"sycamore" poems
There's oceans, a thousand crystal oceans
above Venus and the moons, swimming in the constellations, an endless orange stream of stars and angels, falling like rain, dripping like a prayer, soaking our old home.
So dance closely with me, for upon our red rooftop, let's enjoy the slow breeze, while the moonlight unites the oceans in the sky,
and covers the Brazilian seashore;
For it heals the soul of the green earth.
All the old sycamore trees, the owls, the hawks, and snakes,
all these things run for existence.
So hold on, onto my words,
Like your wedding ring, let me hold you close.
For in the quiet broken night,
I can feel your heart beat, your emotions that run like water.
Let me hear the river and rhythm of your desires, and your ambitions that lie
awake in you.
Let this, let this moment separate what you fear,
as I listen to the drums of your heart.
here
hold my hand, then let my voice unlock creation,
Echoing and speaking the languages of your dreams and desires,
for how I do love you.
Now see the moonlight's rule over the stars,
speaking pictures of grace into the quiet night.
In such a way the power of the moonlight stands like a king,
thus I will listen, open and unlock the waves of your dreams.
Aug 22, 2017
Aug 22, 2017 at 12:21 AM UTC
Surveying
northern autumn afternoon
Pitcherelli, ex-marine, body-builder,
Lussier, long-haired father of three dark-skinned children
and myself, sharp-edged loner, ex-lover of a fair share of
women
are belly-laughing in the dying sun. Clouds.
The crew, in timber.
Laughing
over recent visits to marvelous cities where
we could not keep ourselves from touching the terminal buds
of numerous exotic trees
and attracting ridicule of stylish girls and tame boyfriends.
Pitcherelli before the Albany bus station
shaking hands with a red pine planted thirty years ago.
Lussier, one hand in a child's hand and the other
feeling scabrous bark of urban woody plants.
Myself among partially shaved heads and leathery aromatic
jackets
getting close to the hairy bud of an unidentified poplar or
sycamore.
People
laughed, but we laughed best
back on our mountain
under the blackening weather.
Aug 10, 2015
Aug 10, 2015 at 12:53 PM UTC
What happens when we all live to one-hundred?
I am expecting more wrinkles than I have now,
A year before, at ninety-nine.
I've lived for so long,
Death shall I make it past that hundred mile mark?
I feel so tired in these days of Fall,
I'm wilted, I think, like untended petunias,
Like leaves scalding in the midday sun.
My wife is long gone,
My wife I loved and made love to,
Well past the age of fifty,
She died at sixty-one,
I sit remembering,
My time alone.
This horde of trees reflect exactly how I feel,
This decaying oak,
The willow tree caving in,
The bent, broken sycamore tree,
It's branches growing towards earth,
Weighed down, like me with heavy sins.
Butterflies flew now, the kind rare to winter,
Like old people having their slow, careful version of ***
You might not want to watch it,
You who are young,
You who are convinced,
That when it comes to old age, an exception will be made.
But they still want to do it,
Weird love is better than no love at all.
-Firefly
Sep 18, 2014
Sep 18, 2014 at 7:57 PM UTC
Butterflies kiss the sage, where sun drips off primrose
into mute lily horns who know but cannot say:
This is the day. In yonder Sycamore a cardinal's question
is answered from afar: This is the day. Sleep no more
fields of green. Arise and be heard all who dwell within.
The night has been, has poured out all its darkness like water
onto parched earth that cannot be gathered up again.
When with eyes as good as closed we peered into the night
what stain had we beheld? Was it ink upon our canvass,
dripping from the trees, running on the lawns and fields,
the gardens deep in slumber, staining dark foreboding hills?
"Be thou, " we cried, "a lamp unto our feet, a light unto our eyes."
What then should we have seen who could not see,
or known who could not know, what has once been made,
once beheld, once loved, what was once our own continues still?
This is the day. Let all who have a sound to make proclaim.
