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Shashank Virkud May 2012
Nothing about it
makes any sense,
the way she puts me
on the fence.


Arbitrary grading

masquerading beneath
the facade of a rubric,

it's *******
and I'll prove it.
Shashank Virkud Oct 2010
Rational
Everyday
*******
Loss
Injustice
Tribulations
Yearning
Shashank Virkud Dec 2010
You were a different version of the religion,
you were a ****** of the region when we met.
I had the brownest eyes. You had the greenest eyes.
chin sits perfectly in shoulder,
hand fits in hand, molded.
I had hair like a little girl's. You had hair like a little boy's.
Both half ******, my arms were as thin as yours, and toned.
You didn't own a single curve, just edges and bone.
Only your lips were soft. Only my lips were soft.
The fading light bounced off the angles of my abdomen and visible ribcage,
made your mouth water. With a shy,
curling finger,
you called me over to you.
It drove me wilder.

We undressed each other under the covers.
You giggled and I crumbled when you saw
I needed help with the clasp of your bra.
I chuckled, returned the favor when you gave up on my belt buckle.
I had the body of a little girl. You had the body of a little  boy.
The sheets wound around and pressed us together,
You had the hardest hips. I had the hardest hips.
You compromised what was inside your mind;
I felt those first few moans rattle your
visible ribcage and escape through lips pursed
like a porcelain doll.
Took it all in, held on to your fragile frame
and from the moment we were free,
two children in the wilderness.
Shashank Virkud May 2011
America is

America is a fern
and we all cultivate it.

America is germinating
and we can't control it.

America is in terms
that I can come to terms with.

America is a way
with words, America is
what it takes to describe
an urban landscape,
America is a blending of voices,
America is a sophisticated
form of art.
America is a day old
railroad of the new world
where the waters have never
been tested, where our trust
lies in the ones best at
acting their part.
America is what we make
out of a broken home, and
America will be the first to
cast a stone.
America sees us off, with
tears, and roses chosen
for us in a dim lit florist.
America already knows
where to find you,
and that the worst is
behind you,
America is a Grandmother
named Jones.
For Richard and Tyler Wagers, and Grandma Jones
Shashank Virkud May 2012
You're a sham sham
sham sham
champagne girl,
pretty girl
that sat next to me.
Give me one for free.
Shashank Virkud Sep 2011
Underneath a foreign sky,
we soar, we fly.
The first thing I do
is think of you
when I wake up.

Annabelle,
wash this filth away,
bring the rain.
I'm in no rush to get my
hands ***** again.

Underneath a foreign sky,
we score, we get high.
The first thing I do
is steal from you
when I wake up.

Annabelle,
the sound of your voice
has me wound so tight.
Annabelle,
you stress me out.
Annabelle,
you stretch me
all the way out.

Underneath a foreign sky,
I left my dignity in the dirt
to die.
Pride only gets you hurt, and in
the face of light
I learnt
that I had lost my faith that night.

Annabelle,
you have my blood
and skin under your
fingernails
from the night we set
full sail.

Annabelle,
If you can feel
I'll dig deeper.

Annabelle,
If you're not real
I hope I'm not either.
Shashank Virkud Mar 2011
I don't know who I am or what I like anymore. Bored with everyday, everyday I try to settle the score between me and what lives on the floor level of your mind. Finding out you're a plastic bead on a string of gems, accepting you're the stem and not the rose.

I don't know what I am or who I like anymore. Give in, give in like before. Heard a knock on my door, won't question it more. You left a note on my door, I have to settle the score between me and what lives on the floor level of your mind. To find you're a rhinestone, defining the beauty you juxtapose.

Keep driving away, keep it hiding away.
Shashank Virkud Feb 2013
Wallowing
in a stagnant,
skeptical world,
you must live.
Run river, run
you are no forest,

you do not stand still,
and you can never go back.
Logic need not follow,
but it always will,
and that is all it can do,
it is all
I can do.

Pleasure seeker,
still mindful of the gods;
Dionysus, Apollo,
Hanuman, Saraswati
in your heart,
never at odds.

Show no humility,
only invincibility,
make yourself cry
twice weekly.

