"meridian" poems
1058
Bloom—is Result—to meet a Flower
And casually glance
Would scarcely cause one to suspect
The minor Circumstance
Assisting in the Bright Affair
So intricately done
Then offered as a Butterfly
To the Meridian—
To pack the Bud—oppose the Worm—
Obtain its right of Dew—
Adjust the Heat—elude the Wind—
Escape the prowling Bee
Great Nature not to disappoint
Awaiting Her that Day—
To be a Flower, is profound
Responsibility—
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O ye who travel the meridian line,
May the vision of a new world within you shine.
May eyes that have lived with poverty's rage,
See through to the glory of the awakening age.
For we are all richly linked in hope,
Woven in history, like a mountain rope.
Together we can ascend to a new height,
Guided by our heart's clearest light.
When perceptions are changed there's much to gain,
A flowering of truth instead of pain.
There's more to a people than their poverty;
There's their work, wisdom, and creativity.
Along the line may our lives rhyme,
To make a loving harvest of space and time.
________
Source:
http://www.writespirit.net/blog/archive/2006/12/03/poems_ben_okri
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611
I see thee better—in the Dark—
I do not need a Light—
The Love of Thee—a Prism be—
Excelling Violet—
I see thee better for the Years
That hunch themselves between—
The Miner’s Lamp—sufficient be—
To nullify the Mine—
And in the Grave—I see Thee best—
Its little Panels be
Aglow—All ruddy—with the Light
I held so high, for Thee—
What need of Day—
To Those whose Dark—hath so—surpassing Sun—
It deem it be—Continually—
At the Meridian?
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pony-tailed playmate
head tucked in her shirt
gazing steadily down
at her toes in the dirt
chaos tiptoes around her
naive oblivion
journeys in far away lands
just west of the meridian
watercolor fairy tales
bleeding outside the lines
unaware of the danger
unaware of the signs
let me sit with you, darling
in the dampened flower beds
and paint a new world
for us in our heads
Dec 24, 2018
Dec 24, 2018 at 11:25 PM UTC
In the divet between mountains
Resides a wooden cabin – ostensibly an amalgamation of the scape
Adroitly - I - quondam female warrior flit
Down massive (ancient) hand-laid, hand-cut carved stone steps
Bounding from contingent step onto the dense pad of turned soil
Tacit compliance between gravity and soil holds footprints bound
A compressed deflating crescendo as pace ignites with bounds
Cadences of protuberant wildflowers and grasses erupt from swollen terra
A winsome chromatic menagerie, dispersed in ecstatic fistfuls
A venerably ancient ritual
My nascent clandestine vocation
Personally meted out - a beatification for my provisional sanctuary
Along glacier-fed stream
Lissome fingers shadow inert stalks –plucking dormant beginnings from their desiccated ligaments
I am austere and unadorned save for a festoon of pyrite flecks trailing my semblance
Residual gilding from my ante-meridian swim taken after requisite gathering of wild blackberries, goose berries, and rhubarb along oft-tamped path
The sun, nestling into its requisite apex endorsed my completion
I reclined into the hassock of soil, feeling the elements settle about with an embossment of my form
Imposing verdure arched subtly as compressed soil beckoned hyperbolic flux
As I lay within the basilica of opulent living columns replete with comestible bounty
Lingering dew honed inflections of sacrosanct petrichor in unison with piquant clover
Wild purple clover buds saccharinely tinted and inundated nestled nerves in mine cribriform plate
Birds pitched and galloped through the frond tips and beyond in the lapis expanse
Frequently snatching damselfly’s and assemblages of midges from their ephemeral drift
Auspicious rays transcended stippled diaphanous gravid clouds
Light inundated ether entered humbly into the cathedral oculus
Pyrite speckled terrain beneath, and my bare gilded form above
Cast a refracted aura about my sanctuary
Precipitously the elusive vaporous embankment distended further
Ashen atmospheric correspondence inaugurated liquescent sustenance to my mountain abode
And I -
Lingered beneath the descending gobbets, curls furled in a puddle
Fresh topsoil cupping my corporal topographic contours
Pressing blackberries into my mouth between smiles
Jan 26, 2014
Jan 26, 2014 at 9:13 PM UTC
Do you remember the nights? Back when we would chase the shooting stars under a canvas sky stained black. Nights we held so dear, prancing in the twilight.
