"refining" poems
#*I saw a path and ran ahead
I nearly lost my way
Your mercy caught me by the arm
To Your side You bid me stay
I put my hope in my own plans
Which soon around me fell
You stopped me short upon that road
And said, "Rest and all will be well."
I'd surrendered all, but to my foe
Enticed into the briars
You turned his evil schemes instead
Into refining fires
I couldn't see my helplessness
Until my legs were broken
Till Shepherd's hands caressed my wounds
And healing words were spoken
You picked me up and carried me
And made me feel Your favorite
You held my head against Your chest
Until I grew to savor it
You tended me with gentlest touch
Then soothed all thought of fears
You sang forgiveness over me
And washed away my tears
There is no one like You, Lord
On whom I can rely
In loss, in danger or attack
You hear this poor sheep's cry
It's You Who keeps me from real harm
Who watches my coming and going
You shield me with Your strong right hand
From darts the enemy keeps throwing
You said to all who trust in You
You would give perfect peace
Enough for mind and heart to rest
To let all worrying cease
So, Lord, I trust You with my life
Your Shepherd's heart is pure
Your purpose for me's guarded well
And Your deliverance is sure
Please teach this sheep, Lord, how to wait
And strengthen me to stand
To put my hope in Your desires
And to love Your sovereign plan
You lead me into fields so green
Where streams of life are flowing
Where healing winds blow oft' and strong
And choicest fruits are growing
You set me free to hear Your voice
To follow at Your call
And even through the dark, cold nights
I'll know You've arranged it all
Yes, storms will come with battering rains
With hail and gusts and thunder
But these are meant to beckon me
To Your wings to pull me under
For it's in the darkness of the storm
My grip's most apt to tighten
And when my heart beats next to Yours
All earthly burdens lighten*#
Nov 5, 2015
Nov 5, 2015 at 10:14 AM UTC
I saw a path and ran ahead
I nearly lost my way
Your mercy caught me by the arm
To Your side You bid me stay
I put my hope in my own plans
Which soon around me fell
You stopped me short upon that road
And said, "Rest and all will be well."
I'd surrendered all, but to my foe
Enticed into the briars
You turned his evil schemes instead
Into refining fires
I couldn't see my helplessness
Until my legs were broken
Till Shepherd's hands caressed my wounds
And healing words were spoken
You picked me up and carried me
And made me feel Your favorite
You held my head against Your chest
Until I grew to savor it
You tended me with gentlest touch
Then soothed all thought of fears
You sang forgiveness over me
And washed away my tears
There is no one like You, Lord
On whom I can rely
In loss, in danger or attack
You hear this poor sheep's cry
It's You Who keeps me from real harm
Who watches my coming and going
You shield me with Your strong right hand
From darts the enemy keeps throwing
You said to all who trust in You
You would give perfect peace
Enough for mind and heart to rest
To let all worrying cease
So, Lord, I trust You with my life
Your Shepherd's heart is pure
Your purpose for me's guarded well
And Your deliverance is sure
Please teach this sheep, Lord, how to wait
And strengthen me to stand
To put my hope in Your desires
And to love Your sovereign plan
You lead me into fields so green
Where streams of life are flowing
Where healing winds blow oft' and strong
And choicest fruits are growing
You set me free to hear Your voice
To follow at Your call
And even through the dark, cold nights
I'll know You've arranged it all
Yes, storms will come with battering rains
With hail and gusts and thunder
But these are meant to beckon me
To Your wings to pull me under
For it's in the darkness of the storm
My grip's most apt to tighten
And when my heart beats next to Yours
All earthly burdens lighten
May 27, 2017
May 27, 2017 at 12:57 PM UTC
Dancing,
Thrashing,
Cascading
Down the barren stone tower,
Through the craggy, coarse cliffs
Refining, polishing the necessary features
And streaming for the duration of my adventure,
One might wonder: Why?
Why! Oh what a question—
To purify what will soon be soiled in a moment’s time,
And yet, unremittingly,
Over, ad nauseam, again.
I cannot die.
No agony or desolation can destroy me.
Amaranthine, ceaseless, everlasting!
I hold steadfast, staunch, unrelenting.
I am a waterfall.
Nought can destroy me.
I am forever...
Jun 19, 2014
Jun 19, 2014 at 4:13 PM UTC
In the Midnight heaven's burning
Through the ethereal deeps afar
Once I watch'd with restless yearning
An alluring aureate star;
Ev'ry eve aloft returning
Gleaming nigh the Arctic Car.
