"mantled" poems
I laid the body wounded from war,
marking the pain of bleeding scar,
they drip no blood but crying word,
scream of whys is all can be heard.
This warrior fought without a gun,
the sword was laid on the ground.
Flew in the war without a shield,
embracing the fires of the field.
The warzone is silent and cold,
daylight is starting to fold,
omitted gore has no trace,
but agony and pain mantled the face.
Alone, the warrior stood with yielding feet,
the armored belligerent took their seat.
They watched this warrior drown with tears,
their laughter bit the bleeding ears.
The archenemies took off their casque,
these are faces of the warrior's past.
Hopelessly he fell on his knee,
looking at the grinning enemies.
Armored with the sharpest sword,
strengthen by their greatest lord.
They rumbled drums with deafening sound,
plotting the line of the warrior's bound.
The warrior faced the strongest foes,
murmur of vicious wind starts to blow.
No armor can block the slashing assaults,
as these are words comes like a lighting bolt.
Words stabs deeper than a pointed knife,
blotching doubt in warrior's life.
Painted the warzone with unwanted shade,
every glimpse of light starts to fade.
The warrior with no hope to win,
carried darkness with tattered skin.
You can't win against yourself,
they will reveal voices left in the shelf.
The warrior dwelled in the cold and dark cell,
fall of the tears in every hit of the bell.
Tired of the biting lullabies marching like a band.
The white flag was raised with trembling hand.
Jul 29, 2020
Jul 29, 2020 at 10:52 AM UTC
THE noon was as a crystal bowl
The red wine mantled through;
Around it like a Viking's beard
The red-gold hazes blew,
As tho' he quaffed the ruddy draught
While swift his galley flew.
This mighty Viking was the Night;
He sailed about the earth,
And called the merry harvest-time
To sing him songs of mirth;
And all on earth or in the sea
To melody gave birth.
The valleys of the earth were full
To rocky lip and brim
With golden grain that shone and sang
When woods were still and dim,
A little song from sheaf to sheaf-
Sweet Plenty's cradle-hymn.
O gallant were the high tree-tops,
And gay the strain they sang!
And cheerfully the moon-lit hills
Their echo-music rang!
And what so proud and what so loud
As was the ocean's clang!
But O the little humming song
That sang among the sheaves!
'Twas grander than the airy march
That rattled thro' the leaves,
And prouder, louder, than the deep,
Bold clanging of the waves:
'The lives of men, the lives of men
With every sheaf are bound!
We are the blessing which annuls
The curse upon the ground!
And he who reaps the Golden Grain
The Golden Love hath found.'
2.9k
The sky boat floated just beneath the moon,
Just above imagined ivy-mantled tower.
Gold-flecked, ivory clouds just out of reach,
Like the firefly,
Suspended just ahead, pale then gold-light,
Beautiful against brilliant 12 O'clock blue,
Blue deep as overwhelming sea,
Tear-jerking, snare of senses,
Lo this sight of feeling,
Mem'ry of freedom livid,
Warming; caressing once stone-tight grey
face.
Entranced by a sudden breeze,
A taste of grass, scent of ocean and sand,
Feeling of spirit, sounds of heavy moth wings,
As a whole, finally, an image of embodied freedom.
Suddenly something bubbles up, crawling along skin,
Dragging along newly heightened expectation.
My Firefly glows ever brighter, deep fire-light,
But still a little less than Moon Mother above,
So bright, capable of ling'grin behind closed lids,
Permanent, like this new hope,
A hope like a wish newly formed,
Warm and vulnerable and free.
-MoonFirefly
Mar 4, 2015
Mar 4, 2015 at 12:00 AM UTC
we did not Dye in vain!
by michael r. burch
(from “songs of the sea snails”)
though i’m just a slimy crawler,
my lineage is proud:
my forebears gave their lives
(oh, let the trumps blare loud!)
so purple-mantled Royals
might stand out in a crowd.
i salute you, fellow loyals,
who labor without scruple
as your incomes fall
while deficits quadruple
to swaddle unjust Lords
in bright imperial purple!
