"nightshade" poems
.
*1
Wet welling from earth
Deep valleys, hills, sweating *******
I plunge into her
2
We are lost at sea
In moonless night our soft cries
Curled waves drowning us
3
Above her in bed
Little breaths lifting our bodies
Eyes, fingers, dreaming
4
Her green eyes are set
Jewels from sargasso seas
My ghost ship is wrecked
5
Her long hair tangles
No struggle in rising— then
We are rapt in bed
6
Her eyes blinding me
Milky way of her body
There is a heaven
7
In forest we taste
Each other in evergreens
Hot dews on the moss
8
Blissful time kissing
My bare thighs sink into hers
Running sands so quick
9
As olive or grape
So shed, paired souls are threshed
Out of their bodies
10
Hummingbirds share truths
Nature sounds with all sweetness
Bee in the flower
11
Always in a field
Wild flowers— a bunch to pick
Herself a bouquet
12
In the park we walk
Flocks of white birds taking flight
Two hearts light as air
13
We kissed under moon
Pox of stars grew flowering
Nightshade of her lips
14
She took me to bed
Skinned in bliss— was reborn, lost
In her satin folds*
Dec 4, 2014
Dec 4, 2014 at 9:54 PM UTC
As night hath stars, more rare than ships
In ocean, faint from pole to pole,
So all the wonder of her lips
Hints her innavigable soul.
Such lights she gives as guide my bark;
But I am swallowed in the swell
Of her heart's ocean, sagely dark,
That holds my heaven and holds my hell.
In her I live, a mote minute
Dancing a moment in the sun:
In her I die, a sterile shoot
Of nightshade in oblivion.
In her my elf dissolves, a grain
Of salt cast careless in the sea;
My passion purifies my pain
To peace past personality.
Love of my life, God grant the years
Confirm the chrism - rose to rood!
Anointing loves, asperging tears
In sanctifying solitude!
Man is so infinitely small
In all these stars, determinate.
Maker and moulder of them all,
Man is so infinitely great!
14.3k
.
1
Wet welling from earth
Deep valleys, hills, sweating *******
I plung into her
2
We are lost at sea
In moonless night our soft cries
Curled waves drowning us
3
Above her in bed
Little breaths lifting our bodies
Eyes, fingers, dreaming
4
Her green eyes are set
Jewels from sargasso seas
My ghost ship is wrecked
5
Her long hair tangles
No struggle in rising— then
We are rapt in bed
6
Her eyes blinding me
Milky way of her body
There is a heaven
7
In forest we taste
Each other in evergreens
Hot dews on the moss
8
Blissful time kissing
My bare thighs sink into hers
Running sands so quick
9
As olive or grape
So shed, paired souls are threshed
Out of their bodies
10
Hummingbirds share truths
Nature sounds with all sweetness
Bee in the flower
11
Always in a field
Wild flowers— a bunch to pick
Herself a bouquet
12
In the park we walk
Flocks of white birds taking flight
Two hearts light as air
13
We kissed under moon
Pox of stars grew flowering
Nightshade of her lips
14
She took me to bed
Skinned in bliss— was reborn, lost
In her satin folds
.
Aug 15, 2021
Aug 15, 2021 at 12:53 AM UTC
The leaves were long, the grass was green,
The hemlock-umbels tall and fair,
And in the glade a light was seen
Of stars in shadow shimmering.
Tinuviel was dancing there
To music of a pipe unseen,
And light of stars was in her hair,
And in her raiment glimmering.
There Beren came from mountains cold,
And lost he wandered under leaves,
And where the Elven-river rolled
He walked alone and sorrowing.
He peered between the hemlock-leaves
And saw in wonder flowers of gold
Upon her mantle and her sleeves,
And her hair like shadow following.
Enchantment healed his weary feet
That over hills were doomed to roam;
And forth he hastened, strong and fleet,
And grasped at moonbeams glistening.
Through woven woods in Elvenhome
She lightly fled on dancing feet,
And left him lonely still to roam
In the silent forest listening.
He heard there oft the flying sound
Of feet as light as linden-leaves,
Or music welling underground,
In hidden hollows quavering.
Now withered lay the hemlock-sheaves,
And one by one with sighing sound
Whispering fell the beechen leaves
In the wintry woodland wavering.
He sought her ever, wandering far
Where leaves of years were thickly strewn,
By light of moon and ray of star
In frosty heavens shivering.
Her mantle glinted in the moon,
As on a hill-top high and far
She danced, and at her feet was strewn
A mist of silver quivering.
When winter passed, she came again,
And her song released the sudden spring,
Like rising lark, and falling rain,
And melting water-bubbling.
