"barefaced" poems
Rugby town, of landlocked streets,
of wasted field and barefaced retreat;
I miss you now, in absence of a friend,
I miss you now, in the verse that I lend.
Suburb grove, of sleepy mist,
oh, battered housewife, oh blastocyst;
you will remain in place forevermore,
and forevermore, you'll become a bore.
Holding cell, of sporting fame,
you stole my dreams but gave me my name;
I think of you: a multi-storey view,
of happy faces, of which there is few.
Still, my town, in debt's nightgown,
the shop-fronts vacate, we're feeling down;
these streets are poisoned with names of the past,
each memoir to teach: nothing's built to last
Rugby town, of weary folk,
the private school is a private joke;
I miss you now, as I sleep through the day,
I miss the old walks, and all that you'd say.
Old market town, the aftermath,
of British summer, suicide bath;
of open mics and closing the shutters,
of waking graveyards, sleeping in gutters.
Hopeless climbs, of dreary times,
of childhood state and nursery rhymes;
each time that I come home, I know you less,
becoming a stranger in my redress.
Clock tower, chiming, chiming loud,
singing for history long and proud;
of Rupert Brooke and the question: “what if?”
What if I was born to some lover's tiff?
To some large and friendless town,
to some body of land, which I drown;
to some active place of pain unknown,
to some place that I'll not gauge that I've grown,
oh Rugby dear, stay with me,
let me live on the periphery;
and although this town seems terribly dull,
it could be worse – I could live in Hull.
Mar 14, 2014
Mar 14, 2014 at 7:18 PM UTC
The devil's speech say they:
Rolling, clattering, frolicking, hungry.
Billows of charred skeletons embrace the air
Black soot pumped straight from the pyres of Hades
Congealing to clouds of evil intent wherever it roam.
That charred old shell so terse,
Black as sadness and dead as a hearse,
Darling to death as he brings on the rain:
The dry rolling thunder of the funeral train.
In the coughing desert
Not a thing dares roam
Neither wind nor creature
And neither stick nor stone.
But then the silence disturbed by a horrible shriek -
The railway screams in horror and the train itself speaks, saying
"Tell me, thou innocent,
Why feel you special and best?
For when all is done I take you
And return you to my nest;
Your world is bright and happy
Full of high spirits and song,
Though soon you too shall step aboard
And join my faceless throng."
Hot saliva on the heaving engines:
Weeping, groaning, ghostly, parched.
Rusted joints spewed onwards grinding resisting
Movement spat out like a violently beaded string of curses
Sloppily uttered as incantations of a malformed mouth!
From that charred old shell so terse,
Black as sadness and dead as a hearse,
Darling to death as he brings on the rain:
The dry rolling thunder of the funeral train.
That dark train cries out and all around
A mourning whimper rises like slumbering fog-
Bleak and yellow it obscures the land
Seeping out insidious in strange locales all:
The old lonely fisherman
Sleeping on his wharf,
The frustrated hawker's
Windblown barefaced booth,
Silent streets crying for attention,
Dark places hidden at the corner of every eye.
That solemn train cries out and all around
Her mourning whimper rises like harrowing fog
Calling all to upright attention and fear.
Looming like a spectre but a breath-span from your window
Slowly closing cold dread claws-
Naked numbness dumb as ice-
Cold dread claws upon thy waist.
And you,
You poor old thing,
Shivering in your pitiful shack of bones,
You never had any chance!
You were only human.
You were only human, you poor old thing.
Barreling on with brimstone slang:
Clang clang! Dang dang! Beelz Bub!
Sputtering an ocean of curses from turgid goat-flesh
Born of sadness to cause even more, yawning great maw
Jowls clanking with fresh hot oil drool steaming stark and lewd, and yet
That charred old shell so terse,
Blacker than sadness and slain like a hearse,
Is all that gives meaning to our every gain:
The dry rolling thunder of the funeral train.
