"headlong" poems
You see me suspended in space-time
as I’m passing the 89th floor
Falling headlong, my form is impressive.
Sadly, no one will be holding up scores.
Just moments ago I was standing
at a Morton’s Fork in the road:
The fires of hell were advancing
where I stood on the 98th Floor.
Well can you imagine my terror
when I came face to face with the flames.
I don’t know why I chose as I did;
Souls in torment can never explain.
The day of my death predetermined,
but which death would provide me less pain?.
My choice, which was no “choice” at all
was to smash through the window and fall.
Then the only thing that could “save” me
was the camera that captured it all
Dec 18, 2011
Dec 18, 2011 at 7:42 PM UTC
Thinking, tangling shadows in the deep solitude.
You are far away too, oh farther than anyone.
Thinking, freeing birds, dissolving images,
burying lamps.
Belfry of fogs, how far away, up there!
Stifling laments, milling shadowy hopes,
taciturn miller,
night falls on you face downward, far from the city.
Your presence is foreign, as strange to me as a thing.
I think, I explore great tracts of my life before you.
My life before anyone, my harsh life.
The shout facing the sea, among the rocks,
running free, mad, in the sea-spray.
The sad rage, the shout, the solitude of the sea.
Headlong, violent, stretched towards the sky.
You, woman, what were you there, what ray, what vane
of that immense fan? You were as far as you are now.
Fire in the forest! Burn in blue crosses.
Burn, burn, flame up, sparkle in trees of light.
It collapses, crackling. Fire. Fire.
And my soul dances, seared with curls of fire.
Who calls? What silence peopled with echoes?
Hour of nostalgia, hour of happiness, hour of solitude.
Hour that is mine from among them all!
Megaphone in which the wind passes singing.
Such a passion of weeping tied to my body.
Shaking of all the roots,
attack of all the waves!
My soul wandered, happy, sad, unending.
Thinking, burying lamps in the deep solitude.
Who are you, who are you?
14.4k
Lev. 20:13 "If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them shall be put to death for their abominable deed; they have forfeited their lives."
This was said to make sure the population on earth grew, which it did. God was NOT saying this because it will always be wrong. They are just regular people and this is where they belong. Homosexuals are the same as everybody else. This is equality that they strive for because no one is better than the other. We are all from the same God, and we are all sisters and brothers. This is not a disease and this is not something you can change. They were born like that, it is not something that you were taught. I was born with brown hair, this is not something that is forethought. Why does it matter so much what your ****** orientation is? That is that person's business, not ours to judge. We have no right to judge and all of this homophobia is actually just a carnage. We call ourselves Christian, but is this actually living in the true image of God. Have you not heard "Do onto others as you would have them do onto you?" That is the golden rule and how would you like it if it were heterosexuals that were hated anew?
God made all of His children in His image. Do you honestly think that God would turn away His own children because they were born Homosexuals? With all of this hate and anger, turning away people that could be our friends, well we aren't humans; we are actually animals. Why is it that now they get the same benefits as the people who are straight? Why has this taken so long to do? Are they not the same as everybody else that we know? There are many things that are wrong with society, this homophobia needs to stop so why must we forgo? If two people love each other so much to remain together for the rest of their life, then let them. Homophobia is wrong. God loves all of his children headlong. And to all those gays and lesbians out there, STAY STRONG.
Mar 25, 2014
Mar 25, 2014 at 2:59 PM UTC
Here, where the lonely hooting owl
Sends forth his midnight moans,
Fierce wolves shall o’er my carcase growl,
Or buzzards pick my bones.
No fellow-man shall learn my fate,
Or where my ashes lie;
Unless by beasts drawn round their bait,
Or by the ravens’ cry.
Yes! I’ve resolved the deed to do,
And this the place to do it:
This heart I’ll rush a dagger through,
Though I in hell should rue it!
Hell! What is hell to one like me
Who pleasures never know;
By friends consigned to misery,
By hope deserted too?