He saw the elven-flowers spring
About her feet, and healed again
He longed by her to dance and sing
Upon the grass untroubling.
Again she fled, but swift he came,
Tinuviel! Tinuviel!
He called her by her elvish name;
And there she halted listening.
One moment stood she, and a spell,
His voice laid on her: Beren came,
And doom fell on Tinuviel
That in his arms lay glistening.
As Beren looked into her eyes
Within the shadows of her hair,
The trembling starlight of the skies
He saw there mirrored shimmering.
Tinuviel the elven-fair
Immortal maiden elven-wise,
About him cast her shadowy hair
And arms like silver glimmering.
Long was the way that fate them bore
O'er stony mountains cold and grey
Through halls of iron and darkling door
And woods of nightshade morrowless.
The Sundering Seas between them lay,
And yet at last they met once more,
And log ago they passed away
In the forest singing sorrowless.
7.1k
i want my poems to have teeth.
i want my words to cut,
to maim, to bleed.
with verses, i will raze
empires. with stanzas,
i will turn thrones to dust.
with nothing but a bit
of silver on my tongue,
i will take the life of god.
i’ll ply that same *****
like honey, taste the sweet
nothings dripping
between knocking knees.
quake and quiver for me,
let me slip, furtive
as nightshade
to sate your curiosity.
feel the weight of veracity
in these fingers patiently
transcribing forgotten melodies,
compressing ivory keys
to sing of all that was lost
and what was gained
from the process.
Nov 16, 2017
Nov 16, 2017 at 9:48 PM UTC
Retail-hunter gatherers pick
clean processed bones, digging graves
with their shiny teeth, studious in
their reveries as they drone
past worlds dumped in the thresher;
the trucked-in fields of film-wrapped
gore splayed lustily before the managers
wound tight in Machiavellian design.
A shepherd herds his flock of
wreathed iron back to its pen, its
skeletal tangle lit in riotous gold by
swords flung from lambent eyes of
pre-dawn’s shunting chariots
Cages shunt and bobble like tugboats
chugging stoic up swimming pool lanes
of nondescript tile, cheered on by shouting
colours to float through archipelagos of
paper towel and chocolate blocks past
the vegemite diaspora, and the arctic
wastelands cased in sliding glass fields of
perfect steady storms as wraiths baked in halogen
ask silent questions of the silverbeet, while
Lana Del Ray’s voice falls like
nightshade—slutty and serene—coating
shelf stackers in a Piaf sadness as the
shelves reach their arms out for more.
The check out chick hatches
a sense of déjà vu as carrots
and biscuits drone towards her
mind berEFT of any twitching
sense of POSsibility that wised
up and flew this leering coop and
deep in her catalogue of grey folds
something stillborn and waxen is
perched on gleaming steel, reeling
out her guts like cassette tape with jerky
nightmare arms and laughing like a
banker watching ***** films, mornings
dull cerise an invocation through
auto-jaws as she bursts out to warble
with magpies in car park’s climbing fire.
Jul 25, 2013
Jul 25, 2013 at 9:23 PM UTC
I cast the muse into the sea
to wake her from a peaceful sleep.
This poet’s quill is void of ink;
it needs her words to strike the page.
She’ll fight the waves Poseidon sends
til Sirens drive her back to shore
to sip an oleander brew
and hoist the cup of Socrates.
Bring wolfsbane and a death morel!
Bring nightshade and curare too!
We’ll fatten her with woe and pain!
We’ll ready her for war and hate!
She’ll writhe and quiver, seethe and foam
until she spews her putrid verse
upon the blackened sands of time
from which men’s darkest dreams are built.
And when the gods are satisfied,
when Ares’ sword has slashed and burned,
this poisoned pen will rest at last.
Calliope shall sleep once more.
Jan 5, 2021
Jan 5, 2021 at 8:23 PM UTC
I adore you
With your forward brow,
Eyes of nightshade and black treacle.
Your image floats and unfurls in the ****** spaces
Between marks posed in gazette.
You stare back at me knowingly,
Cunningly,
As though watching the course of my life unfold.
You have stretched your hand through time
To let it fall in a cold gust across these pages,
Betwixt the folds of my cerebrum,
Your spectral lips prompting faintly
In the nook behind my ear.
-O goddess, O muse!-
O fellow soul…
You have found me.
Jan 14, 2018
Jan 14, 2018 at 7:29 PM UTC
"Under the flag
Of each his faction, they to battle bring
Their embryon atoms." - Milton
WELCOME joy, and welcome sorrow,
Lethe's **** and Hermes' feather;
Come to-day, and come to-morrow,
I do love you both together!
