"wisteria" poems
Albert Camus
Kept an Emu
Tied to a potted,
Portable wisteria
To keep him company
Whilst he kept goal
For the University of Algeria.
As Albert was fishing
The ball out
From the back of the net
The Emu mused
On the conversations they'd had
About The Oprah Winfrey Show,
The significance of suffragettes,
Adam Smith's Wealth Of Nations
And the ****** orientation
Of Sir Galahad.
Whilst discussing the plots of
The Plague and The Outsider
Warm feelings would suddenly
Well up inside her.
Why should such intellect
Elicit so much love
And even more pain?
My thoughts for this man
Aren't getting any vaguer.
Then Utrecht University
Scored again.
There are no happy endings
With Albert Camus -
Decades later he dies
In his publisher's Facel Vega.
When she heard of Albert's demise
Her initial reaction
Was hysteria
And it comes as no surprise
That a few weeks later
She died of diphtheria
Which is so much easier to do
When you're an existential emu.
Apr 4, 2014
Apr 4, 2014 at 2:53 PM UTC
Late spring when we first saw the house,
with its back door a cave obscured
behind those breaking waves of blue
and white surge-foam of sweet blossom.
Bees, pollen and petals made it
difficult to weave a way in;
and in the drench of sun-showers
the water-falls of flowers purled.
Summer slowed the fall to trickles.
And since you’ve missed most of autumn,
let me say the wisteria
now is mostly air and grey cloud.
The few curved spatulas of pods
rattle like the wood-slat clackers
of a ghost-dispersing wind chime,
high against Himalayan grey.
Jun 26, 2010
Jun 26, 2010 at 2:20 PM UTC
*Wind Chimes
A story of lasting love
by
Jude Kyrie
At the end of a hard day’s work in our garden.
Now exhausted and resting in my chair.
Feeling the need to see your smile again
I quietly call your name.
There is no answer of course
you have been in heaven for so long.
The onset of confusion clouds my memory.
Just the jingles of the breeze on the wind chimes
answer my call.
By your chair an open book and your glasses
still remain as if you may return.
My need to see you is now overwhelming.
I seek to find you everywhere in the house.
Then I see you stood under
the large flowering rose arbor.
A basket of flowers cut from the beds
hangs from your arm.
The fading sunlight of evening now
a halo about your long hair.
My eyes mist at the vision.
So sweet so astoundingly beautiful.
So cool like the mist of summer rain
You smile at me.
The wind chimes ****** once again.
You tell me the sweet woodruff is taking over.
The hollyhocks need thinning.
And the wisteria has become overgrown.
You tell me all of these things.
But all I see is your sweet heart of purest gold.
The rose arbor framing the light of my life
Glowing as the sun
at the centre of my small universe.
I long to kneel before you
to pay homage to you.
to say to you I love you darling.
but you fade into the sparkling
remnants of the melting sunlight.
As the wind chimes lilt in the evening air
over the blossoming perfumes
of our gardens bounty.*
Jan 22, 2016
Jan 22, 2016 at 7:15 AM UTC
morning dove
or is it the mourning dove?
speaks this morning
of melancholy
rock and sheep
and a drunken friend
who each night
ended his day
the same
each minute
was nothing I knew
it was the sound of the bells,
around their necks
and from the church.
Above in the abandoned castle,
defenses down
in rooms
open to the sky
looking down
on the village life
the smell of the beach
fish and retsina
the wisteria sheltered agora
I came there
like the gypsies
we never saw
who snuck in at night
took our clothing
off the lines
and potted plants
from the patio,
leaving only what was missing
as evidence
they'd been there
Aug 21, 2018
Aug 21, 2018 at 6:47 AM UTC
At the end of a hard
day’s work in our garden
Now exhausted
and resting in my chair
I quietly call your name,
you have been gone for so long.
but in my older age
confusion fills my head
and I do not remember your loss.
Feeling the need to see your smile again
There is no answer of course
Just the jingles of the summer breeze
on the wind chimes by the window.
By your chair an open book
and your reading glasses.
I still have not removed them.
The need to see you
is now overwhelming
I seek everywhere to find you
almost in a panic.
then I see you.
Stood under the arched
flowering rose arbor.
A basket of flowers cut from the beds
hangs from your arm.
The fading sunlight of evening glows
A halo about your long hair.