Leave your mouth watering,
leave your mothers wanting more.

What if the cacophony broke the barricades?
Noise, noise, noise, noise, poison!
Gasp as the venom creeps to your brain,
grasp at the hilt of the dagger, dilettante, for all we can see
is that friends are always followed by pain.
Shashank Virkud Aug 2011
One where I even pay rent.
Shashank Virkud Jul 2013
We were both huddled together,
cuddled up on the love seat.
We were sharing some primary source of joy,
the title I can't recall now,
when she let out a frail sigh
and said
"you know, I don't really give a **** about being remembered,
I'd rather just be read now, at face value, and left at that."
Her admission was inspiring.



Faking headaches
and skipping class
to go back to my house,
everyone thought we were sociopaths but
we were just lonely.
To say she understood me
is an understatement.


After we put the book down
she insisted that a good kiss
should be vaccuous
and I said I didn't get it,
that's when she put her lips to mine
and enlightened me.

Like her bar of soap,
but dirtier,
I was bent on the curves of her body.
Shashank Virkud Apr 2011
Six rusty lamps I lit
in the evening
had all but
burnt out,

and from the other room
I heard you shout,
"the ceilings'
beginning to leak."

Mud on the tiles,
your footsteps
stomped and squeaked.
We were all in disbelief.
We had a feeling we'd
be there for a while,
so we found a
board game to
keep us all sane.

I've had my lows
and I've been pretty high,
picture frames are windows
to better times.
Feels good when the wind blows
over the street signs.

We felt it dying down,
I found a railing in the yard,
discarded by whatever tore
through the streets,
roaring ahead of us.

Crying, you held a bird,
failing to fly from your arms.
You knew she wouldn't
last another day.
The storm had finally passed.
Shashank Virkud Oct 2011
Bitter and blue,
because I was never true.
Bitter and blue,
I see the quitter in you.

Bitter and blue,
I want a better view.
Bitter and blue,
fit for only a few.

Bitter and blue,
it's quicker to chew.
Bitter and blue,
I'm a lot sicker than you.
Shashank Virkud Oct 2014
Lethargy
crept up on me
in the beginning,
in a slithering,
sordid sort
of way.
Retreating,
the opening,
the closing doors kept
repeating
themselves
and left me
depleted;
porous woodwork,
ashen, decrepit;
the walls that wept
dust mites
in the absence of
a keeper,
in the absence
of light.

What a wicked way,
what a thing to say

to a skeleton in his grave,
rattling sporadically,
stench of love decayed.

Gracefully laid down,
head full of gray clouds,
reserving respect
for all those dead sounds,
keeping kindness
for my pallid hounds.
Shashank Virkud Dec 2014
I'm bashful,
I'm broken-
hearted,
I'm born to do this-
die like this-
with every twist,
every flourish,
every blister-
are you burning, Amber?
Sore nose with a corkscrew in it-
the holes you bore-
I'm boring.
mundane-
remaining unnamed
because boys are all different yet none of them stay very long-
for the shame of it-
hot shame, burning amber-
are you burning, Amber?
-
oh, if it wasn't for the shame of it!
Shashank Virkud Oct 2010
Bittersweet, get me going.
                     hold your breath over my neck,
      
                             it really

         lets me go,

                         twists my tongue.
Talk to me
                  like an angel
but,
                                
                         touch me                
like a convict.
 
                        disrespect me,

              neglect me,
abuse me,

but,
              with a voice I can't refuse.

Bittersweet, like a rose infused.


Bittersweet, keep me going.

        my heart
flutters and flails when I hear you in my ear.
      
      Whisper me *******

but,                
                       ***** me

like a ******.

                    ****** me,

             reduce me,
fool me, 
            but  Bittersweet,                      
        ­            make me feel *****.
Like you're in school
         and I am turning thirty.
Shashank Virkud May 2013
What I mean by bad is not good.
Trust me, what I mean by bad-it's not good.
Into every discernible instance-
we split them up by seconds-
I fell, serendipitously.
No one had ever made a mistake
so gracefully.

There is a trick to this.



