"warding" poems
*Hamari Sanson Mein Aaj Tak
Woh Heena Ki Khushbhoo Mehak Rahi Hai*
*Labon Pe Naghme Machal Rahe Hain
Nazar Se Masti Jhalak Rahi Hai*
**O’ even today within my breathes
That sweet smell of henna is still lingering
Upon the lips songs are way-warding
And with mischief, the glances are twinkling**
*Woh Mere Nazdeek Aate Aate
Haya Se Ek Din Simat Gaye Thay
Mere Khayalon Mein Aaj Tak
Woh Badan Ki Daali Latak Rahi Hai*
**O’ inching towards me,
One day he shyly gathered himself
Till today, within my thoughts
His body's youthfulness is still swaying**
*Sada Jo Dil Se Nikal Rahi Hai
Woh Sher-o-Naghmon Mein Dhal Rahi Hai
Ke Dil Ke Aangan Mein Jaise
Koi Ghazal Ki Dhaandhar Khanak Rahi Hai*
**O’ this cry coming from within my heart
Finds its way into verses and songs
As if in the courtyard of my heart
Beat of a poem is throbbing**
*Tadap Mere Bekharar Dil Ki
Kabhi To Unpay Asar Kare Gi
Kabhi To Woh Bhi Jaleinge Isme
Jo Aag Dil Mein Dahek Rahi Hai*
**O’ my restless heart's tremor
Will surely affect him one day
Someday, he too will burn
In the fire of my heart which is raging**
— Translated by Jamil Hussain, Sung by Noor Jahan
Oct 28, 2016
Oct 28, 2016 at 10:30 AM UTC
I L U like my ***** clothes
Love being forgotten
On my bedroom floor
I L U like chores love the
music that helps them
forget they're chores
I L U like ***** dishes
Love hot showers and
the other side of the sink
I L U like I love spilling
Salt, and warding off the evil,
By tossing some behind my back
I L U like I love
Breaking rules about
my own supposed
non-Superstition
I L U like black cats love
Bad luck, cause to them,
It's just Friday, you know?
I L U like the hot dog bun
Loves staring at the beef patty,
Wishing "if only, if only"
I L U like bread loves
Being forgotten till we're really hungry
And then we're all ungrateful, like
"Hey bread, you remember us?"
And bread is high above us, like
"Always."
Not even a hint of scorn
I L U like the first time I saw
Jurassic Park, The dinosaurs
Were real enough
sans chicken feathers, and
Who needs modern science anyways
when love has no fossil records?
I L U like the weather loves
Surprise parties.
I L U like painful
surprise party memories love
being forgotten on my bedroom floor
I love you like Mayflies love living,
oh so briefly, once a day, every single day,
Chapter one to chapter none
I love you like mayflies love themselves,
brevity and all, stirred by nothing but
the glow of Dawn's light,
Dead by dusk, the Mayfly never
knows its final form.
It dies
in complete
incompletion,
but that's okay.
It drank the salt ocean,
it breathed the living air,
And that's how I want to L U
Feb 25, 2017
Feb 25, 2017 at 4:26 PM UTC
I try
warding off
the surge,
but it has
a sea's
nature,
lurking slurp,
mouth-watering
possibilities,
skin
lodged
to skin,
lickety
suckety
spring
Aug 7, 2016
Aug 7, 2016 at 2:56 AM UTC
Nothing familiar is the answer
It is always someone you don’t understand
Finding meaning
Outside our own means
As if they have nothing to lose
And they don’t
They do not think of their parents
Or what they were taught
Except for facts
Warding off
Things that are unexplained
Strange
Scary
Secret societies
Dystopian
Cold
Every institution of man
Rejected
As man withdraws from convention
Stirring the drink
With a hint of every influence
Without burden of form
Changing course on a whim
Fully versed in possibility
Stopping along the way
Every corner
To explore
For days and days
Forgetting the mission
Except to learn
A being of discovery
Courageous failures
Skeptical of every word
Unless it is their own questions
Enduring shock
Smiles instead of fears
No sense of consciousness
The natural act of a man unafraid
Except his own existence
Because then he has to acknowledge yours
And though he loves you
He cannot just sit next to you
And watch flowers return to their rightful place
So you can grimly smile that what you always wanted
May only be counted in moments instead of days
That become years
Though each moment is what he wanted all along
Because time is nothing to consider
Except how much remains
Feb 15, 2015
Feb 15, 2015 at 12:01 AM UTC
concrete slams across my shoulder blades as you press your body against mine
an outside invasion;
oppression
my hands climb to my lips warding off the gin and wine of your
kiss
it poisons me as you reach to grab my flesh
I should’ve turned to coffee and water;
velvet nights of smooth moonlight and a bitter windchill
God whispered warnings of you
across my thighs, near your neck
gin and wine
it’s you and me, mixing liquor with jealousy
fabricated curls and a whitened smile
you stand towering over me
asserting deceitful dominance at every chance
yet darling,
I’m
Nov 10, 2014
Nov 10, 2014 at 8:45 PM UTC
got a lovely tatty on ya left leggy
got no motivation or inspiration
but that *** needs lotsa smackin'
or maybe mine does, red from your hands
bittercress amongst the flowers outdoors
warding dancing birdflit
of people friendly pudgy pigeons
man i hate the birds, the people
singing their arias, their liturgy
feeling like they know somebody
in the canon, me in the sheets listening
to their rumors, trying to break our secret
Apr 7, 2018
Apr 7, 2018 at 1:53 AM UTC
Snuggled in the corner
of his crystal castle
warding off wind’s whip,
head pillowed on phonebook pages,
warmly wrapped in dreams.
