"hyacinth" poems
Unburdens the dusky river
*dreams of flow dead in the bog of hyacinth
harvest burnt in the scorch of aridity
ripples robbed by the silt of dogma
sunbeam denied by the **** of creed*
**I was meant to reach the sea,
now I would never make it.**
I pick the river's shattered pieces
with my own from the wintry dusk.
Nov 17, 2015
Nov 17, 2015 at 9:13 AM UTC
339
I tend my flowers for thee—
Bright Absentee!
My Fuchsia’s Coral Seams
Rip—while the Sower—dreams—
Geraniums—tint—and spot—
Low Daisies—dot—
My Cactus—splits her Beard
To show her throat—
Carnations—tip their spice—
And Bees—pick up—
A Hyacinth—I hid—
Puts out a Ruffled Head—
And odors fall
From flasks—so small—
You marvel how they held—
Globe Roses—break their satin glake—
Upon my Garden floor—
Yet—thou—not there—
I had as lief they bore
No Crimson—more—
Thy flower—be gay—
Her Lord—away!
It ill becometh me—
I’ll dwell in Calyx—Gray—
How modestly—alway—
Thy Daisy—
Draped for thee!
8.2k
(After Lorca)
Now in Vienna there are ten pretty women.
There's a shoulder where death comes to cry.
There's a lobby with nine hundred windows.
There's a tree where the doves go to die.
There's a piece that was torn from the morning,
and it hangs in the Gallery of Frost—
Ay, ay ay ay
Take this waltz, take this waltz,
take this waltz with the clamp on its jaws.
I want you, I want you, I want you
on a chair with a dead magazine.
In the cave at the tip of the lily,
in some hallway where love's never been.
On a bed where the moon has been sweating,
in a cry filled with footsteps and sand—
Ay, ay ay ay
Take this waltz, take this waltz,
take its broken waist in your hand.
This waltz, this waltz, this waltz, this waltz
with its very own breath
of brandy and death,
dragging its tail in the sea.
There's a concert hall in Vienna
where your mouth had a thousand reviews.
There's a bar where the boys have stopped talking,
they've been sentenced to death by the blues.
Ah, but who is it climbs to your picture
with a garland of freshly cut tears?
Ay, ay ay ay
Take this waltz, take this waltz,
take this waltz, it's been dying for years.
There's an attic where children are playing,
where I've got to lie down with you soon,
in a dream of Hungarian lanterns,
in the mist of some sweet afternoon.
And I'll see what you've chained to your sorrow,
all your sheep and your lilies of snow—
Ay, ay ay ay
Take this waltz, take this waltz
with its "I'll never forget you, you know!"
And I'll dance with you in Vienna,
I'll be wearing a river's disguise.
The hyacinth wild on my shoulder
my mouth on the dew of your thighs.
And I'll bury my soul in a scrapbook,
with the photographs there and the moss.
And I'll yield to the flood of your beauty,
my cheap violin and my cross.
And you'll carry me down on your dancing
to the pools that you lift on your wrist—
O my love, O my love
Take this waltz, take this waltz,
it's yours now. It's all that there is.
6.3k
Three sang of love together: one with lips
Crimson, with cheeks and ***** in a glow,
Flushed to the yellow hair and finger-tips;
And one there sang who soft and smooth as snow
Bloomed like a tinted hyacinth at a show;
And one was blue with famine after love,
Who like a harpstring snapped rang harsh and low
The burden of what those were singing of.
One shamed herself in love; one temperately
Grew gross in soulless love, a sluggish wife;
One famished died for love. Thus two of three
Took death for love and won him after strife;
One droned in sweetness like a fattened bee:
All on the threshold, yet all short of life.
5.3k
Innocent Hyacinth tinted with mint
Tingèd grey hinged on stem singed
With chestnut leaves flowing, to me a fair hint
Of off-centred carousing, black eyes perusing
Wares of all sorts and stocks of all shares
The leading on of a pleasure most gracefully enthusing
Drops dews of all shades, of selfsame structure
And we full of rowdy Sedition;
But Wait! Recognition.
