"mantles" poems
--I. M. Edward John Henley (1861-1898)
Where are the passions they essayed,
And where the tears they made to flow?
Where the wild humours they portrayed
For laughing worlds to see and know?
Othello's wrath and Juliet's woe?
Sir Peter's whims and Timon's gall?
And Millamant and Romeo?
Into the night go one and all.
Where are the braveries, fresh or frayed?
The plumes, the armours--friend and foe?
The cloth of gold, the rare brocade,
The mantles glittering to and fro?
The pomp, the pride, the royal show?
The cries of war and festival?
The youth, the grace, the charm, the glow?
Into the night go one and all.
The curtain falls, the play is played:
The Beggar packs beside the Beau;
The Monarch troops, and troops the Maid;
The Thunder huddles with the Snow.
Where are the revellers high and low?
The clashing swords? The lover's call?
The dancers gleaming row on row?
Into the night go one and all.
Envoy
Prince, in one common overthrow
The Hero tumbles with the Thrall:
As dust that drives, as straws that blow,
Into the night go one and all.
2.6k
Dear BECHER, you tell me to mix with mankind;
I cannot deny such a precept is wise;
But retirement accords with the tone of my mind:
I will not descend to a world I despise.
Did the Senate or Camp my exertions require,
Ambition might prompt me, at once, to go forth;
When Infancy’s years of probation expire,
Perchance, I may strive to distinguish my birth.
The fire, in the cavern of Etna, conceal’d,
Still mantles unseen in its secret recess;
At length, in a volume terrific, reveal’d,
No torrent can quench it, no bounds can repress.
Oh! thus, the desire, in my ***** for fame
Bids me live, but to hope for Posterity’s praise.
Could I soar with the Phoenix on pinions of flame,
With him I would wish to expire in the blaze.
For the life of a Fox, of a Chatham the death,
What censure, what danger, what woe would I brave!
Their lives did not end, when they yielded their breath,
Their glory illumines the gloom of their grave.
Yet why should I mingle in Fashion’s full herd?
Why crouch to her leaders, or cringe to her rules?
Why bend to the proud, or applaud the absurd?
Why search for delight, in the friendship of fools?
I have tasted the sweets, and the bitters, of love,
In friendship I early was taught to believe;
My passion the matrons of prudence reprove,
I have found that a friend may profess, yet deceive.
To me what is wealth?—it may pass in an hour,
If Tyrants prevail, or if Fortune should frown:
To me what is title?—the phantom of power;
To me what is fashion?—I seek but renown.
Deceit is a stranger, as yet, to my soul;
I, still, am unpractised to varnish the truth:
Then, why should I live in a hateful controul?
Why waste, upon folly, the days of my youth?
2.3k
Waning dappled moonlight mantles
the margin at the wild-wood edge
Stiff tufts of summer dried grass spears
sporadically sway — raking against
the scarlet poison oak leaves
gently sweeping away the moonlit silence
airing the sounds of velvet antlers rubbing
barkless mountain willow trunks bare
Subtle nuances constantly animate
twilights rhythm; heaven flickers
upon a dark umbrage of forest pillars
softly as a candlelight’s fluttering glow
evanescing half way across the sky;
the sparse illumined clouds stream through
the lambent halo around the rutting moon
fleeting in the blink of sleepless eyes
and like the silent touch of a talisman,
transfixed eyes are entranced by all
the restless night disrobes,
captured and cocooned by the seeker’s
awakened senses
An erratic, familiar feral bark peals haughtily;
a pack of maturing spring pups yip, bellow and shriek
in youthful pursuit; the howling report back,
ignited by the scent of a rabbit's paling squeal,
aroused by the pulse of brother wolf
rippling deeply through their blood
The dried grass game-trail crackles towards the ridge top:
an aging full moon is not enough skylight
to see beyond a seeker’s stirring silent reverie
the coyote choir’s sudden reveling echoes rekindling
an extraordinary sheltering intimacy within;
bending slithers of moonlight into a dull moonlight mantle
but I can feel its weight breaking me ,... forlorn I can't physically
reach out to touch them in an absolving moment —
understanding love was always the purpose of being ,...
futilely repining — I can't face myself alone again
harlon rivers ... October 2019
.
