"gloaming" poems
The distant hollow of the high mountain pass
swallows the setting sun as it steals away southbound
behind the coastal mountain's tangerine sunset hued silhouettes
Mulberry plashed shadows pointing northward
across the evergreens outstretched dimming,
beneath the waning fade of each fleeting eventide
Sundown ebbing asunder the wafting daylight,
each gloaming of the day, helplessly a moment sooner past,
transfixed further south beyond yesterday's passing azure
The lazy days of summer escape unbounded,
nomadic as the sea I've seen sail away before;
evanescent as the beauty of the bloom summer days beheld
and the memory of the fragrance they exhale
The nebulous weight of the gravity is consciously denied
by the truths a human heart beholds
A moment’s epiphany afflicts like a rogue wave in a calm sea;
the only thing my heart ever wanted remains out of reach
Everything my heart needs consciously surrendering
to the poignant passing moment's beauty,
the falling sun at distance sets more suddenly now
Lost in the undeniable certainty
life's imminent season's change
Eyes drawn stubbornly from presence to a sky so far away,
knowing there'll be no restitution for the welling sense of loss...
A bitter sweet song mummers in the silence of the absorbing spell,
summer's sun stained pages of watermarked soul scribbles,
time tattooed reparation for the indelible ache
of a harsh grey winter loneliness
Perhaps too familiar, this whelming Déjà vu
that tears my soul; that tugs at these roots
but cannot sever their sacred grasp
But for now, eyes fixed to the sun's
inevitable tightening tether hence —
to wear weary each fraying thread's impending break
Each sunset leans a deeper angle southward
as it slips down through the firwood shadows;
illuminating other faraway latitudes
far beyond the distant horizon skies
The preordained continuum unfolding what will be ...
someone you used to know ... September 11, 2017 ... 7:30 PM
Sep 14, 2017
Sep 14, 2017 at 11:41 AM UTC
Here in the morning gloaming
burning
my skin flaming
as I imagine red kisses
from smouldering lips!
How easily
in anticipation
you make me whimper
before with pleasure
making me simper -
each kiss
another hot coal
placed on my rawness
with searing softness.
Aug 12, 2018
Aug 12, 2018 at 4:26 AM UTC
There's a meadow past the village
On a hill...where magic swarms
You can see it on a summer night
When the clouds predict the storms
Life from time eternal
Starts appearing in the field
Gnomes and bluebell fairies
and the magic that they yield
You can see them from the village
Dancing in the moonlights glow
You can see the lightning jumping
You can see the ebb and flow
The pixies and the fairies
Folk who are part of their own world
Light up the distant meadow
As the magic is unfurled
Daisies and soft bluebells
fill the meadow in the sun
there is clover and some dragonflies
And young children having fun
The magic folk are hiding
Lights are hid, and tucked away
Until the humans in their world
Pack to end the day
It's then, from down the village
That the meadow lights begin
Where the magic lights the sky up
In the early gloaming din
If a human breaks the borders
Coming out and much too near
The lights go dark...and silent
For the magic world has ears
There are sentries in the meadow
All unseen to you
That alert the makers of the lights
When the humans are in view
there is magic in the meadow
magic lanterns are set free
where the world becomes a canvas
Of dancing lights for all to see
Aug 30, 2014
Aug 30, 2014 at 5:36 PM UTC
WHAT was the name you called me?-
And why did you go so soon?
The crows lift their caw on the wind,
And the wind changed and was lonely.
The warblers cry their sleepy-songs
Across the valley gloaming,
Across the cattle-horns of early stars.
Feathers and people in the crotch of a treetop
Throw an evening waterfall of sleepy-songs.
What was the name you called me?-
And why did you go so soon?
5.4k
KEEP a red heart of memories
Under the great gray rain sheds of the sky,
Under the open sun and the yellow gloaming embers.
Remember all paydays of lilacs and songbirds;
All starlights of cool memories on storm paths.
Out of this prairie rise the faces of dead men.
They speak to me. I can not tell you what they say.
Other faces rise on the prairie.
They are the unborn. The future.
Yesterday and to-morrow cross and mix on the skyline
The two are lost in a purple haze. One forgets. One waits.
