"furrows" poems
Body of ocean, milk and sky,
We are tangled in the hope of night.
The lips of the milky way, creaming us,
Stains and is **** with a taste keening;
All is creation. My meteors crash
Into your ruptured Earth. I flame
Upon your must and moisted furrows
And my toes are locked, rooted in yours.
Body of ocean, milk and sky,
In the deserts of the day you are true
Oasis. The curves and waft of your sands
Seethe and sodden my barren plains,
Are erasing all my wandering memories
Of an endless sky and now your eyes
Are the only stars I know, and your skin;
A sheet that holds the heavens shimmering.
Body of ocean, milk and sky,
Your ******* are the heaving of grasses
And wind, loft and laden in the rounded
Hills, a hoard of ****** bread, bountiful,
Ripe and strange. Your hair is an endless
Savannah, your valleys are gold and honeyed
With milk, seared, filled by my penetrating sun.
In passion we play; low on earth and deep in sky.
May 27, 2012
May 27, 2012 at 2:49 PM UTC
#there are the ones
that feel it climb up
the shadow towards the light,
hesitation on every rung,
each wave of the arising
overwhelms unabated ―
and woe betides those
who are on the run
from a storm's deluge
A rousing ocean breeze
stirs inside the memory
of an unframed seashell
lying on the hearth mantel;
heightened sensitivity
lapping soundlessly,
spindrift plashing
the shoreline
of another world's
feigned peace
Perhaps the muted voice
of guilty pleasures,
hushed by their own
hidden truths
Feeling the unfelt textures
of every stifled vibration
left unbreathed
The naked truth befallen
so cold and lonely
Running in circles,
volatile as all those
unspoken excitations raging ―
and the whispers of those
who hear not
the voices in the wind
An emotionally enslaved heart
tarries, marooned high and dry
in a memory on a distant sand bar
lain fallow for so long ―
stagnant darkness
of an unsated soul
gathered on the back
of a parched tongue
sullied wordless
Rising up through
a dusty hieroglyph corridor
through an unlocked
labyrinth gate; vestige echoes
from somewhere left behind
in an incomprehensible
abandoned wake
It's getting harder and harder
for an insatiable soul to breathe ...
climbing up a tree trunk―
up within the silence
of the listening tree
Toes dug into
the rough bark furrows ―
fingers reaching upwards
beyond their deepest known grasp
A shadow stranded
out on a hangin' bough
hearkening without ears that hear:
“perhaps they’ll listen now“
the wingless bird sings
in psalms that fly away
on tattered feathers
over untamed waters roil
Back to nature’s waning youth,
the bough bends unbroken
to taste the freedom
of the wild absolving seas
Jesse Stillwater
June 2018
Jul 12, 2018
Jul 12, 2018 at 12:41 PM UTC
The World is like a ride in an amusement park, and when you choose to go on it you think it's real, because that's how powerful our minds are. And the ride goes up and down and round and round, and it has thrills and chills and is very brightly colored, and it's very loud. And it's fun, for a while.
Some people have been on the ride for a long time, and they've begun to question, 'Is this real, or is this just a ride?', and other people have remembered, and they've come back to us and they say 'Hey, don't worry. Don't be afraid, ever, because this is just a ride.' and we **** THOSE PEOPLE.
"Shut him up! We have alot invested in this ride! SHUT HIM UP! Look at my furrows of worry. Look at my big bank account, and my family. This just has to be real."
It's just a ride.
But we always **** those good guys who try and tell us that. You ever noticed that? And let the demons run amok. But it doesn't matter, because ... It's just a ride.
And we can change it anytime we want. It's only a choice. No effort, no work, no job, no savings of money. A choice, right now, between fear and love. The eyes of fear wants you to put bigger locks on your door, buy guns, close yourself off. The eyes of love, instead see all of us as one.
Here's what we can do to change the world right now, to a better ride:
Take all that money we spent on weapons and defense each year and instead spend it feeding, clothing, and educating the poor of the world, which it would many times over, not one human being excluded, and WE CAN EXPLORE SPACE, TOGETHER, BOTH INNER AND OUTER, forever ... in peace.
-- Bill Hicks (1961 - 1994)
Aug 9, 2014
Aug 9, 2014 at 2:25 AM UTC
Dearest, you who have moved with me
as the waves to the pull of the moon,
You are leaving me now.
I know I am not the only moon to your sea.
