"verdure" poems
In the divet between mountains
Resides a wooden cabin – ostensibly an amalgamation of the scape
Adroitly - I - quondam female warrior flit
Down massive (ancient) hand-laid, hand-cut carved stone steps
Bounding from contingent step onto the dense pad of turned soil
Tacit compliance between gravity and soil holds footprints bound
A compressed deflating crescendo as pace ignites with bounds
Cadences of protuberant wildflowers and grasses erupt from swollen terra
A winsome chromatic menagerie, dispersed in ecstatic fistfuls
A venerably ancient ritual
My nascent clandestine vocation
Personally meted out - a beatification for my provisional sanctuary
Along glacier-fed stream
Lissome fingers shadow inert stalks –plucking dormant beginnings from their desiccated ligaments
I am austere and unadorned save for a festoon of pyrite flecks trailing my semblance
Residual gilding from my ante-meridian swim taken after requisite gathering of wild blackberries, goose berries, and rhubarb along oft-tamped path
The sun, nestling into its requisite apex endorsed my completion
I reclined into the hassock of soil, feeling the elements settle about with an embossment of my form
Imposing verdure arched subtly as compressed soil beckoned hyperbolic flux
As I lay within the basilica of opulent living columns replete with comestible bounty
Lingering dew honed inflections of sacrosanct petrichor in unison with piquant clover
Wild purple clover buds saccharinely tinted and inundated nestled nerves in mine cribriform plate
Birds pitched and galloped through the frond tips and beyond in the lapis expanse
Frequently snatching damselfly’s and assemblages of midges from their ephemeral drift
Auspicious rays transcended stippled diaphanous gravid clouds
Light inundated ether entered humbly into the cathedral oculus
Pyrite speckled terrain beneath, and my bare gilded form above
Cast a refracted aura about my sanctuary
Precipitously the elusive vaporous embankment distended further
Ashen atmospheric correspondence inaugurated liquescent sustenance to my mountain abode
And I -
Lingered beneath the descending gobbets, curls furled in a puddle
Fresh topsoil cupping my corporal topographic contours
Pressing blackberries into my mouth between smiles
Jan 26, 2014
Jan 26, 2014 at 9:13 PM UTC
You bought the house with lavender
seeded in the front porch.
The scent flutters between the doorsill
and through the letterbox
like bills overdue and invoices outstanding. A postal aroma,
envelope glue smells like flowers to me.
I was never granted the privilege of rearranging flowers
You said, there was more to life than flora,
these emerald, sap dripping, saturated stems
Swelling petals fascinated under my untried eyes,
You said I must not even graze the things.
I longed for a taste of the forbidden flora.
Did buds taste like honey? Were they sour like you told me?
Would they poison these supple
and innocent lips, turn them pink to grey?
Could tastebuds kiss the perennial vines,
the posies, the spray of efflorescence
A taste of simple sweetness -
I remember when you ripped the front-porch-lavender.
The roots could not resist your claws.
You sweat to mutilate strained flowers,
You always work harder. Verdure spoiled.
Ravaged, ruptured, tanked soil.
Oct 3, 2018
Oct 3, 2018 at 4:04 PM UTC
'Neath canopy of paradise
Super troupers' shafts of light
Illuminate his terpsichore;
***** he struts, the impresario
Gyrating on spindle shanks;
Needle thin and knock-kneed
He dances a samba
On stage of verdure;
Midst Elvis blue-black thrusts,
Steel rimmed amber orbs
Seek admiring and desirous glances
From the dour drab hen,
Mousy in her beige twin set
And mottled tweed skirt;
With nonchalant disinterest she exits
The arena; audition over.
