"fleeted" poems
A little while, a little while,
The weary task is put away,
And I can sing and I can smile,
Alike, while I have holiday.
Why wilt thou go, my harassed heart,
What thought, what scene invites thee now?
What spot, or near or far,
Has rest for thee, my weary brow?
There is a spot, mid barren hills,
Where winter howls, and driving rain;
But if the dreary tempest chills,
There is a light that warms again.
The house is old, the trees are bare,
Moonless above bends twilight's dome;
But what on earth is half so dear,
So longed for, as the hearth of home?
The mute bird sitting on the stone,
The dank moss dripping from the wall,
The thorn-trees gaunt, the walks o'ergrown,
I love them, how I love them all!
Still, as I mused, the naked room,
The alien firelight died away,
And from the midst of cheerless gloom
I passed to bright unclouded day.
A little and a lone green lane
That opened on a common wide;
A distant, dreamy, dim blue chain
Of mountains circling every side;
A heaven so clear, an earth so calm,
So sweet, so soft, so hushed an air;
And, deepening still the dream-like charm,
Wild moor-sheep feeding everywhere.
That was the scene, I knew it well;
I knew the turfy pathway's sweep
That, winding o'er each billowy swell,
Marked out the tracks of wandering sheep.
Even as I stood with raptured eye,
Absorbed in bliss so deep and dear,
My hour of rest had fleeted by,
And back came labour, ******* care.
3.9k
I remember feeling pain
When our hips were pressed together
Inseperable, like marriage vows
We moved together, like the words we spoke
With our bodies we were so much louder
And my head was crowded with the echoes
Your body was rippling in my memory
I felt you for centuries as we sat there barely moving
And I was looking into you, and you were looking into me
It was like when I looked at you I didn't need water or have the need to breath
We were so close in that moment that the next three days felt like I was wearing you as a sleeve
It was completely silent, not completely
I remember, I remember hearing your heart beat
I remember you were on top and I was underneath, and I remember you stopping and listening to everything I had to say, but you couldn't hear it over the sound of my heart beat
And your tan skin turned red
Your face did too, you looked into my eyes
And I turned blood red too
You grabbed my chest, I could feel your nails
A tear fleeted from the dark ring around your eye
and you breathed out, and I could hear the sighs from your body's cramped compassion and the feeling of your tightened thighs around mine
I could see your soul crumpled up into skin and bones that someone encapsulated you in to die
But you were alive, and everything you had felt that night, I was inside
Jan 3, 2015
Jan 3, 2015 at 5:23 AM UTC
Underneath the maple tree
I drew my last breath.
No longer a child,
My courage has fleeted,
Bravery abandoned.
I can no longer hide
As the flaming leaves
Cover placid skin.
Colder I grow
As I fall away to dust.
*There are worse ways to die
Than being devoured by
The maple tree.*
Aug 3, 2014
Aug 3, 2014 at 5:55 PM UTC
The deeper the veins
of a silent rising
fountainhead reach,
awaking a muse
more chilling
than the truth
in the blood ―
a cold
stillness stirs
that lets me
feel an
unheeded sigh
cast in the wind
A breathe
of words
from a sudden
burst of silence,
tossed like a
handful of dust
lost in a rush
of wind ―
a beclouded
murmur fleeted;
holding your breath
as the aching
passion
manifest,
no longer
containable
I really wonder
if you even know
or care
who's behind
the dark
cracked glass ―
you learn to live
with what’s broken
to survive...
learning to look
in the eyes
of a dark horse
in a tight-lipped mirror,
to hear what’s
pushed back down
unswallowed
Staring down
the muted throat
of the voiceless;
feeling the anxiety
of held breath,
turning blue
afraid to exhale
If you look
at these words
and remember
there was nothing
left to lose,
then you'll see
the meaning ―
I don't need
to hear you
tell me to re-lock
all the doors
I wish I never opened;
knowing there are
still moments
when it leaks out
of my silence
Someday,
at first light,
a songbird
hearkens
the morning
dew's passage;
I’ll take heed
a song
of deliverance
and rise up
from
bended knees ...
but right now
I’m still learning
how to live alone
Jesse e Stillwater
May 2, 2018
May 2, 2018 at 2:05 PM UTC
My breath
has long fleeted my lungs;
My body
is crippled tirelessly by pain;
My mind
begs for this moment to cease
This is the moment to yield
Yet I press on...
Through the exhaustion.
Through my faltering muscles.
Through the wall of debilitation
My back is against the wall
Yet I will continue on...
Pass the limits of possibility.
Pass the boundaries of condition.
Pass the ambiguity of self.
'Till I have defeated my enemy
'or I stand before the gates of Valhalla.
My rival hits the floor
Regardless...
I can never accept Defeat
When its only separated from Victory
By a thin
fine
line.
