"slumberous" poems
Every brush is a first as a spark to a fire;
though the ashes still fall from limb and leaf,
each blaze sizzles an original melody:
forever unique and soulfully sole.
A delicate comfort envelopes me,
wreathing my pieces with a gentle autumn breeze,
mending me whole when I was never broken.
Her ambiance dances as rays of shattered moonlight,
slipping beneath a sky of the arctic dawn.
She gathers my fragments,
even when they had never been chipped away.
I lay unprotected, yet entirely safe.
She bends until the space separating us is airless with tender yearning.
I taste a thin sea-foam of maple sugar.
Dyspnoea remains fluid in our slumberous desire.
When I close my eyes, submitting to the quiet rush,
I am welcomed by an island universe.
Stardust spirals as the cosmos beams above our heads.
A sylvan petrichor swirls about the fall
as I am consumed with pure euphoria.
Jun 26, 2014
Jun 26, 2014 at 11:29 PM UTC
The quiet August noon has come,
A slumberous silence fills the sky,
The fields are still, the woods are dumb,
In glassy sleep the waters lie.
And mark yon soft white clouds that rest
Above our vale, a moveless throng;
The cattle on the mountain's breast
Enjoy the grateful shadow long.
Oh, how unlike those merry hours
In early June when Earth laughs out,
When the fresh winds make love to flowers,
And woodlands sing and waters shout.
When in the grass sweet voices talk,
And strains of tiny music swell
From every moss-cup of the rock,
From every nameless blossom's bell.
But now a joy too deep for sound,
A peace no other season knows,
Hushes the heavens and wraps the ground,
The blessing of supreme repose.
Away! I will not be, to-day,
The only slave of toil and care.
Away from desk and dust! away!
I'll be as idle as the air.
Beneath the open sky abroad,
Among the plants and breathing things,
The sinless, peaceful works of God,
I'll share the calm the season brings.
Come, thou, in whose soft eyes I see
The gentle meanings of thy heart,
One day amid the woods with me,
From men and all their cares apart.
And where, upon the meadow's breast,
The shadow of the thicket lies,
The blue wild flowers thou gatherest
Shall glow yet deeper near thine eyes.
Come, and when mid the calm profound,
I turn, those gentle eyes to seek,
They, like the lovely landscape round,
Of innocence and peace shall speak.
Rest here, beneath the unmoving shade,
And on the silent valleys gaze,
Winding and widening, till they fade
In yon soft ring of summer haze.
The village trees their summits rear
Still as its spire, and yonder flock
At rest in those calm fields appear
As chiselled from the lifeless rock.
One tranquil mount the scene o'erlooks--
There the hushed winds their sabbath keep
While a near hum from bees and brooks
Comes faintly like the breath of sleep.
Well may the gazer deem that when,
Worn with the struggle and the strife,
And heart-sick at the wrongs of men,
The good forsakes the scene of life;
Like this deep quiet that, awhile,
Lingers the lovely landscape o'er,
Shall be the peace whose holy smile
Welcomes him to a happier shore.
4.1k
A lily-girl, not made for this world’s pain,
With brown, soft hair close braided by her ears,
And longing eyes half veiled by slumberous tears
Like bluest water seen through mists of rain:
Pale cheeks whereon no love hath left its stain,
Red underlip drawn in for fear of love,
And white throat, whiter than the silvered dove,
Through whose wan marble creeps one purple vein.
Yet, though my lips shall praise her without cease,
Even to kiss her feet I am not bold,
Being o’ershadowed by the wings of awe,
Like Dante, when he stood with Beatrice
Beneath the flaming Lion’s breast, and saw
The seventh Crystal, and the Stair of Gold.
2.9k
For Mike Marconett
of happy memory
Bright star, beyond a Sterno stove’s brief glow,
We’ll live forever as we live this night:
Coffee and cigarettes and comradeship,
Our backs against the sun-warmed Sierras
As the cold falls from infinite darkness
To keep the snow in place another night,
To smile in ancient silence back at you,
To make a glowing, slumberous twilight until dawn.