In my hopes and tired efforts, a puncture.
Music blaring loud, aftertaste of rejection
And full on full strand of all smoke addled people
Oh! How great Quasimodo I fell off my steeple
In the midst of the crowd, full dejection.
Mar 24, 2014
Mar 24, 2014 at 4:03 PM UTC
The old lady planted roses near the corner by the driveway
She never planted roses by the door
I remember once she told me, "Bees come out to get the nectar"
And a bee sting can be deadly or quite sore
Instead, she planted herbs along the walkway to her cottage
You'd pass by, the scent was rather nice
Rubbing rosemary and lemon grass and sage against your trousers
Sometimes you would even walk by twice
She had hollyhocks and primrose, a classic English garden
Lots of fragrant trees and bushes there as well
There were cedars by the windows and hyacinth close by
If she even had a lawn, you couldn't tell
There were irises and tulips, daffodils and more
And great bushes of white lavender abound
Not only was the lawn gone, with the bushes and the trees
I bet from inside you'd nary hear a sound
Around the back the same thing, exactly as the front
Herbs and plant life, and I'd say maybe more
Than all the plants in Englands Kew Gardens have to see
And more lilacs by the walkway by the door
The vents from down the basement blew through cedars and the lilacs
Sending warming scents around the clustered yard
There were windows to the basement, blocked by flowers and the trees
And to see in was really rather hard
The one day I remember when I came out to the house
Is one I know I'll not forget
For walking down the pathway with a policeman on each side
Was the old lady with a look of deep regret
It seems the scented flowers and the bushes and the trees
Provided scents to hide the smells from deep inside
The air was vented out directly through the flowers
The house was just a grow op in disguise
Mar 27, 2013
Mar 27, 2013 at 11:58 AM UTC
It would be when the air would feel like silk or like the hues were almost brighter.
It was when the hills felt lower and the low felt lighter.
In the speckles of day when I would sing to the tune of another’s brass,
Somehow my daydreams would still hold a conversation with you.
You’d saunter in with kindness and class;
The kind of attitude that sometimes I wish I had.
Your tone and diction were hard to imagine,
They lacked the luster and the passion.
They were all the corridors to every phrase.
They were all the oddities I wanted to praise.
I can feel the wax melt from my wings with just the thought of knowing you in abundance.
You are a Sun to my sand with a depth I should never learn.
You’re a distance that feels relaxed and at a level I could never convince.
At your hand would I bloom into my hyacinth petals or would my roots begin to rot?
Would I compliment your warmth by offering a place to rest or would my minerals begin to harden into a glass for my next cathedral?
It’s necessity the keeps the unknown locked in a mental maze that which I have mending to wrought.
Still, my stargazing will end when I fall.
Those feathers left to remind me of how little about you I’ve ever actually known;
And yet how bittersweet to imagine having ever flown.
May 31, 2022
May 31, 2022 at 10:29 PM UTC
The toppling hyacinth,
Excitedly bursting at every corner
To show the world its colour.
The soft chrysanthemum,
A rosy brush of autumn's breath,
So stoic in their blush.
The pale gardenia,
A soft unfolding in cautious masses,
The tokens of a lover.
The quiet lilac,
Without a care for frill or grace,
Growing where it may.
The meadow shifts.
There is such blissful sorrow
In watching flowers bloom.
Aug 19, 2012
Aug 19, 2012 at 1:20 AM UTC
Helen, thy beauty is to me
Like those Nicean barks of yore,
That gently, o’er a perfumed sea,
The weary, wayworn wanderer bore
To his own native shore.
On desperate seas long wont to roam,
Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,
Thy Naiad airs have brought me home
To the glory that was Greece,
To the grandeur that was Rome.
Lo! in yon brilliant window niche,
How statue-like I see thee stand,
The agate lamp within thy hand!
Ah, Psyche, from the regions which
Are Holy Land!
