"keening" poems
Body of ocean, milk and sky,
We are tangled in the hope of night.
The lips of the milky way, creaming us,
Stains and is **** with a taste keening;
All is creation. My meteors crash
Into your ruptured Earth. I flame
Upon your must and moisted furrows
And my toes are locked, rooted in yours.
Body of ocean, milk and sky,
In the deserts of the day you are true
Oasis. The curves and waft of your sands
Seethe and sodden my barren plains,
Are erasing all my wandering memories
Of an endless sky and now your eyes
Are the only stars I know, and your skin;
A sheet that holds the heavens shimmering.
Body of ocean, milk and sky,
Your ******* are the heaving of grasses
And wind, loft and laden in the rounded
Hills, a hoard of ****** bread, bountiful,
Ripe and strange. Your hair is an endless
Savannah, your valleys are gold and honeyed
With milk, seared, filled by my penetrating sun.
In passion we play; low on earth and deep in sky.
May 27, 2012
May 27, 2012 at 2:49 PM UTC
‘You’re so wet for me baby’ they say
‘You’re not saying no’
Rinse repeat
It hurts I say
‘That’s normal ‘
It is what it is what it is what it is
My words stop
‘You’re so quiet’ they say
If I unzip my abused vocal chords I won’t be able to stop the noise
Keening screaming bursting like a dam
It’ll fill up my head
My ******* bone marrow
Where do I begin and where do you end flush against me
I am good at being quiet
I am good at being small
I am good at being needed
I am good at pleasing others
I am good at saying yes when I mean;
Stop
Get me out
You are choking me
I can’t breathe
There is blood on my teeth
On my hands
I held you after you assaulted me for the first time and you told me about what was plaguing your mind
So I comfort you
Rinse repeat
Tell you I’ve got you through gritted teeth
Is that so bad is that so bad I am needed so why is it so ******* bad
You fill my lungs acrid and burning
Inhale exhale
Inhale exhale
Wd and vcka coat your lips like a gaudy lipgloss
Wash away the taste of you
Clean my teeth with dettol
Empty my veins clean the dirt and grime away
Trying to forget the way you coat my teeth
Your mouth is so good baby’ you say
It is bad honey and expired milk
It is not being touched since
It is not sleeping
It is wanting to be held but being terrified of the thought
To be held is to be vulnerable
Split me open
Look inside
Apr 25, 2023
Apr 25, 2023 at 8:45 AM UTC
When I am touching the soil or the floor or the mattress of my bed,
I am connected and solid on the ground -
I am part of something bigger.
Everything rolls and pulses and convulses and seizes underneath me
And nothing is still, but alive and rippling like water.
I am bound to the Earth,
And that makes me better
Than when I am afloat.
At those times,
I feel nothing but
Aching longing and a keening desire
To feel close to something else, be it breathing or beating
And the fact that I am really very alone
And rather more independent than I want to be
And that I can survive by myself
Makes me quite, quite scared.
May 13, 2014
May 13, 2014 at 1:47 PM UTC
Washing, ironing, cooking, cleaning
The work is never done!
Lunching, shopping, relaxing, reading
I’ve heard is much more fun.
Sweeping, mopping, dusting, shining
Who thinks up all these gigs?
But what I really want to know right now
Is who left open the barn door to let in the pigs?
Mowing, weeding, trimming, seeding
Are mans work, but I’m all on my own
I gave birth to a virtual army
But housework is their No Go Zone!
Yelling, screaming, crying, keening
Achieves naught but my puffy face
I’ve given up such futile exercises
That puts no one in their place.
I hear “Can you help me please”
They hear “Blah Blah Blah”
Maybe I need to learn sign language
One gesture can go so far!
To this end I have ultimately decided
And I really do think this is for the best
To sit right down with drink in hand and
Let the little piggies wallow in their own mess!
24/07/2010
Feb 15, 2015
Feb 15, 2015 at 5:56 AM UTC
Once again I am
entangled
in a *********
with Chaos and Doom.
Nothing **** or new
about this trysting.
I have known them
since chopper nights
thick and dark
as blood fudge;
since divorce nights
of keening despair
and humbling rage;
since madhouse nights
of weirding drugs
and weeping angels;
since jail nights
of lonely screams
and obscene rants.
We go way back,
and here they are again
old, grim lovers,
demanding and deadly,
but oddly comfortable.
From morning until evening,
they smile and taunt
until night comes,
we snuggle up,
and I escape into dreams,
the only privacy
I own.
