"distills" poems
Love set you going like a fat gold watch.
The midwife slapped your footsoles, and your bald cry
Took its place among the elements.
Our voices echo, magnifying your arrival. New statue.
In a drafty museum, your nakedness
Shadows our safety. We stand round blankly as walls.
I'm no more your mother
Than the cloud that distills a mirror to reflect its own slow
Effacement at the wind's hand.
All night your moth-breath
Flickers among the flat pink roses. I wake to listen:
A far sea moves in my ear.
One cry, and I stumble from bed, cow-heavy and floral
In my Victorian nightgown.
Your mouth opens clean as a cat's. The window square
Whitens and swallows its dull stars. And now you try
Your handful of notes;
The clear vowels rise like balloons.
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Someday I'd like to wander free
like butterfly, like bumblebee,
perhaps to plant a willow tree
beside the silent solemn sea,
before these things exist no more,
from mountain top to shifting shore,
when, soon, bald eagles cease to soar
and build their aeries nevermore,
and fish forsake polluted streams
(where sulfur swims and typhoid teems
since no one really cares it seems)
to die inside our toxic dreams
while ice caps melt and winter steams,
and all the air surrounding reeks
as children choke, for no one speaks
of fracking wells or oily leaks
(Big Brother's silenced all critiques!),
and rancid rains acidify
so woods no longer multiply
(for God so wills, we can't deny,
which is, of course, our alibi).
And as the deepest ocean fills
with plastic bags, and garbage spills
upon the plains, across the hills
and turns to poison dust that kills
wild dingo dogs and daffodils
which sink in swamps’ forsaken swills,
the mocking bird makes light and trills
(midst waning wails of whippoorwills)
"Behold the surreal scene that chills
and greet the dread that death distills!
You've had your day with all the frills
that brought the flood and final ills
that can't be cured with bitter pills
nor yet undone with further thrills
of profit gained that grinds and fills
dead desert sands with dollar bills."
EPILOGUE
Though swaddled still in infancy,
we feel we’ve reached our primacy
(aloof, though preaching piously,
disdaining deeds of decency)
and have no need of augury.
But in the pit of prophecy
the crucial questions seem to be:
“Is doom Earth’s fate, our destiny
to twist in tides of agony
destroying nature’s progeny
with no return a certainty
assured by death’s finality?”
and
”Should we plant a willow tree
to someday weep for you and me?”
Jun 16, 2015
Jun 16, 2015 at 2:45 PM UTC
My eye is never satisfied;
My ear is never filled...
By the beauty of a mountainside,
Or songs that give me chills
Every sight – a hollow view,
I look for more and more
Every sound – an empty cue,
Nothing to answer for
---
My eye is never satisfied;
My ear is never filled...
Ten thousand times I must have cried,
Then smiled – lied – with skill
Everything I see today
Will be, tomorrow, gone
Every sound will fade away –
A shrill inside a yawn
---
My eye is never satisfied;
My ear is never filled...
Does Meaning ever coincide
With life, and hope, and thrill?
I dream this dream, within a dream –
No substance, light, or power
I sing this song, without a sound –
My voice, the wind, devours
---
My eye is never satisfied;
My ear is never filled...
I might as well be groping blind,
Deafened – senses killed
I long to see that final sight
And hear that final word,
To show me Something in this night,
And assure me that I’ve Heard
---
But…
Maybe, I never, seeing, See
And never, hearing, Hear
Because the problem is IN ME:
This heart of death and drear...
This heart, it must be satisfied;
This heart, it must be filled!
For, we all see from deep inside;
The heart always distills...
.
Jul 7, 2018
Jul 7, 2018 at 4:56 PM UTC
How many millions have you got
I expect you lost count
It's a hellava lot
Not forgetting the splendid yacht
An artist scans a landscape
A comic distills a joke
A shopper looks for a parking space
An addict drags on a smoke
I do what I want one thing at a time
Cumulus nimbus are flying high
Follow my nose with a healthy dose
Of common sense and instinct combined
A vicar rehearses a favourite prayer
A sailor waits on a breeze
A writer sees a story there
A woodsman searches the trees
A rich man still believes he is poor
A lost and lonely is thinking if only
Patting the chair and tapping the floor
We all go chasing a bit of fun
Fulfilment comes in different ways
Like writing a poem every day
Oct 6, 2012
Oct 6, 2012 at 3:24 PM UTC
448
This was a Poet—It is That
Distills amazing sense
From ordinary Meanings—
And Attar so immense
From the familiar species
That perished by the Door—
We wonder it was not Ourselves
Arrested it—before—
Of Pictures, the Discloser—
The Poet—it is He—
Entitles Us—by Contrast—
To ceaseless Poverty—
Of portion—so unconscious—
The Robbing—could not harm—
Himself—to Him—a Fortune—
Exterior—to Time—
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Some of you go so far as to disclaim any ability to find you, but I've got you.
