"salves" poems
If by chance your eye offend you,
Pluck it out, lad, and be sound:
'Twill hurt, but here are salves to friend you,
And many a balsam grows on ground.
And if your hand or foot offend you,
Cut it off, lad, and be whole;
But play the man, stand up and end you,
When your sickness is your soul.
4.6k
my love brought
me tranquility.
my love bought
me tranquility,
in a Manhattan bodega.
late at night in my city,
everything is for sale
where least expected
in mini marts, local delis,
greek coffee shops, spanish bodegas
pizza parlors, hardware stores,
all selling
salves for late night salvation
purveyors of
differential equations of
differing soulful sustenances,
certain imports that will probably never be
for sale in Walmart after midnight
all, readily available,
twenty four seven
in my miracle Manhattan heaven
My woman,
mapper of the byways
of my ****** landmarks
worn broad~ways,
his-toric foot trails of tears,
lines of laughters,
even a
purported dimple
I call a crevasse.
a sole survivor of
a mother's birthing skill marker,
duly recorded by her upon my visage,
in my miracle Manhattan
She knows, as do
some of youse guys,
that my poetry is
water born(e) and water soluble,
but Peconic Bay always
ain't right handy,
so bring on a
substitute teacher,
a hot bath,
helps me to enunciate
my verbal visitations
my love brought
me tranquility.
my love bought
me tranquility
in a Manhattan bodega.
pour the aromatherapy,
my love brought me
for inspiration into and upon
my liquid writing table,
"Tranquility,"
a summer garden aroma
It soothes
my bad memories,
the herbs salve
accursed ancient wounds
that will never
ever fully heal
or be forgiven
my love brought
me tranquility.
my graces restored,
this poem offered in
grateful appreciation
with unlimited adoration,
something,
maybe even the
very one thing
**that can't be bought,
even,
in my miracle Manhattan**
Jan 30, 2014
Jan 30, 2014 at 12:44 AM UTC
*song shadows
soul and mirrors
will we ever see clearer
sweet life
oh the fragrance
the righteous mind
un-sees the danger
so many soldiers
so many women
are all of our fathers
really little children
move swiftly
into the windy recesses
the mind regresses
all the time
damp and wet
the owl cries
so long tomorrow
farewell goodbye
dunk your head
in liquid splendor
i am tender as the snow
pouring down from heaven’s fiefdom
morning's hunger is dissipated
by moonlight kisses and salty lovers
salves of calendula upon our skin
swim in juicy wonder
listen and dance with thunder
the fireflies swim through burning skies
making arcs and triumphant cries
what a silly blunder
all the noise and all the cover
hiding your heart in violet garments
streams of satin in your slumber
stroke the liberated arrow
weave the gardenia’s shadow
streams of consciousness and beauty
looking into eyes of human strategy
human shadows
start to suffocate us
instruct the timber
plundered
strumming humid arias
looms of butter start to melt
svelte and spelt
slews of wealth
heaven's belt is loosely tied
striated like the mind
grinding hind legs
selves neglect entry fees
sleeves of grass
embrace strands of ice
with a lover or two
on the side*
Apr 30, 2017
Apr 30, 2017 at 9:55 AM UTC
& i can fix
a million things
[and your heart is one of them]
i can make you tea
make you breakfast
brush your hair
kiss your forehead
& tell you it’s all going to be
o
k
i can wrap my arms and legs around you
and crush you with empathy
let my tears drip down your forehead like anointing oil
or holy water
i can baptize you in a hundred things, i can burn you and
create anew from the ashes in my arms
i can let you fill my bones with your tears
my heart with your heartbreaks
my lungs with your sobs
my insides with your hurt
i can make you a thousand salves
and a hundred tinctures to keep you from hurting
but i can’t fix myself.
Nov 14, 2012
Nov 14, 2012 at 2:53 PM UTC
As long as there are teenagers extant,
Anomie and alienation of
an unripened generation
Shall spill upon this site in cliched cries,
Dabbling with threats of pills and lies,
The endless pain felt gives one fright.