*Steph,
hey Steph,
you better
bear my blunder now.
Steph,
hey Steph,
you better
call your cardinal
because my counts are no show now.
Steph,
hey Steph,
I just heard a ****** story,
hurry, I'm freaking,
I'm seeking you out.

Steph,
hey Steph,
I better
come
pick up
those sunflowers
I left in your bed now.
Shashank Virkud Nov 2011
So I went to the campus today, for the first time in a long time. I smoked cigarettes outside of the the lecture hall with some kids from the eastern block whose names I could barely pronounce. They were talking about McCarthyism in a language I couldn't understand - snippets in English - an American history exam. I cut class again, for a reason I can't quite trace, just lost sight of it all I guess. Or maybe I was wishing it could have been a little easier. They never gave us a course in what it means to try, you know? It just seems as if the only thing that stops us from doing the things we love is a fear of failing at them. Thinking about this on the walk home made my head sick and my heart sad, and so sleeping through the rest of the daylight seemed like a good way to get by.

I met up with the friend, later in the evening, he was at the local venue. He had his hands in his hoodie and his Adidas were swinging over the side of the stage, head bobbing, and rhyming in time to the beat of an electric bass drum. I asked him to buy me a beer and he slid his last two dollars over the counter like he always does when he notices my lower lip quivering. I didn't ask him about the doctor's and he didn't ask me about my black eye. I told him to tell me the story again, the one about the cool kids he met in the East Village and he did, he told me about the whole encounter in the snow, with the lights, and how badly he was shivering. I smiled that type of smile, the one that ends up with your lips curved the wrong way and wished I would have went with him.

The waitress that hates me gave me a ride home again so her uncle could close the place down. I offered her one of those Ukrainian kids' cigarettes that I swiped but she said no thanks, and I was glad I had more. She knew this wasn't going to be the last time she did me a favor, the way my track record was but I like to think she doesn't mind too much. I invited her inside but she said she had to run, maybe next time. She told me to try and hurry up and finish school so I could give her the world, and then she giggled and winked at me before she sped off. Back to bed, I had a long day of bullshitting myself ahead of me when I awoke.
Shashank Virkud Sep 2011
Coffee shop talk,
a cigarette gets lit.

Coffee shop talk,
come here, come sit.

Coffee shop talk,
I've got a lot to tell you.

Coffee shop talk,
I've got to stop
stalking you.
Shashank Virkud Dec 2012
Come down,
come down,
come down from your rain cloud.
You're always rainin' on me
babe.

It isn't practical
up there,
what's the use?
And if you're in the sky
where am I,
save, you gotta save it for me now.

Rock me rock me rock me rock me
Rockaway, rock me to Brighton!,
Coney Island dead give away, hey!
I feel like there is more-
there is more and, and I'm not
fully sure,
not from New York.
everybody moves their body fast

they wanna do this city fast,
rock me rock me rock me,
rock me, you know I'm slow.

Get wise, get wise
rest sore eyes
on petals blue.
The waves
and the flat lands are too high now.
Shashank Virkud Apr 2012
She gets impatient
so quickly,
even though
I've told her
things worth
cultivating
take time to grow.
That she's always unsure
is all she really knows.

God had already
given her a sick
set of six strings,
so she sold her
steel body to the devil,
to do what he will with it.

Now they
resonate
together,

one howlin' wolf,


all through the night.



*Haughty,



naughty
necked
girl,

Why would I
write you a jewel,
or a star,
when you already
are one?
Shashank Virkud Oct 2011
I left before I could blow it.

Bright light, moonlight, whatever,
it doesn't matter, the setting is irrelevant,
the fact is,
I've noticed you before the grave.

I left before they could know it.

Call me whatever you like, whatever,
it doesn't matter, the semantics are irrelevant,
the fact is,
we made it all up anyways.

My dear, I left poetry to the poets.
Shashank Virkud Apr 2013
Bitten by a spider
at the oddest hour.

His whole body throbbing
with his own pulse.

All his insides are charred
but sleep is not a willing
companion.
The eternal coronation,
death as his champion.

Sweating through a thin veil
of details, begging the question,
begging for recognition,
even the most elegant logic is an ugly thing.

