"spoor" poems
Compelled by calamity's magnet
They loiter and stare as if the house
Burnt-out were theirs, or as if they thought
Some scandal might any minute ooze
From a smoke-choked closet into light;
No deaths, no prodigious injuries
Glut these hunters after an old meat,
Blood-spoor of the austere tragedies.
Mother Medea in a green smock
Moves humbly as any housewife through
Her ruined apartments, taking stock
Of charred shoes, the sodden upholstery:
Cheated of the pyre and the rack,
The crowd ***** her last tear and turns away.
13.8k
the sky sinks its blue teeth
into the mountains.
Rising on pure will
(the lurch & lift-off,
the sudden swing
into wide, white snow),
I encourage the cable.
Past the wind
& crossed tips of my skis
& the mauve shadows of pines
& the spoor of bears
& deer,
I speak to my fear,
rising, riding,
finding myself
the only thing
between snow & sky,
the link
that holds it all together.
Halfway up the wire,
we stop,
slide back a little
(a whirr of pulleys).
Astronauts circle above us today
in the television blue of space.
But the thin withers of alps
are waiting to take us too,
& this might be the moon!
We move!
Friends, this is a toy
merely for reaching mountains
merely
for skiing down.
& now we're dangling
like charms on the same bracelet
or upsidedown tightrope people
(a colossal circus!)
or absurd winged walkers,
angels in animal fur,
with mittened hands waving
& fear turning
& the mountain
like a fisherman,
reeling us all in.
So we land
on the windy peak,
touch skis to snow,
are married to our purple shadows,
& ski back down
to the unimaginable valley
leaving no footprints.
4k
So an age ended, and its last deliverer died
In bed, grown idle and unhappy; they were safe:
The sudden shadow of a giant's enormous calf
Would fall no more at dusk across their lawns outside.
They slept in peace: in marshes here and there no doubt
A sterile dragon lingered to a natural death,
But in a year the spoor had vanished from the heath:
A kobold's knocking in the mountain petered out.
Only the scupltors and the poets were half sad,
And the pert retinue from the magician's house
Grumbled and went elsewhere. The vanished powers were glad
To be invisible and free; without remorse
Struck down the sons who strayed in their course,
And ravished the daughters, and drove the fathers mad.
3.9k
Dis stasie was stil
en donker gelaat.
Die nag kwyn in lig
en die dag kry sy wraak.
Die spore le koud
verdwyn op die horison,
en ek wag vir 'n stoomtrein
wat nooit sal kom.
Karre jaag die lewe
in die stad duskant die spoor aan
en 'n sateliet voer ons inligting
vanuit sy ordinere wentelbaan,
maar ek verspeel my tyd
deur hier langs die spoor te staan.
My soeke vir liefde
was waar liefde ontbreek,
soos om te wag vir 'n stoomtrein
of om vir kos te smeek.
Ek soek nou vir liefde
op die verlate stasies
van die vandag se tyd
, maar al wat ek kry is 'n taxi
en die wereld lag my uit.
Ek wag vir my trein.
Ek wag vir jou.
Jun 19, 2014
Jun 19, 2014 at 7:36 PM UTC
Compelled by calamity's magnet
They loiter and stare as if the house
Burnt-out were theirs, or as if they thought
Some scandal might any minute ooze
From a smoke-choked closet into light;
No deaths, no prodigious injuries
Glut these hunters after an old meat,
Blood-spoor of the austere tragedies.
Mother Medea in a green smock
Moves humbly as any housewife through
Her ruined apartments, taking stock
Of charred shoes, the sodden upholstery:
Cheated of the pyre and the rack,
The crowd ***** her last tear and turns away.
2.9k
Die môre groet jou met ń nat soen
En ontplooi haar goue gloed
Oor jou fynbos en Olifants-oor
Die wind ween oor die rykdom
Wat jy deur jare van sweet en bloed, vir jouself terug geëis het
, maar streel deur jou grashalms
Met die harmonie van hoop wat deur jou are pols...
Pols, wanneer 4x4 en ossewa spoor oorkruis!
Hier timmer jy aan my
- lê die hoeksteen van ń graniet gebou
Ek sal strewe om jou te eer.
Suid-Afrika , ń ode aan jou.
