"vespers" poems
I remember
Vividly those serene eyes,
Shining bright,
Emotion in them
Sparks my blood to rise
Thy teary eyes divine,
Speak with love and tenderness,
Eyes, a million stars in them
The picture of innocence.
Eyes seeking me -
Glowing,
Like that first dew,
On the new viridescent blade of grass.
Your eyes my matinal star
Your eyes my middays sunshines,
Your eyes my vespers twilight,
Your eyes an oceanic depth,
Your eyes my autumnal hues,
Your eyes wild jasmines
Fragrant at nights,
Like that sunflower
Gazing the afternoon sun.
Let the peacocks vauntingly dance,
Let the nightingales melodiously sing,
Let the flora and fauna flourish,
Like spring in prosperity,
In felicitation,
Let me always
See
Through Your Eyes
Dec 9, 2011
Dec 9, 2011 at 3:28 PM UTC
If I could speak
I would spill these lamentations
cloistered sins and secrets
whispered vespers for wretched dreams
Retching sentiment
this malignant manifesto
a macabre mantra
eats my skin from within
transient refuge for temporal treasures
inexorable moments carry life away
tick tick tick
the seconds scurry
flurried ineffectual supplications
demigods of affluence
the cacophony of the machine
I spin within
cogniscient of my myopia
the funneled tunnel vision
drips from the end of a pen
furtive verses on paper
fading ochre moments
somber drops of ash and bone
poetic exorcisms
of wicked things unknown
phrenetic
sensibilities trickle
spilling life
black and withering
is the gain worth sacrifice
crackling fat of dreams
too costly
this shallow palette
self obsessed
eyes gouged out
hands shackled
to the reality
the immortality
trust the dust
the dust becomes me
soul focused on decay
spectre death
devouring this unsparked spirit
If I could speak
truth into your heart
would you
believe.....
in anything more than what you see
I trust the dust and dust will be
the remnant me
TL Boehm
042508
Oct 14, 2013
Oct 14, 2013 at 5:11 PM UTC
In your extended absence, you permit me
use of earth, anticipating
some return on investment. I must report
failure in my assignment, principally
regarding the tomato plants.
I think I should not be encouraged to grow
tomatoes. Or, if I am, you should withhold
the heavy rains, the cold nights that come
so often here, while other regions get
twelve weeks of summer. All this
belongs to you: on the other hand,
I planted the seeds, I watched the first shoots
like wings tearing the soil, and it was my heart
broken by the blight, the black spot so quickly
multiplying in the rows. I doubt
you have a heart, in our understanding of
that term. You who do not discriminate
between the dead and the living, who are, in consequence,
immune to foreshadowing, you may not know
how much terror we bear, the spotted leaf,
the red leaves of the maple falling
even in August, in early darkness: I am responsible
for these vines.
3.3k
Me: “Father, I think I would like to pray my own way.”
Priest: “Ha okay (sarcasm), whatever you say, Brian.”
(Priest continues about in ignorance of commentary)
Priest (beginning Vespers): “O God, come to my assistance…”
Me: (beginning Vespers) "O **** here we go again..."
(Grudgingly submits)
May 23, 2018
May 23, 2018 at 1:16 PM UTC
250
I shall keep singing!
Birds will pass me
On their way to Yellower Climes—
Each—with a Robin’s expectation—
I—with my Redbreast—
And my Rhymes—
Late—when I take my place in summer—
But—I shall bring a fuller tune—
Vespers—are sweeter than Matins—Signor—
Morning—only the seed of Noon—
2.9k
The Convent at Le Cap Fureur
Lies empty, by the sea,
Its ancient walls a grim despair
Of anonymity,
No more the chants of singing Nuns
To vespers, weave their way,
A thousand years of heartfelt prayers
In silence, drift away.
The Sisterhood of Sainte Bernice
Is cloistered there no more,
The end came in a fury from
The world outside, at war,
The Nuns were fasting, deep in Lent,
When soldiers came across
To find each sister worshipping
The Stations of the Cross.
No godly men were in their ranks
No thoughts of sin or Christ,
The Nuns were ***** and beaten in
Some pagan sacrifice,
The Abbess stood with arms outstretched
And prayed, ‘Forgive them not!’
Was taken to the courtyard where
The sergeant had her shot.
There’s blood still on those convent walls
It leaches out at Lent,
Runs down the walls of dim-lit halls
And stains the grey cement,
We lodged there late one April night
Myself, Joylene and Drew,
Lay staring at the stars above
As round us, silence grew.
