"gloam" poems
Flora and Fauna, the sisters of Season
Of Spring and of Summer
Allow now our drummer
To drum out the beat
For the feet of the sisters
To glide and to creep
Like the encroaching sleep
Which may perch on your shoulder if we cannot keep you awake
And on the edge of your seat, sir.
Now the former, sweet Flora, will finger the flute
While the other continues to glide and to slide
Like a sequined Venetian harlequin bride;
And now Fauna will mimic the movements of bird and of beast
As she graces the work of our landscape artiste
And all is completely unfeasible
Completely lacks reason
We guarantee.
Presently
In the eye of the beholder
Sweet Flora seemingly draws from the aether a lyre
And with flourishing fingers she plucks from the heavens
A song of the seasons, a pagan ode to Pan!
Behold! No aid of hoops, no strings
The vestal-virgin-harlot sisters sing
Of beautiful Persephone
And with unseen damselfly wings
Ascend from mediocrity
All melody forgotten
All the drums create cacophony
And you will find serenity in chaotic monotony
Now let this climaxing crescendo banish all your sorrowing!
No more that light; no more that sacred realm
Life’s door was dappled gloam; now all is black.
A man of wax with saintly, hollow eyes
Devoid of sin, devoid of love and light
That golden room is lost – you can’t turn back.
Now love has lost its lustre - lust lost joy
And coy eyes turn to watch the empty man
Struck by eternal beauty, and condemned
To haunt the broken world of mortal men;
And shrilling wind caresses empty hand.
Jul 2, 2012
Jul 2, 2012 at 12:01 PM UTC
follow me
if you can
thru tortured paths
and wintered lands
where the sun is lost
the moon unknown
beyond this dark
encroaching gloam
follow me
if you dare
where voices speak
in whispered layers
of external wars
undeclared
where twisting turning
bodies play
on silken sails
on captured waves
follow me
if you would know
where silver rivers
sometimes flow
and flying angels
falling lay
sweetly laughing
in their gentle way
follow me
if you wish
and play in childhood's
autumn mist
where paper dragons
fill the air
and broken hearts
still beating share
a love for passion's
written snare
follow me
and I will show
how wounded heart
now mended grows
where many paths
once hidden glow
and light the way
to where I go
.
http://oi61.tinypic.com/dc573k.jpg
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Feb 19, 2018
Feb 19, 2018 at 3:20 PM UTC
She builds a nest, builds a home
Out of twine and twigs and love
Day and night, dawn and gloam,
She works in trees above.
All to prepare for her offspring
To give them the chance to fly
Only the best for her children
These are the words to her cry
A fortnight her eyes are skinned
She is sentinel over her eggs
Come storm, gale, blustering wind
Her treasures safe under her legs
At last she meets her brood
Hungry and unrefined
She tirelessly gathers food
Their lives now intertwined
She kisses the food into their beaks
She cares for their every need
She answers their every screak
To love, to tend, to feed.
She watches them grow new feathers,
And reach out to the beckoning sky
They want to see other weathers
So she teaches them how to fly
They soar higher and higher
She watches from below
It makes her smile and smile
To see her babies go
As they climb and tumble
She makes sure to let them know
They are always welcome to return
To the home built long ago
The love she gave her young ones
Gave them the strength to fly
The strength to build their own nests
High up in the sky.
Aug 17, 2018
Aug 17, 2018 at 7:09 PM UTC
Night and Dawn,
Two lovers lorn
To languish unrequited
Their fingers strain
To touch in vain,
Yet never be united
In dreams they roam
Sunrise to gloam,
Entwined till evening wakes
On mountain halls
When first:
Night falls
And then, alone:
Dawn breaks.
Aug 25, 2015
Aug 25, 2015 at 10:48 AM UTC
There in the field she came to me,
The last of the silver honeybees.
I could see the years worn in her face,
Lost in the dark, one foot in the grave.
She held the ache behind her eyes,
So young to have her throat closed tight.
Poor girl, an orphan, with ribs of steel
Bone cage laced too tight to feel.
Then came the lonesome cosmonaut,
Betwixt the stars, those years he lost;
A nomad’s tale, nor here nor there
Too high up to come down for air.
Celestial darlings, they go round and round,
Dysphoric we hasten the final burnout:
From birth to evanesce, the hedons expire
Would love rot my teeth for afflictions less dire?
