"eddying" poems
Today the winter is not as chill, nor as gray. An azure depth backdrops the "fade"-to-white and the eyes remember what to see beneath patterns that shift and flow. You hear your footsteps and ...feel the silence leave your mind.
"Inside A Snowdrop..."
Driplets - droplets
pitter and pat
echo and float
...and the sun is here
its touching
tracing
edging patterns smooth and
flowing.
Feel the air
- its fingertips grasping
finding each bit of you all at once
...teasing and tickling your cheek,
nose THEN down the throat
filling and growing 'til
becoming an exhale
becoming you out and upon the world.
Feel as each hair lifts and spreads,
gathers and becomes waves eddying and rising free
freefalling and floating and rising again -
riding the unseen exhales as the world
- your world - flows by-and-by
grasping and tasting life
grasping and BEING life for all the other exhales
to find and feel and be felt in turn.
Reach - palm up...
wait
...wait
then
catch a miracle!
- a world within worlds within -
a snowdrop
a single glass to gaze in-and-in
to focus - deep
deeper still
... 'til
I see you
...behind my eyes
and the shadows and shades
surround and enfold
tightening
tighter still...
holding me
gentling me
becoming ...me.
I am lavender ghosting in the air
the taste and sweetness of your skin
the softness of each lil hair flowing by
the lips that found their home on mine.
Breathing is one long purr
and life is gently kneading into the softness
...of you.
Chris
Feb 17, 2012
Feb 17, 2012 at 1:15 PM UTC
Bless love and hope. Full many a withered year
Whirled past us, eddying to its chill doomsday;
And clasped together where the blown leaves lay,
We long have knelt and wept full many a tear.
Yet lo! one hour at last, the Spring’s compeer,
Flutes softly to us from some green byeway:
Those years, those tears are dead, but only they:—
Bless love and hope, true soul; for we are here.
Cling heart to heart; nor of this hour demand
Whether in very truth, when we are dead,
Our hearts shall wake to know Love’s golden head
Sole sunshine of the imperishable land;
Or but discern, through night’s unfeatured scope,
Scorn-fired at length the illusive eyes of Hope.
7.1k
'O babbling brook,' says Edmund in his rhyme,
'Whence come you?' and the brook, why not? replies.
I come from haunts of coot and hern,
I make a sudden sally,
And sparkle out among the fern,
To bicker down a valley.
By thirty hills I hurry down,
Or slip between the ridges,
By twenty thorps, a little town,
And half a hundred bridges.
Till last by Philip's farm I flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.
'Poor lad, he died at Florence, quite worn out,
Travelling to Naples. There is Darnley bridge,
It has more ivy; there the river; and there
Stands Philip's farm where brook and river meet.
I chatter over stony ways,
In little sharps and trebles,
I bubble into eddying bays,
I babble on the pebbles.
With many a curve my banks I fret
By many a field and fallow,
And many a fairy foreland set
With willow-weed and mallow.
I chatter, chatter, as I flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.
'But Philip chatter'd more than brook or bird;
Old Philip; all about the fields you caught
His weary daylong chirping, like the dry
High-elbow'd grigs that leap in summer grass. [grig = cricket - m.]
I wind about, and in and out,
With here a blossom sailing,
And here and there a ***** trout,
And here and there a grayling,
And here and there a foamy flake
Upon me, as I travel
With many a silvery waterbreak
Above the golden gravel,
And draw them all along, and flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.
5.2k
I come from haunts of coot and hern;
I make a sudden sally;
I sparkle out among the fern
To bicker down a valley.
By thirty hills I hurry down,
Or slip between the ridges,
By twenty thorps, a little town,
And half a hundred bridges.
At last by Philip's farm I flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.
I chatter over stony ways
In sharps and trebles;
I bubble into eddying bay;
I babble on the pebbles.
I chatter, chatter as I flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.
