"genial" poems
Charming lass, the shark she did trust , was a nimble one,
softly nibbled the dead cells laid crusted on her heart
genial it was so she felt like closing her tired eyes a bit,
her bed, lukewarm water, ominously bobbed all the while.
A woeful clown, she dreamed, tried everything to make her laugh
with his pathetic pranks; a jellyfish wearing a wedding dress
seeing this, smelled blood, tried to raise an alarm.
The shark was the one responded, "Don't you wake her up"
the waves were lapping on the shore, then dense silence reigned,
as expected a sanguinary sunset it was,on water blood lay splattered.
Sep 29, 2014
Sep 29, 2014 at 5:58 PM UTC
What can you say about Pennsylvania
in regard to New England except that
it is slightly less cold, and less rocky,
or rather that the rocks are different?
Redder, and gritty, and piled up here and there,
whether as glacial moraine or collapsed springhouse
is not easy to tell, so quickly
are human efforts bundled back into nature.
In fall, the trees turn yellower-
hard maple, hickory, and oak
give way to tulip poplar, black walnut,
and locust. The woods are overgrown
with wild-grape vines, and with greenbrier
spreading its low net of anxious small claws.
In warm November, the mulching forest floor
smells like a rotting animal.
A genial pulpiness, in short: the sky
is soft with haze and paper-gray
even as the sun shines, and the rain
falls soft on the shoulders of farmers
while the children keep on playing,
their heads of hair beaded like spider webs.
A deep-dyed blur softens the bleak cities
whose people palaver in prolonged vowels.
There is a secret here, some death-defying joke
the eyes, the knuckles, the bellies imply-
a suet of consolation fetched straight
from the slaughterhouse and hung out
for chickadees to peck in the lee of the spruce,
where the husks of sunflower seeds
and the peace-signs of bird feet crowd
the snow that barely masks the still-green grass.
I knew that secret once, and have forgotten.
The death-defying secret-it rises
toward me like a dog's gaze, loving
but bewildered. When winter sits cold and black
slumped between its two polluted rivers,
warmth's shadow leans close to the wall
and gets the cement to deliver a kiss.
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Genial poets, pink-faced
earnest wits—
you have given the world
some choice morsels,
gobbets of language presented
as one presents T-bone steak
and Cherries Jubilee.
Goodbye, goodbye,
I don’t care
if I never taste your fine food again,
neutral fellows, seers of every side.
Tolerance, what crimes
are committed in your name.
And you, good women, bakers of nicest bread,
blood donors. Your crumbs
choke me, I would not want
a drop of your blood in me, it is pumped
by weak hearts, perfect pulses that never
falter: irresponsive
to nightmare reality.
It is my brothers, my sisters,
whose blood spurts out and stops
forever
because you choose to believe it is not your business.
Goodbye, goodbye,
your poems
shut their little mouths,
your loaves grow moldy,
a gulf has split
the ground between us,
and you won’t wave, you’re looking
another way.
We shan’t meet again—
unless you leap it, leaving
behind you the cherished
worms of your dispassion,
your pallid ironies,
your jovial, murderous,
wry-humored balanced judgment,
leap over, un-
balanced? ... then
how our fanatic tears
would flow and mingle
for joy ...
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Hail, happy day, when, smiling like the morn,
Fair Freedom rose New-England to adorn:
The northern clime beneath her genial ray,
Dartmouth, congratulates thy blissful sway:
Elate with hope her race no longer mourns,
Each soul expands, each grateful ***** burns,
While in thine hand with pleasure we behold
The silken reins, and Freedom’s charms unfold.
Long lost to realms beneath the northern skies
She shines supreme, while hated faction dies:
Soon as appear’d the Goddess long desir’d,
Sick at the view, she languish’d and expir’d;
Thus from the splendors of the morning light
The owl in sadness seeks the caves of night.
No more, America, in mournful strain
Of wrongs, and grievance unredress’d complain,
No longer shalt thou dread the iron chain,
Which wanton Tyranny with lawless hand
Had made, and with it meant t’ enslave the land.