Originally published by The American Dissident
Notes: In ancient times the purple dye produced from the secretions of purpura mollusks (sea snails) was known as “Tyrian purple,” “royal purple” and “imperial purple.” It was greatly prized in antiquity, and was very expensive according to the historian Theopompus: “Purple for dyes fetched its weight in silver at Colophon.” Thus, purple-dyed fabrics became status symbols, and laws often prevented commoners from possessing them. The production of Tyrian purple was tightly controlled in Byzantium, where the imperial court restricted its use to the coloring of imperial silks. A child born to the reigning emperor was literally porphyrogenitos ("born to the purple") because the imperial birthing apartment was walled in porphyry, a purple-hued rock, and draped with purple silks. Royal babies were swaddled in purple; we know this because the iconodules, who disagreed with the emperor Constantine about the veneration of images, accused him of defecating on his imperial purple swaddling clothes!
Keywords/Tags: royal, purple, imperial, Tyrian, Byzantium, porphyry, swaddling, clothes, porphyrogenitos, mollusks, sea snails, royalty, kings, lords, emperors, popes
Mar 28, 2020
Mar 28, 2020 at 4:35 AM UTC
Lamenting lost love
hidden behind harmonies,
(synonymous to symphony)
resonates absently.
Like making love
to a stranger.
Like you make love
to me.
Void of all passion,
like revenge of apathy.
Apathetic entirely,
the emptiness that fuels you
emphasizes decrees.
Standard-less standards
validate your need
to dismantle the mantled,
and devour the diseased,
to command and to seize,
to exploit the exploited,
and explore every scene—
every pelvis, and every scream.
How did I fall for such a—
loveless being?
Better yet,
How do I disintegrate re-memories,
Or abolish aplitic fallacies,
and survive soullessly?
(How must I do these things!?)
Here I plead
surrounded, unattentively,
summoning recognition
for the being
whom resides in me.
Resurrecting old wounds,
(chore almost seems daily)
almost seems like it’s alive,
like maybe one day
it might save me.
More likely, one day
it will concave me.
But without knowledge
there is no upset.
And no upset means
no you and me.
Mar 9, 2012
Mar 9, 2012 at 9:03 PM UTC
there is warmth only in shadow
for there alone
do I find you
the glare of sunlight
pushes against us
and we are forced
to part
in the brightness of day
as the world luxuriates
drawing close to the radiance
being brought to life
I am stung by winter’s breath
shivering in the brilliance
of a summer afternoon
only in the darkness
is there life for me
only where the stars do not see
am I completed
only there
do we exist as one
hidden
from all the world
we shun the day
and embrace
mantled
in the welcoming
shroud of night
Jul 3, 2022
Jul 3, 2022 at 11:51 PM UTC
From dark abodes to fair etherial light
Th’ enraptur’d innocent has wing’d her flight;
On the kind ***** of eternal love
She finds unknown beatitude above.
This known, ye parents, nor her loss deplore,
She feels the iron hand of pain no more;
The dispensations of unerring grace,
Should turn your sorrows into grateful praise;
Let then no tears for her henceforward flow,
No more distress’d in our dark vale below,
Her morning sun, which rose divinely bright,
Was quickly mantled with the gloom of night;
But hear in heav’n’s blest bow’rs your Nancy fair,
And learn to imitate her language there.
“Thou, Lord, whom I behold with glory crown’d,
“By what sweet name, and in what tuneful sound
“Wilt thou be prais’d? Seraphic pow’rs are faint
“Infinite love and majesty to paint.
“To thee let all their graceful voices raise,
“And saints and angels join their songs of praise.”
Perfect in bliss she from her heav’nly home
Looks down, and smiling beckons you to come;
Why then, fond parents, why these fruitless groans?
Restrain your tears, and cease your plaintive moans.
Freed from a world of sin, and snares, and pain,
Why would you wish your daughter back again?
No—bow resign’d. Let hope your grief control,
And check the rising tumult of the soul.
Calm in the prosperous, and adverse day,
Adore the God who gives and takes away;
Eye him in all, his holy name revere,
Upright your actions, and your hearts sincere,
Till having sail’d through life’s tempestuous sea,
And from its rocks, and boist’rous billows free,
Yourselves, safe landed on the blissful shore,
Shall join your happy babe to part no more.
1.9k
And dreaming of Inisfáil, I was raised on Bolivar Pond.
