"grilles" poems
This object from high followed me
all evening. Sometimes, hiding behind
giant reeds shooting from the earth,
sometimes behind mist sprays.
The sea surging in the firmament
conceals it in her tresses now,
She who weeps her agony out
late every season in bereavement.
Her tears have filled up the valleys
on earth, with brackish waters.
Tonight the grilles that paint
the distance grey are wet by them.
I took a secret look, turning away
blushing on sudden reciprocation.
In the broken mirrors strewn
all over my lawn, it dunks winking:
ripples on the mirror, awash abashed:
light playing with shades of
delight, dejection, elation, suspension,
pulsation, susurration, salvation.
Dec 18, 2013
Dec 18, 2013 at 2:50 PM UTC
Tandis que l'étoile inodore
Que l'été mêle aux blonds épis
Emaille de son bleu lapis
Les sillons que la moisson dore,
Avant que, de fleurs dépeuplés,
Les champs aient subi les faucilles,
Allez, allez, ô jeunes filles,
Cueillir des bleuets dans les blés !
Entre les villes andalouses,
Il n'en est pas qui sous le ciel
S'étende mieux que Peñafiel
Sur les gerbes et les pelouses,
Pas qui dans ses murs crénelés
Lève de plus fières bastilles...
Allez, allez, ô jeunes filles,
Cueillir des bleuets dans les blés !
Il n'est pas de cité chrétienne,
Pas de monastère à beffroi,
Chez le Saint-Père et chez le Roi,
Où, vers la Saint-Ambroise, il vienne
Plus de bons pèlerins hâlés,
Portant bourdon, gourde et coquilles...
Allez, allez, ô jeunes filles,
Cueillir des bleuets dans les blés !
Dans nul pays, les jeunes femmes,
Les soirs, lorsque l'on danse en rond,
N'ont plus de roses sur le front,
Et n'ont dans le cœur plus de flammes ;
Jamais plus vifs et plus voilés
Regards n'ont lui sous les mantilles...
Allez, allez, ô jeunes filles,
Cueillir des bleuets dans les blés !
La perle de l'Andalousie,
Alice, était de Peñafiel,
Alice qu'en faisant son miel
Pour fleur une abeille eût choisie.
Ces jours, hélas ! sont envolés !
On la citait dans les familles...
Allez, allez, ô jeunes filles,
Cueillir des bleuets dans les blés !
Un étranger vint dans la ville,
Jeune, et parlant avec dédain.
Etait-ce un maure grenadin ?
Un de Murcie ou de Séville ?
Venait-il des bords désolés
Où Tunis a ses escadrilles ?...
Allez, allez, ô jeunes filles,
Cueillir des bleuets dans les blés !
On ne savait. - La pauvre Alice
En fut aimée, et puis l'aima.
Le doux vallon du Xarama
De leur doux péché fut complice.
Le soir, sous les cieux étoilés,
Tous deux erraient par les charmilles...
Allez, allez, ô jeunes filles,
Cueillir des bleuets dans les blés !
La ville était lointaine et sombre ;
Et la lune, douce aux amours,
Se levant derrière les tours
Et les clochers perdus dans l'ombre,
Des édifices dentelés
Découpait en noir les aiguilles...
Allez, allez, ô jeunes filles,
Cueillir des bleuets dans les blés !
Cependant, d'Alice jalouses,
En rêvant au bel étranger,
Sous l'arbre à soie et l'oranger
Dansaient les brunes andalouses ;
Les cors, aux guitares mêlés,
Animaient les joyeux quadrilles...
Allez, allez, ô jeunes filles,
Cueillir des bleuets dans les blés !
L'oiseau dort dans le lit de mousse
Que déjà menace l'autour ;
Ainsi dormait dans son amour
Alice confiante et douce.
Le jeune homme aux cheveux bouclés,
C'était don Juan, roi des Castilles...
Allez, allez, ô jeunes filles,
Cueillir des bleuets dans les blés !
Or c'est péril qu'aimer un prince.
