"reedy" poems
How dull the wretch, whose philosophic mind
Disdains the pleasures of fantastic kind;
Whose prosy thoughts the joys of life exclude,
And wreck the solace of the poet's mood!
Young Zeno, practis'd in the Stoic's art,
Rejects the language of the glowing heart;
Dissolves sweet Nature to a mess of laws;
Condemns th' effect whilst looking for the cause;
Freezes poor Ovid in an iced review,
And sneers because his fables are untrue!
In search of hope the hopeful zealot goes,
But all the sadder tums, the more he knows!
Stay! Vandal sophist, whose deep lore would blast
The grateful legends of the storied past;
Whose tongue in censure flays th' embellish'd page,
And scorns the comforts of a dreary age:
Wouldst strip the foliage from the vital bough
Till all men grow as wisely dull as thou?
Happy the man whose fresh, untainted eye
Discerns a Pantheon in the spangled sky;
Finds sylphs and dryads in the waving trees,
And spies soft Notus in the southern breeze
For whom the stream a cheering carol sings,
While reedy music by the fountain rings;
To whom the waves a Nereid tale confide
Till friendly presence fills the rising tide.
Happy is he, who void of learning's woes,
Th' ethereal life of bodied Nature knows;
I scorn the sage that tells me it but seems,
And flout his gravity in sunlight dreams!
7.9k
I went to turn the grass once after one
Who mowed it in the dew before the sun.
The dew was gone that made his blade so keen
Before I came to view the levelled scene.
I looked for him behind an isle of trees;
I listened for his whetstone on the breeze.
But he had gone his way, the grass all mown,
And I must be, as he had been,—alone,
‘As all must be,’ I said within my heart,
‘Whether they work together or apart.’
But as I said it, swift there passed me by
On noiseless wing a bewildered butterfly,
Seeking with memories grown dim over night
Some resting flower of yesterday’s delight.
And once I marked his flight go round and round,
As where some flower lay withering on the ground.
And then he flew as far as eye could see,
And then on tremulous wing came back to me.
I thought of questions that have no reply,
And would have turned to toss the grass to dry;
But he turned first, and led my eye to look
At a tall tuft of flowers beside a brook,
A leaping tongue of bloom the scythe had spared
Beside a reedy brook the scythe had bared.
I left my place to know them by their name,
Finding them butterfly-weed when I came.
The mower in the dew had loved them thus,
By leaving them to flourish, not for us,
Nor yet to draw one thought of ours to him,
But from sheer morning gladness at the brim.
The butterfly and I had lit upon,
Nevertheless, a message from the dawn,
That made me hear the wakening birds around,
And hear his long scythe whispering to the ground,
And feel a spirit kindred to my own;
So that henceforth I worked no more alone;
But glad with him, I worked as with his aid,
And weary, sought at noon with him the shade;
And dreaming, as it were, held brotherly speech
With one whose thought I had not hoped to reach.
‘Men work together,’ I told him from the heart,
‘Whether they work together or apart.’
4.2k
As the gods began one world, and man another,
So the snakecharmer begins a snaky sphere
With moon-eye, mouth-pipe, He pipes. Pipes green. Pipes water.
Pipes water green until green waters waver
With reedy lengths and necks and undulatings.
And as his notes twine green, the green river
Shapes its images around his sons.
He pipes a place to stand on, but no rocks,
No floor: a wave of flickering grass tongues
Supports his foot. He pipes a world of snakes,
Of sways and coilings, from the snake-rooted bottom
Of his mind. And now nothing but snakes
Is visible. The snake-scales have become
Leaf, become eyelid; snake-bodies, bough, breast
Of tree and human. And he within this snakedom
Rules the writhings which make manifest
His snakehood and his might with pliant tunes
From his thin pipe. Out of this green nest
As out of Eden's navel twist the lines
Of snaky generations: let there be snakes!
