"marshes" poems
It was the twilight of the iguana.
From the rainbow-arch of the battlements,
his long tongue like a lance
sank down in the green leaves,
and a swarm of ants, monks with feet chanting,
crawled off into the jungle,
the guanaco, thin as oxygen
in the wide peaks of cloud,
went along, wearing his shoes of gold,
while the llama opened his honest eyes
on the breakable neatness
of a world full of dew.
The monkeys braided a ******
thread that went on and on
along the shores of dawn,
demolishing walls of pollen
and startling the butterflies of Muzo
into flying violets.
It was the night of the alligators,
the pure night, crawling
with snouts emrging from ooze,
and out the sleepy marshes
the confused noise of scaly plates
returned to the ground where they began.
The jaguar brushed the leaves
with a luminous absence,
the puma runs through the branches
like a forest fire,
while the jungle's drunken eyes
burn from inside him.
The badgers scratch the river's
feet, scenting the nest
whost throbbing delicacy
they attack with red teeth.
And deep in the huge waters
the enormous anaconda lies
like the circle around the earth,
covered with ceremonies of mud,
devouring, religious.
18k
I see a dying swan
Resting on the marshes of the bank
Her feathers white as snow
Her wings like that of a silk
I hear a dying swan
whispering softly to the river
While she rests and sleeps
the river answers back with a song
A song of life and death
Graping onto her graceful neck
breath took her away
And now she sleeps and never comes back
I know a dying swan
she's like a mother
and the river a home
though her eyes told me no story anymore
I still believe her, that dying swan
Apr 1, 2015
Apr 1, 2015 at 10:41 AM UTC
When the dust swirls in the March wind
the forlorn noon is thick with flames of the forest
and the meadow sighs in gold yellow sun
my eyes seek Krishna in that aching void.
She grazed the cows from morn till twilight
and though eldest among the siblings
she was schooled only in the blazing days
learning to pull her herd to greener pasture
venturing into marshes none would dare tread.
Not one groom could be found for her
bypassed she was for her fairer sisters
that went to school grew up were married
and ushered new inmates to the world.
Then a few summers past
when I had almost forgotten her
I saw her forehead smeared with vermilion.
But why she had to come back
playing once again the shepherd girl
gathering them for home at dusk
crooning aaaaaa….oooooo…..
I don’t know if Krishna went back to her husband
for after a few days she wasn’t seen again.
Only the winds howled in the forlorn noon
and the little shepherd girls who came after her
whispered she had at the in-laws
hung herself from a tree.
Mar 1, 2015
Mar 1, 2015 at 8:04 AM UTC
Next to the marshes
The muddy smell fills my nose
The cat tails shutter
Apr 2, 2014
Apr 2, 2014 at 8:03 AM UTC
I will go where the swallows go,
following orange sunsets and
amber wings.
I will search for bottled letters,
written in the dawn of future,
for something more than bottomless worry.
I will go where the swallows go,
sleeping in the marshes' hollow,
I only hope for tomorrow.
My lungs may burst as I cover my nose and mouth,
I give my strength to the waters now.
With its will; I could too, learn to fly.
I will go where the swallows go,
because where they lead, I do not
know, but it's something better than here;
a being to cease my
fear--
Jul 25, 2018
Jul 25, 2018 at 11:54 PM UTC
The shadows have their seasons, too.
The feathery web the budding maples
cast down upon the sullen lawn
bears but a faint relation to
high summer's umbrageous weight
and tunnellike continuum-
black leached from green, deep pools
wherein a globe of gnats revolves
as airy as an astrolabe.
The thinning shade of autumn is
an inherited Oriental,
red worn to pink, nap worn to thread.
Shadows on snow look blue. The skier,
exultant at the summit, sees his poles
elongate toward the valley: thus
each blade of grass projects another
opposite the sun, and in marshes
the mesh is infinite,
as the winged eclipse an eagle in flight
drags across the desert floor
is infinitesimal.
And shadows on water!-
the beech bough bent to the speckled lake
where silt motes flicker gold,
or the steel dock underslung
with a submarine that trembles,
its ladder stiffened by air.
And loveliest, because least looked-for,
gray on gray, the stripes
the pearl-white winter sun
hung low beneath the leafless wood
draws out from trunk to trunk across the road
like a stairway that does not rise.
4.7k
KEEP a red heart of memories
Under the great gray rain sheds of the sky,
Under the open sun and the yellow gloaming embers.
