"atrophying" poems
She finds that even backyard leaves contain
a blazing history inside their veins.
She reads the legends etched in crinkled skin,
her ardent, housebound blood boiling within.
At dusk, she likes to listen to the creek–
its reverent, animated tales of meek
young girls who grew into grand bronze statues–
and long for metal legs that’d let her choose
to dare, and burn, instead of fear, and waste.
But still, at night, her body likes to chase
the hours stargazing at ceilings. And
the myth-less, coarse white stucco slowly sands
away each spot of sprouting luster on
her atrophying frame. With nerve all gone
and adult blood inert as viscous tar,
she cannot even dream of ceiling stars.
Jan 18, 2021
Jan 18, 2021 at 1:31 AM UTC
. Thin as a rake
No food intake
Endless heartache
I won't partake,
More time does slip
Life on a drip,
Alone in my head
Confined to a bed,
My time is passing
Unwaivering fasting
Mother is crying
Body atrophying,
To my family lying,
That all will be ok.
Though this body will not see the sunrise of another day.
Mar 9, 2017
Mar 9, 2017 at 3:50 PM UTC
i fall asleep in the back of ubers, to the sounds
of middle-aged drivers talking to their loved ones
giving advice, the smell of spice, my temple on the window
just playing a mental jeopardy with the meanings behind
those accented words of languages i don't understand
perhaps, once upon a time, i did, but now, no longer
i sleep like a stranger in my own home, climbing
into my bed without caution, with atrophying bones
it's a debilitating exhaustion, it's characteristic of aging
of falling and forgetting about the friendships and benefits
that broke through my bed slats, plus the flash-lit attempts
to fix the unfixable with feminist texts and crumpled cash
i dream about my mother as another, and her neck
remains untouched, perhaps only adorned with pearls
so wide, and so bright, and the garage door is always unlocked
it's comfort, it's nostalgia, it's the furthest i've been from home
and when the radio turns on, i wake to unfamiliar laughter, and
"i miss my dog, and i miss falling in love," and everything's amiss
and all i can do is sit here, tipping a stranger as i reminisce
Feb 28, 2024
Feb 28, 2024 at 1:05 AM UTC
I always somehow missed your passing silhouette
but I saw your eyes cry thunder,
saw your sweetly shivering pen-scratching-paper
in the cold streetlight
I never thought I could feel so disconnected
I was wrong.
For that and for other things. I
meant to share things. With you, with anyone I
meant to do things that are worthwhile I
meant to find the things worth living for I
meant to grasp the hands of the world tightly and never let go
I didn't want to be swayed,
and I'm swinging at the whim of drifting cobwebs
I found myself on the concrete again, tonight, throwing questions at the sky
The parts of myself worth keeping are atrophying, I thought
So I thought some more.
EVERYONE deserves love. I'm tired of scratching the snow waiting for an answer. I want the world to change. And it's not me, it's the rules that broke me. It's the rules that bent me into un
rec
og
niz able
shapes.
So then Why, I asked. One word. Crumbled as the cold set in, and I cried in the moonlight.
That was when I thought of you and the things left unanswered. Mostly I use you as a way to think about myself. When I was with you, I stopped asking questions, I think.
I need to learn how to be alone. I need to learn how to be with people and not stop being. I'm raging so freely lately that I'm dreaming again of you and of the times I kissed you and the times I should have, but mostly of the time I left you...
No regrets, hon, no matter how much it hurts.
So.
Here, again. Alone, again. The apathy is back.
Sun on my back, moon on my back, cracks
in my skin. You win.
May 1, 2012
May 1, 2012 at 1:31 PM UTC
Oh, my love, it seems we
...are at an impasse.
How has love been everything,
And, now, not nearly enough?
I am worn thin
bracing the waves of your tepid ire.
I fear the hardened heart anger’s object often acquires
But I do not doubt it.
Where are we now
But blundering with half- baked intentions
And no concrete decisions?
The whole of my childhood dreams
Has mildewed and molded
And is rotting in my throat
While yours are atrophying around your arm bones.
