"thickets" poems
Like a toddler taking maiden steps
The narrow stream moves through the woods
Tripping and falling over pebbles and boulders
Chiming its silver anklets
Forcing itself in irrepressible flow
It thrusts and shoves its way down
Through thickets and a line of ferns
And the tangle of creepers and thorny brambles
Drowning the whisper of bamboo leaves
Its sweet murmur falls in my ears
As an eternal living melody
The cosmic song heard over eons
As the water sluices down the rocks
It becomes a frothing braided torrent
Producing a harsh grating roar
Like the crescendo of a tribal symphony
There it forms into a small pool
With its waves gently rippling
Where birds merrily come to take a dip
And sunning their feathers, fly back refreshed
Sometimes travelling unseen
It suddenly emerges into the open
Cutting its way through cracks and fissures
Never willing to surrender before hurdles
With a bearing immaculate in grace
It sends out waves of pure delight
What joy it is to watch the dilly dally
Of this sedate pilgrim moving to its destination
May 9, 2016
May 9, 2016 at 10:07 AM UTC
Spring bursts to-day,
For Christ is risen and all the earth's at play.
Flash forth, thou Sun,
The rain is over and gone, its work is done.
Winter is past,
Sweet Spring is come at last, is come at last.
Bud, Fig and Vine,
Bud, Olive, fat with fruit and oil and wine.
Break forth this morn
In roses, thou but yesterday a Thorn.
Uplift thy head,
O pure white Lily through the Winter dead.
Beside your dams
Leap and rejoice, you merry-making Lambs.
All Herds and Flocks
Rejoice, all Beasts of thickets and of rocks.
Sing, Creatures, sing,
Angels and Men and Birds and everything.
All notes of Doves
Fill all our world: this is the time of loves.
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In a flower bed
Of rose and thorn,
Scarlet and green,
As we stem into one
Growth under blankets
White with joy, blue
As blood, we pluck
The petals left for us,
We tangle in thickets,
Moisted lips of heaven
Of clover and of daisy,
Milky as the wet stars,
Honeyed in the night
Hive and sumptuous
Joining, like clouds,
Opening above, we
Drench ourselves, cry
In drops, teary rains
That break, inwards,
Eyes, entwining with
Hot limbs unknotted
Till there is the spent
Wonder of skin scent,
Steeps of salt and sea,
Each leftover of touch
An outcast, a grieving.
Sep 4, 2015
Sep 4, 2015 at 1:58 PM UTC
I’ll split the hairs, I’ll split an atom
And never leave the bedroom.
I most identify with December,
Not because of the crushing temperature
But the lack of cosmic dawdling
Is no more mesmerizing than a frozen phoenix.
And as she arrives by train from Phoenix,
I study who she appears to be, the atoms
Composing her auburn hair with dawdling
Authenticity shout “Take me to the bedroom!”
While the wedge of geese in this temperature
Head to the Southern Hemisphere’s December.
The common chill of this morning in December
Prevents us from rising from out the covers like a phoenix,
And our blankets like ash defend us from the temperature
That stills the vibrations of the atmosphere’s atoms.
I curse the insulated walls of the bedroom,
Trapping in heat and discouraging our dawdling.
A rafter of turkeys outside my window are dawdling,
Printing their runes on the documents of December
Between the thickets surrounding the bedroom
While the sun, golden like the plumage of a phoenix,
Awakens in my bones every dormant atom,
Instilling in me courage to brave the temperature.
I follow her, dressed, from the bedroom
And her footsteps serve to punctuate the temperature
Like the smoldering beak of a phoenix
Too busy being risen for dawdling.
She leaves, by train through the chill of December,
Me daydreaming of fission. The splitting of an atom.
I’ll split an atom daily, safely within the bedroom
And sleep through December’s pitiless, hollow temperature,
Waking only for dawdling until Spring is a phoenix.
Mar 24, 2010
Mar 24, 2010 at 10:16 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
Underneath the leaves of life,
Green on the prodigious tree,
In a trance of grief
Stand the fallen man and wife:
Far away the single stag
Banished to a lonely crag
Gazes placid out to sea,
And from thickets round about
Breeding animals look in
On Duality,
And the birds fly in and out
Of the world of man.
