"elms" poems
Eternal brood the shadows on this ground,
Dreaming of centuries that have gone before;
Great elms rise solemnly by slab and mound,
Arched high above a hidden world of yore.
Round all the scene a light of memory plays,
And dead leaves whisper of departed days,
Longing for sights and sounds that are no more.
Lonely and sad, a specter glides along
Aisles where of old his living footsteps fell;
No common glance discerns him, though his song
Peals down through time with a mysterious spell.
Only the few who sorcery's secret know,
Espy amidst these tombs the shade of Poe.
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The flame-red moon, the harvest moon,
Rolls along the hills, gently bouncing,
A vast balloon,
Till it takes off, and sinks upward
To lie on the bottom of the sky, like a gold doubloon.
The harvest moon has come,
Booming softly through heaven, like a bassoon.
And the earth replies all night, like a deep drum.
So people can't sleep,
So they go out where elms and oak trees keep
A kneeling vigil, in a religious hush.
The harvest moon has come!
And all the moonlit cows and all the sheep
Stare up at her petrified, while she swells
Filling heaven, as if red hot, and sailing
Closer and closer like the end of the world.
Till the gold fields of stiff wheat
Cry 'We are ripe, reap us!' and the rivers
Sweat from the melting hills.
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By walking between certain trees,
Sometimes, one has an odd feeling,
An unusual tingling sensation,
Not scary, but mostly appealing.
Katalyn passed between two elms,
And entered into ancient realms.
Excitement prickled Katalyn’s skin,
Trees here were wide and tall,
Then from a sun-splashed clearing,
There came a strange animal call.
Creeping closely; peering round a tree,
Katalyn saw unicorns, roaming free.
Approaching slowly, heart beating fast,
Katalyn could not help but smile,
As the unicorns gathered round,
What grace, such poise, cool style.
Not thinking, Katalyn touched a wing,
There came a whoosh . . . so dizzying.
Without knowing, how or why,
Katalyn soared above the trees,
Holding a slender unicorn neck,
Laughter escaping on the breeze.
They dropped into a sudden glide,
With a thrilling rush: what a ride!
They winged across grassy plains,
Between mountains capped with snow,
Katalyn neither knew nor recognised,
The wild land, passing by, below.
Another world; another dimension,
Kept secret by; magical intention.
Then Katalyn was suddenly walking,
Back where the adventure began,
Passing between two old elms,
Returned to the world of man.
Now feeling as happy, as you please,
Knowing unicorns lived, beyond the trees.
© Paul M Chafer 2014
Jul 31, 2014
Jul 31, 2014 at 9:01 AM UTC
After the wolves and before the elms
the bardic order ended in Ireland.
Only a few remained to continue
a dead art in a dying land:
This is a man
on the road from Youghal to Cahirmoyle.
He has no comfort, no food and no future.
He has no fire to recite his friendless measures by.
His riddles and flatteries will have no reward.
His patrons sheath their swords in Flanders and Madrid.
Reader of poems, lover of poetry—
in case you thought this was a gentle art
follow this man on a moonless night
to the wretched bed he will have to make:
The Gaelic world stretches out under a hawthorn tree
and burns in the rain. This is its home,
its last frail shelter. All of it—
Limerick, the Wild Geese and what went before—
falters into cadence before he sleeps:
He shuts his eyes. Darkness falls on it.
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In these rapid, restless shadows,
Once I walked at eventide,
When a gentle, silent maiden,
Walked in beauty at my side.
She alone there walked beside me
All in beauty, like a bride.
Pallidly the moon was shining
On the dewy meadows nigh;
On the silvery, silent rivers,
On the mountains far and high,—
On the ocean’s star-lit waters,
Where the winds a-weary die.
Slowly, silently we wandered
From the open cottage door,
Underneath the elm’s long branches
To the pavement bending o’er;
Underneath the mossy willow
And the dying sycamore.
