"harpies" poems
The steeples are white in the wild moonlight,
And the trees have a silver glare;
Past the chimneys high see the vampires fly,
And the harpies of upper air,
That flutter and laugh and stare.
For the village dead to the moon outspread
Never shone in the sunset's gleam,
But grew out of the deep that the dead years keep
Where the rivers of madness stream
Down the gulfs to a pit of dream.
A chill wind blows through the rows of sheaves
In the meadows that shimmer pale,
And comes to twine where the headstones shine
And the ghouls of the churchyard wail
For harvests that fly and fail.
Not a breath of the strange grey gods of change
That tore from the past its own
Can quicken this hour, when a spectral power
Spreads sleep o'er the cosmic throne,
And looses the vast unknown.
So here again stretch the vale and plain
That moons long-forgotten saw,
And the dead leap gay in the pallid ray,
Sprung out of the tomb's black maw
To shake all the world with awe.
And all that the morn shall greet forlorn,
The ugliness and the pest
Of rows where thick rise the stones and brick,
Shall some day be with the rest,
And brood with the shades unblest.
Then wild in the dark let the lemurs bark,
And the leprous spires ascend;
For new and old alike in the fold
Of horror and death are penned,
For the hounds of Time to rend.
12k
When I was a windy boy and a bit
And the black spit of the chapel fold,
(Sighed the old ram rod, dying of women),
I tiptoed shy in the gooseberry wood,
The rude owl cried like a tell-tale ***
I skipped in a blush as the big girls rolled
Nine-pin down on donkey's common,
And on seesaw sunday nights I wooed
Whoever I would with my wicked eyes,
The whole of the moon I could love and leave
All the green leaved little weddings' wives
In the coal black bush and let them grieve.
When I was a gusty man and a half
And the black beast of the beetles' pews
(Sighed the old ram rod, dying of *******
Not a boy and a bit in the wick-
Dipping moon and drunk as a new dropped calf,
I whistled all night in the twisted flues,
Midwives grew in the midnight ditches,
And the sizzling sheets of the town cried, Quick!-
Whenever I dove in a breast high shoal,
Wherever I ramped in the clover quilts,
Whatsoever I did in the coal-
Black night, I left my quivering prints.
When I was a man you could call a man
And the black cross of the holy house,
(Sighed the old ram rod, dying of welcome),
Brandy and ripe in my bright, bass prime,
No springtailed tom in the red hot town
With every simmering woman his mouse
But a hillocky bull in the swelter
Of summer come in his great good time
To the sultry, biding herds, I said,
Oh, time enough when the blood runs cold,
And I lie down but to sleep in bed,
For my sulking, skulking, coal black soul!
When I was half the man I was
And serve me right as the preachers warn,
(Sighed the old ram rod, dying of downfall),
No flailing calf or cat in a flame
Or hickory bull in milky grass
But a black sheep with a crumpled horn,
At last the soul from its foul mousehole
Slunk pouting out when the limp time came;
And I gave my soul a blind, slashed eye,
Gristle and rind, and a roarers' life,
And I shoved it into the coal black sky
To find a woman's soul for a wife.
Now I am a man no more no more
And a black reward for a roaring life,
(Sighed the old ram rod, dying of strangers),
Tidy and cursed in my dove cooed room
I lie down thin and hear the good bells jaw--
For, oh, my soul found a sunday wife
In the coal black sky and she bore angels!
Harpies around me out of her womb!
Chastity prays for me, piety sings,
Innocence sweetens my last black breath,
Modesty hides my thighs in her wings,
And all the deadly virtues plague my death!
5.3k
When I was a windy boy and a bit
And the black spit of the chapel fold,
(Sighed the old ram rod, dying of women),
I tiptoed shy in the gooseberry wood,
The rude owl cried like a tell-tale ***
I skipped in a blush as the big girls rolled
Nine-pin down on donkey's common,
And on seesaw sunday nights I wooed
Whoever I would with my wicked eyes,
The whole of the moon I could love and leave
All the green leaved little weddings' wives
In the coal black bush and let them grieve.
When I was a gusty man and a half
And the black beast of the beetles' pews
(Sighed the old ram rod, dying of *******
Not a boy and a bit in the wick-
Dipping moon and drunk as a new dropped calf,
I whistled all night in the twisted flues,
Midwives grew in the midnight ditches,
And the sizzling sheets of the town cried, Quick!-
Whenever I dove in a breast high shoal,
Wherever I ramped in the clover quilts,
Whatsoever I did in the coal-
Black night, I left my quivering prints.
