"cosseted" poems
Howling wolves,
Calling unearthly creatures
Night bound to deathly horrors
Cold icy fingered wind, bites
Whistles down stone chimneys,
Inside amber flames flickering in the hearth,
Shadows dance across the wall,
Candle sputtering in the draught
Casting an eerie glow cross the page
The book being read, strange tales
Outside the wind surges, lashing
Rain against the leaden panes
A splinter of lightening flashes eerily
Warm and cosseted against the storm
The page is turned, the story continued
A single scratch at the window,
And a rattling of the latch
Heavy door squeaks open,
On old heavy hinges
Fingers slowly slide round
Gripping the doors edge
Skin grey, taught against bones
Hooded face slowly revealing
It’s secret from beyond
The Reader’s eyes riveted
On this unfolding chapter
Spine chilling flicker of recognition
Of his own face beneath the cowl
The book drops …
Sep 3, 2015
Sep 3, 2015 at 4:07 PM UTC
For this is a swan song.
A final curtain call.
Never seen a dead swan lain on the river bank.
Wondering where they go to die.
A sweet song for swans written.
An exercise in eloquence.
Bedecked in full white plumage.
In elegance she glides, as they glide, a family.
With their swan lake family.
Pen floats next to cob swan with cygnets dancing alongside.
Protected creatures cosseted, for Ma'am of the realm.
These ugly ducklings grew into quilted passions.
A passion of beautiful aggression is what we will receive.
Should we stupidly disturb?
These beauteous, arrogant tranquil birds.
By ladylivvi1
© 2013 ladylivvi1 (All rights reserved)
Aug 17, 2013
Aug 17, 2013 at 1:20 PM UTC
Cadaverous crotchety gouged out eyes.
Scalped trite and malnourished minds.
Where am I? What has this land become?
My vessel is gutted galled and splayed out upon the enflamed remains of our democracy.
I try to embody the equanimity peaceful qualities of the lulling Gandhi characters before me...
But **** I am angry, jolted and saturated in shock in fear.
Being an advocate for the people so dismissively marginalized, is what brings substance to my life.
I look into the eyes of my mirthful clients and future students, my heart winces.
How did I allow this to happen to you?
A man who so boastfully incinerates and debased the citizens of our land with his farcical vitriol, is no man at all but merely an unsightly shrew, cozily cosseted in his world of soot and pooh.
The bosky gorgeous land we inhabit sobs in noxious fright.
To be despoiled and berated as some "natural right" splintered and tainted to allow the green cash river flow into the dubious maw of the man with no dignity to show.
A man who preens such a degenerated mindset is only aptest to a society in shambles.
Our global haimish home yearns for the equilibrium from which it was born.
In such a seeded tumultuous time my heart is seeped in reverberating sorrow.
Let your love and purity coat your vessel, do not let this barbaric man permeate your soul.
Hold steadfast to the testament of our land
True revolution is budded from a web of genuine connection, not devise brandished weapons.
Don't shroud yourself in misery, break free and be prepared to encite love with your authenticity.
Nov 9, 2016
Nov 9, 2016 at 1:57 AM UTC
Amber flames flickering In the hearth,
Shadows dance across the wall,
Candle sputtering on the table,
Casting an eerie glow on the page
The book being read, strange tales
Outside the wind surges, spattering
Rain against the leaden panes
Warm and cosseted against the storm
The page is turned, the story continued
A single scratch at the window,
And a rattling of the latch
The book drops …
Sep 1, 2015
Sep 1, 2015 at 6:50 AM UTC
*As the surface clouds cleared
and the sovereign sun arose
My perspective was no longer fixed
on what lay below
Yet on what awaits before me…..the unknown.
