"cooled" poems
At times I heard the songs of the giants
who opted to sing for a glass of wine!
Like Omar Khayyam would sing to the grove of vine,
while singing their lullabies they wouldn’t mind,
defying the bloomer stars in the moonlights
gladly treading on the black alleys of the night.
Didn't they budge, didn't they bend to pick up
a potion of the sea, billowing in the dark?
But they opted out, just for a glass of wine!
To paint a glimpse of that gorgeous Saqi
till now they shun, lending the sun a paintbrush,
‘cause "if only it was colourful enough,” yet the sun
paints the enduring shades of the blue yonder.
But they turned around—just for a glass of wine!
The moon hanging low over the ocean took a pause.
The earth weighed down so deep is brimful!
Every sunrise paints new, loves to shine on once more
That delved-deep earth vintage taste, cooled in age-old,
now close by the hands breathe in, full of warm south.
Yet they opted out—just for a glass of wine!
Even the time is speechless, ask me not but why.
Still keeps an ear bent on the wall of the leaning sky.
Nor those who pop out with an inside scoop are ever drunk.
Nor they leak out, it’s a sea off the sea or Abe-Hayath.
It ain’t that small, it is the deathless spring of elixir!
Apr 10, 2017
Apr 10, 2017 at 9:16 PM UTC
Patiently he untangles the net
Standing calmly
Brazing the breeze
On the dancing boat
With an oar on its side
Which is cooled by the
Waters of the river..
The sun will set in an hour or so
And he has to finish his catch
Before the dusk
And back to his hut
Where his wife will
Waiting eagerly
To make the dinner
With the fresh catch
Another day
Another catch
The river but
Remains the same
Greeting the fishermen
Who roam the river
With their boats
Jul 12, 2015
Jul 12, 2015 at 1:31 PM UTC
Willets cull the seawall
snapper on the grill
rock ***** swoon
in shallow lagoons
long boats pass
under quiet
palm shade
Plovers dance and flutter
handrails frayed and torn
graffiti spots
at lovers rock
frigate-birds fall
from a high
noon sun
Thatched roof on a mud wall
fish flags settle score
anchors arch
in front line march
pillar cracks form
under rust brown scars
Elegant tern and grebe
watchmen fall in cue
children play
on crested waves
whimbrels and notchers
perch above Tentaciones
Striped pelícanos
the bandits of the sea!
merchants grow
in steady flow
siblings jostle
in a tide cooled sand
Heerman gull and boobie
durango smoke in yurt
boiler shrimp
and puffer blimp
castle buckets and scrapers
under a dusk light cheroot
Six pulls on a lead line
painted toes in sand
shearwater run
in a rainbow sun
the portly mexicano
flaunts his tacos
and wares
Rooster house for swordfish
bamboo shoots and sails
broken shells
and ocean swells
rise
on the
perfect
La Ropa bay
Apr 14, 2017
Apr 14, 2017 at 2:22 PM UTC
#
*Poetry comes back to me
where long there had been none.
Lyrical, the imagery, once shared
and then was done.
Thoughts of such sincerity
in words that grace the page,
Race across the span of time
that bridge the gap of age.
Trusting in the ardor that
has cooled and healed with time,
I read again the tender lines
of kindred souls, in rhyme.
Oh spirit of another age,
reach out from time and space.
Fan the embers turned to ash
and torpid ruin replace.*
#
May 18, 2018
May 18, 2018 at 10:53 AM UTC
There are moments in life.
Then there are moments, in life.
It's a gift to know exactly when
you discovered what love really is.
It was laying ear to ear with you,
So quiet I can almost hear your thoughts.
Cheeks pressed together,
yours so much softer than mine.
Laying, our backs on the cooled pavement
watching the sky spread out,
and the world roll over.
It's knowing I see you in a way few if any will.
A beauty that stretches past words.
Unfindable in any magazine or movie.
A living breathing diamond.
Intangible and unequaled.
It was the late night rides with the windows down.
The heat of the day dying on the breath of the wind.
The entire air charged with nostalgia.
Full of thoughts of friends and memories and feelings.
Watching the headlights cut the darkest parts of the night.
Thinking I'd die before I could find a way
to explain exactly what you mean to me,
but knowing I'd never be so happy to try for the rest of life itself.
