"mournfully" poems
12 in the dark, I sit awake by the window,
Across from Hyde Park, and the feel of the wind oh,
Sparking a bark, Nana's remarking from below,
Canine matriarch against the boy with no shadow,
Time's flickering by and I begin to rust,
Consumed, I'm high with lust just for pixie dust,
But to fly you must be robust and adjust,
And I can't, though I try, I just look with disgust,
Sitting on the sill, I think of him mournfully,
Hard as I try, I can't think of him scornfully,
Despite the fact that he talks so informally,
He says my name and I know I was born to be,
Part of the family, I think of them nightly,
Tootles, the twins, Curly, Nibs and Slightly,
Second star to the right, it shines so brightly,
Hope he might come back if I ask politely,
He doesn't apologize, he's immature and he's cold,
Lives in a land without rules so he can't be controlled,
But as soon as I saw him I knew I'd struck green-gold,
Peter Pan is a joke that just never gets old,
Don't smile at crocodiles down in Neverland,
And if you hear a ticking clock, hope the ships are manned,
Because there's a high demand for the taste of pirate band,
And if you're not hooked by now then Hook'll tell you first hand,
I flew here like a bird in a night-dress, frilly,
Scared, trying to fight stress, skin like Chantilly,
Found Peter and I confess that the boy's my Achilles,
Now I'm a lost girl treading on Tiger Lillies,
Acorns and thimbles are my idea of 'bases',
And sword fights with pirates are my ***** chasers,
Watching the boys as they fly and admiring Peter Pan,
But he's the boy who can't love here in Neverland,
I wanted devotion, to marry men who were charming,
So I repressed, left my emotion, I left Peter Pan snarling,
My own species no longer, just a common starling,
Caged by age at my window, I'm Wendy Darling.
Dec 20, 2014
Dec 20, 2014 at 3:36 PM UTC
Far away on tides of blue,
father still then havens of gray.
Stretching across those wondrous fields
farther still then the breaking day.
Reaching fourth strands of hope,
grasping for life in the depths.
A light appears in the mire,
a hope filled with deepest desire.
The eminence of this light priceless
the glory of its beauty,
eternal.
The stars gleam
the darkness beams,
the heavens soar
and the moon drifts and dreams.
The night is alive
under this sleepless light,
stars shift and sway.
To the beat of its reflecting gleam,
the galaxies drift away, away.
The wolf cries mournfully
to it's long lost love.
The moon in return
shines all the brighter.
The heavens rejoice
for the light is theirs,
the songs of the deep
rising higher and higher.
The night is alive
under the sleepless light,
The stars arrayed in all their splendor.
The night is alive with color and life
Love and peace,
beauty and such magnificence.
When the sleepless lights
shines ever bright,
the darkness fades
and the night comes alive.
Nov 6, 2014
Nov 6, 2014 at 12:57 PM UTC
as clear as ice, in night or day
reflecting faintly, a soulful reverie
reminding its presence subtly
dewdrops dripping rhythmically
standing in the way, an invisible wall
trying to reach the distant horizon
of which, birds appear and disappear
like speckles of black in orange canvas
eyes—blank and expressionless
mournfully staring in quietude
of the distant mountains and hills
and clouds floating idly
in monotone silence,
a hand reaches out only to be impeded by a cold caress
Aug 10, 2018
Aug 10, 2018 at 7:03 AM UTC
Cold stone statues of all shapes and sizes
Chilled to the moss covered bone
Standing ***** markers of time
Weather worn words, passages of years
A place of disasters, heartbreak and crime
All gathered there, forgotten by time
As the trees bend to the seasons
And the passing of years
A lone figure dressed in black
Stands above an unnamed gravestone
Reflecting on past memories
Of someone he had known.
Brown wet clinging clay lies
Heaped by the side of a black hollow
Waiting for another invited guest
As the bell tolls, mournfully
Jan 9, 2015
Jan 9, 2015 at 4:48 PM UTC
"Wala pay sulod atong sako Nay.”
