"drowsing" poems
A mock pack of sea dogs
Lay on the hot, white shore;
Their wrinkles said
They'd been too long
In the sea.
Next to them dozed a tyrian crab
Whose sleep in a foot-trace deep
Commenced to crumble
In the green rumble
Of a lecherous tide.
Then a dark, awkward sound
(Not too far from the drowsing crab)
Was heard.
He came forth from the mountain
To sun himself on the shore
And send the frightened rocks
Back to the deep.
(c) LazharBouazzi, 11 June, 2018
Jun 11, 2018
Jun 11, 2018 at 5:42 PM UTC
Chocolate Milkshake!
Sweet love-child of milk and chocolate;
Drowsing inside my extra large take-away tumbler,
after a tiring roller coaster ride.
Chocolate milkshake!
Dark and delicious; Derived from the desserted district of dreamland.
Destroying me internally, you devilish seed of cacao tree.
Today, you are mine; And I’ll be the proud receiver of your sweet nectar.
Chocolate Milkshake!
You proudy liquidy miracle of nature.
You self obsessed syrup of supremacy.
You won’t ever get over yourself, will you?
Chocolate Milkshake!
I have loved you enough, you mean juice of Zion.
Next time, I am gonna order a vanilla milkshake.
It might not be as magical as you are;
But again, I can’t hold onto you forever.
Jun 15, 2015
Jun 15, 2015 at 11:33 AM UTC
Halfway between Malta and Saco,
Highway 2 stops a minute
To look back...
Beside the road
A little shrine waits
The traveler:
A stone, naturally shaped
To form a sleeping buffalo,
But etched with lines to emphasize
The dozing buff's back and sides
And drowsing head.
Nearby, a 1920s entrepreneur
Saw money to be made...
Set up a happenstance hotel
Beside the hot and sulf'rus spring,
And "Sleeping Buffalo" was born
To "heal" and to amuse
Odd tourists in their wandering.
Not much has changed...
The old buff sleeps,
But now inside a little pen
To keep the tourist vandals
Safely from his way.
The old resort is open still...
Same rusty pipes and yellowed walls
And rusty water
Warm enough to stain
Unlucky bathing suits.
(The smell's enough to force
The bather to the bath as medicine....)
On my way to other places
I have stopped along the road
To meditate beside the old stone bull...
I understand, a little,
Now that I am growing old,
Tobacco offerings left
Beside the sleeping stone.
Though not a Pagan,
I can feel the distant Ways
Before our Western ways
Made tourists of us all.
Dec 18, 2011
Dec 18, 2011 at 10:43 AM UTC
With a blistered heart
From unnumbered breaks,
A cloud of unshed tears
From untold betrayals,
I reenter the world
After an eternity or more
Of self imposed asylum
From a world of superficial bliss.
A world unchanged!
A cruel untended garden
Of deceptive beauty
And unkind thorny roses.
Lovelorn shadows,
Masquerading venomous claws
With beauteous flamboyance
And undesirable attraction.
Lethargic feelings,
Dousing my desires
With drowsing memoirs
Of countless emotional abuse,
Causing momentary spasms
In cerebral regions
Parading nocuous images
In the plenitude of projected beauty.
Scarred beyond immediate cure,
I recede from said world-
Too adverse for tender hearts
Back to hibernating moods
To nurse evergreen cuts
Cuts so deep, so lethal
Only the indolent strides of time
Can attempt to stitch!
Awaiting prophetic moments
Moments with mirage qualities
When in-love I can fall again
When a damsel I can trust again
When my heart can beat again
For one with pure intentions
Not putrefied by Hollywood mentors
*But virtuous in biblical ways*...
© Raphael Uzor
Apr 21, 2014
Apr 21, 2014 at 1:17 AM UTC
692
The Sun kept setting—setting—still
No Hue of Afternoon—
Upon the Village I perceived
From House to House ’twas Noon—
The Dusk kept dropping—dropping—still
No Dew upon the Grass—
But only on my Forehead stopped—
And wandered in my Face—
My Feet kept drowsing—drowsing—still
My fingers were awake—
Yet why so little sound—Myself
Unto my Seeming—make?
How well I knew the Light before—
I could see it now—
’Tis Dying—I am doing—but
I’m not afraid to know—
2.6k
...and there’s no one there to hear it,
does it make a sound?
