"absences" poems
His "I love you" came swiftly.
Like the monsoon pouring down on a leaky roof
Those three words broke through my defences.
At first they were an ambrosia;
They sustained my life and our relationship.
At least for a short time.
Then "I love you" became an excuse;
For absences, and purpose-filled accidents.
And I ignored the warning signs, the flashing lights.
I pretended like "I love you" was enough...
...But it wasn't.
His "I love you"s were like band-aids on bullet wounds;
Like using play dough to fix cracks in concrete walls.
But I rationed our good memories,
I held on as tight as I could to our love
And watched as it slipped through my fingers.
His "I love you"s became poison,
That seeped deep into my bones,
And turned blue skies grey,
And turned light into darkness,
And slowly killed whatever semblance of love
I fooled myself into thinking we had left.
Nov 26, 2017
Nov 26, 2017 at 6:23 PM UTC
In apparent silence,
Raindrops play their music.
I look at the strings of stretched water
Before they touch the soft, damp ground.
Fog has covered the distant hills.
The Spirit of those Mountains
Existed only in the past chants
Of those who, without bodies,
Return to their abandoned homes
As a breath on a wet glass.
I don't know their language,
But I hear their words:
The fog,
The rain,
The hills
And memories
Hidden in the soothingly cold rocks
And streams of clear water.
I cut out a piece of earth and sky
I've always been sad to leave that place.
I stay a few moments longer,
Before walking ahead
I drink the peace,
I eat the rustle of the wind,
Absorbing the steady pattern of raindrops.
I long to be invisible
A drawing of the unearthly landscape
And come back here endlessly
After long absences.
In the green valley,
Immersed in the rain
Where I leave and find myself
Again,
Again,
Again…
Sep 8, 2025
Sep 8, 2025 at 12:42 PM UTC
Dinner table,
Bowls of light,
Stage fright, lilies,
No appetite,
Dark absences nibbling
Right through my eyes
Like black rabbits pulled
Out of Truman Show skies,
Provoking the question
From those sat up front –
Is this a trick you’re pulling -
Is this one of your stunts?
But no amount of smiling
Will do –
Nod all you like.
They’re onto you.
Christmas Eve,
Sister’s house,
Black eye,
Ulcerated mouth.
Divinely tickled-
By Miss World!
A pinecone and mistletoe
Christmas hurled
Down en suite toilets
Porcelain pink,
My face makes love
To the bathroom sink.
The most squalid Little Lord
In the county, me,
Summer blooms hold
No charms for me,
So I try to apply my
Favourite smile
And travel a few more
Country miles
To a chemist that doesn’t
Know my face.
I browse a bit
(Condoms, spectacles case)
Then I try to
Convince the pharmacist
That I need two
Bottles of
Gee’s Linctus.
The cruelest boyfriend
I ever had
Gives head to a toilet roll
And his fingerpads
Are bordello yellow
From greased nicotine,
This ******* in Primrose
Exhales smoke in a stream,
And I try to remember what
Buttercup said,
His baby’s breath whispers
Wilt in my head,
Something about purity
Something about loss
Something about cleanliness
Something about God
Something about something
That I should tick off as regrettable,
But one flower can make everything
So *******
Forgettable.
Oct 4, 2013
Oct 4, 2013 at 2:49 PM UTC
a certain morning stiffness
in your joints
you find your face
in the bathroom mirror
and wish you hadn't
the puzzled wisdom
of middle age
wavers from your eyes
deepening wrinkles
of many laughs
many frowns
how many more?
nevermore ?!
the room becomes aflutter
with poesque ravens
the presence of absences
fills the void
your life is on the brink
of deconstructing itself
to the periphery of the universe
a discourse of silence
forever becoming ... becoming ...
what...?
nevermind!
so
you close your eyes
hard
for a minute or two
when you look again
you meet the stare
of a not-so-bad-looking
man in his best years
graying sideburns
receding hairline
20 pounds too many
BUT
a firm decision
to work them off
still a bit sleepy
yet determined
to shave
get dressed
have breakfast
and teach
that wonderful seminar
on 19th century poetry
to eager graduate students
Mar 10, 2015
Mar 10, 2015 at 4:44 PM UTC
I thought you were the exception
To my curse of sour apples
It didn't take me long
To notice a difference
The lack of affection
The absences
The sacred crimson
Of which we were bound
Meant nothing to you
You loathing brute!
