"sheathed" poems
in the rain-
darkness, the sunset
being sheathed i sit and
think of you
the holy
city which is your face
your little cheeks the streets
of smiles
your eyes half-
thrush
half-angel and your drowsy
lips where float flowers of kiss
and
there is the sweet shy pirouette
your hair
and then
your dancesong
soul. rarely-beloved
a single star is
uttered,and i
think
of you
149.8k
The burning flowers underline the sunset and
Dash before the fire (k)night catches them.
Ripe berries cheaply
tremble
but hopefully their vitality won't burst the pulp pulsating
beneath.
Crumbling flowers
crumb the floor
And Prisms of catching silver refract rose quartz and petal
and crimson
dust.
Bejewelled in Scarlet,
the air,
as the (k)night approaches, grows colder,
Unsure of whether he will bring
solace or strife.
In his chariot
he flies faster than the bees which buzzed around the fruit flutes
in the morning and among the trumpeting bluebells.
Stars fleck the (k)night
like freckles
and the milky ways resins stain his spouting steams lovely.
The (k)nights kind onyx reaches his crescendo and the floating moon danced drowsily through the cloud's spiralled tendrils
Which diminish as dawn
approaches
so their Tentilcles
droop to crinkled tissue paper sheathed in pink.
And so the (k)night
rides on into
The frivolous sunrise.
The lowing, glossy calves
in sage beside the ***** fields
cast a beloved ambience
As though
we are safe
in the knowledge
that the sky will remain
forever
topaz and the leaves
forever emerald.
Apr 17, 2014
Apr 17, 2014 at 4:05 AM UTC
I know you’ve heard these words before
I've said them many times before
I wish that I could use them more
To make things better like before
There was a time these words had meaning
Sheathed in heartfelt cries and feelings
But a shaman who can't heal
Is just a man and nothing more
Like worn-out, old and ***** pennies
Now diluted by the many
There's so many, many pennies
Don't care there's one on my floor
My cries of “wolf” no longer heeded
When these words are truly needed
To the darkness they've receded
Blindly searching for that door
In my chest still beats a heart
While pained regret tears it apart
Can't fix or go back to the start
And you don’t want me anymore
My anger and my finger pointing
Foolishly like I'm anointed
Not the one you are annoyed with
You were wrong; I was so sure
Attentively I listened to you
In-and-out my ears your words flew
Silenced; Gave no value to you
Truth revealed strikes at my core
Awakening I newly have
With gained awareness of how bad
I took for granted what I had
A rolling tide erodes the shore
Alone I sit and think of when
We were not lovers just good friends
Fun times together that we’d spend
And from that my heart starts to soar
Reality then brings me back
Jolts like a sudden heart attack
A deep sharp pain gives me a whack
I scream until my lungs are sore
Can't fix the memories or replace
My nightmares wake me; Teary-faced
Past filled with guilt, shame and disgrace
Start questioning what life is for
Jan 11, 2018
Jan 11, 2018 at 11:33 PM UTC
In fair Verona where Will set the scene
Belle Fortune moves the markers up and down.
Two households both alike in dignity
Fiercely compete for fear of losing ground.
When Juliet saw Romeo at the dance
Events were set in motion that, perchance,
Would see fair Juliet as our Romeo’s bride
but ultimately result in her suicide.
With Tybalt and Mercutio both dead,
And Capulet and Montague estranged.
Young Paris sought fair Juliet to wed
not knowing of her loss of maiden-head.
Romeo was banished for his crime,
a sin for which a peasant would have died
Their two households, joined because they wed,
remained divided by their foolish pride.
Summer’s fierce heat shimmered in the air,
oppressive in the absence of a breeze.
With Friar Lawrence’s help, Romeo’s girl played dead,
as if struck down by some unknown disease
Romeo , in Mantua, heard that his Juliet
Lay dead amongst the sleeping Capulets.