Jun 24, 2010
Jun 24, 2010 at 11:40 AM UTC
I'll be the sea, fatuous and chaotic
You be the sky, melting into marigolds above me
Tasting colours, orchards of hues
Close my eyes and lift up my libation
All my arid poems of sybaritic self pity
Sand on my lips, wind sweeping my hair, seashells in my ears
Salty spray on my eyelashes
You're my sweet clemency, verdure and elusive
I want all of you, your ochre and your chartresue and your auburn melting into each other
I want your contradictions and contraindications and complications and dreary storms
Your bleak Tuesdays, your burnt clouds, your blurry edges
Your unknowable horizons
And your azure, pastel and electric, harsh and soft, misty and empty
Do I need to spell it out, darling
I want to kiss you, isn't it obvious
Jan 3, 2022
Jan 3, 2022 at 11:02 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
homage to Wallace Stevens
I - My Focus pistoned up the rise
and all at once, the Rockies -
silhouettes against the western skies.
II - On the road to Boulder
a pleated ridge crawls north
like a blue whale bound for the open sea.
III - Appalachia's intoxicating verdure
never fails to induce in us
a certain mellowing of the spirit.
IV - You 'conquered' my North Face, did you?
Why, I should skewer your arrogant ***
like a holiday lamb culled for the sacrifice.
V - Lewis and Clark looked west
surveying the Bitterroots' frigid expanse.
Farewell Northwest Passage!
VI - Pueblos stranded on Enchanted Mesa -
their rock stairs crumbled to the valley floor.
Should they dive to their death or starve?
VII –Touristas at Big Bend Park
wonder at its pastel window -
its romantic haze a toxic gift
from stacks across the Rio Grande.
VIII – The once mighty Ozarks humbled by age,
dwarfed by the youthful Rockies.
Listen up, youngsters, your time will come!
IX – We de-bussed to seize the dolomites
with our hyper-kinetic shutters.
Pausing for a draught of Italian air,
I felt the whack of an Alpine snowball.
X - Before Oregon's crater had its lake,
the mountain scorched the village below.
Today its azure waters preach only serenity.
XI – Looking down from Shissler peak
to the golden meadow below
where the elk herd calmly grazes.
XII – Do mists veil the Blue Ridge Mountains
or are there really no mountains at all -
only clouds decked out in mountain attire?
XIII – They say that peaks more steep than Everest
soar up from the ocean floor.
Who will scale their sunken heights?
May 28, 2010 – Boulder Colorado
Mar 19, 2014
Mar 19, 2014 at 12:18 AM UTC
*
*
Sitting in the shade of ****** lilies, is
the blessed beauty, the Heart of Summer
Her skin, shimmering russet
Her eyes, molten gold
Her lips, pouty rose buds
Her hair, a slick raven halo
Her body, curvaceous and slender
Flaunted by her diaphanous lilac robe
Through her sculpted nose, she inhales the
warm clime; her feet upon the verdure.
As she walks through the gardens, the
flowers burst into blooms, trumpets
to the song of working honey bees.
Ahead is a lake, clear, crystal and celestine,
stars dance and wink upon the surface.
She picks the daisies and adorns it in
her hair, thinking of her great empery.
Here in the palms of light and love, there
is no sin and no pain.
She hears the ringing bells of
nature, the song of wings.
'For I love all life and light,' she smiles, 'and more,
I will bring.'
*
*
Sep 2, 2018
Sep 2, 2018 at 5:08 PM UTC
A palatial forest,
Full of verdure only to be seen under
The Lucent celestial body
Owls stay secluded beneath the
Caliginous shadows,
Tree limbs swerve and waver from the
Fluttering wind.
Pathways scatter across the canvas
Filled with greenery
Vines clamber to the ground,
Fallen leaves lie withered through the earth,
Under the nautical dusk
Thus shows the beauty of a forest at
Night.
Dec 20, 2012
Dec 20, 2012 at 12:11 AM UTC
The cuckoo-throb, the heartbeat of the Spring;
The rosebud’s blush that leaves it as it grows
Into the full-eyed fair unblushing rose;
The summer clouds that visit every wing
With fires of sunrise and of sunsetting;
The furtive flickering streams to light re-born
’Mid airs new-fledged and valorous lusts of morn,
While all the daughters of the daybreak sing:—
These ardour loves, and memory: and when flown
All joys, and through dark forest-boughs in flight
The wind swoops onward brandishing the light,
Even yet the rose-tree’s verdure left alone
Will flush all ruddy though the rose be gone;
With ditties and with dirges infinite.