Apr 4, 2014
Apr 4, 2014 at 2:06 PM UTC
She saw the face of Judas in him.
The bearded kiss festered no truth
and the metallic breath
exhaled putrid faithfulness.
The trampled petals spoor no lusting stares,
redolent no more
even as the tongue creeps by the shoulders.
The razors have summoned from the stinking room!
A slit in the neck
could rhythmically go by the thrusts unnoticed
But the chorus of the beasts
as shrill as the gongs of hell
maiming vengeance yet
not in the loss of blood will you die.
Not in my hands.
His demonic pleasures went on as the voodoo doll
resurrected in the beat of my own gongs.
Keep stirring as this spindle rouses my anathema!
his chest hairs
pint of blood
vulture’s beak
stallion’s tails
bobcat’s eye
dead evergreen
Deborah’s tears.
Stir and stir and stir!
Murmur satan’s prayer
mana mana mana boo!
ruba ruba ruba hoo!
Count the sands of the transient hourglass
expiring ‘fore tic tac sound.
Now her man froze,
bulging eyes, blackened pulse!
‘tis freedom, Deborah!
Free.
Doomed.
© Glenn Sentes
03-06-13
Mar 6, 2013
Mar 6, 2013 at 6:59 PM UTC
Dis nou die tyd om te babbel
En my mond verby te praat
, want hulle sê mos
A drunk man's words is
A sober man's thoughts...
En wie weet dalk vind ek
Die antwoorde in ń diep gesprek met myself...
Sien ek is nie een van daardie
AA lappies wat skeinheilig
Sit en slukkies suip om
Geluk onder in die bottel
Op te spoor nie.
Ek rook skaamteloos en
Omhels die intense stank
Van 10 jaar se lewe wat ek
Mors en longkanker, want
Dit herrinner my an oupa se
Skoot en *** veilig ek was
In daardie asbak woonstel
Waar ek soos white-trash eers my brood moes inspekteer vir
Indringer kokkerotte wat ook
Maar net teen ons kompeteer het
Vir ń krummeltjie kos.
Ek babbel, want wat anders kan mens doen as vrees jou aangryp as die koue staal jou hande brand -
En nee ek praat nie van lemme en inspuitings nie,
Want lemme maak merke waarvan ek reeds te veel het wat nou oor my polse uitgesprei lê en my herrinner *** swak ek was, maar *** sterk ek was... en inspuitings los ek vir die dokters en susters en die bloeddiens
Wat my leeg wil tap om een of ander sad case se lewe te red met bloed van ń bloedjie wat self nog in die verdoemtenis rond dwaal.
Ek babbel, want dis social anxiety en scary stuff om in ń kring te sit en Russian roulette te speel met al 5 van die mense wat ander van jou verwag om te wees. Want wat gebeur as ek myself in hierdie hoerasie van persoonlikhede raakskiet. *** weet ek watter een is ek as elke een die sneller swaar trek en hoop en bid vir ń blank... *** weet ek.
Kliek...
Kliek...
Kliek...
Kliek...
Bang!!
En nou babbel ek maar weer
...
Want ek het so pas agtergekom ek weet ook nie juis *** dit voel om dood te wees nie.
Wie is ek...
*** sal ek weet
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
...
Ek weet.
Apr 26, 2014
Apr 26, 2014 at 8:23 PM UTC
And the age ended, and the last deliverer died.
In bed, grown idle and unhappy; they were safe:
The sudden shadow of the giant's enormous calf
Would fall no more at dusk across the lawn outside.
They slept in peace: in marshes here and there no doubt
A sterile dragon lingered to a natural death,
But in a year the spoor had vanished from the heath;
The kobold's knocking in the mountain petered out.
Only the sculptors and the poets were half sad,
And the pert retinue from the magician's house
Grumbled and went elsewhere. The vanished powers were glad
To be invisible and free: without remorse
Struck down the sons who strayed their course,
And ravished the daughters, and drove the fathers mad.
2.2k
Jy hou van die manier waarop sy jou naam troosvol uitgespreek het na 'n swaar dag wat jy gehad het.
Jy is lief vir *** sy jou bekommernis verlig met elke woord wat sy sê dat jy nie presies kan vind *** sy daarin slaag om dinge wat jy nie kan uitdruk nie, uit te druk.