And snakes there were, are, will be--till yawns
Consume this pipe and he tires of music
And pipes the world back to the simple fabric
Of snake-warp, snake-weft. Pipes the cloth of snakes
To a melting of green waters, till no snake
Shows its head, and those green waters back to
Water, to green, to nothing like a snake.
Puts up his pipe, and lids his moony eye.
3.8k
Come, let us to the sunways of the west,
Hasten, while crystal dews the rose-cups fill,
Let us dream dreams again in our blithe quest
O'er whispering wold and hill.
Castles of air yon wimpling valleys keep
Where milk-white mist steals from the purpling sea,
They shall be ours in the moon's wizardry,
While the fates, wearied, sleep.
The viewless spirit of the wind will sing
In the soft starshine by the reedy mere,
The elfin harps of hemlock boughs will ring
Fitfully far and near;
The fields will yield their trove of spice and musk,
And balsam from the glens of pine will fall,
Till twilight weaves its tangled shadows all
In one dim web of dusk.
Let us put tears and memories away,
While the fates sleep time stops for revelry;
Let us look, speak, and kiss as if no day
Has been or yet will be;
Let us make friends with laughter 'neath the moon,
With music on the immemorial shore,
Yea, let us dance as lovers danced of yore
The fates will waken soon!
2.1k
He sat there, same table, most Sundays
If he came alone, he did not stay that way long
His corner table would fill, with nodders and smilers
People with pint glass recognition of all he'd done
His special tankard 'World's Strongest Man'; no year, for that would be cruel
I watched him as I grew, from colouring book infant to
The girl who stood a round for her father
Each year he shrunk a little, those
muscles softening to fat
And still they came and asked him to bend their metal pipes
And carry a man on each shoulder
One handed him a rope for his teeth, and
Asked if he would tow away his junker, they
Laughed and bought him another round, mate, another pint
For the World's Strongest Man
He told me once, when I was 10 and curious,
The stories of his ink marks, the places
He had been and all the strange and wonderful things
He had lifted and bent and pulled and
Training with the Sumo, ice hole bathing with Inuit,
wrestling hobbled Russian bears, the lion that left 'see, this mark here'
A yawn when he'd placed his big, shaggy head
In the beast's mouth because
He too was a king
I asked him once, when I had grew
If he should have been
More like bamboo
Thin and reedy, bending in the wind
No substance to speak off, yet
With a strength belieing it's slender form
He told me, as the acolytes trudged past
In heavy boots and rough winter coats
'All I ever wanted was for someone else to take the weight, even for a moment, but now it's too late'
I smiled sadly, because I understood
Tested strength and how it withstood
And yet I felt his heart-deep sorrow
At looking back, not to tomorrow
I did not buy him another pint, I walked with him instead
Through the door he'd left a thousand times
To his taxi, usual driver, 'home, mate?'
Lean on me for now, I said. I'm stronger than I look.
Dec 8, 2014
Dec 8, 2014 at 12:57 PM UTC
HE stood among a crowd at Dromahair;
His heart hung all upon a silken dress,
And he had known at last some tenderness,
Before earth took him to her stony care;
But when a man poured fish into a pile,
It Seemed they raised their little silver heads,
And sang what gold morning or evening sheds
Upon a woven world-forgotten isle
Where people love beside the ravelled seas;
That Time can never mar a lover's vows
Under that woven changeless roof of boughs:
The singing shook him out of his new ease.
He wandered by the sands of Lissadell;
His mind ran all on money cares and fears,
And he had known at last some prudent years
Before they heaped his grave under the hill;
But while he passed before a plashy place,
A lug-worm with its grey and muddy mouth
Sang that somewhere to north or west or south
There dwelt a gay, exulting, gentle race
Under the golden or the silver skies;
That if a dancer stayed his hungry foot
It seemed the sun and moon were in the fruit:
And at that singing he was no more wise.