From among the pines, from within the thickets come. Let each one
make his song. This is the day. We shall not sleep therein.
Arrogant and proud the night, let all the living cry. Profound
the darkness. Grave the depth of night. Become a dew
for unction of the lilies who know but cannot say this:
This is the day. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.
Nov 10, 2012
Nov 10, 2012 at 4:05 PM UTC
Among orange-tile rooftops
and chimney pots
the fen fog slips,
gray as rats,
while on spotted branch
of the sycamore
two black rooks hunch
and darkly glare,
watching for night,
with absinthe eye
cocked on the lone, late,
passer-by.
5.7k
Every battle of a warrior
is riddled with confused
noise!
The garment of a warrior
is rolled in blood!
When the bricks are falling
down, a warrior builds
with hewn trees
When the sycamore are cut
down, a warrior replaces
them with cedar
In the lifting of the smoke he
burns down wickedness
and its fire with stout heart
Certain in certainty, the trees
in the wood bow to the
warring winds in the battle of a
warrior!
Warrior sings upfront in
victory and for victory,
standing determined on
the mountain of courage
and faith, dutifully
worshipping on the altar
of fearlessness and glory.
Mar 1, 2019
Mar 1, 2019 at 4:27 AM UTC
Sugar maple’s immature leaves bounce lively on the breeze
Robins frolic through dandelions and freshly cut grass
Brilliant brightness peeks through clouds warming my face
Families of rabbits skip through budding yellow tulips
Lavender lilacs dance with dogwood blossoms tickling my nose
Baby woodpecker taps at the sycamore branch
Fat bumblebees buzz from cherry bloom to zinnia bloom
Aug 27, 2012
Aug 27, 2012 at 1:24 PM UTC
In these rapid, restless shadows,
Once I walked at eventide,
When a gentle, silent maiden,
Walked in beauty at my side.
She alone there walked beside me
All in beauty, like a bride.
Pallidly the moon was shining
On the dewy meadows nigh;
On the silvery, silent rivers,
On the mountains far and high,—
On the ocean’s star-lit waters,
Where the winds a-weary die.
Slowly, silently we wandered
From the open cottage door,
Underneath the elm’s long branches
To the pavement bending o’er;
Underneath the mossy willow
And the dying sycamore.
With the myriad stars in beauty
All bedight, the heavens were seen,
Radiant hopes were bright around me,
Like the light of stars serene;
Like the mellow midnight splendor
Of the Night’s irradiate queen.
Audibly the elm-leaves whispered
Peaceful, pleasant melodies,
Like the distant murmured music
Of unquiet, lovely seas;
While the winds were hushed in slumber
In the fragrant flowers and trees.
Wondrous and unwonted beauty
Still adorning all did seem,
While I told my love in fables
’Neath the willows by the stream;
Would the heart have kept unspoken
Love that was its rarest dream!
Instantly away we wandered
In the shadowy twilight tide,
She, the silent, scornful maiden,
Walking calmly at my side,
With a step serene and stately,
All in beauty, all in pride.
Vacantly I walked beside her.
On the earth mine eyes were cast;
Swift and keen there came unto me
Bitter memories of the past—
On me, like the rain in Autumn
On the dead leaves, cold and fast.
Underneath the elms we parted,
By the lowly cottage door;
One brief word alone was uttered—
Never on our lips before;
And away I walked forlornly,
Broken-hearted evermore.
Slowly, silently I loitered,
Homeward, in the night, alone;
Sudden anguish bound my spirit,
That my youth had never known;
Wild unrest, like that which cometh
When the Night’s first dream hath flown.
Now, to me the elm-leaves whisper
Mad, discordant melodies,
And keen melodies like shadows
Haunt the moaning willow trees,
And the sycamores with laughter
Mock me in the nightly breeze.
Sad and pale the Autumn moonlight
Through the sighing foliage streams;
And each morning, midnight shadow,
Shadow of my sorrow seems;
Strive, O heart, forget thine idol!
