"forsythia" poems
Although you sit in a room that is gray,
Except for the silver
Of the straw-paper,
And pick
At your pale white gown;
Or lift one of the green beads
Of your necklace,
To let it fall;
Or gaze at your green fan
Printed with the red branches of a red willow;
Or, with one finger,
Move the leaf in the bowl--
The leaf that has fallen from the branches of the forsythia
Beside you...
What is all this?
I know how furiously your heart is beating.
17.2k
Forsythia,
here blazing out,
in,
is it tractor,
center stripe,
or school bus yellow?
A distant cousin to the olive tree.
Would that a rioting branch,
when offered,
would never fail to restore
tranquility and peace.
Mar 21, 2012
Mar 21, 2012 at 5:49 PM UTC
Never sure who's boss between us
He comes when called
several minutes later...
Blinking sweetly
smiling as only cats can
Golden, half-moons of sunlit bliss
watch fat yellow-jacket
marginally motivated
The hunt cannot compare
to the soft grass with its tender clover
a full belly
and the meeter-of-all-needs nearby
But the quick jitter-dance
of an easy moth
sends the tiger
to the jungle of forsythia
Gleaming, stalking stripes
Alternating white of paws in precise approach
The prey? Too quick
The predator? Too old and lazy
prefers attention
Lumbers slowly back
lolling against coffee cup
Enough....
On needles of white pine
a secret lion has lain down
waiting only for the lamb
Aug 24, 2017
Aug 24, 2017 at 7:05 PM UTC
Who knows what stops the heart of a song
I take note
of tiny thud—
robin in the wheel well of my car
the limp head
of a cat’s prey
sigh of wings
defrocked by power lines
baby starling’s fledgling flight
falling short of a pond’s edge
The slate morsel unearthed
by the tines of my rake
…and the world is vacant for a moment
Grief ***** a womb of air
but how it lives— I cannot say
Upended creature of us
Stops the throbs that herald life
Apr 5, 2017
Apr 5, 2017 at 3:24 PM UTC
I always wanted to be that random style of writer
Writing about things which have no connection
In reality but they are connective only by the ingenuity
Of his genuflection; the circumvention of his
Circuitous routing, his plaintive perturbing petulance
Which insists on stacking things of different orders
Flying birds together of different species
If I could write something of the ticking of clocks
Not as though the ticking were of premeditated duration
Embedded in metal tracks around perimeters
Of prevaricated die-cast hours; but as though the ticking
Were only a random fixture of a theoretical day
In which random clocks ticking played a minor role
During the still life of which a poet happened along
And copied it all down dutifully, not caring if
Ticking clocks were related to pitchers of Forsythia
Or falling off of cliffs into the Aegean;
The only task of the poet to capture it all
And let the reader sort it out later
In the random tracks of his circuitous brain:
Whether the pitcher was full of sea
Or the sea was stealing into the pitcher
One blue, serendipitous drop at a time
And where no clocks were keeping time.
Mar 7, 2010
Mar 7, 2010 at 5:36 PM UTC
There it was in the middle of nowhere
All grown up with wisteria vines
In the summer when the wisteria would bloom
It looked like a beautiful fairytale
Daffodils once grew beside the concrete porch
And azalea bushes too
Forsythia grew near the concrete walkway
It's yellow blooms I used to pick
In bouquets for my Mom in springtime
Two or three bushes bearing white flowers
Once grew beside the house too
Inside it looked Victorian
Even though it was built
In the 1940s or 1950s
How surreal and dreamlike
It did look inside and out
Even though when I saw it
It looked like repairs were a necessity
The floors needed to be torn down and replaced
The house was in dire need of electricity
And in want of being cleaned and organized
Bags of trash and other things
Needed to be sorted through
The house needed a new roof and ceiling
The ceiling and roof were falling through
Some of the floors were collapsing
Or they would crumble if you tried to put
Even one of your feet on one of the brittle floors
Yet that was my favorite home of all
And I miss you since you were torn down
Just last summer
It seems longer or shorter in some ways
In other ways it doesn't
Even though I never lived even a day
Inside of your comfortable hominess
My Mother and her sisters and parents did
My Dad courted her inside those very walls
Which were torn down just last summer
I wished I could have lived inside those walls
Replaced only what needed to be replaced
Keeping as much of you as I could
But you were destroyed
And I never had a chance
*Oh, how I miss you,
Dear little rustic country house
Which was like a home
And felt like home inside*
~Marian~
Mar 21, 2014
Mar 21, 2014 at 9:19 PM UTC
Silently sitting
out on my chair
Lilac scent wafting
up thru the air
Forsythia blooms
so yellow and bright
Peony flowers
a pure snowy white
Birds are singing
Songs set me at ease
Trees are growing
pollen makes me sneeze
Winter has loosened
It's icy cold grip
Now it's springs turn
to captain the ship
May 4, 2016
May 4, 2016 at 9:02 PM UTC
Poem
I watched a truck churning under a wire convergence
and the sky above doped entrails coming from Europe
Where had the turtle gone, the one puffed in the curve of the fox?
