"tuscany" poems
When you plunged
The light of Tuscany wavered
And swung through the pool
From top to bottom.
I loved your wet head and smashing crawl,
Your fine swimmer's back and shoulders
Surfacing and surfacing again
This year and every year since.
I sat dry-throated on the warm stones.
You were beyond me.
The mellowed clarities, the grape-deep air
Thinned and disappointed.
Thank God for the slow loadening,
When I hold you now
We are close and deep
As the atmosphere on water.
My two hands are plumbed water.
You are my palpable, lithe
Otter of memory
In the pool of the moment,
Turning to swim on your back,
Each silent, thigh-shaking kick
Re-tilting the light,
Heaving the cool at your neck.
And suddenly you're out,
Back again, intent as ever,
Heavy and frisky in your freshened pelt,
Printing the stones.
25.6k
lines cut heavy
on a button stretched brow
thick rubber shoes
and dragon canes
fill out the closet floor
gospel sounds
and narratives (drowned)
apparitions set sullenly
amid voices from the past
finger pins
and crosswords
find the favor list
point men and preachers
tip up their tuscany caps
twitching and sign gazing
with spectacles held firm
recurring evening news
and beadledom views
clappers and caregivers
raise a crooked foot
grips and rockers
settle in on the front porch
gertrude grimaces
at an untimely turn
as the gooseberry pie
(with a smidgen of cloves)
chills by the night watch
Feb 11, 2018
Feb 11, 2018 at 12:07 PM UTC
*... My eyes,
To mirror your sighs,
I will give you my smile,
To dance with your smile,
I will give you my hands,
For you to paint the beauty
Of the fertile lands
In the hills of Tuscany.
I will give you my open arms
To surround your shoulders,
When you feel cold during the winters.
I will give you my soft kisses
To dry up your tears
On your pale cheeks
So I can chase your fears.
I will give you my memory,
For you to remember
Our forgotten kisses, if any.
I will tell you some of my secrets,
Even the ones from the Pool,
In case you show interest,
And there you would think I'm a fool.
And of course I will give you
My Ocean Blue,
For you to dive into.
But I will never give you
Anything that can hurt you.
Somehow,
You need to know
That I can only give all this
When you come back from the abyss
To which you've decided to depart,
Leaving me alone to dream of you,
With art.*
Jan 15, 2015
Jan 15, 2015 at 2:29 PM UTC
*What if we had met
In Florence, say five centuries ago
Would you have let
Me be your Leonardo ?
You gentle face I would have framed
In the back, a sfumato of Tuscany
You, I would have named
My Mona Lisa, smiling to eternity.*
Oct 10, 2014
Oct 10, 2014 at 4:46 PM UTC
horns squawk
rainforest avenues
exoskeleton
of cars
arteries clogged
with unlovely taxi cabs
fat green fruit
for sale
five languages
merge into a knot
hisses kiss vowels
kiwis apples pears
black guys basketball
debt rises like blood pressure
stocks tumble
but we walk
brogues clop on concrete
count brick after brick
sun cascades
over roof slates
mind cracks in slabs
(you say
Monroe stood here)
heat quivers
men are dominoes
suits for the office
a funeral
designer sneakers
daddy paid for
pigtails cheap thrills
violet octagons
on a stranger’s neck
(behind the closed doors)
today
I drink purple water
aubergine lips
remind me
of a Tuscany Superb
list the names
Houston Charlton
Leroy Sullivan
Perry Cornelia
Dominick and Jane
(ladders lead
away from me
close to
you)
and back again
Jun 21, 2014
Jun 21, 2014 at 12:24 PM UTC
The blind Parisian has never seen the tower, or the lights that illuminate his city of birth
The deaf Italian never heard the opera, or Core 'ngrato from a Tuscany street corner
I never looked into your eyes and saw the cosmos
I am distracted by the power of corporate America
The unflinching pacifist still stands atop a suit of armour with his arms outstretched
and Syria rejoices as the stench of liberty matches gun powder and familial genocide
Oh western world, have you forgotten your past so soon?