Oct 4, 2011
Oct 4, 2011 at 12:10 AM UTC
***** of echoes, the virile resonance quaking lust -
Throbbing caverns shudder to ****** inciting vestal musk
Entranced of nocturnal bedevilment - barefaced in galactic greens,
Spores ethereal yet concealed to the Queen
Sumptuous omphalos; her ecstatic womb engulfing the bloom,
Carnal reckonings devoid of Mosaic release as panting creatures swoon
Vigorous pollination morphing the nectarean sheath
Roused stamen shrivel in an animus induced retreat
Again we'll rise to salute our idol
In burning continuance:
Fertility extolled
With pleasure recompensed.
Nov 20, 2012
Nov 20, 2012 at 7:51 PM UTC
I.
I have fallen in love with
the mid-June evening skies, and
It's volatile shades of grey
Like a temperamental canvas of inky blacks
And blotted blues, lines of translucent paint drizzle down
From the canopy of clouds, marred and bruised.
II.
Lovers separated by atmospheres and seasons,
A torrent of raindrops ravishes
It's earthen companion,
caressing the jagged scars across it's parched skin.
I have fallen in love with
The heady scent that permeates the humid air;
The love-child of storm and soil
Infused by the sweet, rich aromas
Of a 6pm cup of chai.
III.
I have fallen in love with
The rivulets of rainwater that
Trail silver maps across the ridges and contours of bottle green fronds;
And the dewy droplets that adorn the Gulmohars and Cassias that are strewn beside my bare feet;
Like a bejewelled carpet of scarlet and gold.
IV.
We are words
Ricocheting off one another,
Relief, catharsis and a safe space after a long day.
We are the comfortable silences, the content sighs,
And the barefaced truth
Between mother and daughter.
I have fallen in love with
The tapestry of words that we weave.
V.
I have fallen in love with
Coming home.
Jul 8, 2017
Jul 8, 2017 at 1:41 PM UTC
I believe we are of sound and worthy mind;
That we might cast our constant glare back,
Towards our own transgressions and
Pretensious claims to ascendance.
That we may reflect on our own fortune,
Alive and affluent, rich in life and
Experience ill afforded to our elders.
Perhaps then we might pretend,
If only for fleeting moments,
That we are as deserving as we commonly believe.
For we are nothing if not
The cynical generation, born into
A world so mature that we need be
Nothing but children within it.
We have no politics, no beliefs, no
Drive to propel us into an existence of
Grace and enlightenment. We scoff
At signs of sentiment, we laugh
At barefaced gesture and divulgence.
We indulge in ceaseless pleasures and
Live upon the surface of the shallows.
Yet we forfeit the beauty of feeling,
The release afforded by sublimity;
We are afraid of what is bigger than us,
And we respond with profane derision.
I tire of popularity competitions,
Of gossip and blunt innuendo, of
Social ladders and picking up.
I yearn, with nostalgia and music, for
A time foreign to this weary soul,
A time perhaps non-existent, when
Such games were not all there was.
Sep 25, 2011
Sep 25, 2011 at 4:09 AM UTC
I was called shameless the other day
they certinaly meant it positively
but I wasn't quote sure what it means
especially in regard to me
I've done some thing my life
I've definitely crossed some lines
both things that I'm not proud of
but at the same time they re a part of me
they are my history
so I looked up shameless in the dictionary
braze, barefaced, unblushing,unashamed
I suppose that is me because shame is a game that I do not play
I'll say whatever I want to say
I'll never say anything I don't feel
Because all I want in life is to be real
to be the best me that I can be
because it's a **** shame to be anything else
so I'll be brazen and they may not like it
but that's their problem and not mine
I'm barefaced, they'll say I'm out of my mind
I am unblushing, my cheeks show no red
I am unashamed of the things I've said
I am shameless and I am myself
Jul 23, 2013
Jul 23, 2013 at 12:41 AM UTC
*A New York City state of mind
stagnating a pretty face,
one in a crowd of thousands
had big billboard dreams
dressed to the nines
in expectation's
high class perfection
barefaced realizations'
disrobed an illusion - -*
'neath harsh spotlights of reality
Jun 13, 2015
Jun 13, 2015 at 10:27 AM UTC
On the seventh day we paid the rent
and what was meant for food
gave us one more week to brood on inequality and the inferiority of our position.
