"lilting" poems
He is in love with questions
And the lilting world of words,
With the fabric of philosophy
And the taste of fresh ideas.
He is in love with the smell of green
And the shifting sands of dreams,
With the hunt for profound moments
And the hunger-lust for purpose.
He is in love with his books
And the zodiacs cross the planet,
With patterns of chain reactions
And the way we cog and gear.
He is in love with pools of stardust
And fanciful notions of theory,
With darkness, deep and coveted
And the fabric it is made from.
He is in love with one who left
And the poisoned past he bathes in,
With being perpetually lonesome
And floating twixt life’s sabulous banks.
He is in love with memories, and the universe,
And nobody else.
With my choking heart, I’m grasping at dust,
And I am in love with him.
Nov 20, 2012
Nov 20, 2012 at 7:10 PM UTC
#*Nightbird perches high
beneath the shooting stars
that dapple the bouquet
of sleepless peace
... his soft downy breast
has lent breath
to the sweet April afterglow
heaving with song
The mystical feathered troubadour's
swooning echo
A melodic twilight serenade
conjures a moonstruck metamorphosis,
sprouting magical wings of flight;*
rousing *a lonely heart's esprit
to fly away unfettered
in constellations of song
How dare imaginings spilled from the big dipper
enchant such an enrapturing magic spell?
It's so far to fall from swinging on a star!
It's so far beyond nearing crescent moon
when you wish upon a star
Thereupon struck by a bewitching bolt of starlight;
Dropping asudden as a shooting-star!
Rolling like trailing thunder;
tucked and tumbling ―
somersaulting,
celestial rumbling
blossoming with an unearthly joy
A nascent winged heart splayed bare,
soars upon cresting wind waves;
dreaming of that shapeless
w h o o o o s h ―
gathering beneath
~ uplifting wings ~
Suddenly ― gliding freely,
winging gracefully
upon wafting star drift glitter;
lilting lightly upon the arising cadence
of nightingale's melodious fluted song
Nightingale sings sweet April perfume
beneath the star shed lamplight twinkle
... and it makes no difference if it's only a dream
if my heart had wings*
imagined by: Jesse Stillwater
Apr 27, 2018
Apr 27, 2018 at 11:26 AM UTC
We conquer all worlds,
Sweet creature: melt my soul,
freshly thawed, vulnerability exposed.
Eager for unbridled wickedness,
within lilting rhythms of your magic.
So inviting, such interwoven seduction,
I discover that you are indeed, She.
The Mistress who cannot be denied,
so take my hand, I shall guide you,
while you, Dark sweet demigod,
Guide me to intoxicating magic,
magic that is you: and you alone.
Pour your evil charms upon me,
Stoke dying embers of my neglected power.
See the flames rekindled;
feel the comforting ice of my being,
savour my destructive cold fire.
Let me soothe you in return,
offering delicious despicable deeds.
Havoc wrought in your name.
The demonic glow inside grows,
until I fear nothing, Dark Mistress.
I am exalted in this vile inferno,
A conflagration of our own creation.
Dark destiny shall not desert us,
but shall become the favoured guide.
I shall never be without you,
Dark Mistress, and together,
We conquer all worlds.
