"raiment" poems
What smouldering senses in death’s sick delay
Or seizure of malign vicissitude
Can rob this body of honour, or denude
This soul of wedding-raiment worn to-day?
For lo! even now my lady’s lips did play
With these my lips such consonant interlude
As laurelled Orpheus longed for when he wooed
The half-drawn hungering face with that last lay.
I was a child beneath her touch,—a man
When breast to breast we clung, even I and she,—
A spirit when her spirit looked through me,—
A god when all our life-breath met to fan
Our life-blood, till love’s emulous ardours ran,
Fire within fire, desire in deity.
9.2k
The leaves were long, the grass was green,
The hemlock-umbels tall and fair,
And in the glade a light was seen
Of stars in shadow shimmering.
Tinuviel was dancing there
To music of a pipe unseen,
And light of stars was in her hair,
And in her raiment glimmering.
There Beren came from mountains cold,
And lost he wandered under leaves,
And where the Elven-river rolled
He walked alone and sorrowing.
He peered between the hemlock-leaves
And saw in wonder flowers of gold
Upon her mantle and her sleeves,
And her hair like shadow following.
Enchantment healed his weary feet
That over hills were doomed to roam;
And forth he hastened, strong and fleet,
And grasped at moonbeams glistening.
Through woven woods in Elvenhome
She lightly fled on dancing feet,
And left him lonely still to roam
In the silent forest listening.
He heard there oft the flying sound
Of feet as light as linden-leaves,
Or music welling underground,
In hidden hollows quavering.
Now withered lay the hemlock-sheaves,
And one by one with sighing sound
Whispering fell the beechen leaves
In the wintry woodland wavering.
He sought her ever, wandering far
Where leaves of years were thickly strewn,
By light of moon and ray of star
In frosty heavens shivering.
Her mantle glinted in the moon,
As on a hill-top high and far
She danced, and at her feet was strewn
A mist of silver quivering.
When winter passed, she came again,
And her song released the sudden spring,
Like rising lark, and falling rain,
And melting water-bubbling.
He saw the elven-flowers spring
About her feet, and healed again
He longed by her to dance and sing
Upon the grass untroubling.
Again she fled, but swift he came,
Tinuviel! Tinuviel!
He called her by her elvish name;
And there she halted listening.
One moment stood she, and a spell,
His voice laid on her: Beren came,
And doom fell on Tinuviel
That in his arms lay glistening.
As Beren looked into her eyes
Within the shadows of her hair,
The trembling starlight of the skies
He saw there mirrored shimmering.
Tinuviel the elven-fair
Immortal maiden elven-wise,
About him cast her shadowy hair
And arms like silver glimmering.
Long was the way that fate them bore
O'er stony mountains cold and grey
Through halls of iron and darkling door
And woods of nightshade morrowless.
The Sundering Seas between them lay,
And yet at last they met once more,
And log ago they passed away
In the forest singing sorrowless.
7.1k
I could not go on
if I did not know
the 30 years you suffered
the 30 years you died
the 30 years your body bore these ravages and scars
You whose raiment was like stars
before you took upon my sores
Mar 13, 2016
Mar 13, 2016 at 9:37 PM UTC
****** empowers those who flaunt
the shape imbued by deity
by wide degree that willingness
to express beauty’s form
empowerment becomes the goal
once a choice is expressed
by displaying more or less
skin’s gamut is then blessed
divestment of draped attire
spans the spectrum from slight to all
whether the ankle only shows
or lack of raiment is complete
that span is chosen by the self
society is asked to stand mute
don't suggest what should be
except to honor certitude
the superficial or complete
exhibition is the private trek
played out in public without remorse
rejoice for those who made their choice
skin as sanction to celebrate
costumes bent to serve a will
no longer hiding the natural
****** displaying love of self.
© 2018. Sean Green. All Rights Reserved. 20180907.
Sep 8, 2018
Sep 8, 2018 at 8:52 PM UTC
Deep on the convent-roof the snows
Are sparkling to the moon:
My breath to heaven like vapour goes;
May my soul follow soon!
The shadows of the convent-towers
Slant down the snowy sward,
Still creeping with the creeping hours
That lead me to my Lord:
Make Thou my spirit pure and clear
As are the frosty skies,
Or this first snowdrop of the year
That in my ***** lies.
As these white robes are soil'd and dark,
To yonder shining ground;
As this pale taper's earthly spark,
To yonder argent round;
So shows my soul before the Lamb,
My spirit before Thee;
So in mine earthly house I am,
To that I hope to be.
