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Don Standeford Poem
In her slippery salmon swim
And red streaked Crawdads chute
Into her eddying pools
To stare at her from beneath rocks.
Whitewater rapids challenge men
To stand against her torrential frame
And face her, screaming out in pain
Torturous centuries of ecstatic rain
To be her solitary stone
To stand against her all alone
A true man to soften her cold soul.
And who’ll be her Reigning Lord
Echo her insanity
To lover her shade and slippery slopes
Crevices’ waiting, sharp inclines.
Once a current in the sea
So filled with green and mystery
To her a man did rarely come
Then, pulled up by curious shapes
Like lambs, in white puffs she flew
And traced her shadow cross the land
Till the puffs released her soul
In little flakes, gentle and slow
For a time entombed in frozen snow.
There men saw her as a sprite
Reflected in her cage of white
Men chased her form of watery light
In dreams that came hard in the night
Her body lucid, long and lean
A cold corpse, frozen to the earth
Blue hair, bent arm, frozen knee
The sun took pity, broke the back
Of the ice block and set her free
So through high mountains, cliffs
And rocks she trickled
In a gathering streams, in rivulets
Of tears, mouths open
Her bosomed skin slipped as ice
Pain built up the rage within
And sorrow brought it to the light.
Green – the color of fast and deep
White – the foam that came in waves
Along the long and joyous vein
She spreads her long body
Knee bent, her heavy breasts pinned
Blasted, rippled by the wind
She’s touched only by old earth’s hand
Its gravity like a naked man
Basking in her pools
Her faces and belly ghosting him, a mirror.
Watch her through the thickening trees
Her body sliding toward the sea
A torturous rape, a rapid ride
For all who’ve hung upon her side
Hearts pound, as she shrieks and sighs
With each down stroke a demon dies
Within the man who’s bourn the pain
Endured her crushing fingers round
Who’s felt the pound of her breasts soft
Been beaten by her to the blood
And awaits for centuries her cold flood.
Copyright © Don Standeford | Year Posted 2013
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Don Standeford Poem
My mind's a naturalistic blur;
She is a hazy green image
pressed up against the lens
Our hands press against each other
only separated by the glass;
her body is in the shape of crucifixion
tired arms sagging, feet clinched
But she sprung from a garden
once clothed in leaves and life;
I will die with her, a green tree.
My Joy, sweet, true,
Greenish in petals, nature's favorite hue
You've reached the hill-tops, and
The sun's yellow flame
Is now a streak of red, racing past us
To the land of the dead
And one day we will meet it there.
Day unfolds Joy's velvet face;
She yawns, stretches her
Round slight jaw at the yellow
sky. I die for her; she dies too.
Her desire is for flesh foods;
Her groans consume my logic; fire
Clothes her nakedness, her womb
She gasps for breath and wants
To drink the sadness of men.
My Joy, sweet, true,
Your body's green, tears blue
Body bowed, droplets of dew
Do all but taste your sweetness
And look how sorrowful you shine
Spinning your petals
To turn water into wine
How proud you are of what only the sun
Has done; I poke gently your stretched skin,
Feel the strained tenuous echo
Of strings I've played within
Wrapped in your body
I feel enraptured now as then.
I die for her and she dies too.
Her heat gasps with the warmth
Of glowing coals within her, fiery;
I quit my desire, strangle myself
With my own bone, cut short
To calm the bursting blood; red-faced,
The strength within me starts to bud
So I am young once more and willing
To be dumb again in love.
My Joy, sweet, tenuous,
I once could play you soft and timorous
Tears swashing green upon your skin
Our morning dew did know no sin.
But dusk falls rapidly upon us
Skin once beautiful now onerous
Wrinkles us in shame, still honor finds us
In the dirges that remind me
Of the life that's lost behind us.
My Joy, sweet, tender, kind
How proud and sorrowful you shine
I must carry you within
Buried bodies know no sin;
You are beautiful and bright
Burn your brightest here tonight
And as dusk begins to call
Let us here upon it fall
Our closely sewn shadows touch silk, the cloth of our doom
And the curtains of death do shroud us in eternity's womb.
Don V Standeford
Copyright © Don Standeford | Year Posted 2013
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Don Standeford Poem
I am the real sea
A tumultuous sea
One wave hits another
And that’s me
Waves sliding, edge
Of all the earth
Edge of my childhood
Look upon my birth
Whirlpools spinning bide
In my heart and my mind
Icebergs are
My gentlest thoughts
Whitecaps are
The spraying wind that blows
Through my thoughts
Icebergs are, just are
In me, and hold the secrets
Of my birth, times not even I
Remember, gone the times
Of sweet November
I once rested in my mother
I once talked to her
All night
She sang to me each November
Always sang, her words still ring
God rest her soul
She had to go
Now she walks amongst the Angels
Watching watching what’s below
As a child I knew no other
As a man I miss her so
There she was in sweet November
There she was beside my bed
She sang to me songs so tender
God rest her soul I’m here below
And I miss her so
Once she spoke in fiergy tongues
As she cared for her little ones
Brought me into this harsh life
A little water she poured into me
Now I am a sea
She brought me life,
She slakes my thirst, still
I stand within her saltly sea
One day I will too be freed
She made me too a sea
Mixed her salt into me
Left me on this rock
To preach and write and teach
Until I drop
She left me on this rock
To preach until I drop
She made me too a see
She’s so much a part of me
As I am of her
How she worked to make of me
A mixing, churning, life full sea
In the boundaries of my flesh
In my mind are many thoughts
Intertwined in me
Her words are like the brutal winds
That slows into the gentlest sky
And calm the raging storm of me
She made of me a sea
In my mind are many thoughts
To many for my words to tell
In my heart is so much love
It’s gone to sleep and lives above
I will not approach the deep blue sea
Will not walk up to its shores
I will hear her voice no more
Until I go I’ll say no more
Of the words she dreamed and gave to me
I will no more think of her words
Or study her philosophy
No longer will I stand and mourn
Upon the sands and footprints shown
She made of me a sea
Now I am the likeness of her love
I am a deep blue sea now too
Within the salt a move and breathe
She made of me a sea
And now I am he
Donald Standeford
Copyright © Don Standeford | Year Posted 2019
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