When I was a man you could call a man
And the black cross of the holy house,
(Sighed the old ram rod, dying of welcome),
Brandy and ripe in my bright, bass prime,
No springtailed tom in the red hot town
With every simmering woman his mouse
But a hillocky bull in the swelter
Of summer come in his great good time
To the sultry, biding herds, I said,
Oh, time enough when the blood runs cold,
And I lie down but to sleep in bed,
For my sulking, skulking, coal black soul!
When I was half the man I was
And serve me right as the preachers warn,
(Sighed the old ram rod, dying of downfall),
No flailing calf or cat in a flame
Or hickory bull in milky grass
But a black sheep with a crumpled horn,
At last the soul from its foul mousehole
Slunk pouting out when the limp time came;
And I gave my soul a blind, slashed eye,
Gristle and rind, and a roarers' life,
And I shoved it into the coal black sky
To find a woman's soul for a wife.
Now I am a man no more no more
And a black reward for a roaring life,
(Sighed the old ram rod, dying of strangers),
Tidy and cursed in my dove cooed room
I lie down thin and hear the good bells jaw--
For, oh, my soul found a sunday wife
In the coal black sky and she bore angels!
Harpies around me out of her womb!
Chastity prays for me, piety sings,
Innocence sweetens my last black breath,
Modesty hides my thighs in her wings,
And all the deadly virtues plague my death!
4.9k
Just like Orpheus,
I descended.
Though,
my digression was
for different
reasons.
Yeah, I tried to
rescue you from
your hell.
Bring you out of
the degradation,
the debauchery.
It smelled like
***** and ****
The swine squealed.
The harpies shrieked.
And,
I looked
too long.
I became you.
Thank God I escaped.
Fate dragged me
out by the scruff
of my neck.
I will never
visit your
underworld
again.
You've made it
your home.
Mar 25, 2023
Mar 25, 2023 at 2:00 PM UTC
Harried, Harassed, Hassled and Hounded-
These are the H-words I work by.
Harpies and Henchmen, Harridans and Heathens-
These are the H-folk I work with.
Hubbub and Hokum and Hurly-burly-
These are the places I do it.
Hoodlums and Hooligans, loaded with Hubris-
These are the clients I deal with.
Heartless and Horrible, Hateful and Hurtful
These are the attitudes around me.
Hopeless and Hapless, Haggard and Helpless-
This is the way I usually feel.
What happened to Happy, and Hopeful and Harmony-
These are the H-words I search for.
Hinder and Hobble, Heckle and Hamper-
These are the Hamstrings that trip me.
Heaven and Harmony, Humor and Honor-
These are the things that I strive for.
Havoc and Hades, Hurt, Hate and Hauteur-
These are the H’s that I have to conquer.
Hope, Help, and Herculean effort-
Is How I will finally get myself Home.
ljm
Feb 25, 2017
Feb 25, 2017 at 12:30 AM UTC
the art of nothing more has not been lost, i know it well
it has been mine to serve Othello to the guillotine and poppies
the myriad are gathered to the helium and Harpies
and a gallon of miraculous is accidentally wasted
the meaning of the soul is how you love someone, distracted
by the loving for the loving was the loving that you loved
bind me more than set me free
and that be love exactly
and
the comet in your hand is my heart
Sep 28, 2011
Sep 28, 2011 at 10:44 AM UTC
Acerbic antagonist alliterates agonizing accusations,
blasting ******* backbiter butting beautiful bombastic brainy blond bomb.
Cumulative cranial casualties cease caveman's cognitive coherence.
Doom digger derides Daddy's dangling dire dreary ****
Eclectic esoteric eccentric egotistical estranger;
Forthcoming fathoms fetch faithless fleeting father.
God given goblins gather gossamer ganglions;
Hell's hairy harlot harpies hover heeding Hyperion.
Ignatius imbibes irrevocably insisting,
"Jesus juggles justice's joy jarring jams."
Kindness kindles Kilimanjaro;
Malicious mountains melt, Mmm, morning marjoram.
Nothing negates Neanderthal ninnying.
