"ridges" poems
My land is bare of chattering folk;
The clouds are low along the ridges,
And sweet's the air with curly smoke
From all my burning bridges.
22.8k
You say doctors will
make the best poets.
They will search your emotions
by the skin; cutting open to reveal
and revel
with surgical precison.
They will play with
heavy drugs and blades--
nothing shall hide beneath
the armors of bone and muscle.
They know the anatomy
of the heart too well.
They will find the things
you have hidden in your chest.
I say
doctors will never be poets.
They are too mechanical,
too fast with their edges
and ridges.
They cannot see the pain
as pain but merely as an anomaly.
That sadness is black bile
not melancholia.
They cannot sing to you
but only clammer in medical jargon.
Poets will use their imperfect words,
and perfect rhymes
to find the secrets of your rib cage
with ease.
They will find every flaw
of your broken body
and make it the best story
you've never heard.
Doctors,
they will put love to define as
a momentary rush of adrenaline,
an arrythmia for another human
caused due to an imbalance of the heart rhythm.
Poets will tell you
that love is the first jolt
of life for them.
They will say love is a state of euphoria
that takes those irregular rhythms to perfect symphonies.
Doctors say that
veins carry blood
devout of oxygen.
I say that they carry your broken emotions
to their feelings factory
to mend it within its beautiful catacombs.
All those doctors
will find and fix you
with perfect solutions.
And these poets
will do their best
to be your perfect solution.
Jan 31, 2014
Jan 31, 2014 at 8:25 AM UTC
Paints of dark twilight hues,
Slathered across in blunt strokes.
Blend with deft hands,
Cajole gently with jabs and pokes.
Backdrop begging for a few others.
Longing to hold in infinite embrace.
Friends of earth and midnight sky.
Worthy of a doe-eyed lovers' gaze.
Cascading moonbeam...
Drenching all in silvery white.
Restless twinkling stars...
Singing their mismatched might.
Silhouetted landscape as horizon,
Darkened oils of plateaued ridges.
Finest brush could only manage,
To close the gap, I build bridges.
Nearing completion, this stint on canvas.
Nuances of dawn for what I've begun,
Usher the arrival of a brand new day.
All I need now is a few drops of sun.
Oct 6, 2014
Oct 6, 2014 at 11:05 AM UTC
It was three am and, we were still up talking- laughing at inappropriate jokes with tired voices and sleep blending into the whites of our eyes like paint being mixed before an artist creates her masterpiece. By the window, I sat, staring at the moon and it’s perfect figure, so round and complex with ridges only where meant to be. My mind was searching like a lost child for an answer to my happiness, my mind was searching for a reason to be unhappy, but each time it would fail then try again. By the fifth time searching, I finally realized that this was what it was like to be ok. This was how it felt to be living for more than sleep at night and empty rooms. This is what it feels like when the stars are aligned, and everything is still. Tonight the moon asked me how I was feeling and for the first time in forever I said I was doing quite alright.
Jul 5, 2018
Jul 5, 2018 at 3:08 PM UTC
“isn’t it crowded in california?” people always ask me
but you should have seen the way it looked from the sky
expanses of empty valleys
mountains of uninhabited ridges
cities that i could touch with my fingertip
much like the stars in the dark night air
and green as far as the eye could see
the silver snow that dotted the land
reminding us not to forget about it
never had i been so far above that i could notice it all
always stuck in my corner of the universe
and you should have felt what i felt
knowing that there are still
areas of my heart that have yet to be
realized and explored and populated
by anyone who is not you
even though at one point
you occupied the spaces
the cracks in my chest and lungs and limbs
so much that i thought you were a piece of me
but the seasons change and so do people
so my winter will be drastically different than my summer
when you climbed out of my life and into another’s
and hearts break and shrink and expand
to make room for different hearts
(mine’s currently in the process of getting rid of you)
Jan 8, 2015
Jan 8, 2015 at 12:13 AM UTC
And it is braided with silk, but woven of plastic-
-materialistic; corrugated ridges on burnt iron legs.
But to the streets of suburban deforestation,
Her influential deciphering - infatuated - purged
Of seamless equations and reincarnated followers,
Abides by the diamond-bleach, the sultry circuits,
Poised in the foetal position for the last - yet first -
Time.
Dec 3, 2013
Dec 3, 2013 at 5:59 PM UTC
Waiting for spring to return this winter’s day.
