Autumnal Homecoming
Memory, buried hope
Is preserved by this brown timber,
Dahlias hang over it
Ever more silent homecoming,
The dark reflection of childish years
By the decayed garden,
That tears fall from blue eyelids
Irresistibly;
Gloom's crystalline minutes
Gleam over
To the night.
poem by Georg Trakl
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Homecoming
When the evening breathes golden rest
Forest and dark meadow before which
Man is a looker,
A shepherd, dwelling in the flocks' dusking stillness,
The patience of the red beeches;
So clearly since it has become autumn. By the hill
The lonely one listens to the flight of birds,
To dark meaning and the shadows of the dead
Have gathered more seriously around him;
Cool mignonette scent fulfills him with shudders,
The huts of the villagers the elder,
Where in former times the child dwelled.
Memory, buried hope
Is preserved by these brown rafters,
Over which dahlias hang
So that the hands strive after them,
In the brown garden the shimmering step
Forbidden loving, dark year,
That from blue eyelids the tears
Of the stranger fell irresistibly.
From brown treetops dew drips,
When that one, a blue deer, awakes on the hill,
Listening to the loud calls of the fishermen
By the evening pond
To the amorphous cry of the bats;
But in golden stillness
The drunken heart dwells
Full of its noble death.
poem by Georg Trakl
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In the Evening
A blue brook, path and evening along decayed huts.
Behind dark shrubbery children play with blue and red balls;
Some swap the forehead and the hands rot in the brown foliage.
In bony stillness the heart of the lonely one shines,
A small boat rocks on blackish waters.
Through dark woods hair and laughter of brown maids flutters.
The shadows of the old people cross the flight of a small bird;
Mystery of blue flowers on their temples.
Others sway on black benches in the evening wind.
Golden sighs quietly expire in the bleak branches
Of the chestnut; a sound of dark cymbals of summer,
When the strangeress appears on the decayed staircase.
poem by Georg Trakl
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Psalm
Stillness; as if blind people sank down by autumnal wall,
Listening with rotten temples to the flight of the ravens;
Golden stillness of autumn, the countenance of the father in the flickering sun
At evening the old village decays in the peace of brown oaks,
The red hammering of the smithy, a pounding heart.
Stillness; in slow hands the maid hides the hyacinthine forehead
Under fluttering sunflowers. Fear and silence
Of extinguishing eyes fulfills the dusking room, the halting steps
Of old women, the escape of the purple mouth which slowly expires in the darkness.
Taciturn evening in vine. From the low rafters
A nocturnal moth fell, nymph buried into bluish sleep.
In the courtyard the farm boy slaughters a lamb, the sweet smell of the blood
Clouds our foreheads, the dark coolness of the fountain.
The gloom of dying asters regrets, golden voices in the wind.
When it becomes night you look at me from moldered eyes,
In blue stillness your cheeks decayed to dust.
So quietly a weed's fire expires, the black hamlet in the ground falls silent
As if the cross climbed down the blue hill of Calvary,
The silent earth ejected its dead.
poem by Georg Trakl
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Bluebeard’s First Wife
I lie by the garden wall,
Buried and all alone;
The brown camellias fall
One by one on the stone.
Buried and all alone,
Because I had loved the sky!
One by one on the stone
The blossoms shudder and die.
Because I had loved the sky—
The dark blue face of the sea!
(The blossoms shudder and die)
He murdered me at his knee.
The dark, blue face of the sea.
Nothing so dark as the tomb!
He murdered me at his knee.
I knew the truth of the room!
Nothing so dark as the tomb
For the vile revenge of the vain.
I knew the truth of the room
And the price of his hidden stain.
For the vile revenge of the vain
I suffered the knife at my skin,
And the price of his hidden stain
Was two and eleven a tin!
I suffered the knife at my skin;
I knew the dye that he used
Was two and eleven a tin.
I confess I was somewhat amused.
I knew the dye that he used.
I heard the stitch of my shroud.
I confess I was somewhat amused
At the fury that burst like a cloud.
I heard the stitch of my shroud,
And all of the world disappeared
At the fury that burst like a cloud
From the heaven’s blue of his beard.
And all of the world disappeared!
I lie by the garden wall.
