"meadowlark" poems
The bright blue bottle hit me like a hint of death
on the breath of Spring.
I imagined it being tossed out a truck window
by underage teens fancying themselves clever
and mature and immortal
as if the earth had willed upon them
that her stolen treasure, Aluminum,
be returned or she’d cause their truck keys
disappear for all eternity.
I picked up the blue bottle
tried to feel resurrection
in a recycling sort of way
felt instead only the hollow emptiness
of mindless eternal reincarnation.
Winter had been long this year and lately
I fantasized resurrection more than usual
at a field where I stopped to listen to meadowlark and field sparrow calling for mates or alerting everyone to the sin of the blue bottle.
Several deer grazed the unseen first greens of Spring near skunk cabbage and coltsfoot.
At a small stream, I cupped my hand into the icy fast water and raised it to my lips, then splashed my face, then splashed some more, more,
then knelt, both knees at the streambed and submersed my face and head,
in self-inflicted baptism
for my own blue bottle sins,
opened my eyes, exhaled all my blue bubbles, for the longest of repentant moments,
pulled out of the water
gasping the holy Spring air
for dear life
and thereafter walked each step
in the garden of resurrection.
Oct 28, 2018
Oct 28, 2018 at 9:25 PM UTC
Love has come to find me in the dark,
so tender on this summer's day.
Singing like the songbird and meadowlark,
their song of love so sweet and oh so gay.
Glowing like fireflies at twilight,
a beacon that's come to guide my way.
It came like a thief in the night,
stealing this waiting heart away.
Jun 11, 2013
Jun 11, 2013 at 4:50 PM UTC
I will walk with you in dreamland,
and verdant trees will brush our brows
with hoary leaves,
and silvered fish will swim in untouched seas.
The sun will warm our hearts and kiss our cheeks
as does the doting father.
I will walk with you in starlight
while the incandescent crescent marks the ground
with dappled light,
and the night watchers will peer at us through leaves
up, up away where they are secreted and safe
from sun’s harsh glare.
I will walk with you in meadows
where the peonies and bluebells prosper,
soft and slow,
kissing sweetly as their petals brush our skin.
And the meadowlark shall sing for us, her song of joy
sent forth in notes of gold.
I will walk with you forever,
down the path untamed and tangled up
in brambles,
and also down the road so clear and straight
and gilded by the sun with bricks of gold.
Wherever you shall go, my darling,
I will walk with you.
Jan 23, 2012
Jan 23, 2012 at 1:11 AM UTC
You are not original
You are not unique
There is nothing special about you
You are every step taken
By every sole
Of every shoe
In the history of shoes
You are every vein
On every maple leaf
That has ever fallen
And every one that has
Grown as replacement
Everything
Everything
You are every joke
You are every stroke
Of every painbrush
Every pencil
Every pen
Every primitive crayon
Against a cave wall
You are every sightless
Creature in every cave
You are every speck of dust
Stuck to every speck of dust
In the cosmos
You are every diaphragm
Contraction
Of every laugh ever laughed
You are every
Perverted thought
In every brain,
You are every measurement
Of time
Of weight
Of temperature
Of character
You are every pressure wave
From every pair
Of clapped hands
You are every pigment
In every premature obituary
You are every hair follicle
On every bison
You are every decision
God or bad
Or wise or naive
You are every influence
Every force
Every imagined deity
Every word ever spoken
Every word you are reading
You are every sunset
On every satellite
Of every star
You are every villain
Every success story
Every tragedy
Every spark that has
Birthed a flame
You are every set
Of rolled eyes
Every kernel
On every ear of corn
Every oxidation
Every drop of alcohol
Ever consumed
You are heaven
You are every molecule of water
In every hot spring
Every strum
Of every guitar
Ever played
You are condensation
You are every witch trial
You are every frown
Every school of skipjacks
Every byte of data
On every hard drive
You are every meadowlark
You are every broken arm
From every fall
Off a bicycle
You are the way Autumn smells
The way he looks at you
The way she makes you smile
The way earthworms
Escape the mud
when it rains
You are every passing car
Every glimmer of hope
Every plane crash
Every time math fails
Every swift defeat
You are everything ugly
And everything beautiful
You are nothing
You are everything
Everything you've done
Has been done before you
You are every paradox
You are beautiful when you sleep
You are me
We are nothing.
