"thunderheads" poems
Behind the barn in late afternoon
Uncle Ray lifts my brother
to the seat of a harrower
abandoned now
and rusted to this field of family
tilted and monumental
plunging its tines into memory
of broken earth
behind this life of the workhorses they were
My father and my Uncle Ray—talking
Scattered conversation
in hushed tones
...as skyscraping thunderheads
slashed through their heights
by arrows of fire
light the pumpkins
between hay bundles
of time golden
Oct 20, 2016
Oct 20, 2016 at 1:24 AM UTC
I first remembered years ago,
At twenty-something,
Speeding along in a 240Z
With my father.
Apropos of nothing,
I suddenly remembered it all,
The pain, fear, chases
And flights up stairs,
Only to have her catch me,
And feel the pummeling fists
Like a mad horse’s hooves,
Treading me down.
Back in the present,
My father was admiring trees
As we buzzed past them,
Unaware of the storm beside him.
She wore him down too
In a different way,
With constant denigration.
Over the years I watched
As he shrank way to
A painful, infested brain.
Unlike me, he had no defense,
Loving her as he still did.
It was as if he chose cancer
instead of anger or rebellion.
I had raged against her
And stood tall from childhood
To the now, when thunderheads
Rose from me above her.
Long ago, she had been
The random bolts from the blue,
Causing pain but not killing.
Now I am the storm,
Gathering over years,
Sweeping up heat and vapor
Sending and receiving energy.
The lightning bolts are truth
And their pain is admission,
Though never bringing remorse.
I am the storm warning her to run,
While knowing that she never will.
Edited October 2, 2021
Apr 3, 2022
Apr 3, 2022 at 5:03 PM UTC
The Queen of Absentia rises from royal
stool to watch the moon set sheathed
in broiling cloud as she skips whirling
adders that hiss in fat jagged coils, their
hollow blades jutting death in sprinkler
sprays of misting veils and her
head is hypethral; a Gaudi shipping
container soldered in reptile curves,
licked by arrowheads of falcate flame
as she rounds its laughing corners;
an adderaled lab rat, eyes black funnels
drinking electrodes pulsing crimson and
the stars are crackling in the pan as she
sees planets torn shrieking down Hell’s hungry
plughole as fallen Gods divide by zero
and the clock’s skittering claws scratch
prophecies of consequence of poorly
sewn seams, but she smiles like a risen
crocodile and says,
‘you’re just jealous cos the
voices only talk to me.’
And again she dives as unwanted
advice gibbers up out snapping drains,
and power points shoot sharp blue spears
lighting substrates of ancient horror, inchoate
but fattening before her eyes as she
sits, wrapped in ghosts, guarding her
ochre tea in its chalice of steaming bone,
trying to sell herself a ticket to
tomorrow’s sunrise, staring at thunderheads
bunching up satin over sodden ninjas sprouting
cardboard hair, slicing down legions of
roaring pearl as death hunts hollow-eyed below.
Her Majesty holds court, amid the percussion of
steel and plate, a matador to shadows
that clasp their hands and dance around, as
clouds hammer rain to the ground.
Jul 23, 2012
Jul 23, 2012 at 6:44 PM UTC
if i could paint a picture
of how much i regret the way things ended
it would be a sad assemblage
of pastel blues and greys and blacks
stained with flecks of golden yellow
not unlike the thunderheads currently taking up residence in my head.
If i could write you a letter
it would be yet another failed attempt
at describing how much my very soul aches
for something as simple as your presence.
if i could hold your hand
the nearby flowers would bloom
and the sun would glow green with envy.
if i could kiss your lips
i would certainly lose my mind
and not want to be found ever again.
if i could call out your name
i would hope that the winds would show me pity
and carry my voice to your ears.
if i were to sing a song
it would be a beautiful ballad
every measure dedicated to another flawless part of you.
if i could build a bridge
that spanned across time
it would lead me back to that wednesday in august
in your arms
slipping into slumber to the rhythm
of the raindrops tapping upon the windowpane.
if i could tell a story
it would be of the way the sun chases the moon across the sky;
to urge everyone everywhere to cherish those close to them.
if i could make myself stronger
i would squeeze the earth until
the number of miles between you and i
dwindled down to zero.
if i could look into a mirror
i would be puzzled by what i would see
and find it hard to recognize
the face staring back at me.
if i could give you my heart
i would in an instant.
in the time it takes for my heart to beat its last iambic
i would rip open true ribs one through five
and offer my crimson ***** to you.
if i could have met you any other way
under different circumstances
in a different time
under a different sun
maybe this would have ended differently
or not ended at all.
