"tracery" poems
Dear diabolic debutante / Spawn of the unfathomable abyss of blackness / Daughter of dreadful dead desire / Black-shrouded sinister sister of celestial gloom before whose imperious gaze the heavens fall silent / Whip-lash girl-child of the graves whose pallid visage kindles the myriad infernal fires / Autocratic vampiress of lunar doom whose winding-cloth enfolds the thousand horrors of blood-drenched nightmare / Thou that wanderest the cypress-crested hills of funereal necropolises / Whose icy glance cracks the ungraven tombstones of utter desolation / Empress of night and madness / Who stalks the locked and shadowed hallways of unhallowed thought / Whose burial-boat glides the still waters over Lethe’s silent depths to the unglimpsed isle of eternal mourning / Whose parapets tower above the fiefdoms of quotidian banality / Whose flying buttresses overlook the Stygian waters of the forgotten drowned denizens of damnation / Whose unshackled dungeons open to worlds of regal splendor / Whose spires pierce dark skies where oblivion buries the ruined cities of revelry under the drifting clouds of leaden time / Oh maiden of melancholic alchemy whose petrified passions transmute base metal into pure gold…
May the gibbous moon of equinox shine its baleful eye upon you; may you tread in sacramental calm the winding starlit paths of somnolent cemeteries; may my unmixed metaphors unveil in delirium their parabolic mysteries before the smoldering altar of your uninterpretable allegory; may the favor of your scorn forever lay me out, embalmed, undead, on the cold stone of merciless reality. Behold: in cryptic script of spectral apparition, in tracery of coded illumination, amidst the dawning rays of torment I write thine unknown name on the threshold of daylight. And from within the mortared wall of self I speak forth from my sepulcher the Sibylline utterance,
unsought, unheard, undreamt:
JUST WANTED TO SAY ‘HI’ !
☻
Sep 10, 2015
Sep 10, 2015 at 9:15 PM UTC
Puffs of thistledown
floating in the air.
Lovely lady
dark blue plums
and the tracery of lace.
'Toot' says a trumpet
to the cry from a clarinet.
Tinkling piano notes
flowing
lilting, rippling, fleeting
fleeing.
Bows, strings and violins.
Echoes of yesterday
fading into grey.
Sep 24, 2014
Sep 24, 2014 at 4:40 AM UTC
Sliding fingers over alabaster shafts,
crevices and nooks catching at delving digits
as they seek between the ****** ***** of
remov-ed meat.
For before the bones the meat.
And before the meat the scalpel,
Running liquid through the tendrils
with its clever carv-ed lines in the
succulent,
decadent
dead.
The gore on the board.
Seen in rivulets of scarlet,
A tracery of cuts,
Multi-layered and exquisite.
I taste the smell of this corpulent finery.
Hands reaching into the layers,
slick with blood
pulling at the fat.
Sleek and deadly
I ply them, my tools.
For I am the butcher
And you will eat my meat.
Feast upon my carnage,
And leave me with the bones.
And leave me with the bones.
Feb 19, 2011
Feb 19, 2011 at 1:01 PM UTC
**Earth Day, April 22, 2017 "give back to Earth",
as an "offering" for all the planet gives us.**
For Global Earth Day information visit: http://www.earthday.org/
Her ominous shadow
shown a path
far beyond the miles high
a majestic mountain stood
Silently climbing down
million year old
steep canyon walls
at dawn,
each step chosen carefully
coursing with purpose
Finding a way forward
was the only way
to look back up
river carved ravines
where higher ground
once stood
Instincts drawn downward
gravity feed towards
the faint murmurs
deep echoes tracery
down sheer basalt cliffs
Artesian waters'
resounding gurgles ―
bubble up to quench
a lost soul’s incurably
intrinsic parching thirst;
to find an unfolding
metamorphic peace
in the trove of igneous
fountain veins of earth
There’s not need to wait
on sunrise pathways lit ―
there is no fear of gravity’s
downward silent weight
nor burden to be borne
Listening beyond dark silence .
igneous bedrock roots
beckon deeper expanse ;
spirit realms of ancient souls
whisperer like thunder
to the soul of man ―
Awakening ruptured lifelines
deep below earthen crust ,
creations hidden essence
eternally remembered
by the light above ...
April 2017 © harlon rivers ... all rights reserved
Apr 21, 2017
Apr 21, 2017 at 10:02 AM UTC
1
Late afternoon
leaving the city
the bus route intersects
the terraced houses,
row upon row:
right to the valley floor,
left to wooded heights.
In a bay-windowed room
a child sits at a table
beachcombing the net.
Tea is past
and there is gentle talk of
volcanoes , the Verungas,
and gorillas in the midst.
Outside, and a floor below,
a garden nestles into the dusk,
a blackbird settles itself with song.
Later, at the same table.
there is a silent grace.
A shy five year old
in scary pyjamas
comes to say goodnight.
