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"curving" poems
Hope surges upward from your core and to the heart. It warms your blood as your heart crushes into itself twice every second and unbelievably, your mind starts to think of a million and one possibilities. Your hand tingles and finally, after what seemed like eons, you think you are feeling hope again. You start suppressing it out of reflex- an unconscious, uncontrollable action. You push it down, right back to the void it came from but its too late and your lips are curving upwards into a gentle smile. You anticipate euphoria -almost can feel it at the top of your fingertips and you finally let yourself believe and hope. It comes crashing down without warning. For a second, you still smile because your mind could not process the disappointment yet. Then - hurt, sadness, shock - flits through your mind. You still hold on to your hope like a child who refuses to let go of candy. Your smile wavers. But just like grabbing onto handfuls of sand, hope will fall out through your tightly clasped fingers. You realised that your hold on hope is no longer and instead, it is replaced by cold, unforgiving reality. Like an icy slap to your face, like an unexpected kick to the stomach, like a bite from a dog you have always love- that is how disappointment feels like.
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Aug 22, 2014
Aug 22, 2014 at 10:53 AM UTC
Disappointment
when my love comes to see me it’s just a little like music,a little more like curving colour(say orange) against silence,or darkness…. the coming of my love emits a wonderful smell in my mind, you should see when i turn to find her how my least heart-beat becomes less. And then all her beauty is a vise whose stilling lips ****** suddenly me, but of my corpse the tool her smile makes something suddenly luminous and precise —and then we are I and She…. what is that the hurdy-gurdy’s playing
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31.2k
When My Love Comes To See Me It’s
* * * * * * * * * Faces of friends, of people i met earlier are  glittering stars on this late evening's dark blue sky...their smiles are tattooed in my mind...they're  hunched, going lower by the days...slowed down by years. it must be hard and painful...the arching, the drooping of the neck, the curving spine, they endure all, 'til each day's end...they rise each new dawn...do what they still can do, lest they stagnate in their aging ponds, diminish to a state, where food, pills, or forgotten information are forced on them, ......like drugs, injected into the veins ........................ these wee hours bring back the years... they  have been good...never mind the hard times...there were, there are good ones life is a long, wide stream of changing hues, flowing on and on....my water bears the colors each new day brings...gray, at times with sadness and gloom....other days, blacked by despair...some summers, red, roseate with glee, or green with life and hope...blue, when trust is spilling, and the tranquil sea and sky overwhelm, with a promise of stability..........white, when accepting......the unacceptable... ........................ the amber grains and i, are alike ripened enough to be plucked be pulled out from an existence...the signs are known...shown...yet, i wait for when it is due to happen...and while waiting, the stalks sway, play and dance   and enjoy the sun and wind...and i, while i still can...walk, jump, climb hills and valleys in this mammoth space of land and water.............called life ................... the sounds of my days, i still hear, i am a lute, a harp, a cello...playing off-key.....out of tune at times, my strings are my graying hair, i still can't stop dying the gray i still want to highlight the dark, but, one day, all these will cease... ............ one night, my face will be in one of those many stars...glittering on a dark blue sky sending a smile, to my loved ones. ................... (there is no other way, but forward all are headed towards an end.) Sally © Rosalia Rosario A. Bayan       June 26, 2018
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Jun 25, 2018
Jun 25, 2018 at 11:31 PM UTC
Late Evening Echoes
* * * * * * * * * Faces of friends, of people i met earlier are  glittering stars on this late evening's dark blue sky...their smiles are tattooed in my mind...they're  hunched, going lower by the days...slowed down by years. it must be hard and painful...the arching, the drooping of the neck, the curving spine, they endure all, 'til each day's end...they rise each new dawn...do what they still can do, lest they stagnate in their aging ponds, diminish to a state, where food, pills, or forgotten information are forced on them, ......like drugs, injected into the veins ........................ these wee hours bring back the years... they  have been good...never mind the hard times...there were, there are good ones life is a long, wide stream of changing hues, flowing on and on....my water bears the colors each new day brings...gray, at times with sadness and gloom....other days, blacked by despair...some summers, red, roseate with glee, or green with life and hope...blue, when trust is spilling, and the tranquil sea and sky overwhelm, with a promise of stability..........white, when accepting......the unacceptable... ........................ the amber grains and i, are alike ripened enough to be plucked be pulled out from an existence...the signs are known...shown...yet, i wait for when it is due to happen...and while waiting, the stalks sway, play and dance   and enjoy the sun and wind...and i, while i still can...walk, jump, climb hills and valleys in this mammoth space of land and water.............called life ................... the sounds of my days, i still hear, i am a lute, a harp, a cello...playing off-key.....out of tune at times, my strings are my graying hair, i still can't stop dying the gray i still want to highlight the dark, but, one day, all these will cease... ............ one night, my face will be in one of those many stars...glittering on a dark blue sky sending a smile, to my loved ones. ................... (there is no other way, but forward all are headed towards an end.) Sally © Rosalia Rosario A. Bayan       June 26, 2018
