"peopled" poems
So that you will hear me
my words
sometimes grow thin
as the tracks of the gulls on the beaches.
Necklace, drunken bell
for your hands smooth as grapes.
And I watch my words from a long way off.
They are more yours than mine.
They climb on my old suffering like ivy.
It climbs the same way on damp walls.
You are to blame for this cruel sport.
They are fleeing from my dark lair.
You fill everything, you fill everything.
Before you they peopled the solitude that you occupy,
and they are more used to my sadness than you are.
Now I want them to say what I want to say to you
to make you hear as I want you to hear me.
The wind of anguish still hauls on them as usual.
Sometimes hurricanes of dreams still knock them over.
You listen to other voices in my painful voice.
Lament of old mouths, blood of old supplications.
Love me, companion. Don't forsake me. Follow me.
Follow me, companion, on this wave of anguish.
But my words become stained with your love.
You occupy everything, you occupy everything.
I am making them into an endless necklace
for your white hands, smooth as grapes.
27.2k
Thinking, tangling shadows in the deep solitude.
You are far away too, oh farther than anyone.
Thinking, freeing birds, dissolving images,
burying lamps.
Belfry of fogs, how far away, up there!
Stifling laments, milling shadowy hopes,
taciturn miller,
night falls on you face downward, far from the city.
Your presence is foreign, as strange to me as a thing.
I think, I explore great tracts of my life before you.
My life before anyone, my harsh life.
The shout facing the sea, among the rocks,
running free, mad, in the sea-spray.
The sad rage, the shout, the solitude of the sea.
Headlong, violent, stretched towards the sky.
You, woman, what were you there, what ray, what vane
of that immense fan? You were as far as you are now.
Fire in the forest! Burn in blue crosses.
Burn, burn, flame up, sparkle in trees of light.
It collapses, crackling. Fire. Fire.
And my soul dances, seared with curls of fire.
Who calls? What silence peopled with echoes?
Hour of nostalgia, hour of happiness, hour of solitude.
Hour that is mine from among them all!
Megaphone in which the wind passes singing.
Such a passion of weeping tied to my body.
Shaking of all the roots,
attack of all the waves!
My soul wandered, happy, sad, unending.
Thinking, burying lamps in the deep solitude.
Who are you, who are you?
14.4k
oh honey ****
pen and ink **** star warrior
pretty little manga girl
twinkle wisp
with kung fu throwing stars
and triple steel samurai sword
that tear through others
made of pink taffy
and cherry juice fizz blood
moving like lightening
a flying gladiator
with dripping sweet rice
and tapioca milk shake *******
oh
you would taste so good to drink
out of a swirling sherbet punch bowl
with big blow job star goldfish
and hungry pink ***** lips octopus
drooling
sit on your face suckers
oh, fighter of one-legged midgets
the best part after a fresh ****
victory ****
to go down on them
their loli pop *****
butter ***** beautiful
springing through the top of your skull
cause you can't get enough
oh wow
happy hello kitty
***** plump plops
viscous
before the coup de grâce
as she twirls their chewing gum gizzards
with her little swizzle tongue
goo ga licious
before placing
what's left of their hose like glistening entrails
around her throat like a pearl necklace
only to get strangled with it
by double **** UFO boy
solar ******* hero of the universe
so hard
she spurts pineapple juice and *** donuts
out of pucker pie ****
**** banged cross eyed
like little girl manga never felt so good
addicted to cruel
whipped with a hella wet noodle
yes no yes no yes no
yes pleazzz
her big blue marble glass eyes
binocular kaleidoscopes
spring out on the floor
and roll around
turning into all seeing
anti-gravity magnetized
silver pin stripped spaceships
peopled by
evil omni ****** **** *****
screaming through eternity
in search of cosmic
tushi sushi
ogling wiggling ballerina butts
bubble gum for the eyeballs
Mar 10, 2017
Mar 10, 2017 at 3:36 PM UTC
she’s the girl who sets a room on fire with laughs or real flame,
and she stands in that same flame; ranting about herself
with blissful intention:
aries.
