"turbid" poems
my tears aren’t forced
they flow in that
dark tunnel that she
dreamed so long ago
she wasn’t ready
to take her first steps
I wasn’t ready to
take mine without her.
Little things bring her back
like empty bowls or the tower
of books she’s never going to read.
People have been calling this a
trauma, but they’ve forgotten the
loneliness of life’s journey. She dreamed
a tunnel and added bright lights
and dusted the floor with powdery snow
she traveled far yet I can
only see the trails of
milk puddling around the lost key that she
dropped under blankets
of memory and phrases of
I-promise and tomorrow. I’m growing up as
she falls down. She wasn’t
perfect but that’s why it
was so easy to love her.
My journey’s ongoing, and the
deep undercurrents of pain and
grief are pulling me through
that tunnel.
I’m rowing softly by,
quietly, quietly,
as she is laid to rest.
her memories swallow the emptiness
she is kneeling at the throne.
I follow slowly and leave my
tears for her to know that life’s
path isn’t paved in water but
with sorrow, with endings, and with lost
boats on turbid seas.
Sep 29, 2015
Sep 29, 2015 at 7:56 AM UTC
Don't deflect my insecurities
Acknowledge them for they are real
Don't brush aside my inadequacies
I can't help the way I feel
Hugging myself close, searching for reassurance
Through tear-stained glass I grief strickenly see
Seemingly I've lost my tight-rope balance
Clambering up ever so desperately
May think I'm wilful
Because I often get consumed
Don't judge me unstable
Just dormant emotions exhumed
Place a palm against my chest
Between sobs, my heart beats strong
Laying my turbid mind to rest
As I whisper me the comfort that I long
Don't be afraid of me
I know I tend to get lost
Alone in my storm swept dinghy
Susceptible to the chills of frost
I can't control, I get carried away
With the dream I'm set to pursue
I can't curb or hold myself at bay
I'm weak because I haven't got a clue...
Oct 5, 2014
Oct 5, 2014 at 4:13 AM UTC
With turbid minds
And mercurial hearts,
One must never forget
To stay close to a flame
That burns to warm
Opposed to burning to
End.
Nov 12, 2015
Nov 12, 2015 at 11:36 PM UTC
I:
In which
I
amid the
whirring lights
and emerald
felt
drift
through a
raucous
flashing casino
searching
for a
table
with an open
chair
so I can
finally start
to play
the game
II:
In which all of us
are together again at last
for a family gathering—
Thanksgiving supper, perhaps—
and, as we greet each other,
I happen to glance skyward,
unthinking,
and notice that clouds
of a turbid
cumulonimbus gray
are beginning to coalesce overhead.
I look up again and notice
that they have spun
into dozens of funnel shapes,
each of them
starting to reach down for us
like the ashen fingers of Death.
We huddle down in the cellar,
praying the storm will pass.
Apr 2, 2017
Apr 2, 2017 at 7:00 AM UTC
Life and its shade
canvased by god
God made it beautiful
But we are
adding shades of greys and black
enveloping the sky
turning fog into smog
Putting solute
in water bodies
that are not dispersible
making it turbid
mislaying its transparency
water is not pure anymore
Deforestation
converting the forest
into the barren land
beautiful landscapes are mechanized
by man
buildings and more building
watching stars sounds bookish
nature is losing its charm
Emotions are blowing over
relationships changing
accepting changes
changing our own self
mirrors are showing
someone else image
and asking you
who you are?
Mar 10, 2011
Mar 10, 2011 at 12:50 AM UTC
These eyes have felt
their fair share of tears that burn
Forgive my eyes for they are yet so green
They have seen much but still they do not learn
These lungs have breathed
The air both fresh and acrid
Forgive them for they are yet so green
They only do what they must when all runs turbid
These ears they've heard
Hurtful promises and whispers that have stung
Forgive my ears for they are yet so green
They're know not to ignore the language of forked tongues
These lips have served
The most callous of opinions
Forgive them for they are yet so green
They can't seem to curb pent up notions
These hands have grown tired
From shielding my tear-stricken face
Forgive these hands for they are yet so green
They're still so afraid to welcome the gift of future days
These legs are sore
For they have travelled far
Forgive them for they are yet so green
They knew better than to enter through doors left slightly ajar
This mind is weary
From thinking of a life meant only for dreamers
Forgive my mind for it is yet so green
They know not of the inexistence of greener pastures
This heart... My heart
Pounding each beat that betrays
Beats with an anvil in tow
Forgive it for it is yet so green
It's having more trouble than it cares to show
This face I wear
A weathered mask I'm unready to shed
Forgive it for it is yet so green
There's still life in it...