We slept within those hallowed walls
Until I woke in fright,
And roused the others, ‘Come and see
This strange and fearful sight!’
For out there in the entrance hall
We heard a weird chant,
And two long lines of Nuns approached
To keep their covenant.
Two lines of candles in the dark,
The Nuns wore hoods and cowls,
And as each candle flickered out
Their chant gave way to howls.
Screams and pleas then filled the air,
The sound of steel-capped boots,
A pagan army from the east
Of rough and raw recruits.
Joylene was in hysterics by
The time this vision went,
And Drew was praying loudly on
That final day of Lent,
We grabbed our things, rushed out and then
We heard a single shot,
The blood-stained Abbess blocked our way
And cried: ‘Forgive them not!’
David Lewis Paget
Sep 27, 2013
Sep 27, 2013 at 10:27 AM UTC
Slap of leather magnified
Where Caesar’s legion marched
Setting sun of golden light
Though’ Roman tongues are parched.
Pewter helmets bronzely glow
Sweat cascades from dusty brow
Whilst o’er hill the Vandals mass
Salivating hot blood now.
Short swords cleat with marching rythm
Stabbing lances high and cold,
Metronome in stamping sandals
Onward now to victory’s fold.
Scarlet standards fly on high
The statement of intent is clear
Caesar’s men have promised now
To desiccate from ear to ear.
Grey ghost high above bears witness
Cadence of advancement grows,
Column strides in face of chaos
Lowered lance’s sharp steel shows.
Engagement in a stony basin
Flesh and blood, as one, combine,
Cut and slash in perfect order
Stab a *** and make him mine.
Darkness hides her chilling secret
Brooding silence stills the air,
Dawn’s first rays reveal the spectre
Carnage killed with none to spare.
Grey ghost’s hang in gaunt remembrance
Vespers ring in solemn tone,
Gone forever Caesar’s promise
Dead in vanquished blood and bone.
Marshalg
Inspired by Anselm’s “Broken Promise to Caesar.”
21 March 2013
Mar 21, 2013
Mar 21, 2013 at 1:29 AM UTC
Defunct delightful fruits noir
The sacrosanct pheromone of death
Garnishing Hells credence table
Quailled hem and haw sate
Ilk a slew of paper tigers
With a keen prosaic veneer
Consuming vittle of Gaia
Ravishing ichor like dancing water
Spurning a chimerical somatic
Catharsis as creaking doors hang
The longest watching satorial
Flowers wilt nascent by
Tactiturn vespers.
ELEETE J MUIR.
Jun 19, 2012
Jun 19, 2012 at 4:22 AM UTC
Some types of blood arrest this mouth.
Yes, some types of lips breathe fire and shout.
Some types of women shuck men of their gain, then some women run hurriedly back to their beaches again.
Some people catch anons between their legs. Others swallow vespers BeSpoke by the lust that they crave. Then envelop Gonzo love on the tip of their quill, if only boiling themselves for five minutes to ensure themselves potable.
I live for the taste of rust. I sit in the second-to-last seat on the back-left side of the bus. And I greet her legs with my aching skin, touch my fingertips to my lips to prove that I’m alive to myself.
If her scent was obeyed by royalty. I’m traversing the world if only once more as I’m praying that she’ll see me. I’m praying for our faces to believe in we. And her taste is the bang that is big from the beginning of time, one twist of the fresh zest of a lime, while the years are turned back into the furnace of time. I’m craving faces and loves I once saw. I need to feel the skin tailored for the female gods. I’m certainly loud and catering forth, I turn up the pre, and force the gain and amp up. If only to be noted again, in a bed with my goddess together we’d spend, every moment together in eternity. Immortality conceived of the beasts we achieve. Trampled by the light and tortured by the sound of ourselves. Please won’t you help me to not be forgotten myself? I’m pursing my lips and shaking my hands, I’m jumping off rooftops and eating mouthfuls of sand. Is our hero here or has she she run? Help me find Britni West, my one true love. She’s in California last I had a taste. It’s only everyone else that I lay chaste. With her I’m on top of the world, I’d quaff her spit and champion her skin. There is nothing nor no one that could come between. She’s the only one that is for me, and I’m the only he she’s told me.
Jul 11, 2018
Jul 11, 2018 at 6:53 AM UTC
Slide into the path of our journey
Follow the map along my spine
With breathless lips.......
