"parasols" poems
Always it happens when we are not there--
The tree leaps up alive into the air,
Small open parasols of Chinese green
Wave on each twig. But who has ever seen
The latch sprung, the bud as it burst?
Spring always manages to get there first.
Lovers of wind, who will have been aware
Of a faint stirring in the empty air,
Look up one day through a dissolving screen
To find no star, but this multiplied green,
Shadow on shadow, singing sweet and clear.
Listen, lovers of wind, the leaves are here!
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Daddy takes me to the greenhouse,
behind our rotted trailer, deep in sovereign backwoods.
Marsh voices, thick like tupelo honey.
The coo of a loon, hiss of a cottonmouth, shiver of a snapping turtle.
The silver of swamp lilies lip the land in wild haze,
a veil of ochre moss tickles my nose like gauzey ginger ale
and soil clings to my ankles like a lonesome hound.
Daddy’s greenhouse is a shed, a haven.
A milieu of magic and fleur-de-cannabis
where pixies pull my curls and gnomes dance
under mushroom parasols.
My hands dip into a hollow of muddy earthworms.
I feel akin to the yellow blood of a butterfly
or pale jade of perplexing geckos.
Daddy is a shaman.
He trims holy blooms that come from spirits
who sing in the wind like the whippoorwill at dusk.
Snipping sticky bushels, he pads tufts into his pipe,
carved in the shape of a sullen armadillo.
I watch him inhale.
His breath
stiff
as a braid of mangroves.
He exhales a ligneous cough.
I don’t mind,
much.
Jan 26, 2015
Jan 26, 2015 at 3:18 PM UTC
The eye can hardly pick them out
From the cold shade they shelter in,
Till wind distresses tail and main;
Then one crops grass, and moves about
- The other seeming to look on -
And stands anonymous again
Yet fifteen years ago, perhaps
Two dozen distances surficed
To fable them : faint afternoons
Of Cups and Stakes and Handicaps,
Whereby their names were artificed
To inlay faded, classic Junes -
Silks at the start : against the sky
Numbers and parasols : outside,
Squadrons of empty cars, and heat,
And littered grass : then the long cry
Hanging unhushed till it subside
To stop-press columns on the street.
Do memories plague their ears like flies?
They shake their heads. Dusk brims the shadows.
Summer by summer all stole away,
The starting-gates, the crowd and cries -
All but the unmolesting meadows.
Almanacked, their names live; they
Have slipped their names, and stand at ease,
Or gallop for what must be joy,
And not a fieldglass sees them home,
Or curious stop-watch prophesies :
Only the grooms, and the grooms boy,
With bridles in the evening come.
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Rascals, ruffians and rogues alike.
Slumming the alleys with their slurs,
And sewage rats.
Across the streets, just beyond the performers.
The dames of paradise carrying flowered parasols.
*A ***** she is. Stupid Alessandra!* one said.
The hooligans hugged each other with glee,
As the women struck each other,
With their spiteful words.
Filthy, is the life of the cleaner souls,
And rich, is the life of the poorest minds.
Alas, the weirdest of them all is God.
Jul 14, 2013
Jul 14, 2013 at 4:48 AM UTC
Night flower blossoming
Beneath the summer sky
Petal parasols unfurling
Throughout June and July
She was born under the moon
Nocturnal butterfly
Pollinated by pale moths
To live one day then die
Moonflower blooms in warmth
Her short season’s end nigh
Shriveling once the frost sets in
And conceding to the ice
Moonblossom rich in scent
A true pleasure to stand by
Her short-lived sweet fragrance
Would all surely vivify
Mar 1, 2021
Mar 1, 2021 at 5:43 AM UTC
342
It will be Summer—eventually.
Ladies—with parasols—
Sauntering Gentlemen—with Canes—
And little Girls—with Dolls—
Will tint the pallid landscape—
As ’twere a bright Bouquet—
Thro’ drifted deep, in Parian—
The Village lies—today—
The Lilacs—bending many a year—
Will sway with purple load—
The Bees—will not despise the tune—
Their Forefathers—have hummed—
The Wild Rose—redden in the Bog—
The Aster—on the Hill
Her everlasting fashion—set—
And Covenant Gentians—frill—
Till Summer folds her miracle—
As Women—do—their Gown—
Of Priests—adjust the Symbols—
When Sacrament—is done—
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During the war, I was in China.