Mystic waves of beauty blended
With the gorgeous golden rays
Phantasies of bliss descended
In a myrrh'd Elysian haze.
In the lyre-born chords extended
Harmonies of Lydian lays.
And (thought I) lies scenes of pleasure,
Where the free and blessed dwell,
And each moment bears a treasure,
Freighted with the lotos-spell,
And there floats a liquid measure
From the lute of Israfel.
There (I told myself) were shining
Worlds of happiness unknown,
Peace and Innocence entwining
By the Crowned Virtue's throne;
Men of light, their thoughts refining
Purer, fairer, than my own.
Thus I mus'd when o'er the vision
Crept a red delirious change;
Hope dissolving to derision,
Beauty to distortion strange;
Hymnic chords in weird collision,
Spectral sights in endless range….
Crimson burn'd the star of madness
As behind the beams I peer'd;
All was woe that seem'd but gladness
Ere my gaze with Truth was sear'd;
Cacodaemons, mir'd with madness,
Through the fever'd flick'ring leer'd….
Now I know the fiendish fable
The the golden glitter bore;
Now I shun the spangled sable
That I watch'd and lov'd before;
But the horror, set and stable,
Haunts my soul forevermore!
13.2k
The moon reads the abstract of our past
Always refining our path
The stars are the editors of our lives
Always stirring
The breeze sensitizes our memory
Upon the gleaming of the night sky
We journey along the memories of time
Until each star slowly disappears
Without a trace.
Copyright© Cynthia Ulloa
All rights reserved.
Aug 12, 2014
Aug 12, 2014 at 6:35 PM UTC
It is said that those
who have emotionally touched you
leave an everlasting imprint
on your beating heart
and shining soul
An impression of sorts
like one of a fingerprint,
the swirling patterns of their delicate fingertips
pressed against our skin
leaving a permanent mark
for everyone to see
a tattoo of beauty
or sometimes,
a scar of spiteful hatred
and sham
The imprints left on our skin
eventually travel to our hearts
recreating our character
and traveling to our souls,
shaping us anew
taking and reshaping our very beings
to become a kind angel
or a vengeful demon
refining our once innocent minds
to become something else
Fingerprints pressed to our eyes,
lips,
hands
and feet
either leaving us with good impressions
or wicked intentions
It is not for us to decide
whether those who touch us
leave fingerprints of swirling beauties
or a labyrinth of anguish
but we can decide
what we do with these unique tattoos
and what we create using
their magnificent power.
Nov 5, 2014
Nov 5, 2014 at 6:20 PM UTC
I thought I had knew
who I wanted you to be,
turns out I didn't have a clue,
till you appeared before me.
I've watched too many shows,
they gave me false impressions.
I've had too many blows,
I've lost all my expectations.
I focused on the wrong things,
they distracted me away.
The promises of love they say,
I fell to their prey.
I thought I had lost,
But I actually gained.
What I had learnt,
was worth all that pain.
I learnt that I'd been shallow,
and that I didn't look deep,
deep into the heart and soul,
the things that I could keep.
And now I won't be fooled again,
I won't let you go.
I know a man of character,
is precious as fine gold.
Through the years of refining,
still he will remain,
older than before,
better than before,
and by my side, he'll stay.
Mar 31, 2015
Mar 31, 2015 at 3:25 PM UTC
365
Dare you see a Soul at the White Heat?
Then crouch within the door—
Red—is the Fire’s common tint—
But when the vivid Ore
Has vanquished Flame’s conditions,
It quivers from the Forge
Without a color, but the light
Of unanointed Blaze.
Least Village has its Blacksmith
Whose Anvil’s even ring
Stands symbol for the finer Forge
That soundless tugs—within—
Refining these impatient Ores
With Hammer, and with Blaze
Until the Designated Light
Repudiate the Forge—
3k
She is spontaneous poetry, no need to be written,
a dam burst of emotions subtle,on what I float along,
a whirlwind at an unpredictable time of the season
looking for an intimate space to churn and churn and churn.
By now, I know this without her even hinting,
all her dark clouds will rain in torrents nonstop
in to my landscape, sultry, broad and tranquil
I am an open sky, a stage ready for changing realities
a cloudless calm now in meditative expansiveness,
ready to change from dark, cloudy turgidity
to it's contrast, white feathery fluff that's dreamy.
This time round, when she visited,she did lie naked
on my bed supine, looking at me wistfully for a while
in my mind's sky beams of morning sun criss- crossed
all the nine openings of my body tightly shut, I sat meditating.
