"clew" poems
How comes it, Flora, that, whenever we
Play cards together, you invariably,
However the pack parts,
Still hold the Queen of Hearts?
I've scanned you with a scrutinizing gaze,
Resolved to fathom these your secret ways:
But, sift them as I will,
Your ways are secret still.
I cut and shuffle; shuffle, cut, again;
But all my cutting, shuffling, proves in vain:
Vain hope, vain forethought, too;
That Queen still falls to you.
I dropped her once, prepense; but, ere the deal
Was dealt, your instinct seemed her loss to feel:
"There should be one card more,"
You said, and searched the floor.
I cheated once: I made a private notch
In Heart-Queen's back, and kept a lynx-eyed watch;
Yet such another back
Deceived me in the pack:
The Queen of Clubs assumed by arts unknown
An imitative dint that seemed my own;
This notch, not of my doing,
Misled me to my ruin.
It baffles me to puzzle out the clew,
Which must be skill, or craft, or luck in you:
Unless, indeed, it be
Natural affinity.
10.8k
Too much alone
Too much afraid
Too much unknown
Too much paid
To let us go
By the way
For no show
So they say
Could I tell you a story
Ole storyteller
Like bees buzzing flowers
With some honey on hive's mind
It's a modern tale
That has sat sail
All sewn up
At a rate of knots
That black book
Bought with blood money
Dares to say it holds a name
Spar - with these throat barnacles
(Alternately feeding and fighting With their feet)
bowsprit [bee block]
know your ropes, carried away deep six
It's a thieves cat o nine tales
Captain of chewing the fat
Or combing the cat
I've never seen (one) better
Dunnage topping a tonnage
From that trusty barrage
I'm everything on top and nothing handy
An eye splice on a short rope
Given and giving leeway
Haven't got a clew for true whence such hails from
...
So... She measures faces with her heart and hands
And a camera lens for a few
Jul 27, 2015
Jul 27, 2015 at 2:29 PM UTC
The working girls in the morning are going to work--
long lines of them afoot amid the downtown stores
and factories, thousands with little brick-shaped
lunches wrapped in newspapers under their arms.
Each morning as I move through this river of young-
woman life I feel a wonder about where it is all
going, so many with a peach bloom of young years
on them and laughter of red lips and memories in
their eyes of dances the night before and plays and
walks.
Green and gray streams run side by side in a river and
so here are always the others, those who have been
over the way, the women who know each one the
end of life's gamble for her, the meaning and the
clew, the how and the why of the dances and the
arms that passed around their waists and the fingers
that played in their hair.
Faces go by written over: "I know it all, I know where
the bloom and the laughter go and I have memories,"
and the feet of these move slower and they
have wisdom where the others have beauty.
So the green and the gray move in the early morning
on the downtown streets.
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*A caste of hawks at a rage of maidens
Led a cete of badgers to a gaggle of geese
And a school of whales brought a shiver of sharks
To a fever of stingrays at fabulous feast.
An absence of waiters in a crackle of crickets
Served a band of brothers a bevy of beer
Then the army of ants in the choir of angels
Left a filth of starlings decidedly queer.
But the clew of worms in the hive of bees
Swapped the bike of wasps for a ghost of gnats
While the raft of otters in the den of iniquity
Turned the loveliness of ladybirds to a river of rats.
Why an array of eels fed a bunch of grapes
To a pod of dolphins…nobody knows
But a disputation of lawyers cawing
Killed your flock of lice in a ****** of crows.*
M.
11 April 2015
Apr 10, 2015
Apr 10, 2015 at 6:30 PM UTC
It is easy – easier – to imagine that at the first stirring of the breeze,
Everything ought to be thrown to the wind. The tides are going out
But does that mean that everything on the shore will be swept away?
When I feel the gurgle of the waves on my feet, is it feasible that
God does not intend for me to be drowned? I stand in a pool of possibility:
Root myself deeper in the sand, or surrender myself to the sea. I think
My mother worries about me, 300 miles away, because in our
Distance she senses dissonance. I am the rock face bruised by the wind –
But only because I want to be. She is the lighthouse entreating me to come in
Off the water’s edge, and join her where it is safe and light and where she can
Train her gaze on me in all my darkest days. Am I tempted? Her unblinking eye
Implores me to be honest. How far must I cast my beams for you to find me?
The spray of salt reaches my side before I can answer, and brine beats Light in this race. Storms come and go, and I watch them and hope
For the sake of my mother that when I cry, it goes unheard under
The squall. The wind and waves, unrelenting, ground me in humility.
After all, when a sea-weary sailor spots a lighthouse, does his hand
Quiver on the tiller to change his course, or does the quiet thrilling thought of home
Encompass him, comfort him, call him to stay steady ahead!
We steer clear of the lighthouse: we keep our eyes level,
Our emotions at bay, and clew our sails for the cliff,
A brooding entity rising out of the ocean, recalcitrant: resistant.
My mother keeps my flame burning from another state.
Tender stoking, stalwart tending. I stand tall not because
I know she sees me, but because I can see her doing the same,
Daring the sea to stifle her laugh, her light.
Oct 18, 2017
Oct 18, 2017 at 12:54 AM UTC
While Ariadne held the clew
for Theseus to find his way,
a thread to escape the labyrinth
where the Minotaur was slayed,
Persephone awaited spring
to part from Hades and arise
from the underworld blossom
flora to earthlings jubilation,
Penelope kept her promise
declining suitors twenty years
for Odysseus to return, to her,
eternal wait in the maze
of leisurely time.
Oh time, so rapidly evolving
into a fleeting concept,
from a blessing to a curse, chased
out of fear of losing it, ridiculous
illusions of possession,
for how could anyone ever lose
something that never was
theirs in the first place?
While wait and slowness once were
an intrinsic part of life embraced,
rejected by industrial revolutions
technological progresses two
seconds too many for a message
to travel from Rome to outer space
ricocheted by a satellite
across the ocean to the surface
of a new world, is a wait long enough
to drive any human insane.
Feb 12, 2018
Feb 12, 2018 at 5:36 AM UTC
Homage to the furry four footed a mew zing friend that smart pet house cat whose nine lives spanned nearly a score. This ode scratched out about a half dozen ***** of yarn unspooled around the terra firmae.
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the euthanize cat silenced meow –
less audible than when a kitten 19 years ago – whew
heart wrenching to you
Richard n I presume Brendan too
though ye my dear sister will moost likely miss do
to sensitive resonance with creatures that grew
and an omnipotent bond through
well nigh two decades - whereby a tapestry of love hew
as pet owner solely knew
wove with colorful memories will brew
regular need to grieve as a family member true
as yar own flesh and bone will wake thee no more – boo
hoo
lament must be free to woo
tears of sadness possible prompt thine heart to rue
tis only understandable if such conscionable choice to
terminate life one such beautiful feline knew
within his being affection lavished with memories to view
and replay his corporeal presence where time flew
as calendar ushered near score longevity
end date along timeline queue
memorialized n sentimentalized
by unused litter box n cat bowl used to poo
and chew
respectively will usher inxs purr remembrance of thinks past
by Marcel Proust of human zoo
leaves inky traces without a clew
his latter fading discernible
holographic soul with any faux paws
dagger like claws indelibly etched
within mcgeehan family unforgettable presence he drew!
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…luv frum ur brother math who
moost now rush off n skip to the loo!
Nov 8, 2017
Nov 8, 2017 at 4:30 PM UTC