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'Tis noon. At noon the Hebrew bowed the knee
And worshipped, while the husbandmen withdrew
From the scorched field, and the wayfaring man
Grew faint, and turned aside by bubbling fount,
Or rested in the shadow of the palm.

  I, too, amid the overflow of day,
Behold the power which wields and cherishes
The frame of Nature. From this brow of rock
That overlooks the Hudson's western marge,
I gaze upon the long array of groves,
The piles and gulfs of verdure drinking in
The grateful heats. They love the fiery sun;
Their broadening leaves grow glossier, and their sprays
Climb as he looks upon them. In the midst,
The swelling river, into his green gulfs,
Unshadowed save by passing sails above,
Takes the redundant glory, and enjoys
The summer in his chilly bed. Coy flowers,
That would not open in the early light,
Push back their plaited sheaths. The rivulet's pool,
That darkly quivered all the morning long
In the cool shade, now glimmers in the sun;
And o'er its surface shoots, and shoots again,
The glittering dragon-fly, and deep within
Run the brown water-beetles to and fro.

  A silence, the brief sabbath of an hour,
Reigns o'er the fields; the laborer sits within
His dwelling; he has left his steers awhile,
Unyoked, to bite the herbage, and his dog
Sleeps stretched beside the door-stone in the shade.
Now the grey marmot, with uplifted paws,
No more sits listening by his den, but steals
Abroad, in safety, to the clover field,
And crops its juicy blossoms. All the while
A ceaseless murmur from the populous town
Swells o'er these solitudes: a mingled sound
Of jarring wheels, and iron hoofs that clash
Upon the stony ways, and hammer-clang,
And creak of engines lifting ponderous bulks,
And calls and cries, and tread of eager feet,
Innumerable, hurrying to and fro.
Noon, in that mighty mart of nations, brings
No pause to toil and care. With early day
Began the tumult, and shall only cease
When midnight, hushing one by one the sounds
Of bustle, gathers the tired brood to rest.

  Thus, in this feverish time, when love of gain
And luxury possess the hearts of men,
Thus is it with the noon of human life.
We, in our fervid manhood, in our strength
Of reason, we, with hurry, noise, and care,
Plan, toil, and strife, and pause not to refresh
Our spirits with the calm and beautiful
Of God's harmonious universe, that won
Our youthful wonder; pause not to inquire
Why we are here; and what the reverence
Man owes to man, and what the mystery
That links us to the greater world, beside
Whose borders we but hover for a space.
Time disappears silently like the cryptical fog at dawn!
Reality twisted for a moment without feign;
what seemed to wait for ages is now drawn
closer!
Flanked by an overwhelming urgency
Glossier!
To give and to share this flash of fragility
Were tomorrow...befits a charming after-tale of yesterday;
With summer blossoms kissed by the mild long awaited reign
Of the dusky aureate nobleness of men and women,
spellbinding-like a magnificent gold plated gemstone
Sealing this moment of a sweet clandestine
sparkle grinning in the lonesome orchid garden;
Wooing Romeo and Juliet like the equinox sun........


Muhumuza Kenneth Ezra.
I stand upon my native hills again,
  Broad, round, and green, that in the summer sky
With garniture of waving grass and grain,
  Orchards, and beechen forests, basking lie,
While deep the sunless glens are scooped between,
Where brawl o'er shallow beds the streams unseen.

A lisping voice and glancing eyes are near,
  And ever restless feet of one, who, now,
Gathers the blossoms of her fourth bright year;
  There plays a gladness o'er her fair young brow,
As breaks the varied scene upon her sight,
Upheaved and spread in verdure and in light.

For I have taught her, with delighted eye,
  To gaze upon the mountains,--to behold,
With deep affection, the pure ample sky,
  And clouds along its blue abysses rolled,--
To love the song of waters, and to hear
The melody of winds with charmed ear.

Here, I have 'scaped the city's stifling heat,
  Its horrid sounds, and its polluted air;
And, where the season's milder fervours beat,
  And gales, that sweep the forest borders, bear
The song of bird, and sound of running stream,
Am come awhile to wander and to dream.

Ay, flame thy fiercest, sun! thou canst not wake,
  In this pure air, the plague that walks unseen.
The maize leaf and the maple bough but take,
  From thy strong heats, a deeper, glossier green.
The mountain wind, that faints not in thy ray,
Sweeps the blue steams of pestilence away.

