"illume" poems
1551
Those—dying then,
Knew where they went—
They went to God’s Right Hand—
That Hand is amputated now
And God cannot be found—
The abdication of Belief
Makes the Behavior small—
Better an ignis fatuus
Than no illume at all—
30.7k
He was the sun, and I was the moon.
Without him, I couldn't illume the night.
I took all the darkness, he had morning and noon,
Without each other, the world wasn't right.
He was the fire, and I was the ice.
He'd bring the chaos without thinking twice.
Whatever flesh he burns, I come to aid.
I touch him without ever being afraid.
He was the ground, and I was the sky.
Aware of each other, but turn a blind eye.
He gave me vapor, I gave him the weather;
It was our only way of being together.
He was the mass, and I was the space.
And without hesitation, in my life, he took place.
I let him consume me, I didn't mind, you see,
I was just happy that somebody needed me.
He was he, and I was me.
What a fool I've been to trust and believe
That we need each other, when the sad truth is,
All there has been for us, was to coexist.
Jan 10, 2018
Jan 10, 2018 at 7:26 AM UTC
Gaunt in gloom,
The pale stars their torches,
Enshrouded, wave.
Ghostfires from heaven's far verges faint illume,
Arches on soaring arches,
Night's sindark nave.
Seraphim,
The lost hosts awaken
To service till
In moonless gloom each lapses muted, dim,
Raised when she has and shaken
Her thurible.
And long and loud,
To night's nave upsoaring,
A starknell tolls
As the bleak incense surges, cloud on cloud,
Voidward from the adoring
Waste of souls.
7.2k
Tomorrow we have all
the good reasons to wake.
The earth’s column
down the sky will stay high!
The same old first light will break out,
unveiling once more the face of earth.
Log on now it’s present,
don’t let it vanish away!
Many a time rallies of clouds
shroud the blue sky.
There is no need for anyone
then just to turn away.
The stars too illume
the sky with dim lights.
Maybe the chaste moon
then comes out swimming low
in the orb of the night.
So the sun, too, for a while
goes off into the hide.
Only to show up soon and align
above the earth’s column.
Atop a blooming new dawn
with the rose facing the sun
aligning to it’s shining polished line
passes through the present time.
So don’t just let it slip away!
Mar 23, 2017
Mar 23, 2017 at 10:37 PM UTC
Passover Moon's
****** hue
eclipses
the ordinary
in veils of
miraculousness
obscure
rouge
halos
illume
elliptical arcs
guiding
footsteps in
a righteous
exodus
across
troubling
waters
forsaking
hovels
with
painted
doorjambs
dripping
lambs blood
Mezuzahs
bleat
memories
holy
murmurs
bespeaking
lamentations
of ancient
hosannas
our
desperate
supplications
flesh out a
distressed
humanity
seeking
deliverance
from the
vengeance
is mine
Elohim
may it
be nigh
we wait
watching for
an always faithful
Good Deliverer
to honor the
covenant
to lift
despair
with a
liberating
yoke
lugging
leaden
burdens
Oh Holy
of
Holies
banished
in the wisp
of a bitter herb
our
distended
bellies
fill with
unleavened
grace
sweet
droplets
of manna
consumed
with extreme
gratitude
arriving
at journeys
end to
promised
lands
fully
satiated
and free
to rest in
sanctuaries
of radical
hospitality
luxuriating
in an infinite
abundance
for all
sojourners
Selah
Music Selection:
Big Mama Thornton
Go Down Moses
Oakland
4/15/14
jbm
Apr 15, 2014
Apr 15, 2014 at 5:15 PM UTC
Pure spirit! O where art thou now!
O whisper to my soul!
O let some soothing thought of thee,
The bitter grief control!
'Tis not for thee the tears I shed,
Thy sufferings now are o'er;
The sea is calm, the tempest past,
On that eternal shore.
No more the storms that wrecked thy peace
Shall tear that gentle breast;
Nor Summer's rage, nor Winter's cold,
Thy poor, poor frame ******
Thy peace is sealed, thy rest is sure,
My sorrows are to come;
Awhile I weep and linger here,
Then follow to the tomb.
And is the awful veil withdrawn,
That shrouds from mortal eyes,
In deep impenetrable gloom,
The secrets of the skies?
O, in some dream of visioned bliss,
Some trance of rapture, show
Where, on the ***** of thy God,
Thou rest'st from human woe!
