"yellower" poems
Memory of sun seeps from the heart.
Grass grows yellower.
Faintly if at all the early snowflakes
Hover, hover.
Water becoming ice is slowing in
The narrow channels.
Nothing at all will happen here again,
Will ever happen.
Against the sky the willow spreads a fan
The silk's torn off.
Maybe it's better I did not become
Your wife.
Memory of sun seeps from the heart.
What is it? -- Dark?
Perhaps! Winter will have occupied us
In the night.
6.8k
Sleep, darling
I have a small
daughter called
Cleis, who is
like a golden
flower
I wouldn't
take all Croesus'
kingdom with love
thrown in, for her
---
Don't ask me what to wear
I have no embroidered
headband from Sardis to
give you, Cleis, such as
I wore
and my mother
always said that in her
day a purple ribbon
looped in the hair was thought
to be high style indeed
but we were dark:
a girl
whose hair is yellower than
torchlight should wear no
headdress but fresh flowers
6.9k
What can you say about Pennsylvania
in regard to New England except that
it is slightly less cold, and less rocky,
or rather that the rocks are different?
Redder, and gritty, and piled up here and there,
whether as glacial moraine or collapsed springhouse
is not easy to tell, so quickly
are human efforts bundled back into nature.
In fall, the trees turn yellower-
hard maple, hickory, and oak
give way to tulip poplar, black walnut,
and locust. The woods are overgrown
with wild-grape vines, and with greenbrier
spreading its low net of anxious small claws.
In warm November, the mulching forest floor
smells like a rotting animal.
A genial pulpiness, in short: the sky
is soft with haze and paper-gray
even as the sun shines, and the rain
falls soft on the shoulders of farmers
while the children keep on playing,
their heads of hair beaded like spider webs.
A deep-dyed blur softens the bleak cities
whose people palaver in prolonged vowels.
There is a secret here, some death-defying joke
the eyes, the knuckles, the bellies imply-
a suet of consolation fetched straight
from the slaughterhouse and hung out
for chickadees to peck in the lee of the spruce,
where the husks of sunflower seeds
and the peace-signs of bird feet crowd
the snow that barely masks the still-green grass.
I knew that secret once, and have forgotten.
The death-defying secret-it rises
toward me like a dog's gaze, loving
but bewildered. When winter sits cold and black
slumped between its two polluted rivers,
warmth's shadow leans close to the wall
and gets the cement to deliver a kiss.
5.4k
250
I shall keep singing!
Birds will pass me
On their way to Yellower Climes—
Each—with a Robin’s expectation—
I—with my Redbreast—
And my Rhymes—
Late—when I take my place in summer—
But—I shall bring a fuller tune—
Vespers—are sweeter than Matins—Signor—
Morning—only the seed of Noon—
2.9k
1676
Of Yellow was the outer Sky
In Yellower Yellow hewn
Till Saffron in Vermilion slid
Whose seam could not be shewn.
2.7k
Darkness
as black as your eyelid,
poketricks of stars,
the yellow mouth,
the smell of a stranger,
dawn coming up,
dark blue,
no stars,
the smell of a love,
warmer now
as authenic as soap,
wave after wave
of lightness
and the birds in their chains
going mad with throat noises,
the birds in their tracks
yelling into their cheeks like clowns,
lighter, lighter,
the stars gone,
the trees appearing in their green hoods,
the house appearing across the way,
the road and its sad macadam,
the rock walls losing their cotton,
lighter, lighter,
letting the dog out and seeing
fog lift by her legs,
a gauze dance,
lighter, lighter,
yellow, blue at the tops of trees,
more God, more God everywhere,
lighter, lighter,
more world everywhere,
sheets bent back for people,
the strange heads of love
and breakfast,
that sacrament,
lighter, yellower,
like the yolk of eggs,
the flies gathering at the windowpane,
the dog inside whining for good
and the day commencing,
not to die, not to die,
as in the last day breaking,
a final day digesting itself,
lighter, lighter,
the endless colors,
the same old trees stepping toward me,
the rock unpacking its crevices,
breakfast like a dream
and the whole day to live through,
steadfast, deep, interior.
After the death,
after the black of black,
the lightness,-
not to die, not to die-
that God begot.
2.3k
I sat in my veranda
A mellow sun shining above me
Its light, blinking - still drowsy from a restful night
Clouds, like cars of cotton rushing past - going who knows where...
The trees creaking and sighing, dancing a hypnotic dance
The birds singing their ballad, of times long gone
Suddenly - a scent caressed my nose
Like a cruel flirt, touched me and vanished
Leaving me breathless
I heard my heart beat - thum.......thum...thum
It got louder - thum! thum! thum!
No! not my heartbeat, I heard drums
Drums, playing a primal song
I saw...I saw mountains high and mighty
Decked with vivid paintings
Of a different way of life
I saw streams, rushing past
The cold water sprinkled my face with soft kisses
I saw forests, dark and deep
No doubt home to Wood Elves,Nymphs, Wizards and Witches and beasts with wings and horns
I saw silver ruins, fallen walls
Vines and ivy creeping over them, vein-like
A lonely banner hung on one of the walls
Old and tattered, yet still regal and proud
Fluttering in the wind, it spoke to me
Of horse's hooves, armour clad knights, oaths being taken, oaths being broken,
Clashing of swords, a time long gone...
