"oases" poems
We were mixed up when it built;
One another forced to coexist.
As it drew us high and higher still,
Below us grew the abyss.
Overflowing with ecstasy,
We left our hearts astray.
The obnubilating and obsolete
Had gotten our way.
Obstacles vanished one by one,
Increasingly slaying the beast.
Moments we thought we'd won
Are when we'd won the least.
We stretched out our hands towards the sky
Like wretched ghosts wrapped in disguise,
As though we had just found a new paradise
With the devil ahead leading as our guide.
We followed him throughout the land:
"This way leads us to the great fountain",
And now we're stuck in a desert of sand
Wondering when oases shall be attained.
We've taken a bet against our nature.
Was it anyone-in-particular's fault?
"For every curse there'll be a cure,
For every flood there'll be a drought."
Once more, again, we shall repeat,
To morrow, and for ever more.
When the sunshine now seems to greet
And when the darkness falls,
Comes that nighttime of our lives;
We ponder what we've been,
But what we're we supposed to be
When the pact was always sealed.
So we wait in such anxiety,
The impatience growing itchy;
And we amass, tall in piles,
To crash onto the shores like the sea.
Sep 7, 2018
Sep 7, 2018 at 1:55 AM UTC
You're only seventeen -
the light seems to shine
right through you,
peach-furred skin
dessicated
drawn in upon itself
- and old.
Your moisture-dewed youth
has evaporated.
It’s been emptied
****** clean
dried and drained.
You reach out
with snappable wrists
Your brittle bones
bulge and bow.
Your ribs vibrate
with every breath
air thrills and ripples
the whole chest cavity.
Your hands and feet
Minnie Mouse big
too big
for the fragile framed
tiny dancer.
Your hips have become
pelvic bone butterflies
that arch and flare out
from your sunken abdomen
concave
and strangely hung
with loose folds of skin.
Your eyes like oases
in the desert of you
cartoon-cute big
but sunken deep
into your head
as if drawing away
from the sight of you.
Just a few more Kilos
and you’ll be gone.
© M.L.Emmett
Jul 30, 2014
Jul 30, 2014 at 11:53 AM UTC
I wandered the desert wasteland
A pack of burning sun on my back
It tore my eyesight in two
Oases loomed and dissolved
Nothing but blue sky overhead
And circling scavengers
Helium shot to my brain
The taste of tainted blood
And numbing wounds
Oct 18, 2011
Oct 18, 2011 at 9:09 AM UTC
Isis a goddess of magic
Stars shooting like diamonds
Shielding a child’s dreams
Patroness to nature
A defender of the dead
Timeless giver of life
Garden of life’s oases
Every star a child
Every constellation a shield
Men her warriors
The sky a bed of hope
A silken blanket
Nature her weapon to wield
By scarlet rose
Mar 10, 2015
Mar 10, 2015 at 1:33 PM UTC
Don't
fall in love with her.
For you will both crash
and I promise, you will burn, for
She is the girl with too many wounds
the ones even an ocean of your love can't heal.
She is the girl with scars on her knees
because she tried taking leaps of faith far too many times,
waiting for someone to catch her
but they never did.
She is the girl who will never be with you
even if she is holding your hand
and your fingers are wrapped around her shoulders
and her neck is resting on your chest for
she will always be atop an asteroid
trying to catch moon-tears
because she knows that the moon weeps for her.
She is the girl who won't tell you she loves you
even if you tell her a hundred times and look at her
with all the longing you can muster
because she knows how words can be.
Some words
are only said to fill in the empty silence.
She is the girl who is hard to dance with
because she refuses to be led across the dance floor
she's already been led,
many, many times
and she always ended up
with floor burns, scrapes and sprains.
She is the girl with pimples
not enough to cover her face
but enough to let you know how far into the night she stays awake
writing poetry about 'you'
she's written so many poems about 'you'
because her hands won't stop moving
her mind won't stop weaving and I promise,
you wouldn't want her to write about you.
She is the girl with broken, dead bones
the girl who's seen too many deserts
climbed too many mountains
but she never reached the top or
came to the end of the endless stretch of yellow, but
she can tell you a lot about oases.
So before you even think
of falling in love with her, I warn you,
don't.
Do whatever else you want just
don't
fall in love
with me.