Every night we blew the world to hell.
The sky was purple and yellow
like his favorite shirt.
I was in India once
on the Ganges in a tourist boat.
There were soldiers,
some women with parasols.
A dead body floated by
going in the opposite direction.
My son likes this story
and requests it each year at Thanksgiving.
When he was twelve,
there was an accident.
He almost went blind.
For three weeks he lay in the hospital,
his eyes bandaged.
He did not like visitors,
but if they came
he'd silently hold their hand as they talked.
Small attentions
are all he requires.
Tell him you never saw anyone
so adept
at parallel parking.
Still, your life will not be easy.
Just look in the drawer where he keeps his socks.
Nothing matches. And what's the turtle shell
doing there, or the map of the moon,
or the surgeon's plastic model of a take-apart heart?
You must understand --
he doesn't see the world clearly.
Once he screamed, "The woods are on fire!"
when it was only a blue cloud of insects
lifting from the trees.
But he's a good boy.
He likes to kiss
and be kissed.
I remember mornings
he would wake me, stroking my whiskers
and kissing my hand.
He'll tell you -- and it's true --
he prefers the green of your eyes
to all the green life
of heaven and earth.
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When fishes set umbrellas up
If the rain-drops run,
Lizards will want their parasols
To shade them from the sun.
2.3k
Year after year
--at daylight savings--
he kept moving his clock backward,
but never forward,
until he wound-up in the wrong century.
He then slept in masks,
his dreams repeatedly
disbanding and reforming,
as if in someone else's show,
but it was his hallucinating set-list, for sure.
He lived at the call of the void,
feeding off peppermint sticks
and clusters of chokeberry,
to help ease the pressure.
One phantom summer,
he read The Joy of Euthanasia
from cover-to-cover, over and over,
until he could recite death.
He poured his heart
into his new work
as an artist of tacenda,
--yes, he kept a lid on it.
And when the pretty young bees
buzzed about underneath
their brazen parasols,
he'd smile up at the sun
for her complicit glow:
the warmest days
always drew them out to him,
like honey on the tongue.
Now naysayers may keep
him out of Canton,
but one day, like most serial killers,
they will name a school after him
and his hijinks.
Nov 6, 2019
Nov 6, 2019 at 2:21 PM UTC
I love lacy umbrellas; and pink parasols, a ***** in waiting; showing ******* and ***** I love fashion hats; all feathers and lace, hot party gurl outfits; poses of elegant grace. I love tea parties; and playing dress up, I love things dainty; and riding a crop. I love teddy bears; ******* on **** men who wear ******* and pink frilly socks.
Aug 1, 2013
Aug 1, 2013 at 7:05 AM UTC
that tree on the hill, in the midday sun unfurled
a majestic gnarl of old glory, sustained by a bounty of Time
a thing full of slow thoughts, thoughts that precede our asking
whose branches have forsaken hands
in favor of open arms
that have no word
for love
and
yet
that’s all it does
we sat beneath it’s wholesome fuss of ripe fruit, sinking in.
you in your yoga pants, poaching a dragons egg
in thick blue grass
i in my cups, sipping vineyards of brandy from a deerskin champagne glass
staring at your beautiful joy
the both of us slouching on the couch of Creation
each
with our own
remote.
we were up-close
noses pressed against pollen parasols parading in heat mirage camouflage
holding a moment without pause
we picnic in the thicket of an endless gift
like ants on a blanket
the width of the
world.
Oct 29, 2012
Oct 29, 2012 at 1:37 PM UTC
THE MARE Alix breaks the world's trotting record one day. I see her heels flash down the dust of an Illinois race track on a summer afternoon. I see the timekeepers put their heads together over stopwatches, and call to the grand stand a split second is clipped off the old world's record and a new world's record fixed.
I see the mare Alix led away by men in undershirts and streaked faces. Dripping Alix in foam of white on the harness and shafts. And the men in undershirts kiss her ears and rub her nose, and tie blankets on her, and take her away to have the sweat sponged.