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i have held with
fascination, when i was young,
all of my toys.
a parallel universe of
marvels. imperial is the mood
of these ecstasies!
i remember my cheap svelte revolver
back in 1998 bought from
the festive bazaar in the marketplace at the dreary heart of Bocaue when i was
consumed by the thought of brutal force and how swiftly, in the hands of men meant for twisting open
the doors, welcome death
or the metallurgy of it.
i used to run off into the sunset
toting my gun high with pride
shunning the Sun, and the
reprise of my carousals is my mother
soldering in her white hands
a "walis tambo" and summoning me
homeward with a churlish grin
on my face, triumphantly ecstatic
over my rendezvous.
now my gun has withstood the
tatterdemalion of dog days
and in one corner i felt its
brokenness as it yearns to
be retired early in the peak
of my youth. happiness wears down like a chip on the old linoleumed floor and i tinker with
it to unsheathe the grime
of the unspoken stucco concrete.
i placed it in a box, my black revolver, together with the toys
that i once laughed with
when only bliss is as simple as a juvenile love, or the easy picking
of a santan over the fields
where i ran off into
the viridian laughing with the verdure of the world that i once knew as something so beautiful
and intricate.
i heard my black revolver went
somewhere behind the macadamized wall where i dreamt of having a basketball ring nailed to.
only i knew how to play
my revolver, and now that i am
caught within the heaviness
of all things that mean greater
than all other joys,
no other days could ever
surpass how
i made
a hero in myself
mighty with the tales
that i keep.
good ole black revolver, 1998.
Sep 16, 2015
Sep 16, 2015 at 8:53 AM UTC
Indulgent muse! my grov’ling mind inspire,
And fill my ***** with celestial fire.
See from Jamaica’s fervid shore she moves,
Like the fair mother of the blooming loves,
When from above the Goddess with her hand
Fans the soft breeze, and lights upon the land;
Thus she on Neptune’s wat’ry realm reclin’d
Appear’d, and thus invites the ling’ring wind.
“Arise, ye winds, America explore,
“Waft me, ye gales, from this malignant shore;
“The Northern milder climes I long to greet,
“There hope that health will my arrival meet.”
Soon as she spoke in my ideal view
The winds assented, and the vessel flew.
Madam, your spouse bereft of wife and son,
In the grove’s dark recesses pours his moan;
Each branch, wide-spreading to the ambient sky,
Forgets its verdure, and submits to die.
From thence I turn, and leave the sultry plain,
And swift pursue thy passage o’er the main:
The ship arrives before the fav’ring wind,
And makes the Philadelphian port assign’d,
Thence I attend you to Bostonia’s arms,
Where gen’rous friendship ev’ry ***** warms:
Thrice welcome here! may health revive again,
Bloom on thy cheek, and bound in ev’ry vein!
Then back return to gladden ev’ry heart,
And give your spouse his soul’s far dearer part,
Receiv’d again with what a sweet surprise,
The tear in transport starting from his eyes!
While his attendant son with blooming grace
Springs to his father’s ever dear embrace.
With shouts of joy Jamaica’s rocks resound,
With shouts of joy the country rings around.
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The poet asks, and Phillis can’t refuse
To show th’ obedience of the Infant muse.
She knows the Quail of most inviting taste
Fed Israel’s army in the dreary waste;
And what’s on Britain’s royal standard borne,
But the tall, graceful, rampant Unicorn?
The Emerald with a vivid verdure glows
Among the gems which regal crowns compose;
Boston’s a town, polite and debonair,
To which the beaux and beauteous nymphs repair,
Each Helen strikes the mind with sweet surprise,
While living lightning flashes from her eyes,
See young Euphorbus of the Dardan line
By Manelaus’ hand to death resign:
The well known peer of popular applause
Is C——m zealous to support our laws.