Everything,
Everything.
We are everything
We're not.
We are nothing we are.
The snow has fallen,
Terrible is the sound.
Sep 3, 2012
Sep 3, 2012 at 10:53 PM UTC
Wind whirling around prairie fence-posts,
a few weeks after winter’s last frost
was melted away,
replaced by white flowers that whipped
and flipped in spring’s fresh breath.
Like waves frothing in an ocean bay,
the fine, flirty song of a Meadowlark
is willed into the world,
and frolics through the windy hills.
May 15, 2016
May 15, 2016 at 1:21 AM UTC
Cross-petals of daffodils sway to the cries
Of starlings – stark shrieks and minute iridescent
Wing-beats – while the willows whistle,
Tumultuous as feathers caught in the wind.
Like the fragrant taste of rain, you tell me
About mistakes made by people in love,
How temptations of her white heron-legs
And meadowlark voice stole your attention,
Like flies drawn into the range of a bullfrog’s tongue.
Your words meet heartbeats under tremolos
Of wild grasses with olive and mauve sprouts,
Lingering beneath brewing oyster clouds.
You adorned yesterday with honeybee stings
And barbed crescendos of climbing roses,
But tomorrow brings sweet-tongued
Hummingbirds and thrumming choruses
As your soft-spoken daylily promises
Dissolve silence into adoration.
Sep 23, 2014
Sep 23, 2014 at 11:53 AM UTC
I left the home of the meadowlark
For a land found more oft' in my dreams.
A more noble land than my native park,
With its rubble of meaningless schemes.
And the song that the meadowlark sang to me
In my heart will forevermore burn.
I can only say that it seemed to be,
"Once you've gone you can never return."
So I set my course for the highest mount
On a path where few have tread,
To the great unknown where the masters roam,
Through the valley of the dead.
Neither bard nor sage ever wrote a page
Of diabolical lore
That could ever compare to the evil found there,
Past the gates to the valley of horror.
Men had left their bones as stepping stones
Which glowed with a phosphorus light.
They lighted the way for my feet of clay
As I stumbled through the night.
But I sank in the mire of my own desire
While I groped along in the dark.
And I thought I would die to the mocking cry
Of that dreadful meadowlark.
Then the helping hand of a dying man
Reached to pull me back on the way.
And I rested there in the August air
Where I longed for the light of day.
And I sang a song as I traveled on
In the light of a new day's sun.
'Twas a song of hope I could reach the slope
Where great battles had been won.
When I reached the glen at the mountains end
Then I knew my journey was done.
I took pleasures there and with utmost care
I sought for a course back home.
And now I knew that the bird sang true;
I had aged in the course of time.
And the past I had scorned; now I deeply mourned
And with sadness learned his rhyme.
Although your road runs true, you can never undo
A life born of your own desire.
Nor, ever return from a destiny earned
By deeds lit from the souls own fire.
And the song that the meadowlark sang to me
In my heart still continues to burn.
I can only say that it seemed to be
"Once you've gone you can never return."
Sep 21, 2010
Sep 21, 2010 at 11:19 PM UTC
Wise men in their bad hours have envied
The little people making merry like grasshoppers
In spots of sunlight, hardly thinking
Backward but never forward, and if they somehow
Take hold upon the future they do it
Half asleep, with the tools of generation
Foolishly reduplicating
Folly in thirty-year periods; the eat and laugh too,
Groan against labors, wars and partings,
Dance, talk, dress and undress; wise men have pretended
The summer insects enviable;
One must indulge the wise in moments of mockery.
Strength and desire possess the future,
The breed of the grasshopper shrills, "What does the future
Matter, we shall be dead?" Ah, grasshoppers,
Death's a fierce meadowlark: but to die having made
Something more equal to the centuries
Than muscle and bone, is mostly to shed weakness.
The mountains are dead stone, the people
Admire or hate their stature, their insolent quietness,
The mountains are not softened nor troubled
And a few dead men's thoughts have the same temper.
