"slackens" 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.
21.3k
Today, for the first time, I looked at my mother. Really looked at her. I've been watching her for years. I know her habits, the way her face slackens when she's mad. I watch the way she is in the world and I know who she is, what she feels like, how she smells; but until today, I couldn't have told you what she looks like. She is beautiful. Breathtaking. It's Christmas and the house is warm, glowing, smells like food. We had company and she was flitting about, kitchen to couch, apron wrapped around her fancy dress. No stockings or shoes. She was waving her arms, twiddling her fingers around her wineglass, rubbing her feet together, always in motion. Her face slid so easily into a smile, creases outlining her happiness. Strong features: a big nose, defined chin, high cheekbones, easily visible because of her short hair. My mother is not a small woman, nor is she big, but she stands tall with broad shoulders, mine now the same, and her presence is colossal. I could see the 20 some year old that my father fell madly in love with. Gorgeous. Strong. But at the same time, so soft. Every part of her nurtures. I sat in awe, stunned that I had not noticed that she was once so much more than Mom. Still is.
Dec 26, 2013
Dec 26, 2013 at 1:48 AM UTC
500
Within my Garden, rides a Bird
Upon a single Wheel—
Whose spokes a dizzy Music make
As ’twere a travelling Mill—
He never stops, but slackens
Above the Ripest Rose—
Partakes without alighting
And praises as he goes,
Till every spice is tasted—
And then his Fairy Gig
Reels in remoter atmospheres—
And I rejoin my Dog,
And He and I, perplex us
If positive, ’twere we—
Or bore the Garden in the Brain
This Curiosity—
But He, the best Logician,
Refers my clumsy eye—
To just vibrating Blossoms!
An Exquisite Reply!
2.6k
Betrayal of a nation
By its own generations
Pageantry that slackens
Sliding into morbidity
Obesity of the spirit
Swells of needless waste
In the name of wealth
Sacriledge
Oozing farce
Finger puppets
Only to be played
Imagined wars, sciences
A lavishness blithely unaware
Of its inner decay
Decadence
Sweet taste of poison
Thus falls Babylon
By her own hand
Feb 12, 2010
Feb 12, 2010 at 9:12 PM UTC
Sleepless, lost and wandering
Wondering what it all means
Beg the heavens for an answer
But silence is the only response from an overcast sky
The chain slackens and the cage drops
Cerebral bars block the paths of elated reflection
Contentment occasionally slips through the clefts
But is instantly devoured by sharks of agony
Grief, heartache, passion and sorrow
The artists toolbox
Blood, sweat and tears (fears)
Causation of our desire to die
Is what gives our work life
Jul 23, 2016
Jul 23, 2016 at 7:50 PM UTC
My days were dreary, monotonous;
The world painted in shades of black.
I was living a facade,
Pretending to be blithe
My fragile armour
Was cracking fast.
But in the
Darkness
Hope
Is found;
Pain slackens.
You are my light;
Just as the sun's rays,
Your smile shines through the night
Flooding me with intense heat.
I staggered through the grim twilight
And found you in the most absurd place.
Mar 22, 2013
Mar 22, 2013 at 8:47 AM UTC
I don't notice when my grip slackens.
The thoughts that held me have long since faded
into the hummmm that rattles through silence.
Untethered, I lose myself. Seemingly
broken into a pack of wild dogs
whose howls and moans echo distantly
Mingling with words uttered aloud
For no one's benefit: "Please, just stop it,"
tumbled down into particulate sound.
(As fine as sand.)
Those fragments that find their way back to me
snap capricious jaws, and left uncertain,
I flinch away from unfamiliar teeth.
Aug 13, 2014
Aug 13, 2014 at 2:20 AM UTC
Rain, I adore
Pour in measure
Thrills of the
Umbrella strolls
Without one
Down comes
Pulsating, a drop.
The first showers
Always dear
Give fever
Escalating mercury
In the thermometer
Kindles body fire
When fever chills
At the pores
Friendship scorches
Unabated unable
To subside.
All the guests gone
A teardrop knocks
At the window pane
On the bed of blisters
The half-conscious
In delirium blabbers
'Rain rain'.
Splits open, the sky
Trembles the Earth
The silver ornament
At the waist slackens
In an ecstatic
Electric confluence.
The chest-close hugging
Mercy of the sky
The wind which
Carried you afar
The sunshine colours
And pretty curves
Of the rainbow
Not with you now
But give me
The earthly odour
Of your coming
Give me the greenery
Of the fresh spring
On the paths, you
Created new
Give me those
Fallen flowers
Of the muddy track.
Forget the sky, the pride
Penetrate my soil, the soul
My fever will be with you
Which carries my breath
The warmth of my body
From that will sprout
Panikkoorkka, the herb.
Jan 11, 2016
Jan 11, 2016 at 11:56 AM UTC
The net is finer than the spider or silkworm's.
Curling, it catches and flares here and there,
grazing down the ribcage of this world
and occupying all spaces, tenderly.
It has come from the farthest places
where a star has passed into senescence
and no light remains.
