"greenness" poems
Gentlemen of Courage and Ladies of Excellence,
Toast to stolen prayers with rarer player’s hands;
Soft in defiant laughter,
when drinking their wine from the bowels of brines
Sing along the Ballads of Heritage with Melodies of Exception;
Boast, not a breathe,
though sullen heirs ghost to fairer wearer’s air(s) of land—
A settlement of Rapture and Resurrection, arid, amid dirt and sand
and King and thy Kingdom sprout flowering tomb, and rosebud temple reach to the sky during the showers of spring
Devours the crescent Moon
in big pink petals of bloom;
A garden so fertile
it could look pretty in wartime—
with Gardeners of Courage and Laborers of Excellence;
(Lapse, not into digressions of Being and Essence
but hands in the soil and planting the actions of kingdom come,
patient building of Spring Reign sure
as the flame, the architect of rising Sun is
(Daughters and Sons of kingdom came,
the soldier in a land been conquered and named; abandoned
for the greenness of hope.
)May it never come, Be All The Same; (
be gentle, though whispering wind)
Seeds of Nextyear and the spores of Awhile,
carried by the Wasps and the Clouds
To the Gentlemen of Excellence and Ladies of Courage,
illuminated, eyes from the flora of stars faraway forest floor of foreign
fears,
as the hungry Owls of Time prepare a final feast—
Consume the years between Here and Now;
Watching from blank perch, among
the Trees of Afterall; a place beyond expectance.
Sing the branches of experience, to wake
in Siren’s cipher; inelegant forms
of waking,
ugly sleep on rocks of seabed; once was aboard a marooned skyline—
Those Who Are Will Be
again, again a serf in a wave of Time’s refraction. Neverending neverbeginning;
Those Gentlemen of Courage and Ladies of Excellence,
on the Day That Is, arrays of seers sayers doers displayers
optimists and pessimists, toast to them
and their rarer player’s hands,
Boast they, not a breathe, though sullen heirs ghost
to fairer wearer’s air and land;
Laugh and howl and dine, they drink their wine
from disemboweled gourds
of their own divine—
Warped, in jowls of hungry fix,
no feast they fear, for they prey to the Owls of Time.
Apr 30, 2018
Apr 30, 2018 at 5:28 PM UTC
They enter as animals from the outer
Space of holly where spikes
Are not thoughts I turn on, like a Yogi,
But greenness, darkness so pure
They freeze and are.
O God, I am not like you
In your vacuous black,
Stars stuck all over, bright stupid confetti.
Eternity bores me,
I never wanted it.
What I love is
The piston in motion ----
My soul dies before it.
And the hooves of the horses,
There merciless churn.
And you, great Stasis ----
What is so great in that!
Is it a tiger this year, this roar at the door?
It is a Christus,
The awful
God-bit in him
Dying to fly and be done with it?
The blood berries are themselves, they are very still.
The hooves will not have it,
In blue distance the pistons hiss.
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Azure was the sky, and leaden was the sea;
Not surprising would the discord be
For him who has read Wordsworth.
What ailed his thoughts were the debris
Of broken glass fishermen-in-boats
Might have thrown into the ocean
On a night of 'Celtia'* with no pairing,
Or the sight of a woman’s dress
Whose swollen darkness was
A sea urchin, whose quills
Were plucked by the greenness of rust;
Or a German parachute
Over Kasserine pass**, my thyme nest
And the center of Tunisia.
©LazharBouazzi, July 15, 2018
Jul 14, 2018
Jul 14, 2018 at 6:35 PM UTC
Are you fleeing from Love because of a single humiliation?
What do you know of Love except the name?
Love has a hundred forms of pride and disdain,
and is gained by a hundred means of persuasion.
Since Love is loyal, it purchases one who is loyal:
it has no interest in a disloyal companion.
The human being resembles a tree; its root is a covenant with God:
that root must be cherished with all one's might.
