"distilling" poems
Here is to the bitter eye of the even sky
The acidic beverage I imbibe
So I can feel just a little more alive
For that cardiac killing back breaking
Blood spilling sweat distilling nine to five
Jun 11, 2015
Jun 11, 2015 at 6:00 PM UTC
The river forks at big stone eddy
rending currents meandering course,
its silence speaks not with forked tongue
as kismet's swirling eddies abide
as if time immemorial;
a river naturally cleaved
in two separate distinct directions
befallen destiny without a choice
Spinning round and round in big stone eddy,
time just drifting by in the throes
of doubt — high water rising
beyond the bounds of earth
taking drowning souls up to the sky
Choking on a mouthful of unanswered questions,
suffocating on the parting words left unsaid;
distilling life into poetry hew from being —
trickling out like the spilled out sky —
taken down to the empty riverbed
leave lay' til it's all washed away,
in the music of the pourin' down rain
Freedom embodies metaphysical incarnations
riding the prevailing currents it can't control
Gravity-gathered down to the shoreline,
manifest reclamation after the deluge,
from somewhere far above the high-water mark
Swallowed by all the darkness woe betides,
thinking you carry such a weight to hold...
It seems all got a handful of sand to toss
up into the wind to seed the clouds
The totality of eclipsing silence grows
that rent the stillness of a dream
of peace on an eroding shoreline
In an Eddy of Expectations & Disappointment
dark waters will ebb and flow,
imponderable as drowning hope,
leaving it all out there to dry after the rain
believing in your heart —
the best is yet to come
Jesse Stillwater ... November 2018
Nov 24, 2018
Nov 24, 2018 at 12:09 PM UTC
words drift away unfettered
from whence they came,
passing like undreamed clouds
– pragmatic eyes to the sky
in a searching stare –
unsought thoughts disappearing hence
a fog bow fading into sunlight
there are days when
it comes out in my silence
there are days when
it falls down in my tears:
muse – muted in poet's pause,
heart and soul whispers
laid bare unwritten
behind parsing eyes
disregarded words let loose,
ungarnered
the way low hanging fruit
falls benign — unharvested —
shortsighted insight
from a bird's eye view
silently fermenting traces
and unfiltered memories
come and go unheeded words,
discarded like the passing
time of our lives
at times it's ludicrous
to follow down
lingering footprints
left behind callous:
when the shoe won't fit;
slogging across eroding
time-worn stepping stones
scattered on this twisted line
these feet have been walking down,
trying to make a getaway
from myself
walking away from the memories
like so many indelible footprints to escape
– while dreaming stardust into stars
in nameless constellations –
reaching out from the inside,
site unseen,
trying to experience
the empirical shape
of stifling silence
in a theatre made by chance
distilling the gifts and burdens
of trying to live a worthy life
only I'll see...
harlon rivers ... September 27, 2018
Sep 27, 2018
Sep 27, 2018 at 9:20 AM UTC
freckles clung
like manic-pixie stardust,
spackled whispers
an unfolding fractal
of brimming dresser drawers
old pictures and mix cds,
we could only ever do
what teenagers were supposed to.
smushed crabapple handholds,
moxy and sadism hard-won,
no crash course in platonicness,
our stained glass eroded
into a beach
frozen in unsummer,
opiates dull senses,
a synesthetic void
exchanging echoes of echoes,
a cacophony of empty
distilling as it leaves
in whisks of 2 a.m.s,
honey-laced whiskey,
if the sky murmurs one
last love poem, it isn't
to us but our
moment of infinity,
of blind faith
irredeemably lost,
that forever of apex
where the line between
falling and flying
blurs.
