"biographies" poems
TO: icarus
i don’t feel anything when i look at you anymore
TO: icarus
but, sometimes, i miss your freckles like crazy
TO: icarus
okay so maybe i lied
TO: icarus
i keep trying not to
i keep failing
TO: icarus
but i guess it’s just that
you are like no one i’ve met
TO: icarus
and it’s dumb to call you my first love
when you didn’t even love me back,
but… man, you were my first love
TO: icarus
i love(d) you so bad.
TO: icarus
and if i see you on the sidewalk,
i cross the street because i’m so afraid of brushing by you
and falling all over again
TO: icarus
i don’t think i’d be strong to crawl back out this time
TO: icarus
how dumb i was to think i’d be enough for icarus
TO: icarus
i loved icarus and he dragged me into the sun with him
TO: icarus
i loved icarus and he let me drown in the ocean,
grasping for the feathers of his wings
TO: icarus
you made me want to understand gods,
but i only knew about monsters
TO: icarus
god, you didn’t deserve the immortality
that i gave you
TO: icarus
you didn't deserve a single thing
TO: icarus
so if i’m ever the kind of poet they write biographies about
and whose work high schoolers are forced to analyze,
some underpaid english teacher
is going to have to talk about you
as the mysterious and slightly vilified figure
prevalent in my work
TO: icarus
you're in between every line
Nov 4, 2015
Nov 4, 2015 at 10:01 PM UTC
I’m buried in a cocoon of stories
From poetry,
To biographies,
To dystopia,
And romance
So many stories
Of so many people
Real,
Or just figments of the author’s
Imagination
Sitting atop wooden bookshelves
Waiting for the right person,
To pick them up
And get lost in their story
For everyone has a story to tell,
Some are overly exaggerated,
And other’s are rarely heard
The important thing is
That we share our stories
Through word of mouth,
The internet,
Or in a notebook
To be found by future historians
Tell your story
Believe me, you won’t regret it
May 26, 2019
May 26, 2019 at 4:41 PM UTC
If my life were a movie it would be one of those films that gets hyped up to no end because I’m one of those kids with the rough childhood who just wants to make it
When in reality it’s just a less action packed but just as dark dc movie
My story has also been confused with a marvel movie since the protagonist is me
And i can't help but cut my overbearing traumatic tragedies with self deprecating comedies
But my life to me feels more like an edgar wright movie where the action isn’t as exciting as The fact that I was able to get out of bed this morning
And my day to day reality will forever feel like a motion blur of edited out negative emotion
I think Maybe my life could be a wes anderson movie stuck in one color palette for the rest of my eternity
And my maturity tends to overwhelm me
my journey is like an anderson movie because i tend to create a world around me
Taking time to shape my own protected reality so that the outside world can’t hurt inside me
If im being honest though i want my life to be a spielberg movie that grabs attention of all ages coming from all sorts of places
I want to spin my truths into his fantastic fantasies where no one equates my past with me
But at the same time I want my life to be a blast from the past john hughes movie where i find a way to stop my past from haunting me
And everything ends up okay at the end of the day because my minds overbearing insecurities
No longer have control over me
Now i see that in actuality other peoples movies are just too much for who i truly want to be and how my trauma impacts me
I mean between my all of those boring biographies and my abundance of favorite movies
I’d want my life’s movie to be full of images depicting my fondest memories and all my angsty gen z tendencies
If my life were a movie i’d make it about how I am, or was, or am going to be
If my life were a movie I’d make it about me
May 2, 2019
May 2, 2019 at 12:24 PM UTC
I was once told to edit the world. I grabbed my colored pencils, my childish ideals thinking I could simply, go over the imperfections left by my predecessors. Soon I would come to realize, life is no etchy-sketch. I could shake the world, twist, mold into anything I wanted. It’s still ****** up. I’m still trying to color the problems. I shade the unwanted, masking it over so I can pretend it’s gone. My day dreams continue further as I sketched over past memories, just want to edit the world. But, colored pencils become daggers when in the right hands. I’ve leaped into this idea with no plan, Standard american wisdom. Act first, question later. my first action should have been to ask, is the world a canvas? Maybe it’s a kindergarden sandbox, 5 year old fists and 6 year olds toes smash and pound through. Maybe it’s a thunderstorm because, I was told life isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. All I’ve seen is dark clouds and lighting. Maybe the world is me. Poetic angst without fail, too much energy to use, to many words spoken at a rapid pace. Maybe the world is you, you, or you. It’s not just its own story, it’s a combination of auto-biographies still being written. Maybe... Just maybe, we are all editors. The world is constantly being edited, no single person should aim to do it themselves. Our world is force, a group, a team, a family taking the pens from our mothers and fathers, writing our chapters into the guide on how to edit. Sooner rather than later, we’ll pass our pens down to those who will write the chapters we never get to see. Hopefully, 5 year old fists and 6 year old toes become 20 year old champions and 30 year old heroes. We can share our stories, filled with the people we’ll never forget, and the nights, we can’t seem to remember. In the end, editing the world will never finished, it can be forgotten. We hope shedding sun rays on a rainy day, might convince our successors to never forget. Sadly, We can only hope they wish to edit.