In the yellow dust of sunsets, in the meadows of vermilion eight o'clock June nights ... the dead men and the unborn children speak to me ... I can not tell you what they say ... you listen and you know.
I don't care who you are, man:
I know a woman is looking for you
and her soul is a corn-tassel kissing a south-west wind.
(The farm-boy whose face is the color of brick-dust, is calling the cows; he will form the letter X with crossed streams of milk from the teats; he will beat a tattoo on the bottom of a tin pail with X's of milk.)
I don't care who you are, man:
I know sons and daughters looking for you
And they are gray dust working toward star paths
And you see them from a garret window when you laugh
At your luck and murmur, "I don't care."
I don't care who you are, woman:
I know a man is looking for you
And his soul is a south-west wind kissing a corn-tassel.
(The kitchen girl on the farm is throwing oats to the chickens and the buff of their feathers says hello to the sunset's late maroon.)
I don't care who you are, woman:
I know sons and daughters looking for you
And they are next year's wheat or the year after hidden in the dark and loam.
My love is a yellow hammer spinning circles in Ohio, Indiana. My love is a redbird shooting flights in straight lines in Kentucky and Tennessee. My love is an early robin flaming an ember of copper on her shoulders in March and April. My love is a graybird living in the eaves of a Michigan house all winter. Why is my love always a crying thing of wings?
On the Indiana dunes, in the Mississippi marshes, I have asked: Is it only a fishbone on the beach?
Is it only a dog's jaw or a horse's skull whitening in the sun? Is the red heart of man only ashes? Is the flame of it all a white light switched off and the power house wires cut?
Why do the prairie roses answer every summer? Why do the changing repeating rains come back out of the salt sea wind-blown? Why do the stars keep their tracks? Why do the cradles of the sky rock new babies?
4.4k
I saw the sun steep
into the seascape ―
lonely as a drowning
wave
on still-waters
the dimming of the day
rescinding evanescent daylight .
fading with the slack tide
lost at sea ―
a gloaming moment
let fall from
the remains of the day,
like some other passing
sea bird's molted feather
drifts away untamed
I sit silent as the driftwood
lingering at the watermark,
watching a random gust
erase the footprints
of another recurring day,
bearing abandoned memories
and vacant heartbeats,
atrophied in the drifting sands
and I see you walking
towards the abating
midnight sunset ―
but I know
you're just a mirage;
like the dimming afterglow
of so many waning moons
elapsed
ever-changing tides grow low
and promises made lightly
do ebb away
Scanning the distant horizon ―
a blindfold heart
mooning all at sea;
parsing a deserted shoreline,
wondering if love
is too late ,..
to stem the tide ―
harlon rivers
30 May 2018
Jun 5, 2018
Jun 5, 2018 at 12:59 PM UTC
I wish to peer at Paris, under-dressed and ***** in all of its neoclassical splendor.
For that, there are things I would give up.
I wish to see a prehistoric forest, verdant, overgrown and jumbled.
Before evergreen mysteries I would be ever humbled.
For that, there are things I would give up.
I wish to see Rhodian gardens and from them, smell the flowering fig and taste succulent honey suckle.
I wish to glimpse zaftig temptresses dancing twenty thick amidst courtyards of ancient Persian palaces.
For that, there are things I would give up.
I wish to be blessed into an inenarrable life on an unalike mysterious planet.
I wish for an Atlas resembling and proportionate soul.
For that, there are things I would give up.
I've demanded an even temperament from my unruly emotions.
I've settled for continuous disbelief at the loquacious ignobleness of humanity.
For change, there are things I would give up.
I've sequestered my innocent dreams and bloomed monetary means.
I've avoided death narrowly, my fingers gripping, fear will always transfix, while barreling down 36'.
I've inhaled profits and installed transformation.
For change, there are things I would give up.
I've burned my midnight oil, taken offensive slander, and burned bridges with gratuitous candor.
I've witnessed coal falsify a beautiful gloaming sky.
I've had gasoline dreams filled and fuming with intensity, all drowning under an ocean of oil.
I've envisioned bleached beaches to hide stained soil.
These are moments I would give up.
There are things I've realized outside my reality, outside my internal soliloquy and physical tactility.
I've come to understand my words are nothing more than symbols on a closed door.
