"chary" poems
Her scarf a la Bardot,
In suede flats for the walk,
She came with me one evening
For air and friendly talk.
We crossed the quiet river,
Took the embankment walk.
Traffic holding its breath,
Sky a tense diaphragm:
Dusk hung like a backcloth
That shook where a swan swam,
Tremulous as a hawk
Hanging deadly, calm.
A vacuum of need
Collapsed each hunting heart
But tremulously we held
As hawk and prey apart,
Preserved classic decorum,
Deployed our talk with art.
Our Juvenilia
Had taught us both to wait,
Not to publish feeling
And regret it all too late -
Mushroom loves already
Had puffed and burst in hate.
So, chary and excited,
As a thrush linked on a hawk,
We thrilled to the March twilight
With nervous childish talk:
Still waters running deep
Along the embankment walk.
8k
Alone by a wharf
Peaceful yet forlorn
Wishing I could morph
To mask how badly I'm worn
Wish I was strong
The way I used to be
But where I am, is where I belong
The pain will pass, there'll be jubilee
But first I have to crush the glass of the once before chary and elusive me
Feb 25, 2018
Feb 25, 2018 at 7:48 PM UTC
My glass shall not persuade me I am old
So long as youth and thou are of one date;
But when in thee Time’s furrows I behold,
Then look I death my days should expiate.
For all that beauty that doth cover thee
Is but the seemly raiment of my heart,
Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me.
How can I then be elder than thou art?
O, therefore, love, be of thyself so wary
As I not for myself, but for thee will,
Bearing thy heart, which I will keep so chary
As tender nurse her babe from faring ill.
Presume not on thy heart when mine is slain;
Thou gav’st me thine, not to give back again.
2.8k
Old goatherds swear how all night long they hear
The warning whirr and burring of the bird
Who wakes with darkness and till dawn works hard
Vampiring dry of milk each great goat udder.
Moon full, moon dark, the chary dairy farmer
Dreams that his fattest cattle dwindle, fevered
By claw-cuts of the Goatsucker, alias Devil-bird,
Its eye, flashlit, a chip of ruby fire.
So fables say the Goatsucker moves, masked from men's sight
In an ebony air, on wings of witch cloth,
Well-named, ill-famed a knavish fly-by-night,
Yet it never milked any goat, nor dealt cow death
And shadows only--cave-mouth bristle beset--
Cockchafers and the wan, green luna moth.
2.8k
For the past two hours
this Mac has hypnotised
my gaze to its white screen
and every website has
sentries at the door -
Username ? Password ?
Already registered ? Login
When did we become so
chary one of another ? Were
folks so paranoid in the pre-
digital age when existence
had not been magicked into
noughts and ones in Silicon
Valley? It did not seem so.
(c) C J Heyworth July 2014
Jul 2, 2014
Jul 2, 2014 at 4:41 PM UTC
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Her scarf a la Bardot,
In suede flats for the walk,
She came with me one evening
For air and friendly talk.
We crossed the quiet river,
Took the embankment walk.
Traffic holding its breath,
Sky a tense diaphragm:
Dusk hung like a backcloth
That shook where a swan swam,
Tremulous as a hawk
Hanging deadly, calm.
A vacuum of need
Collapsed each hunting heart
But tremulously we held
As hawk and prey apart,
Preserved classic decorum,
Deployed our talk with art.
Our Juvenilia
Had taught us both to wait,
Not to publish feeling
And regret it all too late -
Mushroom loves already
Had puffed and burst in hate.
So, chary and excited,
As a thrush linked on a hawk,
We thrilled to the March twilight
With nervous childish talk:
Still waters running deep
Along the embankment walk.
Dec 9, 2009
Dec 9, 2009 at 7:29 AM UTC
Enveloped with pine-
Stretched across statelines:
Beauteous blue upon envious emerald
Pooled amongst royal white mountains
Adorned with grey jewels of centuries
Emitting sweet, earthy aroma
She caresses the land.
Mother to lakes hidden by her red fir,
Provider to the fiery yellow cress
Hydrant for all animals alike.
M(ama) Rose keeps a chary eye
on her joint creation:
The provider, the mother,
The revered, grandiose puddle
is threatened by scarcity.
The royal white mountains,
Remain royal- but lack frost,
And thus the water retreats
Shriveling back 13 feet from shoreline
This once sacrosanct lake---
Devastated.
Keep Tahoe Blue?
Keep Tahoe Wet.
Apr 2, 2015
Apr 2, 2015 at 1:36 AM UTC
Once upon a time
A beautiful sublime,
A girl like a prime
For love,made a crime.
She slowly took the love
Freed it like a dove
From her heart to above
And ruled it like a gov.
But as the time passed by
Her love flew towards sky
With a true flame by his side
Leaving down the coward sly.
A sadly,truly,deeply sorry
Felt this little girl named Laurie
But she takes the gun and chary,
The dearness killed,in silence bury.
She hid her right in his backyard
For Laurie,she a mistress has starred
But she shouldn't being sparred
By the girl with murderer regard.
Aug 31, 2014
Aug 31, 2014 at 7:41 PM UTC
Have you met the Saddest Turtle?
