"teems" poems
so i get this idea sometimes
that you enjoy being coy
when it comes to me
to conjure momentary spectacle
& make me wonder
if you paint catharsis
on the doors of a home
you've never lived in
as a memory of our first night together
because i do, i remember you
beaming white on blue
speaking softer than any storm
i ever knew, i often think that maybe
you live that night in your mind
when your pillow is cold
& you can't sleep, it makes me wonder
if you do as i do, and rewrite three years fictionally beginning with a kiss somewhere
maybe a balcony or a quiet car
on the sand or in a sunlit grove close to your home but always a familiar scar on the maps we know we know by heart
i wonder if sometimes
the idea of me loving you is too real
and if it teems under your tongue
to stay observant but distantly intrigued
if by this distance you think it safe
to get a dog and pass time
on the couch with a journal & some wine
what i really wanna know is if your fingernails ever wish to have my skin under them
or if they would boast
about winning a war with my headboard
i wonder if you can imagine me
meeting your parents in your apartment & shaking your fathers hand
as a first of many calloused palm readings
and if you know that i trembled before them
how insignificant i had felt
to not know their daughter
in the way i had envisioned
how i picture such poignant moments
so tangibly sharp that sometimes
i replace my memories with little stories
i tell myself that i can't count on two hands
the number of times i've seen you
& that i don't feel like a crater
when i recollect our collisions
i want to know if you still find madness
in the words that have always been about you
i wanna know if your imagination of me
looks more like an anniversary or an obituary
Feb 10, 2014
Feb 10, 2014 at 12:59 AM UTC
Someday I'd like to wander free
like butterfly, like bumblebee,
perhaps to plant a willow tree
beside the silent solemn sea,
before these things exist no more,
from mountain top to shifting shore,
when, soon, bald eagles cease to soar
and build their aeries nevermore,
and fish forsake polluted streams
(where sulfur swims and typhoid teems
since no one really cares it seems)
to die inside our toxic dreams
while ice caps melt and winter steams,
and all the air surrounding reeks
as children choke, for no one speaks
of fracking wells or oily leaks
(Big Brother's silenced all critiques!),
and rancid rains acidify
so woods no longer multiply
(for God so wills, we can't deny,
which is, of course, our alibi).
And as the deepest ocean fills
with plastic bags, and garbage spills
upon the plains, across the hills
and turns to poison dust that kills
wild dingo dogs and daffodils
which sink in swamps’ forsaken swills,
the mocking bird makes light and trills
(midst waning wails of whippoorwills)
"Behold the surreal scene that chills
and greet the dread that death distills!
You've had your day with all the frills
that brought the flood and final ills
that can't be cured with bitter pills
nor yet undone with further thrills
of profit gained that grinds and fills
dead desert sands with dollar bills."
EPILOGUE
Though swaddled still in infancy,
we feel we’ve reached our primacy
(aloof, though preaching piously,
disdaining deeds of decency)
and have no need of augury.
But in the pit of prophecy
the crucial questions seem to be:
“Is doom Earth’s fate, our destiny
to twist in tides of agony
destroying nature’s progeny
with no return a certainty
assured by death’s finality?”
and
”Should we plant a willow tree
to someday weep for you and me?”
Jun 16, 2015
Jun 16, 2015 at 2:45 PM UTC
Mother Nature rules the World,
And probably
The whole Universe.
Our Earth, a planet blue,
Just teems with Life.
Even deep beneath the ocean,
Amongst those geysers,
Oh so Hot,
You will find Life.
Lakes filled with acid,
Bone –dry deserts (look underground),
Solid sheets of ice:
They all are home-sweet-home
To bacteria
Or Viruses,
At the very least.
We bomb those cities to piles of rubble,
And poison the Earth with God knows what,
Yet always, given time,
Life will re-assert itself:
That sprig of couch-grass,
Those flowers.
Mother Nature never does give in.
Life springs eternal.
From amoeba to a dancing dolphin.
So utterly determined
To survive.
Clinging to existence
Like a limpet on a rock.
Invincible in Her tenacity.
Paul Butters
Sep 11, 2012
Sep 11, 2012 at 6:43 AM UTC
AMBIGRAM VII
Recto:
This thorny hedgehog world is rolled into
oblivious winter sleep, where fierce dreams
have clawed a hold and block the probing beams
that keep on seeking for a passage through—
a sleep so heavy and so deep it seems
the sleep of someone who had dared to go
to all extremes, had nothing left to know
or do. As winter ices up the streams
and blizzards howl and hurtle snow on snow,
the narrow valley teems with soldiers who
must face the foe upon the frontier to
that cold new country where we all shall go.
