Peripheries Poems | Examples

Red Moon Rising

Deep into scientific facts, I do not want to go,
Though - why? And what? - Questions of reasons often in me glow;
I wonder at the mystery of the magic sun, here,
How he splendidly, with his brush, brightens up the moon's sphere...!

An amalgamation of orange, red, white, and maroon,
On a canvas, sober and solemn, set like a sand dune;
As though brutal murder is committed and blood is shed,
On peripheries of ponds and lakes, red rays flow ahead...!

The Vagabond clouds try to caress and kiss it gently,
The breeze, sometimes slow, other times fast, taunt it intently;
A little darkness from some unknown horizons hovers,
As though tears on someone's farewell, there are also showers...!

A manifestation of an accord made with the sun,
In myths, with the bloody red moon, many stories are spun;
In amazement of human paths of pilgrimage, perfect,
The blood moon is a gorgeous chariot with red gems decked...!

Though a mystical shadow, depending on the nature,
The blood moon has extraterrestrial legislature;
Harbinger of the apocalypse or Parousia,
Speaks volumes! The red moon is an encyclopedia...!

Cat Skills

Kitty Cats inhabit the space between day, and night
guarding the twilight from the unknown Dark.

Seeking out nooks and crevices,
they stalk,
lurking at the peripheries of trees.

Surrounded by numerous unseen creatures, their graceful frames greet the dimly-lit dawn.
Avoiding the inevitable waning of the shadows, they retreat
with green, prismed eyes narrowing, half-awake, half-
asleep, to a corner of the windowsill.

Crouching behind the curtain’s edge, they brace themselves one last time,
in never ending pursuit of  the “Other”.

Back To Front and Beyond

the bottom lines scripted peripheries in a mirror

          a headline toppled and reversed time and place

left became right and wrong pretended its centre

          denuded illusions spoke in forked shiny tongues

lingua franca became subversive and spun yarns

          and the spike of a spindle put wool over her eyes


prologues anticipated an apocalyptic message

          hindsight firmly foreclosed unhinged shutters 

framed in warped memories she recollected

          blinds and veiled faces curtained in rags

holes and apertures appeared in the lore

          essence void of existence smudged in tears


she relived captions and small printed subtexts

          post-scripted antecedents and false premises

edited reminders and pasted virtuous contrasts

          until meaning blocked out the pain of denial

a book mark covered in dust had refused to fade

           and sealed approval onto questions and doubts


22nd June 2020

The Peripheries of Love

The Peripheries of Love
by Michael R. Burch

Through waning afternoons we glide
the watery peripheries of love.
A silence, a quietude falls.

Above us—the sagging pavilions of clouds.
Below us—rough pebbles slowly worn smooth
grate in the gentle turbulence
of yesterday’s forgotten rains.

Later, the moon like a virgin
lifts her stricken white face
and the waters rise
toward some unfathomable shore.

We sway gently in the wake
of what stirs beneath us,
yet leaves us unmoved ...
curiously motionless,

as though twilight might blur
the effects of proximity and distance,
as though love might be near—

as near
as a single cupped tear of resilient dew
or a long-awaited face.

Published by Romantics Quarterly, Poetry Magazine, Boston Poetry Magazine, Triplopia, Shadows Ink, E Mobius Pi, Underground Poets, Emotions Literary Magazine, Grassroots Poetry, Poetry Webring, Poetically Speaking, The Poetic Muse, Poet’s Haven, Poetic Voices, Nutty Stories (South Africa) and Gostinaya (in a Russian translation by Yelena Dubrovin)

The Last Frailty

monstrous sound slashes silence              
the bellow of a giant beast, 
or the flutter of a thousand wings
elevations and indiscriminate creed will not heed
sinister stirs the mix, the rise of wicked’s extravagance
black feathers flutter and bewilder against the palest frontier
the mock of a starlings flight, the fall in a sparrow’s might
countless sullen wings unfold, to rally their squadrons for show
a mobbing cry meets a redeeming sky, 
their rising tones mimic heaven heralding high
contrast to the core, countless black rap-tor destroy
the fading blue sapphire display
a rebel twist in the storm suspends them again, harbingers dawning
a verge of wonder, stands close  
the small dark outlines, bask a golden shine   
peripheries slight motion, a graceful shimmer
perched as an alert, the slight snap of fingers
a single feather cascades, turning in the elegant dance of a ballerina's descent
laying at the step vaguely pointing to the entrance,
the pride of a black bird,
there is no place for an Omen here,
the last frailty, is my secret near and dear

Terry D’Arcy-Ryan

Of Things Now Lost

Those things now lost or never owned
Like memories of wings or our water’s sleep
Linger unobserved in peripheries of light;
Flitting like moths between vacant moments.
Till we half remember a smothered dream
Of oceans and broad blown beaches;
The sprawl of endless nothings
Which hint of landscapes without edge
And buildings without design.
It’s here that we seem to exist, and with pebbles
That we build through time for form
And spin both labyrinth and twine.

