"exultant" poems
Oh, will you ever return to me,
My wild first force, will you return
When the old madness comes to
Blacken in me and to burn
Slow in my brain like a slow fire
In a blackened brazier - dull
like a smear of blood,
Humid and hot evil, slow-sweltering
up in a flood!
Oh, will you not come back, my fierce song?
Jubilant and exultant, triumphing over
the huge wrong
of that slow fire of madness that feeds
on me - the slow mad blood
thick with its hate and evil, sweltering
up in its flood!
Oh! will you not purge it from me -
my wild lost flame?
Come and restore me, save me from the
intolerable shame
Of that huge eye that eats into my
Naked body constantly
And has no name,
Gazing upon me from the immense and
Cruel bareness of the sky
That leaves no mercy of concealment
That gives no promise of revealment
And that drives us on forever with its
lidless eye
Across a huge and houseless level of
a planetary vacancy
Oh, wild song and fury, fire and flame,
Lost magic of my youth return, defend
me from this shame!
And Oh! You golden vengeance of bright
song
Not cure but answer to earth's wrong
22.8k
30
Adrift! A little boat adrift!
And night is coming down!
Will no one guide a little boat
Unto the nearest town?
So Sailors say—on yesterday—
Just as the dusk was brown
One little boat gave up its strife
And gurgled down and down.
So angels say—on yesterday—
Just as the dawn was red
One little boat—o’erspent with gales—
Retrimmed its masts—redecked its sails—
And shot—exultant on!
6.4k
The shadows have their seasons, too.
The feathery web the budding maples
cast down upon the sullen lawn
bears but a faint relation to
high summer's umbrageous weight
and tunnellike continuum-
black leached from green, deep pools
wherein a globe of gnats revolves
as airy as an astrolabe.
The thinning shade of autumn is
an inherited Oriental,
red worn to pink, nap worn to thread.
Shadows on snow look blue. The skier,
exultant at the summit, sees his poles
elongate toward the valley: thus
each blade of grass projects another
opposite the sun, and in marshes
the mesh is infinite,
as the winged eclipse an eagle in flight
drags across the desert floor
is infinitesimal.
And shadows on water!-
the beech bough bent to the speckled lake
where silt motes flicker gold,
or the steel dock underslung
with a submarine that trembles,
its ladder stiffened by air.
And loveliest, because least looked-for,
gray on gray, the stripes
the pearl-white winter sun
hung low beneath the leafless wood
draws out from trunk to trunk across the road
like a stairway that does not rise.
4.7k
no emotionally ecstatic experience compares
to the seminal instance
whence spermatozoa
(from profuse *********** beget
the miraculous propensity
to procreate despite the steep odds
female fertility fosters potential impregnation
fusing the hereditary debt
of feral, fiery, fomenting friskiness
fueling fancy free footloose fornication
prior to seminal fertilization union
sans ova doth induce fret
full ness in tandem with
diametrically opposed exultant sensations
(biologically, embryonically, microscopically,
et cetera) seismic shocks inject
when deliberate intent arises to disregard
applying prophylactics choice
plying reproductive roulette let
which analogous fruitful uterine plain
bastes the "cooking" egg omelette
which impregnation upends cessation of "self"
first and foremost asper desire to breed
wrenching role of "me" as operative
of webbed world de jure upon
consummating that most miraculous deed
necessitating yet for the fecund female relief
from messy menstrual cycle
she becomes temporarily freed
that perhaps a novitiate (or even a gal practiced
in the euphoric family, she instinctually
abides prenatal signals that heed
without feeling debased, harangued, lectured
pedagogical, polemical, puritanical, et cetera blast
assessing copulation enjoyed gloriously,
ineluctably, kinesthetically
lectured by elder, especially cast
in thee reel life drama, that nine months
til offspring utters initial whimper
elapses exceptionally fast
emitting a radiant golden halo wishing
to bottle confluence of hormonal secretions last
ideally fully awake to the birthing process,
when juiced the first stage of maternity past
cuz every moment thee inconsolably
(perhaps colicky infant)
gets first dibs to suckle,
which round the clock nursing
consumes moments many vast.
