"winnowed" poems
178
I cautious, scanned my little life—
I winnowed what would fade
From what would last till Heads like mine
Should be a-dreaming laid.
I put the latter in a Barn—
The former, blew away.
I went one winter morning
And lo—my priceless Hay
Was not upon the “Scaffold”—
Was not upon the “Beam”—
And from a thriving Farmer—
A Cynic, I became.
Whether a Thief did it—
Whether it was the wind—
Whether Deity’s guiltless—
My business is, to find!
So I begin to ransack!
How is it Hearts, with Thee?
Art thou within the little Barn
Love provided Thee?
6k
We shall launch our shallop on waters blue from some dim primrose shore,
We shall sail with the magic of dusk behind and enchanted coasts before,
Over oceans that stretch to the sunset land where lost Atlantis lies,
And our pilot shall be the vesper star that shines in the amber skies.
The sirens will call to us again, all sweet and demon-fair,
And a pale mermaiden will beckon us, with mist on her night-black hair;
We shall see the flash of her ivory arms, her mocking and luring face,
And her guiling laughter will echo through the great, wind-winnowed space.
But we shall not linger for woven spell, or sea-nymph's sorceries,
It is ours to seek for the fount of youth, and the gold of Hesperides,
Till the harp of the waves in its rhythmic beat keeps time to our pulses' swing,
And the orient welkin is smit to flame with auroral crimsoning.
And at last, on some white and wondrous dawn, we shall reach the fairy isle
Where our hope and our dream are waiting us, and the to-morrows smile;
With song on our lips and faith in our hearts we sail on our ancient quest,
And each man shall find, at the end of the voyage, the thing he loves the best.
2.7k
Eftsoons, thee would fain depart and chasten thy chance
Meseems to be fond of thou beloved with fears:
Harken thy anacreontic jovial at once,
For whosoever conveys love shall drown on tears.
Thee may not ratify affections I bestowed;
Each morn may bring no reasons to behold the sun.
Yon enigmatic events has come and winnowed
Beseech, to cease the fires, afore thy love has gone.
Somehow, blossoms will wither, as rivers will dry
Mayhap, thy heart I own shall be shattered in twain,
Welkin rings, pearls cannot retrieve ev'ry goodby
Maimed and futile; whence, no one can withstand the pain.
If these velvet ropes would seize thine eyne twixt the thrill,
Utter prayers, for Heaven would burn me in hell.
Nov 2, 2011
Nov 2, 2011 at 5:12 AM UTC
Like labour-laden moonclouds faint to flee
From winds that sweep the winter-bitten wold,—
Like multiform circumfluence manifold
Of night’s flood-tide,—like terrors that agree
Of hoarse-tongued fire and inarticulate sea,—
Even such, within some glass dimmed by our breath,
Our hearts discern wild images of Death,
Shadows and shoals that edge eternity.
Howbeit athwart Death’s imminent shade doth soar
One Power, than flow of stream or flight of dove
Sweeter to glide around, to brood above.
Tell me, my heart;—what angel-greeted door
Or threshold of wing-winnowed threshing-floor
Hath guest fire-fledged as thine, whose lord is Love?
1.5k
During my teens I determined not to rely on some higher power
For what was Good or Bad.
And thus I entered Purgatory or Chaos
Or worse.
For years I struggled with
What is Good, of Value, Right?
But now I’m growing old I must Decide.
This much I know:
Every living thing is good.
Intelligent, sentient, compassionate beings are even better.
Be a “Lifist” and a Humanist too.
Cherry pick the best that Religion has to offer,
And discard the rest.
Some Christian Values are very good
When winnowed from the chaff of doctrine.
I’ll never like a wasp, I feel,
But I will always love all Life
And stand in awe
At Nature’s Force.
A Man of Peace
I truly am.
Embracing all my fellow men (and women!)
Loving my animals
My family
And my friends.
I’ll drink to that.
