"vigil" poems
Elated to see you aloft in the night sky
To what do I owe this enchanted boon.
In the merry company of winking stars,
Enthralled by this sight as I admire my moon.
Bathe me in your streaks of translucent silver.
Accompany me through my sleepless nights.
Watching over me with unwavering vigil.
Swathe me in whispers of peaceful respite.
Oh how you govern the raging tides of my soul.
Rest your gaze as the waters break upon my shore...
Erode and weaken the load strewn over my burning shoals,
Sands drowned breathless but craving for more.
Few nights now... Smitten as you coyly turn away.
Thick strands of shadow clad hair in gentle cascades,
Alluringly obscuring a slight fraction of your face.
A tiny crescent blanketed away; into the blackness it fades.
More nights pass... Now I see only a lesser moon
Leaving me with only half; darkness so had claimed.
Please make yourself last; you mustn't leave too soon,
I'm not ready to be left crippled and maimed.
I silently look up as more nights go by.
I watched my lunar love dissolving into space.
My heart too, torn away a morsel at a time...
Finally she had gone; without a sliver or a trace.
Every nightfall since is rife with emptiness and despair.
I asked the stars if they could soothe my gaping void...
But they'd only twinkle in indifference...
Regardless of the pleas I've employed.
Unsure of how many rises it has thus been.
Nights only brought the onslaught of mocking stars above.
Still I toy with the promises made overhead,
For the awaited return of my crazed elusive love.
I know it's frivolous to think I'm the only one...
There are others who pine just as I do.
But I yearn the most for your sought after attention,
For our hearts have sung in every colour and every hue.
Anxiety at peak, dismayed almost broken,
Then I hear a sweet song sung; distant and far.
A song that shared the words we once had spoken,
Again enveloped in translucent silver, with relief I sighed...,
"There you are..."
.
Oct 21, 2014
Oct 21, 2014 at 9:03 AM UTC
This isn't Rome
I'm standing still because of statutes
Stone grill: I a carved marble statue
not a muscle dares,
Near frozen by the fear,
let it go I hear
over shoulder: perfect pass
if I get shot over a penalty
Is it clear?
my arms are arms?
a load chopper; in his shades,
do those aviators make me even darker?
(if I studied aviation I could take off I can hover, I can…)
Wait.
he's moving closer,
every hair strand an antenna,
I can feel him,
The smell of disdain on his glare,
stained blood on his hands,
another brother,
my brother
Guiltier with every pace so
-- show your hands,
foot mixed with concrete
I take this order serious,
my motions are motive
and mistaken for resist,
Wait.
Is it his stare or am I ******
(Why did I decide to go my friends wouldn't believe this…)
limitations to the thoughts;
am I arrested or caught?
I'm cold on the surface,
Erode so slow is my sediment evidence,
A blue god so I'm pacified,
I'm hesitant,
he calls and I say that I'm innocent,
I'm witnessing
the transitioning from eruption to ocean
-- volcanic
Blue Medusa,
can you only sculpt destruction?
(I'm not 3 dimensional, I'm real and I matter, I'm real and I matter)
I'm real,
But I shatter,
Gravel if determined that I'm rude so I can't breath,
Gravel if My license plate removed I don't leave,
I don't speak,
I don't flee,
I'm not free,
I believe,
That this happen to my mothers, mother
mothers' brother,
Brother from another was granite
and granted he's valuable
but only in a home
-- of course
I'm quartz in the making
A corpse still shaking
Cause a wallet was mistaken
Or I.D. was misplaced
So, I'm on the rocks
since the bar says that I'm a criminal,
velvet rope divider marks my life
and a vigil,
a wake,
or a hashtag,
you choose,
glass house,
Cold Stone’s,
rocky road,
Medusa licks his finger tips
same finger which
petrified me in the first place,
Reminded I'm in Rome
as I'm standing there motionless
a statue for display
or a trophy for the kitchen,
this art is not for sale
there will be no shipping,
With solidarity
through our solidification,
It won't matter if I look back,
I Matter and I’m Black.
Aug 20, 2016
Aug 20, 2016 at 10:56 AM UTC
The flame-red moon, the harvest moon,
Rolls along the hills, gently bouncing,
A vast balloon,
Till it takes off, and sinks upward
To lie on the bottom of the sky, like a gold doubloon.
The harvest moon has come,
Booming softly through heaven, like a bassoon.
And the earth replies all night, like a deep drum.
So people can't sleep,
So they go out where elms and oak trees keep
A kneeling vigil, in a religious hush.