Those nights led to coffee-shop mornings. Mornings when the "House Blend" was the only thing keeping our eyes open. Mornings that we spent holding each other tight, watching the sun climb in the meridian.
I thought those days would last forever, but here I am, kissing this cigarette. Wishing on those same stars that we used to chase.
Jun 8, 2017
Jun 8, 2017 at 9:13 PM UTC
The snipers rifle hung from the parapet
still warm, cordite drifted from
the business end.
It resembled a cigarette,
dangling in the groove of an
ashtray which was given to you
as a souvenir from a place
you had no desire to go.
And you had no desire to go there
as you had read stories of donkey
cruelty and the militias’ refusal to
accept Greenwich as the
centre of time.
Their struggle against the meridian
has been well documented in film and
prose.
Stories and rumours filtered in
from the hinterland, carried home in
economy flights from different time zones
arriving at the terminal, milling around the
carousel.
****** victim 4 lay in a forensic
scene, white tapped surrounded by
duty free bags, and the secret dossiers
exposing the militias plans drifted, blood
stained in the breeze.
Dec 31, 2012
Dec 31, 2012 at 5:21 AM UTC
her hesitating beauty
over a hundred days
each a silk thread
each a dark pearl
kissing specifics
in the empty space of a matinée
hologram of the new sun
burning like prime meridian, the hunter's star
ripples of inhibition, making waves
and confessions in
the deep end of a pool
always submissive with a smile
like holding her breath underwater
Apr 11, 2023
Apr 11, 2023 at 12:26 PM UTC
Stuck on the actual prime meridian
where gambling and grown up shenanigans
are viewed all *****
hurting society, though I could legally go to the drain on my street
and drop a thousand twenty pees in it
nae bother
our equivalent bet
as high rollers we are surely not
I miss you Vegas
with your daft anti-reality cushions,
the strip with no history or heritage
necessarily
but with goofy drunken dreams brimming alive
and I know vice, bad, horror, addiction yadda yadda
I miss you Vegas
Feb 28, 2021
Feb 28, 2021 at 10:43 AM UTC
Almost a week has past
Since it was announced you will die
A day like that was always destined to come
But I am still not ready
Gordon Downie I want to write your eulogy now
And maybe you will see it
And understand how you've changed the life
Of this child of America
Gordon Downie you have made me scared
And if any sort of courage is going to come
Let it come now
I can't think of a worse time than this
Why must all my heroes leave me here?
But I understand that before a person becomes a saint they must perform miracles after their death
The three words I would use to describe you, you already know
Gordie you are a man
A machine
And a poem
The first song I remember learning how to sing, you beckoned me in from the wicked prairie winds
And now I just hope that when I hear the news of the final words I smile
And it will be fine
But Gordie
I have avoided all the trends and clichés a young man of 20 can
I have sat in parking lots and coffee shops and witnessed beautiful things continuing as long as this world will let them
But it is you who has traveled to the hundredth meridian
The man who can get behind anything
The man who stood neck deep in the lake and yelled "you are not the ocean" and refused to swim
I learned that I must be ready to live my life because we get no dress rehearsals
I learned to be honest with who I am because no one's interested in the things I didn't do
Gordon Downie you are the machine that powered my childhood so this poem is for you
And when you die Heaven will truly be a better place
And one day I will meet you there
But until then
I will go to Bobcaygeon
And watch those constellations
Reveal themselves
One star
At a time
May 30, 2016
May 30, 2016 at 12:34 AM UTC
*You are the deep blue sea,
my red shimmering sun
little
by
little
sinks deeper
a gasp,
a silver shiver, exquisite
inside the dense waters
sun moves in sensuous pace
arousing hellacious passions, sea hides
makes her yell out
in thousand voices of seagulls
Intense spasmodic waves
rise and fall transmitting euphoric notes
that dissolve in the gentle golden light
of a lone curious star, watching
without batting an eyelid.*
Apr 5, 2014
Apr 5, 2014 at 10:21 PM UTC
I
I never saw a mountain move
by the pure grace of love,
But by desire, I saw a continent
dragged to the tip of the sun.