Should you, my lord, while you peruse my song,
Wonder from whence my love of Freedom sprung,
Whence flow these wishes for the common good,
By feeling hearts alone best understood,
I, young in life, by seeming cruel fate
Was snatch’d from Afric’s fancy’d happy seat:
What pangs excruciating must ******
What sorrows labour in my parent’s breast?
Steel’d was that soul and by no misery mov’d
That from a father seiz’d his babe belov’d:
Such, such my case. And can I then but pray
Others may never feel tyrannic sway?
For favours past, great Sir, our thanks are due,
And thee we ask thy favours to renew,
Since in thy pow’r, as in thy will before,
To sooth the griefs, which thou did’st once deplore.
May heav’nly grace the sacred sanction give
To all thy works, and thou for ever live
Not only on the wings of fleeting Fame,
Though praise immortal crowns the patriot’s name,
But to conduct to heav’ns refulgent fane,
May fiery coursers sweep th’ ethereal plain,
And bear thee upwards to that blest abode,
Where, like the prophet, thou shalt find thy God.
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Soothing, sensational,
elegant as the harp,
Semblance, integument,
covering of the tarp,
Ebullient, vivacious,
precision of the mind,
Vehement, appetent,
keen & one of a kind,
Perfervid, chocolate katydid,
desirable & luscious taste,
Delectable, ambrosial,
palatable & consumed with haste,
Sybaritic, voluptuous,
enticing to the senses,
Libidinous, hedonic,
enriched untightened hinges,
Efficacious, puissant,
robust delight to the eye,
Potent, consequential,
immeasurable symbol of the sky,
Pulchritudinous, gorgeous,
magnificent as the autumn sun,
Resplendent, vivid, lustrous
as a diamond-lithographed gun,
Sympathetic, affectionate,
condoling soul of a angel,
Altruistic, benignant,
warmhearted with no mangle,
Serenity, tranquility,
composure of divine peace,
Harmonious, amicable,
placid as the slow moving creek...
Jul 6, 2012
Jul 6, 2012 at 6:46 PM UTC
1415
A wild Blue sky abreast of Winds
That threatened it—did run
And crouched behind his Yellow Door
Was the defiant sun—
Some conflict with those upper friends
So genial in the main
That we deplore peculiarly
Their arrogant campaign—
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by what light!this pains' dismay is taught and frigid
it is the earth upholding my footfalls genial and slow
i tread and mark the soil as turning sunder:the stain
last frail and withered node of light 7fold and thrice
the hills are marching under that calamity of orange
duskish and fowling their curvaceous hide. i'm loose and tight
in folds of grass. and i walk
and i walk
and i w
a
l;
K
Nov 11, 2010
Nov 11, 2010 at 2:23 PM UTC
Que grande a geração, a de Camões,
Saia de Belém, num pranto oral...
Dizia adeus a grandes multidões!
Olhava o horizonte pequeno Portugal
Traçado o rumo do futuro,
Passado o mar forte e indeciso,
Pegava no leme, firme e duro,
Sem dor, frio ou bramido.
As ninfas, rodeavam o leme,
O Sol, queimava a proa do navio,
O capitão nada teme
Naquele mar, escuro e bravio...
Victor Marques e Atavio Nelson
Chegamos a outros pontos,
Do globo esférico, sem saber!
Que hoje são contos,
Que ainda temos de ler.
Desde Ourique, Calado e Cala trava
Com turbantes brancos reluzentes
Os portugueses lutaram com palavra
Com alegria mostravam seus dentes.
Correram os desertos, tão estéreis
Na defesa de um Santo Universal
Pela cruz combateram infiéis
Dentro e fora de Portugal.
Oh.Isabel que suaves eram tuas flores!
Que rosas encarnadas pueris
Que as músicas sejam cantadas para seus amores
Prendes-te por milagre o teu Diniz.
OH Coimbra.que tiranas do fadário
Oh Sé velha, cheia de segredos
Que encantos lá havia do Hilário
Ainda hoje escritos nos penedos...
Santa Clara, no alto...que te vê clarissa
Jovem, esbelta coimbrã!
