"swathes" poems
We all look forward to the snowdrops
The harbinger of spring
In many shades of white
Offtimes tinged with green
Beautiful, oh so beautiful
Sweeping swathes of green tinged white
But they shrink into nothingness
Against the aconite
Aconite of deepest gold
Brighter than the sun
Aconite the first to show
Amid deep winters gloom
When the aconite first does show
Bluetits start to flit and sing
You see it's not the snowdrop
Who is the harbinger of spring
Mar 12, 2015
Mar 12, 2015 at 8:42 AM UTC
She had hung it up from the mantelpiece in her bedroom, so when he entered the room there it was. It was suddenly lovely and he immediately imagined her body flowing into it, flowing from it. Standing close to the dress he brought his fingers to the fabric, touched gently, stroking then, as though it already held her form and substance.
Stepping past thoughts of her that so stirred his body he entered the pattern of the dress. It was a meadow in southern Ontario. July, when already the sun had bleached the profusion of grasses: water chestnut and papyrus sedge. He had stepped from the untidy veranda, past the pond, and down the rough track between the fields unmown, uncut, left fallow. As he entered the breaks of woodland between these swathes of grassland, deciduous leaves, dry and brittle from the summer's heat, were strewn on the path, and between the trees clumps of bramble bushes with berries of red and blue, black and purple.
There was no wind. The only sounds an underlay of crickets, his footfall, and the sharp mournful cries of geese on the now distant pond.
He saw her like an apparition standing motionless at the woodland’s boundary; her dress at one with all that surrounded her. When he came close and placed his hand on her shoulder he could smell the sweet dry earth mingling with her body's sweat, a hint of her *** as he placed his cheek against the shower of printed pollen amongst the leaves on her back.
Back in the late afternoon bedroom he heard her move about in the kitchen, and the spell broken, he turned away and went downstairs.
Several days later, as they prepared for bed, she slipped the dress on. As she stood in the lamplight smoothing it against her flanks, adjusting its fall across her ******* he felt himself faint that such a thing of beauty could be a joy forever . . . and beyond.
Oct 14, 2012
Oct 14, 2012 at 4:55 AM UTC
A sky so blue
Beatific smile of Sun
Swathes the vastness
Welcoming with open arms
My gleeful heart
Reaches out to the sky
Oh so like the feeling
Joyous jig, to celebrate
Unleashed dreams
I release them to the wind
They fly high
Among the blue
Taste of freedom
Feels so great
My dreams have taken flight
My feet on the ground
And my dreams soaring high
A feeling of euphoria
As I kiss the wind
I feel lighter
My eyes are brighter
Hope resides in my heart
With the sky above me
A shade of blue
Oh so true
A new day and hope
I embrace the landscape
Proud I am
To feel this beauty
I am a part of it
Welcomed by bright sunrays
Feel free to express
When the sky breaks into laughter
Playfully indulge in a light banter
You are here
Welcomed by a bright new day
Regaled by the birds’ songs
Intoxicating aroma of Nature
Along with a sky so blue
Jan 14, 2015
Jan 14, 2015 at 7:34 AM UTC
When I wander among the swathes of Bluebells
I am minded of a nascent variety
creeping in amongst our beloved ones,
Spanish shifts of hue
in the Weald of traditional Kent.
I swear some sad maid
riding on a basket bicycle
scattering new seed
how unpatriotic !
Apr 17, 2012
Apr 17, 2012 at 4:08 PM UTC
This planet orbits a yellow sun like ours.
It is in the Optimum Zone to support life.
Sure enough it has a wide variety of flora and fauna.
Highly intelligent life has evolved in its seas and oceans.
Its continents, however, are dominated by a species of primates.
Over the past 300 of the planet’s years they have developed
Some fairly high technology.
But they remain carnivores
Who regularly commit genocide.
They cut down swathes of natural forest
To grow chemically protected
Genetically modified nutrition-sources.
And they mine their planet empty
Of its mineral riches.