I saw the sea raising its current,
trying to ****** some star,
like the blood in your stream,
while someone else made love to you.
And I lost the will to live,
and the desire to die
chained to your altar.
And the hummingbird
he put on your lips,
it splattered you of freedom,
but in its hum you found a prision
for two pigeons with no course,
for the canary I left in your hand.
and it was not from love, it was of pure desire
that you opened your mouth and closed your fist.
And I lost the desire to die,
and the will to live
Chained to your altar,
As if there was no other God!
That I could worship
As if there was no other God!
To which I could kneel
As if there was no other God!
II
All these men on the pedestal,
and if each one is given a cross,
How many gods will we praise?
How many won't be dead Christs ?
How many won't be stained sheets?
How many, on Easter Sunday
will not even face God? Goodbye.
I opened my mouth and I created you a universe,
I showed you the tiger and the dove,
I planted on your chest an ivy and a rose,
I watered you of morning and sun,
and still, you preferred to go down to hell,
with the loneliness, the bone and the shadow
a snake and a red moon
For his tired eyes,
for his bitter smile,
for his brown hair,
and hands that had never touched you,
and a horseman that won't ride you,
a street on which you never cried before,
and any other meridian time.
For some other Adam
that galloped away
from a paradise he did not find in your summer,
a string of few beads
that is embedded in the ground where I bloomed,
where a tree of blood and prayer grows,
that in each fruit bears my flesh
and the seed of another God.
Apr 15, 2013
Apr 15, 2013 at 11:55 AM UTC
Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response
It is quite mysterious the origin of such pleasure
Common is the multi-culturally adopted belief
That large fractions of massive populations
Label themselves as insomniacs
If anything this newfound viral sensation
May very well exist to cure insomnia
ASMR comes in a variety of different sounds
That help to release melatonin and aid the body in sleeping
Such sounds include inaudible whispering, gum chewing, table scratching, match lighting,
Ear to ear whispering, tapping, brushing, and crinkling.
These sounds are beautiful, inventive, ground breaking and a relevant discovery
Within the continuous cycle that is known to us as evolution
A vast majority of us have talking brains
Some of our brains talk more than others
Resulting in sleep deprivation on numerous occasions
We have been given a unique, sensational gift
That aids those in times of misfortune and grief
That aids those in emotional tribulation
Though it is through this global phenomenon
and it is through these talented individuals
that we are able to possibly if not entirely
conquer said debilitating times
A way to persuade peace amidst a callous world
That is what ASMR means to me
May 14, 2014
May 14, 2014 at 12:02 PM UTC
floral effervescence
wafts around you
thy theo black temperament rose iq
ushers lulabies as playful amor kru
apollo is falling for the aquamarine
rays, reflecting the sea's craved ardour
and our love is like a cyclamen oleandro
the fascinating, dissolving, poisonous sleep
inwardly unaware of the whitest clouds oro
seducing the beauty of a ceruelan absolute ~
if i were the wave i would foam your dream
if you were a black panther i'd be your kaa
for a day to experience your mighty paws
to tremble like open window shutters, strickened
by the fire, by light, by thunderbolt's love flame
oh, come on, come on sweet man of the fantasia
i've got to tell you i ain't foolin' around those dim
alleys at nights like this; luscious calls lure hello
at least, hear my hearts deepest throbbings, hear
them, embrace them, conquer my world's cream