Jy hou van *** haar teenwoordigheid jou op jou reënerige dae troos en warmte gee.
Jy hou van haar klappergeur wat in jou kar hang nadat sy saam jou iewers heen gery het.
Jy hou daarvan om die geluid van haar lag te **** wat die leegheid van jou wêreld vul, soos simfonie jou uit die leemte haal.
Jy is lief vir *** sy gedigte geskryf het wat jy altyd weggevoer het, *** hulle gewys het hoeveel sy jou liefgehad het.
Jy hou van die manier *** haar klein vingers met joune verbind is, *** dit jou laat voel het dat jy die is wêreld waarna sy draai.
Jy is lief vir *** hierdie woorde die helderheid van die sterre diffundeer en *** hulle in die konstellasies hierbo vervang.
Jy hou van die manier waarop sy haar lippe saggies die besonderhede van jou gesig spoor soos 'n veer wat sy tydelik in die golwe van die wind laat dryf.
Jy hou van die geluid van elke strook van die potlood wat sy gemaak het toe sy die kruiswoorde wat jy op jou tafel gelos het, opgelos het, en besef dat dit nooit reg was nie, maar om na haar te kyk, was 'n antwoord self.
Jy is lief vir *** sy alles vir jou gemaak het, so erg dat dit jou laat verdrink het.
Jy is lief vir die idee van liefde wat hierin gevorm word.
Feb 24, 2019
Feb 24, 2019 at 5:11 AM UTC
In the coastal forest at Odiorne Point
Paths meander under and over
Bramble so odious as to create an impenetrable wall
And distant sound of swell and surge
My nose recoils from the endless spoor of sea
Where upon a rustling of leaves drew my attention
To the vain wanderings of a scant grey squirrel
If I were a meager rodent of the furry tail persuasion
I would have purpose, direction, and courage against the iron horse
However, I am just a man of no resolve, course, or valor
Therein lies the rub
And coastal jaunts should never be made by depressed men
Aug 20, 2014
Aug 20, 2014 at 1:55 PM UTC
O slimy tongue!
O patient tourist!
Your slow retreat has
left a lustrous spoor.
How admirable,
your bold simplicity—
no radiance to distract,
no carapace to fortify.
How you coil and flex,
a solitary finger
sliding across our
forgotten places.
How we yearn to
pet your soft tissue,
to feel its cool shiver,
the recoil of desiccation.
How honest the world
must be from below as
you devour the decayed,
savor that sour brutality.
Dec 7, 2014
Dec 7, 2014 at 2:55 PM UTC
“WHATS MORE,
THEY’RE CROSSING OUR SHORE…
HOPPING FENCES;
MIXING ******
DAUGHTER FROM
ANOTHER POOR
REFUGEE SPOOR WITH
ILLEGAL INTENTIONS!”
(this is satire;
if you thought otherwise—
seek immediate intervention)
Jan 3, 2019
Jan 3, 2019 at 9:56 PM UTC
My Principal is forever ready to explore
New things from students who implore
And set a new goal for them to outscore
In their own life. He is ready to restore
Intellect and discipline in school therefore
Stands out and administers students’ footsore.
Cherian sir the one who is fighting war
Against anxiety and worry on door,
Which pester children and occasionally gore
Their morale and self-esteem. They spoor
Away from study which he sojourns before
They reach to larger extent and be cocksure.
Never he criticizes without any reason poor,
As he is a positive thinker. All of us roar
Which is pacified by him but for sure.
He is the man of principles and decor
Whose blessings on all of us ever pour.
Aug 14, 2017
Aug 14, 2017 at 6:42 AM UTC
Lift above. Lift carefully.
What is under may come undone
if your hands are unsteady.
Sure to become gone wisps, a pungent spoor
for whipping your head around
but never a surprise when it returns
in a subway conversation with your friend
all drunkenness and perception
before coming home to die on your bed
throwing up hell from inside you
acid and convulsions
remembering what animal you are
that something can subside and something else
can emerge
thoughtless
truer than your certainty.
For isn’t true now
the clammy skin you’ve questioned?
True now the ribs of your throat
writhing like Amazon leaves?
Truer still
your biology abstract? You?
Animal living by nature?
Which means not without you, means just
relinquishing
everything to what is
before having become or going to be.