In August the silver maples
flip and wave backsides of their leaves,
chiming and tinkling under its protection.
So much air and light
has looped through the beaks of birds
and pulled them down from flight.
Departure is what the speaker inhabits.
A self turning photograph
pulling away during the taking.
But slightly over-saturated,
full of the green turned gold.
The earth will become bald white again,
faultless and raked by the winds.
For now, the net slackens out
over the borders of woods
and resting in treetops, safe to be viewed.
A hawk drifting,
turns over the topography of the day's catch
in his eye.
Shadows close like open waters.
But the low and unending dilation of cricket song
of this month plays well beyond dusk.
Hear it extending into you
like delicate limbs
to enter the ear.
Aug 22, 2011
Aug 22, 2011 at 8:13 AM UTC
Light unloosens itself. Space slackens.
A figure of a shadow I have conjured before
anonymous eyes. Lapping up the waiflike bleakness
of their elliptical faces.
I must teach the trees to let go
of autumn, and relegate spryness to the hearth
of cold without merit, this slow, claiming mutiny
with its face-oval peering through windows multiplying
lovelessly, a crunch of a leaf, suchlike, flourishing
in peerless company. Before me, the sound of footfall
preparing to make sense, a rotunda of bell – that movement
of somebody done for, so ****** the scald welt of ******
the belch of the world like a pore clearing its squalor.
Or the toppled verdigris of gull.
Autumn’s greater extension, the abeyance, smilingly
a facsimile of crowds – its roads adorned with laburnum
singeing through the morning’s cauldron, a waft of bald terrain
inflamed, drawing with absence
a crippled drip of rain back into the world’s dim address.
Feb 7, 2016
Feb 7, 2016 at 1:28 PM UTC
We live in mist and cloud
searching for warmth and mirth.
The mist fades, the clouds falter.
We each stand on a peak.
I see her glimmering smile
it banishes doubt and worry.
Who knew a smile could
be
so mollifying
so
filling, yet distant?
I look below
to the treacherous
valley.
I shiver at thought
but
omens cannot purchase
my hope.
I march forward.
Across the chasm
of maybe so
and
perhaps not
I fight the tide of
blistering denial, of
mourning and loss
but as I near,
her smile loses its bearings
it slackens and crumbles
smeared in shadow
it dies slowly
so does
my
odyssey...
Without her sunlit smile
to light the way
through treacherous valley
and darkening day
I wait, in wonder
of my eager
stupidity,
and waste away
in ravenous dismay
for her smile does fade
in the nearing
when will I learn that I
can never get
close for comfort.
Nov 6, 2016
Nov 6, 2016 at 11:17 PM UTC
Beauty crowds me till I die.
Look there, across the street.
Do you see her? Do you see how they gaze at her?
My blood boils. My breath quickens.
One slice. One piece.
Her breath escapes. Her beauty gone.
Death claims me again this night.
Look there, next to the horror books.
Do you see her? Do you see how they gaze at her?
My blood boils. My breath quickens.
One slice. Two piece.
Her face pales. Her beauty gone.
Death claims me again this night.
Look there, across from that old ***
Do you see her? Do you see how they gaze at her?
My blood boils. My breath quickens.
One Slice. Three piece.
Her body slackens. Her beauty gone.
Death claims me once and forever more this night.
Beauty no longer suffocating.
Sep 20, 2010
Sep 20, 2010 at 11:25 AM UTC
On the red eye,
eyes red,
heavy with sleep that doesn't come.
Consciousness fades out, fades in,
bobs up and down
though I crave submersion,
surrender,
a letting go in a sense.
My wish is simple.
That,
if only sleep will find me,
cradle me gently in its sweet ether,
as my jaw slackens and my head rolls onto my shoulder,
I will only dream of you.
Nov 11, 2016
Nov 11, 2016 at 6:06 AM UTC
night falls. space slackens.
falling into common placeness, the realness
of quotidian moon.
.
a love for the metastasis of minutiae.
a hand on the cold **** pale like the dead.
the tombs of fingernails. creases for
delineations of Earth. clenched, evening.
unloosened, bare as morning.
hand in hand, twilight.
.
outside the house, a figure.
things stir in the persistence of silence.
the flagrant irony of hearing cacophonies.
a part of the world that becomes a kin.
say, without light and the dimensions of
things, no shadows display in grayscale.
listening to the cancer of the avenue:
the continuing tachycardia in the edge
of things. things that pulse or flatten.
the mind, in your passing. the heart in your passing. respect this chronology.
likened to the metaphor of beginning
an immediate and forever turning of the body when trouble meant togetherness,
and consolation, simply remembering.
.
there is a deconstruction in sleep.
the alterable garment of dream. or a flower
revealing its inflorescence.
the blackred hemograph of petals, the accuracy of thorns, the tabulated geography
of its stillness - something it that does not completely practice. the constancy of the wind breaks its mimesis.
.
outside your house again. the undesirable quake in the monotony of your dog, Oliver, chained to the stilt of the house that does
move anymore.
the absolute quiet of the street foreshadows the variegated Dieffenbachia.
the color of my palm, starting to green.
i could be anything within your presence
as the moon intensifies the plunge.
