"periscopes" poems - Hello Poetry

All that I owe the fellows of the grave And all the dead bequeathed from pale estates Lies in the fortuned bone, the flask of blood, Like senna stirs along the ravaged roots. O all I owe is all the flesh inherits, My fathers' loves that pull upon my nerves, My sisters tears that sing upon my head My brothers' blood that salts my open wounds Heir to the scalding veins that hold love's drop, My fallen filled, that had the hint of death, Heir to the telling senses that alone Acquaint the flesh with a remembered itch, I round this heritage as rounds the sun His windy sky, and, as the candles moon, Cast light upon my weather. I am heir To women who have twisted their last smile, To children who were suckled on a plague, To young adorers dying on a kiss. All such disease I doctor in my blood, And all such love's a shrub sown in the breath. Then look, my eyes, upon this bonehead fortune And browse upon the postures of the dead; All night and day I eye the ragged globe Through periscopes rightsighted from the grave; All night and day I wander in these same Wax clothes that wax upon the aging ribs; All night my fortune slumbers in its sheet. Then look, my heart, upon the scarlet trove, And look, my grain, upon the falling wheat; All night my fortune slumbers in its sheet.

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Dylan Thomas

All That I Owe The Fellows Of The Grave

All that I owe the fellows of the grave And all the dead bequeathed from pale estates Lies in the fortuned bone, the flask of blood, Like senna stirs along the ravaged roots. O all I owe is all the flesh inherits, My fathers' loves that pull upon my nerves, My sisters tears that sing upon my head My brothers' blood that salts my open wounds Heir to the scalding veins that hold love's drop, My fallen filled, that had the hint of death, Heir to the telling senses that alone Acquaint the flesh with a remembered itch, I round this heritage as rounds the sun His windy sky, and, as the candles moon, Cast light upon my weather. I am heir To women who have twisted their last smile, To children who were suckled on a plague, To young adorers dying on a kiss. All such disease I doctor in my blood, And all such love's a shrub sown in the breath. Then look, my eyes, upon this bonehead fortune And browse upon the postures of the dead; All night and day I eye the ragged globe Through periscopes rightsighted from the grave; All night and day I wander in these same Wax clothes that wax upon the aging ribs; All night my fortune slumbers in its sheet. Then look, my heart, upon the scarlet trove, And look, my grain, upon the falling wheat; All night my fortune slumbers in its sheet.

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I imagine you cradled inside the wing of your rocket ship, vacuum sealed, sheltered from the noise of solar wind. Remembering our goodbye at the launch-pad Creases the aging skin around your eyes. Tears, weightless and buoyant, Collide with the sputtering, decrepit valves and cogs tracking your orbit through Saturn’s dust. You bottle them in mason jars, capture each one on fading fingertips like paper white snowflakes, Sealing them inside with aluminum twist caps. You fill each one and let them clutter the windows like drunken periscopes. If I could shine a flashlight through these memory telescopes, black and white 1920s movies would reel cracked turtle shells on the highway, Four rabbits, their intestines spoiling on mowed grass, Synonyms for “stupid” piercing into heart with arrowhead. You curl tighter into the spacecraft, Breathing uncontrollably, painfully. Canines cut into tongue to suppress sobs. Folding over naval, knees to forehead, The gravity of surrounding, misplaced moons pulls you to collision with an asteroid.

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Nov 5, 2015

Nov 5, 2015 at 6:22 PM UTC

elizabeth-o

My Mother Crying in a Spaceship Orbiting Saturn

I imagine you cradled inside the wing of your rocket ship, vacuum sealed, sheltered from the noise of solar wind. Remembering our goodbye at the launch-pad Creases the aging skin around your eyes. Tears, weightless and buoyant, Collide with the sputtering, decrepit valves and cogs tracking your orbit through Saturn’s dust. You bottle them in mason jars, capture each one on fading fingertips like paper white snowflakes, Sealing them inside with aluminum twist caps. You fill each one and let them clutter the windows like drunken periscopes. If I could shine a flashlight through these memory telescopes, black and white 1920s movies would reel cracked turtle shells on the highway, Four rabbits, their intestines spoiling on mowed grass, Synonyms for “stupid” piercing into heart with arrowhead. You curl tighter into the spacecraft, Breathing uncontrollably, painfully. Canines cut into tongue to suppress sobs. Folding over naval, knees to forehead, The gravity of surrounding, misplaced moons pulls you to collision with an asteroid.

