"florentine" poems
like that pill bitter Sunday morning (after)
with a nauseating hack
the previously uneventful Tuesday
derailed
in surrealistic tale
with Auntie and Jack (and a quarter of fate)
in the 748
on a night flight
from Sherwood to Lore
reverberating waves
of imminent summer haze
river flats
and flower fields
fly weights
and silver bait
shredders and shysters
and open gates
(into those everlasting
and sweated journeys of hope)
bloods and strays
and florentine grays
(reminiscent of Rockwell fame)
running horses
and overgrown country lanes
morning grace
and gentle cheer
eyes clear
on the river pass
*blunted paddles for those ancient
and not so willing suckers!*
duke making his own way
(to the corner club)
Parsons and Poe
stream from the torn screen door
cricket cadence
and symphony of the Deere
calm and deliberate
in the soft
and silent fields
meadows open for grazing
(guineas scamper across the till)
pocket apples fill
the country ripe air
drunken bees
and chestnuts
and electric fingers
strike the surface pool
(a cedar strip wedged on the white wash dock)
baited bull heads set to cast
evenings with hearts
and Nolten Nash
may flowers bloom
across the grass
~ time unmatched ~
with blue jays
and river bends
and channel cats
...and that warm
and recurring
Coleman drift
May 16, 2017
May 16, 2017 at 11:36 PM UTC
Favorite word: “nymphet”, but no!
Halcyon, a kind of drug, you know.
Searching through the pages’ mist
And imagined deeds
Of poets’ needs…
I found my favourite word,
As asked,
Neither sacred nor profane
That describes the Venetian rain
In my beloved’s eyes
And the Florentine sun upon her hair:
“Auburn, russet, mythopoeic”.
Oh, it is not fair,
To liken an object
Of my lust and love
To anything as mortal as autumn air!
Nor “October’s orchard Haze”;
She had her own
Inscrutable, premeditated ways!
Rather let me say that she was perfect,
Though her eyes, pale and myopic,
Her shuffling gait and
Graceless limbs, to them Grace lends
Fey charm, the power to mend
My suffering and
Delusions of a poet’s end
As anything but pathetic,
(Her mother’s fondness for vague emetics)
And I left softly hanging,
On a girl’s new taste,
A tang of russet apples on her face,
But no, not that, the sum
Of my love, My Lo!
Then her bleak demise, partly by my hand
That none of you brutes could understand;
The pure love,
So sadly consummated,
Between a lover
And the one she hated
Yet loved once with inexplicable delight,
On one stolen, frightened night…
In which the two of us agreed
To satisfy a simple, yet maniacal need,
And then depart…
But I could not,
You see;
She was my life,
My love, my heart.
Humbert Humbert 1950
Sharon Talbot ca. 2005
Sep 9, 2017
Sep 9, 2017 at 11:11 AM UTC
The first time I saw you,
Standing up on stage,
Your gentle protruderence beckoned,
I yearned for your girth.
Standing alongside one Michael Cassio.
A Florentine.
My eyes could not escape.
I disregarded my A1 in English,
All I wanted was the D.
Jul 10, 2015
Jul 10, 2015 at 6:41 PM UTC
Why do I write today?
The beauty of
the terrible faces
of our nonentites
stirs me to it:
colored women
day workers—
old and experienced—
returning home at dusk
in cast off clothing
faces like
old Florentine oak.
Also
the set pieces
of your faces stir me—
leading citizens—
but not
in the same way.
3.9k
Oft have we trod the vales of Castaly
And heard sweet notes of sylvan music blown
From antique reeds to common folk unknown:
And often launched our bark upon that sea
Which the nine Muses hold in empery,
And ploughed free furrows through the wave and foam,
Nor spread reluctant sail for more safe home
Till we had freighted well our argosy.
Of which despoiled treasures these remain,
Sordello’s passion, and the honeyed line
Of young Endymion, lordly Tamburlaine
Driving his pampered jades, and more than these,
The seven-fold vision of the Florentine,
And grave-browed Milton’s solemn harmonies.
2.4k
No man hath dared to write this thing as yet,
And yet I know, how that the souls of all men great
At times pass athrough us,
And we are melted into them, and are not
Save reflexions of their souls.
Thus am I Dante for a space and am
One Francois Villon, ballad-lord and thief,
Or am such holy ones I may not write
Lest blasphemy be writ against my name;
This for an instant and the flame is gone.