Apr 17, 2018
Apr 17, 2018 at 11:04 PM UTC
She let the tape go—
on record
one evening for an ordinary hour
Five years later, we play it back
for laughs after dinner—then as now
“Remember how the stove door screeched
at the house on Olive Street?”
And our voices!
Phoeb’s, lighter–tired
wrapping the nine’s tables in elastic yawns
like flash cards in a rubber band
“Phoeb, your pitch changed so—
while I turned...”
to run water in the tub
lamenting the **** of Two
in frenetic escape of hands
Unruly!
Running rebel taunts in Time’s strict face
who would not dare disturb her dawns
only mine—
Roused by the first round of another day’s
ring of twelve
digits that insist
like uniform with apron waiting
on ironing board that’s never folded
Now the **** of Two cries out
Exultant!
of success in *****
Then, Oratorio for Soap!
The splashy version
with endless bubblings of “Rocky Baby!”
and obbligato of “Where’s Shampoo?”
in jubilant glissadal plunge
an octave through vocal whoops!
…I had not thought
she hardly talked
but sang and squealed or whined in tunes
Her voice lay open to her soul
a roost of piercing humming birds
small of words
but filled with sweet and want
incessant wings and things to say....
How could we have forgotten?
“Are these your boots?
Your clothes laid out?”
From sound and talk, we still can hear
frost phantoms
in winter window rattles—then as now
And Phoebe remarks how one voice
didn’t change though—
“Still talking to herself”
We laugh
and let the tape go....
Feb 4, 2017
Feb 4, 2017 at 12:31 AM UTC
YOU gave, but will not give again
Until enough of paudeen's pence
By Biddy's halfpennies have lain
To be "some sort of evidence',
Before you'll put your guineas down,
That things it were a pride to give
Are what the blind and ignorant town
Imagines best to make it thrive.
What cared Duke Ercole, that bid
His mummers to the market-place,
What th' onion-sellers thought or did
So that his plautus set the pace
For the Italian comedies?
And Guidobaldo, when he made
That grammar school of courtesies
Where wit and beauty learned their trade
Upon Urbino's windy hill,
Had sent no runners to and fro
That he might learn the shepherds' will
And when they drove out Cosimo,
Indifferent how the rancour ran,
He gave the hours they had set free
To Michelozzo's latest plan
For the San Marco Library,
Whence turbulent Italy should draw
Delight in Art whoSe end is peace,
In logic and in natural law
By ******* at the dugs of Greece.
Your open hand but shows our loss,
For he knew better how to live.
Let paudeens play at pitch and toss,
Look up in the sun's eye and give
What the exultant heart calls good
That some new day may breed the best
Because you gave, not what they would,
But the right twigs for an eagle's nest!
December
2.2k
FOR certain minutes at the least
That crafty demon and that loud beast
That plague me day and night
Ran out of my sight;
Though I had long perned in the gyre,
Between my hatred and desire.
I saw my freedom won
And all laugh in the sun.
The glittering eyes in a death's head
Of old Luke Wadding's portrait said
Welcome, and the Ormondes all
Nodded upon the wall,
And even Strafford smiled as though
It made him happier to know
I understood his plan.
Now that the loud beast ran
There was no portrait in the Gallery
But beckoned to sweet company,
For all men's thoughts grew clear
Being dear as mine are dear.
But soon a tear-drop started up,
For aimless joy had made me stop
Beside the little lake
To watch a white gull take
A bit of bread thrown up into the air;
Now gyring down and perning there
He splashed where an absurd
Portly green-pated bird
Shook off the water from his back;
Being no more demoniac
A stupid happy creature
Could rouse my whole nature.
Yet I am certain as can be
That every natural victory
Belongs to beast or demon,
That never yet had freeman
Right mastery of natural things,
And that mere growing old, that brings
Chilled blood, this sweetness brought;
Yet have no dearer thought
Than that I may find out a way
To make it linger half a day.
