"owlish" poems
Spring comes little, a little. All April it rains.
The new leaves stick in their fists; new ferns still fiddleheads.
But one day the swifts are back. Face to the sun like a child
You shout, 'The swifts are back!'
Sure enough, bolt nocks bow to carry one sky-scyther
Two hundred miles an hour across fullblown windfields.
Swereee swereee. Another. And another.
It's the cut air falling in shrieks on our chimneys and roofs.
The next day, a fleet of high crosses cruises in ether.
These are the air pilgrims, pilots of air rivers.
But a shift of wing, and they're earth-skimmers, daggers
Skilful in guiding the throw of themselves away from themselves.
Quick flutter, a scimitar upsweep, out of danger of touch, for
Earth is forbidden to them, water's forbidden to them,
All air and fire, little owlish ascetics, they outfly storms,
They rush to the pillars of altitude, the thermal fountains.
Here is a legend of swifts, a parable —
When the Great Raven bent over earth to create the birds,
The swifts were ungrateful. They were small muddy things
Like shoes, with long legs and short wings,
So they took themselves off to the mountains to sulk.
And they stayed there. 'Well,' said the Raven, after years of this,
'I will give you the sky. You can have the whole sky
On condition that you give up rest.'
'Yes, yes,' screamed the swifts, 'We abhor rest.
We detest the filth of growth, the sweat of sleep,
Soft nests in the wet fields, slimehold of worms.
Let us be free, be air!'
So the Raven took their legs and bound them into their bodies.
He bent their wings like boomerangs, honed them like knives.
He streamlined their feathers and stripped them of velvet.
Then he released them, Never to Return
Inscribed on their feet and wings. And so
We have swifts, though in reality, not parables but
Bolts in the world's need: swift
Swifts, not in punishment, not in ecstasy, simply
Sleepers over oceans in the mill of the world's breathing.
The grace to say they live in another firmament.
A way to say the miracle will not occur,
And watch the miracle.
Apr 22, 2014
Apr 22, 2014 at 1:59 PM UTC
You get the know it alls
Their noses stuck rigidly in books like bookmarks
You get the geeks
Gamers with eyes shrunk; shiny braces flashing
You get the quiet ones
Assessing everything going on; owlish blinks
You get the cheeky ones
Hilarious antics all around; always surprising
You get the nosy ones
With obnoxious questions and averting eyes
You get the prissy neat freaks
Panicking religiously over messes; loud moaner
You get the bossy buck tooth's
Spit spraying whilst barking out orders; drone-like
You get the wannabes
*Prepping up as the popular chicks; total **** ups*
And you get me
With total judgement and disdain evident
Making me a **classic ***** ; plastic
With her typical high school stereotypes
Aug 15, 2015
Aug 15, 2015 at 5:35 AM UTC
I remember the jelly bean jar
perched next to the owlish librarian
in my school when I was younger.
One lucky soul would win a prize
for pulling the right number of jelly beans
out of an air still filled with fancy.
I can’t remember who won the prize,
and I can’t remember what the prize was.
But I guess as selfish minds are wont to do,
I remember the act of guessing.
It was a childhood of guessing,
and I wonder if any of those guesses were truly wrong?
When the engine of innocence toils away,
any solution, however fanciful,
can’t be false in a world that finds falsity
in far more veritable places.
I digress back to that jelly bean jar,
packed full of sugar,
and to a young mind,
full of promise.
To a mind such as mine,
a mind akin to my classmates
who shared my sugary desire for that jar,
any guess was as good as the other,
as long as any guess was your own.
We clutched ordinary pencils
scribbled on ordinary paper
with our own extraordinary numbers.
In the basket went these figures most accurate.
Days during the week passed
with those store brand jelly beans
mashed against each other,
childhood memories turned ordinary pages
wrote with ordinary pencils
until that singular, self-sure number
mashed against pages turned against it.
However strong that memory of numerology
in a room full of words is etched in my mind; no trace
of the end of the jellybean contest remains in my ledger.
No trace of the disappointment of losing out
on such a treasure trove of tooth decay.
But I guess this is the way of the mind,
it tends to trace out the positives
while it remains filled with youthful levity,
no weight is imbued in innocent minds,
and so tragedy, loss, and disappointment
float away past untroubled eyes.
But time rolls on and much like the crushed growth
under an ever-rolling stone,
our lives start to fall harder on softened memories.
Our lives harden with our heads,
and those days of living out short-lived fantasies
fade with jelly bean guesses.