’Tis as in midmost us there glows a sphere
Translucent, molten gold, that is the “I”
And into this some form projects itself:
Christus, or John, or eke the Florentine;
And as the clear space is not if a form’s
Imposed thereon,
So cease we from all being for the time,
And these, the Masters of the Soul, live on.
2.2k
There's a painting by Botticelli
I've always loved,
showing Venus being born naked
from the ocean and
not fearing the current.
Those around her renounce her body,
scrambling to clothe her,
turn her virginal,
contain the way her eyes cross galaxies,
shine all the way to Pluto.
But she is soft, unwavering,
not noticing the mortals' concern
about her *******
and bare collarbone that could catch water
at its base.
I found you halfway across the world on the steps of the Uffizi
and in the 3 hours it took you
to show me some of the best art on earth,
I was transfixed only
on the orbits of planets in your eyes.
Shortly before the sun set,
you took me through the secret corridor
Cosimo de' Medici built to walk across the
rooftops of the city
where you kissed me but
told me you didn't believe in love,
that all you needed was art,
and Michelangelo,
and in that moment
I saw Venus in your collarbone.
Saw a shell under your feet,
saw the universe in the way your freckles connected,
saw how you immortalize yourself
among the rest of the art in Florence
so no human can bring you down to earth,
can make your heart stop,
show you what it's like to cross timezones
with a single touch.
And here I am,
wanting to be your Botticelli,
to paint the uneven slope of your shoulders,
the crookedness of your right ankle,
your fear of exposing yourself to someone
who could love you.
It must be lonely out there, Venus,
on your little fishing boat by the sea.
Botticelli's painting was found
long after his death,
laid into the floor of
an abandoned villa in the south of Tuscany.
Venus looking lost and mortal
between cracked paint and chipping walls,
like the way you hide between
the dusty statues of the dead statesmen and fading portraits
long after the museum closes,
just you with only history to hold.
You want to believe in love
as past-tense,
like you've lost faith in present participles and the fact
that art is still being made,
and people are running barefoot into future conjugations
together.
Don't come back to land, Venus. Vanessa.
I won't be here waiting with a towel
or an art critic
or a spaceship.
But maybe,
just make a little room for me on your shell
under the sun,
atop steady waves or Florentine rooftops.
Throw the map overboard.
Let's forget the shore.
And Michelangelo and the rest of them
will smile as they see us off.
Jul 28, 2015
Jul 28, 2015 at 5:18 PM UTC
This is the Arsenal. From floor to ceiling,
Like a huge ***** rise the burnished arms;
But from their silent pipes no anthem pealing
Startles the villages with strange alarms.
Ah! what a sound will rise, how wild and dreary,
When the death-angel touches those swift keys!
What loud lament and dismal Miserere
Will mingle with their awful symphonies!
I hear even now the infinite fierce chorus,
The cries of agony, the endless groan,
Which, through the ages that have gone before us,
In long reverberations reach our own.
On helm and harness rings the Saxon hammer,
Through Cimbric forest roars the Norseman’s song,
And loud, amid the universal clamor,
O’er distant deserts sounds the Tartar gong.
I hear the Florentine, who from his palace
Wheels out his battle-bell with dreadful din,
And Aztec priests upon their teocallis
Beat the wild war-drums made of serpent’s skin;
The tumult of each sacked and burning village;
The shout that every prayer for mercy drowns;
The soldiers’ revels in the midst of pillage;
The wail of famine in beleaguered towns;
The bursting shell, the gateway wrenched asunder,
The rattling musketry, the clashing blade;
And ever and anon, in tones of thunder
The diapason of the cannonade.
Is it, O man, with such discordant noises,
With such accursed instruments as these,
Thou drownest Nature’s sweet and kindly voices,
And jarrest the celestial harmonies?
Were half the power, that fills the world with terror,
Were half the wealth bestowed on camps and courts,
Given to redeem the human mind from error,
There were no need of arsenals or forts:
The warrior’s name would be a name abhorred!
And every nation, that should lift again
Its hand against a brother, on its forehead
Would wear forevermore the curse of Cain!
Down the dark future, through long generations,
The echoing sounds grow fainter and then cease;
And like a bell, with solemn, sweet vibrations,
I hear once more the voice of Christ say, “Peace!”
Peace! and no longer from its brazen portals
The blast of War’s great ***** shakes the skies!
But beautiful as songs of the immortals,
The holy melodies of love arise.
