"exile" poems
With my whole body I taste these peaches,
I touch them and smell them. Who speaks?
I absorb them as the Angevine
Absorbs Anjou. I see them as a lover sees,
As a young lover sees the first buds of spring
And as the black Spaniard plays his guitar.
Who speaks? But it must be that I,
That animal, that Russian, that exile, for whom
The bells of the chapel pullulate sounds at
Heart. The peaches are large and round,
Ah! and red; and they have peach fuzz, ah!
They are full of juice and the skin is soft.
They are full of the colors of my village
And of fair weather, summer, dew, peace.
The room is quiet where they are.
The windows are open. The sunlight fills
The curtains. Even the drifting of the curtains,
Slight as it is, disturbs me. I did not know
That such ferocities could tear
One self from another, as these peaches do.
35.2k
Lovely dainty Spanish needle
With your yellow flower and white,
Dew bedecked and softly sleeping,
Do you think of me to-night?
Shadowed by the spreading mango,
Nodding o'er the rippling stream,
Tell me, dear plant of my childhood,
Do you of the exile dream?
Do you see me by the brook's side
Catching crayfish 'neath the stone,
As you did the day you whispered:
Leave the harmless dears alone?
Do you see me in the meadow
Coming from the woodland spring
With a bamboo on my shoulder
And a pail slung from a string?
Do you see me all expectant
Lying in an orange grove,
While the swee-swees sing above me,
Waiting for my elf-eyed love?
Lovely dainty Spanish needle,
Source to me of sweet delight,
In your far-off sunny southland
Do you dream of me to-night?
18.7k
Can you feel it
Shh, allow the galaxy to pamper your body, blanket the essence of your mind, bit-by-bit
Travel on a higher awareness to understand the galaxy’s gentle gift
Close your eyes and allow your mind to softly drift
Soft Moonlight Dust
Illuminating the night skies, given warmth of its inner trust
Centered in the sky, a star abates for its enlighten ******
Kindred minds to enrapture, as souls physically adjust
So gentle, as a touch to the skin
An inner space to conquer, there an exploring craving begins
Awareness of self stirring into the constellation
Bodies attuned beyond the stretch of imagination
Savoring on the flavor of the alignment sweeten taste
Desires igniting an inferno, the heat of its flames refusing to wait
Overheated friction surrendering without debates
Runaway yearning weakening in the presence of fate
The ecstasy of the moonlight’s dust felt, abiding to the crack of dawn
Emotions of the elixir slowly withdrawn
A Cheshire moonrise
Always a sacred communion given in surprise
Masked feelings hidden behind the stars in our eyes
Sprinkles of pixie dust as the moon becomes full
Paired upon, as lace meets wool
Interwoven and tenderly spun on a galactic spool
Stars In Exile
Twinkling for eyes to glimpse beyond the earth’s smile
Canopus to Antares, oh how you make me shine
Closing my eyes, coveting your point as I’m making you mine
Settled and glittering as small diamonds binding in the sky
A wondrous elopement to experience in the blink of an eye
Soft whispers to the ones that shoot right before they fall
Such a beautiful and breathlessly cadence to wish under them all
The Gift Of The Sun’s Stroke
Umm, shooting stars kept me awoke
Relentless bodies bathing under the moon
Caresses, touches, entwined souls echoing the note of its weakening tunes
Sweeter and sweeter, deeper and deeper
Bodies fueled, hot as a heater, bodies climbing steeper and steeper
Heat consumes the interior of the temple
Sweat of life, as movements come together and then disassemble
Elated, sedated, dipping in a cool blue lagoon
Kisses under the sun on a beautiful afternoon
Temperatures rising not a moment too soon
June slamming into summer’s heat
A merriment of a sun stroke basking in the glorious feast
The galaxy and its spicy passion
A gift to the world to enjoy in any unbridled fashion
Sep 8, 2018
Sep 8, 2018 at 1:17 PM UTC
Totally useless
Infinite universe
Exploding before us
I am one
I am holy
I am yours
The one and only
Forever and glowing
So steady in stirring
The moving of your heart
Melting your spirit
Confusing what is real
Abusing all you feel
Lie to their faces
Sigh no more
Sink the places
That you have since forgotten
This is a place that I
Will not forget
The holy sighs and cries
During your pitiful lies
All because you set aside
The energy at rest
Hello there
Welcome back
Get this drink
Of A’s exile elixir
Go off to a distant land
Find a distant face
Nothing can be said
I did you wrong
You ****** me over
This is goodbye
......|……|XXXXXXX
Undress
Unleash the emptiness
I’m so glad that I brought this
This beautiful red safe
The keeper of
My ****** up mental state
About my mental state…
Don’t ask me about my holy stake
That I pierced into the heart
Of a special white vampire
One of those holier than thou types
One **** up
And then
Onto the next line
The next word that you speak
Might be a mistake
What do you think?
