"hearkened" poems
You lied about my sweet weight,
And you lied about my arches,
You lied about your love for the depressions in my skin,
You faked that sincerity
Of course you lied, because how else
Could you make love to my demise?
You lied about your moon and my tides,
But you tread upon on my land,
Cheer as my salt beats my rocks into sand, I never flinched at your hand,
I never quaked at your voice,
But I should’ve,
I would’ve if I had known that you would run my rivers dry,
That you would lick your lips and sigh
You’re sick in that the only thing I hold dear,
You craved to hunt.
You rip into the throat of my wild and reckless stag,
Watch it bleed as it cranes to see by whose hand it falls,
As it breathes its last breath it catches sight of your thumb,
It knows, but consciously it forgets, because
It is with this abandon that I die for you daily,
And you **** me anyway.
I should’ve quaked at your voice,
Hearkened to the screaming that ripped away my choice,
You never loved my mountains, fountains of lies I threw back and back,
You lied about my ocean that you don’t care to explore,
It was critical and fatal,
You lied about my sweet weight and that I cannot forgive.
Jun 2, 2016
Jun 2, 2016 at 10:27 PM UTC
When smoke stood up from Ludlow,
And mist blew off from Teme,
And blithe afield to ploughing
Against the morning beam
I strode beside my team,
The blackbird in the coppice
Looked out to see me stride,
And hearkened as I whistled
The trampling team beside,
And fluted and replied:
"Lie down, lie down, young yeoman;
What use to rise and rise?
Rise man a thousand mornings
Yet down at last he lies,
And then the man is wise."
I heard the tune he sang me,
And spied his yellow bill;
I picked a stone and aimed it
And threw it with a will:
Then the bird was still.
Then my soul within me
Took up the blackbird's strain,
And still beside the horses
Along the dewy lane
It sang the song again:
"Lie down, lie down, young yeoman;
The sun moves always west;
The road one treads to labour
Will lead one home to rest,
And that will be the best."
2.5k
Knows he who tills this lonely field
To reap its scanty corn,
What mystic fruit his acres yield
At midnight and at morn?
In the long sunny afternoon,
The plain was full of ghosts,
I wandered up, I wandered down,
Beset by pensive hosts.
The winding Concord gleamed below,
Pouring as wide a flood
As when my brothers long ago,
Came with me to the wood.
But they are gone,— the holy ones,
Who trod with me this lonely vale,
The strong, star-bright companions
Are silent, low, and pale.
My good, my noble, in their prime,
Who made this world the feast it was,
Who learned with me the lore of time,
Who loved this dwelling-place.
They took this valley for their toy,
They played with it in every mood,
A cell for prayer, a hall for joy,
They treated nature as they would.
They colored the horizon round,
Stars flamed and faded as they bade,
All echoes hearkened for their sound,
They made the woodlands glad or mad.
I touch this flower of silken leaf
Which once our childhood knew
Its soft leaves wound me with a grief
Whose balsam never grew.
Hearken to yon pine warbler
Singing aloft in the tree;
Hearest thou, O traveller!
What he singeth to me?
Not unless God made sharp thine ear
With sorrow such as mine,
Out of that delicate lay couldst thou
The heavy dirge divine.
Go, lonely man, it saith,
They loved thee from their birth,
Their hands were pure, and pure their faith,
There are no such hearts on earth.
Ye drew one mother's milk,
One chamber held ye all;
A very tender history
Did in your childhood fall.
Ye cannot unlock your heart,
The key is gone with them;
The silent ***** loudest chants
The master's requiem.
2.4k
she wanders through the forests and the groves,
her bare feet scarce upon the mossy ground,
as day sinks into night without a sound
and sunset fills the skies with pinks and mauves;
and like a restless breeze she wildly roves,
a love-lost woodland dryad, summer-crowned
and who could ever guess where she was bound,
or why the sea so whispered near the coves.
her eyes as bright as a white-feathered dove,
beyond the river, near a sheltered tree,
she rests awhile finds lilies for her hair,
their flowery mist no prettier than she,
(enchanting in the hearkened, vibrant air,)
her heart soft-brimmed with longing and with love.
Oct 31, 2015
Oct 31, 2015 at 10:44 AM UTC
Knows he who tills this lonely field
To reap its scanty corn,
What mystic fruit his acres yield
At midnight and at morn?
In the long sunny afternoon,
The plain was full of ghosts,
I wandered up, I wandered down,
Beset by pensive hosts.
