"unsought" poems
Dear diabolic debutante / Spawn of the unfathomable abyss of blackness / Daughter of dreadful dead desire / Black-shrouded sinister sister of celestial gloom before whose imperious gaze the heavens fall silent / Whip-lash girl-child of the graves whose pallid visage kindles the myriad infernal fires / Autocratic vampiress of lunar doom whose winding-cloth enfolds the thousand horrors of blood-drenched nightmare / Thou that wanderest the cypress-crested hills of funereal necropolises / Whose icy glance cracks the ungraven tombstones of utter desolation / Empress of night and madness / Who stalks the locked and shadowed hallways of unhallowed thought / Whose burial-boat glides the still waters over Lethe’s silent depths to the unglimpsed isle of eternal mourning / Whose parapets tower above the fiefdoms of quotidian banality / Whose flying buttresses overlook the Stygian waters of the forgotten drowned denizens of damnation / Whose unshackled dungeons open to worlds of regal splendor / Whose spires pierce dark skies where oblivion buries the ruined cities of revelry under the drifting clouds of leaden time / Oh maiden of melancholic alchemy whose petrified passions transmute base metal into pure gold…
May the gibbous moon of equinox shine its baleful eye upon you; may you tread in sacramental calm the winding starlit paths of somnolent cemeteries; may my unmixed metaphors unveil in delirium their parabolic mysteries before the smoldering altar of your uninterpretable allegory; may the favor of your scorn forever lay me out, embalmed, undead, on the cold stone of merciless reality. Behold: in cryptic script of spectral apparition, in tracery of coded illumination, amidst the dawning rays of torment I write thine unknown name on the threshold of daylight. And from within the mortared wall of self I speak forth from my sepulcher the Sibylline utterance,
unsought, unheard, undreamt:
JUST WANTED TO SAY ‘HI’ !
☻
Sep 10, 2015
Sep 10, 2015 at 9:15 PM UTC
Prologue
casual glance at my notifications while driving even though
I’m all ready a bad bad boy, cruising at a sedate,
cruise-controlled 70 mph vs. the bureaucrat bifocals 55,
a remnant regulation of the Eighties,
all the while humming with Gilligan
“a 3 hour tour,
2 passengers set sail that day”
then execute a four lane 180,
gotta get highway sideway grassed ,
cause i’m gassed...
by a Poem Breach
of the poems promised by me,
to write of thee,
you, my best inspiration,
the list grows longer, faster
than the hours provided
pull over fast emergency for my composure breached,
my vision wetted, my eyes hit by an unplanned unexpected,
sudden summer thunderstorm
<•>
The Poem Breach
***once more into the breach thy words breeze through my chest,
like on a flamed stick, night roasting, toasting beach summer marshmallows,
that cut direct to the ineffable sadness that resides resists within,
that sticky, white mess,
a human heart melting
a thank you message that I’ve read before,
many times more than once,
how my unasked poem, a sun unique,
arrived at the
precise time and place,
to lift and even save,
how could I’ve know?
I did not know
but these messages collect on my chest,
unsought words of purple ribbon metal that make a
less burdened cowardly lion,
grown man cry,
do crazy things for it is a possible solution to his
age old quest
Why do I exist, is this my purposed plan, don’t understand, all
but the answer peaked and peaceful accepted in the breach unreasoned,
my port of entry, a gateway to the scales, a bridge it is, over a time-life river styx and unstuck, yet certainly always confused...***
“It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.”
thank you so insufficient
Jul 21, 2018
Jul 21, 2018 at 11:56 AM UTC
I am a jigsaw puzzle…
Packaged, broken down and oddly pieced.
Vivid colors. A curious captivation.
Although… with time they have faded…and creased.
Handed down like an antique quilt.
Fragile and warn, only portions of my picture complete.
Left wondering if I will ever be seen as one.
Admired as whole, even with corners somewhat oblique.
So I set out on a journey:
Re-genesis of the soul.
Craving colors unimagined:
An apocalypse of the world of dull.
Along the way I caught a glimpse.
I unearthed Utopia.
A world lent only to dreams and fairytales.
Yet I couldn’t seem to give in and face this phobia.
I continued along my search.