Sheltered in my wake, I’d coo as the dewy’d morning dove
And fern in my bed, I rose to greet
The song-splayed sounds of light
And work, I made it dropping slow
Bright in the summers swoon, I was adorned in forest eves
By rings that rang from tree to rook, and flung the wingèd down,
Brambled in bay, garland in violet
When blades could ***** and not make bleed,
And I was brindled by the moon’d many shades, that liken
To a brook, and mottled in my main, noted among moss
In that glow, once knighted we must serve
Wood, let me comb in peace!
Colored in the mantled cloth of leaves
And bonny and red, I was the brave and the boon, the deer-
Ants learned me, and herons stood muck, on stands spearing all mite
And the vernal song sang lowly
Swaddled in azure’s unfolding dream.
At each turn was a season, nascent life charming in marsh
Forays that brimmed the hollow rood, in clover yards, I saw
The lilt of bees, sallied in clearings
Brown as the yellowed beech
Colored in sounds that beat the heart.
And forth into the field I sprang unto that shedded loam
And high was the sail that bellowed the raft that raked my pond,
Bullied by the har-umph of frogs
I rippled, rowing cat o’nine tailed tunes.
Windy and free in the hollowed bark round the ****** bay
I trailed the bear sniffing **** heard the hoo of a swooping vowel
And wild in hare, dug the fox-hole up!
Damp fires hailed the rising
Moon, as fire-flies dinted the troutling pools
And nothing I saw in my drowning sun could nettle or thorn
My piney ways, nothing could rot my wood-craving ears
For the kestrel’s qweet-a-quee rang holy
In the skunk-flowered fields of Bolivar Pond.
Apr 5, 2013
Apr 5, 2013 at 2:41 PM UTC
And dreaming of Inisfáil, I was raised on Bolivar Pond.
Sheltered in my wake, I’d coo as the dewy’d morning dove
And fern in my bed, I rose to greet
The song-splayed sounds of light
And work, I made it dropping slow
Bright in the summers swoon, I was adorned in forest eves
By rings that rang from tree to rook, and flung the wingèd down,
Brambled in bay, garland in violet
When blades could ***** and not make bleed,
And I was brindled by the moon’d many shades, that liken
To a brook, and mottled in my main, noted among moss
In that glow, once knighted we must serve
Wood, let me comb in peace!
Colored in the mantled cloth of leaves
And bonny and red, I was the brave and the boon, the deer-
Ants learned me, and herons stood muck, on stands spearing all mite
And the vernal song sang lowly
Swaddled in azure’s unfolding dream.
At each turn was a season, nascent life charming in marsh
Forays that brimmed the hollow rood, in clover yards, I saw
The lilt of bees, sallied in clearings
Brown as the yellowed beech
Colored in sounds that beat the heart.
And forth into the field I sprang unto that shedded loam
And high was the sail that bellowed the raft that raked my pond,
Bullied by the har-umph of frogs
I rippled, rowing cat o’nine tailed tunes.
Windy and free in the hollowed bark round the ****** bay
I trailed the bear sniffing **** heard the hoo of a swooping vowel
And wild in hare, dug the fox-hole up!
Damp fires hailed the rising
Moon, as fire-flies dinted the troutling pools
And nothing I saw in my drowning sun could nettle or thorn
My piney ways, nothing could rot my wood-craving ears
For the kestrel’s qweet-a-quee rang holy
In the skunk-flowered fields of Bolivar Pond.
Sep 27, 2012
Sep 27, 2012 at 12:55 PM UTC
And dreaming of Inisfáil, I was raised on Bolivar Pond.
Sheltered in my wake, I’d coo as the dewy’d morning dove
And fern in my bed, I rose to greet
The song-splayed sounds of light
And work, I made it dropping slow
Bright in the summers swoon, I was adorned in forest eves
By rings that rang from tree to rook, and flung the wingèd down,
Brambled in bay, garland in violet
When blades could ***** and not make bleed,
And I was brindled by the moon’d many shades, that liken
To a brook, and mottled in my main, noted among moss
In that glow, once knighted we must serve
Wood, let me comb in peace!
Colored in the mantled cloth of leaves
And bonny and red, I was the brave and the boon, the deer-
Ants learned me, and herons stood muck, on stands spearing all mite
And the vernal song sang lowly
Swaddled in azure’s unfolding dream.