I wind about, and in and out,
With here a blossom sailing,
And here and there a ***** trout,
And here and there a grayling.
And here and there a foamy flake
Upon me, as I travel
With many a silvery waterbreak
Above the golden gravel,
And draw them all along, and flow
To joing the brimming river;
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.
I steal by lawns and grassy plots;
I slide by hazel covers;
I move the sweet forget-me-nots
That grow for happy lovers.
I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance
Among my skimming swallows;
I make the netted sunbeams dance
Against my sandy shallows.
I murmur under moon and stars
In brambly wildernesses;
I linger by my shingly bars;
I loiter round my cresses;
And out again I curve and flow
To join the brimming river;
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.
~Alfred Tennyson 1809-1892~
Oct 31, 2012
Oct 31, 2012 at 9:24 AM UTC
I. TO DIONYSUS (21 lines) (1)
((LACUNA))
(ll. 1-9) For some say, at Dracanum; and some, on windy Icarus;
and some, in Naxos, O Heaven-born, Insewn (2); and others by the
deep-eddying river Alpheus that pregnant Semele bare you to Zeus
the thunder-lover. And others yet, lord, say you were born in
Thebes; but all these lie. The Father of men and gods gave you
birth remote from men and secretly from white-armed Hera. There
is a certain Nysa, a mountain most high and richly grown with
woods, far off in Phoenice, near the streams of Aegyptus.
((LACUNA))
(ll. 10-12) '...and men will lay up for her (3) many offerings in
her shrines. And as these things are three (4), so shall mortals
ever sacrifice perfect hecatombs to you at your feasts each three
years.'
(ll. 13-16) The Son of Cronos spoke and nodded with his dark
brows. And the divine locks of the king flowed forward from his
immortal head, and he made great Olympus reel. So spake wise
Zeus and ordained it with a nod.
(ll. 17-21) Be favourable, O Insewn, Inspirer of frenzied women!
we singers sing of you as we begin and as we end a strain, and
none forgetting you may call holy song to mind. And so,
farewell, Dionysus, Insewn, with your mother Semele whom men call
Thyone.
__________
The Homeric Hymns in the Hello Poetry collection are provided by:
Online Medieval and Classical Library.
Source site: http://omacl.org/Hesiod/hymns.html
4.2k
The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year,
Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sear.
Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the autumn leaves lie dead;
They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit's tread.
The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrubs the jay,
And from the wood-top calls the crow through all the gloomy day.
Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers, that lately sprang and stood
In brighter light, and softer airs, a beauteous sisterhood?
Alas! they all are in their graves, the gentle race, of flowers
Are lying in their lowly beds, with the fair and good of ours.
The rain is falling where they lie, but the cold November rain
Calls not from out the gloomy earth the lovely ones again.
The wind-flower and the violet, they perished long ago,
And the brier-rose and the orchis died amid the summer glow;
But on the hill the golden-rod, and the aster in the wood,
And the yellow sun-flower by the brook in autumn beauty stood,
Till fell the frost from the clear cold heaven, as falls the plague on men,
And the brightness of their smile was gone, from upland, glade, and glen.
And now, when comes the calm mild day, as still such days will come,
To call the squirrel and the bee from out their winter home;
When the sound of dropping nuts is heard, though all the trees are still,
And twinkle in the smoky light the waters of the rill,
The south wind searches for the flowers whose fragrance late he bore,
And sighs to find them in the wood and by the stream no more.
And then I think of one who in her youthful beauty died,
The fair meek blossom that grew up and faded by my side:
In the cold moist earth we laid her, when the forest cast the leaf,
And we wept that one so lovely should have a life so brief:
Yet not unmeet it was that one, like that young friend of ours,
So gentle and so beautiful, should perish with the flowers.
3.5k
Earth is rocking in space!
And the thunders crash up with a roar upon roar,
And the eddying lightnings flash fire in my face,
And the whirlwinds are whirling the dust round and round--
And the blasts of the winds universal leap free
And blow each other upon each, with a passion of sound,
And æther goes mingling in storm with the sea!
