"shading" poems
#*Feasting table under a shading tree
Swaddling robe that warmly cleans
Mirror beautifying while it reflects
Sword that pierces yet never rejects
Light penetrating the blackest hole
Water filling and healing the soul*#
Dec 4, 2015
Dec 4, 2015 at 12:28 PM UTC
*He’s no musician.
He doesn't make melodies through violin and guitar strings.
Yet he composed, haunting ballads in dramatic tempos,
Rhyming every lyric,
Harmonizing, making it dance in a musical euphony.
He’s no seamster.
Yet he cuts and he traces,
plain words and printed phrases;
Then he sews and he weaves it skilfully,
into a lovely concrete poetry.
He’s no painter.
He just has a palette of pigmented letters,
splashing colorful lines on his blank canvass.
A blast of contained evocative memories,
Streaking and shading mixtures of kaleidoscopic imagery.
He’s no storyteller.
Yet from him, I heard the most romantic tales-
One, of the moon and its lover sea.
Reciprocating shy glances, whispering I love you’s,
while kissing behind the sprawling mountains.
Though the dawn will come, they do not fear.
For after the majestic tribal sun leaves his stage,
There’ll the lovers be once again reunited.
He's no poet.
Yet he writes--
stanzas and verses.
And oh! it revives,
every strand of emotion,
every sense of intuition,
Inside me.
A lyrical perception,
Sheer perfection,
Arousing perpetual reactions,
From me.*
Mar 30, 2015
Mar 30, 2015 at 6:47 AM UTC
Down in the bayou where the mangroves grow
There's talk of black voodoo, like Marie Leveau
The Swamp Witch, is legend, she has magic so black
That those who have seen her, have never come back
There;s tales of the noises that come from the dark
Of werewolves and zombies as rough as the bark
The mangroves are sentinels, to where the magic resides
Where even a longboat has no room to glide
Bodies go missing from the graveyards most nights
And there's always a fog shading the fireflies lights
The Swamp Witch is ruler and Queen of this world
Where souls are all taken and spines can be curled
They say that she came here from Canadian lands
She was a metis they say, from the Western Tar Sands
A mystic by nature, a dark witch by blood
She lives deep in the swamp, protected by gators and mud
The gators respect her, they do as she bids
They keep watch on the waters, they're her reptillian kids
She keeps zombies as gendarmes, collecting bodies to turn
Just how black is her magic, no one can discern
The Swamp Witch is legend, she is as old as all time
The air in the bayou is as thick as the slime
The cajuns say voodoo is the core of her heart
They avoid fishing where the mangrove trees start
The Swamp Witch, a legend ? or is she truly the Queen
She's the Louisiana Witch, no one survives once she's seen.....
May 1, 2013
May 1, 2013 at 11:33 PM UTC
joshua haines i know we arent near
but i have to say, it would be a fear
that if we were i would fall in love
with your sophistication and grace
and most likely my dear
even the simple shading of your face
words, they contain souls
at least they do to me
and if that is the case
when you write, you set us free
Dec 30, 2014
Dec 30, 2014 at 1:53 PM UTC
puffs so alluring
three dimensional
but you're not
i want to touch your creamy exterior
but all i get is moisture
your shading is ravishing
symmetrical paint thing
wisps of stratus horse tail ice
dusty cumulus marsh of mallow
your nimbus is what i dream
charcoal colored opaque
mixed in with a little blue
you make it hard
not to stare
at you
so eager as light shines off
your behind
you'll soon be mine.
overcast clear
Jun 20, 2015
Jun 20, 2015 at 4:02 AM UTC
—and not simply by the fact that this shading of
forest cannot show the fragrance of balsam,
the gloom of cypresses,
is what I wish to prove.
When you and I were first in love we drove
to the borders of Connacht
and entered a wood there.
Look down you said: this was once a famine road.
I looked down at ivy and the scutch grass
rough-cast stone had
disappeared into as you told me
in the second winter of their ordeal, in
1847, when the crop had failed twice,
Relief Committees gave
the starving Irish such roads to build.