I love to mark sad faces in fair weather;
And hear a merry laugh amid the thunder;
Fair and foul I love together.
Meadows sweet where flames are under,
And a giggle at a wonder;
Visage sage at pantomine;
Funeral, and steeple-chime;
Infant playing with a skull;
Morning fair, and shipwreck'd hull;
Nightshade with the woodbine kissing;
Serpents in red roses hissing;
Cleopatra regal-dress'd
With the aspic at her breast;
Dancing music, music sad,
Both together, sane and mad;
Muses bright and muses pale;
Sombre Saturn, Momus hale; -
Laugh and sigh, and laugh again;
Oh the sweetness of the pain!
Muses bright, and muses pale,
Bare your faces of the veil;
Let me see; and let me write
Of the day, and of the night -
Both together: - let me slake
All my thirst for sweet heart-ache!
Let my bower be of yew,
Interwreath'd with myrtles new;
Pines and lime-trees full in bloom,
And my couch a low grass-tomb.
4.2k
Down from Aleppo to the sea we rode
Down from Aleppo to the sea
On swaying, snow white camels we rode
Down from Aleppo to the sea
We sailed on a thin jade ship with hope
On a green jade ship with hope
Drifting upon endless seas
In a thin jade ship with hope
To the empty seas for love, we cried
To the empty sea for love
We saw Her walking the curling waves
To the empty seas for love
Visions came through that foggy night
Fantastic, never again seen
Spider lights sliding between the masts
That foggy night never again seen
The cook saw floating jewels, he said
Purple crystals in the sea
Uncovering the inner truths of foam
Purple crystals in the sea
The mate felt an eternal wind
He felt an eternal wind
Breath from the unknown sea it was
Rustling eternal winds
The stars chanted sutras of icy warmth
The stars chanted sutras of ice
Sailing below a schizoid sea
Chanting warm sutras of ice
Before tomorrow we left the glad sea
Before tomorrow we left
Blazing vacuities of nightshade explode
Before the light gathered we left
Down to Aleppo from the sea we rode
Down to Aleppo from the sea
On swaying silk white camels we rode
Down to Aleppo from the sea
Nov 2, 2011
Nov 2, 2011 at 12:12 AM UTC
.
*1
Wet welling from earth
Deep valleys, hills, sweating *******
I plung into her
2
We are lost at sea
In moonless night our soft cries
Curled waves drowning us
3
Above her in bed
Little breaths lifting our bodies
Eyes, fingers, dreaming
4
Her green eyes are set
Jewels from sargasso seas
My ghost ship is wrecked
5
Her long hair tangles
No struggle in rising— then
We are rapt in bed
6
Her eyes blinding me
Milky way of her body
There is a heaven
7
In forest we taste
Each other in evergreens
Hot dews on the moss
8
Blissful time kissing
My bare thighs sink into hers
Running sands so quick
9
As olive or grape
So shed, paired souls are threshed
Out of their bodies
10
Hummingbirds share truths
Nature sounds with all sweetness
Bee in the flower
11
Always in a field
Wild flowers— a bunch to pick
Herself a bouquet
12
In the park we walk
Flocks of white birds taking flight
Two hearts light as air
13
We kissed under moon
Pox of stars grew flowering
Nightshade of her lips
14
She took me to bed
Skinned in bliss— was reborn, lost
In her satin folds*
.
Oct 14, 2017
Oct 14, 2017 at 1:01 AM UTC
He’s sweet
I bite into him and feel the juices pool in my throat
He’s bitter
His aftertaste
The sting of rejection lingers in my mouth
I’ve always been addicted to grapefruit
Its natural tang much like melancholy
Much like the nightshade of my heart
I bite off more than I can chew
I live for contradiction
And it’s addiction to love
Grapefruit is a woman
A woman who feels too deeply
A woman who is sweet and sour
The woman I’ll never be
I can only consume
I ate too much
Grapefruit is the man I love
Sweet and bitter
The sting of rejection lingers in his mouth
Give me more
I’m still addicted
Nov 7, 2017
Nov 7, 2017 at 2:14 PM UTC
*She is essence of la bella donna,
herein lies the paradigm mid
***** pearls & nightshade's poison,
exhales echoes of dark crescent moons &
sandalwood's perfumed incense
burning sentience of duality's seasonings
'tween contradiction 'neath her own breath,
born to gypsy souls 'twixt a solar eclipse
she worried naught what society thought,
her poetry was incalculably beyond measure
neither less than or more than incurable,
rendered nuances as a badge of significant honor
gaily whirling beyond distinctive contrasts,
'neath importance of individuality's calling
amidst her own unique indulgent nature,
dazzling sensuality's intrinsic whimsy*
Jul 19, 2015
Jul 19, 2015 at 4:06 PM UTC
I had this best friend
As a little kid
She meant the world to me
We had been friends since babies
I thought we'd be friends forever
We don't really talk anymore
I had this other best friend
I met her when we were five
I spent everyday with her
Got into trouble with her
Our parents were best friends
We got poisoned together
By nightshade berries
We did everything together
And last year we started talking again
And now we're inseparable again
We do everything together
Get into trouble together
Sneak out late together
Cry together
Vent together
Rage together
Everything together
Adventure together
I've always wanted that kind of friendship
And I'm so blessed to have a friend like her
Soul sisters
May 17, 2015
May 17, 2015 at 6:57 AM UTC
There is not much more than lunch of your poor soul's gut. That which has hidden your chase,
Be it the same flurry you face, or the chaste, widowed band of loons
Supplicate snail-movements, while wading through the stiff lagoon.