My eyes mist.
So sweet so astoundingly beautiful,
So cool like the mist of summer rain.
You smile at me.
The wind chimes
jingle softly once again
You tell me
the sweet woodruff is taking over.
The hollyhocks need thinning.
And the wisteria has become overgrown.
You tell me all of these things.
But all I see is your sweet heart
of purest gold.
The flowering rose arbor
framing the light of my life.
Glowing as the sun
at the Centre of my small universe.
I long to kneel before you
to pay homage.
to tell you of my love for you.
but you fade into the ether
of my minds confusions.
A light evening breeze
kisses my cheek
As the wind chimes
softly lilt over the
blossoming perfumes
of our gardens bounty
Aug 26, 2015
Aug 26, 2015 at 7:06 AM UTC
Tell me wistful wisteria,
Why do you shed those regal tears?
Is it for a fallen child,
A bud of love so dear?
Can you tell me violet crier,
Why flows your petaled pain?
Did you lose a lover?
Does it hurt to speak their name?
Or wisteria, darling tear stained one.
Is this glumness misconceived?
Does happiness reprieve just hold you,
and bring you to your wavering knees?
Mar 27, 2012
Mar 27, 2012 at 4:19 PM UTC
For 15yrs we had a love
pure and true
Love so perfect
I feel bound to you
Like intertwining vines
of a wisteria
My heart shatters
a million times over
knowing you can never
be my forever
Soon the time will come
for you to leave this place
of chaos and confusion
Not knowing
what is real
or
what is delusion
We may meet again
In another time and place
Forever in my heart
You have a special space
With all that is happening
I'd live this life
a thousand times
over
over
again
So I could have you once more
not only as my lover
but also as my friend
May 16, 2017
May 16, 2017 at 3:50 AM UTC
*Windchimes
A story of lasting love
by
Jude Kyrie
At the end of a hard day’s work in our garden.
Now exhausted and resting in my chair.
Feeling the need to see your smile again
I quietly call your name.
There is no answer of course
you have been in heaven for so long.
The onset of confusion clouds my memory.
Just the jingles of the breeze on the wind chimes
answer my call.
By your chair an open book and your glasses
still remain as if you may return.
My need to see you is now overwhelming.
I seek to find you everywhere in the house.
Then I see you stood under
the large flowering rose arbor.
A basket of flowers cut from the beds
hangs from your arm.
The fading sunlight of evening now
a halo about your long hair.
My eyes mist at the vision.
So sweet so astoundingly beautiful.
So cool like the mist of summer rain
You smile at me.
The wind chimes ****** once again.
You tell me the sweet woodruff is taking over.
The hollyhocks need thinning.
And the wisteria has become overgrown.
You tell me all of these things.
But all I see is your sweet heart of purest gold.
The rose arbor framing the light of my life
Glowing as the sun
at the centre of my small universe.
I long to kneel before you
to pay homage to you.
to say to you I love you darling.
but you fade into the sparkling
remnants of the melting sunlight.
As the wind chimes lilt in the evening air
over the blossoming perfumes
of our gardens bounty*
Aug 15, 2016
Aug 15, 2016 at 4:11 PM UTC
Shimmering sudden sanctioning
Surfaces right in front of me
Twisting tomorrow’s tongue-tied testimony
Leaving my heart soaked in surrender
Colossal comb tethering in the hair of my offender
I wallowed in things to come while my whole life was spinning undone
Soothe thyself day to day so I won’t fade away
Internal clock knocks on my heartthrob
I am slipping into each moment
Oh I won’t hold it
I let go and slowly slip, swallowing every drip
This is just the tip of all there is
Reawaken each moment in this
Love lapses through me and I collapse into infinity
Struck by my own understanding
Preparing for divinity’s landing
I fall for it again and again
My dreams melting madness motion me onward
Tangible tussles through thick throats turning toward tomorrow
Sorrow leaks and seeps into the eyes of the blind
While they wait in their own mind
Suckling savage frolics as mankind slips into grayness
And blue lips use so much to say so little
Breaking our fiddle over our knees
Longing for hope hitched pleads
As our craze bleeds onto eternity, spun up into me
Creeping carefully so as not to spill this drill yet again
Letting it crack through the incomplete
Flushes back into the see
Finally, once again we arrive and float away with the breeze
Nov 5, 2012
Nov 5, 2012 at 2:10 PM UTC
You stand there
Making eyes at me
And I playfully choose to ignore you.
