"salutary" poems
You whom I could not save
Listen to me.
Try to understand this simple speech as I would be ashamed of another.
I swear, there is in me no wizardry of words.
I speak to you with silence like a cloud or a tree.
What strengthened me, for you was lethal.
You mixed up farewell to an epoch with the beginning of a new one,
Inspiration of hatred with lyrical beauty,
Blind force with accomplished shape.
Here is the valley of shallow Polish rivers. And an immense bridge
Going into white fog. Here is a broken city,
And the wind throws the screams of gulls on your grave
When I am talking with you.
What is poetry which does not save
Nations or people?
A connivance with official lies,
A song of drunkards whose throats will be cut in a moment,
Readings for sophomore girls.
That I wanted good poetry without knowing it,
That I discovered, late, its salutary aim,
In this and only this I find salvation.
They used to pour millet on graves or poppy seeds
To feed the dead who would come disguised as birds.
I put this book here for you, who once lived
So that you should visit us no more.
4.6k
We were two introverts
surrounded by an infestation
of the dipsomania and delight.
Ingested by white noise,
flashing lights
and sin,
we stood sheltered behind conservatism
and our cocktails.
This technophonic cave
was crammed with lascivious men
modeling their lavish kicks and threads
in pursuit of non-commitment.
With our backs pressed firmly
against our salutary wall,
we felt inviolable.
But then, you turned to me.
Your chandelier earrings exploded
the luminescence and trepidation
into a million particles,
and through the deafening roar
of pandemonium and decadence,
you offered a wink and said,
“Let’s dance.”
Dec 3, 2011
Dec 3, 2011 at 4:11 AM UTC
..
You whom I could not save
Listen to me.
Try to understand this simple speech as I would be ashamed of another.
I swear, there is in me no wizardry of words.
I speak to you with silence like a cloud or a tree.
What strengthened me, for you was lethal.
You mixed up farewell to an epoch with the beginning of a new one,
Inspiration of hatred with lyrical beauty;
Blind force with accomplished shape.
Here is a valley of shallow Polish rivers. And an immense bridge
Going into white fog. Here is a broken city;
And the wind throws the screams of gulls on your grave
When I am talking with you.
What is poetry which does not save
Nations or people?
A connivance with official lies,
A song of drunkards whose throats will be cut in a moment,
Readings for sophomore girls.
That I wanted good poetry without knowing it,
That I discovered, late, its salutary aim,
In this and only this I find salvation.
They used to pour millet on graves or poppy seeds
To feed the dead who would come disguised as birds.
I put this book here for you, who once lived
So that you should visit us no more.
Warsaw, 1945
- by Czeslaw Milosz
st, 13 dec 13
Dec 13, 2013
Dec 13, 2013 at 4:46 AM UTC
It is not to be thought of that the flood
Of British freedom, which, to the open sea
Of the world’s praise, from dark antiquity
Hath flow’d, ‘with pomp of waters, unwithstood,’
Roused though it be full often to a mood
Which spurns the check of salutary bands,—
That this most famous stream in bogs and sands
Should perish; and to evil and to good
Be lost for ever. In our halls is hung
Armoury of the invincible Knights of old:
We must be free or die, who speak the tongue
That Shakespeare spake; the faith and morals hold
Which Milton held.—In everything we are sprung
Of Earth’s first blood, have titles manifold.
2.3k
I looked for that which is not, nor can be,
And hope deferred made my heart sick in truth
But years must pass before a hope of youth
Is resigned utterly.
I watched and waited with a steadfast will:
And though the object seemed to flee away
That I so longed for, ever day by day
I watched and waited still.
Sometimes I said: This thing shall be no more;
My expectation wearies and shall cease;
I will resign it now and be at peace:
Yet never gave it o'er.
Sometimes I said: It is an empty name
I long for; to a name why should I give
The peace of all the days I have to live?--
Yet gave it all the same.
Alas, thou foolish one! alike unfit
For healthy joy and salutary pain:
Thou knowest the chase useless, and again
Turnest to follow it.