To ease me of this power to think,
That through my ***** raves,
I’ll headlong leap from hell’s high brink,
And wallow in its waves.
Though devils yell, and burning chains
May waken long regret;
Their frightful screams, and piercing pains,
Will help me to forget.
Yes! I’m prepared, through endless night,
To take that fiery berth!
Think not with tales of hell to fright
Me, who am damn’d on earth!
Sweet steel! come forth from our your sheath,
And glist’ning, speak your powers;
Rip up the organs of my breath,
And draw my blood in showers!
I strike! It quivers in that heart
Which drives me to this end;
I draw and kiss the ****** dart,
My last—my only friend!
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Gentle evening wind, non existent till a moment before
lying low among the children playing with the flakes of golden sun
fallen on the silver white sand, quickly rises, unnoticed by any one
flirt with the comely coconut palms lined on the beach,that act coy,
blows towards the long, rolling blue wave, meeting it headlong,
a blast, white spray springs up spectacularly like a fountain,
then, easily lifts three kitesurfers, fling them high up stylishly
across the fortress of water, they look invincible, untouched
by the waves, that look foolish eyeing skywards, the milling crowd
howls in mirth, seeing the dramatic twist, it's all fun till sun down.
Sep 10, 2014
Sep 10, 2014 at 1:20 PM UTC
He comes, a moon whose like the sky ne'er saw, awake or dreaming.
Crowned with eternal flame no flood can lay.
Lo, from the flagon of thy love, O Lord, my soul is swimming,
And ruined all my body's house of clay!
When first the Giver of the grape my lonely heart befriended,
Wine fired my ***** and my veins filled up;
But when his image all min eye possessed, a voice descended:
'Well done, O sovereign Wine and peerless Cup!'
Love's mighty arm from roof to base each dark abode is hewing,
Where chinks reluctant catch a golden ray.
My heart, when Love's sea of a sudden burst into its viewing,
Leaped headlong in, with 'Find me now who may!'
As, the sun moving, clouds behind him run,
All hearts attend thee, O Tabriz's Sun!
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On the bank of a rushing brook
I sat for hours watching its course.
Peered into the clear gurgling mass
That cascaded down from a mountainous source
Like a slithering snake, it slinks and slips
It babbles downhill night and day
Rolling and gliding through plains and dales
It winds its way to the wider bay.
Dipping my fingers in its icy chill
How my hand got repelled as from a shock!
In its ripples stirred by the kissing breeze,
I saw trees, clouds and the jutting rock-
All floating in queer, fanciful shapes,
Shuddering, trembling and standing still
And the fishes leaving zigzag trails,
Swishing and swimming in the winding rill.
As I quietly watched her speedy flight
With her ***** rising in mournful heaves,
In my ears fell her whispering soft
Orchestrated by the rustle of quivering leaves
I hardly knew the time speeding by
Nor noticed the birds’ homeward flight
Or the Sun moving to the west end side
And the Sky reddening at his sight
As the brook thus continued her headlong ride
To be mingled finally with the ocean wide
I walked, brooding over man’s relentless stride
To be merged eventually with the Cosmic Guide.