I ascend its threshold*
Jan 10, 2013
Jan 10, 2013 at 6:16 AM UTC
Sudden was the descent of poetry on me
I tottered under its weight
My body heated up like the sun
A frying egg yolk on the pan
My blood started burning…. burning
A strange madness crept across my senses
Intoxicated as by an excess dose of ale
Or drunk with the vintage wine
Or by some mystical disengagement
I started levitating
Wings sprouted up suddenly on my sides
I reeled round and round
Flew up and up
Meteors flashed past
Stars blinked
Larger celestial bodies stood still
Strange sounds fleeted past my ears
My heart palpitated,
Like the rumblings of thunder
My eyes glowed like fire *****
A shout I heard afar
Over the heavens’ mysterious rim
Muffled though, I could decipher it;
“Welcome to the clan of poets”!
Around me, I saw multitudes of poets
Young and old, their faces blazing
Like a thousand lanterns lit
In that blinding brilliance
My filmy wings burnt outright!
Like Icarus, from the heights
I flopped down to the chasm below
In the scattered heap of flesh and bones
A faint stir …..
…………………..
The feeble flutter of a poetic heart
Before it was finally stilled!!
Jun 5, 2016
Jun 5, 2016 at 8:54 AM UTC
Of the hospital
I sat clenching a leopard
filled with beads.
Father beside me
Tapping his chestnut wingtips against
the bloodless linoleum floors.
It was September. The heat oppressive,
Like the Moors toward foes
in the Iberian Peninsula.
Rays illuminated the woes of those ‘round me.
A barrier existed
emanating from within
Fleshed out by a zeal, to not be on one’s own
At the dinner table, as Father responded
to a **** addict’s violent implosion on Nile Street.
At Carmel-by-the-Sea building sand castles to be
--washed away by the tides
on the bay enrobed with fire
Fleshed out by a desire to be
dethroned.
Fulfillment flooded the lobby,
Father ceased his tapping,
A Florence Nightingale lead the way
past bland white doors,
past elderly covered in black crusted sores
past a priest who pours a libation.
In to the room of your entrance,
Nearest and dearest gathered ‘round
the blemished linoleum floor
Warm cries hollowed down
the halls, signifying your existence
Clenching a leopard
filled with beads. (Now in the attic)
Mother Rose freckled and content
Embraced you, as the world still spun
My eyes a maelstrom of red yellow and black,
seeped streams of grey streams of grey
for the loneliness fleeted that Autumn day.
Dec 25, 2012
Dec 25, 2012 at 5:24 AM UTC
They said, my life, would never bother me
Though rainy and fleeted
Quaint hearted I would be
I laughed, I cried
I took life for what it'd be
But fool I had been
For a second to believe.
I woke, one day
Not tucked inside my bed
But yet, I dreamt
It had all been in my head
Like colors, abound
Perhaps it'd been a dream
It all, looked fake
Slowly drifting off like steam.
I walked, the road
Dusty as they came
And carried, my load
Myself I had to blame
The green, had gone
And now had only grey
Forever, this world
Bound I'd always stay.
The night, had come
But stars would never shine
Just black and cold
To me it fit my crime
I dug, my hole
And took my sweetest time
And laid, awhile
Just laying there I cried.
The cold, came in
Slowly eating me
I'd died awhile
Just bones was lost old me
I saw, my hole
Of where it used to be
For a rose, had grown
And I was finally free.
Mar 31, 2015
Mar 31, 2015 at 10:50 PM UTC
you once said i was like a shooting star,
shining,
bright,
beautiful.
you said i could easily light up anybody's world
as i fleeted in the sky,
i soon realize
that every shooting star
has a breaking point.
every shooting star,
gets crashed on the ground.
and when i crashed,
i thought you would be there to save me.
but then you found your galaxy
and now, i'm just a rock from the sky
a.f
Mar 14, 2015
Mar 14, 2015 at 10:42 PM UTC
Under 'military history'
I found a tome of irony
A text once penned in heat of passion
Of hope and war and lover's ration
No embossed title, No woven spine
But still an epic, still so fine
While men lay squalid in their trenches
Someone perched upon these benches
A happy author with pocket knife
Whose words outlived his cut down life
Two fleeted lovers in this place
Recorded war's old tragic face
And carved there by 'The First World War'
'John loves Mary 1944.'
Apr 26, 2010
Apr 26, 2010 at 2:46 PM UTC
In April,
Our together was cut short,
I couldn't look you in the eyes.
The second our words fleeted,
We were drowning in butterflies.
A story they will never know,
Only for our hearts to see.
The showers of April,
The deaths of you and me.
