"sylphlike" poems
Gently, she goes
as soft as a fawn
opens the window
and waits for the dawn
fireflies glow
wind caresses her face
as she sheds all the shadows
not leaving a trace
She dons velvet darkness
wrapped in its cloak
releases all poisons,
sylphlike,
in smoke
She is preparing for battle
in her own, quiet way
She only wants wholeness
as she breaks through the gray
For soon she will weave
prismatic wonders of spells
her own inner aurora
lighting heaven from hell
For suffered she has
and it's time to forgive
unlock self-made prisons
and let herself live
and now as sunrise approaches
stars still in sight
she turns the skeleton key
and glides
into
flight
Jul 12, 2018
Jul 12, 2018 at 3:05 PM UTC
Sleep now my beautiful princess
That when the morning calls
You rise so sylphlike and
Gleam like the sun
May 27, 2015
May 27, 2015 at 6:45 AM UTC
Yay, it's another lovely Barry Hodges "Memories" poem.
How happily I recall the excitement of my visits to Lewisham's hospital
For my regular "haemorrhoid adjustment/re-alignment" sessions,
During which time I made the acquaintance of a nursing sister
With possibly the fiercest libido in south-east London.
And one night, whilst we were "on the job" in her comfy cubicle,
I glanced over her fat shoulder through the cracked observation window.
Ah yes, dear reader, it was the relatively cleanish Ward G
(the terminal one where the near-dead await merciful release,
wittily nicknamed "the happy dreamers' room" by the matron,
an evil predatory old **** with a 40-inch waist and wild halitosis);
I watched a spectacularly ugly nurse peering o'er the screen
Around poor old ******** Bertie "Big ***** Bloggs.
His wasted, crippled, whitened pyjamed form
Lay twitching on the none-too-clean patched sheets;
He opened his unseeing, ancient eyes and gave voice:
"Give us a gobble" the old ****** croaked pathetically,
"You know you want to, you fat smelly *****
And then he croaked. Unsucked and unloved,
O my beloved lector, compassionate creature that thou art,
Surely thy pleasure will be utterly intensified to learn that
The NHS bedsheets were indelibly and spectacularly stained
As his bowels opened spontaneously with Death's kindly appearance.
"Gor ******* blimey, what a ******* horrid pong," came a groan:
('twas Sammy "No Legs" Smith in mid-wank on a nearby trolley).
These events in the ward led to an inevitable result for me:
You have divined it correctly, O treasured fan of mine,
Yea verily, the happenings I espied made me blow my ***
Most prematurely and my love-partner, the sylphlike Sister Sally,
Was so sodding annoyed she crushed my tender haemorrhoids
Quite brutally in her surgical spirit-hardened left hand.
Aug 12, 2015
Aug 12, 2015 at 8:42 AM UTC
a wicked, unrighteous child's mind
lies closer to the truth
than a noble graybeard's ever will &
here is that only, hideous verity:
death has the body of a boy.
an ocherous-haired boy, sylphlike,
unearthly, peerless and
other word to forbear from writing 'beautiful'.
guiltless people do not know that.
'irradiating one, let me hold you', he says,
and i let him. i can recall swearing,
palms pressed together and liquid lungs
settled at the bottom of a bathroom sink,
never to allow to be eaten again
because that is what holding someone is for;
(guiltless people do not know that.)
be that as it may,
i let him.
forgiveness was never
suited for me, anyway.
there can be no fallacy;
no fraud can remain a fraud
once they are birdlimed
by a fire-stricken embrace.
a mindless prey is what they become.
a devourer is what he always was.
guiltless people do not know that.
my eyelids will not yet sink over my pupils,
not until his hidden claws,
ribboning and shredding their way
out of his unsoiled skin, turn
my neck into bloodbath,
my heart into maelstrom.
what a blessed, glory-driven way to meet death.
