Lost Love Deliria
AWAKENING
Sleep and slumber, dreams of wonder... weaving,
morning's vacuum broke the spell
Pitted pillow, note of parting... leaving,
'from your friend, a fond farewell'
Sunrise throbbing, twilight aching... grieving,
daydreams, flashbacks, nightmares knell
Pale phantasms, visions sneaking... thieving,
plot to fill the empty shell
12 DELIRIA
1st Delirium: Collapses
Fractured sky bolts, billows bursting... rumbling,
heavens tighten, turn the vise
Horsemen saddle shafts of lightning... tumbling,
jagged highways must suffice
Ruptured skyways, hailstones crackling... crumbling,
naked pearls of paradise
Toxic tongues of laughter stinging... stumbling,
ocean buckets choked with ice
Droplets drumming, thunder muzzled... mumbling,
washed out whispers pay the price
Smothered blazes, cinders smoking... humbling,
ashes shaped in sacrifice
2nd Delirium: Descents
Asphalt alleys, ashen faces... frowning,
blowing bubbles, chewing gum
Drinking ale from tavern tankards... downing,
moonlit beads of painted rum
Stony stars and sea misshapen... drowning,
humble rivers' rhythms hum
Apparitions aspirating... clowning,
diamonds dying, minstrels strum
Incandescent candles conquered... crowning,
vacant vapours, cold and numb
3rd Delirium: Fates
Tempest turmoil, tapered turrets... holding,
dungeons, dragons, chains and racks
Wheels of fortune, Tarot temptress... molding,
Hangmen, Towers, One Eyed Jacks
Sand dune castles, cryptic candles... folding,
warping walls of liquid wax
Idols colder, combed and coddled... scolding,
hide in fissures, peek through cracks
4th Delirium: Lost Souls
Sunken cities, pilgrims peering... gawking,
squinting eyeballs, blazing sun
Janus facing, shepherds chasing... stalking,
friends embrace before they shun
Tearooms steaming, tumult teeming... talking,
lovers listen, poets pun
Broken stones unanchored, quaking... rocking,
slipping, falling, one by one
Beaten pathways, footsteps marking... mocking,
wedged in webs which spiders spun
Circus shelters, big tops tumbling... locking,
people pacing, soon they're none
Numbered exits, zeros numbing... knocking,
midnight daylight's days undone
Moon blood shackles, shivers shaming... shocking,
starlight striders streaking, stun
Hushed but harried hermits waiting... walking,
restless rainbows on the run
Pixies, elves, and echoes bouncing... balking,
fading fast when dawn's begun
Bantum butterflies are flitting... flocking
sometimes conquered, overrun
Hocus pokus, seers focus... squawking,
voodoo wavered, witchcraft won
5th Delirium: Introspection
Sundown furnace, fires fading... coughing,
dusky dew drops drain the air
Empty chalice, sipped in silence... quaffing,
thirsting shadows unaware
Looking glass and lattice scorning... scoffing,
local loser gapes and stares
Faces covered, dancing naked... doffing,
peering inside, hope despairs
6th Delirium: The Void
Tales of taboos, mystic mythos... missing,
windows shuttered, bolted door
Kindled candles, tongues and anvils... hissing,
heavy hammers, echoes roar
Dark deceivers, raven charmers... kissing,
draging demons from the shore
Hopeless hollows filled with doubters... dissing
standing empty - nevermore
7th Delirium: Searching
Martyred monks haunt runic ruins... waiting,
banging broken bells below
Vaulted hallways, voided voices... grating,
churning Chinese chimes aglow
Granite graveyards, spectres spooking... skating,
blackened bushes, roses grow
Midget dwarfs seek mutant migrants... mating,
packing parcels, ice and snow
8th Delirium: Nighttime
Throbbing drumheads, fingers blazing... steaming,
coins of copper, beggars plea
Rusty residues of resin... streaming,
opal amber filigree
Orphan shades in shallow shadows... teeming,
steeping twigs in twilight tea
Cloister doorsteps, Prophets gaming... scheming,
tracing tracks of destiny
Blacksmiths blanching, horseshoes glowing... gleaming,
partially sheathed in black debris
Phantoms feigning, nightmares scathing... screaming,
dusty dreamers drifting free
9th Delerium: Emptyness
Water wheels in wastelands... turning,
drowning relics in the slum
Rumpled rags of fashioned burlap... burning,
lit by bandits blind and dumb
Pastured prisons, ponies bridled... yearning,
forest fairies under thumb
Sounds inside of cauldrons coughing... churning,
blaring bugles, tattooed drum
10th Delirium: Alienation
Rain unravelling, wistfully weeping... falling,
treacle trickling, fickle sky
Mushrooms sprinkled, visions sprouting... sprawling,
seagulls drowning, dolphins die
Rabble gasping, spirits broken... crawling,
lonely lonesome swallows cry
Babbling brooks and breakers ebbing... bawling
puppies paddle, puppets sigh
People passing ripple past me... calling,
rainbow colours, collars high
Chaos seething, lepers looting... stalling,
stealing stallions on the sly