Explain to the deaf man how her voice sounds
or
Explain the colour spectrum to a blind child
and then deny the tears that water your cheek
Tell the dyslexic that words are meaningless for it gives him comfort
and turn your back on the monetary religion of which we are indoctrinated
Take your ******* industry and bring it to it's submissive knees
Your weapons too, they are a disgrace
Empathy is universal
Love is blind
[Cliche]
[Cliche]
End.
A return, or a refrain, addendum to the ideas thenceforth
It's enough to leave a man crying in his coffee, Starbucks specialty
**** your poets, burn your books and gouge your eyes
This world is not broken, we are.
Mar 27, 2013
Mar 27, 2013 at 12:45 PM UTC
Percepts of enlightenment & civilization to encounter
The grim aftermath of tales unspoken from the galaxies afar
Betokening Indian tales of deeper truths than ever,
For the Great Spirit still swirls in gestures previously milder,
At a snail's pace and surely winning the pursuit among souls or
Is example better than pre-conceived precept?
or
“Is that a dog in the manger?”
Now cherishing the viper?
The human dilemma between liberty & authority?
“Has mythology now become psychology?”
A dingy white color in disguise of tranquility
To suit the blemished features of the 21st century
With fair women & brave men turning fables into verse,
Yet Socrates’ doctrine about death bespeaks a wafture so callous!
The new-age “iron claw” screams nastiness in time and space.
The pretences of mankind like the puritan;
Mars trapped in the net of Vulcan,
Jupiter is serene and above the conflict to win,
While Venus tries to fight upon the plains of troy
That the Greek gods of serenity may win at Tuscany.
“When do these sultry groans of mortal remorse cease?”
To calm the sordid uproar that Love may peruse
Through the scattered white aromatic rose petals
In search of the scintillating path back to the highland stables
Were snowflakes are an irresistible lure for the Arctic snowbirds!
Nature herself is proud of her designs
Yet!
There is nothing grating in mortal cosmoses but direct villainy.
Sinister fate climbs the lonesome banister faster
Before the “fanged dawn” descends nearer,
As stronger minds virtually become weaker;
These “shameless actors” are melted into “thin air”
“Must they cheat themselves with that same foolish vice of honesty?”
Mischievousnesses feed!
Like beasts till they be fat, and then they bleed
As they are led to bend the curve of “No return”
Since it is only rational that after the darkest of nights
There is a brighter day to reveal the true knights
Of the once gloomy age of Democritus.
Tis plain, from hence, that our vows
Request hurtful intense things,
or useless at the best.
Sep 17, 2009
Sep 17, 2009 at 5:16 AM UTC
across the pond,
I lived off the diet of
some 55 year old bachelor
racing towards the past
only, I looked forward to
so much more than
my mother's improved health.
I would find books and read them
laying them vulnerable and bare
to my devouring mind. *(I swear
to god, there's an approachable
Minotaur among my grey matter.)*
I skipped Barcelona with an alcoholic
to research gay fascists and history's
slaughter benches. I hand-wrote that paper
just so I could feel something at work besides
strong coffee and false anxieties about projected moments.
I raised my hand, countless times
in foreign classes with tobacco residue
creased to my sheet paper. While others
slept or day-dreamed about the pigeon **** outside
*but I smiled at the professor, & mommy and daddy sent them
capitalist notes with the appearance of life.*
I met a girl, who got to know me through
all five senses, at once. Speaking more languages
than half this world is aware of, I danced til my flight
departed and I knew which city was my favorite, because
I knew nothing of it going in and having no expectations
opens me like an oyster whose made multiple pearls.
I lost my scarf there, in Italy,
a beautiful one with conversational brilliance
falling to disappearance on my final night, after the rains
of Tuscany had drenched away my need for movement
and the winds of Ventotene had me sailing with
men, I knew nothing of. *After I cried on the floor
over the beauty of Hegel and Marx and fell into
Nebulae of epiphanies.*
across the pond, my life had verve.
Oct 21, 2013
Oct 21, 2013 at 10:10 AM UTC
On the street
Slung on his shoulder is a handle half way across,
Tied in a big knot on the scoop of cast iron
Are the overalls faded from sun and rain in the ditches;
Spatter of dry clay sticking yellow on his left sleeve
And a flimsy shirt open at the throat,
I know him for a shovel man,
A **** working for a dollar six bits a day
And a dark-eyed woman in the old country dreams of
him for one of the world's ready men with a pair
of fresh lips and a kiss better than all the wild
grapes that ever grew in Tuscany.