This time with a new groove in my step.
Part of me wanted to turn back,
But that could’ve meant loosing the little I had left.
I felt something flowering within.
I may have looked away, but that moment a seed was planted.
Roots of strength embedding themselves into my soul,
A new chance at life finally granted.
Fresh oxygen to inhale,
As this life grows inside of me.
Battling with worry and yet no panic at all.
Something so charming and enormous, the world deserves to see.
Branches of love breaking through my surface,
A bungee cord tugs, than allots some slack.
Leaves of unwritten memories begin to evolve.
This budding life needs nurture…I need to turn back.
Before I can set foot to turn around…
Utopia at my fingertips.
Life, nurture…a wonderland unsought.
And that is all before the meeting of our lips.
Apr 9, 2014
Apr 9, 2014 at 1:10 AM UTC
Appearances aren't always true,
If they were, then i would never trust you,
For your appearance reminds me of some brute,
But your heart is like a child's; innocent and mute.
"Extroverted" at first sight I thought,
So confident and loud and friendly; what not,
Until I went through your shelves unsought,
Which filled in secrets and hidden chaos.
Fooling yourself with a golden heart,
In love with the beauty who reflects your past,
Unraveling yourself through knowing her cast,
Spells unbound by the cupid's shot.
Optimism is your sunshine,
The one I praise the most in your shrine,
You give hope and spread benign,
But forget to feed yourself at times.
Beaming grin that you have says,
That you are dauntless and courageous and brave,
Hiding pains and broken days,
You live in the present in the presence of the may,
A devil with a halo,
A Satan with some wings,
Hiding a lot from your own shadow,
A box of potential, full of bling.
Indeed a friend I will call you,
You help me out, showing me the truth,
Not denying your annoying ruth,
But that's a part of you, a beautiful suit!
I could write a thousand words,
Yet never explain,
The skin deep beauty that you pervade,
Just a simple note to your brain,
Never underestimate your glowing game!
Nov 24, 2018
Nov 24, 2018 at 11:39 PM UTC
words drift away unfettered
from whence they came,
passing like undreamed clouds
– pragmatic eyes to the sky
in a searching stare –
unsought thoughts disappearing hence
a fog bow fading into sunlight
there are days when
it comes out in my silence
there are days when
it falls down in my tears:
muse – muted in poet's pause,
heart and soul whispers
laid bare unwritten
behind parsing eyes
disregarded words let loose,
ungarnered
the way low hanging fruit
falls benign — unharvested —
shortsighted insight
from a bird's eye view
silently fermenting traces
and unfiltered memories
come and go unheeded words,
discarded like the passing
time of our lives
at times it's ludicrous
to follow down
lingering footprints
left behind callous:
when the shoe won't fit;
slogging across eroding
time-worn stepping stones
scattered on this twisted line
these feet have been walking down,
trying to make a getaway
from myself
walking away from the memories
like so many indelible footprints to escape
– while dreaming stardust into stars
in nameless constellations –
reaching out from the inside,
site unseen,
trying to experience
the empirical shape
of stifling silence
in a theatre made by chance
distilling the gifts and burdens
of trying to live a worthy life
only I'll see...
harlon rivers ... September 27, 2018
Sep 27, 2018
Sep 27, 2018 at 9:20 AM UTC
The rising moon has hid the stars;
Her level rays, like golden bars,
Lie on the landscape green,
With shadows brown between.
And silver white the river gleams,
As if Diana, in her dreams
Had dropt her silver bow
Upon the meadows low.
On such a tranquil night as this,
She woke Endymion with a kiss,
When, sleeping in the grove,
He dreamed not of her love.
Like dian’s kiss, unasked, unsought,
Love gives itself, but is not bought;
Nor voice, nor sound betrays
Its deep, impassioned gaze.
It comes,—the beautiful, the free,
The crown of all humanity,—
In silence and alone
To seek the elected one.
It lifts the boughs, whose shadows deep
Are Life’s oblivion, the soul’s sleep,
And kisses the closed eyes
Of him who slumbering lies.
O weary hearts! O slumbering eyes!
O drooping souls, whose destinies
Are fraught with fear and pain,
Ye shall be loved again!