Oct 21, 2019
Oct 21, 2019 at 8:39 PM UTC
Among the more irritating minor ideas
Of Mr. Homburg during his visits home
To Concord, at the edge of things, was this:
To think away the grass, the trees, the clouds,
Not to transform them into other things,
Is only what the sun does every day,
Until we say to ourselves that there may be
A pensive nature, a mechanical
And slightly detestable operandum, free
From man's ghost, larger and yet a little like,
Without his literature and without his gods . . .
No doubt we live beyond ourselves in air,
In an element that does not do for us,
so well, that which we do for ourselves, too big,
A thing not planned for imagery or belief,
Not one of the masculine myths we used to make,
A transparency through which the swallow weaves,
Without any form or any sense of form,
What we know in what we see, what we feel in what
We hear, what we are, beyond mystic disputation,
In the tumult of integrations out of the sky,
And what we think, a breathing like the wind,
A moving part of a motion, a discovery
Part of a discovery, a change part of a change,
A sharing of color and being part of it.
The afternoon is visibly a source,
Too wide, too irised, to be more than calm,
Too much like thinking to be less than thought,
Obscurest parent, obscurest patriarch,
A daily majesty of meditation,
That comes and goes in silences of its own.
We think, then as the sun shines or does not.
We think as wind skitters on a pond in a field
Or we put mantles on our words because
The same wind, rising and rising, makes a sound
Like the last muting of winter as it ends.
A new scholar replacing an older one reflects
A moment on this fantasia. He seeks
For a human that can be accounted for.
The spirit comes from the body of the world,
Or so Mr. Homburg thought: the body of a world
Whose blunt laws make an affectation of mind,
The mannerism of nature caught in a glass
And there become a spirit's mannerism,
A glass aswarm with things going as far as they can.
1.6k
When I rov’d a young Highlander o’er the dark heath,
And climb’d thy steep summit, oh Morven of snow!
To gaze on the torrent that thunder’d beneath,
Or the mist of the tempest that gather’d below;
Untutor’d by science, a stranger to fear,
And rude as the rocks, where my infancy grew,
No feeling, save one, to my ***** was dear;
Need I say, my sweet Mary, ’twas centred in you?
Yet it could not be Love, for I knew not the name,—
What passion can dwell in the heart of a child?
But, still, I perceive an emotion the same
As I felt, when a boy, on the crag-cover’d wild:
One image, alone, on my ***** impress’d,
I lov’d my bleak regions, nor panted for new;
And few were my wants, for my wishes were bless’d,
And pure were my thoughts, for my soul was with you.
I arose with the dawn, with my dog as my guide,
From mountain to mountain I bounded along;
I breasted the billows of Dee’s rushing tide,
And heard at a distance the Highlander’s song:
At eve, on my heath-cover’d couch of repose.
No dreams, save of Mary, were spread to my view;
And warm to the skies my devotions arose,
For the first of my prayers was a blessing on you.
I left my bleak home, and my visions are gone;
The mountains are vanish’d, my youth is no more;
As the last of my race, I must wither alone,
And delight but in days, I have witness’d before:
Ah! splendour has rais’d, but embitter’d my lot;
More dear were the scenes which my infancy knew:
Though my hopes may have fail’d, yet they are not
forgot,
Though cold is my heart, still it lingers with you.
When I see some dark hill point its crest to the sky,
I think of the rocks that o’ershadow Colbleen;
When I see the soft blue of a love-speaking eye,
I think of those eyes that endear’d the rude scene;
When, haply, some light-waving locks I behold,
That faintly resemble my Mary’s in hue,
I think on the long flowing ringlets of gold,
The locks that were sacred to beauty, and you.
Yet the day may arrive, when the mountains once more
Shall rise to my sight, in their mantles of snow;
But while these soar above me, unchang’d as before,
Will Mary be there to receive me?—ah, no!
Adieu, then, ye hills, where my childhood was bred!
Thou sweet flowing Dee, to thy waters adieu!
No home in the forest shall shelter my head,—
Ah! Mary, what home could be mine, but with you?
