"plumage" poems
I am loud,
Demanding attention.
I know when I am being charming
Because I try.
I put on my impressing face
And do my impressing hair
And speak my impressing words.
I tell you my embarrassing drinking stories
And everything else about me
That you probably shouldn’t know.
I am not good at being quiet
Because that’s not who I am.
I am not the sweet girl
Who will leave you with a smile
And a touch
And a glance
Or a single word.
There is nothing of this fashion of romance
About me.
I am the girl who will point out your flaws,
And take you outside to see the stars,
And remind you how human you are,
And what a wonderful thing that is.
I am the girl who will talk about science,
And music and theology and history,
And point out constellations, laughing,
When you don’t know the big dipper’s name.
I am the girl who will make witty references,
To classic literature and science fiction,
And will tell you stories of how I once,
Made a gingerbread replica of a lighthouse.
I am the girl who will stand on a table,
And sing at the top of my lungs on the highway,
And act like a chicken or quail or velociraptor,
Or nuzzle your face like a lion to make a point.
I am the girl who takes too many shots
And then coaxes you to bed on a Russian liver,
And knows all the right places to bite, and tease,
And follows with exceptionally coherent pillow-talk.
I am not a thin silk scarf on the wind.
I am not a thing hard to capture.
You would not spend a perilous journey
Through a wild, perfumed jungle,
Searching for my slender garments
Hung beside a pool
As I wail to the breeze.
Rather, I am the bird who flies overhead
Making too much noise
Distracting from the trail ahead.
A bird whose plumage proves
What an interesting life it must be…
What a colorful life for me…
Perpetually strange
The lone comic relief.
I am many things.
But I am not quiet.
Of this I am sure.
Sep 7, 2012
Sep 7, 2012 at 6:27 AM UTC
in a room full of peacocks
i am now an ostrich
and i don't know if any of you know how it feels to be a splash of grey in a room full of brilliant blues and greens
it's like being a lonely, pitiful cloud against a blue sky with leafy trim
maybe i have my head in the sand because i don't want to be shallow
but you'd be right if you guessed it's because i actually don't want to be seen when my face looks like this
which is such a cowardly thing to do
(i really shouldn't care)
i read Journey to the Center of the Earth in middle school,
and the only thing i remember is that it was the volcanoes that erupted (like the hives that erupted across my face this past week) that led them to find it-
the heart of life and natural beauty; more breathtaking than the flawless plumage of the peacocks
Feb 1, 2013
Feb 1, 2013 at 11:18 PM UTC
All this time you told me that the cotton candy was pink
So I ate at the fluff behind the drywall
I ate it all away
Wondering why I got colder as I did so
Do you know why the peacocks are always alone
I’ve never seen more than one at a time
And I suppose it is because they show all of their colors at once
That isn’t allowed in this game, is it
I thought not
I don’t want to have that kind of plumage anymore
Turn my skin gray and wrinkled and I will sit by like the elephant in the room
Because I never asked you questions you didn’t like
I never asked you to empty the sky into a pitcher just for me
Do you know why the peacocks walk all alone?
Curious, isn’t it?
No friends at all.
Jan 7, 2013
Jan 7, 2013 at 11:30 PM UTC
i.
Iniibig kita
Mahal Kita;
Minamahal Kita,
Iniirog kita.
ii.
Here do I cometh, I'm on mine way. The skies art clear tonight, just a tint of fine gray; though I spread mine plumage, fracture the tone, I knoweth one day, O' verily one day- I'll findeth mine way home.
And I thinkest, when I findeth the bungalow, I wilt rest, after long
Passage alone. As thou I wilt bestow, mine Lip's on thy own; quietly humming, Sayaw tayo?
iii.
A Tagal na ah, a Tagal na ah, now I'm here mine love, I've made it mine queen; some sayest dream's don't cometh true, Only if the other's couldst find; they discern science, just not the sign's of the times.
Though we behold, the spirit and soul, and ourn creator, the crowned head of the world's; Hallowed be his name, Yahweh, father Jehovah, known also Elohim. His son Yeshua ha'mashiach, English language "Jesus the anointed one". The son above all son's. Jane, mine queen.
iv.
Iniibig kita
Mahal Kita;
Minamahal Kita,
Iniirog kita.
