Flight Of Stairs
Stairs fly as straight as hawks;
Or else in spirals, curve out of curve, pausing
At a ledge to poise their wings before relaunching.
Stairs sway at the height of their flight
Like a melody in Tristan;
Or swoop to the ground with glad spread of their feathers
Before they close them.
They curiously investigate
The shells of buildings,
A hollow core,
Shell in a shell.
Useless to produce their path to infinity
Or turn it to a moral symbol,
For their flight is ambiguous, upwards or downwards as you please;
Their fountain is frozen,
Their concertina is silent.
Submitted by Stephen Fryer
poem by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
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Related quotes
Quickstep
Acknowledge the drum's whisper.
Yield to its velvet
Nudge. Cut a slow air-
Curve. Then dip (hip to hip):
Sway, swing, pedantically
Poise. Now recover,
Converting the coda
To prelude of sway-swing-
Recover.
Acknowledge
The drum-crack's alacrity -
Acrid exactitude -
Catch it, then slacken,
Then catch as cat catches
Rat. Trace your graph:
Loop, ellipse. Skirt an air-wall
To bend it and break it -
Thus - so -
As the drum speaks!
Submitted by Stephen Fryer
poem by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Flight
When the sacred kingfisher is flying,
It is frantically flapping its wings to
The sand of the sea,
In a form of a deep curve as a rainbow.
Its flight is most like a deep, steady wing beat
To fly higher and higher.
Its wing seemingly bites the air.
So skilled at flying
Is the sacred kingfisher
And so naturally suited to the sky
That it can frantically flap its wings to
The sand of the sea.
In a form of a deep curve as a rainbow.
From that deep curve comes its screaming
And the white bleeding rain,
While the bird is frantically flapping its wings to
The sea water
To eat its silent prey
And to become a broken winged bird,
That cannot fly
Any longer.
poem by Marieta Maglas
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The Anniversary
"This bunch of violets," he said,
"Is for my daughter dear.
Since that glad morn when she was wed
It is today a year.
She lives atop this flight of stairs--
Please give an arm to me:
If we can take her unawares
How glad she'll be!"
We climbed the stairs; the flight was four,
Our steps were stiff and slow;
But as he reached his daughter's door
His eyes were all aglow.
Joylike he raised his hand to knock,
Then sore distressed was I,
For from the silence like a shock
I heard a cry.
A drunken curse, a sob of woe . . .
His withered face grew grey.
"I think," said he, "we'd better go
And come another day."
And as he went a block with me,
Walking with weary feet,
His violets, I sighed to see,
Bestrewed the street.
poem by Robert William Service
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A Stare
a stare is like a stair
it has steps
and there are feet
walking,
and leaving,
you stare at me,
and i see stairs, where you walk
and climb and stop at the middle
and then take the stairs layer by layer
that is what you like to do, to look at me
as though i am this room where you build the stairs
and you want to go inside my room and lock me up
and take all of me with your tongue and hands and
mouth. You mouth me. And i receive the life you have.
and then your stare subsides. the stair is gone.
the room vanishes. I am free. And you are inside me
your stare has become the memory lingering inside me.
i become a bird and you are inside my wings.
Your stairs become my feathers. Your stare
becomes my eyes.
in love, we make the stairs leading to a house.
and there we feast, and live and sleep.
yes, there are wings and windows.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Unlyric Love Song
It is time to give that-of-myself which I could not at first:
To offer you now at last my least and my worst:
Minor, absurd preserves,
The shell's end-curves,
A document kept at the back of a drawer,
A tin hidden under the floor,
Recalcitrant prides and hesitations:
To pile them carefully in a desparate oblation
And say to you "quickly! turn them
Once over and burn them".
Now I (no communist, heaven knows!
Who have kept as my dearest right to close
My tenth door after I've opened nine to the world,
To unfold nine sepals holding one hard-furled)
Shall - or shall try to - offer to you
A communism of two ...
See, entry's yours;
Here, the last door!
Submitted by Stephen Fryer
poem by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Last Word To Childhood
Ice-cold fear has slowly decreased
As my bones have grown, my height increased.
