"tapers" poems
Creature of myth, you have to be real
I know you're there, I know you exist
Can't see nor touch but indeed I feel
That should suffice to say the least
No one I know has seen this mythical creature
I stand by my beliefs... I simply just do...
This being unknown to aged texts or ancient scriptures
Allow me to document, I'll keep it true
*"A magnificent neck that tapers into a head
Much like a halo, wearing a luminescent crown
Azurite for eyes like many have said
A golden mane majestically cascading down
Almond shaped face, with cheeks slightly scaled
In the centre were dimple-like nostrils
From it's mouth, a voice; demure and frail
Speaks in verses from a time frozen still
Within the cage right under its chest
I know that calmly there lay beating
A huge, magnanimous heart does rest
Embedded deep within a physique so beguiling
Its spine is perfect, as if forged by a divine mould
Limbs are long, but with gait so light
Non terrestrial wings that into nothing they fold
Stretched around is smoothened skin milky white"*
That is all I have got to offer so far
Matched the words to my mind's bewitching visage
No one has seen it; thus ensured that they cannot mar
In my head will forever be etched the image
Creature of myth... Please be real
Know that I am blinded, I just want to see
Not for the others, you don't reveal
I do believe... I just need to convince me...
Sep 8, 2014
Sep 8, 2014 at 1:19 PM UTC
in a dark of frenzy it boils up inside
until summarily and inexplicably
see the colour between brown and blue
more than see it, immerse myself in it
swimming slowly in its clouds
see the colour between brown and blue
everywhere votive candles light
the colour between brown and blue
with slender tapers that touch a life
any life, your life
casting strange shadows, loose shadows
between the colour of brown and blue
children swarm, children with bright white
starvation hair, children with hands
like small worn mittens
who raise red swarms in hot worn out
death laden dust
dust that cauterizes the nostrils
with the stench of penurious insanity
the colour between brown and blue
that inveigles a purchase of flies
bottle blue, black blue, green blue,
swarming blue, swirling whirling blue
a black and blue confetti of flies
then the sudden zero of the
colour between brown and blue
hair raising, command faith
willed, willing, mumbling, murmuring
the excitement of writing between
the colour of brown and blue
trees shake and tremble
words regurgitate themselves like hot
food, the bark, write
now fully electrically charged
seized by the colour between brown and blue
forget everything else, write, write more, more, write
trembling with sudden shudders of merciless
vowels, madness penurious pencil
moves across, demanding paper
pushing worn words, worthy words whittled by use
words not yet written, words of wonder
oh what words
beautiful, baffling,baleful, words
with beastly beatitudes, words that conjure the mind
words between brown and blue
that leave you skinny like a stray dog
words so demanding leave you shut up in an
airless abattoir of high energy and low residue
the colour between brown and blue
where everywhere is everywhere else
touched by the flames of the colour between brown and blue
Oct 3, 2013
Oct 3, 2013 at 11:01 PM UTC
In the hour of my distress,
When temptations me oppress,
And when I my sins confess,
Sweet Spirit, comfort me!
When I lie within my bed,
Sick in heart and sick in head,
And with doubts discomforted,
Sweet Spirit, comfort me!
When the house doth sigh and weep,
And the world is drown’d in sleep,
Yet mine eyes the watch do keep,
Sweet Spirit, comfort me!
When the passing bell doth toll,
And the Furies in a shoal
Come to fright a parting soul,
Sweet Spirit, comfort me!
When the tapers now burn blue,
And the comforters are few,
And that number more than true,
Sweet Spirit, comfort me!
When the priest his last hath pray’d,
And I nod to what is said,
‘Cause my speech is now decay’d,
Sweet Spirit, comfort me!
When, God knows, I’m toss’d about
Either with despair or doubt;
Yet before the glass be out,
Sweet Spirit, comfort me!
When the tempter me pursu’th
With the sins of all my youth,
And half damns me with untruth,
Sweet Spirit, comfort me!
When the flames and hellish cries
Fright mine ears and fright mine eyes,
And all terrors me surprise,
Sweet Spirit, comfort me!
When the Judgment is reveal’d,
And that open’d which was seal’d,
When to Thee I have appeal’d,
Sweet Spirit, comfort me!
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Blow, blow your trumpets till they crack,
Ye little men of little souls!
