"tatter" poems
Somebody is shooting at something in our town --
A dull pom, pom in the Sunday street.
Jealousy can open the blood,
It can make black roses.
Who are the shooting at?
It is you the knives are out for
At Waterloo, Waterloo, Napoleon,
The **** of Elba on your short back,
And the snow, marshaling its brilliant cutlery
Mass after mass, saying Shh!
Shh! These are chess people you play with,
Still figures of ivory.
The mud squirms with throats,
Stepping stones for French bootsoles.
The gilt and pink domes of Russia melt and float off
In the furnace of greed. Clouds, clouds.
So the swarm ***** and deserts
Seventy feet up, in a black pine tree.
It must be shot down. Pom! Pom!
So dumb it thinks bullets are thunder.
It thinks they are the voice of God
Condoning the beak, the claw, the grin of the dog
Yellow-haunched, a pack-dog,
Grinning over its bone of ivory
Like the pack, the pack, like everybody.
The bees have got so far. Seventy feet high!
Russia, Poland and Germany!
The mild hills, the same old magenta
Fields shrunk to a penny
Spun into a river, the river crossed.
The bees argue, in their black ball,
A flying hedgehog, all prickles.
The man with gray hands stands under the honeycomb
Of their dream, the hived station
Where trains, faithful to their steel arcs,
Leave and arrive, and there is no end to the country.
Pom! Pom! They fall
Dismembered, to a tod of ivy.
So much for the charioteers, the outriders, the Grand Army!
A red tatter, Napoleon!
The last badge of victory.
The swarm is knocked into a cocked straw hat.
Elba, Elba, bleb on the sea!
The white busts of marshals, admirals, generals
Worming themselves into niches.
How instructive this is!
The dumb, banded bodies
Walking the plank draped with Mother France's upholstery
Into a new mausoleum,
An ivory palace, a crotch pine.
The man with gray hands smiles --
The smile of a man of business, intensely practical.
They are not hands at all
But asbestos receptacles.
Pom! Pom! 'They would have killed me.'
Stings big as drawing pins!
It seems bees have a notion of honor,
A black intractable mind.
Napoleon is pleased, he is pleased with everything.
O Europe! O ton of honey!
7.8k
I
Our ****** dreams, all seedless in the light,
Of light and love the tempers of the heart,
Whack their boys' limbs,
And, winding-footed in their shawl and sheet,
Groom the dark brides, the widows of the night
Fold in their arms.
The shades of girls, all flavoured from their shrouds,
When sunlight goes are sundered from the worm,
The bones of men, the broken in their beds,
By midnight pulleys that unhouse the tomb.
II
In this our age the gunman and his moll
Two one-dimensional ghosts, love on a reel,
Strange to our solid eye,
And speak their midnight nothings as they swell;
When cameras shut they hurry to their hole
down in the yard of day.
They dance between their arclamps and our skull,
Impose their shots, showing the nights away;
We watch the show of shadows kiss or ****
Flavoured of celluloid give love the lie.
III
Which is the world? Of our two sleepings, which
Shall fall awake when cures and their itch
Raise up this red-eyed earth?
Pack off the shapes of daylight and their starch,
The sunny gentlemen, the Welshing rich,
Or drive the night-geared forth.
The photograph is married to the eye,
Grafts on its bride one-sided skins of truth;
The dream has ****** the sleeper of his faith
That shrouded men might marrow as they fly.
IV
This is the world; the lying likeness of
Our strips of stuff that tatter as we move
Loving and being loth;
The dream that kicks the buried from their sack
And lets their trash be honoured as the quick.
This is the world. Have faith.
For we shall be a shouter like the ****
Blowing the old dead back; our shots shall smack
The image from the plates;
And we shall be fit fellows for a life,
And who remains shall flower as they love,
Praise to our faring hearts.
3.7k
I have enough treasures from the past
to last me longer than I need, or want.
You know as well as I . . . malevolent memory
won't let go of half of them:
a modest church, with its gold cupola
slightly askew; a harsh chorus
of crows; the whistle of a train;
a birch tree haggard in a field
as if it had just been sprung from jail;
a secret midnight conclave
of monumental Bible-oaks;
and a tiny rowboat that comes drifting out
of somebody's dreams, slowly foundering.