So as we mature and feign to seek the truth,
a small part of me keeps a singular page earmarked
for a time when the truth no longer weighs
down the air with half-true deceit, and a mind long
abandoned
will return to grasp fanciful ideas
out of an air that’s still light enough
to evade our youthful fingertips.
Jul 26, 2012
Jul 26, 2012 at 5:34 PM UTC
Their shadow dims the sunshine of our day,
As they go lumbering across the sky,
Squawking in joy of feeling safe on high,
Beating their heavy wings of owlish gray.
They scare the singing birds of earth away
As, greed-impelled, they circle threateningly,
Watching the toilers with malignant eye,
From their exclusive haven--birds of prey.
They swoop down for the spoil in certain might,
And fasten in our bleeding flesh their claws.
They beat us to surrender weak with fright,
And tugging and tearing without let or pause,
They flap their hideous wings in grim delight,
And stuff our gory hearts into their maws.
2.4k
He fumbles with the **** and clicks the door half-open,
blinking silently at us as we pile out of the van,
his owlish eyes peering.
He struggles to find words after so many long days--
good words for his grand-nephews,
words of strength for his grand-nieces--
and Chinese words stumble out.
He stands silent for seconds,
halted in the midst of a sentence,
searching for the English.
So we try to fill the still house with life and noise.
It is grey and large, with blank, staring windows and empty beds.
Our laughter does not echo well in its long hallways,
muted by the weightless, suspended air.
We eat at the kitchen table, and I watch him.
He seems so strong sitting there,
deceptively powerful,
corded arm muscles and heavily veined hands
and silver hair, carefully combed
in a wave that was dashing forty years ago.
Then he stirs,
stands and shuffles slowly to the sink.
The illusion of strength falls away.
He is a worn old man--
tired and sad.
Quietly I wait behind him as he washes his hands,
then pauses, confused,
wrinkled eyes
querulous and vague,
and slowly washes them again.
The rhythmic movements of his once sure fingers
rub in an unchanging pattern
from when he was young.
I remember many years ago,
--when I was even younger than now--
I remember him looking at me,
I remember seeing my dark and warped reflection in his wise, laughing eyes.
I thought surely he was the most dignified of men:
alive and slow and gentle,
quietly commanding respect,
his amiable face in permanent creases
from too much kind smiling.
Now those wrinkles have faded.
The faint lines no longer trace across his face,
and his house is quiet.
My great-uncle is alone.
Alone
with the countless photos of her.
They are fading slowly in the streaming sunlight--
together.
Apr 23, 2013
Apr 23, 2013 at 9:07 PM UTC
#Alexithymia
I'm not hellish i'm driven by a Mephistophelean relish
To reach an introspection to understand the inception
The ontological Manichaeism turned to be an existential absurdism .
And i'm drown in my own nihilism
Oh...what an owlish reality !!! i'm squeamish about this absurdity
I rely on self-revulsion to resist this daily delusion
...
What an exasperation !!! we live in the premeditation
This nature carries a lot of humiliation !!!
I'm sick of this fornication
Could the end of the road at least fetch a salvation ?
What a downhearted metamorphosis
I'm lost and i feel astonished
...
With conviction that this existence is only a deception
Oh...Oh...Oh....what a corruption !!!
This reality is based on a false deduction
That leads to a fatal destruction
Just where is the dysfunction ???
Is it in my creation ...
#Mzoughi_Moncef Le 06/09/2013
Nov 27, 2015
Nov 27, 2015 at 12:59 PM UTC
A lofty elevation,
A plumose cowl,
An irrefutable will.
Discretion: his calling card,
A birch-white arrow through
Viscous mauve shadows.
The strigine thief
Who appropriates your form
From the ground upward.
Predacious eyes perceive flesh and bone,
Discarded like chaff
Upon autumns threshing floor.
His talons disclosed,
Your legs shrouded
By his imperious wing.
Vaporous, you stand,
Your torso drawn ambiguous,
Upon the horizons ochre fabric.
Silken hair falls
Obliquely around your shoulders
Coalescing with the gathering mist.
Like the astringent hues in your puerile eyes,
I will fade from this night.
The evidence etched, evermore
Inside two darkling vessels.
I witnessed it all.
