"gentility" poems
Lush is the quietude
of the late Saturday afternoon,
rich are the silencing sounds,
as variegated as the shades of greens
of a man-seeded, nature-patchworked lawn
rays reveal some bright,
some yellowed spots,
all a potent color palette
resting worry wearied eyes,
untroubled by the gentle fading light's illumination,
that soon will disappear and seal officially,
another week gone by
the lawn,
acting as an ceiling acoustic tile,
absorbing and reflecting
the varied din of disharmonious
natural sounds orchestrated,
an ever present reminder
that true quiet
is not the absence of noise
I hear
the chill in the air,
insects debating vociferously
their Saturday evening plans,
the waves broom-swishing beach debris,
pretending to be young parents
putting away the children's toys for the eve
the birds speak in Babel multitudes of tongues,
chirps, whistles, clicks and clacks,
then going strangely silent as if all were
praying collectively the afternoon sabbath service,
with an intensity of the silent devotion
this moment, i cannot
well enough communicate,
this trump of light absolutes,
and animal maybes,
that are visually and aurally
presented in a living surround sound screen,
Dolby, of course,
all a plot of
ease and gentility,
in toto,
sweet serenity
here to cease,
no more tinkering,
leave well enough,
plenty well enough
Jun 7, 2015
Jun 7, 2015 at 10:39 AM UTC
a birthday poem for S.
perhaps, this is the responsibility, the purposeful gentility,
that poetry engenders, that thwarts the impulse to anger,
guiding away, finding a way, to temper the temper, to out
and joust away our basest, our first, but never our foremost
nor finest, succinct instinct, yet terrible human nonetheless...
perhaps, this is where we hide, neath our carnival masque,
our-would-be better selves, and struggle in this, this intensity intentional,
the season's change is subtly blatant, not obvious 'cept to those
who have a front seat, a well worn Adirondack chair in the nook
where the airy breeze offers fruits of words so easy, pluck words
as easy as breathing, and the slight gradation change, in the light and
temperature, and yet, the suns cares not, for it still warms my body,
though lower and slower, nonetheless, when the heat invades my soul, confirming my, our, existence,
burning off the fog of our contradictory confusions,
and eliciting an unsolicited
"thank you god"
for my, our personal miracle of re~birthing
and better comprehending,
that other
miracle we can embrace
never enough
loving kindness
sun~mon
sep 14~15
twenty twenty five
Sep 15, 2025
Sep 15, 2025 at 8:33 AM UTC
*wonder’s
joyous
heartfelt
smile,
beauty’s
charming
expressive
style,
delight’s
enchanting
debonair
attire,
whimsy’s
gleeful
intimacy
afire,
laughter’s
voice
lovesome
glow,
gentility’s
engaging
graceful
show,
love’s
adoring
kisses
embrace,
hope’s
welcome
inspiring
grace,
desire’s
playful
flirty
glance,
passion’s
jubilant
fleeting
romance.*
Nov 30, 2017
Nov 30, 2017 at 11:58 AM UTC
Alexander K Opicho
(Eldret, Kenya;[email protected])
Do you remember one era in Kenya?
During the dark days of dictatorship
When Daniel arap Moi
Was the tyrannical president of Kenya
And darkness of leadership
Loomed like the dark clouds of el Niño
When forty district commissioners
Out of the total of forty two were kalenjins?
Whose main work was to spy and terrorize
As the people forlornly groaned under the heavy
Yoke of state terror of tribal torment
When the president claims that
He was not aware of such tyranny,
When we used to sing a lame poem
Of jokoo! Jokoo! Jokoo! Jokoo!