Such a curse on my head, in a manifest dread,
From the hand of your Zeus has been hurtled along!
O my mother's fair glory! O Æther, enringing
All eyes with the sweet common light of thy bringing,
Dost see how I suffer this wrong?
3.3k
When biting Boreas, fell and doure,
Sharp shivers thro’ the leafless bow’r;
When Phœbus gies a short-liv’d glow’r,
Far south the lift,
Dim-dark’ning thro’ the flaky show’r,
Or whirling drift:
Ae night the storm the steeples rocked,
Poor Labour sweet in sleep was locked,
While burns, wi’ snawy wreeths upchoked,
Wild-eddying swirl,
Or thro’ the mining outlet bocked,
Down headlong hurl.
List’ning, the doors an’ winnocks rattle,
I thought me on the ourie cattle,
Or silly sheep, wha bide this brattle
O’ winter war,
And thro’ the drift, deep-lairing, sprattle,
Beneath a scar.
Ilk happing bird, wee, helpless thing!
That, in the merry months o’ spring,
Delighted me to hear thee sing,
What comes o’ thee?
Whare wilt thou cow’r thy chittering wing
An’ close thy e’e?
Ev’n you on murd’ring errands toil’d,
Lone from your savage homes exil’d,
The blood-stain’d roost, and sheep-cote spoil’d
My heart forgets,
While pityless the tempest wild
Sore on you beats.
2.6k
*hard skin of life to penetrate
soften that piercing stare*
1.
seems a shot spiked with kindness does the trick
that’s how we button up the moon’s sides with silver thread
to keep its seams from splitting solemn sides
and spilling all its jolly secrets: whorls of fingerprints sinking steadily into luna-grooves
like a neat domino-stacked roll on a never-ending trip into black holes
not far from Ursa Major
2.
to grant a delightful hop up and throw seeking eyes over the orb’s gentle curve
take a little look-see
the tiniest peek into Tucanae
where tidal forces push small clouds
and outstrip the western winds
towards cunning straits
to subtly tie into bows
cut ribbons of fate
drink a dram of mercy from a well-behaved thimble
yet poems don’t pay no bills now
when words tinker with heart’s mettle
3.
wonder if sagacious rue repays in full
or satisfies the exceeding cost
of the hankering in a vessel
caught eddying in giant nacred jetsam
while casting minute gems before the moon’s eyes
it’s nigh impossible to hide behind the sun
4.
best be ready with prêt-a-porter life-pennies
and be
wise to always carry a pocket full of sorrys
*stitch 'em seams together now
it all comes together
nice and neat*
S T, Moonday, 15 July 2013
Jul 15, 2013
Jul 15, 2013 at 6:08 AM UTC
Even as a child, of sorrow that we give
The dead, but little in his heart can find,
Since without need of thought to his clear mind
Their turn it is to die and his to live:
Even so the winged New Love smiles to receive
Along his eddying plumes the auroral wind,
Nor, forward glorying, casts one look behind
Where night-rack shrouds the Old Love fugitive.
There is a change in every hour’s recall,
And the last cowslip in the fields we see
On the same day with the first corn-poppy.
Alas for hourly change! Alas for all
The loves that from his hand proud Youth lets fall,
Even as the beads of a told rosary!
1.6k
XXI. TO APOLLO (5 lines)
(ll. 1-4) Phoebus, of you even the swan sings with clear voice to
the beating of his wings, as he alights upon the bank by the
eddying river Peneus; and of you the sweet-tongued minstrel,
holding his high-pitched lyre, always sings both first and last.
(l. 5) And so hail to you, lord! I seek your favour with my
song.
1.6k
To you, it is a spectacle
You watch with congealed disgust and cloying pity
Perverse satisfaction oozes from your pores
But you dare not to push back the velvet curtain
And glance behind its inky whisper
For you know deep in the soft malleable crevasses of your mind
That the walls will stand firm with time,
That the flowers breathe,
That the lamps light.