With the myriad stars in beauty
All bedight, the heavens were seen,
Radiant hopes were bright around me,
Like the light of stars serene;
Like the mellow midnight splendor
Of the Night’s irradiate queen.
Audibly the elm-leaves whispered
Peaceful, pleasant melodies,
Like the distant murmured music
Of unquiet, lovely seas;
While the winds were hushed in slumber
In the fragrant flowers and trees.
Wondrous and unwonted beauty
Still adorning all did seem,
While I told my love in fables
’Neath the willows by the stream;
Would the heart have kept unspoken
Love that was its rarest dream!
Instantly away we wandered
In the shadowy twilight tide,
She, the silent, scornful maiden,
Walking calmly at my side,
With a step serene and stately,
All in beauty, all in pride.
Vacantly I walked beside her.
On the earth mine eyes were cast;
Swift and keen there came unto me
Bitter memories of the past—
On me, like the rain in Autumn
On the dead leaves, cold and fast.
Underneath the elms we parted,
By the lowly cottage door;
One brief word alone was uttered—
Never on our lips before;
And away I walked forlornly,
Broken-hearted evermore.
Slowly, silently I loitered,
Homeward, in the night, alone;
Sudden anguish bound my spirit,
That my youth had never known;
Wild unrest, like that which cometh
When the Night’s first dream hath flown.
Now, to me the elm-leaves whisper
Mad, discordant melodies,
And keen melodies like shadows
Haunt the moaning willow trees,
And the sycamores with laughter
Mock me in the nightly breeze.
Sad and pale the Autumn moonlight
Through the sighing foliage streams;
And each morning, midnight shadow,
Shadow of my sorrow seems;
Strive, O heart, forget thine idol!
And, O soul, forget thy dreams!
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Underwater light faceted
in the enormous aquamarine
set in bronzed stones.
A pale green mist lifts from the pool
follows the lantern lit pathways
back to the dark and shady places
edging to the olive grove
and the blackness
of the wych elms
and the limes
enclosing the garden
like impenetrable walls.
Here, on a very warm night
with a honeysuckle, jasmine breeze
heady, rich and almost liquid
You can stand on the sun-filled stones
stretch and hold
the heart-breaking sweetness
of the night.
Aug 8, 2014
Aug 8, 2014 at 11:04 AM UTC
buried behind a wall of complacency
my contentment boils -- steams like pots of cleansing tea-- in the constant cold
pass the peace pipe over the bones of my enemies.
my rebellion is rooted
deep within my veins
{burried under tact and sweet smiles} but ready to return
the blood of warrior women waiting to return
runs within me- my abilities are their evolution
from the color of my eyes to my tolerance for pain-- rooted
into my skullspinesoul
in a field of dinosaur bones-
only the strong survive the cold
this ever present frost
follows me like the windigo; its return
deep in the decemberjanuaryfebuary ache of my bones
a disease malignant in the
deep r
u
n
n
i
n
g
tap-roots of elms- etched
into
time like
skeletons in the ice
tested {thawing} with every return
of this ******* season, evolving
from the lifeless bones
of trees to the wings of birds
brittle, but strong;
bundled with love(hate) protecting me from the cold
letting go, but wanting them to
fall back like
cigarette ashes in the wind
this is no place or time in my life for slow acceptance but
I find safety in the muscle bound bones
aware, lying (insomniac), waiting for someone to breathe
life into the marrow.
my love- deep, engrained, rooted
the pulse of human heat keeping me from the cold
will I ever change?
bundled against the cold, the cracking of my bones
is like the creaking of the dead trees i stare up at
with their songs of change
and the end of fears never to thaw out again
Nov 14, 2012
Nov 14, 2012 at 10:41 PM UTC
You can see it already: chalks and ochers;
Country crossed with a thousand furrow-lines;
Ground-level rooftops hidden by the shrubbery;
Sporadic haystacks standing on the grass;
Smoky old rooftops tarnishing the landscape;
A river (not Cayster or Ganges, though:
A feeble Norman salt-infested watercourse);
On the right, to the north, bizarre terrain
All angular--you'd think a shovel did it.
