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Hal Loyd Denton Nov 2011
The Bleaching Heaven
This was the dire conditions a ranch on the central coast of California was pumping gravel from the well
The first time this happened in over a hundred years of them having the ranch the heavens turned away
Its smile the soil started after a long line of days to appear as tile that was breaking and turning up on
The edges it was an emotional assault everywhere the fierce fiery hand left nothing untouched the
Saddest of all was when the visible pain and distraught effects started to show in the trees the great
Black oaks, Eucalyptus, the pine started to constrict the full busy top crown had the drawn most pitiful
Wasteful sad look they were dying by degrees and the merciful heaven looked on dispassionately it was
Hard to travel about the country without having pain dog every move you make it was pronounced the
Land cried for answers your hands were tied as a prisoner in the same predicament doing time in Yuma
They didn’t have to add disciplinary parts to the running of the prison just being there was punishment
Enough a lonely coyote calls in the silver moonlight not for a mate’s responding call but where can I find
Water a song said it best I face the barren waste and I think of cool cool water then you have a rich
Diverse part of the country that is the envy of the rest of the world now it is a tender box a lighting strike
Or any man made careless act and all will go to blazes all will be left is a black charred landscape it will
Blacken your own spirit this is a terrible outcome when clouds are with held and their life giving
Moisture is held in check at times a benevolent father uses this hard means to instruct and show
Your path that you are following is leading you to a like destruction its undetectable when the spirit
Within starts to die all that happens is the outward life kicks on like a backup generator all resumes
And seemingly shows that everything is fine some don’t even know and have never tasted the water of
The spirit everyone has those moments of laughter something stupid is said or portrayed but what
About a river of laughter that surges from unspeakable joy this is not the shallows of life but when deep
Calls unto deep those cherished longings bubble up and are giving free course to your dreams but a
Wicked one who has interest and designs on your life with lies and superior knowledge diverts the
Course Of living water it’s easy because you walk in darkness by choice our desires have blocked and
Dammed up Holy and incorruptible cleansing now the water unseen by the naked eye a poison has been
Introduced it slowly and acutely effects all freedom of thought and actions that are only normal when
You are cleansed by the blood sacrifice of the cross this is detestable to the rebellious spirit we all live
With but it is the pardon the opening of this devil bound prison that restricts and limits growth all of this
Carries with it untold dangers to self and our families the penalty for sin is death you start the death
Process long before the final exit from this life you go to places that puts you at the mercy of others
That have no thought of you what so ever you’re just a mark something to further their strong and out of
Control desires truly the sky is as brass and below if you could have your eyes opened you would only
See the bleached bones of a new generation dying of thirst while an ocean of love and care is dammed
By the prince of darkness and you are his slave doing everything to continue your own debasement and
Loss what more can the Father do he died in shame and agony the heavens even turned black but from
That forever a great upheaval began your freedom guaranteed you want heaven to open you want
Righteous rain you want to see your country rise from a cesspool of drugs and alcohol that creates the
Atmosphere that debases mans place as leader and benefactor for the family and then turns to first
Cheapen women then violate them through the power of *** that no one can control the innocent
Children face the unspeakable terrors of those crazed enough to use them in the most despicable way
Way then they raise a lethal hand to end their lives of promise and beauty turning it to a disgraceful display
Of sick madness that no one but God can defeat the answer just say his name with all of your heart
Jesus
Jake Meizell Sep 2014
My soul is tailgating the tour van of some band from SF that takes themselves a bit to seriously
My soul is somewhere in the woods, half submerged in a creek, caressed by ancient waters toughened by ancient stones
My soul is in a brand new a stadium, cheering on some logo with 80,000 strangers
My soul is the color of calloused feet and broken promises
My soul is the gorilla beating his chest and in a swing of his fist my soul is a little kid wondering how can he cheapen the family bills
Hope White Jun 2018
It's taking everything I’ve ever had,
not to crawl into the crevice between your arm and hip.
I want seep inside of you
and live with you,
like the parasite I am.

I’ve bribed to God to make you love me,
And bargained away my future sins.

I want to forget the golden retriever
You took on walks longer than our love-making,
And the way your body writhed beneath my touch
Like a body bracing for a car-crash,
And how with every kiss
I could feel your rigor mortis set in.