The harvest moon has come!
And all the moonlit cows and all the sheep
Stare up at her petrified, while she swells
Filling heaven, as if red hot, and sailing
Closer and closer like the end of the world.
Till the gold fields of stiff wheat
Cry 'We are ripe, reap us!' and the rivers
Sweat from the melting hills.
10k
~♢~☆~♢~
A kiss of breath
This delight,
To inhale twilight.
Ride the nightlight to the stars.
To kiss the breath within
each moment
Free from introspection,
doubt and regrets.
It is here, I yearn to dwell.
No fear of neglect.
No fear of offense.
No fear of fear.
Yet, ever vigil,
to a slight variance of mood.
Of circumstance.
Of changes that determine
outcomes and future.
Fear of loss.
Fear of rejection.
Fear of fear.
I succomb to this perception.
Live in accordance
within the rules and structure
that appear to maintain order
to each of my days
Yet I await, with anticipation...
To kiss the breath within
each moment
This delight.
To inhale twilight.
Ride the nightlight to the stars
~♢~☆~♢~
Copyright © 2014 Christi Michaels. All Rights Reserved.
Dec 16, 2016
Dec 16, 2016 at 4:12 AM UTC
Deep down in the inhospitable gloom
Monterey Canyon welcomes an expectant mother
Unnoticed in the distance a whirring sound
and two parallel laser beams
Miss Cellania finds a nook
That instinct suggests is right
A place to nest and brood
A place to guard and wait
1.4 kilometers up a research institute
Guided the unmanned submarine
Correlated masses of data
Stared at live video feed
A unique event unfolded
Capturing such a moment
in this dark abyss
Clinging to a vertical rock
Her precious babies waiting to hatch
Her final duty to
Wait
Wait
Wait
Wait
Wait
Protect from predators and the icy cold
And so she began the
Inky black wait
Detached
Alone
The research crew returned later that year
Miss Cellania dutifully kept her vigil
They returned again month after month
Still she stubbornly stuck to the task in hand
The months turned to years
And still she protected her unhatched young
Clung to the same vertical spot
With nothing to eat
Alert, defensive
Motherly
Patiently waiting
Wasting away
Waiting
Waiting
Untill
F i f t y t h r e e m o n t h s l a t e r
Four and a half years
Finally her wait ended
With a flurry of independent life
Then death.
Aug 2, 2014
Aug 2, 2014 at 5:17 PM UTC
My brother, you quietly succumbed to death.
Why do you defeat yourself I implore?
For cruel injustice had done by poor health
To rob of good of life you may explore.
Despite our vigil you went just the same.
In times of great wonders still suffered,
With scientific breakthroughs, and what a shame.
What possible way death can be differed?
Sleep in peace in tranquility brother;
Oh, leave this world to us, to concern, to think.
Some lives toiled for many, some no other,
Some only lives on merriment and drink.
Here laid he in soil of red burial earth,
And free of cares and rest for all it's worth.
Jun 3, 2018
Jun 3, 2018 at 11:15 PM UTC
Serendipities torrential deluge
Of dulcet applause reigning
In the divine dynasty of
Empiricisms arcane lore,
Heavens most high of heirachies
Beyond the veil
Drowning in altruistic
Reflexive salutations;
The regnant patent mutitioning
Of the waters Lethe from
Serpens poisened chalice of saints
Evoking the advent vigil of
Dusts chaldean dreams,
The sabbatical ordination
The fatal ravens annunciation
Heralding valediction
Convening betwixt and between
Gates of ivory and horn
Arraigning the apostolic conclave.
ELEETE J MUIR.
Jan 13, 2012
Jan 13, 2012 at 9:35 AM UTC
Far away in ancient Jerusalem
Stood a garden, long, long ago
Home to giant oaks and figs
And plants and shrubs of every kind.
On every season, from time to time
Merrily they would burst into bloom
Filling the air with fragrance sweet
And fuelling the hearts with joy and cheer.
Amid the riot of flashing shades
Where Poppies and Pansies held their heads
In a corner, there a Lily stood,
Sans scent and sans grandeur.
A poor loner never once noticed
Nor skilled to steal the show,
Those, brilliant in shade and shape
With contempt openly quipped
‘It’s such a shame
She grows among us
With such pallid shade
And nothing to rave’,
‘Lilies are such lazy lot
Giving only seasonal blooms’
Rang aloud their haughty comments
Rashly blurted out and blunt
The poor Lily wilted in shame
Wishing she had never been born.