taste the strawberry sweeteness on a tip of me, u
trickle your tongue against my open buoyancy
write kaligrafic words of love's invisible tint
beautify the untouched pergament, maestro
write like there's no time nor tomorrow's no;
inaugure every christmas crickets flash mob
within you and awaken me from a slumber,
deeply rooted, lovely and mild as wood's chi
and I will cherish you, praise and love long
forgotten wild forest's animals as panacea
for the dissolving salt upon a love wound
which torchered your solitude for who's
pleasure, for what reason, for a slick slap
of an epic trustful faith as lux aeterna
crashing the myth of a love superior;
a desolation of waning touches soma
hiding its fragility in madmind's attempt
to overcome what's earth's given inferno;
to die in a lustful blazing heat of creatio
contemplating about heavenly key lock
how to forge a golden key to your anima,
gracefully giving a hand to her emperor
to dance on a verge of an existence' folie
to blossom upon hushed world's meridian
in dreamy space n' time, first darlin' flush
the prime animus dances, dares, waters~
Feb 17, 2016
Feb 17, 2016 at 3:50 PM UTC
say something or just
keep on makin' ghost-patterned, intervening silences,
singing
or half-murmuring
verses, those ones from slow songs under low light,
the same refrain that runs between all the others,
through the passage of weeks, stained tobacco sweet by eleven-thirty iterations;
* [post-meridian or particulate matters only,
of course,
it's hard to wake before noon anymore.]*
with the way these rhythms keep us down
and out,
counting the methods-
the summations of potential miseries,
and the probabilities that all would or could turn around, before the end of the week.
or the next one.
and,
outside the door, the one after that,
over the acres of concrete and pale shade,
streetlit likenesses hushing air through melting neighbourhoods,
I make imaginary footprints,
wondering which, of the field of household starlit comforts,
is the blade of grass you cast seeds from
to inadvertently germinate and sprout a well of aspiration, the wind in a stranger's ribcage,
continually growing, hiccoughing leaf litter,
with every last breath.
Dec 11, 2012
Dec 11, 2012 at 6:24 AM UTC
Ever decreasing circles
Tessaracts
And mine fields
Hindsight blind sided
Ostensibly this funneled
Tunnel vision
OCD in oscillations
The vortices surround me
Gravity
On my event horizon
The memory of sunlight thins
This meridian
Soul and spirit intersect
At the latitude of foolish intentions
Emotional circumspect
The absolution of revolutions
Pull my fatal focus center
Enter in
To end
Where I begin
*aufero vestri cranium ex vestri ****
whispered litany
reverse reverberation
In that space between statis
And 360 degrees
Stretch out my arms
And I am free…..
Ever increasing circles
From the epicenter
To destiny
TL Boehm
092809
*remove your cranium from your ****
Sep 24, 2014
Sep 24, 2014 at 11:30 AM UTC
Comedian's obsidian,
In this middle,
Meridian.
Koi No Yokan
Did it again,
But this time I'm not
Winning and,
Somewhere between
The *** and friends,
Lies the best Me
I have been.
The falling star,
The wishes sent,
Into the void,
We do pretend.
And in the middle,
Some obscure riddle
Do it again.
Do it again.
Jan 31, 2013
Jan 31, 2013 at 2:39 AM UTC
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder
and that of the hurricane.
Tumult whispered white,
both Aeolian and corporeal,
strummed on strings of solemnity;
the ugly undertaker of buried roses
labeled as wary victims of feel-good graverobbers.
All bled emotions are this.
The Louvre's flashbulbed flecks;
the notes woven within coke lines of symphony;
fingerpainted twig-men crafted by bright-eyed smilers;
this juxtaposed disgrace.
All Beau Sancy in the roughest granite jewelry box
with graffiti scribbled laughing like urban Sanskrit .
