"ballooning" poems
The bottom of my dress
ballooning out,
like a doily on the dance floor.
Feeling like a princess
As I held Mommy’s hand.
Twirling me all around,
Like a ballerina let out of
Her jewelry box.
My greatest dance partner,
To the best drummer in the band.
Jun 16, 2013
Jun 16, 2013 at 12:21 PM UTC
I've been using crutches ever since I was small.
It used to be my parents when I would fall.
Lacking the strength or knowledge to stand on my own,
they would lead me
teach me
support this insecure child.
I've been using crutches ever since I was small.
A shot of ******* another sip of alcohol.
Liquid courage to face the day,
flexing my beer muscles for the ladies
my true self atrophied from years of inactivity.
I've been using crutches ever since I was small.
With my crutches gone, it's time for me to stand tall.
I've worn out every crutch
under the ballooning weight of my insecurity
and now with wobbly legs and unsure steps,
I must learn to stand on my own.
Mar 28, 2013
Mar 28, 2013 at 9:26 PM UTC
Death is not the final word.
Without ears, my father still listens,
still shrugs his shoulders
whenever I ask a question he doesn't want to answer.
I stand at the closet door, my hand on the ****
my hip leaning against the frame and ask him
what does he think about the war in Iraq
and how does he feel about his oldest daughter
getting married to a man she met on the Internet.
Without eyes, my father still looks around.
He sees what I am trying to do, sees that I
have grown less passive with his passing,
understands my need for answers only he can provide.
I imagine him drawing a breath, sensing
his lungs once again filling with air, his thoughts ballooning.
2.7k
Still in motion, I struggle with shrinking sounds
of my shadow resisting the ballooning into life I find articulating so often.
What is the self?
I have been skinny dipping with this question
because I can not forget what it is to be an object,
a sense of the ever present weight of a secret word
we’ve been struggling to define.
Do I even need a diction for direction?
Could we not let our selves wash
over us like we could not falter
and if not then aren’t we already dead?
Will.
A horseshoe on fire with all the weight of emotion.
A far more intoxicating psychosis,
than being a program.
I dare the children;
play god,
there is a reason he’s known to be jealous and a man.
I will play but I’m going to bend the rules as it suits this shade at my heels
driving me further into my own lightness so that it may grow taller.
The ant and the sapling.
A sensation of of being… SNAP OUT OF IT.
Too close. You don’t want to feel this love.
You’ll become contrary to your cage
and It is that very tension that will vault me
into the sun where again I will melt back down into a wash basin
of soapy science trying to scrub reality clean.
When everything is spotless,
what will the dirt mean when there is nothing left to refer as an opposite?
The earth will become the numb halls of sadist’s with not much left of
home to live in unless we learn to fly by our own direction.
Mar 31, 2014
Mar 31, 2014 at 6:44 PM UTC
Even though I've been writing for years
(not that it's any better than when I started)
the title still holds true.
Words don't spill out,
thoughts don't process
like they used to.
Pieces need second checks for meaning,
thirds for grammar,
and a fourth for meaning.
Maybe it's the absence of physical affection;
certain chemicals aren't being triggered to release in my brain
but I decided if I couldn't keep my unspoken promises,
if I can't touch with a deep understanding of love
I will not touch at all.
It was shocking,
the impact one night could have
and so I have not had a second try
(or a six or seventh if we're counting).
I let the words of Thom Yorke
and Ezra Koenig say all that I cannot.
"Slowly we unfurl as lotus flowers
'Cause all I want is the moon upon a stick
Just to see what if, just to see what is
I can't kick your habit
Just to feed your fast ballooning head
Listen to your heart"
Mar 24, 2014
Mar 24, 2014 at 11:15 PM UTC
Love too strong for
those who bear it
is a curse invoked
by a deficit of worth.
It is not enough to
seek validation through
a proxy designated
Heaven on Earth.
With no center of gravity,
no anchor in character,
obsession is the limit
of the capacity to love;
Projecting impossible
desires and untenable
expectations amounts
to blasphemy of.
True love may not be
forever or easy;
parting may never
be pleasant to bear;
Love is not merely
what's pleasing or comfortable;
love is a crucible;
love is not fair.
Those fleeting failures
and moments of error
are chances at triumph,
a challenge to change.
