"vellum" poems
How fortunate
Our color blends unintentially,
Wildly with thoughts bleeding outside the lines what have we started: again
And again I stroke
And again you absorb
And again this easel-- summoned
And again your vellum-- softened
Perched on a stool,
Vibrant as mangos --ripening
I chose you, the spectrum
Unknown to most
The only museum I go to.
Jun 20, 2016
Jun 20, 2016 at 11:55 AM UTC
Twirl your tastebuds —
let me taste your
modal schwa
your vellum staining
truth or dare,
let me down
your feather-quill;
your quenching quantum
quaking.
Apr 22, 2014
Apr 22, 2014 at 11:56 PM UTC
My Vellum
Alluring and demure
In your virginity
Never yet
Creased nor crumpled
Your tight young corners
Remain stiff and pert
In their newness
Your long lithe sides
Tense for my careful touch
Lest blood be spilt
My gold nib
I dip
In midnight ink
Piercing its surface skin
And lift
It drips
One
Two
Black
Secrets
Back to their bottle
My hand is poised
Over your pristine smoothness
And with calm precision
I carve broad majuscules
That twist and cut
To hairlines of breathtaking
Intimate intricacy
Quick teasing serifs
Long lingering descenders
Strokes of tactile
Joy
Then stand back
Empty
In wonder at
Your calligraphic beauty
Mar 21, 2011
Mar 21, 2011 at 3:16 AM UTC
.
Like a watermark through crisp white vellum
a face appears through the veil of dreams,
to colour wash away a montage of image
and decorate a mosaic of sleep dust seams.
As halcyon lakes waterfall into prism nebulae
and the courtesan face evades its emotions,
inevitably slipping between the chasms of space
like golden dolphins through plasmic oceans.
© Pagan Paul (01/09/17)
Oct 10, 2018
Oct 10, 2018 at 5:09 AM UTC
i.
Today, O' today
I got her letter in the mail;
Filled with pictures of mine
Queen, she sent me
Poems done by me, in her
Calligraphy.
ii.
Today O' today
I got lipstick kisses on
Her notes, the red stood
Out of all she wrote;
As her amour was
So fine.
iii.
Today O' today
Anon mine spirit's soared,
That fashionable vellum
O' I adored. O' Jane Sardua,
O' Jane of Earl. O' rose of Asia;
The Luzon's pearl.
iv.
Today O' today
I smiled again, because mine lover,
And mine best friend. Her ardent sonnet
Displayed her touch, grabbing mine soul,
In heaven's blush, silently tear's came to
a rush; from joy's overtaking.
v.
Today O' today
O'er the blue, I made mine stay.
Consatero, ah veray,
Queen Jane, Queen Jane,
Of Asia's praise;
Today O' today
How I fell in
Love again.
©,Brandon Nagley
©Lonesome poets poetry
©Earl Jane Nagley dedicated ( àgapi mou)
Mar 21, 2016
Mar 21, 2016 at 10:53 PM UTC
It is nothing,
a mordant of the soul,
an elixir, a panacea, a placebo
for my lesions, there in the thistle, grows
our drastic garden of red posies and hyacinths,
such little things, on the verge,
lilting as the decorum begins to bobble
and slump sideways, and murmur,
on Mondays I can swallow the octave
of your absence, tendrils and all,
red quince limbs parting from the deluge
and in its wake, the wreckage
of black pumpkins and purple corn, hanging
pendulum at our door,
the Autumn lights summon a lavish song to harvest,
thirty seven colours in the brocade you gift me,
tangled and heavy the years upon my bones
begin to spur and flower
into cunning disruptions,
and stratify upon my body like rinds of ricepaper,
vellum for another wish
in the complacent burial of mango flesh,
listen,
as my song liquefies,
drowns you, inundates
each alveoli, and our love
in the swallowing gush, perched,
begins to shudder,
devoured by its symmetry,
stem cells all akimbo
in the shallow pitch of days
bound in a nostrum of wine and liquorice
it is nothing, really,
a mordant for the soul, a tulle filament
twitching in a raincoat of lightning....