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61
Already over the sea from her old spouse she comes, the blonde goddess whose frosty wheels bring day. Why do you hurry, Aurora? Hold off, so may the birds shed ritual blood each year for Memnon's shade. Now it's good to lie in my mistress's tender arms; if ever, now it's good to feel her near. Now drowsiness is richest, the morning air is cool, and birds sing shrilly from their tender throats. Why do you hurry, dreaded by men and dreaded by girls? Draw back your dewy reins with your crimson hand. The sailor marks the stars more clearly before you rise, not raoming aimlessly across the sea; the traveller, though weary, arises when you come, and the soldier sets his savage hand to arms; you're first to see the farmers wield their heavy hoes and to call slow oxen under the curving yoke; you rob boys of their sleep and give them over to schools, where tender hands must bear the savage switch; and you send reckless fools to pledge themselves in court, where they take ruinous losses through one word; the lawyer and the pleader take no delight in you, for each must rise and wrangle with new torts; and you ensure that women's chores are never done, calling the spinner's hands back to her wool. All this I'd bear; but who would bear that girls must rise at dawn, unless himself he has no girl? How many times I've wished Night would not yield to you, the stars not fade and flee before your face! How many times I've wished the wind would smash your wheels, your steeds would stumble on a cloud and fall! Jealous, why do you hurry? If your son is black, it's since his mother's heart is that same color. How I wish Tithonus could still tell tales of you: no goddess would be more disgraced in heaven. Since he is endless eons old, you rise and flee at dawn to the chariot the old man hates, but if some Cephalus were lying in your arms, you'd cry out, 'O run slowly, steeds of night! ' Why should this lover pay, if your husband withers with age? Was I the matchmaker who brought him to you? Remember how much sleep was given to her loved youth by Luna - and she's beautiful as you. The father of gods himself, to see you all the less, joined two nights into one for his desires. I'd finished my complaint. You could tell she'd heard: she blushed; and yet the day rose at its usual time.
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10.1k
Morning
Already over the sea from her old spouse she comes, the blonde goddess whose frosty wheels bring day. Why do you hurry, Aurora? Hold off, so may the birds shed ritual blood each year for Memnon's shade. Now it's good to lie in my mistress's tender arms; if ever, now it's good to feel her near. Now drowsiness is richest, the morning air is cool, and birds sing shrilly from their tender throats. Why do you hurry, dreaded by men and dreaded by girls? Draw back your dewy reins with your crimson hand. The sailor marks the stars more clearly before you rise, not raoming aimlessly across the sea; the traveller, though weary, arises when you come, and the soldier sets his savage hand to arms; you're first to see the farmers wield their heavy hoes and to call slow oxen under the curving yoke; you rob boys of their sleep and give them over to schools, where tender hands must bear the savage switch; and you send reckless fools to pledge themselves in court, where they take ruinous losses through one word; the lawyer and the pleader take no delight in you, for each must rise and wrangle with new torts; and you ensure that women's chores are never done, calling the spinner's hands back to her wool. All this I'd bear; but who would bear that girls must rise at dawn, unless himself he has no girl? How many times I've wished Night would not yield to you, the stars not fade and flee before your face! How many times I've wished the wind would smash your wheels, your steeds would stumble on a cloud and fall! Jealous, why do you hurry? If your son is black, it's since his mother's heart is that same color. How I wish Tithonus could still tell tales of you: no goddess would be more disgraced in heaven. Since he is endless eons old, you rise and flee at dawn to the chariot the old man hates, but if some Cephalus were lying in your arms, you'd cry out, 'O run slowly, steeds of night! ' Why should this lover pay, if your husband withers with age? Was I the matchmaker who brought him to you? Remember how much sleep was given to her loved youth by Luna - and she's beautiful as you. The father of gods himself, to see you all the less, joined two nights into one for his desires. I'd finished my complaint. You could tell she'd heard: she blushed; and yet the day rose at its usual time.
