"whisks" poems
we dance with spoons and spatulas
forks and whisks and tongs
we use then for their real purpose,
because we know what they're really for...
unnecessarily profane songs
that's why they're in our kitchen
that's why they're in our hands
right where they belong
Feb 11, 2010
Feb 11, 2010 at 5:35 PM UTC
Caressing my face,
Bubbles rush to greet me
Tickling like a sweet spring sigh.
This is only the first.
I am still half
A visitor. Stuck in suspension
Between this world and mine.
Slowly I pass
Through the threshold.
My air-sick ears adjust
To the sounds of the sea.
I stare down
At the small colony
On the sea floor,
My landing gear is down.
Customs arrives.
A grey, French Angelfish
Of the most industrious kind.
But he isn’t obtrusive.
As he flits in and out
Checking my bubbles
Ensuring I am not bringing
Any more air than I should.
No doubt he will stay near
Most of my stay
I have finally arrived,
The coral city stretches before me.
I catch the current trolley
And it whisks me past
Rocky storefronts and coral motels.
Lobster shopkeeps
Rush out of dark
Stores and stand in the street
Giant claws raised
Toward me in supplication.
Beckoning me to come
And browse his wares
While a fish I don’t know
Is busy cleaning homes and stores.
They must’ve dropped out of the school
Which passes by
The pupils in matching uniforms
Of flashing silver and black.
Clown fish wave
To me from their Lawns
Of sea anemone
Before darting back inside.
Here is the kind of place
Where I could put down roots.
Live out an idyllic life
Living in a coral townhouse.
But for me to stay
Would be severely fatal.
I’m just a visitor
And my visa is about to expire.
I look back one more time
As my head breaks the surface.
The sun stings, I blink.
Jun 3, 2013
Jun 3, 2013 at 2:07 PM UTC
When I was younger, my mom always told me these fairytales
Even if she hadn't, I would've still known them
the basic plot of almost every fairytale is this
Miserable young girl, maybe already princess, maybe hidden princess
whatever
Prince charming comes and whisks her away to a better life
somehow he always finds the princess, as if he knew who it was all along
She was in distress, he saved her, happily ever after
but what happens if you wait too long for the prince and nothing ever gets solved. What if you're stuck right where you are, with nothing changing unless you change it yourself.
What if Prince Charming comes, see how messed up everything is and doesn't know how to fix it.
What if Prince is a *******
Then what?
Your left there ******* with the ******* "Prince Charming", who doesn't know all you've been through or how to even help besides taking you away to the big stupid castle. I'd rather take the time and effort to save myself than fight those odds. I'd rather get my crap together and do the rescuing myself thank you very much. Does that mean I won't end up with a happy ending? NO!
I refuse to believe that if I don't play little miss pathetic that I won't be happy! I refuse! That isn't how the world was made
that's why the world isn't a ******* fairytale
so I refuse to be saved.
If some ******* ******* prince thinks he can save me
he's in for a surprise.
I don't need to be saved.
Mar 3, 2015
Mar 3, 2015 at 9:49 AM UTC
(Chirstmas Day, 1917)THE FIVE O'CLOCK prairie sunset is a strong man going to sleep after a long day in a cornfield.
The red dust of a rusty crimson is fixed with two fingers of lavender. A hook of smoke, a woman's nose in charcoal and ... nothing.
The timberline turns in a cover of purple. A grain elevator humps a shoulder. One steel star whisks out a pointed fire. Moonlight comes on the stubble.
"Jesus in an Illinois barn early this morning, the baby Jesus ... in flannels ..."
