"plies" poems
219
She sweeps with many-colored Brooms—
And leaves the Shreds behind—
Oh Housewife in the Evening West—
Come back, and dust the Pond!
You dropped a Purple Ravelling in—
You dropped an Amber thread—
And how you’ve littered all the East
With duds of Emerald!
And still, she plies her spotted Brooms,
And still the Aprons fly,
Till Brooms fade softly into stars—
And then I come away—
4.6k
605
The Spider holds a Silver Ball
In unperceived Hands—
And dancing softly to Himself
His Yarn of Pearl—unwinds—
He plies from Nought to Nought—
In unsubstantial Trade—
Supplants our Tapestries with His—
In half the period—
An Hour to rear supreme
His Continents of Light—
Then dangle from the Housewife’s Broom—
His Boundaries—forgot—
4k
On Wenlock Edge the wood's in trouble;
His forest fleece the Wrekin heaves;
The gale, it plies the saplings double,
And thick on Severn snow the leaves.
'Twould blow like this through holt and hanger
When Uricon the city stood:
'Tis the old wind in the old anger,
But then it threshed another wood.
Then, 'twas before my time, the Roman
At yonder heaving hill would stare:
The blood that warms an English yeoman,
The thoughts that hurt him, they were there.
There, like the wind through woods in riot,
Through him the gale of life blew high;
The tree of man was never quiet:
Then 'twas the Roman, now 'tis I.
The gale, it plies the saplings double,
It blows so hard, 'twill soon be gone:
To-day the Roman and his trouble
Are ashes under Uricon.
2.4k
Dancing raindrops carried on the wind.
In plies and pirouettes they danced.
Romancing the winter rain and biting wind.
Two of a violent kind...unkind.
Bouncing on a bungee rope unseen by human eye.
Exploding on the slabs of pave.
One wet freezing rave.
Bungee on the whirling winds.
Crystals crying icy raindrops liken to fiery hell they do descend.
Lashing cold legs with scars of cold.
Marking their mesmerizing chill.
The land no-one inhabits by choice.
Only the wind has wailing voice.
That bitter wind.
So full of awesome force!
By ladylivvi1
© 2013 ladylivvi1 (All rights reserved)
Dec 23, 2013
Dec 23, 2013 at 2:19 PM UTC
Subtle ruses she plays with unsuspecting hearts
With an alluring trace of flair
Never meaning anything at all to her
No focus is ever there
A touch, a smile, along with lingering glances
Quickly melt a naïve fool
Manipulating to gain what she is seeking
With her feminine wiles and tools
Such lovely promises are made unspoken
Yet loudly and out of turn
Emptying the pockets of those hearts unskilled
In avoiding manipulation’s burn
User, abuser, or master of her own show
Which one of the three
Is a question asked by many an observer
Watching the travesty
Perhaps one day, those old tables will turn on her
Shift where her wind does not blow
One who is wise, to her unspoken feminine plies
Will smile, while stealing her show
Sep 17, 2010
Sep 17, 2010 at 6:28 PM UTC
~
(written in response to one by Beryl Dov)
constellationally speaking
a trophied man is one
whose weaknesses
he has overcome,
those the stars
foretold, ordained;
flaws and blemishes
the gods disdained,
who flies
with herculean
brawn and breadth;
who plies
the star ways
to their dizzying heights
and stairways
to their dismal depths.
he is…
like no other,
he is…
the lonesome
overcomer!
~
*post script.
for Beryl Dov, poet laureate, extraordinaire;
in response to his “The Lonely Astronomer”.
how anyone sees his as anything
negative is beyond me…
i see nothing but
an overcomer’s metaphor.
well done, friend!!
(and yes, by "man"
i do mean mankind)
The Lonely Astronomer:
http://hellopoetry.com/poem/1182761/the-lonely-astronomer/*
Sep 28, 2015
Sep 28, 2015 at 8:32 PM UTC
A road that diverges
Starts at a point
And plies in two directions.
Where these roads meet
You hear two different heartbeats;
One of a boy,
One of a girl.
They were destined to be,
But they walked in a V
Separating themselves
From what God only sees.
