"chillier" poems
The night sky was bathed with light
And the silhouettes became hills.
Peals of thunder rolled in,
As the first droplets of rain
Grazed against my face.
Over in the distance,
A storm brewed up,
While the train moved on.
The rumbles grew ever closer
The flashes of grey more frequent
The wind became chillier, but
All the weather did was,
Drive in the fact that,
I was coming home!
I took in all I that I could
The beauty of the mountains,
The sight of the rice-fields and,
The fresh smell of the earth
As the rain poured down.
The wind ruffled my hair,
The thunder roared, lightning snapped
While the train moved on.
The Brahmaputra loomed large,
In all its sheer majesty.
As I looked into the river,
A humbling awe swept through me
Only to be replaced
By the joy of coming home!
Oct 12, 2013
Oct 12, 2013 at 1:09 PM UTC
You walk along the beach with the sand between and beneath your naked toes, the sun touching your skin, the slight breeze feeling your hair. You stop and stare at the sea, the sound of the waves on the shore, like an old man breathing and sighing. There are no ships today; the horizon is bare; empty. You remember walking along this beach with Giles, his hand in yours, the promises he made, the laughs you both had, the look in his eyes, that smile he had. You smile briefly, wipe your small hand across your lips, try to recall that kiss, gone. The sun is high in the sky, blue with hints of white in the horizon, the sea, the far off places long out of reach. If only I hadn’t found that **** letter, you muse darkly, breathing deeply, sensing the sea air, the sharpness of it, the chill on the lungs, if only you hadn’t seen the words of his betrayal, his words of love to another, her of all people, she who had befriended you. Lies. All of those lies, you muse, those bits of truth and lies together, the devil’s mix, the lying ***** him saying those things to her, and to you he says another, liars both of them. You walk on along the deserted beach, your toes scrunching into the sand, the grittiness between the toes, the sharpness underfoot. We made love over there, you tell yourself, indicating an area of rocks, a secret place you thought was yours and his, where he had uncovered you and under those stars, moon and evening breeze, had entered you. You close your eyes and wonder if he brought her here, made love to her in that place, did to her what he did to you. The possibility haunts you, hurts deeply, drives to walk closer to the edge of the sea and shore. You want the sea to take you; want the waves to swallow you up and spit you up some miles down the coast. A lifeless body, a floating bloated cadaver. But that takes a courage you lack, a courage you do not have, despite your hurt and pain, despite your inner anger. You wish you had not read the letter from his pocket, had not searched, had not seen it and opened up the envelope. If only you had remained in innocence of his betrayal, innocent of all that filth and lies. His words to you that morning, as he rose from bed, as his arms left your side, were so loving, so kind. Ceili, he said, Ceili, you are the morning of my day. Such words. Such words said. The sun is warm on your face, the breeze a little chillier now, the sea a bit wilder, the waves touching your feet, touching your toes. What price betrayal? What reward? You wander along the shore, the sea touching you as he had done, feeling your flesh, sensing your life blood, you stop, turn back, empty your mind, vacate, the you, the memory of loss, the life of betrayal.
May 23, 2015
May 23, 2015 at 3:51 PM UTC
I had a dream--a strange, wild dream--
Said a dear voice at early light;
And even yet its shadows seem
To linger in my waking sight.
Earth, green with spring, and fresh with dew,
And bright with morn, before me stood;
And airs just wakened softly blew
On the young blossoms of the wood.
Birds sang within the sprouting shade,
Bees hummed amid the whispering grass,
And children prattled as they played
Beside the rivulet's dimpling glass
Fast climbed the sun: the flowers were flown,
There played no children in the glen;
For some were gone, and some were grown
To blooming dames and bearded men.
'Twas noon, 'twas summer: I beheld
Woods darkening in the flush of day,
And that bright rivulet spread and swelled,
A mighty stream, with creek and bay.
And here was love, and there was strife,
And mirthful shouts, and wrathful cries,
And strong men, struggling as for life,
With knotted limbs and angry eyes.
Now stooped the sun--the shades grew thin;
The rustling paths were piled with leaves;
And sunburnt groups were gathering in,
From the shorn field, its fruits and sheaves.
The river heaved with sullen sounds;
The chilly wind was sad with moans;
Black hearses passed, and burial-grounds
Grew thick with monumental stones.
