"reverent" poems
Enchanted by spring’s
rustling whispers
... whistles swirl
in the pungent springtime breeze;
steeped with a bedazzling
cadence
heart dancing
to a hummingbird’s
whirs
waves of breath,
of little wings waft,
whooshing throughout
twining honeysuckle lattice
a
tiny manger
beset of hidden gold
precious speckled eggs,
silver lining of smallest hopes
fruits of fruition
continuum beheld prize,
concealed in interwoven rootlets;
potently perfumed flowers
while away
the waning dark hours;
swollen full flower moon
waxing yellow,..
heavenly fragrance
sweetly-scented suckled nectar
the one with eyes of a child,
wonder ― hidden inside,
marvel in the light of grateful eyes
imbibing an unholdable moment's
spellbinding elixir
... poetry alive
air so poignantly perfumed
with blossom
moonstruck
by spring’s frolicking cadency
a reverent moment's
edifying intoxication
a sobering beauty that just is...
someone ... May 2017
May 10, 2017
May 10, 2017 at 12:19 PM UTC
i need it: the concrete floors
that send electricity through the soles of my shoes,
the ascent up stairs, cold metal under my palm
as lana sings to me and i give her my own words in return
and the pillars of my past rise up before me.
i need the now-familiar halls, the gleam of wood and glass
appropriately placed. i need the embrace of cold air,
heavy with home smells: vulcanized rubber, sweat,
fresh ice. i need my wall, my stairs, my home address: 112, 3, 12.
i need my family, related by blood and ice, by joy and frustration,
by elation and tears. i need the ceiling off its trusses,
the pitch black, the red lights, the resounding bass,
the cold and reverent silence as the bulbs sizzle back to life--
the opening face-off, teeth gritted, fists closed.
i need the smack of sticks against ice,
pucks stinging red pipes, blades scraping up snow,
the crunch of the boards, the red light and the deafening horn,
six thousand people erupting in screams, one entity,
every hand pointed to one end of the rink. i need the urge to
bite my nails, an adrenaline rush, i need to clock-watch,
i need to ***** and laugh and yell and grin, i need to
collapse and breathe when the buzzer sounds, three more points,
closer to the penrose, closer to the ncaa's--
i need hockey.
i need home.
Aug 23, 2014
Aug 23, 2014 at 3:28 AM UTC
i never wanted to kiss her lips,
just hold her hand
maybe kiss her cheeks because she suited a gentler kind of treatment
something softer and more delicate, quiet;
quieter than the constant raging storms inside my stomach,
inside my mind
(never my heart)
those plump lips
she bit them raw when nervous, and they swelled
blossomed ruby as she looked at me
like she knew this wouldn't last
her eyes remained doughy and mellow
when i met her gaze.
my smile stung as it stretched the lines left by winter's bite
and split them open once more.
she brushed the blood beads away with her fingertips
with a touch so reverent that, for a moment, i thought
maybe she felt as though she were touching rosary beads instead,
and i held my breath to stop myself from chasing her
touch, and pressing her down into the mattress
unholy, chasing pleasure.
both agnostic, but she was much more pure than i;
chivalries always in mind, i wanted to preserve that.
there's always been something inside me
that presses down the animalistic urges with
a conscience caught on consideration and something akin to courtly love-
i wanted to woo her before i pursued her
but i never got further than pressing my lips to her forehead,
wrapping an arm around her shoulders.
i laced my fingers with hers but avoided tying any knots.
i am not a man to be bound,
too free-spirit, too restless, too claustrophobic;
a few months in and i was choking on the ghost of a future;
she kissed me first and i suffocated on the phantom of her hopes for us:
a future that didn't yet exist,
and i didn't want it to.
i never kissed her; i never let her kiss me again.
we tangled fingers over the duvet
the television a background noise to our unsteady breaths,
shallower
than my love for her
i enjoyed her quiet affection like one might enjoy curling into a blanket when cold and ill.
i wanted her smiles, i wanted to fill her memories with goodness
so that she never need feel hopeless, like all men are the same
so that she had something to smile about when she looked back on us;
once the bitterness of our breakup had left her mouth-
whenever that eventual end would be-
she could savour the taste of our sweet, slow-burn, love affair
and be reminded that not all love is true love, but nor is all love heart breaking
i broke her heart anyway.
nobody ever taught me how cruel kindness could be.