Jan 28, 2021
Jan 28, 2021 at 6:07 AM UTC
festering like the fungus on rotting fruit
moulded to the shadow
torn from it
motion making it's stop
the flatline
an event horizon
and i
looked
blank became the canvas
as existence shrunk from view
and i saw it all;
and it was glorious
but the curtains were closing
momentary was the sight bestowed
which fleeted faster than life
from this withering device of animation
elapsing back to nothing
a fade to black
Dec 31, 2020
Dec 31, 2020 at 12:25 PM UTC
Oh, Tangerine do stop by,
Help me **** the fleeting time.
The bitterness keeps peeling,
Bleaching me in every bite.
My dented undulating heart,
Bleeds the very orange.
My heart was once young as well,
It soared over life's boughs.
It dazzled over a grassy hill,
Brighter than the midday sun.
Even with the obscuring clouds,
Which kept the blowing winds to shun.
As the evening did spring,
The hill began to swallow.
My heart seemed to color,
Fondling orange with yellow.
Climbing up, this mellow girl.
Had her eyes on my heart.
As she began walking closer,
The rattling wind left it shaking.
But as the breeze blew away,
My heart’s rind felt her touch.
While her eyes kept staring,
Picked me out into her boughs.
The rattling wind did stop,
And I felt I was still shaking.
Her bright shining eyes though,
Seemed too piercing to be true.
In a seasoned moment,
Her grip began to tighten.
Comfort felt crushing now,
And the shaking continued on.
My heart to her open mouth,
As she took my heart, it feared.
But she stopped only to smile,
And threw it down the grassy hill.
And I say to my Tangerine,
My beating heart, come back.
Desolating me on the hill,
The bitterness hurts even more.
Time has fleeted the hourglass.
So my Tangerine do return.
May 2, 2015
May 2, 2015 at 5:50 PM UTC
that tightness in your chest you could never explain.
what good are leftover words for anything other than a small semblance of hope hiding behind pleasant phonetics?
natural shades still stain the replacement pillow cases as you small-talk your way out the door in between every fleeted step.
Feb 3, 2013
Feb 3, 2013 at 4:24 AM UTC
Worlds apart, cities divide,
miles of distance
but minds collide,
they were no dreams
just our own realities
for the time being.
We met indeed,
spewing out our lives
to each other,
reading all there was to read
entrapped in our eyelashes.
Deranged they called me
and every night's "meeting",
said come back to reality
life is fleeting.
Each day I flee
this alleged reality,
is proof that
my life has fleeted.
Our realities lie in each other,
with each other,
all these other ones should
stop feeling cheated.
May 15, 2021
May 15, 2021 at 6:58 AM UTC
even if it was just for a moment
_we were hOMe_
never again
will i fear leaving the shore
as your waves of intuition
fuel the anchor to my sea of losses
forevermore
your familiar tongue
had forgotten its foreign nature
and together, we unlocked the door
to a vast sea of unkept secrets
fleeted feelings of silenced Love
no dialect needed anymore
and although this Magic
had escaped us for some time
thoughts of you
leave me feeling sublime
you continue to touch me
in all of my rhymes
i have never been more sure
that our moments are eternal
i endlessly sing
we are an illusion to time
i swear to you, darling
if the darkness continues
to dance around your room
i will find its rhythm
and i will synch to that tune
no matter the distance
between me + you
if your stars do refuse
to quit falling as you roam
i will swim across oceans to catch them
_and i will use their light to guide us back hOMe_
Nov 26, 2017
Nov 26, 2017 at 4:24 PM UTC
Float on lifeless vessel, I’m afraid I must jump ship.
Everything I’ve ever done, ever suffered
has lead straight to this.
Every story they will sing will be of sorrow and of doubt
but this was never about taking the easy way,
this was just about getting out.
I’ve lived so long in regret of moments that fleeted all too soon
that my head has become crowded with all the broken memories
and now there’s just no room.
I can’t exist beside them for any longer, not for one more day.
So I’ll deliver my bones unto the river and
let the current carry my conscience away.
Sep 23, 2015
Sep 23, 2015 at 8:49 PM UTC
My bitter dishes cry
To be cleaned as they sit
In crusted contempt
With reds that bleed their seething
Lack of clarity
My friends
With smiles half baked and
Eyes shuddering
Sip more and in deeper gulps
Their lives are swallowed
By the brew
But I'm not as lost
As I once thought my mind
In aching desperation fleeted
Angelic drawls to wrap
The dusty shoulders
Keep their hunched secrets heavy
Till they break
And if three breaths could save the world, they may in fact expand
Those minds and hearts to unite
Where shallow thoughts of ego driven
Madness clings like smog upon
Our horizon
But they travel
These dreams of fresher air and
To the forests of the northwestern
Drizzle drenched streets they wander
We're not so hopeless as if to rot
In the shoes we bought last year
I'd rather beg to smile
Then wrap myself in the scowls of
Empty presidents that died for sorrows they began
May 17, 2013
May 17, 2013 at 3:00 PM UTC
What was that, on your lips, just before you licked them wet?