1.9k
Have you ever heard in your mind
the sounds that silence makes
the silence that spreads like music
as in splendor a dewy morning breaks
silence that clings to a Florentine fog
as lone cyclist a cobble street snakes
the silence that hangs heavy
after a heavy down pour finally ends
or await with it for the moment
when heaven its pearly reward sends
they sound so different and surreal
like life’s ethereal myriad bends
the silence that weighty dwells
in wisps, rises from vacant eyes
the silence that fills to the brim
dole, of a beggar’s ripping sighs
silence that hangs like a sword
on fears of unsaid distant byes
silence o endless tormenting silence
you play on a piano’s dusty keys
from a chair that rocks in howling wind
on a lifeless verandah, distant sees
from a score of such like mends
wherefrom one has drunk to ones lees
it speaks no man’s earthly breath
yet heard in shattering numbness
in ache and blight so steeped
in rustle of a long gone worn dress
in raucous merry gay proceeds
or the mirth of a child’s bless
in the time of a frisky bloomy day
or gnaw of a long starry night
the lullaby of distant streaking trains
or the gondola’s reflective sight
the cavort of journeys done together
Echoes the hush of a soundless blight
original
saadat tahir
22nd July, 2k13
Islamabad.
Jul 22, 2013
Jul 22, 2013 at 11:59 AM UTC
312
Her—”last Poems”—
Poets—ended—
Silver—perished—with her Tongue—
Not on Record—bubbled other,
Flute—or Woman—
So divine—
Not unto its Summer—Morning
Robin—uttered Half the Tune—
Gushed too free for the Adoring—
From the Anglo-Florentine—
Late—the Praise—
’Tis dull—conferring
On the Head too High to Crown—
Diadem—or Ducal Showing—
Be its Grave—sufficient sign—
Nought—that We—No Poet’s Kinsman—
Suffocate—with easy woe—
What, and if, Ourself a Bridegroom—
Put Her down—in Italy?
1.6k
Comfy seats, yellow walls, hot coffee and Chai tea.
Tall tumblers filled with ice, and faces warm, quiet and friendly.
A rugged sign hangs just outside, to welcome those who are hungry.
If golden treasure lies inside, this Naked Egg is such a treat.
Now's not the time to question taste, you could pick at random for goodness sake.
There isn't an item on the menu the wouldn't make most clean their plate.
Sidewinder fries await inside, a torte, a Florentine, a bean.
The whole farm perhaps for your appetite, or a western omelet smoked with cheese.
New deli items await your taste, just choose your meat after a certain time.
And if your cup is ever in need, they'll refill your teapot every time.
Don't be a hot mess, just order one, and you'll be happy that you've come.
To be at the Naked Egg you see, is to see how flavorful life can be.
Jun 23, 2016
Jun 23, 2016 at 3:05 PM UTC
Love looked back as he took his flight,
And lo, his eyes were filled with tears.
Was it for love of lost delight
Love looked back as he took his flight?
Only I know while day grew night,
Turning still to the vanished years,
Love looked back as he took his flight,
And lo, his eyes were filled with tears.
II
(Written in a copy of “La Vita Nuova”. For M. C. S.)
If you were Lady Beatrice
And I the Florentine,
I’d never waste my time like this—
If you were Lady Beatrice
I’d woo and then demand a kiss,
Nor weep like Dante here, I ween,
If you were Lady Beatrice
And I the Florentine.
III
(Written in a copy of “The Poems of Sappho”.)
Beyond the dim Hesperides,
The girl who sang them long ago
Could never dream that over seas,
Beyond the dim Hesperides,
The wind would blow such songs as these—
I wonder now if she can know,
Beyond the dim Hesperides,
The girl who sang them long ago?
IV
Dead leaves upon the stream
And dead leaves on the air—
All of my lost hopes seem
Dead leaves upon the stream;
I watch them in a dream,
Going I know not where,
Dead leaves upon the stream
And dead leaves on the air.
1.5k
Never thought the intent to harm
Thought she was a floaty flower
Wanna **** him till the light of dawn
He was to be devoured
Warmth lack of clarity inside, a little bit
Congregate where the bodies drained now, smells like florentine bedsheets
What a slave to it
A slave to it
A body without a soul
What a slave to it
Mar 8, 2015
Mar 8, 2015 at 4:21 AM UTC
Gentle winter sun,
Peeking through the hazy window,
Fiddling with your hair as your head rested on my shoulder,
While, to Florence we journeyed,
Away from the Sicilian soil,
Whose Olives kept us captives for so long.