So that's the foreground. An old chapel adds
Its antique spire, and gathers alongside it
A few gnarled elms with grumpy silhouettes;
Seemingly tired of all the frisky breezes,
They carp at every gust that stirs them up.
At one side of my house a big wheelbarrow
Is rusting; and before me lies the vast
Horizon, all its notches filled with ocean blue;
***** and hens spread their gildings, and converse
Beneath my window; and the rooftop attics,
Now and then, toss me songs in dialect.
In my lane dwells a patriarchal rope-maker;
The old man makes his wheel run loud, and goes
Retrograde, hemp wreathed tightly round the midriff.
I like these waters where the wild gale scuds;
All day the country tempts me to go strolling;
The little village urchins, book in hand,
Envy me, at the schoolmaster's (my lodging),
As a big schoolboy sneaking a day off.
The air is pure, the sky smiles; there's a constant
Soft noise of children spelling things aloud.
The waters flow; a linnet flies; and I say: "Thank you!
Thank you, Almighty God!"--So, then, I live:
Peacefully, hour by hour, with little fuss, I shed
My days, and think of you, my lady fair!
I hear the children chattering; and I see, at times,
Sailing across the high seas in its pride,
Over the gables of the tranquil village,
Some winged ship which is traveling far away,
Flying across the ocean, hounded by all the winds.
Lately it slept in port beside the quay.
Nothing has kept it from the jealous sea-surge:
No tears of relatives, nor fears of wives,
Nor reefs dimly reflected in the waters,
Nor importunity of sinister birds.
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An omnibus across the bridge
Crawls like a yellow butterfly,
And, here and there, a passer-by
Shows like a little restless midge.
Big barges full of yellow hay
Are moored against the shadowy wharf,
And, like a yellow silken scarf,
The thick fog hangs along the quay.
The yellow leaves begin to fade
And flutter from the Temple elms,
And at my feet the pale green Thames
Lies like a rod of rippled jade.
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(Rock Lake, Canada)
In this country there is neither measure nor balance
To redress the dominance of rocks and woods,
The passage, say, of these man-shaming clouds.
No gesture of yours or mine could catch their attention,
No word make them carry water or fire the kindling
Like local trolls in the spell of a superior being.
Well, one wearies of the Public Gardens: one wants a vacation
Where trees and clouds and animals pay no notice;
Away from the labeled elms, the tame tea-roses.
It took three days driving north to find a cloud
The polite skies over Boston couldn't possibly accommodate.
Here on the last frontier of the big, brash spirit
The horizons are too far off to be chummy as uncles;
The colors assert themselves with a sort of vengeance.
Each day concludes in a huge splurge of vermilions
And night arrives in one gigantic step.
It is comfortable, for a change, to mean so little.
These rocks offer no purchase to herbage or people:
They are conceiving a dynasty of perfect cold.
In a month we'll wonder what plates and forks are for.
I lean to you, numb as a fossil. Tell me I'm here.
The Pilgrims and Indians might never have happened.
Planets pulse in the lake like bright amoebas;
The pines blot our voices up in their lightest sighs.
Around our tent the old simplicities sough
Sleepily as Lethe, trying to get in.
We'll wake blank-brained as water in the dawn.
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We sat in the overlook above the Serpent Mound
in the heat of that garish July afternoon,
sunlight scorching our pallid skin,
like rays through a magnifying glass,
till we could endure no more and
sought the shroud of skyscraper elms ---
halfway houses of leaf, bark and cellulose.
Minutes before we'd signed our names in the visitors book,
like giddy high-schoolers autographing a yearbook,
recording our wayward lover's sojourn
to a site the Hopewell worshipped in celebration of existence.
For what purpose do we worship this ground?