A weak covenant is a rotten root, without grace or fruit.
Though the boughs and leaves of the date palm are green,
greenness brings no benefit if the root is corrupt.
If a branch is without green leaves, yet has a good root,
a hundred leaves will put forth their hands in the end.
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Sure thou didst flourish once! and many springs,
Many bright mornings, much dew, many showers,
Pass’d o’er thy head; many light hearts and wings,
Which now are dead, lodg’d in thy living bowers.
And still a new succession sings and flies;
Fresh groves grow up, and their green branches shoot
Towards the old and still enduring skies,
While the low violet thrives at their root.
But thou beneath the sad and heavy line
Of death, doth waste all senseless, cold, and dark;
Where not so much as dreams of light may shine,
Nor any thought of greenness, leaf, or bark.
And yet—as if some deep hate and dissent,
Bred in thy growth betwixt high winds and thee,
Were still alive—thou dost great storms resent
Before they come, and know’st how near they be.
Else all at rest thou liest, and the fierce breath
Of tempests can no more disturb thy ease;
But this thy strange resentment after death
Means only those who broke—in life—thy peace.
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Through the vales to my love!
To the happy small nest of home
Green from basement to roof;
Where the honey-bees come
To the window-sill flowers,
And dive from above,
Safe from the spider that weaves
Her warp and her woof
In some outermost leaves.
Through the vales to my love!
In sweet April hours
All rainbows and showers,
While dove answers dove,--
In beautiful May,
When the orchards are tender
And frothing with flowers,--
In opulent June,
When the wheat stands up slender
By sweet-smelling hay,
And half the sun's splendour
Descends to the moon.
Through the vales to my love!
Where the turf is so soft to the feet,
And the thyme makes it sweet,
And the stately foxglove
Hangs silent its exquisite bells;
And where water wells
The greenness grows greener,
And bulrushes stand
Round a lily to screen her.
Nevertheless, if this land,
Like a garden to smell and to sight,
Were turned to a desert of sand,
Stripped bare of delight,
All its best gone to worst,
For my feet no repose,
No water to comfort my thirst,
And heaven like a furnace above,--
The desert would be
As gushing of waters to me,
The wilderness be as a rose,
If it led me to thee,
O my love!
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I imagine this midnight moment's forest:
Something else is alive
Besides the clock's loneliness
And this blank page where my fingers move.
Through the window I see no star:
Something more near
Though deeper within darkness
Is entering the loneliness:
Cold, delicately as the dark snow,
A fox's nose touches twig, leaf;
Two eyes serve a movement, that now
And again now, and now, and now
Sets neat prints into the snow
Between trees, and warily a lame
Shadow lags by stump and in hollow
Of a body that is bold to come
Across clearings, an eye,
A widening deepening greenness,
Brilliantly, concentratedly,
Coming about its own business
Till, with sudden sharp hot stink of fox
It enters the dark hole of the head.
The window is starless still; the clock ticks,
The page is printed.
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at first an unrelenting green covers everything:
the trees, the lawn, the hillsides, the marshes, the windbreaks,
everything is completely and totally green, the deepest, truest green,
so green you might even forget that it wasn't always green,
so green you might not stop to think that it won't always be green.
school children look out windows during their exams,
longing to be free amid all that greenness,
lovers sit in parks near the water, under perfectly green leaves,
listening to the wind, watching the stars come out
and making their wishes, forever joined with that unrelenting green.
artists dip their impressionistic brushes in the green and dab on canvas
pictures of people gathered at picnics in dappled, green shade,
joined with the greenness, enveloped and absorbed by it,
becoming green themselves. they paint pictures of leafy trees reaching beyond the canvas with patches of sky showing through, a perspective of endless summer that you have to look at a long time
to see and feel, but once you find it beyond the greenness, in the
blue beyond the hill, you will be part of it always: through the fading mid-summer and pale, yellowing late summer, even into the multi-
colored fall and the stark, grey-white winter, and you will know life, and hope and love, and nothing will ever seem the same again
Sep 24, 2016
Sep 24, 2016 at 7:05 AM UTC
Sunflower stood in the middle of the greenness that is Grass.