I fly, with the rocky shoreline behind me.*
Maria
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
the emperor of the solar system
demands obeisance
but for half of our life
ceding us to the
super moon's sequestration,
a velvet coated, cosseted,
the other-half-of-a-lifetime
remainder reminder
of the divide no poet
can supersede
yet, even these planet pulling,
tide churning bodies
are eclipsed,
their torrented powers
have human
shortcomings
orbits prescribed, predictable,
they too can only look down
upon us and wonder
what if and what lays beyond
their lawful curves
but I can look up to you
watch you, human,
so powerful are you!
you, you, you
can reset your course,
irrespective of tides, gravity
I can watch you
rephrase your life,
knowing that my eyes
cherish what ere,
before in time,
what will be your
course selection
as I write,
I wonder if
my thoughts sufficiently
clarified,
do they require editing?
no matter,
the way they fall is
how they'll be served
I live with the same orbs,
and the winds that lifted your wings,
changelings of perspective,
now but the breeze that coats me,
were the hot air currents that lifted you,
now here, days later,
my genlest cloak,
as I inscribe to you
and the waters that I see,
not lapping today,
but modestly erupting,
the same Atlantic green
you have seen days pre-me,
but my shoreline sandy,
rocks removed,
for your comfort,
awaiting your arrival
the woman sends the seagull,
French Toast is ready,
(one piece, that talkative white bird's commission)
coffee hot n' salted
all ready, prepped to your taste
and for some reason random,
clueless why on, in my Long island offshoot sheltered isle
tears wave over my cheeks,
which I must erase/disguise,
before the repast begins
Surprise!
How came thee to be at our table?
How good the meal will taste,
now that you chosen to fly/stop by!
and this gibberish nonsensical
cup of words
is your welcoming present,
for here,
humans are the sovereigns,
and the celesetes bow to our wishes,
we select our own direction,
regardless of how the orbs try our souls,
we are most powerful human,
sovereigns of our selves
Jul 13, 2014
Jul 13, 2014 at 11:00 AM UTC
The dough is molten at oven spring,
like a prayer to the historicity of things ..
Have we not imagined yesterdays
in the ritual of bread ? While our pasts
lay embezzled, on the tongues of men, the
sentiment of centuries colluded in germ,
echoing through heirloom remembrances
those floury philosophies of change.
While I stretch dough to gaze past
a windowpane, as far back as Khorasan ..
they were other names then, another
elasticity in time. Faith is a memory
of settled people in lands of milk and
honey, where every drought, every flood
spawns a new religion .. and the wheat,
always begs the same old question:
Are we there yet, in the fertile crescent
of opportunity ? The grains haven't changed
in their stolid countenance - long, subtle,
germy, cosseted. In the granaries of kings ..
they are willed by royal decree, never to die
in an eternal future and like humankind,
who score bread in the cuneiform of hearts,
grain is always thirsting to seed the land.
Sep 20, 2021
Sep 20, 2021 at 10:49 AM UTC
You started to leave as the cold nose of Winter
bulldozed through Guy Fawks skies
and Christmas silent nights.
Your nearness was a far plane
of slumped reflection, deliberation,
contemplation of your plight, so mine.
Suspicion stirred in morning tea
and pre-work niceties.
You watched me when I turned my back,
your head buried in the ‘Daily Mail’,
too close to the print.
Denial hugged me a long while, dismissing
the cosseted phone and obsessive hygiene.
Giggling-head days, home-fire Wednesdays,
pledges in sweat daze
all rolling around
on a distant carousel.
I hoped you could see,
but hope could not override
your turning tide.
Your eyes begged for the ‘talk’,
so you could bring it up
like rancid *****
Coward
You left in a yellow haze with the daffodils,
and I hated you
with all the love anyone could imagine.
Jan 30, 2016
Jan 30, 2016 at 4:59 PM UTC
During dark hours,
Turning in sleep, restless,
Edging from a dream, so soft,
Cosseted, warm, gentle, loving,
Till the memory spike ravages, savages,
Piercing deep, deep down, grimacing,
It hurts; crushing tears, salty, warm, stillborn.
During dark hours,
Absolving her of blame,
Shedding the need to punish,
Unwilling to chastise my darling,
Far easier than forgiving oneself,
And yet; I struggle, so difficult,
Because of Love? Yes, yes of course.
