"earthward" poems
What Hope Remained?
What hope remained when hope for hope was spent?
When putrid plumes dulled morning into night
Hope lived in heart-struck deeds of bold intent,
As mortals wept and earthborn angels went
With downcast eyes to clamber heavens height.
What hope remained when hope for hope was spent?
When panicked sirens wailed a lost lament
And backs were bowed beneath ungodly weight,
Hope lived in heart-struck deeds of bold intent
As boots bore souls up treadmills burnt and bent
To scale a void devoid of dawning light.
What hope remained when hope for hope was spent?
For those in sight of angels heaven sent
Atop the world to aid their mortal plight,
Hope lived in heart-struck deeds of bold intent.
When wingless brethren conquered feared ascent
To gift last hope to all who saw their might:
What hope remained when hope for hope was spent?
Hope lived in heart-struck deeds of bold intent.
In The Fall
I chanced upon a stranger in the fall,
Cosmetic garb of office black and white
Portraying calm demeanor of his plight
As shadows panicked on a stricken wall,
And oft' I find my mind in numb recall
To look upon that helpless human kite
Who tumbled from the terrors of a height,
Yet graceful as an eagle in a stall
Before it plummets earthward -- 'Neath the pall
Of twisted steel rended by follied flight,
That stranger lives forever in the light
Suspended in iconic timeless sprawl.
I wonder, in the briefness of his fall,
Did he derive the meaning of it all?
Sep 4, 2015
Sep 4, 2015 at 7:20 PM UTC
Do you hate the way
that our magnetized times
turn us all to metal shavings--
push and pull--charged each
day to fill up negative space
with negative attraction?
Were you repulsed when polarities
changed?
Or was that me?
Flipping switches
switching sides
siding
with pivot points showing, caught
with pants down?
"Be a man now!"
While the female end
of the port calls out,
"Shipwreck! Shipwreck!
All men down!"
Count me out at minus 4
it leaves a balance: minus 3
At minus 10, our blood could freeze
and fall back earthward; blood red snow.
Caught on the tongue it tastes like pennies.
Tastes just like
the metal shavings
we become
in magnetized times.
Polarized
and "Family Sized." Underpaid
Overfed. Neutralized America.
Greatest country in the ******* world.
Right?
Jun 23, 2014
Jun 23, 2014 at 11:25 AM UTC
Blood-red
you are the
essence of all
that is ******
a passion
unbound by morality,
sweetest smelling,
your satin skin
begs for my caress.
Such heady perfume
draws me closer
fills my lungs,
my eyes closed basking
in the Aphroditic aura of you,
swooning as you caress my senses;
to hold you,
possess you is all
I know ...
Reaching out
pleading,
begging,
my hand enfolds you ...
Your barbs
pierce my skin
blade-drawn, my blood
oozes gently out,
mixes with your satin touch,
its rich aroma
startles my perception
awakens me.
My hand jerks open
and you flutter earthward
to lie crumpled and torn
on the ground
consecrated by my blood,
my complete forgiveness given;
your beauty, your passion deserves no less...
Sep 11, 2012
Sep 11, 2012 at 3:50 PM UTC
i step into the circle
the stars are all surrounding
the night is pure electric
and lovers all around me
moving in the heartbeat
of nature's cosmic children
eyes to the sky and earthward
the movement of the heavens
rain she falls so sweetly
eyes in the firelight- the Beautiful Dancing Girl
and i can see her eyes in the moonlight
i can open up to
she speaks of the mystery of mystery
i can feel the cold of the night on my face
i feel the struggle of life
we are the universe discovering itself
we are all learning we are all dancing
we are all loving we are all one
i fell into the arms of the night sky
i fell into the arms of the muse
and i feel the energy rising
i feel the energy rising up
she opened up and healed me
she wrapped herself around me
her electric skin against me
we are the light
we are mystery
we are delight
we are mystery of mystery
Jul 10, 2014
Jul 10, 2014 at 5:39 PM UTC
he thought of all the horrid things
he would have liked to have said to his boss
for he was a very nasty piece of work
a fleeting thought and then it was lost
he’d have told him how much he despised him
and that he thought he was well past his prime
but the thought passed as quick he had it
as with all thoughts now he hadn’t the time
he’d have said lots of thing to some others
there were many many words they had used
but the one that had hit him the hardest
was when his boss had used the word ‘accused’
but then he had been stealing the money
he’d spent it on gambling and cars
but he was lousy at picking the winners
and spent a lot too much time in the bars
but he couldn’t face a lifetime in prison
he couldn’t have lived with the shame
so he felt that a fast trip down earthward
was the only way of saving his name
and so he was now on that journey
one he’d never taken before
it’s a once in a lifetime experience
when you jump from the fiftieth floor.