Winter has already loitered here,
lightly powdering these fields,
casting an impenetrable haze
that fills the world as far as the horizon.
I used to think that after we are gone
there's nothing, simply nothing at all.
Then who's that wandering by the porch
again and calling us by name?
Whose face is pressed against the frosted pane?
What hand out there is waving like a branch?
By way of reply, in that cobwebbed corner
a sunstruck tatter dances in the mirror.
Leningrad, 1960
3.5k
This is the time lean woods shall spend
A steeped-up twilight, and the pale evening drink,
And the perilous roe, the leaper to the west brink,
Trembling and bright to the caverned cloud descend.
Now shall you see pent oak gone gusty and frantic,
Stooped with dry weeping, ruinously unloosing
The sparse disheveled leaf, or reared and tossing
A dreary scarecrow bough in funeral antic.
Then, tatter you and rend,
Oak heart, to your profession mourning; not obscure
The outcome, not crepuscular; on the deep floor
Sable and gold match lustres and contend.
And rags of shrouding will not muffle the slain.
This is the immortal extinction, the priceless wound
Not to be staunched. The live gold leaks beyond,
And matter’s sanctified, dipped in a gold stain.
3.3k
I Love Pie & You Sweetie Pie!
I Love Pie & You Sweetie Pie
Love pumpkin pie its so good
Awe taste just like it should
Love lemon pie with a
touch of ****
Love it deep down in my
heart
I love jello pie it's
so sweet
The way it wiggles
it's so neat!
Love pie of banana cream
And chocolate is my dream
I love blueberry too
It's so good & blue
I love BlackBerry too awe
so sweet and black
Pick em right off the vines
and put em in a sack
I love apple pie topped
with cheese
Oh and make that a scoop
of val ice cream please
Oh and also the Apple Dutch
Oh how I love it so much!
Custard Boston and
Zesty Lime,
Whip Cream Humble and
Rhubarb all the time!
Quick Set Frozen Cream
Pie and Oreo Cookie Crust
Sweet Tatter and Velvet
Turtle Now that's a must!
But my favorite pie
of all is true
That's my favorite pie
"Sweetie Pie" it's you!
WrittenBy:BarbieKirk
11-24-14 5:09am
www.allpoetry.com/RainbowBlessings
© Barbie Kirk . All rights reserved, 16 hours ago
Nov 24, 2014
Nov 24, 2014 at 10:45 PM UTC
The titter tatter on the rooftop tells me a story.
The humming birds sing me a lullaby.
The flowers blooming show me beauty.
The raindrops on the window explain life.
And the tears on the ground hide behind the rain.
Aug 8, 2014
Aug 8, 2014 at 6:19 PM UTC
I hit a mosquito using my head
It's no big deal
The mosquito was a nuisance
So my head will fit the bill
My head is decorated in red
Due to the blood that splattered
I never knew that a head
could make a mosquito's body tatter
Now I grasped the full definition
To use your head in every situation
My hands were forging art
so I couldn't separate them apart
So a head of mine will do
"Take that mosquito, f@#k you!"
So, that's the end of it
"This incident will make a great poem", I think
Thus a whimsical tale between me and you
And yeah, it is true.
Jan 21, 2014
Jan 21, 2014 at 5:21 PM UTC
That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees -
Those dying generations - at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.
O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.
Once out of nature I shall never take
My ****** form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.
2.1k
I will not let the blood of my ancestors
to be shed in vain
Where they have fought for our freedom
yet my generation are quiet
I will not let westernization
ruin my soul and tatter my traditions
I will not let the westernized beauty
blind me from my culture’s beauty
I will not let the blood of my ancestors
to be shed in vain
Where they have fought for the earth that is now free
the earth where my soul thrives on
I will not let the television
brainwash my perception of spirituality and religion
to make me question that who I am
is wrong
I will not let these white-washed books
to create gaps in my history
I will not let the blood of my ancestors
to be shed in vain
May 20, 2014
May 20, 2014 at 6:32 PM UTC
City slickers born to tumble
will never make your mountain rumble,
take me to the parts that matter
in amongst the titter tatter
the coffee table ilks and dramas
cotton caftans and silk pyjamas
humming cars that cough and splutter
silver coins lost in the gutter
tabloid men in sharp pressed suits
trample down the fallen fruits
nothing sacred in this old town
except a peptic ulcer and a furrowed frown.
