Best Vortices Poems
Still, I wait.
Alone, In silence.
Listening for your whispering wings,
hoping I will hear them sing.
At last you motor past,
and briefly pause-
checking to see that you are safe,
rapidly fanning the ambience,
filling the surround with vortices
that suspend you statuesque,
without a fainéant feather.
I know you see me,
those dark eyes opened wide,
never blink.
Yet, you are unafraid.
Or, maybe hunger rules your reason,
checking flowers of the season.
You hover slightly back,
and then decide
to probe the flower for what’s inside.
Sweet nectar…Elixir of life.
You lap a little as hummingbirds do,
and then you stab another two.
Then, purr closely past my face,
Darting to another place
having had your tiny taste.
Now retire to who knows where.
A bird must have a nest somewhere.
You’ve earned a respite for your wing.
Next time, maybe, will you sing?
I hear guitars a’ calling in the gloaming’s final fling
when sinking suns subdue their flames and fairies take to wing
as day departs, a yawning ash, beneath a dusky haze
igniting one by one the jewels of midnight’s diamond blaze.
I hear guitars a’ calling in the clouds within the skies,
with tunes which trill like welling tears from somber misting eyes
of misplaced muted homeless souls who drift alone in grief
beneath the silence of the stars that offers no relief.
I hear guitars a’ calling in the beat beneath her breast;
their murmur throbs with passion’s pulse and sensuous unrest
that rumbles deep in worried woods before impending storms
and splits the air in morning meadows, ere the sunrise warms.
I hear guitars a’ calling in the pitter-patter rain
which summons with a soothing sound upon my window pane
evoking bygone childhood dreams within a vagrant breeze
engulfing me in gusty swirls down misty vortices.
I hear guitars a’ calling in the waves on distant shores;
they’re crashing out a monody upon the mystic oars
of phantom ships within the dawn, like speckled 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 in the deserts of my mind;
they’re nullifying hollow realms that time has left behind,
where pathless sands are blazing hot, the sun is set to die
and weary hounds are panting faint’, their tongues hung long and dry.
Fastening my grip on you, throwing my head up high
Where colours fight in sunlight bright enough to blind me
Vortices, one after another, dizzyingly
maelstroms of words disappear unspoken
Will they drown me
those waves, will they drown me
can I come up and breathe again?
can I hold on and survive?
Waves
riding the board with you
blue sky opens to warm glow of the sunlight
from where I am the shore is near
I relax, while you steer
small waves rippling lulling me to sleep
***
August 22, 2017
Copyright © Darren White
I am stuck here
find myself in vortices
that tear in two ways
left
right
torn asunder
Flooded feelings
but I miss you
I miss you
does that mean I am back?
Let me be me
don't pull on me
or push
Let me sit
upright
or squat
or everything in between
without questioning
Don't make me
spiral out of myself
lose control
be pushed under
to never emerge
Don't stick needles in me
or pins
or feed me vials of poison
I didn't ask for
If you can do that
then consider me back
***
August 3, 2017
Copyright © Darren White
Written: December 5th, 2023
_________________________________________
Inspiration bursts forth akin to a volcano
with kinetic rainbows and gooey agony
frothy vortices or bubbling in infernos
an existence on the verge of decay
reaching the pinnacle of bliss
In that moment, originality bursts forth.
A creative vision of shadowed areas
amid a thousand beveled mirrors
portraying vibrancy and iridescence
in tandem, or utterly not
conversing common items into marvels
perched atop majestic mountains.
The highly focused artist's mind
perfectionism never fades
up until the medium is fulfilled
often veiled eccentricities
displaying pushes witnesses to impanel
an opposing viewpoint to hate and love.
Gratitude for vivid dreams
revealing hidden spaces to inspire and empower
emerged from cramped corridors
of crumbling walls and fading edges
within the Edenic roses of teal.