Down in order from the ridge,
Bayonets glittering in the sun,
Soldiers who will judge
Wind towards the little bridge:
Even politicians speak
Truths of value to the weak,
Necessary acts are done
By the ill and the unjust;
But the Judgment and the Smile,
Though these two-in-one
See creation as they must,
None shall reconcile.
Bordering our middle earth
Kingdoms of the Short and Tall,
Rivals for our faith,
Stir up envy from our birth:
So the giant who storms the sky
In an angry wish to die
Wakes the hero in us all,
While the tiny with their power
To divide and hide and flee,
When our fortunes fall
Tempt to a belief in our
Immortality.
Lovers running each to each
Feel such timid dreams catch fire
Blazing as they touch,
Learn what love alone can teach:
Happy on a tousled bed
Praise Blake's acumen who said:
"One thing only we require
Of each other; we must see
In another's lineaments
Gratified desire";
This is our humanity;
Nothing else contents.
Nowhere else could I have known
Than, beloved, in your eyes
What we have to learn,
That we love ourselves alone:
All our terrors burned away
We can learn at last to say:
"All our knowledge comes to this,
That existence is enough,
That in savage solitude
Or the play of love
Every living creature is
Woman, Man, and Child."
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Dear friends and family,
Have you ever noticed the silence of the forest?
Not a sound penetrates these dense thickets of brown and green,
and when you walk you can feel the stillness,
the tranquillity and serene.
Footsteps stir the dust creating a blizzard, it stays when you progress,
even the earth's natural instinct is to dissolve back into nothing.
The forest light never shines, and come to think of it neither does mine,
because i've travelled deep enough in and there is no returning.
The fauna here is beautiful, so much life when there is death,
birds chirping out their sweet call as if begging for me to not end this nature walk,
and when I do I know they wont stop chirping, their life will go on,
as will you when you come to terms with what I've done.
I have to find the perfect spot and more than not a perfect place,
because when I leave this earth I want to give back to natures grace.
I will be a bird,
free to explore the next journey without the burden of the world.
I am ready, I want to fly with the assistance of my noose I wont have to stay alive.
Dear friends and family,
Have you ever noticed the stillness of the forest?
because I do not make a sound.
Apr 12, 2016
Apr 12, 2016 at 5:27 PM UTC
Within this jungle, which is ours
I ride the back of Thunder-cloud, my friend
Around and through the thickets
thick banyan trees & palm fruit fallen leaves
Down muddy earthen paths
until everything is green and shadows
until inside its heart, the rain forest
trees of this jungle are city buildings - tall
and choir of fauna high and low
do not fear to sing beneath our cathedral's shade
In this kingdom of flora and ruby rich dirt
belongs to thunder-cloud and dirt-poor me
A Mowgli on his elephant,
hollars ahead to any that hear "We are free!"
Here, far from the whips' lashing, guns,
away from the loud business of murderous money
They who say that I am nothing
in their eyes who abacus my worth with looks
with upraising lust of wolves
but I a free man, a simpleton for beloved (Earth)
I am dark skinned
Krishna on my steed of thunder-clouds
A native son of brown & green wilderness
caterwauling to the beyonds unknown
Within our jungle, brother thunder,
my elephant of deep clouds gray
we are Mammoth and as wild as wide
as open as free... with every step forward
on this living journey
we will take
a peaceful kind of smile
will only be what is written
upon each lovely lovely face
*(Within our jungles...we live simply
without the Man's hate
not today will I hunger, nor will I thirst
fed on real wonder, drank clouds of Himalayan rain
without a rupee to my name... on the back of thunder
my gentle Ganesh - I have no one to blame.)*
May 20, 2016
May 20, 2016 at 3:11 PM UTC
*standing on the threshold of change, I await a fresh-line
but the universe may be unready
if not, I may take to choppy-waters
all by myself*
1.