One condition we stipulate,is not to tempt the hand of fate or providence
and not paying rent would surely dent the image that we try to make
and though it breaks my heart to part with nine and six a week
and even if I know the landlord's got a bleedin' cheek to charge this much
I touch my forelock and say,
'good morning Sir'.
An air of doom and gloom descends it all depends on what next I say,
will I pay this ghastly fee to keep a roof over Marjorie (the wife) the kids and I
or will I look the landlord in the eye and let him know that he's a thieving crook and intimate that he should go and **** himself and take the rent book too
what do I do but lay the nine and six upon the table with the pale blue rent book and do not say, 'go **** anyone'
me and the missus and kids will stay on for another week while seeking out some other place where barefaced robbery is a crime.
In another time the landlord would be shot his houses all forfeit
but today that rotten toff has got it all, it's like a noose tied round my neck,a millstone that drags me by the ***** and puts me down
I ought to push that bad lot in the 'cut' and let the baftard drown,
and I said nothing, not a sound escaped my lips
the class system trips me up and weighs me in and while I drink a bottle of sour milk he drinks Geneva gin.
Poor people and peasants never win
the odds are bent in favour of more rent and that rotten sod will nod and shake his head
I'd wish him dead but that's another sin
and like I said,
poor people and peasants never win.
Jul 1, 2013
Jul 1, 2013 at 5:41 PM UTC
in silence I stand
unadorned, but,
awakened in a
demure frame of
mind
thoughts color
my cheeks, hues
paint my soul;
as I stand alone
unembellished
purity trickles
upon reddened
cheeks; chastity
leaves me clothed
and untainted as I
smile upon life
sensuality of me
blossoms in tinted
arrays; as sunlight
bounces off the
prism of mind
yet, still unpainted
upon life's canvas
tentatively, I blink
eying my reflection
in the mirror; devoid
of a painted mask
cocooning my essence
as I evolve into
a white butterfly
finding myself
unpainted in familiar
surroundings; barefaced
but, acknowledging
true colors; strength,
faith, decorum, self-esteem,
respect and confidence
unpainted like my canvas;
but, evident in all that I do
hung upon the wall of
an internal gallery;
posing in full glory
poised royally, in an
unpainted portrait
portraying me
elegantly
Jun 12, 2012
Jun 12, 2012 at 2:50 AM UTC
how do you feel
lost and alone at the end of your dime
someplace on the road between the here and the now
out of smokes and outa luck
barefaced to the carnival of night
the day passes slowly into the vastness of the past
hungry eyes puddled with traces of regret
for all the places you've been and think you belong
for all the treasures of the past yet to be plundered
and all the sweetness to which your heart has succumb
convinced of the need to find a home
a place to breath easy
you take a few tentative steps to the road
in hopes of finding its easier than it seems
to kickstart your old bones
and write a new tale for you to sing
how do you feel down here at the end of your last dime
finger-licking good or foretastes of gloom
waiting here for the prize you know aint comin'
waiting here for the explanation you aint buyin'
thin and looking a little like a ghost
see you on the other side
May 13, 2015
May 13, 2015 at 3:07 PM UTC
For many years you proffered friendship, albeit now, in disguise
For all that time, I held in trust, the warm expression in your eyes,
You claimed you worked hard, by my side, to help me build a dream, a cause,
And in return I gave for you sir, this understanding without pause.
