"shafts" poems
XXVII. TO ARTEMIS (22 lines)
(ll. 1-20) I sing of Artemis, whose shafts are of gold, who
cheers on the hounds, the pure maiden, shooter of stags, who
delights in archery, own sister to Apollo with the golden sword.
Over the shadowy hills and windy peaks she draws her golden bow,
rejoicing in the chase, and sends out grievous shafts. The tops
of the high mountains tremble and the tangled wood echoes
awesomely with the outcry of beasts: earthquakes and the sea also
where fishes shoal. But the goddess with a bold heart turns
every way destroying the race of wild beasts: and when she is
satisfied and has cheered her heart, this huntress who delights
in arrows slackens her supple bow and goes to the great house of
her dear brother Phoebus Apollo, to the rich land of Delphi,
there to order the lovely dance of the Muses and Graces. There
she hangs up her curved bow and her arrows, and heads and leads
the dances, gracefully arrayed, while all they utter their
heavenly voice, singing how neat-ankled Leto bare children
supreme among the immortals both in thought and in deed.
(ll. 21-22) Hail to you, children of Zeus and rich-haired Leto!
And now I will remember you and another song also.
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Dark floats out into the silence
Crashing on the banks of Prometheus's wings
Opening a velvet-silk curtain.
To a fabric of shadowed stars
Cloudy fingers sew it clean
While invisible hands stitch pearls back in.
A ghost flits on the hallway stair
Reaching for the last shafts of sun
Tumbling off a silent dream
Blind as black with a lullaby hum
Filling the gaps in an empty line
Somewhere between dusk and dawn.
Feb 17, 2014
Feb 17, 2014 at 1:36 AM UTC
Blueberry bluebells
sing, imperceptibly
sighing
against a backdrop of
quiet cerulean.
You know
it is Spring when
their hazy grasses
sprout beautifully
thick in the blades
between the primrose,
and when the sun
infuses shafts
of bronze to the lilac
through the giant
ash's baby
leaves.
Apr 16, 2014
Apr 16, 2014 at 2:57 PM UTC
All winter the fire devoured everything --
tear-stained elegies, old letters, diaries, dead flowers.
When April finally arrived,
I opened the woodstove one last time
and shoveled the remains of those long cold nights
into a bucket, ash rising
through shafts of sunlight,
as swirling in bright, angelic eddies.
I shoveled out the charred end of an oak log,
black and pointed like a pencil;
half-burnt pages
sacrificed
in the making of poems;
old, square handmade nails
liberated from weathered planks
split for kindling.
I buried my hands in the bucket,
found the nails, lifted them,
the phoenix of my right hand
shielded with soot and tar,
my left hand shrouded in soft white ash --
nails in both fists like forged lightning.
I smeared black lines on my face,
drew crosses on my chest with the nails,
raised my arms and stomped my feet,
dancing in honor of spring
and rebirth, dancing
in honor of winter and death.
I hauled the heavy bucket to the garden,
spread ashes over the ground,
asked the earth to be good.
I gave the earth everything
that pulled me through the lonely winter --
oak trees, barns, poems.
I picked up my shovel
and turned hard, gray dirt,
the blade splitting winter
from spring. With *** and rake,
I cultivated soil,
tilling row after row,
the earth now loose and black.
Tearing seed packets with my teeth,
I sowed spinach with my right hand,
planted petunias with my left.
Lifting clumps of dirt,
I crumbled them in my fists,
loving each dark letter that fell from my fingers.
And when I carried my empty bucket to the lake for water,
a few last ashes rose into spring-morning air,
ash drifting over fields
dew-covered
and lightly dusted green.
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Along the sea floor
The choral beds your
Topology of dreams, sure
As any submarine lore
Between the blades of sun rays
An octopus parades
Happy in the shafts of light
It is not wrong or right to be an octopus tonight.