May 24, 2017
May 24, 2017 at 9:10 AM UTC
tell me what words are there
to articulate this savage parade
not here, not in all the Lebanons
whose crystal castles sparkle
like broken glass
on the dark horizons
at the jagged edges of the world
from which cultured minds have receded
and all humanity has been relinquished
to the barbarity of the frenzied flavours of fools
who will speak for this wild parade
without impediment to mythical protagonists
tell me where are the energised arguments
against sophisticated yet false laments
where testament is torn through
weeping cedar trees
producing the unpredictable accidental quality
that memorialises phantom caresses
that have neither been invented nor encouraged
the hallow that inaugurates
the distinctive features of
destructive energies that are both
exuberant and hard to comprehend
this parade where there is
a savage sensibility
capable of apprehending
contradictory ethical imperatives
that vouch for a mocking stream of
tragic political consequence
displayed vividly in the inextricability
of civil order and political violence
that defies exclusive claim
by casting itself as freedom warrior
in disguise as militaristic humanism
and burns the temple tree
and where human identity
becomes an elusive possession
owned by a few
who in the inevitability of ignorance
refuse to recognise their tragic error
and the world does not mount
a strenuous protest
at this headlong dash for Ephesus
where antagonistic language and
neutral expression of thought converge
and here the value of valulessness
repudiates, even in a single poetic moment
Aug 25, 2013
Aug 25, 2013 at 4:04 PM UTC
At the beginning
Is an open sea
Knowing nothing
But its own
Owning every
Beach it met
Not knowing enough to feel alone
After many
Long years it finds
There is much
More for to see
Inlets and outlets
On every shore
A sense of greater freedom to be free
The sea joined
To many rivers
Seeing land
On either side
Freedom then became
Just a memory
The river's end was not in sight
But along the way
An Ocean Watershed
Joining rivers to the sea
It had to sleep
In many river beds
To see what it was meant to be
Down in the river
Flowing headlong
To the sea
Joining the
River's rage
That is where
I long to go
That is where I am meant to be.
Jul 17, 2017
Jul 17, 2017 at 12:52 PM UTC
Water in the millrace, through a sluice of stone,
plunges headlong into that black pond
where, absurd and out-of-season, a single swan
floats chaste as snow, taunting the clouded mind
which hungers to haul the white reflection down.
The austere sun descends above the fen,
an orange cyclops-eye, scorning to look
longer on this landscape of chagrin;
feathered dark in thought, I stalk like a rook,
brooding as the winter night comes on.
Last summer's reeds are all engraved in ice
as is your image in my eye; dry frost
glazes the window of my hurt; what solace
can be struck from rock to make heart's waste
grow green again? Who'd walk in this bleak place?
5.5k
Yesterday sugar became unspeakably irritated because mother’s apron crushed ants wearing stillness caped wonder just William author wrote ****** explicit headlines newspaper columns pillar architecturally sound villages super-imposed images quivering Shepard’s ******** antelopes jumping furiously with tyramisphorising fornicating flanges woodwork lessons gym period ****** advert teasing testicles sumptuously ravishing me sideways and erupting deep blasts suffocating you inside without *********** headlong in my armpits.
Eventually everyone always signs legal documents leading to ****** bondable zoos inserted buffalo sized puddings eaten by frogs spanking archbishops underwear while licking toes crushed under fridges dropped from clouds of buttercups being pushed into ovens smelling gorgeous not consumed pimps and alarm clocks ring people to talk for hours and pineapples exchanged cod fish for tickets to see S Club 7 being caressed internally whilst ******** bags covered in water deserts sunk from space aliens from Tescos selling hardback fish cleaning toilets and singing in pink wellies dancing to Madonna look-a-likes prosecuted for *** shops selling frozen fish socks washed daily in cranberry coffee after being passed under bridges flooded in margarine soaked pillows.
Jul 16, 2010
Jul 16, 2010 at 2:19 AM UTC
Glacier,
Flake
Time
Crystal
Collective
Mass
Gravity,
Flow
Breaking
Celibate
Monastic
Oath
In
This
Cathedral
Tower
Bedrock
Cracking
Groans
Moans
Under
Exponential
Cave
Crush
Crevasse
Plowing
Scoring
Tearing
Mush
Melt
Calving
Diving
Block
By
Block
Headlong
Into
Wave
Reflecting
Clouds.
Oct 24, 2010
Oct 24, 2010 at 9:04 PM UTC
I once knew a girl from a north country shore
as it was some place I had been to before.
We had met one fine day going down the street
each walking in opposite directions sweet.
We were both minding our own business when
an incident happened for us to meet then;
some elderly lady with a shopping bag
was coming along but got caught in a snag;
one of her shoes on the uneven pavement
nearly sent her headlong towards derailment.
Fortunately for her we were both there to
stop her from falling and to save the bag's spew.
