"shadowless" poems
I
Go on, high ship, since now, upon the shore,
The snake has left its skin upon the floor.
Key West sank downward under massive clouds
And silvers and greens spread over the sea. The moon
Is at the mast-head and the past is dead.
Her mind will never speak to me again.
I am free. High above the mast the moon
Rides clear of her mind and the waves make a refrain
Of this: that the snake has shed its skin upon
The floor. Go on through the darkness. The waves. fly back
II
Her mind had bound me round. The palms were hot
As if I lived in ashen ground, as if
The leaves in which the wind kept up its sound
From my North of cold whistled in a sepulchral South,
Her South of pine and coral and coraline sea,
Her home, not mine, in the ever-freshened Keys,
Her days, her oceanic nights, calling
For music, for whisperings from the reefs.
How content I shall be in the North to which I sail
And to feel sure and to forget the bleaching sand ...
III
I hated the weathery yawl from which the pools
Disclosed the sea floor and the wilderness
Of waving weeds. I hated the vivid blooms
Curled over the shadowless hut, the rust and bones,
The trees likes bones and the leaves half sand, half sun.
To stand here on the deck in the dark and say
Farewell and to know that that land is forever gone
And that she will not follow in any word
Or look, nor ever again in thought, except
That I loved her once ... Farewell. Go on, high ship.
IV
My North is leafless and lies in a wintry slime
Both of men and clouds, a slime of men in crowds.
The men are moving as the water moves,
This darkened water cloven by sullen swells
Against your sides, then shoving and slithering,
The darkness shattered, turbulent with foam.
To be free again, to return to the violent mind
That is their mind, these men, and that will bind
Me round, carry me, misty deck, carry me
To the cold, go on, high ship, go on, plunge on.
5k
I love too much; I am a river
Surging with spring that seeks the sea,
I am too generous a giver,
Love will not stoop to drink of me.
His feet will turn to desert places
Shadowless, reft of rain and dew,
Where stars stare down with sharpened faces
From heavens pitilessly blue.
And there at midnight sick with faring,
He will stoop down in his desire
To slake the thirst grown past all bearing
In stagnant water keen as fire.
2.6k
SANG Solomon to Sheba,
And kissed her dusky face,
"All day long from mid-day
We have talked in the one place,
All day long from shadowless noon
We have gone round and round
In the narrow theme of love
Like a old horse in a pound.-
To Solomon sang Sheba,
Plated on his knees,
"If you had broached a matter
That might the learned please,
You had before the sun had thrown
Our shadows on the ground
Discovered that my thoughts, not it,
Are but a narrow pound.'
Said Solomon to Sheba,
And kissed her Arab eyes,
"There's not a man or woman
Born under the skies
Dare match in learning with us two,
And all day long we have found
There's not a thing but love can make
The world a narrow pound.'
2.6k
My grandmother likes salami, God, and bougainvilleas
I like to think she likes tenuous pink things-
but then there’s the salami.
One day she taught her daughters to string neck-
laces from bougainvillea petals
like-ponies-in-a-junkyard
I think I chewed too much bubblegum in mass
because I picture God pink
an ethereal globe of a poppable pale pink.
And for some reason, I like to think Brother
Charles saw that too
I bet my lungs are somewhat pink:
more pink than my berry red blood
but less pink, sweet and/or hairy
than a cotton candy poodle.
I forget if they were strawberries or rasp-
berries too
There are things that are pink
but then there are things that are pink
and shadowless.
Like subterranean lungs,
God, the future, and
the smell of flamingos in the dark
The future is still pink and
somewhat fruity
like a lukewarm strawberry milkshake blushing,
or was it maybe just the taste
of my pepto-bismol stained lips.
One of those ponies was my mom
Mar 29, 2016
Mar 29, 2016 at 3:02 PM UTC
The door was shut. I looked between
Its iron bars; and saw it lie,
My garden, mine, beneath the sky,
Pied with all flowers bedewed and green:
From bough to bough the song-birds crossed,
From flower to flower the moths and bees;
With all its nests and stately trees
It had been mine, and it was lost.
A shadowless spirit kept the gate,
Blank and unchanging like the grave.
I peering through said: "Let me have
Some buds to cheer my outcast state."
