"heliotrope" poems
For at least a week now,
shrivelled leaf-like globes
of heliotrope and platinum,
umbilical cords
caught on the top
of a lamppost's ***** finger,
jostling, huddled together
in the breeze
like players in a scrum.
I go past on the top deck,
see those wrinkled baubles
skirmish, wish to leave
and drift in mist
before rasping
with a whimper,
an out-of-breath splat
of colour caught
in some tree.
Mar 8, 2013
Mar 8, 2013 at 10:16 AM UTC
Thistle pricked and tantalized by the hypnotist,
the heliotrope sunrise seemed bitter, offensive
at best. Ill-fated, my Magna Carta has been
stripped. Crossroads approach, I begin chewing at my
bottom lip. A simply shady azure, lewd blue lingered
our lime love had been missed. Departing, destructive at best.
Nov 9, 2011
Nov 9, 2011 at 9:05 PM UTC
Hush, thrush! Hush, missen-thrush, I listen...
I heard the flush of footsteps through the loose leaves,
And a low whistle by the water's brim.
Still! Daffodil! Nay, hail me not so gaily,-
Your gay gold lily daunts me and deceives,
Who follow gleams more golden and more slim.
Look, brook! O run and look, O run!
The vain reeds shook? - Yet search till gray sea heaves,
And I will stray among these fields for him.
Gaze, daisy! Stare through haze and glare,
And mark the hazardous stars all dawns and eves,
For my eye withers, and his star wanes dim.
2
Close, rose, and droop, heliotrope,
And shudder, hope! The shattering winter blows.
Drop, heliotrope, and close, rose...
Mourn, corn, and sigh, rye.
Men garner you, but youth's head lies forlorn.
Sigh, rye, and mourn, corn...
Brood, wood, and muse, yews,
The ways gods use we have not understood.
Muse, yews, and brood, wood...
2.4k
I sat beneath a willow tree,
Where water falls and calls;
While fancies upon fancies solaced me,
Some true, and some were false.
Who set their heart upon a hope
That never comes to pass,
Droop in the end like fading heliotrope,
The sun's wan looking-glass.
Who set their will upon a whim
Clung to through good and ill,
Are wrecked alike whether they sink or swim,
Or hit or miss their will.
All things are vain that wax and wane,
For which we waste our breath;
Love only doth not wane and is not vain,
Love only outlives death.
A singing lark rose toward the sky,
Circling he sang amain;
He sang, a speck scarce visible sky-high,
And then he sank again.
A second like a sunlit spark
Flashed singing up his track;
But never overtook that foremost lark,
And songless fluttered back.
A hovering melody of birds
Haunted the air above;
They clearly sang contentment without words,
And youth and joy and love.
O silvery weeping willow tree
With all leaves shivering,
Have you no purpose but to shadow me
Beside this rippled spring?
On this first fleeting day of Spring,
For Winter is gone by,
And every bird on every quivering wing
Floats in a sunny sky;
On this first Summer-like soft day,
While sunshine steeps the air,
And every cloud has gat itself away,
And birds sing everywhere.
Have you no purpose in the world
But thus to shadow me
With all your tender drooping twigs unfurled,
O weeping willow tree?
With all your tremulous leaves outspread
Betwixt me and the sun,
While here I loiter on a mossy bed
With half my work undone;
My work undone, that should be done
At once with all my might;
For after the long day and lingering sun
Comes the unworking night.
This day is lapsing on its way,
Is lapsing out of sight;
And after all the chances of the day
Comes the resourceless night.
The weeping-willow shook its head
And stretched its shadow long;
The west grew crimson, the sun smouldered red,
The birds forbore a song.
Slow wind sighed through the willow leaves,
The ripple made a moan,
The world drooped murmuring like a thing that grieves;
And then I felt alone.
I rose to go, and felt the chill,
And shivered as I went;
Yet shivering wondered, and I wonder still,
What more that willow meant;
That silvery weeping-willow tree
With all leaves shivering,
Which spent one long day overshadowing me
Beside a spring in Spring.
2.4k
By the end of this poem, those once vibrant
shall slough off in horizons of necrosis.
As I tap out completion,
their summer cedes to countless performances;
actors bow before the closing curtain of Autumn.
The maelstrom of summer-lovers lulls to a murmur
And the great Mevlana’s couplets and Khayyam’s quatrains
Float away on the formations of down-bound geese.