________________________
My poetry performed—
before a crowd of johnny-jump-ups
Their faces toward me in unison—
they listen
Intense, motionless energy
Velvet applause of purple and
Yellow yelling!
Encore
of performing in the perfume
with a troop of lilacs
They will remember me
While I— await their return to May
through billowing miles
of drowsing sachet
breathing euphorias
between the lingerie of clouds
What happens after ecstasy?
Grieving in life’s presence?
Loss of mind to self-possession?
_________________
...and when my sense of smell gives out
I will hold on for a while
to the walker of hearing
trying not to stumble past
the song of thrush
beyond me in the blurring leaves
once so clearly—
crinkled, shiny, and infant green….
_____________
As a child I held on to nothing
for dear life
I could cup a storm in my hands!
Could run with the rhythm of a horse!
I could fly in my mind’s eye
if the ferns I used were only wings!
If I pretended hard enough
I could eat my own home-baked mud pies!
If only I could be—
more than a fledgling of eight
so earthbound, clumsy
_____________
But while the lilacs were out of town
thunder met the flash
and gutted summer!
I ran for dear life!
from the amazing distance of its echoes
pelted by its gentle gift
Snagged by growing things—
the clinging prattle
of their momentous tendrils....
______________
Lovers run off the path
past water lilies
along the swollen veins to the river
toward a grave and pounding heart
The Ancient Flood was jealous....
Now when the wind softens
and rain is tossed
last, and only from the leaves
may their encore be cupped in the hands
of some passer-by
Remembering—
that either because of a trifling wind
or the weight of time...
a tree fell here
clubbing the river’s bank senseless
Sep 10, 2016
Sep 10, 2016 at 1:44 PM UTC
My long two-pointed ladder’s sticking through a tree
Toward heaven still.
And there’s a barrel that I didn’t fill
Beside it, and there may be two or three
Apples I didn’t pick upon some bough.
But I am done with apple-picking now.
Essence of winter sleep is on the night,
The scent of apples; I am drowsing off.
I cannot shake the shimmer from my sight
I got from looking through a pane of glass
I skimmed this morning from the water-trough,
And held against the world of hoary grass.
It melted, and I let it fall and break.
But I was well
Upon my way to sleep before it fell,
And I could tell
What form my dreaming was about to take.
Magnified apples appear and reappear,
Stem end and blossom end,
And every fleck of russet showing clear.
My instep arch not only keeps the ache,
It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.
And I keep hearing from the cellar-bin
That rumbling sound
Of load on load of apples coming in.
For I have had too much
Of apple-picking; I am overtired
Of the great harvest I myself desired.
There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch,
Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall,
For all
That struck the earth,
No matter if not bruised, or spiked with stubble,
Went surely to the cider-apple heap
As of no worth.
One can see what will trouble
This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is.
Were he not gone,
The woodchuck could say whether it’s like his
Long sleep, as I describe its coming on,
Or just some human sleep.
2k
Rising before instinct completes my sleep, rousing common sense out of bed,
I pack the car. It's so dark the moon is still drowsing.
Soon I am in the cool ocean, arms propelling me and a surfboard,
stomach submerged and chest free through white water splashes,
then crests breaking, then up and over their shoulders
to arrive at the very place where waves emerge from calm water.
At this hour there are only a handful of other dawn-patrol surfers, all Hawaiians.
Greeting with a smile of bright grace learned from the sun, and a cheerful How'z It?
brown glowing skin tattooed with small triangle patterns on strong arms, chests, backs,
emblems of kama'aina heritage and Aloha's honor.
A little talk story, sharing a laugh, and I sit up to take sentinal,
beginning the quiet meditation
searching the horizon for the sea's ever-changing intention.
Morning wakes color, with sleepy palms rubs away the world's hushed gray veil
revealing sky blue on royal aquamarine and palm-tree green silhouetting tropical canyon jade.
The mountain's gold-rimmed halo of mist is announcing dawn's imminent arrival.
She bursts over the ridge, arms showering the water with tiny pebbles of light
gold jewels skipping across the sparkling surface and turning silver.
It must be so beautifully curious from below, the whale's eye view here in their sanctuary.
First we see a mysterious dark shape, a nose, that morphs into an ever-expanding building,
that materializes into the entire magnificent whale suspended in our thin world
then arching over, she bursts the water, scattering dawn's sparkling treasure.
