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the moon is hiding in
her hair.
The
lily
of heaven
full of all dreams,
draws down.

cover her briefness in singing
close her with the intricate faint birds
by daisies and twilights
Deepen her,

Recite
upon her
flesh
the rain’s

pearls singly-whispering.
Raymond Walker Apr 2012
From the alleys and streets, from the door steps and heaths, from the meadows and farmlands,
A mist rises, and forms, from the rivers and rills, valleys and hills, from the fields and fissures
It swirls and turns in the night air, forming and fragmenting, failing and fermenting, till it yields.
A figure, blessed and bare, in the late night air, steps into the moonlight, baleful and brazen in its
Nakedness and knowledge, the pall of the shining moon, drips, Grey and silver from his eyes
Youth drips from his thighs, vigour from his lips and fingertips, crimson is his mouth  and *****.
Lions race across his skin as clouds scud across the moon, feral and wild this child of the moon.
Wild and *****, his face shadowed with growth, excited with his youth and desire. On fire.
Panicked by distaste, his own waste and needs, brewed in a mighty beer of disgust, a sire
Of demons, with packaged might, swooping and rearing, devilish and dervish, spiralled, a pyre.
For the noonday sun, wishing hope on everyone yet giving them night and darkness and doom.
Holds my hand and holds it tightly, grapples with me daily and nightly, even in my own room
Where hope takes hold as quick as fear or death or charity, spilling, humors, ethers, exhume
Nothing but a buried evil that has come to see the light. A paltry being, exhumed, of the night











Whilst over all the night comes creeping
Then I go out a’ stealing,
O’er tombstones and moss, where the dead lie sleeping,
Passing the fungi , sarcophagi, and the smell of weeping
Be it from crypt or hall or farmhouse steading.
collecting the shades of the bodies they’re shedding

Through sunlight’s bright blast
Or twilight’s last gleaming
They will be a sowing
And I’ll be a reaping
Through the strongest gale
Or mornings glittering hail
They will be a sowing
And I’ll be a reaping.

Whilst the morn sunlight, over hills comes creeping,
There in the shadows, I’ll be steeling,
Darkening daffodils, turning bluebells black and foxglove steeping
Poison filled and passing the narcissi, and the tears of the leaving.
It may be birth or anniversary or wedding.
I’ll be collecting the souls they are shedding.

Through all the breaths that you will still be breathing
And all those breaths that have passed
And all those breaths still to come you are dreaming
One day you shall take your last.
And that’s where I’ll be stealing








Through sunlight’s bright blast
Or twilight’s last gleaming
They will be a sowing
And I’ll be a reaping
Through the strongest gale
Or mornings glittering hail
They will be a sowing
And I’ll be a reaping.













A ****** of crows blackens the noonday sky,
Called from their nests and eyries
And so many ships have gone by, black masted and steering
Into the wind, Sails tattered and the keel close to shearing
I stand on the nest and watch you weeping
Till the bodies fall into the deepening sea and there lie sleeping
And that’s where I’ll be stealing.

I smiled and laughed
Till the black mast
Fell below the sea
I whimpered and moaned
With those overthrown
Till they lay with me

And I took my place once more at the forefront of man’s destiny.








I crept and waddled and watched and bustled my way to the front of the crew.
I stood behind some and fell behind few; I had come here to see.
I pushed and shoved and elbowed my way to the front, shuffled over and tried to find my pew
I sat with my heart in my mouth, beating doubly in my chest and wondered were the culprit I?

It seemed I had sat in the stalls or in the balcony, way out in front
But it seems I had not sat at all just fell into the orchestras’ well.
But I remembered that I had sat, adjusted my clothes, my underwear, my hat.
As a man should do, are we not gentlemen and so I took tea and sat.








Paying court; To the girl with the blue eyes and the thin lipped smile, the girl that knew.
As most girls do, the thoughts of men, or think that they do. And I so I tried to find her,  
But it seems I had known a Girl with no thought of love, no turtle dove, cuddled
Close, no heavenly host, called to her, but she loved as love must befuddled
Drew her breath deeply but not freely, Took air, perspiring, muddled
Thoughts spinning in her head, amazed, this pale eyed temptress, The girl that knew.
As most girls do, emotions that drift, or think they do. And so found herself alone,
And weeping, a girl that did not know that they could love found that they could.
She murmured words of love and shook sand from her pelt, howled to the moon.
She stood tall on her haunches, praying , baying, to the moon goddess, one of hers.
Baleful eyes pale and moonstruck, seemed star struck with love  a mother with her curs.






Not the focus of her attention, her pale imitation, a pale shape creeps from the crepuscular woods
He slinks into the shadows of the night paying court to this matron, with his smell warmth and lust
She stalls and smells the night air
Little of care, for all stalks the night air
She sidles and smells the night air
Nothing there, In the dark and silent dream that is the night air.
She bridles and hush’s as the night drips onto her
She has cares; for children that whisper in their sleep on the night air.
Bovine, equine, feline and canine and warm fur
A sleep comes upon them all, a pale imitation of life, and a pale shadow creeps into the light.
And smothers the light of day languishing in his power and majesty sending chills unto the living
He waits in the darkness and shadows.














A child mutters unknown words and the time has come to die
Utters words of fortune and Questions your reasons why.

My dear, my love, child, why do you cry?

I shook myself awake
From my bed of dreams
And warmth
I pulled the duvet over
Took to my feet and felt
The chill

And so I stood, took my bow,  and then knew everything, everything about what I was witnessing,
She looked at him and he looked at she, both knew nothing of how its going to be.
I walked downwards, right down the stairs And I saw everything even the killing thing
He slapped her face and she bloodied drew the knife for all of us to see.
A joyous muse, my heart sang,  witnessing the killing, witnessing the killing and I knew everything.
He looked up at her, she down at him, she was so lucky that she had set him free.
I watched with glee for all I could see, to jail the police said as I sat, as I sat listening.

I heard your excuse I hear your plea, please madam judge don’t let that happen to me
She stood in the dock and sat on the chair,  and told everything, the things I’d been witnessing,
Told how she had murdered he, in a fit of rage it was not her fault she should be set free.
Not the judge, not the jury, but I knew everything and shed knowledge of my fury.

I remember the blade, I remember the fury. I now have to thank the jury.
A just verdict, a wrong righted,  a sacred trust bighted.  And just penury.


















These children are mine sayeth the lady
Though the money I earn is a little shady
I look after them through the day
And at night none can say.
Little darlings,
Wont come to no harm, I keep them apart,
Little darlings, are always in my heart.
Sleeping and dreaming and held apart,
They’re just kids and held in my heart.  

Through sunlight’s bright blast
Or twilights last gleaming
They will be a sowing
And I’ll be a reaping
Through the strongest gale
Or mornings glittering hail
They will be a sowing
And I’ll be a reaping.



I have heard your thoughts ideas and whims
I have heard your excuses , you hacked off a limb,
Because he was bad, she was a devil, and I have never heard so much drivel.
She was a monster, he was a slave, you never thought of the love that they gave.
I saw you had it hard and it must have been so bad
It was trouble, never ever had you been so sad
She was a *****, with an eternal itch, a witch that was not worth forgiving.
She was a dragon, he was a monster,  it was no longer a life worth living
She pulled me down, he dragged me down into a cesspit of hope.
And off they loped into the night.















'
Publicly he seemed alright, not the ***** that he really was. She was so cool en vogue, en vie,
She pulled the love from this heart like a harvester, reaping all that he could sow, all that she was due.
She meditates on her  betrayal and justifies it to herself and thinks so few, so very soulless few
Would not, and she is more, so very much more and then lifts the knife and delivers his due.
In the early hue of evenings last breath, he drew his and she smiled, just his due.