From the heaven’s blue of his beard
The brown camellias fall.
poem by Leon Gellert
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Fifteen Years Going Up (And One Night Coming Down)
15 years together
We climbed by work and will
From a simple two room cottage
To a mansion on the hill
Now theres rose in the garden
But its the coldest place in town
It took 15 years, goin up
And one night coming down
15 years of heaven
For one short night of sin
From blue skies forever
To an end
From out on a mountain
To both knees on the ground
15 years, goin up
And one night coming down
Her dreams have all been shattered
Her faith in my is gone
My tears tell her Im sorry
But they cant write my wrong
One night wrote my story
How a man can lose it all
After 15 years goin up
Its hard to take a fall
15 years of heaven
For one short night of sin
From blue skies forever
To an end
From out on a mountain
To both knees on the ground
15 years, goin up
And one night coming down
Ive been, 15 years goin up
And one night comin down
song performed by by George Strait
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Fifteen Years Going Up
15 years together
We climbed by work and will
From a simple two room cottage
To a mansion on the hill
Now there's rose in the garden
But it's the coldest place in town
It took 15 years, goin up
And one night coming down
15 years of heaven
For one short night of sin
From blue skies forever
To an end
From out on a mountain
To both knees on the ground
15 years, goin up
And one night coming down
Her dreams have all been shattered
Her faith in my is gone
My tears tell her i'm sorry
But they can't write my wrong
One night wrote my story
How a man can lose it all
After 15 years goin up
It's hard to take a fall
15 years of heaven
For one short night of sin
From blue skies forever
To an end
From out on a mountain
To both knees on the ground
15 years, goin up
And one night coming down
I've been, 15 years goin up
And one night comin down
song performed by by George Strait
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Watches Of The Night
O the waiting in the watches of the night!
In the darkness, desolation, and contrition and affright;
The awful hush that holds us shut away from all delight:
The ever weary memory that ever weary goes
Recounting ever over every aching loss it knows--
The ever weary eyelids gasping ever for repose--
In the dreary, weary watches of the night!
Dark--stifling dark--the watches of the night!
With tingling nerves at tension, how the blackness flashes white
With spectral visitations smitten past the inner sight!--
What shuddering sense of wrongs we've wrought
that may not be redressed--
Of tears we did not brush away--of lips we left unpressed,
And hands that we let fall, with all their loyalty unguessed!
Ah! the empty, empty watches of the night!
What solace in the watches of the night?--
What frailest staff of hope to stay--what faintest shaft of light?
Do we _dream_ and dare _believe_ it, that by never weight of right
Of our own poor weak deservings, we shall win the dawn at last--
Our famished souls find freedom from this penance for the past,
In a faith that leaps and lightens from the gloom
that flees aghast--
Shall we survive the watches of the night?
One leads us through the watches of the night--
By the ceaseless intercession of our loved ones lost to sight
He is with us through all trials, in His mercy and His might;--
With our mothers there about Him, all our sorrow disappears,
Till the silence of our sobbing is the prayer the Master hears,
And His hand is laid upon us with the tenderness of tears
In the waning of the watches of the night.
poem by James Whitcomb Riley
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Hanging Garden
Creatures kissing in the rain
Shapeless in the dark again
In the hanging garden
Please don't speak
In the hanging garden
No one sleeps
In the hanging garden
In the hanging garden
Catching haloes on the moon
Gives my hands the shapes of angels
In the heat of the night
The animals scream
In the heat of the night
Walking into a dream . . .
Fall fall fall fall
Into the walls
Jump jump out of time
Fall fall fall fall
Out of the sky
Cover my face as the animals cry
In the hanging garden
In the hanging garden
Creatures kissing in the rain
Shapeless in the dark again
In a hanging garden
Change the past
In a hanging garden
Wearing furs
And masks
Fall fall fall fall
Into the walls
Jump jump out of time
Fall fall fall fall
Out of the sky
Cover my face as the animals die
In the hanging garden
As the animals die
Cover my face as the animals die
In the hanging garden
song performed by by Cure
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Death of Dusk
The sun resigns,
bleeds out the vestiges –
remnants of the day.
Exsanguination edges into twilight:
red-brown hangs;
upwards darkens:
blue-brown,
blue-black,
death-black,
disquiet – furtive,
like ghoul-ridden fog.