Late that evening, through the garden
Into the newly dug up grave
A band of people came with lights
Bearing someone cut and scathed.
With blood oozing, drop by drop
From wounds, left by piercing nails
The body, carefully wrapped in linen
Was the body of Jesus - Son of God
The one who bore the sins of the world
And courted the most accursed of deaths.
The body embalmed was laid inside
And sealed with a giant block of stone
Soldiers posted to guard the tomb
And every vigil so prudently kept.
Early by dawn, three days hence
While it was still very dark
From inside the tomb had come
Rumbling sounds and a blinding light.
Flowers en masse blinked their eyes
Beheld a man, gently walking out
The wounds still fresh on his palm
And the linen that swaddled, lying behind.
As they watched this queer sight
In awful amazement, they did see
A host of Lilies, white as snow
Far more beautiful than any of them
Bowing their heads in reverential glee
And singing Hosanna to the Lord of Life.
All the flora in silent shock
Sighted from whence the Lilies came
They sprang unforeseen in those spots
Where drops of blood from his body fell
Then onwards, without fail
April sees the grandeur and grace,
Of snowy lilies - those delicate blooms
Sprouting suddenly from the crust of the Earth
Joggling their heads in whiffing breeze,
And giving delight to all who behold.
Mar 31, 2018
Mar 31, 2018 at 1:00 PM UTC
Outside the miner's shack Joshua trees stand silent vigil,
expecting his imminent return, or perhaps his ghost.
Horn silver, weathered by rainwater from volcanic rock,
no longer strews fallow ground to lure the miner back.
In lieu, small succulents feed tortoise and jackrabbit,
replace the metal which only men could value.
Nevada gains a confluence of life in the exchange,
dry-lake flora and fauna bartered for chlorargyrite.
Barren mountains surround this desolation,
where nothing more than fungi lie in vapid dissipation
before the relentless punishment of the sun,
a lattice-work of valleys dissecting their *****
I ventured here to purge my body of poisons,
exhale the vapors and biles of city living,
to rid the alien presence in my mitochondria,
and let it go the way of Silver State.
Feb 19, 2012
Feb 19, 2012 at 11:58 PM UTC
Prowling through the undergrowth
In our barging juggernaut,
Ploughing the rolling hills of water,
Which crease as the narrowboat sluggishly gliding past,
Brushes the bulrushes like a tiger in the reeds.
For four intrepid days
Our film and photographs are empty to show,
No sign, only missed whispers,
Of the hummingbird blue blur.
A darting flash cresting the morning chill,
Regal turquoise stealthily steals
Our attention, our focus, and our tiller
Noses toward the bank hugger.
And we have him.
Small amber-royal fisherman,
Eclipsing his heron heralds
And the swans silent vigil
In majestic lapis lazuli.
Swift and sure he graces the water,
Fisher King,
Which bends beneath his dive.
Resurfacing, his golden breast
Mottled with silver minnow.
There recluse in his exclusive spot,
Fish foundering still in the ******
The kingfisher's poise frames his catch
Aperture, shutter, captured shot.
Jul 30, 2016
Jul 30, 2016 at 1:26 AM UTC
I am a mountain,
Yearning to soar with birds of flight,
But I am twined with the earth,
Whilst animals ***** empires upon my back.
As a volcano lies dormant,
I, too, murmur gently,
Solemnly observing
My frustrated and polluted vigil.
Sep 30, 2012
Sep 30, 2012 at 4:10 AM UTC
The story of a tiny gift, half chewed and fear-stained
Left on the alter outside the back door:
When first stunned with a slap or a precisely timed
Bite, a vigil is held -- wings twitch and flutter.
With a curious tilt, widened eyes record
Muscle spasms; calculating the
Flight risk; metering the force of the next
Outburst; prolonging the fun.
A game or performance art?
The victim's peers yell and screech
From the rooftops - do they know
The show is for them?
After few manoeuvres more it matters little
As a tiny neck snaps between missing teeth.
The audience scatters and the corpse is left behind
As an offering for those who feed the beast.
May 25, 2015
May 25, 2015 at 1:28 PM UTC
the palms keep vigil over the tired countryside. orange trees bear clusters of golden sun ripened in the red noon. cypress clean clouds from the azure where insects glimmer, sparks born of incandescent sunlight. i listen to the rhythm of silence scented by fabulous blossoms. and my spirit is drawn towards these heavy desires that haunt the coolness of shade.