Paul Butters
Feb 1, 2016
Feb 1, 2016 at 5:45 AM UTC
Angels, who are my Gods; winnowed curves & a nucleus | [Local]
Always riveting [ ]; &
those who do not see the higher angels | [It] | |
human kidney damage leading to distress
& the cave's heat cries out of nothing;
& from him that hath loved him:
Sisyphus' mistake; [Passion
The acts; although in whose care he was given;
the doctor does not seek external things;
oath]; Telling of the ages of gold and silver;
Man is evil from childhood
thereof, and one kid of the goats, a male one,
whom his master, he has promised
unto me for ever unto the ages; this is the first,
What is the one thing
in her womb,
who has more, Me & all the walls;
The devices, which are separate
preceded him: Feed my lambs;
St. Thomas is the most avant-garde Angel,
who are my Gods;
w/ winnowed curves;
as a nucleus | [Local]
Always riveting [] and
those who do not see the higher angels; | [It] | |
human kidney damage; distress
and out of the cave of the field, and that,
heat from a nothing; and from him, who loved him,
Sysyphus is a mistake; [Passion
given the acts of his deeds; for the doctor;
EXTERNAL seeks a miracle
oath]; Tells the gold and silver;
Man is evil from childhood
his, and a young goat, which he acts,
I promised forever
ages; This is the first time
the rest of it is in the womb of its possessor,
scattered in the hedges: for all things;
In the foregoing St. Thomas feed;
my greatest concern is the avant-garde,
Angel, who are my Gods;
winnowed curves;
as a nucleus | [Local]
Always riveting [ ] &
those who do not see the higher angels; | [It]
| | | | || | | |
human kidney damage; distress
The cave and,
the heat out of nothing; from him that hath loved him:
Sysyphus errors; [Passion;
through whose care he was given; the doctor
It asks for foreign
oaths]; Tells the gold and silver;
Man is evil from childhood
his, and a kid of the goats, for one, whom his master,
I promised forever
ages; This is the first time
The other is a pregnant woman;
All the fences that separated
the foregoing, Feed St. Thomas;
the sum of the avant-garde
Sep 14, 2018
Sep 14, 2018 at 1:40 AM UTC
All potency for pain and pleasure binds,
Confined to freely ebb from causal shell;
Then, urged by current convalescing mind
My heart parts way with what decaying, fell.
What if the sapling's ardor fails to flower,
So choked from light by canopy of old?
From bitter yield, I've winnowed only sorrow;
Love's fruitless growth has left it bare and cold.
Quickening, each pattern passed holds lessen -
With way now cleared, I remain resolute:
Dreaming of trunk's branches' fruitful blossom,
I make the means for chance to sweetly root.
Though Nature bounding, I still wonder why
Life, bourne by grief, seems made to die.
Sep 11, 2011
Sep 11, 2011 at 7:13 PM UTC
peach fuzz caught on the curved back
of my little curled creature.
carved in clay
chirped from the dust
timid sculpture
weathered crisp
at the cusp of your
organics
drool dews the downy where dreams dip
and dare brews of white lullabies
into static
your wet balmy breath drags and plucks my
rhythmic drum
a beat so wild
my little angel one
winnowed away
from heaven
gasping mud
the soul
came from
Sep 14, 2012
Sep 14, 2012 at 5:02 PM UTC
A former lyric to celebrate some bode
A lyric to praise someone who is a goad
A lyric in praise of the West Wind - an abode
Of Autumn and frost; a lovely lyric that rowed
Many poets to the highest pinnacle mode –
Inspired me too, try my skills at a crossroad.
Poets write on ephemeral with you, O Anode!
They describe love, beauty, or music, borrowed
From Pindar or 1st century poet Horace lode.
But chose I You, Dear, stunning, serene, grim Ode.
Inspired so much that feelings and views outflowed
From my pen and compelled to pen down the load
On the paper; ideas from Wordsworth I borrowed.
A strict line or stanza is not required in ode
So free, so unrestricted, so honest to explode
Your emotions; anyone can try his carload
To stride his feelings to carve elation sowed
In heart to pen down his emotions bestowed.
Types are the Pindaric ode, the Horatian ode,
and the Irregular ode; third being most popular load.
I follow Monorhyme, and wrote an ode on an ode
To commemorate importance. Nor ignore nor strode,
Used my flair, elegance and ideas winnowed
With imagination; no notion borrowed.
The tone is serious, genuine, and reflective strode
Celebrate major events and moments load
Aeolic ode written with a calm, tranquil mode
And contemplative tone so that pacify abode
By William Wordsworth or John Keats showed
Expecting to see more elegant and serene ode.
Aug 18, 2023
Aug 18, 2023 at 6:20 AM UTC
The plane leaves
fall black and wet
on the lawn;
the cloud sheaves
in heaven’s fields set
droop and are drawn
in falling seeds of rain;
the seed of heaven
on my face
falling — I hear again
like echoes even
that softly pace
heaven’s muffled floor,
the winds that tread
out all the grain
of tears, the store
harvested
in the sheaves of pain
caught up aloft:
the sheaves of dead
men that are slain
now winnowed soft
on the floor of heaven;
manna invisible
of all the pain
here to us given;
finely divisible
falling as rain.