The legions of referrals then, I steered, deflecting to your say
And trust, invested mightily, gave you the right to have your way,
Dependence there, a factor, over many years support
Now the barefaced lie revealed, the friendship, friend, was but a rort!
Revealed, you milked it all for gain. Revealed, You snickered at my pain,
Laughed aloud, you played the fool and laughed outrageously, so cruel.
It robbed me of all self regard, a comrade’s mantle caste in lard,
I cried and wept for what was lost, then sat and quietly counted cost.
Betrayal, cold, lies on the shelf, to know thy foe… reflects thyself.
Marshalg
Pukehana
14 November 2013
Nov 14, 2013
Nov 14, 2013 at 12:33 AM UTC
Long curly hair, afloat in the breeze
short,swift glances
and a deep longing to meet yours;--
-No!
I refuse to fall for you again.
Red full lips, parted;ready to speak,
dry parched throat, denies such action-
-I said, 'No' .
Faster and faster races a shattered heart,
shards clawing on the inside; but you advance nonetheless.
and then... a deafning silence.
come hear the sound of my breaking heart,
come feel the cold raging inside,
come taste the sorrow I now hate.
Is it possible you heard?
That you felt ?
That you tasted?
Is it possible that--
Gentle hands caress me,
And a wamth engulfs what little frame i have;
silencing the screaming winds.
Deep brown eyes wander accross my still face,
finding what exactly; I'll never know.
Jan 12, 2017
Jan 12, 2017 at 12:29 PM UTC
You pointed out the obvious,
how I was taking time;
and I was fairly cautious
not to be sublime.
I didn't want to tell you,
that I was just afraid,
that I feared every piece of rue
that made me feel so strayed.
I took every step slowly,
never wanting to part.
For in the end, I lowly
cradle my aching heart.
I would rather conceal our bliss
in awkward daylit hours
than spend a moment so amiss
in a place ever so sour.
I stalled to keep you near me
for happiness, I knew.
I hoped you always did see
and hoped you were happy too.
I stalled because when we are not
together, things do change.
For more time I wish I had fought
but home was out of range.
I stalled because I wanted,
(I'd say so without shame)
to never be so haunted
of the nights with barefaced blame.
I stalled because I didn't
want to argue tonight,
I don't know how to hint it,
but I fear a direct fight.
I stalled because I disliked
how it felt to be away.
Unknowing, fearing, nearing psyched
if I'll see you the next day.
I stalled because I couldn't
bear to let you go;
But I'm just a young woman
and we still have years to go.
I stalled because I didn't
want to feel alone.
Without you, just your imprint;
I feel lost and unknown.
I stalled because I love you.
I have loved you and I still do.
I still love you and I will love you,
and I will remain true.
Aug 19, 2015
Aug 19, 2015 at 11:24 AM UTC
Thanksgiving Menu Planning for Gaining and Losing
~~~
having shed thirty pounds plus,
another X more yet required,
to be forever properly de-cored,
a happy subtracted scoring
part too,
brought the curtain going down
on a seven year insanity,
paid off the forever divorcing *****
that weight worth more than a Venetian
pound of flesh
now finding myself
in a re-entry orbit,
though hardly gliding,
encased in a capsule,
friction glowing gold
the now never~ending
calorie counting and exercise rituals,
in every aspect of life,
all friendly devils of relentless,
demanding utter devotions,
all watching, wondering, watering, endlessly,
a new perennial flowering of a leaf,
all watchdogs of the truth serum called
what if?