She was folding her yellow crown jewels,
singing with the wind about the ray of luminescent light
that sometimes is there in the darkness that is Sky.
Sunflower was planted in the dirt that is Earth.
She was extending her curly roots,
touching the tips to the core of terra,
burning the ends of Her,
but she knows a little pain is needed to experience Love.
Sunflower still stood on Grass,
looking towards Sky,
experiencing Love,
and Little Moon was ready to give all of that to Her.
Feb 21, 2013
Feb 21, 2013 at 10:08 PM UTC
The rejuvenated year has finally shed
It’s twinkling leaf on my greenness,
Oh yes, my years have tasted the darkest
Side of the seasonal stainless moon,
Causing juvenile mango trees to bath
The malleable aurora dews,
This is my wind howling fiercely in the dark
And sobbing streams of tattoo tears,
My dreams have even caused my essence
To conjure the wordless spells of the ancestress,
Lest the dreary thunderstorm of thirst
Swims over my horrendous firmament,
Give a voice to the air!
For there is not a breath of air stirring
At my munitions of peace,
I can even feel the dry pulse
And the heartbeat of the naked Gods
Piercing the calm natural day,
Oh no, the Sun-Gods has drunk the
Stream behind my coloured walls,
Causing the stretch marks on the
Back of Mother Earth to bleach,
You dare ask Tweaduampon Kwame
To weep on your scorching pepper,
For the friendship of the pregnant clouds
Was indeed for the raining season only.
© PRINCE NANA ANIN-AGYEI
Email: [email protected]
Apr 8, 2013
Apr 8, 2013 at 6:20 AM UTC
by
rgpage
In this quiet time of night, I lie alone and prey to the bitter pain of
joy's absence. Lost in my mind's shallow thoughts the sharp fragments of
happy memories since shattered ***** at the sensitive fringes of my sleep.
Sleep: Nature's sanctuary
A quiet haven, an island set apart
from the daily consciousness of life
where my thoughts may at last run free.
An island with white sandy shores as
far as the eye can see. Blemished only
by my solitary figure walking the blue
water's edge.
And the forests of my paradise, their
deep green density gives substance to
my world. Often I stop to ponder their
far reaching greenness.
The warm subtle breeze carrying the
fragrance of this foliage across my
face, fills my nostrils with the pleasures
of nature.
And occasionally a gull overhead,
drifting unchallenged on the soft
warm currents of the azure, as free
in his world as I in mine; lends companionship.
All of the sudden in the beat of a heart,
from no where a large black cloud appears
to smother the sun's warm light, turning
the blue sky and green foliage black
and the white sand that I once walked
upon a cold gray.
And just ahead of me lying there in
death's humiliation, my winged companion;
soaked and scorned at the dark water's
edge.
I awaken:
This cold room and bed the greatest part of my conscious moment, and the sound of a distant train bell mocking the destruction of my comfort; its havoc upon my sleep done it now moves on. Saddened I once again wade through the shallow bogs of my loneliness, and the pains of memories of the love and life i'd wasted return. This painful sleepless night a most cruel retribution for my past. So firmly entrenched it seems I may never return to my paradise; yet remain in this cold room to suffer the long night's tortures.
Returning:
The warm sunlight, and gentle caress
of the water's pulse upon the white
sand.
And overhead my pure white friend
again drifts on the warm currents of
air, heralding not my return
but praising my presence....
...for my presence alone, gives
life to this warm yet oh so precariously
balanced paradise.
The white beach with its warm sand
leads me on my journey to the morning,
as I walk the blue water’s edge.