© Paul Chafer 2014
Jun 23, 2014
Jun 23, 2014 at 8:52 AM UTC
Out here in the fields of the distance
whither the wind blows the silence further afield;
roughhewn footprints show a windswept pathway
from whence feral feet lightly trod
Only the passing whispers chase after the gypsy wind:
that the silence be in quire, placed aloft like a sigh,
pealing through the gentle sway of sweet grass' hush
There are no walls need echo an evanescent wind-song
as each breath of earthen psalm vanishes
lilting into the crystalline quietude colour;
The callused patience still held in these hands
is frayed and tattered, but hope heals stronger
than a ream of paper wings to fly away
And I'm mindful I'm not alone again, lost in
a lingering silent storm — pensively listening —
enraptured aneath all the big skies hold
Jesse Stillwater
Aug 31, 2018
Aug 31, 2018 at 12:44 PM UTC
*let the sun beat down upon my face, stars to fill my dream
i am a traveler of both time and space, to be where I have been
to sit with elders of the gentle race, this world has seldom seen
they talk of days for which they sit and wait and all will be revealed
talk and song from tongues of lilting grace, whose sounds caress my ear
but not a word I heard could I relate, the story was quite clear
all I see turns to brown, as the sun burns the ground
and my eyes fill with sand, as I scan this wasted land
trying to find where I've been
pilot of the storm who leaves no trace, like thoughts inside a dream
heed the path that led me to that place, yellow desert stream
my Shangri-La beneath the summer moon, I will return again
sure as the dust that floats high in June, when moving through Kashmir
oh, father of the four winds, fill my sails, across the sea of years
With no provision but an open face, along the straits of fear
let me take you there*
Dec 12, 2014
Dec 12, 2014 at 2:19 PM UTC
They call me Ghetto.
They call me
gunfights and drive-bys,
pregnant teens.
They call me Poverty,
and concrete winter walls
splashed with blood-red
graffiti.
They call me
junior-high druggies
and gang-banging muchachos.
They call me Mexico
like it’s a ***** word.
They call me Ghetto.
But haven’t they seen through
the white-washed walls
of the
“American Dream”?
Don’t they know hurt
and suffering,
imperfections
and neglect,
as well?
So call me Mexico;
call me Poverty;
call me Ghetto.
I am
run-down yards
filled with laughing brown children,
small apartments
bursting with the scent
of tamales,
mingled with joy and the chatter of relatives.
I am home-made tortillas
at Thanksgiving
and wrinkled hands pounding masa
at Christmas.
I am friendly smiles
and shouted jokes
followed by roaring
laughter.
I am the lilting syllables
of a beautiful
culture.
I am comfort.
They call me Ghetto
and so I am.
Sep 8, 2014
Sep 8, 2014 at 10:44 PM UTC
All my life
is waves, expressed as rays,
phases, and cancellations...
...Waving by
and paving over
what I made in other ages
Undulating sway,
disrupting Self,
the Phrase, the Word, the Way --
Nameless, without
shape - within all shape -
all touch, all taste;
One expressed as Two:
compress, expand, repeat.
In balance, truth.
Lilting swells
that break in mind and water,
endless scintillation;
Every word as complex
as its counterpart,
unpatterned ocean;
All motion
the illusion of Desire,
the fire that burns to Rest...
...But only ever
simulates, for trough
but stimulates the crest;
When all my waves
have ceased and found their peace,
there ends my quest.
Aug 4, 2011
Aug 4, 2011 at 4:45 PM UTC
I see you shining there a translucent water drop
Suspended in animation
From the garden where I lay
I watch your silver glow, in total fascination
Moving to and fro
As within my heart, you play
I hear your tinkling laughter, rise above the trees
Softly lilting in my mind
Find myself within a soulful breeze
Your joyous laughter brings
As your joy and mine
Are combined
A quiet calm is set in motion, as you begin to fall
Enchantment ending in a silver splash
Yet, such joy you have brought into this thrall
Into the garden where I lay
Even though you fell
In a flash
Now I see you shining there upon my yearning soil
Suspended in animation
In the garden where I toil
I watch your silver glow, in total fascination
Moving to and fro
Quenching thirst, in adoration
Oct 21, 2010
Oct 21, 2010 at 6:37 PM UTC
Puffs of thistledown
floating in the air.
Lovely lady
dark blue plums
and the tracery of lace.
'Toot' says a trumpet
to the cry from a clarinet.
Tinkling piano notes
flowing
lilting, rippling, fleeting
fleeing.
Bows, strings and violins.
Echoes of yesterday
fading into grey.
