"gleaning" poems
Every blue patch on the sky keeps an eye,
cherishing clouds dancing, hovering over.
The songs of deep blue ride the heady air,
only to be stunned, all of a sudden,
at the first sight—
sung down on a perfectly placed mural.
The Queen of Sheba tiptoes this way;
King Solomon leans to the ground,
only to find seas of silent blooms
musing, dipping in sun-kissed dews—
on gently tilted roses that will not fall,
not from this picture-perfect, navel-high!
Velvety, the rose rises from the ground;
the forever-green Earth hangs low,
in the dew on the rose that will not fall.
Blossoming, eyeing an acute high,
evermore hopeful to scale upward,
toward the faraway, awaiting heaven's pool.
There, the spotlight does not move—
neither north nor south, nor up nor down—
until Queen Fathima, the Queen of Heaven,
steps on the "as above, so below" slope.
There, the newly resurrected Earth will be primed,
its minted atoms vibrating beyond bounds,
rising, for the first time, atop the navel-high.
Perfectly wrapped, the atom's circle finally turns on—
the stepping stone that holds no pi-decimal hole.
Pure Scientia hangs on the door of Paradise,
awaiting the numerically perfect Queen Fathima to step.
God willing, she will work in beauty:
the most sought-after, perfect works of art—
the lost masterpiece, not in translation,
but hidden within the pi-decimal abyss of Earth's depth.
Lo, the gleaning Sleeping Beauty peeps,
trailing the role model Queen.
Fathima—the first woman to enter Paradise—
walks the walk: perfect, straight, numerically precise.
As if she always knew, back from the Earth,
of the murals ahead, hanging on Paradise’s wall,
mathematically exact!
Mirrors of imagination, new wonders on Heaven’s way,
etched in the murals at the golden section, navel-high.
She zooms past the ever-spinning atom’s perfect span,
cemented at the entrance of Paradise.
Yet leaves no footprint—
for she never did, even on the sublunary Earth.
A new wonder blooms in the classic old eyes:
oh, Pi, still irrational, still pondering,
at the measured, eternal navel-high!
Oct 31, 2018
Oct 31, 2018 at 5:02 PM UTC
As you plaited the harvest bow
You implicated the mellowed silence in you
In wheat that does not rust
But brightens as it tightens twist by twist
Into a knowable corona,
A throwaway love-knot of straw.
Hands that aged round ashplants and cane sticks
And lapped the spurs on a lifetime of game *****
Harked to their gift and worked with fine intent
Until your fingers moved somnambulant:
I tell and finger it like braille,
Gleaning the unsaid off the palpable,
And if I spy into its golden loops
I see us walk between the railway slopes
Into an evening of long grass and midges,
Blue smoke straight up, old beds and ploughs in hedges,
An auction notice on an outhouse wall--
You with a harvest bow in your lapel,
Me with the fishing rod, already homesick
For the big lift of these evenings, as your stick
Whacking the tips off weeds and bushes
Beats out of time, and beats, but flushes
Nothing: that original townland
Still tongue-tied in the straw tied by your hand.
The end of art is peace
Could be the motto of this frail device
That I have pinned up on our deal dresser--
Like a drawn snare
Slipped lately by the spirit of the corn
Yet burnished by its passage, and still warm.
7.6k
There's no replying
To the Wind's sighing,
Telling, foretelling,
Dying, undying,
Dwindling and swelling,
Complaining, droning,
Whistling and moaning,
Ever beginning,
Ending, repeating,
Hinting and dinning,
Lagging and fleeting--
We've no replying
Living or dying
To the Wind's sighing.
What are you telling,
Variable Wind-tone?
What would be teaching,
O sinking, swelling,
Desolate Wind-moan?
Ever for ever
Teaching and preaching,
Never, ah never
Making us wiser--
The earliest riser
Catches no meaning,
The last who hearkens
Garners no gleaning
Of wisdom's treasure,
While the world darkens:--
Living or dying,
In pain, in pleasure,
We've no replying
To wordless flying
Wind's sighing.
