The blue waves smack the shore
Outlined by the oaken door.
Stand beside the cypress tree
Throw your arms out to the sea
On a mossy cliffside you can spy
The wheeling curlew, hear it cry.
Smell the cedar in the grove
See grass wave where rover's rove.
Hear the sea gull, feel the wild
White sails on silver, be beguiled.
So far from madness of the city
Cell phone rings, no longer free.
You run inside the cottage door
Find your backpack on the floor
Dig the phone out, as it plays
A ringtone singing "yesterday"
Its Chase bank, with a suspect charge
Ten thousand, that's awful large.
Text message comes from your landlord
Rats with fleas came in a horde
Your boss says he's needs you back soon
Work has come like a monsoon.
You leave the cottage bitterly
But you can't eat the scenery:
Can't throw the cell phone in the sea.
At least you have the memory...
The copious serpents bedded the wolves and the sheepish grins so too unfolded the poker table is lit tonight, stripped table legs that oaken tonight, so left from the gambler were his life savings like Vegas unmatched the true course of daisies, and so darker hell-bent marble furl and regain consciousness so that we may too see the world.
Recall with me those wild and free
passionate days of young glory,
with racing pulses at a touch,
early in our story;
when hope met want and wanted hope
and doubt was given blind love’s eyes;
when sounds of discord were drowned out
by laughter and by sighs;
when mystery and discovery
walked hand in hand along the way
and mutual findings, so lovely,
enriched our every day;
when, parted any time at all,
we felt it much too long to bear;
and hunted hungry-eyed until
we saw the other there.
A time of growing surety;
of testing out and finding good.
‘Could this one be the one for me?’ -
and finding this one could.
That spirit found its oaken home.
The years have burnished love to gold;
mellow but stronger than its youth,
though we have grown old.
Peace and joy - and rare sadness -
I’ve loved our walk through time Agnes.
Fresh then full, and promising more,
we’ve shared a life of gladness.
There, the wooden beam stood
A conceptional use of wood
A burnished dark brown colored stain
Embellished the natural grain
Bracing the ceiling from the floor
Another piece our oaken door
Was this the use god meant you for
Aside shading hill, mead and moor
And blushing with the colours of autumn and spring
Scarcely now we see you were a living thing
Or at least a part
Of a work of art
That held our mortal eye
Attuned with earth and sky
Please, a silent moment for my soul in mourning
While they cradle the warblers bedight the morning
So sorry that I could not have more cherished thee
Only now realizing the scope of your tragedy
Be it apple pie or any kind of bliss,
the delight that comes from pleasures not rehearsed,
as the joy and tenderness within a kiss,
my favorite one had always been the first -
the first day of summer, the first sip of wine,
savored without fear of sorrowful decline,
back then, seeing only an ascending slope -
a endless supply of potential and hope.
Yet, every sequence had a start and an end,
and when it was done, and the die had been cast,
and from its grand peak, I found I must descend,
my least favorite was so often the last -
stuffed, wasted, with a heart wounded or broken,
judging first and last from a casket, oaken,
facing disappointment and mortality,
as dreams were replaced by harsh reality.
There I stood where the smell of ancient oaken trees ran cleanly clear through the time honored wood only to be hung there lithely clinging unto the very breath we could not do anything but hold… as it became to be beholden to none it seemed to be tied to the polarized tenacity of the moss which thereby us clung in comical yet musical strands around the worm ridden bark a foray of bird’s voices were at play as though bells it rung from trunk to leaf to feathery beak again and again beneath the sound of our breathless breathes being trapped as deeply as time alone dared too…and so these hearts our hearts were then flung along this very same path until we two all to soon swelled with passionate wales only be quelled to surrender to the silence surrounding us…our eyes then welled upon swollen lids only to calm again peacefully longing to bathe in those deepest feelings and upon those very wishes each sound filled thought were caught then sprung free to ride the very same wish to a crescendoed volley down into our hearts to rest in and about our smiles that gloriously magical day...
I passed the elm at eventide,
Its arms were bare, its breath was wide,
And there beneath the twilight sky
I thought I saw a woman roam.
Her gown was thin as woven mist,
A memory the dark had kissed;
No rustle made, no shadow cast—
She moved as moonlight through the grass.
Do ghosts wear gowns like we once wore,
With hems that brush the oaken floor?
Do buttons cling and silks remain
When souls have slipped the cords of life?
Perhaps they wear what dreams devise—
Not stitched by hand, but born of skies.
A shawl of dusk, a veil of rain,
The hush of snow against the pane.
She turned to me but made no sound,
And yet my heart was loosely bound—
By what, I cannot quite define:
A lace of loss, a thread of time.