And bid them huddle at your back -
Gold-sucking leeches, shoals on shoals!
Fill all the air with hungry wails -
"Reward us, ere we think or write!
Without your Gold mere Knowledge fails
To sate the swinish appetite!"
And, where great Plato paced serene,
Or Newton paused with wistful eye,
Rush to the chace with hoofs unclean
And Babel-clamour of the sty
Be yours the pay: be theirs the praise:
We will not rob them of their due,
Nor vex the ghosts of other days
By naming them along with you.
They sought and found undying fame:
They toiled not for reward nor thanks:
Their cheeks are hot with honest shame
For you, the modern mountebanks!
Who preach of Justice - plead with tears
That Love and Mercy should abound -
While marking with complacent ears
The moaning of some tortured hound:
Who prate of Wisdom - nay, forbear,
Lest Wisdom turn on you in wrath,
Trampling, with heel that will not spare,
The vermin that beset her path!
Go, throng each other's drawing-rooms,
Ye idols of a petty clique:
Strut your brief hour in borrowed plumes,
And make your penny-trumpets squeak.
Deck your dull talk with pilfered shreds
Of learning from a nobler time,
And oil each other's little heads
With mutual Flattery's golden slime:
And when the topmost height ye gain,
And stand in Glory's ether clear,
And grasp the prize of all your pain -
So many hundred pounds a year -
Then let Fame's banner be unfurled!
Sing Paeans for a victory won!
Ye tapers, that would light the world,
And cast a shadow on the Sun -
Who still shall pour His rays sublime,
One crystal flood, from East to West,
When YE have burned your little time
And feebly flickered into rest!
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Under this canopy
of dark
gleaming stars
I now sit
allow my body
to take residence
in the aura
of my own
glowing
let thoughts
of reason
slowly unravel
until they
become
one
long
thread
connecting my
mind but
releasing it
to the air
Molecules, like
the tiniest of crystals,
gently whir
energetically
about me
in almost
invisible stirrings
letting the power
of energy centers
take over:
Red,
for my root
for I am
tethered
to this earth
Orange, for
the passion
so strong
and truly knowing
my own worth
Yellow, for
my gut,
instincts open
and a-light
expanding into
universes, broadening
my sight
Then my heart
washed through and through
in shades of green
its own incandescence
filled with verdant,
fiery sheens
It beats a lantern
of vitality
in this ocean of pain
sending a beacon in
the darkness
helping to break old,
patterns
prompt them to
snap like rusty chains
Here it pumps in growth of
leafy, budding light
Guiding my spirit
in ripeness full and bright
I rise up
into the
indigo-turquoise
of my throat
as words burst forth
in surges,
in the salty froth
of ocean spirals
they float,
get pulled by
mysterious urges
Like waterfall mist
just kissing
the tips of eyelash
flickers
these words that
have the power
to calm
or make my blood
run quicker
And then:
the deep purple
of my crown
that tapers into
a shimmering white
and I know
I can now
receive myself,
calm, in queenly
presence of mind
of spirit
in my highest
form of
light
Jul 5, 2016
Jul 5, 2016 at 3:39 AM UTC
I don't mean to only express myself
Let's turn our gaze outward to something else
Because really, we're nothing
reflections and vapors
our lives seem so long to us then as time tapers
down to the end
it's
getting faster again
and it's time that, my friend
in this time that you spend
looking out for yourself realize your wealth and your life and your thoughts they are
just
so
small.
I'm nothing at all but a freckle of dust
but looking around there are millions of us
there's a picture out there taking shape so we must
have courage and dare to strip off all our lust for
our own affirmation
our self-presentation
must find a foundation in something much bigger than us.
As you cry to be heard pause and listen to hear
for when long you have listened the Light will draw near
and you'll find all the words that you cannot deserve
so please gather the nerve discontent to preserve
And climb outside and point out to the stars over hills
and from you the joy and the knowledge will spill
For expression is best when it's not just for you
My confession is this, let it always be true.
Jun 7, 2018
Jun 7, 2018 at 11:01 PM UTC
Her eyes the glow-worm lend thee,
The shooting stars attend thee;
And the elves also,
Whose little eyes glow
Like the sparks of fire, befriend thee.
No Will-o’-th’-Wisp mislight thee,
Nor snake or slow-worm bite thee;
But on, on thy way,
Not making a stay,
Since ghost there’s none to affright thee.