Oh! And remember how-
The Florentine pavements answered our footsteps,
And picturesque italian figures smiled at our liberty,
And how-
The sound of mandolin, and of accordion;
The carefree ramblings,the mindless tangos in the Italian streets,
And the sheer aura of it all,
Moved me-
And how it moved you!
But it was later in Vatican,
Ah! it was then,
When God became Michelangelo for me,
And you,the ceiling of Sistine Chapel.
Feb 15, 2019
Feb 15, 2019 at 8:06 AM UTC
jeudi, venus last
lago florentine porch shredded
from balcony of vestigial vista to plutonian shore
not of usual laconic luster
nor perennial, token blue sky
instead apparitions, or entities please here
abounded with vigor, though no it was sotto voce
machete was as is wet eh, cam--
bowie's older cousin to poorly kept hedge
emitted from the formerly symbiotic fence
as when Ozmandias took the Ra's blade;
through a gold medal and into the jugular
the echo of a dropped coin evolved brutal, hear
into the veins of those arms; severed
were my once impending solitudes,
my eyes
shifted quickly towards binoculars
only to find a wake of buzzards
where once only solemnic eagles balded
the paradox of heraldry diurnal yet carrionic
Jun 6, 2015
Jun 6, 2015 at 12:42 AM UTC
il colosseo roma in leather-scented dusk grips the night, marble hand on woman's thigh; these evening breaths are half-lit by awning lights and candle-flame laughter. waiters serve wanderers searching for home under the light of the half-moon – they don't tell us that these shores have too much mystery for us. some homelands are sun-steeped histories cradling darling secrets between ancient bricks, ancient tombs.
the amalfi coast whispers seashell lullabies to the old-souled man plying whiskers of melodies out of his tin-flute, traipsing in a pit-patter down the sandy road leading to the ocean beach. he watches drowsy-eyed windows blink pulses on the beach – they caress us to sleep in lulls and crescents.
the florentine memories are all mine - bacchan dreams; how you turned my head away from the window, wrapped me in whiteness like newborn's skin. you, the child of a mountain spring where gods were born - the softness in your neck betrays this to the doves. heartbeat an adagio in old italy, heather scent stirring the air like eye of newt in witches' brew. love, your body like a holy city – lamplit streets between dusk and dawn leave little to the wishes of the heart.
Jan 23, 2017
Jan 23, 2017 at 7:51 PM UTC
You make me
wanna write poems about you
You have been on my mind for so so long
probably because you were honestly
one of the most handsomest men
I've ever met in my life
that was so so my type
and the funniest thing was
that at the time
I never realized that
We met in Jerusalem
I thought you were gay
because you were so beautiful
the most gorgeous hair
the most beautiful eyes
that I could get lost in
forever
the most beautiful earrings
we sat on the bed
in your room with all your plants
and pleasured me
I dream of you all the time
we sat on my bed and spoke about
concioussness in hebrew
it seemed fluent on my tongue
when I was with you
I held your curls close to my face
carrassed your hair
stared into your eyes
with lashes so long
you walked to me barefoot
and asked me how you looked
and I told you handsome
you are always so handsome I said
it seemed fate brought us togehter
how weird that was.
You told me how beautiful I was
and that you didn't need anything from me
just to hold me and kiss me
maybe it was because eventhough
you were probably a bit of a player
you showed me that a man can be
romantic sweet and a pretty boy
who is deep
and that people like you exist
so I don't know what this poem is about
but I wander about you
so much
I hope maybe we will meet again
in another metaverse
or down the streets of Florentine
or Dizengoff Telaviv
I wander what that would be like
I love the pretty boys
I try to convince myself
that I am always just gay
but I gotta admit
I love the pretty boys
the ones who are deep kind
have a great fashion sense
and love to strum a guitar
the men that I was always taught not to like
that they weren't "man" enough
but to me they are
because I think real men are kind
loving sweet and beautiful .
Sep 4, 2023
Sep 4, 2023 at 2:17 PM UTC
it sniffs for the sweet breeze of Florentine
when all around are flies on rotten meat
can vaguely feel being the last of its line
as slowly falls silent sounds of heartbeat.
its fading eyes seek the far off moorland
feet still echo the long runs on limestone
in the deep woods where giant trees stand
a home where never would rest its bones.
in delirious dreams it stalks at the night
hunts for preys chasing opossums rabbits
itself haunted by looming shadowy fright
of fires that brought down all of his mates.
it's so cold out here with the sun ever far
limbs ice frozen to hold the shaking frame
only frail groans and no one to hear
for man the hunter it was another game.