4.2k
Which face will I wear today
The face I wear at work
Cheerful member of the staff
Underpaid - unappreciated
Tiny office with no window
Paperwork nobody looks at
Rules just for the sake of rules
Which face will I wear today
The face I wear at home
Always tired, depressed, besieged
by a thousand minor ailments
All the things I'd like to do
crowded out by other things
I have to do that are no fun.
Which face will I wear today
The face that sports a poet's cap
Gel filled quill pen clutched in hand
Trying every format I can learn
Gleaning from the published experts
Writing happy after years of sad
Finding sunshine in the shadows that I live in
Which face will I wear today
The face above the helping hands
that reach for places to be used
That garner joy from mucking in
to smooth the path for others
Seldom thanked - often refused
Bucket goal - to save a life.
Which face will I wear today
The face that looks back from the mirror
Mapping all the tracks of age
Searching for the sparkle in the eyes
that joined hands with my youthful looks
and did a conga-line away
Which face will I wear today
Picasso portrait of them all
Ill and hale - strong and weak - sad and glad
When seen together in the mirror
it's a face I do not know
and someone I don't care to meet
So check the clock and choose a face
Paste it on and smooth it out
Comb hair over all the edges
**** the light and close the door
And take this face out for a walk
See if anybody says hello
ljm
Apr 17, 2017
Apr 17, 2017 at 1:29 PM UTC
No matter how
You may attempt
To grow out
The container
Of your life
Which was provided for you.
There are others
Who weigh you down?
With the weight
Of their ideas.
Empty the bowl
Continue to reach
Through your roots depthless
In the soil of your speaking
And then from your hand.
May sprout the words
With green leaf script
Growing up the scansion
Of the stars.
For in the gleaning
Of bonsai
The tiny and insignificant
Are magnified
For burden’s elegance
Is Refinement
The smoothness of the soul.
For what is compact
Is always whole.
Apr 11, 2014
Apr 11, 2014 at 11:05 AM UTC
Keep love for youth, and violets for the spring:
Or if these bloom when worn-out autumn grieves,
Let them lie hid in double shade of leaves,
Their own, and others dropped down withering;
For violets suit when home birds build and sing,
Not when the outbound bird a passage cleaves;
Not with dry stubble of mown harvest sheaves,
But when the green world buds to blossoming.
Keep violets for the spring, and love for youth,
Love that should dwell with beauty, mirth, and hope:
Or if a later sadder love be born,
Let this not look for grace beyond its scope,
But give itself, nor plead for answering truth--
A grateful Ruth tho' gleaning scanty corn.
2.6k
The Harvest Bow
As you plaited the harvest bow
You implicated the mellowed silence in you
In wheat that does not rust
But brightens as it tightens twist by twist
Into a knowable corona,
A throwaway love-knot of straw.
Hands that aged round ashplants and cane sticks
And lapped the spurs on a lifetime of game *****
Harked to their gift and worked with fine intent
Until your fingers moved somnambulant:
I tell and finger it like braille,
Gleaning the unsaid off the palpable,
And if I spy into its golden loops
I see us walk between the railway slopes
Into an evening of long grass and midges,
Blue smoke straight up, old beds and ploughs in hedges,
An auction notice on an outhouse wall—
You with a harvest bow in your lapel,
Me with the fishing rod, already homesick
For the big lift of these evenings, as your stick
Whacking the tips off weeds and bushes
Beats out of time, and beats, but flushes
Nothing: that original townland
Still tongue-tied in the straw tied by your hand.
The end of art is peace
Could be the motto of this frail device
That I have pinned up on our deal dresser—
Like a drawn snare
Slipped lately by the spirit of the corn
Yet burnished by its passage, and still warm.
by Seamus Heaney
Aug 30, 2013
Aug 30, 2013 at 8:02 PM UTC
Torrents of vapor ridden wind, snatched at her hair.
Below, rattled the rapid, riotous and vast, rippling sea.
Churning, like a chewing, charming serpent's lair.
Once long ago I knew her; with time she left me be.
On the edge she was, with will to leap t'wards the horizons.
The brittle cliff would not give way, for even it was curious.
Dare say all of nature reacted for the most prurient reasons.
Even the sky descended to watch, with a lightning so furious.
She beheld no fear and the sky wept with thunderous applause.
