"ravels" poems
Even nothing heals
It ravels and unravels
Then coyly coils up into a bow
A present from the fringes of space
Waffling between hate and annoyance
At the lack of access to anything else to feel
A hot gust of flying ants and grass shrapnel
Is how you should picture this
My parents made love in the chimney
My brother wrecked Christmas
My cousin is stuck on Easter Island
Sometimes I see him on postcards screaming
It's the dust motes in the light
That cats love to bat and wonder at
Given each alone the mote or the light
They couldn't care less
So much is still waiting behind the right combination, right?
Aug 10, 2012
Aug 10, 2012 at 3:36 AM UTC
paint the world in green, spiral love on henna bellies, toes;
paint it red and ravage hearts,
a poet sings it either way,
sudden and illuminating all another hue
something less than true if true were known,
something more, i call it when it's poetry,
but who am i, this poem, to judge all poems?
who am i to claim a rightful place, within a poem itself,
to demarcate times with halting rhymes...
how many times have i rhymed rhyme with time?
before it's expressed, it ravels in--in deeper--in the dark,
this glamor symbol syncretism
sometimes urgent, never fully formed
no words can turn within and label when their labels came to being signed--
but here i am, to sign, succumb and sign again at signs
Feb 15, 2013
Feb 15, 2013 at 9:55 PM UTC
The ravels in my sleeve of care
Grow longer every night-
Especially in the morning
When I struggle back to sleep
From waking up too early
Only to be bushwhacked
By brigades of unsolved problems,
Battalions of frustration
And whole Armies of defeatment
Marching out to meet me.
While you’re asleep your secret mind
Is solving all the puzzles
That unhinge the hours when you’re awake
And dodging slings and arrows.
That is the scholar’s promise.
That is what the con men say
In psychiatric clinics
Where they write the books
Explaining what it means to fly
And why we never land when falling.
Sleep refreshes and renews-
At least that is the theory.
It’s not supposed to wear you out
And beat you down while dreaming
Out the scripts you didn’t write.
When the raveling is complete
And both my sleeves have come undone
Will I dream of flowered fields
And happy times, successes and rewarding
Or will it end and I no longer dream at all.
ljm
Apr 9, 2017
Apr 9, 2017 at 1:37 AM UTC
#060615
You're not just a Giver of answers
But You alone are the Answer;
I sometimes doubt my future
As I fear it too,
Yet You provide a way out,
A light beyond my feet
You are my certainty.
Of all the pleasures of the world
I once took satisfaction
In fact, I've let myself be drowned
But it ravels me into its depth.
Your heart shall be my heart
I pay no more tribute to my idols
To my once lustful eyes, pride and anxiety
I give to You, oh, grant me forgiveness.
The grain You bestowed me,
Put them in my heart,
That I may cry for hunger,
And thirst due to drought.
Oh, Lord let me mourn
But turn the mourning into dancing
Dance with me, oh angels
Let's praise the Holy King.
Put oil in my forehead
As a sign of Your anointing
Cover me with Your blood
Oh, I shiver with Your eternal grace.
The wine, You share with me
It taste no liquor
But it soothes my Spirit
Oh Spirit, come down
Ignite the passion within me
The feast is now,
Oh the joy of the Lord, fill me in.
Jun 8, 2015
Jun 8, 2015 at 1:24 PM UTC
The fog loses purchase
on the window
and, dying, wicks
ashy vapor's slick scatter
to gated green-brown.
Morning comes again
in fractioned crooks
of snow declining
into fat eggs of rain.
The fog is a colossus,
ravels with dragging step,
before retiring itself
above oak branchlets.
The sun wraps away
in gray, as if stolen.
Nativity of cloud.
I'm telling you this:
everything is possible.
Jan 25, 2021
Jan 25, 2021 at 9:07 AM UTC
Language can form and diminish
Paint pictures more vividly than pallets
A thousand different stories flowing through the veins of society
Words can be picked as subtle as a petal on a dandelion
Or rushing over rocks as fast as the tide.
Words and letters are as sharp as a knife or as lovlingly embracing as a hug
Conversation ties and connects, ravels and unravels.
Speeches can transform and inspire and move
But all words have meaning
Jan 28, 2018
Jan 28, 2018 at 4:54 PM UTC
Had t5here been a bet5t5er greet5ing,
Dist5ance t5ravelled bet5t5er seat5ing
T5rain t5raverse on lines t5hat5 cut5,
Cut5t5ing t5hrough t5he land const5ruct5.