Everything must, while the fissures grow grumpy.
While the dust settles inwards and the cracks fill with stuffing.
The particle stands stiff, while each nursery cries.
A pitter-patter of rain drops lurch the birds forwards towards flight.
Say the gumption to roost was the dork lit and idling,
Each abortion towards space, kept the rocket from flying,
Like the cannonball sneering, or the whistle of men
The trial and tribulations of the miserly pens.
If be swore the moors, concrete beds shuffle the snores.
Unlike any trumpet of nose notes or horns.
How each curious grumbler failed the ewe of his flock.
Lil' crock lodgers counting sleep of each lot.
Who can practice commands, width that makes up a strake
In the morning the weir-men quaff each tea of their tastes.
Then comes to the rind, the hands each guided by eyes.
Stumps the bard of his nightshade in imported glass vials.
Show whomever the pleasure, the happy hell once began
Because under each gambit is the king of a lamb.
Apr 26, 2014
Apr 26, 2014 at 5:10 AM UTC
~
*When Pharaoh
checked out at the Red Sea,
odd circumstance made a grab for his vacant scepter,
and kingdom collided
with plague to paint a mural
on the palace wall (or maybe, it was the hotel lobby),
of a dreamer's garden,
his wife in veils, her dance a cordial
invitation to a great many unmentionable things,
the feral sky had blown
itself out, and in muted candle
nightshade, the mistress of war disembarked,
and so somewhere
in those upper rooms, ruler
and consort, hearing the sound of running water,
mystified their carnal
senses by infusing themselves
with a little vigorous morphine of the soul*
~
Jul 26, 2021
Jul 26, 2021 at 2:45 PM UTC
I'm glad you're my friend
A shoulder to lean
A crutch to stand
A dwelling of respite
And the dawn's first break of light
I hope to give as much as I take
Laugh with you and cherish
To face what comes side by side
To be silent comfortably on those long car rides
I can never be angry at you
No matter my efforts
A smile from you is all it takes
A cure to my recurrent mental aches
In an unfulfilled life, your company is contentful
But
Like a poisonous nightshade blossoms
The fruit of friendship ferments
Forms into an intoxicating sweet wine
Drunk from it, my mind is realigned
I don't want to be friends with you
"Friend" is such an evil word
It brings so much yet restricts all I care for
A false comfort when one longs for more
So perhaps I must go
To some distant desolate escape
To myself, I must be true
I have to save myself from my love for you
I hate that you're my friend
Jun 28, 2022
Jun 28, 2022 at 12:10 PM UTC
She was my own Atropos.
Eyes dark like belladonna's berry.
Her breath gave me life,
Her shears were slowly closing.
I waited every night for Atropa Belladonna,
But flowers only bloom by day.
I knew that she could never be
Mine only...my Deadly Nightshade.
So I let her go. By day, she is another's.
But only 'til the midnight hour...
When I am hers and she is mine.
And the night is forever ours.
Sep 3, 2016
Sep 3, 2016 at 11:44 PM UTC
No, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist
Wolf's-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine;
Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kiss'd
By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine;
Make not your rosary of yew-berries,
Nor let the beetle, nor the death-moth be
Your mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl
A partner in your sorrow's mysteries;
For shade to shade will come too drowsily,
And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul.
But when the melancholy fit shall fall
Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud,
That fosters the droop-headed flowers all,
And hides the green hill in an April shroud;
Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose,
Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave,
Or on the wealth of globed peonies;
Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows,
Emprison her soft hand, and let her rave,
And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes.
She dwells with Beauty--Beauty that must die;
And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips
Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh,
Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips:
Ay, in the very temple of Delight
Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine,
Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue
Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine;
His soul shalt taste the sadness of her might,
And be among her cloudy trophies hung.