Her bare marble-like features glistened in the gleaning of the gloom.
Why she stood there, triumphantly, tempting, terror, for what cause?
It will never be known, for she never was, in a time before this doom.
The earth shook like the hands of a beleaguered, berated old man.
It erected monoliths. Volcanoes, pluming molten magma skyward.
The red glow brought heat; earth thought to please her, or so was its plan.
The elements wrestled for the better view of that beauty stalwart.
Never had a sight been so majestically violent, so mightily tame.
Where she stood, should and would forever more be a sacred place.
The tempest of the elements raged on, though none would win the game.
A silence, softly, settled the rambunctiousness, and halted their race.
The skies parted with a sad and lowly somberness.
Every elated, embittered, element safely put to rest.
As the sun swept aside all their postulated, pettiness.
Rays of the sun showered her with bright white zest.
The lady, she moved with unfathomable grace.
She tilted her perfect head up to the skies.
With the slightest of a smile shook her face.
Like all before, she left them there surprised... and forever, there she stood.
Mar 22, 2016
Mar 22, 2016 at 3:21 PM UTC
Where does solitude end
And the beauty of love begin?
We must allow our emotions to permeate
Our spiritual vestibule
Before rapture dawns
Like an empyreal gust
Within, upon, and throughout us,
Then our bliss will no longer be ephemeral,
It will be everlasting.
Someone on this existential expanse
Loves you
Beyond words, Beyond thoughts, beyond
Time & space,
With cosmic understanding;
Like, age-old supernovae
Radiating with stellar light
Until their macrocosmic romance
Waxes nebulous:
—Dust to dust.
You who are gleaning these words,
Contemplate your immortal value
As a living legacy
That Burgeons & blossoms beyond the day
Of your exodus from the Earthly Plane
For the soul is a seed
Radiating with the Eradia of Ages;
Therefore, shine
Until The Flora of Yore, Yggdrasil germinates within.
Lamentation makes you more loving,
Just, wise, and strong;
Yes, embrace every moment
That life brings
For Providence safeguards you
Within His Celestial ramparts.
"But the path of the righteous is like the bright morning light
That grows brighter and brighter until full daylight."
(Proverbs 4: 18) (NWTSE)
You have an undying will within you,
You are a vessel of sanctity
Intemerate & hallowed;
Yes, you have been set apart
For an ethereal crusade
With no known beginning &
An indeterminable end;
Exhale, you are Life, Love, and Liberty,
And a Spark of The Divine.
It is true, that you are the experiencer of
Your joys, your sufferings,
Your exultation, and your woes,
But you must ne' er forget
That you are not alone;
Therefore, walk forevermore
In the Baptismal Rays of The Sun
For you were borne with purpose,
O, Warrior of Light.
Jun 4, 2021
Jun 4, 2021 at 1:48 PM UTC
Gleaning of the Owl.
Gimbal eyed and shrugged
on Oaken bough
before the bluffing of the Crow
before Rook caw and Raven croak
before the shriven threaded dawn-
to glean a silent measure.-
thrawn.
Jan 7, 2012
Jan 7, 2012 at 1:25 AM UTC
today we visit graveyards
turning over the wormy soil
to uncover the exquisite corpse
though we were told to
let the dead bury the dead
on this day we unbury
the dearly departed
relishing transcendent
embraces and cool
cervezas with jolly
amigos and la
familia who have
gone on before
we wrap ourselves
in graveblankets
to complete warm
circles of love
embracing our
beloved companeros;
gleaning netherworld
heavenly rest wisdom,
sharing the laughter
of trite earthly concerns
we’ll roll speckled tortillas
on smooth tombstone mesas
to feast on Mariachi tacos
brimming with spicy queso,
chased with another cool sip
waltzing with the holy bones
to the candle lit reveries
of this evenings
flowing melodies
Mercedes Sosa & Joan Baez
Gracias a la Vida
Dia De Muertos
Diego Rivera
Oakland
11/1/13
jbm
Nov 1, 2013
Nov 1, 2013 at 2:22 AM UTC
Serendipity begets bad luck,
In a loop with no meaning,
And nothing worth gleaning,
Leaving us all at the mercy,
Of careless Luck's whimsy
Oct 21, 2014
Oct 21, 2014 at 11:34 AM UTC
Everyday I am born to gods relaying
lineage through winged messengers.