Suddenly - a scent hit my nose
A scent, rough and urban
And there it was - a metal beast
Yellower then the summer sun
Groaning with indignation
It rushed past
Leaving a trail of black smoke and dust
And there I sat, in my veranda
Searching frantically for another glimpse
Of that wonderful land
In vain...
Aug 25, 2018
Aug 25, 2018 at 4:23 AM UTC
I’ve spent the last year inspecting my ceiling.
Every night or free afternoon, I crawl into bed.
My massive, hopelessly needing bed.
And I lie on my crooked spine and stare at it.
I think it changes everyday based on how lucid my dreaming is
I suppose I could say that about anything these days though, couldn’t I?
That everything changes based on my perceptions of life.
Or just based on how tuned into reality I am.
It’s a funny thought.
My ceiling is eggshell white.
I remember picking out what white I wanted with my mum in the hardware store.
“Ivory or snow?”
I don’t care, mum.
“Well it makes a difference you know.”
No it doesn’t, mum.
“You say that now but, we will come home with snow you’ll realize you wanted a yellower tinge and we should have gotten ivory.”
Fine, get ivory then.
“I think we have egg shell in the basement. Let’s save us the trouble and use that.”
So we did.
And now whenever I crawl into a state of disillusion and forget what the world is supposed to feel like under your fingernails or through your hair when you’re sitting in the sun, this is what I see.
An eggshell ceiling.
Which, in retrospect, sounds graciously poetic.
Sometimes I wonder if it’s possible to concentrate so hard that you become lighter than air and float up into my ceiling.
I fear that the eggshell colour influences how durable it is.
As if it literally might be eggshells and I could burst through it and keep going, further and further until no one can find me.
Maybe if we had bought ivory that day in the hardware store it would be tougher and hold me in.
But, honestly, I don’t know which is scarier.
To be trapped, safely bound, into my room by the ceiling above me
Or drift aimlessly until I hit a satellite dish or even just an airplane or tangled in a kite and fall back into the great atmosphere.
I wonder where I’d land.
I wonder where I’d end up if I just started to drift.
Would anyone notice?
Of course they would, how foolish of me.
A giant gaping hole in my fragile ceiling.
Even if no one went in my room I’m sure they’d notice when the rain that fell through the hole started to flood my room and leak out from under the door.
I wonder what the world sounds like from so high.
I wonder if it’s noisy up there.
I wonder what colour your ceiling is when I lay there now.
I hope that it’s eggshell.
Or cotton ball, or wedding veil.
Something you could tear through and drift through until you found me.
******* hell, I want you to find me.*
I’ve spent the last year inspecting my ceiling.
I haven’t found anything interesting out about anything since I started
Aug 22, 2011
Aug 22, 2011 at 8:31 PM UTC
A dilapidated
high school bathroom
all white tile
and despair
rubbed into the grout
yellower than my
stained teeth
There's boys ************
in the stall next to me
I try to quietly
read the news (of your assassination)
but walls are being torn down
whether I like it
or not
I pay the attendant
in nickels and dimes
when I say I'm sorry
I see it's been your face
this entire time
I'm tired of looking
for things not there
You raise a single
slight finger, pointed
to the showers
I cannot even imagine
the pain held within
the walls of your home
I concede
Closing my eyes
inside this dream
I use my hands
to find the corners
my fingers looking
for a way inside
I thought I found something
I did.
You
sitting, naked, cowering
hands hiding your eyes
from the reality
of everything unfolding
before you.
This sordid game of peek-a-boo.
Oct 25, 2014
Oct 25, 2014 at 2:55 PM UTC
chatter downwind fills
up the glass baubles strung
from the ceiling and Zak
shifts back and forth
older and yellower,
still angry as ever
but Kynlee softens
him with her wide
eyes and inquiring
gaze, one leg to the
next, a sudden raucous
behind the white paned
doors, but the crickets
find their way back
into the hum--
Sometimes it just gets to be too much
he says, and we both look across the
way where a sliver of his wife can be
seen in the evening glow--
and I don't answer him
because we are no longer
children with a response
for everything, or teenagers
with an affinity for bragging
two adults with financed metabolisms
and organized problems
more chatter, a bit of song.
I am the last unmarried sibling.
I loll back on my heels and press
in to the quick air between us
yeah, I say.
yeah.
Oct 21, 2015
Oct 21, 2015 at 9:29 PM UTC
Have you noticed
How throughout the day
The light changes?
In the morning
It is pale.
Somewhere around noon
It becomes
Warmer
Yellower?
After that
It becomes more
And more
Orange
Finally ending at night
With the orange street lights.
It's like a lifetime.
It starts
Young
And Innocent
Yet cold
And unforgiving.
It keeps going
And becomes slightly warmer
Learning about others
Accepting
But with slightly less energy.
As it reaches twilight
It is vibrant
At its peak
Loving
Caring
Learning
Hoping.
It proceeds to
Nighttime
It is the warmest
The most accepting
But like the cold, dark air
Death looms
Constantly threatening
To overtake this light
Which took a lifetime
To mature
And become itself.
Jun 30, 2013
Jun 30, 2013 at 12:52 PM UTC
milbrightlions of sky
where the brindled Maya
begins its escape
from the wind's seething hands,
O, celestial machine
of pompous working:
when the day breaks
its shell and births
a yolk yellower than
all dandelions,
the world from
its shell will rend
the horizon and there shall
be forever the two Suns
stamping the raze
minting in the livery
of the world, each to
our tenderness sings
humanity, purely—
Nov 18, 2015
Nov 18, 2015 at 12:25 AM UTC