Recede Poems | Examples

A Glorious Death

A Glorious Death
~
The light bulb flickers.
Still, I do not move.
I could turn over and look the other way
but there is beauty in death.
I watch from my bed, with curiosity.
I can hear the creaking of the filaments
as they are about to break,
like a wounded animal
crying to the night sky
with the darkness encroaching
and the wolves licking their lips.
It won't be long now.
The intervals between are growing longer.
Soon, the bulb will cease to burn.
The shadows will consume the bathroom
and my eyes will adjust,
becoming those of a night creature,
making out the shapes that
hide under the blanket of night.
A crackle startles me, then a brilliant
buzz of electricity sparks-
a pop signals the bulb's inevitable demise.
The coils recede, blackened and singed.
It is over. It was a glorious death.
The light bulb flickers, no more.
~

BLT

Grief Is a Beast With Weary Eyes

Grief is a beast with weary eyes 
Waiting on a chord unfinished—
The tinny purr—
A waving growl of tambourine,
Death’s rattle sounds the closing bars,
That dissonant finale.

Crest on crest the ocean marches,
Leave forever in their wake,
Repeating patterns, variations,
Enigmas do their shadows make.

Dawn’s dunes of drought, by dusk
Drowned out by moon’s dictates,
Rhythm of the days; advance—
Recede, advance — avast!
But naught to cease, eternal orbit,
The silver body leaves,
New treasures in the dune lands,
Awash with tracks of feet,
Impervious to changing shore,
Where land and water meet.

Grief is a beast with weary eyes,
Packed down on pilgrim’s road,
To the modest nettled tomb,
Where dust to dust are sunken bones.

Your grave will grow no younger,
Unlike you, ever older.
So, rise up the soul, distilled delight,
     Your grave will grow no younger—
Condense to something less,
     Unlike you, ever older—
Alight as crystals on our walls,
Deign to our quiet burdens bless.

Voices Fall Silent as Long Time Passes

ashes drift through streets
foundations crack into dust
false tongues guide the crowd
we watch as the pillars fall
we're silent heirs to ruin

shouts of protest fade
pleas for change lost in the void
swallowed by neglect
travesties parade as law
complacency rains on guilt

even those prepared
trained to weather storms and fire
find their tools undone
in a tide that won't recede
against headlong climate change

cry for children's sake
their innocence locked in halls
their hope dims and fades
as our shadows fall on them
darkening their fragile plight

worsening within
erosion of soul and will
the mirror grows dim
our humanity watches
complacent letting self fade

where have voices gone
we long for them in passing
we ask but can't sing
we pick flowers to fill graves
we never learn time's passing 

where have our blooms gone
onto graves we keep digging—
questions circle back
who is there to sow not weep
who will plant flowers in spring

Flowing Tide

The untamed waters
Bridled by the dragon's pearls
In the Empress's hand
Tides recede at her command
Her foe's ships were trapped in sand
Swallowed by the seas

Then the waves flicker
Once thirteen hundred years pass
Buried tales emerge
Ships surrounded Sunc'hon's Fort
To crush an invading force
A war raged at Choson's shores

Ancient echoes din
Oceans drew back, and recalled
Old tales etched in seas
Once again, a fleet was trapped
Where wind and waves take the ground 
Who can deny victory?

RIVER OF GRIEF

RIVER OF GRIEF* 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Grief flows through our lives much like a river traversing the mountain passes of a rugged landscape. Just as rivers create new channels through the land, the relentless flow of grief can lead to a new landscape within us. Over time, the waters of sorrow recede. A transformed self emerges, one more beautiful than before.  This is time as the river tells it, stretching and bending in unexpected ways. 
in time's gentle march
river flows, its banks soften
grief is a river

*Note: "River of Grief" is a common metaphorical phrase; it is not my own.

Sat Cit Ananda

Self-existent consciousness, substratum of existence
May, if you will, be taken to be God’s heart beat
Thus between objects there is no distance

Core of our being is always bliss replete
Which we search and strive for yet know not
Lost in thought spirals, we feel not magnetic heat

Sensing we’re spirit not form, here to be self-taught 
In time stretched silence, ego cravings recede
We then pulsate as bliss free from thought

Plugging energy leak, we no longer bleed ~
Treading gently on earth, living simply as of need

