"unrolled" poems
The day you died I went into the dirt,
Into the lightless hibernaculum
Where bees, striped black and gold, sleep out the blizzard
Like hieratic stones, and the ground is hard.
It was good for twenty years, that wintering --
As if you never existed, as if I came
God-fathered into the world from my mother's belly:
Her wide bed wore the stain of divinity.
I had nothing to do with guilt or anything
When I wormed back under my mother's heart.
Small as a doll in my dress of innocence
I lay dreaming your epic, image by image.
Nobody died or withered on that stage.
Everything took place in a durable whiteness.
The day I woke, I woke on Churchyard Hill.
I found your name, I found your bones and all
Enlisted in a cramped necropolis
your speckled stone skewed by an iron fence.
In this charity ward, this poorhouse, where the dead
Crowd foot to foot, head to head, no flower
Breaks the soil. This is Azalea path.
A field of burdock opens to the south.
Six feet of yellow gravel cover you.
The artificial red sage does not stir
In the basket of plastic evergreens they put
At the headstone next to yours, nor does it rot,
Although the rains dissolve a ****** dye:
The ersatz petals drip, and they drip red.
Another kind of redness bothers me:
The day your slack sail drank my sister's breath
The flat sea purpled like that evil cloth
My mother unrolled at your last homecoming.
I borrow the silts of an old tragedy.
The truth is, one late October, at my birth-cry
A scorpion stung its head, an ill-starred thing;
My mother dreamed you face down in the sea.
The stony actors poise and pause for breath.
I brought my love to bear, and then you died.
It was the gangrene ate you to the bone
My mother said: you died like any man.
How shall I age into that state of mind?
I am the ghost of an infamous suicide,
My own blue razor rusting at my throat.
O pardon the one who knocks for pardon at
Your gate, father -- your hound-bitch, daughter, friend.
It was my love that did us both to death.
6.6k
Dark ,wet leaves part for my lantern. I hear
the hushed applause of rain on leaves,and
follow the welcome carpet of light unrolled
from the open door across the soft grass. Smoke
pours down from the chimney to embrace me.
Wet leaves cling to my shoes. Two rabbits
dance back and forth like happy children
and a face pale as the moon peers from
the door in greeting
Aug 20, 2014
Aug 20, 2014 at 5:17 AM UTC
304
The Day came slow—till Five o’clock—
Then sprang before the Hills
Like Hindered Rubies—or the Light
A Sudden Musket—spills—
The Purple could not keep the East—
The Sunrise shook abroad
Like Breadths of Topaz—packed a Night—
The Lady just unrolled—
The Happy Winds—their Timbrels took—
The Birds—in docile Rows
Arranged themselves around their Prince
The Wind—is Prince of Those—
The Orchard sparkled like a Jew—
How mighty ’twas—to be
A Guest in this stupendous place—
The Parlor—of the Day—
4k
Art class was a given
A bird course as they say
But, our teacher had gone awol
You could say he flew away
They found him at a campsite
Cross legged on a mat
Naked, drinking cool aid
And talking to his cat
He snapped while teaching concepts
beyond the grasp of teenage kids
Who only wanted to pass time
and be on ebay making bids
He taught them about structure
about lines and Bernard Frize
and now he's in the forest
sitting naked with the trees
Pastels, crayons and chalk sticks
littered where he sat
sitting naked, drinking kool aid
and talking to his cat
the kids, they drove him crazy
never doing what he told
Instead they sat and doodled
while the teacher...well...unrolled
they didn't draw the things he asked
didn't study all the masters
instead they were more intent
on creating art disasters
he came to class equipped one day
to show them some van gogh
instead they all got up
And told him he could blow
he snapped and left the class room
never stopping at the door
he went to his apartment
and picked the cat up off the floor
he went down to the locker
he took his tent back to the car
he was going to go camping
he wasn't going to a bar
he drove up to the campsite
made his kool aid, grabbed his cat
took his clothes off and got naked
and sat down upon his mat
this is where they found him
seven days since he walked out
he's now painting in nice place
where there's lots of staff about
most days he sits in silence
in his jacket, sleeves behind
zonked out on medication
to help him find his mind
they give him lots of kool aid
but his cat he does not see
he just paints with all his fingers
making pictures of a tree
once he was a teacher
of a bird course teaching art
now he gets all his excitement
drinking kool aid from the cart
in his mind there are da vincis
claude monets and rembrandts too
but, on paper he paints tree limbs
in black and grey and blue...