****** radiance enkindles immaculate retinas
in solar flares
and picturesque mornings' idolatry.
Tones entrancing, blue jays
or northwest mockingbirds,
their range of majestic differences
eluding attentive innocence,
elation ebbs to pain's perpetual flow,
streaming hypno-suggestive claims
finding me inexorable
to beliefs I've not died.
Impassioned voices usher me through,
by mid-day I've learned
to speak their tongues,
strange hisses
and twisting trebles
an attempted appeasement for
conforming to continued cyclical living,
instinct selection seeking final detention,
rebirth a trapped evolutionary trait.
Dreading each twilight,
coping through whichever maiden
may allow my musings
to conform to her form
for the night,
overlapping until I
am but a shadow
dominated by her presence,
her brilliance illuminating every scar
of the side perpetually left
to the dark,
enlightenment held
in the warmth of her touch
until she too
falls beneath the horizon.
Sun setting upon this silhouette
and whispering tomorrow
in stagnant sleep speak,
settling to sacrifice's sufficience.
I fear this rest.
Gleaning premise from barbaric genealogy
qualitated as residual spatial pandemic,
leaving this life cycle
reduced to just one more death.
Oct 21, 2012
Oct 21, 2012 at 9:17 PM UTC
My hands are not my hands
My voice is not my own
My lip never was my lip
But this blood is all mine.
The spoon sedated my fears and insecurities
It's tender metallic surface gleaning
And involuntarily shaking
As I lapped up alllll the yogurt.
I could use a cartwheel.
I don't want to sleep
I'm afraid of dying
as my back and forehead sweat in agony
My eyes don't open anymore
A steady beeping
A flickering fills the air around me
I told my brother I'll be back soon
If I stop
I'm writing with my eyes closed now.
My heart rumbles like a cannon shot
My only regret is how I never knew you better
Mr. Cobain.
We had such fun nights with Mr. Yorke
and Mr. Coyne
Just laughing
And taking turns rolling Thom's glass eye across the floor.
Spring training.
I'm laughing on my bed outside
Catching glances of the summer
Coiled and contemptuous
They go on their lives not caring
Who lives.
Who dies.
Three girls climbed into my window
They smelled of grass and
polyurethane
The children died 6 years ago
The Johnny Carsons of this life
And
GET OFF MY HAND *******
PASS ME THE FOOTBALL
Percodin.
Codin.
Coding.
I just turned the page
And I'll be ****** if I do it again
“oh ****
If Dan went white-face ghetto
And wore beatnick clothes
It'd be
AMAZING
The incisor broke my fall
Sorry.
No pork and beans today.
Ericccccc
Help my head
Chalk these mint leaves up to fate.
Because GOD **** are they good.
I'm reading your expression
On an empty pizza box.
You don't seem too pleased.
I fear
This ice in my tray made me soak my bed
Honest!
Flounder had a mohawk
I don't give a **** what you say.
His **** mohawk was badass.
His stubble made Sebastian jealous
A bed of ice is better than a bed of coals
Or a bed of cars
Or a bed of rice
But that would feel really, really good.
Take a guitar solo
Now a bass solo
Now a keyboard solo
Now a harmonica solo
Now beatbox, no go?
Maybe the former
The TRANSFORMER of course. I hope I live to see that one day.
Yes.
Sep 19, 2010
Sep 19, 2010 at 5:50 PM UTC
It were perhaps too good to preen,
This thing, this much elided stream,
To rest therewith, tremulous ream
Of thoughts forthwith from misery.
Let not the beggar hear my words:
There is no hope in timely dress;
World it cares not for men deferred
From caring press and relatives.
Too much it cares for common things,
A word said soft, need not for pain,
Yet broken in its gleaning thoughts,
Suff’ring not well deserved stains.
These things, I say, they cast a sea
Before dim eyes, make blind men cry,
Rob their sight, ev’n in sight’s drought;
This I say, casts little more t’me.