And, O soul, forget thy dreams!
5.4k
February is brighter.
It's pale blue
aura juxtaposes
the deep purple
of January.
It stutters
in, reminding us
that the adamant doors
of winter have been closed
to ajar.
Only the thin confetti
of snow now lines
the streets in
it's final celebration.
Blue smoke from the slates
thaw the crystals
and the bluebirds
have returned
to the sycamore tree.
Apr 16, 2014
Apr 16, 2014 at 3:12 PM UTC
*"To the East, to the East"
Cry the Ibis and the Locust Beast
"To the East and the Sycamore Feast!"*
The call of the Firebird
crackles in mid-air,
The Ash of the Sycamore
blowing in the wind
echoes of tomorrow
As silent slave bells bear
creaks at the gateway
Sing:
"Catch-ink; catch-ink!"
*"To the East, to the East"
Cry the Ibis and the Locust Beast
"To the East and the Sycamore Feast!"*
Aug 29, 2012
Aug 29, 2012 at 6:46 AM UTC
Why do poets and photographers love fleeting things?
Angled shafts of sunlight piercing a mass
of clouds. A rainbow flashing from dragonfly wings.
Water drops beading like shards of glass.
The fluttering shape of a sycamore’s shade.
The sun sinking into its reflection
In a purple bay. Smoke’s shadow. The rayed
Curve of a finger reaching for perfection.
Whatever churns, bursts, rocks, flies,
Foams, flickers, roils, evades
In pigments of impermanent dyes
We try to fix before it fades
Once I mourned the endless dying
Of here and now, the present always past
Elegized each moment, sighing
Beauty is loss and can never last.
But now I think I had it wrong. In fact
(I learned this from an artist’s eye)
Fleeting beauty reappears faster than we react,
At the speed of a daydream flashing by.
All around, light coalesces into form,
Form explodes into light,
And we live lavishly inside this storm
If we can learn to see it right.
Beauty multiplies, tapering, swelling:
Reshaping, reforming, now familiar, now strange.
This gaudy blur in which we’re dwelling
Is the permanence of change.
Jul 26, 2015
Jul 26, 2015 at 8:32 AM UTC
I was never a simple person
but I craved simplicity like I craved my grandmother's strawberry jam
I loved school, whistling and everything taller than me
They reminded me of my father
I hated screen doors, cracks in pavement and goodbyes
When I was four he left me all those tainted things
but I loved him
Four years later
my mother asked me what I wanted for Christmas
I told her I needed a baby brother
I used to spend every night while he slept
at his feet
When I was eleven, my mother moved us to a new city
There were a million games of cops and robbers
and my first boyfriend, Spencer
He had blond hair and eyes so blue they put my brother's to shame
He told me he loved me under an oak tree
kissed my cheek and got so red in the face
I thought he was going to burst
My mother was in University
and had the softest piano hands
Her eyes were glossy from all her tears
I collected them in my jewellery box heart
There were rust on my edges
and hers
I was a rusty by product of drunk unintentions
A mathematic, scientific accident
Not a young mother with high hopes and goodluck
On Sunday afternoons I played hopscotch
on my babysitters driveway, I was nine
On Sunday evenings he brought me to his secret lair
He'd secretly touch me in all my secret places
I hated him
I think he hated me too
When I was six, I wanted to be a teacher
Ten years later, a man with a medical degree
told me I couldn't have babies
I couldn't look at another child, so I figured teaching wasn't my best option
Plus, I've never been a fan of teaching children not to make a mess
I spent my whole life making sure it wasn't messy
When I was fourteen, I wanted to run away
I wanted to go to Europe
with my best friend Oskari
he cut his arm and told me he couldn't really bleed
he didn't feel anything
I wanted to bless him
I wanted to read him Jane Austen in an open field
Under a single sycamore tree
We never made it
When I was seventeen, I ran away
I moved in with my father's mother
He has her eyes, just like me
That same year I met a boy
Who rode a stolen steed to my grandma's couch
Made love to me all night
took on me on walks and sent my heart off to the races
He made my life a little simpler
Apr 3, 2013
Apr 3, 2013 at 11:31 PM UTC
In my graduation t-shirt,
and it fits right,
she finger-and-thumbs
the switch on my desk lamp.