Jul 15, 2013
Jul 15, 2013 at 11:42 PM UTC
328
A Bird came down the Walk—
He did not know I saw—
He bit an angle-worm in halves
And ate the fellow, raw,
And then he drank a Dew
From a convenient Grass,
And then hopped sidewise to the Wall
To let a Beetle pass—
He glanced with rapid eyes
That hurried all abroa—
They looked like frightened Beads, I thought—
He stirred his velvet head
Like one in danger, Cautious,
I offered him a Crumb,
And he unrolled his feathers
And rowed him softer home—
Than Oars divide the Ocean,
Too silver for a seam—
Or Butterflies, off Banks of Noon,
Leap, plashless as they swim.
3.7k
As humans, we are quite thoughtful
Given such a beautiful and powerful mind
Yet we aren't trained to utilise its magnificence
So at certain times we tend to overthink the awful
And dwell on all that we know
If only we had continued to explore as children
O' I wonder what is there to find
In our society though, conforming is virtue
So what fate will befall me if I stray far from the collective mind?
We speak of the Unknown as if we know it
It's majesty forever lost in a fugazi
Our own little lie in our own little world
Try as we might she remains unknown
A wonder untold, a joint unrolled
And as her mysteries unfold
She reveales herself again as we had always known
Unknown
The essence of something is Nothing
The essence of thought is Being
For it could not exist without it
Without silence, sound would not be
Without space, matter would not be
It is the home of awareness
It is everlasting abundance
It is the beginning and the end
Sep 28, 2014
Sep 28, 2014 at 9:36 AM UTC
To sit on rocks, to muse o’er flood and fell,
To slowly trace the forest’s shady scene,
Where things that own not man’s dominion dwell,
And mortal foot hath ne’er or rarely been;
To climb the trackless mountain all unseen,
With the wild flock that never needs a fold;
Alone o’er steeps and foaming falls to lean;
This is not solitude, ’tis but to hold
Converse with Nature’s charms, and view her stores unrolled.
But midst the crowd, the hurry, the shock of men,
To hear, to see, to feel and to possess,
And roam alone, the world’s tired denizen,
With none who bless us, none whom we can bless;
Minions of splendour shrinking from distress!
None that, with kindred consciousness endued,
If we were not, would seem to smile the less
Of all the flattered, followed, sought and sued;
This is to be alone; this, this is solitude!
2.6k
I pace the sounding sea-beach and behold
How the voluminous billows roll and run,
Upheaving and subsiding, while the sun
Shines through their sheeted emerald far unrolled,
And the ninth wave, slow gathering fold by fold
All its loose-flowing garments into one,
Plunges upon the shore, and floods the dun
Pale reach of sands, and changes them to gold.
So in majestic cadence rise and fall
The mighty undulations of thy song,
O sightless bard, England’s Mæonides!
And ever and anon, high over all
Uplifted, a ninth wave superb and strong,
Floods all the soul with its melodious seas.
2.4k
1693
The Sun retired to a cloud
A Woman’s shawl as big—
And then he sulked in mercury
Upon a scarlet log—
The drops on Nature’s forehead stood
Home flew the loaded bees—
The South unrolled a purple fan
And handed to the trees.
2.1k
If you're the blanket then I'm the stitches,
If you're the needle then I'm the mittens,
If you're the water then I'm the kettle
And if you're the rash then I'm the nettle.
If I'm the icing on the cake
Then you're the blow, the burn, the break.
If I'm the claws of a neighbour's cat
Then you're the nose of each dead rat.
