"cowled" poems
Death is boring.
Dark, cowled and skeletal,
Exuding a mysteriousness that she fails to fulfill.
Her goals are one dimensional
Though myriad in her often creative
Approach.
Creative after an eternity of
Collection.
God is almighty.
What can you give the man who has everything?
Your faith?
Omnipotence...
Safe bets are seldom captivating.
Unless you’re a criminal stacking the odds
While your fellow man takes the dive
For your gain,
Your glory.
Buddha is just a man.
Enlightened.
He accepted Death’s embrace,
And God’s divinity
Thrusting aside the Devil’s whispered
Temptations.
Yet
Buddha was just a man.
The Devil whispers the sweetest dreams
His voice is a silk melody
Dancing along our nerves
Touching our forbidden parts
“Take her, she wants your ****
Plunge into her moist depths
Sheath your spear,
Spill your seed,
****** hard
Then soft
Find release in her moans
Peace and heaven in her trembling touch.
Her moist lips part
But it is not your name she sounds
Her voice once radiant with lust
With desire
Now drives a shard of hate within, through your still rapidly beating heart.
Cupid speaks another name
Once hard now limp
Pull back, pull out your flimsy ****
Look down into the empty depths of her eyes
See in them another man
Her hunger is sated
Bruised lips mouth the apology your ears refuse to hear
Yet your heart laid bare just moments before
Is pierced anew.
Laugh it off but
The Devil has his hooks in you
Another carcass for the heap
She is the hook, you are the meat
Butchered
The lost leading the sheep to slaughter
Do not fret, you are not finished
Soon you will rise a phoenix from her cooling embers
Golden and resolute
Stronger for having licked her poison
Yet you will know that you are now
A stranger to yourself
You are the hook
Find him some meat
The Devil hunts again.
Apr 13, 2014
Apr 13, 2014 at 1:11 AM UTC
At last I entered a long dark gallery,
Catacomb-lined; and ranged at the side
Were the bodies of men from far and wide
Who, motion past, were nevertheless not dead.
“The sense of waiting here strikes strong;
Everyone’s waiting, waiting, it seems to me;
What are you waiting for so long?—
What is to happen?” I said.
“O we are waiting for one called God,” said they,
“(Though by some the Will, or Force, or Laws;
And, vaguely, by some, the Ultimate Cause;)
Waiting for him to see us before we are clay.
Yes; waiting, waiting, for God to know it.” …
“To know what?” questioned I.
“To know how things have been going on earth and below it:
It is clear he must know some day.”
I thereon asked them why.
“Since he made us humble pioneers
Of himself in consciousness of Life’s tears,
It needs no mighty prophecy
To tell that what he could mindlessly show
His creatures, he himself will know.
“By some still close-cowled mystery
We have reached feeling faster than he,
But he will overtake us anon,
If the world goes on.”
1.5k
Kissed Faith good-bye,
Stepped into the night,
Met a man on his way
To the Forest.
Faith behind him,
Uncertainty before,
Wavering on his way,
Brown faltered on.
Such a cloud of witnesses
As to keep him from this path!
But then they met him,
One by one,
Catechist and Minister,
Deacon and Elder,
Murmuring and gibbering;
Wise fools wending their way
To meet him
In a clearing, deep.
Pink ribbons falling,
Snake-head pointing
Feet now stumbling,
Then running before
In a wind of curses.
Firelight red,
Congregants cowled, silent,
Save the voice of Faith,
The near-initiate.
"Faith, Faith!
Look to Heaven!"
Resist the wicked one."
Woods silent;
Devil, fiends, fire ... gone.
Only Goodman Brown
To stagger home.
Ironic morning sight:
Smiling faces of Salem town,
'Gainst downward gazing
Goodman Brown.
Jan 30, 2020
Jan 30, 2020 at 9:18 AM 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
Cowled Charon,
Arise and attend;
Thanatos summons.
Invoke anew, Styx;
Ripples...solemn, sombre.
Ferry departed souls
To Hades' shore
A coin awaits thy ossified hand.
May 17, 2016
May 17, 2016 at 1:48 PM UTC
Snow in the garth
hanging on the branches
of the tree
like fingers of white
dea candidis,
the old monk shuffled
through ankle deep snow
cowled head bowed
hands hidden
in his black habit
wind moving about him,
Dei qui tollit
peccatum humilis
confessionis facit
Dom George said
quoting St Bernard
humble confessions
is the key he added,
white snow
on the window ledge
unspoilt untouched
et quasi virgo pura,
bell tolled heavy
bell disturbing snow
on the bell tower
rooks took flight
into the white sky,
parlare con Dio
the Italian monk said
lui ascolta,
I watched
the French monk
sweep snow from the path
long snow shovels
he moved,
un ange à votre coude
Dom François said
I gazed at my elbow
but saw no angel,
snow drifted across
the abbey like fleeing ghosts
twirling and twirling
round and round,
I read in the common room
a book on prayer
worn edges
aged sleeve
smell of damp and time,
Gott ist gut
the Austrian monk said
eyeing me
a small smile lingering
on his lips
I said nothing
but nodded slow,
after office of Sext
and lunch
I told the Prior
I would have to
pack my bag and go.