Dora Marsden and Harriet Shaw Weaver. 9/26/2016.
Sep 26, 2016
Sep 26, 2016 at 3:12 PM UTC
Now is the time your memory
has not yet settled,
is still in the air—just stirred, with mine,
the visions, entwining.
I’ve tossed you the football, the soft-colored one
made of frozen egg-white foam
and now you look so embarrassingly beautiful
trying to spiral back to me. Instead,
it’s your smile.
So now I know—later, I will write you,
saying I’ve never forgotten this way you look
held in this heat, caressed by this wind.
How the sea is roaring! How it seems
to have just found its voice, never more
heard in me than now.
And the waves, rolling like the tongue of a dog
coddling at its absolute happiest.
But what do I look like to you? Do I look like
my naked spirit, winnowed?
Because that’s what I am in front of you now.
Must only the ocean notice, and wait before
it, too, gets washed away?
Mar 27, 2012
Mar 27, 2012 at 5:31 PM UTC
through grayed streaks of white wet cumulus,
over unpretty rooftops of a metropolis,
study my windowed
winnowed airplane reflection,
imposed ‘pon a worldly-wowed perspective,
set task
before me to:
define
delist
analyze
in the very simplest terms:
the best of me,
~<>~
‘tis the littlest things,
the kindnesses,
the slight grazed touch of hand and lips,
the recognition of thanks
genuinely tendered,
well received,
in the ilk of all these alike
minutatie
in all these, and
the summation thereof,
these gestures,
their accumulation
so mini-sized,
so great-empowering,
that they go nearly
unnoticed,
but I notice
and it makes feel holy,
nearest to my tiny embers
of godliness that within my
container, my spark,
and nearer to thee,
and thine,
and our mutual
sparkling
nov 26 2024
@ 30,000 feet
AA #2039
Nov 27, 2024
Nov 27, 2024 at 8:16 AM UTC
All potency for pain and pleasure binds,
Confined to freely ebb from causal shell;
Then, urged by current convalescing mind
My heart parts way with what decaying, fell.
What if the sapling's ardor fails to flower,
So choked from light by canopy of old?
From bitter yield, I've winnowed only sorrow;
Love's fruitless growth has left me bare and cold.
Quickening, each pattern passed holds lessen,
With way now clear, I remain resolute:
Dreaming of trunk's branches' fruitful blossom
I make the means for chance to sweetly root.
Though Nature bounding, I still wonder why
Life, borne by grief, seems grown to die.
Jun 15, 2015
Jun 15, 2015 at 8:14 PM UTC
She,
caugh ***** but at rest, posing fully attentive,
in her favored chair, a Mies van der Rohe of a
leathery chocolate color, which admittedly is most
accepting of the human frame most welcomingly
but She, gazes relaxedly & rigid, unflinching fixed,
upon on of our Friday flower self-giftations,
an array of eye filling pink and white peonies,
that have mesmerized, entranced and made
her rigidly relaxed, peaceful whimsy on her face
the seasons of life are short, the season of peonies,
is an abbreviation in human terms, perhaps a dot,
a single month a year, in truth overshadowed by
their competition, overly popularized cherry blossoms,
but these 5 P’s, are in her brief of, most pleasuring
pink peony prized possession, remarked upon
with always trace sadness throughout a diminished,
perma~lacking, imbalanced, rest-of-the year, with
sighs emanating from where her essence resides
minutes pass, I too, pass by, dithering to/fro other rooms,
but She, transfixed, breathing quietly, she neither notices,
or acknowledges my temporal interruptions in her moment
of possession by the robust busting opening of the flowers,
an eclectic, electric charging of amentia, for she is
enwrapped and entranced
in an emotional place only that She,
this woman,
shares with no one else, a Universe tiny but all encompassing,
her eyes winnowed and windowed upon the extravagance of
the beauty that comes so briefly…
May 6, 2024
May 6, 2024 at 12:06 PM UTC
The poster read:
“Gone Missing”
The come-back-kid
has failed to show.
The Old Man saw him,
******* by the Rainbow Factory
wall, against the wind,
like a prayer no longer given
to the prism-surfing life.
