"archives" poems
My *** drive would cause earthquakes,
but I can never find the time
to leave this place,
this bed-side lamp,
and away from poor attempts at rhyme.
Depression is a tired old topic.
But *** is forever at hand
to pin you down,
to win you round,
slinking off to the toilet in my dressing gown.
I know you feel a belonging
to the archives of music,
you drink in bed,
and sink on in,
to the restless call of another troubled head.
I will find restoration
held between your slender legs.
It is all we've got,
in this paradise lost,
in this sweaty reclaim,
to a feeling we'd forgot.
Going down is not an art,
but a way of keeping young.
How can you claim to love
what you won't dare to kiss?
How will you ever hear her siren song?
Sep 19, 2014
Sep 19, 2014 at 9:14 PM UTC
it's funny how technology
has made it impossible for us
to bury things completely
our past is never hidden
when all you have to do
is google a name
and a lifetime pops up on the screen
tonight i spent hours
reading the messages
you sent me
that said that you'd love me
forever and that you would
always be a part of my
happiness, no matter what
if this were 1953 i'd be
reading letters
and my tears would smear
the heart felt hand writing
that bared your soul
instead the salty liquid
sits stagnant on the
spacebar and i'm
holding on tight
to my screen
trying to force myself
to simply shut the laptop
hoping that closing it
will wake me up from this
dream, oh nothing is
going to wake me up
from this
says the inner realist
and i'm still typing away
about you
adding to the never-ending
archives of our love
or what it once was
May 23, 2011
May 23, 2011 at 2:28 PM UTC
I looked into my grandpa's eyes
In my daughter's face disguised
My son's hands now strong indeed
Just like my dad's I see.
Temperament like calm currents flow
From generations long ago
Eyes hazel gold so beautiful
Passed to me ... ages old
Grandma gave her that tenacity
And there's Meema's willful personality
My son took Peepa's tender heart
That feels the pain of another's lot
High cheekbones a dead give away
Of Comanche heritage displayed
Blonde hair like one we never knew
His life cut off way too soon
Deep poetic waters flow
Music locked inside us rose
From history past revealed today
Sweet sung lullabies relayed.
Unknown tears that flowed from souls
Pain and hardship we'll never know
What did it take to bring us here
What suffering did they volunteer
Archives of history living in me
Within me the keys to great mysteries
Treasures buried deep inside my soul
Tapestries of lives sewn together as a whole
Fragments of you, pieces of me
Weaving together delicate filigrees
Illustrious building rise from the grave
Living forever through endless age
Jul 6, 2012
Jul 6, 2012 at 6:21 PM UTC
By: Cedric McClester
As we shall see infidelity
While seeming to be
The latest fashion
Where there’s conviction
And passion
So even those
Who walk down the aisle
Are often betrayed by words or a smile
Increasingly
We’re beginning to see
Infidelity
Wouldn’t you agree
Let’s keep it real
There’s Bill - (And Camille)
Knows how it feels
When tabloids reveal
The infidelity
That she didn’t see
Though it kept happening
Time and again
Increasingly
We’re beginning to see
Infidelity
Wouldn’t you agree
The unions survive
The husbands and wives
Living separate lives
Check out the archives
So what’s the reason
For their treason
Finding someone to squeeze in
Must be in season
It’s hard to respect
Those you wouldn’t suspect
Of bedding the babysitter
So you can’t blame the wives
For being angry or bitter
Cuz it never occurred
It was the babysitter
Who was preferred
Increasingly
We’re beginning to see
Infidelity
Wouldn’t you agree
Cedric McClester, Copyright (c) 2016. All rights reserved.
Apr 11, 2016
Apr 11, 2016 at 10:32 PM UTC
To all the friends I lost along the way
It was you who shaped me into who I am today
You made me happy and when you left I was sad
But now I look back on you, I don't think our parting was so bad
You left a legacy within me
And now I can become who I'm meant to be
I couldn't have done so without you
And I hope you think the same too
Our paths may never cross again
But since I met you my life has never been the same
And now I wonder where you are
And I hope that from where we met you have traveled far
I know that you are changing people's lives
And so I search into my heart archives
And there I find the love I used to feel for you
And then I see a light, a tiny spark of blue
The love is still alive because of all you've done
And so I search for another special someone
To take a place in my heart
But there is still a small locked up part
Where the spark of love I have for you
Can never die and never bloom
Until the day that we may meet again
Whether on earth or in heaven
Now I sign this letter and say
I love you! To all the friends I lost along the way.