Remember all paydays of lilacs and songbirds;
All starlights of cool memories on storm paths.
Out of this prairie rise the faces of dead men.
They speak to me. I can not tell you what they say.
Other faces rise on the prairie.
They are the unborn. The future.
Yesterday and to-morrow cross and mix on the skyline
The two are lost in a purple haze. One forgets. One waits.
In the yellow dust of sunsets, in the meadows of vermilion eight o'clock June nights ... the dead men and the unborn children speak to me ... I can not tell you what they say ... you listen and you know.
I don't care who you are, man:
I know a woman is looking for you
and her soul is a corn-tassel kissing a south-west wind.
(The farm-boy whose face is the color of brick-dust, is calling the cows; he will form the letter X with crossed streams of milk from the teats; he will beat a tattoo on the bottom of a tin pail with X's of milk.)
I don't care who you are, man:
I know sons and daughters looking for you
And they are gray dust working toward star paths
And you see them from a garret window when you laugh
At your luck and murmur, "I don't care."
I don't care who you are, woman:
I know a man is looking for you
And his soul is a south-west wind kissing a corn-tassel.
(The kitchen girl on the farm is throwing oats to the chickens and the buff of their feathers says hello to the sunset's late maroon.)
I don't care who you are, woman:
I know sons and daughters looking for you
And they are next year's wheat or the year after hidden in the dark and loam.
My love is a yellow hammer spinning circles in Ohio, Indiana. My love is a redbird shooting flights in straight lines in Kentucky and Tennessee. My love is an early robin flaming an ember of copper on her shoulders in March and April. My love is a graybird living in the eaves of a Michigan house all winter. Why is my love always a crying thing of wings?
On the Indiana dunes, in the Mississippi marshes, I have asked: Is it only a fishbone on the beach?
Is it only a dog's jaw or a horse's skull whitening in the sun? Is the red heart of man only ashes? Is the flame of it all a white light switched off and the power house wires cut?
Why do the prairie roses answer every summer? Why do the changing repeating rains come back out of the salt sea wind-blown? Why do the stars keep their tracks? Why do the cradles of the sky rock new babies?
4.4k
at first an unrelenting green covers everything:
the trees, the lawn, the hillsides, the marshes, the windbreaks,
everything is completely and totally green, the deepest, truest green,
so green you might even forget that it wasn't always green,
so green you might not stop to think that it won't always be green.
school children look out windows during their exams,
longing to be free amid all that greenness,
lovers sit in parks near the water, under perfectly green leaves,
listening to the wind, watching the stars come out
and making their wishes, forever joined with that unrelenting green.
artists dip their impressionistic brushes in the green and dab on canvas
pictures of people gathered at picnics in dappled, green shade,
joined with the greenness, enveloped and absorbed by it,
becoming green themselves. they paint pictures of leafy trees reaching beyond the canvas with patches of sky showing through, a perspective of endless summer that you have to look at a long time
to see and feel, but once you find it beyond the greenness, in the
blue beyond the hill, you will be part of it always: through the fading mid-summer and pale, yellowing late summer, even into the multi-
colored fall and the stark, grey-white winter, and you will know life, and hope and love, and nothing will ever seem the same again
Sep 24, 2016
Sep 24, 2016 at 7:05 AM UTC
So an age ended, and its last deliverer died
In bed, grown idle and unhappy; they were safe:
The sudden shadow of a giant's enormous calf
Would fall no more at dusk across their lawns outside.
They slept in peace: in marshes here and there no doubt
A sterile dragon lingered to a natural death,
But in a year the spoor had vanished from the heath:
A kobold's knocking in the mountain petered out.
Only the scupltors and the poets were half sad,
And the pert retinue from the magician's house
Grumbled and went elsewhere. The vanished powers were glad
To be invisible and free; without remorse
Struck down the sons who strayed in their course,
And ravished the daughters, and drove the fathers mad.
3.9k
Welcome Back To This, Your Isle
The rabbits beneath the deck,
Even the pesky deer who eat the shrubbery,
Sea creatures, living and spirits of the dead,
Lying on the paths and in the creeks of Silver Beach,
All inquire:
Was it better wherever you went?
Were the:
Bears, hiding in the forests outside Berlin,
Eagles, double headed, of Russia
Herring, fried, creamed, wined,
From the vendors on the docks of
Helsinki, Riga, Visby and Tallinn,
Salmon, smoked and cured in Stockholm,
More impressive,
Tastier than our striped bass,
Island cohorts of yours, who waited patiently
For their chronicler to return?
