"portent" poems
On the stiff twig up there
Hunches a wet black rook
Arranging and rearranging its feathers in the rain.
I do not expect a miracle
Or an accident
To set the sight on fire
In my eye, nor seek
Any more in the desultory weather some design,
But let spotted leaves fall as they fall,
Without ceremony, or portent.
Although, I admit, I desire,
Occasionally, some backtalk
From the mute sky, I can't honestly complain:
A certain minor light may still
Lean incandescent
Out of kitchen table or chair
As if a celestial burning took
Possession of the most obtuse objects now and then --
Thus hallowing an interval
Otherwise inconsequent
By bestowing largesse, honor,
One might say love. At any rate, I now walk
Wary (for it could happen
Even in this dull, ruinous landscape); skeptical,
Yet politic; ignorant
Of whatever angel may choose to flare
Suddenly at my elbow. I only know that a rook
Ordering its black feathers can so shine
As to seize my senses, haul
My eyelids up, and grant
A brief respite from fear
Of total neutrality. With luck,
Trekking stubborn through this season
Of fatigue, I shall
Patch together a content
Of sorts. Miracles occur,
If you care to call those spasmodic
Tricks of radiance miracles. The wait's begun again,
The long wait for the angel,
For that rare, random descent.
18k
The table was set.
The morning was fine.
The world lay reflected
in two glasses of wine.
An empty plate
reflected sunshine,
The morning compressed
in two glasses of wine.
What did she see
in undulations of wine?
Were the shapes a portent?
Was there a design?
Were the glasses a mirror
or shadowy sign?
Perhaps they were more
than just glasses of wine.
She and a friend
sat down to dine.
Their reflections drank deeply
from two glasses of wine.
Jun 14, 2016
Jun 14, 2016 at 7:16 PM UTC
It is December in Wicklow:
Alders dripping, birches
Inheriting the last light,
The ash tree cold to look at.
A comet that was lost
Should be visible at sunset,
Those million tons of light
Like a glimmer of haws and rose-hips,
And I sometimes see a falling star.
If I could come on meteorite!
Instead I walk through damp leaves,
Husks, the spent flukes of autumn,
Imagining a hero
On some muddy compound,
His gift like a slingstone
Whirled for the desperate.
How did I end up like this?
I often think of my friends'
Beautiful prismatic counselling
And the anvil brains of some who hate me
As I sit weighing and weighing
My responsible tristia.
For what? For the ear? For the people?
For what is said behind-backs?
Rain comes down through the alders,
Its low conductive voices
Mutter about let-downs and erosions
And yet each drop recalls
The diamond absolutes.
I am neither internee nor informer;
An inner émigré, grown long-haired
And thoughtful; a wood-kerne
Escaped from the massacre,
Taking protective colouring
From bole and bark, feeling
Every wind that blows;
Who, blowing up these sparks
For their meagre heat, have missed
The once-in-a-lifetime portent,
The comet's pulsing rose.
8.1k
for Harlon Rivers
the river potion,
the river portent,
the river potent
it is all of these and not one
he is bank sided,
observing the false idols,
the image mirrored
in the glass of the river
transfigured molecularly
he becomes something ferried frothily, forcefully
as if a twig
or a small thing of human manufacture,
an object tossed up airborne-repeatedly
his poetry:
the clash of particles at the many junctions
of objects and water, eddies and the currents,
ceaselessly circumnavigating,
searching revisionary pathways
directed,
but randomized,
prisoner of the flows,
servant to the wind's directives and the
earths magnetic indivisible undulating waves
thinking,
this life,
its unsteady gait,
the irreverent wavering of drunkenness
resultant from potent potions,
portents of inopportune position
in him,
my own histories,
my poetic recordings
also become
water borne,
watermarked,
replayed back for me,
for erasure, censure, closure
and rededication
this River
is a tapestry,
a torn map,
drawn on broken shards
of slivered water,
living with all the others
but we,
are the untitled,
we,
are the un-entitled,
and he is the
Rivers
<•>
Aug 17, 2017
Aug 17, 2017 at 2:36 PM UTC
A Sonnet is a moment’s monument,—
Memorial from the Soul’s eternity
To one dead deathless hour. Look that it be,
Whether for lustral rite or dire portent,
Of its own arduous fulness reverent:
Carve it in ivory or in ebony,
As Day or Night may rule; and let Time see
Its flowering crest impearled and orient.