Let not the dark thee cumber:
What though the moon does slumber?
The stars of the night
Will lend thee their light
Like tapers clear without number.
Then, Julia, let me woo thee,
Thus, thus to come unto me;
And when I shall meet
Thy silv’ry feet
My soul I’ll pour into thee.
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Before last night, I'd only seen the forbidden-fruit curves and
ripples
rendering my skin unbeautiful.
But in the fluorescent indifference of a drugstore
I caught sight of my legs through eyes not my own,
new tapers and bulges swathed in black spandex
even too flimsy for the $15 price tag,
and wondered why words like "small" and "gap"
were heaven to my ears,
while "quadriceps" and "endurance"
have their own quaint ring,
a lovely taste on the tip of a tongue
which has spent too much time
wallowing in self-hatred.
Strength isn't a virtue in women,
we who learn from birth to take up
as little space as possible.
Our shapes always need shaping,
guiding,
sometimes our own voices telling ourselves
we deserve the pain of fatigue
after one mile too long spent running
up the avenue,
forcing ourselves to faint
for a glimpse of thinner thighs,
we deserve to be dehumanized
if we don't inch our way into
the body laid out for us by
Mother Society.
Where is the place for the girl who
hobbles home, skin bruised purple
but flushed with the accomplishment of stopping
every single shot in practice?
Or for the boy whose gentle hands provide
the perfect perch for a butterfly to land upon?
My strength is not an imperfection.
There is beauty in it, and discipline.
These legs can take me for miles if I
take off the iron vest that keeps me
anchored to a Hollywood version
of myself.
Without it, I can fly.
Aug 15, 2013
Aug 15, 2013 at 8:33 PM UTC
For God’s sake hold your tongue, and let me love,
Or chide my palsy, or my gout,
My five grey hairs, or ruin’d fortune flout,
With wealth your state, your mind with arts improve,
Take you a course, get you a place,
Observe his Honour, or his Grace,
Or the King’s real, or his stamped face
Contemplate, what you will, approve,
So you will let me love.
Alas, alas, who’s injur’d by my love?
What merchant’s ships have my sighs drown’d?
Who says my tears have overflow’d his ground?
When did my colds a forward spring remove?
When did the heats which my veins fill
Add one more to the plaguy bill?
Soldiers find wars, and lawyers find out still
Litigious men, which quarrels move,
Though she and I do love.
Call us what you will, we are made such by love;
Call her one, me another fly,
We’are tapers too, and at our own cost die,
And we in us find the’eagle and the dove.
The phoenix riddle hath more wit
By us; we two being one, are it.
So, to one neutral thing both sexes fit,
We die and rise the same, and prove
Mysterious by this love.
We can die by it, if not live by love,
And if unfit for tombs and hearse
Our legend be, it will be fit for verse;
And if no piece of chronicle we prove,
We’ll build in sonnets pretty rooms;
As well a well-wrought urn becomes
The greatest ashes, as half-acre tombs,
And by these hymns all shall approve
Us canoniz’d for love;
And thus invoke us: “You, whom reverend love
Made one another’s hermitage;
You, to whom love was peace, that now is rage;
Who did the whole world’s soul contract, and drove
Into the glasses of your eyes
(So made such mirrors, and such spies,
That they did all to you epitomize)
Countries, towns, courts: beg from above
A pattern of your love!”
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Smiling, she glances in the mirror
her skirts falling gently into place.
There are her feminine riches,
simple in their daily splendor;
waving from the settling lace.
They, it doesn’t matter who,
could search the endless layers
and never truly see her;
though she hides within the bluish
fabric’s seams and tender tapers
Like legs or lips, she’ll never
part from her sweet sanities
for any sort of ‘gentleman’.
So rich she stays in clever
garbs, seen only in her vanity
Oct 19, 2016
Oct 19, 2016 at 4:21 PM UTC
The back of my head
Is looked at more times
Than I dare to dream,
On buses,
or
Before the lights go
Out on the cinema screen.
*That’s the first
Place I want you to touch*
Where my hair tapers
In wisps,
With your thumb
In the dip of my brain,
Touching across the centuries -
Go on
Push a fingerprint
into the prehistoric
Me.