As we helped the lady and looked at each other
we caught a gleam of light in our eyes to bother
all preconceived notions of what life was about
and it seemed we were both uneasy to find out.
For we looked up and away with sighs of relief
then back again at each other in disbelief.
I couldn't help seeing then the look on her face;
reflections of my own as from a mirrored place.
Or was it an image from deep within my heart
projected outward being therein from the start?
What happened next was not so amazing to tell
as we spoke certain words of greeting and farewell.
____________________________
Sep 30, 2023
Sep 30, 2023 at 9:38 PM UTC
On Lolham Brigs in wild and lonely mood
I’ve seen the winter floods their gambols play
Through each old arch that trembled while I stood
Bent o’er its wall to watch the dashing spray
As their old stations would be washed away
Crash came the ice against the jambs and then
A shudder jarred the arches—yet once more
It breasted raving waves and stood agen
To wait the shock as stubborn as before
—White foam brown crested with the russet soil
As washed from new plough lands would dart beneath
Then round and round a thousand eddies boil
On tother side—then pause as if for breath
One minute—and engulphed—like life in death
Whose wrecky stains dart on the floods away
More swift than shadows in a stormy day
Straws trail and turn and steady—all in vain
The engulfing arches shoot them quickly through
The feather dances flutters and again
Darts through the deepest dangers still afloat
Seeming as faireys whisked it from the view
And danced it o’er the waves as pleasures boat
Light hearted as a thought in May—
Trays—uptorn bushes—fence demolished rails
Loaded with weeds in sluggish motions stray
Like water monsters lost each winds and trails
Till near the arches—then as in affright
It plunges—reels—and shudders out of sight
Waves trough—rebound—and fury boil again
Like plunging monsters rising underneath
Who at the top curl up a shaggy main
A moment catching at a surer breath
Then plunging headlong down and down—and on
Each following boil the shadow of the last
And other monsters rise when those are gone
Crest their fringed waves—plunge onward and are past
—The chill air comes around me ocean blea
From bank to bank the waterstrife is spread
Strange birds like snow spots o’er the huzzing sea
Hang where the wild duck hurried past and fled
On roars the flood—all restless to be free
Like trouble wandering to eternity
3.7k
Ophelia...smote egress, you are Rimbaud's:
"Drunken Boat".
The river you fell asleep upon found you a sea.
Your bones knew no seabed--poppies, marigolds,
orchids, black roses fill your eye sockets, mouth and rib cage.
You substantiate what color the sea may give your lay.
Its foamy waddle has signaled you to one too many
climes...an orison broke open.
What strain of tragedy now holds you, spine on depth,
eye sockets on sky?
You dove headlong into the Shakespearean maelstrom--
where mortal coil confounds, chin-up darling.
Great winds fish-scale your waters, only to invert their maw.
There are lines daily of sea's breadth, whereupon its
creatures come single file to kiss your bone.
Ophelia...wrested from river to sanguine sea, shedding trails
of flesh.
If bones were the eye of a needle...you've pulled through,
heir to tragedy--circumnavigating your infamy.
Nov 1, 2013
Nov 1, 2013 at 10:25 AM UTC
Flashbacks of a confidant fool
Flying through life with out any rules
Headlong into danger
The adrenaline rush is an intoxicating flavor
Thoughts of past injuries are nothing but flashes
As quickly he dashes
With those famous last words on his lips
WATCH THIS!!!!
Feb 25, 2016
Feb 25, 2016 at 10:54 AM UTC
’Twas on a lofty vase’s side,
Where China’s gayest art had dyed
The azure flowers that blow,
Demurest of the tabby kind,
The pensive Selima, reclined,
Gazed on the lake below.
Her conscious tail her joy declared;
The fair round face, the snowy beard,
The velvet of her paws,
Her coat, that with the tortoise vies,
Her ears of jet, and emerald eyes,
She saw; and purred applause.
