"downwind" poems
.
I’m just a lonely traveler
on this earth
Sometimes it feels as if I'm
waiting for the sky to fall
with each passing breathe
of wind
Standing alone,
a windswept tree
leans downwind;
conspicuously wrought,
naked and bowed
by the grinding
silent forces
at nature's whim
Rootless tumbleweeds
roll by randomly:
broken off,
spinning clockwise,
never looking back,
timeworn and tired
of resisting the prevailing
high desert wind
and its unheld temper
Rattling the tinder
dry sagebrush
like songless wind-chimes;
voiceless fugitives
wreathing a bellowing silence
Jesse Stillwater
Aug 26, 2018
Aug 26, 2018 at 7:04 PM UTC
Lightning Strikes 323 Norwegian Reindeer
Hunters made the discovery, stealth and *****
dabbed anoraks all for nothing not to mention
a critical downwind approach and camo blend
that rendered Frode and Jørgen or Ove and Anders
invisible against rock and lichen and cloudberry
but offered little protection against thoughts sublime.
Ove, perhaps, cursing God for poor sportsmanship,
the divine equivalent of dynamiting fish, while Anders
gave silent thanks to fortune, a freezer full of steaks.
Sep 16, 2016
Sep 16, 2016 at 8:03 AM UTC
Poppies blossom like open cuts.
Ripe and red, they fill the air
With a cloying sweetness
So potent anyone downwind
Must shut their eyes and breathe
Through open mouths. Tasting
The breath of flowers, they grow
Nauseous and afraid.
The fields sway in the hot breeze
Until they resemble an ocean aflame -
It is here, among these poppies, I have
Found the blood of the Earth.
It is moist and toxic, an acid eating away the soles
Of all that wade through it.
How many gaunt, pale bundles of bone
Rest below these soft, red petals?
No one dares to count.
People do not fear such
Lovely things - if they’ve only seen
Pictures. How nice it must be
To know nothing of poppies
But their color, their shape.
They seem almost beautiful -
But you know better.
You have stood waist deep in the
Malignant fields, breathing the air
That slowed your limbs -
Turning your arms and legs into pendulums
Swaying to the beat of the buds
That encircle them -
Until you knelt, weighed down,
Nearly submerged by saccharine terrors,
And cried, hoping the water leaking from your heart
Would put out the fires you find yourself embracing.
After all, during the darker hours
Any light is better than no light at all
(Or so something whispers in your tired ear).
You know the horror of poppies -
But still you have yet to plunge
Past the black eyes of those red beasts -
For when the wind blows clean, cold
Air to you what do you do?
You raise your arms and let yourself
Feel as though you can fly -
And one day…one day
You will look down
And see yourself above
A ground free of poppies.
Oct 24, 2014
Oct 24, 2014 at 3:48 AM UTC
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.
Feb 9, 2010
Feb 9, 2010 at 2:15 AM UTC
innuendo sushi is usher asking Sienese disowns shown plops aside ask dud
NCOs debs downwind UBS mayo Iowa. Laos Nissan seis *** so enemies Sandusky snails used iOS somehow Owen haikus eye owl ensues diss worsens skinned unique.
ushers witted hub woman's newish naval cavity sis wish lend USB
[rage typing doesn't work with auto correct]
Aug 2, 2013
Aug 2, 2013 at 11:54 PM UTC
I met an old man today
I was trying to write in the sun
and was sitting downwind from him
and judgung by the smell
I thought he may have soiled himself
He was sitting with his wife
and they had about fifteen teeth between them
he heard me speak
and asked me If I was from England
yeah, I moved here seven years ago
we're from New York
that's cool, I've always wanted to go
Oh you have to,
There's no city like it in the world
So why are you in Richmond?