A sombre moon assumes its role,
gushing silver-white lymph upon the muted scape –
a prequel of supernatural undertones
to chill the scene,
ice the spine,
kill the brain –
we have unnerved the very firmament.
But now a shadow closing down the globe:
dinosaurian cloud shrouds the moon glaze,
claims the late hour –
declared in a dying crow caw.
I, the hidden owl
– nemesis of claustrophobic minds –
awake! for mammal flesh –
fresh, jerking out its warmth in dance of death.
Rock-still I perch in sculptured oneness
with my crooked night-tree,
emanating nocturnal allure.
Together we scowl
together we play the dark
upon the land and sky
and mind
while you lie as dead in your box.
Copyright © Mark R Slaughter 2010
dark dark dark dark night dark dark dark dark night
dark dark dark dark night
dark dark dark dark night dark dark
dark dark dark dark night dark dark dark dark night
dark dark dark dark night dark dark
dark dark dark dark night
dark dark dark dark night dark dark dark dark night
poem by Mark R Slaughter
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The Hanging Garden
Creature kissing in the rain
Shapeless in the dark again
In the hanging garden
Please dont speak
In th hanging garden
No one sleeps
Catching haloes on the moon
Gives my hands the shapes of angles
In the heat of the night
The animals scream
In the heat of the night
Walking into a dream...
Fall fall fall fall
Into the walls
Jump jump out of time
Fall fall fall fall
Out of the sky
Cover my face as the animals cry
Creatures kissing in the rain
Shapeless in the dark
In a hanging garden
Change the past
In a hanging garden
Wearing furs
And masks
Fall fall fall fall
Into the walls
Jump jump out of time
Fall fall fall fall
Out of the sky
Cover my face as the animals die
In the hanging garden
song performed by by Cure
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Rosemary
Boots were of leather, a breath of cologne
The mirror was a window she sat by alone.
All around the garden grew scarlet and purple and crimson and blue.
She came dead and she went, and at last went away, the garden was sealed when the
Flowers decayed.
On the wall of the garden a legend did say, no one may come here since no one may
Stay.
song performed by by Grateful Dead
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Last Five Minutes Of Your Life
given the last five minutes
of your life
what shall you do?
let the last five minutes
be a waiting
let there be that willingness
to go where the last five minutes take you
let there be a respect
for an ending
let it be as nice as the first welcome
let it be as silent as a cat's feet
on the carpet
embrace the last five minutes
like your long lost friend
tightly
without any tears.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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And In The House
And in the house
All is now silent
I rise and grope
In the dark, dark
And lo! Before me
A blue light I
A thin blue light
See I all a-shining
And leading me
And guiding me
Into the dark
In the long night
In to the long night!
Ah! father, father
Where are
You leading me:
The thin blue light
Now veers to here
And then to there
Now up
Now down
It plays:
And in the night
The long lone night
The seconds turn and turn!
And in the house
The lonely house
A soundless sound
Is humming:
The light
The thin blue light
Is leading still leading
And in the night
No time is passing
No hope of dawn
Or day
Is coming:
But dark
And dark:
Yet in the night
This night
Of black
A thrill felt I
And happiness
That never felt!
poem by Emmanuel George Cefai
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The Fruit Garden Path
The path runs straight between the flowering rows,
A moonlit path, hemmed in by beds of bloom,
Where phlox and marigolds dispute for room
With tall, red dahlias and the briar rose.
'T is reckless prodigality which throws
Into the night these wafts of rich perfume
Which sweep across the garden like a plume.
Over the trees a single bright star glows.
Dear garden of my childhood, here my years
Have run away like little grains of sand;
The moments of my life, its hopes and fears
Have all found utterance here, where now I stand;
My eyes ache with the weight of unshed tears,
You are my home, do you not understand?
poem by Amy Lowell
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Invocation II
COME to-night in a dream to-night,
Come as you used to do,
Come in the gown, in the gown of white,
Come in the ribbon of blue;
Come in the virgin's colours you wear,
Come through the dark and the dew,
Come with the scent of the night in your hair,
Come as you used to do.
Blue and white of your eyes and your face,
White of your gown and blue,
Will you not come from the happy place,
Come as you used to do?