In delirium, he tears his journal apart-
that's how an artist starts.
He is ugly,
he is crude,
he drank some poison
down in Greenwood.

he becomes quite faint
when struck with the
quaint notion:

that even the heavy
handed blacksmith
has finesse, and feeling too.
Shashank Virkud Mar 2012
It's a long walk,
the way that women are,
and I've already lost miles
to the races.
Try appealing to a youthful
star, have 'em throw money
to the wayside.

I was howlin'
like some horrid wind.
I was prowlin',
bayside,

sick of the **** I was sittin' in.

I was a wizard,

baby,

I was a blizzard
blowin'
through your front door.


I try, I try,
I try, I try,
now put me on trial,

baby,

you can't fake style!

It's not a mask,
and it's not just a past
but something more.
And I'll be able to tell
just what that is
as soon as I
figure all
The above my brow
considerations.
The ones that we
crawl towards,

the delicacies that
you spit at me,

you spit them from your
mouth; young,
European tongue,
look at what you've done!

Why?
Why so profound?
Why,
just act petty,
demographics
don't stop me.
Why?
Why so profound?
Why,
just be pretty instead,
demographics don't stop me.
Shashank Virkud Sep 2013
Detachment doesn't follow from distance
and so for a few cents a minute
we send our sentiments half way around
the world. Hurling hellos,
goodbyes, in dialects that
don't yet exist.

We find utility in comfort
and comfort in utility,
all the musicians
have delusions,
after double heart
triggered reality tryst,
they split,
making two languages
out of it.
Shashank Virkud Aug 2012
"Not like that!
Like this."

She turned over her shoulder to face me, snatched her hair, soft and strawberry blonde out of my hands and giggled as she tried to show me the French braid.

She saw my blank expression and buried her face in my neck and giggled some more.
"This isn't going to work."

She gave up on the braid and kissed me anyways,
She tasted like sweet tea,
mixed with somethin' southern and strong.

She said "thanks love".

Her porch was lit up like it was the hearth of her home
and we had stopped slapping at the mosquitoes hours ago.

with my head in her lap, I was getting the grass burs out of her skirt when my fingers crept up her thigh and picked at something polyester, it smelt like lavender.

She put her hand on top of mine and kissed me again. I watched the dimples form on her cheeks as she whispered "daddy'll be up soon."

Laying by the river, when everything is silver, and silent, just for a moment before
the sun rises, we held our breathes

and then the love birds wept
and rattled their cages.

My memory fades as she got up to go but she said something like

you're still dizzy from that southern sting
or
you're still dizzy from that southern swing

and that she was hungry
and that we were hollow.

and I just laughed anyways; I could never get her father's truck to start but my heart was always in the right place, she knew it.

*She had a way with words,
she had a way with wasted...

she had heaven on her ankles with her jeans rolled up, and I just wanted to linger there.
My first prayer, my first gray hair.
Shashank Virkud Mar 2012
Hey Barista!

I don't like
my wrist-clock
but
coffee is only
comforting
while it's
hot.

And it's
more important
in the morning
than when,

than when I
go to sleep.
Ahaha!

Ha Ha Ha!
Hey Barista,
since that's what they're callin ya these days,
Aha Ha Ha!
Hey there Barista,
so how much are
they paying ya?
Ha Ha Ha!
I'm always the ******* at the coffee shops.
Shashank Virkud Jul 2010
We're dancing in the moonlight, chancing that the mood is right.
Lady Luck won't **** with me tonight.
By Shashank Virkud- From Miracle/Whimsical
Shashank Virkud Jun 2013
Kindred spirit, the privilege is mine, it's just that I,
I never finish because there is nothing going on, nothing to go on.

All right, all right, all right,
you're right,
I don't write as much as I used to,
but in all fairness (to myself)
I feel a bit more loose.

Never mean to,
but I guess I argue
a lot in order to hide
how much I really don't care;
Celina said it's not okay
but
that at least I know
it's insulting.


I only want to be in my body
when your feathery fingers graze my spine.
That tone an angel loaned
to you can ripple through
the void, make a soft,
translucent puddle out of reality,
can you see me
on the other side?

Don't say I'm angry,
it's just that
no one has ever really tried
to impress me, so I'm scared
I guess.

