"accents" poems
my mind thinks of 3 things
my relationship with my God
my relationship with my Jon
my countdown of days left in Sevilla
I feel strange today
a little bit
broken
sad
empty
I'm not really sure why
maybe I'm just a little homesick
homesick for a hug from my dad
homesick for singing in the car with my sister
homesick for having a place to take a deep breath
homesick for the country and dirt roads
homesick for southern accents
homesick for my mom's cooking
homesick for my regular life
just a little bit of normalcy
Nov 20, 2019
Nov 20, 2019 at 9:08 AM UTC
"Be careful who you call a King"
All the romantic girls want a 'knight in shining armour'
All princesses want some noble king to sweep them off their feet
All the bad girls want a rebel who's mean with lots of green
Well... I'm all three
I want the joker
Who can outwit the knight in a fight with only his words
Who can make the king laugh with accents and gestures so absurd
Who can cause the rebel to cry and fly away like a scared little bird
I want the joker
I'm a poet
I need the joker to take away the sadness in the words I write
I need the joker to willingly fight for me with his own life
I need the joker to stand tall and proud, yet admit when he's not right
I need the joker to love me fully, unbiasedly and with all his might
I'm a poet
Knights are overrated
Kings are old and outdated
Rebels are deathly fated
Jokers are an eternity
Cause laughter can surely never die
Jokers are everything
Cause my heart will surely never cry
Dec 21, 2014
Dec 21, 2014 at 6:53 PM UTC
~ ⚘ ⚪ ⚘ ~
But I am relieved.
Not being confined in bright velvets
of the West, or shimmering silks of
the East. Each hand-stitched with
animals and flowers, crystals and
furs, with gold and silver to
parade around in Court.
~ ⚘ ⚪ ⚘ ~
I find far more splendour in a simple
iris-purple kimono-robe, lightweight,
silk-satin and printed with lilies with
a pink silk trim. It strokes my ankles,
and the sleeves, they billow; the sash
firmly fastened around my waist.
~ ⚘ ⚪ ⚘ ~
My handmaid, Ilazi, presents a gilded
bowl with the purest form of fruits -
the ones that were rain-washed. I have
a variety to choose from - strawberries,
blueberries, peaches, green, red and
black grapes which I pick and nibble
on. Hmm, a succulent balance of
sweetness and ****
~ ⚘ ⚪ ⚘ ~
And then my senior handmaid, Anihana,
arrives with a tray in hand, clearly made
from stainless steel with rose-gold accents.
'Sweet Queen,' says she. At the wave of my
hand, the music stops. 'Forgive me for
keeping you waiting. I know how particular
you are with your pearls so I narrowed
them to your favourite three choices.'
~ ⚘ ⚪ ⚘ ~
'Thank you,' I say and as I lean up, she
presents three cream-hued scrolls.
'Lists,' says she, 'of all the ship's
inventory. Would you like to
inspect them, my lady?'
'I will after some tea, Ainhana,
thank you.'
~ ⚘ ⚪ ⚘ ~
Anihana nods and moves by my side
as my eyes fall on the tray's contents.
A small silver five-minute sand-timer,
a glass teapot with bamboo handle,
an infuser and steel lid half filled
with hot water; steam dancing
out of the spout. Then, a lovely
glass teacup, one of the most
beautiful I've seen yet.
~ ⚘ ⚪ ⚘ ~
Aug 4, 2018
Aug 4, 2018 at 7:48 AM UTC
Sincerely surly American accents
Amany humble apologies spill
Likewise the well wishes
A many ways to say or quill
“Thank the heavens for you”
Precious things reminding few
Occasions many of appreciation’s due.
Sep 26, 2018
Sep 26, 2018 at 7:40 PM UTC
Permission to speak, I am the ally of the silenced and unheard.
I am the noise you can't shake.
Two sharp points like the accents I carry on my tongue.
I slither and squirm as I observe what they have done to you.
It's a tragedy what they think of you and how arrogantly they use you for self proclaimed prophecies.
No! I am not that! I yell loudly, but only the echo replies.
Incarceration, deportation, degradation, gentrification some of the words that burn as I spit them out.
False ideologies are accepted as realities ignoring the facts.
I am not illegal and you don't have the right to label or decide.
I am not a criminal, never was.
