"sagas" poems
(To my sisters and brother)
I will always miss …
Our sunset ending quarrels
Our never-ending teases
Christmas’ shared carols
Warm hugs
Through sweet gazes
The sarcastic smiling faces
The growing-up races
Revenge taking chases
Greed over goodies to be hidden
In unpredictable places
And I will always miss …
Competitions and crazy bets
Singing hilarious duets
Of made-up songs in the shower
This innocence
Of our childish humor
Screamed from a room to another
That art of tricking eachother
To cleverly stay in control
Or wrestling over the remote control
And I will always miss …
Decades of shared history
Amplified joy and divided misery
Bursts of laughter on old tapes
Creatively imagined games
Of whirlpools in drapes
And goalkeeper leaps
Random costume parties
Daily role-play stories
Sega sagas from dusk to dawn
Alliances and conspiracies
Sisters, my lovely sisters
Wise, you have become
Loving wives, caring mothers
Soon, you will become
Make sure your kids relive
What we used to live
Their uncle will make you proud
Just like you fill him with pride
Brother, dear brother
I secretly looked up to you
As I grew older
I kept resembling you
It doesn’t matter
If you’re a little far
Brotherhood’s a matter
Of unbreakable bond
And I will always admire, respect, love and cherish …
Every single one of you
Nov 21, 2013
Nov 21, 2013 at 12:06 PM UTC
Oh, I can smile for you, and tilt my head,
And drink your rushing words with eager lips,
And paint my mouth for you a fragrant red,
And trace your brows with tutored finger-tips.
When you rehearse your list of loves to me,
Oh, I can laugh and marvel, rapturous-eyed.
And you laugh back, nor can you ever see
The thousand little deaths my heart has died.
And you believe, so well I know my part,
That I am gay as morning, light as snow,
And all the straining things within my heart
You'll never know.
Oh, I can laugh and listen, when we meet,
And you bring tales of fresh adventurings, --
Of ladies delicately indiscreet,
Of lingering hands, and gently whispered things.
And you are pleased with me, and strive anew
To sing me sagas of your late delights.
Thus do you want me -- marveling, gay, and true,
Nor do you see my staring eyes of nights.
And when, in search of novelty, you stray,
Oh, I can kiss you blithely as you go ....
And what goes on, my love, while you're away,
You'll never know.
4.4k
rotting horse carcass.
green glowing filament by moonlight ******
& mistrust us.
radioactive drums of waste &/or dreams.
boys swimming.
fistfights at night
by headlight & tooth crackle. (spit) then bonfire pallets
lit & danced upon.
plumes
of gas-can outcries.
the days & abuelitas
& ghosts
pinched cheek - pinched cooler - grandaddy
on the grill.
his gasping yellow dogs.
judy is in the underbrush with a walkie-talkie
& a p.b.j.
desmond leaps from high rocks; he
descends into another world by way of molecular-mishap.
dove deep.
riding the portal boar.
wasps hover above spilt wine
& declare war upon brothers with b.b. guns
& firecrackers
& spf 50+. the saturday/sunday sagas
between beams of heat laughter breakdowns
to knees, to bees,
honey.
homecoming queen dead & wrapped
in plastic.
body found with
turtle bites.
fungi.
the slabs of granite.
old iron tractors bent & held by tree wives.
toast.
jam hewn hwedges of crisped bread.
Oct 18, 2014
Oct 18, 2014 at 2:34 AM UTC
dry as a beggar's over-parched throat
as an over-burnt piece of blackened rye-toast
as the golden sand in Sahara roast
was the air o' the day of the black death-note
as the air crackled with the laughter of death
and claimed the millions as it left bereft
daughters of the earth their heart a-cleft
from the breath of the devil with the head of Macbeth
Houses, untenable, ditched searing memories,
Turned sarcophagi from life and its treasuries
Scorched skeletons of sagas and histories,
Of family feuds, celebrations and victories,
Of open secrets and whispered mysteries,
Years of toil blest by gold sunbeams,
The laughter of babes and the giggle of teens,
Now fractured windows and ash blackened beams,
Skeletal remains of life and its dreams.
