winter
Folding upon folds,
The grey turns frighteningly cold,
Falling from beyond,
Bright's crown to inevitably despond,
Paling light unflinching,
Descends in gradients unattended,
Without flame or flicker as a life,
But still and sterile as a thing.
Step beside meandered streams,
In its tumble down old mercury's track,
A bowing breeze turns all to walking pace,
The pretty worlds is frozen still,
To frame the fawn among the reeds,
To halt the heavens through the trees.
Splayed hands in biting cold,
Gesture to the deepened night,
Half-finished tales are told,
Weaving through the banter light,
So soon the round devolved,
To spattered words at every sight,
And blinking you step out the fold,
To some lesser silence in warm company.
Walking in cold winter spells,
The world to silence fell.
Rustles in the mid-morn breeze,
Were scarcely met with chiming bell,
To every eye a glance and step,
A time for each I haven't kept,
But now I see at every breath,
There ever is a time by grace to turn -
From where I prior rashely I leaped.
From top to bottom flushing through,
The pipes are hollowed out anew,
All autumn's heaps are cleared away,
To unyielding bouts of winter rain.
From dawn till dusk,
The day draws on,
Dipping into coldest lakes,
Glimmers of a frozen sun,
March rays upon the dew,
Imprisons in its rainbow lights,
'Till frost remains entombed.
Cotton shields for nibbling frost,
Scarves and hats to glove the head,
Wrap up warm and stay in bed,
Winter's now the daylight's lost.
Dark spires decend in shadows steeped,
Drawing near to kiss the head and turn,
With haste up to their lofty peaks,
To watch the deathly winter yearn,
To thrash beyond the sky as if to meet,
Imposing arches with primordial throes,
The ancient stones belie this forceful feat,
Old cracks amidst the sprouting new.
How crisp the air of winter morns, just soft,
Enough brush your cheeks and bite your nose,
To dress the world in cotton folds and furs,
Yet leave the greens a breath to burrow and stand stalwart.
Uniformed flavours,
Packed into their ranks,
Entrenched in glass pits,
Distributing peas for bullets,
Yet utterly frozen at their posts.
Now to hibernate 'til Spring's thaw.
Walking on a snowy afternoon,
A sight as enchanted as its rare,
It does not deign to linger soon,
Like faeries in the molting air,
I walk on slowly as you do,
Beneath light sift to palest glare,
My mind trots on a little tune,
To make a poem strung and fair.
Winter's maw lies unhinged in open air,
Teetering on the edge of snow,
But holding off another day,
If time held fast it'd make it slow,
If seconds passed it'd make them linger.
For liquid frost falls from cruel Winter's fangs,
They seize the earth and drag it down to deepest stillness.
By means of bark and branches,
I am become a tree,
Firm hold the little squirrelses,
I cast them out like heated breath,
That clouds the air and fades careless,
They are at once unseen,
Into the frosty air and out into the mess,
Of roots and curling leaves.
To fight the cold in these solid days,
My sword a reproducing shiver,
My breastplate woven fabric interlapping,
Yet in these solid days,
That press against the edge of space,
I feel ten suns there to my side,
A warmth through-seeping layers deep,
Now I am soft melting.
Bound up in fabric interlapping.
The storm outside is wide and vast astride
My house, but kept behind closed doors for now,
Its peaking through in chasing cold: a peal
Of laughter striking from the clouds above,
A yellow glow that lamps the walls and lines
My face and warms it in the chasing cold,
All's grey, but these are painted bright inside,
All's grey, but these are painted bright inside.
Cold hands,
Are frozen in the air,
Steady still if not for rampant jitters,
Clawing for the wind,
Dancing round snaking zips,
And fumbling on icy metal,
Open please, dear bag of mine,
Twice frosted though contents now the same,
Oh... a little cut,
From frozen metal shining,
A little more red than I last appreciated,
As always...
Far more weighty than we seem to grasp,
An intrusion of morality into our ignorance,
Oh... how scarlet,
You stain us with that which cannot be unstained.
A heavy cold is about,
The very manifestation of violent stillness,
Uncaring of the ember it devours like a lamb,
Impassive to the dancing lights that fall dull in its maw.
Just as the old king said,
A time for all things under the Sun,
For the pleasant rays,
And voracious blight.
A corroding of pipes and stripping of bricks,
Cracking mud when the chilly night pursues,
The cold days are few,
Yet now they begin again.
The cool breeze seemed to pick itself up and then place itself back down again,
For in a room it is still,
It’s coldness stationary,
Frozen even.
Between the walls,
It’s power is as naught,
Instead it whispers quiet snowflakes at the doors,
And dances not on hard glossy floors.
Beneath the roof,
It simply confesses of its coldness,
But it is a subdued tickle,
Not a rampant upheaval.
What a thing a home is,
To relieve the battering breeze of its fury,
And hold it still in quiet peace,
To tell it what is safe to do and where to blow.
The blues hues,
Sit lighty in a hazy snooze,
And all the world is frozen.
The earth and heavens subdued,
Together in a glacial muse,
And the flowers are hidden in austere blankets.
The snow is lingering a little longer.
A soft crackle of snow,
Chases my shadow,
Dancing under the chilly pale light,
And waltzing with my shoes.
A cool breeze,
Caresses my nose leaving it red,
And sleepy clouds seem to fall off their axes,
Down, down into the waking land below.
A quiet walker,
Trudges on to his home,
A faithful friend limps beside,
It's not a long way now.
How he loves him.