Dec 27, 2013
Dec 27, 2013 at 10:48 AM UTC
Dogfish thunderheads whisper in Seagrove skies
after a dinner of Shiraz and shrimp with peppercorn skids
that filled me warm and these clouds echoing
in the water seem dark without the children
and their crab lights searching the shores
the foam crests roar upon day burnt toes
and I sit and I watch and I write
these words in a strained attempt to capture
Dads margarita redness and Moms new haven beauty.
Sister and I observe on this, mayhaps last trip
as a family lacking a bay, but we are full joyed:
we are contented in sandy sheets.
We are one, for this week, whole
and it is good.
Lord, it is good.
On Jordan's stormy banks we stand
Through the love of God our savior all will be well.
Aug 5, 2013
Aug 5, 2013 at 10:00 PM UTC
You show me your world,
catchy pop rhythms,
smiles and childish laughter;
I long for something more,
something different,
something that cannot be described
in words or song.
I know from the beginning
that this cannot be.
I show you my world;
you catch a glimpse through
the twilight gloom,
amongst distant thunderheads.
You can see, in the distance,
a vast, colorless landscape.
Mountains that disappear into the heavens,
endless plains outstretched into oblivion;
this is my world, you see?
This is me.
Your sweetness can be topped,
somewhat, with a cherry;
an ice cream sundae dripping with
warm fudge and decadent condiments.
But this is not me, you see?
This cannot be.
May 9, 2010
May 9, 2010 at 4:59 AM UTC
Chills run up my spine as the spring air cools. I notice the sky behind me. Thunderclouds clash and lightning strikes at a distance.
The storm is coming.
There are blurred faces everywhere, in a rush to get to safety. As the storm's fury would take their lives if they were to be trapped. But I do not fear the tempest. I hear it calling to me, as if to lure me into its eminent danger.
The storm moves closer.
As if to intimidate me, the clouds taunt me with their peril, and the salty rain fills my eyes. The thunder is deafening. The downpour soaks my shoes, running off my coat in the middle of the gale.
The storm is all around me.
Black thunderheads above me, the lightning strikes. The illumination casts shadows in the sky, a perfect silhouette.
The storm is beautiful.
The storm moves on, the sun pierces the clouds, and a silver lining of discomfort and insecurity enter the void in my soul.
The storm is my comfort.
Aug 30, 2013
Aug 30, 2013 at 12:00 AM UTC
Her eyes, posts
of bare hazel clique,
survey me in this chair.
Her hair gathers in rude
thunderheads by the ear,
black about the field.
Her engraved mouth
is crowded with oblivion
and serendipity, beckons
a foreshortened hand
that warbles with filaments
of anticipation.
The aspect of her neck
brims with motion -
a swan on flat water
chases the smeared
crumbs of evening.
The beach of her *******
her cheek, her blush bough brow,
Her knee, in repose,
sustains a milk leg -
Her face, gathered
to watercolor thought -
And behind it all, a mind
rejoicing in the sun-
O portrait, be glad
you have no memories -
with every new pair of eyes
you have a new lover,
a new lover, a new lover.
Feb 2, 2021
Feb 2, 2021 at 12:58 AM UTC
( I am Happy to announce the publication of my new poetry book: 108 Bhakti Kisses, The Ecstatic Poetry of a Modern Day Gopi by Sonya Ki Tomlinson available on Amazon
http://amzn.com/0984787216)
Happy and Holy Holidays
108 bhakti kisses
Courting Your adoring feet
108 Names of God
adorn the temple gates
where I kneel close to
Your precious Feet
108 Crystal mala beads
poised like stars passing
one by one over my fingers
tiny bridges across
an immense and luminous expanse
Infinite frontier
The Soul returning to its Source
offspring of Light
I look to the Heavens
my sustenance
thunderheads, distant mist
solitary black cameo shape
of a bird soaring swiftly
vanishes into
ballooning, billowing
blue wilderness of Your eyes
Dec 24, 2013
Dec 24, 2013 at 1:25 PM UTC
It's Rainy Again. The Four Day Storm Is Lethargically Pulling It's Rain Filled Belly Across The Sky. The Air Smells Of Crispness And Decaying Leaves; Dampened By The Warm Droplets Of Water Which Collected Upon Them. The Clouds Cast A Gray Shadow Among The Mist Filled Air, Making Even A Smile Seem Somewhat Gray And Tasteless. The Dawn Is Quiet, The Retreat Of Songbirds Evident, The Scent Of Fall Prominent; Clinging To My Clothing. My Eyes Linger, Tracing The Rigid Edges Of The Storm Above. The Masculine Brim Of The Thunderheads Reminded Me Of The Storm Inside Your Eyes, One I Have Witnessed Many Times. One I Have Danced In, Took In, Loved You In. Though Now, Only A Drought Lurks In The Borrows Of My Soul, For You And Your Storm Have Deserted Me, Leaving Nothing But A Calm And Tangible Gray.
