"thrushes" poems
Terrifying are the attent sleek thrushes on the lawn,
More coiled steel than living - a poised
Dark deadly eye, those delicate legs
Triggered to stirrings beyond sense - with a start, a bounce,
a stab
Overtake the instant and drag out some writhing thing.
No indolent procrastinations and no yawning states,
No sighs or head-scratchings. Nothing but bounce and stab
And a ravening second.
Is it their single-mind-sized skulls, or a trained
Body, or genius, or a nestful of brats
Gives their days this bullet and automatic
Purpose? Mozart's brain had it, and the shark's mouth
That hungers down the blood-smell even to a leak of its own
Side and devouring of itself: efficiency which
Strikes too streamlined for any doubt to pluck at it
Or obstruction deflect.
With a man it is otherwise. Heroisms on horseback,
Outstripping his desk-diary at a broad desk,
Carving at a tiny ivory ornament
For years: his act worships itself - while for him,
Though he bends to be blent in the prayer, how loud and
above what
Furious spaces of fire do the distracting devils
**** and hosannah, under what wilderness
Of black silent waters weep.
41.2k
Some day, if you are lucky,
you’ll return from a thunderous journey
trailing snake scales, wing fragments
and the musk of Earth and moon.
Eyes will examine you for signs
of damage, or change
and you, too, will wonder
if your skin shows traces
of fur, or leaves,
if thrushes have built a nest
of your hair, if Andromeda
burns from your eyes.
Do not be surprised by prickly questions
from those who barely inhabit
their own fleeting lives, who barely taste
their own possibility, who barely dream.
If your hands are empty, treasureless,
if your toes have not grown claws,
if your obedient voice has not
become a wild cry, a howl,
you will reassure them. We warned you,
they might declare, there is nothing else,
no point, no meaning, no mystery at all,
just this frantic waiting to die.
And yet, they tremble, mute,
afraid you’ve returned without sweet
elixir for unspeakable thirst, without
a fluent dance or holy language
to teach them, without a compass
bearing to a forgotten border where
no one crosses without weeping
for the terrible beauty of galaxies
and granite and bone. They tremble,
hoping your lips hold a secret,
that the song your body now sings
will redeem them, yet they fear
your secret is dangerous, shattering,
and once it flies from your astonished
mouth, they-like you-must disintegrate
before unfolding tremulous wings.
Apr 19, 2016
Apr 19, 2016 at 10:37 AM UTC
It's cold in Duhallow this morning and the fields that were green yesterday
Lay chilled to the frost that the night brought a cover of silvery gray
And the little dunnock on bare hedgerow too cold and too hungry to sing
On **** branch he perch sad and silent the hardship that January can bring.
The robins and sparrows by back door like beggars they wait to be fed
In hope that when breakfast is eaten the housewife might throw out some bread
With no thought for song or for nesting their battle is to stay alive
How many will live to see April the Winter so hard to survive?
The first heavy snows of the Winter have fallen on the higher ground
On Clara, Shrone and Caherbarnagh the hills are so white all around
The blackbird and thrush on the bare branch their feathers fluffed against the chill
And hare has come down to the lowland there's nothing to eat on the hill.
But I can remember the bright days when sun shone on the leafy tree
And robins and thrushes and finches piped in the woods of Knocknagree
And to her nest on barn rafters the sparrow brought feathers and hay
And out on the dandelion meadow the pipit sang all through the day.
Young calves and young lambs in green pastures were full of the frolics of Spring
And joy too had come to the river the song of the dipper did ring
And moorhen was out with her babies and she chirped loud if human was near
Her first lesson to them survival to teach them the meaning of fear.
It's cold in Duhallow this morning the thrush silent on the bare tree
And gray on the fields and the hedgerows and gray over all Knocknagree
But I can remember the bright days when nesting birds piped all the day
And hedgerows and woodlands and meadows smelt sweet with the blossoms of May.
