"balustrade" poems
satin black robe, maroon nails,
my cold palms on a colder marble balustrade,
the moon soaked rose garden,
and crying angels of that medieval fountain;
Beethoven creeping in the background
but still my heart didn't strung a sound;
All I did to find inspiration
still I'm going blank for years
words won't splendidly fill my unfinished fiction;
But still I'm here
grasping onto the midnight smoke
trying to give colours to my drunk imaginations;
My tired sighs now wished
that it'd be easy
to come up with words,
a missing lover
or a ballroom ******
or a heartbroken maiden
with empty goblets filling her scars;
anything would do now;
As long as this melancholic sonata goes on,
And before this cooing midnight
disappears into a blinding dawn,
You would find my impassive face
and desperate gaze
capturing floating words
to give a meaning to this new found romanticism;
Aug 26, 2023
Aug 26, 2023 at 1:44 AM UTC
To the tune of "Red Lips"
Lonely in my secluded chamber,
A thousand sorrows fill every inch
of my sensitive being.
Regretting that spring has so soon passed,
That rain drops have hastened the falling followers,
I lean over the balustrade,
Weary and depressed.
Where is my beloved?
Only the fading grassland
stretches endlessly toward the horizon;
Anxiously I watch the road for your return.
2.7k
Manhattan by line,
by subway track purr,
by foot in a midwinter
fresh, gale force air.
The dying battery in
Times Square's wristwatch,
halts hands in mid air,
each hailing the second taxi
that comes to them
every next minute;
definitely in the next ten.
Buried benches in thigh high
snow look lost, with
only their branching tops
on display for the tourist's show,
tramping through
this January snow.
Double-back, back
past the Chipotle store,
where diners stand and eat,
stand and greet,
stand with napkins to appear neat,
stand near the radiator to warm their feet,
stand-in-the-corner-and-text-your-wife-saying-you'll-be-home-late-because-this-meaty-wrap-is-pleasurable-to-eat.
He was with another woman, kissing her cheek.
Manhattan is a horizon of horizontal lines,
drawn by pencil lead, led up a page
to create this fascinating portrait
that a point-and-click-camera
cannot comprehend,
let alone negotiate.
We can go unnoticed there, like
most others in this gale force air,
but billboard boys-
the ones that braid ****** building hair,
window panes
and balcony balustrade-
are the famous ones
of Broadway, with nothing more
than their commercial stare.
Jan 22, 2013
Jan 22, 2013 at 10:33 AM UTC
Arched across the balustrade,
Silently keening
A poignant, broken elegy
Unceasing refrains and requiems;
Touch of death unveiled
Ever so gentle,
Wicked in its false lies
And beguiling sweet façade.
Crimson, staining
Seeping through the depths,
Oh how savage,
Cruelly taunting, vicious.
And yet all that we saw,
Was a halo shining bright
A bringer of of life and death
In calming repose, an angel.
Sep 9, 2012
Sep 9, 2012 at 6:16 AM UTC
Restless in bed, the stir of warmth blossoming in his heart,
the girl he loved has gone,
drifted from his house to the field of vacant stares.
Rainstorms brew in his mind, shifting from one end to the other,
the current forming into a large sheet of distance damp with disconnection.
He thinks of fire. As he rolls out of bed.
Grabbing a cigarette from his ashtray,
he lights up. Old habits stay kept in the roof of his mouth. Fresh air
permeates through his nostrils as he steps out onto the front porch.
He props his elbows on the balustrade,
brushes against the grainy wood
tarnished from the skywater.
The sun droops below the gray cluster of clouds
hanging over a horizon colored with blues, reds, and yellows.
While he smokes on his cigarette he remembers the girl. Her name is a
wrinkled photograph stored in a dusty shoe box.
She has green eyes and curly red hair.
Her body is shaped in an hourglass figure.
She's tall and gaunt, but her
legs are toned from running several miles on her treadmill
each morning before the dark slips away into the fog of light.
He grounds the cigarette out on the porch. He steps onto the driveway. There's a red
Honda CRV parked across from the two-car garage.
He hops in. The key turns.
Booming engine roars out loud.
The wheels churn backwards. He pulls out of the
cul-de-sac. And he drives, drives,
until he can remember the road map, the one
that she stole from him to follow her dreams, and hopes, the aspirations that he had
once shared with her. A thin, white film of mist
belays across the windshield.
And for a short second he wishes that he were dead.
Dead so that he could have the
perspective of an omniscient narrator to oversee everything, and everyone.