Overt obsessions obfuscate original object of
purest passions, paltry past pinings,
quickly quieted, quelled,
resisted, relinquished, readily, ruefully, roundly
saturated, suffocated; surreptitiously silenced,
terribly torturing the thrashed tamed tormentor:
Ugly, ungrateful, unapologetic,
Vanity,
woefully wallowing, wailing, "Where's
Xanadu's
zeitgeist!?"
Jan 15, 2012
Jan 15, 2012 at 12:09 AM UTC
An immigrant from County Clare
brought to this harsher clime-
Phoebe Prince, an Irish lass,
a gentle heart and mind.
First used, and then discarded
by one boy, then another.-
Object of the mean girl’s scorn
the consummate "outsider"
On her last day alive
They hounded her from school.
The girl they called the “Irish ****
disgraced and played the fool.
Her sister, Lauren, found her body
hanging lifeless in the hall.
Befriended by nobody
Phoebe chose to end it all
And on the day they held her wake
Those monsters held their dance
A debutante cotillion
for a troop of soulless tramps.
She’s buried here in County Clare
because the Ocean's waves
protect her from the harpies
who drove her to her grave
Jan 14, 2012
Jan 14, 2012 at 10:56 PM UTC
This valley wood is pledged
To the set shape of things,
And reasonably hedged:
Here are no harpies fledged,
No rocs may clap their wings,
Nor gryphons wave their stings.
Here, poised in quietude,
Calm elementals brood
On the set shape of things:
They fend away alarms
From this green wood.
Here nothing is that harms -
No bulls with lungs of brass,
No toothed or spiny grass,
No tree whose clutching arms
Drink blood when travellers pass,
No mount of glass;
No bardic tongues unfold
Satires or charms.
Only, the lawns are soft,
The tree-stems, grave and old;
Slow branches sway aloft,
The evening air comes cold,
The sunset scatters gold.
Small grasses toss and bend,
Small pathways idly tend
Towards no fearful end.
2.2k
Coasted river
Curse’d thing
Lying still on jagged edge
Watch for harpies howl instead.
Oct 21, 2010
Oct 21, 2010 at 10:35 AM UTC
Sprung, from beauteous filth,
The lies and gradation of the un wed saints
Hung, from gracious guilt,
The death and oration of the un sung and faint
Led, from grounded earth,
The soulless narration of the unloved taint
Believing is all when your all is a lie,
The smell of defeat in the blink of her eye,
The way you never fail to surprise the easily shockable,
Revealing that all was a lie of your life,
The decay of a scent from the skirt of the pile,
The path you never chose to really surmise the unreadable, uncollectable
Paid, to believe this girth,
The salt and salvation of unborn wealth,
Laid, the solution of all their faith,
The untouchable wrath and indignation of lifeless whelps,
Said, to ears that deceive all truth,
The unsinkable feeling you and your friends try not to avoid
Swaying in time to a common hope thief,
The guileless age and her sense of relief,
I thought i just told you to leave love at the door,
Poison and ruptured the stale old lies,
A night of betrayal and blood on these tiles,
Faithless, inauguration a purpose that you belie,
Lover, sweet mother, joker, and harpies with scales combine,
Hater, sweet undertaker, all is within, a touch to cold skin and a world you can't deny,
Believers, my underachievers, fornicate how to the march of the rain, a lifelong ambition that's driven in pain, a rusty disease that you spread with a knife, a guiltless decision made by his wife, a turning old format that withers and screams, a breathless recognition, we all fail to grin, just wait on the inkline to say what you want, I’m turning these covers and buying the bought, ******* the sweetness to boldly deny, that all these suspicions were aroused in the night, a turning, a quickening, a life on the rails, this one ****** mess i can't wash from my nails, so thorough, so clean, yet so impure it's not true, i tried to remake what i thought couldn't be you, but all indication now points to my spine, the tossing and yearning beneath valentine, i am the weather that spoils your day, please hold my ears as she screams my name.
Nov 25, 2011
Nov 25, 2011 at 4:48 PM UTC
Call to me gently, laughing
Rules Death the King
Beckoning me fiercely onward
Vixens of love spurned sing
Their voices tempestuous and stormy
Furious as madman’s dream
The unceasing strum of insanity’s strings
Dementia led many poor souls astray
They pass through the ingress of the forgotten
A pity never more see the life of day
Powerless to resist the satin coffin of coldness
Or the music winged harpies sing.
