"respites" poems
1723
High from the earth I heard a bird,
He trod upon the trees
As he esteemed them trifles,
And then he spied a breeze,
And situated softly
Upon a pile of wind
Which in a perturbation
Nature had left behind.
A joyous going fellow
I gathered from his talk
Which both of benediction
And badinage partook.
Without apparent burden
I subsequently learned
He was the faithful father
Of a dependent brood.
And this untoward transport
His remedy for care.
A contrast to our respites.
How different we are!
2k
I pray to Eros for release
leave the game of mockery
he asks too much in this time
my job is done yet still I strive
quitting is the only way
to return to sanity
divorce myself from the race
rubbing ugly not embraced
once there was a driving need
incite production of more kin
God or Darwin, it matters not
both are blamed for the thirst
this urge incited in the sea
trackless by my current means
with the drink made with salt
I am parched no matter what
these respites I cannot reach
a gulf of decades by design
the more fertile take my place
if only urges could be convinced
a holy man with no desires
the twisted monk in the end
this would be quite enough
if Eros left my lusting heart.
© 2018. Sean Green. All Rights Reserved. 20180819.
Aug 19, 2018
Aug 19, 2018 at 1:18 PM UTC
the music plays,
plays nervously
with reassuring caution,
as if to say,
“hey,
it’ll be
okay.”
but the sentiment
comes off
as
flimsy.
to add to
the atmosphere,
there’s one light on
in the apartment.
trying so hard to
be illuminating.
it’s 2-something a.m.
coffee is still being poured,
being drank,
as my sight rolls over a sink
full of ***** dishes,
and eventually
finds a busy cell phone
left alone on the counter.
the body moves momentarily,
the words flow with high viscosity,
the mind is traffic-jammed with
thoughts of casualties and
thoughts of beauty.
there is no her tonight.
no fingertips to trace the
lines about the face.
a good woman will reduce
a man to measly rubble
when left in the company
of
isolation.
there’s no meaning.
there’s no love.
there’s no laughter,
no, not tonight.
tonight there is only
that old friend misery,
and brief interrupting
respites of holy
memories.
Jun 7, 2010
Jun 7, 2010 at 1:41 PM UTC
on sacred shores, the patient await their answer. sometimes, that answer never comes.
and as we sit and wait, listening to the cool gentle breeze caressing our face, we like to think and hope that soft touch is the call we've wanted. the aching change in heart, the sound of destiny calling. we hope that once in our life, the emptiness of the room is the sound of the voices we wish and hope will call out our name.
sometimes, we know it's too late or it's too much that we're asking, but still we sit patiently, chanting songs of passionate desolation, hoping our sounds will be heard through these glass walls. fervently, we await, watching as fate passes us by, wondering what we did wrong or what we could have done to save ourselves the grief of never knowing true happiness. the faithless are always content with observing.
when the heart wishes for what's right, the weight of the world seems like nothing for the cost of romantic freedom. desperation lies cold and dead when the soul knows where it needs to go, intent on compromising naivety, showing spite for all things mediocre.
outside, the light shines bright, but inside it is always dark; and we seek warmth, forever. we await in anxiousness for the time we can feel that warmth once more. it is time to move forward.
privileged paranoia respites the remedy for cause and effect - no more
Jun 3, 2014
Jun 3, 2014 at 3:23 AM UTC
It doesn't matter and it never mattered
You're smiling into your mattress while you suffocate.
The sky was black and blue like bruises that night
All the doors were open but you didn't run away.
It's completely possible you're stuck here
Even though you've never stopped for a single day
If you took just the smallest of respites
It's not impossible that your mind would break.
Maybe in half a year everything will pay off
If it does, you'll be indifferent to it anyway.
Maybe you'll lie about lying about keeping promises
And allow yourself to come of age.
Turn over, inhale, there's blood on the ceiling
Count the popcorn kernels until your vision blurs and fades.
Two hours and you're back where you began
Two hours and you're forced awake, every single day.
No sadness, no contentment, no joy, no depression
Just calm, cool acceptance of bits of existence.
The epitaph will be angry, begging to know why you'd do this
And you'll give reasons rather sounding like excuses.