Such as the time of day
the sky knows it’s dying.
Fountains an orange-red frondescence
that won’t last at all, half-hour at most,
yet which, in that pale existence,
manages as if to turn itself inside-out
as if younger, as if expressing repressed
ecstasy
in the being unknown
before upheaval—the saturation
of openness by color becoming
a moment in blandness worthwhile.
A pause to hear
your legs dangling over nothing.
And a phoenix sky, falling
this very Sunday
when not doing much
became so much
and now
somebody’s lit the sky again, the dusk
feeling a blooming
washing the streets and rooftops
in a new canary dawning
new light also darkening
but only as if only
a veil spun of bird wings
is lifting above
and carefully over
what is dying.
Mar 27, 2012
Mar 27, 2012 at 12:10 AM UTC
Generals and Admirals,
making the decisions
On squaddies lives and welfare
Creating the divisions
These combat explanations
The dictionary assigns
The following descriptions
Only the words benign.
A fight between armed forces,
Or, Take action to reduce;
The need for family losses?
Or more souls abuse?
Down among the soldiers
Is there anything more obtuse?
Stood by an adolescent shoulder,
Death in hands to use.
Brigadiers and Field Marshalls creed,
Battles must be won!
With no time for a private’s need
Or their families at home.
One day, with waiting over
Lovers may return,
Some that is, the others
Died in Hades, so listen, learn!
They died, and in their passing
Our freedom they allowed
Take heed, do not stop asking
Be heard and scream out loud,
To those we must make listen
To historical loud spoor
where fields of blood still glisten,
Please! Let peace endure….
Aduain
Nov 14, 2018
Nov 14, 2018 at 5:06 AM UTC
If shield
wilt with
skirl this
time unfurl
hitch that
neither me
nor they
made it
wean just
latent spoor
soon did
wade with
ingenious ratchet
mired gore
with ulterior
indebted in
renewable bonds.
Mar 21, 2017
Mar 21, 2017 at 2:25 AM UTC
We sat there in silence
time passes and
Stillness engulfs like a layer
you bite on my shoulders like an exiled animal
Made a deep cut enough for to bleed
Every time I move I can feel you on
My skin that burned into my flesh
I took a bite again and it tasted like strange fruit
On a gripping embrace, our winds weave between us
There is nothing quite remaining like a cry
As i wearing a collection of scars
The first bite of your bottom lip
Sultry, wrecked and drunken
You are the lemon tasted spoor
I want to gently nip at your ear
Devour every corner of your crescents
Wanted to outline your lips with my finger
Like carving a wet stone
I knew we were venom when in love
You open the beer bottle with
your teeth kind of a girl
I do not smell your perfume
Notice that you aren't misted any
I can feel you when
I reach the place you want to be touched
your hands pressed against me
Love me till the night darkens
taste me till I become tender to loose
Spring me with the wings
stitch them into my peel
make a sip from my rough soul
bite me to leave a stain
and kissed lips will always reminisce
the ones that made them shiver
I am filled with endless things,
I am quiet
I won’t let the moment go
And that is why I kissed you!
Nov 1, 2018
Nov 1, 2018 at 4:53 AM UTC
Poetry might
actually be
the actual
spoor of God...
little testaments
Dropped in His wake
as He went about
silently creating,
then moused out later
and claimed
by the
roaring little mice
we now call
poets
Oct 30, 2014
Oct 30, 2014 at 12:18 PM UTC
⸎⟆⥉⦕⫯⟴ Ode to the Count De St. Germaine ⸎⟆
Dearest Count,
I know you watch and listen.
It is through you I set sail upon this ship of thoughts
To you, to whom, I christen.
These polysemic effulgence do, alas, waxen, wane,
but seldom in vain.
In antediluvian silence drawn,
manifests in hyperborean dearth
a logos, sir in autochthonous rebirth.
Their, hierophantic murmurs will obfuscate,
the omphalos of matter, still inchoate,
where perichoresis in vertiginous tide
the fractal that doth assuredly bide.
A palimpsest of null embrace
where these false augurs drink from hollowed urns,
and time itself forgets to turn.
Perfidious orisons, whisper-thin,
in circumflected aeons spin,
converging on the cusp of naught,
where paradigms in silence rot.