what if
had I lived my prior
lazy loose life,
with the current rigor
of daily barefaced truth
I would never have made
choices that have redline scarred,
some made back in 1975,
into a forty year losing war,
spiral declination that permitted the
insidious, slo-mo of decay,
that could be, would be,
reversed only
by this recent heart
and soul surgery
*nowadays, menu plan my life's
every actionable choice,
limiting the sugared foolishness
from the decay
one can coat themselves in,
survival lies and refrigerator drugs,
until sleep~rest intervenes
what shall I eat,
what shall I choose,
what will be this day's life choices from the menu,
answering daily inquiries from
Oliver and Siri (1),
acknowledging that more-than-occasional slippage will occur,
but taking no true satisfaction
from the periodicself-cheating,
always
daily weigh myself
twice,
first my body,
then, my soul,
upon the rising,
upon the setting*
***to see quantifiable
what I have,
thankfully
yet to gain
by losing***
~~~
Thanksgiving Day
2015
Nov 26, 2015
Nov 26, 2015 at 3:14 PM UTC
Here I am, awake, alive and in strength,
A strength that has encased itself around and still embracing,
A new cord, granted to live and suffocate,
Mine from the very moment her poisonous cord was cut,
Its envelopment has a weight that many broken hearts can't bear,
And if you can see that new cord, I can tell you, I'm not there.
Oh the costly consequences of her child's protection,
What terrors this thin film has endured and then veiled,
Such a charlatan's tongue has her actress when she's speaking,
Be kind to her if you believe you can, a cataclysm, a tragedy, from her new cord is leaking.
The thunder is shameless in its powerful percussion,
And brave is the morning with its barefaced horizon,
So surely then, one new cord can be severed and forever broken?
One hushed voice finally heard, what gilded words could then be spoken?
Mar 13, 2022
Mar 13, 2022 at 5:51 PM UTC
the words only come
as she turns and walks barefaced
into the deluge of night
but they fail to turn her path from
this motorway travesty
the traffic gives no appeasement
and so i retreat alone back to the civility of light
the waitress from the dinner
in her crisp black uniform is a soft vision of
transient beauty in this dark world display
her sharp step on the tiles is made clear by
the click of high heels
with genuine concerns painted vividly
on young face hovers over me
with instruments of refreshment
and implements of less casual soul meats
she gives comforts and care
to my wearied thought
she defines the end of her entertainments
with her sharp pencils pendulum scratchings
with bill in hand
i am loosed upon the night once more
now alone to roads delights
homeward bound
Mar 2, 2014
Mar 2, 2014 at 1:05 PM UTC
Clouded skies were once green with guilt as they looked on at a love never intended to happen (let alone last). I scrawl secrets onto the backs of my hands and wave, barefaced, to strangers, who have only seen me through the eye-holes of cardboard masks...
I never wanted to be seen.
Yet, your eyes saw the unforeseable, and my heart and soul were spread out over sheer table tops. You examined them with tender, knowledgeable pupils, glazed with beckoning fright. You did not find your happy ending in my book of sad truths. I ceased to be of any value to you, and, since I was not the rare, antique you thought you saw wallowing in a windowshop corner, eventually, you couldn't see me...
Jun 6, 2014
Jun 6, 2014 at 3:04 PM UTC
Can you tell me with no
hesitation in your voice
that my warped vision
of a romance is any more
or less than a thousand
stand ins for this
off the cuff production?
Or is it simply the
fear in your eyes that
speak in various
timbres of time lost
banking on a love that
was nothing more than
a third rate swindle;
Neither have a fraction
of the impact it takes
to win my obligations.
Jun 7, 2015
Jun 7, 2015 at 2:58 AM UTC
Ouroboros is its own meal
The same is true with
Those from own country that steal!
To humstrung the incumbent
Most party members are not hesitant.
Ouroboros,they adore their party,
Which they obliviously or
Otherwise sully with
A rent-seeking identity.
They adore the incumbent
Yet they spell nation's
Slow but sure death
Siphoning budget earmarked
For infrastructure,education,
Agriculture and health.
They adore their party
That took power
But with a deadface
That lets them, with
Nation's wealth, take a shower.
They adore their party,
However with their bureaucratic logjams,
Create on nation's developmental
****** encumberance.
Yet they entertain
A wild dream
Their party could
Let the country
Forward advance.
