"saturnine" poems
Frozen moments,
embraced,
visions of
luminous things,
unpretentious
pearls dancing;
embers of memory linger,
elegy of the lachrymose,
this horizoning self
lying low in saturnine
tranquility
and repose – paternity lost
to the provisional.
The cross of lassitude,
forming
scars of loss;
estrangement,
preface to
ineluctable autonomy.
Earthen treasure - immortal
footprints, the migration
of fair maidens across my
effusive heart.
Venus trio in bloom,
aesthetic allusion,
ephemeral incarnations
of beauty - perishable fruit,
transcending the plebeian.
Aerial substance-
the hermeneutic,
betraying desire’s
ambrosial tyranny;
The permuted passage -
savor the sojourn, submit
to the fated peregrination.
Purple orchids blossom,
immortal creatures,
culminating
in perfection
from the sheath
respectively,
each plume,
singular,
the continuum of
splendor, mediate
the inviolable.
Eternity compounding,
time and essence suffuse
the already and not yet
into an
orbiting mosaic.
The susurrant devotions
of a satellite father,
summon the quest -
both, and,
absence and proximity,
conduits of
distress and peace
ironically,
solace and
terror
traverse the
same path.
Plunge though,
deep, the depth of pain;
deeper, sweeter
the taste of pleasure.
Engender and witness,
window into
preeminence,
surface azure,
the sacred -
inimitable gravity of
grandeur,
ma petite,
you - are
lived poetry
seen and heard;
cosmic order,
a mediating heuristic -
to love is to see,
in the dismal,
gift of distance.
child of delight,
evermore, Don’t I hold you?
Beauty and strangeness,
music found
in linear,
secret places
beyond the tangent,
purview of limitation,
arousing imagination -
infinititude as near
as it is far.
Long loneliness -
dissonance that
resolves;
perceiving,
the tertiary refrain -
as exquisite verse,
and matchless liqueur,
sublime gratuity
derived
through
doors of surrender.
Daughter,
in adoration and wonder,
I hold you.
Jan 19, 2012
Jan 19, 2012 at 5:25 PM UTC
DO not because this day I have grown saturnine
Imagine that lost love, inseparable from my thought
Because I have no other youth, can make me pine;
For how should I forget the wisdom that you brought,
The comfort that you made? Although my wits have gone
On a fantastic ride, my horse's flanks are spurred
By childish memories of an old cross Pollexfen,
And of a Middleton, whose name you never heard,
And of a red-haired Yeats whose looks, although he died
Before my time, seem like a vivid memory.
You heard that labouring man who had served my
people. He said
Upon the open road, near to the Sligo quay --
No, no, not said, but cried it out -- "You have come again,
And surely after twenty years it was time to come.'
I am thinking of a child's vow sworn in vain
Never to leave that valley his fathers called their home.
2.1k
by Damon G
. glum, morose, surly, sulky, crabbed, saturnine, gloomy mean showing a forbidding or disagreeable mood. sullen implies a silent ill humor and a refusal to be sociable
I'M BECOMING UNWOUND
. glum suggests a silent dispiritedness . morose adds to glum an element of bitterness or misanthropy
I NEED SOMETHING TO HAPPEN
. surly implies gruffness and sullenness of speech or manner
A VIOLENT THING, EVEN
. sulky suggests childish resentment expressed in peevish sullenness . crabbed applies to a forbidding morose harshness of manner
THE CRUSH OF A BREAKDOWN
. saturnine describes a heavy forbidding aspect or suggests a bitter disposition
A REASON TO WANT TO
. gloomy implies a depression in mood making for seeming sullenness or glumness .
GET UP AGAIN
Jun 13, 2010
Jun 13, 2010 at 9:51 PM UTC
A friend of mine asks,
“Why do you only ever write about romance lately?”
Well, the answer is quite simple, really. It is because I have tasted it.
I tasted it when my eyes first drank the light from his grace when he stood tall above me
His saturnine windows called out to me behind flesh curtains whenever he spoke, ever asking me to join him in his ecstasy
He, from a distance, darted towards me and pressed our sides together—letting myself melt in the velveteen touch of fabric skin
There was a shower of momentary light that night but only his radiance did I bask in.