2.2k
It is not to be thought of that the Flood
Of British freedom, which, to the open sea
Of the world’s praise, from dark antiquity
Hath flowed, “with pomp of waters, unwithstood,”
Roused though it be full often to a mood
Which spurns the check of salutary bands,
That this most famous Stream in bogs and sands
Should perish; and to evil and to good
Be lost for ever. In our halls is hung
Armoury of the invincible Knights of old:
We must be free or die, who speak the tongue
That Shakespeare spake; the faith and morals hold
Which Milton held.—In every thing we are sprung
Of Earth’s first blood, have titles manifold.
2.1k
Take the dead Christ to my chamber,
The Christ I brought from Rome;
Over all the tossing ocean,
He has reached his western home;
Bear him as in procession,
And lay him solemnly
Where, through weary night and morning,
He shall bear me company.
The name I bear is other
Than that I bore by birth,
And I've given life to children
Who'll grow and dwell on earth;
But the time comes swiftly towards me
(Nor do I bid it stay),
When the dead Christ will be more to me
Than all I hold to-day.
Lay the dead Christ beside me,
Oh, press him on my heart,
I would hold him long and painfully
Till the weary tears should start;
Till the divine contagion
Heal me of self and sin,
And the cold weight press wholly down
The pulse that chokes within.
Reproof and frost, they fret me,
Towards the free, the sunny lands,
From the chaos of existence
I stretch these feeble hands;
And, penitential, kneeling,
Pray God would not be wroth,
Who gave not the strength of feeling,
And strength of labor both.
Thou'rt but a wooden carving,
Defaced of worms, and old;
Yet more to me thou couldst not be
Wert thou all wrapt in gold,
Like the gem-bedizened baby
Which, at the Twelth-day noon,
They show from the Ara Coeli's steps,
To a merry dancing tune.
I ask of thee no wonders,
No changing white or red;
I dream not thou art living,
I love and prize thee dead.
That salutary deadness
I seek, through want and pain,
From which God's own high power can bid
Our virtue rise again.
1.9k
#Tick
In the tyranny of the measuring clock
Death is but a tortoise in this timeless race
With every slow tick and echoing tock
Forever keeping its careless pace
With so much to do I stay awake
With one foot in front of the other
Running with knees and feet that ache
Time feeds worms a salutary supper
In the end we must lie and nap
Embrace eternal slumbers deadlock
We are just hares caught in times trap
In the tyranny of the measuring clock
Tock#
Jun 28, 2018
Jun 28, 2018 at 1:47 PM UTC
You sometimes make me feel like a megalomaniac. Is that bad?
Are these feelings that I'm feeling what's expected to be had?
You infringe my mind in such circuitous ferment.
It's a proclivity, these thoughts
Yet such propensity is irrevocable.
An inscrutable contraband reverberating in a sedulous manner grasping tender hands.
Perhaps it's not transient, but equitable.
Not scathing, but salutary.
Well there's only one way to ascertain.
That is simply to acculturate.
Feb 1, 2014
Feb 1, 2014 at 4:10 PM UTC
We come together in this swirling mass
You participate in an endless flow of energy, from one movement to the next
You kiss, feel, touch, love, care, hug
You believe, think, have faith, gesture
You hate, renounce, decry, hurt, break
Played out on a stage, a life led as so many millions before
Things you will never know are never known
The knowledge you do know cherished
The love you felt and feel embellished across a chest
What note will you have left?
A salutary glance, paragraph or a punctuation mark?
You are sustained by all that ever passed before
Those scraping bodies across floors to those elevated in thought
From slaves and ******
To intellects and emperors
Each a fully breathing entitled human being
No more, no less
No more, no less
A mother, a father, a sister, a brother
Related are all, blood tied and adored
Taken away in time, eroded into the winds and forgotten for ever more
Let the stars glare upon this blue orb
Reflecting the dreams of those inhabiting it
To never be known, secrets drowned in space
What say you to heavenly bodies on deepest, darkest nights?
Utterances trembling from unsure lips
I love
I hope
Humanity built on feeling. For we must feel our way.
We must feel our way.
Jan 31, 2014
Jan 31, 2014 at 3:34 PM UTC
What is this?
What arrogance
to be dissatisfied with bliss
What am I?
That I find myself like a Danish price
contemplating molecular physics
If there could be but one thing through which I could reach
from the tips of my toes to the ends of my ariels
let it speak to me now or remain forever ephemeral
Tempt me not with silence nor sentient reflection
let me sit idle
while a host of doubts with carousing inflections
rend peace from the oath used to praise your perfection
the redoubt of certainty a false satisfaction
but I will seek it no less, lest my own moral code
on the floor lie here prone
Be still
Who are you to challenge me?
