"dwarfed" poems
Kashmir is not just beautiful
It was also free of violence,
Not too far back in history,
That did occur just 7 to 8 centuries ago.
Then they poured out of Central Asia,
Hordes getting bigger with each wave,
Eliminate they did the original people.
In 1320, it was Zulju raiding Kashmir,
Then Rinchana, a Tibetan Büđđhïst refugee, he took over.
Rinchana had Shah Mir as his Minister,
Shah Mir persuaded Rinchana to Islam.
After Rinchana, his son was set to be the ruler,
However, Shah Mir killed this lawful successor.
In 1339, Shah Mir became the first Muslim ruler of Kashmiri lands,
Initially, they did not dare harm the original Hïnđū inhabitants.
Then it was just Muslim kings for few centuries and slowly the Hïnđū heaven slipped into Muslim hands.
Now we know what is the ground reality,
The demography became Islamized over centuries,
All arts and crafts stand dwarfed by violence,
What they aim is an Islamic State, an Islamic Earth.
Aug 10, 2019
Aug 10, 2019 at 7:14 AM UTC
dwarfed and obscure,
sit neatly arranged for all to adore.
Parched from the aridity, neglected by the sun,
I the bonsai never truly begun.
Cast in the shadows, growing off to the side,
never fully ***** always wanting to hide.
I the bonsai have the capacity to grow,
a little warmth and attention is all I need you know.
Oct 12, 2019
Oct 12, 2019 at 6:40 AM UTC
Of course the two of us
want to get away from here
We were so innocent Running
Hand in hand To the outskirts of this
Upside – down town Where were we going?
To the mansion we had built with daddy
High in the sky of the towering sycamore tree
But now going back walking the dirt trail that supposedly
brought us to dreams Kicking aside pebbles we pushed
with all our might to
to escape from the
Monsters chasing us
Seeing the
Wimpy vines
That were
once chains
and shackles
intertwined
imprisoning
all of the trunk
seemed unreal
But I had made
Peace with it all
When I saw our shanty hut
Atop the mangled, dwarfed skeleton tree
Mar 24, 2012
Mar 24, 2012 at 8:52 PM UTC
homage to Wallace Stevens
I - My Focus pistoned up the rise
and all at once, the Rockies -
silhouettes against the western skies.
II - On the road to Boulder
a pleated ridge crawls north
like a blue whale bound for the open sea.
III - Appalachia's intoxicating verdure
never fails to induce in us
a certain mellowing of the spirit.
IV - You 'conquered' my North Face, did you?
Why, I should skewer your arrogant ***
like a holiday lamb culled for the sacrifice.
V - Lewis and Clark looked west
surveying the Bitterroots' frigid expanse.
Farewell Northwest Passage!
VI - Pueblos stranded on Enchanted Mesa -
their rock stairs crumbled to the valley floor.
Should they dive to their death or starve?
VII –Touristas at Big Bend Park
wonder at its pastel window -
its romantic haze a toxic gift
from stacks across the Rio Grande.
VIII – The once mighty Ozarks humbled by age,
dwarfed by the youthful Rockies.
Listen up, youngsters, your time will come!
IX – We de-bussed to seize the dolomites
with our hyper-kinetic shutters.
Pausing for a draught of Italian air,
I felt the whack of an Alpine snowball.
X - Before Oregon's crater had its lake,
the mountain scorched the village below.
Today its azure waters preach only serenity.
XI – Looking down from Shissler peak
to the golden meadow below
where the elk herd calmly grazes.
XII – Do mists veil the Blue Ridge Mountains
or are there really no mountains at all -
only clouds decked out in mountain attire?
XIII – They say that peaks more steep than Everest
soar up from the ocean floor.
Who will scale their sunken heights?
May 28, 2010 – Boulder Colorado
Mar 19, 2014
Mar 19, 2014 at 12:18 AM UTC
Oh what is that country
And where can it be,
Not mine own country,
But dearer far to me?
Yet mine own country,
If I one day may see
Its spices and cedars,
Its gold and ivory.
As I lie dreaming
It rises, that land;
There rises before me
Its green golden strand,
With the bowing cedars
And the shining sand;
It sparkles and flashes
Like a shaken brand.
Do angels lean nearer
While I lie and long?