Dec 6, 2013
Dec 6, 2013 at 8:32 PM UTC
So winter closed its fist
And got it stuck in the pump.
The plunger froze up a lump
In its throat, ice founding itself
Upon iron. The handle
Paralysed at an angle.
Then the twisting of wheat straw
into ropes, lapping them tight
Round stem and snout, then a light
That sent the pump up in a flame
It cooled, we lifted her latch,
Her entrance was wet, and she came.
5.7k
Every Sunday they would play, dancing on water,
Skidding across the ripples, and climbing up together
Two skiers fall in love, I for her,
And she for another, a friend to both.
Coveting what we wished was ours.
Idly on the shore I stood
Where The water cooled my feet
Watching how she watched,
how she chased
with a smile, I'd have given anything to make.
When the object of her eye, fell
Hard into angels' arms,
And nineteen turns around the sun
Was all that he would have
She cried, and her tears broke my heart
We both lost a friend that day,
But what hurt me most
Was how I knew she'd have never cried like that
If it had been me who fell
And so inside I said, I wish I could have traded fates
So for once I'd have made her smile stay
Oct 26, 2014
Oct 26, 2014 at 12:24 PM UTC
Can I explain this to you? Your eyes
are entrances the mouths of caves
I issue from wonderful interiors
upon a blessed sea and a fine day,
from inside these caves I look and dream.
Your hair explicable as a waterfall
in some black liquid cooled by legend
fell across my thought in a moment
became a garment I am naked without
lines drawn across through morning and evening.
And in your body each minute I died
moving your thigh could disinter me
from a grave in a distant city:
your ******* deserted by cloth, clothed in twilight
filled me with tears, sweet cups of flesh.
Yes, to touch two fingers made us worlds
stars, waters, promontories, chaos
swooning in elements without form or time
come down through long seas among sea marvels
embracing like survivors in our islands.
This I think happened to us together
though now no shadow of it flickers in your hands
your eyes look down on ordinary streets
If I talk to you I might be a bird
with a message, a dead man, a photograph.
5.4k
A woman drew herself up from wrecked wood at the bottom of the ocean;
whispered sea-songs into the wistful ear of a long lost love;
shook her locks 'til his heart beat faster;
looked longer than she should into the deep pools of his pleading eyes.
"I will call you when I want to;
I will call you when I want."
Cooled his temples;
breathed her watery breath
as silvered beads streamed down his shocked skin.
.......
Rumors rock an empty drifting boat;
a glazed shell faced with priceless pearl
broken from its moorings,
strangled by a knotted rope.
"You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you"
Hold fast the bestowed gift,
your Quinquireme of stowed treasure.
Protect its precious structure.
"Who are you, the one who stripped my soul?
Who is the third who stole yours?"
.........
Broken from netting I lie
a beached starfish on burning sand,
wishing the waves to wash me
back through Time's receding current
to find the silence that once was;
to turn away before the sacrifice,
before the Eye of the storm.
copyright © Caroline Grace 2010
May 20, 2010
May 20, 2010 at 2:05 AM UTC
I was a hot cup of water
Freshly set on the wooden table
You the sweet, dark leaves
That floated past the steam
The minutes pass
And though I became dark
I was so much more
Just you and me, sweet tea
But we cooled
You, spooned out
I, quietly drank
and
it
was
all
gone
Dec 12, 2014
Dec 12, 2014 at 2:41 AM UTC
<>
**”To dream by the oak and awake by the sea
when August has ripened and turned Jubilee
you must enter dominion of summer's delight
and live in the rapture of candescent light
Oh to live and to love one must first learn to kiss,
the kinetics of summer, with eternal bliss.”**
~from vienna bombardieri’s poem, “Kinetics Of Summer~
(with her kind permission)
<>
First verse pinpoints accurate, this,
my spot!
