"fathoms" poems
I pick up the skirt,
I pick up the sparkling beads
in black,
this thing that moved once
around flesh,
and I call God a liar,
I say anything that moved
like that
or knew
my name
could never die
in the common verity of dying,
and I pick
up her lovely
dress,
all her loveliness gone,
and I speak to all the gods,
Jewish gods, Christ-gods,
chips of blinking things,
idols, pills, bread,
fathoms, risks,
knowledgeable surrender,
rats in the gravy of 2 gone quite mad
without a chance,
hummingbird knowledge, hummingbird chance,
I lean upon this,
I lean on all of this
and I know:
her dress upon my arm:
but
they will not
give her back to me.
39k
In fathoms
Between my flannel sheets,
There's no better place
To sleep;
But then I turn my blanket on,
Level Two
Is snug and warm.
Envelope-like we interlope,
Entwine and grind,
And grasp and *****
Giving me rising hope,
This tug's gonna stay afloat.
Up now. Rise. Up periscope!
Dive. Dive!
Beneath waves and swirls,
Beneath flannel caps
To chests of pearls,
Now deeper,
Where life unfurls.
Our raging flannel
Seas
Grow calm;
And in the quiet,
After the storm,
We lie on
Our bedded sea,
My first mate sighs:
*I have to ***
Nov 26, 2014
Nov 26, 2014 at 12:51 PM UTC
*Further my mind goes, than I believed it could fathom
Fathoms below even the deceased dreams chasm
Impassionately growing through and between atoms
To learn
There is no whole truth in solely words
Blindfolded, if your mind isn't where the memory occurs
So it's sure
We'll never understand more than we're capable to confer
And it doesn't mean, you can't relate to the way I toss n' turn
In my sleep
That it isn't the same color we bleed
Or that we aren't perhaps equally 'deep'
Just that we hold some nature of privacy in our thoughts, from any other's gaze
Did I mention it was books of seperate authors, though we're on the same page?
What I wish to relate today
Is I have been changing to date
I'm breaking, down just like anyone else
Draining my health
Enslaved by the chase of wealth
Smiling while we're high, but we'll retreat to our personal hells
The honesty is, I'm scared to delve into myself
Because I know where my truth gets ugly, and has no glamour
Not the 30 second commercial version of what it's like living with cancer
It's habits, actions and manner
Looming over my pride
Leaving a weakness in my stride
Making me feel tired before I've tried*
Jun 4, 2014
Jun 4, 2014 at 12:42 AM UTC
By David John Mowers
Oceanus, Acheron, Styx and Gyges, Phlegethon,
Phaeacians lament, mourn the loss, Scheria, dissolved in froths.
Virgil’s tale, found correct, a land too good, a nation wrecked,
Nausikaa, burn the ships; their minds released, cool airy nips,
Below the wave, watery grave, submerged to bottom, fathoms by stave,
Fathoms some more, until the whorl, descending to, another world.
Through Omphalos, to Land of Sleep, awaits a beast, where time has ceased,
Darkness here, underworld, cold and frigid, below the whirl,
In solemn grave, souls released, judged and counted, by the beast,
Deeper than, the deep itself, past drowning fairies and dying elves,
Who did mourn them? Those golden men, magic mariners, Mino's kin?
What wrong was seen? What vice not true? What awful sin? What did they do?
One thousand years, first black age, Two thousand more, to find the stage,
Cast off Aries and cast Orion, to find beginning, of Golden Lion.
Man of Heavens, Beast agrees, Bull of Sky, Ox of seas,
Land of Punt, Land of Éire, Ogyges blue, hearts on fire,
All the seashores, all the mines, Tribe of Dan, from ancient times,
Port of Sais, Port of Thera, Port of Lagash, bygone era,
Sailor’s horse, Minotaur, a lyre is crying, strummed guitar, nation dying, abattoir.
Ochre foams to sanguine depth, there they rested, where Kronos slept,
He’ll never answer, he doesn’t care, we’ll never know, if this was fair.
Our hearts in sadness, hands on the gates! I curse you Poseidon!
. . .and your Sea of Fates!