Sorry tales; I know
Tales no one should know
Tales that diffidently show
The differences, the shocks
All the stops and blocks
That love mocks
In its immortal way
Tarnished and bloodied
It soldiers on, unhurried.









I looked for the heartbroken, the tarnished, the burned; and found them all
For there were so many. Loves that went good and bad; those that hurt  and those that fall
I looked for the unforgiving and hopeless and found them all, some happy in their own way,
The traitors of love I looked also for and found hopeless and alone, shriven but hearty in their own way.
I looked to the martyrs of love, those that have loved deeply and have lost,  for many do







And I was one that did. I knew love as pure as a mountain stream,
Unsullied, clean and precious, but no love is as true as the perfect love
No thing is just as wondrous and perfect as it may  perfectly seem,
Chaste, virginal, and all just yours, lest it be a gift from angels above.

And I loped off into the night
Full of sweat and blood,
Flushed with heaven above
And hell below
Both knew my hollow soul











And through sunlight’s bright blast trampling daemons I came, shamed and hollow
Risen from this earth, cursed to death, in twilights last gleaming, brazen but sullied
The seeds of doom are sown  by such as I  and they were sown deep and fertilised with blood
And reaped by those that know,  reaped by hands that touch, lips that kiss and know,
hunger and want, lust and lie, eyes that darken and hooded, draw lust from liars,
Build from truth funeral pyres,  and fires for the ****** and yet I remain and sullied
Smirk with each passing glance or circumstance at the great and good, the unwashed
The hooded and deep, the shallow and callow, the wanton and unwanted, the sane
And simple, the masterful and master less, musical and malleable, the strange and straight.

These I trampled under heel with little feeling or thought
The form I took was human, the place I came from; dread
I looked and watched and took note, I spoke and listened
Pay’ed heed,  Culpable and crazed, yet my form remained,
this spectre.
Dying now.
Paid heed.
A rather long poem and the first I have added being a new member. I hope you like it.
The edge of our bed was a wide grid
where your fifteen-year-old daughter was hanging
gut-sprung on police wheels
a cablegram nailed to the wood
next to a map of the Western Reserve
I could not return with you to bury the body
reconstruct your nightly cardboards
against the seeping Transvaal cold
I could not plant the other limpet mine
against a wall at the railroad station
nor carry either of your souls back from the river
so I bought you a ticket to Durban
on my American Express
and we lay together
in the first light of a new season.

Now clearing roughage from my autumn garden
cow sorrel    overgrown rocket gone to seed
I reach for the taste of today
the New York Times finally mentions your country
a half-page story
of the first white south african killed in the "unrest"
Not of Black children massacred at Sebokeng
six-year-olds imprisoned for threatening the state
not of Thabo Sibeko, first grader, in his own blood
on his grandmother's parlor floor
Joyce, nine, trying to crawl to him
******* through her navel
not of a three-week-old infant, nameless
lost under the burned beds of Tembisa
my hand comes down like a brown vise over the marigolds
reckless through despair
we were two Black women touching our flame
and we left our dead behind us
I hovered    you rose    the last ritual of healing
"It is spring," you whispered
"I sold the ticket for guns and sulfa
I leave for home tomorrow"
and wherever I touch you
I lick cold from my fingers
taste rage
like salt from the lips of a woman
who has killed too often to forget
and carries each death in her eyes
your mouth a parting orchid
"Someday you will come to my country
and we will fight side by side?"

Keys jingle in the door ajar    threatening
whatever is coming belongs here
I reach for your sweetness
but silence explodes like a pregnant belly
into my face
a ***** of nevers.

Mmanthatisi turns away from the cloth
her daughters-in-law are dyeing
the baby drools milk from her breast
she hands him half-asleep to his sister
dresses again for war
knowing the men will follow.
In the intricate Maseru twilights
quick    sad    vital
she maps the next day's battle
dreams of Durban    sometimes
visions the deep wry song of beach pebbles
running after the sea.
Astral Jun 2015
I’ve wandered to the lands of shadows and twilights, to search for happiness

It is filled with morbid creatures, and cruel landscapes

It is a treacherous depth, a walk among the gardens of abyss

But to find this happiness, that I’ve heard in legends

I will scale these gothic paths, and challenge these ferocious beasts

For the pain and distress of this land, must be worth the light from within one’s self

That can be obtained, that can radiate this warmth, that I’ve heard in so many stories
F J McCarthy Jun 2010
Twilights Lone Companion
F J McCarthy on Nov 30, 2009





Barely scratched this heart of mine.

Like polished granite dulled by time.

Hard and black with speckled flecks.

A cold stone island strewn with wrecks.

A fortress tower strong and old.

No shelter from the icy cold.

A lonely monolith no warmth to find.

Barely scratched this heart of mine.

Echos play down these halls of stone

It is just the wind in the catacombs.

Pale ghosts of winter chill my bones.

Remind me that I’m still alone.

So many lost to times cruel  hand.

This single rock is left to stand

Eternal vigil without sleep.

So cold inside no tears to weep.

Immortal creature outside time.

Barely scratched this heart of mine.
You are my
Ensorcelled Elysium,
You are my
Eden Dream.

You cascade
Upon my Dreamscape,
Enshrine my slumber in
A flowered gale of aromatic petals
That envelop me, beckon me
To herald the rebirth
Of Days of Yore.

You vein
The Glistening Glade of Memories
With your
Brooks of Aqueous Emerald.

Tis' the
Phantasmagoric Plane
Where still
My wayworn spirit wanders, wearily
In search of the magic
To enfetter
The Hands of Fate
(For they conspire against us).

Swifter than your descent
Into my soul
(Five seconds still and flat)
By
The nexus of your affections,
You evanesced
Like vapor,
Yet
I shall not concede to
The Malevolent Matriarch of Destiny.

For you
O, Breath of Life,
Forsook me not
So I sublime all stains
Tarnishing my flesh
By cries to The Ethereal.

At midday
Awaiting the Twilight
I long for
The birth of The Womb of Aether’s
Progeny,
Starlit winds.

I muse
Swimmingly in Seas of Reminiscence,
Banished from that Blackened Bastion
Of Shadowed Heavens,
For when darkness shrouds
My dreams can be seen
Draping the skies.

I then fathom,
You must not be far off,
Wishing,
Hoping,
Believing
That perhaps
You too
Wonder upon stars
Longing to find that one
That entwines us anew.

You shall alight,
Upon me once more
As
August Sun’s Nimbus
(If only for a moment)
Is thwarted
By
Ebony Miasma
That drenches Cimmerian skies.

In search
Of Ardor’s Light abiding in
The Sylvan Shrine of Your Numinous Eyes
I plead that
The Crag oppress
The Coals of Tribulation,
Until my anguish is
A Diamond Heart.

The pilgrimage
I must bear,
Must be traveled by
The Adamantine alone.

Where have you gone,
Tree of Life?
Why have you withered,
Yggdrasil?

Do I possess
The Eradia of Souls,
By which you shall
Effloresce?

I would halt the cogs of time,
Relinquish my liberty,
To slumber for eternity
In crystal stasis
By your side.

Even in that crystalline quietude,
I would be eminent,
I would be exalted,
I would be ennobled,
In the knowingness that
Your
Stalwart Heart
Radiates
Just beside me.

I exhale Empyrean Winds
When rapt in reverie,
Yearning to be
Captive to your devotion,
Yours alone.

The Bliss of Your Most Holy Kiss
Would signet me
With the
Bounty of Your Name
Burnishing the skin
On my lips.

Though ephemeral,
Your presence divined,
Your presence
Was my anointing.

To be solaced
By the astral resonance emitted
By your touch
Sent the
Pulse of Nirvana
Surging, rippling,
Like a kaleidoscope tide,
Down my spine

You are
The Waters of Vitality
That floweth from
The Creeks of Eden,

You have been
Poured upon my palate
From the
Goblet of Redemption
That I may drinketh
Of
Supernal immortality.