Tagal na ah
Tagal na ah;
Now in thy
Grip, with
Mine kiss,
On thy Lip's
I place mine
Vow's. O'
Yadid, yadid,
Never let me go
Agapi mou-
Zoi mou,
Se latrevo
Mine queen.
©Brandon Nagley
©Lonesome poet's poetry
©Earl Jane Nagley dedicated ( àgapi mou) dedication
Mar 7, 2016
Mar 7, 2016 at 12:07 AM UTC
A late hour indeed, darkness over land, but
A bright light shines from a moon above
As a shadow sweeps across the surface.
For a moment, it stands emblazoned, precarious
Adumbrated phoenix in the sky,
But it does not flare out.
Sweeping lower, the form resolves,
Alights narrowly on a fine branch.
For a moment, it struggles for balance
But soon it finds a niche, stands true;
Visage of wisdom in the night
But not without flaw
Not the swiftest, lacking in grace
Lost territories in cunctation.
Still, secure in its plumage,
Into the night, ready to fly:
Hunter poised in the trees
It soars aloft
Nearby, another branch inhabited
Not a vision this one, a voice.
A lighter weight, a softer presence
Harmonious to the calm
Tones of beauty to the air
It rings forth
Awhile, this one too struggled
It tried the songs of the mockingbird
Some rang esthetic, others strange,
But now its own song found:
Anthem sung for the heart
Chorus all may hear
Birds of the night. Dark to dawn
Their habits thus have been.
Now with the new morning,
A change in the season;
Mind and Song together to the sky
Light out for the lit horizon …
~D.B. Guy (May 2008)
Nov 3, 2012
Nov 3, 2012 at 2:23 AM UTC
Proud little peacock
Plumage up for display
No need for repeated mocks
No need for you to say
I can clearly see
For we may be quiet but we have eyes
Strutting conspicuously
Showing off your prize
We already know you have it
We all do
On the sidelines we sit
Seeing you through
Tell me little bird
What do you get
When you say your words
Were your objectives met?
Everytime I hear them
Just makes me gag
I'd roll my eyes
Just hearing you brag
People'll give you
When accolades are deserving
But I suppose they're never enough
'Cause I still see you parading
Well I know I may be unpredictable
A tad bit capricious
To be honest, you...
You're simply being ostentatious
...and it's annoying the hell out of me...
Dec 16, 2014
Dec 16, 2014 at 8:12 AM UTC
They set off from white rocks,
red geraniums, blue tile,
and let the green sea
lift and drop their ships far above the white foam waves.
The stony islands that were home
were swallowed in minutes by the hungry Atlantic
but they hunted the big fish,
the giant whales with human eyes
who rolled and sang and swam
in oceans a continent away.
They came from Sao Jorge, Sao Miguel
Faial, Pico, Terceira, Horta -
Nine island emeralds set in a black volcanic chain,
neither of the old country nor the new:
Halfway there and halfway gone -
secret jewels of the Portuguese sailors.
They sailed into unknown waters,
south around tropical shores
where dragons smoked and writhed on the rocks
and birds with brilliant red and yellow plumage
rose in clouds around their heads.
Then north, and north, north again
to colder waters
where sea lions barked and lunged
at the strange massive wooden beast
that coursed the waters,
strung with brown bodies swaying
on the lines and cursing the sails.
North still they swept
casting contemptuous eyes on
the cheap turquoise waters and monstrous slow turtles
of the Sea of Cortez.
Coming up from the desert, past the palms and the yucca,
the Joshua tree and Spanish daggers,
they chased their smooth grey prey,
riding the vast Pacific on their wooden island,
herding the leviathans onto their spears,
adventurers with an audience of only
gulls and sky and seal.
Until they sailed too close one day
to a rock-strewn shoreline
and saw the golden hills.
Gnarled oaks like grandmothers from home
with orange poppy jewels at their feet,
missions strung like beads in a ruby marked rosary.
The boats slowed, ****** in by a Scylla of soil
rich and brown and loamy
waiting to be seeded with grapes and apricots
peaches, avocados, lettuce, alfalfa,
fertile and heavy with sweet promise.
And the whales sang and the lions barked and the gulls cried
but the sailors were entranced, encharmed, ensorcelled.
The treacherous sea, the mysterious deep, the stony jewels of home,
called and wept
and waited in vain for the sailors
- beached and grounded -
cutting not waves but earth,
tracking seasons not whales,
seduced by dirt.
