"blanched" poems
After years of aimless wanderings
Leaving behind the cities of midnight revels
And the fevered journey in metro rails,
I am back at the land of my people.
Wherever I went,
Under which ever roof I slept,
I had carried my land,
As a jewel in a casket
And ensured it rested safe
Ever under my pillow
As I moved with aliens
Unable to merge with their cultural mores,
I saw my land glimmer in darkness
Like a dew drop on a moon blanched leaf
When I sweated in the blistering sands
A patch of green landscape, like an oasis
Wafted me in a cool embrace
Then dreams poured in like star light
And I wandered in the meadows of my youthful love
My heart struggling to forget old longings
And memories lashing upon me like tidal waves
Pursued by that inalienable shadow
Suddenly being born in flesh and blood
I hastened to the streets of my youth
With hopes galore and plans vivid
But alas! There is none to recognize me
Oh! I am a stranger here
An unwelcome stranger among total strangers
Now I wonder which is truly my land?
The one left behind or the one just landed in?
Oscillating between these two worlds,
My fractured identity looms large
With worms of memories wriggling in my flesh
And a myth suddenly dying in my brain
Jun 7, 2018
Jun 7, 2018 at 10:37 AM UTC
Come on my Love! Let us move to the East
Where the sun resurrects after his interim death
Where darkness first gives way to light
And life renews itself every morn
Look to the East beyond those crooked hills
Where poplars grow tall in line
And wild weeds hem the edges of pathways
Where bunnies and squirrels hop and jump
And merrily run round the trees
Where the wind moves whistling through bamboo reeds
Where the laughing cataract leaps down from the rocks
And flow along in silvery rills
Where the languorous breeze plays upon the leaves
Away from the tumult, far from the crazy crowd
With the pandemonium of the world
Hushed to serene silence
Let us move to that sequestered glade
Of perennial greenery,
through the sunlit grove
Where we shall walk hands locked
Till the bright day gives way to dusky night
Inhaling night air in scented perfume
Under the stillness of a star lit sky
Through moon blanched woods, mysterious
Listening to the sweet whispering of our soul
And ‘drinking life to the lees’ from the chalice of love
Oh! Come on,
Let us not tarry…. Let’s go!
Dec 1, 2016
Dec 1, 2016 at 6:36 AM UTC
In Benidorm there are melons,
Whole donkey-carts full
Of innumerable melons,
Ovals and *****
Bright green and thumpable
Laced over with stripes
Of turtle-dark green.
Chooose an egg-shape, a world-shape,
Bowl one homeward to taste
In the whitehot noon :
Cream-smooth honeydews,
Pink-pulped whoppers,
Bump-rinded cantaloupes
With orange cores.
Each wedge wears a studding
Of blanched seeds or black seeds
To strew like confetti
Under the feet of
This market of melon-eating
Fiesta-goers.
5.7k
I need to cleanse it, free myself
Of this burden tainted upon
My being. Cinders are drenched on
Flesh
Spirit
Expunge
That which writhes is not burnt away,
So I must eradicate its stench
It violates upon my being
I unburden the pressures so released,
Pyroclastic flows breath exfoliation on my
Soul,
Pealed,
Freed
Of that stench scorched into oblivion
I relish in the torment of those below
Freshly parched earth as lungs burn breath,
"Fallen misery descends in singed flesh"
I release the Feathers weighted down
Haemorrhaging as crimson flows to the
Stems, expanding into the beauty
Of death, I am
Released,
Liberated,
Redeemed
Upon the fallen as I step upon ash
"Bones, death, rebirth"
As no longer afflicted,
I am once again blanched as purest darkness
Is Neither black or grey
"But lucid white"
"As purity is only clean"
"I am purity of darkness"
And the taints of humanity are flakes upon
Silent statues upon the ground, I am malevolent incarnate..
Jan 7, 2015
Jan 7, 2015 at 5:15 PM UTC
The full moon caught a glimpse
where the billowed clouds parted
Saucer size Dogwood blossoms
echoed an urging reflection
through wide open window ;
the diffused moonlight reached in
touching the open palms
enduring in an empty void
lay down beside
Softly burnished reflections
lighten blanched flesh petals
swaying in the wakened
spring cadence
Rhinestone memories
tethered from somewhere above ;
as if manipulating puppet strings
dangling down through
the seesaw cloud gap ―
scattering candlelit sequins
like unmapped constellations
brushed by the moonlight
in the dale of your leafless *******
The fragrant breeze
of your memory
gathers a sweetest taste,
teasing wishful thirsty lips
into a gentle smile ...