He said,
“The come-back-kid, might
Not come back”..
He wrung his
swindled heathen, left
with haversack and Macintosh,
hummed ballad in a Sea-King crown,
the colloquy of shepherd lore.
head far too full to sing,
Caught riding
in a burnt out car of
rude December archetypes,
an engine feathered Westerling,
to think.
He went
to where they bury boats,
Where mud larks perk
for potsherd farthings,
red-shanked in the gallon slob
oblivious...
Far off the Ness
He’ll watch them go..
... on meteoric dawn patrols,
a contrast to his built-in
obsolescence.
In provinces
of platitude
He’ll form no evanescent tie,
invoke his tattooed waxwing
back against their lactic
saccharine, to beg
the notion die...
But leavened light may carry,
A bold ceramic dialect
that skitters off
the short-sun marsh
dissipates in linnet banter
winnowed from the winter barley
crossing out the county lines..
The come-back-kid
will not return,
a blue-eyed, fell, Promethean.
Disfigured by the absolute
He’ll beat his way
unrecognised.
Jun 24, 2019
Jun 24, 2019 at 12:30 PM UTC
_October 27th, 2018_
The leaves have fallen
from the trees,
the sky is grey, like
the ancient, monolithic
glacial boulders.
A soft, chill breeze
blows from the lake
and freezes my
breath in the air.
Summer is fading
into winter,
dying slowly like
a grandmother with
dementia. Mother Nature
no longer remembers
the joyous heat or
the tender leaves of before,
instead giving us
the frigid winds of change.
Like the seasons,
everything changes,
everything fades and dies.
Like the green forest
winnowed down to twigs
by the cruel North Wind.
And it is as grim
as the storm clouds
coalescing _ex nihilo_
against the horizon.
Dec 7, 2018
Dec 7, 2018 at 12:32 PM UTC
Flame of the pale candle
Still seeming
Yet raging core of an unseen vortex
Where the physics of burning
Drew in atoms of oxygen
Dust motes
And the reeling moth
With sooty wings
Who flew too close.
But, unlike Icarus
Gathered the wax
Not lost it
Winnowed the fire
Not left it untouched
And did not plunge
Into an extinguishing sea.
Feb 17, 2021
Feb 17, 2021 at 7:00 AM UTC
~~~
The Puzzle of My Tao
twenty three
years long,
the hands suggest,
the heart demands,
the chest heaves,
after a stumbled upon re-read,^
asking and answering,
more precisely
once asked,
now answered?
the most satisfying solution proffered,
a humble and most humbling,
more yes than no.
imagine a jig saw puzzle,
of infinite views,
depending on a perspective,
maddening and mysterious,
tortuous and terrifying,
wondrously wonderful,
this no,
that yes,
as time demands
movement, modifications and
self-awareness revisionism.
you try on women,
as they try you too.
this, not a trumping misogony apology,
for women
are
still and always
the only solution,
for me.
then one day,
marveling miraculous,
a second skin,
so thin you wear it
as art of your own,
and the painter,
and the poet,
find themselves,
contented best,
with but one
subjective perspective, contentedly repetitive,
a view for an ever,
a view forever changing.
the answer is subtle.
women woman.
one woman.
e becomes a,
the subdivided man,
an e,
cut at mid-curvature,
finds his perspective,
reveling in scene from a winnowed window,
never different, always different,
and the poet~painter,
arts the subtlety of
unceasingly upheavaled satisfaction renewed,
and in doing so,
transform himself,
from a cut up, halved
e,
merges to its almost but differing reciprocal, an
a,
so that
ea,
joined and fused as one,
marks his woman~completion,
and all is both,
singular sharing, and now
the every changing view
better understood thru the prism of an
o.
~~~
Mar. 25, 2016
NYC
Mar 27, 2016
Mar 27, 2016 at 7:26 AM UTC
She sat in dusty shadows
Of an open-curtain window
Her winnowed shapes
Worn smooth in graven-memory
Though I did not find her there
Only old pitted thoughtscapes
Places plastered, buckled and bowed
A cast cast bitterly and thoughtlessly
Aside to collect dust and gravity
To crack and fade in anonymity
What secrets trickled away while
I was not there to watch over her?
Studying the near-face of mother
Her peace is a feature sculpted by
Knotted fingers long ago and fired
To create a lasting image for us left
Behind...
Her secrets left from here
Apr 26, 2016
Apr 26, 2016 at 10:15 PM UTC
TLACAELEL
Great, gold-eyed Eagle, greet our messenger,
We offer his most precious fluid, Lord.