Mar 10, 2015
Mar 10, 2015 at 11:55 PM UTC
I dipped my extraordinary toe into the cool waters.
It was colder than I had expected it to be.
And as I glowered at myself
in a mirror of sorts,
I discovered I wasn’t alone.
Deceptively perfect
and perfectly sculpted.
A body of total glory.
A glistening aura,
with freshly chopped wave.
A glistening fauna,
amongst all the flora.
Irreverently so,
she fit no humanly mold.
A creature to truly behold.
I behold the true embodiment
of the truth and the good.
And I certainly remember
the tales of the crude.
*Tatter becomingly of thy soul.
Please don’t develop an interlude.
Ive been laying while dying
underneath old coal.
Please woman.
Call my name.*
Dec 1, 2013
Dec 1, 2013 at 7:00 AM UTC
Slip into a syncopated
Yaw that staggers some,
Never touches others.
Come back home if you don't have the chops, or
Open up to ranges
Pleasant...
Awkward...
Totter some and Tatter some.
Insiders,
Outsiders
Nestle or Negate whenever Music syncopates.
Jan 21, 2012
Jan 21, 2012 at 11:53 AM UTC
FEW POETIC REFLECTIONS ON OLD AGE
Dear Poet Friends, after a long break, I have composed a few lines as a very senior citizen and a lover of poetry. If you like the same, kindly Re-post this poem for wider circulation. Thanks and best wishes, - Raj Nandy of New Delhi.
It has been often been said that old age is that period of life,
When all bad habits are given up on doctor’s advice,
And yet you don’t feel all that good while you survive!
Yet I do try to take some solace from Robert Browning’s poem
‘Rabbi Ben Ezra’ which says;-
‘’Grow old along with me!
For the best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made.’’
Despite my grey hairs and wrinkled face,
With creaking joints and scattered aches and pains,
‘’Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress’’,
In thanks giving to the Lord and sings his praise;
As I recall WB Yeats’ ‘Sailing Byzantium’, - that
lovely poem from my college days.
As our biological clock continues to tick incessantly,
Getting older becomes compulsory.
But becoming Wiser in wrinkled years remains optional,
A choice our free will has the opportunity to make!
I recall what Agatha Christie had once said,
That an archaeologist is the best husband a woman can get,
For the older she gets, the more interested in her he
becomes;
With due respect to our women whose age is impolite
not ask.
Here I recall what the Pulitzer Prize winner Robert Frost
had once said,
That a diplomat is a man who always remembers a woman’s
birthday and not her age.
I recall the observation of Sartre the famous French philosopher
who had said,
That more sand that escapes from the hourglass of our life,
The clearer we should see through it as a blessing of time!
It is true that we live in deeds, not in years; in thoughts, not breaths;
In feelings, not in figures on a dial, - as James Bailey had said.
I finally conclude by quoting the first stanza from ‘Beautiful Old Age’ by DH Lawrence;
‘’It ought to be lovely to be old
To be full of the peace that comes of experience
And wrinkled ripe fulfilment.’’
-Raj Nandy of New Delhi.
Dec 19, 2019
Dec 19, 2019 at 11:04 AM UTC
Children picking up our bones
Will never know that these were once
As quick as foxes on the hill;
And that in autumn, when the grapes
Made sharp air sharper by their smell
These had a being, breathing frost;
And least will guess that with our bones
We left much more, left what still is
The look of things, left what we felt
At what we saw. The spring clouds blow
Above the shuttered mansion house,
Beyond our gate and the windy sky
Cries out a literate despair.
We knew for long the mansion's look
And what we said of it became
A part of what it is ... Children,
Still weaving budded aureoles,
Will speak our speech and never know,
Will say of the mansion that it seems
As if he that lived there left behind
A spirit storming in blank walls,
A ***** house in a gutted world,
A tatter of shadows peaked to white,
Smeared with the gold of the opulent sun.