About me…
Do you think that you could
Stand on your own two feet?
With me,
Without me.
Alone like we are
I’ll crash the car
To flip our worlds around
Venture away today
Go away
Come as you were
Another day
But not today
You might be okay
I’m not okay…
Holy one
Grant me a kiss of happiness
You know I need it
I need her
Whoever she is
Wherever I am
Someway, somehow
I’ll find the day
To rewind the times
That I forgot about
Last night, this morning
Last year, good mourning
Thank you that this is over with. . .
Oh, sweet angel
Lie to me
Allow my words
To feed the hungry minds
of those that don’t listen
and only want my body.
What about what’s left of my spirit
Dragging down below
Sing to those that need
Lie to those that see nothing
Around no quarter
The moon found you
I found you
The numbers did add up
Just a little too soon
All too soon
I found you
I lost you
I’ll find you again
Forget about the end.
Aug 22, 2012
Aug 22, 2012 at 8:55 PM UTC
Nothing is really mine except Krishna.
O my parents, I have searched the world
And found nothing worthy of love.
Hence I am a stranger amidst my kinfolk
And an exile from their company,
Since I seek the companionship of holy men;
There alone do I feel happy,
In the world I only weep.
I planted the creeper of love
And silently watered it with my tears;
Now it has grown and overspread my dwelling.
You offered me a cup of poison
Which I drank with joy.
Mira is absorbed in contemplation of Krishna,
She is with God and all is well!
*
O my King, my father, nothing delights me more
Than singing the praises of Krishna.
If thou art wrath,
then keep thy kingdom and thy palace,
For if God is angry, where can I dwell?
Thou didst send me a cup of poison and a black cobra,
Yet in all I saw only Krishna!
Mira is drunk with love, and is wedded to the Lord!
*
The heart of Mira is entangled
In the beauty of the feet of her Guru;
Nothing else causes her delight!
He enabled her to be happy in the drama of the world;
The Knowledge he gave her dried up
The ocean of being and becoming.
Mira says: My whole world is Shri Krishna;
Now that my gaze is turned inward, I see it clearly
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Waiting all alone
waiting on this cold table
waiting for the doctors and the drones
I feel the scratch
of the itchy cotton gown
on the narrows of my back
as it climbs up and down
Displayed I lye on the medical tables hard cold steel
It seers into the crevices of my bones
I ponder the lone window and wonder if it's real
I listen for the bleep and bloop of medical tones
Nurses walk by in a mechanical grace
poke and **** & tap and touch my face
and then proceed to leave without a trace
with no hint of knowledge of my medical case
Waiting all alone
waiting on this cold table
waiting for the doctors and the drones
I'm a big girl, I'm a big girl
I begin to chant in a simple rhythm
as small as a ball I begin to curl
I'm abandoned inside this glassy prism
The dead silence creeps inside my brain
I want to scream to fill the deadly gap
but the cold thick air of silence brings pain
I comfort myself and say it will be ok
My breathing begins to quicken
my eyes dart around the room
only comfort is the fear which I am stricken
my sight goes bleary as darkness looms
Waiting all alone
waiting on this cold table
waiting for the doctors and the drones
Tears sting the corner of my eyes
I want someone to hold my hand
Oh God how I want to cry
but the only thing there is the bleeding arm band
The test begins with the thickness of barium
It slides down my throat and clings to my esophagus
It tastes like chalk and pandemonium
they want me to suffocate I guess
I chug and chug as the pictures are snapped
x-ray upon x-ray of my stomach and my back
Drink more Drink more They tell me to do
Nervously I shake and say, anymore and I will puke on you
Waiting all alone
waiting on this cold table
waiting for the doctors and the drones
Even more poking and prodding ensues
but of my stomach, ribs and *******
I lay rigid as a board from the pain of each touch
I grow weary of this tiresome rues
The tests are done
and the coast is clear
I am left alone
to dress myself in fear
Dismissed and discharged to walk away
they file my chart with a robotic smile
now for the wait of endless days
I'm lost in my mind's land of emotional exile
Waiting all alone
waiting on this cold table
waiting for the doctors and the drones
Pins & Needles Pins & Needles
I wait for the results
Is it stomach cancer, an ulcer or both??
In the dark I am kept like followers in cults.
