"wrested" poems
Mysterious death! who in a single hour
Life's gold can so refine
And by thy art divine
Change mortal weakness to immortal power!
Bending beneath the weight of eighty years
Spent with the noble strife
of a victorious life
We watched her fading heavenward, through our tears.
But ere the sense of loss our hearts had wrung
A miracle was wrought;
And swift as happy thought
She lived again -- brave, beautiful, and young.
Age, pain, and sorrow dropped the veils they wore
And showed the tender eyes
Of angels in disguise,
Whose discipline so patiently she bore.
The past years brought their harvest rich and fair;
While memory and love,
Together, fondly wove
A golden garland for the silver hair.
How could we mourn like those who are bereft,
When every pang of grief
found balm for its relief
In counting up the treasures she had left?--
Faith that withstood the shocks of toil and time;
Hope that defied despair;
Patience that conquered care;
And loyalty, whose courage was sublime;
The great deep heart that was a home for all--
Just, eloquent, and strong
In protest against wrong;
Wide charity, that knew no sin, no fall;
The spartan spirit that made life so grand,
Mating poor daily needs
With high, heroic deeds,
That wrested happiness from Fate's hard hand.
We thought to weep, but sing for joy instead,
Full of the grateful peace
That follows her release;
For nothing but the weary dust lies dead.
Oh, noble woman! never more a queen
Than in the laying down
Of sceptre and of crown
To win a greater kingdom, yet unseen;
Teaching us how to seek the highest goal,
To earn the true success --
To live, to love, to bless --
And make death proud to take a royal soul.
4.2k
Ophelia...smote egress, you are Rimbaud's:
"Drunken Boat".
The river you fell asleep upon found you a sea.
Your bones knew no seabed--poppies, marigolds,
orchids, black roses fill your eye sockets, mouth and rib cage.
You substantiate what color the sea may give your lay.
Its foamy waddle has signaled you to one too many
climes...an orison broke open.
What strain of tragedy now holds you, spine on depth,
eye sockets on sky?
You dove headlong into the Shakespearean maelstrom--
where mortal coil confounds, chin-up darling.
Great winds fish-scale your waters, only to invert their maw.
There are lines daily of sea's breadth, whereupon its
creatures come single file to kiss your bone.
Ophelia...wrested from river to sanguine sea, shedding trails
of flesh.
If bones were the eye of a needle...you've pulled through,
heir to tragedy--circumnavigating your infamy.
Nov 1, 2013
Nov 1, 2013 at 10:25 AM UTC
They tell me to stick to my roots
because roots lead up to shoots.
They tell me to stick to my origin
unaware of how it acts as a prison,
My roots are Draupadi's hair that was twisted and lugged,
my roots are Panchali's saree that was tugged.
My roots are Sita's wrist Ravana wrested,
my roots are where Ahalya's chastity rested.
My roots are parasites that eat up its own herb and ****
my roots are rat snakes that eat up its own tissue and meat.
My roots are flames of fire that created and watered the plant of Sati,
my roots are pools of blood and long ropes that drowned and hanged LaxmiBai and Moolmati.
My roots are the dish misogyny flavoured with patriarchy,
my roots are naked streams of Ganga washing off their lynching and anarchy.
My roots are all the poison Shiva drank during the churning of the sea,
my roots are Dhritrashtra's aspirations and ambiguity.
My roots are its own herbivore,
my roots are the lava that burns its own floor.
And my roots are my flesh and bone,
so I am stitched to my roots altogether, all alone.
So as I cut my own roots, my roots chop me,
hence I stick to my roots while my roots remain free.
May 25, 2020
May 25, 2020 at 4:00 AM UTC
Day, you have bruised and beaten me,
As rain beats down the bright, proud sea,
Beaten my body, bruised my soul,
Left me nothing lovely or whole —
Yet I have wrested a gift from you,
Day that dies in dusky blue:
For suddenly over the factories
I saw a moon in the cloudy seas —
A wisp of beauty all alone
In a world as hard and gray as stone —
Oh who could be bitter and want to die
When a maiden moon wakes up in the sky?