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the gentle roll of linoleum wheels cellophane crumbling under busy fingers injured legs and bruised egos hobbling up onto electric motors plastic temptation oozes in the hollow linear formations of children and wives amble downward each man shelters himself behind his own dishonesty millennium passes in view of the black, hanging periscopes beyond the doors, they stagger inward dragging pity on a chain which stretches clear to the highway hungry dogs trot along in their wake fragrance of fresh meat lingers in the air

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Aug 4, 2011

Aug 4, 2011 at 8:01 PM UTC

jmartinez

Retail Doldroms

the gentle roll of linoleum wheels cellophane crumbling under busy fingers injured legs and bruised egos hobbling up onto electric motors plastic temptation oozes in the hollow linear formations of children and wives amble downward each man shelters himself behind his own dishonesty millennium passes in view of the black, hanging periscopes beyond the doors, they stagger inward dragging pity on a chain which stretches clear to the highway hungry dogs trot along in their wake fragrance of fresh meat lingers in the air

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I walked the cedar trails of Morse Mountain Yesterday, solemn knowledge in my bones, And blanketed grief beneath a certain Old Slippery Elm. His branches reached stones I used to throw with my father, before Cancer stole from generations like leaves Windswept while green, what we try to ignore. Acceptance blooms like rubra flowers — ease My troubled skin, and give me quiet hope In the form of vibrant cardinal trills. My spine turns to paper. Grand periscopes Of things revealed as my brittle roots still: Creation comes in cyclical stages — What small joys will be made from my pages.

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Mar 8, 2015

Mar 8, 2015 at 12:14 AM UTC

emily-schumann

What We Leave

I walked the cedar trails of Morse Mountain Yesterday, solemn knowledge in my bones, And blanketed grief beneath a certain Old Slippery Elm. His branches reached stones I used to throw with my father, before Cancer stole from generations like leaves Windswept while green, what we try to ignore. Acceptance blooms like rubra flowers — ease My troubled skin, and give me quiet hope In the form of vibrant cardinal trills. My spine turns to paper. Grand periscopes Of things revealed as my brittle roots still: Creation comes in cyclical stages — What small joys will be made from my pages.

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When the sound of life is anything before the music begins before there is time to listen; when a child coughs in the next room I wake carefully, pressing an ear to the last beat of a dream, and find: you're not here now and you’re not in the next room. Carriages of wind move past my window move disturbance above the pool of a tortoise who periscopes to the surface, expectant, in the least, for a gulp of air. I swim and sweat somewhere beneath my bedroom ceiling somewhere beneath the air I prefer to breath. But your not here now and you’re not in the next room. When children sleep in the afternoon when grey breezes whisper away the sun, when an avalanche of crow-call murders the dove perched on my sill, there is nothing and none to tell and no circumstance worth repeating at a later time. You’re not here now. You’re not in the next room. MChallis © 1998/2015

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Aug 24, 2015

Aug 24, 2015 at 8:12 PM UTC

martin-challis

the sound of life is anything

When the sound of life is anything before the music begins before there is time to listen; when a child coughs in the next room I wake carefully, pressing an ear to the last beat of a dream, and find: you're not here now and you’re not in the next room. Carriages of wind move past my window move disturbance above the pool of a tortoise who periscopes to the surface, expectant, in the least, for a gulp of air. I swim and sweat somewhere beneath my bedroom ceiling somewhere beneath the air I prefer to breath. But your not here now and you’re not in the next room. When children sleep in the afternoon when grey breezes whisper away the sun, when an avalanche of crow-call murders the dove perched on my sill, there is nothing and none to tell and no circumstance worth repeating at a later time. You’re not here now. You’re not in the next room. MChallis © 1998/2015

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Lying on my side in bed Listening To the sporadic hum of air-conditioner Out of sight. Shuffling my legs under the covers Looking At filtered glow seeping through Soft, thin-veiled curtains Ethereal cobwebs dyed in silver. I cross the floor and part them Ever so slightly For the cold warmth to fall just upon The edge of the bed. Pillow-view periscopes From vantage point Blurred fluorescence Against expanse of night.

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Jun 29, 2013

Jun 29, 2013 at 10:23 PM UTC

clxrion

Companion

Lying on my side in bed Listening To the sporadic hum of air-conditioner Out of sight. Shuffling my legs under the covers Looking At filtered glow seeping through Soft, thin-veiled curtains Ethereal cobwebs dyed in silver. I cross the floor and part them Ever so slightly For the cold warmth to fall just upon The edge of the bed. Pillow-view periscopes From vantage point Blurred fluorescence Against expanse of night.