Street light serves as lunar glow,
While courtyard is landscaped with
cigarette butts and a broken bottle.
He’s Prince of the Paupers.
King of this urban domain.
Apr 12, 2010
Apr 12, 2010 at 11:03 AM UTC
I spent lots of minutes and a deep cup of coffee
with your sister, warding off the rain
and realizing that it was easier to acknowledge
that you've become someone I never met,
who wouldn't call me babesio and give me an Anthurium for Valentines Day
because they were sold out of Cactus's,
I decided it was easier to call you a loser
and laugh at how everything isn't working out;
Life's not what it should have been
for you or us
and nodding along when your sister says
'you're better than him, he'll figure it out'
because it was much easier than acknowledging
that I still only want to wrap you up in a hug
spend all day doing nothing together
and talk about all the grand things we might do someday
I'm okay
Really, I'm fine
But you're not
And that hurts me more than you will ever know
Sep 21, 2013
Sep 21, 2013 at 9:56 PM UTC
this is the city
that my daddy built
inside of me
between my guts
where my heart should be.
what isn’t rusted
or burnt out
or tired
is barbed-wire and wary.
this is the city
that my daddy built
with his anger.
it’s set up high
on a hill of scissors and blood oranges
and blood oranges with scissors
inside of them,
red juice stains
in sticky pools and dirt.
this is the city that my daddy built
in our house.
in our home.
where the people are shadows,
speaking in whispers
tiptoeing behind closed doors
so as not to rouse the beast.
this is the city
that my daddy built
here we pay tithes in blood oranges
to humor his desires
warding off uncalled for bloodshed
like the time that I
finally stood up for myself
and he broke the kitchen table
with his fists.
it was an antique
that traveled with my great-grandmother
from Sweden,
now just another broken thing
in the landslide
of scissors
and blood oranges
and dirt.
this is the city
that my daddy built,
scarring my skeleton,
following me everywhere
like a spilled bottle of India ink
blacking out the finely drawn sun,
like past transgressions
follow the guilty,
like the golden touch of Midas,
turning everything into
a mountain of scissors and
blood oranges and dirt.
this is the city that
my daddy built,
making my concept of home
a depiction of ruins;
the vestiges of what
could have been
if we hadn’t lived
too close to his minefield,
before causing my mother
to take my sisters and leave
like a snowbird at the arrival of spring,
at last realizing that her spine
consisted of wings.
this is the city
that my daddy built.
this is the city that
scarred and weary,
shadows of skeletons of birds, we
will move on, leaving behind
brick by ***** brick
until it’s nothing but a memory
of a pile
of blood oranges
and scissors
and dirt.
Jul 26, 2010
Jul 26, 2010 at 10:58 AM UTC
Tonight my love is sleeping cold
Where none may see and none shall pass.
The daisies quicken in the mold,
And richer fares the meadow grass.
The warding cypress pleads the skies,
The mound goes level in the rain.
My love all cold and silent lies--
Pray God it will not rise again!
1.7k
To the tune of "Rinsing Silk Stream"
Let not the deep cup be filled
with rich, amber-colored wine;
My mind was eased of sorrow
even before I was drunk.
