"variegated" 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
What do you see
When the flower meets your eye,
What beauty must hide
In visceral Versailles,
In cherry tree reality...
Does it mystify?
The variegated countryside
Does the chorus nullify
The diversified into harmony
What melodic elegance underlies
That subjective divide
Wistful of waves you fly
What do you see in the cherry tree sky
Apr 9, 2016
Apr 9, 2016 at 9:57 AM UTC
It turned cold quickly
Almost skipping Autumn
Reluctant to wear a jacket
Or a hat, or gloves
Too distant for my arms
To keep him warm against my chest
He said he never wore a scarf
But if he did, he would go Dr. Who style
I had to laugh as i looked up the reference
Fifteen feet of mismatched stripes
Maybe not the stripes, he said
I happened upon a huge skein of yarn
It felt like a warm blanket in the oddest,
Most interesting colors
Manly, neutral, and perfect for Fall
So i crocheted a scarf and pictured him warm
The pattern in those colors was a mess
I chuckled at why they would make such an ugly pattern
I crocheted every stitch with love
Through arthritic hands that felt no pain
I crocheted a scarf, stopping only when it dragged the floor when i put it on
Two feet short, but ridiculously long
I bordered it in shades of green to match
Not realizing it was variegated into Brown's and maroons along the way
But it matched the odd mix of colors
And finally made it almost pretty to me
I covered myself in perfume
And put it around my neck
As I turned I caught a glimpse in the mirror
It wasn't a horrible amalgamation of hideous colors
It was camouflage, with a matching border
I laughed so hard, and felt so bad
My hillbilly in camouflage
Wearing a scarf way too long
Maybe he would hate it
Maybe he won't wear it
I knew better
So, I packed up his bag of gifts
And sent it to the frozen mountains
He never wore a scarf
He opened it and put it on
It smells like You, he said in blssful remembrances
It's definitely camouflage, he laughed
It's perfect baby, I'll wear it whenever it's cold
And in the picture he sent
I saw its beauty
It wasn't in the patterns of crisscrossing colors
It wasn't in the accidental way
The border perfectly complimented the body
It wasn't in the fact that he would be able
To wrap himself up in me to stay warm
It was in that picture
It was the joy that filled his smile
It was in his eyes that danced in love
It was in the fact that he believes
Because i made it, it's perfect
Yes, i accidentally crocheted a thirteen foot camouflage scarf
And he loves that I can keep him warm.
Nov 4, 2014
Nov 4, 2014 at 4:23 AM UTC
Post-azure, cloud splashed sky,
washes with the suns descent,
breaking into melodies of sunset.
Fracturing into a blush,
the richness of the spectrum
makes itself known.
On a tangent of change,
amorphous clouds bleed
amber glow
and bittersweet combinations
of reds and yellows.
Vermillion streaks through,
and a few cloud folk turn titian,
like sumptuous surreal apricots
rotting in the sky,
that seem to augur
encroaching darkness.
Billows on the horizon
leak crimson,
like spilled wine on table cloth,
and pucker out
like blooms of flaming roses.
Fire refracted
coloured cousins of the sun
are dancing all about.
Here is the anthem
of wild transformation.
Here is cause
for quiet celebration.
Here at this fluent juncture.
Here at the closing of day.
The whole of the ocean below,
is the skies tremendous mirror.
It's reflection is variegated,
into variations a thousandfold.
Multitudinous, and ever differentiated,
distortions of above
ride the crests of waves.
Each apex is a new story.
Each new story,
just as soon as it is told,
comes crashing into trough.
Each finale is the ****** of beginning.
The dynamic roar
of the oceans ever-changing topology
is rife with meaning.
Colossal symphonic wonders,
the primordial song,
releasing upon: the uni-
verse continual,
sending the manifest
to move, with the give and strain
of immaculate design.
Here ensconced
between the safety of light
and the mystery of night.
Here at the oceans edge.
Above, shades of catalina-blue, in conversation
with the outer most cosmic-black
dismiss earlier brighter hues.
Tinged by the infinite nature of space,
the jeweled dome darkens.
Overhead, the first stars appear,
sky transparent to beheld blackness.
Luxuriant, pulling horizon, attracts
violet into it's unfolding theatrics.
Bloodied clouds turn purplish, then black,
a darkening rawness allures,
decaying with vivid beauty,
tragedies of a rouged romance
drug down into shadows play,
searingly alive, extraordinarily actual.
And then, the hush of dusk.
Darkness is felled, like silence.
Scintillating stars
strengthen in the nights
surrounding abyss;
giving radiance definition.
