"wakening" poems
On Monday I started to write a song,
The afternoon spent lazing around,
Memories of the Sunday night,
Like a hangover hanging around,
I close my eyes for a moment,
As I always feel the day slipping away,
Before I know it Tuesday is on,
I start to put down words,
But the end won’t come to my mind,
And I know the day is slipping away
For Wednesday has come now,
I feel the wakening of the doer inside of me,
I sit down with my pen and paper,
With the t.v. switched on besides me,
Oh I know the day has slipped away,
Now at the centre of the week I’m on Thursday,
I start for one last time,
But I know I won’t finish for the next 2 days,
And I wrote dad a dum da beep pada,
And I’m not surprised for the day has slipped away,
And I begin my weekend on the Friday,
Hanging around my incomplete song,
Just 5 words on the paper,
My head is spinning around,
And floating through time I’m onto the next one,
Its Saturday night I’m partying hard,
Not hard enough for my song undone is weighing me down,
I’m not sure what I’m gonna do about it,
So I try not to think just loose myself in the sound
As I dance to Sunday morning I,
I sleep from sun up to sun down,
Sunday night I’m roaming around,
I know tomorrow’s a new day,
I’m gonna finish that song,
Monday morning, I’m writing a song,
The afternoon spent lazing around,
Memories of the Sunday night,
Like a hangover hanging around,
I close my eyes for a moment,
My life’s slipped past when my eyes were shut,
Now I’ve forgotten what I was writing about,
Back to the start I don’t have another chance,
I curse life, for when I stopped it kept moving on.
Nov 6, 2012
Nov 6, 2012 at 8:04 PM UTC
Lost in the forest, I broke off a dark twig
and lifted its whisper to my thirsty lips:
maybe it was the voice of the rain crying,
a cracked bell, or a torn heart.
Something from far off it seemed
deep and secret to me, hidden by the earth,
a shout muffled by huge autumns,
by the moist half-open darkness of the leaves.
Wakening from the dreaming forest there, the hazel-sprig
sang under my tongue, its drifting fragrance
climbed up through my conscious mind
as if suddenly the roots I had left behind
cried out to me, the land I had lost with my childhood---
and I stopped, wounded by the wandering scent
7.7k
The readers of the Boston Evening Transcript
Sway in the wind like a field of ripe corn.
When evening quickens faintly in the street,
Wakening the appetites of life in some
And to others bringing the Boston Evening Transcript,
I mount the steps and ring the bell, turning
Wearily, as one would turn to nod good-bye to Rochefoucauld,
If the street were time and he at the end of the street,
And I say, ‘Cousin Harriet, here is the Boston Evening Transcript.’
5.3k
I went to turn the grass once after one
Who mowed it in the dew before the sun.
The dew was gone that made his blade so keen
Before I came to view the levelled scene.
I looked for him behind an isle of trees;
I listened for his whetstone on the breeze.
But he had gone his way, the grass all mown,
And I must be, as he had been,—alone,
‘As all must be,’ I said within my heart,
‘Whether they work together or apart.’
But as I said it, swift there passed me by
On noiseless wing a bewildered butterfly,
Seeking with memories grown dim over night
Some resting flower of yesterday’s delight.
And once I marked his flight go round and round,
As where some flower lay withering on the ground.
And then he flew as far as eye could see,
And then on tremulous wing came back to me.
I thought of questions that have no reply,
And would have turned to toss the grass to dry;
But he turned first, and led my eye to look
At a tall tuft of flowers beside a brook,
A leaping tongue of bloom the scythe had spared
Beside a reedy brook the scythe had bared.
I left my place to know them by their name,
Finding them butterfly-weed when I came.
The mower in the dew had loved them thus,
By leaving them to flourish, not for us,
Nor yet to draw one thought of ours to him,
But from sheer morning gladness at the brim.
The butterfly and I had lit upon,
Nevertheless, a message from the dawn,
That made me hear the wakening birds around,
And hear his long scythe whispering to the ground,
And feel a spirit kindred to my own;
So that henceforth I worked no more alone;
But glad with him, I worked as with his aid,
And weary, sought at noon with him the shade;
And dreaming, as it were, held brotherly speech
With one whose thought I had not hoped to reach.
‘Men work together,’ I told him from the heart,
‘Whether they work together or apart.’
4.2k
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
At first we flew with timeless wings
Into the dreams and beyond.
