"untroubled" poems
Lush is the quietude
of the late Saturday afternoon,
rich are the silencing sounds,
as variegated as the shades of greens
of a man-seeded, nature-patchworked lawn
rays reveal some bright,
some yellowed spots,
all a potent color palette
resting worry wearied eyes,
untroubled by the gentle fading light's illumination,
that soon will disappear and seal officially,
another week gone by
the lawn,
acting as an ceiling acoustic tile,
absorbing and reflecting
the varied din of disharmonious
natural sounds orchestrated,
an ever present reminder
that true quiet
is not the absence of noise
I hear
the chill in the air,
insects debating vociferously
their Saturday evening plans,
the waves broom-swishing beach debris,
pretending to be young parents
putting away the children's toys for the eve
the birds speak in Babel multitudes of tongues,
chirps, whistles, clicks and clacks,
then going strangely silent as if all were
praying collectively the afternoon sabbath service,
with an intensity of the silent devotion
this moment, i cannot
well enough communicate,
this trump of light absolutes,
and animal maybes,
that are visually and aurally
presented in a living surround sound screen,
Dolby, of course,
all a plot of
ease and gentility,
in toto,
sweet serenity
here to cease,
no more tinkering,
leave well enough,
plenty well enough
Jun 7, 2015
Jun 7, 2015 at 10:39 AM UTC
This level reach of blue is not my sea;
Here are sweet waters, pretty in the sun,
Whose quiet ripples meet obediently
A marked and measured line, one after one.
This is no sea of mine. that humbly laves
Untroubled sands, spread glittering and warm.
I have a need of wilder, crueler waves;
They sicken of the calm, who knew the storm.
So let a love beat over me again,
Loosing its million desperate breakers wide;
Sudden and terrible to rise and wane;
Roaring the heavens apart; a reckless tide
That casts upon the heart, as it recedes,
Splinters and spars and dripping, salty weeds.
19.7k
I remember the jelly bean jar
perched next to the owlish librarian
in my school when I was younger.
One lucky soul would win a prize
for pulling the right number of jelly beans
out of an air still filled with fancy.
I can’t remember who won the prize,
and I can’t remember what the prize was.
But I guess as selfish minds are wont to do,
I remember the act of guessing.
It was a childhood of guessing,
and I wonder if any of those guesses were truly wrong?
When the engine of innocence toils away,
any solution, however fanciful,
can’t be false in a world that finds falsity
in far more veritable places.
I digress back to that jelly bean jar,
packed full of sugar,
and to a young mind,
full of promise.
To a mind such as mine,
a mind akin to my classmates
who shared my sugary desire for that jar,
any guess was as good as the other,
as long as any guess was your own.
We clutched ordinary pencils
scribbled on ordinary paper
with our own extraordinary numbers.
In the basket went these figures most accurate.
Days during the week passed
with those store brand jelly beans
mashed against each other,
childhood memories turned ordinary pages
wrote with ordinary pencils
until that singular, self-sure number
mashed against pages turned against it.
However strong that memory of numerology
in a room full of words is etched in my mind; no trace
of the end of the jellybean contest remains in my ledger.
No trace of the disappointment of losing out
on such a treasure trove of tooth decay.
But I guess this is the way of the mind,
it tends to trace out the positives
while it remains filled with youthful levity,
no weight is imbued in innocent minds,
and so tragedy, loss, and disappointment
float away past untroubled eyes.
But time rolls on and much like the crushed growth
under an ever-rolling stone,
our lives start to fall harder on softened memories.
Our lives harden with our heads,
and those days of living out short-lived fantasies
fade with jelly bean guesses.
So as we mature and feign to seek the truth,
a small part of me keeps a singular page earmarked
for a time when the truth no longer weighs
down the air with half-true deceit, and a mind long
abandoned
will return to grasp fanciful ideas
out of an air that’s still light enough
to evade our youthful fingertips.
Jul 26, 2012
Jul 26, 2012 at 5:34 PM UTC
your love is like a candle
untroubled to handle
crafted with senses
your candlewick heaves
and chases untimely
blue and smooth
it trails divinely
melts under my touch
and dresses down
a molten savor
weak and steady
it lugs me flavor
uncharge the flame
in the cold throughout
that shapes me with form
then burns me out
scorching and
heavy; a vibrant tone
never here to stay
but it's where i go
when i'm alone
Nov 3, 2014
Nov 3, 2014 at 12:21 PM UTC
I
Dawn
The greenish sky glows up in misty reds,
The purple shadows turn to brick and stone,
The dreams wear thin, men turn upon their beds,
And hear the milk-cart jangle by alone.