The winding Concord gleamed below,
Pouring as wide a flood
As when my brothers long ago,
Came with me to the wood.
But they are gone,— the holy ones,
Who trod with me this lonely vale,
The strong, star-bright companions
Are silent, low, and pale.
My good, my noble, in their prime,
Who made this world the feast it was,
Who learned with me the lore of time,
Who loved this dwelling-place.
They took this valley for their toy,
They played with it in every mood,
A cell for prayer, a hall for joy,
They treated nature as they would.
They colored the horizon round,
Stars flamed and faded as they bade,
All echoes hearkened for their sound,
They made the woodlands glad or mad.
I touch this flower of silken leaf
Which once our childhood knew
Its soft leaves wound me with a grief
Whose balsam never grew.
Hearken to yon pine warbler
Singing aloft in the tree;
Hearest thou, O traveller!
What he singeth to me?
Not unless God made sharp thine ear
With sorrow such as mine,
Out of that delicate lay couldst thou
The heavy dirge divine.
Go, lonely man, it saith,
They loved thee from their birth,
Their hands were pure, and pure their faith,
There are no such hearts on earth.
Ye drew one mother's milk,
One chamber held ye all;
A very tender history
Did in your childhood fall.
Ye cannot unlock your heart,
The key is gone with them;
The silent ***** loudest chants
The master's requiem.
1.6k
The mother will not turn, who thinks she hears
Her nursling’s speech first grow articulate;
But breathless with averted eyes elate
She sits, with open lips and open ears,
That it may call her twice. ’Mid doubts and fears
Thus oft my soul has hearkened; till the song,
A central moan for days, at length found tongue,
And the sweet music welled and the sweet tears.
But now, whatever while the soul is fain
To list that wonted murmur, as it were
The speech-bound sea-shell’s low importunate strain,—
No breath of song, thy voice alone is there,
O bitterly beloved! and all her gain
Is but the pang of unpermitted prayer.
1.5k
I had a vision, of divine precision
That I had a quick collision
With an elephant, dancing wild
Who winked and laughed at this meek child
And then I looked unto the sky
All its beauty in one eye
My soul ascended, rapt in flight
At one with universal light
The elephant winked and disappeared
And the magic of night gave way to fear
I rubbed my head and went to bed
Wondering where my angel had fled
That night she came again with songs
A rhapsody around, along
I hearkened to her delightful blare
For heavenly music dwelled in there
Apr 10, 2016
Apr 10, 2016 at 5:02 AM UTC
She could not forget those behind bolted doors
(it was hard and heartless without those behind bolted doors),
she had heard the pitter patter and the quiet footsteps
of time that robbed and stole endless days of fun
it was the one treasure and unseen barrier
she could not walk through the open doors
'Memories will float like dusty leaves
on the windy way where paths made now were seldom warm'
Sep 4, 2013
Sep 4, 2013 at 9:27 AM UTC
I hearkened thee enunciating,
“Those who oft visit thy swevens in sooth miss thee”.
I can not sweven thine Eden.
I do not sweven—
Thou bequeathed me insomnolence.
Jan 30, 2017
Jan 30, 2017 at 12:52 PM UTC
Me, up on the snow-rock white glacial cliff hedges mountaineering my way in the moments-after-twilight-sweeping-black. Execrable cold, a death-making quiet, Not a seal, not a hare - this Earth of gelid death. I climbed out above the snow Where my expiration left sinuous brandings in the copper light. But the Weddell was siphoning the darkness to the katabatic deep valleys - piceous lees of the brightening umber - cleaving the moon in two like the split eye of a winter lynx. And I saw the penguins: Little specks of black in the limitless white - fifty together - obelisk-still. Their inaudible coo, they sat motionless, nearly mute, With creamsicle feet and amber-eyes, incomparably mum. I proceeded: not one chirped or swiveled its little fur cap. Black silent fragments of a black silent world. I hearkened in the barrens of the desiccate plains. While the wooly bears came from the sea to see of the silence. Slowly edges oozed out of the darkness. Then the moon ivory, porcelain, azure erupted Quietly, and halving to its heart and shot mist, shaking and the ocean opened, crying blue, And the giant mountains lunged-. I stopped Scrambling, as if up from my voice at the mouth of a nightmare, down towards the snow-rock, from their glacial sheaths, And came the penguins. There stood they, still-, silent, in the river of blue light: Creamsicle feet and amber-eyed Thwacking the ice in a grand fête While everywhere was gray and rimy. And still they did not speak above a breath, Not one squeeked or cawed, Their nestled shining beaks dug into the polar rim, Low into the valleys, in the blue shimmering rays - In throngs of the congested cities, living among the years, the faces, May I some day greet my memory in such solemn a world Into the estuaries and the azure-skies, curious wooly bears, Listening as the ice tholes.
