"lengthen" poems
And if you think I'm oppressed,
covering my hair with a silken headdress-
And if you think I'm forced,
beaten, to lengthen my sleeves and elongate my shorts-
And if you think I'm afraid,
cowering under the protection of black linen shade-
You 'most certainly take note of the society's improprieties,
that the abaya I wear is thrusted upon me,
that the niqab my sisters practice is only for he;
No. My hijab is my personality, my promise to honour my femininity,
to never allow anyone, any man, to use me;
I am a woman, a human, a feminist:
no man will control me.
May 23, 2015
May 23, 2015 at 9:13 AM UTC
Moonlight Love...
I love to watch the moonlight, as it plays upon the ground..
The way it strikes the snow just right, and sparkles all around.
Showing us the way to walk, and playing in your hair..
It shines just so and then it shows, our breath upon the air.
Our Love is like the moonlight, it shows us where to walk..
On nights like these within these trees, it listens to us talk.
I pledge my love to you this night, with witness from above..
I'll be just like our moonlight, and cover you with love.
I'll softly chase the shadows, that may haunt you in the day..
Then when the night is calling, I'm here to show the way.
Like creatures of the forest night, that venture forth on wing..
The moonlight is our music, forever it shall sing.
So dance with me tonight my love, and throw your cares away..
I'll hold you close and keep you safe, till the coming of the day.
So when the shadows lengthen, the day has slowed it's pace..
I'll live again, and then I'll send, the moonlight to your face.
Feb 8, 2014
Feb 8, 2014 at 9:21 AM UTC
Inhale exhale
Counting breaths
Can’t stop the thoughts from
Flooding.
Have to stop the thoughts from
Flooding.
Before the day begins.
Before feet hit the floor.
Inhale exhale
Counting breaths
The only way to
Calm the mind.
Inhale exhale
Can’t stop the mind
Can’t stop the mind from
Running.
Lengthen breath-
Inhale 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 exhale 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
Inhale 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 exhale 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
The thoughts fly in one ear
And out the other.
**Out **** thoughts.
Out I say.**
Relax the feet
Relax the ankles
Relax the calves
Relax the knees
Relax the thighs
Relax the hips
Relax the stomach
Relax the chest
Relax the shoulders
Relax the neck
Relax the mouth
Relax the face
Relax the mind
Relax the mind
Inhale Exhale
Relax the mind
Relax the mind
Exhale 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8…
Sep 16, 2014
Sep 16, 2014 at 12:40 PM UTC
As darkness fall, the veil thin,
The year is drawing nigh.
Shadows lengthen, gather strength,
The year is drawing nigh.
The dead they stir, and look around,
The year is drawing nigh.
Tonight they walk, tonight they dine,
The year is drawing nigh.
The sinks down, she’s dying now,
The year is drawing nigh.
Beneath the hills, the dying sun,
The year is drawing nigh.
Hollow hills, they open wide,
The year is drawing nigh.
Faerie folk, the mighty dead,
The year is drawing nigh.
Samhain’s fires, burning bright,
The year is drawing nigh.
To dance around, in death’s embrace,
The year is drawing nigh.
Ancestors dead, some long gone,
The year is drawing nigh.
We tip a glass, we place a plate,
The year is drawing nigh.
Death stands up, tonight he reigns,
The year is drawing nigh.
In darkness strong, the dying year,
The year is drawing nigh.
The revelers grow deathly quiet,
The year is drawing nigh.
All knees bend and all tongue stilled,
The year is drawing nigh.
For Death takes all and all will come,
The year is drawing nigh.
The Gates of Death, they open wide,
The year is drawing nigh.
His face you meet, at Death’s great doors,
The year is drawing nigh.
A friend, a judge, a lover, a blade,
The year is drawing nigh.
His embrace is sweet, but deathly cold,
The year is drawing nigh.
In love he strips you, bone from bone,
The year is drawing nigh.
Nothing left, you pass beyond,
The year is drawing nigh.
The veil it parts, the doors swing wide,
The year is drawing nigh.
Your last strong breath, last ******
The year is drawing nigh.
And through you go, to what’s beyond,
The year is drawing nigh.
But Death’s great doors and Life’s fair doors,
The year is drawing nigh.
What’s dead and gone, will be reborn,
The year is drawing nigh.
A new breath breathed, a new day dawns,
The year is drawing nigh.
Death to Life, he takes your hand,
The year is drawing nigh.
All is gone, but all in new,
The year is drawing nigh.
The new dawn’s sun, in the east,
The year is drawing nigh.
The cold it flees, the shadows hide,
The year is drawing nigh.