Pencils pausing, scholars scrambling... scrawling,
scratching scribbles, asking why
11th Delirium: Jetsam
Silver sails sway pallid pirates... prowling,
Jolly Rogers, wind and sound
Parrots perching, tattered feathers... fouling,
tethered talons, tied and bound
Shipwrecked foghorns, trumpets stranded... howling,
spiral springs of time unwound
Magic moonlight, shimmers shaking... scowling,
burnt out matchsticks washed aground
Prairie wolfs, coyotes calling... yowling,
witching hours, midnight hounds
Tightrope walkers, grizzlies grunting... growling,
seeking islands, lost and found
12th Delirium: Relief
Slumber shattered, vapours captive... haunting,
chained in mirrors, breaking free
Scarlet skylines, daylight dawning... daunting,
rivers rushing to the sea
Silence softens, sandmen whisper... wanting,
piercing rafters, turning keys
Shadows shudder, notions fluster... flaunting,
moonbeam bullets meant for me
Mind in migraine, meadows trembling... taunting,
sparrows speak in harmony
REAWAKENING
Pitter patter, teardrops paling... pearling,
salting scarves in secret drawers
Mist amongst us, smoke rings rising... curling,
climbing from the ocean floors
See-saw circles, senses swerving... swirling,
swept away with silver oars
Courtyard jesters, sceptres twisting... twirling,
push the past to foreign shores
Passing pangs of passions heaving... hurling,
burning bridges, closing doors
Roses wither, icons waning... whirling,
time decays and time restores
poem by Terry O'Leary
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Related quotes
Delirium
Delirium
So she thinks she's got a new boyfriend
But the two of them have never met
She's already got his name tattooed
In a heart across her chest
With his pictures plastered on her wall
But he has never called
And even all her friends they say:
'You're living in delirium'
Da da da, Da da da, Da da da, Da da da, Da da da
Babe, you live in delirium
Da da da, Da da da, Da da da, Da da da, Da da
Secretly she's stalking him on the streets
Making sure she's one step behind
They even went to the movies together
Or at least they stood in the same line
She tells everyone he sends her flowers
And love letters he sends her too
And they talk on the phone for hours
It's obvious shes come on blue
Da da da, Da da da, Da da da, Da da da, Da da da
Babe, you live in deliri
Da da da, Da da da, Da da da, Da da da, Da da da
Babe, you're livin' in delirium
Da da da, Da da da, Da da da, Da da da, Da da da
Every night you find her all alone
Fantasising about the brand new home
And she's waiting for the bells the ring a ding-a-ling
Oh, God, she's lost her mind
And her friends tell her all the time
That it's make-believe
This guy she sees it's her disease
She's living in delirium
She's so happy that she found someone
But she's still living in delirium
She's so happy that she found someone
But she's still living in delirium
Da da da, Da da da, Da da da, Da da da, Da da da
Babe, you're livin' in delirium
Da da da, Da da da, Da da da, Da da da, Da da da
Babe, you're livin' in delirium
(She's so happy that she found someone
But she's still living in delirium)
Da da da, Da da da, Da da da, Da da da, Da da da
Babe, you're livin' in delirium
Da da da, Da da da, Da da da, Da da da, Da da da
Babe, you're livin' in delirium
(She's so happy that she found someone
But she's still living in delirium)
Da da da, Da da da, Da da da, Da da da, Da da da
Babe, you're livin' in delirium
Da da da, Da da da, Da da da, Da da da, Da da da
Babe, you're livin' in delirium
Da da da, Da da da, Da da da, Da da da, Da da da
Babe, you're livin' in delirium
song performed by by Pink
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Alone Again
Cold rains drizzle dreary... sweeping off the sky,
Spectres pass 'long side me... collars turned up high,
My visions are invisible and no one hears me cry.
Minstrels of destruction... rapping at my door,
Naked anvils aching... heavy hammers roar,
Their monodies of emptiness throb bleeding on my floor.
House of cards collapsing... sagging walls of wax,
Deuces in dissention... Kings with broken backs;
The Joker's lost and stumbles by, alone, along the tracks
Steeples stand dismantled... muted bells below,
Ruins quake and tremble... freezing in the snow,
The pains implode within my brain, the pale winds cruelly blow.
Prophets fill the temples... residues of tea
Highways of no entrance... tracks of destiny,
The phantoms in my nightmare dreams tell tales of running free.
Foghorns calling lonely... no one hears the sound,
Silver schooners scuttled... swirling round and round,
The bridges broke at midnight's stroke, and driftwood washed aground.
Stony seas misshapen... moonbeams painted rum,
Fingers sift the ashes... hands so cold and numb,
Incandescent candlesticks impale the sinking sun.