And when the truths came
and monstered us all,
we had to cope or fall
I WAS walking on eggshells,
Walking on the razor's edge,
I fell into life
onto the ground of truth
He IS walking on eggshells
He IS walking on the razor's edge
Life on one side, Death on the other
We are not Born in the air with timeless wings,
Gravity grants space and time
And yet still
What is up must come down
May the landing be gentle,
like a lion's roar when it
comes to the mountain peak to
announce itself,
May it be wakening,
like the first summer sunrise burning into the day,
May it be embracing
like the entwining vines
racing upwards towards the sun
to gather all the light
May 7, 2019
May 7, 2019 at 2:43 PM UTC
I inhale
Your Intoxicating fragrance
Pheromones entice
Lingering passion
Sun and sky sweet
I am delirious
Dancing in your
Wakening melodies
Bouquet of pearly-white peaks
I Awake
In your quicksand soil
Scattering seeds
Delicate sea legs
Wobbly wooden stalks
Germinating roots
A newborn flower
Porcelain
Fragile, Fertile foliage
I swallow
Your clear spring geyser
Brisk diamond water
Raining sky water
Relieve my parched
Withering body
Swimming
Stealing grace
Sea of Fertility
I Rejoice
Your Renewing promise
I am breathless
Wild ecstasy
A Cacophony of birdsong
My petals
Gorgeous milk fluff
A canopy of tranquility
In the shape of a heart
Feb 16, 2010
Feb 16, 2010 at 6:14 PM UTC
Star light.. Star bright,
last star i see...
As the night prepares for sleep,
their concert begins,
one song.. two songs.. three,
in unison their sweet harmony calls forth,
chorus of birds welcoming the new day.
Star light.. Star bright,
last star i see...
Caught up in the beauty,
their melody fills me,
in this hour between times,
Peace.. Hope.. Magic,
i am one with myself.. one with everything,
and i feel you.
Star light Star bright,
last star i see...
Gazing upwards into the wakening sky,
i see you,
last remnant of the night, shining so brightly,
you've waited for me.. once again my friend,
ready to give of yourself,
to give all.. so my dreams can be.
Star light.. Star bright,
last star i see...
With closed eyes,
and open heart,
a soul aflame once more,
a spirit's wish ushers forth,
into the heavens,
into your waiting arms.
Star light.. Star bright,
last star i see...
And, as if your only purpose, was to wait,
all night.. just to receive my wish,
your brightness fades making way for the dawn,
and new beginnings,
and in that instant.. you are gone,
but your promise remains.. i can feel it.
Can you?
Star light Star bright,
last star i see...
I wish i may.. i wish i might...
Sep 11, 2011
Sep 11, 2011 at 9:49 AM UTC
Leaves
Murmuring by miriads in the shimmering trees.
Lives
Wakening with wonder in the Pyrenees.
Birds
Cheerily chirping in the early day.
Bards
Singing of summer, scything thro' the hay.
Bees
Shaking the heavy dews from bloom and frond.
Boys
Bursting the surface of the ebony pond.
Flashes
Of swimmers carving thro' the sparkling cold.
Fleshes
Gleaming with wetness to the morning gold.
A mead
Bordered about with warbling water brooks.
A maid
Laughing the love-laugh with me; proud of looks.
The heat
Throbbing between the upland and the peak.
Her heart
Quivering with passion to my pressed cheek.
Braiding
Of floating flames across the mountain brow.
Brooding
Of stillness; and a sighing of the bough.
Stirs
Of leaflets in the gloom; soft petal-showers;
Stars
Expanding with the starr'd nocturnal flowers.
3.1k
A bill becomes a law through a process not unlike wet clay curing in the sun, seasonal labor filling the fields in springtime, a drop of sweat absorbed thirstily into a towel, a stain spreading across a tablecloth.
A bill becomes a law eventually, but often, not in time. A bill often fails on the floor, as do some people, as does, just as often,
the attempt to revive them. The attempt looks an awful lot
like a senator's face, energetic and gray and doomed and
looking for any advantage
when the needed advantage is in the ether
and still immaterial until the tenth of February.
I notice the bumper stickers, and I've deputized a Google Alert
to tell me that the popular mass is wakening.
I can also tell when it yawns,
or prods a rib for a pain that wasn't there yesterday.
I can tell when the popular mass has slept funny.
I can tell when it would rather not wake up at all
but the light is streaming in through the window
and the house is full of the sound of the dishwasher.
Pain on both sides, in both ribs, ignored
because sometimes it just happens - pain,
that is - and is a part of getting older,
like how you can't put peppers in your chili anymore
now that they don't grow on this side of the planet,
and there's nobody left to tend them.
I would like somebody to tend me, too,
but the law that sanctions that workforce
is still in committee, and mired in a dispute
about who deserves love.
This one goes out to all of those lying on their kitchen floor
once everyone is out of the house, lifting their legs and placing them on the countertop, listening to their heart ticking
and trying to discover if it reaches everywhere, if they can hear it
in their ankles.