To this old soul who wonders silently,
Will these thousands of pained children
Make it through to their next incarnation
So much angst, so much anger,
I wonder if God created poetry
To salve their wounds
Their unknown futures loom,
But all I read is hurt and doom.
You shall survive, children.
Awful poetry, some good,
you will write.
But write and write
till your heart be calmed
For even ancient kings felt the anguish of the soul,
And we profit even today by King David's psalms.
This wizened fool has his hands full,
Mouths to feed, bread to earn and bake,
As midnight is almost nigh,
He rests prone and adds a verse to this old poem
He long ago scribbled down, grimace-smiles now,
Realizing there is little difference tween him and the
Sad Eyed Teenagers of the Lowland.
For poetry salves his wounds still, even now,
Unashamedly, he thinks, quiet like, praying,
Hallelujah, spoken in the original,
The tongue of his ancestors
May 22, 2013
May 22, 2013 at 11:35 PM UTC
He's part artist, part alchemist,
but a full-on con, self-professed with post-
graduate degrees in mixology
and the god-given sense to know which
smoldering home remedies will catch fire
(give or take an occasional legal glitch).
His healing pitch is grifted on the easy
comparison of queasily lowered brows to
their indistinctly raised betters. You'll doff
the scoffing face as he pulls back a masking
caparison, and your fever gallops hotly
hoof-in-mouth with an uncontrollable itch.
Tinctures, colloids, salves and potions,
they all have twisty caps, blithe boxes
bubbling over with hypnotic patterns
fashioned to cure your urge to avoid
his futility. First'll come the ****** then
the crumple followed by purse strings loosening.
Don't consider it capitulation.
His assortment of fluid manipulations
bear a singular branding at 100 proof,
and after the recommended daily dosing
(two jiggers with each meal), you'll feel
you're **** erectus made sapient.
May 23, 2010
May 23, 2010 at 8:15 PM UTC
^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^^^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^
{[a parachute of words to soften death
(the impact governed by an ancient rule)]
for falling slower, to allow the gaze to linger
on a beingscape of prophets, sages, and of fools,
to entertain a fantasy, a whim
or a kernal sign of epistemic limn}:
\| /
feline-dolphin friendliness to bring,
to sing of paws and fins, to fashion songs..
cut playful, caring, interspecies lens.
sprouting karmic stems at every step
with toe-gems on a koan-grounded path
on which the memories of art abound--
to measure wrath, to nard with wisdom salves
the holon vast of intra-earthling givenness
and arm the doom'ed nous with lethe-wards:
a Helm of melodies to dim the sound
of nether-chords in taunting reaper's lure;
pantheonic Plate to temper tangent blows
of glowing smoulders, darkest passion throws;
Wings of flame in kind caressing pleasure
licking high incurvate spinal moan... alone...
the tone is sure, for underworldly psalm
and biding sweep of time, aeon after aeon, eternal bone on bone,
in gales of fated nescience, the moment dawns
careening, skirrs my aether-self of lighted
purpose drawn, and telic web of wanings on...
_
Jul 18, 2012
Jul 18, 2012 at 11:32 PM UTC
Entering the room, sharing the tentative first kiss of the day,
Your lips beckon me closer, and as i sit i see forked lightening behind your eyes.
You are a storm, waiting to be unleashed,
The steam of your breath sending a chill through me, i awaken.
Though when i wake i find that the dream is real,
I smile, watch the storm and find myself amazed by your pristine beauty,
Down to every little blemish you can no longer hide,
Now my eyes are used to the dark.
I hear thunder, sparks fly when you touch me,
And the gentle moans make me feel alive once more.
And here's the strange part,
Once it is done and you're purring softly, happy to sleep,
I move to leave, thinking my purpose to you is done, no longer needed.
She brushes my arm and says "stay with me, even 5 minutes more"
What bashful eyes you have when they look into mine,
A curious surprise, i am no longer needed, i am wanted.
