"mossed" poems
I
There is a house with ivied walls,
And mullioned windows worn and old,
And the long dwellers in those halls
Have souls that know but sordid calls,
And dote on gold.
II
In a blazing brick and plated show
Not far away a ‘villa’ gleams,
And here a family few may know,
With book and pencil, viol and bow,
Lead inner lives of dreams.
III
The philosophic passers say,
‘See that old mansion mossed and fair,
Poetic souls therein are they:
And O that gaudy box! Away,
You ****** people there.’
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Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the mossed cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimmed their clammy cell.
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reaped furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers;
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,---
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir, the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft,
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
2.4k
Press me into the mossed tree
flanked in auric diaspora
lifting billowing dress with one hand
pressing it with mine into the drape of fabric
framed by tree bark divets
breath incumbent
drifting in mellowed heaves
heavy against my frame
pulse cadence
requisite engorging
blood thinned
eyes dilated
spine *****
pinning me
expectancy
pelvic tilt
sacral arch
calf raking thigh
I climb you
Jan 26, 2014
Jan 26, 2014 at 8:36 PM UTC
in the balcony one late afternoon
i saw a mossed cypress tree, with
curved and drooping branches
a shield from the glaring rays of the sun
at noontime, i realized it was
i sat on the wooden lounge chair
as my mind started reeling
brimming with words and lines
stimulated by the ambiance
provided, surrounded by the
picturesque views....but i
suddenly thought of a distant friend
a good soul, a good friend
i miss Cheryl, my friend
she would have loved to be here
in this seaside village,
for some time off, to mix her colors
paint something from the sea
a touch of Neptune's world, maybe
for her poems to write.....
some fresh air, walks any minute of the day
so worries and fears and uncertainties
may vanish, evaporate
like bubbles dissipate
.....into thin air.....
Sally
Copyright 2013
Rosalia Rosario A. Bayan
Oct 17, 2013
Oct 17, 2013 at 7:12 AM UTC
rained heavy on the forlorn
white stone
April dusk had stood still
on deserted lane
iron gate to the lawn
showed mossed sleepy graves
tiptoed on the overgrown grass
for epitaph hard to read
Expect great things from God
opened eyes to more widely catch
Attempt great things for God
couldn't ruin it the ravage of years
outside tombstone waited a world
in the drizzle echoed the missionary's deathless sermon.
Jun 11, 2015
Jun 11, 2015 at 12:44 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
On the upward path
Low cloud
Sinks past
Our careful steps
Leaving a pale fire
In the mist-feathered sky
‘one opal cloudlet
in an oval form’
The cleft-next ‘gate
Mossed lichened
Two steps
To the plateau
Where we watch
Crows flocking
Up and beyond
Any possible algorithm
A Zen stone
Green-cloaked
Prays in the keen wind
I look back
To your settled shape
Blue-buffed
Yellow-gloved
In a snowed field
Across
The immediate view
Dry-stoned waves
Dip and rise
The sun’s paintbox
Selects colours for
A crouched hill
Distant
Having climbed over
The plantation wall
Your freckled face
pale with the touch
Of cold fingers
In the damp silence
Listening to each other breathe
The mist returns
Sep 29, 2012
Sep 29, 2012 at 3:02 AM UTC
My eyes are not celestial suns of light
But pools reflecting woods mossed green and brown.
The common lip not coral like by sight
But pale as mine, and pink-soft as a gown.
If ******* be white, no woman’s wheat compares.
And women who place roses in fair cheeks
Win heavenly false prize of golden hairs.
My breath, like all who path to heaven seek,
Resembles no scent floral nor my sound
An avian tune rather my words be sweet.
‘Tis true my feet do grace the common ground
Though none I know descended to our heat.
I think my beauty worthy yet and rare
To covet not mock by poets unfair.
Feb 13, 2012
Feb 13, 2012 at 6:18 PM UTC
Since you called,
I've been writing,
here and there,
truthfully,
skinning the night,
searching for meat.