3.6k
A black veil cloaked
My cobalt heart
My soul was scarlet
Before being torn apart
An iris clutched to my chest
Petals fell by my toes
When you chose the hyacinth
Over the golden rose
With shattered mirror shards
You severed the chain
Precious as a cat's eye
Melted by flames
Oct 15, 2014
Oct 15, 2014 at 10:12 PM UTC
~
*Another green world
reels them in
unfledged
lovers
they yearn
to be hydro-electric
cascading over
emerald and stone
floating along
with the water hyacinth
where they evaporate
but do not falter
in the naked spring
of continuously November
jumping off
a bridge above ecosystem
a new frontier
under their nose
as souvenir:
pioneers to the fall
and yet all they really
need to remember is
this is where they
first made love*
~
Feb 6, 2022
Feb 6, 2022 at 1:21 PM UTC
In the height of summer
The pond shrunk to a hyacinth heart.
The kingfishers left for crystal streams
Village belles no more washed their hidden shames
Kids broke their frolics on her kissing splashes
And men dipped not in her to whisper secrets.
She prayed to hold through all the pains.
The sky heard her and sent her rains.
Aug 15, 2015
Aug 15, 2015 at 11:19 AM UTC
**November 5, 2010 at 2:59 am
{Inspired by Dr. Boshra 3agban, Nizzar Qabani}
You're a woman;
created from the Greek myths,
wrapped in the veil of my fantasies,
Reborn from all the phoenix ashes,
You're the history of my life, miss;
it bounds u not..no years no seas,
you grant the moon those glaring flashes,
So I never sleep at nights to see thy gypsy eyes,
It's enough to write your name,
Just to be the perfect poet,
It's enough to be loved by thee,
It is so enough for me,
& I'll be mentioned in the history;
As the man & the angel that met,
At the horizon's end,
On the edge of the dreams,
You're a woman;
Carved by an angel's hands,
& made from the diamonds of verse,
Veiled in the golden cloak of my dreams,
A deity from some mystic lands,
Glowing through my murky universe,
Born from heaven's springs & streams,
Your tidal dormant waves through me they arise,
You're a woman;
Greater than Aphrodite & Athena,
You're the endless music of the lyre of pan,
You're the gauzy clouds that may make spring a winter eve,
Picturing you ..Tottering...is the ****** of me,
Thy swift stalk...gazing at you; forever I span,
arrayed in thy mantle of every hyacinth's leaf,
That sings the odes of love in me heart they incise,
You're a woman;
Caring not for time or years,
Neither aging nor death can touch thee,
You're the eternal rose of all the nerieds,
Knowing not no pains or fears,
Thy treads' rhythm lurks through me,
Your love's a religion, belief & a creed,
& my prayers from now forth art thy drowsy sighs,
It's enough to write your name,
Just to be the perfect poet,
It's enough to be loved by thee,
It is so enough for me,
& I'll be mentioned in the history;
As the man & the angel that met,
At the horizon's end,
On the edge of the dreams,
You're a woman;
Drest in the Elysium stars,
With pinions of an angel of life,
Fretting on waters of rivers of Eden,
Healing my feeble searing scars,
Heaping my ardent fires that thrive,
With dewy kisses That're unforgotten,
I've never lived before...now I realize,
You're a woman;
Of wavy hair & wavy weather,
Of blushy cheeks, like of the primrose,
Nestling these lips gushing with love,
I pledge my heart & soul for a feather,
Of thy wing that flips & shows,
Sublimity with that dimpled smile of a dove,
That holds all the answers & whys...
It's enough to write your name,
Just to be the perfect poet,
It's enough to be loved by thee,
It is so enough for me,
& I'll be mentioned in the history;
As the man & the angel that met,
At the horizon's end,
On the edge of the dreams....
******
Jul 18, 2012
Jul 18, 2012 at 2:53 AM UTC
Can we believe -- by an effort
comfort our hearts:
it is not waste all this,
not placed here in disgust,
street after street,
each patterned alike,
no grace to lighten
a single house of the hundred
crowded into one garden-space.