(sonnet #MMDCCXCV)
Dare claim your writing does not breathe a strain
Of your dear essence: to be fooled. Thereby
Petrarca's soul distills its fervour aye;
And Wyatt cool good sense; while Surrey feign
With mildest touch and Spenser's pure refrain,
Sweet Shakespeare beauing hearts, dare cry
Amain. From Milton's kingly strength's reply
To Wordsworth's cold hauteur, yea come again?
Twas Samuel Taylor Coleridge roused me
To think afresh, his lively fancy through
Each line with his impress. From Shelley's plea
To Keats' indulgence, Missus Browning's blue
Yet mystic charm, don't think all cannot see.
You don't know me? But ah, I do know you.
31Aug13b
Sep 12, 2016
Sep 12, 2016 at 7:40 PM UTC
For in the algorithm of their minds lay deep strategies,
But it's a maze to a sepulchre,
a colonial mind with many rooms,
where other men are lorded to their satisfaction
For they stand in the courts, and declared to be like children
their smiles far from sinister,
but their minds create a haven like hell to those around,
though they decorate the sky like the western sun, they burn the roses with their palms like the Libyan desert sun
For their dearth of love, they carry out vengeance on the free spirited, they carry a ******* staff of justice,
they are the town criers declaring who ought to be colourful,
they crown the underserving and deserving,
their tongue a tidal wave of envy,
slander chokes their breath, loneliness fills their temple,
hatred distills their roller coaster pain.
Now I understand why roses wither,
But even the crumbs of love in these cactus hearts
will be taken away.
- Ola Bajo
Feb 14, 2018
Feb 14, 2018 at 3:41 PM UTC
O, how much more doth beauty beauteous seem
By that sweet ornament which truth doth give!
The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem
For that sweet odour which doth in it live.
The canker blooms have full as deep a dye
As the perfumèd tincture of the roses,
Hang on such thorns, and play as wantonly
When summer’s breath their maskèd buds discloses;
But, for their virtue only is their show,
They live unwooed and unrespected fade,
Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so;
Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odours made.
And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth,
When that shall vade, by verse distills your truth.
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"The pity of war, the pity war distills". - Wilfred Owen"
Just as a feral war begs for armistice,
a season of peace engenders
a violence vacuum that begs to be filled
as surely as a hollow begs for a pond.
It seems a cosmic battle rages
between the oversouls of people
who would chisel a sculpture to grace
and those who would hack off its arms.
History’s fools fire up their bully horns
shouting proud oratory to ignorance -
and lemmings goose-step to the precipice -
doomed to plunge into a sea of misery.
Then there is quiet - guilty and reflective.
How could we let this happen
with so much gain and loss in the balance?
and the sculptors of civilization
find fresh marble to once again
carve reason, beauty, purpose
from the acrid ashes of pride.
But the oversoul of hate will brood and re-fester
as long as it's thought noble to **** for a cause.
© 2016 by Robert Charles Howard
Apr 1, 2016
Apr 1, 2016 at 8:50 AM UTC
It’s the gold that is fused through the years a different fort Knox it is powerful it is all consuming and
Refreshing its buying the best earth has to offer with never entertaining the idea of selling it is secure
The stronghold of lovers the pen marks and distills adoration captures the enthralling
Qualities showing one to be a true prince and a true princess it is spellbinding creates the flow
That alone allows two separate beings to intermingle fused as one leaving a testament more
Enduring than marble can anyone match or make such facts that endure through the mapping
Of one’s person the details of their humanity revealed in the most loving description never to
See hair so gorgeous lips so luscious eyes that you only want to linger in their gaze for ever
Arms hands and fingers for the bliss of touch that melts your whole being the surrender that
Defines cozy to the ultimate excess what wonder is experienced by couples who through
Committed love have found the fragrance of the rose it is the rarified air they alone breathe
From these dizzying heights they draw themselves back to earths plane when they pick up the
Pen and with honesty born from delirium they write with utmost tenderness I love you a gush
Of wind is set in motion pleasure captured as it describes rapture of being held in your arms
When you speak it is nature breathing you hear coursing water the tree branches are swaying
You have entered a gulf that is fixed there you both are suspended the drifting clouds soften
Your brow is smooth the painter would and follows such sites to create masterpieces and this
Is Common among you all things are in harmony truly the cooing of the dove forlorn exquisite
Brooding enlarges your hearts you drift among the sacred forever without effort the enhancing
Advancing years what abiding how far can wonder be stretched it is between these two pillars
That lovers know the pen and the rose wakefulness is for living the dream sleeping is for
Magical conferment boundless endless twist and turns of greatest delight thanks for your love
My dear what joy and happiness you have made in my life how fortunate all of us are that are
Loved and love and His love for us will never end in this we are in a mighty fortress first we have
Each other then it is all enriched and made alive by pure love from above
Mar 5, 2013
Mar 5, 2013 at 11:44 AM UTC
its troublesome still.
