"leviathans" poems
They set off from white rocks,
red geraniums, blue tile,
and let the green sea
lift and drop their ships far above the white foam waves.
The stony islands that were home
were swallowed in minutes by the hungry Atlantic
but they hunted the big fish,
the giant whales with human eyes
who rolled and sang and swam
in oceans a continent away.
They came from Sao Jorge, Sao Miguel
Faial, Pico, Terceira, Horta -
Nine island emeralds set in a black volcanic chain,
neither of the old country nor the new:
Halfway there and halfway gone -
secret jewels of the Portuguese sailors.
They sailed into unknown waters,
south around tropical shores
where dragons smoked and writhed on the rocks
and birds with brilliant red and yellow plumage
rose in clouds around their heads.
Then north, and north, north again
to colder waters
where sea lions barked and lunged
at the strange massive wooden beast
that coursed the waters,
strung with brown bodies swaying
on the lines and cursing the sails.
North still they swept
casting contemptuous eyes on
the cheap turquoise waters and monstrous slow turtles
of the Sea of Cortez.
Coming up from the desert, past the palms and the yucca,
the Joshua tree and Spanish daggers,
they chased their smooth grey prey,
riding the vast Pacific on their wooden island,
herding the leviathans onto their spears,
adventurers with an audience of only
gulls and sky and seal.
Until they sailed too close one day
to a rock-strewn shoreline
and saw the golden hills.
Gnarled oaks like grandmothers from home
with orange poppy jewels at their feet,
missions strung like beads in a ruby marked rosary.
The boats slowed, ****** in by a Scylla of soil
rich and brown and loamy
waiting to be seeded with grapes and apricots
peaches, avocados, lettuce, alfalfa,
fertile and heavy with sweet promise.
And the whales sang and the lions barked and the gulls cried
but the sailors were entranced, encharmed, ensorcelled.
The treacherous sea, the mysterious deep, the stony jewels of home,
called and wept
and waited in vain for the sailors
- beached and grounded -
cutting not waves but earth,
tracking seasons not whales,
seduced by dirt.
Nov 29, 2014
Nov 29, 2014 at 9:51 PM UTC
Gemini in seasonable evening,
serenely swirling in Septemberous
ferris wheels
reeling in the vast domain
of lonesome leviathans
and witch-fires;
nowhere bound in the boundless fecundity
[ the feral joys of creation... ]
twins
meander in gravity's
well of souls,
swollen with unknowns and proteins;
golden rods in pointless foam
brewing the elixir vitae
in the Dippers cup. the Milky Way,
a wayward gush
from an ancient Mother Goddess,
plump and shameless, pumping teats
to nurse worlds
infused with divine rays of gamma and x...
why set dark apart
from firmament burning
spheres?
dragons
must clutch eggs in the void
as much
as fork tongue white dwarfs.
of course, the Source
unfolds
as Love does. it's purpose,
in thrall of fearless veracity,
spinning yarns for glad garments
to clothe the naked dread
of such fearful symmetries
as roam the wild delights
of the infinite
meringue.
the Pi
on the window sill,
tempting the circular frame of reference
to square with the sublime Will.
another Fibonacci in your
bedpost,
to better hobnob with
broomsticks.
everything annihilates hatred.
from within,
we sojourn to sovereign super-continents
of opulent peace.
profound realities surge serpentine
with Meaning.
we are outdone on the inside by small minds
and farcical
hearts.
so at night
look up.
Love's Tongue Is
Love's
Word.
Apr 11, 2013
Apr 11, 2013 at 1:31 PM UTC
The day I opened a Bible was a tale of two cities,
The best and the worst of times,
I could no longer lay back and leave the sand in my hourglass,
watch the days of my life drift,
while logans lurk,
wolverine around the brook in the forest,
looking to claw the hope away,
make a ridge between the family I claimed to love.
There seems to be harmony in passions,
But not even Timmy knows which spell Tabitha will cast to cause more division.
The continent of the canine always barking with it's mouth open,
Feed me,
We cry,
now we are fat with corruption,
preying on the piety of poverty,
prophiting leviathans,
the cultish land with a superstition,
fearful never able to hear the mission.
We hold fast but not to the word,
starving ourselves from understanding,
traditions trump truth,
as we defecate more dangerous nonsense into our ear holes,
perhaps we're better off,
we have some peace and food,
we don't have the rat race,
maybe I've been too sheltered,
failing to truly discern the state of the land that houses me.
I couldn't even see that my house was burning but it was cool if it was watered down by a firetruck .