He mused beside the well of Scanavin,
He mused upon his mockers: without fail
His sudden vengeance were a country tale,
When earthy night had drunk his body in;
But one small knot-grass growing by the pool
Sang where -- unnecessary cruel voice --
Old silence bids its chosen race rejoice,
Whatever ravelled waters rise and fall
Or stormy silver fret the gold of day,
And midnight there enfold them like a fleece
And lover there by lover be at peace.
The tale drove his fine angry mood away.
He slept under the hill of Lugnagall;
And might have known at last unhaunted sleep
Under that cold and vapour-turbaned steep,
Now that the earth had taken man and all:
Did not the worms that spired about his bones
proclaim with that unwearied, reedy cry
That God has laid His fingers on the sky,
That from those fingers glittering summer runs
Upon the dancer by the dreamless wave.
Why should those lovers that no lovers miss
Dream, until God burn Nature with a kiss?
The man has found no comfort in the grave.
1.7k
The great blue heron haunts the reedy bank,
and combs the midnight waves with razor eyes.
He trolls the river shoals on spindled shank
then beaks his prey with sudden, swift surprise.
In shadowed silhouette his figure begs
my mind to plumb the depths of darkened mire.
But diving there, I rise with naught but dregs,
no meal of meat, no answers to inspire.
The heron pauses thoughtfully mid-stride
to preen his dusky feathers in the glow.
He ***** his crested head to leeward side,
then darts, once more, with certainty, below.
Aloof to prying gaze of passersby,
he lifts majestic wings on moonlit sky.
Apr 6, 2015
Apr 6, 2015 at 7:21 PM UTC
\|\||//|\\\\||////
I see young reeds on the marshy water
......with flexible stalks...softer...smaller
forcefully swayed by the ones taller...older
...squeezed in between
...no choice given
.....but to exist within
there are those that bravely stray
...even before the stiff ones get blown away,
.....out of the reedy confines, they peek
......curiosity and freedom...they seek
i watch these young reeds rise and totter
when the wind moves the shallow water
bravely peeping...finding their light,
...claiming their space....with traces of fright
.................learning to fight
...with every fiber of their might.
...they can't go farther
................than yonder
in restrictions, they'll find some wisdom
eventually, they'll discover true freedom
one day...their blades would be more defined,
toughened, honed by rain, sun, wind and time,
in their minds, my words would have to rhyme...
but, until then...i got to be taller
......sharper.....tougher
...flexible, but dauntless
i have to sway 360 degrees,
.......when the need arises....
Sally
Copyright July 12, 2017
Rosalia Rosario A. Bayan
Jul 12, 2017
Jul 12, 2017 at 12:55 AM UTC
Our band is few, but true and tried,
Our leader frank and bold;
The British soldier trembles
When Marion's name is told.
Our fortress is the good greenwood,
Our tent the cypress-tree;
We know the forest round us,
As ****** know the sea.
We know its walls of thorny vines,
Its glades of reedy grass,
Its safe and silent islands
Within the dark morass.
Wo to the English soldiery
That little dread us near!
On them shall light at midnight
A strange and sudden fear:
When waking to their tents on fire
They grasp their arms in vain,
And they who stand to face us
Are beat to earth again;
And they who fly in terror deem
A mighty host behind,
And hear the ***** of thousands
Upon the hollow wind.
Then sweet the hour that brings release
From danger and from toil:
We talk the battle over,
And share the battle's spoil.
The woodland rings with laugh and shout,
As if a hunt were up,
And woodland flowers are gathered
To crown the soldier's cup.
With merry songs we mock the wind
That in the pine-top grieves,
And slumber long and sweetly
On beds of oaken leaves.
Well knows the fair and friendly moon
The band that Marion leads--
The glitter of their rifles,
The scampering of their steeds.
'Tis life to guide the fiery barb
Across the moonlight plain;
'Tis life to feel the night-wind
That lifts his tossing mane.
A moment in the British camp--
A moment--and away
Back to the pathless forest,
Before the peep of day.
