"unvisited" poems
complexity
is your beauty
simplicity
your mystery
interdependence
sustains you
once upon a time
we dipped bowls
into your waters
and brought up
draughts of life
now
Skipjacks go
fathoms deep
into endless
depletion
charting
entangled
dead zones
broadening
into a sea of
inertness
your delicate
eco-essence tips
toward oblivion
effluvia farmers
layer mechanized
blankets of
nitrates on your
sunset shores
weaving
green tendrils
of algae blooms
strangling the
entanglements
of all links in
your miraculous
food chain
the EPA
proscribes
a Jenny Craig
pollution diet
to halt the
slaughter in
oxygen
challenged
dead zones
where rockfish
are garroted,
oysters get drilled
by screwworms
and azure tinted
soft shell *****
dance soft
shoe taps
lifting a tinny
chorus of sad
Piedmont Blues
the flat-lining
watersheds
voiceless
warnings
tremble
rocking the
purged nests of
screaming ospreys
in vocal protest
of a sinking
Tangier Isle
anointing it’s
tombstones
of unvisited
cemeteries with
multicolored
guano
fitting
alkaline
tributes
to the lost
inhabitants
and forgotten
languages
sinking into the
brine of gray
brackish tides
Delmarva’s fine
intra-continental
balance skewed
by the oozing
industrial swill
of Frank Perdue
chicken farms
ruling the roost of
sanctioned sustainability
tinging clear watersheds
of finger lakes
set in splints to
repair dislocations
and complex
compound fractures
that may never heal
again
Music Selection:
Taj Mahal: Fishin Blues
jbm
Oakland
6/7/12
Feb 19, 2013
Feb 19, 2013 at 8:36 AM UTC
695
As if the Sea should part
And show a further Sea—
And that—a further—and the Three
But a presumption be—
Of Periods of Seas—
Unvisited of Shores—
Themselves the Verge of Seas to be—
Eternity—is Those—
4.1k
See the various Poems the scene of which is laid upon
the banks of the Yarrow; in particular, the exquisite
Ballad of Hamilton beginning—
Busk ye, busk ye, my bonny, bonny Bride,
Busk ye, busk ye, my winsome Marrow!
From Stirling castle we had seen
The mazy Forth unravelled;
Had trod the banks of Clyde, and Tay,
And with the Tweed had travelled;
And when we came to Clovenford,
Then said my “winsome Marrow,”
“Whate’er betide, we’ll turn aside,
And see the Braes of Yarrow.”
“Let Yarrow folk, frae Selkirk town,
Who have been buying, selling,
Go back to Yarrow, ’tis their own;
Each maiden to her dwelling!
On Yarrow’s banks let her herons feed,
Hares couch, and rabbits burrow!
But we will downward with the Tweed
Nor turn aside to Yarrow.
“There’s Galla Water, Leader Haughs,
Both lying right before us;
And Dryborough, where with chiming Tweed
The lintwhites sing in chorus;
There’s pleasant Tiviot-dale, a land
Made blithe with plough and harrow:
Why throw away a needful day
To go in search of Yarrow?
“What’s Yarrow but a river bare,
That glides the dark hills under?
There are a thousand such elsewhere
As worthy of your wonder.”
—Strange words they seemed of slight and scorn;
My True-love sighed for sorrow;
And looked me in the face, to think
I thus could speak of Yarrow!
“Oh! green,” said I, “are Yarrow’s holms,
And sweet is Yarrow flowing!
Fair hangs the apple frae the rock,
But we will leave it growing.
O’er hilly path, and open Strath,
We’ll wander Scotland thorough;
But, though so near, we will not turn
Into the dale of Yarrow.
“Let beeves and home-bred kine partake
The sweets of Burn-mill meadow,
The swan on still St. Mary’s Lake
Float double, swan and shadow!
We will not see them; will not go,
To-day, nor yet to-morrow;
Enough if in our hearts we know
There’s such a place as Yarrow.
“Be Yarrow stream unseen, unknown!
It must, or we shall rue it:
We have a vision of our own;
Ah! why should we undo it?
The treasured dreams of times long past,
We’ll keep them, winsome Marrow!
For when we’er there, although ’tis fair,
’Twill be another Yarrow!