2.4k
Surely
your eyes smile like
sunflowers in August
dropping their seeds
from skyscraper heights
as you hang from your cross
nailed together by your own
rough-hewn hands
dropping their seeds
as the wind runs its fingers
through the weeds
windchiming like a
platinum-plated Joni Mitchell
and surely you touched mine
surely surely surely
and I wish like Christmas Eve
like a first junior high dance
like a death bed watch
that I could afford even
a bottle of you
but the demand for you is high
and the supply . . .
well, you know, there's never enough
and you keep raising the price and
surely surely surely
you know, there's never enough
so I lie here
among the weeds
seeking out your seeds
some small, priceless part of you
as you rise out of my reach
like a house with a seaside view
like a villa in Tuscany
like gold
which you are
surely surely surely
you are
with your sunflower eyes
and your Christmas Eve wishes
you pay for my sins
dropping your seeds and
surely surely surely
you know, there's never enough
Mar 19, 2012
Mar 19, 2012 at 8:57 PM UTC
*What if we had met
In Florence, say five centuries ago
Would you have let
Me be your Leonardo ?
You gentle face I would have framed
In the back, a sfumato of Tuscany
You, I would have named
My Mona Lisa, smiling to eternity.
*
Aug 16, 2015
Aug 16, 2015 at 10:25 AM UTC
Is life a story, is life magick dreaming to love?
I gazed up. “Standing below the elephantine magnolia,
the ground still bore Tuscany ochre from autumns last kiss.”
My eyes solivagant orbs fed on spring’s dews in mourning
──jewellery clinging opulently to her naked form.
Dawn chilled the breeze caressing her body as abscission
demanded she undressed her emerald gown of leaves.
Magenta and cream blooms sprang “loudly” seducing
─ blushing mauve crowned centres,
a population of endless figurines perched motionless on aching
naked branches.
Solomon’s seal burned white within me drunk impending suns arrows, opulent words of silver Verbus diablio kissed in a cauldron
of Magnolia words, a banquet for mortals that seek loves gold.
A lone spider echoed silence bearing the sigil of Jupiter’s
vermillion and white spun striations luffing on the breeze
warming. “Magnolia dressed the day ardent in perfumed
── glorious plumes that each set sail across waking skies.”
Ablaze I am luscious dreams wrapped in sweet nectar,
travelling limbic memories breathing deeply, held captive,
wanton within her labyrinths of silk caresses, petals whispering,
sweet love as she engulfs my last resolve.
In raptures white velvet gown my hem sweeps over gold russet
and brittle autumns words forged in winters need for warmth──mind leaves crunching beneath life’s changing seasons,
stitched I cling enamoured to mortal honeymoon summered fields.
I am the female of sapphire tears twisting, glittering melting ice shards, bequeathed of pained black stars travelled on passionate magick fires, breathed on melodious Roma nights.
Rested among the branches a mantel crucified- drunk once more,
a bloom held silent in time weeping, exploding fragrant in a coloured soul, a luffing flower creature to life──crowned
──to sun hope thorns.
©ASPAR (A Sol Poet Arnay Rumens)
Dec 9, 2018
Dec 9, 2018 at 6:17 AM UTC
(the hours in between)
It is the morning after reuniting, wining and talking...the stirring of the curtains transparent, become slow moving hands and calming whispers of a hypnotist, blending perfectly with the gentle whiff of a breeze...and the soft sounds of one who has just woken...a hint of a breath of life...there is much gratitude.....these early morning whispers could still be heard...quietude is a swaying hammock, but sleepy eyes peep through the window, gazing far, enthralled by the horizon...red, orange, purple.....merging.....against green and brown of the mountains...and from all these mix of colors, finally emerges a sky so blue...a new day is born, the Almighty is most kind...but something else unsettles the mind of one who has gone through many arduous journeys...asking:
"How did I fare"? Can I still...? Will I...?"
Now shining bright is a list of
Things yet to happen...intentions---
Disguised as questions.
Though this has long been conceptualized,
There's this pressing feeling, they must now be prioritized
Pray they soon be realized
Before exit from this world has materialized.