There is another who sways you to her tune.
Her name is scrawled in the furrows of your brow.
But the tears in your eyes and your heartache
Should they not be mine?
I who live on this island, immortal and alone?
You are leaving me a prisoner in your wake,
You with your talk of crooked highlands and fragrant pine
And rugged crags. Dangerous talk, I should have known.
Now I close my eyes and dream
Not of the sweetness of the cypress
Nor of familiar violet-eyed meadows,
But of birds that spin and gleam
high above the land's caress.
You have turned me into another Echo
Stupidly repeating the names of places and people I will never know.
Jan 16, 2015
Jan 16, 2015 at 1:41 AM UTC
The mind toiled with vengeful thoughts
Seeds of arrogance were planted in furrows
From where regressive thoughts grew
Watered by the seething flow of rage
Draining the soul of all the positive juices
Now left with a parched soul, full of cracks
Sep 17, 2014
Sep 17, 2014 at 2:03 PM UTC
the strain of labor
the pain of toil
the ache of legs and arms
the sweating brow
drudging farmer curse the soil
mutely chide the milkless cow
the demon waits for no man.
he rages forth
renders furrows charred
the fields so dry
the rocky ground so hard
Jun 3, 2013
Jun 3, 2013 at 12:00 AM UTC
A fueling, flashing fulgent, furnace, fulgurous, frothy, fumes and feathery flakes,
I do not speak of waves of snow, hoary frost, or ice, a cold gelare or even frozen lakes!
Formidable, furrows, fructifying, functioning fruition to foremost fondly found a flaming,
I revel not in such destruction but choices for my naming!
For flowers flow fields forever, forswearing funneling fjords finitely, fire fray’s forests furthermost,
Instructing in the arts of language, for I am your gracious host!
Fakir formulates factious forms fading flummoxed into fury, a fugacious fusible and furtive fleeting feigning furiosity,
A deep ditch dug, tight as pug, wrapped blanket snub though not a flub, all perspicacity!
Finds frosty frore a frozen freezing faction for fusty flaming feasance,
Fomorian fantasy of formidable faggoting, facient up to fancying, fancying, furnaced flesh fluidity finds itself factitivity, facets for fabulists from the faint familiarity,
Relating cold to heat as such, requires but a human touch, apologize I do you see for all my clueless severity!
Fans of all the falconry, who fallow fields of family, falter for a fallacy, falling into infamy as forgone flame frontogenesis, fatigues a Faustian felony, for which fate finds is fastigiated foolery, febrile features featly and yet furiously, favonian fear of fellowship fiendishly, figures foal to fatherly, finally fiddle flinchingly, although not so too furtively;
I finagle in my filigree!
Jun 20, 2016
Jun 20, 2016 at 1:13 PM UTC
Today, I am gardening my life,
I'll root out worrisome weeds,
Those thoughts that trouble me,
Cast them aside, those I'd never need.
I'll cut the grass of discontent,
Layer it even, soft, green and sweet,
Smoothen the furrows,
So I can run content, bare feet.
I'll water seeds planted with love,
Of friends made this year,
Friendships that bloomed,
That make life special, worth living and dear.
I'll welcome butterflies,
And make homes for nesting birds,
With them, taste sun's ambrosia,
Soar and see the world.
I'll bask in the rainbow of colors,
Of blossoms brilliant and bright,
And keep them sheltered,
When they sleep at night.
I'll capture the scented essence,
Of roses, jasmines and lilies
Place them in a jar —
As fragrant memories.
I'll love, rest and spend more time,
Under the shade of the family tree,
Cherish every moment, every minute,
Beneath its precious canopy.
And I'll buy new saplings,
Sow them all carefully in a row,
Of hopes, promises to me and mine,
And tend to them, make them grow.
Dec 26, 2016
Dec 26, 2016 at 9:20 AM UTC
Gabriel whispered in mine ear
His archangelic poesie.
How can I write? I only hear
The sobbing murmur of the sea.
Raphael breathed and bade me pass
His rapt evangel to mankind;
I cannot even match, alas!
The ululation of the wind.
The gross grey gods like gargoyles spit
On every poet's
holy head;
No mustard-seed of truth or wit
In those curst furrows, quick or dead!
A tithe of what I know would cleanse
The leprosy of earth; and I -
My limits are like other men's.
I must live dumb, and dumb must die!