Grave men there are by broad Santee,
Grave men with hoary hairs,
Their hearts are all with Marion,
For Marion are their prayers.
And lovely ladies greet our band
With kindliest welcoming,
With smiles like those of summer,
And tears like those of spring.
For them we wear these trusty arms,
And lay them down no more
Till we have driven the Briton,
For ever, from our shore.
1.4k
A satin and reedy melody is sweeping across the soundscape and painting my world in
Traditional and elegant blacks and whites,
Sables, indigo moods, and orange skies.
Oct 30, 2015
Oct 30, 2015 at 8:56 AM UTC
When the torque of speech is such
that stapled teeth would seem a wiser lot.
When thought is but a hemlocked lash
of passionate disdain..
..then to the water I return...
A sack of cats for Naiads, hatched
about the reedy bridge, I’ll give
my all to them.
To cross their palms with lighter steps
I call to them from oily depths of
worn illumination.
Here, patience sees them come..
In winter cools of briny shift
to press their vagues upon the lips
of tinkers, by the flotsam slum..
..As Canton sirens pilot tension
through the gentian-violet haze,
so distant trains commemorate
a quiet absolution.
Jan 6, 2017
Jan 6, 2017 at 2:50 PM UTC
is the tendency of the reddish sunshine
to become drenched some more
let us hear
what the milky-way seamed by pins
says
and it’s you
how much can you be able to read
the venation of the Barringtonia acutangula
can you touch the season of making apples
in the aquarium
the empty bottles without any co-ordinate
that shoulder with endless grief
the hands of the wall-clocks
in a sudden depression
they’re also making crowd
at the beauty parlour
you have promised someday
to present a flower-vase to display some drops of blood
in the circled face
do you remember it
you haven’t floated that turnip
till now
here the month of trumpet-flower
covers everything
with reedy grass
with the festival of colours of the white horses
the new leaves of bananas become associated
the total dipavali rows
along the evening-balcony
taking it as daylight
will any bird fly towards it
then send a walkman
for the bamboo plants
you must go today
in search of the source
of the hand-woven lamp-post
from the pitcher-worship to the kantha-stitch
it is a very large
twelve-horned deer
the mango-marrow
demands more land
demands more kingfisher
the breath of the Ravenala
touches the chicks of the black-pepper
in every evening
the flood that tears the button
touches the bowstring
that passes through the centre of magnolia
Sep 14, 2010
Sep 14, 2010 at 5:32 PM UTC
I am
those rouged lips,---
spring waters,
clear,
yet unknown;
I am
the cicada's sound,
repelled birds,
feathers
and stone;
I am
Laburnums---
lynching leaves
they fall, ---
floating on the air,
I am
the skylark,
Beauty's bridesmaid---
Forgotten
In fever's eyes;
I am
the black python
screeching
open mine stitched lips
bleeding forth
I am---
Done,
Sick of this,
Finished,
Pealing open my wounds
to see what I got left of,
I am,---
Not what I use to be;
Nor not what I want to be,
Thus so,
I am
no one---
Instead I'm here
stringing up a knot
From up these reedy webs
I use to be....
So I am,
I am
myself no more.
Apr 21, 2011
Apr 21, 2011 at 2:53 PM UTC
dense as marble, your body
is something to hold onto
after years of chasing shadows,
thin reedy men whose leavetakings
were their legacies, fashioning
(maybe by accident) crude sharp tools
with which to stab my heart.
look at it today,
made thick by crisscrossing
scar tissue. have you ever seen
anything so beautiful
that was broken but
unbroken? here, feel
the heft of it in your palm.