On empty stomachs with no hope of food
No hope of jobs or even education
Street children swelling on the street
In total political nonchalance of arap Moi
As he only gave free milk to his own kalenjin youths
In Kabaraka schools, the Kabaraka school which was
Overfunded by the poor tax payers money,
Please President Uhuru Kenyatta as good as you are
With your dear humane heart of Bantu conscience
As you are armed to teeth with modern education
**** sapiens Gentility and polished diplomacy
Superb in quality of thought and supremacy of choices
The government of Kenya is yours and the people of Kenya
Are your political darlings, true bandwagons for ever
Kindly listen and buy my poemetics, my dear president
Remove Daniel Moi from the state house of Kenya,
Let not Daniel Moi be your adviser
Ignore him and embrace Kenyans
For common future happiness
Even if Daniel Moi is old, the truth is different
He is not a good man, he is full of Machiavelli
His full badness is measured in absurdity
Of terribly and horrendously crashed *** crushed
Testicles of poemcrats and political leaders
Of Kenya of yore and today,
Truth meted in When koigi wa wamwere became
A permanent staff of kamiti maximum prison without pension
Wangari Mathai beaten like an animal in a hunters trap
Ngugi wa Thiong’o jobless and detained without trial
Raila Amolo odinga’s testicles went missing
He looks for them on daily circadian
But once he nears their political pigeonhole
Then elections of the times flops, O! Poor Odinga!
President Uhuru Kenyatta with your suave intellect
You won’t get a pretext to say that
I was not aware or not informed
Please dear darling of the people
The people of Kenya in their 42 tribes
Novate Moi with the people
And your legacy will smile.
Jan 17, 2014
Jan 17, 2014 at 8:59 AM UTC
Let me take you out to lunch
Mrs Bryce said
(she was a middle aged dame
old enough to be his aunt)
o.k if you like
he said
but her friend Lilly
didn't like the idea
(some jealousy
of the lesbian kind
maybe he later thought)
and was quite reserved
as they went to
the posh upstairs restaurant
he one side
and they opposite
Lilly giving him
the cool stare
her pinched mouth
wrinkled forehead
Mrs Bryce studied
the menu
her glasses on
her eyes focused
what you having Lilly?
she asked
and Lilly scanned
her menu and picked out
something in French
and then she asked him
and he said
o the stew will do
and the waitress came
and took their orders
and went off
wagging her behind
which he noticed
but they didn't
being that part
sexually blind
and then came
the small talk
the casual chat
or this and that
and Lilly straight faced
thin lipped
and icy eyes stare
but he knew
what Lilly didn't
she had no idea
about the ***
or how the middle aged
dame had it still
could still turn on the fire
could **** off his desire
but Mrs Bryce
never said a word
not a hint
she wore her middle age
and middle class morals
very well
a mask of gentility
or cultured good humour
good manners on show
but he knew
she was hot
and could go
(her husband
some middle aged guy
with sourness
and boredness
in each greying eye)
and she sat there
giving it the small talk
sipping the wine
one finger raised
her eyes pure
as cut glass
behind the specs
and Lilly listened
in soft admiration
wanting to be nearer
breathing in
Mrs Bryce's scent
dreaming of the two of them
doing whatever in
some bedroom spent
but he had the real
not a dream
and as he watched
Mrs Bryce sipping
her wine
thin lips
on thin glass
he remembered her
that time lying there
bright eyes
greying but dyed hair
he bringing her
to a seventh heaven
of yes and yes
and more
and Lilly sour faced
sitting and listening
to the small talk
but wanting
something other
for sure.
Nov 22, 2013
Nov 22, 2013 at 7:10 AM UTC
3
“Sic transit gloria mundi,”
“How doth the busy bee,”
“Dum vivimus vivamus,”
I stay mine enemy!
Oh “veni, vidi, vici!”
Oh caput cap-a-pie!
And oh “memento mori”
When I am far from thee!
Hurrah for Peter Parley!
Hurrah for Daniel Boone!
Three cheers, sir, for the gentleman
Who first observed the moon!
Peter, put up the sunshine;
Patti, arrange the stars;
Tell Luna, tea is waiting,
And call your brother Mars!
Put down the apple, Adam,
And come away with me,
So shalt thou have a pippin
From off my father’s tree!
I climb the “Hill of Science,”
I “view the landscape o’er;”
Such transcendental prospect,
I ne’er beheld before!
Unto the Legislature
My country bids me go;
I’ll take my india rubbers,
In case the wind should blow!
