"scything" poems
.
Tapioca sky,
feel the knife curve
like a Moon-hook,
wrenching a tourmaline ****
into hallucinating gums,
ritualised in immortal agony.
Lemon clouds,
see the portrait smile
like a nightmare,
feasting on famine entrails,
of sacrificed words,
scything off the tongue.
© Pagan Paul (2017)
Sep 15, 2017
Sep 15, 2017 at 6:00 PM UTC
Leaves
Murmuring by miriads in the shimmering trees.
Lives
Wakening with wonder in the Pyrenees.
Birds
Cheerily chirping in the early day.
Bards
Singing of summer, scything thro' the hay.
Bees
Shaking the heavy dews from bloom and frond.
Boys
Bursting the surface of the ebony pond.
Flashes
Of swimmers carving thro' the sparkling cold.
Fleshes
Gleaming with wetness to the morning gold.
A mead
Bordered about with warbling water brooks.
A maid
Laughing the love-laugh with me; proud of looks.
The heat
Throbbing between the upland and the peak.
Her heart
Quivering with passion to my pressed cheek.
Braiding
Of floating flames across the mountain brow.
Brooding
Of stillness; and a sighing of the bough.
Stirs
Of leaflets in the gloom; soft petal-showers;
Stars
Expanding with the starr'd nocturnal flowers.
3.1k
she's the volcano
in my bedroom and
my heart, a chandelier made
out of fireworks
that had burned all night
in a flame-race, howling upwards
she looks better in
one of my old t-shirts
to my stretched-out eyes
than i ever would in
a ballroom gown,
i was not blessed with
the bust for a corset,
with all my life throbbing in my throat
under my sheets, groping
she is an octopus wearing lacy crystals
who has tasted a man's flesh
and collapsed in a slither
at the charred-out caves
in big, good America
after a hectic twenty minutes
she is honey-pale and
falling into empty light
shivering in my bed-boat
her hair slammed back
against the stern, the spray scything upwards
Jan 5, 2014
Jan 5, 2014 at 1:11 AM UTC
The internal battle..eternal....(one from the vault)
Lucifer and Jehovah dancing some mad bossa nova
While angels on horse backs fought devils with black jacks
The white dove of peace had surrendered his lease
So God ripped off his wings.. he no longer sings
Then the Devil ripped out his heart so it could end at the start.
Wagner and Chopin got frightened..
..and off they ran.
But Beethoven and Bach were sat in the park
Composing arias to fight Hells hot fires.
While Chekhov and Handel burned coramandel
But the smoke from that pyre stank like a byre.
Socrates was sat dispensing the ethics
Hippocrates swore while dishing out medics
The Muses were musing one or two were enthusing
Oooh look.. the good against sinner
Let's go down the bookies and have a bet on the winner.
Cometh the day cometh the morn
Cometh the hour cometh the dawn.
Here is Joshua blowing his horn
And here comes Gabriel but all that he meets
Are the countless dead lining up on the streets
And the wounded and deathbound far far below
I feel sorry for Gabriel I wish he could go.
But Picasso arrives and cries
My God it's my Guernica I'll do a pastiche
Oh F*ck it he says and has a pastis (or two)
Then Pollack turns up totally ******
Picks up a paint and says what I have missed?
What a fantastic sight.. angels flashing demons crashing
The hounds of Hell with teeth a gnashing
Then Neptune arrives astride his watery chariot
Scything through Demons and sat beside Judas Iscariot
Mermen and mermaids mercilessly slayed
By Beelzebubs prototypes
Those that live in the black nights.
But as the dawn breaks God knows what it takes
So he sends for his legions calls out to all regions
Take arms and do battle
Till we hears Satans death rattle.
And the heavens rip asunder to the sound of the thunder.
Satan rings on Hells bell.. tells them all is not well
Then disappears from our sight as if he's turned off the light.
Then I awake with a start knowing that I've been a part
Of something vast something grand
A spiritual war being fought in this land
I am alive and I shall survive.
PRAISE BE.