Lights on.
And I'm getting too thin.
It shouldn't fit right.
"No, no. I want it dark," I say.
"Tell me what's off limits."
Her eyes, big and wet with bongwater,
wash over me. I'm pebble. I'm allowed.
"Why?"
"I want to know what's off limits
so I know where to set my goals."
I believe in love, even at first sight.
Just not the eternal kind. And I love
her when she says things like that
because I created her. And when
you create, and the creation reaches
perfection, all you want to do--
destroy. Hammer to head. Crowbar
to Parkinson thighs. *What's off limits?
What's off limits? What's off limits?*
I can't stop.
Before I respond,
with adolescent delight
she tears me open by the pearl snap.
She lifts her arms up.
Surrender? No. She's a sycamore.
I'm the wind.
Body bare and body scattered,
congregate at the inosculation
of her trunks. She's a sycamore.
I'm the wind.
Wavering.
Leafless.
Pot-addled.
And the breeze doesn't do it.
And the seasons don't affect it.
Gale force insanity.
I climb her branches.
Beard wet with her.
She wipes her off.
I climb her branches.
I can't stop.
Grows into me.
Trunks entrap.
Elevated, she.
And I, well, I
stumble.
Hit the wall.
Concrete, everything.
I press her against it
so hard, she turns to waste
and passes through.
I press her against it
so hard, I can't stop.
Autumn acorn fingertips,
a river emptying to ocean,
and she asks,"Is this off limits?"
as she turns me sharply
and my back collides with the wall.
"Is this off limits?" she asks as she
pounds her head into mine.
"Is this off limits?" she asks as she
claws my face.
"Is this off limits?" she asks as she
licks to heal.
My will says yes.
My flesh says no.
I can't stop.
Mar 14, 2013
Mar 14, 2013 at 10:16 PM UTC
Of course the two of us
want to get away from here
We were so innocent Running
Hand in hand To the outskirts of this
Upside – down town Where were we going?
To the mansion we had built with daddy
High in the sky of the towering sycamore tree
But now going back walking the dirt trail that supposedly
brought us to dreams Kicking aside pebbles we pushed
with all our might to
to escape from the
Monsters chasing us
Seeing the
Wimpy vines
That were
once chains
and shackles
intertwined
imprisoning
all of the trunk
seemed unreal
But I had made
Peace with it all
When I saw our shanty hut
Atop the mangled, dwarfed skeleton tree
Mar 24, 2012
Mar 24, 2012 at 8:52 PM UTC
Your body
All angles and edges in place of curves
Your neck
Cinnamon, turmeric and salt
Your skin
Wheat-dark like pages of a well-worn book
Your atlas back
Arched like a cello’s waist
Your elegant fingers
Graze the ivory shell of my ear
Your hollow collarbone
Perched like a sycamore branch
Crawling its way up
My pelvis
My sternum
My throat
Until finally hanahaki springs forth
From my welcoming lips.
Apr 7, 2021
Apr 7, 2021 at 9:20 AM UTC
I knew a man once who could read the trees
He'd stand in a field with nothing on
And look at them for hours
(He couldn't talk to flowers)
But he would pour over every branch
Trace every knot and feel their bark
He translated a sycamore for me once
But oaks and beeches were his favourite
He said he just preferred their type.
The elbow bends told him of seasons
The trunk's tilt told the prevailing winds
Their denseness in relation to their neighbours
Told him all manner of gossipy things.
