"eddies" poems
he once said to me...
*“I would blow warm
moist breath through
your toes...
I would do all the
wonderful things
to your big toes
that you do to me.
And most certainly
all the tension would
drain onto me...
I would draw
every last drop
from your toes
with little messages
along the way of my
charted course
to come up
your inner channels.
Resting in the sensitive eddies
behind your knees
we both breathe fire
wafting up and down
your thighs.”*
.... like drips of seduction off his tongue.
And he lingered on, saying...
*“Flaming lips wafting
together with desire,
reaching and pulling
with firey licks.
As I slide
my wet tongue
on up and hover,
breathing
you in
deeply...
through my nostrils
filling my *** senses.
Drunk on your fumes,
I'm consumed.
Circling the tip
of my nose
around
your hard,
pearly knot
feeling the heat
from your butterfly wings
my parted lips surounding
and easing the warmth
of my soul onto you
with wet hot breath.
And I ease the length
of my tongue to rest
completely over
your fire breathing wings ,
warm capable and ready..
leaving you in suspense.
Sliding ever so slightly
and slowly up your
slick silky lips,
tightening the tip
of my tongue -
flick flick
flick flick...
And I look deeply
into your eyes,
into depths
you've never known.
And then I'll take you
all in, with a suction
you'll never escape
or ever want to.
Never breaking eye contact
my tongue slides from bottom
and presses, emphasis
at the top slowly
over and over
settling you in.
We fall into
a oneness
and find
our groove.”*
And I said...
**
*“I wish I wasn't
still irritated with you
so I could fully
enjoy your seduction.”*
**
Nov 5, 2017
Nov 5, 2017 at 1:30 PM UTC
We fall,
and hard,
and in the shadows,
***** ourselves on snags,
that tear our clothes;
grazed and cut,
we stagger on -
Impressions, ideas, fancies!
Of these have we been disabused.
But is this spring,
come again?
Lovely,
yesterday,
in the bright sunlight,
to see you,
felt green hat in among the photo clouds,
apple suedes on the gallery's dank floor.
Melvyn,
and I,
merrily circling with you the light cloud images,
my nostrils full of pollen spikes.
The pictures:
wisps of trailing dreams churning in ‘scapes of infinite blue;
dark clouds,
in amongst them,
too.
Photographs in two time places
caught;
at once, all:
the other and t'other.
So excitement swells,
and everything besides us quells,
because the knowing of itself,
knows,
and dares beyond the frames;
to skirt knowingly the unsaid;
to want beyond the wounded past,
to pull things,
once again,
inside out.
In whimsy’s currents flow these thoughts,
these feelings,
these drives;
swirling in eddies,
so that as you sit,
on a summer’s day,
it moves,
a mirror to everything above.
The wavelets on the surface,
hammered into shape,
burn, bite and dazzle;
the sun’s flames leaping and dancing on ripples.
In the basement,
on the concrete,
your Y proneness shifts,
releasing knees on black-clad thighs;
two pendulums swinging,
brushing;
yawing metronomes in the cool,
coolness of my desultory thoughts.
Oh, what am I saying?
Feelings like reveries walk along these silver lips straying languorously.
These myths are too soon made,
carried one to the next,
one-on-one,
until contained no longer,
become new truths.
Jun 25, 2018
Jun 25, 2018 at 8:40 PM UTC
Welcome the new day
As night lifted her screen
The sun had brought its palette
Boasting of colours never before I've seen
Rays like paintbrushes
As they dove into the water
Light explosively burst into emeralds
Ripple and eddies would sparkle and shimmer
Bolts from the orange orb
Speared the tops of trees and sprawling ground
Tinting their leaves with green of olives
And grass with freshness abound
Its wand touched the tip of the distant lighthouse
Turning it the brightest green
It brought life back to my surrounding
Layered my eyes with the greenest of sheens
Such beauty laid bare
The difference was literally night and day
But my heart is also green
To readily accept what my mind has to say
As if a child
Or yet still a greenhorn
I should ignore the stains of yellow
And enjoy this new day that had just been born
Apr 5, 2015
Apr 5, 2015 at 11:35 AM UTC
Let me move slowly through the street,
Filled with an ever-shifting train,
Amid the sound of steps that beat
The murmuring walks like autumn rain.