Quebec now vanquish’d must obey,
She too much annual tribute pay
To Britain of immortal fame.
And add new glory to her name.
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drowned the Earth suddenly.
underneath honest light,
all
submerged. this cataract of feeling —
waters pursue beginnings. cradling them
to unknown ends, washed by the shore.
gluttonously the night swallowed
all — parliament of birds warble no longer.
midnight, the Moon
claws the supple skin of organized stone
displaced
where all the edges bloom
forth torrid froth of dappled light which kills no less than a brief life of matchflame. tenuous spar of wind on
the unserious twilight; bulge of death
in the stream — a body haul, rafting
in compost; stench of all topple like
resins held loose in vats. rat **** becomes
as inviting as moulding bread;
tantric music for no instrument, hoarse
cries unbeheld —
until the flesh no longer flounders
pressed against sleep-shaped youngness
hewn lissome in the hours of no succor,
modeling silence in the thrill of
this enthusiastic space,
hands scouring muddied
obscure, atremble,
shadowless hours fill stomachs with
the plump word of rescue yet none
of these fingers unwished the
ingenuity of dull gods — this twilight
nor twinight could ever grive
in forethought, striking bells to signal birds
to arrive again so we could feast
in silver fish, with bare hands scaled to callouses,
looking at it twice-over, this battered yolk
of whiteness, with deeds of the viridian
now atrill in new fragile woodworks
lurching and
ameliorating as we all
stutter and sing
haunts dabbing open
lips of small wounds that
wish to shut quietly, almost
every threat of gray or pummel of
wind startles the flyblown ornate,
hurrying us back to cornerless homes
where all photographs washed away,
very few hang
swayed by verdure
of the gradual throne of sea
curving perpetually the several stars
we have ignored for a while,
where everything quite begins
again to enthrall with a melodic
leitmotif of the most tender of
instances loose
in mouths
and in endless recall
breathless—
Nov 8, 2015
Nov 8, 2015 at 7:55 AM UTC
Away, ye gay landscapes, ye gardens of roses!
In you let the minions of luxury rove:
Restore me the rocks, where the snow-flake reposes,
Though still they are sacred to freedom and love:
Yet, Caledonia, belov’d are thy mountains,
Round their white summits though elements war:
Though cataracts foam ’stead of smooth-flowing fountains,
I sigh for the valley of dark Loch na Garr.
Ah! there my young footsteps in infancy, wander’d:
My cap was the bonnet, my cloak was the plaid;
On chieftains, long perish’d, my memory ponder’d,
As daily I strode through the pine-cover’d glade;
I sought not my home, till the day’s dying glory
Gave place to the rays of the bright polar star;
For fancy was cheer’d, by traditional story,
Disclos’d by the natives of dark Loch na Garr.
“Shades of the dead! have I not heard your voices
Rise on the night-rolling breath of the gale?”
Surely, the soul of the hero rejoices,
And rides on the wind, o’er his own Highland vale!
Round Loch na Garr, while the stormy mist gathers,
Winter presides in his cold icy car:
Clouds, there, encircle the forms of my Fathers;
They dwell in the tempests of dark Loch na Garr.
“Ill starr’d, though brave, did no visions foreboding
Tell you that fate had forsaken your cause?”
Ah! were you destined to die at Culloden,
Victory crown’d not your fall with applause:
Still were you happy, in death’s earthy slumber,
You rest with your clan, in the caves of Braemar;
The Pibroch resounds, to the piper’s loud number,
Your deeds, on the echoes of dark Loch na Garr.
Years have roll’d on, Loch na Garr, since I left you,
Years must elapse, ere I tread you again:
Nature of verdure and flowers has bereft you,
Yet still are you dearer than Albion’s plain:
England! thy beauties are tame and domestic,
To one who has rov’d on the mountains afar:
Oh! for the crags that are wild and majestic,
The steep, frowning glories of dark Loch na Garr.
