"turrets" poems
They cut it down, and where the pitch-black aisles
Of forest night had hid eternal things,
They scaled the sky with towers and marble piles
To make a city for their revellings.
White and amazing to the lands around
That wondrous wealth of domes and turrets rose;
Crystal and ivory, sublimely crowned
With pinnacles that bore unmelting snows.
And through its halls the pipe and sistrum rang,
While wine and riot brought their scarlet stains;
Never a voice of elder marvels sang,
Nor any eye called up the hills and plains.
Thus down the years, till on one purple night
A drunken minstrel in his careless verse
Spoke the vile words that should not see the light,
And stirred the shadows of an ancient curse.
Forests may fall, but not the dusk they shield;
So on the spot where that proud city stood,
The shuddering dawn no single stone revealed,
But fled the blackness of a primal wood.
9.9k
the water carves its caves
out of the black rock,
little turrets of the wind
walking the battlements
of the sea's dark fortress.
Jul 24, 2015
Jul 24, 2015 at 10:46 AM UTC
Rolling a Pall Mall in the courtyard,
of Ye Olde Swiss Cottage Tavern,
in the last of November's sun:
Lovely sunlight,
You are,
Filling me warmly with joy.
Thinking of our desires,
from summer and autumn months,
up to this bright November morning,
we have happily danced,
e'en in the shadows.
Above me two brick turrets,
as I dreamily smoke,
nonchalantly state: 'Underground'.
High-raised logos winking at our play,
struck through with horizontal blue,
in a circle of enamel white.
'Old Fool,' the towers hiss,
directed at my mortal sensibilities,
'winter has come!'
But nothing buries us
as our sun still comfortingly kindles
a friendly star
which when all is dark,
glows inside,
guiding the shipwreck of my sunken years
- the debts and all those unpaid thrills!
Dreaming and Loving,
as children out,
lost in an abundant *****
each holding off for as long as we dare,
lovers unmasked,
naked before suffocating paternity,
and cold winter's bite!
where to we hardly know,
to avoid its cruel embrace.
Nov 8, 2018
Nov 8, 2018 at 4:16 AM UTC
All are architects of Fate,
Working in these walls of Time;
Some with massive deeds and great,
Some with ornaments of rhyme.
Nothing useless is, or low;
Each thing in its place is best;
And what seems but idle show
Strengthens and supports the rest.
For the structure that we raise,
Time is with materials filled;
Our to-days and yesterdays
Are the blocks with which we build.
Truly shape and fashion these;
Leave no yawning gaps between;
Think not, because no man sees,
Such things will remain unseen.
In the elder days of Art,
Builders wrought with greatest care
Each minute and unseen part;
For the Gods see everywhere.
Let us do out work as well,
Both the unseen and the seen;
Make the house, where Gods may dwell,
Beautiful, entire, and clean.
Else our lives are incomplete,
Standing in these walls of Time,
Broken stairways, where the feet
Stumble as they seek to climb.
Build to-day, then, strong and sure,
With a firm and ample base;
And ascending and secure
Shall to-morrow find its place.
Thus alone can we attain
To those turrets, where the eye
Sees the world as one vast plain,
And one boundless reach of sky.
5.6k
Lo! Death has reared himself a throne
In a strange city lying alone
Far down within the dim West,
Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best
Have gone to their eternal rest.
There shrines and palaces and towers
(Time-eaten towers and tremble not!)
Resemble nothing that is ours.
Around, by lifting winds forgot,
Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters lie.
No rays from the holy Heaven come down
On the long night-time of that town;
But light from out the lurid sea
Streams up the turrets silently—
Gleams up the pinnacles far and free—
Up domes—up spires—up kingly halls—
Up fanes—up Babylon-like walls—
Up shadowy long-forgotten bowers
Of sculptured ivy and stone flowers—
Up many and many a marvellous shrine
Whose wreathed friezes intertwine
The viol, the violet, and the vine.
Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters lie.
So blend the turrets and shadows there
That all seem pendulous in air,
While from a proud tower in the town
Death looks gigantically down.
