"mavis" poems
Ca’ the yowes to the knowes,
Ca’ them where the heather grows,
Ca’ them where the burnie rows,
My bonnie dearie.
Hark! the mavis’ evening sang
Sounding Clouden’s woods amang,
Then a-faulding let us gang,
My bonnie dearie.
We’ll *** down by Clouden side,
Through the hazels spreading wide,
O’er the waves that sweetly glide
To the moon sae clearly.
Yonder Clouden’s silent towers,
Where at moonshine midnight hours
O’er the dewy bending flowers
Fairies dance sae cheery.
Ghaist nor bogle shalt thou fear;
Thou’rt to Love and Heaven sae dear,
Nocht of ill may come thee near,
My bonnie dearie.
Fair and lovely as thou art,
Thou hast stown my very heart;
I can die—but canna part,
My bonnie dearie.
While waters wimple to the sea;
While day blinks in the lift sae hie;
Till clay-cauld death shall blin’ my e’e,
Ye shall be my dearie.
Ca’ the yowes to the knowes…
2.5k
Ca’ the yowes to the knowes,
Ca’ them where the heather grows
Ca’ them where the burnie rows,
My bonie dearie.
Hark! the mavis’ evening sang
Sounding Cluden’s woods amang,
Then a-fauldin let us gang,
My bonie dearie.
We’ll *** down by Cluden side,
Thro’ the hazels spreading wide,
O’er the waves that sweetly glide
To the moon sae clearly.
Yonder Cluden’s silent towers,
Where at moonshine midnight hours,
O’er the dewy-bending flowers,
Fairies dance sae cheery.
Ghaist nor bogle shalt thou fear;
Thou ‘rt to love and Heaven sae dear,
Nocht of ill may come thee near,
My bonie dearie.
Fair and lovely as thou art,
Thou hast stown my very heart;
I can die—but canna part,
My bonie dearie.
2.4k
Where Claribel low-lieth
The breezes pause and die,
Letting the rose-leaves fall:
But the solemn oak-tree sigheth,
Thick-leaved, ambrosial,
With an ancient melody
Of an inward agony,
Where Claribel low-lieth.
At eve the beetle boometh
Athwart the thicket lone:
At noon the wild bee hummeth
About the moss'd headstone:
At midnight the moon cometh,
And looketh down alone.
Her song the lintwhite swelleth,
The clear-voiced mavis dwelleth,
The callow throstle lispeth,
The slumbrous wave outwelleth,
The babbling runnel crispeth,
The hollow grot replieth
Where Claribel low-lieth.
2.2k
Miss Mavis Morton
made Mister Milton Millgate
many morish muffins
Nov 9, 2013
Nov 9, 2013 at 7:57 AM UTC
Oh the faces of the bored
Frozen blankly sleep is fought
Staring vaguely at the front
But dreaming soporific thought
Twenty minutes 'til the coffee
A bourbon or a custard cream
That's if the kids don't grab them first
And so we all daydream
Mavis peers at her watch
She nudges Joan and glances
The twenty minutes now have past
And forty people sit in trances
But suddenly a head is raised
Is this the application?
That 30 second indicator
We all regain sensation.
Sep 5, 2010
Sep 5, 2010 at 1:58 PM UTC
To hear a Mavis sing.
Is like life beginning from a pool high in the mountain tops.
The trickling of water over stones is the sound of laughter from your heart.
The doe and fawn savor the coolness of the water. The mother and daughter as one.
The flowing water goes down the mountain arriving at the heart of a forest.
Where trees have wide leafy branches open and welcoming. Like your arms which enclose around me so two hearts beat together.
The water flows down from the forest with life. Till it reaches the pool.
Our pool.
Where we sat laughed talked and cried and sometimes only the sound of hearts beating and the Mavis singing.
You are not here anymore but that pool still fills from the mountain tops. And I am not alone when I hear the Mavis sing.
