"archeology" poems
while september cicadas
were singing my neighbors to sleep
i was up walking holes in my shoes
over love once lost
so many poems ago
that the only thing i remember
about the house at 38th & bluestone
is that it reeked of alcohol and is
as i'm sure of it
still saturated in perfume
and abandoned laughter
but that's not the point
give me a minute
what i'm trying to say
is i always thought god
enjoyed watching things leave me
it makes me wonder
what was on his mind
that night in september
when i stooped to cough
or tie my shoelaces
i no longer remember why
but i recall their trajectory
the way gravity cradled my hands
and brought them crashing back to earth like a 747
they landed inches away
from a scrap of crumpled loose leaf
folded in half like the smiles
of my relatives on a holiday truce
you see, lately i've been looking for scars in the newspaper
i find myself checking the obituary
for my former selves since the day i found your suicide letter
maybe that's why i can never explain my obsession with history
maybe archeology is just a funeral
in reverse
maybe hell is just rewinding home movies
or watching confetti
turn back into photographs
i never told anyone
the reason the doors to the gun cabinet in my family's house are locked not because they are afraid
i will take my life
but because sometimes
i sing them birthday songs
on the day you died
it makes me think
of how rooms only echo
when they are empty
*you know
i never echoed until you died*
Jun 6, 2014
Jun 6, 2014 at 2:56 AM UTC
This was just published so it is copyright 2015 by Holy Cow Press ~ mce
Poverty is the fence around your life. Poverty wakes you up at 4 AM only to whisper meaningless slogans in your ear. It is the school of Piranha nibbling at the back of your brain. It is two hours waiting in the anteroom of despair for $22 worth of food stamps and being glad to be there. It is changing your phone number frequently because bill collectors are such boring conversationalists. It is the empty space your heels used to fill. It is letting your hair grow long and scraggly and your grizzled beard sprout because you know that although you sleep in rented rooms tonight, the street is not far off, and you want to fit in when you arrive. Poverty scalds the lint from your pockets. It is your private Treblinka within which you rage but are crushed. It is desperate prayers against dental catastrophes, blown tires, surprises of any sort. Poverty is when everything you own is frayed including your nerves from sleepless moments spent trying to solve the equation that will make X number of dollars cover X + ? number of bills, knowing that such math would defeat Newton or Einstein. Poverty is eying the cat's kibble imagining that with a bit of sugar and a splash of milk it might be fine and then eyeballing the cat himself thinking of protein of last resort and trying not to measure him against the microwave door. You ration your cigarettes; whiskey is a fading memory. Passing a diner on the street, you catch a whiff of burgers too expensive to consider and experience a Pavlovian moment. Poverty is trying to keep your head up and then remembering you pawned your neck. Poverty is watching the needle eat your last few gallons of gas. Poverty is the archeology of despair. It portends the death of irony. There is nothing ironic about a car with 217,000 miles and no insurance on it. Facts are facts in the world of poverty. Poverty is the last quarter reclaimed from beneath the cushions. It is too much time and not enough quarters. It is the specious logic of the self-righteous proclaiming that you deserve to be poor because you are, which in Amerika passes for wisdom. Poverty makes each day like the next because nothing does not vary. It is who you are and where you are going, although you won't get far. It is the life you lead inside the fence. It is the sum of what you lack. It just is.
- mce
Apr 6, 2015
Apr 6, 2015 at 7:54 PM UTC
*i was looking at an old and tattered black and white photo of my grandfather
a man i never knew and wondered about
his existence
like a horizon of dissolution
his soul enshrined in my own
and like him and all creatures
ultimately i remain defenseless
against realities magnitude
while my father loved me as a child
he grew unkind over the years
and we where set bitterly against one another other
his tyranny and my disobedience
as i gathered strategies craft
by machinery of thought
and festering gall
he, the bully
got bullied back
by me and old age
as we in tandem set fire
to his sadistic golden age of disillusionment
and here we are now the living and the dead
still locked in a grudge
a recurring spirit of revenge
in a valley of tears
before i myself join the ephemeral legions
in a pile of stones and ashed corpses
are we not
a procession of long struggles and short pleasures
a history of terrors and creatureness
stooges bound by the wheel creation
crucified by desire
and the apathy of obliterations aftermath
an archeology of death
ruin upon ruins
has God
sinned against man
or bestowed his grace
mystified
perfect and beautiful
beyond measure
yet to be discovered
in an alternate reality?
