"steeping" poems
a breath of fresh air
tickles still-waters
a lone swan's quill
let fall, takes flight
carpe diem ―
nigh weightless,
buoyantly skitters
across the water,
laissez faire;
barely dimpling
the shallow peace
on a lake in the wood
a wild feather's
mindless pirouettes
emanate from
the steeping silence
lapping its
superficial refection
the true nature
of wildness,
unspoken freedom,
an untamed
wilder – ness
skims the skinny waters
seeking their own level;
leaving no trace
of ever being containable
like a breath of fresh air
reinvigorates
unconquerable souls
touching in the
conscious moment ―
a gentle passing breeze
arousing a rogue gust
Jesse Stillwater
01 June 2018
Jun 1, 2018
Jun 1, 2018 at 11:16 AM UTC
Sitting, drinking tea while watching the rain come wandering down
a smile brought on by cool breeze on misted skin
steam rising from the cup in front, the fragrant herbs steeping
and cascading come memories of other times
of once close people and far away places
and endless cups of tea
No matter where i wander, be it deserts cold or mountains rugged
there are always memories of those left behind in time
bring they a smile, a grin or a tear to flow my face
i will find joy in seeing them again
even if only inside my mind
and over a cup of tea.
Jan 27, 2015
Jan 27, 2015 at 1:28 AM UTC
Before I knew it I darted towards her like a train.
Barreling toward her fast as I could.
Inhaling deep, releasing deep huff.
The rumble of what came to be manifested before I was seen.
The notion of steam clouds and rod hot like iron.
Darting past the station.
Caution thrown to the wind in a solid fluid motion.
The rumble of my heart lead the way.
Stead fast, the scenery of steeping in front of emotion.
Track after track.
Winding and twisting with nothing to block the way.
I shot into a tunnel.
Stepping head first into what I have always known.
The express route to desire.
To inhale in ultimate asphyxiation.
The next station miles and miles away.
We were punctual.
Breaking down in deep huff.
Trails of smoke funnel where I lost my breath
May 8, 2018
May 8, 2018 at 1:30 PM UTC
Orange peel Thursdays and the Velcro shoes
Of children hordes
Who spider up Alice on toadstools in Central Park
Dusted psilocybin shoots my eyes through
With the clarity of ice and sliced mushroom
Steeping in stomach acid before finding blood
The kids are tripping like madmen or halloween candy
Like its time to release and give up to the nonsense
And let your young self congeal to a saccharine sludge
I don’t stroll in the park to keep my mind sharp
I’m here because it’s a riot
My head can throb to the jittery birds
And the blasts of carsong
It’s the right kind of rhythm to walk to
** ** **
Ketamine days and the lolling slums
To make sure the insane stay insane
And the hobos are washed with spit from the clouds
And the subway exhaust always hangs in our hair
And the old Coney Island burns again and twice more
We don’t pretend to understand what we see
In subway grates thirty feet wide
Like the earth punching out of work for a bit
Opening to you her *** belly
So you can check out the strips of metal inside
Before she slurps you down and with an esophageal squeeze
Shoots you through the turnstiles
The train squeals and grinds down our eyes
With thoughts as slow as ketamine
Makes room for schizophrenia in a conversation
We’re listening to ‘til sundown
** ** **
Years full of Brooklyn and the assorted pills
Makes offal fit for punks in name brand shoes
Squared off with police in the park
Being beaten for the fun of being beaten
Peacoat locals pass the days in supermarkets
And you grow up to the loony mumble
Of the woman who knows the boat
Moored at the end of the street
Mansion of the stray cat colony
You help her with her daily chore to feed them
Tabbies popping the pills of the homeless
And puking in tandem all over their house
Living off generous dying folk
Feb 11, 2010
Feb 11, 2010 at 4:02 PM UTC
years pass
things that
bothered me
songs that
pierced my heart
songs that
brought only
sad memories
don't,
anymore.
