"abrading" poems
Blameless as daylight I stood looking
At a field of horses, necks bent, manes blown,
Tails streaming against the green
Backdrop of sycamores. Sun was striking
White chapel pinnacles over the roofs,
Holding the horses, the clouds, the leaves
Steadily rooted though they were all flowing
Away to the left like reeds in a sea
When the splinter flew in and stuck my eye,
Needling it dark. Then I was seeing
A melding of shapes in a hot rain:
Horses warped on the altering green,
Outlandish as double-humped camels or unicorns,
Grazing at the margins of a bad monochrome,
Beasts of oasis, a better time.
Abrading my lid, the small grain burns:
Red cinder around which I myself,
Horses, planets and spires revolve.
Neither tears nor the easing flush
Of eyebaths can unseat the speck:
It sticks, and it has stuck a week.
I wear the present itch for flesh,
Blind to what will be and what was.
I dream that I am Oedipus.
What I want back is what I was
Before the bed, before the knife,
Before the brooch-pin and the salve
Fixed me in this parenthesis;
Horses fluent in the wind,
A place, a time gone out of mind.
16.9k
Pulverized,
it lays
translucent.
Once virginal white,
now stained
with impure grey.
It's smoothness,
destroyed
by abrading gravel.
Stray foot falls,
imprint it further.
Surviving buds
not yet fallen,
shed dew drops of sorrow
for petals lost.
Aug 10, 2011
Aug 10, 2011 at 3:22 PM UTC
Evolution complete:
I am faceless.
That, once recognizable,
Is disfigured and ugly;
And exudes the smell
Of gangrenous life.
Eyes of strangers, friends,
Horrified by my transformation,
Look beyond, toward safety.
My stare will consume them,
And labor them,
Into my hollow.
It is my soul,
Pure and discontent,
That cries for emancipation
And deliverance.
It is the cyclones
Of failures echoing,
Again and again,
Abrading my use,
Paring my value.
The dust in my palms,
Is the former me;
And even the breaths
Of God
Cannot reconstitute
This undead.
I resign,
To the solitary
Choice
That remains:
To free the soul
From its heinous captor;
To bait tranquility
With selfless mercy
Until the final drop
Dries unnoticed.
Nov 4, 2010
Nov 4, 2010 at 11:33 AM UTC
my thoughts, so potent just before--
like fresh-pressed olive drops
that lingered, lipping from the fragrant spout--
now pass, diffuse atop an ocean vast.
i imagine willing it to be a pond,
not for its lesser size alone
but mostly for its calm,
reflective height; yet
these waves are
distort ruthlessness
of liquid dust
by slapping, tower-high
the central ocean rip-whirl tide:
and gone--
as Homer's heroes screaming as they drown,
deaf as oars but for their final gasps
of yearned-for clarity:
of nameless pride's Ithacan king
abrading lustful wrists
restrained to blind a god's son's single eye
by tentacles of twisting, tactful fate.
by threaded loom rethreaded
soon i see my salty self in suit
of sameness, tricking time
by indolence or theft--
from truth, from others' hearths--
the difference winks in bubbles on the cosmic shore...
foam so clean i grin to call it spume,
grin to brace the seabed to my algaed chest
in salinating crush of sand, of blood-sharp shell and rock,
in sungreen warmth of blue and life
in crashing sinus wince
i grit aegean nereids in my sneeze,
splay their formless sexing into pelvic scrapes
of quickened starbursts anciently reborn,
squeezed in pleasure tears and laughing drops--
as all pelagic ***** must
within the pressure of a world,
its breathing darkness spotted with transmuted sun,
expel itself in sensate gusts--
as octopodal spurting flings
in liquid ****** of purpose forth,
(or backwards, sideways, in and out)--
so too i think
and thinking, drown my ink
instead of drowning thinking in my ink
.
Feb 28, 2016
Feb 28, 2016 at 11:11 PM UTC
She is not of this world, no, not of this world at all:
She comes here on difficult visits
To this realm of deception enamoured of gratification
Like the moon reflected on the crest of a high wave:
Never certain, and assuredly mortal is her reign
Breaking apart in a hundred sprays of violent agony
After every roaring chequered ascension;
I too mistook pain for her
Pain, her distant shadow
Sorrow, her cousin who triumphs here
Deep in the woods I heard the song of the willow
And thought it was her song
It was the wind playing in the hollow reed
Emptied of all essence in ****** of suffering
Regal moss covers broken walls worn of centuries of abrading life
The deep night deceives of peace only to die in
A thousand pools of blood, every morning
When the harsh light of truth proclaims:
Listen, distances, resound in the hum of blowing winds,
This toll of reality:
Proclaim to the forlorn lover suffering in the thrall of the early night
Proclaim to the hopeful lover labouring in the field of life
Love is not of this world,
Love does not exist in this world
A moments’ exultation follows a lifetime of agony here
The vain, the ****** profferer of gratification
Is the sole winner here:
Go break the crest of the moon on the rising tide
Go break every longing heart!
Go warn the wanderer in the woods
Of the impending doom that looms over his quest
Aug 17, 2012
Aug 17, 2012 at 11:54 PM UTC
It's an ungodly hour.
And I've been kept awake.
The world beckons.
And it didn't call with melodious
chirps from the birds in the trees.
It wasn't the soft, calming pitter patter
of raindrops upon the window pane.
Thoughts...
Sneaky, almost sinister thoughts.
Like fine-grain sandpaper that gently rubs
against the quiet skin.
Like a fine-toothed comb that jabs
lightly and repeatedly into the scalp.
Like a tiny paper cut that is invisible
yet you know it's there.
*Slowly abrading...
Poking...