Nov 4, 2017
Nov 4, 2017 at 10:26 AM UTC
on this rumbling
stretch of tundra
no trees reach up
to soothe the sky
there is a pulling down
of wind tunnel vortex
like conifers in reverse
an icy howl
in the bonechill
of time
Translucent holes,
perfectly round, are dug
in glacial archeology
and in the sea below
gelid creatures lurk,
half-frozen
in the history of my
soul
Only moss and lichens
grow on the rock,
somehow softening the
rugged textures
of the wild landscapes
that seethe
just beneath my skin
and there, just
shy of the surface
is a quickening
a subtle pulse of veins
that pumps life
between the gales of
my heart's steppes
flushing out
the pain
somewhere
deep
within the private lotus
of my being
folioles unfurl
leafy shapes around
my organs
wrapping them like gifts
as they undulate in whorls
opening my petals
in renewed consciousness
and deliberation
as a new kind of
stamen
rises
dusty pollen
powdery
budding ripeness
bursting up
and out
of my deepest
centered
whirlpool pistil
nectar dripping
in viscous webs,
to be caught upon
the tongue of
a new dawning
My silky outer
wings of vegetation,
slender stalks of
filaments and anther
have been turned
into hot steel
They protect
the tender vulnerable
when burned
as poison words held up to my
watchful eyes,
are properly discerned
I give myself over
to this new power,
my back arched to fully embrace
what is to come,
a universe calling thunder,
the old patterns undone
I am ready
to reveal my all
as the goddess deep within
comes to release my gold
suffusing light through skin
conjured from me
a relentless strength,
ever-growing,
now tenfold
rising way past
soft-lit stratospheres
and orbiting
to
bold
Nov 5, 2017
Nov 5, 2017 at 6:05 PM UTC
I like people who don't
trust people
Like a locked bathroom door
Protected from their own
Self exposure
But I just want to develop them
in black & white
Sell their silhouettes on the black market
Seeing what they're really worth
These are the people
with lures hanging from their teeth
like wind chimes or dreamcatchers
Bodies of abandoned carnivals
And people become like trespassers
On their unholy grounds
Here to document
the decay
Caress the chipping paint
Hoping for tetanus
They wonder when they became
Archeology
Like the lost part of found
Feb 20, 2015
Feb 20, 2015 at 2:03 PM UTC
I am an
emotional
archeologist
digging d
e
e
p
into the contours
of the heart
trying to discern
what spots
need tender healing,
how to treat and
soothe its
fissured parts
I am a soul-mind
excavator
discerning
temperature and hue
measuring the depths
of textures
as we get down
to the root
We work hard,
my team and I
mapping earthen layers
we use the implements
of wisdom
to try and heal
this pain acute
and as we gently
cut through the strata
of history, of scars
I know that this
explorer's work
is worth it
for we will reach up
to the stars
So we continue on
in patience,
into the
blazing core
like truth-warriors
like healers
unlocking secret
ancient treasures
that will rise up
to the
fore
Apr 4, 2016
Apr 4, 2016 at 8:40 PM UTC
wild night videos
for the dark web
3 Atlean men
and a girl
she got it
by a mob
of Moroccan **** rockets
and will pine
for the rest of her days
screaming to the hells
in a reimagined language
the regression to Lilith
**** *********
the world
when hell touched paradise
***** and man handled
shot by shot
mouth to ****** to ****
split and folded
tooth and nail
to drive the ****** tides
of the world
***** monsters like
T Rex
force a ritual infliction
butter meat of dreams
pain sensually
reworked into pleasure
blister-hot and oh so sweet
married to a paradox
like feeling bad
about feeling good
give me your ankles *****
an unveiled immediacy
right off the bat
i got just the girl
confiding in me
so ready to die
like an Aztec princess
to be the star
like a peacock
in an engorged circus
blizzard of jealous snakes
strangled fanged and spewed
a swansong exhibition
in blood-soaked ponytails
a bobbing head
and choke throat ***** picnic table
with mayonnaise wounds
mediating power
in a psychoanalytic fetish
death is not death
but performative submission
her body ransacked
in tooth marks
and red tipped *******
steaming eraser head
pulses
a **** soaked
chicken on a plate
eradicating reality
are you gonna eat that?
pass the ***
collapses time
lust
custodian
of human archeology
**** piñata
bearing gifts
of squirty pork gasms
******** and cuchifritos
corpus of ****** horror
as liberation
crosses-temporality
and breaks the vessel of time
oow
Nefertiti where are you
a tongue up the ***
sniffs
Prada's Candy Perfume
**** blinking licks
up there where havoc lives
in **** **** farm country
Oct 5, 2020
Oct 5, 2020 at 2:28 PM UTC
As I trace my fingers over your spine, and explore your naked body I wonder how many other explorers have been here.