When once again we meet,
Perhaps the tears you summoned
From my spirit
By your
Stirring caress
Shall have absolved me
Of the pangs
In loving a man
(And man alone).

Perhaps then,
The sentiments
I pine to profess,
Will resound.

A melody
Sung in legato,
A  mellifluous melisma,
Flawlessly delineated
And
Intonation in deiform
Or perhaps,
Flowering fioritura
Lacing airwaves,
By the Empress Coloratura.

Perhaps then, piety
Betwixt you and I,
Will waft the air
And I might then,
Permit my quaking body
To succumb to
You alone.

Until that morn,
I shall be vigilant,
Counting the Dawns,
Counting the Twilights,
Until
I can gaze
Into your forested eyes
If even for but a moment.

For even but a moment
Spent with you,
Will bleed a nostalgia
Across my mind's sky,
Painting clouds crimson with passion,
And
That I shall revere,
And
That shall last
And last
And,
Last… And
Last.

O, it will last,
To Elysian Infinity.


            I am a vestige,
               But I shall live once more,
                  In the light of memories
                       That blossom, are perennial,
                           And imbibe the dazed glory of the past
                       Until the past is vanquished
                 By a future that is fragrant
             With the mist of romance
          And eclipses the simulacrum,
       A fictitious sun of the infernal masquerade,
    The antithesis of the truest holy,
Then, rapture of life shall mystify no longer,
For the Numen of Truth,
  Shall cleanse creation without a drop of façade,
      His Providence shall emancipate the hollow,
             The Death of Dreams shall writhe
               In everlasting abeyance,
                 Absolving our wayward spirits,
                  The Winds of Change,
                  The Scourge of Pain,
               And
          The Loveless Wraiths
        That haunted our husks
      Shall be transcended for aeons,
  And tribulation made distant, made nebulous
As the Genesis of Time and Space itself
  For we embark on an exodus,
     Beseeching salvation to redeem us
        When the Requiem of Iniquity
           Is triumphed by everlasting cadence.

Be Valiant,
                 Be Sapient,
                             Be Love
                                       And
                                          By this
                                                You shall conquer the world
                                                           ∞
Hello my fellow comrades! This piece was originally written as a means of catharsis. I wanted to express the romantic sentiments begotten by an individual who deliquesced from my world as swiftly as they arrived. I hope you guys can glean virtues of humanity, poignancy, candor, and (an organic) transparency in this piece. I want to impress the density of reverence pulsing in my heart for the person who enraptured me by the thew of their tenderness and kindred spirit.

Hopefully the massive length of this piece does not deter from reading its contents. Holistically speaking, the volume of content in this piece is the metaphorical incarnation of the Ocean of Affection that ebbs and flows within my soul (for this individual). I would love to improve, so if you have any constructive feedback you'd like to convey I would be most grateful. Anyhow, I hope that on some level you can connect with the overtones of undying piety in love that deluge this piece. Thank you all for reading and God bless!
r Jan 2018
We can never be
both patriots and racists,
we were once the open arms
to the seas on both sides,
to the oceans of grasses
and deserts between,
we were once home
to the huddled masses
having no need for castle
walls and moats built
to segregate the freedom
we forget doesn't belong
only to us because we are
more than the buffoonery
and blowhard *******
saturating the evening news,
it takes more than a tweet
to govern a country, we are
more than the flag we hold
hands over hearts to honor,
more than the Trumpets
and twilights last gleaming,
we are the space seekers,
the star dusted travelers
brave enough to strap
ourselves to rocket fuel
and hope, we were the first
to help, we are more, and
it is time we were it again.
Resist!
A Conversation Poem, April, 1798

No cloud, no relique of the sunken day
Distinguishes the West, no long thin slip
Of sullen light, no obscure trembling hues.
Come, we will rest on this old mossy bridge!
You see the glimmer of the stream beneath,
But hear no murmuring: it flows silently.
O’er its soft bed of verdure. All is still.
A balmy night! and though the stars be dim,
Yet let us think upon the vernal showers
That gladden the green earth, and we shall find
A pleasure in the dimness of the stars.
And hark! the Nightingale begins its song,
‘Most musical, most melancholy’ bird!
A melancholy bird? Oh! idle thought!
In Nature there is nothing melancholy.
But some night-wandering man whose heart was pierced
With the remembrance of a grievous wrong,
Or slow distemper, or neglected love,
(And so, poor wretch! filled all things with himself,
And made all gentle sounds tell back the tale
Of his own sorrow) he, and such as he,
First named these notes a melancholy strain.
And many a poet echoes the conceit;
Poet who hath been building up the rhyme
When he had better far have stretched his limbs
Beside a brook in mossy forest-dell,
By sun or moon-light, to the influxes
Of shapes and sounds and shifting elements
Surrendering his whole spirit, of his song
And of his fame forgetful! so his fame
Should share in Nature’s immortality,
A venerable thing! and so his song
Should make all Nature lovelier, and itself
Be loved like Nature! But ’twill not be so;
And youths and maidens most poetical,
Who lose the deepening twilights of the spring
In ball-rooms and hot theatres, they still
Full of meek sympathy must heave their sighs
O’er Philomela’s pity-pleading strains.

My Friend, and thou, our Sister! we have learnt
A different lore: we may not thus profane
Nature’s sweet voices, always full of  love
And joyance! ’Tis the merry Nightingale
That crowds and hurries, and precipitates
With fast thick warble his delicious notes,
As he were fearful that an April night
Would be too short for him to utter forth
His love-chant, and disburthen his full soul
Of all its music!
                         And I know a grove
Of large extent, hard by a castle huge,
Which the great lord inhabits not; and so
This grove is wild with tangling underwood,
And the trim walks are broken up, and grass,
Thin grass and king-cups grow within the paths.
But never elsewhere in one place I knew
So many nightingales; and far and near,
In wood and thicket, over the wide grove,
They answer and provoke each other’s song,
With skirmish and capricious passagings,
And murmurs musical and swift jug jug,
And one low piping sound more sweet than all
Stirring the air with such a harmony,
That should you close your eyes, you might almost
Forget it was not day! On moonlight bushes,
Whose dewy leaflets are but half-disclosed,
You may perchance behold them on the twigs,
Their bright, bright eyes, their eyes both bright and full,
Glistening, while many a glow-worm in the shade
Lights up her love-torch.
                                       A most gentle Maid,
Who dwelleth in her hospitable home
Hard by the castle, and at latest eve
(Even like a Lady vowed and dedicate
To something more than Nature in the grove)
Glides through the pathways; she knows all their notes,
That gentle Maid! and oft, a moment’s space,
What time the moon was lost behind a cloud,
Hath heard a pause of silence; till the moon
Emerging, a hath awakened earth and sky
With one sensation, and those wakeful birds
Have all burst forth in choral minstrelsy,
As if some sudden gale had swept at once
A hundred airy harps! And she hath watched
Many a nightingale perch giddily
On blossomy twig still swinging from the breeze,
And to that motion tune his wanton song
Like tipsy Joy that reels with tossing head.