Sep 24, 2013
Sep 24, 2013 at 10:59 AM UTC
Bear with a sore head
Takes coyote on post haste
Bore v. Trickster tried
Hung court just verdict
Bought ideologically
Branded! Brig banished
Like Guantanamo
Force fed on stale chalk
Red glib ref to beasts
Totalists with clubs
Tabulate ***** ad hoc
Bring shame to beating
When stops suicide?
Noble savage survives best
Practice leads young straight
Where head caravans?
Lossless nomads swim through sand
To moor oases
Connect with bazaars
Extra-exponential rock
Scissors paper cuts
Exacto-knifed sharp
Cards tabled until sure things
Made deals pay upfront
Cold hard confidence
Wannabe men drive sweet game
Put all together
Touch trumps tears takes no prison
Uncaged roam space free
Our place ancients planned
Body mind spirit heart team
Here earth *** soils worms
Compost ground debris
Bred sustenance seeds rich peat
Brings about the end
Jul 15, 2013
Jul 15, 2013 at 2:26 AM UTC
Patterns of neglect
reside at intersections
with doubts
and the relics of disrespect.
Wounded victims
hide
behind barricades
of anxiety and mistrust.
Gaps for sorrows
coincide with thoughts
trembling
like piano notes.
The ugly side of paradise
immortal, immoral
eluded the glimmer
of an impassive sun.
Oases defined
by the purity of light
shimmer
somewhere outside the mind.
Sep 20, 2014
Sep 20, 2014 at 5:31 AM UTC
As we wander through the dunes rhythm,
The blistering sun jaunts across,
Exhibiting the elegance of the sanguine sands,
A ravishing roots of colours,
Whirling on the Sahara,
The beautiful blue skies,
Their true reflection,
With delight we trail from audaghust to the inlands,
In a waddling gait,
The heavy luggages on humps,
Are the loads of luxury bade by kumbi saleh,
The camels and jockeys pride themselves in it flamboyant environs,
And our thobes and keffiyeh makes merry,
In the breeze of sacred grove trees,
Mesmerizing the aesthetics of Arab architecture,
Treking through the routes of Tjilmasa to Tehrent,
In the comfort of the oases,
Replenishing our thirst and fatigue,
With benevolent breeze from palms and peaches,
Glancing at the magnificent mirages pearls,
We sight the atlas mountains,
And its Maghreb,
Caravan
A Poem Written By,
Historian E.Lexano
©March 8,2015
Mar 24, 2015
Mar 24, 2015 at 11:26 AM UTC
I celebrate this journey in the desert -
I am but a traveler in my time:
in this pasture of my fathers, land,
where stands this miracle of glass
now calling manna down
from the high home of eagles:
I am but a helpless everyman, lost
in the desert, on a journey out
from the clutches of misery, and pain;
The world is making progress.
As I see the oases running farther
away from my sights: on
elevators to the skies, numbers
of the young call on benefactors
across the seas, for a ropeway
across the quagmires: a home, a car
and the family life; saving for a
better day, in the future, while
my home went from mudbrick
to thatched grass, then out on streets
by the gutter with the dogs;
I am a cleaner, cobbler, janitor
in the land where I was the tiller.
Wiping the sweat on my brows
as I loaf on the lawns, awaiting
labour days hyphenated by mealtimes,
there is no witch-doctor now, and
no money to pay up at the hospitals
that the wealthy from afar line up to,
but to die helpless a wretched death,
I celebrate my helplessness!
Jul 5, 2014
Jul 5, 2014 at 4:17 PM UTC
Hall, how you are full of ceiling!
It goes where the flooring is
Land prepares for giant flooding
and drinks the palms of oases
Hold the things before they will fly
Today's swirl isn't mute
Get tied down with endlessly high
torment to your inside root
To your cisterns of claims that die
being pecked through liver's shell
by fierce eagle which would **** dry
the water, drinks, pail as well.
Oct 28, 2015
Oct 28, 2015 at 2:44 AM UTC
It started with a strident and clamorous shout
that squandered like fish in murky waters.
In this desert of truths,
many live with personal oases
that with time, like life dictates,
disappear before their owner.
The ample slopes of virtue and wisdom
have turned into mere streams,
striving for survival through a few.
When will we turn this desert
into a fruitful valley, abundant
with rivers and lakes?
It is said that
“You reap what you sow”
alas, we sow only sand.