Aug 10, 2010
Aug 10, 2010 at 6:42 PM UTC
We know you, and your little dark colors too. A picture book in your purse penned in mustaches on the full faces of your fare. We call you from bed, 8 o' clock in the morning, dog-light you slow wander the Peruvian darkness making jellyfish tentacles with your hands while you feel your way through Salem. We're colder than night and we wake thrice the bits of your day gig. You collapse in a green field of dandelion where thrushes drown you in Brown. We gorge ourselves on mango slivers, pineapple yolks, a half of grapefruit. We know you are close to your end.
On the tops of the cities you call to your lycan friends, the half-sick and muted bray allures them to you, from Bratislava and Mimon, the thoroughfare through the suq. We wait. The foregone untold, the beep beep jug jug swoop sound of the nightingale, in all her dun glory, we wait. Then, as if descending through the moor-lounging silver smoke, the cool stickiness to your fingertips; the fog.
We are there when the blue-less and smoky screen surrounds you, when you shank the auburn Scot hair of the sly fox that stalks, say, a cigarette from your lips. When you take the corners swiftly, gadding the streets. The prize king of vulpicide. You rub its matte fur against your bristly gray beard. And while you lay in your lumps of twelve carat flesh you bleat and you nag. One day you will never come home.
May 2, 2014
May 2, 2014 at 3:14 PM UTC
The scattered words disturb the silence.
I prefer written pages with my left hand,
But it is trembling too much to write slowly
I miss him, his calm hands giving juicy oranges.
Shattered glass falls in slow motion,
Screams in the apartment,
Just the neighbor next door.
Another struggle,
Another soundless fracture
From the outside,
It’s not visible
What really hurts.
I have my refuge.
My piano and fingertips
Strike the rhythm,
Racing to speak in time.
What I want to repeat to myself
It isn’t lush or gentle,
Only barren,
like thoughts hung on a dry twig.
I trace figure eights,
Locked in a simple shape.
I stare and cannot fathom
The logic of a cold two plus two.
A thought-form circles
Around the blue planet.
Something pointing,
With its mercury finger.
It speaks in an unknown dialect
It shows the place to live
And huge fluorescent deserts.
The clouds’ minds —
A piece of earth
Soaked in different
Kinds of screams.
This is my blind chance.
I was born here.
In my mother’s paradise garden
Spinning in dawn’s glow.
Sometimes I just write
To ease personal and common guilt.
I hear tattooed numbers,
Granting citizenship of the lower caste.
And here,
The fresh scent of good life in the morning.
Blackbirds and thrushes fell silent.
My mother knows how to speak to them,
I know how to speak with trees.
Everything pulses,
On this small piece of earth,
Giving shelter to creatures
And stones no one throws.
I am here in a place I can happily bear,
Without cold speculation.
I can still dive into metaphors,
This is my greatest luxury,
The gift after so many disturbing lives.
It would be better to create a world
With only diverse breathing gardens.
I don’t need too much for living,
A naked soul is enough for me.
So, I am sitting in this landscape
And I peacefully hope
That my daughter will remember me tenderly
As I remember him, my father
And all who passed away.
The simplest thing is
The presence of every human being
It's like a celluloid film strip
Left behind the broken ribs
In the left ventricle of the heart
That never lies, never cheats me.
Sep 3, 2025
Sep 3, 2025 at 3:13 PM UTC
Two lovers by a moss-grown spring:
They leaned soft cheeks together there,
Mingled the dark and sunny hair,
And heard the wooing thrushes sing.
O budding time!
O love's blest prime!
Two wedded from the portal stept:
The bells made happy carolings,
The air was soft as fanning wings,
White petals on the pathway slept.
O pure-eyed bride!
O tender pride!
Two faces o'er a cradle bent:
Two hands above the head were locked:
These pressed each other while they rocked,
Those watched a life that love had sent.
O solemn hour!