Verso:
This thorny hedgehog world is rolled
into oblivious winter sleep,
where fierce dreams have clawed a hold
and block the probing beams that keep
on seeking for a passage through—
a sleep so heavy and so deep
it seems the sleep of someone who
had dared to go to all extremes,
had nothing left to know or do.
As winter ices up the streams
and blizzards howl and hurtle snow
on snow, the narrow valley teems
with soldiers who must face the foe
upon the frontier to that cold
new country where we all shall go.
Dec 27, 2011
Dec 27, 2011 at 2:16 PM UTC
stand(ing) here alone in the dark
like a head of tack pirouetting away
to no music - only acrid scruple
of this being with and not being with,
one is always alone.
space occupies the potteries in
the garden as a steady arm of light
stills in its mouth, a flowering dark.
it is only 3 o'clock in the morning
and the heat clambers the wall of
the vacuously atrabilious moment
of just plainly existing. the slender
harlequin of moon, like an old lover
having its own way with me, a child's
yelp coming home — the hermetic
air crushing the light, slivering it
revealing all the ensconced phantasms
too commonplace like a fork in the road
that i know, or the wayward metropolitan
that teems with a concatenation of roads
and gutters bilious with the squall of day.
a figure moves entering a warm miasma,
receiving the star of aloneness,
vacillating between
place and placelessness
telling this originary of repossessing
the moon with a hand in my hand,
pressing a question of where
have you been all the raging while.
Oct 8, 2015
Oct 8, 2015 at 3:52 PM UTC
Sweet girl! though only once we met,
That meeting I shall ne’er forget;
And though we ne’er may meet again,
Remembrance will thy form retain;
I would not say, “I love,” but still,
My senses struggle with my will:
In vain to drive thee from my breast,
My thoughts are more and more represt;
In vain I check the rising sighs,
Another to the last replies:
Perhaps, this is not love, but yet,
Our meeting I can ne’er forget.
What, though we never silence broke,
Our eyes a sweeter language spoke;
The tongue in flattering falsehood deals,
And tells a tale it never feels:
Deceit, the guilty lips impart,
And hush the mandates of the heart;
But soul’s interpreters, the eyes,
Spurn such restraint, and scorn disguise.
As thus our glances oft convers’d,
And all our bosoms felt rehears’d,
No spirit, from within, reprov’d us,
Say rather, “’twas the spirit mov’d us.”
Though, what they utter’d, I repress,
Yet I conceive thou’lt partly guess;
For as on thee, my memory ponders,
Perchance to me, thine also wanders.
This, for myself, at least, I’ll say,
Thy form appears through night, through day;
Awake, with it my fancy teems,
In sleep, it smiles in fleeting dreams;
The vision charms the hours away,
And bids me curse Aurora’s ray
For breaking slumbers of delight,
Which make me wish for endless night.
Since, oh! whate’er my future fate,
Shall joy or woe my steps await;
Tempted by love, by storms beset,
Thine image, I can ne’er forget.
Alas! again no more we meet,
No more our former looks repeat;
Then, let me breathe this parting prayer,
The dictate of my bosom’s care:
“May Heaven so guard my lovely quaker,
That anguish never can o’ertake her;
That peace and virtue ne’er forsake her,
But bliss be aye her heart’s partaker!
Oh! may the happy mortal, fated
To be, by dearest ties, related,
For her, each hour, new joys discover,
And lose the husband in the lover!
May that fair ***** never know
What ’tis to feel the restless woe,
Which stings the soul, with vain regret,
Of him, who never can forget!”
2.6k
Midsummer midnight skies,
Midsummer midnight influences and airs,
The shining, sensitive silver of the sea
Touched with the strange-hued blazonings of dawn;
And all so solemnly still I seem to hear
The breathing of Life and Death,
The secular Accomplices,
Renewing the visible miracle of the world.
The wistful stars
Shine like good memories. The young morning wind
Blows full of unforgotten hours
As over a region of roses. Life and Death
Sound on--sound on . . . And the night magical,
Troubled yet comforting, thrills
As if the Enchanted Castle at the heart
Of the wood's dark wonderment
Swung wide his valves, and filled the dim sea-banks
With exquisite visitants:
Words fiery-hearted yet, dreams and desires
With living looks intolerable, regrets
Whose voice comes as the voice of an only child
Heard from the grave: shapes of a Might-Have-Been--
Beautiful, miserable, distraught--
The Law no man may baffle denied and slew.