Dec 24, 2015
Dec 24, 2015 at 6:51 PM UTC
It is still blurry,
The times you held me helplessly. Holding this flesh that blinked with desperation. The glasses of problems brought to bed. Complete care with a side of beauty. Electric fingertips flowing along my sides. Stunning the flow in these veins.
It is still blurry,
The words that pressed off your tongue. Words that finished sleep and solid thought. The same mouth that has changed lives, comforted family, cursed like a sailor. Giving strength to simply continue. Moving mountains, depending on your approach. Making mornings sunlit on cloudy days. Your sunlight showed this life dissipated darkness.
It is still blurry,
Angst and tension between bones. The tension that can't be resisted nor denied. Giving me the strength transverse miles each way, just to sleep next to your breath. Open this heart, cuddle with its inners. Cut this tension with your actions knives.
It is still blurry,
The elation you delivered to my doorstep. Served purpose in my life. Giving me a chance to release all those dusty window sills in the attic. I complied an archives of you in my senses. The way you gave that heart of yours.
It is still blurry,
The times you settled the fears resting on your ancient dresser. Yeah the one you brag about. The one that held our water during rest, held our alarms to begin another day, and even our books of education shared. We have split these lives in so many directions. All ending in the same bed. Closer than my skin is to its bones. We were one in that bed. One after a life lived in every direction.
It is still blurry,
Your purpose. Actions and words in separate realms. All it would have took was a phone call. You insisted the benefits. Leaving us in seperate beds, different countries, different mind sets. Why not just enjoy love. Love lost in a storm of self discovery.
Jun 10, 2014
Jun 10, 2014 at 10:27 PM UTC
Inside of my body
Amidst death and poison
a virus lurks
in every
puddle,
pumping
blood that flushes
my tired heart
like
the river
Styx
Amidst this
battlezone
that is my
failing being
lies
a secret, sleeping
The cells swim by
They are
rarer
now like precious gems
the factories of my
fighting body
produced like
diamonds
born amidst feverish
forges within
a toxic mine
The gems,
they call them T-cells,
are now suicide bombers
converted daily
by the
whisper of
necromancy
They call
this
hex ***
a war against
your own
treasures
Yet my T-cells
are more,
runes blazing
mystic and
glowing,
antigen sorcery
that wards against
failing
Amidst
the 300,000 +sleeper
cells
that abandoned
my cause
Insurgence
bulges with
nightmare
The cells
clamour
growing with the whispers
of past victims
now roped into the
mystic chains, the wizards
call it RNA,
that bind us
An ironic family
of ghosts
who live
in each other
"junk DNA"
My body
is no junk;
instead a treasure
- what do they say
one man's trash?
My body
an
amalgamation
30 years
magic growing
twisted
like thorny vines
that must consume
their
helpless host
My
T-cells
inception
Worlds within me
the "JUNK"
of
lovers past
becomes entangled
in archives
carved in my bones.
Amidst recipes
of a poison
I cannot trace,
I am
ironically
linked
into
a
family of
ancestors
whose cries
beat in
my still
working heart
The drum
of the long fallen
crying for justice
...My blood
Our blood.
chains enmeshing
....ghosts I
will never know
Now parts of me
that lie sleeping in
Trojan horses,
all my own.
Jul 8, 2014
Jul 8, 2014 at 6:16 AM UTC
Do not lance your hair
Just to satisfy those men in suits,
Or your woman, sat there with that expectant gaze
Reserved for only you.
Let your image be cultivated
Through the culture of the downstroke.
The lazy thick steel on the neck of the guitar
That shudders at your touch
And responds with the readiness of one thousand ******
Cooing their broken sounded and false approvals.
