"blotting" poems
The distant park
Was a graveyard of dead stars.
Each streetlight a system of worlds,
So many lives between each mote of light,
Indistinguishable in their unique love,
Bespoke hate, and the drama of the modern age.
Drunk laughter behind transparent
Double doors. Another hotel balcony,
Another cloud behind the canopy
Of marijuana eyes
To unsettle me from the crowd.
She points out, when you look closely
You can see the disorder
Amongst all constellations
Of life and love and litter;
Of discarded Coke cans
And temporary highs.
She says this is not a scene
To imbue the ****** of a present mind,
More to baulk at the incompletion
Of one thousand to-do lists;
A million reasons why
You should just stay inside.
She says you can see the human swell
Of ignorance, our city lights
Blotting out the stars
In a black ocean of broken politic
And irretrievable fault lines-
Divisions between us all.
Lives twisted with professional smiles
And eyes lit with stunning indifference.
Still, I have felt charity and warmth
On the doorstep of lunatics and fascists.
I have read the love of life
In faces of those who gave up.
I have recounted countless artists
Who saw beauty
In moments that precisely lacked it.
I have spent too many nights
In anaesthesia,
Fleeing each instance of feeling
And terror; all the tremors
That tell me I am still alive.
Continued to stare at the lights
Long after her voice
And the laughter inside had gone.
Heard waves in the traffic.
A world so large, so expansive,
It can never truly sleep.
Every broken heart,
Every war-torn land,
Every promotion,
Every one-night stand.
I wonder what would happen
If we all stood still.
If we all took one moment
To observe the motion
That unfolds beneath
Our static windowsill.
If we all took one moment
To recover our loss.
The wars that we won,
The feelings, forgot.
The hell we retain;
Our paradise, lost.
Feb 6, 2017
Feb 6, 2017 at 11:07 AM UTC
Love is universal migraine,
A bright stain on the vision
Blotting out reason.
Symptoms of true love
Are leanness, jealousy,
Laggard dawns;
Are omens and nightmares -
Listening for a knock,
Waiting for a sign:
For a touch of her fingers
In a darkened room,
For a searching look.
Take courage, lover!
Could you endure such pain
At any hand but hers?
19.5k
A story, a story!
(Let it go. Let it come.)
I was stamped out like a Plymouth fender
into this world.
First came the crib
with its glacial bars.
Then dolls
and the devotion to their plactic mouths.
Then there was school,
the little straight rows of chairs,
blotting my name over and over,
but undersea all the time,
a stranger whose elbows wouldn't work.
Then there was life
with its cruel houses
and people who seldom touched-
though touch is all-
but I grew,
like a pig in a trenchcoat I grew,
and then there were many strange apparitions,
the nagging rain, the sun turning into poison
and all of that, saws working through my heart,
but I grew, I grew,
and God was there like an island I had not rowed to,
still ignorant of Him, my arms, and my legs worked,
and I grew, I grew,
I wore rubies and bought tomatoes
and now, in my middle age,
about nineteen in the head I'd say,
I am rowing, I am rowing
though the oarlocks stick and are rusty
and the sea blinks and rolls
like a worried eyebal,
but I am rowing, I am rowing,
though the wind pushes me back
and I know that that island will not be perfect,
it will have the flaws of life,
the absurdities of the dinner table,
but there will be a door
and I will open it
and I will get rid of the rat insdie me,
the gnawing pestilential rat.
God will take it with his two hands
and embrace it.
As the African says:
This is my tale which I have told,
if it be sweet, if it be not sweet,
take somewhere else and let some return to me.
This story ends with me still rowing.
7k
It stretches,
Blotting out the sun in jagged ribbons,
Standing below it, my shadow is lost,
Absorbed,
If it fell, so would I.
Dec 20, 2014
Dec 20, 2014 at 3:28 PM UTC
~
*She stands on the roof of the world, a ship in a bottle. She likes to wave at passing boats, inviting 120 volts to raise their sails.
Words unbosomed -- her attempt of blotting out the sun and those bloodletting habits.
Her eyelids say, "Only the disquieting muses have time for me." So she writes like an umbrella, shading reality; remembering pluck and luck stories about bumblebees, lovingly wrapped in Tiffany-blue ribbon and paper.
Father used to solve her every contemplation. Now indecisiveness in what she asks. Now indecisiveness in arbitrary tasks.
And she and her negative capability are the last two awake at a slumber party, giving commonplace words the allure of secrecy.