Break up the heavens, O Lord! and far,
Thro' all yon starlight keen,
Draw me, thy bride, a glittering star,
In raiment white and clean.
He lifts me to the golden doors;
The flashes come and go;
All heaven bursts her starry floors,
And strows her lights below,
And deepens on and up! the gates
Roll back, and far within
For me the Heavenly Bridegroom waits,
To make me pure of sin.
The sabbaths of Eternity,
One sabbath deep and wide--
A light upon the shining sea--
The Bridegroom with his bride!
4k
It's oh in Paradise that I fain would be,
Away from earth and weariness and all beside;
Earth is too full of loss with its dividing sea,
But Paradise upbuilds the bower for the bride.
Where flowers are yet in bud while the boughs are green,
I would get quit of earth and get robed for heaven;
Putting on my raiment white within the screen,
Putting on my crown of gold whose gems are seven
Fair is the fourfold river that maketh no moan,
Fair are the trees fruit-bearing of the wood,
Fair are the gold and bdellium and the onyx stone,
And I know the gold of that land is good.
O my love, my dove, lift up your eyes
Toward the eastern gate like an opening rose;
You and I who parted will meet in Paradise,
Pass within and sing when the gates unclose.
This life is but the passage of a day,
This life is but a pang and all is over;
But in the life to come which fades not away
Every love shall abide and every lover.
He who wore out pleasure and mastered all lore,
Solomon, wrote "Vanity of vanities:"
Down to death, of all that went before
In his mighty long life, the record is this.
With loves by the hundred, wealth beyond measure,
Is this he who wrote "Vanity of vanities"?
Yea, "Vanity of vanities" he saith of pleasure,
And of all he learned set his seal to this.
Yet we love and faint not, for our love is one,
And we hope and flag not, for our hope is sure,
Although there be nothing new beneath the sun
And no help for life and for death no cure.
The road to death is life, the gate of life is death,
We who wake shall sleep, we shall wax who wane;
Let us not vex our souls for stoppage of a breath,
The fall of a river that turneth not again.
Be the road short, and be the gate near,--
Shall a short road tire, a strait gate appall?
The loves that meet in Paradise shall cast out fear,
And Paradise hath room for you and me and all.
3.5k
Dim dawn behind the tamerisks—the sky is saffron-yellow—
As the women in the village grind the corn,
And the parrots seek the riverside, each calling to his fellow
That the Day, the staring Easter Day is born.
Oh the white dust on the highway! Oh the stenches in the byway!
Oh the clammy fog that hovers
And at Home they’re making merry ’neath the white and scarlet berry—
What part have India’s exiles in their mirth?
Full day begind the tamarisks—the sky is blue and staring—
As the cattle crawl afield beneath the yoke,
And they bear One o’er the field-path, who is past all hope or caring,
To the ghat below the curling wreaths of smoke.
Call on Rama, going slowly, as ye bear a brother lowly—
Call on Rama—he may hear, perhaps, your voice!
With our hymn-books and our psalters we appeal to other altars,
And to-day we bid “good Christian men rejoice!”
High noon behind the tamarisks—the sun is hot above us—
As at Home the Christmas Day is breaking wan.
They will drink our healths at dinner—those who tell us how they love us,
And forget us till another year be gone!
Oh the toil that knows no breaking! Oh the Heimweh, ceaseless, aching!
Oh the black dividing Sea and alien Plain!
Youth was cheap—wherefore we sold it.
Gold was good—we hoped to hold it,
And to-day we know the fulness of our gain.
Grey dusk behind the tamarisks—the parrots fly together—
As the sun is sinking slowly over Home;
And his last ray seems to mock us shackled in a lifelong tether.
That drags us back how’er so far we roam.
Hard her service, poor her payment—she is ancient, tattered raiment—
India, she the grim Stepmother of our kind.
If a year of life be lent her, if her temple’s shrine we enter,
The door is hut—we may not look behind.
Black night behind the tamarisks—the owls begin their chorus—
As the conches from the temple scream and bray.
With the fruitless years behind us, and the hopeless years before us,
Let us honor, O my brother, Christmas Day!
Call a truce, then, to our labors—let us feast with friends and neighbors,
And be merry as the custom of our caste;
For if “faint and forced the laughter,” and if sadness follow after,
We are richer by one mocking Christmas past.
3.5k
1371
How fits his Umber Coat
The Tailor of the Nut?
Combined without a seam
Like Raiment of a Dream—
Who spun the Auburn Cloth?
Computed how the girth?
The Chestnut aged grows
In those primeval Clothes—
We know that we are wise—
Accomplished in Surprise—
Yet by this Countryman—
This nature—how undone!