You thief!
You came in like a phantom
And out like a March wind
Did you ever think about me?
About my love for you?
All these things I think of
As I think back on you...
Salty, bitter tears
To end sweetness
With another hateful word
All because of you...
Mar 24, 2014
Mar 24, 2014 at 10:53 PM UTC
She kisses the boys and girls
that pay the most attention.
The boys play with vapor
and her girls play with tension.
I wish I was the only one
that she will decide to touch
but I am who I am
and, in a way, that is too much.
Sawblade-sunflower petals
wrap around an earthy cushion,
and the humidity hangs in the air
as her beige body is crumpled
and I feel too sober, pushing.
Baby yellow falls apart,
in her hair the flower starts
to trickle onto sheet and pillow,
decorating the absences
that define how hollow
she and I have felt before --
******* like an endangered species
on the killing floor, I whisper once,
I whisper sweet, "Don't you wish
that we didn't meet?"
She kisses the boys and girls
that give the most attention.
I played with vapor
and she played with tension.
May 24, 2016
May 24, 2016 at 7:07 PM UTC
Was Set, created to establish God, or God, Set
Do we live, to justify death, or die, to exist
Is life filled with experiences, or is life the experience
Does our good, amplify bad, or our bad, the good
Darkness or light
Darkness, shadow, absence of light
Good, defines evil, or does evil make good
If black, define white, what then, makes grey
Does cold, give pleasure to warmth, or its absences
Which was first, which one exists?
Mar 15, 2010
Mar 15, 2010 at 3:59 AM UTC
When I think of how much I sleep
I want to lie.
When I think of how I hardly run,
I want to go back in time.
When I think of my absences at school
I want to cry.
When I think of walking to someone's house
I want to fly.
Dec 20, 2012
Dec 20, 2012 at 1:30 AM UTC
'Tis the year's midnight, and it is the day's,
Lucy's, who scarce seven hours herself unmasks;
The sun is spent, and now his flasks
Send forth light squibs, no constant rays;
The world's whole sap is sunk;
The general balm th' hydroptic earth hath drunk,
Whither, as to the bed's feet, life is shrunk,
Dead and interr'd; yet all these seem to laugh,
Compar'd with me, who am their epitaph.
Study me then, you who shall lovers be
At the next world, that is, at the next spring;
For I am every dead thing,
In whom Love wrought new alchemy.
For his art did express
A quintessence even from nothingness,
From dull privations, and lean emptiness;
He ruin'd me, and I am re-begot
Of absence, darkness, death: things which are not.
All others, from all things, draw all that's good,
Life, soul, form, spirit, whence they being have;
I, by Love's limbec, am the grave
Of all that's nothing. Oft a flood
Have we two wept, and so
Drown'd the whole world, us two; oft did we grow
To be two chaoses, when we did show
Care to aught else; and often absences
Withdrew our souls, and made us carcasses.
But I am by her death (which word wrongs her)
Of the first nothing the elixir grown;
Were I a man, that I were one
I needs must know; I should prefer,
If I were any beast,
Some ends, some means; yea plants, yea stones detest,
And love; all, all some properties invest;
If I an ordinary nothing were,
As shadow, a light and body must be here.
But I am none; nor will my sun renew.
You lovers, for whose sake the lesser sun
At this time to the Goat is run
To fetch new lust, and give it you,
Enjoy your summer all;
Since she enjoys her long night's festival,
Let me prepare towards her, and let me call
This hour her vigil, and her eve, since this
Both the year's, and the day's deep midnight is.