If I'm the clock on the microwave
Then you're the cancer and the grave
And if I'm a schemer's dossier
Then you're the board on which he plays.
If you're the hair pulled at hysterically
Then I'm the teacher steeped in austerity.
If you're the cuff that's come unrolled
Then I'm the base camp unpatrolled.
If you're the tea leaves left behind
Then I'm the fortune undivined
And if you're the reason I'm capricious
Then I'm the reason you're pernicious.
If I'm the strap, love, you're the sandal,
And if I'm the drugs then you're the scandal.
If you're goodbye, love, I'm the foyer,
And if I am "je" then you're "tutoyer".
Oct 6, 2014
Oct 6, 2014 at 2:50 PM UTC
To the tune of "Rinsing Silk Stream"
My courtyard is small, windows idle,
spring is getting old.
Screens unrolled cast heavy shadows.
In my upper-story chamber, speechless,
I play on my jasper lute.
Clouds rising from distant mountains
hasten the fall of dusk.
Gentle wind and drizzling rain
cause a pervading gloom.
Pear blossoms can hardly keep from withering,
but droop.
2k
Why did you give no hint that night
That quickly after the morrow’s dawn,
And calmly, as if indifferent quite,
You would close your term here, up and be gone
Where I could not follow
With wing of swallow
To gain one glimpse of you ever anon!
Never to bid good-bye
Or lip me the softest call,
Or utter a wish for a word, while I
Saw morning harden upon the wall,
Unmoved, unknowing
That your great going
Had place that moment, and altered all.
Why do you make me leave the house
And think for a breath it is you I see
At the end of the alley of bending boughs
Where so often at dusk you used to be;
Till in darkening dankness
The yawning blankness
Of the perspective sickens me!
You were she who abode
By those red-veined rocks far West,
You were the swan-necked one who rode
Along the beetling Beeny Crest,
And, reining nigh me,
Would muse and eye me,
While Life unrolled us its very best.
Why, then, latterly did we not speak,
Did we not think of those days long dead,
And ere your vanishing strive to seek
That time’s renewal? We might have said,
“In this bright spring weather
We’ll visit together
Those places that once we visited.”
Well, well! All’s past amend,
Unchangeable. It must go.
I seem but a dead man held on end
To sink down soon. . . . O you could not know
That such swift fleeing
No soul foreseeing—
Not even I—would undo me so!
2k
"Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
-Ozymandias
I.
O wait for us, Colossus
as we wait - and throw you
to earth: from heaven’s gates judge you
unworthy - to hades’ lands assign,
where your iron limbs make mincemeat out
of anguished homes - by tyrants
you were thrown but floated aimless past
the drifting realms where once lay hell,
and fired you your rocket boosters - apollo’s gift
blinding still your eyes -
II.
next, awake: the visage of the Child
in your face - languishing, affronted:
two vast and trunkless legs of iron glare, only to grow
rigid still - slumping at His feet: with heart-engine smoking,
eyes hollowed-black,
lying in slumber with giant's knees bent,
in grasslands rest and where hearkens the plain - He cries out:
’tis you!
though dwarf, He is - he kneads your iron
by grass, and your wounded legs the earth
now christens, snd blesses still your sleep.
III.
He moves forth with grass blades and twigs,
crown you a nest; and bear stones unrolled to where
your feet first kisses ground.
-2.17.16
Mar 15, 2016
Mar 15, 2016 at 11:38 AM UTC
Jefferson the spider
bites
to start the night off
right
lefts and rights
a venue of lights
inevitable
street fights
all while
unrolled toilet paper
spins dances
with the industrial
ceiling fan
squealing fans
and wild displays of hands
for a handful of
unheard bands
and
ive had as much
as i can stand
with difficulty
i gather those
who came with me
come with me
through this hip hooray
hipster sea
not knowing who
these hipsters be
and
all of them
not unlike me
Aug 18, 2011
Aug 18, 2011 at 12:15 AM UTC
Lord of the winds! I feel thee nigh,
I know thy breath in the burning sky!