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Diminutive inherent, lost to all cost where thine bloodless are apparent. Individualist, laryngitis to spread the lasses pantomime mind in pallid peal revertists!!!!! Guillotine's to cut dreams where the wearer's don't do their jobs, No guideline's, His his nor hers, Just the impatient of informal mobs!!!!! Nuptial contracts, Some go forward, Others move back for their dreamists of Escapist's, Slavists, To ordainists!!!! What a morn to waken to, Ourselves are now, tomorrow's Now, yesterdays you!!! Periscopes swoped of pervading snippets, Gas to wettened grass, Cool it's to gas-leaked whipits!! Sorties of emotional spate, Youngest of lovers split, I still haven't a date!!!!!! Terrestrial angelic one, for where art thou sanhedrin prints? Where heavenly carpets line your drive........ Where thine words are frankincense , Where your satisfying to high drug mind!!! Thoroughfare to GOD , Where's thine throttled chariot? Where glider's art heavensent, And undaunted soldiers do protect you.....

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May 13, 2015

May 13, 2015 at 6:33 PM UTC

brandon-nagley

thouroughfare to god.....

Diminutive inherent, lost to all cost where thine bloodless are apparent. Individualist, laryngitis to spread the lasses pantomime mind in pallid peal revertists!!!!! Guillotine's to cut dreams where the wearer's don't do their jobs, No guideline's, His his nor hers, Just the impatient of informal mobs!!!!! Nuptial contracts, Some go forward, Others move back for their dreamists of Escapist's, Slavists, To ordainists!!!! What a morn to waken to, Ourselves are now, tomorrow's Now, yesterdays you!!! Periscopes swoped of pervading snippets, Gas to wettened grass, Cool it's to gas-leaked whipits!! Sorties of emotional spate, Youngest of lovers split, I still haven't a date!!!!!! Terrestrial angelic one, for where art thou sanhedrin prints? Where heavenly carpets line your drive........ Where thine words are frankincense , Where your satisfying to high drug mind!!! Thoroughfare to GOD , Where's thine throttled chariot? Where glider's art heavensent, And undaunted soldiers do protect you.....

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I Will Connect Them I will connect them to the sun: let the gold run through her veins like liquid lava give his hair a soft, golden glow streak their cheeks with burning caresses stain the mother's brown eyes with molten shine, let it infiltrate her irises like a counter spy splatter the flowers in the field with a bright, inhuman gleam I will connect them to the stars: let them reflect in her eyes and her new diamond ring place them in the tears of a father whose sole reason for living, the star he called his own, has left to join the others of her kind place the shine among his midnight strands, hidden beneath shadow lend their light to the late night insomniac who roams Second Street, searching for beauty give their inspiration to the ink stained man without a muse, bandaged fingers tapping restlessly on the side of his coffee cup I will connect them to the sky: let the azure sweep over her glass-capped, personalized periscopes, and bend their pigment to match its own present the splashes of summer laughter to them in a cool, salty refreshment inspire them with fragmented hues and tease their soft spoken lips bleed the atmospheric tint into the petals of the rarest herb there is I will connect them to my creation. I will connect them though they see me not hear me not believe me not thank me not. I will connect them in hopes they may someday connect to me.

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Oct 28, 2015

Oct 28, 2015 at 11:02 AM UTC

xmxrgxncy

I Will Connect Them

I Will Connect Them I will connect them to the sun: let the gold run through her veins like liquid lava give his hair a soft, golden glow streak their cheeks with burning caresses stain the mother's brown eyes with molten shine, let it infiltrate her irises like a counter spy splatter the flowers in the field with a bright, inhuman gleam I will connect them to the stars: let them reflect in her eyes and her new diamond ring place them in the tears of a father whose sole reason for living, the star he called his own, has left to join the others of her kind place the shine among his midnight strands, hidden beneath shadow lend their light to the late night insomniac who roams Second Street, searching for beauty give their inspiration to the ink stained man without a muse, bandaged fingers tapping restlessly on the side of his coffee cup I will connect them to the sky: let the azure sweep over her glass-capped, personalized periscopes, and bend their pigment to match its own present the splashes of summer laughter to them in a cool, salty refreshment inspire them with fragmented hues and tease their soft spoken lips bleed the atmospheric tint into the petals of the rarest herb there is I will connect them to my creation. I will connect them though they see me not hear me not believe me not thank me not. I will connect them in hopes they may someday connect to me.

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I spy a sly one, one with the hidden agenda one who'll lend an ear and take two back. something beginning with N naughty? no, not nice? no, Norman Bates? could be but no. Up with the periscopes out with the telescopes homing in on something beginning with N.

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Jan 18, 2017

Jan 18, 2017 at 11:16 AM UTC

john-edward-smallshaw

Gamer

I spy a sly one, one with the hidden agenda one who'll lend an ear and take two back. something beginning with N naughty? no, not nice? no, Norman Bates? could be but no. Up with the periscopes out with the telescopes homing in on something beginning with N.

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