is it ever achievable?
in this lifetime,
scarcely.
I wish to attain it
unconditional love
but Im selfish and mostly want it for myself
to lay my head on your lap when I don't feel like being strong anymore
it's hard sometimes in hard times to convince myself its all going to be fine
when it's all so rough
the friction distills
strains.
kills.
it's troublesome still
to not have a place to rest my anxious head.
to rely on a God whom I can't feel
nor touch
even though I know you're there
it's troublesome still.
because I need some sort of touch
a stroke
so as to leave a coded memory
embroidered on my skin
as a constant reminder that
I am
in fact
not alone.
Nov 28, 2013
Nov 28, 2013 at 5:20 PM UTC
At first lost then Holy bliss
I turned inward because of outer loss I began a gown it was made from sorrows thread the eyes and
Heart led my hands and fingers dark were the colors that flowed off of my lap down to the floor
Sadness held me in a pall although wistful thoughts slipped in they teased and at those times the fabric
Glowed with richness they rolled back up my arms across my hurting chest into my mind they broke
Like the every promised morning after darkness will be the dawn that you just wrote about what a
Blessed creature we are to have such treasured ones as our very own then it seems they leave us alone
What error they go to be one with he who is all I guess sorrow is the great guide but we are misled by its
Purpose it doesn’t lead on down a path of hard ship but by the ever living stream where vibrant life is
On display natural life with so many limitations see them now add all the times they were striking times
They stood so tall and poised there soul was electrifying now multiply those and other sweet times and
You’re getting close to their immortal wonder you have to feel its tender wafting passing across your yard
Through the door right into your heart it sweeps yes it distills those heavy laden tears for beads on the
Gown you are creating how fitting and joyous its end will be different than its beginning now rich
And thick with meaning put It with your other gowns and it will out shine them all bless you today Addy
Jun 15, 2012
Jun 15, 2012 at 1:11 PM UTC
*“Removes the veil. Reveal to me the beauty of your beautiful ******* and your excited ******* filled with the desire to be caressed my lips. They are your secrets, your jewelry and your mystical treasures. Lifts the veil. Reveal to me your tree of knowledge, the entrance of your garden and allow me spoon with my tongue drops of Tal, your divine dew that drips from the leaves of your fig tree. Let me penetrate your garden, the orchard of celestial secrets with the stick of my miracles and feed me of Edenic sources of your ******* Lift up your veil and show me the beauty of your naked body and let me read the esoteric inscriptions on your golden skin, they are manifestations of your tattoos recorded in your soul, the light of mystic hieroglyphics of your spirit. Lifts the veil. Reveal to me the mystery of your mysteries giving me the wine of your vine and distills that drips from your sphinx. Removes the veil and reveal to me the entrance to the ethereal worlds of your soul, the portal to the world of emanation of your wonderful kisses, the sea of your ******* on which my ship sails. Remove my veil, a curtain on my conscience and catapult it into the world of creation, the high land of your ******* which trickle milk and honey. Removes the veil …" .*
Light Walker - Deepak Sankara Veda - Mystik Poet
Mar 10, 2016
Mar 10, 2016 at 4:55 PM UTC
I cant really say what it is
That draws me so, seems to hold me
Upon its fine charismatic flavor
distills within me
Those fine thoughts
pragmatic ramblings of mind
that sweeps across in tides of reason
Where in truth no reason exists.
It's looking into a mirror
that self, reflecting back
cries out within me
those long past days
That fill every boundary
opens its seems unusual doors
Into the wide spectrum of existence.
In the quite times
where my mind drifts upon the soft words
I come to understand something more deep
More real than all that existence holds true
That Love,
That virus of the soul
spurge's within unique metaphors
of the fine lines by which mortals place
The guiding vortex of existence.