how i kick my
****
for getting rid of you
vinyl and CD
but especially
vinyl
**** why did i let you go
steeping in the memories
songs
music
how fast
they take
us
right back
to those moments
bittersweet memories
with ones we loved
so seemingly deep
or not
such great passion
such great wisdom
don't hurry through
your pain
but don't ever
think you cannot
get through it
if you so choose
sometimes it is time
to check out
who am i
to say
but....
maybe...
another day.....
another moment...
will change how
you feel
what you think.....
i say...
plan it out
be very detailed
but do not be impetuous
take your time
for you have all
the time in the world
all the time in the
universe
for there is no where to go
nothing to do
and
all the time to
get there
if you might
ever ask for my advice
and i caution you
you may not want to
do that
procrastination in
some things
is the very best
hand.....
now what the ****
am i talking about...
i know.
do you????
Feb 4, 2016
Feb 4, 2016 at 3:00 PM UTC
*drawn to windows of silent blue
wooed by rays of genuine warmth
wavelengths of eternal promise
a clear gaze to tranquility
basking in a youthful sunlight
framed in crystalline emotion
purity of frozen concerns
azure passport to forever
trees reaching to one another
exposed in their frosted beauty
cornflower hues on snowy white
shadows of druid ritual
dreams arising from cups of tea
reflecting cerulean bliss
nourishment for ravenous hearts
fertile steeping for spring roses*
Jan 18, 2016
Jan 18, 2016 at 4:17 PM UTC
IN THE POOL OF THE LOST MAIDEN SONG
1
Down in the shrouded wood a wanderer walks
And dreams the dreamers story he has lived.
Sidled by the stream that sheds blue waters
By the beds, trailing the rail of loves unknown
Kiss and a voice that conjures truest bliss,
Down in the drink where sweet Ophelia sleeps;
In the pool of the lost maiden song.
And the dreamer, he is dreaming . . .
Hair, that ropes the stoic man upon his mount.
Hair, making souls’ lost ending breath a shout,
And hair that weighs the wind, teaches it to sing;
Hair, wending whirlpools waving fools to dive in.
2
Lost at land’s end the sea lions, washed-up, wail
And buzzards coast where eagles flail, rip tides
Assail and chop the collected bones they drop;
It is a chalky bone-yard break, golden escarpments
Wake and a seamen’s salty sermons shake;
Where gathering ghosts glom and chide steeping,
In the pool of the lost maiden song.
And the seeker, he is seeking . . .
Eyes that turn the sands and are mirrors,
Eyes that taught the books of Alexandria,
Eyes that shook the flesh and are seers,
Eyes that lit the pyres, burned true believers.
3
Deep in the dark wood the waters rush, hush,
Cramp, crew and creep, melodiously tread,
Trammel, and burn as furies in keeping true
The melting moon, the onerous owl, fluttering
Things, muttering wings, cones in darkness
Flings and filmy time flicks by the wayside;
In the pool of the lost maiden song.
And the lover, he is longing . . .
Love, lithe and lyric, he sees your sweeping shapes.
Peace, parsed and pained he hears the voicing gape.
Blind, bliss’d and shamed he wears the votive drapes.
Hungered, thirsted and gone; seeks your pearly gate.
4
Out in the forest maze the jarring sun seeps
And swirls, only to roust the traveler onward
Where soon he must meet the faces in the grotto
Down in destroyed lands by the seas’ unreasoning
Chime, deep in the dark whine of the shining mermaids,
Where the doomed cry, round the navel of the world,
In the pool of the lost maiden song.
And the doomed, they are crying . . .
****** beauty bade us, in a star crossed chrysalis,
Made us, choose a desert’s winter of loneliness.
Heed our fate and leave this valley torn of bliss;
The many millions of locust fall in ripest fields.”
Mar 14, 2013
Mar 14, 2013 at 1:26 PM UTC
twenty years making
sixty eight seconds
precious abandon
steeping on the stove
heavy metal ringing
singing in the kettle
diamonds in the gutter
sixty twenty gone
Oct 18, 2013
Oct 18, 2013 at 7:50 AM UTC
Crew cut kiss curl stood
above the goose steeping generals
with empty heads and olive green
jackets
dangling aluminium war medals
for shooting ducks across the border
flying over Seoul
“Nfeuirok2fmdfiwe384194u3ujriwejm"
crew-cut kiss curl yelled.