The one who always cries?
The one who's life is full of hurtles?
The one that hopes he'd die?
If you see the Saddest Turtle, tell him I said hello.
Tell him I'm sorry for his party to which i did not show.
The saddest Turtle has a friend, Jolly Octopus,
A loud Friend, one who contends himself as life's Magnum Opus
Oh what a friend destined to mend the Turtle's broken heart,
if only that is the octopus did in the Turtle's life take part.
So if you see the Saddest Turtle
Tell him I said I'm "Sorry",
Sorry for the misfortunes in life
That made him so chary.
Feb 2, 2014
Feb 2, 2014 at 12:35 PM UTC
The arc of Hyperion's bedazzled sceptre
Issues forth a cascade of petals Rose deep
Laying the path for sweet heavenly Aurora
Chary± Divinity moving in a soft tip & creep ...
Until at last Her eye peers out o'er Terra
A shied face hidden 'hind the crest no longer.
For in her glance abides a treasure
No hallowed hall may contain:
Upon the Mount, within the Spring,
Roots of the Tree doth regain!
Fruits resurf, o' Golden Bough undulating
Seeped in kin vital, up the amber vein:
'Ere burgeoned wings do stretch & sing
Rising into Joy's boundless domain!
E'er again, again after!
Yea, be heedless to all fright
Nay, but to a solitary care:
Gallope free, alight
& kiss the silvery aer
Yet if ye be trapp'd in night,
& gaze morose in despair:
Thou pleasen only might; --
Pray, cease thine irradiant stare!
±Chary: careful about what is revealed; circumspect.
Jun 12, 2013
Jun 12, 2013 at 6:01 PM UTC
Manila is fray
Tough enough to die,
Brave enough to see ****** against
the billboards
***** on the marketplace
***** men haggling for prices
the corners are squalid -- rats with ambitions of men take their places in
the esteros
a car-horn blares, wanes old moon music.
I sing songs of malversation. Trains all graffiti.
My heart like a jailbird freed somewhere
in the big sur; love assuages nothing,
comes with a cheap price
a freak December night in Roxas blvd.
i sit on marble benches and dream
of artilleries, garlands on snuff-nosed
barrels, nuns grieving dust
in the ground. communal bathrooms
drunk in foolish caricatures,
the tabloids displaying flowerheads --
the democracy in the streets a ****
for kings, no love to lull
me to infantile sleep
tortured are the bulls
matadors hiding behind faces red like
faces of statesmen flushed with
the spirit of bourbon
whereas we are here river-facing
northern tip of its undying source
like wives on balustrades waiting
to catch the fragrance of inamoratas,
light reenters
interstice of chary webs of dull heads hemmed in like canopies in the throat of overthrown ponds, scraps
of metal sold for a night's worth
of gin and Sinatra,
Deep within the grave, the dead laughing
at the dead living. Atop waters,
yachts peering into drowning fish,
in the middle, a jam of buses
belching lassitudes that strangle
the console, the man in all of us
the same, cursing behind the wheel
and everybody else different
dancing at the top of our heads.
Feb 27, 2016
Feb 27, 2016 at 5:04 AM UTC
My average means I don’t have to take final exams.
So my bachelor's degree is a finished product.
I cranked it out, all that’s left now is the walk (May 18th).
Let’s call it my nearly forgotten masterpiece.
My schedule says that I start a 1-year ‘master of public health’ degree in 38 days.
It was my mom’s idea. She said, “You need to keep active” (pre- med-school).
It sounds crazier to me now than it did last year, when I was accepted and agreed.
Now, I feel like some chary, aging showgirl who’s about to be hustled back on-stage.
But what’s life without massive compromise?
Anyway, don’t cry for me. I’m still sizing it all up, I’ll figure it out.
I suppose we’re all out there hustling.
It’s our response to slowing med-school admissions,
those glitches in the medical, industrial education complex
or that’s how the narrative’s shaped, anyway.
It’s not the additional work that bothers me, I’m regular worker bee,
It’s the perma-threat of loneliness.
I’m already packing. Leaving feels real
and I'm surfing this maudlin wave tonight—shading deep blue.
The simple march of time will take away friends I’ve grown to love.
We’ve allegorised and transformed one another by proximity.
I’ve really loved it here.
.
.
Songs for this:
Graduation (Friends Forever) by Vitamin C
Graduation Day by Tony Rivers & The Castaways
Apr 21, 2025
Apr 21, 2025 at 8:01 AM UTC
A LETTER TO MY FIRST CRUSH
My Dearest Kevin
My hands shake nervously as I write this letter
the ink made heart-shapes
resembling pieces of my heart as it reach out to you
I just want you to know that loving you isn’t easy
My dozen of Harlequins and my entire Mills @ Boons
collection of books
Haven't prepared me enough
To deal with a player like you
I heard it through the grapevine,
That you are heartbreaker, and a womanizer
With only one thing on your adolescence mind
My grandmother always told me, that
Why buy the cow, when you can get the milk for free
My grandma is a wise woman
More like a heroine in my eyes
I am the heroine of my life
More like a Nancy Drew
Without a clue
I am never satisfied I am curious
And mysterious
However I am very chary
Kind of gal
^
I do believe that
I am in love with you today
However,
I might hate you tomorrow
Because you never know with a secret admirer
To the man I love today
They are nothing more than I can say.
