"alphabetized" poems
Black box breaking
Slowly breaking
Slowly
I saw the cracks
I saw them ripple down her back
I saw the freeze and thaw of nations
The renaissance and death and renaissance
I saw the wealth and worth of world powers
I saw them crumble
I was there
And I am here
I read it all and wrote it down
I saw it all and wrote it down
I kissed the survivors and wrote it down
I saw the earth in its entirety
I fell in love and vomited and fell in love
I saw her in her emptiness
I saw her sway in the winds
The winds grew cold and colder
She grew old and older
And so distraught
Mangled
Destroyed
Derailed
Demolished
Stripped of poise and polish
Stripped of it all
I saw her disintegrate
I saw her fall
Still I,
I still
I always standing
Watching still
Always seeing
Standing and seeing, I
Drinking tea
Calm, cool, collected, serenity
Now your turn
You see me
See me walking down the street
See my waist-long wavy hair
Blonde and sparkling in the sun
Lipstick smile
Hipbones and cheekbones chiseled and deadly
Long leg strut down the runway
Of center town sidewalks
The world is my oyster
See my backpack full of alphabetized books
Handwriting neat and perfect
Pen behind my ear I’m ready
For all of this
See me smoking cigarettes out my dorm room window
Listening to Mozart
And smiling fully when the strings jump in
See me on the park bench reading
Long Russian novels
I inhale the pages like heartbeats
In-hale
Ex-hale
In-hale
Ex-hale
Breaths and beats fully synchronized to the flipping of pages
And to the Metronome Mozart wrote me.
Don’t be deceived
I made my world and destroyed it and made my world
Independent to a fault
I made my living off stitching together broken bones
And melting old forgotten thrones
Sculptures that said I needed no one
No one could keep up anyway
I ran too fast
I ran all day
And kindof expected someone to care
But no one ever has
I was never worth the trouble
Pull me out from my own rubble
And kiss me if you can
No one knows my secret plan to live an embarrassing convention
All this glass is just pretention
I glued it together myself
I wrote my own pamphlet for self help
I pieced together my own face
I sculpted my own form and adorned it
I broke my own heart and mourned it
I arrived and left and arrived
And here I’ll stay
Black box breaking
Slowly breaking
Slowly
I saw the cracks
I saw them from the start
Death and renaissance and death
***** and love and *****
Jan 19, 2015
Jan 19, 2015 at 12:08 PM UTC
You are the unbearable sort of thing that I wouldn’t want to wear on my feet, even with boots laced up to the knees, because wearing you would force me to cover my polka-dotted toes,
And anyone who would want to compromise my innocence like that is horribly patterned and dull,
Like the lone argyle sock with the tag still attached that I hate, gathering dust on that shelf in the rain, where the rest of my unwelcome thoughts have found place
The ones that can’t cover my insecurities
Or don’t flatter my figure at all
There’s an obvious scab on my ankle that won’t heal
Embarrassing, really
It came from my unwavering faith in open-toed stilettos
You saw it just the other day
And I blushed as I tried to pull my pant leg over the sore, but you knew (I think)
Oh, the puzzling urge I have to be made over by the brains of your outfits!
So I can open a closet of conversation topics that would suit both of us just fine
I think
I have shed 18 years of ideas in the past two weeks
I starved myself until I could fit into the apparel of your approval
Which I claw through my closets but still cannot find
But I know that somewhere in my brain beneath an empty toilet paper roll or stuck on a dead branch of ideas is a match to your unbearable pattern-
Perhaps if I’d kept my opinions more alphabetized, I would’ve found it sooner
Blast, my scattered brain that can’t seem to produce any fashion but faux pas for you
Logic and emotion were never meant to mix like this- trust me, I know well
Give me a summer to rearrange myself, hmm?
Or will I have no use of you then…
If only I’d started to realize sooner
We’d be peeling oranges and discussing the oldest styles of thought, you and I
Beneath an umbrella in the rain
You wouldn’t be able to see that odd scab on my ankle
Because I would have the other lone argyle sock with the tag still attached that I hate-
I feel that perhaps
you are only unbearable because I wish you complimented me better, that perhaps the reason I’m starving myself of all reason is because I’d like nothing more than to openly say
that I hate you, my lone, little argyle sock
but that is only
because right now, I could never possibly hope to wear you
Jan 4, 2013
Jan 4, 2013 at 4:48 AM UTC
FRIDAY
1:00 – 3:30
I swept the packing area.
Three neat piles of duct tape,
plastic wrap, saw dust, dumped
into a trashcan. Made
another mess while packing
toys into boxes for the
community’s Angel Tree.