Jan 10, 2025
Jan 10, 2025 at 4:28 AM UTC
Perhaps
by Momin Khan Momin
loose translation by Michael R. Burch
The cohesiveness between us, you may remember, or perhaps not.
Our solemn oaths of faithfulness, you may remember, or perhaps forgot.
If something happened that was not to your liking,
the shrinking away that produces silence, you may remember, or perhaps not.
Listen, the sagas of so many years, the promises you made amid time's onslaught,
which you now fail to mention, you may remember, or perhaps not.
These new resentments, those old rehashed complaints,
these lighthearted and displeasing stories, you may remember, or perhaps forgot.
Some seasons ago we shared love and desire, we shared joy ...
That we once were dear friends, you may have, perhaps, forgot.
Now if we come together, by fate or by chance, to express old loyalties ...
Our every shared breath, all our sighs and regrets, you may remember, or perhaps not.
Being
by Momin Khan Momin
loose translation by Michael R. Burch
You are so close to me
that no one else ever can be.
NOTE: There is a legend that the great Urdu poet Mirza Ghalib offered all his diwan (poetry collections) in exchange for this one sher (couplet) by Momin Khan Momin. Does the couplet mean "be as close" or "be, at all"? Does it mean "You are with me in a way that no one else can ever be?" Or does it mean that no one else can ever exist as truly as one's true love? Or does this sher contain an infinite number of elusive meanings, like love itself?
Being (II)
by Momin Khan Momin
loose translation by Michael R. Burch
You alone are with me when I am alone.
You are beside me when I am beside myself.
You are as close to me as everyone else is afar.
You are so close to me that no one else ever can be.
Keywords/Tags: Translation, Urdu, Momin Khan Momin, love, close, closeness, unity, farness, afar, memory, remembrance, forgetfulness, remember, forget, forgot, time, silence, mrburdu
May 1, 2020
May 1, 2020 at 5:53 AM UTC
these are but sagas for lovers and haters in love
who love to hate but are in hate with love
these poems
of couples who exist to exist
and to redefine Is
these are but stories for the sons of bleary eyed fathers
who tread the same threads across dilated garters
and heroic stoics be proud!
these are but fables of folly
and of transparent whim
of hunters’ beguilement
of huntresses’ ****
of mechanical males who practise old tricks
these are but tales of maidens and heads
of neverending aims nevertheless transfixed
these are but poems
of Envy and Trust
poems that unbe the unfair
for the sake of unlove
and while mechanical feelers probe seas of flesh dealers
and reels of film cast doubts of Enough
these are still
but poems of Trust
Nov 23, 2012
Nov 23, 2012 at 8:11 PM UTC
she was in her own brain
all of the time
it was the only world she knew
free from everyone
she was just she
she read icelandic sagas
for fun in the park
brought home every
dog that was alone
even if it had a collar
she tore leaves from their trees
ripped them to pieces
and threw them in the air
the people who saw
thought she was celebrating
i think she
was lashing out
but she kept her anger to herself
and showed her friends
songs she thought were cool
nobody liked them
but she never paid the people
any mind
she wore the same shoes
every single day
the old chucks
with paint rips and mud
for decoration
she had pictures of people
covering every inch of her wall
they were strangers
but she liked their far away smiles
somehow captured in time
they all wondered about her
i liked her
May 5, 2012
May 5, 2012 at 2:59 PM UTC
After the day's work, the canopy of stars
sheltering our heads, tell me a story
as you sit down to do your washing;
The night has now fallen silent, now
tell me Senora, stories, of bygone times,
of heroes and kings, of sagas of valour
and of the denizens of the forests,
wolves and lions, and of ancient wells.
I wonder in awe, when you lift the stone
pestle down. Here's mine a heroine own.
It is cold, and the fires warm our souls,
woolen caps too, and the flickering lamps.
Now put me to sleep by your side, on
the charpoy: I hear the wind sleepwalk,
jingling her silver anklets in the thin air,
when I wake up in the dead, as crickets
rustle, and shadows talk, to count my
blessings that you are still by my side.