Dec 17, 2014
Dec 17, 2014 at 7:59 AM UTC
You kiss me beneath the violet blue, sunset
orangish and gold like the color of a ring,
set in sapphire and jasmine, the sparkling glint
that the first stars bring from within the twilight,
short haired and vibrant, strong as a fine steed,
the visions of a daring courageous female knight,
giving rise to another exotic and elated feeling,
a memory of feeling warm in the arms of a dream.
The playfulness of your eyes, subtle glances,
of respites and revelry, of moon stones
and magic trances, memories of a time when
I felt like the lips of a short haired Goddess
had touched mine. I can not ask for more
than this special place I want to be,
for this there is no greater yearning,
this being the kiss which sets me free.
You hold me, and in your arms I am alive,
for the first time I feel I must confess,
I had your hand and your heart, envisioned
our love though it's only the greatest test.
I can promise you anything, but first you
must show me the way. I will never be
whole until you kiss me like you did
in my minds eye, your caress by the tree
when the sun fell at the end of that day.
Mar 26, 2015
Mar 26, 2015 at 6:08 PM UTC
quite an ordinary affair
in a small endeavor of time
a distracted presence of aware
along side a serene sublime
an ordinary day
to love to wander with us
on paths of repose and fray
respites the silent obvious
of an ordinary twilight
hid in the deep glow of sunset
venus sings an aria to midnight
while mars awaits loves onset
within an ordinary evening
of the sedated nous of hearts
till the moment before leaving
a touch longing imparts
an ordinary heaven
in a small endeavor of time
seeks to leaven
the consequence of I’m
Oct 19, 2014
Oct 19, 2014 at 5:23 PM UTC
I hoist the old scarred oaken chair
onto the workbench.
I think about how this nick
and that scratch
and that unglued cross bar
happened
and how many years it has withstood
the heavy weight of the humanity
who have found it and laid their burdens upon it.
And I give thanks that it is still repairable
still of use and available
for the brief respites
of those it serves.
I give thanks that I too
am still on the workbench.
Oct 5, 2018
Oct 5, 2018 at 11:56 AM UTC
Immorally, my lustful gaze eyes in a false bid to need you
Unappeased from the respites of my attempts to dream you
And in my efforts, I’ve still yet to ascertain my conviction to find you
But until then, an entire sense devoted to imagination to taste you
However, taste is a mean fraction of my malicious, intent to use you
And in a blinded craving, good intentions eluded, will involuntarily scar you
In a perverted aim to behold and savor you, to protect, enjoy and **** you
Is the beginning of my undoing, as I callously sin again and again, and break you
And then with no further defense but to erase you,
and politely in my heart, I move bitterly to bury you,
I return fruitlessly to the beginning again, to need you.
© 2014
Feb 4, 2015
Feb 4, 2015 at 5:33 AM UTC
A mother's lap, all downy flesh
Or a bird cushioned in the nest
Softness, light, and feather-white
We all seek our respites.
Warm bathwater and soothing scent
Sand, sun, and sea perlescent
In lover's beds and lover's rosy minds
We all seek our respites.
All beings crave some sweet affection
The relief of a loving connection
We seek home and it's delights
We all seek our respites.
We deserve love so we hunt
For feelings, closeness and trust
But do we really all live for light;
We all seek our respites.
What happens when we only hate
Ourselves, our bodies, and our weight
Can we allow relaxation and smile
We all seek our respites.
Some feel unequal to pleasure
For them, pain is to be treasured
More comfort in screams than sighs
We all seek our respites.
Some beings have to hurt to feel
When only pain and blood is real
A friend, your razorblade at night
We all seek our respites.
When the brain can be so cruel
Deprivation, denial, and their rules
Don't feel wrong but beautifully right
We all seek our respites.
For those of us in isolation
Undeserving of self-preservation
It's easier to suffer than to fight
We all seek our respites.
© Tara India.
Aug 19, 2014
Aug 19, 2014 at 11:16 AM UTC
I just can not do it,
oh not any more.
I'm a rusty wheel still turning,
but the spinning and running,
ended a long time ago.
I'm an empty husk,
the snake skin left over,
from a serpent long slivered.
The passion has come and gone,
as the wind blows from the east,
setting with the cool sun in the west,
and the day turns to black starless night,
so too do I fall into the the pitch,
a quiet hell resounding.