she’s the girl who mows the lawn all day to throw a memorable party
on perfectly pitched grass; but then spends the entire party
with that one guy on that one roof, just the two of them:
taurus.
she’s the girl who ***** you fiercest only to then display sudden and
crippling bouts of madness; she’s one of a kind, or two of a kind,
and she means some kind of love:
gemini.
she’s the girl who you fall for so easily, and she falls for you so easily,
and everything is a dream; but a dream transforms, seasons transform,
and the peopled cities with them:
cancer.
she’s the girl who steals the show every time, and she leans on you
when she’s tired and lonely; she reads science fiction books
and tells you all the endings, strange planets fixtured in her dreams:
leo.
she’s the girl who thinks too much, drinks too much, and weighs you for all
your words; but words are her demise as she digs her arms deeper
into the dirt to catch that feeling:
virgo.
she’s the girl who piles a shrine of shiny occult objects and spools through
men like shiny other objects; she has a beautiful heart, holy or not,
but without a doubt, entirely stylish:
libra.
she’s the girl who doesn't believe a ******* thing you say but kisses you
harder when you say it; she takes you up the hill to her folks
and they sacrifice you for blood mana:
scorpio.
she’s the girl who knows you best and knows even better she’s far beyond
the depths of your league; she has deafening dreams, with or without
you in them; for ruins she will climb or create:
sagittarius.
she’s the girl who buys the popcorn and eats the popcorn and sulks on
the couch while tonguing kernels out of her teeth; she will never
truly love you, just the idea of you:
capricorn.
she’s the girl who saves your life with a tracheotomy when you nearly die
on that plum street seed; she will leave you for a another man, a man
with a good rifle and a warm little tent:
aquarius.
she’s the girl who sees synchronicity in all things, all life, all dreams
and emanations; she will love you until the smell of mexico drags her
away upon a neverending weekend:
pisces.
Dec 9, 2014
Dec 9, 2014 at 6:38 AM UTC
I once struck a man in anger, with a small statuette.
I dropped it to the floor as he fell, too, and watched the blood flow from his head.
Though as I gazed at the pool of crimson and began to realize what I had done,
I felt a snap and saw a vision:
I saw every drop of his blood.
It was inside his body, flowing, coursing, full of life and giving life.
He grew to raise a family, love his wife, and love his kids.
He helped his coworkers and encouraged them.
He donated to charities, and those charities helped many.
Some of those many improved their lives and helped many more.
As his sons, daughters, wife, and coworkers also were given life by him and gave life,
I saw his blood flow into their veins and spread, infecting countless others with love.
Houses filled with light and laughter
Streets were peopled by happy beings.
A woman comforted a girl in the loss of a friend, holding the sobbing face to her caring chest.
A poor man gave his only coat to a cold orphan boy on the curb, smiling through weathered lips.
I saw all this life,
And it was an ocean.
A flash of light and sound, and I saw another vision:
I saw every drop of his blood.
It was outside his body, flowing, coursing, void of life and stealing life.
As it touched me, I joined it as blood, boiling and bubbling with hate.
As our blood ran down the busy metropolis street of life, it would touch people it came across.
When it did so, they would melt also into a mass of red, splashing outward, and infecting others.
Everyone touched would gasp and turn to scarlet, turning the shop-lined street into a river of blood.
Countless lives were consumed in this manner.
At one point, I finally pooled at the bottom of the street, and stared back from where I came.
The street was now dark and desolate, the bustling life gone.
The shops empty, the skies grey, the ground littered.
A finch plucked strands from a red-stained straw hat, to make a bed of death.
A mangy alley dog lapped up the blood that still coated the street, becoming only more hideous.
And all was quiet, and I was utterly alone, but for the screams of their blood in my ears.
I saw all this death,
And it was an ocean.
A jolt, and I opened my eyes.
I found myself staring at the blood running from the man’s head in front of me.
A few seconds later and I realized again what I had done.
But I realized something else as well.
I tore my shirt and tightly wrapped his head in the cloth.
I lifted him up and took him to the hospital.
There I sat and awaited my punishment.