Mould your hands into
the backs of my knees,
Hold them
like shields,
And fight all of
My body's wars with me.
The trembling there
is love,
my love,
and not
a
tremor.
Nudge the wild treasure
under my arms
like an animal
with your wet nose,
go searching for
the smell of gold,
buried
in the black sand,
take my hands
and love my blue veins
like little ribbons,
follow them like rivers
to the sea,
to my mouth,
to the mouth of the sea,
spread out my sails,
my shoulder blades,
and swim
with your fingers
to kiss
under my ear,
that bit
where
chandelier earrings
hit girls,
and find the
backs of my thighs
and paddle
there,
as hard or as soft
as you like,
just enough
to keep me
floating,
then up up
an inch or so,
a little circle,
as though
you're rubbing
spilled tea
into a wooden tabletop,
a circle
a little 'oh'
my head pressing
swearwords
to my pillow.
Sep 8, 2013
Sep 8, 2013 at 9:32 AM UTC
There’s so much wrong with me
That it’s frightening
The way my hips curve out too far
Or how swollen my bottom lip seems
There’s so many small things
To panic about
To fear
To prevent
To accept
There’s so much wrong with me
That there are days when I
Can’t see what’s right
The way my waist tapers in
The way my eyes light up
When I smile
There are days when all that
Is hidden from me
I’m drowning in disappointment
Why can’t I look like she does?
I’m weighed down
My imperfect body
Can barely move under
This heavy head
Full of reasons
Why I’ll never be perfect
There are days when all of this
Is too much.
But there are days
When my flaws are merely
A feather on my shoulder
When my hair cascades just right
When my hips aren't big
Just lovely
When I look in the mirror
And all I see is gorgeous
Staring back at me
When my feet needn't touch
The earth
For I’m weightless.
Sep 10, 2013
Sep 10, 2013 at 12:51 AM UTC
feet on the desk,
pen on the paper,
deep in thought?
sincerity tapers.
quick to falter,
ignore deceit,
back between foreign sheets.
wondering;
was it wine or blood that filled her head,
when burgundy stained the paper red?
image fading,
done persuading,
did you kiss the wrong boy again?
Mar 22, 2013
Mar 22, 2013 at 1:20 PM UTC
Some nights it
is alarmingly
imperceptible:
an exoskeleton ascends
on iron rivets and steel;
unseen scaffolding tapers
to a steady pulsing point
of phosphorescence—
a mechanical heart
circulating red light
into leaden clouds.
Some nights the air thickens
with cordite, grief, and snow.
Tonight with winter here
we can see the tower’s
beacon blinking through
a tangled scrim of trees
half a mile across town,
and yet even with our
bodies squeezed together
like radio dials in the dark
we are unable to tune it in—
the signal that would calibrate
our estranged transistor hearts.
Nov 30, 2016
Nov 30, 2016 at 10:44 AM UTC
Faith is a fragile thing; it
wavers here and it tapers off there. Yet,
it is the most valuable object one can have.
Metaphorically, giving up your faith
is ending your own life. I can feel my
faith swelling up inside me, deep inside
until it bubbles up inside my eyes.
My faith will save me. My mind
sometimes fools me into forgetting this, but
keeping my faith means an everlasting life
with Him, everything I could ever want.
God is my everything and
everything is God.
Mar 10, 2015
Mar 10, 2015 at 3:43 PM UTC
It was
One of our
Childhood habits
To crumple
The wax melting in front of St.Antony
And make new candles.
The tapers of
Thresya whose house got mortgaged, and
Selina whose wedding never got fixed, and
Anthappan who mourned his lack of offspring, and
Thankamma whose chickens died of infectious bronchitis
Stood and liquefied for us in those days.
Math test, pimple,
Cancer, wedding,
Death, visa, love,
Lost hundred rupee note,
Why, even missed periods,
Hair graying too early,
All these daily deliquesced for us
Day after day.
What did the new candle
We lighted in those days
Melt for?
We cannot see a thing
In its light now!
Nov 16, 2013
Nov 16, 2013 at 1:54 PM UTC
My ears are stopped with tapers, so I'll hear no more
of this ****** farce you and he have going.
Every time you ask for more
abuse, I realize I'm better off not knowing.
But my playlist is full of sadness,
and the rest is a bore.
So your screams are my melody
and I'll listen as your blood keeps on flowing.
