"antiqued" poems
With the frailty of a butterfly
Books for warmth, fading out like old photographs
Antique white skin
Brassy bloodied cheeks
A swarm of dragonflies laces my face
Ancestry nightfall, ghosts of the drowned
Faded gnarled patchwork, eating away my mind
Limbs of the tree growing out of me
Divided from everyone else
Inside the pinwheel blindfolded
Wading through hours and days
A slave to this disease
It's the only one that I breathe
Nov 10, 2018
Nov 10, 2018 at 12:56 AM UTC
I am a poor man
sitting on the corner of
Your Conscious
and Your Reality.
All day everyday
I sit in that spot and
beg for change.
But keep your quarters, nickels, dimes
for someone else
'cause all I want is a cup of change.
A cup of change
to water my feeble hope, thorny rose
rooted in concrete hatred.
Roots, like my fingers,
too feeble to hold anything
but this patch of dirt to remind
me, I exist.
ALMS! ALMS! ALMS for the poor of heart!
But keep your quarters, nickels, dimes
for someone else
'cause all I want is a cup of change.
A cup of change
to wash away the muck kicked in my face.
A cup of change
to cleanse the wounds made
by verbal bullets shot out of nine millimeter mouths
wielded carelessly by boys society has deemed as men.
I sit in this spot and fester,
like a dream deferred.
My skin, cracked and brittle
like aged parchment, hangs over my frame
like sheets over antiqued furniture.
I sit in this spot with
arms open wide, heart open wide, eyes open wide
BEGGING FOR CHANGE!
But keep your quarters, nickels, dimes
for someone else
'cause all I want is a cup of change.
A cup of change
to strip the lies and propaganda
from the decrepit facades of your ideas,
storefront workshops left from the age of enlightenment.
My body yearns for nourishment
but I can't afford your lies.
But keep your quarters, nickels, dimes
for someone else
'cause all I want is a cup of change.
Now I'm not asking for a Jesus on Galilee moment,
just a cup of change to feed what's left of my soul.
But who am I to ask for anything?
I am just the poor man
sitting on the corner of
Your Conscious
and Your Reality.
All day everyday
I sit in that spot and
beg for change.
But keep your quarters, nickels, dimes
for someone else
'cause all I want is a cup of change.
Nov 9, 2011
Nov 9, 2011 at 10:54 AM UTC
You will want to come back one day
Like the crashing of a waterfall
Hard yet soft at the same time
With variations in light
Swirling, reflecting off the water
You will want to come back one day
Like a butterfly on a journey
Flying high, steadfast
Silhouetted by sunlight at dusk
Elegantly shinning
You will want to come back one day
Like a trees search for light
Extending it's branches directionally
Frantic to find the missing sun
You came back one day
Patina beautiful, aged gracefully
Like the floors in our home
Beautifully antiqued like our lives
Aug 29, 2014
Aug 29, 2014 at 2:08 AM UTC
***** Attacked by a Jaguar, after Henri Rousseau*
Unaware, arms sway.
Attentive green gazes
at a tuxedoed man
and his broken bride.
Pink perfume glides
over the jade scene.
A red disco light
hovers above raised limbs,
spinning stardust
rain down upon them.
In the corner
he hides -- peering
around fibre-optic
shrubs. Blackening
this white moment.
On the ballroom
floor they dance.
Rendezvous in the Forest, after Henri Rousseau
In the wilderness
they meet, horsebacked,
whispering nothing
sweet, meaningless.
Captain courts, seeking
victory beneath bare
branches... hidden
where all can see.
Curious trees bend
to view the scene below.
The lady's palace
chaperones her mistress
from faraway brush.
Antiqued cotton tufts frown
overhead, lost souls
driving by wreckage.
Vultures. Scavengers
of hunting season.
Pausing to behold
the carnage
of predator and prey.
Nov 15, 2011
Nov 15, 2011 at 12:25 PM UTC
Dimly the light above
me flickers,
feeble,
like my heart.
Dust sparkles, diamond like
in the fleeting beams
of cold lights.
Antiqued books, with yellowed
pages and worn leather skins,
cratered by clumsy fingers,
line the dark oaken bookshelves.
A fine veil of dust covers their
naked skins.
The walls, they were once
beautiful, exotic vines crept up
their lenghts, punctuated by vivid
blooms.
But now, now they bare
a natural face.
Garments pealed and faded
blooms rest,
fragile and wrinkled,
at her feet.
A dark, gray room
in the final throws of death.
No life survives,
no light...
no pulse...
no thing, nothing save a
single
red
rose.
Summer
Spring
Winter
Fall
evermore she blooms.
Her thick oily petals
are smeared into the glass.
she was there
before I came.
She will be there
when I'm gone.
Nov 8, 2011
Nov 8, 2011 at 10:36 PM UTC
There was a distinct fondness
I acquired
when I was surrounded with the old,
the crumpled,
antiqued,
coffee-stained photographs;
the way you smiled
every time I picked up the camera
—each frame telling a tale:
the tale of the curvature of your lips,
the forest in your eyes,
the way they helped you look at me
like you do,
the way your mouth formed syllables of my name,
each letter of those words,
the freckles, like constellations,
I connected
at night
in the chaos of the bed sheets.