Crowded -- can we believe,
not in utter disgust,
in ironical play --
but the maker of cities grew faint
with the beauty of temple
and space before temple,
arch upon perfect arch,
of pillars and corridors that led out
to strange court-yards and porches
where sun-light stamped
hyacinth-shadows
black on the pavement.
That the maker of cities grew faint
with the splendour of palaces,
paused while the incense-flowers
from the incense-trees
dropped on the marble-walk,
thought anew, fashioned this --
street after street alike.
For alas,
he had crowded the city so full
that men could not grasp beauty,
beauty was over them,
through them, about them,
no crevice unpacked with the honey,
rare, measureless.
So he built a new city,
ah can we believe, not ironically
but for new splendour
constructed new people
to lift through slow growth
to a beauty unrivalled yet --
and created new cells,
hideous first, hideous now --
spread larve across them,
not honey but seething life.
And in these dark cells,
packed street after street,
souls live, hideous yet --
O disfigured, defaced,
with no trace of the beauty
men once held so light.
Can we think a few old cells
were left -- we are left --
grains of honey,
old dust of stray pollen
dull on our torn wings,
we are left to recall the old streets?
Is our task the less sweet
that the larve still sleep in their cells?
Or crawl out to attack our frail strength:
You are useless. We live.
We await great events.
We are spread through this earth.
We protect our strong race.
You are useless.
Your cell takes the place
of our young future strength.
Though they sleep or wake to torment
and wish to displace our old cells --
thin rare gold --
that their larve grow fat --
is our task the less sweet?
Though we wander about,
find no honey of flowers in this waste,
is our task the less sweet --
who recall the old splendour,
await the new beauty of cities?
The city is peopled
with spirits, not ghosts, O my love:
Though they crowded between
and usurped the kiss of my mouth
their breath was your gift,
their beauty, your life.
2.9k
I first tasted under Apollo's lips,
love and love sweetness,
I, Evadne;
my hair is made of crisp violets
or hyacinth which the wind combs back
across some rock shelf;
I, Evadne,
was made of the god of light.
His hair was crisp to my mouth,
as the flower of the crocus,
across my cheek,
cool as the silver-cress
on Erotos bank;
between my chin and throat,
his mouth slipped over and over.
Still between my arm and shoulder,
I feel the brush of his hair,
and my hands keep the gold they took,
as they wandered over and over,
that great arm-full of yellow flowers.
2.8k
The young maiden,
with eyes the color of the green-blue sea,
porcelain skin,
and the face of an angel.
She had a hyacinth in her flaxen hair.
She is the hyacinth girl,
with beauty words can't describe,
and the grace of a princess.
Today somebody called me the hyacinth girl,
words nobody has ever said to me.
Glancing at the image in the mirror,
I didn't believe her words.
grotesque,
revolting,
and disappointing.
are all compliments that I have received generously.
hyacinths - however, I have never received.
"words with malicious intent, were never actually intended maliciously", they said.
they led me to believe,
that I could never be the hyacinth girl,
that I see deep inside of me.
Aug 15, 2013
Aug 15, 2013 at 4:06 AM UTC
i waited there. i waited for hours. i waited for days. no one ever came.
seasons changed, leaves fell, the ground hardened and snow caked every treetop. and still no one came.
one day a woman with a child walked by. they were not who i was waiting for. they crunched along the leaf-strewn path, nodded a greeting toward me, and continued on. so i kept waiting.
it rained hard and often that spring. the path was unclear, and the trees were bent in exhaustion. flower buds wrapped themselves in blankets of green as they reached toward the soft, muddy ground, trying to find a bed.
one great tree stood tall on the edge of the forest. it was split down the middle, into two distinct twin trees, each competing to reach the top of the surrounding canopy first. the bark peeled as the twins stretched and grew. as the years passed the twins became tired, and so they stopped racing and waited instead for something new to come into their lives.