You see, she is only harmless when she sleeps.*
~
Dec 9, 2023
Dec 9, 2023 at 7:49 PM UTC
I believe
That writers are
So brave
Because each time
They start writing
Blotting ink onto
Their paper
Frustratingly typing on
Their laptop
They rip their heart out
Of their chest
And show the world
What it's made of.
Oct 16, 2014
Oct 16, 2014 at 10:21 AM UTC
We catch the sunset
while eating
breakfast: ignoring
mothers, ignoring
landlords, skinning our knees
and skipping supper,
using the kitchen with some
improvisation, forgetting to stir
the pasta, blotting bacon
with coffee filters,
flinging linguini on the walls
and the ceilings (for
if cooked it will cling
but if raw it will fall).
“Is that pasta on the wall?”
“Is it purple?”
Outside a boy
in a dress shirt and a girl in
a paisley skirt walked past
the window, holding hands
and clutching palm
Sunday leaves.
Then the strand of linguini
began to detach itself from
the ceiling, like a break dancer,
with flimsy limbs,
and when it dropped
it fell through the air
like an Olympic
diver, twirling and curling
with two ends clung
to one another
and then unfolding
underwater.
Aug 5, 2011
Aug 5, 2011 at 1:01 AM UTC
Dark flows down to the street's pools
The blotting paper of sky in grey
has imprints of cyclamen roses
Right there on the street they are lynching
with a welding torch the rests
of this night I have spent with a walk
to assure myself that I live still
Maybe this is the morning
that will give an amnesty
to all the time barred loves
Nov 1, 2015
Nov 1, 2015 at 5:25 PM UTC
I bring to you
serenity in a cup
time at
a standstill
material
for fortune-tellers
shadows
of the Empire
you drink
a bit
then spill
it
on your paper
the stains
spread
like a sunset
blotting out
bad news
* Empire - British Empire
Jul 4, 2015
Jul 4, 2015 at 12:46 PM UTC
Acidic Memories of Flying Free on LSD!
(FOR J,S, and N.S)!!
Miniscule piece of blotting dot,
Slices through my brain...
Swear I felt it sitting there,
Time and time again,
Stereo sound distorted,While wild mind cavorted,
Feeding much imagined images,
Mirages in a mist,
The light fantastic, it was stripped,
Brain enlightened as she tripped,
Is it night time?
Dark or Light time?
Haven't got a clue,
Free riding wild,
Runs as sparkly space pilot,
On the end of the bed,
Hell on earth,
I lost my head!
Was that funny micro-dot, purple, pink or blue,
Confused in a bedroom,
Where the hell is the door?
Couldn't escape, till toxic fit left..
After too many hours,
Shut my eyes,
Tried to sleep,
Not a chance in hell,
My mind flew well,
Trippping on flashes of dots and of dashes,
Colours of rainbows,
Flew through my head,
So much more so when I needed my bed !
CopyrightLivvi Kent 30/04/2013
Aug 26, 2013
Aug 26, 2013 at 5:44 AM UTC
I believe
That writers are
So brave
Because each time
They start writing
Blotting ink onto
Their paper
Frustratingly typing on
Their laptop
Frustratingly typing on
Their laptop
They rip their heart out
Of their chest
And show the world
What it's made of.
Oct 17, 2014
Oct 17, 2014 at 10:05 AM UTC
it,s loose cotton electric ***
copper children
husky sighing t
he
trickle of daughters into the little wet cracks
on Railroad ave. a beggars hand gesticulating empty spans
a river of grins course toward amber
oblivion and jarring rhythms. she's a white idea. a lemon dress *****
her hips are a delicious war of curving apparitions
a dearth of pleasure loaded folds. or else a caustic laceration;
some hernia of capillaries blotting ivory thighs
a
n
d all the children giggle, teeth cleaning pearly cheeks
splay the efforts of their throats all over the cobbles. it,s a night
FRIDAY
yes
Aug 5, 2010
Aug 5, 2010 at 7:36 PM UTC
#
*The killer
came crashing down
smashing, thrashing through.
What is tender's tender
so for itself, to do?
--As it runs
right over the top of her..
This taker.
This killer.
In the black,
now in between;
so lightless and thick..
blotting out all screams.
There is an annihilation here.
A void.
A terror.
To stay, means certain death
but to leave
also means certain death
So the d is m e m b e r men t begins
as she is ripped, completely into half
And those halves, into half..
.. into half
--into half..
into half.
And still it tears.. rips.. shreds--
Until all, in between
is nothing but black.
A black it can now pretend to fill
with all of its empty promises..
and all of its counterfeit, everything.