Smothered fires smoking... oceans filled with ice,
Hailstones slash at windows... blades from paradise,
Like tongues of hollow laughter licking wounds of sacrifice.
Flowing fields of flowers... silent harmony
Rolling river reveries... somewhere by the sea
My love, she was my daylight bliss, she once belonged to me.
poem by Terry O'Leary
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The night, to-night how weary is
This night, to-night how weary is
The sickly boy sickens the more and sweats
Into the delirium of the night.
She pineth
She weepeth
She pineth
With her beady eyes
In the slow-lighted night full glistening
Like lizard’s eyes.
And the delirium
The delirium of the night
How soundeth it
Like a cacophony.
This night, to-night how weary is.
poem by Emmanuel George Cefai
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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One Way Ships
Flings and wings and rings rejected
Cupid's arrows fly deflected
'It clearly is too late' she signed, 'to love, adore or pay me mind'
Penciled lines drew cruel conclusions
mocking mirror's cracked illusions
Sometimes, in time, I hang awhile, reflected in her parting smile
Drifting wan, below unheeding
worried, wounded suns a' bleeding
Struck dumb by night, no way to say 'Let's sound the stars another way'
Shaking sands frame distant smokestacks
shanty towns, forsaken oak shacks
Pursuing dusk, collapsed and dyed, the docile dolphin deftly stride
beyond behind the ebbing tide, towards One-Way Ships of sunken pride
Gypsy dreamer in denial
Sleep and slumber standing trial
I never really ever slept inside the cryptic walls she kept
Martian moons provoke the ocean
Strange enchantments stir the potion
The mutant molten purple skies ignite subconscious fireflies
Voiceless echoes feigning laughter
Crushing quiet screaming after
Vague vagaries pretend to sleep, my conscience crumbles in a heap
Startled stars at dawn are slacking
Still her tempest sail is tacking
In fractured dreams sere silhouettes blow foghorns, trumpets, clarinets
Discarded glowing cigarettes tinge One-Way Ships with pale regrets
Cold cathedral clocks upended
Frozen second hands suspended
Beneath the gauze of time I try to while away somewhere nearby
Ticking, tocking time's a' tolling
Cruel eternity's cajoling
The future, tattered, calls bereft, with nothing but her shadows left
Brigantines skim gated grottos
Chasing clowns and desperados
While jugglers juggle circus bricks, I'm trapped by time's uncanny tricks
Candied candles flicker faintly
Braided tresses quiver quaintly
Demystified, untamed in time, her face is traced in puppet mime
Amorphous tongues of jangled rhyme hail One-Way Ships that glide sublime
Zigzag lightnings flash unkindly
Stoned, alone, I huddle blindly
and drain another dram and say 'she's far too far too far away'
Twisted waterwheels a' thirsting
Flaming flower buds a' bursting
Adrift, I stagger far below their unchained magic rainbow glow
White crowned wave crests break unbounded
Shackled sea shore's sands lie pounded
Unleashed, beyond the bridled world, her silver sails, cut loose, unfurled
Captive bluebirds nest in baskets
Morning glories cover caskets
Wee ballerinas swirl and spin while giant jokers smirk and grin
and, wasted, I withdraw within carved One-Way Ships in flasks of gin
Hungary hounds harangue the highlands
howl at skies and desert islands
Below, unfettered carbon crows conceal the parting path she chose
Lighthouse lamps and lanterns lolling
Mute abandoned fleets are calling
The shallow shadowed portholes vaunt dim traces of the past that haunt
Curved magnetic curtained faces
swap contorted brief embraces
Her fairy-tale like tattoo touch was serpentine but soft as such
Coffee cups and spoons corroding
Mystic tea leaves, visions boding
A cabaret calls, standing bare, beneath a splintered footloose stair,
vain vapors drape her vacant chair in One-Way Ships beyond repair
Splattered days are dripping dreary
Shattered nights are wearing weary
Without her footfall at my side I steal away within to hide
Fancies flame, persist to flaunt her
Wanton whispers hiss I want her
Hyenas, haggard, held at bay, still gnaw on bones of yesterday
Graveled graveyards grey and ghastly
Apparitions pacing past me
The answers to my whys and sighs have veiled her limpid pale blue eyes
Lurid figments storm the valleys
snatch the helms of spectral galleys
The coughing phantoms at the wheel, they make it all seem so unreal
Rebounding cracks of thunder peal, shake One-Way Ships while seagull's squeal
Yesterdays unsung, unspoken,
bygone paths fold draped and broken
The weary winds of winter cling to voiceless nightingales and sting
Desert blossoms growing colder
Drifting sand dunes pause, enfold her
A frozen kiss and blush revealed forbidden pipe dreams flung afield
Weeping willow's melting snow drops
drip on tips of tiny toe tops
Their opal fires bleed and fade while suns explode in icy jade
Jagged hours hangin' heavy
Footsteps pace the barren levee
While pros and cons and kings debate, acclaim and blame and fame equate
the ruin's remnants left to fate with One-Way Ships that fail to wait
Blazing blades of love surrender
Memories and thoughts transcend her
The Persian gazer's crystal shows I've truly lost my ruby rose
Buried deep in evening's embers
dust forgets what flesh remembers
The bitter taste of farewell's haste has laid the virgin skies to waste
Ruffled ravaged ravens ranting
Churlish ancient churchmen chanting
resounding what she told me true 'There's nothing more that you can do'
Trial adjourned by judge and jury
Freed, she flees, absolved of worry
Remaining runes and relics burn to feed the ashes of the urn
Six seers, wiser, soon discern the One-Way Ships of no return
poem by Terry O'Leary
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Silent Colours
A mad resurgence of fake locks
paralyzes the arched doors of the hidden
walls, where the roses squirm under
the false kisses of a red moon;
they came again to police the blinds.