I am no longer needy, but i want for her like one who is tired of being cast away.
5 minutes passes in a blink of your electric eyes,
and soon you plant the most gentle of kisses on my lips,
I try to keep the wind from souring this most blessed goodbye,
But i feel you shiver.
I tell her she should go back to her room,
And she kisses me once more, her eyes smile, and i walk away.
Her words still ring in my ears, echoes in a happy heart.
"What do you want me to be?" i ask her, she knows i'm broken.
"I want you to be you"
"What do you want me to do?" i ask, her hand in mine.
"Make love to me," i relive these moments, and the memory salves me,
Time, people say, is a great healer, he seems to be in Fast-forward.
We sail in time, on our little rafts,
And this castaway found another such lonely soul, Drifting on the waves.
Such beautiful coincidence, that we should dip our toes in the same Ocean.
Sep 30, 2012
Sep 30, 2012 at 10:02 PM UTC
Read the words upon the page
Depicting how was such an age
That, then, ensconced in everyday
In truth, permitted Hell to play.
Where age with all it's wisdom gleaned
Should logically be rightly seen
As guidance for emerging youth
Where past mistakes impart as truth.
Though tragically, bereft as seen,
The actuality now doth scream
For youth doth relegate to grass
Aged wisdom's pearls.... as shattered glass.
Dispersed amid the flotsam tide
Lies that which salves salvation's hide,
Lies that which wreaks of God's works, twist,
Dispersed through cold, Alzheimer mist.
The waste of ancient eyes at rest
Expelled, devoid of life, at best
But should a crisis start to burn
Old minds may co-opt young to learn?
History makes the paradigm
That thumps the lesson home, with time,
In squandering the wealth of age
We burn the story, tear the page.
Now delegated to the shelf
Immersed in indignation's self
Old wallow in blue pity's taint
Inhibited by self restraint.
But then the moment comes around
When happenstance, by chance compound,
When youth, of clear complexioned face,
May stumble into mute disgrace....
Thence whilst the Angel trumpets grace
Whence in that vacant, silenced space,
Then flows of wisdom tumble thine
From lips that spake in ancient time.
Knowledge held in Holy Grail
Empirically forth then, when regaled,
As pomp and circumstance decreed
Should all, combined then, .... be agreed?
M.
9th December 2022
Foxglove@Taranaki,NZ.
Dec 8, 2022
Dec 8, 2022 at 10:20 PM UTC
*Originally posted to this site on May 23, 2014
a backwards trek, to learn where to step next...*
Sad Eyed Teenagers of the Lowland
As long as there are teenagers extant,
Anomie and alienation of an unripened generation
Shall spill upon this site in cliched cries,
Dabbling with threats of pills and lies,
The endless pain felt gives one fright.
To this old soul who wonders silently,
Will these thousands of pained children
Make it through to their next incarnation
So much angst, so much anger,
I wonder if God created poetry
To salve their wounds.
Their unknown futures loom,
But all I read is hurt and doom.
You shall survive, children.
Awful poetry, some good, you will write.
But write and write till your heart be calmed,
For even ancient kings felt the anguish of the soul,
For we profit even today by King David's psalms.
This wizened fool has his hands full,
Mouths to feed, bread to earn and bake,
As midnight is almost nigh,
He rests prone and adds a verse to this old poem
He long ago scribbled down, grimace-smiles now,
Realizing there is little difference tween him and the
Sad Eyed Teenagers of the Lowland.
For poetry salves his wounds still, even now,
Unashamedly, he thinks, hallelujah!