Though I shiver in snow of dreams, I shall never
Freeze again in a noonday terror.
I shall never break, my sinews crumble
As God-the-headmaster's fingers fumble
At the other side of unopening doors
Which I watch for a hundred thousand years.
I shall never feel my thin blood leak
While darkness stretches a paw to strike
Or Nothing beats an approaching drum
Behind my back in a silent room.
I shall never, alone, meet the end of my world
At the bend of a path, the turn of a wall:
Never, or once more only, and
That will be once and an end of end.
Submitted by Stephen Fryer
poem by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
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Curved Eyelash
I could feel the vibration of your screams in the air.
I could perceive your sight touching this vibration, by curving the time.
I could understand this vibrating touch.
I could realize the sense of curve
And the sight of the second curve, the sigmoid curve.
The air would be very much compressed, it would beget the sound..
The twinkle in your eye would be aslant
Through an opening and it would reach the ground,
By gliding rapidly along your very long, curved eyelash...
You would re-enter your own world, deep inside you,
You would become the curve in itself.
Love would become an unstable point of equilibrium...
A grey cloud would form when the air would be heated by the sun
And a sphere of incumbency would engrave your insular thinking.
I wouldn’t be able to keep that second anymore.
The second would glide between my fingers
My praying fingers.
The horizon by the sea
Would be photoengraved with corals and shells..
The eye horizon would receive this for comprehensiveness....
That would shiver the universe...
You would be awake, you would be able to be revived.....
poem by Marieta Maglas
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Deadmans Curve
The street was desserted late friday night
We were buggin each other while we sat out the light
We both popped our clutch when the light turned green
You should have heard the wine from my screamin machine
I flew past la brea, down to crescent heights
And all the jag could see were my six tail lights
He passed me at doheny and I started to swerve
But I pulled her out and there we were at deadmans curve
Deadmans curve is no place to play
Deadmans curve
Well, the last thing I remember doc.
I started to swerve, and then I saw the jag slide into the curb
I know Ill never forget that horrible sight
I found out for myself, that everyone was right
Wont come back from deadmans curve
Deadmans curve is no place to play
Deadmans curve you best keep away
Deadmans curve I can hear them say
Wont come back from deadmans curve
song performed by by Carpenters
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Did You Say You Make It On The Stairs?
did i really hear you right?
making love on the stairs
and then the boy
comes surprisingly
asking both of you
what are you both doing
on the stairs
both of you naked
while he pumps
on you
like one ever hungry
lover?
how shameful!
well, okay,
the boy is your son
and the man
is your husband
was the bed broken?
or the stairs
too exciting?
was the marriage
too boring?
well, ok,
i understand,
you split with him
could be the
staggering steps on the stairs
could be that the boy
finally understands
could be that the bed
is not that warm
you split for good
and uhuh?
so you are now free
at last
from those stairs
from the bed
and the boy has to make
the inevitable choice
between pa and ma
the stairs he will always remember
anyhow
yes, the boy not the pa
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Twenty Flight Rock
Well I got a girl with a record machine,
When it comes to rocking shes a queen.
I took her to a dance on a saturday night,
All alone where I can hold her tight.
She lives on the twentieth floor uptown.
The elevators broken down.
And I walk one, two flight, three flight four,
Five six seven flight, eight flight more.
Up on the twelfth Im starting to sag,
Fifteenth floor Im ready to drag.
I get to the top and Im too tired to rock.
You know she called me up on the telephone,
Said come on ever baby cause Im all alone.
I said baby youre mighty sweet,
But Im in bed with aching feet.
This went on for a couple of days,
But I couldnt stay away.
And I walk one, two flight, three flight four,
Five six seven flight, eight flight more.
Up on the twelfth Im starting to sag,
Fifteenth floor Im ready to drag.
I get to the top and Im too tired to rock.
Well I sent to chicago for repairs,
Till its fixed Im using the stairs.
I hope they hurry, before its too late,
I want my baby too much to wait.
All this climbing is getting me down,
Theyll find me hanging over the rail.