At each turn was a season, nascent life charming in marsh
Forays that brimmed the hollow rood, in clover yards, I saw
The lilt of bees, sallied in clearings
Brown as the yellowed beech
Colored in sounds that beat the heart.
And forth into the field I sprang unto that shedded loam
And high was the sail that bellowed the raft that raked my pond,
Bullied by the har-umph of frogs
I rippled, rowing cat o’nine tailed tunes.
Windy and free in the hollowed bark round the ****** bay
I trailed the bear sniffing **** heard the hoo of a swooping vowel
And wild in hare, dug the fox-hole up!
Damp fires hailed the rising
Moon, as fire-flies dinted the troutling pools
And nothing I saw in my drowning sun could nettle or thorn
My piney ways, nothing could rot my wood-craving ears
For the kestrel’s qweet-a-quee rang holy
In the skunk-flowered fields of Bolivar Pond.
Jun 4, 2012
Jun 4, 2012 at 6:46 PM UTC
And dreaming of Inisfáil, I was raised on Bolivar Pond.
Sheltered in my wake, I’d coo as the dewy’d morning dove
And fern in my bed, I rose to greet
The song-splayed sounds of light
And work, I made it dropping slow
Bright in the summers swoon, I was adorned in forest eves
By rings that rang from tree to rook, and flung the wingèd down,
Brambled in bay, garland in violet
When blades could ***** and not make bleed,
And I was brindled by the moon’d many shades, that liken
To a brook, and mottled in my main, noted among moss
In that glow, once knighted we must serve
Wood, let me comb in peace!
Colored in the mantled cloth of leaves
And bonny and red, I was the brave and the boon, the deer-
Ants learned me, and herons stood muck, on stands spearing all mite
And the vernal song sang lowly
Swaddled in azure’s unfolding dream.
At each turn was a season, nascent life charming in marsh
Forays that brimmed the hollow rood, in clover yards, I saw
The lilt of bees, sallied in clearings
Brown as the yellowed beech
Colored in sounds that beat the heart.
And forth into the field I sprang unto that shedded loam
And high was the sail that bellowed the raft that raked my pond,
Bullied by the har-umph of frogs
I rippled, rowing cat o’nine tailed tunes.
Windy and free in the hollowed bark round the ****** bay
I trailed the bear sniffing **** heard the hoo of a swooping vowel
And wild in hare, dug the fox-hole up!
Damp fires hailed the rising
Moon, as fire-flies dinted the troutling pools
And nothing I saw in my drowning sun could nettle or thorn
My piney ways, nothing could rot my wood-craving ears
For the kestrel’s qweet-a-quee rang holy
In the skunk-flowered fields of Bolivar Pond.
Jan 26, 2013
Jan 26, 2013 at 1:55 PM UTC
Hearken, thou craggy ocean-pyramid,
Give answer by thy voice—the sea-fowls' screams!
When were thy shoulders mantled in huge streams?
When from the sun was thy broad forehead hid?
How long is't since the mighty Power bid
Thee heave to airy sleep from fathom dreams—
Sleep in the lap of thunder or sunbeams—
Or when grey clouds are thy cold coverlid!
Thou answer'st not; for thou art dead asleep.
Thy life is but two dead eternities,
The last in air, the former in the deep!
First with the whales, last with the eagle-skies!
Drowned wast thou till an earthquake made thee steep,
Another cannot wake thy giant-size!
1.3k
*I want to hold your hand and feel its creases, the same that wrap around your pen. I want the immensity of your palm mantled on mine, its warmth that bruises my knuckles. I want to feel your fingers, and kiss the cold away its tips.
And if in every entanglement my touch could whisper, it would reassure,* "I love you. I'll forever hold your hand. I'll forever adore the solace I find in the tightness of your grip. I love you - and I am not letting go. So please don't."
Jul 21, 2015
Jul 21, 2015 at 1:27 PM UTC
And dreaming of Inisfáil, I was raised on Bolivar Pond.