3.4k
The road was long and rough
It was a passageway of words
A parade of letters and prose
The touch of invisible pleasure
I moulted like a snake in season
I dreamt on a cruiser of reign as we
opened my pandora box in the cave
The road was smooth and right
It was a third eye paradise of seers
A mire of misery and blowing wind
The tears flew like fireflies on heat
I met the shrinks of souls in salt bed
I waved the rain as it washed my sins
On that sight of the pandora box
The road of wrongness and rightness
It was an unfolded augury of life
An awakened sleeper roared in dreams
The days when I touched the skies
I took the broken house and mended
I saw the clouds as bright as crimson
Inside the box when I met my twin
The road of love, lust, love, longness
It was when the ember coal was wild
A blaze of soul collision and resonance
The days when doubt taunted in mazes
I wrested my mind and the heart knew
I tested the precipice and intuition led
Inside the unconditional pandora box
The road where I hid and felt alive
It was a paradise of shining trees
A place where our loneliness merged
The safest heaven on barren lands
I saw my warrior and he shielded
I sat as he ran away with fear and pride
On that very opened pandora box
The road of unforgotten forever
It was a triangulation of continents
An immersion of difference and indifference
The open table of a scarce connective mess
I shed my naive bed and hardened
I shut the wild untwisted world
On that very inevitable pandora
Jul 20, 2016
Jul 20, 2016 at 7:09 AM UTC
Truth? a lewd's you
in known certain terms:
whether veins, when drowned
hawks a gin (loomin’)
a shin splinters as
mines bore on; why ‘ol
car bonfires grow tired
of a pack o’ lips’ wisp ring,
*“Hydra Djinn—
Sine diem purgare nox.”*
Redeem and weep
in tents, faces & phrases
met a fizz[i call]y
drunk in jest id bouts
wrested liver's tried & tested [buy con-
testant after contest-
ant] where West lids gaze
in two, the joy of the flame
hungry's gasping for air
[nothing's becoming] bright
berthed of ash-end tombs
lit up in the night.
Jan 6, 2012
Jan 6, 2012 at 11:40 PM UTC
In the shadow of a tall mountain
I pitch a tent
I lay a fire
I eat berries
I bathe in the pond
People come, people go
They say much, as do I
And once after the fortnightly storm
A hole I dig, and a seed I sow
Of a pellet of light wrested from my chest
And people come, and people go
But the sunshine never comes, for the mountain is tall
And the mountain is strong
But the sunshine I need, for the pellet to grow
And grow it must
Grow it must
Into a ball of light to walk into
That shines right through the mountain
And all around
But the mountain is tall, and the shadow is long, and the pellet has been sown
In the arc of perennial dark
People come, people go
But this time, one stayed
Without a reason too firm
And little is said
Except the voice of the lantern carried in anew
And the gentle, flickering light, flows on the seed
Like the lapping of rippling water on the pond’s shore
The pellet of light throbs softly, breathes easy
And after we pat fondly the mound of earth on the seed’s womb
We pitch a tent
We lay a fire
We eat berries
We bathe in the pond
In the shadow of a tall mountain
Oct 1, 2016
Oct 1, 2016 at 1:31 AM UTC
I have a curled photograph
With waves that crest behind you
And your hair, golden veins,
Tangled in the sun that caves,
There you sit— my open secret,
Atlantic,
Frees my wrested heart
At the fortress—
Altar,
Dún Aengus.
In that place, that wanting place,
High— on the jagged edge
I captured you,
Your eyes were ocean,
Atlantis,
Never so deep, never so
Lost.
Feb 1, 2013
Feb 1, 2013 at 1:24 PM UTC
he had knowing dreams of where he was going
all along upward he was swiftly growing
the always certain hand of fate was ever sowing
fields of poppies concealing secrets of the knowing
soon he forgot to remember that which he once knew
softly trading certainty for a comforting clue
now he is on his back staring at the blue
with eyes forever closed to that which is true
O’ how will his muddled gaze ever be wrested
from the flickering box on which it’s nested
given comfort as he is artificially breastfed
hate those people and love these things is where he is led
so the cycle continues to turn
until we coach the match how to burn
birthing a new world from the communal urn
ashes to ashes and with so much to learn
quietly he drops a stitch and skips a beat
out of line, missing steps of society's feet
absent fear of plans left incomplete
he renders acceptance obsolete
he stands alone
Mar 22, 2013
Mar 22, 2013 at 11:43 AM UTC
colors
slide over
ink-slick
○°○ skin ○°○
○°○° °○°○° ○°○°
○°°○°○stretched○°○°°○
°°○○°○°°○°○°°○°○○°°
a skein of
furtive fabric
wrought of woe
and wrested
from futility
°°○°○°°○°○°°
pundits posture
○°°○°○°imposing ○°°○°○°
○○°○°°○°°postulating○°°○°°○
○°°○ ○°○their ○°○ ○°°○
○°○° importance ○°○°
°○°○°○ ○°°sleek°°○ °○○°○°
°○°○ insolence °○°○
curls °°○
crafted○°
churlish
like a
pre
°° hen
°° sile
°○°○tail
SøułSurvivør
(C) 6/28/2017
Jun 28, 2017
Jun 28, 2017 at 9:03 AM UTC
My limbs wrested, and extended, towards the heavens
like young children’s hands on the first sunlit days of spring.