Still waned the day; the wind that chased
The jagged clouds blew chillier yet;
The woods were stripped, the fields were waste,
The wintry sun was near its set.
And of the young, and strong, and fair,
A lonely remnant, gray and weak,
Lingered, and shivered to the air
Of that bleak shore and water bleak.
Ah! age is drear, and death is cold!
I turned to thee, for thou wert near,
And saw thee withered, bowed, and old,
And woke all faint with sudden fear.
'Twas thus I heard the dreamer say,
And bade her clear her clouded brow;
"For thou and I, since childhood's day,
Have walked in such a dream till now.
"Watch we in calmness, as they rise,
The changes of that rapid dream,
And note its lessons, till our eyes
Shall open in the morning beam."
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The clouds finally release their burden,
Feeling themselves suddenly empty,
Missing the drops of moisture that used to nestle within that now seal the sky with white.
The snow falls like dots on an old TV screen,Its bunny ear antennas finally failing in old age.
Muffled silence. Shh! Do not disturb.
The wind echoes through the trees,
Whispering airplanes lamenting the freedom of flight.
The snow plummets from the sky
Arrows
shot by a hidden enemy
But this is a friendly kind of war,
The intended targets only becoming chillier.
The wind chimes peal occasionally in delight,
Shaken by the frigid gust that slants the snowfall
I exhale, my breath warm as it clouds past my lips,
it swirls back to envelop me, as if in thanks.
The world is quiet here.
Feb 19, 2010
Feb 19, 2010 at 10:44 AM UTC
Winters here are unpredictable.
There are days when the fire stays in, when I watch the log pile shrink by the hour.
Other days, a weak sun raises the temperature by degrees, as well as the spirits.
Today, there's a chill in the air, so I call my friend to meet at the local bar -
that means I won't have to burn any logs.
She works here in the village, turning pots, then decorates them with the traditional blue designs
for tourists to buy – if she's lucky.
At the bar, she tells me about her new project. She knows exactly what she wants.
Ideas spin in her head like the pots on her wheel.
This time, she says, she's determined.
Her enthusiasm doesn't last for long.
She drifts away, staring into the middle distance, lost in private thoughts.
I study her hands- always tense, never still. Her slim fingers engrained with the red earth that she shapes.
Her wedding ring hangs from a chain around her neck, leaving her hands free from obstructions while she kneads the clay.
In the background, beer glasses crash about and a dog is barking somewhere outside.
Her eyes flick towards the T.V. High on the wall.
Sometimes, when an important match is on, there's football, but more often than not, like today,
there's a violent American film with subtitles in her own language.
She shivers, then comes back to me, pulling her scarf closer around her shoulders.
She tells me she's seen the film before and knows the plot well.
It's the one where the husband gets drunk and tries to **** his wife, but no one will believe her.
She looks tired.
She says she's been up all night trying to fix a faulty thermostat - that the heat of the kiln was too high and broke all her pots. Then the main fuse burned out and that she'd have to get an engineer in to fix it.
After a while, we embrace and part.
Walking home, I think of my friend and how she could never bear the space between her hands and her precious creations.
The air feels chillier now and an icy wind has started to blow.
I expect by the end of the day there'll be snow on the ground.
But there again, it might just rain.
copyright © Caroline Grace 2013
Apr 26, 2013
Apr 26, 2013 at 12:51 PM UTC
The moon was crescent the day our eyes first met.
We gazed at each other as my brow glazed of
sweat from the hot summer night.
The moon was full the night
I kissed your knuckles.
The nights were chillier but our hearts were
warm
and
fast.
The moon was waxing the early morning
we woke up and ate peaches and picked flowers.
You put it in my hair and told me
never
to take it out and
never
to leave your side.
The moon was first quarter the night we
smoked cigarettes
and screamed of our love to anyone who would
listen.
The moon was a waxing gibbous the night you
saved me from myself. I was drowning and
couldn't
find a way out. You were the only one there.
The moon was in the third quarter when you began
to drown me.
I hesitated and gasped and fell to the earth again
where the brown grass grows and the flowers
die.
It was a new moon when you found me for the last time.
I cried to you and felt helpless and alone and cold.
you held me and I kissed your knuckles and pretended
this was happy.
For the last time.
Mar 4, 2013
Mar 4, 2013 at 8:00 PM UTC
A sunny day lifts hearts from grief and gloom;
I like the rays of warmth and skies of blue.
