Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Desires aren't ripened tangerines
They do not fall off the tree when they are ready
They do not fertilize the roots below
They do not shrug off the sense of un-pickedness,
just like that,
Not like tangerines do.

Desires unspent are starving termites.
They bite into living bark
And burrow into the breathing deep
Past rings and rings of precious age.
They corrupt the tender core
And, soon, no new leaves grow
And no more fruit drops.
the summer that made the sound of crickets mean more than it did two, three, even ten summers ago.

the summer that gave a warm glow within the halls of that familiar seasonal cottage
the creak from each step on the stairs was each a song to be sung
out the door to find her waiting for me

My heart taking delightful punches with each step closer to me
her sundresses a different shade of yellow just as the sun
It rays peeking through the trees to compliment her lovingly
Everyday was Sunday for us
as they flow with each skip my mind slows her down
watching every detail of her grace

the summer I learned that sunsets were made for girls with brown eyes
the earth revolved only for her so the sun would descend across the sky just so right to only fall into her vision
and to remind me "this is what home feels like"

the summer I found out that the gift life had given me was the gift of her presence for seven weeks.
the beauty in her was too delicate to give away to anyone and she let me
out of all the people on this planet see what god made special about her

the way she blinked three times when perplexed, before asking to know more
listen more
learn more

how she always peeled my tangerines
because she knew i didn't like the peel to get under my nails

when she laughed tears would always stream down her face
no matter a roar or a soft chuckle
and then she would swear the optometrist sprung a leak when she got Lasik

when she was sad that that leak was easy to repair with a Jerry Seinfeld  impression

The lone flickering street light on our street did not compare to her illumination at night
a glowing goddess amongst someone so meer
she was the embodiment of the sun

but summer begins to drop into fall.
as the trees started to lose green she packed to leave
and I did too
she was going back home and my home was leaving me

this girl was the ****** of my story and only at the tender age of 22
and I know my tale will never have its perfect resolution without her

that summer I found out she was the definition of my love
but to her I was just another girl in a sundress
sparked by a tweet i saw that read "sunsets were made for girls with brown eyes".
Sarah Writes  Jan 2014
TANGERINES
Sarah Writes Jan 2014
(A Song to Me)**

Write your love inside your eyelids, cast verses on
Sweet violets.
I have drawn for you a map
Of story and of song.
Point your feet toward the sea, take it with you when you’ve gone.
Each hand will carve the other.
For this is all there is to know of love;
Two beings carving one another.
Presented as a present, all wrapped and tucked and clean,
Tied with dandelion string,
Clothed in cream-colored linen, walking near the ocean,
The taste of a faraway notion, this
Is all there is to know of love.
A room of books, a room of birds,
A line to hang your dresses and your sheets,
Brass bowls of tangerines,
Willow-bark dreams.
Inside, even the snow is sweet.
This is all there is to know of love.
Sad selves sold soft to willing souls, we are
Only a little drunk, not like last time,
Or the time before.
We are milk and we are honey, we are coffee in the morning,
Our soil is rich and never rocky,
The sky is clear and often sunny,
Good rains fall each year, and the weather changes slow
So our gardens always grow.
We eat tomatoes from the vines,
Read our fortunes in the lines
On palms that have been calloused by our years
Of digging through the dirt in our past loves’ chests, darling, someday you will rest.
Each love will be a map for the you that is to come,
Each loss will be a song.
This is all there is to know of love.
You will walk a thousand sunshines, let your hair grow long, until
Someday,
Hands stained red with beets, you’ll be laughing in a kitchen with your lover,
You will sleep in tangled sheets.
You’ll have smile lines, clear eyes, and freckles on your arms.
Someday, a wraparound porch,
A trickling stream,
The sound of little feet.
Smiling, always smiling, you are everything that beats.
You are everything that sings.
This is all there is to know of love.
Akira Chinen Jul 2019
If you saw her heart
you might mistake it for gold
but I know it is the color of sunlight
lemons and tangerines
the sweet blood of honey
the song of the first morning bird

when god asked for light
it was her who split open her ribs
and it was the radiance of her heart  
that filled all that was once dark
and when god saw her
god trembled in awe
and wept the first tears of joy

and where gods tears fell
all the  dreams of love
and all the dreams of beauty
fell from those tears
and they swam out
into the empty cosmos

it is there in her chest
where the sun gets it color
where all light is born
from her heart
made out of sunshine
lemons and tangerines

filling what is empty
lighting what is black
giving dreams of love
giving dreams of beauty
giving meaning to everything
giving meaning to life
all life
I had started this poem once and forgot where I had been writing it (if you read "all life" before I took it down, that was put together from what I remembered of the first draft of this one, which is now a combination of both...
Joseph S C Pope Feb 2013
I