The planet’s ecosystem is being rapidly destroyed
By them.
Socially and psychologically they remain primitive.
Yet they possess the means to blow their world
To pieces.
With heavy heart I have to advise
We sign this planet
“No Entry”
For the foreseeable future.
“Forbidden” indeed.
A planet we call MW Orion 8478-3
That its natives call
That ever so common name:
“Earth”.
Paul Butters
Aug 11, 2015
Aug 11, 2015 at 10:07 AM UTC
I can feel your presence,
I can feel your touch,
As I close my eyes to the darkness,
I can feel your warm breath softly brush,
It swathes my being,
It engulfs my soul,
Lost in an abyss of pleasure,
Desires of the flesh have taken control,
Nothing is sacred, nothing is taboo,
Lust is the power, the wisdom and the fool.
Feb 24, 2010
Feb 24, 2010 at 11:31 PM UTC
Sirens. ‘Oxygen please’.
It was all in a dream,
that slowly fades,
till it’s one last beat;
the final T wave.
The eyes of the soul
opened to a new light;
the real orbits could not
believe, what I saw.
Now, I wish I never
gazed into that light.
Darkness swathes
my soul, a repetition
of this vicious cycle.
Traffic lights. Red turns green.
The monitor music.
A distorted chime sound,
hidden under their vibrating vocal cords.
Last earthly stop.
I am in orbit.
Return of oxygen, electrolytes, body and soul to the progenitor.
Aug 17, 2018
Aug 17, 2018 at 8:42 PM UTC
In the Boondocks of the Ozarks
Salty caramel smelt of August
Swathes stench of rotten trailer parks
Imprisons barren mid-west dust
Feral fevered kids a hunting
For to cool; shoot up, or drink
Arthritic railroad; tie and shunting
Ferrous old town wretched on the brink
Since the cease of mine and logging
Depletion of iron lead and zinc
Nag horse too dead for flogging
Folks futures draining down the sink
Some respite in the summer heat
RV’s; tourists and campers for trails
Like blackfly plague pick off the meat
Fly fast; escape as another harvest fails
Dark currents pepper darker mood
Intolerance grinds in the daily way
Resentment bread as only food
At someone’s door the blame shall lay
In the graveyard of the Ozarks
Rednecks dance on industry tombs
Burn brown smoke spice. Moonshine sparks
Oblivion; no life. Back to mothers' womb
©pofacedpoetry (Billy Reynard-Bowness 2018 – All rights reserved)
Aug 24, 2018
Aug 24, 2018 at 8:06 AM UTC
In the floodgates
of forever
I see you standing,
arms out, so ready
the multiple layers
of silky delicious
that we have created
until now
swirling about us,
a storm of veils
beckoning like sea waifs
and I am opening up
like never before
my heart practically
out of my chest
until it is
flying forth,
a mythical
winged creature,
prehistoric birdling
and you,
with your strong arms
your third eyelight
turned on
catch it
hold it
nuzzle it
until the rest of me
can reach you
bursting forward
through swathes
of time
turbulence a mere
snippet
and we meld
and merge like oceans
hearts lit up
in electrical surge
time and place not existing
We are the sea.
We are the Earth.
We are the desert velvet
We are the wonder
in the hallways
of our arteries
We are the bloodflow
heartflow
of the universe within us
We reign the
ever changing existence
that keeps us whole
allowing room to breathe
to bloom in mystical
wild gardens
yet binding
through realms
of our light's
endless expansion
our souls embracing
as we dream future visions
upon our tongues
and as I gaze upon you
our eyes a magnet
you ignite my glow,
the king of my citadel
festooned with
flowerbuds
for your
queen
Dec 27, 2017
Dec 27, 2017 at 4:32 PM UTC
God, beautiful God
your savior voice converges
from every direction
but your deafening song, adrift
in a thousand siren winds,
carries flickers of fear to my
spread-open operating table self
how those hands work!