if we are all stuck in the jam of time
perhaps, if we spread it out real thin
some of us could actually lift off
and catch a ride.. out
free some hostage from the twisting temporal-joints
and the wool-gatherers mind their business
and footsore beggars dine on exotic-things
deep in the heart of the jungle
where Nebuchadnezzar parked his dreams of old
by saving your surprise for a weekday jaunt
we limp on in the vacant-dust of paradox
yet get unavoidably detained by the present
undo the ribbons and the package may unfold its.. things
espy the tick-tock riding the margin of fright
common sense of morn lies delightfully unfinished
and the wrong side of a bold idea gets squashed
the brain-weary ingest their lot and plough on through thickets of tricky-fate
while tiptoeing silent on the farthest-blades of brimstone
holding subtly aloft.. the frankness of aiding-spectres
2.
balloon of green, balloon of blue
hold out your hand and pray you get no inequalities of flame
easy catch of the sound of science scoffing in the parlour
when we try to do something different; take a chance
uncivilised-humour will argue the rings off your punctured-lobes
any germ of new plan must needs be nurtured
let any frenemy go; intolerant-ilk do better by their vacuous selves
remarkably convenient
there's almost enough water in the well
to soak up the ivory-rays and let them fly
and there's a breeze lifting the needle off the ancient-groove
spinning reels on the bay
*no, you will never convince me
that the time-keeper holds all keys
'cos I snuck out furtive.. late one night
and sawed through.. for a whole decade
and well, guess what I have here..*
:)
S T - 24 Jan 2014
Jan 24, 2014
Jan 24, 2014 at 8:24 AM UTC
Steam escapes the surface
Of infant mince pies.
It spirals upwards, dancing
Into the winter haze
Where headlights, opaquely visible,
Fight the fog.
The mist flurries atop the frozen pond,
Over brittle leaves, half caught.
The deer nuzzles in frosty thickets,
Searching the winter veil
For stray nut.
‘neath the tap my hands endure
The bitter cold of winter’s water;
But happily I return to my window,
And cast a gaze once more on winter Britain.
The fire leaves a smoky essence,
A homely smell.
December come.
Nov 15, 2012
Nov 15, 2012 at 2:29 PM UTC
From the outskirts of the town,
Where of old the mile-stone stood,
Now a stranger, looking down
I behold the shadowy crown
Of the dark and haunted wood.
Is it changed, or am I changed?
Ah! the oaks are fresh and green,
But the friends with whom I ranged
Through their thickets are estranged
By the years that intervene.
Bright as ever flows the sea,
Bright as ever shines the sun,
But alas! they seem to me
Not the sun that used to be,
Not the tides that used to run.
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No map traces the street
Where those two sleepers are.
We have lost track of it.
They lie as if under water
In a blue, unchanging light,
The French window ajar
Curtained with yellow lace.
Through the narrow crack
Odors of wet earth rise.
The snail leaves a silver track;
Dark thickets hedge the house.
We take a backward look.
Among petals pale as death
And leaves steadfast in shape
They sleep on, mouth to mouth.
A white mist is going up.
The small green nostrils breathe,
And they turn in their sleep.
Ousted from that warm bed
We are a dream they dream.
Their eyelids keep up the shade.
No harm can come to them.
We cast our skins and slide
Into another time.
3k
Dans le fond des forêts votre image me suit.
RACINE
There is a panther stalks me down:
One day I'll have my death of him;
His greed has set the woods aflame,
He prowls more lordly than the sun.
Most soft, most suavely glides that step,
Advancing always at my back;
From gaunt hemlock, rooks croak havoc:
The hunt is on, and sprung the trap.
Flayed by thorns I trek the rocks,
Haggard through the hot white noon.
Along red network of his veins
What fires run, what craving wakes?
Insatiate, he ransacks the land
Condemned by our ancestral fault,
Crying: blood, let blood be spilt;
Meat must glut his mouth's raw wound.
Keen the rending teeth and sweet
The singeing fury of his fur;
His kisses parch, each paw's a briar,
Doom consummates that appetite.
In the wake of this fierce cat,
Kindled like torches for his joy,
Charred and ravened women lie,
Become his starving body's bait.
Now hills hatch menace, spawning shade;
Midnight cloaks the sultry grove;
The black marauder, hauled by love
On fluent haunches, keeps my speed.
Behind snarled thickets of my eyes
Lurks the lithe one; in dreams' ambush
Bright those claws that mar the flesh
And hungry, hungry, those taut thighs.
His ardor snares me, lights the trees,
And I run flaring in my skin;
What lull, what cool can lap me in
When burns and brands that yellow gaze?
