"afterword" poems
Eternity is closed !
- come back another day with
flower smears for eyes and sincere
passion on your
palms (weathered)
I need another Russian Doll -
Princess to frequent curtains
fashioned from fire & lead
equaling out to crimson folds
which mysteriously call to
the mystical hierarchies of
imagination
Silent requirements signal beneath the steps
which welcome
one (a stranger/
an Ibis-Beak cane & dark coat
stamped with August rain)
They arrive unexpectedly, as if to play the game
of cliches, they carry promises fashioned in foreign ports
tapping my knee
instead of my shoulder
having only known or recognized
entombment
(there is no hyperbole which lacks within
Nature's haunted heavens)
My strange visitor leaves / glass umbrella
in hand / to privacy / our brief interaction begins & ends with simple eager undertakings implemented
in the afterword
What is in another's contemplation of me?
whiling in manifest Theosophy -
- Thought form -
Primal child-rage / whisp of violet smoke &
inksplotches abolished, mutually panting.
Our decorated
four-legged hunter
has arisen and impatiently
craves for the Earth to partner at last with
the Sun
..The Sun a blazing dime
I can smell crispness
in the air
Jul 31, 2018
Jul 31, 2018 at 1:20 AM UTC
Write these words on empty stomach
unasked, I spilled my guts.
You said, "My life's a joke
and every choice a punchline."
You just wrote my prologue and the afterword
is dangling off my lips, now;
on the tips of tongues.
Steel night skies thrum and echo
when the bells are struck.
Goose Creek pays tribute to the wide Missouri.
I can't offer much--
clenched hands and mouth clamped shut.
Fling some words at empty wall space
from corners, room warms up
My reddened face obscured
behind two frost-fogged lenses
Guess I penned the punchline. Now my line-worn face
is crinkled up and frozen didn't get the joke
Tried to make a map out of the
words we spoke.
These streams pay tribute to a sea of memories
Now you don't say much
"Good luck," and "Stay in touch."
Clenched hands and mouth clamped shut.
Apr 12, 2013
Apr 12, 2013 at 7:09 PM UTC
sometimes i remember what i think i wanted to say,
what i was trying to say the entire time.
i go to write it down,
it disappears.
i don’t remember what poems i showed you,
but i remember hating myself afterword.
wanting to know how or why i felt all these things,
and you took photos of empty spaces.
you were all big words,
our relationship was your bed and me naked in it,
trying to take up less space
and i guess i succeeded in that-
i've disappeared altogether now.
you hated my unfiltered words
because they made me sound broken,
waiting to be fixed.
you were always trying to put me back together
and i was always trying to be
less than ten thousand pieces-
or at least enough to fill you with.
Aug 1, 2018
Aug 1, 2018 at 3:49 PM UTC
My head is reeling
What a feeling
Bass line pounding through my brain
Skull is cracking
Quite nerve racking
I need something to help dull the pain
Images horrific
Pressure is terrific
Listening to what the station plays
Eyes are burning
The world is turning
It's like it is the end of days
I need to spend some time relaxing
Getting my music back into my head
Listening to ABBA oldies
followed by David Gates and Bread
An afterword or two by Chapin
With The Carpenters along as well
Will help me clear my mind of what's there
And take away the images of hell
KHEL, hour of power
The station of the hour
Killing my braincells by the day
Hard Rock bottom feeders
Rotten Singers, silly bleeders
I don't know why I stay
Thrash and Metal
Brain won't settle
My head is almost set to burst
Glass and Glitter
Makes me twitter
I no longer think disco was the worst
I need to spend some time relaxing
Getting my music back into my head
Listening to ABBA oldies
followed by David Gates and Bread
An afterword or two by Chapin
With The Carpenters along as well
Will help me clear my mind of what's there
And take away the images of hell
Hey There DJ
That's what the kids say
I do it just to help to pay the bills
Super sonic
I need a tonic
To help me swallow down the pain pills
Every morning
Without warning
The pain begins in my head
Metal grating
Music hating
I guess I'll feel alright when I'm dead
I need to spend some time relaxing
Getting my music back into my head
Listening to ABBA oldies
followed by David Gates and Bread
An afterword or two by Chapin
With The Carpenters along as well
Will help me clear my mind of what's there
And take away the images of hell
Jan 15, 2013
Jan 15, 2013 at 3:53 PM UTC
There once was a man with a bowtie
And a little redhead girl
I'm gonna tell you the truth now
She loved him and he loved her.