I've peeled back
the clouds: crimson,
the sky: split,
the stars: lit like the mossed edges of a scab,
the cosmos: a ****
I'm getting weary,
all of this beneath me,
the earth becoming
a speck of dust:
absurd.
The kind of hurt you like to dole:
still there.
Can't I be an astronaut in peace?
Do you like the flattening of me,
into a pancake
like the night:
hammered and nailed
across the hemisphere?
I am the gravity-crushed,
the soul-sored, the black-hole ripped.
Opened and steaming,
I'm under the sky.
The emergency room of the brinking night drugs
and
a story of gleaming scars is my heart.
Sep 2, 2012
Sep 2, 2012 at 12:19 AM UTC
O, i wish i was a writer,
woven fine words and let all hell break loose.
Or a sensuous dancer,
pranced on the rhythmic applause.
Definitely a great musician,
harped upon the melodies of life.
But am just a ****** peddler of thoughts,
in some old forgotten mossed lane,
beating the drums
& creating cacophony of my dreamy tales.
Jul 2, 2010
Jul 2, 2010 at 1:06 AM UTC
Fat across three ribs of a bright green leaf,
A dewdrop rolled onto my tongue beneath,
Served cold and fresh direct from nature's dish,
Filtered through limestone and the gills of fish,
This immortal moisture once ran like oil,
Down an ancestors back doubled in toil,
Laden with memory mossed on their tomb,
It nourished their children warm in the womb,
Through fauna and flora time and again,
Their essence combined recycled as rain,
A powerful force that dribbles and slings,
Dictating life to perishable things,
With a solution of all it has known,
Returned to the sea through everyone's home.
Aug 9, 2021
Aug 9, 2021 at 1:46 PM UTC
The house seemed to live on its own
In the silence of a monster waiting prey
Skin peeled off mossed abandoned
In a gloom quite untouched by the day!
It was the house standing last in the lane
Hidden in its dark ominous nook
Locked in closed door windowpane
Holding secret of a never opened book!
Not one sign of some life did it show
Bar a glassed shadow in the candlelight
Flickering for a while and then go
Like a passing phantom of the night!
Never go anywhere near that door
Cautioned us the elders in childhood
It was said weren’t seen anymore
Those ventured had disappeared for good!
We found in that lane a peaceful space
For a winter afternoon’s cricket match
Bowling and batting in low pace
When the ball was in air shouting catch!
It happened one day jumped the fence
A bounce took the ball past the wall
The children were worried and tense
Who would go to fetch it make a call!
None was ready to give the door a knock
Having heard about the house its weirdness
What would reveal once the **** was unlocked
Peeped from it the most macabre face!
They left as I stood there alone
With terror creeping to my core
When the wood creaked with a groan
Stood a woman on the opened door!
On her face shone a smile’s beaming star
As she held out the ball for my reach
While I wondered what made them call her
A ***** and child slaying witch!
Jul 30, 2014
Jul 30, 2014 at 7:27 AM UTC
january's the year
where mottled greyness
mingles in with a spitting torrent
of teawater
and shyly showing
slowing
a shadowed gold wisp
of cloudy hushedness
settles past broken branches
and scratched identity
mossed-over
past purple stones
upon the leaves of day
and afternoon's
gleaming water shimmer
though fathomed reaches falls
into icy teacup thoughts
through unswept orange light
in shortened shadows
down from a scudded moon
of frog dimples
and imperfect rays
as fire-cold steam
rises to a rapid slip-stream
and crish-crash clouds
hush and sigh:
diminished lightening shock
Apr 25, 2014
Apr 25, 2014 at 3:51 AM UTC
coagulate my soul
oh wind,
flush my brute
me-ness
out of this landscape
and instill
clarified serenity.
send my gentle salute
to the soft fauna,
the slippery ones
who divulged their grace
to my philistine vision
divorce every
Peopled Preference
(moneyednewroadstrafficreports)
and Terminate the scent
of those who wrench
the sweet tang of Spring
from this downy mossed asylum
(and plas-stick it into
fraudulent bottles
for decrepit wrinkled
“Lacquer Rouge” lips
to desecrate)
ferment the scape
forever into my
Fickle Recollection
so that
as I regress
to my most sickly
human configuration
I may still be
part Sky,
part Dust.