Jul 26, 2010
Jul 26, 2010 at 11:54 PM UTC
Sagaciously gloaming melanite eyes
Resonating euphoniously ululated memories;
The shadow land of illusion
Rising out of the ash of an acorn
Wallowing in the blood of wars strident refuge,
Gnomic relics errant of an
Enigmatic almondine heart
Offering an olive branch upon an
Altar made of oak.
A ruminantly nostalgic requiem
Sedititiously traversing the firmament;
Ineluctable reprobation
Ineffably manifested,
The doves of meta-morphosis
Embracing the silk garments of love;
Sound minds cacophany
Devouring the delusional devout
Veridically inspiring ascendancy
Decieving serenities whisper throughout
The dominions audaciously
Rousing ambivalent fears.
ELEETE J MUIR.
Jan 13, 2012
Jan 13, 2012 at 10:27 AM UTC
I chased the first rays
of an autumn morning
but to my sorrow
when I arrived at
the urgent place
the sun had
already
risen
breathing a
crowning glory of a
seasons brilliant
splendor
alighting
the glowing amber
of golden woods
shining like gleaming
constellations of
dazzling morning
stars...
though I
desired to find
ascendent beauty
the ubiquitous glow of
transfigured leaves
immersed me in
a divine chrome...
as I traversed
the woods, my
solitary steps found
companionship
with a sullen
mistress singing
a sad rustle
of dry fallen leaves
and as the drone
of cars faded from the
receding road
I searched myself
for courage and
found resolve
I pondered truth
and discovered
the wisdom
of resolution...
yearning to
realize a
deeper faith
I hiked
further up
the wooded hill,
visiting the gay
playfields
of my youth
and received
an epiphany
of wholesome
closure
opening
new
timeless
doors...
still questing
for more light
a prophetic wren
whirred a pliant
secret into my ear
she bespoke
a symphony
of avian
improvisations
conversing in
a thousand
luminous tongues,
relating a sonorous
elegy teaming with
the brightest
joys of life
raising bold
proclamations
celebrating a
seasons radiance
imploring me
to join the chorus...
though the canopy
of the woods still
boasted boughs
of green
the
infant hues
of spring had
run its course
the glory of an
expiring season
strewn on the
forest floor
covering the
mouldering stags
inching back into
the compost of life
breeding blankets
of furry moss
feeding on the
primal organica
of seemingly
expired flora
here, in this
darkened moment
I realized
the transcendent
miracle
the loam of life
incubating
churning
in concert with
the turn of
seasons...
to my sorrow
I missed the first
rays of the morning
the first
peeks of light
a breaking day
gracefully bespeaks
upon a sleeping earth
awoken in new light
yet I am filled
I am transcendent
I am the first ray
of an eternal light
I am the first ray
of my earthen
gloaming...
on the morrow
the best of me
is in the marrow
of all who loved me
and all whom I loved
these rays of me
will forever rise
in an eternity
of dawnings
For Joey
Godspeed Beloved
Vaughan Williams:
Lark Ascending
Oakland
101313
jbm
Oct 14, 2013
Oct 14, 2013 at 12:13 AM UTC
Her eyes are the lighthouse of the Pharos,
Alexandrian, bronze-mirrored fire flung round
The gloaming coastal sorrow like sand-glittered spears.
Her praying mantis limbs of light,
Sever-poised for needlepoint strike
At the jeweled glint of wings in dim, rare-seen limits,
Now one with her rasping sea of scarab beetle husks.
May 19, 2019
May 19, 2019 at 8:44 PM UTC
I saw the world as it is,
cried my soul away
Wrapped my skin in shadows
a gift, unto the night
Sunset is my dress
The moon holds what remains of my
soul
Falling stars and dew drops
few shimmers gone
unseen
The only silence found,
in the song of falling rain
Sunset colours caress me,
night, my stage
Whispers in the gloaming
from sweet cicadas
And still, I see the world
cry my soul to the moon
May 1, 2017
May 1, 2017 at 9:31 AM UTC
A house that lacks, seemingly, mistress and master,
With doors that none but the wind ever closes,
Its floor all littered with glass and with plaster;
It stands in a garden of old-fashioned roses.