1.5k
It’s taken you’re fed up
With politicized debate
And the fools who do brinkmanship’s
Scared world of hate.
And the ghouls who eat babies
As pawns in their game
In their scrawny white penis’s
Sad quest for fame.
Where the sick sabre rattlers
Cavort with their ploys
Of destroying old satellites
To show off their toys.
To drape flags of challenge
With threat weave inbound
Across mantles of aspirants
Desirous to be crowned.
Intimidating tactics
From they with the gun
Against all the challengers
Emerging at run.
From China to terrorist
The gauntlet’s thrown,
You cross our line
There's no mercy shown.
And we little guys sit
In our quiet, timid way,
Whilst the gigantic ego's
Jostling holds sway.
Whilst the arrogant right
Profess to have God,
And the rest of us cower
In fear, like a dog.
And the sun comes up
With a glorious show
And the nuclear dust
In the air is aglow,
And the rich and the famous
Are dead in their beds
And the ***** and the cockroaches
Nibble their heads.
It’s all such a waste
In a terrible way
When the General’s pushed buttons
And had such a day....
Marshalg
Victoria Park Tunnel
10 February 2011
Feb 9, 2011
Feb 9, 2011 at 7:19 PM UTC
Brown flakes chipped from the mantles, fall
Outside chaos sweeps, shattered bird calls
Paths and trails invade, disrupting the norm
Arbor day stuck mid-waist, smothered once more
There's catastrophe in the canopy
Silence of defeat deafens the forestry
Help me, help you, I tip my ranger hat
Lets emancipate the earth from man's wicked combat
The world's confused, so liberate and understand
Clear your mind from this innate, tradition of can't
Ignore heavy mists blinding your eyes
Demand a deep breath, stand for your rights
The damage must come to an end
The world's in your hands
Unite nature, beast and man
Together as friends
Apr 13, 2012
Apr 13, 2012 at 1:12 PM UTC
When we first met,
a balloon inflated in my chest,
squeezing the air from my lungs
and pressing all my innards
against my ribcage so hard that
I thought I might burst.
And I don't know why.
When we first kissed,
static shot through nervous nerves.
Even my hairs were so shocked
that every last one leapt away
from my skin and my brain
had to reboot. But in that moment,
when I came back, I found
my lips had only brushed yours
and when we touched a second time,
I died all over again.
And I still don't know why.
When we are apart,
I feel a hundred million stings
tingling through my endless maze of veins.
My thoughts get lost in the meandering streams
of consciousness and dreams that
keep sleep from sharing my pillow.
And as I wander through my wonder,
I am amazed that your face has been placed
on the mantles of my mind where I feel most safe.
I discover you where I least expect to.
And I may never know why.
I guess one can never really see this kind of thing coming.
Is there such a thing as an expected surprise?
That being said, before you begin to to dread
that our future conversations now have expectations,
I've seen that the less I look ahead, the better.
Still,
maybe I
can discover why
my life is being painted with colors
I had completely forgotten.
But,
I mean,
Anjuli,
I only really want to
if you want to.
And if I may,
I'd love to say:
I want you.
Dec 9, 2012
Dec 9, 2012 at 4:04 AM UTC
"Did you count our hours?
Tally up tick-tocks?"
No.
The tick-tocks ticked me off.
I cracked.
I cracked glass faces.
Keeping track of mantles, walls, and wrists.
Time is so human it's creepy.
Watches watch you.
Hands move wiser.
That ******* glass face again
and this giant thing
looming in the corner is not
anybodies grandfather.
Trying to seem friendly while
it all slowly steals your life away.
Losing trick-track of our hours,
over and over.
Sep 28, 2013
Sep 28, 2013 at 6:36 PM UTC
If only I had heard the words themselves
expelled unmistakably in blades from
a swirling voice, prismatic in black,
and simply inescapable permanence
through me, saying
you are condemned, I would have nodded, nodded
Unmistakable, too, though, is my thought
and it lashes simply through me
more than a burden on a via dolorosa
asking what sound the ground would make,
were my shoulder to dip, it to fall, were I, in bareness,
to run towards a break in the confluence
My shoulder throbs critically certain moments,
possibly, the way water when it mantles
under itself, when its skin just about
feels itself out
Though solitude, it could be made of wood
to splint or splinter and, further, throbbing is just
blood, in as would be out, so quickly do my
bones straighten, wait for swirls to slow,
silence to recede back towards
sussurating laodicean voices, again, speaking
only to me, too too clearly a calloused truth,
and for the confluence to nod, nod then close the break.
