"isolde" poems
We talk of taxes, and I call you friend;
Well, such you are,—but well enough we know
How thick about us root, how rankly grow
Those subtle weeds no man has need to tend,
That flourish through neglect, and soon must send
Perfume too sweet upon us and overthrow
Our steady senses; how such matters go
We are aware, and how such matters end.
Yet shall be told no meagre passion here;
With lovers such as we forevermore
Isolde drinks the draught, and Guinevere
Receives the Table’s ruin through her door,
Francesca, with the loud surf at her ear,
Lets fall the colored book upon the floor.
9.6k
I heard the great tumult of noise,
Ranging from the hills of Troy,
I head Amnon’s earnest whispering,
At the banquet of the king.
I saw the stark white midnight sun,
Blind Edward John Smith on his run,
I saw John Franklin not think twice,
Before he too was claimed by ice.
I was there the fateful day,
That earth and fire claimed Pompeii,
I was there as horizons shook,
And the sand Valdivia took.
I felt Isolde’s deep pain forlorn,
As Tristan from her side was torn
I felt Young Werther try in vain,
With love in heart but lead in brain.
Yet knowing grand calamity,
I sought naught but serenity.
Longing for love, as life depends.
My suit is cold, as so my end.
Aug 30, 2010
Aug 30, 2010 at 4:14 PM UTC
Sometimes I want to shake your head from your shoulders
Try to dislodge the barbed twists of your perverse thinking
And the ideas spearing through your tissues
Like whaling harpoons that hooked their many heads deep
Latching and Leaching
Because you might have ****** your packet of Love Hearts a little too hard
Until it crumbled and fizzed in desperate ecstasy on your tongue
And the rest in the tube read MISS ME
Whenever you asked
But you are not Isolde,
Capulet, Karenina or Earnshaw
And as much as you desire the piercing pity of your broken collar bones
The caress of the lost-souls melody and the razorblades of a ribcage
The bitter corset of an appetite that pays for itself in crocodile tears
And the romance of a noose of flaxen hair
You are not Porphyria
And he is not her lover
Dec 8, 2014
Dec 8, 2014 at 12:56 PM UTC
Isolde looks from the window
of her old bedroom,
she's not been in there
since they took her
to the asylum years before.
Tristana, her lover,
is sitting on a white chair
on the lawn
talking to Isolde's mother.
Her mother has the same
pinched features,
thin lips as if drawn
across in ink,
the narrow nose,
peering eyes.
Isolde smells
the mustiness
of the room,
the curtains the same,
the wallpaper fading.
Her mother's eyes
have a look
of fear in them.
Her sister sits
beside her mother
hawk-like,
hands on the arms
of the chair,
eyes fixed
with that steady stare.
Isolde recalls
the last time
in the room:
the night they
came for her,
men in white coats,
the ambulance waiting,
flashing lights,
voices shouting,
her sister crying,
her father ordering
this and that
(the prat).
Father's dead now,
good riddance,
she muses,
running a finger
down the pane of glass,
seeing her lover
sitting there,
gesturing with her hands,
head tilted to one side.
Not once
did her mother visit her
in the asylum,
not a word sent
or love or concern
expressed.
She sits on the bed,
the springs complain,
the bedspread
pushes out dust.
She remembers Tristana
that first time
in the asylum,
that first meeting,
the side ward,
the nurse dragging her
along the passage,
cursing, gripping
her nightgown.
The fat nurse let her
drop by the bed;
Tristana sat on the floor
wide eyed,
opened mouthed.
Isolde had struck the nurse
with the flower vase,
smashed it,
flowers spread
across the floor.
The nurse's head bled.
Looked worse than it was.
She smiles.
They locked her up
for weeks for that,
saw none,
except the nurses
who fed
and bathed her
cruelly.
Worth it.
She moves on the bed,
the springs sing.
She gets up
and goes
to the window again.
Tristana is subdued now;
the mother is talking,
moving her hands in the air
as if learning to fly.
Her sister sits crossed legged,
hands on her knees.
Dumb expression.
The mother mouths words,
moves her head
to one side bird-like.