A Sonnet is a coin: its face reveals
The soul,—its converse, to what Power ’tis due:—
Whether for tribute to the august appeals
Of Life, or dower in Love’s high retinue,
It serve; or, ’mid the dark wharf’s cavernous breath,
In Charon’s palm it pay the toll to Death.
4.7k
Draped in fresh-knitted pearls
we traipsed
into saccharine peach orchard
The summer heat loped about our dew-kissed ******
****** - appropriated from dawn spent on neatly shorn plantation grass
Ambling into the knotted palatial arbor
we sat each in our own tree crux
behinds nestled upon ashen bark
Juice dripping in our grip
down our cast nets of flesh
sprawled about the branches
inset with gravity-defying liquescent orbs
dusted in translucent mink
painted with smears of
citrine, coral, amber, and ichorous
clinging to brass stem
The rondures secede to mandible
taut between palms pull and polished ivories
- torn-
Fluent in dulcet discourse
We cloak ourselves in provocative juice tatting
Until such time that our congealing garments
were found mapping the bark's topography
A saccharine map to the breath of soil
Bloodstone ants found our map
and had begun traversing - portent
to seize our treasure
We surrendered our jewelled cages
and took flight
to the sun-drunken lake to bathe
and swim
until heavy lids kissed moistly
heavily supped on the draught
sleep - beckoned transience
Jan 26, 2014
Jan 26, 2014 at 9:48 PM UTC
Regrets, they come in waves and break around his feet
And he begins to wonder who he might have been
Had roads diverged in different woods and fields
Not yellow or yet any colour still unseen
But clearer now by day than windless nights
Still nearer than the objects of his dreams
It'd rained late into the evening, and when the lights were shaded
Around the pool outside and with the windows shuttered
He'd thrown on loose clothes, flicked open an umbrella
While high outside the stars the lightning flashes muttered
Pulled open doors that led to the veranda
And moved outside once more with all his thoughts unuttered
The smoke, from fires on Java lies heavy on his senses
An omen of the time of year and of the past condition
He shrugs, ***** in the acidic nighttime odors
Reviving lives not lived but revealing his admission
That time beyond the present that mirrors every movement
Within, without, and yet again, the flicker of suspicion.
The pistol in his pocket, illegal not unloaded
A symbol of his state of mind and by his sole discretion
He kneels beside the water, deep-set and in the shadows
Lips forming wordlessly around the last confession
Images of where and what and who and why and whether
A portent of that final action, sensing and impression
The smoke from fires on Java lies heavy on the water
The reek of cordite mixing with the smell of burning grasses
Indignant birds protest the crack of one small set expulsion
The echo round the swimming pool reverberates and passes
Nothing more and nothing less and time and space and matter
Slick red upon the treacherous tiles, the shattered bloodied glasses.