A draught of deadly poison he obtained
So they might sleep together once again.
When Romeo met Paris at her tomb,
Words led to swordplay, leaving Paris dead.
Would not the world have been a better place
if Romeo had kept it sheathed instead?
Unshriven, Romeo drank the poison down-
the only son of Montague now dead.
Perchance just then fair Juliet revives
Bereaved, she took his Dirk to bed instead.
Authorities, arriving at the scene,
could only mourn a brace of kinsmen lost.
Capulet and Montague were reconciled
Their amity bought at a fearful cost.
May 22, 2013
May 22, 2013 at 7:47 AM UTC
*Morpheus has never been kind to me
His somniferous ways leave me wanting
Grasping at the cusp of a reality
As evanescent as the morning mist
That greets this reluctant gaze.
He exists to these sheathed
Bourbon eyes
Within the veiled carapace
Of the only form I've ever wanted more
Than necessity and air.
His torment lies
In false reunions, in joining and parting lips
In forest eyes that linger behind in my thoughts
Like the echo of a cannon
Long after it's wrought its own havoc.
Yes, that twisted Lothario
That Grecian sandman
Exists to overcharge the soul with
Hope so poisonous
Bodies and minds are wracked with it
Inspired by it
Haunted on into the waking world
Where he waits on the periphery
Eyes narrowed in the light
Of the waking world that renders him useless.
Sep 14, 2015
Sep 14, 2015 at 9:37 AM UTC
*
*
I truly wish I could have a caged
heart at times
I've gone through so many years, listening...
To it yelling
To it screaming
To it shrieking
To it roaring
To it cursing
To it crying
To it dying
But most of all, to it lying.
All so I don't suffer the bitter
and harsh truth
And what better way to cope
than with a heart that whispers
and weaves a grand tapestry of lies
But those threads spun are, in
fact, gossamer
There's always a heaviness with
lovely lies, lies that I have trained
my mind to believe
my nails dug deep out of nothing
but desperation
Hearts are wild by nature, by design
How that's just a mere understatement
There is nor will there ever be
a tame heart
As cliche as it sounds, it wants what it wants,
and would do all it can to get it
It will slip through the ribs,
be out of its cage only to come
back with a twisted knife sheathed into it
and I
I
must bear the pain
There's only so much I can listen to...
To put a end to the poisonous whispers
that were so seductive, that made me feel secure...
And now I struck a deal
Shaking hands with the power of my mind
and ***** my heart with the Sleeping
needle
So I can work for my own happiness,
for my dream of stability
When I have that in hand,
with the help of the mind,
I will wake up my heart
and truly set it free...
*
*
Sep 12, 2018
Sep 12, 2018 at 11:08 AM UTC
From the moment I saw you
I was in love.
Gazing deeply in your eyes
I saw your soul
so pure.
I was addicted
I could not look away.
It took but a moment
and instantaneously
my heart melted.
The frozen gates
that sheathed my soul
unthawed.
The guard that had enslaved
my life
dropped his weapon.
He withdrew
from his post
leaving me open
to new possibilities.
I knew from that very first glance
that I would eternally
be in love.
Dec 27, 2010
Dec 27, 2010 at 4:04 PM UTC
I guess I'll have to make it up.
A bird came to me, she did not chirp
And he did not whisper.
The wings sheathed on its back
Were in no disrepair.
Was it blue? How hard to tell, for its
Skin and coat were of glass, but
finer.
This bird a flower.
So far from bloom.
So frail i'll keep it, to nurse in
Gloom.
Not all birds need sun, nor all flowers flight.
But this of mine will soon have both, for mine must wrest day from night.
Feb 26, 2018
Feb 26, 2018 at 5:58 PM UTC
The soil of defeat,
Sheathed in the essence of life,
Residing is the fury of a moral man,
Unleashed by an immoral thought,
The intensity of the moment,
Unforgiving.