May 17, 2016
May 17, 2016 at 9:24 PM UTC
A Sonnet is a moment’s monument,—
Memorial from the Soul’s eternity
To one dead deathless hour. Look that it be,
Whether for lustral rite or dire portent,
Of its own arduous fulness reverent:
Carve it in ivory or in ebony,
As Day or Night may rule; and let Time see
Its flowering crest impearled and orient.
A Sonnet is a coin: its face reveals
The soul,—its converse, to what Power ’tis due:—
Whether for tribute to the august appeals
Of Life, or dower in Love’s high retinue,
It serve; or, ’mid the dark wharf’s cavernous breath,
In Charon’s palm it pay the toll to Death.
4.7k
lotus in a mirror
its roots clutch crepuscular slums of dredging mud
deep dark stagnant
thick with worms and milk flower petals
we remain nourished
wisdom expands into darkness
all of us students in the school of shadows
irreverent desires reverent
wise children of light bathe in waters
of cimmerian shade
*** death and regeneration
are celebrated in ******
of feral lucidity
souls are soiled by devils
the bog swallows bones
to bloom seraph's and cherubim floating
the third eye open
a cascading light
secret kiss
a breathless eternity
at the root
flames lick
open orifice
of ripples silk
empyrean *** magicians
weave
hips voodoo
Oct 5, 2018
Oct 5, 2018 at 1:09 PM UTC
I. The event wall:
The quarters going coloured:
Red, yellow, limpid azure,
white unalloyed;
at the center, a dark void
lightening, radiating outward -
never breaking the event-horizon.
Reverent circumambulation
by tradition, is done clockwise.
II. Reading the tiles
Is peace in expansion
or contraction?
Incarceration. Staring at the tiles.
Acceptance or rebellion?
Time doesn't tell.
III. Prospect
You are free now:
making a mascot of you,
we have set you free.
While singing paeans
to your greatness yet,
we bemoan how
coolies and ******* are
be-spoiling our home.
Rest in peace!
We'll wait for Christ.
Dec 7, 2013
Dec 7, 2013 at 7:04 PM UTC
No one listens
Friends seldom seen
'I'm all right'
Cancelled conversations
Happiness on demand
Courses in tautology
Reverent respectability
Chimes lost to time
Disconsolate coverlets
Scenes from lonely places
Litter on the streets
You're on your own.
Oct 7, 2014
Oct 7, 2014 at 2:49 AM UTC
*** for me!* I shout
She flashes her pearly whites
the brightest smile I've ever seen
(She likes it when I talk *****
gets wet off it ... soaking
the streets
flooded in every nook
rivers gorging car tires
thunderstorms are our communion
*** for me!* I shout
and She moans like a god ... boisterous
my legs pump faster now
Her cries are electric
I can't help but feel the jolt
louder baby
She indulges
and I come
full stop at the corner of Broadway & Covert
one day...
She will tire of my obscenities
all my **** you's~
in a final flash She will smite me
and when I reach home
He will be at the gate
crooked finger a compass pointing to hell
*** for me* I will cry
reverent in nostalgia
I will have played the game past the final quarter
still taunting His existence
but I'll smile
content in knowing
that every action has a consequence
content in knowing
that I learned that pre-god
pre-conservation of energy
content in knowing
that life taught me to run in thunderstorms
and the first time I shouted back
I felt enough energy to risk hell for it
Jun 17, 2014
Jun 17, 2014 at 11:27 PM UTC
We sate among the stalls at Bethlehem;
The dumb kine from their fodder turning them,
Softened their horn’d faces,
To almost human gazes
Toward the newly Born:
The simple shepherds from the star-lit brooks
Brought visionary looks,
As yet in their astonished hearing rung
The strange sweet angel-tongue:
The magi of the East, in sandals worn,
Knelt reverent, sweeping round,
With long pale beards, their gifts upon the ground,
The incense, myrrh, and gold
These baby hands were impotent to hold:
So let all earthlies and celestials wait
Upon thy royal state.