..And then-- just up and leaves
once it is fully satiated.*
***And for a while..
the black had something.***
*Clinging to the rocky crags
on either side of the unlit valley
are now the pieces of her--
war-torn and shuddering.
Terrified
Of the black, black empty.
Of what is now fully
and completely dark.
~ ~ ~ ~
Timmy ain't real tall
but look at his stature,
as his majestic strings dialogue
the introduction.
And Warren's gotten so fat
See him now, looking so dearly, back
at his half-pint of Chunky Monkey--
picking it back up, for the fourth time..
scraping... scraping.. scraping..
But watch his eyes light up
as Timmy looks up--
over the top
of those wild-man RayBans
And with a gentle nod, it all begins..
-- as our Warren now digs deep
into his Gibson's beautifully-wanton ways..
identifying.
clarifying.
Rectifying.
Clarence, the Magician..
Stephan-- Humble, Unparalleled
And Dave's so chill
he's part Creole.. I just know it.
So great a cloud of witness:
surrounding you, my beautiful..
coaxing you.
Identifying it all for you.*
#
Mar 10, 2022
Mar 10, 2022 at 12:01 AM UTC
There's so much to say
Yet so less to speak
Hundreds of things to scribble about
Yet not a drop of ink blotting the white sheets.
The scars of her soul, the pain in her teary eyes
So much to express, honey
Yet she hides it all
Behind that charismatic smile!
Aug 7, 2020
Aug 7, 2020 at 2:01 PM UTC
cut paper, paper cut
cut file folder, file folder cut
cut tin, tin cut
red lines leak
stains.
thin pain
touches nerves,
sharp as knives,
blotting all
else out,
until you shout OUCH
pressure the wound
to stop the flow
too,
from your mouth
the words heard
a better found
on a boat full of sailors
crabbing or whalers
and as you bob
in out and get your
sea legs under you
you will remember
self-administered first aid too!
©DWE102013
Oct 12, 2013
Oct 12, 2013 at 1:28 AM UTC
I spell “I love you” on the lines of your collarbone
and I always try to go from one end to another,
brushing calligraphy strokes with my tongue
and blotting your skin as a page with my lips.
I never really have finished saying it,
and I guess I never will
my motions are lost among your curves
and my lips almost always end up
meeting yours somewhere in the middle.
Dec 6, 2014
Dec 6, 2014 at 10:51 PM UTC
we're all armed
with an appliance
of emancipation
we can nurture non-violent
defiance in a
non-compliant ethos of
antiauthoritarian self-reliance
we have the ability to eliminate the
vestiges of imperialism and
dominant dogmas that choke
and impede our creativity and shackle
our imagination to impotent ideologies
fragmented unrealities augmented
by fractures in our psyche
tendrils of theology that prey
upon our fear and exacerbate
conditioned responses that are
at once
unnatural and irrational
and lead
inexorably
to infantile expressions of
regression and fantasies of an
aggression rooted in the
suppression of dissent and
the oppression of dissidents
deities
as impotent
as our terror
of the unknown
by the promise of security and prosperity
a cabal of brutish thugs have erected an
imaginary hierarchy and demanded our
subservient obedience and reverence for
this malfeasant apparatus that leeches
our paychecks and robs all of our dignity
while somehow retaining the illusion of liberty
a delusion that festers like an open wound
a tumorous ulcer oozing foul fluid into our minds
blotting out our capacity for cultivating a
future divorced from misanthropy
so pour kerosene on this fluttering
flame of revolt before it sputters out
if we'd quit looking back and forth at
one another rotting in the gutters
checking to see if we have more to
our name than our sisters and our brothers
we might just muster the courage to overthrow
the vapid and misguided fictions that
divide and segregate us into pawns
trapped in this unending rat race
they've deemed the American Dream
harness the revolutionary tenacity
dormant in humanity's most important *****
infinite potential latent in every molecule
each neuron dancing across synaptic
gaps and fanning the embers of an engine
that gives motion to this evolutionary frame
the human brain is omnipotent
Feb 12, 2016
Feb 12, 2016 at 1:26 PM UTC
don’t be defeatist
they say
as if i am not already worn to ruin
as if my fingers have not bled
all i am capable of bleeding
over their pristine paper sheets
just believe in yourself
they say
as if belief alone has ever offered salvation
as if i could will myself into being
as so many others wish they could with god
all you can do is your best
they say
but what if this is my best?