Distant bells have already echoed
in the evening breeze.
My dream is broken
as the scent of incense vanishes.
Too small, the hairpin of the gold
of warding-off-cold
loosens its hold of my tresses.
I awake to find myself blankly facing
the red flickering glow
of the candle.
1.5k
From my Dark Watcher Series;
A heart carries a shield, which to hold at bay,
the demons of the night, that want to play.
Warding off the tears, that joins the game,
with feelings of hate, giving birth to shame.
Swords drawn, the duel begins once more,
sheathes of angry words, slamming doors.
Ruthless sparring that cuts to the soul,
their points dipped in poison, take their toll.
Lethal cuts, rivers of tears that run red,
through gouged cliffs of unknown dread.
Spiteful jousting of controlling speeds,
that ****** deep, to finish the fateful deed.
Kathleen Kohl/Levinski
Dec 14, 2013
Dec 14, 2013 at 11:42 AM UTC
🎃 ALL HALLOWS EVE 🎃:
🎃 HALLOWEEN!!! 🎃
The glow of the
jack-o-lantern
glow is so bright,
warding off evil
spirits, on
all hallows eve night.
On this creepy, and
spooky Halloween,
Ghost, and Gobblins
are found and seen,
Werewolves, Witches and
Vampires
are everywhere,
Creatures are on the prow
without a care.
Looking and Searching
for people in sight,
On a spooky and frightful
ALL HALLOWS EVE NIGHT!!!
B.R.
Date: 10/5/2024
Oct 5, 2024
Oct 5, 2024 at 5:38 PM UTC
a pink spit shine in your suprasternal notch,
split lip stamping your skin with red,
lipstick kissmarks or ****** scabs. this is how it goes,
this is how you learn to spell your name,
letters to fill your mouth. rituals leave stains on your sheets.
you washed them in the river and the fish all rose to meet you, belly-up.
you eating porcelain, ignoring your bleeding gums, stronger than a doll. id rather be scared than lonely you said
as if they were mutually exclusive,
as if it was a choice. pressing your fingers in the saviors wounds cause you dont believe in holy
but you believe in gore. scales like stars littered in the grass.
you in the streets screaming HIT ME at indifferent cars,
begging dead wolves to eat you too, one last meal, one last **** before you go,
one more sin cant **** you too much, right? right?
death like a bloodletting, draining a wound.
at the riverside you sort the viscera from the flesh,
leave the eyes for birds. fill your hollows with something warm,
something liquid and soft,
for a moment you feel whole - until it leaks in rivulets,
soaking your skin, you felt whole.
*bring me the head of god,
big enough to build a home inside, bring me the heart of god,
big enough to feed a kingdom.*
your head is full of meat, raw and red, juices dripping from the ears,
your head is so, so, full, so full, bring me the liver of god,
clogged with human sin, bring me a poison that could **** the stars.
he brought them down, dragged them from the sky to bless the world, bright like angels,
purity burns. bleach in your fresh-pierced hands. you were warding off lockjaw,
killing the flesh.my limbs are not mine,
corpse parts,
scars as seams at the joining-place. you say my hands hurt,
you say i feel like my knuckles are splitting, you say can we stop?
you do this every time. keep digging. i feel deathly. i feel deadly.
your feet in soft dirt as the shovel hits wood. i know what you know. i know what you know. i know your name and i know the soft spots on your skull. i know the breakline on your rib, the place where it's almost healed. knowledge of your ****** parts,
the soft parts where the teeth go in. im ready to die,
im waiting to die, put your tongue in my mouth and ill bite it off. put your hand in mine and ill break your wrist.
Jun 5, 2015
Jun 5, 2015 at 3:32 PM UTC
She twists and turns under sheets and covers.
Sleep evades her as fire burns her cold skin.
Darkness shrouds like tapestries of terror
Warding off consoling light –
“Let me in… let me in.”
Boards creak and nails scratch the walls
Inching its way towards its fidgeting prey.
A monstrosity stands before her eying the
Trembling body –
“Let me play…let me play.”
It leans forward to her ear and whispers,
“I know what you’ve done, what a shame,”
Its serpentine tongue licks her cheek.
“I thought you were better, free from blame.
But you’re like the rest, foul and unclean,
A lump of mass and unfit to live.
Unworthy of redemption, so obscene –
Let me give… let me give.”
Sobs erupt from her quivering lips and gasps
For air from the weight of her filthy sin.
