"divining" poems
Let the bird of loudest lay
On the sole Arabian tree,
Herald sad and trumpet be,
To whose sound chaste wings obey.
But thou shrieking harbinger,
Foul precurrer of the fiend,
Augur of the fever’s end,
To this troop come thou not near.
From this session interdict
Every fowl of tyrant wing
Save the eagle, feather’d king:
Keep the obsequy so strict.
Let the priest in surplice white
That defunctive music can,
Be the death-divining swan,
Lest the requiem lack his right.
And thou, treble-dated crow,
That thy sable gender mak’st
With the breath thou giv’st and tak’st,
‘Mongst our mourners shalt thou go.
Here the anthem doth commence:—
Love and constancy is dead;
Phoenix and the turtle fled
In a mutual flame from hence.
So they loved, as love in twain
Had the essence but in one;
Two distincts, division none;
Number there in love was slain.
Hearts remote, yet not asunder;
Distance, and no space was seen
‘Twixt the turtle and his queen:
But in them it were a wonder.
So between them love did shine,
That the turtle saw his right
Flaming in the phoenix’ sight;
Either was the other’s mine.
Property was thus appall’d,
That the self was not the same;
Single nature’s double name
Neither two nor one was call’d.
Reason, in itself confounded,
Saw division grow together;
To themselves yet either neither;
Simple were so well compounded,
That it cried, ‘How true a twain
Seemeth this concordant one!
Love hath reason, reason none
If what parts can so remain.’
Whereupon it made this threne
To the phoenix and the dove,
Co-supremes and stars of love,
As chorus to their tragic scene.
THRENOS
Beauty, truth, and rarity,
Grace in all simplicity,
Here enclosed in cinders lie.
Death is now the phoenix’ nest;
And the turtle’s loyal breast
To eternity doth rest,
Leaving no posterity:
’Twas not their infirmity,
It was married chastity.
Truth may seem, but cannot be;
Beauty brag, but ’tis not she;
Truth and beauty buried be.
To this urn let those repair
That are either true or fair;
For these dead birds sigh a prayer.
7.1k
Through frost-thick weather
This witch sidles, fingers crooked, as if
Caught in a hazardous medium that might
Merely by its continuing
Attach her to heaven.
At eye's envious corner
Crow's-feet copy veining on a stained leaf;
Cold squint steals sky's color; while bruit
Of bells calls holy ones, her tongue
Backtalks at the raven
Claeving furred air
Over her skull's midden; no knife
Rivals her whetted look, divining what conceit
Waylays simple girls, church-going,
And what heart's oven
Craves most to cook batter
Rich in strayings with every amorous oaf,
Ready, for a trinket,
To squander owl-hours on bracken bedding,
Flesh unshriven.
Against ****** prayer
This sorceress sets mirrors enough
To distract beauty's thought;
Lovesick at first fond song,
Each vain girl's driven
To believe beyond heart's flare
No fire is, nor in any book proof
Sun hoists soul up after lids fall shut;
So she wills all to the black king.
The worst sloven
Vies with best queen over
Right to blaze as satan's wife;
Housed in earth, those million brides shriek out.
Some burn short, some long,
Staked in pride's coven.
4.2k
A whole piece of cake
In exchange to a slice of your head,
Fed you with excessive sweetness
And made me famish for your entire mind.
I recall the nights
Of your faraway look almost imperceptible,
The riddle of your smile
And your tales of departure.
With nicotine on your lips
And caffeine on mine,
I was the silent listener
Of your careless narrative.
Such brief moments harbored inside me,
When like your furtive grin
And sly glances, ensnared my thoughts
Craving more from fragments of your soul.
As time made its scarcity known
And fondness its urgent manifestation,
The sugar note and saccharine gift
Snatched you completely away from me.
Today in coffee city
Alone or with company,
I relive a fraction of yesterday
Out of the same blend of coffee
And from the small portion of the same cake flavor.