I pass by that way in the gloaming with Mary;
‘I wonder,’ I say, ‘who the owner of those is.’
‘Oh, no one you know,’ she answers me airy,
‘But one we must ask if we want any roses.’
So we must join hands in the dew coming coldly
There in the hush of the wood that reposes,
And turn and go up to the open door boldly,
And knock to the echoes as beggars for roses.
‘Pray, are you within there, Mistress Who-were-you?’
’Tis Mary that speaks and our errand discloses.
‘Pray, are you within there? Bestir you, bestir you!
’Tis summer again; there’s two come for roses.
‘A word with you, that of the singer recalling—
Old Herrick: a saying that every maid knows is
A flower unplucked is but left to the falling,
And nothing is gained by not gathering roses.’
We do not loosen our hands’ intertwining
(Not caring so very much what she supposes),
There when she comes on us mistily shining
And grants us by silence the boon of her roses.
2.6k
In the gloaming
Of near darkened hospital room
A tender touch of a caring hand
Relieving pain
Providing the only light
That remains
In the gloaming
Of the nearly darkened room
Sleep child
I am here
Jul 25, 2013
Jul 25, 2013 at 11:14 AM UTC
AFTER the last red sunset glimmer,
Black on the line of a low hill rise,
Formed into moving shadows, I saw
A plowboy and two horses lined against the gray,
Plowing in the dusk the last furrow.
The turf had a gleam of brown,
And smell of soil was in the air,
And, cool and moist, a haze of April.
I shall remember you long,
Plowboy and horses against the sky in shadow.
I shall remember you and the picture
You made for me,
Turning the turf in the dusk
And haze of an April gloaming.
2.1k
i.
Lief O' Lief, or the gloaming,
Inly beholding; the imperium
Betwixt ourn palm's.
ii.
Beckowing song's, thro the chamber's
And corridor's; Crystal chandeliers,
Whites in the luster that Pierce.
iii.
An abatjour, bringing elan up through the floor's,
A woo for mine girl;
Mi amour', mi amour'.
iv.
We shalt accend, adamantine. Adaxial, tacent in talk;
Taction bloprined. Jerusalem's city, renewed, refined.
Inviolable Yeshua; afar off, Jesus abideth here,
readeth the sign.
©Brandon Nagley
©Lonesome poet's poetry
©Prophetic poetry
©Earl Jane Nagley ( àgapi mou) dedication
Mar 25, 2016
Mar 25, 2016 at 9:37 PM UTC
The morning world in mist dissolves and under,
Towed to heaven, we, a plod below the death
Of clouds, sing mute, where they trumpet-glide
Flashing into peace. Three-toed slabs, parched
Of orange, web the stars over the wine
Dark seas and chalk the churn and twining earth
Into gloaming. In rapt stillness they,
Are import and income, parables,
Echoes of the innocent song sung to a spire,
Gilded hutches, to those who heap on brightness
Swans are brighter even more with blackest
Eyes, they pierce the silent shroud all starry.
I wish that we were like two swans my love,
Neck of nape, embracing without touch.
Jul 12, 2012
Jul 12, 2012 at 5:53 PM UTC
Between sunset,
And the fall of night
That's where my thoughts of you are kept
Buried deep within the twilight
Too bright for dark
Too dark for day
They're in the gloaming
That's where they'll stay
I think of you
When the sun hides its face
Before the moon
Finds its place
The sense of days end
Lingers in the colours
Memories of you
More vivid than any other
You were the moons glow
The sun, shining bright
So I hid you in the gloaming
Now, you're only twilight
May 10, 2016
May 10, 2016 at 8:48 PM UTC
The snow had begun in the gloaming,
And busily all the night
Had been heaping field and highway
With a silence deep and white.
Every pine and fir and hemlock
Wore ermine too dear for an earl,
And the poorest twig on the elm-tree
Was ridged inch deep with pearl.
From sheds new-roofed with Carrara
Came Chanticleer's muffled crow,
The stiff rails were softened to swan's-down,
And still fluttered down the snow.
I stood and watched by the window
The noiseless work of the sky,
And the sudden flurries of snow-birds,
Like brown leaves whirling by.
I thought of a mound in sweet Auburn
Where a little headstone stood;
How the flakes were folding it gently,
As did robins the babes in the wood.