Feb 6, 2013
Feb 6, 2013 at 9:08 AM UTC
By this part of the century few are left who believe
in the animals for they are not there in the carved parts
of them served on plates and the pleas from the slatted trucks
are sounds of shadows that possess no future
there is still game for the pleasure of killing
and there are pets for the children but the lives that followed
courses of their own other than ours and older
have been migrating before us some are already
far on the way and yet Peter with his gaunt cheeks
and point of white beard the face of an aged Lawrence
Peter who had lived on from another time and country
and who had seen so many things set out and vanish
still believed in heaven and said he had never once
doubted it since his childhood on the farm in the days
of the horses he had not doubted it in the worst
times of the Great War and afterward and he had come
to what he took to be a kind of earthly
model of it as he wandered south in his sixties
by that time speaking the language well enough
for them to make him out he took the smallest roads
into a world he thought was a thing of the past
with wildflowers he scarcely remembered and neighbors
working together scything the morning meadows
turning the hay before the noon meal bringing it in
by milking time husbandry and abundance
all the virtues he admired and their reward bounteous
in the eyes of a foreigner and there he remained
for the rest of his days seeing what he wanted to see
until the winter when he could no longer fork
the earth in his garden and then he gave away
his house land everything and committed himself
to a home to die in an old chateau where he lingered
for some time surrounded by those who had lost
the use of body or mind and as he lay there he told me
that the wall by his bed opened almost every day
and he saw what was really there and it was eternal life
as he recognized at once when he saw the gardens
he had made and the green fields where he had been
a child and his mother was standing there then the wall would close
and around him again were the last days of the world
2.2k
Inspired by the dream of the founders of city
Collated by planning of leaders and mayor,
Built by the muscle and sweat of believers
A Masterpiece fashioned for pride and for care.
Magnificent structures of bridges and tunnel
Faultlessly conjoined by highways of God,
Dreamt by the forebears of knowledge and passion
Crafted in concrete and sculpted in rod.
Towering edifices scything through city
Asphaltic motorways curving with grace
Estuaries bridged by elegant girders
Created by vision with tears on it’s face.
Fashioned by strength and belief in the promise
Fashioned by fortitude's strong hand as guide,
Crafted by people's belief in tomorrow
A Vision for Auckland and nation with pride.
Marshalg
With the Wellconnected Alliance.
AUCKLAND N.Z.
(Inspired by the animation on a good Mayor’s face)
6pm,14 February 2013
© 2013 Marshal Gebbie
Feb 14, 2013
Feb 14, 2013 at 12:45 AM UTC
Let's go outside
Swifts are scything high
The last to cry the sun good night
Wings are beating then they glide
Let's walk round the meadow
As we like to do
We could be Summer gypsies you and I
Watch each day in pastel shades give way
All is kind, mild and soft
Daylight graced away
As we survey our sanctuary
Far from the maddening, saddening motorway
A fragile film of mist hangs above the meadow flowers
We wonder at the science of it
As nature's breath is blown aside
Like a magic trick
We could stay out here all night
Be Summer gypsies you and I
But we are tied
Signed up to this, bound by that
Anchored, rooted to the workaday
Come inside, for we must sleep
We need to sleep
Let the night its gentle solstice secrets keep
Jun 20, 2013
Jun 20, 2013 at 11:34 AM UTC
— for Victoria
Seasons shuttle the tall stoic figure,
Graceful and solemn as wafted mist,
When seen, as if he was always there,
Overarching into meek, gloamy skies
Of mornings and dusk, mid day, lost,
Seems not right for wading out kills
That crane from above into the mud
And murk of the penny eyed waters
Only the ferryman will tender, for time
Slips, sleeping with the fishes, spears
Puddle and rim in the wakes, sparks
Of waters break like a sputtering fire,
His dart eyes are as yellow as golden
Sun dancing in funeral pyre. So green
Creatures, must they always be gotten,
Gone, have it coming from the sheering,
Mercies of the Great Blue Heron who is all
Seeing, scything, down to dazed judgement,
Incited, pecking to order at the squirming fold.
Jul 4, 2015
Jul 4, 2015 at 12:38 PM UTC
There’s a dragon lying coiled
At the base of my brain
In a dank dark crypt
At the top of my spine.