How fast the flitting figures come!
The mild, the fierce, the stony face;
Some bright with thoughtless smiles, and some
Where secret tears have left their trace.
They pass--to toil, to strife, to rest;
To halls in which the feast is spread;
To chambers where the funeral guest
In silence sits beside the dead.
And some to happy homes repair,
Where children, pressing cheek to cheek,
With mute caresses shall declare
The tenderness they cannot speak.
And some, who walk in calmness here,
Shall shudder as they reach the door
Where one who made their dwelling dear,
Its flower, its light, is seen no more.
Youth, with pale cheek and slender frame,
And dreams of greatness in thine eye!
Goest thou to build an early name,
Or early in the task to die?
Keen son of trade, with eager brow!
Who is now fluttering in thy snare?
Thy golden fortunes, tower they now,
Or melt the glittering spires in air?
Who of this crowd to-night shall tread
The dance till daylight gleam again?
Who sorrow o'er the untimely dead?
Who writhe in throes of mortal pain?
Some, famine-struck, shall think how long
The cold dark hours, how slow the light,
And some, who flaunt amid the throng,
Shall hide in dens of shame to-night.
Each, where his tasks or pleasures call,
They pass, and heed each other not.
There is who heeds, who holds them all,
In his large love and boundless thought.
These struggling tides of life that seem
In wayward, aimless course to tend,
Are eddies of the mighty stream
That rolls to its appointed end.
7.8k
for Harlon Rivers
the river potion,
the river portent,
the river potent
it is all of these and not one
he is bank sided,
observing the false idols,
the image mirrored
in the glass of the river
transfigured molecularly
he becomes something ferried frothily, forcefully
as if a twig
or a small thing of human manufacture,
an object tossed up airborne-repeatedly
his poetry:
the clash of particles at the many junctions
of objects and water, eddies and the currents,
ceaselessly circumnavigating,
searching revisionary pathways
directed,
but randomized,
prisoner of the flows,
servant to the wind's directives and the
earths magnetic indivisible undulating waves
thinking,
this life,
its unsteady gait,
the irreverent wavering of drunkenness
resultant from potent potions,
portents of inopportune position
in him,
my own histories,
my poetic recordings
also become
water borne,
watermarked,
replayed back for me,
for erasure, censure, closure
and rededication
this River
is a tapestry,
a torn map,
drawn on broken shards
of slivered water,
living with all the others
but we,
are the untitled,
we,
are the un-entitled,
and he is the
Rivers
<•>
Aug 17, 2017
Aug 17, 2017 at 2:36 PM UTC
The river forks at big stone eddy
rending currents meandering course,
its silence speaks not with forked tongue
as kismet's swirling eddies abide
as if time immemorial;
a river naturally cleaved
in two separate distinct directions
befallen destiny without a choice
Spinning round and round in big stone eddy,
time just drifting by in the throes
of doubt — high water rising
beyond the bounds of earth
taking drowning souls up to the sky
Choking on a mouthful of unanswered questions,
suffocating on the parting words left unsaid;
distilling life into poetry hew from being —
trickling out like the spilled out sky —
taken down to the empty riverbed
leave lay' til it's all washed away,
in the music of the pourin' down rain
Freedom embodies metaphysical incarnations
riding the prevailing currents it can't control
Gravity-gathered down to the shoreline,
manifest reclamation after the deluge,
from somewhere far above the high-water mark
Swallowed by all the darkness woe betides,
thinking you carry such a weight to hold...
It seems all got a handful of sand to toss
up into the wind to seed the clouds
The totality of eclipsing silence grows
that rent the stillness of a dream
of peace on an eroding shoreline
In an Eddy of Expectations & Disappointment
dark waters will ebb and flow,
imponderable as drowning hope,
leaving it all out there to dry after the rain
believing in your heart —
the best is yet to come
Jesse Stillwater ... November 2018
Nov 24, 2018
Nov 24, 2018 at 12:09 PM UTC
All winter the fire devoured everything --
tear-stained elegies, old letters, diaries, dead flowers.
When April finally arrived,
I opened the woodstove one last time
and shoveled the remains of those long cold nights
into a bucket, ash rising
through shafts of sunlight,
as swirling in bright, angelic eddies.