That God, that power. being
In our constant search
opens the windows of the Soul
That we all may breath deep its fill.
Here upon the fine tuned fork
Love draws itself out upon the pain
Subdues the heart and holds it
Like a warm deep ocean
Where love in tides
Sweeps humanity away.
Alisdaire O'Caoimph
Mar 20, 2011
Mar 20, 2011 at 6:28 PM UTC
I saw my woman's eyes behind the green grasses
fueling to the life ever estranged
God wasn't sure who destroy whom but all he knows is
she and I both are alive in the feast with Him
thus our hearts are racing so the bodies are dancing
cut sharp words drives signal waves of desire within us
I loving into the loving of love
So I may never can go elsewhere off from her spell of sight
neither can she put that warm sigh down not knowing where I am
Green grasses hide blood and our heart distills wine behind
scratches bruises scrapes and ultrasonic moans
they all witness the love as how He culminate it
In the night in the dark God relive the life he drenched
Even God, he has his secret form him himself
so moves. long still gazes, wolf bites and all teeth marks are just perfect as it is
sometimes the love ---------------------------------------
the love may never outshine make prefect secrets
Jul 14, 2018
Jul 14, 2018 at 6:48 AM UTC
Winter sends a chill
Frost gathers and distills
itself in corners of windows
and corners of minds
Shaped as spikes after dark
Lingering with the spark of the sun
Waiting cruelly 'til we wake after dawn.
So I sit and loiter
for warmth
But none follows.
The fire's glow turns cold
My eyes hardened to stone.
And the worst: there is no movement
In my hands with which to heal
my pain.
I am drowning in icy waters.
But none can see
because we are all the same.
Oct 28, 2014
Oct 28, 2014 at 3:08 PM UTC
Step out into the cold where no one goes,
where the night air speaks no words of hurt or hate.
The fog of your breath distills in moonlight,
and somewhere a dog barks at the sound of cars.
A wraith-like plastic bag drifts down the street,
a specter, like you, that wanders all alone.
You walk the lonely familiar sidewalks,
hopelessly attempting to forget yourself.
The silent stars above look so becalmed,
though tormented by the slow turmoil of space.
You tread along a crack in the cement,
just like it's a cord that bears you through the air.
In the end the cold reaches into you,
and freezes your wandering will to go on.
Though the cold, the moon, and the stars remain,
you happily crawl back to the place you left.
Jun 4, 2012
Jun 4, 2012 at 6:05 AM UTC
Microcosms
of one day ventured
2 days gained
the scientific leap of faith
involved in the test tube generation
distills any desire
certain people have
for a little spirituality
in their life.
Although science's progress marches on.
The thirst for something intangible
become more intense in some of us
and more ignored by certain slightly plastic academicians.
Let's don't dehumanize ourselves anymore
by things a frying ourselves though as I call it
anal-lysis, (at the ass-sembly hall, for example)
and making a mockery of mankind.
Otherwise another Christ will emerge
There'll be another ***** and Gomorrah
and the hands of time will
be set back 2000 years
Charles Sturies
Mar 20, 2017
Mar 20, 2017 at 2:37 PM UTC
Step out into the cold where no one goes,
where the night air speaks no words of hurt or hate.
The fog of your breath distills in moonlight,
and somewhere a dog barks at the sound of cars.
A wraith-like plastic bag drifts down the street,
a specter, like you, that wanders all alone.
You walk the lonely familiar sidewalks,
hopelessly attempting to forget yourself.
The silent stars above look so becalmed,
though tormented by the slow turmoil of space.
You tread along a crack in the cement,
just like it's a cord that bears you through the air.
In the end the cold reaches into you,
and freezes your wandering will to go on.
Though the cold, the moon, and the stars remain,
you happily crawl back to the place you left.
Dec 10, 2012
Dec 10, 2012 at 3:25 AM UTC
In the rapture of life and of living,
I lift up my head and rejoice,
And I thank the great Giver for giving
The soul of my gladness a voice.
In the glow of the glorious weather,
In the sweet-scented, sensuous air,
My burdens seem light as a feather
They are nothing to bear.
In the strength and the glory of power,
In the pride and the pleasure of wealth
(For who dares dispute me my dower
Of talents and youth-time and health?) ,
I can laugh at the world and its sages
I am greater than seers who are sad,
For he is most wise in all ages
Who knows how to be glad.