I want to read you poems about Kurt Cobain,
While we do ******* at midnight in Golden Gate Park.
And watch you have a visceral reaction
To the memories
Of the times you tasted someone else’s skin.

Instead I’ll
dye my hair black,
Cancel all my credit cards,
And run away to Chicago
to Cheapen myself
and reek of Popov
In a dive bar next to the railroad,
That no one’s heard of
so you can tell strangers
in the subway
and at the New Year’s party,
(at which you’ll meet  your wife)
how much I’ve always meant to you
and how
You will always wonder what happened to me
(Even though
 you won't.)
Lysander Gray Aug 2013
Tonight's grey cloud hangs over the pearlescent blue and pink of today.
The gray is an avalanche
criss-crossed  
with black
powerlines
that spread like cracks in a mirror.

The rain starts to fall.

To my right is a young blonde
age (17?) unknown.
        Her bag and telephone
would
match
        but for a shade.

The rain starts to fall.

Young lovers kiss in the calm embrace of one another
beneath an awning the colour of
old ladies - no
boredom - no
subjugation -no.
        the under side of an old mattress.

The rain starts to fall.

Across the gap stands an Asian man with the complete accoutrements of a golfer.
Obfuscated now by a train
with the palette of a McDonald's ad.

The rain starts to fall.

The streets are become slick
and every lamp bleeds the start
of an oil painting
with brushes made of light.

The air is cool.

There is a canal that stretches between seats, walled by rows of heads.
In the distance a little girl peaks her head up in the middle of all this,
she wears a bright pink plastic bow on her head that blinks and glows.

Traffic lights streak
green and red
over black gesso.

Cars streak
silver and blood
down black gesso.

"I simply don't need to cheapen things further"

Matching work uniforms.
Matching looks of boredom
Matching shoes and glances
Matching telephones
Matching lack of conversation
Matching hair
Matching matching carpet and drapes
Matching posture

why is everything matching?
       (they got off at the same station)

Suburban princess holds the phone like a bible.

I attempt to sketch her arm in my head....but I am too ******.

I am hungry.
The outside air is cool.

This is a carriage for the antisocial
3 rooms of solitude.
Everyone is plugged in
No-one dares to speak.

The Art of Conversation.

An old woman sits in front of me, with the face of Ray Winstone in drag.
Her hair is a dandelion
and her eyebrows are birds
painted in the distance.
Hands wrinkled and knotty
like old fruit.

Trains are predictable
the purest form of modern transport
all the little fishies
in the giant metal can
are silent to one another.

The train conductors voice is boredom.