Jun 4, 2016
Jun 4, 2016 at 7:58 AM UTC
She has her secret magic
to keep men's hopes alive
she's truly fantastic
the girl the woman the wife
On earth the heavenly flower
in color's riot blooming wild
south wind and summer's shower
god's face is she girl child
The morning though passes to noon
times in her wings fly
she's a woman too soon
the woman of my eye
The woman of all weather
without her man is woe-man
she's wife sister mother
the way only a woman can
She fathoms what men don't tire
see her heart burned and holed
till she walks the whole length of fire
and be the woman in their eye old
Jan 24, 2014
Jan 24, 2014 at 2:02 AM UTC
Find solace in solitude,
There is no shame in that.
We are unknown to ourselves
An ocean to which we delve.
Scarcely coming up for air,
Entangled in fathoms
Whirlpools of despair.
Waves of introspection
Spare us shallow reefs
Yet cast us into darkness
And the horrors of the deep.
Apr 14, 2015
Apr 14, 2015 at 6:56 PM UTC
1712
A Pit—but Heaven over it—
And Heaven beside, and Heaven abroad,
And yet a Pit—
With Heaven over it.
To stir would be to slip—
To look would be to drop—
To dream—to sap the Prop
That holds my chances up.
Ah! Pit! With Heaven over it!
The depth is all my thought—
I dare not ask my feet—
’Twould start us where we sit
So straight you’d scarce suspect
It was a Pit—with fathoms under it—
Its Circuit just the same.
Seed—summer—tomb—
Whose Doom to whom?
8.9k
732
She rose to His Requirement—dropt
The Playthings of Her Life
To take the honorable Work
Of Woman, and of Wife—
If ought She missed in Her new Day,
Of Amplitude, or Awe—
Or first Prospective—Or the Gold
In using, wear away,
It lay unmentioned—as the Sea
Develop Pearl, and ****
But only to Himself—be known
The Fathoms they abide—
8.7k
*Sailor,
And my heart still remains
In the unknown depths of the ocean
Deep within the treasures of the sailors
Burried fathoms deep
Sunk with the weight of the past pain
Come on sailor help me please
Help me loosen it from all the coral
And see me swim all over the ocean
Explore the seas with my emotions
And
I'll take you with me
Dont worry about that
For I only said
To free my heart
I didn't tell you to give it back to me..
your Mermaid..*
Aug 4, 2015
Aug 4, 2015 at 2:51 PM UTC
1165
Contained in this short Life
Are magical extents
The soul returning soft at night
To steal securer thence
As Children strictest kept
Turn soonest to the sea
Whose nameless Fathoms slink away
Beside infinity
5.8k
[From Fragments, The Following...]
... so it was that the Urth bled less. The Birch Moot was becalmed by the Anvil Cloud of Impending Deluge.
The Young Gods made sport of Their Names, and aimed to Oblique the colony of clever flesh
groping at the tender roots of an insipid devastation. The First Ones had vanished.
But Time was born and the Mortal Whirl released the Hounds of Change. Transition fused -
with the Eternal; and the offspring of unloved Spirits, roamed the Tangible. All Suffering was amplified
in the diamond lungs of a divine corpse, dreaming.
... for when the iron heart of The Cast Out was retrieved, the Legion of Heaven poured unseemly Grace upon the Fathoms
and the High King of Doubt, forced his blade ' Nimue '
into the soft palette, of the First Mouth. The Stars were born and The Void overheard the First Naming.
A solid drizzle of enchantment cloaked the oaken Yggdrasil
and The Pattern unleashed the folly of Pattern
to mask the virtue of succinct Chaos. The Children of The Lower Sky ate their Masters and thereby swollen -
gathered in the underbrush of the Fecund.
They came to Know Regret by Answering Prayers. The Kingdoms of Wane were waning in the fearsome riot of Creation
and not a boy, a man from no woman
and no woman
a man.
... the siege lights of the petty stars, babbled in the wake of yawning eruption and nullification. the ****** theater of blood
was made Holy by way of forcing camels into eyes of needles in constant dystopian joy.
... and that's how the rain gets in.
[ From the ' Kingdoms Of Wane ', a Lost Tome from Antiquity and Dada ]
What ?
Jan 27, 2013
Jan 27, 2013 at 7:07 PM UTC
Could it be my destiny to be lonely?
That thought alone alwayz fathoms
Though I make love to them like they’re my soul mates
I treat them like they do not matter
I give my love like cupid but my emotions I turn into an undertaker
I bury them.... afraid that it’ll one day be used against me so I rather play it safer
Could it be my destiny to be alone?