Grains of sand
Feb 11, 2014
Feb 11, 2014 at 7:54 PM UTC
Bleak the rays shattered through broken panes
life, dust, dust, future and smoke
automobiles and gunshots solitary this hour
when screams rend the air, not my turn today -
no, not as yet. Mother, I want to rest my head
in your lap. Can I weep?
*Cactus in my soul, I ask, Can I, all that I am?
Lust is the death of man. Gouge your eye that lusts.
Broken void of my afterdays, that mourn
like the wind on the dunes*
Mother, I am well. There is love, there is hope, light
hidden like nuggets in piles of the dark.
Mother, I must be well.
It was the other night. Nightmare in loop.
Shamed, stripped beaten violated.
I am in a well, deep pit, drained
of all the essence of light
I can hear your voice echoing with the ray
shattered tumbling down the walls
*free, free I am the wind mourning in the dunes
can you tame the wind?*
In the depths, and in the deaths islanding life
mirage of oases, Mother, I have found him,
my Senor, to whom I give my ring
Violate me, visage of the abyss,
burn me, but can you find me?
beat me, chain me, but can you enslave me?
I am not here in these nerves and veins.
I am all of Augusta, America,
I fly in the Masts above the skies
*Sweet Lord, I see you have deemed heaven
for me, no purgatory but here.
I accept, I surrender, I submit. To thy will.*
Mother, do not negotiate. I am strong.
Where in my naked body have you found me?
here, in these bruises, have your embers soothed?
I am the Lamb that does not cower.
I haunt your soul as guilt.
In what little's left of it.
*He finds you in the catacombs where
I haunt the crypts that no vicar penetrates.
When all is lost, when death is certain at the sea,
there opens a way and I will walk out*
Mother, I am coming. Have faith, for faith maketh.
I hold you here in my ***** smouldering pain,
that gets me to wake every haunting day.
Every day that brings the sound of darkness home.
*I fly in the Masts above the skies.
Tame me, I am the wind breaking the dunes.
Ilohi, lema sebachtani sebachtani*
Aug 19, 2015
Aug 19, 2015 at 12:36 PM UTC
Here in receding darkness, the sky meets the earth;
In waning hours, here the music of the waves
consoles the mourning sands; here I go pursuing
the citadel of mists, rising lotus-like from clouds
hanging on rugged mountains in the distance.
Maelstroms in the desert carry vortices of sand
and moist fragments of mirages of oases;
The fury of the sea brooks no contenders:
***** make home the sands levelled flat of my
feats; Again the uproar of mist-filled thirst.
Invisible companion, tonight, in moonlit silence,
will you come walking waters, like those ages
many, of Galilee ago? A storm is brewing.
A labyrinth of seasons in the Catherine-wheel
of life, growing and swirling out of the haze;
Oct 11, 2013
Oct 11, 2013 at 7:50 PM UTC
Mint tea springs oases
on dusty streets where your camera
staples doors, faces, dogs,
windows, water cans together
as I reach for your hand across the table
do you remember how
in a Cellar Theatre
not too far from here
& guarded only by
the fattened moon
we forgot who the audience &
who the actors were
as we strained our eyes
to see the play?
Oct 18, 2015
Oct 18, 2015 at 1:25 PM UTC
I know your heart like I know the woods
Never getting lost but still left unexplored
I know your eyes like I know the moon
I see them every night as the distance grows
I know your thoughts like I know the wind
Where they come from and where they go
Softest breeze upon the tip of my nose
Carries smell of ashes and sometimes rose
I know your love like I know the desert
Without boundary and stretching endless
I know I can get lost but never lose hope
There are oases and roads leading home
I know your mind like I know the rain
The fresh expectant longing sprays
The yearning gets me through the days
I think of you after like petrichor stays
I know your fears like I know my own
Fear of loneliness while thinking alone
Fears clear as crystals and fears undue
I know them well because I fear too
Apr 20, 2014
Apr 20, 2014 at 1:09 PM UTC
I spoke to a man today
with kind eyes and contagious laughter
his passport identified him as Israeli, mine american
but for a moment, we were both just human
He told me he was a combat medic for the IDF
as we began our descent into a discussion of politics
he spoke of giving medical care to victims
of a suicide bombing, just weeks earlier
Life is fragile in places like his hometown of Tel Aviv
He showed me an app on his iPhone that
notifies him of places that were just bombed
or when to take shelter, in case of an incoming missile strike
How people must savor life in war zones like his
friends and family become temporary oases
bringing happiness and fulfillment for a moment
then gone the next
For once
there were no borders between us, or
cultural divides, just two men
discussing life, or something like it
Jul 7, 2014
Jul 7, 2014 at 12:16 PM UTC
Music, Oh mysterious sprite!