May 27, 2014
May 27, 2014 at 9:19 AM UTC
I don't remember the first song ever made
I was not there to taste the sweet marmalade
dripping to this earth like rain in September
when it rained out from the afterbirth of
The first clever musical endeavor.
It was not i.
I was not the first to sit back
And rap my knuckles
Or tap my feet to the sweet rhythm
Of chirping cricket orchestrals
All written on the spot and never
Even thought about again. Like secrets
Carried to the grave of every short lived section
Of six legged minstrels.
It wasn't you either.
Just like you weren't the first to be inspired
By a cone spiders spiraling spire
Of a trap set for all music makers.
I was not the first to hear the melody
But if I could've been,
I probably wouldn't have taken it to memory
Or woken from my revelries
Because not everything new to me
Is the most beautiful flower you'd ever see.
But I could never rouse a lie like one that states
I wouldn't hum it off handedly later when
The sun went to wake the other side of the world.
And the orchestra whirled and settled into their
Whittled orchestra seats.
I wish I was there.
I wish I was the one who first
Was stricken speechless amid giving countless speeches when they first heard a cricket chirp in time with a meadowlark.
and Sparks danced amid the silence,
Too humble to adhere a single silhouette of sound
or even hint at the presence of an audience.
The sound wasn't meant to have applause
Or be critiqued of its brilliance.
Because it was the beginning
Of the resilience of the never ending sound we call
Music.
Oct 2, 2012
Oct 2, 2012 at 3:19 AM UTC
Coyote by my door at night,
meadowlark in the morning.
First that yip,
then that sleep,
now the pretty singing.
Apr 18, 2015
Apr 18, 2015 at 12:48 PM UTC
In the waking, in the wrong,
I stumble -- spitting synonyms for love
daring the scattershot night to take control
to steer me into the early morning bedroom
of anyone other than my own,
and over the phone breaking, over with biting
the mimicking face of former promise ring holders
and front pew sitters I ask the sun to emerge gently,
to kiss my forehead, scramble up eggs--
wearing my oversized t-shirt, cotton underwear, and
an apron left behind by the sun's mother,
but as night turns and walks away,
no bright sun replaces--
instead it is that grey, it is that gaunt
overcast haze that never shows teeth,
only hisses, "How's the routine going?"
In the waking, in the wrong,
hands pull denim and throat itches for shouting rebuttal,
but a man never won against the eternity of the sky,
so I lower my eyes, spin madly into why why whys,
a beautiful woman between pavement and sky jogs past
and I see myself drinking coffee with her and grinning
at what our elderly parents don't know,
but before the words fall from lips,
her feet, legs, and hips wisp
into the early morning mist,
the overcast sky whispers to the meadowlark
above my head,
I open the door to my home as the meadowlark begins to laugh.
Jun 2, 2012
Jun 2, 2012 at 7:55 PM UTC
the cheer of lemon petals
radiates from cerise centers
and floats on summer breezes
that carry meadowlark melodies;
music written by the soul of nature
for the open hearts that hear her love
Aug 3, 2021
Aug 3, 2021 at 10:08 AM UTC
Summer singing madly
Over empty lot
The still grass
Stands near alone
Before the final crew comes
With trucks and blueprints and concrete
To slap together rent fortune
For the white cadillac man.
Summer swinging madly
Over empty lot
The post oaks
Hesitate along lot edge,
Wait to see what happens
To the few brave mesquite:
Better to stand on edges
And wait
Than venture
To vulnerable heart
Of empty lot.
Summer winging madly
Over empty lot
The birds wing madly over
Rarely dropping
To the grass for seeds;
They sit upon the postoaks
At the edge
And keep a watchful eye
Upon the road.
All wing madly to the edge:
Grackles, swifts, and doves,
The mockingbirds, all
Save one persistent meadowlark
Without a mate
That sings each morning
From the wire,
One silly songster
That loneliness has blinded
And brought to chime
Its idyll
Summer song
Over empty lot.
Summer singing madly
Over empty lot.