They sat around the table
With fish fingers and custard, ice cream
They talked about his big blue box
And her family
In the middle of their midnight snack
An alarm rang from TARDIS, blue
He told her he would be back
In just a minute, or two
He accidentally missed his mark
Twelve years had gone by
But he just sauntered out
Waving and saying "Amelia, hi!"
Twas the first time they saved the world
When Amelia was just nineteen
Two years later he picked her up
On the eve of her wedding
But then the cracks in the universe
And all of space and time
Consumed the Doctor, all of him
But that's not the ending rhyme
The night she and Rory wed
Amy jumped out of her chair
"I remember you!" She shouted
And the Doctor appeared there
And so the Raggedy man came back
No more in the crack in the wall
Amy's imaginary friend
Bowtie, suspenders, and all
Later came an astronaut
Her name was River Song
She lifted her hand and against her will
Killed the Doctor, gone.
But, hooray!
The Doctor wasn't dead
It was wibbly wobbly, timey wimey
Stuff messing with their heads
And Amy had a daughter
Name? Melody Pond.
But the only water in the forest is rivers,
So she was really River Song.
Subtract love,
Add hate
Daleks scream
Exterminate!
Angels, Angels everywhere
Take a little blink
In the ground and in the air
And then they took Rory
"Come along Pond, please!"
He said with a cry
She turned to him and said
"Raggedy man, goodbye!"
"No!" He shouts in despair
"It can't be true!"
He stands over their grave
Oh Ponds, he loved you
He sits on the steps
Letting River fly
Too grief stricken to hurt
Or even to cry
Dreams are broken
Time stands still
The Doctor runs up
A small rocky hill
Afterword, it reads
By Amelia Pond
We love you Doctor
And we're sorry we're gone
There's a girl waiting in a garden
She'll be waiting for a while
So go to her
She needs a smile.
Tell her she's a fairytale
Known by many, loved by more
Not best in the universe,
But most important in the world.
She went with him and took his hand
He showed her the stars and distant lands
Together they ran, their spirits high
Until they day came when they said goodbye
Goodbye, Ponds.
Apr 23, 2013
Apr 23, 2013 at 3:35 PM UTC
she has stars for eyebrows
her phonetic smile says so much more
tightly wrapped in the grey gaunt gauze of daylight
eyes still closed
i wait arms breadth away for her...
to breath
to open
while mind touches upon her journey
while pieces parts of her epiphany are spoon fed
like chocolate grace into my feasting and willing heart
i am the succulent afterword
to her speech now uttered in its completion
...with its grand street ballroom
upon which we
all in our time of giddy laughter
need to dance like royalty or fools
...with its back alley rainwater
that washes away all those terrible yesterdays
i am the sweat mongerer who waits
for her sleeping to be roused...
transcendental she sleeps
with a soft drink
while i nourish
in the folds of her slumbering dreams
Dec 23, 2014
Dec 23, 2014 at 4:01 PM UTC
you left a bruise on my forearm
pressed in by a thick thumb and index
used to joke about my fragile limbs
how easily you could break me
“tell me when it hurts”
you used to say,
the burn of gripped knuckles
holding soft flesh
insides my thigh
"enough to leave a mark?"
i never checked afterword.
all the air that knocked me down
came from the deflated balloons
of your lips
popped with
the same thorn stemmed flower
you plucked for me
after our first funeral
left it on my windowsill
watched it die
then tapped it to my wall
a reminder
something can be as beautiful
living
as it is
dead
one day
i ripped the tape from the wall
because your ashes needed to be burned
and spread
because i didn’t miss you anymore
Aug 1, 2018
Aug 1, 2018 at 2:36 PM UTC
Scribbling, never stopping,
Spinning stories you criticized;
Tales you'd call lies.