And took joy in life.
Mar 15, 2012
Mar 15, 2012 at 12:10 PM UTC
Where are you Paul?
I'm in Cyberspace Mum.
My Pentium processor has broadbanded me
Into this wondrous realm.
A pixel powered virtual landscape
Peopled by avatars
Speaking Internet Slang.
FFS, *** are you talking about?
She asks.
In so many words.
I **** and ROFL at her incredulity.
It’s full of danger, that Internet, says Mum.
That’s true.
It’s full of paedophiles,
Spammers and trolls.
Hackers.
Chat-rooms and forums
Plagued by flame-wars
And spam enough to fill a trillion tins.
Sites full of viruses, Trojans, malware and spyware.
Cyber-bullies and loons abound.
But I just Love it.
A ****** addiction
Needing every fix.
A realm indeed of quantum singularities,
And imploding nebulae.
Paul Butters
(C) PB 3\9\2011 in Yorkshire.
Sep 5, 2011
Sep 5, 2011 at 11:09 AM UTC
Nostradamus and sleeping prophet's One lost image of the singular Eye
Re(ad(d): No worry
To, Love Our Sun :).
Signs like Gemini is to air
Sagittarius is to fire a pair
in this crossing with Pisces
to water is Virgo for earth
too We are the mutable ones!!
Sunny is however we coin the calling spiraling too
EYE of the One generation transmutable souls of soil ARE
to earth; 'hues EYED like a butterfly, here to sample many flowers
connected within a Great Spirit invoked as in wilds if peopled or things'!!!
We do feel it within or without the actual considerations of the ultimate doings;
'letting go and taking the risk of trusting and depending on another'!!! One by one!!! :)
EYE of humus hued in spirit and love fused to the stone's twirling and of the ruse's tolling
So many of paths we traverse here as on earth the singular EYE knows out on the HORIZON
The great Eye is too glued on Sunny Sun's ever evolving viewing's as hued spirits cross EYE'S
Our blinded one eye's longing to Lyra's lyre, great musician Orpheus winging, whose W
music tamed wild beasts, caused rivers to stop flowing and enchanted even gates S
to the Lord of the Dead Hades, the softly lit fire singing inside linking heaven A
to earth viewed from outsider's hues waxing and waning of sleep wakened I N
so ode to the moon in the darkness of night gives but who takes her softer F USED
delight when One day halves by sun setting all ebbs in flowing as tides B I
to Great oceans moved like hearts breathe air to presence's emoting STAR'S
from magic to tragic we long of ecliptic traces cryptically erasing W
the blindness of memory and sight' majestic beast's floundering I
a forever crisscrossed from the One Eye here now to Knight's N
dear lost forbidden inner retreats from the East to God's lost 'S
children cast out to the land from blood pooling in spoils O
as easily uncovered as readily as new western lands had ~/ E \~ N
claim maddened ravaged savagely eagerly discovered ~(:YES :)~ G
fear still rocks this boat with hope still sailing onward (:FORGIVEN:). 'S
Oct 8, 2012
Oct 8, 2012 at 7:52 PM UTC
Last weekend was “Parent’s” weekend at Yale. A time when parents are formally invited to visit. They have receptions and other events - but no potato-sack races (which is disappointing). My parents couldn’t come, they’ve never come to parent’s weekend, but Leong’s parents came again, from Macao, China, a 16,060-mile round trip.
There was a time when boys could tank my self-confidence with a word. When the male gaze seemed overpowering. I’d felt constantly evaluated - but I’ve evolved - somewhat. We’re going to a party. Lisa, Leong, Sunny, Anna and I - we’ve got our shine on and we’re drawing looks. Well, ok, Lisa’s drawing looks and I’m in the general frame.
Lisa sneezed, “The air quality’s bad tonight,” she announced, wiping her nose with a Kleenex.
“I don’t have any allergies,” I bragged. “Me neither,” Leong added.
“If you can breathe the air in China,” I said, “You’re golden.”
Leong laughed “Tài zhēnshí liǎo,” (Too true!) She agreed.