It is a foul and feral beast
Degenerate
Self centred as a dinosaur
No iridescent shining scales
No filmy farstretching wings
No soaring spiraling flights
Over legendary landscapes
For this one.
No it just squats there
Peering out at the world
Malevolent eyes slitted
Watching
If it sniffs
The faintest whiff
Of a threat to its survival
It rushes out
Roaring
Breathing fire
Reptilian talons scything,
Slashing
If you are quick
You may see them flashing
In my eyes
Before I slam the portal
Send my protector back
To seethe silently
Keeping watch
Over me
From the dungeon
Trish Lambert
Jun 12, 2013
Jun 12, 2013 at 4:39 PM UTC
Heated cheese, gooey head
as screams writhing.
Voices cackle, sense long fled,
nails board scrape, fleece,
dry scything.
Metal taste in jaw arriving
of sharp magma lead.
World is bent as pitch striving,
hot, red muddle increase,
coals spread.
Head beating as jaw swoons,
vice builds steel grip.
Confusion by drugs flail moon,
as soprano screeches piece,
tune shred.
Sauce pan cooks on shoulder,
steam heats, thriving.
As ventures across my left ear,
in fingers of molten grease,
pile driving
Dec 1, 2016
Dec 1, 2016 at 7:14 AM UTC
I.
I want to walk out
into the ocean’s gentle swells,
and feel God’s palm
cupped around me.
II.
I want to step,
over the smooth, fluted stones,
and the whorled shells
of bright abalone,
to sink down
onto sundrenched
sea-ground
and close my eyes
to see my blood-red sun-lit lids
flicker and flash, as
shuddering net-designs
dance, threaded and lacy;
as they curl,
tangling across me.
I want to slide my fingers
through the slithering white sand--
the grains carved into
ivory ripples by the
currents’ deft hands.
III.
oh, I want to lie
and close my eyes
and feel the soft lurch of each wave
jerking overhead, its
strong tug like a kite,
watch the shining fish
scything past above,
and let each dancing point of light
reflected
from their scales
scar my pale face.
IV.
Oh, there is a howling, starving dog
that circles on the shore,
alone.
he’s keened his frantic misery to the
deadpan moon
for so so long
that no one listens anymore--
they gave it up long ago
and just sprawl, licking the dunes;
they lie and swear the grit quenches their
aching thirst
until they choke on their sand-covered tongues
and die.
V.
You see,
I want to see the moon rise,
quivering through
deep-water blackness;
listen to the dolphins’
ghostly shrieks and clacks,
and the whales’ deep, grieved noises.
I want to forget
the sound of human voices.
I long to close my eyes,
sink,
and never rise.
VI.
bright, irregular globes
flutter from my mouth
quick,
coruscating orbs
of prayer,
they shudder and
dart upwards
VII.
saltwater, salt tears,
ask Him if He hears
you gasping.
Apr 25, 2013
Apr 25, 2013 at 10:42 PM UTC
— for Victoria
Seasons shuttle the tall stoic figure,
Graceful and solemn as wafted mist,
When seen, as if he was always there,
Overarching into meek, gloamy skies
Of mornings and dusk, mid day, lost,
Seems not right for wading out kills
That crane from above into the mud
And murk of the penny eyed waters
Only the ferryman will tender, for time
Slips, sleeping with the fishes, spears
Puddle and rim in the wakes, sparks
Of waters break like a sputtering fire,
His dart eyes are as yellow as golden
Sun dancing in funeral pyre. So green
Creatures, must they always be gotten,
Gone, have it coming from the sheering,
Mercies of the Great Blue Heron who is all
Seeing, scything, down to dazed judgement,
Incited, pecking to order at the squirming fold.