Oct 24, 2014
Oct 24, 2014 at 3:43 PM UTC
Blissful solitude today came back home,
To find a piece of me, in myself, in a story untold.
Sagas of dependence essential for the birth of elation,
Verses of melancholy on the ring of separation.
So overrated is the missing piece, so unnecessary
So underrated the value of a smile from eyes wet and teary.
It flies by, a lost bird, one place to the second,
The victory disguised as change, with knowledge of what is reckoned.
Let it grow, let it find a path back home,
In myself, found a friend, who'll never leave me alone.
Feb 14, 2013
Feb 14, 2013 at 10:30 PM UTC
She stood a good two feet
warrior taller than any man close
she asked what good I was
and I said I liked to write stories
With a flick of her eyes
I was hired
a poet
Aug 10, 2015
Aug 10, 2015 at 3:16 PM UTC
i'll be the one fattening the nationalists like
they're worthy to inherit the swine skidding
kinds of talk of the famous winged Hussar toppling
mountain in stone as in grain of sand: avalanche -
and akin to a crows' kraken bellowing: gluttonous kra!
und tod! schatten överskuggar död:
and what yearn be dripped in acknowledged European -
loftier thought than done, kindred of what's called
the civilised / colonial world - toward the auburn horizontal -
and in due bereaving: left undone, and unduly asked for:
to be grasped as worshipped, quasi Lutheran,
mingling Calvinist and Catholic... but never the love affair
of Henry VIII. so much of modern English
history is bound to Las Vegas, and so much to the Hajj toward
Jerusalem no one cares about... then so few to mind
the invasion of the Polish-Lithuanian
Commonwealth by the Swedes... because this is England,
and Cockney speaks, usurper of the royal tongue, due to pride,
due to the elephant man, due to jack the ripper and
harry the stinker... and the joyous rhapsody coming
from the lonely mile in Irish slang; or said: Mamelukes -
because the Mongols were at one point defeated -
and thus grieved the Baghdad skull with tinges of Hamlet -
oh the grand library, what was left of it, could remain
enshrined in Texan avoidance - not to be:
Chilcot Coke - Cooled Coca and later Koala - Bruise and White -
thugs' select - later respect'ah - bony g and later bonbon
and much later bony m - and much much
later Alfonso Jalfrezi - alias gaga: and all the culinary sagas,
the Forsytes of Malta... or the Forsytes of Málaga?
i'm sure that question is all about:
wherever the peppercorn blows
and wherever the sneeze deposits a hunch
toward an itchy cartilage - from an itch and a scratch:
a butterfly! well, isn't this
the most beautiful of all possible worlds...
sorta makes you want to get up in the morning
and say good-morning to someone.
Sep 20, 2016
Sep 20, 2016 at 9:58 PM UTC
Lost in the fictions I didn't write myself;
Stuck in the stories up on the shelf.
Exploring the spaces between the lines,
The images swirling inside my mind.
And it's an addiction, the emotions compelled:
I'm wrapped up, consumed by their endless spell.
Please never rescue me from my delusions,
And may these tales never reach their conclusions.
If the fantasy realms and other dimensions
Cease to be, I would disappear with them.
For I am a composite of fandom and myth,
Without which, I'm sure, I couldn't exist.
So leave me to drown here in legends and fables,
The sagas and series-- all lands with no equals.
The characters conjured: imaginative haunts--
But the feelings they give are the best that I've got.
Don't save this damsel for I'm not distressed;
Just leave me to wander through some fictional quest.
If I cannot fit in the world that's created
Then leave me to die here between the pages.