Sack of rice is empty
Stomach rumbling mercilessly
Mind is hazy, breathing sporadically
Cold porridge is a feast.
“Go home!” says Mama sternly
Frantic, frightened, panicky
Rocks hurled, bullets fly
Blood splatters; running aimlessly
We dodge our way to safety
Cold porridge is a feast.
“I will not,” I say adamantly
She looks at the sack mournfully
Empty. Devoid of sanity.
Cold porridge is a feast.
“We’ll get some soon. Don’t worry.”
“I don’t believe you.”
I feel weak, I am crabby
I’m staying despite this misery
Cold porridge is a feast.
Childlike will, piety of soul
Purity of intention, pursuit of living whole
Cold porridge is a feast.
Nov 1, 2016
Nov 1, 2016 at 6:56 AM UTC
The casket was coming up, swaying and wobbling
Like a novice skater’s layover spin,
The workings proceeding apace,
The stillness of the August heat
Punctuated by disinterested growl of the backhoe,
The occasional out-of-place jocularity by the excavators
The creaky jingle of the chains holding the muddied box
As it proceeded skyward in its clumsy poor-man’s Resurrection.
The affair was being observed by an elderly couple,
Old enough to be of no particular age.
Their car had Carolina plates,
But their inflections, their casually-tossed idioms
They noted that ruefully The grass needs mowed)
Marked them as natives.
They’d returned (Last time, most likely,
The wife uttered mournfully)
To take their son with them; he’d drowned when was five? six?
(The years will do that to a body, apparently)
In Kinzua Creek some half-century ago,
Back when little boys weren’t under a mandate
To be safe from themselves, as it were.
He was our boy! We’ve never forgotten him!
The old man said, the words snapping off
In a manner that spoke of something else altogether,
How the whistle at the Montmorenci
Went off at three and eleven for second shift,
And your *** had better be there,
As those were good jobs that didn’t wait for bereavement leave,
Because there was always someone
Just itching to take your spot on the line,
And anyway life went on,
At least in the sense that television screens went all to snow
And tires went flat and fuses blew
And eventually a dead child
Is not always in the forefront of your thoughts,
Only tiptoeing in when the Press ran a picture
Of the Montmorenci Area Class of whenever,
Or there was an item about some other family
Who opened their front door
To a grim sheriff’s deputy with his hat in his hand.
Eventually, after some time
And in defiance of both the odds and gravity,
The casket was settled into the back
Of the undertaker’s huge old black Caddy,
And the couple cane-toddled back to their car,
Following out the through the old spider-like gates
And onto the main road.
The brief procession fading from sight,
Until there was nothing left to see
Save the hillsides covered in old growth pine.
Sep 21, 2018
Sep 21, 2018 at 11:00 AM UTC
'Tis not with gilded sabres
That gleam in baldricks blue,
Nor nodding plumes in caps of Fez,
Of gay and gaudy hue--
But, habited in mourning weeds,
Come marching from afar,
By four and four, the valiant men
Who fought with Aliatar.
All mournfully and slowly
The afflicted warriors come,
To the deep wail of the trumpet,
And beat of muffled drum.
The banner of the Phenix,
The flag that loved the sky,
That scarce the wind dared wanton with,
It flew so proud and high--
Now leaves its place in battle-field,
And sweeps the ground in grief,
The bearer drags its glorious folds
Behind the fallen chief,
As mournfully and slowly
The afflicted warriors come,
To the deep wail of the trumpet,
And beat of muffled drum.
Brave Aliatar led forward
A hundred Moors to go
To where his brother held Motril
Against the leaguering foe.
On horseback went the gallant Moor,
That gallant band to lead;
And now his bier is at the gate,
From whence he pricked his steed.
While mournfully and slowly
The afflicted warriors come,
To the deep wail of the trumpet,
And beat of muffled drum.
The knights of the Grand Master
In crowded ambush lay;
They rushed upon him where the reeds
Were thick beside the way;
They smote the valiant Aliatar,
They smote the warrior dead,
And broken, but not beaten, were
The gallant ranks he led.