Last came the poet, out from the gloam
******* on pennies, and ink soaked through bones.
She gathered her strength and fell from the sky
While friends in high places twinkled goodbye.
Jan 9, 2023
Jan 9, 2023 at 4:23 PM UTC
They throw in Drummer Hodge, to rest
Uncoffined—just as found:
His landmark is a kopje-crest
That breaks the veldt around:
And foreign constellations west
Each night above his mound.
Young Hodge the drummer never knew—
Fresh from his Wessex home—
The meaning of the broad Karoo,
The Bush, the dusty loam,
And why uprose to nightly view
Strange stars amid the gloam.
Yet portion of that unknown plain
Will Hodge for ever be;
His homely Northern breast and brain
Grow to some Southern tree,
And strange-eyed constellations reign
His stars eternally.
3.7k
#I take the last boat on the Icchhamati River.
the huddled shadows in the gloam
talk of home
a waiting bed
before climbs the moon overhead.
In little comforts voices bask
amid oars sloshing the night
and I brood in silence
neath the northern star
*how far is home
how far?*#
Dec 20, 2014
Dec 20, 2014 at 10:04 AM UTC
Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wight,
Alone and palely loitering;
The sedge is wither'd from the lake,
And no birds sing.
Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wight,
So haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel's granary is full,
And the harvest's done.
I see a lily on thy brow,
With anguish moist and fever dew;
And on thy cheek a fading rose
Fast withereth too.
I met a lady in the meads
Full beautiful, a faery's child;
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild.
I set her on my pacing steed,
And nothing else saw all day long;
For sideways would she lean, and sing
A faery's song.
I made a garland for her head,
And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;
She look'd at me as she did love,
And made sweet moan.
She found me roots of relish sweet,
And honey wild, and manna dew;
And sure in language strange she said,
I love thee true.
She took me to her elfin grot,
And there she gaz'd and sighed deep,
And there I shut her wild sad eyes--
So kiss'd to sleep.
And there we slumber'd on the moss,
And there I dream'd, ah woe betide,
The latest dream I ever dream'd
On the cold hill side.
I saw pale kings, and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
Who cry'd--"La belle Dame sans merci
Hath thee in thrall!"
I saw their starv'd lips in the gloam
With horrid warning gaped wide,
And I awoke, and found me here
On the cold hill side.
And this is why I sojourn here
Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is wither'd from the lake,
And no birds sing.
3.1k
Flow in a long stream,
I fall into a deep dream.
Waving smoke with rosy glow,
Lightly red the bamboo grove;
In the brilliant gloam,
I see some fire worms,
They shine, they light,
Cross the field, through the hill,
Finally sit on a farmer’s hat;
The man stumbles along the track,
Husky and a little laze,
His distant voice echoes around:
“Go back home—Go back home—”
I wake suddenly with a start,
The city lives fast still tonight,
A sea of neon, reflect in my eyes;
The world is glossy, but mine is clumsy;
I just hope, not to be shoved forward.
And the time I look back,
My hometown will just be there;
And the time I listen for,
The distant echoes will just be here:
“Go back home—Go back home—”
Linger round with no end.
Jun 8, 2015
Jun 8, 2015 at 5:02 AM UTC
Crepuscular rays
Gloam with licks of scarlet shades
Eventide awaits
The silent dusky waters
To serenade moonlit eyes
©Jon London 2011
Copyscape Protected
Jul 26, 2012
Jul 26, 2012 at 3:13 PM UTC
a nacreous tossing around at
the sides, a dappled silver
sunlight if looked one way, an
apocalyptic gloam if another,
exhaled from a seeming
mouth, feeding on what has
already eviscerated an unfelt
***** a predator certainly its
own prey, a heat certainly
poison-breath on a cheek
falling when a meretricious
lover spouts that spurious
hypocorism, and also just a
wavering, iridescent puddle—
cornered, soft as a liquid steel
echo of a futile struggle
rolling around, bouncing off
a wine glass, and a porcelain
table edge, while a listening
head shakes, looks down
despondently, gloom glowing
out the hair, a voice jaded
since birth saying some
thing about differences, or a
helpless slender strap of hope
hanging itself on the way two
other eyes look at it across
checkered watered wings, two
swirling god whorls, two
effulgent galaxies the color of
melting pine bole circling
around in living umber striae,
pulling its gaze, raising it, as if
they, they were blazing truth
cased behind lithophane, and it,
only an aporetic puddle now
of tepid ocher, a mild earth
stone placed in a hand, asked
what is thought of it and the
response: yes, yes of course,
before foreign distance splutters
its face, and it retreats from
its meaning imparted to every
thing (with the vulnerable
precision of a swaying finger
tip) to the baby lanugo of a
delicate floating, through
human rills, of what is horizon
docked, dead, not merely
deciduous—forever jilted with
breath bulging as when beating
a flopping eyeless fish to
half-dead, head tilted up a
throat trying to pry itself
free, trying to live by
streaming snagless, airful,
without spirant sound of going
lost straight from the hands—
then a short chop of fullness
finally expunged and sputtering
like an escaped tuft of
shackled wonder soaring up
the sky in a puff and soul ring.