The mother digs up the charred body of
her son without singing the praise of
drifting star, till the scars become green.
It was the name of ivory grief, you never
know, when the blue milk turns malignant.
A hairy loss of heritage from the golden
heights of slumber. My constant truth
weeps without shame. This landscape
does not belong to ashes of broken history
of man. The delirium of war on laments
has wiped away the holding lights on shores.
poem by Satish Verma
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Bow and Strings
What heavy, dark delirium!
What dim and moonlit heights!
To touch the violin for years
And not to know the strings by light!
Who needs us now? And who lit up
Two hollow, melancholy faces...
And suddenly the bow felt
Someone take them up, unite them.
"How long it's been! Amidst this gloom
Just tell me this: are you still the same?"
The strings caressed the bow,
Rang out, caressed it slightly trembling.
"Is it not true, that we will never more
Be parted. It's enough..."
Yes, replied the violin,
But pain was throbbing in her heart.
The bow discerned it and grew mute,
The echo still continued in the violin...
What was a torture to them both
The people heard as music.
But the violinist didn't snuff
The candles out 'til dawn...The strings sang on...
The sun found them worn out
On the black velvet of their bed.
poem by Innokenty Fedorovich Annensky
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Fading
[VERSE 1]
Every single night
As I walk alone
Down the empty streets
That I call my own
The rain is falling lightly
Resting on my head
The streets are cold and empty
The city lights are dead
A thunder clap is heard
In the brooding sky
The lightning flashes past
Lighting up my eyes
I see the broken skyline
Calling me to play
A savage voice is singing
I cant turn away
Through the empty building
To the hollow sound
Echoes in the darkness
Screaming all around
Lingering temptation
Followed close by death
I know your coming nearer
I can feel your breath
[END VERSE 1]
Save Me!
[CHORUS]
Running through the darkness
In an empty room
Running through the shadows
Of my living tomb
The lights are fading faster
Falling into ash
The PHANTOMS are returning
Screaming from my past
The thunder clap is passing
Crumbling away
With the sudden silence
I see the light of day
[END CHORUS]
[VERSE 2]
The light of dawn is coming
Rising in the morn
Giving me a shelter
From this voice of scorn
As the doors they open
I run into the day
The voice of shadow follows
It will not go away
The night of storm is chasing
Running at my heels
I try to awaken
This can not be real
Screaming at the shadows
Make this nightmare stop
I run out of the building
As the rain begins to drop
Finally it is over
Finally I am free
I am in the sunlight
The voice cant follow me
I still hear the whisper
Calling me to play
I will not be taken
So I turn away
[END VERSE 2]
[LAST STANZA OF CHORUS] 2x
song performed by by ZeroHour
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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On The Steamer
The stir of leaves, the chilly morning air
Were like delirium; half awake
Jaws clamped; the dawn beyond the Kama glared
Blue, as the plumage of a drake.
There was a clattering of crockery,
A yawning steward taking stock,
And in the depth, as high as candlesticks,
Within the river, glow-worms flocked.
They hung from streets along the waterfront,
A scintillating string; it chimed
Three times; the steward with a napkin tried
To scratch away some candle grime.
Like a grey rumour, crawling from the past,
A mighty epic of the reeds,
With ripples in the beads of street lamps, fast
Towards Perm the Kama ran upon a breeze.
Choking on waves, and almost drowning, but
Still swimming on beyond the boat
A star kept diving and resurfacing
An icon's shining light afloat.
A smell of paint mixed with the galley smells,
And on the Kama all along,
The twilight drifted, secrets gathering,
With not a splash it drifted on…
A glass in hand, your pupils narrowing
You watched the slips of tongue perform
A whirling play on words, at suppertime,
But were not drawn into their swarm.
You called your partner to old happenings,
To waves of days before your day,
To plunge in them, a final residue
Of the last drop, and fade away.
The stir of leaves in chilly morning air
Was like delirium; half awake
One yawned; the east beyond the Kama glared
Blue, as the plumage of a drake.
