"motes" poems
You come in late, wiping your lips.
What did I leave untouched on the doorstep---
White Nike,
Streaming between my walls?
Smilingly, blue lightning
Assumes, like a meathook, the burden of his parts.
The police love you, you confess everything.
Bright hair, shoe-black, old plastic,
Is my life so intriguing?
Is it for this you widen your eye-rings?
Is it for this the air motes depart?
They rae not air motes, they are corpuscles.
Open your handbag. What is that bad smell?
It is your knitting, busily
Hooking itself to itself,
It is your sticky candies.
I have your head on my wall.
Navel cords, blue-red and lucent,
Shriek from my belly like arrows, and these I ride.
O moon-glow, o sick one,
The stolen horses, the fornications
Circle a womb of marble.
Where are you going
That you **** breath like mileage?
Sulfurous adulteries grieve in a dream.
Cold glass, how you insert yourself
Between myself and myself.
I scratch like a cat.
The blood that runs is dark fruit---
An effect, a cosmetic.
You smile.
No, it is not fatal.
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I adored the very action of blowing dust-motes off a box.
Watch it dance in the distilled air.
I like the sight it presents.
One where the past snaps the silence of today.
Slowly but surely
re-etching how much time has passed
on the corners of my bruised heart.
Once, happiness and sweetness, those dust-motes are just greyed out.
They kiss my cheeks and eyelashes.
I never blew the remnants of time again.
Jan 2, 2014
Jan 2, 2014 at 4:38 AM UTC
Her eyelids cracked open slightly.
Momentarily, they slowly close again.
Sleep was still languidly dancing across it.
Then she sees sunlight peeking through the little gaps of her curtains.
Dust-motes whisper 'Good morning' as they flit in the buttery-white light.
And, goodness me,
just like
that
her sleepy gaze
met
magic.
Apr 11, 2014
Apr 11, 2014 at 8:34 AM UTC
29/3/13
Bring me celestial music of the spheres
Such notes as dance in colours in the mind
The shimmering of distant hemispheres
Where streams of rainbow nebulae unwind
Bright notes cascade in sparkling waterfalls
Light motes resound in echoes through the breeze
From secret gardens hid behind stone walls
Paradise plays enticing symphonies
Our earthly plane is rife with vexing noise
Cacophanies of thundering machines;
Barkings of dogs, vexed babies in full voice
keep us earthbound, locked into dull routines.
Reach for the headphones, cover up your ears,
Take in celestial music of the spheres.
Mar 29, 2013
Mar 29, 2013 at 12:02 AM UTC
1602
Pursuing you in your transitions,
In other Motes—
Of other Myths
Your requisition be.
The Prism never held the Hues,
It only heard them play—
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Hands shaking as they clumsily undo
Buttons, zippers, clasps
Articles of clothing discarded
Every word that passes between us
Hangs suspended in the air
Like dust motes
Only larger, more distinct
Each facet perfectly discernible
By its own beholder's eye
This was wrong
I could feel it
As my synapses fired
Unconsciously guiding my hands down his back
Arching mine
It feels wrong
But mostly it feels
So
right
Now.
Oct 6, 2010
Oct 6, 2010 at 10:36 AM UTC
The master of emotion,
The king of the dance,
Hurried fingers add
A note of daring chance.
Molten happiness
Floats in the air
Like a passing good dream;
With never a care.
Now poignant,
Now sad,
How melencholy
How deep and drab.
Silver metal gleams
In the eye of the mind,
Lost an ancient battles
On which the sun shined.
Melodies curl around inside,
Twining round my arms-
This music can protect me
From any kind of harm.
Sharp, shrieking voices
Let out a scream
As they find out the world
Is not what it seems.
A starry night captures
A beautiful song
For a love through the ages,
The ages so long.
The smooth rythms
Of the everlasting trees
Whisper quietly
Throughout the leaves.
Musty notes
In a darkened room,
And sunshine floods
Into the gloom.
Music tells the truth
And the truth never lies,
But pianos are tricky
And their feelings they hide.
Anger forces the
Furious beats
Into the world
And off silent sheets.