II
Dusk
The city’s street, a roaring blackened stream
Walled in by granite, thro’ whose thousand eyes
A thousand yellow lights begin to gleam,
And over all the pale untroubled skies.
III
Rain at Night
The street-lamps shine in a yellow line
Down the splashy, gleaming street,
And the rain is heard now loud now blurred
By the tread of homing feet.
3.2k
the englishman must accept his lot
he'll take their *****
he'll live their strife
untroubled by what he hasn't got
they'll take his rights
he'll think that's right
because that's what they taught him
Aug 24, 2015
Aug 24, 2015 at 3:47 PM UTC
WOULD I could cast a sad on the water
Where many a king has gone
And many a king's daughter,
And alight at the comely trees and the lawn,
The playing upon pipes and the dancing,
And learn that the best thing is
To change my loves while dancing
And pay but a kiss for a kiss.
I would find by the edge of that water
The collar-bone of a hare
Worn thin by the lapping of water,
And pierce it through with a gimlet, and stare
At the old bitter world where they marry in churches,
And laugh over the untroubled water
At all who marry in churches,
Through the white thin bone of a hare.
2.6k
The winter fairy has again knocked on my door with a lovely gift of today
With a little sunshine hue
this morning she arrived with tiny friends
Still sulking in darkness and in my melancholic silence
I got up and tried to peek
A little smile then curved my lips
happily singing their winter songs
on a frail tree branch were birds with tiny feet
The gift of laughter that I heard suddenly gave me hope
Winter is not only a season of gloom, of tears and of despair
Its beauty is also a season for peace, for thinking and for memories
Because of my new feathered friends
a reminder so I write today
That for any season that we have
to feel untroubled or miserable is our choice to make
Feb 9, 2019
Feb 9, 2019 at 9:01 PM UTC
The doer without desire,
Who does not boast of his deed,
Who is ardent, enduring,
Untouched by triumph,
In failure untroubled:
He is a man of sattwa (the energy of inspiration)
The doer with desire,
Hot for the prize of vain glory,
Brutal, greedy and foul
In triumph too quick to rejoyce,
In failure despairing:
He is a man of fajas (the energy of action)
The indifferent doer
Whose heart is not in his deed,
Stupid and stubborn,
A cheat, and malicious,
The idle lover of delay,
Easily dejected:
He is a man of tamas (the energy of inertia).
Apr 22, 2014
Apr 22, 2014 at 11:28 AM UTC
it's five o clock
yes in the morning
birdsong has woken me
an hour and a half
before my alarm
was supposed to
even after another
terrible night's sleep
to-ing and fro-ing
with tossings
and turnings
staring into the blank
of ceiling and wall
not enough comfort
or perhaps too much
on this slumped mattress
to slip deep enough
beyond those initial
stages of slumber
down into REM
i'm surprised to find
i'm not as angry
nor as drained
as i thought i would be
at such premature awakening
i can lie still
untroubled for now
contentedly listening
to the chattering
of these feathered neighbours
an avian symphony
of movements manifold
May 23, 2023
May 23, 2023 at 8:05 AM UTC
Here is a voice that soundeth low and far
And lyricvoice of wind among the pines,
Where the untroubled, glimmering waters are,
And sunlight seldom shines.
Elusive shadows linger shyly here,
And wood-flowers blow, like pale, sweet spirit-bloom,
And white, slim birches whisper, mirrored clear
In the pool's lucent gloom.
Here Pan might pipe, or wandering dryad kneel
To view her loveliness beside the brim,
Or laughing wood-nymphs from the byways steal
To dance around its rim.
'Tis such a witching spot as might beseem
A seeker for young friendship's trysting place,
Or lover yielding to the immortal dream
Of one beloved face.
2.3k
The darkness of where you sit
Ensures you get goosebumps
Until that one little light is lit,
The darkness of where you sit
Ensures your insides crawl in you then crumble,
Until that one little light is lit
The darkness of where you sit
Will wait until you embrace it's lack of color,
Until you embrace its untroubled silence,
Until you embrace its weakened will,
Its calm shroud of absence,
Its unexpected peace.
So restrain.
