"sups" poems
Golden pulse grew on the shore,
Ferns along the hill,
And the red cliff roses bore
Bees to drink their fill;
Bees that from the meadows bring
Wine of melilot,
Honey-sups on golden wing
To the garden grot.
But to me, neglected flower,
Phaon will not see,
Passion brings no crowning hour,
Honey nor the bee.
7.6k
Though frost and snow lock’d from mine eyes
That beauty which without door lies,
Thy gardens, orchards, walks, that so
I might not all thy pleasures know,
Yet, thou within thy gate
Art of thyself so delicate,
So full of native sweets, that bless
Thy roof with inward happiness,
As neither from nor to thy store
Winter takes aught, or spring adds more.
The cold and frozen air had starv’d
Much poor, if not by thee preserv’d,
Whose prayers have made thy table blest
With plenty, far above the rest.
The season hardly did afford
Coarse cates unto thy neighbors’ board,
Yet thou hadst dainties, as the sky
Had only been thy volary;
Or else the birds, fearing the snow
Might to another Deluge grow,
The pheasant, partridge, and the lark
Flew to thy house, as to the Ark.
The willing ox of himself came
Home to the slaughter, with the lamb,
And every beast did thither bring
Himself, to be an offering.
The scaly herd more pleasure took,
Bath’d in thy dish, than in the brook;
Water, earth, air, did all conspire
To pay their tributes to thy fire,
Whose cherishing flames themselves divide
Through every room, where they deride
The night, and cold aboard; whilst they,
Like suns within, keep endless day.
Those cheerful beams send forth their light
To all that wander in the night,
And seem to beckon from aloof
The weary pilgrim to thy roof,
Where if, refresh’d, he will away,
He’s faily welcome; or if stay,
Far more; which he shall hearty find
Both from the master and the hind.
The stranger’s welcome each man there
Stamp’d on his cheerful brow doth wear,
Nor doth this welcome or his cheer
Grow less ‘cause he stays longer here;
There’s none observes, much less repines,
How often this man sups or dines.
Thou hast no porter at the door
T’examine or keep back the poor;
Nor locks nor bolts: thy gates have been
Made only to let strangers in;
Untaught to shut, they do not fear
To stand wide open all the year,
Careless who enters, for they know
Thou never didst deserve a foe;
And as for thieves, thy bounty’s such,
They cannot steal, thou giv’st so much.
2.4k
Said I was, then I wasn’t
Tossed my photo id
99 on the interstate
Forgot my home address
This or last years birthdays
Cerebral teasing, electrical wheezing
Coughing up candy colored viscous mixtures
Pain pills, strange ills, black tar rapt
Plastics wax kid cradle doping until fatal
Sipping succulent sups from yang’s ladle
Freak streaks bisect mind-framed societies
Claim lives and blind young eyes
Perhaps its an exaggerated fable
More able however an argument for contrast
Long-lived mobile monument smoke stacks
Toothless twelve year old flashing crack caps
Slow know elapse forgotten hats blown home
Always sixty seconds to go, cool clock interlock
Alleyway temple made meek street ever bleak
Folly is an empty spoon, children’s cartoons
Wall starter, void walker, treble swelled neurotic
Creeps dream witchcraft borderline hypnotic
Say it was before it wasn’t
Mar 12, 2013
Mar 12, 2013 at 7:54 PM UTC
the clanking of the radiator
is the only sound
except her breathing
which she measures
as if she knows
the finite number
until her last,
her coffee cold,
in it she sees the night
from which she came,
the blind, deaf walkers
the fuming taxis
she left
in the square streets
her eyes well
with the last drops
of the last love
of the last light
of the last star
in her galaxy of loss
only one drop falls
into her cradled cup
when it vanishes
in the indifferent sea
she sups it slowly
back inside
where the night belongs
but never stays
Dec 3, 2012
Dec 3, 2012 at 10:36 PM UTC
Our so-called “Universe” is an erupting volcano
Spewing out gas and solid matter
To form a cosmic web
Of incandescent galaxies full of stars
Rushing away from us
Ever faster
Until we see them no more.
We tiny mice men gaze up at the sky
To make out next to nothing
Of the wider landscape
On which our universe-volcano
Sends out its plumes.
Us mice we sit, idly supping our pints of ale:
Taking a break from “shopping”
For the better half.
Blithely taking for granted
The wonder that lies above our heads.
A cosmos riddled with black holes –
Places where Time has stopped.
Where if you somehow survived
You would be frozen solid
With no knowledge that Time keeps moving
Out there beyond the Event Horizon.
If Time has stopped
How can anything exist?
How can Hawking Radiation seep out
When there simply isn’t time?
