"avocados" poems
big sweaters, ghibli, acrylic paint, cafes, knit blankets and unplanned afternoon naps on the couch, gardens, bananas, vanilla almond milk, soft yarn to crochet into ****** scarves, candles after midnight, the big trees with bulky roots, patio furniture, pianos in random buildings, the internet, manatees, the boundless colours of nail polish, peanut butter & honey, rubber boots, pens that write well, fresh new notebooks, skylights, american netflix, mothers that understand, tête à têtes, one glass of sweet white wine, awkward eye contact that turns into comfortable kissing, airplanes, fresh air, baseball caps, the female collective, the really good dark chocolate, flowers, pumpkin spice lattes and ***** chai lattes, candid laughter, yoga, oceans, high waisted shorts, striped t-shirts, docile cats, playful pups, french presses, integrity, sunscreen, meerkats, penguins, chameleons, autumn leaves, fall fashion, ruby woo mac lipstick, osho, dynamic meditation, compassion, siblings, scrambled eggs, smart phones, garageband, metronomes, hot glue guns, quinoa, ferry boats, soft hands, bicycles, real people, fat snowflakes in ample, graceful ********** backpacks that don't hurt your shoulders, hair conditioner, multi-vitamins, soft sand under bare feet, people that own up to lies, clarity, samsara, satori, samasati, visions, echinacea, lavender oil and frankincense, ambrosia apples and ripe avocados, authenticity, Morgan Freeman's voice, good kissers, ******* iced tea on a hot day, curtains, the smell of beeswax, art galleries, hand massages and foot massages, reiki, plums, mild thunderstorms, soccer ***** good surprises, when birds don't **** on your head.
Oct 9, 2013
Oct 9, 2013 at 7:24 AM UTC
What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whit-
man, for I walked down the sidestreets under the trees
with a headache self-conscious looking at the full moon.
In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images,
I went into the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of
your enumerations!
What peaches and what penumbras! Whole fam-
ilies shopping at night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives
in the avocados, babies in the tomatoes!--and you,
Garcнa Lorca, what were you doing down by the
watermelons?
I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old
grubber, poking among the meats in the refrigerator
and eyeing the grocery boys.
I heard you asking questions of each: Who killed
the pork chops? What price bananas? Are you my
Angel?
I wandered in and out of the brilliant stacks of
cans following you, and followed in my imagination
by the store detective.
We strode down the open corridors together in
our solitary fancy tasting artichokes, possessing every
frozen delicacy, and never passing the cashier.
Where are we going, Walt Whitman? The doors
close in an hour. Which way does your beard point
tonight?
(I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the
supermarket and feel absurd.)
Will we walk all night through solitary streets?
The trees add shade to shade, lights out in the houses,
we'll both be lonely.
Will we stroll dreaming ofthe lost America of love
past blue automobiles in driveways, home to our silent
cottage?
Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-
teacher, what America did you have when Charon quit
poling his ferry and you got out on a smoking bank
and stood watching the boat disappear on the black
waters of Lethe?
Berkeley 1955
8.4k
They set off from white rocks,
red geraniums, blue tile,
and let the green sea
lift and drop their ships far above the white foam waves.
The stony islands that were home
were swallowed in minutes by the hungry Atlantic
but they hunted the big fish,
the giant whales with human eyes
who rolled and sang and swam
in oceans a continent away.
They came from Sao Jorge, Sao Miguel
Faial, Pico, Terceira, Horta -
Nine island emeralds set in a black volcanic chain,
neither of the old country nor the new:
Halfway there and halfway gone -
secret jewels of the Portuguese sailors.
They sailed into unknown waters,
south around tropical shores
where dragons smoked and writhed on the rocks
and birds with brilliant red and yellow plumage
rose in clouds around their heads.
Then north, and north, north again
to colder waters
where sea lions barked and lunged
at the strange massive wooden beast
that coursed the waters,
strung with brown bodies swaying
on the lines and cursing the sails.
North still they swept
casting contemptuous eyes on
the cheap turquoise waters and monstrous slow turtles
of the Sea of Cortez.
Coming up from the desert, past the palms and the yucca,
the Joshua tree and Spanish daggers,
they chased their smooth grey prey,
riding the vast Pacific on their wooden island,
herding the leviathans onto their spears,
adventurers with an audience of only
gulls and sky and seal.
Until they sailed too close one day
to a rock-strewn shoreline
and saw the golden hills.