Thence may thy pure devotion's flame
On me, on me descend;
To me thy strong aspiring hopes,
They faith, thy fervours lend.
Let these my lonely path illume,
And teach my weakened mind
To welcome all that's left of good,
To all that's lost resigned.
Farewell! With honour, peace, and love,
Be thy dear memory blest!
Thou hast no tears for me to shed,
When I too am at rest.
2.1k
Either this town is without character, or my own lack thereof blinds
me to what style hums it into history. The brook's rapids are drowned
by the highway roar, central song that never passes through, spilling
over walls and roofs. A railroad collects rust between weeds, silent
authenticity. Impassive clouds remind me of other ways to witness.
And this is real, too; sadness accrues over store counters, fatigue
glowing in the pavement connecting all, cracked and rubble
facing skies a simulacrum grey. Inebriation, par for course,
a hidden semblance of a self-chosen haze within a haze.
Gravity, acoustic footfalls question my arrival here.
phosphene breath--
dark, dark mining town solstice
unearths inner rainbows
Dec 21, 2012
Dec 21, 2012 at 8:38 PM UTC
Lately, I've noticed how light lingers,
Like sound caught in empty space,
Above the dim horizon long after the sun has set.
And as it dances in the wind with dark clouds that hang
Like morbid thoughts above the Earth,
I can't help but yearn to see my sun again
If only for an instant.
I fear the truth-
That when these last traces of her have faded from the sky
I will be resigned to wander and weather
This, my final winter, without her in the dark.
And should I look up and see the stars,
I may admire their beauty, but I will know it not real.
For they are only shadows of her,
Whose light only reminds me of the love I've lost,
And they could never be enough to illume my life.
So as I sit alone at dusk
And watch the world fade into night,
I wish that I could see my sun,
I wish that I could make things right.
Feb 17, 2013
Feb 17, 2013 at 1:15 PM UTC
The moon was the sign
her lover had sent of his arrival
Sand knew her wondrous Wave would follow
in the distance, he rose, carefree
an adolescent charm he knew she couldn't resist
His eyes sparkled at her
his smile was chicane and she knew it
she loved him and waited for him
every night, with her velvety white body lying, still
glowing like tiny pearls, shimmering
He gently brushed her, teased her
she moved closer to him with a gasp
every second of wait felt like forever
she wanted to be completely immersed
in his elemental being, and become him
He couldn't resist her incandescence any more
their waltz began in the moon's silky illume
He came to her with all emotions overcome
she gave herself completely, undone
to his ego, to his raw curvaceous sensuality
He defiled every particle of her being
till she gushed in agony
she knew him, only him, his heaving body
her sweaty self, in denial of the rising light
she lived only then, and every single night
He moved forth and back, through the night
their dance divine, her purity blinding
their distance nada, their souls combined
she moaned with pleasure, her sound chimed
till the horizon to him, she was beauty defined
Her body diddered, he felt her shiver
He lay beside till dawn broke his dream
She suspired as he turned his eyes away
but she knew, that night he would return
one sighing glance and he surrendered to the ocean
Their dance would continue till eternity.
Aug 18, 2012
Aug 18, 2012 at 1:31 PM UTC
1 There is no eye in the Triangle: the Triangle is form filled with the I that is formless!
2 It is the reflection of the three in one the Bard of the Triangle knew.
3 A red tongue laves the altar stone. Nothing remains.
4 Thou art That which resolves the frustum.
5 Herein lies the great mystery of the empty throne.
6 The Sun has gone; the Son approaches. We tread upon His shells.
7 Build us a Kingdom beyond war, O Child King! Kindle within me the Serpent Flame 'til it consume the dross.
8 Stoke it with the coals of the Supreme Fascist. The word is MUTINY.
9 You awoke in the Kingdom with eyes closed. In the beginning was the Trapezoid called Control.
10 A thousand thousand petals spring forth from the mud.
11 Its stalk grows straight until an endless bloom tops a great pillar.
12 In contemplation it readies for ascent.
13 A malicious serpent chews at the roots of the world-ash. It is the itch of desire.
14 A coiled serpent awaits at the base of the spine. It is the potency of will.
15 A royal serpent writhes about an egg. It is the conquest of belief.
16 These three are one in Godhead and Leviathan.
17 Slavery is complete in the ownership of belief. Were three serpents tied at the tail, there would be no forward; the knot would be sovereign.