Breaking our boundaries,
ballooning outward:
love is inevitably
savage and strange.
Unbefitting to cling
to the bridge that enables
a star in its wand'ring
to cross the abyss;
To carry the ballast
of vast insecurity
over that chasm,
untenable risk;
Or swallow the poison
of foolish dependence
on whimsical paramours,
obesiance thereof,
To be hung from the neck
by detestable premises,
weak and debased
by untenable love.
Nov 19, 2014
Nov 19, 2014 at 8:10 PM UTC
1.
Princely I am, as Michigan loam,
as carefully turned mud,
as old, old dust––
my breaths are still and unresolved
and don’t dissolve in alcohol
like snakes or dead, bloated fish––
I am nothing monumental.
2.
Stuttered breaths lie in limp open circles around our feet,
hanging by threads of unmade promises––
symmetry was never my forte.
The bent nose,
the crooked lips,
the slow-ballooning wen where nitrogen bubbles––
my flesh is like untilled soil,
all raw and swollen with possibility.
3.
You asked me if it was probable
to find life on Mars
where the iron-leeched sand
crumbles like dried hemoglobin.
I don’t know about amino acids or genesis
or the first man of Dust,
much less mysteries of lovesickness, respiration,
really good ***
We’re barren in different ways;
your dust comes from dreams, from heaven,
crimson and majestic
and dead as Olympus Mons
while I am like moon dust,
just as cold as your bone-dry lakes of carbon dioxide,
but paler, heavier,
and more remote.
Dec 20, 2012
Dec 20, 2012 at 11:22 PM UTC
I remember spinning in circles around the brown, hardwood floor,
My tiny hand grasping tight to mommy’s outstretched finger;
The sound of music from the live band was filling my ears,
While the laughter was spilling from my smiling mouth.
My dress was ballooning out like a doily,
While perfume and cologne were sneaking through my nose.
Mommy was twirling me all about,
Like a miniature Cinderella, glass slippers on my toes.
Sep 9, 2013
Sep 9, 2013 at 9:54 PM UTC
( I am Happy to announce the publication of my new poetry book: 108 Bhakti Kisses, The Ecstatic Poetry of a Modern Day Gopi by Sonya Ki Tomlinson available on Amazon
http://amzn.com/0984787216)
Happy and Holy Holidays
108 bhakti kisses
Courting Your adoring feet
108 Names of God
adorn the temple gates
where I kneel close to
Your precious Feet
108 Crystal mala beads
poised like stars passing
one by one over my fingers
tiny bridges across
an immense and luminous expanse
Infinite frontier
The Soul returning to its Source
offspring of Light
I look to the Heavens
my sustenance
thunderheads, distant mist
solitary black cameo shape
of a bird soaring swiftly
vanishes into
ballooning, billowing
blue wilderness of Your eyes
Dec 24, 2013
Dec 24, 2013 at 1:25 PM UTC
I chased this evening
Evening's fading sunset clouds,
Silver tin-foiled ribbons, tied
To grey-as-granite filigree.
Tinted skirts of hazy
Daytime's late farewell,
Night's ballooning moon parade
Displayed pale firework-light
Invasive coloured swathes
Across the best forgotten
Rainy afternoon.
Night's foothold sparked scuffs
Of steel in dust cascades
Across the waning light
While I stayed chasing
Sep 30, 2010
Sep 30, 2010 at 12:14 PM UTC
all my orifices
are fully dilated
in great expectation
swirling, ballooning out into infinity
like the great womb
fontanel
in the heavens
that holds so
much starry darkness
yet
receives Your Light
beyond measure
Jan 29, 2014
Jan 29, 2014 at 7:47 PM UTC
The summer before
her chest hollowed out,
ribs bowing around vacuums,
her lungs ballooning new geometries.
The summer seas invaded body cavities,
feral and chemically sweet.
Her body became a gondola
ferrying pale, diminutive hopes
across the wide strait of your pelvis.
Oceans shifted gingerly,
unborn into the intimate dark
of throats, heart chambers,
marshes between thighs.
She drew the shores around her close, paranoid.
When they got to her
she’d filled her mouth deep
with different types of char: love, anorexia, Quaaludes.
Marrow coagulated and stopped ebbing
with the orbit of the moon.
Her heart smelled like day-old fish.