3.5k
Holocaust Poem: "On The Slaughter"
by Chaim Nachman Bialik
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Merciful heavens, have pity on me!
If there is a God approachable by men
as yet I have not found him—
Pray for me!
For my heart is dead,
prayers languish upon my tongue;
my right hand has lost its strength
and my hope has wilted, undone.
How long? Oh, when will this nightmare end?
How long? Hangman, traitor,
here’s my neck—
rise up now, rise and slaughter!
Behead me like a dog—your arm controls the axe
and the whole world is a scaffold to me
although we—the chosen few—
were once recipients of the Pacts.
Executioner, my blood’s a paltry prize—
strike my skull and the blood of innocents will rain
drenching your pristine uniform again and again,
staining your raiment forever.
If there is Justice—quick, let her appear!
But after I’ve been blotted out, should she reveal her face,
let her false scales be overturned forever
and the heavens reek with the stench of her disgrace.
You too arrogant men, with your brutal injustice,
suckled on blood, unweaned of violence:
cursed be the warrior who cries "Vengeance!" on a maiden;
such cruelty was never contemplated, even by Satan.
Let innocents’ blood drench the abyss!
Let innocents’ blood seep down into the congealing darkness,
eat it away and undermine
earth's rotting foundations.
Al Hashechita ("On the Slaughter") was written by Chaim Nachman Bialik in response to the ****** Kishniev pogrom of 1903, which was instigated by agents of the Czar who wanted to divert social unrest and political anger from the Czar to the Jewish minority. The Hebrew word schechita (also transliterated shechita, shechitah, shekhitah, shehita) denotes the ritual kosher slaughtering of animals for food. The juxtapositioning of kosher slaughter with the slaughter of Jews makes the poem all the more powerful and ghastly. Such anti-Semitic incidents prompted a massive wave of Eastern European emigration that brought millions of Jews to the West. Unfortunately, there have been many similar slaughters in human history and the poem remains chillingly relevant to the more recent ones in Israel/Palestine, Rwanda, Bosnia and Kosovo. Keywords/Tags: Holocaust, poem, Bialik, translation, slaughter, massacre, God, prayer, executioner, hangman, blood, innocents, justice, false, scales, injustice
Mar 12, 2020
Mar 12, 2020 at 4:00 AM UTC
Oh, how the mighty art fallen
Lucifer, son of the morning star
Behooved by manner of thy own devices
How pompous thou hadst become to refuse to bend thy knee to man
It was pride that filled thee to burst
Had it not been but a few millenia later
Even your knee would have bent to the King of Glory
Whenst He did stoop down to the level of man
Even you wouldst have cried out "Lord, Lord wouldst thou not take upon thyself my raiment of glory? Clothe yourself as a king, not as a commoner."
Were it so much that us being made of dirt and you of fire that your proudness could render thee blind to our beauty as endowed by our shared Creator?
Though our mediums be different, were the Crafter's hands not the same?
Wouldst thou haft only humbled thyself, a different world we could have
I pity and thank thee, oh fallen one
For showing me how not to be
Nov 5, 2014
Nov 5, 2014 at 6:42 PM UTC
(for Nietzche, who cowers behind art.)
The world calls the conquered ******
to remember that the sun every night yearns
to rise, to rise, to rise
when there is no guarantee, no promise, no sure thing.
Yet still it yearns
to rise, to rise, to rise.
The world called Canaanites ******
while they traded and toiled along the shores
of land promised to the aged heretic of Sumer,
whose wife could give only love.
The world called Hebrews ******
while they raised Pharoah tombs
Provided respite from the eastern chariots
Stubborn in refusal of the living gods
Drinking only Eloheim's bitter grape
That provides brief respite from his decrees
When delving deep in one's cups.
The world called Britons ******
When flogged Boudicea fought and fought and finally fell
To Roman spear and gladius
When Angles and Saxons raided then stayed
When Cromwell climbed the pale cliffs
The world called the Iberians, Gauls and Teutons ******
when Caesar crossed the Rubicon
Pax Romana for Citizens born
Land for the wealthy, voting rights too
Taxes and tithes from their toil.
The world called the Khoikhoi of South Africa ******
From the VOC to fatal Apartheid
Up rose a man
The heart of the land
A man named Nelson Mandela.
The world called the Viet Minh ******
from Can Vong to Dien Bien Phu
'till they slogged howitzers above
to reign Napoleonic terror below.
And to them it was just
The American War
After the world called them
Vietnamese.