Remember you are here,
don't be weird about the types of things
sentimentality will bring,
will string along to the
forefront of an open sore;
no one pours the sink a whiskey
drink until the girls are crying out above the stars,
better yet, stirring them from afar
for their own faults, for being
fickle with love
and their own hearts.

You know I don't sleep much,
You know I don't dream of such
pretty things but I could imagine
how you, in a different life,
were gifted eternal wings.

Those that brought you to me.

I would weep

if I wasn't made of stone.
Shashank Virkud Aug 2013
The leaves fall in September, during the festivals. They dissipate, reintegrate into vivid little vespers that bob and levitate on gusts of wind that leave one bristling. The ferris wheel looks like an electric celestial ferry, set ablaze and bound for distant dimensions, man with mutated mohawk green, eyes wretched, livid and obscene, was the maniacal who manned it. Glow stick ghouls, with faces smeared americana snow cone red and blue haunt the parking lot, purple precipitate that hisses as it hits the pavement the product of their incessant chanting, pulling fuzz-lined warmth from my marrow. Under the stadium lights, women tighten their scarves as tiny, cerulean seahorses shimmer and dance with the ebb and flow of their jewel studded breath, retreating, giggling like immortal birds fallen from the nest.
Love is paper mache; a pop culture artifact. Like a stuffed hare that seems to have lost its ability to come to life after one loses their virginity. It has long legs and keen ears. It's very fast and would be quite handsome as well if it wasn't so **** helpless. It has been bred into the fibers of contact, the filter we set on lust, the way recycled cans make castles on lily pads and dead skin makes dust. We are swirling around in its whirlpool, if it wasn't drowning us we would be dead by now, same goes for the mad, mangy men who will count their teeth with their dimes and pick at their scabs, finger their sores, the retired professor who was too clever to have ever been faithful, the mockingbird that sings on my windowsill every morning in French, the mailmen and the dogs who bark at them in Quebec. An obsessive complex affords one the privilege of straightening the line, counting in time and putting the rabbit en route.
If it is the case that detachment follows from distance then I am one cactus length away (average, or medium sized cactus of course) from destroying the moon's mezzanine, housing all of the dreams behind ethereal, Egyptian, colored crystal that a pagan god stole from a black hole, never intended for you or me.
Shashank Virkud Apr 2012
They came
out of the sun.
They came as one,
and then burst
into a thousand
brightly
burning birds,
colliding
kaleidoscopes-
smashed up stars,
mashed up Mars-
crimson
in my eyes,
feathered
arrows
in flight,
flocking
to the flood
beneath us,
the stars fell
like trickles of blood
from the brow of the sky,


I was high.

So high.
Shashank Virkud Jun 2011
Seeing things for the first time,
sending shivers down my spine.
Feeling girly, too weak to make a move.
Fell into this too early, with way too
much to prove.

She said lover,
oh brother,
maybe we should find
another one while we're
still young.

There was a feeling
in the fault line.
There was a problem
but it wasn't mine.

Singing in your true voice for
the first time,
sending shivers down my spine.
Prying apart what keeps us glued,
with way too much to prove.

She said lover,
oh brother,
what's left to salvage
after all the damage
I've done?
Shashank Virkud Jan 2013
Not everyone is in.

Not everyone is in
a position
to feel sorry
for their own souls.

I wanna write it tonight.
I wanna write it right now.
I wanna hide from the light,
out of sight right now.


I wanna cry
once I find
the line that fits
for you, you

don't
get most
things that I write,
most things that I like.

After five
hundred sunrises
L.A. has nothing
to say to you.

Went to your house
for dinner last night,
all your
family's frames
were crooked,
girl,

don't make me write
tonight,
I've already
doubled my
entendre
once or twice
in spite of you.
Shashank Virkud Apr 2013
Remember how you lost it
when you found that poetry in my closet?

I'd put a cool kiss on your ankle,
touch your feet.
You used to cheat on me.

All so long ago,
crushed with common sense,
and again, it's irrelevant.

Misery,
dig deep,
make me happy,
squeeze a smile out of me.