I see the grand stand jammed with prairie people yelling themselves hoarse. Almost the grand stand and the crowd of thousands are one pair of legs and one voice standing up and yelling hurrah.
I see the driver of Alix and the owner smothered in a fury of handshakes, a mob of caresses. I see the wives of the driver and owner smothered in a crush of white summer dresses and parasols.
Hours later, at sundown, gray dew creeping on the sod and sheds, I see Alix again:
Dark, shining-velvet Alix,
Night-sky Alix in a gray blanket,
Led back and forth by a ******
Velvet and night-eyed Alix
With slim legs of steel.
And I want to rub my nose against the nose of the mare Alix.
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The long white curtain is still hanging on. The baby still
sleeping somewhere in all of that. I don’t mind
a thing. I don’t mind at all. See how slow and good
it can be? He says and points to my gizzard. The one he
insists upon me having. The same one I have given up insisting I don’t.
I’m addicted to the pith and gaff of his arguments,
how stalwartly he rows them down the narrow
passage of our trying not to hurry banter. I curl into the slow
lilt of how he doesn’t mind strolling around inside of promises,
like Burt showing Mary Poppins another chalk Paris. Look! A
riverboat! Lights and parasols. Pretty lovers laughing on the prow.
We’re both still wearing your T-shirt
inside the stewpot dreaming we do between sex. Aprons
and porches, babies and waterfalls.
The kinds of props you bandit from other people’s dreams.
Shorthand for lovers, with an hour to prove they exist.
Jan 14, 2012
Jan 14, 2012 at 7:12 AM UTC
Taming of the Shrew
I would do anything for you,
trembling avowed,
summer swept
sweet lipped,
sugar dipped
surrender
I become:
a Victorian sonnet sailing;
the river banks of Seine
when you are near,
thirsty love ,
bistro champagne
oils,
parasols and bubbling dreams,
tickle all my senses
shimmering of moonlight
kisses breathe into me
the lights of shooting fire
flowers, and my
errant tongue
is stilled.
Sep 12, 2015
Sep 12, 2015 at 9:50 AM UTC
Naughty Bougainvillea
flash
their gypsy red burgundy parasols
like Creole maidens
from New Orlean French Quarters
their wild beauty
adorns Floridian gardens and
ocean courtyards
But, they are no match for
the Queenly Gardenia
Her soft, ivory, alabaster *****
exudes a scent found only in Paradise
As she unfolds her exquisite, royal,
Saraswati petals
I wait blushing with bated anticipation
for a whiff of Heaven itself
Mar 16, 2017
Mar 16, 2017 at 10:57 PM UTC
Venturing across the threshold of blatancy - Can you navigate your way through the complexity of this intoxicating labyrinth?
Political smiles greet the masses with plausible uncertainties. Like parasols and blue skies? Or cinders and ashes?
Waterfalls continue to flow and bumblebees pollinate great plantations. It’s coming to a close. The curtains of finality are hastily swishing together in this last triumphant finale. Progress is the name of the game. It’s a picture of lost innocence – a catholic calamity involving haunting silhouettes of the great and mighty perimeter. What do you think? Death warmed up? Give a great round of applause for Vanity Fair.
Dec 31, 2013
Dec 31, 2013 at 4:06 PM UTC
Yevgeny Yevtushenko
No monument stands over Babi Yar.
A drop sheer as a crude gravestone.
I am afraid.
Today I am as old in years
as all the Jewish people.
Now I seem to be
a Jew.
Here I plod through ancient Egypt.
Here I perish crucified, on the cross,
and to this day I bear the scars of nails.
I seem to be
Dreyfus.
The Philistine
is both informer and judge.
I am behind bars.
Beset on every side.
Hounded,
spat on,
slandered.
Squealing, dainty ladies in flounced Brussels lace
stick their parasols into my face.
I seem to be then
a young boy in Byelostok.
Blood runs, spilling over the floors.
The barroom rabble-rousers
give off a stench of ***** and onion.
A boot kicks me aside, helpless.
In vain I plead with these pogrom bullies.
While they jeer and shout,
"Beat the Yids. Save Russia!"
some grain-marketeer beats up my mother.
0 my Russian people!