2.1k
The screen is a madhouse
of body-building, ego-boosting,
and bad gig recordings.
I see her bronzing in the beach,
applying lotion and laughing
with a new friend.
I'm still stuck in the snow,
watching her skirt in the breeze.
I chain coffee in the morning
to counter sobriety,
to show that I know her more
than just by the light of the moon.
In sunglasses, we'll meet somewhere
neutral; an escape route to run
if the patient becomes lunatic again.
She'll administer the pill
from her pockets to ensure I'll flat-line
through her absences,
and then resurrect when she's lost her
appetite. Far away from this
selfish depression, I dream
of us painting a wall. Nothing dies
when it is made into memory;
nothing lives without your early morning call.
Jul 24, 2014
Jul 24, 2014 at 8:55 PM UTC
Being The Shortest Day
’Tis the yeares midnight, and it is the dayes,
Lucies, who scarce seaven houres herself unmaskes,
The Sunne is spent, and now his flasks
Send forth light squibs, no constant rayes;
The worlds whole sap is sunke:
The generall balme th’ hydroptique earth hath drunk,
Whither, as to the beds-feet, life is shrunk,
Dead and interr’d; yet all these seem to laugh,
Compar’d with mee, who am their Epitaph.
Study me then, you who shall lovers bee
At the next world, that is, at the next Spring:
For I am every dead thing,
In whom love wrought new Alchimie.
For his art did expresse
A quintessence even from nothingnesse,
From dull privations, and leane emptinesse:
He ruin’d mee, and I am re-begot
Of absence, darknesse, death—things which are not.
All others, from all things, draw all that’s good,
Life, soule, forme, spirit, whence they beeing have;
I, by loves limbecke, am the grave
Of all, that’s nothing. Oft a flood
Have wee two wept, and so
Drownd the whole world, us two; oft did we grow
To be two Chaosses, when we did show
Care to ought else; and often absences
Withdrew our soules, and made us carcasses.
But I am by her death—which word wrongs her—
Of the first nothing, the Elixer grown;
Were I a man, that I were one,
I needs must know; I should preferre,
If I were any beast,
Some ends, some means; Yea plants, yea stones detest,
And love; All, all some properties invest;
If I an ordinary nothing were,
As shadow, a light, and body must be here.
But I am None; nor will my Sunne renew.
You lovers, for whose sake, the lesser Sunne
At this time to the Goat is runne
To fetch new lust, and give it you,
Enjoy your summer all;
Since shee enjoyes her long nights festivall,
Let mee prepare towards her, and let mee call
This houre her Vigill, and her Eve, since this
Bothe the yeares, and the dayes deep midnight is.
1.8k
What My Heart Knows
There are many questions but my heart knows...
While I was walking I stopped for a while
And thought of the things I don’t have in life
But I suddenly realized I have you and I feel complete
There are many questions but my heart knows...
Sometimes the love we are looking for
Is right in front of us-
Too close for the eyes to see
Only close enough for the heart to feel
There are many questions but my heart knows...
True love doesn’t have happy endings
Because if it’s true love
It would be never ending
There are many questions but my heart knows...
Love has its time, seasons and own reasons!
You can’t ask it to stay
You can only embrace it as it comes
And be glad, for a moment in your life it was yours
There are many questions but my heart knows
The tears shed over the heartbreak are the words left unsaid
And the deeds left undone
For absences does love like wind fuels a flame
It extinguishes the weak and feeds a blaze
There are many questions but my heart knows
The difficulty is not dying for love,
But finding a love worth dying for.
Much harder...
Finding that love worth living for
There are many questions but my heart knows
You can close your eyes to the things you don’t want to see
You can block your ears to the things you don’t want to hear,
But never could you close your heart to the things you feel
There are many questions but my heart knows
Never say goodbye when you still want to try
Never give up when you still feel you can take it
Never say you don’t love a person if you can’t let go
There are many questions but my heart says
Don’t ask the sun to keep shining on you,
It can’t, the clouds exist
Don’t ask the leaves not to fall
It can’t, the wind exists
Don’t ask me to stop loving you
I can’t, you exist...