Stinging...*
Eating away at the thin veil
of silence and peace
that barely blankets my being.
•••
I am now awake.
And I have been awake...
Thinking, doubting and second guessing...
At this ungodly hour.
Sep 11, 2017
Sep 11, 2017 at 5:17 PM UTC
You
run your(selves)
foaming
over imperfect
jagged
boulders
water
healing, abrading,
breaking me
into round
handfuls of
careful heft,
scattered along
freshly carved
sandy bends
(where more
than a few are
said to have
struck gold),
waiting for
wanderers
to seek a stone
that fits
and skip it
onetwothreefourfivesixdang
across peaceful you
calming as we
luxuriate,
spread out,
slow the flow
inevitable
inexorable
loss of us
both into
impassive
sea
Jan 7, 2016
Jan 7, 2016 at 11:31 AM UTC
He left a napkin at the bar,
Soaked with the sweat of his drink.
In runny ink (the shade of my pen's)
He sketched America on her head,
Boldly proclaiming the best of herself
As her blue-blood trickled down—
With the consistency of —
Her abrading rocky *******
Below, this renegade had writ
In scribbled (nearly foreign) print,
"The one I love is dead."
Aug 13, 2013
Aug 13, 2013 at 5:50 PM UTC
A sketch
A cigar burning,
smokes,
loitering indoor,
the acrid smell,
abrading,
the undersize room,
a solitary versifier,
at a table with,
rose motif,
scribbling,
the longings of stars for the clouds,
the pyrotechnics flickering,
the heat of wine,
evanescing.
Sleepless,
in the dead of night,
the fountain pen,
stranded on the paper,
staining,
arbitrarily,
till the break of day,
rendering,
ink wash painting,
a lifelike,
buttonneire of roses,
delivering,
words unspoken,
intricate sentiments.
May 19, 2015
May 19, 2015 at 2:26 AM UTC
The landslide pours around my clambering arms and legs, abrading my flesh with its contents of sharp rocks and broken earth.
I feel my feet slip their traction, and kick my toes into the jagged incline.
Hands losing grip, I claw upward desperately hunting for the slightest finger hold.
Nails shredded, blood from my broken knuckles swirl with the sludge oozing past me.
Mud matted hair and freckled spattered accents are caked across my face.
Eyes blurred with the sting of salt like that of the Red Sea.
Cries stifled for the fear of opening my mouth to be invaded by the waves of agony.
I glance down into the dreaded abyss below.
Unable to discern shapes in the pitch.
A glint of orange, a blink of red, glanced glow of green.
I know they're down there... Echoing sounds of gnashing teeth, and beastly screeches, scraping and scrambling just as frantic as I, but their objective is not escape such as mine.
They want to take me, eat me alive, stuffing their insatiable guts with my raw emotions.
Just one crooked talon hooked into my ankle and I'd become a side of beef at a feeding frenzy.
The unknown faces below radiate ice cold still air toward my feet.
I need to find warmth.
Upward, I reach. This cannot consume me, I will not yield.
I feel the grind of my bones and grit in my wounds, burn in my eyes, taste of bitter dampness, smell the murky bog...It's ******* miserable, but I realize, I am...almost alive.
I refuse to be numb, I allow my pain and fear be my passenger, become my fuel...
My battle is forever unending, but I have seen blue sky before, felt the sun penetrate my skin and warm my body, tasted the sweet air of a serene eve...
There is a place, I know, I can find it again, holding hope.
Just one kind embrace from love and I, the feeble hunted, turn graceful huntress surviving, thriving.
Jul 14, 2015
Jul 14, 2015 at 4:51 PM UTC
all muscles bent
over the
bent over the
bending counter
(destroy)
spit pretty up the
mouth under the
skirt fingers working
fingers open the
tight little chest of
cotton and just
shaved yesterday
a bit of stubble
hurts fingers abrading
knuckles deep into
face pressed against
the cold cold cold
tile"slut"tellmeyoure,
A what?
Sep 25, 2014
Sep 25, 2014 at 2:32 PM UTC
This delight fragrance of the soil below
Reveals the hovering of dark, humid shadow.
There’s a joy in the air,
There’s a blossom in each rainy tear.
Each melody has a deep sensation,
That gives my heart an ambition.
Each resonance initiates a new desire,
Each asks me to follow its own admire.
Oh, this dejecting shower came to end,
All my desires are also abandoned,
All this halt with a gloomy end,
Abrading all my dreams in a glance.
Feb 17, 2021
Feb 17, 2021 at 9:03 AM UTC
Bland colours on the walls reflect our hearts.
Cold drafts in the empty hallways inspire doubt in our already clouded minds.
A stream of words, uninterrupted through the weeks and months, never ceasing,
breaks even the strongest discipline.
Droning, numbing, abrading away all thought or whim, melding perfection,
that may never come, that will never fully avail itself upon the collective senses
Of the plenitude of “students” living and working between these walls.
The walls painted a uniform eggshell, urging to stay in the incubator.
The door stands as a gateway to another, brighter, complete, world.
The door, though with hinges easily opened, and a threshold easily crossed,
Has been lifted to a height unattainable to those who work alone, or in dissidence with others.
It stands as a gateway, but the way has never been as arduous, nor as complicated, quite as now.
May 10, 2018
May 10, 2018 at 12:22 PM UTC
What a berk I am
full of nothingness
A universe inside my head is burning
And I see no shadow helping
I desire to pass intoxicant
for I feel no other escape
I am abrading my soul
wish I could wail And
Befriend with my death
They are teaching me to stand
And how to talk with neighbors
For this might be their home
But I do not feel this as my querencia
At least there will be something
I hope after my breath
Oct 4, 2017
Oct 4, 2017 at 2:58 PM UTC