Now mournfully and slowly
The afflicted warriors come,
To the deep wail of the trumpet,
And beat of muffled drum.
Oh! what was Zayda's sorrow,
How passionate her cries!
Her lover's wounds streamed not more free
Than that poor maiden's eyes.
Say, Love--for didst thou see her tears:
Oh, no! he drew more tight
The blinding fillet o'er his lids
To spare his eyes the sight.
While mournfully and slowly
The afflicted warriors come,
To the deep wail of the trumpet,
And beat of muffled drum.
Nor Zayda weeps him only,
But all that dwell between
The great Alhambra's palace walls
And springs of Albaicin.
The ladies weep the flower of knights,
The brave the bravest here;
The people weep a champion,
The Alcaydes a noble peer.
While mournfully and slowly
The afflicted warriors come,
To the deep wail of the trumpet,
And beat of muffled drum.
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she exists now in a dream state
unaware of the horror and the passage of time
wind rushes through broken panes
moaning mournfully
floors creak and door hinges speak
announcing her presence
this was her house
once a place of light and love
full of family and friends
cotillions resonating with music and dance
and lively conversation
a grand kitchen to prepare the feasts
of pheasant under glass
a gazebo for laughing in the rain
arbors for moonlit meetings with owls
a pond for lilies and croaking frogs
gardens for picking her favorite peonies
a nursery for her children
all this now nothing but ruins
from happiness to a home for bugs and bats
crawling with silverfish, centipedes and black widows
shrouded in cobwebs
drowning in dust
suffocating in stench of rotting wood and desolation
decorated with 100 year old bloodstains
she never saw her killer
never saw the spurting of her arteries
never heard her children’s screams and death rales
she sees her house as it was
and every night she roams the rooms
calling her children’s names in long, haunting whispers
Oct 26, 2010
Oct 26, 2010 at 9:12 AM UTC
Tomorrow I shall see the birth of the awaited dawn
Today it seems I am locked in a midnight zone
Tomorrow I will not walk into the dread of the night
But shall be led by the blazing light
Tomorrow I will carry my yoke manfully
And never recite the litany of my woes mournfully
Tomorrow I shall slow down and stop by the mountain side
And watch the silvery stream joyfully down way glide
Tomorrow I shall seize every chance that comes my way
And never wait for them to fall on another day
Tomorrow I shall be out of my prison cell with discord round
And shall enter a palace with joys abound
Tomorrow I shall willingly partake of another’s grief
And never seek solely my own relief
Tomorrow I shall wait for the calm that follows the storm
And not grumble in haste that life is a withering dream
Tomorrow I shall look beyond the clouds of gathered gloom
And see for myself the beauty of stars that in hundreds bloom
Tomorrow amid hostilities I shall keep alive the sparks of friendship
And never mourn the absence of anyone for companionship
Did I hear someone teasingly say to my utter surprise
“Your resolutions sound so good! But what if tomorrow doesn’t arise?”
Aug 11, 2016
Aug 11, 2016 at 10:43 AM UTC
Whispers of heavenly death, murmur’d I hear;
Labial gossip of night—sibilant chorals;
Footsteps gently ascending—mystical breezes, wafted soft and low;
Ripples of unseen rivers—tides of a current, flowing, forever flowing;
(Or is it the plashing of tears? the measureless waters of human tears?)
I see, just see, skyward, great cloud-masses;
Mournfully, slowly they roll, silently swelling and mixing;
With, at times, a half-dimm’d, sadden’d, far-off star,
Appearing and disappearing.
(Some parturition, rather—some solemn, immortal birth:
On the frontiers, to eyes impenetrable,
Some Soul is passing over.)
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Twilight's melody rises
mournfully dressed in lilac hues
she grieves for the glory of the primrose sun.
The rise and fall of waltzing starlings
mirror the final breaths of the day
as with glorious mirth they beckon to the silvered chill of the moon.
Mar 25, 2015
Mar 25, 2015 at 2:13 PM UTC
Windows to the the world through which I see
Images of shortfalls and views of perpetual inadequacies.