Comin' up on that second wind, babe,
lotta things I'd like to say.
Worthy of conversation,
I know, those reasons
have something to do
with why my face twitches
and why
the light switches of my mind

flicker.
Shashank Virkud Jul 2011
The pillows you don't use
don't support. They only serve
to suffocate you.

The shed in the yard was a lot
like high school. It stood all awkward
and it was filled with tools.

Flimsy, the tears you shed
and the hate that you bred
at your brother's funeral.
Shashank Virkud May 2012
Songster, not as sinister as they say,
she's no monster, just admittedly
a bit lost in her way.
she caves as I'm walking
down the hall.

I pick her up, off of that flooring,
the rubbery kind, whatever it is,
I guess it's rubber, but the kind that
squeaks when you walk on it after
coming in from the rain; to hell with poetry.

And so anyways I pick her up
and sit her on this bench next to me
and give her about five minutes to come to
terms with breathing and pick shimmering
auburn hair out of the tears smeared across her face,
two, mesmerizing, perfectly blue wells
the source of the streams.
And then I ask her what that
was all about and she blurts out that she

belongs in the Fine Arts Department,
and her car broke down months ago
but her father
doesn't give a **** about it,
because she can't lay up the basketball
or steal the base and so he honorably
lump summed her entire tuition
and sent her to another state
and how ****** she would be
if she had to get a job for the first
time at the age of twenty three
so she wouldn't have to be
dependent on her family and
that she was sick of wondering why
not a single guy had ever given her
a ******* flower
and that if she ever did end up liking one
two weeks later she would find out that he
was exactly the same as the others and

she had a broken look in her eyes

when she said she wondered why we were
all here in the first place, and how we were
made this way, and if people were actually
ever meant to fit together or not;

what if there was nothing as certain
as two halves making a whole?


She wanted to know how everyone's
mind had a different game to play,
she wanted to know why Jupiter
had to be so far away and everything in
between.

We had strolled off of the school grounds by
this time but I still looked twice before pulling out my flask.
I  unscrewed the cap, handed it to her and said

follow me to Deadbeat Hollow,
where we've already thrown
our problems out of the window


and she said

*lets go.
Shashank Virkud Apr 2014
Last knock at seven pm,
if I'm taking too long just tell me when.

Holy honey that melts in your mouth,
you'll only find that kind down south.

Tongue in my cheek, lungs filled with the view,
I've been talking to blurred visions of you.

And I'm stuck with the ugliest luck.
And I could fall...

but then I feel your grip tighten up.

I wish I knew what went wrong.
If there could be a switch-
if I could hit it-
turn everything upside down.
Shake the rain from my sandals,
if you light a candle
I can handle the rest!

See I thought it was me
but it's the world that's
been spinnin' around

and around

and around

and around.
Shashank Virkud Jul 2011
You never
thought I'd
say never.

Get Clever.

**** a sickle from the star,
******' stick it in a cross.
******' vinegar, I'm hot.
I don't dance a lot.

Pull it it back
like a bow,
you'll never know
what I'm talking about,
I'll just throw
my paint at
the canvas, let it
work itself out.

Pucker up and tuck
it in. **** it up
and bless your sin.

Keep the privileged in their place
and keep the simple in their space,
there is no common you can't erase.

Too many
******' problems,
you wish
you
could
******' solve 'em.

Too much hate?
Your heart
has never had
to participate.

******' lonely?
You've got
too much
on your plate.

Reciprocate.

The surface,
the focus,
I'm sure of all of this.

Get clever.

In all seriousness,
I hate to say it's not an art that's improvised, it's more like you camp out, waiting, sitting, wishing, thinking, eating, waiting, sitting, wishing, thinking. Praying like **** for the the snare that you set up in an half assed attempt, like always, ******* hoping it comes through for you. Pathetic isn't it?

I've got too many ideas and as these dimwits stare at the bright light behind me I get sadder.
You're probably getting madder, like I'm a ******* ingrate, It's not too late to call me out because I've just begun my tirade.

Unreadable, I know.
If you made it this far I've got to say, you are completely frivolous, and forlorn;
for that I salute you, and realizing this is all in bad taste, I bid you goodnight.