Nov 2, 2010
Nov 2, 2010 at 2:34 PM UTC
#Airborne (Pt. III)
(The soaring heart of Jonathan Livingston Seagull)
Every ascent begins with exile.
To rise is to lose the flock,
yet find the wind waiting..
faithful, invisible,
unafraid to hold you.
The breath that fills him is older than dust,
borne through the reckoning
of one who first owned his own shadow..
Each atom refined,
each word made Light.
“To breathe is to bless,”
Jonathan whispers,
*“for every breath must leave the world
cleaner than it arrived.”*
His lungs remember Eden,
and the sky bends to his remembering.
Below, the drizzle hums its dull chorus..
the fat and the fed peck at comfort.
Jonathan breaks from the circle,
rising through their fog,
his wings burning clean in the cold.
“Fear not the thin air,”
he calls,
*“for only those who hunger for height
will learn how mercy breathes.”*
He learns the cost of air,
the ache of height..
and in that thin solitude
where only truth can breathe,
he knows at last
what it means to serve God
with the evil impulse:
*not by hiding it,
but by turning it toward Light.*
Before the Word becomes sound, it becomes breath.
And before breath becomes air, it remembers its Source.
This is the mystery of Jonathan..
the soul who learned that flight begins not in the sky,
but in the heart that has faced its own eclipse
and has chosen to turn toward the Sun
#
Oct 12, 2025
Oct 12, 2025 at 10:48 AM UTC
You're hurting. You're hurting bad.
I can see it in your bloodshot eyes
And how you shy away from smiles
Directed at you. Now your once-had
Gleaming spirit dwindles as it tries
To cut its pain with bleak exile.
But blood is pumping through your veins -
Don't change its course with nails or steel.
Our love for you will never fade, though
You ask me what I'd do if somone else took hold your reins
And replaced you, thinking that would make us feel
Happier - without you? Never. No.
I feel anger and frustration because I'm only human,
But nothing on this planet makes me happy like you can.
I love you, you know that. Believe that in yourself.
So stay with me - you'll be with me,
a heart within myself.
Jun 11, 2018
Jun 11, 2018 at 11:02 AM UTC
Before all of this, even after all of this, I will forever be a patriot.
Before the poet in me matured and I started talking like a parrot,
The dogs of war barked and I climbed exile's fence on my own
And there I have dwelled, with nothing tangible to bring me down.
I have been on this fence so long and I will remain there forever!
Especially since the premature child is still in the incubator.
From this vantage point, I have learned never to trust any politician
I've always looked at them with mistrust, disdain, and suspicion,
Before all of this and before I ran and climbed the exile fence,
I was once mercilessly flogged, dragged and made to dance
By drugged up and coerced child soldiers with a rubber cable
They tied and spread me like a dog on the market table
I watched as innocent people were killed with a rusty knife
There, I vowed to become a fence dweller for the rest of my life!
I've been a patriot all my life but I have done it from here..safer.
From here I have seen blood spilled, hearts broken, hopes dashed,
progresses stalled, mullions embezzled, promises broken, lies told
people changed, games played, party surfed, interests prioritized.
And from this vantage point, I have learned never ever to trust any politician
I have always been right...though I have looked on with disdain, suspicion,
and operated with caution but through it all, I have remained a true patriot and a fence dweller.
.✍️©️✍️IvanBrooksPoetry.✍️©️✍️
Jan 24, 2018
Jan 24, 2018 at 8:03 PM UTC
Just a wicked peacenik’n quick draw from the Paw
Game of Thrones’n the Shah, cRussian bones of the law
And still spewing the news like the red dragon’s maw
When the baby-skull splitters want nuclear winter
Ideal New Cold steel and send Chernobyl shivers
Down Roman Republicans’ severed headlines
Till there’s no more dead kids on for prophet front lines
I’m in exile sharpenin’ [sic]kles in style
Pyongyang’n Kuomintang climate denials
Erasing their nation-hate racial profiles
Outpacing their skinhead disgraces by miles
Shell casin’ this place like the Nuremberg trials
For Fords sellin’ swastikas stockpile bibles
Defiled by Normandy tide genocidals
Fresh meat off the boat spreadin’ Plague mercantiles
I smile and **** ‘em with kindness
Then grind
Battle tax in my acid bath
Salt Marchin’ prime
Because WAR IS THE CRIME
I’m the Clown Prince of Rhyme,
Level 9 state of mind
Like the state of Rakhine
The Black Hand before time
Runnin’ Africa’s Luciest Sky Diamond mine
I’m the ronin alone in
The monkey god shrine
And my guile’s reprisal’s Versailles treaty signed
Strippin’ pride from the Rhine
‘Till your Motherland’s mine
Swine
Apr 8, 2018
Apr 8, 2018 at 2:37 AM UTC
The music may have died for some
That day in nineteen fifty nine
Don McLean said that it ended
But I say, it's just fine
The day that Buddy died
I feel it only took a wound
and though it has been 60 years
I think it's been re-tuned
If silence reigned when the music died
The Beatles would be missing
They picked their name for Buddy's group
An act that had some hissing
The Rolling Stones...would never play
If the music died as told
There would be no Exile on Main Street
There would be no band so bold
The Hollies, well that's simple
They were named after the man
If the music had really died that day
Would Graham Nash still be a fan?