Sleep, sleep, my kingly One!
3.6k
*Sunset On The Lake
Down beyond the woodland
The magic setting golden sun
On the still lakes shining waters
its glowing corona hung
Magenta clouds spread like curtains
as they passed the lighted sky
I could almost hear them rustle
as the daylight bid goodbye
The gentle whispered breezes
in the pine trees by the shore
Sang a song of nature’s anthem
I would remember for evermore
A hanging reverent silence
That no creature dared to break
In each soul made a painting
Of that sunset on the lake.
In beauty so transcending
As the water lapped my feet
Spoke beauty in a language
That I had no need to speak
Then under the cloak of evening
Played a softened lullaby
Sleepy splashing of the wavelets
with a dreamy darkened sky.
If I lived forever
This vision will awake.
Memory will leave me never
Of that sunset on the lake*
Oct 29, 2015
Oct 29, 2015 at 8:11 AM UTC
Those who search after truth will be cursed with a loss of station
Those who would love will be cursed with reality
Those who would be humble or courteous will be cursed with pride
Those who would be reverent have a curse in the past
Those who would be self-denying will be cursed three times by others
Those who would praise God will be cursed with fear
Cleanliness is a curse in itself
Those that fear will be blessed in their ignorance
Those that hate will be blessed in their compassion
Those that lie will be blessed in their humanity
Those that envy will be blessed in their possessions
Feb 13, 2013
Feb 13, 2013 at 12:55 AM UTC
There's a sharp frosty switchback that never sees the sun in winter
skies of blue. The frost heave cut-bank rocks tumble down to the
side of the road, in the ice shard mottled ditch lay frozen stiff
Tall Sitka spruce marbled gray shadows mat the sparsely traveled
corridor, paved with potholes, where the roads have no names
Sometimes listening quietly to the bare stillness, there are
rhetorical questions heard in the silent reverie's say:
"Have you ever been afraid?"
The tree-line gaps above the jagged gray stone ravine, disappearing
down the rugged mountain shade, falling into the pillow-top fog bank blanketing the canyon's murmurs below — headed towards the ocean
Crystalline spring waters gurgle up roadside — out of nowhere,
where tired boots stand in reverent contemplation as it all sings out harmoniously to the trees in the key of silence; it was there
in a gust of restless forbearance heard the frozen peacefulness say:
"Have you ever felt alone?"
Gathering a deep breath of marbled gray shadows, silence bears
a loud holler's scorn — echoing back and forth down canyon walls,
with the spirit of a voice a multitude strong, evanescent
as winter's outgoing tide.
January 2019 — Jesse Stillwater
Jan 3, 2019
Jan 3, 2019 at 6:19 PM UTC
**RESPECTFUL
HELPFUL
REVERENT
KIND**
*Steeped in licentiousness
engulfed in shadows*
Jun 25, 2014
Jun 25, 2014 at 4:44 PM UTC
A trust indemnified by chance to breathe
Gouging ankles keep knots to wreath.
Caduceus' serpents hold fast to feet and leg
A pledge was brought and signed without need or beg.
Grace permeates the steps like **** in field
Almost manifest for outstretched hands to yield.
Benevolent after thoughts bring what share they can
Self-reverent past to wrought things that dare sway hand.