by oak and sea,
my precise longitude and latitude, where my summertime
eyes open to receive the gift of morning’s light, observing
the conjunction of land, hard by the sea, the land-ed avian gentry
and sea~sailor birds interacting, sharing the uprising currents,
for sport and observation, travel and pleasured sailing,
these “Masters of the Sky can fly for hours (or days), while barely flapping,” and this verse stuns, and
my shock,
at these, her words
my breathing is gasped and grasped
by oak and sea, for so it be,
this is where
my morning’s operatic scrum, ballet and dance hall hullabaloo,
my diurnal natural choreography is performed,
while slow sipping my very heated first coffee
it was here
that I learned to love more easily,
for the kinetics of summers trio of sun, sky, and moderate breezes,
lulled the turbulence of my disheartened lives into an easier
order, the world~surround, a living, breathing exercise that
warmed the spirit, cooled the soul, and spoke without uttering
a single word,
here dear person, is the where and the when,
the comfort of the natural-blanket
that enwraps, covers, cherishes the atmosphere entire,
containing the healing elixirs and protective ointments,
that remove the
plaque of life’s accumulated injuries, slights and scar tissue
simply put,
here I breath freely,
here I see with clarity
here the infusions of
living in nature, prolongs,
restore, remind, enliven
and enhances,
the intermixture of
body and soul
here in actual deed,
the kiss of summer bliss
upon
my tiring cell’s walls,
are resurrected even unto the nuclei,
by the warm breath of sun life and sun light,
and the breezes of salty sweet caramel air
and under their loving, combined-dominion
am I
resurrected and will yet sense,
one more Jubilee again
as I lay dreaming
by the oak and the sea…
Aug 2, 2023
Aug 2, 2023 at 4:05 AM UTC
Here lies a calculator, once unstoppable,
Together we solved the world’s problems.
Your black buttons warmed my hands,
While my head was cooled by the solutions you created.
Stress relieving buttons,
How I often mistreated you,
Slamming my fingers into your soul,
Jabbing your rugged terrain.
My intelligence blossomed with you at my side,
But now you have shrivelled up,
Shedding your petals, one equation at a time,
Until you are planted in the grave you resemble.
I etched my name into you
At the start of our glorious friendship-
A sacred bond that would last forever.
Now, at the end, I engrave again.
This time there is no solution.
Feb 14, 2011
Feb 14, 2011 at 12:10 PM UTC
An empty park picnic table
cooled by the light,
whispering breeze,
spotted by the burning
life-giving sun.
I see us there.
chatting,
laughing,
enjoying each others company
in this never-ending summer.
I see myself
dressing up as the wife,
laying out a picnic basket
and table cloth.
Pouring iced tea
into a chilled glass,
Watching the condensation
slide down your fingertips
as your throat
gulps in the refreshment.
I lay a blanket
on the grass,
inviting you to come sit.
We lay.
And that chuckling breeze
picks up
and lifts the whole of
my 1950s homemaker dress.
You smooth it back down,
lowering your hand on my hip.
The wind has stopped,
but you keep smoothing away…
down my thighs,
across my backside,
up my back,
until my head is
cupped in your hands
nearing closer to your face.
I would not call it a kiss,
because a “kiss” is too
short a word, too precise
and too emotionless
to fit this phenomenon.
You embrace me fully
leaving no passion unaccounted for,
no ounce of me left untouched.
I succumb to your embrace
and we start to make love when…
A car horn beeps.
I blink.
Look around, and remember
that I’m sitting in a
library parking lot
looking at an empty picnic table.
Sep 30, 2010
Sep 30, 2010 at 7:47 AM UTC
The grass is wearing my lipstick
and there's frost on my face.
I see no trace
of the bird that took my shoe.
The trees are looming over,
taking fun of my fallen state.
Is there nothing better for them to do?
My cheeks are redder than a
snowstorm,
the bugs are in my hair.
The bird has taken my other shoe,
They're tied up on the fairy lights.
Do they truly not care?
Because I fall they do not fight
their own fights.
A rabbit grew wings and gave me back
my shoes.
The grass returned my lipstick and the frost
cooled down my face.
Tomorrow I may fall again,
But of the trees,
there will be no trace.
Nov 9, 2015
Nov 9, 2015 at 7:16 PM UTC
Come by when you get off work
I will be sitting around doing nothing
We can wait until the sun goes down
Then we will drive off deep into the night
I don't care where we are going
as long as I'm going with you
The summer swells in
With the heat comes a new kind of wanting
Cool nights never cooled us off
Lay around and wait for something to happen
when it is three lonely figures
a bedroom, a basement, she is scared
Which one is sleeping and which one is lying awake?