Nov 29, 2014
Nov 29, 2014 at 9:51 PM UTC
I’ll split the hairs, I’ll split an atom
And never leave the bedroom.
I most identify with December,
Not because of the crushing temperature
But the lack of cosmic dawdling
Is no more mesmerizing than a frozen phoenix.
And as she arrives by train from Phoenix,
I study who she appears to be, the atoms
Composing her auburn hair with dawdling
Authenticity shout “Take me to the bedroom!”
While the wedge of geese in this temperature
Head to the Southern Hemisphere’s December.
The common chill of this morning in December
Prevents us from rising from out the covers like a phoenix,
And our blankets like ash defend us from the temperature
That stills the vibrations of the atmosphere’s atoms.
I curse the insulated walls of the bedroom,
Trapping in heat and discouraging our dawdling.
A rafter of turkeys outside my window are dawdling,
Printing their runes on the documents of December
Between the thickets surrounding the bedroom
While the sun, golden like the plumage of a phoenix,
Awakens in my bones every dormant atom,
Instilling in me courage to brave the temperature.
I follow her, dressed, from the bedroom
And her footsteps serve to punctuate the temperature
Like the smoldering beak of a phoenix
Too busy being risen for dawdling.
She leaves, by train through the chill of December,
Me daydreaming of fission. The splitting of an atom.
I’ll split an atom daily, safely within the bedroom
And sleep through December’s pitiless, hollow temperature,
Waking only for dawdling until Spring is a phoenix.
Mar 24, 2010
Mar 24, 2010 at 10:16 PM UTC
As dark clouds thunder on a grey day,
Resounding across the arid plains,
I hear the loud cries of a bird,
It cuts across the rhythmic drumming of the clouds,
He's quiet for a moment, then I hear him again.
Through the trees I see him,
Royal, an electrifying metallic blue,
A peacock, stunning, strutting,
Fanning his train of feathers,
Eyespots of majesty, stroked with mossy hues.
He dances in a flamboyant display,
In spot light, as lightening flames the sky above,
Nonchalant, a blue crested head turns with pride,
His ornate train, shimmering, beckoning, to and fro,
His moves, a courtship ritual of love.
His iridescent trail woos in style,
A life of its own in its opaline shades
Golden, blue, brown and green,
Colors of the earth, gloriously resplendent,
A gathered spectacle in his plumage.
As drops of rain touch the earth,
He is still high on the wings of romance,
His feet in motion,
His feathers spread for his mate,
Quivering, glimmering a love dance.
Aug 10, 2017
Aug 10, 2017 at 10:57 AM UTC
The Pigeon Gent,
He woos and coos around the river bent.
Pursues his muse with artful dance and skillful prance,
With inflated neck and ruffled plumage, until his energy or luck is spent.
He then resides by ebbing tides to ponder on his next advance.
"Now Now", "Whats This" the gent exclaims,
A shadow looming from the skies.
With ***** and claps he glides and lands with full surprise,
He spies the intruder, "A fellow Brooder".
Pigeon gent cant believe his eyes.
Pigeon Gent cannot believe the sauce,
The scurge seems intent on taking his prize by force.
At once he knows he must respond,
And force this illbread vagabond to abscond.
At once chest puffed and muscles flexed,
With wild eyes he jabs and pecks.
To teach this ruffian respect,
So on his actions he may later reflect.
He stands his ground both large and proud,
To make example of this foul winged burglar from the clouds.
"You insult me sir" he shouts aloud,
To make his intentions clear for all the crowd.
For several rounds they fight and scuffle.
With intruder retreating, feathers ruffled.
Then bested suiter fairly parted,
The quarrel ends as fast as started.
The vanquished victor displays and grooms,
As peace and honour now resumes.
Soon the ripples upset the green,
An armada of ducks come on the scene.
Alerted by the heightend coos,
They race to see what act insues.
The mighty mallards, Kings of the river,
None contest their right of way.
Their ways of conduct such generous givers.
Majestic river royalty, the law is always what they say.
On bank or shallow pebbled river they have always been,
They love to feed and breed amongst the river scene.
There royal cape made up of browny reds and shimmering greens,
reflects and intejects on mirrored water skies and evergreens.
To their mates for life and lady lovers,
The mallard gent is like no others.