I tasted it in the heart of the stone city where usurpers of old stood on polished stone
The Bulwark’s adobe reach embraced our reverie as memories from sleep stories become reality
He, in the confines of that venerable fortress, made me vulnerable for I was secure in his arms
His fingers are in between my own like woven mithril unbreakable lest he broke its bond himself
It is in this kingdom of carven stone and handmade walls that he sang of ardor with a dragon’s petrifying gaze.
I tasted it in yuletide storms where men and women waged war with happiness and grief
When the armies of pain and suffering fell at our clasped hands and cheeks red from amorous verve you said you were to journey home
But you did not let go of my grasp
With me you remained and in your arms I stayed
As the bitter winds of bigoted mouths blew, as the fire from damnation is declared by self-righteous souls, we stood fast in the storm.
I tasted it when he said our love he could no longer endure
There we sat, on a tarnished vehicle, as the last of our love gave into rust
What is frightening to me peeked from his saturnine eyes and he closed his curtains shut for the downpour of despondency was to come
We flooded our façades and the rivers quaked our emotional integrity
He held my hand for one final chance before we ripped our wrappings forever apart and he kissed me tender
Our lips made love—like the first they ever met in weathered heat—for the last time.
I tasted it when I told him “Just do so, when your appetite roars to love me again,” and until now I am waiting.
So, why do I ever only write about romance lately?
Well, the reason is quite complicated, really. But–but it is because I’ve tasted it.
Mar 2, 2017
Mar 2, 2017 at 2:00 PM UTC
the relationship held sacrosanct
form an identity's disjecta membra
a confluence of fallacies made anthropomorphic
body diminshed by nervous exhaustion
mind abandoned to melancholy obsession
scattered hapharzadly in front of those
whom had once offered solicitude
filled by yearning to be stoic, saturnine, sangfroid
passsing glances, chance encounters
aren't caustic to the indifferent
incondite hopes nurtured by solitude
clinging to the idea that all is bitingly internicine
misplaced in the droors of time
Sep 16, 2010
Sep 16, 2010 at 4:17 AM UTC
The key turns and the door is slammed open.
It’s been a long time and I
Don’t romanticize the cobwebs anymore.
The view of my childhood days
Has now vanished.
But the room remains the same.
I think.
I am reminded but vaguely
Of cold, saturnine nights and
His love letters.
The ones that I preserved for long
Until mum threw them away.
I monitor my steps too carefully,
I even take off my shoes.
The imprint of my feet over the dusty mosaic floor,
Like that of Goddess Saraswati
I was told, once.
The air smells of grandpa’s stories,
Freshly baked, right out of the oven.
The day he died, it was my turn to narrate.
The door to the balcony is locked.
I, sticking my nose out through the railings,
As a lonely ice cream seller,
Wiped the sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand.
The right side is no different from the left.
A curious void of vacancy,
My half-formed thoughts troubling me.
That year when books were my only friends
And I cut my hair,
To mourn my own death.
That mono-syllabic laugh at the back of my head,
A familiar sound.
The lips spreading wide and the eyes contracting,
Just a little bit.
The most beautiful smile I had ever seen.
I count my steps. Twenty-two to my room.
That unfinished bottle of grandma’s lemon pickle,
Most faithful companion to our afternoon dal and rice.
I pick it up and stare at the circle bereft of dust
Protected by the bottle’s lower rim.
I place it back, after a while.
Keeping in mind the limpid outlines.
May 17, 2015
May 17, 2015 at 10:54 AM UTC
Just, thought I, to escape a while,
Mundane light in the desk at home
On these splintered, black-tar roads
Marching, festooned in leaf and in rock
Snapping and scattering from underfoot.
My heavy breaths are this odd meter
In-out, in-out on this pavement slap
The knees are strained, down, the stream
Of rheumy little beads—lines! (I sense
Conception of a rare cadence
In which earth finds its synchrony).
‘Round the walls of rustic homes and will
To this walking gallery of the ‘ville
Ancient oaks, they lift their head and grin
To a sky beyond the storm, what with plumes
Unearthly fronds, dark with salmon painted on
Softened, its oil, burnt carnal black
That loose-end feeling holding it back.
Furrowed brow, I run with now
Sweet winds and pirouette
The dancers go amidst the leaves
Hold Hell high ‘bove white hands
Turned in deference and o,’ Arbor!