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Ere, in the northern gale,
The summer tresses of the trees are gone,
The woods of Autumn, all around our vale,
Have put their glory on.
The mountains that infold,
In their wide sweep, the coloured landscape round,
Seem groups of giant kings, in purple and gold,
That guard the enchanted ground.
I roam the woods that crown
The upland, where the mingled splendours glow,
Where the gay company of trees look down
On the green fields below.
My steps are not alone
In these bright walks; the sweet south-west, at play,
Flies, rustling, where the painted leaves are strown
Along the winding way.
And far in heaven, the while,
The sun, that sends that gale to wander here,
Pours out on the fair earth his quiet smile,--
The sweetest of the year.
Where now the solemn shade,
Verdure and gloom where many branches meet;
So grateful, when the noon of summer made
The valleys sick with heat?
Let in through all the trees
Come the strange rays; the forest depths are bright?
Their sunny-coloured foliage, in the breeze,
Twinkles, like beams of light.
The rivulet, late unseen,
Where bickering through the shrubs its waters run,
Shines with the image of its golden screen,
And glimmerings of the sun.
But 'neath yon crimson tree,
Lover to listening maid might breathe his flame,
Nor mark, within its roseate canopy,
Her blush of maiden shame.
Oh, Autumn! why so soon
Depart the hues that make thy forests glad;
Thy gentle wind and thy fair sunny noon,
And leave thee wild and sad!
Ah! 'twere a lot too blessed
For ever in thy coloured shades to stray;
Amid the kisses of the soft south-west
To rove and dream for aye;
And leave the vain low strife
That makes men mad--the tug for wealth and power,
The passions and the cares that wither life,
And waste its little hour.
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Happy is England! I could be content
To see no other verdure than its own;
To feel no other breezes than are blown
Through its tall woods with high romances blent;
Yet do I sometimes feel a languishment
For skies Italian, and an inward groan
To sit upon an Alp as on a throne,
And half forget what world or worldling meant.
Happy is England, sweet her artless daughters;
Enough their simple loveliness for me,
Enough their whitest arms in silence clinging;
Yet do I often warmly burn to see
Beauties of deeper glance, and hear their singing,
And float with them about the summer waters.
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Peut s’ouvrir un débat
long comme l’éternité
de savoir si vrai ou faux
avait raison Don Gomez
qui harangua son fils
en disant :
« Ce n’est que par le sang
Qu’on lave tel outrage. »
Ô quel mot fer,
quel mot acier,
sans une goute d’étain !
Le mot sans verdure,
le mot rouge sans mélange,
plus rouge que le sang,
visant perdre le souffle
au donneur de soufflet !
qui pourra le baptiser cannibalisme
ou bien légitime défense ?
Quoi qu’on dise, tranchons :
ce fut verser le sang.
Et jugeons :
Ce qu’à l’époque fut d’or
l’acte de le Cid1 Compeador
ne le serait point aujourd’hui.
C’est comme le triomphe d’Achille2
Sur son ennemi Hector.
Les deux grand guerriers, avides de sang
et de gloire malsaine,
vallées et plaines coururent,
lacs et rivières nagèrent,
étangs et marécages pataugèrent,
monts et collines gravirent,
et descendirent en volant,
se voulant l’un l’autre proie,
et l’emporta le plus criminel.
A l’Epoque Contemporaine
Pas toute victoire ne se couvre de lauriers.
La Pucelle d’Orléans ne fut-elle
brûlée vive par l’ennemi,
son tueur ignoré par tant,
et son Nom à jamais porta la couronne
à la façon de la Sainte Vierge
qui jamais ne lutta que contre le péchée,
et son arme au combat ne fut que piété,
contrairement à Charlemagne
qui fut couronné de fer
dont il eut son bon usage.
Le trépas d’un héro ne tue pas l’héroïsme.
Ce fut le cas, ce semble, du Prince
Né **** d’un palais royal.