Up spoke our own little Mabel,
Saying, 'Father, who makes it snow?'
And I told of the good All-father
Who cares for us here below.
Again I looked at the snowfall,
And thought of the leaden sky
That arched o'er our first great sorrow,
When that mound was heaped so high.
I remembered the gradual patience
That fell from that cloud like snow,
Flake by flake, healing and hiding
The scar of our deep-plunged woe.
And again to the child I whispered,
'The snow that husheth all,
Darling, the merciful Father
Alone can make it fall! '
Then, with eyes that saw not, I kissed her;
And she, kissing back, could not know
That my kiss was given to her sister,
Folded close under deepening snow.
Dec 1, 2015
Dec 1, 2015 at 1:28 PM UTC
It’s work, this wailing,
a daily occupation.
Alongside the light-rail
A ghost bike, a placard,
a quickening in the blood.
Murmur, breathe myself to sleep,
fleece this feeling,
Blue skies somewhere
and yeah, life goes on.
I struggle to wake,
my sharpest knife
slides along this peach’s stone,
scoop this flesh, devour.
Crepuscular light,
Fecundity of life,
Lacerate this daytime
cut through with dim.
Celerity of dusk,
and with it this gloaming,
My quidnunc neighbor
seals ear to wall to trace
my hitching breaths from air.
But it’s tomorrow now
and it is warm in Paranoia Park.
This violinist, though hardly Paganini,
embroiders sound onto sound.
His bow draws a frisson
along my spine, my nerves
His strings, vibration,
shimmering, a shock, a flush.
This moment: a reprieve,
my coffee break from grief.
All the trees are turning orange.
The days all turn to sleep.
Nov 10, 2011
Nov 10, 2011 at 3:52 PM UTC
I left you in the morning,
And in the morning glow,
You walked a way beside me
To make me sad to go.
Do you know me in the gloaming,
Gaunt and dusty gray with roaming?
Are you dumb because you know me not,
Or dumb because you know?
All for me? And not a question
For the faded flowers gay
That could take me from beside you
For the ages of a day?
They are yours, and be the measure
Of their worth for you to treasure,
The measure of the little while
That I’ve been long away.
1.8k
Pink wisps
thin, like cotton candy,
f
l
o
a
t
softly around my skin.
I s n
p i
under the expansive, lucid
sky.
S i g h.
Air flows in and from
my lungs.
Hung in the depth of the horizon
sits a mountainous,
golden
sun.
I run (run, run and run),
quick to catch a lick
of the warmth
into my mouth so it
f
i
l
l
s
me
to the seams.
Light b e a m s
from my f
i
n
g
e
r
s
Yellow air lingers
on
my tongue.
I t l
w r
i
'til
I am
unstrung.
Lunge! Forward and fast,
Make this
f
a
d
i
n
g
moment l a s t.
Past the horizon,
the
sun
s
i
n
k
s
low to edge of the ground.
I found
my meaning
in the gleaming
l i g h t
that beats so b r i g h t.
I use all of my height to jump and grasp
the last pink wisp
that kiss(es) my lips.
"'Til tomorrow",
I whisper to the now
dark sky.
I'll keep my head held
up
high,
for this this just a temporary
"goodbye".
Sep 8, 2015
Sep 8, 2015 at 5:11 PM UTC
Flummoxed,
In labyrinths of
Baleful forests with
eyes of gibbet makers
and buried undertakers
through gloaming sights,
hobbling towards the light.
The silver teeth of
obeisance sundering will,
plundering peace,
blazoning smiles of
malicious beings.
Mar 19, 2015
Mar 19, 2015 at 12:37 PM UTC
Cruising through busy yards under gloaming
orbs blink one by one inside a submarine of bony tissue.
This is the rent in body, too.
This will be a myriad path until obsequious jaundice seeps & burrows not so calmly.
Instinctive cigarette,
naïf animal intentions for an eager ******
Reassured, still.
A neat rest on top of ashes
Lion's tawnies understood the shared blanket,
the cat under his crotch,
lazy
& me petting his Lion
collecting ephemeral drips in a dish.
Apr 7, 2010
Apr 7, 2010 at 10:40 PM UTC