Jun 29, 2013
Jun 29, 2013 at 11:00 PM UTC
they say a watched *** never boils
but my mind certainly does
and i watch it all the time
it's never out of my sight
yet it's constantly spilling its contents
in a roiled turmoil
all over my consciousness
the result is a reduction
of my state of mind
of my perspective
either a concentrated awareness
or a flavorless sludge of grey matter
it all depends on the heat applied
it all depends on evaporation
a proper chef would be attentive
a saucier of good stock
choosing quality ingredients
maintaining a simmer
avoiding a seethe
controlling condensation
distilling even pabulum to perfection
Apr 18, 2014
Apr 18, 2014 at 9:55 PM UTC
Wake up it’s a beautiful morning,
like the infinity of a closed chain;
lists keep growing, brain-freeze again.
As long as there’s tomorrow, not today.
Succinct intentions imprinted by a hoot;
how can a sub-conscious refuge,
de-commission the projected truth?
A 24-hour religion, is that all it is?
So which way is it to be tomtom?
Intrepidation never failing,
or honour ‘the’ grand unveiling?
Side-step: back to back-warming Oracle.
Pride appoints a distilling of hidden stature;
forget the dentistry of a mounted gift,
sensitivity not deserving an emotional spendthrift.
No mentions of a game, but you have to play.
Rationalising the intensity of late;
surely that’s an impossibility of squirming feet?
Solution follows a tryst of the elite,
subjects must therefore be; for it to make sense.
Periodic patterns of revolving chrome-vanadium,
lends itself nicely to discontentment
and occasionally promotes relinquishment;
summer sun; does it matter?
Survival make-up – check.
Abrupt journey’s end; in your face.
An odyssey not started yet, offers no grace.
Relax, the God’s haven’t even begun their terror.
The bottom of a barely coping universe it might just be;
Curious are the similarities to sinking sand.
Submerge as you extend your hand?
Or do I just simply do nothing, and nothing happens?
Rat-out the analytical introspection monster;
For when you can see your own reflection in a black-hole;
A bonus penalty shot at life’s ultimate goal;
Then a neutered Neutron star is a good thing to be.
Mar 19, 2010
Mar 19, 2010 at 3:38 PM UTC
Postman
and poet?
love letters in mail
Accountant
and poet?
precision, detail
Archeologist
and poet?
sifting for feelings
Electrician
and poet?
a jolt
leaving one reeling
architect
and poet?
drafting with words
Zookeeper
and poet?
singing of birds
Bus driver
and poet?
observing life's roadways
Minister
and poet?
perhaps how he prays
Lawyer
and poet?
though about win or lose
her poetry just might amuse
Economist
and poet?
Aren't we all that?
though we wear different hats
distilling things downwards
saving on words
whoever you are
whatever you choose
listen, observe
welcome your Muse!
Apr 5, 2018
Apr 5, 2018 at 10:03 AM UTC
Casual catastrophe
The hollow yearn of death’s widow
Bites the pavement on a thunderous night
For crippled rattles to ignite
The insidious ruin
Rides a blanket corpse into the liquor store hold up
Feigns apparitions for the madness
Distilling cruelty as a hand’s reach for addicts
A sleeper savant
Stretches his face across barren lust
A killing grin between rotting tusks
That rent the light out of a ****** still blood
Devouring maggots
Of the ignorant, the arrogant, the cruel
Kiss the blisters on the swollen hearts
Of starving nations left to tear themselves apart
Jan 9, 2014
Jan 9, 2014 at 2:48 PM UTC
Passage of day over the title on
a brittle page
Someone tore up a
greatest hits of Zen earlier
that year
Your spine bolts after
a windborne ticket
Where else could you be
Not the desert of whisky but of
whisky's prehistory
Distilling the *** act from a codex
Amnesia pressed like specimen
between yourself and your killers
glance over a name in stone
The page a sheet of light
Dec 17, 2011
Dec 17, 2011 at 1:13 AM UTC
As night silently creeps
For the world still sleeps
Relaxing for some other day
And nightmare comes this way
Installing fear within the mind
Dread is a rope used to bind
Only darkness makes it call
Fixing terror for one and all
Distilling horrors yet to unfold
A cold sweat will now take hold
Ready to open up the gates of Hell
Kindred demons released by a spell
Now cast by unearthly creatures
Every one with ghastly features
So dream on and you will never see
Strange beasts that are not meant to be
Jul 12, 2014
Jul 12, 2014 at 12:52 PM UTC
words like teeth without roots
hands emptied of dreams
oh, the hideous pride of a bit
to be all
I've decided
so limp and stuttering
as I am
to face despair as stones face
the wind's breath
my hands put new letters into words
in these words that are old barrels
in which they keep distilling
the pain of the world
Dec 11, 2023
Dec 11, 2023 at 4:09 PM UTC
Memory
is
tomorrow’s
filter
Straining our
history
distilling the
past
Each year
a screen
on what
becomes us
On what
eludes us
our fate
— recast
(Dreamsleep: September, 2025)
Sep 23, 2025
Sep 23, 2025 at 11:32 AM UTC
All our senses concatenate, building on each other
<>
this interplay is truly interplanetary,
for each of us a unique solar system,
our brains,
intricacy literally personified,
and our five senses, working
in
concatenation
our long range sensors, busy bees compiling inputs
by the nanosecond second, distilling, integrating.