“If Care with freezing years should come,
And wandering seem but folly,—
Should we be loth to stir from home,
And yet be melancholy;
Should life be dull, and spirits low,
’Twill soothe us in our sorrow,
That earth has something yet to show,
The bonny holms of Yarrow!”
3.6k
{Chorus.} Come praise Colonus' horses, and come praise
The wine-dark of the wood's intricacies,
The nightingale that deafens daylight there,
If daylight ever visit where,
Unvisited by tempest or by sun,
Immortal ladies tread the ground
Dizzy with harmonious sound,
Semele's lad a gay companion.
And yonder in the gymnasts' garden thrives
The self-sown, self-begotten shape that gives
Athenian intellect its mastery,
Even the grey-leaved olive-tree
Miracle-bred out of the living stone;
Nor accident of peace nor war
Shall wither that old marvel, for
The great grey-eyed Athene stareS thereon.
Who comes into this countty, and has come
Where golden crocus and narcissus bloom,
Where the Great Mother, mourning for her daughter
And beauty-drunken by the water
Glittering among grey-leaved olive-trees,
Has plucked a flower and sung her loss;
Who finds abounding Cephisus
Has found the loveliest spectacle there is.
because this country has a pious mind
And so remembers that when all mankind
But trod the road, or splashed about the shore,
Poseidon gave it bit and oar,
Every Colonus lad or lass discourses
Of that oar and of that bit;
Summer and winter, day and night,
Of horses and horses of the sea, white horses.
2.7k
I.
The corn has turned from grey to red,
Since first my spirit wandered forth
From the drear cities of the north,
And to Italia’s mountains fled.
And here I set my face towards home,
For all my pilgrimage is done,
Although, methinks, yon blood-red sun
Marshals the way to Holy Rome.
O Blessed Lady, who dost hold
Upon the seven hills thy reign!
O Mother without blot or stain,
Crowned with bright crowns of triple gold!
O Roma, Roma, at thy feet
I lay this barren gift of song!
For, ah! the way is steep and long
That leads unto thy sacred street.
II.
And yet what joy it were for me
To turn my feet unto the south,
And journeying towards the Tiber mouth
To kneel again at Fiesole!
And wandering through the tangled pines
That break the gold of Arno’s stream,
To see the purple mist and gleam
Of morning on the Apennines
By many a vineyard-hidden home,
Orchard and olive-garden grey,
Till from the drear Campagna’s way
The seven hills bear up the dome!
III.
A pilgrim from the northern seas—
What joy for me to seek alone
The wondrous temple and the throne
Of him who holds the awful keys!
When, bright with purple and with gold
Come priest and holy cardinal,
And borne above the heads of all
The gentle Shepherd of the Fold.
O joy to see before I die
The only God-anointed king,
And hear the silver trumpets ring
A triumph as he passes by!
Or at the brazen-pillared shrine
Holds high the mystic sacrifice,
And shows his God to human eyes
Beneath the veil of bread and wine.
IV.
For lo, what changes time can bring!
The cycles of revolving years
May free my heart from all its fears,
And teach my lips a song to sing.
Before yon field of trembling gold
Is garnered into dusty sheaves,
Or ere the autumn’s scarlet leaves
Flutter as birds adown the wold,
I may have run the glorious race,
And caught the torch while yet aflame,
And called upon the holy name
Of Him who now doth hide His face.
2.5k
I tried to leave
but his hands held onto mine,
like a lost traveler,
kept in an ancient city.
He asked why
I had to go.
And I told him,
"I want to go back home".
he looked up at me,
with eyes like attractions,
which I want to visit
and take snapshots of.
My fingers traced his face
one more time,
like I'm tracing a map
of unvisited destinations.
Then he pulled me into
a homely embrace.
With his voice like a warm
and protective blanket said,
"Stay with me.
I'm your home,
And I'll be your vacation."
May 14, 2016
May 14, 2016 at 5:08 AM UTC
The quiet hum of fragile wings of burnished gold
Gently races through a hollow ring
Whirring within falling leaves of ancient trees
A sudden change of season brings
Astounding measures softly wake unchecked lists
Found in all your distant memories
Skating along a lucid sea of hazy dreams
Inside unvisited shades of history
Could we all be listening with enchanted hearing
To the wings lovely whirring hum
Softly waking our most distant memories
Of seasons that did not come
How fragile are those wings of shiny burnished gold
Can they fill the emptiness of the ring
As we recall those unchecked lists of hazy dreams
When those wings of gold come a visiting
In the evening of our minds, we hear the fragile wings
Racing through our list of things to do
We lie wondering if we will ever fill the hollow ring
Before all our change of seasons, say adieu
Aug 29, 2010
Aug 29, 2010 at 6:05 AM UTC
I am in love sunrises I have never
seen, with people,
unacquainted, in cities
unvisited.