Sep 24, 2014
Sep 24, 2014 at 4:40 AM UTC
In an instant the sparkle showered me
Bathed in light and energy
Flowing flowing a waterfall of emotion
A connection stretching back in time
A piercing silence
Cloaking me in her calm
Her doors had been cast aside
Unexpected candor, laughter lilting
And bouncing, catching me off guard.
She wasn’t hiding behind the bush
Or running from tree to tree
She stretched the moments
Filled them with spirit
Flew to the rafters and beckoned me to join
I melted in her eyes, molten joy
Ready to be molded
Precious shapes, rare forms
Unknown beings.
I trusted her hands
Gripped me with delicacy
And a lightness of life.
That moment became a day
And that day will not end.
Jul 2, 2014
Jul 2, 2014 at 12:02 PM UTC
basilisk ****
nonparticular inexecrable exit
art ****
the lips on for breakfast
twilight zip entanglement
meticulous bending and sensual telepathy
fever-sickness
rock 'n roll boo-boos
lilting black 'n blues on the caboose
puppeteering every tasty ***** loose
chews the collar
thighs and necking room
bustling bussers it gives ifs
gets down with
daisy, dior, dkny, grapefruit(purple) to narcisso and pink sugar too
Bliss tainted madness
playing tug-o-war with
January's vacuum
Years of passing down groupies
to the most recent djs playing bad dubstep tunes
and that sickness of seeing iloveyou's abused
Mar 2, 2015
Mar 2, 2015 at 5:31 AM UTC
It is nothing,
a mordant of the soul,
an elixir, a panacea, a placebo
for my lesions, there in the thistle, grows
our drastic garden of red posies and hyacinths,
such little things, on the verge,
lilting as the decorum begins to bobble
and slump sideways, and murmur,
on Mondays I can swallow the octave
of your absence, tendrils and all,
red quince limbs parting from the deluge
and in its wake, the wreckage
of black pumpkins and purple corn, hanging
pendulum at our door,
the Autumn lights summon a lavish song to harvest,
thirty seven colours in the brocade you gift me,
tangled and heavy the years upon my bones
begin to spur and flower
into cunning disruptions,
and stratify upon my body like rinds of ricepaper,
vellum for another wish
in the complacent burial of mango flesh,
listen,
as my song liquefies,
drowns you, inundates
each alveoli, and our love
in the swallowing gush, perched,
begins to shudder,
devoured by its symmetry,
stem cells all akimbo
in the shallow pitch of days
bound in a nostrum of wine and liquorice
it is nothing, really,
a mordant for the soul, a tulle filament
twitching in a raincoat of lightning....
Oct 21, 2012
Oct 21, 2012 at 4:35 PM UTC
Since I have no other way
And am in utmost need,
Painter girl,
I filch one of the eight lambs
You have made plump with
Green jackfruit leaves and
Thin gruel with paddy bran.
I will take it to the goat market
And sell it in a jiffy.
I assure you
I will not sell it
To any butcher-
The lamb you made chubby
With sweet sweet words
And much much petting
And nice lilting croons,
Mixing and mixing
Greens with browns.
Don’t be sad, painter girl.
I hear you come running
Searching for your lamb and
Cry out “O my dearest one
Who went grazing in the green fields,”
As the sun in your canvas
Sets in the sea and
The saffron blends with the dusk.
And, see your tears mingle
With the black that you wanted
To adorn the brow of
The naughtiest of them.
Painter girl,
It’s all because I have no other go
And it’s of utmost need.
I could have broken into the
Two-storeyedhouse you sketched
And stolen the ornaments in
Secret lockers that even
You are unaware of.
Or, I could have
Palmed the golden girdle
Of the beautiful ***** princess
Whose portrait you made,
The one with a nose stud.
Or, drugged her with my kisses
And plundered the harem.
Or else, I could have
Entered the snake shrine
Guarded by the dark serpents
That you often drew
And fled the country with
The precious jewel.
Or, I could have shot down
The birds that you drew
And sold them grilled.
I could have axed down the
Mahagony trees you nurtured
And sold them as timber.