No one is so accursed by fate,
No one so utterly desolate,
But some heart, though unknmown,
Responds unto his own.
Responds,—as if with unseen wings,
An angel touched its quivering strings;
And whispers in its song,
“Where hast thou stayed so long?”
2.5k
(Ezekiel, xxxvi. 25-28)
The Lord proclaims His grace abroad!
"Behold, I change your hearts of stone;
Each shall renounce his idol-god,
And serve, henceforth, the Lord alone.
"My grace, a flowing stream, proceeds
To wash your filthiness away;
Ye shall abhor your former deeds,
And learn my statutes to obey.
"My truth the great design ensures,
I give myself away to you;
You shall be mine, I will be yours,
Your God unalterably true.
"Yet not unsought or unimplored,
The plenteous grace I shall confer;
No -- your whole hearts shall seek the Lord,
I'll put a praying spirit there.
"From the first breath of life divine
Down to the last expiring hour,
The gracious work shall all be mine,
Begun and ended in my power."
2.3k
"I thought your search was over."--"So I thought."--
"But you are seeking still."--"Yes, even so:
Still seeking in mine own despite below
That which in Heaven alone is found unsought;
Still spending for that thing which is not bought."--
"Then chase no more this shifting empty show."--
"Amen: so bid a drowning man forego
The straw he clutches; will he so be taught?
You have a home where peace broods like a dove
Screened from the weary world's loud discontent,
You have home here, you wait for home above:
I must unlearn the pleasant ways I went,
Must learn another hope, another love,
And sigh indeed for home in banishment."--
2.2k
In the woods walking,
early morning cool,
one eye on the ground
for snakes otherwise
empty-headed not looking
for anything;
over a rise and down,
a rotten chestnut stump
probably 100 years old
and at its roots
twenty-three Morels.
Instant hunger:
the smell of frying
butter, salt and
tender mushrooms.
I lust for them.
Take off my shirt
to carry them home.
Real desire often
takes us by surprise;
pure delight
of the unsought.
~mce
Jun 24, 2015
Jun 24, 2015 at 12:21 PM UTC
Beholding youth and hope in mockery caught
From life; and mocking pulses that remain
When the soul’s death of ****** death is fain;
Honour unknown, and honour known unsought;
And penury’s sedulous self-torturing thought
On gold, whose master therewith buys his bane;
And longed-for woman longing all in vain
For lonely man with love’s desire distraught;
And wealth, and strength, and power, and pleasantness,
Given unto bodies of whose souls men say,
None poor and weak, slavish and foul, as they:—
Beholding these things, I behold no less
The blushing morn and blushing eve confess
The shame that loads the intolerable day.
As some true chief of men, bowed down with stress
Of life’s disastrous eld, on blossoming youth
May gaze, and murmur with self-pity and ruth,
‘Might I thy fruitless treasure but possess,
Such blessing of mine all coming years should bless;’—
Then sends one sigh forth to the unknown goal,
And bitterly feels breathe against his soul
The hour swift-winged of nearer nothingness:—
Even so the World’s grey Soul to the green World
Perchance one hour must cry: ‘Woe’s me, for whom
Inveteracy of ill portends the doom,—
Whose heart’s old fire in shadow of shame is furl’d:
While thou even as of yore art journeying,
All soulless now, yet merry with the Spring!’
2k
A STRANGE thing surely that my Heart, when love had come unsought
Upon the Norman upland or in that poplar shade,
Should find no burden but itself and yet should be worn out.
It could not bear that burden and therefore it went mad.
The south wind brought it longing, and the east wind
despair,
The west wind made it pitiful, and the north wind
afraid.
It feared to give its love a hurt with all the tempest
there;
It feared the hurt that shc could give and therefore it
went mad.
I can exchange opinion with any neighbouring mind,
I have as healthy flesh and blood as any rhymer's had,
But O! my Heart could bear no more when the upland
caught the wind;
I ran, I ran, from my love's side because my Heart went
mad.
HDR II
The Heart behind its rib laughed out. "You have called me mad,' it said,
"Because I made you turn away and run from that young child;
How could she mate with fifty years that was so wildly bred?