Dynamic Beauty
Lives In Transition,
Oppositions
Compliment.
Apr 7, 2014
Apr 7, 2014 at 9:49 PM UTC
Spring blossoms gentle acceptance
Of vagaries of desperation
Like variegated autumnal leaves
From the core of the stone of floods
Undeclared truths
Affirmative requests
There is chaos as a whole
In the expanse of the unending.
Fear fades mystically.
Death and boredom leave your lungs ...
There. Exists
Justice and pleasure... .
.... thoughts of living, laugh in the face of Death.
all the thoughts of failures
Conglomerate and are cast away
Into a deep trench
the soothing currents lull
Sinking green verdure.
Embraced by the biosphere
And forming a reef,
Thereby even your failures succeed.
Even now your image is being painted on the dull white canvas of my love.
Violent storms may rend the world
scattering lesser unions,
There is endurance in our madness...
Laughter, the golden bird, with bejewelled feathers,
Leads to the oasis of truth, in this desert of deceit
Reciprocation of sensation
Every intention to remain
And the rapidly ascending choir of broken angels sing the song which massacres despair.
And the body I wish to settle
Caressed by the deepest dark of night
Birth of the morning
The genesis of pleasant daydreams
Calm, hope ...
..... And a sense of success
Blue morning justice cascades
With dispelled illusions, and realized wishes.
Everyday upon wakening
I discard hate
As love, is mildly colored supple flesh
Withdrawn and plunged, into the crack of a stoney heart
Space infinitum opens before us,
On the petals of the lotus
Space through which two beings connect
No matter the distance.
We know that beneath this dull white nightmare
Dwells a vibrant black dream,
That is neither evil or good,
But just is.
On the workbench of despair,
Disassembled hearts are heaped.
In this pile I dwelled for an age of pain,
Until you plucked me from the pile
And made me whole again.
Aug 24, 2012
Aug 24, 2012 at 6:14 AM UTC
All colors come from the sun. And it does not have
Any particular color, for it contains them all.
And the whole Earth is like a poem
While the sun above represents the artist.
Whoever wants to paint the variegated world
Let him never look straight up at the sun
Or he will lose the memory of things he has seen.
Only burning tears will stay in his eyes.
Let him kneel down, lower his face to the grass,
And look at the light reflected by the ground.
There he will find everything we have lost:
The stars and the roses, the dusks and the dawns.
Warsaw, 1943
Oct 6, 2014
Oct 6, 2014 at 6:59 AM UTC
The Picture Window
The vista view never changes but daily.
The naked eye, registers the same distances,
resting objects unmoved, modest alterations
by wind and water are noted, but for intent,
for purpose, the watercolor one would paint
be invariably unvarying as a Swiss Alp.
The subtle nuanced worldview, where the sky
stretches from ceiling to a foot above ground, as
I lay prone neath the coverlet, vista always subtly differing,
from its prior reincarnation, self-reflection demands to know.
Alive & Awake? Yes.
Breathing steady? Yes.
Toes? Still can wiggly to & fro.
My soul?
Presumably ok, as I write, because I write, the
picture window into to my insight, though oft blurry,
yet intact, making discernible the changes in light,
temperature and heart rate, as the body/soul contraption modulates, just as the gradient of daylight shifts lighter and higher, with a rising sun bringing more clarity to our interactive encounters with our environments..
The picture window internalized, much the same,as
the vista, subtle modest changes, colorations variegated,
are registered. Today is mostly cloudy overcast, and shall remain so for the foreseeable future, which be about two days hence. Not unsurprisingly, methinks, the future tends to be cloudy.
Beyond that peripheral, no one can say, our macular envisioning only gets weaker,time is a tough taskmaster
and uncertainty is it’s own principle.
But I can say, forecast from well under the comforter,
that more than less, where less is more, this picture window,
ex and in, shall remain, unchanged for the remainder of my years that fortune shall provide, and will & would grant me awakenings to the ex-sight and in-sight of a sculpted landscape, of negative entropy, where disorder minimal.
My musings end here, unless you still wish, come the morrow,
what the marrow the day reveals, what the window will spill,
new and exciting, subtly unchanged, and always different.
Caution: The injection of caffeine may dramatically alter
the windows perspective, as the exogenous always trumps the
endogenous.
5:50 AM
P.S. Making coffee clarifies: If the vista in +/- unchanging,
then, all my personal, own horizons are immortal as well.
Jun 4, 2023
Jun 4, 2023 at 6:34 AM UTC
Palest orange, a watercolor
wash slips in behind
bared branches
variegated,
rustling leaves.