Walking astray from each
They continue to grow distant.
Not a word to be said
Just a silent whisper,
“This connection will not whither.”
A mental image
Remains in the mind.
Though they are disjoined
Their hearts have been coined
To become reunited
No matter where they end up going.
Heading on the right track
Senses begin to kick in.
Though it is not yet known,
Their love is already scripted
It’s just, love likes to remain encrypted.
It’s not random;
It’s fate.
Their paths begin to converge,
But they still lack the nerve
To acknowledge what’s inside
And let the love emerge.
It’s coming to a point
Where everything’s inevitable.
The obvious feels right;
Plight is soon to be made.
Fate begins to pervade.
With two precious rings
They promise
To love each other forever
On this journey to endeavor.
Hence the coining of the phrase,
“Diamonds are forever.”
Jul 30, 2012
Jul 30, 2012 at 11:41 PM UTC
On Wenlock Edge the wood's in trouble;
His forest fleece the Wrekin heaves;
The gale, it plies the saplings double,
And thick on Severn snow the leaves.
'Twould blow like this through holt and hanger
When Uricon the city stood;
'Tis the old wind in the old anger,
But then it threshed another wood.
Then, 'twas before my time, the Roman
At yonder heaving hill would stare;
The blood that warms an English yeoman,
The thoughts that hurt him, they were there.
There, like the wind through woods in riot,
Through him the gale of life blew high;
The tree of man was never quiet:
Then 'twas the Roman, now 'tis I.
The gale, it plies the saplings double,
It blows so hard, 'twill soon be gone:
Today the Roman and his trouble
Are ashes under Uricon.
1.6k
I do not belong to anyone, leave me alone
I do not belong to anyone, leave me alone
Please, leave me alone.
When I was born, Father and Mother said
My son, my son
Our son
when I cried that day
I was loudly repeating
“Leave me, let me be, I do not belong to anyone”
No, I do not belong to anyone.
It was for the same reason
That I cried while getting baptized
Leave me alone, leave me.
I do not belong to a Christian, nor Hindu, or Jew or Buddhist
It was saying “let me be, free me” that I cried that day
I do not belong to anyone.
I do not belong to myself.
I do not belong to anyone,
Not you, not anyone
A kiss, or marriage or death
Has no right over me.
Not belonging to anyone is, life, for me
The phone in the public booth,
The computer in the cafe, the Russian girl on the road,
The cup in the teashop, the pen in the complaints register
The bus which plies from village to another village
The doctor at the clinic, the flower by the wayside, the river that flows south,
The sea which counts waves
Rain, sky anywhere, sun, moon,
Or,
A Tree by the wayside.
Oct 14, 2013
Oct 14, 2013 at 9:14 AM UTC
FIFA'S World Cup a rises
To the US women's cries
On France's stage and blue skies
Tears fill the winner's eyes
Their cup runneth on highs
Where passion never dies
As the world watched their sunrises
Stunning those rays, the US plies
Over it's foes, goals and kicks lies
Each baking an apple pies
For the hunger now of the US' reprise
Proud the red, white and blue flies
Logan Robertson
7/14/2019
Jul 15, 2019
Jul 15, 2019 at 12:32 AM UTC
When I was bold, when I was bold--
And that's a hundred years!--
Oh, never I thought my breast could hold
The terrible weight of tears.
I said: "Now some be dolorous;
I hear them wail and sigh,
And if it be Love that play them thus,
Then never a love will I."
I said: "I see them rack and rue,
I see them wring and ache,
And little I'll crack my heart in two
With little the heart can break."
When I was gay, when I was gay--
It's ninety years and nine!--
Oh, never I thought that Death could lay
His terrible hand in mine.
I said: "He plies his trade among
The musty and infirm;
A body so hard and bright and young
Could never be meat for worm."
"I see him dull their eyes," I said,
"And still their rattling breath.
And how under God could I be dead
That never was meant for Death?"
But Love came by, to quench my sleep,
And here's my sundered heart;
And bitter's my woe, and black, and deep,
And little I guessed a part.
Yet this there is to cool my breast,
And this to ease my spell;
Now if I were Love's, like all the rest,
Then can I be Death's, as well.
