"flitted" poems
the sunflowers gleamed
in the noon day sun
their flourish of color
couldn't be out done
the sparrows flitted
above their ravishing visages
they were enchanted
by their dazzling mirages
Mar 15, 2013
Mar 15, 2013 at 12:00 PM UTC
the sunflowers gleamed
in the noon day sun
their flourish of colour
couldn't be out done
the sparrows flitted
above their ravishing visages
they were enchanted
by their dazzling mirages
Oct 20, 2013
Oct 20, 2013 at 8:32 AM UTC
Last night I dreamed again.
I tripped the soul right out of me.
Danced dashed against the moon.
I dove through the night.
Skinned through it to get to you.
Slipped flitted out of my body.
Just slunk over to you.
I screamed my rage at you!
Tore out my heart for you.
If sleep is the little death,
Then I'll see you again tonight.
cc1210
Dec 22, 2010
Dec 22, 2010 at 5:09 PM UTC
What we have named Fire Escape
(an ordered, angular tangle of ladders and rail)
had made picture geometries in my west window
well-framed and flat--set foreground and background
in two dimensions, as the sun hid,
and my round eye opened.
What we have named Fire Escape
was flaked-paint brown orange, as if
first it had been born of a flame
and then had taken up living as metal--
tempered itself into usefulness,
which I should trust now, in case of the yelling
and the engines.
What we have named Fire Escape
was happy Jungle Jim or Jungle for Jane
for the sparrows I saw this morning
which flitted and wildly played
within, rising up
arched and back again.
Made of the square pairs of ladder rungs--
a tunnel entrance or ducking posts,
or highway bridges to clear;
the birds like small plane, daredevil pilots
each following each, going under.
No sparrow would ever crash.
And what is this I remember now?
How one bird eased its engine and perched there to stay?
As if to offer me, with a little turn of head gesture--
a thank you, for the bread I'd left on the sill? Or to say
I'd better shut the curtain and make my exit?
Either prideful guess gets me nowhere fast.
Failed even is speaking in any sparrow languages
from my recline stuffed chair; again, but now imagined,
to draw beady eyes to fix on me, telling me much less.
That morning, with the very last sparrow gone,
I remember that nothing in my sight moved,
save an American flag at a distance in the wind,
with its one red-white striped wing
waving toward the cold north,
as the white church spire,
framed in open quadrilaterals,
held its position.
Apr 15, 2013
Apr 15, 2013 at 5:18 AM UTC
291
How the old Mountains drip with Sunset
How the Hemlocks burn—
How the Dun Brake is draped in Cinder
By the Wizard Sun—
How the old Steeples hand the Scarlet
Till the Ball is full—
Have I the lip of the Flamingo
That I dare to tell?
Then, how the Fire ebbs like Billows—
Touching all the Grass
With a departing—Sapphire—feature—
As a Duchess passed—
How a small Dusk crawls on the Village
Till the Houses blot
And the odd Flambeau, no men carry
Glimmer on the Street—
How it is Night—in Nest and Kennel—
And where was the Wood—
Just a Dome of Abyss is Bowing
Into Solitude—
These are the Visions flitted *****
Titian—never told—
Domenichino dropped his pencil—
Paralyzed, with Gold—
4.4k
Little bits of fallout are scattered at my very feet.
Mingling with dust motes and spilt tears.
These little shards of time.
Whether, they were fragments of clocks & antique watches
or
the very iridescent pockets of dusty memories.
I am not sure.
Few things that I do know is,
please do not try to pick them up.
If you do, be careful, be cautious.
Hold your breath
if
you need to.
One little cut is the doorway
for
all
those creased and crinkled memories
to
tip-toe
in.
I did both.
I held you in my hands.
Wisps of your warmth flitted through my outstretched fingertips.
You flowed gently in my veins,
kissed my ribcage,
gently nudged my heart.
Then,
it
was
n o t h i n g.
I gasp on some days at this emptiness that fills me up.
The silence lends itself to hear my words;
the
truth.
I
had
you
in
the
dusty
past.
The present is one my eyelids cannot close to,
not without your heart-beat saying
'I am here'
to
mine.
Little bits of fallout-
burnt and crinkled memories
mingled
with
shards
of
you
then
me.