I see their soft plumage
And catch their windy song,
Like the rise of a high tide
Sweeping full and strong;
I mark the outskirts
Of their reverend throng.
Oh what is a king here,
Or what is a boor?
Here all starve together,
All dwarfed and poor;
Here Death's hand knocketh
At door after door,
He thins the dancers
From the festal floor.
Oh what is a handmaid,
Or what is a queen?
All must lie down together
Where the turf is green,
The foulest face hidden,
The fairest not seen;
Gone as if never
They had breathed or been.
Gone from sweet sunshine
Underneath the sod,
Turned from warm flesh and blood
To senseless clod;
Gone as if never
They had toiled or trod,
Gone out of sight of all
Except our God.
Shut into silence
From the accustomed song
Shut into solitude
From all earth's throng,
Run down though swift of foot,
Thrust down though strong;
Life made an end of,
Seemed it short or long.
Life made an end of,
Life but just begun;
Life finished yesterday,
Its last sand run;
Life new-born with the morrow
Fresh as the sun:
While done is done for ever;
Undone, undone.
And if that life is life,
This is but a breath,
The passage of a dream
And the shadow of death;
But a vain shadow
If one considereth;
Vanity of vanities,
As the Preacher saith.
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The sea cast a gift ashore
one stormy sullen day
and the barren rocky coast
was suddenly recast
as a natural history museum.
A whale.
A real whale, just lying there
shining on the shale
In another time,
we'd have known how to react.
This astonishing bounty
would have been quickly stripped
Bones for building
baleen for support
blubber and oil for fuel.
But now it lay
surrounded by detritus
made of better stuff.
The truth was,
we didn't really need it,
couldn't really use it,
like being presented with
Casablanca on VHS.
A sign appeared:
"Quad bike rides, £2",
red paint on rainsoaked cardboard.
I wasn't tempted.
Children poked it with sticks
in a desultory way,
stricken, intrigued, ashamed,
and utterly dwarfed.
The weeks passed
as we coughed in embarrassment
not knowing what to do,
until finally
someone brought a digger down
and discretely buried the beast.
By now, it will be a perfect skeleton
a prehistoric wonder
an artefact from unjaded days
when nature could still astonish,
trampled by unknowing tourists
as they dream of sunnier beaches.
Jan 1, 2012
Jan 1, 2012 at 3:06 PM UTC
She came among us from the South
And made the North her home awhile
Our dimness brightened in her smile,
Our tongue grew sweeter in her mouth.
We chilled beside her liberal glow,
She dwarfed us by her ampler scale,
Her full-blown blossom made us pale,
She summer-like and we like snow.
We Englishwomen, trim, correct,
All minted in the self-same mould,
Warm-hearted but of semblance cold,
All-courteous out of self-respect.
She woman in her natural grace,
Less trammelled she by lore of school,
Courteous by nature not by rule,
Warm-hearted and of cordial face.
So for awhile she made her home
Among us in the rigid North,
She who from Italy came forth
And scaled the Alps and crossed the foam.
But if she found us like our sea,
Of aspect colourless and chill,
Rock-girt; like it she found us still
Deep at our deepest, strong and free.
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The birches are mad with green points
the wood’s edge is burning with their green,
burning, seething—No, no, no.
The birches are opening their leaves one
by one. Their delicate leaves unfold cold
and separate, one by one. Slender tassels
hang swaying from the delicate branch tips—
Oh, I cannot say it. There is no word.
Black is split at once into flowers. In
every bog and ditch, flares of
small fire, white flowers!—Agh,
the birches are mad, mad with their green.
The world is gone, torn into shreds
with this blessing. What have I left undone
that I should have undertaken?
O my brother, you redfaced, living man
ignorant, stupid whose feet are upon
this same dirt that I touch—and eat.
We are alone in this terror, alone,
face to face on this road, you and I,
wrapped by this flame!
Let the polished plows stay idle,
their gloss already on the black soil.
But that face of yours—!
Answer me. I will clutch you. I
will hug you, grip you. I will poke my face
into your face and force you to see me.
Take me in your arms, tell me the commonest
thing that is in your mind to say,
say anything. I will understand you—!
It is the madness of the birch leaves opening
cold, one by one.
My rooms will receive me. But my rooms
are no longer sweet spaces where comfort
is ready to wait on me with its crumbs.