Mar 19, 2015
Mar 19, 2015 at 5:31 PM UTC
Sometimes
we open
ourselves
in faith
in kindness
we unlock doors
in order to
let love
in
sometimes it
penetrates
all those
barriers
built up
over time
like ruins ensconced
inside the earth,
bones and stones
temples unknown
digging deep
we reach a point
where all passes through
into other spheres
then, before we know it
ever deeper
scything off of
our fingers
into the night
as our hearts
beat ever so twirled
in togetherness
tender
Layers
shed rushed
often slow
and always flowing
in the glow
of emotion
and sometimes
it just explodes
all the pieces
tossed into the air
like a grenade
key removed
without warning
in sudden flashes
angel pieces
raining down
in smoldered slashes
fires spontaneously
forming out of what
was just
darkness
and all the
hearts' most
vulnerable places
crush in
velvet smithereens
upon the earth
broken pieces
of glass
sparkling
into the
supple abyss
of
knowing
Jul 21, 2016
Jul 21, 2016 at 10:06 AM UTC
Of all the torments of the north
I hold the wind most grim
Scything the very hope from my heart
tears of ice thrown raging back
to scour my soul
folorn curses fail and falter
till mute I quail before its barren ire
eye imploring mercy
from uncaring natures might
are blinded by its savagery
As it tears away my sight
Of all the torments of the North
I hold the wind most grim
Feb 12, 2014
Feb 12, 2014 at 10:40 AM UTC
Bielsa’s Boys go bombing on.
Hear it, hear it,
Hear our song.
Running further than the rest,
Leeds United are the best.
Scything through the opposition,
Scoring goals our only mission.
Top flight teams are running scared,
Afraid of a team that’s uncompared:
Players drilled on “Murderball”,
Making them feel so very tall.
We’ve even a Brazilian in our team.
Bielsa buys only the cream.
Brazil themselves are doing great deeds:
They say they’re playing just like Leeds.
Shame about those missing fans,
Still busy washing their hands.
Can’t wait for that Elland Road roar
Celebrating every score.
Before too long we’ll be World Champs,
Shining bright like electric lamps.
Bamford scoring all those goals,
Shutting the mouths of Keane and Scholes.
Bielsa’s Boys go bombing on.
Hear it, hear it,
Hear our song.
Paul Butters
© PB 1\1\2021.
Jan 1, 2021
Jan 1, 2021 at 7:36 AM UTC
Winters pendulum heavy with sky
dark
Swings slowly to its optimum
strength
Scything through all the Stars
clean
Oct 3, 2014
Oct 3, 2014 at 8:58 AM UTC
chaste spring lily loaded fingers
scything moted shafty sun tears
frail branches sifting precise phlorescent
sudden floral caving sound silence
heaps
of sleep powder crisp cheeks.
yawn billowing. oral sanctum.
when every arbor is neat little
straight rows onward ever spreading
into fading sight take my handinyourhand
and turn me to your guiding
descent body downward touching
peaceful forest day lover lacquered
lips
May 19, 2010
May 19, 2010 at 3:34 PM UTC
The rain keeps pouring down,
Pounding on the ground.
The rain keeps falling down,
Those big black clouds make us frown.
The rain keeps tumbling down,
It started with some drizzle.
The rain keeps scything down,
Striking like a chisel.
The rain keeps sleeting down,
Causing local flooding.
The rain keeps belting down,
Plants droop instead of budding.
The rain keeps showering down,
No time for any stanzas,
The rain keeps teeming down,
From Scotland down to Kansas.
The rain keeps arrowing down,
Whenever will it stop?
The rain keeps swirling down,
Yes, I’m hating every drop.
Paul Butters
Jun 21, 2016
Jun 21, 2016 at 5:43 AM UTC
I settle into the passenger’s side
of your ’74 Monte Carlo.
The futonish front seat softly implies
an alliance center consoles forgo.
Hot boxing the car with clove cigarettes,
you casually spark plug the engine.
I roll down the window, scything through jets
of balmy wind with my fingertips. Skin
deserts silently ****** skin lagoons;
My neck—a cracked quill supporting onyx
memories in a transistor room—
rests close to your barley breath harmonics.
You, the capo of this fresh syndicate,
naturally get more than I transmit.
2/10/09
Mar 3, 2013
Mar 3, 2013 at 11:28 PM UTC
So generous, thou, in reticence,
To caste my cares adrift,
Wondrous diffidence displayed
In judging, now, this slight wind shift.