Ce Prince qu’on le nomme :
Mohammed Bouazizi.
La montée au sommet ne fut pas improviste
ni sujet de surprise ;
c’est le fruit du courage bénit,
lequel conditionnera et la pluie et le soleil
dans tous les coins du monde.
1. Le Cid : Personnage Principal de la Tragi-comédie qui porte son nom de Pierre Corneille dont la première représentation eut lieu le 5 janvier 16372.
2. Achille et Hector sont les personnages les plus célèbres de L’Iliade d’Homère VIIIe siècle av. J.-C.
Jul 10, 2013
Jul 10, 2013 at 11:47 AM UTC
<p><p>Les environs magnifiques de Squaw Valley .les détails classiques avec une touche rustique par Summit Soiree.jeunes mariés tiré à quatre épingles et Virgile Bunao faire ce qu'il fait le mieux ;prendre un beau cliché après l'autre .Ce mariage va tirer droit vers le haut de votre liste de favoris .je vous le garantis .Voir beaucoup plus ici .\u003cp\u003ePartager cette superbe galerie ColorsSeasonsSummerSettingsOudoorStylesAl Fresque <p>C'était un régal pour capturer Sarah et la session d'engagement de Daniel pendant Thanksgiving 2012 à Charleston .Le temps était maintenant en train de refroidir et de s'installer de l'apogée de la chaleur fou nous avons tendance à obtenir ici .mais qui ne les empêche pas de regarder si frais et si dans l'amour .Je comptais les jours avant leur mariage <a href="http://www.modedomicile.com/robe-demoiselle-dhonneur-c-60"><b>robe de demoiselle d'honneur</b></a> .à photographiez des scènes qui ont eu lieu .Je ne savais pas comment époustouflé je serais au milieu de ces montagnes .Lake Tahoe est un endroit magnifique et la joie de leurs familles et l'excitation Sarah et Daniel présentait à chaque fois mon appareil photo et j'ai regardé les faits Squaw Valley incroyablement picturesque.Being si élevé .chaque centimètre de cet endroit avait une lueur intense .Tout brillait .Sarah brillait .Daniel brillait .La verdure brillait .Lors de la cérémonie .la petite niche dans les bois .nous étions à eu un peu de lumière magnifique .À ce moment .il était clair que je devais laisser à Sarah .Daniel .leurs invités .et le soleil de faire toute cette journée mémorable .Ils ont fait Photographie <p>: Virgil Bunao | planification de l'événement: . Sommet Soiree | Robe <b>robe de demoiselle d honneur pas cher</b> de mariage: Monique Lhuillier | Cérémonie Lieu: Plump Jack Inn | Réception Lieu: Plump Jack Inn | Restauration : Plump Jack InnMonique Lhuillier est un membre de notre Look Book .Pour plus d'informations sur la façon dont les membres sont choisis .cliquez ici .Virgile Bunao photographie est <a href="http://www.modedomicile.com/robe-demoiselle-dhonneur-pas-cher-c-20"><b>robe de demoiselle d honneur pas cher</b></a> un membre de notre Little Black Book .Découvrez comment les membres sont choisis <p><a href="http://modedomicile.com/goods.php?id=2423" target="_blank"><img width="240" height="320" src="http://188.138.88.219/images_ld/td//t35/product_thumb/1/4187435353535_396606.jpg"></a></p> en visitant notre page de FAQ .Virgile Bunao Photographie voir le</p>
Jun 6, 2014
Jun 6, 2014 at 9:53 PM UTC
Gather him to his grave again,
And solemnly and softly lay,
Beneath the verdure of the plain,
The warrior's scattered bones away.
Pay the deep reverence, taught of old,
The homage of man's heart to death;
Nor dare to trifle with the mould
Once hallowed by the Almighty's breath.
The soul hath quickened every part--
That remnant of a martial brow,
Those ribs that held the mighty heart,
That strong arm--strong no longer now.