Oct 29, 2012
Oct 29, 2012 at 7:42 PM UTC
unsure of living
I have discovered
the waiting room
of the nearly dead
there are pictures
of the famous ones
hung upon the wall
****** Hemmingway,
Hammurabi, Harrison
in their different times
they all sat in these chairs
reading magazines and
quaint biographies while
they waited for their name
to be called
the most unsettling thing
is not knowing if you truly
belong here
so sitting in death’s waiting room
I flip through greasy, old pages
wondering if I’m brave enough
to walk out the door and see if
anybody notices
Apr 19, 2011
Apr 19, 2011 at 4:58 PM UTC
A dusty shelf made of wood
That reaches way up high
Lined with every kind of book
Collected as years went by
Stories written to entertain
To swell the beating heart
To inspire the complacent
To create a change
Or make a fresh new start
Magical stories of fantasy fiction
Biographies and poetic prose
Classic tales by Charles Dickens
Filling up all of the rows
But one sits on a cluttered desk
About the mysteries of Heaven
Set apart from the rest
Opened to page seven
Jul 21, 2016
Jul 21, 2016 at 12:05 AM UTC
The vibration of the anticipation
of seeing you tonight.
I think I might
put on skirt
not to flirt but to impress
[Oh God]
I must love you,
I’m wearing a dress.
On the sand we’re shoeless
and it’s now I must confess
everything.
I met you three days ago and I love you.
We chase ***** and
Blickah Blickah dance
everything here is all just chance
we walk for miles on the beach
and if we keep going we can reach the pier
the ultimate destination, but
we keep getting caught
in our own procrastination.
We climb on a trampoline
of a de-rigged sailboat
and hope
that we find contentment.
Turns out
we probably could have prevented
all the ******** introductions
and started the production
of us from the start instead
of the part
we’re supposed to play.
A meteor shower,
[How so romantic comedy]
but we’ve created a melody
that’s in harmony with our souls.
We give each other biographies as we
stare to sea
as barriers fade away.
There is just so much to say
but not enough time to say it
don’t deny it
just try to find it
the words to tell me I’m right
or did this night
mean nothing to you?
Can you hear that?
A heart pumping, no thumping,
thump, thump, thumping for you
but you can’t see through
the lines and the walls
you just don’t have the *****
[I’m too good for you.]
Jun 13, 2012
Jun 13, 2012 at 11:44 AM UTC
From shelves and racks, or lying in stacks, Books,
Of all ages and epochs—adolescents and youths,
Aged and venerable, and e’en those in decrepitude,
Much eloquent, but in all silence, share with us
Experiences wide ranging, emotions well pent up,
Passions, love and hate, and joys and sufferings,
Triumphs, failings, histories, biographies and maxims.
A pat or stroke, or appeal in awe, or in supplication,
They’d unleash to you, in varied moods and temper,
Their stories, in letters, words, phrases, sentences;
In prose or verse on folios, or in acts and scenes,
Of Helens, Quixotes, Falstaffs, Holmes and Othellos,
In the highs and lows of their pleasures and pathos,
Of Lears, Tristans and Isoldes, and procrastinators.