I wonder if you put your body up for display and let these people perform archeology on your body.
You become a new discovery to some or a misused ****** to others. I want to perform reverse archeology to your soul and bring you back to life.
I just can't seem to forget how many people have explored you before me. Some things are better left undiscovered.
Aug 8, 2016
Aug 8, 2016 at 3:57 PM UTC
Floor Shipping Shipping; adjective /
ARCHEEOLOGY : Last name adjective.
The first stone floor was placed about 2.5 million years ago
when the first stone tools were fashioned and used
by the Supreme Court, good for every paleolithic person.
Paleolithic. Good for every person. Paleolithic;
His name is lower paleolithic, his name is lower
paleolithic. A good name. Paleolithic Arena.
good name. Paleolithic Arena. The name of the upper
Paleolithic for the upper Paleolithic based on
from the age of 19 years of prehistoric Stone;
Old Stone Greek exchange rates + + -Ic:
the same flight with the same fear of fire,
except for the movement of the basket legs.
The devil gave Sadistic childcare early
in the morning; the punishment provided by law
and used from start to finish, use of the sign
of salvation, etc. Legs; feet and legs, soles of steps
was only a spin, as | loving Arias rise
in the morning's morning of morning of the morning
and the dead with their mouths speak
and eat, and is as it were, | the wedding dress;
It is best to get to the mind especially
when it comes due to satellites, | and in yellow, |
Ralph Lauren sings songs about eternal life.|
Floor; Shipping, Shipping; adjectively ARCHEOLOGY: Last name adjective. The floor of the first stone was placed
about 2.5 million years ago when the first stone tools
were fashioned used by the High Council. Good for every person.
Paleolithic. good for every person. Paleolithic. his name is lower
paleolithic. his name is lower paleolithic. A good name to announce in the Paleolithic Arena. Good name. Paleolithic Arenas.
The name of the upper Palaeolithic for the upper Palaeolithic
is based on; From the age of 19 years of prehistoric
Stone Old Stone Greek exchange rates + + -Ic: the same flight
with the same fear of fire, except for the movement of the basket legs.
| | | ||_The devil gave So childcare early in the morning._|| |||
The punishment given by law
and used from beginning to end,
the sign of salvation, etc., Legs,
feet and legs, the soles of her feet
were only spiders and the love
of Asia rising early in the morning,
in the morning the morning and
the dead in their mouths speak |
and eat and is, as it were the wedding
dress it is best to get the ghost,
especially when it comes through
satellites and sings yellow Ralph
Lauren songs about eternal life.
Knowledge of quality of life, the hard steps of the evening musician; Note that the first poetry in the world is that of the child that is a teenager who lied to her in the morning, morning, early morning, swimming and bones, and the father, with the eyes a lover of God is crazy. "Do not **** each other in time and money, some on foot." Crazy, crazy, crazy Asian, um, the ants that emit the color of reality are doomed, and if, and for those who are bad, and the king of ***** leaking a few feet of ... save my God's gratitude For example, God knows a simple one and for cutting, heating and healing bones. What is your time, it is still a shame for people living in the neighborhood. Beginning, I thought this morning in Asia Asia had a number of areas that especially Sikhs characterize with many words. Ralph Lauren, yellow socks, color in the family, which, as a man, offers the developer G Fat or thighs of the rich, fighting fatty liver for trice the price of of TMZ: Levi's green team of archery riders in his first match against Zion in Asia, and parts of the slide closure and socks are dead and believe in vibration. Are you crazy? Did the boy have a boy and should he have won? In debt to MLK - are the eyes of God, and to meditate on drinking alcohol and women. I know you love to swim in your clothes, feet and legs that are close to yours are FUTURISM.
Oct 12, 2018
Oct 12, 2018 at 8:32 PM UTC
Sometimes I wonder what would happen if you did an archeological dig
On me
If you dug up my soul and my heart and everything that makes up my non-physical being
Would you find the scars of the major hurts in my life?
The abuse, the loneliness, and the self doubt?