I wondered as we walked beside the curving icon,
that undulated in rolled earthen coils down the slope,
sine-waves loosed from a colossal oscilloscope.
Are these coils symbolic of our future's meandering relationship?
Her exploring hand upon my ****
drew me from thought to evaluation of this unexpected caress.
But for the heat, I'd have shown her what idle foreplay begets!
*Great Serpent, this was not Eden's carnal karma
acted out in a second Genesis!* ---
though a symbolic egg spews from your mouth.
Mar 1, 2012
Mar 1, 2012 at 2:10 PM UTC
I see it, in my minds eye
how he, on a day like today
bowing so, in the way that he would
arm outstretched, would to me kindly say
"Care to join me for a walk?"
And oh! on a day like today
with the rain, falling just as it should
I would say, with his arm as my helm
"what perfect weather for a walk!"
we would tread, in the shade of the wood
'neath a gamp and the dripping of elms
with old leaves, as a path for our feet
and our words, as a path to new realms
on sundry things we should naturally talk
if we should, and we should, time will tell
on a day like today, time will tell
Nov 21, 2018
Nov 21, 2018 at 4:36 PM UTC
The scent of death
lingers for years
in a place
lodges in the soil
rots
and slowly compresses
composting down
deep down
in dirt
earth turns
seasons pass
time and space and silence
until the coiling roots
draw back again
and all that grows
from baby's tears
to blood red poppies
oaks and elms
bear testimony
to the forgotten
dead.
© M.L.Emmett
Sep 23, 2014
Sep 23, 2014 at 8:19 AM UTC
From my Dark Watcher Series;
Lost in a nightmare world,
tangled in a vine of despair.
Held tightly in it's thistles,
my heart has been laid bare.
Bleeding from the sharpened thorns,
tears of sorrow, run ****** down my cheeks.
Where is this merciful God?
Relief from this pain is all I seek.
Show me the door to eternity,
that lies beneath the towering elms.
For this world holds no more peace,
and bids me enter your realm.
Ripped apart by Heavens fury,
I travel the path of dark dreams.
For the light of this soul is lost,
floating amidst life's turbulent streams.
Cast out upon the crying winds,
beat into the rustic earth.
Enfold me in the safety of your arms,
and lie me in the place of my rebirth.
Kathleen M. Kohl/Levinski
Dec 10, 2013
Dec 10, 2013 at 12:27 PM UTC
I miss
the forest of
your magic
as it winds its
tattooed way
through the
serrated textures
of nightfall
all up inside
my vertebrae
the soft wind
rustling in your
elms,
outstretched to me
like arms
as stars burn through
this brewing sky
in molten,
fiery charms
They beckon to me
unexpected
in quiet
apertures of subtle
they sneak upon me,
unprotected,
when I'm sunken
in my tunnel
and sometimes
in the
quiet stream
of the lonely, sacred night
I hear a whisper
whirring soft
as it permeates
my spine
I let it take me over
as I sit,
slumped,
in the bath
it creeps and seethes
over my wet skin
eats out my silent wrath
I let it
fill my senses
as I walk inside
the deep
and on wooded paths
of solitude's carpet of leaves
when I feel
no soul is watching
the deer start shyly peeking,
and lynx resume their stalking
then long slashes
of ache
are reawakened
from their lair
snaking through my ribcage
choking up my hollowed air
yet, somehow
in the longing
of bottomless, falling space
I see in distant, faded visions:
the precious contours
of your face
and so,
like an enchanted
secret box
I open you,
inhale the confetti
of your floating stars
wave them over and through
my strands of vein,
my tripped out,
healing scars
your essence
penetrates
my presence
like misty mountain rains
seeps inside my pores
opens up
striations
of seismic,
writhing pain
Your invisibility
takes form
and then
in sudden,
whipped-up heat
it pours out in
honeyed rhythm
to our own
invisible beat
and just like that
I get taken.