During dark hours,
She sleeps; peaceful soft snores,
Unaware how, forgiving her,
Forces, unbidden, an angry sadness,
My word is true, honourable, my bond,
No regrets, revenge unthinkable;
Still; I’m good at fooling myself.
During dark hours,
She slashes my thoughts,
Undignified imagery, thousand fold torment,
I do forgive; I have; just punishing myself,
What is forgiveness anyway?
Death, springs readily to mind,
We all forgive then; at last.
© Paul Chafer 2014
Jan 18, 2014
Jan 18, 2014 at 10:38 AM UTC
Outside, cold icy fingered wind, bites
Whistles down stone chimneys, inside
Amber flames flickering in the hearth,
Shadows dance across the wall,
Candle sputtering in the draught
Casting an eerie glow cross the page
The book being read, strange tales
Outside the wind surges, lashing
Rain against the leaden panes
Warm and cosseted against the storm
The page is turned, the story continued
A single scratch at the window,
And a rattling of the latch
Heavy door squeaks open,
On old heavy hinges
The book drops …
Fingers slowly slide round
Gripping the doors edge
Skin grey, taught against bones
The Reader’s eyes riveted
On this unfolding chapter
Sep 2, 2015
Sep 2, 2015 at 4:19 PM UTC
one more for Pradip...
"Poems...are never short or long, they're only more. Thanks Nat for ever filling the less."
firing up the poem kiln,
this intriguing provocation
insistent of deserved consideration,
after all,
it is thy stories that these days inspire,
my own stories are relentless
grey, old, cold, and to my eyes,
coded repetitious...
neither a chaster or a chastiser,
(You could look it up!)
confessing readily to sinning against humanity
by ecrivezing poems of length considerable,
the Mexicano from Indiano
releases a shotgun blast
to all those whose attention spans last,
to ten words or a single stanza...no more...
but this not the matter of import,
no, no, it is the
more and the less
that makes poetry the best,
no matter the length or the heft...
in each of us
there is a more and a less,
in cycles individual that are not bound to
tides, weather, or any effect natural,
but product of our own amber waves
of chemical imbalances and mental auras...
all my days have I rode waves of
well hid hills of mania *** depression,
contented moments surrounded and cosseted
by wails of worry, sorrel colored sorrows,
making the scientists amazed at the correlation
of the macro and the mini,
the precision of my indecision...
in sixty seconds, in sixty days, in sixty years,
have I battered and battled the disequilibrium
of more and less,
disallowing a pilloried intervention,
will likely do so until
that day when my pen
has bled its last...
this theme haunts,
for but a day ago,
a bus poem was blurted out,
that concluded thusly:
***to survive,
to justify,
to mediate
between these un-counterbalanced weights,
I write poetry***
here I am stunned that Pradip
with but a handful of seeds,
exactly isolates the genetic implanted notion
that I struggle to define,
knowing only that my poetry fills my less,
when the all the rest is just
another fine mess
we fill the less with our wit,
we top off our souls with writs,
we are more for having scribed,
one read or ten thousand,
it mater matters knot!
look upon the pages endlessly bearing
the ephemeral heavy-handed weight full of well crafted words,
the good, the plenty,
the sad, the sorry,
the trite and cranky,
those misted musty,
the light and the careful,
the bad and merely awful,
even the drip of torrential love stories gone dry
what matters not
any of this over sighted analytics,
each and all and everyone
a success,
for each poem makes someone's less lessened,
and someone's more, more,
and by this
ever filling the less...