The colours and the hues told of the soil
The moulds and lichens the local fashions
He'd tell you if they'd ever been frightened
By hippies, chainsaws, axes or lightening.
And as I looked on, I realised something
As I read his naked body with no clothes
This man was obviously a stark raving lunatic.
Jan 23, 2012
Jan 23, 2012 at 8:31 AM UTC
Harmonica and strums sail my shores
Tell my whole clan sonny, he ain't good
That I met a troller under a sycamore
He passed me all the love as he veiled
We walked around,camouflaged by leaves
Tell mummy he was a preacher's son
A soul that was open and hid it's stick
Unharmonised in accapellas I drowned
Swingers of melodic stormy strings
Tell sassy to keep her tassels tucked
To calm her tussles and noisy gongs
Shake on the octave of the beats
Whisked dreams of the lost yesterdays
Tell Jimmy to listen to her heart raise
Tie her down, bring her back home
Liberate and let her fly like a wild bird
Apr 28, 2016
Apr 28, 2016 at 6:42 PM UTC
clouds race by
like kites with broken strings
trees sway
naked branches rattle
cold wind
stings my ears
you ask why I love
the winter
sycamore leaves tumble
and swirl through the garden
brittle sails
crackling air
Tom Spencer © 2018
Dec 14, 2018
Dec 14, 2018 at 10:25 PM UTC
289
I know some lonely Houses off the Road
A Robber’d like the look of—
Wooden barred,
And Windows hanging low,
Inviting to—
A Portico,
Where two could creep—
One—hand the Tools—
The other peep—
To make sure All’s Asleep—
Old fashioned eyes—
Not easy to surprise!
How orderly the Kitchen’d look, by night,
With just a Clock—
But they could gag the Tick—
And Mice won’t bark—
And so the Walls—don’t tell—
None—will—
A pair of Spectacles ajar just stir—
An Almanac’s aware—
Was it the Mat—winked,
Or a Nervous Star?
The Moon—slides down the stair,
To see who’s there!
There’s plunder—where—
Tankard, or Spoon—
Earring—or Stone—
A Watch—Some Ancient Brooch
To match the Grandmama—
Staid sleeping—there—
Day—rattles—too
Stealth’s—slow—
The Sun has got as far
As the third Sycamore—
Screams Chanticleer
“Who’s there”?
And Echoes—Trains away,
Sneer—”Where”!
While the old Couple, just astir,
Fancy the Sunrise—left the door ajar!
3k
Have you ever
noticed when you
look at the trees
in the winter
they're all brown
once they've lost all their leaves?
Except one,
the Sycamore.
It stands proud and white,
It shines bright
like a star
on the darkest of nights.
But the Sycamore isn't
white on its own.
Like the rest, it is brown,
Then it sheds
its rough bark
and is the brightest around.
So when you're lost
and you're wondering
just how you should be,
shed your bark
and shine bright
like a Sycamore tree.
Nov 12, 2013
Nov 12, 2013 at 1:22 AM UTC
short legs
patched jeans
kicking leaves
piled to my knees
remembering color
living in sea salt pines
leaves little to imagine
of autumn rhymes
sweetgum sourwood birch
sycamore and dogwood
apple leaves beneath the plum tree
ash hickory maple and oak
mountains afire in Tennessee
eyes closed
smell of smoke-
kicking leaves
to the wind.
r ~ 9/16/14
Sep 16, 2014
Sep 16, 2014 at 10:47 AM UTC
Laughter & glitter
Sunshining through straight white teeth – voice unheard of
With a smile to make any man slither over
Cutting soft stomachs open
Driving out with sticks and leaves and rocks
And leaving me with the tab
How like them to err for the sake of error
Terrible and true
Acuity bound
It’s feeding time at the zoo &
There’s no one to take this noose off around my neck
We were swimming in the gulf when she asked
Why create when there’s so much to destroy?