Did the Little Mermaid and her Dolphin
Guardians of the Port of Copenhagen
Welcome you more warmly than your friends,
The ospreys, lizards, turtles and owls
Who overwatch your steps and safety
When hiking in Mashomack Preserve?
Are the interlacing tidal creeks,
Woodlands, fields, salt marshes and the ragged,
Irregular but charmed coastline of this cherished island
Any lesser than those of Scandinavia?
Are the sea-going ferries that transverse the
Baltic Sea and the Gulf of Finland,
More poetic than the Menantic or the Lt. Joe,
Who carry you swiftly home to us?
The National Geographic people say that in
Tivoli Gardens, The Amerikaner (ha!) waffle ice cream cone
Is one of the ten best in the world.
Guessing they have not made it yet to the
Tuck Shop for some Moose Tracks!
Were you unaware that our isle settled before
Peter the Great ever envisioned creating the grand
Boulevards of his capitol, St. Petersburg,
Route 114 was a traveled forest path,
By settlers and Indians, not serfs.
Of the Treasures, the Gold Room of the Hermitage,
The Amber Room of Catherine's Palace,
Wrote not a single word, we observe.
Your attentions, they did not deserve?
The answers all, self evident.
Here, surrounded by the gentle breezes of
Long Island Sound and Gardiners Bay,
Sweet and salty flavors of the Peconic atmosphere,
Words unlocked, from your eyes to the page fall,
Smudged by joyous tears, for the muses of the island
Have embraced you yet again and rebirthed
Inspiration, within their comforting, sheltering grasp.
Silver Beach
July 22, 2012
Aug 3, 2013
Aug 3, 2013 at 4:50 PM UTC
When here, you are a knife ****** into my heart and twisted to draw blood.
When away, you are the painful throb of longing in the middle of my chest.
When I see you pass without a word, I die, but rejoice at your merest glance.
When you are not anywhere, I search and worry about you even though it is not my place.
If I accidentally graze your arm or get you to utter some mere greeting, I feel the glow of a hundred thousand suns
And the edges of a million blades because you will never be mine.
But there is hope for the ease of my release, there is another
One who always returns my smiles and glances and greetings,
and laughs at my jokes that aren't really funny
Who cares that I exist and does not tarry to comfort and console when I am sunk in the marshes of despair and
when I wallow in pools of anxiety
I once thought you were sweet and wonderful, but now I know that he is truly sweet and kind, the quintessence of a gentleman and good friend
So I'm leaving any thought of you behind and strolling away in a better friend's company
Sep 26, 2012
Sep 26, 2012 at 6:30 AM UTC
The salt marshes and mud flats
And a nice sea breeze
Lots of flowers
Lots of colours shapes and sizes
Prickly ones spiky ones round ones
Red Begonias
It was nice being on the seashore
We've been there several times before
Aug 29, 2016
Aug 29, 2016 at 6:20 AM UTC
Never trust a Florida boy,
In that muggy, humid heat.
I'm telling you, little girl,
Your heart will soon taste defeat.
Them deep fried southern marshes,
Raising mosquitoes and deceit.
The greatest place on earth can keep its ************* receipt.
The air as thick as my blood was,
When I met your eyes.
And yours met hers,
And your monster claw,
Tore her smooth skinned thigh.
I felt that painful scream.
Boiling up. Melting my chest inside.
What's the point of being still while my mind is feeling fried?
So I packed my heavy load of anxiety,
And headed for the coast.
I watched the orange sunset,
As I brought up a salty toast,
From my eyes.
Solemnly, spilling into the sea.
And I felt the spirit of an old friend.
Leaning rigidly against me.
So I turned on heel and didn't speak a sound.
As I turned to leave the now known ghost town.
And I gave one last grim look back out at the sea.
As I write these tattered goodbyes,
To where my feet have rambled me,
And I let my tongue wrap around the ribbons of goodbye,
Escaping my parched lips.
And I shutter as I listen to the sound of my heart as it rips,
An angered storm of sea,
Flooding down my eyes.
Knowing this is where the memories of escapades in our days, lays down and dies.
I feel the faint.
Bleak pain, blanketing us,
Weak and weary.
And I know our story has a melancholy mood of dreary.
And this is where I end it.
And cast it all out to sea.
And I leave the tragic bays of what I once called Rosemary.