Would you, upon further inspection, see that the former two are formed,
Not only by the first, but by what should be insignificant actions done by other people
That hammer at my heart
Putting cracks in my self confidence and my self worth
I don't want to hide it, but I do because I don't want you to see this part of me
And if you dug up and analyzed my mind,
would you see all the unkind thoughts I think-
All the pride I carry with me-
in contrast to the constant feeling that
For some reason
I'm not good enough
And the fear
That if you really knew me you would walk, or even run,
In the opposite direction
If you were able to dig into my spirit, and see me
Really see me
And dig up all my thoughts and feelings and secrets
What would you find?
What would you discover that would make you see me differently?
If I were to do the same for you
what would I find?
I'm not quite sure, but what I do know is this:
That whatever I found, and whatever I discovered, and however differently I saw you
Afterward
Afterward
I would still love you
And sometimes
I wonder
If you dug me up and saw
Everything
Would you still love me?
Jun 9, 2013
Jun 9, 2013 at 8:20 PM UTC
I’m trapped under earth
The sheet of crust
Is too thick
To pick through
Too tough
For hands
Even as rough as mine
I climb
But reach
The impassible
Layer
And pass out
Like faint
Memories
Of times
Overhead
Now I’m under
Stand in
The depths
Of below
Unbeknownst to those
Higher
No one to excavate my soul
They don’t know
What lies beneath their feet
They tread on me
I’m responsible
For this
Reverse archeology
I put my future
Underneath
Only
To fight
With a lack of energy
Lost
From digging
To deep
If it’s true
That you’ll sow
What you reap
I hope
These seeds of me
Will grow
Into something deeper
Than
What lies beneath…
May 13, 2014
May 13, 2014 at 1:52 AM UTC
On a chocolate tour through Paris,
after asking me which type of ice cream I would like,
My tour guide asked me if I believed in god...
I told her it was a loaded question,
and said "Plum and yes."
An odd question from my self-proclaimed,
atheist,
and godless tour guide.
She said she didn't believe in Adam and Eve because
she was studying Archeology,
hence she could not believe in god.
I felt bad for her.
Aug 21, 2013
Aug 21, 2013 at 12:08 PM UTC
We ran out of time! I screamed as the smoke rushed from under the door.
This is just a metaphor.
We ran out of time. As if running in place to get back the life we once had that was safe.
I study clocks, watches, and smiles like archeology.
We are all hour glasses tipped over waiting for the sand to run out. Yet most will stay in that room as the smoke begins to choke them more and more.
This is just a metaphor.
You are running out of time! Most of us never turn around to jump out the window and save ourselves.
You are going to die one day!! I screamed as the flames engulfed the door.
This, is just a metaphor.
Oct 5, 2016
Oct 5, 2016 at 10:51 AM UTC
Love never fully goes away
It sinks deeper into the marrow
Entwines around the sensitive organs
Submerged below conscious but entrails remain
It changes form and shape
The intensity modulates
We are a congregate of our indefatigable sharing
Our connections made between receptive nerves
Once we come together, the neurons form
permanent connections deeply engrained and cast
A gestalt of feelings some hidden deep
into an archeology of merged soul residue
May 6, 2014
May 6, 2014 at 7:57 AM UTC
Rose quartz laid beneath the soil.
Amidst the diamonds.
Rewards grown underground.
Never to be found.
The sleepers with the bony fingers, clasp tight the gifts they bear.
Only the grave robbers care.
Not scared of raking up the earth.
Merry makers making mirth.
Past times.
Passed times.
Pieces of pewter.
Old crocks.
In bed with old crocks.
Mounds of dead soil.
Piles rocks.
Curled up remains of mortal child.
Long since gone.
Mystery of history.
Revealed, unfeeling.
Respectful.
(C) LIVVI
Sep 17, 2015
Sep 17, 2015 at 4:09 PM UTC
file me away,
till dusty, till the drawer
squeaks, and won't close.
collecting archeology,
no place for me, out
of time, like us (were)
back wrecked and filed
with matching spine,
few papers to yellow.
catch me Sunday.
what'd you forget?
you no boxer yet.
file me away,
a pencil you forgot
to finish chewin'.
Oct 10, 2013
Oct 10, 2013 at 1:22 AM UTC
The exploration of the woods decreases as the artists perfect their virtual ones
From the couch, consume a million adventures without ever stepping a stone
Evil defeated
Dopamine Depleted
Enjoy the glory all alone
The birds and bees cease to be
No eyes outside
No care if nest or hive empty
Just plastic archeology
Bare bones and silcone
Til the last leaf falls from the tree
May 14, 2021
May 14, 2021 at 10:47 PM UTC
Poetry is solely
the archeology
of consciousness,
the pot-shards
of a mind
whose true
experience
can just be
guessed at.
