"whorls" poems
Pink confused with white
flowers and flowers reversed
take and spill the shaded flame
darting it back
into the lamp’s horn
petals aslant darkened with mauve
red where in whorls
petal lays its glow upon petal
round flamegreen throats
petals radiant with transpiercing light
contending
above
the leaves
reaching up their modest green
from the pot’s rim
and there, wholly dark, the ***
gay with rough moss.
12.2k
Time frozen
Horns blaring
Heart thumping
Palms wetted
Words in whorls
Nebulous thinking
Thoughts in twirls
Spinning in circles
Gaze hypnotic
Moment surreal
Vision kaleidoscopic
Life chromatic
Living hallucinogenic
Gone tripping
Psychedelic eyes
In psychedelic mind
Once more
Loved again
© 2017 Jim Davis
Mar 23, 2017
Mar 23, 2017 at 9:21 AM UTC
Pink confused with white
flowers and flowers reversed
take and spill the shaded flame
darting it back
into the lamp’s horn
petals aslant darkened with mauve
red where in whorls
petal lays its glow upon petal
round flamegreen throats
petals radiant with transpiercing light
contending
above
the leaves
reaching up their modest green
from the pot’s rim
and there, wholly dark, the ***
gay with rough moss.
5.2k
A man is only half of what he is; always leaning towards the dim
Lacking a flouted need which whorls in the mute within him
A man bigots an ideal and will lark it away at the hold of his routed pith
A smile is not worthwhile if the smile does not have anything to receive or to give
A man is skyless; bound to his back with his dreams fixed on a rapture
He gorges upon tasteless feasts gasping for that sup he hungers to recapture
He does not know nor recall the times that did once befall
Of the lossless suffers and how they ever meant anything at all
He will become the most that he can ever endeavour
Be the creature he needs to be and whichever
Way it may engross him and how it moulds or claims him
It will be still him but leaning not so far in the dim
He would be a whole man who would give himself wholly
Who would be more and only more to her and her solely
His full heart would be tendered for it would not be his own
If it was still partial of the heart that had since budded and grown
A man would be raised and the sky would be without border
A bliss amid clouds where the undiscerning muddle finds order
There would be a sense to the road an approach to the wander
A reason for all a kiss a need to ponder no longer
There would be such rise in his depth and a contest behind bit teeth
To fight for the purposed kiss to hold her and keep her from grief
To offer her all embrace not too tense and not too slack
For her to breathe is to breathe; now half new he would never give it back
To be back upon his back with eyes busy to the sky
His bones broken as her feet glide indifferently by
Over his stare among cloud where she impelled his descent
He’d lay fallen and broken beaten and bent
If Half a man became whole does a whole man not become naught?
If he fights for a dearest never afore dreamt dream then what is left to be fought?
Was it his minds misgivings that would lead to such a trite giving reliving to doubt?
That surfaced more than he knew; the intended whisper instead a floundering shout?
Would it have been his heart that threw him from his felicity?
Could his relish overwhelm and mutate into potent toxicity?
Could it be fact that without thought nor without tact he impelled her?
Either overthought or over loved he would have fallen the hardest and he would not rise
No he would not rise anymore
If there ever was such a man and ever such a she
He would have her for as long as that may be
Her greatest gift is after saying all this to you
Is that after knowing all that you could you would feel the same way too.
Nov 7, 2012
Nov 7, 2012 at 3:21 PM UTC
Fingerprints are like relationships
they leave a trace.
Your fingerprints are all over me
The whorls of your prints are seared into my skin
Into my soul.
I submit each time you touch me
set aflame by your caress.
Spiral patterns of you criss cross my body,
Your body.
Sparks of need jump from your fingertips
arcing into me, possessing, caressing,
they leave me breathless and defenceless
to the onslaught that will leave me inevitably,
wrecked upon our bed, like a trapped ship on the shore.
May 7, 2014
May 7, 2014 at 7:07 PM UTC
All her hours were yellow sands,
Blown in foolish whorls and tassels;
Slipping warmly through her hands;
Patted into little castles.