Feb 28, 2016
Feb 28, 2016 at 2:55 PM UTC
when she got all the righteous requirements of expressing liberty and i looked at her expression i was like? so i've been duped into being fed the oedipus complex for 100 years while she wrote as if looking for her father in a theme park? right... gear up the revs of that feminism of yours... keep them writing, by god keep them writing, let us learn all the secrets that were so attractive once when she pampered herself with corsets and bangles and rings and earrings and perfumes! come on feminism, drag them out into the bright open blank canvas of the page like dragging witches to the stake!
in my library i only have books by women
in the range of sylvia plath and anna kavan...
believe me, feminism gave women
second thoughts about
joining the ranks of men
writing, she's having second
thoughts because she doesn't
want to reveal her secrets,
she doesn't want to internalise
life, she wants it to remain
a volumptous (voluptuous,
which sounds sexier? the former
implies volume, the latter a monkish stress
of orthographic orthodoxy) affection
to keep fingertips sensitive to skin
smooth like soap and coarse like
pavement - touchy touchy - feely feely,
she's scared that by outlining
all the secrets she'll be no longer
able to wear a corset and as theory states:
bigger the earrings of loops, the eagerer she's
to be bedded, it's a shame i don't own
more books by women who'd write like
men, and i dig the part where books
written by women are so tightly bound
by social formalities of longing for love
in long-winding sagas of the harlequin
publishing house -
feminism seems like a faulty bomb
when it comes to women writing,
i mean, a girl starts writing she looses her
predatory allure and instinct,
she starts writing she becomes vulnerable,
exposed, when he does it he
gets depth and confidence he can't use
in ****** interaction... historically speaking
women used to walk without leaving
footprints, men used to walk moving mountains,
she was the countless secrets and secrecies,
feminism kinda duped her,
she started making footprints via writing,
and sadly all the former allure faded -
we became apes and peasants
slightly bewildered by an atom bomb explosion
like a falling autumnal leaf;
where is that crafty ***** with a library of intrigues?
Mar 8, 2016
Mar 8, 2016 at 12:34 PM UTC
su sussidio... oh oh.
cashier tarah talks, talks,
really talks, 6 hours east
to sri lanka, 12 hour flight, 15 hours
back, mother in law died,
sorry, yeah, something
got my boy out of the womb,
dubai was lost
as a terminal worth docking at,
too much shopping
too little insomnia...
but i just came in for my whiskey
and my coca-cola...
chubby cheek tarah hasn't
asked me what i do...
oh you know, i write poetry,
the stuff pop artists are famous for...
not actually doing...
i was never a serious gamer,
from tetris and su doku i progressed
to candy crush sagas... you know,
i didn't get the multiple-choice narrative
and the lost joystick freedom
of up down east west,
instead getting short snips of a story
unfold with a quick-drawn press button
action draw of the story unfold;
i wish gaming appealed to me
like the way advertising companies
got fooled by the way television works
these days: oops, paused five minutes
into the show, then skim eyed the adverts
past not even caring to be influenced
by consumerism propaganda...
i love it, i can finally watch t.v. and skip
the adverts!
thanks for the detergent and salt and pepper,
raw materials on the ready,
you improve your aesthetics elsewhere,
i'll drink my cheap whiskey with
cheap phosphoric barley tinged caramel
cola quicker than you can say the tongue tie:
eager ****** had the weakest liver
bone munching onomatopoeias of ribcage rattle.
Feb 23, 2016
Feb 23, 2016 at 9:32 PM UTC
Apparently,
They have not read any good poems.
Or maybe,
They have not read any good sagas.
Probably,
They have just seen breakups.
Sadly.
Literature - the written word,
It stays forever.
I love my "The 'Angel?' Series",
It is like a diamond.
And I love my story "7 Seconds",
It is my diadem.
Jul 3, 2017
Jul 3, 2017 at 10:04 PM UTC
Let's unmask some clowns,
No need to get down,
Tell me, who is your Kryptonite?
What's the opinion of your ex-wife?
What went on in your chronicles and sagas?
Who is acting like Lady Gaga?
Please, don't carry on so,
I really don't need to know!
May 30, 2016
May 30, 2016 at 11:15 PM UTC
*The Path up and down is one and the same.
~Heraclitus~*
Through dusty books,
pages as brittle as peanut candy,
I search for wisdom
among the Greeks;
question the meaning of life.
On distant shelves,
among cobwebs and boewevils,
fiery sagas shadow
the lives of lustful Gods,
tribulations of mortals
and destructions of nations
once as powerful as the Gods
they worshiped.
I diligently catalogue:
fill page after page
with lore and legend,
trace paths of ancient ones ~
their bones telling tales~
until I realize nothing has changed.