I know
you
are international to the core.
But those with unclean hands
have often made a jingle of your purest name.
I know the goodness of my land.
How vile these anti-Semites-
without a qualm
they pompously called themselves
the Union of the Russian People!
I seem to be
Anne Frank
transparent
as a branch in April.
And I love.
And have no need of phrases.
My need
is that we gaze into each other.
How little we can see
or smell!
We are denied the leaves,
we are denied the sky.
Yet we can do so much --
tenderly
embrace each other in a darkened room.
They're coming here?
Be not afraid. Those are the booming
sounds of spring:
spring is coming here.
Come then to me.
Quick, give me your lips.
Are they smashing down the door?
No, it's the ice breaking ...
The wild grasses rustle over Babi Yar.
The trees look ominous,
like judges.
Here all things scream silently,
and, baring my head,
slowly I feel myself
turning gray.
And I myself
am one massive, soundless scream
above the thousand thousand buried here.
I am
each old man
here shot dead.
I am
every child
here shot dead.
Nothing in me
shall ever forget!
The "Internationale," let it
thunder
when the last anti-Semite on earth
is buried forever.
In my blood there is no Jewish blood.
In their callous rage, all anti-Semites
must hate me now as a Jew.
For that reason
I am a true Russian!
Jan 27, 2013
Jan 27, 2013 at 3:04 AM UTC
Being divorced is not very much fun
Two kids, no dad, life on the run
A king-size bed with two pillows
But she’s sleeping alone
On a whim she headed East to the West
The Cowboy convention in Tucson
With her new boots and hat
And old friend Laura Lee, wearing a vest
This Hollywood screenwriter has seen them all
Jive city slickers with cell phones and new cars
It had been so long since she’d really been kissed
Her love life needed a punch, it could not make a fist
Samuel Dawson was born on and still lived on the ranch
He rode fence, chased cattle, is one studley man
With a soft streak as demonstrated by his craft
He works wonders with leather, why it was art
He too was lonely, this singular man
He’d cleaned himself up since his wife went and made other plans
For he had deserved it, so he sat hoping to sell
Wishing he’d find that artesian well
Stop the action, let me set the stage
There he sits at his craftsman’s booth
Underneath the canopy in the hot afternoon sun
Here comes Rebecca meandering along
She lingers and fingers his feathered and leathered strands
He smiles and she notes his mustache and tan
They talk, she will not turn away
Laura Lee shouts, “Let’s get on the way.”
This is where the story begins
One cowboy love that has no end
She’s still a writer on fine TV shows
Sam is the wrangler, whom everyone knows
Loves a lady who fancies parasols
On hot Summer days, who now rides a horse
Who no longer leads a half-finished life
Where western handicraft is everywhere in sight
And their love is on course
Some don’t understand, some don’t want to know
But bridges are built wherever you go
Even on land with no river in sight
When a cowboy finds love he succumbs without fight
The ranch is now located in Southern Cal
The fence he mends is picket, see for yourself
For I know them, and please call me Sam
She’ll be home in a few, I’m her lover man.
Dec 16, 2016
Dec 16, 2016 at 2:15 PM UTC
Je ne songeais pas à Rose ;
Rose au bois vint avec moi ;
Nous parlions de quelque chose,
Mais je ne sais plus de quoi.
J'étais froid comme les marbres ;
Je marchais à pas distraits ;
Je parlais des fleurs, des arbres
Son oeil semblait dire : " Après ? "
La rosée offrait ses perles,
Le taillis ses parasols ;
J'allais ; j'écoutais les merles,
Et Rose les rossignols.
Moi, seize ans, et l'air morose ;
Elle, vingt ; ses yeux brillaient.
Les rossignols chantaient Rose
Et les merles me sifflaient.
Rose, droite sur ses hanches,
Leva son beau bras tremblant
Pour prendre une mûre aux branches
Je ne vis pas son bras blanc.
Une eau courait, fraîche et creuse,
Sur les mousses de velours ;
Et la nature amoureuse
Dormait dans les grands bois sourds.
Rose défit sa chaussure,
Et mit, d'un air ingénu,
Son petit pied dans l'eau pure
Je ne vis pas son pied nu.
