"cowls" poems
You crossover the cutting board
Quick witted leather fitted
Eyes blasting beautiful rainbows
Muscle rippling with truth
Capes and cowls
Heroes and villains
Smiles and scowls
A league of Avengers
A modern mythology
Patterned after past pantheons
DC to Marvel
The same side of two twisted coins
The same lie that I love to enjoy
Fiction intertwined with philosophy
Violence intertwined with morality
Leaving me with these power fantasies
Of superhero friends and families
You’re on my tv, movie screen
In my comic books, novels,
And even in my dreams
Dec 22, 2014
Dec 22, 2014 at 9:33 AM UTC
The Convent at Le Cap Fureur
Lies empty, by the sea,
Its ancient walls a grim despair
Of anonymity,
No more the chants of singing Nuns
To vespers, weave their way,
A thousand years of heartfelt prayers
In silence, drift away.
The Sisterhood of Sainte Bernice
Is cloistered there no more,
The end came in a fury from
The world outside, at war,
The Nuns were fasting, deep in Lent,
When soldiers came across
To find each sister worshipping
The Stations of the Cross.
No godly men were in their ranks
No thoughts of sin or Christ,
The Nuns were ***** and beaten in
Some pagan sacrifice,
The Abbess stood with arms outstretched
And prayed, ‘Forgive them not!’
Was taken to the courtyard where
The sergeant had her shot.
There’s blood still on those convent walls
It leaches out at Lent,
Runs down the walls of dim-lit halls
And stains the grey cement,
We lodged there late one April night
Myself, Joylene and Drew,
Lay staring at the stars above
As round us, silence grew.
We slept within those hallowed walls
Until I woke in fright,
And roused the others, ‘Come and see
This strange and fearful sight!’
For out there in the entrance hall
We heard a weird chant,
And two long lines of Nuns approached
To keep their covenant.
Two lines of candles in the dark,
The Nuns wore hoods and cowls,
And as each candle flickered out
Their chant gave way to howls.
Screams and pleas then filled the air,
The sound of steel-capped boots,
A pagan army from the east
Of rough and raw recruits.
Joylene was in hysterics by
The time this vision went,
And Drew was praying loudly on
That final day of Lent,
We grabbed our things, rushed out and then
We heard a single shot,
The blood-stained Abbess blocked our way
And cried: ‘Forgive them not!’
David Lewis Paget
Sep 27, 2013
Sep 27, 2013 at 10:27 AM UTC
my eyes are drawn
to two seagulls
perched contentedly on
a shit-caked lamp post
nothing decorative
lacking flourish or accent
a simple narrowing pole
coloured inexplicably green
with gently domed cowls
that gulls and pigeons
seemingly frequent
marred by a combination
of cream brown white
for all i know
it could be
their own faeces
in which they stand
or it could be
weathered and aged
built up and dried in place
for days
for months
for years
perhaps even decades
never to return
to untarnished days
perhaps if the bulb blew
or the lamp failed completely
it might be restored
while it is repaired
but there is no
guarantee of that
and yet the birds
could not care less
they'll pay no heed
to that which is less
than perfection
treating this evidently
well-favoured resting place
the same as they would
an unmarred branch
protected amongst tree tops
or a dainty bird-bath
amidst the flowers
of someone's quaint garden
Jun 26, 2023
Jun 26, 2023 at 11:47 AM UTC
Mercury drips
from cold fingertips
Into cracked teacups
arrayed on a child's play table
"Where is my Alice?"
Chuckling bends the edge of the silence
Chemical cocktails sprayed
Weaponized aerosols
designed to cloud minds
bring dark knights crashing to their knees
Short sickly man
with a blood red head of hair
Stares oh so sweetly
at his darling sweetie
********* the straight edge
concealed in his pocket
Wonderland gang strikes
devices devised for controlling minds
activated
chips in cowls, linked to size eleven hats
Denigration of children's tales
although Lewis Carrol was a ********* they say
either way there is no avoiding
the madness of the hatter.