Long for the tender tormenting touch of her slips, a vermillion vice of the abyssal depths that lay within the merest brush of her breath, a zephyr's caress that set aflame the parched arid landscapes of my wasteland as sighs hollow echoes whispered promises grew, the inferno of my longing raged, a maelstrom of need that threatened to consume all reason, all restraint in the swirling crimson vortex of those velvets, the boundaries of our recurrent reality grew tenuous, and the tyranny of the flesh held sway as the flexuous uncharted curves of your caress became the acid test of my resolve, dissolving the fragile, varnished veneer of self control, as the confinement of thy desires began to dissolve like gossamer under the scorching waxen sun of ardent, copious passion.
As we entwined, visceral privilege awoke, like hydras flourishing in some foresworn elixir, every casual respite yawned vacant, sucked into the vampiric vortices of intolerably testy discontent.
How provoking, this postponement of unbound reciprocity, tongue just grazing the tips of those plush velvet onyx lips, while catalyzing inveigling suspense
THE LEAVING OF LIVERPOOL
Giant ferry berthed in Mersey River :
Tugs take the strain with a shiver,
Ropes creak and we cast off -
She timorously inches away from the wharf.
Bow comes round and leaves the dyke:
Lit buildings spin carousel-like -
Strong currents have us in tow.
Black vortices with bubbles below,
Inkiness of river water stark:
Hear it more than see it in the dark.
Big crewman in black woolly hat
Yelling to another in Serbo-Croat:
Looks like mayhem but they know
How to swing her into the river, so
That ropes, men, machines, move in sync
Floating her out on the ink.
Liverpool fades in red glow;
Stars emerge from hiding low.
On the frowning wave
We are alone in the dark, save
Our own lights cast ghostly
Into nothingness mostly.
Go inside and shut out the night.
In the morning Dublin in sight.
Dancing the tango
Multiple vortices twist
Rhythmic destruction
Catharsis of a King
Twisted trees, gnarled and warped
by wicked winds, curled in crippling
curling toward faint warming of the sun,
clinging with clutched roots to rocky crags,
overhanging the crashing roar of foam tipped
breakers. Stone face of shear cliff etched by
fine chiseled rivulets, tears shed by dark clouds
pummeling a world below, shaping the prisms
for a future sunrise, deepening the chasms of
canyons, uninhabitable but for their beauty.
Creatures that defy the bounds of “beauty”
yet define the artists form, call us to stare
at simple brush strokes. Explosions, eruptions
of hot, steaming lava, scalding and denuding
mountains, torturously flowing to a
roiling sea. Swirling vortices of
madness, vicious brushstrokes tearing through
the gentle country landscape as if change was
overdue. Humming birds and fireflies,
mosquitoes, gnats, and icky things
one feeding on the other,
the warring and the gnawing that would
discourage even mother. Sunrise in the
jungle, moonlight on city street, church bells
that daily ring, calling us to celebrate
the catharsis of a king.
John G. Lawless
9/18/2014
for Brian Johnston - God's Kind of Poetry contest
THE INNER VOICE OF MARK BIRROS II
From world war two in the Atlantic
I hear the drowning cries of men,
climbing out as in spirit from waters
that lap the steps of the harbour wall ;
time erodes as the sea -
washing up these thoughts that linger
here and on many beaches,
thoughts that stick and have the stench
of used oil around them,
the name on a memorial
does not reflect the horror ;
the surf rejects such cogitation ;
for a moment, ' try again '
the gulls seemed to say,
' let go ' said the movement of the ocean,
but I cannot, I simply cannot
for what transcends these waves
and breathes out the universe
is love, the love of a father.... ... ...
The old clock ticks away the day
that haemorrhages the evening,
and like a night- nurse at the bed
as growing lesions slowly spread,
the crescent moon would nothing say
to see the patient pass away ;
the stars call out but they are late -
what metaphysics spring from that
while in my soul eternity
is smiling like the Cheshire cat !...
A presence haunts me as that touch -
that hugs the heels in failing light,
with eyes that peer through space and time
and follow me into the night.... ...
The pine wood has its secrets -
I am one of them now,
like the columns of an ancient temple,
straight and upright
where no priest intercedes -
I trust it with my life,
I am theirs and they are mine,
growing inside me, sturdily and strong,
transcending their roots with my secrets
to their archetypal heaven... ... ...