Let the cage bird and the cage bird mate and the wild
bird mate in the wild.'
"You but imagine lies all day, O murderer,' I replied.
"And all those lies have but one end, poor wretches to betray;
I did not find in any cage the woman at my side.
O but her heart would break to learn my thoughts are far away.'
'Speak all your mind,' my Heart sang out, "speak all your mind; who cares,
Now that your tongue cannot persuade the child till she mistake
Her childish gratitude for love and match your fifty years?
O let her choose a young man now and all for his wild sake.'
1.8k
Symphonies of unknown,
A mote of light piercing eerie night,
Through branches, where the moon retrieves.
An ancient tale with a spectral embrace.
Twisted trees whisper fear,
In shadows deep, where echoes leer.
Yet 'midst the darkness, beauty gleams,
A veiled, forgotten bride,
Once believed in happily ever after,
Remains in solitude in her own realm,
Wandering with her gown, her crown,
Waiting for a glimpse of hope, an unfulfilled oath,
A humble smile binds her to demise,
The beauty veiled behind the curtain of mist,
A haunting dance beneath the moonlight chandelier,
Untold grace remains in mystic trance.
Beneath the boughs, shadows weep,
A love unsought, a secret to keep.
Her spirit mourns in the lone kingdom of ruins,
A princess lost, in silence, adorns.
Oct 15, 2023
Oct 15, 2023 at 9:49 PM UTC
Far away, over the monstrous gray summits
As dusking shadows crept stealthily on,
When night had turned stygian
And glow worms had begun throwing flickers of light
Like sequins stitched onto a flowing velvet gown,
When night sky had thus turned
Into a rare configuration of light and shade
When in the west was burning a solitary star
And like a one man army, it valiantly blocked
The advance of infiltrating clouds,
When fledglings cuddled for warmth
Under their mother’s flayed wings
When cicadas were chanting their litany in shrill monotone,
When the breeze whispered sweet nothings in my ear
And autumn leaves in strong gale
Flew about and nosedived into their ebony bed,
When my conscious thoughts evaporated
And I was left to linger in a semi stupor,
I knew a familiar spirit visiting me unsought
With the passion of a lover eager to subdue;
Morpheus with the scent of poppy leaves all about him
To lure my soul to bliss and chill the heat of weary toil
By the indulgent grip of his masculine hands
He took me on his wings to uncharted oceans and fairy isles
And finally to his secret chamber for a date
Making me swoon in secreted ecstasy!
May 13, 2016
May 13, 2016 at 8:05 AM UTC
Cinderella, Cinderella, take my hand,
take me to never never land....
A place so beautiful,
where love can be found....
Cinderella, Cinderella, take my hand,
lets run off together in this unsought land.....
Is love our reason.....
Is love our fate....
Cinderella, Cinderella, take my hand,
your so beautiful with a life to give.....
If I had one slipper,
could you love me.....
Cinderella, Cinderella, take my hand,
lets run off together before our time ends.....
Is this a dream,
that will tell my tale.....
Oct 12, 2015
Oct 12, 2015 at 9:23 PM UTC
If I could but learn to discard a wounded piece of self
If I could part with the beautiful symmetry
Of the cogs, driving forth the machinations,
Churning with their white noise, that
Turn to shape maiming thoughts
Then I might one night close my eyes,
Not to images of words bound by self-deriding connotation,
Comprised of typos and back-strokes
But to a peaceful blackness
Yes, I might lie down, close my eyes
Out of a will for rest, not contrived
But organic and my own
And so I know this as my waking dream
Relegated to wake for the night has been
Deemed the world of painful perfection
A place where protection is offered
With a backward hand, carefully made
Patron to the lovely polished mental instruments
Used to bludgeon simplicity and idiosyncrasy
Used to leverage pressure on the scales of the heart
So to tip downward the side of known cyclic indifference
And lift upward toward heightened neglect
The side of pleasure, the side of silenced retrospect
I grow, each sleepless evening, more fearful
That the ugly, backward hand might never forgo its leverage
And, if life is a wellspring of knowledge
Feeding into a stream of lessons
Then my strife stems from reading of the
Same page in the same chapter of the same textbook
A book filled with words bound by self-deriding connotation,
Comprised of typos and back-strokes
On this page, one learns a fundamental formula
It derives the relative weights of who we are
And the happiness we might find
Through some convoluted tale of misfortune
My page was written by an ugly, backward man
So, through unsagely studies, I’ve concluded
That the art of well defined reprimanding thought
Does outweigh in its beauty, the unseen hope
Of a future left to whim and bliss, or perhaps
The simple elegance of chance, goodness unsought
So, for the first time in my life, I seek to unlearn
I seek to roll back the defining lines that once flowed
From the pen in a backward hand that yearned to sow structure
But the vaulted walls that hold the scales of one’s will
Are so dauntingly difficult to unbuild or puncture
This, truly, is the weight that each sleepless night
Bares down upon my sleepless heart, so heavy
If I cannot pull exacting, formulaic pages from my sight
I fear the only peaceful blackness I will find
Is one against no patron hand can levy.
