"winnowing" poems
All is NOT well in the grasslands.
The animals are fit to be tied.
The actions of the crafty wolves
Have left the rest of them horrified.
"How will we EVER be able
To keep democracy afloat,"
The antelope asked, "if the wolves
Don't allow us all to vote?
"In many sections of these grasslands,
Shameless wolves are doing their best
To hold voter registration
Hostage, keeping voters suppressed."
"They aim to control voter turnout,"
The deer added. "That's their hope.
Their sneaky ways to manipulate
Elections push the envelope!
“They stall and seek petty reasons
To take names off voting lists.
Fair and honest elections are
In jeopardy if this persists.”
"It's so close to election day,
Our courts are reluctant to raise objections,"
The buffalo said. "Some of the wolves
Are even running in the elections!
"Humph! They stole a Supreme Court justice.
Then they rammed another one through.
Now they're still suppressing voters.
What more damage will they do?"
"Winnowing down voter rolls!
Their strategies should be illegal!"
The fox chimed in. Looking around,
He asked, "Where is our dear friend Eagle?"
The absent eagle wanted no
Responsibility tied to her name.
She couldn't stop the out-of-control
Wolves, and hid her head in shame.
-by Bob B (10-19-18)
Oct 19, 2018
Oct 19, 2018 at 10:50 AM UTC
Melting Sarcoma
Cell Division
Warfare Conjugates a mission
And dares the fates to corrugate
Hurricanes of plated windows reflect as they shatter, their torment, drunken stupor invoked by habit.
They congregate as ashes, winnowing.
Feb 4, 2013
Feb 4, 2013 at 7:23 PM UTC
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the mossed cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimmed their clammy cell.
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reaped furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers;
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,---
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir, the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft,
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
2.4k
1
The irresponsive silence of the land,
The irresponsive sounding of the sea,
Speak both one message of one sense to me:--
Aloof, aloof, we stand aloof, so stand
Thou too aloof bound with the flawless band
Of inner solitude; we bind not thee;
But who from thy self-chain shall set thee free?
What heart shall touch thy heart? what hand thy hand?--
And I am sometimes proud and sometimes meek,
And sometimes I remember days of old
When fellowship seemed not so far to seek
And all the world and I seemed much less cold,
And at the rainbow's foot lay surely gold,
And hope felt strong and life itself not weak.
2
Thus am I mine own prison. Everything
Around me free and sunny and at ease:
Or if in shadow, in a shade of trees
Which the sun kisses, where the gay birds sing
And where all winds make various murmuring;
Where bees are found, with honey for the bees;
Where sounds are music, and where silences
Are music of an unlike fashioning.
Then gaze I at the merrymaking crew,
And smile a moment and a moment sigh
Thinking: Why can I not rejoice with you?
But soon I put the foolish fancy by:
I am not what I have nor what I do;
But what I was I am, I am even I.
3
Therefore myself is that one only thing
I hold to use or waste, to keep or give;
My sole possession every day I live,
And still mine own despite Time's winnowing.
Ever mine own, while moons and seasons bring
From crudeness ripeness mellow and sanative;
Ever mine own, till Death shall ply his sieve;
And still mine own, when saints break grave and sing.
And this myself as king unto my King
I give, to Him Who gave Himself for me;
Who gives Himself to me, and bids me sing
A sweet new song of His redeemed set free;
He bids me sing: O death, where is thy sting?
And sing: O grave, where is thy victory?
2k
I
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.
II
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.
III
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,--
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
1.9k
A poem is built with sounds
Liberally littered with alliteration
Rhyming reason
Aspiring assonance
Up metaphorical mountains.
Each letter plays its part.
A cast of cascading chords
Making mystical music
For the discerning ear.
Operatic musicals from the Muse:
A crescendo of noise
Or sometimes
Whispers in the winnowing wind.
I write because I must,
Because I need to
In answer to
The Call.
Paul Butters
Jun 18, 2015
Jun 18, 2015 at 4:13 AM UTC
Though in the public place arrives
A winnowing on wisdom’s wind
And threshers haste to finalize
The harvest of its sifting breath
Yet orphans cry and widows plead
Their plight before the sacred site
As seers peer upon the hearth
Of ages, garnering their end!