You cross your elbow through mine
And I look in the other direction, avoiding your gaze.
So your hand,
Blooms of the vine of creeping wisteria that is your arm-
Long, Resilient,
Slides around my hips,
Pulls me in nearer to your familiar form,
and takes root there.
Oct 23, 2010
Oct 23, 2010 at 5:57 AM UTC
twitchy sniffly noses
silky bracelets woven
a sennight of whispers
and soft rains fallen
bones strident ringing
skins slow submerging
bloodshot eyes and
star-shot skies and
cheekbones shrouded
in staling chlorine
sneaking syrup smiles
under honey gold
four tonics drowned
to fight off the cold
and fast fortune-telling
for finites foretold
trace the lines and
face the folds, please
hold both palms closer
but leave them closed
twitchy ditzy fingers
***** rings unspooled
a sennight of stories
and sinking in pools
bones washed in phenol
skins slick like ferrule
bloodshot minds and
star-shot why’s and
wisteria lips speckled in
the warmest shade of cool.
Jan 26, 2022
Jan 26, 2022 at 8:01 PM UTC
Oh, come on you black-eyed
***** Night. Spite me
with sleep. Strike me, like
a cottonmouth. Sing me
your dark song, like a footfall
in my hallway, like a night watch-
man dropping his lantern,
a last turn of the fan, a whisper
of a mystery, a kiss with wisteria
and moonshine on your breath.
Jan 16, 2016
Jan 16, 2016 at 8:11 AM UTC
I took the first sip of white wine in
trepidation for the aftermath of drunk
people in movies is not very pleasant.
I downed it all, faster than an intruder
who wiretaps an important building
somewhere in America. I had vowed to
not drown in the poison I had just consumed.
But what happened later proved me wrong.
I swam in clouds and I floated in shallow
waters for the slurs that lay on my tongue
were not something I would utter in a
sober state. I cavorted. I danced. I showed
skin. I was the frog that clandestinely dances
in the rain and hides away before the ground
is dry again. I swirled like a whirlpool. My cheeks
were red and I emitted happiness. I made silly
jokes about a plant named Wisteria and lay
in bed, twirling away in my drunken madness.
Jan 19, 2017
Jan 19, 2017 at 8:08 AM UTC
Like music in the distance I hear you whisper
And your scent is stronger than wisteria.
I can feel the freedom being released from me
While your words form a melody.
As I daydream my life away
I sit back and listen to your soothing song.
I have the perfect image of you in my mind,
Calm and peaceful beneath your wind-blown hair.
And I see far away, clouds in a hazy sky
The sun on your arms, the wind teasing my shirt.
As I put my arms around you and your head rests on mine
Slowly, like a chiffon blouse, your fatigue slips from your shoulders.
12th April 2016
Apr 13, 2016
Apr 13, 2016 at 12:50 AM UTC
There is no night like a bayou night,
the air pregnant with expectancy and
mystery, mingling scents of wisteria,
trumpet honeysuckle and gumbo mud -
a Dark Ages alchemist seeking an elusive
golden fragrance. It's a night dark despite
the nearly full moon, a night in which
fireflies pulsate as so many flickering
neon bulbs and the cacophony of insects
reaches toward an unattainable crescendo.
Mammoth cypress trees line the bayous,
letting fall Spanish moss as strands of ghostly
gray-green hair, and the oppression of dark
is waiting just beyond the searching lantern.
At times the wind moans like a sated lover,
at other times it howls wildly, but it's always
present and always vocal to those who
would listen. There could be fear in such nights,
or there can be a love of the mysteries inherent
with the bayous - I choose the love of the bayous.