For there's yet much to be said
May 21, 2015
May 21, 2015 at 12:54 PM UTC
It is known through the eyes.
Not from voice
designated instrument of the thymus
but the eyes.
Portals of silent universes.
The expression of the gaze
sometimes sings and dances.
Distracting eyes
couriers and trunks
sometimes they blink but aren't liars.
It could be the same wicked look
kinda lost,
kinda absorbed,
but never turbid.
Jan 9, 2018
Jan 9, 2018 at 12:50 AM UTC
Like a grain trapped under the eyelid
Impairing the vision, in heart and mind
Flush it out with rivers, woeful and turbid
This grain still there; rendering us blind
Tiny and inconspicuous; No one sees the grains
Everyone's 'gifted' with their own to nurse
Doubling over we see each others' pains
Hidden and embedded within the poetry laden verse
Sep 15, 2014
Sep 15, 2014 at 2:35 AM UTC
Against these turbid turquoise skies
The light and luminous balloons
Dip and drift like satin moons,
Drift like silken butterflies;
Reel with every windy gust,
Rise and reel like dancing girls,
Float like strange transparent pearls,
Fall and float like silver dust.
Now to the low leaves they cling,
Each with coy fantastic pose,
Each a petal of a rose
Straining at a gossamer string.
Then to the tall trees they climb,
Like thin globes of amethyst,
Wandering opals keeping tryst
With the rubies of the lime.
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Each that we lose takes part of us;
A crescent still abides,
Which like the moon, some turbid night,
Is summoned by the tides.
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_A monkey's wedding:_ our elders told us
it was, each time it rained with the sun out.
Pink skies, white clouds, golden tears and
the good times of being young.
Tree climbing to touch the sky as high,
fruit picking, and stone skipping at turbid puddles,
The smell of after rains, wet grounds, dew tear drops;
all at the nights condescending condensation.
Chasing rainbows on rumours of Peter pan's hidden
treasures at the end. As a guileless manner supposed.
Sunlight creeping through cracks of clouds,
the remainder of light showers, reminisced in the mud.
Sculptures we'd try our best to carve,
playing house outside, under the upcoming sun,
And trying our best at reciting parent's love.
Tell me have you seen anything as beautiful,
as the beauties after the rain?
Jul 15, 2022
Jul 15, 2022 at 4:57 PM UTC
Quiet flows the Brahmaputra
But violent and angry at times
At the ruthless manner in which
The man destroys the nature...
Quiet flows the Brahmaputra
But angry and turbid below
At the greed and arrogant manner in which
They carry out "development"
Quiet flows the Brahmaputra
But sad and lost
at the poor lives and livelihoods lost
At the hands of the rich who creates the catastrophes
Quiet flows the Brahmaputra
But helpless and depressed
At the ignorance and stubborn attitude
Of the people who aren't willing to learn from their mistakes.
Quiet flows the Brahmaputra
Sometimes overflowing and destructive
Time and again, to teach the humanity a lesson
In not learning from the past, learning from their mistakes
Because, history repeats itself..
And we are suffering today at the hands of the
People who are not creating a welfare state
But extracting, extorting, exploiting the commons
And the common people
To the benefit of a few, arrogant, "smart" rich...
There is something wrong somewhere..
Unless we learn ...
Unless we change...
We get what we deserve...
So if we need a change..
Let's change first ourselves..
Our action, Our decisions, Our choices...
There is nobody to blame..but ourselves...
It is not enough we give our choices
Once in five years ...
And then blame everybody else
For what we get out of our choice...
Quiet flows the Brahmaputra
He is a teacher, a friend, a father (and a mother)..
A brother, and a God (if there is one)...
Let us learn from him, the nature...
Quiet flows the Brahmaputra
So magnificent and great..
Angry at times..Destructive at times...
Still the lifeline of the people
Quiet flows the Brahmaputra.