Now clambering onto the icy porch
I open the door into
smells of brass polish, wood polish
pots full of bones.
Winter’s wind rattling time holds me in
I must make marmalade with Seville oranges
with their thick rutted craters, sadly moon-like
a little sweetness of the blossom
worn on bridal veils will come back
as the flesh boils soggy with pips
and Demerara’s sweetness pummels
and I’ll be beaming ear to ear, beaming, full
of a sugar high, then fall. I don’t think I’ll be flying
to Jamaica, but at least I have a box of jars
My house will be dressed
of stiff forsythia branches, blooming
while I pull on stupoods of wool
socks, and wax my boards
I watched whirling snow collapse, loshing
on my face, signs of a dream, unsettling
separating mills and boon from reality.
If I had cast a spell stirring boiling sugar
And whispered ancient simple words
And as spring soars from
the dirt he would say agapa me
and my house full of worms, fat as fingers would dissolve
which is why I must plant, for butterflies to flutter
O my mighty easel, you are not like nature
though you are like a highway
of roots, clamped with straps
Supported or shaded, you reveal
all that I am.
The light begins to drop out of ticking stars
onto the snow bank behind the studio
the place where crimson and ochre mate.
I am really a painter
and my brushes are words
which glaze accidentally across
vellum, spurning censure.
Feb 15, 2012
Feb 15, 2012 at 6:02 AM UTC
Spring in Kansas.
It doesn’t come in softly.
It roars in with the wind and rain beating against a steel roof, washing into the old soddies and stone,
Clearing out winter in one giant breath.
The change comes within a week,
From dry dead, brown, to startling green, an emerald landscape of winter wheat.
The emerald isle has nothing on Kansas in the Spring.
Then the color starts, red buds against glorious green fields
and thunderous skies, a painters dream uncaptured.
And forsythia, the first blooms, beautiful and stark.
Crocus, daffodil and dandelion crowning the ground with gold.
The trees, bare of leaves, burst forth with flowers in shades of white and pink and the magnolias burst forth, ready to fly off the tree.
Our mighty cotton wood, drooping with frills that will become light catching tufts in the early summer sun as the leaves murmur their constant song, piling like snow in the heated streets.
Thunder rolls as lightning strike turning day into night with hail filled clouds and twisters striking like Greek gods, angry and awesome.
Creeks flood and clear the way for tadpoles and crawdads in streams and pools.
Spring comes, the earth warms, we all wake and stretch and wait for the sunflowers to do the same, yearning to the summer sun.
May 13, 2010
May 13, 2010 at 11:26 AM UTC
Perched motionless
Gleaming among the catkins of the oak—
with toy accordions for leaves
And a heron—watching
Neck pleated
Head resting in feathery shoulders
Sharp-eyed, beak brutal
Watching—
where below
that beer can, squashed and stabbed
...And did he see her?
by the naked window
Did he see the lace that bloomed?
No—fell
like spring’s full flakes
to coat the hills in white
for an hour at best in its cool damp?
Did he see?
the way her hair lapped
the spine and blade of back?
Bent the night—so darkly
red from black
as she pulled her blouse above her head?