Oct 21, 2012
Oct 21, 2012 at 4:35 PM UTC
Long Journey,
yet it was never too late
to crest the memories of yesterdays
A voyage that was finished before
and here I am gazing beyond
through oriel windows once more
An ocean wide stretched from afar
with a quill and vellum on my hand
I wrote these words and understand
life was never easy reaching its core
self must refine from silver to gold
dreams red as velvet, white as snow
Pure as the heart of every little boy
molded from a mother’s fervent love
brave, a father’s heritage in honor of
Blessed by the gift of God up above
toiling day and night from my storm
He never left me lonely, till all is won
I gazed back to the oceans and saw,
Someone familiar...
Could it be…
Land A Home,
it was a moment of spring
I step the shore, my heart felt its beat
And Lo, my guardians caress on thee
for there is no sweeter victory
than the ones who truly loved me
Jul 30, 2017
Jul 30, 2017 at 5:01 AM UTC
371
A precious—mouldering pleasure—’tis—
To meet an Antique Book—
In just the Dress his Century wore—
A privilege—I think—
His venerable Hand to take—
And warming in our own—
A passage back—or two—to make—
To Times when he—was young—
His quaint opinions—to inspect—
His thought to ascertain
On Themes concern our mutual mind—
The Literature of Man—
What interested Scholars—most—
What Competitions ran—
When Plato—was a Certainty—
And Sophocles—a Man—
When Sappho—was a living Girl—
And Beatrice wore
The Gown that Dante—deified—
Facts Centuries before
He traverses—familiar—
As One should come to Town—
And tell you all your Dreams—were true—
He lived—where Dreams were born—
His presence is Enchantment—
You beg him not to go—
Old Volume shake their Vellum Heads
And tantalize—just so—
2.9k
we spill
out
into the dark
Sanguine moon
watching
your
guiding hands
and mine lead
so softly
to the lily-vellum of your thighs
then
a fuse-spark
a cataclysm of ruffled
skirt
hands on your apocalyptic hips
your lips are rhododendron honey
your lips are codeine
mellifluous and urgent
as the pressing heat of a black summer night.
Aug 2, 2015
Aug 2, 2015 at 8:06 AM UTC
I poured myself out onto you, ink on vellum, your
skin gravelly, your alluring purr as smooth as silk and
soft as velvet, but as you folded me in your arms, my words
were lost like cries in the wind. For once, in a long time, I looked
at you, truly looked at you. I looked past the thin sheen of sweat at your
brow, like the dew on the blades of brown grass in the hot summer mornings.
I looked past the spray of freckles that dusted the tops of your cheeks and the bridge
of your nose, the freckles you loathed so much when you were just a boy because they
reminded you of flecks of glitter. I looked past the blonde locks that ringed your face like a
golden halo. Your hair is longer now, than it was, when we were kids, but I doubt that even
now, you’d let me braid it. I looked past all the little details I’d noticed about you
when we were growing up, and now, I saw a man with amethyst eyes and a
longing washed over me like a wave, pulling me down with the undertow.
I long to know this you as I once knew you, so well, like the back
of my own hand. So, with salt and foam, sweat and ink and in
every sweeping wave, drag me into those lovely amethyst
eyes. If the eyes truly are the windows to the soul,
pour in like a light and flood on the floor. Show me
what you’ve become, because, while I easily
recognize your flesh and outer
appearance, I long to know
you deeper than looks
could ever go.
Sink me,
show
me.
Feb 24, 2021
Feb 24, 2021 at 8:23 PM UTC
Poem
I watched a truck churning under a wire convergence
and the sky above doped entrails coming from Europe
Where had the turtle gone, the one puffed in the curve of the fox?
Now clambering onto the icy porch
I open the door into
smells of brass polish, wood polish
pots full of bones.