I lift up my eyes to Apollo,
The god of the beautiful days,
And my spirit soars off like a swallow,
And is lost in the light of its rays.
Are tou troubled and sad? I beseech you
Come out of the shadows of strife
Come out in the sun while I teach you
The secret of life.
Come out of the world – come above it
Up over its crosses and graves,
Though the green earth is fair and I love it,
We must love it as masters, not slaves.
Come up where the dust never rises
But only the perfume of flowers
And your life shall be glad with surprises
Of beautiful hours.
Come up where the rare golden wine is
Apollo distills in my sight,
And your life shall be happy as mine is,
And as full of delight.
Mar 12, 2014
Mar 12, 2014 at 10:21 AM UTC
*“Put your finger in your orchard within your secret garden and dance for me your esoteric dance, the revelations of your wisdom while doing drain the sap from your tree of life, the elixir that expands my consciousness, prolongs my life. Distills it into my mouth while sitting on my lips and gives me to drink your water of life. I wish you drink, feed me with the light of your ******* creators of miracles”.*
Light Walker - Deepak Sankara Veda - Mystik & Esoteric Poet for Esoterika - The Mystic ****** Poetry
Mar 13, 2016
Mar 13, 2016 at 9:51 AM UTC
broken at Your feet
is where i need to be
if the need to help others
is what distills me.
Dec 15, 2015
Dec 15, 2015 at 4:06 AM UTC
Dramaturgy
1
I believe in the sound of the fall but before the annunciation, a force did not see the brink of all ends. The polarizing image before us: this wall that has no hue. This wall that seeks to be tarnished. To tether a name. To spring it open with premise.
It is coming face to face with a familiar haunt. Strange that it has no name but you remember it from the feel of its touch, the malaise of hands upon stroking the contour, the catatonic stupor of time in fluid standstill when it is said that "It does not get any better than this.", the belief of questions and the faithlessness of answers. He is ready.
2
Thus is the physiognomy: a look so dismantled. The fragile bent of its source. A body, a body of sound treading a straight path backed by centrifugal inertia -- of speed so full and tender with blurs, the end is seen and will soon be met: patience, patience is all and the skies are impossible. She sees all this, takes cues as pain makes him more so, the one anxiously flailing in space.
3
Confess in utter space that the absolute is ideal. The process distills the heavy water of this revenge. There is nothing like this, as there is nothing the identical in your side of the Earth now, or your bed, where you are cut above yourself and across. This is the body realized. To quantify space, to resign to its bleakness, to take all of this and let it flow into the river, to the brink of all the noise, to where light will fall squarely without tremors or erasures.
4
Intent runs with me this evening straight to a place where nothing will be found, no one will be marked in this map. This light so insufficient still guiding, bleeding a borrowed sheen from the **** of evening. Intent is everything, be it a consignment to void.
5
He will repeat what was written in solemnity, in front of the mirror.
6
They will see it falsely, take it as heavy dreaming when he should have convinced himself to be awake. A laudable insistence may be perceived as a conscious labour to survivability, alone, together -- no difference will be met, no criteria to victories will be set. This is all for disappearance, the pursuit is a lie, and to continue this, the irony.
7
Desired impression: tomorrow you will emerge naked and wear me as something a perfume does to skin, or warmth does to bones. Look, when the Sun rises from its deep grave of hills, its vertical crawl will leave no trace in other regions of land, of body. Somewhere in the ornate someone washes the surrounding with a recognizable fragrance. This is all drawn to a possibility: something the world has no use for
Apr 8, 2016
Apr 8, 2016 at 10:37 AM UTC
It's natural to be afraid,
To run into the hollow fields of fear.
The empty light, cold comforting, distills emotion like the funnel of an hourglass. Hibernate between the grains, and let their coarseness strip you of sensibility. Retreat. Run.
Or wait. Breathe, and speak. Pant, and sweat, grip hold, firmly, a conviction. Stay, don't run. Flood, bleed feeling.
Stare down an army of electric synapse and feel it shock the flesh in your cheeks. Grip your toes, and tense your weight.
It's natural to be afraid, but there is no retreat in love.
Sep 17, 2015
Sep 17, 2015 at 9:41 PM UTC
Guilt Distilled
It’s hard to turn away
From all of what I see
If I close my eyes
The guilt distills in me
When I write about
All I need to say
Sadly, I see
Love ones fade away
But if I turn my back
To all, that must be seen
Well, Then I risk to lose
My own humanity
Dec 16, 2023
Dec 16, 2023 at 10:09 AM UTC