Sep 24, 2011
Sep 24, 2011 at 10:11 PM UTC
I brought her one flower
from the cemetery I borrowed
love leads to death
but it can work the other way
so the blackbird on the telephone wire say
I brought her one flower
a bouquet -- wasteful, sour
too many kisses cheapen
how else to pay by the hour
so the meadowlark's **** showers
I brought her one flower
in a corduroy suit, sunglassed tower
a corkscrew and 12 apostles
too far from shore, too young to cry
so the stupid penguin tries to fly
I brought her one flower
in some water, a tired bower
"I didn't try my hardest."
"I know." Wish my *** to the moon
So the robin lets out a morose croon
Oct 26, 2012
Oct 26, 2012 at 6:49 PM UTC
Death owns the mossed headstones
orphaned by time and muted stories
no longer spoken in mortal’s rockery.
Fallen epitaphs .... names surrender
to nature’s bloom and winter frost,
broken granite bouquets tied with wild roses.
Where pain no longer visits, peace speaks
poetry through meadowlark and aspen sigh,
souls long gone now rest as poems cradled
in the arms of Mother Earth.
Sep 15, 2025
Sep 15, 2025 at 5:37 PM UTC
Gravel crunches beneath my feet,
the meadowlark sings it's song,
Low morning sun breaking upon the dawn.
Across the valley the back lit blue Cascades
majestically fence off the Eastern sky,
as if to hold back the light.
Mount Hood wears the emerging sun,
like a lighted crown upon her regal peak.
Out in the valley harvested golden wheat
fields stand side lighted and resplendent,
stalks shimmering with nighttime dew.
Ground hovering Fog off the river,
to the eyes delight, rising with the sun.
Crisp clean air as Fall descends,
blowing chill breath around my ears.
Oh how sweet to be right here,
and look upon this sight.
Oct 8, 2015
Oct 8, 2015 at 3:26 AM UTC
air is heavy shallow
questions gone at last
the willows I remember
all this wicked past
now comes the golden
time of dust and breeze
meadowlark and pumpkin
fire on the trees
all things young do vanish
stores of guilt and pride
but some things wilt to color
i think of things that died
Dec 25, 2014
Dec 25, 2014 at 11:43 PM UTC
Lust For Life Vampire Love - Poem
(Part 1)
At dusk I heard a meadowlark
then saw you lurking in the dark.
I turned to dash and tried to flee
and failed to utter one last plea.
With piercing eyes you mesmerized
transfixed I lay there hypnotized
enraptured by the spell you cast
flashed images of life that passed.
You tasted blood and I outgrew
my need to live the life I knew.
As I lay limp my life force waned
while faint my heart the blood soon drained.
Confined to darkness of the night
I wander without feeling light.
You claim your thirst did justify
your lust for life was reason why
You took my life to be as one
then vanished like the setting sun.
I have no life and feel no pain
without a heart to love again.
What You Did Cannot Be Undone - Poem
(Part 2)
Alone I am now cursed to roam
What you did cannot be undone
I can not hope to have a home
or gaze upon the rising sun
You rashly chose to trade your life
for death not immortality
Still now I see your blood lust rife
as when you took the life from me
You say you cannot ever die
but fail to see you do not live
Your life through death is but a lie
That blinds you to the truth I give
Life is too short to care so much
for one that only hunts to ****
And though my heart you cannot touch
The memories may linger still
You thought that I should be as you
but I will not your folly make
to live your lie and think it true
so through my heart I drive a stake.
Apr 17, 2017
Apr 17, 2017 at 1:34 PM UTC
Shall I call to thee once more, my love?
Thou arrow doth shoot into me from above.
Tangled stings of lover's passion never borrow.
Yet perched on the light of yester morrow,
She hordes my memory justly cloaked, an entrenchment.
Her Meadowlark breast sings of my contentment.
As my voice fails to muster thus.
Her lover's song doth turn to dust.
In the translucent glow of placid regret,
He sees the paleness of a face wet.
So saddening was once the passing rains,
Now forward, a bled heart remains.
Her pointed sharpened attraction once a desire,
Now merely a softened verse within my spire.
Thou stricken surprised; whilst I forthright,
To inform thee of tragedy ending thy night.
