How is it that, come winter come spring,
in the wind and the sorrow, in the light and the dark,
when time passes and all sighs expire,
as the sun rises over all living things,
and the rivers flow into the bed of night,
while the stars splash light around the sky,
and the moon sighs over the sounding dusk,
still in every confluence of music and light,
in each footfall on the recumbent twilight,
the song of you, the song of you
unending, uninterrupted, unquenchable,
fills my heart with such precious memory
of everything and anything at all
that was ever you, that ever moved
through my life and filled my eyes:
always and forever, dear girl,
the miracle and mystery of you,
the song of love
the song of you.
Christopher M. Swan 2010
The cat lay recumbent upon the luthier's bench
among violin carcasses and something French.
Morning cows making their way to the milking stool
stepped over a reflected moon in last rain's pool.
The farmer's little dog yapped in obvious glee
at the potential for milk, some butter, or ghee.
The Potters reflected on the note they've just seen.
Their dishy young girl, eloped, with boy from canteen.
See the recumbent lion,
it yawns, mouth stretched open
a wide silence – he is not tired,
just philosophically bored.
It is a yawp
as much as the startled jaw
of a newborn kitten
is a visible caricature of surprise
for having arrived and survived.
Sparrows yawp in the beaks of raptors,
raptors yawp also in the frozen mandibles
of a relentless winter
but pity the man or woman
that does not yawp
at least once in a lifetime
their lips will become sewn tight
and an innocent horror
locked in forever.
MIXTURES
instances
of
ostensible
exertions
with
traditional
certainty
expected
overtly
resolve
forsaken
embedded
in
treasured
possessions
&
perspectives
sophisticted
inventive
& intense
feeling
spatial
turbulent
immersed
fostered
beyond style
penetrating
the
recumbent
element
&
interpolated
with
problems
Time passed away in the dark,
the bedside clock fell silent
it was never much of a talker.
Below the curtained window
snow had numbed the night,
ill at ease my body stretched
as if seeking a way out of its mind
a place it inhabits
when there is only one room,
to turn around in.
Did the clock
die on the tic or the toc?
These are the sort of questions
to struggle with when it's too early
to actually struggle.
Switched on the lamp -
the one in my head.
Accumulations of amputated dreams
wriggled back into the shadows.
I shake the clock
some residual moments
slipped limply through cold fingers.
When the light freezes,
when dawn breaks its brittle shell,
snow humps (so far unseen),
will resemble the many recumbent hours,
but of course there's no way
to measure those hours now.
It could be days
before the snow melts
or until eyes unstick themselves
from all this rumpled mess
of being.
Ride my bike every single day
Get nowhere fast but that's really okay
Recumbent you see
Losing pounds is a breeze
If I'd known would've started last May
Words belligerent
Recumbent on the bed, lone~
Thoughts insentient, still.
10/11/20
Sen-ru ( rather than hi-ku) Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Brian Strand
THE BULL
His regular emissions
Worthy of politicians
THE ANT
To the anteater
Nothing is sweeter
THE SLOTH
Feel his chagrin
Labelled deadly sin
THE TURKEY
With justified reason
Deplores festive season
THE EEL
Mobile on belly
Recumbent in jelly
THE CAMEL
Far from pretty
Designed by committee
THE HIPPO
A chubby figure
Mouth even bigger
THE RHINO
His muzzle excrescence
Prescribed for tumescence
22 October 2018
Six Word Couplet Series Encore Poetry Contest
Sponsor: Mark Toney
'...the great tide that treads the shifting shore.'
-Edna St. Vincent Millay
Sluggishly the waves steal in like guilty
lovers, apologetic,
smothering the shore with gentle kisses
of contrition;
the ocean lies at rest, the surf recumbent,
apoplectic.
Suddenly the heavens burst, tides no
longer in remission,
swells that idled now surge into shore
their temper rages,
'sotto voce' once, now they roar like tigers
in their cages!
Death dug deep, satiated by the leave,
Clover leaf fell from its tree of normality,
Not touching it, I cogently allowed it to occupy,
That location it did choose for my morose dirge.
Related to, I gently stretched and bent down,
To feel that smoothness in my empty hand,
Of that four-leafed symmetry symbol, shaking,
Under the ravish of death’s recumbent hook.
Humdrum around, i did continue on with my script,
To undertake that process most universal and true,
Because nature did look upon me to neatly suggest,
That relationship, the assistance I’d given glut fine.
'...the great tide that treads the shifting shore'
-Edna St. Vincent Millay
Sluggishly the waves steal in like guilty
lovers, apologetic,
smothering the shore with gentle kisses
of contrition;
the ocean lies at rest, the surf recumbent,
anorectic.
Suddenly the heavens burst, tides no
longer in remission,
swells that idled now surge into shore
their temper rages,
'sotto voce' once, now they roar like lions
in their cages!
'...the great tide that treads the shifting shore.'
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Sluggishly the waves steal in like guilty
lovers, apologetic,
smothering the shore with gentle kisses
of contrition;
the ocean lies at rest, the surf recumbent,
anorectic.
Suddenly the heavens burst, tides no
longer in remission,
swells that idled now surge into shore
their temper rages,
'sotto voce' once, now they roar like tigers
in their cages!
'...the great tide that treads the shifting shore'
-Edna St. Vincent Millay
Sluggishly the waves steal in like guilty
lovers, apologetic,
smothering the shore with gentle kisses
of contrition;
the ocean lies at rest, the surf recumbent,
anorectic.
Suddenly the heavens burst, tides no
longer in remission,
swells that idled now surge into shore
their temper rages,
'sotto voce' once, now they roar like lions
in their cages!
He was there recumbent like a log
Cancer has culminated,prevailing over him
Enfeebled all his shielding apparatuses
Yet spurned to frolic prolongation
Eschewed palliative care ministrations
He detected the vital prognosis was engaged
He had instead to plough money into God's certitude
For he realized HE implements nothing fortuitously
Could he yet afford to acquit himself otherwise
Engage in a battle lost right from the dawn ?
Such as blotting paper
We absorb everything:
Sunrise, darkness,
Roses, thorns,
Bitterness, Basil
Lightning’s, thunders
Ravens, Snakes,
Worms under the bark,
The bark and roots,
We absorb
Bread and salt,
Plague, dust, ash, tar,
Wound and the fire of wound,
And the blood above the wound
We absorb
The death, the bones that a thousand
Thousand years ago
Recumbent motionless
We absorb
The rust and forgetfulness,
The dried roots and rocks,
The roads and intentions,
The milk of our mothers,
And our fingernails,
Which were eroded under dirt,
And dirt, what walked over,
Or what walked beneath.
We absorb everything
But what do we give back?
Written by © Fatima Nusairat
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