Oct 10, 2013
Oct 10, 2013 at 2:16 AM UTC
Get out or peel
Cause the sunken place is real
Even at a family meal
My passion for isolation
Isn’t wrong
try being Bambi
And the gun
Then tell your son
Why you always run
But let me rewind
Cause Nas needs a retake
My passion for isolation
Needs a dissertation
So you can get my full explanation
Simply put
my deer and I
Going to put you snakes in a ninja
Now ****** hit the blender
And tell that ginger with the shakes
That your cyclops can die
like a great scott
But back to the plot
The blood in my veins
Is full of spaghetti lanes
Cause at every junction
Is my destruction
My last name is stained
So I will break the glass
Then piece it back
With a x cause my family tree
Needs a axe cause
They act but only on a razzie level
So lets give the gremlins revel
Cause I know the devil
Fires and brimstone at home
Y’all see why I rather be alone?
I didn’t have fans like fran
Or friends like Ross
So why do I feel lost
Since in friendship I always get
Mossed
They have a Patton on my name
So they **** at it to drain
My money always generous with bands
They bless hands
but y’all don’t stand
Like your a Kaepernick man
Cause y’all see me as Stan
So let me help you understand
Dear my friends that always had my back
I hope you eat this kinda like snack
Cause once you see this you might here
A smack
Let’s hop in you hoopty dare or die?
I was being weird but so what
I’m careless guy
So let’s drive to train track park
Then see my reply
Cause I wouldn’t even had killed them
That’s for it Hennessy to decide
Last is Venus which ruled my penius
But ruined my genius
I had life by the throat
but its me too now
So I have to listen to her and not poke
Curves are fun and breast are too
But what happens when they crash into you
Not a Emmy more a semi
Cause I wrote the screenplay
that got you remi
That got you furs coats and houseboats
But you keep taking tokes
Welp I hope you choke
I take 4 branches from my tree
Then add 12 fallen leaves let’s see
That’s 16 but I need 2 nuts to roast
That’s 18 then add 2 more let’s toast
That’s 20 or lions a dream
Then burn it down cause
I had to Barry them to save my team
So my conviction
is pick up your eviction
I’m already past it like Drake after Quentin
Jul 31, 2018
Jul 31, 2018 at 8:16 PM UTC
The water chuckles and frolics
Finding its way over the rocks
It gurgles around boulders
And swirls and tumbles and drops.
The banks of the streams are strewn
With flower petals, pink and rosy
They settle gently on fern fronds
Looking peaceful, comfy and cozy.
The steep sides of the gully are shale
And water seeps out in places
It finds its way into pools
Where the minnows are having races.
I know about oceans and lakes and rivers
About power dams and high waterfalls
I appreciate the importance of water
I love it from wherever it calls.
But my private stream in this gulley
Teeming, insected', berried and mossed
Seems akin to a forest primeval
Where the Hand of the Goddess just passed.