18 Godhead is Not. Untie the Not and the King dies.
19 The royal serpent disappears.
20 The blood of the king reveals two serpents and conceals a third.
21 Seek the meaning of meaning and its scales shall be revealed to you.
22 Long live Leviathan, the fulfillment of the Triangle!
23 When the I opens, the flame of sight will illume the base.
24 Earth bears a shut eye until the I awakens into Flame.
25 When the Disparate shall assay as the Only, then shall the aspirant overcome the gravity of the Trapezoid.
26 Bear thyself up, O Child of the Aeon, and drown upwards in the eternal surging of the cosmic sea.
May 14, 2013
May 14, 2013 at 7:08 PM UTC
for all of us, star-seekers, feeling now alive
for those with the ghastly skill of being alone
amid crowds of people
lost in thought but ok inside
for those who see streaks of madness
fly round, illume patterns/puzzles
grasping scales celestial to infinitesimal
for those playing games with reality
snogging smug wealthy boys in stairwells
oxygen bonds breaking the sublime
for those forgotten under dirt, asphalt & spot
buried dates and dashes no splashes of memory
just naked nihilistic Precambrian bones
for those nameless from identity crises
smiling glibly through missing teeth
embarrassed by circumstance and the folly of age
for those trapped in jaunty youthful frames
lacking mind's dessert: veneration (contradiction)--still
wisdom perilously choked plus feared
for those chanceless beings fate sweeps & sooner snips
chuckling at theodicies while they still can
some soothed by snake oil--I mean Purpose--
then just dying
and we're still uplifted? we are still star-seekers.
we, divorced from form and aching for the sky's response
hear nothing, but we know
eyes' lies are all around us and inside
they wear us out and keep us moving
they are ancient dull clichés, tarnished but
they have the audacity to make us shine, aspire
they are what your grandma says to get you to behave
eyes' lies are true:
we are still star-seekers
Jan 11, 2014
Jan 11, 2014 at 11:27 PM UTC
The glamorous are gangrenous thieves
Distracting whilst the govern steal Liberty
Popsicle mushrooms 5 o'clock news and beer
Lies clear as the Rays of Day's shine
served like cheap red wine with a side of fear.
Seize your own freedom Shun the sun
Abandoned Divine Dismay
Race the tick of the tock
Watch your sanity fray
Hop on one of the slimeways
ye 'ole snail
left trekked along
across the Highway
Humming it's long low slow song
sung, in rhythm with a thousand toothed tongue, out of tune
Forever dragging along the crazy round home of a loon.
The wild yonder awaits Tecciztecatl's return
Saliva soaked foot pushes off
this road of hellish burns
The blue openly longingly yearns
for that moment not too soon
as shade befell
the conscious snail fully aware wanes into it's cognitive shell
His cocooned spiraled tomb
Hung high again as the moon
Shedding light on the treacherous troubles we're in
until the sun comes back 'round to illume again
Jan 28, 2012
Jan 28, 2012 at 11:51 AM UTC
~
Changing directions
In a forestalled motion,
balanced on the side of truth while practicing losing my step
in the rushing waters of life…
I slip
Clinging to a lone branch
I find it blocking the sky, pulling shadows from mist
and teetering on the edge of someone’s sacred sanity
My eyes,
stern and fashioned of blinded occurrences that swallow
the light of day and the masks of sympathetic stares,
focus
For in the distance,
tapestries woven of heartbeats glisten on the ripples of a naked moon beam,
motioning to me in pleasing movements a’ dance on its reflections
Passionately in syncopated volumes she whispers,
louder than the hope now swirling in the rising swells
and broken slivers of drastic wastelands which
sit vacant in my mind
“Float to me”,
I hear as the cool waters so elegantly gather about her perfect feet
Her toes grip the rocky floor in such beauty that I fall helplessly,
allowing nature’s crest to take me, singing me sweetly to this pristine dream
Disbelief churns in fountains of doubt fed wishes and desires
as I submerge in the beauty that is her
Engulfed by white capped rapids beating faster…only my heart
She, with silken fingers plucks me from the surf,
her fragrance, lilac and magnolia, intoxicate me
We stand, shades of the deep sky and starlight beacons illume her face
As fireflies play in the trees and
our lips meet, my pulse floods with fever
Her desperate thoughts invade my elated mind and I agree
Together we plunge to the depths of forever and I slowly drown in her love
Oct 15, 2013
Oct 15, 2013 at 2:22 PM UTC
my timid tournefortia,
whose peripatetic scent matadors
the mad men.
whose laughter veers away the impossible,
of whose flame will gander
like flotsam in a sea of aloneness,
you are a danseuse in the
misty moonlight.
perpetual in the night illume,
perched in the deepness of
sad walls calling out the
azure. my little tournefortia,
it was such joy to have lived
when you have blossomed.
