"wisened" poems
me grandad was a ******
he had an old ships gyroscope
that he would spin up
and set in the palm
of his open hand
dis ere has seen every dock
an point inbetween
dis world has to find
he would say
a mantra maybe
then he would sit it upon
the tip of my trembling
outstretched finger
holding my wrist
proving his point
steeling the tremble
balance in all things
he would say
to my mesmerised
widened whitened
crying out to be wisened eyes
and let go
balance
then he would set it atilt
Nov 28, 2014
Nov 28, 2014 at 10:41 PM UTC
I am wisened by my wounds.
My thirst is sated by monsoons.
Scars teach me lessons.
Fighting for peace is my weapon.
Every memory changes a sliver of me.
Through time, i've turned into a motley pinata.
Pieced together haphazardly.
But i know what its like not to be afraid of taking a swing
and i know what its like to fly
because baseball bats give me wings.
Sep 30, 2014
Sep 30, 2014 at 9:37 PM UTC
Enraptured by the glories
And wisened by each sin
I drink in every story
Written by many a pen
I find myself afloat
In seas of ink
Adrift without a boat
Into the words I sink
Immersed in their pages
As many men and women
Dance across as many stages
I find solace beneath the black waves
Bound betwixt two covers
They bring me so much joy
And always brighten my day
Dec 21, 2014
Dec 21, 2014 at 7:11 AM UTC
I back track my steps until once again i feel cold pavement on my heels and the dewy grass has retreated to once again stretching to receive the sun. I bump into the same glass door, the *** still warm as though i had just let go if it, it jabs me in my side forcing me to acknowledge my collision as I face the transparent barrier to what I once thought was home. Its so smoky in there that I can hardly recognize the countenances of my old friends; greed, lust, hate, ****** drugs, envy. I shake my head squinting to read their name tags but the air is too thick for oil stone to sharpen and they're so busy till I realize they don't see me right there. staring. I want to say hi, tell em' the world is cool they shoulda' wisened up like me. All I did was tell a lil white lie but if you're like me, and you wisen' up, you too my dear friend may smell the crisp scent of the greener side. And boom there I was back with my crew. Formerly known as lies, my tag clearly now says pride.
Aug 26, 2014
Aug 26, 2014 at 10:30 PM UTC
Follow me, me, me,
I shall lead you
to the parting of the seas,
I shall be the one
Day and night,
fluffy clouds of living wool and ticks we are,
not in the sky, but grounded in green grass around,
We follow you,
You I have never known, never seen,
but leader by seeds of my ancestors sown,
I have grown with the herd, all I have known.
The shadows are watching,
Wolves across the darkened prairie,
Awash in the milky white of moonlight,
They hunt by night,
These wisps of fright.
You Leader, Oh most Invisible one,
at the front of the run,
wolf-wary and toiling under the sun,
And moon.
The wolves are always looking to the sky,
I wonder why ?
Then so did I.
For the first time ever a sheep has never
Has actually looked up high,
Into the starry hea’ens,
studded glimmers on a wolfs black coat,
the wisened old hunter, the cunning wily,
a secret of the cut throats long known,
peers down on me, their stories, older than my oldest me.
For the wolves know, my leaders head is low,
That we move into the fields, there by the northern star,
And there will be a gathering,
A feast of lamb to behold,
For the collection of wolf covens of old,
Our pastures of peace lie to the east,
By my reckoning of the stars,
But my leader follows the reckoning of old,
A forgotten past,
A legacy that goes to our death every year
To feed the wolverines that costs us dear.
Mar 27, 2010
Mar 27, 2010 at 10:47 AM UTC
I
-dulcimer clatter opens the sun, first fruit-
timber fathoms/crystal veils
on all steps, crossing all human borders
untethering wood
from forest, until only the green element remains
to purify the soul
an alpine afterimage, shadow-display
(creature of Earth, moss-backed & yowling thru the chaotic sleep
of October, you see it's symbology in your tea, sharpening its
obsidian hands against the seastones,
imprinting loveliness into the rock, to be worn by tides,
replaced by death absolute)
The fabled Black Horse (shadow-self) waiting solitary at a
gas station, an imprisoned dreamer inside
its gaping jaw/saturnine, coldness
of daybreak, clouds at their Atelier, my head
feels a pressure, been awake too long,
breathing in through the nose/out through
mouth, monastery of the mind in need of clearing.