Tracing unbounded memories
with wandering fingertips
upon your intimate
canvas oasis in my mind
Fallen petals floating gently
across still waters
induced by whispered breeze ;
quiet reminders that ripple
the mesmerizing silence
with the lonely breath
an unheard evanescent sigh
The open window
let the moonlight in,
illuminating lingering
shadows of the past ...
you feel the waft
of spring breathe ...
but you just can't help
where the wind blows
Jesse e. Stillwater
Apr 29, 2018
Apr 29, 2018 at 1:09 PM UTC
A simple bottle,
Cheap chunky plastic,
Designer garbage.
Empty of its liquid energy.
Glossy label parrying the flash,
Glaring retrieval of light.
Sickly bold orange cap,
Impudently tight,
Defending the blanched carpet below.
Moment of fragility,
Suspended on the humid waves of air,
Eternity in an insubstantial moment.
It wafts away from his fingers,
Plastic given wings,
Fixed by his steely eyes,
A forced arc,
Stretching to the ceiling.
Focused intensity.
An infinite gap looms
Instants before the catch.
He didn’t notice the stray,
A camera pointed his way,
Capturing this moment,
Making it magical.
Clarity is threatened by obscurity,
People pressing in,
Bending the frame.
Time is lost,
Too much wasted on boredom,
And playing catch with yourself.
Spine lax, body slumped.
Interruptions and distractions surround.
His face vivid in the mix,
Lost in the wash of faces,
So much like his,
Flushed by the same blood.
His unwavering gaze
Holds the emptiness in shackles.
Second of silence in the crushing sound,
Relentless muttering rumble,
The voices of family,
So constantly buzzing.
Jumbled tumbling voices.
A peanut gallery seeking constant attention.
The camera congeals the moment,
Silencing the mass.
In the absence the bottle and the boy
Infinitely alone,
Endlessly still.
Oct 20, 2012
Oct 20, 2012 at 10:33 PM UTC
All summer we moved in a villa brimful of echos,
Cool as the pearled interior of a conch.
Bells, hooves, of the high-stipping black goats woke us.
Around our bed the baronial furniture
Foundered through levels of light seagreen and strange.
Not one leaf wrinkled in the clearing air.
We dreamed how we were perfect, and we were.
Against bare, whitewashed walls, the furniture
Anchored itself, griffin-legged and darkly grained.
Two of us in a place meant for ten more-
Our footsteps multiplied in the shadowy chambers,
Our voices fathomed a profounder sound:
The walnut banquet table, the twelve chairs
Mirrored the intricate gestures of two others.
Heavy as a statuary, shapes not ours
Performed a dumbshow in the polished wood,
That cabinet without windows or doors:
He lifts an arm to bring her close, but she
Shies from his touch: his is an iron mood.
Seeing her freeze, he turns his face away.
They poise and grieve as in some old tragedy.
Moon-blanched and implacable, he and she
Would not be eased, released. Our each example
Of temderness dove through their purgatory
Like a planet, a stone, swallowed in a great darkness,
Leaving no sparky track, setting up no ripple.
Nightly we left them in their desert place.
Lights out, they dogged us, sleepless and envious:
We dreamed their arguments, their stricken voices.
We might embrace, but those two never did,
Come, so unlike us, to a stiff impasse,
Burdened in such a way we seemed the lighter-
Ourselves the haunters, and they, flesh and blood;
As if, above love's ruinage, we were
The heaven those two dreamed of, in despair.
3.2k
*the losers,
report me to
the bad poets society,
bad student loans , bad poems
bad boys and girls society
taste, head rearing, daring
elegance, shocking awe,
fk that looks it like be a poeming **** forming,
ah, the teenie weenies millies become white walking whiners
write a poem about the sky,
**never using the word blue black
or grey**
Then, use it to
tell me why the
Paris dead
matter
the most remarkable feature
of the sky is its endlessness,
no matter what the colour of the day be,
for what else can you point to
beside the sea,
that simply visible
has no boundaries?