Overcome
by slakes of love
rushing through my
arteries
like sweet
manna
from
above
Oct 13, 2017
Oct 13, 2017 at 5:58 PM UTC
The little letters dance across the page,
Flaunt and retire, and trick the tired eyes;
Sick of the strain, the glaring light, I rise
Yawning and stretching, full of empty rage
At the dull maunderings of a long dead sage,
Fling up the windows, fling aside his lies;
Choosing to breathe, not stifle and be wise,
And let the air pour in upon my cage.
The breeze blows cool and there are stars and stars
Beyond the dark, soft masses of the elms
That whisper things in windy tones and light.
They seem to wheel for dim, celestial wars;
And I -- I hear the clash of silver helms
Ring icy-clear from the far deeps of night.
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Harsh wind screaming
moaning
with the crisp bite of Autumn night
Dark shadows dancing
tossing
with the branches of bare grey Elms
The lanes are winding
uncurling
in the pale orange glow of headlights
Sudden hedgerows
green
edging the limits of the night
Power-cut darkness all around
silhouettes
strange in the headlight beam
No farm lights distant on the Tor
guiding
beacons of open field and place
Cottages shuddering their thatching
thrilled
chimneys smoking message-morse
Pub signs banging wildly
flapping
in a crazy dance
inside candles flickering
distorted
patterns in tiny panes of rounded glass
Old stone steeple steady
dull toned bell
catching
a ride on the wind to the copse
And still the lanes thread out
beam-born
a ribbon of pebbles and stone
stretching into the night
until they melt
into the flat black tarmac
of the motorway.
Nov 15, 2016
Nov 15, 2016 at 5:35 AM UTC
Vientecico murmurador,
Que lo gozas y andas todo, &c.;
Airs, that wander and murmur round,
Bearing delight where'er ye blow!
Make in the elms a lulling sound,
While my lady sleeps in the shade below.
Lighten and lengthen her noonday rest,
Till the heat of the noonday sun is o'er.
Sweet be her slumbers! though in my breast
The pain she has waked may slumber no more.
Breathing soft from the blue profound,
Bearing delight where'er ye blow,
Make in the elms a lulling sound,
While my lady sleeps in the shade below.
Airs! that over the bending boughs,
And under the shade of pendent leaves,
Murmur soft, like my timid vows
Or the secret sighs my ***** heaves,--
Gently sweeping the grassy ground,
Bearing delight where'er ye blow,
Make in the elms a lulling sound,
While my lady sleeps in the shade below.
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Pan
by Michael R. Burch
... Among the shadows of the groaning elms,
amid the darkening oaks, we fled ourselves ...
... Once there were paths that led to coracles
that clung to piers like loosening barnacles ...
... where we cannot return, because we lost
the pebbles and the playthings, and the moss ...
... hangs weeping gently downward, maidens’ hair
who never were enchanted, and the stairs ...
... that led up to the Fortress in the trees
will not support our weight, but on our knees ...
... we still might fit inside those splendid hours
of damsels in distress, of rustic towers ...
... of voices of the wolves’ tormented howls
that died, and live in dreams’ soft, windy vowels ...
Published by The Chariton Review
Keywords/Tags: Childhood, dreams, enchanted, stairs, fortress, trees, damsels, maidens, towers, wolves, howls, oaks, elms, paths, pebbles, playthings, toys, moss
Mar 19, 2020
Mar 19, 2020 at 1:47 AM UTC
MONEY is nothing now, even if I had it,
O mooney moon, yellow half moon,
Up over the green pines and gray elms,
Up in the new blue.
Streel, streel,
White lacey mist sheets of cloud,
Streel in the blowing of the wind,
Streel over the blue-and-moon sky,
Yellow gold half moon. It is light
On the snow; it is dark on the snow,
Streel, O lacey thin sheets, up in the new blue.
Come down, stay there, move on.
I want you, I don't, keep all.
There is no song to your singing.