As if a change of consciousness was meant,
against the pull of ego, the body
inwardly swept up in spiral ascent,
spirited away from me
from all the world below,
from all that I would ever be
that anyone might know ;
raised the cloaked arm
of my archetype
to draw the void across my eyes,
and I did rise to heights of bliss
to see the world from this -
dancing in vortices, tiptoeing on pools
as through a mesh, devoid of flesh ;
our world is an illusion -
a carousel to light,
as in the midst of heaven
we ghost on through the night... ...
only things grown in the ground remain
but mismatched without the hand of man
see that they dodge beautiful
their languishing longitudinal vegetable bodies
never suffer fracture the stems with fruits
and their armor and weapons, bark and branches
trees
no, I didn't think our past was decent
humans
if you ask me about those days of debauchery
we were building ourselves up like the men we now are
with wars and ironworks asps vertices vortices cusps
and it was discovered that it is easy to be reborn another
improvement is advisable
there is only one exit after a wall called brain
then the field we learned to cultivate
now this is what we are having mastered cultivation
homunculi like scattered tares sprouting without end
the power of some being the downfall of others
history built with annihilations
and then the progress
the home appliances
microwave TV freezer wire and electricity
then bytes and bits
now nanoeverything
tomorrow AI and nothing more.
We are given in totality,
surfing the waves in merriment
simply planning for more.
Up and over the top we go
and it is then the vortices appear.
If we could care less, we would,
for we are young and care
quite readily...
Ah but the vortex, you say?
It sees to depend upon
the place you make for negatives.
Since we cannot do much
about inevitables,
we must climb.
Shall we lead?
Shall we laugh?
Shall we despair?
We have all this totality, here.
This is how to handle totality.
See. Quite forever.
~
Written: February 14, 2025 for Brian Strand Contest
***********
In twilight, specks become stars,
bridges locked in gold,
Engraved whispers on walls
painted with diamond tears.
Singing hearts weave veins of
lilac and jasmine,
A serenade of soul waves,
ebbing through arid shadows.
Dark alleys paint a carnival of
spectral silhouettes,
Roots entwined in forlorn twilight colors,
wine-stained breaths.
Sorrow’s perfume lingers
like raindrops on roses,
Hushed epicedes echo
in the cinereous horizon.
Herbs waltz with heartbeats
beneath a canopy of trees,
Nestled nests console the forlorn
shorebirds at dusk.
Paranoia flickers like sparks
in a delicately hushed night,
Love’s choir sings an elusive refrain of
integrity and sins.
Delirium dances with
egoistic ghosts in the dark,
Tears pirouette like phantasmagoric
mist over steel syntax.
Blurring edges between serenity
and abyssal flare,
spheres clash in capricious vortices
under Gaia's winged gaze.
A whimsical trance catapults dreams
to an eldritch nebulae,
vortices float serenely,
weaving cosmic whispers into the night sky;
hushed murmurs from Eros to Erebus
blend seamlessly with somber threnodies;
in Gemini's embrace they linger
as wisps across Pyxis' burning calyx;
and while Maelstrom gnashes
within Tartarus' volcanic depths;
velleity blooms amidst fervent altar prayers
Echoes waft through Nexus' cavernous voids
to quench desires caught betwixt Chaos &
Gaia's visceral nexus hallucinations.
SLOWLY, SPEEDILY TURNING
All at once both slow and fast all at once. A sense of motion is awesome,
has anyone ever felt such a heady rush of speed
together with total slowness and lack of motion?
Let’s set off on our journey up to the hills,
we will arrive in seconds and in days…
here there are two speed vortices that we share at the same time, continuously.
Who an earth wants to move both slow and fast at once? I would for one.
Soon maybe everyone can – it may happen to them when they don’t expect it…
standing still and your world starts to rush by, unending rush.
Trotter's words are his deeds
girding the Earth
in great magnetic lines
of universal intent.
In Ward's ritually upraised palm
we see the symbol Coriolis
south draining left
north draining right
Into the realm of Neptune
via the cisterns of Rome
down the ancient river Po
to wicked storms at sea
Into vortices the poet's passport
falls as a man overboard
all its pages torn
one by one.