My hands their play things too
Toys ordained from disdain sustained
By tight men in tight suits
Watching us from Ivory Towers
What a relief
& the power trips of the circus beneath them
Reaching out with viral irony I scream
Out to the heavens heaven doesn’t take collect calls
& here she is connecting souls to mates
Correcting hate and abating disgrace worldwide
Webs intangible but thought to be hooked
To the hearts that spun them
Free flowing love & peace to cut my noose hung from
The sycamore tree
As for me what more could please
Disease eradicated
People educated
Our lives illustrated not by blood off a bayonet
But by regret eliminated
Fat cats in high homes with low self esteem would seem
Just as happy to see her redacted from the text books
Crooked lies straightened & the sad thing is they
Trick us fine serfs to mitigate others in their organized ignorance
Leaving us in the dark to elbow for clues
Groping the dust blind &
Hurting ourselves with ***** fingernails scratching
She shouts like a car crash &
Everyone’s at the scene drawn to attention
By flashing red & blue
Cashing their moral chips for a peepshow
Their smiles use less muscles than frowns but take twice the effort
Affecting deflections of accusations
People listen & how couldn’t they?
Her words lifting chins like a rope over a branch
But this time the tree’s on fire
The Tower’s burning & she’s cutting all the safety nets
Like she cut the rope off around my neck
Mar 20, 2013
Mar 20, 2013 at 1:28 AM UTC
Fountain of youth runs in his veins,
The man who lives in Sycamore Keep.
His circadian clock had come to a halt,
Rather than rejoice, he sullenly weeps.
You would think that immortality is
The pinnacle of human existence,
All the time in the world and not a
Single malady to be of any resistance.
Yet there he sulks, the ageless man,
Cauterized by the turn of each century,
As loved ones breathe their last and
Become a parcel of his fractured memory.
But that is just the shell of his woes,
For even with all knowledge amassed,
He’s utterly aghast with the state of the
World unwilling to learn from the past.
Every crook and cranny explored,
Every experience well savored,
Now monotony for millennia to come,
His longing to live has ebbed and wavered.
I was told by the man of Sycamore Keep
That immortality is a curse so alluring.
Indeed, a hundred cultivated years is
Much better than hollow eons securing.
But sir, think of all the riches you’ve accrued
And mastery of all science and philosophies.
Who wouldn’t want to have the time to mark
The world and purge it from all its atrocities.
Say no more, interrupted the ageless man,
I applaud your idealism and optimistic delusion,
But you’re missing one essential element --
Even as immortals, we’d still be only human.
And to be human, is to be fallible. Let’s just say
That immortal fallibility will engender no good.
It'd be best to truncate our lifespan for the
Sake of our survival, yes truncate we should.
And that’s all I heard from the man of Sycamore Keep,
Who went on his way to his millennial weep.
Mar 20, 2016
Mar 20, 2016 at 9:40 AM UTC
A road of palest lime fluttering Sycamore trees
Some almost leafless, others coronets still there
Through the golden branches colbalt blue skies
Lilac bushes, the garden daisies, flower in rows.
Thinning Robinna casts shadows of dim shade
Contrasting the red Acer’s lace leaf with green
The trunk arch of handkerchief laden Foxglove
Holds open its beautiful boughs to be admired.
For Autumn spreads my walk in glorious glitter
Though the evening pulls in the coldness of year
Making the best of these last savages of seasons
Gathering leavings, the birdtable spills its seeds.
Love Mary ***
Oct 20, 2018
Oct 20, 2018 at 11:18 AM UTC
Graceful life by the river
doesn’t end by choice.
Some war like lightening
is more worthy.
But what is Death worth.
If life is priceless?
So the tree must fall.
By hands or by flood.
By grace or by worth.
By light or in darkness.
And when it does,
By god the world will hear.
It will be.
As it was.
Sycamore, Sycamore,
fell on thee
Sycamore, Sycamore,
hear thy plea.
Dec 6, 2012
Dec 6, 2012 at 8:16 PM UTC