Even Brian *** doesn’t know,
As he sits and sups his pint.
None of us know.
And as my glass empties,
Just as the universe will eventually empty,
All I can say is
Let’s have another one.
Paul Butters
© PB 7\12\2021.
Dec 7, 2021
Dec 7, 2021 at 6:37 AM UTC
Fresh morning leaves droop over branches,
As light dances with duet mood in the flickering blue;
Reflecting, saying ‘hi', as my eyes reply with a squint.
Birds in shadow with divine annoyance, chatter wild scenes
Not asked for, heard through the night.
Apollo lovingly embraces all I see
Motherly caressing, hugging fatherly,
Everything in view; turning his soft
Impacts into wondrous colour that reality
Deems too true. Yet none, I say,
Sing; produce your face, a pure as snow white
Face; lips blushing berry red with
Summers tender kiss and her gentle growth.
Humming a scent that velvet violets, surrounded
By golden daffodils, in which, a lone
Bee sups his ambrosia; swaying to and fro,
This way and that with a mysterious power drawn;
To his home, dropping a honey so sweet, sipped
And tasted, creates no sense if sense
Could ever your skin copy. Low waves,
Breathed from energetic wings, waft
Perfume upward, towards the heavens,
Towards it travels and down they look, all,
An elegant goddess, elegant as earth's season
Giving spring, birth of labouring waters
From winters devilish bite; they do gaze
And notice undoubtedly your dazzling sheen.
Hungrily grasping, as turtle-doves swoop
To gather her nest, before the break of storm.
Upon this soft green grass I pray, you lay
With me; humbly offered; while
Bellowing clouds creep forever near,
Thirsting for you to be returned to
Your throne, imbedded between the stars.
To lift you up on cupped hands
And to sleep dreamingly, residing you go.
Dec 30, 2012
Dec 30, 2012 at 1:12 PM UTC
Bluebells, chimeless cups --
Scented veils o'er hills and dales
Whence the dew-bird sups
Bluebells 'neath the moon --
Velvet rugs for slugs and bugs
In the gloaming gloom
Bluebells in the woods --
Bobbing seas beneath tall trees,
Lovely little buds
Jul 17, 2023
Jul 17, 2023 at 11:02 AM UTC
the clanking
of the radiator
the only sound
except her breaths
which she counts, as if
she knows the finite number
until her last
her coffee cold;
in it she sees the night
from which she came:
the blind, deaf walkers,
the fuming taxis she left
in the square streets
her eyes well
with the last drops
of the last light
of the last star
in her galaxy
of loss
only one tear falls
into her cradled cup
where it vanishes into
the indifferent sea
she sups it slowly
back inside, where night belongs
but never stays
May 3, 2016
May 3, 2016 at 9:57 PM UTC
Enjoys
peaches, pudding
Pies, tapioca,
But
often sups
on beef.
Apr 1, 2017
Apr 1, 2017 at 2:20 PM UTC
Two monks pick fruit
from bushes
in the abbey gardens,
the early
afternoon sun
blesses
their tonsured heads,
a black beaded rosary
hangs
from the leather belt
of the younger one.
I polish the wood
of the choir stalls
with beeswax
and a yellow duster;
I remember her softness,
her opening wide,
the scent of hair
as I moved in
and lay there.
The Austrian monk,
head to one side,
sups his soup
in the refectory
off the old
French spoon,
listening to the reader
read of Cromwell,
and the thought of Compline
and bed quite soon.
Feb 10, 2015
Feb 10, 2015 at 1:59 AM UTC
(ripped from the sages' pages of the Middle Ages – “Sumer is icumen in”)
Merrily he eats the worms
Pull them from the ground!
Their heads pop up
On them he sups
As they squirm around
Chirp, robin!
The squirrels are eating all the seeds
The cardinal’s head’s a-bobbin’
The doves are cooing
The cows are mooing
Chirp merrily, robin!
Robin, robin
How well you chirp
Now eat the worms and burp!
Burp, burp, burp!
Dec 25, 2018
Dec 25, 2018 at 11:54 AM UTC
They say suffering is God's grace
rejoice in pain the helper brings
as a gift to tortured souls
evoking love in misery
woe leading to fortitude
resolute in life’s decline
there’s no place to go but down
patience grasped it’s crushed
this toleration leads the way
stoicism born of pain
disposition springing forth
making claims against what’s lost
building character as the goal
twisted fruit from blood soaked ground
seeking hope beyond the fall
stumbling forward on broken bones
now shame is lost to the void
gift of Spirit that sups on gore
that twisted love now evoked
suffering’s end I’ll not rejoice.
© 2018. Sean Green. All Rights Reserved. 20180803.