Of the plucks and spirits of Arjunas and Achilleses,
Of the failings of the ill-fated Kareninas and Bovaries,
Of the unwavering faith of Jobs, Noahs and Abrahams,
Of the lovelorn Sakunthalas, and Sitas under Simsupa,
Of God’s Garden, and of the wisdom of the Himalaya,
They speak in silence, of the real and the imagined,
As mighty godlike genies waiting for our summons!
Nov 8, 2013
Nov 8, 2013 at 4:43 AM UTC
May I write a Shakespearian sonnet on
the square inches of skin
between your thumb joint and elbow?
I’m a pretty good storyteller,
I can narrate in blank verse if you wish.
Can I write poetry on your spine?
Up and down in broken haikus,
tankas quilting along the curve of your sides.
Perhaps a sestina?
So be it.
I can work bay leaves into tea cakes.
May I write alliterations across your toes,
over finger bones and broken knuckles?
I have enough form poems to
paint my walls a matte black.
Gloppy ink blobs,
carnation stamps,
over raised red lines of a villanelle.3
Can I write poetry on your stomach?
I have soft ballad-dipped brushes
that leak cinnamon sugar.
Acrostic biographies written to a jazz tune,
papier-mâchéd into a handmade piñata.
Spider web hair pins
left in the bathroom sink spell out
another useless cinquain.
May I write a rondeau on your calves,
rising up into your knees?
Epitaphs in your running shoes
make limericks out of the hail in your back yard.
Don’t try super gluing petals back onto stems,
they’ll fall apart eventually.
Poetry is written on you like paper.
Jun 1, 2013
Jun 1, 2013 at 12:14 PM UTC
days are spinning by and i think this is what remission feels like
empty apathy
and struggle
i wish i could write
better things
but this is all that i feel.
constantly losing battles is so hard
we play a losing game
monopoly maybe
i long for the person i used to be
or is this the person i’ve always been?
hold flowers between your fingers and think long and hard about something
something that you want real real real bad
maybe it’ll come true
probably not.
so full of pain trying to be subtle i should be bleeding
word choice alone
should have given you a clue
and the consistent undertone of raw pure unadulterated angst and bitter humor
that isn’t funny at all.
Adventures In Good Deeds
i helped pick up the trash and i thought about volunteering at a soup kitchen
if only i could find the on switch
5 Hour Energy .
am i decent enough for one word biographies?
do i hold enough presence for silence?
can i afford to not begin my sentences with sorry?
i am barley a person
just a body with good organs
and no license to complain
“ma’am kindly shut the **** up no one cares.”
that’s what they’ll say to me i’m sure
the thought police
who hate me and i don’t feel anything towards them
because i am nothing but apathy and stupidity
i don’t deserve anything
not joy or bad i don’t deserve either
not because i’m neutral but because i’ve never done anything to feel anything
not that i am undeserving of feeling the bad things
but there has been nothing in my existence to make me feel
spoiled brat woes and hearts sealed with classical silver duct tape
maybe a dash of pepper on a delicious meal that had no need for pepper
i don’t
Patchwork Happiness
on the dot
24/6
sunday’s for church where the atheist goes because he fears and dreams
Dec 5, 2013
Dec 5, 2013 at 1:30 AM UTC
From shelves and racks, or lying in stacks, Books,
Of all ages and epochs—adolescents and youths,
Aged and venerable, and e’en those in decrepitude,
Much eloquent, but in all silence, share with us
Experiences wide ranging, emotions well pent up,
Passions, love and hate, and joys and sufferings,
Triumphs, failings, histories, biographies and maxims.
A pat or stroke, or appeal in awe, or in supplication,
They’d unleash to you, in varied moods and temper,
Their stories, in letters, words, phrases, sentences;
In prose or verse on folios, or in acts and scenes,
Of Helens, Quixotes, Falstaffs, Holmes and Othellos,
In the highs and lows of their pleasures and pathos,
Of Lears, Tristans and Isoldes, and procrastinators.
Of the plucks and spirits of Arjunas and Achilleses,
Of the failings of the ill-fated Kareninas and Bovaries,
Of the unwavering faith of Jobs, Noahs and Abrahams,
Of the lovelorn Sakunthalas, and Sitas under Simsupa,
Of God’s Garden, and of the wisdom of the Himalaya,
They speak in silence, of the real and the imagined,
As mighty godlike genies waiting for our summons!