The muted grays of winter fade, soon replaced by softer blues.
I still remember the first time I caught wind of you,
your back against my trunk and it lent me your lungs.
I learned to breathe like you too,
in shy and quiet silences while trying not to shake-
the world
but darling you came into mine, trembling fault lines
like an earthquake reading poetry and upended my roots.
I was seduced by you and there was nothing you did,
or could do that would untie this bind we shared
our bodies intertwined, ancient wood and woman
tethered together by the invisible pleasure
of one another’s company.
You spoke to me with feathers
and kissed me with subtle gestures
while I shade you from the sun.
I had never known such a word
but on that summer I called it love
and I believed it to be true
until the day you did not come.
The earth and soil from which I sow
has slowly grown into a prison atop this grassy knoll.
I have become a tree with the memories of a man.
May 4, 2016
May 4, 2016 at 12:47 PM UTC
She has left me forever but wants to enjoy my company forever because she knows that my advice was as worthy as her father's advice for her. And she wanted a cool boyfriend, not a caring and overprotective ****** like me, in her words. She has unfortunately chosen to ditch me forever. But she is paradoxically true in saying that the care I dispensed was more like that of a father than just a cool lover or a boyfriend who she desired.
I can't stand the sight of herself willingly falling into the quicksand that the evil society is. She will weep alone someday, repenting for making all the wrong choices and I won't be waiting for her forever because my respected parents have wrested my life from the clutches of death so that I may do something worthy of my calibre, not condescending from mere some ****** girl's stupid decisions.
So I chose to move on alone. She'll realize one day that her decisions were all made sluttily and wrongly so. But when she realizes so, I will make sure that I am not there to handle her once again. I will stop being concerned for her altogether.
I forgive her with the guarantee to forget her and come over to move on beyond her one day. But no one will get my more than humanitarian love ever.
Apr 18, 2016
Apr 18, 2016 at 10:53 AM UTC
Gone the dwindled light of day
Wrested from my megre time,
Lost to restlessness of soul
Theiving inattention's find.
Diverted from the sunset glow
Diverted from the satin air,
A moments crass diversion lost
To innattention's small despair.
A moment from a busy day
Where tumult and confusion find
Exhaustion as the sun descends...
To respite sought within my mind.
Alas the moment passed me by
The folds of satin night descend,
A cup of tea is quietly poured
In waiting for the dark pall's end.
Marshalg
In velvet twilight.
28 August 2012
Aug 28, 2012
Aug 28, 2012 at 2:03 AM UTC
I have a curled photograph
With waves that crest behind you
And your hair, golden veins,
Tangled in the sun that caves,
There you sit— my open secret,
Atlantic,
Frees my wrested heart
At the fortress—
Altar,
Dún Aengus.
In that place, that wanting place,
High— on the jagged edge
I captured you,
Your eyes were ocean,
Atlantis,
Never so deep, never so
Lost.
Apr 29, 2014
Apr 29, 2014 at 2:04 PM UTC
*Devoid of artistry.
Words become annoying,
they be meaningless,
wrung out.
Wrested,
yes wrested,
words only wound
the already injured heart.
Artless tales relate,
read my misery.
All artless,
without
you.
Devoid.
Empty.
Meaningless,
without
you.*
Тадеус
Nov 28, 2014
Nov 28, 2014 at 3:19 PM UTC
~
from the anthology of the unwritten,
from the tombs of the stillborn,
where carcasses of idled titles and orphaned stanzas
do not compete for proof of life,
and
nameless birth certificates unissued,
yellowing and wasting midst
crumbling aleph bet spawn
here
comes a poem of concession
comes a poem of summation
of a life lived, knotted poorly, not well,
worse cursed as vanilla inadequate
the satisfaction in the writing,
the gleeful breaking of the sac,
the gushing relief giving way to
the childbirth of a new moon-poem,
arrested, wrested
a single plague affliction,
the cancer of weakness,
means Pharaoh wins
the cancer of weakness
no cure, no pharmaceutical poultice,
spreads insidious; one day - pain in the remote,
your big toe, then
next you can only street stagger
begging forgiveness and the kindness of strangers
hoping for the accidental cure of touch,
the miscellany lottery ticket probability of low chance
the visible mark you leave,
a weak indentation upon a pillow,
it is the dented head, cut deep by the shadow,
shake it out and you're a disappeared one,
nothing to show,
did someone once sleep here?