Feb 11, 2014
Feb 11, 2014 at 3:42 PM UTC
~
And the skies find blue
On this morning in the city
With the temperature so warm
As I stand to find the meaning
Over asphalt centered lanes
With the street lights set on twinkle
When a billboard reaches out
With a message for the masses
Still my every thought is you
And I dream
~Chosen by my eyes to see the wonders love is bringing
Floating in my mind like endless butterflies a’ winging
Melodies of love as every meadowlark is singing
And I dream…oh I dream~
People rushing by
At an endless rate of hurry
With their boot straps in a bind
You can see their frowning faces
That new watch upon their arms
Flashing minutes changing hours
Till the meetings that they meet
And the notes they will be taking
Still my every thought is you
And I dream
~My heart it skips a beat within the rhythm of your smile
Sea shells on a beach now dance in ocean waving style
Meadows filled with green where we may lay a little while
And I dream…oh I dream~
Traffic jams ensue
Waving fists and shouting plenty
Driving slower than a snail
Move along we’re in a hurry
But the radio does play
I ignore the mass confusion
For the song that I now hear
Is the one you like to dance to
For my every thought is you
And I dream
~Cotton candy clouds project the colors of the evening
In and out of life with all the happiness now weaving
I am coming home, your open arms so soon receiving
And I dream…oh I dream~
Jul 21, 2014
Jul 21, 2014 at 6:56 PM UTC
The sleepy, starry eyed sky of night
Retires in an odd violet surrender,
Making way for a swiftly emerging dawn
As the viscous black blues of Midnight's celestial shore is waning,
They ebb into waves of apricot, magenta and tangerine hues
A solitary meadowlark perched about the ash grove sits quietly
Watching the remaining vestibules of fog drifting upwards, only to burn away in the heat of the sun
A cool wind blows in from the mountainside, whistling through leaves and rustling tail feathers
The scent of the far off sea tickles the old birds nostrils, holding the promise of silver backed sardine and beach scattered ***** legs
He feels the call of the spirit beneath him, arching his wings he leans into the breeze
A cerulean blue, cloudless skyline illuminates the eyes as he soars amongst evergreen hilltops and pine ladened mountains
His flight pattern as seamless as the air on which he moves,
His mind and body becoming one with the soundless synergy of the skies and the senses,
Bones among feathers,
First was winds, now is breathing.
He is the eternal
Infinite bliss indefinable
Ancient and etheric, a consciousness made complete
Jan 15, 2016
Jan 15, 2016 at 11:52 AM UTC
.
*Here on the night before yesterday’s dream
Twilight composers retreat
Laughing at whispers a’ flow on the stream
Happily taking a seat
Practicing meadowlark lyrics to sing
Strumming a toadstool in tune
Awaiting the light that the fireflies bring
Blinking a wink at the moon
Tulips with tambourines gather around
Spider web chandeliers glow
Shade tree sonatas, a wonderful sound
Echoing up from below
Pine cone recitals and blueberry sighs
Star dust ovations in rhyme
Choruses sung beneath velveteen skies
Harmonic three quarter time
Orchestral canopies glisten above
Melodic rainbows the view
Performing songs written solely of love
Played on this evening for you*
May 10, 2016
May 10, 2016 at 6:54 PM UTC
As the meadowlark
Singing after fresh spring rain
Poets need the same
© 2017 Jim Davis
Jun 5, 2017
Jun 5, 2017 at 7:10 AM UTC
While sleeping
Why is it mornings, so far in the distance,
flowing from beyond tempered shorelines
on lone standing bridges ~
always seem to call in the midst of a dream
When sunrise illusions now erase sleep
on meadowlark borders dotted in dew drops
built in the confines of spring
with fall fast approaching ~ featuring shadows stretched of time
Long on the porch, weathered and beaming,
tapping the front door with marching band fingers
in trumpet blares and bass drum beats ~
yet quiet in the state of mind seen through blurry eyes
Still ~ a before smile, brought about the prior evening
forces dimples once again in my cheeks
igniting the darkness with three-ring spotlights,
streaked of circus beacons on popcorn ceilings
Reminding ~ the dream I have found actually lives in my daylight,
slipping around corners and window sill gaps,
finding me on the brink of now,
stumbling my way to where I long to be ~ awake
For my dream is you,
who I so desperately miss ~ while sleeping
Sep 26, 2013
Sep 26, 2013 at 2:19 PM UTC