I used to think that every African knows Jesus. Sometimes I act like I don't.
-Kanyanta
Feb 8, 2018
Feb 8, 2018 at 3:11 PM UTC
On the mud flats of Padma Delta
where the mighty Ganges slides
into the Bay of Bengal
ships come to die.
Rusting oil tankers,
container ships from Panama
passenger liners,
and cargo ships from Zanzibar
North Sea fishing boats
research vessels and mother ships
anything that floats
each one has made its final trip.
Steel Leviathans
low tide beached
oil-slick stuck.
Metal monoliths
****** deep
into black sand.
The people of Sitakunda
come marching, ants
across the slippery surface
of diesel sand
to pick the carcasses apart.
Barefoot, with only blow torches
hammers and brute strength
wrenching rivets, nuts and bolts
breaching beams and deck
splitting welded seams
until the hulls are gutted
ribbed struts broken down
and torn from the edges of shape
Bit by bit
they scour and empty
right down to the core.
Bit by bit
they carry *****
to the waiting shore.
Where melting pots are kept boiling
giant stock pots stewing goodness
in a broth
but metallic flavours and oily spiced stench
hang in the misty bleakness of the bay
Skeleton hulks shift and ride
lurching, lifting with the tide
rolling, dangerous still
collapsing, with groaning creak
to maim, to crush and ****
the daring, the slow and the weak.
© M.L.Emmett
Nov 10, 2015
Nov 10, 2015 at 10:29 AM UTC
New mildew mania, oh man-of-war
Live by the letter, and **** for the car
The dreamers, constrained by the fog they can’t see
I uttered this song in Breakaway Alley
A wandering blonde in the restless air
Their kids, half-afraid that they’re halfway to nowhere
Think what you may, they are not in a trance
Wield what they say and you’ll find that you dance
Upon every row, lies a flag waving by
Apartment gravestones kissing up to the sky
Now, must we try so hard for fake jubilee?
The happy ones live in Breakaway Alley
In Breakaway Alley lies the sun
Breakaway Alley is on the run
All the country crows, they’ve committed a crime
Each of their wings, flapping mad out of time
To fly with such freedom yet stay so cloudbound
Cacophonous sounds fighting for our own ground
The buds only look up for leviathans
To take them to the realm they misunderstand
To pity the fool that does not try to flee
We sit on our stools in Breakaway Alley
In Breakaway Alley lies the sun
Breakaway Alley has emptied the guns
The youth do not stir at the visage of hell
There is no romance in the streets’ calling bells
And while we may treat such a threat to be shown
The dagger of a mind is dull while unknown
The ravaged pretender spoke of the Romans
His gauntlets of gold, earned from fate’s happenstance
To escape his blood, he would face down the sea
The velvet hands shook in Breakaway Alley
In Breakaway Alley lies the sun
Breakaway Alley is due to be shunned
The eye of childhood feared the forgotten paint
They lay, unencumbered, on secular saints
The falsified folly in full leopard print
The troops in their trollies with pockets of lint
The radio is silent in time’s aging vice
We hear and don’t listen, bats spliced with mice
But maybe, you will see this sweet harmony
Remember the words of Breakaway Alley
In Breakaway Alley lies the sun
Breakaway Alley has finally gone
When the baby screams for the first time, aged five
Will it lament the loss of its life?
When the kids rear for a solution wherever you go
How much will it take to say “God, I’ll never know”?
Remember the words of Breakaway Alley
It’s not all you see, it’s not simply me
Oct 12, 2018
Oct 12, 2018 at 8:31 PM UTC
The hiker cannot dwell there long,
concealed on a high gull-lined cliff,
overlooking the grey of the Sound.
Framed in a solemn March day,
two curiously juxtaposed species hold her gaze.
Silent as a fawn she watches
a black wolf beneath her arboreal outpost,
hunched in the fashion of Asian street vendors,
observing the other creatures.
Great humpbacks frolic in icy waters ---
spouting volcano plumes of spray
that catch the freshened wind ---
riding white-capped waves,
till entropy dissolves their mist to atomized brine.
Whale-song, too distant for the hiker's gentle ears,
comes rolling in tsunami-like
to the aurally attuned wolf,
which ***** its head and nods
in musical agreement with the odes.
Then little lupine brother
rears back his head and howls,
so sorrowful a moan, as she has ever heard ---
answering his water-brethren,
hunters of krill upon the seas.
Giggling at the incongruity of this lone celebrant
singing pack-songs to leviathans,
she hurries on her way,
lone wolf herself returning to the pack.