Straining to touch warm breezes of the past.
Caught in this prison of gray and white.
Wishing to break these dark chains that hold me.
Remnants of fall, crumpled like brown paper on the ground.
Straws of pale brown growing up through the snow, ******* it dry.
Seeds and freeze dried fruit lay scattered about under trees.
Bare limbs and stalks drip with liquid glass.
Trees hanging bare, gray in lifelessness.
Winter birds call out, single in their pursuit of leftover meals.
Tracks of animals unknown dot the landscape with patchwork.
Waves of ridges etched in white lead off to nowhere.
Sparse, sun filled days bring brief glimpses of hope.
With the promise of warmth waiting to banish the cold
that holds me to my past and this existence;
waiting for spring to return and thaw this frozen heart.
Aug 20, 2012
Aug 20, 2012 at 9:29 PM UTC
covered by thorns and hidden by vines
but you’re still attracted to the light
that reflects from my broken sides
you want to swim alone tonight
but I know you’d let me hold you down
Velvet rose petals and shattered glass don't mix but still you’ll love me anyway
despite the scars I've left on you
you’d lay with me
on dead grass
and let me point out your fading colors
you’ll excuse my relentless attempts
to bury you under ground.
“you're destructive
and reflective,
I see myself in you”
As my ridges rip you to shreds you stay with me,
a ****** mess and a lonely swimmer,
another garden destroyed
with wasted raindrop tears
Jan 16, 2015
Jan 16, 2015 at 1:18 PM UTC
I wonder
how our great creator
built a vessel
strong enough
to contain my soul?
Each day my spirit fights
against my skin with violent
jolts as a young bird
seeking exit from a cage.
Unfettered psyche
free from me
bounces among clouds
rolls through deserts,
climbs volcanic ridges
migrates with birds in flight.
Curious instincts guide
my vital force inside and out
like honey bees
scour zinnias in full bloom.
Dare I release my spirit today?
Jan 1, 2017
Jan 1, 2017 at 4:24 PM UTC
On a shore flooded in the tide.
Now on a flitting log:
Rain, trying to fill up
the ridges white,
that, I, along with
***** snails and tiny starfish
are ambling to escape from.
The trees, they are laughing wet.
As are the distant waves,
snapping on returns.
Jul 30, 2014
Jul 30, 2014 at 2:27 AM UTC
I’m addicted to the feel of cold metal sliding across bare flesh
Addicted to the instant
when nothing marks smooth skin
immediately before
red rivers rapidly rise
painting a once white canvas
with a flood of emotion,
tears on my cheeks,
sobs caught in my throat,
numbness replaced by pain & sadness.
Addicted to the imperfection
of red welts and dotted scabs that follow,
fingers drawn like magnets
to the texture of healing skin,
tracing over and over and over now fading ridges
Amazed that I am strong enough
to heal myself over and over and over.
Convincing myself that I am strong enough.
I find strength in my weakness.
Dec 11, 2018
Dec 11, 2018 at 8:41 PM UTC
I am in levels. Past levels. This deep, intrinsic wonderful lost, the lawlessness of its fascinating expenditure of excite. Pushing through the wild and feral snow-dusted plains and timber ridges. Like red-spotted dots breathing through the cylinders called the spine. This descends into a narrow channel of scantly clad greenish scenery in a time-soaked visionary wilderness of snow,
Our crab legs dancing down wiry purple highways, our heads could not even look backwards if we had wanted.
Furious, love-latitudes, stalking breaths thwacking fork-ended tongues into a pinkish knot buried into the first layer of organic membrane on this railway of miniature canals, showing. And their pride snuck into the elbows, shooting down each vertebrae as it stepped with great precision every ledge that the currency emphasized. The raw accumulation of stolen heart-beats rattling between the interstices of new fuel careering these red engines. Crashing with exquisite pleasure into one another.
Apr 26, 2014
Apr 26, 2014 at 4:41 AM UTC
I don't burn bridges, I preserve those wonders of old. I let the waters rise, whilst I remain underneath its ridges and contours.
I don't burn bridges, not because that I am mature.
I don't burn bridges, because I am alone; and a bridge is a well travelled road.
