A Poem Thread

Terminus

Beyond the sprawling of chain store malls,
beyond the greedy grabbing hordes, above
the mists of middling mores, stands the stone
marked, Terminus of Tuesday.

Past it shines a crescent beach, an amphitheatre
of quintessence, and the sunset announces a show.
The spheres will dance a spellbinding clockwork
minuet, marking cosmic courses with celestial
certitude.

So, kiss good bye to your fossil self, be that forgotten
child, who felt so free, too many Mondays ago.
And take the hand of old Khayyám; let Scheherazade
whisper of 1001 worlds and love un-dreamt.

Un-dreamt? Unlived.

Our quidditative carpet ride awaits, and I’ll wait too.
To pass the tock, beckoning beyond the conventional,
unmentionable, terminal, Terminus of Tuesday.
 
My horse occasionally communicates in 'proesy' which she bids me take note of....
From our adventures of the other day I offer the following observations and yes, we found Pussy Willows, which are doomed to perish as the temperatures plummet in the days to come.

Winter Ride

The red mare waited expectantly.
The woman would come for her today.
The mercury had risen and the air was mild,
perfect for winter riding.

The car turned down the drive,
the woman had returned.
Into the house…….waiting,
while clothes were changed,
a snack hastily eaten.

The back door voiced egress.
Rider coming, halter in hand.
Sidestepping at the gate,
pushing her nose into the halter,
striding with importance
beside her long-legged owner.

Soft horse sounds of pleasure
To see no other horses at the rail.
Today was hers alone. Yesss!
It was always more fun
to be relieved of
the responsibility for others….

A quick flick of the brush,
followed by pad and saddle.
Caramel lowered her head
to pick up the bit,
daintily taking proffered treats.
She munched in contentment
as the throatlatch was buckled.

A toe in the stirrup
and her rider was astride,
the hooves of the mare
breaking trail through
18 inches of snow.
They rode over the ridge
and through the pines,
startling a red squirrel
awakened from winter slumber.

The mare sniffed the tips of conifers
and nosed the tracks
which intersected their path.
Most of the sign was old,
few creatures had been stirring.

Lacy stalks of sweet clover
protruded above the snow,
the subtle scent of vanilla
still wafting from dried flowers.
The crimson contrast
of rosehips
adding color
to an overcast afternoon.

As bidden, she stopped.
Sideways steps
in response to leg aids given,
then to stand
while her rider snapped a limb
from a south facing Red Willow.

January 12th
and the first pussy willows
of the New Year.
 
Originally posted by ScaryMonster

And take the hand of old Khayyám; let Scheherazade
whisper of 1001 worlds and love un-dreamt.
Click to expand...

An interesting poem, your latest work, ScaryMonster, in which you conjoin the names of two Persians, one a writer and the other a legendary storyteller. :)
 
scheherazade said:
An interesting poem, your latest work, ScaryMonster, in which you conjoin the names of two Persians, one a writer and the other a legendary storyteller. :)
Click to expand...

My two favourite Persians, I always feel transported when I read 1001 nights, and the "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam." even though its the Fitzgerald translation of it.

And I did think for you, and your nom de plume when I wrote my poem, so I dug this Omar Khayyam poem out for you.

Here with a Loaf of Bread beneath the Bough,
A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse -- and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness --
And Wilderness is Paradise enough.

By Omar Khayyam.
 
A delightful poem it is, too. :)

It reminds me of a summer afternoon that I took one of my advanced students along the Yukon River bank on horseback. We took our rest on the edge of a clay cliff, overlooking the flowing water and watching the deer on the opposite side of the river, while closer to us the red squirrels and gray jays were scoping their options. I had packed us a simple lunch of bread, cheese, olives and fruit and as it was a warm day, a couple of Coronas and a slice of lime to put in them.

Wine bottles are a bit awkward to carry on horseback, but now you shall have me searching for a wineskin, lol....:cool:
 
The Moon is on the Hoggish Hills.

The Moon is on the Hoggish Hills.

There’s a corpse like moon on the hoggish hills,
and the ambience of the echoes grow, in the onyx
night, on graven the bluff, were a crimson mist haunts
spattered ground.

There are sins within this priggish skin, and hate lives
in those hoggish hills. Abiding until the reckoning,
secure within its righteousness.

Blindly will the martyrs go, all rigged to blow divinely.
Then all dead, gone, blown to the winds, and caught on
flurries, blown again.

And what foul beast, what hated swine, what cursed
creatures could abide, in the hoggish hills of a fanatic’s
mind when it blows divinely.

