"stairways" poems
The night sounds of fallen angels
Building stairways back to home
And the radio plays softly
Like a crooner left alone
As the night falls into the velvet shades
And beats down the bedroom door
Of all the visions that come to me
It's of one I'm hoping for
The postman closes up the station
And the buses get cleaned with rain
The asylum rests and barely breathes
As the countryside goes insane
Prophets speak of peace
On the dim hue of TV screens
Of all the moments that seem real
I still wait to watch my dreams
Imposed upon the westward wall
Are the silhouettes of weeping oaks
Swaying in the wind that talks
But they only tell me jokes
Swept beneath the silver stars
Sleeping on blanket clouds
Of all the space above me
I feel as if I can't get out
Headlights and passing trains
Sound like time passing by
Gone are the hearts inside
Like the years beyond my eyes
Sounds from the suburb city
Blow like sirens in my mind
Of all the thoughts within me
Only one freezes time
Jan 16, 2016
Jan 16, 2016 at 1:20 AM UTC
All are architects of Fate,
Working in these walls of Time;
Some with massive deeds and great,
Some with ornaments of rhyme.
Nothing useless is, or low;
Each thing in its place is best;
And what seems but idle show
Strengthens and supports the rest.
For the structure that we raise,
Time is with materials filled;
Our to-days and yesterdays
Are the blocks with which we build.
Truly shape and fashion these;
Leave no yawning gaps between;
Think not, because no man sees,
Such things will remain unseen.
In the elder days of Art,
Builders wrought with greatest care
Each minute and unseen part;
For the Gods see everywhere.
Let us do out work as well,
Both the unseen and the seen;
Make the house, where Gods may dwell,
Beautiful, entire, and clean.
Else our lives are incomplete,
Standing in these walls of Time,
Broken stairways, where the feet
Stumble as they seek to climb.
Build to-day, then, strong and sure,
With a firm and ample base;
And ascending and secure
Shall to-morrow find its place.
Thus alone can we attain
To those turrets, where the eye
Sees the world as one vast plain,
And one boundless reach of sky.
5.6k
I was awoken from a dreamless sleep
By a boy with short brown hair,
Who, with an urgent stare,
Told me to head to the showers!
As my eyes creaked open to recognize,
The orange glow of this unfamiliar room’s lighting,
In front of me, in handwritten writing,
A page on the wall showed three in the morning.
When I glanced around a room of shared bunks,
I saw all sorts of people and things,
Running around with things to bring
To these showers I had yet to see.
In a winding line down a high ceiling’d hall,
I stood with so many,
Who like me, hadn’t any
Idea what was going on.
With a whirlwind flurry of commotion
Steam crawled from the showers and water sprayed,
As we were told in a big disarray,
To wash off the place from whence we came.
In a neat little stack, I was handed my clothes
A tunic, with a sash
And a captivating mask
To “celebrate our exciting return home.”
Down dark rustic stairways, I watched like a child
The vibrant light and affinity,
Radiating with enchanting divinity,
From the otherworldly people and creatures below.
Through that noisy, jolly crowd,
We were led as a group
And the boy said with a whoop
That we were all to stand up and dance.
His eyes glinting with excitement,
The brown haired boy explained
That our spirits would be ordained
Through a celebration of our inner light.
Onto the stage I was led
As I stood with my class,
Nervous amongst the mass
Of silent, numerous spirits before us.
As the boy hit the music
I felt something from deep inside
Rush out like a tide
And through tears of joy, I danced.
It was at that gleeful moment
That my friends and I,
Realizing we'd died,
Knew we'd returned to the forest.
Sep 24, 2018
Sep 24, 2018 at 10:59 AM UTC
I'll wait for you forever
till stars forget to shine,
and oceans become puddles,
words no longer rhyme
Till deserts turn to gardens
where flowers go to bloom,
the grass is red, the skies are green,
the dawn brings out the moon
Till rain is something very dry
and butterflies drive trucks,
when every pond is chocolate sauce
with candy coated ducks
Till basements have a penthouse view
with windows three floors high
and stairways are a place to swim
no matter how you fly
Till mountains are a level path
that you will go to walk
and silence now becomes a way
for every one to talk
Till everything we've ever known
is gone and disappeared
The world does end, there's nothing more
just like we always feared
Till broken hearts are happy,
tears a welcome site
Night comes at the break of day
and daytime looks like night
I'll wait for you forever
until the end of time
It matters not how long it takes
if I can call you mine
May 3, 2015
May 3, 2015 at 8:30 PM UTC
THE POLICEMAN buys shoes slow and careful;
the teamster buys gloves slow and careful;
they take care of their feet and hands;
they live on their feet and hands.