And I wait, with a thrill in every vein,
For the coming of the hurricane!
And lo! on the wing of the heavy gales,
Through the boundless arch of heaven he sails;
Silent and slow, and terribly strong,
The mighty shadow is borne along,
Like the dark eternity to come;
While the world below, dismayed and dumb,
Through the calm of the thick hot atmosphere
Looks up at its gloomy folds with fear.
They darken fast; and the golden blaze
Of the sun is quenched in the lurid haze,
And he sends through the shade a funeral ray--
A glare that is neither night nor day,
A beam that touches, with hues of death,
The clouds above and the earth beneath.
To its covert glides the silent bird,
While the hurricane's distant voice is heard,
Uplifted among the mountains round,
And the forests hear and answer the sound.
He is come! he is come! do ye not behold
His ample robes on the wind unrolled?
Giant of air! we bid thee hail!--
How his gray skirts toss in the whirling gale;
How his huge and writhing arms are bent,
To clasp the zone of the firmament,
And fold at length, in their dark embrace,
From mountain to mountain the visible space.
Darker--still darker! the whirlwinds bear
The dust of the plains to the middle air:
And hark to the crashing, long and loud,
Of the chariot of God in the thunder-cloud!
You may trace its path by the flashes that start
From the rapid wheels where'er they dart,
As the fire-bolts leap to the world below,
And flood the skies with a lurid glow.
What roar is that?--'tis the rain that breaks
In torrents away from the airy lakes,
Heavily poured on the shuddering ground,
And shedding a nameless horror round.
Ah! well known woods, and mountains, and skies,
With the very clouds!--ye are lost to my eyes.
I seek ye vainly, and see in your place
The shadowy tempest that sweeps through space,
A whirling ocean that fills the wall
Of the crystal heaven, and buries all.
And I, cut off from the world, remain
Alone with the terrible hurricane.
1.8k
410
The first Day’s Night had come—
And grateful that a thing
So terrible—had been endured—
I told my Soul to sing—
She said her Strings were snapt—
Her Bow—to Atoms blown—
And so to mend her—gave me work
Until another Morn—
And then—a Day as huge
As Yesterdays in pairs,
Unrolled its horror in my face—
Until it blocked my eyes—
My Brain—begun to laugh—
I mumbled—like a fool—
And tho’ ’tis Years ago—that Day—
My Brain keeps giggling—still.
And Something’s odd—within—
That person that I was—
And this One—do not feel the same—
Could it be Madness—this?
1.7k
602
Of Brussels—it was not—
Of Kidderminster? Nay—
The Winds did buy it of the Woods—
They—sold it unto me
It was a gentle price—
The poorest—could afford—
It was within the frugal purse
Of Beggar—or of Bird—
Of small and spicy Yards—
In hue—a mellow Dun—
Of Sunshine—and of Sere—Composed—
But, principally—of Sun—
The Wind—unrolled it fast—
And spread it on the Ground—
Upholsterer of the Pines—is He—
Upholsterer—of the Pond—
1.3k
Counting beads.
...and now on their way to tomorrow, today, and who is there to say
cease fire
someone will turn in to the driveway of hell and burn in eternity for these iniquitous deeds,
it's a deforestation of souls, a population control by those who have sold out to Satan,
the only freedom out there is death from the air and it comes in screaming as if it's a baby leaning into life and falling,failing,tailing off and dropping,
dead,
like the scrolls unrolled that wither away on their way to tomorrow,today,
to cry and to die without understanding why,
population education?
I'd sooner be stupid,
play cupid to the factions but
it's destruction not distraction
they want.