May 3, 2016
May 3, 2016 at 5:49 PM UTC
A skeletal stag standing ten trees tall
Hanging moss adorning His wide antlers, patches of rocky lichen covering His driftwood bones
Large cloven hooves stepping carefully yet purposefully among the bleached remains littering the forest floor
He alone reigns here, in this place beneath ours
Even the pines fall silent as He passes
Even the stones
The air is old here
Thick with a power lost to time
Only He is left; a dimming flicker in a collective consciousness
Keeping a lonely vigil in an ancient forest a thousand miles deep and a hand's width beside us
No breath is drawn here
The soft rattling of His timber ribcage is the sole sound as He moves
Ceaselessly
Without rest
To a place always changing, never quite there
The ossuaries lay in a heavy silence
He assures the eternal slumber of all who rest here
The hollows in His skull seem to observe them, undisturbed
He moves on
His name has been forgotten for millennia
This sacred ground has become but a fleeting memory
Few old gods remain, lost to the quickening of time
He remembers, as He stands keeper of this place
Of an age before ours
When they would polish the skulls of the hunt with holy oils in His name
Dancing wildly and unburdened around towering flames
Primal sounds ripping raw from reverent lips
Now He is all but a wavering in the annals
He pauses in His endless march
Raises His great antlers to the thick canopy above
He listens
Feels the shift -- another one has faded
He will most likely be the last of His kind
A somber sentinel tasked with ensuring the dead wake not from their final sleep
Ensuring the silence is suffocating
A deep, weighted vibration
As if the place under ours was itself thrumming with power
Though none remain who once spoke His true name in fearful whispers
He will outlast
For all will eventually come to know
The one they now call death
Nov 6, 2018
Nov 6, 2018 at 8:14 PM UTC
Why do you thrift speaking? she asks him very often.
He is choked with words,
Over cooked and sticking each other.
But still he keeps quiet.
She likes to be heard.
He too to listen.
There is less effort in
Listening than to lisp.
The truth is that
formless word is God!
When it comes out of her mouth it had transformed into a form. But when the words
Butterfly out of her mouth it takes wings
And sings
soothing his sense.
He tries to see in her speech
And in each of her word
The formless presence of
God.
This keeps him still quiet,
A silent reverent listener.
Hence she asks him often why
Do you thrift speech?!!
He smiles and keeps listening...
Nov 20, 2018
Nov 20, 2018 at 2:24 PM UTC
Sitting in a bowl of fruit
I hold a flower
Paint me with vivid colors
Make me look pretty
Or possibly as a reverent clown
With big floppy feet
In a contemporary return to classics
For the world to look and ask
"What did the artist mean with that banana, and why is that clown sitting on peaches holding a tulip?"
© 2019 MJL
Mar 10, 2019
Mar 10, 2019 at 9:42 AM UTC
There's this guy who constantly gives me grief online
as if I need a reminder that I am not funny or smart
that I am incapable of posting any story without his remark
as if he should impart and bestow all of social media
with his divine and seraphic academia:
what is with that?
He posts comments about how illiterate my poetry is
how it doesn't follow the rules; the do-nots and the do's
pontificates how its not properly punctuated
as if I should give up altogether and just shine shoes
and forget trying to construct sentences
just wander in the carousel of nebula's
eternally seeking the tentacle of enemas:
what is with that?
This guy enjoys winding me up like a persistent hobby
the reverent devilment of sadistic entitlement
pushing my head under water for a digital baptism
that I should thank him for his rhetoric enlightenment
as if he was blessed with a correspondence talisman:
what is with that?
This isn't even a poem.
I am letting off steam like an overused kettle
fed up of his mortar forever rammed in my pestle
the temples are raging and my brain is just draining
to explode on cue on the next digital heckle
the cracked and broken vessel
into a vengeful steam-driven projectile:
what is with that?
This, < here > , is my only escape
and creative cathartic vent
I'll post this lament
with the stench of discontent
and tag his name and then just wait
for his feverish malcontent
that I should dare to
prevent his God-like dissent:
memo to self
to a digital antagonist
and his verbose verbal cyst
and the keyboard of twists
when you push
sometimes you get
a big shove back
so don't be surprised
by my riposte
and this poetic attack.
Jul 8, 2014
Jul 8, 2014 at 8:56 PM UTC
god, words, where do you start?
when i get like this, i just write my thoughts
is that the same as speaking from the heart?
what heart, what heart?
this thing that beats against my ribs
i'm sure it's just a hollow shell;
pumps blood and oxygen
allows me to live through this hell
but there's nothing more to it
i'm not doing so well
do rhymes make pain sound simpler?
i have a bad habit of using them when i'm heartbroken
rhymes are used to undermine meaning, according to my old English teacher
half rhymes and nursery rhymes and rhyming couplets and sentences left open
to interpretation, to ambiguity, to aching wounds and clinical analysis
i'm thinking of pretentious hipsters and all my therapists as i'm writing this
"the mechanism which allows you to feel is broken"
it wasn't the best movie but that line stuck with me
i think the mechanism which allows me to feel is broken
don't worry, Harry, i know how you feel, Harry
i, too, use the adverb; i, too, feel badly.