But where is his girl? She's not the one who got away,
she's the one who abandoned him, the
night after he ate the sweet nectar,
the fruit, little drops of dew splashing onto the back of his tongue.
The red Honda CR-V careens down the interstate, windows down, subwoofers pumping
with something similar to apprehension,
tense with overwrought poems.
The substance lacking from trying too hard,
for something that wants nothing to do with him.
May 25, 2016
May 25, 2016 at 11:25 AM UTC
I laid on my bedroom floor and sunk my face into my elbow. There was nothing. No sound. No movement. There was Blackness. I was engulfed, I did not feel my heart and I did not feel my lungs. Time went on, unscathed, but I remained in the Black. I do not know anything. I do not know who came in my room. I do not know what they said. I do not know what I said. The jarring crash of a constant sound kept pulling me away. Every labored second time bore forth, I was unaware. I had gone somewhere so far that I was nowhere. The dust lined the back of my throat. Then I knew everything. I desperately wandered around looking for the Black. I had no provision but the Black. I had been unaware. Perfectly unaware. But I could not find the Black. So I was aware: no salt ever was so tasteless, no liquid was ever so dry. No pain was ever so miniscule, no mucus was ever so breathable. No, there was nothing. Not in the Black.This prejection of perfection, I could not emulate. I close my eyes and there was black. It had ears, a mout, eyes, a nose, and touch. There was a pit in the middle of my soul, somewhere between the bottom of my rib cage and my pants. I tried to find the Black there, but it was gone. Instead there was grinding and crashing. There was color. There was noise. I was refusing to really acknowledge it. There was aching and burning; there was pressure and banging. There was blue and there were barbells. There was a bed; a Bible and many books. There were bandaids and bottles and bows and bespeckled things. There was a blue monster and blue shirt. There was blue gatorade and black cords, and there was black shoes and black clothes. But there was no Black. There was brokeness and bruises; beige and bumps.There was a bunny and beauty products; a balustrade and a bathroom door. But there was nothing, and with it was no Black.
Sep 23, 2012
Sep 23, 2012 at 11:48 AM UTC
You complete me
in every sound you now mouth,
every movement of your tongue,
every muscle’s adjustment
to effect fresh shape to each phrase,
in every quick, shallow breath
giving sudden pause and turn
to the next silence.
You complete me at this reading.
I had been deaf to the closing,
blind to the ending you now gift me
and ignorant of the next stair
with no balustrade to steady
where you leave the first me
to rise to find, first-hand,
the landing that now completes me.
Mar 23, 2022
Mar 23, 2022 at 2:51 PM UTC
to have been lead through
slumbering paddocks by
held hands; hope, the
deity, nonexistent and relentless,
i felt alive-
was i but the subject
of her meticulously-planned humour?
was i the joke,
or the punchline?
boldly ripening into
mistaken aphasias, i
find my melting thoughts
matriculating into sharp
movements in the dark:
curves patterned,
ribcages' separation, a gaussian blur of
intertwined epidermal rivulets,
your soft, slow imaginings becoming
tiny flecks of graphite smeared
a page's width, intricately sown
across skin, that light trickles
through a sliver in the curtains
to wordlessly illuminate.
seventh memory: a peeling away,
a mandarin on the kitchen counter.
watching stars disappear
from atop the balustrade, we sit
mere fragments apart, yet
at great distance, like
the fog of the cities we carry out
the moments of
our regularized lives, within.
finally, i become translucent.
yet,
what have the stars become?
Nov 4, 2013
Nov 4, 2013 at 10:33 PM UTC
from the balustrade, the canopy,
comprised of leaves and rooftops and
a diminishing colour-set above
tastes of retreat. familiarity.
she came down to my level,
spelling out instabilities and inscrutinabilities,
like a vague ruffle sent through
harmonious and imperfect hairlines:
this slight haze of separation,
a delicate circling
lust, the vulture of the ninth;
lying in wait, i sit, still,
in the corner, watching the
ceiling for hours,
singing sadnesses like,
oh no, it won't happen this way,
when have i ever learnt?
winning's a single blackout, but
i'm still awake,
still stuck stuck stuck stuck,
already given up and out.
still awake, seven
hundred and fourteen days,
a list of crimes, a handful
of loose opinions, a
devastating need;
never had i felt as if
i couldn't live, without
something i never meant to
want, this much.
with rainfall, she rescinds,
she's discovered i am but dust.
from dust, i'm made rain.