My own self?
HA! You are nothing
less than a vaporous belch,
repudiation of the shelf
from which this retched book of life was wrenched
No the end for you can come not too soon
unless it be for that which you are
A cankerous man ***** feeding on the life that was not given
but taken from others AND from yourself
I know not you
Unless I do
Unless I do
For all that was, is and was, was mirage
Smoke to the mirrors, dust in the sunshine
caught by the exhaled breath of nothingness
Cancer in the heart or lung make no difference to the boatman
BEGONE
Waste not my time with salutations
nor grave maunderings on that which could have been
nor with pleasantries and optimism
I have no use for these baubles of ego
BEGONE I SAID
What would you be without meat to shrine that temple of mind?
A magician?
A sorcerer?
Some glorified seamstress of witty offal
set to ram fill mouths of the bantering rabble
NO! I shall not cowtow to the nicetities of your excess, nor of mine
Our colours are grey NOT black and white
we shall drown beneath stone until resurrection day
and even then we shall rot in our graves for there IS NO GOAD
not to man, beast or rock NO GOAD that science shall not uncover, no lack
that in wondrous doubt we shall **** to deny the self-evident fact
that we are nothing and everything combined in one shell
decomposing rapidly, a death knell for the self
is the salutary cry for the immobile stone laid on my brow
for the rustling tree
for the wild fox and the mutated accessories to our loneliness
they shall be freed and they shall feast upon our corpses
and not a day too soon
and not a day too soon
so sayeth the bard from his everlasting gloom.
Dec 30, 2015
Dec 30, 2015 at 3:16 AM UTC
[one from each state];
standing up to be the
next intellectual giant [of our era alone]
of this year of our lord;
coming on smiling & never
ending; [her spoken language held sacred]
she is the salutary sovereign]
over even the kings of Egypt]
& Arabia; [her life is a carnival of
worldwide scope; she is followed in
by the nation's most beautiful women]
for this year alone; & next year there
[will be 50 more & so on to tinfoil infinity or
until bathing suits are brought back;
she is an
angel dropping from the sky like rain &
bouncing like Mexican beauties
scrambling to be the next Miss Universe,
or at least Miss **** Back -
Aug 2, 2018
Aug 2, 2018 at 12:12 AM UTC
and sometimes magic, a scene from the book
of genesis, chapter verse whatever,
buying whiskey and beer in a supermarket,
the cashier, Tara, knows me,
she's my gym coach,
she tut tut struts and tuts when i buy
beer telling me to keep the beer off -
i told you alcoholics are mobile,
we go sightseeing most of the time,
on a double decker bus we bemuse and
lipread: and here's the Elizabeth tower (formerly
known as Benjamin "big **** Disraeli -
the English by the French after the 100
year war: if they're not retards, they're perverts) -
**** that shit's brushed off on me! am i a **********
if i hold dear a British passport? phew! no? yes? huh?!
i must be a Mr. Khan in waiting...
no, but seriously, a scene in the cave of an iceman,
5 lasses buying wine lonely,
me my beer my whiskey,
i get a lemon added / **** i told you it was a lime not
a lemon on the conveyor belt -
i get a lime, lucky Adam got an apple
and one asking, i'm doing double-up fevers waiting
for Saturday night with Paris, Hilda, Venus and Hera..
Adam gets an apple from smooch slick Eva
naked and i get a ******* lime on a conveyor-belt
in a supermarket while buying whiskey...
Jonah! call the whale! i'm sure we'll both
be calling it Noah's ark when tomorrow comes;
**** you not, we'll be boarding dry-land at
Arsuk - **** send a message to Columbus -
we discovered North America via Greenland
like you discovered the same via the Caribbean Islands,
ha ha! call it dynamo of Erik versus Kristopheren;
i just got a lime on a conveyor belt in a supermarket,
Adam was handed an apple in Eden -
i guess that's worth a 50 50 chance of coincidence
with my sex-starved libido and the English "roses":
not that i'm guarantying anything good either,
it's not like i'm a vacuum cleaner based guarantee -
but **** me, the ****** **** wrinkles and all,
bamboozle clad the salutary march for applause -
and the fainting bearskin trumpet-brigadier at
the ro- -yal parade onto Buckingham Ponce;
n'ah n'ah n'ah n'ah n'ah.