Apr 23, 2013
Apr 23, 2013 at 6:19 AM UTC
I pledge allegiance
to all the stones in the road
that have given me succor,
to every poet-of-anywhere
who greets me
with wetted, parted lips and open heart,
who greets the sun-rays shared, inching,
opening o'er my yet living,
praying body, reminding me
that I am alive,
that I am warm
that I feel poetry in, on,
cells, all over, deep in my extremities
Most importantly, in my busted heart,
where warmth is stored in a soul restored,
and Life affirmed,
For who knows how
many more times
I will know this,
How many more times
I will able compose this,
Play "measure the future''
in seconds or years and
grimaced smiles over tears,
or just one or the other,
that be willed to supersede;
Will keep you posted
in every realized and many some stillborn poem,
rising with the grand entrance of morn skies,
or perhaps, lies buried neath in each horizon's cemetarial,
and
even those,
that straddle a confusing and confused moon,
of a twenty fours hours existence,
be shoulder-borne,
bathed in
combinatorial equatorial
moon & sun light,
so we can bathe, like Bathsheba (1)
by both,
and delight
at the exact same moment's portent,
no matter,
the disregarded, discarded,
why
we are
who we are
when pledge and plead
allegiance to those eyes that read our scrivenings
nml
Aug 27, 2025
Aug 27, 2025 at 11:57 AM UTC
ravens squawked
on that half moon night
the people in the village
were filled with fright
a scary portent lingered
upon the forest dell
the black sorcerer
was mixing a horrid spell
winds whirled
in an agitated manifest
evil twas the potion
prophetic its guest
horror sprung
from the cauldron's brew
atop the hills
smokey fires did spew
eerie groans emanated
inside the sorcerer's chest
the incarnate devil
dwelt in his breast
he opened his mouth
to consume a gnarly toad
as the fleeing villagers
ran along the forest road
Aug 20, 2014
Aug 20, 2014 at 8:21 PM UTC
*see me fly close to the sun
watch my feathers trail and hopes plummet
all round the air
falling through the sky*
evening pond..
cranes' beaks probe
last of daylight melts in rosemary-blue
lunar-moult occurs once
fins have fill of lacrymal-oceans
pedestal left behind when raiment-sown
into the slow-weave tapestry of awakening
sweeping over this landscape with seminal-flow
changing forever its inside-face
hear the unsignalled-whispers of the moon-child
it all lies in that feathered-hope
squiggle.. squiggle.. this message portent
on the palm of your sentry-pod
rustic purple on wheat-coloured earth
green-eyes smite the clouds its freedom
moving.. ever-moving.. then dissipate
into brilliant air
temporarily changing the sky's face
as the sun's eyelashes slowly meet
crawling onward
on the surface
of never
edging slowly to the sides now..veering
wait to fall..
can't ignore the ever-giving spores
lithe stems in a trance-like dance
yes, there is beauty in this non-stop dispersing
of that which asks
nothing in return
*somewhere
there must still be
a massive glitch
in the time-score*
st - 9 oct
Oct 8, 2013
Oct 8, 2013 at 7:52 PM UTC
Poor, hapless souls! at whom we stand aghast,
As at invading armies sweeping by —
As strange to haggard face and desperate cry —
Did we not know the worm must turn at last?
Poor, hungry men, with hungry children cast
Upon the wintry streets to thieve or die —
Suffering your wants and woes so silently -
Patient so long — is all your patience past?
Are there no ears to hear this warning call?
Are there no eyes to see this portent dread?
Must brute force rise and social order fall,
Ere these starved millions can be clothed and fed?
Justice be judge. Let future history say
Which are the greatest criminals to- day.
2.7k
The first time
I heard them
I swear,
I was to listening
to the most beautiful choir
in four-part harmony,
swaying
or angles wings rubbing,
& perfectly, playing
a common file instrument
angled, such a unique sound
symphonic & splendorous
they are all around
this free concert
an offering of
Mother Nature
chiming at once
uncaged,
& calling on the ladies
in perfect unison
sounding like church
telling one another
of sunlit hours
say the flowers
fending off evil spirits
allowing me to travel
into the dark again
leaping over obstacles,
alerting me to danger,
still in their silence
I am protected
by this harbinger of luck
a most powerful portent,
of coming things
they sit silently in the quiet,
like a copper cricket weathervane,
as the poor man's thermometer
spinning tales effortlessly,
in the wind calmly
watching over us
a shivering in the night
save you, are mine
my Native American totem
or God's Cricket Chorus
foretelling of Sorrow
of coming rains tomorrow
ex-lovers and death
a shrill creaking
stridulating in song
Oh, I fear that day,
your music should go away
please dear uncaged cricket choir
I truly ....
hope you'll stay.