The world calls the conquered ******
to remember that the sun every day yearns
to rise, to rise, to rise
When there is no guarantee, no promise, no sure thing
yet still it yearns
to rise, to rise, to rise
'though it never watches its own rising
undoing raiment of fading embers
swimming naked in the royal blue
bathing all with daily newborn naked glory
chasing the celestial tidal tease
that seems to wander where it please
reminding that all are born free
but can grow into ignorance
and be called ******
Seek truths
that hold in unity;
that provide nourishment
beneath the lash
allowing one
to rise, to rise, to rise.
Jul 15, 2019
Jul 15, 2019 at 9:01 AM 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
We knew thee of old,
Oh divinely restored,
By the light of thine eyes
And the light of thy Sword.
From the graves of our slain
Shall thy valour prevail
As we greet thee again—
Hail, Liberty! Hail!
Long time didst thou dwell
Mid the peoples that mourn,
Awaiting some voice
That should bid thee return.
Ah, slow broke that day
And no man dared call,
For the shadow of tyranny
Lay over all:
And we saw thee sad-eyed,
The tears on thy cheeks
While thy raiment was dyed
In the blood of the Greeks.
Yet, behold now thy sons
With impetuous breath
Go forth to the fight
Seeking Freedom or Death.
From the graves of our slain
Shall thy valour prevail
As we greet thee again—
Hail, Liberty! Hail!
2.9k
My glass shall not persuade me I am old
So long as youth and thou are of one date;
But when in thee Time’s furrows I behold,
Then look I death my days should expiate.
For all that beauty that doth cover thee
Is but the seemly raiment of my heart,
Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me.
How can I then be elder than thou art?
O, therefore, love, be of thyself so wary
As I not for myself, but for thee will,
Bearing thy heart, which I will keep so chary
As tender nurse her babe from faring ill.
Presume not on thy heart when mine is slain;
Thou gav’st me thine, not to give back again.
2.8k
473
I am ashamed—I hide—
What right have I—to be a Bride—
So late a Dowerless Girl—
Nowhere to hide my dazzled Face—
No one to teach me that new Grace—
Nor introduce—my Soul—
Me to adorn—How—tell—
Trinket—to make Me beautiful—
Fabrics of Cashmere—
Never a Gown of Dun—more—
Raiment instead—of Pompadour—
For Me—My soul—to wear—
Fingers—to frame my Round Hair
Oval—as Feudal Ladies wore—
Far Fashions—Fair—
Skill to hold my Brow like an Earl—
Plead—like a Whippoorwill—
Prove—like a Pearl—
Then, for Character—
Fashion My Spirit quaint—white—
Quick—like a Liquor—
Gay—like Light—
Bring Me my best Pride—
No more ashamed—
No more to hide—
Meek—let it be—too proud—for Pride—
Baptized—this Day—a Bride—
2.8k
These are the letters which Endymion wrote
To one he loved in secret, and apart.
And now the brawlers of the auction mart
Bargain and bid for each poor blotted note,
Ay! for each separate pulse of passion quote
The merchant’s price. I think they love not art
Who break the crystal of a poet’s heart
That small and sickly eyes may glare and gloat.
Is it not said that many years ago,
In a far Eastern town, some soldiers ran
With torches through the midnight, and began
To wrangle for mean raiment, and to throw
Dice for the garments of a wretched man,
Not knowing the God’s wonder, or His woe?
2.8k
I - WORDS LIKE PRISMS
The crystal awaits the perfect slant of sun.
The world turns just so and refracted light
Hurls a color blaze against the wall.
So it is when a long awaited word
Forms on the lips of the wise.
II - WORDS LIKE FLAX
In the fire of conflict,
Words fall to the floor like mounds of charred flax.
Red–faced saints gather clumps to themselves
To spin into finest thread for self-flattering raiment.
III - WORDS WITHOUT WORDS
When pain burrows deep in the marrow
Where words cannot assuage
A gentle touch can bleed some out
And channel hope back in.
No words can spell a kind caress.
IV - POISON WORDS
Beware the charismatic
Carrying a jar of poison pills!
Cover your glass when he passes your way
Or he’ll slip one in unawares.
V - LAUGHING WORDS
Absurdities and failures are the stuff of jokes.
Long live non sequiturs and double entendres!
We love a clumsy tumble into the drink
As long as nobody drowns.
VI - WORDS FOR BUILDING
Of course you can!
I place my total trust in you.
VII - WORD PAINTING
Mister Frost's words never made a wood
Or caused a harness bell to shake.
Even so I’d travel many miles
To see his imagined snow accumulate.