You’ll hear the Doppler shift of devotion’s goodbye
On the whines of the locomotive’s whistle.
By the end of this poem, the thistle fades
from heliotrope to gun metal gray.
The clandestine scent of “once-whens”
Wafts into a future of “now-agains.”
Yet, this new Fall is bittersweet.
Before another ********** of trees,
a red rose blushes in reminiscence.
By this poems end, I’ll be in love
with the chill of an approaching season
wearing the brightest flower in my garden of poetry
One last choke on the rising smoke
as the last painful stanza goes
Into the solemn procession
toward the sacred pyre of leaves.
Sep 16, 2014
Sep 16, 2014 at 2:42 PM UTC
As the waves of perfume, heliotrope, rose,
Float in the garden when no wind blows,
Come to us, go from us, whence no one knows;
So the old tunes float in my mind,
And go from me leaving no trace behind,
Like fragrance borne on the hush of the wind.
But in the instant the airs remain
I know the laughter and the pain
Of times that will not come again.
I try to catch at many a tune
Like petals of light fallen from the moon,
Broken and bright on a dark lagoon,
But they float away—for who can hold
Youth, or perfume or the moon’s gold?
1.4k
your friends pity me
i see it in their eyes
but pretend it's
not there
you bring me along regardless
holding hands under the table
laughing alongside them
and we toast to your
oncoming sobriety
and i think they pitied you too
knowing that you and change
were fated mortal enemies
starting from conception.
god buried you in the dirt when he crafted your soul;
and the angels cursed you, turning the earth
to marbled heliotrope:
we met in that dark prison.
you whispered that everyone
had given you up. so i swore
to never leave. to try.
to fight for us. to
love.
you hold my hand for 46 seconds underneath
the sputtering pools of blonde light
after your narcotics anonymous
meeting.
and the angels pitied me as well,
turning their heads at stoplights
and crosswalks like i wasn't even
there.
as if i could forget or pretend
that i've never seen the
eyes underneath
our bed at
night.
Apr 20, 2022
Apr 20, 2022 at 3:53 AM UTC
From the void of infinity,
I retrieved words desperately sought
Craving the full impact of my letters
No matter the harm to my soul it wrought
An obsession forces me from my slumber bed rise
Depicting on paper visions of monsters and warrior queens
That emerges from deep long dreams
And where the magic lies.
Sleep reveals those who breathe
And yet emotionally dead
Shuffling through the world
Unknowing and uncaring
Frightening normal with dread
As the ribbons of heliotrope crept closer before falling
Pausing
I heard the ghost of my pen calling
They found me quite cold
Window sash blowing
Ink on my fingers
Hunched over my desk
A story unfinished
Fellow Poets
I leave you to imagine the rest
@Copyright Tammy M. Darby Jan. 5, 2019
Jan 5, 2019
Jan 5, 2019 at 9:28 AM UTC
I'm trapped in a clock
In the cogs and the gears
And it's ticking its tock
To my cuckooest fears
I am chained to a time
And a place I'm forgetting
Lost in the rhyme
And the tone I am setting
Regretting the days
I knew not how to smile
And masking these plays
In a phantom exile
Where sands turned to trees
And then jungles erupted
In love with the breeze
And the girl who abducted
My heart in the void
Of poetic romance
In a cold front of Freud
And the hypnotic trance
My enchantress exudes
In a potion of sorrow
And pendulum moods
As I swung from tomorrow's
Last Heliotrope
And I shared in the peace
Of her crescent moon hope
Then I offered my hand
To this mystical muse
And I let her command
Every word that I choose
Aug 24, 2017
Aug 24, 2017 at 3:24 AM UTC
If I were pink
What would you think?
If I were blue
Would you be too?
If I were green
Would you be mean?
If I were yellow
Would we still be mellow?
If I were black
Would you attack?
If I were brown
Would you turn me down?
If I were beige
Would we still engage?
If I were heliotrope
Could we go elope?
If I were vermillion
Could we go to a cotillion?
If I were maroon
Would you buy me macaroons?
If I were aubergine
Could we go to Dairy Queen?
And if I were cerise
Would your affection cease?
