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Like a window smashed,
waxing accidental cracking of glass;
canyons mapped as light refracts fast,
captured through snapping fragments and gaps.
Hung unintact, procrastinating its shattered collapse,
stress tracks have the last laugh
as paths from impact form webs and traps.
Gilded, a net of gold wraps as fractured attack grasps
before being scattered and blackened to an abstract mass of countless unmatching halves.
Tangled, travelling passions cast into a savagely scratched mask;
mouth closed, asphyxiated, and afraid to gasp.
Another older one, but ive been feeling this way lately especially

Calling some poetic license on this one... 'gilded' means coated in a layer of gold leaf/paint, but in this case is meant more like Japanese Kintsugi... which Wikipedia defines as:
"Kintsugi ("golden joinery"), also known as kintsukuroi ("golden repair"), is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of breakage with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum. As a philosophy, it treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise."
Breeze bellows,
leaves echo in
quivering psithurism,
dithering like
unbroken smoke,
this approaching omen goads.

Dozing crows
slumbering in rows,
droves of locusts'
silenced drone,
almost comatose in repose;
nighttime overtones
choir of toads'
raspy croaks
answered by alto
of crickets' orchestral strokes.

Gust encroaches;
robed boughs
cloven open,
bring into
scope and focus
me juxtaposed,
suspended apropos.

Although motionless
and petrified in stone,
provoked by zephyr
coaxing to and fro;
swaying pendulous
and no longer frozen,
locus gently thrown.

Death rattle moan
evoked from throat,
reflex can't say no
to rigor rigidly posed,
final sigh in silence,
awoken vocal,
expelled and disposed.

Smote by
morose emotion,
gun loaded then exploded
by neurosis,
now bloated
necrosis decomposes
into gross ochre.

This trophy
and this ode
both an opus to
my inability to cope;
romanced i proposed,
eloped and betrothed to
my own
inappropriate composure.

Pocket full of posies
plucked when luck bestowed
and tears in a cup, a toast;
crying copiously,
tempest runneth overflowed,
eyes swollen and soaked.

Dipped my toes
in the coast
of this ocean's
amorphous folds,
gripped by undertow
holding control of my soul;
swiftly shipwrecked in
shallow shoal,
an old atoll.

On sandy floor,
water burrows roads;
digging, carving, roams
through unmarrowed
silica and sandstone
eroding into a cove.

A host for
opal geode trove,
enclosing a
technicolor rose,
from the depths
a glowing mosaic shone

Unopened lotus floats
on foam
of lapping waves,
a boat;
prone to no
grandiose notion
or motive,
adrift as wind stokes.

I suppose
this only shows
the total corrosion
into which I dove,
the only foes to oppose
are those of burdens, so
only weightless can I atone-
I must let go.
Not sure how i feel about this one, just because I'm not sure if it effectively communicates what I was trying to express... tried to revisit it several times over the last few years since i wrote it (hoping to maybe revise it a bit) but every time I've come up a little short on ideas how i might do that (to the point where ive been considering just scrapping it entirely and rewriting a Part 2 from scratch lol)... still not sure though, since it *is* a fairly coherent continuation of Part 1 (and I wanted to retain that continuity) so any criticism or feedback is especially appreciated for sure!

Also just some things for context while reading:

Psithurism is the sound wind makes through the trees.

Opal is made by water running through silica and sandstone then evaporating.

Lotus has a double meaning in lotus flowers (floating on lilypads) and also its use in Greek mythology as a plant which bears a fruit that when eaten causes dreamy forgetfulness and an unwillingness to depart.
Internal monologue,
to self, a note:
prose and poetry
I wrote
to what I loathe,
every word I chose
a potent seed of
grief I sowed.

Sturdy oak's
branches, limbs,
and stoic bones
turning into woes of
a weeping willow's roots
overgrown and exposed.

Grain of timber groans,
bends and bows
in billowing wind blown;
a coat of leaves
in ribbons, clothes,
cloaking grove and
hanging rope below;
around my neck,
coiled and closed,
asphyxiating, chokes.

Ungasping,
thrashing throes,
no breath can flow,
slowly losing hope;
devoted to
an unspoken oath,
towing this
floating ghost and
shadow of an ego
dangling alone
on threadbare throne,
only home
I've ever known.

So what, to this world,
do i still owe
and why can't I
just
let
go?
I tried to **** myself when I was 9 (tried sticking a paperclip in an electrical socket) but never acknowledged it to myself (or anyone else) as a serious attempt (because l didn't get hurt or anything) until I was about 25 and finally acknowledged it after years of struggling with suicidal thoughts/ideation... I'm doing much better now, but only after things having gotten worse before getting better... I still struggle with the same feelings, but not as often nor as intensely. And to anyone else going thru it, things can (and usually do) change in ways that we can never predict, but if you opt out too soon you won't be around to see it... hang in there, believe it or not things genuinely can get better (even if its just day by day)...
As dawn's fog yawns
exhausted jaws call upon
tomorrows and beyond.

Pondering somnolent solitude's
honest and solemn qualms,
the calm before
ancient eons old atomic bomb;
clouds becoming bells of bronze,
air a balmy sauna,
strands of photon blonde
don tree awnings
and lush bladed lawns
strong enough to rouse flora,
fauna frolicking along,
faults and all their wrongs;
summer sunrise,
curtains, drapes are drawn,
phenomenon a drama
of God's pawns,
audience applause
the crawling pulse
of this cosmic throng.

But chronology's period
more like a comma, pause,
as falling autumns quick bygone,
then a wave of frigid wand
and winter's frostbitten trauma haunts;
maudlin waters frozen wanton,
fossilized to icy ponds,
ossified swans mourn silenced songs
their unspoken sonnets
for want of
warm renaissance.
Andrew Crawford Dec 2023
Spring spent
as a sprout
bedridden
in sediment
then edifice jettisoned.

By summer
roots ready,
tendons threaded,
a frenzy of
appendages,
extremities extended.

In autumn
stem shedding feathers,
fallen flower petal treasures,
emerald essence surrendered;
amber bled,
blood letting red,
settling
in ephemeral orange embers.

But winter
December veteran
still remembers
fledgling seeds spreading
instead of this,
condemned
to frigid tether
then again severed
and unfettered;
sun's warmth,
tender benevolence and pleasures
if ever through
the coldest weather
and snow yet treaded together.
Andrew Crawford Sep 2023
Personality disordered,
untamed ardor explores
every river delta
and corner forked;
borderline morphs.

Formless torment disorients,
roaring torrent force
forging its course,
divorcing arboreal forest floor
into a gorge.

Clear mirror
gorgeously adorned
with floral orchard, adored;
stream looks on in horror, forlorn-
shore a formidable fortress stormed,
water waging war on
brambles, thorny swords,
and flourishing orchids scorned;
armored only by rain's discord
and fresh petrichor worn.
Andrew Crawford Aug 2023
Heart beat,
bruised bittersweetened, bent;
passion’s capillary action
relaxes then contracts again-
a seed beneath,
muscle fatigued,
toils and spends;
roots, a web of arteries extend,
branching tree stemmed,
leaves shedding red oxygen;
veins shredded to the thread,
frayed strands bleed,
unweave and unhem;
rivulets spill, unquenched,
hemorrhaging hands,
their fingers search to mingle, blend;
a crimson cardiac attack, defend-
for a moment, pressure wavering, suspends,
then pulled back, we cauterize
and mend our loose ends;
every line a vine of growth we tend-
surrounding blossoms rose gardens.
Wrote this one a few years ago and not sure how i feel about it now lol... been going back thru old ones trying to put a book together and not sure if I should include this one or not.
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