Jan 19, 2017
Jan 19, 2017 at 8:11 AM UTC
A-ngry
B-roken
C-lumsy
D-enial
E-nvious
F-ear
G-reedy
H-umilated
I-gnored
J-ealous
K-akorrhapiophobia
L-onely
M-anic
N-ervous
O-bsessed
P-estimistic
Q-uitter
R-egret
S-orry
T-ormented
U-gly
V-ain
W-orried
X-treme
Y-earning
Z-apped
Dec 9, 2013
Dec 9, 2013 at 1:56 AM UTC
it was tracks left by fingernails that started it.
teasing moans, broken and hushed.
a slip of skin between shirt and shorts.
a flippant, "you know you want me."
that's what started it.
i pressed a kiss to that special place,
where neck and shoulder meet.
you left your own mark,
nestled between the lines i carved.
it was the twists of our hands that ended it.
it was a whiplash of a cry when it was over.
high and reedy and out of control,
sharp and gorgeous.
it echoed through my blood,
reverberated into my veins.
[in fact, i think it still does.]
my heart pumped in time with yours,
our hips rose and fell,
that's what ended it.
left us both boneless,
left us both shaking,
left the eight ball rolling across the table,
colliding with the last stripe, orange.
[your favorite color.]
"i win," you breathed.
"you spoke to soon," i whispered,
"the eight ball fell first."
oh, and we were so close, too.
Jun 10, 2010
Jun 10, 2010 at 6:41 PM UTC
I can't meet your eyes. Your gaze is hot, like iron in a forge. I get embarrassed, I look away.
Looking away is always worse. That's when I see.
Long, thin piano fingers, tapping, twisting, restless.
Long, thin legs shaped like dreaming.
Straight Roman nose.
Slender hips.
Thin lips.
On anyone else, everyone might appreciate this.
On you, only one would covet these. Only one would covet you.
I didn't know what I was getting into. I tried to leave, but I was stuck. Ensnared by that dorky smile, that reedy voice, that obnoxious laugh.
I almost had to ask if you knew how loud your whispers were.
Sep 9, 2014
Sep 9, 2014 at 10:48 PM UTC
There are times when they croon
a little too loud and a little too soon
Like the rusty strings of a widowed piano
that prefers to be out of tune
There are times when they speak,
spilling compassion in a timbre too reedy
Through porous tongues and lacerated gums
that have since forgotten how to believe
There are times when they remind,
a handwritten exegesis of why leaves rot before they descend
Rubbing pencil and tablet together–
one made of flint
The other, of obsidian
Nov 25, 2012
Nov 25, 2012 at 9:27 PM UTC
I have words
good words
all the best words
they come out of me
in fountains
cascading
waterfall words
flushing away doubt
over the edge
over the precipice
I speak
falling words
splashing words
drowning words
there are rocks at the bottom
broken bones
buried treasure
known unknowns
wrapped in reedy words
left here by thrill seekers
terrorists, murderers
rapists
jumping off cliffs
swimming over rivers
climbing the walls that I built
I am a great builder, you see
but it's not all about me and my words
I have questions too
Why do the bubbles breathe when I can't?
Is this light refracted a mirror of the dark?
Is there such a thing as a grindelow?
Can't we stop them?
What is this weight
pulling me down
Can I swim?
Will I drown if I don't win?
Don't look too closely
for I don't know anything
I never did
Let me back in
I always win
You'll be sorry
You will be sorry
all that will be left
is a scorched blonde wig
a scorched earth
a pile of empty emperors clothes
and legislated words
captured in email,
cooked until raw
served over the body politic
burnt and broken by the fall
of ***** grabbing brawlers
drowned and forgotten in a furore
of water hurtling towards the forgetful sea
and it's endless tides will bring the bodies back to shore
won't wash away the misdeeds, you don't know that half of it
you will never be clean
But not me
I am very rich you see
I will float away on an endless tide
of empty promises
corporate endorsements
and established exploitations
leaving only the roaring echo of the flood
in which all your words
all your worthless worlds
were washed away
so ask yourself
on voting day
who do you hate less?
who do you hate more?
will it always be this way?
Nov 1, 2016
Nov 1, 2016 at 6:50 PM UTC
She lives in a time when her kids were young.