I could have blinded your Kanhaiah
And made him a beggar
To become rich from the alms he earned.
I could have enslavened his Gopis
And handed them over
To the red light streets.
Painter girl,
It’s not for anything of this sort.
I take just one of your eight lambs.
Sell it for a good price
And fulfill my need.
Now, perchance,
If a new tenant comes to rent
My brain where nothing resides
And if they pay me a fat advance,
Painter girl,
Surely will I buy back your lamb.
And tether it in your painting.
Don’t you dare say then
Don’t you say then
That you have forgotten it.
Don’t you say then
You have exhausted your stock of
Green jackfruit leaves.
(Trans from Malayalam by Ra Sh)
Nov 3, 2013
Nov 3, 2013 at 10:04 AM UTC
*Windchimes
By
Jude Kyrie
The windchimes lilt in the stirring trees
Sometimes it seems like you are here.
Memories now float in the summer breeze.
Aged Confusion brings me to my knees
That I can't find you my biggest fear
The windchimes lilt in the stirring trees
Then I see you gods have answered my pleas.
The windchimes voices brought you near.
Memories now float in the summer breeze
You say the trellis is choked with sweet peas
But your beautiful voice is all I hear.
The windchimes lilt in the stirring trees
The center of my universe is all I see.
Your beauty abundant soft and clear.
Memories now float in the summer breeze.
Then you fade far away from me.
Just the lilting chimes is all I hear
The windchimes lilt in the stirring trees.
Memories now float in the summer breeze*
Jan 13, 2017
Jan 13, 2017 at 6:46 PM UTC
A falling feather on the breeze,
lilting like the Seraphim
songs of Mephistopheles,
lured her drunkenly to him.
Lilting like the Seraphim,
she drank his iridescence. He
lured her drunkenly to him,
enraptured in naivety.
She drank his iridescence. He
befouled her virtue, was the air.
Enraptured in naivety
no more, would Eden hear her prayer?
Befouled; her virtue was the air
he stole away, a hunched-up thief.
No more would Eden hear her prayer -
the echoes howling his motif.
He stole away, a hunched-up thief,
a fallen feather on the breeze;
the echoes howling his motif -
songs of Mephistopheles.
Footnote: Passages from folk lore:
Hindu - the peacock is said to have angels' feathers, a devil's voice
and the walk of a thief
Chinese - a girl who looks at a peacock could become pregnant
Islamic: the peafowl carried Satan into the Garden of Eden after consuming him
Dec 30, 2012
Dec 30, 2012 at 5:08 PM UTC
When news broke out that the glorious White Building
was to become dust to make way for a high rise
that would displace both bones and ghosts,
we were standing in a parking lot, my friends’ fists
clutched tight around their motorcycle handles,
their rapid Khmer lilting with each syllable
as they quickly planned a memorial service
for another shard of history that once did not have
blood dripping from where it had been broken.
My nickname was Country Girl, clueless and silly,
full of questions, songs and dances, a patched-up mess
with the face of a Vietnamese, the laugh of a Filipino,
and the pride of a maybe, sometimes, almost Khmer.
We left just as the city was starting to wake again.
In journalism school, they never taught us
how to grieve for ourselves, so we tried
in the best way we knew how -- a funeral procession
of worn rubber shoes and checkered polos,
in our backpacks the cameras that would write our eulogies for us.
I was the stranger whose connection to the deceased no one
understood, but still let in,
taught me a prayer,
offered some porridge.
That afternoon, I whispered a prayer.
White Building, who stares death in the face,
once a mother to the hands that had colored
their age gold, please welcome me.
Do not let your skeleton
collapse beneath the weight of this stranger.
Please, welcome me.
Aug 27, 2021
Aug 27, 2021 at 2:10 AM UTC
Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,
The night above the ****** starry,
Time let me hail and climb
Golden in the heydays of his eyes,
And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns
And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves
Trail with daisies and barley
Down the rivers of the windfall light.