Aug 10, 2012
Aug 10, 2012 at 3:34 AM UTC
*stacking the arrows in piles
a triangle of fuego
furnaces blaze fire
infinite reminders
of the morning after
shafts of light
drift from window panes
remake our names in
god’s slumbering veins
from here to there a whisper
or was it a word
fellow companions
have you heard
the threadbare sisters
took their turns
climbing mountains in order
that we could learn
the ways
of green hearted sun-scrapers
sweet little dangers
fellow death chasers
full of music
givers of blooming veils
bouquets of snow and hail
almond shaped eyes
resplendent thighs
and a mind as pure as a lake
during an alaskan winter
in the frozen splinter
trees are taken from their roots
the women are bleeding
weaving you the meat and the story
outsiders are cast from clay into statues
with feminine bodies
curving like cotton candy
i choose to impress you
repeat the compliments
that land on empty stomachs
string together words
like a rosary of sweet nothings
simple deeds give thrilling feats
a chance to restore their honor
purity is unwashed in ***** soil
as i am cut from the cloth of the earth
our shirts are pressed at birth
white light forming fellowship
dimples in the cheeks of the mother
the earth’s bones torn out from under
the way we made ourselves invisible
the minute we realized our accents were noticeable
our actions were abominable
how could we ever repay
the generosity we were treated to
our ultimate needs are met by poetry
upon a ridge a silent figure wept
and held his head upon a bed of cement*
Jul 14, 2017
Jul 14, 2017 at 2:17 AM UTC
'Neath canopy of paradise
Super troupers' shafts of light
Illuminate his terpsichore;
***** he struts, the impresario
Gyrating on spindle shanks;
Needle thin and knock-kneed
He dances a samba
On stage of verdure;
Midst Elvis blue-black thrusts,
Steel rimmed amber orbs
Seek admiring and desirous glances
From the dour drab hen,
Mousy in her beige twin set
And mottled tweed skirt;
With nonchalant disinterest she exits
The arena; audition over.
Jun 24, 2010
Jun 24, 2010 at 11:40 AM UTC
My father worked with a horse-plough,
His shoulders globed like a full sail strung
Between the shafts and the furrow.
The horse strained at his clicking tongue.
An expert. He would set the wing
And fit the bright steel-pointed sock.
The sod rolled over without breaking.
At the headrig, with a single pluck
Of reins, the sweating team turned round
And back into the land. His eye
Narrowed and angled at the ground,
Mapping the furrow exactly.
I stumbled in his hob-nailed wake,
Fell sometimes on the polished sod;
Sometimes he rode me on his back
Dipping and rising to his plod.
I wanted to grow up and plough,
To close one eye, stiffen my arm.
All I ever did was follow
In his broad shadow round the farm.
I was a nuisance, tripping, falling,
Yapping always. But today
It is my father who keeps stumbling
Behind me, and will not go away.
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When first I saw you,
you were lying on a green bank laughing at the sky
as you watched the clouds scud by
and you saw all kinds of shapes in those clouds
and gasped in awe as the myriad of birds
soared and wheeled through the clouds.
Your laugh skipped across the distance between us
like magical notes from a faery harp.
The sunlight lit up your golden hair
making diamonds out of the shafts of sunlight
as you turned your head to and fro
making the sunbeams dance to your tune.
And about your head was a halo of white lilies …
When next I saw you
you were hand in hand with your love
walking into the sunlight from the grey stone church.
Your brocade of white entwined with golden thread
sparkled like a million gems.
Your face was bright and alive with smiling eyes
and your golden hair fell down around your face
catching the sunbeams.
And ringing out their joy, the church bells pealed for you.
And in your hand was a bouquet of white lilies …
I saw you again
on that same green bank laughing with joy
as your golden child frolicked in the warm summer sun,
her childish laugh mingling with your own in angelic harmony.
You grasped her up and, wheeling her skyward,
faces upturned, letting the sunbeams play around you
and then, holding her close, you sank to your knees
cradling the babe, letting the love flow out and around you both.
And in the child’s small hand was grasped a single white lily …
The next time I saw you
you were quietly sitting in the late summer sun
comfortable in your chair watching the golden sun flame red
as it sank below the distant horizon.
Your golden hair now not so vibrant
and your face etched with the many years of your long life
yet when you smiled at the glory of the setting sun, the sparkle of your eyes
was not dimmed at all.