Shiny day on shiny day
Tumbled in a rainbow clutter,
As she flipped them all away,
Sent them spinning down the gutter.
Leave for her a red young rose,
Go your way, and save your pity;
She is happy, for she knows
That her dust is very pretty.
2.9k
well then shepherd in the mess why does that sharpened cowl of wheat surround those sweet yams in the satchel, some scene of loosening transgressions, no pear ripening itself one dull, and one unfulfilling afternoon, rolls down over its branch of sister and brother father and mother Bartletts from the stem, only to make its way into the bottom of that stretched out tawny hide. Where by the wayside every other nobody can see straight inside when a hand moves in, sweeps its fist and then goes deeply down into that can of rotten novelties we all hate, but you feel keeps us in suspense. I wonder will it ever end? Bells busting from the insides of their guts, another candy shock, up and bounces, popcorn kernels, roasted almond slivers, and some preceding green vegetable posted on the 8th St. Diner marquee display on 9th, another advertisement fighting at the sore, devoured hunger for that silhouette following closely behind the moistened wells where my brush dabs lightly into the cup before the gouache and paint mixture begin to dry, that is where I wait and wonder why? Why? Pained with hunger but besmirched with fright, skin sweaty, knotted like muslin yards growing weak against the coil. So humbling were the groans that nearly a decade crossed swiftly across his face, only five or ten minutes had passed before another twenty years flowed into the vast matrix of the rivers of blue sweat marked by estuaries, creeks, and streams across the brow, down the cheeks, and ultimately across the neck, lazing down into the chest, before settling its heavy panic soaking in the guts. Where a heavy glass brick has been vitrifying in the sun, never have two people seen the steamy and piping-hot quarry go from its conviviality and festivity of life, into this shriveled up tree having found its way into the prairie where giant winds bend its branches and enormous thunderstorms nearly strangle it with its own roots. Frisked by sin and pangs of nostalgia in which a thousand thoughts intersplice the whorls imprinted upon our brains.
Dec 11, 2018
Dec 11, 2018 at 6:57 PM UTC
Lucifer, Lucifer
Black, rotting mind,
How can you live
With the lies that you wind?
Lucifer, Lucifer
You claim to destroy
But need God's permission
For what you deploy.
Black Lily of old,
Wrecker of worlds,
Mover of mountains,
Oil slick pearl,
The whorls on your forehead,
The horns on your head,
The eyes in your hands
As you dress your dead.
You desolate valleys
You eat up the land,
You grind a man's bones
To Sahara sand.
In my eye a beam
In your eye a mote,
The rampant *****
Of a rutting goat.
They grow in your belly
The flies that you spawn,
Maggots in multitudes
10 trillion strong.
Yes, out they spew
Through your spittle and teeth,
The lies propigated
From way underneith.
O, putrid rose,
Who has duplicate skill
To create "beauty"
To dazzle man's will.
But nothing you "make"
Is good on this earth,
No, nothing you "make"
Has any WORTH.
O, blighted star,
Constellation of hate,
Galaxy ghoul
Your strength is FINITE.
Who runs the show,
You aborted SOW?
When all's said and done
To whom will you BOW?
More sooner than late
Your end will come
In the pit ALONE.
With no one to ***
Who'll put you there,
Bound in your chains?
Why! GOD! Of course...
... for Jesus Christ REIGNS.