you were once upon a time
binary
a 1
now a 0 -
flip flop bottom top,
listening to Frank's "That's Life"^
my litany too long;
woeful work this business of flailing,
posting a tired-out self help love poem
ain't no cure for the falling-out-of-love
black and blue, self-inflicted bruising blues,
the wrists ache
the bones don't freak
but squeal, somebody's squeezing me
the alarm clock, a death knell,
everyone saying don't worry
you got a proven record,
the boss's eyes twinkling
"but what have you done for me lately?"
funny
Death says
Hey, aren't you the boss?
Who shall over rule thy Dominion?
What have thy done to yourself lately?
Answer: never end a poem with a question mark @
3:06am
May 10, 2017
May 10, 2017 at 3:16 AM UTC
As the crow drowns
Insidious profound friend
End of candor
End of the end
Rose roots and runic worm trails
Fail-safes left unattended
Unmended vain tatters
What matters?
What truly matters?
Dreams of red in ribbons
Seething bloodlust and dead intent
No rest for the wrested
Nov 4, 2011
Nov 4, 2011 at 3:51 AM UTC
We triumph for those who have known us in glory
And in utter ruin remember the story
Acknowledge our valor, our power to keep
Braving all odds unheeded, march into the deep
Preserving a legacy not quite our own
Be of foes we have bested to reclaim the throne
Or of people we’ve wrested from brinks of despair
Abject in their poverty, dreamless nightmare
As we serve higher causes of righteous assurance
Our quest ever dauntless against the abhorrence
An amoral mass of the impure intent
In our ascent raise them from endless lament
To depart from a world to for years we have been
But as shadows to those of us living in sin
For it is but of ours time itself meets its fate
And begins to devour us all in its gape
Sep 15, 2018
Sep 15, 2018 at 12:54 PM UTC
The Ides of March had come
but its Sun was not yet cold
when Spurinna reminded me
what his augury had foretold
Some good men tried to warn me
About the risks I take-
But Caesar has no need of guards
I look Death in the face.
Calpurnia asked me not to go
Based on her silly dream
But the Parthian war won’t be derailed
By some Republican’s scheme
The supplicants surround me with petitions,
Bur I, impatient, moved to turn away.
Casca grabbed the draping of my toga
and bared me, awkwardly, to start the fray.
The first dagger found my flesh
and left a superficial wound.
I wrested the dagger from his hands
and swept the blade to clear some room.
They are too many that surround me.
Too many of their thrusts strike home
Brutus my son, “Et Tu, Brute”
I cover my face to die alone.
Bleeding, powerless, dying,
No one must see me as I lay.
My dignity must be preserved
for I am uncommon clay.
Dec 15, 2011
Dec 15, 2011 at 8:26 PM UTC
Please just make it stop. Please.
Her hands were tired.
Of digging.
Or was it her arms?
Her arms. Her arms were tired of digging. Her hands were just numb.
Numb, useless, blocks of worthless...hands.
And her knees. *****
Stained.
And her feet,__, they were no good as well.
She chuckled.
No good as well. No well as good. Well good as no.
The rest of her? It was the rest.
The parts of rejectedness. The parts of her wreckededness.
The rest which she wrested with.
404 Error. Does not compute.
Her teeth clenched, her lips puckered
(the lower one crunched more than the other),
and she glanced around the yard in which she sat.
Weeds were strewn around her sides,
but she only really looked at the tree.
It was a pine tree, hers.
Big and round on the base with lots of needles.
It was a healthy tree. It was a lovely tree. It was a loved tree.
Tears had sprung to her eyes,
and she looked over herself once more:
1) one tennis shoe missing but both socks on
2) jeans covered in dirt and mud, probably from another lawn
3) shirt was black, wait blue, she could partially see now due to the dawn
4) so were some parts of her arms, and one of her fingernails was just gone
5) her face had all the bells and whistles, but something in her eyes was just...gone.
6) Her mind was still running through plans, but somewhere along the way, the train had derailed, and it was just gone
7) a slight breeze tousled her hair around her face, but the feeling it should have brought was just...wrong.
Gone she whispered.
Going. Going. Going...
And so she opened her eyes,
and stared at the man she loved,
and waited.
But it was just
gone.