She doesn't know the surname of her daughter, now.
They could be sisters, and for all she knows, perhaps they are.
They have the same, glossy wet-paint eyes.
Who are you? She asks, and her mind drags her deeper yet.
Where's my Tom? But Tom, her love, is forty years dead.
Anna sighs and brews the tea, as her mother stares in horror at her own hands.
Whose hands are these? A reedy wail; the same question asked fresh each day.
Photo frames only confuse her. Who is that man by my side?
Anna replies with a stale, much used answer, It's your husband, mama, he's out walking the dog.
I have a dog? She asks, But then, where's Tom? And where's my baby Anna?
Somewhere, mama, they're here somewhere. And they're waiting for you to find them.
Jul 17, 2013
Jul 17, 2013 at 11:33 AM UTC
Winds howl through stricken streams,
From the moonshined mountains spiking Tennessee.
Steaming copper pipes protect like turpentine,
Cherish the soil from vine to wine.
Sweetwater medicine crosses Big Sky Country lines,
And a Capitol drowns voice's reedy rhynes.
The Carolines and swamps round' New Orleans,
Spokane's foothills spire like Woodland's Cherokees.
Mushroom clouds swooped ponderosa pines,
In the desert one day, made the earth cry.
Oh Beautiful, not time to flee,
The Jersey Wetlands or Houston's calamity,
Analogous feats, magnetic societies,
Build a bridge across contrary beliefs.
_trf
Dec 16, 2017
Dec 16, 2017 at 8:35 PM UTC
from this morning
We're at a party, sitting crowded
at the edge of someone's bed
watching a TV.
We sit as usual: arms casually, warmly brushing,
until the first thing ends.
You flip for something else until
you find a Seinfeld
featuring Bugs Bunny and company.
Live action Jewish hair mixes with
cartoon-flat bunny fluff tails
like a blue-toned cousin of
Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
You stop the search, sensing
correctly that this is also my choice.
We stand and you press close
behind me, peering over my shoulder.
I should be surprised but am only elated.
You breathe purposely
on the back of my neck.
It's the goose-bump breath of a heater
on bare wet skin after a winter bath.
Like a well-timed puff on a
nest of reedy tinder,
the freshly struck fleeting flint
grows at the center.
The expedition is saved for one more night!
A sparkler sends
the hottest shower down,
Warm glowing Goldschläger flakes
cascade in whorls,
the turbulence encountering no resistance
save for the tightness of my capillaries
burning pleasantly at skin's end.
I look around at our friends and
recognize distantly that this is becoming
too obvious.
You hook your arm around my waist
and Gabriel gives us an affably
shocked smile that seems to
ask a question.
But the admonition comes through a
wall of drowsy fascination,
too muffled to take effect.
I feel myself smile bashfully
as if to say Hey, whadamituhdo?
Feb 12, 2014
Feb 12, 2014 at 12:52 AM UTC
Cynics, it's June again.
The heady scent of lilacs
from distant spring lingers,
Releasing you to the blue skies, that are
Ensnared in the reedy tree fingers,
The shadows all cower
From the light, bright in her eyes,
Carefree days fall as a golden shower, and
Released, you can chase the wind, for by then
Cynics: it's June again
Apr 24, 2016
Apr 24, 2016 at 8:01 PM UTC
Wild was the mass superiority,
Invincibility's cherished messy fraud.
Wrath coloured warning crimson wrote Justice.
People watched as Mercy perished.
Gin lady lowers her lips by the skin of Reedy Lake
Across and further inside
Wood to share
Silence of the creek
Life that hid and flourished
Grounds for the winding road.
Three hours wheeled
A stormy ride in the night.
The blindness of lightning strikes.
Close your eyes
For the flames of deeper under.
Blindness breaks in a spark on the pan.
Thunder shatters the sky.
Feb 12, 2020
Feb 12, 2020 at 7:58 PM UTC