Mar 2, 2015
Mar 2, 2015 at 12:22 PM UTC
I stood flat-footed upon an eroding hill
Here the sweet peas, on tip-toe for a fight
With wing of coarsest black o'er delicate night
And spiteful fingers grasping at all beauty
To bind us all in deeds unworthy
Oh, toxic wind and fertile rain
Disperse the fragrance of this pain
In healing gardens root a seed
Sprout the bliss we sorely need
This tiny pulse of life we hold
Thrives in soil tilled with love
And tender vines create a bower
Of sweet pea tended, brought to flower
I stand bare foot on an erupting volcanic mount
Here the sweet peas, on tip toe for a flight
With wing of justice verity o’er delicate sight
And nails that compassionately snowball serenity
To bind us all with concord and altruism
Oh, acidic rain share the tears
Wash thy tainted eye-sight
Then crux us in the high-yield land
As we germinate to heaven’s height
The seed so robust and fertile
A shell encased with human forms
The greenness of reflected sextile
Oh Sweet pea, our mirrored storm
*Inspired by a stanza from Keats' poem:
I stood tip-toe upon a little hill
Here are sweet peas, on tip-toe for a flight:
With wing of gentle flush o’er delicate white,
And taper fingers catching at all things,
To bind them all about with tiny rings."*
Jul 14, 2016
Jul 14, 2016 at 9:11 AM UTC
Stream languid reason from the South
Heave large sighs upon shores to the North
Curl up and nest with the fragile East
Rest your eys on the greenness of the West
For from there to here:
to back over there.
We stand like willows in the great winds very own- prairie of time.
Deceitfully mastering and mimicking
sounds that appear to make us whole
although we are not.
When what we are
is faithfully moving in orbit
around great fire
with rest of everybody else.
Jun 19, 2010
Jun 19, 2010 at 11:17 AM UTC
The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief.
Is it that they are born again
And we grow old? No, they die too.
Their yearly trick of looking new
Is written down in rings of grain.
Yet still the unresting castles thresh
In fullgrown thickness every May.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.
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Helicopter in the air
Searching for those on the run
Holding the greenness of shattered glass
A tight embrace of the natural beauty
A rock tied to mine locks
Padlocked as I creep the stairway of life
Evolution of flames and fallacies
A sly that promises no tears
Compelled to paste the puzzle together
A locomotion of pieces to a system
Never to be afraid of who we are
United uniqueness to be the ones of a kind
Are we the loyal dogs who bark by the rivers?
Waiting for the tides to wash us away
Singing as the sun reflects beautiful ways
The tales of a long ago uncovers my soul
May 3, 2016
May 3, 2016 at 10:47 AM UTC
SELECTED FROM THE IRISH NOVELISTS
THERE was a green branch hung with many a bell
When her own people ruled this tragic Eire;
And from its murmuring greenness, calm of Faery,
A Druid kindness, on all hearers fell.
It charmed away the merchant from his guile,
And turned the farmer's memory from his cattle,
And hushed in sleep the roaring ranks of battle:
And all grew friendly for a little while.
Ah, Exiles wandering over lands and seas,
And planning, plotting always that some morrow
May set a stone upon ancestral Sorrow!
I also bear a bell-branch full of ease.
I tore it from green boughs winds tore and tossed
Until the sap of summer had grown weary!
I tore it from the barren boughs of Eire,
That country where a man can be so crossed;
Can be so battered, badgered and destroyed
That he's a loveless man: gay bells bring laughter
That shakes a mouldering cobweb from the rafter;
And yet the saddest chimes are best enjoyed.
Gay bells or sad, they bring you memories
Of half-forgotten innocent old places:
We and our bitterness have left no traces
On Munster grass and Connemara skies.
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There was a green branch hung with many a bell
When her own people ruled this tragic Eire;
And from its murmuring greenness, calm of Faery,
A Druid kindness, on all hearers fell.
It charmed away the merchant from his guile,
And turned the farmer's memory from his cattle,
And hushed in sleep the roaring ranks of battle:
And all grew friendly for a little while.