forcep fingers draw red lines
and pluck out the worms
once planted by ache
casting aside swathes of skin
and blood-slick baubles of silver,
you pull out my pearls
and put me back together
crossing my burgeoning breast
are threads of saintly white
my paragon body immune
to pain and love alike
when Eve ate the apple
she did it every day
to keep the blessed
doctor away
Jan 4, 2014
Jan 4, 2014 at 4:26 AM UTC
many will know the beauty
of a butterfly's wing
and the delicate intricacy
of their decoration
those swathes of colour
meandering boldly in flight
a proclamation of
their presence
their providence
whose startling eyespots
can mimic the stolid gaze
of the stern and the alluring
observing in judgement
or perhaps in wonder
blinking only as they flutter
flattered disbelieving
yet there are reminders
in that Rorschach patterning
that those with ill intent
should observe
threats and
warnings overlooked
by those in admiration
of such beauty
where few will heed
that gossamer fragility
broken by any
not considerate enough
in their handling
Oct 2, 2023
Oct 2, 2023 at 9:51 AM UTC
Sable, the swallow rising
as it banks over the white conduits
of marrow in the body, rain
slashes through the honey locust,
along the long ellipse of its hunt
as savage dragonflies rise from stems
to cling, a deep sienna of doeskin tremors
over their sting, catkins,
an aftermath, melancholy to the skin
soaked in white calla,
its reticence assails
the sleeping orchards of the heart,
in its darkest sheaves,
to cleave apart the soft joining of lips
and silence me;
for eternity
is this moment,
and the light you give
cloaks me in a coat of flames,
the burnt locust of slaughter, taunt
the rubric of Christs hidden scriptures,
as I night,
the body, solely a vessel
of shadow, returning
through a field of windfall,
ripe with wasps,
echo you
in me,
a dream of a dream dream't,
in the dim recess of light
your lips close
like a sutra over mine,
a brutality of moments
ground out of thick pine,
as the fine agony
of cricket ballets rise
shivering, to stillness,
this silence is a lotus,
a blue psalm,
throttles the throat,
as a quorum of swallows
gather between the swathes
of sunlight and skewed shadows,
and lift as one body, subsumed
by our abandoned depths,
out of exile, you
have made me a homeland
of truant light and as I night,
lightning opens like scripture,
a black plea, poured over some sore refuge,
and so that I may never be restored,
cloak me in a coat of flames,
suffering an ecstasy of moments hardened in amber,
over the white conduits of marrow
in the savage body, writhe
a black throng of swallows,
assail the sleeping orchards of the heart,
in its darkest sheaves, to cleave
apart the soft joining of lips
and silence me....
Dec 4, 2012
Dec 4, 2012 at 4:05 PM UTC
The nightingale gives way
to the ruddy dawn and foam blooms
overhead among the early watercolour
skies.
I hear a blue-tit (or robin) whistling it's tune
through the bulbs which rise bouncing
from the rippling sea of soil,
growing in seamless swathes beneath
the leaves silken pink.
The sun dapples through, reflecting
a rosy hue into the glass
dew drops fast melting
into the thirsty earth, and peeps
over the treetops before
gradually bowing his glinting head.
Old daffodils turn russet
in the golden day
and wrinkle
as the clouds blush.
Apr 16, 2014
Apr 16, 2014 at 2:45 PM UTC
It was Tucson in the endless dog
days of an endless summer.
The heat was inescapable,
pooling in the window frames
and the air as it coughed from the vents:
A fever that would never break.
Two weeks we lay there, knee deep in the throws
of a heat that would never subdue, a summer
that would never end. You would knock on my door,
laying there on the bed, staring holes into the
dripped and melting ceiling.
You held a paper bag of cheap wine between
your ****** and tarnished fingers,
clinking against the rings you wore like
trophies. I don’t know where I found you,
golden brown and beautiful out amongst
an vast eternity of ugliness.