Midnight and brightness
Float in the stars,
Connecting all people,
So close and so far.
Pure and simple,
Liquid notes
Fall in arpeggio scales
Through dancing dust motes.
A single tears falls,
Making no sound
As keys pull memories
Up from the ground.
Everything's so simple
When played in black and white;
The piano controls
My darkness and light.
Apr 22, 2014
Apr 22, 2014 at 1:50 PM UTC
Moonup, shades of sangria
hazed in mothwing
dust
motes. We wrap in
flannel, tartan Seattle
warmth
accompanied by smudging sticks.
Batteries never charged-
defibrillator
shock. Flatline.
You said no violets (you
didn’t
mean it). Moondown takes
time- scores of swaying shadows
to arc
the parsecs. Inherit starlight,
bank it, never blink; wet stones
echo
in the noise of stars.
Feb 27, 2015
Feb 27, 2015 at 2:58 PM UTC
The shadows have their seasons, too.
The feathery web the budding maples
cast down upon the sullen lawn
bears but a faint relation to
high summer's umbrageous weight
and tunnellike continuum-
black leached from green, deep pools
wherein a globe of gnats revolves
as airy as an astrolabe.
The thinning shade of autumn is
an inherited Oriental,
red worn to pink, nap worn to thread.
Shadows on snow look blue. The skier,
exultant at the summit, sees his poles
elongate toward the valley: thus
each blade of grass projects another
opposite the sun, and in marshes
the mesh is infinite,
as the winged eclipse an eagle in flight
drags across the desert floor
is infinitesimal.
And shadows on water!-
the beech bough bent to the speckled lake
where silt motes flicker gold,
or the steel dock underslung
with a submarine that trembles,
its ladder stiffened by air.
And loveliest, because least looked-for,
gray on gray, the stripes
the pearl-white winter sun
hung low beneath the leafless wood
draws out from trunk to trunk across the road
like a stairway that does not rise.
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I can never let myself go
completely
because I am afraid
that I will drift apart
like motes of dust on a sunbeam
yet not quite as beautiful
and somewhat more meaningless.
Sep 6, 2012
Sep 6, 2012 at 3:46 PM UTC
this is irrational. in mathematics, the human reasoning - there will always be some sort of radical fallacy shoved into the equation. you. you sir, are what i call irrational. i can't lie when i say that i'm quite fond over how tall you stand, like a mountain. like a king. you don't rule the valleys and praries of your people, but you've found power along capalliries and veins. this box jutting irregularly in my chest is what you rule. i could construct motes and bridges and stone castle walls to keep you from getting in, but i can't deny i've always wanted to be a queen. your queen. i've never wanted so badly to rule your world. to take the throne and call you mine.
Jun 2, 2017
Jun 2, 2017 at 1:58 PM UTC
If ever I was accusatory
it's only because I too am guilty.
I try at symmetry
only to end up inadequate.
One who cannot amount to their own ideals
cannot know a single thing.
However certain I am of decay,
I still forget faster than memory would allow me to retain
motes of dust scattered across my library
that were once skin,
places I had been,
not one returning from departure.
No postcards
save for my disintegrated cells who speak only
of transformation.
Hushed in dim light,
scattered across oceans of words whispering,
You're already dead you naive little star.
Oct 4, 2013
Oct 4, 2013 at 1:00 AM UTC
The storms have set in fast this year
The wet skies a little sticky to the ear
Chalk fizzing in the water but it doesn't affect us in town
and again the leaves have skipped amber to brown;
the ships dock faster every September that rolls around
and the captain keeps telling us he's found less, and less-
by now we've all been wearing the same stuff for years
- Bar sodden coats and lipstick smears
but the word with my friends is since that summer on the shore
We've never come this far inland before.
It's the last term now and the older years that are closest
tell us that the new kids catch on faster, they've noticed
but that's something we're not supposed to discuss
soaking up heavy sunlight like a dusty curtain letting its motes spin
And in the backrooms - new fashion is emerging
and again we're handling with faux grandiose -
the kids at the bottom of the class need this stuff most.
we're not likely to forget.
and that moment when the girl in the pink stood and told us
she wasn't convinced she needed us anymore
and lunch was silent.