But no devils speak to me,
oh the joys if they would deign to torture me,
no, no, no dear, no.
I am left alone.
The only words of recoil that I do hear,
Are the sharp respites my own mind come come upon,
Jumping up on and and every one of my shallow young boy fears.
The inadequacies of life and the man not leading.
So I'll sit back in this chair, and let life come to me.
I'm tired of ******* and having it feel so empty.
I can fill no wombs, so I'll sleep singularly.
Maybe it will fit me. Maybe my spark will come back.
Or maybe we are all just dreaming.
A dream of future glories, never to be.
And the walls of our reality.
Are always just crumbling.
Jun 27, 2014
Jun 27, 2014 at 2:22 AM UTC
The stars are dead, but they still shine
The light of their passage echoes in my eyes
For I am also wandering, a fading soul;
The sun burns too bright for my pale smile
The moon's turning seems far more worthwhile
As I hide from the bone-drenching cold
Autumn has fallen on the august land;
Summer lies slain by its clumsy, heavy hand
And her flowers wilt under the rain,
Lukewarm I sit, I breathe the musky air
Skin prickling I say it isn't quite fair
That over this land winter will resume its reign
Hollow-hearted I contemplate just how
I can live and breathe in the pain of now:
When darkness rules, not only inside
How can I be the summer girl they all expect
How can I live in awe of what comes next
If I am held by night with mid afternoon blind
They wish to see some monumental change
But I’ve been living stoppered in the same
Feelings, seasons, for all my years
I never truly felt summer in her fleeting kiss
I sleep like the dead; I must have missed
The heat and woken up to lady winter’s tears
So I remain as cold as the wind penetrating
Our respites, because I grew up hating
The way the ice keeps me trapped indoors
I didn’t realise it had crept into my heart
Until I woke up, and tried to start
Sitting in the sun and warming to something pure
My chances were fleeting, and one by one
I missed them as I anticipated the sun
This watery thing unsatisfactory, wanting better
I failed to appreciate what life had to give
Suspended animation is no way to live
And I think I’ll be waiting forever.
© Tara India
Sep 1, 2014
Sep 1, 2014 at 11:32 AM UTC
The raw me that dwells within the I Am that is Me is not of this world, yet exists in this realm just the same.
Dreams are for me temporary respites, a sojourn in relief from the dense material yet hallow Frames of this world; and to be in it, not fully understanding yet accepting, seems to be the biggest of undertakings.
What becomes of the soul that encounters mirrors along the way? Mirrors in the form of dense shapes filled with diverse spectrum's of light. The light in the me comes to know, that alone the light is not in this corporal world.
What happens when the light meets with fate and encounters beings in the shape of other life forms? Intertwined in this vast web of mystery of the unknowable yet deeply felt within? Seems Conspiratorial.
The truth remains, and even more so a reminder of the me that dwells within the I Am that is forever Me; ever connected, ever intertwined in the journey of life longing for itself. Longing to be asleep, for to sleep is to dream, to dream is to be free from the bonds of this body that seem like such a prison to the soul.
A light seeming so far from the home I truly know as real, where the me and the I Am are truly One and indeed free from the constructs of this separated world which contrast exists.
W.M. Smith III
Jun 16, 2017
Jun 16, 2017 at 10:14 AM UTC
Listen
Technicolor dream screen
Conditioned glob of a thing,
Synchronicity / listen / close
Electric sanity
All a pulse a puzzle
Abuzz in wandering wonder
(In the brain)
Explosive rain / pains:
Alight
Each breaking bone
Thunder loud
Razor-heat bullet hole
You are mind
Always a flight
Even in respites' malingering
Wight
Ghosts
Living machinations
Of physical information
Kept / Wept
Even in plundering / times
Deformity
It is difficult to hear you
In the dark vale / veil shrouds
Truth...