the sharp things that cut me, the dull things that bruise me
everything i should feel is either absent or agony.
love, they say; let love in, she heals your thoughts and broken skin!
fickle ***** she is, what lies i've heard her spin.
do you love me when you lie to me, darling love o' mine?
do you love me when you trace your fingers over the nubs of another's spine?
love o' mine, love o' mine, that Touch was supposed to be mine,
divine, divine, beloved and reverent and MINE
it's a good thing i don't want to hold onto you anymore
the rope burns were finally sleeping into my core.
my god, these splinters, i'm bleeding from my fingers
as i try to reach out for something that isn't withered,
because the flowers that you bloomed are shrivelled and abused
i refuse to water them, give them life anew
does that make me a murderer?
well you murdered them, too.
Apr 15, 2017
Apr 15, 2017 at 10:55 PM UTC
This is A Faithful saying; If A Man Desire the Position of A Bishop, He Desire A Good Work. A Bishop then must be Blameless, the Husband Of One Wife, Temperate, Sober-Minded, of Good Behavior, Hospitable, Able to Teach: no given to Wine, no Violent, not Greedy for Money, bu Gentle, not Quarrelsome, not Covetous; One who Rules His Own House well, having His Children in Submission with all Reverence. For if a Man does not know how to Rule His Own House, how will He take Care of the Church Of GOD?; Not A Novice, lest Being Puffed-Up with Pride He Fall into the same Condemnation as the Devil. Moreover He must have A Good Testimony among those who are Outside, lest He Fall into Reproach and Snare of the devil. Likewise Deacons must be Reverent, no Double-Tongued, not given to much Wine, not Greedy for Money, Holding the Mystery of the Faith with Pure Conscience. But let these also First be Tested; then let them Serve as Deacons, Being Found Blameless. Likewise, their Wives mus be Reverent, not Slanderers, Temperate, Faithful in All Things. Let Deacons be the Husbands of One Wife, Ruling their Children and their Own House-Well. For those who have Served well as Deacons Obtain for Themselves A Good Standing and Great Boldness in the Faith which is in Chris Jesus. These things I write to You, though I Hope to Come to You shortly; But if I Am Delayed, I write so that You may know how You Ought to Conduct Thyself in the House Of GOD, which is the Church Of the Living GOD, he Pillar and Ground Of the Truth. And without Controversy Great is the Mystery Of Godliness: GOD was Manifested in the Flesh, Justified in thy Spirit, Seen by Angels, Preached among the Gentiles, Believed on in the World, Receieved Up In Glory.!!!
Jun 9, 2015
Jun 9, 2015 at 2:20 AM UTC
Melancholy.
A pretty word
with such a sad heart.
Makes you wonder
what made it so.
Melancholy.
The way it's said
so passively,
inattentively,
ignorantly,
makes me want to
scream.
Melancholy.
The word is reverent
and should be treated so.
A beautiful expression
to be used with care,
if you please.
Melancholy.
It's not sickly sweet
like some of the others,
yet not too sour either.
A little bit salty,
like tears.
But really,
who hasn't tasted their own?
Melancholy.
The word flows like a river
of tears down a cheek.
One filled with regret,
sorrow, loneliness.
Melancholy.
The more I say it
the more I like it.
The way it drifts,
and takes my thoughts with it.
Not to a happy place,
but a place of quiet,
sad thoughts.
Melancholy.
Even the word itself
draws me to it.
I think it is,
in part,
because I relate.
Sometimes,
it seems,
we are all
melancholy.
And I am but one
in a million
who feels it too.