Lift us to the seamless realms of delight
Your ubiquitous presence we feel;
In the hum of crickets
In the silence of the stars
In the falling cataracts
In the running streams
You are there in the lone sea breakers
And under the swift wings of the wind
Come as subtle vibes to saturate our being,
Winding your way through every sinew
Enfold us in your rapturous hold,
Raising our souls to the magic of rhapsody
Paint intangible pictures in silence,
Creating a sensation beyond the reach of words
Let our souls savor the taste of ecstasy,
Daubing myriad hues on all ugly stains
Land us in the sequestered pools of oases,
As the blistering sands leave burns on our souls
Oh Music! Come and fill me
Soak me from foot to crown
Like a falling drizzle
Like a caressing soft wind
Like a marauding sensation
Drown me
In the subaqueous quietude of the sea
Levitating me through ether
And lifting me up onto the borders of heaven!
May 29, 2016
May 29, 2016 at 9:07 AM UTC
Tripping up the stairs,
looking out the window
smelling barley, corn and rye.
Trees make patterns
interchanging with birds in the sky.
Sun beats down upon your head
sit, counting ants,
with a stick, poke and ****
throw rocks in the pool.
Boulders scream to be jumped off of
into water of shiny cyan blue.
The smell of summer in the air,
Trapped ***** caught fish
All is still and calm.
It's these simple thing
that keep us apart
my trust in you
guides me through the dark
When I look ahead,
all I see is reflection.
Walls of mirrors
infinite to perfection
It's out of reach,
this dream of mine
over the edge of
i
n
s
a
n
i
t
y
Trees make patterns
against the backdrop of the sky.
Throwing shadows,
casting hiding spots
for those who wish not be seen.
Turning invisible any
seeking shelter.
Screening out sunrays,
dappling lukewarm oases
over woodchips and detritus
like pancake syrup.
Let’s play camouflage in the forest.
May 17, 2013
May 17, 2013 at 12:59 AM UTC
The ten commandments say nothing,
in the translations I’ve read,
against coveting my neighbor’s good
fortune,
timing,
intentions,
sense of style,
or the countless other intangibles
gifted by Nature
and our DNA's mischievous inventions.
I’m a strict constructionist,
when it suits me, and especially so
with documents carved in stone
by invisible hands
having no recorded fondness for the market.
I’d trade places with any nameless witch
caught cavorting in her coven’s canopied oases,
their cauldron-ringing capers
and care-free cackles cheered
by owl hoots and cricket song;
Or the smallish, self-sacrificing spider
who rather than a cigarette gets a close-up
view of his mate’s spinnerets dispensing
the silk sheets to wrap him
as a happy meal deferred.
I also envy their creepy hatchlings
who weeks later will climb to the tip-tops
of firry fingers, cast a single wistful thread
and wait for the wish-fulfilling wind
to carry them lifetimes away.
That’s how I could stiff this chill
that taps me on the shoulder, and chase
after a far-off warmth I’ve weened
since my weaning was done.
I count these covets no sins.
Nov 13, 2010
Nov 13, 2010 at 6:37 AM UTC
Pigs, lips, ***** pink mammalian fires.
Dirt, slow water curling us in and out.
Eagle, genius that doesn’t pretend
To fully comprehend the worm the grub or the mole,
But it does, more than it thinks.
Doves, stream at the horizon,
Brief oases of plenitude
Or sometimes death.
Street lights, stars of the city.
Headlights, car eyes.
Windows, the breath
And the transparent eyes of houses.
Grass, the emerald brethren,
Whose golden deaths soak up
The wine locked w/in the childs tears.
Trees, androgynous, monsters of energy,
Mangled bodies of the ghosts.
Pavement, hard, fast, speckled almost
Like sand, moistened flora, stars.