It caressed her hair with its skeletal, scaly
Hands, and kindly asked to
“Let me win… let me win.”
But a streak of light from the rising morning
Sun sent Guilt back into the dark.
A new day, a new beginning, an
Opportunity for a fresh start.
But from the depths of what has been,
There it waits for you to
Let it in… let it in
Jul 1, 2016
Jul 1, 2016 at 10:35 AM UTC
Warm rain drops beating the pattern of my heart's pulse on the shutters of this old barn house while far away a lone wolf cries, unanswered.
Wind kissed tears from hollow sad eyes form wet trails over dried out wrinkles, whistling through the caverns of past glories on this war torn face, bringing colour and life with the desert rose.
Softly playing violins couple with the lone broken voice of a fallen angel, singing of maladies forgotten, joys yet birthed and a promise, a promise that you fulfill with each breath.
Morning bird song chirping of fresh hope and new love, a sweet tune warding off possible predators even while in search of prey.
Rumbling thunder, the roaring approval of gods reverberating within my bones, my soul, even as the hairs on my arm stand on end at the sound of the fickle lords' voices.
The silence of night captures my imagination, from it's seemingly emptiness rises fables of faery love and poems of ***** desires, all falling short of your brilliant black opal beauty.
Jun 2, 2014
Jun 2, 2014 at 1:19 PM UTC
I helped Jesus down off the cross
And apologized for his terrible loss.
All through the night we traveled at length,
And slept through the day to regain our strength.
Nights came and went, the stars at our backs,
Warding off evil and constant attacks.
Canvased the sky with our own selfish rain,
Filled in the holes to make sure we were sane.
Shed our skin, with no way to know,
Where it would end or how it would go.
I trusted him, and he trusted me,
I helped him hear, and he helped me see.
Reason and fear, pleasure and pain,
That which must go, and which could remain.
Darkness and time, purpose and need,
The life that flows through this blood that we bleed.
Somehow the masses had gotten it so wrong,
But we took it well, and we played along.
Once they had finally seen what we’d seen,
They carved out their eyes and washed themselves clean.
Then they hung Jesus back on the cross,
And wept without eyes for their terrible loss.
Safe from reason, no need to fear,
Pleasure and pain were no longer near.
Now came their purpose, they’d fulfilled their need.
Of course they asked Jesus, and Jesus agreed.
He’d hang around, they’d carve out his eyes,
Covered in blood is a clever disguise.
And what about the masses as they sleep through the lies?
Together, never lonely, ascend into the skies.
Jan 26, 2013
Jan 26, 2013 at 2:19 PM UTC
It's
fascinating how
at night, the moment my eyes
filter out reality, my blanket transforms
into a shield,
warding off all the spears that life hurls
towards me, only to shatter like
glass in the light of
tomorrow.
Nov 24, 2014
Nov 24, 2014 at 10:19 AM UTC
A baby is born.
Hope handed over,
wrapped in blankets
and swaddled in light.
The baby grows
in warmth and love.
The years go by in flashes
of increasing darkness.
Seventeen years later,
the same child
crushes her knees
to her chest, warding
off the panic
in her blood
and the depression
in her head.
Abused. Assaulted.
Life crashed down.
Disease. Death.
Too much.
The parents stare
in shock.
Where is the hope?
The light?
The joy?
Their arms crave
to hold the bundle of hope
swaddled in light.
Their eyes yearn
to hear the warmth
of laughter bubbling
from lips too silent.
Shadow shrouds
the child,
with her knees crushed
to her chest.
Battle scars much too deep
and past much too dark.
Jan 31, 2016
Jan 31, 2016 at 6:48 PM UTC
My heart is but a wary fortress
Warding off any ounce of deception
Yet allowing complete devotion,
Succumbing to a lost revolution
Yet defending against any form of desertion,
Searching for sincere redemption
Yet invoking shrouded decryption,
Craving such an elegant disruption
Yet containing any sudden eruption,
Maneuvering through endless manipulation
Scanning for one perfect creation
That will bring about final completion,
My heart is but a perception
To an ultimately intimate emotion.
Feb 28, 2011
Feb 28, 2011 at 9:27 PM UTC
“Do you know?”
“How will…”
“If the pain in my heart effloresces into something greater than this, what shall I become?”
“Never in my life have I gazed upon a countenance as beauteous as the one in your possession.”
“A parcel of pure magnetism is what the Lord of the Divine has bestowed upon me.”