I hurl my heart to halt his pace,
To quench his thirst I squander blook;
He eats, and still his need seeks food,
Compels a total sacrifice.
His voice waylays me, spells a trance,
The gutted forest falls to ash;
Appalled by secret want, I rush
From such assault of radiance.
Entering the tower of my fears,
I shut my doors on that dark guilt,
I bolt the door, each door I bolt.
Blood quickens, gonging in my ears:
The panther's tread is on the stairs,
Coming up and up the stairs.
3k
Past thick briers and dense thickets
Beyond inconsolable oceans and insufferable lakes
Amidst the roar of obstreperous winds
Within the abyss of calamity
I've let you past my obscurities into the forest of my heart
In return you promised your own so our forests would grow
Instead you left the seeds of hatred that grew amongst my trees
You used me as an exploit for your own selfish endeavors
Our love was made of rot and mold
The passion expired and you were gone
You left me to swim my way back
To climb past my briers and thickets
To bear the violent winds
To climb out of the dark abyss
So that I may find myself once again in clutters of debris
Spread out across the shores of what remains of me
Oct 26, 2018
Oct 26, 2018 at 7:35 PM UTC
In the long journey out of the self,
There are many detours, washed-out interrupted raw places
Where the shale slides dangerously
And the back wheels hang almost over the edge
At the sudden veering, the moment of turning.
Better to hug close, wary of rubble and falling stones.
The arroyo cracking the road, the wind-bitten buttes, the canyons,
Creeks swollen in midsummer from the flash-flood roaring into the narrow valley.
Reeds beaten flat by wind and rain,
Grey from the long winter, burnt at the base in late summer.
-- Or the path narrowing,
Winding upward toward the stream with its sharp stones,
The upland of alder and birchtrees,
Through the swamp alive with quicksand,
The way blocked at last by a fallen fir-tree,
The thickets darkening,
The ravines ugly.
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Breathes through
A broken lung,
Gray air slithering in like
A snaking, sneaking
Through the street gutters
And down into a seedy underbelly.
From above,
You can see overpasses sprawling
Like swollen organs—
Cracked pavement,
Wet cement,
Heavy traffic.
In the thick of things
Is where the real soul
Lies:
Children playing hide and seek in
Thickets of rain and mud,
Damp yellow teeth brightening
Ashen faces,
Light feet doggedly dancing.
Jun 7, 2014
Jun 7, 2014 at 10:31 AM UTC
On this hillside where the homeless rest
The Song Sparrow bursts into psalm,
Reciting beautiful exclamations to the heavens above
For the forgotten souls that are concealed below.
In this place called Potters Field lay one million souls
Unknowns from 200 years ago....more & more arriving everyday.
Nestled thickets of wild trees hold these memories past and
Shadow the headstones with prayers inscribed.
How could one small place hold so many forgotten souls?
How could we have forgotten those less fortunate than us?
Saint Benedict's tear filled eyes scan the field
As he try's to to make sense of what has happened.
Lift up your eyes New York and make your voices heard.
Don't let their memory fade away.
God holds a special place for these children because....
In the Kingdom of God....
The last shall be first.
K.E Carman 2016
Apr 9, 2016
Apr 9, 2016 at 1:45 AM UTC
You wonder aimlessly,
In the forest of pain and loneliness,
Scratched, pricked and pierced mercilessly,
****** tears, making, an aching mess.
Feb 4, 2013
Feb 4, 2013 at 8:41 AM UTC
almond fronds for visions
spidered eyes black a wink kisses
the cheeks a sunrise nose spry
lips of tangerine peels left after eating the heart
calmest flowing rivers shoulders of
the places bream nip
for joy under a water slip
she is jungled
shy as the panther in the shadows
sleuthing blending in and standing out
when your eyes do meet a sudden
reality
by god she is beauty
the forest the green lush
thickets impenetrable dark illusive
illusory a dream a destroyer saviour a wild thing
a nerve fiber a coiled up bindle
of masks and hard sharpnesses and soft fur
purr
Jul 13, 2017
Jul 13, 2017 at 5:55 PM UTC
Steam escapes the surface
Of infant mince pies.