Apr 11, 2017
Apr 11, 2017 at 4:40 AM UTC
His eyes weren't closed, but it felt like he has entombed
As he laid his fingers from the spine of the tome;
He perused the letters imprinted by the blood
Dripping from the wrist of a lonesome lad.
From the lightless corner, he hearkened the song of tumult
Played by the demons where the lyrics have written with insult.
The downfall of the knight as they have yearned for it to behold
Brought the life of the feral wolf who is at night, he growled.
Their fangs lacerated his sanity through their bite
While drooling for some piece of his fright.
Each day seemed to be a night he has to wait to end;
A cage he has to abscond far from the fiend.
Aiding through masks will not heal the induced sore
For his pieces turned to dust—can not fix what they tore.
In the end, the whining wolf get drowned from derision
And get killed from the unseen battle—depression.
Nov 16, 2020
Nov 16, 2020 at 3:56 AM UTC
It's cold and dark, I cannot see
what future may befall me.
This icy malice grows forever
Inside my soul.
**** me now.*
A hearkened blade draws blood so dark
that Satan himself seeks a matriarch.
For his evil bidding need be done
Inside my soul.
**** me now.*
Locked inside, I'm bound by chain.
Hope, desire and pride were slain
All that's left is an empty shell.
Without a soul.
**** me now.*
Jan 8, 2014
Jan 8, 2014 at 5:02 AM UTC
Like a song, I waited to be heard,
Till' they lent their ears and offered
The gift to listen to a voice
That gave clear insight from all the noise.
Throughout the epochs of hearsay,
Eons of complete mental disarray,
Ages of false images,
And unclear periods of distress.
At last, my voice was hearkened.
The truth has soared and shined,
To illuminate the path for the blind
To enlighten the false that had me bound.
Jun 28, 2019
Jun 28, 2019 at 4:55 PM UTC
A zone like no other, Insanity rules this place
Time is at a stop, no hands on the clock face
suspended forever in an infinite pause
Always out of reach from death's mighty claws
Never before have I hearkened the silent
Peace and quiet, nobody violent
A shadow out of time, where the world is the mime
Mar 7, 2010
Mar 7, 2010 at 9:47 PM UTC
I was,
And I am.
So shall I be to the end of time,
For I am without end.
I have cleft the vast spaces of the infinite, and
taken flight in the world of fantasy, and drawn nigh
to the circle of light on high.
Yet behold me a captive of matter.
I have hearkened to the teachings of Confucius,
and listened to the wisdom of Brahma, and sat be-
side the Buddha beneath the tree of knowledge.
Behold me now contending with ignorance and
unbelieving.
I was upon Sinai when the Lord showed Himself
to Moses. By the Jordan I beheld the Nazarene's
miracles. In Medina I heard the words of the Apostle
of Arabia.
Behold me now a prisoner of doubt.
I have seen Babylon's strength and Egypt's glory
and the greatness of Greece. My eyes cease not
upon the smallness and poverty of their works.
I have sat with the witch of Endor and the priests
of Assyria and the prophets of Palestine, and I cease
not to chant the truth.
I have learned the wisdom that descended on India,
and gained mastery over poetry that welled
from the Arabian's heart, and hearkened to the music
of people from the west.
Yet am I blind and see not; my ears are stopped
and I do not hear.
I have borne the harshness of unsatiable con-
querors, and felt the oppression of tyrants and the
******* of the powerful.
Yet am I strong to do battle with the days.
All this have I heard and seen, and I am yet a
child. In truth shall I hear and see the deeds of
youth, and grow old and attain perfection and
return to God.
I was,
And I am
So shall I be to the end of time,
For I am without end.