Mar 5, 2012
Mar 5, 2012 at 3:16 AM UTC
Check the twenty-twenty fission
Adam splittin' Eden vision
Bustin' caps in gas emissions
Spittin' written ammunition
For the first-world problem chillen'
Droppin' free speech bomb sedition
On the third-world problem villain
Grand old wizards' ku klux gizzards
All white **** meat chicken dinners
Suckin' Christian dictions'
Hissin' contests over spoils
House of Slyth'rins witherin'
The shale-shock sowing soil
With Satan seeds of ignorance
Still thirsting for indifference
From money hungry London royal
Global warming blizzards
As they're bleeding dry the rivers
Into liquidating oil
Treasure buried with a shovel
In oases brought to boil
Nine eleven popped the bubble
But with Jesus in the building
Turning metal into rubble
Smelting graces into gilding
From the melting *** he's spilling
Into off-shore power drilling
Making killings on the rigging
As Mohammed was displayed
As a scary, bearded, brown-skin man
Through tricks of terrorism's trade
And God's right sleights of winning hand
Pulled rabbits from Fatah's grenade
And cooked 'em in Afghanistan
For PTSD noise parades
And hot dog chugs for Uncle Sam
To waste the land, supply demand
For ol' Osama's unmarked grave
Obama hosted-masquerade
White-washing New World fear campaign
Them masks of patriotic acts
In place as they removed Hussein
Disguised the ethnic cleanse crusade
With bush league mass destruction claims
When the caliphate they made
Went Khomeini on Iran
A stand against the David camp
Shelling bibles to qurans
So the shah's Allah mirage
Put the profits in the pockets
Of the prophet's arbitrage
Camouflage the Green Zone spans
With pyramids of Reaganomics
Tricklin' into sovereign sands
Long before heathen jihadists
Flew their kamikaze plans
Into Trump towers' blacklist fists
Of modern warfare contra bans
Mar 18, 2017
Mar 18, 2017 at 12:25 PM UTC
The colour red strewn through the rocks
Iron rusting over years
Untainted by The touch of man
With exception of tourists
Oils slowly eroding, but untouched
By our prided advancements
Miles of peaks attracting the world
Though, still wild in the sense we define
A refuge from the bustle of life
We ascribe ourselves to
At least to me, it is a place to be alone, to meditate
With acres of trees, existing and feeling with them
Pulling from their ancient wisdom
To sit high upon a peak
With notebook in hand and a pen in the other
My only defense against the human condition
Peering out as far as my feeble eyes will allow
Clouds paint elegant watercolours
With the rays of the sun
Storms creating drama and feeling
But I am above it all as Zarathustra was
But I am compelled to return
As was he, back to the hives of my birth
To the city that Jack and his cohorts
Loved so much, as do myself
This place that has more sun
Than the marketed beaches of paradise
It may snow here, but that is the beauty of it all
The variety of seasons, it is not all-arctic wasteland
In the winter months
One day I may be swathed in layers
Against the cold, the next
I can walk around open to the elements,
What other place is the weather so differentiable?
A couple hours’ drive and you can be
In a winter wonderland or arid city
An arctic paradise with acres of fresh powder
That many do not take the time to sit,
Just sit; in a supple seat.
Perfectly formed to the contours of your body
And look out; simply look out.
At what is surround you; high above everything
Too often do we become obsessed
With the tiny oases of ski resorts
And forget the solitude and beauty of its telos
It’s not the resorts I love,
But the mountains themselves; that is my attraction.
A place to carve your own path, to find yourself
This is my home, a sojourn for the Beaten
As they traveled this country,
for those on the trail settling from sea to shining sea
Facing the fortress of rock, ice, and pine
I may stray for spans of time, travel the word and sea,
But I shall always come back to pay homage
To the place that has sculpted me
And given me sanctuary from society
Colorado
Feb 28, 2013
Feb 28, 2013 at 12:40 PM UTC
Let us dethrone this ***** little clone,
put him back in the barn where he belongs;
next to the other dozen standalone stepping
stones collectively gathering dust to the dome.
A collection of crazies chasing overblown
daisies in a field of belated paraphrases.
"Three lines should get you going, Homie!"
Bite down, giddy up, breathe out.
It's savior of the species eager to embrace
the future,but skyscrapers rise like an
oases just to fold like Fathertime's wrist piece.
Where's your patience? Check the back pages.
What's a death race without 1st place?
Crusading sapiens pound their chest
while the invading aliens blend in with the rest
and I'm too pills past drunk waiting
for the impending blimp on your radar
to changling into a Deathstar.
Feb 19, 2017
Feb 19, 2017 at 11:19 AM UTC