Oct 5, 2013
Oct 5, 2013 at 6:01 PM UTC
Poets...writers...artists...musicians.
Those who eat their words,
bleed their colors,
breathe their notes.
Only dreamers
of no consequence.
Only lovers of life
who write, paint, sing to live.
Movers and shaker
laugh at the starving artists.
Few will make money,
fewer still reach fame.
Many reach the hearts
of other lovers of life,
resuscitating dying dreams,
breathing hope and beauty,
singing glory and brilliance
into dark, cringing corners.
The bleeding hearts begin to heal
and beat, beat, beat as one;
a marching tune, a clarion call
to gather into thunderheads
to storm toward the movers
and still the mighty shakers,
a deluge of words and images
the music of the multitudes
come down upon the leaders' heads
to swallow them whole
and let digestion take its course.
Apr 24, 2011
Apr 24, 2011 at 3:17 PM UTC
my fingers are spindles of thread, unwoven from blankets of strong women who fought harder fights than I could withstand.
my neck is a porcelain clock. engraved with wisps of words, it's cogs churning to keep my brain functioning.
my torso is an storm. lightning leaves scars acrioss the lining of my stomach, spreading out like spiderwebs, covered in dew. thunderheads boom when I walk, rattling my ribs and awakening this hummingbird heart.
my spine is a garden, blooming. daisys and forget-me-nots bloom from the soil tilled into my veterbrae.
My hamstrings are tightrope across the twin towers, quivering.
My knees are doorknobs left unturned, the room contents dusty and cobwebs string the corners.
Aug 27, 2014
Aug 27, 2014 at 12:46 AM UTC
You stir, sheets stick to your skin,
drawn curtains; shake off the spins.
A summit of buttermilk thunderheads
snap the silk threaded ilk from your covered bed;
a flurry of cats and dogs in Elysium,
but you’d even prefer the Devil beat his wife instead.
There’s no clarity in a mare’s tail;
can’t bear to see the day in shades of gray-scale;
exhale the sale from off the same scale.
You’d rather play jail than pay bail so you can pray tell.
And now I’m in the dark with a snare drum background;
hounds drowned barks turn heads, twiddle thumbs, and lack sound.
And a drenched cat just wants the home with the furnace:
the blankets, the treats, the tone; only earnest.
I’m learning.
Jun 25, 2013
Jun 25, 2013 at 12:46 AM UTC
She smiled
her best hurricane smile
with lightening instead of teeth and
eyes at once anxious and unkind,
whispering first,
“you ain’t near good enough.”
Then,
“I’m probably going to **** you tomorrow.”
The gate has
an intimidating portcullis
secured with
a five dollar padlock
from Ace Hardware.
That’s enough to keep me out.
Over the high south wall I can see
broken glass treetops,
not so much reaching for the sky as
probing it for weaknesses.
I stand and stare
as day turns night.
Some far off moon rises;
a sickly crescent
that reminds me of
a smile
like a hurricane
with thunderheads
instead of dimples.
Suddenly
I am filled with dread
for tomorrow.