Farewell! O Warbler! till tomorrow eve,
And you, my friends! farewell, a short farewell!
We have been loitering long and pleasantly,
And now for our dear homes.That strain again!
Full fain it would delay me! My dear babe,
Who, capable of no articulate sound,
Mars all things with his imitative lisp,
How he would place his hand beside his ear,
His little hand, the small forefinger up,
And bid us listen! And I deem it wise
To make him Nature’s play-mate. He knows well
The evening-star; and once, when he awoke
In most distressful mood (some inward pain
Had made up that strange thing, an infant’s dream)
I hurried with him to our orchard-plot,
And he beheld the moon, and, hushed at once,
Suspends his sobs, and laughs most silently,
While his fair eyes, that swam with undropped tears,
Did glitter in the yellow moon-beam! Well!
It is a father’s tale: But if that Heaven
Should give me life, his childhood shall grow up
Familiar with these songs, that with the night
He may associate joy. Once more, farewell,
Sweet Nightingale! once more, my friends! farewell.
Nigel Morgan Feb 2013
Prince Niou had removed himself from Kaoru’s company and the warmth of the wood-burning stove. Under the shelter of the steep karawa eaves he stood to watch the snow, to watch it fall, fall relentlessly, relentlessly. But for the biting cold he might have been watching the blossoms fall and scatter, those intricate, delicate flowers that, as you looked up at them in the trees, were in tessellation with the sky. It was Kisaragi (late February) when winter shows little sign that spring might appear. So now the time of deep snows in the mountain fastness where Kaoru’s family estates straddled part of the necessary journey from Edo to Kyoto.
 
The snowfall mesmerized Niou. It held such a purity of disordered motion, He stretched out his arm to feel the soft touch of the flakes on his embroidered sleeve. He imagined Ukifune’s touch would be like that of this falling snow, a pattering of fingers, a sweep of her long, long hair. She, Kaoru’s mistress, had left earlier in the afternoon to journey safely across the mountain passes to her lakeside home before the heavy snow fall set in. He had been close witness to Kaoru’s passion for this delicate flower picked from across the mountains to grace his country house his wife would never visit in winter. And now Prince Niou had, in just two days of polite proximity, lost his heart and all reason to this girl-woman, this woman-girl. She seemed beyond conventional description such was her beauty and her graceful manner. When her eyes rose to his he lost the composure he knew his station demanded. But Kaoru in his own infatuation and glowing with the pleasuring he and Ukifune enjoyed seemed oblivious to the Prince’s covert gaze.
 
This evening Kaoru had already drunk more than was sensible. But darkness was drawing in, and the duties, what little he allowed himself, were over for the day, except to entertain his eminent friend. He had allowed himself to be carefully boastful of Ukifune’s charms and beauty. His words made frequent veiled suggestions of their moments of pleasure together in this winter world of silence where lovers would part the screens and stand folded in each other’s arms to witness the white world of snowfall decorate the mountain landscape.
 
Prince Niou had already decided that as his friend fell into stupor then sleep, and that would be soon, he would set out across the snows to seek Ukifune’s path, to capture her for himself, to declare his love and passion. As she left he had passed a note to her maid telling her not to be surprised by a night-time visitation. He knew that a journey in falling snow would take many hours and it would probably be dawn before he could approach her mountain retreat, a small house by a lake. There, it seemed, she withdrew from the complexities of court life to find the peace and balance necessary to sustain her beauty. She had described the joy of witnessing the intricate twilights and blood red dawns of winter, of watching the birds rise from and return to the oft-frozen lake. She and her maid would drift idly in her boat watching the black, dense water lap too and fro, until the cold required a return to warmth and comfort.
 
It was to be a hard journey. Niou, though prepared with stout boots, an extra cloak and shawl, knew he would flounder into drifts along way. Only his long staff would save him from ignominy. His saw his path blessed by the light of a half moon and together with a myriad of stars arching across the heavens, he would triumph. He had borrowed items of Kaoru’s clothing, his hat and staff, his bag and winter cloak. To all intents and purposes as he approached Ukifune’s home he would appear as his soon to be cuckolded friend. His thoughts remained fixed on  Ukifune. He longed for the moment when she would raise her eyes to him from her pillow, in surprise, in wonder he hoped. He considered how his cold body would join with her warm body in the infinite caress of love’s first passionate meeting. He would then carry her wrapped in her bed coverings to her boat and, having secured her comfort, pole out into the lake and there join with her as the moon looked down from the dawn sky.
 
Later they would exchange poems:
 
Niou
​Snow upon hill, ice along frozen rivers:
​​There for you I trod, yet for all that never lost
​​The way to be lost in you.

 
Ukifune​
*Quicker than the snow, swirling down at last
​​To lie by a frozen lake, I think I shall
​​Melt away while aloft yet in mid sky.
Jamie King Mar 2015
Matrimonial stars in aisles of Auroral rainbows. Mizzling rays of twilights, arraying bays with skylines of lucent waves.
  
A plethora of scarlet roses reposed in florid clouds. Ashore the Giddy ocean in a gentle motion, caressing Mali garnets, mirroring effulgent lights, kissing the mountaintops before refulgent nights.
lost in moments of bliss thinking There is beauty all around us earth is beautiful life is beautiful you're beautiful
I

Who would be
A mermaid fair,
Singing alone,
Combing her hair
Under the sea,
In a golden curl
With a comb of pearl,
On a throne?

II

I would be a mermaid fair;
I would sing to myself the whole of the day;
With a comb of pearl I would comb my hair;
And still as I comb'd I would sing and say,
'Who is it loves me? who loves not me?'
I would comb my hair till my ringlets would fall
                Low adown, low adown,
From under my starry sea-bud crown
                Low adown and around,
And I should look like a fountain of gold
        Springing alone
        With a shrill inner sound
                Over the throne
        In the midst of the hall;
Till that great sea-snake under the sea
From his coiled sleeps in the central deeps
Would slowly trail himself sevenfold
Round the hall where I sate, and look in at the gate
With his large calm eyes for the love of me.
And all the mermen under the sea
Would feel their immortality
Die in their hearts for the love of me.

III

But at night I would wander away, away,
        I would fling on each side my low-flowing locks,
And lightly vault from the throne and play
     With the mermen in and out of the rocks;
We would run to and fro, and hide and seek,
     On the broad sea-wolds in the crimson shells,
Whose silvery spikes are nighest the sea.
But if any came near I would call and shriek,
And adown the steep like a wave I would leap
     From the diamond-ledges that jut from the dells;
For I would not be kiss'd by all who would list
Of the bold merry mermen under the sea.
They would sue me, and woo me, and flatter me,
In the purple twilights under the sea;
But the king of them all would carry me,
Woo me, and win me, and marry me,
In the branching jaspers under the sea.
Then all the dry-pied things that be
In the hueless mosses under the sea
Would curl round my silver feet silently,
All looking up for the love of me.
And if I should carol aloud, from aloft
All things that are forked, and horned, and soft
Would lean out from the hollow sphere of the sea,
All looking down for the love of me.
Eetu Rantala Apr 2019
Now and then The approaching darkness reminds us of the end
Nights frightments Creeping closer
Blind without light Minds sinking deeper to the dark
Sometimes slips through That we have more than we got
In this life of unlightness Possessing plenty of black
Shadows whisper hiding in the wind
Behind the dim curtain Everything is the same
What is wrong in this picture?
In our thoughts asking again Hoping it all would come to its conclusion
// //
Somewhere on this twilights crooked fair We find ourselves disappear
When the shade covers the air Absence of light makes things turn wild
Flying too high in this pitch black of night
Takes you to eternal darkness in a blink of an eye
// //
We are here to fight till we die Hyped by the might of divine
Liked by the lies from a life we don't have as ours
In here light can't be seen Chains that keep us hoping Have our eyes shut on believing
Show it to the audience Bleeding obedience Freed from oblivion
Lets shout to the void we are alive!
// //
Somewhere on this twilights crooked fair We find ourselves disappear
When the shade covers the air Absence of light makes things turn wild
Flying too high in this pitch black of night
Takes you to eternal darkness in a blink of an eye
// //
We need to watch our step It might take a while
We need to forget the smile in the corner
Don't be afraid We are the story of this horror
Beneath the spiral of gloom This demonic hearth will brake in two
Devils of mayhem and chaos Made of hate Gather around
time to play The ridiculous game It's too late to wake up
// //
Somewhere on this twilights crooked fair We find ourselves disappear
When the shade covers the air Absence of light makes things turn wild
Flying too high in this pitch black of night
Takes you to eternal darkness in a blink of an eye
// //
What is living with nothing to scare
So horrific thrilled mean and deceiving
Endless nightmares waiting that you would fall asleep in
Welcome to the spiritual hollow fortress of darkness
alienobserver May 2015
I'm eating until I feel whole again
The joy of being unconscious
Has jumped right out of my chest
And it hurts like I've dreamt of falling
And the space you had once occupied
In my heart became flowers
You could have been the first wave
The salt that burns the skin
The grains of sand hurting my face
I miss the sun in the mornings
And the warmth of the touches
And who am I trying to fool?
I haven't been eating for days
I became my own meals
Yet I starve for the stars and the universe
For the green in the grass and the blue
In the twilights
I starve for you
Attempting to write the void away :)
I
Thy trivial harp will never please
Or fill my craving ear;
Its chords should ring as blows the breeze,
Free, peremptory, clear.
No jingling serenader's art,
Nor ****** of piano strings,
Can make the wild blood start
In its mystic springs.
The kingly bard
Must smile the chords rudely and hard,
As with hammer or with mace;
That they may render back
Artful thunder, which conveys
Secrets of the solar track,
Sparks of the supersolar blaze.
Merlin's blows are strokes of fate,
Chiming with the forest tone,
When boughs buffet boughs in the wood;
Chiming with the gasp and moan
Of the ice-imprisoned hood;
With the pulse of manly hearts;
With the voice of orators;
With the din of city arts;
With the cannonade of wars;
With the marches of the brave;
And prayers of might from martyrs' cave.