Apr 10, 2014
Apr 10, 2014 at 8:06 AM UTC
I rolled in Michigan
strapped to a kayak in the namesake lake
vision obscured by freshwater
I plunged under the blue surface
out of my element
panicking as a fish out of water- in water
I reached for the release and
missed
but grasped swelling panic
Dread thoughts of
the end...
my family…
last words…
Still submerged- somehow a semblance of sensibility surfaced,
unlike myself
frightening fantasies flitted-
shot like skeets in the sky and
peace prevailed.
I stretched through the moist blindness,
found the release- my sweet release.
Gasp air.
Freedom from death's clutches
I see
my unpreparedness for death,
ability to survive
Fifteen seconds to find my inner calm, my inner panicked strength, the depth of my composure
fifteen seconds for reevaluation
Fifteen seconds
submarine style
to find who I really was and am
Arguments are made
that safety and tranquility are the best mindsets for
education
But,
safety lacks motivation,
tranquility lacks demand,
Life's trials breed introspection.
Jun 22, 2013
Jun 22, 2013 at 4:51 PM UTC
*Just the other morning I watched a blackbird.
It flitted through the unexpected sunshine,
Drawn, as they are, to the feeder in my garden.
This one, though, overshot its path.
It was flying so fast,
It didn't see the glass.
Death was instantaneous.
This morning I saw death of another kind.
Ethereal, yet just as unexpected.
"Maybe I got complacent, maybe I didn't think."
And the centre of my body is flickering.
I didn't expect to find flaw,
I couldn't have seen the fall.
Death comes slowly
and now it's down to you.
*
Feb 28, 2011
Feb 28, 2011 at 8:36 AM UTC
Most late summer days fade into night holding a tepid dreariness in their breath, beating away with the tedium of the sun from late July through early September.
Yet ephemeral as it may be, the life of early summer is purely sanguine in the face of its oncoming age, as willowy saplings sway in the blustering breezes of June, and sprouts of vivid animation appear all around.
This is when the soul heals, and out of the mulch rises new beginnings and the ripening fruit of various works.
In this early season of summer, many taciturn inhabitants of the flourishing earth made their home, and among them, Lily: a creature of reticence and intricacy.
She burgeoned in attitude and character as days crept forward, extending her limbs upwards in an eternal paean to the heavens― as such was her sinecure and quiet delight.
In this, she stood insular to her ubiquitous family, an outsider to the sisters who flitted about carelessly on the wind, satiny gowns of pink and yellow billowing as they twirled.
Always invited into the fray, Lily was evermore stalwart in her choice to keep out of their plainly sordid affairs.
Yet in her isolation, the night whispered to her many a berceuse.
The sleepy stars implored of Lily’s indolent nature as she gazed into their eyes, trailing across eternity into peaceful slumber.
The night sky held wonders and questions that filled her paltry existence but placed her in stasis with the decorated heavens of her dying season,
Left to wither away with the insidious heat and vibrant splendor of late summer evenings.
Aug 11, 2018
Aug 11, 2018 at 2:45 PM UTC
yesterday my thoughts lost in the pines
i heard a rustling of leaves crooned
the sunlight sheepishly trespassed between the thick branches
and I stepped forward, and I slipped
then I stood up seeing the hollow
it was left ajar
although undeterred, I was afraid
of uncertainties thrilling my veins
suddenly my body flitted like water roaming in a drainway
my mouth spoke an unknown language
of pain
and ache
unfamiliar faces cherished my appearance
it was vague, not that dim
and they said I was born.
May 17, 2021
May 17, 2021 at 3:46 AM UTC
And in that wild berlin winter
I twirled ghosts through the frozen, concrete streets
Out of bohemian jungles in the midnight afternoon
I returned to the States with terrible ennui
Slumped on cold buses
I flew through Hamburg in an ***** haze
Smoking joints in the lantern lit glow of Amsterdam
I didn’t eat for 3 days
I rode the train to Zoo Station
And flitted about East Berlin
Where there was no excitement to be had
Walking the night alone in the bitter, biting wind
I took the ferry over to England
Safe in the Mersey’s mystical, dreary mist
I hid my tired eyes under my fisherman’s cap
And found an expanse of quiet, precious bliss
Ailing from nights spent on streets and stranger’s floors
I was a child, traveling alone
Disenchanted by my youthful escapades,
Cured of the plaguing desire to ramble and roam.
Mar 1, 2017
Mar 1, 2017 at 11:08 AM UTC
I wrote to you on a paper boat
Those questions in my heart,
I wrote to you on a paper boat
It sailed fast, slow and then a stand still,
The wetness seeped in, the ink bleeded ...
I expected you to raise your head,
Reach out to rescue the boat on puddle,
Some dreams of mine, you might have saved,
The bleeded letters, you might have traced.