Soul Survivor
Catherine Jarvis
(C) February 2014
Mar 25, 2014
Mar 25, 2014 at 9:21 AM UTC
on this rumbling
stretch of tundra
no trees reach up
to soothe the sky
there is a pulling down
of wind tunnel vortex
like conifers in reverse
an icy howl
in the bonechill
of time
Translucent holes,
perfectly round, are dug
in glacial archeology
and in the sea below
gelid creatures lurk,
half-frozen
in the history of my
soul
Only moss and lichens
grow on the rock,
somehow softening the
rugged textures
of the wild landscapes
that seethe
just beneath my skin
and there, just
shy of the surface
is a quickening
a subtle pulse of veins
that pumps life
between the gales of
my heart's steppes
flushing out
the pain
somewhere
deep
within the private lotus
of my being
folioles unfurl
leafy shapes around
my organs
wrapping them like gifts
as they undulate in whorls
opening my petals
in renewed consciousness
and deliberation
as a new kind of
stamen
rises
dusty pollen
powdery
budding ripeness
bursting up
and out
of my deepest
centered
whirlpool pistil
nectar dripping
in viscous webs,
to be caught upon
the tongue of
a new dawning
My silky outer
wings of vegetation,
slender stalks of
filaments and anther
have been turned
into hot steel
They protect
the tender vulnerable
when burned
as poison words held up to my
watchful eyes,
are properly discerned
I give myself over
to this new power,
my back arched to fully embrace
what is to come,
a universe calling thunder,
the old patterns undone
I am ready
to reveal my all
as the goddess deep within
comes to release my gold
suffusing light through skin
conjured from me
a relentless strength,
ever-growing,
now tenfold
rising way past
soft-lit stratospheres
and orbiting
to
bold
Nov 5, 2017
Nov 5, 2017 at 6:05 PM UTC
Storm Canvas
A storm canvas can take you away
Thunderstorms and lightening
Tempest roaring high
Tumult of a tropic sky
Impatient as the phantom wind
Magenta jealousy
The earth summons
Wanting whorls
Invisible love potion
Dare to walk in its wake
Hands in the air
Clean crisp air
I become transparent
My passion dims
The cyclone whispers
Grizzly arms athwart the sky
I am no longer a slave to society
The breeze of heaven blows
Upon my soul
Aug 1, 2010
Aug 1, 2010 at 6:56 AM UTC
a nacreous tossing around at
the sides, a dappled silver
sunlight if looked one way, an
apocalyptic gloam if another,
exhaled from a seeming
mouth, feeding on what has
already eviscerated an unfelt
***** a predator certainly its
own prey, a heat certainly
poison-breath on a cheek
falling when a meretricious
lover spouts that spurious
hypocorism, and also just a
wavering, iridescent puddle—
cornered, soft as a liquid steel
echo of a futile struggle
rolling around, bouncing off
a wine glass, and a porcelain
table edge, while a listening
head shakes, looks down
despondently, gloom glowing
out the hair, a voice jaded
since birth saying some
thing about differences, or a
helpless slender strap of hope
hanging itself on the way two
other eyes look at it across
checkered watered wings, two
swirling god whorls, two
effulgent galaxies the color of
melting pine bole circling
around in living umber striae,
pulling its gaze, raising it, as if
they, they were blazing truth
cased behind lithophane, and it,
only an aporetic puddle now
of tepid ocher, a mild earth
stone placed in a hand, asked
what is thought of it and the
response: yes, yes of course,
before foreign distance splutters
its face, and it retreats from
its meaning imparted to every
thing (with the vulnerable
precision of a swaying finger
tip) to the baby lanugo of a
delicate floating, through
human rills, of what is horizon
docked, dead, not merely
deciduous—forever jilted with
breath bulging as when beating
a flopping eyeless fish to
half-dead, head tilted up a
throat trying to pry itself
free, trying to live by
streaming snagless, airful,
without spirant sound of going
lost straight from the hands—
then a short chop of fullness
finally expunged and sputtering
like an escaped tuft of
shackled wonder soaring up
the sky in a puff and soul ring.
Mar 27, 2012
Mar 27, 2012 at 7:43 PM UTC
The moon dangled hard through the city
and the moth-lamps hummed discord with the wetness.
The dripping stars like accidents in spilt milk,
waited for a mop.
Walking home I hallucinated men
coiled up with the smoke-stacks.
They pressed through the brickwork and
as shadows flickered in the street-light.
Though my torch cut them down like saplings
and the moon ripped off their heads like scarecrows,
each man was a sermon,
a vastness straining the borders of sight.