As we left the more street-lit part of the path, the moon, wandering in and out of the clouds, created moving shadows that peopled the darkness with phantoms. Was that impression the paranoia of fatigue? I haven’t been getting much sleep lately. Or maybe it’s October and Halloween’s just around the corner.
I was walking in the rear, nestled in the mingled scents of my roommates' perfumes that, like rare blossoms, enchanted and excited the child in me. I wasn’t paying attention, and I stubbed my toe on a misaligned sidewalk tile. Don’t you hate the gap between stubbing your toe and feeling the pain?
Oct 11, 2023
Oct 11, 2023 at 8:15 PM UTC
Lo! where the rosy-bosomed Hours,
Fair Venus’ train, appear,
Disclose the long-expecting flowers,
And wake the purple year!
The Attic warbler pours her throat,
Responsive to the cuckoo’s note,
The untaught harmony of spring:
While, whisp’ring pleasure as they fly,
Cool Zephyrs thro’ the clear blue sky
Their gathered fragrance fling.
Where’er the oak’s thick branches stretch
A broader browner shade,
Where’er the rude and moss-grown beech
O’er-canopies the glade,
Beside some water’s rushy brink
With me the Muse shall sit, and think
(At ease reclined in rustic state)
How vain the ardour of the Crowd,
How low, how little are the Proud,
How indigent the Great!
Still is the toiling hand of Care;
The panting herds repose:
Yet hark, how through the peopled air
The busy murmur glows!
The insect-youth are on the wing,
Eager to taste the honied spring
And float amid the liquid noon:
Some lightly o’er the current skim,
Some show their gayly-gilded trim
Quick-glancing to the sun.
To Contemplation’s sober eye
Such is the race of Man:
And they that creep, and they that fly,
Shall end where they began.
Alike the Busy and the Gay
But flutter thro’ life’s little day,
In Fortune’s varying colours drest:
Brushed by the hand of rough Mischance,
Or chilled by Age, their airy dance
They leave, in dust to rest.
Methinks I hear, in accents low,
The sportive kind reply:
Poor moralist! and what art thou?
A solitary fly!
Thy joys no glittering female meets,
No hive hast thou of hoarded sweets,
No painted plumage to display:
On hasty wings thy youth is flown;
Thy sun is set, thy spring is gone—
We frolic while ’tis May.
3.1k
Can we believe -- by an effort
comfort our hearts:
it is not waste all this,
not placed here in disgust,
street after street,
each patterned alike,
no grace to lighten
a single house of the hundred
crowded into one garden-space.
Crowded -- can we believe,
not in utter disgust,
in ironical play --
but the maker of cities grew faint
with the beauty of temple
and space before temple,
arch upon perfect arch,
of pillars and corridors that led out
to strange court-yards and porches
where sun-light stamped
hyacinth-shadows
black on the pavement.
That the maker of cities grew faint
with the splendour of palaces,
paused while the incense-flowers
from the incense-trees
dropped on the marble-walk,
thought anew, fashioned this --
street after street alike.
For alas,
he had crowded the city so full
that men could not grasp beauty,
beauty was over them,
through them, about them,
no crevice unpacked with the honey,
rare, measureless.
So he built a new city,
ah can we believe, not ironically
but for new splendour
constructed new people
to lift through slow growth
to a beauty unrivalled yet --
and created new cells,
hideous first, hideous now --
spread larve across them,
not honey but seething life.
And in these dark cells,
packed street after street,
souls live, hideous yet --
O disfigured, defaced,
with no trace of the beauty
men once held so light.
Can we think a few old cells
were left -- we are left --
grains of honey,
old dust of stray pollen
dull on our torn wings,
we are left to recall the old streets?
Is our task the less sweet
that the larve still sleep in their cells?
Or crawl out to attack our frail strength:
You are useless. We live.
We await great events.
We are spread through this earth.
We protect our strong race.
You are useless.
Your cell takes the place
of our young future strength.
Though they sleep or wake to torment
and wish to displace our old cells --
thin rare gold --
that their larve grow fat --
is our task the less sweet?