Feb 27, 2016
Feb 27, 2016 at 3:48 AM UTC
*The sun lightly caresses my face
And my eyelids flutter in glowing
Appreciation and admiration, heart stirs
Dreamily awake, reluctant to resume its
Exceedingly vital task, funny how it slackens
Sometimes when its primary task is a matter
Of life and death, literally.
My fingers make fleeting acquaintance with my
Temples, a quick rubbing to ease blood flow
To stave off a nagging headache.
Soon, every part of me is more
Accommodative of the notion of waking up
And by extension the happenings
Of the remainder of the day.*
Jul 5, 2017
Jul 5, 2017 at 5:49 AM UTC
For a small town girl
Alone in the sprawl of the creaking metropolis
She kept to the bustle of the hurrying crowd
Lacking the courage to explore
London’s surfeit of nooks and crannies
~
Where Dickens once walked the
Victorian cobbled alleys and beyond
Passed unnoticed by wide eyed tourists
Harried by their clip board minders
Mindful to keep to the tight schedule.
~
Long enough now for wonder to subside
With time to absorb the lessons to be learnt
By taking the bus over Westminster Bridge
To avoid the Tube’s rush hour crush of humanity
and the wandering hands of marauding touchy feelers
~
Friends are hard to find north of the Thames
Work time colleagues return home to suburbia
Leaving London to the empting streets
Feral cats emerge to scavenge the waste bins
While the bag lady beds down in a vacant doorway
~
In an Italian coffee house on the Lambeth embankment
She found a special place to sit and scribble
Where the customers provided flesh for her characters
Where Giovanni breaks into song when the trade slackens
and Amor di Pastorello is in tune with the lapping tide.
Jan 23, 2018
Jan 23, 2018 at 12:18 PM UTC
with shaking fingers my grip
slackens from the steering wheel
mind free of all cares
heart bursting with joy
the car moves forward
answering my desire
taking me somewhere
anywhere but here
Jun 12, 2017
Jun 12, 2017 at 6:38 AM UTC
I woke bitterly
I'm bruised, evidently
poison stings elegantly
when I think of your face
Nothing can replace
the feeling of the chase
the constriction of desire
the elation of loosening lace
a life of loneliness burning on
the pyre
but when I wake now
all this is as the murky floor
the bed of dreams and irks, a distant
past crammed and burried in the fogotten
Footfalls stir the watery gloom of the
swamp whose surface breaks
only when I sleep and
thrash.
In the distance
a glow, an inviting
innocent thumping so
warm and benign,
I know It's you.
I grasp your heart
a thing whose fist
I thought I knew.
Words as sharp
as fissures of guilt.
A voice as hard
as jails of stone.
I thought I knew
your steadfast
heart, but now
in feeling its
warmth and
sound, I doubt
my anger.
Of course,
I can't be talked down
I won't be convinced of forgiveness
my pride still hangs in rags
my heart still beats like abuse
my throat is still taut from every word I hung on
and, yes, I hung on, while you shook
and shook and shook
until I let go!
I stab your heart
the skies erupt with lightning
my face caught in a mixture
of pain
and delight
and fear
and remorse
a confusion I cannot identify
but will haunt me in every silence
In my twisted glee,
I expect your heart to bleed
to wither
to perish,
but the waters of life flow forth
and I feel
you weeping
My body slackens
I feel disgust wrack my nerves
"How could I?"
but you lay there,
hoping to embrace me
your love still drawing me close
is all I had ever wanted
I kneel, I fold, crying my own nonsense away
you wrap your arms around me.
How is it that only humans,
will love each other more
after going to war?
"It was just a fight..." you whisper in my ear,
"Only I can **** my love for you."
Aug 19, 2016
Aug 19, 2016 at 9:55 PM UTC
Truths you can't live with
Blame me it's so easy to do
Cheating,slanderous lies
It's always you you you.
Slowly I'm untangling your hold
Starting to see behind ones mask
so I'm looking forward to the future
To be a beer without a cask.
It's going to wreck my emotions
Play havoc with all my thoughts
As the noose slackens around my neck
My smiles gets bigger of sorts.
I'm going to dance the boulevard
Run naked through the corn
Releasing me from your iron grip
Means I can slowly be reborn
You broke my heart through away the key
But now I've made new locks
Sitting on the quays of life
Waiting for a sweet ship to dock.
Jun 7, 2017
Jun 7, 2017 at 5:19 AM UTC
"While I gaze upon it
I feel a certain distance:
The moon light
Makes its way to dwellings
Everywhere, I feel."
by Ki no Tsurayuki
My Reply
Bright Issues the Moon
dusts the landscape with pale ash
illumination
slackens our taut customs
we're brought closer to our hearts
[Bonus Material. Earlier looser version :
When brighter the Moon
unknots our taught habits
spends our ideas
freely in its pale light
we act closer to our hearts]
Aug 27, 2020
Aug 27, 2020 at 1:14 AM UTC