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The lines on the face
Traces back to the past
So many narratives
And many more emotions
Have made an impact
Deep furrows on the face
Remembrance of life’s events
Sometimes tears flowed
Parallel to the lines of happiness
Etched on the face and forehead
A sanctuary of bygone eras
The face tells it all
Feb 22, 2015
Feb 22, 2015 at 11:12 AM UTC
I tremble, I shake, I convulse,
My body is racked with pain.
You have the cure.
Free my body, free my mind
From this anguish. Bring me
Back from oblivion.
Give me Your Medicine.
Your touch, your breath, your body, your soul,
Your mind, your thoughts, your desires, your essence,
Your passion, your love, your ardor, your fervor,
Your fantasies, your tastes, your spirit, your laughter,
Your glances, your voice, your sweetness, your will,
Your warmth, your smile, your curves, your charm,
Your moods, your temper, your hates, your tears,
Your furrows, your frowns, your wrath, your fury.
Your peace.
Your serenity.
Your compassion.
Your surrender.
Please allow me Your Medicine-
You have mine.
Come, let us heal the world with our cure.
Oct 23, 2012
Oct 23, 2012 at 9:54 AM UTC
(Matthew, xiii.3)
Ye sons of earth prepare the plough,
Break up your fallow ground;
The sower is gone forth to sow,
And scatter blessings round.
The seed that finds a stony soil
Shoots forth a hasty blade;
But ill repays the sower's toil,
Soon wither'd, scorch'd, and dead.
The thorny ground is sure to balk
All hopes of harvest there;
We find a tall and sickly stalk,
But not the fruitful ear.
The beaten path and highway side,
Receive the trust in vain;
The watchful birds the spoil divide,
And pick up all the grain.
But where the Lord of grace and power
Has bless'd the happy field,
How plenteous is the golden store
The deep-wrought furrows yield!
Father of mercies, we have need
Of thy preparing grace;
Let the same Hand that give me seed
Provide a fruitful place!
3.8k
The dermatologist demands a pre-summer scan of my visual delights fully magnified.
Peering into places where no one else has ever peered, even me, reminds me that this is a potentially "disruptive" process.
Eye don't know what his eyes have seen.
He works in silence pin punctuated by the occasional mmmm or throat clearing rumble.
Snappy removal of neutrally colored gloves signify conclusion, he opines as follows:
"Were you aware," he inquires, "that the lines, the furrows on a your forehead correspond to the life your have lead?"
"You have three, deep deep tracks, and that's a fact."
Yes, eye know,
and each one is a tree ring notation
of my existence.
Each a different year,
each a different moment fearful,
a death and a birth,
a passing, a regaining.
No, not children or parents,
illusions.
Markers of our lives are the
birth and death of our illusionary,
our revelation minutes, that measure and scribe
what dug those furrows is now officially,
no more.
Until we start anew,
a different Pretense,
a channel commenced to commemorate.
Living the dream, they say,
aren't we all, eye think, and so inform him.
The doctor did not bill for this
visitation.
May 23, 2015
May 23, 2015 at 5:23 PM UTC
“I’m just confused.” You say.
“About?” Is all I volley with, throat still clogged with tears.
“Your writing, I feel like I know you, then suddenly I feel like I don’t know a whole part of you.”
How do you think I feel, Love? I thought you only had pretty words for me, then surprise, and your doubt, fear, lies, love, are all exposed for the world to see. My faults and yours for everyone else. Our relationship falling apart as your fame grows greater. Pain gets reads.
“I don’t know where it comes from.” I say.
Silence.
“It’s like I put my pen to paper and it pours out.” I continue.
Your brow furrows, digging for something more.
“It’s not even just that, It’s how you act around people it’s different with everyone. I don’t know if you’re real with me.”
I don’t either, I think as the tears spring forward faster. I’m frantically searching for a shade of me to hold onto, one I like. It’s hard to find, personas slipping through fingers like sand.
“I just…” I trail, hoping for an interruption, but you wait.
“I’m a people-pleaser; I know what makes them feel good. I can read them well, I can understand their wants, so to ease some pain, I’ll be what they need.”
Still Silence.
The fullest, noisiest silence.
Am I real? I thought so, with you, yes. With others? No. My parents need a good girl, who loves them like a child. My roommate needs someone to ***** with her, bend to her will, be her punching bag. Your roommates need a girl with ***** someone to shoot **** like they do. Someone to ignore sexism, and racism, hate speeches, and ***** jokes. My school friends need a quirky weird girl who’ll never say no. My teachers need a hard-worker. My boss needs more availability.