I see your fingers fumble across the chipped mahogany
And I recall on the benefit of all men
The first and forgotten lovers,
Buried beneath years of clumsy ***
And vicious disregard.
And from the shadows in the archives of your grey matter
You remember every wince of self-doubt,
Etched across the faces of your women
That you never cared to notice in the dizzy ecstasy
Of your youthful wantonness
And the hardness of your ****
So age will bite at your features,
And you will squint in the wind,
Cowering at the cold that clings to your bones.
At some age you will cut your hair
And iron your shirt.
Nurse your whiskey
And find yourself in receipt of all those women
Still tangled in the hotel sheets
In the back lodgings of your mind
And everything they did to shape you.
And you pick up that old acoustic
And play the tune of one thousands odes.
Sep 13, 2012
Sep 13, 2012 at 11:39 PM UTC
Seven score and eleven years after the Emancipation Proclamation;
I'd like to thank my community for finally acknowledging his memory.
Wanting to view historical document written by Rev. Martin Luther King,
logged on and took a virtual trip to our ever expanding National Archives.
His views on day of historic speech, "Heartwarming to see this marvelous,
gigantic group of people here from all over the nation to give witness."
I'm giving credit to ABC news for being allowed to hear the man's words
from his own mouth without having to read them in black and white.
There's no argument in regards to race differences and that we the people,
have miles to go before we are at similar mindset in climate of opinion.
Spotlight should shine brightly on how far we've come as we the people,
away with all the negatives of no hopes of ever achieving racial harmony.
If MLK were alive today he'd see many positive changes and would see
his dream is still alive and well though we have miles to journey's end.
Yes, Dr. Martin Luther King, you are appreciated as we honor your day.
I have many reasons to thank you and all who paid the ultimate sacrifice.
My children are allowed to attend any public school they wish without fear.
I can now sit in the front of the bus without fear of arrest or a mob beating.
There are no laws preventing me from front door entry of public buildings.
Thanks so much! I'm free to date or marry any person of any race I choose.
The list above is just a small sampling of all the changes his life evoked.
I'm thankful he was gifted to our planet in period of time he was needed.
He is missed by the planet and those of us who are grateful that he existed.
Dr. Martin Luther King was true Visionary with foresight to see great things.
Jan 19, 2014
Jan 19, 2014 at 7:16 AM UTC
There's a secret chamber, indestructible matter. Matter can exist in no more stable state than this small chamber is in. The chamber occupies very little space in the center of the earth. The chamber contains two dimensional information. This information describes everything that ever happened on earth for the archives. The octopuses recorded everything. They perceived everything. If an octopus managed to wrap it's tentacles around your head, you'd understand. It would tell you that everything has been worth it. You'd understand that you must live beautifully for the sake of the swirling two-dimensional archive at the center of the earth.
Mar 5, 2013
Mar 5, 2013 at 6:04 PM UTC
SweetPea!
she put my poem
"The Rain Unseen"
(which was posted a long time ago)
on a few of the
collection sites
she went back into my
archives to find it!
it happens to be one
of my favorite poems!
there are many people who
do this. SweetPea just
gave me an inspiration
what if we did this:
rather than ♥ing a
recent poem
go back into a poet's
ARCHIVE
and look for a worthy
buried treasure?
(a good poem which never trended)
like, and
REPOST
and put on the
appropriate collections
I had a wonderful response
because a lovely poet
reposted a write I'm
very proud of
Thanks to all who
have done this for me
in the past also
YOU ARE ALL WONDERFUL!
Jul 10, 2015
Jul 10, 2015 at 12:48 PM UTC
You are there in the centuries,
standing on the hottest sands
face of illusion, higher civilizations
everyone tried to understand,
For you they wrote so many poems,
books and pages, history archives
the unbearable block stone can't hide
what you have inside your cold womb.
Pharaohs, kings and dynasties are
there to come and go as shadows,
Embraced by you their faces remain
deep in underground finding the truth,
but you still live proudly with the time,
until existence of the earth and sun
return you to the ashes of greatest love song.