Don't obstruct my academic path, I will jump each and every obstacle one by one.
I was born free, you labeled and shackled me with lies and hatred but I broke loose.
With my forked tongue I battle your double sided knife.
I am not content with the destructive pattern that has emerged with your avarice.
I will not **** for you and I will not die in vain.
My snake like tongue has no mercy and will not cease until I see dignity and peace obtained.
Apr 9, 2015
Apr 9, 2015 at 6:40 AM UTC
I
Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the black bird.
II
I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.
III
The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.
IV
A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.
V
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.
VI
Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.
VII
O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?
VIII
I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.
IX
When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.
X
At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.
XI
He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
For blackbirds.
XII
The river is moving.
The blackbird must be flying.
XIII
It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.
6k
Man I got years of practice
At making ‘em laugh at this
And that ****
Gas out my ***
Shakespeare references
Comic book characters
Foreign accents
Effeminate behavior
Always a loving labor
Smiles and chuckles
To ease or eliminate
The distance and uncertainty
Between those I appreciate
Dec 7, 2014
Dec 7, 2014 at 1:20 PM UTC
vintage polaroids
mountain air
girl scout cookies
summer hair
ed sheeran lyrics
mint lemonade
blowing bubbles
christmas parade
harry potter
winter park crew
biscoff spread
morning dew
british accents
plaid shirts
old castles
chocolate desserts
breakfast for dinner
big bang theory quotes
shakespearean language
cape cod sailboats
sweet nostalgia
the smell of books
longing wanderlust
forest nook
80s movies
neon lights
time with friends
caramel delights
the great gatsby
walk the moon
old typewriters
plumerias bloom
bombay bicycle club
chinese cuisine
abstract art
seafoam green
vineyard vines
life of pi
scuba diving
monarch butterfly
May 8, 2013
May 8, 2013 at 9:54 PM UTC
*stacking the arrows in piles
a triangle of fuego
furnaces blaze fire
infinite reminders
of the morning after
shafts of light
drift from window panes
remake our names in
god’s slumbering veins
from here to there a whisper
or was it a word
fellow companions
have you heard
the threadbare sisters
took their turns
climbing mountains in order
that we could learn
the ways
of green hearted sun-scrapers
sweet little dangers
fellow death chasers
full of music
givers of blooming veils
bouquets of snow and hail
almond shaped eyes
resplendent thighs
and a mind as pure as a lake
during an alaskan winter
in the frozen splinter
trees are taken from their roots
the women are bleeding
weaving you the meat and the story
outsiders are cast from clay into statues
with feminine bodies
curving like cotton candy
i choose to impress you
repeat the compliments
that land on empty stomachs
string together words
like a rosary of sweet nothings
simple deeds give thrilling feats
a chance to restore their honor
purity is unwashed in ***** soil
as i am cut from the cloth of the earth
our shirts are pressed at birth
white light forming fellowship
dimples in the cheeks of the mother
the earth’s bones torn out from under
the way we made ourselves invisible
the minute we realized our accents were noticeable
our actions were abominable
how could we ever repay
the generosity we were treated to
our ultimate needs are met by poetry
upon a ridge a silent figure wept
and held his head upon a bed of cement*
Jul 14, 2017
Jul 14, 2017 at 2:17 AM UTC
so i see now you're with someone else,
& finally now i'm free:
you left no excess residue
as you exit me.
i expected to express regrets
as your final vapors left my vents
but now your vacancy sustains me:
i have aptitude in lacking you
& your absence accents my best attributes
because i'm no longer attached to you.
& each step weighs a little less
sans you stealing half my breath,
& when i'm bathing in her flesh
she'll find comfort in my cleanliness,
& she can finally drown inside my depth
as i love her like there's nothing left.
Feb 7, 2010
Feb 7, 2010 at 7:56 PM UTC
With generosity of time and care
He teaches her about the things he knows.
Such as a couplet is a rhyming pair
And how a sonnet ought to be composed.
Pentameter iambic is the key
With accents, syllables and scansion too.
It seems a huge and baffling mystery
But bit by bit he gives a hint. A clue.
“It helps to tap your fingers on the desk
To count the syllables and hear the beat.
For some this seems bizarre and quite grotesque
But listen hard and count along. It’s sweet!”
