"sundials" poems
Sometimes she walks through the village in her
little red dress
all absorbed in restraining herself,
and yet, despite herself, she seems to move
according to the rhythm of her life to come.
She runs a bit, hesitates, stops,
half-turns around...
and, all while dreaming, shakes her head
for or against.
Then she dances a few steps
that she invents and forgets,
no doubt finding out that life
moves on too fast.
It's not so much that she steps out
of the small body enclosing her,
but that all she carries in herself
frolics and ferments.
It's this dress that she'll remember
later in a sweet surrender;
when her whole life is full of risks,
the little red dress will always seem right.
Lord: it is time. The summer was immense.
Lay your shadow on the sundials
and let loose the wind in the fields.
Bid the last fruits to be full;
give them another two more southerly days,
press them to ripeness, and chase
the last sweetness into the heavy wine.
Whoever has no house now will not build one
anymore.
Whoever is alone now will remain so for a long
time,
will stay up, read, write long letters,
and wander the avenues, up and down,
restlessly, while the leaves are blowing.
13.4k
I am too close for him to dream about me.
I'm not flying over him, not fleeing him
under the roots of trees. I am too close.
Not with my voice sings the fish in the net.
Not from my finger rolls the ring.
I am too close. A large house is on fire
without my calling for help. Too close
for a bell dangling from my hair to chime.
Too close for me to enter as a guest
before whom the walls part.
Never again will I die so readily,
so far beyond the flesh, so inadvertently
as once in his dream. I am too close,
too close—I hear the hiss
and see the glittering husk of that word,
as I lie immobilized in his embrace. He sleeps,
more available at this moment
to the ticket lady of a one-lion traveling circus
seen but once in his life
than to me lying beside him.
Now a valley grows for her in him, ochre-leaved,
closed off by a snowy mountain
in the azure air. I am too close
to fall out of the sky for him. My scream
might only awaken him. Poor me,
limited to my own form,
but I was a birch tree, I was a lizard,
I emerged from satins and sundials
my skins shimmering in different colors. I possessed
the grace to disappear from astonished eyes,
and that is the rich man's riches. I am too close,
too close for him to dream about me.
I slip my arm out from under his sleeping head.
It's numb, full of imaginary pins and needles.
And on the head of each, ready to be counted,
dance the fallen angels.
Sep 23, 2014
Sep 23, 2014 at 6:53 AM UTC
Pearl flakes, delicate shards scatter,
shatter. Woven silently, heavily softly, slowly, wafting. Swirling into sparkling sundials.
May 21, 2014
May 21, 2014 at 6:02 AM UTC
Alice Coltrane, your music brings something out of me,
Something nameless
something I keep buried.
As I lay on this bare mattress, humming along to “Turiya And Ramakrishna”
I ponder if you knew your legacy.
If during those last days in 2007, you ever thought your work could inspire poets of the next generation
or was that even a question lingering between your tempels?
Perhaps not.
Well as this pen dances to the melodies you wrote,
I think, and think
and blink
and sink
I wonder if my last hours will happen a year from now or a decade
or a month
or a week
And what will remain of my creations
Have I touched enough lives
Have I loved enough souls
Have I danced enough
Gave enough
Laughed enough?
I envy the sand devoured by oceans
because it’s simply moving on to its next life
I envy photographs because their moments last forever
I envy the tortoise’s shell
I envy the hourglass because its fate is no mystery
I envy those who do not envy
I envy the days before sundials
when days simply couldn’t fit onto paper squares
I...don’t want you to worry.
I am a spark
Finite but furious
bright, unstable, contagious
and capable of lighting your way before I fade
At least I hope.