And he shall have me, sworn and bound,
And I'll be done with Love.
And better I'll be below the ground
Than ever I'll be above.
1.3k
How do they call you,
those who’ve passed through unmarked
twin doors for the shy
side of one century?
Is it as Nicholas
of Myra,
or of Bari,
or as an unlocated saint,
working wonders in
this home of trim white-stone
block, with three tiers of black-
arches, frowning up at
the merciless
grids behind?
Rows, rows, rows, they float on
glassy, steel-blue oceans,
and these oceans will fall in
violent, cascading, millennial
waves unlike any with foam
caps that once lapped
the rocky coast of lost Lycia--
your see
our maps don’t contain,
and our licit hosannas won’t reach.
Who are they
who pray here?
Bakers, sailors, bankers,
all whose sighs
rise with a torrent of immigrant chants
liaison rafters
fracture in echo-song,
the old coinage that plies your favor.
To which patron can they turn
when your cross crowns not
the work of masons
but one day’s
rubble,
a tongue without a bell,
the charred
relics of unnameable acts?
Aug 15, 2010
Aug 15, 2010 at 1:16 PM UTC
Under frizzed hair,
The Conscious Operator,
Smacking gum,
Waits with her tails of living wire
To make connections
At Synaptic Central.
The reader
Tilts a page to catch the rays,
Scans for symbols,
Begins to send
And to receive
Electric fires of thought
Traveling in from
Senses Five -
Traveling out from
Schema Library's
Data files -
To meet and
To commingle
At the Board.
With octopal finesse,
The tireless Operator
Plies Neural Central,
Sending quick myriads of thought
To rest or to revive in living files.
Neurons snap and arc;
Their coded leaping fires
Surge message-full
Through cables sheathed
To Synapse Central,
Where in her nimble hands
Fire Control finds slots
And coordinates connections,
During and Long After
The Outward Reading's done.
Even when the Blinds go down
Synaptic Central's work goes on.
The frizz-haired friend steps out to rest;
Sub-Conscious moves into her place
And with unsteady hand
Plays seeming havoc at the Board
Rearranging and Deranging
Delightful dreams, or horrid.
Jan 13, 2012
Jan 13, 2012 at 8:06 AM UTC
Flawed eventless, the muck to the mire
To the river crimson with lustful haze.
Supressed desire flows like light, rapture to the gaze.
Feverd, clamy, tossing, turning
Lying wrestless on the floor.
Sarrow slips, through the cracks,
to come smashing through the door.
Famin parched, the scream to the cry,
to the path trampled in fits of rage.
Unrelenting fire, burns like ice, denile in a cage.
Calm, relaxed, watching, breathing,
Standing idle at the sash.
Anguish waits at beck and call
to come crashing through the glass.
Hidden in a seamless world of delight and joy and glee
A fractured cloud of misery waits
to have its cake and thee,
to reval as it sulks with company.
Ever growing spawned by fear, deathly silent in its' plea
Eating away at the sinews of faith,
dispair awaits its' time to flea.
Akin to death, friend to evil, slient screaming in its' vain
Dissolving with trust the passion of the lust
Envy plies to its bain.
Passion and fire, burning desire, these monsters are not the same.
All too familiar, confusing just the same, betrayed by flesh.
What is there cannot be had, for surely this is no game.
Aug 3, 2012
Aug 3, 2012 at 4:04 PM UTC
As I plant myself in front of the mirror
I lift my shirt
And see what I've seen
For about as long as I can remember.
It's a stomach
Always has been.
But these tiny rolls
and squishy bits
have fluctuated
for many years
and I poke a ****
with a loving hand
a caress more than a stab
Yet you insist that I should hate my body
I love my mid section
I love the stretch marks on my thighs
I love the way my stomach
folds and plies
I love it all so much
And all of it is me
So why are you treating me like a sub-human being?
You say that you'd much rather
me having a drinking problem
than be fat
that's what you said
and you think I have a problem?
I'm 5' 1", at about 125.
You think it's "healthy" to have a low BMI.