Great is the art,
Great be the manners, of the bard.
He shall not his brain encumber
With the coil of rhythm and number;
But, leaving rule and pale forethought,
He shall aye climb
For his rhyme.
"Pass in, pass in," the angels say,
"In to the upper doors,
Nor count compartments of the floors,
But mount to paradise
By the stairway of surprise."

Blameless master of the games,
King of sport that never shames,
He shall daily joy dispense
Hid in song's sweet influence.
Forms more cheerly live and go,
What time the subtle mind
Sings aloud the tune whereto
Their pulses beat,
And march their feet,
And their members are combined.

By Sybarites beguiled,
He shall no task decline;
Merlin's mighty line
Extremes of nature reconciled,
Bereaved a tyrant of his will,
And made the lion mild.
Songs can the tempest still,
Scattered on the stormy air,
Mold the year to fair increase,
And bring in poetic peace.
He shall nor seek to weave,
In weak, unhappy times,
Efficacious rhymes;
Wait his returning strength.
Bird that from the nadir's floor
To the zenith's top can soar,
The roaring orbit of the muse exceeds that journey's length.
Nor profane affect to hit
Or compass that, by meddling wit,
Which only the propitious mind
Publishes when 'tis inclined.
There are open hours
When the God's will sallies free,
And the dull idiot might see
The flowing fortunes of a thousand years;
Sudden, at unawares,
Self-moved, fly-to the doors,
Nor sword of angels could reveal
What they conceal.

II
The rhyme of the poet
Modulates the king's affairs;
Balance-loving Nature
Made all things in pairs.
To every foot its antipode;
Each color with its counter glowed:
To every tone beat answering tones,
Higher or graver;
Flavor gladly blends with flavor;
Leaf answers leaf upon the bough;
And match the paired cotyledons.
Hands to hands, and feet to feet,
In one body grooms and brides;
Eldest rite, two married sides
In every mortal meet.
Light's far furnace shines,
Smelting ***** and bars,
Forging double stars,
Glittering twins and trines.
The animals are sick with love,
Lovesick with rhyme;
Each with all propitious Time
Into chorus wove.

Like the dancers' ordered band,
Thoughts come also hand in hand;
In equal couples mated,
Or else alternated;
Adding by their mutual gage,
One to other, health and age.
Solitary fancies go
Short-lived wandering to and ire,
Most like to bachelors,
Or an ungiven maid,
Nor ancestors,
With no posterity to make the lie afraid,
Or keep truth undecayed.
Perfect-paired as eagle's wings,
Justice is the rhyme of things;
Trade and counting use
The self-same tuneful muse;
And Nemesis,
Who with even matches odd,
Who athwart space redresses
The partial wrong,
Fills the just period,
And finishes the song.

Subtle rhymes, with ruin rife
Murmur in the hour of life,
Sung by the Sisters as they spin;
In perfect time and measure they
Build and unbuild our echoing clay.
As the two twilights of the day
Fold us music-drunken in.
Steve D'Beard Feb 2013
dented but not broken
in the demon dark
the deep chasms
of the wilderness
and the forgotten recess
silence from tender slumber
has awoken
the synergy of temptations
on their merry dance
sip divines peach nectar
the naked flesh and heaving chest
unleash thy sporadic vital spark
the impressed intent
of thy chosen scent
fuels the interactive nodes
neon infused electronic spasms
that echo in the dark

a subtle jowl in latent jest
as twilights nimble fingers
unbutton what remains of carefree days
and the fallen angels
with such sweet caress
to touch the mystic
unfurl the arc of your rainbow
and shine your rays
on cobbled memories
of Paris in the rain
and Tokyo Blue
hustles in the backstreets aroma
blow the cobwebs a gentle kiss
on days like this
left unchecked and laid to rest

gathered in momentums voice
and uttered as a sensual breath
the nakedness of emotion
the arcane interventions
should not be left to fade
to fill the empty space
they call the void
these technicolour moments
we've made  
stumble on the waves
the fragrances of youth etched
in unedited stop motion
the contours of discovery
sparkle in the ether
the azure eyes
and the open arms
of the ocean
Eleete j Muir Dec 2012
The legere sacristy of pure love blazing
Feline confluence across ethereal plains
Arched angelic collusion of things sepulchral
The arcane occidere travisty of
Transmogrification canonized
Darkling eminence ordained;
The verity aura of radiance
Twilights tidal blood- dye magenta,
Germane sleek meagre wealth chiming lo!.
Finitudes golden prayer draping flounded
Brutality tithing the zenith with mealy
Doer aptitude majestically turbulent
Sacrificing thoriums weld feudal
Of heavens deceitful soothsayers,
Fellow djinn of Gotterdammerung
Soli of vilest stoic jingoism.


ELEETE J MUIR.
skyblueandblack Dec 2014
I want to do away
with worry and fear…
inhaling deeply
letting the sharp salt air
permeate through my lungs

I want to look out
where the sky meets the waves
at the water’s edge
in a brazen, passionate kiss~
a wanton embrace
at its farthest horizon

I want to look up
and be blinded by the brazen sun,
forcing me to close my eyes
and bathe in its warmth
listening to its solitudinous soliloquy

I want to read  to my hearts content.
I want to write ~
write
until my mind becomes a blank canvas..
pouring,
emptying
releasing everything,
bleeding gold and silver
onto pristine parchment,
.. and having the golden sun bathe it
in crimson
as it sets.

I want to paint with the Master Artist
along the azure sky,
our brush strokes illuminating the hues
of sunset and twilight,
and moonlight;
the reds, oranges, pale pinks and yellows and lilacs;
our hands resting into the deepest blacks
in the depth of night
the stars, sparkling like diamonds

I want to be in flight
and chase the sunset
and the sunrise,
and mark the time
by the passing of the two twilights.

I want Love.
I want You.
http://skyblueandblack.com/2014/05/14/longing/
Carrey C Apr 2016
The fair buildings that have seen the yester-years
bask in twilight.
Generations of footsteps and handprints
have worn and wrinkled them.
The wisen walls have overheard conversations
both whispered in confidence and declared in boldness,
and the floors have long absorbed
the tears, blood and sweat of characters
in their own private dramas
played out within these walls.