Jun 24, 2016
Jun 24, 2016 at 6:44 PM UTC
Neanderthal grunts,scratches and stands
Shades his eyes in salutary pose.
New daylight on the horizon.The fisherman sits on sand mending nets to cast into rippling sun kissed tide.
The man in valley gathers This flock in shade of green shade sunkist hills where rolling blankets sweet grass abounds.
Ancient Orient glimmers like polished stone.Stands watch across vast open plains momentum grows while the blazing orb labours to climb to do it's work.
Battle lines drawn as thousands stand fixed in gleaming light. Swords of bronze and chariots poised to beckon perdition. The rising sun as witness.
High above the stricken crowd stands the priest in wondrous plumage a crimson river runs down the stone. He sands alone a dagger in his right hand the still beating heart in left.
The Sun god requires.
The ground spins silently below us. The sky rolls by in concert.
The golden god he whispers to all, arises swiftly and then he falls to sleep.
Dictates our every breath..morsel that man eats.
Bow.
Worshipping none.
Sep 14, 2014
Sep 14, 2014 at 6:19 PM UTC
you are slow like daggers or
cancer.
this is what it feels like to travel
on a discourse:
something about you metastasizes
in my mind whenever the silences
are no longer beautiful;
and just like that, I thumb a prayer
to the fallen obsidian,
this harbinger of marvelous calm.
sometimes all the rooms are white
and I am immersed deep into pallor –
when both our eyes do not meet,
I wring out a cockeyed miracle:
dragging the blood of the trees with me,
these bushy polyps,
these benign volcanoes skin,
ashen and dull like a heart – these agonized
appurtenances, I gleam like light
cut from the mirror and fade out
as my visibilities hide.
something in me smiles when you
are flattened out – cross-legged, interconnected
unloose a star fettered somewhere deep where
hands cannot reach for the inside of a tomb.
this suchness that when I feel your sensations
press their threats against my skin,
you are a salutary squelch
in this pure-iron condition, or a heavy-earth machinery
moving inside my marrow, that deep
into death like a morning waist-high
with tears, walled in by requiems.
Dec 17, 2015
Dec 17, 2015 at 10:35 PM UTC
I imagine you naked
I imagine you dead in faint recall
I imagine your hands the gun metal
I imagine your teeth the fence guarding flesh
I imagine your perfume, your mother’s wake
I imagine your strut a dance to J. Alfred Prufrock
I imagine you singing from each to each
he puts it like that, and you have become overwhelmed
by passivity
as in a salutary
as capitulation
as the Earth surrendering to rain.
I imagine you clothed
I imagine you alive in the demise of day
I imagine your hands studded to the hilt with lacquered sorrow
I imagine your teeth gnawing my skin to suture
I imagine your tears, the sea in front of your mother’s grave
I imagine you
fucking in the silver head of morning
Apr 25, 2016
Apr 25, 2016 at 8:59 PM UTC
out for no nursery of accolade.
i am trying to sound my way
into a great mishap.
wing me the streets of all and i shall
give back their names to their fathers.
taut as a gun is held,
these words wield their unapologetic
assaults.
the next face i see will be the victim,
and it will be ******
the discombobulated moon
gloats without a price tonight.
the white hand of it sees a figment of solace, rumples it,
disconcerts a votive clearing
reducing it to a bawl of
a windswept tumble of leaves.
i am now in front of the machine;
its salutary silence, its waiting groans,
its orchestra of trite gears slamming
the ornate of words and cutting
the stem of the flower that once
hurt me with its beauty,
i see your face
in this mound of havoc.
the pain of marvel's presence,
inclemencies of longings
everything takes space and trembles
in its place.