I mistake ambient noise for music.
Brea Brea May 2013
Don’t use that word
that loveless, cheap hotel card with that sham of a fine print
don’t ignite my wrath
by devaluing it’s worth, or even giving it power
ignore it’s event like I do
a purity ring
a shackled serf
don’t cheapen my experience with your experience
of what is mine
don’t touch me
swallow me whole
engross me, emboss yourself into my body
don’t touch me
don’t even bring yourself to touch me
I've been rattled out of my lithe little girl's ribcage
child's innocence
shaken out of my hair
I've been mauled by foreign hands
I've been contained by religious crusaders
I've been trampled by meaning
I've been impaled by silence
I've been wretched from love
I've been stolen by hades
I've become the defining moment of your ego's shameless pride
my meaning has been baffled
it has been led
it has dived instead
to the groves of the underworld
divided in two parts for this equinox of existence
my child’s fingers
pried, wretched, from its golden enlightenment
pulled
by the untouch
and the wrong touch
the false meaning
and the absent truth
I am a survivor
I am my own caged victim
I keep her in my stomach
hidden behind my intestines
immersed in my guts
and my bruised pride
that is where I keep her
from you
and the sensations you evoke
the feeling that rattles my nerves
and twists them in confusion
I don’t want to hear your caricature
of my painful soul twisting experience
or HERS
I am enraged!
I am grieving!
I am rejecting!
I am pleading!
I am split from the genitalia up
and the heart down
DONT REMIND ME
please don’t send me into Vietnam
when I am simply relaxing my levied body into your bed
I haven’t the control
PUSH, PUSH, PUSH
PULL, PULL, PULL
SEVER, SEVER
they send me out
he pulls me in
I send me out
I hope to be tugged gently somewhere far away
different from here
in hopes of a real man
a saintly man, devoid of churchly meaning
and satanic undertaking
to embrace me while my fractures are filled
with porcelain
comfort me in my tears
with your humble arms, hands, thumbs
I’ve lived nightmares
that can’t even be rendered from medieval children’s stories
I am under constant running faucets of pain
I am the active participant in my own narcosis
the sound of screaming children sends me into rooms of interrogation
into a meaning of my own
the death of the world’s morality
sends me into spiraling questions of my own
I am sweating from my own polygraph
I am juggling an urge for a spiritual and triumphant out of place uproar
in a quiet, unassuming, un-related home
I am running barefoot after the stars
until my heart hemorrhages
until my lungs collapse
until my feet are caked with sharp rocks
until these rivers from my eyes run cracked dry
tears pooled from somewhere so deep and treacherous
I dont even know where the water is kept
even with my own fingers in the dam
I trust not the water of prisons
I cannot come within proximity of these wound
You slaughterer of divine innocence
You godless heathen
sacrificing the bodies of small celestial creatures
at the bonfire of your debauched and putrid humanity
you thief of love and light
of trust
and connection
I cannot bring myself into the inner reaches of love for fear of the inner reaches of you
I am reverted to the first thought to imprint upon my soft mind
the soft mind of a small and unsupervised animal
but I can only touch it with my lips and my imagination
unable to bring it behind my mouth
for what pain it has caused me
what paralysis it wrought into me
In my quiet, exhausted body
as it's administered to
in its aloofness
by my own lovely composure of compassion
in it's illuminated internal insight
flittering trust in cosmic righteousness
do I also come to bolster faith
that this baser nature will one day be sanctified
like a burning house, full of plagued infested linen
de-shelved like memories of pain on loop
so myself and all the other victimized creatures can find rest upon thier weary eyelids
annh Mar 2021
I am not my words,
Nor am I the letters from which they are formed;
I am a beating drum,
A cacophony,
A riot keeping pace with mortal time;
Spinning order thriftily,
So as not to cheapen the divinely proclaimed language of the soul.

‘Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought: So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.’
- T. S. Eliot
mark john junor Oct 2013
i fold my head into the
thin envelope of her arms
then she folds me into
the small space between her words
keeps me there for a time measured only
in the beads of sweat that gather on her
near perfect brow
she wipes me from memory and
deposits me on the pavement
the cold air shrinks me
the hot sun expands me
i cover her with evidence of wicked eyes
and impressions of nibble marks
i surf her skin with touches
that rival thouse that her nightmares
and the things her deepest desires are made of
her innocent demure hides her favorite things
jean nate scents spread like a casual laugh
i kiss her mind with the story vision thought dream of me and her
spending the night with some other honey pie
i relive myself on her essence
with the words that gave birth to her current personality

she changes faces
its just a metaphor
and she cant hide the fact she is ill at ease
with this nearness
this untamed and unpredictable
she needs on many levels to feel like she
is in control of somthing

i fold my head onto her lap
but the process has changed
she can no longer sustain the madness of this method
she can no longer pretend
that she can not cheapen herself for her own gain
for her own loss
that in the end she cannot deny
it is she who must choose the lesser of two evils
i would rescue her from this fate of her choosing
but i am beyond redemption in her eyes
and i am intent on this not becoming a fishing trip
casting out lines in hopes of
finding a future in the
destitute but romantic face of streetlife
or motel shuffle carpet baggers

after much wailing
at the little gain for much expense
and endless beating of the quality of life dead horse
we found common ground
which without a doubt will get some
banker trying to foreclose on at some point
but  for the moment its just the three of us
verses the world
armed with a rubber duck and a bucket of rice
((note: ok i swear im gonna take that **** rubber duck out on a rowboat, give it cement shoes and sink his yellow **** to the bottom of the atlantic...little ****** has been nothing but trouble since we left denver))
Andrew Scott Jun 2012
You prevent me moving on
You limit my horizons
You cheapen my achievements
And you delete me based on age

You are the judge and powerbroker
Little that qualifies you for this
And your prejudices and abilities gap
Run riot over my ambition

When you are from within
And not an agent for
My background scares you
And threatens your own standing

No perfect world
No meritocracy
No boat rockers
Just the usual suspects
Ris Howie Feb 2013
There is a naivety in the absence of love,
the need for new affirmation in
the capability of the world to once
again hold onto your heart.