-Vas Bismark
Dec 1, 2014
Dec 1, 2014 at 2:13 AM UTC
'Tis the year's midnight, and it is the day's,
Lucy's, who scarce seven hours herself unmasks;
The sun is spent, and now his flasks
Send forth light squibs, no constant rays;
The world's whole sap is sunk;
The general balm th' hydroptic earth hath drunk,
Whither, as to the bed's feet, life is shrunk,
Dead and interr'd; yet all these seem to laugh,
Compar'd with me, who am their epitaph.
Study me then, you who shall lovers be
At the next world, that is, at the next spring;
For I am every dead thing,
In whom Love wrought new alchemy.
For his art did express
A quintessence even from nothingness,
From dull privations, and lean emptiness;
He ruin'd me, and I am re-begot
Of absence, darkness, death: things which are not.
All others, from all things, draw all that's good,
Life, soul, form, spirit, whence they being have;
I, by Love's limbec, am the grave
Of all that's nothing. Oft a flood
Have we two wept, and so
Drown'd the whole world, us two; oft did we grow
To be two chaoses, when we did show
Care to aught else; and often absences
Withdrew our souls, and made us carcasses.
But I am by her death (which word wrongs her)
Of the first nothing the elixir grown;
Were I a man, that I were one
I needs must know; I should prefer,
If I were any beast,
Some ends, some means; yea plants, yea stones detest,
And love; all, all some properties invest;
If I an ordinary nothing were,
As shadow, a light and body must be here.
But I am none; nor will my sun renew.
You lovers, for whose sake the lesser sun
At this time to the Goat is run
To fetch new lust, and give it you,
Enjoy your summer all;
Since she enjoys her long night's festival,
Let me prepare towards her, and let me call
This hour her vigil, and her eve, since this
Both the year's, and the day's deep midnight is.
1.5k
Absence of nothing
Full of everything
Who I supposed to be
While I´m writing here
Absence of pain as a joy
Trading on ambiguity
Absence of a nonentity
Still a proper entity
Absence of darkness as a light
Darkness or absence insight
(Un)consciousness always fight
Nonexistence invites
Absence of existence as a non-existence
Unicorns don't exist
A square circle essence
Dangerous mental twist
Absence of unreality as a reality
Into an absolute nothingness
In any universe timeline
An insane tragedy
Absence of demolition as a building
Existence is not a negation of negatives
Feeling absolutely nothing
Sharing words as a sedative
Nov 7, 2017
Nov 7, 2017 at 12:02 AM UTC
In the hard and cold city
There were no
Two a.m. train whistles…
Sometimes
Window rattling hip-hop woofers…
The occasional
Tequila soaked domestic dispute… and the like…
Leaving me now
Laying in the darkened silence feeling
Vintage…
Imaginary whispers of Brook Benton
“…feel like it’s rainin all ova the world”
Subliminal theme music
Setting the ambiance for
Trying to think of something
Not cliché to say about the
Two a.m. train whistle in the distance...