I will tell you.
see my grieving rage
boundaryless,
for the Paris dead,
and there is no colour,
just one dead blanched black rose
placed upon my chest,
soiling my face,
a visible reminder that
forgetting is
endless, colourless,
rage and revenge
too*
Jan 11, 2015
Jan 11, 2015 at 9:40 AM UTC
*if only I knew how to love...
for my Victoria
winces-grimaces, that these words even leave my fingertips,
reminiscences, a chrome bookmark tab full of decades of near misses,
instances, subway sideway stolen daily glances of she who would be the only, the one, but one day failed to appear, left to dream peer,
and/or
decades long of romanced lasses, flying spectacular super crashes, when my heart-blanched, lanced, and the lawyers danced, poems shriveled as dried ink crack'd and words rusted shut,
cut by so many p'raps, and ugly motives, beautiful covered up, disguised as synapses of sin and insincerity, and I,
the sad man,
both the sinner and the sinned against,
totalities, of shoulda-woulda-asked/kissed-her-gallantly,
activities, when kisses were doorways to trap door rooms
and an over decorated monte cristo prison cell
ah well
the 'and yet,' the 'but for,' a single finger, sealing silenced lips,
passions mourned and irrevocable sensations, frittered, fractured,
all that I calmly called love was sprigs and broken branches,
cut flowers destined to shrivel,
not of what I believed in, something akin to a tree rooted, an oaken strong unbreakable love
of this certain, all approximations, all failed incantations,
for surely, if but only one escaped, could have been saved,
and if truthful love it was,
I would have known it,
for would I have dared to let slip away?
Jul 14, 2017
Jul 14, 2017 at 6:05 PM UTC
i.
her dress laced with
icicles, winter streams,
on her head she
wore a bluebell hat.
her hair wild roses,
her little hands gathered love like
wild roses, until her
cheeks melted like wild
roses, and everything of
her was the rose wild wind and
the silvery song of the moon.
ii.
winter wove it's dull aches,
it's rose powder rains, its
clouds of dream around
her, but she refused to believe
in the scrolled iron gates of winter
where nothing would open into
the garden of her dreams and
she was left a wood sprite,
magical as freezing midnight
cloud-like in her roses and
blanched cheeks, a snow-rose,
deeply beautiful.
iii.
pale as a midnight cloud,
the flowerbeds soft stars
of february, moments of
ice, tears, tears of a doll
in the frost.
iv.
love, surreal and ceramic,
pink blossom kisses on your
cheeks and your cherry-white lips
winter harness of bells and softest
leather.
v.
clouds sing of roses, winter sinks
like a dark rose, magical inks, rose-
girl, roses, dark thorn of black,
muse in the hedgerow, singing
of a long forgotten world. wounded
bird, drawn of paper and the ringing,
ringing air.
Feb 23, 2017
Feb 23, 2017 at 6:35 PM UTC
The black, iron God arm punched
placid-blanched clouds, and dangled
cat cable down to lemon-vested men
with chalkboard faces.
*Basic algebra, today's date, daily
syllabi, God-fearing anecdotes,
and the evils of homosexuality.*
Fornicating with other dudes
is like moving Jesus' rock
with your condom'd *****
Let sleeping dieties die.
We find them buried deep beneath
**** ceramics by T.V. criminals,
rapists, murderers, buzzers, free-
lovers, angelheaded sweethearts.
They have nearly four dollar souls,
barely enough for a Wilpo dinner
at Hepburn Diner. #2 breakfast
with one cup of Columbian cartel
coffee with a pinch of whole milk
to take the edge off, so he won't
be gripping the booth vinyl when
a "freedom" flash cop car passes.
Police cruisers are just bigger bicycles
that we're afraid of, sporting cereal
box baseball cards in the spokes.
Cops were the kids that needed help
their first time fresh off training
wheels. Training academy training
them for low-speed cat chases through
flower beds.
Sweet daffodil, you didn't have to die
like this. You could've drank straight
from the pitcher at a stranger's dinner
party potluck, seen the guts of a New
York highrise, shared the coke left
beneath a woman's botched nose job.
You could have been more than this.