Je ne savais que lui dire ;
Je la suivais dans le bois,
La voyant parfois sourire
Et soupirer quelquefois.
Je ne vis qu'elle était belle
Qu'en sortant des grands bois sourds.
" Soit ; n'y pensons plus ! " dit-elle.
Depuis, j'y pense toujours.
Paris, juin 1831.
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The old vacuous building
parasols the weak sun;
nothing enters here.
Nothing but rainwater
sleeping in puddles.
Cigarette ends, wet cardboard,
with only whitewashed walls
showing light,
showing grime.
Grey in the cracks, the mortar,
tainting, turning to off-white,
the pollution of the city
staining the bridal gown.
How far is the bridge,
from my mug of tea?
How far are people talking
above The Grateful Dead?
The old vacuous building
barricades the strong wind;
and I can’t leave here.
I haven’t seen sunlight
in over a month.
Nicotine gum, apathetic tug
in my matter
showing then,
showing now.
Scribbled in notes, I sought her.
Failing, I turn to lost sight,
the pollution of the city
turning the pages down.
How long will it take,
upon bended knee?
How hard is it to balance,
these troubles in my head?
The old vacuous building
parasols the weak sun;
I’m scared I’ll never leave.
Oct 25, 2013
Oct 25, 2013 at 10:12 AM UTC
White collars meet soil
Holy hangings, righteous men shake their heads
Throw your glory before the swine
And hold still your parasols, ladies
Hold high your chins
Keep bound any doubt in the depths of your dejection
Lest ye be like Adam
Y bounden
Betraying
That which is written most outright is the stone
That only the condemnèd break
*Change is a sin
So take your pills and see to your woman, son
And silence that serpent that seeks
That seeks to remove the crown you wear
That seeks to find peace in those arms*
*The warm and thick arms of the ******
Collars of white
Books of blue
Robes of red
Two thousand years of turmoil and discipline
Brought you this?
By the power of my hand--in pain you’ll repent
By the power of their cloaks and their words
My boy*
Love is patient; love is kind
*So do not insist in your own way
To blacken your robe with pagan ways
Is a disrespect to the starry crown
Gather your pearls
For myrrh is no longer abundant
Turn to the sun, bow, and
Tighten their chains*
Give them their aid with the strength
Papa taught you
Slack is cowardice, doubt
Rows chained up behind
On my knees I pray for their salvation ?*
I will pray salvation, truly
From hypocrites
From legislature
From the smoke and the mirrors and the smiting
“Justice”
In the arms of your forbidden
Light your candles and share your vows
I’ll pretend while I can
But don’t you keep your hearts
To yourselves
Feb 18, 2013
Feb 18, 2013 at 6:43 PM UTC
Ihinabi ko sa bukana ng payong ang ulan.
This is to believe that sheltering may not always be, or simply perhaps an undertaking of weakness. A radical strangeness aspires to be bold. I may not be able to transcend its nakedness.
.
This is to deny the common verity that in the communal of water, shade fails a transliteration. We cannot be forever in hiding. Our smallness reveals our flowers. Our unmentioned stirrings. (A spire of technicolor through the lens of apertures. It starts to rain in Pasay.)
.
I see children swift-bodied in the streets. I hear the sublime song of a defunct tractor. Once in its vitality, Earth was its derelict. How did it come to be that when I peer into the openness, light slouches into form, conjuring an image: your face, hiding amongst the crowd?
.
This is to recognize the potential of dwindles. Its vertigo that it tries to protect. Its height that it tries to conquer. Its fall that it tries to eschew. What if bones are just homes to tiny little currents and that the way our body assumes the stance of jackknife, simply a foreboding?
.
Itinabi ko sa sukal ng araw ang payong.
This is to perceive that all light lifts away from the dark, my heart always falling into its hands. Morning opens your face like delicate streets, pulverizing fog into chamomile. Silence is endemic. *Makati *buoys overseer reconnaissance of obvious beatings. Revealing a long line of ligatures -- umbilicus of wires. Serenades of futility. Our useless meanderings.
.
The depth of Sunlight finally turns primeval stone. That is our defeat -- all our darkness put to trial. I am tense with the finality: she will become parasol and I, the weather past moonlight waxing.