Which one is sleeping and which one is lying about it?
Afternoon drags on and on
Movie nights that never end
We can hang out all night long
Lay in bed and talk to a good friend
because you only get older and you probably forget what it's like
The university is quiet today
We didn't clean
We just talked in the bathroom
The girl always gets in the way
Ruined friendships but others replace them
These opinions are poison
I have been drinking them all of my life
I could never replace you
and I could never forget what it's like
Step out on a moonlit roof
The radio leads a feel good revolution
Cigarettes and my closest friends
I tell myself that I have to remember this
I have to remember this
Mar 16, 2012
Mar 16, 2012 at 2:09 AM UTC
he called her his
constellation
& set her up in
the sky
with care and precision
she fell anyway
in all those little bits
& pieces of stars
but it was far more
magnificent
than anyone could have
hoped for
in her demise
a piece of her landed
in my backyard
& when she cooled off
I picked her up
she was so lonely
& had been that way
for a time
"don't cry,"
I said with conviction.
"I can keep you
forever
if you'd like."
a smile crept upon
her lips
like sullied
enchantment
"oh honey,
I've seen forever
it is endless
endless
& annoying as
hell."
Feb 8, 2012
Feb 8, 2012 at 5:23 PM UTC
From the time the heart first knew how to feel, and the eyes distinguished rain from tears, few have hidden behind the walls within me. Whether they found it a safe place or a jail cell - well, I guess we'll leave that to the imagination. No matter if it was a cell or heaven, the space within always felt alive. Even at my deadest times, the heat within coursed like it knew something more valuable was in store.
Somehow, some way, a wanderer found a pathway in. Had he known better, perhaps he would not have been in the hands of the girl with wisps of flame at her angered fingertips. The burns don't sustain, but the more that's lost, the more it dissolves all other slivers of hope left to grasp.
Fear is the real culprit, you must see. The fear I must face by harboring a false love; a fear of committing my own sins; of breaking my own promises.
I've never understood a "true understanding." Anger can be cooled by the calm, as does the rainbow after the storm. With the storm blown over, his eyes shone bright and revealed his intentions clearly - you can still love with a straight face and a frigid heart.
Jan 9, 2016
Jan 9, 2016 at 9:58 AM UTC
*The leaves
Twist gold and red
and drift like butterflies
to earth, settling on crisp, cooled ground
A shawl*
Sep 19, 2010
Sep 19, 2010 at 10:21 PM UTC
I am the soft silent sight
nestled in a tree gently
holding hands with emotion.
Together like lovers we intimately
sit with an invisible touch.
Our eyes penetrating darkness
we govern like a loving mother
or angelic force like Mother Teresa.
A shiny moon polishing
a silvery heart cooled
by a vast ocean.
I always fly quietly as I bring
a gentleness into darkness.
Tucking the night up with
the softest quilt, through a pane
of glass in a near by wood you
hear me calling.
I give a rod of stability eternal sight
seen it all before will see it again.
As we hang softly like the moon
in the sky or an Owl in the tree.
I lift people through their night
I carry them with my sight a
tractor beam of light.
As you feel my presence like a
million hands that softly
penetrate.
All holding torches you are
lite like a child who's mother
has come back.
Scooping you up your
darkness falls on
entering my Owls sight.
I am the light that always
surrounds the night .
I am the ever expanding vision
the tide that never turns but
just keeps on rising.
I grow with a bursting force
of an ever expanding universe
as I stretch my eyes they keep
on reaching.
I am the ancient eye placed high
above always unstirred but
filled with feeling.
Like the white of an eye surrounding
a pupil I am the army who circles
around the darkness.
I am the reflection of the velvet
moon sitting on the ocean
threading itself throughout
your being.
Those caught within my sight
will feel a thousand tiny bubbles
of bright light.
Gandolf the white explores
your caves holding his
wisdom stick and lantern.
Unlocking your hidden emotion
giving you magic fighting
of your demon.
I will conquer hell fire with
a gentle trickle finding my path
like a mountain stream passing.
But when I open my heart my wings
the devil will shudder because I hold a
power like the pacific ocean.
So much protection we can find
at night within the Owls sight.