All my antics not withstanding,
The soaked boat slowly sank,
My eyes flitted between the boat and you,
Still hoping you will race to its rescue...
When the boat slowly sank,
The ripples died a slow death,
Your head moved in my direction,
"Phew! I am done for the day", you said.
May 19, 2016
May 19, 2016 at 3:38 PM UTC
Under a low-hanging branch of magnolia,
a foolish young person lay breathing his last.
He bled out his guts to the soft-stirring air,
Soothed as white petals, like ghosts, flitted past.
A foolish young person believed those around him,
A foolish young person left Mother at home.
While many would say that she tearfully warned him,
She was one among many who told him to go.
She told him of bravery, bloodline, nobility,
And of destitution, tables yet to turn.
Under the branch that snows down white magnolia,
He bleeds out remembering others’ words.
Under a spice-scented branch of magnolia,
He thinks of the will of a God he knows not.
God would not wish for the sins he’s committed;
This murderer is not on his way to meet God.
He thinks himself hero, and calls himself savior,
Conservator of all that his short life has known.
To keep others underfoot, deprived, and in chains,
He gives up his body, his blood, and his bone.
Under a low-hanging branch of magnolia,
His heartbeat an abacus, he tallies up deeds.
He fought not for money, he fought not for "rights,"
That reasoning is long since lost to the weeds.
He fought not for love of the branch of magnolia;
He fought not for dignity, the saving of face.
He fought for one thing, and one ugly thing only:
A life lived as if of superior race.
One could say he did not know his own motivation,
Because he so fervently deluded himself,
And many, thereafter, denied it as well,
Till they worshipped the rag that led him to death.
Oct 14, 2015
Oct 14, 2015 at 2:29 PM UTC
Too striking,
those two dark eyes-
both heartbreakers.
Mine less gorgeous.
Like my flowery perfume,
my short, flirty skirt,
supposed to be charming.
But, as we danced
His eyes flitted
briefly to my neck or my hair
Not jealous
Studying
Scolding
my droll twirl
Nov 11, 2014
Nov 11, 2014 at 1:18 PM UTC
Some things never change
The circular stains on the ceiling above my heart shaped bed didn't exist under that rule
Sometimes they seemed constant
And sometimes that made me feel ok
But other times, as I lay in bed,
Somewhere near the halfway point between laying down and falling asleep,
I stared up at them and they moved
Left and right
Ellipsing each other,
Becoming ovaloid in shape
Sometimes they simply flitted away, vanished
I thought them gone,
But they continued to return.
They would not be so remorseless as to leave and not look back to see the blank space they had left.
So my little circular stains stayed for a while.
I was happy looking up in wonder at something I could never understand but never dared question.
Until one day I simply wasn't. My interest in the stains steadily faded until I began to drift off on my side staring out the window, searching for owls I could hear but not see. These sounds made me hope.
They made me open the windows I had locked tight.
They made me breathe.
Those sounds lull me to sleep even now.
And I've stopped looking for the circles completely
Feb 8, 2015
Feb 8, 2015 at 2:43 PM UTC
Modern words do no good in love.
Cars, jeans, mini skirts, flirting, and texts
Pale in comparison to
Carriages, slacks, petticoats, courting, and letters
We traded something in for our knowledge, industry, and democracy:
Romance.
Love and beauty and honor have flitted away
On wings of steel.
Is true love possible in a world
With such shallow, lacking words?
Nov 29, 2012
Nov 29, 2012 at 9:05 PM UTC
1384
Praise it—’tis dead—
It cannot glow—
Warm this inclement Ear
With the encomium it earned
Since it was gathered here—
Invest this alabaster Zest
In the Delights of Dust—
Remitted—since it flitted it
In recusance august.
1.6k
When I flitted with the fall
I could feel the cool imprint of fingers,
The pounding of veins, Adam's fright,
Twisted, in the effulgence of the night.
My axis span by this faint touch of hand
And I dreamt of some respite
In spring's ethereal step
To blink beyond this cusp of night.
I fled; too fast to grasp — that I was broken,
For ash cities and burnt leaves,
Cool waves and barren trees.
This — a token, to the months I left unspoken.
Oct 31, 2012
Oct 31, 2012 at 5:59 PM UTC
The wind blew out and the sea rolled in
By the cliffs and the curving beach,
A lonely stretch, they were kith and kin
And had never heard human speech,
A cottage grew by the shore one day
There were figures of surly men,
The sea had muttered, ‘They’re in my bay,’
And the wind replied, ‘Amen!’
