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bobby burns Mar 2014
around my seventh year
of forked lightning,
i remember a storm,
an opening of cumulus
floodgates
                    extending
longer than my forearm.
the drowning levels rose,
bloomed,
                 and our pond out back spilled over,
     like so much noble grey from china pots,
        by the long barn, below naranjo peak,
                  with its namesake
a luminary of psychedelic
psychiatry and the gestalt,
                                               i played myself
to exhaustion in a marsh of gods and survival
the meadow pulsed;
no grass in zephyr-dance,
or ambient movement,
but for the desperate
flopping of fish,
silver on silver,
ruthless flood
displacement,
refugees in hostile land.
each moment i stayed staring
i lost another fish, i knew,
and the rain was thinning
and i was six, and a gallon
bucket was just the right size,
and for that afternoon, i grew
scales, and gills, fins,
                                     i couldn't
let them die, or keep suffering,
i scooped them up, bucket filled
up to my small arms' capacity,
and returned them to the pond,
making sure the transition
was comfortable for them.
i only remember now that
the others began eating
their dead once they could
swim and dart past one
another.
               i sloshed and splashed
all day to save my kindred fish
from a dry slaughter, en masse,
only to find them flowing out
once more when the rain picked up
from its reprieve
a distant memory for proximity issues
vircapio gale Oct 2015
the censorship meme
alive inside me as a child:
some books were worth the mention of--
war and **** were not.

untimely at a pennsylvanian writers' club
where fear lodged quiet smile-halves
in talking clouds and farmyard metaphor,
to weekly bray the corner of an antique movie-house

newcomers weren't to share their work
we three were welcomed as an audience at best
we passed the others' writers' chapter-copies on
on which i scribbled notes of praise
on notes of theme-entwining anti-argument
and **** zests of vast significance:
notes of floral yearning, meadowed love--
iron skies and ahistoric dreams--
off and on archaic themes
of which we weren't to share
i've been told i shouldn't "censor myself"
when i'm just engaged in editing:
the difference may be vague along a certain line
but i haven't shared anything in a long time.

does spam elucidate the issue of how best to navigate the interwebz?
preemptive dismissal of anything resembling or smelling like spam or what might be associated with the production of spam: id est, not owning a smartphone and neglecting to have internet access via one's computer, and also disabling netflicks from the wii
(∴) spam makes my life better by teaching me how to avoid life as is currently envisioned by contemporary humans
ishaan khandpur Mar 2015
It was I suppose,
Her pencil skirt that did me in.
Never trust a man,
Who says otherwise.  

It was I suppose,
His chiseled chest that did her through.
Never trust a woman,
Who makes you believe otherwise.

For all his intelligence,
All her enamour.
All their dreamy thoughts,
That bloom like spring meadowed flowers.

What we see first,
Both spikes and hairfalls.
Is the beauty of the body,
The perfection that we've been taught.

We're the imperfect victims,
Of a perfectly perpetuated society.
Taught to tread carefully,
Through the blurred lines deviously disguised.

We are taught to love,
By the love lost loner.
We are told to be tolerate,
By the taunted jilted moaner.

Ooh fickle life,
what a sullen lie.
Ooh hopeless future,
Defeated before you even tried.
Nigel Morgan Aug 2015
It is the tipping point
the harvest well begun
its end in sight
an early morning
retreated to past
five on the clock

mist lay on
the meadowed fields
observed the pond
held tight to the trees

walking the empty road
camera in hand
to catch the chill earliness
in the far fields then back
through the uncared-for orchard
past the forked-fingered ash
still quite still -
the night air collapsing
as the sun rose

Darjeeling
in the white bone-china cup
a kiss of milk
comforting this delicate tea

and light everywhere
between three windows
our table her gifts
from the shoreline
shadowed hard-edged
whilst the back-lit screen
blinks and waits for words

my story blended from fact
pestled into fiction
itself a background
to a further fiction
from a past in ancient time
where each image described
takes aim at the resonant heart
of every exquisite moment


Eight Sketches in a Notebook

I

into a western sky
the sun finds cloudspace
to enter and set
well above the sea’s horizon
and for a while its rays
glimmer upward onto shards
holding remnants of the day’s
unreflected light


II

not a hut of straw and rushes
on a far mountain fastness
this a walled stockade all but moated
gardened inside its bounds
a miniature railway said to surround
a six-cornered house facing seaward
and towards a lagoon on whose banks
little terns nest from April to June
a mirror of light upon which
the solitary soul might dwell


III

rock guardian
standing
mid-beach

its debris
spilled
to water’s edge

still as still as
no wind or wave
pools dark depths

further out
the sea shimmers
ablaze with reflections


IV

hiding an anxiety of hair
a headscarf blue
and spotted white
reveals an ear
and below a sturdy neck
on round shoulders
her bare arms fall to quiet hands
next to thighs trousered  
knee-length to gentle calves
falling further onto bare feet
stood standing on course sand
at the sea’s murmuring edge


V

here the rock opens
its lips to a kiss of light
but deep inside remains
a dark sheltering secret
blackness impenetrable
wide enough for a storm’s
intrusion of water and wind
but beyond such darkness
possibly nothing
- a closed door
of rock?