Aug 25, 2015
Aug 25, 2015 at 2:28 PM UTC
The movie shows
an innocent man,
misguided, perhaps,
but well intentioned
killing a creature
he thought to be a pest
and full of remorse
for the unhappiness he caused
In fact,
the man who killed Mijbil
never confessed
never repented
did it for gain
as otter pelts
were worth a bob or two.
A tiny ghost
haunts a ditch
by a single track road
in Scotland
And the vanished marshes of Iraq
know which version of events
to believe.
Jan 16, 2013
Jan 16, 2013 at 2:26 PM UTC
I.
Still thriving beyond immaculate walls.
Tincturing the water that solemnly streams in the river,
I await the corner of grassy marshes, and
Gather your secret spells.
In days when the land is prey to rhythmic beats;
The water dances with disturbance.
I run through the meadow barefoot, and
Cast the sun-dried bricks beyond me.
The red Moon drowns in woeful bliss, while
Its jealous relative illuminates the dew on Morning petals.
I glare through my destruction;
And see your silhouette.
Torn bridges of yesterdays misfortune send
Violent waves forth, undying they proceed.
Bravely-- they despondently conquer me;
No longer a trace of you I see.
II.
Unable to grasp reality, bitter
Tears of a Bright knowledge no longer in possession.
Red yonder, cognizant of former tribulations
Appear among the contour of wilted trees
Desperately searching for extraneous disposal,
Only melted clay reflects the ruins of an icy marsh.
Spring is obscure; but inevitable.
Soon harvest shall return to the field,
And barren no more will the land be.
No longer riddles, or secret spells;
Greet the stream of lost memories.
Impairment heals itself; it weaves
Filaments of seconds- to create a
Labyrinth of Time.
Oct 8, 2012
Oct 8, 2012 at 2:35 AM UTC
When reeds are dead and a straw to thatch the marshes,
And feathered pampas-grass rides into the wind
Like aged warriors westward, tragic, thinned
Of half their tribe, and over the flattened rushes,
Stripped of its secret, open, stark and bleak,
Blackens afar the half-forgotten creek,—
Then leans on me the weight of the year, and crushes
My heart. I know that Beauty must ail and die,
And will be born again,—but ah, to see
Beauty stiffened, staring up at the sky!
Oh, Autumn! Autumn!—What is the Spring to me?
2.5k
Love was the lone window lit,
in that long wintry night,
beacon light of his winding path,
the lips that softly whispered and
evoked dreams, that'd become real,
for his wonderment, later, much later.
When he slipped and fell in to
the deep pit of long, endless silence,
love was his ladder to climb
to the rainbow bridge of hope
she used to frequent in evenings
though won't recognize him
not once, even for the old times' sake.
Love compelled him to compose,
soulful songs that'd stop the flow of tears,
his eyes never went dry until then
even while sleeping, his head was
on pillows of fire.
Love was the stone wall, that shielded
him from the raging fire of misery,
the rain that came down in torrents
when his long torn, desolate heart
was parched dry in cruel drought
too was love itself.
He was washed ashore alone,
when he heard the whispers,
love was speaking to his psyche
from near in a comforting tone,
then love held his hand,led him
across the marshes and swamp
sharp thorns and stones wounded him
gathering nightmares chased
and haunted him.
And then, love came along, in a disguise,
but his eyes waiting for long recognized,
love, comforted, chanted potent mantras
that helped him endure pain, gave him hope.
Love was his brave charioteer, the messenger
who told that all that was thought lost
is still in his possession as light within.
May 4, 2016
May 4, 2016 at 10:20 AM UTC
I wear the vale
and it weathers me
in silty slopes
in harsh-cut lines
it lopes off pieces
of my face.
it floods out my marshes
it clears me clean out
and sterile
I wear the vale
and it's worrisome folk
who take up issue.
"You're wearing the vale!
Wearying th' fields
with dead leaves, and dead things.
Don't you tell us
how to live."
Funny, it's not even sublime
how easy it is
to tell me.