Such loyalties are seldom seen,
In modern times and different dreams.
Fine and lean with striking features,
Best examples of river teachers.
But at any moment no matter how abrubt,
A river duel may easily erupt.
Battle can ensue and rage,
As both apponents approach and engage.
For they mate for life as duck and wife,
A rarity in any age or life.
Sep 2, 2018
Sep 2, 2018 at 1:38 PM UTC
I see Cardinals
reminding me
of the dead.
So bright & red,
they chirp beautifully,
sing a wondrous melody
above my head,
going nowhere
& I think,
perhaps,
I am better off
being a singing-bird
with vibrant plumage,
flying.
Apr 12, 2014
Apr 12, 2014 at 7:22 PM UTC
~~~^¡^~~~
she comes for water
from the wild
dove of desert
nature's child
she of sweetness
plumage neat
buff and ecru
to my feet
she is pure
sleek of line
her's perfection
in design
she's so close
I see her eyes
she's not afraid
of my great size
curious
she looks at me
a wild thing
completely free
what have her
ancients
done and seen?
Manchu Pichu
Inca kings?
missionaries
born in Spain
conquistadors
who've
come for gain
****** men
so brutal, bold
slaughter natives
for their gold
****** in "marriage"
Aztec queens
so now their
bloodlines
are rarely seen
i think on this
Oh! Poorest love!
so much like them
my
Inca dove
soulsurvivor
(C) 6/14/2015
Jun 14, 2015
Jun 14, 2015 at 5:14 PM UTC
I can't help but call out, look at the flame!
see it blush the highway bridges, see it burn my family name,
it churns like a half-sarcastic love song on repeat
it dances on the steel mill, makes the blackest smoke taste sweet
it stokes my little leafless heart, gnaws the edges of my sleeves.
because that hot bright tongue is mine, it's mine
a winking message, a cryptic sign,
the mad plumage fluttering above a gridlock hide
a hundred hands snatching up from the skyline
and even when it's lost in the daylight or the rain
I still find it, send it kisses, call it by the family name.
Jan 17, 2015
Jan 17, 2015 at 12:55 AM UTC
Sky-flower.
Blooms to sway in blue bowl.
Feeds with ******* root, edges in grass.
Turns quick head.
Flicks dead eyes.
But sings *** brightly.
Plumage song,
Melodious leaf.
With nested seeds in calcium shelf.
Dies under the sting of a Tybalt or two.
And the ****** bird drops.
Wilts in the sun.
Feb 14, 2010
Feb 14, 2010 at 1:07 PM UTC
In the moonlight, high in the Lemon Gum,
perched under the arching ghostly branches
two eyes of jet peer from a snow-white mask.
Tyto Alba, the Barn Owl, with heart shaped
****** disc, edged with ruff of stiff feathers.
Mottled pearl-grey body feathers above
the moth like plumage, purest white beneath
her slim legs are bare on the lower half,
with small feet that end with deadly talons.
Nocturnal, she roosts in the heat of day.
You will hear her screeching in the cold night
hear the scream before you ever see her.
She can see in the half light of humans
night vision even in total darkness
pinpoints her prey by listening to each sound
the desperate, scuttling little creatures make.
She is a well designed killing machine
with hooked beak, powerful feet and sharp claws.
Her flight feathers have softened edges
to make her deadly flight near soundless
She swoops silently down without warning
seizing victims with her claws, biting deep
into their neck arteries, puncturing
their most precious organs for a quick death.
Nov 23, 2014
Nov 23, 2014 at 4:08 AM UTC
~
*Cold cold heart
Frozen plumage
Like a peacock
Her ladyship
In the campfire light
Skating about the pond
Of her own vanity*
~
Dec 17, 2021
Dec 17, 2021 at 12:57 PM UTC
wind like a south wind carrying a plane south
deposits him, beneficiary of a backwards current
on a branch with nothing companionable in sight -
no answer, no voice to answer, no voice,
no alarm, no succor - just an afternoon
and nothing pressing. No urgent business,
maybe only the rigors of trying to prevent
there being urgent business later.
He's not all smooth. A little feather
cowlicked on his narrow jaw, and I don't know
how he bathes, what he eats, what he wants,
who would want to eat him. I don't really understand
anything that is going on around me. But look,
I understand more than him:
the tree is dying.