Your method isn't working
I'm not dieting
No way
No weight watcher's for me
not ever
not today
If you think I should hate myself, Mom
I think you should just leave
Because I love my every fiber
I'm an exceptional human being
And you've overlooked so many facets of a life
And that beauty comes from within
And a couple pounds isn't going to change that
I don't need to be thin.
Jan 23, 2013
Jan 23, 2013 at 9:12 PM UTC
he's hankering for the mountains
on a Carolina coastline
he's hankering is to be in the embrace
of the mountain's twine
the mountain's call is like a throng
it lasts in his thoughts all the day long
to the mountains he'll ever belong
upon him the draw is so strong
in the mountain his kin folk all reside
he can't wait to be again at their side
those mountains fill his soul with pride
the spirit of the place plies his heart's tide
a welling feeling washes over his mind
as he ponders the mountain's holding bind
the territory there has a familiar rind
that within his being shall never unwind
he's hankering for the mountains
on a Carolina coastline
he's hankering to be in the embrace
of the mountain's twine
Sep 19, 2014
Sep 19, 2014 at 8:34 PM UTC
it's a drone, it's a drone
a drone, a drone, a drone
it's a drone, it's a drone
a drone, a drone, a drone
it's collecting info on me and you
it's checking out everything we do
it plies a spying eye
in all directions of the sky
why oh why oh why
does it need to pry on you and I
it's a drone, it's a drone
a drone, a drone, a drone
it's a drone, it's a drone
a drone, a drone, a drone
people are freaking out
knowing that a drone could be about
they can't relax at all
the surveillance does appall
it's truly quite queer
how the government do peer
it's a drone, it's drone
a drone, a drone, a drone
Apr 30, 2014
Apr 30, 2014 at 9:42 PM UTC
a bird on a wire
anxiously tweets
outside my
Good Friday
pane
The Carl Vinson
battle group
plies the China Seas
rolling through waves
like a deadly
Tsunami
MOABS plaster
mountainsides,
commanders are
certain the right
bomb, for the right job
produced a righteous
body count
Tomahawks strafe
another Syrian
neighborhood, already
desperately choking on
the stench of corpses
“Crucify Him!”
They shout
“We want blood!”
“Give em a
good scourging”
Before we place
a crown of thorns
on his head
Let the blood drip
pierce him with
a pike, let it all
spill out
The pundits
sanctify the
sacraments
of death with
strategic acuity
Just another day
in a closer walk
with Thee, for the
Pilgrims of Sorrow
Music: Soul Stirrers,
Pilgrim of Sorrow
Painting:
The Road of Sorrows
Nina Marchenko
Good Friday 2017
Lavallette NJ
jbm
Apr 14, 2017
Apr 14, 2017 at 6:08 PM UTC
My heart center is churning,
spiraling through my chest
translating.
Moving art through my body
and suddenly all the ******** is worth it.
Walking out of dance class, towards my van,
my heart spilling all over the sidewalk,
invisible rain drops of reality trickling on my head,
the colors darken in my aura because I have to wait awhile
for the next moment where I feel like the sacrifice is paying off.
I would be a vagrant gypsy living humbly if it weren't for professional movement.
My feet are on a solid spot surrounded by things that don't love me.
At least that's how it seems, at night, when I have to fight for tranquility.
But wandering thoughts come visit me while I'm driving of pirouettes and plies,
and smiling children asking me how to teach them the rhythm of life.
Strength to endure the shadow, instead of aiming towards distractions that
evade responsibility to glow.
Stage light on bodies showing life in another context,
that is what lives in my visions of beauty.