“I told you 091874874814729”
( his swedish education was now showing!)
The train pulled out of pyongyang
with two thousand dead
that fed the famine. Only the driver
was alive clutching a loaf of bread.
stacked with cardboard cutout missiles
atop 1920s tanks and
painted with bloodred honesty
the entire nation goose stepped
to crew cuts orders.
He was as nutty as a fruitcake
but nobody laughed when he loaded
his only nuclear missile to bring down
the last remaining duck heading to Siberia.
Ha ha!
Author Notes
This is not a joke. Or is it?
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, a month ago
Jun 24, 2014
Jun 24, 2014 at 3:58 PM UTC
IN THE POOL OF THE LOST MAIDEN SONG
1
Down in the shrouded wood a wanderer walks
And dreams the dreamers story he has lived.
Sidled by the stream that sheds blue waters
By the beds, trailing the rail of loves unknown
Kiss and a voice that conjures truest bliss,
Down in the drink where sweet Ophelia sleeps;
In the pool of the lost maiden song.
And the dreamer, he is dreaming . . .
Hair, that ropes the stoic man upon his mount.
Hair, making souls’ lost ending breath a shout,
And hair that weighs the wind, teaches it to sing;
Hair, wending whirlpools waving fools to dive in.
2
Lost at land’s end the sea lions, washed-up, wail
And buzzards coast where eagles flail, rip tides
Assail and chop the collected bones they drop;
It is a chalky bone-yard break, golden escarpments
Wake and a seamen’s salty sermons shake;
Where gathering ghosts glom and chide steeping,
In the pool of the lost maiden song.
And the seeker, he is seeking . . .
Eyes that turn the sands and are mirrors,
Eyes that taught the books of Alexandria,
Eyes that shook the flesh and are seers,
Eyes that lit the pyres, burned true believers.
3
Deep in the dark wood the waters rush, hush,
Cramp, crew and creep, melodiously tread,
Trammel, and burn as furies in keeping true
The melting moon, the onerous owl, fluttering
Things, muttering wings, cones in darkness
Flings and filmy time flicks by the wayside;
In the pool of the lost maiden song.
And the lover, he is longing . . .
Love, lithe and lyric, he sees your sweeping shapes.
Peace, parsed and pained he hears the voicing gape.
Blind, bliss’d and shamed he wears the votive drapes.
Hungered, thirsted and gone; seeks your pearly gate.
4
Out in the forest maze the jarring sun seeps
And swirls, only to roust the traveler onward
Where soon he must meet the faces in the grotto
Down in destroyed lands by the seas’ unreasoning
Chime, deep in the dark whine of the shining mermaids,
Where the doomed cry, round the navel of the world,
In the pool of the lost maiden song.
And the doomed, they are crying . . .
****** beauty bade us, in a star crossed chrysalis,
Made us, choose a desert’s winter of loneliness.
Heed our fate and leave this valley torn of bliss;
The many millions of locust fall in ripest fields.”
Oct 2, 2013
Oct 2, 2013 at 1:57 PM UTC
I'm afraid to slow down, as if loss of repetitiveness allows for sediments.
Mind races, paces.
Over works its self in the wake of new faces.
I'm begging for acceptance to follow this direction.
Harvesting all this love, gaining gems of affection
Scarred and torn my flesh is my own,
I'm grown.
Up, I climb further into danger's soothing catacombs.
The shells of un-fulfillment shed with precision.
I'm dreaming of blackouts with a blurred vision.
Steeping tea of poor decisions.
Wasted, wasting, weightless.
Repetitive, sediments, settling into broken dreams.
Filling the corners of my mind, spilling hope,
Tethering seams.
Jan 25, 2013
Jan 25, 2013 at 10:19 AM UTC
( a vision dream )
1
Down in the shrouded wood a wanderer walks
And dreams the dreamers story he has lived.