Those C-rations were good after a day
Of scrambling among pre-historic rocks
Made musical by the dinosaur creek,
Water as cold as the dark end of time.
San Diego glows in the south-southwest,
Silently, inefficiently, light lost.
But you, dear, happy star, will still shine down
On dreaming youths, tonight and other nights,
Counting for us, for them, each millennium.
Jan 11, 2019
Jan 11, 2019 at 4:06 PM UTC
It's dusk, and
soft whispers of spittle fall from the sky
like the tears of a lover who cannot cry.
The icy air is languid
a slumberous echo of the wind so anxious,
whilst the foam thrusts lazily against the sand.
A rotting carcass of a boat,
it's flush'd red colour peeling from the throat.
The considerate neglect of the scattered leaves,
creates patterns of vines so finely weaved.
And outside,
Tough boots withered away like tidiness disturbed,
as though fond memories are keen to be preserved.
Dec 21, 2015
Dec 21, 2015 at 1:08 AM UTC
An occasional gust of wind will lift the translucent white voile curtains and then drop them like a child losing interest. The effect is like flash photography, a burst of sudden sunlight that paints our irises, then quickly fades.
It’s a cool Paris morning. In the low 50s. The windows are open and we forgot to turn on the heat. It’s perfect ‘under the covers’ weather. We’ve succumbed to laziness, refusing to get out of bed. Lazing-in is new enough to us that we’re defining it with a gamut of synonyms.
“Listlessness, torpor,” Peter says, his index finger tracking the slow twirl of the ceiling fan.
“Stupor, slumberous, supineness, ” I updog.
“Ooh! total submissiveness,” Peter said, drawing the last word out like it’s *****
“Every man’s dream,” I confirm.
“Inertia,” he says, triumphant in finding an engineering word.
“Good one,” I compliment. “Lifeless, loafing laggard,” I add.
There’s a knock at the door.
We look at each other guiltily, like we’ve been caught.
“We ordered breakfast last night,” Peter remembers.
“Oh, yeah,” I said, “you get it,” I suggested.
“Why me?” he whined.
“Because you can wear less and because what if it’s an ax murderer?”
“These people work for your grandmother, she employs ax murderers?”
“It could be a revolution - this is France - it happens.”
There’s another knock.
“Get it!,” I bleated, like a helpless goat.
“Am I expendable?” he asked, as a man might plead to a lynch mob.
“Women and children first,” I remind him.
There’s a third knock.
“Ok,” he says resignedly, as he rises, draws on shorts and heads for the door.
“You’re my hero,” I assure him, before I pull the sheet up over my head in case it IS an ax murderer.
Jun 3, 2023
Jun 3, 2023 at 9:06 AM UTC
I hunger for your mouth, your voice, your skin,
And through the streets I slide without nutrition,
Silent, without a bite of bread, dawn disquieting me within,
I search the liquid sound of your feet at day’s fruition.
I’m hungry for your voice’s slippery laughter,
For your sunburned hands’ colored clasp,
I hunger for the pale shade of your stony nails, and after
Want to eat your skin as a ripe, sunburned almond’s rasp.
I want to engorge the sunburned rays of your beauty,
Your sovereign nose, up to your arrogant face,
I want to eat the slumberous slip of your lashes…
And hungrily I go to and fro, sniffing the shadows,
In search of you, to make your hot heart race.
I’m a cougar in the quiet of Quitratúe.
Jun 14, 2015
Jun 14, 2015 at 10:17 PM UTC
sea’s quiet tonight, iris and vagabond gray
salt coarse in our hair we can see it in the
last pink light
count the bubbles in the wake
sprouting from thin air and
imaginary whale songs
they won’t find us in the stern let me
look at your hipbones—I won’t touch
not yet it’s too quiet tonight
there’s orion, and there’s cassiopeia
stars swimming white fish in our
rum-eyes
gulls’ heads tucked under wings
in the corners—goodnight goodnight
little gulls, dreaming you’re doves
even sirens sleep this moon
soft voices slumberous
smoky, hey—let me look at you again
under the velvet dark, sea in sterling drops
on our lashes, let’s take a break from steering
let waves and mermaids take the wheel
Mar 30, 2014
Mar 30, 2014 at 7:43 PM UTC
My friend failed the appointment
and I had this man beside me
with untimely heavy woolen
peering into the condensed haze
of that October evening.
