"dryads" poems
In swirling clouds of silver lace
The disk of Luna lies concealed
Across the Autumn skies they race
Over this shadow realm surreal.
On evening shadows now, I gaze
A gentle wind swirls through the trees
From depths of sleep, I watch half-dazed
Thin branches stirring in the breeze.
Lights flickering neath mystic skies
Through gaps in trees, they shine within
Entranced, my mind, I watch surprised
This spectral beauty in the wind.
In these dark shadows, spirits drift
Translucent ghosts and dryads old
From this meadow, I sense their gift
Strange stories from the wood untold.
Oh let me join thy sylvan fest
Pale spirits of this Solstice night
Before the Moon sets in the west
We'll revel neath her misty light.
Jun 16, 2014
Jun 16, 2014 at 12:04 AM UTC
How dull the wretch, whose philosophic mind
Disdains the pleasures of fantastic kind;
Whose prosy thoughts the joys of life exclude,
And wreck the solace of the poet's mood!
Young Zeno, practis'd in the Stoic's art,
Rejects the language of the glowing heart;
Dissolves sweet Nature to a mess of laws;
Condemns th' effect whilst looking for the cause;
Freezes poor Ovid in an iced review,
And sneers because his fables are untrue!
In search of hope the hopeful zealot goes,
But all the sadder tums, the more he knows!
Stay! Vandal sophist, whose deep lore would blast
The grateful legends of the storied past;
Whose tongue in censure flays th' embellish'd page,
And scorns the comforts of a dreary age:
Wouldst strip the foliage from the vital bough
Till all men grow as wisely dull as thou?
Happy the man whose fresh, untainted eye
Discerns a Pantheon in the spangled sky;
Finds sylphs and dryads in the waving trees,
And spies soft Notus in the southern breeze
For whom the stream a cheering carol sings,
While reedy music by the fountain rings;
To whom the waves a Nereid tale confide
Till friendly presence fills the rising tide.
Happy is he, who void of learning's woes,
Th' ethereal life of bodied Nature knows;
I scorn the sage that tells me it but seems,
And flout his gravity in sunlight dreams!
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Aura,
My lips are pressed against your ear.
Listen carefully; do not forget.
Deliver my message swiftly.
Dryads,
Sway gently, laugh gaily.
Fill the sky with red and green.
Bloom with my unspoken emotions.
Selene,
Beautiful with all the imperfections.
Darkness falls and you listen.
Know my dreams and pains.
Chiron,
Shin bright up high and counsel.
Helios,
Explode in magnificence; weave a golden cloak.
Aug 15, 2014
Aug 15, 2014 at 11:48 AM UTC
her mouth was sandpaper.
her mouth was sandpaper
and she spoke like
a smooth surface,
words scraped into fluidity
like a wooden sphere,
turned over behind teeth ‘til all friction
is lost.
she spoke like the walls of a birdhouse
in the room of a dead carpenter:
pretty unassembled things.
her mouth was sandpaper
and every kiss chafed,
rubbing raw my lips
and tongue
crafting with each touch
drawing blood like
juice from an apple,
like sap
from wood already cut from the tree.
her mouth was sandpaper
and she told me
*i bite my lips,
rip at
the inside of my mouth,
cannibalize myself cell
by cell.*
bone saws in her mouth.
the only difference between teeth of jaws
and saws
is mercy
(and she swallowed her mercy long ago).
her mouth was sandpaper
and she spoke like a carpenter’s hands:
rough palms,
tough pads,
a utilitarian artist
a crafter of dead flesh.
a mortician for dryads
and kodama.
the art and the artist
in lips
tongue
and teeth.
her mouth was sandpaper
and i brought mine to hers
again and again,
her bitten-rough lips
opening like doors to
purgatory.
less entrapment than addiction -
returning once more to nails and hammers,
hell’s blacksmiths below
heaven’s painters above.
coming back home
to the space between,
to bone saws
and a carpenter’s hands.
her mouth was sandpaper
and her voice was carpentry,
her teeth bone saws
her words
birdhouse walls.
her mouth was purgatory
but her hands
were hands.
her mouth was sandpaper.
i held her hand
and chafed my lips raw.
Mar 9, 2013
Mar 9, 2013 at 12:26 AM UTC
What shape so furtive steals along the dim
Bleak street, barren of throngs, this day of June;
This day of rest, when all the roses swoon
In Attic vales where dryads wait for him?
What sylvan this, and what the stranger whim
That lured him here this golden afternoon;
Ways where the dusk has fallen oversoon
In the deep canyon, torrentless and grim?