Cherie Nolan© 2016
Sep 27, 2016
Sep 27, 2016 at 1:32 PM UTC
These lovers’ inklings which our loves enmesh,
Lost to the cunning and dimensional eye,
Though tenemented in the selves we see,
Not more perforce than azure to the sky,
Were necromancy-juggled to the flesh,
And startled from no daylight you or me.
For trance and silvermess those moons commend,
Which blanch the warm life silver-pale; or look
What ghostly portent mist distorts from slight
Clay shapes; the willows that the waters took
Liquid and brightened in the waters bend,
And we, in love’s reflex, seemed loved of right.
Then no more think to net forthwith love’s thing,
But cast for it by spirit sleight-of-hand;
Then only in the slant glass contemplate,
Where lineament outstripping line is scanned,
Then on the perplexed text leave pondering,
Love’s proverb is set down transliterate.
2.6k
Preponderant enchantments written
With dawns bereft tears
Of a hircine mendicant
Upon a necromantic acorn
Thirsting times wild-wize monition
During a week of sundays
Atide sins wake awash
Clarities purification.
Natures immure debt drawing
Maledictions masterpiece,
Leys bane web mercifully mirroring
Obsidian sibilant eyes
Peccably prenouncing the portent
Languid whisper inquisitorially;
Heavens augumented vestments
Distinguishable amid eternities
Pensive shade as thuriferous
Hallowed tombs loom black
As ink, somewhere that was
Thought to be void far between
The dark hour anchoring the
Fractured talisman of loves memoirs.
ELEETE J MUIR.
Jan 13, 2012
Jan 13, 2012 at 11:49 AM UTC
the
cauldron's
strong potion
was manifest
in a dire toxin
simmering to the pot's rim
this was a stupid portent
doom would be destine to prevail
the elements mixed in error
which ensured a disaster's outcome
''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
bad omens were foretold by the recipe
the black sorcerer no smart blender
to late to change the concoction
it boiled over then blew
he'd not been very careful
in how magic works
such a novice
with dark spells
oh so
silly
Aug 28, 2016
Aug 28, 2016 at 8:10 PM UTC
Amidst the hordes, such mighty wroth:
my bloodline doth elate.
Posterity hath, though, borne aloft
my banner as the Great.
Springing forth my namesake there,
outhewn from Hellas’ opal,
that city which was brought to bear:
her name Constantinople.
For years to pass there was beholden
Thy glory all so clear.
The Great City’s holy site, golden:
there stood Hagia Sophia.
Therein however I bade Thee
to grant portent or sign.
Thou didst forsooth bequeath to me
one sacred and divine.
I stand upon the ever-brink,
Rome’s beauty lies thereunder.
Thy truth through me starteth to sink,
it striketh me like thunder.
The sun blindeth my weary eyes
as I gaze over yonder;
whereupon thou revealest me:
In this sign, you will conquer.
Jan 31, 2018
Jan 31, 2018 at 2:41 PM UTC
suds fall on black like endless snow.
tarnished paint to spry—
engine's diminutive breath
clout of metal coil, ballasts of portent...
defacing the fog and giving
it a brand new meaning. beside the rice fields in sullen Bulacan,
i ache for the frog defecating
on this tortured piece of land.
birds in migratory V-positions cleave
the azure, vanishing behind the tough ornate. to whence they flee
and to where they shall land
on their poised talons, i do not know.
underneath the dermis and over
it, a long stillness of waiting,
trapped is this
man of Earth.
Nov 4, 2015
Nov 4, 2015 at 3:43 AM UTC
when i heard about it,
when i heard of “free art:”
i thought of free bread and wine,
and celtic sirens,
i laughed though... you made the earth
so ******* boring we all wanted to become astronauts.
when art became free we tried to moralise
drinking wine (as a portent of richness)
and eating bread (as a portent of the russian revulsion),
i bought my art.. and waited for the ones who
discouraged it complaining buying their bread “well fed.”
the celtic sirens hung on though, singing softer and softer
but more prone to the acid tongues dragging the democrats into
a hope of kings and village kindred elders,
but i still didn’t hope for free artistry that was akin to circus,
caged the gypsy have i?