Mar 27, 2012
Mar 27, 2012 at 7:43 PM UTC
( Sonnet )
I once caught you naked by the sea,
No one noticed, such noble shyness,
Invited to worlds, aloof as sun breeze,
Of purple sands, heathered highness.
In novae of your eyes was shipwreck,
Forlorn beacon chiding the weary lost
Of new worlds lumbered on the decks,
Seabirds caroled up wing, heavens' loft.
Skin, fleshy of netted eel, salt and foam,
Was hide for a brigand, lubbers sessions,
Sheered by sheen, blinding sky of gloam,
Stars runged on their draped processions.
My seal, now fate, cloak within jubilance;
Coral sea wave, slips under moon dance.
Feb 4, 2017
Feb 4, 2017 at 2:21 PM UTC
Cotton is everywhere,
it's on the ground;
in the ditches,
all brown and soggy like
wet hairballs; in the wheel wells,
the rotor tiller;
the SNAPPER'
the squash;
your wife's ********
tingling her constantly;
the speedometer,
the pulled pork,
collards,
mashed potatoes
and most definitely
the gravy;
it's in the eyes,
makes them red
and explosive,
it's in the dark loam
and gloam; the unwashed streetlights,
the blue dark
and even bluer
lampposts in the middle
of fields black as oil;
the pink sun,
white clapboards
and redwood siding
of that burned-out homestead;
the cotton is everywhere;
thrown up by the slaves;
a ceiling made just for
February lovelessness
as I pull on my Marlboro
and crook my arm
like the cornices of a power station.
Feb 6, 2012
Feb 6, 2012 at 10:41 AM UTC
Capillaries are the river's replacements
In the basement
of these globes
are roads
life has yet to probe
pave
or scathe
wraiths roam
at gloam
with forlorn
echos etched into morning dew
Their worldly remains
lost in-between
Osiris' domain
Dec 14, 2012
Dec 14, 2012 at 11:20 AM UTC
( Sonnet )
I once caught you naked by the sea,
No one noticed, such noble shyness,
Invited to worlds, aloof as sun breeze,
Of purple sands, heathered highness.
In novae of your eyes was shipwreck,
Forlorn beacon chiding the weary lost
Of new worlds lumbered on the decks,
Seabirds caroled up wing, heavens' loft.
Skin, fleshy of netted eel, salt and foam,
Was hide for a brigand, lubbers sessions,
Sheered by sheen, blinding sky of gloam,
Stars runged on their draped processions.
My seal, now fate, cloak within jubilance;
Coral sea wave, slips under moon dance.
Apr 25, 2015
Apr 25, 2015 at 3:01 PM UTC
Landscape silhouettes
pirouetted off
pockmark lights in the dark;
the city shivers
in its myths and windy whispers,
Just a subtle rumble 'neath his humble feet,
heart aflutter, stuttering
palpitation structure sputtering; the lightless rain
glanced across the window brackets
of the moving train.
Silence yawned across his vapid eyes
like labored lullaby sans interlacing rhyme device -
Home, the beckoning, fulfillment's underlying premise
calling off at every stop
'til seats bowed under weight of emptiness.
Friendless in the long stretch
between conductor's breath,
fresh with mints and benevolence,
punching tickets
with a lonely sickness...
Ah, fitful sleep awaits us
past the sliding doors
and walk to familiar shores,
horizons bleak,
and nothing more.
Locomotive groans
pervade the embers of the gloam
and glitter bright,
against the clutching fingers
of this woeful night.
