"cheerless" poems
A little while, a little while,
The weary task is put away,
And I can sing and I can smile,
Alike, while I have holiday.
Why wilt thou go, my harassed heart,
What thought, what scene invites thee now?
What spot, or near or far,
Has rest for thee, my weary brow?
There is a spot, mid barren hills,
Where winter howls, and driving rain;
But if the dreary tempest chills,
There is a light that warms again.
The house is old, the trees are bare,
Moonless above bends twilight's dome;
But what on earth is half so dear,
So longed for, as the hearth of home?
The mute bird sitting on the stone,
The dank moss dripping from the wall,
The thorn-trees gaunt, the walks o'ergrown,
I love them, how I love them all!
Still, as I mused, the naked room,
The alien firelight died away,
And from the midst of cheerless gloom
I passed to bright unclouded day.
A little and a lone green lane
That opened on a common wide;
A distant, dreamy, dim blue chain
Of mountains circling every side;
A heaven so clear, an earth so calm,
So sweet, so soft, so hushed an air;
And, deepening still the dream-like charm,
Wild moor-sheep feeding everywhere.
That was the scene, I knew it well;
I knew the turfy pathway's sweep
That, winding o'er each billowy swell,
Marked out the tracks of wandering sheep.
Even as I stood with raptured eye,
Absorbed in bliss so deep and dear,
My hour of rest had fleeted by,
And back came labour, ******* care.
3.9k
Wistful, cheerless,
used to be brave,
and fearless.
Liars, haters
have been walking,
around me these days.
Charming, well educated,
that's who you showed to me
before you shot me
I thought you
were charming.
I thought you
were well educated.
I thought you
needed me.
It's all gone
when you left me.
I was just looking
for some friends,
Now; I'm only looking
for the real ones.
Couldn't realize which
ones were fake before,
When did hellos start
to be called as goodbyes,
After some while, I
know which ones are.
Couldn't stand to this
anymore, faded,
Feeling so alone in
this crowded room,
Can't love like this,
it has exceeded,
Feeling like I've
overdosed. Wasted.
Every colour was taking
me back to you,
Every mark was pushing
me away from you.
Spring hasn't begun yet.
It was not warm at all.
Just cold with sadness,
darkness with secrets,
strangers with lies.
Charming strangers
are everywhere.
They've been around
for centuries.
They look like
Venus or Mars,
inside they're
like black holes.
Pluto who I've
always been.
An outsider?
no, no, no
A fighter.
☾ M. E. Kuşaslan ✩
@lightinthedarknesspoetry
Jan 29, 2019
Jan 29, 2019 at 5:39 PM UTC
I would I were a careless child,
Still dwelling in my Highland cave,
Or roaming through the dusky wild,
Or bounding o’er the dark blue wave;
The cumbrous pomp of Saxon pride,
Accords not with the freeborn soul,
Which loves the mountain’s craggy side,
And seeks the rocks where billows roll.
Fortune! take back these cultur’d lands,
Take back this name of splendid sound!
I hate the touch of servile hands,
I hate the slaves that cringe around:
Place me among the rocks I love,
Which sound to Ocean’s wildest roar;
I ask but this—again to rove
Through scenes my youth hath known before.
Few are my years, and yet I feel
The World was ne’er design’d for me:
Ah! why do dark’ning shades conceal
The hour when man must cease to be?
Once I beheld a splendid dream,
A visionary scene of bliss:
Truth!—wherefore did thy hated beam
Awake me to a world like this?
I lov’d—but those I lov’d are gone;
Had friends—my early friends are fled:
How cheerless feels the heart alone,
When all its former hopes are dead!
Though gay companions, o’er the bowl
Dispel awhile the sense of ill;
Though Pleasure stirs the maddening soul,
The heart—the heart—is lonely still.
How dull! to hear the voice of those
Whom Rank or Chance, whom Wealth or Power,
Have made, though neither friends nor foes,
Associates of the festive hour.
Give me again a faithful few,
In years and feelings still the same,
And I will fly the midnight crew,
Where boist’rous Joy is but a name.
And Woman, lovely Woman! thou,
My hope, my comforter, my all!
How cold must be my ***** now,
When e’en thy smiles begin to pall!
Without a sigh would I resign,
This busy scene of splendid Woe,
To make that calm contentment mine,
Which Virtue knows, or seems to know.
