"sheltering" poems
*be ever gentle to thy words
treat them, your tools, well,
cleansing and protecting,
wrapping them in cloths of chamois and moleskin
that they may be well conditioned and
pour forth with a temperament clear and viscous,
reflecting their high honors and a noble lineage,
they are well-intentioned to exist far longer
than your meager temporal life,
upon this ever hasty, ever perpetual, orbit
give them all respect, their fair due,
they are treasure immeasurable,
for which you have been granted guardianship,
custody received from others to be gifted onwards,
yours, but for the duration
so oft we trifle words,
expel them from the country of our body,
without passport and earnestness,
as if they were the cheapest of footnote filler,
day tourists, to be treated as leavings,
refuse for daily discardation,
barely noting their fast comings and faster disappearance,
but leaving not, a mark of distinction
more truffle than trifle,
find them in the dark forest of your life,
use them sparingly, just for soaring,
take them from the roots of your trees,
shave them with a paring knife,
counts them in bites and measure them in grams,
even in grains,
for words are the seasoning of our lives,
agent provacateurs that can modify the moment,
bringing out to the fore
the flavor of the underlying
speak them slow and distinct,
for they arrive slow to you,
a trickling of refugees for your sheltering,
harbor them as full companions,
protected by natural law,
provision them well,
prepared and ever ready for a quick departure,
moor them at the embarcadero,
for the next restless leg of endlessness,
which they themselves will inform you
will last longer than eternity,
long after there are no humans to speak them*
Oct 10, 2015
Oct 10, 2015 at 6:01 PM UTC
I dealt death today.
I know it’s a part of the job.
I know I’ve seen it too many times to count.
But today,
I felt it.
I left the room long after their family did.
There was no where I could go
To escape their
Roaring grief.
They were long gone.
And I was left with their precious baby.
I curled his arms and legs up
Closed his eyes
Wrapped him up gently.
With love and respect
Here he’ll sleep forever.
And oh,
They are so thankful,
That it was me
That I understood
That I was so careful
That I spent the time with them.
And you’re not supposed to take it with you.
You’re supposed to leave it
When they walk out the door
With one less goodbye.
But I took it with me today.
The way they felt before
The way they felt after
The long quiet goodbyes
The man in a suit on his knees weeping
The mother and son making a cocoon
Sheltering their dying baby.
The solemn face of the woman who plays god.
The green death.
The last breath.
The heaving of the living as he gave his last.
The waiting.
Slower rhythm.
Quieter.
‘He’s gone now’.
I watched the clock
The same way I had
An hour before
Waiting for death.
Soon as I could
I fled out the door
Ran into the street
Tried to outrun it
Instead I ran to you
I dialled your number
With shaking hands
I know I’m not supposed to
But all I wanted was you
Your voice
Ringing out
Thankfully
I wept alone.
Today I dealt death
And I found I am not strong enough
To sustain this
Alone
Or for long.
I found I still consider you my haven
Deep down
But that you are not my haven anymore
Or should be.
I listened to the silence
After the call rang out
And decided
Apr 11, 2018
Apr 11, 2018 at 6:42 AM UTC
You were my umbrella and my parasol
Always sheltering me,
Always protecting me.
But now that you are gone
I cry tears like rain
And burn inside like a flame.
An umbrella and a parasol
Protecting me
From the moody
Weather
That is me.
F.Z.N
Aug 31, 2014
Aug 31, 2014 at 4:42 PM UTC
Are you out there my Friend.? ? Somewhere The Wind is blowing..? Where your footprints are gone as soon as left. No one to know. No one Knowing.?
Are you in the Wind? ? A voice, distant, lost in the swirl of snow and Autumn leaves.? Your way Home...unknown.
The next step taken, but down what path.? Will it lead through this wood, or wander Forever this Dismal forest of Bramble and Thorn? Your clothes ragged, tattered, torn.No shelter in sight. No sheltering insight.
Crows with eyes bright. Plucking at your sleeves and dress. Catching your skin with talons that gleam, bleeding you like a priest with a fleem. Leaving you wounded and hurt., weary and wary.