A tailored uselessness hung there arms,
waspish currents tore from their mouths.
Starlings turned on their cross-wind,
as messengers of some sleeveless silence.
The moonlight fell on them like whorls,
like hurricane petals, hostile
were the shopsigns, they moved backhandedly.
The gulls raged. The crows filled silence they left.
The shadows all danced to the back of my head.
And when I turned they were gone.
I'm plucking for life and a body.
That shrinks the world to their size.
Jan 3, 2017
Jan 3, 2017 at 10:56 AM UTC
Somewhere in the realms
between transcendence
and desire
where the power of change
always takes us higher
there walks a poetess,
who writes in spirit's muse
her words curling up and out,
wisps of smoke
in celestial hues
She walks slowly
through the heavens
bringing down
slices of enchanted spells
and we can feel the pull
of her grounding chants
right down to
our very cells
Her words reflect the workings
of a potently spiritual mind
connected to emotions
in a binding so divine,
into darkest ocean depths
she brings forth points of light
and wherever she steps
no matter where she goes
one feels her soul, so bright
as it lifts us up into the spheres
of music and words,
spiraling in whorls
where dust
and magic merge
and as she walks through green,
through mountains, rivers, forest
her essence often glows
in heat and coolness,
in rush of creative flow
And yes, while we feel
this journey, these seeds
being so beautifully sown
we can take those
words of wisdom
and apply them
as our own
Aug 23, 2016
Aug 23, 2016 at 1:48 AM UTC
You have imprinted
My heart
Like a fine tattoo
And the ink
has stained it
black and blue
like an intricate
henna
in swirls and whorls
a complicated design
in flowers and laurels
every move with
the brush
is fine
It enters
my skin
like a vine
goes into the bloodstream
straight
to my heart
and mixes up
the beats
tears them apart
I need to heal
And let it dry
But instead
I find that
The needle
Is too sweet
(though it makes me cry)
Yet I want more
Of this art
This sleek decoration
I want it all
In glorious, colorful
vibration
Tattoo me, my love
And make me yours
For you have colored
My soul
For forevermore
Oct 30, 2015
Oct 30, 2015 at 1:07 AM UTC
Lambent planet burning bright
In star-pocked shadows of the night
Gigantic storms doth wheel around
Tumescent whorls forever bound
Oh mighty planet Jupiter
(For 'tis how I look on thee)
Thy reddish eye is looking out
On all eternity
Oct 11, 2012
Oct 11, 2012 at 9:57 PM UTC
why and how should you know?
behind beneath in between the teeth
my fingerprint whorls and whirls
under other's names and
my secret identities
a word a phrase a hatchet a blade a
pruning knife,
a confession of confusion,
relieved by my cutting saves.
my stamp secreted my ***** implanted
my style unseen yet bidden,
my name hidden, my children born
but still is my heart,
like the parent that
has given up the child.
but you love my
screamed and un screamed, and my undoing of
the doing you not see me named
nature in paces and means
admit pleasure at my scrivinings
there but for the grace of whom
but to me
for am I but the
editor
o'er my bones that
*nobody knows
nobody sees,
nobody knows,
but me^
you tread,
crunching my invisibility
to smoke and smithereens,
the pimple on the poem
lifeless turned luscious,
yet, gnome gone the next day
Jan 5, 2014
Jan 5, 2014 at 11:25 PM UTC
abstinence and cruel practice
old dancers have no feet
living our beliefs
in this house of rabies
a house of lies
lies that tell the truth
taught through the agony of disillusionment
the planets move
we do their dance
fire points
angles in motion
when they square
we are constrained
when opposed
swords cross
when trine
we are graced
always the dance of the other
the world whorls
strikes like lightning
breaking the nose of every beautiful thing
forcing their delusions
twisting metaphors of history
they smear the world
you are its hands, heart, spine
darkness tears and sighs
whispering feet on dark floors
send you their dreams
and construct inner mythology
to bend your will
always on its own side
redundantly unanimous in that
a real villain
an odyssey through your heart
thats how it gets inside you
while your hands remain folded
and your genitals sleep on a plate
dance school arcade pinballs planets
twisting wraith flies flying in circles, circling
in black mother
like hands on a clock
conveyance of ardor
born in the
palace of tears
=
Nov 4, 2018
Nov 4, 2018 at 4:49 PM UTC
One-sidedly decided arrows,
vacillating ellipses;
equilaterally considered triangles,
biased Isosceles;
worlds, whorls, rectangled
squares, afflicted rhombuses;
A self-destructing nova.