Wonderlandia, torn off the submerged lung
of a daydream diary.                   Reoccurs
as she does with silver eyes, weary Alice
during tea time--bullets burning past her
                                     like flowing nations.
Everyday similar tsunamis fund
                                     the lack of 20/20.
Nose to tail--the surge of angry engines
splits the ends of her blonde strands.
    Each one the last witness to maddening hospitality
--utopia never sweats as it talks and withers.
Amnesia blots,
new aspirin machines
vaporize apples and ***
on the other end of spectrum,
                                                     trans-positional labels--

Guillotine gargling teapots
       have no patience
         to the bushes of Olympus opiates
                                      bound in yellow barrier tape,
                     five o' clock traffic
               welcomes her back to what we are facing.


II


Dreary weather of late fall                       and her beautiful,
              powdered face

great mouth of atomic hell,
         when she speaks--80,000 deficiencies boil alive
                                                   --Trinity's teething test
                                                           on the tired bones
                                                   of a story-teller's raspy cards--

"None the wiser," she speaks,
                                "during the transition of ships
                   vermin turn into krakens culturing
                               on the surface of a raindrop.
    Heroes, villains, animals frozen together
                 after now eating for four days.
     The transition of one genocide
                                                        ­  to the other,
                the delineation of cat-and-mouse,
   mingle too long
   with the dead
   and its necrophilia."

                 Blind Alice wanders off the highway,
leaves her brewed cup of steamy static
on top of the unimportant saucer, sticks pins in her *******,
             and enjoys the sound of Cleopatra
             rolling over in reincarnation.


III

      Dear Alice smells
sunbathing, studded tangerines
                      assimilating liquor within the vast,
       empty, glowing nausea that is--
                        the warm germ

Oil                                    and                 ­          water
               rippled glass too silly for skulls
              made humid by distant salt water,

blood, acid, enzymes,
cheating probability
that runners with drunk kids
have blood between their toes.
                                                      Death­ to the distillation within
                                                    --the chronic diamond too polished
                                                       in *** to see the roses in her *****
    She curses these wood songs,
             heritage patriots with the pelts of wild lions
             with antlers over their heads,
                                                  faces advertising war paint
                                                applied by gargoyle hands
                    --sad memoirs always drink people
                                                  that use God as a cookie jar.


IV


  Gorgeous names
  on graffiti institutions give her a home
                                                         a market
                                                         a nickname
           still                  Alice only accepts Alice.

Grace periods where she misses tyranny
                  rise and fall like endorsed breathing.
    Now Alice feels her dress fall off,
                                  extinct years message future occupancy
                                  about what to wear.
New era, this era, past eras plead guilty
in a      clinic museum
             of forcing demons
              down the medical
              throats
of first graders. Court adjourns at 9:01 PM, Saturday

             The populus can sleep now,
                          but not her.
                 No one gave her clothes
                 to cover up the drained monochrome.


V

Instead she celebrates her flesh,
                                        the broken glass,
   and quakes and leads off to expose
           others to its potential vital prosperity.

         Instead
                     headlines like bumper cars read
                     about the beheading of weeks,
                     failing rescue missions,
                     and debates on teenage tolerance.

Nicotine intoxication points Alice
to over-extended memories--wards of music
sequenced to point out the extinction of marble tigers.
                        Only 550 expected to understand
                         tethered to millions able to survive.

  Flood waters look at moral standards, a mean hurricane
                                   that collapses the death toll
     all patented 50 states
     have a dating service
     and huff paint as a way
                              to pray to art.
                                                      Double­-canvas faces
                                                      dyed in pixel     hope
                                                       that the media levees hold,
             but volunteer to herd sheep into poppy seed fields.
                                            She refuses to stay,
                    to watch the long night
                    of castration on men with mud-covered ankles.
                                      Television says eunuchs want
                                       to be prodigal's children,
                                       everyone wants to come back home
                                       to mom and dad, safe zones, away
                                       from themselves.
                                                     ­                 It says our ancestors want
                                                            ­          this for all of us. They worked
                                                          ­            so hard to tie up the hair
                                                            ­          out of Aphrodite's face.

                                     They treasure the silver eyes of Alice,
                                          but call them blue,
                                                  they issue her high cholesterol
                                          but pump sweet ****** into he stomach,
                                                  they tell her to put down the drill,
                                            so she can finish their orchestra--

her lightning
    is
     a
  string
     of
  souls



VI


     She decides to depart Sunday,
to discover the ordinary beginning,
                        painting WHY? on its delirium.
re-arrangeable viewers become
                      inserted sounds under percussion and piano.