Listen to all the pandering /
Crimes :
Symptomatic cacophony
Like pixelatious chaos
Snow of black & white
Void of hi-def depth
Just a box of a skull / **** tube / (blight)
Still flesh heavy
In the silt of reality's sleights
Conditioned for numb
To naught care / less aware
Chewing gum
As the wilderness from without
Floods
Cantankerous / gelatinous
Countries of grey
Matter
Overwhelming mind
Rather than mind over
Thought to spontaneous
Flame
Create universe
In your vox cave
So listen closer now
Such multitudes of crave
Life,ride focus to rife clarity
Imagination & knowledge - just the same
As sane and
Obtuse / for Over- use /
Voracity...
I am you
And you are I
I am the fire
Magic in the eye
If we are one
And one are we
Shed light in this space
Mountain / that is mine
Seeing is knowing
Stay true to thine
For you are mind
Technicolor wisdom now
Awake
No longer dead or blind /
Listen, no word need spat
This is the beginning of all that
We are infinite
Music
I hear You at last...
No enemy minds
Listen.
Jun 5, 2016
Jun 5, 2016 at 6:08 PM UTC
I am a cold creature living in locales of ice
The sky is everlastingly dim-I see stars plummet and galaxies entice
Melancholy respites are my friend: I trek without a whisper or a sigh
Frigid winds flay my flesh from bone yet my ears listen to the music they belie
Living in darkness is all I know; my spirit regards shadows as a feast
All this carnage at my hand, all this consumption, and, even still, my hunger has not decreased
I stand upon an ivory peak and patiently scowl at the visitor as it reaches out to greet
My essence immediately withers and my cloaked body slumps down with defeat
I cry out in pain, in shock, and in eternal dismay
At this horribly strange sight, at this mass of my worst nightmares
A Sun free from any tinges of grey
Feb 24, 2016
Feb 24, 2016 at 6:58 PM UTC
The instructor said,
Go home and write
a page tonight
And let that page come out of you—
Then it ill be true
Will it be that easy?
White, weird and sixteen
Growing up in New York City
Where moments flicker by like a dream.
Middle school says life’s ahead
While city commutes blend together.
With brief respites to a Vermont house
Having nature’s bounty out the window.
Though daily, I have only a poor rectangle substitute.
Though I see the world in its immensity,
What I’ve seen are mere trips from my city.
All the while striving to find meaning in this chaos,
But ending up being lost in the sauce.
I enjoy gaming, idle chat and to humorously play
Though mostly with friends who live so far away.
But after I go to see them,
My memories slowly fade away.
They come to see me in my abode.
Concerts, cards and killer jokes
To pass the time between visits,
I listen to a multitude of books.
Something is lost with them on tape,
I'm told.
But convenience is something that it holds
During art classes full of concentration
Where I can get lost in the rhythm of their words
I seem to think I lose touch with conversation
But I think to save it
For those I love the most.
To my friends who are my brothers
I look to them-
To give me hope: For a life to still have meaning.
Some have it inherent,
Others shrivel up without it,
Some find it in responsibility,
But for me,
It is in those people whom I connect with the most.
This is my page for English 6.
Mar 26, 2018
Mar 26, 2018 at 1:22 PM UTC
Spring and summer, they come and go.
Then it’s the hell that waits for me below.
An arm? A leg? Which part is scheduled for torture?
Fair Demeter, where are you? Are you truly my mother?
The pomegranate seeds were bitter pills.
Supposedly something that would cure my ills.
But there’s a side effect for every cure,
and I know now I cannot endure
the months-long torture of a winter in hell.
And my future fate no seer can tell.
I enjoy these brief respites.
I live now for my pleasant visits
to sunny days and strawberries;
away from my torment, the dogs and ferries.
Mar 1, 2021
Mar 1, 2021 at 9:30 PM UTC
Peeking through the windows of the train car
rucksack balanced on shoulders
Idly contemplating where to next
a vagabond can land for quick respites
scanning surroundings inhales of clouds
and exhales of shadows surrounding memories
and treasure chests wrapped tightly in cloth
buried under a tree
the key
drifting down the river
waiting nestled between stones
and uncapped inkwell and blank page
rapid rivers reaching
but unable to send them back
trying to pin down and address
on open roads and sketchy motels
the fine makes feet continue to run
continue to walk
with few stops
dizzying hourglasses
and hands chime grandfather clocks
left behind with scarlet trails
here to chase but them to leave
home
Nov 18, 2019
Nov 18, 2019 at 4:35 PM UTC