Though we wander about,
find no honey of flowers in this waste,
is our task the less sweet --
who recall the old splendour,
await the new beauty of cities?
The city is peopled
with spirits, not ghosts, O my love:
Though they crowded between
and usurped the kiss of my mouth
their breath was your gift,
their beauty, your life.
2.9k
From my rented attic with no earth
To call my own except the air-motes,
I malign the leaden perspective
Of identical gray brick houses,
Orange roof-tiles, orange chimney pots,
And see that first house, as if between
Mirrors, engendering a spectral
Corridor of inane replicas,
Flimsily peopled.
But landowners
Own thier cabbage roots, a space of stars,
Indigenous peace. Such substance makes
My eyeful of reflections a ghost's
Eyeful, which, envious,would define
Death as striking root on one land-tract;
Life, its own vaporous wayfarings.
2.9k
One day I found myself in Paradise,
Completely out the blue.
I don’t recall a warning:
From nothing I emerged.
Into a new dimensional realm
I sprang:
Into a world so lost in vastness
Of space and time.
Somewhere out there
In the outer reaches
Of an obscure universe.
A planet full of life,
Of sweeping oceans
And towering mounts.
A place so beautiful,
Beyond compare.
All peopled by
Multi-coloured multitudes
Of sentient beings.
To where had I escaped?
You may well ask.
The loveliest world of all,
Of course.
A heaven of the heavens:
Our planet Earth.
May 25, 2014
May 25, 2014 at 8:32 AM UTC
~~~
out of an arid ocean
You came up
hoary with barnacles
grey with skin
a spray of stars erupted
startled . awash
against its own night
and down again You go
to know the
mating of tendrils
the killing planes of seashores
the antiquities of the sun
were we there once?
in the phosphor seasons
we played with You
as You are even then
so self contained we found
no need to surrender
to the patient
winds of change
now You echo in
strange meridians
storming Your gusts
in far off topography
Your great tail
sings its starlight way
homing to its thunder
~~~
they came
oh, yes, they came
to harvest Your virtues
their decks slick
with Your blood
crimson stains ugly with lucre
their forest of masts
peopled by
Your ghosts
sing ! O leviathan ! sing
lift Your voice and
bellow to us
of Your lost pods
Your wonderful oceans
Your salty maternity
*Your
song
is
heard
by
GOD*
(c) soulsurvivor
Nov 5, 2014
Nov 5, 2014 at 6:04 AM UTC
The pale, the cold, and the moony smile
Which the meteor beam of a starless night
Sheds on a lonely and sea-girt isle,
Ere the dawning of morn’s undoubted light,
Is the flame of life so fickle and wan
That flits round our steps till their strength is gone.
O man! hold thee on in courage of soul
Through the stormy shades of thy wordly way,
And the billows of clouds that around thee roll
Shall sleep in the light of a wondrous day,
Where hell and heaven shall leave thee free
To the universe of destiny.
This world is the nurse of all we know,
This world is the mother of all we feel,
And the coming of death is a fearful blow
To a brain unencompass’d by nerves of steel:
When all that we know, or feel, or see,
Shall pass like an unreal mystery.
The secret things of the grave are there,
Where all but this frame must surely be,
Though the fine-wrought eye and the wondrous ear
No longer will live, to hear or to see
All that is great and all that is strange
In the boundless realm of unending change.
Who telleth a tale of unspeaking death?
Who lifteth the veil of what is to come?
Who painteth the shadows that are beneath
The wide-winding caves of the peopled tomb?
Or uniteth the hopes of what shall be
With the fears and the love for that which we see?
2.5k
Lo, the drunken ordinance of light through
stained glass, lest to rehash the peopled
white of infinity.
Reach...with what folding passion second
guesses the labor of its love...the warm
footfalls of the sun overlaying the intricacy
of a snowflake...as captions of bone
dissolving upon the motion picture.
Perpetually opening seasons enamored
directionless...cancellation and activation
which is The Spark upon dark...striations
of dreams upon the gyres of galaxies.
Proofs positive of palpable breath, given
and taken in gloried passage.