Being alone is scary,
the hoarse voice melted the silence
*and being alive sometimes scarier
than not being*,
he paused as if
the words had drained him
*when you hope it the most
and none turns up
to feel and fill you*.
The fog had almost devoured the halogen
leaving me only with the voice.
It's uneasy, I spoke at last,
*isn't it weird to be talking
without being seen*?
Not in the least,
his laughter rattled the slumberous air
*the world long turned away its face
from the face beside you*.
Oct 31, 2017
Oct 31, 2017 at 10:19 AM UTC
Popping out from slumberous state,
Little buds, you come to life.
Fight, fist, fend the odds,
You’re different; you survive.
Combative, commanding, cruel,
Your army, every restraint exceeds,
As it marches on, devouring
The very platter on which it feeds.
Slithering, slipping stealthily,
Deadly tentacles spare no bone, sinew.
Boundaries are blurred; your territory expands,
Your militia continues to exponentially grow.
And soon, your red flags of victory-
Those flags of death, demise and doom
Are planted everywhere; each bit
Of terrain you’ve invaded and consumed.
There you sit, content, in the middle of all the gloom,
Immortal, indestructible, infinite.
With power of the magnitude you possess,
There’s no force that can give you a fight.
And when flies of decay begin to hover over
Your kingdom, you smile, flexing your pincers.
Thriving on the depressing glow of the setting sun,
You- the kark, the crab, the cancer.
(to the malady that ate my Grandmother away)
May 18, 2013
May 18, 2013 at 11:02 AM UTC
I shall pass, in time
amongst the edges of a lover’s sigh,
Yet my atoms shall live in
human touch, dashing against
lips and hands and thighs,
slumberous eyes.
Gentle affections of my bodies edges,
shall sway within tides of light.
Among the nigh’
and her fragrant roses hue
shall soften with time
Within slender silver rapture,
To drift ‘side heavenly bodies,
Hundred petalled suns will
blossom under the darkening eventide,
and tremulous, I will follow.
Dec 11, 2017
Dec 11, 2017 at 11:39 AM UTC
Camping on the Edge of Forever
For Michael Dean Marconette
of happy memory
Bold star, beyond a Sterno stove’s brief glow,
We’ll live forever as we live this night:
Coffee and cigarettes and comradeship,
Our backs against the sun-warmed Sierras
As the cold falls from infinite darkness
To keep the snow in place another night,
To smile in ancient silence back at you,
To make a glowing, slumberous twilight until dawn.
Those C-rations were good after a day
Of scrambling among pre-historic rocks
Made musical by the dinosaur creek,
Water as cold as the dark end of time.
San Diego glows in the south-southwest,
Silently, inefficiently, light lost.
But you, dear, happy star, will still shine down
On dreaming youths, tonight and other nights,
Counting for us, for them, each millennium.
Feb 12, 2017
Feb 12, 2017 at 4:38 PM UTC
We slept on the spare couch
A half remembered dream that I have bled for
My eyes drenched in slumberous salt
Dewy eyelids threaten to close
And yet we chase sleep into the desert
With bells dragging behind our backs
To have rest rob our pockets
A tsunami in the grave
A half remembered dream of rooftop travels and serenades
Hushed giggles in the dark
This dream that I have suffered and died for
A dream I have given my life for
Starts to fade anyway
Jun 4, 2019
Jun 4, 2019 at 4:27 PM UTC
Aching...
Aching in a place where I only thought love was generated.
Frustrated...
Frustrated in a area where I thought, my thoughts sought and fought for understandings
Chilly, shivery, nippy, bitter,
Like the runt of a litter
Tired; not drowsy
Tired; not sleepy
Tired; not sluggish or slumberous
Tired as in worn, burned-out, weary...