You and I will never see what the buildings have watched,
hear what they’ve listened to
all those years –
the stories each brick and mortar holds in secret.

And twilights and days will pass
till the impending moment comes, when,
along with concrete pounded into dusts,
gone will be these flickers of images,
the memories of these fleeting lives,
buried,
like tapes and film rolls burned
by the progress of time.
Poetic T Sep 2015
We were holding hands when we heard it,
The siren, like the call of damnation
Like a calling greet your inevitable end
Lost in the moment of ourselves.
We were in the field, how could
I,
Me,
Her,
Us, be so stupid. The flickering moments
Of light, hope fading with each decreasing
Quiver  of daylight.
The shade was nearly upon us
Grasping at our ankles.
We reached the town of ill fated name sake,

"WELCOME TO DARKNESS HOLLOW"
"Population 3,000"

Not no where near that now,
It was like a **** had taken hold, we were in
A mountainous region where shadow had
Bathed the outskirts of town on any given
Time,
Season,
Light,
Was like a gift to this pocket of  unobscured bliss.
I still have their touch,
corroded flesh fragmented. It still feels
As if their still holding on, like a frigid burning.

"Come on baby,

Breath was against us as if less to inhale,
Succumbing to extinct motions
We grappled with the door hinges motionless.

"Joshua it mike,
"Is everyone inside,

"Ye why?

As the door is hit, and inch by inch succumbs to
Mike force, as it encircles his presence
A last hit reverberates,
And like a tomb sealed with in.

"Mike, Mike.....,
.....
....
...
..
Joshu.....

And he was as the others gone in shadow.
Blazing lights eliminated every inch,
We had been a place of so many
Now few greeted our perspective.

"Its my fault, mike was our friend,
"It was  a choosing, I would have done it,
"...........,

Silence was words spoken in here,
Words bleed echoing over concealed air

"The solar batteries should keep us lit,
"If any should flicker,
"Shadow will entangle that moment,
"North block is a no go,

North block, but half the town was....
How is this surviving?

"Son come here,
"Who me,

God I felt stupid as there was only me and him!

"This is all wrong, ye hear that,
"??????"

A puzzled look on my face, with a piece missing?

"We  are the shadow,
"Were prisoners in these shells,

"???????,

Is what he babbles upon truth,

"That mark is your true form,

"But the flesh is warped, to touch is cold

"That is light corrupting your true form,
"This is a shell of lies, polished thoughts invading your mind,
"Do you remember your....,

She had covered his mouth, baby what you doing?
She had a look in her posture, in her eyes.
"Baby what you...,

"He spoken to much, what did he speak of,

As he shuddered light permeated as he bleed
Shards of crystalline light,

"STOP,

But it was to late, he was their and then,
Just a wisp of shadow rose up.
But even that she grasped, encircled,
As if a sun had birthed in clasped hands.
Then but ash fell and he was nothing more.

"What the hell did you just do,
"You killed him?
"What did he,
"What did you do,

Then a flash of memory, awoken thought,
The time before, in perpetual twilight.
Then they came, shackled is I'm mortal form,
Caged in bone, but now the truth shone through.

" You have been here since light burst through the veil,
"They have tried to free you from this purgatory,
"We created man to be a vessel to keep you sullen,

"Why we never did anything,

"You existed that was enough for us,
"So few left now the purge must begin,

Loved ones clasped there hands on startled others
As cracks bleed lights corruption, and then wisps
Where as before suspended in their grasp.

"Why I thought you loved me,

"I did for a while opposites can attract.
"But It was I that burnt you,
"With what was a loving touch,

But we are two parts of one why do you...

"Your scream dulled my light,
"I am light darkness has no place,
"It only consumes what was birthed so long ago,

I watched as so many screamed,
Then silence,
Then ash,
Fell like snow, death greeted the floor.

I'm are the last one, they are coming for me.
All that will be found is remnants of what was,

"I LOVE YOU, 
"I always have but if was forbidden,

I run towards her, but our touch is shimmered,
Our true forms birthed and I see the beauty
I always saw inside,

"There is an in-between twilight moment,
"Meet me there,

And then I was outside, darkness seeped in solitude
And then imprints  movement greeted  me,
A hand exited and held with haste.
It retreated to the place where it was always seen.

"She loves you, you know that,

The town was immersed in light, fragmenting into
A clouded haze, a region of neither darkness or light,
Particles tainted, grazed upon both, neither could
Now exist in the place. She did this for me,
I thought she.... I don't know what to think.

I waited in twilights moment, time has no meaning
It was though time stood still, but I felt every
Minute,
Second,
Time
Was stagnant without her in my grasp. could I live
Knowing that wisp of light in my darkness was
Extinguished without last words upon our lips.
A wisp of light erratically glides towards me,

"It is but a firefly
"Be gone little light that flutters by,

Trails of light emanated and form took shape,
My eyes even though in twilights glare knew
That form anywhere. She was before me, I
Am so sorry my love if they had for a moment
Knew of my hearts desire I would have been like he
Who became ash in my palm.

"We are of opposites,
"A collision of positive, negative force,
"But my heart breathes true,

"We can have the twilight,
"Where either merges in a dance of eternity,
This is our time, shells now gone, 

"You look beautiful,

Hands merged in essence and a display
Of light and darkness in shades never seen
Danced upon the air and sky.
Love is never a separation, but a bonding of
Opposites that attract from any distance near or far.
Love is two opposites that make a connection no matter the difference
Inhale deeply of the seas

  whilst your days are youthful

   and lips blush with dawn,

surrender your passion

to enchantment 'pon  the

      ***** of wildflowers' bloom,

dance within winds' touched beyond

     fiery kisses of sensuality's desire,

allow your affections to waft midst

   heartfelt poetry & lustful love songs,

feel the earth between your toes,

   before sensibility denies passage

   and your eyes become a vintage flush

     'tween life's unkind shades of blue,

& what was once unveiled amid moonbows

     on hot summers' reminiscent twilights
THREE tailors of Tooley Street wrote: We, the People.
The names are forgotten. It is a joke in ghosts.
  
Cutters or bushelmen or armhole basters, they sat
cross-legged stitching, snatched at scissors, stole each
other thimbles.
  
Cross-legged, working for wages, joking each other
as misfits cut from the cloth of a Master Tailor,
they sat and spoke their thoughts of the glory of
The People, they met after work and drank beer to
The People.
  
Faded off into the twilights the names are forgotten.
It is a joke in ghosts. Let it ride. They wrote: We,
The People.
Poetic T Dec 2015
In my soul a clock is heard
Ever going but the hands
Never move on
"Tick,
Tick,
Tick,
Stuck in obscurity's shade, it is
Perpetual between the moments.

I gaze inwards when the shutters to
The world close and I see a tear
Pulverized
Shattering
Shivered
On onyx pieces of a soul now jagged
And torn. Twilight had edged on
The horizon of my inner self.

I knew that it would always be a
Funeral pyre of darkness that
Coated
Glazed
Stained
Resides in smouldering embers
Blackening me from the inside.
DSD Jul 2016
Like all other cities in the clouds
this one is often wet and always loud.

Its air heavy with the sweat of labour
and light with the soothing lunar caress.

Its bricks, the stuff of dreams,
raised by giants, manifested in concrete.

Its people the dreamers.
There shoulders drenched in hope

Walk with weeping umbrellas to the sky
in painful black soles...

...Past snow globe dreamlands
of nebular realms and rainbow twilights

Shielded in walls of nothingness thick
to keep the fantasies in and the phantoms out.

And she prances on the grey greasy pavement
blowing bubbles of soap that brave the rain.