But in our words of praise, let’s leave some room
for light cast by the sky of grayish hue.
The even light suffuses everything--
no glare to blind us and no shadows cast.
The clarity that cloudy skies can bring
illuminates a future landscape vast.
A chillier breeze refreshes our attention,
and neutral gray reveals the depth and lines.
The way is clear and acts have more intention;
perception heightened, visible are signs.
Sunny days, for picnics and for beaches--
I’ll take the grey for what the soft light teaches.
May 26, 2016
May 26, 2016 at 11:10 PM UTC
He sings a song of love and darkness
I twirl away with my leaves of autumn
He stamps his foot and roars his call
I disguise myself in brown and gold
He leaves buds where his feet fall
I must horde my experience
He gives freely what I adore
I am regal and one of four
He has boundless endless love
I let him chase me each year
He chases in our endless game
I whirl like leaves blown on a chill wind
He jumps and twists as he attempts to tryst
Then I must be gone for another year
And He, He is bereft
But watches for my chillier sister who is next
Oct 6, 2016
Oct 6, 2016 at 8:58 AM UTC
Summers heat has left the land as Autumn walks this land
This new daughter has all the trees leaves falling like the rains
The beaches sands are turning from hot white to a duller yellow
Cliff sides show warm Browns and burnished golds across their tops
And Summer and Autumn will touch fingers for mere moments
And then they will be separated in time for another year
Animals all through this cooling land hurry about their chores
For Autumn trails her very fingers through their fur
they know it’s time to be ready for the arrival of her chillier sister Winter
But for now there are still nuts and berries to be hurriedly gathered in
The wind rises a notch as Autumn surveys her quarter realm
And Sunset deepens over land and sea as nights draw quickly in
The daytime skies turn grey as buzzards seek their prey
Squirrels hide their hordes of nuts and then seek their dreys
Hedgehogs rolled in darkened leaves ready then to make their nests
Mice and voles scurry forth one eye on the skies for predator on high
The rabbits make warmer warrens, while foxes watches with evil eye
It’ll not be long before Winter with her chilly hand is all across the realm
But for now Autumn casts a comfort of gold and brown across this land.
Oct 10, 2016
Oct 10, 2016 at 3:50 AM UTC
Last night
I held out my palm
to catch hailstones
to store under floorboards
where all bad things are kept
like spoiled apples,
letters paralysed by tears,
junk I bought
then jammed into toasters
so at least I could say
I put them somewhere.
It feels chillier
when nobody's about,
and the roads
and alleyways
are clogged
with silence,
the inescapable
winter blackness.
I find your name
on my window
drooling away,
a skeletal row
of faded transparent roots
and when I woke
I desperately wished
you had put it there.
Aug 18, 2014
Aug 18, 2014 at 2:51 PM UTC
I live with iron, lead, and steel
in the house you built for me,
in the country.
A rusty door keeps the wind out;
it creaks, but it's not often I need hear it.
Inside, resting by the window,
I listen to the rain sing pitter-patter on a tin roof,
and ask aloud; "What will grow, anyways?
It could rain for days and dry soil would stay so."
A few weeds once speckled the front yard,
but they withered when you left;
not from thirst, but because they needed you.
Specks of silver could be found in your footsteps,
and a light spinning at your center
radiated warmth on chillier nights.
Still, you were but the kindling for my forge.
Jun 11, 2014
Jun 11, 2014 at 8:42 PM UTC
Nights seem lighter with you,
Evenings more golden.
Have mornings been the best?
Afternoons are chillier now.
Doesn't this feel great?
Around you, it definitely does.
Sun rises and sets with you.
Jun 16, 2019
Jun 16, 2019 at 3:59 PM UTC
The glassy waters are chillier today;
the contagion of reds, golds, and browns
has spread from within, and the ancient ones
experience the slow ecstasy of death.
Winds of a harvest moon slow on the forest murk,
and a tide below the surface will become
a tsunami against an invincible cliff.
Release thyself to the flow
of eternity in infinity
and you will be reborn
by yourself and for yourself,
one with reality in ten dimensions.
Sep 25, 2020
Sep 25, 2020 at 12:01 PM UTC
The air just felt crisp enough
For me to put on that shirt you left me
And when I did
I swear it got chillier
Sep 15, 2016
Sep 15, 2016 at 7:44 PM UTC
Just how did she know that you were back in town?
and how did she know to call you when she was down?