Is faith a virtue when it builds a mound? A hoggish hill
where only hate is found, and when the beasts skulk forth
once more, they’ll detonate sublimely.

In their righteousness, they’ll kill their score and after fall
as plasma gore, a rain to mark a fanatic’s faith, hate will run
down hoggish drains, under the corpse like moon.
 
a reply Scary :) (of perception, of The Moon is on Hoggish Hills)

From the casket of safety and lull for perfection the
dollhouse breaks
And mystic enters
like wine of Life
for attention.
 
Drums of Winter

The thought of you, musing on my sodden brain
Splayed like an overweight grease ball on a filthy couch
Taunting me with a maggoty morsel of rotted heart
To fill my hunger with insolent and caustic contempt
There are no good memories that streak my aged soul
No fondness or motes of wisdom in regards to you
I cannot turn myself inside out in futile hope
That I can change a past that isn’t worth it
You played out your love on the beat of my heart
With your crude clubs of insecurity and cowardice
The droning rhythm, like a war song for marching
All the while, your cavalry circled and retreated
And I stood at the ready, when I heard the shot
Fired from behind, across the corpses of dead hope
My dreams lay like an army of men in hospital beds
Casualties and a heart as battered as a poets journal
 
The Layers by Stanley Kunitz

I have walked through many lives,
some of them my own,
and I am not who I was,
though some principle of being
abides, from which I struggle
not to stray.
When I look behind,
as I am compelled to look
before I can gather strength
to proceed on my journey,
I see the milestones dwindling
toward the horizon
and the slow fires trailing
from the abandoned camp-sites,
over which scavenger angels
wheel on heavy wings.
Oh, I have made myself a tribe
out of my true affections,
and my tribe is scattered!
How shall the heart be reconciled
to its feast of losses?
In a rising wind
the manic dust of my friends,
those who fell along the way,
bitterly stings my face.
Yet I turn, I turn,
exulting somewhat,
with my will intact to go
wherever I need to go,
and every stone on the road
precious to me.
In my darkest night,
when the moon was covered
and I roamed through wreckage,
a nimbus-clouded voice
directed me:
"Live in the layers,
not on the litter."
Though I lack the art
to decipher it,
no doubt the next chapter
in my book of transformations
is already written.
I am not done with my changes.
 
Odysseus

A tear slides from my sea blue eye,
turning as it falls in the first rays of
morning, upon the crashing swell.

Will the hurt that made it, be then
sweetened as it merges with the wave
that ate it?

My eloquence is liquid; the murmuring
waters find all paths, when human
words are just echoes in indifferent
skies.

On this Ogygian isle, a speck within
Poseidon’s eye, Calypso’s toy, so far from
Ithaca and bow strung waiting suitors.

Knots unravelled and are woven again, entwining
my threads in a dawdling shroud; my true love
unbinds her fate for one more day.

No immortal husband Odysseus, as tears slide
from Calypso’s sea green eyes, twisting in the
westering light, they fall upon the crashing
swell.

Will the hurt that made them, be then sweetened
as they merge with the wake I am making?

And gladly will I string my bow in one storms
time, in Ithaca when a final tear falls on loves
unravelled threads.
 
Prospect Street revision

REVISION POSTED:

Prospect Street

There’s a One -Way sign on Prospect Street,
and a tabby cat often sits, surveilling from a
window ledge this junction where all Prospects
meet.

He yawns with feline lassitude, sphinx like
with green diamond eyes and views the lonely
passers by, through springtime’s scented smiling
times to the dark of winter’s ashen climes.

Death patrols this thoroughfare; he brushes past the
human tide and catches an occasional life on Prospect’s
junctions every night.

Users of all makes and kinds, steer up Prospect’s heavy
climb, screeching frenzied diatribes. In which place
does their essence lie? False stardust in their veins.

May the mighty mind, these curbs the prospects are
good. They have heard, but dreams of avarice aren’t
enough, to barter fate when this sign says stop.

Children run this pavement line. They play hopscotch,
clap and rhyme. They’ll skip past death’s blind socket
eyes, laughing as dark shadows climb. And if one falls
before their time? One less child will play next time.

Kisses too, have oft been spied, as couples walk loves
merger mile. But in the end, more tears are cried, on
a pavement by extinction’s line.

There is a sign on Prospect Street, and no one walks
against its tide; fallen leaves blow up the sides and land
within a feline swipe. And eyes that witnessed, eyes that
know, might see beyond the sunset’s glow.

And even in the darkest night, a prospect of some ancient
life, may still cast forth some spectral light, upon the stones
of this street called life. And what’s been forgotten might still
abide if only a refection of a diamond eye.
 