Each frame told a tale
—initiated a saga—
told me how fond I had become
of how you created passion in me
every time my finger
activated the shutter.
Apr 25, 2013
Apr 25, 2013 at 12:48 PM UTC
I grew up in a time of gold.
14 ct. gold jewelry was desired.
Brass fixtures were shiny and popular.
We reached for door handles that were golden.
Then design began to darken.
The bright reflection was antiqued away.
Eventually aged to bronze,
Until darkening to a wise old black.
Working with my daughter,
I have found she grew up in silver.
Silver jewelry, picture frames and faucets.
Her world is white, nickel and gray.
The perspective is hard for me to grasp.
How does one immersed in gold begin to see silver?
And how do I share with her the value of
14 ct. gold as it has aged?
Jun 8, 2015
Jun 8, 2015 at 9:30 AM UTC
Is there anything
more divine than
something made by
human hands
Throughout generations
of honed skills
handed down
to family member
or apprentice
crafted to be passed on
only to become
possibly antiqued
The subtle care and
time involved with
impeccable technique...
no substitute for the
HAND CRAFTED.
Jul 11, 2016
Jul 11, 2016 at 1:57 AM UTC
This constant rain and thunder
never ceases, makes me wonder
why lightning looks like shutterflash
taking pictures of my life...
Afterimage and epic photonegative
redroom and redsky, black and white
antiqued and superimposed
into a dull square picture frame
display this moment of my life for eternity.
i'm blinded by flash after flash
of lightning before my eyes
as i'm carried off by gale winds
into the clouds and i'm never seen again...
Jul 14, 2012
Jul 14, 2012 at 10:49 PM UTC
These things belong on a shelf
Like a bottle of tears that looks like a stuffed animal
And a pillow case that became a great transport of rage,
Amidst the dust and clutter
Runs my subconscious animal seeking blood, meat,
Retribution and the slightest gain
Through the wires of the human body
Cut and casually rearranged.
These things are purposed
As notches in a Grecian urn
Cold reminders of a worthwhile mistake
Taken astride and antiqued
For me, for you, betokened at my expense
Because I need to eat, occasionally oddly,
And when the stomach can’t trust the hands
Your clothing stays close to your body.
These things are like dresses on a library,
Dressing the dirt underneath
As life preservers full of water, full of wine
But these are situational traumas
And never lacking their angel wings
Defective and cuckolding self-esteems next to me
Hold hands at the bottom of the ebb and flow
Of human misery or ecstasy,
Just maybe it’ll hurt too much this time,
As revenge for my laughing at its brothers.
Apr 3, 2015
Apr 3, 2015 at 10:47 AM UTC
A famous artist took his painting,
which commenced life as beach driftwood,
whipped it with a chain.
Made it all
chipped and nicked,
and called it, antiqued.
He liked the way it looked,
and had it put in a museum.
God looked down and thought,
**** I do good work,
Just look at the human race!"
Aug 6, 2013
Aug 6, 2013 at 2:59 AM UTC
He opens the drawer to the desk his father once owned,
that antiqued monolith from a man he never knew,
and removes a sealed, crusted envelope, his father's name
neatly penned in his mother's refined script.
He carefully slides the yellowed letter from the envelope,
unfolds it, and lays it upon the desk. As he smoothes
wrinkles from it, he reads the contents slowly, savors
the words like he once savored his mother's homemade fudge,
allowing the prose to seep into his mind
like the mellifluous melting of chocolate down his throat.
As his mother's words resound through his mind,
he recalls the austere diction of her voice,
the matter-of-fact, demanding pitch that he, as a child,
cringed in corners, hands over his ears to drown out the harshness.
The words he now reads upon faded gold sheets,
the tone of one in love, an air of magnetism and dignity,
are not words the mother he knew would convey.
And he ponders the man who left her,
why he never opened the letter from his wife,
if his coldness froze the flames of this woman
leaving her as frigid in life as she was in love.
And he wonders of the man knew a son was left behind
to pick up the icicles which fell from his mother's eyes
each time she gazed upon the photo of her husband.
He folds the letter and places it back inside the envelope,
lays it on top of a stack of his mother's mementos,
and as though to return passion to his own life,
tosses the entire contents into a waste basket, ignites
the icy memories of his family's past and watches
as flames rise, consumes, and turns them to ash.
Nov 17, 2010
Nov 17, 2010 at 6:56 PM UTC
There are some
Who wear make up
To hide behind
Like a mask
Or to be someone their not
Some have worn it
For so very long
That they have become their mask
Or maybe the mask becomes them
Like a ritual, some pagan act
Antiqued and traditional
Some feel naked without it
But I saw you
Eyes stripped of all
No highlights, outlines or lashes
For all intents, completely naked
And behind the mask
And you were beautiful
Softest, smoothest lines
Untouched, raw and unmolested
Purest clean and untainted
And I loved you, that much more
Aug 22, 2014
Aug 22, 2014 at 3:55 PM UTC