Doomed to the end of eternity
To bear the misfortune
Of the unceasing strum of insanity's strings
All Rights Reserved @ Tammy M. Darby Dec. 22, 2016
Dec 21, 2016
Dec 21, 2016 at 8:03 PM UTC
The debate is on
I want to perform
but first I must
humidify my guitar
Ate dinner
now there's a lump in my throat
so I'm gonna sit here
drinking tea 'till I feel
paradoxically soothed and energized
hamburger and homefries
the summer dish
perfect for outside
but here I sit in my A/C winterland
conditioning myself for hats and gloves
The water's warming and rising
the mosquito larvae have won
Itching in Yellow Fever delirium
These grassy hollows
were once a worthwhile place
The new wonders are now
grotesque animistic anomalies
Today, face-to-face with rabid rabbits
Tomorrow, the white light angels
with hyper beam cleansing
they could no longer bear to watch
from porcelain obelisks
the human media screen
of indoor inexploration
fail to hide the sins
from the scale holding counters
Justice, the lucky one
with bandanna over eyes
still heard the profit wrenching semantics
get drowned out from screaming harpies
Responsible gods stopped their foray
in fear humans will survive
Dark matter engulfs all
in fear humans will survive
Oct 12, 2015
Oct 12, 2015 at 1:11 AM UTC
to pluck out his eyes and
stain the earth with vitreous humor.
to separate the lonely wind from its
counterpart in my soul and its
thickness choking my lungs—
to escape the death grip of
the twisting jaws and
****** talons of the
sharks that rip us raw
hawks that
streak from the sky
harpies
harbingers of
to eat the flesh that
drips like candlewax from our
febrile skin
to hold morality in one hand and
maps in the other
to learn the general principles of cartography
one must commit genocide.
Feb 7, 2014
Feb 7, 2014 at 11:27 PM UTC
Exchanging
recommendations under flickering lights ! we transpose the nature
? of our insect-like movements
$
with the slick of our collars,
our dull-shine badges.
Eye
makeup
arrayed in sheens
to blow your eye's burn
away
back into
the cold of space,
where you belong
the skirt of the star's burn,
to sear you (un)clean
without alarm.
with a certain sweltering silent charm
Somewhere, saturations swell
in non-
casual ******** singsong.
Klarity is substantiated.
Forgive a whiff into cigarette dust.
Into reticulated (t)rust.
✙
How many leaves
connect
to form the tree's glow?
I'm sorry for asking
now
*I must go*
...
Forbidding madness
with a
keen
brow-
bent
glare
ballroom harpies
chase you backwards
down
a
flight
of
stairs
.
.
.
*what is this caution
here cushioning me
porous like bed foam
harm eating me slowly*
?
smirking consistent smart
a loneliness for hatred
.
.
.
Tear me up for what is holy in me
crumpled 'piss-poor' regard, it's a satin-shure smile
I am churning and I know (not the exit)
Nov 5, 2013
Nov 5, 2013 at 4:23 PM UTC
I used to live in an oasis
It seemed all around me, was nothing but smoke
Well, as soon as winds picked up
It blew away the mirage and left me with a ghost
So I wandered deserts for a time
It was a pleasure to burn
Ya know, ships at a distance
Have every man’s wish on board
They say no one’s ever made it to her heart.
I say no one’s ever tried.
I swallowed sand and fever
I traversed the stones of old
Harpies sang their silver songs
But my lust it runs for gold
So I walked the withered path
And I paved a road of veracity
As I approached her garden’s gates
My chest pounded with audacity
They say no one’s ever made it to her heart
All who journey past here die
My heart pounds!
And it pounds!
Baby let me in!
I’ve got something, that you’re needin’
I can feel the iron crackin,
I can hear the metal move,
I can see the emeralds glisten,
And not a moment too soon!
They say no one’s ever made it to her heart.
I say no one else is me.
Jun 7, 2013
Jun 7, 2013 at 1:55 PM UTC
On your laurels rest
The waning harpies of Oblivion
The rude flock
Preening Sorrow from ash.
And Bone Lips click
Their vicious riddles
Into the Deaf Charybdis
Of your God.
Born Again
Out of the Wasteland
Your every phantom
Marks time
And only the fickle joy of surrender
Defeats the tedium of breathing...
Where you Are....(Strange feasts Unfurl)
Upon dead tongues
that speak of It
Never as kind.
You remember Honey
As if in a dream.