May 23, 2014
May 23, 2014 at 8:13 AM UTC
in days of old
when knights were bold
returning battle-weary wounded
would be taken to temples
where priestesses
noble ******
dressed their wounds
with salves and medicinal herbs
to heal
and perform voluptuously ****** acts
for love and pleasure
a fevered joining
in the realm of the senses
spirit with flesh
in Venusian worship
devotion to sacred desires
courtesans of divinity
sacred hearts
with eager wet mouths
and
oh so willing open sacred *****
women of the highest character
once consecrated ladies
sadly lost to us
like arcane holy waters
that gave spiritual blow jobs
to wash away the pain
now in history's dust bin
of ***** dreams
sad vaginas and *****
desolated cups and ******
things get worse with time
in our Victorian phantasm
of serial monogamies
and broken heart
trunk music marriages
..........
Nov 15, 2020
Nov 15, 2020 at 6:18 AM UTC
Persistent ill-will
Will fester and creep
Deeper.
It will reopen old wounds
And keep seeping down
Dragging down
Happy to knuckle down
To a common level
That we can all disagree upon,
While nurtured good will
Can soften all sorts of ill designs
With a front-line grace,
That keeps pace with a peace
That salves injury
And deftly soothes
Each latent misery
Paving a way for relief that thwarts
Any undermining sneak-behind thievery
So weep no more
And shred that unbelief:
This is where Hope is chief.
Jan 6, 2017
Jan 6, 2017 at 7:53 AM UTC
all of me aches
and I cannot tell
if it is aching for you
or because you are gone.
my eyes sting, my throat burns,
my hands stretch out for a body that is longer there.
I crave you even more now
for I know I cannot have you.
I briefly wonder if you were ever mine,
but the memory of your tears and shuddering breath tell me otherwise.
you wanted this no more than I did
and I do not blame you
nor do I blame myself.
I wish there was a way to feel the warmth of your palms on my cheeks again
and I wish that those who wronged you had never done so
and I wish to hold you in my arms and remember that you are real and that you weren't just a dream.
every inch of me is aching and raw
but the only salves are you
and time.
Dec 28, 2014
Dec 28, 2014 at 5:18 AM UTC
Too much noise, too much misery;
Fake beauty, false flattery;
Feigned tears, faint hearts;
Mock presents, dainty pasts.
Too much singing, too much song;
Far too empty, too wrong.
Too regular, too feminine;
Too much constancy seen.
Too insincere, too blind;
Too raucous to one’s mind.
Unhearing, unloving;
Unknowing, unseeing.
Inconsistent, ravaged, savage;
Not aware of youth and age.
Not knowing sins are fatal;
Not knowing worlds call chaos.
Not seeing lives are mortal;
Not seeing value, nor loss.
Too defined, too thin, too fair;
No curious touch nor flair;
Not jubilant, nor merciful;
Not knowing arts are plentiful.
Not voice, nor titles, nor vice;
Not pictures, nor pride, nor lies.
Too soothing, too tedious;
Too apparent, too obvious;
Too gracious, too grainless;
Not an emblem of happiness;
Not distinctive, nor charming;
Not distinguished, nor loving.
Too engaged, too dim, too forgetful;
Too separate, too disgraceful;
Too priceless, too sensuous;
No realness is to them, wondrous;
Too unbecoming, too wishful;
Too known, too gay, too sinful.
Too delighted, but evil to me;
Those boasting beauties of thee;
I am not part, nor flesh of thine;
I live with the voice in my mind;
I love in silence, in seclusion;
Only mirth salves my delusion;
Too sparkling, but mean still;
Unknowing towards those I feel;
I cannot be, nor shall I be;
I shall not place my soul in thee;
Thy voice remaineth loved still;
But to love thee, I never will.
Oct 6, 2016
Oct 6, 2016 at 3:03 AM UTC
A. E. Housman (1859–1936). A Shropshire Lad. 1896.
IF it chance your eye offend you,
Pluck it out, lad, and be sound:
’Twill hurt, but here are salves to friend you,
And many a balsam grows on ground.
And if your hand or foot offend you,
Cut it off, lad, and be whole;
But play the man, stand up and end you,
When your sickness is your soul.