Jun 1, 2018
Jun 1, 2018 at 12:08 AM UTC
Plick,
Pluck,
the tiny little strings in my mind.
dancing to a different tune each and every day,
the world plays my songs.
eyes wandering around the room while I play with my thoughts,
like the child I never won't be.
cross-legged and slumped over as the heated droplets dribble down my spine,
and fall from my weary lips,
that which are worn from the words I never got used to saying,
singing the songs of my each and every day,
coalesce the thinkings that have somehow let me dance to where I sit today,
forlorn petals fall from my branches in beautiful pastels, cursed to live in the winding winds.
Aday to each and every day that I sing and prance within my tiny little heart,
washing my pains away.
ill-weighed upon my shoulders,
as yet i dance some more,
beneath the turbid downpours engulfed in shades of red.
i wish't to see the blue,
the green,
the steam, arising from my skin.
narrowly weeping within my little box of horrors i keep by my side,
in remembrance of each and every day i have and will yet shed a tear.
haunted lullabies revel on and on,
each and every day,
i crave the pieces of the peaces i'd once known.
to here,
today,
i shut my eyes,
and into the blackness bursts forth colors i've never seen,
and will never see again.
to see that which i've never seen.
silent shapes shaping away falling through my fields of vision,
and inform themselves to the visions I write today,
so here,
i simply continue,
to plick,
and pluck,
the tiny strings inside my mind,
each,
and every day.
~Robert van Lingen
Jan 28, 2019
Jan 28, 2019 at 8:34 PM UTC
The sun, so lover-like, ran her fingers
Through the glistening leaves,
Movements soft, so full of intention
Their waxy dew, shuttered in response,
A low moan played in the breeze,
The light of sonority contrasts the electric
Disharmonies in the stormy afternoon.
Though I could feel a forest now eased
The river that runs through
Carried the blood of a plural heart
Beating with a passion akin in power, though enemy in fashion,
As its waves beat the banks
Eroding them into, eating up the aridness
As though slaking were its due, muddying the sky’s blue
From its surface, piercing the eyes from its reflection
Discouraging, this turbid froth, from worth of further inspection.
It rages and rages over rocks so violently
Picking at its slimming walls, making and claiming
Detritus along the path so that all the beauty a river is
Crashes, collides, and disfigures—a chaos growing
Bigger and bigger—the speed of its wrath
Bespeaks of its wake, blasting the earth (Watch it dissipate!)
Out of my sight it runs its due course south
Spitting the detritus that arrives
At the mouth.
May 5, 2014
May 5, 2014 at 12:43 AM UTC
You who have lifted up your sunburned face,
Long-told of peasant warmth and the forest tableaux.
Barefoot, you brought the book of hours upon dusty roads,
Ungoverned, little flower from Jeanne to Lourdes to Lisieux.
Our Lady, osculum pacis, the kiss of peace in wood and stone.
Burned out to those dusty eyes,
Now-empty look of rosework from the forest-fall of sunlight.
Medieval prayer, earthly-dim to its rafters of oak,
Come un-cinctured in ashen cloud of amice and alb,
And the murine blackness of plague-like smoke.
Birds that sit blinking at the winged fossil of intrados,
Pipe air through your own ribbed vaults, organum pulse.
Let the city rise in your vining voices—and hold the note.
The great ***** intones from the runs and pedal stops,
Along the turbid streets of the rue de la Cité to the empire of catacombs.
Beside his candle, the monk in sadness knows
All loveliness of heaven except his own.
Our Lady, every sunset is your faded candle hour of peace, for us to know.
Holy Father, so passes worldly glory,
Over the roofs of Paris like fire-scorned and leaden wings.
Apr 24, 2019
Apr 24, 2019 at 1:47 PM UTC
A brightness bathed the night:
Spectral corollas flecked the slick,
Damp sea – shoals of languid light
Mourned in planetary shadow play.
Bloodless bronze effigy,
Son of Sirius, hastened earthward
From the jaw of an untamed brute:
Swathed in an amorphous, turbid
Cloth, he fell – stark as crimson
Amid the dull, wan air. A death
Most uncouth: lain now on a pillow
Of galling shell and abrasive flesh.
A rare trinket plucked for my memory.