Spiralling upwards, it dances
Into the winter haze
Where headlights, opaquely visible,
Shine beams stopped short in the fog.
The mist flurries atop the frozen pond,
Over brittle leaves, half caught.
The deer nuzzles in frosty thickets,
Searching the winter veil
For stray nut.
Mittened song sheets conduct
a huddle of duffle coats
and frosted boots, rooted in the snow.
Sweet carols leave notes hanging
in tranquil harmony.
‘neath the tap my hands endure
The bitter cold of winter’s water;
But happily I return to my window,
And cast a gaze once more on winter Britain.
The fire leaves a smoky essence,
A homely smell.
December come.
Sep 13, 2013
Sep 13, 2013 at 2:20 PM UTC
When the dusts settle from the last wheel
and the sickle moon stoops on the bamboo grove
the dead rise in the whispers of the southern breeze.
You may hear them splashing the canal's water
beneath the hazed halo of one quarter
by nocturne music of barn owl and crickets
in lights of glowworms from darkest thickets.
If you stop on the Rotwood Bridge
can hear them sing in gay abandon
*though we're now all dead old spirits
the night can't make us anymore forlorn*.
The twin moon may from the ripples broken
beckon you and if your spirit awakens
take a plunge for a joyous down go
amid cheers from the watery hollow.
Mar 27, 2016
Mar 27, 2016 at 12:00 PM UTC
Flames Slowly Start To Engulf My Hatred
And Quickly Rekindles My Love
Two Pairs Of Amber Orbs
Stare Into Eachother
Reading A Cryptic Script
Ingredients To Concoct A Brew Of Passion
To Beautifully Stain Life's Pages
My Hand Lies In Yours
And You Tentatively Kiss My Lips
Your Greyish Blue Eyes
Stare Into My Pine Needle Green Irises
And You Don't Look Away
When You Tell Me You Love Me
The Sun Hides Underneath The Horizion
The Only Light Is From Our Flame
Which Burns On The Forest Floor
But Is Too Gentle To Destroy The Thickets
The Stars Above
Guard Our Wishes
And We Both Know
Every Wish Is About Eachother
A Star Dangles From My Neck
Your Promise To Me I'm Forever Yours My Wish That Your Promise Will Never Be Broken
As You Softly Whisper In My Ear
I Feel Your Breath On My Skin
You Hold Me Tight In Your Arms
Which Is The Nicest Home I Could Ever Own
The Crickets Are Now Dead In Falls Grasp
But The Music Of Our Love
A Silent Beat In The Night
Is Music To Our Fire
Which Warms The Night
Tree Branches Are Our Ceiling
And The Ground Is Our Chairs
The Sky Is Our Blanket
And Our Heartbeat Is Our Furnace
A Dream Of True Love
Is Finally Real
You Were The One For All This Time
That Really Helped Me Heal And As You Come Show Me Who You Really Are
I Have To Say I Love You Even More
As Our Flame Grows As Bright As The Sun
We Burn Down To The Mantle Of The Earth
Sniging Away All Of Our Past Sins
It's Just You And I
And Our Heats Beat As One
*And As We Resume Our Lives Apart
We Are Closer Than Ever Before
And As You Gently Kiss Me Goodnight
I Realize I Met You For A Reason*
Oct 18, 2012
Oct 18, 2012 at 9:52 PM UTC
Washed ashore
By the angry ebb
Of lost Atlantis,
The ocean brims
In liquid Jade
And grains of gold.
The sun won't sleep
Under the blanket
Of the vast horizon,
But dances with
The velvet moon
At heaven's feet.
Divine rays pierce
The prismic clouds
Bleeding spectrum,
Rain that seethed
At the apex
Of nature's bossom.
They gushed forth
Like raging horses
To a thirsty basin,
That slithered down
The silver rivers
And shallow streams.
Neon vines
Creep in the floor
Of the sleeping forest
Cradled by the songs
Of Mockingjays
And willow dryads.
The zephyr hums
A joyful song
In the laughing thickets
As flowers bloom
Like newborn stars
In the undergrowth.
In the mellow heart
Of the deep forest
A vixen's cry
Echoed woes
Of the hidden land
And its deadly curse.
Jun 17, 2013
Jun 17, 2013 at 8:03 AM UTC