Sheltered in my wake, I’d coo as the dewy’d morning dove
And fern in my bed, I rose to greet
The song-splayed sounds of light
And work, I made it dropping slow
Bright in the summers swoon, I was adorned in forest eves
By rings that rang from tree to rook, and flung the wingèd down,
Brambled in bay, garland in violet
When blades could ***** and not make bleed,
And I was brindled by the moon’d many shades, that liken
To a brook, and mottled in my main, noted among moss
In that glow, once knighted we must serve
Wood, let me comb in peace!
Colored in the mantled cloth of leaves
And bonny and red, I was the brave and the boon, the deer-
Ants learned me, and herons stood muck, on stands spearing all mite
And the vernal song sang lowly
Swaddled in azure’s unfolding dream.
At each turn was a season, nascent life charming in marsh
Forays that brimmed the hollow rood, in clover yards, I saw
The lilt of bees, sallied in clearings
Brown as the yellowed beech
Colored in sounds that beat the heart.
And forth into the field I sprang unto that shedded loam
And high was the sail that bellowed the raft that raked my pond,
Bullied by the har-umph of frogs
I rippled, rowing cat o’nine tailed tunes.
Windy and free in the hollowed bark round the ****** bay
I trailed the bear sniffing **** heard the hoo of a swooping vowel
And wild in hare, dug the fox-hole up!
Damp fires hailed the rising
Moon, as fire-flies dinted the troutling pools
And nothing I saw in my drowning sun could nettle or thorn
My piney ways, nothing could rot my wood-craving ears
For the kestrel’s qweet-a-quee rang holy
In the skunk-flowered fields of Bolivar Pond.
Sep 22, 2014
Sep 22, 2014 at 4:04 PM UTC
And dreaming of Inisfáil, I was raised on Bolivar Pond.
Sheltered in my wake, I’d coo as the dewy’d morning dove
And fern in my bed, I rose to greet
The song-splayed sounds of light
And work, I made it dropping slow
Bright in the summers swoon, I was adorned in forest eves
By rings that rang from tree to rook, and flung the wingèd down,
Brambled in bay, garland in violet
When blades could ***** and not make bleed,
And I was brindled by the moon’d many shades, that liken
To a brook, and mottled in my main, noted among moss
In that glow, once knighted we must serve
Wood, let me comb in peace!
Colored in the mantled cloth of leaves
And bonny and red, I was the brave and the boon, the deer-
Ants learned me, and herons stood muck, on stands spearing all mite
And the vernal song sang lowly
Swaddled in azure’s unfolding dream.
At each turn was a season, nascent life charming in marsh
Forays that brimmed the hollow rood, in clover yards, I saw
The lilt of bees, sallied in clearings
Brown as the yellowed beech
Colored in sounds that beat the heart.
And forth into the field I sprang unto that shedded loam
And high was the sail that bellowed the raft that raked my pond,
Bullied by the har-umph of frogs
I rippled, rowing cat o’nine tailed tunes.
Windy and free in the hollowed bark round the ****** bay
I trailed the bear sniffing **** heard the hoo of a swooping vowel
And wild in hare, dug the fox-hole up!
Damp fires hailed the rising
Moon, as fire-flies dinted the troutling pools
And nothing I saw in my drowning sun could nettle or thorn
My piney ways, nothing could rot my wood-craving ears
For the kestrel’s qweet-a-quee rang holy
In the skunk-flowered fields of Bolivar Pond.
Oct 14, 2013
Oct 14, 2013 at 1:29 PM UTC
And on that day you were born, my Sylvia, I murdered your father. So how you would grow up will depend entirely up to me.
I burnt his graceless flesh and mantled you with isolation. I threw his clothes on the window and buried his existence in the ground. Syl, sometimes you see him suspended in midair, I know, like a strange curve on the portrait, like a portrait wrapped in moth, like a moth perched on the wall, like a wall that doesn’t suit the architecture. But you never bothered to find out, good girl.
You were created in the course of the stars, on the backyard, my Sylvia and molded by flowers, so I must feed you with butterflies, drown you in poetry. You are the constellations I have disarrayed, the world I will dismember. You are the infinity, my love. You are the stretch of the ocean, the look in your father’s eyes before he sleeps. You are the incoherence of forever. You are the inconsistency of happiness.