Foste, cedo freira e noviça.
Salva-me deste fado, minha irmã!
Olá Marquez, és do Pombal
Traidor, usurpador, ladrão.
NO ódio foste genial.
E TUDO, tudo metia no gibão.
Malandro, enganas-te o teu Rei
Iludiste-o, meu falso...e mandas-te
O Távora, inocente para o cadafalso
Maldito sejas!
Isso não foi Portugal...mas foi
No norte, que uma mulher
Forte, com seios apertados
E espada no dentes bem cerrados
Em serpente e com sua gente
Em zip filas genial
Firme.destinada
Deu a vida mas
Acabou com o Cabral
Sim ali, no monte
Naquele lugar Maria da Fonte
Só com gente destemida, como eu !
Tal como o Lusitano no Gerez
Esta pátria com um plebeu
Concebeu o Tavares com um grande
PORTUGUÊS
Victor Marques
Dec 10, 2009
Dec 10, 2009 at 10:27 PM UTC
Mingle with the genial bowl
The Rose, the ‘flow’ret’ of the Soul,
The Rose and Grape together quaff’d,
How doubly sweet will be the draught!
With Roses crown our jovial brows,
While every cheek with Laughter glows;
While Smiles and Songs, with Wine incite,
To wing our moments with Delight.
Rose by far the fairest birth,
Which Spring and Nature cull from Earth—
Rose whose sweetest perfume given,
Breathes our thoughts from Earth to Heaven.
Rose whom the Deities above,
From Jove to **** dearly love,
When Cytherea’s blooming Boy,
Flies lightly through the dance of Joy,
With him the Graces then combine,
And rosy wreaths their locks entwine.
Then will I sing divinely crown’d,
With dusky leaves my temples bound—
Lyæus! in thy bowers of pleasure,
I’ll wake a wildly thrilling measure.
There will my gentle Girl and I,
Along the mazes sportive fly,
Will bend before thy potent throne—
Rose, Wine, and Beauty, all my own.
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Jam non consilio bonus, sed more eo perductus, ut non tantum
recte facere possim, sed nisi recte facere non possim
(Seneca, Letters 130.10)
Stern Daughter of the Voice of God!
O Duty! if that name thou love
Who art a light to guide, a rod
To check the erring, and reprove;
Thou, who art victory and law
When empty terrors overawe;
From vain temptations dost set free;
And calm’st the weary strife of frail humanity!
There are who ask not if thine eye
Be on them; who, in love and truth,
Where no misgiving is, rely
Upon the genial sense of youth:
Glad Hearts! without reproach or blot;
Who do thy work, and know it not:
Oh! if through confidence misplaced
They fail, thy saving arms, dread Power! around them cast.
Serene will be our days and bright,
And happy will our nature be,
When love is an unerring light,
And joy its own security.
And they a blissful course may hold
Even now, who, not unwisely bold,
Live in the spirit of this creed;
Yet seek thy firm support, according to their need.
I, loving freedom, and untried;
No sport of every random gust,
Yet being to myself a guide,
Too blindly have reposed my trust:
And oft, when in my heart was heard
Thy timely mandate, I deferred
The task, in smoother walks to stray;
But thee I now would serve more strictly, if I may.
Through no disturbance of my soul,
Or strong compunction in me wrought,
I supplicate for thy control;
But in the quietness of thought:
Me this unchartered freedom tires;
I feel the weight of chance-desires:
My hopes no more must change their name,
I long for a repose that ever is the same.
Stern Lawgiver! yet thou dost wear
The Godhead’s most benignant grace;
Nor know we anything so fair
As is the smile upon thy face:
Flowers laugh before thee on their beds
And fragrance in thy footing treads;
Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong;
And the most ancient heavens, through Thee, are fresh and strong.
To humbler functions, awful Power!
I call thee: I myself commend
Unto thy guidance from this hour;
Oh, let my weakness have an end!
Give unto me, made lowly wise,
The spirit of self-sacrifice;
The confidence of reason give;
And in the light of truth thy Bondman let me live!