And around your feet grew a field of white lilies …
The last time I saw you
I gave you my hand and, with fingers entwined,
we walked away from the sombre crowd whose tears flowed like pearls
as the stark white coffin was lowered into the ground.
And looking into your face I saw you again
as you were that first time,
your golden hair that fell as rivulets
around your now pale, sad face.
I took that face in my hands and gently kissed your lips,
no more than a whisper, like a gentle spring breeze teasing the blossoms.
Still hand in hand, we looked back at the sad scene and then turned and walked into the light.
And all about your grave lay white lilies.
Sep 10, 2012
Sep 10, 2012 at 5:12 PM UTC
Love to his singer held a glistening leaf,
And said: ‘The rose-tree and the apple-tree
Have fruits to vaunt or flowers to lure the bee;
And golden shafts are in the feathered sheaf
Of the great harvest-marshal, the year’s chief,
Victorious Summer; aye, and ’neath warm sea
Strange secret grasses lurk inviolably
Between the filtering channels of sunk reef.
All are my blooms; and all sweet blooms of love
To thee I gave while Spring and Summer sang;
But Autumn stops to listen, with some pang
From those worse things the wind is moaning of.
Only this laurel dreads no winter days:
Take my last gift; thy heart hath sung my praise.’
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The sprouting buttercup
dangles into the purpled,
doting sky. It's waxy spangles
nuzzle the moist,
crisply dewed, fluff
whilst billowing across merry air.
The yellow buttercup
dozes in spiced, lean dapples,
setting its soul ablaze in sumptuous echoes at the sheer
drape of dawn.
The teacup buttercup
outspreads it's wings
amongst tall spiked grasses
and wild flowers.
Shifting shafts and shards
of grass and glass
and forever awaiting the larks cry
which means its time to die.
May 19, 2014
May 19, 2014 at 7:24 AM UTC
1.
There was the tremor of leaves,
a rustle of bayonet grass
parried the multihued calm
of dawn's smeared light.
"This is what we trained for," the captain said.
We hunkered behind stacked bags of sand.
2.
Filigreed shafts of light pierce
the bullet perforated leaf canopy,
bellowed yells punctuate the swirl
and buffet of turbulent air:
“Contact”, “2 O’Clock”, “Incoming”, “
"Moving”, “Reloading”, “Ammo”.
3.
Fingers twitch, the grit of soil
twisted through their grip;
moon slashed carcasses glint, spent shells,
Earth exhales a vermillion mist,
rising, echoless, in this cathedral of leaves.
Sep 28, 2018
Sep 28, 2018 at 1:19 AM UTC
Something rattles in the soul.
It must be paid attention -
it is the soul, the only sure thing -
and rattled in return.
Slow begins the dance of tongues and hard news.
I learn a thing I never wished to learn.
Afterwards,
a dance of tongues in the ensuite
begins a sudden rapture of claiming.
Nails mine, skin mine
to make a pink impression on.
Bile in the back of the throat, mine.
Fear of death, mine. Oaths and oaths,
mine, too. An exchange of humility,
knee for a knee. The rigid wall at your back.
The wall at your back.
The night which enriches
bluer out of the blue air,
not the action of
the world moving at all.
The particles of water in a birdbath divide,
decide among themselves
to marry each to each, to reproduce.
They become an ocean.
They drown the birds.
My mouth fills with feathers,
teeth itch with the tiny mites
running between the shafts.
I am a bell, and you are a country.
I am a bell and sound from far away.
Hands touch the broken vase in her parts, the toes,
the eyelash, the sunken wreck, the crowd of dead,
the treasure.
They say
all this
as if the map was drawn
and burned
and came again
in char from the tablecloth
to all our wonder.
A single miracle can last for weeks in the mouth. Sometimes centuries.
I will spend eighteen days in the void of grace.
What begins as a pain in my shoulders
will grow into a tree and bury me.
I will want promises, promises, promises.
(water, water, water)
I will never be satisfied.
Looking always for permanent loss it becomes easy to simply
misplace.
Your caution leads to strange decisions.
You put your keys in the fridge.
