Poems

Poems by Bitter Hermit, AKA David M Pitchford

Assume copyright. The law does.
But feel free to request use of any of my poems.
I’m pretty easy to work with.

  
Don’t Touch Me

So, here’s this poor woman. Been mourning three
days and a couple nights. Misery, loss,
hope nailed, hilltop and public, to a cross—
this woman needs a hug to set her free
to grieve; what is it you first said? “Get thee
hence!” May as well have been. Noli me—How
to reconcile that to a Law of Love?
But as you taught, she forgave, didn’t she?

Hers was not the doubt of Thomas, hers is
our perpetual need to reassure
ourselves and each other by touch. We need
to feel! You. Us. Ourselves. Even though this
be betrayal some time in our lives, Your
touch heals—otherwise, Christ! Why did you bleed?

  

Love Song: Oh Southern Queen

Let us go now, you and Igea in
Eerie feathers clad and mourning knights
Torn asunder in contests, to delights
Under meteor skies. Maiden within
Seems less tender than Truth. Lies more akin
Gone from godly tongues . . . What ungodly frights
Over dreamscapes, demon chaste and unites
Trace through Pinnacle eyes? What tales we spin
Here under Drastyn Moon and Sister Dark—
Eternity is God’s breath breathing Him,
Never to exhale! We the lesser sing
Unerring hymns, sun bright and shadow stark
Neath foreign moon, meteoric—no slim
Igea, she is dark of silver ring.

Song of My Son: Song of My Self

Paternal as I long to be—distance
Erodes memory. How long since I held,
Desperate, clinging infant you? Beheld
Alive your eyes, my eyes. Our insistence,

Not from love’s lack, but in the persistence
That hope demands for better . . . Could love weld

Hearts together? No. Neither could love meld
Alive our strange insanities—penance
Left us only one choice: your adoption,
For your mother and I were oil and flame—
But either no fault the other should claim
Lest karma strike fatal conflagration!
Utter love and contempt as fire we shared
Despite paradox wishes—we ran scared.

 Song for Lyalla Ellylandrastyn

Do your dreams whisper dread? What hope-filled song
Are you singing, daughter? What tune drives dance
Urgent as heartbeats, needful as the chance
Gained by prayer and faith? And for how long?
Have you sung, dreaming where you would belong
Thought destiny? Prophecy! Circumstance
Entreats you to change; Providence’s glance
Reminds dream too long absent—far too long!

Daughter of gone ghosts, hymn us all delight
Ringing among stars between moons: Power
Attracts like and opposite. Must you fight,
Suspend judgment in that darkest hour—
Transported beyond that dark circumstance . . .
Yellow jasper runs red with blood and blight!
Neither buttons nor Hades fruit grow sour.

 

Tears for His Golden Brother

Judas you never were! Fortunate one
Everyone loves you-but you . . . recall teeth,
Silver as Igea’s drastyn self. Wreath
That golden flower round you when you run
Escaping Kali’s gates—flight from the Sun
Roiling shadows and that bridge far beneath

Contessa’s disdain. Who could so bequeath
Angels’ legacies? There is more than one
Vertigo to face under a stone sky.
Enwyrth risen! What lies? What lies! What lies
Lower than the lowest lies? She haunts shy
Implications unreachable and flies
Erratic as bats through your soul-but why
Resist what she offers? Honor denies. . .

Fourteen Lines
for a Twelve-eyed Raven

Devil’s Xatraartax! Rising raven
Natural as reaction. Your weapon
Opposes all we are. Crow as weapon,
Murder by murder through twilight Raven
Aeries and knights go onward, hagridden
In spite of rainbow dreams. She lies. Hidden,
Drastyn fear nothing. Dread is their weapon
Nevermore to evermore, quoth the drastyn:
Eyes are for the blind! Sight for the sightless
Vrit xotra! Carnelian Malta! How we
Aspire your treasure to reap! So, heedless
Rush to adventure as though no One Tree
Hallowed our Eden! Gods help these hapless
Orphans! We’re born and die in infamy!