The cloistered ghost gifted the laughability
of its cloister.
A polish fit for heresy...listen to the
crystalline structure as it bats its eyelashes.
Oct 11, 2014
Oct 11, 2014 at 10:27 AM UTC
My soul is an enchanted boat,
Which, like a sleeping swan, doth float
Upon the silver waves of thy sweet singing;
And thine doth like an angel sit
Beside a helm conducting it,
Whilst all the winds with melody are ringing.
It seems to float ever, for ever,
Upon that many-winding river,
Between mountains, woods, abysses,
A paradise of wildernesses!
Till, like one in slumber bound,
Borne to the ocean, I float down, around,
Into a sea profound, of ever-spreading sound:
Meanwhile thy spirit lifts its pinions
In music’s most serene dominions;
Catching the winds that fan that happy heaven.
And we sail on, away, afar,
Without a course, without a star,
But, by the instinct of sweet music driven;
Till through Elysian garden islets
By thee, most beautiful of pilots,
Where never mortal pinnace glided,
The boat of my desire is guided:
Realms where the air we breathe is love,
Which in the winds and on the waves doth move,
Harmonizing this earth with what we feel above.
We have past Age’s icy caves,
And Manhood’s dark and tossing waves,
And Youth’s smooth ocean, smiling to betray:
Beyond the glassy gulfs we flee
Of shadow-peopled Infancy,
Through Death and Birth, to a diviner day;
A paradise of vaulted bowers,
Lit by downward-gazing flowers,
And watery paths that wind between
Wildernesses calm and green,
Peopled by shapes too bright to see,
And rest, having beheld; somewhat like thee;
Which walk upon the sea, and chant melodiously!
2.5k
Past ruined Ilion Helen lives,
Alcestis rises from the shades.
Verse calls them forth; 'tis verse that gives
Immortal youth to mortal maids.
Soon shall oblivion's deepening veil
Hide all the peopled hills you see,
The gay, the proud, while lovers hail
These many summers you and me.
2.1k
Eliza! what fools are the Mussulman sect,
Who, to woman, deny the soul’s future existence;
Could they see thee, Eliza! they’d own their defect,
And this doctrine would meet with a general resistance.
Had their Prophet possess’d half an atom of sense,
He ne’er would have woman from Paradise driven;
Instead of his Houris, a flimsy pretence,
With woman alone he had peopled his Heaven.
Yet, still, to increase your calamities more,
Not content with depriving your bodies of spirit,
He allots one poor husband to share amongst four!—
With souls you’d dispense; but, this last, who could bear it?
His religion to please neither party is made;
On husbands ’tis hard, to the wives most uncivil;
Still I can’t contradict, what so oft has been said,
“Though women are angels, yet wedlock’s the devil.”
This terrible truth, even Scripture has told,
Ye Benedicks! hear me, and listen with rapture;
If a glimpse of redemption you wish to behold,
Of ST. MATT.—read the second and twentieth chapter.
’Tis surely enough upon earth to be vex’d,
With wives who eternal confusion are spreading;
“But in Heaven” (so runs the Evangelists’ Text)
“We neither have giving in marriage, or wedding.”
From this we suppose, (as indeed well we may,)
That should Saints after death, with their spouses put up more,
And wives, as in life, aim at absolute sway,
All Heaven would ring with the conjugal uproar.
Distraction and Discord would follow in course,
Nor MATTHEW, nor MARK, nor ST. PAUL, can deny it,
The only expedient is general divorce,
To prevent universal disturbance and riot.
But though husband and wife, shall at length be disjoin’d,
Yet woman and man ne’er were meant to dissever,
Our chains once dissolv’d, and our hearts unconfin’d,
We’ll love without bonds, but we’ll love you for ever.
Though souls are denied you by fools and by rakes,
Should you own it yourselves, I would even then doubt you,
Your nature so much of celestial partakes,
The Garden of Eden would wither without you.
1.8k
Every child of ten knows
the universe is a jagged shape
edged by home and park
and school and market -
at least that’s the way I knew it
and all the world’s kids
went to McKinley school
and everyone's dad
worked at Lincoln Park Tool
while mother stayed at home.
