#memory
The throbbing headache and nausea
I can endure; I've had worse.
Right now I could cry,
such a raw hope consumed me
as I thought about you, desperate.
It was still dark for me then,
when I needed you. Now it's day.
It brings a true smirk to my face
to know you are nothing more
than a night of binge drinking:
a foolish part of my youth,
a consequence of boredom.
I could not hold your liquor,
I vomited all that bile you said to me
in the hedges outside. Don't fret,
this is not a bad memory, in fact
you might never be a memory at all.
I am well. I will drink better and
far more dangerous poisons.
I am today, you are only last night.
Mar 13, 2012
Mar 13, 2012 at 9:55 PM UTC
By the sill sit still;
Listen to the wash on the roof;
Specks and sheets form a symphony
so complete to hush you quiet,
Even still.
An inundation.
This libation to parched earth has
been a meditation since birth;
to ponder under the pitter-patter
hiss and swish of exponential scales
At the wrongness of raindrops in a sunbeam.
Sit still, brood like the clouds that came
to darken a June day, so silent they gathered
over a land hard with memory,
With fear for passing years and
worries that grew like weeds in summer showers.
Brief as thought these drops like jewels
are set ablaze then strike the dirt; done.
They flash for an instant in time,
with no way back to an azure sky.
There is no telling the distance,
How high these clouds climb.
Just the sound of falling rain,
Listen.
Nov 5, 2017
Nov 5, 2017 at 11:35 AM UTC
A flawless red curve of
Seductive lips
Your bold tongue
On the cusp of mine
I savor your words
Reckless declarations
Breathed down my throat
Slashing my soul
A wound that won’t heal
Exposed to the memory of
**********
Memories that make it my ruin
The way you wrenched my heart
Racked my mind
Molested my soul
The desolation you left me with
When you were done
I look for Pink
To comfort and inspire
My emotional essence
You will see if you
Look into my eyes.
Mar 24, 2014
Mar 24, 2014 at 1:35 PM UTC
im a self describing a self
a face on a liquid surface
a plasticity
a brain
a three pound infinity
always remodeling itself
and making new copies
a copy
of
a copy
of
a copy
a massive accumulation of copies
each a slight distortion
from it's original eminence
a history of minute alterations
all subtle deceptions
my so-called reality
a memory
of
a memory
of
a memory
a repetition pouring the self out
self corrupting the self
until it is somebody else
a fibbing shifty double-dealing soft machine
trying to remain intact
it's signature
a disjunctured awareness
my cells talk **** about each other
i'm more microbes than human
every synaptic light of the divine casting a shadowed past
a devil to the true origin
a mangled remembering
my pillar of reality
spirit from matter
not the other way around
i no longer recognize myself
am i human
or perhaps a robot
an alien
a walk in
that left the original inhabitant
disembodied
to wander perplexed in a netherworld
lost and crying
or, just a bad copy
of
a copy
of
a copy
of
a co
py
of
a
a
co
Aug 11, 2018
Aug 11, 2018 at 2:46 PM UTC
Some moments are not to be captured
not in a photo
not in a story
not anywhere
Some moments should only live in a memory
Nov 24, 2014
Nov 24, 2014 at 12:03 PM UTC
Memory hits
Pain in head
Hands clench
Nails bite
Skin breaks
Pain
Memory gone
Relief
Jun 13, 2015
Jun 13, 2015 at 4:39 PM UTC
I wish I knew how to
Freeze myself
In a cryochamber
So I could wake up
In fifty years or so
When no one will
Remember me
Or what I've done
Jan 11, 2015
Jan 11, 2015 at 3:41 PM UTC
She's a Narcissistic *****
I quite often call her the Witch
She ground a good man down
through her greed and selfish desires
she has no room for sympathy or compromise
if the outcome does not involve her.
Now that he is dead
She won't leave him be
and keeps slandering his memory
hate is too good a word for her
but my god I'd love to punch her
Feb 10, 2015
Feb 10, 2015 at 4:20 AM UTC
Most peculiarly of most things was that I thought all of this very fishy, daudry, drab, and boresome. This is where I turn on the second table lamp...