The mountain wind! most spiritual thing of all
  The wide earth knows; when, in the sultry time,
He stoops him from his vast cerulean hall,
  He seems the breath of a celestial clime!
As if from heaven's wide-open gates did flow
Health and refreshment on the world below.
Rintato Mar 2019
The rain felt heavenly from the sky as it drenched the soil beneath it, the grass became more glossier beautifully reflecting the surrounding, the wind was cool and fresh as it blew under my ears and the street was cloured with umbrellas. You were there hiding beneath your umbrella and It was that rainy day I fell in love right away.....
There will be continuation to it
olive Jun 2014
a little section of my skin tingled and I scratched and pinched until it stung. I can’t deal with pleasantness. On certain days I feel like maybe I am floating and I am silently praying someone will tie an anvil onto my ankle.

my house is a memory making factory. People associate my walls with stories. “Their room” and the warm bubbly water and the smooth shiny flooring. my house is a little cave in the middle of a rain storm, I’m not sure what would happen if I left it, but I think I’d feel a little cleaner, a little glossier.  

the sunlight shines through glass and leaves little patches of radiant on my dull skin. you were like a blur of sunlight that danced into my retina. I was so blinded by your beauty, by your contrast, that I forgot you are destructive. You made me squint and my eyes haven’t fully opened since.

The air smelled so floral today, so unmistakably dewey that I tried to climb my budding tree between the mailbox and the big rock. I couldn’t reach the first branch and your bark ripped my aching skin from my fingers and my palms. I forgive you. I forgive you.

why can’t I appreciate mosquitos when I am one. I **** out little bits of personality from everyone around me. each tap of the keyboard derived from a thought in my mind derived from a person I know, from a thing I’ve seen. It’s the tiniest *****, so small you’d never feel it. But the bump is there, it reminds you of what you’ve shared, what you’ve inspired. And then it disappears

I think happiness might be the split second after waking up in a new place and forgetting you’re not home. I think happiness might be the sound of the kettle clicking off. I think happiness might be rushing to something important and looking a bit like a fool as you run.

my teardrops are meeting the raindrops for the first time. they are saying hello. they have things in common. they are so happy. this is why I was born. I am a matchmaker, I’m linking fingernails to tingling skin and tree bark to palms and bits of personality to computer keys. wow.
Sophia Sep 2017
In those apricot-tinged nirvana days,
cigar smoke filled the stuffy restaurant in which we ate.
At the table across from us sat a couple in their fourties,
Him, a toupee-wearing, finger-clicking car salesman,
and Her, the blonde in a tight dress,
glossy white mink and even glossier white stilettos.

She talked enthusiastically about the new eastern religions,
Groups that offered "clarity" and "spiritual guidance" to the dissatisfied Miami girls such as herself.

She said that she wanted a new way of life.
(Secretly, she wanted the young guru who'd promised it to her.)
Toupee protested:
"But honey, we ain't no slaves to the machine!"
The gold Casio watch on his wrist and the tacky pearls she sported said otherwise.
As soon as the final cupful
of water was poured,
we’d hoist him from the plastic tub
and he’d jiggle as if electrocuted,
water flinging everywhere,
a wild tremor from head to tail.
Then we’d pat him dry
with a pink towel,
black hair glossier than ever
and he’d run
straight to the fence,
rub up against it
as if rubbing the freshness
out from his skin,
back and forth
with a goofy look on his face.
Written: October 2016.
Explanation: To mark National Poetry Day on 6th October, I wrote 25 poems over the course of eight days, and sent one poem each to one of 25 of my Facebook friends. After some deliberation, I am now posting the poems on HP (in order of when they were written), albeit not all in one go. 'Firework' is poem one, for those of you who wish to read the series in full, in order. None of the poems are about their recipients. All feedback welcome. A link to my Facebook writing page can be found on my HP home page.
NOTE: Many of my older pieces will be removed from HP at some point in the future.
Jair Graham Sep 2017
She's tired of being a doll.
She no longer wants to be locked in a drawer with her pale pink dainty lips pressed against the ceiling of her rose-petal scented nightmare chamber.
She's old news now, Julie is the one to they all dote over, her hair's a shade lighter and glossier and her little boots are a more brilliant pink. Julie's dress isn't frayed like Arleta's, the flowers on the new doll's dress are more detailed and eye-catching.
Julie's perfumed with lemon and jasmine, Arleta used to smell of roses plucked at dawn after rain, now the once-sweet scent is toxic and she can't escape it.
She met a boy-doll once; Marr.. he looked at her as if she was a ship freshly painted and awaiting her maiden voyage over apple-green seas. Her tiny china heart had flipped that day and then never beat with such lovestruck ferosity again.
He'd fallen from a 3rd storey window and had been too broken to be mended, just like her worn little doll-heart.
But if she could dance like the young girls in the village do, in the buttercup fields.. if she could share carrot cake as dusk approached across the river and could sleep the night away in a hot air balloon!
If her legs could run and leap, and her delicate lips could kiss a charming boy..
She holds hope in her chest and crosses her porcelain fingers, maybe luck will fall into her lonely life like a jewel in a hail-storm.
Ken Pepiton Sep 2019
without this magic pen, where would we be