Smoke from cigars fills the air
Like wispy apparition of yours
I make out on every stranger’s face
Across the other tables.
A sip of coffee and a bit of cake
Serve as reminders if not comfort
Of how little you cared to say goodbye,
Leaving a bittersweet aftertaste.
I stir this cup
Divining the future,
And all I see is my self.
Over the counter today and tomorrow
My Italian tongue says, “Tiramisu.”
As my English heart whispers, “Pick me up.”
Maybe then as liquids turn
And as circles run.
I will find my own reflection
In your staring eyes.
Jul 20, 2010
Jul 20, 2010 at 1:54 AM UTC
Light breaks where no sun shines;
Where no sea runs, the waters of the heart
Push in their tides;
And, broken ghosts with glowworms in their heads,
The things of light
File through the flesh where no flesh decks the bones.
A candle in the thighs
Warms youth and seed and burns the seeds of age;
Where no seed stirs,
The fruit of man unwrinkles in the stars,
Bright as a fig;
Where no wax is, the candle shows its hairs.
Dawn breaks behind the eyes;
From poles of skull and toe the windy blood
Slides like a sea;
Nor fenced, nor staked, the gushers of the sky
Spout to the rod
Divining in a smile the oil of tears.
Night in the sockets rounds,
Like some pitch moon, the limit of the globes;
Day lights the bone;
Where no cold is, the skinning gales unpin
The winter's robes;
The film of spring is hanging from the lids.
Light breaks on secret lots,
On tips of thought where thoughts smell in the rain;
When logics die,
The secret of the soil grows through the eye,
And blood jumps in the sun;
Above the waste allotments the dawn halts.
3.1k
His hands ring in the upper classes.
There, in the morning light, his will
Is forged, bent, as truth, on ruling
This place, underhand, underfoot.
With shuttered ears divining his voice
The dim pupils see only what is said.
The top hand schools, topples all words
Ringing hands sing the song of fools.
How Headmaster trains on the heel,
A dagger strikes, the paper cuts
Exalted, his close minded hands,
See a Czar in the stony swagger,
And the student body, submissively lies
With his feet. Outside the college
The headmaster is heard. Grossly,
He is their dream and only shepherd.
May 31, 2012
May 31, 2012 at 9:48 PM UTC
1
The chards rising. Am I the praying bird?
In the gleaming sun my bones are negative,
My flesh a cypher walking through the plains
As ghost I move, my dark lord, above me
Flocks swirl and spike. I stand accused,
Your pointed face divining oblivion,
And no redemption in the rains of my
Cliff walk days.
2
I see my shroud pinning on the wires
His legs are razored forks spinning my
Compass from True North. Your dark brush-
Fire wings, the swept wind, wheels and strings
My fate. Such black rhetoric in a burn,
Your caws, loosed perches, on the stakes, picks
My crowning grave. Black dove, your feathers finger
As they slice.
3
Smoke, the cardinal blood caries my teething
Bone, spades my hand without a flight.
Taut, the pulled noose my hooded one
I see my scarecrow’s reflexion, the scar,
Let blood, the seeded droppings end trailed
To my door. Feathers, ferry to carry on
Dowsing downward, black knight of down, to sticks
On extended wings.
Jun 11, 2012
Jun 11, 2012 at 8:38 PM UTC
His hands ring in the upper classes.
There, in the morning light, his will
Is forged, bent, as truth, on ruling
This place, underhand, underfoot.
With shuttered ears divining his voice
The dim pupils see only what is said.
The top hand schools, topples all words
Ringing hands sing the song of fools.
How Headmaster trains on the heel,
A dagger strikes, the paper cuts
Exalted, his close minded hands,
See a Czar in the stony swagger,
And the student body, submissively lies
With his feet. Outside the college
The headmaster is heard. Grossly,
He is their dream and only shepherd.