If you would stand still but a moment., cease your struggling and stumbling. Just listen, you'll hear my voice
On the Wind.
Calling you Home.
Safe within the walls and warmth of my arms.
Jan 20, 2017
Jan 20, 2017 at 12:32 AM UTC
These winter trees
cold and shouldering winds
their bending branches unhinge
falling limbs crash and break the snow
further still a secret world of mud and bulbs
that in the spring blooms of tulips and violet mossy lawns
and too, the sun that comes to warm and fills with green the tree arms
this wooded home that breathes with sheltering birdsong.
Feb 16, 2017
Feb 16, 2017 at 10:38 AM UTC
A Serotinous Pine there,
Where winter snows soak into thirsty soil but relentless summer sun bakes motionless
Every plant a tinder held close to conflagration,
in a season's Russian roulette of forest fire.
This pine seals precious seed away from every spring’s promise,
lest burning destroys every one.
Only searing heat during torched consumption triggers the last gentle act,
At the knife’s edge of apocalypse itself,
opening cones of seeds.
Fluttering down to new life on the other side of time.
Tiny bright green amid black ashes.
Swimming Penguins
Birds evolved to fly in ocean.
Wings to flippers, feet stepping clumsily from water.
Yet eggs must still nest, their babies still breathe.
Safety is the very precipice of existence, on bitter ice at 60 below,
Sheltering their young clustered from blistering winds,
fasting from sustenance,
While heaven’s glorious Aurora flame silently over their winter dreams.
So what then are we, on This Earth?
Cerebral Creatures, Storytelling Animals.
Minds created to sense spiritual constructs.
Living is the method of our creation,
Sheltering each other from inherited trials
With contrived joys and sufferings distracting each other
from the soul freezing fearful cold of the Empty Void
And consuming fire of electric chaos.
In the End, our sacrificing gift for our children
is God.
Dec 13, 2012
Dec 13, 2012 at 1:37 AM UTC
there once was this guy named oedipus
of whom it was prophesied
that his mother he'd marry, his father he'd ****
at a place where three roads were tied.
his mother and father discovered their fate
and tried to dispose of their son
but he ended up in corinthian lands
and their efforts were all undone.
then a drunk guy ruined his happy facade
and to an oracle oedipus went
who repeated to him the dank prophesy;
he fled corinth, not taking a cent.
while on his sojourn away from his home
he encountered a party royale
which rudely pushed him off of the road,
and angered he slaughtered them all.
then from that blood soaked three-way path
he nonchalantly flew
not knowing that his father was
the man that he just slew.
he continued his journey until he reached thebes
where a sphinx held the city hostage
so oedipus solved the bird-cat's lame rhyme
and released thebes from its *******
as a reward, the people of thebes
gave oedipus their widowed queen,
unknowingly joining mother and son
in a marriage that was unclean.
after they ruled for twenty good years,
during which four children came,
a plague was induced by the sheltering of
the man by whom was slain
in searching him out, oedipus found
that the murderer was really he,
so long ago. the man he had killed
at the place where were joined roads of three.
but by finding this out, he also discovered
that his wife and his mother were one.
he gouged out his eyes after her suicide;
in her own bedroom she was hung.
as it turned out, oeddy exiled himself
but the seeds of his misery were sewn.
so he went to colonus and wandered around
and this is the end.
Jul 30, 2010
Jul 30, 2010 at 5:14 AM UTC
Amnesia like leaky faucets swollen drain ventilates vapid powdered portrait
At least smiled.
Blood slightly warmed manicure and smiled in forgotten garden
Such lovely font. All wanted
Mini clouds surrounding shrines backlit green in ritual.
Smiles speak but of the wet smell of pollen and the sweat collecting in his hand behind the small of her uncrushed spine.
Curing chlamydia the straight—A fairytale. Conned alive, clumsily and bitter.