Night's dark flowers swell
Silver bells,
Among my heart's wet pulsing,
Thoughts wild, utter me Autumn
Like a feather of Vespers;
An owl sings
A dark reveille in moonlit guise
And shadow traced
Lulling chants
Marry me to yesterday...
Midnight,
Combs a phantom of hands
The memory of you
Shaking the blue sky from my hair,
Coaxing that purring at the back of my throat,
My song, held hostage
Amid the still of the night,
I feel you now, as words flow
From the flesh of your tongue
A…murmured heartbeat...
Tangles me tender, beneath breath
Softening sadness inside
A pandemonium of bruised echoes,
Calling…
My voice
Naked as moon,
Intoxicating scents of desire,
Fierce, cathartic, ripe, unraveled
Inside you...
Feel me now...
Through the fleece of memory,
Pulsating passion through our veins
Feel me now...
My breath on your cheek
Lips brushing over your skin
Feel me now...
My tongue dividing your mouth
Kissing you harder and deeper
Released now
Intoxicating scents of desire,
Orgasming into serenity..............
Nov 19, 2012
Nov 19, 2012 at 2:29 PM UTC
to buy a book at half-ten with
no time wasting. go back, await
instructions ‘cause ****** will
have their trinkets, with novelty
of accented voice. and i once
would talk often of a love – let’s
separate that word from *****
often of a love, but am rare to
fall to elaboration. and through
contemplation the soul may
ascend to knowledge of the
Form of the Good, penultimate
object of Knowledge but not
Knowledge. and often writ of
this love, writ of what was to be
then and never now. never to find
affirmation in fleeting memory.
oxymoronic oblate of the mind
– this soul. attempting for attainment
of Kenosis. shambling i wandered,
rambling i wandered, and humbly
wandering on to pluck till times
and times are done. and
the dogs of this life have re-
moved dearest effects. in turn, sho-
wing the vanity in materialism.
end turn, showing futility in ret-
ention and the sun's continuous gro-
wth forcing abatement of winters’
vespers. cradling a gourd filled with
oil from the skin of ages, to reflect
micorocosms of preceived death.
those silver apples of the moon. and
when vespers return in color, when
the ground aches tensing muscles.
this love, if only the conjunctions
had been denied. perhaps by abor-
tion of if, then could have been a
block for now. these times found
oblate of memory by zealous self-
truth of the wronged past, and
humbled by skewed memory of
the hermit on unseen path for
Kenosis. unseen growth of
those golden apples of the sun.
May 15, 2013
May 15, 2013 at 10:05 PM UTC
Common Church Poem (V4)
By Michael Lee Johnson
Sitting here in this pew
splinters in my ****
I spend hours in silent prayer.
I beg Jesus for a quiet life.
Breathing here is so serene.
Sounds of vespers, so beautiful
dagger, so alone, unnoticed.
You can hear Saints
clear their eardrums
Q-Tips cleanse mine.
I hear their scandals
I review mine.
Feb 1, 2016
Feb 1, 2016 at 2:01 AM UTC
Before I come and wake you
With hot tea and kisses
I will say some quiet words
In the dark
where you cannot hear them
I founder sometimes in your beauty
As if the side or depth of it are out of reach
I sink beneath its density
How your body shudders
With unwinding joy
When everything and breathing stops
In one intense point of space and time
Resounding and fading
A sheer pulsing drift of wonder
Then I feel your flesh vibrating
Like strings beneath my fretted fingers
Like an ocean of dazed and dazzled being
Exploding beyond your senses
And flooding your soul with holy vespers
And I am blessed to be in your body at such a time
And I am further blessed
By the intimacy of your secrets
Those fears and hopes
Your most precious self that no one sees
Beyond the energies of life and death
Beyond healing and forgiveness
You let me touch your prayers
In grace and bright dawning
When being is done and the universe explodes
Will the murmurs of our love
taste like Sanctus on the lips of angels
And I will be blessed to be in you at such a time
Oct 3, 2014
Oct 3, 2014 at 9:03 AM UTC
This is a true, but amusing tale,
Hope your laughter does not fail,
'Tis a saga of a cockatoo,
Of life, he held a jaundiced view,
At the going down of the sun,
Cocky embellished his own fun,
And at the rising of each dawn,
Cocky's catharsis our ears did adorn,
The parrot kept talking, none listened to he,
Cocky had such a vivid vocabulary,
All starting with "F...ing C...'s"!
We heard his morning matins, you see,
His vespers were hard to believe,
'Twas sociolinguistic acquisition, prithee,
His jaded look at society,
Swearing is cathartic, but so lazy......