VIII - THE GIFT
My cat, Zoe, never says a word to me!
He doesn't have the tongue or lips or larynx for it.
He cannot fit his paws around a pen.
His brain’s too small for metaphors.
The gift belongs to us alone.
To craft words to build or **** or heal.
Forgive us Zoe for doing little with so much.
July, 2006
Jul 30, 2013
Jul 30, 2013 at 1:20 PM UTC
A garb - the physique
An apparel antique
A marvel mystique
Yet each unique
The body a fabric
For the soul beatific
Jun 21, 2014
Jun 21, 2014 at 9:07 PM UTC
elegant hammer smash
(with succulent force)
this raiment of sanity
from
my shell
loosing that birdofsong
singing cursed verses
into untamed
ears
i i
try try
to show
you
my beautiful blood
; fl
owing into sacred mouths
((they
make frosted gloves)
wrapped over prose)
but next to the shining symmetry of our hearts i know you will take me in your arms and love my notion with your perfect lips
Apr 24, 2010
Apr 24, 2010 at 2:38 PM UTC
680
Each Life Converges to some Centre—
Expressed—or still—
Exists in every Human Nature
A Goal—
Embodied scarcely to itself—it may be—
Too fair
For Credibility’s presumption
To mar—
Adored with caution—as a Brittle Heaven—
To reach
Were hopeless, as the Rainbow’s Raiment
To touch—
Yet persevered toward—sure—for the Distance—
How high—
Unto the Saint’s slow diligence—
The Sky—
Ungained—it may be—by a Life’s low Venture—
But then—
Eternity enable the endeavoring
Again.
2.1k
*You deluge my eyes
In aqueous bombs
Because you love me
In ways that defy existentiality,
That hallow my spirit,
That quake terraqueous Gaia,
Exhale me as a Cosmos
―Of the Cosmo-Plexus of the Wildest Love.
Consecrate me O Niveous Dove,
With thine pearlescent eyes
For love
(Ineffably tender)
Is your Gender.
Pain is my golden raiment,
Dirge and piety
For you
Stir in my soul
By the thew of your
Beauteous, Tempestuous Affections.
Create in me
An intemerate heart;
Impregnable,
For then I will know
That the Silver Wings of Dreams
Are impregnable.
Sep 24, 2017
Sep 24, 2017 at 7:55 AM UTC
I'm staining your raiment with blood while rolling my tongue to create a sputum so that I can wipe off that blood from your raiment. But, you know what I don't want you to clean your shroud because it is a paradigm of our potential—blood. This blood is so potent that it will remind you of me because it is our dark side where we encapsulate. It is something which makes us distinct in our privy shell. Smears of this blood can create revolutions. You know how? Its redness denotes the umlauts of our love and its states depends upon the crests and troughs of our relationship. When we are reaching the crests, it gets brimmed with oxygen and give rise to a new life but the best part is that our troughs don't boost up the mortality rate, instead bring us back to the life. See, how such a small drop of red liquid is so significant for the two of us. It's because it's not a drop of 'liquid' but life. Blood is life, life is blood. We are blood, blood ARE us!
May 7, 2015
May 7, 2015 at 4:25 PM UTC
1262
I cannot see my soul but know ’tis there
Nor ever saw his house nor furniture,
Who has invited me with him to dwell;
But a confiding guest consult as well,
What raiment honor him the most,
That I be adequately dressed,
For he insures to none
Lest men specified adorn
Procuring him perpetual drest
By dating it a sudden feast.
2k
docking on the fringe of a dry spot
the rain died in...
i set sail in solemn siroccos, fraught
with endive and lemons...
no chop. flat listing in the leaning theme
impervious to words lost
my ship dips in clean drink
and dark thought.
away, my anchor prods starboard
planks of salt wood...
clangs in a grog of lurching halt
raw ***** mauve tossed - and shriek blind.
a pennant of mock cause.
a scant curl of smoke, seized
in unseasonable Hypnos.
a whimsical Charybdis -
a thing i choke on.
i scoff
cough a terrible pen
my inkwell, topped off
with black pond,
quill qualms
of love's
dross.
the serenity of my tempest
and the skipping stone it cracked,
now, white sharks, prowling the yonder
of the nearby,
in debt to a far gone, yawning
rings,-
concentric to the naked eye, you clothe not.
lest the raiment be
the Emperor's
new lot.
A Stitch of Odyssey In Epic Fail...
to get more gone, but less lost
a journey of a single step
begins because... and
just because
you stop
stopping.
Feb 3, 2013
Feb 3, 2013 at 1:54 PM UTC