The milkman never argues;
he works alone and no one speaks to him;
the city is asleep when he is on the job;
he puts a bottle on six hundred porches and calls it a day's work;
he climbs two hundred wooden stairways;
two horses are company for him;
he never argues.
The rolling-mill men and the sheet-steel men are brothers of cinders;
they empty cinders out of their shoes after the day's work;
they ask their wives to fix burnt holes in the knees of their trousers;
their necks and ears are covered with a ****
they scour their necks and ears;
they are brothers of cinders.
2.7k
I tripped and fell into temptation
The hole was exceptionally deep
The futher that I fell
the deeper I would sink
I built stairs
that were made up of all colors of lies
But the more that I made
the top was never nye
But the hole was much deeper
than all the stairways made to Heaven
I needed a friend to save me
one who converts sin into salvation
from bread that must be unleavened
Jan 10, 2017
Jan 10, 2017 at 2:51 AM UTC
Fall to me, all you streets of Rome,
With your embrowned oils from torched walls and breccia of shadows,
The pizzicato of stairways and afternoon slowly closed
Like the thick, leathery-echo from this book of all roads.
Fallen, smoldering empire of storefronts and back-shop heirlooms,
Your lupine hills unbound with milk of cur in the wind and woods,
To your fallow fields rowed deep by a conquest of oars,
To the deepest silence and soot-muted oneness of Pompeii,
And a sky that is an ancient coin, without worth,
But still rubbed smooth at the edges by overfond lovers.
Jun 14, 2019
Jun 14, 2019 at 4:16 PM UTC
.
I am
bound by the
belief that
life,
with
all of its
dark tunnels
following tracks
of hurt
caused by someone who
claims to
have cared,
shorelines
of empty promises
vacant of any feeling
washing your dreams
into a sewer system
of nightmares
and
twisted stairways
of all that was shared
crumbling beneath
the weight of a
broken heart
gets no better
than this,
and I am
ecstatic
by the
fact
that it
eventually ends
Oct 18, 2016
Oct 18, 2016 at 11:10 AM UTC
My heart's ablaze
I'm so amazed
cluttered in clichés
in a daze
I'm dismayed
too many long driveways
Life's fortes
as we graze
upon the gaze
in a haze of haze
trapped inside this maze
our voices phase
into the next of days
Oh did we raise
with utter rephrase
glancing sideways
into stairways
how I hate your ways
as much as I hate causeways
too much decay
along the edgeways
inside the hallways
roadways
screenplays
my heart strays
on into Sundays
and Tuesdays
I hate the weekdays
they're gateways
into other days.
© 2012 Christina Jackson
Dec 19, 2012
Dec 19, 2012 at 1:08 AM UTC
Those memorable days have long been forgotten
Haunting those stairways, we climb
Convincing wondrous places of mystery again
To stare into the ribbons of time
Yesterday’s chapters of dreamy faraway passages
Leading to rooms filled with slivers of light
Dance nimbly across pages of spatial vantages
Disappearing on the edges of night
A rumbling of recollection drifts into our flesh
Striking chords of chronicled accounts
Felt in the heartbeat of time we have meshed
Into our souls for a reminiscent recount
Forgotten no longer, remembered once more
Heartwood regaining its core
Blooming within those stairways, we store
Those memories, of days of yore
Oct 6, 2010
Oct 6, 2010 at 8:25 PM UTC
It is 7.30 and I am still thinking about the way our hands slotted together like days of the week, normalcy perspiring in the air behind us.
It is 7.31 and I am still thinking about your cheekbones, collarbones, hipbones. I am still thinking about your bones. You haven't returned my phone calls in a week.
It is 7.32 and I am still thinking about forest fires.
It is 7.33 and I am still thinking about clocks ticking and how it's kind of funny how we are always counting the days we have left, instead of the days we have.
It is 7.34 and I am still thinking about how my apologies never really cut it.
It is 7.35 and I am sorry.
It is 7.36 and I wonder how hard it is to tie a noose.
It is 7.37 and I am still thinking about the normal length of a pause when you're telling someone you love them, too.
It is 7.38 and I love you, too.
It is 7.39 and I am still trying not to think about how loud the doorbell echoes in the entrance hall now.
It is 7.40 and I am still thinking about the absence of stairways.
It is 7.41 and I am still thinking about hunger pains and alleyways and the warmth of your hand on my spine.