My truths born from my fiction,
A character of my creation,
The protagonist of my plot;
Making you the antagonist,
With minor characters conspiring
Towards my denouement.
I am the author of rising action,
Embedded in the argument;
Conflicts arose, decisions made,
The crises ensues,
You got saved.
And I am but an afterword
In your novel life.
Sep 30, 2017
Sep 30, 2017 at 10:56 AM UTC
prelude
wake up into crystalline air
can feel
the swaying trees pull up the body
waiting for dreams to run
wash
off
no one can imagine what the waker has seen
the glow of love through a pure heart like light lost in honey
-
I'm sorry for interrupting. I just have
Too much to
Say:
I know
You understand the way salt tastes on my tongue
I understand the way you sit in the middle of the universe
Right next to me
Poking holes into my skin
with which
to fill with words
Painting pictures like drawing bridges
Over these mile high canyons
Standing at every side
these these words spread like openings into the ice
pride as you asked to see a face I had never before shown
Towers of words and I say
See things simpler
To myself
but already I see them as they are
Like the moon behind the cloud three nights ago
pulling at the edge of the sea
I moved to your gait
To gravitate towards feeling
Like moths
shimmering
The incoming tide
reaching for humanity
your silence takes a shape into mine
How could something so much like light be possessed?
How could you clasp to your bones, a wave that pulls eternally at the shore?
you make me think, I was thinking
I think he would have said
don't you see it has to be this way?
one small point in the dark
How would it be,
otherwise.
Those angel’s hands shaped perfectly (as always they were)
on your neck
and you would have said you’re saying
pointing into the dark,
your weapon words stand so small next to your mortality
and
I love you with nothing
A man without a heart is
a gentle threat
A man without a heart
Lacks only what you hold in your hands
A slip into abstraction
How young we were how young
Yet how young were we?
afterword
stutters stilettos
sick skin sick
beautiful
letters
left this morning
while you were away in
mourning
silhouettes
cigarette shadows straining
shadow eyes
in this dim light
old
grammar
makes me ache
in between every line and I wish
you were more human I wish you were
less
Apr 26, 2011
Apr 26, 2011 at 3:43 PM UTC
You need to learn to let go. It's never easy and it will hurt, but believe me afterword you will feel much better.
If you don't let go you will forever be stuck chasing that butterfly that can not be caught.
If it is someone close to you, by all means share your love do what you choose, but when that person changes their mind do not feel hurt. There are 6.3 billion people in the world there are so many people you have not met.
Learn to let go.
If it is something that you cherish, something that reminds you of an event or a memory by all means keep it, but if it is broken or lost do not be too crestfallen.
You can always find something else, write it down, find a song, these memories will never be gone, just in a different form.
Learn to let go.
You may love them so much but there is a time when you must let go.
Think of the turtles, they have jumped over hurdles, risked their lives all for their eggs, but when they are laid, the turtles leave. Mother nature has learned to let go and it is beautiful and stronger then ever.
Learn to let go.
Oct 1, 2010
Oct 1, 2010 at 11:28 AM UTC
Strange, there is a shadow cross the graveyard,
And they gaze wistfully back to me.
In their hands a sparkling poem,
Bleeder of flesh and life alike.
He rounds the headstone draped in sable,
His pace matched by the lines I sowed,
Kneels among the dirt and mourners,
Leans forward embracing me, melancholy.
Whispers sweet nothings and forlorn promises,
Buried together under the Earth.
Her kiss so lone, condemned her tears.
And she departs, hastily as the blood fell.
Slowly as the dark became null.
Apr 17, 2021
Apr 17, 2021 at 11:56 PM UTC
But through everything I do
I often think of you
You're everything to me
There's little else I need
I promise to love
If you promise to live
When I promise my hand
That's all I've to give
Dec 8, 2014
Dec 8, 2014 at 1:07 AM UTC
You are a poem; your stanzas are your life:
A prologue written in the long ago
(with some few emendations here and there) (ahem!)