Aug 4, 2011
Aug 4, 2011 at 7:38 PM UTC
every evening i slaughter the sun.
every evening i cut her up on unforgiving mountain peaks
i dip her blood orange blistered flesh in saltwater;
i do this for the moon.
the sun gurgles as she drowns
Sep 17, 2019
Sep 17, 2019 at 4:43 PM UTC
In ancient woodland
this child roamed,
lost in nature,
briar & loam.
Mapping clearings,
badger setts,
the places where
the deer had slept.
Picking berries
hops & flowers,
lying under
stripling bowers.
Until evening's
amber gloam,
with twiggy hair
racing home.
Jun 3, 2019
Jun 3, 2019 at 1:22 PM UTC
A mug of camomile tea is best accompanied
By the gloam of a late summer's day and
The distant bleats of young sheep,
I find. Peace lies between
Two silhouetted trees, black
Against a blueish sky.
Jul 13, 2018
Jul 13, 2018 at 5:33 PM UTC
Vogue cover girl,country girls and pop her pearls,
Josh and evening in Starbucks her world, in crop tees and shorts she curled,
Riding through the duster reaching home,where she writes her diary and falls back to sleep in her gloam.
Dec 16, 2014
Dec 16, 2014 at 3:32 AM UTC
'Tween the shades of gloam and night
roam shadows cold and deep
Cavorting along the garden walls
'neath the eves they do seep
Pulling life from which they touch
removing the essecense of being
Growing bolder and darker still
when clouds course over moonbeams
Roses quell beneath their touch
becoming grey and smolder
The ivy blends into the trellis
stone statues look years older
Inching along the spreading branches
of the tree that taps at window panes
Melding with the leaves and bark
becoming your night time bane
Shadows tease the back door catch
then move on to your window sill
Melting in to your own bedroom
sneaking about as they will
Dark mouths stretch on the walls
and yawn across your quilted bed
Teeth reach out for your toes
while fingers want your head
Shadows tickle the closet doors
and weep beneath the chair
Puddling underneath your bed
You swear hands are touching your hair
Courage you gather as you quake
bit by bit you garner strength
Off you cast the covers fast
your eyes you rub and blink
For there the sun is streaming in
and chasing the night shadows out
You can almost hear their angry screams
of defeat as the sun spreads out
Your brain gives a sigh of relief
as it realizes you are now sun encased
But then new panic does set in
as you recall night can't be escaped
Feb 16, 2011
Feb 16, 2011 at 7:44 AM UTC
Fires in ditches and fields with
Newspapers, boxes, and dry grass
As our accessible anthracite;
Once smouldering enough on its own feet
To become its own source is when
The limbs were stripped and introduced;
Torn from trees or salvaged from
The outlying waste - they fed the
Crackle - spitting whispering embers skywards.
As children with little sense, our noise
Was all we could offer to appease
Wayward youth's disorder.
The crippled heat was secondary,
But to watch things burn was valuable;
A ring of lives held tenuous.
One thing I came to know
From the nights we gathered in droves is
That within this life of loose bonds and swells
I soak in the hungry gloam.
Jun 14, 2015
Jun 14, 2015 at 9:18 AM UTC
*November mist wraps a wet blanket
as I walk the falling day’s labyrinth
beneath neuronic trees of a waking forest
along a river dying in hyacinth!
the boatman sings a home going song
floats happy at the end of the ride
the river is narrow a few furlong
and his home is on the other side!
oil lamps flicker from the bank huts
winds carry their laughter and cries
grow darker tree barks as darkness shuts
all but the sky’s heavy sighs!
I hasten to escape this melancholic gloam
an alien in this forbidding night
the boatman must have reached his home
and the river is lulled in starlight!*
Nov 5, 2014
Nov 5, 2014 at 9:36 AM UTC
Inedible frozen fruit appears sensual;
Wasted flesh dressed as blessed and fresh.
Life's cycle is unseasonal and inevitable
Now onto Winters unfair descent;
To perish like apples stacked in barrels;
Left to sour and rot to the most bitter core.
To hell with the gourd and the hazel shells
The prolonged farewells. Send me away to shore;
To Rome where I will walk beyond the gloam.
To warmer days that will silent my moan;
Where my master has rung out my knell.
Jan 9, 2011
Jan 9, 2011 at 8:46 AM UTC