We took mescaline we had gotten from
your cousin living back out on the reservation.
Laying there passing back the wine
you told me how the desert was alive,
how it had been swallowing you your whole life.
You told me that the dryness and the heat
had consumed you, burnt you through until
you couldn’t bear to be yourself anymore.
The scorching heat overcame you and you told me
there had been no choice but to become the desert.
I had only been in the southwest two months,
but I saw it, although I was untouched.
You had grown here, you said,
wilting to ash together with the desert.
The mescaline had me by the throat and
I saw you from dust to dust.
I saw you at one with the desert.
You were beautiful amongst the
red and ochre blood of the sand
and at once I wanted to melt to ash
and burn into the desert alongside you.
I told you and you laughed and I laughed
and we made love to the heat
and to the sweat driven
out from underneath our pores,
inflamed by the drugs and
the inescapable heat.
The room was aflame and
the great desert was alive
and ripping at us
through the open window
with claws of heat that
slashed at our backs.
I awoke and you were tying your shoes.
Just like that, the fever had broken,
and already you could feel
autumn coming in with its swathes
of chilled air sweeping across the plains.
I had been in love those two weeks.
With the sun and the dust and the ash
and the desert and all of it being one
with you. As it all collapsed around me
I felt saddened at its loss.
You were out the door
and the summer was over.
I moved back east where the
winter came faster and colder
and the desert was
of a different kind.
Oct 14, 2014
Oct 14, 2014 at 4:36 AM UTC
For Susan on her birthday
At a distance they appear
so unexpectedly red,
a vivid vermillion strip
in a growing green field.
We walked up the farm track
to view a few stragglers
lost on their way to their
Red-Together meeting.
They were intensely red
with liquorice-black centres,
free from that dustiness
of poppies in swathes.
Alone,
and too red to be real,
their stalks too tall
ungainly, anorexic even.
En masse,
nodding variously,
a thousand-strong Red Army choir
chorusing their hearts out.
Jul 21, 2013
Jul 21, 2013 at 4:13 AM UTC
Even sweetest muse
cannot carry the burden
which singing of you
drops on pearly gates.
Given the choice between
heaven or hell,
you have chosen the path
that leads to a better place
for everyone involved.
Demonic swathes attempt to
steady themselves
for the barrage of good fortune
that sight of you brings
to the condemned and their kin.
I hate it when you do that;
the way you dissolve a
malignant thought
with some melodious sentence,
whatever it may be.
Your voice
is the judgement in my mind's courtroom
that breaks the shackles
holding my ego hostage,
where flowers do not bloom
and hope is six feet from reality.
Sep 25, 2015
Sep 25, 2015 at 5:55 PM UTC
*As morning light
Swathes over
Bare skin
The private
Constellation
Of stars retire
Smooth transition
From night
To day
Every pore
Breathes happiness
Slant sunrays
Caress the soul
Introducing a
New day
To the concealed
World of
Two lost souls
Night’s reminder
Does not fade away
Entwined passion
And new dreams
Welcomes a new day*
Apr 11, 2015
Apr 11, 2015 at 2:17 PM UTC
Dark sky reserve gives way to swathes
Of generous reds in bursting final words
Against the sky. Multitudinous -
To overwhelm the mind with more and more
And teach us to inhale the time the day the
Lovely sway in heavenly gatherings, floating
Harvest festivals of oak and ash and beech
And dreams.
So lift me, sing me, ease me. Let me
Lie with like of you, and
So show trust in me, my words, when I
Do not. To say a word of truth to you
Of this day too glorious to stay
Nor - in right mind - would we wish it so:
It banishes itself from sight.
And so will come again.
Sep 30, 2015
Sep 30, 2015 at 11:07 AM UTC
Patchwork sky beyond the reach
—They breach the alley way
Swimming swathes amidst the blue
—Flash the knives and young curses
Lost for incongruity
—Mere kids, mere savagery
All, now, is coated silver
—Empty packets hunger
We move on toward our night
—Shame young beasts grow old, too.