Your threshold live and saturnine
Entire eternities unfold now, silk scarf on
Goddess Eve, her halo proud
Gold embraced by Pink and now
She strides in by the choral geese
Flown to sing her godhead to sleep
Her rest had blest pain to leave me now
At those gates loud, effervescent
Shimmering, shimmering
In calm disbelief
And on
And on.
Back at the source, that in-between
Bare **** of the Fasick bridge
Magmatic pallets, on faces two
One shared tear drop, a cosmic breadth.
I saw from there the garden of stone
Lonely tombs in blamy play
Fruits sprung in those past lives.
I shared their rest for moment still
And back it goes, the nameless past
Where they exists as dreams, beside me.
Two sides, met then so diverged
I saw their peace where night emerged
Where pink embraced the dark
Went to rest on low horizons.
The world closed its lips and lids
Its eyes and loving heart
Bathed, it all, in low florescence
And lullaby of cicadas.
Sep 10, 2014
Sep 10, 2014 at 11:07 PM UTC
Scrying on the Moon (for Brigid)
By sibylline light
images I recognize,
creviced captures of my life.
I know her judgment to be my own.
"Nourished by Moon rivers
mythical cavern blooms
unseen by sunlight
glow green."
Thus she sets the scene;
becomes the prophecy.
"Purest white simplicity
curved to suggest fragility
faith fed maiden ready for
plucking,
given in ******* to womanly woes,
hard rows to ***
for that human hug through
crying of night.
Fate of mortal soldiers, sacrificed to lust.
Seeking relief, beg for the boon of drama
high adventure
sneaking into sad hotels
for a fix or a tumble.
Laughs,
deadly play,
danger, a real chance.
Barefoot in the snow
icy roads
winds so strong
I could not make you hear.
I thought you were my destiny.
Crazy thoughts, far from clear;
but I believed
song lyrics from Saturnine deities
would not lie, leave me
dying, fading into winter's grey
drifting clouds,
endless sorrow endured for naught.
Lost on this careless corner,
dreaming of oblivion, intent on visions
like rain
tapping against eternity's
vast windowpane.
Scenic serenity.
Nature's gradations of green
soothe tired eyes,
trembling nerves, throbbing veins.
Slivers of moonlight reflect
in withered refrains, unearth secrets
embedded in song
effervescing through cool pure air
cleansing the uprising nestling
set aflame
resurrected
tempered mettle,
pure, wise, tested
engorged with the will
to rise"
revised February 1, 2010
twilight of the goddess, call to song to aery dancing, lady fair your firey trance rewinds our souls, enjoy these offerings, flights of fancy, all art is yours
May 8, 2010
May 8, 2010 at 3:27 PM UTC
Yellow soap for a yellow me.
I don't feel like being pure
means being happy.
- I scrub scarring
with more definition
than a dictionary.
Moldy bread kissing
gravid navel oranges,
in a cherry plastic rib cage.
- Can you find me altruism
hidden in the heart
of ecstasy and rage?
Satellite bobbing above
the air supply,
are you out of reach or am I?
She was taking pictures
of us in the aphotic zone.
Saying, it was the only way
to capture me vulnerable.
Extirpate my species
to save my life.
I am saturnine for
the only adoration I accept
is mine.
Apr 14, 2016
Apr 14, 2016 at 12:08 AM UTC
Poet daubed the corporal on the wings of carney
Wanderer dilettante soul lusted au wild routes
Counted each the millimiles covered
Upside , unstrained , Unflaggingly.
Yon the valleys , epitome meadows and Hillsides
Beated around the alcoves amok
Ridges passed the marooned trails
Agape the flinged self flew spirited madrigals
Slowly rooted the tints into wilderness
True entity got superimposed to sylvan instincts
The obsolute shadow rigged the shooner
By dimension lengthier the time but shorter by grace
Grazed through and some toxic airs exhaled then pulled
Blinked all the roof to rugs
Remembrance of concrete boxes and intimate sidekicks
Cheap conflict wins to hit the ring
If body wins wanderlust looses thereby path ends
Simultaneous call by consciousness and objection by eternal shadow
Only the body grazed the maps with pointers
Though insatiably leveed
Kept retention the coursing shadow
Yet remained damp , savaged the sylvan traits
Life was near but the abstainer failed
Wilderness abysm rejected the unfortunate physique
There appeared
Scorched canopies along wilted flora
Container flogged the shadow to a stultifying death
Physique deceived self the core truth
Existence thereafter without knowing the chance with eterna
Several followed the imperishable conflict trail
Roll of honour diminished by fourth dimension
Marked victories of featherbrains over pappus chambers
Only few sticked upto xanthic flowers
Raise up , were the victories thristled down?