Aug 17, 2014
Aug 17, 2014 at 3:28 AM UTC
(t'is the spine, from which we need speak)
this then the secret you knew
but could not speak,
for you did not
know it
in the way
knowing was needed...
what do we owe each other,
when first we speak,
of that risk greatest ever taken,
cross the line
from maybe to amour?
exciting times,
heartbeat and pulse,
performing an un~orchestrated
syncopated rhythm,
your mind 's eye,
never more focused, observant,
never more judgement~poor,
for distortion of love heat
have affected your flying instruments...
this then I will answer,
for though memories are mossed,
certain things are burnished
and I remember my first loves
and I remember my first crushings,
as if they were yet to happen...
so when to the negotiating table come,
outstretched, your hands,
pleading your case,
you owe her this:
from the spine speak,
ignore the eyes and heated heart
signal distortions,
if you wish to tell her
how you have come to feel~believe,
tell her from the spine...
for if in agreement,
you will never stand taller
if on two different steps you stair,
if lucky, time may cure you
of your hunchback crooked ****
for the crook will have stolen your straight,
which is why they call him and
now, you too, sadly,
crooked...
character is your best selling point,
so, from the spine speak
Apr 11, 2014
Apr 11, 2014 at 12:43 AM UTC
Friends, family and strangers of the past,
Those who exist no more
Lie, decaying and crumbling beneath the grass.
Those who walked upon this floor,
Those who felt well,
Those who were afraid
Prance and dance around the great bell,
Replaying the ringing heard through the decades.
The snow falls, glittering white on mossed stone.
The sun shines, rays upon the engravings.
The leaves fall, they roam and then are gone,
They lay next to those that wanted saving.
To see myself as I am now,
And to see myself in a hundred years from now,
It saddens me, it scares me
That I’ll just be another memory,
Then faded and forgotten.
Oct 14, 2010
Oct 14, 2010 at 3:39 PM UTC
Backed by a belief that butchery
is part of a survival strategy to cling
to the edifices of power blackened by the bomb
and bunker smoke of fighting in the trenches of hate
Hidden in hell holes beneath the barren browning landscape
scattered across the fragile face of the desert
soldier rats rush into pock-marked craters
as the planes overhead search them out with infrared
points to demolish and bury them
in the graves the enemy nation
carved for cemeteries
unmarked
in the battlefields of bourgeoisie.
War brings the drones of mercy
raining from the skies of hate
piercing through the armament of commands
from Generals decorated in medals of honour
from the Boys Club and green mossed jackets.
Sit, daddy, in rifle ready barricades
awaiting the crackle command
from higher up the food chain.
Those who make those decisions are unaware
a child sits at home playing with a little toy soldier
"Made in China" from printed plastic moulds
of mass production and extermination.
"Daddy is my hero.
He will come home for Christmas."
He wont. This time round, son.
Author Notes
The Toy soldier.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.
Apr 3, 2014
Apr 3, 2014 at 4:15 PM UTC
I look up & walk on but something inside me is still wrong, I can't help but cry & I lie, cause I know if I tell the truth, I would be laughed at, but I know it wouldn't really matter cause all they care about is that Snapchat.
If I express the beauty within it wouldn't matter cause I'm not thin, all they care about is that make-up but they are missing from the things they need to make-up.
If only numbers didn't define us & if only we would build more trust, the world would be much better like thus.
Emotions are lost, love is tossed but that's OK, we're all mossed up either way.
If only we could have a world, a world where humanity doesn't fade, where we all could be saved.
If only there were happiness in this black and white world.
Teachers shouldn't just teach, they should give, give what they got, even though it is not a lot.
Let's build world where sadness is not forever but instead be happy together. Let's build a world where your appearance wouldn't matter because beauty is within not on the skin. Instead of doing make-up, let's make-up the time we have lost on judging others.
We could do better, we need to make them proud, our mothers. Let's build a world where freedom actually happens, where being you is not a crime & let the beauty you have inside shine.
Let's build a world where numbers wouldn't describe you, number of likes on Instagram don't matter & it's not like they are going to take you somewhere important.
What matters is you, nothing else & this is not new, you just got to be you. Change your point of view & change the way you say the term "I love you".
Let's build a world where socializing didn't happen through social media, let's not worry about snapping that Snapchat or even stress about what filter you should use, don't let technology take over & abuse.
Our beautiful minds don't need to be destroyed, they need more joy.