Wraith Haunts Beneath Moon
Waxing, Willow Wilting

Haunting as desertion, she leaves us once
Again in straits dire as death . . . Who returns
Despite shame? Thick-skinned in hearts where hope burns
Eternal, though banked the flames—Our response
Shows the world our truth. Stern remonstrance
From angry fathers dispirits, He spurns
Rudely-and yet his passions rise. He yearns
Unlimited lust for life, begs just once
To shed his bonds and fly above life—

Euphoria covers her eyes in myst,
Lanterns to her soul—she wishes to wife . . .
You’re too dark, fair sister. But for one tryst,
XatraartaX, she knew him not. Their strife
Reveals Love’s violent flame, which none resist.

 

It is Accomplished! Vrit Xotra

Here is a riddle for all ages: Sharp
Evermore to Nevermore once lied; yet
All the best lies base in truth, to beget
Random fibs takes imagination. Carp
Till the cows come home, you’ll soon cease to harp
On trivialities once you’re beset,
Desolate, on roads to rune. Do not fret
Alphabets unwrit! Think! Only the sharp
Recall what was barely known. Is your edge
Keen, and Fate rewards! Dance your martial
Nihilism beyond Mere onyx wrought
Expertly into oval torque—what pledge
Shall hold you? Success and fate are partial,
Servants to perseverance of what’s sought.

Orchard Sutra

Beneath this silver moon we mingle breath and sing
our blood awake. How firm your grasp
of romance in orchards of long lust and bright longing

kisses flicker on tongues tasting, testing, merging
in consolation’s search—soft rasp
beneath this silver moon. We mingle breath and sing

songs written in heartbeats and hormones pulsing
through the longing lust, panting clasp
of romance in orchards, of long lust and bright longing

our choral refrain repeats each surge, recalling
ten-thousand hours and each gasp
beneath this silver moon. We mingle breath. We sing

primal songs in grunts. We thrust, counter, sway and swing
with rhythms moon-aged, pant and gasp
of romance. These orchards or our lust, bright with longing

enchant us with mingled measure of breath and spring
under spells of touch and scent. We gasp
beneath this silver moon—we mingle breath and sing
of romance in orchards of long lust and bright longing.

Avogadro’s Love Song

Between a playing damsel and her
demon lover, covalent equations
determine whom the who pursues,
to what degree, and at what electric
cost. Such chemistry is passion
that few may guess its elemental play,
its orbits of atomic play
within the atom of life: observe her
a moment; presume that passion
has molecular equations
based on mass to volume to electric
charge—that some given force pursues
extant principles, which pursues
logic, is able to predict the play
force on force within electric
systems—observe, record, and predict her
actions; your basic equations
must account for particular passion
to contain variance—passion,
though elemental, changes and pursues
its own logical equations
according to natural patterned play
of tit-for-tat-account for her
antics, fickle nature, charged electric
impulse, beware that electric
field when experimenting with passion,
respect that and you respect her—
figure from here how one atom pursues
another in infinite play,
or until another sets equations
awry. Reset equations
and begin anew from first electric
impulse back to intermingled play.
Thus can science predetermine passion,
and thereby control who pursues
whom—hence, no demon lover for her
lest we allow unleashed passion
to soil holy daughters. Science pursues
truth toward purpose—God preserve her.

©David M Pitchford

These Roses I Leave for You

a rose severed from its stem dies too soon and love

should not wish it so; even so I leave these roses

for you on their stem and spare a thought—sent seraphlike

to you through intervening time and space; this moon

looks down to seek you, though through your window it may

not reach. These blooms, could you see them spread pale pink

petals from creeping vines, too wild for groundskeepers to tame.

 

And the sky spreads from you to me, a mutual

roof in our house, the world. And so together, though

distant, love spans what cannot contain it; words flow

from me to you. How or why we needn’t know. Neither

can stand aloof from other any length of time,

whether by choice or against will, for love has tied

soul to soul, proven as often as tried.

 

 

David M Pitchford

21 October 2003

Rev 13 November 2008

 

Bad for Buckie

Buckie Beaver built a big bungalow

down on bayou banks for his big beaver

family. It was blue and black and smelled

of bluebells and blueberries. But Buckie

wasn’t built for boredom, and bounded down

to Bad Bettie’s Big Broad Bordello for

bourbon and biscuits. Sadly, that’s when he

met Henry Hollow of the Harlem

Hatters. Buckie Beaver awoke early

this morning naked as a naughty jay

with his tail gone and no skin on his bones.

Buckie’s wife Barbi beat his butt badly

for hookin’ with the johns and losing his

hide to horny hatters in a whorehouse.

 

David M Pitchford