what if i am a husk of a human being
before i reach the age of 30
what if all my light was used up
in a voltage too high
squeezed out of me like a surge
in an electrical storm
what if my peak is behind me
looming above me like atlas
blotting out the sun
and leaving me to get swept up
in the wake of an overachiever
what if i am incapable of what you believed in me
because you pushed me too hard, for too long
because what you needed of me you needed immediately
you took me in your hands like goliath took his stone
wrung me out until i was bloodless
wrote out my worth and found your pen inkless before you’d reached the end
worth is relative
i say
now that i forced you to see your mistake
now that i am bedridden and useless and limp like a doll
now that my good days are not when i write 100 pages
but when i remember to drink water
when i remember to bathe and eat and wake before noon
as if all your pushing just wound me up like a coil
set me tight enough to regress unto the mean
i am doing my best
i say
now that i am barely capable of anything at all
now that the pedestal you put me on looked like a ledge
and you see it for what it was
now that it’s too late to walk back from the gallows
because i’ve already been hung like a ghost
and all i do these days is sway in the wind
i have been defeated
i say
but it was because you put me in the colosseum
with nothing but my tired self leaning on my tired self
and i lay on the floor waiting for the lions to come
i have been defeated
i say
to my defeatist self
because no one stays around to watch a losing fight.
Jan 10, 2018
Jan 10, 2018 at 9:52 AM UTC
There is darkness behind the light -- and the pale light drips
Cold on vague shapes and figures, that, half-seen loom
Like the carven prows of proud, far-triumphing ships --
And the firelight wavers and changes about the room,
As the three logs crackle and burn with a small still sound;
Half-blotting with dark the deeper dark of her hair,
Where she lies, head pillowed on arm, and one hand curved round
To shield the white face and neck from the faint thin glare.
Gently she breathes -- and the long limbs lie at ease,
And the rise and fall of the young, slim, virginal breast
Is as certain-sweet as the march of slow wind through trees,
Or the great soft passage of clouds in a sky at rest.
I kneel, and our arms enlace, and we kiss long, long.
I am drowned in her as in sleep. There is no more pain.
Only the rustle of flames like a broken song
That rings half-heard through the dusty halls of the brain.
One shaking and fragile moment of ecstasy,
While the grey gloom flutters and beats like an owl above.
And I would not move or speak for the sea or the sky
Or the flame-bright wings of the miraculous Dove!
1.9k
She is the typesetter’s “e”
The once-rounded uncial script,
Unbroken like the solemn vow of a monk,
His whisper, a shepherd of words under the cowl,
Murmurations of the Holy Mother to the lambswool shroud of candlelight.
His candle-flock of dreams to some hill of penitent towers, war-cowed
And broken open like faith-unfended helmets, littering the ground,
With their unspeaking tassels in babbling pagan sound of wind,
That hill too, once-rounded bare under the glittering apostles of twilight.
In the abbeywork of air, calligraphy was a cipher of souls,
He unwrested demons from an inkwell of sunsets, smothered them in blotting paper,
Freed the incarnate whole to the book of hours, nib-pointed in quills and illuminated in gold,
Line by line, in Carolingian winding sheets, he returned the misshapen to the fold,
To the carpet page of home and the warm ligatures of their waiting women.
So the shutters of the heavenly house could blow light in slanted rays to a wilderness in storm.
But he never tamed the aero-elongated, descender of Troy in a “t,”
He never knew the unholiness of the underscore or fonts as ******
Or the world unwilling to know itself in serif robes of ancient lore.
His life was a simple rounded-out syllable of one man,
Left in the muddied, unintelligible text of faith and war.
She is the typesetter’s “e” and now belongs to any hand.
Jul 6, 2019
Jul 6, 2019 at 9:21 PM UTC
mon amour
our innocence
moved in uncertainty
like our body moves, beautifully
in unnatural way
our tears of pain
and happiness
blend in our sweats
(when our body is bent
our heart is spent)
my tongue is strong
like the tip of your toe
as its slices the flesh
down your neck
like a velvet rag
wiping away your shame
blotting it out completely
as from the memory
your low, sustained cries
are music to my ears
like a cascading tutu, gasping
like waterfalls over steep rocks
pushing me
beyond any boundaries
made by man
even by gods
(and i felt your body quiver
like a wild circus at the
birth of the night)
my love, my prima ballerina
you are hysterical
evolving weightlessly
on my skin, whispering
into my pores
telling a story in each curve
conquering yet refined
and here i am, a criminal
condescendingly proud
taking justice into my hands
for only by these hands
could i bring justice
to our love, to our lust
to our soul
(and you pull me down
down to complete nothingness
where everything doesn't matter
and all that matters is nothing)
and together we dance
you and i
ever so gracefully
to that hopeful spotlight
hoping for the endless
hoping for eternity
but euernity has to end
only to begin again
Jan 12, 2013
Jan 12, 2013 at 10:07 PM UTC
Of all who hail thy presence as the morning—
Of all to whom thine absence is the night—
The blotting utterly from out high heaven
The sacred sun—of all who, weeping, bless thee
Hourly for hope—for life—ah, above all,
For the resurrection of deep buried faith
In truth, in virtue, in humanity—
Of all who, on despair’s unhallowed bed
Lying down to die, have suddenly arisen
At thy soft-murmured words, “Let there be light!”