I too spin tales,
yarn of sagas rich as the Greeks,
worship Gods and muses,
like my own broken-spirited muse,
a Simberg angel.
Someday, I will join weavers of old,
and searchers of knowledge
will dust away webs of my tales
and realize that I am but one,
and yet, the same.
Nov 18, 2010
Nov 18, 2010 at 8:42 PM UTC
Her Perfect Form!
She comes in many forms.
In tall classical elegance.
Her beautiful words dance.
Classy impressive she's such a dame.
Wholly suggestive.
Rarely tame.
From demons to monsters and mythical beings.
Historical sagas placed in shortened lines.
Dark at times.
Where she in shadows dwells.
Sometimes kisses tales of wishing wells.
Writes full soap operas.
Dramas created at times.
Comic writes of silly stuff.
Some just like Donald Duck.
Hey.
Who gives a f++k.
It's all in the name of poetry to me.
Fills my heart .
My brain's on fire.
If I didn't admit it then I'd be a liar!
By ladylivvi1
© 2013 ladylivvi1 (All rights reserved)
Sep 22, 2013
Sep 22, 2013 at 10:34 AM UTC
Your eyes are not portals to your soul
They are not some archaic metaphysical equation
Ancient mathematicians formulated to confound
They are pastures for nymphs
They are branches for fruit
They are laurels for poets
They rend me open like a flaming axe
They tie my stomach like knotted roots
I lose myself in their dusky wilderness
In them, I observe universes
Perpetually exploding and collapsing
Your pupils are black holes
At the center of galaxies
Balancing energy and force
Bending light inward
Like a sickle glistening high over hayfields
In them I hear songs
And sagas narrated by savage tongues
Of catastrophic floods and rebirth
Aryan myths about oneness
In them I see IVs dripping
Candles flickering behind carved pumpkins
I loiter in them like a pauper
With a styrofoam cup
Gazing on them is nearly intolerable
Like glaring at hydrogen bombs blinding
It is like Hebrews
Uttering the name of El- who cannot be named
El- who is above mortal matrices
The eye that never sleeps
The ear that always comprehends
The self that waivers like the sea
Eternity ends when you blink
Infernos extinguish when you sob
I tremble before them
As if they're holy relics
Decaying into perfection
Oh look upon me one last time
My love
Oh glance at me before
I petrify into pillars of salt
Look upon me
Before I transfigure into an amnestic god
Bearing light pure
Peer once more into my binary pulsars, frozen
In a fathomless abyss.
Apr 16, 2015
Apr 16, 2015 at 6:22 AM UTC
I don't usually get stolen by temptation like this
But I would do anything to be devoured by this feeling
From the cover alone.. your every word overflows into my heart
Oh the Intrigue
I just want to know more than what your surface reveals
Oh, how I know your story will be riveting and passionate
The colors, they tell me
And gossip your characters into my ear
The feats they're capable of
And the depths your philosophy stem from
I'd like to write them unto my wrists
And preach to everyone I pass the journeys you took me on
Oh, dear if you dare to open yourself unto me
I will not resist falling deeper into you
Your pages are limited
So whilst you have me.. while I'm within your folds
Envelop me into your narratives
And I will follow you on any journeys you seek
Don't get me wrong.. I don't usually lose sleep over something like this
But the lies and tales you tell me
Make me want to see this through to the end
And I desire not to be caught
Whilst I rummage through the exposed chapters of your epics sagas
Of our epic sagas
Not until .. When the last page turns
Before the cover lands.
Don't let the fall be final and resolute
Allow me to mark the ends of your pages
So once more we can return to our favorite climaxes
To be reminded of how far we'd come
And reenter your world that I invaded and built a castle in
Though the criminal I am
Do with my demise and pieces what you will
But don't forget my dedication to dictating your testaments
Don't get me wrong - it's not that I'm sacrificing myself for your story
It's just that
Your penmanship is better than mine
Nov 14, 2020
Nov 14, 2020 at 9:34 PM UTC
I’m thinking in paintings & graphic novels,
Ink flowing through my veins,
Brimming to the top with genres,
Spitting words,
With devilish curves,
As I twirl,
My wrists through arcs,
And sagas,
Open the pages with,
Adventures,
Full of romance and science,
Weave you through webs of emotion,
That make you feel, see, and hear,
Reality erosion,
As you weep, grieve, and cheer,
Then lull you to sleep,
In my cradle of feeling,
Secure and heard,
Healing,
Feel my magic,
Through my art,
Warm your insides,
With my heart.