You slumber,
down in the cellar,
fearless of the spiders
and centipedes.
Awakening me
with your roar
my sleep vanishes,
trading places
with blessed warmth.
Oct 21, 2015
Oct 21, 2015 at 6:19 PM UTC
. IF I WERE A POET
The
First stanza
would be a
magnatic attic captivating
Elegant architects of
iridescence
Vividly
propelling pupils to edges
Of the schleras
Compelling pens to pages
of new eras
IF I WERE A POET
The
Second
Stanza would
Mirror Zues's
spear slicing through
tears drowning in clouds
striking fields of pens
Egniting the
capsules of
Variegated
Lands
IF I WERE A POET
The
Last stanza
would sail summers
tame winters bathe in
springs of autumn praise
deeds of the monarchs
reigning over raining
rainbows nurturing the
clouds planting wings on
the ground giving free will
to plants to seed the sky
with warmth and love
of nature's heart.
Mar 17, 2015
Mar 17, 2015 at 12:55 PM UTC
At What Cost?
This Purchase of Our Future
*a thousand answers + variegated shadings, a summation:
∑
of millions layers of our owned chosen complexities,
so many possible outcomes, it makes infinite randomness
seemingly simpler than our googolplex crazy preposterous
notational choosings, our owned decisions which though false,
cause nothing is tandomn random except for love at first sight
it’s all just ******** we conditioned from pre-birth,
the expectations subtly subsumed into the woman’s womb,
overlaid by the ***** donors whisperings that you will be a
great third baseman, or a great bass player, or both, but
“your” fate, ha!
is anything but yours…
to purchase!
if you were born to live in a home with no heat, and water was
obtainable by walking 100 yards away, you would still be a
pianist, writing notes of plaintive need, grand desires, musical
words of agonizing delight just as when
you first blushed when the brain
connected yellow rays with a word,
sunrise,
and an experience was synapticaly imprinted,
that real things could be defined by an ordering of letters and sounds
and you were tongue burnt by a need so great
to collect these pleasurable things and put them in a right order
of your
peculiar
particular
personal
inherited inputted
design
=
and
you yet debate
what is my instrument,
knowing that the multiples of your fingers
are the engine of your existence,
and on any particular day they, your well connected perma-crew,
will pick which is the chosen one,
and
no matter which,
for you had nothing or little purchase,
it was coded in your pre-history
just as you prepare a transmission list
of your own,
when you daily first touch your face,
closing the sensory sensual connection tween
the ephemeral and the physical
and
the new combinations
that you will imprint upon
someone’s flesh,
that is your right,
that is you write,
that is what you were
predestined,
to
create
but,
(what the heck)
you get
to-pick the instrument of the day…*
(
that,
is your purchase, your only cost,
everything else has been
pre-paid
)
Nov 9, 2023
Nov 9, 2023 at 8:54 AM UTC
an enduring cypress
immortal knotted rings
until death
two as one
held breath
a contorted filbert
purple catkins bring to flower
deeply rooted visions
creativity, awareness, knowledge
enlightened fruition
a variegated willow
to drink up sorrow's rain
in tolerance we bend
but not to point
of breaking
three trees
foretell a future
laced with little deaths
cypress, filbert, willow
lest we should forget
Mar 28, 2016
Mar 28, 2016 at 10:56 AM UTC
Coiled beneath a sleepers rafter,
atoning for the numbness
chosen, not felt.
I burn with a dark desire
to achieve an infinite satisfaction,
paraphrasing every minuscule sin
not fortified,
every schema variegated.
Nov 11, 2013
Nov 11, 2013 at 6:08 PM UTC
*A portrait so skillfully painted
Variegated emotions came alive
Through the prism of painter's mind
Brush strokes painted life’s eulogy*
Aug 5, 2014
Aug 5, 2014 at 11:44 PM UTC
It faces west, and round the back and sides
High beeches, bending, hang a veil of boughs,
And sweep against the roof. Wild honeysucks
Climb on the walls, and seem to sprout a wish
(If we may fancy wish of trees and plants)
To overtop the apple trees hard-by.
Red roses, lilacs, variegated box
Are there in plenty, and such hardy flowers
As flourish best untrained. Adjoining these
Are herbs and esculents; and farther still
A field; then cottages with trees, and last
The distant hills and sky.
Behind, the scene is wilder. Heath and furze
Are everything that seems to grow and thrive
Upon the uneven ground. A stunted thorn
Stands here and there, indeed; and from a pit
An oak uprises, Springing from a seed
Dropped by some bird a hundred years ago.
