the rain
it was always her imaginative spirit
that activated her forehead
which wrinkled with the tides of
hurt pain sadness glory god
and she was told
to soften that sternness
soften it until she was nonexistent
but instead she asked
what are these things
what are their purpose
besides drinking foreheads and wringing potential
and piping out excuses for this and for that
for crimson activities and
claret affairs
Apr 14, 2018
Apr 14, 2018 at 8:28 PM UTC
the tectonic plates
in me
are shifting
as our continents
approach collide
my ocean is
getting closer
to the mountains
on your landscape
tallest grasses blowing
in wild demon dance,
shaking their
heads as heated
storm approaches
oven-baked air crackling
with its own
electric currents
Nothing can stop it
it's a magnetic force
one to be
reckoned with
surrendered to
as dust foams
like ocean froth
around our heads
clinging to us in tiny
starlit fragments
and soon will come
the slick dive into
wordless waters,
just skin on skin
slippery mouth muscles
like entwined snakes
flick-flicking, shiny
in eye-lit cherry moons
Take my hand.
Just pull me in.
Enfold me,
without talking
watch as my aura
rushes into you,
first a delicate whisk
of cool light
to slake the thirst
of coal-licked caverns
then sparks
and bubbling oxidation
turning into liquid brushfire
Hold your palm
to my chest,
as if to keep
my heart steady,
my glowing flare of halo
pressed into your
clavicle, taking in
the embryonic beats
soothing my torrid ache,
infusing minerals
in vitamin-laced libation
It is time to simply bask
in the new
crispness of radical
shake off
the silt and salt
and rise up
into the spheres
of memory
of soulspeak
of collapsed time zones
budded breath
spiraling up
in curls,
diaphanous
dark mist
ascending
into
light
Jul 27, 2017
Jul 27, 2017 at 6:08 PM UTC
Solemnly and silent
In subtleties she calls to me
Falling into my heart caverns
And running through my veins
Through my body
And where I am she’s close to me
Exuding watercolor dreams
Like a painter reacquainting me
With once greyish reality
And every morn, I hear her sing
In voice that constructs melody
As if to say to newest sun
To shine ever still
All subconsciously
And I would follow lyrically
Each instruction as they ring
Like notes in my mind harboring
This subtle, silent calls to me
Aug 11, 2021
Aug 11, 2021 at 12:53 AM UTC
Tim O'Brien had the right idea
about carrying people and ideas;
we all have experiences that live within us
like a stain on our grey matter.
I carry with me every insult hurled at me,
caught by my web of sensitivity;
I lift them onto my shoulders,
my back creaking as I trudge on.
My insecurities are shackles at my ankles,
the chains tangling themselves and chafing my legs;
my knees knock and pop and shake,
my back creaks and groans.
The ghosts and spirits of the self-departed
dance their ethereal ballet about my soul
and howl their eerie opera through the night,
begging for forgiveness and understanding.
The heaviness of the future rests
inside the caverns of my cranium,
latching on to my thoughts
and chipping at my hopes.
Past loves plague our emotions
and rest in the deepest corners of our hearts,
reminding us of who we once were
and asking us what could have been.
A cloud of sadness condenses in my body,
little drops of dejection slide down my lungs.
My chest constricts and grows heavy
and pointlessly hopes to see the sun.
Everyone together carries the weight of the world,
but I'm not sure what is heavier:
the mass of the planet,
or the things its people carry.
Aug 6, 2015
Aug 6, 2015 at 5:01 PM UTC
As she laughed I was aware of becoming involved
in her laughter and being part of it, until her
teeth were only accidental stars with a talent
for squad-drill. I was drawn in by short gasps,
inhaled at each momentary recovery, lost finally
in the dark caverns of her throat, bruised by
the ripple of unseen muscles. An elderly waiter
with trembling hands was hurriedly spreading a
pink and white checked cloth over the rusty
green iron table, saying: ‘If the lady and
gentleman wish to take their tea in the garden,
if the lady and gentleman wish to take their tea
in the garden…’ I decided that if the shaking
of her ******* could be stopped, some of the
fragments of the afternoon might be collected,
and I concentrated my attention with careful
subtlety to this end.
5.2k
Tempestuous longings from behind the screen of life’s moving picture
You stare back at me, in a glimmering, shimmering afterthought
Laid low by foregoing passion
In a moment’s torrid glimpse from our hollow reflections
Fragrant evenings during seasons of filming
Solemnly captured and revised then experienced
The all encompassing struggle with context and setting
Abides a steely night, in the rustle of autumn branches
Requiem for an unremitting beloved!
Sung in the valley between piercing peaks of sorrow
She floats through the scene as distinct aura and vague essence
An embrace from the trail of vapors and misspent gestures
All emanating from a glass of cider beneath nostrils
Gracefully, you embank on the wind of time’s shadow
And nudge my cheek with impetus and vigor
Lashing out at my skin in ambivalent revelry
As if my follicles were vacuous caverns
Catching the callous moments which flutter the ***** of hillside tents
The unearthly gusts of banality extinguish the projector’s gleam
While nature embodies your beauty furthermore
Toward the end of the pathway
And the credits of the film
And the allegro of the score
And the solitude of eternity
And the rustling of the branches
Aug 30, 2010
Aug 30, 2010 at 12:09 AM UTC
**via woodland trail, along deciduous dale
amid a rocky terrain, through geographic chicane
meandrous no longer, smoky waters beleaguered
upwelling they burble, in deep tracts they gurgle
hypnotic they swirl, then turgidly whorl
the rivers egress, from caverns sub-aqueous
bereft of surrender, outpours now in splendour
the Wharfe expelled from the strid.