Voyage delà la Lune

Voyage delà la Lune

Wraith strands coalesce within the whispering void,
spun upon unequivocal wheels; the pattern will emerge.
And what seeking silken thread enamoured of its twin,
brushes lovingly of the other, glowing in resonance.

O’ to ride this wheeling wind of fire, to the Heliopause.
Way beyond the spectral howl of solar certainty, where
dizzying absolutes beacon us, to a nothing at all, where
even star winds hold their breath to unceremoniously
pause.

Like Cyrano de Bergerac with my mind as the balloon,
I’ll stand upon oblivion’s lip and taste the plasma
plume. Do monsters dwell beyond the point where the
bow shock hits the wake?

And if I bet my soul on it, will the abyss then take my stake?

O’ come with me lone Voyager beyond this plasma plume,
some men may seek salvation whilst others seek their doom.
But those who sail like Cyrano may pass the setting moon,
festooned with firecrackers they’ll burn in our mind’s room.
 
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I used to write poems years ago. I was just emailed by poetry.com to remind me of a poem I wrote ages ago.

The Sun And The Sea In Harmony

The Sun, and Sea go hand in hand
One in the air, and one on land
The Sun goes down to lick the Sea
The Sea licks Sand, and now there's three
The Sun leaves the room, in a fiery rage
The Moon comes in to spoil the day
The Sea gets rougher as time goes by
The Seaman takes a bumpy ride
But all of this must end in doom
There's way too many in the room
And as the sun comes back to play
Things become clear as night and day
They all get on when left in pairs
It's better not to mix affairs
So what went wrong let's ask the man
What went wrong with the Sun, Moon, Sea, and Sand
The Seaman explains in a simple quote
That on their own their love has hope
The Sun And Sea together float
But All together they rock the boat!
 
Brain Monkeys

Brain monkeys swing on mental threads
Beating chests in fuzzy heads
Stomping neuron grass savannahs
Peeling yellow thought bananas
Psychoactive little beasts
Catch spinning frisbees shaped like yeasts
That sprout after cerebral rains
And bathe the monkeys in our brains
Nitpickers all, down to the roots
Where all this mental itching shoots
Thus, as we ponder what we catch
We sit and scratch
And scratch
And scratch

:scratchin:
 
The deaths of individualism, an endless cycle of conformity, a tenacious alteration of your vision, are you unique in any way?
The hunger, greed and desire to reach a new level higher, musing of an existence prior what have you lost along the way?
Your mind a place of confusion, reckless and non hesitant with your life, are your goals just delusions or dreams
This psychotic devastation now claimed for self preservation, this endless march towards a mirage of salvation, will you see the truth in time?
Surreptitious in your desire, the heart of your flame grows higher with the conversion of thoughts whom are not “inspired”
Those against your causes are undesired, their thoughts you burn with fire, exile them from your wishful paradise
What cost is taken for your bliss from others? In history you fought against the “others”, bloodshed, and persecution in the name of the son of the holy mother?
Are you in a pacified mind, for a force beyond your world will save you from yourself? Your doubts and questions are not allowed.
Are you unique, are you free? Or are you just another one of “his” little lost sheep, he gives you comfort and a pretense purpose, but soon he will end you.
The pulpit his tool, the humans his voice and existence, are you still sure of his presence? March to his word, think not of the absurd, and only listen to “his” words
Think not of the doubt that resonates within your mind; blindly trust the man who says you are blind, thus the cycle continues again
Questions, doubt, will leave you despised and victimized, never interject “him” never question “him” always follow the cause, and clap happily with the applause.
The endless masses plea and prey, they’ll deify anyone for the hope of grace, the mindless dichotomy will temper their peaceful place
There all the same, each just with a different name, the message they preach the lifestyle they convey are each twisted and serpentine in their unique ways.
 
My thoughts haunted, a hollow state of apathy and the tears of fallen memories, will I ever see their faces again?
The time shared and exchanged can I reconcile with something that is so far away, is there recompense for such a tragic fate?
The battles we’ve fought, the lives we’ve taken, and will we ever be anything more than soldiers on the frontlines, forsaken?
Are we the same as before have we grown or are we worn? The fear of death the constant barrage of the enemy, is it them or me?
Brothers lost, their lives taken in a distant land that is already forsaken, what is worth the death of so many minds?
The chaos ensues, all whom are not prepared simply dissipate, and it is so melancholically unreal, the soul is all that they can steal
The weapon my friend, death it’s only desire nothing new in its future, it just fuels the fire, nothing more nothing less, death it’s only desire
Saturnine as the day’s light ends, the gunfire only grows higher as the vultures circle the fields, children cry through the night
The screaming of each man, the tears and blood of each one, the land is quite now, all that remains are the memories
I’ve come home ever since those days, however I’ll never be the same, the battles I’ve won the victory proclaimed, have we truly won if were still not sane?
The town I see is not that of my youth, only now is it covered with dust, the machines speckled with rust I laugh and cry. Is it sadness or pride?
Those endless moments so far away, my former self in a land distained, can I ever live the same way again or shall I just dissipate into dust?
 