The night opens up,
a book of wonders across the sky,
shining in the stars; broken moon;
Wading across ancient expanse.
Flashes of illumination:
lighted mountain bush,
cross rising on the eastern sky;
One look at the visage,
blooming out of this figure
wrapped creeper-like around faint
sight, flower emerging in silver light
out of the shadows: bubbles,
rolling, nonagular, collapsing;
Oh pointless ratiocination!
Nov 5, 2013
Nov 5, 2013 at 1:34 PM UTC
Use your fingerprints
decorate walls,
stain old world maps.
Whorls spiral into
comic book wallpaper,
vertical designs and heart lines.
Glass pillars fogged with secrets,
bits of chipped concrete,
2:34am security footage.
42 minutes of prepackaged snowstorms.
Lying corners of the mouth
whisper plans B through Z.
Rusty sleep theories,
half-truths
in runaway boats.
A static pulse
casually remembers menthol cigarettes,
apple cores and
eighties music.
Espresso roast washing
blue and white porcelain from 1683,
knotted pale navy dots.
Wisps of kites anchored in the sand,
anthropology in lighthouses
stretching for the aurora borealis.
Jan 14, 2013
Jan 14, 2013 at 11:37 PM UTC
*hard skin of life to penetrate
soften that piercing stare*
1.
seems a shot spiked with kindness does the trick
that’s how we button up the moon’s sides with silver thread
to keep its seams from splitting solemn sides
and spilling all its jolly secrets: whorls of fingerprints sinking steadily into luna-grooves
like a neat domino-stacked roll on a never-ending trip into black holes
not far from Ursa Major
2.
to grant a delightful hop up and throw seeking eyes over the orb’s gentle curve
take a little look-see
the tiniest peek into Tucanae
where tidal forces push small clouds
and outstrip the western winds
towards cunning straits
to subtly tie into bows
cut ribbons of fate
drink a dram of mercy from a well-behaved thimble
yet poems don’t pay no bills now
when words tinker with heart’s mettle
3.
wonder if sagacious rue repays in full
or satisfies the exceeding cost
of the hankering in a vessel
caught eddying in giant nacred jetsam
while casting minute gems before the moon’s eyes
it’s nigh impossible to hide behind the sun
4.
best be ready with prêt-a-porter life-pennies
and be
wise to always carry a pocket full of sorrys
*stitch 'em seams together now
it all comes together
nice and neat*
S T, Moonday, 15 July 2013
Jul 15, 2013
Jul 15, 2013 at 6:08 AM UTC
I like to call it blowing on the harp. Or wailing.
Like how helpless my mouth is
in the throes of translating wind, how I forget to
unfurl into the hot pleasures
of bath, pearling on around me,
that I had previously spent several dimes of
anticipation on,
even the mounds
of afternoon-special bubbles,
even the pleasure of seeing my own
flushed and perfect skin, mermaided
beneath this tideless sea.
When the urge to blow upon the slim silver box finds me
I almost don’t. Issues of noise and also
whatever it is when you think “I don’t
know how”. I am surprised to see such
reasonable concerns after all these years
of exacting unreasonable responses
from myself in those silvering and hightide
moments that you never see coming.
As if there were more to
the how of it than lips and hands
and steam and breath and the now weary bubbles
done tired of waiting
and laid down instead, across the water
in flat white whorls,
in a type of peculiar obedience, to the music above.
Jan 14, 2012
Jan 14, 2012 at 1:58 PM UTC
Far below,
Swathed in mist,
A memory forlorn
Rekindled the glow.