Mar 19, 2017
Mar 19, 2017 at 11:18 AM UTC
Upon a crest of ruby flames,
Was writ a list of seven names:
Of gods and goddesses untold
Whose quiet tenets never sold.
Mavis was the nymph of pallor,
Patron saint of putrid squalor.
Watching, with a tender eye,
The lives of those resigned to die.
Beatrice, with hair of scarlet,
Took the throne of seething harlot.
Harbinger of crippling sadness;
Queen of darkness, death, and madness.
Paul, whose eyes had never wept,
Ensured that secrets would be kept.
Cursed with blindness, deafness, dumbness,
A walking vault of tortured numbness.
Talim broke her mother's heart,
And many others from the start.
She, the deity of glee,
Knew ignorance and apathy.
Alastair, the golden thief,
Toed the boundaries of grief,
He sang to people with his flute
That there was more to life than loot.
Tess won't look you in the eyes;
Mistress of the compromise;
Smiling, even as she hums,
That "maybe next time" never comes.
Alex comes to break the silence,
God of wishes, drugs, and violence.
Crashing through with mighty clamour;
Hope the nail, and he the hammer.
Of all the deities we cherish,
Even those whose memories perish,
None are sad as those who don't
Beget belief. Or can't. Or won't.
And on a crest of ruby flames,
Another list of seven names,
Whose carvings have been long forgot,
Will sit amidst our trash and rot.
Aug 29, 2010
Aug 29, 2010 at 8:14 PM UTC
"...nothing really matters [anymore]--"
(sonnet #MMMMMMMDCCCIII)
Where blue heavns softly yield to orange' detail
And robins 'gain renew dear Mavis' sense
Of April gloaming with that song fr'intents,
E'en breaking off to scold as wont, the frail
Warmth sifted out while lo, a plane t'avail
'Non passes over, sparrows gaily fence
This calm with chatter, traffic likeas thence
Wont: I would sleep; yes, laugh, in sheer betrayl.
Don't let me cull to mind what tis as twere.
Who gives a hoot tis Friday night? I do
Not care so much if I could just, in poor
Excuse, forget, and breathe. Pink 'gins tae woo,
Now gathring on the East, and Nigel's tour
Of music oddly plays, the Scriptures too.
22Mar19c
Mar 23, 2019
Mar 23, 2019 at 9:51 PM UTC
Kick me, I smile too gaily for the sparrows these days.
(sonnet #MMMMMMCCL)
Now twilight falls upon what was and thence
Sifts out more lucid notes, how silence' pale
Breath hangs oer naked trees until their frail
Stance, like to ghosts half frozen in suspense,
Waits for the darkness sans a voice, though hence
Ah, Mavis' hallowed strains aught thrill t'avail.
Me left alone and whispring in betrayl,
"Oh, Andrew--!" blue skies thicken oer that sense.
Yes, I watched orange splash stone walls left as twere
Forlorn with empty eyes that stared out through
The greyish windows as lo, clouds donned fer
Effect, ah, purple, fuschia winking too
Oer houses left in shadows none in poor
'Scuse shifted. Come, tell me when he'd not woo.
06Apr17c
Apr 15, 2017
Apr 15, 2017 at 1:03 AM UTC
As with all of the big, great losses
not very much from here forward
is going to be the same
I know it won't
I do want you to applaud
on your way out though
despondently, once again
the harmonica begins to play.