And did he want!
the flesh of warm yellow lamplight
the smeared press of spit and sweat!
YES!
Squash and **** that beer can!
Sculpt your loneliness!
and stick it through
with any hard implement handy!
Grind your teeth on dumb regret
and **** yourself!
You know you don’t—love her?
Be jealous of her sheets, her springs, her sunsets!
on their ways to frost and moonlit sleep
turning forsythia of day
to fuzzy falls of glitter-gray
spilling down thick hips
of the river’s dungeon banks
so steeped in heat
to the dizzy roar that follows....
Be jealous of the River!
who always goes to her
when you will not...
And if—you really loved
I mean—loved!
who you saw...
you would have seen
the tired tears—roll than linger—Years
forsake their bones
defy the need for sleep
Defy everything!
Except—
the moon’s cloister...an owl’s call
And if you had loved her
you would have made the distance!
crossed the lawn!
skipped stairs!
Fought the Night of Time!
taken her porch like a champion!
Heart pounding near—the door down!
And if you had really loved
who you had seen
I MEAN—LOVED HER!
You would have—
You would have done—
ANYTHING!
Sep 9, 2016
Sep 9, 2016 at 9:28 PM UTC
Although you sit in a room that is gray,
Except for the silver
Of the straw-paper,
And pick
At your pale white gown;
Or lift one of the green beads
Of your necklace,
To let it fall;
Or gaze at your green fan
Printed with the red branches of a red willow;
Or, with one finger,
Move the leaf in the bowl--
The leaf that has fallen from the branches of the forsythia
Beside you...
What is all this?
I know how furiously your heart is beating.
2.3k
i see the petunias , lilacs and forsythia.
the tomatoes , strawberries, grapes and pine cones
and the squirrels
in my garden
and i know God is there
and He brings me gifts
of flowers and sunshine
and butterflies
and hummingbirds
and sweet, sweet air
and i know God is there
He lets me play in the garden
my garden is
my art
He brings me lilies and daisies and asters
marigolds and sweet alyssum
...memories from grandmas
a magnolia and butterfly bushes
from my sons
foxgloves from a time spent with my precious friend
and bittersweet geraniums...
memories
of my mama's
grave...
cj 2016
May 20, 2016
May 20, 2016 at 12:45 AM UTC
one halcyon summer, when
we strung ourselves out on fat couches, wilting
like thirsty, overheated forsythia, one
hundred or more crimson carcases found themselves
turned upside down on my floor. ladybugs discarded
from the designs of nature. i swept them under the bed.
i promise, when you die, i will not flick you out of sight
with a careless index finger (there will be sorrow, outrage, and flowers
picked clean of aphids).
Jun 16, 2011
Jun 16, 2011 at 7:35 PM UTC
Poem
I watched a truck churning under a wire convergence
and the sky above doped entrails coming from Europe
Where had the turtle gone, the one puffed in the curve of the fox?
Now clambering onto the icy porch
I open the door into
smells of brass polish, wood polish
pots full of bones.
Winter’s wind rattling time holds me in
I must make marmalade with Seville oranges
with their thick rutted craters, sadly moon-like
a little sweetness of the blossom
worn on bridal veils will come back
as the flesh boils soggy with pips
and Demerara’s sweetness pummels
and I’ll be beaming ear to ear, beaming, full
of a sugar high, then fall. I don’t think I’ll be flying
to Jamaica, but at least I have a box of jars
My house will be dressed
of stiff forsythia branches, blooming
while I pull on stupoods of wool
socks, and wax my boards
I watched whirling snow collapse, loshing
on my face, signs of a dream, unsettling
separating mills and boon from reality.
If I had cast a spell stirring boiling sugar
And whispered ancient simple words
And as spring soars from
the dirt he would say agapa me
and my house full of worms, fat as fingers would dissolve
which is why I must plant, for butterflies to flutter
O my mighty easel, you are not like nature
though you are like a highway
of roots, clamped with straps
Supported or shaded, you reveal
all that I am.
The light begins to drop out of ticking stars
onto the snow bank behind the studio
the place where crimson and ochre mate.
I am really a painter
and my brushes are words
which glaze accidentally across
vellum, spurning censure.