Unfamiliar roads, pave paths to
Uncertainty.
Do not deny the moonlight,
reminder of yearning.
Homesick,
for a time never lived in, a place non existent,
unknown.
Rudely,
unacquainted.
I am in love with the person
I still have yet to
become.
Dec 12, 2014
Dec 12, 2014 at 10:53 AM UTC
I was born for Nebraska
I was born for the Massif Central
I was born for the mountain top shrine
with nothing but the music of nature
to distract me
I was born for the weekly news
on some sleepy island in the Pacific
I was born for Covent Garden
The Pangea of Culture
New Orleans trumpets;
the flamenco player
twisting lime into his drink
I was born for the cotton fields
I was born for the salt marsh
for the tug-boat all out of fresh water
I was born for the Ganges
I was born in the shadow of the Hajj
I was born for the G-dless land
of Death Valley
the streets of Harlem
I was born into the spirit
of old Afghanistan
I was born on the false strings
of liberated women-
I was born on a stage of puppets
a backdrop of Glaswegian tenements
or of fjords unvisited
beside Scandinavian seas
I was born for Rugby Cement
I was born to be fixed in place
This wandering mind
These restless legs
I was born with a travelling soul
in a town where I can barely walk
Aug 19, 2015
Aug 19, 2015 at 8:52 PM UTC
The sweetest smile, and all for me.
Loves come and go.
She stays on.
Smiling into the night ahead,
long dark hair
spread out widely
on her pillow, slender
arms resting
on all that softness.
She is the one who brings visions
in the depths of night.
Lucid clarity
and saturated, unknown colors.
Unvisited places, deeply longed for.
She tells me about the life within everything.
Underneath these words she gives me,
are sacred, and secret images,
abiding in silence,
abiding in vast inner space.
At last,
she is loved.
And she is listened to.
Aug 13, 2016
Aug 13, 2016 at 10:54 PM UTC
~
*She is not our shrine,
she prays differently
with eyes holy open,
fingers on votive offerings,
preferring her solitude
in the Tea Garden, drinking light
Tomorrow on the tarmac
one flowered suitcase,
stamped for the city of neon people,
will travel to her song,
the pilgrimage of anemic lovers
Her hoisting from water,
(ampullae in hand),
and the unique boutique
growing out of
an alabaster chamber
bring monks out of hiding
The center line of her,
where the flower blooms forth
and learns by observation,
is still an unvisited temple
Until in season of calligraphy,
when she releases the Kogai
from her hair and sits with friendly toes
outstretched in the warm intimacy of
shared water*
~
Feb 12, 2024
Feb 12, 2024 at 9:41 AM UTC
Kylie
A song bird with a broken wing the cancer like the archer’s arrow pierced the breast the spirit widens
Under storm laden skies from inward hush and silence an opening umbrella of prayer provides a shield
The buffeted retreats to sheltering rocks and finds the hidden stream within depths blessed bindings
In warmest recesses your steps guided by the unseen over and through this dark passing new findings
With down cast eyes you continue the dark streets the home of the sick and the broken pain unspoken
You came upon these deep downward steeps from the flood lights and euphoric accolades of fame
Before your lyrical melodies were joyful expressive now will carry weighty and knowing sterling acclaim
Mined from troubles hard unrelenting walls finally the richest golden ore through your feelings pour
A little ease by the mystical dreams when sleep restores still withdrawn faces in the moonlight so pale
For a time at heaven you rail to costly you barter all that is thine to own backed by a great pink brigade
You fight with unstoppable courage you lead the march you find ground unvisited you go on without fail
Beaconing to legions behind encouraging you carry the burning torch showing the way through the dark
This my only desire I stand in this human body frail knowing my limitations but from the fight I call you
Don’t be afraid and never say give up to many are depending your touch glorious women you defend
Say in song the mystery you found in a city all alone you met sisters not age defined all filled with youth
In your face I see the unexplainable the untraceable a strength born from conflict a secret knowing
This is dedicated to Kylie Minouge Melissa Eatheridge and all breast cancer survivors
Dec 1, 2011
Dec 1, 2011 at 9:13 AM UTC
My heart has many rooms,
I occupy but a few.