And, like a bloodbath now the morning came,
A flaming flood of oil - to drown
The steamer's gaslights in the stateroom and
The waning street lamps of the town.
poem by Boris Pasternak
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Wind Is Isolde
The warden's bewildered, the watchman's amazed
For the gate's standing open, a hole in the haze.
The steps are uncertain, the nighttime is crazed
And the stars burn above us like pinwheels ablaze.
But lanterns hang vacant in streets standing blind.
Though the path is a riddle, there's no need to guess... I'll not leave you behind
The lepers are leaping from tombstones of steel
Chasing rollaway caskets with luminous wheels;
The shadows are frozen, their echoes confined,
Twisted time melts at midnight - Take hold of my hand... I'll not leave you behind
The ponies of plunder are riding on high
As their castaway riders cast stones from the sky.
They're mocking the magpies, who pay it no mind,
But the broncos are bolting - Just cling to my cape... I'll not leave you behind
The bandits are hiding, the leprechaun's lurk
While imbibing dark brews of a hag's handiwork.
They're gulping from goblets that goblins designed
With a gust of the wind - Woman! Throw your wings wide... I'll not leave you behind
The orphans and widows are bent in the breeze
While a horrified hangman nods, passing decrees.
For engines of mercy have come to a grind
And they're judging the juries - Just fade neath the night... I'll not leave you behind
The tattered toy teddies and raggedy Anns
Have escaped to the highways of kid caravans.
They're chasing their shadows, know not what they'll find
In parades fast departing - So drift with your dreams... I'll not leave you behind
The circles are swirling, they flash from the crown
From the rainbows of summer, the circus in town.
The compass wheel's spinning, the minutes unwind
And the road is a cyclone - So grab what you need... I'll not leave you behind
The gremlins are groping, they know that they must
For the sprites and the pixies no longer have trust.
They're slinging their arrows at shades undefined
But the wind is unsettled - So flee from your fears... I'll not leave you behind
The cannons are calling, the piccolos shriek
And the druids are drumming while pale pagans speak.
They're urging me forward, my senses they've mined,
And their march is erupting - Just follow my heels... I'll not leave you behind
In vampire steeples, cathedral clocks tick
Like the droplets of wax neath a pale candle's wick.
Within the night's terrors its flame is enshrined
But the glim is fast fading - So scatter your cares... I'll not leave you behind
The looking glass glistens, the firefly glows
And the fairies are dancing on tiny tip toes.
The midnight's collapsing, which serves to remind
That your ghosts will not follow - So bid your farewells... I'll not leave you behind
The wind is a woman, she burns like a brand
And conceals crazy secrets caught carved in the sand.
She whispers her mysteries but leaves them unsigned
For the wind is Isolde - I'm raising my sails... I'll not leave you behind
poem by Terry O'Leary
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Sleepless In Whereis
I'm stealing through a twilit realm, the ancient pale of Whereis,
Passing chambers of an heiress (with no need to feel embarrassed)
Through a magic mystic mirror hanging curtainless.
A glimpse down naked alleyways (denuded by the moon) ex-
poses ghosts in gauzy tunics carving symbols, round and runic,
In distended dingy dungeons of uncertainness.
In misty streets of cobblestone - ancestral avenues -
Patchwork paths consume my shoes (chasing foggy curlicues
Twisting, twirling by in twos, floating anywhere they choose) ,
Leaving smoky residues in the footprints that confuse
Of the threaded wooden sticks that stalk a puppet wandering.
Distilled in drops of fantasy and fading into view
(Twixt the treasures in review, awful Towers peering through
Distant dimness bent askew) , shifting shadows I pursue
(Wearing faces I once knew) , lost - no stars to guide me true -
Midst the visions of the painted past I can't help pondering.
Contorted candelabra claw the skyline's walled suspension,
Caught in twilight's intervention - still unlit (in stark dissension) ,
Therefore seething with a tension, in the quiet apprehension
Of the watchman's inattention to the night-time's bold pretension
To her power, not to mention, to her hyperspace extension
(Far beyond my comprehension of the sundown's black dimension) -
On exhausted beaten boulevards of foolish fretfulness.
Oblivion depletes me, voiding haste and hurried hassles,
Me, a simple abject vassal, trailing moonlit floating castles,
- Fickle feet, but fingers facile grasp at straws and dangling tassels -
As I stumble through the rubble of forgetfulness.
I think I must be dreaming as I seem to see these things,
Neath the sky alive with wings of a nightingale that sings,
Midst the whispered murmurings soughed by phantoms clad as kings,
Pacing palaces in rings, while their hapless footfall clings
To the sagging sinking sands of midnight's splattered castled ruins.
Entangled in the swirling leaves that spin in dizzy flurries,
(While the wind beside me scurries, and a hermit ermine hurries)
Lurk my sleepy woes and worries (glowing faint but growing blurry)
Which, when plundered by the demon dusk, I'd left behind me strewn.