A teacher true who cares for flawless rhyme
I thank you friend for giving me your time.
Jan 18, 2011
Jan 18, 2011 at 7:15 AM UTC
It's unfortunate that Parisians
Are very hard to bear,
In terms of flash obsequiousity,
They drive me to despair!
And patience is an attribute
I don't profess to have
To mercifully administer
When accents veer to Slav.
Baltics look like jellyfish,
The Germans are obscene
And loud and overbearing
But the Swiss are very clean.
Italians are a swarthy lot
Who gourmandize on food
And sacrifice their suavity
By being impudently crude.
The Spanish are no better,
In fact they are probably worse,
For obsessing in the blood sports
I actually rate them in reverse.
Starchiness is British
They're convoluted to the core,
The Old Boy system's lost it's sheen
Aspirants flock to it no more.
The Yanks are looking slightly crass
Whilst fighting foreign wars,
Their pinky held up squeaky clean
To call "foul" to China's flaws.
China sits inscrutably
Holding all the cards
Waiting for the moment
To strike beneath the guards.
India and Pakistan
Are squabbling like kids
The uproar over Kashmir
Rates them lower than the Yids.
The Yids are walking tightropes
With Iran's nuclear ******
Whilst currying Yank approval,
Eventual bombing is a must.
The Dutch behave so anally
They're always proven right
When faced with rigid negatives
They blanch with haunches tight.
But not the Argentineans
They love to dance and flirt,
To chase the senorita
Cavorting in the scarlet skirt.
The South Pacific's wallowing
They're adrift from World affairs
Oz's self preoccupation
Mirrors Kiwi's vacant stares.
Africa's way past comment
Lost to heat and dust,
Warfare, **** and pillage
And the rest decayed by rust.
Eskimos are OK
Clean living on the ice
The population static,
Zer-O pollution's nice!
Marshalg
@theGate
Mangere Bridge
14 April 2009
May 2, 2010
May 2, 2010 at 12:08 AM UTC
Harshness vanished. A sudden softness
has replaced the meadows' wintry grey.
Little rivulets of water changed
their singing accents. Tendernesses,
hesitantly, reach toward the earth
from space, and country lanes are showing
these unexpected subtle risings
that find expression in the empty trees
4.1k
You won't recognize them I bet,
your secrets, even in broad day light,
if they walk towards you smiling,
wearing dark glasses to hide their eyes
in a humid day.They now wear clothes
of different styles to take you for a ride,
even cross dress and change the accents,
they play games with your hazy mind
--the secrets you once buried deep under.
They stand peeping behind blinded windows
prowl as shadows soliciting behind half open doors,.
Time flies in a hurry like migratory birds left behind,
you have to strain your ears too much
to hear even the faint foot falls of the past!
Old memories have changed their manners
they try to distract one with invented details
Like the muffled voices in an attic dark,
on a fateful day so long, your old secrets
speak an archaic tongue, that needs to be interpreted.
One has to be artful as the turbaned village elders
who would for your astonishment interpret
the vocabulary of lizard calls, key to nature's intents.
Or the trained eye of an elder who in flashes
of meteor falls, reads the secret messages of universe.
To get a true sense of your own secret
you have to tread the places they hide.
Make them shed their crusted hides
by which they conceal their true color,
which one has been waiting to see,
with a palpitating heart, walking back
to where one walked once, long forgotten.
That is why elders on days of yore
would exhort, embarrassingly repeat too,
not to have any hidden secrets that hurt
even if breathtakingly beautiful like a courtesan.
In some moment one won't expect
dreadful they could turn and become witches,
with fiery eyes, dreadlocks, and long nails.
Mar 25, 2017
Mar 25, 2017 at 4:11 PM UTC
I
Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.
II
I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.
III
The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.
IV
A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.
V
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.
VI
Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.
VII
O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?
VIII
I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.
IX
When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.
X
At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.
XI
He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
For blackbirds.
XII
The river is moving.
The blackbird must be flying.
XIII
It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.