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46
I've got the children to tend The clothes to mend The floor to mop The food to shop Then the chicken to fry The baby to dry I got company to feed The garden to **** I've got shirts to press The tots to dress The can to be cut I gotta clean up this hut Then see about the sick And the cotton to pick. Shine on me, sunshine Rain on me, rain Fall softly, dewdrops And cool my brow again. Storm, blow me from here With your fiercest wind Let me float across the sky 'Til I can rest again. Fall gently, snowflakes Cover me with white Cold icy kisses and Let me rest tonight. Sun, rain, curving sky Mountain, oceans, leaf and stone Star shine, moon glow You're all that I can call my own.
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10.1k
Woman Work
*all my life i held a dream of a woman i would love of course she would be alluring supple a charming countenance erudite, with an angelic face her body a muscular stretching willow arching her legs over head kissing her own curving soft feet a graceful contortionist in confetti colored sparkle pantyhose stretching towards me silken hair draping a perfect symmetry with spun sugar kisses wafting the scent of vanilla and candied vaporous breath lips like cherry lozenges but one never knows ones destiny i met her my girl destiny and except for a faint look of languor and ruin with a tinge of withering she was without doubt unbearably titillating with razor-thin blackened lips mascara slits for eyes hair pulled straight back jet black jelled like hardened licorice with satanic blood rivulets and pitch fork tattooed **** a vice of lechery a malefaction of moral turpitude her *** scarred from orgiastic beatings her **** became like a large wrinkly mouth resembling the face of a bullfrog from pleasuring  herself with tableware cutlery her soul a broken creel suffering bouts of anxiety like a weeping moon having  been institutionalized in Mother Marys Hell House from a ghastly bout of parricide her father, a hobbling gloomish troll while the dark veins of mother ran through her soul leaving little choice but to dispatch the parents abandoning their corpses in the kitchen like strewn litter turned out just my kinda girl d e s t i n y
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May 14, 2017
May 14, 2017 at 9:14 AM UTC
MY GIRL DESTINY
*I'm a black dog with a torn heart you are carved out of light heavier then rocks my bowels a crumbling fortress dire in my emptiness you make my blood run down dark gutters to the city of your legs pooling at your soft pink feet i strain in prayer for your love a black dog in panic i run seven miles a day to **** you my body lean and wire muscle wet women look on dreaming as i search for you in their faces i run killing myself till your dead all curving sadness and broken creel a hallowed crypt of desolation you a sword through me farewell*
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Mar 7, 2018
Mar 7, 2018 at 2:15 PM UTC
Black Dog
I thought there would be a grave beauty, a sunset splendour In being the last of one's kind: a topmost moment as one watched The huge wave curving over Atlantis, the shrouded barge Turning away with wounded Arthur, or Ilium burning. Now I see that, all along, I was assuming a posterity Of gentle hearts: someone, however distant in the depths of time, Who could pick up our signal, who could understand a story. There won't be. Between the new Hembidae and us who are dying, already There rises a barrier across which no voice can ever carry, For devils are unmaking language. We must let that alone forever. Uproot your loves, one by one, with care, from the future, And trusting to no future, receive the massive ****** And surge of the many-dimensional timeless rays converging On this small, significant dew drop, the present that mirrors all.
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7.1k
Re-adjustment
A waterfall of brown Strands and locks. Sometimes curving, Or just flowing. Down a bank of pebbles, Like water from a stream. I love the way the Individual hairs like Water droplets splash From the rest of the river.