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There is no floor
Below the water there is sand and dust
My feet disappear below the mist
And below that is a floor of nothing.
Lock and key, relative conductivity
Separation of anxieties
Generally elementary
Universal energy
Scientific inquiry
Empirical discovery
What a bunch of crap.
I bathe in fake white plastic
I swim in silent smiles
Dionysian warfare paintings
Classical textual narrating
Fitness, happiness, soporific movies
Genial tendencies, braced for ingenuity
Waiting for a paroxysm to bring forth neologisms
That test the boundaries of scientific truth
That recapture the errant minds of youth
We could make new buildings or lose a tooth
I hold the latter higher than that
I tilt the ladder there and back
Assiduous and wont, *** for tat
All a game, a joke at that
Your domain, provoked and trapped
Impressionistic spinal taps
On canvases of green and black
All from within cerebral shacks
Wind hammers palm trees on windowpanes
Wind tears down houses, rips apart planes
Wind doesn't move me, yet seems urbane
It's so jejune, it's all the same
I'm tired and lonely, powder remains
Pink like reagents in reactive flames
Quick like catalysts jumping inane
Frontal lobes retired my brain.
Aug 10, 2010
Aug 10, 2010 at 12:02 PM UTC
When beechen buds begin to swell,
And woods the blue-bird's warble know,
The yellow violet's modest bell
Peeps from the last year's leaves below.
Ere russet fields their green resume,
Sweet flower, I love, in forest bare,
To meet thee, when thy faint perfume
Alone is in the ****** air.
Of all her train, the hands of Spring
First plant thee in the watery mould,
And I have seen thee blossoming
Beside the snow-bank's edges cold.
Thy parent sun, who bade thee view
Pale skies, and chilling moisture sip,
Has bathed thee in his own bright hue,
And streaked with jet thy glowing lip.
Yet slight thy form, and low thy seat,
And earthward bent thy gentle eye,
Unapt the passing view to meet,
When loftier flowers are flaunting nigh.
Oft, in the sunless April day,
Thy early smile has stayed my walk;
But midst the gorgeous blooms of May,
I passed thee on thy humble stalk.
So they, who climb to wealth, forget
The friends in darker fortunes tried.
I copied them--but I regret
That I should ape the ways of pride.
And when again the genial hour
Awakes the painted tribes of light,
I'll not o'erlook the modest flower
That made the woods of April bright.
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To-night ungather'd let us leave
This laurel, let this holly stand:
We live within the stranger's land,
And strangely falls our Christmas-eve.
Our father's dust is left alone
And silent under other snows:
There in due time the woodbine blows,
The violet comes, but we are gone.
No more shall wayward grief abuse
The genial hour with mask and mime;
For change of place, like growth of time,
Has broke the bond of dying use.
Let cares that petty shadows cast,
By which our lives are chiefly proved,
A little spare the night I loved,
And hold it solemn to the past.
But let no footstep beat the floor,
Nor bowl of wassail mantle warm;
For who would keep an ancient form
Thro' which the spirit breathes no more?
Be neither song, nor game, nor feast;
Nor harp be touch'd, nor flute be blown;
No dance, no motion, save alone
What lightens in the lucid east
Of rising worlds by yonder wood.
Long sleeps the summer in the seed;
Run out your measured arcs, and lead
The closing cycle rich in good.
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If, in the month of dark December,
Leander, who was nightly wont
(What maid will not the tale remember?)
To cross thy stream, broad Hellespont!
If, when the wintry tempest roared,
He sped to Hero, nothing loath,
And thus of old thy current poured,
Fair Venus! how I pity both!
For me, degenerate modern wretch,
Though in the genial month of May,
My dripping limbs I faintly stretch,
And think I’ve done a feat today.
But since he crossed the rapid tide,
According to the doubtful story,
To woo—and—Lord knows what beside,
And swam for Love, as I for Glory;
’Twere hard to say who fared the best:
Sad mortals! thus the gods still plague you!
He lost his labour, I my jest;
For he was drowned, and I’ve the ague.