And I walk one, two flight, three flight four,
Five six seven flight, eight flight more.
Up on the twelfth Im starting to sag,
Fifteenth floor Im ready to drag.
I get to the top and Im too tired to rock.
And I walk one, two flight, three flight four,
Five six seven flight, eight flight more.
Up on the twelfth Im starting to sag,
Fifteenth floor Im ready to drag,
I get to the top and Im too tired to rock.
song performed by by Paul McCartney
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Sea
1
(Windless Summer)
Between the glass panes of the sea are pressed
Patterns of fronds, and the bronze tracks of fishes.
2
(Winter)
Foam-ropes lasso the seal-black shiny rocks,
Noosing, slipping and noosing again for ever.
3
(Windy Summer)
Over-sea going, under returning, meet
And make a wheel, a shell, to hold the sun.
Submitted by Stephen Fryer
poem by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
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Secret Garden
Shell let you in her house
If you come knockin late at night
Shell let you in her mouth
If the words you say are right
If you pay the price
Shell let you deep inside
But theres a secret garden she hides
Shell let you in her car
To go drivin round
Shell let you into the parts of herself
Thatll bring you down
Shell let you in her heart
If you got a hammer and a vise
But into her secret garden, dont think twice
Youve gone a million miles
How fard you get
To that place where you cant remember
And you cant forget
Shell lead you down a path
Therell be tenderness in the air
Shell let you come just far enough
So you know shes really there
Shell look at you and smile
And her eyes will say
Shes got a secret garden
Where everything you want
Where everything you need
Will always stay
A million miles away
song performed by by Bruce Springsteen
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Angelic Rapist
I take flight as I
stalk you thru the
night.
Black feathered wings
and halo shine bright.
Play my melody.
Rock-a-bye b! tch.
Swoop down on you and
rape you of yer happiness.
poem by BroKen FisT
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Cats 1
To walk as you walk, green eye, smiler, not
Even ostentatiously alone but simply
Alone ... arching the back in courteous discourtesy,
Gathering the body as a dancer before an unworthy
Audience, treading earth scantly - a task to be done
And done with, girt (curt introvert) for private
Precise avoidance of the undesired,
Pride-attired, generalissimo
Knife-eyed, bisector of moonshine with indigo
Shadow, scorner of earth-floor, flaunter of
Steel-hard sickle curve against the sky ... !
Submitted by Stephen Fryer
poem by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Stairs
(pamela brown, david roberts)
She looks at the clock, its a quarter past nine.
She hears his car as he pulls in the drive.
Dinners still waiting from hours before.
She knows hes been drinking when he walks through the door.
In anger he strikes out and she starts to cry.
How much more can she take, how much more can
She lie.
And she fell down the stairs again.
But it hasnt happened since she dont know when.
Was it in spring when she packed up the kids, or
Maybe in winter with his job on the skids.
Oh but just like before shell have to
Pretend that she fell down the stairs again.
A short time ago, she started
A job, serving chicken fried steak and corn on the cob.
She started out shy, but she ended up sure,
That a ticket to anywhere could be the cure.
But he couldnt handle her change for the better.
She tried to leave him , but he wouldnt let her.
He says hes sorry, hed never mean it.
He swears it wont happen again. but shes so confused,
She wants to believe it. she just wants this nightmare to end.
And she fell down the stair again.
But it hasnt happened since she dont know when.
Was it in spring when she packed up the kids, or
Maybe in winter with his job on the skids.
Oh but just like before shell have to pretend
That she fell down the stairs again.
song performed by by Reba Mcentire
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Snowbirds
Along the narrow sandy height
I watch them swiftly come and go,
Or round the leafless wood,
Like flurries of wind-driven snow,
Revolving in perpetual flight,
A changing multitude.
Nearer and nearer still they sway,
And, scattering in a circled sweep,
Rush down without a sound;
And now I see them peer and peep,
Across yon level bleak and gray,
Searching the frozen ground,-
Until a little wind upheaves,
And makes a sudden rustling there,
And then they drop their play,
Flash up into the sunless air,
And like a flight of silver leaves
Swirl round and sweep away.
poem by Archibald Lampman
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Play Again
Late in 1962 New York newspapers reported the story of a nine-year-
old child being raped on a roof, and hurled twenty stories to the
ground.