I would like to say I knew the words:
I cut the lock of hair, I drew the blood.
The hex was removed by faith and chaste reflection
but everywhere I look, there is a confusion
of hungry birds and beggars
and I forget the spell,
or what chaste reflection even is.
Anyways, something breaks. Not my doing.
Suddenly, I am just noticing sky again.
I am transcribed back into English.
My first decision is to wash my car,
and next,
to learn what faith meant to anyone.
Charmed, is it?
Something rattles in the soul.
It must be paid attention -
it is the soul, the only sure thing -
and rattled in return.
It has nothing, really, to say.
It only rattles.
May 10, 2018
May 10, 2018 at 10:24 PM UTC
Why do poets and photographers love fleeting things?
Angled shafts of sunlight piercing a mass
of clouds. A rainbow flashing from dragonfly wings.
Water drops beading like shards of glass.
The fluttering shape of a sycamore’s shade.
The sun sinking into its reflection
In a purple bay. Smoke’s shadow. The rayed
Curve of a finger reaching for perfection.
Whatever churns, bursts, rocks, flies,
Foams, flickers, roils, evades
In pigments of impermanent dyes
We try to fix before it fades
Once I mourned the endless dying
Of here and now, the present always past
Elegized each moment, sighing
Beauty is loss and can never last.
But now I think I had it wrong. In fact
(I learned this from an artist’s eye)
Fleeting beauty reappears faster than we react,
At the speed of a daydream flashing by.
All around, light coalesces into form,
Form explodes into light,
And we live lavishly inside this storm
If we can learn to see it right.
Beauty multiplies, tapering, swelling:
Reshaping, reforming, now familiar, now strange.
This gaudy blur in which we’re dwelling
Is the permanence of change.
Jul 26, 2015
Jul 26, 2015 at 8:32 AM UTC
the day is at its end
the towers and domes in the city
are a lonely sight...abandoned,
all closed.........all hushed up
the gnomes of the day are mostly gone...
beware...the gnomes of the night
have just woken and are now energized...
raring to prowl the dark halls and corridors
out to the unlit alleys, backstreets and corners
cloaked by towering shadows
all set to play havoc to unknowing passers-by...
in the dark where all restraints are set free
where unconquered demons
take center stage...
in the dark,
where the dead gets to live again...
in the dark, where anything goes, unnoticed...
in the shadows, where
the dark sky is the limit....
until the first shafts of light come in...
when once again, all secrets
seek refuge in their hiding places
---------the dark takes a rest---------
---------as a new day unfolds--------
Sally
Copyright 2013
Rosalia Rosario A. Bayan
Oct 17, 2013
Oct 17, 2013 at 9:43 PM UTC
Sliding fingers over alabaster shafts,
crevices and nooks catching at delving digits
as they seek between the ****** ***** of
remov-ed meat.
For before the bones the meat.
And before the meat the scalpel,
Running liquid through the tendrils
with its clever carv-ed lines in the
succulent,
decadent
dead.
The gore on the board.
Seen in rivulets of scarlet,
A tracery of cuts,
Multi-layered and exquisite.
I taste the smell of this corpulent finery.
Hands reaching into the layers,
slick with blood
pulling at the fat.
Sleek and deadly
I ply them, my tools.
For I am the butcher
And you will eat my meat.
Feast upon my carnage,
And leave me with the bones.
And leave me with the bones.
Feb 19, 2011
Feb 19, 2011 at 1:01 PM UTC
A desiccated brown leaf remembering greener days,
summersaults stem over end into the exposed cold dirt softened somewhat in demeanor by the grass and radiant shafts
The geese and ducks squawk and honk in the distance
Congratulating each other for the day's richness
and the way the sun feels on their proud beaks
glinting off the water in its way
a shimmering band
A princely golden carpet forever unrolling and yet complete
The sun's spindle weaves gems of light into a gossamer web
laid glittering across the water
A vision for Moses
who saw the true path through the sea
Fireworks Forever exploding sunlight
Gifted to the eye on clear liquid canvas
The wind ripples the waves
wrinkles pushed along
foaming in the sand
Little Kisses
on the grainy cheek
Star Flashes Communicating ancient patterns
Secrets of Existence Coming in Morse code, Fibonacci Sequencing,
Sacred Geometry in Twinkling Motion
Individual explosions blinking on a natural switchboard
Telling the architectural answer
Manifesting the blueprint
to only every reason why
The Last Leaf sings in the Breeze, swinging
Nov 25, 2013
Nov 25, 2013 at 12:03 PM UTC
Beauties, have ye seen this toy,
Called Love, a little boy,
Almost naked, wanton, blind;
Cruel now, and then as kind?