You compare each life like photographic negatives
Whispering affirmations
My dishes are whole
My walls are smooth
My curtains match
Standing ***** on a pedestal of entitlement
A halo of ivy above your eyes
Gleaming incisors bared.
You meditate only on the dysfunction
You hear only raised voices
You see only the shards, never the whole
But behind that silky curtain are eddying currents of actuality
Fluidly changing
Even as you enjoy the show.
May 31, 2013
May 31, 2013 at 11:51 PM UTC
When the pall of gloom overcasts my mind
And at cross roads bewildered I stand
I tell myself
This shall pass
When my mind is full of fear
And I find no single soul to share
I tell myself
This too shall pass
When darkness invades my abode
And there is not even a ray of light inside
I tell myself
This too shall pass
When my burdens weigh heavier than I can bear
And when no one around seems to care
I tell myself
This too shall pass
When storm clouds gather in the sky
And my tensions rise high
I tell myself
This too shall pass
When the road ahead stretches strenuous
And the distance makes me nervous
I tell myself
This too shall pass
When those I love and trust let me down
And look upon me with scorn and frown
I tell myself
This too shall pass
When misfortunes flow in torrent
And am caught in the eddying current
I tell myself
This too shall pass
When the cycle of seasons keep changing
Life, from sorrows to joy will surely be shifting
Let us wait for the pendulum to have its full swing
And let our hopes heavenward steadily wing!
Love will again fill the air
Doves of peace will coo in pair
The wintry chill will lose its frosty bite
Spring will come on wings like a sprite
‘‘Nevertheless, the hilltop hour
Would not be half so wonderful
Were there no dark valleys to traverse”
Helen Keller’s words resonate in my ears
Jun 7, 2016
Jun 7, 2016 at 7:39 AM UTC
I stood on the bridge at midnight,
As the clocks were striking the hour,
And the moon rose o’er the city,
Behind the dark church-tower.
I saw her bright reflection
In the watrers under me,
Like a golden goblet falling
And sinking into the sea.
And far in the hazy distance
Of that lovely night in June,
The blaze of the gleaming furnace
Gleamed redder than the moon.
Among the long, black rafters
The wavering shadows lay,
And the current that came from the ocean
Seemed to lift and bear them away.
As, sweeping and eddying through them
Rose the belated tide,
And, streaming into the moonlight,
The seaweed floated wide.
And like those waters rushing
Among the wooden piers,
A flood of thoughts came o’er me
That filled my eyes with tears.
How often, oh how often,
In the days that had gone by,
I had stood on that bridge at midnight
And gazed on that wave and sky!
How often oh how often,
I had wished that the ebbing tide
Would bear me away on its *****
O’er the ocean wild and wide!
For my heart was hot and restless,
And my life was full of care,
And the burden laid upon me
Seemed greater than I could bear.
But now it has fallen from me,
It is buried in the sea;
And only the sorrow of others
Throws its shadow over me.
Yet whenever I cross the river
On its bridge with wooden piers,
Like the odor of brine from the ocean
Comes the thought of other years.
And I think how many thousands
Of care-encumbered men,
Each bearing his burden of sorrow,
Have crossed the bridge since then.
I see the long procession
Still passing to and fro,
The young heart hot and restless,
And the old subdued and slow!
And forever and forever,
As long as the river flows,
As long as the heart has passions,
As long as life has woes;
The moon and its broken reflection
Aand its shadows shall appear,
As the symbol of love in heaven,
And its wavering image here.