“The stars in their dainty iridescence have blessed us and the thoughts of your love in my heart light up the darkest night in a big bang of enamorment and soul.”
“Time has not forgotten my wish, to be intertwined with the soul of another.”
“Do you see me?”
“I see you?”
The moons benevolent smile has given me the hope to search for a scarred heart buried beneath the tumult of ebony skies.
Love is not cliché and redundant in a heart that has wished for it since the beginning, the genesis of the very Universe.
The Phoenix shall inspire a metamorphosis within the confines of my soul as time unleashes the benediction of my faithful rewards.
In that day, I shall gaze upon your face once more and no longer will a diseased juggernaut guard something which is slowly waning, slowly diminishing within my spirit and soul.
A lightning bolt shall crack the ground beneath us and as we fall farther and farther into the Earth, there shall be a treasure in store for us in the core of the terrene.
Love has become an emboldening and yet abstract concept to me, so many forms, so many ambiguous faces to go along with it.
“Who will it be this time?”
“I don’t understand you but I know deep down inside there is a shining star that shall bloom like a vivid sanguine rose and it’s warding thorns shall beckon a new dawn.”
They will combat the darkness inside of you like a deep wound.
-Tears shall overwhelm you but the change must come.-
By, Iridescently Efflorescent
Apr 26, 2012
Apr 26, 2012 at 9:27 PM UTC
I have fancied myself to be a china doll
Alone on a shelf,
And waiting for some caring hand
To open my eyes and clean my dress -
But this at best is merely fancy
And at worst passes into pain.
I was not made to sit lonely
With my brain. Nor am I patient.
To stall with no hope of restarting
Is an unbearable weight, and waiting
With such vague notions of the someday-to-be
Is a foolish self-inflicted fate.
Oh patience, you unremarkable trait.
You have no care when even-handed Fate
Valiantly bestows opportunity.
You sit unmoving and insensate,
And merely wait and wait and wait
For Time's inexorable pendulum to swing
And the boredom of an afternoon to bring
Some visitor's hands, and perhaps some care.
(Though not too much, a doll's only a plaything.)
So no, I am no china doll rejecting -
Stupidly - the passing glances
Of strangers given to wild dances
And children given to clumsy hands,
No, I am no longer a fragile waiting dream
Hoping to visit some loving mind
And fulfill myself in a single eve,
Only to trickle the rest of my nights
As a empty-laughing lifeless little stream.
Enough of this!
I move, I leap, I sit no more.
What lay on the mantle lay now on the floor.
(And perchance the fall has cracked my face
Warding away some unforeseen gentle embrace
But) I shall find my own way into some arms,
Into some wild dance.
My partner will see these cracks and be
Far less afraid to drop me, throw me,
Lift me high and let me fall,
(So I may see the world around me
And - electrified at the sight -
Thank myself for wanting more)
Than a china doll
(Could ever have hoped for.)
Apr 3, 2012
Apr 3, 2012 at 10:08 PM UTC
Baby, angel, I have begun
growing chamomile on the left side of my mattress:
you left it warm enough to grow something
as impossible as weeds. And I know
I am preferable to the sun
at least to you, but what about the moon? There is just
something about luna, the moon, lune.
Sometimes I want to talk to it the way I would
you: moon, oh my stars,
I did not believe in naturalism until I believed in you.
Baby, angel, we are only embers
of what we once were. I heat us up as tea
and grow herbs where you once would breathe.
Warding off bumblebees by
taking their stingers into my paw, the air can hurt us.
Jun 19, 2013
Jun 19, 2013 at 10:52 PM UTC
Holding up a mirror to tomorrow
I see me just standing there
I’m not afraid of catching your eye
You’re clearly well aware
Life’s always changing, mutating
The years exhale and die
Waiting below falling bodies
Why stay here? Why?
Sophisticated and calculating
The risk to reward’s too great
If you feel differently
It sadly is too late
We hardly touched tenderly
Warding off shame
You never took me seriously
But stole my spring rain
Grass, clouds and sun-baked sky
Pervade tenements of my mind
Doused with gasoline
My children’s children striking rocks
And it’s suddenly Winter again
Grass hidden, clouds dreary, sky gray
I’d starve before I let you dig me out
I’d let you freeze in your sleep
All bundled in a corner
Away from light and love and time
Forgotten in our stories
Surrounded by my mind
Jul 10, 2010
Jul 10, 2010 at 12:52 PM UTC