"reverently" poems
You and I would stand in front of my bathroom mirror and
just hold each other, naked, acquainting ourselves
with the strange, biblical union of joints and hair
and skin and crevices and curves that we make
together...
Fingerpainting reverently on your chest,
I'd kiss your freckled shoulder, eyeing your reflection as it melted,
falling for me again-- and you'd
tell me in return
that my eyes are beautiful, and that they are green,
just like yours.
They are brown, I'd say, and
laugh and
leave
you to
confront only yourself
in my mirror.
Every day that I stand again
in front of my mirror alone--
a similar but emptier amalgamation of joints and curves--
I could swear that my eyes
look a little bit paler...
like if I
point my nose up to the high hat on my ceiling,
with the fluorescent light spilling into them
the color could certainly pass
as the same green in your eyes and
I wonder,
and I hope
that being wrong all this time
doesn't mean I was wrong about you, too.
Dec 22, 2021
Dec 22, 2021 at 11:19 PM UTC
She has galaxies in her eyes
Her hope could fill oceans, and still have more to spare
When she opens her mouth, birds stop to listen
And rain reverently relents in its pounding.
She has galaxies in her eyes
Her laughter is infectious, a disease you want to catch.
And when she’s sad, you don't know what to do
It’s a shock, because she’s always grinning
She has joy at her fingertips
Her imagination fills libraries
When she sleeps, her dreams manifest themselves
Becoming wonderful stories that you wish to live out
She has joy at her fingertips
A bright aura follows her like a kitten,
And wraps itself around everyone she touches
She has joy at her fingertips
And galaxies in her eyes
And everywhere she goes, you smile.
Apr 24, 2015
Apr 24, 2015 at 9:29 PM UTC
Flaming bridges up in smoke—
ashes scattered in the wind
Requiem to passing yesterdays;
vestige of all that’s lost —
bestrewn in prevailing currents
amongst the drifting autumn leaves
No smoke on rising waters
— lingers between
growing distant shores
Untamed rivers rising
rinse away
the taste of sparks
spake from silent tongues
Portaging all that once was
with all that could never remain,
back to the briny deep
An uncontainable
rivers pilgrimage —
entombing reverently
ancient fractals of being
Sowing feral rivers' ashes —
sacrificial scatterings of destiny
washed afar unto the flotsam
on shoreless stormy seas
Jesse Stillwater
Nov 10, 2018
Nov 10, 2018 at 12:54 PM UTC
Dad didn't want a coffin.
"Cremate my last remains,"
And so we did.
Cool and dry,
His ashes, urned,
Lie beneath the sod
And prairie sky
Waiting some clarion call,
Some trill of hope,
Bright, re-constitutional,
Faith-affirming.
Mother's wishes rise before us:
No crematory,
No embalmer.
Just her blanket,
Just a hole
Dug beside our Dad.
The law would let her wish be true,
But her children won't.
We're searching coffin plans.
Reverently grim,
Lovingly deferential,
Dutifully rebellious,
Solemn this journey be.
Pine boards to honor her thrift
But smooth and tight,
Rope handles, fitted lid,
Perhaps a little trim,
Perhaps a sheaf of wheat carved
For the old farmer she was.
We'll bury her,
Wrapped in her blanket,
Tucked securely in pine
Beside my father's ashes.
Like a grain of wheat she'll lie
Silent in her final say
Inside our final say
Waiting Resurrection Day.
Aug 5, 2018
Aug 5, 2018 at 6:11 PM UTC
It is so measured that rising arpeggio, only to fall and rise again in quicker values, through the dominant seventh to the heartache moment of that minor ninth, a very apogee of dissonance. Then it goes higher still to the fifth, holding to that Phrygian harmony before returning to the tonic minor and a measured fall in the bass. This is a deliberate descent to the sub-mediant, and Bach’s touch of magic, the equivalence with the dominant minor ninth. But then he gives us hope: an extended and joyful play through sequences that rise and fall within each bar, to rest finally on the mediant’s echo of that opening, that measured rise and the quickening fall. We have hardly smiled with relief when Bach pulls us back into the insecurity of the dominant of the subdominant, that V of IV acting like a bridge to a long, long discourse in the dominant, a pedal E holding firmly to itself whilst rising arpeggios and falling decorations and sequences pull and pull through innocently related keys. Longer and longer play the rising passages until short motives of imitation interrupt, treble to bass, tenor to alto, until: a first inversion arpeggio of the dominant seventh measures out the opening rhythm. This happens twice in short succession, as though holding the progress of the music to account. A questioning perhaps before a four-fold sequence asserts the dominant and a chorded caesura. There is a pregnant, though faintly resonant silence as Bach spins the dice of tonality and chooses the subdominant to bring the music towards a waiting Allemande. The music moves through a play of subdominant to dominant, minor to major, the mix of flattened fifth and flattened ninth. It is those intervals that determine Bach as the father of ambiguity in the 20C school of jazz harmony, Arpeggio then a falling scale, and repeat and repeat again, but moving ever higher by sequence. At last five chords – merely a shorthand for closure via the expectation of a right display of the performer’s improvisatory prowess. They prepare us reverently for the tonic minor before the stately Allemande leads the music into the elegant steps of its walking dance.