The men had left but the cottage stayed
Like a wound to the ocean’s pride,
It split the wind at the valley floor
As it passed there, either side,
The sea said ‘blow it away my friend,
For it grieves my heart to see,
The works of man where I lap the sand,’
And the wind said, ‘Leave it to me!’
It soughed and soared at the eventime
And it scored with sand from the beach,
It struggled to topple the chimney pots
As it surged at one and each,
It lost its puff as the sun came up
When the tide was on the ebb,
‘I couldn’t move it a jot,’ it sighed,
‘And the roof, it felt like lead.’
‘We’ll wait for the winter tides,’ my friend,
‘I’ll surge and wash it away,
I’ll undermine its foundations, then
I’ll sweep it out in the bay.’
But then a flickering candle lit
From a window, facing the shore,
‘There’s something a-move, for a shadow flit
Last night through the cottage door!’
The sea had grumbled, ‘We’ll wait and see
What lingers there in the light,’
The wind peered in at the window pane
And sighed at the wondrous sight,
‘A creature there with its golden hair
And its eyes, a deep sea blue,
That set me quivering in their stare,
So what will they do to you?’
The morning saw at the cottage door
A woman all dressed in white,
She wandered along the empty shore
And the sea had gulped, ‘You’re right!’
He lapped his waters around her feet
As she waded in for a swim,
And said to the wind, ‘She’s warm and sweet,
And it’s sad, but you can’t come in!’
Back on the beach, a gentle breeze
Had whispered the woman dry,
Then flitted, scurrying out to sea,
‘You’ve changed your tune, but why?’
‘I think we needed that cottage there,
In reflection, let it stand.’
The wind just capered along the shore
As the door of the cottage slammed.
David Lewis Paget
Nov 27, 2013
Nov 27, 2013 at 4:04 AM UTC
1436
Than Heaven more remote,
For Heaven is the root,
But these the flitted seed.
More flown indeed
Than ones that never were,
Or those that hide, and are.
What madness, by their side,
A vision to provide
Of future days
They cannot praise.
My soul, to find them, come,
They cannot call, they’re dumb,
Nor prove, nor woo,
But that they have abode
Is absolute as God,
And instant, too.
1.5k
Once there was vernal sunshine all around
With plants and blooms in color and scent abound
Butterflies here n’ there and from all corners unseen
Flitted back and forth in iridescent sheen
Birds sang tuneful songs of contentment
Squirrels and bunnies hopped in spirits buoyant
But all along now I see trees, leafless and bare
Nakedly shivering in winter’s chilly air
Even when the Earth adorns in full glory
Here I bide alone, so dull and dreary
Oh! Dear! Why have you so hurriedly left me?
Was it to make me drift aimless in this turbulent sea?
We were once a happy pair of doves
Seeking warmth under each other’s wings
By sundown, we flew to our evening nest
Under temple spires, we sought easeful rest
We walked the meadows, gathering spring flowers
We roamed aimless through ocean strands
We watched life’s ceaseless ebb and flow
We waited eager to grab life’s evanescent glow
We knew sorrow’s depth and worth
Each morn, for us, was love’s rebirth
We walked close to paths supernal
And lived ever in love eternal
Now I have lost the rhyme n’ rhythm of life
I see the world around with sorrows rife
I am a broken reed far beyond repair
With no songs to be played now or ever
Once we danced to the rising and lilting measure
Each synchronized step, we took with such pleasure
Oh! I hear from far, your anklets rhyme and chime
They ring in my ears through the time
Each wayside flower to me recalls your lovelorn face
The wind swayed lilacs reflect your grace
Deep in silent night the odor of your flowing hair
Comes wafting, and for a while, I feel you near
A boundless emptiness often fills my space
The question –‘What next’ stares at my face
Yet never shall I yield, but shall bravely sail
Hoping, we together shall meet at the Golden Dale
Jan 29, 2017
Jan 29, 2017 at 5:49 AM UTC
Blood.
Rich, dark blood,
flowing through her shimmering fair hair
Coloring fair blonde strands
With a scarlet hue
Coloring pale pink lips
With red drops that trickled down her porcelain skin.
Face upturned
Hands clasping her beating heart
She let her eyelids drop closed
Into an endless void of darkness
As she stayed silent
Unloving
And dead in her own way.
He lay before her
Covered in malicious crystals
That grinned
As they ****** his life out of him
Killing the already dying light
Gripping him.