To me it took a major wound
A shot that slowed it down
It changed music's direction
Took it to another town
With Elvis silent on German soil
The Beatles took the lead
They made sure music was living
And many others did they breed
Bobby Darin, Mama Cass
Jimi Hendrix and The Pearl
Jim Morrison and Brian Jones
Made the music spin and twirl
When Elvis Died, it slowed a bit
With Lennon shot...some more
But, the music never, ever died
For those who're keeping score
For each one lost...another comes
To fill the void with sound
It may have been quite wounded
But the music's still around
Each generation keeps it
In it's own and special way
That's why Buddy's music
Is still played on air today
So, please don't think the music
Died way back in fifty nine
Just look at all who've come on since
All your favorites and all mine.
May 7, 2012
May 7, 2012 at 7:18 PM UTC
All this is flashy rhetoric about loving you.
I never had a selfless thought since I was born.
I am mercenary and self-seeking through and through:
I want God, you, all friends, merely to serve my turn.
Peace, re-assurance, pleasure, are the goals I seek,
I cannot crawl one inch outside my proper skin:
I talk of love --a scholar's parrot may talk Greek--
But, self-imprisoned, always end where I begin.
Only that now you have taught me (but how late) my lack.
I see the chasm. And everything you are was making
My heart into a bridge by which I might get back
From exile, and grow man. And now the bridge is breaking.
For this I bless you as the ruin falls. The pains
You give me are more precious than all other gains.
6.8k
The princess who chose
To live in exile
Holding the hand of her husband
With a beautiful smile
Framed in a guile by Ravan
But she didn't fall in his wicked ways
Despite being held captive
And tortured for nights and days
She refused to go with Hanuman
When he came to rescue her
Insisted that Rama come openly to defeat her captor
In Rama's honor exile did she prefer
On the Ravan's defeat - to prove her purity
She had to walk through fire
But the flames neither touched her body
And nor her attire
The fire bowed in her honor
But that wasn't enough
For the clouds of gloom
Were towering above
The world has never been fair to women
Despite of proving her purity
Sita had to leave
It was the height of cruelty
Cause Rama was as weak
In the face of his men
As strong he was
In front of Ravan
Rama- the man
Sita loved enough to die for
Asked her to leave
To the path that led abhor
Just imagine the way Sita would be looking at Rama
With whom she had to part
For he was standing dumb like a statue
When her world was falling apart
Would she have accused or looked down at him
As she asked mother earth to swallow her
She was going back to where she came from
In order to save the last shred of her honor
May 22, 2018
May 22, 2018 at 3:12 PM UTC
We always smile,
When we meet again.
We hug so tight,
In plain sight,
We escaped from a cruel exile
we ran from our daily chores.
We always smile,
As through all our pores,
When we meet again.
With our hands clenched
Not wanting to ever let go,
Then side by side
We start to go,
To nowhere.
Usually, I always stumble
On invisible rocks,
But when we walk like that,
Side by side,
With hands clenched,
To nowhere,
You are the one
Who stumbles now
And we laugh in unison.
Mar 16, 2019
Mar 16, 2019 at 5:44 PM UTC
1453
A Counterfeit—a Plated Person—
I would not be—
Whatever strata of Iniquity
My Nature underlie—
Truth is good Health—and Safety, and the Sky.
How meagre, what an Exile—is a Lie,
And Vocal—when we die—
5.8k
In My Salad Days
Salad Days
**Wikipedia:
Modern use, especially in the United States, refers to a person's heyday when somebody was at the peak of his/her abilities, not necessarily in that person's youth.**
~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Salad
Hints of tints of golden
pear skins,
combine with
ruby'd cranberries
each a face, the cheeks of alcoholic old men,
each wrinkle,
a life's recording.