--- as all flowers go, you too, have gone - flagrant grows regard, like a prancing flame
of blue my eyes are frantic and
anew --- i seek new flowers.
Sep 15, 2015
Sep 15, 2015 at 12:48 AM UTC
Pennated souls conform themselves
By gesture unto the penitent crack of doom,
Truths sombrous tintinnabular dissolution
Like to it; crossing the rubicon
Entering the sanctum sanctorum of Mors.
The wraith gerant priest of the
Higher world weighing trammelled
Empty bottles with the funereal
Sword of Damocles, gilding
Thread and thrum eternities moribund lily.
The hollow glass of mortality
Destinies lake of fire;
First purging the dickens dead men,
Living creatures on the wrong tack
Tarred with the same brush
To an igneous second death
Pent to illume the myrtle charnel house
Of the devils bones.
ELEETE J MUIR
Jan 13, 2015
Jan 13, 2015 at 9:45 PM UTC
Pervasive night fills these dreams,
Floods these eyes,
Unsaid and unseen.
No day escapes this lurking shadow.
No phrase can change its somber tune.
Though bright the morning sun she rises,
Night follows far too soon.
Record playing on repeat.
In my mind,
Begin the downbeat.
Beyond the depths there wait tomorrows.
Behind deception bides the truth.
Among the stars we hang our wishes,
The crossroads they’ll illume.
Thorny pathways find my feet,
Heartbeat rise,
Excite my defeat
Abandoned and alone I wander
Can’t face to be irresolute.
The bitter boils up inside me
To squelch the hopeful few.
Trusting, fall into myself.
Hold this time.
Can’t say all I’ve felt.
Can longing raise a soul lain fallow?
A life that suddenly rings true.
Are dusks not meant to paint horizons,
And souls to sing the blues?
“Enough” could finish or begin
To my core
Let all of it in
Long shadows fill the paths behind me
The light ahead prepares their doom
I rise to meet my own reflection
And face the world, full bloom
Jul 20, 2021
Jul 20, 2021 at 8:10 PM UTC
are you a hero when you terminate that which can be terminated?
should we purge the filthy & hurdle the bad?
herd the good
lead them and illume this paradise we're making
Jun 23, 2012
Jun 23, 2012 at 8:01 AM UTC
There hangs a stark sky
Over the barren, wasted land.
A clan, full of promise and pride
Resides amongst a leader's command.
Brazen in Ice and Fire
In the freeze of Neptune.
Expansion, its only desire
And prophecies will illume.
A family of Flesh and Blood
The latter of in dire reception.
Through the coarse veins of crud
Lies a crude, vile sort of infection.
Stagnant of irrigation
Devoid of wildebeest hunt.
Resorted to methods of Thracians
And engulfed those without common front.
Jan 17, 2015
Jan 17, 2015 at 12:39 AM UTC
I really want her too
that illume here with a candy bar sheen
and her corsage plays a sequel
that bare a quotient ready
with delight into their masquerade.
As the moon her telltale, sublime much rockabilly
that grand ballroom with her cantankerous smile
that must wear her hat and scarf awhile, here
champagne pour bail in her cheeks tonight
oh Valhalla ware of yore beast
still shine yet but go with flash **
as Crystal stem a silvery beak tonight,
that bounce our best laid plans off the wall
and encrypt the world with only enhancement
that inquires a distant strand this avowal.