Sep 5, 2015
Sep 5, 2015 at 6:28 PM UTC
You sad fool. My dear, old friend
How I find myself waiting for you again.
Your eyes drive into mine, with brights on,
and you leave palpable words hanging in the air with the writings by your teeth,
without a mouth to open, just jaw clenched, no recognition of existence,
And your hands are soldering irons cooled clenched until clashing into my air
Touching time, and instantaneously heating space, as an element
Reaching Avogadro's number, ten to twenty-third
Holes appear between us.
I remember when we used to laugh
And mostly at each other,
but not as we do now.
There was no malice.
One day maybe there will be solace.
"You act as though I'm a nice guy"
So it's true you like to objectify
The object (oh, the irony) of your affection
Which is anything that cares to mention
How creative was your invention
It was not my intention to
Organize a fluidity to the scrutiny
And the staged mutiny of what was a foundation.
For it's not representative to your thumbprint.
I feel no organization here. You have ordered chaos.
Francisco,
Bring up your lights.
Just remember that you look best at night, when the moon is carved into the sky
and your real intentions revealed.
Where you sit upon that pale desk
And wrap your knuckles against the floor,
Stab with a quill the pools you leave behind,
to write your ***** recollection,
Just remember you look best when your tears catch this starlight.
Francisco, bring up your ****** lights.
Feb 28, 2011
Feb 28, 2011 at 12:02 AM UTC
Unforgiving heat
Cool drink
Giraffe,
Hippo,
Wildebeest,
Gazelle
Sip muddy water hole
Crouching low.
Unforgiving heat
Cool drink
Texans
Sip fridge-cooled Camelbacks
Crouching low.
Light breeze
Eggplant skies
Tall savannah grass
Sways
Masking movement.
Predators travel
Unseen.
Guns ready
trophies sighted
Giraffe
Hippo
Wildebeest
Gazelle
Bullet chambered
Trigger finger
trophies....
Running?
Cheetahs pouncing
Texans screaming
Law of Nature
End of Story.
Oct 31, 2014
Oct 31, 2014 at 12:01 PM UTC
the priest, whose tomato face looked like it might explode under collar tension,
gave the valedictory at the friday night execution
the yellow-toothed, combover'd serial killer buckled in electric chair
kept staring at the door, expecting an ally to crawl in late but not too late
the mother of one of the victims rattled on about
how she didn't care that the killer had an allergy to the anesthetic used
in lethal injection he's going to die either way what's it matter?
buzz of fly crack of rolled program against empty folding chair
(yes, there were programs, and whoever laid them out knew their typography)
buzz of fly raised upward, toward the black, magma-cooled ceiling
audience chin up, pupils circled fly as the priest droned on
about everlasting life like a Paul Simon song from his youth
like a catcher's mitt from his youth like a youth from his youth
the boyfriend of one of the mothers of one of the victims
said he was hungry pancakes sound good, don't they?
I love it when syrup gets on the bacon, you know? love that.
a pudgy guard with bleary eyes and 12 a.m. shadow
rolled his index finger lowered his brow, telling the
priest to wrap it up so the priest wrapped it up
by reading the names of the victims
Tara Barnes, 17, Rachel Lythe, 10, Julie McPherson, 13,
Serenity Strongman, 15, and Mary Beth Williamson, 13
the priest said something about judgement as
the boyfriend of the mother of one of the victims
took another swat at the fly missed
any last words? the priest asked
where's James? the killer asked, he was supposed to be here
did you guys give him the right time?