I shoveled out the charred end of an oak log,
black and pointed like a pencil;
half-burnt pages
sacrificed
in the making of poems;
old, square handmade nails
liberated from weathered planks
split for kindling.
I buried my hands in the bucket,
found the nails, lifted them,
the phoenix of my right hand
shielded with soot and tar,
my left hand shrouded in soft white ash --
nails in both fists like forged lightning.
I smeared black lines on my face,
drew crosses on my chest with the nails,
raised my arms and stomped my feet,
dancing in honor of spring
and rebirth, dancing
in honor of winter and death.
I hauled the heavy bucket to the garden,
spread ashes over the ground,
asked the earth to be good.
I gave the earth everything
that pulled me through the lonely winter --
oak trees, barns, poems.
I picked up my shovel
and turned hard, gray dirt,
the blade splitting winter
from spring. With *** and rake,
I cultivated soil,
tilling row after row,
the earth now loose and black.
Tearing seed packets with my teeth,
I sowed spinach with my right hand,
planted petunias with my left.
Lifting clumps of dirt,
I crumbled them in my fists,
loving each dark letter that fell from my fingers.
And when I carried my empty bucket to the lake for water,
a few last ashes rose into spring-morning air,
ash drifting over fields
dew-covered
and lightly dusted green.
5.8k
Gathered pieces of a great puzzle ;
refreshed perspective like ocean riptides
foment at the confluence collecting dark rivers’ flow
Repurposing back-eddies ,
rejuvenation of stagnant brackish waters ,
inherent buried soul-shine purging
from the ancient core of earth mother
Light arising from the hidden depths
of inner stillness as if a refilling wellspring
burst forth , reawakening muted sighs unspoken
Forming poetic constellations of black and bright
to lighten afar the nebulous darkness ,
a sea of swirling ink transformed into poetry
A sage opus renewed
by the muse of a migrating flock ,
striving to discover new sacred grounds ;
yet there is an undeniable song sung
in the howling winds of change
An incitement from a higher dialect
that empowers a restoration of spirit
Oeuvre uplifted by rogue waves
of summoning winds ,
arousing that which time erases
A manifest renaissance
among the rousing nuances
of poetic continuum ,
judicious to rediscover
the enthralling vastitude
of every breaking wave
in a boundless sea of poesy
Where prevailing currents
stir oceans of verse eternal ;
provoking a verve revival ,
the magnitude of an unbroken circle ,
ocean swells merging singularity
with the omnipresent colour
of uncharted depths
As if thoughts are assuaged
by a union of intimately touching souls
with words of intangible spheres ,
sparking subtle shades of meaning
spanning poetic immortality
Transcending barriers of unexplored lexicon
to manifest the immensity,
enkindling rhapsody of hearts and minds
Deeply rooted soul replenishment
harvested from the tree of humankind ,
willingly sharing without regret nor intention ,
with deference to the soul of one-blood,
one-love enabling an enlightening
metamorphosis of the human journey ...
© harlon rivers ... all rights reserved
Jan 20, 2017
Jan 20, 2017 at 11:48 AM UTC
I want to tell you about time, how strangely
it behaves when you haven't got much of it left:
after 60 say, or 70, when you'd think it would
find itself squeezed so hard that like melting
ice it would surely begin to shrink, each day
looking smaller and smaller - well, it's not so.
The rules change, a single hour can grow huge
and quiet, full of reflections like an old river,
its slow-turning eddies and whirls showing you
every face of your life in a fluid design -
your children for instance, how you see them
deepened and changed, not merely by age, but by
time itself, its wide and luminous eye; and you
realise at last that your every gift to them - love,
your very life, should they need it - will not
and cannot come back; it wasn't a gift at all
but a borrowing, a baton for them to pass on in
their turn. Look, there they are in this
shimmering distance, rushing through their kind
of time, moving faster than you yet not catching up.
You're alone. And slowly you begin to discern
the queer outline of what's to come: the bend in
the river beyond which, moving steadily, head up
(you hope), you will simply vanish from sight.