In a muster I arrived to the home of my aunt, where at once she drew me into the back of the house, down a flight of stairs made of tusk and bone into a catacomb where she kept a alive collection of wooly mammoths. She said the upkeep wasn't awfully horrendous as she had an invisible backdrop which led to a lion, a witch, and a wardrobe sort of thing. I stood in the gangway behind 10 foot high thigh bones waiting for one of the monstrous red beasts to come greet me, but what arrived was a very large elephant with longer tusks than usual. None of the red sillyness which I had dreamt of seeing in my previous years.
She could see I was not that impressed, and so I was led to another part of her home. Around the corner walked in my uncle in is superb and luxurious dress, reminiscent of 18th century British military fatigues. He said, "I bought the E.T. ride from Universal Studios, but as bringing the whole ride to my home I had them adapt a more suitable version to fit the property. A hangar opened and inside there were four chariots of orange and blue, diamond shaped school buses with their undersides aimed at withholding a V-shaped street. Then in two and two single file order all the classmates of my K-12 years arrived and took seat into the strappings of this 'ride' we were to take. Music played, John Williams even was produced by hologram, and after the ups and downs for several minutes we arrived to what I thought would inevitably be the forest, but rather was what I perceived was a Finnish town. The chariot I was in was stuck in the street, mud, rain, and soot entrenched us. I unbuckled the polyester straps and when I stood I realized that though the seats had built in urinals and toilets they were utterly noiseome to the senses. I followed a local girl to a food mart where I asked how I could find where I was but no one spoke a drop of English.
I corraled the group and told them to wait for me. I followed this girl who seemed quite younger than I to a small apartment in the uppermost floor of a very unsturdy chapel-like home several suburban blocks from our ride. She immediately removed her pants and I saw with my very own eyes that she was hairless and nubile. She insisted that we have a **** and after I caressed her and complained too that she was far too young, she insisted that the age of consent in Germany was actually 13 yet she was 16. I remember it clearly. The most gigantuous feelings of pleasure as I mended a studio closet for my dining room furniture inside her ripening channel. Eventually after an hour we finished, she offered me a towel and some biscuits, which I consumed joyously.
Upon leaving her home I remembered that she had said we were in Germany, and so I produced a measure of Deutsch that I had been saving in my repetoir for the right moment. As Finnish is not my strongest language I was pleased of this and became instantly popular among the other candidates of our journey. This E.T. ride is far different than I remember it having been. Moments later I awoke quickly, a tuft of her black hair on my eiderdown comforter and a veil of tears from the merriment of glee shrouded over my face. After I rolled and balled into the soft feathers of my bedding, I twisted myself again into a knot, and allowed myself to rejoin the soporific treatice I was aiming for.
This is now where I turn off both lamps and go on watching films of a similar style.
Wishing You The Very Best,
Sir Martin Narrod
I keep my family of conscience
I shred my folly of heir
In case of torment or fondness
I never wear underwear.
Jun 5, 2014
Jun 5, 2014 at 6:09 AM UTC
I remember hiding under an old cherry wood dining table. I remember holding my baby sister, shielding her eyes, covering her and trying to tuck her away. Pulling her as close to me as possible, like I might be able to fold her skin into mine so she wouldn’t have to see what was happening around us. I can still hear her crying into my bony 7 year old shoulder and whaling amongst the chaos with the bitty 4 year old voice that she had at the time. I remember the heart stopping feeling of watching my mother get thrown into the wall and watching my brother, 11 years older than myself, hurtle the beautiful antique silver coffee *** that my grandmother left us- into the space near her head where it bludgeoned the wall. I remember barely being taller than the table myself and pulling my sister out when I saw a chance for us to escape the scene and run into another room. I remember turning around and seeing my older sister, who was 10 at that time, running up and hitting and kicking my brother and getting shoved to the side. I’ve grown accustomed to the headaches I now get at the sight of flashing police lights.