May 18, 2014
May 18, 2014 at 7:26 PM UTC
While most people are familiar with
the principle of ‘sowing and reaping’,
it can be difficult to distinguish
between Fact and Fiction; gleaning
the Truth sometimes takes time, so
that the authentic and the fake can…
be properly separated. Sad jealousies
are found when the evil works of Man
bloom against the stark contrast of
God’s reality; seeing the good and bad,
subtly reinforces our understanding of
the wheat and tares; let us be glad,
in knowing how God divinely operates;
in Him, we can move and have our being
when our Faith is extended on behalf
of His Kingdom; when we are agreeing
with His Word, it’s easier to love and
care for others regularly, as we must;
will people observe us as His Children,
if we’re not placing in God… our trust?
Jan 27, 2017
Jan 27, 2017 at 2:09 PM UTC
We have seen your greasy lips
Of supple warmth nibble our geographical space with relish
With your cerebral repertoire of Machiavellian tactics
A savage sage gleaning with resounding skill
And crafty navigational sail
Your masterstrokes through climes and tongues reverberated
With your sparkling craft of vile crypt
Across regions, tribes and locales
Of your fangs that foiled good governance
But this time…
Your gladiatorial glide on this political turf
Shall experience a firestorm of rejection
Your emissaries across territorial divides
Shall be hounded to delusion
For the masses shall maul your mushy mantle of self grandeur
To the abyss of dishonour
For your subsequent arrival shall be booed to your doom
Your waning clout shall swing you to judgement
Of abysmal invasion
We are watching your fragile trot through this fearsome terrain
Of your permutation in levitation
For Damocles’ fiery sword shall haunt your ambition
Your raging mist on this cloudy night
Shall encounter a violent tussle
Prepare for war!
The scarlet venom from your cruel camp
Shall cease with instant visitation
From the warhorses of this fearless infantry
Armed with the right tools to disarm your fortified fortress
As you dispatch your foot soldiers
Of monsters and Leviathans
To play a callous hoax like the cunning fox
Their morbid mien shall encounter an eternal fall!
Let the music begin…
Onuchi Mark © 2010
Aug 20, 2010
Aug 20, 2010 at 6:32 AM UTC
Sitting at my lonely barside
I kneel before the patron saint
Of castaways,
And raise but two fingers.
The peanuts and peasants
Have much in common,
They are roasted, salted,
Glazed with a succor
No sweeter than savage starlight
They serve to compliment
The fine layer of salt
On the rim of my cocktails
The liquor as **** as their company.
This is the rite of reverence
That droops my eyelids
This is the gleaning genuflection
Of the day's stale bread.
May 30, 2013
May 30, 2013 at 2:55 AM UTC
the words have lost their meaning, put down and forgotten
the ink is old and hitting refresh, flesh is rotten
the love of doves is for the birds, love of forgotten
words, buried deep unearth on Earth, what has brought this on...
short tempered phrases
Viennese masked faces
road rage that displaces
where words that disgraced
the root that spawned their meaning
and thinkers were able to be gleaning
to drink the rich and full in leaving
pride at the door and no deceiving
what we are all here for
not a geo-politico hidden agenda
not a plan within a plan within a plan
like some Shogun in a Clavell novel,
not to be a notch whelped on Evils' belt
size 365 days a year,
equal spaced holes like stepping stones
tighten around a neck stuck out too far
risk taking and all in isn't a sin, groan,
who am I to judge, I am so marred
am I poeticizing how to live,
no, how write poetry and be so alive,
I have so many words they
roll like boulders, in my head
and off my shoulder across the floor
the neighbours complain of the
noise and I lie, say-
ing it is my dog with her toys,
so go write your poetry,
no one else can, please
may it cure you as mine
cures me of my disease
so you can do what you were born to do,
what are you waiting for ** I can't tell you!**
Apr 5, 2015
Apr 5, 2015 at 12:55 AM UTC
Comparing the past with the future at last
Sitting on the fence in between the sides
Caught in a moment of grand reflection
We weigh out a measure of our place in this time
Loosing the arrow of change, it flies
Into the deep heart of space it climbs
Correcting the manner we chose to stand
We ladle our sauce from the grand design
Born of contention we pass it along
Setting our feet on a different path
We can sell our souls for a scrap of stale bread but
Aren't we just dreaming our time in the sun?