Oct 28, 2015
Oct 28, 2015 at 7:27 AM UTC
help me if you can, cuz salutary
hans solo impossible missions
fall short asper this mwm to break free,
thus Siam game for heroic measures to wrest
sill loose, gnome hatter
remaining time on Earth
strong arm gull lancing tactics
aye need to vest
from perverted imps stranglehold
upon healthy existence
will resort to extreme thine body electric
(serves as kool aid base sic acid) test
hosting ocd (analogous to a
suckling leech happy fiend)
disallowing this mwm
(similar to Sir Issac Newton) begs to take a rest
nurses nourishment feeding off host
(thyself) linkedin, sans sybaritic symbiotic,
excising unhealthy sycophantic relationship
long term ultimate quest
shucking loose obsessive pest
compulsive disorder moocher
drilled deep into psyche tub billed a nest
which bred a hardy crop that messed
up with my enjoying life tooth ha max,
viz parasitic, opportunistic,
narcissistic fealty must stop lest
asphyxiation undermines ability to jest
as if deadly poison
this chap (as a kid) accidentally did ingest
hence this attempt at plaintive pleading
for mental health professional
took hum at my be hest
a much more welcome guest
versus nemesis grounded rivaling mount Everest
that tis all i write unloading off my chest
an agile, fertile, and nimble sprite
who already out best
this scrivener, now completed poem
confiding bugaboo aye attest.
Mar 6, 2018
Mar 6, 2018 at 8:53 PM UTC
in the rain striding past closed stalls
and bottle shops, my head the
flickering lamp, my fingers dead candles,
my eyes the last flare of splayed days.
i roar like a lion — stubbled, prowling
the deserted streets but flinch at the
first sight of shadow. revisited by old
haunts mirroring strange voices, distorting their claims — in my retina
is a woman sitting idly sewing lissomeness strings to bed and we sleep.
i wake up quicker than any light.
lift words, chain them and sing steel songs, carry volcanoes, herald ravens.
i can't stand the populace, can't live
without them. i squat next to the fire-hydrant and imagine hounds *******
at the world. once, the sheen of the little
sightings festoon, borrow the moon and
i was once levitated into meaning. now,
i want to hang my head next to the old cypress and scream, "Forever, the peril."
but i am the thrall of the sea.
immenser than the leviathan of ache
the last scream of the perished hills,
forever, a clout on the grey-faced asphalt dazed into the lenient whiteness of paths,
i still sing steel-songs, solder volcanoes, chase the salutary ravens—
i see myself cringe but i will not cry.
the woman sleeps and i am awake,
a gentle hand will whirl upon her
lithe figure and then gone. i am the
tear of the cloud in their exhausted tier
but somewhere here, i am as perpetual
as waters, tracing the end.
Nov 4, 2015
Nov 4, 2015 at 1:01 AM UTC
It’s hard to properly appreciate true bits of happiness
Without ever experiencing the slightest glimpse of sadness
How can we know what love is about if we have no idea about hate?
Sometimes a lie is what’s most appropriate
Is normal rather defined by what it is or what it’s not?
We have to **** cells to perform a western blot
It is a necessity to go down to have the opportunity to rebound
Shadow is visual proof that light is around
And provides a salutary breath of cool air when the heat pounds
A crash only means that you’ve taken off
If we had everything we would have nothing to dream of
If we knew everything, we would never be surprised
To lose control is to let chance unsupervised
To clear the path for the unexpected and close the door to a fate previously crystallized
Being far from loved ones, triggers a withdrawal sensation that brings us closer
The ability to feel pain is what keeps us away from fire
And stress, away from immediate danger
Rain always precedes the rainbow that later illuminates the sky
And without it our environment would be nothing but dry
The fever is a weapon to fight infection
Fatigue, a sign of determination
Who’s ever learnt anything without making any mistakes?
Who’s ever achieved something without failures?
Who’s ever gotten better by winning easy fights?
Getting hit repeatedly is an ineluctable feature of any victorious crew
Cell death shapes us and insures overall maintenance
Being vulnerable is a requirement of every single romance
Painstakingly climbing a “cloud-scratching” hill is the price to pay for a breathtaking view
A major crisis can help us reconsider our centuries old perspectives
One of the worst mass extinctions is the solely reason why we exist
Sharing our world with flying dinosaurs that sing in the morning
Living in a world full of relative paradoxes is our most valuable blessing
It gives us the wonderful gift of being able to make a decisive choice
Between being trapped powerless or considering the silver lining
Suffering in silence or releasing tension loudly and eventually rejoice.
Jul 16, 2020
Jul 16, 2020 at 7:30 AM UTC