Dark Samhain’s night to new year’s light,
The year is drawing nigh.
What was dead has come again.
Oct 31, 2011
Oct 31, 2011 at 2:01 PM UTC
The air is a mill of hooks --
Questions without answer,
Glittering and drunk as flies
Whose kiss stings unbearably
In the fetid wombs of black air under pines in summer.
I remember
The dead smell of sun on wood cabins,
The stiffness of sails, the long salt winding sheets.
Once one has seen God, what is the remedy?
Once one has been seized up
Without a part left over,
Not a toe, not a finger, and used,
Used utterly, in the sun's conflagration, the stains
That lengthen from ancient cathedrals
What is the remedy?
The pill of the Communion tablet,
The walking beside still water? Memory?
Or picking up the bright pieces
Of Christ in the faces of rodents,
The tame flower-nibblers, the ones
Whose hopes are so low they are comfortable --
The humpback in his small, washed cottage
Under the spokes of the clematis.
Is there no great love, only tenderness?
Does the sea
Remember the walker upon it?
Meaning leaks from the molecules.
The chimneys of the city breathe, the window sweats,
The children leap in their cots.
The sun blooms, it is a geranium.
The heart has not stopped.
5.2k
*No, no, no, Dirtbreath. I say we call the big one an elephant,
and the small one a mouse*.
Eve
I'm sure red's a better color for me.
M. Monroe
She has a face that could sink a thousand ships.
Ulysses
*Now that Hawking's dead, I'm the smartest
guy on Earth.*
D. Trump
You're too Jung to understand the Superego.
S. Freud
No. You keep it. I have enough.
B. Graham
Are you sure that's the Delaware?
G. Washington
E=Mc Donalds.
A. Einstein
Go pound salt.
Gandhi
What day is it?
Roosevelt
That's one small.... oops!
N. Armstrong
I don't remember any of my dreams.
M.L. King, Jr.
Hey, John, I can see your house from up here.
Jesus
Beaches, fields, streets, hills. Did I leave anything out?
W. Churchill
Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course I wrote 'em all.
R. Starr
It's just too big to wrap your brain around.
S. Hawking
Don't lose your head. This won't change a thing.
Robespierre
Before I was fined, I walked the line.
J. Cash
Could you lengthen the title and shorten the book?
Tolstoy's editor
What if we put the workers on conveyor belts?
H. Ford
I have a splitting headache... hmmm, interesting.
Oppenheimer
I've never liked orange juice.
N. Brown
Really? You want to blame me?
******
He stings like a butterfly.
S. Liston
#timesup #metoo
A. Boleyn
Mr. Watson. Come here. Spare me a dime?
Bell
Roebuck said he'd be back in ten minutes.
R.W. Sears
To be or to do be do be do.
Shakespeare/Sinatra
*When you call me Whitey, I get cotton pickin ****** off.*
E. Whitney
We're the team to beat!
Toronto Maple Leafs
Don't call me a Mother!
Mother Theresa
Is that a Cuban?
M. Lewinsky
Apr 30, 2018
Apr 30, 2018 at 6:50 AM UTC
It's a heart on world with my sleeve steadily exposed
A life line on a call line, dial 888 to be controlled
Puppets on a string to compose this household
The happier we'll be the more we're enclosed
Smaller spaces to lengthen the gap
Encircling our inner self control
Consuming what's left of the demons
Trying to get a refund on our soul
Love changes colors like a rhyme
Smooth and easy
Eyes like the darkness of time
Slow and steady
Yet we're still not ready for the fight
Insanity walks through the door
And just when the time is right
Our beliefs slowly melt into the floor
Mar 15, 2017
Mar 15, 2017 at 3:42 AM UTC
We will never walk again
As we used to walk at night,
Watching our shadows lengthen
Under the gold street-light
When the snow was new and white.
We will never walk again
Slowly, we two,
In spring when the park is sweet
With midnight and with dew,
And the passers-by are few.
I sit and think of it all,
And the blue June twilight dies, —
Down in the clanging square
A street-piano cries
And stars come out in the skies.
3.6k
He stays with us in winter storms
And when the garden's bleak
He hops around in sleet and hail
Appearing pale and weak.
But once the days begin to lengthen
And the worst of winter's gone
He perches high up in a tree
And begins his joyful song.
Keith Wilson. Windermere. UK. 2016.
Apr 24, 2016
Apr 24, 2016 at 12:59 PM UTC
golden streams of sun
sink, unwrap, dance,
melt into the trees
like honeycomb,
silver the ground
with their tender warmth.
the day is dying but so gently
that the shadows can only lengthen
dreaming their dreams of the night.