Jun 27, 2014
Jun 27, 2014 at 6:47 PM UTC
As for looking forward to brighter days
Those happily hearkened solar rays
That's just not something my mind relays
Always the rain, the rain always
No ultraviolet sight ablaze
I'm blinded by the night's malaise
Deluged without light or shade
Always the rain, the rain always
Through the flood my tomb is razed
My face is mud, my eyes are crazed
Soaked in dread of a watery grave
Always the rain, the rain always
©Jason Cole
Jan 15, 2018
Jan 15, 2018 at 8:20 PM UTC
Me, up on the snow-rock white glacial cliff hedges mountaineering my way in the moments-after-twilight-sweeping-black. Execrable cold, a death-making quiet, Not a seal, not a hare - this Earth of gelid death. I climbed out above the snow Where my expiration left sinuous brandings in the copper light. But the Weddell was siphoning the darkness to the katabatic deep valleys - piceous lees of the brightening umber - cleaving the moon in two like the split eye of a winter lynx. And I saw the penguins: Little specks of black in the limitless white - fifty together - obelisk-still. Their inaudible coo, they sat motionless, nearly mute, With creamsicle feet and amber-eyes, incomparably mum. I proceeded: not one chirped or swiveled its little fur cap. Black silent fragments of a black silent world. I hearkened in the barrens of the desiccate plains. While the wooly bears came from the sea to see of the silence. Slowly edges oozed out of the darkness. Then the moon ivory, porcelain, azure erupted Quietly, and halving to its heart and shot mist, shaking and the ocean opened, crying blue, And the giant mountains lunged-. I stopped Scrambling, as if up from my voice at the mouth of a nightmare, down towards the snow-rock, from their glacial sheaths, And came the penguins. There stood they, still-, silent, in the river of blue light: Creamsicle feet and amber-eyed Thwacking the ice in a grand fête While everywhere was gray and rimy. And still they did not speak above a breath, Not one squeeked or cawed, Their nestled shining beaks dug into the polar rim, Low into the valleys, in the blue shimmering rays - In throngs of the congested cities, living among the years, the faces, May I some day greet my memory in such solemn a world Into the estuaries and the azure-skies, curious wooly bears, Listening as the ice tholes.
Apr 11, 2017
Apr 11, 2017 at 4:42 AM UTC
He lays himself on his bed
And watched through the ceiling
Whilst a thousand jewels said
Fair voice, fair maiden, such fair singing
Hearkened he did to the lasting darkness
And a thousand miles away she sang
As in his dreams she danced, the temptress
So he woke, his mouth full of a sweet tang
Tears like scathing blades upon her cheeks
But ignored for the sake of her unheard melody
Heaviness in heart, through her voice it leaks
But far, far away he listened openly
'Tis a song heard only by hearts that listen
And all but he paid it no heed
Whilst on her face tears glisten
She sang, her voice strained with need
He lays himself on his bed
And watched through the ceiling
As the stars winked and glinted
Singing o fair heart, keep listening
May 13, 2013
May 13, 2013 at 3:38 AM UTC
*I was there within a lil tropic dale,
Marrow of one lil 'ol stealthy vale,
I hearkened of a grand titanic tale
'Midst two Midnighters loud speil.
The spat was pitiless & oh! strong;
Faint 1st was their spoken old song,
Then harsh as each bird had swelled,
To rage the strife away which dwelled.
The warbler led the great speech,
Easeful in a nook of a wide beech;
Perched on a pulchritudinous bough,
About her were burgeons florid now,
Utterly in a downy, substantial hedge,
Intertwisted with buds and new sedge.
Happier she was for having the sprays,
Sing she did for gladness in many ways.
Yet was there an old prong lying beside,
Wherefrom an old owl came and cried;
The branch w/ climbing vine overgrown,
And here this owl sojourned quite alone.
The warbler did after not so long espied,
And looked upon her w/ confuted pride.
Many were her scoffings 2 the jejune owl,
For to the warbler was she loath'd & fowl.
The owl stayed in her place till eventide,
Not a moment more did she there abide,
So thrived her ***** with flowing wrath
That she could hardly even regain breath;
Say that I grasped thee in my sharp claw,-
Would that I may do so here in this shaw!
And thou wert torn from off your spray,
Then we shall see who sings a nights lay.
And with that... the warbler stole away.
To hang her shingle and head in shame.*
Feb 27, 2017
Feb 27, 2017 at 10:29 PM UTC
I had been a wandering soul 'til I met you,
Love has hearkened;
You captivated my soul
Nov 10, 2015
Nov 10, 2015 at 8:00 PM UTC
leaf
misshapen
shriveled once green
donned vibrant red disguise
to ward off lurking decay
fallen tendon of skeletal oak
hardened veins stand out from brittle flesh
dull brown age spots on blackened stem
curled like death’s beckoning finger elasticity gone
your smallest pieces granular near dust
hearkened back unto your mother soil
tomorrow’s wind will hurl you
to another place
or unthinking footsteps
will grind you
into
no-
thing-
ness
'
Apr 11, 2015
Apr 11, 2015 at 9:01 AM UTC
An old fellow has written about death and receives in so-called welcome;
A magnum opus that details all the way from the beginning.