No patience within the presence of pain,
we simply cling to ephemeral half-life
traces of the real emotion we so
desire and therefore cheapen by
embracing tarnish.
kiryuen Aug 2015
I remember
when I found out
I was
“****”
or something
and there was only
the jolt
and horror
a bit of a trauma
as I trudge, I find
I took one step forward
and two steps back
I was never careful where I trod
over time, I find
we take on
the roles we were assigned
I do not know
when the name took root
I only know
I used to be less crude
as I trudge, I find
things cheapen
over time,
we fill
the shoes we were given
William de klerk Jul 2020
Isn't it ironic that
Silence screams so loud
we drown out the sound
and pray the voices pipe down
" they don't sound like me anymore
  they won't go away and each day
  a demented voice pulls me under
  and now I wonder...
which way is up?"

Isn't it ironic how
playing cards can cut
like a razor blade
and red dice rolling
become an evil eye that winks.
Does that cloth
on a tricky table
feel as soft
as the lining on a nearby coffin?

Isn't it ironic
when love's soft touch
devolves into lust
and broken hearts
disintegrate into rust,
when a silent embrace
becomes an empty bed
but that void only deepens
when we cheapen
our body and soul
to feel whole
for a mere moment.

Isn't it ironic
we want a world
so far from reality
we blur the one we have
as we snort, smoke and swallow
our problems away
only for them to return
on a much darker day.

A hundred vices
**** a thousand men
and in solidarity we stand.
Let one brave soul say
I have been bitten by these...
and more
so many more!
Let me lean on you brother
Let me comfort you sister
Let us stumble forward together!
Vices break so many, but grow in the dark as they take and take and don't ever give back. We stew in our sickness and stand alone instead of reaching out.
Brujo Alligatore May 2015
I don't want to rhyme with decomposition
All of it is too corny
But how sad.
Decomposition is where I'm headed.
And the idea of the process is so full of poetic juice,
But rhyming with that word would cheapen it.
As would a pun about de-composing this poem.
just **** yourself and make an appointment with your physician.
[******* emoji]
Alternate title: Ode to the 'Decomposition' wiki (no seriously read the decomposition wiki entry. It's fascinating!)
JJ Hutton Oct 2012
I brought her one flower
from the cemetery I borrowed
love leads to death
but it can work the other way
so the blackbird on the telephone wire say
I brought her one flower
a bouquet -- wasteful, sour
too many kisses cheapen
how else to pay by the hour
so the meadowlark's **** showers
I brought her one flower
in a corduroy suit, sunglassed tower
a corkscrew and 12 apostles
too far from shore, too young to cry
so the stupid penguin tries to fly
I brought her one flower
in some water, a tired bower
"I didn't try my hardest."
"I know." Wish my *** to the moon
So the robin lets out a morose croon
Hal Loyd Denton Dec 2012
Old story man goes to work woman stays at home sounds like a downer for the woman it can’t be
Further from the truth and women are as great in the work place but man can’t or at least be as
Successful in the home he is an initiator she fulfills only woman can tilt her head and smile its radiant a
Guy would look goofy he is the essential steel but for feel the greatest need of human kind the woman
Delivers her voice is power it addresses in the most cogent she is natural man will have to work hard and
Then still possibly blow his top the woman knows the courses that are obvious and all so the subtle
Those that disarm gain with a style that everyone appreciates a taste a flair that is winsome you free fall
Into luxuriant grace that lifts you both to a place of nobility it’s all natural she possess riches that are
Uncommon but they pass without notice because she presents simple promise uncomplicated available
An open what is there to resist you’re in her natural element no wonder they have been called blessed
They use the blessed to maneuver their the most gifted creature for the fact of completing man that
Enriches herself to build others where they fall short what greatness dwells there in simple acts she can
Be breath taking just by kicking off her shoes putting on a man’s shirt how stunning again you see the
Flow she is given power of exactness don’t believe let a woman walk by se what I mean they carry
Unspoken magic that can’t be duplicated you can only say thank you Heavenly Father where would
I be and how incomplete I would be without her in my life well that’s my ode to the wonderfulness
Of womanhood so many abuse cheapen and disallow the greatest gift man was ever given
Hal Loyd Denton Sep 2012
Woman Completes