Fain would I fly the haunts of men—
I seek to shun, not hate mankind;
My breast requires the sullen glen,
Whose gloom may suit a darken’d mind.
Oh! that to me the wings were given,
Which bear the turtle to her nest!
Then would I cleave the vault of Heaven,
To flee away, and be at rest.
2.8k
If the Tiber floods and the Nile fails to
If the overflowing mouth of Tamesis runs dry
If the weeping willow withers as the blackthorn breaks
And the regal golden eagle fails to climb in the sky
If the dried-up land yields a drought so parching
That the overarching urge is to drink yourself drowed
If the Dead Sea waters lose their saline flotation
And the carrion-grabbing vultures wheel in from miles around
Then Gethsemane's gates will crack open just a little
And the flowers of the garden will give off a sour scent
As their brazen roots recall the night when they were fed with blood
Dripping softly on the hallowed ground of dying man's lament
If the water rises slowly and yet still without abating
If it swallows up the chariots of sun and man and steed
If the kings step out and stumble to the grave, their destination
Will be broken, bold and cheerless: will be harrowing indeed.
Jun 23, 2015
Jun 23, 2015 at 12:30 PM UTC
The rain set early in tonight,
The sullen wind was soon awake,
It tore the elm-tops down for spite,
And did its worst to vex the lake:
I listened with heart fit to break.
When glided in Porphyria; straight
She shut the cold out and the storm,
And kneeled and made the cheerless grate
Blaze up, and all the cottage warm;
Which done, she rose, and from her form
Withdrew the dripping cloak and shawl,
And laid her soiled gloves by, untied
Her hat and let the damp hair fall,
And, last, she sat down by my side
And called me. When no voice replied,
She put my arm about her waist,
And made her smooth white shoulder bare,
And all her yellow hair displaced,
And, stooping, made my cheek lie there,
And spread, o’er all, her yellow hair,
Murmuring how she loved me—she
Too weak, for all her heart’s endeavor,
To set its struggling passion free
From pride, and vainer ties dissever,
And give herself to me forever.
But passion sometimes would prevail,
Nor could tonight’s gay feast restrain
A sudden thought of one so pale
For love of her, and all in vain:
So, she was come through wind and rain.
Be sure I looked up at her eyes
Happy and proud; at last I knew
Porphyria worshiped me: surprise
Made my heart swell, and still it grew
While I debated what to do.
That moment she was mine, mine, fair,
Perfectly pure and good: I found
A thing to do, and all her hair
In one long yellow string I wound
Three times her little throat around,
And strangled her. No pain felt she;
I am quite sure she felt no pain.
As a shut bud that holds a bee,
I warily oped her lids: again
Laughed the blue eyes without a stain.
And I untightened next the tress
About her neck; her cheek once more
Blushed bright beneath my burning kiss:
I propped her head up as before
Only, this time my shoulder bore
Her head, which droops upon it still:
The smiling rosy little head,
So glad it has its utmost will,
That all it scorned at once is fled,
And I, its love, am gained instead!
Porphyria’s love: she guessed not how
Her darling one wish would be heard.
And thus we sit together now,
And all night long we have not stirred,
And yet God has not said a word!
2.2k
At first you'll joy to see the playful snow,
Like white moths trembling on the tropic air,
Or waters of the hills that softly flow
Gracefully falling down a shining stair.
And when the fields and streets are covered white
And the wind-worried void is chilly, raw,
Or underneath a spell of heat and light
The cheerless frozen spots begin to thaw,
Like me you'll long for home, where birds' glad song
Means flowering lanes and leas and spaces dry,
And tender thoughts and feelings fine and strong,
Beneath a vivid silver-flecked blue sky.
But oh! more than the changeless southern isles,
When Spring has shed upon the earth her charm,
You'll love the Northland wreathed in golden smiles
By the miraculous sun turned glad and warm.
2.1k
The Dawn! The Dawn! The crimson-tinted, comes
Out of the low still skies, over the hills,
Manhattan's roofs and spires and cheerless domes!
The Dawn! My spirit to its spirit thrills.
Almost the mighty city is asleep,
No pushing crowd, no tramping, tramping feet.
But here and there a few cars groaning creep
Along, above, and underneath the street,
Bearing their strangely-ghostly burdens by,
The women and the men of garish nights,
Their eyes wine-weakened and their clothes awry,
Grotesques beneath the strong electric lights.
The shadows wane. The Dawn comes to New York.