Sep 12, 2018
Sep 12, 2018 at 11:53 PM UTC
time governs
you and me
treat it not
irreverently
chance the unknown
while you can
sands of time
pause for no woman nor man
one and all
quick sticks
the time piece
it ticks it ticks
dithers and dawdlers
hear the alarm
wasted days
do each of us
irreversible harm
of the calendar year
we are sure
but moments in time
are pending trapdoors
make every venture
your stock in trade
lest time render us
uncertain and afraid
in reality rosters
and agendas do vary
devilish time
oft wickedly contrary
speed up Jack and Jill
sundials are on a roll
time is indiscriminate
exacting
a costly toll
governor time
is carefully deliberating
our pendulums
remonstrating
Jan 11, 2014
Jan 11, 2014 at 9:08 PM UTC
Eyeballs return their messages
After the dial tone
You find yourself silent
What a milestone
At twenty six
You are still a ******
Useless burdens
Learn to surf
It combines love with gravity
Strategies and striated lines
Fingers align
We incline our spines
And elevate our torsos
Mind the gap
A fabricated rip in time and space
Figuratively awake
We speak from our hearts
Your long time girlfriend
Is now a victim of indecision
Start talking or you’ll lose her
More than ever she needs your strength
Your friendship, your lips and your touch
Control the rush
And give time a chance to unwind
Mindless fingers linger on her legs
Can we beg for more
Or will we get usurped by the corridors
Cartons of milk left in defiance
Send me your elegant negligee
I neglected to beg your pardon
You neglected to say you were sorry
Phone calls reach dial tones
And we remove the stones from our sundials
Calendars are timeless timelines
Wild like waves
We break free of enslaved isotopes
Compose songs and poems
And attempt to drink atomic gold
From fountains of power
Houses are all just boxes
That we store our souls in
Gardens are living visions
Virtues are numberless
Hundreds of spirits join hands
In parks and paintings
We partake in equations of healing
Save me from my longing
For loving too much is a curse
And purses fall like hexes
Placing dents in your dresses
We undress our fences
And select our neighbors
To dance with
Mar 13, 2019
Mar 13, 2019 at 3:25 PM UTC
I always thought one day I’d write something worth reading
So far, just lines and lines, used up catchphrases
I slumber in the pine needles and breathe in the scent of cut
Juniper
Bathe in the shadow of sundials as the day fades, turns smiles to
moonlit slumber
In the green grass among the dead leaves I lay my head and listen to
leaves changing color
On the cold sand I listen to high tide turn to low, the rolling of the rocks and the
breaking waves of foam
The birds in the trees sing of bamboo forests in her backyard, blue room where she
collected rocks and lucky charms
Books with pages torn out, arrowheads she found in the field, a feather in
her hair
Pale blue eyes which reflected my dullness, reading Camus by the door
She used to read to me, when the sun was sinking and my head was spinning from the
last cigarette
And hold me like a child, hold me with my eyes shut and my lungs screaming to speak one
simple phrase
To grab the pen, to open my eyes and speak symbols onto the page, make my ballpoint
sing
To read a word worth reading, to write a line worth writing, this is my desire
Jan 13, 2013
Jan 13, 2013 at 10:12 PM UTC
In the greater oyster world
All the children eventually grew old
The windmills ran down
The fields went back to clover
The stones kept all their secrets
Waterways forgot their courses
The sundials were covered with moss
And time eventually stretched out
To touch the edge of infinity.
Aug 21, 2010
Aug 21, 2010 at 12:55 AM UTC
The soul has as its sextant the ribs opened wide,
The heart its compass in fluid circuitous diatribe,
When each to zone the geometry of Greek sky
With its powdery fabulism of centaurs and jars
From Aesop’s wine of words, the untimeliness
Of sundials to Charybdis’s bloom of giant watery eyes.
To know oceans by the dry riverbed of my pulse,
To scale only as high as the sparrow’s tomb of my heart.
Jun 15, 2020
Jun 15, 2020 at 5:05 PM UTC
Sun tells the time
around Sundials
Shouts out loud
FIRE!!!
Aug 14, 2023
Aug 14, 2023 at 8:26 AM UTC
Sickly sensuous, the tree's burning branches twisting towards the frosted eternal ceiling, sunken hollows and curved swings are fragilely bound by frayed roots which grow by day under cheerful sundials reflecting the sky's chiffon ripples.