Feb 2, 2012
Feb 2, 2012 at 3:23 AM UTC
Down by two
the bruised-blue flesh
of the bronze butterfly's
escape through sacrifice,
flays the emotions..
Unwholesome the silence
that goes before her,
a sound like the heart
bound to beat like butterfly wings...
Gently her absence quick
upon me, inhales the night
and swiftly, the dark
sees only ease to relinquish
her candles sheathed in glass
epitaphs that collapse like veins
to fill the fluent air with the spare
embrace of the blue elements...
Down by two in the bottom of the ninth,
two out, two on, two strikes,
the soul's too tragic abhorrence of details
fails to deliver the impossible syntax
of apocalypse, on the lips
of a courteous Christ, crucified
by light, the night fades
far into the furthest exile...
Under a tropic of cancer,
her un-obscured brilliance
pierces the vault of heaven's vast
gathering of angels,
and their illegible scripture...
Shatters the soul in one primal
instant grand slam dream, quicksilver
through her midnight moment's landscape,
every cherished feature in flight, the light
of the bronze butterfly's escape
through sacrifice, to the silver flame
of moonlight's crucial adieu....
Feb 5, 2013
Feb 5, 2013 at 1:08 PM UTC
The Eclipse
The eclipse dose not become endless night
The reappearance of light is the same as the survival of soul
The eclipse
Such indeed a character of the historic hour through which the world was passing
Objects close to the eye shut out much larger objects on the horizon
A quiet and unexpected change,
That looked the desultory range
Of happiness and sprightly thought.
Where'er was dipped the toiling
oar,
The direction of winds danced round us as
before,
As lightly, though of altered hue;
Mid recent coolness, such as falls
At noon-tide from umbrageous
walls
That screen the morning dew.
No vapour stretched its wings; no
cloud
Cast far or near a murky shroud;
The sky an azure field displayed;
'There was light sheathed and gently
charmed,
Of all its sparkling rays disarmed,
And as in slumber laid:--
Or something night and day
between,
Like moon shine--but the hue was
green;
Still moon shine, without shadow,
spread
On jutting rock, and curved shore
Mar 19, 2013
Mar 19, 2013 at 6:25 PM UTC
Two inconnu sheathed within sight of one moon
Betwixt embers'and uppers consumed by whom
Two nocturnal allies have each exhumed
By Caffeine and Adderall's swindling tomb
And Nicotine's cluches; an imbibing room
He can't spell
I can't speak
Parallels
None bespeak
He's got canines and relatives
To replete empty spots
Whilst a book full of lies
Keeps my soul ersatz.
Feb 18, 2016
Feb 18, 2016 at 5:52 AM UTC
Watch the Lighthouse Poem
4/21/2014
What good is a lighthouse?
A stable structure, sure.
Watch it stand on the edge of a ruthless sea,
Watch it house a five person family,
Watch it guide a ship full of sailors to shore,
Watch it flash light at some stars, as if the night sky needed any more.
Watch what a lighthouse really does.
What purpose is it for?
Watch it illuminate humankind's' disgrace,
juxtaposed against the vast empty space.
Watch it carve a cliff-sized hole into nature's soul,
pretend it belongs, as if Earth's man-made face should be so dull.
Watch it stare blankly at a gentle sea,
under false belief that what's underneath is understandable by we.
Watch how a lighthouse thinks it guides those lost at sea.
Watch how a lighthouse creates more darkness than anything.
Watch how a lighthouse sheathed in shade and ice will crumble eventually.
Watch how a lighthouse means absolutely nothing to me.
Apr 22, 2014
Apr 22, 2014 at 2:49 AM UTC
Another gladiator fell
Watering the field in blood.
His head was sheathed,
He never cut through the net
That descended from the stands.
The iron-fisted trident
Brought thumbs up from the spectators
Indulging in the beer and nuts.