And I go darkly-rebel to my work.
2k
Animula! vagula, Blandula,
Hospes, comesque corporis,
Quæ nunc abibis in Loca—
Pallidula, rigida, nudula,
Nec, ut soles, dabis Jocos?
TRANSLATION.
Ah! gentle, fleeting, wav’ring Sprite,
Friend and associate of this clay!
To what unknown region borne,
Wilt thou, now, wing thy distant flight?
No more with wonted humour gay,
But pallid, cheerless, and forlorn.
1.8k
simply trying to remember a certain coat that took me like a mouth.
a coat my soul left me for.
I have been to the tub I would sit waterless in-
typewriter like a girl on my lap; the vaporous acorns of bliss winter squirrels, ash,
in the desperate curls of pubis. I have been
to the gym, its court of passed and passed back fire, its auditorium unfilled
as a church in spain. I have been to my knees.
to the egg of bird, the grief of cow, and to the lengthy absence
of train’s tunnel. I have been
with boy, with baseball, with book- smoking late on this fence
with these my trinities
soon to strike
for the house of my anna
cheerless and bare, not russian, not there.
Jul 6, 2012
Jul 6, 2012 at 1:45 PM UTC
This day the sky rains down.
Oh this drama queen
eager to share
Anger for her paramour
who sings among the deserts
and sweltering summer days.
This day I sing
Or try to sing, because
This day in her jealousy
She blinds me with her tears
and drowns my song with
her own cheerless tune.
Spiteful sky!
Know not that I'm here
to weep with you?
This day to dance, to laugh
then to rejoice when your mood lifts
When this cold gale ceases
And I'm free to lift my song
Once again to my own eternity
Apr 27, 2011
Apr 27, 2011 at 9:41 AM UTC
At morn the Count of Greiers before his castle stands;
He sees afar the glory that lights the mountain lands;
The horned crags are shining, and in the shade between
A pleasant Alpine valley lies beautifully green.
"Oh, greenest of the valleys, how shall I come to thee!
Thy herdsmen and thy maidens, how happy must they be!
I have gazed upon thee coldly, all lovely as thou art,
But the wish to walk thy pastures now stirs my inmost heart."
He hears a sound of timbrels, and suddenly appear
A troop of ruddy damsels and herdsmen drawing near;
They reach the castle greensward, and gayly dance across;
The white sleeves flit and glimmer, the wreaths and ribands toss.
The youngest of the maidens, slim as a spray of spring,
She takes the young count's fingers, and draws him to the ring,
They fling upon his forehead a crown of mountain flowers,
"And ** young Count of Greiers! this morning thou art ours!"
Then hand in hand departing, with dance and roundelay,
Through hamlet after hamlet, they lead the Count away.
They dance through wood and meadow, they dance across the linn,
Till the mighty Alpine summits have shut the music in.
The second morn is risen, and now the third is come;
Where stays the Count of Greiers? has he forgot his home?
Again the evening closes, in thick and sultry air;
There's thunder on the mountains, the storm is gathering there.
The cloud has shed its waters, the brook comes swollen down;
You see it by the lightning--a river wide and brown.
Around a struggling swimmer the eddies dash and roar,
Till, seizing on a willow, he leaps upon the shore.
"Here am I cast by tempests far from your mountain dell.
Amid our evening dances the bursting deluge fell.
Ye all, in cots and caverns, have 'scaped the water-spout,
While me alone the tempest o'erwhelmed and hurried out.
"Farewell, with thy glad dwellers, green vale among the rocks!
Farewell the swift sweet moments, in which I watched thy flocks!
Why rocked they not my cradle in that delicious spot,
That garden of the happy, where Heaven endures me not?
"Rose of the Alpine valley! I feel, in every vein,
Thy soft touch on my fingers; oh, press them not again!
Bewitch me not, ye garlands, to tread that upward track,
And thou, my cheerless mansion, receive thy master back."
1.4k
someplace else, icarus has taken one look at the sun and recoils like a banished angel. lo, the cheerless shadows befogging. lo, the waxen wings he clipped — swallowed by solid ground. lo, the skies melt above the sea, in horror, as he falls in place over his bones and sinks into his sunless chest.