Gnarled oaks like grandmothers from home
with orange poppy jewels at their feet,
missions strung like beads in a ruby marked rosary.
The boats slowed, ****** in by a Scylla of soil
rich and brown and loamy
waiting to be seeded with grapes and apricots
peaches, avocados, lettuce, alfalfa,
fertile and heavy with sweet promise.
And the whales sang and the lions barked and the gulls cried
but the sailors were entranced, encharmed, ensorcelled.
The treacherous sea, the mysterious deep, the stony jewels of home,
called and wept
and waited in vain for the sailors
- beached and grounded -
cutting not waves but earth,
tracking seasons not whales,
seduced by dirt.
Nov 29, 2014
Nov 29, 2014 at 9:51 PM UTC
When his eyes first fell upon her
She was choosing avocados
In the fruit and vegetable aisle.
And he watched how her thumbs lingered
On the base of the alligator pear
And pressed, maternally.
He feigned interest in the cabbages
Whilst sensing her delicate architecture
Through his peripheral gaze.
He thought that somewhere,
In real or imaginary life,
They would soon bathe together.
And when they did,
They soaked for years in secrets,
Details suffusing through their lips and arms,
Water-hole satisfaction and moonlit deserts
To make them feel they might have transcended cabbages
And be pervading a rhapsodic realm
They forgot their friends watching in greenery,
Subsumed by each-other,
They felt no need
To live in a world of relativity and apples.
Their love-traced sphere tightened around them,
Until it ****** at the edges of their skin
And wailed when they parted.
Tighter it grew, elastic dug into their humid thighs
Contorting their once harmonic bodies
That used to fit like crosswords.
And they each became ugly to the other
As the seconds ingested their perfection
And they bickered like flailing urchins
In a deep sea soiled darkness.
Decisions were made and paroxysms detonated
And they were taken back by their
Fungal friends with tissue offerings
And ethanol.
Time passed, and memories were binned
Periodically on tuesdays
Until neither knew the other
And they would pass in the supermarket
With no more than a quickened gait
And a silent thud in each ribcage.
But neither could buy avocados.
Nov 16, 2011
Nov 16, 2011 at 12:18 PM UTC
I would have really liked
just doing laundry and taxes with you.
We're near the avocados
and I can't help but tease you
"when are you going to make the avocado dish"
it's with a sly smile I ask this.
I can't resist,
seeing your little dance
your face scrunched
and you're flustered -
"we'll get them right now, so I can make it this time"
"No, no."
"We'll get them next time"
but really I don't like avocados
it's just part of the fun.
You drop some blueberries into the cart
"they're good for the heart".
Mar 26, 2023
Mar 26, 2023 at 11:56 PM UTC
I used to hate your healthy avocados...until I had one
Not that your coffee tasted superior to my tea
But what's taste when you season mine with gun powder?
Yes, In case you did not detect
There is a lot of hate in this one
Call me aggressive and spiteful
Whilst holding your rifle
They say hate begets hate begets hate begets hate
So for you to understand
I put aside my ignorance and try to walk in your shoes
OK, let's start:
A lot of trees
Beautiful sky, delightful breeze
A rich land where tenants are a many and they shun the proprietor
I know I promised to be nice
But let's face it for that white picket fence, someone had to pay the price.
Start again:
Sunny coasts
Bacon, eggs on toast
Walk the dog in the park, life is not all that hectic here.
To make it clear, running out of coffee is my basic fear.
Flat stomachs
In fact, six packs!
Cupboard full of knick-knacks
and plenty of time to kick back and relax
Never-ending supply of niceties
Calm waters
Long walks along the harbor
and perhaps a tall pint of lager at the pub
Throw some juicy ones on the barbie mate!
Who cares if 6.2 mil in Somalia are starving mate?
You say to me:
"survival of the fittest, Darwin mate"
"It's so difficult to fit in" I say; so tiring MATE
Did I say that right?
I'm Mohammad, as James in a play called "Aussie Catch Up"
and I don't know how to play that part
What else can I say? they gave me a voice (although in English)
between the self deprecating migrant and the middle eastern rag head, the gave me a choice
And by the way my boss tried to anglicize my name
Said Sebastian had a nice ‘ring’ to it
Well go ahead, march to your colonial tune and have me sing to it
Oh healthy avocados, you're too ripe for my liking
Maybe I'm just used to a bit of rawness in my diet
To be honest
I have a heavy heart, a dark one
Maybe to reconcile, you should take a step
a very very very very very very long one
May 2, 2018
May 2, 2018 at 6:00 AM UTC
it's not the large things that send a man to the madhouse
a woman, a
tire that's flat, a
disease, a
desire: fears in front of you,
fears that hold so still
you can study them
like pieces on a
chessboard...
it's not the large things that
send a man to the
madhouse. death he's ready for, or
****** ****** robbery, fire, flood...
no, it's the continuing series of small tragedies
that send a man to the
madhouse...
not the death of his love
but a shoelace that snaps
with no time left ...