They say fools rush in, and more the fool you.
More the fool me too, to listen to
your pained cries for more pain,
as your skin is red glowing,
The bruise slowly growing,
as you exult in the sick high you get from his backhand;
as I listen to Red Jumpsuit Apparatus ask him
if he feels like a man.
There's no pain more complete tonight
Than the ringing in my tear soaked budded ears
when he says **** my **** *****
with those lips so sweet... "and tight."
And you oblige, because you're too used to it to fear,
and it makes you feel beautiful,
because only angels weep, right?
That's the sad lesson heard here.
I bid my sad playlist goodnight.
Feb 26, 2015
Feb 26, 2015 at 11:55 PM UTC
The road darkens quickly;
it turns and sways
and tapers off into an unseeable zenith.
The gravel cracks
and rolls underfoot.
This road peels skin off of knees. This road
rips palms to shreds
but I've traversed it many times;
I can recall each boulder and each
protruding limb.
I nestle between the crags and
I bathe in the starlit puddles. The water is
murky and littered
with bottles, with pens, with Barbie dolls.
It is lukewarm.
I revel in my shivering, pruning skin.
I walked along its path
yesterday.
I closed my eyes but
I listened well.
Unholy silence.
I lifted my foot and triumphed a
broken branch that always exists. I could run
this road blinded and gagged.
I dipped my toe in a puddle. Time
wouldn't let me
bathe.
Darkness fell beyond my eyelids and chilled
these fragile shrouds.
I leapt over a crag. It has grown
since I've been gone.
I fell into its depths. It isn't a crag at all:
it is the end.
This road has broken off and it
dangles children's toys
off a precipice.
I am still falling. The wind lashes at my eyes
and dries out my tongue.
I am blinded and I am gagged, but
I do not know this road at all.
Oct 4, 2016
Oct 4, 2016 at 3:11 PM UTC
press your ears to the green
of your eden. listen
to hell, its realness. it is the feeling
that I write from. a distant burn
that blinks in the blackened
pages of his chest
as a star—only a piece
of the map that has led his heart
to yours, only a sliver to be scrapped
by sunrise. I could speak of this:
his garden, the teeth around its margins,
or the way I waded near its grin,
with both eyes unbuttoned & my soft
heart worn inside-out. but your flesh
is ivory, & where it tapers, a key
to his own. but your throat is flute
enough to tread through his walls. listen.
I will speak of the wild heart
holding you. I have touched it
with my shadows, the deep
rays of my dreams. I have been
to its shrubs that whirl about
like wicks, the ponds full of laughter,
& the caves with leaping
tongues. they are mystery
& aplenty. I could not quench them,
but you will, you will. if one
day, as you lay in his fields,
I stumble over his sky like a word
on fire. remember,
love, to make of me,
a better wish.
Jun 9, 2021
Jun 9, 2021 at 5:58 PM UTC
The
Concrete
Spatial poem
Has varied shapes
Ancient kind of verse
With Traditional Shapes.
Many vague symbolic themes.
From tapers lozenges eggs or spheres
The concrete spatial poem has varied shapes.
~~ ~~ ~~ ~~
the above is with a Dectina Refrain
Dec 22, 2018
Dec 22, 2018 at 10:10 PM UTC
It tapers towards the bottom,
inverse conical,
mimicking an egg.
it is a tradition among these people,
to have in their hands,
even in youth
the urn that will one day house them.
their compacted fingers, lips, and eyes,
in lacquered earth bounty.
the urn that will one day house my ashes will sit on my shelf,
naked and ready.
May 21, 2013
May 21, 2013 at 12:14 AM UTC
"Art"
A masterpiece to last the ages
I open your book, read the folded pages
Lo, the story is far from done
I start to write, my pen, my tongue
Making you squeal
With my Author's Intent,
artistic zeal
Painting strokes and curves,
points and tapers
Adding words and images
upon your paper
Yet, I have so much more in store
As I slither in through the door
To the scent and flavor,
Hidden treasure I adore
You quiver and shiver
Again, again
Your delight is a river
Dripping down my chin
Just when you think
the story is at an end
I start to write with my other pen
Deep in the pages
of your soft skin
Again and again
and again
Sep 9, 2015
Sep 9, 2015 at 5:35 PM UTC