1.5k
The wind gently blows
cooling ivory skin
In it's breeze
eddying souls stir
Many eyes stare coldly
at the starred sky above
Footsteps echo silently
moving among the fallen
Cries of grief
call between the hills
Apr 12, 2014
Apr 12, 2014 at 8:21 PM UTC
She wraps me in her icy flow
and chills me 'til I'm warm
Soothes away the open space
With sand and pebbled shores
She tries to lull me downriver
Gently pulling, drowsing
Massaging the miles off me
Relaxing
I know she lies
I know she'd take me to the big river
Carrying me like an eddying breeze
But I want to lay back and dream
And slowly drift away
Jan 24, 2014
Jan 24, 2014 at 4:39 PM UTC
He
Fill your bowl with roses: the bowl, too, have of crystal.
Sit at the western window. Take the sun
Between your hands like a ball of flaming crystal,
Poise it to let it fall, but hold it still,
And meditate on the beauty of your existence;
The beauty of this, that you exist at all.
She
The sun goes down,--but without lamentation.
I close my eyes, and the stream of my sensation
In this, at least, grows clear to me:
Beauty is a word that has no meaning.
Beauty is naught to me.
He
The last blurred raindrops fall from the half-clear sky,
Eddying lightly, rose-tinged, in the windless wake of the sun.
The swallow ascending against cold waves of cloud
Seems winging upward over huge bleak stairs of stone.
The raindrop finds its way to the heart of the leaf-bud.
But no word finds its way to the heart of you.
She
This also is clear in the stream of my sensation:
That I am content, for the moment, Let me be.
How light the new grass looks with the rain-dust on it!
But heart is a word that has no meaning,
Heart means nothing to me.
He
To the end of the world I pass and back again
In flights of the mind; yet always find you here,
Remote, pale, unattached . . . O Circe-too-clear-eyed,
Watching amused your fawning tiger-thoughts,
Your wolves, your grotesque apes--relent, relent!
Be less wary for once: it is the evening.
She
But if I close my eyes what howlings greet me!
Do not persuade. Be tranquil. Here is flesh
With all its demons. Take it, sate yourself.
But leave my thoughts to me.
1.4k
Eddying currents
In its churning funnel face
Sea weeds swirl quivering
Jun 2, 2016
Jun 2, 2016 at 9:08 AM UTC
My breath rose above my head, the cold gushing into my lungs
The wind rattled the barbwire fence as I waited there so quiet, so alone
The warm cup of coffee rested in my hands, its aroma engulfing my station
I looked out over the barren fields in which I was positioned to look over
I could see the watch tower high, above the roofs and chimneys vast
Snow began to fall, large flakes and eddying flurries
Getting up from my seat I gazed out at winters first storm
*A ****** war it had been, so many soldiers lost, friends and families gone*
Wind seemed to pass through my jacket, it whipped my cheeks and brow
I needed only to clear the trek of land between the wall and the brush, I ran
Hoisting my gun upon my shoulder I walked out onto the ledge
I spotted a shadow dancing through the light, I called out but it was no use
"Stoppen!" I hear through the scream of the wind, I looked back for only a second
The lone guard reaching his hand across the rail, begging me to halt
Stop I say, as I grasp my cap, Please stop or I will shoot
*I lift my gun around my head and **** back the metal bolt*
Ground beneath me thumps against my boots
And the guard's voice is no longer heard
My hands do tremble in the cold, but also from the sorrow
I aim down my sights and with a loud ring the rifle lets out a howl
I tell myself I am finally free, from the jail which held me back
I feel a sting in my shoulder and I fall to the powdered ground, my scarf falls off of my neck
The runaway then loses his footing and slumps to the ground without noise
I dip my head low and carry on with my duties, as the snow is painted scarlet red
Nov 14, 2013
Nov 14, 2013 at 6:35 PM UTC
a tiny droplet of dream plops
from the lips of overhanging creeper
leaning on my placid lake
and circles of emotions emanate
to burst into bloom
in the dead of night
its solemn note reverberates
in the whole ambiance
though illusive in its effect
staying- and- shifting at the same moment
I try to grasp
the ripples eddying out
and go adrift
counting the cascades in my mind....