Jan 5, 2013
Jan 5, 2013 at 3:13 AM UTC
It's Diwali Tonight Festival of Lights
Celebratory Mood Festive Food
Gifts and Treats, Sharing a Delight
The House Well Lit
Decorated in Bridal Colours
The Courtyard and Front Door
Decorated is the Floor
In Colourful
Rangoli
Designs and Patterns
The Porch Lit Bright
With Earthen and Sky Lamps
And Decorative Lights
Welcoming The Goddess 'Laxmi'
For Good Luck , Wealth and Prosperity
Fineries Adorned
The Family comes together in the evening
Reverently Offering Prayers
Following the Rituals .
Friends come visiting
Sharing the Love Warmth and Light
Mithai and more Mithai
Calories not bothered About
Once in a year it's a Delight
Children burst Crackers
And Light up Sparklers
The Night Sky lights up Bright
Yes it's the Festival of Lights
Spreading Happiness and Cheer
The Light within Burns Bright
Oct 18, 2017
Oct 18, 2017 at 9:15 PM UTC
119
Talk with prudence to a Beggar
Of “Potose,” and the mines!
Reverently, to the Hungry
Of your viands, and your wines!
Cautious, hint to any Captive
You have passed enfranchised feet!
Anecdotes of air in Dungeons
Have sometimes proved deadly sweet!
2.7k
you tried to feed
me stardust
sway and hold me
as we danced
you tried to make a home
out of me
open my shutters
let the light
flood inside
push sheer magenta
curtains aside
you tried to run
your fingers reverently
over my rosewood
you tried to ***** my home
raise it from the island
kiss my lips after broken
storms hold my hands in your own convince me that you replaced my old
broken doors
peeling paint and vinyl siding
you tried to
feed me stardust
sway and hold me
as we danced
you tried to make
a home out of me
but I was really an island
ready to be claimed
by the fire and the sea
Oct 18, 2017
Oct 18, 2017 at 2:41 PM UTC
#*
Holi
It is an emotion
Sung upon the winds
Youthful songs of spring
Vivacious emeralds
Colours of the shade, Jade
Fields of verdant green
Mother earth bestows
Upon us her finest hues
Let’s embrace in gratitude
Reverently we circumambulate
The Holika, seeking felicity
Quelling the evil and granting peace
Imbued with the crimson
Under the blue skies of eternity
May the festival bring mirth
And lasting harmony*#
Mar 6, 2023
Mar 6, 2023 at 11:19 AM UTC
About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters; how well, they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.