O what a sweetness strayed
Through barren Thebaid,
Or by the Mareotic sea
When that exultant Anthony
And twice a thousand more
Starved upon the shore
And withered to a bag of bones!
What had the Caesars but their thrones?
1.9k
Planting excitement upon us,
My daughter asks how to thin the beets.
"When the plants are three inches tall,
Pick the weaker ones and pull them up,"
I say. "You'll take out two thirds of the young plants
So the rest can grow."
I see a troubled look upon her face,
And realize what I find in myself....
The teacher's quandary:
Picking whom to keep,
Whom to cull...
We put our love into them all.
Watching for first and tender shoots,
Celebrating as the fledgling leaves appear,
Not thinking of a time ahead,
Dreaded time to thin....
Teachers are reluctant to cull,
Building emotional connection,
Providing loving direction,
Promising success to all....
Then come the standardized tests,
The team selections,
The popularity contests,
The invitations to slumber parties,
The division of elites,
The rising of divas,
The rostering of first teams...
The separation of pariahs begins,
The promise we made to early learners ends,
Superiors, exultant, drown out the tears
Of those left standing by the fence,
Excluded from the chances to advance.
Standing in the seedling beds,
Spring breezes rustling tender leaves,
I turn to Kate....
"It's never easy....
But if we don't thin the beets,
The beets will not develop
Beneath the leaves."
These damnable analogies arise
Infrequently these days,
And I am standing in the dirt,
Black soil upon on my hands,
Wondering about survival of the weak,
The treatment of humans and young plants,
Pondering humane ways to honor every student
In which I am investing...
Wishing I could see the end of high stakes testing....
Jun 4, 2015
Jun 4, 2015 at 12:29 PM UTC
a
goddess
of
love
a
symbol
of
lasting
adoration
a woman throughout the centuries
who has attracted
many a man's devotion
she of charm
and enticing allure
she of a superlative
nature
men have fallen to their knees
in exultant praise
worshipping the embodiment
of her feminine maze
and she invokes
powerful feelings
within a man's
core
Venus the allegory
of
timeless
armour
Aug 11, 2018
Aug 11, 2018 at 6:24 AM UTC
This is no love poem
No love, no art work, no poem
No music nor rhythm
But of images
Of farmers exultant
Though they break their backs,
Or their bones creak,
With every slash of their sickles,
The heavy strokes
Wounding light in the fiery heat of noon,
The gaunt-faced sons of earth,
Bringing home harvests of gold
To the people's granary,
Where no greedy landlords are in sight.
For centuries, the land robbers
Had squeezed their souls dry
In constant toil.
It may be that their time is up.
But this is no love poem
No love, no art work, no poem
But of history
Of workers milling around a lingering twilight.
Pounding their hammers with their might,
Ecstatic at the thought of freedom,
Yet battling still, long dreaded ills
Of feudal ******* barratry,
Imperialism
Storing up for the people’s cause,
Building a new commune in the new place
Freed from the landlord-minded President
From the imperialist ogres
Of IMF-World Bank and Uncle Sam,
The warmongers,
From oppression
And poverty and wretchedness
That, like a python, had wound
Around them to the end.
But this is no love poem
No love, no art work, no poem
No fictive tale but of radiant truth.
As throngs of men
And women march
Out of their homes
With new-found hope,
Gathering strength
As from a blasting storm,
Defiant now of lying saints or heroes
Or of murderer Presidents
Who speak with forked tongues,
As the throng march out into the streets
Flooding the cities,
Ready to offer their lives for freedom
To them would come such happiness,
Such love
No poem would express,
No art suffice to render.
This is no love poem
No piece of art, no song
Only a sense
Of how it is to tell of battles won,
Of folding in to feel the surge of triumph
Though brief perhaps,
Within this flashpoint moment
Of the people's war.
Aug 12, 2015
Aug 12, 2015 at 6:24 AM UTC
I cry for you Argentina
hectic planet’s southern corner
land of passion, crazy arena
aforetime our bonds were stronger.