Dec 20, 2012
Dec 20, 2012 at 11:18 PM UTC
Watch out for the jackal.
A Joker.
I don't like to play games.
This is serious follow the clues.
The stepping stones line the path.
Through the meadow and the prairie.
Galloping stallions.
Twirling battalions.
Shiny medallions.
A whiny dalmatian.
A quarreling nation.
What is the logic?
Chirping frogs.
Daddy long leg spiders.
That sit down beside her.
A messed up mind.
A senseless theory.
A confusing plot.
Without any thought.
What was I thinking?
If I remember it wouldn't matter?
Really?
Of course not.
Absolutely not.
Giggling girls.
Gossiping & copying.
Stealing each others cosmetics, boyfriends,
money, CDs, DVDs, jet ski's,
Mountain climb.
Scuba dive.
Snorkel.
Hot air ballooning.
Hang gliding.
Bungee jumping.
Parachuting.
Water skiing.
Boogie boarding.
Dune buggy racing.
Ice skating.
Roller coaster.
Merry go round.
Ferris wheel.
A maze of fun.
Build a sandcastle.
Build a Snowman.
Make a snow angel.
Collect seashells.
Or sea glass.
Pearls.
Fly a kite.
1,2,3 go.
Wash, rinse, & repeat.
Step, shuffle, step.
Destiny
Harmony
Star
Karma
Ruby
Aqua
Moon
Rainbow
Trinity
Phebe
Ariel
Glow
Diamonds
Cool water
Vanilla fields
Charm
Dessert
Fantasy
Perfume
Fragrance
Delightful & frightful.
Neat & sweet & discreet.
Charming & disarming.
Meet & greet.
May 9, 2016
May 9, 2016 at 5:40 PM UTC
afterparty mingle in a single bedroom vault wincing ceiling slopes so low condemning matter dance to fumbles and more penetrating life forces gum-balls into stressed room couple and squirm over into the crawl space hazardous music and metallic humour is pushing risks and insult no being is out of place pouting the smoke and store brand alcohol routing and deafening and defeating too much the gagster comes thundering down the corridor like he was wrought for applause he addresses those outside the room and it's wagging dogs and a face of cartoony ballooning pep it's hard to handle the wash of wording an assault of enthusiasm jester baits laughter with an old polaroid camera slamming open the door all tension his way he presses the button and projects them all against the walls 'Flash ****** ! ' he squells throws aside the camera 'People Pile!' he thumps into the crowd bed begging a play fight baroque girl hugging her knees crammed under the small sink to the side of the door reaches out a nervy hand and takes the discarded camera watches the ********** photo paper fade in slow retch her own pose lone excluded soul separate and saved she leaves with souvenir
Jun 30, 2023
Jun 30, 2023 at 6:22 PM UTC
Shh
Wandering tongues lynch themselves before thoughts can slip into words
pupils impregnated by motionless anticipation
and the fluttering of flies on the corpses of stomachs
don’t stutter
don’t stutter
don’t stutter
shhh
Calm
let glands spew waterfalls down brows
and browse for options yet remain still, remain silent
I was always taught to
shhhh
retreat to familiarity, fermenting in the stagnation of bedrooms
and errant thoughts, and regrets, and remembering
I don’t think this is going to work out
I dont think this relationship is healthy for us
I think we should
shhhhh
close mouths so the belt welts bruise less
You are simply fleshwounds to blues and blacks that bubble beneath skin
eyes low, chasmic, crimson, grin and giggle
follow footsteps to paper faced ledges and the defiant plume of burning leaves
Ive grown to love
shhhhhh
Schwinns and wind, and ballooning confidence
headphones hugging haphazard hairs scent of remnant shampoo particles
and hungry breath, peppermint camouflage so lips can kiss scars
craving solid land while lost in waves of stone
distant skin and grin and eye contact
Ive grown tired of
shhhhhhh
winding car rides, surrounded by noise
playing the quiet game
Jul 2, 2015
Jul 2, 2015 at 6:52 PM UTC
Like blood slowly
ballooning into a tiny orb
from a pin *****
It simply swelled
and bulged…
As it clung precariously
upon the tip of my nib.
A slight tremble,
almost a hesitation -
seemingly afraid to take
the leap of faith.
Afraid to take the plunge,
only to wilfully break
the expanse of blank parchment.