Feb 23, 2021
Feb 23, 2021 at 10:25 AM UTC
She kept all her emotions
Monitored by a rather
Peculiar body part
Her eyebrows
They were
The distinct way
She used to communicate
I learned to read her impeccably
A sudden shift; low drop
Of dark blonde brows
Was displeasure and
Soon brooding
A quirk
Or amused twitch
Meant she liked whatever
Ridiculous pickup line I’d used
Those golden ridges became my
Guide to a mystery
I always tried
To solve
Oct 16, 2011
Oct 16, 2011 at 8:20 PM UTC
What beauty shines in dappled light,
In misty morning air?
What beauty's cloaked in foggy mist,
Waiting to be shone?
The light it changes endlessly,
No view is ever twice,
Sun and rain and mist and fog,
The ever changing light.
The hills they roll in endless clefts,
Valleys and ridges roll,
Endless land that ever goes,
From dawn way out to dusk.
A home it is this peaceful place,
If only for a time,
The comfort of the love here found,
That makes a house a home.
Horses graze to their delight,
The moisture fine with them.
The rabbits hope, the birds all sing,
The magpie glides around.
Few have seen the morning light,
Out shining through the mist,
Few there are that know delight,
Of ranch's peacefulness.
Here I sit in morning light,
The peace it fills my soul.
Refreshing rain and my delight,
Out here far from home.
What beauty shines in dappled light,
In misty morning air?
What beauty's cloaked in foggy mist,
Waiting to be shone?
The light it changes endlessly,
No view is ever twice,
Sun and rain and mist and fog,
The ever changing light.
~Dappled Light by Bethany Davis, June 7, 2014
Jun 24, 2014
Jun 24, 2014 at 12:58 AM UTC
Open bramble gate, morning lets itself in,
eyes open in welcome. Water stirs – a
glance outside. A jade tiger rises,
blue herons fly to South Mountain.
~~~
Forage through herb abundance on South
Mountain sunlight pooled in cassia leaves.
It’s why you reclused here, hermitage entwined
in viridian mists. I find your footprints
headed to the clouds, so I leave this
poem on your wall and on a whim
ascend South Mountain ridges. Sticks
snap underfoot – blue herons startle away.
~~~
Boundless and empty to townsfolk,
South Mountain peaks. But here
immortals dance among indomitable pines.
Above the sun blue herons fly into
paper crumpled clouds – clouds the body,
clouds the wings. Sonorous bird song -
radiant clarity – makes mountain forests
sing, each beat moves the clouds, red
dust cleared from rivers and peaks,
ochre streams flood forests and fields,
canyons and gorges, jades and emeralds rise.
Petals scatter on crystalline swells, night
lengthens slowly – coldness wanders by
but I will linger here, a little longer.
Version 2
South Mountain peaks, boundless and empty to townsfolk.
But here immortals dance among indomitable pines.
Above the sun blue herons fly into paper folded clouds
- azure heaven change – clouds the body, clouds the wings.
Sonorous bird song radiant clarity – makes mountain forest sing,
each beat moves the clouds, red dust cleared from rivers
and peaks, ochre streams flood forests and fields,
canyons and gorges, jade and emerald rises.
Petals scatter on crystalline swells – night lengthens slowly -
coldness wanders by but I believe I will linger here, a little longer.
Version 3
South Mountain peaks, boundless and empty to townsfolk.
But here immortals dance among indomitable pines.
Above the sun blue herons fly into paper folded clouds
- azure heaven change – clouds the body, clouds the wings.
Sonorous bird songs radiant clarity – makes mountain forests sing,
each beat moves the clouds, red dust clears from rivers
and peaks. Streams of ochre flood forests and fields,
canyons and gorges, jades and emeralds rise.
Scattered petals on crystalline swells – night slowly lengthens -
coldness wanders by but I believe I will linger here, a little longer.
Jan 24, 2012
Jan 24, 2012 at 8:02 PM UTC
Wish I had a special pair of lenses
A tool for me; just for my senses
That grant me binocular vision
Allow me to see with heightened perception.
Peer through mountain crags, over dunes of sand
Pierce skyscrapers in familiar foreign lands
A sight beyond nimbus clouds
Amazingly through temporal shrouds.
Past breathtaking ridges and quiet plateaus
Alongside a ****** of black-feathered crows
Tripping over singing brooks and moss-covered pebbles
Herds of quadrupeds as they frolic and gambol
Extraordinary views and candy for the eyes
Travelling linear between earth and skies.
But...