Spare them, each mouldering relic spare,
Of God's own image; let them rest,
Till not a trace shall speak of where
The awful likeness was impressed.
For he was fresher from the hand
That formed of earth the human face,
And to the elements did stand
In nearer kindred, than our race.
In many a flood to madness tossed,
In many a storm has been his path;
He hid him not from heat or frost,
But met them, and defied their wrath.
Then they were kind--the forests here,
Rivers, and stiller waters, paid
A tribute to the net and spear
Of the red ruler of the shade.
Fruits on the woodland branches lay,
Roots in the shaded soil below,
The stars looked forth to teach his way,
The still earth warned him of the foe.
A noble race! but they are gone,
With their old forests wide and deep,
And we have built our homes upon
Fields where their generations sleep.
Their fountains slake our thirst at noon,
Upon their fields our harvest waves,
Our lovers woo beneath their moon--
Then let us spare, at least, their graves!
1.4k
I stand upon my native hills again,
Broad, round, and green, that in the summer sky
With garniture of waving grass and grain,
Orchards, and beechen forests, basking lie,
While deep the sunless glens are scooped between,
Where brawl o'er shallow beds the streams unseen.
A lisping voice and glancing eyes are near,
And ever restless feet of one, who, now,
Gathers the blossoms of her fourth bright year;
There plays a gladness o'er her fair young brow,
As breaks the varied scene upon her sight,
Upheaved and spread in verdure and in light.
For I have taught her, with delighted eye,
To gaze upon the mountains,--to behold,
With deep affection, the pure ample sky,
And clouds along its blue abysses rolled,--
To love the song of waters, and to hear
The melody of winds with charmed ear.
Here, I have 'scaped the city's stifling heat,
Its horrid sounds, and its polluted air;
And, where the season's milder fervours beat,
And gales, that sweep the forest borders, bear
The song of bird, and sound of running stream,
Am come awhile to wander and to dream.
Ay, flame thy fiercest, sun! thou canst not wake,
In this pure air, the plague that walks unseen.
The maize leaf and the maple bough but take,
From thy strong heats, a deeper, glossier green.
The mountain wind, that faints not in thy ray,
Sweeps the blue steams of pestilence away.
The mountain wind! most spiritual thing of all
The wide earth knows; when, in the sultry time,
He stoops him from his vast cerulean hall,
He seems the breath of a celestial clime!
As if from heaven's wide-open gates did flow
Health and refreshment on the world below.
1.4k
The prehensile snout of a Tapir
is posturally renowned,
but I am no caricaturist
unless I required Rhinoplasty
Neither am I an
Air Force Major or a Fireman,
never having shot or doused in anger
never clanged quid pro quo,
I am a wordsmith, without a necessarily dangerous course,
a wedgeless door stop this side of juxtaposition,
trying for a profile,
riding on a buzz,
to think so few images
could conjure so much verdure
Dec 1, 2012
Dec 1, 2012 at 7:30 PM UTC
Close to our ancestral home
Is an ancient champak tree
It now stands almost leafless n’ bare
With its face turned to the sun and sky
Once from far, everyone could see
This lush green Champak tree
It stood in all beauty and grace
And carpeted the ground in fallen blooms
Its lovely blossoms were so redolent
Like tube roses, heady and fragrant
In its dark and leafy glade
How as children, we sat and played
Men weary of work in its sprawling shade
Were sheltered from the heat of midday sun
Once it was a bower of sylvan ease
And on its boughs, birds merrily sang
Rustled in wind and shaken in storm
It braved the inclement weather all these years
With its roots boring deep into the ground
Nothing could uproot the tree from its base
How many stories it has to tell
How many robins roosted in its verdure
How many fledglings took wings into the sky,
From the tiny nests built on its twigs
Now its ancient trunk and gnarled branches
Proclaim sadly that it is about to wither
The tree has just turned itself into
A ghostly shadow of its former self
But the fragrance of these champak flowers
Which still bless the tree in one and two
As if determined to proclaim themselves
Continue to perfume the surrounding air
This tree is much like my ancestral home
Once it was the seat of life and bounty
Now it stays desolate and empty
Spreading memories sweet and fragrant
What solid shelter the house once gave
And how my parents fulfilled their task
Putting all they had into making it a sweet home
That nurtured three generations of our family!