Feb 15, 2012
Feb 15, 2012 at 6:02 AM UTC
(repost)
Perched motionless
Gleaming among the catkins of the oak—
with toy accordions for leaves
And a heron—watching
Neck pleated
Head resting in feathery shoulders
Sharp-eyed, beak brutal
Watching—
where below
that beer can, squashed and stabbed
...And did he see her?
by the naked window
Did he see the lace that bloomed?
No—fell
like spring’s full flakes
to coat the hills in white
for an hour at best in its cool damp?
Did he see?
the way her hair lapped
the spine and blade of back?
Bent the night—so darkly
red from black
as she pulled her blouse above her head?
And did he want!
the flesh of warm yellow lamplight
the smeared press of spit and sweat!
YES!
Squash and **** that beer can!
Sculpt your loneliness!
and stick it through
with any hard implement handy!
Grind your teeth on dumb regret
and **** yourself!
You know you don’t—love her?
Be jealous of her sheets, her springs, her sunsets!
on their ways to frost and moonlit sleep
turning forsythia of day
to fuzzy falls of glitter-gray
spilling down thick hips
of the river’s dungeon banks
so steeped in heat
to the dizzy roar that follows....
Be jealous of the River!
who always goes to her
when you will not...
And if—you really loved
I mean—loved!
who you saw...
you would have seen
the tired tears—roll than linger—Years
forsake their bones
defy the need for sleep
Defy everything!
Except—
the moon’s cloister...an owl’s call
And if you had loved her
you would have made the distance!
crossed the lawn!
skipped stairs!
Fought the Night of Time!
taken her porch like a champion!
Heart pounding near—the door down!
And if you had really loved
who you had seen
I MEAN—LOVED HER!
You would have—
You would have done—
ANYTHING!
Jun 28, 2017
Jun 28, 2017 at 11:06 AM UTC
Central Park transformed,
a natural stadium
of tourists, strollers,
drunk on:
spring beer Buds,
or
buds of forsythia
maps upside down,
smiles right-side up
Amazing,
they don't even notice,
'walk on by,'
*the white shirted, black suited
unicorn playing the accordion*
or the
*violinist
imitating Charlie Chaplin,
playing both her instrument and
her hula hoop,
simultaneously*
ah Central Park,
your air is like
a first cup of spring,
a first morning coffee,
a fresh breath of
a special new,
if you know
how to
just be,
in NYC
Apr 13, 2014
Apr 13, 2014 at 10:08 AM UTC
When it is springtime, I open my windows wide.
The smells of flowers and cut grass are such a delight,
When, they come inside.
What does Spring smell like?
It smells like;
forsythia bushes,
daffodils, crocus, tulips,
cherry blossoms and cut dandelions.
What does Spring smell like?
Spring smells like;
The wonderful smells of;
laundry drying on the clothes lines,
rain,
fresh breezes,
and dirt.
All the smells of springtime,
are all so excellent, fresh, new and
such a delight!
© 2013 Ronald J Chapman All Rights Reserved.
Dec 5, 2014
Dec 5, 2014 at 3:25 PM UTC
Once you’ve gone
what more is there
to say about leaving
or, for that matter,
the impermanence
of measured words.
All I can do is stand
alone in the backyard
and listen to the wind.
A late frost killed
the magnolia buds
and the forsythia
never materialized.
And so I wait for the worms
to begin their earthy work.
I wait for the pink moon
to rise above the rooftops.
I wait for the smell of mock orange
and the blue of a broken robin’s egg.
But most of all
I wait for your
words to bloom,
to tell me, finally,
that spring is here—
that the gardens we tend to
have something more to say.
Apr 14, 2017
Apr 14, 2017 at 12:16 PM UTC
i.
i await
the sudden
awakening
of colour, in
the straw air
the clouds of
yellow flowers
wrap the
forsythia in gold.
ii.
the land is
ivy and moss,
thick-blades
of grass bend
in rain so
light that the
grass hardly
weighs down,
the rain is a
bare breeze
a time-surrendering
blossoming of air.
iii.
you said,
i love you
and it meant
more than i can
say and
i cried for joy.
iv.
boy, with your
brown eyes
dark with the
wild brooding shore,
your touch is
fire on my skin
and i brood too,
wilder than air.
v.
a bird sings,
sings of wilderness
and beauty
and that a heart
must be free.
the white
sheets of the
sky are still
in their mists.