blending and then reconstructing…into a whole!
*a gentle breeze ruffles the hair,
the tree swing rises and flows
of its own accord, no passported
passenger required, and a neighbor’s
American Flag, moves majestically &
impressively, whipping, dancing, yes, prancing
to a tune only it can hear,
the syncopated air currents providing
a rhythmic awesome inspiring beat…*
and the brain takes this all in, a momentary
second of a vista that is constantly flexing,
yet remains unchanged, a muscular view
of a real world, living but yet immutable,
and I utter thanks to my motor functions,
that bless me with the eyes to perceive,
the nostrils to smell sea salt flavored air,
the hearing ears that the know the imperceptible
orchestrations of silences by their absence
and their intrusion, and I touch my fingertips
to my tongue, wetted, and hyper sensitized
to that gentle breeze that decorates the
landscapes external,
*and the combinatory
addition of the all of it, into a single momentary
poem of recall, what I “knew” yesterday, & will
greet again this coming day, as an old unfamiliar
friend, who grasps me entire, and proclaims:
this is living…and the greatest satisfaction that
a speck of mortal can achieve, retain and
through impoverished words…share*
4:14am
Mon Jul 22
2 0 2 4
Jul 22, 2024
Jul 22, 2024 at 4:25 AM UTC
(I. Summer ‘ 13)
Freckles clung
like manic-pixie stardust,
spackled whispers
an unfolding fractal
of brimming dresser drawers
old pictures and mix cds,
we could only ever do
what teenagers were supposed to.
Smushed crabapple handholds,
moxy and sadism hard-won,
no crash course in platonicness,
our stained glass eroded
into a beach
frozen in unsummer,
opiates dull senses,
a synesthetic void
exchanging echoes of echoes,
a cacophony of empty
distilling as it leaves
in whisks of 2 a.m.s,
honey-laced whiskey—
if the sky murmurs one
last love poem, it isn't
to us but our
moment of infinity,
of blind faith
irredeemably lost,
that forever of apex
where the line between
falling and flying
blurs.
(II. Fall ’13)
Spines and ribs
don’t do it justice
you raptured me
both ways to Sunday,
built me up to shatter jaws,
car windows—me
bar stool battered,
you my perfect carpenter,
smile with wooden teeth
(you made them yourself)
so stain me the color of
cherry trees
and unbliss my empty spine.
(III. Winter ’13)
Mildew clutched tight,
hollow-boned, manic thrusting,
marionette-faced, barrow-lunged,
nails to the bone-gristle,
lips raw with spit-polish,
redacted eyes, redacted eyes--
we are palpable creatures,
transient drifters of soulspeck,
one unraveling the other constructing,
sallow truth would dissolve skin.
founder a self, rusty copper
with adamantine eyes,
steel core unbroken by absence,
drown in opposite directions,
oceanwater salve, yes
calloused tongues jostle,
ribbed in salt and rust.