Shut my lids ever hoping for a change in scenery...
But only pictures of emotional chaos, mistakes and uncertainties.
Visions I can't ignore and they can't be severed;
Like a splinter that's embedded but can't be retrieved.
Reluctant at first I wish to have them captured...
Capturing all the disorder, but have the beauty all sieved.
Beauty and light engulfed by this visual turmoil
From windows to canvas, I paint but with a sombre brush.
Vicious strokes represent the feelings that roil;
Devoid of pardon; sing of pressures that crush.
This brush that I use; I've taught it all too well.
It could paint even when running on the subconscious.
It never does relent, nor never will it ever quell,
It'll keep on painting the dark side of the senses.
My canvas just lays receiving the brunt of the strokes.
It lays there quiet; accepts it all without struggle.
Like fuel to a bonfire, it provides and also it stokes;
It lays there ready to accommodate the dust and rubble.
Again the brush finishes with its last deft touches.
Producing the same painting it's painted over and over...
They will never depict meadows with the farthest of reaches
But a portrait of me; staring mournfully into forever...
Jul 17, 2014
Jul 17, 2014 at 12:48 AM UTC
Music of the street
Reverberates loudly
Out the dumpster,
From the tiny mouth
Of a screaming
Baby
Wrought in the wombs
Of filth, injustice,
Foggy rage.
Tongues ripped out,
On the floor, tastebuds that
Know the pang
of blue blood.
Rusty nails and overused syringes
***** the fingers,
Softly.
The people yell, maniacally,
Yet remain unheard.
Pain becomes evident,
Written on the faces
Of the unwholesome.
A wafting scent of
Their rotten morals,
Forgotten dreams,
Floats, as hot steam,
from the pavement.
Unable now
To decompose.
Across the road,
A pregnant woman holds
Her cigarette, which
Smells of cookies
And cream soda.
Jesus was enlightened,
Not too pious
For the poor.
Yet more than pain
Was written
On their faces,
Missing tongues, missing eyes.
Laid together
On the piss-stained mattress,
Feet to head and head
To feet.
Nonsense was confused
As words, that danced into
Non-platonic humps.
She kissed him, because
She wanted to feel
The texture of his brain.
Pick her up with
Golden hand, though
She may see you.
And the sad image of
Dollar bills
Inspires the mind,
Making it immobile.
Here, where the **********
Stands, more holy
Than the monastery.
Crawling, as they do,
Through unpainted,
Rented walls, like
Hungry little cockroaches,
Creeping for a bite.
The small infant still
Lays on metal, each
Moment crying softer
For warmth.
Though you will not
Hear her tomorrow,
As she’s carted off by
Garbage men
Who, each week, remove
The undesired
Remnants of yesterday.
Hope for sweet
Needles to sooner bring her
A different relief.
Life is so simple
When struggles
Are never-ending.
Mi amor pequeña,
no llores más. El fin está cerca,
aunque no entiende
mis palabras.
Though the buildings
Surrender with
Decay and the sun decides
He doesn’t want
To keep on caring
The music still plays mournfully,
And only the baby can hear.
May 13, 2013
May 13, 2013 at 7:24 AM UTC
*Indefinite black pervades the air,
a darkened sun casts no shine
luminous black, like concrete surrounds you,
light is absent, Cimmerian shade is all.
Sonorous, sullied, sooty black cloaks all.
Shimmering, in the corner is a jet black,
obsidian hard sparkle, it's just a puddle.
A puddle made to sparkle in the street light.
A joyless sight in the darkness of a Stygian night.
Indistinct figures rush by, oblivious to the sparkling puddle.
Somber souls,mournfully groping homeward in the false electric light.
Home to a comfortless home, having failed to see the sparkle in the dark.*
Aug 23, 2014
Aug 23, 2014 at 11:25 AM UTC
1
A great year and place;
A harsh, discordant, natal scream out-sounding, to touch the mother’s heart
closer than any yet.