- mce
Apr 11, 2015
Apr 11, 2015 at 9:09 PM UTC
GOOD Father John O'Hart
In penal days rode out
To a Shoneen who had free lands
And his own snipe and trout.
In trust took he John's lands;
Sleiveens were all his race;
And he gave them as dowers to his daughters.
And they married beyond their place.
But Father John went up,
And Father John went down;
And he wore small holes in his Shoes,
And he wore large holes in his gown.
All loved him, only the shoneen,
Whom the devils have by the hair,
From the wives, and the cats, and the children,
To the birds in the white of the air.
The birds, for he opened their cages
As he went up and down;
And he said with a smile, "Have peace now';
And he went his way with a frown.
But if when anyone died
Came keeners hoarser than rooks,
He bade them give over their keening;
For he was a man of books.
And these were the works of John,
When, weeping score by score,
People came into Colooney;
For he'd died at ninety-four.
There was no human keening;
The birds from Knocknarea
And the world round Knocknashee
Came keening in that day.
The young birds and old birds
Came flying, heavy and sad;
Keening in from Tiraragh,
Keening from Ballinafad;
Keening from Inishmurray.
Nor stayed for bite or sup;
This way were all reproved
Who dig old customs up.
3.7k
I wake up
There is moisture on my cheek
A sound so broken
Startled me awake
I see
I made it
That sound is me
I was reaching
My hand in the place
Where your head would rest
The tear drop falls
I hear a keening
It's me
I've lost my meaning
It has been so **** long
I've recovered
Over and over
But like an addict
I relapse
I muffle the sound
Don't want the neighbors to know how messed up I am
There are two pillows
One between my legs
Where our legs should be intertwined
Where I can hold it to my chest
I hold it close and it silences my sobs
Unlike you
It will not abandon me
The other is beneath my head
It used to be
A platform
Where we could look at each other
Now it's empty
Listening to the gut wrenching cries
And catching the tears
I still cry
For you
For the closeness I miss
For the comfort I have only ever felt
With You
I whimper in my dreams
My partner shut me out
I don't sleep
You were everything
But now you scarcely even speak
You're leaving me again
And this time
I can't be strong
I can't bear it
You are my sunshine
Through the fog of depression
You are the warmth
In my frozen heart
You make me happy
And then you break me
Please this time
For me
Either stay
Forgive me
Or
Let me break my promise
Because I've tried
And I can't do this
Not with you not filling
Any capacity in my life
In some way I need you
A broken way
Like the young girl who got lost in the thunderstorm
Like I was when you first knew me
Trust me
Confide in me
Let me be your comfortable
As you have always been mine
Oct 9, 2014
Oct 9, 2014 at 7:01 AM UTC
The snow leopard mother runs straight
down the mountain.
Elk cliff. Blizzard.
Hammers keening
into the night.
Her silence and wild
falling is a compass
of hunger and memory. Breath
prints on the carried-away body.
This is how it goes so far away
from our ripening grapes and lime,
coyote eyes ******* the canyon.
Yet
we paddle out in our ice boat
headed toward no future at last.
O tired song of what we thought,
stillness crouches like a prow.
We break the ice gently forward.
If I want to cling to anything
then this quiet of being the last
to know about our lives.
Copyright @ 2014 by Jennifer K. Sweeney. Used with permission of the author. This poem appeared in Poem-a-Day on June 27, 2014.
Jun 27, 2014
Jun 27, 2014 at 11:25 AM UTC
The poleax of Paroket
a pietersite soul sheath
the head which is not,
keening like a red horse
between two lions
slaying men and peace
with the hymns of ascent,
swatting humanities darkness
thrilling the sword of Michael;
First Cause , sweeping the graveyard
dust garden of Magna Mater touting
predicant trappings of the etheric
revenant a self compassing
mandala who is all right side invoked
By laudible Yahwistic nutation.
ELEETE J MUIR.
Oct 24, 2012
Oct 24, 2012 at 2:13 PM UTC
I remember when you took me
corkscrewing down kaleidoscope tunnels for the last time
mounting hummingbirds to fly through the crystallized sky
air splashing against our skin
like an intoxicating perfume, dizzying
old daydreams, new friends like
humans with spectrum eyes and hair that coiled around their shoulders like serpents, all donning galaxy cloaks
reptilian monsters that sprouted raven feathers while chasing each other through smoke trees
silhouettes with rusty-nail teeth who danced like leaves in a gale
inky, spindly limbs reaching
trying to catch the moon
fingers entangled like a dreamcatcher
We were more then the kings and queens, heroes, idols
We were gods,
ruling from the velvet mountains to the silken seas,
everything beneath the candlesmoke clouds and the caramel sun that drips like wax
everything shining beneath the stars
made out of that smoldering purple dust we know so well
always whispering to us in scritch-scratch voices
reciting elegies and hush-hush songs of longing
but then,
reality ignites and burns beneath us as we soar,
elysian fields crumbling,
flames consuming the wonderland we’ve built
that is nothing but a paper thin house of tarot cards
the future written with seeping poison ink
We are left keening in the ashes,
tears to late to douse the inferno
but maybe
they will help some seedling fester beneath the scorched earth
Mar 8, 2013
Mar 8, 2013 at 6:19 PM UTC
These soft stones you call stars
claw at ravens, underneath the skull of your irony.