Unlaced corset,
striped sweater,
grunged trainline veins
run on endlessly,
a clock,
abandoned in the middle,
I think once
it very much mattered.
Mar 14, 2014
Mar 14, 2014 at 2:10 PM UTC
I once read a poem.
At least it was called a poem by the poet who penned it.
It certainly stirred a hot cauldron of controversy.
Evoking the elite establishment of hallowed
writing circles to shout their disdain,
to cry out their contempt for such audacity.
"This is not poetry," was the hue that arose,
"it is nothing but prosaic, plagiarized drivel;
written thousands of times across the aeons by
those who have lost, have gained, or ever hoped for."
Perhaps some of us were tainted by the sin of
envy for this unheralded poet and for what he
had achieved with such rudimentary text.
At the time, I also spoke to the crime of the author's intent.
My own aspersions were raised by his act of describing
such incredible possibilities with such simple words,
such purity of condensed thought.
Alas I see now, it was the very simplicity of
the poem that blinded us all to its wondrous truth.
Elementary words which could envision glorious unexplored
mountain peaks, and the assurance of their height's
attainment with nothing more than a steady, faithful pace.
Hopeful words, filled with such grandiose power.
Capable of birthing new life solely from the
pure belief in their profound truth.
This great work of art was forgotten till this night,
as I sit here in a futile attempt to grasp words from intangible air.
Chasing and forcing them into a meager
attempt to share some small piece of wisdom
for two young hearts beginning this journey together ...
two whom I care for as you.
But, lacking as I am, I fear I must
expropriate this forgotten poet's verse.
Offering it to you humbly as my own,
stealing these words even as he stole them before me.
Simple words, distilling all the grand descriptions of all
the illustrious poets, bards, and romantics throughout the ages.
Proclaim it to each other as ecstasy bursts forth,
for its wondrous spell is then truly manifest.
Declare it over sorrow's shared tears,
for its healing sway is miraculous.
Whisper it over anger's destructive rage.
It has the power to quell the thunder.
Speak it as a vow, never to become merely words.
It must be proclaimed with the passion and soul of a poet.
Welling up from the deepest depths of the heart,
and the truest regions of the mind.
For these mere words encompass all.
Believe them as they are intended,
for these words are truly everything.
"I LOVE YOU"!
© S.Loeding All Rights Reserved
Nov 2, 2015
Nov 2, 2015 at 3:22 AM UTC
Soft somnolent skies have ceased seething, for day’s nearly through,
while winds echo whispering thoughts of returning to you
and heavens throb, pulsing and bleeding in crimsons, once blue -
their passions, like flames, fill my veins as you pass into view.
The breeze holds her breath as you touch, then embrace me anew
and smoldering clouds withdraw, blushing, then paling their hue.
The twilight is painted with wandering dreams of your charms,
so close your eyes slowly and slip into sleep in my arms.
The pendulous moon appears, sweeping the fog from up high
distilling the drops into notes of a hushed lullaby,
their quavering tunes spinning tales which amaze, mystify,
while tremulous stars fling a fire that fevers the skies,
for stories they tell reflect love as revealed by your sighs -
their fury is burning, alive in the depths of your eyes.
The twilight is painted with wandering dreams of your charms,
so close your eyes slowly and slip into sleep in my arms.
The shifting shore’s moaning, seduced by tempestuous tides
which flow with the rhythm of flesh as our senses collide,
and quiet explodes as the stillness of night’s amplified.
A lingering kiss bids adieu till the morning breaks wide
when cockerels come conjuring dawn with voluptuous pride
enticing the sun into banishing night, starry-eyed.
The twilight is painted with wandering dreams of your charms,
so close your eyes slowly and slip into sleep in my arms.
Jun 26, 2013
Jun 26, 2013 at 2:57 AM UTC
It cripples me - your grip uneased, your unintentional mental squeeze.
Distilling me. Entrails set free.
Half in your hand, half in my seat.
I'm questioning your thrilling me.