2.5k
There is music at dawn in the song of the koyel
The tweeting, the chirping, the warbling,the cry
The medleys that float in the morning air
As birds sing a welcome to a rising sky
There is music in the span of feathered wings
The steady drone of the humming of a bee
As the sun revels on his throne at noon
While a brisk wind whisks leaves on willow trees
There is music in the silver drops of rain
A gentle drizzle or a thunder squall
Music in the flow of rivers and streams
And the sparkling cascade of a waterfall
There is music on slopes of lofty mountains
In echoes that reverberate of a water spring
In the soft rustling of a valley of flowers
Of blue irises and pink hyacinths
There is music in seas and oceans blue
Waves overreaching to meet the shore
Rippling in sounds of frothy ecstasy
Whispers of pearls and ocean floors
There is music at dusk when the day rests
The throaty croaks in a nocturnal sheer
As moths flutter drawn to light
'Tis music of life that I hear
Aug 7, 2016
Aug 7, 2016 at 9:50 AM UTC
How strangely coincidental,
it is, how nothing inspires you
with age,
that a shy, withered leaf parting sedentary waters,
is dewy-eyed dead yet unconsciously graceful;
such profanities of nature,
no longer expands your soul
like a burgeoning bubble which whisks you to write
carelessly-composed poetry over forgotten dinner plates....
it's a tragic symphony of desperate piano keys,
a blurring condition of blacks and whites,
age, and nothing but overused, age, is.
And so on lonely train journeys,
you craft a smattering of shorthand poems,
about how crackled, aged people on trains only have capacities
for whimsical jokes,
and nothing but dear,
dear whimsicality as life's
gilded philosophy,
when their bodies are no longer covered with
magic leaflets of hand-strung poetry,
for they are barren,
and if gods were gods of stanzaic hymns,
they'd open bloodless wombs of literary nymphs,
or so boldly believed,
the aged once-artist say.
Mar 18, 2015
Mar 18, 2015 at 9:25 AM UTC
freckles clung
like manic-pixie stardust,
spackled whispers
an unfolding fractal
of brimming dresser drawers
old pictures and mix cds,
we could only ever do
what teenagers were supposed to.
smushed crabapple handholds,
moxy and sadism hard-won,
no crash course in platonicness,
our stained glass eroded
into a beach
frozen in unsummer,
opiates dull senses,
a synesthetic void
exchanging echoes of echoes,
a cacophony of empty
distilling as it leaves
in whisks of 2 a.m.s,
honey-laced whiskey,
if the sky murmurs one
last love poem, it isn't
to us but our
moment of infinity,
of blind faith
irredeemably lost,
that forever of apex
where the line between
falling and flying
blurs.
Jun 29, 2013
Jun 29, 2013 at 11:00 PM UTC
I see the golden whisks that stretch up into a turquoise sky
reverently the abode of the flying kite that twirls
upon the rafters of the heavens cathedral
drifting upon the open planes where the wind takes hold, rushes
drifting the soft plumes to the breeze and scented air
In a triumphant flight of dreams and hope.
The is a peaceful tranquility that invades the minds
silences it to the spectacle of sheer grace and bliss
that for hours upon hours my eyes partake of this exquisite dance
of life upon the flapping wing, air upon a pounding heart
The soul glides up there, dives and drifts upon every wish
Upon every far flung vision that draws a heart to want.
Sweet these images that so often go unseen,
we tread a delicate balance to the sweet song of life
Hold it upon our breath to whisper its majesty, its perfection
blind to the real depth of what there is, how we walk so coldly
upon a dark world where our horizons torch the scene
and wears the shudder of unconcern.
Alisdaire O'Caoimph
Apr 2, 2011
Apr 2, 2011 at 6:46 AM 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
You remind me of the changing leaves in November.
The shine and glitter on the snow mid December.
The soft pound and beat of buckets of rain,
becoming prepared for the blooming in May.
Every single day has not always been a moment to cherish, but without you by my side I would certainly perish.
You’re the shining warm sun on my face in July, and the clear blue ocean which continuously whisks by.
Most days I easily take this for granted,
yet others it’s as if my soul simply demands it.
An intensity that can last a lifetime my feelings for you evolve past one night-shine.
There’s a sharpness in the clouds as the sky turns grey, you’re the moon in dark hours when I go astray.
The malleable Earth to its rigid core,
I find you all around me, within the depths out of reach.
Forever more.
Feb 23, 2019
Feb 23, 2019 at 1:27 PM UTC
Grief of a love lost, has no timeline sometimes its just you with yourself fighting to find solace between the raging momentary whisks of anger and pointless sedition of your soul that irks to find the once long lost peace, You wish it has an end and rebel against the never ending !