New York Is too **** expensive
I remember one time
I was held up by a .38
the poor ******* didn't know
I only had 75 cents in my pocket
Let me give you some advice, kid
If you ever go to New York
Never look up
only tourists look up
you gotta keep on looking forward
oh yeah
and if you have a ***** pack around your waist
and a camera around your neck
you might just get your *** kicked
oh and if you ever get lost In New York
all you gotta do is ask a mailman
they're like the kings of the city
they know everything
I wished him a nice day
told him It had been a pleasure talking to him
and walked home
only looking forward
because I'm no tourist
Apr 9, 2013
Apr 9, 2013 at 6:06 PM UTC
Biting your flesh in the darkness
How it yields
I am primal
Downwind from you
I am longing
'Us' is just a whisper, thick with liquor
But I have heard the note in your laugh,
That comes too easy
Clinging, lingering like lucid cigarette smoke
My dilemma
- For I cannot discern,
Who the fool is
You or I?
Jul 2, 2013
Jul 2, 2013 at 9:08 PM UTC
You said to me
Stand strong and firm
And by mast you would
Set sail.
Stay and sate
Our love would prevail
The rampant hunger
That swells
The tide
and draws
The moon
Baited and starved
Into the night
Yet here I am
Alone at sea
With only the breeze
For company.
A seagulls song
And the sound of calamity
Lapping and slapping
At my ego.
Like bounty
Lost And found
In darkness and depth
And heaving chests
With rusty locks
And ghosts
Stirred and stricken
I cry silent and taken by the deep
I am green with envy that you might want me.
I am left to the birds
Stark at my post
And sailing single
In this boat built for two
I need you
To want me
Navigate and steer
And plot the course
Of my flesh
Saline sweat and brackish
Brine.
I am not a ****
Cast upon shore
A ***** to the
Land-walker
No more.
I am ballast
And tempest
Uproar.
Downwind
I wait for your
Scent/
The descent
Of your body in mine.
I have time
And rhyme
And sailors song
To while the time
In which I long
And sailing alone
You will find me
Your boy lost at sea
Feb 9, 2010
Feb 9, 2010 at 2:52 AM UTC
for the missed and the missing
~~~
lea - a tract of open ground, especially grassland; meadow; land used for a few years for pasture or for growing hay, then plowed over and replaced by another crop; untilled; fallow
~~~
In the Lea Field
And again that man
in the fallow fallen field,
grasps his own tiller,
looking ahead, downwind, leeward to plow,
impatient to cut rows of upturned earth
to grow markers,
plant seeded rows of words
and again that man
presumes time,
planting a yearly crop of
hoped for just enough time
but it does not suffice -
enough and sufficient time
will not grow in the lea field
this year
Now a man comes to mind,
living and dying
in a lea field
the man too,
field fallen fallow like the grassy meadow
that once fed his overcast gaze
yet the man believes still,
word seeds of lea poems prior planted
fullsome in their dormancy,
potent with patience,
shall not always remain so...
they are
bridges-in-waiting,
un-til,
ready once more
for the missed to
till
anew
Sep 28, 2015
Sep 28, 2015 at 5:54 PM UTC
Tapping the vein
at the section of upper and lower arm
striking the needle deep,
jagged and rough,
upon notice that Second
isn't a one-way street anymore.
Must have changed while I was gone.
My Malibu,
swerving viciously to avoid the old Grand-Am
finds its way into the right lane
the only lane
fitting like a glove on the wrong hand.
Ahead, 475 dictates my exit.
A detour, the sign says,
with little ostentation,
even more accuracy.
The highway vomits me away,
chewed and confused,
an exit before my usual.
Though the path ahead
veers straight as a needle,
it's two miles downwind.
Two miles behind.
Great symbolism,
I tell myself,
pressing hard on the accelerator.
Jul 8, 2010
Jul 8, 2010 at 11:12 AM UTC
there is no middle of the night
only a beginning,
endlessly recurring,
waked
by the body's vigilance
alert, for that hint of pain
like a woodland deer downwind
from his hunter, wary, agitated
woke last night at two am
walked out into the woods
down the drive to the intersection
all aglow from the blue moon
i can feel you in the muggy air tonight
in the blue of the corona
and in the weight of the moon
when the new day dawns
we will seek visions
fully splendid with glory
but harder to hold, and
we will recognize each other
perhaps for the first time
for what we really are
but for now in the moonlit
street, standing here alone
all losses reassessed
to become as nothing
inconsequential
in the weight of the moon
in the soft blue
night
Sep 7, 2012
Sep 7, 2012 at 9:38 AM UTC
I watched her disrobe from afar,
mesmerized was I
hidden amongst the papyrus
as she stood bathing
in the cool Nile crystal waters.