If ghosts wear clothes, they must be spun
From things undone, from lives begun.
oaken trees s h e d t
e
a
r
s
crisp breezes
r a t t l e yellow leaves ~
b
o
n
e
s
of autumn's wrath
Within the first slivers of platinum moonlight, fireflies flicker.
Diamond dust from a bygone comet streaks by, piercing electric skies,
whilst a balmy August twilight enwraps an aging porch.
The gleam of a single candelabra casts light upon
harlequin-green ivy that tangles around worn banisters,
while primroses grow through cracks in the weathered stairs.
Creaking tones of oaken rocking chairs serenade hushed crickets.
Silhouettes of frolicking barn owls coruscate,
as the aroma of fresh peach pie floats along, synchronizing with the zephyrs.
Nostalgia-infused memories materialize, then vaporize like morning dew.
Your resounding laughter gets swept away,
like a swift current pulling transient sands of time with it.
Ephemeral remembrances are all I have of you now—
momentary glimpses through the Wheel of Time's mirror,
for it’s just the summer breeze rocking your vacant chair to and fro.
Asclepius, one cannot build from sand,
Such light and shifting grains as mortals be.
The wind and tide shall warp what e’er is planned,
Foundations fade before the pounding sea.
And yet, when grains of sand flow through my hand,
I smile at warmth and richness I know not.
Through falling columns have the sea I scanned,
As through a fog, and this the vision brought.
Once, weary, weary, weary on the sea,
One weary, wandering sailor, long away.
‘Tis torpor, tempest, tedium, weary he,
When wind-whipped waves whisk words on salty spray.
“Rain-hardened sailor, welcome now,
The ocean storms here mend their ways.
No lonesome mists embrace the prow,
Here glegful otters tend their bays.
This oaken isle, this Avalon,
O’er the futile, beating sea;
This dream-cast realm, this jewel at dawn,
Where thought is regal, talent free.
And here beyond the reach of might,
Where ancient tribal flaws decay,
With cobbled streets and spires alight,
New thought, new form, new love, hold sway.”
When whence these words surveyed had he,
Before his eyes a visage be.
‘Twas older than eternity,
That face that sank beneath the sea.
Found myself doing my damndest to sleep through the day again.
Wake up, pull the wool over my eyes, block out the world, repeat.
Certainly not a positive omen (what with Halloween and November 9th),
so I force my eyes open,
if only to scroll for an hour or two
(anything to keep from slipping).
There’s a man on my screen,
dark bearded with an oaken guitar in his hands.
I listen to his sweet,
wine-dark voice,
and it begins to enter my bones.
Fills the holes in the marrow with the base warmth of love and life
and as the sun breaches my blinds,
everything becomes okay again.
Or maybe it’s just easier to breathe.
Wake up.
Wake up.
Cursed by the autumn
With a lost decorum
Lies the shrunk oaken leaf
As though full of grief
Curled and furled
Within winds of time whirled
As though swirled and twirled
Isn’t this a ruthless world?
Yet she comforts the little cat
That naps as though within a mat.
With autumnal lethargy
Hugging her heartily
Shall I liken thee to a sunrise?
Thou art the sunrise of a fall morning's glow.
Thou art the oaken breeze that bids you "hello."
Shall this describe to what I liken thee? No.
Shall I liken thee to a sunset?
Thou art a gold sunset, from the hills only seen,
To orange ribbon atop the city's crystal beam,
Reflecting heavenly diamonds, infinite gleam.
But no, this shall not be to what I liken thee.
For words fail to describe what thou meanest to me.
A cabin sees a creature cool from night of crawl and hunt in all
of gravely stone and street in tone of light diffused by wane of moon
a toothless gum with tutting tongue clicks her way like bats among
the trees with hair of oaken leaves that perk each morn’ upon the sun
but she with book to under-arm, her book of chanting, her grimoire
be carried lo and carried far and braced for spell when suiting her
this creature crone of caustic mouth who oft’ alone with cackled laugh
does shriek and scorn a charm or more,
did witch, the spell
did witch, she cast
The ring depicts a promise of fidelity.
I smile as you stand in your cloak.
That headgear is the symbol of the tongues of fire.
I smile as you receive that formal mitre,
while that pastoral staff is a shepherd's crook.
I smile as I know that staff will be used
to smite a great oaken door.
I smile as I hear that resonant bong;
I see that ring with its diocesan crest.
You say you will pledge yourself to those who gaze.
A ring on that hand,
that hand holds a staff,
the staff smites a door.
I smile as a non-believer,
though it is a smile of great affection.
(7 May 2024)
Sub Categories
Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.