*I lived in Louisiana about nine years,
and there are many things about that
state I still love - bayous being one of them.*
--
Dec 18, 2011
Dec 18, 2011 at 4:45 PM UTC
There it was in the middle of nowhere
All grown up with wisteria vines
In the summer when the wisteria would bloom
It looked like a beautiful fairytale
Daffodils once grew beside the concrete porch
And azalea bushes too
Forsythia grew near the concrete walkway
It's yellow blooms I used to pick
In bouquets for my Mom in springtime
Two or three bushes bearing white flowers
Once grew beside the house too
Inside it looked Victorian
Even though it was built
In the 1940s or 1950s
How surreal and dreamlike
It did look inside and out
Even though when I saw it
It looked like repairs were a necessity
The floors needed to be torn down and replaced
The house was in dire need of electricity
And in want of being cleaned and organized
Bags of trash and other things
Needed to be sorted through
The house needed a new roof and ceiling
The ceiling and roof were falling through
Some of the floors were collapsing
Or they would crumble if you tried to put
Even one of your feet on one of the brittle floors
Yet that was my favorite home of all
And I miss you since you were torn down
Just last summer
It seems longer or shorter in some ways
In other ways it doesn't
Even though I never lived even a day
Inside of your comfortable hominess
My Mother and her sisters and parents did
My Dad courted her inside those very walls
Which were torn down just last summer
I wished I could have lived inside those walls
Replaced only what needed to be replaced
Keeping as much of you as I could
But you were destroyed
And I never had a chance
*Oh, how I miss you,
Dear little rustic country house
Which was like a home
And felt like home inside*
~Marian~
Mar 21, 2014
Mar 21, 2014 at 9:19 PM UTC
and in it she stood
awash with crescented chrysanthemums
with honeysuckle skin and wisteria eyelashes
and with it i said
if nights were like coins
id spend them all on you
and twinkle them between my fingers
shaking them up and admiring
the glint and value of
the night and its stars
and the coppery, nickel-y dusk
that stains my hand with
the bouquet of metal and flowers
goldenrod warmth
from nights and coins
invariably spent
alongside only you
with a perfume of
evening
and pressing summer heat
and my whispers and promises
that tell you
that if nights were like coins
id spend them all on you
Mar 13, 2015
Mar 13, 2015 at 2:56 AM UTC
The autumn winds ***** her mercilessly,
as idle hands lunge for delicate petticoats.
Their ugly, pockmarked howls pinch her deeply
with each new limb they expose,
until her tears drop like leaves, unheard
and become soiled.
By the winter, she’s left leaning awkwardly
like a slapper against a lamp post.
Her body but scattered, bent baguettes,
freeze-set with the frigid, nightly chills,
which preserve her stark immodesty
and her malign revenge.
Yet spring adorns her with tentative protruding buds,
glazed like freshly shellacked fingernails,
as her body itches with the swellings of youth
and foliage fastens frills around her chest,
summoning the dewy-peach lustre of virginity.
Now she basks in our wanton, forgiving glares.
As the summer teases, she writhes Lolita-like
in a raincoat that clings to her, just so.
Her barely concealed fruits spilling out,
as the sun caresses her skin hotly, until she ****
with that cacophony of lilac bells gawping, grape-like,
ringing out the sweet moans of her petite-mort.
Oct 7, 2020
Oct 7, 2020 at 10:53 AM UTC
Effortless between 6 and 7--
lavender and magenta,
moves a bit like grass
sounds like orange juice
in the morning, the sun
says a lot of things about
you
Nov 27, 2012
Nov 27, 2012 at 4:36 PM UTC
He sat in a small compartment by
The window, on a train,
The passengers huddled around him
Saying, ‘Tell that one again!’
He spoke in a low and measured voice
As they held their breath, to stare,
Watching his hands, as they described
Vague circles in the air.
There wasn’t a sound outside, except
The carriage, clickety-clack,
A sound that would tend to hypnotise
As the train sped down the track,
In every one of his listeners
Was a picture, in each mind,
That spoke to them of that better life
Which had been too hard to find.
And seagulls circled the skies above
As he primed their minds with ‘If…’
And led them all in a straggly line
To stand at the top of a cliff.
The sea was blue and the clouds were grey
And the rocks below sublime,
As they teetered there for a moment where
They stood, at the edge of time.
For then he’d show them a garden, with
The form of an only child,
Who seemed to be so familiar
That most of them there had smiled,
The scent of a pink wisteria
Had wafted the carriage air,
And then their tears rolled back the years
As they whispered, ‘I was there!’
He showed them a woman in mourning
With a cape, and a darkened veil,
Who knelt alone by a headstone,
Each listeners face was pale.
The bell of the church began to toll
As it sounded someone’s knell,
His face was the face of the gravedigger
As he held them in his spell.