Oak wilt blew in from Canada,
took a long time coming and finally cracked the veins
and this one is all bad on the inside, a meal of
corked-up flesh, big spongy patches and tainted roots
at the search.
(Amateur diagnosis. The tree is probably fine.)
There is a similarity neither tree nor bird know about.
Or his legs know it, and that message
is stuck somewhere. Or he's afraid.
The blighted oak is all fungus and refusal, and he:
his skeleton is spun from delicate copper.
If you open him up, he's like a penny -
pretty, and useless in this economy.
People and things always trying to get rid of him,
and he's listening because he knows it,
and he's singing because he knows it.
Open the tree up and the whole food chain comes down with it.
(Listen to your sweet flesh that wants to go on living.)
It's not a curse, not specifically:
just one fragile thing standing on another
but - count mercies -
too light to break it.
A basic brazier licking behind a splash of yellow, he chirrups.
His song comes from the throat.
His song is about something he saw once.
His song is unquestioned, muscle moving
without will.
His plumage is mostly air
And the tree is anchored in the ground
by the very thing that chokes it,
and we're all standing together:
me, tree, bird. At least until
I finish my sandwich, packing the greasy paper in
a rectangle, with unquestioned neatness,
and leave whistling.
Aug 23, 2018
Aug 23, 2018 at 2:01 PM UTC
Oh what is that country
And where can it be,
Not mine own country,
But dearer far to me?
Yet mine own country,
If I one day may see
Its spices and cedars,
Its gold and ivory.
As I lie dreaming
It rises, that land;
There rises before me
Its green golden strand,
With the bowing cedars
And the shining sand;
It sparkles and flashes
Like a shaken brand.
Do angels lean nearer
While I lie and long?
I see their soft plumage
And catch their windy song,
Like the rise of a high tide
Sweeping full and strong;
I mark the outskirts
Of their reverend throng.
Oh what is a king here,
Or what is a boor?
Here all starve together,
All dwarfed and poor;
Here Death's hand knocketh
At door after door,
He thins the dancers
From the festal floor.
Oh what is a handmaid,
Or what is a queen?
All must lie down together
Where the turf is green,
The foulest face hidden,
The fairest not seen;
Gone as if never
They had breathed or been.
Gone from sweet sunshine
Underneath the sod,
Turned from warm flesh and blood
To senseless clod;
Gone as if never
They had toiled or trod,
Gone out of sight of all
Except our God.
Shut into silence
From the accustomed song
Shut into solitude
From all earth's throng,
Run down though swift of foot,
Thrust down though strong;
Life made an end of,
Seemed it short or long.
Life made an end of,
Life but just begun;
Life finished yesterday,
Its last sand run;
Life new-born with the morrow
Fresh as the sun:
While done is done for ever;
Undone, undone.
And if that life is life,
This is but a breath,
The passage of a dream
And the shadow of death;
But a vain shadow
If one considereth;
Vanity of vanities,
As the Preacher saith.
3.2k
The bird of Spring has flown away. Long south
her feathers trail, forgetting cool wind song
and coos of happiness. And why's she wrong
to soar above my love with scattered youth?
Another bird is nesting in cold groups
on Scotland’s shore, her plumage bright and long;
enamoured of her shrilling calls among
exhaling frosty nights and twisting swoops.
I, who have seen so many flocks that made
the fleeting joy trill, still am sad to know
they're gone, perhaps never to return again
or if they do perhaps changed, with wings outsplayed
to other mates, with other rhymes to show
that catch the dry wind’s struggle on the plain
Oct 18, 2010
Oct 18, 2010 at 10:17 PM UTC
As leaves of crimson fall,
& bleed like cherry wine
sleeping parrot greens,
they overtake mind,
I quietly approach,
set up a sneaky blind,
I spot a toucan looking tree
in colors rarely seen
it takes my breath away
in soft & brilliant sheens,
showing off the beauty,
& creating quite a scene,
Amber hues of mustard,
blending in with rust,
others look like wheat
that was baked inside a crust,
so telling you about it,
is something that I must,
Burning up the sky
in flamingo sunset pink
as if I'm in the Tropic's
just sippin' down a drink,
look at all the colors,
just amazing,
don't you think?