Feb 19, 2013
Feb 19, 2013 at 5:14 PM UTC
it genuinely boggles my mind
when i try to fathom
how it is actually possible
to contain an immense amount
of warmth and love for someone
loving someone
to the extent that it transcends physicality?
to the extent that it encompasses
more than just the body and the soul?
i could go on and on,
ramble endlessly,
and write about how the act of selflessly giving yourself
to another person is seemingly something akin to breathing --
natural, unsought, easy, and innate
but i fear it would still not be able
to fully encapsulate the depth and ferocity
of this closely-knit emotion
that this frail body of mine holds.
(i could certainly try
but it would take a millennium)
Oct 12, 2023
Oct 12, 2023 at 2:04 PM UTC
Was that the landmark? What,—the foolish well
Whose wave, low down, I did not stoop to drink,
But sat and flung the pebbles from its brink
In sport to send its imaged skies pell-mell,
(And mine own image, had I noted well!)
Was that my point of turning?—I had thought
The stations of my course should rise unsought,
As altar-stone or ensigned citadel.
But lo! the path is missed, I must go back,
And thirst to drink when next I reach the spring
Which once I stained, which since may have grown black.
Yet though no light be left nor bird now sing
As here I turn, I’ll thank God, hastening,
That the same goal is still on the same track.
1.3k
a speck on a train of evergrowing thought,
i simply exist in your periphery
deploring each opportunity unsought
trying to wash myself clean of your mem’ry
you are certainly a skilled navigator
you make your way into every part of me
the earth was a kaleidoscope of colour
now it’s achromatic–you are all i see
my desires remain to me inchoate
whether aspiration or admiration
to be like you or be with you: the debate
either of which a mode of self-destruction
as to vertiginous heights i watch you soar
i realize it’s neither option at all
for my wings can never quite take flight like yours
lest you crumble under your great wings and fall
Jun 30, 2015
Jun 30, 2015 at 2:38 PM UTC
Shadows.
In all directions I look,
I am surrounded by shadows
that make it hard for me
to decipher the dissemblance
when my eyes are wide open
and when they are sealed shut.
Darkness hovers over me
like it is fused with the air I am breathing;
suffocating me and making me gasp
for the unseen
that is imperative to keep me subsisting.
It seems that my lungs
turn into two small plastic bags
that need to be refilled
every quarter of a second
regardless of how abysmal
I drag air into my system.
With each breath I take
paralleling each time that passes,
I drift farther and farther away into oblivion.
Maybe this is how it feels
to dispossess yourself
and let the phantom take over
what is left of you.
Maybe this is how it feels
to be lost and remain unsought.
Yet even with treacherous memory I now have,
there is still a fragment that fails to vanish.
It is the fragment that remembers
the glimmer that used to keep the darkness away.
The scintillation that awakened love, hope, and faith
that lounged within me.
The light.
My light.
You.
Oct 24, 2013
Oct 24, 2013 at 4:42 AM UTC
To face the fear of being liquid, I go under, float the drift. Leave the boat behind, no worries. I am in no hurry to school with the rest, colorful parrot fish, at home in the depths.
I am not afraid of sharks materializing from the inked abyss. The nothing in their soulless eyes is just black-bottomed assessing - not one of us.