i have, but i did not warrant free food or free aquas of variation,
i simplified freeing the demands with the demands freed into excess,
well... if i were kingly i’d still have provided free bread and wine
rather than music and the curbing the excesses of lyricists;
making music free just discouraged all originality, all creativity,
it just became a realism of a struggled acting -
i feel cheated having missed the antics of britannia in
the 1960's and '70's like it was greek and roman without
the epileptics of watching a documentary on trans-sexualisation
of brazilians and ******** disco to gag on an excess of flashy lights
just to sell lipstick... and have these quasi-epileptic shivers
without having an opposing opinion to counter the freely stated & fluxed.
i guess my convulsions were due to the fact that the men
didn’t call it either homosexuality nor trans-sexuality,
and that i was actually looking at two dodos talking, meaning
i was seeing the extinction of the human race through the ****
meaning i was watching the knights templar idol, baphomet,
realised 2000 years after the crucifixion in that crown of thorn dreams,
perfected in thailand... of all places;
that actually beats the identification of ibn saud as the dajjal,
moving further east of mecca than riyadh and
the assassination attempt within the framework of muhammad’s hadith of ‘no entry’ into mecca by the dajjal.
Oct 12, 2015
Oct 12, 2015 at 11:17 PM UTC
T'was little fun
T'was a little town,
No virulent delirious runs
No irking sounds
As t'was a little dangling town
All t'was a feasible brew
No meanders to sought
No conundrums of anew
just wired timely things to rot
When all t'was a portent upcoming
For t'was clad and veneered
In a amicable sun-daze groaning
T'was a peaceful loop of mono-gradient seasons
and all to do was ponder
For t'was guzzled with reasons
T'was yesterdays jigsaw puzzle
T'was a nightmare in sun-light
But for now, let's retch our unknown dazzle
As t'was,
A flippant fuss
For what shan't be
A beguiling me
Feb 6, 2015
Feb 6, 2015 at 5:21 AM UTC
Where the church bell gapes
at its golden discs gain the airy steep.
Where the eagle deposits its
majestic soar, a mass of feather and
talon--Empyrean's doormat.
Where Icarus stroked wax wing
through the sepia ambiance of his
mind.
Where the hermit broke 'neath after
decade of reclusion.
Where star discloseth foci to
dime the dead of space.
Where striven peace's tangled root
whistles extolling.
Where an aerodynamic corpus
unsheathed horizon, parting palpebras....
surging the seen, unseen.
All's apparent aqua blue, transparent
***** outspread portent pregnant of
blessing.
O sky--every soul's once-over,
immaculate conceptions...ex nihilo.
Nov 7, 2013
Nov 7, 2013 at 11:26 PM UTC
Stark dark black limbs
Breast eyes beak wings
Abysmal feathered
Garments; a messenger.
Mal to prefix, as well,
Remnants from the abyss.
Not malicious, for delicious
Is a delight dragged
Out of any carrion.
Not carried because
They carry enough
Is too much for
These observers of us.
Screeching their squawks.
Perched on boughs for talks.
Of malign imminence.
To coalesce friendly fragments.
Found at any crossing's discourse.
Gusting about an eerie force.
Beacons upon who to bereave.
Portent displacing fallen leaves.
So we re-member
Our piece by piece plummet
Into that omnipotent
Stark dark descent.
Jan 13, 2013
Jan 13, 2013 at 7:08 PM UTC
Place de la Gare, à Charleville.
Sur la place taillée en mesquines pelouses,
Square où tout est correct, les arbres et les fleurs,
Tous les bourgeois poussifs qu'étranglent les chaleurs
Portent, les jeudis soirs, leurs bêtises jalouses.
- L'orchestre militaire, au milieu du jardin,
Balance ses schakos dans la Valse des fifres :
Autour, aux premiers rangs, parade le gandin ;
Le notaire pend à ses breloques à chiffres.