Sep 18, 2012
Sep 18, 2012 at 8:18 PM UTC
the body falls soft
curves collapsing on the edge of
bedspread tangled in cliched prison
escape ropes
tied loose like old tendon,
we are all but used.
I feel the force of Fibonacci
spiraling between ribs
and pelvis, golden ratios
divining skin,
1 to 1.616
Jul 5, 2013
Jul 5, 2013 at 8:09 PM UTC
When in the chronicle of wasted time
I see descriptions of the fairest wights,
And beauty making beautiful old rhyme
In praise of ladies dead, and lovely knights,
Then, in the blazon of sweet beauty’s best,
Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,
I see their antique pen would have expressed
Even such a beauty as you master now.
So all their praises are but prophecies
Of this our time, all you prefiguring;
And, for they looked but with divining eyes,
They had not skill enough your worth to sing.
For we, which now behold these present days,
Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.
2.7k
A moment frozen in time;
Sublime and reclining
Speckled clouds in the sky.
A moment to reflect on
My minds eye divining
My mood weaves the meadows
in which I do graze,
Breeze on my face,
The echo
of natures innocence resounding.
What is this place?
Why is it so hard to reach?
Still to my bones.
So aware
so aware of it all.
This altered conscious hears my plea.
**A warm, deep breath
for my soul,
resetting life's toll on me.**
Sep 26, 2015
Sep 26, 2015 at 7:23 PM UTC
Sweetest love, I do not go,
For weariness of thee,
Nor in hope the world can show
A fitter love for me;
But since that I
Must die at last, 'tis best
To use myself in jest
Thus by feign'd deaths to die.
Yesternight the sun went hence,
And yet is here today;
He hath no desire nor sense,
Nor half so short a way:
Then fear not me,
But believe that I shall make
Speedier journeys, since I take
More wings and spurs than he.
That if good fortune fall,
Cannot add another hour,
Nor a lost hour recall!
But come bad chance,
And we join to'it our strength,
And we teach it art and length,
Itself o'er us to'advance.
When thou sigh'st, thou sigh'st not wind,
But sigh'st my soul away;
When thou weep'st, unkindly kind,
My life's blood doth decay.
It cannot be
That thou lov'st me, as thou say'st,
If in thine my life thou waste,
That art the best of me.
Let not thy divining heart
Forethink me any ill;
Destiny may take thy part,
And may thy fears fulfil;
But think that we
Are but turn'd aside to sleep;
They who one another keep
Alive, ne'er parted be.
2.4k
His hands ring in the upper classes.
There, in the morning light, his will
Is forged, bent, as truth, on ruling
This place, underhand, underfoot.
With shuttered ears divining his voice
The dim pupils see only what is said.
The top hand schools, topples all words
Ringing hands sing the song of fools.
How Headmaster trains on the heel,
A dagger strikes, the paper cuts
Exalted, his close minded hands,
See a Czar in the stony swagger,
And the student body, submissively lies
With his feet. Outside the college
The headmaster is heard. Grossly,
He is their dream and only shepherd.
Jan 4, 2013
Jan 4, 2013 at 10:44 AM UTC
His hands ring in the upper classes.
There, in the morning light, his will
Is forged, bent, as truth, on ruling
This place, underhand, underfoot.
With shuttered ears divining his voice
The dim pupils see only what is said.
The top hand schools, topples all words
Ringing hands sing the song of fools.
How Headmaster trains on the heel,
A dagger strikes, the paper cuts
Exalted, his close minded hands,
See a Czar in the stony swagger,
And the student body, submissively lies
With his feet. Outside the college
The headmaster is heard. Grossly,
He is their dream and only shepherd.
Aug 13, 2013
Aug 13, 2013 at 1:50 PM UTC
Thou leanest to the shell of night,
Dear lady, a divining ear.
In that soft choiring of delight
What sound hath made thy heart to fear?