Feb 26, 2016
Feb 26, 2016 at 8:38 PM UTC
I’m sitting on a fume couch with ashtray
legs, counting the khaki strands
in the beaded curtain that dices
the hallway up into barcodes. The table
by the fridge is a cable spool lead-
painted to match the molding. Around
it is a mesh-back lawn chair, a SoCal
fold-out from a SoHo dumpster,
a spill-trayless booster seat,
and a bottle cap barstool. Everyone’s
wearing second-hand sport coats
with seam stitches as loose as telephone
wires tacked up with undersized lapel
pins.
**** Capitalism. **** Disco.
Bathe Avant-Garde. Eat Paint.
Bleed ******* Smoke Local.
Espresso, Or Genocide.
Dresden Was A Lie.
Shrink-Wrap It All.
Everyone is clustered around the cinder-
block stand record player, grooving
to the pops, looking like a rag-tag tide
change beneath the broken-oar ceiling
fan. Everyone’s wearing ironic scarves
tight like corporate ties to keep their throats
from popping ten-cent parasols, loose tobacco,
and ******** Amid their rubber flower talk,
I can pick out San Pelicano, someone critiquing
Keats’ “Politics,” and a rant regarding some
guy downtown’s stab at post-contemporary
Pointillism in some gallery I’ve never heard of.
They’re flipping between topics like a Moleskine notebook
while I skim through a copy of the Onion,
teasing the edges with a lighter I found on the floor.
Apr 14, 2015
Apr 14, 2015 at 9:00 AM UTC
Peter (my bf) and I are at Heraclee beach for the weekend.
It’s a little sliver of heaven, about 11 miles south of Saint Tropez.
It’s too early in the season to swim - being breezy and 72°f -
but it’s still the beach. I’m a neophyte beach ***
but I’m willing and eager to learn.
I’m valuable even if I’m not being productive [I self-affirm].
something poetic-ish..
*The sun’s a drowsy tyrant, not yet willing to unforgivingly scorch.
The beach is like glistening sugar, the sand still cool enough to walk, rogue west winds occasionally whip it to an ankle stinging sandpaper.
Majestic umbrella pines are dancing the hula. The shrub-like understory is dominated by drought-tolerant lavenders and rosemary that dense the air with perfume which complements the mediterranean brine.
There’s laughter, off somewhere, like wind-chimes playing clear, just above the ever-roiling sound of the surf. Birds are everywhere, gulls walk around like they’re bored, cory float on air, like kites and petrels skim against the wind, centimeters above choppy waves.
The beach isn’t crowded - French kids are still in school - but a few hardy, oiled, bronzed and sculpted bodies are sprawled on the pristine sand, like offerings to the god of leisure.*
Our hotel has its own private cove, with adirondack wooden lounges under yellow parasols. Pastel blue-vested wait-staffers circle, on the quarter-hour, eager to please.
“Deux (two) American Martinis, S'il te plaît! (please),” I ask, expectantly.
It’s a **** beach, but Peter got an alarmed look when I joked I might go ******* “Annick (my older sister) always goes ******* I informed him.
“I’d like to see that,” he’d chuckled, and when I gave him a raised eyebrow, he amended, “That came out wrong.”
.
.
songs for this..
Summer of Our Love by Triangle Sun
That life by Unknown Mortal Orchestra
The kiss of Venus by Dominic Fike, Paul McCartney
May 27, 2024
May 27, 2024 at 1:29 PM UTC
Ploughing
The farmer has ploughed the land around the almond trees
the earth is rust red I took up a handful it was lumpy, full
of dead plants and still warm from the sun.
A breeze was blowing shaking dust of trees and upending
parasols in gardens of those who do not till this land, but
want to be a part of the rustic idyll, tend rose bushes with
gloved hands to avoid callouses on hands used to type on
a word processor, where they try and fail to share the peace
they have found among small farmers travail.
I have the camera with me, but use it not how does
one shoot a picture of the wind or branches of a tree
moving rhythmically as the second dancer at a Bolshoi
performance attended by the prime minister.
Think I will leave the wind to a painter friend of mine.
Mar 15, 2017
Mar 15, 2017 at 4:48 AM UTC