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The victim, the outcast or interloper all the labels of the non-conformers, they seek to white wash us into a unified order
They run with the crowd, I hide in the shrouds watching the blind sheep march into conformity; I pity them for not being free
Persecuted and rejected the weak are there to support the strong, they continue to sing spurious songs, and just dance along.
I am the saturnine pariah, the unwanted intellectual that sees the truth in liars, am I the bringer of truth or a false messiah, I am the saturnine pariah
The path that is laid, the choices made, leave me and others alone, I am surrounded by the masses still wearing spectacles of lies
The disturbing creation of a new type of nation leaves me dead and hopeless inside, what was once hope has only twisted me inside into something more sublime
The minority or majority both will always argue, the opinions skewed by such devilish shrews leave the sheeple dumbfounded
These outcast alone, will never be known by a society of logos and lies, so it seems that through their dreams they are satisfied
The gutters fill, the pain instilled the rain washes them away, only on the verge will they hear our words and reconsider what we have to say
Oh such a pity that the world around them is gritty but they should see our way, the world isn’t that bad, being realistic is just mad
The sadness we see, always evident in front of me, is just hidden under their clever facades, they pretend to listen with quite little nods while inside they sob
The only way to see the truth is through me, the outcast you are told to hate, open your eyes and try to realize the world around is filled with people that hate
The history we bestow will simply show that people do die, the world isn’t pretty, it can be damn gritty and the TVs just won’t show what it is you need to know
 
Luna Loves to Laugh

Acrid Sun, but Luna loves to laugh as she strokes the
tarnished tides. Acid sea by a needle beach, condoms
for you and me.

And where this semen spilt, steaming rancid filth mixes
with the seed. On the splattered rocks, oil slicks mark the
spot where a pipe discharges pee. The effluent is all, mixed
up in this vent into a toxic diarrhoea.

Did loving Luna laugh when you stepped on broken glass or
a needle with HIV? And in the acrid sun, will this blood and
scum spawn something in the sea?

To ride the soapy tides in the radioactive night to a place
where plastic seethes. And nothing is still born but is washed
up again by morn to Luna’s smiling glee.

Acrid Sun, but Luna loves to laugh, she’s barren don’t you see?
And her airless mirth’s been directed at the Earth, she gushes
“soon you’ll be like me!”
 
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Out of the scum comes the shining ones,





Demons flourish amongst the streaming minds-eye,

they feed on the scum that grows from rocks,

thoughtful detritus from the airy garden falling,

covering all of us in the sins of others.

We don’t stop, we feel their fiery temperament,

We enjoy it, we use it, we need it we think.

But out of the scum comes the shining ones,

covered in ash, they have fallen from the future,

thought far-seeing, prescient pathfinders,

As alluring as the demons ever were.



The matches burn with internal battling,

children love to play,

they know no better.

They feel.

They feel they need to feel,

matching their fire with the new constructs in combinations new.

The future will ensue,

the demons can not stop us.

Although infiltrate us they have,

solemnity is their new friend for forward we look…



To educate our children we turn the world to our tuning.

As the longing dissipates:

Belonging spreads as a disease,

that eases the conflicts by example.

The efficiency of care extinguishes its lessness,

as saving time saves the very cause of its conception,

or at least a channelling of time and the energies into,

a circuitry of coalescence.



Deep down amongst the pit of hells,

the demons chuckle at our capricious desires,

our squandering and hopeful battling,

chuckling at the “fuckling”,

at the very insipid roots of our stupidity,

that root in their hearts.

The watering is fresh and cool and sticky at times.

They lick our face with rough tongues,

cleaning in a chemical way that infests us.

“Fuck them dry”

“Colour them in”

You cant get the monkey off your back,

his red skin burns his hands holds tighter,

their innards joining yours in a systemic link growing deeper.



The lump is gone now and the snow is falling,

An overloaded immune system at last working once more,

Psychodelical snowflakes make him laugh,

Future man falls and the soft net catches him,

He is free to fall.
 
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