Dec 23, 2013
Dec 23, 2013 at 8:51 AM UTC
We endeavor to construct boxes and file folders
This life being ****** complex
And messy to boot, so we approximate sanity
By filling compartments and writing thumbnail biographies,
And even though she packed the costume admirably
(Already forty, mind you, but nowhere near gone to fat)
Julie Newmar had already filled both outfit and niche
(And never mind Halle Berry’s turn,
Different raiment for a different time, after all,
And one suspects the next iteration of said slinky supervillainess
Will wear nothing more than feline-shaped ****** rings),
Not to mention she’d already entered our collective consciousness
With a frothy Noel novelty (unsubstantial, inconsequential
In and of its ownself, perhaps, but then one considers
The version foisted off on the populace by that woman
Who appropriated the moniker of the Blessed ******
All phoned-in faux Betty Boop, and one reconsiders)
So this was who she was, the book closed and sealed
(English only, never mind the other three tongues she spoke
Plus three more she proficiently purred in.)
They say when she died, she did not go gently, as it were,
But screamed and yowled for all she was still worth,
And maybe it was the cancer, certainly enough to do the job itself,
But perhaps it was the notion
That her era of innuendo and intimation was all done,
That she was transitioning to the static, to becoming a legacy,
A permanence that was stalking her,
Murderous, insatiable, inexorable.
Sep 14, 2018
Sep 14, 2018 at 10:39 AM UTC
I've taken up writing biographies,
but I'm starting at the end.
See I'll write us back to eighteen,
full of freedom and backseat heartbeats.
I'd write us back to twelve,
and tree house book pages turning.
See I'd write you wild, child.
I'd write you blanket forts,
chances to consent,
and that lion heart
that was yours
when you were barefoot.
Mar 25, 2018
Mar 25, 2018 at 10:16 PM UTC
If I were to write a book
Based upon the entire life of you
Including the smallest of detailed details
Such as how your breath stays in perfect four/four rhythm
But changes based on the slightest change of emotion
And the way your lip quivers more upwards than downwards
When you are struggling to keep your composure
And how the sensations you felt spread smoothly throughout
your body from the source like a wave
And all of the billion little details like this
All of the little details that make up your life
Your history
Your memories
Your love
Your life
Your pain
Your regrets
Your dreams
Your importance
I wouldn't be able to complete it
For all of the trees in the land
Accessible by man would be cut down
And used for paper just for this book
And yet, it still wouldn't be enough
Your history alone would take up several volumes
Every breath would be chapters
Your birthdays would take up dozen of pages each
Your tears make up the changes in the exposition throughout
And your laughs make up the climaxes of each part
Biographies are made about specific persons
Only describing their general history
But none of them can truly capture that person and their value
For there will never be enough words
Or enough pages
To completely convey how special someone is
How important you are
You are important.
Remember this.
Aug 11, 2017
Aug 11, 2017 at 6:33 PM UTC
this is us,
sitting in the dusty corners,
sifting through the genres,
avid and voracious readers of
lugubrious paper-backs which
narrate the plots of self-pity and regret.
this is us,
losing our sense of time in there,
like undergrounds creatures fascinated
with the scent and sight of ground,
ignoring the less conspicuous collection
of sanguine and rhythmic biographies.
we are stubborn readers in the library of memories
reading the wrong genres over and over...
Jan 3, 2012
Jan 3, 2012 at 12:21 PM UTC
old telegraph road
_clickety-clack_
births, deaths and marriages
_tappity-tap_
did you hear the news?
_yackety-yak_
it is my duty to inform you...
_flippity-flop_
the pleasure of your company is requested...
_clappity-clap_
at 2:03pm (AEST) Monday, weighing 6lbs 7oz...