My Syl, I fear that you will grow up, one day. You will leave this little cottage, and search for a better plastered wall. You will doubt my existence and those bleeding of the feathers. You will tear your skin and discover a new you underneath. You will find your crater of imperfections, you will be astonished, you will begin to wonder, you will begin to question and you will forget about me. You will begin to ***** my lullabies.
Hush, my love, and close your eyes. I will make you immortal. I will stitch you with stardust. I will cover your little lovely bones with perfection. I will smoothen you like a wax; you may kiss your scars goodbye. I will preserve your name with you, and lock you both in a beautiful cage. I will make you immortal. I will make you immortal. I will make you immortal. Like a prayer. Like a lovely prayer.
Your fist locked like a period, began the history, encompassed the world, the silent plea, the quivering resistance, the flickering flame; your little mouth in absolute surrender. You are the rigidity of my everlasting delight, the bleeding poppies in every battleground. Sleep, my Sylvia, sleep, and never wake up.
Stay infinite, my Syl, my sweet, my love. We are greater than literature. We are larger than biography. Always remember that.
Always remember that.
Always remember that.
Always
Remember
That.
Apr 13, 2013
Apr 13, 2013 at 3:04 AM UTC
[Hellcat]
By the bubbling stream,
Lay your head down,
On my lap of reeds.
Oft the lyre was struck,
Flatt’ring music,
Ne’er ceasing, ne’er circumscrib’d.
My horned boy give in,
Sleep in this lea,
Under secret bow’r,
Beside stream,
Under imagin’d ivy-mantled tow’r,
“It’s time.....for the rite,” I whispered,
“Sleep shall bring you no pain.”
Come, leave thy clothes here,
To be washed, like the tow’r, by the rain.”
Your lithe body was warm,
Rub’d against my chest,
Creating a ling’grin feeling,
Sweet,delicious friction,
Sending my eyes reeling.
My sweet catamite,
Still unfathomed are your feelings,
No revenge shall you be granted,
Oh yes! I know, but we may not tarry,
Mis’ry awaits,
And glimm’ring moon,
Welcomes us, th’inevitable mates.
-Firefly
Sep 12, 2014
Sep 12, 2014 at 5:31 PM UTC
The dews of heaven
She downs like the morning
A mellifluous creature, surfed ashore
Myrtle amid thorns; Quiescent
Heart of a royal; highness
Resplendent in garment of sapphire; radiant
The lady gouldian finch
Melodies inspires ataraxia
Beautific as wysteria
It’s her loving heart beaming smiles
Stretches as thousand miles
Incandescent as candle on a hill
Beacon of hope
Oh hear
The susurrations of a Gold-Mantled Rosella .
Tj. kwame
Apr 30, 2016
Apr 30, 2016 at 9:25 AM UTC
Notice:
My folding knees are wrinkle-free
Synapses approve her words
"If you would have listened to me!"
Unfinished if you ask me
Sweatsuit mantled to her mammal's final seam
His iron and oxygen behind the curtain
Stolen by towels, filling the spinning tile cracks
For the woman to raise her stocky pants
My lips, chapped
Feb 19, 2013
Feb 19, 2013 at 9:22 PM UTC
Bequest of love
She's ageless yet stuck in blossoms
A Life force matured concrete mantled perks
17 and remitted into my dreams
cast a thousandyard stare for hours
I'd love you
until our atoms are ripped to shreds in a single glance
We'd kiss from ebony meeting brown
The shadows would smile wild
And I wouldn't care
Love me sparsely
Die with me elderly please,
We teach nurturing peace
From days without end
Encompass that first day I'd caught the eye jeering slap
Punch drunk love
I collapse everytime we meet
I can't escape
I'm to old to lust the relapse
Jul 1, 2015
Jul 1, 2015 at 4:56 AM UTC
a passing whIspered comment
a maNtled post script of sorts
strategiC in its position
a mumbled aftEr thought.
the seed so Proficiently sown
unbeknownst To reaping brain
idea encased In new bud
voiced now by nOteable name.
watch it uNfold with surprise feigned!
Apr 27, 2016
Apr 27, 2016 at 2:25 AM UTC
Endless starry skies.
Stretched black velvet mantled/
On a gentle hill.
Dec 17, 2017
Dec 17, 2017 at 10:54 AM UTC