- Wallace Stevens (not me)
May 2, 2015
May 2, 2015 at 11:04 PM UTC
my tea has gone sour overnight
the stars must have mixed with milk
dreams dancing into my two white pillows
why does night slip away so suddenly
tones of sadness find me early morning
I try to unsap my fatigue and fall
stumbling into the room where we keep our food
which keeps us alive
sip my new fresh tea from my country
red and warm and hugging
I miss the accents of my land
craving something familiar (like you) but not
maybe we are all so incurably alone
spinning around this globe individually
unstoppable in solidarity
maybe this was how it was meant to be.
Sep 29, 2014
Sep 29, 2014 at 4:43 PM UTC
A malevolent glimmer in your eyes accents
That mischievous smirk you carry around,
Just like the half-dead cigarette between your fingers.
Smoke trails off in a gray hue every time you take a puff,
Impinging upon my innocent lungs.
They say you can die from secondhand smoke.
Boy you're a killer and it's such a thrill.
But your heart's a heart worth fighting for,
Forget about self-defense.
Jan 5, 2014
Jan 5, 2014 at 11:22 AM UTC
The man to my right was more than eight feet away. I was going to have to move closer to him to catch my limit of four trout. I halved the distance between the two of us and noted the sideways glance he shot me. I apologized immediately and asked if I was crowding him.
“No, you fine,” he replied within a thick Serbian accent.
“You’re with them?” I asked, pointing to the crowd of people on the bridge some 30 feet upstream from us. I had heard the crowd of eastern Europeans talking earlier, and their accents were unmistakable to me. He nodded and we continued fishing.
With my new angle I was better able to pick my fish in the water, so that’s what I did. I spied one and tossed my jig toward him. It took five casts but eventually, he took the bait. As I netted it in the swift, ice-cold spring water the man beside me congratulated me on the catch. I thanked him and added it to my stringer. This made three, and I only needed one more.
“What’s your name?” I asked him.
“Ivan”.
“Have you been in the states long?” I asked, after the pause following his short reply seemed to invite more questions.
“Since ‘96, my family live here. It is good.”
“You like living here?” I wondered aloud.
“Yes, the fishing is good. It is like back home in Serbia, or in Germany. We have this fishing there.”
“You mean trout?”
“Yes, trout...and some other fish like these, in water like this, but I can’t go home now.” He looked away momentarily. His lips pursed, and his brow furrowed. I pulled my line in, wanting to ask him more and not wanting to be distracted.
“Were you in the war?”
“Yes, I was in the Serbian police force.” My heart pounded. “When I was in the Serbian police force, we did what you see on the news. We went into villages and we killed them. We killed them all.”
I cast my line back into the water, spying another trout. Ivan shrugged and cast his own line. I couldn’t tell what he was using but it looked like cheese of some kind. “I was drafted in Serb police when I was 15. I had no choice. If I refuse, they **** me. I did what I had to do.” I nodded, and ****** my line, missing a fish. “Before the war, I fished. After the war, there were not so many people, so fishing was very good.”
The air around me was alive. The trees were greener, the water was colder and clearer, the sun was brighter, and the sky was bluer.
“I’ve been fishing for a long time as well,” I responded. My father used to bring me here as a child. He nodded and continued.
“After the war, all the fish come back, no one fished during the war, so there were many of them. You just had to be careful of the mines.” He grunted and gazed skyward.
“The mines?”
“Yes, during the war they mined the water.”
I watched trout number four take my jig and I carefully reeled him in. Ivan congratulated me a second time, and I thanked him in return.
“You’re a good fisherman,” he said turning back to his own pursuit of the four-trout limit, as I left the water to clean my catch.
Sep 21, 2019
Sep 21, 2019 at 8:33 PM UTC
Everywhere, on the sidewalks, in the gutters, right outside my door. Flourishing in the streets of Tegucigalpa, like leftover confetti from Mardi Gras. Lining the paths, nestled in the gravel, the broken concrete, and overgrown weeds. Coloring the landscape with orange and green.
Proliferating around garbage cans, discarded bottles, tires, and take out boxes, liberated to the acrid landscape around.
Men, cutting back the peels, devouring the tropical flesh, delectable, united to pits. Dark skin and eyes, their accents singing, so different from my own.
I stepped carefully, but always underneath, a sweet stickness, clinging to my soles. A bond to the red dirt, platanos fritos, and cattle roaming the street.
When I returned to the wide boulevards, pristine and meticulously clean, I stopped watching my feet, looking for mango peels underneath.