No longer yours, you never mine
our lives belonged together once
I used to taste your scarlet wine,
your gorgeous girls, your charming dance.
The friends from ages, forgotten stories
so much privation, my heart is sore
my aging parents, the elder brothers
your call is clear I shall wait no more.
Exultant hugs, reunion is great
my parent’s sanctuary regaining life
but there is an end, a settled date
cruel farewell that sticks its knife.
I’ve seen those humid agates before
I've heard how silence can drown the wail
hair-raising feeling on every pore
they'll stand upright, I will be frail.
Oh, childhood playground! my old-time shelter
long time impeded of children laughing
no words no tears, this way is better
my love, my kids, my home are waiting.
Jan 4, 2019
Jan 4, 2019 at 1:29 AM UTC
Her gaze flitters as she looks about the room.
All seems the same as it once was, she thinks.
Gliding across the shredded carpet,
Her attention is drawn to the winding stairwell.
Memories ravage her mind…
She is seven years old, sliding down
The smooth, freshly polished banister-
She had won the race.
Her little mind is ever so exultant.
Climbing the stairs again,
She never wants the game to end.
She blinks, taken aback by the strength of the flashback.
She knows it could have been far worse.
A heavy sigh escapes her nostrils.
She turns to leave the beaten, empty home,
But caught an unbearable urge to run up the stairs-
To the attic, to burry herself,
In the moth eaten remains of her past.
Apr 22, 2012
Apr 22, 2012 at 1:42 PM UTC
Rhapsodic moments
Sublimely rising
Singing
Blissfully blending
Piano notes
Exquisite, sweet
Rapturously surging
Precise and pure
Tumultuous as the rain
Overflowing
Rippling, rolling
Thunderous drums
Effulgent, ecstatic
Crashing crescendos
Rising and falling
Passionate sounds
Exultant, blissful
Harmonious melodies
Serene and sensuous
Tender as a kiss.
Oct 12, 2014
Oct 12, 2014 at 12:31 AM UTC
Mindful of you the sodden earth in spring,
And all the flowers that in the springtime grow,
And dusty roads, and thistles, and the slow
Rising of the round moon, all throats that sing
The summer through, and each departing wing,
And all the nests that the bared branches show,
And all winds that in any weather blow,
And all the storms that the four seasons bring.
You go no more on your exultant feet
Up paths that only mist and morning knew,
Or watch the wind, or listen to the beat
Of a bird’s wings too high in air to view,—
But you were something more than young and sweet
And fair,—and the long year remembers you.
1.5k
no emotionally ecstatic experience compares
to the seminal instance
whence spermatozoa
(from profuse *********** beget
the miraculous propensity
to procreate despite the steep odds
female fertility fosters potential impregnation
fusing the hereditary debt
of feral, fiery, fomenting friskiness
fueling fancy free footloose fornication
prior to seminal fertilization union
sans ova doth induce fret
full ness in tandem with
diametrically opposed exultant sensations
(biologically, embryonically, microscopically,
et cetera) seismic shocks inject
when deliberate intent arises to disregard
applying prophylactics choice
plying reproductive roulette let
which analogous fruitful uterine plain
bastes the "cooking" egg omelette
which impregnation upends cessation of "self"
first and foremost asper desire to breed
wrenching role of "me" as operative
of webbed world de jure upon
consummating that most miraculous deed
necessitating yet for the fecund female relief
from messy menstrual cycle
she becomes temporarily freed
that perhaps a novitiate (or even a gal practiced
in the euphoric family, she instinctually
abides prenatal signals that heed
without feeling debased, harangued, lectured
pedagogical, polemical, puritanical, et cetera blast
assessing copulation enjoyed gloriously,
ineluctably, kinesthetically
lectured by elder, especially cast
in thee reel life drama, that nine months
til offspring utters initial whimper
elapses exceptionally fast
emitting a radiant golden halo wishing
to bottle confluence of hormonal secretions last
ideally fully awake to the birthing process,
when juiced the first stage of maternity past
cuz every moment thee inconsolably
(perhaps colicky infant)
gets first dibs to suckle,
which round the clock nursing
consumes moments many vast.