There open fanes and gaping graves
Yawn level with the luminous waves;
But not the riches there that lie
In each idol’s diamond eye—
Not the gaily-jewelled dead
Tempt the waters from their bed;
For no ripples curl, alas!
Along that wilderness of glass—
No swellings tell that winds may be
Upon some far-off happier sea—
No heavings hint that winds have been
On seas less hideously serene.
But lo, a stir is in the air!
The wave—there is a movement there!
As if the towers had ****** aside,
In slightly sinking, the dull tide—
As if their tops had feebly given
A void within the filmy Heaven.
The waves have now a redder glow—
The hours are breathing faint and low—
And when, amid no earthly moans,
Down, down that town shall settle hence,
Hell, rising from a thousand thrones,
Shall do it reverence.
4.9k
Black blueberries buttoned by *****
Black blueberries buttoned by *****
This wasn't yours to loose
Nothing was yours to loose
Black blueberries backed by bench men
Bench men that sit on side lines
Thinking
When will the golden moment be
To break through; proving themselves
Worthy of the benched boxes they be in
Everyday
Because
They believe in benevolence
Black blueberries busting through my *****
Black blueberries busting through my *****
Better than bullets
Better than bullets
Better than bombs and turrets
Better than ballistic knifes and skillets
And arsenals of ignorance bettered with bills
Bills I pay to ensure my life is ready to die
Is it a matter of our collective thoughts?
Those black blueberries are buried
And not because I am becoming a black blueberry I say this
But because life begins with black blueberries
Who all turn into nothing but pale *****
All conformed
Not to natural laws
But to the cognitive bacterial infection
Called education
Turning us to blue blueberries
Blue blueberries
And grand building bannered with ********
Black blueberries are bored
Black blueberries are right
Black blueberries are always right…
Apr 30, 2013
Apr 30, 2013 at 1:27 PM UTC
i feel the water pulling me down
drowning drowning in the lack of sound
i can see the moonlight shimmer
reflecting the weight of his voice’s timbre
i smile the water gushing between my teeth
never again will i have to hear him speak
I see the halls and the turrets of the father
finding me finding me other places to wander
i see him talking to a crown of stone
the teeth eyes and lips mine alone
Pulling me down in the lack of sound
as in my love i start to drown
Sep 24, 2015
Sep 24, 2015 at 11:30 PM UTC
It is no night to drown in:
A full moon, river lapsing
Black beneath bland mirror-sheen,
The blue water-mists dropping
Scrim after scrim like fishnets
Though fishermen are sleeping,
The massive castle turrets
Doubling themselves in a glass
All stillness. Yet these shapes float
Up toward me, troubling the face
Of quiet. From the nadir
They rise, their limbs ponderous
With richness, hair heavier
Than sculptured marble. They sing
Of a world more full and clear
Than can be. Sisters, your song
Bears a burden too weighty
For the whorled ear's listening
Here, in a well-steered country,
Under a balanced ruler.
Deranging by harmony
Beyond the mundane order,
Your voices lay siege. You lodge
On the pitched reefs of nightmare,
Promising sure harborage;
By day, descant from borders
Of hebetude, from the ledge
Also of high windows. Worse
Even than your maddening
Song, your silence. At the source
Of your ice-hearted calling --
Drunkenness of the great depths.
O river, I see drifting
Deep in your flux of silver
Those great goddesses of peace.
Stone, stone, ferry me down there.
3.6k
Forced by covenant to conceal
The wound you carry deep
Too dangerous far to now reveal
The secret you must keep
The truth, it’s said, can set you free
Whose truth, I ask my heart
Some truth must hide, to shadow flee
Or slay as a poisoned dart
A truth which must be guarded well
Though to be shouted loud it cries
Must be restrained and forced to dwell
Within a citadel of lies
A soaring fort of alabaster walls
Splendid turrets as disguise
Conceals pits beneath its gilded halls
Where love lies brutalized
Though we ache for all the world to see
To the heart, it matters naught
Two souls are not united by decree
Nor love with license bought
So truth must wait and a prisoner remain
In lonely cell, there to abide
Believe dreams of freedom are not in vain
That gates, one day, will open wide
Oct 6, 2018
Oct 6, 2018 at 7:42 PM UTC
The shells lined up nicely.