We surfers call with uncharacteristic exclamations, pointing in excitement,
So close we can feel the whale's contagious joy.
One Hawaiian woman slides off her board, to place her ear on the water in reverie;
hearing the Kahunas ancient Aumakua call.
Jan 3, 2013
Jan 3, 2013 at 2:34 PM UTC
Comma kitty
you syntactical *****
drop your kittens down the well
drowning
drowsing
dreaming a dilaudid nightmare
you word-whore
let go your
cat-gut screeching
I need a song
Nov 19, 2018
Nov 19, 2018 at 2:22 PM UTC
She wraps me in her icy flow
and chills me 'til I'm warm
Soothes away the open space
With sand and pebbled shores
She tries to lull me downriver
Gently pulling, drowsing
Massaging the miles off me
Relaxing
I know she lies
I know she'd take me to the big river
Carrying me like an eddying breeze
But I want to lay back and dream
And slowly drift away
Jan 24, 2014
Jan 24, 2014 at 4:39 PM UTC
Let’s pretend Sundays last forever
and spend hours drowsing in the sun.
Let stress slowly fade, like a passing parade
and our cares will seem light as feathers.
I hear clouds still collage on blue canvas,
and deciduous leaves turned bright colors
we’ll picnic, we’ll laugh, and lay in the grass
and this Sunday will outshine all the others.
Oct 9, 2021
Oct 9, 2021 at 10:25 PM UTC
A certain song the sea wind knows
it sends thru puckered lips,
like kisses blown, across the bows
of drowsing sailing ships;
and stirs their sleepy sails
from their slumber with it's tune,
unfurls their folded petals
and brings them back in bloom.
Mar 6, 2017
Mar 6, 2017 at 11:55 PM UTC
Young Love lies sleeping
In May-time of the year,
Among the lilies,
Lapped in the tender light:
White lambs come grazing,
White doves come building there;
And round about him
The May-bushes are white.
Soft moss the pillow
For oh, a softer cheek;
Broad leaves cast shadow
Upon the heavy eyes:
There winds and waters
Grow lulled and scarcely speak;
There twilight lingers
The longest in the skies.
Young Love lies dreaming;
But who shall tell the dream?
A perfect sunlight
On rustling forest tips;
Or perfect moonlight
Upon a rippling stream;
Or perfect silence,
Or song of cherished lips.
Burn odours round him
To fill the drowsy air;
Weave silent dances
Around him to and fro;
For oh, in waking
The sights are not so fair,
And song and silence
Are not like these below.
Young Love lies dreaming
Till summer days are gone,--
Dreaming and drowsing
Away to perfect sleep:
He sees the beauty
Sun hath not looked upon,
And tastes the fountain
Unutterably deep.
Him perfect music
Doth hush unto his rest,
And thro' the pauses
The perfect silence calms:
Oh poor the voices
Of earth from east to west,
And poor earth's stillness
Between her stately palms.
Young Love lies drowsing
Away to poppied death;
Cool shadows deepen
Across the sleeping face:
So fails the summer
With warm, delicious breath;
And what hath autumn
To give us in its place?
Draw close the curtains
Of branched evergreen;
Change cannot touch them
With fading fingers sere:
Here the first violets
Perhaps will bud unseen,
And a dove, may be,
Return to nestle here.
1.3k
in the tauntingly quiet
florescent hospital hum
waiting for a hospice bed
people floated in and out
along with the scents of disinfectant and Salisbury steak
all spoke, in muted tones, words moving
through the liquid silver air of the night
they would squeeze your hand, gently
maybe casting a glance my way
before they walked into the dead vinyl tile halls
to the white squeaking sounds of faceless nurses’ shoes
where the obligated visitors would
breathe a proverbial sigh of relief
for they did not want to be there
at the moment
at the horizon between the slits in your eyes
imagining the ones behind the walls
and across the hills you would never again see
I would be there,
recalling horizons we had seen together
perhaps with you in my arms
before words built walls between us
and years were soaked up like desert rain
after seasons of doubt and drought
I wondered if you would ask me again
or if I would say yes this time
and if that would be enough
to release you
surely, I gave you life
another father and I both did, I suppose
could I take it as well
if you asked me again,
to increase the drowsing drip
of modern Morpheus’ elixir?