Brent Kincaid
4/7/2015
Apr 7, 2015
Apr 7, 2015 at 8:22 AM UTC
i don't know what heliotrope is
besides it has a wonderful scent
so i'm determined to smell nice
in the hope that maybe i'll at least
be remembered for something good
Dec 1, 2014
Dec 1, 2014 at 2:38 AM UTC
My hair was once all aquarelle
and peony, I wondered who
painted me
Dec 4, 2012
Dec 4, 2012 at 6:20 PM UTC
Put my hair up in pastel ribbons, and give me your honey-eyed Eskimo kisses.
Baby girl, I’ll be the kitty who lets you drag her around by the tail, and lick your soft cheeks when you cry.
Make silly demands and watch me roll my eyes, and do everything you’ve ever dreamed of.
I’m a heliotrope and you are the sun, yes.
Your sugar plum lips make me bloom into you. Watch me get drunk on the air you breathe out. I love you, I love you, oh sweetness, I love.
Feb 17, 2019
Feb 17, 2019 at 7:51 AM UTC
As the snowy days grow colder,
I'm in the trenches, like a soldier:
a war against my own heart.
.
Shrapnel, bullets, drying blood
surround me in the mud
since we've been apart.
.
My enemy knows no reason,
cares not for negotiation;
moving on for it is treason;
accepts no explanation.
.
And I keep fighting through the pain,
survival instincts wax and wane,
But in my chest I keep a hope.
.
Weak and battered, yet alight,
a single candle in the night -
the only thing that helps me cope.
.
I let the embers of it seethe,
grip it tight and grit my teeth,
like a drowning man to a rope.
.
It whispers softly: "he'll return",
that flame doesn't cease to burn,
its heat is my heliotrope.
.
Dec 10, 2023
Dec 10, 2023 at 8:13 AM UTC
*Your face on a grain of salt
Lost somewhere in raging oceans
I hold a stone in my hands
As I drown into the sea*
Sign of the ram
**Sign of the ******
*This art has a hidden meaning
Lost amongst the gazing pupils
Eyes open wide for color
As I fade into the light*
Bloodstone between my fingers
Salt of your skin
And if only now I could not find a way to die
I could find a way
Jun 22, 2016
Jun 22, 2016 at 3:22 AM UTC
I watched the sun rise
and fell asleep.
I watched the sun set
and became enlightened.
Feb 24, 2012
Feb 24, 2012 at 12:44 AM UTC
the word admits truth
and the feeling confirms its ruin
of the world i know. trees spar
wind, birds cross tapestry;
the old moon's wane hesitates,
the bilious lark does not
heed what i know of the world
and our entrails speaking
a hint of such sorry recall—
something a memory gives back,
lighting a beacon, passing a mortal flame
into my hands, the heliotrope,
haplessly flapping its wings now
unpinned crooning a voice
of the world – twilight in one song.
Nov 2, 2015
Nov 2, 2015 at 12:12 AM UTC
coffeehouses and bookshops are obsolete and underrated
i always seem to feel the most comfortable and loved
while the wooden brown furniture and smells of roasting beans
envelop me in transparent steaming tendrils of intimacy
reaching inside to find my inner poetic self
coming up with all sorts of ostentatious phrases
to make my prose sound extremely extravagant
and therefore myself a satisfied troubadour
chronicling my ****** escapades through life and love
agromania
heliotrope
pavonine
quinnat
vorpal
zydeco
don’t i sound special?
It’s the coffee fumes that are finally getting to me
Caressing the recesses of my brain, drawing out streams
Of words that which i do not know the meaning of
Can i be sure they’re even real?
Can i be sure of anything anymore?
Nov 4, 2014
Nov 4, 2014 at 6:53 PM UTC
*I wrote this in November and was not happy with it;
"
I heard passion on the streets of New York City
the sea foam of the sky hanging on the Persian shield watching over us
the gloaming brings retrospect
the healthy green pendant of the six train matches the bushes in the square
in Little Ukraine
it is dark
we bounce as we step
I know when I move I will
be on my own
she tells me she hears yelling. is it happy exclamation or anger
I don't know. I say. I don't know"*
12/25/2016
On the sidestreets of Little Ukraine
men smoked cigarettes and said pryvit
and KNL said it's because you look slavic
but i'm pennsylvania dutch! i laugh
shoofly pie, not sochniki
off the 33rd street stop
and it was getting to be dark out
the sky heliotrope and true blue
I heard a noise
did you hear that too? I say to her
It was angry or happy? she asks, more like states
I don't know, all i said.
*But it's passion.