"At attention," the conch yelled.
He was curled black, with boiled blue spikes.
And so they stayed, in a perfect line against the wall,
until the wave,
washing ashore, it plucked three.
One was an abalone,
almost full grown,
with five holes descending down its left side.
A sheen of gold and silver out,
murky indigo and forest green in.
He lost grip first,
and was pulled into an incoming breaker.
The second was a conch.
Chocolate and vanilla swirls coated the outer layers
leading in to slight pink.
Her name was Neapolitan.
She was once an adult shell of the queen conch,
washed ashore and set into a line by small hands,
that were gentle and soft.
Zander
A soft voice called.
Inhaled by the mouth of the ocean,
exhaled into a bout of seaweed.
She was lost.
The last,
was a cowry shell.
He was old,
or at least he imagined so.
This was not the first time he had washed ashore,
nor had he figured, would it be the last.
His back was ivory white
with brown speckles,
in such a pattern
that he imagined himself to be, at times, a turtle.
He had first felt and then saw reflections of himself in sea glass. He was gathered in a bucket and rubbed so that his design reverberated until he felt, every shimmer of himself.
Knowing not what lay ahead,
but understanding,
he held no grip and went where the ocean led.
It's getting dark Zander.
The others gasped,
in horror their screams rasped.
"Save us. Plea...se he...l...p."
As another wave crashed into the wall and stole four more,
again,
till all were cast away from the wall
to be laden across the expanse of sand.
Soft brown eyes stared,
at the empty holes,
where shells had been placed,
as decorations to a most deserving sand castle.
Turrets and towers,
hard packed by child hands,
with a red flag flapping to the sea breeze.
*A crude skull was drawn,
for it was a pirate fascination that encapsulated this year.*
He had spent hours seeking and finding,
the perfect art,
to be the binding,
to hold his wall against all defense,
but all had fallen in the first wave of battle.
"Oh well," he muttered.
He would try again tomorrow.
Jan 10, 2013
Jan 10, 2013 at 1:33 AM UTC
A sign we are, without meaning
Without pain we are and have nearly
Lost our language in foreign lands,
For when the heavens quarrel
Over humans and moons proceed
In force, the sea
Speaks out and rivers must find
Their way. But there is One,
Without doubt, who
Can change this any day. He needs
No law. The rustle of leaf and then the sway of oaks
Besides glaciers. Not everything
Is in the power of the gods. Mortals would sooner
Reach toward the abyss. With them
The echo turns. Though the time
Be long, truth
Will come to pass.
But what we love? We see sunshine
On the floor and motes of dust
And the shadows of our native woods and smoke
Blooms from rooftops, at peace beside
Turrets' ancient crowns; for the signs
Of day are good if a god has scarred
The soul in response.
Snow like lilies of the valley,
Signifying a site
Of nobility, half gleams
With the green of the Alpine meadow
Where, talking of a wayside cross
Commemorating the dead,
A traveler climbs in a rage,
Sharing distant premonitions with
The other, but what is this?
By the figtree
My Achilles died
And Ajax lies
By the grottoes of the sea,
By streams, with Scamandros as neighbor.
In the persisting tradition of Salamis,
Great Ajax died
Of the roar in his temples
And on foreign soil, unlike
Patroclos, dead in king's armor. And many
Others also died. On Kithairon
Lay Eleutherai, city of Mnemosyne. And when
God cast off his cloak, the darkness came to cut
Her lock of hair. For the gods grow
Indignant if a man
Not gather himself to save
His soul, yet he has no choice; like-
Wise, mourning is in error.
Friedrich Holderlin
translated by Richard Sieburth
Jan 28, 2015
Jan 28, 2015 at 3:56 PM UTC
Dedicated to John and Bob
From first flesh we move down widening halls
That lead to lives of wondrous walls.
Our spidered fingers gripped walls of brick,
Cruets, cups and candle sticks.