i decided i would no longer wait. i walked along the path, kicking dead leaves out of the way, their arms curling around their bodies for warmth. i whistled, i skipped, i picked flowers and weeds to make you a bouquet. i wandered for days and found nothing. and so i waited again for you.
there was a patch of violet hyacinth flowers along the path. they sprung from the ground and surrounded an old tree stump, as if shielding it from harm. their leaves were an impenetrable gate that could wait all summer, protecting their beloved, lost tree. the stump would always be safe. no matter how long it remained there.
in the fall, a twiggy stickling of a tree dropped most of its sun bleached red leaves. one fell into my hood. i took it out and twirled it between my fingers. the days were getting shorter, and seeing the sun light the remaining leaves was like watching the branches start on fire.
i wandered toward the edge of the forest and sat against the largest tree i could find. the tree was split down the middle, and each half was just as tall as the other. i decided this was the king tree of the forest. i fashioned two crowns out of the hydrangeas and mountain laurel i picked on my journey and hung them on the lowest branch of each twin king. i laid the red leaf i picked out of my hood in the crevice where the twins split from each other, and bowed to the king of the forest. as i marched away i hummed a tune i can only describe as majestic.
i am still waiting. the daisies and dandelions dance in the wind to pass the time. although there are burrs on my socks and bug bites on my knees, i will continue to wait. i'll wait for days, for years. i will wait for you.
Nov 10, 2012
Nov 10, 2012 at 2:16 PM UTC
Heavy chested I breathe
as the moon whitewashes the night.
The season is changing
and in the wind is the vapor of hyacinth
in the thick of which
the glowworms drink the nectar of night.
They have no philosophy and I have many
like while they dance just for the sake of life
my mind enveloped in obscurity
has shackled my feet and clipped my wings.
I wonder if the glowworms have a mind
that knows when they dance
they have an audience.
Maybe the stars know the same way
when they twinkle.
Oct 20, 2016
Oct 20, 2016 at 7:24 AM UTC
It is true that
The hyacinth flowers on the hill
Will be trampled and muddied
By the calloused, bare feet of all who tread there
Until they are dead and rotted
But I ask you to find a place
Where the streams flow rapidly,
Harsh and unforgiving,
Dangerous enough so that no man will dare cross,
No hand may pluck you from the ground
And grow there.
Next to the water of the stream,
In the midst of all else good and holy,
Safe from the reaches of men,
You will grow,
Bright purple and untarnished,
Stunning in your own right
And I will walk the dead hill,
I will try and brave the harsh waters,
If only to see you with my own eyes.
Aug 10, 2018
Aug 10, 2018 at 5:36 PM UTC
Once upon a time,
There was me and you,
We were each other’s half –
A perfect match.
As I lay my head on your shoulder,
You wrap me in your arms;
Our hands entwined
Sharing sweet laughters.
All those moments we spent together
We decided to make it last;
My hope of our forever
Will be up high til' we turn to dust.
When you decided to love me so,
My heart was ever glad;
You and me just like that…
Inlove... Unified.*
Jul 24, 2015
Jul 24, 2015 at 11:35 AM UTC
Tiny flowers, songs in violet shades played, ringing round oaks
spilling on the mossy lawn
Songs of birds swirled sweet the air
and flew the cold of winter's caging, gone the snowdrops melting
Sunny - yellow willow, ever graceful
flowing breezy, leafy vines
sing soft of life, sweet the air
of your budding time
Tomorrow's path of hyacinth will bloom
to light the days, sweeping fragrantly all the hours of moon
tulips of apeldoorn bursting red, in a field of Spring, how sweet the air
soon far off in scented hills of green
Mar 11, 2013
Mar 11, 2013 at 12:39 PM UTC
So I took her to the river
believing she was a maiden,
but she already had a husband.
It was on St. James night
and almost as if I was obliged to.
The lanterns went out
and the crickets lightened up.
In the farthest street corners
I touched her sleeping *******
and they opened to me suddenly
like spikes of hyacinth.