During my education,
It was announced to me
That gravitation, stumbling,
Fell from an apple tree!
The earth upon an axis
Was once supposed to turn,
By way of a gymnastic
In honor of the sun!
It was the brave Columbus,
A sailing o’er the tide,
Who notified the nations
Of where I would reside!
Mortality is fatal—
Gentility is fine,
Rascality, heroic,
Insolvency, sublime!
Our Fathers being weary,
Laid down on Bunker Hill;
And tho’ full many a morning,
Yet they are sleeping still,—
The trumpet, sir, shall wake them,
In dreams I see them rise,
Each with a solemn musket
A marching to the skies!
A coward will remain, Sir,
Until the fight is done;
But an immortal hero
Will take his hat, and run!
Good bye, Sir, I am going;
My country calleth me;
Allow me, Sir, at parting,
To wipe my weeping e’e.
In token of our friendship
Accept this “Bonnie Doon,”
And when the hand that plucked it
Hath passed beyond the moon,
The memory of my ashes
Will consolation be;
Then, farewell, Tuscarora,
And farewell, Sir, to thee!
2.6k
Two souls alone so far between only nights are calling
Shinning stars pointing the way an affection so enthralling
Shimmers over tranquil pools the crescent moonlights falling
Meetings of two lovers hearts before the mornings dawning
The anguish of a waiting heart the flutter of a wing
Beauties small enchanted voice hearing the Fairy sing
Dreams of love's compulsion, her song the wolf will bring
Within two hearts both shall meet on silvers entwined ring
A curse that's placed is broken a drink of pure tranquillity
The Spirit of the Wolf is called upon a test of his nobility
Flight of the fairy's soft élan her grace and her gentility
Brake the curse before the dawn the tranquil pools ability
Moonlight shines through the night sky a twinkle in a star
Sparkles touch the waters edge those loves that leave a scar
Both must drink before the light love's lost forever far
Glimmers of hope a small sip Wolf's howl at what they are
Transformations will occur love will always intervene
Magical flickers catch the light and wherever it is seen
Once a fairy fluttering now she's a proud Wolf queen
Wolf's are always calling where tranquil pools have been
The souls of two true lovers, will never be apart
Differences are overcome, from Loves intervening heart
Tranquil pools compulsive dreams, those feelings from the start
When two hearts are intertwined, that's true loves unique art
Mar 22, 2018
Mar 22, 2018 at 7:23 AM UTC
*for R.A.
our northern friend*
~
one foot in two countries,
she is enjambment symbolic,
running a single stanza
without a syntactical break,
by standing simultaneous
in two neighboring cultures
causing her dear readers
from near and far,
some, like me,
from across the borderline,
considerable multifarious symptoms
of
well considered verbal confusion
this,
a gifted special talent
from
she
who straddles
all kinds of borders
that divide
her
and
unite
her,
that
can be understood/revealed tho,
when observing the northernmost night skies
eh?
expert in modulating
extreme snowed under bay
winterized temperatures,
counterpointed by
drivingopen highways
on summer plains
where the dotted line is
all there is to see
for miles, thousandths wide
she-poet
oft goes quiet,
expelling her breath
between word roarings,
gentlest of periodic
verbal sweets
genteel
my word version for her
gentle so,
in a way that
makes gentility
deserve the nobility
inherent
that is the
work word
that always comes first
when we need to place her,
another star
in the night
flying frying
firmament
enjambment - her word
means I am
all in,
with both hands,
resting on both jambs
of an arched window
that she architects,
peering in,
Making Sure,
I have come to the right place
where she-poet
builds skylights of
northern lights,
igniting
adore her sweet
confusion,
but better yet,
her poems
of clarification
that explain all in,
why when,
we
all look up,
thru her
window exquisite
that she
meant
for us
we always first
turn our glacé glance
northwards
strangely, seeking, illogically,
but not really,
warmth
in the she-poets
northern way
Apr 12, 2015
Apr 12, 2015 at 8:00 AM UTC
It's Sunday again for you cloistered patricians
aloof from the madness, the magic and myth;
who trust in your wisdom, investments, physicians
unready to answer forthwith:
"Why bother with worship—in church or the zoo—
why weaken the links with a dull set of tools ?"
you ask yourself over your high-end Tarrazu,
bemused at the fables of fools.