Incense clouded open graves
When we too believed we too were saved.
Between Annex walls we learned our phonics,
On tin-roofed walls we lived our comics.
Garage walls scaled showed different views,
Kitchen walls steamed with soups and stews.
Our school yard walls tallied pitches
That marked our summers of youth and wishes.
Now lift memory's pane and go back
To the white-framed walls of a secret shack.
There, in confusion we would cling
To the unknown wonders girls would bring.
These young boys' walls we both outgrew;
Now new walls sprang, as we did too.
Coffee House walls offered something new.
Wet kisses lingered near shadowy walls,
We heard poetry read in a backroom stall.
Recreationals made our new skin crawl.
Cliff walls were breached by stairs of clay,
Carved by Incas on a turquoise day.
Tent walls echoed with impish fray,
Green walls beckoned at the end of day.
These walls gave rise to hot desires,
Like Vikings planning funeral pyres.
New music, cheers and weekend guests
Stood us ***** to pound our chests.
Those walls no longer ring our shores;
Time swept us forward with worldly lures.
We doffed our coats of suede and frills,
And donned new clothes and workday skills.
The walls of work are a rocky climb,
Stones laid by us, for yours and mine.
Such towers & turrets of heart & hearth
Guard all we know of any worth.
I see distant walls on cliffs, in fields;
Where do they lead? What will they yield?
Yet, there three friends climb one more hill,
Climb one more wall. Then all is still.
Jul 13, 2014
Jul 13, 2014 at 2:58 PM UTC
Above cushioned wall seats,
Where locals sit with dogs
At their feet,
Hang photos
Of footballers
Smiling still after near-forgotten games;
A farmer stands beside his blue ribbon boar;
Horses tethered to carts,
Near soldiers smiling with
The Republic's grimmace of war.
Outside cobbled streets
Lead to stone bridges
Walls and houses,
Near the shade of umbrella trees.
Turrets stop whispers
Wrapping their heights.
Black, white and fading.
Nine o'clock arrives
And pictures shake
From laughter
And music,
The click of dominoes,
And clink of pints,
In the pub life.
Nov 10, 2014
Nov 10, 2014 at 10:05 AM UTC
Sweeten, let’s, a coast of dun
Therefrom which, the tides erode,
A castle to blind the mighty sun
Affront to that Poseidon, and others
On the beach.
***** the walls and battlements
Fair crystal arm the turrets
The audience of the hermit *****
Pay silent homage to the throne
Intricate are its libraries, etched
Our history inside the tomes.
Only grains of perfect stock
From which antiquity, in full credit,
Will revere the lot
And poetry of human might
Shaped and forged to kiss the day of light
Only that may suffice.
In this endeavor, no ancients will tenet
Its salty beams but the children of the morn
For we shall build the universe
From when progenitors are born.
Before it began, we were dismayed
Our future, castle, by waves waylaid
Aspirations sink, now, from shape.
But, Gods, I curse you!
Let my destiny rise free!
Look now before you:
A stone in ocean of mediocrity!
All these that build up forts
Lack in that spirit to fight, retort
**** you, **** you, waters of my doubt
Turn false the shades of realism
Which I thought it all about
**** you, **** you sands of time
For now all that founds my dreams
Is erosion of the shoreline sand.