"I am become death" dripped in blood through the keyhole
so it now mimics a cherry popped in microwaves
unlocking discomfort, yes,
and crimsoning the cocoon of the diamond.
Peep, Tom, at the glittering Godiva within
and watch her grow in the sacrifice of poetry,
for only in the presence of forsaking and death
and anguish and discomfort
and pain
can she grow to break the eggshell walls.
Tears cut canals in Time's beard
because he consigned the memory of the shattered horrendousness
to oblivion
instead of honoring their homage
and paying respect by dropping tulips and gunships
into their graves at noon's meridian.
Opal eyed reader,
you do not understand.
My eggshells conceal themselves
within individual hells
of purple prose,
more of a lavender in my eyes.
But beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Sep 28, 2013
Sep 28, 2013 at 11:47 PM UTC
The setting sun is a lonely one...
Burning thru the sky til his work is done...
No friends, no love, no Love, no fun...
Has his water in the ocean, but no air in his lungs.
This is a day of bright sun rays.
But this will soon change as the light decays.
After the meridian divides the day...
And the moon precipitates nocturnal rays...
When sparkling stars come out to play...
From greater galaxies far away...
This is the hour of lucid lineage.
But soon enough the sun will rise.
Nov 27, 2009
Nov 27, 2009 at 11:14 AM UTC
I love the low-hanging clouds over the mouth
Of the Amazon, that whisper to its banks stories
Of the low and high seasons, accompanied
By boat thrums and the kiddish squeals of pink dolphins
Playing in pairs near their wakes.
How the humidity carries a tropical air
Which floats through broad-leafed palms
To your senses as the water laughs in loose rolls –
Unfurling like an easy smile and revealing
Twenty-foot banks that disappear with the rain.
I’m not sure what’s more beautiful –
The entirety of it all or the glasslike meridian beads of water
That run away from the boat, warning dragonflies
And beetles that it doesn’t belong,
While from above a hawk screams to bedside reeds
And with a birdsong choir makes music of wind chimes
With the whistling of grasses and leaning trees,
Begging the mud to hold and refuse to succumb to the glean
Of two-legged greed and caustic tourism that turns
The river into a hungry swell.
A song about life and the nature of things --
Pleading for blind eyes to change what they refuse to see,
To let the jungle alone to wild certainty,
Before humans tried to take what they cannot tame.
Jan 4, 2015
Jan 4, 2015 at 1:05 AM UTC
There is a Middle Road between all Worlds
I know this to be Truth
I have always seen it, glimpsed like a shadow in the corner of my Eye
Everywhere I have ever Looked
Everywhere I have ever Been
Everywhere
I have always felt myself to be
Known my Self to be
Standing to one side or the other of this Lost and Delicate Way
Skipping between the Extremes, always
Too High
or Too Low
too Hard or
too Soft
too Strong or too Weak
Too Much
or Never Enough
a Life Exhausted, leaping Across the Divide
from Mountaintop to Mountaintop
Seeking in vain the peaceful Valley on the Horizon
Always in The Distance
always Almost
never Now
Until
Until
until
until I collapse
until I cannot Go Any Further
until I finally Let Go
and Let My Self Fall
and Slide down the Mountain
because there is Nothing Left for me to do
but Lie Down
and Be Still
and Rest
Eyes Wide to the Sky
along the Middle Road
Aug 23, 2013
Aug 23, 2013 at 3:12 PM UTC
I could be dead by tomorrow,
wrapped in the comfort of
silence. Spread out on the
floor of yesterday. I loved
you so many years ago there
is a calm scrape on the days
meridian.
I turn myself in for being
ridiculous. " Do I dare to
eat a peach? ". I cross the
sandpaths of memory and
kick the castles yesterday
left. No tomorrow for us.
I, like Prufrock, dizzingly
look for the summer night,
walk unsteady in my old
age lest I die to finally
and forget.
Caroline Shank
1.20.2023
Jan 21, 2023
Jan 21, 2023 at 7:06 AM UTC