O hidden power!
Two parents by the evening fire:
The red light fell about their knees
On heads that rose by slow degrees
Like buds upon the lily spire.
O patient life!
O tender strife!
The two still sat together there,
The red light shone about their knees;
But all the heads by slow degrees
Had gone and left that lonely pair.
O voyage fast!
O vanished past!
The red light shone upon the floor
And made the space between them wide;
They drew their chairs up side by side,
Their pale cheeks joined, and said, "Once more!"
O memories!
O past that is!
4.4k
Some are laughing, some are weeping;
She is sleeping, only sleeping.
Round her rest wild flowers are creeping;
There the wind is heaping, heaping
Sweetest sweets of Summer's keeping,
By the cornfields ripe for reaping.
There are lilies, and there blushes
The deep rose, and there the thrushes
Sing till latest sunlight flushes
In the west; a fresh wind brushes
Through the leaves while evening hushes.
There by day the lark is singing
And the grass and weeds are springing:
There by night the bat is winging;
There forever winds are bringing
Far-off chimes of church-bells ringing.
Night and morning, noon and even,
Their sound fills her dreams with Heaven:
The long strife at length is striven:
Till her grave-bands shall be riven
Such is the good portion given
To her soul at rest and shriven.
4.4k
When April bends above me
And finds me fast asleep,
Dust need not keep the secret
A live heart died to keep.
When April tells the thrushes,
The meadow-larks will know,
And pipe the three words lightly
To all the winds that blow.
Above his roof the swallows,
In notes like far-blown rain,
Will tell the little sparrow
Beside his window-pane.
O sparrow, little sparrow,
When I am fast asleep,
Then tell my love the secret
That I have died to keep.
3.6k
O cool is the valley now
And there, love, will we go
For many a choir is singing now
Where Love did sometime go.
And hear you not the thrushes calling,
Calling us away?
O cool and pleasant is the valley
And there, love, will we stay.
3.2k
The vivid grass with visible delight
Springing triumphant from the pregnant earth,
The butterflies, and sparrows in brief flight
Chirping and dancing for the season's birth,
The dandelions and rare daffodils
That touch the deep-stirred heart with hands of gold,
The thrushes sending forth their joyous trills,--
Not these, not these did I at first behold!
But seated on the benches daubed with green,
The castaways of life, a few asleep,
Some withered women desolate and mean,
And over all, life's shadows dark and deep.
Moaning I turned away, for misery
I have the strength to bear but not to see.
3.1k
Farewell to the bushy clump close to the river
And the flags where the butter-bump hides in forever;
Farewell to the weedy nook, hemmed in by waters;
Farewell to the miller’s brook and his three bonny daughters;
Farewell to them all while in prison I lie—
In the prison a thrall sees naught but the sky.
Shut out are the green fields and birds in the bushes;
In the prison yard nothing builds, blackbirds or thrushes.
Farewell to the old mill and dash of waters,
To the miller and, dearer still, to his three bonny daughters.
In the nook, the larger burdock grows near the green willow;
In the flood, round the moor-cock dashes under the billow;
To the old mill farewell, to the lock, pens, and waters,
To the miller himsel’, and his three bonny daughters.
2.9k
Hunters, where does Hope nest?
Not in the half-oped breast,
Nor the young rose,
Nor April sunrise—those
With a quick wing she brushes,
The wide world through,
Greets with the throat of thrushes,
Fades from as fast as dew.
But, would you spy her sleeping,
Cradled warm,
Look in the breast of weeping,
The tree stript by storm;
But, would you bind her fast,
Yours at last,
Bed-mate and lover,
Gain the last headland bare
That the cold tides cover,
There may you capture her, there,
Where the sea gives to the ground
Only the drift of the drowned.
Yet, if she slips you, once found,
Push to her uttermost lair
In the low house of despair.
There will she watch by your head,
Sing to you till you be dead,
Then, with your child in her breast,
In another heart build a new nest.