He answered not. "Or give me, then,
But one small twig from shrub or tree;
And bid my home remember me
Until I come to it again."
The spirit was silent; but he took
Mortar and stone to build a wall;
He left no loophole great or small
Through which my straining eyes might look:
So now I sit here quite alone
Blinded with tears; nor grieve for that,
For naught is left worth looking at
Since my delightful land is gone.
A violet bed is budding near,
Wherein a lark has made her nest:
And good they are, but not the best;
And dear they are, but not so dear.
2.3k
riding the shadowless night
in search of his darkest day
more or less there's Hell to pay
and this is the way of The Wanderer
rocky is the path of mossless stones
and where it leads is less than known
nevertheless 'tis where he roams
and this is the way of The Wanderer
much pity there should not be
as he has visited much pain upon others
passing like a wraith through their friendly hearts
leaving nothing real or true in his wake
nothing could be so bold as a lost soul
unafraid of what is unknown
afoot the rocky path of mossless stones
all alone
and this is the way of i
i am The Wanderer
May 22, 2015
May 22, 2015 at 8:04 PM UTC
drowned the Earth suddenly.
underneath honest light,
all
submerged. this cataract of feeling —
waters pursue beginnings. cradling them
to unknown ends, washed by the shore.
gluttonously the night swallowed
all — parliament of birds warble no longer.
midnight, the Moon
claws the supple skin of organized stone
displaced
where all the edges bloom
forth torrid froth of dappled light which kills no less than a brief life of matchflame. tenuous spar of wind on
the unserious twilight; bulge of death
in the stream — a body haul, rafting
in compost; stench of all topple like
resins held loose in vats. rat **** becomes
as inviting as moulding bread;
tantric music for no instrument, hoarse
cries unbeheld —
until the flesh no longer flounders
pressed against sleep-shaped youngness
hewn lissome in the hours of no succor,
modeling silence in the thrill of
this enthusiastic space,
hands scouring muddied
obscure, atremble,
shadowless hours fill stomachs with
the plump word of rescue yet none
of these fingers unwished the
ingenuity of dull gods — this twilight
nor twinight could ever grive
in forethought, striking bells to signal birds
to arrive again so we could feast
in silver fish, with bare hands scaled to callouses,
looking at it twice-over, this battered yolk
of whiteness, with deeds of the viridian
now atrill in new fragile woodworks
lurching and
ameliorating as we all
stutter and sing
haunts dabbing open
lips of small wounds that
wish to shut quietly, almost
every threat of gray or pummel of
wind startles the flyblown ornate,
hurrying us back to cornerless homes
where all photographs washed away,
very few hang
swayed by verdure
of the gradual throne of sea
curving perpetually the several stars
we have ignored for a while,
where everything quite begins
again to enthrall with a melodic
leitmotif of the most tender of
instances loose
in mouths
and in endless recall
breathless—
Nov 8, 2015
Nov 8, 2015 at 7:55 AM UTC
And I answered:
To see and touch all that I forgot,
To remember the delta where
Immense waters rushed to
My memory's melodic forms.
To remember that ***** that
Broke my heart,
How I loved her,
Look at all the poems
I wrote for her!
To feel the livid wounds
Of everyone fester about
Like domesticated bipeds,
Watch them grow entangled
Beneath a shivering sun.
To read the crazy beautiful
Of other people's thoughts
And get in their heads without
Psychological babblings
And manipulation.
To watch the shadowless sun
Create a phantom city
In the concrete swarms,
To stretch every sense
Into the living moment.
To catch myself from splitting,
Or perhaps to split from myself
And call me crazy,
Laugh it off and cry
When I read it again.
To embody what I miss
With these fucken cell phones
And internet opinions
With elongated voices
Lonely, their kind of
Misery loves company after all.
Why the poem?
Ask yourself,
What else is there??
Mar 14, 2016
Mar 14, 2016 at 11:02 PM UTC
Let the diminished light of winter
creep through the slats of the window blind.
Let it climb rung by rung
until hunger shakes off excessive sleep.
Let early morning frosts shock
the candelabra of the blackened fig
shivering in half-light.
Let it go naked.
Let the woodpecker cling to a sham tree,
tap-tapping his message in code.
Let him take to the air, cackling
at his own folly.