       Caging various important charts
                                          undetermined
   ­                           as finished attention.
                                                      ­              Three movements in flux
open end the people                     vacuuming
                            craftsmanship blocks
                   from                                dogs and zen.

                                                 The
                                 suspended letter               is happening in 1951
   drenched in existential white                                            spacing
        ­                                                   the viewer
                        from integrated architecture.

Down
the
bell is a structure called
"the quarantined wheelchair."
                               Dead ignorance changes pattern
                               after six movements of the second hand.
Alice speaks, "To you all, know
                                       that this is an un-dramatic situation.
          Everyday windows with the same
           participants have girls drinking
                                                     orange juice, activate fluid,
                    both exist as objects
                    and caught propaganda."

                                                   ­                      Six tunnel
                                                          ­      audiences are watching
                                                        ­        drown in the plastic silk
   her                                                       built by the motorized collage
                                                         ­                                        spider.

          Alice, a kinetic mannequin pop star
                        is limp in the glass point.
             Rhythmic flux is objectified war torture
                         censored in fitness magazines
by simple toilet literature.

                                        Six tunnels worth of eyes
                                 latch to the *******
                                           as a way to bury **** protesting.
                                  A coat of pepper spray
                                   works in front of the exhibition.
This stage is shaded by moans.


VII


      Alice the female, has a door-to-door friend
                                                          ­    over the sea
of the cathedral's ceiling               who died of disemboweled
pulchritude             at the mutilated nuclear other-place.
                     Her friend was a synthesized example
                     of staged catastrophes. Her friend is her, silver-eyed
                                                     ­                                             Alice.

            ­                     She performs herself and herself
                                 but they are played by polished, scored poets.

Everyone of them incorporates the events
                                 of a dancing gunshot. Everything rests
                                                           ­ at an intermission

               but after fifty minutes of pondering,
          the lost audience remembers
         her name is Alice.
                   So it comes back on with a shower of sweat
                  and this clear
                                  substance
               ­                                 called
                         ­                              patience.
       This composing, peering vulnerability
                        psychologically destroys the flux tension
              like analog genocidal dictators.
                                   Ultimately this is dream liquor

     commentating war to the war tree
      using trauma and chairs as humor.



VIII


               Patience on the water level lives translucent
                                            on networks that brand flesh
                                            with displaced identity.
Alice convinces us all that pickled ***
                                                             ­               takes eight years
                     to ****** and we accuse it
                                         of being fake. Afterwards, her character dies
in confident silence.


IX


     Not majestic, but she does cough
                  to mock the earth.
        The seeds of Alice are ripe,
                        harvested early, and now her children come out and dine
        like speaking tongues on gibberish.
                          The room is fat with hair

and kindness. Feeble, mundane hands chew on each other,
                                                         feet stand proud.
We even call her Alice or "the beautiful *******,
                                             a black cloud feasting
                                             in orange."
                       Everyone feasts on the nectar
                                                         she has, but never the rye
which makes her round. Juice is squeaking and her children laugh
                         as in competition.

     It's a distinguishable game as the mixed
                                                           ­      couple up front
              begin to play whistles as
                                         everyone eats
                   the pride of the silver-eyed Alice's children.


X

                                                ­ The children's souls
                                                       bow and say
                                           "Thank you for barely growing."
                                                   and dissipate after five minutes.

          "Curiouser                                   ­                                      and
           Curiouser"                                                       ­                   they
           say                                                              ­                        as
           they                                                             ­                       leave
           this                                                             ­                         homage.
                  The decimal backbone
                     of each of sweet Alice's
                                   blonde strands
                   divorced by the gust/ of a green light's/ allowance.


XI Epilogue*


  The day crawls away
                   a vigilant pest
     of the nocturnal project
                   --suns beam down still, like
                  stomachs of grinning felines
                           at Valentine's day.

toxic-dyed fingers
                        soldered
to bodies pittering across rainy streets

--legionnaires with hearts on stones
                         we are waiting for her orders,

     thistled-teeth clench,
                                         but did she
                                          actually
          ­                                ever come?
Andra  Apr 2015
27 noi
Andra Apr 2015
i woke up this morning
with a snowflake on the tip of my nose
and i thought i became a sleepwalker.
its the first time that im haunting
the dreamworld
with my eyes wide open
and i believe.

i was sleeping actually. and it was
fog
and hoarfrost
and everything smelled of oranges.
mom says it smells like Christmas
but i dont sense any pine-tree.
so no.

the snowflake melted and i still did not wake up and i almost had a panick attack because i was not sleeping, i was not awake either and i was home, where it is impossible for snowflakes to fall.