Jan 8, 2017
Jan 8, 2017 at 9:56 AM UTC
Off a room of the cloisters
I met Dom Andrew
bookbinding in silence
bearded and white cowled,
in silentio sit Deus,
Mancunian he said
saw picture in book
of monastic cell
and that were it,
I sensed the coldness
of the room
body shivered
ears felt pained,
il avait de la neige à l'extérieur
the French monk said
huddled in his black habit,
saw the snow on trees
and purity of it,
she took my hand
warm it was
and promised ***
Dom Charles tonsured
dark haired gazed at me
through thick lens glasses
eyes like ***** holes
in snow,
I have been all things unholy
and if God can work
through me Francis said
he can work through anyone,
I mowed the grass by the church
and Dom Frederick said
you've done well,
qui tutto sono fratelli
the Italian monk said
as he helped me dry up
the dishes,
beyond her dark hairs
lay the Kingdom of Eve
and joyousness,
bell tolled in the bell tower
by George or Hugh
or both for Terce,
a monk read in the refectory
from a book on Oliver Cromwell
as we sat and ate in silence,
bonitátem fecísti
*** servo tuo Dómine,
the old monk opposite
ate with gusto
spooned food as if
he may never eat again,
nog steeds sneeuw buiten
the Danish monk told me
coming in with vegetables
from the garden for lunch,
indeed snow still there
trees covered and fields
that I saw,
if you want to you can
she said so I did,
Dom Bruno said later
that Dom Andrew had cancer
and was silent on it,
Deus meus libera me,
and we licked our cutlery clean
between meals and put away
under our tables
in a large napkin
and George said unhygenic
but we did,
there is no great genius
without some touch of madness
Gareth said quoting Aristotle,
sunlight on flagstones
in the church
warmed by midday,
Compline bell told
of the end of day.
Jan 21, 2016
Jan 21, 2016 at 2:41 AM UTC
She stands there by the open window,
its mornings gray that lights her face.
her curls are long and fair and golden,
dulled by the light of the cold winters
morning; truthful in its stark demean.
Her face is pale and fair and lovely;
dark shadows circle her eyes, and her
eyes are gray, cold as the dawn, as they
watch the procession of men down the
road; in black are they robed, and their
cowls are dark. Her figure is lovely, or
was lovely, once; angles there are, and her lines
are hard and stark and sharp. Tall she stands
in the wasteful light, her pride a mantle, to
hold back the tide. Dressed in a sheet of
shimmering gray, almost she would blend into
the grey dawning morn, were it not for her hair,
though lackluster and shorn; longer it was in
summers fair past, till she cut it with shears and
shivers and hate. The cowled procession slows
to a stop, before a man and a pit and a naked tree.
He speaks in a voice of resonance and power; not
a tear is shed in that makeshift bower, not a tear,
not a whisper, not a head bowed in grief, for the
man they had carried. They spared him no pity; he
had shown none in life. The woman watches from
the empty tower, no tears shed there in her ancient
bower. Cold she stands in the cold morning grey,
robed in power and pride, and great beauty, past.
She watches as they lower her dead lord inside, no
coffin, he; too many had he broken. She watches
in silence, in pain, and in pride, foolish though it be
in the grey mornings light. Dirt over him. Dirt under.
A paupers grave, in a field, in winter. No honor in death;
he had had none in life. Last shovelful thrown; the ground
is smoothed over. The priest and his men leave the grey field
empty, save a tree in the center, stark in death.
she watches, and remembers, and falls in her folly, in her cold,
prideful folly, to join him in death, who had murdered her love.
To join him, though he it was who had murdered her love, and her joy and her dreams, and her young, laughing beauty. Fallen she, through prideful
folly.
Sep 24, 2015
Sep 24, 2015 at 5:24 PM UTC
I am bone cowled by death,
The lingering scent of sweat,
Pulsing veins and twitching skin;
Heavy breaths, as you're giving in.
Final drops of fear evaporate
The trace of vapor
That ignites the chase,
(If I had pupils they'd dilate)
This sensation alone is enough to sate,
But temptation causes cravings
And to my appetite I'm a slave;
Slaying souls that run through bones-
As if they were veins.
Wails encased in haunted ivory,
I get to keep and take
You belong to only me.