We are not without our useful futilities -
That function as the only spiral
of our narrow chasm
yawning in the wicked mist that tingles in the nerve-dead breath, your charms are few -
well met and the hour has lost it's keening dread...
Where the hourglass slept -
Things are not the things we name things, alas
Our lexicon corrupts the numb jest -
the dumb joke that chokes the joy out of dominion
and bloats the vulture
till it simply
explodes.
You're next.
Oct 26, 2012
Oct 26, 2012 at 3:37 PM UTC
I am keening
In lament
bewailed at this notion.
Contempt for structure, value and discipline is acceptable.
Jeremiad
A parent can't parent but would be praised for "friending" rather than tending to their child's growth.
Hippie tricksters and hipster is all the craze with new age bad zones and soft tones
Then everyone moans and claim the lack of parenting is to blame when they go columbine and spray bullets to deal with the torment.
I'm sick of the news and its pro no rules avocation
Sick of the pop trend of life is always a dead end
Sick of fly by night "let them be and hope they make it" attitudes
When a little hug and a quick "let me show you" can make our youths guide the progress rather than tear it down.
I little input is appreciated, accepted and acknowledged
But not mandatory
Be good be rewarded, be bad be without
Very self explanatory.
Those in between that goal are an obstacle not a hero
I want greatness for my child
Not mediocrity to a zero.
Parent with your experience and regulation
Not google and trending
See the end and before you begin and preempt the blind pretending.
Cuz today is not ok
When we fear tomorrow
Cuz yesterdays ways were forgotten.
From one father to the next
-Alexis J Meighan-
Oct 22, 2012
Oct 22, 2012 at 11:25 PM UTC
You’ve tamed the beasts -
my lovely Lord -
the twisted troll
the chucky doll
the banshee keening on the marsh
You whipped me to the temple
(they say you were too harsh)
these cravings flame insatiable
a harpy gorging fatty flesh
i ****** the thorns into your eyes
and cackled as they bled:
behold God’s raving jest!
then found you loved me best.
like wild waves and wind
You stilled at Galilee
such savage ache and violent lust
You lull with tender potency
once more a child
quiet, wide-eyed
my head rests on
the Master’s knee
Apr 1, 2012
Apr 1, 2012 at 10:21 AM UTC
.
Body of ocean, milk and sky,
We are tangled in the hope of night.
The lips of the milky way, creaming us,
Stains and is **** with a taste keening;
All is creation. My meteors crash
Into your ruptured Earth. I flame
Upon your must and moisted furrows
And my toes are locked, rooted in yours.
Body of ocean, milk and sky,
In the deserts of the day you are true
Oasis. The curves and waft of your sands
Seethe and sodden my barren plains,
Are erasing all my wandering memories
Of an endless sky and now your eyes
Are the only stars I know, and your skin;
A sheet that holds the heavens shimmering.
Body of ocean, milk and sky,
Your ******* are the heaving of grasses
And wind, loft and laden in the rounded
Hills, a hoard of ****** bread, bountiful,
Ripe and strange. Your hair is an endless
Savannah, your valleys are gold and honeyed
With milk, seared, filled by my penetrating sun.
In passion we play; low on earth and deep in sky.
.
Jul 20, 2017
Jul 20, 2017 at 4:37 PM UTC
I am keening
In lament
bewailed at this notion.
Contempt for structure, value and discipline is acceptable.
Jeremiad
A parent can't parent but would be praised for "friending" rather than tending to their child's growth.
Hippie tricksters and hipster is all the craze with new age bad zones and soft tones
Then everyone moans and claim the lack of parenting is to blame when they go columbine and spray bullets to deal with the torment.
I'm sick of the news and its pro no rules avocation
Sick of the pop trend of life is always a dead end
Sick of fly by night "let them be and hope they make it" attitudes
When a little hug and a quick "let me show you" can make our youths guide the progress rather than tear it down.