In days bygone—
Long gone—my father’s mother, who is now
Blest with the blest, would take me out to walk.
At such a time I once inquired of her
How looked the spot when first she settled here.
The answer I remember. ‘Fifty years
Have passed since then, my child, and change has marked
The face of all things. Yonder garden-plots
And orchards were uncultivated slopes
O’ergrown with bramble bushes, furze and thorn:
That road a narrow path shut in by ferns,
Which, almost trees, obscured the passers-by.
Our house stood quite alone, and those tall firs
And beeches were not planted. Snakes and efts
Swarmed in the summer days, and nightly bats
Would fly about our bedrooms. Heathcroppers
Lived on the hills, and were our only friends;
So wild it was when we first settled here.’
2.4k
Attend my lays, ye ever honour’d nine,
Assist my labours, and my strains refine;
In smoothest numbers pour the notes along,
For bright Aurora now demands my song.
Aurora hail, and all the thousand dies,
Which deck thy progress through the vaulted skies:
The morn awakes, and wide extends her rays,
On ev’ry leaf the gentle zephyr plays;
Harmonious lays the feather’d race resume,
Dart the bright eye, and shake the painted plume.
Ye shady groves, your verdant gloom display
To shield your poet from the burning day:
Calliope awake the sacred lyre,
While thy fair sisters fan the pleasing fire:
The bow’rs, the gales, the variegated skies
In all their pleasures in my ***** rise.
See in the east th’ illustrious king of day!
His rising radiance drives the shades away—
But Oh! I feel his fervid beams too strong,
And scarce begun, concludes th’ abortive song.
2.3k
all faces, bodies and limbs
in this variegated universe
belong only to you.
all feelings, thoughts and sensations,
simply yours too.
all of existence is just your dream!
even the bliss glimpsed in my deep sleep,
a chip of your inner peace
when you wake up from that long trance
to perform the cosmic dance,
we will all merge with you,
like moths to a flame
© 2022
Apr 23, 2022
Apr 23, 2022 at 10:11 AM UTC
It began with my movement towards the heavenly substance,
Leading my way into a nostalgic trance.
Setting my boundaries, then flying out of limits,
Leaving my senses behind, to begin with my trips.
So now I wander over grounds of light, heat, sound and mist,
Provoking dreams that don’t exist.
A circus of lights where dreams can take flight,
To a carnival of variegated colors in sight.
Gallivanting in the forest of unreal existence.
Appeasing up-close and alluring at distance.
The vivid prism of rainbow like features,
Casting its charade on us, “The Euphoric Creatures.”
Harmonious melodies in our souls now play.
Intoxicated yet happy, and ecstatic yet gay.
Lost in the scenery made of light rays,
Leaving my astray to wander in my blissful daze.
The radiant vibes of every glowing and true soul,
Are mellow like flowers and intense like burning coal.
Fascinated me in various manner and means,
Taking my mind to classically bizarre scenes.
I am an “Errant Knight” of the tripping universe,
Delighted forever, no room for remorse.
Happy to be wandering on the grounds of light, heat, sound and mist,
Provoking me to believe something that doesn’t exist.