Joining the trees bowing branches were spidery threads scalloped between the mosaic webbings of wooden latticework;
The odd turtle dove getting caught momentairily in the silver embroidery and cooing in alarm, before cooling under the star-shine.
Amorphous, brushed clouds rolled in rhetorical significance unknowing of what power the wind holds,
whilst black sac ravens drifted aimlessly down the purple road like the dry tumbleweed.
Apr 29, 2014
Apr 29, 2014 at 11:39 AM UTC
( Sonnet )
In the drugs of the airs so nearly
By her, deep in delusions of youth,
I followed dry some salt seas soul,
Blinded by a siren, in the sundials,
Of her dark, entangling, dire red hair.
My soul was unmembering and lost,
My body, tided to the moons glows
And pull, she rowed us deep before
Dawn, and a drowning mans shanty
Cut my ears. Was not all dreamland?
Were the stars merely eyes that sailed
Into a sailors tall tales token etched on
Scrimshaw, of bones gut ghostly white?
Do mermaids in waves, pine for mortals?
Jul 16, 2015
Jul 16, 2015 at 9:54 PM UTC
my legs
scrape together.
like the ears of an elephant
they slap against each other
against the cool vinyl seat
they have chained me into
with a medical observance.
i squirm for comfort
for completion
for complacency
but all i feel is the rustle of fabric.
the woman stares,
her eyes caring
but cold
unblinking
mirroring a skeleton back at me.
the doctor
(what number, i cannot remember;
there have been many
nameless faceless coats
trying to help)
the doctor looks deep
deep down
his eyes clocks
sundials
scoreboards
ticking away
the hours
the ninety-three pounds
i have left on this earth.
the air compresses.
a whale in a bottle,
i rip the chain into squares
and run
run
run down the street.
i am fine.
i am invincible.
a crack
trips me up.
the world seethes red.
a stranger's hand rights me.
His eyes are kind.
and for the umpteenth time,
someone asks me.
and for the umpteenth time,
i feel my mouth
shaping the word
so empty and sterile
habitually.
"not--"
but then
i stop.
and words come up
like my offering
after meals:
forced
necessary
raw
apologetic,
just
needing to
come out.
Dec 22, 2009
Dec 22, 2009 at 6:22 PM UTC
( Sonnet )
In the drugs of the airs so nearly
By her, deep in delusions of youth,
I followed dry some salt seas soul,
Blinded by a siren, in the sundials,
Of her dark, entangling, dire red hair.
My soul was unmembering and lost,
My body, tided to the moons glows
And pull, she rowed us deep before
Dawn, and a drowning mans shanty
Cut my ears. Was not all dreamland?
Were the stars merely eyes that sailed
Into a sailors tall tales token etched on
Scrimshaw, of bones gut ghostly white?
Do mermaids in waves, pine for mortals?
Nov 7, 2015
Nov 7, 2015 at 4:26 PM UTC
trees sunk in dolor as i teach
what i could to the flowers and what they
might say to me in seismic lunges
of dark upon quivering fig
will tremble the environs.
the boughs mimic the serious mien
of sundials — men have forgotten
the primitive yet go rushing murderous
waving bayonets claiming the silence,
the ruin rising above the phalanx.
my glyptic words rise above the foliage
telling all macabre presses against
choked light. the heron,
the nightingale, o'er there yonder
hills tryingly enunciating something
in the hollow: they have traded
us for mere soil.
Nov 4, 2015
Nov 4, 2015 at 4:50 AM UTC
( Sonnet )
In the drugs of the airs so nearly
By her, deep in delusions of youth,
I followed dry some salt seas soul,
Blinded by a siren, in the sundials,
Of her dark, entangling, dire red hair.
My soul was unmembering and lost,
My body, tided to the moons glows
And pull, she rowed us deep before
Dawn, and a drowning mans shanty
Cut my ears. Was not all dreamland?
Were the stars merely eyes that sailed
Into a sailors tall tales token etched on
Scrimshaw, of bones gut ghostly white?