©Joe Wilson – Jumping 2014
‘a bit of fun – for me if not for him!’
Jul 19, 2014
Jul 19, 2014 at 4:47 PM UTC
She Shoots Me Towards
the Reaches of the Atmosphere.
(narcotic)
She Bravely Descends Earthward
from the Divine Empyreal.
(superhero)
Not Unlike a Hypodermic Needle
Piercing My Median Cubital Vein,
(narcotic)
She Flashes into My Heart
in Scarcely Eight Seconds.
(superhero)
Besides Inducing Euphoria,
She Effectuates Toxicity;
(narcotic)
In Fewer than Ten Minutes,
She Targets My Defenses.
(superhero)
She not only Provokes Peak High,
(narcotic)
She Destroys a Lifetime of Yearning.
(superhero)
She is My ****** (narcotic)
She is My Heroine. (superhero)
~ The Sharpie Poet
Apr 27, 2016
Apr 27, 2016 at 7:46 PM UTC
.
*mourning dove coos echo
across dawn’s dappled silence--
only these quiet pauses of breath
hush the dew droplets passive trickle
poignant traces of a solacing gravity
seep down through fogged portals,
cascading earthward from above
a symphony of pining pleas
from dew impearled wild feathers
a simple prayer of hope--
to be held
in breathless warmth,
in the amity .
of compassionate comfort,
nestled intimately
beneath another’s assuaging wing*
© wild is the wind
Feb 8, 2016
Feb 8, 2016 at 11:41 AM UTC
We have fallen in the dreams the ever-living
Breathe on the tarnished mirror of the world,
And then smooth out with ivory hands and sigh.
W.B. YEATS
* * * * * *
My soul looked down from a vague height, with Death,
As unremembering how I rose or why,
And saw a sad land, weak with sweats of dearth,
Gray, cratered like the moon with hollow woe,
And pitted with great pocks and scabs of plagues.
Across its beard, that horror of harsh wire,
There moved thin caterpillars, slowly uncoiled.
It seemed they pushed themselves to be as plugs
Of ditches, where they writhed and shrivelled, killed.
By them had slimy paths been trailed and scraped
Round myriad warts that might be little hills.
From gloom's last dregs these long-strung creatures crept,
And vanished out of dawn down hidden holes.
(And smell came up from those foul openings
As out of mouths, or deep wounds deepening.)
On dithering feet upgathered, more and more,
Brown strings, towards strings of gray, with bristling spines,
All migrants from green fields, intent on mire.
Those that were gray, of more abundant spawns,
Ramped on the rest and ate them and were eaten.
I saw their bitten backs curve, loop and straighten.
I watched those agonies curl, lift, and flatten.
Whereat, in terror what that sight might mean,
I reeled and shivered earthward like a feather.
And Death fell with me, like a deepening moan.
And He, picking a manner of worm, which half had hid
Its bruises in the earth, bur crawled no further,
Showed me its feet, the feet of many men,
And the fresh-severed head of it, my head
2.1k
When beechen buds begin to swell,
And woods the blue-bird's warble know,
The yellow violet's modest bell
Peeps from the last year's leaves below.
Ere russet fields their green resume,
Sweet flower, I love, in forest bare,
To meet thee, when thy faint perfume
Alone is in the ****** air.
Of all her train, the hands of Spring
First plant thee in the watery mould,
And I have seen thee blossoming
Beside the snow-bank's edges cold.