Many knocked and still keep on knocking incarnations
Fine array of fossilized saturnine inhibitions
Callous attritions over altruism of succinct shadows
Flip sorties pariance spurts
"The stanchion to revet my sky" voiced the shadow
Aug 2, 2016
Aug 2, 2016 at 2:09 AM UTC
HARMATTAN.
How often stealthy rats squirmed about the
Hallway.
Harmattan blew colder than the warm heat of
My sitting room hearth.
I miss those awkward squeaks these days,
And the creaking errieness of my door,
Felt like,harmattan was inviting some
Saturnine stranger to cook my needless oats.
Festac streets at night glowed with misty fog,
Giving the streetlights this sort of luminous
Strangeness.
The furling greenness of my compound
Bitterleaf now overgrown,seemed to be
Peeking at me every night.
The profound sounds of night crickets and
Twinkling lights of those fireflies aided
Silence much less.
As for the night sky,ever pale as unseen
But felt sadness that failed not to hallow her
Majesty - the white-bright moon.
Yet the star studded few lines and boundaries - tall cranes and giant masts
All lost their formidable heights in the Seemingly hazy,plain clouds of midnight stay.
It brought upon my lips benign boils and made my nostrils as dry tunnels.
My eyes were constantly worried with rubbing itches that turned them slightly red.
Although I am all alone to myself most passing days,
To nobody's surprise - the harmattan refuses
To efface still.
- Jahmenmuze.
Dec 28, 2018
Dec 28, 2018 at 6:06 PM UTC
Brother moons chalky,
saturnine crescent
could barely penetrate
the giant’s
match-stick forest:
its burnished copper foliage
would remain latent,
for now.
This night antagonized
our souls,
darker when I stared into its
vacuous depths
than when glanced
from my minds periphery.
Pervasive,
it exploited the valleys repose.
Crystal.
Morning’s volition was heralded
with a transient
thaw.
December’s waking drafts
spoke ardently
of a daughter lost:
for centuries
a solitary bloom,
sustained by unseen conduits,
grew
upon the surface
of a fallow field.
Now it lay,
defiled by my hand.
Her blood-stained spray seeped
into the earths russet tunic.
Dawn’s sentries:
two soot black crows,
stalked a field’s beaded
hawthorn seam as a
church knells cadence
punctuated
the airs discourse from its holy precipice;
death, death, death
sonorous
on my ear.
©Thomas Gabriel
Dec 4, 2011
Dec 4, 2011 at 6:40 PM UTC
Poet daubed the corporal on the wings of carney
Wanderer dilettante soul lusted wild routes
Counted each the millimiles covered
Upside , unstrained , Unflaggingly.
Yon the valleys , epitome meadows and Hillsides
Beated around the alcoves amok
Ridges passed the marooned trails
Agape the flinged self flew spirited madrigals
Slowly rooted the tints into wilderness
True entity got superimposed to sylvan instincts
The obsolute shadow rigged the shooner
By dimension lengthier the time but shorter by grace
Grazed through and some toxic airs exhaled then pulled
Blinked all the roof to rugs
Remembrance of concrete boxes and intimate sidekicks
Cheap conflict wins to hit the ring
If body wins, wanderlust looses thereby path ends
Simultaneous call by consciousness and objection by eternal shadow
Only the body grazed the maps with pointers
Though insatiably leveed
Kept retention the coursing shadow
Yet remained damp , savaged the sylvan traits
Life was near but the abstainer failed
Wilderness abysm rejected the unfortunate physique
There appeared
Scorched canopies along wilted flora
Container flogged the shadow to a stultifying death
Physique deceived self the core truth
Existence thereafter without knowing the chance with eterna
Several followed the imperishable conflict trail
Roll of honour diminished by fourth dimension
Marked victories of featherbrains over pappus chambers
Only few sticked upto xanthic flowers
Raise up , were the victories thristled down?