-nour-
June-013
Jun 24, 2013
Jun 24, 2013 at 4:47 AM UTC
To these Babylonians
Oh father, and I am a child of Abraham
Daughter of salt and desert
Daughter of the sun blazed beige dream mountains
Who roll together like sleeping dinosaurs
In the archives of my memory.
To these Babylonians
And I have withheld from them my true name
For their tongues are not fit to pronounce it
Written in black stardust across my ankle
Branded like the wandering sheep
In the blue hills drowning in yellow gnats and cloud.
My father taught me how to survive
Babylonia
By the seaside the shore was covered in
Transparent jellyfish and dark ocean weeds
Abraham inhaling foamy salt waves
Preaching black oil, blood and fire
Preaching this, Babylonia
When foreign lands resemble home
When homes revert to foreign land.
When earth and sky and water do not remember you
When you do not remember them
Singing still in the salty undertow
Treble clefs caked in the cracks of my bones
Barefoot fire altar, sticky sunbeam fractures
Progeny of Abraham
Singing sacrifice
Stolen seconds folding themselves into eternity.
To these Babylonians
And I am a child of Isaac
Violin strings shouting with the river
Jacob whispered all rivers and all rivers
Flow to Rome
And all salt water tastes of home
Find me in the poison current of the obsidian ocean
Jellyfish seaweed and petroleum-slurred sands
My father Abraham sang many songs.
Dec 2, 2015
Dec 2, 2015 at 5:17 PM UTC
Browsing life’s dusty files,
the archives of all that happened,
our memories can span the miles
and be right there in just one second.
Distance never separates people,
but it brings us all together,
makes us realize we’re equal
and that our roots are not a tether.
But it’s always hard facin’ goodbyes
at any time… to people or places…
to know, while deeply lookin’ in their eyes,
you’ll never see again their faces.
Aug 8, 2014
Aug 8, 2014 at 2:50 AM UTC
“when you get up in the morning you must take your heart in your two hands. You must do this every morning.” Grace Paley
fall into me
on blackout days
for something beautiful
is here is everywhere
is nowhere
you knew it
Borges used it
beauty is a physical sensation
the axis mundi piercing
the palms of my hands
memory like a gipsy woman
who reads palms
beauty, yes, it draws the soul
ascetic
I figured it out in the smiling of your sleep
like babies smile to angels, they say
this game that keeps us alive is hers
golden beetles die for it
of for the love of dust
pastimes of gods its archives
everyday the light tastes differently
the body moves where the mind is
or the other way round
I'll read Cartarescu to you half naked
one page a day
beauty is the quest,
this spiral of wonder
filling up the rest &
my nails
Feb 10, 2023
Feb 10, 2023 at 1:42 PM UTC
the wrong atmospherics of transmission
move in uninvestigated chaotic archives
red and pink turbulent storms swarm across
deep space frequencies in imaginative
currents of pulsars
that are translated into phases
each represented in diverse
conflicting modes of expression
in obsessive grooves of consciousness
cut up components of recycled narratives
audibly fixating on vibrations
that sound across the universe
in diffused spirals of manic fluctuations
converting archaic symbols into equivalents
of dust surfaces that oxidise in intermittent epochs
and deposit a rediscovered earth
an expansive transferable construction
of accidental providence
that allows for expression in artificially generated realities
hallucinated images that float
across the consciousness of the cosmos
producing visions that punctuate rational thought
become preoccupied with the conception
of interplanetary transpeciation
counting the chronological diversity
of those that occupy the black, blank
vacuum of space
Aug 4, 2013
Aug 4, 2013 at 7:54 PM UTC
Leave it for a day and the world forgets you exist. Not all followers, mind you, but most. Over 4,000 followers on Twitter and they'll retweet the latest tweet only. Most won't ask "Where's Kendra? Is she ok?" They won't go through my archives of posted poems to read or find some kinship. No. Only the latest & greatest, thank you very much.
Is it my poetry? Does it throw people off? Is it because I don't constantly write about erotica & flaming *** Is it because I discuss domestic violence like an uncaged soul? Or is it merely the beast of social media, itself? These questions I often ask myself.