Can I still -
Be brave enough to swim? drive a car? ride a bike?
Meet with distant friends? learn new languages?
Write with more depth, even when I turn 80... and older?
Fly in a plane with my son as the pilot in command?
See my granddaughters finish college?
Will I still be able -
To satisfy this wanderlust endlessly stirring within me?
To ride a camel in the deserts of Morocco?
To feel the sun, the air, even the rain, while walking the cobbled streets in Tuscany?
To spend an evening in Florence?
To visit Greece, Spain, Ireland, Wales, and relive stories read?
To feel and breathe the air there, brimming with adventure?
We walk through various labyrinths in life, so absorbed in our own worlds...hours, days, become prosy, they move oh, so slowly.......still, when the dark is upon us, we sit and reflect...wondering:
Will we see another day unfold before us?
Do we get to witness
The Blue Hours of another sunrise and sunset,
And further be enchanted by the day's breath-taking
A L P E N G L O W ?
How many more
A L P E N G L O W S ?
Sally
Copyright August 2014
Rosalia Rosario A. Bayan
Mar 7, 2015
Mar 7, 2015 at 7:39 PM UTC
radiant purple gospel red
and bold yellow tulips
picture frames of beauty
adorn the grassy hills
of Tuscany and
what ever becomes of
this love parade
are the fancy white and
fragile yellow daffodils
if we make this world
a tapestry
Aug 29, 2014
Aug 29, 2014 at 1:18 AM UTC
Mellow sunrised.
The dew of the afternoon high light.
Paradise sunset.
Tuscany, Marigold, Chartreuse, Caramel.
Amber, Copper, Olive, Saffron.
Honeycomb mystery of rejection... or doubt.
Freedom sparks; feet and hip dilate and constrict; lips close to feel the colors and open again, blinking to suffocate the oasis into the dull reality of smog and soot, of cemetery.
The psychedelic picturesque star stares back, dusk-like fireworks of heaven gained and lost.
One second that sealed his fate.
Death will be hazel eyes.
Jan 14, 2021
Jan 14, 2021 at 12:57 PM UTC
There's a painting by Botticelli
I've always loved,
showing Venus being born naked
from the ocean and
not fearing the current.
Those around her renounce her body,
scrambling to clothe her,
turn her virginal,
contain the way her eyes cross galaxies,
shine all the way to Pluto.
But she is soft, unwavering,
not noticing the mortals' concern
about her *******
and bare collarbone that could catch water
at its base.
I found you halfway across the world on the steps of the Uffizi
and in the 3 hours it took you
to show me some of the best art on earth,
I was transfixed only
on the orbits of planets in your eyes.
Shortly before the sun set,
you took me through the secret corridor
Cosimo de' Medici built to walk across the
rooftops of the city
where you kissed me but
told me you didn't believe in love,
that all you needed was art,
and Michelangelo,
and in that moment
I saw Venus in your collarbone.
Saw a shell under your feet,
saw the universe in the way your freckles connected,
saw how you immortalize yourself
among the rest of the art in Florence
so no human can bring you down to earth,
can make your heart stop,
show you what it's like to cross timezones
with a single touch.
And here I am,
wanting to be your Botticelli,
to paint the uneven slope of your shoulders,
the crookedness of your right ankle,
your fear of exposing yourself to someone
who could love you.
It must be lonely out there, Venus,
on your little fishing boat by the sea.
Botticelli's painting was found
long after his death,
laid into the floor of
an abandoned villa in the south of Tuscany.
Venus looking lost and mortal
between cracked paint and chipping walls,
like the way you hide between
the dusty statues of the dead statesmen and fading portraits
long after the museum closes,
just you with only history to hold.
You want to believe in love
as past-tense,
like you've lost faith in present participles and the fact
that art is still being made,
and people are running barefoot into future conjugations
together.
Don't come back to land, Venus. Vanessa.
I won't be here waiting with a towel
or an art critic
or a spaceship.
But maybe,
just make a little room for me on your shell
under the sun,
atop steady waves or Florentine rooftops.
Throw the map overboard.
Let's forget the shore.
And Michelangelo and the rest of them
will smile as they see us off.