Sep 23, 2012
Sep 23, 2012 at 3:37 AM UTC
Daybreak brushes pink clad
hovering skies
beyond back lit mountains of Cascadia
Sunrise peaks through
the dawning nimbus
a variegated rosy
glowing consonance
The passing marine endowed sky,
framed by pinecone adorned
old growth timber stand,
near and far
***Red sky some mornings,
awakens heart on sleeve
without warning***
a lone mourning dove calls out --
unanswered
drowning out the drone
a lonely heart's throb
Harbingers of seasons change
cast nebulous shadows
over mountain
greenery meadows
imminent reminders
-- *ready or not --
what’s come and gone
a moment passed*
Though hearts may shine brightly
carefree summer's lazy days,
prevailing currents portend
the ever-present
winds of change
Someday heaven's healing rain
is going to fall softly
on this restless solitude;
cleansing a weary soul,
renewed once again,
mostly whole
© H. Rivers ... today
all rights reserved
Aug 8, 2016
Aug 8, 2016 at 4:47 PM UTC
<Sun May 14 5:00 AM PST>
Let us be smart about this departure,
time unscheduled, yet leaving inevitable,
the sound of fabric torn, a rent performed,
a ripping, a release of the gripping, connecting
tissue of weft and weave tying parent and child
*(All of us poets, all of us comprehend,
there are two points, two buttonholes
that offer escape or farewell, when we
commence on something new, when we
pen our chest’s demands to exhale, cease the hammering*
*Perhaps, here, just after the third stanza,
the brick enormity of our selected task, on chest,
weighs heavy, boulder difficulties ahead, now fastened
and faster and faster realized, begs us, quit this essay,
return to placid, from an arrhythmia of imploding loss)*
So many fabrics, so many tears, wet and dried,
but upon commencement, the only finish line,
is another commencement, when the (mine-own) rendering
is finalized, beyond repair, when guilt gulfs overflows, flooding
plains of forever pain officiated by signed scar, “here was”
So many separations, varied and variegated,
surficial shallow surgical or plunges, widths of trickle,
depths of deadly plunges, records of inches, dates,
names, new heights inscribed, measured on a door jamb,
lost, erased, when child’s door closes permanently
Came today to the West, to Pacific Ocean entrance,
to celebrate a good boy’s ritualized threshold crossing
over into manhood, both symbolic and and realized,
but tear-up seeing the small child-man leaning in and on
his father’s larger frame, a coinciding giving & taking
no bonds are eternal, for such is life, the weft must be
warped, sundered and separated, so many reasons,
experience speaks, scars are like bandages,protecting
but deceiving, what they cover can never be excised,
a space created, that only oxygen can touch both sides
but never, ever be reperfected, mended,…or finalized
2023
San Francisco
May 14, 2023
May 14, 2023 at 10:07 AM UTC
i.
I push her against the door
Passionate shove;
I'm wearing a whitened dress shirt
A striped black vest, primeval musk.
ii.
I grabbeth her by her waist
Fashioned spectacles upon her countenance;
She pulleth hard mine blonde lock's of hair
A woman now, releasing her innocence.
iii.
Her balmy breathe, variegated with mine
I trickle around her neck, kissing around her spine;
Mine alleviating rim's, wetten's down to her toes
Starting at her top, I kiss front, back, her dialect purely moaned.
iv.
The ambience was intensified
Tis we went astray, into eachother's eye's;
Whilst the firmament went asunder
Planet earth shook, the sheet's pulled us under.
v.
We struggle just for air
As ourn bodie's sucketh the sweat;
Mine nail's grippeth her frame
A night we shan't forget.
©Brandon nagley
©Lonesome poet's poetry
©Earl Jane nagley dedication
Aug 23, 2015
Aug 23, 2015 at 9:25 AM UTC
*a museum casted shadow
variegated in hues of history
envelops the hour of the dog
a street paved with memory
adorned in May nuptials
whispers a toast to continuity
a cafe table ripe with potential
lost in studious consideration
brews eternity from lavender latte*
May 23, 2015
May 23, 2015 at 3:53 PM UTC
I
Everything is cast asunder
Chopped like waves
A scintillating shattered mirror
II
Memory is an ache in the mist
Settling into a backward moving river
That snarls into an ethereal past
III
Quivering in the skin, an embodied seer;
Flesh with entropic and generative visions
Alive with terror and imaginative beauty
IV
A burning longing is cooled in the waters of grief
Where space is apart and falling; When time cuts eternity
And all that was, and will be, is here, broken
V
Pulling colours out of a boundless light
Severing into the spectrum
Tearing hot white nothing into variegated hue
VI
A depth of shade holds together layers of truth
Concealing the unknown in echoes of shadows
Contours and grooves, carving out reality
VII
Loosener of holding; shaking catharsis
Bittersweet, uncontrollable chaos
Bare and raw and momentary and changing
VII
Like the fall of a giant old growth tree
that lays to waste and nourish
an abundance on the forest floor
IX
Like the blossom of a wild flower
tired of tight closure, breaking open, petal by petal
to expose it's heart to the sun
Jun 24, 2014
Jun 24, 2014 at 5:22 PM UTC
He was love’s fool
A drop of rain
In a downpour of seasonal shame
A farthing in the fountain
Spent on wishes
Glistening in the fenlands
Of unreplenished riches
A plea, among the rustling
In a vast forest of variegated leaves
Sorrow among garrulous winds gusting
A path through
His wooded pathos
Blazed with love and lusting
Then a tear finds wing
On a falling leaf
Snapped from the limbs
by currents of heat
rockabye'd into halcyon
so misery and his companion
Forge a new coin
Thrown and flipping along an arc
A pinwheel casting solar sparks
Purling hope in a tumbling fall
promises anything can happen
To anyone
Anytime
at all
Sep 29, 2014
Sep 29, 2014 at 4:49 PM UTC