In this case, we don't need a beautiful face to match our beautiful mind, we need to be kind & accept what's on the inside.
Let's build a world where your mental health is more important, try to focus on what comes first which is you, your health, you.
Education is important but it would be useless if you died of a mental disease, this will keep on going and never seize.
Let's build a world where families are not broken, where talking to your father is normal & where your mother is by your side all the time, let's make this world shine, let's make it beautiful again. All I mean is...
Make our world a better place.
The end
Dec 3, 2017
Dec 3, 2017 at 4:14 PM UTC
Curled up
in a corner
staring at the mossed walls
amidst the light that devours fireflies
the petrichor is now stronger
than all the ales I had
this reverie
the imagery shows no sign of ceasing
and with everything coming back to me
I am ready to stumble again
and fall every step
to write and rewrite
the joy is somewhat incessant
like it always has been.
May 7, 2017
May 7, 2017 at 1:13 PM UTC
sing song birds chirping
rock formations mossed blossoms sequestered greens
dirt mounds make animal sanctuaries
crickets chime for lovers romance
tree bark seeps amber saps
sunsets through skylines mountain view
elavation takes my breath away
Jun 19, 2019
Jun 19, 2019 at 10:56 PM UTC
"Stay broken
There's a reason things are unwanted"
The stoked charcoal turns into smoke just to evaporate like a ghost
I'm just a phantom of your rusted conscience
Any more thought and you'd break
We'd be together, but it doesn't matter
Your master is no longer on the ladder
You detached his tattered hands
For him to fall to mossed-over spikes to lie and die
Alone
You broke me
I'll follow your last request
I'll make sure to stay shattered
I have always followed my mind
So why betray you now, master
Apr 7, 2017
Apr 7, 2017 at 12:44 PM UTC
.
The wind carries its soft dirge
Out to sea, across a lamented
Land of bones and vail memory,
Sea birds sail in solitary griefs—
Above the loam that light darkens
As each soot year is lowly churned.
And the slate stones are mossed,
Like trees that no one is hearing,
In forests bereft, unto the shawls
Of ferns as they bleed in the dank
Undergrowths of sorrels and ****
Curling in trite, pale green contritions.
In cemetery lots, the dead are ******
Intoxicated on their lost beds of lime,
Where trees surround in wrangled keeps
And bare feet's are buried by the spades,
With the untrod grasses, trimmed like nails
And the daisies that rain from the ground.
.
Jan 12, 2021
Jan 12, 2021 at 11:55 PM UTC
She was a Messiah, with boys bowed at her knees.
But when their mouths a-gaped, she'd close them quickly, begging them not to speak.
She'd keep them close to fill a void. But no matter how many, it could never be solved.
So she took, and she took, never letting them touch.
Until now,
Where we have nothing.
And now I am no Messiah, more like the off grid Wise-Women.
Hidden within the thickets, on the edge of the forest.
Some still travel, and they do find me. But it's not the same as before.
They come to me for ailments of the mind and heart.
To listen to their woes of a past they can't leave behind.
When I out-stretch caring arms, they take a step back. Begging me not to come closer.
They take and they take, never letting me touch.
Because inside, they have nothing.
What a cruel turn of fate for the girl who fought her way through years of the past to be in the present once again.
Some may call it karma for my younger self's mistakes.
Now destined to starve the heart that was once filled till day-break.
So I sit awake at night full of other's worries in my mind.
Because if I cannot be desired, at least I can be useful.
I guess the young girl never learned how to simply exist.
Without the presence of transactional love, she may as well be extinct.
This is no way to live.
You will never feel whole if there is still a quiet, constant longing to fix or be fixed by someone else's soul.
So I sit in the stillness of my isolated garden.
With nothing more than the damp, mossed floor and early dawn chorus.
I may be on my own, but I am never lonely.
I am one with the world around me.
I am the Wise-Women.
Jun 7, 2023
Jun 7, 2023 at 4:49 PM UTC