It is 7.42 and there are some things you can't say to other people but holy **** I miss you.
It is 7.43 and I'm sorry again.
It is 7.44 and I am still thinking about short hands on clocks.
It is 7.45 and I am still imagining footfalls landing heavy on the carpet outside my bedroom and trying not to hope they're yours.
It is 7.46 and I hope they're yours.
It is 7.47 and I am still thinking about the glass in my ribcage digging in harder than your fingernails ever could.
It is 7.48 and I am still thinking about the way our hands slotted together.
It is 7.49 and I'm sorry again.
Jun 28, 2014
Jun 28, 2014 at 8:58 PM UTC
When I lie down
I see
stairways in the
winding branches
of trees
When I rise up
I see
who climbs their
steps along
with me
Jan 13, 2014
Jan 13, 2014 at 7:28 PM UTC
Poets are word canaries
prepared to die in dark, airless places.
Poets are sharp sirens
alert, alarmed and warning of the firestorm.
Poets can read
tree bark calligraphy of knots and scars.
Poets decipher codes
and shrewd puzzles, bold and enigmatic.
Poets ignore the talk of Angels
their prophecies and broken promises
Poets turn over Tarot cards
lay out rune stones, fearless of the future.
Poets steer clear
of treasure, jewels and golden ingots.
Poets climb ladders
and stairways cut in rock and stone.
Poets can see beyond
apple blossom, lilac blooms and dead lilies.
Poets find the past
in patterns of stars and the orbit of comets.
Poets lick salt
relishing the wounds and tears.
Poets throw life-belts
wreaths onto empty oceans.
Poets split existence
into life and death with nothing between.
Poets sift ashes
and sand for the rough edges of infinity.
Aug 1, 2014
Aug 1, 2014 at 1:29 PM UTC
Men with picked voices chant the names
of cities in a huge gallery: promises
that pull through descending stairways
to a deep rumbling.
The rubbing feet
of those coming to be carried quicken a
grey pavement into soft light that rocks
to and fro, under the domed ceiling,
across and across from pale
earthcolored walls of bare limestone.
Covertly the hands of a great clock
go round and round! Were they to
move quickly and at once the whole
secret would be out and the shuffling
of all ants be done forever.
A leaning pyramid of sunlight, narrowing
out at a high window, moves by the clock:
disaccordant hands straining out from
a center: inevitable postures infinitely
repeated—
two—twofour—twoeight!
Porters in red hats run on narrow platforms.
This way ma’am!
—important not to take
the wrong train!
Lights from the concrete
ceiling hang crooked but—
Poised horizontal
on glittering parallels the dingy cylinders
packed with a warm glow—inviting entry—
pull against the hour. But brakes can
hold a fixed posture till—
The whistle!
Not twoeight. Not twofour. Two!
Gliding windows. Colored cooks sweating
in a small kitchen. Taillights—
In time: twofour!
In time: twoeight!
—rivers are tunneled: trestles
cross oozy swampland: wheels repeating
the same gesture remain relatively
stationary: rails forever parallel
return on themselves infinitely.
The dance is sure.
1.9k
Valentine's Day should be celebrated,
Twenty Four by Seven.
Whether you're on the Highway to Hell
or walking the Stairways to Heaven.
Coz in Her Eyes, lies a Sea of understanding.
In Her Heart, there's warmth beyond the Sun.
She will Love U, till the World stops spinning.
She's worth the Gold, weighing more than a Ton.
U will find Her Love, wrapped....around U
and in Her Voice, U will sense a Mystical Charm.
In Winter U will find yourself, Warm and Cozy.
As She has wrapped U, in both Her Arms.
U will be lost, without your Woman.
The Almighty to Us, has been very Kind.
Woman to Us, is a God sent Blessing,
She's Salvation to Whole Mankind.
Feb 14, 2024
Feb 14, 2024 at 8:31 AM UTC
~
(written in response to one by Beryl Dov)
constellationally speaking
a trophied man is one
whose weaknesses
he has overcome,
those the stars
foretold, ordained;
flaws and blemishes
the gods disdained,
who flies
with herculean
brawn and breadth;
who plies
the star ways
to their dizzying heights
and stairways
to their dismal depths.
he is…
like no other,
he is…
the lonesome
overcomer!
~
*post script.
for Beryl Dov, poet laureate, extraordinaire;
in response to his “The Lonely Astronomer”.
how anyone sees his as anything
negative is beyond me…
i see nothing but
an overcomer’s metaphor.
well done, friend!!
