"plover" poems
Oh, to see without my eyes
The first time that you kissed me
Boundless by the time I cried
I built your walls around me
White noise, what an awful sound
Fumbling by Rogue River
Feel my feet above the ground
Hand of God, deliver me
Oh, oh whoa whoa is me
The first time that you touched me
Oh, will wonders ever cease?
Blessed be the mystery of love
Lord, I no longer believe
Drowned in living waters
Cursed by the love that I received
From my brother's daughter
Like Hephaestion, who died
Alexander's lover
Now my riverbed has dried
Shall I find no other?
Oh, oh whoa whoa is me
I'm running like a plover
Now I'm prone to misery
The birthmark on your shoulder reminds me
How much sorrow can I take?
Blackbird on my shoulder
And what difference does it make
When this love is over?
Shall I sleep within your bed
River of unhappiness
Hold your hands upon my head
Till I breathe my last breath
Oh, oh whoa whoa is me
The last time that you touched me
Oh, will wonders ever cease?
Blessed be the mystery of love
Mar 15, 2018
Mar 15, 2018 at 9:38 AM UTC
495
It’s thoughts—and just One Heart—
And Old Sunshine—about—
Make frugal—Ones—Content—
And two or three—for Company—
Upon a Holiday—
Crowded—as Sacrament—
Books—when the Unit—
Spare the Tenant—long eno’—
A Picture—if it Care—
Itself—a Gallery too rare—
For needing more—
Flowers—to keep the Eyes—from going awkward—
When it snows—
A Bird—if they—prefer—
Though Winter fire—sing clear as Plover—
To our—ear—
A Landscape—not so great
To suffocate the Eye—
A Hill—perhaps—
Perhaps—the profile of a Mill
Turned by the Wind—
Tho’ such—are luxuries—
It’s thoughts—and just two Heart—
And Heaven—about—
At least—a Counterfeit—
We would not have Correct—
And Immortality—can be almost—
Not quite—Content—
1.6k
His ******* angel wings can no longer lift him high enough. His silhouette
stands against the Morning Glory sky. He has not worn cologne
until this day. Now, the perfume of kerosene coats him. His
matchstick countdown has just hit zero,
ignition.
In flames, he launches off the edge of that crisp concrete line. He falls
ten stories, what was once a man, now an effigy not of stone
or wood, but flame which, wind-washed,
splays out as Ringed Plover wings,
ash feathers blown back.
With a crash of bone and pavement, his Chinese Lantern skin the color
of burnt-sienna, the blaze snuffs out. Through yellow plastic paper,
the creamy skinned women rush to his side. Mother,
Sister, Wife, cradle him, the fingers catch skin
which sloughs off in
flakes of
carbon.
May 21, 2011
May 21, 2011 at 7:42 PM UTC
Your skin is not a history of seeing
but of being seeing.
So heavy it has grown around the questions
which live in this postulate world as birds.
Inconstant and full of chatter
One season they built a nest in you
near the sea,
diving and disappearing
as the plover does through a wave
to return upon freshly turned earth
a robin.
O lidded One,
what is this heat which would bear sit
with plain silence on kitchen tables.
Aug 22, 2011
Aug 22, 2011 at 7:51 AM UTC
From always have my story books ever spoke,
urging me to live life with one phrase;
Memento Mori, a simple Latin phrase I had known,
from the beginning of my universe that I posses,
to the society I once slept upon, have I ever known,
that the sky is always sapphire,
the grass is always emerald,
and the blood is ONLY but ruby.
Whereas my storybooks told me, Memento Mori,
I will eventually whither away like the plants I was reluctant to plant,
to watch them die away,
so I could grasp it's corpse, and crush it's ashy substance.
I grin at that notion,
the concept of me having power, to crush,
my homicidal grin, illuminating malicious vibes,
only to feel guilty for I am enjoy their pain.
Although my storybooks, had always said Memento Mori,
they were books of a hero to zero, a man of a demon,
they had always spoken to me, their lustful eyes,
entrancing me from an angel's call, and telling me the phrase;
tu fui ego eris
"As you are, I was; as I am, so you shall also be"
They were right, for I had sinned like the killers in my book,
just like them, and they were just like me,
and we both could not avoid death, just as out gravestones had said.
I had refused to accept Memento Mori,
I refused to acknowledge the emerald that I had stood on, what it was I could never,
the sapphire I had not known, in the heavens only my piping plover knew,
and the ruby, has I always felt, warm, as it was around my feet,
only to be purified, and realize no one else was different.
We all murdered our complexities.
Apr 29, 2014
Apr 29, 2014 at 10:14 PM UTC
*eerie plover cries
and night jar acrobatics
in broad daylight
were a sign of something amiss
especially coming so soon
after a barn owl
had pecked his fruit bowl at lunch
and a crow had sat on his head
and cawed lustily for an eternity
it's *** for tat from nature
when we think only of ourselves
without doubt we demean our stature
when we upset nature's designs
one of these days an ape will come visiting
and help himself to the fowls*
Jan 9, 2016
Jan 9, 2016 at 5:31 PM UTC
(homage to Ogden Nash)
See the buzzard soar, the swallow skim a lake, the kestrel hover;
observe the skylark pouring his little heart out in the sky;
admire the flapwing, lapwing flight of a flock of plover;
what birds do is fly.