we words to the wise

we sweet lull making words, soft as genuine joy,
the slow steady build
ing heart joy
sweet suasivity
snakey lick
nacre laquer spit
shining
layer on layer
glossier and glossier, pearly gates

then Aitia
bubble pop. No juice, no flow, lightening ever
y where

is the leash, the rod

touch here please. At this highest conductive point

formed from metals collected
in the aftermath of two unthinkably complex Nuetron stars

collided, or merged,
no body saw it, (it is a spell not an error, feature nae bug)

but some say they know they saw what would have hapt,
had that hapt, one hundred and thirty thousand years ago

this is not irony, this is goldy

Google Nuetron stars make gold, Spelchek's grandma
at Google corrects you.
I knew that would hap, had yu followed insruct
spells
construct word nets to snare any bird unawoke to the joke,
yoke equally,

pull your own weight, plus or minus

synergy is variable, like the speed of light and time.
You dear reader are helping the world get the joke and stop

hoping to die, before giving your own account of every idle word.
Start here,

ask, your self, the one you talk to,

what lies do I believe about you or anything else?

-- in my world, those are doctores orders.
Caugt a story about farmers giving up because life got chinging too fast to keep up.
Ava Weiland Sep 2019
I am surprised I can remember
the smell of you
how sweet and fresh and neon
like the space that was filled by it
how close our faces stayed
how long did we last
how I didn't want to leave
how we could have stayed and grown filthy
like your floor
if we had remained
our mouths may have done too much
my teeth may have turned the color of your hair
your skin may have become
layered

your bones should have crushed mine
but instead we grew supple
I thawed like ice
you floated down me
mud mixed into the water
bears and elk bathed in us
and the surface became clouded
with dark fur and foam
you sunk your head and tasted
the blood of the elk and the ***** of the bear
I remember your hands were still smooth and soft
and I was not afraid but still shuddered
like a tiny animal

the east path cut out through
the blackberries and nettles leads back there
so does the trail of raisins from the south
and the thunder clapping coordinates from the north

I gathered my things and headed west
where I won't feel the porcupines on your chest
or see the dappled forest floor in your eyes
the river coursing through this place
has no elk or bears
the lips of the boys here taste of smoke and wet cement

now I remain
clean
alone
nestled in my own beauty
like a goldfinch preening
not one of the fat sparrows that
hopscotch on these sidewalks

I know what you're doing
I know her eyes are growing crusty
your hands make knots out of her hair
your bodies grow tired from the rhythm
of pressing together
her feet are bigger than mine
her smile glossier
you will not find otters living behind her ears

Perhaps I will see you anyway
in the winter I will wear a charcoal snowcoat
you will lift me from behind and I will squeal in surprise and delight

Outside my window people sing hymns on the street.
I suppose what I mean to ask is
when will you get it,
when will the cartoon lightbulb
twitch its gift above your heads

so I can pour the little of me
into the many hands you possess
for approval, the scoring
of boxes that do it all for you,

and is it all worth it, I suppose
I should ask. Will you discard
like a bare crisp packet,
tasted and wasted, replaced

by a glossier prospect, the glass
of champagne pricked with bubbles,
and they can pour themselves to you
in a more delicious, refreshing way.
Written: August 2022.
Explanation: A poem written in my own time. A link to my Facebook writing page and Instagram page can be found on my HP home page.

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