Apr 14, 2012
Apr 14, 2012 at 11:19 AM UTC
What other woman could be loved like you,
Or how of you should love possess his fill?
After the fulness of all rapture, still,—
As at the end of some deep avenue
A tender glamour of day,—there comes to view
Far in your eyes a yet more hungering thrill,—
Such fire as Love’s soul-winnowing hands distil
Even from his inmost arc of light and dew.
And as the traveller triumphs with the sun,
Glorying in heat’s mid-height, yet startide brings
Wonder new-born, and still fresh transport springs
From limpid lambent hours of day begun;—
Even so, through eyes and voice, your soul doth move
My soul with changeful light of infinite love.
1.7k
the lizards sit cautiously in the sun
as I sit across the lanai grinding placidly
for a word to embellish my journal
they blink and wait for bugs
I sit and write, write and sit
winnowing down the day
wasting time on poetry
oh but what a way
a ******* born in Paradise
sits winding down the day
grinding out more poetry
blinking life away
the lizards sit cautiously
warming in the sun
I sit and write in Paradise
and wait for night to come
I write and sit, sit and write
winding down the day
wasting time on poetry
oh but what a way
originally posted to my blog https://sublimeobscenities.wordpress.com on 4/26/2014
Feb 17, 2015
Feb 17, 2015 at 1:15 AM UTC
every year she cut the biggest and brightest
keeping them in a brown bagged pantry to dry out
reaching in to crumble them at season
winnowing the chaff to wind
like her mother and aunties before her
back home in their island paradise
a magical notion
jostling seeds in slow motion
looking like crests on the ocean
neither too high nor too low
broken petals fly free
as seeds fall back of their own gravity
the kids would come ‘round
as projects kids do
to watch and maybe try something new
she would pass them an old melamine plate
a small handful of crumblings to ply
tossing and scooching to catch them again
crimson reds and magentas
lemony yellows
monarch butterfly oranges
violet and lavender purples
crowning petals layered
resembling elizabethan collars
they caught the morning
protected by snail and slug repellent
people came from all around
to admire her oversized zinnias
occasionally picking one and running
garden’s variety of dine and dash
we gifted them to mourners
small packets of zinnia’s seed
extolling them as one of her favorites
soil, water and sunshine
all you need to sow and grow
and watch the memories bloom
Jan 27, 2016
Jan 27, 2016 at 3:57 AM UTC
Why doesn’t that bed,
Have a patient.
Why pay for nature,
When it wants us dead.
Smell the fresh air,
Enjoy the colours.
Those evolved scents,
Placate places we do not feel.
Build over it,
Put another clinic in.
Where will we go,
To remember ourselves though.
Does not matter,
Clink followed clank.
Automation winnowing expertise,
Life is what we make it.
Aug 6, 2022
Aug 6, 2022 at 5:49 PM UTC
Universal unction
A beatific box
Friction in the function
A tutorial. A talk.
We winnowing the worship
We wiser for to seek
Here harrowing through
Hardship
We winkle out the "weak".
How holy is the hilltop
Which cannot help at all
How horrible the House of Pride
Which cannot help but FALL.
Please pray for persecution
Let them not stay their hand
GOD BLESS the repercussions!
The ground on which to stand.
I beg that I won't barter
Without nor yet within
I pray that I won't falter
I'll stand against the sin.
For the Church as it emerges
From underneath the waves
Surfeit in the surges
Gamboling in her grave
Wreaks havoc on true holiness
Divides doctrine "uncouth"
Gutting out the Bible
Laying waste the TRUTH!
The "Universal Union"
"All for one, and one for all"
"All roads lead to Rome"
How the mighty fall!
There are, in truth, just 2 roads
At the tolling of the bell.
The narrow to eternal life...
... *and the broad road straight to
HELL.*
SøułSurvivør
(C) 10/31/2017
Oct 31, 2017
Oct 31, 2017 at 5:16 AM UTC
~~~
Postface: This Thing Called Poetry
postface - a brief explanatory comment or note at the end of a book
or other piece of writing.