Let the shadowless snake coil
in venomous dreams,
as curled roots slumber
under the rain-soaked earth.
Let winter declare its secret cargo!
Let it be spring!
when the candles of the fig burst into leaf-flame,
when the speckled woodpecker discovers a thick forest,
and the green-gold snake trails the length of her belly through long grasses.
Let our passions rise like sun on the window blinds,
when the lightness of spring is upon us.
Jul 7, 2014
Jul 7, 2014 at 9:31 AM UTC
The darkness of night it beckons me, it taunts me in my
dreams with memories of yesterday, and thoughts
of what could have been.
The darkness of night it beckons me, around
shadowless corners it lurks. The eyes of it they
watch me they track my every move.
The darkness of night it beckons me, to follow moonlit
shadows tonight, to the tomb of the blood stained
vampire of love into the darkest time of night.
The darkness of night it beckons me, to watch as the
warm red syrup flows, as a rippled river of life
along lost roads of old.
The darkness of night it beckons me, as vampires
gather to drink. Sustenance of life is what they seek
from the river that flows tonight.
The darkness of night it beckons me, to watch as the
stories of old unite, to begin the rituals of strength and
power as their fantasies take flight.
Dec 8, 2009
Dec 8, 2009 at 8:36 AM UTC
As i climbed the shadowless mountain
her voice still ringing in my ears,
that laugh, a child's laugh, with eyes of a demon
with claws that rip and tear
the mountain was tall
its rock face steep
i slipped many times
my hands cracked and bleeding
i forced myself further up
on wards toward the sky
what is this great mountain that i climb?
i ask myself, why lust?
why do i torture myself, with her memory.
Her haunting demands,
her unquenchable taste for desire
its a fools journey
love(lust) never lasts
love (lust) will leave you broken
yet we return to love(lust)
like an old faithful dog
until i reach the top of the great mountain of love(lust)
ill keep searching
bandaging my wounds
along my path of life
Feb 19, 2010
Feb 19, 2010 at 12:02 PM UTC
Glory in music.
Shadowless light
Slicing through purposeless night.
Weak thing, and nothing,
Vapor of sound,
Dashing doubt's heights to the ground.
Glory in people.
Images worn
Mirrors of heaven when born.
Falling as flowers,
Brief joys to give,
Dying to rejuvine love.
Glory in story.
Star-points of grace
Spreading through temporal space.
Clouded as sapphire
Black-streaked with pain,
Flashing out mercy again.
Hear now the glory?
Singing sublime
Flowing through gods in their time?
Now legions drown it;
Soon all will ring:
Blazing acoustic of transfigured things.
Sep 30, 2011
Sep 30, 2011 at 1:24 PM UTC
Oh, for what was I a boy, so long ago,
Dancing freely amongst the tall tree tops.
Greedily breathing the morning dew's glow,
Mind settling down, vast daydreaming flops.
Gazing eyes upon sweets and fruits of bliss,
Sorrow has it's days and merriment be.
As bitterness eye followed for a kiss,
Delivered confusion under my tree.
Curious rovers bellow sounds of bleak,
Hell fellows chamfer happiness askew.
Mind's eye worrying a shadowless shriek,
Running humming my innocence aflew.
Events that played out like song of sorrow,
Gift to thine eye and forgotten tomorrow.
Sep 17, 2018
Sep 17, 2018 at 6:32 PM UTC
Every question pontificated upon deaf ears, ear marked in outer space drifting aimlessly to distant stars, where shadows reign in open hearts that betray our silence in milliseconds
Basic recourse, every letter of every word inscribed in memories of dreams of some joey loves dawson fantasy. the unrequited notation that every syllable betrays my own self-confidence, my duality of existence to live but not to have lived
and so it goes that every question comes with hours upon days of internal self dialogue, over analysis of every gesture, every word, hidden meanings and double speak, that I have to find such betrayal in something as little as a Solemn smile, but the question remains what does it all mean?