Mar 2, 2015
Mar 2, 2015 at 12:02 AM UTC
The roses aren't as pretty
The sun isn't quite as high
The birds don't sing as sweet of a lullaby
The stars are a little bit faded
The clouds are just a little more gray
And it feels like things won't ever be the same
Heaven got another angel the night you left this world behind
Heaven got a little better the day that it took you away from me
I'm missing you tonight
I'll see you again sometime
For now, I'll close my eyes
And dream of heaven tonight
The beaches aren't as lovely
The sky isn't quite as blue
Still, they're sweetened by the memory of you
The rain is a little bit colder
The fire is never quite as warm
Still, it seems that heaven isn't all that far
Heaven got another angel the night you left this world behind
Heaven got a little better the day that it took you away from me
I'm missing you tonight
I'll see you again sometime
For now, I'll close my eyes
And dream of heaven tonight
I'm spending a little more time now with the things that mean a little bit more
I'm noticing the wonders of this world
I love with a little more hope now
I live with a little more peace
Cause I understand how precious life can be
Heaven got another angel the night you left this world behind
Heaven got a little better the day that it took you away from me
I'm missing you tonight
I'll see you again sometime
For now, I'll close my eyes
And dream of Heaven tonight
May 7, 2014
May 7, 2014 at 10:01 PM UTC
I will forever remember
Those beautiful deep brown eyes
That you thought were so plain.
But darling, you could not see:
how could you possibly see?
The way they shined in the sun
breathtaking hues of mahogany
Melting into golden rays
Circling an eclipse
your “plain brown eyes”
truly aren’t plain at all
they are a stunning mixture
of every color known to man
The most beautiful sunset on earth.
Apr 11, 2018
Apr 11, 2018 at 12:16 PM UTC
Wo Zindagi kis Kam ki
Jisme tumhara sath na **
Wo hoth kis Kam ki
Jisme Tumhari muskan na **
Taare bhi tut Kar gir jate ek din
Jab Chand ka sath na **
Wo aankhey kis Kam ki
Jisme tumhara chehra na **
Wo dil kis Kam ki
Jisme tumhara pyaar na **
tut Kar bikhar jate akshar wo
Pyaar jisme viswas na **
Zindagi ek paheli Hai
Kab Kaise aur kiska Kab tak sath **
Kab kadi dhup ** ya Kab
Jhamajham barsat **
Muskura ke ye Zindagi bhi unke naam kardu
Jab mere hath me unka hath **
Feb 18, 2017
Feb 18, 2017 at 6:37 AM UTC
Cherries and poppies
raspberries and strawberries
and fallen red leaves,
a burning memory.
May 8, 2018
May 8, 2018 at 5:42 AM UTC
You tip my femininity when you scratch my back with your stubble before you shave in the mornings and it is so lovely to be near one who can cry.
You wear heavy boots with the tip of the steel toe showing to match the glint of mischief bouncing off your eyeglass frames and i stand on your toes to kiss you goodnight on my porch in the snow where you brought me oatmeal cookies to talk with you about foundations.
I don’t know if you needed help with that paper, but I certainly needed the cookies.
Jul 11, 2014
Jul 11, 2014 at 12:10 AM UTC
I hear stories of an ancient land so pure.
I see photographs of bluer than blue skies
over a lake of molten gold.
I drink kahwa flavoured with almond and saffron
and add honey, sweetened by bees from the valley,
my hips swaying in a crewel work on wool skirt.
I hear songs of freedom, I know people who fled.
The muezzin prays for peace over bloodstains and tears
while children still play under walnut trees.
Clouds gather to pray at Shankaracharya Temple
on a mountain dipping its toes into water
while empty shikaras speak of visiting ghosts.
Mothers whose eyes never tire, looking over the sunset
for long lost sons; wives who still lay out their husband’s
slippers on a carpet with frayed edges.
Postmen deliver letters to addresses long abandoned;
a generation of elders, eyes of agate, gnarled fingers, brew tea
surrounded by memories of children killed, daughters *****
I write for all people who live in war.
I write for the age of innocence to return.
I write for soft rain to wash away sin.
I write for the return to reason.
I write for peace to flutter gently through groves
of apricot, almond, apple and walnut.
Feel the pain. Hear the refrain. Smell the emptiness.
This is now. This is now. This is not in the pages
of a fading history text. This is now. This is now.