You've bartered salvation for New York Times articles,
sipping on bitterness (shade-grown organic).
You settle for molecules, atoms and particles
unfairly-traded, satanic—
while you celebrate emptiness, general futility
musing on nothingness, sure of specifics
ensconced in your kitchen of pampered gentility
flirting with atheist physics.
Those simple plebeians: you'd love to enlighten them
help them, like you, to become a free-thinker
but you remain tasteful, for boldness might frighten them
reeling in fairy tales: hook, line and sinker.
Yet somebody, somewhere has uttered your sentence
(though you abhor judgement, let's read it again).
Sheba and Nineveh, versed in repentance
await you—not whether but when.
The darkness is brewing unholy filtration;
the wine of the harlot approaches the rim;
your guilt is augmenting in slow percolation;
you shrug it all off on a whim.
The souls of Assyria rise from your paper
they watch in amazement, prepare your abyss.
Your coffee now brims a more sulfurous vapor;
oh sinner—there's something amiss:
The crypts of Marib and the tombs of the Axumites
shudder and groan while you're reading the Times...
(immune to the words that some Christarded poet writes
mixing psychosis with rhymes.)
Royal Sheba will chastise your erudite unbelief,
smug self-importance and cynical squawk.
Then she'll sigh with immense Ethiopian grief
and her Highness Queen Bilqis will talk.
It is Sunday in Babylon. What if your sunlight ends...
why are there mobs in the streets of the nation?
Shall you have breakfast—or calculate dividends...
what would you pay for salvation?
Mar 25, 2016
Mar 25, 2016 at 10:30 AM UTC
Shall I compare thee to a midsummer’s day?
No I shall not
For thou is nothing like it
Thou’st temperance is nothing short of fair
A summer’s day is hot and vicious
But thou’st soul is of utmost gentility
A sweet cool temperance is thous heart
Thou is more like an autumn afternoon
With eyes the color of the clear blue sky
And temper of the soft cooling breeze
Thous beauty’s only competitor is the changing leaves
Unique and changing
Vibrant reds, greens and yellows that each tree holds
The warmth of the sun is thous love
A love that only I receive
That warms my own soul to the heat of the burning hearth
Where we lay in passion and love
For if I were to compare thou to a midsummers day
It would be an insult
Thou is more beautiful
Far more fair
Thou is like an autumn afternoon
With eyes like the sky in the clear afternoon
May 9, 2012
May 9, 2012 at 4:22 PM UTC
Clasps
Thunder
Overtoure's
Epic opening
*
Tenderness becoming
Gentility of the fragile souls
Floating upon floatable
Multi~verses
*
What's solid?
Our steps
The little
Silences?
Mild frost
Of a season
Strumming
Galloping
Into
*
Wind chimes violin
Goose bumps beauty
*
We have tinted Ink
And gave lives to
Cosmic tinkerbells
We made vows
Across love abouts
*
Across the plains
Of Josephine's
Linnen laced
double
Edged swirl dress
Swinging below
Zodiac crisp
*
Summer's
canopy
Seems
To have
A life made
Out of
Tiptoed
Barefoot origins
*
Ticklish Grains
Got into our Mild
Dreamy oceans
Terra Rosa
Pine''
Pan
Flutes
*
Come va?
Is hour ship sailing
Is our sip sang?