Great Pan is far, O mad estray, and these
Bare walls that leap to heaven and hide the skies
Are fanes men rear to other deities;
Far to the east the haunted woodland lies,
And cloudless still, from cyclad-dotted seas,
Hymettus and the hills of Hellas rise.
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Leaves crackle as she slowly steps
She enters the glade, her magic she preps
She listens for the sound, first soft then strong,
This music is the Faerie Song
A smile creeps onto her face
As she observes the spider weaving her lace
This creature trims the gowns of Dryads
The velvity green of summer they add
The wind blows and they bow their respect
Their rustling applause goes unchecked
She pauses by one revered, acient tree's heath
And pats the small fawn resting beneath
On she glides, though the mists of twighlight
For ahead she sees a scene so bright
Dancing 'round an enchanted flame
Are the Faerie people, frolicking without shame
She steps into the light and all goes still
She throws back her hood that kept out the chill
The Fair Folk all bow as their clothes they brush clean,
"Welcome home, Fair Lady, our own gentle Queen!"
Jul 29, 2018
Jul 29, 2018 at 8:56 PM UTC
when that hopefully ecofriendly R.I.P becomes my final home
whether bios urn
or spirit seed
or any trendy tree from corpse to copse,
from dust to leaves
or better than
a crematorial commode --for fresher air and fuel for brighter flames
transplanted into other selves
redressed in mushroom spore-suit
seeded with the genes of generations hence and past,
piercing veils to fruit above again,
a mycophile to the last--
i will have lived with growth in mind,
that firm amorphous
ground opining green
to kindly live and die in kind
foment another view,
encompass monumental evanesce
supernal tablets branching neo-dolmen ethernexusnets beyond the r00ts
barking technoshaman psychic rings about a fiberoptic rosey,
perhaps a sappier refrain for finer silica domains
to sing along and echo Dryads doting long ago,
in threaded tones the make-remaking fold
of earthenborn rekindled kin of stars
decided to invent to cater otherworldly themes
Feb 19, 2013
Feb 19, 2013 at 11:13 PM UTC
I have no store
Of gryphon-guarded gold;
Now, as before,
Bare is the shepherd’s fold.
Rubies nor pearls
Have I to gem thy throat;
Yet woodland girls
Have loved the shepherd’s note.
Then pluck a reed
And bid me sing to thee,
For I would feed
Thine ears with melody,
Who art more fair
Than fairest fleur-de-lys,
More sweet and rare
Than sweetest ambergris.
What dost thou fear?
Young Hyacinth is slain,
Pan is not here,
And will not come again.
No horned Faun
Treads down the yellow leas,
No God at dawn
Steals through the olive trees.
Hylas is dead,
Nor will he e’er divine
Those little red
Rose-petalled lips of thine.
On the high hill
No ivory dryads play,
Silver and still
Sinks the sad autumn day.
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We are killing too many trees
for notebooks, and mail envelopes,
and not enough people recycle.
My mom says that every tree is a home for a Dryad.
Dryads are nice people that care for the tree they live in.
When you **** an old tree, that the Dryad has already left
its not so bad. But when you chop down a young tree
you could **** a baby Dryad!
Stop chopping down little healthy trees
because the trees give us oxygen to breath with.
We need the trees, and the Dryads need the trees.
Stop killing baby Dryads. And always recycle too.
Jul 3, 2012
Jul 3, 2012 at 2:10 PM UTC
Washed ashore
By the angry ebb
Of lost Atlantis,
The ocean brims
In liquid Jade
And grains of gold.
The sun won't sleep
Under the blanket
Of the vast horizon,
But dances with
The velvet moon
At heaven's feet.
Divine rays pierce
The prismic clouds
Bleeding spectrum,
Rain that seethed
At the apex
Of nature's bossom.
They gushed forth
Like raging horses
To a thirsty basin,
That slithered down
The silver rivers
And shallow streams.
Neon vines
Creep in the floor
Of the sleeping forest
Cradled by the songs
Of Mockingjays
And willow dryads.
The zephyr hums
A joyful song
In the laughing thickets
As flowers bloom
Like newborn stars
In the undergrowth.
In the mellow heart
Of the deep forest
A vixen's cry
Echoed woes
Of the hidden land
And its deadly curse.
Jun 17, 2013
Jun 17, 2013 at 8:03 AM UTC
Under the thinning boughs of the Ash
he recanted the hush of the woods
The rain's dearth relented
as the Dryads, braided new ideals,
promising great abundance.