2.6k
In a dream I shall feel
The wings of the world unfolding, and
Worlds spinning on the axis of mad journeys;
And the seas breaking turquoise, upon their rippled surface.
In the heart of the ears
I shall hear the shivering willows, dreaming their
Wood-smoke dreams, full of sap and funneled sunlight;
Pierced by light for a thousand years
And the flowers sleeping nestled in stars;
Gathered in the deep, among the wood-thrushes,
In coagulated violet forests, all shadowed and dark:
And a whispered peace barely rustles this world.
Apr 28, 2010
Apr 28, 2010 at 2:44 PM UTC
Someday if you are lucky, you'll return from a thunderous journey, trailing snake scales, wing fragments, and the musk of the earth and moon.
Eyes will examine you for signs of damage or change and you too will wonder if your skin shows traces, of fur or leaves, if thrushes have built a nest in your hair.
If Andromeda burns from your eyes.
Don't be surprised by prickly questions from those who barely inhabit their own fleeting lives, who barely taste their own potential, who barely dream.
If your hands are empty, treasureless, if your toes have not grown claws, if your obedient voice has not become a wildcry, a howl, you will reasure them.
We warned you, they might declare, there is nothing else, no point, no meaning, no mystery at all. Just this frantic waiting to die.
And yet they will tremble, mute, afraid you've returned without sweet elixir for unspeakable thirst, without a fluent dance or holy language.
No teach them without compass bearing to a forgotten boarder where no-one crosses without weeping for the terrible beauty of galaxies and granite and stone.
They tremble, hoping your lips hold a secret, that the song your body now sings will redeem them, yet they fear.
Your secret is dangerous, shattering and once it flies from your astonished mouth, they-like-you-must-dis-intergrate
Before unfolding tremendous wings.
May 8, 2017
May 8, 2017 at 6:24 PM UTC
In melancholy moonless Acheron,
Farm for the goodly earth and joyous day
Where no spring ever buds, nor ripening sun
Weighs down the apple trees, nor flowery May
Chequers with chestnut blooms the grassy floor,
Where thrushes never sing, and piping linnets mate no more,
There by a dim and dark Lethaean well
Young Charmides was lying; wearily
He plucked the blossoms from the asphodel,
And with its little rifled treasury
Strewed the dull waters of the dusky stream,
And watched the white stars founder, and the land was like a dream,
When as he gazed into the watery glass
And through his brown hair’s curly tangles scanned
His own wan face, a shadow seemed to pass
Across the mirror, and a little hand
Stole into his, and warm lips timidly
Brushed his pale cheeks, and breathed their secret forth into a
sigh.
Then turned he round his weary eyes and saw,
And ever nigher still their faces came,
And nigher ever did their young mouths draw
Until they seemed one perfect rose of flame,
And longing arms around her neck he cast,
And felt her throbbing ***** and his breath came hot and fast,
And all his hoarded sweets were hers to kiss,
And all her maidenhood was his to slay,
And limb to limb in long and rapturous bliss
Their passion waxed and waned,—O why essay
To pipe again of love, too venturous reed!
Enough, enough that Eros laughed upon that flowerless mead.
Too venturous poesy, O why essay
To pipe again of passion! fold thy wings
O’er daring Icarus and bid thy lay
Sleep hidden in the lyre’s silent strings
Till thou hast found the old Castalian rill,
Or from the Lesbian waters plucked drowned Sappho’s golden quid!
Enough, enough that he whose life had been
A fiery pulse of sin, a splendid shame,
Could in the loveless land of Hades glean
One scorching harvest from those fields of flame
Where passion walks with naked unshod feet
And is not wounded,—ah! enough that once their lips could meet
In that wild throb when all existences
Seemed narrowed to one single ecstasy
Which dies through its own sweetness and the stress
Of too much pleasure, ere Persephone
Had bade them serve her by the ebon throne
Of the pale God who in the fields of Enna loosed her zone.