3.6k
On Lolham Brigs in wild and lonely mood
I’ve seen the winter floods their gambols play
Through each old arch that trembled while I stood
Bent o’er its wall to watch the dashing spray
As their old stations would be washed away
Crash came the ice against the jambs and then
A shudder jarred the arches—yet once more
It breasted raving waves and stood agen
To wait the shock as stubborn as before
—White foam brown crested with the russet soil
As washed from new plough lands would dart beneath
Then round and round a thousand eddies boil
On tother side—then pause as if for breath
One minute—and engulphed—like life in death
Whose wrecky stains dart on the floods away
More swift than shadows in a stormy day
Straws trail and turn and steady—all in vain
The engulfing arches shoot them quickly through
The feather dances flutters and again
Darts through the deepest dangers still afloat
Seeming as faireys whisked it from the view
And danced it o’er the waves as pleasures boat
Light hearted as a thought in May—
Trays—uptorn bushes—fence demolished rails
Loaded with weeds in sluggish motions stray
Like water monsters lost each winds and trails
Till near the arches—then as in affright
It plunges—reels—and shudders out of sight
Waves trough—rebound—and fury boil again
Like plunging monsters rising underneath
Who at the top curl up a shaggy main
A moment catching at a surer breath
Then plunging headlong down and down—and on
Each following boil the shadow of the last
And other monsters rise when those are gone
Crest their fringed waves—plunge onward and are past
—The chill air comes around me ocean blea
From bank to bank the waterstrife is spread
Strange birds like snow spots o’er the huzzing sea
Hang where the wild duck hurried past and fled
On roars the flood—all restless to be free
Like trouble wandering to eternity
3.7k
You are the storm at sea
that conjures
swells, eddies and ruthless winds.
In your eye,
I'm but a frail little thing.
Bending to every whim,
and flailing toward every want.
You are the storm.
And I am...
inconsequential.
Sep 21, 2025
Sep 21, 2025 at 12:05 AM UTC
Once I had a friend
and soulmate,
we were dreamin’
we could fly away
with the wind;
but knowing
wings are for angels,
we stood transfixed
beneath the light
a sky full of stars
hanging onto a dream
we clutched so tightly,
perched high
on the edge
of the world,
wondering how far
and how high
the great wide open
sky blue skies
abide
believing the power
of kept promises ―
you said you’d forever
catch me if I fall ―
letting go of the fears,
blindfolded hope
clinched so deeply,
hanging onto
a wing and a prayer
I guess I wanted it
far too much
reaching out
like a thirsty fool
grasping for a mirage ―
teetering on the brink
unspoken love,
a vast unknown
threshold beyond
wings
with eyes wide open
throwing caution afar ―
in a leap of faith
I reached ― out of reach
into the mystic wind ―
believing in dreams,
in destiny's tease:
I’d learn to fly
before I hit
the ground
but now I’m perpetually
free fallin’
I see the empty space
all around me pass
a fleeting lifetime lost ―
still you’re nowhere
to be found ―
and I remember
what’s been forgotten:
how far down
rock bottom befalls
when your spinning
round and round
like dust eddies
in a fog bank
lost in the wind .
Mar 30, 2017
Mar 30, 2017 at 7:21 PM UTC
I come face-to-face with my Shadow
hungry
devouring
depraved.
The lupine
before a full hunter moon
bristles.
Hot saliva
falls
from hurtful pointed rows
in pearls.
This
in Goodge Street Station's
Underground
where a poster
promotes
The Hunger
a page-turner
The Clown in Soho:
3 Chocolate Martinis
4 lagers
1 gram of *******
300 press-ups
7 mile run and
1 sachet of Kamagra
… the night begins …
I howl with delight
- that’s me -
cracks open
a smile
yellow eddies swirl
in thrawl
to that shadow beast o’ mine.
This monstrous
I
can never satiated be --
a beast to straight jacket under the influence of the waning and waxing moon
and on the night of the carmine moon
release
My phone rings
(Excuse me, while I take this).
‘Hello, am I speaking to Ashley?’
‘Depends on who’s asking,’
I respond
licking my lips.
‘You Ashley Chapman?’
I like this kind o’ game.
‘Like I said,
who’s asking?’
Frustrated he repeats, ‘Confirm your name.’
I yawn and tell him as savagely as I can:
'No!'
Wolves
know 'no'
to the pack.