No light needs to be lit
Jan 6, 2014
Jan 6, 2014 at 1:22 AM UTC
umbrae
for Genevieve
your prayers include a terrible notebook, an invalid friend, and a man believing separately that we are here to place turtles upright. when you walk into the ocean you walk into the ocean on your hands. you do this to protect your knees. many think you are magnificent and these many you are on the verge of telling about the Saturdays that bore you and about the spider you repeatedly squash. the resurrected spider that is not a gift. if you could you’d give your youngest son a woman he could either swim through or swoon inside. a woman who could put him to sleep and rock in a chair the boat of her belly so untroubled to be thinking twice about twins. you’d be sad, or sleepy, and get to choose.
before I go to war
the dark readies in the oven.
my father washes with a wet sock a knee exposed.
my mother
wears one dry sock which she removes
and makes into a puppet. or an oven mitt.
both
silence the hand.
idolatry
a red wheelbarrow, maybe-
but not
so much
depends
on a poem
about it
Aug 15, 2012
Aug 15, 2012 at 5:27 PM UTC
I am: yet what I am none cares or knows
My friends forsake me like a memory lost,
I am the self-consumer of my woes—
They rise and vanish in oblivious host,
Like shadows in love’s frenzied, stifled throes—
And yet I am, and live—like vapors tossed
Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,
Into the living sea of waking dreams,
Where there is neither sense of life or joys,
But the vast shipwreck of my life’s esteems;
Even the dearest, that I love the best,
Are strange—nay, rather stranger than the rest.
I long for scenes, where man hath never trod,
A place where woman never smiled or wept—
There to abide with my Creator, God,
And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept,
Untroubling, and untroubled where I lie,
The grass below—above the vaulted sky.
1.9k
Emotions never displayed, undeniably disabled.
The masks were sat there, alongside my birth crib...
I should have wore one, and kept another.
Seclusion I never asked for, occupies my realm.
A mediocre jester, to the untroubled Race.
A feeble jester, to the bothered kin.
I lean on anger, and He escapes me.
I borrowed a mask, or two, or three... None fits, I'll drench in salt instead.
Sep 30, 2013
Sep 30, 2013 at 10:27 PM UTC
All others talked as if
talk were a dance.
Clodhopper I, with clumsy feet
would break the gliding ring.
Early I learned to
hunch myself
close by the door:
then when the talk began
I’d wipe my
mouth and wend
unnoticed back to the barn
to be with the warm beasts,
dumb among body sounds
of the simple ones.
I’d see by a twist
of lit rush the motes
of gold moving
from shadow to shadow
slow in the wake
of deep untroubled sighs.
The cows
munched or stirred or were still. I
was at home and lonely,
both in good measure. Until
the sudden angel affrighted me—light effacing
my feeble beam,
a forest of torches, feathers of flame, sparks upflying:
but the cows as before
were calm, and nothing was burning,
nothing but I, as that hand of fire
touched my lips and scorched my tongue
and pulled my voice
into the ring of the dance.
1.8k
I want to ride the sky,
make believe
the stars are closing in on me,
and in so doing
become as them.
The glow from me,
a night light to some
off-world pier,
where children read
their storybooks untroubled.
An overhead visitor
to their lovely soul's dying wish,
the centrifugal force
keeping amusement park days
aligned with one another.
A tunnel at the end of the light,
cave of sweet
innocent dreams,
from which streams
of merry laughter emerge.
Jun 18, 2020
Jun 18, 2020 at 9:12 AM UTC
You came too soon, the four of you,
into this world. Your mother,
recognising the feeling,
did what she had to do
to give birth to you,
cleaned you,
disposed of the afterbirth
in nature's economical way.
But you had no experience,
no knowledge of how to be kittens.
Almost still foetuses,
furless, unmoving, cold,
you did not stimulate
her maternal instinct.
She did not recognise you
as her babies. Lying against her belly,
you did not know how to suckle,
and she, not ready to feed you,
walked off.
You had no future.
A bucket of water, I thought, would speed
your departure from the life
you had barely started.
But you, recognising the element
you had so lately left,
were at home in it,
swam untroubled under the surface
like tiny, pink sea creatures.
Unwilling to watch longer,
I gave you a quicker end.
Your mother, unlike me,
resumed her life
as if nothing had changed.
Jan 2, 2017
Jan 2, 2017 at 2:28 PM UTC
her summery eyes
set me adrift
on hopeful waters
where i sail
under clearer skies
content in my place and time
and untroubled by a destination
Apr 15, 2015
Apr 15, 2015 at 8:07 PM UTC
Homesick or just sick
Unsettled by the clock's tick
Thinking of posters on my wall, of furry paws in my face
Longing for familiar footsteps in the hall, for discussions of grace
I want fangs and feuds and cutthroat nights
Not to look over my shoulder between homebound lights
Homebound, not for months and seasons
I want to call but I have no reason
Even my imagination left some things behind
They lived at home though I thought they lived in my mind
Now I feel truly alone
But who wants to hear untroubled youth moan?