Feb 10, 2016
Feb 10, 2016 at 1:16 PM UTC
I spun a fine metal string
I took four corners of my heart
Smoothing them out
With rarely loving hands
I attached the key to my newly minted kite
Out into the storm I swirled
Climbing the glass hill
So many fine lined fractures
I could find at least several sonnets
If only I stooped low enough to read
But alas I've crested my checkpoint
Outstretched you are
Thunderheads dominating the sky
Flashes of light
But my heart still flies on
Unhindered
Paper thin
Right where it's supposed to be
The key flailing gaily
Pure darkness
But sometimes darkness
It can be the brightest thing ever
And it's finally struck its mark
The X has been found
The electricity outlining your delicate veins
I never realized how pretty you were
Smoke curls out of my mouth
Stunned and dazed
Tendrils flowing freely
Dregs of adrenaline
Flooding out of my system
I never knew that I could feel this way
I never knew
As I lay upon the ground
Watching my hearted kite drop gracefully
Shriveled and burned to a crisp
How important you were to me
Until we were struck
So in our dying moments as you finally reach me
I fold my arms carefully across you
Pressing you into my chest as if I could undo what I did
And we watch the storm rage
As everything slowly melts
Into a velvety soft black
And as one
We stop beating
Aug 11, 2018
Aug 11, 2018 at 3:42 PM UTC
Behind the barn in late afternoon
Uncle Ray lifts my brother
to the seat of a harrower
abandoned now
and rusted to this field of family
tilted and monumental
plunging its tines into memory
of broken earth
behind this life of the workhorses they were
My father and my Uncle Ray—talking
Scattered conversation
in hushed tones
...as skyscraping thunderheads
slashed through their heights
by arrows of fire
light the pumpkins
between hay bundles
of time golden
Oct 25, 2017
Oct 25, 2017 at 2:04 PM UTC
When the sea is blue glass brightling
and no secrets haunt its depths
I watch your yellow laughter as it sails beyond me
and does not look back
When the fields are busy with greening
I feel your hands, lazily skimming
the tall grass blades, waist height
As you languidly stride past me
Your gaze not falling behind
When the purple dusk air is full
Of vermillion butterfly wings
I see you turn slow circles, your face towards the sky
Spinning ever beyond me
I saw the grey-black thunderheads and the tang of ozone
Silver-violet forks of heaven's anger
Scarred the earth beneath
The seas foamed and swelled, thunderous with ire
All gossamer things scattered, scared
And I saw you, turning
A question in your eyes;
But
I will not be your haven
The arms you reach for in the dark
You turn from me in sunlight
Fleeing like a dust-mote, away
I will not be your haven
Unless ...
You promise me you'll stay.
Jun 18, 2015
Jun 18, 2015 at 7:12 PM UTC
St. Andrews Bay has left a mark on me , where jetties battle sea
Summer storm , distant , courtesy of afternoon breeze.
Thunderheads cool white sand , wash , clean and renew thoughts better left to antiquity ......Orange sky ...Lightning , where gulf and sky meet.........
Sep 18, 2015
Sep 18, 2015 at 4:59 PM UTC
.
The corners of my life are worn with cracks,
my spine is older and bowing.
My dust jacket has been consumed by moth,
yet the words within are still glowing.
Thunderheads are dancing in my backyard,
big bands swing in the childrens eyes.
When did imagination become insanity,
death is short-lived, yet everyone tries.
Distant tides crash in a familiar pattern,
queen bees dance within their hive.
Even while tragedy is striking,
you're still glad to be alive.
A glass of red wine sits atop my piano,
and then comes the sudden strike of a key.
A synthetic chord becomes entwined together,
kind of reminds me of you and me.
Where destinies flowed from the magic wand,
then a vast array of cynics came into view.
Then rumbling forces warred with us from
doing unto others as you'd have done unto you.
Complex and complete, yes--
alt and delete never understood, “just because.”
The thunderheads roared, and yet they restored
the man I really thought that I was.
The corners of my life are worn with cracks,
my spine is older and bowing.
My dust jacket has been consumed by moth,
yet the words within are still glowing...
The words within are still glowing!
Jun 3, 2012
Jun 3, 2012 at 2:45 AM UTC
Madison mounted her coal black mare
In the yard of the Smugglers Inn,
Her coat was black and her hair was fair
And her jodhpurs tucked well in,
The sky was in a threatening mood
With its thunderheads from hell,
As lightning forked on the ancient rood
And the rain teemed down as well.
‘You need to get to the Laird,’ I cried,
‘Tell him to haste to me,
Another day and she may have died,
I’m trying to set her free.
But the Pikemen stand outside her door
And they say they guard her skin,
There were locks and chains on her door before
Up there, in the Smugglers Inn.’