Nov 6, 2016
Nov 6, 2016 at 7:25 PM UTC
my sister thought my mother
had died on her lap;
she walked to the bathroom
inside that depthless hospital hotel.
the putrid smell of life and death
all through-out this concrete heaven
and hell.
at the age of fifty-four
my mother's bones would
carry no more weight.
her gentle heart
her forgiving mind
her words so strong
but mine,
they are forced out
by constricted wind-pipes
and angry words
*i glanced down at the cot, where my mother died
as I made contact with my mother's pale-blue eyes
she looked at me with the most helpless,
childish face I've ever seen.
as if to say:
"he isn't here.. where is he...
where could he be?"*
she lived thirty more minutes.
he arrived a few hours later, asking:
"how's she doin'?"
never take for granted,
someone's borrowed time.
Dec 4, 2013
Dec 4, 2013 at 9:54 PM UTC
Even though humans struggle to live and darkness is easier memorized than light..
Moments of bliss and happiness are still likely to occur,
Perhaps not today perhaps it will take a longer time,
That is what I find very beautiful,
The love of life which rarely is set ablaze by events,
Rejoicing, in the truest bliss alike spiders in their tiny dance,
Forgetting the heavy rain and feeling alive on the highest level,
Even though, it is likely to fade as if it was dust carried away by a gentle breeze of the coming spring, far away till the horizon,
A moment of love can change a persons view of the world,
Motivate them to keep on fighting to experience the sheer amount of joy and happiness carried to them by the purest state of the mind,
Until all the shrapnel of their hearts rejoin and shine beyond the scene, with light coming from above the heavens, golden, free of sin,
And when the sunset ends these cheerful moments, their memories live on, reminding, recalling and pointing out to fight furthermore,
Even though humans stuggle to live wretchedly,
Living,
Is what I find very beautiful.
~ Umi
Mar 7, 2018
Mar 7, 2018 at 2:10 PM UTC
The Affair
I fell in love with childhood,
he wore a red cape
made of polyester plaid,
tiny stitches of lines
circulated around his palm.
He never wore a mask,
his memories wore enough of one,
a fog remnant of a dream,
his home he’d never see again
all along the river, led up to a lake.
It didn’t matter anyway,
a wedge upon two brick walls
was a plaque – or a warning –
a memorial, perhaps, but
all succumbed to his pain,
every inch crumbled to dust.
That’s when I took his childhood away.
I fell in love with memories.
Oct 24, 2014
Oct 24, 2014 at 2:49 AM UTC
A sigh in the dark.
Past my jaded lips it rises
like a ghost, and I the host
of thoughts enamoured but unwanted,
unresolved.
Night takes my sight and unleashes vision
I watch (not my decision) the memories bloom to life.
Ethereal and hazy, those lazy summer days
Of hasty plans, promises, platitudes made;
childish to dream it could have stayed
the same.
Polite and awkward we shuffle in the light of day,
you think before you act and mind what you say
and if lucky enough you might get away
without blurting a thought from your head gone astray.
Why do eyes so bright bring such dark thoughts?
Why do we fear to take what we want?
A sigh in the dark.
Across chilled skin it spreads
like fire, this unspoken desire
between whispering sheets. Fingers grasp and twine,
I feel hers, she feels mine, as we search in the dark
together.
This night air we’ll share;
it's vice, and with vigour,
seeking the trigger
to release.
To resolve.
Aug 9, 2013
Aug 9, 2013 at 12:43 PM UTC
Mom makes you smile for a picture in front of the bus
on your very first day of school,
"You only have one first day of kindergarten!" she says.
But every time you hear the scratching of leather seats,
You are back to that day
When tears rolled off your tiny pink cheeks,
onto the front of your Lion King tee shirt
The first time you ever had to be afraid that you
would never see her again.
Brother tells you not to worry about the boy that bothered you,
the impact of a fist on his right eye is a warning
that guarantees he'll never disrespect a girl again.
But every time you step in the pebbles on a playground,
You're still struggling to run just slow enough not to slip
yet fast enough to keep from being caught and held captive
by the first boy to ever kiss you without permission.
Grandma tells you to "appreciate today" every day
because you'll never get it back.
But every time you hear the crash of waves against a shoreline,
You're there with her in your favorite place in the world.