All the men at school act like they care
But cold chairs and icy fingers forced their hand
and god knows I'm not quiet anymore -
but I don't think i'll miss the school gore.
Mar 3, 2015
Mar 3, 2015 at 3:40 PM UTC
Shot a rabbit two days ago, it was a good shot taken at distance from height. The rabbit died instantly, it had been digging holes in my lawns, it had to go.
I watched it die and I had cause to ponder the death from a religious angle, where believers say we go to another place when we die?
I know where this rabbit went, he went into my vegetable garden, buried deep with all the other varmints and critters that have crossed my path.
Over the years we, (my wife and I), have turned that patch of barren volcanic ash into a wondrous source of lettuce, potatoes, onions, rhubarb, tomatoes and leek..by adding the carbonaceous remnants of not only these creatures but of composted vegetation, seaweed and selected fertilizers. We also grow the most beautiful roses and deliahs and crysanthemums you will ever come across.
And do you know...in the dark of night other little rabbits and bugs and things come out and nibble those very creations...unaware that they are completing the circle of being.
This is the true spirit of creation, as I see it, where deep in the garden, the motes of nutrition transmogrify beneficially from one entity to another, eventually, for the common good of all.
This is the basis of my belief. Feet on the ground...
What is....most definately is!
M.
Taranaki NZ
Oct 29, 2018
Oct 29, 2018 at 3:32 PM UTC
Dust motes and sweat stains
Faded graffiti over rusted steel plates
Advertising everything, from politicians to a massage parlor,
The engine roars disgruntled, in smoky rancor.
I stepped on your feet, said I was sorry
Tell me mister, could you tell I was lying?
Pushing through the rush-hour crowd
I finally found my footing and was proud.
Well, there’s something to be said for low expectations
A word of praise for cranky co-passengers.
Not that the polite ones aren’t fun,
When they smile and roll their eyes like they’re so done.
And it’s not that I’d ever expect sincerity,
At 10 on a rainy Tuesday morning
I’m not a nihilist, or even much of a cynic by default
But at 10am, I take nice with a bucket of salt.
I put on my headphones, crank the volume up to max,
Sway to the shrill screeching of pirated tracks
I’m sorry, did you say something? I can’t really tell.
It’s not you’re uninteresting, it’s just that this song is swell.
And maybe I could’ve made more of an effort
Gotten to know your name, exchanged toffees and emotional support
Maybe you’d have told me your story, if my ears were free
Maybe we could’ve found something worth a keep.
But you see, mister, it’s not you it’s me
At 10 on a Tuesday morning, I’m not the best company.
I hope, tomorrow, you’ll find a co-passenger worth your time,
As for me, facelessness suits me just fine.
Sep 12, 2018
Sep 12, 2018 at 5:47 AM UTC
Many thousand glittering motes
Crowd forward greedily together
In trembling circles.
Extravagantly carousing away
For a whole hour rapidly vanishing,
They rave, delirious, a shrill whir,
Shivering with joy against death.
While kingdoms, sunk into ruin,
Whose thrones, heavy with gold, instantly scattered
Into night and legend, without leaving a trace,
Have never known so fierce a dancing.
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the sun pours liquid gold
honey flows through the window
motes ripple
and swim in the stream
Apr 27, 2012
Apr 27, 2012 at 7:10 PM UTC
Dig deep in the sand with a cupped shovel-hand
Until you come across a healthy source of water.
Scoop up what you see and let loose the soggy contents,
Let them dribble through a careful filter fist.
Slowly drip foundations and upon them start your fortress
Using steady streams of trickled dribs and drabs.
Stalagmites in hyperspeed form walls and lookout towers
With the damp bricks one by one constructing peaks.
Spectators of all sizes will collect and cast their gazes
But you must keep up the focused droplet swell.
Maiden battles can't be won and so the masterpiece will crumble
To the tide that forces motes to overflow.
Waves crash and reek their havoc on the castle that you managed
To build with will and manky dripping palms.