II
Soft/soft/skin/fury
embrace, catharsis, collision of
two individual energies
pent-up and cast/release
like a skeleton net::onfire
(kissed, consumed
elated, recurrance)
closeted eternities
cycling back into the
wind (hanging willow)
calling to the seeker, gold,
purification & lightness/mouthcurl washed in silence
(your own body, rising tide)
welcomed crucible of chilling air
& my black and
white vessel,
electricity spirit-
whispers
“valley swimmer, elude me”
FLASH OF LIGHT
III
…. The widewaking world
unspun-
theatric elucidation,
emergence of a great snake
a wisened flower, sprouted from exile
blissful rejuvination of
the ivory leaves, at once!
I wrap my throat in a Munich scarf
(pattern-blue)
walking upon the softness of
Grötzingen (angel's eyes speaking)
an orchard, where the last gardener's tireless
work lay like a dreaming ossuary
Oct 11, 2017
Oct 11, 2017 at 9:48 PM UTC
All at once change arrives and swiftly,deftly... alters all.
Unprepared and caught off guard we struggle not to fall.
And facing the unfamiliar instills us all with fear.
Not knowing to expect a smile or to expect a tear.
And the things we held so close to heart and believed would never go,
Are now nowhere in our sight or reach, for change has made it so.
Yet we are still expected by society and nature in kind,
To plod ahead courageously, uncertain what we'll find.
And so the sun rises yet again, another morn, another day.
And we must rise right along with it, and head about our way.
Grasping out so carefully, for things, which we believe,
Time itself can never change, and things that will not leave.
And we hold them tight with iron grip, as close as close can be.
But once again change arrives and rips them away.... so easily.
And once our years have wisened us, we learn to take this heed:
Change can alter any moment and truly nothing is guaranteed.
May 1, 2010
May 1, 2010 at 5:15 AM UTC
the children
they dance with their death carelessly,
take it by the hand to the river
and let it swim free
the men and women
they grapple with their death angrily,
duel with it in a meadow
and wrestle it into a pocket they can't see
the white-haired wisened
they smile with their death peacefully
walk as old friends
down the autumn road to the sea.
Oct 31, 2010
Oct 31, 2010 at 6:08 PM UTC
Where has the wind gone?
To find new sails,
Stitching their own of parchment.
Where has the wind gone?
In every man burns warm a fire
Hearths that only need be stoked.
Setting off into the blue.
Currents warmed by sunlight,
In the night grow cold.
Settle and you may find warmth,
From each dying ember,
Convinced the sun will never set.
I can only speak of sparks
Where once the flames burned brightest.
That when the wind did not shift, wisened.
And set fire to the parchment.
Apr 9, 2017
Apr 9, 2017 at 5:53 PM UTC
My skin it burns and scorches
These twisted Seven Suns
It reeks, it's caustic
These curséd Seven Suns.
You loathsome orbs
My malice for you unbounded.
You wicked sons of Apollo
May the cities shun your name!
My hands they crack and sizzle
'neath these Seven Suns
These fruits they wilt and shrivel
'neath these Seven Suns.
The wisened ropes they wither
On harshly laboured waists
And ancient stones they crumble
Before masons lay to waste.
I beg the seasons of mercy
"Grant Icarus his revenge!"
Let them rain their naked blessings
And deliver me your end.
You'll scorch the earth that stays me
and clench the air I breathe
But come the fall of night
I'll dance upon your wreaths.
"You curséd sons,
You devlish pests,
No more, no more!"
I'll rejoice in your relief
Pay tribute to your demise
As the moonlight it embalms me
And the darkness clothes my eyes.
Now Nyx's reign commences
Her air so cool and pure
The slender fingers of night
Beckon nocturnal dawn.
Aug 3, 2025
Aug 3, 2025 at 2:25 PM UTC
Porcelain lamentations,
Further from that fountain.
Where she dipped her foot.
There,
Into the darker wood
Where the wind whistles between the trees
A wisened oak tree spoke to me
It said with its foreboding presence,
"One day, you will be like me
And you will see from a great height
The virid saplings
Saying hello to the ancient light."