Nov 26, 2013
Nov 26, 2013 at 4:49 AM UTC
I was contemplating
On a hot sunday late-morning
On things where I went wrong.
Should have's, shouldn't have's;
They seemed to be what went wrong
Until I got back to the present,
On the dining table
Where I was seated in front of,
When a lizard was now staring at me,
Perhaps disappointed with how
I did not feel him inching towards me
Or maybe wondering
Why I never notice
The things happening before me.
Now is this bird
Who just perched on the balustrade
And gave me a quick tip of the head
Then flew away,
Telling me to instead contemplate
On parts of me where I went wrong?
Sep 28, 2013
Sep 28, 2013 at 11:46 PM UTC
My neighbour is on her balcony shaking out blankets.
It's nearing Easter and her family is coming to visit.
She stands motionless for a moment to watch the blossom being snatched by sudden gusts, then settling as a skittering of ivory snow.
It's always blustery at this time of year,
that's Nature's way of getting rid of rotten fruit.
She drapes the blankets over the balustrade, then secures them with wooden clothes pegs.
That's when I wave to her.
Usually, the cleaner comes in, but today she wants to do it herself,
to prove that she still can. It's a small thing that makes her happy.
She says there's not enough time left to be bored. So twice a week, she drives into town
to meet for coffee with other people like herself.
Her car is very reliable. She remembers her husband telling her to get things checked
before there was a chance of developing anything faulty.
He died last year, but life has to go on – for her own sake.
In this country, when a partner passes away, the one that's left behind wears black -
that's why she wears her pink dress -
just to let them know she has a mind of her own.
She loves her life here, but misses her grandchildren growing up -
that's why they come.
Last year, one of the boys told her she'd shrunk! But it was he who'd shot up like a flowering
pea, putting out tendrils to test an adult world.
When solitude becomes too much for her, she comes round.
“You could die in your sleep here,” she tells me
“and no one would find you for weeks. When they eventually did, they'd carry you off in a pretense of black to a place where everyone's forgotten.”
That's why today, she's shaking off her blankets.
copyright © Caroline Grace 2013
Mar 28, 2013
Mar 28, 2013 at 6:52 AM UTC
In dying day
we trust dismay
Like scent of edible death,
it marks the forlorn path
that marks the traveler
that marks the soul
that feeds the beast.
I cry upon the balustrade
I climb the walls
assail the roof!
I cling to hope and tidings sweet...
but hope, she fades away
In misty day
haze thick with ire
like defiling spear
it pierces the shepherd
who ushers the flock
who bicker and bark
who worship the beast.
I thirst 'pon fetid ocean
amidst mustard fog
oar strokes batter the brine
frost clogs the air, my freedom, my heart
while the sun hides his face for shame of the world
every other face is a mask, and beneath it a mask
their truths are lies and their confessions are lies
so I brave the ocean, seeking her wholesome face
Her voice is the bedrock of countless miracles.
I peer into the cloud that hugs the sea
her face smiles in the obscurity
I reach out to touch her visage
but hope, she fades away.
For years I sought her company
I wished for odes to reveal
the residence of her testimony
Her word would defend, like steel!
Yet when I finally found her,
my grasp bound death's door
I realized I was the hope
that no one will know anymore.
As hope, I fade away.
Oct 20, 2017
Oct 20, 2017 at 3:12 PM UTC
Walking through a dim lit street,
recent rains pleasant stench lurks in puddles,
and the puddles, which reflected softest starlight,
the odd cars steady rumble as it passes,
the softening heart in the loneliness,
that when he leant upon the sandstone balustrade,
delicately ornate along the rivers edge,
and watching the canal boats drift on by,
as did time.
he in his depth and solitude, pondered
all his steps, wondering which step was wrong or simply,
out of place.
He had lost that which he had placed the
most value, and sadly it beat him down.
Tho' the starlit riviera, of this damp town,
was a quick relief to his aching
heart, which were torn asunder,
from a ill-thought blunder.
Oh well he thinks, as he walks down the lengthy path,
beside the starlit reflective river.
Feb 1, 2012
Feb 1, 2012 at 6:02 AM UTC
I was sat in a Tavern in Pompey Town,
Sipping a tipple of ***
When I watched a Jack make an axe attack,
Chop off his finger and thumb!
I couldn’t believe the blood that flowed
From the cut of that rusty blade,
But the barmaid Flo, said ‘You’ve done it, Joe,
Now look at the mess you’ve made!’