In a lazuli sea, the barracuda cartel tails me, their silver barrels rule the reef, leering grins glinting diamonds, hungry pirates seeking gold hidden in my tender lobes.
Yellow-bellied sea snakes swarm, their sinuously wicked heads disappear and reappear on ebb and crest of every wave, see their split tongues read the chemistry of each exhaled breath.
A swollen catch unsought. Forsworn. What's lost will be reborn. From within, yolk still tethered, resting on the bottom. Net a dying heart, return it to the deep, watch it roll and flutter, remember how to beat.
Mar 21, 2016
Mar 21, 2016 at 11:57 AM UTC
mixed stirrings
hard to place this constant ire rising from ashes of a fire not quite, yet felt
stir into that melting *** the sum of miscellany unknowns
all wrought from the unsweet gifts of quotidian sighs
no need to wrap the present, baby, for it's already here
twinkling in the birth of every moment
we hardly know it nor acknowledge
so busy wrenching pain from secret places the darkness loves to keep
yesterday brought unsought smiles of outer space dust
then space in pushed into the blue spit bubble of crayfish folly
and fear frozen into place on cauldroned cheeks
as tendons pulled fury tight on a cocky bounty's cry
I want to carry that sweet loading joy
which scorches my receptiveness in astringent non reciprocation
I die to please that spangled energy so much
which holds back its cagey kernel, far from my prying hands
I kneel to take in out of the blue blessings
which fall slapdash on this preoccupied trajectory, forever waiting in sozzled hope
I take the package you flash and cast heavy
which leave sweltering whiplines across my insides
all fine, all just a fine melange
beneath your magic fontanelle lies a sunken cache
there are painfully few privy to that miracle
I live in hope of neither looping nor taking
but just to be happy to bear witness to the shiny array of your gem stock
you are like none other, inimitable and hard gemstone (inside)
a mix of purity stirred in crazy, along with star shine and fire sparks
my angel with honey eyes
Dec 8, 2013
Dec 8, 2013 at 2:34 PM UTC
In this fleeting existence, we call life
Breaths of air, unlabored, unsought,
We are but specks in an infinite universe
Colliding with another, now and again.
And as time effaces all strides of victory
We hold a part of each other,
Treasured and locked.
Sing anthems to our plight
To how our love, untainted,
Turned into a story.
As we held our hands and looked to the stars
Leaving our woes to burn with the fire,
We were silent that night,
That beautiful night,
Yet we never stopped speaking.
And to the faint glow of ember,
The smell of the ocean,
We sat there gazing at the endless sky.
To what we owe this joy we have,
Finding each other, holding our fragile hearts.
For you heard my song,
And I, yours.
Now living seems less arduous,
Existence is bliss.
Because we found each other
In this infinite universe.
Jun 7, 2015
Jun 7, 2015 at 10:01 AM UTC
Green, but an understatement.
Life, abundant.
The world, left behind.
Monochromatic beauty,
unsought, and yet, divine.
I grow lost in the unsightly.
Tempered into an earthen rage.
Barefoot to the world,
I come on the loose.
Hiding, in a meadow of green,
I chase the tails of nature.
Butterfly, oh butterfly,
why don’t you come be green with me.
The wind, of high noon,
swaying in an ever-persistent tune.
Winter-drawn ice,
Summer-bound freedom.
Nov 26, 2011
Nov 26, 2011 at 10:30 PM UTC
Undress the soul, pure;
Caress the senses, chaste;
Wash the eyes off the haze.
Sleep and rest to unwind;
Cleanse the heart, empty;
Look into the mirrors gaze.
Webs of remorse, found;
Oceans of screams, bound;
Try again! the sweet one.
Feel blessed, God's own child;
Meet again, the divine soul;
Chaos synchronized, plays aloud.
Split the dream, open;
Bolt the thoughts, shut;
Live the moments, unsought.
Embrace the revelation, tight;
Play the chords of your soul;
Quench oneself off the drought.
Drink the misery, complete;
Butcher the pain, obsolete;
Embellish the good for once.
Solve the mystery unsought;
Lifeless remains and ashes;
Deserve not a single glance.
Jul 6, 2014
Jul 6, 2014 at 12:53 PM UTC