Jun 21, 2012
Jun 21, 2012 at 2:34 AM UTC
'More than my brothers are to me,'--
Let this not vex thee, noble heart!
I know thee of what force thou art
To hold the costliest love in fee.
But thou and I are one in kind,
As moulded like in Nature's mint;
And hill and wood and field did print
The same sweet forms in either mind.
For us the same cold streamlet curl'd
Thro' all his eddying coves; the same
All winds that roam the twilight came
In whispers of the beauteous world.
At one dear knee we proffer'd vows,
One lesson from one book we learn'd,
Ere childhood's flaxen ringlet turn'd
To black and brown on kindred brows.
And so my wealth resembles thine,
But he was rich where I was poor,
And he supplied my want the more
As his unlikeness fitted mine.
957
Taking his time,
bathing in the blue smoke,
memories whirling and
eddying in the grey wrinkles,
his brow furrows.
All being one, he searches deep
She rushes from
one errand to another,
living to serve,
dying to love.
Sighing, often
Her calculations
demand symmetry;
feelings
just don't add up
and lonely men
wait in grey shadows
on the fringe.
Random elements
It's a twisted pile of flesh
for some
while others
only get to **** the
swollen ****
or get stuck
being the fifth wheel
on a broken cart.
It's what they want
He remembers the smell
of Texas flowers
shining through his
deep Nothing
and knows he is
too far from home.
Sugar...
Tasting the pale one,
with her bugs and
her dead things
living under her
milky skin
and pretty dresses,
is still his
favorite sin
because she is
the only one
that can keep
him warm in her
sweaty folds
and wet sheets.
Bury me in your sweet blood
At the train station,
he sees her in
a sundress while
the sun and moon
both die
according to prophecy.
See you there, darling
You can make it seem
just like home
if you listen to
the night because
all we need
is waiting for us,
somewhere.
Somewhere
Nov 11, 2014
Nov 11, 2014 at 1:47 AM UTC
temporarily
the currents shift to polarity
stars aligned, planets aligned
event horizon, singularity.
vision stretched to infinity
what it means to see me
wihte room, empty spaces
black sea fibonacci
randomized perfection
crystalline & unstratified
limitless, free direction
open palms, third eye
to truly live, and happily die
beneath the ground, above the sky
this union of the soul
to the peace found inside
of the cosmic energy that flows-
eddying currents,
the tides that wash away
the woes of life
Sep 13, 2023
Sep 13, 2023 at 12:05 PM UTC
The river’s still up in the park,
and brown, drowning the swingset,
eddying around the bottom of the slide,
like a trapdoor out of childhood.
I never needed one. I used to dream
of the waters sweeping over my head
and now I remember the way blood looked
circling the drain, fainter and fainter
pink and then gone, lost forever.
I wonder how it would have felt,
to never know the deeper pools,
to never be dragged down into the darkness
that lies beneath the surface,
the unending roiling of the sea inside.
I bite my tongue, turn the saliva red,
so that even my mouth is full of dark water,
and I keep the words to myself,
trapped behind the blades of my teeth,
locked in the viscous fluid behind my eyes.
Nov 28, 2012
Nov 28, 2012 at 3:23 PM UTC
Along the mountain crest you arrived
ever so quietly
like an old yearning at dawn.
But you are nowhere here,
only a ghostly glow
that breaks out to the world
to come into the stillness
that remains.
A translucent light
in this moment’s calm
fleeting from time to time.
Is this another shade of the moon?
Or another haunting—
a dredging up of memories
from some stranger’s eyes
that you may be buried deep
amidst the horizon
or the mountain hollows
always disappearing
when the wind gets cold.
No traces of your last movement.
Still wondering why you left
and why I’ve always remained
to look at the world's beauty awning
until the sun gathers its light
and carry me
by the eddying water
to find my own heart’s flow.
Dec 19, 2017
Dec 19, 2017 at 12:25 PM UTC