Do mermaids in waves, pine for mortals?
May 7, 2016
May 7, 2016 at 4:17 PM UTC
I can still hear the echoes in the playground.
Round and round we go.
Kickstone and grass stained clothes,
The lampposts sundials, calls us home.
We could stay out until the sun goes down,
And even later if allowed,
Look at you now.
A shadow in the distance,
The big city called your name and you answered that call of fame,
Before you recognised the mistake you made.
What a fateful day that was,
My fragment of a friend
Oct 28, 2015
Oct 28, 2015 at 5:25 PM UTC
So Hesiod looked around on an ancient Grecian day
He looked at all the rowdy youth doing things their way
With their sundials and writing
And their chariots like lightning
He concluded that youth were going the wrong way
Jan 18, 2017
Jan 18, 2017 at 8:14 AM UTC
Over and Over
Over and over,
no matter how vividly
we know love's landscape
and the lost cemetery
with its sad names
and the chasm into which
the others have fallen,
once again we walk together
beneath ancient trees
and lie down entwined
among the blossoms
facing the sky.
- trans. mce
Autumn Day
God, the time is now.
Summer was vast.
Drop your shadow
across the sundials
and loose your breath
upon the fields.
Command the last fruits
to fullness,
allow them a few warm days
to discover ripeness
and press their sweetness
into heavy wine.
No time remains
to seek refuge.
If you are now alone
you will remain so
for a long, long time.
You will stay up late,
writing letters
to no one,
restlessly wandering
the hollow streets
while the leaves
tumble aimlessly.
- trans. mce
Apr 10, 2015
Apr 10, 2015 at 7:50 PM UTC
hop scotch skip skop and
a bubbly trick in the pocket
we can go and
we're gonna make and
we can scintillatingly pop it
silly sunshine faucets
drip drop pop
dripping droplets
of light rain sunstain sundials
spinnin' at a thousand lightmiles
per second and
tasting of crystal pools
from the eyes
of the sun child
quite beguiled,
and certainly not mild,
'cause they're just singin'
they're singin'
radiant pure life bright light
ripple clear glass glisten
clear water shimmer
ripple dimple smile
eyes reached
crowfeet and
shimmertooth
laughter
Jan 28, 2015
Jan 28, 2015 at 6:47 PM UTC
*Desert sands billow in great open of silence,
The sun is quaking in deep grains of swirling,
Earth and sky are a great pool of indifference,
Even birds have no song in stormy desolation.*
Apr 16, 2014
Apr 16, 2014 at 6:23 PM UTC
time governs you and me
treat it not irreverently
chance the unknown while you can
sands of time pause for no woman nor man
one and all quick sticks
the time piece it ticks it ticks
ditherers and dawdlers hear the alarm
wasted days do each of us irreversible harm
of the calendar year we are sure
though moments in time are pending trapdoors
make every venture your stock in trade
lest time render us uncertain and afraid
in reality agendas and rosters do vary
devilish time oft wickedly contrary
speed up Jack Jill sundials are on a roll
time is indiscriminate in exacting a costly toll
governor time is carefully deliberating
our pendulums remonstrating
Sep 13, 2014
Sep 13, 2014 at 7:12 PM UTC
.
Desert sands billow in great open of silence,
The sun is quaking in deep grains of swirling,
Earth and sky are a great pool of indifference,
Even birds have no song in stormy desolation.
Nov 13, 2016
Nov 13, 2016 at 2:41 PM UTC
Among the nordic hills
where wild waterfalls
resound
and flowers cling
in the cracks
of granite rocks
mosses carpet
the forest floors
in moon or sunlight
tall firs make
revolving sundials
telling time
time that's now
and time that's past
time to see
what life it was
being me
among those
with foreign tongue
at home
for home for me
was where I felt
the now
as now it is gone
its meaning
stretched into forever now
no longer when
but then
Margaret Ann Waddicor 25th July 2016
Sep 10, 2016
Sep 10, 2016 at 10:56 AM UTC