Jul 28, 2015
Jul 28, 2015 at 5:18 PM UTC
A simple sample of a symbol used to approve the work of another.
But who was first to fist the quill and downward pull and upward ping?
Mr Tick of Tuscany? Mrs Tick of Tijuana? Or master Tick the ticklers son who tagged his type with ticking fun?
The actual answer is I'm sure a bore and a slip of the tip made the tick a score.
Nov 7, 2014
Nov 7, 2014 at 3:51 PM UTC
night
perched herself
to
prune her
pitch black wings
the
edges cadet blue
thus
rub her
Tuscany beck
upon
the
iron castle of stars
what
shine through
Sep 14, 2018
Sep 14, 2018 at 8:00 PM UTC
*Dreams of Tuscany
With drawn lips
Portrayed like a silver chain
Where hearts surge to follow
Feathers from wings of night
Sits a poet with the stirring of light
Paints a pretty picture
With their words of life
That echoes through their corridors of their mind
Their hearts hold many sorrows riding low in life
Many battles have been won
With their mighty muse
Many blessings to each dear
Poet for all the obstacles
To overcome.
Sweet thoughts to each one that must write this very night....*
By: Debbie Brooks
Sep 21, 2014
Sep 21, 2014 at 10:53 PM UTC
oh love be
that quiet storm
neither
right nor wrong
love that
we shall justify
shall not be denied
in space and time
as that quiet storm
transform herself
into a sweet blue rain
oh love
be that quiet storm and
embrace the Tuscany sky
Dec 4, 2012
Dec 4, 2012 at 8:15 AM UTC
The language of Love
They finished a dinner by candle light the darkness just beyond the candle light created the
Elusive hard to capture romantic mood this gave expression to longing and from it emerges an antique
Glass plate image of a passenger car from yesteryear all else about the train was shrouded in the dark
But how the car beamed and gleamed the invitation was like a magic wand with golden glittering light
First through eyes then grazing the heart then the explosion that occurred in the soul the two of them
Stepped onto the steps and entered a different time and different world elegance flowed the length
Of the interior of the car from rich leather to the finest cloth from the carpeted floor to the delicate
Chandeliered lights that hung from the ceiling at points where the sky view windows temporarily
Stopped their customary flow that brought the day and night heavens within your power to touch
Race along in the moonlight see the arching trees breaking with this glorious light is it not to as if you are
Flying on the night wind the eyes have been caught up in a dream then the hearing stereophonic
Romantic violin drifts within this cube that pulses did you leave the American river you were following
As it curved and flowed in this mountain valley but now it seems you have jumped the track and are
Now speeding through French Tuscany how the vineyards create a plausible bow that carries you back
Even further when these villas were new and the youthful lovers were young they seem to press and
Feed your own romanticism drink deeply from this post card from abroad as the train stops leave it
Momentarily hand in hand stroll down a darkened path the stillness only enraptures and you bask in the
Wonder night creates and love grows ever stronger through the hand you hold well cupid or the
Conductor shouts all aboard continue to enjoy your privileged ride it is the promise and the fulfillment
of being in love
Feb 7, 2012
Feb 7, 2012 at 12:43 PM UTC
radiant purple gospel red
and bold yellow tulips
picture frames of beauty
adorn the grassy hills
of Tuscany and
what ever becomes of
this love parade
are the fancy white and
fragile yellow daffodils
if we make this world
a tapestry
upon
the hills of Tuscany
Aug 9, 2015
Aug 9, 2015 at 2:29 PM UTC
I heard of a man
who never owned a
television.
Instead he bought
a set of solid oak
bookshelves stained
like mahogany.
With the money
he saved on cable,
he filled them with
classics like Plato,
Aristotle, and Dostoyevsky.
He studied Darwin
and Descartes, and
memorized poems by
Whyte and O'Donohue
Because he never
made the switch to
high definition, he
could afford trips to
Rome and Tuscany.
Walking those ancient
streets and resting
in those heavenly fields,
he learned the art
of attentiveness,
minding the
genius loci
of a place,
and setting
one's cadence to
the breath of the wind.
And in the end,
he had a few books
of his own,
but they taught
nothing new
other than
how to truly live.
Jan 16, 2017
Jan 16, 2017 at 10:16 PM UTC