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Apr 25, 2014
Apr 25, 2014 at 9:55 AM UTC
Brunette Waterfall
Regret melts slow, dripping from the side. It feels like skin being tugged against, the impression left from my hand to yours. The anticipation of being patient burns and flickers, excitedly proud to be included. Your back, the wick that stands straight, slowly curving, stretching, releasing tension. Your legs wrapped in mine. If you were to blow too hard, the flame would whoosh, leaving nothing but a puddle. The people we were staring, looking at the mess. The rest of my strength supports your arch, the curled wick that's grown tired against my chest. No matter how you lay, I am comfortable in your wild stretch. Sleep surrounding both of us— I have your back, your heart. The crisp edges of your hair tangled On my head The smoke of desire soots and breathes, dried in a puddle of wax
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Jan 17, 2025
Jan 17, 2025 at 9:13 PM UTC
Puddle of Wax
for vicki who loves this poem for the best reason ever: just does... <•> read a thousand love stories, pause, rest awhile, read ten thousand more, and then deny equality. If you ask for no more than you can give, you ask for not enough love is imbalance not an equation, with a single solution love has both constants and variable factors so you write of tribulations and tributes so you write of lamentations and liftings you think you are on the same page perhaps but do we not all read at different paces? one of you is solid, one is dotted and dashed one of you is straight, one is bent, forever curving when you think you are in balance in the same place in syncopation perhaps you are for a moment a calculus of one point on a trajectory and you say I can only ask for what I give and am given and no more, you have miscalculated this flux flummoxed when the old terrain is flayed flat but thru the windshield you see the plateau ends, the geography unknown, when you see unknown when you seek the unknown when you give from places you did not know you had to give from when you kiss a hand for  twenty minutes more than than the one minute you intended when you give more than is asked when you ask for more than you can you think you can give the imbalance that  is the only concert the imbalance that is the the only constant how do I know this? what are my credentials? you are not a teenage girl, what matters of what you know, recall of these matters? I am who I am a diversity of man and manner; I am past prime and in decline but this I know for having failed ten thousand poem times you must ask for more than one can give but that's not fair! silly one, still wretched confused, even after one hundred thousand poem times you must ask of yourself more than you can give and ask no less demand no less a body in emotion is not a body in rest when the imbalance is too great or insufficient then you write a poem look in the mirror that cannot lie and move on or move off   begin to ask yourself to whom may I give myself more than is asked. then you have finally asked the correct solution to the unsolvable equation ---
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Mar 10, 2016
Mar 10, 2016 at 1:40 PM UTC
25 Moons Ago: Ask for more than you can give
for vicki who loves this poem for the best reason ever: just does... <•> read a thousand love stories, pause, rest awhile, read ten thousand more, and then deny equality. If you ask for no more than you can give, you ask for not enough love is imbalance not an equation, with a single solution love has both constants and variable factors so you write of tribulations and tributes so you write of lamentations and liftings you think you are on the same page perhaps but do we not all read at different paces? one of you is solid, one is dotted and dashed one of you is straight, one is bent, forever curving when you think you are in balance in the same place in syncopation perhaps you are for a moment a calculus of one point on a trajectory and you say I can only ask for what I give and am given and no more, you have miscalculated this flux flummoxed when the old terrain is flayed flat but thru the windshield you see the plateau ends, the geography unknown, when you see unknown when you seek the unknown when you give from places you did not know you had to give from when you kiss a hand for  twenty minutes more than than the one minute you intended when you give more than is asked when you ask for more than you can you think you can give the imbalance that  is the only concert the imbalance that is the the only constant how do I know this? what are my credentials? you are not a teenage girl, what matters of what you know, recall of these matters? I am who I am a diversity of man and manner; I am past prime and in decline but this I know for having failed ten thousand poem times you must ask for more than one can give but that's not fair! silly one, still wretched confused, even after one hundred thousand poem times you must ask of yourself more than you can give and ask no less demand no less a body in emotion is not a body in rest when the imbalance is too great or insufficient then you write a poem look in the mirror that cannot lie and move on or move off   begin to ask yourself to whom may I give myself more than is asked. then you have finally asked the correct solution to the unsolvable equation ---
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77
the earth shook the neighbors again today but truly, i can't say that i felt it. yours is the only one that still hits me. your earthquake spirals through my veins interrupting the day, awakening me by the night i await the tremors with anxiety and need disrupting intellectual thought, curving daily motion. absence of your presence denies me everything, yes, everything. grasp ahold of me, my love, and shake me shake me from the depths of this nightmare return, return and make this right troubled mind shrouded by memories that which flow to my very core this dark red heart beats for you my courageous veins are your love's roots weaving through flesh and blood daring to grow more and more sturdy your earthquake scares me, my love for i cannot control it. your memories will not crumble with the earth shaking and trembling, i'll stand my ground holy is your image, voice, and touch hot is the molten passion, coursing through my young heart rupturing from the only place that i know your earthquake, my love, determines so much faulty is the mind and brave is the heart crazed intuition lurking from daily interruptions my love, continue to shake my world for i know you are still there my love, continue to shake my world for i know nothing else if a day pass where i cannot feel that vividness all will be forgotten. all will be dead. my love, i beg of you--- send me that earthquake today.