Nurtured cotton uprooted attempt. Scrubbed stains to shreds
Not even the green light merely aftermath so of course when shaking egg shells sheltering in “cold hands warm heart” chests receive the song I sing but never knew
May 5, 2015
May 5, 2015 at 4:40 PM UTC
a quote of Bernard-Henri Lévy
~~~
the divers’ recovery, diverse,
shipwrecked salvage from different locations,
auctioned to the highest bidder,
tho the excised excerpts are exceptional,
none come to do the bidding,
for the provenance of words
belongs to all, and to none
~~
“so oft we trifle words,
expel them from the country of our body,
without passport and earnestness,
as if they were the cheapest of footnote filler,
day tourists, to be treated as leavings,
refuse for daily discardation,
barely noting their fast comings and faster disappearance,
but leaving not, a mark of distinction”
“the addicted pleasure words granted to we privileged few,
like every enslaved soul to the mind, which I am, I am,
evening dreams, midnight thinkings, sunrise seeings,
how can I infect and thus protect the young to the liberty
to love the crafted content of our human essence to better
comprehend that a moment caught on tape of our shared
words is a holiday, a celebration for the ages...and every molecule,
becomes a human tuning fork in concert, in pitch identical, in blood tainted with the simplicity of we are all the same, only words, this will transmit”
“murmur me, with soft downy charms,
these words discovered
recoursed and intended well to
pointedly offset and contradict
their very own tumultuous discovery uncovering,
tear tongue me
with calming, lapping word wages,
hymns harmonious and fine homilies,
a call, a request,
a bequest
to sedate my shrill life
“some cells, microscopic, preserved digitally,
aged to imperfection, thrash my eyes,
making me speak in tongues I do not recognize,
but fluently possess, no wonder there,
the memory place fairly empty,
room aplenty for passerby's and the imagery
of the vaguest of dearly departed
skin is not the only mot shed,
sloughing of woeful words”
“speak them slow and distinct,
for they arrive slow to you,
a trickling of refugees for your sheltering,
harbor them as full companions,
protected by natural law,
provision them well,
prepared and ever ready for a quick departure,
moor these words at the embarcadero,
for the next restless leg of endlessness,
which they themselves will inform you
will last longer than eternity,
long after there are no humans to speak them”
Mar 27, 2019
Mar 27, 2019 at 4:55 AM UTC
to more than I can be...
a sad isolated man,
throes of an agonizing,
stretched by her for painful
revengeful gain,
kissed with pointless avarice, divorce.
children deeming
him alienating, his faulty
insensitive sensitivities,
to easy blame
little do they know of the
piercing lowliness, the looniness of
nights he listened to sad-eyed singers,
and his late-of-mid of night scribbled scripts,
where he
off loaded the agonies of a midlife
disaster, not entirely of his-own
sown making,
but still his to bear and bare alone...
some accidents happens for unintentional,
unintended intentional new seasons appear,
stumbled, tumbled, fumbled his way onto
this H~oly P~lace, where someone might listen
to his explanations, expiations, excoriations
of his all too common tragedy, and said:
this broken human, he's got his reasons,
read his overly long treatises, his entreaties,
to those that prowl, rowing, in this corner
of the silence of the internet, where only the
trolls, the cold, the easier to-be-meaner oft thrive,
and found none of that, but an oasis of sheltering,
embracing comforting, those who actually admitted
his writings could be loved, and perhaps the writer
himself, was
deserving
of a second chance, a verbal embrace. a rereading forgiveness,
a pat
on his natback, a sympathetic sensory intaking,
and perhaps-this debt, eternal, that put the
for and the fore in a new baby born, named -
new forever
came into existence
the very same
e
that begins those conjoined words
***e~ternally grateful
"and now I sleep in peace when the day is done"
but the night time
is still the
write time
Sep 13, 2025
Sep 13, 2025 at 11:42 AM UTC
Here come Jupiter child,
You can hear the flowers crying as they plead for her to stay a while,
She just collided with and intergalactic asteroid,
But things were only created never destroyed,
In the dark cool tunnels she found some pretty moon shrooms,
sheltering growing seahorses wrapped in loose water droplet cocoons,
Now towards earth you hear her come,
Within the clouds she beats her tribal drums,
The ocean sways and swells to the time of her rhythm and sound,
Reaching deep into the sea forest to whales traveling homebound,
She wears stars framed in turquoise,
Like the kokopelli she gives birth to planets with grace and poise,
Here comes Jupiter child, dread locks wound with comets,
extracts from the universe, she mixes matter-less tonics,
Recipes rooted deep in wizardry,
she borrows knowledge from indians and aztecs to cure all misery,
Her meteor showers made of her salty tears,
Are earth's dream catcher, snaring all nighttime fears.