Thy parent sun, who bade thee view
Pale skies, and chilling moisture sip,
Has bathed thee in his own bright hue,
And streaked with jet thy glowing lip.
Yet slight thy form, and low thy seat,
And earthward bent thy gentle eye,
Unapt the passing view to meet,
When loftier flowers are flaunting nigh.
Oft, in the sunless April day,
Thy early smile has stayed my walk;
But midst the gorgeous blooms of May,
I passed thee on thy humble stalk.
So they, who climb to wealth, forget
The friends in darker fortunes tried.
I copied them--but I regret
That I should ape the ways of pride.
And when again the genial hour
Awakes the painted tribes of light,
I'll not o'erlook the modest flower
That made the woods of April bright.
2k
Love at the lips was touch
As sweet as I could bear;
And once that seemed too much;
I lived on air
That crossed me from sweet things,
The flow of—was it musk
From hidden grapevine springs
Down hill at dusk?
I had the swirl and ache
From sprays of honeysuckle
That when they’re gathered shake
Dew on the knuckle.
I craved strong sweets, but those
Seemed strong when I was young;
The petal of the rose
It was that stung.
Now no joy but lacks salt
That is not dashed with pain
And weariness and fault;
I crave the stain
Of tears, the aftermark
Of almost too much love,
The sweet of bitter bark
And burning clove.
When stiff and sore and scarred
I take away my hand
From leaning on it hard
In grass and sand,
The hurt is not enough:
I long for weight and strength
To feel the earth as rough
To all my length.
1.9k
A brightness bathed the night:
Spectral corollas flecked the slick,
Damp sea – shoals of languid light
Mourned in planetary shadow play.
Bloodless bronze effigy,
Son of Sirius, hastened earthward
From the jaw of an untamed brute:
Swathed in an amorphous, turbid
Cloth, he fell – stark as crimson
Amid the dull, wan air. A death
Most uncouth: lain now on a pillow
Of galling shell and abrasive flesh.
A rare trinket plucked for my memory.
©Thomas Gabriel
Jan 29, 2012
Jan 29, 2012 at 7:38 PM UTC
Winging ponderously through the grey tortured sky,
A crane makes its way to its homeland.
Lightening blazes illuminating with weird yellowness
Torrents of storm rain plunging earthward.
There, sighted below, a car trundling through the downpour
Yet another traveler homeward bound.
Jan 16, 2011
Jan 16, 2011 at 11:05 AM UTC
Today I saw you as you.
I saw everything about you.
I studied you.
I attempted to understand you.
I shift my eyes away from yours
diverting them to your ears
the ears that listened to my incessant cries
and heard my foolish fears
I move down to your mouth
which spoke to me only kind words
and also incompetently mimic the chirping
Of Abyssinian lovebirds
I scan over your honey-olive arm
and the smoothness of your skin
which, for warmth, among other things
I seek refuge in
I hung my head earthward
giving attention to your feet
the ones that brought you far and wide
just to let us meet
You call my name.
I glance back up and look you in the eye
those eyes were now blank and cold
I could not see you anymore, but I still try.
Aug 14, 2014
Aug 14, 2014 at 1:50 PM UTC
The Moon more indolently dreams to-night
Than a fair woman on her couch at rest,
Caressing, with a hand distraught and light,
Before she sleeps, the contour of her breast.
Upon her silken avalanche of down,
Dying she breathes a long and swooning sigh;
And watches the white visions past her flown,
Which rise like blossoms to the azure sky.
And when, at times, wrapped in her languor deep,
Earthward she lets a furtive tear-drop flow,
Some pious poet, enemy of sleep,
Takes in his hollow hand the tear of snow
Whence gleams of iris and of opal start,
And hides it from the Sun, deep in his heart.
Sep 30, 2014
Sep 30, 2014 at 8:33 PM UTC
( Sonnet )
Great blue, draped by fade, overall
Of sky, clothed in feathers that run
Earthward from the mottled sun—
In stalks and reeds you will surmise
As you ****** into waters of demise
How fish take run underneath wattles,
A giant neck as it flies muck, throttles,
With legs that reach to lowly heavens
Waiting for loss minions as they rush
Over boarding the marshes and airs,
Great reaper, you spill as you sweep,
The lost pools and dire bubbling mires,
And even your wings, wade underneath,
Buzzing choirs of your beak into spires.