Cuz I still
Often wake to the
Absences of
Warbling sirens of high speed chases … and
Fusion of passing dialects beneath my window
That I never really heard…until I didn’t hear them …
Replaced with
Fat plops
Of nocturnal rain drops…
Far away clack-a-lack of iron wheel on rail…
Silence…
...and that lonely
Two a.m. train whistle in the distance…
May 7, 2013
May 7, 2013 at 12:34 PM UTC
The absence resonated pure and true
the way it swept over you
distance was a state of mind
miles were merely lines
sketched across a map, tracing directions from you to me
ink now filling the gaps were we used to be
lines non-discriminantly cutting towns in half
as we chart and graph
every possible angle to reunite
bicker and fight
over the most plausible neutral ground
eyes feverishly searching a map, with no home found
the absence is my companion, the only constant that remains
fidgeting hands writing your name
again and again
until the ink from this pen
becomes strewn across the lines of latitude and longitude
that originally created the thoughts of you
your hands slowly fade from my memory, the empty sheets engulfing me seem to take your place night after night
the absence turns out the lights
forces these wandering eyes to rest once more
perhaps time was our deficiency, unrelenting the clock runs without pause
as we pick apart the flaws
that chip away at the building blocks of a life's base
I only feel the shortages and absences when I struggle to recall your face
your voice now just an echo, drowned out by the daily clamor
the incessant ticking of a timepiece only silenced with the hammer
breaking the reminders that your lack of presence eats away at me over time
I sit silently in the confines of my own mind
tracing and erasing lines
all leading back to a memory of your face
the absence merely resonates within me, echoing in the empty space...
Feb 10, 2013
Feb 10, 2013 at 11:52 PM UTC
To those men who are always behind us, though sometimes we may not see them.
To those men who are too busy flying fighter jets to teach their daughters to make paper planes.
To those sons who will point at every aeroplane that skims the horizon to proudly claim, “that’s my father!”.
To those women whose hearts will return wrapped in the tricolour and chipped aluminium; Who will place dented helmets beside faded polaroids of days gone by.
To those youth who will break solemn promises- “I’ll come back soon.”
To those families that will stare out of windows, refusing to draw down curtains as they hope against hope.
To those men who can truly say the sky is the limit.
To those men who fly above us yet are so rooted to the cause of their motherland.
Those brave hearts whose faces are lined with sweat and determination as they kiss the ground beneath their feet before they embrace the heavens for the last time.
To the men who take every sortie with a last salute.
To the white saris and navy-blue shirts stashed away and medals hung on rusted nails. To survival and martyrdom and the presence of absences. To commodores and flight lieutenants and wingmen. To parades and memoirs and sacrifices and soldiers in the sky.
The Eighth of October is for them.
To those men who are always behind us, though sometimes we may not see them.
To those men who are too busy flying fighter jets to teach their daughters to make paper planes.
To those sons who will point at every aeroplane that skims the horizon to proudly claim, “that’s my father!”.
To those women whose hearts will return wrapped in the tricolour and chipped aluminium; Who will place dented helmets beside faded polaroids of days gone by.
To those youth who will break solemn promises- “I’ll come back soon.”
To those families that will stare out of windows, refusing to draw down curtains as they hope against hope.
To those men who can truly say the sky is the limit.
To those men who fly above us yet are so rooted to the cause of their motherland.
Those brave hearts whose faces are lined with sweat and determination as they kiss the ground beneath their feet before they embrace the heavens for the last time.
To the men who take every sortie with a last salute.
To the white saris and navy-blue shirts stashed away and medals hung on rusted nails. To survival and martyrdom and the presence of absences. To commodores and flight lieutenants and wingmen. To parades and memoirs and sacrifices and soldiers in the sky.
The Eighth of October is for them.
Oct 5, 2018
Oct 5, 2018 at 11:24 AM UTC
i don't want to read your curious looks
your casual tones, or anything they hint of
i did that once, and look where it got me
i don't want to read your eyes
or the crinkles that come with them
forced happiness hurts both ends, you know
i don't want to read your sighs
castoff glances, held breaths
waiting for something neither of us can place
i don't want to read your anger
the clenching of fists and jaws and hearts
interfering only backfires on me
i don't want to read your absences
how you don't seem to care until you're back
but i always do
i don't want to read your glares
frustration through avoidance, that's what you do
this game's too foolish for me
i don't want to read your heart
it's not written in a language i'd understand
and such is for the better
i don't want to read your scars
i might remember who caused them
and wonder why that who still exists
i don't want to read your memories
they're not the same as mine
maybe they never were
Jun 6, 2013
Jun 6, 2013 at 10:43 AM UTC
Let only death
take your
lingering scent
away from me,
for there are no
ethereal
greetings,
without soul aching
absences..