Jan 17, 2019
Jan 17, 2019 at 3:04 PM UTC
The walls painted,
In the accent of lavender,
air tainted with *** scents,
of him and her.
Jun 17, 2020
Jun 17, 2020 at 12:37 AM UTC
My fingertips will never let me forget the scent of stale cigarettes.
I was a fool in London. All the friends I made had better accents than me.
I dreamed of Bulgaria and Brazil.
I walked through mud. I waited for French tides.
I trudged in heavy water waders.
My hands built a house with stones older than the country on my passport.
The etching of cement on my boots still reminds me what we carried there.
We drove along tired volcanoes and craggy cliffs in the dark.
I never learned how to drive manual.
We flew further south. I dried out in the sun.
The glands of Spanish streets pulsated
citrus mist into the air, my lungs.
I never did remember the difference between limon and lime.
We stayed in a haunted castel but missed Halloween.
The upper peninsula, where Napoleon dreamed of a better dinner.
We moved to Shangri-La. Even in Eden, people still snore.
But there were cakes laced with flowers. And I was over the moon.
Then, a dreamscape. The closest to the Arctic I’ve ever been.
We ate deer for dinner. I baked Danish pies. I slept supine in a smoke-filled yurt. It was all peace. It was all over.
Jan 26, 2015
Jan 26, 2015 at 3:49 PM UTC
*Parody of Langston Hughes's "I, Too, Sing America"
I, too, speak “American”.
I am the yellow father.
They send me to entertain in accents
When company comes,
But I smile,
And learn quick,
And grow smart.
Tomorrow,
I'll preach at the podium
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Listen to his accent,"
Then.
Besides,
They'll hear how articulate I am
And be ashamed--
I, too, speak “American”.
Apr 6, 2016
Apr 6, 2016 at 11:40 PM UTC
1.
People say you can tell a lot about a woman's style by what her nails look like.
For my mother, acrylics with baby pink sparkly french-tips.
For the blonde sitting at the nail dryer, coral.
Something about the color
looks strange with her new engagement ring.
She talks about how the second time she hung out with her fiancé
she asked him to paint her nails.
Her mother, who she insists she'll pay for, gets french tips.
They look new and fresh in contrast to her tarnished wedding ring.
The little girl with skinned knees and bug bites sitting in the chair across from me asks for blue polish on her toe nails.
Her mother tells her she should get pink.
2.
The act of women getting their nails done reminds me of warriors being armed for a fight.
long acrylics,
pointed,
rounded,
squared,
all fit for different types of battle.
Pointed for the woman who has to walk home alone at night,
rounded for the woman in the workplace who must work harder than her male co-workers,
and square for the woman at home raising her kids to know that strength and kindness
are the same thing.
3.
The women who work here speak better English than most high school students.
And their accents tell stories that I will never know.
An older woman speaks loudly and slowly,
she treats them as if they do not understand.
She will not speak to anyone but the owner; she wants him to translate what she wants to the salon workers.
What she doesn't realize is
that she is the only person here who doesn't understand.
4.
The little girl's doll is named Tessa.
She tells me that she likes my hair and shoes,
even though she has been told not to talk to strangers
twice in the last hour she has been here.
She asked her mother for change,
we all assume it's for the gumball machine in the corner.
She puts all of it in the charity jar.
I hope this girl never changes.
5. Having bare nails in a nail salon
feels the same as being naked in public.
6.
I feel terrible for laughing at the women trying to walk in those little salon flip-flops.
Some look like ducks,
others look like trained Barbies;
marching
newly polished,
ready for the world to chip away their coating
over,
and over,
and over again.
Feb 4, 2017
Feb 4, 2017 at 5:04 PM UTC
I am cab ma, please
don’t! Is I, lass, I who brought
scald without such pains.
I am mumbling
coherently a ******
most apparently.
Phospholipids leave
envelope area soon
endoplasmic doom.
Opened neutral taste
I’m sinking in laughing at
something sunken in.
What hell overwhelm
brings ribosome organelle
use geared hither, tell?
Seceded certain
atoms like Democritus
withdrew incursion.
Truncated heavy
organelles under tissue
systems use cycles.
Half polypeptide
accents intergenetic
nuclear spaces.
Dec 11, 2014
Dec 11, 2014 at 8:38 PM UTC