So my entire universe
was shaken to shards
when father broke news
that we soon would be moving
to a distant galaxy
a dozen miles away -
entirely peopled by aliens.
Well it wasn’t so bleak after all -
my brother and little sister
were allowed to come with us
and we kept the same grandparents too.
New friends popped up everywhere
like rainbows of tulips in May.
The house was fresh and new
but seriously lacked a lawn.
so a rusty old truck rumbled up
and dumped us a mountain of soil.
Seizing the obvious challenge,
I put a shovel to its intended use -
moving and spreading non-stop
until Mom called us to dinner
then went back and shoveled ‘til dark.
The pile was nearly leveled
by afternoon next as
Dad turned his fifty-three Ford
into our driveway -
hitting the horn to call me over,
“Son I need your help.”
Dropping my shovel
I sped to the open trunk
and stared in disbelief.
In an ecstatic yelp
produced only by ten year old boys
I circled Dad's waist with my arms,
then gratefully unloaded
the best yellow scooter
in this or any other galaxy.
September, 2008
Mar 7, 2015
Mar 7, 2015 at 1:54 AM UTC
1
we ran outside
gathering the hailstones
before they could return
to rain
2
spring thunder storms
refreshed the
runoff ponds
the spring peepers
chorus chirps
3
soon, to be Indra, Lord of Heaven,
the God of War as well as Storms and Rainfall,
starter of war
a war which shall engulf
the planet and
perish all
4
in solid,
ice
which shall melt
and drown the littoral lands
lands peopled in the
billions
and so shall follow
disease plague typhus dysentery
death
in its many shapes and sizes
5
in drops
flows from your eye
6
according to religion
holy water
May 11, 2012
May 11, 2012 at 10:27 AM UTC
What if,
the moon and stars appeared on sunny skies
well, i've seen God's wisdom, they're fine the
way they are, their time, their distance, their
glittering presence.....their habit of twinkling
at night, not day, is justified, they're lovelier
more dazzling on a darker blue sky.....i gaze
at them in awe, no words uttered...just sighs.
also, i've
seen God's wisdom about life's many roads.
i'm fine, i have survived......earthly existence
is decked with many paths........busy, or less
traveled...always lead to new ones, after the
other, then to another......life goes on.......it's
where, it's when, the day's challenges start.
so....
i leave the house...start my daily trek in life
prioritizing familial and personal errands
i walk right to the corner.....to where noisy
turkeys turn so red, when i get close to the
fence...to my left, the open road.....peopled
noisy...busy, humming with activities...my
connection to the world outside the village
rain or shine, day or night, if i need to hear
breaths of life...of noise, a tad of change in
atmosphere, cups of good coffee, a bowl of
soup and crackers, bond with good friends
bond with my Creator in a nearby church.
when
not too tired...i retrace my way back home.
God guides me....through long and faded
red unscrubbed sidewalks, grasping mossy
fences, lest i fall on slippery concrete...lest
i miss my quiet, my sacred space for good.
it's
never easy, finding God's wisdom, in pain
and suffering.......yet after each road taken
i gaze at the dark blue sky.....tell the moon
and quivering stars................"i'll be fine."
Sally
Copyright October 18, 2017
rrab
Oct 17, 2017
Oct 17, 2017 at 8:02 AM UTC
It's the Spring.
Earth has conceived, and her *****
Teeming with summer, is glad.
Vistas of change and adventure,
Thro' the green land
The grey roads go beckoning and winding,
Peopled with wains, and melodious
With harness-bells jangling:
Jangling and twangling rough rhythms
To the slow march of the stately, great horses
Whistled and shouted along.
White fleets of cloud,
Argosies heavy with fruitfulness,
Sail the blue peacefully. Green flame the hedgerows.
Blackbirds are bugling, and white in wet winds
Sway the tall poplars.
Pageants of colour and fragrance,
Pass the sweet meadows, and viewless
Walks the mild spirit of May,
Visibly blessing the world.
O, the brilliance of blossoming orchards!