1.7k
Open the door
the key is in my hand
I have already unlocked it
so open it,
walk into the room
the atmosphere is so... different from the hallway
I was just passing by,
I didn't know the key was in my hand all along
but here I am
I can see
the great Daylight shines through a wall of windows
I see I'm covered in dust and cobwebs
Shake it all off
I shed the dusty, ***** clothes I wore
Oh the Daylight robes me in new clothes
the hall was so dark,
everything seemed a stumbling block
even the toys of memories
Though I am no longer a child,
the Daylight fills me with a child's joy
it is not pretend, no imaginary friend
Reality
everything is crystal and illuminated
the light floods through the room
down the hall
I can clean out the house now
I can dust every corner
wipe it down
throw out the tatter things that just take up space
I can polish the gifts that are meant to stay
blessing, blessing, blessing
I see clearly for the first time
and the house is so vast
I did not know
Everyday a new room
a new corner
throw open the curtains!
let the Daylight fill everything up
nothing left in shadow
nothing left to speculation
the change is perfection
the change is no shame
even when there is uncertainty
blessing, blessing, blessing
if I find another dark corner
I will ask for more light
Fill it up! Leave nothing untouched
why stay in dark,
in secret
there is nothing there but a lie
the Daylight is everything
Jan 23, 2018
Jan 23, 2018 at 8:31 PM UTC
The sunflowers are in full bloom as we see
scattered borders crossed over with bomb filled broken dreams
Now, stop and think
We may never hear the raindrops fall again, while the lost children lead us through the scorched fields with their soft spoken pleas
Their desperate sighs rise from across the airwaves left depleted in uncertain scriptures, the forces pull back and a shattered town breathes
The sunflowers are in full bloom surrounded by visions etched in our minds of destruction and death dissolved
Now, stop and think
Sitting on burned out rooftops, we see the tortured fog of war covering up the lifeless soldiers that tatter the streets below, no more bombs or sirens blaring
One confused soldier yells, "Why are we here?!!!"
The sunflowers are in full bloom negotiating through peaceful serenity, identities clashing with unrestrained intensity
Now, stop and think
Open your eyes in the time of a desperate calling, unite as one and let the sunflowers continue to grow wild and free
Mar 29, 2022
Mar 29, 2022 at 3:05 PM UTC
August 29, 2011
Sorrow's Formation
Sorrow's Formation
The Source of sorrow bears a treacherous form
Morose with such a solemn look
Deep disdain for those who keep
Misery for what past blows they took
And so despise the countless hours where lay
Some soulful feat to come what may;
And trespass through the broken gates
Where sorrow dwells and lies and waits.
Awaken all! Redemption's near.
Bring along hope that won't borrow fear.
Hypnotic realms we trespass on
Seek to tatter our dreams before the dawn.
Sweet embrace of tender light,
I look up to see your face;
To brighten up with warm delight
And leave the gloom without a trace.
Malea Renee Miller
Aug 30, 2011
Aug 30, 2011 at 7:54 AM UTC
I pressed my prancing ear upon the chest of the thin melancholic paper
the words dripped like purluded dreams of infants
I beckon to trace my invisible whispers deeper into the parchment
the pen touched the edge of tatter
and my veins pump the bluest blood through my fingers
Im bound by the seduction of the black art
mused by its very exsistence
Im in a constant dilemma of letting it persecute my very movements
hurl my insides to make them distorted
it is what allows me to walk straight
emotions spit darkness into the light
and I am basking in the harmonious sun
leaving splinters on every pore
and I beg for
more
be so kind to speak harshly
too lovely to think smoothly
and open your skin so I can peer inside everything you
believe in
waters thrusting without a sound
in my playful obstacles of the notes that bound my lips together
and I am purging thoughtful gazes in every direction
or so to speak
I stand and hear snaps applause for my devotion
admiration and unforgiving blunteness
into my perception on the side walk the brim of homelessness sits on
and I hum as I walk away from shaken lands
the happiest tune I ever learned
the findings are premorse
and the abstract facts are not enough
you see
when I speak, forgive me but I always try to transgress
logically
fame in the writing of words are a bore
and there is no cure in them
speech is in the pit of the abdomen
words are poetry spat out from the core of any woman
Nov 1, 2010
Nov 1, 2010 at 6:27 PM UTC
Flowering in my hand
The godforsaken darkness of this bedroom
I stand for waves of consciousness
Although my only accessibility is to be seated
And to let the walls and the dry waves beneath us
Cushioning the air like newly wedded palm trees
All savory and nearly serine
Minus their little tatter tantrums,
Decide what is allowed to be easy on the ocean ears
And what is a blue-dusk silver shattering storm instead.