But I felt her chaotic presence in the energy field spreading,
she hurriedly removed her clothes one by one,smiling
in the buff she alights on my lap,a butterfly on a flower was her,
by and by a sweet heaviness enveloped my ***** in union with hers
I hear the primordial boom of the big bang, refining as an "Om"
travelling sans any medium it goes outwards to expanding universe.
to the 1"Chidakasha" where everything begins and go beyond.
Her storm energy, Tantric, seeks alleviation of existential pain,
I hear my glowing inner eye whispering in light to the far galaxies,
In one form she is so much, past present and future converged,
She is 2"Mahatripurasundari", great enchantress of the three worlds.
Shakthi, the feminine energy that moves earth, heaven and hell,
Kali, the dark energy, seeking sublimation through catharsis.
On me she moves like a tortoise deliberately,my nervous system reads,
She would defeat the hare and win the laurel, in yogic, trance I discern.
Nov 18, 2015
Nov 18, 2015 at 12:46 PM UTC
Feminine Essence arrives from Sirius,
riding expansive emotions,
not equipped for Challenge Earth.
Enter Orion Male Essence,
to irritate her into full glory.
Still refining the Balance.
Jul 21, 2013
Jul 21, 2013 at 9:29 PM UTC
There, lay outskirts. Through them are windmills lining
A vast expanse of amber sky, and there they are refining
A pure blue wind, tinted such within by turning steel fins.
They did, they told you. No one would walk to the end
Of the blue windmills, no one could ever mend
The heart of our world, twirled in their spinning curls.
But, you, I know you. Is what you’ve done enough now?
Has the pain gone away, will your heart unhurt somehow?
It wasn’t you, they knew. And you know it to be true.
I left. This is for you, because I want the knowing
That I’ll see you someday in the place where it’s snowing.
It’s not a lie, allied your love and mine, so this time
I do, do want to see you, walking out in the wind
I’ll wait for you by the blue windmills, made of
paper and pins.
May 28, 2014
May 28, 2014 at 10:38 AM UTC
As you may know, I continue to collaborate with other poets here, most frequently with Helen. Below is a poem of hers that I have edited and reworked, her original notes to me are contained in the notes section below. So if you like it, tell Helen. If you "choke" on it, tell the editor. That's why they pay us the big bucks! So, send me your scraps yearning to be free...
I am choking
on words.
chest clogged,
throat seized,
as I await to deplane,
when I will perforce,
speak these words,
but for now, held in a
prison garb of my own design.
organs can be donated,
the broken heart,
the shattered liver,
the kidney failing,
eyes for the blind,
lungs for the breathless.
the human psyche
is not replaceable.
I need a mind of titanium,
will gladly settle for either the
Tin-man's heart, or
Cowardly Lion's courage,
both, too much too hope for...
but they are not sold at the airport shops.
perhaps my unseen editor
will accompany me,
hand firmly on my writing elbow,
guiding, refining, selecting
les mot parfait...
How come?
How come everything
inside a body can be replaced
so artfully, artificially
except words inside a broken mind?
I cannot get these words out,
who can transplant a soul?
Dec 17, 2013
Dec 17, 2013 at 4:00 PM UTC
A wordsmith sits patently
Sharpening and refining his tools.
He listens and he waits
For the deadly moment,
Knowing exactly when to strike.
He unsheathes his sword,
Pointing expertly towards his prey.
Words of shining steel
Slice through the air
Landing with intent,
Cutting with precision,
Twisting with malice,
Into this bleeding heart
Of mine.
Dec 30, 2021
Dec 30, 2021 at 6:21 AM UTC
My brother's somewhere hiding,
first comes counting, then comes finding
but this child that I am minding
my last nerve he's tightly winding
Mum and Dad have gone out dining
on their date night, romance shining
while the little brat is whining
hidden in the curtain lining
So I'll get on with my writing
cause it must be more exciting
to be sat here with my rhyming
as my skills they need refining.
Now the little ork is pining
still not found, my name he's crying
eyes accusing me of lying....
Is a pinky promise binding?
Jul 15, 2014
Jul 15, 2014 at 2:12 PM UTC
Obsessed with a cure
Constantly distorting what occurs in nature
Refining it. Mixing it with chemical burn concoctions.
Covering every inch of green as far as you can see
Growth hormones.
Pesticides. Insecticides. Don't-care-if-the-bees-die-icides.