The dread of life
is that swarm of trivialities
that can **** quicker than cancer
and which are always there -
license plates or taxes
or expired driver's license,
or hiring or firing,
doing it or having it done to you, or
roaches or flies or a
broken hook on a
screen, or out of gas
or too much gas,
the sink's stopped-up, the landlord's drunk,
the president doesn't care and the governor's
crazy.
light switch broken, mattress like a
porcupine;
$105 for a tune-up, carburetor and fuel pump at
sears roebuck;
and the phone bill's up and the, market's
down
and the toilet chain is
broken,
and the light has burned out -
the hall light, the front light, the back light,
the inner light; it's
darker than hell
and twice as
expensive.
then there's always ***** and ingrown toenails
and people who insist they're
your friends;
there's always that and worse;
leaky faucet, Christ and Christmas;
blue salami, 9 day rains,
50 cent avocados
and purple
liverwurst.
or making it
as a waitress at norm's on the split shift,
or as an emptier of
bedpans,
or as a car wash or a busboy
or a stealer of old lady's purses
leaving them screaming on the sidewalks
with broken arms at the age of 80.
suddenly
2 red lights in your rear view mirror
and blood in your
underwear;
toothache, and $979 for a bridge
$300 for a gold
tooth,
and China and Russia and America, and
long hair and short hair and no
hair, and beards and no
faces, and plenty of zigzag but no
*** except maybe one to **** in
and the other one around your
gut.
with each broken shoelace
out of one hundred broken shoelaces,
one man, one woman, one
thing
enters a
madhouse.
so be careful
when you
bend over.
Jun 25, 2015
Jun 25, 2015 at 3:48 PM UTC
I live where a man rubbing
White shoe cream on his leather loafers has ulcers
From malnutrition and constant cassava.
Where a man’s sister loves his Fossil watch
And avocados, but gives
The whole fruit to her hate child.
The road is walked in the morning by
Rwandans, the jerry cans on their heads wetting their chests
With water from the spigot, half an hour away.
Nike shoes are unstitched, laces
Washed white daily and
The drinking water is gone by seven p.m.
I live where black people go thirsty keeping
Their sneakers white; throats dry each morning
While lacing their shoes.
Jun 10, 2010
Jun 10, 2010 at 1:03 PM UTC
We spend our whole life hoping
that when life gives you lemons
you can make lemonade from them
you spend your whole life learning
how to mix the sugar in
just the way you like
you spend year after year
making up recipes
hoping
praying
that other people will like it
But when you get older
all that learning
and training
and chiseling
to learn how to make
the worlds perfect lemonade
life hands you
an avocado
May 2, 2014
May 2, 2014 at 1:22 AM UTC
Just because I'm from California
Doesn't mean I smoke ****
Doesn't mean I’m a surfer
And doesn't mean I am an actor
Just because I’m from California
Doesn't mean I’m an “air head”
Doesn't mean I go to the beach everyday
Doesn't mean I’m a crazy environmentalist
Just because I’m from California
Doesn't mean I eat avocados with everything
Doesn't mean I long board instead of drive
Doesn't mean I’m an actor
Just because I’m from California
Why do I have to smoke ****
What school is close enough to surf to?
Why do I have to go to the beach everyday?
I’m just like other Americans.