Not sick for home but sick for my friends
An empty ache I don't think time can mend
And I won't feel better locked in this new room
Knowing I'll be gone when hometown flowers bloom
December, holidays, so far from home
For a frightened foolish freshman who wanted to roam
Afraid to move forward and out
Terrified whispers and tears masked by shouts
Same album plays again and again
Hoping some peace will find its way in
Maybe
If I just take the clock off the wall
Time would stop, or go back, and we'd forget it all
Tie our highway hopes tight with small road ropes
And collegiate walks back to high school talks
Could I dream
Awake
Alone
With you
I know it's true
But I can't imagine that you're lonely too
Aug 19, 2013
Aug 19, 2013 at 5:51 PM UTC
Jaded cyan
were the shadows that sat and shriveled
(as hollowing rings)
under those downward eyes
like mildly pressed flowers
in dusty old books
Radiant hues
captured blushing in mental photographs
of crossing fingers by a tender flowing stream
(from an untroubled spring)
where they harvested budding gemstones of light
from dancing fields of lavender beneath the mountain
Lavished mulberry
were the plum tree branches that crept
(as throbbing veins)
around those half-moon eyes
like hot blood trickling
under sun dazed skin
Emerald spirits
intertwined in a physical vineyard
of limbs they recklessly tangled
(from an unseasoned summer)
where they felt the stirrings of revolutionary ardor
from expanding train tracks behind the mountain
Dec 16, 2013
Dec 16, 2013 at 6:21 AM UTC
June 28th 2015, 02:53am
The sun shall ascend in the morning, in a benediction of golden light.
Birdsong shall scatter through the air as brightly as sunlight on water,
butterflies shall rise in ragged flight, seeking out meadow nectars,
as peace breaks out throughout the peaks and valleys.
The man who works the land shall return, hungry and weary from his toil
to find his house still standing, as it always was before.
The rivers shall leap and dance over rocks and crash into waterfall ravines,
and no influx of blood shall taint their waters.
Peace shall resound in the calls of birds and laughter of children;
man shall lie with woman in untroubled spiritual and physical accord;
curve into hollow to curve, softly entwining and cradled in love,
and no sudden sounds shall disturb their loving.
The moon shall rise in the evening; swathed in luminescent clouds.
Retiring songs of birds shall herald the coming of twilight.
Peaceful breath of slumber shall rise and fall as night descends,
and all closed eyes shall be open again at sunrise.
Jun 27, 2015
Jun 27, 2015 at 9:54 PM UTC
you squeezed it from its little packet
onto your glazed doughnut
mindlessly committing culinary blasphemy
without a sound
others did not notice
until they saw the yellow remnants
on your red wax lips
they said nothing
for their rapt attention was on the boss
who chattered on about grand ideas
while you guiltlessly chewed and swallowed
I missed nothing
for your bold foray
into comestible “paradigm shifts”
was of far more interest to me
than the inflated business at hand
like sweet custard on a Frito pie
your mustard caught my eye
and had me pondering
the elusive mysteries
of mind and mouth
while others gazed at our leader’s clean moving lips
untroubled by their enchantment
May 28, 2013
May 28, 2013 at 4:18 PM UTC
WHAT sort of man is coming
To lie between your feet?
What matter, we are but women.
Wash; make your body sweet;
I have cupboards of dried fragrance.
I can strew the sheet.
The Lord have mercy upon us.
He shall love my soul as though
Body were not at all,
He shall love your body
Untroubled by the soul,
Love cram love's two divisions
Yet keep his substance whole.
The Lord have mercy upon us.
Soul must learn a love that is
proper to my breast,
Limbs a Love in common
With every noble beast.
If soul may look and body touch,
Which is the more blest?
The Lord have mercy upon us.
1.3k
a crisp jet of lavender lingers in the afternoon sun; drenched in milk-bone quiet and long stunning
ominous lungs, heaving an old cheese in a damp cave of lost reason.
undone.
you seem lovely.
untroubled in churning
dysfunction.
a cog in a wheel of misfortune.
with bells on.
Nov 2, 2012
Nov 2, 2012 at 11:55 AM UTC