MONDAY
11:15 - 12:45
A self-proclaimed alcoholic
asked me for a cigarette. He
preached to me with an unsteady
tongue and hollow eyes. I met a case
worker named Maria and alphabetized
children’s names and Christmas wishes.
2:30 - 4:30
Stapled $7.00 price tags
to shirt collars, pants pockets,
working alongside a man
who served ten years in
prison. He finished loading
a shopping cart and I pushed
the items into the store.
I put cracked ceramic plates,
dusty books, and twisted wire
roosters onto an empty shelf.
TUESDAY
2:30 – 3:30
Maria turned the wish forms
into Captain Smith. I went
to the Captain’s office and
entered Christmas wishes
into a database. Captain Smith
tapped her fingers on the desk,
hummed along to her Christian
radio station and talked about
the importance of volunteers.
3:45 – 5:00
The yard on the east side
of the store needed to be
cleaned. Plastic wrap blown
into the barbed wire fence
surrounding broken computers,
archaic metal heaters, and
miscellaneous types of scrap.
After we loaded the trailer
I swept the packing area
and smoked a cigarette.
WEDNESDAY
11:15 – 1:30
I finished entering the
forms into Captain
Smith’s computer
while she was out
at lunch. I walked around
outside but I didn’t find
the drunk. Captain
Smith signed my
completion of volunteer
service sheet and joked,
“I guess we won’t be
seeing you again.”
Mar 22, 2015
Mar 22, 2015 at 6:41 PM UTC
when I reached the age of reason I hit the ground,
running. the thought flits
across compact mirror smudged from years of overuse &
abandon, left behind
in purse bottoms and backpacks every time I switch up my style &
move on to something:
new/ fresh / else.
a glance into glass &
I'm transported: a babe on white lambskin,
a second-hand nostalgia never wholly mine.
a missing, another memory removed,
a down-to-the-wire tally
added to the roster, unexpectedly
the emotional prodigy, ostracized
alongside destined veracity: as in my absolute
devotion to TRUTH!
the time skip, a box-out, a blackout, a kindness.
a comfort over the desk chair where homework completes itself
after countless 'mixtape playlists' limewired maniacally
alphabetized, rearranged & revised until dawn/
another decade / chapter: a bookworm,
a blockout, a maneuver 'round roadblock,
a machination, a manipulation, a deadening, a defeat,
an assistant Mother only a child
self, the intrigue... yet
here I am, a spectacle,
a miracle, a smashing, a light on an island out at sea,
an accident, a ripening survived.
can I trust myself. to dive in. for / by myself?
when I lift the stretch of lambskin from an atticked brown box,
a painted porcelain plate hits the ground,
shattered.
Jul 28, 2022
Jul 28, 2022 at 9:07 PM UTC
You are shelves holding the books, alphabetized and happy.
You are the ink soaked in the page.
Outdoors, you are the sea chasing the shore.
You are also the glowing candle flame at dusk,
bright and encumbered by no darkness.
However, you might be interested to know
You are not the broken window,
nor are you the dog's yipping bark
through the screen door.
You could never possibly be the
dog's bark.
Instead, you are the thin, glassy waves polishing the shore,
You are the steel bridge between two lands,
You might even be the sleeping apples, tucked inside the pie.
I am quite sure you are also the handshake between two strangers,
as well as the writing on this page.
You should also know that, in all the plentiful imagery of the world,
I am the needle crackling on the vinyl record.
I am also the artist's filthy paintbrush.
I can also be, at times, the tea steeped too long,
and of course, I am the postcard, en route.
But you--you are the cobalt sea at midnight, snuggled to the shore,
You are the coffee-colored shelf supporting the books,
and somehow also, the ink imprinted on the page.
Jan 16, 2014
Jan 16, 2014 at 8:20 AM UTC
If we were two books who happened to cross covers
Or over lap tittles,
In a momentary lack of structure
You would find us stacked back to back
As unlikely as a tragedy with star struck lovers..
Happened upon the other
in a library archiving
Written word and lives, and eons worth of soft
Text typed,
I would be a book of Russian poems
Roughly speaking of beautiful things,
With a bare textured cover, a soft sea foam green.
And you would be lost in the meaning,
In the reflections of your wealth
I would give you all the answers you hide inside your self,
You would be of another breed,
Your italic headings speaking of vastly different things,
You would show a thousand places I wish to know,
With a hundred hand drawn maps
Filled to the indentation with
realities greater than my own imagination
with pictures
That capture you, whisper liberation,
You would be the inspiration every trapped
lower class individual looks upon while dreaming up
Vacation homes.