Old story man goes to work woman stays at home sounds like a downer for the woman it can’t be
Further from the truth and women are as great in the work place but man can’t or at least be as
Successful in the home he is an initiator she fulfills only woman can tilt her head and smile its radiant a
Guy would look goofy he is the essential steel but for feel the greatest need of human kind the woman
Delivers her voice is power it addresses in the most cogent she is natural man will have to work hard and
Then still possibly blow his top the woman knows the courses that are obvious and all so the subtle
Those that disarm gain with a style that everyone appreciates a taste a flair that is winsome you free fall
Into luxuriant grace that lifts you both to a place of nobility it’s all natural she possess riches that are
Uncommon but they pass without notice because she presents simple promise uncomplicated available
An open what is there to resist you’re in her natural element no wonder they have been called blessed
They use the blessed to maneuver their the most gifted creature for the fact of completing man that
Enriches herself to build others where they fall short what greatness dwells there in simple acts she can
Be breath taking just by kicking off her shoes putting on a man’s shirt how stunning again you see the
Flow she is given power of exactness don’t believe let a woman walk by se what I mean they carry
Unspoken magic that can’t be duplicated you can only say thank you Heavenly Father where would
I be and how incomplete I would be without her in my life well that’s my ode to the wonderfulness
Of womanhood so many abuse cheapen and disallow the greatest gift man was ever given
A N Friedman Apr 2012
I see a flower in the sun.
Bright and yellow
it blows back and forth in the wind.  
In short, staccato vibrations
It moves like nature's metronome
To a beat I cannot hear.
I am caught briefly by it’s radiance,
It’s beauty.
I hope to capture it in a memory
One that I can reflect upon
And hope to bring me peace
In times more frenzied.
And yet to do so would be futile.
To do so would be to disrespect
The ephemeral nature of such beauty.
It would cheapen it with presumptions
That I could own it,
Carry it with me.
Like nature’s rhythm,
It is unknown to me.
To see it is to hide it.
To want it, is to offend.
To me it is beauty,
Yet it’s experience is one of turmoil,
Battered by the wind,
Wilting before my eyes in the heat.
It’s scent is cleansing,
But for the flower,
It is odor.
Inviting predators
To violate it,
To cut it down
To take it from it’s family.
It is a promise of pain.
And yet that pain is inevitable.
The futility of my desire to keep it
Is the flower’s futile desire to remain free.
And so I pass it by.
With a gentle nod,
I acknowledge our intertwined destinies,
That neither of us shall know peace,
And that in knowing this
We have found it.
The wind gusts up
The flower bends low to me
Then whips back aright
As if to say, it knows too.
Being beautiful isn't about dating the most guys,
Or having the most trendy outfits,
Respect itself is beauty,
Self acceptance is beauty
You're priceless!
Don't cheapen yourself by giving in to every guys ***** desires over you,
Noone can treat you like a queen if you don't see and present yourself as one,
Define who you are,
And have self respect and count yourself worthy of true respect.
she wears a dress i recognize
as one i've seen with a special eye
does this cheapen her beauty
i dont think so
i just realized i've been to this restaurant before
Tony Luxton Oct 2015
There it stands modelling a fine coat of dust
covering the rim chips that cheapen it.
This vase stood for more than I can understand.
In earthenware fashioned from English clay
by English hands, but unfashionable now
a small squat *** of Dalton blue and brown.
Two necklaces of tiny beads clasp its neck
like corsets holding open its cornet mouth.
But we no longer hear its tunes or read its runes.