Her chin - the sun.
Her breath - the monsoon winds.
Her curls - the streams in the woods.
Her forehead - the promised land to each raindrop.
And her soul - the bliss that lies in the space between worlds.
The rhyme of the poet
Modulates the king's affairs,
Balance-loving nature
Made all things in pairs.
To every foot its antipode,
Each color with its counter glowed,
To every tone beat answering tones,
Higher or graver;
Flavor gladly blends with flavor;
Leaf answers leaf upon the bough,
And match the paired cotyledons.
Hands to hands, and feet to feet,
In one body grooms and brides;
Eldest rite, two married sides
In every mortal meet.
Light's far furnace shines,
Smelting ***** and bars,
Forging double stars,
Glittering twins and trines.
The animals are sick with love,
Lovesick with rhyme;
Each with all propitious Time
Into chorus wove.

Like the dancers' ordered band,
Thoughts come also hand in hand,
In equal couples mated,
Or else alternated,
Adding by their mutual gage
One to other health and age.
Solitary fancies go
Short-lived wandering to and fro,
Most like to bachelors,
Or an ungiven maid,
Not ancestors,
With no posterity to make the lie afraid,
Or keep truth undecayed.

Perfect paired as eagle's wings,
Justice is the rhyme of things;
Trade and counting use
The serf-same tuneful muse;
And Nemesis,
Who with even matches odd,
Who athwart space redresses
The partial wrong,
Fills the just period,
And finishes the song.

Subtle rhymes with ruin rife
Murmur in the house of life,
Sung by the Sisters as they spin;
In perfect time and measure, they
Build and unbuild our echoing clay,
As the two twilights of the day
Fold us music-drunken in.
T E Pyrus Oct 2016
Tell me a story, traveller,

of unwalked roads you walked alone
beneath the blue and sunlit sky,
paved with earth or cobblestone
and straying clouds that wander by.

of strange lands and stranger folks
and strange songs they sang with you,
in strange tongues they call their home,
that, in your dreams, was somewhere new.

of temporary loves you loved,
then set your broken lovers free,
and healed your broken, heartless soul
beneath the starry sky and sea.

of darkened woods and foreign sound
that haunt the night-time every night.
of moons that follow footsteps quiet
and stars that watch in silent light.

of stormy nights and thunderclouds
that failed to bring your childish fears,
and drowning rain that drowned the winds
and brought you melancholic tears.

of snowy golden sunsets high
on mountain sides, ragged and old
and tears of wonder, tears of joy,
love of stories left untold.

of rivers running swiftly by
your resting sleep ere break of day.
of twilights that blanket the sky
and sweep the orange clouds away.

of lost lanterns and memories
and aimless wandering in the night.
of faraway towns of scattered starry
homes so warm and hearts so bright.

of lone camp-fires’ dancing songs
and lonely faded quiet applause.
of longing and of selfish pain,
of losing love and loving loss.

Tell me a story, traveller,
of reminiscing in grateful shade,
and of your final travel home
before your loving memories fade.
bambi Jul 2014
Can we speak of these certain vacant spaces
in my abandoned bedroom where the moon dwells
and shuttered creatures search their teeth
for a bloom of flavor and sun.

I'm surrounded by prosaic twilights--tenantless places--
where plaster perfumed by dormant fire
gapes with cavities and empty mouths
that seek him with their tongues.

Where darkness crawls on poppy seeds
on moths and reeds and shoes
to reach me in my consternation
now that his name has fled my lungs.


Today I sewed his note to my breast pocket
but it grew crescent roots like fingernails
and murmured that we were too young.
Homage to my dear Neruda and Number Six the sun to my moon.

May you be the last.
Eleete j Muir Jan 2012
Piacular restitution suffering joyously
The fallen order of Lilith;
Sunsets secrets scribed defying
Laws pneumatic
A shamanistic seance peacefully
Rousing the foundation of our belief,
Dawns dreaming the fantasy of a seer-
Palpitating asystolic within my chest
The severed hand of God; twilights truth
A stone tablet descrying
My impetuous insubordination
Breathing light upon a black lily
My souls flayed flesh tear stained white
Descending into Hades
Unfathomable regions of despair
As I watch them kneel beside my bed
As if I am prey for those who pray for me
Walking through Persephones garden.



ELEETE J MUIR.
Seán Mac Falls Nov 2014
By the dawn's early light,
Casual ties of warring pride,
Who wear the fit of uniforms,
Creasing down the seamy streets,
Who once in his sights were called to order,
By arrow clutching eagles, sandbagged
By the rivers heart of darkness, *****-
Trapped by bootstraps pulled, torn apart
In tiger eyeing fields that lied
In wait while choppers dived, delivering
Payloads of giant dragon flied fire
And this unction was to be their balm
And the swordless Dons were spit out
Of skull hunting windmills, Jonah
Beached to thy kingdom cong.

And over their heads cried the phantom
Jets, bat out of helmet, to the straw
Pulling hairs and these heroes, we
Abandoned without bonds nor blindfold
And lashed them to the flagging pole
With guns saluting while the sirens
Wailed, no wonder they should crack,
Our green jaded Gods, our Greek
Journeymen, due south of lotus land,
No wonder they should break on the China
Seas in that cold, ******* land.
O say can you see, that it is we,
The people, in anger and in shame
Who have no mettle, to give, but tarnish
Foisted on the brave and they
Are worn, like trinkets to dishonor.

And over the deep non-ending sank
Our heroes, betrayed by ism's, discharged
By ghosts in the machining guns,
Unspirited by a corporeal world,
Bamboozled in the muddy thickets
And dropped to the fray on ****** wings,
To foreign soil, where children are lost
In the man eating groves and they
Were thus dutifully numbered by their own
****** arms and all were made
Guilty cold in that sliver of uncivil
And polar eyed land, O say can you see,
The burning of twilights last gleaming?
And, we sutured a wall for the trigger-
Happy dead, we dammed the bleeding,
But can there be no bridges?

And further from those chilling fields
They are casting us letters, address
Unknown and mid adrift are messages
In drowning bottles by the waysides,
They are swimming to our doors,
Where, we the people, have built a wall,
Made of stone, black and shiny, it will
Not smear— and we are polishing off
Our dead, say the cold blooded
Behind that face and in front runs a red
River running down the vane, glorious sun,
Yet, this humble partition, in stories and tears,
Is deconstructing grave white heads,
Quartered in pride and darts to the ground,
That warring bird, crowned to his vacant
Lots.  O— say can you see, the turning
Of twilight's last gleaming?
Poem written in honor of all fallen soldiers and commemorating the 'Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall' in Washington, D.C.

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial is a national memorial in Washington, D.C. It honors U.S. service members of the U.S. armed forces who fought in the Vietnam War, service members who died in service in Vietnam/South East Asia, and those service members who were unaccounted for (Missing In Action) during the War.
M Harris Mar 2017
Serenity Echoing In Reverse,
Stagnant Resolutions Choking Her Universe,
Submerging Her Dreams Into A Sterilized Verse.

Sedated In Perpetual Twilights,
Mechanical Love & ****** Satellites,
She Whispers Essences Of Kryptonite.

Victim To A Perpetual Reaction,
She Transforms Into A Violet Abstraction,
Echoing Prismatic Deflections.

Technician To Her Own Serenades,
She Embraces Her Heartache Blockades,
Overdosing On Intoxicating Escapades.

Evoking Constellations Of His Ionized Memories,
She Overdoses On Comatose Reveries,
And Spectral Illusions Of Synthetic Stories.

Amplifications So Sacred & Profane,
Simulations Raving Into Codependent Stains,  
Fragmentations Entranced In Her Bulletproof Frames.