2.5k
Where dark and devastated loners,
Eat black painted noodles.
Sorry sad singles,
Lonely people!
Who dream of dark things, nightshade and purple;
Dressed in black,
Black nail polish,
Black accessories, black shoes.
Marking the time, but no looking back;
Drowning sorrows,
With little green bottles,
Never love a tear.
Kiss seldom, like a cold rainy holiday,
The small girl nowhere views the black dressed drunk in the mirror.
Missing love on this blackest of days...
© 2014 Ronald J Chapman All Rights Reserved.
Dec 5, 2014
Dec 5, 2014 at 3:19 PM UTC
The words they slept in shadows,
Unspoken in the night.
When a hand reached forth
With nightshade blade,
To poison anothers plight.
Sweet dreams,
Oh Lord of Lamentations.
Let the aether surround
With reams of false augmentation.
For the sick and the weak
Those we ignore and mistreat
Are no longer eight hours away.
Empires will fall
While we rest and decay
Cerebrally enslaved
To the light of day.
Dec 4, 2013
Dec 4, 2013 at 8:35 AM UTC
tonight, something a little
stronger than poison
runs through my veins
it festers, intangible,
pretty like belladonna,
sweet like nightshade
it sways in the wind
of my lungs, it has it's
own tune you see.
i know it's a plague,
like him, we've all
been infected once.
tonight, it's angry,
venomous,
gardens of deep rose
and happiness returns
to being but a distant,
wavering sun.
Feb 11, 2016
Feb 11, 2016 at 5:36 PM UTC
Hair as black as nightshade’s bloom
Eyes cold sapphires set in a face of stone
Skin, milky pale, cheeks diamond white,
Heart as dark as darkest night
Words of honey laced with hemlock
Venom so sweet but alas so deadly
Beautiful rose, poisonous thorns
The devil with hidden horns
Bloodied hand, murdered dreams
She dares lay sleep to sleep
Slashed hearts, tattered souls
Broken is the most sacred of vows
Never to sleep, never to rest
Never to drift off in peace
For thou hast put to death
Thine sleep
Thou shalt not know oblivion’s deep
And if you sink beneath slumber’s waves
Then hell awaits there-in
To haunt and torture
To hack as you stray
Into that world each day
In sleep your dreams will haunt and chase
A-wandering you’ll try to run away
Demons of Hades devils of Seth
Haunt and torture Lady Macbeth
So arise ye furies avengers of blood
And hasten to punish this sin
For the ****** of sleep
The killing of a king
Hades fire upon their souls shall bring
Jan 13, 2014
Jan 13, 2014 at 11:52 PM UTC
Jovial mess on bed encapsulates heartburn diarama
a fresh coat Bismuth Business man with codeine red sweet stains on his dockers
3am Dharmic ranting
"job well done Wednesdays"
and "feel good Fridays"
Moronic howling immediacy
immediately vibrating cell walls within the twenty-something aged voice box device.
Burly chest galavant
push up to get the muscle fat
lean, and impress upon
the natural on-and-on
leave the face unscathed along
Have to be outside
Outside where it's most safe
ascend the incline just before the nightshade
lose your technology in the primordial Koi Fish Pond in oxymoronic fashion and let the nature of this dream leer at you from the area down below.
Jan 30, 2014
Jan 30, 2014 at 1:32 PM UTC
.
1
Wet welling from earth
Deep valleys, hills, sweating *******
I plung into her
2
We are lost at sea
In moonless night our soft cries
Curled waves drowning us
3
Above her in bed
Little breaths lifting our bodies
Eyes, fingers, dreaming
4
Her green eyes are set
Jewels from sargasso seas
My ghost ship is wrecked
5
Her long hair tangles
No struggle in rising— then
We are rapt in bed
6
Her eyes blinding me
Milky way of her body
There is a heaven
7
In forest we taste
Each other in evergreens
Hot dews on the moss
8
Blissful time kissing
My bare thighs sink into hers
Running sands so quick
9
As olive or grape
So shed, paired souls are threshed
Out of their bodies
10
Hummingbirds share truths
Nature sounds with all sweetness
Bee in the flower
11
Always in a field
Wild flowers— a bunch to pick
Herself a bouquet
12
In the park we walk
Flocks of white birds taking flight
Two hearts light as air
13
We kissed under moon
Pox of stars grew flowering
Nightshade of her lips
14
She took me to bed
Skinned in bliss— was reborn, lost
In her satin folds
.
May 31, 2018
May 31, 2018 at 1:57 PM UTC