2.3k
Gray Owl hearkens
the dappled daybreak knell
echoing through
the wildwood forest stand;
rock doves and frosty stones abide,
where a marooned heart doth dwell,
disrobed by the longest night's frigid touch
Timber stand grips tight
red clay and bedrock of ages,
postured tall and strong
as eagle's spirit throne
Pine cones hide
in the low drifting clouds,
ripe acorns tumble down alone
unto a windblown
shallow earthen grave,
hillocked beneath
the sky-high canopy
Bones of branches,
furrowed bark from burled oak,
wood-grains of pith,
natural gnarled achings
peeled by the shivering
wind's breath
Paling autumn memories
grow dim as the receding sunlight,
recollections of ebbing Jasmine's
mellowing fragrant balm
waft aloft in a favorite fading fantasy,
the edge of winter metamorphosis
bears down with a prodigious weight
of a different kind of retreating light;
brindled Queen Anne's lace
hold sway across
the tawny frostbitten meadow
imbuing the poignantly
whetting breeze
The blink of an eye winks,
to catch sight of
an intimate glimpse,
an unspoken
solitude holds forth,
the mesmerizing coo of rock doves,
reverently mirroring
the sanctity of the forest wildwood
lingering amongst the frosty
ferns and stones
The harmony of tranquil silence wanders;
only the bowing resistance of the boughs
manifest the shapeless wind’s
whispered breathe
swirling above the labyrinth threshold;
therein lies an unfractured fault line
rooted deeply beneath
the earth’s crust
like the sonorous heart
of a sanctuary hearthstone
Hence there is symmetry
felt in silence that only whispers
in the deep toned consonant
of our own harbored sighs
a holy human blood link
born of heritage wilderness heartwood
beats keenly alive
written by: harlon rivers ... December 2017
Dec 22, 2017
Dec 22, 2017 at 6:21 PM UTC
I see the golden whisks that stretch up into a turquoise sky
reverently the abode of the flying kite that twirls
upon the rafters of the heavens cathedral
drifting upon the open planes where the wind takes hold, rushes
drifting the soft plumes to the breeze and scented air
In a triumphant flight of dreams and hope.
The is a peaceful tranquility that invades the minds
silences it to the spectacle of sheer grace and bliss
that for hours upon hours my eyes partake of this exquisite dance
of life upon the flapping wing, air upon a pounding heart
The soul glides up there, dives and drifts upon every wish
Upon every far flung vision that draws a heart to want.
Sweet these images that so often go unseen,
we tread a delicate balance to the sweet song of life
Hold it upon our breath to whisper its majesty, its perfection
blind to the real depth of what there is, how we walk so coldly
upon a dark world where our horizons torch the scene
and wears the shudder of unconcern.
Alisdaire O'Caoimph
Apr 2, 2011
Apr 2, 2011 at 6:46 AM UTC
Wondering through
the complex mazes
of the wind,
trying to feel beyond
what I cannot see;
trying to see beyond
what I can feel ―
The echoes of the breeze
invigorate the stillness
The weight
of a world heavy
expands like the traces
of life lived
packed deeply beneath
jagged fingernails
Lost in the wilderness
of my soul,
a feral wind
abides silently
as I wonder alone
from end to end
... side to side
through a portal
shapeless as the wind
Blinded by a collective
bioluminescent light
rooted deeply within,
intimately touching
crystalline fountains
as the deepest pools
of innate blackness unfold
in the wake
I reverently touch
the inward rhythm
where a heart strong
runs alone …
feeling its
pulsing cadence
quake and thunder
in reach …
Rivulets thrumming across
the burgeoning blossom
of soothing netherworld seas
Washing away
all the memories made
like the shapeless waves of wind
moving the stillness
beyond
wild is the wind ... 1. 27. 2017
Jan 28, 2017
Jan 28, 2017 at 8:21 PM UTC
Yesterday, all things were dark
Like burning candles in the dusk.
Hibiscus, pear, and witches brew
And dragon's blood caught in the musk
Notions now, seemed **** then
And stealing out into the dark
I dreamt I was the highway man
After my Bess's fickle heart.
The moon above; cycloptic eye
Watched reverently as I crept
Across the mud and bracken path
Where willow trees once stooped and wept.
The musician crickets, with violin legs
Stroked their notes under the sky
And chirping peepers, peeking out
Sang louder in their sweet reply.
A long forgotten hidden grove
That bore the markers of the dead
Was where, for peace, I stopped to roam
Over the grass, to clear my head.
And there- amongst the silent mass,
Who find repose under the land-
I listened to their noiseless words
The silence, which I understand.
Dec 17, 2015
Dec 17, 2015 at 3:43 PM UTC
I stood as still as I could.
Trying to hold in my breath, trying to turn invisible, trying to melt into the wall I steadied myself upon. My heartbeat thumped in my ears drowning out all other sounds.
Were my feet nailed to the floor by fascination? or was it disgust? The knot in my stomach laid no reliable argument to these rushing emotions.
My eyes followed his hands; the way he gripped her hips, the way his fingers traced her jaw. My eyes also followed his lips; how he pressed them almost reverently against the base of her clenched neck.
I watched as he inhaled her scent like he was being squeezed out of breath.
She struggled against his grip. Her eyebrows knit together in an unsightly frown. She halfheartedly pushed him off her weak body. It almost looked like she didn't want to resist, but her pride pulled her away from yielding. She was shaking, her form disheveled, yet it wouldn't sway him.