Sidled by the stream that sheds blue waters
By the beds, trailing the rail of loves unknown
Kiss and a voice that conjures truest bliss,
Down in the drink where sweet Ophelia sleeps;
In the pool of the lost maiden song.
*And the dreamer, he is dreaming . . .
Hair, that ropes the stoic man upon his mount.
Hair, making souls’ lost ending breath a shout,
And hair that weighs the wind, teaches it to sing;
Hair, wending whirlpools waving fools to dive in.*
2
Lost at land’s end the sea lions, washed-up, wail
And buzzards coast where eagles flail, rip tides
Assail and chop the collected bones they drop;
It is a chalky bone-yard break, golden escarpments
Wake and a seamen’s salty sermons shake;
Where gathering ghosts glom and chide steeping,
In the pool of the lost maiden song.
*And the seeker, he is seeking . . .
Eyes that turn the sands and are mirrors,
Eyes that taught the books of Alexandria,
Eyes that shook the flesh and are seers,
Eyes that lit the pyres, burned true believers.*
3
Deep in the dark wood the waters rush, hush,
Cramp, crew and creep, melodiously tread,
Trammel, and burn as furies in keeping true
The melting moon, the onerous owl, fluttering
Things, muttering wings, cones in darkness
Flings and filmy time flicks by the wayside;
In the pool of the lost maiden song.
*And the lover, he is longing . . .
Love, lithe and lyric, he sees your sweeping shapes.
Peace, parsed and pained he hears the voicing gape.
Blind, bliss’d and shamed he wears the votive drapes.
Hungered, thirsted and gone; seeks your pearly gate.*
4
Out in the forest maze the jarring sun seeps
And swirls, only to roust the traveler onward
Where soon he must meet the faces in the grotto
Down in destroyed lands by the seas’ unreasoning
Chime, deep in the dark whine of the shining mermaids,
Where the doomed cry, round the navel of the world,
In the pool of the lost maiden song.
*And the doomed, they are crying . . .
****** beauty bade us, in a star crossed chrysalis,
Made us, choose a desert’s winter of loneliness.
Heed our fate and leave this valley torn of bliss;
The many millions of locust fall in ripest fields.”*
Aug 13, 2015
Aug 13, 2015 at 2:59 PM UTC
It might be the pungent steam from a ***
steeping herbs meant to bend its sippers'
minds to potent effect, or an unanticipated
digestive reckoning from that mawkishly flavored
brand of store-bought paste they pass as butter.
However the dough arises, their collective
recollection of storied events, lengthwise sliced
and ritually rehearsed, hops facilely on the ****
of a bucking and overtly nonsensical wind.
Tea parties with slippery perspectives
have been shown quite clinically to induce
heightened sensitivity in participants,
so it's prudent to set about tidying the facts:
The hatter, it's become clear, shifted one place
too many and disappeared with a trace -- leaving
behind his hat to nobody's great advantage.
Lacking a wearer, the headgear's reputation for
producing madness has rapidly diminished.
The march hare pulls off his change in a very
separate and seasonal way: the bunny's
bottom half somersaults its top to occupy
both his spot and the hatter's vacated seat.
The dormouse upon its latest arousal
is re-visioned to be small, but not much mouse
at all. He's plush with the long-in-the-ear habit
of a pink stuffed rabbit, which the crusading hare
furiously declares is most curious, casting
doubt on the vermin's commitment to "no room."
Alice remains foremost in tact and is given
a bonus of two spare feet complete with slackened
bootstraps. She keeps them and her other luxury
items well-sheltered behind a stout table leg.
The absentee hatter doesn't dare shame her
with a radio-show call-in decrying
the waste. She's generously agreed to
cover the medical expenses from his firm flop.
May 27, 2010
May 27, 2010 at 2:54 PM UTC
Imagine if life was just a cup of tea -
So simple,
leaves steeping in the steaming water.
Only to spread what they have
to the joys of all around.