The forgery of multitudes between the silhouettes,
(And discarded cigarettes, neath the haunted parapets)
Mock my lonely echoed steps - mock my lonely echoed steps
(Struck like clicking castanets- struck like clicking castanets)
As I lace unlabeled lanes, erasing silence' sullen treason.
The mossy stones befuddle me, in winding rue rosettes,
(Lost within the oubliettes, and in vials of anisette)
Midst the mazy minuets, and the purling pirouettes
Of the fugitive Grisettes (flaunting charms and amulets)
Who, in flitting shades of arching bridges, linger longer, teasin'.
Along the When I'm drifting, just a stardust castaway,
Weaving, threading by cafés and deserted cabarets,
Just a gauzy appliqué on the river's crippled spray,
Chasing Fools along the way through the strands of yesterday,
Neath the throbbing peal of sobbing bells of spectral cloisters quaking.
In belfries, high and haughty, alabaster knights perform,
Riding stiff against a storm, steeped in clouds of chloroform,
While the raven skies deform and my shrivelled shovelled form
(Watching bats in steeples swarm close to candles waxing warm)
Hides in hallowed hallways, hanging, shoulders weary, weak and shaking.
Above me hover grinning masks and visages of Queens
Spewing fatal final scenes (against a scarlet sky they lean,
Dreary dripping guillotines) of demented doomed Dauphines,
Traced in opalescent ballrooms only tattered time remembers.
The hidden hands of Harlequins (while floating free, unseen,
Behind abandoned shuttered screens, inside of shrouded Halloweens)
Tap (on tumbrel tambourines) a dirge (with tattooed tones pristine)
For me (a heap in ragged jeans within this crazy cluttered scheme) ,
Trapped interred in toppled stone chateaus that dismal dawn dismembers.
Rogue breezes pierce, benumbing me, I feel my fingers freezin'
(In the cockcrow's purple season) though within, no rhyme or reason,
Caught impaled upon the jagged edge of early morning's breaking.
The chill evoking silver chimes of Nodomain start knelling
As the searing sun looms swelling, and their melodies hang dwelling
In the cloud drifts' care, revelling, but the Sandman's too compelling
And my weariness impelling - though my eyelids risk rebelling,
Where I'll fall, there's no foretelling for the starry sky's past telling,
As I fade beneath the flaming forge while embers tremble, waking.
poem by Terry O'Leary
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Life creates itself in delirium and is undone in ennui.
quote by Emile M. Cioran
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Way To Flow As The River Knows
Venus through the looking glass, she may know no future but she’ll sell you the past,
Or she may give you it for free; she may reveal to you what your visions mean,
Calling on Venus obscene, Queen of delirium, ruler of scenes.
Could she reveal, the way I feel?
Could she peel away the veil?
Would she want to?
Would she fail in trying?
Alike the first bird to leave the nest,
To try her wings at flying
How could she have known that she would
Fade after climax, running for the shade?
As she may show the way to go,
The way to flow as the river knows
Yet she’s lost, forever unfound, there she goes
Her head upon the ground.
Like the last rays of the setting sun there she goes, beyond horizons.
poem by David Lacey
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Black Thunder
black thunder/ broken pieces, tired eyes.
church bells silent ringing, crow feet scarred pillows.
small children walking, without tongues praying,
wagon wheels bogged down in sand.
black thunder/ second hand lives, worn out lies.
dead soldiers mournful singing, borrowed tomorrows.
blind mouths moving, talking without saying,
unlit rooms forged by fugitive hands.
black thunder/ pregnant women without faces.
waves lapping orphan feet, ships lost in the storm.
refugee stars lost in unmarked skies,
an old tree dying rotting on the ground.
black thunder/ families disappearing without traces.
trash blown deserted streets, old men waiting to be born.
molded crucifixes, covered with flies,
clouds chant scriptures without a sound.
(guns silent weeping,
angels prayerful sweeping.
dreams born dying, dreams unfolding,
looking without seeing, touching without holding.)
black thunder/ hungry barefoot ghosts whisper.
priests covered in blood, empty windows open.
tiny infinities wrapped in colored matchsticks,
nowhere standing lost by the road.
black thunder/ brothers burying virgin sisters.
dialogue without talking, homeless heroes smoking.
ants' prophecies well hidden, time worn bricks,
strangers huddled against the cold.
black thunder/ salvation starved borrowed clothes.
smoke charred walls, forever dripping to the floor.
flesh tokens paid, lifetimes yet unforgiven,
candles dressed in cemetery suits.
black thunder/ nobody cares, nobody knows.
horses stomping stalls, doors open to doors.
while the dead barter for the living,
with bayonets and religious boots....
black thunder!
poem by Eric Cockrell
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Visualize and Wonder
Night-blue, starlit river
like a ribbon across the rugged land,
reflecting a transition of the heavens
traveling from night into morning
rushing into a churning, tumbling lake
just below the mighty waterfall
icy black water in a tiny loch,
rippling like deep emerald history
ancient and wise, impenetrable mystery
smelling musty, like fresh earth,
or old books in a dusty library
the heartache glows like hot iron.
doused in this unexpected chilly water
taking away the anxiety and uplifting
thoughts come clear and clarifying,
like breathing jackfrost puffs of winter
dark walls rising up on three sides,
cradling morning in a ragged half circle
of smoothe, mossy and black mountain rock.