The starch of her petticoat
sounded in my ears
like a piece of silk
rent by ten knives.
Without silver light on their foilage
the trees had grown larger
and a horizon of dogs
barked very far from the river.
Past the blackberries,
the reeds and the hawthorne
underneath her cluster of hair
I made a hollow in the earth
I took off my tie,
she too off her dress.
I, my belt with the revolver.
She, her four bodices.
Nor nard nor mother-o-pearl
have skin so fine,
nor does glass with silver
shine with such brillance.
Her thighs slipped away from me
like startled fish,
half full of fire,
half full of cold.
That night I ran
on the best of roads
mounted on a nacre mare
without bridle stirrups.
As a man, I won't repeat
the tings she said to me.
The light of understanding
has made me more discreet.
Smeared with sand and kisses
I took her away from the river.
The sowrds of the liles
battled with the air.
I behaved like what I am,
like a proper gypsy.
I gave her a large sewing basket,
of straw-colored satin,
but I did not fall in love
for although she had a husband
she told me she as a maiden
when I took her to the river.
2.2k
Uncounted words on the page, attempting to mimic brilliance
Predictable as playing Russian roulette with an automatic
Forced sterility, impossible as drawing a straight line
The wrist won’t comply, simply cannot, no reason to attempt it
We fool ourselves with second hand ambition, discard our
own greatness
Quiet and sublime, carelessly letting our spark burn out
Do you remember what it was to be a child?
Nothing but used up memories with no sound
Black and white like some old movie, lips moving, no voice
Barefoot dreams are all that remain for me
Empty promises made to one’s self, surrendered so
easily
Nights of Bach on the radio, hiding behind closed doors and
cheap wine
Days of endless monotony, dark stairs and the smell of
scrubbed mildew
An afternoon spent in your arms, making love under the
pecan trees
I almost saw your yesterdays, beautiful creature, when I met your
eyes, laying there
A little girl, running with a sparkler in each hand, screaming her
defiance to the world
Holding onto what’s left of each other, two halves, trying to make a
whole
Mar 22, 2012
Mar 22, 2012 at 9:17 AM UTC
TO LAYLAH EIGHT-AND-TWENTY
Lamp of living loveliness,
Maid miraculously male,
Rapture of thine own excess
Blushing through the velvet veil
Where the olive cheeks aglow
Shadow-soften into snow,
******* like Bacchanals afloat
Under the proudly ******* throat!
Be thou to my pilgrimage
Light, and laughter sweet and sage,
Till the darkling day expire
Of my life in thy caress,
Thou my frenzy and my fire,
Lamp of living loveliness!
Thou the ruler of the rod
That beneath thy clasp extends
To the galaxies of God
From the gulph where ocean ends,
Cave of dragon, ruby rose,
Heart of hell, garden-close,
Hyacinth petal sweet to smell,
Split-hoof of the glad gazelle,
Be thou mine as I am thine,
As the vine's ensigns entwine
At the sacring of the sun,
Thou the even and I the odd
Being and becoming one
On the abacus of God!
Thou the sacred snake that rears
Death, a jewelled crest across
The enchantment of the years,
All my love that is my loss.
Life and death, two and one,
Hate and love, moon and sun,
Light and darkness, never swerve
From the norm, note the nerve,
Name the name, exceed the excess
Of thy lamp of loveliness,
Living snake of lazy love,
Ithyphallic that uprears
Its Palladium above
The enchantment of the years!
2.1k
Old Mother’s hands shook,
When pouring my tea
And I’d
Savor the scent of hyacinth.
Old Mother’s hands shook,
When scribing time
And I’d
Wed her fatherless daughter.
Old Mother’s hands shook,
On cloud, under crevice,
And I’d
Lift her cup to lip;
Old Mother’d drink,
Her hands, like the trees,
And we’d
Both cry tears of ecstasy.
May 23, 2016
May 23, 2016 at 11:45 PM UTC