Tears so many, so many tears
Where there were once so few--
Can they not wash the gray of the years
From the white of your gown and blue?
poem by Edith Nesbit
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Chloe
Chloe, i hang onto the past
Like a chandelier in a darkened room
But your hope is in the future
As light emerges from the gloom.
My sunset will be your dawn
Your happiness will be reborn.
It's snowy, but Chloe, ice will melt away.
Life, the price we have to pay
For the sun will light the bay
When silent fears sail away.
Chloe, we hang our hopes on a crescent moon
The aching in our hearts not just a pleasant tune
Scarred but starred like tender night
We feel the dark but wait for the light.
Our words still survive on a nomadic wind
Our thoughts free and open, with reality twinned.
Be proud, that life's shroud you have cast away
To feel out loud, while others torn, do fray-
Keeping it all inside on this roller- coaster ride
-They had so neatly planned, when love went hand in hand
As passion's fire was fanned.
Then Cupid turned out their light.
We still have the blue crazed night.
Chloe, continue to fly your kite
While the smug are convinced they are right.
Yes, the heart must rule the head
No skeleton ever bled
No feeling, no life, just dead.
Chloe we hang our hopes on a crescent moon.
poem by Kevin East
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Dust to Dust
The sky is parched.
The landscape is scorched.
Brown and gray hang in the air
suspended on shimmering wire.
At night the coyotes lament its passing.
At daybreak life melts into what remains of shadow.
Cool slips from memory
water abandons the mirage
green is consigned to myth.
Soon memory, mirage, myth
will lie face down in the streambed
swallowing the dust where it all began.
That night the coyotes shall remain silent.
The Earth will breathe relief,
and wait for the return of morning rain.
poem by Ronald Shields
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I Hope You're Happy
I hope you're happy.
I hope you don't give it a second thought.
I hope you're happy but that's not enough.
I hope your miserble in that grave you dug.
I hope it's me you're thinking of when you choke on your tears.
I hope you waste the years with someone untrue.
I hope the words you said come back to haunt you.
The mistake you made, I hope it drives you insane.
I hope it hurts you to say my name.
If you're lonely you've got no one to blame but yourself.
So I hope your happy with somebody else.
I hope you're doing alright.
I hope it's guilt that keeps you up at night
I hope it eats you away.
I hope you regret every single day spent without me.
I hope it kills you to hear the truth spoken loudly.
I hope you have fun pretending to care about her.
I hope you believe that you can't live without her.
I hope you're happy.
I hope you don't fall apart.
I hope you're happy.
I hope she breaks your worthless heart.
poem by Samantha Ashley
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Memory
Late, late last night, when the whole world slept,
Along to the garden of dreams I crept.
And I pulled the bell of an old, old house
Where the moon dipped down like a little white mouse.
I tapped the door and I tossed my head:
"Are you in, little girl? Are you in?" I said.
And while I waited and shook with cold
Through the door tripped me---just eight years old.
I looked so sweet with my pigtails down,
Tied up with a ribbon of dusky brown,
With a dimpled chin full of childish charme,
And my old black dolly asleep in my arms.
I sat me down when I saw myself,
And I told little tales of a moonland elf.
I laughed and sang as I used to do
When the world was ruled by Little Boy Blue.
Then I danced with a toss and a twirl
And said: "Now have you been a good, good girl?
Have you had much spanking since you were Me?
And does it feel fine to be twenty-three?"
I kissed me then, and I said farewell,
For I've earned more spanks than I dared to tell,
And Eight must never see Twenty-three
As she peeps through the door of Memory.
poem by Zora Bernice May Cross
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Rondel
THESE many years since we began to be,
What have the gods done with us? what with me,
What with my love? they have shown me fates and fears,
Harsh springs, and fountains bitterer than the sea,
Grief a fixed star, and joy a vane that veers,
These many years.
With her, my love, with her have they done well?
But who shall answer for her? who shall tell
Sweet things or sad, such things as no man hears?
May no tears fall, if no tears ever fell,
From eyes more dear to me than starriest spheres
These many years!
But if tears ever touched, for any grief,
Those eyelids folded like a white-rose leaf,
Deep double shells wherethrough the eye-flower peers,
Let them weep once more only, sweet and brief,
Brief tears and bright, for one who gave her tears
These many years.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
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