Jan 10, 2018
Jan 10, 2018 at 5:29 PM UTC
Soundless awakening walk ghost like blend disappear wooden poles that reach for the clouds
They display a crown of glory on the forest floor it is told in muffled shade and shadow you
Follow those that make their pilgrimage to temples of sacred stone here in these wooded
Wonders enter as a blunder but quickly you are arrested by silence and you are now dutifully
Reverent you who was formed by divine majesty melt under the power and sway humbly and
Quietly you bow to that which is amassed thick and denseness flairs in its midst is the nobility
Of timelessness you are nothing more than smoke that rises and is coaxed by a mysteries inaudible
Voice it shares the birth of years and the ageless past you feel the great quiet soul that exist here
Like no other place on earth this is not only the great purifier of air by photosynthesis but
Here the otherwise vast spirit is condensed cradled after its new birth Washington, Jefferson and
Lincoln spent solitary hours and days being transformed the scent of these trees were
Concentrated with the base element of colossal power it formed over eons of time to walk
These forest paths is to release ability first firing the great void of the mind then the heart is
Indwelled then the soul ignites into a blaze that rivals a forest fire you came as mere shadow
Stooped in ignorance you leave as an essential light for your time doubts and questions abound
Throughout the land fear not he who has lived among giants comes and all will be made clear
You will turn from the waste and superficial his light will touch you and you will be the army
Of truth and justice that is at the heart of this great land
Mar 13, 2012
Mar 13, 2012 at 1:23 PM UTC
I was born on a leap year
Right before the Millenium
A family of five in Mexico were stabbed
Six days before I arrived
And in the same month
(But half the days)
That Rusty won the first NASCAR race
In Japan
Call me a Scorpio, I don't mind
I was born in the year of the rat
And the zodiac says that fire's my element
But I always liked my time spent in water
Pearl is to the ancients
What Topaz is today
Though neither value much
To the people on the Boeing 747
Or the Ilyushin Il-76 cargo plane
That killed 349 people
With the force of their collision
When you look up the day
That I came to be known
As another member of the living
They'll tell you all about the fatal, terrible crash
That I was too young to remember or even witness
Being born in the '90's earns me
No extra respect
No reverent awe
No special treatment
I was born too late for the long-haired peace
Disco and drugs
A John Hughes-like high school
And only my parents got away with
Sweat pants and leg warmers
Or turtleneck sweaters
I am just another 96 baby
But they don't make them like us
Anymore
Aug 28, 2013
Aug 28, 2013 at 11:54 PM UTC
I. Prologue
Splash words across: images on canvas.
Before Abraham was, I am:
the cubist of poets. Mangled and tangled;
Here thoughts emerge, in reverent perspectives.
The real world: how many dimensions,
depends on who you ask; Monotone
in my unidimensions. Filter. Baritone.
Coffee-brown is the best colour around.
II. Love
Here we sit by two-arms distance. To north,
to south. Facing opposing poles.
There is an attraction.
Here are images from the industrial world
gone post-industrial. Broken commodes.
Outsource your misery here. The sky can afford
a hole from on here. As long as
there's none in my shoe.
Sometimes, I roll over in waves.
Sometimes, you wave over.
Questions still hidden in the corners.
III. Peace
All that's passed remains flickering
green like the wireless router
silently at nights: recover, play it over.
Flush it all up. Splash it all around. Cubism.
Art nouveau. Portmanteau. Now fruck the world.
Neon shades rippling through the smoke
riding out dancing to metal clang;
Crazy laughter like that of an empty skull:
smoke the pipe, brother,
spread the peace around. 2013, stupid.
Idealism died in 1967. And many times since.
Repeats always a farce.
IV. Spirit
Only one man died for the poor.
Who called the dead to life.
All other stories are about barons and hedgehats:
while the millions were ground over
to oil the world. While they roiled the world.
How the poor die under the heels
of those that claim to love that man?
Disagree? Drone. Agree? The throne.
Yes, we can, brother, we can defeat this
****** corruption. Brother,
be not corrupt.
V. Prospect
A sigh of disapproval, soft in sleep.
I come and lie, back to your back,
waiting for love to seep over.
Yes, we can, brother, we can overcome
bigotry vile. Brother,
say not, mine, the only way ever.
Happy lovers day. Shout out aloud,
peans more to the meek women's rights.
Forget not, there's some in your sights.
Two arms' distance is about the right in the day.
There are two faces seen in this bubble,
formed at the mouth of the tooth paste tube.
Peace to the world, every morning after.
Every little home by home.
Feb 14, 2013
Feb 14, 2013 at 12:14 PM UTC