tangerines. yes. not oranges.
it might not be very logical to you, but it make sense in my head. mhm.
Roberta Day  Jul 2014
Craving
Roberta Day Jul 2014
I crave you
more often than I
crave delicious fruit
I always want my citrus
thirst-quenching juiciness
but I’ll take vitamin D over vitamin C
and save ripened tangerines
for when I’m feeling a little weak
in the knees after squeezing your
blooms—good enough to eat
The prompt was Tangerine, I believe.
L Seagull  May 2017
Undivided
L Seagull May 2017
It is
And it's changing
The wind into summer shower
Into mushrooms and birds mouth
From river to the sewer
It is and it's changing
From dark to light to dim with
Speckles of sun born by the
Mirror in you childlike hand
You are catching dust bunnies
Sneezing and laughing
And the dirt could be followed by magic
And the kiss isn't greased by the notion
Of sin and the sin is only a word from the book
Death and insanity
Are frightening and profound
Your world is built from
No buts but ands
And they flow into peace
Just as well as the film of oil
On the ***** puddle
Astonishes you with
An iridescent rainbow
Duality is born by fear
You split and separate so
Caught up in the survival game
To keep that face and partake
Of wealth and fame
Empty is locked in the dungeon
And the words interlock
In plain patterns
Yet alive as they produce sounds
And the smell of tangerines
On a tree by the coast of Sicily
Reminds you of the day
When you could still enjoy
The warmth of sun
It absorbed into its juicy flesh
And there's no need to run
No need to stay
No need to cut off the ties
When life offers you more
And the heat and cold are feelings
That gets names as they replace each other
As they flow unstoppable
Dripping reactions
Burning like acid and smooth like milk
All in one glass
And when you have no thoughts
Ask questions
And when you feel the pain
Stay present and consider humanity
Karijinbba Aug 2018
Speak
When you speak I see cascades of life.
Life and light tend to look the same.
Your light is turquoise and the color of jade sitting just beneath the surface of choppy water.
When you speak I feel heat.
You have yet to burn me.
You are the steady warmth of new born embers of a fire
yet to blaze. When you speak I smell salt water.
Even with a sting, you’re the most refreshing thing.
The ocean is not as paradoxical as your passionately
calm surface. When you speak I taste loneliness.
Bitter sweet like underripe tangerines.
I cannot know this beautiful mind of yours without encountering  cold, rusty, metal walls
When you speak I hear midnight.
You know how to play the silences.
I hold my breath waiting for the next sentence you’re carefully, mysteriously orchestrating. Whisper or shout
speak to me againHole in my heart
Speak Karijinbba Beloved!
Never had a problem speaking was friendly yet cautious--bit shy when meeting people who seemed to have me under a microscope as an adult yet still enjoyed listening to them speak my true love was my best teacher in the above but he never hung around long enough to break the ice nor he just poped the question I was to beg cry sing for him ask him to marry me but I was a hybrid  ET Cindi couldn't order the mice to help me out much less ask a king to be mine
i observed body language what they say and not say i deciphered the in betweens the thing NOT revealed All gets recorded in our memory bank. As a child I was silenced in a nunnery five years not allowed to speak but only with Yes or No by an evil nun as a hate crime.a form of turture
The subconscious sees hears feels tastes eats drinks it all-it's our photografic memory recorder for everything good and. bad!
We get to experience, right?
the tangible and intangible things we are that thing which God created in his image I did learn to Speak read even other languages in time i overcame that grip of evil, uderdtanding the beauty and ugliness in SIlence!. By the way Karijin my poetic nick name is a lovely hole in Australia it looks like a woomb giving birth to blue waters a honeymoon trip I missed along with my beloved groom Pc/rk.
~All tights received.~
Anthony Williams Jul 2014
It was in total a fast track ticket to the moon
and I can't return to transaction dock 8 too soon
the star checkout lane at my local supermarket
tops balloons with rocket science aeronautics
that pilot's service areas binary counter perfect
exceeding expectations bent into global orbit

My items sped along to muzak her slim milky way belt
a smile beaming discount countdowns heaven sent
taking off in bit lips when her priceless item buttons
almost burst free to air with a strain of special promotions
helpfully assisting my every excess flight of fancy
made impulse buys a baggage allowance necessity

She stroked parts of her radical laser station
to fully engage hygienic wiped spills of imagination
and I felt the warp of hyperdrive tangelo engines
urging me into a dive to scan juice ripe tangerines
a last minute save fuelled by stalling flashback cavities
gyrating in tight nets as we escaped earth's gravity

With a twist of her wrist I was into fits-the-bill ecstasy
as the whirr of electronics cut loose such quality
with a lick of an index finger our mission was bagged
handled too efficiently for any danger of jet lag
no flyby chance to not exchange standby coupons
my trolley emptied of offers too galactic to pass on
by Anthony Williams

— The End —