(and yes, by "man"
i do mean mankind)
The Lonely Astronomer:
http://hellopoetry.com/poem/1182761/the-lonely-astronomer/*
Sep 28, 2015
Sep 28, 2015 at 8:32 PM UTC
Tired clot of night
in the moon’s slight of hand
in the moon’s slight—
place to hang my hat....
Winter clouds come tumbling toward
the gray
Raked clean by barren trees
Yard waits with its leaves
tucked in corners by the wind
along hedges, stairways
mingling with renegade trash
Stuffed in layers like elderly keepsakes for—
no one cares...
My yard—a neglect of winter woods
but for towels waving stiffly on the line
and the squealing crackle of my footsteps—
Being there
Stairs sigh differently coming home
Blind search for a key hole
I could die searching!
the frustrations of the blind
the fumblings of “locked out!”
I—
know where to go....
Pretend
in my warm lonely
fling—mittens on the table
Survey the ***** dishes...and
close my eyes
Nov 21, 2016
Nov 21, 2016 at 10:31 PM UTC
Use to float through life on a cloud
never worrying about loss
never worrying about anything
Now send poems and pics to a cloud
In hopes that they find you
In hopes that they get through
Trying to unlock some secret door
Here in the cloud that connects
past to present
Climb those stairways to heaven
so very high
but it still would not be enough
to reach that angel in the sky
Sep 29, 2015
Sep 29, 2015 at 1:41 PM UTC
Wind blows. Snow falls. The great clock in its tower
Ticks with reverberant coil and tolls the hour:
At the deep sudden stroke the pigeons fly . . .
The fine snow flutes the cracks between the flagstones.
We close our coats, and hurry, and search the sky.
We are like music, each voice of it pursuing
A golden separate dream, remote, persistent,
Climbing to fire, receding to hoarse despair.
What do you whisper, brother? What do you tell me? . . .
We pass each other, are lost, and do not care.
One mounts up to beauty, serenely singing,
Forgetful of the steps that cry behind him;
One drifts slowly down from a waking dream.
One, foreseeing, lingers forever unmoving . . .
Upward and downward, past him there, we stream.
One has death in his eyes: and walks more slowly.
Death, among jonquils, told him a freezing secret.
A cloud blows over his eyes, he ponders earth.
He sees in the world a forest of sunlit jonquils:
A slow black poison huddles beneath that mirth.
Death, from street to alley, from door to window,
Cries out his news,--of unplumbed worlds approaching,
Of a cloud of darkness soon to destroy the tower.
But why comes death,--he asks,--in a world so perfect?
Or why the minute's grey in the golden hour?
Music, a sudden glissando, sinister, troubled,
A drift of wind-torn petals, before him passes
Down jangled streets, and dies.
The bodies of old and young, of maimed and lovely,
Are slowly borne to earth, with a dirge of cries.
Down cobbled streets they come; down huddled stairways;
Through silent halls; through carven golden doorways;
From freezing rooms as bare as rock.
The curtains are closed across deserted windows.
Earth streams out of the shovel; the pebbles knock.
Mary, whose hands rejoiced to move in sunlight;
Silent Elaine; grave Anne, who sang so clearly;
Fugitive Helen, who loved and walked alone;
Miriam too soon dead, darkly remembered;
Childless Ruth, who sorrowed, but could not atone;
Jean, whose laughter flashed over depths of terror,
And Eloise, who desired to love but dared not;
Doris, who turned alone to the dark and cried,--
They are blown away like windflung chords of music,
They drift away; the sudden music has died.
And one, with death in his eyes, comes walking slowly
And sees the shadow of death in many faces,
And thinks the world is strange.
He desires immortal music and spring forever,
And beauty that knows no change.
1.6k
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,
hearts of gold, never to rust.
swallowtails aloft, flutterings better dead,
dampened by years of love left unsaid.
box of promises, vials of lies,
waves crashing within ocean eyes.
bloodied wrists, a scarlet letter
sealed envelope, unposted endeavour
eternal fairytale, lover and her muse,
destined to love yet scared to lose.
wilted bouquets, abandoned gardens,
memories burn while resolves harden.
etched in stars, writ in stone,
identity crisis, fate unknown.
Life's canvas, shades of grey,
dreams crumpled, hope led astray
stairways to Eris, rising only to fall
Lone poetess loving her Wonderwall
Nov 14, 2018
Nov 14, 2018 at 9:52 AM UTC
Men with picked voices chant the names
of cities in a huge gallery: promises
that pull through descending stairways
to a deep rumbling.