A closure and an afterword await
But now about this part of your life:
The iambs of your footfalls dance in time
While
anapests
leap in search
of a rhyme
Stiff-built trochees stumble clunkily (ouch)
And alexandrines mourn the sometime sorrows of age
And when writing your poem, remember…
Your poetry of life will be truly true
If you almost never write about
you
Aug 9, 2018
Aug 9, 2018 at 4:04 PM UTC
There are things,
we write about
because
we don’t have the strength
to speak them.
Unpublished,
sitting in secret journals
or folders on phones,
harsh enough to bring
tears to every mans eye.
Times of attempts,
death, troubled loves,
childhoods too traumatic to share —
we see no resolutions.
I wonder,
if that’s why
occasionally a poets
most emotional works
are not found until
their death.
Dec 2, 2017
Dec 2, 2017 at 7:56 AM UTC
i have an idea.
it's called: growing.
i think i used to write only when i was sick
and then i started getting better and worried i was
getting too good to create
i went through a long grieving process with
my depressed art
i thought i would never pick up a pen again
i thought i would stay sober and flare up free for a while
well, looks like i'm wrong about a lot of things
i started testosterone since i got better
i have a doctor appointment next week in which i will ask about
top surgery, upping my dose, and moving forward
with a name change
i've grown, god **** but i've fallen too.
i've grown so much i lost my roots
but i've grown so much i learned to plant new ones
i learned that sobriety doesn't end when you're ill
it actually begins at that moment you know you are so
much
better
than
that.
and wow kid, you had a birthday.
and you had a good thanksgiving
and you picked up a pen and drew.
and here you are writing ******* word after word afterword.
you're doing it.
and you're going to continue to do it.
i love you.
Dec 2, 2019
Dec 2, 2019 at 10:31 PM UTC
As a young girl, Carolina Summers did not do many things that most children her age would consider interesting. Whilst they stayed outside with their siblings, splashing in mud and swimming in creeks, Carolina stayed mostly inside, going outside only to tend to her meager garden and to find and categorize the different species of bugs in the area. In the meantime, she read and had stacks upon stacks of books piled up in her small room.
She would gladly read anything she could get her hands on, from biographies on people she had never heard of to actions being performed that she had never wanted to hear of. But one thing was the same throughout every book she read: she was quite grateful that it existed if only to please her for a matter of hours, they often made her think long and hard afterword about how she could use the information she learned to better her own life. And if she could use this gift to better her life, she was even more grateful for it.
end
Jun 12, 2018
Jun 12, 2018 at 5:56 PM UTC
once trapped in between metal and wood, the mouse forfeits its life to the higher power
for its own foolishness and yearning for livelihood led it to the clamping jaws of death
the mischief goes without mourning, for deadweight is doomed to the side of the road regardless.
the tiny mouth of a mouse can only squeak so loudly, but the sound is drowned out by the snapping of its fragile bones like a branch of a tree falling
this is an infinite purgatory
rodents aren't reborn, and will always be invaluable to all species but themselves.
everything dies, but the hungry are murdered.
i rest in the corner of a cubic room, stuck in my fate.
i wish not for the best of life, or for a new one afterword
i know my valueless existence will be replaced down the line.
the days flash by and what is left of me is rot, clinging to the bones that make me the weak and deformed being i am.
people would save me if i wasn't a bottom feeder.
a perfect puppy, full of life and joy.
maybe just a bird, wing snagged by a predator whilst trying to ****** food.
i'm not ugly, am i?
am i not worth companionship?
i'm not even worth the food i find for my family.
the world was mine once.
to be free to wander again, without having to worry about being fooled or trapped.
i should be too young to die, but i'm too clever to live.
Jan 24, 2025
Jan 24, 2025 at 4:54 AM UTC
Each chapter so far has been exquisitely detailed and filled with all types of characters in action or rest.
The preface was written before time began, with nods to either the creator or the abyss – take your pick.
The spellbinding stories progress through the ages of war and peace, beauty and hatred, longing and forgetting.
But where’s the afterword? Hell, where’s the conclusion? The book of us mysteriously stops before the grand finale.
I can’t loosen these chains without knowing the ending. For the love of god, please let me know how it all ends.
Oct 30, 2019
Oct 30, 2019 at 2:16 PM UTC