Consciousness shift

head melds with heart and thoughts recede
synced with gong Om, the void’s our home
free from desires, on earth we roam

ego dissolves, love takes the lead
heart-centric soul begins to glow
resistance ends; we gently flow

bliss pheromones begin to breed
pulsating within day and night
God bestows spherical sight

we live as of need, not of greed
our eye’s mindful and touch gentle
for the most part, nonjudgmental 

one with oneness, our will we cede
Breathed by God, we see Him within
His grace erases every sin 

head melds with heart and thoughts recede
ego dissolves, love takes the lead
bliss pheromones begin to breed
we live as of need, not of greed
one with oneness, our will we cede

Turiyatita

body rests and senses recede
resting in the sheath of space-time
with thoughts rested, no dreams arise
all that remains is bliss beat’s chime

with void-centric focus maintained
without effort, just gliding in
as pristine formless awareness
we’re That before life can begin

present everywhere and nowhere
no-thingness not yet manifest
the breathless state thus motionless
fills the void whilst itself at rest

as the all, energised and dense
self-luminous though without form
we pour our Self into our Self
within space-time as a bliss storm

motionless yet omnipresent
manifest forms within us move
orbiting our heart’s magnetism
they dance in our intent shaped groove

there is in truth no this or that
the worlds were formed when we exhaled 
in but not of each sensation
we moved not as reflections sailed

So spake simple Simon

Shaped from earth’s crust, we are but dust,
yet our pulse mirrors God’s heartbeat,
enlivened by magnetic heat,
borne by His breath, loving and just.
Why then succumb to thrust of lust,
fleeting cravings doomed to deplete,
leaving us feeling incomplete,
love of God unable to trust?

Know that we are spirit not form.
Thoughts orbit cravings of ego,
which ebbs off when desires recede.
Staid silence invokes a bliss storm,
when who we are we get to know.
The path is simple: reduce speed.

Faith Paved Road

Too much pain wrestles in my dark,
forcing limps that stifle my spark.
Trekking life's long and winding road,
I seek You for a faith reload.
Praising Your road paved with truth's seed,
I will find where pain does recede.

Twelve Hours for Each

Darkness is once more, interrupted. Shadows recede into the cool mud below.
Swollen with knowledge gained from their observations above ground.

Daylight burns bridges. Hours setting limits. 

Mankind awakens. No longer bewitched. Nor between 

Color slowly replacing, a charcoal canvas called night.

Omni

I'm stalking the ground.
Treading the lines between,
  half human and distorted frequency.
Slowly, I recede. I'm choked off from everything.
  A distant recollection, an obligated memory.
I barely made out. Shadows of insecurity obscure my mind.
  Fruition in a haze of lies. I'll reanimate. I'll tell myself anything.
I'm losing my soul, and it's the cost of everything.
  If anything goes, then everything goes with me.
It's all my fault; that's what you said to me.
  I'm losing my mind. A decomposing family tree.
I try to remember, I can't remember anything.
  If that's what you want

Lovely Light

No moonlight lit the lawn last night. 
Dark storm clouds hid the sky. 
I stood, bereft of all that's bright 
and wondered with a sigh, 

why light is such a giving thing, 
while darkness speaks of sorrow. 
When morning comes, the sparrows sing 
with joy enough to borrow.

But darkness serves to hide the deeds 
of men whose hearts are cruel, 
and brings a chill that will recede 
in daylight's warm renewal. 

So, if your night seems dark and long 
and hope feels far away, 
remember morning brings a song 
and light, a whole new day.

Zen mode

plugging energy leak
we see we’re strong not weak
the ‘we’ we allude to
is bliss that does renew
pervading every cell
in this body-mind shell

so as God’s magnetism
in this organic prism
as bliss beats take the lead 
fears and desires recede
thus we become the flame 
here now in life’s end game

Mirrored Driftwood

A lone prisoner of my own making,
a cocoon confined within introvert isolation,
I see all the familiar faces recede nowhere,
leaving me stuck in the maze of acuity.
In the weed-webbed wasteland within
piles up the wreckage of life unlived.
My mystique mind turns into Nemesis,
makes a wilderness of mirrors for me,
reflecting the pernicious perception of anguish, 
an emotion engulfed by intuitive foreboding.

The sane sense losing the route to perpetuity,
disappears in the miasma of lonesome reflections. 
The marooned psyche meanders in desolate darkness,
trying to find the deluded traveler, instinctive me.
Enshrouded by despair I turn into a dead wood, 
afloat on the turbulent flow of the ordained strife.   
With secluded mind I drift in the time's eternal flow,
and on the move, I don’t remember where I started from,
for like mirrored driftwood my memory has no memory.

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