Aug 22, 2010
Aug 22, 2010 at 10:01 PM UTC
Love is ..........
Love is sheltering from the rain
Together remembering not to complain
Making every little thing worthwhile
Changing sad times with a smile.
Love is learning to accept mistakes
Knowing when to put on the brake
When annoying habits come to light
Especially loud snoring at night.
Love is all about sharing, caring and acceptance
And of course it is all about romance.
Love is about trust. A must to survive
To keep the relationship alive.
Love is learning to forgive, starting again
When an argument sends stuff down the drain.
Holding each other, protecting and laughter
Giggling under the sheets, looking after
Each other when things go wrong.
Love is breaking into your favourite song
In the car when snow melts falling from above
Gently once more falling deeper in love.
Jun 22, 2013
Jun 22, 2013 at 11:21 PM UTC
The Strength of The female carrying a nation in her womb, leaders, criminal master minds and you.
Feeding clans, communities and villages, nurturing earth. Sheltering the youth, in storms of the future ahead, wiping your tears strengthening your heart again.
She is always there and has The Hands of warmth, holding you tight to lands of joy
Mar 24, 2015
Mar 24, 2015 at 2:11 PM UTC
My love you taught me how to love
Feeling of love, that this heart showed
How many colors you spill, of love?
Reason for my love, you then asked?
Without you this life is so incomplete
Now when I realize how far away love was
Sheltering me in your heart such a treat
As beads of love strung tenderly in gauze
At times self-love seeks love from a stranger
At times a few moment with a loving heart is enough
At times to feel a heart dearer one has to live farther
In serendipity we met in love, leave me never in a huff
Think and despair not my cherished beloved
Must I say your love was so wondrous
I promise to be with you now and always beloved
You asked, I say all your concerns are needless
---
Hindi LanguageTranslation
Mere Humdum..
Pyaar aapne hume karna jo siklaya
Pyaar ka ehsas is dil ko jo diklaya
Kitne pyaar ke rang chalkathe hain aap?
Phir Pyaar ki vajah poochate hain aap?
Yeh zindagi to aapke bina adhuri thi
Ab maalum hua pyaar thak kitni doori thi
Aashiyana aapne dil mein basa kar hume diya hai
Pyaar ke har lamahe chun ke is dil ko piroya hai
Khud ko chaahne ke liye kabhi gairon ka pyaar chahiye
Dil ki nazdhikyon ke liye kabhi dooriyon ka ehsas chahiye
Kabhi chand lamhay kaafi hain aap jaise dil walon ke saath
Ittifaaq se milay ** meharbaan kabhi na chodna mera haath
Bus Itna ab na sochiye mere jane-mehboob
Dekhiye pyar kiya aapne bhi bahut khoob
Zindagi aapke saath vada hai mere hum-safar
Har sawalon ka jawab diya humnay aap rahe be-fikar
Feb 13, 2021
Feb 13, 2021 at 8:08 PM UTC
Welcome Back To This, Your Isle
The rabbits beneath the deck,
Even the pesky deer who eat the shrubbery,
Sea creatures, living and spirits of the dead,
Lying on the paths and in the creeks of Silver Beach,
All inquire:
Was it better wherever you went?
Were the:
Bears, hiding in the forests outside Berlin,
Eagles, double headed, of Russia
Herring, fried, creamed, wined,
From the vendors on the docks of
Helsinki, Riga, Visby and Tallinn,
Salmon, smoked and cured in Stockholm,
More impressive,
Tastier than our striped bass,
Island cohorts of yours, who waited patiently
For their chronicler to return?
Did the Little Mermaid and her Dolphin
Guardians of the Port of Copenhagen
Welcome you more warmly than your friends,
The ospreys, lizards, turtles and owls
Who overwatch your steps and safety
When hiking in Mashomack Preserve?