Like a lovely bird of paradise
is landing in my hair,
so I can write it down
a story we can share,
I'm jotting down the words,
like Ginger & Astaire,
Out arift upon the skies
I hear the weeping willow
I close my eyes to dream
& lay on leafy pillows
like sheets of iridescent,
quoting as they billow,
I stand in admiration,
a journey that I applaud
sent to me from heavens
from hands, a loving God,
leaves today are burning
stand mystified & awed
So beautiful & grand
your plumage is at peak,
waving me dear willow
I softly hear her speak,
Listen to the sounds
as they open up their beak
Go press a few examples
to savor every day
listen very closely
to every word I say
you take 'em out again
when the skies are turning grey
Cherie Nolan© 2016
Oct 21, 2016
Oct 21, 2016 at 9:03 AM 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
Once in a dream (for once I dreamed of you)
We stood together in an open field;
Above our heads two swift-winged pigeons wheeled,
Sporting at ease and courting full in view.
When loftier still a broadening darkness flew,
Down-swooping, and a ravenous hawk revealed;
Too weak to fight, too fond to fly, they yield;
So farewell life and love and pleasures new.
Then, as their plumes fell fluttering to the ground,
Their snow-white plumage flecked with crimson drops,
I wept, and thought I turned towards you to weep:
But you were gone; while rustling hedgerow tops
Bent in a wind which bore to me a sound
Of far-off piteous bleat of lambs and sheep.
3k
Cock-a-doodle-do! Cock-a-doodle-do!
Cockcrow! Wake up, you poor humans!
The crazy, heartless sapient-irrationals!
You glug your cocktails in our names,
And slay, roast, and offer us to God,
And atone slyly your un-atonable sins.
Our lovely sickle tails, you used, once,
To concoct the cocktails you gulped;
And coveted our red comb and wattle,
The bright yellow of our cape and hackle,
The glittering blue of our wing bows,
And the violet-red of the back and saddle.
Oh no! Don’t strip us of our fair plumage
Our sickle, main tail and the lesser sickle,
Our fluff, hock joint, shank and the spur,
To the toes and claws, for you to toil
Hard, to fry--stir-fry—us, **** in your oil,
For your vain cocktail-less cocktail summits.
Dec 23, 2013
Dec 23, 2013 at 8:47 AM UTC
Cock-a-doodle-do! Cock-a-doodle-do!
Cockcrow! Wake up, you poor humans!
The crazy, heartless sapient-irrationals!
You glug your cocktails in our names,
And slay, roast, and offer us to God,
And atone slyly your un-atonable sins.
Our lovely sickle tails, you used, once,
To concoct the cocktails you gulped;
And coveted our red comb and wattle,
The bright yellow of our cape and hackle,
The glittering blue of our wing bows,
And the violet-red of the back and saddle.
Oh no! Don’t strip us of our fair plumage
Our sickle, main tail and the lesser sickle,
Our fluff, hock joint, shank and the spur,
To the toes and claws, for you to toil
Hard, to fry--stir-fry—us, **** in your oil,
For your vain cocktail-less cocktail summits.
Nov 7, 2013
Nov 7, 2013 at 11:00 AM UTC
Remind me not, remind me not,
Of those beloved, those vanish’d hours,
When all my soul was given to thee;
Hours that may never be forgot,
Till Time unnerves our vital powers,
And thou and I shall cease to be.
Can I forget—canst thou forget,
When playing with thy golden hair,
How quick thy fluttering heart did move?
Oh! by my soul, I see thee yet,
With eyes so languid, breast so fair,
And lips, though silent, breathing love.
When thus reclining on my breast,
Those eyes threw back a glance so sweet,
As half reproach’d yet rais’d desire,
And still we near and nearer prest,
And still our glowing lips would meet,
As if in kisses to expire.
And then those pensive eyes would close,
And bid their lids each other seek,
Veiling the azure orbs below;
While their long lashes’ darken’d gloss
Seem’d stealing o’er thy brilliant cheek,
Like raven’s plumage smooth’d on snow.
I dreamt last night our love return’d,
And, sooth to say, that very dream
Was sweeter in its phantasy,
Than if for other hearts I burn’d,
For eyes that ne’er like thine could beam
In Rapture’s wild reality.
Then tell me not, remind me not,
Of hours which, though for ever gone,
Can still a pleasing dream restore,
Till thou and I shall be forgot,
And senseless, as the mouldering stone
Which tells that we shall be no more.
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