1.7k
Solitary man
Always in good company
Of wonderful women
And Gainsbourgian groove
C’est bon chic bon genre
And rudimental rock at the same time
Crude cool
Love’s fool
Passion and percussion
Lust and lavish beats
Charming chansons
And seductive songs
Melody’s magnetic melodies
Du Jane B & Initials BB
A celebration of beauty
Monsieur Gainsbourg
T’es magnifique
Authentique
Flegmatique
Channeling what it means
To be obscenely genial
Fericiously cordial
What it means to live life
As If there’s only one day left
Toujours
Monsieur Gainsbourg
May 31, 2016
May 31, 2016 at 5:27 AM UTC
Socrates was a savage son of a gun
Waltzing across town with an urbane gravitas,
Trumping the pimps and priests that passed
His lazy confidence demanded the reverence oft reserved
For kings and queens and prime ministers
Without a home, the world was a playground all his own
He was always gentle, always genial,
Because he descried through his one good eye
That dregs like me had it rough enough already
He was my friend,
And then he died,
And no one cared but me.
While functional American boys were
Learning from their fathers,
I was learning from that feral cat.
Good old Socrates.
Good boy, Socrates.
Jun 9, 2010
Jun 9, 2010 at 8:52 AM UTC
Sparks fly from the flint crushing as you raise your brow
marveling away over which rock you’d rather be
I smile, ponder, then laugh at you, in opted denial
it’s what you've always been, what I control being
a diplomatic ball of ice on flames, with an aura a disarray
is it us portraying them in grayscale, chin hanging in the air
knowing what we know and pretending to not, yet care
queerly scared of change but so sure of getting tired
merging and shattering, perpetually deemed on trial
and then there exists, at the dawn of my memories
your shadow across the bed, lighting up a cigarette
its smoke, my first reminder of your existence
trying to clasp on to the awry black creases on the wall
as they wrap me into the oblivion of your arms
now it seldom melts at the genial contact of your voice
reckon it might not become hard on being choused
the beautiful black creases have dissolved through my fingers
it has been conned to stay stoically un-aroused.
Aug 14, 2013
Aug 14, 2013 at 1:13 PM UTC
**** me platonically.
Measure the distance between your fingers and the synapse in my brain.
Check the amplitude across my breastplate and The absence of love marks semblance covering it.
Detach your hips from mine and run away from Me faster.
Look along the purlieu of my heart and shake me Harder with subliminal messages between Glances.
Touch my versification to your mouth and do not Stop your flickering eyes from studying the genial Eulogies between every line.
Sir, you cannot touch antique pieces of marrow And bone.
This blood is obsolete.
How anachronistic to have a heart pumping Inside of a dead soul.
Please tell me a story, the side I could never see.
Feb 12, 2014
Feb 12, 2014 at 12:12 AM UTC
1.
And so, I clamber up the heavy slope
and sit alone upon a wide, flat rock.
I still the voices clamouring hard within
and try to listen to the air settle and breathe . . .
The eagle swoops low, whirring loud beside the rocky outcrop
likening its talons to sustain the hold of life . . . (this line to be amended ...sounds odd)
Leaves quiver silent on massive trees
obedient to nature, yet roots bold outgrown . . .
Shade reaches and stretches genial arms
while feel of dark and moist, fertile ground pervades . . .
Air thick with teeming life the eye can't see
thrums with invisible threads, linking slow tendrils . . .
Quiet sky looms dignified and peers squinted
while sun rays slant into pores, kiss my cheek.
Beetles scamper light along the soft, red sand
and not unlike them, I seek still the answer within . . .
2.
Fierce fire takes up dry tinder, consumes into heated coils
destroying with relish, yet offer cleansing balm . . .
3.
Sudden rains refresh, glance off surprised face, upturned
sweet deluge leaves all sodden to delighted heart . . .
4.
I turn not away
I look up
to receive . . . gladly.
I give such thanks
fall on knees to see . . .
No red sky (as in my nightmares)
No lost sun
No smoky horizon
No grey trees
No dead leaves.