Dec 14, 2021
Dec 14, 2021 at 11:44 AM UTC
(Haikus)
pale sky weeps stead'ly,
frozen tears soundlessly fall
white blanket...rises...
lone red-winged blackbird,
flies through dropping snow...eyes roam
.............towards kitchen eave...
blackbird finds shelter
whisks snowflakes off its body,
roosts..........and folds its wings...
a lone soul watches
smiles...as blackbird settles in
hot brew warms the soul...
(Dec. 17, 2016)
Sally
Copyright December 17, 2016
Rosalia Rosario A. Bayan
Jan 7, 2017
Jan 7, 2017 at 3:22 PM UTC
Huff, puff, smooth bravado,
This instrument that I play,
Whisks me away into smokey,
Desolate lounges,
Filled with women in black and red dresses,
Who would otherwise look away,
If not for my silky, suave vibrato.
Ooh, how I can carry a tune,
My fingers dance on the keys,
Like raindrops on a windowsill,
The neon lights at the door,
Buzzing outside in the cold.
The only thing warming up,
This cold little soul,
Is a finger of rye,
Adjacent to the ashtray,
That holds my neglected cigarette.
She watches, She listens,
My face turns purple,
As I pour my heart out on stage,
Out in the open in this vacant place,
With only the few of us around.
Nov 7, 2023
Nov 7, 2023 at 9:54 PM UTC
Death....
Death walks
on two feet
Saunters up
to you and me
Death,
Death comes
In night and day
In sun and rain
In joy and pain
Death comes for us on our day
In our way
Death....
Whisks you away
Takes you away from the pain
Death....
Whisks you away
Whispers are all that remain
Death comes in every shape
Death comes in any form
Silent as a shadow
And violent as a storm
Death...
Death crawls
on all fours
Has no mercy
for kings or ******
Death,
Death comes
For rich and poor
For saintly and sinful
Despised and adored
Death comes to all things in time
Just wait in line
Death....
Whisks you away
Takes you away from the pain
Death....
Whisks you away
Whispers are all that remain
Death comes in every shape
Death comes in any form
Silent as a shadow
And violent as a storm
Death...
Slithers
Into our hearts
And through our veins
Into our art
Death lives
Inside our souls
In all of life
It waits and grows
Death comes each and every day
Hides until it's time to play
again....
Apr 13, 2015
Apr 13, 2015 at 6:32 PM UTC
The big teetotum twirls,
And epochs wax and wane
As chance subsides or swirls;
But of the loss and gain
The sum is always plain.
Read on the mighty pall,
The **** of funeral
That covers praise and blame,
The -isms and the -anities,
Magnificence and shame:--
"O Vanity of Vanities!"
The Fates are subtle girls!
They give us chaff for grain.
And Time, the Thunderer, hurls,
Like bolted death, disdain
At all that heart and brain
Conceive, or great or small,
Upon this earthly ball.
Would you be knight and dame?
Or woo the sweet humanities?
Or illustrate a name?
O Vanity of Vanities!
We sound the sea for pearls,
Or drown them in a drain;
We flute it with the merles,
Or tug and sweat and strain;
We grovel, or we reign;
We saunter, or we brawl;
We search the stars for Fame,
Or sink her subterranities;
The legend's still the same:--
"O Vanity of Vanities!"
Here at the wine one birls,
There some one clanks a chain.
The flag that this man furls
That man to float is fain.
Pleasure gives place to pain:
These in the kennel crawl,
While others take the wall.
She has a glorious aim,
He lives for the inanities.
What come of every claim?
O Vanity of Vanities!
Alike are clods and earls.
For sot, and seer, and swain,
For emperors and for churls,
For antidote and bane,
There is but one refrain:
But one for king and thrall,
For David and for Saul,
For fleet of foot and lame,
For pieties and profanities,
The picture and the frame:--
"O Vanity of Vanities!"
Life is a smoke that curls--
Curls in a flickering skein,
That winds and whisks and whirls,
A figment thin and vain,
Into the vast Inane.