Nov 9, 2014
Nov 9, 2014 at 10:39 AM UTC
Within the long Selah,
deep in the chasm of the pause,
His words sink,
seep,
down into the cracks,
into the gaps
and salves where bitter words
were once rooted
and grew to sprout a harvest
of self recriminations
to the third and fourth generation.
Within the long Selah,
in that cleft
his seed begins
a fresh sowing
and leaves new promise
of a fresh crop
of sweeter fruit.
Feb 13, 2021
Feb 13, 2021 at 5:41 PM UTC
The wound on the beating red
Has lain bare for some time now.
The jagged edges do nothing
To stop the oozing flow of blood.
The pain’s immense—it won’t stop,
Not for all the salves in the world.
But an animal shows up,
A cat, a dog, a mouse, a snake, a turtle—
The species is irrelevant.
The animal approaches in a dream,
Looks the red flesh over,
And gently lays a paw or tail or foot over it.
The edges start to shrink,
New flesh sprouting over the bridging
The two far sides, healing has begun.
The wound will never truly heal;
A puckered pinching of the skin will remain,
But it will be in the shape
Of that paw, foot, hoof, or tail.
Jan 10, 2014
Jan 10, 2014 at 5:21 PM UTC
No investment.
No skin off my nose.
- went back to Fool's day
- and then back to all in, free
No loss in time's eternity,
ended in the awesome knowing.
All trials in the ready past, ordo,
Seclorum Sanctorum Ordo, aside
ordinarily free visitor alien status,
-not allowed, they say, my status
holding no sway,
as a free spirit, they
no say, in the way things work here,
-crosswind to all good fortune
now was set to be long
before me, or thee,
verily
very mankindish, we may make do
imaginable causal agencies,
amen-emo-pet insurance
points in prepositioned order,
as we meander after looking out
past the creation of the sun,
some say, and may know, but we,
the common sensors on the planet,
amused and amusing others as well,
we are finishing a projected imagination,
the rites of spring, proposed as worthy
of our Fantasia evolution from Fool's Day,
through several saints days and processions,
all about the passions,
all appointed anointed salves
slick as any Bucky ball solutions
to the smooth, slave mind fear, hell,
set the captives free, break every yoke,
find the shibboleths and laugh at those,
not the accents ya'll'll use to abuse,
the speaker who stumbles …
tongue tied
while quoting Cretan poets.
Apr 29, 2024
Apr 29, 2024 at 9:05 PM UTC
What would life be like with no time?
No order?
The reality is we are salves to a inanimate ticks.
second by second,
minute by minute,
Hours, months and years all hold us prisoner.
We eat, sleep and plan our life's around these numbers.
If there was no time would our mind feel forced to eat at certain times? We could sleep on our own schedule, live our lives under the stars and sleep under the sun. With no time also means no age. Less labels, less you're too young, you're too old.
More equality, more freedom, peace and happiness
No time.
Aug 2, 2013
Aug 2, 2013 at 12:29 PM UTC
And here.
Among wights.
Missing all tickets unsold.
Calling all who lived and felt.
It is colder.
And the wounds are raising.
And again with revenue as to portray.
"It is gone." She says.
And I dream.
Of that razor to steal my heart.
And who steals my blood daily.
Though not as to compost.
Poisoning flowers.
Oxidizing.
And fermenting her soil.
Soon again.
I will drink.
My ears warm.
The morn brings leashed air.
A chuckle at present.
Of the last.
Of past words misunderstood.
Once of four.
And once of five.
And yeah, we speak in high tones.
In vague terms.
Of times arrived.
Departing flights forgotten.
Many moments undersold.
Still I taste.
A forced kiss.
Too loved to unleash.
And so I wonder who said, "Who?"
Oh bother.
Speech of idiots.
Words ******
I deny all salves.
All soothing.
All encompassing.
Sweet chestnut colored love.
Curves to hold and suffer subsurface.
Sans scars.
Food tomorrow.
After today, food tomorrow.
I recall her taste.
As recalled, I remember.
The violence.