Sep 12, 2015
Sep 12, 2015 at 3:45 PM UTC
Our thoughts of time travel
burnt-up when Junior
sang The Blues.
Foreign creature.
***** voodoo muppet.
His spaniel’s moan,
a call to mud,
digging deep like
“woo-woo-woo”
Smacking the past in the chin,
he dipped a laden lead melon
in a barrel of black molasses.
A slow lowering,
tender sinew slackened.
Unclawed-
the orb traversed his finger tips
nicking his nails on the way earthward.
The black drink parts then
floods back where it once was,
coating the cold round load
as it sank down below
the Mason-Dixon line.
Junior gurgled in slow-mo
dipped his Gibson
and stirred the stew,
made the black brew dribble over
the barrel’s shoulders
and puddle in the thick sticky
corners and cracks of
the Juke’s oak planks.
He fished it out then
-bladaplowplow-
-WHAP!!-
split that melon in half,
no knife, they used the trap,
then Junior took his break
to take a nap
in Baton Rouge.
Aug 28, 2015
Aug 28, 2015 at 4:53 PM UTC
An Indian girl was sitting where
Her lover, slain in battle, slept;
Her maiden veil, her own black hair,
Came down o'er eyes that wept;
And wildly, in her woodland tongue,
This sad and simple lay she sung:
"I've pulled away the shrubs that grew
Too close above thy sleeping head,
And broke the forest boughs that threw
Their shadows o'er thy bed,
That, shining from the sweet south-west,
The sunbeams might rejoice thy rest.
"It was a weary, weary road
That led thee to the pleasant coast,
Where thou, in his serene abode,
Hast met thy father's ghost:
Where everlasting autumn lies
On yellow woods and sunny skies.
"Twas I the broidered mocsen made,
That shod thee for that distant land;
'Twas I thy bow and arrows laid
Beside thy still cold hand;
Thy bow in many a battle bent,
Thy arrows never vainly sent.
"With wampum belts I crossed thy breast,
And wrapped thee in the bison's hide,
And laid the food that pleased thee best,
In plenty, by thy side,
And decked thee bravely, as became
A warrior of illustrious name.
"Thou'rt happy now, for thou hast passed
The long dark journey of the grave,
And in the land of light, at last,
Hast joined the good and brave;
Amid the flushed and balmy air,
The bravest and the loveliest there.
"Yet, oft to thine own Indian maid
Even there thy thoughts will earthward stray,--
To her who sits where thou wert laid,
And weeps the hours away,
Yet almost can her grief forget,
To think that thou dost love her yet.
"And thou, by one of those still lakes
That in a shining cluster lie,
On which the south wind scarcely breaks
The image of the sky,
A bower for thee and me hast made
Beneath the many-coloured shade.
"And thou dost wait and watch to meet
My spirit sent to join the blessed,
And, wondering what detains my feet
From the bright land of rest,
Dost seem, in every sound, to hear
The rustling of my footsteps near."
1.2k
H eaven must be coming nearer, but
O h how small the little light is,
P laced so far above my head (still bruised from the free fall), when
E verything plunged earthward, along with my sweet dreams
Jan 21, 2015
Jan 21, 2015 at 4:48 PM UTC
52 Weeks: Whitman
The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab and my loitering.
I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,
I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.
The last scud of day holds back for me,
It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadow’d wilds,
It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk.
I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun,
I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags.
I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.
You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.
Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you.
52 Weeks: Mullein
The Red-Tailed hawk swoops by and catches just a glimpse, he tilts his head Dionysian style mouth slightly agape.
I too am a wild thing, I too am untethered,
And I sound animalistic in the dining halls of the tamed.
The final missile thud holds me in a sweet caress,
My likeness rockets earthward … tried and true and tired and truer,
I am coaxed into existence once again.