****, that was fast. Didn't even get to what I meant to.
Shashank Virkud Dec 2011
She rode by motorbike,
one bag and an oily rag swung
over the handle bars.
A little denim jacket and a lavender
scarf wrapped all around.
Her cheeks were charred
from the cold when she got to me
so I packed in kisses
to cool them down.

Get wise to me.
The sun will rise and you'll see
that this windy night
was no match for you and me.
Get wise to me.
When all the leaves are falling down,
when the wind makes a wicked sound,
we'll walk side by side.
Get wise to me.
When you see inside of me
you'll know what it means
to have a home in a heart.
Get wise to me.
Don't be as shy as me,
tell me how it is
and how it's going to be.
Shashank Virkud Nov 2012
Wooden swing, sandal toes.

Willows.

Swaying.

Sweet
water
running.

A silly, sinking feeling.

Sun saved Boat's neck.

Sun saved Boat from Night,
from shipwreck.

Harbored.

Beached.

Bobbing,
beat of red dawn drum,
tune of tangerine rind tenor.

Wheez.

Sea breeze.

Breathe.

Sugar soap.

Sun drop.

Exfoliate.
Shashank Virkud Jun 2013
She used to write poetry,
what would make
Morrissey cry?
The one who left
with all his depth,
the holiest ghost
to ever stick
around his bed.

What would you give to me?
French press,
Japanese guitar,

Dominican cigar spark?

Hearts can grow colder
as they try to feel,
try to push it out.

Black haired
Italian marble,
darling,
we are nothing
to nobody now.
Shashank Virkud Jul 2014
I can only rest when I have energy to unwind.
Sometimes there is no other answer,
sometimes there is no one to call,
and I cannot rest,
I cannot rest now.

You said you saw those seeds about to sprout,
you poured the water in
and then you poured it back out.
It was never about us.

There are things about me I don't even know.
watch me in my sleep,
get my lips moving slow.
In the darkness, you, the candle,
can see all of my shadows.

You hold my heart in your hands,
you hold my hands apart,
you hold my heart in your hands,
you hold my hands apart,
you hold my face in your hands,
you hold my heart in your hands-

my heavy hands apart!
Shashank Virkud Sep 2010
Already seven cars,
I pull in late.
Put my keys by the candles
and stare at the lake.

Sit down, sip your wine.
What's in? Where have you been?
How long since?
You never drop a line.
You must be busy.
I avoid your gaze
and your hand grazes
my thigh and brings us
eye to eye.

Ready for the bar,
we barely ate.

No shame in
the champagne
I consume,
but I assume
it's the fine wine
I spewed all over the ballroom.

Took it too far,
it's getting late.

You don't want me to stay.
Uninvited,how you always
made me feel anyways.
Turn in slighted, ******* futon.

Last time we met
we slept side by side,
you and me, two reasons to care.
The letter and the locket
you kept and tried to hide,
I think I need some fresh air.

light a cig and figure some things are better left unsaid.
Always tempted to trigger thoughts long dead.

Staring at you, asleep in your bed, linen, lace.
I always was a ***** case.
Your thoughts leak out of your head, thin in space.
I find them on your face.

Better not be here when you wake,
the next time we meet it'll be too late,
so hey, by the way,
you looked beautiful today.
Shashank Virkud- From As the Distance Grows
Shashank Virkud Mar 2011
You take your ship to sea,
if you find an island
you can name it for me,
I'm like Constantine.
Cryptic chronology,
sea sick ceremony,
a brief history
of bigotry,
and a few
methods to model
the abstract,
sometimes whack point of view.
Got it rough,
take it from me,
take my stuff,
you can take it from me,
that's enough,
you're a lot tougher than me.
Pure art and patriarchy,
parrot in the park,
no contest,
no success for the weaker ***.
Passed through a hundred hands,
across a hundred lands,
a glittering
glimpse of its beauty
can be an empire's end.
You take your whip to me,
if I mine a diamond,
you can take it from me,
I'm in slavery.
Shashank Virkud Jun 2014
Saddens me to find out there is no more madness to this method. The chaos has decayed, leaving traces of the bruise but the abscess dry and cracked, a hold for a hook sewn right in. A misconception, you are mistaken, this is what is most readily available while on vacation. Dehydration is an acceptable form of payment for the prowess slipping through your synapses, cornering and cutting off your sanity. Someone told me I could ride a star out of here, or that I could buy a car, and learn to ******* steer.