Un jour, sur un noir palefroi
On la jeta de par le roi ;
On l'arracha de la province ;
Un cloître sur ses jours troublés
De par le roi ferma ses grilles...
Allez, allez, ô jeunes filles,
Cueillir des bleuets dans les blés !
Le 13 avril 1828.
1.3k
Golden, this nimble hour
when shy the sky-maiden
changes attire,
a thousand shades
come playing, painting
the courtyard of the night in grilles,
laying a bridge across to the dark,
while birdsong keeps count,
flowering, healing trees
unfurling in the wind:
the firmament is my bo-tree
bringing tidings afresh:
until a day when justice will prevail,
is sure to dawn,
these questions,
my offerings into the embers
of the sacrifice of life.
Sep 17, 2018
Sep 17, 2018 at 1:57 PM UTC
the scratching of pencil on paper sounds like
how your nails scrape words over my dry
skin in the dim light. reminiscence is essential.
beyond the window grilles, there is
nothing but silence.
so i manifest noises by tapping
my feet against the smooth parquet or
by standing near clocks to hear their hands
tick away. it is more
comforting than it should be.
if you could feel my anxiety, or drink
in all my nervousness, then you would
understand— why i am always unsure.
i believed too much in gods and luck.
my spirit is limited in a case of
transparent hope,
tinted by whispers which haunt
me to no end.
and so tells the story of how i came
to stop believing.
- - -
Oct 23, 2013
Oct 23, 2013 at 1:31 AM UTC
I want to see some old photographs:
older than those on the computer;
Back when moments were precious,
unveil the shrouded busts,
and see the face of my friend
as he was then;
The best of us disappear
into the fields at dusk,
leaving behind memories for us
of colours and of songs.
Tonight, I will
walk by the bund, and onward
to the land beyond the horizon
where they sparkle at night as stars
our friends here, who have
gone to the far beyond.
I am peace. I wave over
every dawn by your shores.
I sing with the grilles and die
unsung like the evening.
I exist. Sometimes
only as a photograph, frozen
in my smile. Sometimes,
smoking my pipe of joy
fiddling by your side; Some
times, I am a memory
enshrined in your heart.
Feb 23, 2014
Feb 23, 2014 at 12:38 PM UTC
a lonely nightingale
laments tunelessly at midnight,
a stiff tone echoing in this empty shop.
the metal resonates with sympathy.
outraged by her clamouring:
bribed her food pellets for silence.
she croons less unbearably now,
but with the same wistful eyes.
she beckons with her broken beak,
she longs for life beyond a cage,
watches my relenting eyes,
the sympathy residing in me.
to free or not to free this child?
i think her life deserves much more.
with a tinge of hesitance and of worry:
a lonely nightingale i free
she bustles in the shop with freedom,
her wings still unaccustomed to air.
her croon has sprouted into an anthem,
she circles the cage and bids goodbye
until she reached the window ,
and is re-greeted by cold metal grilles:
reminded of endless entrapment…
she finds herself still contained.
the way i see it,
she will never be free
until she lies
in the arms of death.
sympathetic human i am,
i picked a nearby tool of freedom,
plunged it into her heart,
and freed her eternally.
Dec 27, 2011
Dec 27, 2011 at 7:10 AM UTC
Large, Red Snowflakes flit
To the ground. The wind
Carries them around,
Forcing them into
Strange places; Locked in
Grilles; Drowned in Rivers;
Caught in the Smoke of
Roaring Fires; Blown
Into places that
They do not belong,
Like Fields, Sewage,
And the garage. Orange
Yellow, some even Green,
And, of course, Red.
Underneath them exists
Some sort of Ground: Grass,
Asphalt, Tombstones--It
Could be anything.
Renewal will come,
All will be shown once
More, Schedules will
Resume--But, until
Then, all that is seen
Are Large, Red Snowflakes
Scattered on the Ground.