Are the interlacing tidal creeks,
Woodlands, fields, salt marshes and the ragged,
Irregular but charmed coastline of this cherished island
Any lesser than those of Scandinavia?
Are the sea-going ferries that transverse the
Baltic Sea and the Gulf of Finland,
More poetic than the Menantic or the Lt. Joe,
Who carry you swiftly home to us?
The National Geographic people say that in
Tivoli Gardens, The Amerikaner (ha!) waffle ice cream cone
Is one of the ten best in the world.
Guessing they have not made it yet to the
Tuck Shop for some Moose Tracks!
Were you unaware that our isle settled before
Peter the Great ever envisioned creating the grand
Boulevards of his capitol, St. Petersburg,
Route 114 was a traveled forest path,
By settlers and Indians, not serfs.
Of the Treasures, the Gold Room of the Hermitage,
The Amber Room of Catherine's Palace,
Wrote not a single word, we observe.
Your attentions, they did not deserve?
The answers all, self evident.
Here, surrounded by the gentle breezes of
Long Island Sound and Gardiners Bay,
Sweet and salty flavors of the Peconic atmosphere,
Words unlocked, from your eyes to the page fall,
Smudged by joyous tears, for the muses of the island
Have embraced you yet again and rebirthed
Inspiration, within their comforting, sheltering grasp.
Silver Beach
July 22, 2012
Aug 3, 2013
Aug 3, 2013 at 4:50 PM UTC
Oh my beloved,
Can you see that I am tying to reach out for you ?
Are you unable to witness the burning love, scorching within my chest setting the distance between us ablaze in a wonderful firestorm?
Softly, a light is burning within my shivering heart, sheltering it from all the loneliness and darkness this world has exposed me to,
Illuminating the very tomorrow, my hopes rise up alike the sun does,
Within golden, pure light a single tear is cast away by my eye,
Ah, phantoms! Surely I will go unnoticed once more, surely there are people who are more deserving of your love than I will ever be,
But, can you fulfil this selfish request of mine, darling?
Can you fulfil the request of such a sinner, who has lost every friend, social interaction or any kind of bond between those whom are near?
Yet I am not sad, because, all I desire is truely to be with you, you see.
So please, love me back, send me a sign so I can know or understand,
After all, your love is worth more than anything on this world,
All I desire is to be with you, Oh Allah ~
~ Umi
Apr 29, 2018
Apr 29, 2018 at 2:49 PM UTC
SHE is foremost of those that I would hear praised.
I have gone about the house, gone up and down
As a man does who has published a new book,
Or a young girl dressed out in her new gown,
And though I have turned the talk by hook or crook
Until her praise should be the uppermost theme,
A woman spoke of some new tale she had read,
A man confusedly in a half dream
As though some other name ran in his head.
She is foremost of those that I would hear praised.
I will talk no more of books or the long war
But walk by the dry thorn until I have found
Some beggar sheltering from the wind, and there
Manage the talk until her name come round.
If there be rags enough he will know her name
And be well pleased remembering it, for in the old days,
Though she had young men's praise and old men's blame,
Among the poor both old and young gave her praise.
3.6k
She had a perfume that smelled like jasmine when she woke me up in the morning and like roses when she tucked me in at night
It was the same perfume sprayed from the same bottle, but it smelled different every time I visited her
Her perfume translated her feelings into delicate smells … smells I will never be able to forget
The same perfume is still sprayed from the same bottle …
but now … it smells like fear
She no longer wears that perfume … “it makes me sad” she says …
It makes us all sad! …
Its drizzling droplets brushes against our senses awakening sedated memories …
Memories of …
Of grandpa’s happy eyes, warm embracing voice and tender sheltering hug … he was the kind of person whose presence can be felt from a distance. He would smile every time your eyes meet his as if he was noticing you for the very first time …
Of mother’s childhood dreams tucked carefully in her braided hair …
Of baby brother’s golden straight hair and wide curious brown eyes
Of our tiny apartment whose windows allowed light to enter only from her room … the burgundy colored velvet salon chairs neatly covered by off white sheets … the noisy fridge who made sure everyone noticed me steeling ice-cream at midnight …
Grandma’s perfume harbors our memories …
Its droplets carry away our happiness leaving us stinking of fear!