Jan 18, 2021
Jan 18, 2021 at 8:15 PM UTC
The final call
Breathe,
Slow and gentle,
Like your trying to make a candle flicker,
The darkness shifts shapes,
In and out,
(how else would you breath?
Up down?),
Smile,
Practice your face,
Carefully control each muscles contraction,
Tightening,
To create a (forced) relaxed face,
You spiral your hair around your finger,
Wind and unwind,
Twist your fingers around each other,
Tangle into bending shapes,
Stop,
Smile,
Just be normal for five ******* minutes.
Curtains up
The act has started,
No mistakes,
The shell must be maintained,
No cracks,
‘I’m fine’ (I’m breaking),
‘everything is great’ (everything hurts),
‘I will be okay’ (I want to die),
Look carefree,
Sylphlike.
Your cracking,
Your (pretending to be) tall,
Holding the space,
The room,
As much as your (small) body can,
Your actions exaggerated,
Slowed,
They see only (the fake) you.
Curtains fall
Just in time.
They cant know,
No muscles in your face contract,
This is you,
Dead eyed, dejected you,
The candle has blown out,
Smoke rises from the wick,
Curling,
Choking you,
Until you convulse,
Until your reflection shatters,
Lines cut through you,
The pieces fall on to the floor,
And you are empty.
Black,
Bleak,
A shadow.
Curtain call
Apr 25, 2018
Apr 25, 2018 at 4:18 PM UTC
When you glaze
this wooded trails
with your gossamer spell,
paint frosted-glass abstracts
in green undertones...
when you caress
the blooming buds of Morning Glory
to purple nymphs,
snug in your silky, satin blanket...
when you perch on this valley,
permeate its soul,
wrap it in your frosty artistry...
when heaven’s ingenuity
weaves splendour
through your sylphlike fingers,
O morning mist,
wrap me up in your silver haze,
seep into my soul,
infuse in me
the mysterious awe
of your ethereal magic.
Sep 18, 2018
Sep 18, 2018 at 4:04 AM UTC
my girlfriend
told me I needed to sit down
before hearing it
her sylphlike fingers hovering over
my cut-up cuticles
with eyes hovering past my head
uncommitted
but convincingly connected to my soul
immovable
just then
Unidentified Flying Objects
crashed into our chat
through the tense atmosphere
and down to where we sat
their gaze lasting light-years
and blasting neon beams
into the split ends of my hair
setting fire to my precious dreams
and splattering brains onto her mini-skirt
it was an ugly affair
to end
if i were alive
to recount their excursion
i'd add she stepped over
the ****** matter
hopped aboard the mothership
with no coercion
and was never seen
without her extraterrestrial lovers
again
Oct 3, 2024
Oct 3, 2024 at 12:36 AM UTC
the drive down hardscrabble is filled with
the rasp of Jim's feed truck and the heavy
jangle of steel parts in the side compartments.
For a while we don't speak and i lose myself
in the stars, eaten up by Ursa Major, broken down
and condensed, blown out and away--
His headlights wash across the aspens
with their rangy bodies congregated on the
western slopes; spectral and reminiscent of
dancers or other sylphlike beings captured
unannounced.
when I think back on this moment
I realize that's where it all ended
the last moment where for a few
idle seconds, it seemed like
maybe it could work
out.
there's a barely-there eroticism about the
way he touches me, with rough, seasoned
fingers pressing eagerly between the tendons
in my wrist, racing up my shin or gingerly sweeping
the inside of my thigh.
I
used
to feel all the time
Sep 9, 2016
Sep 9, 2016 at 10:18 PM UTC
languid touch oozes from small claws; they do not yet know the wonder of keratin
my body is no temple. it has been harrowed by years of disillusionment
racked by anticipation
oh, the notion of some epagomenal redeemer to lift my vessel from damnation!
tears stream heavy and hot
soul is devoured
what remains is a moon-sliver; a sylphlike cadaver, an effigy of a bone ****** dry of marrow
from the rib came life
Jan 9, 2018
Jan 9, 2018 at 10:25 PM UTC