Mar 27, 2012
Mar 27, 2012 at 6:31 PM UTC
Emphatic yes.
Mechanical gestures attempt to arrest form,
Bind in possession a moment no longer.
A willful lash,
Resistance necessary,
Violent response to denied consent.
Constant memories.
Accountability never lost,
Never assumed initially.
Mantles are places,
For trophies,......
Remember to buy flame retardant.
Mar 19, 2016
Mar 19, 2016 at 4:23 AM UTC
Come to me,
Oh look and see,
Please tell me that I don't belong.
To this place,
O' to this world,
To this situation I hath rote.
But negative,
Nay I say,
Tis a situation so grand,
That it can be only sung out in the tongue of yore,
For it is only the most noble of mantles,
Of Fatherhood's door I adorn.
It shall be I,
I be armed with simple tools,
A fresh ***** or bottle,
To assuage my young liege lord's woes,
For betwixt the soggy ure or rancid scitan,
I dread knowing such knowledge,
But my sacred duties of ****** I shan't ignore.
So for now,
Oh humble bards and wanderers,
Listen to this tale no more,
Create such joy and celebration,
For upon this day,
My Firstborn son is born.
Jun 9, 2023
Jun 9, 2023 at 2:11 PM UTC
This troublesome beauty
Lines the walls of my temple,
Dangles crystals and candlesticks along its mantles.
My thoughts pray at her altar,
They clench their fingers together in pure fascination, yearning
For a couple minutes more
Of that spiraling reality -
The sparks at the edge of my eyes draw
Me to peek behind the curtain of my essence.
I fall like powdered snow and gliding petals off
Their enchanted tower, having been
Plucked from the certainty of their being into
A tonic, gelid air.
My body contains a formless wonder
Made of mellowing spirit -
I unwind and differentiate
Into many limbs of being.
Jan 25, 2017
Jan 25, 2017 at 4:27 PM UTC
Swift little flickers, frostbitten butterflies seek cause for silent tickers.
Errant thoughts muzzled, fearful to fly, forever puzzled.
Every place wrestling for resemblance: filigreed and brimming with brilliance
Kept their dizzy daydreams quite upright, poured over their faceted faces in hours twilight.
Inken sketches, florid smudges later you will find the carnage.
Nearly melted, beat those frosted wings, keep your wits about you, pretty things.
Go, flick and fleet: their flight; fly, fly always towards the light.
Soft whispers give way to angry hisses
Ever less goodness, evermore thoughtless.
Restless sounds of puncture wounds, outpouring of broken tunes.
Earth trodden ashes of the unforgiven writings call to halt the lashings.
No one hearing, none recalling the precious dress of lacing.
Intellect sparked, soon be doused; any voice of inspiration, oust.
Theft of name, take them to another unmarked grave, twisted game.
Young remember as their elders told in fright, 'fly, fly; always towards the light.'
Taste the soot on your tongue, the burn in your lungs, the breath of change this way comes.
Here they hunt thieves in the mist, starving fireflies on a mad tryst.
Run, fast and far they did, into the wastes they wade: anxious of judgment to be paid.
On the precipice you balance, guided by the insurgent cadence...
Under the needle all the more urgent it becomes, you fight with fists and tongues, pens, curses and drums!
Grow to regret their callosity for all your darling thought by the fervor with which you fought!
Hear the chorus of the masses screaming with all their might, their battle cry, "Fly, fly; always towards the light!"
Snowflakes listen in chaste wonderment of the divine's grand design.
Mutiny of the very worst kind, slaughter and smother your peace and mind.
Ostentatious trimmings traded for ember dress to set light to falsifiers' fortress.
Keen intellects, driven mad with hunger, retract their reticent mantles to reveal peerless sentinels.
Eternally seeking serenity through smoke, as in ancient rite they fly, fly; always towards the light.