But instead,
our lives are just large scale mitosis.
Splitting between emotions out of our control.
What starts as a seed, roots deep in the ground,
not a flower, nor a tree, but a mountain.
Growing taller than we give can see.
See, mountains are just like our lives.
Starting deep in the ground,
yet growing far out of eyesight.
And, still, when lightning strikes
that simple, vulnerable point.
It all collapses around us.
And we are left,
alone,
in the rubble that was once something great.
Jan 1, 2013
Jan 1, 2013 at 7:44 PM UTC
IN THE POOL OF THE LOST MAIDEN SONG
1
Down in the shrouded wood a wanderer walks
And dreams the dreamers story he has lived.
Sidled by the stream that sheds blue waters
By the beds, trailing the rail of loves unknown
Kiss and a voice that conjures truest bliss,
Down in the drink where sweet Ophelia sleeps;
In the pool of the lost maiden song.
And the dreamer, he is dreaming . . .
Hair, that ropes the stoic man upon his mount.
Hair, making souls’ lost ending breath a shout,
And hair that weighs the wind, teaches it to sing;
Hair, wending whirlpools waving fools to dive in.
2
Lost at land’s end the sea lions, washed-up, wail
And buzzards coast where eagles flail, rip tides
Assail and chop the collected bones they drop;
It is a chalky bone-yard break, golden escarpments
Wake and a seamen’s salty sermons shake;
Where gathering ghosts glom and chide steeping,
In the pool of the lost maiden song.
And the seeker, he is seeking . . .
Eyes that turn the sands and are mirrors,
Eyes that taught the books of Alexandria,
Eyes that shook the flesh and are seers,
Eyes that lit the pyres, burned true believers.
3
Deep in the dark wood the waters rush, hush,
Cramp, crew and creep, melodiously tread,
Trammel, and burn as furies in keeping true
The melting moon, the onerous owl, fluttering
Things, muttering wings, cones in darkness
Flings and filmy time flicks by the wayside;
In the pool of the lost maiden song.
And the lover, he is longing . . .
Love, lithe and lyric, he sees your sweeping shapes.
Peace, parsed and pained he hears the voicing gape.
Blind, bliss’d and shamed he wears the votive drapes.
Hungered, thirsted and gone; seeks your pearly gate.
4
Out in the forest maze the jarring sun seeps
And swirls, only to roust the traveler onward
Where soon he must meet the faces in the grotto
Down in destroyed lands by the seas’ unreasoning
Chime, deep in the dark whine of the shining mermaids,
Where the doomed cry, round the navel of the world,
In the pool of the lost maiden song.
And the doomed, they are crying . . .
****** beauty bade us, in a star crossed chrysalis,
Made us, choose a desert’s winter of loneliness.
Heed our fate and leave this valley torn of bliss;
The many millions of locust fall in ripest fields.”
Jan 17, 2013
Jan 17, 2013 at 6:46 PM UTC
We have touched so much since December,
steeping teas torrid and arctic ice cubes
a thousand fibers, prince bee his princess
generous blankets papering flu
the drizzle on wedding dawns or departure’s eve
pieces of candy for holiday celebrations
even the ending of a movie –
these are wild fingers that we have
rebellious, juveniles in mind
singing summer stories through knuckles
bodies long slenderized
and they are more than myself
to them, I have no name
but my brain and I are their mother
a well-mannered woman in command
I feed them lotion,
then play in the sand apathetic
whistles papercuts that sting with
mouths as lions tigers bears sharks leaves
asking which hurts most significantly of all we
have loved –
and then again, what enduring does not belong?
The adolescents scoff at each of their
five circadian baths, and I hear cries
for showers because soap makes them crack
but it is in your best interest, I say;
you touch everything that gets in your way
to move is beauty and transitioning more so:
my hands are dancers, pirouetting
on stage to fall harmoniously with
bashes, revelations, words I care to mean
yes, these are what causes the bleed of
my aging hands, and throughout their years,
rings dying them green.