A darkness has brushed them. The mass
of yellow tulips in the bowl is shrunken.
Every familiar object is changed and dwarfed.
I am shaken, broken against a might
that splits comfort, blows apart
my careful partitions, crushes my house
and leaves me—with shrinking heart
and startled, empty eyes—peering out
into a cold world.
In the spring I would be drunk! In the spring
I would be drunk and lie forgetting all things.
Your face! Give me your face, Yang Kue Fei!
your hands, your lips to drink!
Give me your wrists to drink—
I drag you, I am drowned in you, you
overwhelm me! Drink!
Save me! The shad bush is in the edge
of the clearing. The yards in a fury
of lilac blossoms are driving me mad with terror.
Drink and lie forgetting the world.
And coldly the birch leaves are opening one by one.
Coldly I observe them and wait for the end.
And it ends.
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As a teenage boy I used to fall asleep at night
listening to the graveled voice of Ernie Harwell
fashion for me word-images of the exploits
by a band of superheroes called the Detroit Tigers.
In those semi-lucid moments before slumber,
I could see the shimmering outline of my destiny:
you see all American boys are meant to be Tigers.
So imagine my confusion, when I fractured
the right talus bone my Junior year of high school,
even putting on weight around the middle,
where no athlete worth his pin stripes would gain.
My karma had begun to take on mass.
I began to acquire knowledge, as the only perceived defense
against some parallel universe impinging upon reality.
Oh, I had everyone convinced, even my keenest teachers
believed I was destined to make my mark in scholarly pursuits.
But no one saw the crying ego of one meant to be a Tiger,
nor how that bottled up the emergence of the Man.
Never reconciled, the Man curled up in fetal dormancy.
Lifespan became synonymous with interstellar drift.
And every encountered star of knowlege was dwarfed,
having long ago collapsed of its own gravity.
Still the heavens of knowledge are auspicious,
so I looked outward, when all the answers lay concealed within.
Only as my life left the outskirts of occluded reality
did I then begin to inherit from my instinctual id,
begin to listen to disconsolate internal voices,
who had known me all along, perhaps better than myself.
The thing is ... the stage has long been set on middle-age,
what props lie about are encrusted with patina,
laden with a dust impossible to gauge or preempt,
made worse by the lack of cast, save one.
Neither Beckett, nor Pinter, could have absurded this.
So, when my acts strike you as quixotic,
when I cut with a penknife through propriety,
it's because I finally remember what it meant to be a Tiger.
Dec 1, 2012
Dec 1, 2012 at 7:15 PM UTC
Sitting dwarfed in your divinity,
I can't help but feel somehow distressed.
If I shan't love you for infinity,
Then what use is my love if not for best?
Your ballad is too sweet for just my ears,
Yet to share this pleasure I'm too selfish.
My vanity is gone as with my fears,
But with this simple loss I feel selfless.
Evil is coaxing, O' how I shan't sin,
For if I sin my innocence is gone.
Held in your arms I feel your my own kin,
And if I ignore this I do you wrong.
This shameless bond we have we can't ignore,
For already my soul is linked to yours.
Sep 22, 2012
Sep 22, 2012 at 11:31 PM UTC
Aspen, stands by river,
Shouting out the noonday sun,
Dwarfed by foothill mountains.
May 31, 2012
May 31, 2012 at 6:44 PM UTC
Aspen, stands by river,
Shouting out the noonday sun,
Dwarfed by foothill mountains.