And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns
About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,
In the sun that is young once only,
Time let me play and be
Golden in the mercy of his means,
And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves
Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold,
And the sabbath rang slowly
In the pebbles of the holy streams.
All the sun long it was running, it was lovely, the hay
Fields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was air
And playing, lovely and watery
And fire green as grass.
And nightly under the simple stars
As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away,
All the moon long I heard, blessed among stables, the nightjars
Flying with the ricks, and the horses
Flashing into the dark.
And then to awake, and the farm, like a wanderer white
With the dew, come back, the **** on his shoulder: it was all
Shining, it was Adam and maiden,
The sky gathered again
And the sun grew round that very day.
So it must have been after the birth of the simple light
In the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walking warm
Out of the whinnying green stable
On to the fields of praise.
And honoured among foxes and pheasants by the gay house
Under the new made clouds and happy as the heart was long,
In the sun born over and over,
I ran my heedless ways,
My wishes raced through the house high hay
And nothing I cared, at my sky blue trades, that time allows
In all his tuneful turning so few and such morning songs
Before the children green and golden
Follow him out of grace.
Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would
take me
Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand,
In the moon that is always rising,
Nor that riding to sleep
I should hear him fly with the high fields
And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land.
Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,
Time held me green and dying
Though I sang in my chains like the sea.
3.3k
She'll brew a *** of bliss and then she'll pour it in your cup
She'll dance around the room until the gloom is all drunk up
She's not your normal angel, boy and of that you should be glad
For she fills a parlour naked more than many girls do clad
She's an angel from Newfoundland and St. Andrews knew her well
She's certainly no Flatrock as Tickle Harbour's boys can tell
And Jackson's and Chapple's Arms they both have been in her's
She's even been to Merasheen don't tell the other girls
Her "H"s have an "H" in them and her voice a lilting sound
But if you want sincerity no better can be found
Her love's as pure as dynamite she'll blow you off the shelf
She'll make your whisker hairs stand up and your little man an elf
She's an angel now in Tor-onto, On-tar-i-ario
She moved there when her parents died and she didn't know where to go
Ah, Mississauga knows her well and so does Hamilton
But Toronto is the place to be when she is having fun
She says she works a fancy bar called the Iron Cross Cha-pel
Where pretty men come in all dressed up and cuss and kiss as well
She cannot find a boyfriend there but she has lots of dates
They give her lots of Ecstasy and tell her it's not ****
She's an angel from Newfoundland and St. Andrews knew her well
She's certainly no Flatrock as Tickle Harbour's boys can tell
And Jackson's and Chapple's Arms they both have been in her's
She's even been to Merasheen don't tell the other girls
Jun 28, 2012
Jun 28, 2012 at 7:05 PM UTC
And again my heart pounced
over skin cold; that pleaded singleness,
with hypocritical beats I bowed to,
to her highness; to her petite shrill,
a debut in partial denial; unpleasant,
as i withdrew with foul felony,
thoughts raced through judging ethics,
while simplicity ****** away the soul,
into a contagious six holed drain...
And I locked myself behind blue bars,
losing the wall I built with sweated palms,
danced did I over viscous black waters,
embracing the world's false desires,
smashed them pretty birds withing their cage,
lost all sense of peace, I go hidden,
in awe of that ever pleasant voice;
I bow again; in silence I ask me
to plant me in her backyard,
water me with her sour scents,
sing me her sweet lilting lullaby,
and embrace me into our little concord!!
Where did the wisdom lay that moment?
that moment when I tasted drops of sweat...
Why would I **** that clown in me?
that played tunes from a gleeful cassette...
When will I lose my two shadows?
that followed me even while I'd regret...
(a puff o' smoke and some silence)
And again my heart, it pounced!!
Apr 25, 2012
Apr 25, 2012 at 5:20 AM UTC
He is in love with questions,
Little questions that she asks to him,
And the lilting world of words,
With the fabric of philosophy,
Taste of fresh ideas,
Interpretation of dreams and zodiacs,
And definitely for her stupid riddles.