Passing the day with a turbulent fact
Losing our way on the pathway back
We are telling our tale for a chance at success
Reliving the moment a it rolls off the press
Saving our tick for another day
Tomorrow is fiction or so they say
The day past the moment always comes and it goes
We’re drifting and gleaning the time that we’ve sown
Measuring the thought that we’re glad to know
Surrendering nothing, we take some time
Never regretting the breadth of our soul
Believing in a future that will make us whole
Apr 15, 2017
Apr 15, 2017 at 1:51 AM UTC
On a winding stair, that leads particularly nowhere
each flight we save, to be lost is grave
the winds they flee, over a starry sea
and our hands are clutched, our hearts in touch
As a wisp of a cloud, flits sultrily by
and the yawning wave, wets our toes, and tries
to lure us in, to the hungry waters within
where doom is us, should we look in its eyes
We lay awake, gleaning much from the sky
she seems subdued, the sands softly sigh
a dragonfly dodders by, so slowly alive
we stare at nothing, as it stirs inside
Oct 9, 2014
Oct 9, 2014 at 10:57 AM UTC
monk jumps
trinkle ****** trane
criss crossin time
aboard idiocentric planes
whacky Hackensack moods
near my mysterioso home
round bout midnight gleaning
brilliant corner poems
hummin blue monk blues
i surrender dear
Bemsha swing cast away
Friday the 13th fears
melancholy ruby swigs
straight no chaser shots
just let's cool one
at the red hot 5 Spot
rollins and griffin jammin
hudson riverside house
Weehawken royalty bows
to a spiffy charlie rouse
we remember mintons
a vast creative flood
monk be boppin on stage
when in walked bud
red rooster clucksters
raising town hall roofs
consecrating spaces playing
Monk's hallowed tunes
"pianos don't play no wrong notes"
we heard Thelonious once say
his utterances on the upright keys
ingenious music maestro on display
Music Selection:
Thelonious Monk:
In Walked Bud
Marking Thelonious Sphere Monks Centennial
10/10/17 - 10/10/17
Orlando
9/28/17
jbm
Sep 28, 2017
Sep 28, 2017 at 6:36 PM UTC
Through my window
Nigh on midnight
Falling snowflakes
In the moonlight
Swirling, falling
Something calling
Me toward another world…
Each exquisite
Crystal lattice
Gifts from God
To us, por gratis
Hidden meaning
Knowledge gleaning
Knowledge of another world…
Something stirring
Deep inside me
Heart and Spirit,
Join to guide me
Toward the door;
Toward something more
Portal to another world…
Slowly, surely
Fog is lifting
Veil dissolving
Snowflakes drifting
Diamond whiteness
Mirrors brightness
Shining from another world…
Very close now
Drawing nearer
Misty vision
Growing clearer
Throne room glorious
King victorious
Conqueror from another world…
Music deaf’ning
Church bells ringing
Roaring, tolling,
Angels singing,
Ground is quaking,
Trembling, shaking,
Glorious, wondrous other world!
Veil descending,
Vision fading,
Crumbling, ending,
Fast abating,
I am grasping,
Clutching, clasping,
Yearning for another world.
Road before me,
Doubts behind me,
I implore thee,
Lord, remind me:
You have sought me,
Found me, bought me.
I was made for other worlds.
Aug 25, 2015
Aug 25, 2015 at 8:08 AM UTC
Forgive me lord I pray
When I fail to recognize
The blessings you bestow
Please, help me to relize
So much I have been given
Yet so often I do not see
Your gentle hand outstretched
Reaching down to me
My days so often crowded
With things that hold no meaning
And my failure to know
The process of your gleaning
Lord please forgive me
That I complain I regret
When the world presses in on me
I pray I not forget.
Jan 16, 2014
Jan 16, 2014 at 8:47 AM UTC
here to pray
here to remember days
who sought after peace in pain
what happened in a field of spiderweb croquet
when i was eating my words in company
where my own truth shines, gleaning
why only here, mind met meaning
return to who you are, as expression in essence
is a truth that nobody can ascertain
Jun 13, 2018
Jun 13, 2018 at 8:50 AM UTC