Monthly Archives: November 2013

Sweet Seduction

Along the blue steel thread of rails,
peace entreats my quiet wanting
in silhouetted oak tree stands
and shadows black, night’s contrast, haunting.

Waxen moon in full delight
calms November’s rolling dells,
strokes the sultry flaxen lea
to render sweet seduction’s spell.

A feathered breeze, a trembling hush
claimed in shuddering wanton fields,
where forlorn apathetic husks
sense love’s touch and so in yield.

Sweet seduction’s mercy,
before my eyes, across this vale,
thieves my lonely heart from worry
by haunting blue reflected rails
that curve the valley floor,
surrender to the sweet wood’s blind,
to mountains rise to blush once more
and there entreat her love in kind…

Beneath the stroke of naked moon,
between November’s blankets furled,
kissed by meadow’s sweetest rills
before the granite mountains curled.

Here dream do I in longing,
atop this post in autumn’s glove,
yearn to kiss her blushing flesh
and draw her close in sacred love.

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Filed under Mountains, Nature, Perspective, Poetry, True Love, Universal Soul

In Praise of Classical Poetry

I would like to share with all of you an incredible web-site dedicated to the enjoyment and promotion of classical poetry – Poetica Victorian: A Journal of Classical Poetry

Poetica Victorian is a journal and organization looking to spread a message: the poetry of old is still beautiful for contemporary times, and that this so called “old” form is still relevant to the modern world.

Poetica Victorian is a journal of classical style poetry where form is used to create great works with powerful direction.  Like the works of Tennyson, Bronte, Browning, Kipling, Frost and all the greatest poets of these styles, the journal’s poetry has depth and meaning hidden not just in the words but in how they are said.  The poems and contents of the journal are designed to make readers feel the poetry, believing that the classical styles accomplish this better than those of free-verse poetry.  Classical style poetry is as relevant today to the world as it was when it was once used more widely, however the modern literary community has forsaken the art in favor of a more democratic form in free-verse.  Poetica Victorian is driven to change that, and as a result brings us their Journal of Classical Poetry. They seek meter and rhyme scheme, power, and the ability to move the soul in their poems, and give those poems in which they find such over to their readers so that they may enjoy this beautiful style of poetry even in this era of empty modern poetry.

Representative Poem: The Comfort of the Cold by Armond Richards

The quiet cold keeps to itself, the heavy snow in silence,
the ending world is filled with dripping, soundless notes of violence.
The feral call of dying men have stripped compassion bare
of all that makes a human heart worth more than faithful prayer.

I anchor to a memory: a sunrise once forgotten,
a drowning sense of happiness, my somber smile left rotten.
I remember loving you. I remember burning
through emotions vast as oceans, lessons worth the learning.

I keep the gilded promise you left broken in the window,
reconvened the pieces and enjoyed the decrescendo.
The whispers left here, cracked and trembling, keeps no peace for me.
Perdition finds my burdened ear and sings of tragedy.

Await the comfort of the cold, of shattered hearts and stillness.
The ending world is full of love, humanity’s true illness.
I remember loving you. I remember crying.
I recall the sunsets when the best of me laid dying.

Please visit the Poetica Victorian website: http://www.poeticavictorian.org  or find them on Facebook at http://facebook.com/poeticavictorian

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Filed under Poetry

The Reach

A note beyond the alto’s range,
a secret passed but not the same
as what was so intended.
A thermal carrying eagles high
but falters short to bring them nigh
of what their souls expected.

A river flowing though the thaw
beneath the ice that holds its call
from ever being heard.
A sparrow dreaming of the flight
that brings his spirit to such heights,
yet such denied the bird.

These are the dreams I dream within
my captive spot and holding den,
and in such tease me more –
And so I watch from eyes that plead
to go beyond just what I need
before I reach that fateful shore –

A daisy on a mountain grown
amidst the granite so in sewn
and denied the earth to flourish there.
A salmon on her way to home
upon a rock by fate so strewn
and so denied her purposed care.

A full moon glimpsed behind the cloud,
so to the night is left in shroud,
so fails a night of love.
A heavy cloud without the rain
denies the summer’s parched hot plain
so presses heavy from above.

A hope, a glimpse beyond the now
that shines a light upon the “how”
a life anew might rise again.
A truth, that when it’s laid to rest
releases what is second best,
yet denies the strength to win.

It is these things I see in life
that paint the hope within the strife,
that hold the hands just out of reach,
that paint the colours through a bleach
of what is wanted most.

A hope, a dream, maybe a ghost –
or just what’s meant to be –
I pray to live enough to see…

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Filed under Perspective, Poetry, Universal Soul

November

Strained across November’s sky,
unbroken lines that haunt the sigh
of coursers’ wings in gentle hush
that to this barren day give rush
of blood to see them there.