Tales of misery and woe with strewn optimism when he came to,
the man’s mortality caused fear-come-lethargy and it was so sudden.
Now light years apart from loved ones, as his demise untimely.
His life lay concluded while the memoir has no "End."
What about the quiet girl who thought her suffering would never end?
All she needed was to conjure a bit of courage; give herself gentle welcome.
Were there other factors that made her story untimely?
She recited a lackluster mind and limitation from the beginning.
All the time, trepidation for her fears of getting hurt, when all of a sudden,
Demure and diffident, made life unlived; she asks now: Where to?
How about the green soldier; where has he gone to?
Weathered, tenacious, and kind yet in the end,
His resolve broken, his judgments were sudden.
Supporting poor kin, a toxic home for an unpleasant welcome,
added salt to the wounded soldier, something was beginning.
He fled from them, even on the cusp of new discovery, M.I.A untimely.
Not unlike the jaded woman, whose escape was untimely.
Caught up in business where she need not to.
Had she known, without brash and haste, from the beginning,
she could’ve continued her story, but bankrupt on an abrupt end.
Drowned in debts, from markets of all black welcome,
If she just held on a little longer, a small window would prove sudden.
The musical boy’s name was not known, gone from the world so sudden.
Born of a syncopated heart; daunting in fear; so untimely.
The doctor’s unsure of cure; any and all answers welcome.
Wonders, he could keep, in tempo, rhythm hither to;
yet, weak-willed, having no bass to keep from his end.
If passion truly fervent, he would be alive, a last minute beginning.
Don’t ask the sharp young lady if she had a beginning.
She was well on her career when came the tragedy so sudden.
Loss of ability to speak, and was at her wit’s end.
Please don’t be sad, it would have seemed too untimely,
there are other ways to express if she proved creative and came to
realize the ***** of writing but ultimately death was at her welcome.
There are beginnings that have causal scars of the untimely,
making for sudden despair and untold tales never hearkened back to,
do not fear for the end, embrace what’s before , now and on forth. To them I can say, “You're welcome.”
Aug 16, 2014
Aug 16, 2014 at 6:13 PM UTC
There was a silence,
That I could not miss,
in my head, in my heart,
in his sweet kiss.
Said the wind to me,
as I walked home,
But isn't this better,
Than being alone?
I had no answer,
but a blank-eyed stare.
With pursed lips,
I wished I could care.
Leaves changed and turned,
But I hung around,
Waiting to be plucked,
Hoping to be found.
And on a low branch I sat,
Watching life pass me by,
Blowing further away,
With each passing sigh.
I wandered on the wind,
With no end in sight,
Sleeping where I was lain,
each dreary night.
The sun rose gracefully,
with her morning rays,
A new day she hearkened,
and yesterday's grave.
Dec 20, 2014
Dec 20, 2014 at 2:00 AM UTC
I lept into darkness and the darkness took me back.
I felt around, looked high up, then low and down
But saw naught but black.
I wept for want of light and the darkness wept for me.
With sleeve I swept tear, but still this formidable fear
Of what I could not see.
Then joy! What pinprick peaked out of light afar!
That I wondered could it be so? At once my heart saying no
At sight of distant star.
I made to sprint, but the darkness sprant behind.
Trodding on heal, with terrible zeal,
Saying: “This will not bind.”
Still I ran with ferocious will, and let darkness be ******
Feet sinking deeper at first, then climbing with insatiable burst,
Through mounds of black sand.
Star grew faint, and the darkness darkened,
Then as fire ablaze, all in a wondrous haze,
The light us hearkened.
“This way” it whispered, and “WAIT!” I cried.
Then the darkness shuddered, hearing all that we’d uttered,
And left with “goodbye.”
I lept into light and the light took me back.
Nov 17, 2015
Nov 17, 2015 at 1:40 AM UTC
O' thou broken heart of mine,
If only thou art hearkened this once
To ceaseless pleas from my head...
Thy most cherished calm,
Wouldn't have dissipated in disarray;
In that enticing canoodle of chaos...
Dressed solely to dazzle,
Thine essence to dance to drumbeats;
Whence love' stripped as mere lust.
May 14, 2016
May 14, 2016 at 7:29 PM UTC