Isolde recalls
the first kiss
on Tristana's lips.
In the toilets
off the ward,
evening time,
overhead lights
flickering.
Lips meeting,
soft, wet,
eyes closed.
They slept in
Tristana's bed
in dead of night,
close for warmth,
hands holding,
bodies touching.
The mother looks up
at the window,
her eyes empty,
hollow dark holes.
She gestures to Isolde
to come down,
her thin hand
moving icily.
Isolde walks
from the window.
On the glass,
where she had breathed
breath to smear,
she had finger written,
Isolde's mind and soul
once died here.
Oct 18, 2013
Oct 18, 2013 at 7:21 AM UTC
Running rings around thirteen hours of opera
I sit spell-bound absorbing the angry music
Suppressing an urge to re-conquer Poland
Music a direct expression of world’s essence
**** passion means Israel is Wagner-free
Tristan and Isolde unplayed before Ludwig
Love and death and passion for Mathlde
Eros and Thanathos that predate Freud
Arthurian love story interrupted by Minna
Overwhelming influence frustrates his peers
Worried that his brilliance is simply anger
That guarantees you feel undead tonight.
Nov 25, 2012
Nov 25, 2012 at 9:27 AM UTC
We loved you
Pumpkin pie
And you
Bahzie boy
My bridge to the
Equine kingdom
Mitten, you made
My wife like cats
Begins a tragedy of three
A tale of other kitties
Stanley wandered too far
A tragedy of traffic
Babad not as far…
Both waited for us
No one wants to die alone
But still, we’ve been blessed
Goldie, I’m glad
You loved me
Little dog with
A heart too big
Thank you, Sue
For trusting us with Trudy
What a lucky man I am
To garner such love and trust
And of course, biggie guy,
He who once was named Hunter:
Gunther.
(Inset sadness here)
Chessy taught responsibility
With insulin shots at 6 & 6
Tristan y Isolde
(Stanley and Zolda)
Operatic lives lived
As comedy/tragedy
And, et-hem; yes
Even you, Ms. Berry
Past denizens
Of Chateau Flobo
Let’s not not leave out
The current cohorts:
Free spirit, wild child
Lucky Ducky
Biggie boy found you
You adopted us
Ms. Black-in-the-box
Moved herself in
And Fred—well,
Fred is just being Fred
They all found us
Not the other way around
From a big family,
We’ve loved/love a big family
May 24, 2019
May 24, 2019 at 7:24 PM UTC
We are at the top of a walk up somewhere. There is a skylight above us and the sunlight washes over us, it is so bright that it is hard to see. Your in a sleeveless T shirt and I'm in some hippy dress. We are both laughing and someone calls to us... We look up and smile...It's the same smile, the same face, we are one!
"My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears" (Tristan& Isolde)
Ilysf
Jul 18, 2014
Jul 18, 2014 at 6:26 PM UTC
I am Tristan, madly in love with Isolde
a woman torn between the will of love and of status of a queen without love
and I
embark on this daisy
i feel your neck on the side of my nose
and i lift your hair and i feel the white pedal.
your face
small and yet again you are a small man.
I am Tristan and i am destined to love a woman
that will never be mine
only in the shadows of the night
will your kisses ever taste so sublime.
Dec 23, 2013
Dec 23, 2013 at 4:33 PM UTC
Isolde stands at the window
of her old room. Her mother
and sister sit around the small
white table, talking to Tristana.
Cobwebs hang from the metal
curtain rail, a dead spider hangs
like a dead parachutist, a dried
up fly on the white painted
windowsill. The first few days
out of the asylum seem odd,
seem to unbalance her. Tristana
seems engaging well with her
icy mother, her sister looks on
anxiously. My room, she had
told Tristana. My bed, she had
added pointing to the bed
pushed against a wall. In the
asylum, some weeks back,
she and Tristana had ******
The fat nurse had caught them
and reported. There had been
giggles and guffaws in the staff
room afterwards. Now she and
Tristana were free, government
clearout, new policy, economical
necessities. She stares at her
mother’s head move from side
to side, her jaw opening and
closing like the shark she was.