The sated Moon-flowers swallowed the
nocturnal owls silhouette.
The fallow lands impervious
to these swathes, broom
sealing their heedlessness.
May 24, 2012
May 24, 2012 at 2:23 PM UTC
Mermaids cry with freshwater tears,
Dreaming of handsome sailors who do not flee in fear,
Or even mermen to share their dream with,
For mermaids are alone.
Sirens cry with silent sobs which no one hears,
For their voice,
Even lost and forlorn,
Would only entice further lovers to watery deaths.
Dryads tears drip heavy from leaves of great trees,
Their pain giving life to the forest,
Even as their love ensorcels their soul mates,
And their heart cries out the truth,
What is bound cannot be freely given,
And is forever changed.
Jun 8, 2014
Jun 8, 2014 at 4:10 PM UTC
To see the world through fairie lens,
The scrying pool, the artist's pen,
To live in such a wond'rous world
Will feed the lover's soul, unfurled,
Will free the heart to catch the moon
Will start romantic hearts to swoon.
So Percy, young and free at heart,
Who from his love was torn apart,
Walked the woods in shadowy gloom
Proclaiming death of love, and doom,
When stepped he into fairy ring
And heard the satyrs ***** sing.
He watched the dryads flow'ry dance.
He saw the fairie happ'ly prance.
And in the midst of this he met
A vision out of Heaven sent
In form of twinkling, thoughtful eyes
And skin as clouds that grace the skies,
Skin much softer than the wind, and smooth
As stone that's by the water, grooved.
By magic fire a dance began.
By this spell, lost was the young man.
With eyes the color of the sea,
Began to court the fairy sweet,
Did Percy, past his other love.
By one touch from enchanted glove
Worn on hand of Percy's goddess
His heart did swoon and heave his chest.
That night the pair was lost in song
And Percy laughed and loved 'ere long.
At light of dawn the blue eyed youth
Received a kiss that spoke of truth
From elven maid, enchanted.
By the sun the fairie panted,
Shrinking from the light of morning,
And vanished fast, without warning.
Percy, in the wake of magic
Was abandoned. Feeling tragic
He lay prostrate upon the hill.
As days did pass he lay quite still
And slowly, overcome by woe,
He begged the Earth, upon him, grow
And take his weight, his sky blue eyes
And help his tortured soul to die.
Upon the spot where once he lay,
So aided by the sun and rain
Did grow a pair of flowers, blue.
The Earth had taken up the youth.
When one year passed, on Eve of Saints
They Fey returned, with colored paints.
The girl who danced with Percy, young,
When all the singing had begun
Did find blue petals, growing strong
And wove them in her hair, so long.
Nov 6, 2011
Nov 6, 2011 at 9:16 PM UTC
i
come to me
like winged dryads
and lift my prostrate soul
to heights untrodden
adrift with clouds
of unstarry skies
windblown to rainbows
without pots of gold
between
the uncheckered intermission
of shade and light
come to me
ii
to elysian fields he roams
gazing at the threshold of beauty
basking at the fountainhead of truth
nutritious viands that feed the soul
empyreal heights
laurel wreaths
meridian sunshine
of nectared sweets
witchery of words
full blaze of glory
poesy's gorgeous kubla khan
then all vanishes
like dreams
like streaks of shooting stars
like enchanted fairyland
. . . he is a poet
May 2, 2015
May 2, 2015 at 3:16 AM UTC
When she came out, that white little Russian dancer,
With her bright hair, and her eyes, so young, so young,
He suddenly lost his leader, and all the players,
And only heard an immortal music sung,--
Of dryads flashing in the green woods of April,
On cobwebs trembing over the deep, wet grass:
Fleeing their shadows with laughter, with hands uplifted,
Through the whirled sinister sun he saw them pass,--
Lovely immortals gone, yet existing somewhere,
Still somewhere laughing in woods of immortal green,
Young he had lived among fires, or dreamed of living,
Lovers in youth once seen, or dreamed he had seen. . .
And watched her knees flash up, and her young hands beckon,
And the hair that streamed behind, and the taunting eyes.
He felt this place dissolving in living darkness,
And through the darkness he felt his childhood rise.
Soft, and shining, and sweet, hands filled with petals. . .
And watching her dance, he was grateful to forget
The fiddlers, leaning and drawing their bows together,
And the tired fingers on the stops of his cornet.
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The dryads shake their boughs in the cold half-light,
Their bright, faded leaves leaving handprints on the sky.