Winter’s wind rattling time holds me in
I must make marmalade with Seville oranges
with their thick rutted craters, sadly moon-like
a little sweetness of the blossom
worn on bridal veils will come back
as the flesh boils soggy with pips
and Demerara’s sweetness pummels
and I’ll be beaming ear to ear, beaming, full
of a sugar high, then fall. I don’t think I’ll be flying
to Jamaica, but at least I have a box of jars
My house will be dressed
of stiff forsythia branches, blooming
while I pull on stupoods of wool
socks, and wax my boards
I watched whirling snow collapse, loshing
on my face, signs of a dream, unsettling
separating mills and boon from reality.
If I had cast a spell stirring boiling sugar
And whispered ancient simple words
And as spring soars from
the dirt he would say agapa me
and my house full of worms, fat as fingers would dissolve
which is why I must plant, for butterflies to flutter
O my mighty easel, you are not like nature
though you are like a highway
of roots, clamped with straps
Supported or shaded, you reveal
all that I am.
The light begins to drop out of ticking stars
onto the snow bank behind the studio
the place where crimson and ochre mate.
I am really a painter
and my brushes are words
which glaze accidentally across
vellum, spurning censure.
Feb 15, 2012
Feb 15, 2012 at 6:02 AM UTC
Poem
I watched a truck churning under a wire convergence
and the sky above doped entrails coming from Europe
Where had the turtle gone, the one puffed in the curve of the fox?
Now clambering onto the icy porch
I open the door into
smells of brass polish, wood polish
pots full of bones.
Winter’s wind rattling time holds me in
I must make marmalade with Seville oranges
with their thick rutted craters, sadly moon-like
a little sweetness of the blossom
worn on bridal veils will come back
as the flesh boils soggy with pips
and Demerara’s sweetness pummels
and I’ll be beaming ear to ear, beaming, full
of a sugar high, then fall. I don’t think I’ll be flying
to Jamaica, but at least I have a box of jars
My house will be dressed
of stiff forsythia branches, blooming
while I pull on stupoods of wool
socks, and wax my boards
I watched whirling snow collapse, loshing
on my face, signs of a dream, unsettling
separating mills and boon from reality.
If I had cast a spell stirring boiling sugar
And whispered ancient simple words
And as spring soars from
the dirt he would say agapa me
and my house full of worms, fat as fingers would dissolve
which is why I must plant, for butterflies to flutter
O my mighty easel, you are not like nature
though you are like a highway
of roots, clamped with straps
Supported or shaded, you reveal
all that I am.
The light begins to drop out of ticking stars
onto the snow bank behind the studio
the place where crimson and ochre mate.
I am really a painter
and my brushes are words
which glaze accidentally across
vellum, spurning censure.
Feb 15, 2012
Feb 15, 2012 at 6:02 AM UTC
Harsh unyielding sunset, buries me against the page.
I won't be lazing on a couch, left to rot and waste away.
Wormy plush Berber carpet soft against the afternoon.
Debts are pile high and the company picnic is this June.
The pages are vellum paper covered in ancient Egyptian script.
I've loved you methodically ever since we met inside that crypt.
The dregs brings me solemn hope that one day we'll breakthrough.
Works calling in on Sunday for some overtime that's overdue.
Its a 5 past 4 the glass lays arrhythmic, shattered at my feet.
We found each other down beside the casket of the diseased.
Heartfelt words never came out of a mouth that were so pure.
How could you take me for interesting, in life I'm just a bore.
Down. I've already ruined the letter meant from me to you.
Life is not a fairy tale to broker marriage for us two.
Bloodletting's an aphrodisiac to keep me at the brink.
Why'd I write this silly thing when I spilled my drink.
Nov 23, 2016
Nov 23, 2016 at 2:55 AM UTC
Free to fail like leaves in winter
His love will only sometimes linger
Like the fall of lovers crush
She'll win them all bare ly out of touch
Held together like ink to paper
Blurred into memory or a colorful sublime
These tears fell like wood forests hole punched and lined
Like a Lamp lit nightstand useful twice a month
Clandestin calamity chorus of wind chimes
Composed
Dually noted measured and fallen in time
Conceived
Dear John's pinned on porcelain; pined
Convexity
Leafs seasoned in carved tree vellum
Divined
Like dried roses smoke & mirrors the mind
May 12, 2016
May 12, 2016 at 1:29 AM UTC
Today I shall etch as sculptor
upon marble vellum tablet,
scribing with tool of pen.
