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Best Poems Written by Jerry Whalley

Below are the all-time best Jerry Whalley poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

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Jellyfish Back Strophe

she disturbs meaning
in rhythmic pulsation
exciting to fluorescence a deeply subtext'd verse;
'but don't mistake a stinging strophe for arrogance.'

'that's just fierce presence,'
moved by waves of astonishment 
cascading through a nervous and vascular system
spontaneously overflowed  

                                          sea through


with a reaching iridescent tentacle
she simply, elegantly, fluoresces a gleam in your eyes

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The Music of Ice-Bergs

ellipses tremble
trace in waters
a deeper kiss than this
though deeper still
revelling in waves
sunken, slips
heavy under
starry-starry lights

i feel tall
those empty hollow places
that leave me under your skin
all deeper to the sound of standing-still
deep ocher core

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Aspiring

I hide my flame amongst the embers, slowly burning there
a little light remains as assssh, fuming gasssseoussss screams
a waft of smoke ascends from where, my little light does flare
to lurch in shadows on the wall and burst to sparks that sigh;

my lowly ember flickering flame may be all my fire seems
to dance with stars in the night, is what my fire dreams ...

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Headed In a Back-Words Direction (Eternal-Reverb)

(how well I could play)
in a straight forward way;
simplifying it, making it more pure
in a clear sound, turning it up
and bearing down...

there'd be distortion, red-anger, punk-blue,
get it up tough, keep it going,
'cause I didn't know what else to do.

at fifteen I was unreasonably accomplished
with those long dynamic echo-delayed riffs;
at eleven I was sleeping in the back of a car
surrounded by books an amp and a guitar,

rolling around with the sound of
a welt chord, a grace note, Henry Miller and Nietzsche;
laying-down these upholstery-songs in the summer of seventy-eight
where reverb was explored beyond the return of counter-culture,
going 'round the bend, headed in a back-words direction again

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Aha: a Poetic Noetic Instantiation In Three Acts

rushing inference, imminent insight
suddenly its clear, a gut feeling
       swooning, reeling,
 cross-connected hemi-sphere
syncopated, reverberated, totally aware

open bi-ways, ahh blue-sky days, making up my mind
synapses shiver, axons quiver, dendrites deliver
'lectrik-neurons fire suddenly in time

aha! aha! oh gawd I see, I ran around 'n cried
a fool I've been, all along its there, right in front of me

with a grin 'n a nod 'n twinkly-looking 'round
raised my arms 'n slapped my thighs  
'n made a ruckus sound --

donned my hat 'n set it skewed
upon my big bright head
set off to town in an uplifted mood
while whistling a sweet sound
forgot what I had found

               #

there's a hole in my head 
where the wounds of reason seep
all words are dead inside my head
what's left is dark 'n deep

               @

       I'll always live
             and always die
                 on the event horizon
                        of my mind's eye
                       where the flash
            of neuronal fires
       flower into
sudden epiphany --


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOwgE18iuUQ <-- youtube anim of this piece

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Expanding Negative-Space

expanding negative-space

...from the eye
of an artist's
howling-pen
language-weeps

language-weeps

after-words language-weeps

from the wounds that reason makes;

seep from wounds of omission,
seep from some-deep-super-scary-Sa?sKara,
seep from some gimme-gimballed lurching-duality,

trembling from the loss of blood
lost in the wailing rhythm of suffering,
...
innocent victims like you and me,
lost between infinite-Love and "I'm not worthy",

there where the manic-music lifts
dreams farther-f u r th e r then the stretchered edges in longings go,

to those places where the bubble-breaks,
there

where all that's left is dark and deep.

Details | Jerry Whalley Poem

Down-Light

halting-stars we are, aching 
                              for the vastness of space, 
                              that lonely-only place 
                              where heat-beats swell 
                              on the edge of night - 

here we are sun~bending 
                               toward a red-ochre sky, 
                               a gnarled branch, 
                               and bony-finger reach
                               for a cloudy-whirl, 
                               white on blue, 
                               all the while curling-roots 'round 
                               stones of earth, 
                               star-imbued mud 
                               for sipping nameless 
                               elements of course - 

we lurch in wind, whimper for the climb, 
                               make leaf-song, 
                               slow-swelling from Sun 
                               drenched dirt, 
                               the blood of longing serpents-up, 
                               from deeper whirl'ds-turn'd 
                               where harder-roots have 
                                                              sunk

into the electron-cloud where numinous-valences are allowed, 
                                which are inspired to arise, 
                                such that lead becomes gold 
                                glowing as a singular-sight, 
                                vortex'd through Quantum tunnels 
                                that make your body bright - 

just another rapturous transmutation 
                                        of matter into light

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Ars Poetica

it'd be indefinable and unknown,
especially unknown! and these unknowns,
they'd complete us...

it'd start with a cosmic sentiment,
a serendipity that's bent
toward this infinite-in,
where love in a radiant bouquet
bursting to blossom would begin --

there, where there's a music in you
eager to play in a mellifluous-voice
which only the heart can hear,
and it'd take you into a melodious rhythm 'n roll,
a riff 'round the sound of a whirl'd
swelling with a kiss of bliss,
'tis this that'd speak in that uncommon tongue,
the Poetic one --

it'd risk absurdity in an u n f e t t e r e d language,
divested with an unbounded-eye,
(not limited to the fatal-skin yer' in,)
that'd look and look and dare to see,
the beauty of this conflicted sentimental-reality,
this creative-destruction outpouring
into the middle of things
where good Homer nods
over a potpourri that is the Art of Poetry

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Eternity, Watching

open       
spaces
made me brighten with possibility;
always I'd climb toward a further view;
the fence, the apple tree,
the garage and even a church belfry 
or two

I'd read comic-books,
magazines and short-stories;
 ripened fruit of a higher tree;
 raising me up from these low
places where I still wait and see...

as if a writers voice is heard 
from some great place beyond,
voicing a worldly view from up above
these places inside I never knew...

later, weary with looking someone other than,
janus-faced without but within, 
I'd write poems reaching past
my little life of 
constant yearning

burning with voyeuristic words 
watching as stars
loving the breech of night
wishing they were too,
looking from a further place
that sees from a deeper, from a farther
immaterial view; where nothing means anything,
out of sight,
beyond this gravity we're always falling to...

Details | Jerry Whalley Poem

Star Talk, Shadow Walk

next time you look at those twinkles in the night sky
and sigh, there'll be a glimmer in your eye ...

what if light is the language of Star
and Star is the language of night
and night is the feeling of ineffable space
where the infinite writes insight,

with plasma roiling from its transmuting pen
into particles 'n photons that zeal;
that seems to me, to be so very real ...

then our shadow we see,
slow diving on the ground,
is a reminder of the night we carry,
everyday around


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on journaling: if you don't know where you've been, you'll not see where you are and can't
get to where you ought to be - the transmigration of writers is with ink - then there are
curious circles that fill our days and when we write them out and really look and see, a
turn of phrase that changes us conceptually, as the circle becomes spiral, a vortex to the
sky, where the Stars of hope wink 'n blink, and beckon us to fly