Many knocked and still keep on knocking incarnations
Fine array of fossilized saturnine inhibitions
Callous attritions over altruism of succinct shadow
Flip sorties pariance spurts
"The stanchion to revet my sky" voiced the shadow
Aug 19, 2016
Aug 19, 2016 at 3:31 AM UTC
I walk down the street whisked by the fragrant aroma of a ***** floating above the clouds
Encased in venom but dismantled plumes of disembodied hair gave her a shroud
I saw in her minced reflection the swindled lust of a happy conclusion
To years of isolated rebarbative delusion
To serenade with penultimate swaggers as though I have been fully swooned
Too soon to aim my praise at an adoring moon
Tugging on mutual hearts entwined with the summer breeze
Trying to garner the summer heir and the summer flair
A panache to clothe every armed bear, disarmed by a propitiated care
A crisp lament crashes the party as a heckler gouging for blindness
I clinch a ****** anger as a riotous engine crafted from wineskins
Belonging to an ageless agelast scurried in dismay
I warp the warbled marble sleet a craven disarray
Then I clamber, risqué in fleeting moments a criminal repartee
I wallop the emerging consensus as the 16th hands me over dumped tea
And a ****** tree laughs as the whitewashed sanity of sanitarium ******
I swerve away from the indecency of a pepper enclosed in chosen wax
A gibbous shackle crumpled on a concrete semaphore
An erratic blithe minatory metaphor
Saturnine clout sweeps the dusty apron from the desuetude of homespun lethargy
Rampant clovers distilled from a dreamscape a raspy sea
Trespassing whisper surmounts the lambent alpenglow of a newborn sun
A sleek potter’s spell encumbered by a lapsed pun
Doors ajar and vats wed with an aimless spar
I finally see the fullness of majesty adorned as a breathing star.
Jun 30, 2016
Jun 30, 2016 at 7:42 AM UTC
flung in the back of the '55
Chevy like another suitcase
the child knew not where they were going
only that they had been there before
more than once, when Daddy's
drink turned to anger, and anger
turned to fists pounding a boss
and another job was lost
and the child would again see
the lights of the town vanish: he, the car,
his preternaturally silent momma, his hung over
father would become part of the night
another flight, this time from Gallup
New Mexico, where Daddy had tried
to out drink every Navajo in every bar
and almost did
on these nocturnal hegiras, the child
would lie and stare at the headliner--the round
dome light a faint moon against
a mysterious sky
beams from passing cars
would roll across his otherwise
empty constellation, transforming dark
matter into fleeting nebulae
this, his wide world, while a slow
clock spun, and tires hummed, eternally,
until his father announced where they
were going this time
Iowa, a place the child
conflated with Ohio, vowel sounds
similar, soft and more meaningful than
marks on maps--Cedar something...
Cedar Rapids, and the child knew rapid
and rapid meant fast and fast meant soon, only
a few more saturnine stars around his dome
light moon, soon
Jan 21, 2017
Jan 21, 2017 at 11:56 PM UTC
Books – a medicine saturnine.
Those who have books shine
With lively bright colour twine.
Books – a Daniel – be in shrine
To take us all up with whine.
Saraswati, indeed, did opine
My talents with saccharine
And help me for Her to reassign
Her position in the world malign.
With her help I Monorhyme define
And made many people it dine
With garlic or ginger or brine.
Oh! Goddess! Help me refine
The world with your dyne –
Books – a medicine saturnine.
Oct 1, 2017
Oct 1, 2017 at 11:06 PM UTC
These devices are better now, elctro charged
Saturnine lanterns reflected magnanimously.
Let me wait, wait endlessly blue.
Sand scatter, hourglass bottom.
Like Alan I'd tell you I'm in Rockland with you.
Honey, this don't feel the same
eye linguistics and the way your body moves.
Jump at me in April showers and groove.
Damage control, digital and beautiful.
Let's see ourselves out of reality, briefly
and lose our minds in euphoric agression.
Attention grabber, tongue tied neatly.