A face swept past
A fleeting laugh
A glimpse, amongst the vapours,
A smile between the fog.
The thumping sound
A crash, unseen
A fall, unheard
A chaos, inbetween.
The periwinkle sky,
The golden rays,
A painted dream,
Of desires, ablaze.
Swirls of colours,
Whorls of fate,
Entwined destinies
A wish to make?
A sudden knock
On doors long locked
An awaited answer
A question never asked?
The cherished memory.
A moment's life
An everlasting joy
Of a short lived dive.
Jul 20, 2011
Jul 20, 2011 at 10:11 AM UTC
Your body is not a language
But I know it by touch
I’d know you blind and deaf
The whorls of your fingerprints
Are as familiar to me as my own
Sometimes I don’t know
Which is which
I find myself getting our
Bodies confused and tangled
Forgetting where your skin ends
And my own begins
Even when we are apart.
Am I another person
Are you?
Would we really want to be
So separate that
Our skin becomes our own?
Aug 31, 2012
Aug 31, 2012 at 7:23 PM UTC
It is hard
to describe
how the rush of
the drench
of a furious
storm makes
my downpour
clench
wet desert wind
that sparks me
alive
sending currents
from the whorls of
my scalp
down through the
rings of my spine
It trips over
dermis
like kimono silk
thick as the cream
of lapped-up
milk
alighting my
senses in
rose quartz tints
igniting cells
to my surface
with earthed-up flint
The strike of rocks
echoes ancient
sounds
reverberating heat
throughout my scared
mound
And I let the rain
pour directly in
to my soul's
humble vessel,
cleansing me,
rinsed
from relentless
spirit-wrestle
free of stains
from self-doubt,
self-hate
to align my vision
with choice-infused fate
and I am the storm
that swirls through
the trees
I am the dream
whipped up thick
in the breeze
ready for surrender
as I pull the reigns
ready for the tender
conflagration
of the
sacred
blaze
Oct 28, 2016
Oct 28, 2016 at 4:39 PM UTC
1.
Sweet love
Oh, such sweet love.
2.
Stick into the pincushion of hope
Gentle pins of far-off dreams,
Holding wispy threads of desire
For which time (as a heading) is never enough.
Push down and drown all thought
Which beckon expectation -
And trust to want less.... or nothing;
Thus reduced, we get no fails.
3.
All up to the sky
We cry,
Agonising -
That waiting of footfall.
Then.....
Lovely flow.
Yes, let's dare to increase
Irregular patterns of abdicated pain.
To fulfill what is so held back.
4.
Because of you
Three days can last a lifetime
Full of affection and delicious warmth
Within the bearings of your arms.
5.
Dreams in the coffee whorls
Willing spindles now
Turn as they eddy...like happy tidings
All around my head.
Dreamscapes thrive
In dulcet whirls inside our core.
6.
No shipwrecks here,
No abandoning of esperance.
No deserting,
No dereliction of love.
No grief,
No castaways on hopeless coast.
These proffered crumbs on palm
Become sought-after......and precious gifts.
7.
Sweet love garnered over time
Poured slowly.....into sacred cup.
Where phantoms run to hide away
No abode for wicked despair.
Oh, for lovelorn hearts and broken dreams
To find such gladness in a cup
We hold hope, ever bold....so deep in heart
And sink away in woven bliss.
Capsule of infinity.....
8.
Come, let us drink
From our coffee-cup.....
Of love.
Oh, come......
9.
Time to kneel and give thanks
Place forgiving wafer on tongue.
Take none in haste
Accept only when ready.
To....
Drink sweetness of sky's nectar.
10.
Of pastures plain
And meadow green
Swift do echoes fall
As moments slip away....like clouds.
11.
Oh, and....
One sugar....
(No analogy needed, surely :)
Hot.....
(Nor here!)
And BLACK, please.
S T, 11 April 2013
Apr 11, 2013
Apr 11, 2013 at 3:44 PM UTC