Aug 19, 2014
Aug 19, 2014 at 3:35 PM UTC
You’ve changed
imperceptibly yet obviously
since the last time
You’ve changed
something has shadowed
your sunshine
Clouded things
You’ve changed
you dress impeccably still
and wear your heart on your sleeve
embroidered with care
into the fabric of you
You’ve changed
I see age creeping into the corners of your eyes
edging into the mirrors
framing the light
claiming you
You’ve changed
the things we shared
are now past
distant
and our language
of intimacy
forgotten
shifted
to polite familiarity
lacking finesse
I’ve changed
Moving quietly away
from the totem
that was you
re-evaluated what it was
reviewed assumptions
in detail
in colour
and learned
evolved
We’ve changed
lost our polarity
the semblance of kindred-ness
that we celebrated
valued and cosseted
we have let go
moved
realised
and grown
Apr 16, 2012
Apr 16, 2012 at 6:07 AM UTC
a pony ride turns hollow when unshod hooves slip and tear
lots of room for prey and avarice on the prowl
I'm hiding sad shadows in the gods' kind shade
the position you've cosseted was never yours
and a bouquet in full bloom lies face down in a trash can
and a dead plant stands in the corner of a takeaway outlet
your shadow came to talk to me when you fell into deepest asleep
a frosted windowpane is sandwiched in snow
a slick oil spill in a cat's hungry paw
incredibly, convo is created in terse debate over a teaspoon
similarly, two ladies sit and sip in evening caps
amarna letters get torn or burnt to maintain the unknown
Jan 18, 2014
Jan 18, 2014 at 2:31 PM UTC
Pray tell, what is this thing called blessed love?
Is it a gift to be cosseted in bright red felt?
A gift to be given from powers above?
Skin all wrapped in floral pelt,
Can we all find it tied up with a smile?
Between us n'er let love drive a rift,
Only once in a beautiful while,
A present, a total gift,
Giving true pleasure,
Carried upon a waft of joy,
Love given at leisure,
For a beautiful woman, from an angelic boy,
As the tears created, caused their own puddle
Love got lost, she's all in a muddle,
Mar 16, 2014
Mar 16, 2014 at 10:31 AM UTC
a book listener,
earbud'd, her literary tastes
sensately incessant,
to head-hear me speak,
iPad down, iPhone paused,
a 10~30 second ritual
while I grrrrin and bear it
a precious jeweled day,
sun providing a great moderation,
76 degrees Fahrenheit,
a steady breeze, 10~15 mph,
a human cooler
she blanket cosseted,
me relieved,
just a memory now,
a sworn oath to do a three mile morning
hike in the nature reserve
overcome with gratitude for that,
and a perfection blessing of a day,
in normal voice, I let the guard take a weekend day off,
pronouncing I love you vey much
at this very moment of poetry inscribing...
so she stops, unbuds, buttons pushed,
and says what dud, duh,
what was it that you said?
nothing unimportant, says me
(why spoil her twice, thinking)
No I insist!
so I repeat my grace laudatory
and she says, I
just wanted to hear it
twice....
and i wonder what else she hears
when I am being disregarded....
I guess this,
a love poem
of sorts,
though confused,
cause I been used,
well and proper
and quite like it,
I think....a little devilry
a spice to a relationship repast,
don't you worry,
I'll get her back
but where, when, how...
Mmmmmm....
Jun 15, 2014
Jun 15, 2014 at 3:25 PM UTC
Broken time watches warily
Godless granite-hard cruel
Unrelenting
Crooked finger shall give
Abundance of clever foggy portraits
Vaguely quick spun words
Just words
Hopeless downcast downtrodden
Shifting swimming eyes
Thrown scattered shot
Up
Careless siege of swill
Scarlet shiny garish
Plucked and fussed and
Cosseted
Gone gone gone
Vanished brashly veiled
Never more
Dec 31, 2012
Dec 31, 2012 at 3:01 PM UTC
5 X 5
sitting in that chair, once more,
that chair that is my picture of me...