For supper: a goat’s cheese flan,
a simple salad,
pink wine,
strong coffee.
On the mantelpiece:
the familiar jumble of cards and photos,
a collage of family faces distant shores.
On the walls:
grandmother’s woven rug,
her grand-daughter’s textiled strata,
an embroidered geology.
2
The next day,
so bright and clear,
the garden bench is warm by ten.
We sit surrounded
by the evidence
of this growing season:
emergent plants, the possibility of fruit,
even declarations of vegetables.
As ideas flow
across cake and coffee
so the shadows move,
shaping depths, enriching tones
on greys, within greens.
In the midday sun,
the garden becomes
a wild tracery of lines
as perspectives
distort, corrupt, thicken . . .
and space opens everywhere:
foliage as yet transparent
no shelter to stalk and stem.
Their very arteries revealed,
plants bask in the fragile heat
of ‘just’ Spring.
Jan 6, 2013
Jan 6, 2013 at 4:58 AM UTC
It had been snowing all night
light slight white
almost invisible flakes
falling on the garden below
While you slept I lay awake
between startling dreams
adventures (with my children)
amongst pinnacled peaks
Should sleep in an unfamiliar room
so effect the unconscious mind?
Here you became a young adult
‘I lost my virginity’ (you said)
‘and it was messy’
I didn’t want to know this
but told you how it was
for me a beach at night
in Devon Tarka country
And so a tracery
emerges from the past
It emanates it draws together
intersects conjoins segments
a tessellation map-rich
by and through and which
(bathed in the snow-light
of an uncurtained morning)
together we move now too and fro
in this still-experimental passion
Jan 28, 2013
Jan 28, 2013 at 12:53 PM UTC
Oh to be free of myself,
With nothing left to remember,
To have my heart as bare
As a tree in December;
Resting, as a tree rests
After its leaves are gone,
Waiting no more for a rain at night
Nor for the red at dawn;
But still, oh so still
While the winds come and go,
With no more fear of the hard frost
Or the bright burden of snow;
And heedless, heedless
If anyone pass and see
On the white page of the sky
Its thin black tracery.
1.4k
The pale ghost of dawn
A grove of trees
Faded derelicts
Without leaves
A tracery of branches
Bent and twisted
Shades of grey
On a cold, grim day.
Disaffection
Evil minds online
Contempt fro coquetry
Worshippers of perversity
A prelude to profanity
Barely covering
Membranes of morality
On the dark side of the mind.
Oct 15, 2014
Oct 15, 2014 at 9:30 PM UTC
Festtooned around
sweet-faced
Tracery of words,
never deeper
Than exquisite phrasing,
Lies counterfeit,
creeping
Retrouse' of unmeant
affection.
Playing at love
is outright
Two-faced plain
deception.
Fake tendrils never
curl round right
And the genuine heart
Knows, pain shows
when hurt starts.
Dec 18, 2010
Dec 18, 2010 at 2:30 PM UTC
Lovely is she
Who came
And rescued me
She courageously
Showed me her heart
It, with its tracery of scars
And though the hurt she bears is profound
It has never stopped her
From looking to the stars
* Reprinted from 'Love Letters the Select Collection by Mekael'
© July 29, 2009 by Mekael Shane
Jan 12, 2014
Jan 12, 2014 at 2:28 PM UTC
Charcoal trees
crowned in
greenish grey,
diluted in mist;
glitten dew, spilt
by sword shaped ferns,
bruising in yellow
the bushy scented moss;
likens' frozen tracery,
gothic earthly waves,
bursting gloomy barks
into shades of red and sand;
in a friable sunbeam,
a swirl of a honey bee.
Jan 1, 2015
Jan 1, 2015 at 7:52 PM UTC
Fast cars and rubber skid tracery
Like line or heart beat stopper
Neo neon blinding light
An unnatural oasis supernova
-natural plight-
Speed seep, infused into
Impatient eyes – unnerved
Friction play light
Static electricity
Chemical energy
Emotional overdrive
Pounds one sound into a thousand ears
Record of a million heartbeats
All off time.
Pulsing net
Trapping light fixtures in a web
Of white lines and wires
New home for the modern ape
Eden is a million quarter acre blocks.
For every double tap of fear
One heart skips a beat
One fever breaks
Like drought break rain
And for one day
We’re clean.
Jan 23, 2016
Jan 23, 2016 at 5:59 PM UTC
(for a.)
mapped wishes
handed over,
blown into the wind
a path of gold
in dawning roads
sanguine brilliance,
pearled frailty
fallen
flattened
crackling
a tracery
of bones or hands
reaching out
for the ******
of a beginning
Nov 5, 2015
Nov 5, 2015 at 6:16 PM UTC
Hello shiny loop of post-shower Rainbow,
you of mosaic-powered striated halo,
and so sages tell, a sign of faith.