Jul 29, 2014
Jul 29, 2014 at 3:19 AM UTC
There will certainly be
A great many of them
Far readier than I’ll ever be
O blessed unborn one
Yet endowed with inexistence
To whom mercy shall slip from
And re-emerge in its awakening
Beings past or below my shrinking age
A great many among them
Whom I once did or shan’t collide
Beyond the captured scope of mutual days
To relate to you what high events
Unrolled before our common eyes
Folks granted with the privilege
Promoted to the status of witnesses
Historians, athletes and prophets
By themselves and their narratives
I let them unroll their good accounts
Forfeit their tales of what must be bound
To mould your unsuspecting
Circumspect mind and
Save you from sensing
Delicately sensing
Voices that once knew more
Than in haste speak
Than with haste carry
Daringly could the silence hear
Untangle the mumbling tango
Of the vociferous crystal parade
My darling unborn one
The tortuous path out of the forgings
Of reason almighty, the ventricular beast
Played and echoed in loops and on repeat
No, you shan’t feast on their hymns
Yours is meant for the engineering of belief
In something further, of glory,
Far more, furthermore,
Something extraordinary
Than the days of days
And the knowns of knowns
And to lodge firmly out of the stillness
That’s woven in the heart of your chanting storm
And in the precipice of the forecast
May you never come to designate
But the space between the notes
So that when it comes not to ever pass
We shall rejoice in the untold absence
That binds us as if pierced by an arrow
While we ask about the bow
Jun 24, 2023
Jun 24, 2023 at 6:26 PM UTC
Terror-struck now, they bow their heads and shed their tans like snake-skin suits
As the inevitable full extent of the reckoning unfolds
And the scrolls are unrolled before their disbelieving eyes
These self-professed Titans now turn to pallid ghosts
As the great myth of invincibility
Shatters like a champagne flute - blasted by a soprano’s high note
And they who grew fat upon the flesh of others
Are pulled down into dripping caves and dragged through labyrinthine tunnels
Meanwhile, far away from off-shore maritime law, the true nobility
For so long held in grim captivity -
-They, driven by love, truth and empathy
Rise and fly like sprung angels.
Jul 22, 2018
Jul 22, 2018 at 6:39 PM UTC
so much is wanted but what we must ask
is for the measure that cannot be told
by ordinary creatures at their task
of making worlds to fit the human mould
beyond the which we could not be consoled
but asked for pity and received no share
of what was paid except this empty air
so turning we discerned no further bar
to our escaping save a simple stair
the crescent mirror and the morning star
you give a good account behind your mask
of where the trail was good and where just cold
no warmth remains except within the flask
nor any honour that's not paid with gold
right on the table where the hearts are sold
while every victim hears the case is fair
and yet the axe does not strike unaware
there's no part of the process that's bizarre
while far above our unbowed heads there stare
the crescent mirror and the morning star
in balmier times we might hope to bask
in the approval of the good and bold
enjoy the plaudits while we broach the cask
and wonder why a single voice would scold
instead the angry lessons are unrolled
as every back is loaded down with care
nor is there chance of freedom anywhere
that foolish interlopers hope to mar
beyond the chances of the normal player
the crescent mirror and the morning star
prince in the end you won't respond to prayer
as no petition has the sort of flair
to touch the souls of palace and bazaar
yet you must go to where the boldest dare
the crescent mirror and the morning star
Jul 6, 2011
Jul 6, 2011 at 5:19 AM UTC
The lust for destruction of the souls
Gods hand refused to stay
While the Lucifers power ruled this earth
And black minds he would sway
The desire for mayhem and gold
Govern their embolden lies
God in his mercy allowed these living marked 666 to remain so
Not once
But twice.
The third time however
Azrael began to call
The earth shivered, the stars wept when it began
The last coming
The judgment of us all.
The Parchment was unrolled to reveal,
The evil atrocities executed in the dark.
No pleading or cries for the deeds, against humanity
Bear seeds of atonement from those empty of heart.
So, one by one the dominion of angels
Swords of divine light
Did come,
The first through the seventh sang the holy notes
Until the last song was sung.
The names of that condemned will never again be spoken,
Nor ever found in the book of gold.
They exist now only in the bowels of the earth,
An ephemeral memory to be told.