You're too far away for me to see
Even if bestowed upon me...
Still,
I wish my eyes binocular...
Because I need you so much closer...
Aug 14, 2014
Aug 14, 2014 at 2:23 PM UTC
'O babbling brook,' says Edmund in his rhyme,
'Whence come you?' and the brook, why not? replies.
I come from haunts of coot and hern,
I make a sudden sally,
And sparkle out among the fern,
To bicker down a valley.
By thirty hills I hurry down,
Or slip between the ridges,
By twenty thorps, a little town,
And half a hundred bridges.
Till last by Philip's farm I flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.
'Poor lad, he died at Florence, quite worn out,
Travelling to Naples. There is Darnley bridge,
It has more ivy; there the river; and there
Stands Philip's farm where brook and river meet.
I chatter over stony ways,
In little sharps and trebles,
I bubble into eddying bays,
I babble on the pebbles.
With many a curve my banks I fret
By many a field and fallow,
And many a fairy foreland set
With willow-weed and mallow.
I chatter, chatter, as I flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.
'But Philip chatter'd more than brook or bird;
Old Philip; all about the fields you caught
His weary daylong chirping, like the dry
High-elbow'd grigs that leap in summer grass. [grig = cricket - m.]
I wind about, and in and out,
With here a blossom sailing,
And here and there a ***** trout,
And here and there a grayling,
And here and there a foamy flake
Upon me, as I travel
With many a silvery waterbreak
Above the golden gravel,
And draw them all along, and flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.
5.2k
We climbed from bedrock
to Idyllwild the home
of Pines to Palms
and Suicide Rocks
but not for us
only for those
poor tired souls
for whom the world's gone
flat
refusing
the night threw
itself boldly into the fray
of winds which blew
from storm to calm
so this morning we awoke
to a placid knap
slipping on snowy piste
to turn cold snaps
hot
spiced Nepali tea
sipped from ice
nipped cups
I see promise
picks up
from backward leaps
time forward flips
breaking free range igneous
into pan
piped sizzling
congenial song
that carries on the tree line
like spring
water sprung from
creeks to go scurrying off
with wet socks
until pulled up
by old school granite skies
hanging pools out to dry
in sopping blue rinsed sun
ahead any bald rocks
or hairline fractures
are long since dialled in
as baseless fears
knowing this mobile age
can merrily slip like air
through numb fingers
while baseline hands declare
“hold me close to gather”
edelweiss echoes gone
rappelling through time
the route we've chosen's
to be tied to each other's
peaks in the way of sun
and moon
come what may
be it creases in our skin
or crevasses
we'll win the battle to slim line
any overhanging ridges
so I take care to tighten
my girth hitch to top notch
and hold firmly
to both your conviction
and reach
that setting
out to move mountains
we call home
achieves more than
staying home
and calling mountains
so bright
you have me forget
all things too trite
banal office hype
shopworn old hat
mowing lawn weekends
too dishy to be clichéd
you polish off the stereotype
slam the Dior on out of shape
and dull as ditchwater tripe
keeping a victorious secret
or two in the slip knot
too tranquil shade
taking allure to new heights
we'll never drop
down from
tonight
Sep 14, 2014
Sep 14, 2014 at 11:03 AM UTC
I come from haunts of coot and hern;
I make a sudden sally;
I sparkle out among the fern
To bicker down a valley.
By thirty hills I hurry down,
Or slip between the ridges,
By twenty thorps, a little town,
And half a hundred bridges.
At last by Philip's farm I flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.
I chatter over stony ways
In sharps and trebles;
I bubble into eddying bay;
I babble on the pebbles.
I chatter, chatter as I flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.
I wind about, and in and out,
With here a blossom sailing,
And here and there a ***** trout,
And here and there a grayling.
And here and there a foamy flake
Upon me, as I travel
With many a silvery waterbreak
Above the golden gravel,
And draw them all along, and flow
To joing the brimming river;
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.
I steal by lawns and grassy plots;
I slide by hazel covers;
I move the sweet forget-me-nots
That grow for happy lovers.
I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance
Among my skimming swallows;
I make the netted sunbeams dance
Against my sandy shallows.
I murmur under moon and stars
In brambly wildernesses;
I linger by my shingly bars;
I loiter round my cresses;
And out again I curve and flow
To join the brimming river;
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.