Aug 29, 2014
Aug 29, 2014 at 4:03 AM UTC
in her dreams
she sprouts like fresh seeds pressed into fertile dirt
she's constantly stretching farther and farther
in a futile attempt to finally reach the sun
she closes her eyes
and sees rows and rows of lemon trees and strawberries
mango groves and avocados
she loves to feed the earth
to give birth to something living that's incapable of denying
or betraying
her love
she wants to feed almost everyone she meets
set them down and wash their feet
fill their cups and watch them leave
she hopes that one day
someone will ask to stay
a boy whose heart is in need of mending
or a man with hands that could move mountains
maybe
one day
she wants a farm
a limitless garden to stretch as far as her eyes will let her see
maybe just a bohdi tree to sit beneath
a place to stay and wait to be buried by the leaves
just for now
anyway
she needs a home where she can be by herself without feeling alone
she needs somewhere that she's meant to be
supposedly
dreams are things we chase down dark alley ways
only to watch them escape us
she damns every man who says so
she's determined to catch up with every one of her dreams
yeah
a dream catcher of sorts
she puts on her gloves and steps out in the mud
ready to catch whatever the universe tosses her way
or even just the ripe fruit falling from the trees in her dreams
Mar 23, 2013
Mar 23, 2013 at 12:22 AM UTC
There's spring and there's summer, there's all that's in between
no listless skies of anodyne; now nature flaunts and preens
What beauty fills the hungry eye 'neath a sky of blue, serene
verdant vales soaked in sun, awash in palettes of green
There are pastels that awaken and deep shades that passion brews
created hues that trickle...sprinkled with 'chartreuse'
There's the green of 'asparagus' and that of 'artichokes'
Of 'forest', 'ferns' , of 'moss', a brush of different strokes
Fragrant plants of 'mint', then 'myrtle' and 'green tea'
'Emerald', 'jade' or 'harlequin' and 'malachites' that be
Off creamy shells, just 'pistachio', 'green apples', then of 'pines'
It lies too in 'sap' and 'teal', in 'avocados' and tangy 'lime'
There's green of the 'mantis', in 'jungle', 'hunters' and 'shamrock'
The lithe 'parakeet' fluttering and the lazy sanguine 'croc'
In blessed 'basil', ' pickle', in 'pear', 'olives' in 'bottle green'
'Gourds' and 'peas' that farmers grow in cultivars pristine
'Tis there in 'aqua' and 'seaweed', in the ripple of 'sea green' waves
In 'turtles', 'sea foam', 'anemone' and a 'tropical glistening lake'
From 'laurel green' to an 'army green' , in 'sage' ( a shade of grey )
The color of 'grass' , the murky 'swamp' , hues in array
There's 'neon' and an 'Indian green', a 'Persian' one to mystify
A 'midnight green' to bright 'fluorescent', oh, for green rainbows in the eye
Mar 19, 2017
Mar 19, 2017 at 10:30 AM UTC
sometimes
i really want a juicy ripe deliciously sweet pineapple on a hot summer day the way the juice drips down my chin as i devour the sweet succulent fruit
other times
i might want a healthy green fruit to snack on such as an avocado feeling the rough interior skin only to cut it open and find the soft green buttery deliciousness inside i love the way my lips feel as the smooth flesh hits my throat with flavor
you see
i like both of these fruits being bisexual is like
enjoying these fruits i will always like both but on some days i might want more of the other but no matter what i will always love both
Aug 11, 2018
Aug 11, 2018 at 12:35 PM UTC
blip bleep beep boop
santas gonna watch me sleep
slip sleep seep soap
mommy wants to have a feast
avocados, bathrooms, teaspoons, menthol breath
so very special to watch you seek
bread, seven elevens, toilet paper, adjectives
the way you'd never see.
Jun 13, 2012
Jun 13, 2012 at 2:57 AM UTC
weighing options like avocados
firm in the palm of my hand
is the moment just ripe?
or does it belong under the cupboard
another day to breathe
I pull the present into my nose
and search it for signs of future
pull it over my tongue
wrap tonight in a paper bag
another day to breathe
Apr 25, 2013
Apr 25, 2013 at 12:19 AM UTC
glamourous indie rock n' roll
orbited our tiny kitchen as i kissed
the nape of her neck.
lauren sliced the avocados.
i prepped the pasta.
our neat little domestic life.
her eyes would ignite mine,
as she spoke of reinventing
the world with her love.
every word rang with perfect truth,
for she had dissolved my callused heart,
and focused my idiot head.
and that night i lied in blankets of her
mercy.
as she licked the wicked wounds
of complacent cruelty.
i've never missed her more.
May 22, 2010
May 22, 2010 at 8:43 PM UTC
you are
friday night dinners and
red lip stained coffee cups
and family photos and skilled
sarcasm and twelve trips to
disney and your love for
avocados and adventure. you
are sunday morning bike rides
and hand written letters and
power outages with candlit ghost
stories and week long sleepovers and
summer dresses and worn out boots
and accident prone vacations and
themed birthday parties and forgetfulness
and gerbera daisies and singing too loudly
and too off key and GOOD mistakes and
better memories
you are constellations and sea glass and colliding galaxies
and sometimes the calander turns
like a lottery and once in a blue moon
you can find a girl with fractured
sapphires in her irises and a heart too
big for her ribcage and a spine as strong
as a lightning bolt
so thank you january twenty sixth,
for michele.