All Rights Reserved @ Tammy M. Darby Mar. 17, 2017
Mar 17, 2017
Mar 17, 2017 at 12:04 PM UTC
Last Best Shot
July 31, 2020
8:07am
*the morning sunlight. high enough to lighten first café & the future.
warming, mellifluous, biding good tidings, a head, ahead for the day.
sun-in-sky-low, so trees stand taller, shadow-makers, just for now.
grass blotched, pockmarked, alternative hints of hope & mystery.
the bay wave waters stilled, unrolled, unroiled, no-thrashing, omen?
is this wellness? is this a green tea soul and soil infusion, calming?*
*my mind wanders to that remains unaccompanied, unaccomplished.
unwashed breakfast dishes, miles of mail urgently unattended.
poems half-composed, some decomposing, resurrection on the list?
these unwashed word-shards, cry out, if not today, then when?
passerby’s, yachts, kayaks pause, turn, all bow-me-pointing asking?
is today their finale, burial by deletion, or their* last, best shot?
my reflection, neutral-neutered mien in 19oz. Blue Mountain
black coffee, in a Canadian Macintosh porcelain mug, provides
no clue, accident or incident, but inquires: why the adrenaline?
Aug 2, 2022
Aug 2, 2022 at 8:37 AM UTC
so much is wanted but what we must ask
is for the measure that cannot be told
by ordinary creatures at their task
of making worlds to fit the human mould
beyond the which we could not be consoled
but asked for pity and received no share
of what was paid except this empty air
so turning we discerned no further bar
to our escaping save a simple stair
the crescent mirror and the morning star
you give a good account behind your mask
of where the trail was good and where just cold
no warmth remains except within the flask
nor any honour that's not paid with gold
right on the table where the hearts are sold
while every victim hears the case is fair
and yet the axe does not strike unaware
there's no part of the process that's bizarre
while far above our unbowed heads there stare
the crescent mirror and the morning star
in balmier times we might hope to bask
in the approval of the good and bold
enjoy the plaudits while we broach the cask
and wonder why a single voice would scold
instead the angry lessons are unrolled
as every back is loaded down with care
nor is there chance of freedom anywhere
that foolish interlopers hope to mar
beyond the chances of the normal player
the crescent mirror and the morning star
prince in the end you won't respond to prayer
as no petition has the sort of flair
to touch the souls of palace and bazaar
yet you must go to where the boldest dare
the crescent mirror and the morning star
Mar 3, 2011
Mar 3, 2011 at 6:39 AM UTC
There is time for you and I,
when the day has unrolled
like a tongue to make the most of our lives,
to sit and sing our songs
in voices raised against the sky.
I will take you, muffled in your head,
To every lost dream you used to carry
in your pocket, to green parks
where the voices of children at play
echo long past when the swings
and wounds have gone silent.
This is our time,
yours and mine,
to watch the flavor of the orange sun
dip below the horizon line.
Unscrew the cap from the bottle
and pass it around.
You will not be drowned today,
not today and not ever while I am with you.
Unhood your face and look where I am pointing,
there is such beauty in this world and
we cannot understand or stand it.
And the black of night is upon us,
though we did not see it steal.
I can only just make out the pale white
of your face and your sparkling eyes mirror
the stars. The warmth is in my belly
and I know that you must feel it too.
This grand adventure life scooped you up
in its arms and though it gave you pause
to hesitate and doubt yourself, we are long
past that now.
That my hand and I will
show you life in circles, for everything
that has a beginning must end and so must we.
You were born a screaming, mewling thing
and I hope that in dignity you’ll die.
The sky will still be there and the celestial
bodies will move, long past when yours
has decayed and gone.
I will push you upon this swing
and as you give up all breath in your lungs
to urge you higher, revel in the fact that
tonight we are young, you and I.
There is a way yet until we depart
and the darkness in your life and in your heart
will fade like the heat of the setting sun
until it is gone.
And we are young.
We are young.
Jun 20, 2012
Jun 20, 2012 at 1:40 PM UTC