Sep 30, 2014
Sep 30, 2014 at 11:47 PM UTC
You absolutely do not get the honor of burning a numerical value on her self-worth.
You certainly do not get to measure that assumption from the hem-line tailored on her thighs. Or the daring dresses she wore because it made her feel a different kind of beautiful.
She is not asking for it. What she will demand for is neither your attention nor stares. She wants respect.
Can you do that?
Oh, and when you are emboldened by your 'witty' validation that she is a **** or of promiscuous nature, all down to the clothes she wears on her back.
Don’t.
Cotton stitches against warm skin. (She was enjoying a walk.)
Silk swathes on slightly chilled bones. (She forgot her jacket on a Wednesday night out with friends.)
Thick knits adorn even more layers of cotton. (It was a winter night.)
Their cold lips pursed by the late hour, scream silence.
With that validation, you normalise and excuse the acts of **** soul-destructing ****** offences.
For you have blamed the victim.
You excuse a depraved psychological state.
The veins that choked from ice and no’s. You have forgotten.
Rapists and ****** offenders do not get the luxury of being excused.
Neither do you, ****
May 1, 2015
May 1, 2015 at 8:52 AM UTC
The soft music plays at the background
And each note surrounds me
Taking me to another place beyond
Where there is harmony
The soft heartbeats soothe the mind
Music that synergises me with the ambiance
Each note holding my hand
Creates a ripple within me
Every cell in my body is in harmony
The gentle ebb and flow
Swathes the room with calm
I ride the waves to a calm place
Where music takes me
I swim blindfolded towards the shore
Nov 17, 2014
Nov 17, 2014 at 7:15 AM UTC
Can this be the time once more
Of utter giving up of our control
The simple folliwing of commercial madness
Our desire for the day when food and wine
Have to be gathered about us like the defences of yore
Headlong we run from mid-summer until
We are exhausted in body, spirit or credit
The desperate worry of what to buy whom
Or when to order the especially fattened bird for your table
The ridiculous overspending on presents
When time could be the finest present you could give
Yule tide is a special period for Druids and all pagans alike,
The wonder of simplicity of reflection of our past year
The elements of sleep as mother earth regenerates herself
Resting often under the warmth of a blanket of snow
Gathering of families and loved ones
Blessings of the solstice as the wheel of the year turns
Once more into the light as the sun begins it's journey
Returning to the northern hemisphere
Our birds and native animals preparing for the winter
Storing their food, digging deep as they look for vitals
Likewise the land is resting,
The soil teems with dormant life, every insect and worm
Every root, form and bulb
Slowing right down as the degrees fall to freezing
The frosty and rime ridden mornings giving the flora
A lift of white dusting and sparkling light reflecting
The weak, beautiful winter sun
Heaves itself onto the low glancing position
Just making it to the tree tops before retiring once more to sleep
Leaving glorious swathes of orange and red
Painting the sky as it falls and rises.
Yule tide comes as all seasons, times and periods
But once a year in our short lives
The earthy sounds, the images and emotion
The smell of the newly fallen snow and woodsmoke
The foraging birds and squirrels
The warbling and tuneful song of the blackbird
And the tut tut of Mr Robin resplendent in his
Bright red waistcoat bobbing around in the crisp frost
Our lifetime of Yules is a wonder to enjoy,
I know as I look from my window where my heart is
As the distant tree bare in it's winter shroud speaks
To me as a friend and anchor within this beautiful planet.
Dec 17, 2017
Dec 17, 2017 at 5:22 AM UTC
i.
Zoi mou, how mine nourishment
Cometh from the great I am;
As his sentience he gaveth
Thee, to breatheth life in-
to me; for before I was
Just a man.
ii.
Beforetime, mine
mien was gloom-
And doom, no albedineity whitewashed mine room,
Amorevolous was just a word to be spelt, not having it close to me; just a moment of REM sleep.
iii.