2k
*Chitter , chatter chirrup
Three birds of a feather
A friendly chummy posy -
in perfect morning tide pleasure
Trilling , thrilling , touring Thrush's in the noon palmettos
Chiming sweet refrains in the -
broomcorn meadow
Musky , dusky weary
Gold songsters in a bush
A huckleberry trio in the-
nighttime hush*
Apr 6, 2016
Apr 6, 2016 at 10:25 PM UTC
At yon boundaries are shrubs,
Waiting like unlit chapel bulbs,
Under are flowers also plugged,
Within wet soil, grabbing waters,
Rains once pelted withal seeds,
Into the skies they both breathe,
Under earth, worms wriggle up,
Graduating in swirls to the sun,
On blankets of grass are daisies,
Wildly napping a dreamy breeze,
Thrushes in rushes joyfully sing,
Lilt of lullabies from skies begin,
Songbirds dropping windy hues,
The giddy butterflies justly knew,
What bees do bounces, busy for,
Such patchwork paradise galore.
Apr 30, 2016
Apr 30, 2016 at 1:45 AM UTC
weathered fingertips in sensual crescendo
arouse blitzing keystrokes to commove
wild Js and Zeds, Ks and Is too.
harmony of the king's three-thousand acre jungle
swallowing the stormy orange cyclical stew
and tantamount to its feral cavities
thrushes whet jagged spinal bones to split
news of the no-rhythm, sambas of new religious canter
infiltrates the **** cavernous walls
This inner ear and greater sound
knew to find sanctuary here.
Lends its awesome craft to the next
And next, and next, and next;
beautiful unboxed melodies
new unused sweet single-reeds
threading that 20s centrifuge.
Saxophone. Incantations unfolding
Aloof in its ***** it unwraps
The veil of green, a costume of black coffees
Cigarette stained curtains exhumed to greet
Thick plumes of albicant sinewy smoke
At the heap of its glorious song
Uniting the funnel of eardom to consecrate
Bliss. Intrinsic and purple
An irrational knot of Portuguese drum
Met over by African toms and rattles
A glue imbued into those unmistakable
Chakras of this spell of mourning and reversed
Names of starlight girls and their other'd selves
These are the weapons of our new key strokes.
And upon the cortex it reveals this lift anew
Where death greeted me to intervene a place
Where sound and silence meet, and new strikes
Put my hands in halves. Pear-shaped birds pecking
At the joints, and where bowl-shaped tones bring
Their impeccable limbs to atone with auburn and cerise soils
Beneath the high ridges of doom- the empowering backspace
Does not exist, only new nothingnesses and their hooves
Splashing into each step into the next, and the next, and the next,
And the next.
Nov 6, 2015
Nov 6, 2015 at 7:10 AM UTC
This is the time I cannot bear: this silent evening hour
As I shut windows and the balcony to prying nightsong:
In the trance of dim lights, I ride the incense plume
Across whispers and half-thoughts, slicing through
The canvasses of time: that unforgettable house of love
Perched by the lakes, circled by the stream and canal
Where worlds and time stopped to catch a glimpse
Many shades of grey silhouetted against stormy skies
Of swans gliding past fresh ripples across reeds
Drenched in a hundred hues of ethereal moonlight,
Hum of the wind surfing on the waters, drunken voices
Of assorted lovelorn: thrushes, finches, hidden warblers
Majestic storks and herons guarded the secret doors
To eternity, pitched right in the middle of the great city
By the home that housed love in precious embrace
O the cold of the winter that screened for damp corners
In our souls, through meditative shades lining the view,
The home that I squandered, I who love ruins and rubble
Aug 15, 2012
Aug 15, 2012 at 12:02 PM UTC
I
Suddenly, I'm nostalgic,
for the times when life was simpler,
and we were blind to the evil that dwelt amongst its thrushes
where we played.