When you read it
you discover
mere pieces,
not the original
arrangement.
You try to wonder
them back
together,
but can't quite.
When you write it,
you leave clues
for scientists
yet to arrive
who will never
fully understand
who you were,
which is OK
because you
never did either.
- mce
Apr 9, 2015
Apr 9, 2015 at 4:10 PM UTC
I was one of many people
drawn to participate in a learning experience
which was taking place outside in a historical town
in front of a very old Victorian house which was painted a deep forest green. As I sat on the floor, I grabbed for a large long piece of foam, a mat or mattress which I could sit or sleep on if needed, realizing that not everyone had a mat and that if I let it go someone else would probably take it. The man who was teaching said that he had started scraping at some dried mud and as it fell away the porch ceiling was revealed. I looked up from my mat and there, high above my head was the deep forest green bead boarded ceiling he spoke of. As it turned out, this was a class on archeology in which the subject was this old house which had been unearthed....
Dec 4, 2014
Dec 4, 2014 at 10:16 AM UTC
The archeology doesn't bother with tattoos. That's why we'll never know, whether dinosaurs had them.
When, being in a hot bath, you see a tiny 42 floating through the steam, don't make any loud noises or splashes. Let it settle down, let it talk.
Sometimes, a good beer is more than a good beer, but even then it's still a good beer.
Naked people are often quite weird, in a odd way.
Apr 21, 2021
Apr 21, 2021 at 10:01 AM UTC
I saw my heart dancing
in the park wood today
She was dark
and lithe
and graceful
She is dark because I am
discovering Her still
and am not completed yet
It's an archeology of the heart
I practice
The inner eye caught
the nuanced landscape
which foretold the fossil
With careful strokes
respectful of the treasures
within me,
I clear away
I clear away
My trowels: feelings
my brushes: tears and laughter
As they are cut away
from ego sediment and stone,
my fossil pieces
fit in place
and lock together the puzzle
that I was
that I was
It is a re-membering I do
because
because
I saw my heart dance
in the park wood today
c. 2009/2017 Roberta Compton Rainwater
Oct 23, 2017
Oct 23, 2017 at 5:33 PM UTC
uncovering me
discovery
territory yours
noticing you
knowing me
more completely more
to my knees
on the floor
shamelessly implore
too heavy this to mention
too unabashed i adore
so truth is silent written
forbidding you to read
until the i lay hidden in
the needing of this need
Feb 22, 2016
Feb 22, 2016 at 6:46 AM UTC
'TWAS THEN THE TIME...WE WERE IN THE DAYS"
His head full
of Irish myth.
The here & there
of this & that
bits that stick
in the mind
for as long as
forever is.
Sticky backs hitching
a ride on a boy's blue jumper.
This the emotional
archeology of me
sifting what's left
of times
long long gone by
in the time of his own
long long gone byes.
A winter of '63.
That 67-ish summer.
An Easter
that brought death.
There was a woman
(was there a woman?)
turned into a pool
turned into a fly
blown away by a wind
her name eroded
by a sea of time.
And the legendary heroes
like little boys
building a snowman
that would be the biggest
of the biggest
and
that the women would
compete to see
who could ***
furtherest through this
man of snow.
Some things are
not made
. . .to forget.
Oh such
artifacts of thoughts!
Such shards of stories
come back
to see what
kind of man
the little boy
would become.
He smiles as he remembers
& un-remembers
the such
of such
the unforgettable
calling to him
in mythic voices
the tallest tales
still easier
to resurrect
that his time
of 9
when he was going on
10.
Jan 13, 2016
Jan 13, 2016 at 5:56 PM UTC
Sitting
Thinking
Reviewing the day
Great start great power
Full strength
Spent
Now here lies
Old bones
Slipping away
Into
An
Archeology
Dig.
Apr 15, 2014
Apr 15, 2014 at 11:26 PM UTC
Gunboat diplomacy
Dynamite archeology
Unnecessary surgery
The way we mince our words
Virtual friends and views
Terrible ends
We refuse
To see as nothing
That could happen to us
As conflagration moves like water
Over an acrylic floor
Which morphs into a globe form
To welcome in the war.
Dec 22, 2024
Dec 22, 2024 at 6:50 AM UTC