She cleaned it up with a swill of ale,
Walked off with the finger and thumb,
‘I’ll nail these up on the balustrade
With the rest that have been as dumb.’
But Joe sang out when he’d had a drink
‘It’s better than being a tar!
I spent three years, under the lash
On His Majesty’s Man o’ War.’
‘They ‘pressed me when I was still a kid
And treated me like a dog,
I suffered scurvy and couldn’t work,
The answer to that, was flog.’
‘They flogged me around the Southern Cape,
They flogged me a-ship and ashore,
Whenever I thought that I might escape
They dragged me onboard for more.’
‘And Cap’n Foggett’s abroad tonight
With his cut-throat parcel of rogues,
Impressing the able-bodied men,
They’re lining them up in droves.’
‘For Nelson’s lying abaft the lee
With barely a half a crew,
He needs more men for the ‘Victory’,
And that means me and you!’
‘In every tavern they’re moving in,
In every alley and quay,
At first they offer the King’s shilling,
To war with the enemy.’
‘But the Frenchies rake with the carronade
That will rip the flesh from your bones,
And the decks run red from the men who bled
Impressed from their wives and homes.’
‘They say he sails on the tide tonight
So they’re doing a quick Hot Press,
Even a gen’lman walking late
Won’t meet with their gentleness.’
‘A cudgel whack on a squire’s head
Then dragged to the bilges, free,
They’ll never know ‘til they all wake up
That they’re headed on out to sea.’
‘That Nelson’s got but a single arm,
He’s got but a single eye,
If that’s not enough to be alarmed
By God, then I wonder why!’
The Press Gang came to the Tavern door
But couldn’t come on inside,
They tried to sell me a Man o’ War
But Joe had made me decide.
I took a gulp of Jamaica ***
And I steeled myself to the task,
‘The Press are waiting outside,’ I cried,
‘Just hand me that rusty axe!’
David Lewis Paget
Dec 15, 2014
Dec 15, 2014 at 10:27 AM UTC
Maybe because we are the youngs,
We believe we are entitled to tongues.
That we shall be heard,
To you it is absurd.
Like the beetle, you roll the dung.
You think us silly children,
Yet inside lies the cauldron
That shouts the time of the youth.
Forsaken by the booth,
We begin our costly sojourn.
Our eyes reveal our mind ambitious.
Your eyes see through silicasacious
Perception of a generation passed.
Culture imposed in the manner of caste.
I condemn you to be philosophically abstemious
It is directly simple, comrade
We have jumped from the time balustrade
You a little early,
Us, a little burly
Yet, it was all meant for a crusade
This is an adage for thinkers
To ensure we and you never wear the blinkers.
This is my warning,
To stay awake until morning
Remember that we eventually rest with clinkers.
Nov 3, 2010
Nov 3, 2010 at 4:17 PM UTC
the droning image before me,
a wetted silhouette hushed in loincloth.
all are tiny currents with their immediacy;
confound careless grace for warmbound sweat
of the swollen world in the heat of an uncollected moment.
dartle I may in delight of frenzy, cold air nibbling
at my feet. river runs pale in the narrow grey-faced street.
knee-deep into the water of no rain, simply a dream
of wide hours. mind you in the **** of minutes
and fine-tune this machine infected with body english;
basking in the flood of midnight – this swirling fish
in the permeable navy: a nautical breath tender in its rasp;
a trifle on the things and their undulations. remember you
in that stolen night, face to face with walls their blackened meanings
faces pining away in transit – if the plenitude of voices
in the station would merge and form a whole new world,
are we to drown in the sound and emerge mute with wonder?
I squint at the city across the balustrade, its sibilant air
of disgust – I recognize mooned tapestries and see myself
as one of the lights, the appropriate tension of hands that
have their own silences held to themselves
like how I ***** you in light.
Mar 9, 2016
Mar 9, 2016 at 11:53 PM UTC
There is something to be said about humor.
I think it’s a wide judgement, and no cruel word to say
I knew that once and I identify
And identiFLY
Took it and ran,
took it and flew
Who even cares these days what’s a word’s a word
And a sound is just as well
Until some guy who says
Get off here... you...
Even if this is what you’re about, don’t fathom
Because I do what I want!
I’ll get you till I’ll get you
And when you’re mine you’re mine
Maybe beautiful but maybe an *******
It’s easy to say we should be rational and think
but I say take to the sky, even though he makes me
Sick!
Sick!
Sick!
He was so kind that time I collapsed on the balustrade
And said shall I come?