The rest go unvisited.
Till the light began to flicker on
and I've discovered a new part of me.
Take my hand,
lead me through the mazes of hallways.
Show me the rooms,
I've constructed for you.
Inhabit it.
Feed it with your passion of life.
Till my heart is lit ablaze from it.
Light each room with your warmth.
Make my heart into our home.
Jun 1, 2014
Jun 1, 2014 at 5:27 PM UTC
A song bird with a broken wing the cancer like the archer’s arrow pierced the breast the spirit widens
Under storm laden skies from inward hush and silence an opening umbrella of prayer provides a shield
The buffeted retreats to sheltering rocks and finds the hidden stream within depths blessed bindings
In warmest recesses your steps guided by the unseen over and through this dark passing new findings
With down cast eyes you continue the dark streets the home of the sick and the broken pain unspoken
You came upon these deep downward steeps from the flood lights and euphoric accolades of fame
Before your lyrical melodies were joyful expressive now will carry weighty and knowing sterling acclaim
Mined from troubles hard unrelenting walls finally the richest golden ore through your feelings pour
A little ease by the mystical dreams when sleep restores still withdrawn faces in the moonlight so pale
For a time at heaven you rail to costly you barter all that is thine to own backed by a great pink brigade
You fight with unstoppable courage you lead the march you find ground unvisited you go on without fail
Beaconing to legions behind encouraging you carry the burning torch showing the way through the dark
This my only desire I stand in this human body frail knowing my limitations but from the fight I call you
Don’t be afraid and never say give up to many are depending your touch glorious women you defend
Say in song the mystery you found in a city all alone you met sisters not age defined all filled with youth
In your face I see the unexplainable the untraceable a strength born from conflict a secret knowing
This is dedicated to Kylie Minouge Melissa Eatheridge and all breast cancer survivors
Oct 22, 2012
Oct 22, 2012 at 3:09 PM UTC
The sweetest smile, and all for me.
Loves come and go.
She stays on.
Smiling into the night ahead,
long dark hair
spread out widely
on her pillow, slender
arms resting
on all that softness.
She is the one who brings visions
in the depths of night.
Lucid clarity
and saturated, unknown colors.
Unvisited places, deeply longed for.
She tells me about the life within everything.
Underneath these words she gives me,
are sacred, and secret images,
abiding in silence,
abiding in vast inner space.
At last,
she is loved.
And she is listened to.
Sep 5, 2015
Sep 5, 2015 at 2:46 PM UTC
To tear away the azure twinkling of
the mother-bird's heart beating
and replace it with Mother Nature's pet ant-eater
dipping his wind-nose from clouds to dirt
and ******* away the green -- leaving caked matte mud brown.
Fraggled cottage stones aloof
where chaos is the juggled glory flanking dust and soot
blanketing fluorescent fauna unbeknownst to the birds.
Right-lightning scars when you shut your eyes
against the shadow of a mocking storm, and
Fraggled thoughts soar with the cottage stones.
Frequent nightingales regail of June's monsoons
that gulped the quail's acquaintance with Sir
Gawain and the Green Knight.
My sense of silence is the unvisited dirt mound perched beyond the graves.
Sep 23, 2011
Sep 23, 2011 at 11:48 PM UTC
In life,i dithered,pussyfooting,
Cringed,thought,delaying,
waited,holding ****** on,
feared you, all and sundry
argued futile,to myself!
philosophized idly, like hell!
reacted sensitive! norms as per,
mouthed bull, pitied empty!
gave little,grabbed in shovels,
didn't even hate properly!
thus loving only timidly!
fought causes unworthy,
sat bang mid on the fence,
foot each in pastures green,
mind,ever weighing the soul,
civilized,polite and gutless,
to even say,damn,screw you!
you evil sob, to hell you go!
polite to kids,dogs, folks old,
lovely ****** and dumb bores,
swallowed angers,conceded points,
knowingly with a mind sharper,
died some death everyday small,
got lost so, mirroring ****** all,
unheeding ever, a decided heart!