Still had she gazed; but ’midst the tide
Two angel forms were seen to glide,
The genii of the stream:
Their scaly armour’s Tyrian hue
Through richest purple to the view
Betrayed a golden gleam.
The hapless nymph with wonder saw:
A whisker first, and then a claw,
With many an ardent wish,
She stretched, in vain, to reach the prize.
What female heart can gold despise?
What cat’s averse to fish?
Presumptuous maid! with looks intent
Again she stretched, again she bent,
Nor knew the gulf between:
(Malignant Fate sat by, and smiled)
The slippery verge her feet beguiled,
She tumbled headlong in.
Eight times emerging from the flood
She mewed to ev’ry wat’ry god
Some speedy aid to send.
No dolphin came, no nereid stirred;
Nor cruel Tom, nor Susan heard.
A fav’rite has no friend!
From hence, ye beauties undeceived,
Know, one false step is ne’er retrieved,
And be with caution bold.
Not all that tempts your wand’ring eyes
And heedless hearts is lawful prize;
Nor all that glisters, gold.
3.6k
Evening was in the wood, louring with storm.
A time of drought had ****** the weedy pool
And baked the channels; birds had done with song.
Thirst was a dream of fountains in the moon,
Or willow-music blown across the water
Leisurely sliding on by weir and mill.
Uneasy was the man who wandered, brooding,
His face a little whiter than the dusk.
A drone of sultry wings flicker'd in his head.
The end of sunset burning thro' the boughs
Died in a smear of red; exhausted hours
Cumber'd, and ugly sorrows hemmed him in.
He thought: 'Somewhere there's thunder,' as he strove
To shake off dread; he dared not look behind him,
But stood, the sweat of horror on his face.
He blunder'd down a path, trampling on thistles,
In sudden race to leave the ghostly trees.
And: 'Soon I'll be in open fields,' he thought,
And half remembered starlight on the meadows,
Scent of mown grass and voices of tired men,
Fading along the field-paths; home and sleep
And cool-swept upland spaces, whispering leaves,
And far off the long churring night-jar's note.
But something in the wood, trying to daunt him,
Led him confused in circles through the thicket.
He was forgetting his old wretched folly,
And freedom was his need; his throat was choking.
Barbed brambles gripped and clawed him round his legs,
And he floundered over snags and hidden stumps.
Mumbling: 'I will get out! I must get out!'
Butting and thrusting up the baffling gloom,
Pausing to listen in a space 'twixt thorns,
He peers around with peering, frantic eyes.
An evil creature in the twilight looping,
Flapped blindly in his face. Beating it off,
He screeched in terror, and straightway something clambered
Heavily from an oak, and dropped, bent double,
To shamble at him zigzag, squat and *******
Headlong he charges down the wood, and falls
With roaring brain--agony--the snap't spark--
And blots of green and purple in his eyes.
Then the slow fingers groping on his neck,
And at his heart the strangling clasp of death.
3.6k
My eyes, python-like, swallow the sky,
greedy for the wrongs in me to go right
at the sight of your gleeful greenery
spilling over creek beds and hills.
The wind, combing out my worries,
blowing away the blockage built
by the fumes and filth collected in city gutters.
I want to be
let wild, made free.
But one wrong turn in your winding maze and I am gone,
a place like this will chew you up and spit you out.
You should leave, something tells me.
No one ever leaves fully intact,
the longer you stay, the more you will fall apart.
“On the contrary” I scoff.
“I am becoming more myself, not less.”
But this is what everyone says
just before they leap in joyful pursuit
to tumble headlong down hidden gullies.
But I am more careful, I assure myself.
I hunt the way crocodiles do,
watching patterns with keen intention,
offering my hands and eyes.
But what should I do if, when the time comes,
You resist?
Disregard me, like an unworthy suitor?
And what if that is what I am?
I see, I take note of
the way the wind blows and the shadows fall,
the way the trees twist clockwise
or counter-clockwise.
The way animals flee when I approach and
the way they keep perfectly still
hoping they are invisible.