I love the embrace of this old rock tarn
Where the dusky green hills flow aside,
and a single worn path skirts the pool
carved, perched in a long, curved niche
above the cold, ice-fed water on one side
And stops here, just aside the curtain
that carries light in crystal swirls
from the far path on the other side
dark lines and mist converging in dew drops
Inside illusions building up like movies
Is this a time, or a place?
Or a dream of simple pleasures?
the heartache glows like warm sunlight.
Is this reality? Broken reality?
Illusions tumble apart, leaving void
Patient, comfortable void, filling me
from below the navel and up, breathing out
Close my eyes. I am smiling,
forgetting to breathe, to see,
just swinging like a slow pendulum
swinging, breathing in and out
with the open sky behind me,
and this tarn of closing dark magic,
not evil, only dark and cloudy,
like black mist obscuring an autumn night
where low above the skeletal trees
is a faint, full circle of greenish light,
that is the light on the other side,
but deeper than the night sky,
colder and further down, under the earth
exploring wide, dark caverns,
leading deeper down still,
into a black hole filled with rushing water
watching the edge of the walls rush past
and I am falling, into a wide dark void
filled with stars, and a golden light
spilling down from where the water flows in,
the droplets fling themselves into the cosmos
becoming more stars in the dark emptiness.
In the back of my head is a glowing
fading into the dull roar of massive water
Beyond the curtain of crystal clear
the light is still glowing,
the cavern, still calling.
I yearn for it, looking back as if...
hoping that I have the strength to turn back
to step through, into that world.
The morning above and behind me now,
Steep, green slope before me,
I cross out of the shadows of the tarn,
into the shafts of morning's honey
walking paths of thin brown dirt,
crossing up and down the deep green hills
into the giant woods atop the mountain
where the knowledge of flora is found
The curling mists around the tree roots
shifting and crawling deeper into the shadows
lifting simple, joyful song birds
into the morning sun and clouds.
Here between the dark forest floor,
and the vaulting forest canopy,
I am framed for a moment, looking back
at the dark V of the tarn
and the winding slip of the river,
leading away into the rocky mountains
a terrain pale and fading quickly
against the morning sun breaking free.
The dawn is so wonderful, awakening.
Light pink cuddles in the wisps of far off cumulus.
Whirling into the fall of rosy twilight tears.
Within the trees, I follow the mists
retreating into the forest depths.
Muzzy and gray, this day has yet to wake.
poem by Poet Dragon
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Not Anybody
Sun was setting over the cacti and critiques.
A cryptogram said, dignity first without
any damage to faithful aloneness. Protection
was not sacrifice, you have to plummet from a cliff.
A plaque has no mortality. The pressing of
lips places pain ahead of hope. The smiles
have a coercive expedience. I become voiceless
in a delirium of hooves.Sex green death opens
a door. Fear of feathers surprises, would
not measure the sky. Bound by winds the giant
trees search for the soil. Any grass can send
the butterflies. The bald piston throws the
blood on the spikes. Spiders are unwinding
by kisses. Beds are empty.
poem by Satish Verma
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And The Poems Sit There
And the poems sit there on the tracks,
on the shadows of serpentine ladders,
without engines, though moving, without diesels
to drive them, chain-letters to the world,
to a moment with nothing else to do,
to lonely abuses huddled by the flowering lamp
like fairies in boxes of shy plaster,
to broken windows who rage at the stars
for not accepting their jagged black holes,
to lovers who spend too long in the shower
pruning their gardens,
every ray of light in place
as they go out to pale their shining in the sun,
and the poppy girls with spider tongues
offering little green crowns to the bees, sit there
without moving, though moving,
pulling their hearts on long lifelines out of the void
that fuels their furnaces with crows,
that rescues drowned sailors from the rose of the sea,
that fangs the old lions with light
to pluck the one-stringed jugulars of radiant gazelles.
Two cobras dancing, the hold of our hands,
and the swans revealing their lizard roots,
and the rain a small violet in the rusty passions of the coffee-can
I don’t want to trade blood with the sour wine of the snails,
I’ve always had my own skull to drink from, and the water
of the dirty windows weeping in the morning,
and there are faces I can lap like mirrors for a taste of stars,
and bodies that unfold like single futons
patched with small maps of nocturnal sugar
that glow like prophetic ores from somewhere deeper in the mine.