I walk’d the shores of my Eastern Sea,
Heard over the waves the little voice,
Saw the divine infant, where she woke, mournfully wailing, amid the roar
of cannon, curses, shouts, crash of falling buildings;
Was not so sick from the blood in the gutters running—nor from
the single corpses, nor those in heaps, nor those borne away in the
tumbrils;
Was not so desperate at the battues of death—was not so shock’d
at the repeated fusillades of the guns.
2
Pale, silent, stern, what could I say to that long-accrued retribution?
Could I wish humanity different?
Could I wish the people made of wood and stone?
Or that there be no justice in destiny or time?
3
O Liberty! O mate for me!
Here too the blaze, the grape-shot and the axe, in reserve, to fetch them out
in case of need;
Here too, though long represt, can never be destroy’d;
Here too could rise at last, murdering and extatic;
Here too demanding full arrears of vengeance.
4
Hence I sign this salute over the sea,
And I do not deny that terrible red birth and baptism,
But remember the little voice that I heard wailing—and wait with perfect trust,
no matter how long;
And from to-day, sad and cogent, I maintain the bequeath’d cause, as for all lands,
And I send these words to Paris with my love,
And I guess some chansonniers there will understand them,
For I guess there is latent music yet in France—floods of it;
O I hear already the bustle of instruments—they will soon be drowning
all that would interrupt them;
O I think the east wind brings a triumphal and free march,
It reaches hither—it swells me to joyful madness,
I will run transpose it in words, to justify it,
I will yet sing a song for you, MA FEMME.
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I
Solemnly, mournfully,
Dealing its dole,
The Curfew Bell
Is beginning to toll.
Cover the embers,
Aand put out the light;
Toil comes with morning,
And rest with the night.
Dark grow the windows,
And quenched is the fire;
Sound fades into silence,—
All footsteps retire.
No voice in the chambers,
No sound in the hall!
Sleep and oblivion
Reign over all!
II
The book is completed,
And closed, like the day;
And the hand that has written it
Lays it away.
Dim grow its fancies;
Forgotten they lie;
Like coals in the ashes,
They darken and die.
Song sinks into silence,
The story is told,
The windows are darkened,
The hearth-stone is cold.
Darker and darker
The black shadows fall,
Sleep and oblivion
Reign over all.
2.1k
On the mangrove bank of the tidal river
lie embedded the mollusks,
they appear mournfully motionless,
deceiving you to believe
they’re too passive to be alive,
are just displays of dead shells
in their muddy graveyard,
though the truth is
they are mystic monks
silently enduring their estuarine transience,
bidding in meditation the time
the return tides carry them to their marine abode.
Aug 16, 2013
Aug 16, 2013 at 2:23 AM UTC
You stare up at me
As I type, type, type away
With those big eyes of yours
Pleading for cuddles
And scratches
And kisses galore
But I can't I say
I've got work to do
You reach out a paw
Mournfully whining
I give in, tempting fate
For your soft fur
And wet licks across my palm
I giggle
As your tail wags
At a hundred miles per second
And leave my homework
For your joyful personality
Instead
Mar 28, 2015
Mar 28, 2015 at 9:38 AM UTC
Buttercups running aloof
in mi cluttered mind
of discomfort
Leaflets flapping
as the world turns
mournfully
on its side
Turnstiles of my life
flipping through
the pages of time
and all i can see is
misery
Flowers cresting
in the space they’re
allowed
hoping for the light
the rain...
the time-
Memories wafting
by the impulse of wind
billowing, bellowing
the new season
begins
yet all i can see is the
scenery of despair
Tormented tides
slapping upside mi head
drowning mi tears
as if i were dead
Wandering dreams
of days future past
i’m trying mi damndest
to make mi life
l...a...s...t...