Aug 25, 2014
Aug 25, 2014 at 9:54 PM UTC
It was a hot summer night
Nearly ninety, I'd say
When out back of Giovannis
The Bluesman sat down to play
He pulled up his crate
Took a sip from his flask
"This here's my med-cin"
"In case someone happens to ask"
He started a story
That we'd never heard
We're the folks of the street
And we followed each word
It's a tale of James Withers
A man in need of a hand
But to us on the street
He was the Sand Castle Man
The bluesman strummed gently
He didn't want the words to be lost
For this was a story
That had a hell of a cost
You see, James the sand man
Lost a life to the sea
His grandson, young James
Drowned when he was just three
Each day James went down
With his grandson in tow
They'd make castles together
Some fast and some slow
One day the pair
Were at the end of the pier
When a rogue wave hit hard
And took what James held most dear
His grandson...swept out
Lost at sea, never found
They searched for three weeks
But the poor boy was drowned
James kept a vigil
Every day on the beach
He'd look out on the water
His heart out of reach
He kept making sand castles
As he did with young James
With shells and old driftwood
And he gave them all names
He'd have non-existent armies
Fight non existent wars
In his hard packed sand castles
He carved windows and doors
There was make believe dragons
In pools by the sea
Guarding make believe princesses
Who no one could see
There were turrets and moats
And each day he'd build one
To be lost to the tide
As the days work was done
Each day a new castle
Each day a new war
But, nobody knew
What he was building them for
The tide would come in
And would sweep it away
All that hard work
Gone at the end of the day
But, each morning he'd come
Build one more for the tide
With invisible armies
To flow away for a ride
People would watch him
Make the castles of sand
With imaginary soldiers
In imaginary lands
The bluesman sang soft
Took a sip once again
From the flask on his hip
It's just medi-cin
The crowd didn't stir
We were like moths to the flame
As we heard the bluesman
finish his tale about James
I asked him one morning
If he ever would end
Building castles of sand
He said, Bluesman, my friend
I know that each castle
Will be washed out to see
And I hope that my grandson
Gets a message from me
I make each sand castle
Like we both used to do
I come back every day
And start another anew
It helps with the closure
I send my soul to the sea
And I hope that my grandson
Knows they're for him made by me
He finished and thanked us
And we went on our way
All of us changed some
From what the bluesman did play
Next time I'm out wandering
And see the castles of sand
I'll know what he's building
Now...that I understand
Feb 26, 2014
Feb 26, 2014 at 11:55 PM UTC
For a moment, right now, pretend that forgiveness will never feel like taking a bet. That the phrase, "I love you," Is not just another form of turrets. Pretend that you've got a pocket heavy with change and you walk like a wishing well wind-chime. And you've got a nickel in there for every time you cried for something. And your chance to change is as easy as flicking your thumb. Launching a coin into a pool of water. Pretend that you've got a penny melted and molded from the iron in your blood. Pretend that that wish will come true. Pretend that I just put mine down on a bet on you. Double or nothing, because ********* kid, to me, you mean something. And I don't mean any big life success. This is deathbed memories type **** Who was there when it mattered type **** Pizza on the car hood when the mice are asleep in the oven and the birds have nested in the old stove burners. Finding safety in a hammock held up by the corners of a mouth. Warmth in arms when you realized how cold it was actually going to be down south. For a moment right now pretend. That you've got a friend with a body made of drawbridge and hands strong enough to close it when you need to. Eyes like a moat. A blanket quilted from your lover's muscles. For a moment right now pretend that that friend isn't me. It's you. Forget God. Forget finding forgiveness and love there. On the inside that friend is you. Making penny bets like a Philippino woman in the smoking section of a casino. Double or nothing. 50/50. Pretend now that I'll be there too. Tossing coins in a well. Wishing only the best for you.
Aug 5, 2014
Aug 5, 2014 at 9:06 PM UTC
The paradise of darkness is like a climactic and physiological déjà vu, where souls have been swallowed by ancient daemons amidst an **** of oral sacrifice.
Aren’t you tantalised by such forbidden seductions?
Although I am somewhat acquainted with the blackness of unfathomable depths of the ancient abyss, I sincerely call upon your superior wisdom to beckon me across craggy chasms of mathematical perplexity, where eternal ghosts wail with agonising obscurity from the turrets of architectural stronghold.
If you light a candle toward the incarnation of depravity and reveal the sacred circle, then I will ensure safe passage down those historical and spiral staircases where dungeons hold innumerable fetishistic secrets.
I am captivated by co-existing opposites.
Let us talk with the goat, and arrive at a mutually agreeable pact.
Jan 22, 2015
Jan 22, 2015 at 11:17 PM UTC
Ears in the turrets hear
Hands grumble on the door,
Eyes in the gables see
The fingers at the locks.