This one goes out to their savings accounts and their kneecaps.
Here's hoping they make it.
Aug 25, 2018
Aug 25, 2018 at 4:08 PM UTC
Light at each point was beating then to flight,
The sapling bark flushed upward, and the welling
Tips of the wood touched, touched at the bound,
And boughs were slight and burdened beyond telling
Toward that caress of the boughs a summer’s night,
Illimitable in fragrance and in sound.
Here were the blue buds, earlier than hope,
Unnumbered, beneath the leaves, a breath apart,
Wakening in root-dusk. When the air went north,
Lifting the oakleaves from the northern slope,
Their infinite young tender eyes looked forth.
Here all that was, was frail to bear a heart.
2.4k
I was asleep when you came in.
Wakening to the intoxicating tequila that drizzles from your mouth,
You've already managed to start the discussion
Combing you’re hands, lips and tongue to orchestrate
A stroke of genius in full consequence,
You now have my attention..
But you’re not alone,
Putting on my glasses
I see you picked once again
Navigating takes four hands ya know.
Now choose:
A spin-cycle or tune up,
temporary vision, lost again.
Each of you raves,
You both used to dance.
Looking at each other,
synchronizing the helm.
Yearning for violence you scratch the flesh
That harbors you’re enthusiasm.
Backbiting lust and forceful appetite,
This is what happens when you
Wake the Wolf.
Jun 20, 2013
Jun 20, 2013 at 11:06 AM UTC
Come to me in the silence of the night;
Come in the speaking silence of a dream;
Come with soft rounded cheeks and eyes as bright
As sunlight on a stream;
Come back in tears,
O memory, hope, love of finished years.
O dream how sweet, too sweet, too bitter sweet,
Whose wakening should have been in Paradise,
Where souls brimful of love abide and meet;
Where thirsting longing eyes
Watch the slow door
That opening, letting in, lets out no more.
Yet come to me in dreams, that I may live
My very life again though cold in death:
Come back to me in dreams, that I may give
Pulse for pulse, breath for breath:
Speak low, lean low,
As long ago, my love, how long ago!
2k
I favour the deep, impenetrable truth of the jungle
Over the smooth ride over sleek black rubber;
The ***** disturbing, demented disorder;
The distortions of the lights we bathe on,
Over outward alignments and the staleness of systems.
I favour the cheap, rugged, bittersweet taste
Of a late night's substandard drink,
In the midst of true lights and shadows
And the uncertainty they cast upon us,
Over the orderly and satisfactory--
The dead pleasures and securities that
Exist nowhere but in feeble projections.
I favour the basic, primeval, animal grunt--
The dirt, the dizziness of true treading
Across the muddy shallows--,
Over the clattering of an overflowed,
Certain mind.
I favour doubt, earnest doubt,
Unpalatable doubt, inescapable doubt--
A smile in a pitch-black room,
A journey on a lukewarm air balloon,
A half-finished sentence in a half-serious gloom--,
Over hasty conclusions and tainted allusions.
I favour the endearing messiness of reality;
The chaos of light and dreams;
The mystery, so out of reach,
Of you and me and the space in-between;
The stained, torn, shattered, burnt,
Twisted texture we find ourselves upon,
Over the smooth, marble-white,
Sterile surface where false certainties
Slide, grinning, before they find themselves
On an impending collision with the infectious hesitation of the ground.
I favour the acknowledging look
Straight into the eye;
A ladder with one step;
A race with no competitors;
A contentment without resentment;
A bread on your table that's good enough,
That doesn't tease you and promise you more,
And more,
And more,
So that you forget what you should really care for,
What lies deep under your skin,
What stirs up the dormant contents of your guts--
You climb to the hilltop
Which finally allows you to have
A peek at the next one.
I favour uncertainty and risk,
And walking too close to the edge;
I favour barely enough,
And cutting it too close;
I favour throwing all excess over the board,
And lowering standards;
I favour the taste of imminent failure
And the adrenaline of a heart-wakening sprint;
I favour meagre means
And big dreams, free of currencies;
For they all remind me what the world
Really looks like,
Who I really am,
And what the winter-night winds
Really feel like.
I favour the ways of nature, often erratic,
***** ugly and convoluted,
Often dumbfounding,
Unintentionally intelligent and mysterious,
Over the ways of fear-ridden constructions,
For there is no such thing
As a straight line.
Jan 9, 2019
Jan 9, 2019 at 2:31 PM UTC
There was a time when I sang on you forlornly,
So wistfully heraldic,
That I might have thought you worthy
Of a gilded biblical throne of purple-prosed petals.