Short of action, long of thought, mindless wandering of distant dreams, that one day I may find, Answers, to every question that such expanded diatribes may ease the pain, and mend the wounds, so that my own existentialist facade may crack and wither to dust in the sands of time, to once and for all I may just be another speck of sand wandering aimlessly between the stars, in a shadowless beauty that is my misery, so that every question comes to conclusion with easy, understandable answers
Nov 23, 2013
Nov 23, 2013 at 5:39 PM UTC
Windowless, shadowless, fluorescent a room and schoolyard scent. A lecture on earth's composure rumbled on as thunder sounded when I need not know where my toes were. Terrestrial topography in the row marked 2 or 3. The hierarchy of "figured out" and inane diplomacy, but I was feeling fine. I was sitting alone and still and looking at the morning faces. I left spaces left and right so I could swallow my mind and wrap up tight in the vacuum allowed. The collided waveforms hit my selective ears. I'll see you next week. I'll see you next week. My knees are weak and I'm writing the words I don't know how to speak and writing the rhythm, the subject I so often treat poorly, write off as a cliche archetype made for the gullible, penned by the phony. Yet I can't wait. A nervous anxious wonder I can't shake, like a beautiful sun gliding over a closing wake with the wind on its back and a ship to take.
Feb 4, 2016
Feb 4, 2016 at 7:18 PM UTC
The season matters not
When you are out under a beautiful nights sky;
No moonlight to take away the darkness
The stars shining sharp and bright.
Seek my presence upon the lightest breeze.
For I am standing out under the same sky
Gazing upon the same beautiful stars.
I reach out with all the love in my heart
Hoping you will know I am here.
Wanting you to feel me close to your being.
Imagine the breeze touching your cheek
Is me, my fingers ever so lightly,
Sensuously, caressing you as it goes by.
The faintest aroma to softly spark memory.
A whisper in your ear so quiet,
None but you may hear.
For you are as out of reach to me as are the stars.
I stand under the sky and stretch out my arms
To those lights I cannot touch
And to you whom I cannot wrap them around.
So if a mist dampens your hair
It is from the tears I shed in my loneliness;
The longing I have carrying them to you.
For it seems that no matter my true feelings.
Nor the strength of my love.
I will be forced to walk a shadowless night
Of heart breaking sadness.
Dan Gray
2006
Apr 2, 2013
Apr 2, 2013 at 8:35 AM UTC
I give the kiss of death
to a fuming roll of paper,
puffing out the siphoned life,
shaping gossamers of ourselves
in the air. But the wind,
it messes us up.
The only artist it knows is itself.
It's magnum opus is the perpetual
molding of cumuli of ephemeral and temporal.
Once more, I **** a breath of solace,
and release a hint of relief.
I cast my oneiric world:
soundless, so my fears and worries will remain unspoken;
shadowless, so my courage and love won't remain hidden.
We take form once more,
but again displaced.
But the smoke will not roam across space.
It will drift to me, to choke these reveries,
and banish them through violent coughs.
Our togetherness is nothing more
than an ethereal form.
The wind, after all,
gives the kiss of death.
Sep 13, 2015
Sep 13, 2015 at 11:59 AM UTC
Can you see Hyperborea's sun, shadowless
valleys where you cut word with tooth?
An unfettered wound stutters, blowing null what
timeless utterance it will.
Where does tomorrow sleep, your prospect in
stomach, cramped with fluxing zeros and ones?
As soon as you spoke your abstraction was pardoned.
Your home's abutted geography made its revolving
bally.
Dizzy you, concentric circles closing in, advising their
babe press forth.
Mythopoetically proud as hell of your circuit, a
metaphysical luminary midwifed in an etheric
manger.
Shadows mark their growth about our encampment--
G*d's peripheral nomads etching story.
Shelter bids welcome, unwelcome everywhere...its
doors blow about as the literature of distances.
Feb 2, 2015
Feb 2, 2015 at 2:39 PM UTC
eclipse of the individual -
kindly, the heavens convey with rain,
and not the sun
to prove myself a shadowless existence.
Jan 17, 2012
Jan 17, 2012 at 10:59 AM UTC
I feel as if I had wasted my life my accomplishments were few and very dry
As I stand alone in this room filled with darkness
My ability to do good as always remains spark-less
My soul feeds on empty desires and hope
When I perish from earth; will my family be able to cope?
Mourn my death till resurrection?
Turn your gaze to someone who deserves your love and affection.
Of my skin women desired my complexion
Gravity itself cuts you off
But from me to you that was never my intention
Simplicity and uncertainty is surrounding the grey clouds of my mind.