I felt a stinging in my eyes, that all familiar burning I experienced when I felt that twinge of paranoia. That burning paranoia that plagues me now, as my worst fears are embodied.
How could she easily dismiss him like that?
When I lay nights awake craving his skin, his breath, his words.
I have spiraled out of view, just a faceless backdrop in his hopeless love story.
How could a person hate and love so much at the same time?
It just goes to show that the world doesn't work that way, it works to crush you. All these emotions spurt out at once, as a lesson for all the lucky fools watching you.
Jul 26, 2014
Jul 26, 2014 at 12:34 PM UTC
the tears began to flow when you least expected them, making an unwanted, unwarranted appearance. they caught in your eyelashes faster than you could blink them away, glistening silently like dew drops on daisies or rain on the roses your grandfather planted in his garden when you were just a little girl. they flowed in steady, shimmering lines down your face; tiny hands seeking to wash away the makeup left on your cheeks after a long day of battling the world. they connected each freckle and finally settled into a crystalline pool on your knees. weak. vulnerable. nothing.
accept those tears with grace. smile, though you can taste the salt on your lips. you are worthy of more and worthy of much. you are a daisy, nodding its head to the sky, fed from the dew drops that laid so heavily on your petals. you are a rose, reverently tended to by a worn set of kind hands. you are a flower, created to bloom for no one less than the sun. wipe your tears and begin your journey.
Jan 8, 2014
Jan 8, 2014 at 9:05 AM UTC
No latte
no "three men walked into a bar ..."
no sun salutation
can give me that reinvigorating boost
no melody
(and for that matter no harmony)
no pedicure
no crisp fall walk
can ease my anxious state
I am unsettled, trying to find a surface to settle on
so I settle down to the lowest parts of Maslow's mountain
searching for comfort in edible bites and physical bits,
deep in the valley where I should not be
"How ya doin'?"
"OhI'mgood!"
Ain't got time for the real answer
Ain't got time
Ain't got time
cause I won't give it to myself
I was never good at prioritizing
Cause if I knew my priorites
I would remember what a priority it is
to bend to my knees
sink into the ground
and reverently gaze UP
I have not imagined the answers and peace I have recieved
You have to open your mind to see His work
He is visible
in earth and sky
Sometimes He has to remind me
but when He does ...
well, I can enjoy the melodies
and lattes
and jokes again
P.W.C.
Nov 9, 2012
Nov 9, 2012 at 5:56 PM UTC
she brings him tea,
a piece of cheese late morn
for he has been toiling since dawn
his plane shaving the wood reverently
the old oak speaking, though not complaining,
in a language the man does not understand
a coughing code for loss, forbearance, acceptance,
redemption, he hopes, for the boys keep coming…
first from Ypres, the Verdun,
now the Marne
before, he heaved hewn planks
for the hopeful homes, built their pantries
to be filled with the bread, the kind milk
now the sawn boards are for those who once
watched his labors, but no longer hear the simple
sounds of sanding, sawing
or anything at all
most of the lads do not come home,
their souls and bodies left to rot on the blood sullied grass
or buried shallow, naked in the French soil, but all get a fine coffin
thanks to the carpenter’s wife, whose babe was the first to fall,
who demands for them all, a holy horizontal home to be built
and, empty or not, placed gently in Anglican ground
May 8, 2014
May 8, 2014 at 2:30 PM UTC
169
In Ebon Box, when years have flown
To reverently peer,
Wiping away the velvet dust
Summers have sprinkled there!
To hold a letter to the light—
Grown Tawny now, with time—
To con the faded syllables
That quickened us like Wine!
Perhaps a Flower’s shrivelled check
Among its stores to find—
Plucked far away, some morning—
By gallant—mouldering hand!
A curl, perhaps, from foreheads
Our Constancy forgot—
Perhaps, an Antique trinket—
In vanished fashions set!
And then to lay them quiet back—
And go about its care—
As if the little Ebon Box
Were none of our affair!