The spell-bound ships stand as at gaze
To let the marvel by. The grey road glooms . . .
Glimmers . . . goes out . . . and there, O, there where it fades,
What grace, what glamour, what wild will,
Transfigure the shadows? Whose,
Heart of my heart, Soul of my soul, but yours?
Ghosts--ghosts--the sapphirine air
Teems with them even to the gleaming ends
Of the wild day-spring! Ghosts,
Everywhere--everywhere--till I and you
At last--dear love, at last!--
Are in the dreaming, even as Life and Death,
Twin-ministers of the unoriginal Will.
1.8k
I’m whirling about
There’s fruit I’ve never seen
And chainsaws
Hanging from the ceiling
Collections of rusted
And nostalgic
Remnants
Playthings of my
Past memory
The people here
Mimic the eclectic offerings
Every part of the group
Teems with
Individuality
I feel cherubic laughter
Quiver my lungs again
I head for home
Clutching a book
I acquired
From this impeccable
Trove
Mar 23, 2019
Mar 23, 2019 at 4:11 PM UTC
I'm just a lonely little leaf
So small, so insignificant
But in my dreams, I hold belief
That I could be magnificent
My skin would gleam of emerald green
To ward off snow and beckon spring
My fettered branch would welcome teems
Of chorus birds to dance and sing
My life would know such happy times
As wild winds lift me up for laughs
To flutter onto railway lines
And halt the trains upon their tracks
Yet in the morning, when I wake
From slumbered dreams, I find relief
In knowing god made no mistake
With me, his lonely little leaf
Aug 14, 2014
Aug 14, 2014 at 8:31 PM UTC
Evergreen tree,
Burning red bushels
Of bark, branches open,
Cloud robed against, beyond
The mighty blue mountains,
Sage colour, rages of green,
Teems immortal as the sun,
Where great eagles landing
To nest in the towering
Chapel of a giant body
Adorn, what was always
Regal, everlasting, true,
Spiraling to the citadels
Of the swirling heavens
And even your crown,
A thrusting spire.
Dec 26, 2014
Dec 26, 2014 at 3:35 PM 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. (The Upcoming Trio).
There are three.
Of course there is only one right now,
but still, there are three
and they are lurking nearby
like a daddy long legs in the corner of a bathroom;
the more they daintily move around,
the more the need to do something about it.
One is foreign, far away,
young and surrounded by superglue sticky air,
questions having already been posed.
Two will lure you in with lipstick
and teems of sienna hair
but is taken with a drink.
Three, my strangers, is a bit of an unknown,
beautiful with powder blue eyes,
somehow missed on the first of the week.
Older! Would never have guessed.
I ask myself if one out of this group
will join the list of failures-to-be
with their own letters
or flowers
or stories
serving up rich reminders
of amateurish errors.
II. (The Summer’s End).
Before we all enter fall
some actions must occur.
A chat with five of those stepping up
into the world of small rooms,
nights out
and a lack of coins.
A reunion with linguists
for a talk and some tea
after over a year
since food in the market.
There’s also him
before he goes off to learn to teach,
P who had results last time round,
her with guy issues,
a fan of shoes
and the one above the rest
incapable of any words.
Good times ahead
with friends I hold dear
that ought to take place
before we all enter fall.
III. (The Procrastinator).
A ****** a waste
and a bag of mice on the floor.
Newspapers
under every little helps.
Really must be done
now,
now,
but no,
later,
tomorrow,
weekend,
why?
You haven’t gone back yet
to the days of park crossing.
Sort it out mate,
clear some space.
No more than an hour, tops.
How do you expect
to get anything done
if you don’t get up from the chair
and begin to move?
Aug 18, 2012
Aug 18, 2012 at 6:47 PM UTC
In the velvet dark that holds all dreams,
A thousand hopes are given flighted chance.
Optimistic wishes waft through empty beams.
A gentle ashen pallor moonlight reams;
A billion shadowed niches seem to dance
Within the velvet dark that holds all dreams.
A bluish glow though leafy vellum seams
Can thread its way through thick and wooden lance.
Optimistic wishes waft through empty beams.
And oh! the silken light above that streams,
Dissolving all the hundred million "can't"s
Within the velvet dark that holds all dreams.
The night that's holding precious breath, it teems
With broken vows, inconsequential rants;
Optimistic wishes waft through empty beams.