4k
I walked a spiraling Stare back at the abyss: Leaping forward walking I see the rage of a Cross, four-dimensional Pebbles shattered stained To the side, spiraling back,
cut-up and found what if I walked on them giant drooling drunken mirrors obtuse staircase haunted confusing gravity,
nothing up from mushrooms woman lighted flexing looping,
at apex; a mirage? that can cry; all around; tesseracts; infinite; at quantum.
Lead kindly light, vigil
voice, enlightened
woman,
angel face.
Jan 9, 2015
Jan 9, 2015 at 6:17 PM UTC
Mother, mother, what ill-bred aunt
Or what disfigured and unsightly
Cousin did you so unwisely keep
Unasked to my christening, that she
Sent these ladies in her stead
With heads like darning-eggs to nod
And nod and nod at foot and head
And at the left side of my crib?
Mother, who made to order stories
Of Mixie Blackshort the heroic bear,
Mother, whose witches always, always
Got baked into gingerbread, I wonder
Whether you saw them, whether you said
Words to rid me of those three ladies
Nodding by night around my bed,
Mouthless, eyeless, with stitched bald head.
In the hurricane, when father's twelve
Study windows bellied in
Like bubbles about to break, you fed
My brother and me cookies and Ovaltine
And helped the two of us to choir:
'Thor is angry; boom boom boom!
Thor is angry: we don't care!'
But those ladies broke the panes.
When on tiptoe the schoolgirls danced,
Blinking flashlights like fireflies
And singing the glowworm song, I could
Not lift a foot in the twinkle-dress
But, heavy-footed, stood aside
In the shadow cast by my dismal-headed
Godmothers, and you cried and cried:
And the shadow stretched, the lights went out.
Mother, you sent me to piano lessons
And praised my arabesques and trills
Although each teacher found my touch
Oddly wooden in spite of scales
And the hours of practicing, my ear
Tone-deaf and yes, unteachable.
I learned, I learned, I learned elsewhere,
From muses unhired by you, dear mother.
I woke one day to see you, mother,
Floating above me in bluest air
On a green balloon bright with a million
Flowers and bluebirds that never were
Never, never, found anywhere.
But the little planet bobbed away
Like a soap-bubble as you called: Come here!
And I faced my traveling companions.
Day now, night now, at head, side, feet,
They stand their vigil in gowns of stone,
Faces blank as the day I was born.
Their shadows long in the setting sun
That never brightens or goes down.
And this is the kingdom you bore me to,
Mother, mother. But no frown of mine
Will betray the company I keep.
3.9k
In many different tongues, each one love's manifestations,
Some even to me unknown until the very moment,expressed,
I keep talking to you, my divine lover,out of my passion,intense
For you brimming within. Distraught a bit, feeling left in the lurch
On pouring rain and thunder storm; but you know how firm I am!
I stood rooted here, lost all sense of time, queer, ever felt you near.
Then a sharp pain hit weakening my heart ,but couldn't deter me,
I am a cat of nine love lives, a species so stubborn, thrives in trust.
Dead of night it is , I keep vigil, perking up ears, eyeing skywards,
How do I know from, where would my only love, to me speak?
Aug 31, 2017
Aug 31, 2017 at 2:56 PM UTC
by
rgpage
man has a desire for eternal life; a life in length compared to that
of the stars in the sky, forever lasting. not a lonely vigil as the stars
with their solemn silent watch in the dark void of space, but a life filled
with earthly human pleasures. the pleasures of the soft silk like touch of
a woman's flesh, and a faint whisper of ecstasy in an unguarded moment of the heart. if eternal bliss cannot be granted then let death overtake at the moment of ******
Jan 6, 2014
Jan 6, 2014 at 3:11 AM UTC
What effort!
What effort the horse makes
To be a dog!
What effort the dog to become a swallow!
What effort the swallow to be a bee!
What effort the bee to become a horse!
And the horse,
what a sharp shaft it steals from the rose!
what grey rosiness lifts from its lips!
And the rose,
what a flock of lights and cries
caught in the living sap of its stem!
And the sap,
what thorns it dreams in its vigil!
And the tiny daggers
what moon, and no stable, what nakedness,
skin eternal and reddened, they go seeking!
And I, in the eaves,
what a burning seraph I seek and am!
But the arch of plaster,
how vast, invisible, how minute,
without effort!