Where they died, there the road ended
and ends still and when I take down
the map of this island, it is never so
I can say here is
the masterful, the apt rendering of
the spherical as flat, nor
an ingenious design which persuades a curve
into a plane,
but to tell myself again that
the line which says woodland and cries hunger
and gives out among sweet pine and cypress,
and finds no horizon
will not be there.
9.2k
I am like a firefly in a jar
Never feel that I am getting far
My light burning out, flickering
My screams turn to shouts, slowly, bickering.
I am like a firefly with heavy wings
Around my eyes lay dark rings
I can't lift off, my light is fading
My skin will forever be your shading.
I am stuck in a jar, gravity killing any chances of flight
And lately I have noticed that I never get things right
I am destructive to myself and to you
A deadbeat firefly with nothing to do.
I set up this jar with my own mind
You look for me but will never find
I'm sorry I don't fly for you
I want you to know that this love is true
But you deserve better than a firefly stuck in a jar.
I thought you had mended my wings
But now I see the broken things
No one can change
I don't want to lose you
and everything you do
but you deserve better than this firefly stuck in a jar.
It's not that you aren't good enough
It's that my cracked skin is too tough
Like a second firefly stuck in the same jar
I hold you back when you can go far.
I want you to know that you are the best thing that has happened
But my light will always be blackened
Nothing unjust has given me this
My thoughts lead me spiralling into an abyss
It's not fair that you have to look after this firefly stuck in a jar
After all, I am not going far
You don't have to be stuck with this firefly in a jar.
Aug 15, 2012
Aug 15, 2012 at 2:21 AM UTC
Lucid dreaming is the doorway
to the unconscious.
So dream.
Do not stay closed
behind cement barricades
blocking the moon
from shining.
Live.
Each second is for you.
The tumbling of life
does not promise
anything.
In one breath
you can have
a time table
handed to you.
A distinct framework
of how much
longer you shall be.
Stay in illusion.
Keep in mind
that very little
is worthy of
being screamed about.
Politics
and
people games
are not
the substance
of existing.
Picture colourful images
that flutter
playfully
across the
mental horizon.
A traffic light
will
blink
red, yellow, green.
A noise
will dominate
the shading sky.
These mean nothing.
Moments of distraction
soon
gone away.
Focus on fantasy.
Allow yourself
the freedom to
celebrate
the essence
of harmony.
When you die,
it will be
your dreams
that are
remembered.
Breathe.
It's just
a bad day,
not a bad life.
May 16, 2016
May 16, 2016 at 11:21 AM UTC
~
*She stands on the roof of the world, a ship in a bottle. She likes to wave at passing boats, inviting 120 volts to raise their sails.
Words unbosomed -- her attempt of blotting out the sun and those bloodletting habits.
Her eyelids say, "Only the disquieting muses have time for me." So she writes like an umbrella, shading reality; remembering pluck and luck stories about bumblebees, lovingly wrapped in Tiffany-blue ribbon and paper.
Father used to solve her every contemplation. Now indecisiveness in what she asks. Now indecisiveness in arbitrary tasks.
And she and her negative capability are the last two awake at a slumber party, giving commonplace words the allure of secrecy.
You see, she is only harmless when she sleeps.*
~
Dec 9, 2023
Dec 9, 2023 at 7:49 PM UTC
He walks through a wood once every month
He takes the same route near The Wishing Pond
He meets with the Collector in a secluded building
Who never fails to purchase every new painting
The man was an artist, the Collector was a fan
His works and his reputation was known throughout the land
The Artist had it all: a nice house, a loving wife,
friends in every town and city, and wealth to last his life
Every month, another painting
Every month, the Collector's money
His life was set, his life was perfect
All he needed as an artist was a self portrait
So this next month's painting would be special
For when he would pass, this will be his memorial
He started on an early morning, standing in front of a mirror
With skill and patience, shading and texture, the first sketch was done
The painting process took a few days
Without sleep or food, for hours in his room he stayed
Near the end of the month, the portrait finally done
Proud and exhausted, the artist exclaimed, "This is a special one."