Jan 23, 2016
Jan 23, 2016 at 1:42 PM UTC
ageism
mob mentality
of the boys
you were
faith
in these
the footprints
of a left-handed
boy
doubt
unicorn sickness
as so
rumored
gentility
duster
of my father’s
bookmark
identified
by her picture
day
invite
final resting place
god already underway
Apr 23, 2014
Apr 23, 2014 at 3:59 PM UTC
~~~
*bathed by breezes of southern gentility,
sun soaped by eye-prickling,
star twinkling glints,
shampooed in delicious waves
of white sno caps,
my crazy wild hair,
conditioned by the foaming bay's riffles
dappled waters transformed into a
Van Gogh glow of
The Sower
sprinkling golden seed
upon fields of summer wheat glorious
my little yellow rubber duckies,
are now blue white snow geese alive,
down from Nova Scotia,
where August is already
emboldened colden,
so they non-stop honk
tho mere passerbys,
everybody is seeking a place in history,
the surety,
that this poem,
by their inclusion herein,
promises posterity
the grass blades wave with
endless swaying applause,
at yet another attempt of poetic tribute,
for once more,
spell bound
by the bounty of the moment,
enslaved happily to the idea
there is no satiation possible
from the earthly satisfaction of this place,
this sheltered isle
the leaves are cappuccino frothy performers,
unison shaking just like a roman legion of stadium fans,
they offer me untold numbers of
likes and reads,
and other candied goodies,
promises endless to root for my winter dream teams,
if their presence is here
prominently included,
until they too
fall silent, grounded,
shed by their rightful owners
every time I think the well is dry,
swept under by a rip tide
of drowning overwhelming gratitude,
for here I come to a place.
a station for repair,
where poems are bandied about,
summer fruits ripe for plucking
sunroom lace, summer curtains,
will hide out here in my absence,
the lace, turns into snowflakes crystalline,
by icy waters and gusts,
that will be both
untrodden and unadmired
for when the poet is clad in the
damask drapes of winter's inevitability,
will close his eyes and
will hide out here,
right here,
in this one of his never ending
prior~poem~prayers homages,
until next year's
can't-come- too-early spring arrives,
sparked by tendrils of meeting markers,
noting that
new poems have been fallow fallen,
winter seeded,
awaiting your
watering and writing,
of the appreciation
of the
simple majesty
of this small corner of the earth*
Aug 15, 2015
Aug 15, 2015 at 9:18 PM UTC
Just now,
I sat at the piano.
I think I have forgotten
that the bench has been warmed up by so long a sitting
that the keys have been stroked with gentility and aggressiveness responsively
and that the strings have been telling the unsaid.
My brunette piano,
please stay loyal to me.
Nov 27, 2011
Nov 27, 2011 at 1:39 PM UTC
(
/ )> \
(
( )
####
One song
One gentility
••
One day of innocence
/////
One
•
•
The broken promise Street
Yeah it's you
Over there
••
The limp - **** flag
The ***** King
the mothers are oblivious to all pain
|||||
The One Game Plan
////
The ****** of the masses
The total ****
//////
One song
One gentility
•
One day of innocence
///
Needing you to make it last Forever
Sep 29, 2014
Sep 29, 2014 at 2:11 AM UTC
Silence is golden your voice is a feather.
A wafting gypsy on an autumn evening
drifting on scarlet sunset.
Gentility.
Your eyes they speak and inquire.
They smile and beguile. saying all ,telling nothing.
Linda. The word in Spanish means pretty.
en espnol otra significa es Guapa. O otras plabras similar.
Cosita Linda.
Cosita Linda.
Dec 17, 2013
Dec 17, 2013 at 11:55 PM UTC
Human Love,
When you come to eat the rations of my heart,
remember, then, that starving is an art;
that to consume would be to kill--a crime;
that to exhume this cherry seed of mine
will drain me of a blood as thin as grape juice;
that in time, I will mourn my stolen-raped fruit.
-Ocean
------
Ocean,
You speak unto your seedling self, child.
You are weak--we are weak. No mild
measure of halfway self-control can live
in mental habitat which exists to give
and only to give. Your fluids will seep
and you'll be unable even to weep.
-Earth
---
Obtuse Earth,
Stop your assaulting me with these words.
Stop your quiet screaming, this dirge
which comes under guise of gentility--
insufferably loud, however creatively.
I never addressed you, ugly whisperer.
I never addressed you, nuissance, stranger.
-Ocean
---
Stubborn Ocean,
Do not be foolish! Listen, girl.
Spurn him now with resolve; lest how
can dignity you preserve in any small
amount? He doesn't love you at all.