One end for hut and hall!
One end for cell and stall!
Burned in one common flame
Are wisdoms and insanities.
For this alone we came:--
"O Vanity of Vanities!"
Envoy
Prince, pride must have a fall.
What is the worth of all
Your state's supreme urbanities?
Bad at the best's the game.
Well might the Sage exclaim:--
"O Vanity of Vanities!"
1.6k
The big teetotum twirls,
And epochs wax and wane
As chance subsides or swirls;
But of the loss and gain
The sum is always plain.
Read on the mighty pall,
The **** of funeral
That covers praise and blame,
The--isms and the--anities,
Magnificence and shame:--
'O Vanity of Vanities!'
The Fates are subtile girls!
They give us chaff for grain.
And Time, the Thunderer, hurls,
Like bolted death, disdain
At all that heart and brain
Conceive, or great or small,
Upon this earthly ball.
Would you be knight and dame?
Or woo the sweet humanities?
Or illustrate a name?
O Vanity of Vanities!
We sound the sea for pearls,
Or drown them in a drain;
We flute it with the merles,
Or tug and sweat and strain;
We grovel, or we reign;
We saunter, or we brawl;
We answer, or we call;
We search the stars for Fame,
Or sink her subterranities;
The legend's still the same:--
'O Vanity of Vanities!'
Here at the wine one birls,
There some one clanks a chain.
The flag that this man furls
That man to float is fain.
Pleasure gives place to pain:
These in the kennel crawl,
While others take the wall.
She has a glorious aim,
He lives for the inanities.
What comes of every claim?
O Vanity of Vanities!
Alike are clods and earls.
For sot, and seer, and swain,
For emperors and for churls,
For antidote and bane,
There is but one refrain:
But one for king and thrall,
For David and for Saul,
For fleet of foot and lame,
For pieties and profanities,
The picture and the frame:--
'O Vanity of Vanities!'
Life is a smoke that curls--
Curls in a flickering skein,
That winds and whisks and whirls
A figment thin and vain,
Into the vast Inane.
One end for hut and hall!
One end for cell and stall!
Burned in one common flame
Are wisdoms and insanities.
For this alone we came:--
'O Vanity of Vanities!'
Envoy
Prince, pride must have a fall.
What is the worth of all
Your state's supreme urbanities?
Bad at the best's the game.
Well might the Sage exclaim:--
'O Vanity of Vanities!'
1.6k
(a tribute to young courage;
observations of a father)
~
cutting sharply through the water,
her bow approaches the surf;
the zone where ocean's bottom,
rises quickly from the depths;
where pounding waves,
meet churning sands,
blending pebbles, shells, and
grass into a darkened mud.
standing, squatting, silent,
behind her heavy wings of steel;
young boys, not yet men,
await a sign, whether
from heaven or command;
their lips muttering to no one
but the howling wind.
a brisk sea breeze whisks,
away the cigarette smoke,
that rises from their huddled
masses, scatt'ring heavenward,
with their whispered prayers,
for courage, safety, strength.
then the momentary lull,
all of heaven holds their breath
like a bird she slows,
still rocking in the surf,
a hundred feet from shore,
like a calm before the storm,
as her wings that held them tight
now lower to form the bridge
that to the fiery fury now awaits...
and then,
the surf is filled with boys,
alighting from her wings of safety,
those not ground to blood and bone
by knives of steel that ply the air
and waves, aging, with each
passing second of survival,
by the time their soles find sand,
becoming, at the shoreline men;
leaving behind, their mates-
in-arms, who aged far too young.
from boys to watery grave.
now young men, running,
searching on an open shore
seeking shelter, any means of cover
fron the steel that falls like rain
'neath hidden nests, birds of prey
as far below his courage grows
with every dancing inland step
this rite of passage that
no one's son should
ever need to walk, again.
Jun 7, 2024
Jun 7, 2024 at 11:55 PM UTC
When the breeze whisks decaying
Leaves across the chlorophyll
Starved carpet of the baseball field,
It's clear that life renews
As does the human spirit
Play Ball!!!!