Sep 26, 2013
Sep 26, 2013 at 11:55 PM UTC
it's a drone, it's a drone
a drone, a drone, a drone
it's a drone, it's a drone
a drone, a drone, a drone
it's collecting info on me and you
it's checking out everything we do
it plies its spying eye
in all directions of the sky
why oh why oh why
does it need to pry on you and I
it's a drone, it's a drone
a drone, a drone, a drone
it's a drone, it's a drone
a drone, a drone, a drone
people are freaking out
knowing that a drone could be about
they can't relax at all
the surveillance does appall
it's truly quite queer
how the government does peer
it's a drone, it's a drone
a drone, a drone, a drone
it's a drone, it's a drone
a drone, a drone, a drone
Nov 29, 2013
Nov 29, 2013 at 4:20 AM UTC
a day flies by and whiles away
drawing lies and smiles alike
like filings to the lodestone
babies' cries flay the sky
sunlight bright in my right eye
shining in dulcimer tone
in this park no broken tiles
just mild breezes, soft sighs, and ample time
to delight in Spring coming into its own
a wild-eyed man asks why we try
and rightly plies for answers nigh
and questions what we think is known
and waits impatient as we fry
in blind stupor as our minds belie
that we might in fact be all alone
Mar 26, 2013
Mar 26, 2013 at 12:58 PM UTC
Under frizzed hair,
The Conscious Operator,
Smacking gum,
Waits with her tails of living wire
To make connections
At Synaptic Central.
The reader
Tilts a page to catch the rays,
Scans for symbols,
Begins to send
And to receive
Electric fires of thought
Traveling in from
Senses Five -
Traveling out from
Schema Library's
Data files -
To meet and
To commingle
At the Board.
With octopal finesse,
The tireless Operator
Plies Neural Central,
Sending quick myriads of thought
To rest or to revive in living files.
Neurons snap and arc;
Their coded leaping fires
Surge message-full
Through cables sheathed
To Synapse Central,
Where in her nimble hands
Fire Control finds slots
And coordinates connections,
During and Long After
The Outward Reading's done.
Even when the Blinds go down
Synaptic Central's work goes on.
The frizz-haired friend steps out to rest;
Sub-Conscious moves into her place
And with unsteady hand
Plays seeming havoc at the Board
Rearranging and Deranging
Delightful dreams, or horrid.
Jan 19, 2016
Jan 19, 2016 at 2:19 PM UTC
Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever stop crying
If I'll ever get over the years of training
the sweat
the bruises
the strains and sprains
the cool of a sprung floor against my cheek
out of breath in the wings awaiting my queue
I wonder if it's actually possible to regain the flexibility that can only come from hundreds of hours of plies and port de bras
I wonder if I'll ever be able to feel as alive as I do in a leotard and footless tights in any other article of clothing?
Because sometimes I feel like one of my favorite parts of me is a
memory
fading more and more every year
like a spirit trapped inside a body that can't handle all its grace and beauty and freedom
that can't hold its pirouettes
I fear that I'll never walk into a studio and feel like I own it again,
like the sky is the limit
like my strength knows no bounds
Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever be able to just accept whatever is in store.
Was my last audition my last audition?
I wish I savored it more
I know I'll be fine
but that is the only me I've ever known
and
the largest dream I ever felt I could absolutely realize
How do you let go of something you've wanted your entire life?
...a drive that flows through your blood...
How do you accept the possibility of never attaining it?
There are times when I'm okay
or more or less distracted
and feel like I'm at peace with God's omnipotent will
If he want's me to dance, then I'll dance one day
He knows the desires of my heart
Still
I can't help seeing reminders of where I want to be
where I ought to be
this fundamental piece that's missing
that has helped shaped all that I am today
Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever stop crying
in mourning
for the dancer in me.
Oct 14, 2014
Oct 14, 2014 at 12:59 PM UTC
i am an artist
to create is my work..
i am a painter
i draw paintings
of people, of thoughts
of lions, of goats
some look happy
some in grief
some others act
like a thief
as i draw
so i am
i draw myself..
i am a singer
i sing songs
of joy, of pain
of failure, of gain
as i think
so are the words
as are the words
so are the songs
as i sing
so i am
i sing myself..
i am a watchman
i watch people
how the love
how they hate
how they cry
how they fake
some look tiny
some look giant
as i watch
so i am
i watch myself..
i am a driver
i drive my car
sometimes it’s down
sometimes it flies
sometimes it’s deep
sometimes it plies
journey will not end
unless it find abode
as i drive
so i am
i drive myself..
i am an artist
to create is my work...
Jan 10, 2012
Jan 10, 2012 at 11:06 AM UTC