Oct 20, 2015
Oct 20, 2015 at 5:32 PM UTC
I have never been to the snowy peaks
Of sitting stones that pierce the clouds
Cutting strange patterns in their
White vaporous forms
I have never boated through the muggy swamps
Deep within the borders of our southern states
Dark marshes that seem to be made of moist jungle green
With camouflaged gators lurking just beneath
Ready to gobble you up
I have never seen the center of an ocean or a sea
Never been lost with only water on the horizon
The only life left to see swimming deep beneath me
I have never walked the tundra
Seeing nothing but winter’s frosty sheet
Awestruck with my dumb luck
But becoming snow blind
Alone with my mind
In a vast white wasteland
I have never and perhaps I never will
For lack of opportunity or depths of fear
But in your photos and words
I have seen this world
What a gift you have given me
Sep 3, 2015
Sep 3, 2015 at 9:21 PM UTC
Rushing River
The water rolls past the chain of rocks
Studded steps stand single file
Principles holding against the flood a mighty fortress
Evil thoughts swirling down through the mind
At the river’s edge the reeds bow
Marshes tangled with shoots and flattened weeds
Rich grasses carpet all in all bounty abounds
The earth benefits water given free course this guarantees its purity
Be quick to walk into the swirling spiritual waters your purity the sacred word is the water
The natural shore a poisoning quagmire
Work on the shore a duty but for life come to the spirit to barter
The world’s biggest beggars have false wealth it keeps them from true riches
Fruit is delicate with excess ripeness the result inedible
Riches of the spirit or any endeavor needs proper care and management
Without wisdom you become filled with hollowness
The river contains the richest soil and never will spoil your life
So come to the head waters of the heavenly tributaries
Drink your fill over the land you will flow and spill
Drought scorched hearts you can fill
Their destiny a heavenly ocean fulfilling every emotion of being excepted and loved
Nov 17, 2011
Nov 17, 2011 at 5:10 AM UTC
Now close the windows and hush all the fields:
If the trees must, let them silently toss;
No bird is singing now, and if there is,
Be it my loss.
It will be long ere the marshes resume,
I will be long ere the earliest bird:
So close the windows and not hear the wind,
But see all wind-stirred.
2.3k
The Autumn missal has arrived,
A fall reminder of the coming cold,
Strange slanting light to shift the maple
Greens to furious red and gold.
High above the myriad travelers chant adieu,
As on their sky-road paths they sing,
A chorus glorious to southern waters blue
Where winter marshes serve a warm retreat.
A liturgy of highest order drives the world
Beyond the ken of time-old cycles round;
Hibernal instinct now in feral life unfurls:
Flogs squirrels outward on their oak-corn bounds,
Plushes wealth of wolves' warm winter fur,
Hardens bone and antler, deepens feathered down,
Adds harvest fat to beast and fish and fowl,
Drives sap below old Frost's attempt to burrow down.
_________________
Unspoken paen unheard by almost all,
A careless shivering passerby may dread
This ritual changing of the Fall,
But never mind, the liturgy is read,
And Nature safely tucks herself into her wintery bed.
Sep 19, 2013
Sep 19, 2013 at 9:53 AM UTC
Walk across the marshes
View from the distance
into the streets of London
The downtrodden man,
contrite and solemn,
with weathered shoes
and a weathered soul
Walk in his shoes,
View through his eyes
into the streets of desperation
The downtrodden man,
worn and hungry,
with no bread to eat
and no cent to his name
Walk beside him,
View of his world,
into the street of questions
The downtrodden man,
simple and depraved,
with not an answer
and no life to live
Walk to his grave,
View of his stone
into the streets of nothing
The downtrodden man,
asleep and alone,
with no one to care
and no one to see
Aug 5, 2015
Aug 5, 2015 at 5:48 PM UTC
And the age ended, and the last deliverer died.
In bed, grown idle and unhappy; they were safe:
The sudden shadow of the giant's enormous calf
Would fall no more at dusk across the lawn outside.
They slept in peace: in marshes here and there no doubt
A sterile dragon lingered to a natural death,
But in a year the spoor had vanished from the heath;
The kobold's knocking in the mountain petered out.
Only the sculptors and the poets were half sad,
And the pert retinue from the magician's house
Grumbled and went elsewhere. The vanished powers were glad
To be invisible and free: without remorse
Struck down the sons who strayed their course,
And ravished the daughters, and drove the fathers mad.
2.2k
The clouds have covered the sky
and the cool breeze is blowing;
That green forest has soaked
in the monsoon rain again.
The bride of the distant clouds
loves the green jungle;
The chirping birds have washed
in the monsoon rain again.
For the tears and the laughter of clouds
The farmers are feeling happy;
The sunny day has lost
in the monsoon rain again.
After hearing the roar of the clouds
The fish are chasing each other;
Lakes and ponds have filled with water
of the monsoon rain again.
It's raining and the herons
are still catching little fish;
All the marshes are playing
with the monsoon rain again.
Jul 27, 2020
Jul 27, 2020 at 1:59 PM UTC