It's passion.
On the streets of new york city. That would make a good poem, right?*
Dec 25, 2016
Dec 25, 2016 at 2:47 PM UTC
*Sitting together hand in hand
under an old oak tree,
sweet spicy scents fill the air
wild roses, heliotrope and lilies.
The bright colors of foxglove
growing on the banks of a stream,
lovely is the glow of water
casted by sunlit beams.
A quiet whisper of love
so soft within my ear,
touches my heart tenderly
of love you speak so dear.
The lightest of a finger trace
a skim of knuckles over skin,
leaving a burning trail of desire
shivers my soul deep within.
Together hand in hand
under triumphant blooming trees,
scents of sweet and sweeps of color
wild roses, heliotrope and lilies…..
~*
© 2017 Brianna Love/SA/DBMA
Sep 19, 2017
Sep 19, 2017 at 5:46 AM UTC
There is so much space demands
and it isn't just minding it.
Feel space
like how you feel a hand glide
over your breast and prod
your intricacies with surgery-precision.
There isn't much space when
there are two people in the room.
Heed space
and soak your body into various calls
like coming
into world with fullness,
you arrive and take
space, therefore, you are.
lewd fat air circumventing past
open windows announcing more
s p a c e
on the fryer or inside the common
heliotrope of dawn lies space
and its absurd eyelids submerge the
soul into inconsolable mouths
with the droll of a wilting word,
there is much ado said over
certain vacuities and its sole kinship
is always its emphasis.
it takes being alone to sing beautifully
yet a marginal dance of swan
meandering in space takes two
(as mortise
and tenon)
each without, senselessly moving.
Nov 11, 2015
Nov 11, 2015 at 11:00 PM UTC
Tolstoy purported,
"the purpose of life
is to serve humanity."
but an empty cup
cannot fill another
and i've long since
been drained
to the last drop
dry as drought.
cottonmouth, hoarse,
blue-in-the-face
from screaming
my lungs out.
a mime beating
bulletproof glass
until my knuckles bleed
and streak.
three words
bloom like heliotrope
petals on my tongue:
"i love you,"
a refrain on endless repeat—
a broken record
covered in motes of dust,
skipping on the turntable
stuck in the same rut.
Feb 5, 2017
Feb 5, 2017 at 1:37 AM UTC
through the lips of
the horizon
a purple parasol
of attenuated *****
spread, flagrant is the crepuscule.
these are the exiled
in the heliotrope world:
trees saluting the length
of sprinting air to calm
these undulations -
painted are the leaves
with blame.
lips sinking to find answers
hidden underneath the
derelict of sweat, noisome moan
after quieted breathing,
heavy with the undeniable boulder
of craving's weight -
tongue naked, freeing itself
from the oubliette of flesh,
finding what is still to be
tasted in a covetous harvest,
it is indeed strange to be here,
in this absolute hour
of absent resoluteness.
to deny want and embrace fullness,
my eyes slope these visions
and then dive through steepness.
no words have to be said,
only their significations
held secretively as roots
are unseen flourishing in their
obligations to this flower,
your flower
underneath the twilight
of bodies crossing each other
out, love's derivatives
ensue.
Sep 18, 2015
Sep 18, 2015 at 5:34 AM UTC
In lee of the Ash
'twould be me
hiding in trees.
bare arms held high.
raw from rubbing the bark.
breath a ragged whisper,
the language of dead leaves
lingnen umbrellas once shadow makers now of the dark
encased in abandoned shade,
stability is a fabled illusion
colours of autumn fade.
forms become skeleton.
dirt is fed.
earthen daydreams corrode,
fertile nightmares,
demons grow in place of daisies
their eyes are hungry in a barren place until the ash buds swell
dried petals melt to gravity,
possess my naked frame
under the low sun after dewy drapes lift.
green blessings distract
undulating bodies,
supplication of sweet release
'tis what demon desires and to have must part with pomegranate
the seeds of damnation,
lament dearest Persephone,
your cry shall reign all dominion
a Bentham call for the utility that the wood be of seasons
colors of autumn fade,
forms become skeleton,
hello death's wintry mistress
colours of spring wait.
Morbid redress
leaving hulled seed a heliotrope with skying ambition.
Brethren in tumultuous glory.
Bask eternal in tumultuous glory.
Jul 7, 2016
Jul 7, 2016 at 11:41 AM UTC