Carving process moves within breath.
With sitting position of arched back.
Then, I shall exhibit landscape in HP Museum.
Hanging its colorful masterpiece
in hopes it will be in front room.
Feb 20, 2019
Feb 20, 2019 at 10:07 AM UTC
What gentle images in the fading frescos of ancient Italy
Sylph-like figures gliding
Along emerald green and viridian pathways
Showing delicate movements of sophisticated people
Brought down to earth by strong fighting men.
Disciplined soldiers with life long missions
Finding resolve in their heritage and republican history
Gaining new ground and no prisoners taken
Their senators and loved ones walk the streets and market places
Regardless of sweat and toil of their constant striving
The upper classes remain in peace with their souls.
Vellum, wax or stone, the messages remain
Suspended within their time
Yet the beauty of their images
Depicting a tranquil and calm epoch
We can never know the daily lives for sure
But beauty remains and we will accept this simple declaration
Apr 16, 2013
Apr 16, 2013 at 5:45 PM UTC
My window has no seat, why would it? I wish it did.
There is just a glossy magnolia ledge, barely wide enough to
cater a slender bottom. Upon the ledge books and candles
rest, illuminating the murk outside. Directly opposite orchard
trees recede as I welcome autumn with a zealous smirk.
For now faintly visible between their visceral arms are the
all-seeing hillocks that in winter will dominate my view.
An impartial observer once stated they were mere freckles
on the landscapes recumbent spine, but to me their sight alone
is vertiginous. On balmy April days I would surmount them,
a personal expedition, up there where I’m the valleys curator, wearing
pristine white gloves I meticulously unravel the terrain: an ancient
manuscript, the vellum inked with meandering streams, occasional farms,
cursive hamlets and little else - a land of sobriety and dearth.
In November though there is a permanent mist and its source
inexplicable. Does it simply effervesce from the precipitous tors about?
Is it the villager’s enshrined collective sigh? No it is something
more. Sitting atop the villages head it’s the beloved satin bonnet you
wore religiously as a child. Wholly impractical for this season
its gossamer fabric offers little solace or insulation to those below
as its pleated extremities elope with the moss-brown hinterland.
Fervently stoking their hearths the villagers broaden the
ethereal cloth with a smoke not acrid but satisfying and nourishing:
with a terrifically edible, hardwood flavour. From my hillock
vantage, the sanguine stone of the manorial chimneys is all that
penetrates the film; casually they release torrents of smoke like
ivory doves that weft patterns instinctively into the sky’s pallid damask.
©Thomas Gabriel
Dec 9, 2011
Dec 9, 2011 at 6:00 PM UTC
i am made of...
thought...
ink and pen and paper... and so much more.
scribbled phrases on diner napkins.
post it notes stuck to walls.
scrawled doggerel in bathroom pens.
phrased ideology in lined notebooks.
spinnered words on lazerprinted A4.
scraps of inklings, on ripped butcher's bags and wrappings.
condolences in funeral books.
ideas capital lettered on cards,
pinned to cork boards.
epitaphs stonemasoned
into granite blocks.
fury arranged just so,
on parchment.
newsprinted with loose blurry, black ink on broadsheets
scribed by pointed stick on
firm wet sand.
notes on heavy cards, of love
and light bright shiny stuff.
discarded sentence startings, left crumpled, lost in a bin.
loss, written with red wine on white table cloth.
art, etched on vellum anciently old, suprisingly relevent.
tapped into tablets both stone
and techview.
blue and red markers squeaked onto white boards.
daubed on canvas with a fine sable brush.
tatttoo-ed upon ones flesh.
carved into wooden school desks.
pressed into moist clay by delicate fingernails.
marked so deeply upon a soul.
chalked to cement,
to stay for...
but a short season.
written for some very, (un)important reason.
courage to speak, sing, whisper, shout, cry, laugh, observe and ponder.
this is me....
i am a word written down.. any word, any word.
i am undeniable, desirable often incomplete
always open always waiting
for some one...