I suppose it sounds like I'm feeling sorry for myself. Perhaps that isn't too far from the truth.
Not to put myself on some pedestal. I do the same thing. I simply find it sad. Thousands of poems posted between here, Twitter, blogs, etc. and it all goes unnoticed - except the latest one posted. Surely I'm not the only who feels this way but it wouldn't be the first time if I am.
Oct 3, 2015
Oct 3, 2015 at 11:58 AM UTC
He called my poem
Wise and tropical
The heat of the Caribbean:
The tongue of the goddess
Years of eating so much
Fishcakes lace with Guinea Pepper Seeds
Ginger beer and mauby bark drink
Top with lemonade and pomegranates
remains in my blood stream:
When I dream, I dream
and react like a chosen prophets
So, I spread my words like a modern Moses
Message in my poems, are
Like ashes, they can’t be bottle
They have to be scattered
Throughout the internet,
Around the globe: global feeds,
Depending on the poet’s pen
The archives is not the place for them to be stored
I once saw my mother sob
As she kneel in the sugar cane field
The tears was for her children future,
These days I sob because of a bad dream
Our American dream is no longer valid,
a beacon of hope without a definition
for our future:
Tupac saw the comings
In his dreams,
Suddenly, the silencer
Silence him,
Martin Luther king, had a dream
A silencer silent him
Apparently, John Lennon was getting closer to the truth
he too was silent
He called my poems
Wise and tropical,
I think of them as written transmission:
Oct 3, 2018
Oct 3, 2018 at 11:27 AM UTC
Reading,
Reading you,
Reading me:
Symphonic emotional intelligence,
Words like a violinist.
I carry them with me
Inside my mind applying reality,
The unreality passsing out of me.
The poems speak like see through natures,
The clarity of my discombobulation.
You all become real.
Archives of the souls
Instantaneous connection
Closer than
Touch:
Your words resonance with every
Fiber of my being.
Your words
Invent more words,
Your emotions tie
The world's shoestrings,
The experience shared
Is a reality of musical theatre
And it kills the silence,
The silence of the mind.
Your words are movement,
Be it from a past,
The metaphysical dance,
A kiss of gentle air,
The idea is a life living
Recovering from the enigmatic plague
Of ignorance.
Though I see the bird sing
My heart stops when it I hear it
Through your words;
Connectivity.
Reading is not reading,
It is saying what your silence says,
Art becoming life in an echo of YOU.
The words that I understand:
Yes, the pain is also a gesture of reality,
It lets us know it was real,
Your tears,
Your secrets,
The murmured past,
And as I read it becomes as the
Sun on morning dew.
Beginnings,
Endings,
You become apart of me,
I become part of you,
Not words
But music in the silence.
And the moment will come
When you hear it too:
The poetry:
Crystalline humanity.
Aug 1, 2016
Aug 1, 2016 at 12:14 PM UTC
It’s the morning of a different day—who knew there’d be another?
Lisa and I went on our harbor jog @ 5am—that’s nothing new.
It was, like 44°—we’re enjoying fall’s cold, refreshing bite.
Anyway, my mind wasn’t on it and I nearly stumbled over
a chunk of dark, uneven roadway, made invisible by its function.
Charles, jogging beside me, wordlessly managed to right me
without us losing a step and I smiled my thanks.
argh! I’ve got to get out of my head.
Later, in class, lulled by the comfort of the stiff, wooden chair, my eyes unfocused and the professor’s voice seemed to fade into the backdrop. Suddenly, he was asking me a direct question that seemed almost without context.
Metaphorically slapped back into focus, I scanned the room and the whiteboard for clues before awkwardly—walking the edge of catastrophe—bluffing it out, because, well, I’ve an instinctive reluctance to admit defeat with any sort of grace.
I didn’t sleep well last night. I had dreams—nothing with a defined purpose–just an amalgamate of bonfires and storms in a coastal scrubland with an odor of fresh cedar and a sense of casual vulnerability.