But as in Beauty and the Beast
(the Cocteau 1946 version, of course)
beneath that thick molting hair pelt
beasts have culture
and feelings, too
(a lion's heart?)
and mostly
(occasionally not)
given
space
food
The Den
a willing mate (or two)
we’re okay
affectionate dogs.
For when all is well with my shadow
-- no problem
in peace
in chains
'til the looped moon!
Oct 8, 2017
Oct 8, 2017 at 1:38 PM UTC
Candleabra's flickering flames
cast a shimmering dancing
shadow of me,
upon my golden coffer overhead,
brought about by a sudden gust
of window-wind... God's finger-breeze...
Master airy-finger puppeteer
you are
dance the leaves
about my Autumn yard...
Push and stir
soft light newly blanketed wintry snow
on lifting eddies,
causing flying fancy, barnyard dancer's dos-a-dos
among infinitesimal,
and featherweight
delicately frozen
crystal-looking flakes...
Push tiny tango waves
upon reflected sparkling silvery lakes
that crest s l i d e then fall
And spectator trees
that enciricle about the watery ballroom-lake
surface-floor,
then with airy fingertips
clap, clap together
the loudly whispering and rustling leaves
that applaud
the watery dancing waves below...
And with windy fingertips
sail white billowing cotton like
vapor-sails
across an unplowable
oceanless
spatial blue...
Glad God
You mostly are
puppeteer of every star
Dance sundries of objects
on your play-ball planet
and puppet-likened stage
And let me laugh
in zestful rage
about danceable things
that can be danced,
that can be danced
on windy-finger days...
Sep 17, 2014
Sep 17, 2014 at 3:09 PM UTC
Standing before her
on one foot,
as though surveying
a Renoir,
he is overwhelmed by splashes
of red from her nails,
her lips.
Shifting to level
he is entranced
by her blue, twinkling eyes,
His gaze is one of awe.
Uncritical he hears
her hair sweep
across her shoulder,
as rustling wind blown
across West Texas
fields of barley.
Her words
cool his bare toes
as though dipped in
Box Elder creek’ s flow through
rocks, eddies and fallen limbs.
Her moves
have the grace of cirrus skies,
he thinks
this is my picnic spot,
my settling spot
fit to build a cabin.
Then he knows,
love is here.
Nov 18, 2014
Nov 18, 2014 at 7:38 PM UTC
In the solace
Drifting transient
Before the dawn
Quiet light
Scattered sentient thoughts
Dreams lift on gossamer wings
Effervesce on heady winds
Like milkweed fluff on a summer day
From the narrow path
I stray
Lost in thoughts
Consuming
Stones thrown from distant shores
Placid surface
Fractured
This undertow defines my mind
Spinning evidence of chaos
Purpose slips away
From the narrow path
I stray
Fogbound vessel
Aimless deadwood
On a restless sea
Storm tossed
Lost and anchorless
Victimized by riptides and eddies
Uncharted course each sunless day
From the narrow path
I stray
TL Boehm 040508
Oct 14, 2013
Oct 14, 2013 at 5:07 PM UTC
I can feel us on the edge here
this narrow ridge we’re hiking
it’s thin enough in places
that I’m nearly certain we’ll
topple down the side
But we haven’t yet and
it could be your acrobatics
or mine
that’s got us still balancing
in an act a professional
tightrope walker
would balk at
We’re daring though
and the view from up here
so far is breathtaking
and the thrill of chill wind
against our faces
exhilarating
The peak not yet in sight
shrouded in soft white fog
that was forecast to disappear
by noon
instead it’s rolling down the side
thickening and reaching
for us
Our view goes white with gray
eddies loosely defined
interludes of curling air
the pebbled ground slowly fading
so we clasp our hands together
it’s less stable but
comforting
as the mist swirls between us
Soon there’s nothing
no outline
the last wisp of your hair
is gently consumed
into this vaporous world
where only a touch
obstructs
surreal isolation
Nov 12, 2012
Nov 12, 2012 at 2:13 AM UTC
After Li Po
While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead
I played at the front gate, pulling flowers.
You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse,
You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums.
And we went on living in the village of Chokan:
Two small people, without dislike or suspicion.
At fourteen I married My Lord you.