Apr 16, 2017
Apr 16, 2017 at 7:34 PM UTC
Forsaken anew; / failure’s company
Saturnine, my soul; / assurance broken
Order to chaos; / fractured symmetry
Alone with failure / Hope was yet token
Blood in the mirror / oozing lethargy
The instrument held / in the victim’s hand
Lambasted pride’s pith; / pain the elegy
Drip down, down to dirt; /soul’s vice reprimand
The high price paid for / blind cowardice proud
To slough shamed sin sets /my soul to quail
Failure to stop pride; /sanguine stained I stand
My blood measures short, /to sin-siege, I fail
But God is faithful, / redeemer belov’d
His blood ransomed me; /Praise to Him who loves
Oct 17, 2024
Oct 17, 2024 at 11:44 PM UTC
Sediment slabs purl down soft rock,
parched charcoal lathers soot - scintillate,
smothered form in slate deluge,
where the sun can take refuge,
saturnine in the hiemal shift of the alcove,
and nebulous spume caroms - gaseous halations ,
off scalding waters, sweet smoke arise,
tenuous strings of light gossamer in the eyes ,
meshed scales loll down,
corona tendrils stream over sunken psilocybe,
equilibrium sun-warped - flares effulgent,
seeping into trails of salt-lacerated skin,
wax beads singeing skin - summer hit of apocalypse fever
Aug 3, 2014
Aug 3, 2014 at 4:27 AM UTC
So the world spins
Inner discourse thinning
In the wake of daylight
Muted blues shift crimson
And the halcyon light floods my vision
I remain saturnine
The inner tenebrae of my dusky soul
My personal shadowland
sedulous manifestos etched
across my heart
the tattooed movement
cadence of oblivion
stained by the purpura
Of bleeding dreams
Apollo rides grandiose
Careening orb obliterates the dusk
Yet my eyes rain
myriad tears chase themselves
forever obedient to that same gravity
leaving me face down
with nothing but wet earth
and seeds dormant
full of promise that never blooms
My heart in the darkness
Of a shuttered room
TLB 092308
Sep 4, 2014
Sep 4, 2014 at 1:18 PM UTC
Tendriled nightmares coil
Writhing blind knots
Restrict my inner vision
Peripheral blurred neuroses lurk
Morbid melodramas spin symbolisms
Of a tragic ending
Beyond the memory of moonlight
plaintive note of hope recedes
In the saturnine breeze
I am Lost to lower oscillation
Vestigial presence of the divine
Inert
My racing pulse thrums a dirge
for the waning day
You are the fulcrum
*Levo mihi per vestri lux
The arbitration of angels
My inner spirit luminesces
Hope regains her tenuous place
I turn my tearstreaked face
To the memory of light
**Amo Deus perficio lux
EGO mos orior iterum
TL Boehm
052608
*Lift me with your light
**Like God's perfect light, I will rise again
Aug 22, 2014
Aug 22, 2014 at 1:24 PM UTC
The sun shines so early
this morning
but your face reads cloudy
with a chance of smiting rain
what do we do where
do we go from here
I've taken this journey
with you before
almost
to the point of no return
whit howland © 2021
Sep 11, 2021
Sep 11, 2021 at 10:10 AM UTC
Look closer...
the winding trail
is baked to perfection,
bearing the scars
of a caesarean section.
Only the snakes
dare travel along I-8,
one-by-one the seasons lie prone,
in heat this sun will castrate.
The burnt aspects on faces
don’t smile or frown,
they peer out as residue
to places perished in the wake of
a cityscape’s head trauma,
calling out to the heaven’s above
as they await her to rise
with wings from these ashes,
in anticipation for a day ne’er to draw nigh,
even the steady fall of acid rain
will fail to wash away such genocide.
A favorite haunt transmutes
into a ghost town,
burning into the ground
the heat seeps into the soul,
and the procession begins again
for whom the bell tolls.
Towers of steel melt
as popsicles on the pavement,
the sun’s punishment
is constantly transcendent,
the noise of sparks and hums
rattle the spine,
today’s forecast is a good chance
of saturnine.
Eerie colors at dawn
make for a spectral scenic view,
picnic lunch in the park
is categorically taboo,
the hunters of men
swoon in subjugation to this tyranny,
weather’s wrath was everyone’s destiny.
Live a little, die a little,
pretend it cannot happen,
but in the end we all windup
as peanut brittle...
Jun 1, 2020
Jun 1, 2020 at 7:09 PM UTC