©Thomas Gabriel
Dec 4, 2011
Dec 4, 2011 at 6:34 PM UTC
Cliffy (Read the new poets)
someday I shall board a bus in
North London,
should my dimmed eyes not find him,
shall board another and another
till at last allayed and allied,
my pink newspaper wrapped,
slim volume of gifted boldness,
thirty-one antique poems shall I hand this
odd bespectacled man, their father,
their author
to name him new is confusing
for his originalities, new here,
sourced from over twenty years of past recent,
most writ before the current horde of
genghis khan occupying invaders
were body birthed
and long
before
they birthed themselves
their first
écriture
an acquired taste,
he acquired my taste one night,
when despair mastered my outer view,
words were ashen under the sun,
nothing new and I forsook my mother tongue
this odd owlish glassed creature,
will not charm you or delight you
he will originate you
say there is another way,
so old fashioned that it is
cutting edge
and not cutting oneself
do you ask these questions?
*Whose resurection is this
anyway ?
Has anyone seen the messiah today ?
There is never a messiah around when
You need one ?
Perhaps I shouldn't speak of th?ese things
Lightly
But what can be done ?
Have you ever smoked a ******
In a temple ?
Do you know what these kinda words
Resemble ?
Did you ever think life is just incidental ?
I can picture druids hovering above sacred corpses
Laughing at their impunity,
And tripping on their vulnerability
It's not a long way between Jesus and sin.
Y'know
Y'know
Having *** whilst wearing a strait-jacket
Is better than having no *** at all
I always echo the optimist's call
But I'm tied to a spastic cross
Where I present my loss.
All theses thoughts came to me
Much later in history.*
But now I must board another bus
In North London,
to find a true original
and perhaps find a sterling pound
of my own
http://hellopoetry.com/cliffy-buglione/
May 31, 2014
May 31, 2014 at 9:53 AM UTC
In the wee hour of a chilly night,
Sleep had totally escaped my eye lid,
On the scary cooing of the gnomish owl,
Outside my house, in the canopy of native flora,
Was the owl, officially on duty of harbingering death
A short message alarm rang on my cell phone,
Idly lying at the head side of my wooden bed,
Fear and eerie had numbed my nerves
Not knowing to move and take the phone or not,
As the owlish humming of fateful music
Again is often interrupted by the mew of the cat,
A transmogrified Night-runner in perfection of evil art,
But rationality washed me sober and clear minded,
I picked the phone and viewed the message,
I came face to face with a menacing piece of literature;
‘’Dear uncle, your sister Judith is dead,
She now lies in a morgue at city hospital,
She died laughing and laughing,
Laughing away the stupid pangs,
Of cervical cancer, the master killer
Of the beautifu, the bold and the bright’’
I was discombobulated beyond chance of recombobulation,
Pains panged my heart with the fangs of self uselenessness,
All else became valueless apart from spark of disillusionment
In the pearl that; O death! O death! Why are you ever un-timely?
Must the weak fortune be in companionship of the mighty
Fate and death when-ever they both pay visit to humanity?
Jul 4, 2014
Jul 4, 2014 at 8:19 AM UTC
Day after she has traveled
Her red painted pond
Treading and changing
Her ashy remains
Towards the slow green hat
Whom guards the geese
With owlish eyes.
Dec 23, 2014
Dec 23, 2014 at 6:48 PM UTC
she is a location
policed
by a trauma
that never
returns.
that’s a mouthful
on a first
date
but she is far
from photographing
roadkill.
still, she hears
it said
in sister
and in health…
she starts with a boy
who becomes a clown
getting
his pilot’s
license
on borrowed
time
and she loves
god is your
airstrip.
she knows it
by number
the single
highway
truck
that doesn’t
come.
her father is just
as she imagines-
a man
not making
siren
sounds
pulled over
by the man
who is.
an owl
with an owlish
disease
***** with
a bat
as an altogether
different
angel
swallows
her mother
like a sword.
hell has lost her mind
but tries again
its troubled
flashlight.