Des rentiers à lorgnons soulignent tous les couacs :
Les gros bureaux bouffis traînant leurs grosses dames
Auprès desquelles vont, officieux cornacs,
Celles dont les volants ont des airs de réclames ;
Sur les bancs verts, des clubs d'épiciers retraités
Qui tisonnent le sable avec leur canne à pomme,
Fort sérieusement discutent les traités,
Puis prisent en argent, et reprennent : " En somme !..."
Épatant sur son banc les rondeurs de ses reins,
Un bourgeois à boutons clairs, bedaine flamande,
Savoure son onnaing d'où le tabac par brins
Déborde - vous savez, c'est de la contrebande ; -
Le long des gazons verts ricanent les voyous ;
Et, rendus amoureux par le chant des trombones,
Très naïfs, et fumant des roses, les pioupious
Caressent les bébés pour enjôler les bonnes...
- Moi, je suis, débraillé comme un étudiant,
Sous les marronniers verts les alertes fillettes :
Elles le savent bien ; et tournent en riant,
Vers moi, leurs yeux tout pleins de choses indiscrètes.
Je ne dis pas un mot : je regarde toujours
La chair de leurs cous blancs brodés de mèches folles :
Je suis, sous le corsage et les frêles atours,
Le dos divin après la courbe des épaules.
J'ai bientôt déniché la bottine, le bas...
- Je reconstruis les corps, brûlé de belles fièvres.
Elles me trouvent drôle et se parlent tout bas...
- Et je sens les baisers qui me viennent aux lèvres.
1.8k
Now is my passion genuine,
Or fuelled by lustful need to win
I must have you within my arms
Held tight together, sharing charms.
Forbidden love, but do we care
Wrapped in sin, we make love there
While all around, the world goes mad
For this snatched moment we are glad.
And as we lie, our passion spent
The skies are filled with dark portent
The cuckold is life’s tragedy
He lost his lover’s love to me
He couldn’t ever set her free
I took her to Eternity.
©Joe Wilson – Sinful surfing…2015
May 11, 2015
May 11, 2015 at 8:11 AM UTC
Magenta sunrise.
Icy cold.
Dotted intimately with magnolia dots of sunlight.
Diamond studded.
Fresh is the air this morn.
It's bright.
It's clean.
Almost sterility.
Clean skies.
Let morning sky be not a portent.
Cold air.
Kiss me.
(C) Livvi
Dec 29, 2014
Dec 29, 2014 at 3:44 AM UTC
“How can I get you to go down on me,”
he asked, without preamble.
His voice, nervous,
laced with strength
hums through her form,
summoning
a tatting of ***
She moves her entire form
Across the room
pushing solar plexus
With index finger
The wingback chair collecting
His form – assuaging her intent.
Retreating nine steps
To gather
Her acumen in dripping her clothes off
Adroit pivot
portent gaze
locked
exteroception - engaged
His exhale
executed succinctly in shallow lung
puckered alveoli - clenched
resonates as her own.
Pearls scooped catatonic
atop lingering breast ascension - alone
Remain –
Summoning brine.
She tastes his pulse
Derma puckering sweat globules
Redolent aeriform vapor corpuscles
declaring his need.
Fingers supporting her upper weight
she glides - crawling
pressing half inch spurs into the carpet
Lackadaisical dactyl dance
Seizes
muscle calf to thigh
Invoking listless leg drape
Pausing
Warm breath – rendered
Upon knee cap parallel
Framing shoulders
Engorging - in aching silence
Pulse thick, wrought in shaft
Kneeling
Primed
Proud
She flicks the button
From slit fabric recess
Cupping palms under thigh,
She renders garment to puddle
half-in – half-out
whole
chthonic shaft to palette
Sliding exhale
to mound
lax jaw
focus
Iris entreats -
narrowed corneal withdrawal
Oblong lip array surrounds
Supping the creamy, coppery,
Smoky, saline inoculation.
Latent dribble invokes tongue
Furl about lip cusp
Absorbing globule
Into slaked smile.
Feb 19, 2014
Feb 19, 2014 at 10:33 AM UTC