Jul 15, 2012
Jul 15, 2012 at 10:12 PM UTC
I'm not worthy
of his
total affection adoration enthrallment
it isn't fair for him, truthfully, to have the one
who is scared of all that.
terrified to not be the girl who
belongs to everyone & no one at once
the girl who is writhing
trying to hold tight & strangle
the guilt grief regret shame
but also driven by
anxiety that all my writing
suddenly needs to tell everyone
that I am trying & anxiety
that I am so moved by him, the
affected girl who can't
function
walking into the sunset hand in hand.
I seem to fight every step
as if I'm not sure
I feel safe
being near the ocean that lets roam unchained & wild the
sharks, giant squids, leviathans & my beloved giant leatherback sea turtles
so endangered & dear.
The anxiety of the surprise contract to
dedicate every poem to him
& plan a future
without planning an end, too.
Jun 19, 2013
Jun 19, 2013 at 9:46 PM UTC
We have seen your greasy lips
Of supple warmth nibble our geographical space with relish
With your cerebral repertoire of Machiavellian tactics
A savage sage gleaning with resounding skill
And crafty navigational sail
Your masterstrokes through climes and tongues reverberated
With your sparkling craft of vile crypt
Across regions, tribes and locales
Of your fangs that foiled good governance
But this time…
Your gladiatorial glide on this political turf
Shall experience a firestorm of rejection
Your emissaries across territorial divides
Shall be hounded to delusion
For the masses shall maul your mushy mantle of self grandeur
To the abyss of dishonour
For your subsequent arrival shall be booed to your doom
Your waning clout shall swing you to judgement
Of abysmal invasion
We are watching your fragile trot through this fearsome terrain
Of your permutation in levitation
For Damocles’ fiery sword shall haunt your ambition
Your raging mist on this cloudy night
Shall encounter a violent tussle
Prepare for war!
The scarlet venom from your cruel camp
Shall cease with instant visitation
From the warhorses of this fearless infantry
Armed with the right tools to disarm your fortified fortress
As you dispatch your foot soldiers
Of monsters and Leviathans
To play a callous hoax like the cunning fox
Their morbid mien shall encounter an eternal fall!
Let the music begin…
Onuchi Mark © 2010
Aug 20, 2010
Aug 20, 2010 at 6:32 AM UTC
He perches in the slime, inert,
Bedaubed with iridescent dirt.
The oil upon the puddles dries
To colours like a peacock’s eyes,
And half-submerged tomato-cans
Shine scaly, as leviathans
Oozily crawling through the mud.
The ground is here and there bestud
With lumps of only part-burned coal.
His duty is to glean the whole,
To pick them from the filth, each one,
To hoard them for the hidden sun
Which glows within each fiery core
And waits to be made free once more.
Their sharp and glistening edges cut
His stiffened fingers. Through the ****
Gleam red the wounds which will not shut.
Wet through and shivering he kneels
And digs the slippery coals; like eels
They slide about. His force all spent,
He counts his small accomplishment.
A half-a-dozen clinker-coals
Which still have fire in their souls.
Fire! And in his thought there burns
The topaz fire of votive urns.
He sees it fling from hill to hill,
And still consumed, is burning still.
Higher and higher leaps the flame,
The smoke an ever-shifting frame.
He sees a Spanish Castle old,
With silver steps and paths of gold.
From myrtle bowers comes the plash
Of fountains, and the emerald flash
Of parrots in the orange trees,
Whose blossoms pasture humming bees.
He knows he feeds the urns whose smoke
Bears visions, that his master-stroke
Is out of dirt and misery
To light the fire of poesy.
He sees the glory, yet he knows
That others cannot see his shows.
To them his smoke is sightless, black,
His votive vessels but a pack
Of old discarded shards, his fire
A peddler’s; still to him the pyre
Is incensed, an enduring goal!
He sighs and grubs another coal.
Sep 9, 2016
Sep 9, 2016 at 1:24 AM UTC
My aglets are wearing thin
from the miles crossed
by the traversing of my soul
rivers run in valleys unseen
and unheard of from the
cockpit of horseless carriages
fair Columbia boasts of beauty untold
ancient Gaia all the more
Psyche prevails
topography of the mind
vast and uncharted with room
for leviathans and behemoths
lurking in the recesses of our soul
my aglet is wearing thin
Jupiter can never measure
Neptune can never fathom
nor Hades bind
the content of my character
I have perceived mysteries unheard
before a quarter past
awake from slumber
your aglet is wearing thin
Apr 12, 2011
Apr 12, 2011 at 8:28 PM UTC
To sleep -- perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
For once your life's candle is but a nub
Your fate has been decided and you cannot run
And you wonder what happened to bulletproof weeks
In your arms, just building sky-castles of words
And as you open your mouth, the raven first speaks
Telling of cabbages and kings, and gentle demon birds
Playing an asphyxiated song of angel's wings
Leaving me intoxicated and feathered with silver crowns
And as the breath from my lungs makes rings
Of vapor in the air, the mist settling on ancient frowns
The future runs through me now to capture
Absolutely clawed leviathans, found in rapture.