Feb 26, 2014
Feb 26, 2014 at 10:40 AM UTC
In solitary spaces
I find parts noise hid
screaming simulacrum
in broken cobwebs
a life pending
in crevices
sensing
chill
broken
concepts
mantles for
ruptured elements
their soft core exposed
casualties of bloodied past
salvaged fragments
society's furnace
discarded
singing
synths
waiting
Dec 26, 2019
Dec 26, 2019 at 4:57 AM UTC
Home is here,
within the safety of arms that hold me tightly so that emptiness can no longer climb into my bones. You are the roof when it storms in my mind and the buckets overflowing with tears that seep through the cracks in the ceiling on the nights my skin forgets how to shelter. Your words exist in the whistling kettle on the stove steaming with gentle whispers that remind me that I must pour my doubt into a porcelain cup and swallow.
Sometimes the taste is worth the burnt tongue.
I adore you in the way you never think twice about parting your curtains to let the shy sunlight kiss my cheek on the mornings I worry that I'll only ever know the feeling of lonely shadows creeping down dusty mantles and floral wallpaper, tiptoeing down the ridges of my spine like something that has never dreamed of being loved.
Because now, there is no need to keep the television buzzing in the background to drown out the voices from under the sofa shouting for me to store my beating heart in the attic. Instead, the room is silent except for the melody of laughter echoing down the walls and in the pictures of us hanging upon them. There is only music left playing as your footsteps flutter down the stairs in a hurry to dance barefoot with me in the kitchen. The only voice left to hear is yours, lulling me to sleep better than counting reasons to stay alive ever could. Tomorrow, there will be no more numbers left to reach.
Jun 2, 2016
Jun 2, 2016 at 3:37 PM UTC
All is dark in the house of dust
All is cold
All is breath and breaking bone
And skin that has shed making the dust
And the souls that enter flow like a river
And the names are not called
Peter left a long time ago
God and Gods
Demons and Devils
Abandoned the safety of the house where the souls must go
And dirt deep we rest
Rest enough to feel our bodies turn into dust
Because our souls have nowhere to go
My body is the house of dust
And it is dark inside
Save for the flicker
A spark just strong enough for a pyre
That I will never get to see
At least ash might be scattered in the daylight
Not brushed off of mantles
Or shaken from the feet of the righteous
Every time they turn their backs on me
The earth above me rattles when it rains
And I settle deeper into the dark
Where the dust mixes with the earth
And tries desperately to belong
I do not belong there
These bones are too dense
My heart is too dense
My soul weighs more than the rock marking my place
I am fine with that
Fine with the idea of forever
And the place I will be left in
The house of dust
The house of bone and breath
At least I will not be alone
My soul
will stay with me
Aug 28, 2011
Aug 28, 2011 at 5:51 AM UTC
I am winter's shadow across the desert
wandering in the back alleys and ravines
where the tumbleweeds go when the Monarch slumbers
to drink the last of the hiding frost
I am winter's shadow across the desert
a funeral-gaze across the Pit
to the titans that clutch the edge of my world
where, this year, Father draped no mantles
I am winter's shadow across the desert
greeted in silence by a broken landscape
whose children watch with clandestine eyes
awaiting my death in the spring
I am winter's shadow across the desert
the last grain of sand in the hourglass
the last muffled roar of Limantour
the last ray of moonlight on the horizon
_the last of my kind._
Dec 29, 2017
Dec 29, 2017 at 2:12 PM UTC
Deep inside the wrinkles
of the Blue Mountains
Cold air sits upon
the primitives' throne
Inky echoes stroll the alleys
No living essence have ever
trespassed these halls
Sun's breathe becomes pale
as it touches the gloomy
foothills and crests
Merely sprites wearing
mantles made of mist
dwell this mountainous region
Even rain seldom visits
to pierce the ghastly silence
Amidst the fog
forgotten tokens may hide
In riddles of old and
astral vague light
Nov 3, 2018
Nov 3, 2018 at 12:57 PM UTC
wake me
shake me
out of this febrile trance
furtively pilfering my
heart's ancient treasure
once guarded
by comforting spirits
of warm hopes and
beliefs held beyond reason
never questioned
by the minds tribunal
the jurors seated
in the cranial court
knowing eyes silenced
by misguided faith's rhetoric
never minding
the persuasive muzzle
often ignoring serpent's
retractable tongue
always turning from
the dark corridors
light banished
by modern-day pharisees
cloaked in mantles of treason
patronizingly diluting
what can only remain pure
painted with pious platitudes
away
far away
i must sail from this folly
an orphan of mystical doubt
the frost and cold tempest I feel
cautious sensibilities
a tenuous guide
through these gray
realms I traverse
trembling hands
grasp transient hopes
striving to shape
deeper meaning
disciplining lazy
traditional beliefs
that hang on like
phosphorescent
spiders in the dusty
lofty
rafters of memory
deceptive iconic silhouettes
faded de-spiritualized
superimposed on a
human-made landscape
a beautiful picture
gold frame and all!