At least they oughter,
because once birds get onto the water
they can't help looking absurd
– except the swan, for which nobody I know has an unkind word,
or, mostly, seagulls,
who fly with almost the grace of eagulls,
and in their silvery-white uniforms are impeccably neat,
even if my admiration for their manners is incomplete –
but, shucks,
look at ducks.
And for something really silly,
shaggy-winged, fluffy-headed, and disproportionately
neck-and-bill-y,
consider the pelican, for heaven's sake.
Surely Nature made a mistake,
or left the designing of it to a particularly inept committee,
it's so unpretty.
But once in the air he can soar like a buzzard, though maybe lower,
and skim over the waves with more perfect control
than a swallow, and slower,
and dive for a fish like a living javelin, that clumsy pelican.
By helican!
No, for a shapeless, hapless caricature, created to be comical,
the epitome of what a bird shouldn't be, the penguin
must be the most epitomical.
As he does his impression of a Charlie Chaplin waiter,
you know he'll fall off the ice sooner or later.
But before a warning can escape your lips
he trips
(and slips).
Then, as he slides beneath the waves, ah! See the happy penguin fly,
A graceful bird in his greenblue underwater sky.
Nov 3, 2017
Nov 3, 2017 at 9:55 AM UTC
Lean Harvests
by Michael R. Burch
for T.M.
the trees are shedding their leaves again:
another summer is over.
the Christians are praising their Maker again,
but not the disconsolate plover:
i hear him berate
the fate
of his mate;
he claims God is no body’s lover.
Published by The Rotary Dial and Angle. Keywords/Tags: plover, skeptic, atheist, agnostic, Christians, god, creator, maker, fate, mate, berate, lover
Mar 27, 2020
Mar 27, 2020 at 4:58 AM UTC
my insomnia has gifted me unexpectedly
on this pre dawn morning.
i share the beach
with a single sand plover and a large work crew of sandbubbler *****
as they work their spherical graffitti magic.
i expect if i thought long enough,
my mind may make the practical connection, between the darting and bobbing of the stiff stilt,
red, legged bird
and the hyperalert scurryings of soft shelled, orb infatuated, crustaceans.
but, i prefer to play peekaboo witb the sun,
as it peeks it's sleepy rotound rim over the rippling bedsheets of the ocean's horizon.
eyes blinking, crafting opulent dusky lavenders and apricot oranges,
that meander lazily across, the brightening skybed.
i am alone on the beach until,
the next soul comes
this is my kingdom.
i stand firm and
breathe the tang of salted lands.
there is a deep silence
in my soul,
which i take to be completeness.
with neoteric expectancy and unchained exuberance,
i turn and run along
the firm sand's, edge of the high tideline leaving fading, ephemeral footprints
behind me,
scattering the little crabworkers every
which way.
i run in rhythm with the crashing waves
and we eat up the sand
until i am spent.
i sit and watch as the riders of the wave arrive.
their lithe young frames silhouetted by sunlight,
they stand at ten feet tall.
i wave and hand my kingdom over to the knights on fibreglass coursiers.
they mount their steeds
and begin the morning's tidal hunt,
for the perfect wave
Apr 3, 2014
Apr 3, 2014 at 4:25 PM UTC
There once was a Rabbit who lived by a stream,
She supper-ed on salads and drank up my dreams.
She fed on the promises painted with oils,
But salad like dreams in the long winter spoiled.
Princess, I need you; you know where we've been,
I must dress you and press you and rub you down clean.
You are that girl, Rabbit, who sits among Royals,
You live as my breath, and this life's mortal coil.
She rolls in the plover and soft grasses green,
The Willow folk watch her, they laugh and they lean,
Then it's off to the garden, and therein to toil,
Pluck out Four Carrots and set them to boil.
A soft little life is all that we both need,
You're an end to my wandering, my suffering, my greed.
Apr 10, 2014
Apr 10, 2014 at 12:39 AM UTC
If I never get a chance to say "goodbye"
will this be enough?
If my last breath goes unheard
and my last wish unfulfilled
To see you again
to feel your caress
To hold your hand
and watch the twinkle in your eye
Diffuse through a tear
it will never be enough
Just to feel the dusk breeze
one last time
Coming off the marsh
to hear the mournful warnings
Of the Killdeer and Plover
and from their heavenly reaches
The hungry Least Terns diving into the salt pannes
a hundred thousand migrating Tree Swallows
Clouding the road and sky
like final scattered thoughts
And the inability to sustain
all this beyond a last silence.
Aug 30, 2016
Aug 30, 2016 at 4:38 PM UTC
i wish i could take flight as the plover
rather than flail and fight ‘till it’s over
wading through endless swamps of mire
waiting until i discard my ire
fading faster than last summer’s clover
i wish i could sing as the songbird sings
maybe tell the tale of beautiful things
cut through the skylight chains
strut about the windowpanes
but i haven’t any wings
May 25, 2019
May 25, 2019 at 2:46 PM UTC