The next day, he readied his portrait to take
To the Collector, who was expecting to be amazed
With a glance at the picture before he could leave
He noticed many flaws and said, "I want a perfect me"
He sent a letter explaining the delay
To the Collector, disappointed, he lessened the pay
For days, the Artist fixed each flaw
The big ears, the small nose, the feminine jaw
Every day he found a new imperfection
But after months and months of fixing, he achieved satisfaction
He took his self portrait on his once monthly walk
To the Collector's house, pass The Wishing Pond
He tripped on a rock, dropping his portrait
Falling into the pond, his art was ruined
The canvas had sunk, the water grew murky
The paint spread around and clouded before him
The cloudy colors swirled in the water's waves
The Artist, distraught, sat in heartache
A figure rose from the water, the colors had faded
He recognized it immediately as the perfection he painted
His portrait was alive for to not be was imperfect
His creation looked back at him and exclaimed, "I am The Artist"
Throughout the years, the portrait had adopted The Artist's life
With perfect skills, perfect fame, and even the love of his wife
The Collector, impressed by its own work, gave it double the pay
He also terminated his contract, he and the Artist had made
The Artist was left with nothing
His life stolen by his painting
Embodied perfection had taken it all
Living wishful thinking, alive from The Pond
He tasked, and pushed, and berated himself to achieve perfection
He succeeded, but lost everything to his perfect version.
Feb 28, 2011
Feb 28, 2011 at 10:46 PM UTC
Of serene eyes that follow gently
the illicit pill she could not let go
it was heavy as the waters pulling her inside
serenading her with an estranged voice
coming from within —
her minimizing the desire to let it out
as the sun quiets down
and the gibbous moon exhibiting itself at night,
resisting the waves occurring —
as if it loathed her whole being
of her justness and the absence of these causes
her grieving and the sirens waltzing,
talking through an absentminded eye
eyeing her soul
finding love that seizes it
but hers were two feet and one mouth to breathe in
even in all shades of blue,
she can get a glimpse of the dark hue
illuminating the downside of the ocean
pulling her, wrecking her soul.
Redemption does not lie —
humoring her with plainly just truth
craving for the applause of the moon
only observing the depth of the ocean
eating the once alive soul
of her saving her last breath,
chiming in with the conversation, she
once had with him.
It could have been nice the resistance
he once had — to throw himself out
to the beauty of his light that shed
her whole body
he once was able to have
and he stayed there, eyed her the whole time
being eaten on the lonesome of the night
for he himself, shading all the blueness
like a requiem for the dreams
she kept on having
like a composition giving life
to new generations, he was still on
a token and a curse, and he let her be —
in all shades of blue.
Jul 11, 2022
Jul 11, 2022 at 5:21 AM UTC
My dad was the greatest of men
I wish I would of gotten more time with him
Time has sure done it's shading
I hate to say his face is fading
His voice has long ago slipped from my memory
The sadness of that is sheer agony
I miss you as much today
As that sorrowful day you where taken away
You left this world way to soon
I still remeber that hospital waiting room
I was to late, death had already greeted you
I was only fourteen I didn't know what to do
I stood there crying in my sisters arms
I knew I would forever miss your fatherly charms
As I stood beside your open coffin
Tears spilling onto my dress, I felt like an orphan
Knowing I would never again see you smiling face
Your death was so hard to embrace
It was a gray rainy day you where placed in the ground
Setting under the cemetery tent no comfort to be found
Thinking even the angels on high
Could do no more than cry
You had been my hero, I was a daddy's girl
And my life from this point would do nothing but unfurl
I was, and still am so lost without your presence
I missed you at so many of my lifes great events
At all of my children's births
I thought of you first
And how you would of beamed with pride
At the thought I just cried
But as my memory, with time harshly shades
My love for you will never fade
I carry you forever in my heart
Like I was in yours from the start
Jan 30, 2016
Jan 30, 2016 at 9:28 PM UTC
*Moon swept itching dark
Twilight, sunrises curtain
pink lids - open eyes
Crossing the shallows
trout fingerling feed at dawn
White dots steep hill path
My stride increases
a shadow skipping pebbles
lone thoughts dismissed
White dappled ginger
Ungainly long knobbed legs,
rolling - then sitting aware
Midday, pours blue heat
Standing shading their new young,
across clear pebbled flow
Smile’s triumphant glow
rests briefly on sweet green bank
Silver flash of joy
Dusk - apart painted,
eight queued paired mare and foal
Foliage lined dark black*
May 23, 2010
May 23, 2010 at 12:34 PM UTC
Draped in bridal red
Amidst widowed landscapes she stands
With her veil swaying gently in the breeze
And blossoms tinkling at her feet
Fractured light decorates her
Revealing rubies hiding in her tresses
She brings forth her veil
Shading weary scorched souls
An oasis
Amidst desolate desert sands
The forest fire rages
Against fate which brought upon us this drought
Rekindling hope
Of new birth and mercy
And rages
Until it's time for gentle showers and soothing greens
Then tired
Sleeps until the end of spring
May 29, 2017
May 29, 2017 at 5:36 AM UTC
Life is not a straight line
It curves
in chaotic
unpredictable and
Beautiful ways...