Jun 15, 2012
Jun 15, 2012 at 5:15 PM UTC
These storybooks woven with leathery imbrication
Filling my palms with vile indication
Detailing such wickedness and strife
What ethereal threads cling to life?
Such labyrinthine desires scrapping in my mind
My soul from body; that body which isn’t kind
To delve deeper within the wounds that sever
To fellow wolves, demons and toothless beggars
Unholy martyrs preach from a podium underground
Ablaze in hellfire, monsters of the ravenous mound
Black tongues and cheeks full of worms and leeches
Coals flung and burning over deafening speeches
Sumptuous in eloquence, these tossers and man-boys
Evocative displays of violence, hushed by silence and toys
Beseeched, reprimanded in city squares with common folk
Feeding dogs in heat slop with a pail and tote
Children waving hi to people in cages, smiling indifferently
Don’t they know what this is? Yes and no, forever in shame
Don’t they know there be wickedness afoot?
There be shadows of molestation
And whips of industry
Eyes removed and replaced with bar-codes
There be devils amongst the valiant
And dark angels amongst us
The few and proud
Recite aloud:
“Darkness brings uninvited guests
And our bodies are bare
Give us a blessing, a crumb or drop
Of life that we all can share.”
Veins full of rubies and auburn sapphires
Creepers laced in the cowls of cadavers
Red water thicker than mud and spit
The fatherland sicker than a rotten ****
There be dark angels amongst us, telling tales deep-seated
They be grave and weary, their lives left defeated
Now in the wilderness they give slothful lectures
But it’s only fools who listen to these rambling specters
And soon no one listens
Save for the moon that glistens
Jan 17, 2014
Jan 17, 2014 at 3:00 PM UTC
Beware, if you should venture out
There's spirits in the air
Be on the watch for all about
when walking, if you dare
The wind is up, the moon is full
There are witches in the air
Be on the watch for all about
when walking, if you dare
Ghosts and ghouls are waiting
For the midnight bell to toll
They lie in wait there in the dark
For those who dare to take a stroll
The moon is bright, it lights the sky
You can hear the haunted howls
The coven forms, there in the dark
Hidden by their capes and cowls
Listen close, the wind will speak
You can hear it if you try
The voices of those long gone
Or is it just a ghostly sigh
The veil is lifted on this night
The darkness hides the evil there
You hear it now "rosebud" it says
Do you go out, do you dare
A simple word, between the worlds
Houdini, maybe so
I dare you to go out tonight
But, be wary if you go
For, ghosts and ghouls are waiting
For you to take that stroll
Do you dare to face the moonlight?
Do you dare to bet your soul?
Oct 30, 2017
Oct 30, 2017 at 11:43 PM UTC
Relaxed in a state of absolute calm,
The air of serenity a soothing balm
To ease the imminent struggle ahead
As I sit on my throne of porcelain and shed
The anticipation tugging at my bowels
And out come the mud dogs wearing brown cowls.
Out they come and my tension is released,
In a violent cacophony the silence has ceased!
It has been replaced by a beautiful sound
Like the music of nymphs, with voices all crowned.
The release is a final stinky-sweet ender,
As the *** paper flows my world lights up with splendor!
The sunlight filters through my one bathroom porthole
And the warm rays splay playfully across the hairs of my ********
This is the moment, ***** all the rest.
Nothing else can compare...a good **** is best.