Why were you with her, when you should have been with me?
•••••
Its cold when your lying alone in bed at 10 pm
wishing he were there.
And even chillier when you find out
later
that he was with his ex the same night.
•••••
There are ice shards stabbing my fingertips,
when I touch his side of the bed.
I just roll over,
release a shiver
and pull the covers
to my chin,
as my eyelids freeze shut
and my breath crystalizes
as I settle into
our empty nest.
Sep 25, 2017
Sep 25, 2017 at 1:12 AM UTC
You cherish me merely as a coin — always anticipating change,
you seek me out only when it’s time for heads, chasing after tail.
I’ve been tossed about by you countless times; my feet now bear
the weight of my head. Say you love to call me, “__mine,__” yet
you handle me like a mere dime tucked away in your pocket –
only reaching for me when your hands are empty of anything
else to own- and pass me around like a debt you owe.
Beloved, your touch is far chillier than all the jealousy that
exists in this world. I'm just a cold coin to you.
Nov 14, 2024
Nov 14, 2024 at 12:04 PM UTC
so things get worse before they get better; i guess that means it’s october again, i’m hungry all the time, greasy hair, the whole thing. whatever.
in the fall months, during the cold mornings, my body floats in limbo
while the old feelings soak back into sleepy flesh. my dreams become heavy,
hairy with the symbolism i can’t seem to understand in english class; i’ll let myself eat graphite in small microscopic doses
nothing more, nothing less.
& my life is soft rain, una y otra vez, a thousand little resurrections
along the length of cells in my small intestine. sadness has no place here anymore; i thought i let that out with the long hair & the
crying episodes & the horrible empty after his death in the bitter green month of may.
so maybe transformations are all in the small things. the sun rising chillier each week, the elapse of a long season for the third time running. no era has ever been so lucid, no era has ever been
so fuzzy. it is almost as if i had climbed into the skin of a tired sheep, displacing its thick, warm blood
with my own soupy lymph.
& everything else has been that, a gentle pulse of tv static, from womb to seventeenth october
& all those lonely imaginary things in between
Oct 29, 2018
Oct 29, 2018 at 1:34 AM UTC
It's a full moon
and a dark sky
and Benny stares
at the sky and moon
and stars and thinks
of Yehudit and her
being a little way off
in that cottage
with her family
and he with his
and he wonders
what she is doing
at that time
of the evening?
is she in her room
like him looking out
at the wintry sky
or is she in bed
lying there
thinking of him
as he is of her?
and he reflects
on the afternoon
when he and she
were by the pond
and it was warm
but getting chillier
and they lay
by the pond
on the grass
on her green coat
and she said
I wonder what we
will be doing
in years to come?
will we be married
and live here
or elsewhere?
he smiles to himself
taking in the shadowy trees
opposite and how
the moon shines
through them
as the moon moves
across the sky
or so seems
he had said
maybe Paris
and have late nights
drinking on the those
lit up streets
and she had laughed
and now as he watches
the moon come out
of the tree tops
he wishes she
was there beside him
holding his hand
both looking out
and his other hand
about her waist
but no it wouldn't work
his younger brother sleeps
in the bed behind him
and he just pretends
it is her there
waiting for him
and he breathes in
the night air
then closes the window
on the moon and stars
and gets ready for bed
with the image
of Yehudit
warm and cosy
inside his head.
Oct 19, 2015
Oct 19, 2015 at 2:03 AM UTC
strange it is
to know
how strange people are
perhaps
I am one of them
as the music plays
my mind refuse to work
i miss our dance together
and that grin
on your face
that lit in your eyes, when you saw me
have i mentioned, my own strangeness
as the time pass by
i wait patiently, of my guilty pleasures
an empty bed, staring the screen
the sun sets, quickly
with all its good and gone
tomorrow will be another day
winter is chillier and cold
from distant, it looks like a romantic union
but to who, one might say
this setting has made me look more hollow
and like a thunder, i feel lightning in my soul
piercing in me like a needle
neither do i know what to do
nor do i care much
as it had to be like this
like a careless motion
a demon, that i so lovingly possess
Dec 30, 2016
Dec 30, 2016 at 12:24 PM UTC