But all i can see
is languishing fear
******** and moaning
not seeing the light
Aug 20, 2010
Aug 20, 2010 at 3:50 AM UTC
i was going to write a piece using the word we entirely too often. talk about the slip of your palms down my cheeks, the floaty high after you don't sleep for forty-eight hours and then skip gallantly through the albertson's parking lot. i was going to write this immense prose with weaving metaphors and phrases that begged to be spoken. a piece with a moral, about a boy and a girl, or maybe two girls, or an animal and the voice that haunts it. about a willow bride with gauze wrapped firmly around a puncture wound. describe the inner monologue of a park bench. but maybe not, because that would be deleted.
i could write you a letter, because you know who you are. or the empty waterbottle that is staring mournfully at me, or burlap sacks, or the words that i speak of constantly but never speak.
Jan 3, 2011
Jan 3, 2011 at 6:14 PM UTC
Imagine my surprise, when I learned you were deeply in love with your own brown eyes,
Watching your reflection as they gleamed in mine
You are beautiful truly, even a wayward fool could see. If not a soul could resist your beauty,
How is the mirror to disagree?
Kept busy by your radiant reflection, you had little affection to spare.
So ensnared, you often mistook your vanity for angelity .
So I sit back, once again invisible to your selfish eyes I mournfully realize,
A narcissist is to never to love me.
May 22, 2012
May 22, 2012 at 11:09 PM UTC
*There’s a funeral across the road today.
Despite the freezing temperatures and impending storm, the car park is full. Friends and family fill the church to say a last goodbye to their lost loved one. At the end, the church bells toll, mournfully. The honour guard of veterans file out and line up behind the hearse, saluting as the casket is brought out.
It never ceases to make me think how that little wooden box is smaller than you would expect it to be. It never seems big enough.
I always look at the coffins and think, “I’m sure he was taller than that.”
But the real discrepancy is not in the stature of the man compared to the size of the coffin, but of the life of the one being carried within it.
Does it really come down to this?
One man’s lifetime of love and adventures, more than most judging by the honour guard, the average age and the number of mourners. Does it all it come down to wooden box that seems too small?
But then I realise something I hadn’t thought of until I sat down to write this.
The measure of this man, the measure of his life, isn’t to be found within that box or even reflected by its size. His life can be measured by those that came to say goodbye. By the sorrow on their faces for the loss of their friend. By the honour guard, standing proud and straight and stronger than their years, to escort their comrade from this world to the next.
And as the snow begins to fall, I can’t help but think, who will be there to measure my life for all to see?
*
Jan 6, 2011
Jan 6, 2011 at 8:31 AM UTC
I watch in retort
as you blunder
over causeways
of stammering lies,
hurtling weathered blows
from your
mournfully
tarnished
mouth.
The sound alone
asphyxiates me
and I would rather it hurry
than disable my
regal silence
with the screeching noise
of your
thunderously
garbled
deception.
Jul 11, 2015
Jul 11, 2015 at 7:46 PM UTC
Maybe I'll clean up my act, just to be good. It did give Shaun the chance to look deeply and most mournfully (nicely empathetic) into my eyes once upon a time ages ago...
(sonnet #MMMMMCMLXXIX)
I'll wear my heart upon this sleeve in pale
Excuse as oft as suits my fancy, whence
Ye all kin chide to no avail from hence,
Whiles I rebuff aught notions in betrayl
Of better sense, cuz nothing here is bail.
Or if some fragile thought seems vague defense,
Tis vanquished ere I've managed to gain thence
A foothold, and I'll be thus stripped and frail.
Ah, love. Do thou but tempt me with the poor
Suggestion, ye kin laugh 'til ye are blue,
I'm prey, tears dried until tis proven fer
Whatever that twas aye, a jest. I'll rue
Me folly, cherry-cheeked, and pray whiles your
Much wiser sense erm, coughs. And yes, I knew.
20Oct16
Oct 23, 2016
Oct 23, 2016 at 9:53 PM UTC
my soul breaths.
it rises and falls as the
red tides do
on the western shore.
my soul breaths,
just as the leaves
of the deciduous must
redden and fall.
my soul breaths,
the songs of the lonely
mournfully
whispered over the piano.
my soul breaths.
unique.
inevitable.
longing.
universal.
Oct 30, 2011
Oct 30, 2011 at 1:44 AM UTC