absence of religious
pop-culture faith
eclipses peace
i shudder at the prospect
of this purge
preparing for burial
what must die
the end of an age
burned in effigy
a raging wilderness
I now pass through
I stumble by many
a familiar and
unfamiliar fane
longing to be clothed
with a mantle of peace
a vulnerable yet
strong spirit I guard
let not trivialised faith be
my misleading guide
and if it is all meaningless
alas! it may be
still I must forge
ahead to the sea
ever mindful that rivers
return to where
they have been
separated at birth
i often hear roaring waves
crashing and gentler waves
lapping on shore
but a body of water
is not always the Sea.
Aug 27, 2024
Aug 27, 2024 at 12:08 PM UTC
My mother spelled my name with a storm -
made the first syllable
lightning
second syllable of
wind and rain
third syllable of
thunder's distant roar.
My mother made my name tectonic.
Each syllable cacophonous -
the subsequent more than the former -
slamming continental tongues
into the mantles of teeth.
My mother made my name as immutable as the laws of gravity -
catches hold of your ear
and refuses to let go
unless acted on by an
equal
and opposite force.
My mother spelled my name with power -
bound it to the core of my being
with love -
marched me into the World and
with all the power left in her
declared,
"This is my son in whom I am well pleased".
Jun 30, 2017
Jun 30, 2017 at 2:33 PM UTC
Breathe.
Just breathe
As if it were the very last breath
Like the very last time I'll ever inhale in my life,
I fill up my lungs, to the point where they'll burst.
On the verge of self-implosion,
I'll breathe until it hurts.
I let the air flow right through me
Let it comfort me.
Wrap me up in a chillingly warm embrace
Kind of like grandma's hugs.
It'll pierce me right to the bone.
Break me right in half, and cut this heart of stone.
And with a swift breeze it picks me right back up.
It mantles all my misplaced pieces,
and cradles me.
Inhale,
in through the nose
Exhale,
Out through the mouth.
There is no need for haste, my love.
We can let it flow with the wind.
Stay or go, like the autumn leaves we shall be swept away.
But it's okay.
I am at peace
Surrounded by it.
May 18, 2014
May 18, 2014 at 3:48 AM UTC
My mind screams louder than my voice
An explosion of anger
Ruining this sublime grace and beauty
Painful currents
Flowing in my blood stream
On a frequency of endless pace
The pain of frustration joins in
Faith and logic in battle
After countless mantles bought
Struggle to struggle to struggle
I cannot see your face
This debate
Dancing around my brain
Dragging me down
Into an abyss of endless agony
And my faith just almost fails me
After nights of endless intercession
And daily prayers in tongues
I cannot feel your presence
I stretch my ears
I raise my face
I hear and see
Wonders and wonders you have done
And I know you’re there
Your words surround me
The warmth in this biting cold
I blink and salty waters you’ve made
Like waterfall,
Cascades down in heavenly designed drops
Drenching the bed I once laid
I cannot hear you
I am drowning in longing
Listen to the yearnings of my heart
Speak to me
Stop this biting pain in my chest
Can you see me?
I lift myself in supplication
It’s all you
For I am small and vulnerable
And you are larger than life
Show me your face!
Jan 31, 2019
Jan 31, 2019 at 6:38 AM UTC