I need quiet. I need love. I need to find myself in a maze of personas. Each only slightly different. Then I realize, I’m me already. I don’t need to find myself, I’m here waiting, I just need room to grow. RoomToBreathe. So I light a match, set fire to the maze, and watch as all the lies go up in flames.
Aug 2, 2010
Aug 2, 2010 at 11:45 AM UTC
RED gold of pools,
Sunset furrows six o'clock,
And the farmer done in the fields
And the cows in the barns with bulging udders.
Take the cows and the farmer,
Take the barns and bulging udders.
Leave the red gold of pools
And sunset furrows six o'clock.
The farmer's wife is singing.
The farmer's boy is whistling.
I wash my hands in red gold of pools.
3.1k
*They say that
Van Gogh ate yellow paint
To put the happiness inside him.
But she, instead, would
Cut out the sadness from her skin
And let the hatred pour out
In gushing streams of red,
Her screams echoing
The injustice of colour.
Her wheat skin looked prettier, she thought,
With the raked furrows of half healed scars
And painful slurs
Etched into the deep ochre of her soul.
She quietly detested her terracotta skin,
Smooth like a polished stone
Picked up from the Ganges.
But here in the pale waters of the Thames
She was a blot of burnt sienna on an otherwise ivory white riverbank.
And every new cut
Would heal bloodless and waxen,
Which made her vow to herself to cut off her skin completely,
Leaving nothing but
The darkened red of her fury
And a frightened echo of a scream
In a room filled with bitter laughs and slurs,
In a room filled with the muffled cries of the oppressed and unheard.*
Jul 22, 2013
Jul 22, 2013 at 8:25 AM UTC
*** a couple times with your hand that
has one vein popped up over the knuckle. sheets crinkle
laundry sits in the small humid room.
smells like roadkill and peppermint,
like christmas eve with dinner down the toilet.
you've *** four times in an hour,
rubbing at yourself through your underwear.
don't touch skin. it's off limits today.
getting raw means you can feel
how it stings when you cross your legs.
it's not about pleasure. it's the reminder:
you want to know what you look like,
what you feel like.
next time you're ******* down some boy you ask him
"how does that feel?" he says "good."
quick kiss, his ****** is archaic and copper.
you like how it tastes. now it's your turn:
but of course he won't make you *** unless
you take your hand and rub while he *****
your hand a barrier between his body and yours.
"please be quiet," you say out loud
the boy furrows his eyebrows, "i didn't say anything."
you laugh, "no, my stomach."
pretend to *** for a faster exit.
give him a tiny maternal kiss.
let it linger out the room where it's cold but he's still warm.
you don't want a warmth you have to love because it's too much.
the scab on your neck is now a scar
and you have no make-up for the ones on your forearms, but
really, most of you by now is star dust and tobacco leaves.
the sun is in our eyes. i want to know
what makes a circle go on forever.
i think about ****** a lot.
dreamt two nights ago chris sold me some,
it was in that tiny wax bag with a "king ****** stamp .
when i texted him the next day said "i dreamt
we did some together," he said
"that's funny. i've been doing some definitely
but not really selling."
the Chicago cold does something odd enough to you.
it always seemed like you were alive as a kid. well,
were you?
where is your body? out in the storm.
are you a ghost? no, it would be nice though:
the lack of responsibility of life,
a state of impermanence.
it would be nice.
Oct 21, 2014
Oct 21, 2014 at 9:13 PM UTC
His mouth puckers to the side,
his brow furrows when aware
an assumption crawls around
in the wormwood of his mind.
Every misconception,
unrecognized at first
swells within, until
his error bolts forth
like lighting on the prairie
breaks the swelter of
a summer day.
Meditations sooth his disquiet ,
perplexed by her perfection
he searches for scars in blossoms,
and defects in tree leaves. His mouth
grows dry as he mumbles
"there is no perfection."
If he finds a flaw
upon her cheek,
or a birthmark
on her shoulder
will his love fade?
Eyes staring ahead,
his mind in a trance,
he ruminates phrases
" stay open," "remain tolerant"
wait for flowers to bloom,
rains to come and
her to remain
incomprehensible.
Jun 5, 2014
Jun 5, 2014 at 4:02 PM UTC
*blistering day shuns a walk
all flock to recycled air-con of malls
few venture out* . . .