Oct 19, 2010
Oct 19, 2010 at 12:32 PM UTC
~
Silent sentence
The silence is deafening
pounding this cartoon anvil
lodged somewhere in my head
echoing through empty chambers
A loud dose of nothing
calls to me in voiced undertones
resonating with the volume
of butterfly wings pinned to a board
My clouded eyes look,
hoping my ears are mistaken
wishing for only a sound
vibrating in this vast glass hallway
Wave lengths in shorter shadows
collect on mesh grilles
protecting weathered speakers
cracked and taped…yellowed
Tiny dots felt of faulting fingers
braile’d emotions screaming
along a page of discomfort…blistering,
dog eared for no reason at all
Stillness…that is all…stillness
no wind, no color, no movement,
as I wait for this that shall not come
alone…perhaps unheard by others
This it seems shall be my existence,
written in quiet ink…invisible to most
no lemon juice tricks this time
as I serve my sentence…in silence
May 5, 2014
May 5, 2014 at 2:25 PM UTC
It's one of those things, it is that kind of night:
the winds have stopped wheezing before dawn
and the birds don't want to wake up yet.
A fire is lighting up on the eastern sky
that was burning in the heart through the hours.
I see a bangled wrist half-concealed
in the mists: shadows of events mingle
past the grilles of thoughtlost timelines.
I will wade across the river at the nearest ford
and meet you at the temple: friend,
will you wait? Oh this intolerable whir of the
dewsong, it is interrupting your answer.
Sep 14, 2014
Sep 14, 2014 at 9:36 AM UTC
THE ROBOT SAYS GO
The robot says STOP!
And the chromed steeds align, champing, their reeking tails
caked in ferrous reminders of asphalt and steam.
Still that bright ruby glares.
White-knuckled jockeys, feigning repose, swap dat ol’ faux decorum.
But nobody’s fooling anybody.
Halogen eyes framing high cursive grilles.
Round rubber hooves hugging silvery seals.
Glass-encased egos, too streetwise to dream,
jack shoulders to lobes for a shared primal scream…
Veins race across foreheads, eyes tear up the road.
And just when it looks like those veins will explode—
The robot says go! The robot says go! The robot says go! The robot says go!
The Emerald looms, the frenzy resumes:
Alpha males ****** the old and infirm,
their eight-banger fumes blurring laggers in plumes.
Jocks in jalopies thread rivals and worm
their misshapen monsters round planters in flumes.
Past loads wide and listing—and back in the fray!
Harrowing, narrowing, the pack makes its way,
to one more agenda, two downshifts away, where nearing,
where rearing…appearing like some kind of god in the flow,
this robot says…
slow.
Brief as bliss, blind as bluff,
that amber eye opens, (not quickly enough).
The lead runners race, redoubling their pace!
—rolling dem bones, refusing to place,
hurling their monoliths all but atop
pedestrian puppets who, horrified, hop,
leaping like bugs till the robot says
STOP!
And thus realigned, still fuming in kind,
the new leaders gnaw on their dashes and wheels.
Damning the wire, their backsides on fire,
nerves shooting pins through their palms and their heels,
the gentleman’s juggernaut takes aim and steels.
Eyeballs near bursting revile the stop—
And just when it looks like those eyeballs will pop…
The robot says go! The robot says go! The robot says go! The robot says go!
Copyright 2019
contact Ron Sanders at:
ronsandersartofprose(at)yahoo(dot)com
Jan 7, 2020
Jan 7, 2020 at 8:02 PM UTC
Après le départ des cloches
Au milieu du Gloria,
Dès l'heure ordinaire des vêpres
On consacre les Saintes Huiles
Qu'escorte ensuite un long cortège
De pontifes et de lévites.
Il pluvine, il neigeotte,
L'hiver vide sa hotte.
Le tabernacle bâille, vide,
L'autel, tout nu, n'a plus de cierges,
De grands draps noirs pendent aux grilles,
Les orgues saintes sont muettes.
Du brouillard danse à même
Le ciel encore blême.
On dispense à flots d'eau bénite,
Toutes cires sont allumées,
Et de solennelle musique
S'enfle au chœur et monte au jubé,
Un clair soleil qui grise
Réchauffe l'âpre bise.
Gloria ! Voici les cloches
Revenir ! Alleluia !
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