All are mates for the
marcona almonds
nestling, playing hide n' go seeking
tween silk sheeted leaves of
butter lettuce.
All dressed to the nines,
underneath a top hatted, cravatted, Fred Astaire
marinade.
Coated, bathed, loved,
protected by a vinegar of balsams,
aged grape must, pressed,
a lovely, desirable color,
a brown and bronzed rust,
pressed, then left,
to easy rest for
oh so many years,
like I do, easy resting,
when you feed me in
My Salad Days.
The Days
Though it was a life, decades destructed
Millenniums of de minimus,
Forty plus Seders of exile, of hell,
Marked by promises, whispers, horseradish tears of
Next Year and Jerusalem,
Time steeped in a tradition of patient waiting.
Each year, recorded by a spot of red wine
Purposely Spilled,
By my father on unbleached Passover tablecloth,
To example, to symbolize that
Messiness in life,
Is O.K.
The Salad Days
Salad served with irony generous,
When beard greyed and scraggly,
White speckled, wisps of sea salt,
All my youthful greenery, long wilted.
Yet the words herein writ are my
Afikomen, my just dessert,
My victory song of Hallelujah
Just before we eat, celebrating
My Feast of Ascension, marking a
Delayed Arrival, yet right-on time of
My Salad Days.
It was only when
I was resurrected as two bodies,
A pair of cuffed links coupled,
In My Salad Days,
With the taste of freedom,
A first-born infant survivor,
Was I rebirthed, and to the fore, risen.
When words fell from smiling lips, and
Rain and tears flew upwards, and
Each and every breath was an
Amen.
Aug 15, 2013
Aug 15, 2013 at 1:44 PM UTC
I know I chose this
This cage
This maze
This prizon
This haze
In this exile
I am safe
feeling fragile
but still my mind's
slave
Jul 29, 2018
Jul 29, 2018 at 7:59 PM UTC
alexander k opicho
(eldoret,kenya;[email protected])
Theodorousness is now on me
it will eat me with aghast ravenity
where will I hide my body
an ugly and ripe corpus of my tomfoolery
where will I exile my gadabout heritage
flipping the world in quest for cultural bliss
when Masculine theodority is relentless
in the Armour of intellectual masculinity
determined to thrash the sludge of flappishness
out of my rectitude heart that is pulsing in derogatory fear
where will i pigeonhole myself from the theodorous theodoristy
of herculean Theodore
Jan 22, 2014
Jan 22, 2014 at 3:03 AM UTC
sword-shaped
wild iris leaves
pierce the meadow sod,
reaching outwards
from cold reclusive shelter
beneath native strawberry
carpeted repose
juxtaposed ― smoke rises
to the sun
like the basal verdures
of fleeting winter's escape;
crawling up an invisible
spiral staircase seeking
the azure heavens
r e n a s c e n c e
a nexus ―
stormy winter’s windfall
and,
irony of a wooden match,
gathered winter tinder
inflamed, sacrificed
to the heraldic spring skies
of the begetter;
just like
the wistful soul
beheld a simple man
that impatiently rests
on the threshold
of a dream,..
unnoticed
by the billowing silence
of evanescent
winter exile:
daydreaming
a peaceful ascendance;
dissipating puffs of smoke
drifting away
unto the ether,
weightless as light
harlon rivers ... spring 1st, 2018
Mar 18, 2018
Mar 18, 2018 at 1:07 PM UTC
To say that "government is a necessary evil", is it to say that "It is necessary that government be evil"? If that's the case, then that's a pretty despotic way of looking at the role of government. Why can't government be a necessary 'Good'? Why can't positive psychology see through the darkness that is pessimism and Luciferianism and exile those notions to the depths of human nature, instead of raising it to the pinnacle of human being's ego?
Nov 1, 2010
Nov 1, 2010 at 8:40 PM UTC
#
The prophets wore it,
woven of thorns and laughter..
the jeering crown,
the mark of those
who dared to name the truth.
Kierkegaard wore it,
penned as insane,
pushed to the margins
by voices too clever
to risk listening.
The fool’s crown
is given freely
to any who refuse silence,
to any who lift their voice
against the beast,
against the fortress,
against the lie.
It weighs heavy;
not of gold
but of ridicule,
a diadem of mockery,
a garland of exile.
Yet it fits more honestly
than all the jeweled circlets
worn by the deceivers,
for it is fashioned
from truth spoken aloud.
If the crown is madness,
let it rest heavy.
For it is made of truth
..and truth is the only jewel
worth bearing.
#
Aug 19, 2025
Aug 19, 2025 at 3:02 PM UTC