Mar 11, 2017
Mar 11, 2017 at 11:07 AM UTC
She was
the Queen of Spring;
even her softest sighs
could sing.
Daffodils sprouted
from her lips;
Lilacs grew
around her hips.
Tulips blossomed
in her eyes;
Forsythia
bedecked her thighs.
Oh, she really was
the Queen of Spring;
even her softest sighs
did sing.
- mce
Apr 9, 2015
Apr 9, 2015 at 2:40 PM UTC
sweet day,
birds kissing
the air in
rapid flight.
we wait, stones
of the morning
sun
for the white
sky to
settle its clouds
ghosts of the
faint breeze
tremble the leaves.
it is still cold,
april peels its
skin like a snake.
forsythia lounges
with beech and
rhododendron
(shiny with waxy
leaves)
painting its
impressions on
the fainting world.
the trees stutter
weird and heavy
glowing in the
light.
Apr 4, 2017
Apr 4, 2017 at 4:09 AM UTC
Eleven days into April I threw on an emerald vest with the warm woolen center. I don’t have gloves on my body. I don’t even own those hip knit gloves with the finger holes. What happened to the spring we once knew? Lavender and full of flowers. Two days into May a year ago the New Whitney opened up to the paparazzi of opaque robin and I got drunk from a clear plastic bottle clearly full of ***** at their kickoff public block party. Nobody tried to stop me. Probably because I’m pretty. A DJ played techno beats thick enough to indulge the vast street. I danced alone on steal blue cobblestone with red-pigmented toes. My flushed eye caught colors of something that made me imagine van Gogh and did it hurt? To chop off his ear? Where would he put the fallen flowers if he picked them up?
*Free drinks?
Yes, please*
Passed out in the grass on the backbone of noon, I swallowed his tongue and tasted every forsythia he’s ever eaten. Maybe I was just dreaming. I recall catching a cab with my best friend because we were too wasted to make it on foot. Taxi wind whipping our hair into a tunnel. Heavy letters unopened on the kitchen table. Cherry blossoms covered the cracked leather and they smelled so much like your backyard. I’m probably dozing off to sleep.
How is it I can only see you when my concrete lids finally meet?
May 10, 2016
May 10, 2016 at 4:21 AM UTC
~
Licorice and lavender and lazy afternoons
On a beach to nowhere in a sea of red balloons
Cotton candy carousels that spin so ever slow
Everywhere is anywhere if you would like to go
Silly putty patterns in a shade of tangerine
Violins and cellos hold so tightly to the string
Daffodils in dancing shoes across the valley flow
Everywhere is anywhere if you would like to go
Puzzles painted purple play a perfect polished part
Rivers made of chocolate and the places that they start
Midnight moons now mingle with the fireflies aglow
Everywhere is anywhere if you would like to go
Pizza pies and railroad ties and cherries jubilee
Silhouettes at twilight in the shapes we’ve come to see
Sidewalks on the mountaintops that ramble through the snow
Everywhere is anywhere if you would like to go
A tiny leaf, a strong belief that spring does now arrive
The summer breeze, magnolia trees and lonely roads to drive
Shadows of the evergreens upon the ground to show
Everywhere is anywhere if you would like to go
Caramel connections in a sweet and gooey mess
Secrets and forsythia, a yellow summer dress
Skipping pebbles on the water three times in a row
Everywhere is anywhere if you would like to go
Peanut shells and wishing wells and taxi cabs to hail
Paper airplanes folded twice through aqua skies to sail
City streets and movie seats and popcorn we can throw
Everywhere is anywhere if you would like to go
Any day is everyday if you are here with me
Sunny skies and butterflies abound for us to see
Take my hand and understand that I do love you so
And everywhere is anywhere if you would like to go
Jun 18, 2014
Jun 18, 2014 at 6:47 AM UTC