Silver hints amongst the trees
where forest kneels to open lea
to hear the prattling golden grass,
hear each whispered breath sneak past
defined in winter’s care.

Tho’ burgeoning from November’s mood,
the cold and hollow bend the wood,
hold the stoic silence keen
where few a passerby are seen
and fewer yet remain.

That tho’ denied, the autumn’s musk
enchants the air from twig to husk,
mends the turn in hope decayed,
holds to season’s last breath played,
that by the winter gain

a promise for sweet spring’s reprise,
by still endurance and patient eye
may push a sprig through warmer duff,
mix the autumn’s scent with stuff
to bless life’s cycle spent…
fragrant blossom, fragrant scent…

Yet here today hold fast in hope
amidst this season’s depth, must cope
and through this pause remain.

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Filed under Nature, Perspective, Poetry, Universal Soul

The Old Couple in the Park

With trembling hands she reaches,
she reaches just to touch his face
where trembling melts in sweet caress,
caress strokes soul in sweetest grace.

Through wrinkled eyes he looks to her,
to her, his queen, his love, his wife.
Feels her warmth in aging hands,
aging hands that share his life.

She feels the stubble cross his cheek,
his cheek that’s aged and thinly drawn.
Into his eyes she deeply falls,
deeply falls where love’s been long.

He smiles into her tender eyes,
tender eyes of angel’s love.
He softly strokes her aging hand,
her aging hand light as a dove.

She smiles, he winks,
he winks, she beams,
she beams, he shines
and into love they fall it seems.

Gently aging beauty
when held transfixed by soul,
by soul in love eternal,
in aging ne’er one grows old.

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Filed under Perspective, Poetry, True Love, Universal Soul

Bend the Ether

Bend the ether, twill the steam and stitch your heart in every seam. Knot the nets that catch the death of those you’ve loved and now have left.

What is this temporal lashing’s crack that splits the air and heaven’s back? What is this frozen moment’s tome that steals your once last hope for home?

Frozen ropes and clinging ice do not your selfish heart disguise. Tho’ penance may you claim for pride, your lacking truth will ne’er deride the hatred that you held in fist, that killed him cold when called her, his.

Tears of brother’s death are not what grant you hope through what you’ve wrought. But only by your soul’s disdain shall ever spare the one you’ve slain! Your brother’s sword, his lover’s scent, through jealous hatred, hell you’ve rent upon the last one standing! You! That in this moment’s penance true will bury all your fledgling hope and leave you with just pain to cope with memories of the love you’ve wronged, of death no poem or sorrowed song could ever quite endure. So this your love and penance pure.

Wield the casting’s iron black, stoke the fire’s ashen slack that so restores the burning hell where lost your dreams now scream and wail! Pray to God through thick remorse that tears so streamed will open doors and grant you one last chance to claim forgiveness from those souls so slain.

Written in reflection of the story of Rodrigo Mendoza, who murdered his brother, Felipe, out of pure rage when he was found with Rodrigo’s fiancée.

Fickle love and fickle fate in paying such a penance.

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Filed under History, Perspective, Poetry

Alpine Moose

A long drawn silence hammers down
the lengthened shadows of this wood,
holds the alpine ether still
and tends the musk where once he stood.

Inadequate temporal witness I,
stumbled through his summer’s bed,
where by the sweetest creek side hush
I chanced upon the great one’s stead.

He rose in contemplation’s hold,
towering tall before my stance,
his ancient eyes of knowing claimed
this startled man with one kind glance.

Yet for a single moment stood,
as if my pounding heart to quell,
then turned through grass and broken briar
to alpine depths he knew so well.

In silent shadow’s ebbing wake
this mountain stream returns to ear,
relents to ether’s melting patience,
holds me awed and frozen here.

written in recollection of the moose I encountered, face to face, Aug 2013, Deadman Pass, CO.

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Filed under Mountains, Nature, Poetry

Grey Wolf

Frozen stance and frozen gaze
held against November’s haze
that claims the forest’s silver blues,
enrobes his shape within the hues
till seems he’s near forgotten.

First good snow, first good dance
that softens rich this lea’s expanse
against the stark November sky
and captures cold the reasons why
he’ll pause where no foot’s trodden.

He claims a step, he claims just two,
lifts his nose to hold in view
black lines across November’s sky
in angles long and hushed wing’s sigh,
he hears the geese in calling…

Calling home, calling free
to stand at forest’s edge and lea,
to hold November’s first white blush
beneath the gentle downy rush
and winter’s season falling.

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Filed under Grey Wolf, Nature, Perspective, Poetry