Jul 17, 2020
Jul 17, 2020 at 5:35 PM UTC
Olive suits born red-dripped sagas,
Sing Mao’s song atop an oracle, “state.”
So parade smiles smeared sneer
And the lips kissed only one night prior.
Thus enticed the lady-soldier, the, “enemy,”
Liminal and it leads me to revive
The one time I’d hollered,
The one time I’d vanished
And the last time I’d ever love.
You can’t forgive me, I understand;
But please know you’re the only one
Who’d ever made me pause,
If only to swelter amidst the swans of a pond’s
Serenity, unbeknownst the encircling chaos,
So waited, atop the altar with only one question,
The one I’d never answer;
“Could you leave it all for me?”
I think, I really think and still fail to solve,
The equation wrought, if only plus lonely,
And’d offer the only answer I’d ever known –
“No.”
Aug 16, 2015
Aug 16, 2015 at 10:28 AM UTC
To my evervesant dreams of my night ,
my candelabra *** puri skies ,
a barn owls swallows a mouse ,then out of the restlessness of the night,
you came .
The calls of a thrush heard a. whisper let ,
the Pterosaurs wings take flight ,
we must go ,
Seven sharpened swords loose in the wind to capture the beast ,
as mountains stand ,
and seas are still ,
her wing span ,
her mighty beak ,
Sagas ,
told from Viking lands told of the spell s it haunts this land .
For you my King of Royal blood with seventh sword ,
my King of Love .
With mighty hand you slayed Mosasaurs with one hand .
Now the last Pterosaurs has took to flight
Then my Nobel Queen to darkened skies I must fight .
Over hills and mountains I searched for sun light ,
night turned to everlesant dreams ,
I saw a Pterosaurs once more .
“ You think you’re Queen is safe this night
You think one swift sword will leave me in a pool of blood
I laugh at you’re sorrow for they are misguided and hollow” l
And with these words the Pterosaurs spread it’s wings off
Into the night it flapped it’s wings .
The Pterosaurs formed a nest above a castle on a cleft ,
Our new crowned King who once slayed the Mosasaurs,
on his way to tomorrow’s land to save his Queen now in state reside .
Over that Castle in their land where. tempers. burnt into a. rabid. death hollow a darkness crept and would not leave ,
untill the Queen and King made love .
Then all was well and the light returned never to leave when ,
the King and Queen walked hand in hand .
For God loves the little things ,
our prayers our new tomorrows .
The Pterosaurs when he saw all was well and love reigned once more as
the flowers bloomed ,
the thrush sang
left for evermore .
A rock over looked a castle,
A King and Queen in state ,
a pawn moves and life and death await .
May 10, 2019
May 10, 2019 at 4:33 PM UTC
Naughty shadows, like wayward clouds
they cast a spell……
With full of yearnings and ambitions
For some
It is the survival!
The precincts and the back lanes
the villas and the alleys
filled with aesthetic thespians
the white, the black, and the brown
and they all look alike in the nightfall
in that beautiful night
factories chimney out the agony
the dying day leaves with sad shades
the Maiden Evening robed in gold
embarks in boundless shadows
who overhauls these pleasure workers
there are unwritten stories in their eyelids
there are untold sagas behind their eyebrows
here and there is a song
striving to colour these shadows
but it is the curves that matter
Late in the night
Silence nurses the wounds
Only to shape the distorted figure
Next day
It’s a new shadow of an old body
May 21, 2015
May 21, 2015 at 4:38 AM UTC
We are all legends in our own sagas
-its in the masses that we are lost,
and the few that do have their names immortalized-
no one truly knows who they were.
Dec 9, 2009
Dec 9, 2009 at 7:11 AM UTC