Anything that can be sprayed on a crop for higher yields
All they care about is production and profit
Hundreds of new factories every year
Pumping out quick acting gel tabs
Filling the cabinets with placebos
Close enough to the edge of science to not be considered god
A two billion dollar a year industry
To stay young
Be healthy
Not have to get off our fat, lazy, publicly ill-educated *****
To lose weight
Nothing worth having ever came easy
Your inability to learn from your mistakes takes over
Watching the inevitable if not medicated decline of society
DNA withering away to dust, until only shells are left
Gaudy and virile played out right before us like a badly made ****
Doesn't matter who is getting ******
You are still watching
May 2, 2012
May 2, 2012 at 9:28 PM UTC
~for you, girl~
words have definitions; shades; moods,
even within the contextual moment,
the coloration sometimes is discolored,
one person frantic is another’s
normal
passing fancy
insanity
quiet
overwrought silliness
frantic is a continuum’s conundrum
and oft the hubbub coverhup lends
a veneer of urgency importance
when knowledge acquisition is iron
irony, best when well chewed, quietly
considered and consumed with the
perspective of addition and subtraction
what we know is more than yesterday,
and less than what we will one day own,
for the only purity of learning is that’s
final refining is never ending
the artifice of deadlines,
gradation vis-a-vis
all the rest, is not a
distinction worthy of
distinguishing
your human value is beyond compare
exactly!
the greatest of valued adders to the world body of understanding put the race of
ego to one side, and so should we all,
not
be ****** in by the imposition of qualifiers
you are quality, and that is the only
qualification you will ever
acquire and require
and in my naïveté
I reflect looking back
and give you here the
free use thereof,
of its worth, you will
determine
but in summary judgement:
always keep thinking
ridicule is ridiculous
but best when applied
by oneself to oneself
with a
*** did I really think:say that?”
and laugh out loud at our human
foibles, especially our own,
with a wry smile, admitting
some of things we conjure up
in all seriousness are
are the funniest things we’ve ever heard
Dec 5, 2024
Dec 5, 2024 at 11:13 AM UTC
I dust myself off:
I'm on display today.
Or rather, God is on display
In me: His hard graft,
His craftsmanship,
His patient shaping, refining,
Giving them good reason to stop
And notice His signature style,
So to give honour to our maker.
That makes me stand straighter.
Sep 18, 2025
Sep 18, 2025 at 5:14 PM UTC
**Celestial scholars
deliver influencing scripts
days brisk with drumbeats
evenings spilled from riverbanks -
drifts of violet, ripe moons.
A life for living
make creativity your song
let all sorrow go
our tomorrows fade too fast
every moment so precious
Your choices to own
claim to have truly lived
be free like a bird
soar to the highest mountain
feel the breeze beneath your wings
All will surely die
your body is not a chore
the energy life
is eternal, infinite
and clothed in velvet breathing
Life's ageing busy pace
relax - observe and still time
neither thoughts nor none
hum a song about the stars
or astronomy lessons
Dwell in loving peace
share spiritual sustenance
imperfect mirage—
unbend, barefoot in its shade
languid afternoons, blessings.
Hearing poetry's grace
Echoes that laugh-lust-cry-love
relentlessly true.
Souls rapture joined - bestowed
kiss softly devastating.
A world awakes
in spaces of wonderment.
Slows worries until -
our eyes open: Surprise Splendors
Treating earth like a lover**
**Refining senses -
resilient beauty touched**.
*???
???
???*
Submit your 2 line 5/7 challenging verses then your 3 line 5/7/7 answering verses in a 'reaction' please
.
May 17, 2010
May 17, 2010 at 11:29 AM UTC
'As like the Woman as you can'--
(Thus the New Adam was beguiled)--
'So shall you touch the Perfect Man'--
(God in the Garden heard and smiled).
'Your father perished with his day:
'A clot of passions fierce and blind,
'He fought, he hacked, he crushed his way:
'Your muscles, Child, must be of mind.
'The Brute that lurks and irks within,
'How, till you have him gagged and bound,
'Escape the foullest form of Sin?'
(God in the Garden laughed and frowned).
'So vile, so rank, the ******* mood
'In which the race is bid to be,
'It wrecks the Rarer Womanhood:
'Live, therefore, you, for Purity!
'Take for your mate no gallant croup,
'No girl all grace and natural will:
'To work her mission were to stoop,
'Maybe to lapse, from Well to Ill.
'Choose one of whom your grosser make'--
(God in the Garden laughed outright)--
'The true refining touch may take,
'Till both attain to Life's last height.