A chance encounter on the way home
A lover lost in a storm
A sunrise after a long lonely dark night
The first cold of winter
And the last dew drop in Spring.
Miracles more than mere Moments
The emotions and memories
Shading in the pattern
Giving it shape and depth
Defining something imperceptible until it is Done.
A Cosmic Mandala - Temporary Divinity
This is Life
so...
Embrace
the
Curves
Mar 21, 2015
Mar 21, 2015 at 7:24 PM UTC
Stencils and pencils
Sharpener mishaps
Doodles, scribbles
Scrambling shades
Blending sketches
Running axis points
Spherical shadows
Tinting hints and hues
Pencilled portraits
Cruel crooked eyes
The bendy nose
Philosophical muse
Artistically inspired
Shading and fading
Realistically amused
Fused within reality
Surreal tuned vices
Meet-ups and sit ups
Outlines freakily patched
Jan 6, 2016
Jan 6, 2016 at 8:23 AM UTC
I imagine I can write about
war—that god and man
have contrasted to the
continually shading
topaz of bodies being
crystallized.
stoic,
tangled planets overhead—
circling as my eyes
fill with infinity-pools.
your edges
fall off when I
look up into space to
see you without
seeing you.
Jul 3, 2017
Jul 3, 2017 at 2:52 PM UTC
I shall go away
To the brown hills, the quiet ones,
The vast, the mountainous, the rolling,
Sun-fired and drowsy!
My horse snuffs delicately
At the strange wind;
He settles to a swinging trot; his hoofs ***** the dust.
The road winds, straightens,
Slashes a marsh,
Shoulders out a bridge,
Then --
Again the hills.
Unchanged, innumerable,
Bowing huge, round backs;
Holding secret, immense converse:
In gusty voices,
Fruitful, fecund, toiling
Like yoked black oxen.
The clouds pass like great, slow thoughts
And vanish
In the intense blue.
My horse lopes; the saddle creaks and sways.
A thousand glittering spears of sun slant from on high.
The immensity, the spaces,
Are like the spaces
Between star and star.
The hills sleep.
If I put my hand on one,
I would feel the vast heave of its breath.
I would start away before it awakened
And shook the world from its shoulders.
A cicada's cry deepens the hot silence.
The hills open
To show a slope of poppies,
Ardent, noble, heroic,
A flare, a great flame of orange;
Giving sleepy, brittle scent
That stings the lungs.
A creeping wind slips through them like a ferret; they bow and dance,
answering Beauty's voice . . .
The horse whinnies. I dismount
And tie him to the grey worn fence.
I set myself against the javelins of grass and sun;
And climb the rounded breast,
That flows like a sea-wave.
The summit crackles with heat, there is no shelter, no hollow from
the flagellating glare.
I lie down and look at the sky, shading my eyes.
My body becomes strange, the sun takes it and changes it, it does not feel,
it is like the body of another.
The air blazes. The air is diamond.
Small noises move among the grass . . .
Blackly,
A hawk mounts, mounts in the inane
Seeking the star-road,
Seeking the end . . .
But there is no end.
Here, in this light, there is no end. . .