1.
walk along a mountain path
dislike snakes
wear heavy ankle-boots
rough route
craggy stones
grow tired
2.
head on stone
fall into drowsy slumber
baking brains gathering aches
3.
huge mountain appears
espy a cut opening along the side
a welcoming slit
enter slowly
step by step
seems to brook entry to no more
wonder what calls inside
4.
distant drumming
not afraid
joy fills supreme
reducing epicenter
gentle hands touch and pull in
negating every fear
melting away bleak thoughts
sink deeper into the earth
down . . . down . . . down
into cavities unknown
follow secret canal away from here
5.
sweetest eyes greet and kiss
fall into soft furrows
carried along canal of warmth
close the eyes
fall in heart with glowing ambience
subtle humming felt beneath the soles
sweetest honey-lake
deeper . . . deeper . . . deeper
sublime cocoon - always dreamt of
what supreme bliss
falls in lap of bearer
6.
all cares washed away
known memories seem to float off
as a dinghy to a waterfall
lost over that lip
free fall
free fall
conscience takes a bobbing nap
on waves which lull the senses
into drifting buoy
as conscious dips
utter serenity
spirit moves freely
totally unencumbered
/ /
[awareness - jolted - sudden - open
as corporeal fetters take hold once more
teeter into rude awakening
rub eyes to verify
faculties catapulting in greedy succession
/ /
find a hessian bag on rock
half-afraid to check inside
seemingly empty
lift the edge and peer inside
/ /
the most silent rainbow of inner dreams
long-forgotten wishes flow
into being
as rains come down]
/ /
*no more fear.. again
no more tension
no answering to
no deprivation
no derision
two pure doves hover
quite high
a pale-blue
buoy ~
the only signs of hope
blistering judgment dissolves
beautiful buoy floating
a way.... to marve cut of pure crystal
away...
on an endless ocean of calm*
S T, 20 August 2013
Aug 20, 2013
Aug 20, 2013 at 11:54 AM UTC
My glass shall not persuade me I am old
So long as youth and thou are of one date;
But when in thee Time’s furrows I behold,
Then look I death my days should expiate.
For all that beauty that doth cover thee
Is but the seemly raiment of my heart,
Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me.
How can I then be elder than thou art?
O, therefore, love, be of thyself so wary
As I not for myself, but for thee will,
Bearing thy heart, which I will keep so chary
As tender nurse her babe from faring ill.
Presume not on thy heart when mine is slain;
Thou gav’st me thine, not to give back again.
2.8k
My father's long fingers smooth
over the aged scratchy pleats.
The Kilt is magnificent. It has the
fleeting beauty that only a well
kept antique has, that warm
firelight glow of the past.
It has a few scuffs and holes,
but the somber reds and greens of
clan Mackintoish have settled into
the cloth and darkened pleasantly.
The kilt is always the most important detail,
it has passed from grandfather down,
and it looks as handsome now
as in the sepia photographs on our shelves.
The dirks black ornate hilt rests
heavily against his hip, and the
belt is cinched tightly to hold it up.
you can practically hear bagpipes
My grandfather's dark green cotton socks
sit near the top of my father's calf
and he leans over to adjust the frills.
And as his tan wrinkled brow furrows
in concentration, and his admittedly
attractive white whiskers scrape
across his collar, and the image
nears completion, the drum beats louder.
Reaching up from the ancient past
and grasping the future in tradition,
the ghosts of ancestors enter his poise,
and he suddenly appears less like
my father and takes on the swagger
of a cocky fisherman, of pirate.
He is swinging swords
and playing pipes, and cobbling, and
setting stones upright in ancient
forgotten ritual, and tossing cabers.
I know looking at him now,
what my own ghosts will be
when my time comes.
Jul 20, 2014
Jul 20, 2014 at 8:16 PM UTC
Nothing is as beautiful as the transformation of the human face.
The journey of a smile as it licks at the lips and dances into the eyes.
The adventure of laughter as it opens the mouth and tickles the throat.
The reclusiveness of sadness as it travels down the cheeks and wets them with tears.
The intensity of concentration as it furrows the brow and quickens the breath.
The turmoil of fear as it flares the nostrils and grinds the teeth.
The restfulness of sleep as it closes the eyelids and brings relief.
Jun 4, 2014
Jun 4, 2014 at 1:33 AM UTC