'There, equal, purged of soul and sense.
'Beneficent, high-thinking, just,
'Beyond the appeal of Violence,
'Incapable of common Lust,
'In mental Marriage still prevail'--
(God in the Garden hid His face)--
'Till you achieve that Female-Male
'In Which shall culminate the race.'
1.4k
Time an temperature...bottom right of
tele-visioning screen.
And now...torrent crystallized vertically, horizontally.
Fixity of the epochal grope--aegis to the
refining floodlight.
Reflected back to virtual reality, Jacob Boehme's
pewter dish.
Numbing, the iced pillow of cold illogic...slid
the presented head...melting.
Warming up and up to harmony and chaos--
reintegrated by and by Now.
Nov 1, 2013
Nov 1, 2013 at 12:31 PM UTC
On a summer day I saw a pretty dame
bathing in the warm waves of the beach's tub.
She tanned her skin to adorn her slim frame,
massaging its softness with each gentle rub.
From that distance, she exuded sweet fragrance
stemming from the refining of her radiance.
Sensual movements from lips, hips, curves, legs and hands
made me fantasize as I relished each moment.
My love-struck eyes gazed at the rhythmic movement
of this ******** clad model for all lands.
After a sunbath, she tied her pristine towel,
then with a fixed look, she gazed straight at me.
'Hello, the adventurous gentleman,' said she.
'You sure look gay, hale, hearty and swell.'
Shyly my fears of rejection loomed large,
whilst my love dreams turned out to be a mirage.
Aug 8, 2021
Aug 8, 2021 at 7:45 AM UTC
This isn’t so much giving up
As it is the shedding of weight
He kneels down in a bedroom that isn’t his
He sleeps on borrowed furniture
Elbows on the edge of a twin bed
He wishes there was a body there
Any body
There are some things he needs to let go
There is always going to be a girl with your heart
And your veins wrapped around her fingers
Curling up her arms
Like vines on a trellis
Let her go
He knows that being good looking is 20 percent physical
The rest is all you
Sometimes weird things make him sad
That’s cool
Anything your body does without your permission
Is natural
You’re human
Get over it
Get over
The cancerous residuals
And the fear of silence
Between two people
When all you want to do is stare
Stare if you want to
Be charming
He knows he can be charming
If he smiles right
If remembers to be honest
Be honest with me
Lonely boy
Fearful stranger to self
Little lover of the things that get left behind
Admire the broken patchwork of your poetry
You are not a naysayer
You are a yes man
Yes
Hesitant kisses
Yes
Knee buckle trembles
Yes
Loving with the lights on
With the fire burning
Say yes to the breaking
You are not being broken
You are refining your badly built artwork
Molding your eyes less somber
Do not be somber sweet child
Stand like gravity is your slave
Bow down to nothing
Unless you want to
There are some things that require kneeling
Your knees are sacred
Use them only to make things better
To show honor
To shed weight
He knows this is not giving up
As much as it is shedding enough weight
So he can stand again
Mar 5, 2012
Mar 5, 2012 at 4:40 PM UTC
An honorable human relationship — that is, one in which two people have the right to use the word “love” — is a process, delicate, violent, often terrifying to both persons involved, a process of refining the truths they can tell each other.
It is important to do this because it breaks down human self-delusion and isolation.
It is important to do this because in doing so we do justice to our own complexity.
It is important to do this because we can count on so few people to go that hard way with us.
from On Lies, Secrets, and Silence: Selected Prose 1966-1978
Dec 13, 2022
Dec 13, 2022 at 3:26 PM UTC
My favorite poem
is the next one, yet to be,
that I shall write....
Once, I wrote:
*a flawless poem
if such there were,
will always be,
the next one^*
When asked again,
I still thus answer
For everything I have ever writ,
flawed,
even if the imperfection,
minor,
the clarity, not the pristine perfect
I sought
Digging mining refining...
this process endless,
a life long condition of being
human
It is therefore and ironically godlike,
unchangingly immutable,
this, the divine spark within me,
my nizotz,
unceasingly immutable
in search of the flawless poem,
my favorite-yet-to-be, to be
my favorite poem
is the next one I shall write....
and the one there after,
until the flawless one is either created
or found, bound, full formed
or
until the inkwell empty,
the mind black blot dimmed,
the eyes yellowed-weakened,
the lips, white parched beyond repair,
whichever comes last,
conceding,
the last poem, perforce, must suffice.
Dayenu
Feb 19, 2014
Feb 19, 2014 at 12:55 AM UTC