May 27, 2016
May 27, 2016 at 10:33 AM UTC
slugging and chortling all infinite and lax
leaning back on monobloc chairs—
some borrowed courage some borrowed reflex some leased home
to a figure shadowboxing in stereophonic eclipsing volume
sentimental love song, some humdrum alchemy of ale and whiskey,
feeding us with lies straight to our
fallible ears as guava and atis whiplash in inebriated sensurround
of playful mirth and feelingfulness
toppling the signs painting the avatars incarnadine with black-wounds
again the music rending the vale
lying straight to the face something the
heart still is— gears and clash-work
of analog deceit and fecund belief;
some permutation of early, imagined
falling into fledgling beats of
pining softly dancing in echoing beds
watch this twitch of my finger
meets to cigarette ember afloat
in verdure-jazz, lunar offspring of the
tubular deadbeat — crossing this
side of strife-torn street, hopscotch
in staccato. i believe there is rescue
in here somewhere as a tricycle blares
its rapacious orchestra of metal
underneath the makeshift moon,
why, it is so much better to burn out
than fade away, the song lying
again straight to our disgusted faces.
Nov 18, 2015
Nov 18, 2015 at 10:27 PM UTC
Like this morning for instance
Hot February and dry cracked
skin of my shadow
which sometimes seems
to look at me
and move w/out me
and I, w/out it.
Sometimes I see the flicker
of a dark soul jeer; a savage dance,
right in front of me,
or in the corner of my eye
when my head is tilted.
The other day at my friend’s
I felt like I was, briefly,
in the sunflower courtyard
of this ol’ dark
underwater museum
full of mirrors
that float adrift.
Angles that perpetually
gyrate and shift…..
I hear the sound of a whale
submerged in a highway
crying with striving despair
at night
and I'm sad
because his lovers reply
sounds so distant
and it sounds as if it comes
from a cavern w/in an ocean
below a sun
I hope he finds her
and dies happy
in the warmth of her flippers....
I miss the panther-warm wine & cream
Was it worth it
Is this worth it
Cold violet city
vacant warm lobbies at night
desolate allies and dogs in such deep slumber
they cant even wake to bark at impending footsteps
The musty brown cars
whose aura of mothballs and pipe smoke
reminds you of a childhood irretrievable
I smiled back at the rocks that snickered
Beside the fence
which stood firm
In caring vigilance
Cold verdure within
Misery mixed with
Getting bored w/ absorbing it
There’s a strange saloon w/ hotel attached
at the center of Melancholy
where flames are lit music is played
bodies are slowly denuded
and silver knives are thrown
I can show you…
(Long ago it seems
I bit and kissed and became
aquatinted w/ the bark of
the root of delirium
Recently even I’ve spoken
to the heart of delirium itself
from within
w/ no reply
but I can remember
all my memories were hallucinations)
Feb 28, 2012
Feb 28, 2012 at 1:27 PM UTC
March do we, along the ash and cyprus
While contemplating natures of the moor.
So very full of life, and also death.
Briefly glancing round, the bog seems lifeless,
To walk so alert, danger life obscures
March do we, along the ash and cyprus
But after observation, I confess
Quite lively lies our grand mud-soaked detour.
So very full of life, and also death.
Every creature here exudes unkindness,
And any of them might our death ensure.
March do we, along the ash and cyprus
Yet still, I find their number in excess
Than places having more growth, and verdure.
So very full of life, and also death.
So now my new perspective does egress
Much different than it ever did before.
March do we, along the ash and cyprus
So very full of life, and also death.
Mar 29, 2019
Mar 29, 2019 at 1:33 AM UTC