Aug 28, 2015
Aug 28, 2015 at 12:35 PM UTC
Six tons of fine Carrara marble
lay supine on the Cathedral grounds.
Agostino had carved two legs,
then he had laid his chisel down
Rossellino's turn was next
to wield the mallet in his hand.
The guild learned he was better suited
to carve meat than sculpt a man.
A quarter century came and went
The giant lay in the churchyard there.
He waited for Michelangelo
to come perfect his stony glare.
They raised the giant on his feet
and asked opinions on the stone
Michelangelo was the one engaged
to finish David for his new home.
David, a symbol of liberty,
Defiant like the Florentine state
His stony glare was turned towards Rome,
a warning to the Fearsome Pape.
Jan 15, 2012
Jan 15, 2012 at 8:14 PM UTC
She started out some years ago
the wife of a friend of mine.
The lady’s name was Lisa,
and she was a Florentine.
Through all of my commissions
She followed me through time.
Lisa Gherardini
had a shy and secret grin.
I remember when she sat for me,
the light was perfect then,
But something less than perfect
Was the aspect of her eyes.
She had a stigmatism
That my art could not disguise.
Last night, lying there with Salai
my apprentice and my love.
I looked into his eyes
and was inspired from above..
I hurried to my studio
And burned the midnight oil
This time Salai sat for me
in the same pose as the girl.
.
The result I deem perfection,
I will keep her till I die..
I’ll never sell this mystery girl
That has my lovers’ eyes.
Dec 23, 2011
Dec 23, 2011 at 10:15 PM UTC
Christina plays
the glass-bead
game,
while sitting
in her room.
I love Christina
with her golden
hair
and Florentine
balloon.
Mar 3, 2012
Mar 3, 2012 at 2:46 PM UTC
I think I’ll call her Griselda or Florentine of the sea
She is lovelier than a star fish with eyes of green
And hair twists around this, brown ringlet, queen
Constance of graciousness a madamoiselle’s dream
Mood matches her dresses, bohemian with a spark
And nothing deters that subterranean love heart.
Love Grandma to Connie ***
Jul 17, 2018
Jul 17, 2018 at 10:11 AM UTC
he was a person just like you or me
Raffaello died at 37
in between he created
unlike any other
counter movements
formed three hundred years
after his death
[the first modern art revolution The Pre-Raphaelites]
that is how large he was
If you are able to live briefly
choose your time well
and large was the Florentine
1510 year of our lord
a time of spires rising toward heaven
and palettes of form and emotion
a short life as masterpiece
Mar 19, 2013
Mar 19, 2013 at 1:09 AM UTC
And somehow
My mind goes back to two summers ago
My mind seems to always go back there
I don't really know why
Maybe it was because
I was in love with you
At that time
And I didn't really know why...
I remember sitting at the bar
In Florentine
without knowing a soul,
I looked across the bar
and I see you there
with your dark skin
your impish smile
and your curly hair,
you smiled to me and offered me a drink
and to hang with your friends
I took you home with me
and we went out for a month
I remember waking up
to the smell of cigarettes,
and קפה שחור חזק-(black strong coffee)
and smoke flying all around you ,
I don't know why
but all I think of is you
still all this time later...
I haven't gone back to that home
that I lived in
,two years ago
a city away
for that time in my life,
had so much pain and addiction in it
but I still have so many fond memories of that place
so I think one day soon I'll go back
to the coffee shops in florentine,
to the parks that I used to sit in
and dream about life
to the bars I used to drink in
to melt the pains away ,
to the bar I used to go to ,
when I met you
and to the bomb shelter
that I stayed in
as the bombs flew past me,
yes Israel has been hard
but I forget sometimes ,
that it also has lots of beautiful memories
in it too,
like meeting you
and your beautiful Ethopian,
frame face and culture
opening my mind
and showing me how dark
racisim can be
and what a beautiful soul
you are,
That race doesn't matter
And that beautiful souls do.
I have learnt so much from you
David
So when I saw the Ethopians protesting this week
About the ****** of a small child,
I remembered you
In my apartment
In Telaviv
That eve,
And how close I felt to you
With your dark eyes
Your dark smile
And your cigarette breath
And coffee smells.
Aug 25, 2023
Aug 25, 2023 at 5:36 PM UTC