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Dec 12, 2011
Dec 12, 2011 at 1:10 AM UTC
your earthquake, my love
handfuls of hair, toungues, teeth. the curving air; alive in rooms with hanging doors. we feast. our rolling eyes, shaking lips, hips. tremble under fingertips, taste the heat and melt. we press. wasting no time for breath. it happens. it happens. it happens!
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Jun 22, 2021
Jun 22, 2021 at 11:52 PM UTC
Inside
handfuls of hair, toungues, teeth. the curving air; alive in rooms with hanging doors. we feast. our rolling eyes, shaking lips, hips. tremble under fingertips, taste the heat and melt. we press. wasting no time for breath. it happens. it happens. it happens!
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Jul 19, 2021
Jul 19, 2021 at 4:16 PM UTC
Inside
*stacking the arrows in piles a triangle of fuego furnaces blaze fire infinite reminders of the morning after shafts of light drift from window panes remake our names in god’s slumbering veins from here to there a whisper or was it a word fellow companions have you heard the threadbare sisters took their turns climbing mountains in order that we could learn the ways of green hearted sun-scrapers sweet little dangers fellow death chasers full of music givers of blooming veils bouquets of snow and hail almond shaped eyes resplendent thighs and a mind as pure as a lake during an alaskan winter in the frozen splinter trees are taken from their roots the women are bleeding weaving you the meat and the story outsiders are cast from clay into statues with feminine bodies curving like cotton candy i choose to impress you repeat the compliments that land on empty stomachs string together words like a rosary of sweet nothings simple deeds give thrilling feats a chance to restore their honor purity is unwashed in ***** soil as i am cut from the cloth of the earth our shirts are pressed at birth white light forming fellowship dimples in the cheeks of the mother the earth’s bones torn out from under the way we made ourselves invisible the minute we realized our accents were noticeable our actions were abominable how could we ever repay the generosity we were treated to our ultimate needs are met by poetry upon a ridge a silent figure wept and held his head upon a bed of cement*
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Jul 14, 2017
Jul 14, 2017 at 2:17 AM UTC
Arcturian women
*stacking the arrows in piles a triangle of fuego furnaces blaze fire infinite reminders of the morning after shafts of light drift from window panes remake our names in god’s slumbering veins from here to there a whisper or was it a word fellow companions have you heard the threadbare sisters took their turns climbing mountains in order that we could learn the ways of green hearted sun-scrapers sweet little dangers fellow death chasers full of music givers of blooming veils bouquets of snow and hail almond shaped eyes resplendent thighs and a mind as pure as a lake during an alaskan winter in the frozen splinter trees are taken from their roots the women are bleeding weaving you the meat and the story outsiders are cast from clay into statues with feminine bodies curving like cotton candy i choose to impress you repeat the compliments that land on empty stomachs string together words like a rosary of sweet nothings simple deeds give thrilling feats a chance to restore their honor purity is unwashed in ***** soil as i am cut from the cloth of the earth our shirts are pressed at birth white light forming fellowship dimples in the cheeks of the mother the earth’s bones torn out from under the way we made ourselves invisible the minute we realized our accents were noticeable our actions were abominable how could we ever repay the generosity we were treated to our ultimate needs are met by poetry upon a ridge a silent figure wept and held his head upon a bed of cement*
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56
Life moving fast Like storm cell rain Washing, running Torrent and quickly Through the drains. Some daze, In this cold and constant place I wish I were a folded paper boat Tipping, curving crests, afloat And chasing the stream Downwind. Away and washing clean A waxed vessel Escaped Pouring through Concrete flooring. I would steer for the sea On waves awash with Urban weeds Detritus sweeping across The deck Of my paper boat built For one. I would run With the water A creased and soggy me All folded and falling apart At the seams.