_drippity-drop_
old telegraph road
_yackety-yak_
eighty miles of cable
_tappity-tap_
biographies dotted and dashed
_clickety-clack_
Aug 20, 2020
Aug 20, 2020 at 1:19 AM UTC
We walk
In glow of silver screen,
We talk
In acronyms and SMS slang,
The star
Of an everyday movie
Camera man, script writer, director
Floating in the ether
Weaving our tapestries,
Between radio masts
Life on earth, live on earth
Spaceman, time traveller
On a voyage of discovery,
Walking and talking to ourselves
Without noticing the outside world,
Only interested in our own
Biographies;
Time for another selfie…………….
Sep 28, 2019
Sep 28, 2019 at 5:57 AM UTC
Don't make me read a biography.
They're always such a tease and I
always want more. When did your
first tooth come out. Whose been lucky
enough to kiss you. Don't tell me where
you went to school. I don't care what
year you graduated: tell me where you
ate lunch, tell me what songs got you
through that bus ride home.
You're telling me the skeleton, give me
the flesh, give me the intricate details of
your nerves and cells. I don't want no
flashcard facts, give me that scrapbook
your grandma made. Let me see you get
embarrassed. Just let me see you.
Sep 27, 2013
Sep 27, 2013 at 11:25 AM UTC
spin—for a moment even some yarn
in which we both give a ****
and we spend long, quiet evenings quoting
out of biographies of JFK or Bryan Ferry
and forget for a while all the things
we hate about each other, the things that
make us spit on the ground when they
come to mind;
forget them and maybe make love like
normal people. not against the counter before work
lifting your pinstripe skirt—rolling it up, really,
over your *** to gird the top of your hips.
(chaffing crown of ****** thorns)
maybe instead give me more than
5 minutes
and let me bury my face down in you and
you can wrap your legs around my head
to keep me there as long as you please.
and maybe later i'll laugh, sitting against the headboard, long-hand writing,
at something one of my characters has said and looking up
from an account you're working on you won't
understand my laughter but you will be
glad of it.
Apr 24, 2013
Apr 24, 2013 at 11:26 PM UTC
say my name, say my name!
you are…
you’re ********* right I am
I am the chemo coursing
through your blood
pumping you full of hope
deluding you with life’s beguiling bargain
that pain and suffering will allow you to live
forever, if you ask nicely, and
the background music is right
I am the one who walks
away from the inferno
while other souls sizzle
their biographies written in flames
flicked to life by my match
I am the nobody in the room
when you die alone, without the drip of morphine
your terrified eyes searching the stillness
for a childhood vision,
hoping it will be a summer song
rather than winter’s dead bone
I am all you dreaded
all you dreamed, you
have always known me
and followed my tracks
refusing to see me
though I was only
you
Dec 6, 2013
Dec 6, 2013 at 9:57 PM UTC
“If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.”
-Malcolm X
I once read “*The history of the world
is but the biography of great men.*”
I read those words slowly, then paused
so I could take them all in
Show me a great man
and I'll show you a history of lies
historians cleansing blood from hand
muting the truth, no matter how loud it cries
The biographies of the "great" are almost always
inked in the blood of martyrs and greater men
scarring temporal lobes, and obfuscating memory
the sword, falling prey to pen
"*Death makes angels of us all and gives us wings
where we had shoulders smooth as ravens claws*"
-Jim Morrison
Aug 3, 2014
Aug 3, 2014 at 8:50 PM UTC
the Siene does not run red
Eiffel still stands, though both
a million miles farther from our hotel
than they were at our last meal
had we not had a cancelled cruise
we would be listening to blue waves'
soft song in Nice
not now, instead
we hear the sirens' cacophony
premature dirges for the dead
wails of the maimed, yet
unnamed
tomorrow, their biographies will be
in print, their families numb in disbelief
longing for belief
and wishing numbers could be
reversed: 11-13-15, 9-11-01, 12-07-41
or perhaps AD plus one
when will this end, and
how much farther from Eve's
curious breach can we fall
Nov 13, 2015
Nov 13, 2015 at 11:12 PM UTC
I write stories on my sleeve
Silent novels carved into my arm
Quick
Sometimes d r a g g e d out
All melancholy with the hope for happiness.
The different variety of length is on me.
I am a library,
My words are written for the public to see,
Shelves upon shelves,
displaying biographies of my tragedies.
But my stories result in cliffhangers
when I roll down my sleeve.
May 3, 2017
May 3, 2017 at 11:50 AM UTC