You could have been more.
You could have been.
You could have.
You could.
You.
You, daffodil, stamen-down
in Miracle Gro and dog ****
could have been more.
Nov 12, 2014
Nov 12, 2014 at 1:06 AM UTC
Reject me not if I should say to you
I do forget the sounding of your voice,
I do forget your eyes that searching through
The mists perceive our marriage, and rejoice.
Yet, when the apple-blossom opens wide
Under the pallid moonlight's fingering,
I see your blanched face at my breast, and hide
My eyes from diligent work, malingering.
Ah, then, upon my bedroom I do draw
The blind to hide the garden, where the moon
Enjoys the open blossoms as they straw
Their beauty for his taking, boon for boon.
And I do lift my aching arms to you,
And I do lift my anguished, avid breast,
And I do weep for very pain of you,
And fling myself at the doors of sleep, for rest.
And I do toss through the troubled night for you,
Dreaming your yielded mouth is given to mine,
Feeling your strong breast carry me on into
The peace where sleep is stronger even than wine.
2.4k
Oh Muse! endow my verses like the
grease
which in a pliable state, straightens
the choppy motion.
Dear Apollo! enlighten my words like
the hell fire
that light gives, yet a sharp gaze
broils the eggs*.
Oh wretched Hydes! weep but one
more time for me
for the constellation bears rain no
more.
Oh Jove! rain the one pacific upon me
for I will to drown myself today.
Ah flora! the color of spring has
blanched away
for the pompoms bloom ashen
Lovely Aurora! why you withhold
yourself from me?
She's glum with me, why trying you
too be?
Eye some Aphrodite! take care of and
preserve the winsomeness.
for the lass** knows no value, it has to
me...
May 18, 2014
May 18, 2014 at 3:04 AM UTC
My poetry is an acquired taste,
So come, dear one,
Place your tongue in my mouth.
Pace yourself, there is so much,
Spoke and unwritten,
That fruitions only when spit-shared.
Flick your tongue-tip to mine,
Sealing bond, the salt caramel of my rhymes,
The iambic meter of my tamarind prose,
The buds, flowering, poems forming,
Watered by the admixture of joint, minted saliva.
My poetry, so very complicated,
Hints of currants and ash,
Soil volcanic, basaltic vowels, oh's and eyes,
Cursed verses that commence with I,
Nonetheless, despite soil inhospitable rued,
Compositions flourish, born wetland soluble.
Yours, for the taking,
Yours, for the tasting.
You place your fingers on my waist,
My body of work to contemplate,
My ditties, you spit out,
You want courses, not appetizers,
You want truths, not fluff, lies, menu tastings.
Columbus and Magellan, thy fingers named,
Trace the curvature of my ***
With tip and tipsy stroked caresses,
You laugh with the pleasure of all the sssssss's.
Hissing all the day your satisfaction,
Capturing my writs, by your tongue's duress,
Recipient-thief of my literary largesse.
I am dressed all in white,
Stripped bare to my native coloring,
Except for two brown nippled spots, you lick,
Imbibing milky thoughts from fountain-heads *****
Savoring, relishing, stanzas that praise love's flavor.
With every line, every word-painting accessioned,
You make my soft parts hard,
My hard parts soft, but my liquidity,
My tears, they, that, you drink straight,
Licking, liking, and oohing and ahhing,
You tongue curled, upside down arching,
The storage point of your seduced gatherings.
To drain me full, your incisors cut,
Straight lines, entry points for your *******
Taking, draining, leaving nothing,
Not even one aleph or bet escaping.
When you acquired my poetry, my verbosity,
Pillaging soul's hiding place, took and *****
Your acquired the best, breaking my nape,
Imprisoned on and by my island's seascape,
Blanched and pained, a blank tape,
I am tasteless, witless, mockingly, tongue-tied.
Sep 14, 2013
Sep 14, 2013 at 12:23 AM UTC
*Atop the blanched plume of a pampas grass stem,
Overlooking a sea of white daisies
Stretching out to the edge of a wild flower lea
Where the forget-me-not bumblebee lazes,
Is the grandiose house of the butterfly king
Filled with treasures and precious excesses,
With a bright yellow spire built from pollen ball bricks
Home to three rather lovely princesses.