My attention today is like an intermittent pulse.
.
.
Songs for this:
Headz Gone West by Nia Archives
Dark Red by Steve Lacy
Nov 8, 2024
Nov 8, 2024 at 8:13 AM UTC
Today I ran through the archives of the extensive library of memory,
in there I found various books with titles I have been longing to read;
"Days of shimmering sunshine,"
"Friendships forged for life,"
"The purple Barney I played with,"
"The best"
and "The worst."
I browsed through myriads of red and navy blue leatherbacks,
only to realize I found myself.
I found that it contained my dreams,
my fears,
my hopes
and even the reason for the selection of my favorite chocolate.
Memory reminds us of our essence.
The essence that brings tranquility to our souls on a chaotic day,
an essence that reminds us of our path that brought us to the destination of today.
Visit the library of memory often,
and remember to take a cup of steaming tea.
Sep 5, 2018
Sep 5, 2018 at 11:48 AM UTC
It left residue on these two hands
so much that you won't shake them
you won't grab them when these hands are reaching out
You're scared these ***** hands might infect you
these two hands
they're bruised from the anger
scarred from the anxiety
& sticky from the memories he left
these hands are worn
exhausted
& weary
looking for rest
so when they reach out
these hands, this heart- they're in distress
and even though these hands are sticky
I am not asking you to clean them
Just hold them
make them feel seen
cuz there's residue now
but one day these two hands will be clean
Oct 11, 2021
Oct 11, 2021 at 9:41 AM UTC
Around this time of year
when the sun and shorts come out
I remember the past.
Others are looking forward
while I'm looking behind.
In afternoons
in sun soaked classrooms
I look down
at my ankles and wrists
and I awkwardly shuffle to cover the past.
I remember two years ago,
and the depression I never quite recovered from.
I tug on my sleeves to cover the marks
least anyone notice the fading white scars.
I remember the razor blades
and blood soaked sheets
as I pour out my feelings
and body on to the pages.
I remember the tears and anger,
and confusion
because
why would a sweet girl from a good family
and nice neighborhood
ever do this to herself?
I remember wanting to tell someone
but never feeling like I could ever trust anyone again.
I remember my hopelessness.
I run my fingers over the crosshatching,
for the vagueness of my memories,
the scars feel so real.
And the past comes alive to me
in these afternoons
when I remember
exactly two years ago.
And today
as a similar situation arises
and for the first time
is a long time
I longed for that ache.
But instead of stiffing through the archives
to find the rusty razor blades,
I close my eyes
and whisper to myself
*"You are strong.
And you will wear these scars as a reminder of how strong you are,
and how you survived."*
And the past remains the past.
Jun 7, 2014
Jun 7, 2014 at 11:12 PM UTC
Dear Mom,
I know I shouldn’t have been
snooping, but when looking
for some socks on a day when I was
still living with you and had neglected
to do my laundry, meticulously paper clipped
in your drawer, I found a 26-page document
that made my insides curl
when I saw the name of Dad’s mistress
printed blatantly on the front cover.
Yes, I looked through it
(and I know I shouldn’t have) and I don’t know
what made me more disturbed—the fact
that you took the time, ink and paper
to look up the woman who
destroyed your marriage
on public records,
and neatly annotated the highlights
of her messy divorce
prior to meeting Dad—or that this
26-page monstrosity sat innocently beside
his old Valentine’s Day cards,
still painstakingly arranged by year, mixed in
with your daughters’ decade-old crayon drawings
captioned by the loopy letters of a child’s handwriting
next to little plastic baggies with worn edges
containing baby teeth,
the roots yellowed by age and decay.
You never let anything go, do you?
You hold time captive by the wrists
until the soft skin bruises, and even when
it finally jerks itself away, you still manage
to sweep up every speck of dust
its presence
left behind, and store it
perfectly labeled in your archives
like some neurotic historian,
where you think your daughter, who was
only looking for a pair of socks,
would never just happen to stumble upon
this hoarded material record
of every ******* thing
that torments you.
Nov 18, 2013
Nov 18, 2013 at 11:25 AM UTC