Her ribcage rendered the furniture redder, she snapped her fingers to the fourth man and said you were always a dream to me, no wonder you could be so mean to me. I said I read it in a history book, she looked at me like some Chinese light show, or a Russian disco, glass from a gutter that will grind against you through the night. Never knew her name, they called her by her birth date, hey there April 24th, 1988! With a heart that scars like a diamond, bangs against the table, her own head she cant handle.

She said my hometown hates me, it's my own time I'm wasting, I'm too lazy, and you, you haven't been around for me lately. I said I read it in a history book, and that I always thought you were better than me, smiling in a way that says sorry, she said it takes creativity.

Something I'm avoiding? By the very nature of it. Something in the structure of it, in a particular strand of DNA it is ingrained, running away. I said I read it in a history book. She laughed, didn't let me off, taking pleasure in my pain she leaned in and whispered, you don't remember mine, but I remember your name.
Shashank Virkud Mar 2012
The summer night
is the summer day,
in a daze, we fall asleep
in the a.m.
We wake up,
we find our friends,
we do it again.

Lamplight
can't save us now,
we're out hounding.
Shashank Virkud Mar 2011
Silk in a serenade,
each second becomes a day.
Just stay for the blink of an eye.
Now I have a reason to lose
control of my breathing.

Sympathy in the strings I play,
not so much in the things I say,
no matter how hard I try.
Unaware of the passing season,
am I staying or am I leaving?

Cornerstones crumble,
I don't trust my senses enough.
I've got a feeling nothings' real.
Now I have a reason to
really start screaming.

Polished brass,
shattered glass in the garden.
Examine the facts yet abolish
the past, a history lesson isn't
something I'm going to believe in.

The creases in time are
seamless in my sleep.
A fragile frame of mind,
I hate to suppress it. I'm inclined
to ask, am I awake, or am I dreaming?
Shashank Virkud Jan 2012
Hustlin' out of your garage,
it never takes us far.
My hands are in your hair,
now it's all up in the air...

Hard love in your garage,
hey now, we are what we are.

And it's okay darling,
for the stage you're in,
'cause you're still shedding
so much skin.
Push the blood to the tendon -
lend me a hand, save Sunday
for sleeping in.

When the rhythm hits
and the syllables split,
I'm just trying you.
If I get to heaven,
or, if I could only
just get the hell on
out of here,
it would be
'cause I followed you.
Shashank Virkud May 2013
Smack, jab! Left, right,
watch out I bite,
process words
too fast,
they move like
flashes through my thoughts,
I don't make them, they don't make me
Don't force them, they don't force me-
I do this for fun;
bash my head into a turtle's skeleton,
pelicans, stay out of the way.
Wish wash kind of washer head,
wolf wild but walker wed,
stupid is as stupid ever gets when
stupid is what stupid said he'd turn
stupid,
what he'd spurn, stupid
pedestrian...
I, always the equestrian
and never stupid (and never wasteful
but always mindful, mind you!), like
to think that I do this for fun.

Believe me,
I do this for fun.
Shashank Virkud Feb 2012
I am a poem,
so complex.

Although,
I'd been written over
thousands of different times,
you never even read me through
once

because

you

were too

stupid.
Shashank Virkud Jul 2013
Two hundred years
can pass between a page.
Two hundred years
can pass between a day.

I've laughed and died
along side the best of stems-
blue stars- I've swallowed
every shade of that hue with no shame.

I've seen the picture of Dorian Gray.

I've held pearl white,
brazen beauty in my hands,
but gambled it all away.

I've been there,
I've been somebody's light
refracted through their prism,
coloring them in so many ways.

I've been given
amethyst sequined nights;
along with other pleasures,
I gifted them away,

because
I've seen the picture of Dorian Gray.

I've been given
such expressions,
you, the pallid, petrified
rose. But I am in the
ivory, I am in the alabaster-
I serve no master-
and no one can make me stay

because

I've seen the picture of Dorian Gray.
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