As beautiful as all the Heavens,
her skin glowed milk
below her burnt
cocoa ringlets.
Goddess cheekbones
graced a delicate smile
of teeth like fine jewels.
The curves of her hips
were finely shaped,
sculpted from
the prettiest Roman marble.
Beautiful acorn-nipples
adorned
her delicious
apple-shaped *******
A trace of dark wool
enveloped her flower
blossoming
between fine firm legs,
made from
the stoutest of cedar.
I stood silent,
watching in awe,
as her delicate
fingers circulated
her moist fineness.
And when she sighed
in bliss,
I released
my own satisfaction,
kissing the air &
swallowing her fragrance,
trembling
downwind
from her sweet Jasmine scent.
May 20, 2015
May 20, 2015 at 5:19 PM UTC
It is ok to be
not
what you are
still
becoming. She said
"you're not special." Grinding teeth and sodden rails. My car is exhausted--
downwind, held in the air like branches of birches and pines
humming with each blatant engine-stroke
which fall onto that bleakening
icedock and curl-- culled passengers tossed to sea;
unavoidably
sharp veer left, beyond surreptitious and frantic spectators
and through a once-pearl snowdrift straying into my mind.
M
C
M
L
V
Turtlenecks can't keep us warm and soup can't clear my throat.
I choke on
sliced rubber, seatbelts cut halfway-- from
Spring. pluck us like cattails
amongst my marshy solubles.
Exposes my larynx she-- ubiquitous sonnet spews forth.
What contrite aberration, wears Kalapodi temple dress
made of rose petals blown in beneath love's column
and presses with her thighs my vision?
There is nothing more to say-- meals served
raw on Winter holidays. Steaming
spoonfuls dried up on her palate--
Special in the way I left you there.
Special in being the same as I should have been.
And I, no-- I!
I can not talk any longer! The clouds I thought to taste
won't allow me to
rain
be-- once dangling from the ceiling, my dripping prevented
with a pale, cotton daub.
You see
the paramedics
even as they sheath my torso
and hold your head with thorped sieves:
The driver steered his vessel wrong
an action which robbed his passenger's breath.
Sep 25, 2011
Sep 25, 2011 at 9:34 PM UTC
Today is a stream on a still day.
The water moves, but only just.
No land eaten, and nothing rearranged.
Not stagnant, but nothing changed
Yesterday is a roaring torrent.
Landslide filth that washes out progress.
Inking pages to sepia tones-
with better days owned by the ghosts and bones.
Tomorrow is a shallow frog pond.
Stench overwhelming, and constantly avoided.
Build your cities downwind-
out of sight, and out of mind.
Come to your future ignorant,
and yearning still for yesterday.
Aug 30, 2014
Aug 30, 2014 at 12:00 AM UTC
I bled to be the rainwalker
Talking downwind, stalked by shadows, the night periodically erupts abruptly disrupting peace of mind and leaves behind the ears of corn that would expand with **** to what we now know as the sacred substance, understand this and we'll move on from this station, the hatred that makes us complacent, no directions can bee seen in green painted on the inside of our eyelid
But we did see them, when inner illumination activated the
Glow-in-the-dark properties that so impressed us coming down from the frozen mountain
Into the valley of golden fish worship,
Demons manifest in gargoyles,
Speaking through sages
Becoming animated in the full moon
Loony Toon ecstasy destroying bridges back to the sun worship
Which sees itself reflected in an empty black sky
Nov 20, 2012
Nov 20, 2012 at 10:27 AM UTC
It was a day like this,
in March; smiling blue sky,
cheering wind, chill and brisk
A day like this, on the Charles
It was a good day
for sailing, hiking out
side by side, racing upwind
‘til feathers by the bridge
rocked us like babes,
laughing verses of Rimbaud
lamenting Milton
and the Arch-Fiend
We sailed circles round the eights
sculling their way to Henley;
we called them slaves
and gestured like Merry Pranksters
We tacked and jibed, glided downwind,
and on a broad reach, we saw Prufrock
standing on shore, downcast,
as mermaids slipped on board
and sang with us:
A verse for Nausicaa
A chorus for Eidolon
Mar 11, 2014
Mar 11, 2014 at 7:34 PM UTC
while you were eating
cherry pie that sunday
after i reached for your
hand and your fingers
didn't curl around mine--
i took to the trees behind the cabin
and stayed the mossy grove buried
in this golden scratch
the neighbor's conversation downwind
about the mountain lion they'd spotted
and the spiritual sort of fear I felt with
my eyes closed, the mechanical click
of my own heartbeat, how things
used to flow and now they only
swarmed,
always
swallowed.