Mar 30, 2014
Mar 30, 2014 at 10:16 PM UTC
aye savor the faire genetic blueprint
extant unique to each of us
with this quite alimentary aire
including (that almighty,
bottom, cushiony, dimpled,
excretory functioning Gluteus Maximus
i.e. the ***** when bare
with subtle difference sans,
both halves at first blush,
but tucks upon closer scrutiny
obvious inexactness crystal clear
as a bell jar, asper each body electric,
whence deserved of en dear
ments despite however much junk in the trunk
behind the private
no trespassing (non verbalized)
signs posted everywhere
off limits only to a select few like this bard
attired as if from the Renaissance Faire
whose unconditional acceptance
unlike the majority hoo gawk and glare
if bipedal hominid dealt
chromosomal traits say with excessive hair
which mane of tangled strands,
could be problematic and interfere
with coaxing, finagling,
or inducing friendship with an initial jeer
from him or her averse
toward such imperfection to boot
huff lawed physical human specimen
such as this ole coot
(who haint really that old),
can upon command execute
a feigned display
and appealing as fresh field picked fruit
at this stage of ma life
donut give a rats *** nor an owlish hoot
what other may decry about me,
cuz self acceptance doth agree
buzzing with greater confidence, esteem,
and general weaknesses such
as lack of physiognomy incongruent cee,
which asymmetry of this primate feel free
er than his pre/post pubescent
corporeal essence he
near put himself in the hand
of that grim reaper, a key
poor of lifeless beings,
and well nigh got hold da mee
when in the throes up
(vis a vis not bulimia) on Swiss side prithee
and as a solitary mwm gives no re
guard no matter others may find fault
in the stars at my lack of sim mutt tree
gnome hatter judgements made
I accept mice elf warts and all – yippee!
Nov 4, 2017
Nov 4, 2017 at 3:49 PM UTC
You’d like to think such work was done by stolid, silent monks
Quilling ancient parchment in some great hall,
Stilted shafts of sunlight filtered by primordial dust,
Incense wafting on unseen breezes as only incense can,
Time measured in the tap of finger cymbals, the odd table-top gong,
But the reality was, as reality is wont to be,
The very essence of mundane:
An unprepossessing warehouse in an unremarkable neighborhood
In a better-days-gone-by northeastern city
All high ceilings, fluorescent lighting, owlish men and women
Hunched over not-quite-obsolescent Macs,
Rifling through squat, square metal cabinets
Filled to overflow with sundry clippings and clip-art,
Fighting deadlines and technical demons
In order to have camera-ready copy done in time
To meet the narrow print window of the small newspaper
Which committed these noble teachings to paper
(The pressmen watching them quick-step the plates in,
Bemused to an extent, but a print job is a print job is a print job.)
All of this in the past of course,
Certain things being pedestrian yet inexorable,
The newspaper falling victim to the nuances of readership and ROI,
The improbability of top-line growth, the inevitability of retrenchment,
Its press operations shut down and moved elsewhere,
The old press bay converted to the most micro of micro-business,
A concern selling chocolates and other sweets
(One assumes His Holiness is unaware of such events,
Although you’d hope that he would, upon hearing the tale,
Smile that particular smile, thousand-watt yet somewhat inscrutable,
And golf-clap his hands and chuckle, Sweeeet. Ah, sweet.)
Mar 31, 2017
Mar 31, 2017 at 9:44 AM UTC
Enlisting minds tuned to noise,
one good spell,
post participation in the everlasting war;
a peaceful valley, where waiting is only waiting.
Settled, true rest, compressed and shaken down
watching warnings evolve,
in human super bloom.
Eight billion minds
of the main kind,
collective conscience,
under ever afterward solemn
compulsion
to tell the truth. Whole,
no reason to bring to confession,
I must test, to prove to you,
if I
I did hear the knock, as it were, a bell, ting,
ding, I opened the door and made no invitation,
as when a farmer lets out water, whoosh
this leaky old cistern was full to overflow,
and
the rat that hid in the old dry well, drown'd.
Resulting in silence,
due to the truth in any story being authorized,
authority approved.
triple A.
Sowing as the legendary Johnny Appleseed,
with cautionary
pioneer role,
we can take the land, that was the story told…
none of this is learned in secret.
- done did done, done did done, done
do you
know the way to San Jose?
Did you know, in 1968?
----------------
The pilgrimage to all the drops, each 50 league step,
madding memory of yapping pups herding first bought sheep
over the cliff,
into the sea,
thinking that will be the end
of me, as a shepherd…
No, I never cried wolf.
I never took up the hunt for wolves,
I knew it was my own fault
as a shepherd innocent, novice with only books,
who bought a friendly dog, with too much to learn,
and no safe place to train,
brain to worth,
what is good
to know, what is good to go, chase into the sea,
like the spirits from the Gadarene,
and what evil comes when knowing
of good grows too slow
to catch a gnat with no effort.
Watchman! What of the night?
Who is asking, comes a reply,
why do you know nothing
at this hour,
it is dark and quiet, but for living noises,
courting crickets and owlish judgements
bat beeps and squeals, but those, we feel I think, more than hear.
Oct 31, 2022
Oct 31, 2022 at 12:19 PM UTC