Bright Hummingbird, accept Thy rubied fruit.
In tawny plumes, Thou chaperonest the day.
[To worshipers] We are collaborators with the gods,
Performing our transcendent duty here.
For by this action lie the only means
To eternalize the circuits of the sun:
An aloe balm to all the sufferings
Of his interminable pilgrimage.
WORSHIPERS Blue Prince, may Thou incline Thy heart, that by Thy grace for yet a while may we see in dreams.
TLACAELEL
For we are God’s own chosen tribe, elect,
As kernels gleaned and winnowed from the chaff,
To side in cosmic struggle with the sun,
To side with goodness, vowed to ascertain
Its triumph over evil’s looming storm,
And to bestow to all humanity
The heavenwide profits of the victory
Of the resilient forces of the light
Over the gathering powers of the night.
Let us pray. Exit.
WORSHIPERS Huitzilopochtli, perform Thy office. Do Thy work. May I not reject Thee. May I not falter before Thee. May Thy heart desire whatsoever Thou mayest desire. This is all.
Trumpets, drum. All exit.
Oct 19, 2016
Oct 19, 2016 at 3:18 PM UTC
Don’t worry, I just love to reminisce
Time will come all of these will be erased
Like the season that always changes
My memories will be replaced
By better ones, I hope
By better ones, I pray
Like the paint that used to cover
The place we used to meet
Like the heart-rending sonata
now on its closing beat
Like the coffee on the table
Slowly diminishing its heat
These painful memories
One day will recede
Winnowed down by time
To small and smaller residues
These painful memories
Weathered down to humus
Where blossoms
The cosmos of change.
Oct 17, 2017
Oct 17, 2017 at 12:38 AM UTC
I have winnowed words from red earth
Birthed mad poetry in silence
Rumbled under sullen skies
Cast my cries to the birds of the air
The cadence of mind
Blind expectations
Venerations
The ache of angels and soliloquied
Mantras of savants and idol fools
I’ve plated my thoughts with bits of
Sugared glaze to coat the rendered
Offering dolloped in the sickened
Fawning
My voracious ego tasteless
Vinegar on the palette
The sweat of my brow spat out
In a shallow glass
The circumstance of banality
Nothing more than the dull ache
At the base of your spine
You dismiss me by degrees
Inconsistencies
Secrets grow fangs and
Spider themselves webbed
Close to the bone
Crunched underfoot
Weary words spin in the thin air
Senseless surrendered chattel
Trace my petty dreams in the dust
Of the space between
You and me and we
Will never grasp the significance
Of a blade of grass
Or the depthless black ocean
Where your terrors luminesce
On the cusp of a pirate moon
You breathe the algorithms
Temporal
And I have lost my taloned grip
On your poet soul
TL Boehm
04/2013
Feb 7, 2016
Feb 7, 2016 at 4:12 PM UTC
A whatifery quest. What if you cannot lose?
my life is the role you play, or
yours the role I play and we
each must win,
or winning is nothing and I am alone.
You know the feeling,
letting go of the held on to
to let be the held in,
imagine, me a friend, in a word, a mind
like yours,
good in all its wishes to
to make
to pay, to take, to give, to be, to see,
to think
I know you know by acting out, doing,
having being
in this bubble where we all may breathe
easy
no filters needed in my realm, we winnowed
well.
All that remains is seed, the chaff has gone
to dust and ashes
for good right use
in futures unimagined as yet.
Sep 16, 2020
Sep 16, 2020 at 3:34 PM UTC
April will be remembered
as truly the cruellest month.
Deep in careless slumber,
we woke up in dismay.
Centre Parcs no longer magical
Paris no longer romantic.
The Big Apple confounded
China’s Great Wall breached,
Mecca’s Kaballah pilgrims bereft.
We dig deep into politician’s lies
in hope of finding the truth.
Overnight the vulnerable elderly
are locked-in social-distance lepers
all acts of affection to them denied.
Winnowed they will be
our mature corn as chaff
while good and bad
find no partition.
Tobias
Apr 23, 2020
Apr 23, 2020 at 4:31 PM UTC
We shall be winnowed by so rough a wind
that all our corn shall seem as light as chaff
and good and bad find no partition.
William Shakespeare - Henry 1V Part 4.
Mar 27, 2020
Mar 27, 2020 at 3:25 PM UTC