If he be amongst ye, say?
He is Venus' runaway.
She that will but now discover
Where the winged wag doth hover,
Shall to-night receive a kiss,
How or where herself would wish:
But who brings him to his mother,
Shall have that kiss, and another.
He hath marks about him plenty:
You shall know him among twenty.
All his body is a fire,
And his breath a flame entire,
That, being shot like lightning in,
Wounds the heart, but not the skin.
At his sight, the sun hath turned,
Neptune in the waters burned;
Hell hath felt a greater heat;
Jove himself forsook his seat:
From the centre to the sky,
Are his trophies reared high.
Wings he hath, which though ye clip,
He will leap from lip to lip,
Over liver, lights, and heart,
But not stay in any part;
But if chance his arrow misses,
He will shoot himself in kisses.
He doth bear a golden bow,
And a quiver, hanging low,
Full of arrows, that outbrave
Dian's shafts; where, if he have
Any head more sharp than other,
With that first he strikes his mother.
Still the fairest are his fuel.
When his days are to be cruel,
Lovers' hearts are all his food,
And his baths their warmest blood:
Naught but wounds his hands doth season,
And he hates none like to Reason.
Trust him not; his words, though sweet,
Seldom with his heart do meet.
All his practice is deceit;
Every gift it is a bait;
Not a kiss but poison bears;
And most treason in his tears.
Idle minutes are his reign;
Then, the straggler makes his gain
By presenting maids with toys,
And would have ye think them joys:
'Tis the ambition of the elf
To have all childish as himself.
If by these ye please to know him,
Beauties, be not nice, but show him.
Though ye had a will to hide him,
Now, we hope, ye'll not abide him;
Since you hear his falser play,
And that he's Venus' runaway.
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so much depends
upon a green pencil
fitted snugly between
the blue and the yellow
upon a line drawn
across a page
where the sky
and sunburst clay meet
— as neighbours
who smile and wave
without names
or words exchanged —
upon a silence punctuated
by shafts of pine
shaved close by winding
laneways into storyteller points
Feb 23, 2022
Feb 23, 2022 at 3:37 AM UTC
Day is dying! Float, o song,
Down the westward river,
Requiem chanting to the Day,
Day, the mighty giver!
Pierced by shafts of Time he bleeds,
Melted rubies sending
Through the river and the sky,
Earth and heaven blending.
All the long-drawn earthy banks
Up to cloudland lifting:
Slow between them drifts the swan
'Twixt two heavens drifting,
Wings half open like a flower.
In by deeper flushing,
Neck and breast as virgin's pure
****** proudly blushing.
Day is dying! Float, o swan,
Down the ruby river,
Follow, song, in requiem
To the mighty Giver!
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slippery light boasts
languid limbs gestating
in mercurial puddelings
awaiting the destruction
of their tender shafts by
some pale passing
fle(she
bears its ethereal
glow on her pallor
in the second of that truculent divergence
)
May 5, 2010
May 5, 2010 at 11:45 PM UTC
C'mon! Spank me like the naughty little girl I am!
**** ME! **** ME! Stop being a man!
See this? Right here? My tight little hole?
Put it right there, baby! Homosexuality makes you whole!
Put this on your tongue, this seed of pomegranate.
Have a little fun! Let loose your granite!
Ice shavings and ice cream, my sweet little angel,
Come closer, come closer, let me study your angels,
Put your **** in my mouth. I'll **** you off.
*** in my mouth, and let yourself loft.
I'm not one for chains and whips,
But I'm more than up for shafts and tips!
