"annuals" poems
You saw Judy on the south wing
of the old folks nursing home
near to Mr Atkinson’s room
carrying towels in her arms
I need to speak to you
you said
what about?
she asked
you playfully bundled her
into Bob Atkinson’s room
(he was either
in the lounge
or out down town
hobbling along
for small items of shopping
or at the second-hand
book shop looking
for boy’s annuals
of yesteryear
which he read
from cover to cover
before cutting out
the pictures
and sticking them
in albums)
what are you doing?
she said
what if Bob comes in?
he won’t
he’s out
you said
but what if he does?
she whispered
well unless I was rogering you
to kingdom come
I don’t think he’d mind
you said
pressing her 5’5’’ body
against the door
and looking into her
grey blue eyes
she gazed
into your eyes
and said
what do you need
to talk to me about?
I think I’m in love with you
you said
she sighed
that’s the umpteen time
you’ve told me that
she said
she dropped the towels
on Bob’s bed
and put her arms
around your waist
and drew you closer
you moved your left hand
around her back
and your right hand
on her buttocks
and said
that’s because it’s
umpteen times worse
or better depending
how you look at it
she kissed you on the lips
and you sensed
her tongue touch yours
her eyes closed
and you closed yours
the room becoming
a far away place
her perfume blending
into the air about you
the ticktock of Bob’s
old clock on the bedside table
like some metronome
setting the pace
as if it was all part
of some song or some
deep aspect
of a Bruckner symphony
she pushed you away
and said
it’s nearly break time
and people will wonder
why we’re not there
and put one
and one together
ok
you said
removing your hand
from her ****
the warmth still there
her eyes still captured
in your inner self
thank you
for the Chagall postcard
I’ve put it on
my bedside table
along with that photo
you gave me of you
got to go
she said
and opened the door
and walked off
down the passage
you looked around
Bob’s room
at the ticking clock
and the blue
candlewick cover
and the picture
of some boy
cut out of some
old annual
chasing a dog
over a field
and Judy’s lips
and tongue
seemed still
to be there
in your mouth
and her hand enfolding
your waist and back
and Peter in the pants
going all slack.
Sep 4, 2012
Sep 4, 2012 at 2:29 AM UTC
Snapdragons are one of those
flowers that wilt in springtime, not
because there is
anything wrong, it's just
that their season is over.
I wonder whether
snapdragons ever fall
in love with the hawthorns,
though I really shouldn't
have to.
I know all too well the
feeling of having to love
someone perennially as
you both alternate dying,
for lack of rain,
for want of sun.
May 9, 2014
May 9, 2014 at 12:41 PM UTC
I'm terrified to say it out loud to say that I have fallen for your deep eyes and deeper thoughts.
Because I know that you can never hold onto me.
I know that something in my soul
will never let me rest.
I am pushed forward
away towards anything and everything.
You haven't noticed, love, that my heart doesn't stay one place for long?You haven't noticed, darling,that there is too much air in my veins,
pulling me off of the ground,
away from more than a few short moments?
I'm terrified to say that you can stay until the sun rises
because once you start seeing me next to you in a messy bed,
it will be impossible to not see me there
even after months have passed.
Have you not noticed, love,
that I don't plant roots?
That I can't hold onto much more than
a photograph and a dream?
That I can't help myself from becoming something new every **** second?
That one day, maybe soon,
I will pack up my bags and leave before you have opened your eyes in the morning and I will be gone.
On to the next life.
Not because I have to, because I carry my heart in my legs,
not in the ground.
You say I am a sunflower.
Yours to keep, yours to kiss and hold up to the daylight.
Don't you know, sweetheart,
that sunflowers only last a few months?
Jun 28, 2016
Jun 28, 2016 at 9:20 AM UTC
I love my garden it is Shangri-La to me,
in my life there is no place I'd rather be.
All year round I attend with loving care,
I feel a serenity a peacefulness we share.
Suddenly from nowhere an Aquilegia appears,
grasping my affection awakening my fears.
Neglecting the flower beds weeds begin to grow,
killing off the annuals that need my help I know.
Realising my folly distracted in this way,
blossom begins to wilt this beauty cannot stay.
"I Fell in Love" with Columbine for a season,
but "I'm In Love" with my Rose of Eden.
May 4, 2015
May 4, 2015 at 1:00 PM UTC
Grievous
I hold you as the chameleon with his spring-trigger bone
Holds his tongue
And I will catch you as a fist
I will lick the stench from your odor sacks
as a skunk
All those creepy little fragments
bugs in the system;glitched codes
they are shackled souls in a microsecond arc-length
of the universal
Prodding the dirt
and the worms
as stars
How about all the spice trees?
The many different species of food glitter
they make the buds sparkle, they are thinking of the taste
of umami, of sour, of patchwork gaze
the cooked vestibules of bone
the marrow, seeping into the stew
The pepper trees are smoked
equinoctial bonfires
You and I are yet to be cooked through
A taxi in the trader joes parking lot
Big repetitive 7's splattered across its paneling
I won't forget when i'm drunk or inebriated somehow
The tree in the center of town is lit up with LEDs
Branches curling like worms
You are Pharos, you are the great celestial beam
you are the crescent moon, thin as a sleeve
and the hot taste of batter on your breath
the way you let my Guinness cool off next to the space-heater
and give me yogurt from the local townsfolk
Everything is creamy, you said.
But i don't like to hear that
It's a steel rod into my brain, that.
I am a simple Vishnu Hare Brahma
I do not have any purpose but to be enlightened
and worshiped for my powerful odors
and a four-chambered bowel
that makes the turn easier for worms.