i was singing songs to call you out,
like you did the first time, when you
came up around the hillside and
followed me a ways out--
softly at first and then no more,
replaced by the force that came
upon me, where suddenly I was
uprooting trees, picking the most
desolate, gnarled aspens--unhinging
their roots to press my heel into their
soft bases, hulking forward and watching
them stretch out and out and out--
I found old yarn and tied
it for later, to find, to untie
to hope for second chances
I left the copse and you were
eating cherry pie on the porch
rummaging through coolers
oil sloshing through your bones
dragon fire in your blood
hard-headed over puerile matters
over your time, over the weeks
staunchly grounded into your own
wild western ways,
The duck's back, the bear's pelt
You've been roaming alone in the forests
As the beasts do, the lost, the frightened,
Admiring the darkness of your own shadow
The way it draws and casts away,
Doubly conflicted of your nature that
Mostly takes and takes and takes
Bears and
Men and
You.
Nov 22, 2016
Nov 22, 2016 at 7:46 PM UTC
tidies up his clothes
seemingly unaware that
he still looks homeless
his eyes smile in petition
doesn't have to ask—you know
breeze shifts to downwind
smell of beer and cigarettes
he's run out of *****
his one gray sock is holey
skin grimy, chafed and bleeding
turn away my gaze
to my everlasting shame
give or not to give
it's not even a question
he needs more than I can offer
Mar 17, 2010
Mar 17, 2010 at 12:18 PM UTC
tender tendrils of
affection find their
way back to
wrap around my
fingers, some
remnant of last
december when we were
knocking teeth and
locking limbs.
notion clocking in:
if i hold this feeling
up to the light,
will i see it as
counterfeit or
genuine?
how precarious,
i pop bubbles
without knowing
whether more will
blow downwind to
my anxious hands
reaching up to
make them mine and
losing them in
palm-touch time.
Dec 11, 2014
Dec 11, 2014 at 5:13 PM UTC
To run from today
or hide from tomorrow,
the ultimate hunter,
time waiting downwind
Each day a stalking,
your tracks to betray you,
escape out of season
—the wolf closing in
(Sacandaga Lake, New York: January, 2022)
Jan 10, 2022
Jan 10, 2022 at 10:26 PM UTC
I am really not stupid.
You would think
I should know by now,
after a million chances
a few failed
heart experiments,
I would be content.
Every time I think I've got
a handle on my life,
I fall into the downwind
scent of jasmine.
But always pachouli
& soft silky-skin
& a pretty smile
with sparkly-eyes
that laugh
and speak of love.
Mar 31, 2015
Mar 31, 2015 at 2:46 PM UTC
pulling arrows from a quiver in the ink of shadow; clever...
in the foliage of the heather
on the brink
of untamed
meadow ( downwind... )
bending a hard bow
in soft leathers ~
tanned in the village
for the price
of a Buck with a Doe
one with a crown
but no throne.
Nov 26, 2012
Nov 26, 2012 at 11:14 AM UTC
I used to live downwind of the slaughterhouse,
the one below the high bluff where the state pen towers,
commanding the best view of the marsh lands
and the stink ponds making lime outta ****
for the crops not meant for human consumption;
by the dry grass parks with the broken backboards
and the netless hoops that never slow a ball down.
I used to live downwind of the rendering plant
where the bubbling lard becomes aerosol
and the air reeks of freezerburn bacon and feces,
below the high bluff where the trustees cut grass
in the clean air not meant for the locals
mixing with the immigrants and loser folk
who have knots in their shoelaces that
press against bone when chasing a loose ball.