~~~
*more and more will come,
'tis the nature of,
'tis the burden of,
this compulsion,
this undeniable, irresistible,
emotional chain,
a synapse from
connecting ganglions of nerves,
what we call poetry
each poem
a winnowing,
a narrowing,
the landslide of a moment,
a perspective erected,
a momentary monument
intended and left out overnight
for perpetuity's sake
a finished poem is
a broken telescope,
stuck on a single view,
a broken kaleidoscope,
forever flash frozen
upon a
permanent fruited plain,
a still life salad
walk a few footfalls
to the sandy beach,
humbling,
this vastness,
this billionth universe of
trillions of grains,
each a microscopic starship,
each a poem uncovered, exposed,
weathered and worn,
living among friends
a few taps onto this tablet,
table scraps,
leavings of chalk marks
of poetry,
same,
grains,
metaphoric, meteoric,
a billionth
of something both
dead and living
yet,
still and always,
a simple postface
still required,
a must have,
a necessary
a 'the end' official
sign your name,
your truest signature,
emblem
not of ownership,
but of completion,
here I was done
here I wax spent
sign my work,
so I know this grain came from
my weathered and worn
work, still living
and will be so known,
long after this body's form
as week is but
a few grains of sand*
~~~
July 2, 2015
NML
Jul 13, 2015
Jul 13, 2015 at 4:19 PM UTC
Oh laughing maid of carefree days held in sunlight’s last embrace,
You’ve shed your hues of emerald green,
Dawned earthy tones and hide your face.
Behind a veil of falling leaves,
I no longer see sweet summer’s blush,
Gone is she that twined the flowers,
And brought forth the warbling hymn of the thrush.
The winnowing winds replace your song,
Scattering mortal leaves away,
As billowing clouds condense above,
You cannot keep the cold at bay.
Beneath your new bower of crisp pine,
You sit enthroned in gold and red,
Gone is the laughing child of the sun
A regal woman sits in her stead.
Yet do not mourn for what you were,
Stately autumn holds a new delight,
You hang ripe fruit upon the tree,
And paint the ground with ice at night.
And if perhaps you still while away,
Dreaming of the mirthful joy lost,
Know that the sweet girl of the light,
Will be borne again from winter’s frost.
Nov 26, 2011
Nov 26, 2011 at 2:04 AM UTC
WALK THROUGH
Awake at 4 AM in a dark and silent house
There are ghosts and wraiths afoot in other rooms
And chimera dance across the walls.
Time has worn it’s foot steps into paths that lead the way
From one space where the sun shines morning rainbows
Through leaded beveled diamond glass
To rooms with shadows in the silent corners of regret
That fail to yield to hopes and promises of light.
Walls newly shorn of photographs and art
Stand in mute recrimination of the crime
That robbed them of the proof that people prospered here.
People blessed with messy lives that ricochetted like
Pinballs through the good times and disasters.
People who never learned to cheat but studied how to care,
Who gave a measure and a half for a quarter measure’s pay.
People who walked the narrow road until it ended in abyss
And now they have to find a way to to finish out life there.
The smell of tears still lingers in the lattice covered
Meditation bower in a corner of the garden
The little fountain proves unable to provide the only falling water
And the tiny pet grave markers remain resting there in peace
A bulky box with double doors commands most of the driveway
And things too valuable to leave are prisoners inside.
Clutter is trapped in cartons sealed with packing tape
Or hidden in the cupboards no one dares to open.
Untidyness moans softy in the newly emptied spaces
And the dust no longer has a place to land.
The winnowing is almost done and things will find new homes
In a sad bazaar of letting go the past
And turning to the East to meet the rising sun
Where somehow in a diferent place they all will learn to dance.
ljm
Aug 5, 2018
Aug 5, 2018 at 2:15 PM UTC
We can't take a thing on our tumbling rabbit hole trip into the opulence of recompense
Even our book of deeds exists there before a warm breeze lifts on that great day of winnowing
Yet you lie like Moses in a willow basket in the depths of the earth in that dress that made you look slimmer
Your nails are the blood of the Nile during that failed first plague and your eyeliner sits like Pharaoh's kohl
Nothing matters but what is written and the grace of the all graceful
yet a constellation of young stars
sit on your ring finger
and above your heart the name of Allah glows yellow from a pendant like the oil lamp of a lighthouse
May 29, 2017
May 29, 2017 at 4:05 AM UTC
I see you now,
I feel you,
Your beautiful face,
I can make out.