Jun 11, 2020
Jun 11, 2020 at 2:06 PM UTC
You gaze down at your daughter, Camille, and lay your hand upon her body. She is asleep, resting after a long day, exhausted after the day with Boris at the Zoo, then the café in the park. You wish her father had been that affectionate, had taken the time to be with her, been interested enough to want to be with her and you, but he wasn’t, just other women, other things to occupy his life and mind. You stroke her rib cage; how thin she seems; not a bit like her father, not one ounce of him in her that seems apparent. You gaze at her hair, at the features that you can see, she takes after you, it’s in her face and eyes. Even her temperament is yours, you feel, and are glad, rather than her father’s moroseness, and cruelty. If you had taken you mother’s advice you would never have married Paterson, never have let his hands or lips near you, let alone marry the **** He’ll be no good, for you, Mavis, she had warned on your wedding eve. You never listened; never took note; you knew best you thought. Marry in haste, relent in leisure, you father had said, in that voice that made you want to hit him, but you never did, although he had hit you many a time as a child, even for the most trivial of things. Dead now, preaching to some other crowd now, wherever he is. You smile at Camille’s sleeping face. Picture of innocence. Like you as a child, you guess. But there had been no Boris in your mother’s life; just your father and his preaching and teaching and moaning and sitting at the table with his long hangdog features and the cane by his hand ready for punishments. You remember creeping into your parents one night as a child and hearing the most awful noises in the dark; like your mother were being strangled or beat up upon, you raced from the room, hid under your blankets in case you father should come and get you. Camille came into you room last month as you and Boris were making love, her voice knifed you, so that you and Boris fell apart like some circus act gone wrong. She had wanted a glass of water, her small voice echoing through the dark, Boris and you panting, going all frigid as if death had claimed. Boris lay smiling in the dark, as you went, took Camille by her hand, fetched her water, lay her back to bed and to sleep. Now she sleeps again. Picture of innocence. Angel of your life. Your precious. Your daughter.
May 22, 2015
May 22, 2015 at 3:11 AM UTC
...I still imagine there is.
(sonnet #MMMMMMMDCCLXXIX)
Lo, how a robin scolded me in pale
Dawn's eye, as if what 'zactly for intents?
And sang how sweetly as I'd toast for sense
Um, sourdough slices, raisin bread, t'avail--
Until I took the darling then to scale
In hand t'explain (cuz they are jealous, whence
I've had such grief oer Mavis' song) from hence
I'll love all birds, not just him, in betrayl.
Now blue skies so expansive warm in tour
'Cross afternoon's half lazy sense tis new,
Snow like a curse swept far off as it were,
The memry of morn's early minutes too,
My noggin full of all since then in poor
'Scuse, sparrows tease my smiles at lunch, and woo.
16Mar19a
Mar 16, 2019
Mar 16, 2019 at 11:16 PM UTC
I can't find the words to translate this.
(sonnet #MMMMMMMDCCCLVI)
Frogs chorus from the hollows, moist earth' scents
'Non wafting on winds' softest kiss, th'exhale
So lightly fragile 'cross my cheek t'avail
As I hark, lips half oped to hear from hence
In sweet surprise their voices, wondring thence
If crickets also fiddle? Robins'd hail
At gloaming, to yield notes of Mavis' scale
Of ancient lullabies I'd list to, whence?
Forsooth. As if my soul's restored in tour,
Likeas a sleeper whose long nightmares to
Effect are broken, nor but dreams and poor,
I feel now I can breathe, yea see anew?
Perhaps...who knows what shall be? Love'd bestir
As in the wings is't? now that Summer'd woo.
05Apr19b
Apr 5, 2019
Apr 5, 2019 at 10:32 PM UTC
Things are falling out onto the floor, bits and stuff- old hoover batteries
doing a bit of a jazzy buzzcut dance like jam hand sandwiches that moment where your
hands can’t skate fast enough and can’t stop tying themselves in knots
elephant trunk knots protruding precariously like weird plate show tunes breaking the moment, wave, pebble beach, ugh.
What a lovely space question mark, it is?
I thought you were blocks from fake eyebrow movements
the childhood adverts like many sided shapes Michael Landy sheds his dose
Mavis plays the harmonica cha-cha-cha
the floor caves in but you don’t need it
you’re held up by sheer, pure spite, very little
IKEA scrambled eggs on toast this is how I scramble it, like bad cement mix
eyelid blink pin drop sounds like not fitting I hate your shoes, put them in the kitchen bin
and move me to the top of the wardrobe, I like to be very, very far from
the floor.
Jun 11, 2020
Jun 11, 2020 at 1:39 PM UTC