©Thomas Gabriel
Jan 29, 2012
Jan 29, 2012 at 7:38 PM UTC
Two souls once stood against the night,
upon a mountain in a distant valley.
And there in anguished shrieks on loud,
screamed most primitive betrothal vows.
Now many winds have swept the mountain's face
and time has run its endless jagged course,
while the souls like frightened deer have run
to where the frozen brook of fear was sprung.
The great stag drank and was refreshed,
though heart and soul were nearly drown.
The white doe running on to catch a dream,
fearing turbid waters of the foreboding stream.
I cannot save the beauty of a snowflake,
for the warmth of my love will melt it.
And severed will those souls remain,
divorced by nature for its wanton selfish gain.
With snow capped peak bending like a finger,
Gilboa Mountain beckons me to come.
Yet, I fear my hopeless mind must be depraved,
for it offers me a home, I'd sooner call a grave.
Sep 24, 2013
Sep 24, 2013 at 4:47 AM UTC
You always transcend my sadness
with your hypnotic stillness,
your entrancing symphonies.
My thoughts go back to the banks of Langat*,
where one day a little boy sat alone,
just only five,
bewildered, in a canoe.
From the sea,
from the streams,
from the rain,
you chanted a calming mantra to soothe him,
calling him to dissolve
in your awe-inspiring presence.
Your aquamarine sheen paints
the intricacies of all that I'm.
In the cool blue depth of your stillness,
I long to create the tabernacle of my being.
Never I thought
your melodies could become
the war cry of a devilish psyche!
Today I'm perplexed,
when I hear the anguished human cries
from the twirls of your turbid anger.
I realise
you’ve become an enigma
that pulls me to the depths of a
crazy conundrum.
How many more shades of anger you hide
in the burning red heart of the mantra you chant
to give me a heavenly bliss, Oh Water?
Sep 18, 2018
Sep 18, 2018 at 4:41 AM UTC
....and in your gigantic presence
With your miniscule body
You are the mirror
Of the deepest stars
Past the spaces between
Spaces,
Into the mist
Your red tailed gaze
Into the echoes
Of Babylon's Gardens,
A grace in a dance
Of your broken life,
The glutton behind the father
Who took you,
The tumultuous perfume
Left with scars behind the drapes
The neighbors couldn't hear,
The sadness in your soul
Inside the woman who
Loves me,
Slender hopes under the lines
Of the dream's eyes,
Your ears never caught
The exhausted bitterness
That only heard an immense
Change in the future,
I am here woman,
As you bite your silver lips,
Arc your metallic spine,
And the bronze shine in your
Otherwise copper hair,
I become a Magnetar
In the metallics of your body,
Mighty embraces will kiss
The crystalline eyes
With lips on fire
And singing redemption's lullaby,
Together killing your past,
Your hands hold distant visions
That bloom living roses,
Who tears are of lost lilies
In an ebony pond,
A fertile present
Gives birth the momentous,
No one can change your past,
But you're a basacrifice
Void of alcoholic bliss,
The grapes before
Now dead forever
Is a sober feeling.
Magnolia of mine,
Like a flowerbed of omnipotent
Desires,
You bloom the ***
With a martyrs sacrifice,
Your hopeless days are gone
And I am grateful for
The circles under your eyes,
The vain of your existed
Pains,
Your heart transfixed by the
Newness of our love,
Though you still look at the old
Curtains,
The confused and turbid tumult
That bore it's hole
Into your ways,
I have come when you began
To love again the life
Over a darkness under the
Nights skin,
Tearing away the darkness,
A dawn song has spread
Over the horizon,
And your light is a melancholy
Of stars,
From your eyes grow
An ocean of time,
And here we float with hope
I can only Revere
That all the worst
Life gave to you,
A fleece of golden grace
And I can only be thankful
As your sorrow
Has birthed a certain kind
Of grace with the
Pieces left intact.
Oct 11, 2017
Oct 11, 2017 at 1:57 AM UTC
My love of poetry is too great
for Philosophy, physics to glue the skin under my toes
to the floor.
A waif, only dandelion fluff,
I tease the turbid puddles
of wearying intellect.
Life is too beautiful
to compartmentalize,
to classify,
to set unsurmountable borders
on the pleasure that only poets and hopeless romantics comprehend.