You are the window to the places everyone
Everyone wants to know
Your pages crisp but warm, smelling of vanilla
Not a single scuff, crease, you are not torn.
A soft Carmel brown cover where
A hundred careful fingers hover.
You are probably thinking we don’t belong together.
Not in a library alphabetized and
Split into sections,
Good thing great librarians
Know better, she
Stole us and set us together in her own
Private collection.
There is no where I fit better than
Next to you, pressed cover to cover,
we are becoming a story of
unlikely lovers,
We are best friends,
Penned from different ink
Speaking different themes
meeting
Resting between book ends designed
Out of clever minds set out to
To fuzz the line between actuality
And your aspiration,
We are just the perfect combination of
Drive and a dream,
The fact you are here means something
And the more I read the more it seems
Together we'll achieve great things.
Oct 23, 2013
Oct 23, 2013 at 5:52 PM UTC
to break the silence
you play some of your CD's
vertical rows of plastic jewel boxes
never properly alphabetized
Jun 10, 2015
Jun 10, 2015 at 1:12 AM UTC
Paintings of the dead,
organized by hue and shade,
grouped by color,
in all different arrays.
Alphabetized,
books stacked on a shelf.
Blank pages,
read aloud to oneself.
If you shed a light,
on the synchronized,
human lives,
we are living,
you will see we are all one being.
Dead bodies aligned,
in a mile long row,
how those people died,
nobody seems to know.
Flowers in a field,
pushing through the soil,
crushed under the weight,
of drills drilling for oil.
If you shed a light,
on the synchronized,
human lives,
we are living,
you will see we are all one being.
Waves crash softly,
into a weathered shore,
only to recede and repeat,
dragging sea shells to the ocean floor.
If you shed a light,
on the synchronized,
human lives,
we are living,
you will see we are all one being.
The weight of the world,
rests on the shoulders of man.
And trust me, I know,
we're doing all we can.
Jul 29, 2013
Jul 29, 2013 at 11:46 PM UTC
A pick here,
And a pick there,
Before I know it,
I'm bleeding,
Then there's a scab.
A spot on the floor,
I have to make it clean.
A hair out of place,
It has to be moved.
Books out of order,
Movies not alphabetized,
Shirts not color coded in the closet,
Shoes not put in a perfect line,
A messy binder...
These things drive me insane.
Simple things that normal people dont care about,
Or just look over,
A sentence not beginning with a capital letter,
Or not having any punctuation at the end.
They make me tick.
They say I have a thing called OCD.
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder,
I don't have a disorder,
I just want things neat,
Organized,
And clean.
Is there something wrong with that?
Nov 29, 2013
Nov 29, 2013 at 4:42 PM UTC
Imagine me running around
A mad blur, hair standing on end
With pencils and things sticking out
Post-its go flying
And a stack of newspapers and magazines topples like a tower.
I'm forgetting something
I chew my bottom lip trying to remember
Then remember ten other things
But still can't grasp the first.
Really, I'm more organized than this
I insist
Everything in its place
Alphabetized, polished and underlined
All my little duckies in a neat row
Checked and double checked
Quality-controlled.
I drop one marble and madness ensues.
Maybe I can't live in a bubble
>pop<
And some chaos must tear through.
Mar 14, 2014
Mar 14, 2014 at 2:20 PM UTC
Fingers delicately trace
The bounded bounty
Of paper and ink
That lie before me
In neatly organized
Shelves.
Carefully alphabetized.
Without knowledge of genre,
I walk the aisles
Waiting for inspiration.
A spark of interest.
Choosing a book
Is half the fun
And walking home
Choice in arms
Already wondering
What my next choice
Will be.
Aug 25, 2013
Aug 25, 2013 at 10:57 PM UTC
If I had to explain it I'd say my world of words prefers to rhyme.
It likes to speed up, until you catch up,
and then take up your time.
It likes to play games and roll around in the grass like a child;
use its imagination to keep things fresh, tasty, and wild.
My words like to cuss and be rude,
spend days lying on the couch
drunk, shameless, and ****
They dispise being alphabetized and disrespect being ordered around;
like a high school kid being sensitized,
and in so doing being ostracized,
being pushed out forcefully by the system.
My words have rules and they love to resist them.
Often turning into words of insistence and criticism,
my words should be locked up,
but they're usually dressed up
in something they're not,
put in a strait jacket and forgotten in a prison because they've been caught.
People think I need to watch what I say but I'd rather not.
I want my words to stay in your head for days till they're the only thoughts
you've got.
