"stanch" poems
Spirit and Breath of Life, whate'er Thy name!
Bear with Thy creature, Man,
That makes his dwelling-place a blot of shame
Upon the Ordered Plan.
Not Thy hand, O Divine Designer, hurled
Athwart the starlit skies
One blood-stained, greed-diseased, hate-eaten world,
To shock celestial eyes.
Not Thy default, O Beautiful, this crust
Of fratricidal crime,
These maggot-breeds of hunger and of lust
That Thy fair work begrime.
But ours, who mock Thee from the highest place,
And in the light of day;
Who claim to lead an upward-struggling race,
And will not seek the way.
Guards of the human birthright, at Thy call -
A city sacked and burned;
Guards of the house that is the home of all,
But whence the weak are spurned.
Brothers, to whom the outcast brothers cry
As with a voice unknown;
Stewards of Nature's bounty, that deny
The lawful heirs their own.
Thou that hast made us men, and earth so fair,
To be so vilely used,
Give space for late repentance and repair
Of sacred trust abused.
Give time, Eternal, that we stanch these tears,
Give time to heal this sore,
That our brief speck amid the shining spheres
Disgrace its birth no more.
But sail ethereal seas, an orb of light,
To bear Thy purpose on
Until it fades into the cosmic night
Where the dead worlds have gone.
2.3k
I stanch internal hemorrhaging
by putting the inside outside;
I'm finding out
that ***
without love
is a pantomime--
an open-hand slap.
Not an assault,
but an insult.
It's too hard to
shed the skin
you left me in.
Even now, I love you
more than I care to admit
so I curl up
like burnt paper
with surrogates
and memories
to keep me warm—
but it still feels like infidelity.
Sep 20, 2012
Sep 20, 2012 at 12:24 AM UTC
I waited, seated behind the arched letters of the cafe window,
riveted by others who moved urgently, soundlessly, beyond
the thick glass, scurrying along glistening sidewalks,
winding between glaring headlamps in the slick night
to lovers, to friends, to family, to home.
I remember no words, only the sting of hot coffee,
a hurried gulp to stanch the welling pain and to quiet
the certain quiver of my voice if left to speak.
Yet once into the dampness, standing together for a last time
in the crystalline night, the balance is seared into hard memory
as I watched you lift a speck from my collar,
grooming me, as before, and then a smile, wistful,
and you rose on tiptoes to brush a wisp of hair from
my brow and silently, hood now raised in the misting
dark, you found the sharp corner of the red brick
building and vanished.
Sep 12, 2025
Sep 12, 2025 at 2:34 PM UTC
I've read the news, and it's red
with painted lip prints, and the stain
of stranger thumbprints. They're not
mine. Neither of them. They belong,
lip and thumb, paint and stranger,
singularly to those others who don't
read or write such things. They may
bleed, them, but the blood isn't red,
or crimson, or cardinal, or scarlet.
Pick a shade of red, and it isn't that,
at least not until it's too, too late
to stanch. The bully's standard is to take
it all, all of it except the fall crisp that led
into this strangely warmer winter. I took it,
and I saved it in my bones to prepare,
but the cold didn't come. Not like we
were used to. I'm told the bully wears
what he takes with a dashing style. See it,
that royal blue that outfits him? The flowing
robes? The gold. I've been robbed. We have
been. Not of things, but of a view. A view
with no room for us in its downside-up
very periscope-unlike perspective.
There's no upside to the up-down
and just around the corner trips
I take. To the grocer. To the bar. To
the five and dime. It's fattened up
to a dollar. And the slimming newsprint
costs more than what I get
without the paper. I don't
get it, not the print, not the paper, not
the red lip prints, not the thumbprints
left by strangers, not the news
I've read and I'm reading.
Jun 10, 2012
Jun 10, 2012 at 6:25 PM UTC
1402
To the stanch Dust
We safe commit thee—
Tongue if it hath,
Inviolate to thee—
Silence—denote—
And Sanctity—enforce thee—
Passenger—of Infinity—
1.2k
I’ve read the news, and its red
with painted lip prints, and the stain
of stranger thumb prints. They’re not
mine. Neither of them. They belong,
lip and thumb, paint and stranger,
singularly to those others who don’t
read or write such things. They may
bleed them, but the blood isn’t red,
or crimson, or cardinal, or scarlet.
Pick a shade of red, and it isn’t that,
at least not until it’s too, too late
to stanch. The bully’s standard is to take
it all, all of it except the fall crisp that led
into this strangely warmer winter. I took it,
and I saved it in my bones to prepare,
but the cold didn’t come. Not like we
were used to. I’m told the bully wears
what he takes with a dashing style. See it,
that royal blue that outfits him? The flowing
robes? The gold. I’ve been robbed. We have
been. Not of things, but of a view. A view
with no room for us in its downside-up
very periscope-unlike perspective.