A measure of a cert5ain t5y6pe.
A measure of a purple st5ripe.
Baggy6 t5[-shirt5 loosened t5ie t5at5t5y6 t5orn.
Drag a comb t5hrough t5hat5 hair,
Dist5ant5 vacant5 wishingly6 purposeful st5are.
Say6 no t5o t5hat5 correct5 my6self.
Place t5hat5 cheap cologne on t5he shelf.
Once t5here was a t5all high hill,
T5hat5 once t5he knight5s carouse t5heir fill.
Will climb t5hat5 hill and climbing higher.
Like t5o t5he st5eeple of t5he church t5he spire.
Point5ed on high t5o a st5ar t5hat5 shine.
And shed It5’s light5 on t5he aspect5 of t5hine.
T%o t5umble down once climbed t5o t5he t5op,
And once t5he falling fell t5hen st5op.
Cont5inue deeper, cont5inue t5o smart5,
And deeply6 seat5ed creat5ed dist5ance depart5
And place t5he horse before t5he cart5,
T5hen know t5he meaning of word in art5.
T5he meadows light5 fills on t5he glade
And t5ravel ablout5 t5he dancing shade,
And as t5hese t5wo places glean,
T5here will be more and more t5o be seen.
T5hrough gradient5s of a penumbra,
And wit5h a cert5ain t5icking number,
When t5hings in shadow cower
And t5hings in light5 begin t5o flower
T5hen smiles on faces, dance and graces
Of t5his and t5hat5 and quicker popper flat5.
Chug chug chug of engine st5eam,
T5he rain of t5hese t5hings are bet5t5er off
T%han a conduct5or wit5h a splut5t5ery6 cough.
Feb 26, 2017
Feb 26, 2017 at 5:32 PM UTC
A late September day
Under a perfectly blue sky
The restless wind ravels
The yellow leaves of Maple
As they fall gently on the ground.
I see no one around:
The pastured fields lie bare,
And the roads are empty.
Somewhere in the dark woods
A nameless bird breaks into a song.
Between the barren rocks
A clump of tiny weeds
Have sprouted to bright life;
And in the horizon,
Rows and rows of dark evergreens.
My heart suddenly aches
With a deep yearning for something:
Despite all the losses,
I cannot but be glad,
On this wind-swept autumnal day.
Diptesh Ghosh
May 19, 2013
May 19, 2013 at 12:20 PM UTC
All I manage to catch are glimpses. Peepholes through time and space.
Small ravels of memories I had before this time, before this space. I try to catch them, but they’re always out of grasp.
Like the light that filters through the rustling leaves of the tree. Appearing and disappearing without a moments notice.
I go towards these memories, hoping to achieve them, but I’m always pulled back down to the memories I possess now, that stretch over the ones before, and I forget. I forget who I am, and I remember who I am not.
Apr 11, 2019
Apr 11, 2019 at 8:38 PM UTC
A thought ,for long hibernated,
peeks out of the cave
The void so damped and cold.
Behold the water splashes by
A shimmering river does flow.
Stepping stones, slipping stones
With Long treads, Short threads
Over the water it runs.
Rubbing eyes, it welcomes fresh
And there the green-wilderness!
The jungle of meshed thoughts.
O my poor notion seems so lost
It wanders, it crawls and it mends
For it is the land of forsaken
But owed to ramble, it befriends.
Snarling snares it doth surpass
Move out before you turn into carcass
Merry and alive on road it ravels
Stirring whirlpool in stagnation
For travelling thoughts, let us travel.
Jan 19, 2016
Jan 19, 2016 at 3:01 PM UTC
On the bridge before these walls
stood the spears with the heads
of all who were in the way
cut off on the block, with ravels
if the convicted refused
to pay the headsman
for a quick death, the heads
with holes where the blackbirds pick
the holes where the eyes were
The parishioners wore shawls
over their noses and mouths
during the Sunday service
in the church of the chains
because it reeked from the vault
full of beheaded bodies
oh, history lessons
don't make anyone happy
at best our children
if we don't let us be tied down
by complicity in injustice
lifelong guilt and shame
if we dare to count on each other
and rise up against tyranny
Jun 18, 2023
Jun 18, 2023 at 3:55 AM UTC