1.7k
aromatic coffee awakens senses
midst the gestured warmth of radiant
smiles's 'tween morning brew,
reverently paused to catch
the awe inspiring poignancy
of sunrise's exhilaration,
whilst cozily wrapped in the delightful unfurl
of captivating poetry's skillful delectation
a rising ritual begun many blue moons afore,
tempting consciousness, feeding soulfulness
enlightening sensibilities as it
enriches the day's appreciation
'pon the keen awareness of poets,
tempests from all niches of the world
coming together amid upheavals and serenity,
ceremoniously dubbed fierce confirmations
of words expressly borne, communing the
artfully spirited of resourceful artisans,
procuring special collective bonds that
only poesy can wholly dictate,
they look upon us as enigmas
rather strange breed of puzzling characters,
as this inexplicable endeavor
escapes their stifled perceptions
of conduit's musing reasonable facsimile,
we're merely cognitive passages for
experiences on common ground
in realizations of all-too-human foibles
eccentricities, yearnings and fortitude,
released deliverance of potpourri
serving up inky joy beyond expression,
intention's distinction deciphering
reflections in meditative affirmations,
breadth of unrestrained beholden visions
conjured notions of paramount significance
wherein lies evidence of life's burnt offerings,
beginnings and endings of hearts' indulgences
wept in resolute celebrations of existence
as only a poet could discernibly translate
Jul 9, 2015
Jul 9, 2015 at 8:23 AM UTC
I remember creeping reverently past
The yawning maw
Snarling braches, overgrown foliage
Sad eye sockets
The defeated roof
Listing drunkenly to the left
The black spirals on the ground
Where the fire had scored earth bare
Crouched from the sanctity of the sidewalk
Damp palm snaking back to
Clasp tight
My best friend’s hand
Fear skittering up our spines
We skirted past poisonous green weeds
That swayed in the yard
Unkempt and our eyes
Darted, seeking, feral
For movement in that open doorway
Her shadow
The witch
Years pass
Looking out into suburbia
Manicured green boxes
And cookie-cutter plans
From my own cracked window
My newly acquired reno,
I spot a flash of moving colour
From beyond the overgrown hyacinths
A tousled flash of curls between the green
Puzzlement ripples as
Three lanky preadolescent forms
Snake from the protection of my shaggy firs
Thin chests taking a breath before
Their whippy arms point accusing
And I barely see a flash before
The clutched rock leaves the
Stupid-looking red headed one’s hand
Crashing through my upstairs master
And I hear it
Witch, witch, where’s the witch?
And I feel it.
My eyes beadily narrow
Peering over my bulbous nose
Shoulders hunching
Toes curl
And I reach for
The broom leaning next
The painter’s cloth
Grabbing on with knobbly fingers
Hurling myself
Out
Of
The door
Their eyes widened
Disbelieving
As they spot me
And thumbs clutched between index fingers
They run
Leaving me cackling
Breathless
While my familiar
Looks up from
Sunning her black self
On the step.
Sep 2, 2009
Sep 2, 2009 at 7:49 PM UTC
shock and awe, shown the light, shown the door,
by the literary muses, kings and queens,
and the royal cooks, of course,
all rouse me at 4:00 am,
to salute those who can cook,
knowing how to summer simmer a simple broth of love
with richest, tasty, succinct, succulent brevity
that
keeps this wordy would be poet,
honest
all the varied spices,
artful adjectives, verbose verbs, numbing, never-heard-of nouns
are humbled in joy, all join this poet,
to honor the
curried simplicity
of
the Bengali cook of love
from India
who says it reverently,
all
in
one
simple sentence,
sourced locally
love is his staple,
love is rice
~
5/31/17
4:10am
May 31, 2017
May 31, 2017 at 5:40 AM UTC
Deadened
I was terminated, today.
It foreshadowed a phone message of my father's demise.
Penniless on a reservation, I am deadened.
What are aspirations?
I am lulled by my rich heritage to live imprisoned in this space.
Like a broken and discarded snow globe, I feel irrelevant in this place.
The familiar has become the mundane.
Without enough cash to collect my Father's remains,
an estranged childhood friend pays for our one way tickets of escape to a place more barren.
Father, I wonder why you fled to such a desolate land.
What were you seeking? What was your plan?
Flashbacks of childhood dreams unfulfilled flood my mind.
Longing for our ancestors' way of life, realizing but not admitting it will never be ours.
Not belonging to the outside world, we return in my father's beat up truck, unchanged.
I promise to acknowledge my friend,
but we both know we will remain estranged.
Life on a reservation renders you reverently passive,
and without aim.
Jul 25, 2010
Jul 25, 2010 at 9:48 AM UTC