Seemed it of rivers rushing forth
From the grey deserts of the north?
That mood of thine
Is his, if thou but scan it well,
Who a mad tale bequeaths to us
At ghosting hour conjurable -- -
And all for some strange name he read
In Purchas or in Holinshed.
2k
Honey tastes slow, glowing like amber
Trapping touch in a heady crush of warm
Nestling between my ******* where sweat pools, delicate
Dipping fingers into pots, swirling, lingering
Licking the syrupy sweetness
Craving the rose scented dark and the musk
You, above me like summer
Creating me from the flesh of your hands
Describe me with your kisses, unwrap me with whispers
Suspend the rules of us between my lips
Breathe your will into words that glint with
Consequence, etching heat into flesh
Charge the oxygen around us with sweet almostpain
That draws out my ghosts, blood over flames
Leading the Moon out into the depths, into the crevasse
Wallowing in my softest curves as you
Follow me down to the forest bed and
Claim my world as your Fetish
And if I open to your insistence, slowly unlaced
Kiss me in obscenity until I speak in tongues
Silence me with your sternest hand of fire on flesh
Bring my bruises to boil beneath your gaze while l,
Shyly revealed by your voice,
Try to cover my eggshells and hush my moans
You, beneath me like summer
The seed will grow where l place my kisses
Divining water from your ancient well
Suckling the slick pomegranate flesh
Until the star on your forehead is burning
Shudderfall down into night, into my storm
Collide in me, where the clouds are heavy with rain and lust
Leading the Moon down into the depths, into the crevasse
Melding desire with Fate as you
Meet me down on the forest floor and
Claim my love as your Fetish
Wrap my body in silken cords that sing of you
Handfast beyond gesture
My flesh, your manifesto
Fetish
Jan 13, 2019
Jan 13, 2019 at 6:58 PM UTC
His hands ring in the upper classes.
There, in the morning light, his will
Is forged, bent, as truth, on ruling
This place, underhand, underfoot.
With shuttered ears divining his voice
The dim pupils see only what is said.
The top hand schools, topples all words
Ringing hands sing the song of fools.
How Headmaster trains on the heel,
A dagger strikes, the paper cuts
Exalted, his close minded hands,
See a Czar in the stony swagger,
And the student body, submissively lies
With his feet. Outside the college
The headmaster is heard. Grossly,
He is their dream and only shepherd.
Dec 8, 2013
Dec 8, 2013 at 3:21 PM UTC
I am spitting up universes
-like Kali- all destruction,
eclipsing the deceit of the Sun.
I will consume
the stars until I am pregnant
with the possibilities
of a new moon.
I am the keeper of secrets
-Like the High Priestess-all feminine,
divining the wisdom of bones.
My body imbued with the
spirits of indigo promise.
I will some day
leave this story
And like the birds
I shall inherit the wind.
Dec 26, 2015
Dec 26, 2015 at 1:59 AM UTC
Sweetest love, I do not go,
For weariness of thee,
Nor in hope the world can show
A fitter love for me;
But since that I
Must die at last, 'tis best
To use myself in jest
Thus by feign'd deaths to die.
Yesternight the sun went hence,
And yet is here today;
He hath no desire nor sense,
Nor half so short a way:
Then fear not me,
But believe that I shall make
Speedier journeys, since I take
More wings and spurs than he.
O how feeble is man's power,
That if good fortune fall,
Cannot add another hour,
Nor a lost hour recall!
But come bad chance,
And we join to'it our strength,
And we teach it art and length,
Itself o'er us to'advance.
When thou sigh'st, thou sigh'st not wind,
But sigh'st my soul away;
When thou weep'st, unkindly kind,
My life's blood doth decay.
It cannot be
That thou lov'st me, as thou say'st,
If in thine my life thou waste,
That art the best of me.
Let not thy divining heart
Forethink me any ill;
Destiny may take thy part,
And may thy fears fulfil;
But think that we
Are but turn'd aside to sleep;
They who one another keep
Alive, ne'er parted be.