Just a quick visitation, she said.
Her mother’s eyes and mouth
opened with shock when they
turned up. Not staying, she had
informed. Visiting the once, she
had said. Her mother seemed
relieved, her sister white as a
sheet, nodded her head like
some cheap doll. The room
was cold, colder than before.
She’d been taken from here
those years back, screaming,
held between men in white,
out into the cold night. Be gone
soon, she mutters, rubbing a
finger down the pane of glass,
making a rude noise, all heads
turn toward her room from
the garden below. Goodbye
old room, time for us to go.
Dec 14, 2012
Dec 14, 2012 at 8:13 AM UTC
You told me you loved me,
You swore it to be true,
But just as Tristan lost Isolde,
I lost you.
My memories are fading,
It has all been such a blur,
Love and happiness in abundance,
And gone within a year.
Love is fickle,
As changing as the tides,
Lust is more honest,
But never wise.
For all my effort,
And all my will,
Love was never mine,
But always yours to ****
I won't believe those words again,
Nor the racing of my heart,
And just like Romeo and Juliet,
My world will fall apart.
May 29, 2013
May 29, 2013 at 6:43 PM UTC
Though we may be meant for different people in another time
Let me slip off your heels while you loosen my tie
Till the potion wears off let’s live the lie
May 20, 2019
May 20, 2019 at 6:59 PM UTC
As I lay my head on your chest each night
I wonder if Adam’s heart beat the same way,
When Eve pressed her ****** body against his
Both of them dreaming - secretly- of heaven.
I wonder if Isolde kissed Tristan like I kiss you;
Drinking from him, as if their passion
Would douse hell’s fires instead of fuel them.
I wonder if Paris looked at Helen the way you look at me;
As if the world started and stopped in her eyes
And everyone’s fate hung from the curve of her lips.
I wonder if Samson was as trusting as you readily are
When Delilah tied him to the kitchen chair
And cut his strength away from him.
And as we drift off to sleep,
Hearts beating in (almost) perfect time,
I wonder if we are as doomed
As history’s great lovers-
If tragedy and true love are as intertwined
As we are between my sheets.
And while I know my dreams will be full
Of Prince Charmings that look like you,
I can never remember if the endings,
Always slipping away like sand through my fingers,
Are written by Disney, or the Brothers Grimm.
Sep 21, 2019
Sep 21, 2019 at 11:18 AM UTC
Stanley and Zolda
Kitties before tragedies
Knew nothing of opera
As they came home with us
For their beginnings and endings.
"She walked up to me
And she started to purr
With her big gold eyes
And her dark grey fur,
Oh! My Zolda!
Zoe-El-Dee-A, Zolda"
Magnificent Stanley!
Tiger of Freshwater;
Fishbowl yard too small
Wandered far afield—
Too far too soon.
Zolda kept close
Big Buddha girl.
Queen of hearth and home
Friend to two big dogs
Tolerant of cats after cats.
Tristan and Isolde
Chose us as many would.
Stanley taught us tragedy
Zolda rests in peace.
A tale of two kitties.
Jun 11, 2017
Jun 11, 2017 at 4:55 AM UTC
Isolde, listen to me.
You must go home to your husband.
Go quickly.
Tristan's love is poison.
It will **** you both.
Save yourself.
Save him.
Turn around, go home.
Everything depends on this courageous act.
Tristan is not the golden love you long for.
Send him away - back to the mist from where he came.
Yes, look toward the mist, now and then,
to remember how close you came to
the dragon's breath.
Oct 9, 2016
Oct 9, 2016 at 1:47 AM UTC
The parrots
fly
in the boundless
sky
They
will return
to their nests
at dusk
Home sweet
Home!
Their names
are
Heer
Ranjha
Layla
Qays
Shirin
Farhad
Romeo
Juliet
Tristan
Isolde
Their pupils
are crystalline
Their resplendent
feathers
are iridescent
They gather
the honey
of love
Dec 7, 2022
Dec 7, 2022 at 3:17 AM UTC