Sep 19, 2015
Sep 19, 2015 at 12:51 PM UTC
He clears his throat,
offers a hand,
lady afloat
begging to stand...
but where is she now?
The gentleman's moon...
his strides upon Earth
whose labors to croon?
Here, gentleman, hear
her breaths are so soft.
Need this dough like skin,
a taste so aloft?
Her pulse like a symphony,
her steps on pools glistening,
her lips your night litany,
her hands light-wrought ivory.
Gentleman she swoons!
Her hips like snow dunes,
her words gentle noons
that light up your Junes.
Yet you stay away,
your respect holds sway.
Though she is nectar,
you drink not as night
does day.
Your gentle ways
lengthen the days,
though distance kept,
you oft' purvey
a sense of love,
as she turns your way.
Apr 28, 2016
Apr 28, 2016 at 10:44 PM UTC
Give me a spring morning, far from winter’s troubles.
On an earth axis-turned toward the life-giving sun.
Announce it with tulips and trumpets of yellow daffodils.
Watch as young, colorful, impressionist, bluebell,
dogwood, snowdrop, and primrose blossoms preen,
in the candid radiance of the abaxial springtime sun.
Enjoy new life dancing, playfully on tactile wafts of warm air.
Inhale that air, freshly fragranced by flowers in luscious bloom.
Catch the bright chirp of new life and hear the humble
buzz of bees hard at their work, spreading the pollen of life.
Then lengthen these hopeful, verdant days, like a blessing.
Mar 19, 2023
Mar 19, 2023 at 1:48 PM UTC
Look up lucid, write it down.
Read a book, then skip town.
Share a smile, sell an frown.
Act a fool, act a clown.
Tell stories, try and match wits.
Complain, complain, give two *****
Catch your tantrums, throw your fits.
One hit wonders are still hits.
Shut the door, dim the lights.
Crash a party, get in fights.
Shorten days, lengthen nights.
There's no wind to fly the kites.
Watch the sky, see a flash.
Watch the road, miss a crash.
Colon followed by backslash.
A vampire weekend beats a monster mash.
But no one cares when you're human.
That's all you'll ever be.
No regrets, only lies to set the liars free.
Jul 20, 2010
Jul 20, 2010 at 9:36 PM UTC
Neon Stella Artois lights and sly hellos
It commenced as we were flew spinning
Ticket stubs and ink -stains
Oh, as our love flirted we both were seeking
Brooklyn Subway stops and ***** clothes
We perched by the equator but only when beginning
Backwards flasks and *******
Then winter solstice was challenged by spring’s springing
Strands of soft pearls and wishing wells
We shivered the anxious touch of a faux July summer’s evening
Empty bar stools and firelight
It was still bitterly February but with the mockery of songbirds floating
Two Thirty Seven A.M. and sea shells
How can the world deceive us in this fashion: fools, we accept ever-knowing
Buttered bread and hindsight
Dawn will crash with frostbite and these daisies will pay the price of their beauty’s sinning
Wine before noon and payphone bills
Wind will eviscerate this moment for once you have touched the sun the ice is more than suffocating
Dry heaving and ribbons
We were only waiting then at the heart of a train station for the stretches of shadows to lengthen
First drags of cigarettes and blue diet pills
The glitter within the dew drops stolen from our tired eyes when our first summer was stolen
Cheap motels and kitchens
We could barely exchange syllables, our melodies quarreling, our blood had thinned
Calendar pages and black lace *******
The euthanasia of the spring would have hung us too if we had breathed it in
The Last calls and lollipops
One can repose more gently in the absence of color than in the theft of sin
Bitten manicured hands and autumn leaves
We used to sleep in a room with wonders, windows, and blankets within
Midnight whispers and rooftops
It was the only place that could soften the swords in all this ruin
****** wrappers and painting supplies
Today is cruel, it cannot be summer if the world doesn’t spin
Happy hour cocktails and goodbyes
Jan 26, 2013
Jan 26, 2013 at 2:16 PM UTC
On moon-damp sheets, you slowly open my violet fig, passing halves tongue to tongue,
its seed-pearls, captive minutes embraced by our soft lips,
each velvet pulse a swallowed clock tick, unthreading the night’s camisole—unstrung
Our minutes take root inside our souls, night’s vines in green hour’s gentle grip,
soft pods burst open, figs too ripe to cradle our desires,
their wet seeds, exploring, ticking onward—dreaming of a solar eclipse
Dawn’s pallid hand already tests the window, sprouting its cruel thorns and briars,
we stack our stolen seconds like leaves against the latch, a barricade of lost cries,
yet every green minute bleeds to gold, slipping through fingers, we tire—
Seconds steep in our bellies like sour home-brewed wine highs,
bubbles of yesterday escape—tiny pale moons clinging to folds and hips,
drunk on recycled time, we speak only in overlapping echoes of whys?