This is the price of age.
(This is the punishment for destructive decisions.)
The wood of our bones my be distressed,
But our ship is strong.
There is always a way.
We have only to follow it.
Feb 3, 2011
Feb 3, 2011 at 6:11 PM UTC
blue lilies
now;wilted and zapped
petals of hibiscuses;
frosting and drooping
pressed between our pages
stenching and staining
them edges
bleeding
the flesh stenches
the putrid blooms
carve squealing wounds
the blood engulfs the heart
that deliquesces
the crevices are graved
then the heart deliquesces
and falls into two
down/a rotting corpse
it oozes into
the disgust of existence
creeping through shredded layers
of shroud
covering the withering bones,
mass
and
emotions
searing
it melts eventually-the shroud
until it reaches the bones
crashes them there
spilling the liquids/
all that is left bare
is already atrophying
and i guess that's the difference between dying and rotting
dying at least leaves you
the voids to hold onto
to be nostalgic for what was held
dying-paints,hues from the ashes that blew
but rotting
eats away all that existed
and snaps leaving
detritus,stinking
odor that i need
the craft of us
all worn out
the fragments dis plumed through holocausts
the rebellion in ruination
and the twitched cold feet
each breath i've took,now smothering
you,me,and everything
the reflections,contradictions
intoxicating,caging charcoal abstracts
punctured and ruptured
all constituents consuming and decaying now
every treble
so heavy
freezing not frozen
perishing not lighter
maybe these moments
-they never stop
cause right there in the midst
everything rots.
-/and we let it
~d
Jul 27, 2018
Jul 27, 2018 at 10:52 PM UTC
Caress the pages
Of our romance spilled on paper,
Like you never want to lose it,
Like we'll wake in the same bed
Til the day we never wake up
Please promise me, you'll never leave me to wonder,
Like it was all puppets play,
Like an insidious walk to end in blame
If you dance around me, I'll know what it means
So take my hands, I'll show you what I've seen
When we meet to a gaze
I never cease to crave
The ecstasy of your touch
And loving you beyond the limits of the grave
For death is not the limit,
It is only our human minds
Atrophying bodies
And pity covered spirits
That lead us from everlasting harmony
I can't tell if you're living,
Unless my hand is on my chest
Because you, and only you,
Have a piece of me everywhere you go,
To and fro,
I want you to know,
When you're feeling low,
I'm here forever, no need for woe
Aug 30, 2017
Aug 30, 2017 at 9:21 PM UTC
toward thee spunky gal,
whose impregnation and debut appearance
way to brief a tale for Aesop
cuz, (umpteen iterations recounted),
out the birth canal aye did bop
analogously compared
to a mealy mouthed measly crop
a spindly tangle of arms and legs
radiated (starfish like)
dangled and would uselessly drop
like a raggedy ann male counterpart
(raggedy andy - how original)
with limbs that didst flop
and tis no small wonder, thyself as one
newborn baby body electric
easily confused with bony glop,
which skimpy weight
leant convenience as sigh grew older
to alternate jumping
(ala pogo stick mode) and hop
from one skinny spindle shank leg to another,
and manifold orbitz whip
sawing round the sun
bore witness to puny laughable specimen
of a nerdy lad, who (in hindsight)
grew long straggly hair,
which NO ONE (except me) could touch,
nor most definitely NOT lop
off (this fetish) compensation
for very slight physique
in dewed time begot
pencil necked geek milksop,
now at an age prowl lix sing viz
dragging, crawling, battling...
slight abdominal bulge
unlike widower octogenarian biological pop
whose once strapping superman
like build atrophying (sad sight)
since grim reaper put objectionable stop
upon head of harriet harris,
whereat two and a half score years
her longevity did top.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
now, comb may tooth how zen,
sans eight plus ten
'twill be thirteen yars
when me late mum agonizingly relinquished
an indomitable loo ving life,
which strong fighting spirit
(spittle and vinegar) yen
reached a juncture,
(sans metastasized ovarian cancer)
forewent heroic measures, which ken
not avail bottled anger within this sole son
telling thee, he didst love ye
never communicating NOR often!