I never laughed, being bashful.
Lowering my head, I looked at the wall.
Called to, a thousand times, I never looked back.
At fifteen I stopped scowling,
I desired my dust to be mingled with yours
Forever and forever and forever.
Why should I climb the lookout?
At sixteen you departed,
You went into far Ku-to-en, by the river of swirling eddies,
And you have been gone five months.
The monkeys make sorrowful noise overhead.
You dragged your feet when you went out,
By the gate now, the moss is grown, the different mosses,
Too deep to clear them away!
The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind.
The paired butterflies are already yellow with August
Over the grass in the West garden;
They hurt me. I grow older.
If you are coming down through the narrows of the river Kiang,
Please let me know beforehand,
And I will come out to meet you
As far as Cho-fu-sa.
2.6k
The wind whips
and scrapes the walls
like ivy looking for its foothold
round windowsills
and rotten wood
winter chills a new years cold
scouring for the way in
rolling barrels of fury
tumultuous spasms
unrelenting open hands
slaps the face of every bush and branch
with each pass
the lawns and meadows left
rippled like a poorly tacked carpet
the scaffolding of men rests on brace and bolts
and handshakes with the granite walls
adornments flap their benign capes
eddies of grit spiral, walking tall
Inside I watch you
like a ****** staring at the passing crowd
but not knowing where to look;
only you are everywhere
blankets and lights and even the TV
are curtains to pretend your not outside;
I need not venture out yet
at least,
not until morning
Nov 9, 2012
Nov 9, 2012 at 9:37 AM UTC
656
The name—of it—is “Autumn”—
The hue—of it—is Blood—
An Artery—upon the Hill—
A Vein—along the Road—
Great Globules—in the Alleys—
And Oh, the Shower of Stain—
When Winds—upset the Basin—
And spill the Scarlet Rain—
It sprinkles Bonnets—far below—
It gathers ruddy Pools—
Then—eddies like a Rose—away—
Upon Vermilion Wheels—
2.4k
What is your touch?
It is the physical sensation of electromagnetism repelling our atoms,
It's the chain reaction set off through my nervous system,
Culminating in my cortex, where it is comprehended as your touch.
*In dim streetlight through your window,
With just a crescent of your face illuminated.
With your soft eyes, and memories of our backpacking trip mixing in
Like honey mixes with warm tea, or coffee.
With ***** brown curls around your head like a halo.*
Still, what is your touch?
It is like a ripple through me, and it ripples out into the world
It is more present in my action every day
As you take down my walls
As your lips send soothing down to my core
As you make me believe
In love
Again.
It is everything that went into making you,
No better concoction
Has ever been brewed.
And the way that you move
Makes little eddies of awe that captivate my eyes,
They cannot move.
So you see,
It's not hard to convince myself
That your touch is everything.
Two ends of the universe,
You're setting me free
That anything happened at all
Was as great a miracle
As your touch is to me
It's giving me shivers
And melting my heart--
There is nothing in this world like your touch.
Sep 26, 2018
Sep 26, 2018 at 1:17 AM UTC
*dandelion seeds
too tight to fly--
frozen Spring lovers
stream breeze--
pollen ripples into sun,
brace of current bed
inflorescent burst--
hikers' boots beside a pool
on sun-baked rocks
green buds ***** the air--
in corymb echoes,
fuzz of leaves
water-sounds cascade--
moss-drops, trickles; dog-splash, falls;
gurgles under foot
the tones of waves
tiny on the smooth shore
lipping on
stem-length stars,
streaming rays of sun
and water's deep shade
gentle eddies over stone--
one world,
one world
froth twirl and tendril
under Spring brook shade--
so clear beneath
burl-sprouts misted bright,
cups of water,
forest thirst
waterfall gasp--
the cold! the winter! now swim!
the first breaths
Spring Misogi--
pummeled muscles--
grin of mossy heart
your wet shirt against my chest
--hot love--
thunderous winter-melt
we sink laughing,
numb in Spring's fluids--
our voices drown
papaya lunch--
a tropic fruit
and i am home
sweaty backpack--
two beloved women hike,
my heart weightless
cliff-jumpers--
green from nostalgia,
i hit bottomless
cameras first,
avert canopy surprise--
Spring screen
black-backed iridesce--
warm beetle slips
in and out of scree
barefoot in the stream,
our hands and voices smooth--
ankle sprain
Spring paths--
a parent's visit
breathes new life
my womb-maker
from another life--
ageless comfort
her haiku eyes--
water shining sun green
bloom here again
*
\|/
Jun 23, 2013
Jun 23, 2013 at 11:06 AM UTC
It's gonna get colder when you leave.