One corner of the mattress folds like a calendar page—blank, stripped,
our shadows lengthen backward, seeking last night’s candlelight,
Dawn’s fiery glow becomes a vortex of memory and lust—we slip, hip to hip
A seed-shaped cog spills within; its milk is bitter sun, not honeyed night,
the soft ticking falters—our wetness rusts the teeth of fragile gears,
we press our palms to the fracture, bluffing the hunger of day’s appetite.
All swallowed instants germinate in rapture; green shoots flare wild from every tear,
morning slips through the leaf-lattice, feral, unstoppable—death,
the room sighs oxygen unearned; we wake leaf-littered, dewed, a frontier unclear
One last seed, caged behind the sternum, ticks backwards, waiting for breath,
it counts in reverse, each tick a small fist begging still to be loved,
we do not let it out; we cradle the echo, its name?
Aug 24, 2025
Aug 24, 2025 at 2:45 PM UTC
When the sky dons its robes of indigo,
I slip into a tranquil reverie where
shadows lengthen and soften,
and mirrors hold whispers of ancient stories.
A gentle breeze dances through the forest like secrets.
It’s a lullaby for a weary soul.
A gentle reminder than even in stillness,
there is movement, a world in transition.
As I stand on the threshold of day and night,
I think about all the fleeting moments
from my past self and embrace the twilight.
Oct 24, 2023
Oct 24, 2023 at 11:28 AM UTC
#
*How long wilt thou - this generation of deceit and joy – detain,
Starve, and defraud the people of our holiest reign?
Content ingloriously wasted to pass by as our falling days,
Like the flooding rains, as virtuous fools chase each other’s praise:
Till all thy fleshly allegories, now dimmed once shined so bright
As the multitudes grow stale - tarnished with each day’s new light.
Please believe me, ye youth by whose royal fruit thy must be
Gathered before ripened - else ye rot upon the tree.
Heaven itself must be sufficiently allotted, soon of late,
Like some unlucky youthful revolution born purely out of fate.
This false fate whose notions if we watch with skill,
For does not human good depend on human will?
Fortune rolls upward like lava, smoothly it does ascend,
From its first release, it takes not the bend.
But, if un-seized, it glides away like the wind
And leaves us - a late repenting fool far behind.
Now to meet with you, the you reading of this glorious prize,
As I spread these wisdom words before you as above you he flies.
Had thus Old Noah, from whose ***** we all offspring,
Not dared, when fortune called him to be the lead offering,
At the bottom of the ocean in exile he might still remain
And Heaven's sacred anointing oil would have been in vain.
Let Noah’s successional ages to your heart engage
And not shun the examples of this prophesized declining age.
For behold soon there comes three days of darkness to the skies,
As the shadows lengthen into the airs and then we slowly vaporize.*
#
May 31, 2018
May 31, 2018 at 12:52 PM UTC
Vientecico murmurador,
Que lo gozas y andas todo, &c.;
Airs, that wander and murmur round,
Bearing delight where'er ye blow!
Make in the elms a lulling sound,
While my lady sleeps in the shade below.
Lighten and lengthen her noonday rest,
Till the heat of the noonday sun is o'er.
Sweet be her slumbers! though in my breast
The pain she has waked may slumber no more.
Breathing soft from the blue profound,
Bearing delight where'er ye blow,
Make in the elms a lulling sound,
While my lady sleeps in the shade below.
Airs! that over the bending boughs,
And under the shade of pendent leaves,
Murmur soft, like my timid vows
Or the secret sighs my ***** heaves,--
Gently sweeping the grassy ground,
Bearing delight where'er ye blow,
Make in the elms a lulling sound,
While my lady sleeps in the shade below.
2.1k
Our palms press down
Muscles flow in eager rapture
Our shoulders broaden
Spines lengthen
Our hips press down
Fluid motion twisting
Around and through and above
We grow in balance
Feeling high above and far away
But here in total darkness
We see through feeling
And here in total darkness
The light in me reaches out
And tethers to the light in you.