Shall I unbolt or stay
Alone till the day I die
Unseen by stranger-eyes
In this white house?
Hands, hold you poison or grapes?
Beyond this island bound
By a thin sea of flesh
And a bone coast,
The land lies out of sound
And the hills out of mind.
No birds or flying fish
Disturbs this island's rest.
Ears in this island hear
The wind pass like a fire,
Eyes in this island see
Ships anchor off the bay.
Shall I run to the ships
With the wind in my hair,
Or stay till the day I die
And welcome no sailor?
Ships, hold you poison or grapes?
Hands grumble on the door,
Ships anchor off the bay,
Rain beats the sand and slates.
Shall I let in the stranger,
Shall I welcome the sailor,
Or stay till the day I die?
Hands of the stranger and holds of the ships,
Hold you poison or grapes?
2.3k
So much to do, my mind is buzzing. My fingers are dancing with perverted excitement as my lips form words with more syllables than letters. I feel as though I were a more capable Atlas. May the world rely on me, I shall hold it higher than an aeroplane as it soars through the sky. Our skies.
A testament to the ingenuity of man the turrets, ******** the weak, and credit God; the asexual ****** he is.
This is no song for the hipsters to play as their ringtones as they feel for each other through their LCD screens. They search for other brazen articles of humanity trapped within their social networks, a web of faces, **** smiles, faces and words with us wherever we we go. An inextricable mass that haunts like schizophrenic vocals droning out the real life. But there is no real life. We are all just like Him.
***** Not natural. Filthy. Unclean.
Today, I grabbed a handful of sand just to see if I could feel it. Ten years ago, I would have felt every grain as it passed through my fingers; crisp, sharp, invigorating. Now, it’s dull. Blunt, rounded, indistinguishable. ***** Not natural. Filthy. Unclean. Nothing for our worshipped deviant to see.
My life is pornographic; an infographic of my exquisite taste in infectious lies, in the slaughter of old days, in the times immemorial. A map of things that don’t relate to me. A chart of things I don’t care about. I have too much to do, so much to write about! To write about...me.
***** Not natural. Filthy. Unclean.
My mind is buzzing.
Until the next day, when my bones fall sluggish and my mind thinks plainly of its singular desire: Sleep…dirty, sleep...filthy, sleep. But I can’t.
So now...I work. I am alive, alive, alive a lively beat of my heart as blood runs like an inmate from the bars of confinement. From my body: a testament to the ingenuity of ********** My body. Where my heart is beaten.
Beat, beat.
Sleep, sleep.
Fly high.
Mar 4, 2012
Mar 4, 2012 at 3:13 AM UTC
O lady o ,
When I first saw you ,
you’re beauty was it not plucked like a carnation Gods gardens of delight ?
Or had the snake who saw you stand there ,
so to draw blood from my very sight ?
For I have ridden in dark forests by day ,
past pine ,
and firn
for even they could never draw out the love in you’re eyes ,
or the tender way you’re White carnations flew on by .
The sunset with its colours as vast as you’re breast ,
I have awaited every hour of every day ,
and there you are ,
You’re turrets tall and fair youre battlements boast of ore and steel ,
You’re cannons lit it’s flintlock poised ,
You’re hairs as black as the Lotus flower that gives its scent unto
the night ,
and grows all around you’re turrets so rare .
I will blow a kiss to you this evening ,
for the wind may howl ,
let its spirits deceive ,
this night you’re cannons I shall disarm ,
You’re turrets dismantle ,
you’re battlements besiege.
As for you’re carnations ,
shall I hold tight to my chest ?
For this night our bodies will entwine ,
as the firn and the pine ,
the bark and the yoke ,
to chase the sun ,
past forest glades,
gallop ,
as you hold my thighs ,
together we shall ride ,
Side by side .
This night we shall call our own lost in the pine forest ,
firn and flower .
For are they not dainty ones I shall pick for you this hour .
Then as the last rays of light called it a night ,
and the vast reds in all their array ,
could not stop my tears ,
one white carnation on the ground ,
without a note ,
quite profound ,
an empty space where you once stood ,
lies now a block of wood .