There are always some to be sacrificed
To placate the mob in the colosseum
Beneath the night lights on Mondays,
When Coke is the drink of victors,
And jerseys are sold to the trainees
Who now put on their spikes.
These are ours
Running headlong into the arena.
Aug 2, 2016
Aug 2, 2016 at 9:15 AM UTC
Under the blanket of slanted waters, streaming down,
Behind the silver linings of the distant thunderclouds
The eternal sun lies suffocating, sheathed by the storm.
The rain smears the gray heavens. The world
Drowns behind the endless battery of the downpour.
Each trickle, each moment, quickly falling. Fading
Into the cesspool of dirt and debris. The pit
Of emotions and forgotten truths, washed away.
The leaves twist and turn at every droplet's touch
Crying out in soft thuds on the heavy roofs above.
Like the tin roofs and the sun and the heavens
And like the leaves and the dirt and debris
I gently whisper my pleas to the deluge:
*Rain.
Purge me.
Douse the embers
of false passion and ire.
Absolve me.
Cleanse this melancholy.
Ease these memories.
Purify me.
Rinse away the guilt.
Sink these doubts.
Restore me.
Clarify my vision.
Refine my thoughts.
Heal me.
Replenish my soul.
Bring about forgiveness.
Rain.
Revitalize my roots.
Soothe my mind.
Soak my bones.
Calm my spirit.
With your perennial blessings,
Bathe me in your sacred waters
So that peace
May finally find me.*
Aug 1, 2011
Aug 1, 2011 at 12:35 AM UTC
☀️
I'm always grateful for
the light of a new day
caressing
my cheek
That's not what gets me most
but you
sheathed by sheets
while by my side
See the curtain
of lashes
╰ ╯
╰ I S ╯
╰ R E ╯
So I can
drink
the coffee
of your eyes
☀️
Jan 8, 2021
Jan 8, 2021 at 9:05 AM UTC
Mary, Mary let go of that sheep
It has bleat too loudly as we lay asleep
Feet in one steady direction
Out from the pen its throes
Mary, Mary the meadows are fresh
Though they are green only for so long
The dogs have slung them over their heads
Strung out from wayward beds
The clueless drunk shepherd that was your father
Waiting at the neck of foreign spirits
Sheathed it like a monkey peeling bananas
For a fat buck a glass, what's it to him?
Poor little sheep, shivers from the whipping air
Clouds gone too soon
For the rich merchants
With hanging gold in their mouths
Mary, Mary, poor little sheep
Jumped over the fence
Probably too hurt to walk alone
Thorns and rocks ahead
But they must have been better than the cold in his head
Aug 2, 2015
Aug 2, 2015 at 8:51 AM UTC
I once met a viking girl,
who hailed from Norway.
I usually wouldn't have bothered,
but there was something special about her
I couldn't fully grasp.
It was like some weight had been lifted
to relieve my tired body
of it's former failings.
There was a magic she could wield,
some massive dreadnought of power
she kept sheathed in ornate leather.
Sometimes, when she was nervous,
her fingers would brush it's scabbard,
tracing the embossed symbols,
unaware of what she was doing.
And then this longing would overtake her,
leaving her eyes vacant,
momentarily...
As if her vessel had been abandoned
as she expanded
well beyond it's threshold.
During these brief moments
when she'd slip away,
I saw things I couldn't explain.
A furnace of starlight,
encased deep in the Norwegian ice,
alongside the warships of her ancestors.
Usually well-guarded,
out of habit
or necessity.
Before I was consumed entirely
she returned from her reverie,
tearing me away
from that solace.
I wonder now
if she was aware
of what happened.
Those secret woodlands
will haunt me
long after I've gone.
Long after life has left me,
and into the outstretched arms of eternity
and the worlds that follow.
And like some dream,
it still escapes me..
how so much beauty
can be reserved
and contained.
It sickens me to know
that what I'll remember most
was the physical form she'd taken,
and not the things
that truly mattered.