Apr 24, 2013
Apr 24, 2013 at 12:34 PM UTC
I woke up to a sky of grey
a hiding sun, a rainy day
clouds of hail - stormy what nots
rotund, dang and heavy drops
I said to them, be my poem.
Then the clouds of storm cleared
the golden orb appeared
a rainbow spilled color on the grass
the blossoms sang sweetly - unasked
I said to them, be my poem
To the poor man on the street
and the rag picker with bare feet
the cobbler and the fruit seller
the palmist and the fortune teller
I said to them, be my poem
To a new born and then flesh on a pyre
the wind that whisks ashes of fire
to the fragrance of spring and the frost of cold
the stench of garbage and the scent of rose
I said to them, be my poem
I turned to love, anger and defeat
laughed with humour and cried with grief
traced the many fleeting expressions on a face
fluid movements and those without grace
I said to them, stay and be my poem
Then I paused, I looked within -inside
into my heart and in my mind
so I could meet myself and know
see and hear, feel and grow
So that one day, I too may become a poem
Oct 25, 2016
Oct 25, 2016 at 9:47 AM UTC
He gave me the look of "really, "really,
Scuffing his paws as if covering filth.
"What's a matter snoopy?
Then looking at me, raised an eyebrow
"Didn't know they could do that?
I went to rest my head and in a puddle it
Did land soaked fermenting upon my head.
"He was their licking his fangs,
I threw a slipper bouncing off the wall
Ricocheting and face planting me instead.
I changed my pillow cleaned my hair, and
Slumbering I once again rested my head.
"Scratch, scratch, scratch,
Morning awoke as I heard noises grating
Downstairs? I got a bat and in my white fronts
Edged down to find My EP player on.
"Hello anyone there, I know karate? "what,
A new word for scratching was born, whisks of
Clawed plastic on the floor. My best record now
Worthless recycle. And there he stood on the fire
Place his claws tapping in rhythm is what I saw.
From that day on I never gave him the cheap food
A lesson learnt, I thought I was the boss and he
Was just a pet. But a lesson learnt never *** off
Your feline friend there smarter than that.
Feb 20, 2016
Feb 20, 2016 at 3:44 AM UTC
Some wishes go astray
At the end of even a perfect day
The Wishing Fairy simply
Whisks the wishes away...
But what if the wish
You wish for stayed
Would you wish
The wish away?
I wish I were
A wish upon
A penny
A star
A golden swan
And whatever you wished
I'd be the bond
I connect you to
The magic wand
And in your darkness
A spark I'd light
I wish I were
Your wish tonight...
Sep 12, 2016
Sep 12, 2016 at 9:05 AM UTC
I stretch, and stretch
up towards a place where my head is far
further above so
that I cannot hear the jet engine of your words.
I hear my bones creak
with the effort to get
away from the pollution
of your coal train ramming me.
I hear only my body
cracking like spring ice
as I rise, rise -
rise above your noise toxins
that settle like limp and sodden cardboard crowns
worn about your tortured head.
High above your hollow community
above your entitlement park,
above your tiny-
tinny voice.
I hear it. Your hateful sounds like poultry jibber
so far down in
atmospheres
below.
I laugh to hear your wordless squawl!
I stretch but now to bend
and see you
beneath my squishy toes.
Bend at the waist
to see who's nipping at my ankles
and I cry a tear of mirth.
A white rapid that
whisks your bitter apple groove
far away.
I stretch you gone.
I stretch you indifferent.
I grow myself pardoned, I grow my self free.
sahn
2/15/15
Feb 17, 2015
Feb 17, 2015 at 11:44 PM UTC
Frozen,
Crystal drops of dew.
Slowly sliding down the window,
Collecting into groups.
Whistling comes through the windows,
White fluffs covering the ground.
Inside with a blanket,
Keeping warm with the coffee that I found.
My thoughts spiral like the blizzard,
That whisks and roars outside my household.
Before landing on an analogy,
How even beautiful things can have a heart that's cold.
Nov 18, 2016
Nov 18, 2016 at 11:40 AM UTC