The rubbing feet
of those coming to be carried quicken a
grey pavement into soft light that rocks
to and fro, under the domed ceiling,
across and across from pale
earthcolored walls of bare limestone.
Covertly the hands of a great clock
go round and round! Were they to
move quickly and at once the whole
secret would be out and the shuffling
of all ants be done forever.
A leaning pyramid of sunlight, narrowing
out at a high window, moves by the clock:
disaccordant hands straining out from
a center: inevitable postures infinitely
repeated—
two—twofour—twoeight!
Porters in red hats run on narrow platforms.
This way ma’am!
—important not to take
the wrong train!
Lights from the concrete
ceiling hang crooked but—
Poised horizontal
on glittering parallels the dingy cylinders
packed with a warm glow—inviting entry—
pull against the hour. But brakes can
hold a fixed posture till—
The whistle!
Not twoeight. Not twofour. Two!
Gliding windows. Colored cooks sweating
in a small kitchen. Taillights—
In time: twofour!
In time: twoeight!
—rivers are tunneled: trestles
cross oozy swampland: wheels repeating
the same gesture remain relatively
stationary: rails forever parallel
return on themselves infinitely.
The dance is sure.
1.6k
I trace
golden stairways
over your skin that
lead me to heaven:
your body.
Mar 17, 2020
Mar 17, 2020 at 1:45 AM UTC
soft soliloquies cannot touch me
for the mountain tops have blurred in the stratosphere
and still deny their shadows from the fog
and sink like marionette martyrs to the ocean floor
and sway refused forfeit flags painted as seaweed
--
stiff joints acost
and above, an albatross!
roams discreetly through the sky
yet all hell's dead
wretched through molten lead
succumb to false alibi
(and fate's caress never questions why)
--
your
bamboo words
and
tourniquet hands
bear loss of convicted man.
and
piano strings
like
forgotten things
have cost all the contraband.
--
--oh, but sweetly they had fallen
the petals which forgot the sun
and faces the moon while acrobats
form the constellations of the sky
and so— so weakly it had passed us by
but yet had still seen the sails of clouds
adream of every lost sunken shroud
ever shining by.
--
defeat me, hang
a noose from every ceiling
--and maybe i'll change my mind
or faint like festered wounds
trailing down the hallways
--and maybe i'll forget the way
you made me see it
clearer than mirror rooms
and moulded like day
(your lungs full of clay)
breathe me out or
sheathe it in
complete me, hang
an emptied world from every airway
to rust all the ventilations
to flood all the irrigations
and condense into the black hole
you left behind.
--
words called windows walk on sunday lanes
toward sideways tree roots with hallow'd veins
and iced over stairways that have no name
or excretories called inventories that fell on dead ends
or ghouls that catapult just to make amends
then rise from idle tidal waves with the bends
perhaps even holes called souls can confine
and mists like cysts fail to intertwine
and fall away as heaven feigns to maligne.
—and oh, how sullen scenes do compromise
the way our flesh restlessly burns and fies.
Nov 18, 2012
Nov 18, 2012 at 6:34 PM UTC
We like to think we are hard to understand
Intricate mazes with twisting chaotic paths
Leading to numerous outcomes
Mysteries woven within our stories
Constantly changing and always anew
We like to believe we are elaborate structures
Constructs of pure ingenuity
Winding corridors with infinite knowledge
With mysterious doors holding plethoras of secrets
Darkened halls to shroud our true motives
Stairways up and down, leading anywhere and everywhere
We like to fool the world
Building these zig-zagging stories
Losing the truth the farther we burrow
Forgetting who we are in the labyrinths of our minds
Forever lost in what we have become
We lied to ourselves
With broken confidence, striving to be who we want
Rather than who we are
Living in a world of other grande designs
Trying to keep up against time itself
We doubted ourselves
Unable to look at the mirrors which spoke the most truth
Turning away and hiding in the lies we fortified around us
The barricaded conscience, locked away and ignored
Emotion took hold and there you sat
We all sat and wondered
Where would "I" fit in this broken world
Of towering deceptive motives
Glimmering pedestals of deceit
Trick rooms and evil men
We all asked ourselves "Where will I go"
When people see the place I've hidden myself away
Calling us out, asking to venture, deep through our halls
We felt simple opposed to the world
Far greater stories, fascinating, colorful
And our structures crumbled
And there we sat
Alone, where the world could see what we ignored in that mirror
But we understood
That Truth can set you free
Despite the lies we make ourselves believe
For simplicity is truth itself
Dec 10, 2013
Dec 10, 2013 at 9:31 PM UTC