The ground will harden
And the trees will sleep
And the world
Will wait.
Underneath the snow,
Life
Will wait.
The wind will search for you in every face
Biting and frantic
But find nothing,
And in despair crack across the ground like a whip
Stirring up little ghostly eddies of ice crystals.
The snow will catch the branches and drag them down
Asking
Why the silence,
This year?
None of that summertime laughter
To light up the ice and make it sparkle.
The days will pull darkness around them like a thick coat
And slink by
In a hurry to be elsewhere,
Still too long, and too strange.
And then
Just when we've all almost given up,
Winter will soften, just a bit.
The rains will come, like a good cry you've been holding your breath against
For months,
And the snow will wash away
And the ground will be ugly and scarred,
But bare at last,
And the land will begin
Slowly
To bloom
In anticipation of your footsteps there.
The sun will hold its line in the battle against the night
For just a sliver longer every day.
The first flowers will shoot up through
The last little patches of snow,
Light green and fragile.
The world will wake
Yawn and stretch,
Is she back yet?
Is she here?
The cherry blossoms on the tree in my backyard will unfurl
White and delicate and frothy on tough, leathery branches
And we will all see that maybe
Everything is going to be alright
After all.
Is she back yet?
Is she here?
And summer will stroll in, laughing,
The moment you set foot on this soil again.
Jan 2, 2014
Jan 2, 2014 at 5:04 PM UTC
My boyfriend (Peter) and I went down to New Haven Harbor today.
Let’s face it, we’re surrounded by oceans,
and most of them are downright inhospitable.
I live near the ocean, (pointing) it’s right over there.
I love the ocean, tripping over whenever I’ve time to spare.
The way I’m fawning over it, you’d think I know it well.
But I really only love its edges and undulating swells.
It’s like a book that I’ve judged by its cover,
a beautiful stranger taken as a lover,
or a pie when I’ve only tasted the crust.
I love something, I suppose, I’ve barely even touched.
Peter says that black, inky “outer-space” is a low-viscosity liquid,
another, even vaster ocean that’s more dangerous and rarely visited.
The air that we breathe is an ocean - our own, vast, atmosphere -
in it swim creatures too small to see, but to the naked eye it looks clear.
It flows, eddies and swells - birds swoop in it so you can tell.
Of course, the ocean has issues - it's hardly news - corrosion, erosion, sharks and drowning - and the way the ocean lets the moon and air push it around.
What I love most is its motion, and how it reflects the sun and the moon.
Did I mention that hanging-out by the ocean makes for a pleasant afternoon?
Mar 22, 2023
Mar 22, 2023 at 10:35 AM UTC
The tide pulls in
and sine waves intersect,
surf scalloping and cresting, small,
breeding pearly foam into sea breeze.
Your breath pulls in,
skin washing over collarbones,
ribs expanding to swallow oceans––
another kind of wave. I feel my soul swell and fall into place.
The tide makes eddies––
gulls cleave shimmering half-circles in the air,
partition wind with meat, voices.
Sand swirls around my feet and is dragged out to sea––
Your skin makes eddies.
Conversations sink like round stones
and your toes open wide, sweeping arcs in the sand.
My heart beats just over three times.
The sea feeds trillions.
Ships wreck and barnacles forge their homes,
and fish school in Fermat spirals.
Plankton absorb sunlight and divide exponentially.
Your liver feeds trillions.
Arms envelope me
and nestle into the hollow under my spine––
I press my lips against your sternum, starving.
The sea pulls out.
The moon's orbit decays
four centimeters every year––
the disparity destroys worlds.
Your breath pulls out.
I cup sea glass and small, smooth shells,
my footprints forming acute angles to yours––
this disparity destroys worlds.
Dec 20, 2012
Dec 20, 2012 at 11:20 PM UTC