There’s no upside to the up-down
and just around the corner trips
I take. To the grocer. To the bar. To
the five and dime. It’s fattened up
to a dollar. And the slimming newsprint
costs more than what I get
without the print. I don’t
get it, not the print, not the paper, not
the red lip prints, not the thumbprints
left by strangers, not the news
I’ve read and I’m reading.
Feb 16, 2012
Feb 16, 2012 at 8:11 PM UTC
It’s too late to go back,
My love,
To when you said time
Would stand still,
When the sun sat behind
The trees at dawn,
When the leaves fell
For the autumn
And drank the dew
Off the sappy grass meadows
That rolled out beyond your toes.
It’s too late to go back
To when you said
Always,
Always is, always will,
And now it once was,
Red moons and black petals
In distant sight.
It’s nighttime now.
Although your face sits in the sky
Like the moon, twinkling gray
Somewhere beyond the stars,
The day is much too young
To wash away the dust
Or guard your eyes against
The lips of a dying love
Like a raw cut waiting
To scab, to mold over the memories
Lining the blood you tried to stanch.
But it’s too late now,
Too late to lie in the trees
Red with sweet clay
Sometime in the mourning light,
Too late to count minutes
As they’ve wrinkled past years,
Too late to tell yourself
That you can still stitch together
The broken seams below the patches
Of the skin you’ve shed.
Time bought you long ago,
My love,
And sold you
To the wardens
Of burgeoning eternity.
Their horns wail loud
And only you can hear their sound.
Jun 26, 2016
Jun 26, 2016 at 8:58 PM UTC
Listen to these whispers
you're going to find a terror you haven't encountered
in your peaceable years in your masculine form
wait with baited breath on the edges
the blood will flow slowly
so don't move just yet
i'm not done
you'll cry out
and i'll smile softly to myself
as if I had any mercy
or will to unbind you
you have made yourself mine
by the bitterness you've instilled
therefore weakening your state
strengthening my blood
my taste
my bite
my dominance
so cry out
as if I have mercy
as if there is anything
that will stanch the flow of blood
at this given moment
and know
just know
i'm not done
Apr 8, 2010
Apr 8, 2010 at 7:31 AM UTC
There’s no bad poetry
There’re only sentences bleeding
by the absence of the words needed
to properly stanch its feeling
so that all the good in poetry
is no less that bad poetry
and never as good as it is
The unreachable is
even if I am glued next to you
but I still feel myself happier
because of this blessed failure
by which I know that what I feel is true:
I could never catch up the voice
to simply say how stunning you are
Let all the heavens weep
while the night skies cry a rain of stars
seeding the light over our unknown field
Accept, please, my most beautiful imperfection
with my bad words in your good ears
as I happily accept bleed a lifetime for you.
Feb 19, 2015
Feb 19, 2015 at 8:41 PM UTC
The love of that a woman
Like flowers, it blooms;
In the callow green, it looms;
Stanch stems when reviled,
Without light cannot survive
The love of that a woman
Bestows upon the
Living; Guileless, forgiving
Like how roses seek
The bright; with thorns keenly fight
The love of that a woman
Thrives as seeds beneath
The loam; Digging below, roams
Extends beyond with
placid grace, fair to be embraced
Mar 11, 2013
Mar 11, 2013 at 8:22 AM UTC
When I write of love,
When I speak of love,
it is like, I was blessed,
from above.
For I have had hardships,
and more one-sided flips,
than contact, with your lips.
It is like an apple in a tree,
which is just out of reach,
I can see it with me,
just as sweet as a peach.
But until I can climb to the tallest branch,
I must I must grab hold of the bark,
and with each step, my wound will stanch,
and I will pull myself from the dark.
May 16, 2014
May 16, 2014 at 1:28 PM UTC
Of pale moon ghosts I reminisce
on how I've froze
in powdered woes
And nothing good can come of this
struck by love's
snow lightning doves
And Lady Winter's frigid kiss
like icebergs loosening my lips
and sinking my relationships
In blizzards of cold-blooded bliss
fearless should the pulsing stanch
invincible my avalanche
All need for warmth I could dismiss
when old King Candy cuts it clean
in palaces of Queen Frostine
Pure wonderlands of happiness
melt into my slippery streets
than soon the Santa's sleigh retreats
Face down on pavements of abyss
the black becomes all I can see
come take this white away from me
Forget this ******* emptiness
Oct 22, 2016
Oct 22, 2016 at 1:09 AM UTC
as a bough is mighty
languished aloft
just prancing about
so gullible and flighty
hers’, here taken in jest
prized and tendered
softly surmised
head facing north, breast west
sultry but forlorn
enigmatic sternly, stanch
arise mightly nymph
heaven’s first born
allured and made red
foaming in strife
murmuring, giggly tick tock
humming bird like, toe to head
I’ve given all but prize
hence forth rattled
pursued with delight
left flatly, left back in a sullen surmise
I think back I’ll go
for tenderness lingers
safely treading once more to alight
minute by minute I remember and know
Aug 28, 2016
Aug 28, 2016 at 4:02 PM UTC