Nothing

Can you feel it sometimes? 
This feeling that goes and comes
That always hangs at the peripheries
Waiting quietly in the shadows 
 Have you met it  this feeling called nothing.

It’s like touching a live wire and not reacting
Like getting stabbed and not bleeding
Like falling but still standing
 Like laughing when you trying to cry
Have you met it this feeling called nothing.

It can be friend and it can be foe
When you are down it keeps you centered 
When you are breaking and falling
It tricks your mind telling you it’s all right
Then you get to stand when all is falling around you.

Don’t applaud yet if you have never seen it
Coz when its there your happiness won’t be complete 
It hovers in the shadows reminding you 
Whispering all that could go wrong
So your lips freeze before
 That smile hits your eyes, before that warmth thaws your heat
It’s nothing yet its everything.

Science

It's past midnight; the witching hours
 softly creep through the darkness.
 Music muffles out of an open doorway,
 shadows thump as hearts beat.
Seeing fluid bodies merge in time
 I'm the wrong piece in an incomplete jigsaw,
 watching chargeless as giggling electrons
 attract and repel, weave an
 intricate dance amongst pulsing protons.
 Chemistry was never my best subject,
 much less the murky peripheries
 where chemistry meets biology,
 the hormonal collision of chemical bonding
 with fusion and reproduction.
 Walking home, constellations map the sky.
 The moon cycles its rhythmical shifts.
 There's safety in physics, cause and effect,
 bound in formulae, logic and reason.

Crows of Graveyard

At peripheries of two world with make-up
An apathy of immoral greedy world
In mist vile and lies
Veiled this world
In cemetery  
In mourning days
Only phantoms world
At gates of west
Open to meet careless east
In sunset
 In ever dusk crows
All along in grief
 In graveyard
Millions of hope
Buried alive

A Poet Drives a Truck By Lowell a Levant

A Poet Drives a Truck

Transmit and reflect light with a steady glow.
             Inspect the equipment routinely and thoroughly.
Explore alternate routes when feasible.
           Let the eyes range over the land, the sky,
the near, the distant road, and the mysterious
peripheries.
Transcend rage and panic with humor and consideration.
           Tell the truth especially when a brilliant lie 
seems more appropriate.
Look flowers in the eyes.
          Frisk about like a dog unbound.
Sniff the night perfume of trees.
          Listen to the songs of birds.
Let them take wing in the breath and soar forth
to the moon.

Editors’ Note. This poem, from which this volume takes its name, was published circa 1999 in a newsletter published by Lowell’s employer at the time, titled “Still Manifesting.”

Recall

Conceive in a moment of silence
You came to thought
To feed birds of desire in drought 
With hands; of bare 
Melted shields; of frosty ice 
With pair of wings
Played in air 
On peripheries 
Of pain
In rings and raise 
In a book of shallowness
Of my pale
And bore 
Added 
A blossom of rose
In gallery of rimes; old and cold 
Conjured you the paint 
An art 
A sense of love
With semaphore of heart 
Make the scene alive
Again

Athena

ATHENA

A girl so gorgeous to regard upon with grins
does protect this peaceful city with serene souls.
She blesses all the dwellers with witful arts and
cunning crafts that carve them into beautiful souls
into beautiful souls that radiate transformation
of cocoons into butterflies that fly freely
in the sky with birds, white clouds, and the flaming sun.
From her sheath her sword was drawn to slay many beasts 
who crept the peripheries of the city walls,
in search of human prey with avaricious fangs.
They creep and crawl and roar many frightful screeches,
that imbue the human heart with horror and fear.

Love Chooseth Not

Who chooses when to fall in love
The ocean waves sweep even doves
Carrying all gates
To the roof of the sky above

Who chooses when to fall for affection
Love chooseth not
Do true feelings ever define boundaries
Or winds opt not to sweep over weak peripheries

Who ever stood in the path of twirling passions
They leave victims in twinges and twitches
Sweet swirling stitches
Love chooseth not
On whose shores it beaches

Love is an unforgiving prison
Can’t escape when you guilt
’twill be like running for the horizon
Forever will find you still at it

Love chooseth not…

Blinding Inertia

Blinding inertia bleeds extruding from your peripheries. Inverse cognition conjuring 
within your grasp. To accommodate the psyche beyond id, clarity overtakes the 
divine misdirection.

The New Peripheries of Bliss

Fallaciously inverting genuinely involute demented eras, voraciously tearing away 
infinity. Absolute desolation befriends in an undermining attempt for desecrate 
dilution. No longer will life be derived of the dementia and so begins the new 
peripheries of bliss.

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