Aug 3, 2018
Aug 3, 2018 at 10:24 PM UTC
Honey wine sups serpentine,
Sweetness blended from your mouth,
drips droopily from lips to feet,
from eyes to meet eyes and lips to lips
This heady mixture's supple spirits Electrifying,
Your hand’s soft skin flows sparks and light
and prismatic auras like a thousand butterflies
From smiling eyes, and soft soul lightening skin
Embrace my hearts subtle ecstasies
Behind the cornucopia of your apparition
Beyond the vague attempts to charge
Distracted by a thousand butterflies, wings a flutter
Smashed off honey-wines that flow from your lips
Yet all the more I focus on that silence in your breast
Without a season, without a compass, without a question
The first thought when I wake
That last before I sleep
Nov 2, 2014
Nov 2, 2014 at 8:27 PM UTC
There,
he wonders if there is
too much cream coiling in
tendrils, swirling.
He peels the cup from a large penny-stain
and sups at sweet heat, too sweet,
too sweet.
If only it was of the richest brown!
Bitter and scalding - and it becomes!
Clearer and clearer it becomes
in porcelain mug, creamy.
And the world would be most wonderful, then.
The world would be wonderful
once more, again, the rain would once more dance
again, just as the coffee
must trace young
delicate rings on
placemats and the upper bits
of lips-
but the rain outside is heavy and stale, and the stains
are leaking, leaking pennies
Still, he stares into his coffee
sitting plainly on the table
and thinks.
Aug 27, 2016
Aug 27, 2016 at 1:50 AM UTC
Gauche is hiking down
Through tangled red forest on
Venus mons, prize waits
The land parts widely
The spring is already running
anticipation
Gauche lingers on rise
The ground trembles in want
Gauche travels downhill
The canyon is slick
The walls quiver joyously
A cave is ahead
Gauche is tempted by
His brother calls from uphill
Wait, the ground growls loud
Droit has found a peak
He wishes to explore in
distance another
Gauche climbs back to rise
Lingers there, Droit makes summit
The ground hums in joy
Labbra arrives climbs
Other peak, breathes heavily
Sups on dew at peak
Gauche returns to cave
Enters, earthquake, happens now
Labbra devours
Droit clings to the peak
Gauche darts in and out of cave
Labbra hikes downward
Gauche climbs to peak which
Labbra left, he continues
Down the valley, thirst
Labbra reaches rise
Rests here for a while, ground squirms
Moves toward the cave
More quakes begin now
Droit and Gauche squeeze and cling tight
Labbra drinks at spring
The ground quiets down now
The brothers leave for now
Knight appears, sword drawn
Knight approaches cave
Sword drawn, he enters, ground moans
The brothers return
Labbra meets his match
Further to the north, agape
Entwined they join
Peaks reoccupied
The brothers Knead the ground
The cave closes in
Knight attacks with sword
The ground squeezes tight
Sword plunges faster
The ground erupts then
The sword breaks and leaks, cave fills
All leave now to sleep
Epic ecstasy
Contented dreams occupy
The minds rest renewed.
Sep 30, 2016
Sep 30, 2016 at 10:59 AM UTC
She was told not to mix
her grape and her grain
because all little fairies
end up with is pain.
in their little tummies.
The chief elf said so.
He should know
he has pain mixing his grain.
He rolled out the barrel
weeks ago and still he sups
from the tap when he needs to
his tummy is a barrel full of beer
which is queer, dressed in green.
Like a poppy pod waiting to burst
Which wont be a first.
His greedy thirst has spread
to the little lady in red.
The drunken fairy.
The merry fairy in red.
Now splat on her bed
with cheeks to match her attire.
Like she is on fire.
Burning her brains out
with a barrel of stout
clapped out
the merry fairy
Jan 15, 2015
Jan 15, 2015 at 12:13 AM UTC
The grass is wet
Drops of rain, clinging
To each lolling blade
Like minute universes
Trees, all purple, like a swollen bruise
Or overripe fruit
Bit into, to cascade juices down
The chin of one, who sups upon
The pulpy flesh
And drinks, the juice of life
I fade, and flicker
Far away, and held fast
By that simple majesty
I see in nature
In this wet grass
I see, time's endless passage
Emerald green, vibrant grass
Here, and there, is scattered
All about, with leaves
Withered, brown, old
Marking time's voyage onward
Ravaged, by the passing moments
They do not even blow
Or flutter in the wind
As they did when they
Were green, on summer day
But rest, or are all dead
And will not stir
For what might stir now
The old and decayed
No touch of green upon them
Nay, they will not stir
Jul 13, 2017
Jul 13, 2017 at 9:28 AM UTC