2
Pitiful
You are the hopeless pod
the many wildebeest, crossing their annuals
through twirling water-crocs,
Lion Prides
Leopards shifting within the brush
Bacterial infections from ***** tusks
Strange metal boxes
No 7's on this side
I want to blow the ******* skulls off of anything
that aims for you, sweet mare
45-70
Will literally send chunks of it into orbit
Lion or Turtle or window or Children
The most godly thing is a bullet
And the streams of blood that will seed a new ravine
and seep the next feed of riverrun
Will you be mine, then?
Oct 13, 2018
Oct 13, 2018 at 4:39 AM UTC
If you aren't looking
you will never see them
hidden in whitewashed caste systems
forced to conform
to federal papers
which fit in a folder
that fits in a file
of an emaciated white guy
who doesn't fit anywhere
checking the boxes and "disorders"
voted on by
a majority of uncaught criminals
who are protecting store front lifestyles
while the real merchandise of their lives
lays in the back storage room
with the rats of their conscience.
They judge sanity
setting rigid walls
and hanging permanent badges on
Salvador Dali dream catchers,
borderless thinkers,
and geniuses
of the things not yet discovered.
Just because the gifted can not
or will not
stop thinking,
they are detained for their
Difference.
State Hospital No. 3
titles every page
framed in frayed edges
and unfrayed passion.
Lions of courage stand
with childlike joy
in traveling circuses
obliterating demons of oppression,
overwhelming reoccurring ECT...ECT...ECT.
An etcetera of living
beyond electroconvulsive therapy
where the spelling of ECTLECTRC is perfect
in its grammar and definition,
standing in banners atop
the wide-eyed portraited guardians
of institutionalism.
Glorious art shuddered on a curb,
lost and intended for *******
Thank God, beauty beholders come
in all ages of eyes.
14 year olds also find treasure
in garbage piles
clutching dearly to the feeling
that greatness lies in colored pencils
dancing on unusual stationary.
Edward Deeds
comes of age
in the same moment
as the scavenging boy does
opening the binders
on their inter-joined journey
36 annuals after dislodging it
from a leftover ham and rye.
A voice is unmuted
merely by being seen.
Revelation is given
by turning on the light.
Art, music and knowledge is infinite
when boxes are destroyed,
ignorance rebuked,
and courage is embraced.
Let us dare to never be
just what we know.
Let us live to be
what we have never yet seen.
Mar 12, 2014
Mar 12, 2014 at 1:06 AM UTC
I’ve got cracks on the inside
From heartbreak
That shook me like an earthquake.
Every freckle you’ve kissed
Burns in the sunlight.
Sometimes storm clouds
Roll into the horizons of my eyes
And pour.
You planted flowers in my skull
And they used to bloom
When I thought of you,
But they must have been annuals
Because they died this fall.
And despite my best efforts,
They won’t come back.
Dec 6, 2015
Dec 6, 2015 at 12:32 AM UTC
In the early frosted morning sunshine of our love
we laid the groundwork for a garden
the foundations and the walls, the borders of the beds,
a classical explosion of trusting sturdy boxwoods,
bright perennials, risky annuals
their bulbs entrusted to this fertile soil.
Flowers of exotic derivation
and those of timeless grace flourish
leaf to leaf, petals touching stamens
as we dig, plant, tending, cheek to cheek, our love.
Each new planting an experience, and
each new shared experience the planting,
a new species, a new bright blossom introduced into our garden.
We grow our garden fresh and bright,
encouraging deep roots - they demand less maintenance.
Boundaries and borders so cleanly laid
blur with the comfort of time.
Inevitable weeds blow in, over strong walls.
Even Eden needed weeding, and the
comfortable passage of years proves our garden
no exception. Still in all,
the rest are out, and we are in.
Each **** our **** each thorn our thorn;
this is once and always our place,
our space to tend, sacred and secret,
this garden of our love.
Feb 19, 2017
Feb 19, 2017 at 5:40 AM UTC
I never bought The Twinkle Annuals
Slipping off the eBay page after six
It is one of those days that drizzles
And bedtime gets closer each time.
Love Mary ***
Aug 11, 2019
Aug 11, 2019 at 11:19 AM UTC
Something about the way this valley
can extend and flit the smokey mist
like the winds that pull gentle heartstrings.
Behind gazing eyes I wish so so badly
mountainous strength to subsist.
This frostbitten face yearns for Spring.
Need not, from any well but of your own,
glossy eyes grazing the mountains to find
that winter makes forests seem less intertwined;
only in frigid air is the true tree shown.
Want not, the annuals that come and go,
dark and shade may intrude on shine.
Dig firm these roots, these ties that bind.
And then so, worry not when leaves are blown.
Feb 14, 2022
Feb 14, 2022 at 5:57 PM UTC
red berry trees
e.e cumings portrait of blonde woman
walking typing presenting conversing
walking clouds are altocumulus
walking singing aloud
man in orange shoes jogs
woman with grocery bag crosses street
trees always outshine architecture
orange and red in december
hand lovingly touching hat
doodles on papers, all triangles
doodles on hands, all triangles
curved architecture, sheep horns
reading about **** eating goats
environment saving goats
sustainability studying scientists
drinking out of plastic cups
such a thing as malevolent creativity?
wanting to plant annuals
wanting to smell dirt, feel dirt
walking weaving thru whirlpool
strange man smiling outside of bathroom
judging your own judgement
napping in hallways
success
consumerism isn't candy
it used to be sweet, not eating meat
anymore, any more questions?
goodnight
Jul 13, 2017
Jul 13, 2017 at 7:46 PM UTC