May 25, 2016
May 25, 2016 at 4:35 AM UTC
Hear
Bozhidar Pangelov&Vania; Konstantinova/In Memoriam/
Under the Coat of Arms
In Malta, in the ancient walls
is beating the sea so salty.
Somewhere behind,
distant,
hidden
are shining through southern almonds.
There is no moon.
The light is illuming
herself
in the pearl of your eyes.
Harmonious.
Without gunshots
of the squadrons by Lepanto.
The falcons on the coat of arms fall asleep,
never wanted,
in honor
and dignity.
Vania Konstantinova
Behind the Gates
Behind the gates
of Mdina I hide you,
far of any nemesis,
of foam and stretched sails.
Behind the towers of the castle.
In the most inner yard.
Under the spurts of the cascade,
more precious than silver.
Here they see only
the eyes of the peacocks,
whisked their tails
for cooling.
Keepers of the secret
with their tongues wrested.
And when your brush sculptures
the bracelet around my ankle,
reflected in Venetian mirror
like a trap –
I forget who you are and the sin
with head chopped off,
I forget about the death …
Vania Konstantinova was born, in Sofia. She graduated Classical Ballet in
her native town and in Petersburg as well as Polish Philology in Sofia University and
Jagiellonian University, Krakow. She's co-author of the poetic book Four Cycles (along
with Bozhidar Pangelov). Her collection of short stories Thank You Mister One is published
in autumn of 2008. Death 2015
http://www.public-republic.com/vania-konstantinova
May 22, 2015
May 22, 2015 at 7:05 AM UTC
~~~
*it as if I am blinded
by the perfection
of the moment
all sensors singly loaded,
yet interacting,
in a buckshot of common cause
my eyes suffused
by sun scattering rays uncovering a day's birth placenta gleaming
amidst the glaring shadows of the refuse of nature's yesterday's
discarded leavings
my eyes reversed,
unsuffused
as it they were a gift,
waiting all this time,
forgoing-opening until
just this moment
my ears suffused
by soft sounds and
swirling ripples of calm waters,
the wind teasing, saying,
move like me, but just so, barely,
the real sounds of the quietude heard
as if for the first time
my tongue tastes you,
wrested from my mind's eye, you are given,
in the everything, skin creme of lapping waves, in the everywhere,
uncovered from within the sun's own departing shadow
my smell
is the smell of life,
nostrils flaring expanding with no limit
to take it all in,
completing, unifying,
a puzzle that never was,
that is now forever solved
my hands fuse
the tingling of life given from wet dewy grass,
shiny and reflecting,
the roughness of the bark,
a natural protective coating,
combining soft caresses and confirming
the necessity of both
perfectly still
I sit amidst
the perfect stillness,
all movement unnecessary,
all my senses reach out and return as one,
bringing me presents of knowledge,
more than suffused, I too,
am trite but true,
dearest god, can it be true,
rebirthed, renewed
this ordinary day
is now extraordinary
solitary figure staring gaze steady,
a perfection ******
impatient for the
suffusion fix
of this day, and the morrow*
~~~
**August 6, 2015
Shelter Island**
Aug 8, 2015
Aug 8, 2015 at 10:58 AM UTC
Wrested out of mind
I lose something of myself
when my eyes open
The flesh I inhabit
the universe I touch
they're all made of dreams
embodied possibilities
organic machinery
built by light herself
that feverish dreamer
even dreamt herself
She sees perfection when her eyes close
She makes it so
Void summoned to form by the dreamer's dream
Dancers through darkness
these mere spirits, luminous yet empty,
forget where they've been,
carried upon the subtle wind to this very moment
Wrested out of mind
I lose something of myself
when my eyes open
The flesh I inhabit
the universe I touch
they're all made of dreams
Unearthly dreams
Jan 8, 2017
Jan 8, 2017 at 9:46 PM UTC
wrested from the reeds was a man aged twenty,
a poor and dying man with skin as black as coal;
the height of a birch stump, the worth of a penny:
a hefty blanket allergen with tatters for a soul.
Jan 15, 2019
Jan 15, 2019 at 4:17 PM UTC
I have a curled photograph
With waves that crest behind you
And your hair, golden veins,
Tangled in the sun that caves,
There you sit— my open secret,
Atlantic,
Frees my wrested heart
At the fortress—
Altar,
Dún Aengus.
In that place, that wanting place,
High— on the jagged edge
I captured you,
Your eyes were ocean,
Atlantis,
Never so deep, never so
Lost.
Aug 22, 2013
Aug 22, 2013 at 3:38 PM UTC