They support their party
As a Scare (self-defeating) tactic
Sees better
For social justice
Requesting demonstrators
To scatter
Shooting one or two
With a ******
'cause what they enunciate
"We adore"
Citizens abhore
Marking it stifling and "a bore".
Worse still
Barefaced they entertain
No shame or fear
Using 'public media'
"I **** thee
Because I love thee!"
To din in people's ear.//
May 24, 2017
May 24, 2017 at 8:33 AM UTC
The heart is a machine.
It has valves and pumps, little tubes and wires.
It pushes life roughly through my veins, scraping by along my insides,
too full of something barely contained.
And I feel it yelling at me constantly, a day to day screech in my chest.
"You must carry on! You must feed me oxygen and suffer while I beat the life into you!"
What cruel joke is this?
This machine betrays me so.
It betrayed me to you.
It sold me out, all my secrets and desires barefaced in your hands.
And all for a smile. And then a laugh. And then a kiss.
That kiss was the end of me.
I dared it to go, I told it
"Once you go down that road, don't you dare come back."
It never did.
I've been without my machine for quite sometime now.
It ran headlong into your arms and I have no thought of how to coax it back.
Every day I struggle with these invisible strings,
tugging as I walk to my classes,
tugging as I stumble up stairs
and say hello to people I know.
I'm fighting you. I'm tired of fighting you.
I just want my turn.
Let me fall in your arms.
Let me have you.
Mar 11, 2013
Mar 11, 2013 at 3:48 AM UTC
man emerges from this
darksome ether.
this: time suspended
in the ballpark, without fetters.
i have dreamt the truth
of my vicarious call.
is it not that my measures secure
these constitutions
of ineffable fruitions?
it is likened to our heartland's
acrimonies: dreaming in the
misty vale of sleep is the word
and its insistent void,
riddled by amorous intent
of barefaced realisms.
there is nothing here but
subservience of fantasy's burlesque fanfare
on broad vaudeville.
man sinks into the bottom
of this, rests in the
soft hands of this earth-woven
word - a poem's importunate nativity where all supremacies
are born ceaselessly!
Sep 18, 2015
Sep 18, 2015 at 11:48 AM UTC
My words are escaping
while I try to scape from them.
Trying to define myself, without tune myself,
free emotions like death leaves
with no bounds or branches.
Like free rivers
of moving thoughts
falling like red wine
from the green bottle neck,
on the carpet,
through the throath,
over the white sand
the words are escaping
and now
i go with them,
white words
where i find beauty
or dark words,
evil dreams ,
grayed dreams or colorful,
cries knotting the throath,
scars all over my skin,
in my hands,
in my eyelids,
in my heart,
heating the blood,
my blood,
spreading so noisy
with no shame,
barefaced my words escape
while I escape of this world.
Jul 19, 2013
Jul 19, 2013 at 12:58 AM UTC
I was lost, but now I'm found.
I was dead, but now I'm alive.
I was dry ink, but now I'm fresh.
I was dangling from a vine, but now I've been picked.
I was wrong, and now I'm right.
I hadn't realized that my writing simply wasn't barefaced
Now I've realized it's got taste,
It's got an angst.
It won't forever be in gluey, fluidy, paste,
Stuck to a wall and never embraced.
My poetry from before,
Simply wasn't eyesore,
But it was just that I never caught that that was the fish I had adored.
But now that I am shooting in the range
Of words I'll never rearrange
But now I know for sure and forever that my style and taste can never change.
Dec 18, 2011
Dec 18, 2011 at 1:06 PM UTC
Yesterday.
Imperfect, beyond perfect,
and everywhere between
barefaced bliss and bittersweet.
And I told him I loved him.
I know.
And he held me.
Let me trace that word
between your shoulders.
A single tear to baptize the silence.
Jun 15, 2014
Jun 15, 2014 at 10:25 AM UTC