The fairest of all in that field and beyond
Their beauty was famed and fought over
By the slow sliding slug sheiks of blackberry nook
And the ladybird lords camped in clover.
Each one with wide eyes firmly fixed on a prize
That made shy spiders scurry and scutter,
To see those red painted yet delicate wings
Underneath sun kissed skies gently flutter.
Lovesick and besotted with hearts beating fast
Each suitor petitioned for marriage,
To win for themselves a sweet butterfly bride
To parade in a crab apple carriage.
But the majestic monarch alongside his queen,
Both filled with parental devotion,
Wished for their three daughters to choose for themselves
And would not entertain such a notion.*
May 9, 2017
May 9, 2017 at 7:40 PM UTC
Saved myself with realm coin
Went for the long con with put options
Eschewed sold short term gain
Let them railroad me with true colors
Finessed my coalition willingly
Painted a big picture expressed scope
With mass appeal diverse production means
Bred loyalty from salt of earth devotees
Ends justified by all’s fair politics
Power brokers stole my ideas for venal exploits
Then claimed execution on midgets’ shoulders
Made low hanging fruit that much more demanding
High bar gymnastics twisted words blanched of meaning
Model workers did lords’ bidding beyond expectations
Barely rewarded with subsistence’s mounting debt to society
Paid on inmates’ backs embroiled in endless energy wars
Oct 3, 2013
Oct 3, 2013 at 10:58 PM UTC
Beware Hooray
the Cavemen are comin
jumpin up and don knock-kneed
sweepin the hill with their new harvested beard
Howdy chicky chicken leg
What’s goozin under your sweaty shirt
lookin like ma granpa
with ur baby cream breath
or is it maybe somethin else luscious
spring of intermittent discharge
making rainbows duplicate
yep gimme two too
when u come to me
oh when u come to me
cause I am a matured
lovin n **** is my blanched bird nest
neatly crowned above my head
I shall unbind it for
adorable is your lady color short pants
I bet holographic daisies growin
along the tri-d charm
of your ******
if any yeah if any
Beware Oh the cavemen
Run flat out nou
cause I shall feed you
to my auntie’s aging dreams
with the buncha hair on ur face
u look lika somethin
resembling
a man before her famine
Beware Oh the cavemen
Auntie is comin
Jun 23, 2015
Jun 23, 2015 at 7:04 PM UTC
Under this silky whiteness,
Cloaking a hominid likeness.
This frosty awareness,
This thought-suspending numbness.
Dare I lift this veil?
Dare I solve this blanched myst’ry?
Dare I expel disbelief?
Dare I ***** anticipation’s hope?
The whispers of curiosity,
The desire to make visible,
The familiar face of serenity,
Render the boundary risible.
Under that shameful shroud,
(The face is familiar no more,
Serenity submits to Torment.)
Finality abounds.
Jan 13, 2014
Jan 13, 2014 at 9:48 AM UTC
Sand-crusted catacombs of dismembered dreams
Settle beside memories of the child who grew up
In rocky Harpswell, Maine. Not many beaches,
Only a foggy stretch beyond Morse Mountain --
But I used to stand ankle-deep
In the water, wait until my toes sank
Into crystalized Earth
And bubbles from Littleneck clams.
I’d stand there until goosebumps spread upon
My blanched legs, rising up, up, like the artificial hills
Of Maya Lin’s Storm King Wavefield.
Now, when I lie alone,
Misplaced inside a vacant Manhattan studio,
I surrender to sirens and accelerated lives.
Peace comes in painting – thick oil,
Violet and claret on stretched canvas,
Depictions of neon signs and cityscapes,
Cheap t-shirt stands on street corners,
And 24-hour coffee shops with “specialty”
Blends in little white travel mugs – selling
To flocks of strangers, strutting like pigeons on cement
Sidewalks, pretending they belong.
Sep 20, 2014
Sep 20, 2014 at 10:50 AM UTC
She couldn't express her grief
but knew this tangible loss,
felt affinity with old bones
a bond with lost loved ones.
She cleaved close to those,
it being in her very nature
a clan thing - family loyalty,
bridging a long span of years.
Her trunk trumpeted, mutely,
while lowering a sister's tusk
softly on the blanched shards
of the ancestor herds, tendered
in this final act of fellowship
from one gentle giant to another.