Roam the world lost like a nomad with no place of home
Just tell me you “love me” as I caress your neck with my lips
I steal her soul and feed off of her energy as our tongues twist
I know she’s lying, hell I want her to cuz I can’t afford it to be real
Because I rather have scars from the past than new wounds that have to heal
Could it be my destiny to be in a solitary state?
I write this as I lay here next to her, wish I could remember her name
And she probably doesn’t even remember mine
But it’s fine....
This is continuous, with a new woman in bed alwayz next to me
I’m crying out for help here but for tonight just love me even though you don’t love me because alone is my destiny
Sep 18, 2018
Sep 18, 2018 at 6:00 AM UTC
Serenity coils like a Babylonian serpent
around simplicity and sincerity.
The soul burns eternal, perennial fathoms
of expansion and purity in wisdom and the search
for the crown of grace in this reality.
A crown not made of gold.
Apr 12, 2015
Apr 12, 2015 at 11:58 AM UTC
Pretty is what people say you are
It's a status
Pretty is limiting your meals
Limiting yourself to two celery sticks for dinner
Pretty is whether boys like you or not
Pretty is throwing up at the end of the day
Pretty determines who your friends are
Who talks to you
Who looks at you
Who knows you exist
Pretty is what you wear
Pretty is having the spot light
Pretty fathoms your mere existence
Pretty hurts
Jun 25, 2014
Jun 25, 2014 at 12:57 PM UTC
Like an explosion;
But in s l o w m o t i o n, a tidal wave crashes
This ironclad vessel beginning to thrash
Through the flashes of light though I see a brief passage
The corroded bolts past their toll
Give way exposing the hull
Capsizing the flood gates,
Negating promise of a safe harbor ashore
Amidst the panic and commotion
Together we sank, into the ocean;
*Sailing the high seas of impassion
I was impassive, &
Like an anchor*
Love plunged to unimaginable new fathoms
Dragging us down;
Perilously we claw hand over fist
The sorrows we drown
Adrift the turmoil and wreckage
Bubbles ascend toward the surface
(Spluttered echoes of our last choked hopes)
Water fills our lungs expunging the air
Fearing the end I daresay;
Babe take my breath away
Death is only the beginning
But I’m afraid of the forward path’s embrace
Dead ahead through the currents we tread
Shallow water blackout,
There's no turning back now,
Let's die as we lived
Apr 13, 2014
Apr 13, 2014 at 9:26 PM UTC
complexity
is your beauty
simplicity
your mystery
interdependence
sustains you
once upon a time
we dipped bowls
into your waters
and brought up
draughts of life
now
Skipjacks go
fathoms deep
into endless
depletion
charting
entangled
dead zones
broadening
into a sea of
inertness
your delicate
eco-essence tips
toward oblivion
effluvia farmers
layer mechanized
blankets of
nitrates on your
sunset shores
weaving
green tendrils
of algae blooms
strangling the
entanglements
of all links in
your miraculous
food chain
the EPA
proscribes
a Jenny Craig
pollution diet
to halt the
slaughter in
oxygen
challenged
dead zones
where rockfish
are garroted,
oysters get drilled
by screwworms
and azure tinted
soft shell *****
dance soft
shoe taps
lifting a tinny
chorus of sad
Piedmont Blues
the flat-lining
watersheds
voiceless
warnings
tremble
rocking the
purged nests of
screaming ospreys
in vocal protest
of a sinking
Tangier Isle
anointing it’s
tombstones
of unvisited
cemeteries with
multicolored
guano
fitting
alkaline
tributes
to the lost
inhabitants
and forgotten
languages
sinking into the
brine of gray
brackish tides
Delmarva’s fine
intra-continental
balance skewed
by the oozing
industrial swill
of Frank Perdue
chicken farms
ruling the roost of
sanctioned sustainability
tinging clear watersheds
of finger lakes
set in splints to
repair dislocations
and complex
compound fractures
that may never heal
again
Music Selection:
Taj Mahal: Fishin Blues
jbm
Oakland
6/7/12
Feb 19, 2013
Feb 19, 2013 at 8:36 AM UTC
Deep beneath the earth a companion flows as liquid into his soul, filling every curve, slip and crack.
86 fathoms below, a man is filled and unchained from his solitude
creating a place for the mind to swim in one infinite breath.
Swimming to the surface
Thunder roars, lightning strikes: releasing him from beneath. He climbs out.