Nov 28, 2011
Nov 28, 2011 at 10:42 PM UTC
Look at the dormant summer noon
Drowsing by the pregnant tree
And lulled to his vision of the moon
By a wandering honey bee
Whose songs are so sweet and subdued
Like a score of apples waiting in
A cluster
Not knowing when they will be plucked
So they, too, hung on a sleeper’s specter.
© LazharBouazzi, TUNISIA
Jul 22, 2019
Jul 22, 2019 at 6:46 PM UTC
Degrees Of Gray In Philipsburg
You might come here Sunday on a whim.
Say your life broke down.
The last good kiss
you had was years ago.
You walk these streets
laid out by the insane,.......
The only prisoner
is always in, not knowing what he's done.....
Richard Hugo, 1967
with many, many apologies to Richard
The Last Prisoner
For years gray man
Huddled in the old cell
In his burning brain
He plots his escape
So quiet and careful he has been
In his scheming. Even in the dark nights
His plan moves forward
The latch is weakening
Under careful pressure the hinges
For the door itself, begin to fail
He imagines the excitement of being released
Of friends who might shout his name,
Buy him a drink
Of his lover, older now, with her knowing smile
Telling him she knew no jail could hold him
Of the light, the sun, the trees in the rain
He grinds his remaining teeth
Brushes thinning hair
Chuckling to himself, thinks of old songs
He has lost any sense of time, can't remember
Winter or Spring
For him there has been the locked door
The endless filing, rubbing, wearing down
Pushing, cursing the barrier that has blighted his life
It happens when is he is drowsing
Half awake, wrapped in rags
That pass for bedding
A strange sound, like a tree falling
Or a sudden heavy blow
And the gate, the door,
The anchor that has blighted his life
Is gone!
He staggers in the light
Blinded nearly
And sees the vague shadows
The empty streets, shops boarded up
An echoing silence, old papers blown
Leaning against the wall
He considers
Should he return to the cell?
Gibbens
Nov 22, 2011
Nov 22, 2011 at 11:25 PM UTC
Chin up
What are you looking down on for?
I heard you were the winner of this contest
Why down
When you are already in the up
Your life is as high as the clouds
Tiptoeing on the gold
When every floor shines to you
People latch on you like a magnet
Hoping to leech off some basket of your talent
To me and the eyes of the envy, that is not humility
It is nothing but vanity
You have the neatest work
Organized and logical
Most understandable and desirable
You have the cheeriest face and smile
You have the coolest of fiercest lies
You have done the impossible
You have the peaceful of memorable
You have the breath freshing life
You have a simple but satisfying affection
You have somebody willing to sacrifice for you
Best of both worlds connection
You do not have a broken brain
That fluctuates on every thought train
To me, I see rain
Instead of the bow's grains
You do not faint
In world's every little madness added with vain
You stay rooted on your spot
Defending yourself even when the fire's hot
Dare playing forget-me-not
I ask myself everyday
Why cannot I be strong?
Why cannot I be independent?
Why cannot I be more talented?
Why cannot I be clean?
Why cannot I be innocent and still loved?
Why do I keep thinking?
Why cannot I just stop?
Why am I surviving?
Why
Why cannot be like them?
Why cannot I be like you
Always never enough
Improves but fails
Told to be yourself but I am tired of doing both the appropriating and the disappointing
Always hurt
Always inviting pain
Nothing to gain
With my self pitying
With my self degrading
Demotivating this miserably, hopelessly beating, drowsing heart
As I long stare on
Is it me
Is it you
Is it everybody
That I am crying out for this?
Repeating the celebrity thinking
To prevent sinking
You have to keep sailing in everyone's mingling
To forget what you are actually dancing
What you are living
Until you are completely failing
Fading
Because we are all missing something
Then blame it on everything
It is hard to maintain the:
"Just sing and soon everyone will respect you."
Feb 20, 2019
Feb 20, 2019 at 7:34 AM UTC
Three visible stars
Glass of tempranillo
The final pages of
For Whom the Bell Tolls
Clear calm skies
Breaths settle senses
Like calm leaves after wind
Quiet spreads through trees
And the house
Returning to roots, foundations
Sharers of the evening moon
Heaven and earth - drowsing
The dormant volcanoes
We are, occasionally able
To release hints
Of the indescribable thing
Mar 29, 2016
Mar 29, 2016 at 8:41 AM UTC
**You're in my head drowsing me like vertigo
because I'm stupid in love with you...