Disoriented sight/smell/taste/touch/hearing-
backwards rainbows and the upside-down
scent of oatmeal cookies,
the melancholy of a forever-stilled honey bee,
are more golden than yellow metal,
and certain
more knowledge than a heaping pile
of doctors/lawyers/senators/scientists.
reality's only denizens
are Dreamers.
Jul 11, 2012
Jul 11, 2012 at 5:54 PM UTC
There isn't much sky
in this pallid, stale cocoon
no greens nor greys, no electric branches
searing fragile, barren walls.
But the heady, sagging scent of moisture
suggests a storm--
yes, there was once me:
a turbid bloom, an opportunist
exhausting avidity in one overarching spill.
As I rolled through your gutters,
flippant and bleeding into everything,
you rose with the dryness of the day
and spoke of your immurement,
the feebleness of my mold and mildew.
Dec 25, 2012
Dec 25, 2012 at 7:09 PM UTC
A thousand waterfalls, or more,
towering layers, feeding one another.
Turbid and deep in the ancient slough.
Across a soak of violet moss,
an algae rinse surveying silent
the ardor of springtime blossom.
Fuschia kelp hewn from amethyst;
the lilacs died and their graves grew moss.
With these sugilite sculptures, the falls were imbrued,
and soon were given unto the same cerise hue.
These tiered creeks, so like a staircase, fell in love
with the bryphophite wash.
And like a pond filled with plums,
the lake birthed from the falls
proved to be dyed the most purple of all.
May 19, 2012
May 19, 2012 at 11:44 PM UTC
Dropping it for the first time
lysergic acid diethylamide
there on
Pescadero's beach
with night hunkered down
in the dunes
We howled at the waves
of the wild Pacific
stamped our feet
on the dense moist sand
and miracles radiated outward
from each footfall
uncounted stars
galaxies somewhere deep
in that gritty sky
the sand alive
with phosphorescent life
Oh and we laughed
swore oaths to each other
spied the turbid moon
as if for
the first time
her hair in a mess
of wind-torn cloud
It was perfection by the sea
until
some wise old hippies
alerted us to our danger:
"The heat's in the parking lot, man."
Panic.
Crawling like drug-addled moon dogs
on our bellies
through the dunes
to find a near-empty
parking lot.
No heat.
No hippies.
Only the wan moonlight
vacant pavement.
And so in our glorious excess
to a sandstone cave
where a box of whispers
was found
and poetry invented.
Jul 1, 2016
Jul 1, 2016 at 3:18 PM UTC
a fine week was had
the day a married
black candle mass
time dawdle
our loved stalked
angel and demon
the devil called
heel warm-
a fly born
and in squash
and in *****
moaning no..
fiery ****** tongue
take the bride upon
the stair
the groom served by
sundry elf
while maiden scent
his self-
spit of toad for
potent
death watch for
content
goblet of newly
born blood
and saw the
dead born
watney´ s pale in
an eight pint
can
red and gold
before the god
the revellers
kowtow
and the girls
vie for a smile
so ennuyer
etched
across his face
evil always
some distraction
a turbid dracula
bored
vice a hold
the betrothed cam
sweet innocent
like starsky
and hutch
naked and bloodied
to the dark one first
rites
right is right..!
crazy horses kicks
off
donny makes a
come back
o scream the tree
crack
through
the clamor
witchs hover
ashine with mire
o higher the crying
the exultation..!
evil the mad one
ah..!
evil made persona
the couple sworn
at each end
scant hors d'oeurvre
to the masters
seed served
cold the
young old
and old..
wine flows
strange going on
in the coat room..
be loved *****
shared..reverence
and shy glance..
our old ice cream
man
strikes up the band..!
thus man and wife declared
tied and together darkness
with out end..
all cracked raise to health..!
something by sinatra
in the sky yon moon turns
to aversion
the forest weeps
there then the fire
in the eye of
the songbird
there then the
cleansing sweep
of the blackbird
to flight..
Dec 8, 2018
Dec 8, 2018 at 8:14 AM UTC
There was an old man of Toulouse
Who purchased a new pair of shoes;
When they asked, 'Are they pleasant?'--
He said, 'Not at present!'
That turbid old man of Toulouse.
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