Ah, Exiles wandering over lands and seas,
And planning, plotting always that some morrow
May set a stone upon ancestral Sorrow!
I also bear a bell-branch full of ease.
I tore it from green boughs winds tore and tossed
Until the sap of summer had grown weary!
I tore it from the barren boughs of Eire,
That country where a man can be so crossed;
Can be so battered, badgered and destroyed
That he's a loveless man: gay bells bring laughter
That shakes a mouldering cobweb from the rafter;
And yet the saddest chimes are best enjoyed.
Gay bells or sad, they bring you memories
Of half-forgotten innocent old places:
We and our bitterness have left no traces
On Munster grass and Connemara skies.
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TO A GREEN THOUGHT IN A GREEN SHADE
The rose appeared
as if it had been created
that very morning
that very instant.
It's newness almost
shining.
Grass seemed to have fallen
out of a sky
like little green rain
piercing the earth
blade after blade after blade
delighting in its very greenness.
Dandelions and daises
dancing together
sharing the same lane
with the early worms.
All meeting
as equals.
Not a Garden
in Eden- but Guildford
humble in its own
creation.
This moment plucked
from many many moments
as the one to be
remembered.
Time and Infinity
getting it together
eclipsing the fact
that this is
an ordinary 25th of
whatever
turning into
a forever.
Aug 22, 2018
Aug 22, 2018 at 4:29 PM UTC
You notice the browning leaves,
Early victims,
In midsummer
Late July and August
And they parallel our love
Crisping stale edges
Edging inward
Inward to where growing used to be
I blame the sun
The sun of truth
Blasting unmercifully on our greenness
And returning us to the soil
Of amorous compost.
Jul 27, 2014
Jul 27, 2014 at 11:06 PM UTC
There was a green branch hung with many a bell
When her own people ruled this tragic Eire;
And from its murmuring greenness, calm of Faery,
A Druid kindness, on all hearers fell.
It charmed away the merchant from his guile,
And turned the farmer's memory from his cattle,
And hushed in sleep the roaring ranks of battle:
And all grew friendly for a little while.
Ah, Exiles wandering over lands and seas,
And planning, plotting always that some morrow
May set a stone upon ancestral Sorrow!
I also bear a bell-branch full of ease.
I tore it from green boughs winds tore and tossed
Until the sap of summer had grown weary!
I tore it from the barren boughs of Eire,
That country where a man can be so crossed;
Can be so battered, badgered and destroyed
That he's a loveless man: gay bells bring laughter
That shakes a mouldering cobweb from the rafter;
And yet the saddest chimes are best enjoyed.
Gay bells or sad, they bring you memories
Of half-forgotten innocent old places:
We and our bitterness have left no traces
On Munster grass and Connemara skies.
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I have no wit, no words, no tears;
My heart within me like a stone
Is numbed too much for hopes or fears.
Look right, look left, I dwell alone;
I lift mine eyes, but dimmed with grief
No everlasting hills I see;
My life is in the falling leaf:
O Jesus, quicken me.
My life is like a faded leaf,
My harvest dwindled to a husk:
Truly my life is void and brief
And tedious in the barren dusk;
My life is like a frozen thing,
No bud nor greenness can I see:
Yet rise it shall--the sap of spring;
O Jesus, rise in me.
My life is like a broken bowl,
A broken bowl that cannot hold
One drop of water for my soul
Or cordial in the searching cold;
Cast in the fire the perished thing;
Melt and remould it, till it be
A royal cup for Him, my King:
O Jesus, drink of me.
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She stands at the wall reflecting
on those who were lost at sea
names and poems and words connecting
her to those poor souls and to me.
Beyond those memorial walls
the mighty Columbia into the Pacific spills
whose depth and wealth have called
so many to sail from Oregon's green hills.