When I hold it in my hands I see Great Grandma's room
with highland cattle in a Scottish mountain scene.
The long-case clock of fear and fascination
where mother was threatened with incarceration
but never ******. Its rustic case reached down
to Earth's grim brimstone and fiery domains.
'There,' Mother said, 'lie Grandma's tortured remains.'
James Nigh Nov 2014
i don't mean to encumber you.

or devalue, diminish, degrade, debase, reduce, demean, humble, lower, cheapen, burden, saddle, inconvenience, ******, hinder, cramp, denigrate, belittle, deride, depreciate you, or shoot you full of holes.

it's genuinely not my intent.

i just really need you to go down with me

in flames

right now.
Tatiana Jun 2020
I kept a quarter in a drawer next to my bed
for when I made decisions that hurt my head
where each choice came at great cost to my sanity
so I flipped a quarter to cheapen the price to twenty-five cents
and I said it's just common sense keeping innocence
but it's ignorance and guiltlessness that I wanted for me.
When a quarter felt too heavy I moved on to a dime
because it was lighter than its cost and fit my indecisive crime
but I find I tossed it too high and couldn't always catch it
so it clattered to the floor and rolled beneath my dresser
and maybe if I left it there, my decision-making stressor
would disappear like the dime then I could quit
Yet decisions kept on coming and so a nickel would have to do
five-cent choices should be worth less than dimes too
and yet again, I couldn't bear the weight of my choice.
So instead I flipped two pennies, to get my two cents in.
One landed heads, the other tails, and I still have a decision.
I can't keep flipping coins to replace my voice.
My treasure trove of choices worth less than the ones before
because they're all plastic, made so I don't have to endure
the weight of cost so I selfishly kept on flipping
all these coins and kept on wishing they would never land.
Fifty-fifty, leave my choice to chance, take it out of my hand.
If my coins never land, then my decisions cost me nothing.
©Tatiana
decisions, decisions, decisions
David Ehrgott May 2015
Hey Hollywood!
How are you ******?
All of you!
Talentless Phonies
All of you!
Fakes!
Acting?
A Talent?
So sick of your lies
Pretending to be
A Somebody
STOP kidding Yourselves
Not one could compare
Not one
The Somebody died
And you couldn't act if your lives depended on it
All of you are
Nobodies
Useless
Actors/******  (pick one)
Trollops
Taxi Dancers have more skill
Eight Children
With five wives
And all you do is cheapen him
He was referring to Wally
Not some phallus
IDIOTS
Somebody never pretended
to act
Somebody never was trained
to act
Somebody once dropped his pants
An Act?
No
Just bad behavior
Bud
Somebody knew how to behave
(take note ******)  (did you get it right?)
A Methodist?
Maybe NOT religious
But so much
Better than some cheap act
Somebody behaved the Best
(even if he did love ***)
Haley Greene Jun 2017
5/24/17



our bodies are rhythmic
i could tell
you wanted it
we won't call it anything
but we could stop
but it's not easy
is it more painful to not have you
or is it more painful to have you
knowing you can share that rhythm
with someone who isn't me
the girl that's always
puts me at second
which is more of a compliment
reality says i'm better seated at fifth, or sixth
and you make me your universe for one night
and more nights after
and turn around
and turn against me
with lovely words and a grain of confidence
it's so painful
that you fill spaces in my body that perfectly match
but never settle in my heart
and we never did
the thrill of addiction
sugarcoat it so not to cheapen
this abstract love
where you make the rules
but you also give me a way out
it's not like i have to stay here
but i'd move away
from how crazy i'd be
not *******, not loving
i wait for the day you say
"you're beautiful"
even if it's not the beauty
you swear you're gonna find
in someone that isn't me
one day
it's pathetic
Urmila Apr 2016
Become, and unbecome,
In the altar of love,
Demolish knowledge,
Be a canvas, a sponge,
Let go of need,
Grab hope, for thy beloved,
And thy beloved alone,
Let go of the 'I' and 'you',
Reflect on the non duality,
If you really love,
Do not cheapen the emotion,
Become, and unbecome
Lara Lewis Apr 2014
27
Have you forgotten, old man, the wild youth?
Zephyrs will knock you back, zooming, stumbling drunk on power
All these children, worshipping speed in constant flux
Face-first, papercuts from paper cutouts all around,
I went crazy, old man, my mind exploded in wartime plumes;
You once called this yours, too, under hahas and rough guffaws.
Illuminating all, what remained unseen, with iron grip, I grasped at straws,
Remember old man, because when you forget, it wins all over again.
I beg you, salty old sinnerman, soaked in the spray of the silver sea,
Shine your lamp this way, but don’t dare Gaslight me.
Old man, our body was a wonderland, you’ve turned it a junkyard,
Salvage; choose optimism over efficiency,
Monumental, recycled effigy.
Our father told us he’d be dead by 27,
Remember, old man, he would roll spliff in the barn,
The green and brown, offered for lost time;
Creaking joints whisper family secrets,
Wheezing lungs paint a portrait over a mirror.
I thought I’d be dead by 27,
Dented and chipped, different ways to cheapen;
Trans-Am aspirations but a body of a bicycle; semi-collapsible.
My nose long since hollowed.
What will we be, will we see 27?
Clad in armour of words unspoken,
Polished in appearance like the bottle from last night.
Old man, you’re so funny, hungry and hard,
Leathered skin suits you well.
In these jean short summers, Be not afraid.
Twisted metal blocks out brains,
Tanning our shared skin,
Revealing our blood,
Secrets embodied,
One Grandmother madonna, another a *****,
High cheek-***** olive skin,
Contrasted with Viking lovers.
Different pieces welded together over generations,
Tones and textures,
If there’s one thing we know, it’s that there’s no shame in sleeping with a Frenchman,
Gushing like the first time, when we were 16,
Silent and guilty eye contact, Sploosh.
Old man, some things never change.
We can be so much better.
We have been so much better.
Third-year modern theatre assignment: A letter to your future self in one of our studied styles. My choice: futurism.
Rachel Patterson Apr 2012
It's the way you act,
It's the way you are,
The way you cheapen
Even the deepest scars,