All desolation, Glory-
Yawning from
Birth.
Jun 23, 2013
Jun 23, 2013 at 8:24 PM UTC
The inaudible ebb and flow of your ‘sorry’s and ‘goodbye’s,
A mere ringing in my ears.
Speak lines of knowing Pain’s associates,
You are his main elective.
Stop stalking me you meat hungry wolf, stop ranging this land,
No life grows here, nothing can be saved or even forgiven.
Hypocrite,
You mockingbird,
You crow,
You jackal,
You cold blooded husk.
Stop singing,
Those words were meant for angels not harpies.
-May 28th 2013
Jul 21, 2013
Jul 21, 2013 at 12:15 AM UTC
With my first breath, I become
to wander till the last
to be and be and be some more
time slow at first, soon fast
And with his last draw of this world's breath
an orphan I become
His time well spent I take my place
to hear my distant drum
Dark dying thoughts once swallowed me
like harpies chattering on the wind
But with the truth of death fresh at my door
I greet him as a friend
Together we shall walk and talk
and leaves and stars will fall
I will see the patterns unfold
once hidden revealing all
Aug 16, 2022
Aug 16, 2022 at 6:38 AM UTC
My roadkilled cat friend occassionally comes back to me in my sleep complaining about being sick after ingesting gasoline from the guts of the car that beheaded him. You ain't seen **** until you've waded through a marsh of blood in escape of the suburb that just blew up 11 miles away from the woods THEY kidnapped you in, New Orleans Jazz songs on repeat during the storm drain drug deal. Don't forget throwing up all over that expensive platter of rotting meat, while getting bent over and ****** in both your holes by some tall intersex sociopath. Maybe I shouldn't have let those harpies follow me through the maze, all the way home. I'm a waste of human flesh.
Mar 21, 2017
Mar 21, 2017 at 10:30 PM UTC
little finches in your head. and they pinch, pinch, pinch
but what is left to wake up.
awakened: rising shadows, rigid hands.
bandage tightly – does it remind you of the rings you used to wear? where you belonged. you used to be
a lady of many rings, more bird than nest. (the harpies scream)
(harpies sing of truth and times that are, gloating. we are so little. the present falls on us
and we are so much less.)
you need to send apologies to the finches. you plant acacias. you call your ears
traitors
and then there are dreams that leave you with a silent glow. the shadow forgotten, the past
engaged in ballroom dances, vivid. you recall vividly. there are rings on your hands
and you know all things in dreams
and you have birds in your head because there is more to find than in the sun.
the harpies scream.
Jan 30, 2016
Jan 30, 2016 at 11:07 AM UTC
Sleepy September rain
pretending life isn't busy
Standing still on slippery edge
Taking in foggy city view
Of little senators and harpies
Playing house of cards
All so quiet up here
On newly constructed condo roof
Little ant people climbing up
Towards the light with fungal parasites
protruding from wet open wounds
Sep 13, 2014
Sep 13, 2014 at 2:59 PM UTC
It's a nuisance to leave dancing to chance
and to sit by and sigh a sigh of mild high relief.
It's brief, but for a moment there's courage
and the courage builds a bridge.
But "look out," comes a shout
from seemingly miles away
and your gaze blazes below.
There's a troll beneath you.
It wields a shield made of lies
and a club made of fear and dead wishes.
Make it swim with the fishes.
Silent let it be, and cross the bridge.
Beyond the concrete dance floor,
ignore the three harpies' bait.
Don't wait. It's not too late
to quicken your pace.
Tread carefully. Don't be lured
by the drunken eyes,
or the devilishly devilish propaganda
for *** on their clothing and skin,
because it will hurt in the long run.
Head towards the sundress,
and the toga dancing next to it.
They're friends of yours,
but not yet.
So don't repress your desire to dance.
Take your chances.
Apr 6, 2015
Apr 6, 2015 at 5:46 AM UTC
I could write
encryption
& who would understand
such hidden meanings?
Those dead dragonflies
littering a bamboo mat
& violent cracks appearing
on dangling crystals.
What of those ravens
sitting on elastic wires
bending in the wind,
cawing the sins
of their fathers.
And those proud faces,
those red-haird harpies
injecting salt,
singing long
into the night,
ballads of the brokenhearted.
I would write
encryption,
and who could understand
such hidden meanings?
Aug 11, 2014
Aug 11, 2014 at 9:09 AM UTC