There she stands in front, electrified. From head to toe, she inflames him, illuminating the night sky.
The man approaches, thwarted by his ambition and
left into stasis, as he watches her.
Frozen, her eyes lock onto his.
Enduring, he learns her true feeling.
Sep 6, 2016
Sep 6, 2016 at 9:13 PM UTC
i struggle with the tomb.
i come from the moon to alight upon an earthen vase
to pause upon the lip and swoon.
i am no ghost. but through walls, i come.
lugging a throne of tears and thimbles
of blood... my fire, more dark than the hunter's motive.
my life more spark than the sun's design.
complete me, and i will endure the wane hours
and shun all harm... like the one stroke of lightning
in a cup, swollen with angry bees
affixed to a white sheet of ice... I'll descend into You,
like a lodestone on a chain,
to be hoisted up from the fathoms of Loss
to drown in our madness, just because -
like a noise
in a sound.
Jan 9, 2017
Jan 9, 2017 at 4:17 AM UTC
1182
Remembrance has a Rear and Front—
’Tis something like a House—
It has a Garret also
For Refuse and the Mouse.
Besides the deepest Cellar
That ever Mason laid—
Look to it by its Fathoms
Ourselves be not pursued—
3.2k
Acerbic antagonist alliterates agonizing accusations,
blasting ******* backbiter butting beautiful bombastic brainy blond bomb.
Cumulative cranial casualties cease caveman's cognitive coherence.
Doom digger derides Daddy's dangling dire dreary ****
Eclectic esoteric eccentric egotistical estranger;
Forthcoming fathoms fetch faithless fleeting father.
God given goblins gather gossamer ganglions;
Hell's hairy harlot harpies hover heeding Hyperion.
Ignatius imbibes irrevocably insisting,
"Jesus juggles justice's joy jarring jams."
Kindness kindles Kilimanjaro;
Malicious mountains melt, Mmm, morning marjoram.
Nothing negates Neanderthal ninnying.
Overt obsessions obfuscate original object of
purest passions, paltry past pinings,
quickly quieted, quelled,
resisted, relinquished, readily, ruefully, roundly
saturated, suffocated; surreptitiously silenced,
terribly torturing the thrashed tamed tormentor:
Ugly, ungrateful, unapologetic,
Vanity,
woefully wallowing, wailing, "Where's
Xanadu's
zeitgeist!?"
Jan 15, 2012
Jan 15, 2012 at 12:09 AM UTC
[Being an humble address to Her Majesty's Naval advisers, who sold Nelson's old flagship to the Germans for a thousand pounds.]
WHO says the Nation's purse is lean,
Who fears for claim or bond or debt,
When all the glories that have been
Are scheduled as a cash asset?
If times are bleak and trade is slack,
If coal and cotton fail at last,
We've something left to barter yet--
Our glorious past.
There's many a crypt in which lies hid
The dust of statesman or of king;
There's Shakespeare's home to raise a bid,
And Milton's house its price would bring.
What for the sword that Cromwell drew?
What for Prince Edward's coat of mail?
What for our Saxon Alfred's tomb?
They're all for sale!
And stone and marble may be sold
Which serve no present daily need;
There's Edward's Windsor, labelled old,
And Wolsey's palace, guaranteed.
St. Clement Danes and fifty fanes,
The Tower and the Temple grounds;
How much for these? Just price them, please,
In British pounds.
You hucksters, have you still to learn,
The things which money will not buy?
Can you not read that, cold and stern
As we may be, there still does lie
Deep in our hearts a hungry love
For what concerns our island story?
We sell our work -- perchance our lives,
But not our glory.
Go barter to the knacker's yard
The steed that has outlived its time!
Send hungry to the pauper ward
The man who served you in his prime!
But when you touch the Nation's store,
Be broad your mind and tight your grip.
Take heed! And bring us back once more
Our Nelson's ship.
And if no mooring can be found
In all our harbours near or far,
Then tow the old three-decker round
To where the deep-sea soundings are;
There, with her pennon flying clear,
And with her ensign lashed peak high,
Sink her a thousand fathoms sheer.
There let her lie!
3.2k
You've asked me how can I see a future when love, in all
Its numinous beauty, is waning?
I reply, the immortal stars still shine above the veil of clouds.
You say, why are the salmon swimming to their pools of origin
Only to die as they spawn? Only to die?