Feb 12, 2022
Feb 12, 2022 at 5:19 AM UTC
Feeling unparalleled
Uncomfortably disconnected
Baffled in one's own still reality
Sitting in a chill hollow theater
A sharp lit lantern glistens from above
Frying the lid of the huddled mind
Sore eyes glazed over
Watching a hushed movie called life
The characters known and their euphoria
The whole story just seems absolute
Only to one's imagination glasses
Seeing the whole kindled screen
The still beating heart can tell something is missing
Cheerless eyes start to wipe off the fake
Each drive of coral to the heart
Opens truth's glutted box
The one watching is the missing
The story was never whole
For the characters were embedded in life's credits
And the one watching was forgotten
Jun 12, 2012
Jun 12, 2012 at 9:43 AM UTC
Copper coil,
Condensed candy,
Ceding comfort,
cotton,
candy,
clouds.
Cyclical contentment,
Cool convenience,
Captivatingly casual.
Cotton.
Candy.
Clouds.
Clean conclusion,
Cheerless continuation,
Cultivating casualties.
COTTON!
CANDY!
CLOUDS!
Dec 21, 2019
Dec 21, 2019 at 12:50 AM UTC
she closets herself away from our sight
yet her ball has the brightest of glimmer
a shining created for sheer delight
how dare she hide her radiant shimmer
behind the obscure curtain of a shroud
she's disposed to making us cheerless
by not displaying outside the dull cloud
why oh why does she behave so joyless
her rays won't beam in an opulent glow
there she chooses to remain concealed
her petulant manner has gone on show
we await the hour she'll be revealed
look our sun has had a change of heart
she exhibits her brilliant orb so smart
May 4, 2019
May 4, 2019 at 8:01 AM UTC
Wait for me,
and I'll come back!
Wait with all you've got!
Wait, be patient and I shall return to your loving arms embrace
Wait, be patient till I may kiss your warm lips again,
wait, be patient no goodbyes and farewell tears,
Wait, for I have kept you close and your love protects,
Wait, until i sing to you once again my love,
Wait for me as I kiss your hand before I go,
Wait, until then remember our fondest memory.
Wait when cheerless yellow rain whispers that you need not.
wait as the leaves fall and flower withers,
wait even as the sky darkens and the moon changes,
wait as the dawn breaks the cold night sky,
Wait when the snow swirls fast, and the bitter freeze loses your warmth,
wait when the sun blazes hot,
wait even if the seasons change and I am not there,
wait for me though you cannot hear my voice,
wait even if we are miles apart in distant lands,
In foreign frontiers and unknown fronts,
wait for me and so we may dance again,
wait when long days are past and others have forgot.
Wait when from the distant place, word does not arrive.
Wait, when all those you face know I'm not alive.
Wait for me, and I'll come back!
Wait for me, don't fret!
When they tell you there's no doubt that it's time to forget,
Be strong have fate for I shall be back,
Wait and keep me in your thoughts for you are on mine,
Even when those dearest to me tell you I am gone and past.
As your eyes swell to tears from their words,
Even if it shatter your heart to doubt if I am still alive,
Even when my nearest give up, claiming it's been too long.
Even if they honor my name and what little I left behind,
Let's raise a glass of bitter sweet wine, to the friend who's passed into glory - But wait!
Don't share that drink! Wait until the last!
Wait for me and I'll come back, Cheating every fate,
Deciding when to live and past,
Enduring the odds and evading deaths grasp.
Through the anguish and slaughter of the field,
Though my body suffers and tires my soul cries to survive,
For you are waiting for me to come back,
Broken and scarred I shall return to you,
Wait until i can hold your soft soothing hands once more.
They who had lost hope shall be in shock,
"A nice stroke of luck!" they'll say,
those that could not wait.
Only they will never know how amid the strife,
Amid those who now lay in anguish lost and scattered,
by waiting for me, my dear,
and you saved my life,
You have brought peace to my soul.
But the two of us will know,
How you got me home.
Only you knew how to wait,
it was you alone.
Jul 27, 2019
Jul 27, 2019 at 4:12 PM UTC
I read so many poems about the tangling of souls,
or the intertwining of limbs
and hearts.
Combining smiles with flowers,
everlasting this and thats, laughter
with bullets, memories in objects. Boring,
all of it.
I read the cliches, the red colors
associated with passions of flesh
and mind.
The blue oceans mingled with longing.
Still winds with waiting.
I read these things and think of how
far away from any sense of truth.
Neruda finds love in bread,
cummings finds it in buildings,
Bukowski
in beer.