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Feb 9, 2010
Feb 9, 2010 at 2:15 AM UTC
Paper boat
i admit to 'male' -- 'female' strikes me low curving concupiscent hips (of Venus swaying so) the one who places, caught bathing in her morph to mar her goddess innocence (Peleus grasps her so)          her evergreen paradise- apple spraying scruples, while the sun dries forgiveness **** (on Eve's fragrant ******* in other Edens Lilith simply leaves him blind to lust for unknown Didos (craving **** or suicide) the limping god nets love and war, olympicly to smith a mortal death (from Vulcan jealousy) foresight's fire-gift leaps obedience to lie far falls the divine (in ******* he defied) potent swan of sky, what judgement? for a girl you laid in that white rush, (virginity unfurled) immortal **** fates sails of progeny, raging poet-birthing strife (for temple priestess' cries) fated nation-death swoons, shares beauty's scale, and Aphrodite's foam (caresses history's thighs) Trojan tensions mix the modern mind to heights of doubt of mythopoets' truth ( -yielding blindnesses) lonely walk the earth with guiding wisdom lacking all the pawns of fate (forget love's darknesses) sphinxine hunger asks the soul of destiny of hubris, tragic sight (and orgiastic nights) of unknown woman man struck down sickly city safe and burning, yearning (nymph and satyr sating Bacchic rites)
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Jun 26, 2012
Jun 26, 2012 at 8:56 PM UTC
for the love of Eris
the first time i saw a **** i didn't know she was my sweetheart, and i didn't understand her not like feet or arms which i understood immediately but **** grew on me like ivy over bricks in time **** ate my mind and i was haunted by her perfume then i suffered a severe case of **** on the brain of which there is no cure but death unless of course there are ***** in the afterlife the **** such a tender slit that oozes love like gelatin a veiled curving vulnerability it's secret poorly hidden for easy discovery but still, i didn't understand women the holders of this sacred chalice until the great epiphany and i realized that the woman's heart is a **** too a silky slit the marrow of her soul waiting to be opened and brimming
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Aug 4, 2018
Aug 4, 2018 at 3:43 PM UTC
****
Rising Swelling Building Forming Force. Pulsating Pushing Frothing Seething Force. Cresting Peaking Curving Gaining Force Cascading Pounding Crushing Losing Force Retreating Reforming Endlessly Rebuilding Force
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Aug 18, 2011
Aug 18, 2011 at 11:25 PM UTC
Endless Surf
Orcas in Puget Sound Along the road, abandoned wild apple trees bend with their heavy loads, dusty skirts of blackberry bushes purpling fingers, piercing flesh mouths ringed with berry juice, vampires all. Along San Juan Island salmon leap clear out of the briny water, just yards ahead of their predators, Orcas, dorsal fins curving shiny black, sluicing and slicing the surface like sharpened knives They have bred with one another for 10,000 years trolled these waters through famine, earthquakes, world wars through shifting continents, glacial avalanches, through the extinction of whole civilizations. Standing on a cliff, my daughter and I watch the Orcas churning the water - studies in grace the largest gem on the necklace of a great food chain and when we sleep we too chase the great King Salmon of our deepest dreams, the fathers we lost, the currents that bear along children Translucent jellyfish, palm sized, breath below sideways exhale, convulsive inhale umbrellas opening and closing a thousand years or more sliding through forests of brown kelp where mollusks cling We have clung like this to one another, with my body thrown over hers for protection and her exhaling away from me If Mama Orca keeps her young close, so will I If there are salmon to chase and harbor seals to command, so we will Arcing in the late August sky slapping and parting the surface, over and over the whales, lords of the Sound, swim in our brains as we sleep sparkle against blackening waters You are of my body from my body cleaving there for 10,000 years Whatever quarrels there are on land vaporize In the presence of these creatures, arcing against all that is temporal, vicious, small, studies in power and grace The tide pulls out, skimming across rocks and oysters in their muddy beds But this need to care for you remains as big as an Orca your appetite for adventure as voracious and I watch you, my child, disappearing with summer into high school, into womanhood, into the salty, light-dappled ocean
0
Jul 15, 2012
Jul 15, 2012 at 4:15 PM UTC
Orcas in Puget Sound