the guard nodded to a lab coat by a black box
then a hiss then a hum then an inhale
the first jolt of alternating current for
instantaneous brain death
hard to tell if they succeeded in that
for the second jolt came only a moment
later this shock's aim to fatally damage
the internal organs, overstimulate the heart
and the killer's face looked like a horse's leg
then an exhale then a hum then a hiss
and the killer's face looked like the crinkled
skinmemory of a cicada
it was late most of the best restaurants already closed
but we could go to that diner off 63rd, the boyfriend
of the mother
of one of the victims, said
Feb 16, 2013
Feb 16, 2013 at 1:07 PM UTC
Big Four Railroad
In the past a little one had an interest in this story and one of the racers and the longest freight train
The race team was in the living room and their story was being read from the paper mother clueless
We laughed and snickered about our secret that old engineer was proud of us we were not vain
Down the hill we sped past Bino’s station across Jackson the B&O; he was high balling we had to pour it
On between the two tracks he was closing the gap he had nothing to lose but his pride for us it was
Curtains the long black limo a one way ride we streaked the line fifteen feet to spare we just stopped
And turned what a salutation from the engineer half hanging out the widow of that great engine his
Balled fist a shaking you sons with the deafening roar of that train so close we didn’t get to hear the rest
And the train carried him on down the track so Jerry and Larry and the other guy continued on to the
Swimming pool pleased with our speed we forgot about it until on the front of the paper in the bottom
corner it read three Pana youths out run train I guess the old engineer cooled off as he sailed on down
The track we didn’t know he talked to the tower as he passed so we didn’t get first prize or a blue
Ribbon but in a small way we entered into the great and wonderful tales of train lore along with Jessie
and Frank I told you when in trouble I had three actions fight talk or run that day the running won the
Day for these three amigos this memory was triggered by that same old paper this time it was talking
About the Amtrak detour I remember those passengers all those years ago setting there in their seats
flying through our town and the hook and the mail sack from the tower where that old bakery could be
smelled all night all the way out at the park as we watched tables for old F.S. Refinery I’m glad we didn’t
race a passenger train or this would be a hamburger story enjoy G.H.
Jan 8, 2012
Jan 8, 2012 at 11:53 PM UTC
Behold!
that drawing in
of breath
a minty
entanglement
of starlit senses
How they curl
like the opposite
of smoke
over the very
insides
of my
earthen throat
crackle of
autumnal breezes
whooshing through
like a beacon
And in that
split-second
right before
deep freeze
my molecules
rise and fall
in the rhythm
of snowflakes
each one a
unique entity
dusting the
solid soil
with loamy richness
and simultaneous
feather impressions
of relief
Now
like silk draped
alabaster
I am cooled
Like sweet
river water
I flow
rocked by
the slow
churn of
growing freedom
that alights my pores
arises in tender
stillness
through the
looming forests
of my skin
penetrates the
unseen journey of
my night
as demulcent
and persistent
as the balmy petals
of a
raging,
fiery
bloom
Nov 6, 2016
Nov 6, 2016 at 5:17 PM UTC
Isela
takes it in
the mouth.
She'd get on her knees,
positioning herself
half-in,
half-out
of focus.
Just enough for Joe,
behind the Cannon,
to capture
the whole thing.
Eric,
the producer,
was on his hands and knees
beside Joe.
'Come on Izzy
work it,
work the dick.'
'That's right,
stroke it,
make him sing.'
'I love it,
Izzy.'
Izzy wanted to bite
down.
She hated each and every ****
she ever saw,
but she had a few things to do.
Her **** had to be new
and renewed
on the daily,
her ***** had to get wet
on command,
and her stroke had to be
so fast
they'd burn the dude
as her mouth
cooled.
After her mouth
was littered,
and her face was a mess
of spinal glitter -- You could make a man
come out of his
brain, Eric would say.
Izzy would get in her car,
wiping her arm
where'd she'd gone
to the clinic
to get pricked
and tested,
and pull a long haul of Virginia Slims
down her throat.
'
It was always the first sweet thing
she tasted.
Izzy would pull into the Terrace View apartments,
all that long black hair,
and wipe all that make-up off,
three napkins-worth,
so she could kiss her baby.
Because Rocco was in for a bid,
and not coming home anytime in
the forseeable future.
Her microbiology degree was somewhere
in her closet underneath those pink stillettos and
more fishnets than fish.
And Izzy knew
that with those double d's;
*** like a backseat,
mouth that could grease
a ****
and her hands
Eric liked to call his own,
that she could pay the light bill
and maybe
put Romeo
into a daycare center
that wasn't full of roaches
and
angry *******
"Someday I'll get out,
but it's illogical
to say
with all the money I'm making,
and it's just a job
when you get down to it,
I've ****** a lot of *****
and never gotten
paid."
Rocco Jr.'s cheeks were always the second
sweet thing
she tasted.
"I know a lot of girls
that got defeated by this game."
Mar 23, 2012
Mar 23, 2012 at 1:08 AM UTC