Dec 23, 2014
Dec 23, 2014 at 10:55 PM UTC
Do we use the glossary when searching the back pages of our lives follow the indexes when something perplexes
Motions making sounds ,representing actions & reactions ,lessons forming curiosity ,constantly seeking answers
Surrounding ourselves with sounds ,breaking into syllables ,basics as a beginning then hopefully turning us into detectives
Now lessons become narratives not always with a heart moving title ,but open feelings harder to bridle, days forming chapters
As new breaths begin in a nursery, mysteries are awaiting within the walls & halls ,nooks & books of depositories
From embryo to a first cleansing ,protection is constant ,warmth of blankets envelop similar to bindings encasing the fruits comprised on papyrus.
Opening the world through the first window ,light ,sky, flowing forms taken in with a healthy grin,integral parts of out future stories
The main doors as a cover ,silence is golden while the words are screaming ,what is first? a daily rag ,twirling of the mighty globe?
facts or fiction now lay fractured
Fondly absorbing phonics ,tasting the clicks or ticks & annunciations still samples for future refining
Labeled as language or merely absorbed as sound forming ,trying to become an individual expression
Flashcards as roots into an inner corridor, signals separated with commas dots or dashes ,awaiting future defining
Roads or paths laid out like aisles, alphabetized such as street names shelves as floors of buildings ,books as unopened doors to a new lesson
A long life search no longer monotonous as a Dewey decimal offered ,but click or a flick ,automated corrections leaving many clueless
Even building faith often based within bindings ,factors of fame or items for blame made best by those who clearly see the text
Holidays as often as book of the month ,b.m.i. becomes t.m.i. , forever offering lessons in hindsight ,many offerings to amuse
A mind akin to a vault taking in all offerings by default ,endless it seems for storage capacity ,Librarians or doctors can off a new zest.R.C.
May 21, 2016
May 21, 2016 at 8:57 PM UTC
On my desk...
I have this very special Rolodex
I keep it filled with poems and ideas
When I'm in need, I crack the lid
It's no surprise...
I find them easily cause they're alphabetized
From A to Z...I have been saving
Pull one out for most any occasion
Wedding day...
Called to give a toast, I know what to say
I've done my best on this several times
I've even done it in the form of a rhyme
If there's a birth...
I look under B for rhyme and verse
So I have the right words I need to say
On this special day of all days
If I find a girl...
And want to give her and I a whirl
I flip over to L for the things I like
Or even love if given the time
So you can see...
Why I keep my Rolodex under lock and key
If it ended up lost or in the wrong hands
It would certainly throw off all that I am
Dec 24, 2013
Dec 24, 2013 at 8:20 AM UTC
There is so much value
In asking people
To put something down
Anything-
Whatever they can think of-
Because that's creation.
That's where ideas and feelings
get synthesized
organized
alphabetized
aestheticized.
It's a spiritual go-to-town.
A lovely go-around.
So we gotta offer it.
We gotta!
Because otherwise
we create the undead.
It's supplies, and time, and not just
"look at a painting".
It's make someone feel what you feel.
Empowering, Cathartic, Adventurous.
It's a really really big deal.
Jul 29, 2016
Jul 29, 2016 at 11:05 AM UTC
unloving begins
with the setting of the sun,
with the falling of the tides.
I realized how accustomed
I had grown to the feeling;
of wind on my skin,
of hailstones falling.
Alphabetized, my many names.
A blurred face
in a hallway of mirrors.
my heart left long before
my body did,
long before my legs
had the strength for escape
unloving begins
with your heart feeling cold.
I thought I should stay a while,
just to be
sure.
Apr 21, 2018
Apr 21, 2018 at 12:49 AM UTC
Lawrence Hall, HSG
[email protected]
Garage-Sale Rolodex® for Seventy-Five Cents
I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed,
debriefed, or numbered. My life is my own.
-Patrick McGoohan as Number Six in The Prisoner
The Rolodex was once a symbol of power
Of knowledge marshalled into sequences
Orderly sequences alphabetized by names
By names and cross indices of subjects and dates
Of enemies or allies or contacts, rarely friends
Condensed in ink on smoothly finished cards
Restrained in place by colored plastic tabs
Awaiting the stroke of an office tyrant’s hand
The Rolodex was subsumed within The ‘Phone
Thus still your life cannot be called your own
Jan 12, 2024
Jan 12, 2024 at 10:08 PM UTC
With the setting of the sun,with the falling of tides, I realize how accustomed I had grown to the feeling; of wind on my skin,of hailstones falling.
Alphabetized , my many names. A blurred face in a hallway of mirrors.an I will never forget those moments in which I lay on your chest and your heartbeat was what calmed me.
Jul 26, 2018
Jul 26, 2018 at 5:09 AM UTC