Orcas in Puget Sound Along the road, abandoned wild apple trees bend with their heavy loads, dusty skirts of blackberry bushes purpling fingers, piercing flesh mouths ringed with berry juice, vampires all. Along San Juan Island salmon leap clear out of the briny water, just yards ahead of their predators, Orcas, dorsal fins curving shiny black, sluicing and slicing the surface like sharpened knives They have bred with one another for 10,000 years trolled these waters through famine, earthquakes, world wars through shifting continents, glacial avalanches, through the extinction of whole civilizations. Standing on a cliff, my daughter and I watch the Orcas churning the water - studies in grace the largest gem on the necklace of a great food chain and when we sleep we too chase the great King Salmon of our deepest dreams, the fathers we lost, the currents that bear along children Translucent jellyfish, palm sized, breath below sideways exhale, convulsive inhale umbrellas opening and closing a thousand years or more sliding through forests of brown kelp where mollusks cling We have clung like this to one another, with my body thrown over hers for protection and her exhaling away from me If Mama Orca keeps her young close, so will I If there are salmon to chase and harbor seals to command, so we will Arcing in the late August sky slapping and parting the surface, over and over the whales, lords of the Sound, swim in our brains as we sleep sparkle against blackening waters You are of my body from my body cleaving there for 10,000 years Whatever quarrels there are on land vaporize In the presence of these creatures, arcing against all that is temporal, vicious, small, studies in power and grace The tide pulls out, skimming across rocks and oysters in their muddy beds But this need to care for you remains as big as an Orca your appetite for adventure as voracious and I watch you, my child, disappearing with summer into high school, into womanhood, into the salty, light-dappled ocean
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42
Signals cross dissonant chills along the surface of my skin, Prickled hair rises up under the brush of my touch. Warm sensation waves attention as flags fly high warning shots into the sky. My eyes wide shut abruptly in case the wind blows particulate along the curving arch of my vision, flipped back open upon collision, batting down waterfalls in between curtain calls as clapping hands of a broad audience pass the winning touchdown play onto poppy seed fields. My Love runs long and deep like the river through lost canyons, hiding unknown along the moist horizon of dew drop mornings. ...*Oh, me? I'm doing just fine fair weather, Light as a feather, am I.* But look! ...how the Earth shakes proudly the rocks upon her back. Cast no Stones, She moans ...and you? How do you do?*
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Aug 29, 2014
Aug 29, 2014 at 1:09 PM UTC
Dew Drop Mornings
Back when it took all day to come up from the curving broad ponds on the plains where the green-winged jacanas ran on the lily pads easing past tracks at the mouths of gorges crossing villages silted in hollows in the foothills each with its lime-washed church by the baked square of red earth and its talkers eating fruit under trees turning a corner and catching sight at last of inky forests far above steep as faces with the clouds stroking them and the glimmering airy valleys opening out of them waterfalls still roared from the folds of the mountain white and thundering and spray drifted around us swirling into the broad leaves and the waiting boughs once I took a tin cup and climbed the sluiced rocks and mossy branches beside one of the high falls looking up step by step into the green sky from which rain was falling when I looked back from a ledge there were only dripping leaves below me and flowers beside me the hissing cataract plunged into the trees holding on I moved closer left foot on a rock in the water right foot on a rock in deeper water at the edge of the fall then from under the weight of my right foot came a voice like a small bell singing over and over one clear treble syllable I could feel it move I could feel it ring in my foot in my skin everywhere in my ears in my hair I could feel it in my tongue and in the hand holding the cup as long as I stood there it went on without changing when I moved the cup still it went on when I filled the cup in the falling column still it went on when I drank it rang in my eyes through the thunder curtain when I filled the cup again when I raised my foot still it went on and all the way down from wet rock to wet rock green branch to green branch it came with me until I stood looking up and we drank the light water and when we went on we could still hear the sound as far as the next turn on the way over
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4.2k
Hearing