O, the savour and thrill of the woods,
When their leafage is stirred
By the flight of the Angel of Rain!
Loud lows the steer; in the fallows
Rooks are alert; and the brooks
Gurgle and ****** and trill. Thro' the gloamings,
Under the rare, shy stars,
Boy and girl wander,
Dreaming in darkness and dew.
It's the Spring.
A sprightliness feeble and squalid
Wakes in the ward, and I sicken,
Impotent, winter at heart.
1.4k
When I was a young man
A heedless headlong consumer of life, was I
Above and beyond the norm or necessity
I wore paths deep and wide
To the pleasure centres of my brain
And I rode my soul like an easy *****
Oh happy daze of hedonism
How sweet life tasted then
If there was drink to drink
We drank it
If there were songs to sing
We sang them
If there were fights to fight
We fought them
We had fast feet and faster wits
If there was hell to raise
We raised it
Excess and adventure in equal parts
How fast, how high we flew back then
And then the magic playground
Became a bleak and dangerous place
Peopled by predators and prey
In an ever changing food chain
And I was only one step away
From the totally oblivious
One brain cell ahead of
The permanent reality challenged
Then friends began casually dying
Barely noticed in the rush to join them
Now the race is on
And I have grown old and slow
By Phil Roberts
Nov 30, 2017
Nov 30, 2017 at 12:49 PM UTC
Senlin, walking before us in the sunlight,
Bending his small legs in a peculiar way,
Goes to his work with thoughts of the universe.
His hands are in his pockets, he smokes his pipe,
He is happily conscious of roofs and skies;
And, without turning his head, he turns his eyes
To regard white horses drawing a small white hearse.
The sky is brilliant between the roofs,
The windows flash in the yellow sun,
On the hard pavement ring the hoofs,
The light wheels softly run.
Bright particles of sunlight fall,
Quiver and flash, gyrate and burn,
Honey-like heat flows down the wall,
The white spokes dazzle and turn.
Senlin, walking before us in the sunlight,
Regards the hearse with an introspective eye.
'Is it my childhood there,' he asks,
'Sealed in a hearse and hurrying by?'
He taps his trowel against a stone;
The trowel sings with a silver tone.
'Nevertheless I know this well.
Bury it deep and toll a bell,
Bury it under land or sea,
You cannot bury it save in me.'
It is as if his soul had become a city,
With noisily peopled streets, and through these streets
Senlin himself comes driving a small white hearse . . .
'Senlin!' we cry. He does not turn his head.
But is that Senlin?--Or is this city Senlin,--
Quietly watching the burial of the dead?
Dumbly observing the cortege of its dead?
Yet we would say that all this is but madness:
Around a distant corner trots the hearse.
And Senlin walks before us in the sunlight
Happily conscious of his universe.
1.3k
I have run down
broken stairs,
I have twisted
inside
twisted showers,
bent backwards
on five-fingered clocks,
in the fray
I rumbled
with a spider
of a woman
as she crawled on eight legs
over my sternum
to my lips,
at the top of the bridge of the world,
the world
turned
rightside
up
and the sky
was peopled by
clouds the size
of goldfish,
and the sun
was a dappling bowl
in which people put their
hands
to wash them of pain,
and so the world was all right,
but I couldn't handle
so much happiness,
none of the other
fish
looked like you,
even as I looked up
out of my
apartment
made of jenga blocks,
so I travelled back down
the twisted
showers,
broken
stairs,
and over the underbelly
of the bridge,
until I held you in my arms;
your tiny body
whole to me again,
I could touch the sky
when I touched your body
and told you to call me
whenever you needed me,
but you walked away,
and so I returned
to that hell
of perfection.
I hate living in the sky,
the ocean where the fish
look all the same
and there are no real clouds
to speak of.
I hate taking twisted showers,
and rumbling with spider-women,
I hate bridges that bridge
worlds.
Firstly, I hate love,
Secondly, I hate heartbreak,
Thirdly, I can't live without those two things.
Mar 1, 2012
Mar 1, 2012 at 8:50 AM UTC