Afraid to taint the whiteness
with the ruthlessness
of indelible black.
Jul 23, 2021
Jul 23, 2021 at 2:28 PM UTC
I lie awake in the wooden room
I have constructed in the woods
dreaming of pretty things.
Knots like ochre eyes stare down from the oak wood panelling.
Outside, the wind brushes up against the fogged glass
laid into the side of my house,
a feeble proxy to the coyotes song
rippling through the ballooning darkness.
I built this home, all 275 square feet,
lugging tools and supplies through the barren acres.
I laid each brick into the fat black earth
preparing the foundation,
laying my life into it
nailing each board around me.
When spring rolled in the trilliums poked
through the earth to admire the commotion.
Later came their friends: the mountain-pride,
buttercups and harlequin lupine.
In my dreams, the lupine could become a cloak of royal silk
wrapped around me,
the King.
Golden ore and stalks of silver
poking through the earth
where trilliums once grew.
That night I dreamt of pretty things
Shiny things still blotched my vision in those days.
I didn’t yet have a roof to stare at
late into the night, and the stars
burned through the treetops and into my
dreams.
Daylight was for building.
Laying the hatchet into wood
driving wood into frames,
with little metal nails from the hardware store
many acres away
Where men bought sidings and rope
for homes with Ikea furniture,
their wives wearing sapphire rings
and golden hoops
and all the pretty little things
I dreamt about out here,
in the forest.
Here, where sun cascades
through my windows in the early dawn.
So I close my eyes, and
decorate the silence with dreams
of pretty, pretty things.
Jun 20, 2017
Jun 20, 2017 at 11:55 AM UTC
His Star.
I chased this evening
evening's fade in sunset clouds,
silver tin-foiled filigree
tied to grey-as-granite mountains.
Tinted skirts of hazy
daytime's late farewell lit night's
ballooning moon parade
displayed as fire on quiet shoreline.
Invasive scarlet-swathe
hued day's best forgotten noon
when darker stronghold's rain
rolled dust-cascades forming gloom.
Drifted with waning sky's
azure came memory's beams,
pain-shot their spotlighting
shadows still haunting my dreams.
Yet I chased tonight
night's demons away by love's
recall when I saw brighter
his star winking at me from above.
May 11, 2016
May 11, 2016 at 5:18 AM UTC
too lazy
too hot
can't think
heat expands air
ballooning our heads
double in size
the sun peppers the ground
so we wouldn't taste our footprints
on our eggs on the sidewalk
they say - no, they scream - the end is near
i'm not sure about that but i think hell had a gas leak
or does god want to bake his people into fresh gingerbread?
May 25, 2014
May 25, 2014 at 9:19 PM UTC
We've reached the end of year one
and Trump says he's done more
than any other president
from any time before.
So, what are the accomplishments
of Trump and his intrepid crew?
Well, here now is a partial list
of what they did, or tried to do.
They lied about inaugural crowds
and introduced "Alternative Facts",
inspired a worldwide women's march
to protest Trump's disgusting acts.
Hollowed-out the E.P.A.,
deemed climate change a Chinese hoax.
Paris Accord and regulations
gone, in puff of toxic smoke!
Wrecked the State Department and
Muslims, he said, must be banned.
Insulted NATO and U.N.,
brought shame upon his own homeland.
Attacked the mainstream media.
Railed and ranted of "fake news",
unless it came from Fox and Friends
and others spouting all his views.
Gave praise to Russia - Putin too.
Investigations started.
Comey started digging and
was forcibly departed.
Poked and taunted Kim Jong Un.
International drama!
Obsessed with slagging Hillary
and Barack Obama.
Battled healthcare, N.F.L.
and Planned Parenthood.
Tried to ban transgendered troops.
Claimed that coal is good.
Would not condemn the Neo-Nazis
down in Charlottesville.
Filled his swamp with sycophants
up on Capitol Hill.
Puerto Rico half destroyed.
Paper towels he gave.
Huge cuts to the National Parks,
decreasing land to save.
Claimed that Trump saved Christmas and
gave massive tax cut presents
to the corporate oligarchs
with crumbs tossed to the peasants.
Debt ballooning! Conflict looming!
Divisions far and wide!
G.O.P.'s not stopping Trump.
Have they even tried?