And the sun is overhead with looks of never coming down,
But you'd be okay if it did because you swear these colors of
the sunset don't exist when you see it from anywhere else
And you never feel so close to God as you feel right here.
Dad is sad when you're growing up
because you'll only be little once.
But every time you get the surprising scent of metal and grease,
You're five years old again and dad is getting home from work
and he lifts you up in a hug and you bury your face in his shirt and breathe in,
And you're confident that he will carry you to bed later that night
on that same shoulder when you fall asleep on the couch.
You're told over and over to forgive
and your mother keeps trying, too.
But every time a green van passes by,
you're a vulnerable twelve-year-old with a record that says easy prey
and you're back at that police station and you're both still crying
and forgiveness still seems so far away.
Everyone tells you that "first love"
is something you only feel once.
But every time September rolls around,
You're still staring back into the first eyes to look at you in awe,
His palms feel sweaty in yours but you don't mind.
And you can still taste his lips and smell the sweet mint Stride on his breath
and you feel everything.
It’s strange how they promise that you can't turn back time,
yesterday is gone,
today will only happen once.
Because I go back all the time;
And I still feel everything.
Feb 4, 2014
Feb 4, 2014 at 9:12 PM UTC
I remember not too long ago I was just a little boy playing ball in the park it was Little League in the heat and anyone in south Florida will tell you it’s normal and it’s true it really is normal.
Then it began to rain lightning struck the adjacent field and left a **** in right yet somehow for some reason the warning system never sounded its fifteen second alarm I wonder why.
Imagine this:
A crash as loud as if you were wearing a stainless steel stockpot and someone struck it so hard with a stainless steel spoon and soon you were knocked so silly so goofy so discombobulated that you felt like the Liberty Bell the day it rung and cracked during the funeral of Chief Justice John Marshall and you thought you were dead too.
I thought I was a goner so I bolted to safety quick like lightning no pun intended but I didn’t want to be tomorrow's toast.
As the team sat there each about eleven and twelve years old we counted seconds between lighting and thunder light and sound and what we felt were about to be the very last seconds of our young little lives how naïve we were.
One strike cracked so bright it flashed me to today and here I am at twenty-two not dead just yet and I’m not quite sure how or why maybe there’s a purpose maybe there’s a meaning to life it’s such a philosophical thing to sit and contemplate existentialism is such a weird wild thing I think.
I have come to believe that there are multiple reasons for life and one’s to die one’s to survive one’s to figure out every answer to every question and acquiesce all that which satisfies our wants and needs and one’s to love and give and take and share a life and one’s to see all there is to see like cityscapes and oceans and stars and countries one’s to see even more like frowns and births and smiles and deaths and one’s to eat all there is to eat and to drink all there is to drink until we finally figure out a way to accept the inevitable.
Or is the inevitable not inevitable?
What if there’s a way to live forever and there are no consequences extraneous to those of regular everyday life and you can choose to accept the inevitable when you choose to realize that it sure is inevitable?
Ooh! Aah! Ain’t that a concept?
This is not quite what I had in mind at birth I thought it would be smooth sailing between fits of crying and long hours of slumber and meals and short naps and diaper changes and seeing my parents’ faces and those of all others gazing about me in awe and wonder and amazement and pride and love
I was a deity!
Relative to twenty-two years one figures out that being a god is very short-lived and that twenty-two years ain’t very long hardly even a quarter of the way to the brink of a timely death.
Maybe when we’re babies we’re gods and idols?
Well think about this babies can rule the world if only they knew they command the highest of all expenses in the whole of humanity and families and friends willingly shell out money and goods and services for such a tiny little sack of fat and muscle and fastly-forming bones and brains.
Babies are ******** gods.
But gods no less.
My God I wish I could be a baby over again.
But I’m twenty-two and slowly but surely growing old living through each quickening day by day by day and so on and so forth it’s been a fun trip so far and I am sure not done so long as there isn’t another flash of lightning to send me straight to forty-four or eighty-eight—it doubles every time ain’t that a ****** shame?