Your hair winnowing from the wind,
The winters cold wind.
Where have you been all this time?
Where were you hiding?
My eyes are weak
You're fading into the mist,
I cannot see,
You're going away,
Snow covers everything
and my soul freezes.
I wake up ,
You're not here.
Aug 1, 2013
Aug 1, 2013 at 7:21 PM UTC
Ah! if my youth were a perdurable
trance! My reality not roused till a
sun's expanse; where an aeon could prompt the first blush. Perhaps, though
those extended dreams were flush
with futile grieving, yet better than
algid facts of Existence, & relieving
kindled verve, to whose heart just
is, and always has since birth; still
within the pleasing earth, a snarl
of longing rage from her surge.
But should it come to pass--that
vagary unceasingly continuing--
as trances have always passed
in my youth--could it be this
winnowing revelled in the sky
in dreams in their bright truth
found lost within a great lie
in dreams of happier times?
I shall slumber a bit longer,
to seek out the scatterings of
Life's little difficult answers:
but I age all the while I sleep on
hopes and wake I still anchored.
Mar 3, 2017
Mar 3, 2017 at 10:55 PM UTC
This old dog out of dogdom,
in all of bones scattered elsewhere remaining
to be unseen, hidden in old glory and flushed lives
In all their shapes and sizes they have
their bow-legs and their collarbones dangerously
recoiling in and out as if to ****** fully bare
for me to see -- invisible hands for invisible reapings they go ******** clad else there was wind
in all rooms winnowing to make good use of
my time and unhinge the doors to toss them out
of their senses and into mine
letting them wear me thin like paint to turpentine,
in this house that refuses to let go
of fragrances underneath this cold rondure
I have forgotten how it was to love
and clad myself fat with flattened foolishness
not having loved enough to remember their
weights crushing my bones so dearly feigned
my eyes and skins love-crumbled and
positioned to surpass their flow amidst breaths
held like ******* or my collected body going
into another's and completely vanishing
in a thick scent of fluids so virulent and mundane,
putting a smile on my face and an anchor
to my wrongness as if to drag along ineluctable
and loveless down the stream of many names
i will confess to my first-born son
so we can fill parks and stare at them once more,
laughing at how they have broken us.
May 11, 2016
May 11, 2016 at 3:14 AM UTC
Autumn by John Keats
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.
Where are the songs of spring? Ay, Where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
Oct 14, 2018
Oct 14, 2018 at 10:46 AM UTC
The bistred day has fallen still,
A darkened mead hangs overhead;
The hush within the evening chill
Chants now the yore is gone to bed.
A gently breeze steals from the west
Cool along the shadowed lanes;
The sunburned broil, now at rest,
Its warmth has gone, though still remains.
The cold night air stands all alone
Anon the past is gone to sleep;
Daytime secrets tossed and blown,
The faithful night for ere to keep.
Secrets that the breeze fears speak,
Winnowing in the night-time swell;
Brushing eastward 'gainst your cheek
The whispered wind mayn't kiss-n-tell.
Evensong is served this eve
All around the moonlit shrine;
Absolution cedes when you believe,
The cool night air is sweet as wine.
Drink your fill in solemn thought,
Let your mind escape within;
Cleanse your conscience, ever fraught,
Save your soul! ~ confess your sin!
Here beneath a cloudless sky
You're not alone ~ you seldom are;
Within the dim nocturnals fly
As someone watches from afar.
So, mediate, your faith elate,
Ruminate, and yet beware;
Intoxicate your mindless state,
Drinking in the cool night air.
Feb 28, 2020
Feb 28, 2020 at 11:05 AM UTC
It is the dumb hour of night
Bereft of all maneuvers
Shadows have come and gone
Spending their agendas
The canvas bland as space
Drapes mute and motionless
As hidden truths
Not a stroke felt
Not a single word flickers
Off intersecting ink
There must be a gale
Deep into the mind
Winnowing
Chaffs of memory.
Oct 6, 2018
Oct 6, 2018 at 1:51 AM UTC
wind winnowing
through
the
pumpkin orange leaves
is
the
light that
we receive
Jan 4, 2016
Jan 4, 2016 at 8:54 AM UTC