The carriage was filled with waves of fear,
The carriage was filled with joy,
He’d tell of the death of a mountaineer,
Of a child with a much-loved toy,
Their tears they’d dry as the train came in
To the tale of a Scottish Kirk,
And one by one they would rise to leave
And head off the train, to work.
But the Storyteller would stay on board
And close the compartment door,
His restless hands were trembling still
As his eyes stared down at the floor.
The train heads into the future while
The past is deep in his well,
He sits and weeps in the corner for
The tales that he doesn’t tell.
David Lewis Paget
Aug 22, 2014
Aug 22, 2014 at 8:25 AM UTC
Daisies and bluebells
Awaken the sleeping Spring
Wisteria begins to bloom
Little brooks bubble and flow
No longer covered in ice
Sunlight dapples on paths
Daffodils nod and sway
Tiny breezes stir the green leaves
Little ferns dance beside the creek
All the world seems awaken
With an eternal Spring
~Marian~
Sep 23, 2013
Sep 23, 2013 at 6:20 PM UTC
I came back in Spring
To see my garden had grew
With beautiful, magical flowers
Growing all over the place
Bluebells on either side
Of the garden path
Dark red Taboo roses
Of heavenly crimson
Climb the abandoned house
Wisteria a moonlight purple
Wraps it's vines around
The tall, majestic trees
Daisies grow beside the ferns
Such a lovely, living bouquet
Violas are growing
Underneath the hickory tree
Other flowers, too many to name
Are growing in my garden
They waltz in the heavenly scented breezes
My garden I remember
Planting with care
Toiling away all day long
Now rewarded for my prime of life
Striving to get those seeds planted
Now I have been well rewarded
With those treasured-cherished blooms
That I water each and every day
In my acorn watering buckets
That I use just for watering
My magical flowers
Growing silently
Secretly hidden
In my enchanted
Beautiful secret garden
That I so diligently
Planted with great care
Now they are growing
And I am very happy
Just to see them
Nodding and swaying
Some sweet dance
In the warm golden
Honeyed sunlight
Slanting across the
Whole wide world
And now my own
Little world is rich
With pure ecstasy
In happy golden moments
I can always come here
And think back
While silent memories return
And an orchestra of birds sing
In my own sweet garden
Where the fairies dwell
And keep me company
When I am lonely
And need a friend
My garden shall remain
Until the day when it
Shall wither and die
~Marian~
Feb 12, 2014
Feb 12, 2014 at 9:23 PM UTC
Wisteria, ivy, and grape: they cling
To the oak tree’s shaggy, craggy old bark
And up it and down it themselves they fling
Wandering paths with many a loop and arc
Among wisteria, ivy, and grape
Almost hidden highways, up to the sky
That make green pilgrim roads for little folk
For tiny bugs and ants, who cannot fly
But in their journeys play and peek and poke
Among wisteria, ivy, and grape
The little creatures climb along leaf and limb -
Oh, wouldn’t you like to be one of them!
Among wisteria, ivy, and grape
Jul 27, 2019
Jul 27, 2019 at 10:55 AM UTC
i recall
with a fondness
blurred by years
the town of
my formative years
in the mountains
the heart of the table lands
dissected by a highway
it crouched, along the sides
of a shallow valley
i remember a greeness
that came from the trees
eucalypt and pine
most prominent
in my mind
and the grass that grew
lush and tall
only to be mown
each Saturday morn
i remember
churches and schools
the wide expasnses
of playing fields
and parks with
hurdygurdys and swings
i remember the pool,
that too turquoise
rectangle,
that glistened
with wet invitation
and on the highest peak
the stolid grey water tower
lording it over all
i remember rough tarmac
under my feet, running from
light pool to light pool at dusk
and frost on picket fences
in early mornings,
like delicate sugar candy
solidier braving the early sun
our house, small on a large block
with hydrangea at the front
wisteria overtaking the fenceline
an at the back door a concrete slab
painted fire engine red,
but faded to overipe watermlon pink
poplar trees garding the back
and the smell of onions
burning on the grill
hill's hoist with tennis ball
and pantyhose
standing to silent attention
and in the forground
my brothers and clans
playing football, league
with passion and
burgeoning skill
all this comes to mind
on a cold winter's day
i may of come a long way
but my heart still
ties me to there
and the memories
make the knots
Aug 14, 2018
Aug 14, 2018 at 9:05 AM UTC