That's why I want you to want me, try me and
see that I'll fight for you... I'm not blowing Trumpets
but I think you're my it Girl. I like the other side of you,
how you wiggle, chew Bubblegum...
I even love the heave of your chest when you're breathing...
Might be Broke, but I hope you can Love like that
so that together we can Make it up as we go...
I ain't just after seeing you naked...if we Trade Hearts
I believe we will be Undefeated...for you'll Love me down
and I'll stick too like a Tattoo, pick up the
Pieces of your broken heart and we'll be our Painkiller.
I'm tired of riding Solo... Marry me, it won't get ugly...
Pull up to my place, hate to talk ***** but my Heart X2CU...
they say The Sky is the limit but I believe we can go into space,
don't wanna go home without you, watcha say Cheyenne?**
Aug 5, 2016
Aug 5, 2016 at 8:36 AM UTC
POSTICTAL PORTHOLE-(TIME BLOWN BACKWARDS)
Frozen breath holding back weight, against the chest seems great stacked like stones
Starting softly to see from the third door down the row,reclusive, damage is waiting to show
Others in red alert our mind coming on slow, their fear no reflection on our unknowns
Peace while in waiting,thoughts flow slow into a reflecting pool,echos beginning to grow
Time blown backwards when clocks stopped ticking , simple assessments our only goals
Mental evaporation senses left wide open,trying to find the song but only get static from the radio
Held back by grogginess looking out from fogginess ,bits of life as viewed through those holes
Oh MY I made it,escaped , BUT when will blackness call again,laying low not quite thinking of that other plateau
Bolted ,jolted rousing frequently followed by drowsing,hearing as a low hum ,sounds soon forming new tones
Nonexistentance now part of the ritual ,for the witness memories are visual,slowly waiting to say hello
Perspective has changed, await for thoughts to be rearranged ,senses in collusion with massive confusion,new beginning like waiting for future episodes . R.C.
Jan 17, 2018
Jan 17, 2018 at 12:05 PM UTC
There were
those thickets
of flat
graying trees
and a frozen
skin of lake
out by the
hunched rink
behind Georgian Woods
the terrace apartments
where Dad lived
after he left
the family.
Left to my
own devices
while Dad
delved in books
I slipped out
the sliding door
through
the frost-grass
and the
snow branch gap
into the
unfolding stillness
of the drowsing park.
Sometimes
my sister
was there
with me
in the woods,
our play
always some form
of running away.
In the early
years Dad
smoked a pipe
his thick
blue rug scented
with Captain Black
**** tobacco,
the white tin
with the rigged
ship logo.
The humming silo
of the air purifier
Dad's concession
to my convulsing
asthmatic chest,
close-gathered lung
like the branch bark
that scraped
my lip
as I ran in
the park wood,
blood slipping
across my face
and down
into the ache.
Dec 21, 2018
Dec 21, 2018 at 2:00 PM UTC
skinny dipping on sopping silk
a cold pooling of lunar refraction
steeps our summer drowsing
ghostly fish, lustrous slivers,
skip across tumid fleshy belly
where I kiss that soft arousing
lip traced phantom trails
follow silver shimmering wandering avenue
to a mellifluent mossy dowsing
-
Jun 23, 2015
Jun 23, 2015 at 2:12 PM UTC
Two cats were we, tangled together in the sunlight
drowsing in awareness of peace
and its war rising, with the proximity of our bodies
Mar 22, 2014
Mar 22, 2014 at 10:41 PM UTC
Oberon stands by;
summer is asleep.
Puck reclines, lethargic eyes,
wildflowers threaded
through his coarse, nether hair.
Mar 18, 2015
Mar 18, 2015 at 5:41 PM UTC
In my room, a cricket sings his heavy heart.
Outside, his million brothers, star-drunk beneath a lemon tree.
Why these walls? Why his song? Why my clocks, taken apart?
In my room, a cricket sings his heavy heart.
Why alleys? Why walkways? Why my brushes sick from art?
Why my open window and the summer drowsing carelessly?
In my room, a cricket sings his heavy heart.
Outside, his million brothers, star-drunk beneath a lemon tree.
Sep 14, 2025
Sep 14, 2025 at 12:52 PM UTC