*********** sliding in; so sweet;
Pound me harder with your big, strong meat.
The good'ol in-out in-out ~ The rhythm of life.
The dullness of cream ~ the glint of a knife.
Petrifying pangs of pleasure; cross a prostate ~ pouring,
Sweetly like ~honey~suckle~ Alluring
Breathe, my darling, like music, like a breeze.
Like the blood in my ears; like the wind in the trees.
In the closet, we are allowed but seven minutes.
But that is not enough! By the time its up, I won't be finished.
So for now, my darling, put your lips on my cheek.
And allow me one, little, innocent peak.
Dec 6, 2014
Dec 6, 2014 at 4:12 PM UTC
I convinced a man he could prune his own ****
That if he spliced it just so,
two little pink shafts would sprout in it's place.
Wriggle themselves growing into two separate fully functional phallus.
And I watched him.
As he reluctantly reached for the shears.
And went through the five stages of grieving.
"There's no way this will work.
**** you for telling me this secret!
can't I just take a pill to grow a second **** without having to cut this one off?
I don't think I can live without it..."
but just think, I reminded him.
after you do this.
You're gonna have TWO *****
"I'M GONNA HAVE TWO *****
TWO *****
And with almost no other thought, reasoning or belief.
He closed the shears
He opened his eyes.
His flaccid privilege laying there.
"When does the growing start?"
He asked me, pained.
His big brown eyes swelling.
"It doesn't."
"WHAT?"
"I lied to you, it doesn't grow back."
"It doesn't grow back? Not even one?
"Not one, not two,
no **** for you. I lied."
"Lied?"
"Lied."
it was easy,
to convince him.
Just had to promise he'd have two times the power in the long run.
If he risked it all right now.
Feb 11, 2017
Feb 11, 2017 at 10:41 PM UTC
When the lucent skies of morning flush with dawning rose once more,
And waves of golden glory break adown the sunrise shore,
And o'er the arch of heaven pied films of vapor float.
There's joyance and there's freedom when the fishing boats go out.
The wind is blowing freshly up from far, uncharted caves,
And sending sparkling kisses o'er the brows of ****** waves,
While routed dawn-mists shiveroh, far and fast they flee,
Pierced by the shafts of sunrise athwart the merry sea!
Behind us, fair, light-smitten hills in dappled splendor lie,
Before us the wide ocean runs to meet the limpid sky
Our hearts are full of poignant life, and care has fled afar
As sweeps the white-winged fishing fleet across the harbor bar.
[Page 35]
The sea is calling to us in a blithesome voice and free,
There's keenest rapture on its breast and boundless liberty!
Each man is master of his craft, its gleaming sails out-blown,
And far behind him on the shore a home he calls his own.
Salt is the breath of ocean slopes and fresher blows the breeze,
And swifter still each bounding keel cuts through the combing seas,
Athwart our masts the shadows of the dipping sea-gulls float,
And all the water-world's alive when the fishing boats go out.
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Over and back,
the long waves crawl
and track the sand with foam;
night darkens, and the sea
takes on that desperate tone
of dark that wives put on
when all their love is done.
Over and back,
the tangled thread falls slack,
over and up and on;
over and all is sewn;
now while I bind the end,
I wish some fiery friend
would sweep impetuously
these fingers from the loom.
My weary thoughts
play traitor to my soul,
just as the toil is over;
swift while the woof is whole,
turn now, my spirit, swift,
and tear the pattern there,
the flowers so deftly wrought,
the borders of sea blue,
the sea-blue coast of home.
The web was over-fair,
that web of pictures there,
enchantments that I thought
he had, that I had lost;
weaving his happiness
within the stitching frame,
weaving his fire and frame,
I thought my work was done,
I prayed that only one
of those that I had spurned
might stoop and conquer this
long waiting with a kiss.
But each time that I see
my work so beautifully
inwoven and would keep
the picture and the whole,
Athene steels my soul.
Slanting across my brain,
I see as shafts of rain
his chariot and his shafts,
I see the arrows fall,
I see the lord who moves
like Hector lord of love,
I see him matched with fair
bright rivals, and I see
those lesser rivals flee.
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