3.1k
and i never said goodbye
but i don’t know where to start, anyway
though you’ve never been more at peace
apart, we just fell apart
please, please send your guidance
and don’t answer with a question
I’m just naive
don’t forgive, just forget, forgive again
I watch the evening smoke fade into orange
and the reds into black
you’ve always been a lamp unto my feet
in a blank world
give me comatose joy
like recurring memories
well the snow is shimmering in now
slanting dark colors, shading my destiny
can we just rewind time while I watch you age backwards?
forever changing the shape of memory
again, just show me how victory’s sweet,
even in death
hey, this dirt road’s empty
littered with cans from summer nights
deliver me, make me honest, make me clean
take me home, tell me where
wait, calm me with your voice
take me back to the old willow tree
make me dizzy with laughter
push me in the creek, again
like 2008 goodbye,
give me tears of pride
soft winds are sweeping away my days
as evening fades to night
you’ve always been a empty book to me,
an empty box to fill with notes
I still feel you, like a shadow on the empty plains
you’re a gushing waterfall
that’s run dry
can we just rewind time while I watch you age backwards?
forever changing the shape of memory
again, just show me how victory’s sweet,
even in death
you never judged
never condemned, cause that’s not you
and I never asked enough,
sought what I should have…
and tomorrow is here, unknown
all these changes and time—
and it’s you on my mind
like the evening smoke fading into orange
while the reds are fading into the black
oh today is just a nightmare
chaos and uncertainty
your boardwalk isn’t the same.
as I give way to **** poor dreams
like jumping out of a plane, with no parachute
I feel like you constructed this universe,
had it in the palm of your aged, lined hand
this perfect society of infinity
I lay and watch the sky get darker
the sunset through the naked branches of our tree
the stars emerge like diamonds
I remember how you always wished on the ones that
“have the courage to stay where they are”
and I retrace our steps of old to your empty room
to the datebook you lived by
you missed your dentist’s appointment,
never made it to my senior night.
but today, just hear my call
send me your voice
guide my feet as i walk away
as i take my steps into this ever-changing
presence we call life
watch over me from above with your knowing smile
and show me how victory’s sweet
even in death
Sep 9, 2012
Sep 9, 2012 at 10:12 AM UTC
The sky start shading,
flashlight flicking it all the way,
vehicles honking all away.
I stand day,
among desolated trees.
Bulbs start glowing
Birds cease chirping
Wind still whistling
I stand still,
among desolated trees
Moths start flying in hoping
I too love them tonight.
They crave for light
that killed all last night.
I stand lone,
among desolated trees
My light starts fading as
the dawn starts gazing.
So now I stand on paved
ground turned off,
hoping you do heart me
Is all that I pray.
Jun 1, 2014
Jun 1, 2014 at 3:32 AM UTC
Black Texas dirt
With Grandfather Trees
That the sun shines through
In dust moted streaks…and
Ponds and Creeks
That
I use stones
To cross with
Big
Sometimes slippery
Gray stones…
Covered in moss… with
Bluebonnets
Sharing space with frogs
And trailing ivy
And bee hives in logs
And butterflies
That flutter by
And vie
For attention
With hungry hummingbirds
And COUNTRY Mockingbirds
That can’t DO
Car alarm…
Perhaps a summer cabin
Or even
Working farm
House
With wrap-around porch
Flanked by Four O’Clocks
Shielded by Climbing Roses
Guarded by Morning Glories
Shading two big dogs
With cold wet noses
Pressed to my face
That wake me
And shake me
Back to this reality…
Which is oh so far from
My mind’s dream place
And I’m somewhat dismayed…
But it’s still okay…
Cuz there’s
Nothing wrong with dreaming…
Nothing wrong with dreaming…
Jan 19, 2012
Jan 19, 2012 at 8:09 AM UTC
Communion of Soft Fingertips
speak, modern world
we are sketched in languages of digital bits,
parity shading certainty with probabilities of truth
giving us form and existence across distance,
distilled to series of warm, invisible numbers
frequencies divided step-wise, as Fourier found them
in noise amalgamated as information heterodyned,
left to be separated out, reordered
by advanced statistical protocols
that trace our borders with delicate, unseen fingertips
a description of new beings, relationships between them
uncertain at first in the short trails
of data they create
but there eventually - by the law of large numbers
or acts of successive approximation
we'll find them
revealed, like a pointilist painting
or seemingly random collection of string
whose elements are alone meaningless
unless we step back to see an entirety of mass
which we recognize immediately
as true love and intimacy
Dec 1, 2011
Dec 1, 2011 at 8:57 AM UTC
Gazing south as if some wise, well worn fisherman,leaning against the wroughted railed pier in all its victorian, gordy, standing, splendor.