Agapi mou, now I've been broken loose,
Mine once dolor, hath formed with color;
It shineth of yellow, and angelic ivory
Pearl.
iv.
Anasa mou, I'm purring now, pofray swathes
Mine veins; Moro mou of younger shade.
Matia mou, O' Matia mou, mine Jane hath
Entered, inside mine blue's.
v.
Jane O' Jane, sayest I
Thelo to thou, thelo to thee;
Omorfia mou,
Kardia mou,
Psihi mou,
Thelo O'
Thelo.
©Brandon Nagley
©lonesome poet's poetry
©Earl Jane Nagley dedicated ( àgapi mou) dedication
Mar 8, 2016
Mar 8, 2016 at 9:32 PM UTC
In the light of your immaculate form I make the following declaration:
I will be your jealous cellist-
(I.)
And I will play you like a stringed instrument - then
When you make delighted whisperings
And finesse the fine music of the feminine, magnificent
Your heathen distemper
Distributed,
woman-like, goddess-like
Classic cello-shape
Draped in lilting silk
Then
I will fiddle and pluck
Cast broad swathes near and about your single tingling place
Your attuned instrument
And it's spruce wooded
frontispiece.
(II.)
You faux arabesque
(for faux is our shared domain)-
Your hands moving gracefully - you pause -
Feigning flight
Feigning fancy
Considering
My rising fire
Weighty desire
Shadows mingle with glimpses of
My thickness and length-
Veined skin and steel,
White - waiting, wanting -
And there's an answer.
(III.)
You are girl - such a girl
I am boy, only boy
My persistent mans eye view
Part pleased with the flashes of you -
Now in new
Near **** rhythm
This gilded exuberance,
Radiant
Hypnotic
Sets sparks flying
Tickling toward sky and stars
I would have you
My dexterous digits upon your supple, warm-
Fragrant fresh flesh fret board
I would squeeze you where
Your mystery resides and
Elsewhere besides.
(IV.)
Roughly - at first - needy
Determined -
I would play upon
Your duet of juice creators
Invoke the
Holiness of your
Secret sacred spaces
Doublet, Triplet, Quintet
Play on! play on!
I would have you
With my plugging piece
There! There!
Your open legs
Secretly seeking my carnival of thrusting
Inside your warm girls pearl
Antidote for collective loneliness.
(V. )
I would hold you, your sides -
Firm in my greed
Our lustful minuet in 3/4 time
Play on, play on - I
Kiss your neck,
nibble your *******
It's you, it's you
You arch yourself toward me
Warmly
Affectionate,
We hold hands, fingers between,
And dance.
(VI.)
This some time Summertime
Bright flame
We reach - how we reach-
Our mouths, our tongues -
The very words we speak- yearning for -
longing for -
Connection
Each to the other, and
Our connection to God
"Rightful sin -
Come to us again
And again - and again
Satisfy our minds!"
Sep 30, 2014
Sep 30, 2014 at 6:26 AM UTC
the people swarm like ants
that’s what they say, isn’t it?
but they’re not like ants
at all, really.
ants have a purpose, a structure
they scrabble across the pavement as the sun beats down
with a common goal
carrying huge leaves between them
thousands of times their weight
nor are people like wildebeest
who stampede wildly across the plains:
LIONS! RUN!
their purpose is logical
their goal is survival
but people
people swarm in great swarthy swathes
sweating their way through the summer
slipping and
shivering their way through the snow
there are so many of them, and
their goals are so individual
so complex
not for them the ingrained logical processions
not for them the sole desperate stampede away from danger
no.
they have a society
have a culture
and wrapped in the cloaks of their conforms and their norms
they slither through the daylight
take up the space around them
give no heed to how they’re filling it
or who must take it next.
it’s why i like the early mornings
and the late night times
when the world is empty
barren
silent and pure
untainted by the congestion of the day.
Jun 23, 2015
Jun 23, 2015 at 10:28 AM UTC