Jan 31, 2014
Jan 31, 2014 at 12:22 AM UTC
this cracking open
ripped sail
widespread fingertips, broken nails
inside an effort is intention
inside intention is a story, experience
& all these lessons I've learned
are getting used up forcefully
is this the way it's supposed to be?
cause it feels strange
*when do Ravens sleep
& what does that feel like?
where did I go?
I think I know something.*
wild nights, bending and stretching
bending & bleeding
I'm tired of feeding on this word
eating syllables
I am not hungry for
constantly
unconsciously
incessant counting consonants
four letter words
for poor pleasured girls
honestly
we're all crawling sideways
a billion different sidewalks
searching for what -
leftover organs, trace-lines
another time, some other life
another night
keeping quiet
May 19, 2015
May 19, 2015 at 1:37 PM UTC
The coffee maker is broken.
Cigarettes are over eight dollars a pack.
My cat is being moody.
I am out of avocados.
My glasses are cracked.
I cannot find any tape.
Nothing is wrong.
I am wrong.
I am tired.
My car is out of gas.
Jun 16, 2013
Jun 16, 2013 at 9:58 PM UTC
I look through Nana's broken window so many times
However, today it seems so different
watching the blackbirds in the
avocados trees pecking at the fruits
Nana harvests the best ripe avocados pears
The color of dark burgundy, and green
All came from that old worn out tree;
Every year we would carefully inspect each pear
before packing them in the brown barrel
they were moist and delicious on the inside
so easy to peel , those lovely ripen pears.
Here I am today about to,
open the last mark box of Nana's things
I unfold the last item slowly;
All wrapped up in old newspaper
was her bread pan;
the one with the two handles
an old burnt crumb lodged in the corners of the pan
I smile, I weep,
Hello! To you too Nana
Feb 19, 2014
Feb 19, 2014 at 1:03 PM UTC
****** bone feathers and yellow beak imbedded in brain
exposed an aviary corpse when the burial dust settled
the last Dodo fell with eighty eight avocado trees cut
down that day and they fell like tipped cows slow
slow fast thud dirt sprayed like winter breath
but before trees tumbled and avocados
rolled downhill north sawteeth
scratched bark and cut
at one hundred fifty
degree angles
and wedges
pried tree
trunks
while the last Dodo slept in the last inhabited Dodo nest
like the last of a long genealogy abhorring what was left
of a final family
a weak decrepit Jones or Smith
tumbles down stairs
of a two story home
in Maine.
Oct 4, 2010
Oct 4, 2010 at 9:27 PM UTC
Were we not once love stood in abbey shadow and sun,
were we not once lovers at the top of bowling alleys
holding, having fun?
As you showered, I
bathed in the oeuvre of your
aura opposite,
thought of
midnight scrambled eggs
then bed
and the coffee to keep it company.
It’s then we woke
to the Sunday cacophony of avocados on post,
head to the second supplement in
to learn of the best twelve coasts where good lovers go to live,
where good lovers go to hide and give,
where good love exists.
If only the car wasn’t broken:
second hand, forecourt pile of ****
May 10, 2016
May 10, 2016 at 8:57 AM UTC
Lipstick stains all over your mouth mixed with drawn blood as your tongue crashed violently around my insides
As you traveled
you left behind your mark as if I were something to be discovered
Some the size of Ireland
Others the size of Australia
When the sunlight reflects on our window, I am reminded that it is my time to be vulnerable
Rubbing orange peels on my aching body as if there were a bad spirit that needed to be warded off
Your nose would scrunch up,
but even still your amber eyes seemed ready to sap away my soul
Leaving behind a husk of a body
My straw hair falling off each limb
just like the leaves gathered on the forest floor
I longed to crush them under my sole
The marks on my body seem to have started to absorb the yellow from your eyes
I can’t seem to get rid of you
The avocado toast in the mornings only seem to fill me up temporarily before they are all expelled
Oh how quickly avocados turn ugly!
My nostrils are filling with an emptiness that is cold and engulfing
My head is a boat
I will sail away even if I’m tattered
The raging storm lurks behind me and threatens to end us both
But I know behind those dark clouds
there will be an array of colors
waiting for my happy ending to be painted
(m.p)
Aug 17, 2022
Aug 17, 2022 at 1:53 AM UTC