The sand on which it once stood will be flattened out and polished
To make way for a palace twice as grand.
Jun 3, 2015
Jun 3, 2015 at 5:45 PM UTC
A sign we are, without meaning
Without pain we are and have nearly
Lost our language in foreign lands,
For when the heavens quarrel
Over humans and moons proceed
In force, the sea
Speaks out and rivers must find
Their way. But there is One,
Without doubt, who
Can change this any day. He needs
No law. The rustle of leaf and then the sway of oaks
Besides glaciers. Not everything
Is in the power of the gods. Mortals would sooner
Reach toward the abyss. With them
The echo turns. Though the time
Be long, truth
Will come to pass.
But what we love? We see sunshine
On the floor and motes of dust
And the shadows of our native woods and smoke
Blooms from rooftops, at peace beside
Turrets' ancient crowns; for the signs
Of day are good if a god has scarred
The soul in response.
Snow like lilies of the valley,
Signifying a site
Of nobility, half gleams
With the green of the Alpine meadow
Where, talking of a wayside cross
Commemorating the dead,
A traveler climbs in a rage,
Sharing distant premonitions with
The other, but what is this?
By the figtree
My Achilles died
And Ajax lies
By the grottoes of the sea,
By streams, with Scamandros as neighbor.
In the persisting tradition of Salamis,
Great Ajax died
Of the roar in his temples
And on foreign soil, unlike
Patroclos, dead in king's armor. And many
Others also died. On Kithairon
Lay Eleutherai, city of Mnemosyne. And when
God cast off his cloak, the darkness came to cut
Her lock of hair. For the gods grow
Indignant if a man
Not gather himself to save
His soul, yet he has no choice; like-
Wise, mourning is in error.
Friedrich Holderlin
translated by Richard Sieburth
Jan 28, 2015
Jan 28, 2015 at 3:56 PM UTC
From my rented attic with no earth
To call my own except the air-motes,
I malign the leaden perspective
Of identical gray brick houses,
Orange roof-tiles, orange chimney pots,
And see that first house, as if between
Mirrors, engendering a spectral
Corridor of inane replicas,
Flimsily peopled.
But landowners
Own thier cabbage roots, a space of stars,
Indigenous peace. Such substance makes
My eyeful of reflections a ghost's
Eyeful, which, envious,would define
Death as striking root on one land-tract;
Life, its own vaporous wayfarings.
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Little bits of fallout are scattered at my very feet.
Mingling with dust motes and spilt tears.
These little shards of time.
Whether, they were fragments of clocks & antique watches
or
the very iridescent pockets of dusty memories.
I am not sure.
Few things that I do know is,
please do not try to pick them up.
If you do, be careful, be cautious.
Hold your breath
if
you need to.
One little cut is the doorway
for
all
those creased and crinkled memories
to
tip-toe
in.
I did both.
I held you in my hands.
Wisps of your warmth flitted through my outstretched fingertips.
You flowed gently in my veins,
kissed my ribcage,
gently nudged my heart.
Then,
it
was
n o t h i n g.
I gasp on some days at this emptiness that fills me up.
The silence lends itself to hear my words;
the
truth.
I
had
you
in
the
dusty
past.
The present is one my eyelids cannot close to,
not without your heart-beat saying
'I am here'
to
mine.
Little bits of fallout-
burnt and crinkled memories
mingled
with
shards
of
you
then
me.
Apr 10, 2014
Apr 10, 2014 at 8:06 AM UTC
she was a bird on the water
she was clouds reflected
she was trees sighing in the wind
she was sunlight through Venetian blinds
she was dust motes circling lazily
she was Sunday morning ***
she was smiling at me in the mirror
she was bonfires under a pale moon
she was tidal waves of emotion
she was whirlpools of conviction
she was typhoons of jealousy
and I was there too
she is the silhouette of a cigarette pressed to my teeth
she is my shadow cast behind me in the setting sun
she is blue-tinged smoke silently filling the room
she is burning my eyes like chlorine in a crowded pool
she is bars of the cage where my mind is kept penned
she is electric fencing wrapped around my heart
she is buckets of tar drowning me in my dreams
she is written in cursive on the insides of my eyelids
she is slowly shriveling my liver and blackening my lungs
she is living in all the mirrors I look into
she is becoming brobdingnagian prose
maybe that's just me but,
I'm not there anymore.