Dec 25, 2018
Dec 25, 2018 at 2:51 PM UTC
The opposite of love, is indifference.
Not anger, aversion, or hate.
Accompanied by avoidant-detachment,
And a silence that never abates.
It can disguise itself in diffidence;
Depressed by misery, for score.
Sheltering who practice its persuasion,
But leaving its victim longing for more.
It looks like a promise that’s broken,
It sounds like the melody of a lie.
It tastes like a cocktail & bitters;
It feels like a passion that died.
You can’t see the damage from the outside;
The wounds that scar from within.
Until they manifest as an addiction,
Or any overt kind of sin.
Love faces the toughest of battles;
Love outshines even the sun.
Indifference regards nothing higher;
And indifference will perpetually run.
Feb 4, 2018
Feb 4, 2018 at 10:34 PM UTC
Begging, considered
an utter humility
The ultimate indignity
Giving, regarded
An act of charity
Of utmost nobility
One hand raised
The other lowered
Sheltering a kernel
Of truth on the whole
Humility, and charity
Virtues two of the soul
the seeker and the giver
are nothing but an evidence
Of divine existence!
Jul 24, 2014
Jul 24, 2014 at 1:12 AM UTC
Crimson maple buds magically pucker
under brightening skies
Lenten rose reluctantly unfolds
absolving the shadowed snow,
stemming the wintertide
Spring's impending bloom
mystically stirs the delicate human heart
soothing from outside its sheltering shell
A converging pleasantness
of a sunshine sown awakening
cleanses each morning breath drawn
to sate an urgent restrained longing
The wilderness carpet comes alive
with a burgeoning salient sweetness
drawing out a glimmer of gladness
from stale suffocating darkness’
wallowing in the winter ennui
Another kind of poignant balm sinks
from the tall mountain willow tree
touching the sprouting blue sky
Furry fragrant catkins blossom sweetly
like the remnants of a love once known
softly brushing against a fading memory
of unerasable stains begrudgingly beget
Like fawning flowers falling fallow
in a passing season’s pollination breeze
Manipulating frayed heartstrings,
unhealed as the deer peeled scars
and rubbed bark of a mountain willow,
scarred from another season past
Some protective shell ― never grows back
when benign heartwood is brought to light
harlon rivers ... Spring 2018
Mar 18, 2018
Mar 18, 2018 at 11:59 AM UTC
Shancoduff My black hills have never seen the sun rising,
Eternally they look North towards Armagh.
Lot's wife would not be salt if she had been
Incurious as my black hills that are happy
When dawn whitens Glassdrummond chapel.
My hills hoard the bright shillings of March
While the sun searches in every pocket.
They are my Alps and I have climbed the Matterhorn
With a sheaf of hay for three perishing calves
In the field under the Big Forth of Rocksavage.
The sleety winds ****** the the rushy beards of Shancoduff
While the cattle - drovers sheltering in the Featherna Bush
Look up and say: "Who owns them hungry hills
That the water - hen and snip must have forsaken?
A poet? Then by heavens he must be poor."
I hear and is my heart not badly shaken?
3.2k
What is the price of a childhood lost?
And who is the one to pay the cost?
For the child who's often left alone,
And forced to grow up on their own,
Left at home without a reason why,
While mommy goes out to get high,
For the child who lives in constant fear,
Who wants for love, but none is near,
And left to cry throughout the night,
With no one near to hold her tight,
No sheltering arms to wrap around,
Or childhood comforts to be found,
When compassion is a forgotten word,
And loving thoughts are never heard,
When hopes and dreams have all been tossed,
What is the price of a childhood lost?
10-04-10.
Jan 2, 2012
Jan 2, 2012 at 12:46 AM UTC
Waving its bells in the mid morning breeze
Sheltering under the lemon and lime leaves
The new leaves to enter a promising spring
What more could a bluebell possibly bring.
May 7, 2015
May 7, 2015 at 6:17 AM UTC