May 18, 2013
May 18, 2013 at 12:44 AM UTC
He’s journeyed many a treacherous route, scuttled ancient-ships,
ridden the skyscraper-troughs of crystal-seas, hunted enemies,
alone.
He’s guided by the lamps of the Heavens, the countless stars,
the sun and the moon, calculated the astrolabe,
alone.
He’s braved hurricane winds, the triangles of Bermuda, windless days,
leviathans & squids, scavenging whites and other such hungry things,
alone.
He’s got the strength of a Goliath, keeps his tenderness guarded under lock and skeleton-key,
his wounds bleed forever in the brokenness of a self-induced solitary confinement,
alone.
He’s the truest mariner, fights black-tempests within, protects himself from overexposure,
from another broken heart,
alone.
Dec 21, 2013
Dec 21, 2013 at 1:55 PM UTC
There was failure once
In abundance
Where trees were fruitful
Where animals were playful
Where humanity rested its head
On the luscious ***** of created and Creator
Wrought with destruction
Hellfire eclipsed
Snakes, serpents, leviathans, dragons
Eclipsing the sun where it stood in the sky
Changing out the staff for a noose
Hang thyselves, created
Hang
To bite at the ankles
To inject a great debilitator
Break your backs, created
Break
Labor in pain
Labor in vain
Understand your place
A second go
The desert showed
There was no flora to be fruitful
No abundance, but lack thereof
The antithesis of the first
Down to the outcome
Perhaps a former so we can see the glory
Of the latter
Out of desolation
Came great reserve
Out of desperation
Came great determination
Out of humanity
Came divinity
Feb 24, 2013
Feb 24, 2013 at 1:42 PM UTC
between wind and water
between sand and sea
the ever changing
fails to stir this heavy heart
an iron anchor sinking
to just below the surface
not quite deep enough to disappear
with surface just in sight
with never a breath of air
these psychological leviathans
of all my hopes and fears
break my ship upon the rocks
and all hands lost despair
for my mind my captain
my unhappy soul floats
barely conscious and dehydrated
lips cracked and delirious
in limbo state the sole survivor
of the ever present temptest
named loneliness unforgiving
Sep 1, 2013
Sep 1, 2013 at 10:12 PM UTC
a response to Elizabeth Bishop's poem, "The Man-moth"
Down below,
the Moth-man stares at his reflection
in a glassy window, sees himself flit
up and down like the head of a classroom sleeper.
Buildings sleep in this city, leviathans of the deep
that crawled on land before falling, their bodies
shoulder-to-shoulder and perfectly upright.
Among their feet a conversation loops
*You’d never guess,
you’d never guess,
you’d never guess*
through the insect’s antennae.
It doesn’t matter, but he picked it up like
a lost button and turned it over and over
until he memorized how the moon slides
around the circle in slick patterns—
Secretly he wants to know what else the lady said
before she clipped down the sidewalk.
And some may sit in the dark with wide penny eyes,
river water filling the rim until it bubbles over,
but he waits for day. Because,
why orbit a lamppost when the whole world
is on fire?
Dec 15, 2011
Dec 15, 2011 at 10:38 PM UTC
now that your lips move and your breath is heavy-wet with burnt orange sighs, your eyes too deep to see me
from so much love away... now that your arms merry-go-round my wasteland, swirling languorous in lust, unarmed... you are the embers of lost ice, gathered on the farside of dead-center, more alive than krill, clinging to baleen and waterfalls, in the toothless maw of leviathans.
You're mine, again -
And out
to Sea.
Oct 17, 2012
Oct 17, 2012 at 11:04 AM UTC
For Alonso, the day was sinking into dusk
But for Dulcinea, her knight was rising.
Long his lance’s shadow stretched
And thus his stories, picaresque.
He flaunts his tale of espionage,
Purring silent and clandestine
“there I sprung from camouflage
and smote these vile leviathans!”