From the safety of their home
they left for the great unknown
where writers and poets travel
every time they pen their spirit in word
to explore what God and life has unraveled
what pain, sorrow and joy have stirred.
Her kindness and her reflection move me to write
my poems of wandering from a safe and tidy home
to regions of imagination’s heights
shadows, sorrows, or oceans’ foam.
She reads and lives life’s poetry
knows its canyons and desert sands
she yearns only to be free
of the noise and anger of badlands
to smell the freshness of a cool and gentle breeze
feel the air brushing her arms
to look up and see the greenness of trees
to be free from crushing and brutal harm.
I see her standing and watch her reflection there
with seafarers, poets and lovers at peace
where God’s creative breath stirs air
and torments, terrors, and quarrels cease.
Author’s Note: My sister Genie who lives in a large urban area visited Astoria, Oregon where the Columbia river ends in the Pacific Ocean and local citizens have erected a memorial park with several walls of polished black granite that display the names of mariners lost at sea. There are also sentiments and poems about those lost souls one of which Genie photographed and sent to me. As I examined the photo I could see her reflection on the wall as kind of a background for the poem. That photo and my sister who loves nature and trees inspired this writing. I wish I could post the pic here for you to see why and how it inspired me.
Below is the untitled poem on the memorial wall photographed by my sister.
Weep not for me that I go to sea.
I shan’t be lonely, though vastness surround me.
The brotherhood of the sea shall be my family.
The kinship of the deep my company.
Weep not for me, nor worry over harm.
My heart stays with you, still and warm.
In sunrise and starlight my hearth and home
I carry you with me wherever I roam.
Weep not for me, whether bad luck or good.
Tossed about in a shell of steel and wood.
An ancient salt sea sails within my blood –
I but follow its tide through ebb and flood.
Weep not for me that I go to sea:
in the limitless ocean I am free.
Jun 14, 2019
Jun 14, 2019 at 10:40 AM UTC
I have no wit, no words, no tears;
My heart within me like a stone
Is numb'd too much for hopes or fears;
Look right, look left, I dwell alone;
I lift mine eyes, but dimm'd with grief
No everlasting hills I see;
My life is in the falling leaf:
O Jesus, quicken me.
My life is like a faded leaf,
My harvest dwindled to a husk:
Truly my life is void and brief
And tedious in the barren dusk;
My life is like a frozen thing,
No bud nor greenness can I see:
Yet rise it shall--the sap of Spring;
O Jesus, rise in me.
My life is like a broken bowl,
A broken bowl that cannot hold
One drop of water for my soul
Or cordial in the searching cold;
Cast in the fire the perish'd thing;
Melt and remould it, till it be
A royal cup for Him, my King:
O Jesus, drink of me.
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I
He was intoxicated
by the scent of coffee
dancing in the morning
to his mother’s humming.
II
Then a blacksmith - his father -
taught him how to hammer
form out of chaos
in the muddle of force
and a sweaty anvil.
III
Now if he wished to see
the sunness of the sun
and the greenness of the tree
he would summon the image
of Fatma - an Arab maiden
who was once Berber,
to come write on his face
with her soothing finger:
“Salam, my anguished lover.”
IV
When green-eyed Fatma comes
the wreaths of coffee
Would come with her,
writing in the air;
and all the songs of history
would come marching too,
in battle array,
like an army dressed
in civilian clothing
for a dance in Rio.
V
Fatma’s hair –
a still cascade
of light goldness,
a tide of watery fire,
a flight motionless
of a millon birds who
sing in tongues
and laugh
to the stone unlettered
of his fidgety cenotaph.
© LazharBouazzi, Carthage, TUN
Mar 7, 2017
Mar 7, 2017 at 3:54 PM UTC
When the feud
transmigrated into the mind
the greenness of the poetry
has seared.
Though the seasons
Passed by,
The shoots haven’t seen.
Oct 22, 2014
Oct 22, 2014 at 6:32 AM UTC