Aug 8, 2018
Aug 8, 2018 at 4:00 AM UTC
It is evening now, as moist and damp
as monsoon dusks can be,
and the lantern, it is shining away,
hanging off the ceiling. Now,
the bells ringing the vespers toll.
Elsewhere, celebrations have begun.
Sometimes, wails emerge, accompanied
by the chime of breaking bangles: yes,
glass is what makes the manja potent.
The lantern: it is what crickets
are to sound, to light in the nights.
But, it can only reach so far: built dim.
The fan slices through her smile,
and in the corners, shadows dance.
It's a wave, yes, light, and it bends at the
corners, but it doesn't handle slits well.
But it keeps attempting this every
monsoon night; through the rain, and
through the silence after the crickets
and people are done, reflecting off
ceilings, bending at corners, and
forming fringes where life is otherwise
just colourless, like the pouring rain.
(Oh not odourless though, the smell
of earth has entered into her pores)
Nov 2, 2014
Nov 2, 2014 at 2:04 PM UTC
She is telling something
long, impossible, silently –
vespers in a sheltered hollow.
I understand she has come on the sand
to my left shoulder,
by the fragrance of the oleanders
after rain,
by the slightly half open window
on Monday.
Was it yesterday or tomorrow?
Понеделник
Тя разказва нещо
дълго, невъзможно, тихо -
вечерня в закътана котловина.
Разбирам, че е идвала по пясъка
на лявото ми рамо,
по уханието на олеандрите
след дъжд,
по леко открехнатия прозорец
в понеделник.
Вчера ли беше или утре?
Преводач Български-английски: Савова Vessislava
rarebird
© bogpan - всички права запазени
May 27, 2011
May 27, 2011 at 10:39 PM UTC
Grey stone buildings jumble on the promontory.
White cliffs fall to the sea like a bridal veil,
merge with the blue waters of the summer season.
The land lies still, wanting, waiting.
Change of season late in coming.
Cisterns are dry, roses wilting.
A black clad woman walks the garden.
Dry leaves dance suddenly along the paves.
Her tongue licks the faint movement of air,
storm clouds gathers in the East.
After Vespers and Compline
the young nun enters her chamber,
opens the window, pushes back the heavy panes.
Sea fuses into obsidian sky.
Starlight dims behind racing clouds.
She sheds her habit for a white muslin sheath,
beds down on the narrow cot.
A slight breeze rolls over the window sill,
continues though the room, playfully
caresses the woman’s feet, licks her cheek.
A stronger gust follows,
pushes under her sheath,
waves up her inner thighs, caresses her belly,
rustles the stubby hair of her shorn head.
Her toes curl, knuckles turn white.
The storm comes suddenly and strong,
carries dried leaves of roses,
the scent of salty seas, fecund fields.
Her sheath pushed up around her waist,
an offer to a pagan God.
Window panes clank in protest,
waves crash against the rocky shore.
Clouds shed a load of steady rain.
The ****** sleeps, limbs askew,
until the hour of Aurora and Lauds.
Oct 22, 2012
Oct 22, 2012 at 6:20 PM UTC
The Earth is purged:
Human ghosts
Once hung in elemental pores
Have been released,
Ascendant from dirt
And salt.
Evening vespers complete
After one-thousand years
Of denial,
They take flight into ether,
Each ascension signified
In violent purple hues,
Clean breaks.
Aug 20, 2014
Aug 20, 2014 at 8:13 PM UTC
You!
Harbinger of wars
Impeder of enlightenment
I beseech you
Begone, begone with you
Cease beguiling
The weak, the meek
With atonement
For alleged sins
Cease spearing
The flesh of the simple
With your evil seed
Behind the vespers
In the corrupted house
Of your alleged God
For my eyes are open
I see the veracity
Behind the fraud
Scoundrels that you are
You think you own
By lies sown
Spewed forth from
The house of Rome
Intimidators of purgatory
And hell
Inquisitors of death
I pity you
For, you
Rule by fear
And fear alone.