I am your merciless god, your life;
The devil that hides behind eyes.
I am natural and manmade,
Everything and nothing.
Portrayed decayed,
A reflection of your fate.
Stand unafraid, and straight
This is the meaning of why you wait;
Your one and only chance to have a taste.
The curve of your tongue,
And the curve of my scythe
Have the delight,
Of sharing the same slice
Fulfilling appetites, for that one good night.
-SLuR
Jul 14, 2016
Jul 14, 2016 at 10:05 PM UTC
Shadows crawl into the light, a cowled face I can’t erase.
Replace my vision with the blind but leave a trace of your outline,
Enough for me to taste, to hide with sniffs- come back in drips;
Make my nerve endings slip, and miss the grey. Numb to pain,
Slitting wrists and feeding veins. Bitten lips can’t kiss without feeling shame,
So I’ll smile like a snake, turn, and slither away. Defense mechanisms activate,
The rattle sounds before I feel its strike
And I only see its eyes after feeling the bite;
Pleasure always comes guised as demise,
I’ll grab its hand tight, and let it be my guide
As we follow the venom that writhes inside.
-SLuR
Jan 12, 2018
Jan 12, 2018 at 3:48 PM UTC
What black-cowled apparition this,
creeps on raven’s feet through my house?
What forsaken, decaying reflection?
It slumps around and waits for me to pass.
then it lunges and plunges the daggers
of its hatred into my heart.
Lying, stunned, my soul withering,
as does a peach in August sun...I die.
She who pulls herself up, like-visaged,
but not me.
This replicator of old poets dances
in my skin, ******* in darkness
as if it were afternoon tea.
The sky grows fierce with clouds
as curdled as milk from a witch’s ****
Bird song dirges cry, melancholy.
All the doors in my room slam shut -
throwing their bolts into locks,
more meant for keeping me inside
than keeping the world out.
The bitter blade of insanity
has cleanly severed my living cord,
and I must writhe in hell’s fires,
knowing I am unloved, unwanted and shunned.
Waiting until the hateful, hurtful deed is done.
Jul 19, 2015
Jul 19, 2015 at 3:48 PM UTC
The path ahead is unclear
the first few steps seem fine
(as fine is redefined by times)
beyond is cowled in green gloom
with definition hidden
but enticing
We pause and breathe
ask feet to tentatively tread possibilities
for surer surface
The line ascribed
by timeless river run
seems safe
and the possibility of kingfishers
is a draw indeed
But we have seen these river banks
lost to inundation
and irresistible weight
To realise this too late
would be fatal
so we collaborate in waiting
and make the call
May 13, 2020
May 13, 2020 at 11:50 AM UTC
All night it beat upon the pane
the cold staccato clamour of the rain;
trickling footsteps pattered on the slates
chimneys shuddered soot into the grates.
Banshee winds about the gutters howled
that grinning orb the moon was cowled
by clashing clouds that fused and broke
with every clashing thunder stroke.
Flickering fingers flashing doom
outlined and probed each object in my room;
frail curtains writhed and frantic flapped
tossing over objects - tempest trapped.
Morning came, rain rinsed smelling sweet,
pavements glinted, drains laughed in the street;
trees gesticulated flinging off their jewels
pigeons sipped the sun from sky-paved pools.
TOBIAS
Apr 6, 2018
Apr 6, 2018 at 12:55 PM UTC
Cowled and sitting
in the large church
the monks chanted Matins
matutinus officium,
I felt the chill
in my bones
as I watched
overcoat tight
about my throat,
un bacio sulla gola
the Italian girl said to me
I recalled as I listened
to the chants proceed,
auto-déni
the French monk
had said to me
the evening before
before Compline
la croix symbolise
un vide de soi,
Bro Andrew in the bookshop
bookbinding
snow on the outer window ledge
smiling
spreading his huge beard
come see he said
and handed me
a huge book
bound by him
evangelio de San Juan,
bells tolling
vibrating in the cloisters
disturbing the butterfly
on the window
seeking the sun
flapped away
before me watching,
the cross symbolizes
the denial of self
the self crossed out
the monk said
as I sat in the guest room
late one evening
his tonsured head shining
where the light
from the bulb shone,
I mused
on the girl's kiss
now lost and gone.
Jan 27, 2017
Jan 27, 2017 at 1:43 PM UTC
*A wood sprite cowled in rain drop diamonds
The lantern from above is shining ever brighter
Bluebirds and cardinals return to my vision ,
a golden religion with sacraments measured in legions ..
Sing O' thrasher , my lover , of gray blankets now parted ,
of streams fulfilled , longing for the ocean deep , of laughter
and harmony twixt earth and sea* ...
Feb 15, 2017
Feb 15, 2017 at 11:27 AM UTC