I little input is appreciated, accepted and acknowledged
But not mandatory
Be good be rewarded, be bad be without
Very self explanatory.
Those in between that goal are an obstacle not a hero
I want greatness for my child
Not mediocrity to a zero.
Parent with your experience and regulation
Not google and trending
See the end and before you begin and preempt the blind pretending.
Cuz today is not ok
When we fear tomorrow
Cuz yesterdays ways were forgotten.
From one father to the next
-Alexis J Meighan-
Oct 22, 2012
Oct 22, 2012 at 11:27 PM UTC
I asked the mule just yesterday
Whether he ever envies the bay
Who burrows her soft, brown nose in the oats
Laid out for her pleasure, to brighten her coat.
The mule responded, with just a hint of chagrin,
“I know nothing of the world or the way I should live;
There are others who tell me this for my own good, thus:
My life is blissfully simple, yet lush—
“Lush,” he continued, while he swatted the flies
Gathered round his muddy coat and panicked eyes,
“Lush is my life that they make so secure:
By bringing me down, they make me demure.
“And,” he concluded, with a wheezing sigh,
“It’s for my own good that I’m covered with flies,
And for the good of the people that the bay gets the oats,
While I struggle and toil catching flies with my coat.”
I meant to ask the mule again
On the issue of his grievous chagrin,
But a crowd led the keening bay out of her stall,
And the world stopped to answer her demanding call.
Aug 15, 2010
Aug 15, 2010 at 11:17 PM UTC
in my mind, i counted down
the breaths until i was almost
gasping, reaching out to exhale
just in time to stay alive, and i am
conscious enough to close my eyes
and describe this feeling as
breathless
short words in each pause, and i am
only listening with half of my heart
but the meanings are not lost on me, no
i am aware of the definition of this feeling
short words joined spell
breathless
call me drunk, call me unsteady, call
the emergency line just in time
to lift me off the floor
but in reality, the more i sink down
the less i need saving, so just
take this as a sign that we should
fall together, call me by anything
other than my name, call me
breathless
breathless as i breathe in, breathless
as my lungs are filled between the words
that form my ribs and crack my skull
and bend my spine, and as our fingers intertwine
the oxygen spills forth from skin to skin
and even my hands are having trouble
staying steady, as life rushes in
while the world disappears
and it all falls apart while we fall in time
with the rise of your chest and the downbeat of mine
and the constant press of carbon dioxide
against my cheek begins to lessen, and i am blessed
with keening, sweet silence
and through the clouds my mind is clear
with the knowledge that there's nothing wrong
with being breathless
Feb 4, 2014
Feb 4, 2014 at 11:50 PM UTC
she spoke to me, on the daffodil sweetness of the pasture
while the grasses, waving, muttered their moist message on the wind
of rot, and renewal,
(but hold your lips, be still for an explosion of intimacy, for a moment)
'Are those a constellation?' she asks.
"The Pleiades."
'You don't know that.'
she doesn't care where the car begins, exhaling gently, to stop
and she commends its forward motion
(the keening love of a sodium light
and forgetfulness in every bone of my body)
I love the thrum of it, below my feet,
murmuring vibrato in the pedals.
They have a Huck Finn cave display at Disneyworld. In Adventure Island, or somewhere, or one of us, deep in the vastness of spines and fingers.
Its fiberglass walls are a portrait of America -
the glean of dew a reflection of that spirit
that drove us over the borders, the rivers, to Oregon,
so we could love under a naked moon,
and renounce our lives of glee, and security
for the bright unsettled plantation of the starless fields.
'You don't know a constellation from a cloud of dandelion seeds.'
But oh, my relentless pioneer love, I do - I know a constellation
is made of stars, and rough determination, and I know that,
love is a today thing, and we are yesterday people
that pain is tomorrow, and we will always be children of the dusk preceding
destined, dear, to find our love receding
Are you prepared, or will the wilderness this time swallow you?
Feb 23, 2010
Feb 23, 2010 at 10:46 AM UTC
~
Saturn Jupiter Mars,
three blind mice running
up the clock to find freedom.
starlight stairs in abyss,
cities of the interior ring
carry a dangerous cargo: citizens.
t-minus one/this is fear
I am no astronaut,
I'm a refugee, bleeding hands pressed
tight to the barbed-wired fence.
we play charades from the window,
lunar phases keening
in the tender light of these infant wars.
t-minus one/this is fear
farewell threshold on laudanum,
the grifted gift of the Joe Blakes
painted from memory.
the far off observation
telescoping my fear, leading me
to believe I'm hiding in plain view.