Jan 14, 2013
Jan 14, 2013 at 1:48 PM UTC
At Heaven’s window I knelt to pray what do you say when you are dwarfed by Christendom’s vast portal
What cries from hearts of the faithful in anguished burdened prayer they assailed such Holy veneration
Common tongues caught up in awe and adoration found oratory’s fount how they created an unequaled
Spell it clung to holy symbols and pictures that hung on the walls it tore away time itself revealed the
Secret mystery of holiness’s true heart and meaning the sky strained to carry the weight of words so
Profound any and all armies would fall before their mastery to question one’s self at such depths would
Make you defenseless to all obligations you crossed grandeurs stronghold you intervened no less into
Matters that only prophets are obliged to discuss you have fashioned with words great bastions to
Supersede they mock the infidelity and foolishness of many kingdoms Royalty is not just to wear fine
Robes but to center the mind on those richest of finds and then return to mankind and spread them as
Star dust in the lowly places and see the birth of equality and liberty flourish from the lowest to the
Highest that honors not one but all lead at all points root out ignorance that is the cause of all shame
With words that are akin to the words that created worlds this is what you are caught up in there is no
Time for idleness go and spread this word to the four corners of man’s domain we are heroes yet made
By the very words that are possessed and won at altars the planks of mortals that build a stairway to
Glory the earth yearns and dies while you tarry the breach long ago in Eden now the dream is to be
Fulfilled by holy men and women strong enough to face this most demanding challenge forget self catch
Fire with holy zeal burn only for others the world will change from carnage to gifts that bestow
Abundant Life we have never lived in a world that we could make by surrendering our dreams for stellar
exploits
Feb 13, 2012
Feb 13, 2012 at 5:51 PM UTC
I have intentionally tried to fill the hole inside myself that your smile holds, my sweetest Angel. For that, I am ashamed. But there has been only the feeling of emptiness residing in that cavern since last I looked upon your smiling face and held you close to my heart.
The sun has risen and set, the seas have ebbed and flowed, the winds have blown, hither and yon. Yet, still I stand, unmoving through all of it, for the pain of not having your tiny hand in mine has left me cold, battered by the waves and fossilized by the sands carried upon the winds.
My eyes have withered from too many unhappy tears and nowhere near enough tears of joy, made all the more optically diuretic by my inability to look upon your face as you run and play and sleep and dream.
I am sorry, my truest of Loves, my Only, that I have chosen to ignore these feelings of longingness for so long. I could touch the pen to paper a million times, writing odes to your face and sonnets to your smile, but the distance that I feel has forced me to lull my heart into a coma. I have intentionally medicated my heart in an attempt to stop feeling (to stop all feeling), yet I cannot.
I feel the sunshine on my face and I pine to see the sun’s rays dwarfed by the radiance of your dwarven smile.
I feel my heart hang so low and wish against hope that I could pick you up while you raise me.
My soul cries out to replace you, yet my heart is merely attempting to survive. My soul screams for only you and the chance (nay, privilege) to shield you from the fears that cause you to scream in the middle of the night.
Why have I chosen to harden my heart, my Love? Why have I allowed myself to stifle my screams, when in all truthfulness, I only dream of easing your own?
Dec 10, 2015
Dec 10, 2015 at 1:31 AM UTC
Aspen, stands by river,
Shouting out the noonday sun,
Dwarfed by foothill mountains.
Sep 24, 2012
Sep 24, 2012 at 3:52 PM UTC
Aspen, stands by river,
Shouting out the noonday sun,
Dwarfed by foothill mountains.
Jan 24, 2014
Jan 24, 2014 at 9:43 PM UTC
April is their month.
They've sat,
Patient,
Throughout the winter,
Those sturdy oval buds,
Sometimes cased in ice,
They don't seem
To mind.
Are they awaiting,
Tax time?
These jewels
Keep company with
Their pretty pink
Cousins,
The Redbud.
Why does the dogwood
Ask
For our attention
So?
Perhaps because it
Blooms so early,
When
There is so little else
To see.
Perhaps it is the legend that,
From the poor dogwood,
Came the wood,
From which was fashioned,
The true cross.
More likely it's just,
The timeless beauty,
Born-in beauty,
From long ago,
Needing no
Adornment,
And not a bit
Of pruning.
Touch it with a knife,
You'll invite disease.
Let it grow ***** nilly,
It will give you,
Perfect beauty,
On its own.
Wild,
It sits beneath
The forest cover,
Like a craggy,
Wasted twig,
Dwarfed,
By its bigger cousins.
And then,
Before any others,
That slim and subtle
Beauty
First appears,
As an
Exquisite miniature,
Creamy yellow flowers,
That open,
To bleach themselves white,
And show the
Blood red crosses
At their center.
They are
Gems,
That change,
Day by day,
So leave your camera
Home.
You cannot catch
Their beauty.
Instead,
Imprint the view
Upon your mind.
They'll be back
Next year,
More beautiful
Than ever.