Feb 11, 2018
Feb 11, 2018 at 1:11 AM UTC
I
Winter's fog swirling,
settling gently on the peak.
Should I,
or should I not charge the beast?
Oh, but to climb,
that serpentine road
through this thick mystical Merlinesque brume.
II
I abandon all reasoning
and don my armor
to do battle with the slithering Wyvern,
"The Pinnacle".
My silver Steed awaits me.
And in almost Ninja attire,
helmet placed,
cleats clicked and locked into pedals,
I am one with my ride.
III
Mist now's upon me.
Mist and bone cold.
I trek upward to the proving ground.
Drifting,
as always, into a trance,
a meditation,
ignoring pain as a pugilist.
Shut up legs, I say.
Shut up and give me one more day.
Prompt me not
that I am the aged Warrior,
for with every cadence I am reminded
of my fleeting days.
IV
I crawl upon the spine of the dragon,
out of my saddle and with the fullness of might,
break loose from the fetters of the mundane,
habitual world below these clouds.
V
Mist to rain,
rain to ice.
Diamond hard shards of sleet
bounce off my helmet,
peppering this snaking path towards heaven.
Crystalline obstacles
to navigate on my surly descent.
VI
I have owned this battle before you know?
Many times past.
But like a moment,
it can't be possessed.
Still this right of passage I must pursue
over and over and over
til I am no more
and my steed has been pawned.
VII
So quiet now
high above the clouds,
so alone,
so away from the world.
What solace.
Oh, to die here.
To fall and lay, looking up at these leafless trees,
on this gray Winter's day.
And to witness my last peacefilled thought.
VIII
But not today.
No, not today
for I am near the precipice.
I step up the pace and route the enemy
and laugh in deaths face.
One more stroke, and I gut the beast.
One more turn and I am exultant.
Oh Rapture,
Oh Felicity.
Mar 7, 2013
Mar 7, 2013 at 2:05 AM UTC
Spring has sprung
Weeping cherry blossoms
Waiting to scatter
Like memory fragments
Upon the ground
Sad wistful blooms bleeding life
Beautiful mortality
Accepting of its volatility
Bursting into being
Destined to scatter
Blooming en masse like clouds
Accepting of karma
Accepting of blooming
Blooming as flowers of death
Exultant in scattering a beautiful death.
Apr 21, 2017
Apr 21, 2017 at 3:01 PM UTC
All other seasons usher their expectant Mother--
lay her down, and let her be.
Her's is a great birthing...paean of the eleventh hour.
Air blown lukewarm, honeyed...showers soft as
tears that place the face of growing significance.
Inbreaking rumors of life to be, the exultant charge,
moment of creation split green, thus created to divide
but moment ago where none was.
Early fires of greenery...the irony lost on nothing--
the harshest season precedes the gentlest.
Analogous to the truth of hope, where from the dead
of winter...a flower.
Broken open its color as tangible light, to it--the bee's
figure eight prayer, partaking thereof.
The rampant crisis of consciousness creature to newborn
creature, all immersed in the golden wave of renewal.
It's as if a standing ovation burst in a monastery...
what's been withheld in the making is withheld no more,
Mothered by Spring.
Mar 20, 2015
Mar 20, 2015 at 11:33 AM UTC
Exultant in hiatus hovering
Indulgent in this paused rewind,
To Jubilantly rob the reaper
Bleeding him of stolen time.
Illicit whispers silenced now
A brooding hue invades the room,
Whispy red, magenta forces
Hold at bay gloom's moody doom.
Translucence in the shadow shimmers
Time and space suspend as one,
Whilst others wither on the vine
Eternity's embraced by some.
This gentle feeling, floating there
The thrill of flying free,
From complications vagaries,
From life's complexity.
The crystal cadence starts to wither
Silky walls do billow in,
Hurled abuse invades the instant
Carping walls of harping din.