I maintain my aetheric ties as I know this is the roadmap back to you,
It’s nice to be enmeshed in the living once again even though they drain,
To drain is to live, one gives eternity to be mortal - it’s the only thing that ever made sense.
I won’t depart, I dig in my heels,
And I turn my back on the organized.
I am of the earth because I understand my antecedents … my mother’s mother’s mother …
And because of this knowledge of ante’s I can set prece’s, hopefully precisely.
I hardly know who I am or what I mean (on a good day),
But I am good for you none the less,
As our tastes and sounds and smells and touches intermingle.
And always I wait patiently,
for me for you,
for us.
Sep 16, 2014
Sep 16, 2014 at 10:52 PM UTC
Grey blankets blowing in a westward wind
fall slowly earthward.
Oct 24, 2012
Oct 24, 2012 at 4:45 AM UTC
When you were born, beloved, was your soul
New made by God to match your body’s flower,
And were they both at one same precious hour
Sent forth from heaven as a perfect whole?
Or had your soul since dim creation burned,
A star in some still region of the sky,
That leaping earthward, left its place on high
And to your little new-born body yearned?
No words can tell in what celestial hour
God made your soul and gave it mortal birth,
Nor in the disarray of all the stars
Is any place so sweet that such a flower
Might linger there until thro’ heaven’s bars,
It heard God’s voice that bade it down to earth.
1.1k
I'm at the end of the trail, a caboose burning midnight like a poet,
like a nobody
I'm behind Blondie and Blue Eyes and Whiteskinnygirl number one two three
so that I round each corner dead last spinning my charred wheels tough
aching to understand why every other car
will always be golden to you,
to why I'm unimportant
yet you refuse to unhinge these wrists.
From the mountains, from the sea,
from the gravel beneath our tracks, honey,
I can hear you,
groaning my name up my knees,
"Shayla,shayla,shayla,"
a Super C the way you pump steam earthward
as if to make love to the rail I'm making love to for you.
Jul 30, 2011
Jul 30, 2011 at 10:30 PM UTC
It's **** obscene, these best-laid plans
of mice, of boys, of knuckleballers--
world-weary one-trick cowards
plotting courses into safety,
taking wrong turns on the way
Now I...? I was never good with signs
green and white--bad with directions.
I'm the walking ghost of a better me
And the guy I used to be and me,
we don't speak.
Estranged.
Roll through each day
horizon's far from home.
Night blacks out gunmetal grey,
grey-brown slush fills city streets
and asphalt colored X's fill
our blue and coffee eyes
Fade out Fall back.
blizzards come
Ride out the margins
static clouds fill white-out skies
Skies we grasp for
skies we shy from.
lofty climb, now plummet earthward
So
these muddy footprints
trace out the path I took.
"What a twist!"
Yeah.
****
Aug 6, 2013
Aug 6, 2013 at 6:30 PM UTC
As I scraped the Susquehanna
Curved the road away,
The sky sagged down upon the view
The garb of mist and grey.
On through the glass, where rivulets
Sought earth instead of metal
The city-line escaped my eyes
My foot pressed past the pedal.
Another place, another time
Another rainy day
The dewdrops misting earthward
Jeweled the leaves along the way.
My body sweeps the filthy streets
My eyes stretch up on high
They seek the metal corpses with an
Unabsorbing eye.
While miles away, I'm wandering
A faded forest path
And pacing past the places
Where our bodies pressed the grass.
Apr 6, 2017
Apr 6, 2017 at 10:25 PM UTC
I once had vanity
searching for my likeness
in shop windows
looking for my place in the world
a glimpse of what others saw
in shaving mirrors
every morning
willing unwilling hair to grow
prove my manhood
see what I'd become
my gaze is focused earthward now
unshaven face unruly hair
no longer need for bathroom encounters
although reflected in mans shiny surfaces
a vampiric absence is all I witness
I looked too deep into that empty space
I occupied within my race
no longer seeking to fit in
I've become an outlaw mortal sin
Sep 12, 2021
Sep 12, 2021 at 5:53 PM UTC