I tell you their love is unconditional, like mine.
You ask me did the giant sequoia know it was shelter for the burning grasses
When they walked from the seas? I reply yes they knew.
You question me about the lofty snow cranes that fly over the Himalayas
And I reply by describing
How the priestly flocks, chanting on their mission, honk—
Announcing the mantle steps to the heavens.
You inquire about the elephantine manatees gracing the shallow banks
And wonder if the sea mermaids remember their lives beyond the latitudes
Of capricorn and cancer?
Or you’ve discovered in the wind a new reasoning as to why
The talons of the paired eagles lock in midair as they court?
You want to understand the nimbus garden, ocean slate, of lake Titicaca
Where resides the Andean sea horse gliding above the clouds?
The whales that circle dance in unison collecting krill?
The noetic display of the birds of paradise, the songs of nameless creatures
Playing in the wilderness like a forgotten melody only lovers lips remember?
I want to tell you that true love knows this, that life in its
Prismatic shimmer is all the myriad colours of infinite existence wrapped
In time to the sublime structure of white and bones. I must tell you
That the flower is mighty in its opening, the humming bird is a sorcerer
Who needles ambrosia with vortex wings weaving his way to the Gods.
But I am nothing beside your disbelief which has arrived, before
I can even imagine the sweet awakening, like doom, my shell is the iridescent
Hollow of the one eyed Abalone, discarded in the deep fathoms
Of the ocean pressures.
I swim the tides as you do, investigating
The endless tendril seas,
And in my chest, during the night, I woke up empty,
The only thing treasured, a golden face
Trapped inside my dreams.
— after Neruda
Nov 23, 2012
Nov 23, 2012 at 6:59 PM UTC
Shallow fathoms of echoing laughter,
Evolving to limitless growth,
Shuning jealousy,
Embracing simplicity.
Apr 4, 2012
Apr 4, 2012 at 1:56 AM UTC
Friggin' the best of
All maritime words
Like
Lash the friggin' tops'l
Friggin' foresail
Fifteen friggin' frigates
Five friggin' fathoms deep
Flotsam friggin' jetsam
Friggin' me timbers
Friggin' boson's mate
Scrub the friggin' deck
Aye aye, friggin' Captain
It just feels so right
As spicy as Jamaican ***
It rolls right off the tongue
Like a wench's pearl
Just like a friggin'wench's pearl,
Mate
r~ 28Feb14
Feb 28, 2014
Feb 28, 2014 at 8:00 PM UTC
You've asked me how can I see a future when love, in all
Its numinous beauty, is waning?
I reply, the immortal stars still shine above the veil of clouds.
You say, why are the salmon swimming to their pools of origin
Only to die as they spawn? Only to die?
I tell you their love is unconditional, like mine.
You ask me did the giant sequoia know it was shelter for the burning grasses
When they walked from the seas? I reply yes they knew.
You question me about the lofty snow cranes that fly over the Himalayas
And I reply by describing
How the priestly flocks, chanting on their mission, honk—
Announcing the mantle steps to the heavens.
You inquire about the elephantine manatees gracing the shallow banks
And wonder if the sea mermaids remember their lives beyond the latitudes
Of capricorn and cancer?
Or you’ve discovered in the wind a new reasoning as to why
The talons of the paired eagles lock in midair as they court?
You want to understand the nimbus garden, ocean slate, of lake Titicaca
Where resides the Andean sea horse gliding above the clouds?
The whales that circle dance in unison collecting krill?
The noetic display of the birds of paradise, the songs of nameless creatures
Playing in the wilderness like a forgotten melody only lovers lips remember?
I want to tell you that true love knows this, that life in its
Prismatic shimmer is all the myriad colours of infinite existence wrapped
In time to the sublime structure of white and bones. I must tell you
That the flower is mighty in its opening, the humming bird is a sorcerer
Who needles ambrosia with vortex wings weaving his way to the Gods.
But I am nothing beside your disbelief which has arrived, before
I can even imagine the sweet awakening, like doom, my shell is the iridescent
Hollow of the one eyed Abalone, discarded in the deep fathoms
Of the ocean pressures.
I swim the tides as you do, investigating
The endless tendril seas,
And in my chest, during the night, I woke up empty,
The only thing treasured, a golden face
Trapped inside my dreams.
— after Neruda
May 27, 2012
May 27, 2012 at 2:57 PM UTC