Truth hit,mirror shattering!
Fully clothed,stood I naked,
unreflected in things any,
staring at nothing,blank
here, in this place and time.
feeling all the garbage pent-up,
priming to manure, catalyzing,
some part of being, unvisited.
knowing somehow, all I did,
or not,mattered,was worthy,
leading me here,to this place,
Beware,of Existence Point Blank!
Nov 29, 2012
Nov 29, 2012 at 4:58 AM UTC
Waiting for Oblivion
A force starting to become drown
in oceans of silence around him
A "time clown"
Laughter, inside of his insanity grows from the halls of uncertainty
Cold waters of future's question pour from his soul
Back into the already unpredictable waters of existence
No boat to carry him
Tight inside..his life situated like a goldfish inside a goldfish bowl
Across and all over a bitter salt-drenched Soul It remains..Raining..
Waters flowing..A dark force growing
Lack of relief as help through these tortuous hours
His darkness cannot run from it
What light that is left inside of him....the force aims to discard such
Knowing...Feeling faded from never being heard from his loud cries
Those about who fail to understand why he calls them out
He remains as strong as he can remain
doggy Paddling
Until his head is drug down and his muscles start to fail
to paddle him afloat
He shall keep in this cycle of pain
Which is like a beautiful castle kept unvisited by a deadly
and dark moat
The test is "now" in such quiet and lengthy times
As he copes until the answer to his shouted question arrives
Through these long and untested rimes.
Sep 29, 2018
Sep 29, 2018 at 1:32 AM UTC
Each thing I do I rush through so I can do
something else. In such a way do the days pass—
a blend of stock car racing and the never
ending building of a gothic cathedral.
Through the windows of my speeding car, I see
all that I love falling away: books unread,
jokes untold, landscapes unvisited. And why?
What treasure do I expect in my future?
Rather it is the confusion of childhood
loping behind me, the chaos in the mind,
the failure chipping away at each success.
Glancing over my shoulder I see its shape
and so move forward, as someone in the woods
at night might hear the sound of approaching feet
and stop to listen; then, instead of silence
he hears some creature trying to be silent.
What else can he do but run? Rushing blindly
down the path, stumbling, struck in the face by sticks;
the other ever closer, yet not really
hurrying or out of breath, teasing its ****
-Stephen Dobyns
Apr 15, 2016
Apr 15, 2016 at 11:54 AM UTC
after the last autumnal rainfall has washed away
the remnants of the hurtful summer past
and with it, any residual feelings of want or desire for you
this gloriously mixed with the diversion of my eyes
and recalibration of my heart's attention
i'm still left with this feeling of resentment
and betrayal at your hands
which once knotted so seamlessly in mine
it is from this deeply ingrained feeling
that i know with crestfallen certainty
that i will never call you a friend
no, but you will merely be faintly etched in my memory
as a blemish, a person that i trusted
only to have that trust forged into a dagger
and relief that i did not give you any more of myself
with which you could sharpen it
it is from this realisation that i am forced
to redefine the trough of this wave called love
highlighting the lowest depths of emotional exploitation
where you expose yourself, bearing your chest open
to another, so that they can have your heart in its entirety
but you encounter the true nature of another's character
a character that you may have only seen glimpses of, if anything
but one that will form their final portrait
in that dark unvisited corner of your mind
for as long as your memory will care to retain it
for the only beauty in betrayal is the subsequent clarity that it entails
May 18, 2015
May 18, 2015 at 2:21 PM UTC
~~~
someday soon gonna reread
the four figures of my
poems over lifetime inked,
divvy them up by what each is about,
assemblage of
the themes of me
review the who what when and weird
of this guy through his own eyes
multiplying confessions
of graces and disgraces
particular to recover,
desirous of collecting those poems that:
*valorize society’s strugglers
and stragglers...humans doing the work of living*^
don't know how many will be uncovered,
but here's hoping there are plenty,
needy of recovery and uncovering the poet
and worthy of pointing too,
valuation markers of a
decent human
strugglers, stragglers,
those from all over this world
and lives that can only visualize
no-horizon-in-sight oceans
sailors, from ports unvisited,
some even, still undiscovered,
working ****** and women,
not those,
don't owners
of fancy dress whites,
topped of by jaunty angelic-angled caps
the ones I sought and seek,
grime and coal dust etched into
every ****** crevice, ink under fingernails,
in obscurity, toil in windowless engine rooms,
in the nooks in libraries hiding,
satisfied with
a moment of glory,
and a lasting
hand upon
their wracked minds
these are my mates,
sharing fates
of woeful countenances
of bruised bodies,
recipients of hardest blows repetitious,
comrades in open arms
the unflavored, unfavored of
sons and daughters,
unblessed with sobs and smacks,
who rare lift the head in hope
the sufferers of ignominy
of the
prison of their existence,
for those I write,
have, will, and willing
to do it till I see a
chin rising, white of eyes gleaming,
a hand delisted,
arms defused of black weights
come to me,
words, encouragement, perspective,
that this too shall pass
believing ain't easy,
take it from one who couldn't see
happy endings, but had no choice but
to choose to,
now prepped, ready
for my arms to do some serious uplifting,
shoulders heavy-loaded and wide of loads,
eager for honest work,
aiding and abetting
the stragglers and and stragglers...