Back when it took all day to come up from the curving broad ponds on the plains where the green-winged jacanas ran on the lily pads easing past tracks at the mouths of gorges crossing villages silted in hollows in the foothills each with its lime-washed church by the baked square of red earth and its talkers eating fruit under trees turning a corner and catching sight at last of inky forests far above steep as faces with the clouds stroking them and the glimmering airy valleys opening out of them waterfalls still roared from the folds of the mountain white and thundering and spray drifted around us swirling into the broad leaves and the waiting boughs once I took a tin cup and climbed the sluiced rocks and mossy branches beside one of the high falls looking up step by step into the green sky from which rain was falling when I looked back from a ledge there were only dripping leaves below me and flowers beside me the hissing cataract plunged into the trees holding on I moved closer left foot on a rock in the water right foot on a rock in deeper water at the edge of the fall then from under the weight of my right foot came a voice like a small bell singing over and over one clear treble syllable I could feel it move I could feel it ring in my foot in my skin everywhere in my ears in my hair I could feel it in my tongue and in the hand holding the cup as long as I stood there it went on without changing when I moved the cup still it went on when I filled the cup in the falling column still it went on when I drank it rang in my eyes through the thunder curtain when I filled the cup again when I raised my foot still it went on and all the way down from wet rock to wet rock green branch to green branch it came with me until I stood looking up and we drank the light water and when we went on we could still hear the sound as far as the next turn on the way over
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And here face down beneath the sun And here upon earth’s noonward height To feel the always coming on The always rising of the night To feel creep up the curving east The earthy chill of dusk and slow Upon those under lands the vast And ever climbing shadow grow And strange at Ecbatan the trees Take leaf by leaf the evening strange The flooding dark about their knees The mountains over Persia change And now at Kermanshah the gate Dark empty and the withered grass And through the twilight now the late Few travelers in the westward pass And Baghdad darken and the bridge Across the silent river gone And through Arabia the edge Of evening widen and steal on And deepen on Palmyra’s street The wheel rut in the ruined stone And Lebanon fade out and Crete High through the clouds and overblown And over Sicily the air Still flashing with the landward gulls And loom and slowly disappear The sails above the shadowy hulls And Spain go under the the shore Of Africa the gilded sand And evening vanish and no more The low pale light across that land Nor now the long light on the sea And here face downward in the sun To feel how swift how secretly The shadow of the night comes on…
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You, Andrew Marvell
Like some pitted, coal-black dragon egg, it sits among the other fruits, exuding weight. It draws my eyes away from the obsequious apple and banal pear, its shape curving elegantly between their contours. As my hand clasps around it, I feel its skin of sinful reptilian texture. As I place it upon the cutting board, a hundred possibilities spring to mind. What will I do with this trove that lies before me? I will take a knife in one hand and the avocado in the other. I know that, like gold it will be heavy, and will feel soft without being so. The knife breaks the skin. Never has so smooth a wound been made, as the blade circumnavigates the centre. And with a twist, it falls open. A blinding springtime dawns on my eyes, revolving around a dark sun, and the absence of one. So perfect these halves look, side by side, the only two pieces of a sultry puzzle. There is no blast of stinging scents. They are the enigmatic philanthropists of the fruit world, bestowing their riches quietly, without great shows of favour. The first long, horizontal slice slides free and lies, curving wonderfully in and out. Fingers reach down and arm moves up, lips part. The moment the vibrant green meets desiring red, I breathe again. Nothing else in this world has such a wealth of subtle freshness, or spreads as soft as morning sunlight. And yet it is never airy or thin, but carries an embracing gravity. I open my eyes. The rest of the fertile crescent awaits me.
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Sep 12, 2014
Sep 12, 2014 at 10:50 PM UTC
Avocado
Murmurings of words so long unspoken, now sent out across the curved expanse of our spherical home. Murmurings of all our voices and languages, coalesced into one. Winging out into open space, like the nimble murmurations of birds, never quite touching, yet deftly creating virtual shapes, markings recognizable only from a distance. *Do birds' own souls unfurl and unfold in these undulations?* Starlings find aerial corridors, travelling together swiftly, so to stay warm. Do we? These murmurings, our word-murmurations,   fly out into the space between us, swiftly curving back, and then back again, before dipping low, then nesting deeply, so very deeply, into sweetest sleep.
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Sep 2, 2015
Sep 2, 2015 at 5:09 PM UTC
Murmurations