Warmed and held by the summer sun as close as shared spoon-cuddled arms.
On thermal air, calls and laughter rise from towelled steaked plots
blinding and shading the razor sharp hungry sea-gulls eye from flakey white flesh in all its golden battered salt-shuck sharpness,
competeing on the nose with hand-held melting creamyness, as they waft and weave gently by.
Below the slatted sound , the magic hypnotic spell of lapping waves lift and tilt me on a day dream of youthful lost love.
To a day we made our sun run in all its lazyness, dimming the enviour moon in its wake and kissing still the hands on the pasty-face black towering clock
As time slipped way and was some where else.
With worn drift wood and tingleling toes you defaced the sand with a graphity the council tryed but couldn't erace.
And there it lies still, benieth the smooth pebbled shore,
kissed each day with salty tears and remembered sighs.
A fearful screaming siren pieces the soft English air, Its doppled blast, chilling, pushing, demanding its screeching way through the brain, to some others pained, tear filled day,
then fades on the breeze.
A sun blushed child frowns through pink Brighton rock lips and eyes as blue as the sea, a secert smile is shared as if in that innocence I knew that one magic day she will run on skipping painted toes and giggles sweet to etch for him in soft blank sand her love on this dreamy day beach.
So off the sea and off the pier I strole, absorbed and lost among the tripping faced crowd,into the sun dipped west and home alone.
Yet knowing you will remain forever mine, held in crystal dimonded grains, whilst around the bitter -sweet changing tides ebb and flow
down
through
the
years.
Feb 25, 2011
Feb 25, 2011 at 1:41 AM UTC
Her fingers were covered in corn.
the corn after chewing, broken
pierced, churned- it could spread as butter
thick on stale toast, if needed
"it's fine, don't you worry, we'll get you all cleaned up"
she stared indifferently
Strings dangled from her mouth, unswept
full of necessary greens ---"mhm there there, this will give
you so much energy" --- drags of breath,
half inhale half choke. nothing to look forward to,
not the next soaking glob, not the cursing woman
in the bathroom, not the spill of light to her eyes
Where are the ladles, Did you check on it? The key? Just moved, most the suitcases aren't there yet. Remember to bring the Did you check on it? pay attention. Have you seen my grand kids?
who are you?
Sunday's are for the active ones
The games down the hall are too far. Why worry with legs, if she could just adjust to the left
the world could sag into an ongoing dream- No demands, no games, no movement.
The nurses hair net had more presence than the splotch of gray against her peeling itchy scalp. Drool leaked from leather lips, dampening the collar of her two month sticky blouse. Arms curled and locked,displaying under the wax skin cranberry patches-
she never wiped them off. Always the soft murmer of
a snore, always the smell of unbrushed teeth and hampers.
"Did you touch those where don't touch me scott scott scott leave my things alone thevenin I need a stop lying I want to go scott, scott? scott. I can't remember any"
I said my name four times before she heard me, knew me
I fixed her pillow and my sister marked off the day on the calendar.
We told her about school, the marching band, each word
filled with forced enthusiasm. She bobbed her head in circles, lazily
rolling her eyes, the curtain shading the empty space. We spent 30 minutes precisely.
She was more than I realized.
I never knew she had horseback riding, violin playing days. She traveled and hiked. We could have been close. Unraveling with the mystery, I felt the lateness of my curiosity.
It was 30 minutes precisely, always.
We acted as strangers, reciting routine and wishing each other a happy day and a quiet love you
Sep 9, 2012
Sep 9, 2012 at 5:21 PM UTC