~Alfred Tennyson 1809-1892~
Oct 31, 2012
Oct 31, 2012 at 9:24 AM UTC
When they get to the aquarium, the kid asks if they have a Great White shark exhibit.
The volunteer says no, we don’t.
The kid asks, “Why? are you afraid he might try to eat people?”
The volunteer chuckles at this and tells him no. no aquarium has successfully held a Great White shark live for more than a few days.
You see, in order to stay alive, Great Whites and other sharks, like hammerheads, swim on their own continuously through the ocean, never stopping, never slowing, tramping a perpetual journey with many miles to go before they finally reach “sleep”. If they stop, the oxygen rich water around them no longer flows over their gills and into their bodies and they suffocate from the strain of being at rest. So they keep going, like lost children searching for their parents in a very large amusement park.
This need to keep moving, this need for space, has made it extremely difficult to keep them in our meager glass human death cages. When the Monterey bay aquarium managed to capture a juvenile that didn’t thrash itself to death like the adult sharks they netted before, it bashed its head against the tank’s sturdy walls until the shock of being dragged out of its home and put in the equivalent of a coffin killed it.
But, the volunteer continued cheerfully, we have other kinds of sharks here. We have zebra sharks, which don’t need to swim nonstop. In their natural habitat, they just lie on the ocean floor all day. The kid agrees to go see them
The zebra sharks are not lying on the floor nor do they look like zebras. They swim slowly past him, leopard spots dotting their ridges on their backs, their fins, their long tails. “They’re called zebra sharks because of the zebra like patterns of the juveniles,” the volunteer explains. The ones we have here are adults.When they become adults, they get the spots and those ridges you see. Sometimes people mistake them for leopard sharks, which are a totally different species.”
The kid stares at the zebra sharks for a full ten minutes, looking for a sign of resignation at being called something they weren’t anymore, at collectively being referred to by a childhood nickname they had long outgrown. They did not seem to care.
He gets bored and goes to other exhibits, the split fin flashlight fish blinking on and off in their darkened tank, the touch pool, the medusa jellyfish with their trailing tentacles. But the sharks are what he remembers when he leaves, and they’re what he remember when he returns three months later, six months later, two years later, three, five, ten, this is what stays with him, the sharks in our tanks and the sharks in the ocean.
Jun 16, 2017
Jun 16, 2017 at 2:20 AM UTC
A repelling sensation
Permeation of sound
Or temperature
Impossible
A moment, a day
Eternity
Organs slow, pumping
Softly, so as not to awaken the real
Vulnerable and courageous
Becoming a partnership between a drip of fear
And the end, arriving as
Seas fill ridges and valleys,
Crevices of corpses
A new bite on each blade of
Crumbling spirits
Pickling at each span of one's own whisper
Nov 15, 2012
Nov 15, 2012 at 11:22 AM UTC
Motion, 'side-by-side,' -taste.
Tiny ridges, odd projections, scales
over a hunken-frame, -slide.
*Two Dead Bears; Red Eyes!
Two Dead Bears; Red Eyes!
Betwixt two bears; it lies.*
Cranial portholes, back out, newt,
shimmery black tongues array, -kiss.
Tail around the head; constrict.
*Two Dead Bears; Red Eyes!
Two Dead Bears; Red Eyes!
Betwixt two bears; it lies.*
Celestial space, taste the air,
Now slither wrap the eyelashes...
twist, pull apart, open, -see!
*Two Dead Bears; Red Eyes!
Two Did Bare; Red Eyes!
Betwixt two bears; they lied.*
Three rows of teeth exposed,
to **** out the eye!
A Dragon consumes a Hero.
It is not a myth.
Jan 4, 2017
Jan 4, 2017 at 12:22 AM UTC
the sun has that certain haze
as if it were the dead of Summer
and heat radiated through the air
but
this is a tease a reminder of those days
because indeed the air is fresh
and sharp as it should be in Winter
at the seaside a roaring song and dance
those distant waves appear as a range
the ridges of a desert mountain top
and
silhouetted at depths with the vibrance
of sunset hues bringing shade to the wild
while preparing for the cool of night
the reflections are shorter now
and I lose sight of that glowing orb
as far off clouds take shape to dip
then
colors shift to violet, navy and maroon
leaving a bruise to bumps in the night
and dream of an August day by the sea
Jan 21, 2022
Jan 21, 2022 at 9:40 PM UTC