The wish for what is come to be, it seems,
Envelopes friendships, hopeful romance.
Within the velvet dark that holds all dreams,
Optimistic wishes waft through empty beams.
Jul 31, 2012
Jul 31, 2012 at 11:56 PM UTC
When you asleep at night and hear blood curdling screams
Do you wake up to the light and wonder what it means
Even though it's a controlling fright you don't dare find out what teems
It's better just to tuck your self in tight and pray for sweeter dreams
Jan 21, 2019
Jan 21, 2019 at 10:53 PM UTC
Words sworn over a lifetime in both action and deed
Pledges to stand side by side, no matter where the path may lead
Family, neighbors, classmates, teams, roommates, soldiers, and co-workers each
Who knows just where and how far back the bonds of time may reach?
It’s hard to describe what pulls us in and lights the spark
Maybe it’s shared things we’ve done, or grasping for a hand in the dark?
Times when we have no idea what to do or say
And rely on someone new to help guide our way.
Whether it’s for life’s major milestones or just good times with a kink
Like seeing that first skin rag, or being given an underage drink
Or helping you drop a class with untrue initials quickly signed
Those are the people all of us secretly like to find
Why? It’s not just for the excitement or a quick little thrill
It’s because someone finally sees us the way few others ever will
And when they need your help you almost always agree
Because inside you know, “They will do the same for me.”
But be careful not to overstress yourself
Like a pile of books on an overstocked shelf
For almost without fail at some point over the years
They will push you right to the brink of tears
It may not be with unkind words or a shattering of trust
Each wanting the same lover and fighting down lust
Priorities change as days go forward; in that there is no crime
Hour long conversations may condense to “Sorry, bad time”
Our reaction to these moments is the important thing to see
Each one is individual, just like you and me
Do we accept the change and laugh when we are able?
Or is it forever on the fritz like a downed TV cable?
If the latter is what you decide
Try not to be bitter at the end of the ride
But if you are, remember, as anger and resentment teems
The good old days weren’t always good and tomorrow ain’t as bad as it seems
Aug 29, 2015
Aug 29, 2015 at 8:58 PM UTC
*What should never be
Soul separating at the seams
Bullets in my dreams
Me eyeing that apartment on Bub Teems
What should never be
Mama in the bathtub, in the floor
Pinned to the wall, I can't take any more
In my bed shaking to the core
What should never be
Night time screams and deadly dreams
Pounding pulse and silent repulse
Soaking sheets and floor beats
What should never be
Picking up furniture, who's keeping score?
The fresh metal hole in the screen door
Speak of these things never more.*
Dec 14, 2016
Dec 14, 2016 at 6:33 PM UTC
.
Evergreen tree,
Burning red bushels
Of bark, branches open,
Cloud robed against, beyond
The mighty blue mountains,
Sage colour, rages of green,
Teems immortal as the sun,
Where great eagles landing
To nest in the towering
Chapel of a giant body
Adorn, what was always
Regal, everlasting, true,
Spiraling to the citadels
Of the swirling heavens
And even your crown,
A thrusting spire.
Dec 29, 2016
Dec 29, 2016 at 2:41 PM UTC
Evergreen tree,
Burning red bushels
Of bark, branches open,
Cloud robed against, beyond
The mighty blue mountains,
Sage colour, rages of green,
Teems immortal as the sun,
Where great eagles landing
To nest in the towering
Chapel of a giant body
Adorn, what was always
Regal, everlasting, true,
Spiraling to the citadels
Of the swirling heavens
And even your crown,
A thrusting spire.
Jul 24, 2015
Jul 24, 2015 at 4:56 PM UTC
I hold this in the creases of my palms;
The book of a creature who
eats the glittering horns of a devil.
I’ve witnessed the trees
weep where she will rest.
I’ve watched the stars
cascade from the sky
and rupture into her eyes
the morning she was born;
The same hour morning gave birth
to a sea of her whispering fragrance.
The moon is where she folds
and envelopes the secrets of a prayer .
And we all will wait,
We all will wait
Where she takes her ***** and breath.
Cities ablaze and words ignite.
From underneath wounded heels
the world weaves a shrill tremble.
Fate twists and collides like
an eclipse shackling death.
And her flesh, her flesh is where the
violent pomegranates erupt nectarous words
Of forbidden languages,
Silent soliloquies of poetry
echo from between the arches of the
gothic cathedrals carved into her deathly collarbones.