... ... ...**
Jun 20, 2012
Jun 20, 2012 at 12:26 PM UTC
In days dead and burried in time,
In a very far away enchanted clime,
In the mighty kingdom of Nineva
Where there fairly shone forever,
There once was a strange lonely wood
That ever in fairest robes of green stood
By the edge of a fair shoreline of pearl,
Whose mystery none may tell nor unfurl.
For akin to the most effulgent yonder star
That forevermore scintillates from afar
In a splendiferous novelty golden cluster,
So thrice scintillated the gem's luster.
And 'tis for this that as we all truly know,
All mortals, I say, all mortals of long ago
Gravitated from corners of distant lands
On the quest for riches by those strands.
Once, sweltering was the noontide
When upon a violent lonely rolling tide
A bunch of desperate pirates were seen
Nearing that wood of emerald sheen.
In a while, they'd gathered all they could,
Leaving not a single gem in the wood.
Alas! A wind murmured upon the skies
In faint whispers: "Woods have eyes"
So muttered all birds - all birds of the air,
All creatures in caverns desolate yet fair,
All leaves upon strange shadowy trees,
And all - all creatures of wild lonely seas.
But, despite the looming dark omen,
Swifter than plummeting drops of rain,
So hastily dashed every single pirate
Blindingly minding not about their fate.
They raised their silvery sails to take sail
But hark! All this - all this was to no avail;
For upon the skies no wind was seen
To render them across so wide a sea.
In a jiffy, louder than birds of the skies
All gems whispered, "Woods have eyes."
From that moment on, all lost their sight,
Doomed never to behold the sun's light.
And now, upon those murky restless seas
They dost weep but no plea can please,
For they were doomed to rove evermore
In search of their long forgotten shore.
©Kikodinho Edward Alexandros, Kampala, Uganda. 29th.July.2018.
Jul 29, 2018
Jul 29, 2018 at 4:03 AM UTC
I believe in you and must not try to tame you
I am learning that it is enough just to sit with and lie with
That it is enough just to listen to words being softly strung together
Rhythmic sounds conceived in mind, of heart and soul
Giving birth to desires and prayers
Lay your head on my lap my love
Loosen the restraints of the day
Unravel and find your rest in me
Drink deeply of my devotion
From the wellspring of my openness
I am in awe of your beauty and must not try to claim you
I am learning that it is enough to trust the nature of man and woman and allow
My fingers the freedom to travel, to dance, to trace and to follow
Your curves and caverns, seeking warmth, pulse of body and wilderness
Swallowing love's sweetness whole
Lay your head on my lap my love
Jan 16, 2013
Jan 16, 2013 at 11:31 AM UTC
morning dew drops on your collar
impressing me with the zealous way the seasons drastically measure the moment it takes me
to reach forwards and brush it off
liquid winter falling onto a ***** cement
the initials 'F T' written jaggedly into the cold stone of asphalt
i wait for it to disappear, for the flicker of everything gone to fade from my vision
but it passes too quickly
i look back up and there's no one around
the street is empty and the capricious wind has ceased
a sucker for patterns i walk into a fabric store and feel my hand linger on the erratic linens
fingers paused on the peach organza sprawled like a pink bubblegum sea
and i am swept into the manic fantasies of wearing the sheer tissue-like textile into
the abdomen of your sweaty palm and sinking like a sticky sweet stripe
until you put your hand in your pocket and i spend a year inside melting
into the every thread and curve of your jean until it is nothing but disgusting sugar
everything i could be when i am hidden from sight in the dark caverns of denim pants
who knew the tongue in cheek joke would be nothing but my tongue in your mouth
touching all the way up your gums
find me sweltering beneath the uvula wondering if i could go back
to the time i found that girl with the mountain logo sweatshirt who whistled between her teeth and hummed all the reasons i should skin my knee and kiss the salty wound because there's no greater pleasure than knowing you don't have to wait for that morning dew drop to fall from their ******* collar
Oct 9, 2018
Oct 9, 2018 at 1:30 AM UTC
Even as you leave my presence, I must collect my heart
And softly weave my memories one by one
On the edges, they quietly sit apart
Until I say to myself
I am done
If the ocean could overhear, the memories I recall
I could throw a net reaching out for miles
Capture every bit of love as it falls
To join the lines of our hearts
In my smile
All along the blue skies, in the shadows of the sun
Inside of these memories, I could spend days
Traveling through my heart’s caverns
Inhaling a touch left trailing
Of the things you say
Even as you leave my presence, I must collect my heart
Draw back time enough to sweetly examine
The joy all these memories will impart
Until I say to myself
I am done
Nov 27, 2010
Nov 27, 2010 at 7:01 PM UTC