And I still mount thus every night ,
Galloping hopeless in faintest light ,
as faster than any knight ,
to gaze to where you once stood ,
for with thy white carnations must lie
my forever ,
beating ....
heart .
.
Jul 29, 2019
Jul 29, 2019 at 11:42 AM UTC
We are Americans, confident and condescending, never pretending. Pretentious with a fictitious flare. Apologize? Cauterize our past
We will always be and forever last.
Past the hatred that spewed from our bowles. ******* and ***** disliked but grow. A show of force divorce from the norm.
A new norm. A storm from the top to dismember the bottom. Mathematic and Systematic relief of liberty. Care from elite, delete, delete.
Depopulated with information. Education dedication a lie.
Down the rabbit hole of darker days. We stay,
Unblinded by the pictures they wave.
A flag.
The towers.
the showers of bullets
turrets from afar.
A star.
This is America
We are Americans.
Aug 6, 2012
Aug 6, 2012 at 5:11 PM UTC
A guy who hates cussing with a girl with turrets
A girl with ocd with a guy who's a mess
A guy who likes to wing it with a girl with a schedule
A girl who wakes up early with a guy that sleeps without rule
They're too different to remain together
But maybe they'll be perfect for each other
Apr 13, 2017
Apr 13, 2017 at 11:03 AM UTC
People wobbling in the heat haze like a real time hall of mirrors
Street performers sing & flamenco & mime
The snap of digital cameras & excited chatter outside the cathedral
Sangria cold & fruity as it slides down easily
The tram glides past the beggars & hawkers
Gypsies’ curses in coarse andalucian as rosemary favours are repelled
Excited Asians watching every move Large Americans loudly exclaiming their delight as the light fades into dusk
Now the Feria comes alive all lights & ferris wheels & music so much music
Men on horseback women ride sidesaddle all in traditional dress
A throwback to a time before bailouts & austerity
Sing & Dance & Eat & laugh & joke
As dusk becomes evening the ottoman turrets light up
The cooler night air seems to remove inhibitions as people from different worlds celebrate humanity with cheers & smiles
Muchos Gracias & Bueno & Buena Noches in various accents fill the night as the spell is broken
May 15, 2014
May 15, 2014 at 10:05 AM UTC
Pulsating honor doth corroded hearts impound
A blustery breeze echoes cries from each, preceding battleground
A recurring, eager parade of reporters, gawkers freely roam distant mound
Below, fatigued, tidy mass of steeled infantry; to death's throes bound
Neighing horses conditioned to mayhem the pageantry doth confound
On opposite ridges, mounted turrets prepared hell's fury to expound
On signal, a synchronized, concussive chorus doth its dark melody propound
Scraps of metal shards initiate; commencing another, toilsome round
After lengthy barrage, wits collected a more lethal volley to stound
Familiar, urgent order to charge christens hallowed ground
With youthful ardor a wide-eyed bugler doth the bridled expanse unbound
Shrieking rancor from recoiling rifles; a familiar anthem doth resound
Recurring cacophonous medley, weathered nerves drowned
Once more, a mass of flesh surges into the abyss with mortal hopes crowned
Anon, shattered limbs; gory wounds misery's cache compound
Jul 20, 2012
Jul 20, 2012 at 9:59 AM UTC
This home is becoming
Like a weathermast of the soul
Beaten into responding silence.
To awaken here again
And to only wear this armour
As a riposte sufficient to self-assurance
And to rise, out of lazy eyelids and
Consider the opposing wind turrets
Laid as the proposition
All slack and starkly
Poised on the trapeze
The wallpaper durability of family headaches ;
The spurned lover's recurring luminosity
The marked and re-imagined lists
Detailing personal no-shows and defeats
Bookended by
The passing on of friendly eyes.
Assuming the universal, and in doing so, blindly holding out for the miracle :
For falling out of love is completely plausible
Whereas letting go of shame is mostly incomprehensible
Jul 7, 2014
Jul 7, 2014 at 1:44 PM UTC