humans doing the work of living,
deserving for valuation,
awaiting their salutation,
and relief, even if,
tiny and small,
a slim volume of poems,
that but one
poet
provided
Aug 22, 2015
Aug 22, 2015 at 8:47 AM UTC
A portrait of a child
Here he sits and wishes
For grasping ambitions
Too young for the feeling
Of content in the middle
Everyone around is feeding
On primal urges
They swing and stumble
But focus on focusing
They don't see the sky
With their eyes fixated on
One another and
All the shuffling feet around
They just seek the solace
Of safety, comfort
They settle for sitting and
Sipping, sulking, some
Perhaps weeping
This boy who sits, listens
And often thinks of
His positions and dispositions and
Places
Who he is to you, or you
Behavior reflecting the
Surrounding
This is the center, he thinks,
Which is a whirlwind of sand
Every particle a thought
Every thought an unvisited
Reality
Acknowledge them, he thinks,
But shall not explore
Instead, focus on focusing
Toward the edges
Toward the hills
Toward the hoops
And cease to sit, wishing
in the places surrounding reality
Jun 21, 2012
Jun 21, 2012 at 1:05 AM UTC
And on he goes like one who rose
To walk a sea of spiders’ lace
Along the fields, and seems to sense
The breath of heaven on his face
And now can see a lovely thing
To charm his blinking eye:
An opening, a sky of blue
With cloudlets coasting by!
The fragrance of the morning!
His sense unto him shows
The Earth, and springing from its dew,
The grass with sweet winds sighing through,
Bushes and trees as yet wet through
Borne with the happy air into
Both channels of his nose.
And to his ears now comes the tale
In which all this is said,
The treetop finches descant high
While on some low spray growing nigh
Blackbird both murmurs lowly by
And frames the melody’s reply.
Eager to bring this to his eye
The good man gladly runs,
The tunnel opens to the sky,
He issues forth at once.
All in a woodland clearing
The small, unresting bee
Visits each offered flower,
The breeze each offered tree,
The dandelion thrusts forth his head
With yellow fire upon it,
The trim, demure anemone
Her neat, white, modest bonnet,
The little winking violet
By light unvisited
And tiny-fingered stitchworts
Their dainty napkins spread,
Within the wood the bluebells
Their peals of colour ring,
He knows the place – Old England.
Also the season – Spring.
His long, perplexing journey seems
No more to vex his head,
Like one condemned and now reprieved
He leaps for joy instead,
And shouting runs and waves his arms
With unrestricted mirth,
And throws his face down in the grass
To kiss the reeking earth.
We come from utter darkness
And soon return again,
Why is it, in this fleeting life
Of grief, of loss and pain,
The fit of bitter sorrow
Outdures the weary Moon
While joy and with it comfort
Dissolve away so soon?
Just as the pecking sparrow
At Winter’s scanty scraps
May not enjoy his morsel,
The short day’s last perhaps
For fear the shadow of the hawk
His business overlaps.
No sooner goes the good man
Upon that meadow blest,
No sooner is his outstretched back
Upon the rich earth pressed
Than all his limbs go tense again,
His brain can have no rest.
Once more into the tunnel
He has to make his way…
Sep 18, 2014
Sep 18, 2014 at 12:20 PM UTC