Conquering different ideas but haven't come close to arrest the gift of thought.
Constantly reminded of the Shadowless creatures I continuously fought
I give thanks to God because from his sons blood I was bought
After the sun has faded in the west
I'm suddenly touched and absorbed to ignite the flame of life
Encouraged by many to leave behind the madness and strife
Precision thinking is a must
I refuse to give up and return back into dust.
Weak I once was
Yearning the wrong I once wanted
Materialistic views I had and yes, I would flaunt them
Well, I have come this far....
I let gods word pierce both my body and soul
I'll write it on the tablets of my heart
To keep me balanced and forever hold the key to self control.
-Marco Mondragon
Nov 14, 2016
Nov 14, 2016 at 1:05 AM UTC
Amid an Upper Floor
Of the Ford Building
Was a Friends Studio, For
Commercial Photographing
A Ponderous sized Room
Complete with 12 foot ceilings
6' x 4' foot Softboxes on Stands
10' boom Stand angled is Key Lighting
All Surround a Mottled Muslin Background
1200 Watt Strobe Pack with cord like snakes
To Strobe Heads, Imbue the room with Light
Some soft shadowless, other pin sharp bright
Instantly my mind took in the Possibilities
If I should delve into this Art of Photography
So Enamored was I, to use Studio and Lights
I mopped and polished floor to a Shiny Sight
The feeling I had connecting Camera to cord
I knew that Moment I could ill Afford to
Not Pursue this Pashion as I Shot a.....
Lovely Young Model of Fashion
Accordian Like Toyo Large Format Camera
Ansel Adams treked up mountains to shoot Vistas
Have Stood the test of time, and Anals of our History
Or the Mamya's and Hassleblads Favored By Fashion
The 35mm Nikon F3, though its one I could ill afford
He used to teach Me, and Softboxes the Light Adored
It was Barely Shadowy, A Keylight with a snoot was bright
With Light and Shadow my Palette I began Photography
Of the Studio Life and the Parties at Night,
I could go on and on, Cold Pressed Coffee
Long after Sunrise, was the Ritual of the Yawns
This Tale's How I began the Art of Photography...JMF 3/2/2015
I went on for 10 years Doing Commercial and Weddings
My photo website is www.shamusmediaarts.com
Mar 2, 2015
Mar 2, 2015 at 2:32 AM UTC
The tulip phase,
The daisy haze,
Where daffodils sway
The wind is grey—
The light so white,
Shadowless May.
Aug 16, 2014
Aug 16, 2014 at 8:26 AM UTC
Race me to the hilltop
I'd love it more than anything
any little thing
any little thing
any little thing
There there'd be buried treasure
we'll find some, if you like
I'd want nothing more.
We'd spin around
looking 'round:
trees, birds, bees and whatnot;
the sun and shadows like clockwork;
any little thing we find.
When we talk, let's not ruin
the hilltop peace.
When we talk, let's talk in short words
give each other
one-letter poems
or one-poem letters.
Then we'd talk of nothing more
and only the grass underneath
moves, waves, dances and speaks
formless, shadowless,
weightless under the black canvass of stars.
Then, again we'd run.
Dec 22, 2014
Dec 22, 2014 at 1:51 AM UTC
I.
a wide open space.
empty.
except for a lone chair.
II.
a large variety of colors.
some yellow.
some blue.
all closed.
III.
the curtains
have been closed
for a while now.
it has solemnly
seen light.
IV.
it has stories
that have never
bothered to be
discovered.
V.
it is not
the stories'
fault.
VI.
the chair
has given up
on the thought
of being accepted.
VII.
the spines of
the books
are wearing away.
not as much from
being old as to
being ignored.
VIII.
there is no electricity.
the lights burned out
a while ago,
and no one bothered
to replace them.
IX.
the floor is shadowless.
it is opening,
but enclosing.
X.
the stories are
lathered
in dust.
XI.
even though
they've been
disregarded,
the paper cuts
just as bad
when it slices
your hand.
XII.
you can hear
the sound of
retreating
footsteps,
too afraid of
what lies inside
the binding.
XIII.
I am left alone.
encased
in the wood
of the bookshelves.
Sep 13, 2014
Sep 13, 2014 at 9:11 PM UTC