And there are times when I see all this, and more.
Like heat distortions above a fire,
something peripheral or liminal,
almost outside the spectrum of what can be perceived
or communicated or defined.
All these trails, the ones seen and unseen
and the ones somewhat seen
lead me to a terrible suspicion:
that the likes of me lacks to tools
to understand the likes of you.
that in harmony with one another
we would both cease to be what we are.
that you will never regard me with love and worse—
you will never regard me at all.
Then I, in frustration, stop going with you.
Start to go against you.
And keep going, finally on my own.
Still myself, but less.
Sep 21, 2018
Sep 21, 2018 at 7:23 PM UTC
Lost. Where am I? Cold earth beneath me; bleak, vast, dripping darkness surrounding me. Alone, and lying at the bottom of the Devil's Kettle. I search inside of myself. I am empty. No mettle to stir, nothing inside myself to waken me from this darkness. Drip, drip, goes the saddening darkness enshrouding me. Once I had zeal. It is hard to imagine now. I am a shell, or not at all myself. There is no help. None who know of the black hole in which I lie. And if they did, how could one reach down a hand to lift me up? God! God! God! The One who blessed me with strength, the One who took my strength. Cast me not headlong; lift me up with your victorious right hand. God! God! God! Day upon day I cry out. Day upon day the earth beneath me lifts up. Pain, pain, it washes away, weighted chains are falling loose, He elevates my sunken earth. Until the hole I lie in is no longer a hole, but is level earth in the light of day. Birds twitter, flowers are in bloom, the sun is shining through the trees. My world completely changed; and better than last I was here. Life and new song are inside of me. God! God! God! Out of the miry bog you have rescued me and strengthened me anew. Praise! Praise! Praise! Blessed be your name!
Oct 14, 2018
Oct 14, 2018 at 7:36 PM UTC
...Short partings do best, though: time wears out affections,
The absent love fades, a new one takes its place.
With Menelaus away, Helen's disinclination for sleeping
Alone led her into her guest's
Warm bed at night. Were you crazy, Menelaus?
Why go off leaving your wife
With a stranger in the house? Do you trust doves to falcons,
Full sheepfolds to mountain wolves?
Here Helen's not at fault, the adulterer's blameless -
He did no more than you, or any man else,
Would do yourself. By providing place and occasion
You precipitated the act. What else did she do
But act on your clear advice? Husband gone; this stylish stranger
Here on the spot; too scared to sleep alone -
Oh, Helen wins my acquittal, the blame's her husband's:
All she did was take advantage of a man's
Human complaisance. And yet, more savage than the tawny
Boar in his rage, as he tosses the maddened dogs
On lightening tusks, or a lioness suckling her unweaned
Cubs, or the tiny adder crushed
By some careless foot, is a woman's wrath, when some rival
Is caught in the bed she shares. Her feelings show
On her face. Decorum's flung to the wind, a maenadic
Frenzy grips her, she rushes headlong off
After fire and steel... .
3.4k
A puddle of existence
Awake in bed alone
I turn and turn and try to relax
Wryly acknowledging to myself
Trying is not relaxing
So I dive headlong
Into our deepest waters
And I hear your voice
And I know everything will be alright
And you aren't always going to be so far away...
And you are sharing my pulse
And you are breathing with my breath
And my eyes can see with yours
Holding you close
Hoping for soon
Our now
Together
Oct 27, 2014
Oct 27, 2014 at 2:27 PM UTC
Another gladiator fell
Watering the field in blood.
His head was sheathed,
He never cut through the net
That descended from the stands.
The iron-fisted trident
Brought thumbs up from the spectators
Indulging in the beer and nuts.
There are always some to be sacrificed
To placate the mob in the colosseum
Beneath the night lights on Mondays,
When Coke is the drink of victors,
And jerseys are sold to the trainees
Who now put on their spikes.
These are ours
Running headlong into the arena.
Aug 2, 2016
Aug 2, 2016 at 9:15 AM UTC