3.7k
*They stand in fragile circles
Lighting candles for their dead
As the memories that float on the breeze
Are all that they have left
The tears that pass between them
Have a somber silence that's deafening
You can feel the souls they're crying for
Touch them on the winds of change
As they light another candle
Another day goes by
With the tears that keep on flowing
Where they are forced to wonder why*
Apr 29, 2015
Apr 29, 2015 at 7:08 PM UTC
(not much of a poem)
Thrice awake, asleep, again awake
Something always wakes me up
The phone sounded, nobody answered
Procession and vigil ended
Late fireworks echoed through this Black Saturday night..
I'm deciding: to cease, or not to cease
I can't find my desired peace
To find lost journals, or just burn what's left, old and new
To start or not to start, a life anew
To rise, or just lie through this hot evening
My late mother said then: Black Saturdays are days...rarely ending
Black Saturdays are for resurrecting...celebrating...
This late night, it is segue-ing, to an Easter morning
While dogs are barking, while gecko is calling
Cats are quiet, where are they stashed? where could they be hiding?
Here...now... I am a car, my motor is hushed...but i am still running...
Sally
Copyright April 4, 2015
Rosalia Rosario A. Bayan
Apr 5, 2015
Apr 5, 2015 at 6:28 AM UTC
as i sit here awake
waiting for some comfort
only received by those
who venture into the
depths that the night offers
delusions of peace
and visions of grace
cloud my weary mind
yet do nothing to ease
my troubled heart
is there any truth
to be had from my restless vigil?
i - a sentinel of the moon
i - a watcher of the shadows
i - an eloquent fool
am driven to seek
a respite from the waking world
by staying the hand of
the sandman in hopes that
these mountainous mole hills
may shrink under my gaze
futile? it may be so
yet dreams that may keep my company
scare me more than any
insomnia induced hallucination
Feb 6, 2012
Feb 6, 2012 at 11:19 PM UTC
black trees, silent stars
did you see? a meteorite!
life, infinite night
Jul 28, 2015
Jul 28, 2015 at 2:37 AM UTC
A day will certainly come
As sure as we breathe
When our creator will ask of us
What we did to aid the oppressed
On that day
As surely as who created you
Created me too
It will not be about religion but humanity
When carefully planned and organised jets
Launched rockets
To bomb populated refugee camps
Schools and apartment blocks
At a defenceless opposition
Without an air force or navy
Heavy weapons or artillery
Command or armour
**That's not war
It's ******
It's cold blooded massacre**
As a woman shot in the stomach
Gives birth to a cold blue baby
And a world across oceans changes channels tuning in to the next world cup champion
It was never about taking sides
Israel vs Palestine
There is a truth
To which we must remove the blindfold of ignorance
Searching for a voice of right
Amongst the cries of pain hatred and anger
The sign in a city
Where there is too much to see
Finding peace amongst people who are not ours
Because I see hypocrisy of nations
Who stand for human rights
But only when the human shares a matching ideology
I see hypocrisy amongst media
Where a million wounds and shades of blood
Are inked into black and white letters
Today I read 'An Israelian was killed whilst a dozen Palestinians died'
They turned humans into numbers
Quantitative data
They couldn't possibly de-sensitize it any further
I mean look at the verbs in which they phrased that
I see hypocrisy amongst Muslims
Who stand equal and united
Yet they too turn backs when the interest is not beneficial
And the pitiful nation falls divided
Whether it is a prayer
A strike, a boycott or vigil
A protest or petition
Maybe even a donation
There's a thousand ways to help
But very few who do
So what did you do?
Was it out of sight out of mind for you?
Jul 12, 2014
Jul 12, 2014 at 11:04 PM UTC
"...Tell me, for Love's sake, what is that flame which burns in my heart and devours my strength and dissolves my will? What are those hidden soft and rough hands that grasp any soul; what is that wine mixed of bitter joy and sweet pain that suffuses my heart? What are those wings that hover over my pillow in the silence of Night, and keep me awake,watching no one knows what? What is the invisible thing I stare at, the incomprehensible thing that I ponder, the feeling that cannot be sensed? In my sights is a grief more beautiful than the echo of laughter and more rapturous than joy. Why do I surrender myself to an unknown power that slays me and revives me until Dawn rises and fills my chamber with its light? Phantoms of wakefulness tremble between my seared eyelids, and shadows of dreams hover over my stony bed. What is that which we call Love? Tell me, what is that secret hidden within the ages yet which permeates all consciousness? What is this consciousness that is at once origin and result of everything? What is this vigil that fashions from Life and Death a dream, stranger than Life and deeper than Death? Tell me, friends, is there one among you who would not awake from the slumber of Life if love touched his soul with its fingertip?"
Sep 2, 2017
Sep 2, 2017 at 4:37 PM UTC