And pride.
After the meal.
The tears and the urination.
After theft.
I swam.
With those who denied.
And those who gave.
Who took?
She sat.
And I swam.
And they spoke.
The water.
I emerge on new skin.
Skin of those before.
Of dreams wondered.
Dreams failed.
I pursued and entered.
A feast.
A drink.
Soft pelts.
A bed and works of excuse.
Drowned in water.
Drowned in love.
My sweet ancient temple.
The skies of false truth.
And the ******* of an angel.
The miss of one married.
Scarred.
Loud speeches.
Parades across the globe.
And hopes of love.
Goodnight sweet muse.
Sep 5, 2014
Sep 5, 2014 at 9:10 AM UTC
I tried to write a villanelle
The words come easier
when they're pretty,
form and meter
can be salves.
There is no relief
when writing
of family,
the three-sided dagger
leaves a wound
that must be packed
and never closes.
I tried to write a villanelle,
to package the truth
with enough honey
to make the bitter-roots
palatable;
it wouldn't go down easy,
wouldn't come out either.
This poem a finger
on the back
of my throat
to purge
to flush
to rinse my mouth
from the acid
regurgitated
Apr 2, 2016
Apr 2, 2016 at 2:59 PM UTC
...it is eternal and will not be deferred
when we would be this, or that
it shows us who we really are
it salves the deepest of wounds
in those who are strong
foolish ones never invest in its power.
Jun 19, 2015
Jun 19, 2015 at 2:11 AM UTC
It’s a shame for me,
To claim,
That I live in,
An independent state,
When all I see around me,
Are salves
Slaves of fate,
Slave of greed,
Slaves of lies,
It is a disgrace for me,
To say,
That I live in a.
Peaceful state,
Where everyday,when I wake up,
All I see are the bodies,
Of innocents hanging,
Hanging on the branches,
Branches of banyan,
Branches of trees,
It is so degrading.
For me to say,
I belong to a loving state,
When I see my people,
Being discriminated,
On basis of colour, sect,religion,
And I feel ashamed,
When I see a headless body,
Of an innocent child,
Who had only learnt to smile……………
Feb 10, 2019
Feb 10, 2019 at 9:08 AM UTC
Camellias, winter shrubs,
Their shallow roots grow beneath the spongy caribou moss,
Robins egg blue.
After writing a play with my gifted students program in 1991,
I stopped spending all my free time writing short stories,
But the caribou moss was still soft.
In the cold Arctic of that town,
The evergreen protected the camellias from the afternoon sun and storms.
They branded hardy camellias with a brass molded embossing iron;
I had paper and graphite for my pencils.
After my ninth grade honors English teacher asked us to write poems in 1994,
It began raining.
We lived on an overhang.
A vertical rise to the top of the rock.
The rainstorm caused a metamorphic change in the snowpack,
A wet snow avalanche drifted slowly down the moss covered rock,
The snow already destabilized by exposure to the sunlight.
The avalanche formed lakes,
rock basins washed away with rainwater and melted snow,
Streams dammed by the rocks.
My pencils washed away in the avalanche,
My clothes heavy and cold.
I wove one side of each warp fiber through the eye of the needle and one side through each slot.
Salves, ointments, serums and tinctures,
I was mining for graphite,
They were mining me,
The only winch, the sound through the water.
A steep staircase to the red Torii gates,
I broke the chains with bells for vespers
And chimes for schisms,
And wove the weft across at right angles to the warp.
On a rocky ledge at the end of winter,
The pink moon, bitters and body butter,
They tried to get me to want absinthe,
Wormwood for bitterness and regret.
Heat and pressure formed carbon for flakes of graphite.
Heat and pressure,
I made bitters,
Brandy, grapefruit, chocolate, mandarin rind, tamarind and sugar.
I grounded my feet in the pink moss,
paper dried in one hand,
and graphite for my pencils in the other.
May 19, 2021
May 19, 2021 at 12:57 AM UTC