They sigh to the wind all their troubles and woes,
Their roots absorbing the wisdom of the Earth.
“Come to us,” they call to the bright-eyed traveller.
*“Come and share in our universal knowledge;
“Listen to the croak of the frog, the hoot of the owl;
“Exchange breath with the deer and the lion;
“Remain as we are, everlasting far into eternity.”*
Eternity is nothing to the dryads beckoning the traveller.
Their bark shivers in anticipation of the future,
But they know all will be well. “It always is.”
And so they crane their selves towards the travellers,
Hoping they will hear their everlasting message
And join in the blissful peace so oft deserved.
Apr 20, 2014
Apr 20, 2014 at 11:51 AM UTC
When she came out, that white little Russian dancer,
With her bright hair, and her eyes, so young, so young,
He suddenly lost his leader, and all the players,
And only heard an immortal music sung,-
Of dryads flashing in the green woods of April,
On cobwebs trembing over the deep, wet grass:
Fleeing their shadows with laughter, with hands uplifted,
Through the whirled sinister sun he saw them pass,-
Lovely immortals gone, yet existing somewhere,
Still somewhere laughing in woods of immortal green,
Young he had lived among fires, or dreamed of living,
Lovers in youth once seen, or dreamed he had seen. . .
And watched her knees flash up, and her young hands beckon,
And the hair that streamed behind, and the taunting eyes.
He felt this place dissolving in living darkness,
And through the darkness he felt his childhood rise.
Soft, and shining, and sweet, hands filled with petals. . .
And watching her dance, he was grateful to forget
The fiddlers, leaning and drawing their bows together,
And the tired fingers on the stops of his cornet.
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I've become bilateral tainted--
By coincidences and ageing
Aegis fragments,
I wear sickle seeking madness-
Telling water to float, so dryads
Could root with xylem or phloem.
While the amoebas play
Webs like violin; harps-
The trees felt sorrow singing
--And dropped, but one leaf.
For--
This-was--
A waking-
'Wake'
I only tried-to-die once.
Jan 19, 2015
Jan 19, 2015 at 6:32 PM UTC
1 Upon slumber, unfold thou faerie eyes,
2 Grab ye stardust, prepare thou soulful flight;
3 If in journey’s midst wrapped with nature’s guise,
4 Be not nimble less so to wane thou light.
5 Bright fireflies conspire to dim thee shadow,
6 As thou fleet bequeath pure enraptured plains;
7 Chanting rhymes, dryads cometh to follow,
8 Thou escapade to human cosmic vains.
9 Let our worlds converge on a rendezvous,
10 Where love’s verge proves true its life immortal;
11 A portal death’s call shall only endow,
12 A cycle of joy and fear revival.
13 Let our world’s loathe expire from our being,
14 Time nor death can’t hinder love’s revealing.
May 11, 2013
May 11, 2013 at 5:42 AM UTC
Fallen Warriors.
Like so many fallen warriors
They lay scattered all around
A heaviness hung within the air
The forest was devoid of all sound
Who would mourn their passing?
Would anyone actually care?
On seeing the devastation
Of a forest despoiled and laid bare
I mourned their passing
I cried and cried and cried
Quite unable to comprehend
Why so many trees had died
The guardians of the forest
Were beside themselves with woe
The Dryads lay down with their fallen trees
They had no place left to go
No care was taken over felling
They just hacked and sawed without thought
My forest would never be the same again, alas
And it was my very favourite haunt
I salute you, fallen warriors
Though several years have now past by
For the memory of that awful day
Will remain with me 'til I die.
© Dragonborne
21st April 2015
Apr 21, 2015
Apr 21, 2015 at 3:13 PM UTC
***Had I the titans overwhelming strength
Or the dryads, soft, enslaving touch
Imbued with powers of the old
If I were to be, then maybe,
I might come at your place
And how you live, see.
Had I the wit that the wise shared
Or the pen that wrote this world
Enough paper and enough trees
To write of your beauty;
I would do that!
With each breath of mine, with each word.
Had I the wind that pegassues rode
Or the haste, empowering cupids bow.
Enough arrows and enough speed;
I’d protect you!
From everything you’re afraid
So you wouldn’t have to sleep, blindfold.
……………………………………………
But, I am none of these!
Not a long-forgotten god, not a scholar
And even less, a mythical beast.
I am just an ordinary human.
All I can do is write, write, write
And love you; But never, never speak.***
Nov 25, 2014
Nov 25, 2014 at 3:48 PM UTC
Barren, the earth beckons
Sole pair of feet treading in heat.