But at the same moment
He is in love with one who left,
And the poisoned past he baths in,
With being perpetually lonesome,
In love with terrible yet beautiful memories,
With darkness, deep and coveted,
And holds scars for the one who left.
But what is actually happening
His soul is getting grey,
On journey with black and white passengers.
His body is getting ****
With dusky heart and lightened mind.
Sadness and madness has held him together,
over and again.
Mar 21, 2018
Mar 21, 2018 at 6:30 AM UTC
Somethin' about an empty room, depending on how the light asks to be let in on its edges.
An empty room don’t expect you to do nothin' whatever. And its floor responds in this kinda lilting relief when you tap-dance barefoot upon it.
If you sit in all its corners, with your eyeballs (try it!) you can trace the refractions and suggestions on the wall, 'specially the places where paint and odd plaster stick up like little men and cast shadows all their own.
You can spend hours doing this.
You, the impressionable film upon which the world's projected herself—you turn the world upside down and make sense of the image in this empty box.
You
Make art here.
Shout here! Run and kick and punch through the walls and
Love them as you do so, kid.
Something about emptiness itself, gets a lot of flack, you think,
cast as grave.
Hell!
Emptiness: potential,
Emptiness: casting being in sharp distinction.
Emptiness: sensual, like breath before the
action of the human magnetic.
You: the one alive in this your empty room and therefore acutely aware of
what you chose to project in such vibrant relief.
Today, it is newspapers and magazine clippings and a notebook and a blue pen and a book by Susan Sontag.
Today you lie on the woody floor, supine, eyes wide
and become part of it
your lungs breathe life into this ancient emptiness. And the air between its walls vibrates, and sighs, nascent, ‘thank you.’
Feb 18, 2017
Feb 18, 2017 at 3:01 PM UTC
Her greatest fear was
going color blind,
invoking domino effect,
she embraced rainbow colors-
whenever a chance she found.
Now, she walks at the front
as if she is the official bearer of colors
in our frenzied blueberry hunt,
up in the high ranges of Western Ghat's
tropical rain forests.
Our nostrils are special,
"colors we see, make us madly sing"
chants rend the air when-
fragrance of ***** blooms wafted in the air.
"Just like the smell when python opens mouth"
said a voice, to the uninitiated,
"Quit white, paint everything coal black,
or is it the other way round?"
"This place is magical can't make a choice"
"Look! I found a serious irregular lake down there"
"I didn't realize I was walking in rounds, around a closed mall"
"White light is a cheat, pixie laid us is in the village green"
"Y'll fall down"
"Green was what i asked for
got thick,red, gooey mud"
"Why panic?"
"Hey meet Mr.Yellow smile,
kiss him a pretty, magenta
***** thought, good night"
"I've a deep blue psyche,
in nightmares I see ***** whales"
"Wounded bleeding heart,
she was nursed back to health
it beats me,
she limped back to her old green monster"
"Hear that distant drums?
brick red monster of the woods
mating with a black cat"
"A ritual of the tribes?
is it meant as a crude joke?"
Sitting under a tree shade,
I hear for the first time in my life,
a white ant's dark wintry song,
lilting, it spoke about the life
as the queen ant's *** slave.
**"Hey love this ***** magical feat,
anything is possible,
how reality takes a beat"
**** it, three times over,
on the bank of the river, then in water.."**
"Blue grass, blue grass
sing all the way up to the mountain pass,
where ***** plants grow thick like ***** thoughts,
a nightingale in funky dress
singing ***** songs and regale all"
"That lush lass, her hair tied with a red bandana
is a smart *** **** her"
Someone screams in delight,
evening spreads a magical light,
more laughter, catcalls,
the sassy chick just LOL
Pass..pass
A big headstrong hornbill, surveying the scene,
gives a mating call
the hillside reverberates with its sound.
(C) K.Balachandran
[email protected]
Jun 10, 2012
Jun 10, 2012 at 7:19 AM UTC