You chaste secreter of much potted gold,
crescented magic of arc-perfection
your brilliant mixtures of shaded hues
break raindrops into states
of optic illusion which act as temptation.
Oh consummate sweep of bow-creation,
who can know when and what
day you appear, colourfully naked.
Favour no seekers, oh Rainbow whom
by digging for myth will
selfishly follow roads right to your end.
Make therefore no friends
of illicit searchers for treasure, those
who see you as meant lure
for retrousséd wealth-embellishment.
Rainbow you cover your real blessings
in pseudo-gilt with which
ingratiates have become obsessed.
Sedate then all lucre-lust with a curved
root at each end of your
rain-augmented foot to waylay theft.
Divert and deflect looters with luminous
know-how and curl into
spacial deception before desecration.
Bedazzle all lechers by preventing entry
to any pretentious view
of your sensitive and tremulous end.
You as writhe of kaleidoscope can keep
away crooked schemers
by retaining your varisome irridescence.
Alive with mysterious rays
behave like a ghost loathing the sun, be
as invisible, turn pale, fade,
and disappear to invalidate trespass.
Rainbow hide what is always your own
from blind passers by with
greedy spade-eyes, stay unmolested.
Stretch out your tracery uncontrolled,
a beauteous vision who keeps
her vaulted prism a glorious whole.
Feb 23, 2017
Feb 23, 2017 at 7:51 AM UTC
My mother oak she brings me
Such dainty gifts and treats
A glee of **** that monkey swing
Against a sky of candy blue and
Tiny creeps in lattice tracery
Of buds and chaffinch pink
Behind beneath above - the buzz
Humming orchestral multitude
A wrenful joy of song upwells
And then the sun
May 6, 2019
May 6, 2019 at 3:10 AM UTC
Flesh and face and circumstance and
Cracked unlovely countenance--it's nothing to
Disappear when the stars dim down, still less to
Return when the moonlight slows. Ah, here it is.
The moonlight slows. Honour and promises and
Envelopes to birds, and now I'm awake.
I'm awake
I'm awake and my fingers
Seize in woven knots recurved,
Recurved and then recurved again and
Finally, recurved once more, my
Whickering prehensile claws unsheathe
From fingertip to elbow's lap.
Rotten cogs and motor oil and
Mince and copper wire, black
And tangled clockwork arcs in blue
Bouquets of ozone tracery--speaking presently,
Sleep never came and you never came and
This is so crazy but I'm virtually convinced I'm
Possessing of the incorrect number of limbs.
Oct 3, 2017
Oct 3, 2017 at 2:25 PM UTC
Poets pen their Love.
A tangible tracery,
ink stains from the Soul.
Aug 22, 2014
Aug 22, 2014 at 6:44 PM UTC
The path is long
And overgrown, so
Heaven knows I'll walk alone.
No matter, though:
The moon's my guide,
Her fingers silver, laced with mine.
"So where to next?"
I stop to ask.
"All that you wish shall come to pass,"
She whispers mute
With lips of comets'
Tracery. I'm struck, astonished.
Feet aflame
And eyes the same,
I trap the wind and speak her name...
"My precious, gorgeous
"Tireless Guide,
"I'll run until you're by my side!"
I take a step,
Then run, then fly
The overgrowth left far behind.
Sep 26, 2016
Sep 26, 2016 at 6:00 PM UTC
AN DORCHADAS
The Dark had come
alive.
Prowled about outside.
He stayed still.
Perfectly still.
So the Dark wouldn't
see him.
The Dark seemed to sense
his living presence.
It tore at the window
wounding the glass
leaving large
scratchy marks.
The window howled.
The Dark outside
spilling into the room
thickening the Dark
inside with its outside
filling the room with
a Dark deeper now
a Darkness one could
drown in.
The Darkness laughed
thickened...congealed about me.
Somewhere a clock
ticked too loudly
gobbling all the time up
( and there was precious little time left )
down to the dregs.
The Dark was hard and heavy
- solid.
He would have to cut through it
slash at it to part it.
The Dark slurped at him
with its rough cat's tongue
as if it would. . .
teasing...testing...tasting
"Quick. quick. . .!"
whispered Sleep in a furious hiss.
Sleep opened a trap door in itself
as the Dark lapped at him
he just had time to
slip inside.
The Dark growling
throwing itself against Sleep
with such rage
Sleeps's hinges...rattling...buckling
before the Darkness
padded away with a snarl.
Morning laughed itself
into his head
( "You ok kid!" )
bringing with it a cat's meow
a tracery of birdsong and
as much sunlight
it could drag behind it.
Stuffed as much sun as it could
into his awakening bedroom.
A tree tapped at the window.
"Hey kid...remember me!"
It was still 1963
and the dark hadn't gotten him.
"Come and play!"
said the day.
"Come and play!"
So, he - did.
The night now very
very far away.
May 1, 2017
May 1, 2017 at 6:25 PM UTC