Aug 17, 2013
Aug 17, 2013 at 3:52 AM UTC
bridge to heaven,
apex of the earth and sky;
west by north, corner of a nation.
where the ocean deep and blue,
rises from its depths
to join the hands of sea blown grass,
together reach for cotton wisps,
the cirrus clouds aloft to clasp,
teasing curling locks of hair
in a brilliant sapphire sky.
garden where the angels visit,
stoop to touch the darkened sod;
swoop to give a breezy nod,
a soft salvé from above;
joining sailing boats
with colors flying,
their wings of sheets
catch winds offshore;
waves collide in dance,
splash at bow en-trance,
curtsying like a curtain call,
here at play they soothe, enthrall;
transporting, lifting, cavorting, gifting,
on breezes light with gentle lofting,
Zephyrus sends them over yonder,
ever distant, ever stronger,
’cross the strait to reach her border.
port of angels, home to men,
bridge to offer sweet descent...
this, the end of jacob’s ladder,
dream of angel’s softened laughter,
listen close you’ll hear their whispers,
words of grace in flowing vespers
blowing down from snow-capped ridge
gently ’cross the angel’s bridge.
Jun 29, 2014
Jun 29, 2014 at 12:54 PM UTC
May you rest well & tango with the crimson leaves aglow with whimsical love living in their veins vivaciously while the effervescent vicarious vespers of air spirits lift and play oboe tones atop the glorious ruby mountain in the kiss of dusk.
Also i love you dear, sweet honey cinnamon habibi queen goddess being.
Nov 14, 2014
Nov 14, 2014 at 8:19 PM UTC
1.
a letter in the mail,
a three, four, five, or even six digit number meant for you to repay, sooner or later. but we both know the answer lies later than sooner
2.
in bed during broad daylight wearing his clothes,
missing, missing, missing
an empty space in your heart, vespers of fingerprints across your body
crying into your pillow til your eyes turn red and angry, bloodshot
defeat, the smell everywhere, damp.
where do loved ones go when they still exist, just not in relation to you?
3.
unfixable,
irreversible loss.
and finally, 4.
the screen.
tendrils of hair bunched into angry clumps in the palm of your hand,
blood dripping from eye to mouth,
a bored lumberjack with a garish mask flanked by black branches, auburn leaves
all of these things and a doll at the end of the dark corridor are nothing to worry about.
Oct 8, 2014
Oct 8, 2014 at 10:25 PM UTC
Sister Teresa felt the cold evening wind through the cloisters. Shadowy figures sounded near by; the sense of waiting; the held breath; the stillness before the office of Vespers. She refused the wheelchair; wanted to walk along the cloisters to the church. A novice sister held her arm to guide her; Sister Bernadette's young hand on her elbow. Blind now apart from shadows and imagined faces from memory. She sighed. Sensed touch of the novice's hand. Breathed in the evening air; remembered the years of waiting in the cloister; the anticipation; the prepared prayers; the youthful voice gone now, she mused, releasing a breath-like prayer. She recalled Sister Clare's embrace by the wall where the cloister bell-rope hung like a tail. God is my witness and saviour, Sister Maria had said. She's dead too, Sister Teresa, thought, peering through her darkness at the shapes and figures ahead. Was it Jude who had kissed her once or was it more? She wasn't sure. Time distorts, she muttered softly, but none took notice. She breathed the air; sensed the dampness; the evening prayers hung in the air of yesteryear. The novice squeezed affectionately; her whispered voice soft and child-like. Did she need the toilet? Was that what she said? Words carried off in the air like the dead friends of her contemplative life. She shook her head; squeezed shut her eyes until lights flashed behind them like a stormy night. Whether the novice was pretty or not, she had no idea; had no sense of her except the touch of hand or softness of voice. Papa was in his heaven, but Mama where was she? Do not let them touch she had said; men are such creatures. Flesh on flesh; lip to lip. Jude had kissed and lain with her, she thought through her muddled mind. Clare had held; dead and buried; her mole-tilled ground holy still, she wanted to say, but only sighed. Movement. Bodies moved. Sister Bernadette touched her arm; gently prodded onwards; said gentle words; failed to keep hold of; slipped away like soap in a bathtub. She tried to clutch the passing words, but silence returned black and deep as the darkness of her days and nights. Chill in the air. Sighed. The footsteps on stone; the echo of chants surrounding as she moved to the pews reserved once for the lay-sisters, none now, all left or dead and swept away like the dead leaves of autumn. She sat; uttered the prayers; listened for the soft voice of the novice nun; wanted to feel; to hold; to touch. Not too much, not overmuch. God be my witness and saviour, she whispered between prayers and chants, recalling a kiss, an embrace, but not of Judas, not of Judas. She breathed the chill air; imagined Clare was there; imagined Christ's breath on her cheek and brow; a light far off beckoning from a distant hill.
Dec 2, 2013
Dec 2, 2013 at 3:14 AM UTC