Sandoval
Aug 16, 2020
Aug 16, 2020 at 3:54 AM UTC
His dead wife used to spit. He tells me this on a hot July day on his porch. “Yeah, a whole fifteen feet,” he boasts. He’ll laugh, but I am noticing his large golden cat with her eyes half closed, dreaming in the summer heat behind the open screened windows of his old house.
He collects newspapers, and they lay in yellowed stacks that I can see beyond his open door within the stillness, still tied up with thick cord. Some of them rustle lightly at the corners, swaying up and down as his electric fan rotates this way and that. I momentarily question how fragile they’ve become with age against the hum of blown summer air, but his slow almost-southern-drawl takes me back in and I shield my eyes from the sun with my arm, keys in my left hand, sweat at the back of my neck.
The roof and trees have offered limited shade, and I’ve leaned against the side of the concrete steps to feel the coolness of the bricks against my knee. I’ve meant to go for an hour now, but he keeps me here with a, “Hey, y’know—” and another story will follow.
About his son sometimes, who he always says is also his best friend. I’ve never met him. He’s like a ghost of someone I think I could know but he remains unnamed and I have never questioned it. He’ll continue on —how he wants a new dog but he doesn’t know how his tired self would keep up with a little pup, and his fat old cat —oh, could I feed her this Friday and Saturday? “I might go out and see my son.”
I say that I will with a small pang of jealousy. She curls around my legs in her eagerness, unaware of her master’s weekend absences, purring at her first few bites of small, orange fish-shaped kibble.
When he is tired and doesn’t feel like driving he’ll take the city bus out for his errands and call me with his “cell-you-lar” to see if I can pick him up. “If it’s no trouble,” he says. It isn’t. I’ve taken him home on several other occasions.
His thank yous are quiet, but I feel them anyway. He is nothing like my father but some part of me hopes that when he looks at me he is seeing his son just as much as I am seeing all the years of neglect and false hope all wrapped up in this lonely man.
May 12, 2014
May 12, 2014 at 4:53 PM UTC
You constantly fight off these words,
Like it's something on,
Your beauty is as deep as your cuts,
If unmarked it couldn't prove more,
Nothing could duplicate the necessities that pull me to you,
Still, sprint, drag: My actions are clear,
I Move,
Tomorrow starts the same but I count the days,
I'll litter my memory so I don't have to miss you,
Please define what I can't seem to find,
And let anxiety wade and absences fade,
Bear me with your threats so I can feel,
But omit my pain like you omit your happiness,
I Trust,
Maybe I'll sink into you as lovers often do,
And re-create your thoughts if you are so bold,
It could only mean the future that I want, so bold,
If emotions contradict, then it won't unfold,
My lonliness argues as you speak the truth,
No need for conviction and desperation,
I Create.
Apr 19, 2012
Apr 19, 2012 at 1:35 AM UTC
I guess it's
Been four years now
She turned up here homeless
She was old
Even then
Those used teats
The grey on her jowl
Lonely. So loving.
She's followed me
Like my shadow
Ever since
And don't believe
A dog can't smile
In my absences
She'll sit by the door
Until I come back
I'm 60 now.
Just had a birthday.
And this black Labrador
Beauty gave me the honor
Of crawling up next
To me as I went to sleep
She rarely has done before.
And it made me wonder
How I want to die before her
I don't think I could stand
Losing her
But thought
Of what would happen
To her
If I went before
And this isn't poetry
It's a love story
About two lonely orphans
Who found someone
Who loves them more
Than life itself
And how
Much love
Can mean
Jan 31, 2018
Jan 31, 2018 at 4:07 AM UTC
I don't really know what love is,
and maybe I never will. All I know is
that there are some smiles you never
get tired of seeing, and some hands you
never want to let go of, and some
absences that hurt too much to ignore.
Apr 19, 2015
Apr 19, 2015 at 8:01 PM UTC