And knowing that, you gave me address:
indeed, you have addressed yourself.
-Earth
------
Love,
Were that I could say it's so,
I would not give this room to grow.
But oh, if I do hold it back
then infinitely I should retract
into myself. So speak or speak not,
but if so, speak now, for I am distraught.
-Ocean
Apr 28, 2012
Apr 28, 2012 at 2:13 PM UTC
My darling My darling
I have watched you sleep these three nights
And I have whispered into the deep
"There is not a more beautiful creature in this plane"
You are an angel
Your wings curled beneath your fragile form
The gentility of your breathing...
The rising and falling of your supple *******
I would not dare kiss you in this form my darling
I would not dare caress the curves of your earthly body
I have drunk the wine of infatuation
Until I could hear the great beast call your name
We shall be wed my darling
Our two hearts melted into a blinding holliness
Forever entwined
Blood to blood
Flesh to flesh
Fear not this blade my darling
Fear not its mortal sting
Fear not it's cold touch upon your silken skin
Let it find your young heart quickly
Feel it cleave the muscle in two
Fear not my darling
Fear not the sadness of our mortal plight
For in the darkness
A flash of silver will bring you salvation
A sacrafice
A moment of stinging beauty
For an eternal moment of ethereal bliss
Dec 19, 2011
Dec 19, 2011 at 5:20 PM UTC
black or white, the ideology is often grey!
lost or abandoned, chosen or forgotten,
runner or drag-racer,
the empty bucket,
the data forms,
the Pyreness of their love;
the cry of an unbroken heart;
the little laughter of an innocent one,
perception abound, intelligence incorruptible
gentility, a mistaken identity.
the roaming panda, the separation that is youth.
it's both a blessing and a curse to feel everything so deeply.
time makes more converts than reason;
and the children suffer the wrathful inklings.
May 7, 2016
May 7, 2016 at 6:54 PM UTC
No sun-no moon
No morn-no noon
No dawn-no dusk-no proper time of day
No sky-no earthly view
No distance looking blue
No road-no street-no 't' other side this way
No end to any road
No indications where the crescents go
No top to any steeple
No recognition of familiar people
No courtesies for showing them
No knowing them
No travelling at all-no locomotion
No inkling of the way-no notion-
"No go by land or ocean-
No mail- no post
No news from any foreign coast-
No park, no ring, no afternoon gentility
No company - no nobility -
No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,
No comfortable feel in any member
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds
Only November!!!
Oct 2, 2013
Oct 2, 2013 at 11:23 AM UTC
The firelight casts
an amber glow --
reflecting this amber season.
Acorn garlands hang
with ease;
bowls of walnuts
waiting to be shelled.
Pumpkins brighten nooks--
vases filled with
silver maple
dispel any gloomy nitch.
Apples wait to be baked
and pomegrantes
are a perfect display.
Dogs sleep by the
hearth,
dreaming dog-dreams
of running through
the fallen leaves --
while I make a wreath
of last summer's blooms
gone to seed
and bittersweet vines,
their vibrant berries
aglow.
Through the window
I gaze at the Autumn sunset:
tawny gold, pink-tinged peach
and pale blue-grey.
The air outside is chilled
a hint of Winter's cold
to come.
But hearth and home
are warm,
embracing this season's gentility.
Nov 2, 2010
Nov 2, 2010 at 9:01 AM UTC
scarf hysteria friday,
thirteenth, even the spectators
joined in. unpacking the delivery.
polyester kept quiet with electrical
revery, silk excited us in with gentility.
it was the deepset , pleated, spotty,
adjective filled woollen slightly
felted, even reversable at such
a reasonable price, that sent us
over the edge. all was lost after that.
there are two ll s in woollen.
sbm.
Sep 14, 2013
Sep 14, 2013 at 1:47 AM UTC
sleeping eyes and relaxed minds do often make apathetics of us all
pocketed palms and agressive stances lost in the meditative gentility of the woman,
in turn, also lost in her own minds eye.
Apr 13, 2013
Apr 13, 2013 at 6:48 AM UTC