This town never grew up. Doesn't need to.
There's plenty of ground for the taking.
Plenty of farmers selling out to the downtown club
who cobble the streets in past time fashion,
netting big gains from the professional set
lining the smooth roads annexed to the east.
I used to live downwind of the closing in stink
of renewal, where the cheap rentals and struggle
stores with the marked-up Walmart brands
lining the shelves - expired but still edible -
bide their short time compressed and diced
up like leftovers for dogs.
But this is America. I don't live there anymore.
I got myself a cush gig with a padded ladder
to the top. Did everything I needed to do
for that sure climb out into a cleaner air,
only to find myself bruise-faced and reeling
when the profits didn't match the dream
and the ladders were sold for scrap.
Aug 4, 2019
Aug 4, 2019 at 4:27 PM UTC
I wanted to write a poem about you
But I forgot how to say your name.
You see, it is slashed into my skin
By your razor sharp claws
But it hides itself inside the **** in my tongue
Twisting itself into knots
I fear the sound of your name out loud
Because someone might hear it
It might hurt someone who knows you
It might hurt my friend who dates you
She will claim that she loves the way your name billows out of her mouth
Smoke from a freshly rolled cigarette
Until she discovers it is laced with poison
Each time she takes a drag
It chokes me
I stand downwind, still
Eager to take you into my body
That's why I still feel your kiss sometimes
From before your hands carved a crucifix into my wooden flesh
My body became a dead tree
It loves lurking in dense corners
Searching for sunlight
I can't feel anyone's touch
Without believing I will be harmed, now
But I keep searching for love in dark places
I keep reaching for hands that don't look like yours
My tongue keeps saying the names of other people
But it cannot vocalize the phonetics behind each letter
Four letters
One syllable
Zach.
I said it, and it feels
Like taking back my own body
I write it, and it looks
Like I could call you Hell
Call you evil
Call you vicious
Sometimes I wish you were any of those things
Then maybe people would believe me
In reality,
You're just someone else
With a case of whipping tongue.
Apr 2, 2016
Apr 2, 2016 at 10:03 PM UTC
Concealed and camouflaged in the long savannah grass
He waits downwind as still as a sleeping flamingo
Careful not to make the slightest sound
This valley is the richest in the land
Teeming with a mouthwatering selection of the most robust
Game under the African sky
He draws back his bow and sets his quiver aflight and with a powerful ******
It lands dead in the heart of the beast he has marked
The hunter collects his prize
Dinner was good tonight
The villagers dance around and adorn him with melodies of their praises
‘We swell with pride and plenty, we pride ourselves with plenty,
Plenty by the skilled hands of our most cunning hunter’
Only he is not at all present at this celebration for his honor
His heart and mind are fixated on a craving
That the liver of this buffalo did not satisfy
In fact it was as good as gall to him because the liver he longs for
The one which has him engulfed in a fog of insanity
Can only be likened to food that is fit for a god
Ah! He knows how the gods delight to dine
The terror of this revelation should be revolting enough to end this craving
But no
His eyes glisten wildly in the glare of the fire
Looking up they dart from person to person as he broods contemplatively
Over each one like a predator sizing up his prey for weaknesses
In their innocence the children rush to embrace him
Joyfully oblivious of his cruel intentions
And under the cover of darkness he slips away with a naïve child
The roasted liver melts in his mouth like fat in a hot cooking ***
He savors every morsel of it, indulging himself slowly
So that his immersion in this little paradise might last a little longer
No thought comes to mind of the little girls terrified whimpers
As he slit her throat and bled her before extracting her tasty liver
Only the splendid musky sweetness of it now has him in an indulgent daze
Now that he has found the desire of his flesh that eluded him for so long
Weeping and keening will echo through the village and those beyond
Women will wane and sing of loss and sorrow
Old men will dull with woe as the laughter of naïve children slowly ceases
Young men will search far & wide in futility for the monster amongst them
Yet they will not find it
And until his fall the land remains afflicted by the wake of his craving
Mar 3, 2015
Mar 3, 2015 at 4:56 AM UTC