We coloured its black and white pages
with crayons,
and placed them somewhat carelessly
into the folders of our memories.
Now we constantly search for them,
and the joy that was once ours.
II
The dark was my sworn enemy,
but now I embrace it with open arms.
Curiosity was once my dear friend,
now I've all the answers I never wanted.
Questions continue to bloom
in my garden of knowledge
and I let them die.
Afraid to know the truths,
I would rather nourish the lies
I have planted.
III
Suddenly I am nostalgic,
for the times when life was simpler;
when I could admire the roses,
without glancing at their threatening thorns;
when I could freely laugh,
and not feel the tears behind my eyes;
when I could dream my whole world up,
and not fear it will come crashing down.
Ignorance was really bliss,
and freedom, never my wish.
Mar 21, 2016
Mar 21, 2016 at 12:51 PM UTC
When June comes dancing o'er the death of May,
With scarlet roses tinting her green breast,
And mating thrushes ushering in her day,
And Earth on tiptoe for her golden guest,
I always see the evening when we met--
The first of June baptized in tender rain--
And walked home through the wide streets, gleaming wet,
Arms locked, our warm flesh pulsing with love's pain.
I always see the cheerful little room,
And in the corner, fresh and white, the bed,
Sweet scented with a delicate perfume,
Wherein for one night only we were wed;
Where in the starlit stillness we lay mute,
And heard the whispering showers all night long,
And your brown burning body was a lute
Whereon my passion played his fevered song.
When June comes dancing o'er the death of May,
With scarlet roses staining her fair feet,
My soul takes leave of me to sing all day
A love so fugitive and so complete.
1.5k
*the twigs are still and quiet
indeed the birds have flown
soon it'll all be ice and snow
and shrubbery in a white gown
as everywhere traffic seeks ease of flow
i see that the birds have flown
and that no more grass has grown
no more daffodils, lupine and hollyhocks
or the bluebirds, larks, thrushes and nightingales
that jimmie rodgers waxed lyrical about
one swallow i see in acrobatic show
of frantic rhythm to beat the snow
but futile its extravaganza ever is
for one swallow does not make a summer
i see that indeed the birds have flown*
Oct 2, 2016
Oct 2, 2016 at 6:52 PM UTC
Wandering
not lost because only those
who choose to be lost
are the ones who feel most free.
Wondering
not found because those who
find themselves stranded on mountains
peaks that steep with cliffs
so brief they threaten to
collapse the body with snow.
But dirt tends to cling
to those who dare
themselves to fall
hitting pine trees
and mulberry bushes
hearing buzzing bees
and small white thrushes.
Jan 25, 2017
Jan 25, 2017 at 3:40 AM UTC
Small, different hues of brown
Little black eyes and tiny pink feet
Junco
Eating the seeds on the ground
Inspiring something inside
The next day,
Clear tubes with red perches
Showed off the mix of seeds
Waiting for the first customer
Disappointed when nothing came
The next week,
Losing hope
Still looking, but not as often
Nothing, the one single Junco
Gone
Then that one day
There were two
Hopping off the fence
Onto those little red perches
Draining the tubes of the food
That had been waiting for them
Slowly but surely
More started coming
New birds
New numbers
Sparrows, finches, thrushes, doves
New feeders
New house
Getting the birds back
A new feeder
Filled with nectar
Waiting patiently
Now knowing it could take a while
And then
One day
Watching out the window
Hoping
That one just one might come
Then not one but three!
All in that one day!
Male and female Anna’s
Male Rufous
Zooming and glimmering
Light reflecting off gorgets
Creating the otherworldly hues
Of purple, red, green
In the days that followed
More feeders
More birds
More knowledge
Much more learned
A new hobby
A new love
That will continue
from that day on
Thanks
To that little
Junco
Apr 21, 2016
Apr 21, 2016 at 9:13 PM UTC