Oct 15, 2014
Oct 15, 2014 at 1:18 PM UTC
the crowd mills around the rough wooden scaffold
each has a part in the show of the condemned
dour officials beneath hooded cowls, darkness
a display of the supreme power of the law
criminal death sends a very, very strong message
the procession to the block ministered
by clergy vestments murmuring coded prayers
valleys of shadows, power, light everlasting
all hinting at a justifiable vengeance
the prisoner resigned to his fate under the jeers
his situation outranks the screaming populace
they will return to empty existence full of threats
he to the near comfortable mystery of the beyond
the blade falls, the blood flows staining red over brown
the flies gather for their feast, the deed is complete
the damning flies that no one expected
Feb 20, 2014
Feb 20, 2014 at 11:37 AM UTC
Pressed-foil bowls or bakelite cowls
Sitting still and open-mouthed
Ready to eat her dog-eared ash
Burnished or scarred as she burns-up her brass
Incensed as at a Virginia Mass
The tobacco weaves yellow shrouds
Coarse saffron fingers tap-tap at your rims
And dapple sweet drags on your lips
You could tell us some tales of long-drunken sins
Where the day-fags leave off and the night-fags begin
Of the filters with flares or the Park Drives with fins
With red lipstick, split lips and rouge films
Long nights without sleep extinguished in you
Harsh mornings begun in your bed
Some twisted, some stabbed as they poke them in you
The product of nicotine-jumpy sinews
Your pile overflows, now over to you,
Please tell: what goes out in your head?
May 4, 2020
May 4, 2020 at 3:54 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
We'll hang up our cowls & capes
In the thick of the collapsed ruins
Cranking one last tune on expired phonographs
Groaning as osteofluorosis plays his merry tune again
Still, gazing with the vast emptiness of long-lost eyes,
As a long lost chord haunts these halls again, we mutter :
"I can hear it now, like I heard it then."
Oct 12, 2020
Oct 12, 2020 at 9:05 AM UTC
Dark Angels
It's a long way down, so grab a hold and make sure you hold on tight;
This is our time to disappear and be never found under this light.
Obscured from the all-seeing; hidden within our darkest souls,
Are the thoughts of a dark angel, his dark angel bride
And the end of all that which you call hope.
Standing in these flames, I feel no pain;
I feel ignited, united and saved from being saved.
Let the waters fall and bury us all.
With flaming swords we go to war,
Without a shield to protect us; we want to fall.
Words ring aloud and true and break!
Our faith into pieces; we have been lured away.
Lead us into temptation and bring down a notion.
An army against your purity; this is our Heaven.
Destroy their love with a sinister growl.
Our love will die in a blaze of glory; we scowl beneath our cowls.
These walls must fall, for onward steps are forever required.
What chance do you have,
If the deceivers are the ones who will decide?
(C)2016 Aa Harvey. All Rights Reserved.
Jun 2, 2018
Jun 2, 2018 at 10:03 AM UTC
Winter is coming
with glimmers of snow
this at least I know
because of sky growls
Winter is coming
I watch fowls
wrapped in their feather cowls
head for warm relief
Winter is coming
gasps the last leaf
unfurled from its mortal sheaf
when Night King’s sword swings down
Winter is coming
tremble, under Ice Maiden’s frown
when the sight of her gown
dismays rather than awes
Winter is coming
with its silent claws
so much pain it will cause
its enemies will know defeat
Winter is coming
there is no soul so fleet
as to successfully retreat
from Winter’s adroit wrath
Winter arrives at Winterfell
taking a hail and sleet bath
contented growls cause pause
spikes rained down
cover advance of a thief
whose nefarious shadow’s prow
stifles light so darkness may grow.
~
NM
4/11/18
Dec 11, 2018
Dec 11, 2018 at 10:44 PM UTC
He drops his bomb and calls it a feather
Gripping tightly to his rugged leather
A king of his castle, of north and of south
The worst of intentions crease a dour mouth
He sips at his courage and spits from the parapet
His voice echoes through halls like a blaring trumpet
The queen cowls, tears veil her soft face
A palisade of loathing separates their space
Absolute power drips from his brow
Eyes like lightning, striking a bough
Creaks, cracks, defiance, and spite
The king does not pardon, in black or in white
She braces, erases, knights herself with adrenaline
The spear finds its mark like a dose of medicine
Impaled, curtailed, the king gasps a breath of contrition
The reign falls to its knees, Hell's latest acquisition
Oct 22, 2016
Oct 22, 2016 at 4:32 PM UTC