1.6k
In order the heart, keep running without knowledge
Of the living torch, of the soiling fires that wipe
Hopes memory, the boiled blood must breathe
In a sea of borders, of waves and rushing tides.
In order the heart, beats time, though it knocks,
Near breaks, as the wind that swoons is divining
Treasure, the jewel in the box of flesh must hold,
Must shore the rivers of the branching bleed.
In order the heart, is closed, and dry of touches
Towering keep, let the eye know mercy, let the seas
That travel with the bones never feel the marching
Desert, the hollow caves of the discarded lovers.
Jun 14, 2012
Jun 14, 2012 at 2:27 PM UTC
My weight lifts up
As the sun rises
And the moon and stars hide
Beneath the blanket of light
Honorable mention
Standing ovation
Hands clapping
Congratulations
Loud noise penetrates the air
Static electrifies my hair
Surfing couches on a wave
Of homelessness and "bah, humbugs!"
Clever critters creep crawling covertly
Across the room, I see my face
Peering curiously like a child's
At something new, born into a world
Of nuclear reactions and hummingbirds
Of postulants and female circumcision
Of fried turkey and wrapped gifts
I am the divining rod of this family
Sun peeks around the clouds
As the clock counts down my every breath
This staircase reeks of death
He was the walrus, hunted like prey.
Jan 2, 2013
Jan 2, 2013 at 4:51 PM UTC
Broncos bucked up
Rattled rangeless restless
For 24 days now
Cowboys gone awry
Drunk in their sheets.
Shooting out windows
Instead of black hats.
Divining honor in
Hoop skirts.
Belching sarsaparilla
Soaked six shooters.
Go West young man?
No.
Sorry.
Invest young man.
Get blessed young man.
Get dressed young man.
Distressed ghost towns
Remain inflections
Calico ribboned echoes
of
Freedom's hyena laugh &
Liberty's lonesome howl.
Feb 19, 2014
Feb 19, 2014 at 11:53 PM UTC
In order the heart, keep running without knowledge
Of the living torch, of the soiling fires that wipe
Hopes memory, the boiled blood must breathe
In a sea of borders, of waves and rushing tides.
In order the heart, beats time, though it knocks,
Near breaks, as the wind that swoons is divining
Treasure, the jewel in the box of flesh must hold,
Must shore the rivers of the branching bleed.
In order the heart, is closed, and dry of touches
Towering keep, let the eye know mercy, let the seas
That travel with the bones never feel the marching
Desert, the hollow caves of the discarded lovers.
Apr 30, 2013
Apr 30, 2013 at 12:17 PM UTC
It seems now, still, and into forever, meaning and being
arrive incorrectly, deciphered through perspective lacking
the cosmic kind of clarity you think we'd be preaching by now
but here I stand, represented by death and persecution,
****** abuse and defamation, stuck in limbo, curtains half-drawn
waiting to see if I'm one -- winding up just another number
Tell me, have you seen it?
Exposure in drip-drop?
Even though shown, so slightly shone, less than any other broadcast
Lasting less than any length of time divining prime time due process
Still we receive clapped hands and stop,
how could we dare intrude living rooms
and man caves, "Man, flip that tab back to Vine,
let me disintegrate." It seems I live to die in
higher percentage and end the show to
indignation. Happy Anniversary.
Dec 31, 2014
Dec 31, 2014 at 4:21 AM UTC
swinging in the lilac flowers
listening to sza for hours
forgetting my ivory skin is solar powered
shedding my old skin before i devour
every moment on the horizon
succeeding no longer trying
law of least effort, divining
law of impermanence, time not wasted on crying, trying to cling
driving, light is dreadfully dim
but i keep my finger on the pulse
feeling the moment
Apr 14, 2023
Apr 14, 2023 at 2:15 PM UTC