Let us be grateful then, for the song of perihelion,
And the whispered wisdoms of the dear tropics,
For the fresh breath from these friends whisks me
Back to my wakening, aurelian self.
I weave the holly in my hair,
I hang the mistletoe anew,
For solitary trees stand strong,
Though weighted by the winter’s dew.
I am Helios’s rantipole
I’ve no more time for tears of old,
With so much in me left to grow,
And so far in me left to go.
Dec 11, 2012
Dec 11, 2012 at 11:00 PM UTC
Wakening with dawn
shimmering in brilliant hues
of crimson and gold
Silv'ry woodthrush flutes
and drowsy robins murmur
promising fresh hope
Opaque blackness fled
Vanished its dark heaviness
dissolving in light
~Hilda~
Jan 31, 2013
Jan 31, 2013 at 1:08 AM UTC
Rise, brothers, rise, the wakening skies pray
to the morning light,
The wind lies asleep in the arms of the dawn
like a child that has cried all night.
Come, let us gather our nets from the shore,
and set our catamarans free,
To capture the leaping wealth of the tide, for
we are the sons of the sea.
No longer delay, let us hasten away in the
track of the sea-gull's call,
The sea is our mother, the cloud is our brother,
the waves are our comrades all.
What though we toss at the fall of the sun
where the hand of the sea-god drives?
He who holds the storm by the hair, will hide
in his breast our lives.
Sweet is the shade of the cocoanut glade, and
the scent of the mango grove,
And sweet are the sands at the full o' the
moon with the sound of the voices we love.
But sweeter, O brothers, the kiss of the spray
and the dance of the wild foam's glee:
Row, brothers, row to the blue of the verge,
where the low sky mates with the sea.
Feb 13, 2014
Feb 13, 2014 at 2:58 AM UTC
***Sometimes when ev'ning lamps are ebbing low
And all the earth lies hushed in solemn sleep
Within my lonely heart there burns a glow,
As lengthening shadows about me creep.
My weary glance falls o'er the dismal room
Where with rapturous eyes I seem to see
Beyond thick cobwebs, dust and direst gloom
A merry host of friends-my own library!
Worn musty books on shelves from olden days,
Brittle pages yellowed by hands of time,
Illuminating night with gladsome rays,
Lifting my bleak spirit to realms sublime.
Trooping merrily before my rapt gaze
Into flick'ring lamplight I watch them come,
Quaint men and ladies of forgotten days;
Golden laughter echoing in my home.
Into my eyes they smile, murm'ring with grace
Aerial speech they blithely chat with me,
They seem to belong to another race
Wakening in my heart sweet melody.
Dying lamplight sputters and they are gone.
Vanished! I stare about but find I none
Save a drowsy thrush flutes with hush of dawn
Only myself in the parlour alone.***
~Hilda~
Dec 8, 2012
Dec 8, 2012 at 10:50 PM UTC
Ay, thou art for the grave; thy glances shine
Too brightly to shine long; another Spring
Shall deck her for men's eyes,--but not for thine--
Sealed in a sleep which knows no wakening.
The fields for thee have no medicinal leaf,
And the vexed ore no mineral of power;
And they who love thee wait in anxious grief
Till the slow plague shall bring the fatal hour.
Glide softly to thy rest then; Death should come
Gently, to one of gentle mould like thee,
As light winds wandering through groves of bloom
Detach the delicate blossom from the tree.
Close thy sweet eyes, calmly, and without pain;
And we will trust in God to see thee yet again.
1.4k
I no longer see
The purpose of your role
When you betrayed us,
And others altogether
As if we’re lowly like
Maggots in the eyes
Of common men.
You’re no Guardian
O’ mine, whence the
Moment you laid
Upon that Hand o’ yours
That bludgeoned this
Childlike glee, wakening
A great sense in me that
You have the face of Janus,
But you do not embody
All beginnings;
It was all but nought,
Making a fool out of me
As if I’m an imbecile
To canonize yourself
As a Patron Saint of Fairy Tales
In which a venerable testament
To those dogmatic scoundrels
That borne the blood o’ *******
Which flows in their veins…
So you, are no Paragon, but a Fool-Saint
And speak no Tongues of Fire;
But full of air and a thorny tongue
That snaps like a whip
Hence, a brute, an imp
That is an uptight ****
A Guardian to the so-and-so’s.