One:
The bay laps quiet rhythmic hellos
knows better than to ask,
just graciously accepts,
one of us says Hallelujah,
and the other, Selah!
a torrid summer of morose and illness,
lingers still, and here I am, cosseted,
comforted by familiar comfort foods,
baby waves, the gentlest of precision-crafted currents
of air, all together a baklava so sweet,
one could forgo forever eating,
but never, writing of them, to you
Two:
Crumpled tissues,
absorbers of ****** fluids,
crumpled poems,
absorbers of mental fluids,
evidence of a body and soul's
dismal anguish, creativity extinguished,
weeks of weak, months of morbid,
were the pretense that a lovely physical shelter exterior,
could ever successful well-mask the human upheaval within,
as if a summer tan could disguise the illness exposed in his eyes
Three:
Sun of moderated fall heat enters via the nostrils,
crimping the bacteria of depression,
that come from an overrun immune system,
a summer of discontent for the summer man,
who has been encapsulated by the suicide
of a man he knew only from his humorous artistry
am I better? some. healed? of course not...
but here I begin a summation of my silences,
that came with no explanation substantive,
for which I formally apologize
Four:
Four is for me, a self-addressed postcard,
way past the point of clean slates,
I am a blackboard with years of dust cumulated
from scrawls, equations, mistakes,
and here n' there a teachers favorite,
a large exclamation point!
decide that it is perhaps time
to relearn how to write poetry for pleasure,
wipe that chalk dust off some,
not for pain disclosures hall marked,
though the pain must be played through,
today, a new season starts and my record,
unblemished a perfect 0-0
Five:
Why 5 X 5? No idea!
this is how it starts for me,
a title, a notional emotion,
a horse rider with a head,
but no body attached,
no direction home,
and the words, disassociated,
pulled together and now there are
five babies tendered for your
care and consideration,
perhaps even,
for your pleasure...
Sep 7, 2014
Sep 7, 2014 at 12:31 PM UTC
Bruise this bane upon my body,
Bare me to the bones;
Breathe beyond my bounds,
And undo this drape of teardrops
That baptized me into temptation.
My besieged spirit revolts,
Beseeching to restore
The dignity of drowned divinity;
Once cowled, cosseted and chaperoned
To salvage my strayed soul from shipwreck.
May 16, 2016
May 16, 2016 at 1:42 PM UTC
Resting Friendship!
Silver armour,
Please protect the heart that can not die.
Angel wings.
Cosseted the lady fair,
Beautiful mind, already died.
Coronet of filigree.
Rests upon sweet ladies hair.
She lays in rest.
Always best.
The lady cared.
She dared to care.
Lady destroyed.
Oh lady sweet.
Rest in peace.
Sleep deeply.
Til sunshine dies in rain.
Glass casket.
Pray smash it not.
Lacking air protects her lips.
No ageing.
Cold skin.
Encased in scarlet velvet.
Please keep her heart safe within.
Protect her from evil.
Save her from mortal sin.
Because you can.
For you are not a mortal man.
When after the war,
Together they died.
Together the fallen.
The battered and torn.
Fallen heroes warred with scorn.
Let the scorn be gone.
Enemies no longer sworn!
By ladylivvi1
© 2013 ladylivvi1 (All rights reserved)
Nov 27, 2013
Nov 27, 2013 at 4:37 PM UTC
brown soil erupts with till.
more or less still, with seed.
growing pains burst ground,
cosseted by umbrella stem.
seeds of dandelion spread,
waving kisses as they spin.
sunflower magnifies in sky…
till
seed
stem
****
sky
tired
birds
sigh
o’er
them. garter snake slithers, amidst anxious pansies and elephant ears.
gray clouds
e
x
p
l…………….o
d……………………..e
xxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxx
Kim Rodrigues (c) 2017
Feb 27, 2017
Feb 27, 2017 at 8:58 AM UTC
The Nightmare.
On the slab in total innocence.
From on high it fell.
Rescued by care.
Tenderly in safety.
Protected and cosseted.
Dear sweet thing I think.
From on high she blared.
Mother screeched how much she cared.
As if the Red Baron attacked.
Wanted to ****** my eyes.
Flying in bombs.
Causing such fear.
Ran indoors.
Safe haven near!
Impact must have hit my head.
For in the night.
I got a poison visit.
Dispatched from my mind's eye.