Floating on their tips and not quite swallowed yet
Quick, do reveal what you mean to conceal, your very first instinct
That one there, within your glare, just before you blinked
It passed I see. As you glanced away, it fleeted from your face
Though it left, I must confess, not without a trace
Now out without stutter; no ifs or buts, don’t mutter
Excuses in mediation. I’m tired, expired
Enough with such trepidation
Again then,
This time please do mean it
Don’t hide inside, leaving me to glean
Oh dear, I’ve have already seen it
Feb 22, 2013
Feb 22, 2013 at 9:25 AM UTC
Somehow the rest of the day
Fleeted like our fragile thoughts.
The preoccupied crustacean
Washed upon the shore,
Thanks to the high tide,
A swirl of earthly obsessions.
An old woman awoke early
In the morning to water her bonsai.
Who is that at the front door?
Who could it possibly be?
Was it the childbearing of symmetry
From a timid chamber?
Does a poet create poetry or does poetry create a poet?
Read and decide for me.
Originally written 4/10/11
Revised 10/18/14
(c) 2014 Brandon Antonio Smith
Oct 18, 2014
Oct 18, 2014 at 5:59 PM UTC
I've gotten so used to isolation
that a deserted island is home
the sea of despair is a continuous whirlpool of void
emptiness is the sun
and the sky is crying for me
eyes tired
then eyes closed
and the mind took over
for one who exists behind the shadows,
how mundane it is to dream, to wish,
that someday
someone will get lost
in my forgotten shore
like a siren without a voice
her life is a soft hum
a melancholic peace
she's not out to lure but to give rest
thousands of fishermen have kissed her lips and fleeted
and every time
before they go, she hums a lullaby of happiness
that it's okay and you could leave her
but when the ship is a tiny blip in the ocean
she opens her mouth
and sings.
Jan 2, 2017
Jan 2, 2017 at 6:54 AM UTC
Her eyes they shine
Amber brown and tinge of green
Her hair hung down so fine
Sweet bouncing curls upon her shoulders
Her laugh so sweet and gentle
Never once for me
Her first glance seemed accidental
Never a sight for me
Her lips so lightly parted
The bright white teeth that gleamed
Her voice rang out before I started
"Hey what's your name" Id been asked
My eyes quickly shifted
The question not for me
My friend the one so gifted
And I the shadow in the room
My one sure chance to fly
And forget what was behind
My flaw; too shy
Opportunity had fleeted, and her swept away
May 12, 2014
May 12, 2014 at 9:03 PM UTC
All the grown-ups say
that someday,
you will be as big
and tall as me.
You will wear these pants,
this shirt, these shoes.
That you will have the
colonial and collie
safe in the suburbs.
That you will
have offspring that have
your nose and eyes,
because that's what
you were born to do.
All the grown-ups
omit
that growing up
is about
choices.
The choice to
look as you feel.
The choice to
severe all your ties
and run free.
The choice to
experiment with drugs
to finally learn
some valuable information.
The choice to bravely
march forward in life
alone.
Or the choice to
reprise the role the
grown-ups have already played.
They mourn
their fleeted youth,
their abled bodies,
and their lost sense of wonder
in the world,
doing whatever they can
to reincarnate themselves
in the young
so they will not be forgotten;
to have us avoid
the mistakes
they have made.
But what they really yearn for
was the time
when all they had
were choices.
Jul 1, 2015
Jul 1, 2015 at 7:06 PM UTC
bass palpitations and neon fragmentations
briefly deflect the cruelty of
your perceivable
emptiness
a rainbow of sweat, anonymous
stems encompassing sauntering spirits
a fully elevated identity
identifies the rationale
behind the soul's existence.
THERE IT IS,
dangling before doped surveillance;
can't you taste its sweetness?
and
before you grasp it,
the crescent wanes
pacing shuffled steps
tracing fleeted memories.
nights with beautiful intruders
terminated with sonorous ears,
oscillations of the frame,
and you,
crashed
on pillow-top.
how did you got here?
recollections
excruciating
tattoos of a misleading
reality.
Jun 5, 2015
Jun 5, 2015 at 4:09 AM UTC
Set down, collected, keen to compose
I picked pen, swore pretense aside
What’s to be spelled; only she knows
Later though, she says she’ll confide
Puckered a bit and flexed my brow
Crinkled my nose, ready now
With no room for give, she set me here
She and her vast vocation
She whispered a secret and whispered clear
Clear yet cryptic, thus my frustration
What she showed me, I may not have seen
But I peered and penned at it
And what a peery penning it’s been
But she up and vanished
Fleeted too fast
Left only her signature,
Mrs. Present and Past
Feb 20, 2013
Feb 20, 2013 at 11:27 PM UTC