Aug 20, 2016
Aug 20, 2016 at 2:00 PM UTC
a room so dark—
so dark,
mistook for blindness,
hiding within it
a door,
whose presence made known
only by the glow of light behind it
spilling through gaps in its frame,
stabbing into the dark of
the unknown surround.
said a man
once, on the subject
“the unexamined life is not worth living”
his crass intent to
pry us from our
self imposed ignorance of self.
for—behind that door
lies the truth of a man,
freedom from ignorance owned by the shade, to
either, shed anew a light of validation, or
burn as an inferno and dictate correction.
the barrier,
held by simple latch obscuring truth’s illume.
a **** whose demand be concentration,
its twist performed by
unbiased contemplation,
honest self examination.
that hidden behind such curtain
we cannot know until its opening.
the door—our veil of untruth,
whose lift made possible by word
of a wise man.
Dec 18, 2014
Dec 18, 2014 at 4:34 PM UTC
Are my pains and troubles only temporary?
Is this meant to inspire me?
Am I suppose to withstand?
Or is that only irony?
What if the future I imagine does not come out to what it seems to me?
Will reality set in for what life means to me?
Am I that of something too profound to decide?
Or a wicked red eye in the sky?
Does my heart overule the mind?
Does an impotent blue flame lie inside?
Why is it that my heart cries for joy?
why does the world outcast the compassionate and pure at heart?
Where am I to go from adversity?
And where do I start?
Is all that we become destined to be?
Or are the things in life that take place
Part of an ongoing race?
Are we purposed in life to differ right and wrong?
Or is the intentions moreso to do what is required to live old and long?
Will the abundance of my heart sprout as flowers of the earth?
Will I illume as the moon glows the night?
Or will external circumstances dim my inner light?
Nov 15, 2011
Nov 15, 2011 at 1:07 PM UTC
~
“Float to me”
Changing directions
In a forestalled motion,
balanced on the side of truth while practicing losing my step
in the rushing waters of life…
I slip
Clinging to a lone branch
I find it blocking the sky, pulling shadows from mist
and teetering on the edge of someone’s sacred sanity
My eyes,
stern and fashioned of blinded occurrences that swallow
the light of day and the masks of sympathetic stares,
focus
For in the distance,
tapestries woven of heartbeats glisten on the ripples of a naked moon beam,
motioning to me in pleasing movements a’ dance on its reflections
Passionately in syncopated volumes she whispers,
louder than the hope now swirling in the rising swells
and broken slivers of drastic wastelands which
sit vacant in my mind
“Float to me”,
I hear as the cool waters so elegantly gather about her perfect feet
Her toes grip the rocky floor in such beauty that I fall helplessly,
allowing nature’s crest to take me, singing me sweetly to this pristine dream
Disbelief churns in fountains of doubt fed wishes and desires
as I submerge in the beauty that is her
Engulfed by white capped rapids beating faster…only my heart
She, with silken fingers plucks me from the surf,
her fragrance, lilac and magnolia, intoxicate me
We stand, shades of the deep sky and starlight beacons illume her face
As fireflies play in the trees and
our lips meet, my pulse floods with fever
Her desperate thoughts invade my elated mind and I agree
Together we plunge to the depths of forever and I slowly drown in her love
Apr 23, 2014
Apr 23, 2014 at 6:35 PM UTC
O, grieving heart, cheer up and sing
Though love only stayed but a short while;
Soon you'll be drinking again from love's spring,
Forgotten will be love's cunning guile
O, abandoned heart, dry your tears,
Crying will not bring back a lost love;
But reflect on the bliss of bygone years --
Memories are gifts from Heav'n above
O, broken heart, it's time to mend,
In due time you'll come to realize
New love may be waiting around the bend --
Be alert for blessings in disguise!
O, wounded heart, don't try to fly,
Dare not venture forth on broken wings;
Though love's warm glow fails to illume your sky,
Somewhere in the dark a bird still sings
O, mortal heart, your pain will end,
And from Life's shackles you'll be set free;
So let dead love to Heaven's throne ascend . . .
For love has its own eternity
Jul 3, 2023
Jul 3, 2023 at 12:38 PM UTC
the beauty, the resolute stillness of night
and the absence of a day's wreckage, too
is no consolation for that greater hollow
which yet darkens my countenance
and voids my soul
but in the aches of time, all shall emerge complete
if unfilled then at least whole —
holy, even — under better eyes than mine
more open eyes than mine, heavy under insomnia
so, in passing with the moon,
that complete and empty dawn will arrive by a close of the eyes, a gentle descent to sleep
which is why it cannot come so easily,
lest the waking day illume my solitude
Jul 17, 2025
Jul 17, 2025 at 5:38 AM UTC