Oct 30, 2012
Oct 30, 2012 at 4:56 PM UTC
Imagine a world without terror outer
and inner, sans famine of food and water,
where every soul is well-sated; a world
sans sickness and disease, not by the cord
of morbidity and death held; a place
where huts are mansions, every shack is
a castle, and each flat a grand manor;
where the roads are built with pure gold
and the bridges with resplendent diamond;
where the day does not change in colour,
except when full moon in its full array
once in a month has its own display.
I mean a planet steeping in love
unfeigned, bristling with true hospitality
of the soul; a world bereft of danger,
and of every mind-and-heart breaker;
a world with the similitude of the garden of
Eden, hung on the shoulders of harmony--
where man at another cove's lovely dove
will not leer, where there are
no split and divorce. The genre, stuff
of life where one's pigmentation is
not the cardinal, but the inner essence.
A sort of society where ****** Hussein
and Laden-like fellows and all their
coterie of killers do not have a lair
of habitation, i refer; where besetting sin
has no confederacy with the rotary heart
and mind of man; where the leagues
of villians are non-existence. An earth
where conglomeration of wicked cliques
is non-operational: where everyone be
holy--no child soilder, nor forced labour;
where women are not ravaged in cruelty
of acts, and is void of conflict and war.
Such a place "the world" is not called
but "heaven: governed by the Almighty Lord.
Jul 13, 2013
Jul 13, 2013 at 3:20 AM UTC
You think poetry's all sunshine and lollipops
Greeting card verses in fine hand by polyglots
You think it's all moon and june and song of the loon
And raining on plains in Spain and
Refrains in melodic whispers
waxing rhapsodic with Grecian goddess sisters
but it RANTS
and it RAILS
and it WAILS
flailing fists to punch out the night sky
leaving stars like scars as the clouds cry
weeping for anger steeping like
an overbrewed tea of loathing
while your clothing is rent in mourning
anger adorning you as
thoughts collude in a stew of
bitter brine of attempts and flops that's
not all sunshine and lollipops
Apr 24, 2012
Apr 24, 2012 at 11:54 AM UTC
she says I'm too young,
but sadness manifests the same
so I place my broken jaw
back into its broken place
a modern epimetheus
dragging my prudence by the reins
confronted with the trouble that'd been steeping
for years on the fire
and like the ferris wheel that spun every summer
that I lost interest in
as I sloughed more and more of my childhood skin
I look off into the fog, salt and sand
'n the moon perched so highly,
a king in the sky
sending off its armed stars to cut through the night
****** from this nonage fantasy
by the bitter taste of tobacco in my mouth
maybe I can't love anyone
not yet
Jun 22, 2018
Jun 22, 2018 at 12:53 AM UTC
In house made warm letters run,
Bright poems let, in winter sun—
The dreams of day a lively school,
As songbirds gleam at vernal pools,
Apparitions of youth— fly in and go,
A love blew held in wings, undertow,
Little things now steeping with peace,
Cloudy thoughts set aflame, released,
A lost woman revisioned— unknown,
Is conjured, screening real as a poem.
Nov 13, 2014
Nov 13, 2014 at 5:05 PM UTC
Brewing.
Steeping.
The leaves of the crunchy,
Dry,
Oolong tea.
He wanted the girl to love it.
As much as he did.
The chocolatey aroma.
Taste.
Smell.
All to be enjoyed by the girl.
He was excited for her to savor it.
Auburn orange.
Amber yellow.
How these colors swirl within the tea cup.
Dipping a spoon in to twirl it.
Left.
Right.
Counterclockwise.
At last, the tea was ready.
Cool.
Not too hot.
Not too cold.
Just right, like porridge.
Ready to be tasted by the girl.
He presented it to her.
She took the tea cup.
In her delicate hands.
Tipped it to her chapped lips.
The warm liquid
Glided.
Smoothly.
In her mouth.
Down her throat.
Her tongue, wanting more.
She smiled at the boy.
Before continuing to
Ravish her tea.
Aug 16, 2018
Aug 16, 2018 at 10:22 AM UTC