...Done
It is not only that you do not feel the effects,
You don't even see them on my face
You look at me everyday,
I just look back
If you don't have a clue
If you don't ask, or don't care
That's a clue
That's my Q
Dont ask Y
When you become my X
...
At night I've been losing Zs
I have to start paying more attention to I
I gave up all of my energy, and now I'm running on E
So now I don't give a F
LOL (Lost Our Love)
You lost it too; I'm J/K (Just Knowing)
I'm glad IDK (I Didn't Kneel)
Now I have to B.S (Block Sensitivity)
And ***** (LET MY ******* ANGER OUT)
Feb 19, 2013
Feb 19, 2013 at 11:55 PM UTC
A dark cavern
Yawns wide
Cobwebbed
With corpses of storage
Of prehistoric age,
Went in long time
Put stay
Without again
Seeing light of day,
Untouched by squall
on the wall
In hibernation
An archive
Beyond retrieval,
A black square hole
Without a role
In my living room,
I’ll never take a ladder
to hold me aloft
and peep inside the loft
but let continue
its slumberous mystery
date prehistory
Jun 4, 2013
Jun 4, 2013 at 7:41 AM UTC
Beautiful Sylvain valleys and grassy savannas sooth my soul,
As here within my compact brain-cave
My mind wanders
Though a Multiverse
Of Realms.
From unfathomable gorges and deep down oceans
Up to soaring skies,
My inner eyes take in
Vistas of Infinity.
Imagination has no limits
Being a blessing and a curse.
Endless dreams of gold and honey
Opposed by fears of monstrous evils
Too horrific to ponder here.
My Id keeps churning up all manner of memories
And creations of the brain,
While in the background
Music plays
Punctuated only
By my Inner Voice.
Words, words keep welling up
From subliminal springs
Deep within my head.
Words, images, sounds
Feelings, tastes and smells,
Reality processed and reformed.
Reality recreated indeed
In finest detail,
A confusion of sights and sounds.
Give me those balmy days,
High in the hills
And low on the plains.
Let me bask in glorious sunshine,
Take a slumberous siesta
Then quaff that golden nectar:
Any brew will do.
Lets be kings and queens
Of the poetic landscape
Enjoying all
That The Muses
Will sing.
Paul Butters
© PB 26\6\2019.
Jun 26, 2019
Jun 26, 2019 at 12:18 PM UTC
Sweet breath of mountain,
Breathing in slumberous calm
Controlling my mind with the deep smells
Of each pine needle, crushed under foot.
Sending up my senses the memories of mountains
Buried where past breezes blow.
Taking my breath with each step,
Sleep over rock, taxing my lungs
Drinking yet deeper the mountains persuasion.
Knife sharp glints of sun
Slip between bough and branch
Casting fractured lights and dark, dancing
Shadows at mid-day.
The mountains small creatures attract
The quick glance. Calm watchers see
Soft green lizards, tiny bugs,
Slowing only, to look at me.
Cold waters split the mountains skin
Ever running downward, ripple over rocks
And fallen cones. Falling to crescendo
In a white cascade, searching a path to the sea.
Take me sweet mountain, let me stand
As a tree on your side. Let me be nurtured from inside you
That I may grace you humbly, and that you, might grace, me.
Feb 9, 2012
Feb 9, 2012 at 10:07 AM UTC
*A cashew-nut
she pressed between my lips
slumberous awestruck
I chewed it
groping for her hands in the dark
if she really was there
or I was dream living
why should a woman
in the middle of night
press a cashew-nut
moist and warm
between my lips
was she hungry herself
hypoglycemic
picking them in despair
popping one betwixt my lips
or is it the one
I popped through hers
last evening
misdirected
without my knowing it
found the vertical lip
betwixt her swells
till she felt the *****
when loosened her robes
and it stirred in her
a long forgotten spark
so she came back
in the middle of night
for me to chew
the re-popped cashew-nut
slumberous awestruck!*
Nov 9, 2013
Nov 9, 2013 at 3:32 AM UTC
I am the helpless, wingéd fly whose thirst
For nectar draws me close to your steel cell
Where once imprisoned, death drapes me; the first
I’m not to fall before your binding spell.