Apr 6, 2014
Apr 6, 2014 at 12:53 AM UTC
boy,
jealous boy,
i'm crazy in love
with you,
if i tremble like a
a february leaf,
gold and brown
on the black branched
beech hedge,
where the snow's
fragile kiss melts
the night into
whispers,
and the wind,
wild with its
northern chill,
flutters those
leaves, blanched
like our love-starved
lips of
colour,
beneath a sky
of midnight's sea,
then i would melt,
like this sky
of midnight's sea,
crazy in love,
with my boy
of grey clouds,
who sweeps the
crying sea, with
strange whispering,
who kisses me so
beautifully in his arms
that i sigh and cry and die
for his love,
boy,
jealous boy,
i'm crazy for
your love,
like a star
glistening in the deepening
night where the
nightingale sings
and the grey clouds
drift forever in their
stream-like dream.
Mar 4, 2017
Mar 4, 2017 at 6:24 PM UTC
On Halloween the sky was scarred
The full moon peered, a piercing shard,
Behind a hole, the eye of night,
Above the smell of death and fright,
Along a bone laced boulevard.
As corpses crept from crypts unbarred,
The flames, they crawled, with pale regard,
On roasting rot – a sanguine sight...
On Halloween.
The bones, they blanched within the yard,
Again to have their evening marred
By ghouls and fiends who rip and bite
With claws and fangs which drip delight
While gorging flesh, so slightly charred...
On Halloween.
;-)
Oct 29, 2013
Oct 29, 2013 at 7:56 PM UTC
Do you remember
When we were young
And hopeless
And we thought
We were invincible?
Until the rotten world
Gnawed on us
Like infinity waves
Crashing over and over
On summer sun-blanched bones
And whittled us down
To nothing but forgotten sand
Jan 4, 2018
Jan 4, 2018 at 9:02 AM UTC
Growing out from childish pranks,
With the storm and stress of turbulent teens,
I locked within my mind’s cupboard,
A portrait vaguely sketched, but never finished.
Rough it was, though fancifully done,
The silhouette of a masculine figure,
The Gallant who would reach one day,
To hold my hand and own me his.
I had no inkling who he would,
Yet had fallen in love with that phantasmal figure,
He had dazzling eyes and sturdy limbs,
With striking features, ravishing to view,
Elusive ever to sight and touch,
He remained an enigma, abstract to grasp.
At times his contours grew distinct,
But soon blanched out into hazy lines,
When at times a covert devouring look,
Or a pair of intent adoring eyes,
Sent a thrill down my fickle heart,
I forced open my chest nut draw,
And took out stealthily that half done sketch,
Hidden out from world’s staring glance,
To alter the features one by one,
And make it resemble the man I met,
Either within a moving train,
Or sometimes in an elite gang,
Who derailed my thoughts in pensive mood,
And tickled my fancy to heave and sigh.
He made me turn and toss in bed,
And left me, many a sleepless night,
He stroked my heart with gladdening ache,
And made me lose in sweet reverie.
In the nick of time, he solemnly came,
To hold my hand and tie the knot,
With pounding heart and quivering breath,
I found him differ from the man I dreamt.
The fabulous fabric in my loom,
Looked at variance from the one unfurled,
Transfixed between fact and fallacy,
I struggled to hide a falling tear.
Time marched on in silent haste,
And I learnt to outgrow my childish whims,
Sagacity dawned with passing age,
Making me discern the real from the sham.
It made me admire his sanguine self.
On fathomed deep beyond external mien,
I saw him unveiled in taint less worth,
That made my heart ever pine in love.
Piecing together our halved selves,
With the glue of love, our identities merged,
Now he is with me in my blues,
Consoling me with his balmy touch,
He is with me in my joy,
Making it resonant with a hearty laugh,
He is there when storms rage,
Whispering in my ear, not to fear,
He taught me how to savour life,
To meet the slings with radiant cheer,
Now the image is clearly etched deep,
Never to erase, nor to revise!
And the old portrait locked within,
Grew so musty, bereft of use,
In its place, I keep within,
His solid figure in indelible print.
Feb 11, 2017
Feb 11, 2017 at 6:59 AM UTC