......just like you ...
to open your heart let me in
to recognize a new start
to have a play, a scribble,
doodle, pen jive. to become
alive.... to thrive,
just begin with a single letter.....then another,
go on be brave...
..........grant me liberty....
Apr 19, 2014
Apr 19, 2014 at 2:50 AM UTC
There are many ways
to break the spine
of a book.
Line the jelly-bean backs
too close to the battered floor,
Hide wedging polygons
between pages and binding,
Or open them and stack the backs
in lateral,
frayed Vs.
Oct 6, 2014
Oct 6, 2014 at 10:19 PM UTC
In the velvet dark that holds all dreams,
A thousand hopes are given flighted chance.
Optimistic wishes waft through empty beams.
A gentle ashen pallor moonlight reams;
A billion shadowed niches seem to dance
Within the velvet dark that holds all dreams.
A bluish glow though leafy vellum seams
Can thread its way through thick and wooden lance.
Optimistic wishes waft through empty beams.
And oh! the silken light above that streams,
Dissolving all the hundred million "can't"s
Within the velvet dark that holds all dreams.
The night that's holding precious breath, it teems
With broken vows, inconsequential rants;
Optimistic wishes waft through empty beams.
The wish for what is come to be, it seems,
Envelopes friendships, hopeful romance.
Within the velvet dark that holds all dreams,
Optimistic wishes waft through empty beams.
Jul 31, 2012
Jul 31, 2012 at 11:56 PM UTC
Have you noticed they are at it again?
Idiocy, insults, back biting and ********
Infancy in a petulant mood shouting
'cant cook, won't cook, shan't cook'.
And the recipe :-
Take one ex-minister (slightly embittered).
Fold through with a poison pen (neither retractable nor redactable).
Add a pinch or two of smouldering resentment.
Allow to stew and ferment for about 12 weeks.
Then warm through with an almond glaze of scorn
and liberally spread over several pages of resignation.
Finally wrap in a filou of vellum, and seal.
An ideal meal if you feel that your line manager
really needs a punch filled packed lunch.
And don't forget to garnish and serve with leaks
to the press and media.
Enjoy your meal Prime Minister!
Warning: This recipe contains home truths, scathing criticism,
ambition, nuts, betrayal, regret and crocodile tears.
Aug 30, 2023
Aug 30, 2023 at 9:33 AM UTC
Bold Captain Gray comes down
To islands warm,
Where tawny men are chattel;
Sees brightly Patrick Spens
Survive a storm,
And wants to win the battle!
But when the cannon
Shots roar all 'round them
And punch a hole in th' aft deck;
Laments that Spens was found
A man too "holey"
Murmur around the carrack!
What were his last words,
Tell them to me boys,
Or I'll get raw with fury!
For Patrick owed your
Weight in Spanish coin;
God stablished I his jury!
But when the men had
Still not loosed their lips,
E'en under pain or menace;
Says Gray, what senators
Be these lads who still
Possess no fear of penance?
Then comes the lookout boy
From up above,
Where long the mast had held him;
Says, Patrick Spens just
Gave me his last word;
See here, it's writ on vellum!
Then up the captain roars...
And makes to burn the stores...
For tricks the crew had played...
With rage, the captain said:
Beehive the rightless dogs, to hell ‘em,
Give me the answer scrawled on vellum!
Apr 8, 2019
Apr 8, 2019 at 7:50 PM UTC
there are so many things that will never happen
they could fill a book
a book hammer bound
as with vellum as page
thick, stiff, the smell of must
the author, dust
May 30, 2013
May 30, 2013 at 9:59 PM UTC