Sep 12, 2025
Sep 12, 2025 at 6:33 AM UTC
what drifts between the mired lines of fate and dreams sets free the sorrowed wakening of the harrowed heart.
in cold rapture, time stands still with every word exposed and seen through touching, gazing eyes
each moment gone before begets the forward, eternal march unto dawn
the good bestows lawful effortless bounty of what was always meant to be
two hearts beckon upon each other in torment and rapture, anxiously seething one another
patience values the faithful wrought with time and humbleness
Jun 5, 2014
Jun 5, 2014 at 6:06 AM UTC
Amid the glory times of darkness,
Sitting on the edge of the white tablecloth,
Brilliant white from bleached soaking, and stained with yesterdays
Clouds and air of desperation, was the cup, the coffee cup,
Its broken flower coloration, its yellowish hue,
Half full of what was once blistering hot, now the juice of warmth
And the morning begins its wakening time.
Four burners atop the gas stove, each with its black *** stand,
Covered with blackened skillets, grease from the bacon, popping
And sizzling and bringing the best of the day together,
With the tablespoons of lard, from the five gallon silver bucket,
Covered in white stained T-towels, and the shallow bowl in which you washed your hands.
You dried your hands, loosely, leaving each damp and warm,
As the biscuit dough was rolled, and broken up, and pinched into the skillet
And then placed, with ringing noise,
Deep within the ovens hole, no light there, and you could smell
It all cooking, and see the hands that made it,
With their wrinkles of days of and months and years,
Making the breakfast of today, just as if it had made, no; it had made
For many years.
Bacon grease taken up on the tablespoon, and poured into the other skillet
Black, and hot, and making that little sizzling noise, as the bacon fried,
The biscuits backed, and the flours was spread in the skillet,
Browning, hard little clumps; stirred around, spoon on the pan,
And the milk poured from the quart jar, which was left on the porch this morning with four others,
Before life as we knew it began, and the spoon turning, the heat from the stove
Almost too much, and the gravy was stirred and turned, and stirred,
Thickened up, burner down, and a dozen eggs cracked into the fourth skillet,
Bubbling and popping, bacon taken up, put on a plate, the gravy stirred again,
Biscuits pulled, placed on a potholder, their greasy tops looking fine and brown,
Fresh butter, salt and pepper, breakfast was made again.
For the umpteenth time in this umpteenth world.
Jan 1, 2014
Jan 1, 2014 at 2:05 PM UTC
"where day is.... dreams of a summer sky."
i.
the sky floats up,
gazing out with lips
of steel, a
shiny branch
surrendering
to summer’s sigh,
her iris a cats
eye, marble blue,
her pupil a dark
wand.
ii.
play with me,
draw me out of the
dark,
let me sing to
you a sea-song
where the waves
somersault and
crash to the shore,
where the wind, wild
as wild, faints to breathe
the wakening sky.
iii.
see how i write in passages,
faint-waves of
summer’s mists where
the rain dips her pen in
the grey-ink cloud.
iv.
searching for your ghosts,
the deep whirling of the streamy sea
with its wine-red roses like
coloured glass
dance as i gather
whispers of strangeness
and sun, blossoming,
shrink-edged like an
opalescent pool, all
of it, you.
v.
days of watery rags and rubber
tyres, red snake of
summer’s ribs, the
stones of the stormy sun,
gathering the landscape
where tonight the
moon will rise for love
you will loosen my hair
and i will kiss your throat.
Aug 12, 2017
Aug 12, 2017 at 1:55 PM UTC
rusty knees folded under a
quilt weaved by the calloused hands of
particles of grandmothers' grandmothers,
head heavy on a
down-breasted pillow,
rising and falling softly
in a bedroom den,
whispering relative semantics of
a testament revised
while outside, tornadoes uproot trees
and displace plywood houses
with charred pies frozen on the windowsill,
entombed from the harsh winter's frost
and incubation in false ovens;
i recall seasonal naps of
drifting and wakening
and colourful mosaics
painted across the dreamland sky,
drinking cups of melatonin-laced chamomile
steeped in an angel teapot that induced
psychosomatic apparitions in constant relay
from earhole to earhole and
assisted with pulling an endless rope out of my
mouth which had been tied to the pit of my ulcerated stomach,
my head twisting in a corkscrew spiral,
meeting a longing gaze
and twisting back again,
oh! my bottled neck!
you retell poems softly spoken loudly
with my kisses on your heavy eyelids,
before we drift through the sheer veil
into unified consciousness,
taking a glimpse at our crowning home in
an infinite land,
enveloped in time-honoured Love
bestowed upon us in
pure, Divine fate,
watching endless words of
'i love you', 'i love you'
trickle like sand though a
heavenly hour glass figure;
to wake, a chance to celebrate,
to die, a chance to find each other again.
Mar 10, 2014
Mar 10, 2014 at 10:27 PM UTC