Sep 16, 2016
Sep 16, 2016 at 1:01 AM UTC
Small town,
starry night,
the playback of old times on vinyl,
small town had our dreams,
osiers standing silently,
along the causeway,
seeing shadows of days gone by,
against the wind,
memories of the small town,
bright and luminous like pearls,
small town has changed,
dreamers no longer dreaming,
laughter and tears demised,
and became our own treasures,
walking in this city,
you can go back to a lot of places,
but you can’t ever go back,
to the days of yore,
of the small town.
Nov 6, 2014
Nov 6, 2014 at 10:24 AM UTC
Science can't save you, neither can religion,
at least Popper and Niebuhr, philosophers and poets,
are entertainers, which is why actors and athletes
are paid so much. Thanks for the summaries.
I was teaching Shakespeare's 92nd ridiculous sonnet
to my student who lays blacktop in the off season
Shakespeare bellyaching about dying without her love
a feeling foreign to a modern adolescent sensibility
although many teens are pretty far gone searching
for their mothers or fathers in their dazed lovers' eyes.
Which is why we call it "the wound that never heals."
Or the lesion that's always lengthening. And bleeding.
Muslim fundamentalists and their Christian counterparts
are a mystery to me. Pews and prayer rugs, the airless
indoor environment of religious worship, reading
scriptures, hypnotized by hymns and fainting from staring
at candles through stained glass windows, almost certain
the preacher is faking his certainty about the afterlife.
It's not my problem. A more immediate concern:
receding gums and tooth extractions, swollen joints,
poor lubrication and circulation, wave after wave
of viral infection, the occasional antibiotic-resistant
bacterial attack, usually urinary, and who knows
what internal organs are dividing and conquering
without mercy or cease, i.e. the wound that never heals.
It is wise not to overvalue your continued existence,
good not to be innumerate, unable to compare
a mere 80 years with say 6.0 x 109 or all of time
(to date) times the multiverse. Conversely,
it is interesting all of space and most of history is contained
in your mind (realizing of course it's just a map
of the cosmos not the cosmos itself, or is it?). I'm
unable to wrestle free, tongue in that cavity
and locked in my memories, so separate and disparate
from the biomass in the crosswalks, even my spouse.
Alone, so alone, even your doctor can only devote
limited thought to your situational mortality through
the redress of poetry - also a wound that never heals.
Snow for eternity, that's what this February's been.
All to the good, for someone it's the final February
so enjoy it to the extent you can. By that I mean joy.
Joy at birth. Joy at death. All joy. All times. Anyway,
that was Shakespeare's message: even tragedies are comedies.
May, a Buddhist, chants each morning.
Her husband, Marc, who's Jewish, plays league tennis.
Their son, Aaron, will soon make Eagle scout.
How does that relate to your wound that never heals?
Luck runs out. For D.H. Lawrence in New Mexico
or Ulysses S. Grant in Ohio or Yasujiro Ozu in
Tokyo or Satyajit Ray in Bombay or Rabindranath
Tagore in Bangalore or at the Battle of the Atlantic in the Azores.
The night is a poultice, winter or summer solstice.
My anonymity will not affect the anomie ghettoside
seeing for myself how season by season
vacations and accomplishments accumulate, late in life
and early on, sunrise over mountains or moonrise over Bronx.
Masturbator, prisoner of war. Hospice of the Holy Roman Empire.
Numerous blue notes: the 3 flat, 7 flat, 5 flat,
the 6 flat and the 2 flat too. I don't get
what Wallace Stevens means by imagination.
When groundhog shows up as a totem, there is opportunity
to explore the mystery of death without dying.
This then is the purpose of purposelessness (and of eating less)!
Now what about that wound that never heals.
The Skeptical Observer column in Scientific American
was somewhat alarming when he accepted a paranormal
explanation for how his wife's grandfather's inoperable
transistor radio played music from its hiding spot
in his sock drawer on, and only on, their wedding day.
Now I'll have to believe my father (or mother!) is watching me
perform private ****** acts with (or without) partners
or that they could even know my thoughts. Or aliens
are attending our committee meetings and making
perfectly reasonable decisions given the available information
and the world is rotating just fine without humans.
These possibilities - angels, ghosts, aliens - are better
than holocaust and genocide. In this way,
and only in this way, does doom become endurable.
The wound that never heals in the end is all you'll feel.
Sep 15, 2015
Sep 15, 2015 at 7:55 AM UTC