A chrysalis of paradox,
enshrouds the fey, unbridled clocks,
that chime in fugue, then dissipate
beyond the hinge of latent fate...
The pericombobulatory grand design
deliquesces in auctorial decline!
(Syncretic palingenesis unspools,
within the aether’s epistemic pools,
a syzygetic parallax unweaves
the thaumaturgic spoor that time bereaves.)
For naught but vacuous profundities remain,
a simulacrum of the arcane mundane,
where in sesquipedalian grandeur lies
a syllogism clad in grandiloquent guise.
Ouroboric concatenations of antinomian design,
circumvolute within paracryptic paradigms malign,
as obmutescent theogonic vestiges coalesce
in the eidetic zymurgy of aphasic largesse.
Metagnostic palimpsests, fracto-linear and obtuse,
catachrestically wane in hyperchromatic profuse,
whilst locutions, effulgent yet contrite,
obumbrate the paramorphic tautology of night.
A transcendental abecedarium, paralogical and vast,
consanguineous with the inexorable umbrage
of our shared Jungian past,
germinates within the syntagmatic—
Ever relaxed or ecstatic,
Coalesced to pragmatic,
Lugubriously emphatic.
Within this hypostatized ratiocinative mire,
where sophronistic axiom and non-being conspire,
one finds but an echolalic, chimerical gleam,
an ontosemantic palinode to the dream.
The Archetype realized.
The Alchemist mystically re-materialized.
Count, oh Count.
"Wherefore art thou," indeed,
in this : our time of greatest need.
Feb 24, 2025
Feb 24, 2025 at 4:23 PM UTC
Voel jy ook soms asof die wêreld na 'n einde kom
Niks maak meer saak nie
Niks het meer waarde nie
Al wat oorbly is nou
Alles voel so lank gelede
Die jare het verby gevlieg
Hier staan ons aan die einde van 'n reënboog
En na alles wat gedoen en gesê was
Kruis ons paaie weer mekaar
'n Bittersoet versoening
Ons het 'n kronkelpad geloop
Ons het tydelik ontspoor
Maar nou verstaan ons mekaar
Niemand is tog so anders nie
Ons het meer ingemeen as wat ons kon droom
Maar dit was 'n stryd
Net om te vind dat ons tog so eenders is
Tyd gemors, tyd verloor
Hier staan ons nou op die laaste spoor
Die fluit het geblaas
Die treine rol in
Treine wat mekaar gemis het
Treine wat behoort aan mekaar
Jan 17, 2025
Jan 17, 2025 at 6:06 AM UTC
did they think not
their secret would be found
silly of them to think their lie could endure
planted beneath a sycamore
a quite shame bounds
the two of them forever obscure
to live life in shame
hounded by hell's hounds
without a bone to barter
their futures bleak for sure
living life's regrets standing on hollow ground
beneath a sycamore
where wild flowers spoor
a note of regret
for who soever shall find whim
hangs their life and dreams
dancing on the wind
Aug 10, 2016
Aug 10, 2016 at 4:54 PM UTC
In my head,
Two pixies,
With tiny hammers,
Thrashing, smashing, crushing,
Stones.
Behind my eyes.
Mauling, bruising, punishing,
Bones.
Honing, forging a new wry,
Spoor.
A new ****
To drip my thoughts,
To flood my mind,
To gouge a moor.
Mar 4, 2017
Mar 4, 2017 at 2:58 PM UTC
i watched a spider cross the floor,
twenty tiles, by one foot four, he belted down
Route 66, from door to door, Ant size . no more.
His Harley Davidson legs, hardley touched the floor
Easy rider on a trip, to follow a female spider´s Spoor.
probably left a wife and baby spider behind for sure,
Oh, what a tangled web they weave,
when first they practice to deceive.
And there i thought he was just a little innocent Mite,
he had other plans the dirty Shite.
after I squashed the pervert on tile five,
I realized, maybe he was returning home
to his wife and child.
Too late now as the die was cast,
the cast was Die, I made him a martyr,
a martyr, in a Black Widow and a child´s eye.
And a fading memory for a spideress barsmaid,
in a flyover pit stop on Route 66,
in the sweet bye and bye.
By Holly Barrett
Jul 14, 2018
Jul 14, 2018 at 8:13 PM UTC