I draw near to the roof's edge
and seek someone to lift
and hurl me out into vacant air.
I want to turn over and over
rapidly in my plunge, my mouth
open to scream but air rushing
upwards jams my throat.
I am seeking the peace
I never once gave up on
and this is the final way to find it. The living
share me among them. They taste
me on the ground, they taste me
in the air descending. They taste
me screaming, nine years old.
I have playmates
and I leave behind my skull
in their dreams, hands to mouths.
It is because they have no help,
as if to hint to them the way,
if they would understand.
When we played it was to love each other
in games. Play again and love me
until I really die, when you are old
on a flight of stairs.
poem by David Ignatow
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Fountain Of Sorrow
Looking through some photographs I found inside a drawer
I was taken by a photograph of you
There were one or two I know that you would have liked a little more
But they didnt show your spirit quite as true
You were turning round to see who was behind you
And I took your childish laughter by surprise
And at the moment that my camera happened to find you
There was just a trace of sorrow in your eyes
Now the things that I remember seem so distant and so small
Though it hasnt really been that long a time
What I was seeing wasnt what was happening at all
Although for a while, our path did seem to climb
But when you see through loves illusions, there lies the danger
And your perfect lover just looks like a perfect fool
So you go running off in search of a perfect stranger
While the loneliness seems to spring from your life
Like a fountain from a pool
Fountain of sorrow, fountain of light
Youve known that hollow sound of your own steps in flight
Youve had to hide sometimes, but now youre all right
And its good to see your smiling face tonight
Now for you and me it may not be that hard to reach our dreams
But that magic feeling never seems to last
And while the futures there for anyone to change, still you know its seems
It would be easier sometimes to change the past
Im just one or two years and a couple of changes behind you
In my lessons at loves pain and heartache school
Where if you feel too free and you need something to remind you
Theres this loneliness springing up from your life
Like a fountain from a pool
Fountain of sorrow, fountain of light
Youve known that hollow sound of your own steps in flight
Youve had to hide sometimes but now youre all right
And its good to see your smiling face tonight
Fountain of sorrow, fountain of light
Youve known that hollow sound of your own steps in flight
Youve had to struggle, youve had to fight
To keep understanding and compassion in sight
You could be laughing at me, youve got the right
But you go on smiling so clear and so bright
song performed by by Jackson Browne
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Tube Station
The tube lift mounts,
sap in a stem,
And blossoms its load,
a black, untidy rose.
The fountain of the escalator
curls at the crest,
breaks and scatters
A winnow of men,
a sickle of dark spray.
Submitted by Stephen Fryer
poem by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
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A Chrysalis
My little Mädchen found one day
A curious something in her play,
That was not fruit, nor flower, nor seed;
It was not anything that grew,
Or crept, or climbed, or swam, or flew;
Had neither legs nor wings, indeed;
And yet she was not sure, she said,
Whether it was alive or dead.
She brought it in her tiny hand
To see if I would understand,
And wondered when I made reply,
"You've found a baby butterfly."
"A butterfly is not like this,"
With doubtful look she answered me.
So then I told her what would be
Some day within the chrysalis:
How, slowly, in the dull brown thing
Now still as death, a spotted wing,
And then another, would unfold,
Till from the empty shell would fly
A pretty creature, by and by,
All radiant in blue and gold.
"And will it, truly?" questioned she--
Her laughing lips and eager eyes
All in a sparkle of surprise--
"And shall your little Mädchen see?"
"She shall!" I said. How could I tell
That ere the worm within its shell
Its gauzy, splendid wings had spread,
My little Mädchen would be dead?
To-day the butterfly has flown,--
She was not here to see it fly,--
And sorrowing I wonder why
The empty shell is mine alone.
Perhaps the secret lies in this:
I too had found a chrysalis,
And Death that robbed me of delight
Was but the radiant creature's flight!
poem by Mary Emily Bradley
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