Declining, a walk, a step, in the Dark was my way
Appreciating non Apathy
But recognizing distrust
It’s my time to wander, to pant
to breathe in unhappiness
Just let me do it, as you say...
You
Dec 17, 2014
Dec 17, 2014 at 4:54 AM UTC
im wrapping these lights around the balustrade? of my stairs and i thought they looked beautiful but now that
im stepping off my chair they
don't look that nice um
they look sloppy and tacky
like the ones off the side of a Mexican restaurant
i wonder how natalie portman decorates her christmas lights.
they must be nice.
i used tape
she probably gets someone else to stick it up anyways but
the tape is pretty when the light hits it and the
colors blend and stutter like it's trying to short circuit the tape but
the tape is swimming in it even though there
is only light in glass in light
i stick the tape on the wall.
there is something psychedelic about holding a handful of rainbow lights alone on a chair until they start spilling over and you tilt your neck to see where they go but
there is only the ground there is only the ground there is no where to fall into but
the light is moving again because
you are the tape
and you are standing on the chair where the glass blooms with filaments that you
touch and suddenly you are
swimming in colors that don't seem sloppy and tacky anymore.
you pull the plug.
the house is bright again.
Nov 20, 2018
Nov 20, 2018 at 8:24 PM UTC
Jesus wore sandals, you wear sandals.
The heat from the flames seared from out the window of the black Buick.
Emails from job recruiters are trying to make you work for them. Work for the man. Don’t use your brain. Be my slave. You do not exist. You exist for me.
Washington D.C. has a neighborhood; and walking deeper and deeper into its trap will lead to the retelling of the Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.
My GPS is my angel, pointing me in the right direction. A cliché, yes, but how very true.
The Washington Post stand is blocking the entrance to the corner store like a trusted guide.
There’s a lock on the box that holds the newspapers. I’m a Vietnamese American man.
Man,
Whites, black, Hispanics, Asians; they, all give me weird looks.
Emotions course through the stem.
Sleep awaits, but NaS said, “sleep is the cousin of death.”
There is this beauty-skin book sitting on the balustrade of light green row-house, propped against a neat, white fence that holds in the pink magnolias. Rain drops on the book.
Pattering along the cover, the raindrops, slipping, now running down the cracked brick, seeping into a cigarette **** This is the neighborhood. The book is hope.
Allah, God, Buddha
The can from the soda company is in the grass in the D.C. Neighborhood. Who put it there? It is raining, cleaning my body.
The rain is pouring and I feel like I’ve found my calling.
It is to form the language.
And as that epiphany smacks me in the face, my left side of my brain starts hurting.
What does this mean?
Am I truly waking up from the dream?
I understand. You’re listening to me.
The raindrops fell on my glasses and I felt my vision was changing. The cloudiness disappeared from the lenses. Cay’s pain-stricken face turned into a smile, full of happiness, full of friendship. He’s a good friend. I’m the bad one.
I want to be good.
I want to be good.
It’s change.
For the better, for real.
When it was raining,
The lightbulb popped up outside.
And I finally had the lightbulb speak to me for the first time.
I knew I was a bad person and now I needed to change into a good person.
The car stops moving forward,
I turn the engine off,
And go back to the beginning.
Sep 29, 2016
Sep 29, 2016 at 3:01 PM UTC
He will build you a liquid castle,
and you'll dive into it,
because you love shiny things.
We all do.
You'll swim the moat 'till the chlorine burns your eyes
and sears your liver 'till it doesn't hurt.
Then nothing will hurt
(and hurt and hurt and hurt)
as he tells you how beautiful you are
with your flushed face and mind
(and laugh and laugh and laugh).
When his breath warms the mortar on your neck,
your castle is on fire and it wasn't even yours.
The fire is sweet (and sweet and sweet).
He'll sink soft teeth into the balustrade,
whispering your drawbridge open.
You want (and want and want)
to embrace this siege:
Crumbling walls
mend
so
****
wonderfully
when you want them to.
Your crumbling castle
has kept you captive,
but you're freeing your feeling, feel your face;
your face is on fire but you're freed and falling
off the edge of even your edges,
and you'll land in the lava lining your lover,
but it heals you and he'll never know it.
You can forge your failures into ferocity here
and have him help if he's helpful,
have him leave if he leaves.
Only then will he know
you forged a castle of steel
under his archer's eye.
You
won
this
battle.
Jun 20, 2017
Jun 20, 2017 at 10:50 PM UTC