Every morning I take my eyes out like contacts
and rinse them in the grave, wash off the residue
of yesterday’s visions, the smog and the dew and the soot,
the stagnant waters that cling to them like skies and skin
and the little rivers of blood that show you
an aerial perspective of the lightning, fireflies, stars, dreams
and the cinders of oil drum fires under all-night bridges
and the black commas of what’s left
of the butterflies in midnight webs. And there are cocoons of birth,
of transformations with wet wings emerging among the water hyacinths
and then there are the cocoons that hang like pendants
from the trophy lines of fat arachnids,
webs dripping under the weight of their hourglass stones
like torn suspension bridges and swaying spinal cords.
And it makes me so sad to see a door burn, a helical stairwell
straighten itself out to belong to a fire-truck,
and there are other things, sadder things,
ants with pruned antennae, dreams who think like used stamps,
the rainbow fingers of painted children
washed off under a cold tap,
and the breast of a pigeon undone like a pillow by a hawk,
the sad, abandoned look of heroic fire-hydrants
ready for action, that sigh like empty watering cans
as they pour their newly-enameled transplanted hearts out all over the street
like a wedding rehearsal that stood in for the bride
who’s burning in the walls of the groom like a flower of fire
in the lapel of a black tuxedo; so sad, so indefensibly stricken by grief
to know the paint rags are a better likeness of their sitters
than a face is, that there are tiny screams in the grass for mercy
that are only answered by a praying mantis,
and agonies of crushed centipedes that die like eyebrows
and the hides of mangy crosswalks thrown down on the street
like zebras; so unbearably sad in an avalanche of tortoise shells
excavated for their meat like raped bells with their tongues cut out,
my mouth turns into a wound,
and every word’s a galaxy of salt.
poem by Patrick White
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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I am a night painter, so when I come into the studio the next morning the delirium is over.
quote by Philip Guston
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Stairs
In the shell lies the eye of a dark sea
I call for a boat in delirium.
Waves drown the hunger of a climax.
I do not know where all the gulls have gone?
Time slips like flesh between the knuckles
and an extra pain of your separation.
I am shipwrecked on the slopes of whispers
and don’t want to have a second death.
Looking back at the years
as a sentence in exile,
I never reached the home.
Ultimately you need the hunchback to
climb the stairs.
poem by Satish Verma
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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I Hear Guitars a' Calling
I hear guitars a' calling in the gloaming's final fling
When sinking suns relay their flames to fairies on the wing
Igniting one by one the jewels of midnight's diamond blaze
As day becomes a yawning ash beneath a starry gaze.
I hear guitars a' calling from the clouds within the skies,
With tunes which flow as purple drops from sad and weepy eyes
Of silent speaking troubled souls who stand alone in grief,
But hold the vastness of the stars within a trembling leaf.
I hear guitars a' calling from the beat beneath her breast,
The murmur throbs of passion and a sensuous unrest
That rumbles deep in silent woods before the raging storm
And splits the air in morning meadows bursting green with corn.
I hear guitars a' calling in the gentle splashing rain,
Which summons with a soothing purr upon my window pane
And conjures up a childhood dream within a vagrant breeze
Entwining me in cryptic webs of misty vortices.
I hear guitars a' calling from the waves on distant shores;
They're crashing out their monody upon the mystic oars
Of phantom ships within the dawn and midnight caravels,
A' sail on seas of raven wings to moonlit citadels.
I hear guitars a' calling in the morning's reveilles;
They're pouring fires in the skies and burning up the seas,
While waking flowers in the fields and setting trees ablaze,
And closing one by one the eyes of midnight's starry gaze.
I hear guitars a' calling from the deserts of my mind;
They're howling of a hollow land adrift on empty time
Where pathless sands are blazing hot, the sun is standing high,
A thirsting dog is barking faint' with tongue that's long and dry.
poem by Terry O'Leary
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Night Train To Lorca
Across the dark and dusty plain
Where scars of old dry rivers run
Night unfolds, a coal black shroud
Across the hard and stony ground
Distant stars shining bright
In the cavern of the night
All is still and silence screams
To the thunder of the lorca train
Flaming steal swift as wind
Wires hum the rails ring
Smokestack burning fiery sparks
Rise up to the stars
Towns asleep by empty roads
Churches rise from crooked roofs
Cloaked in darkness nothing stirs
Grow smaller darker disappear
See the moon so still and cold
A million stars that shed no warmth
Your nightmares all come out to play
In the silver light
Wait for sunrise in the east
Long shadows crawl across the plain
The ghosts of night will disappear
And lay your fears to rest
Steam hissed up, the hot coals glowed
The furnace blazed, the wheels they rolled
On tracks of iron, straight and cold
The silver moonlight danced
The flames are in the firemans eye
Orange in the engines glow
Gleaming pistons whirling cranks
Wait for dawn the roosters crow
song performed by by Pogues
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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