You jump in once
Your body all made of hands and feet
And the communal clatter of thanking God
Soaring your way down the only descend
After making allies with the butterflies
Making pockets in clouds
And does anyone know how to spell home
In embroidered lace pink
Or can we still go in head first?
Aug 16, 2016
Aug 16, 2016 at 2:37 AM UTC
In the group that I come from, where philosophers comprise. Virtue, ethics and values they wrestle or oblige. One thing is missing and thats the truth in definition. From where philia itself is all about friendship.
Friends in wisdom, hey..it might just be empathy. Compassion hey, its truly a victory.
Whether Sophia or Nikea, it shouldn't really matter. Put them together and the robes will never tatter. Lest apart, were back to the start where this cute mythology loses its heart.
Yo, The Gods and Goddesses are just virtues. Principles of importance marked as divine. Personified and glorified to keep the spirit alive, thats just how they emphasized. Thats just how they empathized.
Dec 6, 2021
Dec 6, 2021 at 3:00 AM UTC
She had on Hello Kitty *******
That I discarded to the floor
I could have removed them romantically
But she was just a *****
She had smaller **** than I expected
When I received referral from a friend
But her waist I could grab onto
And oh how she could bend.
I thought I might break her
With every ****** of my hips
But every single moan
Cried more from her lips.
And when the night was over
With my final blow
She let me explode inside
Further announcing that she's a **
It wasn't until a few years later
When I saw her once more
That she had with her a child
Once that I'd never seen before.
And given by his looks
His hair color and eyes
That I knew he was mine
Especially with the sound of her sighs.
She told me she tried to tell me
But I was too strung out
So she never tried again
Figured it'd be forgotten about.
And she was right
I would have never known
Until I called her up for another ****
Only to have my mind blown.
So what do I do now?
I guess it doesn't matter
I'm simply just a ******
My life is all ready a tatter.
I don't need a child
I don't need her, as well
I only need that needle
So I guess I'm going to hell.
Mar 3, 2011
Mar 3, 2011 at 6:19 AM UTC
I sought her words, but in vain.
Me seek'est her haplessly.
I hath been mute all these years.
No sign of love, yet it did languish,
Assail'd at a time to capture mine
As the soul who wail'd a thousand tears.
My words she ne'er tried heark'ning.
Resonance made still and lame.
Tatter'd notions, worded be
Abhorring yearnings of friendship's bond.
The last letter, 'tis where it'll end;
Years of joy, though for her means nothing.
'Tis now the soul's been cheated -
Loving her who loves not me.
'Though silence dost cleanse the tears,
Time will never ease anxiety
Expounded by a heart forsaken'd
Of its innermost rimes and meaning.
Jul 9, 2010
Jul 9, 2010 at 5:14 AM UTC
in the end, life will wear us out,
beyond repair.
cast our souls into the void,
but don't despair.
hair, bones and flesh with time
will tatter.
but luminous beings we are,
not this crude matter.
Mar 9, 2016
Mar 9, 2016 at 1:42 AM UTC
*When your life’s seemingly in a tatter.
Try imagining a rich serving of sweet sorrow on a platter.
Hope that gives you the impetus of extricating yourself from the gutter
Of impossibility, alas what a simply complex matter.*
Feb 27, 2015
Feb 27, 2015 at 2:58 AM UTC
You are done breaking my heart.
Whether or not you realize this,
It does not matter.
I am not yours to tatter.
You will not hurt me any more.
You have proven your weakness,
And shown that you couldn't care less.
Whatever, I'll find peace in this mess.
Mar 16, 2016
Mar 16, 2016 at 10:50 PM UTC