That tender touched acidity
In holding back thy scything hand,
But a lancing of my sentiments
Despite concessions planned.
Bloodstain on the balcony
Grey torment in the mind
To miss the symptoms here, my friend,
Those blue eye's would be blind,
To wade in waters visceral
Whilst smiling to the face
Suggests a mind incapable
Of compassion's gentle pace.
Let waters flow beneath the bridge
Let time caress the soul,
Let detail's mass minutiae
Bury ruffled thoughts of old
But recall the blatant treachery,
Keep keen that secret blade
To exercise your perogative to
Put right the ****** wrongs made.
Marshalg
@theBach
Mangere Bridge
22 May 2010
May 22, 2010
May 22, 2010 at 9:36 PM UTC
Silent serpent of length unknown
Eats at its tail, a hungry beast
Further enters the dark world grown,
Slithers into a deadly feast
Fooled, it judges itself so wise,
Insatiable satiated with deceit,
Broken and bent, relentless it tries
Wrenching pain as white and black meet
Proud smirk betrays its resting place
Exchanged terror resides with guile
Scything gleam of the hooded face
Swiftly rides past, a minute a mile
No snake lies where it had once been
Save an etch in thoughts of passers by
Many a struggle in this plane seen
Merge with elements that can not die.
Jan 29, 2016
Jan 29, 2016 at 8:35 PM UTC
.
Tears like raindrops roll down my face
as I start awake from another dream.
The stark isolation set in another place
reflecting the here by subconscious means.
The wind whistles a gale of fury
whilst I squat on the mountains summit.
Bracing my heart from an angry jury,
whose purpose is to find me unfit.
Not worthy, by proxy, a foregone verdict
delivered eloquently from myself to me.
Scything confidence away, I've heard it.
Raindrops taste like tears to the lonely.
Shutters and barricades drop, my armour,
holding back the bad, and the good.
Protected, the gale blows much calmer,
the stark isolation accepted and understood.
But the dream persists, always the same,
a looping litany whilst I lay asleep.
The withdrawal is but temporary in name
until I locate that which I humbly seek.
© Pagan Paul (2016/2017)
Jul 20, 2017
Jul 20, 2017 at 10:44 AM UTC
We came to the wild beach
To picnic,
But the waves
Were breaking and rushing in,
The wind was gusty
And cold,
Was moaning a faint
Dirge.
In soft and plain
Footfalls,
Over the slide of sands
We made our way
Into the covering
Dunes.
The dull pressing sky,
The white gloved waves,
And sharp grasses,
The call of scything gulls,
All things were grey
And hovering
Dark and faded that day, but not as much
As the few, ordinary, words we spoke,
To each other
We cried,
To each other
When our tears dusted the sands,
We were saying
Goodbye.
Feb 19, 2013
Feb 19, 2013 at 1:02 PM UTC
We came to the wild beach
To picnic,
But the waves
Were breaking and rushing in,
The wind was gusty
And cold,
Was moaning a faint
Dirge.
In soft and plain
Footfalls,
Over the slide of sands
We made our way
Into the covering
Dunes.
The dull pressing sky,
The white gloved waves,
And sharp grasses,
The call of scything gulls,
All things were grey
And hovering
Dark and faded that day, but not as much
As the few, ordinary, words we spoke,
To each other
We cried,
To each other
When our tears dusted the sands,
We were saying
Goodbye.
Apr 15, 2013
Apr 15, 2013 at 1:14 PM UTC
We came to the wild beach
To picnic,
But the waves
Were breaking and rushing in,
The wind was gusty
And cold,
Was moaning a faint
Dirge.
In soft and plain
Footfalls,
Over the slide of sands
We made our way
Into the covering
Dunes.
The dull pressing sky,
The white gloved waves,
And sharp grasses,
The call of scything gulls,
All things were grey
And hovering
Dark and faded that day, but not as much
As the few, ordinary, words we spoke,
To each other
We cried,
To each other
When our tears dusted the sands,
We were saying
Goodbye.
Jun 16, 2012
Jun 16, 2012 at 10:34 AM UTC