Woke up in a dozy state.
Get inside super quick.
Fear set in.
Made me almost sick.
That bird.
That scary bird entered my head.
In my dreams in wants me dead.
Tried to get back in my home.
How the could I break free.
Don't let her ire get me.
Should have pushed the handle down.
Shoved the door to set me free.
The racket I made released my fear.
Safe and sound was really here.
Woke up in blind panic.
Fear was manic.
Woke up in my room.
Wrapped in sweat.
Really no more need to fret.Left that dream deep in the gloom.
Realised I hadn't left my room!
By ladylivvi1
© 2013 ladylivvi1 (All rights reserved)
Nov 5, 2013
Nov 5, 2013 at 5:12 PM UTC
crisp of white on the finest of days
cosseted inside them moisture sprays
cumulus ones have a cotton wool look
cirrus varieties are wispy of hook
coursing and floating across the skies
changing direction as the wind flies
countless lots of clouds have formed over the eons
Aug 26, 2014
Aug 26, 2014 at 6:52 PM UTC
it is just past
the witching hour
yet still i sit
stitching my id
into the gossamer
warp and weft
of the world wide web
a signature cosseted
in anonymity...
a virtual
i was here.... i live
and write to tell the
tale of my living...
stitch by lettered
stitch i leave a quilt
to cover my world....
Oct 18, 2014
Oct 18, 2014 at 9:36 AM UTC
Long forgotten stash
of flavor bursts
await my
restless grasp
sugar jewels
cosseted from
bumpy pavement
elusive bag
emerges unscathed
by layers
of fresh found
knowledge.
Apr 15, 2014
Apr 15, 2014 at 1:44 PM UTC
Who decides what historical events adorn
textbooks students read,
hence a starry notion born
grew up while
this lumpenproletariat day dreaming,
Asian aw shucks husky
husbandry furrowed brow gritty farmer
barnstorming across
expansive fields of baby
(barely) barley corn
crib bed crop 'pon harvest time,
(an maize zing genre), especially
when enriched with humus
laden loamy muck cob bra,
then aye delightfully
trumpet from dehorn
of good 'n plenti kernel Sanders gave me
saluting rank and file fool's capped
fecund fashioned earthborn
dunce sing tassels,
versus growing seasons gone by,
when draught of ideas forlorn
despite futilely blowing on my flugelhorn
high and dry reap peat head paltry yield,
asper when this strapping chap
a sweaty backed greenhorn
pondering why agrarian laborious life of toil
omitted as part and parcel of "newsworthy"
posterity sagas deeming
shenanigans of highborn
and/or "FAKE" headlines crowd inborn
noble folks,
who grease palms of industrialists,
whose quaking self importance
thwarts aside rural cosseted
krummhorn grounded bumpkin mor'n
how kapellmeister coaches bourgeoisie
helping determine
zero absolute value of newborn
fated to slave away
till body electric outworn,
yet paradigm shift of
(butter late then ever)
jiffy popcorn version
sown by seeds of Jethro Tull,
whose bonhomie with brio didst reborn
agricultural revolution took root,
whence before long some did scorn
and lamented machinations
ordered simple existence ripped and torn,
where antithetical views suppressed
and unto revolutionaries
became legion and well-worn.
Jun 5, 2018
Jun 5, 2018 at 7:34 PM UTC
Tall grasses grow
In a holy place
Swaying softly in dusky breezes
For some
It is over
And even the moon
Laments their loss
People have made
All of this
Happen
All of it
Everyone
Without realising
Played a part
Even those...
Especially those
Who did...
Nothing
Nothing
Nothing
Slept
Slept through their instincts
Walked in a daze
Of deluded dreams
Cosseted, closeted from the tides
But the winds will catch up
And the nothing doers
Will be rid of the numbness
And return to the battle ground again and again
And again and again
Until...
One day
Dawn breaks
Most vital
And fresh
And goodness
Will appear
Jul 16, 2016
Jul 16, 2016 at 4:28 PM UTC