~
Aug 12, 2023
Aug 12, 2023 at 11:15 AM UTC
The black silk of spiders web,
Intricate as fallen dreams,
Where petals cling to sweetened breath,
And whispers tickle sleep,
Spilling amber into the chenille of my shadow...
A midnight sun melts horizons,
Veiled in colour rush
Clouds peel, silver edges,
Where...
Yesterday's half light fingers reach out,
Touching me;
Intoxicating my restless need...
I unfold
Sepals bending beneath folds of memory,
A sirocco wind twirled in hazy lace,
Brushes my breast,
A sigh upon the dip of my throat;
Like sutras, mouthed upon bare skin...
"Yours", he whispered.....
The peak and flow of timelessness never touched me;
Touched US; just
Syllables laying soft on skin, brushing silk,
Sliding into softened togetherness;
Blush rising the caress, of
Flesh against flesh, searing the stain
Of crimson sighs....
Brazen,
I yearned his breath,
An ivory utterance,
Mellow,
Kissing the back of my throat,
Teasing the primitive chant;
Wild, I was;
I am... flaunting the lascivious
Scorching nature of Woman...
Lathering love, scintillating a sugar melt,
Lapping 'The love pulse';
Each pause, a flame licking my skin;
I have become,
A fascination of steel in lace,
Blossoming
As passion's bite pierces...
Darkened eyes roam my face,
Painting me with lust's stain,
Moons glow, whispers, slowly across male sinew,
A whisper of breath, dances my arching neck;
A lovers kiss rests in my throats hollow;
My heart rages to
Free the fury pounding...yet still I whisper.......
Dark heat blooms;
A waltz of wildness, that strains at each whimper,
And moisture, slides to quiver,
A pulsing ache, echoing,
Throbbing to the beat of a lustful song;
Sighs etching upon peach satin essence
As dew drops fuse,
Layered on air...
The raw drum beat of two pulses;
My body, curved for his blessing,
Skin glistening on this wheel of rhythms;
I am...slave to his craving mouth;
Nails bite palms in clenched fists,
"Don't stop,
Don't"...
Shuddering, trembling,
Remembering
The keening cry of euphoric bliss.........
Aug 15, 2012
Aug 15, 2012 at 4:26 PM UTC
in a dark autumn forest, five creatures
strangely glow, cold peaked ears are blue,
rhythms of thudding, scudding boots
full of youth, synchronized they run,
outlined in neon, nearly covered in fur,
running amok in the hungry dark.
what do they search for in the dark?
all keening, these tempestuous creatures.
what propels them? what makes their fur
stand on end? faces an oxygen-less blue
as arms are locked and strong legs run
with the heavy monotony of feet in boots.
driven by laughter and labored breath, boots
thunder up dewy hills, disturbing the dark
loam underfoot, disheveled as the wind runs
through and into and throughout these creatures,
and the trees, and the strange aura of blue
surrounding a juggling man with hair like wolf fur.
he is levitating, has eyes like a burning fur-
nace, is manipulating boxes of light, wears boots
that make him seven feet tall, his is the blue
of martyrs, of imagination sacrificed to dark
forces, alight like clicking live wires the creatures
tumble on, finding a new reason to run
toward a long, narrow, white hallway they run
across an empty street, a nearby raccoon's fur
bristles as they break all boundaries, these creatures,
all sharp claws and fearless teeth and stomping boots,
assault the stillness of closed doors and early dark
morning eyes just beginning to distinguish the blue
of the sun's prologue, a deep and melancholy blue.
charging the hall doors, they dance and thump and run
down the shadowed interior, adjacent rooms dark
but for the lights of the lonely and static cat fur.
on wooden floors the cacophonic burst of boots
rumble like wild animal's hooves, here come the creatures!
and as the sun illumines dark corners in orange and blue,
through untidy mists these creatures continue to run,
all flailing limbs and matted fur and brawling boots.
Nov 27, 2011
Nov 27, 2011 at 3:15 AM UTC
Lone seabird in a late dawning,
Sickles the gray rays of the sun,
Here on a ridge I can see aways,
Skerries, blasted by seas parade.
The moon fades as sun is rising,
My hair is groped in wind on fire,
In the late morning suns' glowing,
My breath uncatched as the wave.
Lone seabird in old sky forlorning,
Searches for a proud fish breaking,
In the frosts of broke tides trawling,
My heart sails above gusts keening.
Oct 16, 2015
Oct 16, 2015 at 4:12 AM UTC