Not the magic she used
to tear me asunder,
wide open and spilling..
helpless in it's radiance.
Not the gentle breeze
that expanded from her wake
as she passed me.
Because it's easier
to be shallow.
It's easier
to forget.
Feb 24, 2015
Feb 24, 2015 at 8:23 AM UTC
Autumn flares out, its flame burst clouds
strewn about misted cliff sides, loam whites
of winter taking their place. A stiff willow breeze,
ten thousand things withdrawn to burrows and immortal
pine heights. First snows stream down, duckweed carpets
of August fade, jade peeking through white. I embark
on the seasons final sail in hardening ice waters.
Til spring my sails will be folded, my raft in idleness.
~~~
Rafting on moon drenched river, avoiding cascades and crash of
rapids and falls. Silvered driftwood a warning. Silent glide of
mulberry oar through dark azure, another crafts sail in silhouette.
From the deck a black spectre dives below, stillness follows
splash, re-emergence, beak wrapped around a dazzling rainbow.
From my raft dangling lantern sways, trout swiping at
gathered moths – scatter and return, some from a far off realm.
Some trout in the net, others not. Luck or the way – who can tell?
~~~
Dusk colour gorge sheathed in
emerald blankets, rising into sheer
cliffs of auburn cinnabar, all
underpinned by the fathomless
flow of azure clarity. Snowy Egrets
nest in pine top heights clear of dust.
On white sand shores gibbons howl
towards squawking beach gulls, squabble
over landlocked trout – debate without end.
Peach blossom petals swirl on spring breeze
over carpets of jade inter cut by king
fisher blue zipping over duckweed. Oriole
song weaves in and out of mulberry branches.
In these vast and vague waters -
coves, creeks and streams all one,
a river dragon lives an undetermined
existence. Mud stirs below, merely a
catfish airing grievances.
Red tail flares in dirt,
my mulberry oar rows me back home.
Jan 15, 2012
Jan 15, 2012 at 8:13 AM UTC
The Blue Falcon, cross the spire,
Waits in the gables of the white
House. Wounded in youth by crush
Of air, spent, a wisp perched
In the aerie dark with a view of mountains
Blue as ice under glacier. The wooden
Church from the other side clutches
The sky but the Falcon blue is lost
In a tuft of cloud that bobs but never
Kills. On this strike he is sheathed in stealth
The dull talons slip as they dry
In the tented air, the songbirds at play
In the high-ground underneath warble
And chide but the Falcon cannot hear
The Falcon near. His heart is soft
And muted in the breast, his ears
Are dumb to their tickling-songs.
Before the Falcons time, over
The tilling fields, dropped his world
In the spoils where splendour burst in green,
Rain meant the feathers ran and the woods,
A banquet of game, were bounty's breach
Fording blue currents he was
A fisher in the sun, but the sun
Sank in his drowning sky no store
From plateau to quarry the drought of days
Moved a castle felled in the dancing
Dust, his wings broke in the shuttered
Eye of the sun and etched his form
Into grey silhouette.
Now, the Blue Falcon, jeered
In the branches of the rooted air
Above the yellowed grass, under the pines
And a great blue mountain, stirs a Druid
Shape, vaporous, in the cauldron
Of the attic in the white house
A throw of stones crossways from
The sacred yews of the steeple spire.
Oct 13, 2013
Oct 13, 2013 at 1:06 PM UTC
wrapped in the tatters of my body
in this measureless place
I search for release
among the disconsolate boles
thin as hope
hard and dark
wearing pallid shrouds
of frozen lace
proudly displayed
in their alfresco mausoleum
an inexhaustible study
in the extremes
of leaden purity
their moribund limbs
and ice sheathed fingers
reach into me
pulling me on
tears of other lives
in frosted glory
cold upon my wintered face
always renewed
and living on
in fractal eternity
Dec 18, 2022
Dec 18, 2022 at 2:35 AM UTC
no count-downs for birthday parties
no arm wrestles, no jump shots
no go-cart donuts
not even a snowball
where did we go?