“Oh, please don’t stop,” the gypsy cries
draining doubt from starlit eyes
From behind her fan of elegant slips
She retracts the rivets to her lips.
Alonso mounts the moment of his concupiscence
to rescue the fair Dulcinea from her diffidence.
But the windmills turn for our quixotic man
Whose delusions are rescued by a chaste heroine.
Years later a man was overheard in Cordoba…
el estaba hablando con unas senoras
“Oye musas, puedo decirte,
he visto algunas cosas.”
“…mi vida se salvo una noche estrellada
por una mujer de gran belleza
que volvio a las tablas de la fortuna
aqui, en mi reino de Iberica…”
Sep 27, 2014
Sep 27, 2014 at 1:20 PM UTC
I leave Victoria
And 'Green Fields' by The Brothers Four comes on shuffle
And buildings crumble
London deconstructs
A primal forest laps at the southern service
As it flees to a coast populated by leviathans and krakens
The concrete suburbs fade to green fields
Kissed by the sun
And in that
I thought I saw you
Until the clinking train tracks reminded me of our slavery
And of the ticket collector
Tapping on my shoulder
Dec 27, 2014
Dec 27, 2014 at 6:29 PM UTC
All aboard this ship of fools,
all aboard she's sailing,
all aboard this ship of fools,
for we are going a' whaling.
From the harbour our course we keep,
for the distant Antarctic water,
to find the leviathans of the deep,
and begin our ****** slaughter.
All aboard this ship of fools,
all aboard she's sailing,
all aboard this ship of fools,
for we are going a' whaling.
We say there is a scientific need,
to study these magnificent beings
we harpoon them, and watch them bleed,
as before our ship they're fleeing.
All aboard this ship of fools,
all aboard she's sailing,
all aboard this ship of fools,
for we are going a' whaling.
And still our leaders, they entreat
that we do this for the good of science,
but really it is for their meat,
that we **** these gentle giants
All aboard this ship of fools,
all aboard she's sailing,
all aboard this ship of fools,
for we are going a' whaling.
Tom Higgins.
May 26, 2014
May 26, 2014 at 12:22 PM UTC
*Kindred balsam trails
Red rose convocations 'neath
Chestnut Knights
Swallows in Tangerine sky
Late night fires mingle with
Loblolly leviathans
Stellar captivations
Coonhounds bay for twilight
recognition
Where Mockingbird musicians trill
reverent evening chantey* ..
Aug 14, 2016
Aug 14, 2016 at 10:22 PM UTC
I try to count the stars.
A vast selection of fossils.
C'est la vie, leviathans.
You burning orbs,
you want to comfort me?
I lay sheepless.
I'm a shepherd
who lost not one sheep,
not two sheep,
but the whole of them.
Mar 14, 2011
Mar 14, 2011 at 9:47 PM UTC
I flew over endless oceans..
Under endless storms..
It rained forever here..
No land at all..
But why was it raining so much..
Why did it never end..
I decide to fly over the storms..
And above the clouds the source of endless storms was there..
Leviathans...
Thousands and thousands of them..
Turns out they flooded the planet to make a new home for themselves.
The ocean below was a nest..
I was a traveller..
I was sent here to witness the end of a world and the beginning of a new one..
Sep 9, 2017
Sep 9, 2017 at 1:39 PM UTC
As the sound is heard
The sky burns and falls
And the high elves are no more
As the sound is heard
Hell pushes up from the depths
And the leviathans of the sea are no more
As the sound is heard
A star falls
And nothing is the same anymore
As the sound is heard
A blackened claw strikes the stars and the moon
And the sun dims for the loss of many old friends
As the sound is heard
A champion arises
And he falls to the wraith of Abaddon
As the sound is heard
Dark knights are released from *******
And their legions sweep the land with plagues
As the sound is heard
He claims dominion
And a new age of darkness now begins with the end
Oct 18, 2011
Oct 18, 2011 at 6:54 PM UTC
All the way to the back
Keep it cold
Mysteries move amidst the crowd
Wake of Leviathans
Pull through, who has your back?
grey friends, placeless, orbits askew
you are a perihelion, a vertigo of swarm technology, existing to exist,
why, why breathe, why currents running tracks, find the summer still, still here
She has blue eyes, is this the future. pulled from the past, so close to dead
one last shot.
Failed itch of v vs. w who wins, deflation, unimpressive
die for this or ever saved by the prince, is the glass coffin too battered?
Did the witch win after all these years, these fractured candy colored clouds,
even death may die
Oct 2, 2016
Oct 2, 2016 at 12:21 AM UTC