‘Tell him to bring his gallant troop
To dismay the Duke of Bray,
He means to imprison his daughter
In his tower, the Lady Grey,’
The Pikemen said that I’d lose my head
If I tried to breach her door,
And wouldn’t answer whenever I asked,
‘What is she locked in for?’
So Madison wheeled the mare around
And she put it to the spur,
If any could ride a horse to ground
I knew that it was her,
She headed off to the Castle Croft
Head bent to the driving rain,
With lightning flashing around her mount
I watched her across the plain.
What seemed to take forever, I thought,
Was merely an hour or two,
But then my fears were set at naught
As the troop came jangling through.
Each man had raised his sabre and
He’d kept his powder dry,
My heart was surging within me as
The troop came riding by.
And then, at last, was Madison
Still riding with the Laird,
Determined then to save her friend,
To show her that she cared.
The Pikemen soon were beaten down
Were lost in the affray,
I never did catch a glimpse of him,
Their lord, the Duke of Bray.
It took a moment to smash the locks
On the door of Lady Grey,
And all the troop had cheered out loud
As the chains, they fell away.
Madison was the first in line
To embrace the one within,
But we were not to know what lay
Up there, in the Smugglers Inn.
The Lady, held in a firm embrace
Had staggered out through the door,
But blood and pustules were on her face
Like we’d never seen before.
A dying Pikemen called, ‘You fools,
You’ve unleashed a bitter ague,
And then he sighed just before he died,
‘Behold, you have the plague!’
David Lewis Paget
Oct 12, 2015
Oct 12, 2015 at 6:16 AM UTC
The sun licks a warm honey strike
Up the back of my head, heats the
Hair there like a hot coke you
Left in a closed car on a beach day;
Catches on my fingers, too
Curled fingers cushioning my skull away from
A plastic pressurized wall.
And it's peaceful, and misleading:
I could drowse believing my body
To be sleeping against the slattered
Windows of a San Francisco street-car
Until all at once the engines scream excitedly
And throw our little toothpaste-tube
Forward and, improbably, up
And that shadow on the
Water could be a toy plane
Surely we're bigger than that:
This close to the sun, we ought to
Shadow a city block
But above the cloud layer, we are
Nothing. The sun here burns so
Brightly it bakes the very sky
A hard, kiln blue, and I know now
Than man was made for the sky:
Clouds sitting like icebergs in this,
Apollo's lake, a more than adequate
Consolation prize, given the circumstances
That we will never have Antarctica
Down in the snow you won't find
Thin patches and thunderheads, anyway,
Drawing dragons and tracing cherubs
In the overdone meringue
But the ice flows pull together
And I lose all sense of scale
When I look away at the call of
"Peanuts, pretzels, M&M;'s,
Please keep your seatbelts on"
And for all the marvel outside,
I'm struck by this: how steady a desk
A seat-back tray makes.
And I put my notebook down for the
First time next to a
Remarkably unspilling coke
And I think, yes,
Man was made for the sky.
Apr 3, 2013
Apr 3, 2013 at 3:59 PM UTC
Thunderheads collide, shake the sky
Disturb solidity and sleep.
Lightning rends the sea,
A division, a decision
To walk across unscathed—
To lose yourself in waters unknown
For blissful or torturous life of your heart
that lies drying and dying on the sand.
Oct 27, 2012
Oct 27, 2012 at 5:17 PM UTC
He was a bull goose ******
And he always was to begin with
So how did you get in the groove
To think he would improve
As if electing him to office would
Turn him magically good?
No matter how much we booed
This country is now *******
And the sad thing is that many
Had to stay home for this *****
To get to win the whole race
Instead of being put in his place.
So, now are facing the possibility
Despite all reasonable credibility
Our fine and beloved old nation
Is facing humiliating obliteration.
Those of us who have survived
How our country got so swived
That it has taken nearly a decade
To clean up the mess Dubya made
Know this sense of fear and outrage
We felt in that scary bygone age.
We know terror is back once again
To drown us in that same fen.
It is spooky and amazing
The swath the GOP is blazing
With their hatred of common folks,
Their slurs and ****** jokes
All aimed to ****** freedom
By spouting lies they call wisdom
While millions of fools believe crap
All unaware their rhetoric is pap.
Jan 22, 2017
Jan 22, 2017 at 4:58 PM UTC