Adrenal fueled anxiety.
I'll stop myself.
Jun 1, 2012
Jun 1, 2012 at 1:03 PM UTC
Through a garden bedecked in the finest façade
In a natural beauty of eons compiled
An assault to the senses which quickens the pulse
Yet soothing the detail, organically styled
Its borders haphazard yet clearly defined
By a frenzied assortment of pollen clad blooms
Enhancing creation with lust and a craving
With nectar, ambrosia scented perfume
The thickets and bushes, with industry cloaked
A sprawling utopia thriving therein
With bees and with butterflies drinking their fill
And drizzled in webs which the spiderfolk spin
A meandering trail through flourishing life
An encouraging push from the sun to my rear
Entrancing, the chill of the dew underfoot
Yet thrusting itself like an ice laden spear
My sight is attracted by hidden desire
To a door at the crest of a flurry of stairs
And the stone of the flight is as fire to my soles
After languishing still as the midsummer glares
The door is ajar and within comes the sound
Of a single piano, adeptly caressed
Each note sends a shiver rebounding around me
In purity soaked and perfection possessed
I make my way forward and darkness inside
Removes me of sight as my pupils adjust
And the air is intense as a northerly breeze
And shimmers in motes cut of sunlight and dust
My eyes become clear and before me they see
Cascading and dancing a musical frieze
A picture in motion, a fairytale path
In a spectrum of tones and a myriad keys
Inspiration her name and the course she describes
Is a poem in light to beguile the mind
She speaks with her body, a wordless refrain
Of a mystery poets have clamoured to find
A pipe cuts a harmony no one could play
Distilling forever the passage of time
And though such a symphony draws at the tongue
Causality never once utters a rhyme
A pattern of shimmering images form
Behind inspiration and quickening pace
To fade with the music and ever be lost
Lest the pen of a poet can hold them in place
Most fickle of muses and teaser of tongues
To flirt with despair and to promise elation
We chase but remaining just out of out reach
Is the ghost of a girl which we call ‘Inspiration’
Jun 18, 2013
Jun 18, 2013 at 5:06 PM UTC
been awhile, since kept my named promise,
but here I am writing about planting, love making,
one of which I’ve got a small amount of almost expired experience
that still asks to be shared & sharing, whom am I to say nooooo
late August, and the hush all over the place,
in the sad notes of chilling & distilling the seasons fantasy,
summer will be forever here, escape to the sea sunroom visionary,
the ceiling fan whirring low and slow, should the heat increase,
onerous march of dimes times suspended here, almost,
hoping the heat will increase, and those negative
dropped acorn hints, early falling leaves, crumbs of nooooo
when we make love in the afternoon
will pour a little sugar on you honey, it will be a viscous wall
to hold back change, sticking everything in its place, “as is”
just as it exists at this precise second, wearing manly summer pink,
every day and no one thinks it strange, everything’s green
though rain is forbidden here like in Camelot + the sound of noooo
more is swallowed up in ooooohs and ahs, and if making love
in the morning, afternoon and all evening is what it takes to
stop time, to seize this day as a permanent forever day,
no sacrifice to great, no none, no nope, yes to nooooo...
Aug 24, 2019
Aug 24, 2019 at 10:02 AM UTC
oldest distillery in
the country
still using the
original method
of cooking,
fermenting,
distilling,
and
aging
in
new oak
barrels
the nectar of the hicks
of the world
brewed
in such a beautiful
and natural place
future and past
fused together
quietly keeping the
whole world
wasted
Dec 28, 2011
Dec 28, 2011 at 12:29 AM UTC
We walk uphill
almost parallel
with the sky
but like all our other
adventures
we are out
to conquer different things
mine is to take this hill
one paced but ragged
breath upon breath
foot over foot
to plant my flag
yours is to shutter
to and fro
distilling object
place and time
and what is now
into an orderly
chronicle of us
Whit Howland © 2019
Jul 11, 2019
Jul 11, 2019 at 5:19 AM UTC