Apr 3, 2018
Apr 3, 2018 at 7:38 PM UTC
New Year's Day and I hope for you a great one.
Mine, was not the beginning I envisioned. My adopted Mom, Marge
I rushed to the hospital at twelve.
She looks like me at 6 am after my binges. Red eyed and a little smile
of I don't care anymore on her 72 year old tired face.
I got back home, not drunk enough,
and found tiny, a sweet little black kitten who strived through thinness and
stumbled around for the 10 weeks of her life, cold and still.
She still lays there.
I guess her suffering has ended.
I am still drinking down the courage and liquor to go dig the hole in the backyard. I will cry, and need the strength I find in a bottle to prepare.
My adopted pops, 82 year old cad who took people all his life, took me into his heart. He is not a red man's father except by heart and caring. He is looking so old and tired. He took me to see Marge in the ICU. And consoled me as a priest would with wisened words of time and need.
If this New Year's day is a sign of what 2015 will be like,
after three more drinks, I think,
I will go out back and dig a hole big enough for me to crawl into and hide, until next year.
Jan 1, 2015
Jan 1, 2015 at 11:45 PM UTC
O karmic master
Wisened by lifetimes
Sharpened by experience
I bow to thee
You, the mentor
I, demented
Do your dance, lure me in
Cast a spell
Penetrate me with cunning
Fill me with intellect
Take the reins
Show me the ropes
Maybe you can be the one
To tie me down
and teach me a lesson
Jul 7, 2018
Jul 7, 2018 at 2:09 AM UTC
Lightening forking the sky
Dazzling spray of dissonant cues
Crackling, mesmerizing
As the thunderous clouds
Bellowing, rumbling in cry
After the screech of the light
Wind spark, whipping a tempest
Never to have behold before
A dancing feat of grace and defeat
Trailing entrails of vivid wonders
Across the night, the dusk descending
Warfare of gain and spell, transcending
The terror in beauty and rolling nolstagia
Of the silly pouring rain mantling sails
To whisk a soul to another world
Like when you press a hand against a window
And it's cold so that your warmth
Shroud and condense, dew drops
Leave a trail of words, rhythm to rhyme
A flutter of ghostly syllables
And warm intentions, like fingers strumming a guitar
A single string or a flood of
Pressed strings reverberating in the belly of plywood
That takes not wisened girth
Only the way to make your words and music
Weep and laugh with that of the tempest
Brewing outside
Apr 6, 2016
Apr 6, 2016 at 11:16 PM UTC
I had nothing but hope,
That undying hope,
Pure magic.
I was in darkness,
I was bent and broken,
My difficulties had doubled,
My hurts had increased,
I carried my worries under an umbrella of fear.
But I have a stubborn heart,
I had faith and a basket of beliefs,
"No" word was not in my dictionary,
I started to live under the roof of hope.
My sufferings gave me strength,
My grief softened me,
My colleagues betrayal wisened me.
I started to stay positive and confident,
I opened myself to criticism,
Above all, I infused myself to hard work,
At last my optimism paid off.
Sep 8, 2018
Sep 8, 2018 at 9:00 AM UTC
If I could,
I would call upon you
and tell you that the reasons why you are beautiful
As yellow meets black, turns night
We gaze in wonder at the city beneath the heath
As amber leaves branches, fall ever near
We crunch and repeat with our feet to the beat
As cracked hands cup coffee in shelter
We nod flick leftover shrapnel to them.
As wisened minds, ask us for guidance
We bravely seek to give the help they crave.
I would remind you that this is why life’s worth living.
I will conquer the world for you, my dear.
Apr 26, 2020
Apr 26, 2020 at 3:29 PM UTC
My mother has sewn silver linings into every sky
Hands weary with the weight of the world
And I realize I have always seen Atlas when I stare into her wisened eyes
Is it strength knowing only struggle?
Is it sorrow to be bone tired in a graveyard of all the butterflies you never set free?
How do we save the ones who never ask?
How do we save the ones who cannot save themselves?
I have watched every stitch across a starless night
Every regret and dark thought displayed before me
Like a pool of shadows
Atlas spent eternity with the world chained to his shoulders
Sometimes I wonder if the forgotten gods come again in the hearts of the lost
Jan 26, 2018
Jan 26, 2018 at 5:27 PM UTC