Cherub Starlight & Everlasting Gaze,
Transitions Fusing Into Astral Maze,
The Essence Of Ecstasy Of His Sentiments Sways.*

- 04:27AM
harlon rivers Oct 2019
Waning  dappled  moonlight mantles
the margin at the wild-wood edge
Stiff tufts of summer dried grass spears
sporadically sway — raking against
the  scarlet  poison  oak  leaves
gently sweeping away the moonlit silence
airing the sounds of velvet antlers rubbing
barkless mountain willow trunks bare

Subtle nuances constantly animate
twilights rhythm;  heaven flickers
upon a dark umbrage of forest pillars
softly as a candlelight’s  fluttering  glow
evanescing  half way  across  the  sky;
the  sparse  illumined  clouds  stream through
the lambent halo around the rutting moon
fleeting in the blink  of  sleepless eyes

and like the silent touch of a talisman,
transfixed eyes are entranced by all
the  restless  night  disrobes,
captured and cocooned by the seeker’s
awakened senses

An erratic,  familiar feral bark peals haughtily;
a pack of maturing spring pups yip, bellow and shriek
in youthful pursuit;  the howling report back,
ignited by the scent of a rabbit's paling squeal,
aroused by the pulse of brother wolf
rippling deeply through their blood

The dried grass game-trail crackles towards the ridge top:
an aging full moon is not enough skylight
to see beyond a seeker’s stirring silent reverie
the coyote choir’s sudden reveling echoes rekindling
an extraordinary sheltering intimacy within;

bending slithers of moonlight into a dull moonlight mantle
but I can feel its weight breaking me ,... forlorn I can't physically
reach out to touch them in an absolving moment  —
understanding love was always the purpose of being ,...

futilely repining — I  can't  face  myself  alone  again


            harlon rivers ... October  2019                                                  

.
Notes: a coyote moon

3am — eyes wide open — embraced by a presence that robes the night
gazing at the ecstasy of feeling nature's deep roots in my soul

Thanks for reading ... rivers
Eleete j Muir Jan 2014
"Every time I look into a mirror I see the eyes of the devil".
The perpetual flame of life
A new dawn, an enlightening dusk;
The translucent sun
The convection of eternity,
Abysmal adversary,
The convocation of co-eternal legions!
''Every time I cry I see the face of God".
Influencing twilights perfection,
Hells paradise devouring
The ardent fervour of the carmine flame
Piercing the atmosphere,
Constantly tantalising the air- fuelling.
The forests engulfed, bellowing from the apse shaped canopies
Violet blue threads of of ribbon;
Wofting unto nothingness
Vapourising smoke.
Natures delightful beauty, casting a shadow
The conflagration immanently consuming lands;
Raging across the earth
Dehydrated and scorched.
Baptismal tears vanquishing the fire,
Heavens standing ovation, applauding
A contained flame,
The sound of rain the fires lamentation.



1997 ELEETE J MUIR
Dean Jones Apr 2011
Here we are again
Twilights waiting,
Of ancient holds and heavy curses
Making a journey of every moment...

I think of the singular adventure that has been love
I think of the countless deaths that are still to follow.
Each touch, the precise means of my undoing.
Each taste a parable for the heart
For each kiss is the truth of illusion
(written for Catherine Louise...years ago yet always moments away)
Brad Lambert Sep 2013
How about that gasoline
in Autumn rain puddles?

How about them cars that don't start,
can't start.

I just wanted to start.

Playing games like this never amused me much;
I guess I'm more of a reader than a writer than a toy-game-player.

I want the facts.

None of this horseshit media circus,
ignorance is neither knowing nor caring.

Nay bliss,

It was bliss on those cold winter nights,
night twilights pressed hard against the city-smogged sky
where the gases of sugar beets and petroleum reflect back down orange.

Orange on the snow and orange on snow drifts and snow flakes on your eyelashes.
Little orange dusts
(**** your lashes grow long)
dusts fallen halfheartedly like rain in the fall
and rain puddles shone red
and blue
and green
and orange, orange, orange...

Always orange.

Like gasoline in rain puddles,
gasoline in cars that won't start.

They can't start, don't start;
My engine must be misfiring.

(How about them metaphors for a heart?)

Will you call me when you get there?
Sayali Aug 2018
A thin film of air quarantines the words,

And toggles them into reverse,

Settling them back under the tongues.

The eardrums condensed by a deep warble,

Nothing heard, nothing said,

The pupils swelling like planets through a telescope lens,

Tired eyes gazing, as time flings itself in sepia and grain,

Planting memories of twilights on a park bench after a rusty Monday,

As you looked over a five year old dressed as a ballerina,

Of subtle brushes of the fingertips,

While you walk into the grocery shop in your robe,

The throat starts to build a lump,

And translating it into a warm feeling,

You stay rooted,

As,

The eyes,

Watch,

Un-love,

Wait,

Listen,

Surrender,

And love again,

In Radio silence.
Mark Lecuona Feb 2012
There is no first snow of the year
And no fall except leaves to clear
There is no mountain breeze
Or sunset on a beckoning sea
I have nothing but my mind
To which I am freely confined
In the light devoured by my shadow
Lives a purpose I cannot follow
I cannot sleep in its presence
As it drips on my conscience in mocking defiance
As I wallow in a proudly inflicted wound
My friends refuse to become consumed
With wait for a dream to come true
They walk before the shadow covers them too
In the arena of Spartan solitude
Slavery to convention can be viewed
As eyebrows raise at the hint of deviance
The master becomes captive to his own indifference
What is a welcome respite from conformity
Becomes an obsessive reason for apology
Begging for twilights revelation
Of my purposeful indecision
No matter my random pace
The light assumes its place
As does my troubled reflection
Revealing no earthly companion
I sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds, and bowers,
Of April, May, of June, and July-flowers.
I sing of May-poles, hock-carts, wassails, wakes,
Of bridegrooms, brides, and of their bridal-cakes.
I write of youth, of love, and have access
By these to sing of cleanly wantonness.
I sing of dews, of rains, and piece by piece
Of balm, of oil, of spice, and ambergris.
I sing of times trans-shifting, and I write
How roses first came red, and lilies white.
I write of groves, of twilights, and I sing
The Court of Mab, and of the Fairy King.
I write of hell; I sing (and ever shall)
Of heaven, and hope to have it after all.
Violaceous twilights,
      clandestinely sated
lavished 'til morn's early blush
   midst honey suckled euphoria,
 poems hidden 'neath
         satin pillowcases,
written 'tween the dew
    of rendezvous'
       blissed arousal
forevermore eagerly breathless,
      reawakening intentions
  aloft the vast obscurity of
        a wistful sunset's surrender
CUMHAL called out, bending his head,
Till Dathi came and stood,
With a blink in his eyes, at the cave-mouth,
Between the wind and the wood.
And Cumhal said, bending his knees,
"I have come by the windy way
And learn to pray when you pray.
"I can bring you salmon out of the streams
And heron out of the skies."
But Dathi folded his hands and smiled
With the secrets of God in his eyes.
And Cumhal saw like a drifting smoke
All manner of blessed souls,
Women and children, young men with books,
And old men with croziers and stoles.
"praise God and God's Mother,' Dathi said,
"For God and God's Mother have sent
The blessedest souls that walk in the world
To fill your heart with content."
"And which is the blessedest,' Cumhal said,
"Where all are comely and good?
Is it these that with golden thuribles
Are singing about the wood?"
"My eyes are blinking,' Dathi said,
"With the secrets of God half blind,
But I can see where the wind goes
And follow the way of the wind;
"And blessedness goes where the wind goes,
And when it is gone we are dead;
I see the blessedest soul in the world
And he nods a drunken head.
"O blessedness comes in the night and the day
And whither the wise heart knows;
And one has seen in the redness of wine
The Incorruptible Rose,
"That drowsily drops faint leaves on him
And the sweetness of desire,
While time and the world are ebbing away
In twilights of dew and of fire."

— The End —