Apr 20, 2018
Apr 20, 2018 at 12:27 AM UTC
my heart is made of different muscles than yours
the walls of each chamber of my heart are atrophying
burn what's left of me to the ground
upon my death, don't go to my funeral
because there won't be one
Aug 15, 2013
Aug 15, 2013 at 6:43 PM UTC
If buying time is a waste of money
Then meretricious attorneys
Bleed you of your dignity (and alimony)
Currently it is only in dying
That we see no need to speak
While our currency is evolving
We are solely imitations
Of our inimical engines
Of dissipating digestion
As sedentary wives
Remain tied to triumphant spines
Shining like a pestilence
Atrophying like elephants at a circus
Their bodies and minds imprisoned
And bound by imaginary stakes in the dirt
Young prisoners in solitary confinement
Are hiding mental gems
And emotional diamonds
In lonely shipping containers
For you to polish and find
Like two lovers intertwined
She said, I can guide myself
Despite the immensity of your lies
Jul 6, 2019
Jul 6, 2019 at 4:15 PM UTC
*the body is atrophying,
rising from the bed is an
exercise in handholds, comedy physical
wall-grabbing, flail to fall, laughing at myself, still
my super quiet whispers in the bed
of imminent death go unheard,
as somewhat desired, but not entirely,
3/4 tween unsure and surely and surly.
the blood don’t circulate fast enough,
streams slow, sad songs Pandora accumulates,
and Spotify artificial intelligence finds more,
certifying a usual unusual, feel dust mites breaking off of me
<>
*mind running in rivulets, fear floes,
courage-drowned, easy stuff
impossible, hard, beyond pale, summer melt,
drowning in self-disgust, hapless hopeless harmonic wastage
every deadline passes, dying,
easygoing no screaming, the
minimal, hard, past the behind, the pale,
the poetry is untraceable, untranslatable and never-good-enough*
*the easy out is steps away,
illusions are illusory, delusions offer no comfort,
stories you tell for amusement, leaving whimsical
dreams are practice runs, for the longer run, will shortly come do-due
the poem words die on the vine,
scorned silence, best is past,
appropriate ignominy is red-facial iced,
so it goes, no minyan for the funeral, no ten friends*
*the query repeatedly reappears,
how did I mess up so bad, some part
lazy, part afraid, humans, so much effort,
the voices-in-head saying, we’re plenty good enough
shelter can become a prison, an island,
fortress or prison, a salvation pretense,
osprey overhead, preying, feeding next gen,
hear-’em discussing options when “sleeping,”
his affairs in order?, which smile provokes the provocateur*
my affairs long dustbin guests,
sand and atmospheric disbursed,
your next poem probably, granules contained,
for this is how all life is transferred, I’m in a tiny minute, in you…
Jul 17, 2021
Jul 17, 2021 at 11:31 AM UTC
the health (MIND|BODY)
the body is atrophying,
rising from the bed is an
exercise in handholds,
and wall grabbing, no falling failure
my whispers in the bed
of imminent death go
unheard as somewhat
desired, but not entirely, unsure, unsure
the blood don’t circulate
fast enough, streams slow
to sad songs Pandora has
accumulated and plays on, and on, and on
<*>
mind run by rivulets, fear floes,
courage-drowned, easy stuff
impossible, hard, beyond pale,
drowning in self-disgust and, hopeless
every deadline passes, dying,
easygoing no screaming, the
minimal, hard, beyond the pale,
the poetry is untraceable, untranslatable
the easy out is steps away,
illusions are illusory, delusions,
are stories you tell for amusement,
dreams are practice runs, for the long run
the poem words die on the vine,
scorned silence, best is past,
appropriate ignominy ****** iced,
so it goes, no minyan for the funeral, no ten
May 11, 2020
May 11, 2020 at 3:36 AM UTC