Mar 5, 2013
Mar 5, 2013 at 3:21 PM UTC
short-handed love letters
written in the daydreams of a deliberate narcoleptic.
i send you the paper plane promises of summer
(sealed tightly in sweaty palmed envelopes)
you're not one to read poetry
yet i always manage to find feather light stanzas draped across your shoulders
held down by nothing more
than freckled thumbtacks
years fall away
like too heavy eyelashes onto cheeks
waiting to be brushed away
by the callused fingers of patient lovers
our slow and natural tendencies
our lips mimic the rate of gravity
you use a box cutter to lengthen the creases in my palm
but borrowed time
and fickle fate
will never heal heartbreak
Nov 13, 2012
Nov 13, 2012 at 4:00 AM UTC
Evening in her slippered feet
Approaches from the heat of day
Shadows in the molten light
Lengthen as they have their way
Silence in the hovered moment
Stillness in the mote of time,
The glow within a sunbeam's ray
Ensnares the warmth of joy as mine.
Drifting insects float on bye
Suspended in the evening light
Against the lace of silver birch
With gnarled trunk of speckled white.
In the dark blue, far azure
A gosshawk glides on high, aloft
A predator surveying late
For living things in farmer's croft.
A waterfall of children's laughter
Cascades through a field of green,
Overtones of golden shadow
Fills the air with love unseen.
Earthworms in their darkened tombs
Are wriggling for the coming night,
Rabbits stretch and move to grazing
Anxious for the closing light.
The chill night air descends as dew
The picnickers depart the scene,
Starlings flock to perch and roost
Whilst velvet silence hangs serene
Vaulting high above the foothills
Crowned with purple alpenglow
Taranaki's snowclad grandeur
Last to see the day light go.
Contemplation be my friend
For deep within contentment's breast
The joy of living sings it's song
And sooths my happy soul to rest.
Marshalg
Taranaki Evensong
23 October 2010
Oct 27, 2010
Oct 27, 2010 at 1:10 AM UTC
O that a week could be an age, and we
Felt parting and warm meeting every week,
Then one poor year a thousand years would be,
The flush of welcome ever on the cheek:
So could we live long life in little space,
So time itself would be annihilate,
So a day's journey in oblivious haze
To serve ourjoys would lengthen and dilate.
O to arrive each Monday morn from Ind!
To land each Tuesday from the rich Levant!
In little time a host of joys to bind,
And keep our souls in one eternal pant!
This morn, my friend, and yester-evening taught
Me how to harbour such a happy thought.
1.8k
One?
Done
Fun?
None
One
If two?
Pass through
Will do
And you?
That's two
How bout three?
Shall we see?
Bit more free
Works for me
So says three
Can we try four?
It gives us more
Not such a bore
Crack wide that door
Lead us on, four
Would we dare do five?
Tis too high to strive?
I do love this jive
Let's stop while still live
Safe with lines of five
But hear the cry of six
It tempts as time still ticks
It's not just a quick fix
But adds to this great mix
Yes, hear that call of six
Rules change as we reach seven
Words lengthen, stretch to heaven
Lines rise like bread so leavened
The changes wrought by seven
Hard as the end draws near with eight
Liked this before, now's not so great
Long lines I don't appreciate
Thanks for nothing, unruly eight
Entering the danger zone with nine
Meaning gets lost by end of the line
Despite the trouble, guess we'll be fine
Phew, we just made it through there with nine
And finally we arrive here to ten
What an intriguing journey this has been
I'm so relieved now to be at the end
So long, good night, let's sign off now with ten
Jul 23, 2018
Jul 23, 2018 at 12:20 AM UTC
Your desolate heart is the only moor to which I am barren.....
It was a Saturday in November, yea I still remember. I confessed my profound feelings to what now appears to be a hollow frame of shattered dreams. And the distance between us seems to only lengthen. Well maybe I'm okay with it, maybe I really just don't give a **** I've had enough of you deficating upon my desperate hopes. Tired of you spitting on me, tired of you ******** on me. Quite frankly, I no longer care to be here; in this feeding pit where you starve me love and fill me with false hope and pain. I can't stay here..it's draining everything that I am and try to be, can't you see..you're ******* killing me, constantly shoving me aside, guess what. The truth is, I stopped loving you for while.. now and I just feel so alive now. I feel free. No longer enchained by meaningless hi's and goodbyes, most importantly, no more compromise. I've stopped selling myself promising futures, I realised that I'd be broke if I kept buying into my beautiful sins. Sacrificing everything for the sake of you in my life, clipping my own wings and bearing a heart that knows of nothing but strife. You disgust me, the taste of your name on my tongue makes my blood boil and my face wry. You no longer have to accept me because this is goodbye for sure.I don't want you, I don't need you, I don't love you...anymore.
Apr 18, 2015
Apr 18, 2015 at 2:40 PM UTC