Claims to be a stable genius;
A smart and big success!
What legacy will Donald leave?
What awful, dreadful mess?
These were just some accomplishments
of which I have kept score,
but they just scratch the surface.
I could rant for hours more!
But haven't we all had enough
after Trump's first year?
It feels more like twenty!
Let us hope his end is near.
This was my Year One "trumpoem"
that I wrote for you.
Hope I won't have to write another
after year two!
Jan 14, 2018
Jan 14, 2018 at 3:39 PM UTC
two dolls walked into a craft fair, dressed the same,
it was fun, it was the best, they made a good day better,
just by being there and maybe some others stared,
at the makeup and glitter, and that they dressed with flair,
maybe the pastel shade did not go over well,
but their dresses matched shades and **** ballooning,
they took a risk,
and I found a smile,
on my face, made me glad they were in this place.
Never limit
independent self expression,
just 'cuz you can't,
or instead of being
confident and beautiful, they could rant, and rant
but these two looked rant resistant,
they had the seed pods of joy,
and stardust on their faces,
and went it, with them when they,
tiptoed into the spaces and stalls
of merchants, we did not know
we were not at a craft fair, but a Ball,
and invited by these two princesses,
lovely in their excesses of joy - I saw joy today,
she has a twin, but I did not quite catch her name.
©DWE112013
Nov 16, 2013
Nov 16, 2013 at 1:54 AM UTC
vicodin is a long term friend
with a warrent for my liver
and my life.
1:43am
we had an appointment
and god only knows
i could never be late for such
a chalky sense of closure.
and the young paramedic
who burst my vein and scolded me
could only pray his words
meant more than the hum of streetlights
as my body exchanged existence
for the embodiment of thought
and a brittle concept of my phrenic nerve
which was never more at peace than when
my lungs remembered the luxury
of standstill traffic
of weighted morals
of crushing insecurity's release
and the resulted ballooning
as squashed egos cry, and the garage door screams as it's yanked open
horrid sounds and tortured motion on both accounts
spiritual cataracts torn free
commercialized visions now blur
as the orange bottle morphs from
vicodin to paracetamol
equalized views in my bloodstream
as the sheet metal ceiling shifts to plaster tiles
to a TV set
to a bathroom mirror
to an agonized woman next door
to the back windows where my mother cries where no one but the whole world can watch
to a blue plastic mattress and a first floor window covered with bars
to a pale green day room with a caged TV
where there was bleach in the stomach of a nine year old
where the dying took their resurrecting breath between games of spoons
where the hinges screamed and blood pressure was taken three times a day
this where the living came to kiss death goodbye
until next time
Jan 21, 2019
Jan 21, 2019 at 10:09 PM UTC
Without
I am just here.
Somewhere between living and
death.
Sitting next to
is all I need
to feel that
coursing crimson in me
the ballooning of my lungs
body heat.
The thought
of gone.
Makes the crimson gets iced
the balloons deflate.
All I see is
a funeral.
Holding hands
soar throat
wet
cold
scared.
Everything escapes.
Suddenly
the ballooning is back
crimson coursing
tears rushing
body heat on my hand.
Words "I'll never leave"
come in my head.
"That isn't true"
Someday
the're will be
emptiness
and a coffin.
Aug 30, 2014
Aug 30, 2014 at 12:49 PM UTC
Along Peachstone Shoals
Morgan horses have seized the first light -
of the spring morning
Wild Turkeys call in unison , scratch -
hurriedly along wild rose , bramble berry -
camouflage
A stoic Whitetail Buck crosses the shallows ,
disappears into hardwood spring shelter
Fog steadily burns along the holler as red winged -
blackbirds gather for the noon feast o'er purple clover
passageways , tinted with silver-gray ballooning -
spiderlings , moistened by the warm breath of the -
promising new day harvest
Farm tractors scurry county roads in route to -
awaiting plowland , Longhorn cattle vie for the sunny
hillside ..
Apr 16, 2016
Apr 16, 2016 at 12:11 AM UTC
Fly, Fly free balloon…
My romance has just bloomed,
I’ll grab you with my hand
As if you were a piece of land.
Now you are locked
On my precious park
To remember the sweet
Times, that were never once dark…
Jul 1, 2013
Jul 1, 2013 at 8:48 PM UTC