Her breath melts the blood of man
For she is what holds the sun
And teems forth the spring of truth
From beneath the land of cinderous lies,
Where the starving incubi fornicate
And sit heavy upon the hissing
nightmares of beautiful women.
Men helplessly comply to the
catharsis in her brief passing.
The mouths of women bleed
and spines erode to her paralyzing current.
There are those who wish to tear her poetic guts
and wear them as victory crowns and armored robes
Those who dream of bathing in their triumph of her death
And those who desire to drain the mysteries of her sky
A sky of roses made of stars
A sky of birthing constellations
A sky of dawn goddesses
I wish for this to rotate vagrant and mangle
The ill hearts who wish to rip
heavens body in one syllable.
-Arizona
Jan 12, 2013
Jan 12, 2013 at 8:38 AM UTC
That which is and that which must be,
is it there for me to see;
to hear;
to feel?
Or is it but a dream;
a sensation that teems
from within;
for within?
And, what lies within?
The 'I' who thinks
and creates;
and contemplates?
Oct 19, 2013
Oct 19, 2013 at 3:58 PM UTC
Evergreen tree,
Burning red bushels
Of bark, branches open,
Cloud robed against, beyond
The mighty blue mountains,
Sage colour, rages of green,
Teems immortal as the sun,
Where great eagles landing
To nest in the towering
Chapel of a giant body
Adorn, what was always
Regal, everlasting, true,
Spiraling to the citadels
Of the swirling heavens
And even your crown,
A thrusting spire.
Mar 21, 2014
Mar 21, 2014 at 8:05 PM UTC
10pm the radiant moon hangs high
Children captured quiet in resplendent dreams
For this vivid moment i hide my cry
My happiness hidden with driven sigh
We share a dark night and the bright star teems
10pm the radiant moon hangs high
Depths of dark thought but no tear in pained eye
The future so loving, bludgeoned it seems
For this vivid moment i hide my cry
To want no more and create the cruel lie
The extent of desire buried in screams
10pm the radiant moon hangs high
I perceive a fall in my love to die
It flows violently down wide winding streams
For this vivid moment i hide my cry
I pull myself clear as the end is nigh
I fall and fold devoid now of extremes
10pm the radiant moon hangs high
For this vivid moment i hide my cry
Aug 23, 2016
Aug 23, 2016 at 10:29 PM UTC
To wish, to wish,
To dream a dream,
To writhe in nightmares of the obscene,
To ask, to know, to whisper, to scream,
The Waters of Regret, with tears, it teems.
The Night has vanquished the Softening Light,
The mind and heart, as one, in flight,
They try to spread their wings but unfold
Blackened remains of dreams so bold.
Skeletal and frail, they represent
The nothingness, the loss and lament,
They creak as they move in their fragility,
They yearn to wander eternally,
It happens that I do, indeed, readily
disagree fullheartedly,
With Love and its "virility".
Happiness is a virtue, a privilege,
Not a tome, a text, or pledge,
It holds steady in the worst of winds,
A Northern ship in the tides and spins,
The pitch and yaw of each barrage,
Makes one wish for camouflage,
From life, from loss, from all heartache,
All who I know regret me, their mistake.
Be at peace, I'm at peace,
It's the rest I need,
I try and remember when you were happy
May 25, 2013
May 25, 2013 at 10:30 PM UTC
As above...
...Your sky-dial feline mind, unzips
Bold rose-hip teems of fervour, kept
On ice, throughout the needle of
the duty-bound laborious.
You have geared the slug of
greased machines have
waited tables overseas,
have moved your shoes
to rythms of inconsequence.
So below...
Call talons from your lava skin,
in tracings of a milky way, step
ladders through the cotton fields
to set aside a broken string.
Float, leaf, about your symetries
to crook your spine in Gothic arches.
Sovereign , deep in quicksand warmth
through paths of least resistance.
Dissolve in waves of ageless truth
dashesd amber over Roman tiles.
In wild writhes of curling fern,
Your body shines obsidian.
Jan 2, 2017
Jan 2, 2017 at 6:14 AM UTC
Evergreen tree,
Burning red bushels
Of bark, branches open,
Cloud robed against, beyond
The mighty blue mountains,
Sage colour, rages of green,
Teems immortal as the sun,
Where great eagles landing
To nest in the towering
Chapel of a giant body
Adorn, what was always
Regal, everlasting, true,
Spiraling to the citadels
Of the swirling heavens
And even your crown,
A thrusting spire.
Dec 27, 2015
Dec 27, 2015 at 5:49 PM UTC