I am hit deep, you drive far,
O mooney yellow half moon,
Steady, steady; or will you tip over?
Or will the wind and the streeling
Thin sheets only pass and move on
And leave you alone and lovely?
I want you, I don't, come down,
Stay there, move on.
Money is nothing now, even if I had it.
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Black shadows fall
From the lindens tall,
That lift aloft their massive wall
Against the southern sky;
And from the realms
Of the shadowy elms
A tide-like darkness overwhelms
The fields that round us lie.
But the night is fair,
And everywhere
A warm, soft vapor fills the air,
And distant sounds seem near;
And above, in the light
Of the star-lit night,
Swift birds of passage wing their flight
Through the dewy atmosphere.
I hear the beat
Of their pinions fleet,
As from the land of snow and sleet
They seek a southern lea.
I hear the cry
Of their voices high
Falling dreamily through the sky,
But their forms I cannot see.
Oh, say not so!
Those sounds that flow
In murmurs of delight and woe
Come not from wings of birds.
They are the throngs
Of the poet’s songs,
Murmurs of pleasures, and pains, and wrongs,
The sound of winged words.
This is the cry
Of souls, that high
On toiling, beating pinions, fly,
Seeking a warmer clime.
From their distant flight
Through realms of light
It falls into our world of night,
With the murmuring sound of rhyme.
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Just up ahead is a trail
Where people seldom go,
Sidling down the gravel hill
Into growths of ash and birch and elm,
Thickets of wild plums,
Chokecherries, leaves turning dusty,
Verdant armies of stinging nettles
Protecting coveted stands of juneberries.
Bittersweet vines entangle aged elms,
Siphoning life, to produce four petaled reds
As summer goes down to autumn.
Leaving the wind above
To batter the old truck,
I descend into the silence,
Trees stand tall, but low
Below the breeze.
Down in this steep place
The wind cannot come,
The sun, when it finds its way,
Warms gently on the coldest day.
The spring my father dug
Before I was born,
Set into the weeping gravel hill,
Runs steadily,
Strong enough
To fill the battered tank,
To keep a goldfish or two alive,
To host strange crustaceans:
Tiny shrimp, just larger than ants,
Pebble crusted creatures
More insect than fish,
Frogs in the tank,
Toads out...,
Mosses and mud
Thirty years or more
At home.
Deer come to this tank,
On hot days or cold;
Coyotes, too.
Porcupines dine on treetops
Swaying quietly
A hundred feet below
Wild Montana winds.
Cattle in winter find life
In the quiet, constant water
Flowing here.
I am taken back
To a stifling July afternoon,
But cool here in this protected place,
Dragonflies floating
And cicadas sawing in the trees,
My mouth full of juneberries
As I circle my way,
Eating more than picking...
Coming face to face with a coyote.
Was he dozing?
Passing through?
Or, do coyotes eat
Juneberries, too?
We stop hard,
Stunned.
Then bolt in opposite directions,
My juneberries flying
From the milking pail;
His tongue between his teeth,
Tail low,
Feet flying into the brush beyond.
Jan 5, 2016
Jan 5, 2016 at 10:51 AM UTC
As strong as the mystic Oak
as bountiful as the Chestnuts burden
liken to palm tree on a lonely island
kind as a spring apple blossom
Sometimes weeping liken to a Willow
bending in waters hiding tears
singing like a London Plain
in the smoggy city streets
****** as a Beach Tree
glorious as mountain Pine
oh how wondrous
in avenues they do bind
See the Elms worrying
as beetles invade their bark
undermining their existence
to their extinction
Yet the amorous smell of Cherry blossoms
does late at night fill the midnight air
and all comes to winters realms
Christmas presents are laid under it's frame
of the greatest of Pines
As the Sycamore sings
bare and wanting of summers light
holding strong at winters bite
this is why I love trees
By Christos Andreas Kourtis aka NeonSolaris
Nov 2, 2015
Nov 2, 2015 at 6:29 PM UTC