Retreating to the everyday
And wrinkled skin again,
The golden days of pause have fled
As time resumes her reign.
Marshalg
@theCoalface
Mangere Bridge
29 October 2009
www.worthyofpublishing.com
Oct 29, 2009
Oct 29, 2009 at 10:26 PM UTC
Tonight I have decided
That love should be indicted
Because I am not the final "Z"
But alas I am free.
Yesterday I said good bye
I'm deserving of a wise guy
Because I am not a bourgeoise
But alas I am free.
Tomorrow I may just weep
It's hard to feel incomplete
Yes, I don't flow like the ocean sea
But alas I am free
Currently I am exultant
For this is the resultant
I am a bel esprit
(But) Alas I am free
Mar 30, 2014
Mar 30, 2014 at 8:05 PM UTC
I am a myth and something that cannot be defined,
ablaze with the fiery heat of a life that has been most unkind.
With a touch of a feather I ignite a match,
wanting nothing more than to detach
myself from the earth that caused my tribulation,
and to cause my own cremation.
Black ash darkening the sky's midst,
I am being kissed
by the scorching blaze of a newborn flame
my last breath unnoticed as the calm overcame.
Rising from the ashes, I am born again,
powerful, exultant, majestic through all the pain.
Jan 12, 2016
Jan 12, 2016 at 10:32 AM UTC
Ritual is not specific to any race, ethnicity, culture, way of life or person.
Tradition, if not engrained and present, is despair.
I remember moments in youth:
pungent, exultant,
bike riding sand castle building,
good old fashioned fun.
I remember some moments of ten to fifteen years ago, I remember moments from 6 to 7 months ago.
I've forgotten some.
I opened, read, and placed the money aside
from graduation cards. I was surprised when I opened a card
received from campus ministry leader with no money, only a sweet note.
I counted the money happily, twenty dollar bills, fifty dollar bills, seventy-five dollar checks.
I checked my text messages, every seventy-five seconds
and heart skipped, slipped a beat when my mother calls and says
she's driving to Canada, she's got to get a way.
Really she's locked herself up at the Econo Lodge behind Big Boy's
only, approximately, eight minutes away.
And we drive up, and she presses her face to the motel window, door locked secure, and I press my hand up to the window.
But she won't let me in.
She consumes, she consumed.
But she wouldn't let me in.
When I come home from my first year of school
I will tell her
I am an actress, too.
I know some folks.
They sink down.
Sinking dirt into the ground,
landslide and erosion.
Buildings, structures depressed and falling in.
Make yourself bigger, I advise.
Open your eyes, blink quickly between the palms of your hands,
face a window, if it helps.
See the light.
Did you see the light? I did.
Repression,
hold.
Hold.
Keep holding,
hold on tight to your bike handlebars.
Hold on to the straps of your book-bag until
your elbows cramp up stiff.
Hold on to your blankie,
rub it all over your body.
Inhale,
do not suffocate.
Exhale,
and feel good and bright.
You've done something good for yourself.
Feel good about that.
You've just brightened up your whole house.
Apr 1, 2014
Apr 1, 2014 at 6:13 PM UTC
Catastrophic end in sight,
light bends, her eyes contrite;
a shaking phantasmagoric dispute
making both husband and lover mute;
revelation upon revelation,
hatred in each exhalation;
exasperated rivals stand apart,
one soul exultant, one twisted heart.
Nov 9, 2015
Nov 9, 2015 at 9:40 PM UTC
A skater lone soars on new ice.
I hold my breath as I observe
His every pirouette and swerve.
Yesterday, the water lapped a chilling shore;
Today a brilliant skin holds sway.
Thickening hourly though it may,
I wonder at the nature of the glider there;
Does he consider life and death,
Or think beyond exultant breath
To be the first upon new winter's ice?
He sails along an ice-blade track,
Never falt'ring, never looking back.
Oh, I was young upon a time and flew
The way this skater now does fly,
But fear and "wisdom" hinder twice
While others soar above thin ice.
Nov 30, 2021
Nov 30, 2021 at 11:19 AM UTC