blond hair
up to my shoulders
surrounded by jewels
some empty-paned picture frame
couple sprouts beneath a pine
saying "monkeys" for Grammy's kodak
red clay on your feet
pink frosting in your teeth
me, sheathed in my favorite shirt
"I'm the big sister!"
with a butterfly depicting
what I've yet to become
how wrong have we gone?
well, I'll be twenty
once spring rolls around
and brother
you're not far behind
I can't tell time
to change its mind
but I promise you
it won't be changing mine
from the photographs, scrapbooks
I'll forever feel your laughter
just like goosebumps
the brail I'm reading into
let's gaze past glares
straight through white sunbeams
spiking your brown eyes
twice as deep as mine
the truest shades
on the face of the earth
to this very
foggy day
this mirror, this moment snagged
before shutters snap
and capture us, splatter us
on matte paper, or cell screens
with brown hair
up to your shoulders
way to go, little brother
but I'm still keeping that tee
because the only thing
I've always been proud to be
is your big sister
Mar 4, 2018
Mar 4, 2018 at 10:14 PM UTC
lost in the garden
of beautiful flowers
rising to meet the dawn chorus
the tides of reason
and synchronised breathing
devoid of reason
no need for meaning
senses linger
the emotions are porous
like monsoon raindrops
clad in storm cloud towers
she mirrors in reflections
of her milky white skin
and the amorous eyes
and Loki's broad grin
lead the Viking
to the valley of shadow
the heaving breast
of the raven haired siren
sheathed in wanton desires
the beckoning of lust
and the follies of jest
the arcane pleasures of sin
pressed ****** to ******
upon his battle torn chest
leaves little to the imagination
the ravages of the beast within
graced with the fingertips
of a females caress
lest it not be forgotten
amid the gamut of time
and the crimson red lips
dripping with the juices
of the ***** of her King.
May 18, 2014
May 18, 2014 at 2:29 PM UTC
I had a boss
When I worked,
A black-hearted sycophant
We'll call Bert.
There was no escaping
From this ****
Unless Daddy'd sheathed
Before his squirt.
He was the smiling villain,
With a glad-handshake,
And a slap on the back:
One never knew of his scurrilous attacks
On reputation,
On self-esteem,
This viper slithered
In my Garden of Eden.
Apr 22, 2016
Apr 22, 2016 at 5:00 PM UTC
The Blue Falcon, cross the spire,
Waits in the gables of the white
House. Wounded in youth by crush
Of air, spent, a wisp perched
In the aerie dark with a view of mountains
Blue as ice under glacier. The wooden
Church from the other side clutches
The sky but the Falcon blue is lost
In a tuft of cloud that bobs but never
Kills. On this strike he is sheathed in stealth
The dull talons slip as they dry
In the tented air, the songbirds at play
In the high-ground underneath warble
And chide but the Falcon cannot hear
The Falcon near. His heart is soft
And muted in the breast, his ears
Are dumb to their tickling-songs.
Before the Falcons time, over
The tilling fields, dropped his world
In the spoils where splendour burst in green,
Rain meant the feathers ran and the woods,
A banquet of game, were bounty's breach
Fording blue currents he was
A fisher in the sun, but the sun
Sank in his drowning sky no store
From plateau to quarry the drought of days
Moved a castle felled in the dancing
Dust, his wings broke in the shuttered
Eye of the sun and etched his form
Into grey silhouette.
Now, the Blue Falcon, jeered
In the branches of the rooted air
Above the yellowed grass, under the pines
And a great blue mountain, stirs a Druid
Shape, vaporous, in the cauldron
Of the attic in the white house
A throw of stones crossways from
The sacred yews of the steeple spire.
Apr 10, 2013
Apr 10, 2013 at 11:31 AM UTC