So why is she still here?
Feb 28, 2015
Feb 28, 2015 at 5:22 PM UTC
Lead paned windows
beam shafts of coloured light
dust motes floating
spiral upwards
released from
captive carpets
flee
Jul 29, 2012
Jul 29, 2012 at 7:00 PM UTC
Greens and gold of lattice work cascading down the tree,
This epiphyte, so infinitely, delicately free.
A lattice work of green finesse, a miniature Cezanne
With exquisiteness of spiky bloom embellishing it’s charm.
Cascading down the grizzled trunk of gnarled and twisted hand
The hosting ancient Kamahi looms loftily, so grand.
Looms aloft with leafy bough so softened by the show
Of ruffled, pinkish bottle brush amassing high and low.
Hordes of buzzing, bumble bees so clumsy in their way,
Tumbling from flower to flower collecting nectar’s day.
With afternoon the waning sun lies hot on sultry air
And little girls in pretty frocks skip by with not a care.
Summer grasses long and dry stand statuesque and straight
With sweet laburnum’s perfumed heads a nodding by the gate.
Young heifers graze in clover in the dell down by the brook
And the fantail dances daintily seeking insects in the nook
There’s a special, quiet majesty pervading here, so fair
With the thistledown afloat, so still with golden motes in air.
Fills my soul with gentle feeling and a rolling tear, unplanned,
For this blend of quiet ambivalence through my beauteous rural land.
Marshalg
“Foxglove” Taranaki.
NEW ZEALAND.
19 January 2014
Jan 21, 2014
Jan 21, 2014 at 2:29 PM UTC
How is it that I am now so softly awakened,
My leaves shaken down with music?--
Darling, I love you.
It is not your mouth, for I have known mouths before,--
Though your mouth is more alive than roses,
Roses singing softly
To green leaves after rain.
It is not your eyes, for I have dived often in eyes,--
Though your eyes, even in the yellow glare of footlights,
Are windows into eternal dusk.
Nor is it the live white flashing of your feet,
Nor your gay hands, catching at motes in the spotlight;
Nor the abrupt thick music of your laughter,
When, against the hideous backdrop,
With all its crudities brilliantly lighted,
Suddenly you catch sight of your alarming shadow,
Whirling and contracting.
How is it, then, that I am so keenly aware,
So sensitive to the surges of the wind, or the light,
Heaving silently under blue seas of air?--
Darling, I love you, I am immersed in you.
It is not the unraveled night-time of your hair,--
Though I grow drunk when you press it upon my face:
And though when you gloss its length with a golden brush
I am strings that tremble under a bow.
It was that night I saw you dancing,
The whirl and impalpable float of your garment,
Your throat lifted, your face aglow
(Like waterlilies in moonlight were your knees).
It was that night I heard you singing
In the green-room after your dance was over,
Faint and uneven through the thickness of walls.
(How shall I come to you through the dullness of walls,
Thrusting aside the hands of bitter opinion?)
It was that afternoon, early in June,
When, tired with a sleepless night, and my act performed,
Feeling as stale as streets,
We met under dropping boughs, and you smiled to me:
And we sat by a watery surface of clouds and sky.
I hear only the susurration of intimate leaves;
The stealthy gliding of branches upon slow air.
I see only the point of your chin in sunlight;
And the sinister blue of sunlight on your hair.
The sunlight settles downward upon us in silence.
Now we ****** up through grass blades and encounter,
Pushing white hands amid the green.
Your face flowers whitely among cold leaves.
Soil clings to you, bark falls from you,
You rouse and stretch upward, exhaling earth, inhaling sky,
I touch you, and we drift off together like moons.
Earth dips from under.
We are alone in an immensity of sunlight,
Specks in an infinite golden radiance,
Whirled and tossed upon silent cataracts and torrents.
Give me your hand darling! We float downward.
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