The way you demand,
And the way you deplore
That has me drifting
Away evermore.
md-writer Jul 2015
i wouldn't know what it's like
to feel the world
staring down my back
trying to find the soul
in all i do

nor do i want to feel
in me
those heartless eyes
look through your actions
like a sneaking spy
with files in the night

tell me when i'm losing you
to pictures in my mind
framing you inside the frail confines
of a dime

to cheapen souls costs money
that
the worth of knowing facts
cannot repay

its you i'm waiting for
not figures.
you i want to hold
not files
in a file-drawer
with keys to keep the door
we are more than the sum of our parts
Plain Jane Glory Jun 2013
I remember when you were mine
Ha.

And I used to call you "sunshine"
Need I even explain why?
In clichés and metaphors?
Darling, you lit up my whole life

And now I take every chance
To call anyone I see
"sunshine, my only sunshine"
To cheapen out what it was you meant to me

Now I filter my own low light through anyone else
To disguise my ever present darkness
While you shine over anyone but me

And maybe I'll don dark glasses
To hide you from me and me from you
Baby, I'll dilute your natural shine
Or maybe I'll make you look into my eyes
And see just what it was your lightness did to me
Rhyme scheme: utter mess, just like this relationship
JS Clark Apr 2017
The gate is closed
I’m on the side of the locked in.
We have a sister, Hip Hop, and she’s dying;
To whom do we owe this sin?

Born in the late 70’s, the Bronx, the 1520,
She, in time, enamored a planet.
Tickling radios with her rhythms and rhymes--
She sends the mainstream into a panic.

But the mainstream is a blob,
Like the amoeba seeking to consume.
Stunned, at first, by my sister’s ribald glory,
It sought to place her in a commercial tomb.

We, the Underground, repel the popular--
The blob has locked tight this gate of the fresh.
Seekin’ to cheapen Hip Hop’s life valve,
Popularity is an Underground’s death.

Time was, Hip Hop was the ****.
Now, thanks to the blob, she’s nothin’ but.
Good news though, she’s not all dead,
Even now she’s being revived from a wholesale rut.

The streets are calling her back;
The Underground is stirring once more,
Our sister will breathe fresh again--
And render the blob forlorn.
Jake Meizell Aug 2014
My soul is tailgating the tour van of some band from SF that takes themselves a bit to seriously
My soul is somewhere in the woods, half submerged in a creek, caressed by ancient waters toughened by ancient stones
My soul is in a brand new a stadium, cheering on some logo with 80,000 strangers
My soul is the color of calloused feet and broken promises
My soul is the gorilla beating his chest and in a swing of his fist my soul is a little kid wondering how can he cheapen the family bills
Lottie Aug 2015
To choose a definition for what we have,
Would be to cheapen it with a label.
The namelessness of my affection,
Of our actions, is what makes it
So beautifully and quietly
*ours.

— The End —