Only yellow sunshine
Only blue sky
Only green leaves
Only clear horizon
as far as the eye can see.
S T, 8 May 2013
May 8, 2013
May 8, 2013 at 1:01 AM UTC
he is shimmering, and genial, and made from lego bricks
wraps my fog into empty nothingness
gives me his hand when i fall
all in dust and memories
he's my kiss of undeath
darkness falls apart
had a hope to sink in the sea of gently swinging hammocks
his seasons confuse me,
sitting cross legged inside of a dragon
that falls asleep in shallow oceans for so long
until people forget and believe its an island,
and build tiny houses and towns along his dragon scaled shores
Apr 28, 2012
Apr 28, 2012 at 6:25 PM UTC
Querida,
I'd wished I could hold you here
amidst the splendid songs of the twilight
and the humorous singing of the sky-larks
under the harmonious untouchable blue skies.
This afternoon I beheld thy sheepish movements
pure as the rainbows, and those sparks of levity
of thy salubrious, noble soul.
Querida,
I long to have you here in my bare arms
Thinking of you is marvellous;
your soul is of nothing but the beauteous.
Querida,
I did not seem agile today
I tired my senses
I lost my airs
My breaths in wreaths
of sour demons, their petulance none but
unbecoming, hostile, and drowsy,
but thou! Thou, Querida,
thou breathed again life in steady beats
just like the swords of the lingering sun
until my heart warmed, and bloomed as the plump spring cherries
rosy and windblown in a genial way:
thou art my soul, my hopes,
thou art the knight to my battle lights;
thou art the king to my dry sights;
thou art the owner of my dreams
thou art the loveliest love of my every day.
Dec 7, 2012
Dec 7, 2012 at 8:24 AM UTC
A newborn seed
*f
a
l
l
s*
,
Earth embraced with genial hug.
Behold! Cometh life.
Jun 26, 2014
Jun 26, 2014 at 10:41 AM UTC
I’m not a botanist,
or an avid gardener.
The horto I culture consists of two pots,
sits on a narrow sill
and soaks in its one-hour slit of sunshine.
This makes me unfit
to label much less
fathom the encroaching
sublime, which sprouts,
shoots, creeps, clings and endures
from far reaches beyond me.
It has spines
supple and rigid,
skins coarse, spiked, and silky,
quivering tips that are spidery,
and bunched as small dollops,
jagged teardrops and jigsaw puzzle pieces.
I’m not a botanist,
but if I were
I should still be struck dumb
by these numbing instances
a protesting tongue
insists it won’t box up
such greenery with the genial trappings
of a scientific classification,
or even the oddly
folksy catch-all ****
I can’t always tell what’s a **** what not.
l know those greedy
intruders growing at the heart
of a meticulously turned earth
to spoil the well-ordered
plots of a barely adequate vocabulary.
It gets more complicated
with the thrilling misfits
and their sturdier notions
of choking life from inhospitable beds
poured and paved
to the detriment of meeker plantings.
Yesterday I met the peeks of ten
woody red stems poking through
a patch of chunky white gravel
spread thick between two
steel rails that fled to a horizon.
I watched the breeze
shake their candelabra arms
dressed in sparse leaves
and denser seed-packed sleeves,
and they welcomed it.
I'm not a botanist
and I can’t name these plants,
but I can admit, I admired them.
Nov 13, 2010
Nov 13, 2010 at 6:20 AM UTC
Risest thou thus, dim dawn, again,
So loud with voices of the birds,
So thick with lowings of the herds,
Day, when I lost the flower of men;
Who tremblest thro' thy darkling red
On yon swoll'n brook that bubbles fast
By meadows breathing of the past,
And woodlands holy to the dead;
Who murmurest in the foliaged eaves
A song that slights the coming care,
And Autumn laying here and there
A fiery finger on the leaves;
Who wakenest with thy balmy breath
To myriads on the genial earth,
Memories of bridal, or of birth,
And unto myriads more, of death.
O wheresoever those may be,
Betwixt the slumber of the poles,
To-day they count as kindred souls;
They know me not, but mourn with me.
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