For many men in vain your kiss pursued
But sadly, your false kiss bore life’s mishap
With slumberous poison in your chasms brewed
You marred their hearts for you’re the Venus trap,
The beast whose luring nectars lovers draw,
Tormentor whose first weapon is your sweets,
Whose second is the power of your jaw,
And all the poison that your heart secretes!
Of your dark deeds, to others, I’ll impart
So they won’t be allured to your black heart!
Jul 9, 2014
Jul 9, 2014 at 11:56 PM UTC
There appears the morning sunlight
That awakens the tress, snapping the spotlight
Getting refreshed for yet another day.
The tress, they stand solemnly
Ruler straight, ***** towering the skies.
A ray of light springs up calmly
Waking up the slumberous woods.
And with that tiny stroke of light
Chirping birds, wandering insects
Breezes in to the limelight.
Yet, some other place dark as it is
Devoid of the ray of light.
The blooming flowers, the swirling waters
Are at a standstill, inactive and undisturbed.
As that tiny stroke of light becomes gross,
The woods would dance with the wind
Lift up their voice with the bird
And bloom with the flowers.
Beyond recall, life becomes alive
At the cracking of the dawn.
Jul 16, 2014
Jul 16, 2014 at 2:47 AM UTC
huge black hulk of sunken sagging bedding
his armchair has seen its better days
his mousy derelictions from society's dictums
have born a wastrel with feet of clay
a bookworm hiding from the birds of prey
a lover unloved except for that long ago kiss on a Paris quay
cigarette burns and sudden coffee spills
scarce paper and broken quills
tribunal assaults on ambition's embattled frays
he holds fast to this chair
through many a disorienting maze
holds fast to this comfort flop of better days
canaries mourn the demise of his old dog lassie
while johns down the street rejoice over their whores' chassis
and the ice cream man takes a breather on the Santa Monica sands
listening to the far away poet
wrap up his film in the can
for video night at the local poetry slam
milk wood meetings in slumberous afternoons
enforce the guilt of absent attractions
though grateful bon ami erases
evidence of the satisfaction
then often leans back in his chair
falling asleep on a half remembered line of Poe or John Clare
awakening wishing once for a computer
though he thinks them a crime
a luddite at heart
neighbors revile him for being an old ****
yet sometimes he sinks deeper into his chair
imagining taking the big step if he dare
burp me mrs sweeny pleads
to her lover who raps her on the back
2 or 3 times and a fourth for FOOD luck
as on the bachelor's chair they commence to ****
though after stepping into the morning's widowed wind
all seems bleak and commonly thin
but both he and she kept the loss of a sedentary promise fearfully within
Sep 27, 2016
Sep 27, 2016 at 10:20 PM UTC
I stay silent; say no words
As I lie on my bed, just thinking.
I stay silent; feeling the cold
It's 4:45 am but still breathing
The night seems to be passive;
I felt nothing but curious.
I tried to be expressive;
Still, nothing comes out but slumberous.
Nov 19, 2015
Nov 19, 2015 at 3:44 PM UTC
I step outside
It's a quiet, lovely night.
The air is cool and minty fresh
Blowing kisses on my cheeks.
I walk gently on the soft grass.
Night casts a veil of mystery
All over the slumberous land of serene,
My breath as I breathe
Sleeps in the night air.
Cheeky little twinkling stars wink at me.
There is a light, so good and right,
My friend, the Moon, shines in dear bright light,
I like her better than the one that visits once the rooster crows.
Her light is luminous and
her sweet face glows.
So placid is this night,
What a dream I shut my eyes and still see the light
From thousands of stars beyond and away,
Infinitely there for me to adore
And after dreams of shooting stars to chase.
Mar 29, 2013
Mar 29, 2013 at 7:44 AM UTC