Respite is seldom found while
Dread, exhaustion and sweat are cheap.
Burnt heather, ashes for a bed,
A pillow of dead feathers.
What else must he do to rest
Save be abed in dust, the traveller.
A fall, showering of the abandoned
Leaves, children so dried.
Lifelessly dropping, hopeless,
From clutches of the mother tree, pried.
Poison intoxicating, sapping nature
And all there is, it's fallen bounty.
To seek rest amidst the fallen
In itself is not devoid of folly.
Spines, shivering in deathly embrace
Of ice and of all that is cold.
Paralysis of a different nature
Body begging for warmth lost and old.
Silence embalms the wild
The tame are shown no mercy.
For who dare put his eyes to rest
They may never again open, never see.
A beautiful ethereal death awaits
Those lulled by false enchantments.
Songs and whispers of ivy and moss
Trap innocents at river embankments.
Fruit and flower, vines and willows,
Dryads of the woods, deepening magic.
Slumber means to never stand again,
Death in solemn sleep, of course is tragic.
May 7, 2014
May 7, 2014 at 10:46 AM UTC
The brook at the end of the garden
Would gurgle and gush through the weeds,
Would ripple and plash in the morning sun
Like a spirit with spiritual needs,
I’d play as a child with my paper boats
As they twisted and twirled on the stream,
Not knowing the danger my sister faced
As she paddled barefoot in a dream.
For under the water and in the weeds
Was the face of a Grindylow,
He’d stare long up at my sister’s legs
From his weedbed, down below,
I should have known and I should have warned
If I’d known he lay down there,
Ruling the brook from his silver throne
But I didn’t, I declare.
I didn’t then, till I saw one day
His face in the willow shade,
Reflected up on the water course
Like a shadow God had made,
He wore a sinister smile that turned
The edge of his mouth to scorn,
And eyes that pierced as Deirdre passed
Her legs quite bare at the dawn.
I said, ‘You walked by the river god
And he stared right up your skirt,’
But Deirdre frowned, stared at the ground
I thought that she must feel hurt.
She kept on paddling in the brook
Walked out by the willow tree,
And two long arms then pulled her down
Rose out of the brook, by me.
I hadn’t the time to scream or cry
Her hair went into the brook,
Quick as a wink, she made no sound
I dashed to the tree to look,
And though the water was inches deep
Its depth had taken the girl,
Down through the weeds where the Dryads weep
With the water starting to whirl.
The brook still bubbles and gurgles there
Will ripple and plash in the weeds,
But I won’t go where I know below
My sister lies in the reeds,
She must have married the Grindylow
For she never came back to see,
If I was there in the morning air,
If anything happened to me?
David Lewis Paget
Sep 20, 2016
Sep 20, 2016 at 3:17 AM UTC
Where life exists
You often find a carpet
Of grass or moss or whatever.
And in sacred groves and forests
You will find
The tree.
The tree: nature’s skyscraper,
Deep roots, hard bark and leafy canopy:
Linking the Underworld to The Heavens.
Looming beauty my words can but strive
To describe.
A tree can live for many an age,
Legends about it, even longer.
Since ancient times the tree has been revered.
The Norse People had Yggdrasil:
A cosmic tree linking many worlds.
Comprehend the Eastern Indian Kalpavriksha –
A jewel of a wish fulfilling tree.
The Peace Tree of the American Iroquois,
And many more.
In West Africa the Oubangui People plant a tree
Whenever a child is born.
The Bible tells of the Tree of Life
And the Tree of Knowledge
Growing there
In The Garden of Eden.
Bow to the Tree Goddess.
Bow to The Tree
Bow to its sturdy bough.
Our tree is home
To many a creature
Nymphs and Dryads too
Maybe.
A skyscraper indeed,
Full of life
Safe in its shade
Some behind walls
Of solid wood.
We lose ourselves
Just looking
At that tangle
Of twisting branches
Spiny twigs and clouds of leaves.
Will it stoop over
And pick us up
With its enormous
Hands?
Or will it just keep playing us
A lullaby
With that whistling wind?
Oh Tree,
You show such grandeur,
Goddess-like indeed:
Shaken by gales
Yet not disturbed
We trust.
Long Live The Tree –
Even giving us
The air we breathe.
Let your branches spread
While you reach ever upward –
A towering spire.
Paul Butters
© PB 26\5\2020. With due credit to Wikipedia.
May 26, 2020
May 26, 2020 at 6:21 AM UTC