No one remembers that love is
in chemicals - that true love finds
its way through all chemical imbalances,
all sense in senses.
I can be drunk with you,
I can be high with you,
I can be depressed,
anxious,
hyperactive,
crazy, boastful, cheerless,
smug, annoying,
annoyed,
frantic, courageous,
bashful,
broken,
crying, dying and dealing
with my own **** self
and I still feel my love for you
(and your love for me).
Why do poets pick
one image, one allusion,
to craft a poem about a truth that overtakes all?
It seems lazy, unfortunate.
It does wrong
in my eyes. This is where
discipline has destroyed
what they try to express.
When was love ever disciplined?
No, my love is not a red, red
rose because my love is punk
rock and she'll fight you
if you try to say she's not.
She drinks and smokes
and would intellectually crush any girl
who thinks
that love poems define proper behavior.
Feb 14, 2013
Feb 14, 2013 at 8:09 AM UTC
Impervious to the time of day
and suffering the idleness
of sitting in a near lifeless limbo
I am at last compelled
to take up my pen
in the almost vain hope
of resuscitating an interest
in the rhythms of the joyful
side of life.
But being of a disposition
that too easily dons the coat of distraction
my attentions are soon reduced:
to impoverished thoughts
and reflections concerning small talk
about the weather
while standing still in lifts;
to thinking about the same old heads
nodding to each other
in rain-soaked streets;
to pondering greygreen corridors
that stretch the imagination
into cheerless silences
of absolute emptyness.
Aug 4, 2010
Aug 4, 2010 at 9:17 AM UTC
When I fee I'm rich, I see someone richer.
When I feel I'm poor, I see someone poorer.
When I feel I'm a poet, I read a real rhymer.
When I feel like an idiot, I look in the mirror.
When I am cheerful: “enjoy it, while it lasts.”
When I am cheerless: “bare it, it will not last.”
Jul 20, 2014
Jul 20, 2014 at 6:00 AM UTC
melancholy world
dimness on minimal rays
aimlessly caught in obscurity
don't fall down
pervading all corners of the world
darkness
shadows elevated too tall
cracks plastered
no intruding light
impeded deprived view
over head
gathering
laden dark clouds
which cover the heavy mind and soul
suffering mourners
cheerless
rusted with hurt
across a mortal canvas
wherein a blot
creates spreading stain
humanity seeks
a cradle
milk for nurture
sensing virtue required
black
complicated
overwhelming
the world
Apr 22, 2013
Apr 22, 2013 at 1:16 AM UTC
There are no words for the songs plucked out on the heartstrings
of the melancholy man with deeply sad eyes,
but he sings those songs to the stormy skies
through the tears rolling down his craggy cheeks into the world's oceans,
and those same tears slipping off of the barely beating wings of the tired wrens.
He thinks himself a strange man,
with not a single instrument to his name,
yet known as a musician,
and he breaths out in cold clouds his sorrow,
but the sparrows,
those little birds, let his breaths of freezing billow
roll off of them as easily as the starlight that the sad man can't see.
What a man, so heavyhearted,
who does not know how to play his own heartstrings like a harp,
how to play his heart like a drum,
how to play his brittle ribs like piano keys,
so heavyhearted that he cannot bear to give anything else the weight to exist,
so heavyhearted that the rest of him blows away and he is but a heart,
old and cheerless, without its own reason to exist.
Dec 29, 2018
Dec 29, 2018 at 4:01 AM UTC
I have nothing I only have words
Words of the enchanted love
Words of an inspiring beauty
Words of fairies and princess in fantasy land
Words….. only with words
I could treasure your love
And say a million Thank You
I only have Words to paint the whole world blue
Or red or green or yellow
With my words I paint the world bright
I paint it dull, gloomy , cheerless…
Arrange each words and make them sound so right…
It seems that all my life I have been looking
for Perfect words...
words to say things right
And make you and everybody feel alright
If I should leave you too soon
Just remember all the magic words we shared
Magical Words from me are not just words
They are words Written from my deepest heart
No diamonds or gold can be compared
of this Perfect gift for you from an angel
Who only knows how to write…
Words of poetry are like the soft feathers
Delicate, beautiful and colorful…
As she Placed the feather upon your bed
an angel leaves silently…
the precious words , the memories she leaves behind…
only to remind you… of …
A feather from an angel ,
with love….
Apr 22, 2014
Apr 22, 2014 at 9:38 PM UTC