VI

from my canvas chair
on the flags outside
the white French doors
this drawing – from where
the garden gate once was
a gap between
the honey-suckled hedge
and the long low cottage
above an ash tree waving
its fingered branches
in the afternoon breeze
fresh over the hill
from the sea’s shore
hardly a mile away


VII

the land points seaward
to an island light
a mile off-shore

on a shingled beach
sliced by the sea’s knife
cattle wandered yesterday

in the mist-driven rain we
sleeked wet as dogs approached
on the headland’s path


VIII

littered the land lies
with interruptions
interventions of the built

past beside present
ends amongst beginnings

complex histories
to delve deeper into
on this northern shore
the passerby Dec 2018
Who am I, which version of me will i now be
she lurks at a counter, sips wine, a lipstick stain
leaves me meadowed in deep lust. Drowning in gaze and my fear thereafter must, rise from my most fragile thoughts
let that fear not become me.

Which version of me,  oh why cant I choose
Either, she loves me
or hates me
what have I got to lose

Which version of me , My most ponderous thoughts pondered
Thus a shadow appeared ,to her side
of whom I wondered

Which version of me, an empty stool now lurks
Left a glass, lipstick stain
A heart , that now hurts.
Seven Nielsen Dec 2021
When the sigh of a breeze
in meadowed land
mimics the velvet-soft whisper
of the owl wing in flight
the evening spreads her indigo cloak
as does the night in her majesty -
for God's tender command of daily silence
soothes each weary heart
at the end of each garish day
Andrew May 2016
Somewhere now
In the deeper canyons
Of night, hidden in a
Garden of stars, crawls
Out from a deeper woods,
A ghost of a ghost, hunched
On hind limbs and ready
For the pounce.
      All night.
And you, you are
The deer that wanders
Through the aspen doors
Of a meadowed mist,
Beside the dizzying stream.
And what, what will you
Do then, when those trees
Begin to shift, when the stars
Begin to move?
Garrett Johnson Jul 2020
Said to be said.

Grime slapped into verses.
Grabbed by infinity.
A lonely grasp.
Swollen faced security.
To self destruction.
Meadowed in suicide seating.
Think of her often.
To leave and ride eternity.



Garrett Johnson.
Convert in island's dorm with love made all over.
David Lessard Sep 2018
Morning walks are pleasant walks
on open endless plain;
the dew is glistening, clinging
from flowers in the rain.

The quietness is hallowed
free from noise and stress;
it calms the walker's mind
and lets the mind undress.

What is left -  is beauty
of Nature's winsome view;
reflections of a palette
of what you never knew.

Colors from a scrapbook
of mountains, sky and sun;
artistry of Nature's hand
now here, but not yet done.

Morning walks are my delight
on the narrow, meadowed lane;
meditation... of a sort
from flowers in the rain.
Monstrous disembodied giant hairy hand...
reached out thru Macbook Pro
Lenovo external screen
"no way can this be real,"
I muttered to no one in particular.

Bug eyed, slack jawed, yours truly froze
petrified as an insidious wrist took rat -
manifested arm - matured
into huge fingered palm meadowed beast,

reached out thru cyberspace,
the likes of which garden variety club
roguish poor trait pal mystery,
aye never saw before since
which can easily cast spell.

Immobilized with fear
hypnotic trance
rendered me immobile
nsync king fast into
an hub bomb bin hubble
likeness of very same entity.

Entire body electric (mine)
courtesy dark shadows
suddenly rendered me into
phantasmagorical multi dimensional

gruesome garden variety golem,
no longer cowardly (lion of course)
bear with me, and play along,
and also bull eave tigers
live in Tony neighborhoods.

Actually spookiness made
avast improvement upon
mine former physiognomy,
this flickr ring quick
assessment surmised courtesy
hesitantly exploring, qua tactile
alien features comprising faux paws

linkedin to Neanderthal being
over laying inferior features (mine)
plus pluperfect poetic opportunity
without rhyme nor reason
(ugh questionable place
the word palimpsest fits).

Thus Spake Zarathustra
yawping, plucking,
engendering... binary rhythm -
imagine dragons chiming
2001 a space odyssey theme
and protohuman (actually disguised actor)
appearing within opening scene.

Chewbacca look alike
or his doppelganger,
(albeit pint size version
standing seventy inches),
nonetheless stark improvement

versus geeky, nerdy, ugly...
born this way poker face chap
emboldened to frighten
bully wannabe and/or their ilk.

****, another daydream
proved "FAKE" thus
dashing hoop dreams
and condemning one lone
deplorable basket case schlemazel
to experience nightmarish gallery
courtesy outer limits of twilight zone.

— The End —