I will wait for your reply my love
Feb 20, 2014
Feb 20, 2014 at 4:59 PM UTC
When you fancy to
Savor a ripping apple
From Eden Garden,
Be chary for hidden thorns;
The bite could be your last joy.
Jun 21, 2017
Jun 21, 2017 at 10:15 PM UTC
as Jacob's
ladder alas
chary puff
adder as
his ascent
harried suffragette
herein the
milkweed but
wary she
fled if
a rabbit
heard her
plea again
and butterflies
here like
epistle with
wind chimes
Aug 5, 2018
Aug 5, 2018 at 7:44 AM UTC
I close my eyes when the stars rise
but the sweet darkness does not cradle me.
No -- it is the past that thrashes me about.
The echoing of laughter and pointed fingers
and hiding in the corner as names pierce my heart.
Stupid --
a gun shot for not knowing the right answer.
Slow --
a backstab for not reading fast enough.
Ugly --
a grenade explosion for looking different.
You want to know why I am so chary?
Why I no longer speak out?
It is because she did not stop --
even as my defense crumbled before her.
When the stars rise and I sleep,
She is there-
laughing at my failures and shouting
"I told y'all she Stupid."
Jan 27, 2014
Jan 27, 2014 at 11:17 PM UTC
*Only mockingly mimicking me , sitting across the glass
Though dark I'm born from light! , on looking he whispers alas!
He boasts his love's as deep as his colour
Like beggar on knees , he pleads with her
To let be ever present , to be around me
Crafty light absorbed in sneaking only to see
Oblivious to my chary black eyes , Yes! she lets him
" shadow " he's called makes way from within.*
Jul 27, 2014
Jul 27, 2014 at 12:42 PM UTC
I AM!
by Michael R. Burch
I am not one of ten billion—I—
sunblackened Icarus, chary fly,
staring at God with a quizzical eye.
I am not one of ten billion, I.
I am not one life has left unsquashed—
scarred as Ulysses, goddess-debauched,
pale glowworm agleam with a tale of panache.
I am not one life has left unsquashed.
I am not one without spots of disease,
laugh lines and tan lines and thick-callused knees
from begging and praying and girls sighing "Please!"
I am not one without spots of disease.
I am not one of ten billion—I—
scion of Daedalus, blackwinged fly
staring at God with a sedulous eye.
I am not one of ten billion, I
AM!
Keywords/Tags: I, AM, ego, individual, individuality, character, Icarus, Daedalus, Ulysses, fly, gadfly, chary, wary, quizzical, questioning, panache, sedulous, heretical
jesus hates me, this i know
by michael r. burch
jesus hates me, this I know,
for Church libel tells me so:
“little ones to him belong”
but if they use their dongs, so long!
yes, jesus hates me!
yes, jesus baits me!
yes, he berates me!
Church libel tells me so!
jesus fleeces us, i know,
for Religion scams us so:
little ones are brainwashed to
believe god saves the Chosen Few!
yes, jesus fleeces!
yes, he deceases
the bunny and the rhesus
because he’s mad at you!
jesus hates me—christ who died
so i might be crucified:
for if i use my **** or brain,
that will drive the “lord” insane!
yes, jesus hates me!
yes, jesus baits me!
yes, he berates me!
Church libel tells me so!
jesus hates me, this I know,
for Church libel tells me so:
first fools tell me “look above,”
that christ’s the lamb and god’s the dove,
but then they sentence me to Hell
for using my big brain too well!
yes, jesus hates me!
yes, jesus baits me!
yes, he berates me!
Church libel tells me so!
Mar 4, 2020
Mar 4, 2020 at 10:13 PM UTC
My glass shall not persuade me I am old,
So long as youth and thou are of one date;
But when in thee time's furrows I behold,
Then look I death my days should expiate.
For all that beauty that doth cover thee,
Is but the seemly raiment of my heart,
Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me:
How can I then be elder than thou art?
O! therefore, love, be of thyself so wary
As I, not for myself, but for thee will;
Bearing thy heart, which I will keep so chary
As tender nurse her babe from faring ill.
Presume not on thy heart when mine is slain,
Thou gav'st me thine not to give back again.
May 16, 2020
May 16, 2020 at 9:37 AM UTC
watch your steps
Around, before and after you
How you move up and down
The shrewdness expressed
Right from your lips
How you're tempted to laugh
With the dog intending to bite you
Expressing your goals to an enemy
And digging your own grave.
The swiftness you give off
Appreciated with your down fall
Your trust paid with betrayal
Loyalty flushed like trash.
Life is supported by blood
But a mixture of blood is vexatious
It spills or mulfunctions
Yet it holds the nature of your life
You can't be so secure to trust
Your own skin because the weather
can mislead it's nature
Its good to know but not to
Exceed the capacity
Of the knowledge of knowing.
Nov 6, 2014
Nov 6, 2014 at 10:08 AM UTC