His eyes were unfocused
His lips trembling
His hands freezing
With the Grim Reaper's gaze
trained upon him.
Yet she shut off all thoughts
and simply looked to the light
And let the crystals
take him away from her.
She was hoping for something else
Something more
But in the end,
All she got
Was furious green eyes
looking into her own
As the glint of a freshly made sword
with its elegantly shaped metal
and brilliantly crafted spirit
Flitted across her vision
Tearing her blonde strands
Ripping her fair skin
Slicing her fair lips
Slitting her slender throat
As she was colored with new blood
In a brighter shade.
Before the blood that dripped over her didn't belong to her.
But this time,
It Did.
Sep 5, 2013
Sep 5, 2013 at 2:37 AM UTC
We stretched out on open ground
To soak the sun from the air around us
I your child and you my gateway to the world
And we watched as butterflies kissed
Flew away
And kissed again
The flowers planted in fairy circles
Too-long years and years ago
And I cried to see you laughing again
How long has it been
Since we painted each other's lives
My finger-paint scrawling, full of innocence
Your masterpieces of mother's love
How long? too long
I cannot know how the years weighed heavy on you
While I flitted around as free as a bird
Or as sweet as the nectar
In Persephone's veins
Oh my mother, oh my sister, oh my dearest friend for life
How much can I show you
Of my soul
When all that I know is poured out from you
You know it all
You've seen it all and yet treasure my meager offerings
I do not have a grasp
On how you work your magic on this gold-dust filled evening
I cannot see how to give back
I do not know, I do not know
You are a Goddess to me
Oct 13, 2010
Oct 13, 2010 at 6:37 PM UTC
Oh Satan's
vexing, gypsy moth.
Icarus
of the lamp.
Torched, foul, smoldering ember.
Aye, the jokes on you.
Good riddance
netherworld gadfly,
dust covered
moon splashed wings,
who flitted too close the sun.
I shall miss the not.
What of thy
onlooking brother?
Is he not
the bright one,
bathing in incandescent
blissful ignorance?
Though he be
but Nature's Dastard,
he'll bask the morrow,
whilst thy apparition flies
to hell, whence ye came.
*While enjoying a beautiful Summer night, I was attacked by a squadron of moths and millers. The zealous, daring, but stupid one, flew too close to a lamp and got fried. The other, pious, yet too afraid worshiped from afar. By the way, one's just as stupid as the other one. The lamp is not the moon cretins. *
Mar 9, 2013
Mar 9, 2013 at 11:00 AM UTC
There’s a silence out in the fields tonight
Where the barley sheaves are stooked,
Their shadows stand in a menacing line
While the wives at home are spooked,
They peer from windows, they peer from doors
And they lock their shutters tight,
There isn’t a man in the valley’s span
For they didn’t come home tonight.
They left their cottages there at dawn
As the sun was on the rise,
Wandered out with their ploughman’s lunch
And rubbed the sleep from their eyes,
They carried their sickles across their backs
Their ******* hooks and their flails,
And who could read took a crumpled book
To read with a half of ale.
They bent their backs to the task ahead
Of reaping the sheaves of grain,
The clouds were billowing overhead
And they said, ‘It looks like rain!’
The sun went in and the sun came out
As the shadows flitted across,
They stooked the sheaves at an angle so
The rain would drain from the crops.
The rain held off ‘til the afternoon
When the men were streaked with sweat,
They sheltered under the Sycamores,
Laid down their tools in the wet,
The wives were busily cleaning homes,
Preparing the worker’s tea,
They didn’t look out to the barley field
‘Til the sun dipped into the sea.
They didn’t look, it was almost dusk
When they noticed something wrong,
The men would usually come back home,
They’d hear them, singing a song,
A silence settled upon the land
And the wives came out to stare,
But nothing moved in the barley field,
The men were just not there.
Their faces white in the pale moonlight
The wives sat still, and stared,
The stooks were seeming to move about
And the women, they were scared,
The stooks lined up in the barley field
Like a pack of hooded ghouls,
And lying right in the midst of them
Was a heap of reaping tools.
There’s a silence out in the fields tonight
Where the barley sheaves are stooked,
Their shadows stand in a menacing line
While the wives at home are spooked,
They peer from windows, they peer from doors
And they lock their shutters tight,
There isn’t a man in the valley’s span
For they didn’t come home tonight.
David Lewis Paget
Feb 24, 2014
Feb 24, 2014 at 3:29 PM UTC