May 5, 2014
May 5, 2014 at 11:17 PM UTC
when we think idle thoughts and ****** with our mind
we might as well just blandly look into the sky
and absent-mindedly pursue the flights of distant birds
against the matrix of blue firmaments
which seem less infinite than our imaginary universe
trying to look beyond that globe of blue
we venture into depths that really make us think
about the cosmos out in space
infinite stars and planets of unknown identity
we soon become aware
that our idle thoughts are dwarfed
by the immenseness of the space
through which not quite discovered forces
propel our planet with incredible speed
to destinies we do not know
perhaps in order to avoid acknowledgement
of this precarious reality
we fill our lives with more comforting things
fashions wars power games religion money
internet chats with other avatars et cetera
anything to distract us from the contemplation
of insights into how to live
in such a transient indeterminacy
with a determined sense of goal and meaning
think about it
May 4, 2016
May 4, 2016 at 4:40 PM UTC
I flattened my palm against yours to see if we were compatible.
My hand was dwarfed by yours.
"Are we compatible?" you ask.
"You feel familiar,
like a memory.
Comfortable.
Like shoes,
with worn in soles.
Like a dream,
that became reality."
Feb 5, 2014
Feb 5, 2014 at 11:24 PM UTC
i feel dwarfed by those words
(more beautiful than mine,
more eloquent, original, and free)
and by my family's muddled history,
the trials and the things they overcame.
i feel humbled by my father's love
(his miracle baby girl)
and i wish i felt anything like i deserved it.
what have i done?
written some words and painted a few pictures,
and that's nothing compared to the
things it took to get me here, the loves and the losses.
people struggled every day for the
future i can have,
and what if i don't take it
(it could simply slip away).
i feel dwarfed by the expectations,
trampled by my fear,
i feel humbled by the trust they have in me
and i wish i felt an ounce of it.
Sep 9, 2012
Sep 9, 2012 at 10:30 PM UTC
*Aspen stands by stream
Shouting out the noonday sun
Dwarfed by foothill mountains*
Apr 4, 2015
Apr 4, 2015 at 12:06 AM UTC
We're GIANTS on a toy-top spinning-speck
space-bound swallowed;
joining harmonics
in gyrating clock work's working;
catching gears of time's time
circling Ra's warmth
We're GIANTS on a toy-top spinning-speck
bellicosing great power's glory;
dwarfed into a vast cosmic oblivian
likened to a speck
of plankton
in a whales belly
Aug 31, 2014
Aug 31, 2014 at 2:07 AM UTC
The birches are mad with green points
the wood’s edge is burning with their green,
burning, seething—No, no, no.
The birches are opening their leaves one
by one. Their delicate leaves unfold cold
and separate, one by one. Slender tassels
hang swaying from the delicate branch tips—
Oh, I cannot say it. There is no word.
Black is split at once into flowers. In
every bog and ditch, flares of
small fire, white flowers!—Agh,
the birches are mad, mad with their green.
The world is gone, torn into shreds
with this blessing. What have I left undone
that I should have undertaken?
O my brother, you redfaced, living man
ignorant, stupid whose feet are upon
this same dirt that I touch—and eat.
We are alone in this terror, alone,
face to face on this road, you and I,
wrapped by this flame!
Let the polished plows stay idle,
their gloss already on the black soil.
But that face of yours—!
Answer me. I will clutch you. I
will hug you, grip you. I will poke my face
into your face and force you to see me.
Take me in your arms, tell me the commonest
thing that is in your mind to say,
say anything. I will understand you—!
It is the madness of the birch leaves opening
cold, one by one.
My rooms will receive me. But my rooms
are no longer sweet spaces where comfort
is ready to wait on me with its crumbs.
A darkness has brushed them. The mass
of yellow tulips in the bowl is shrunken.
Every familiar object is changed and dwarfed.
I am shaken, broken against a might
that splits comfort, blows apart
my careful partitions, crushes my house
and leaves me—with shrinking heart
and startled, empty eyes—peering out
into a cold world.
In the spring I would be drunk! In the spring
I would be drunk and lie forgetting all things.
Your face! Give me your face, Yang Kue Fei!
your hands, your lips to drink!
Give me your wrists to drink—
I drag you, I am drowned in you, you
overwhelm me! Drink!
Save me! The shad bush is in the edge
of the clearing. The yards in a fury
of lilac blossoms are driving me mad with terror.
Drink and lie forgetting the world.
And coldly the birch leaves are opening one by one.
Coldly I observe them and wait for the end.
And it ends.
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