At thy soft-murmured words that were fulfilled
In thy seraphic glancing of thine eyes—
Of all who owe thee most, whose gratitude
Nearest resembles worship,—oh, remember
The truest, the most fervently devoted,
And think that these weak lines are written by him—
By him who, as he pens them, thrills to think
His spirit is communing with an angel’s.
1.8k
Do you know the sound of the wind through the trees in the dead of a summer night?
The soft glow of the moon, golden on every surface,
Reflected deep brown in every shadow.
The balmy smoothness of the air along your skin, full of the sweetness of wet earth, new grass, and night blooming flowers.
The ghostly white moths that flit along the ocean of grass in the fields, capping billowing green waves.
The hush and hum of a sudden rain pattering on the sundried ground, darkening the darkness and blotting the moon with grey cotton clouds that glow from within.
Darling, I miss you like that. I miss you like a summer night. I miss you with that beauty,
Natural like a heartbeat,
Subtle like a breath,
Constant like the earth.
I miss you like a summer night.
Feb 12, 2013
Feb 12, 2013 at 10:51 PM UTC
For eons untold I have watched you rise and fall. Build empires and break them. Cure diseases and be ailed by them. I have watched you commune in many religious ways… watched you slaughter for your faith. Now that the darkness has dawned, finally I have come, soaring towards you.
As the farmer brings his harvest home, the librarian pores over long forgotten a tome, whilst the piper flutes a final tone. Echoes from my insides a most peculiar and maddening drone.
Too long soils you have stained with blood, bygone your time of breeding. Your cancerous race, your viral existence… Put out of its misery soon enough.
I soar, adorned in shrouds of doom and gloom, my wings blowing frigid winds and blotting out the moon. Unseen horror, hidden in the darkest nooks of your feeble minds. The stalking predator that lurks near the sheep pen. Crypt born from the graven mounds of a long stained and rotten memory. Ancient pillars carved for me, worshiping us.
No atonement can there be for the existence of human sin. Only to rend and tear your fleshy vessels. In a nuclear chaos confounded to the self-made oblivion, the blindfold to not see, the unutterable horror that is me…
Flee…
If it makes you feel safe and sanctified. You will feel my leering gaze and gaping maw wherever you may hide. Sleep will creep upon you somehow.
Like in times of old, there are some stories they left untold. To prevent further damnation and total extinction, the worship of the gods of all creation. Floating in a sea most nebulous, blackened and foul, adrift outside of the play garden of time and space, there live things without a face.
The piping of mad flutes a harbinger of my coming, a blazing star to wipe the slate clean. Not even a faint echo will remain.
Go out while you can… Walk hand in hand into extinction as brothers and sister, opting out of a raw deal. The last midnight for the human race…
A cancerous vile growth that only thrives for our amusement…
Jul 11, 2018
Jul 11, 2018 at 7:52 PM UTC
12 BARS
Twelve brazen bars, one frozen lock!
Confined, sublime, an ancient Roc
endures inside a barren cage,
her catacomb in sundown sage.
Of former days there is no trace
except displays of fallen grace –
Twelve dreams, abiding in her place,
are free, inhabit yawning space:
12 DREAMS
... of wings unfurled, and seething eyes
that dredge the depths of dawning skies,
devining clouds that cling below,
once ice, dissolved in morning’s glow;
... of clutching winds that carry free
above an anguished leaden sea,
dispersing dust of distant stars
midst chunks of chain in slave bazaars;
... of swooping to a silent shore
to perch beside the ocean’s roar,
at last to feel the sobbing breeze
message the leaves of rooted trees;
... of stalking strays and twilight tramps
within the fog of lighthouse lamps
that blink forlorn through caldron nights
in search of shades of errant Kites;
... of darkling vast deserted lands,
with shadowed stones on windswept sands,
where ghosts of Moorish maidens lost
disgorge faint groans in mourning frost;
... of blotting out the bloated moon
while feathers beat a banshee tune
and glimmers dance and prance aglow
upon a pearly pale plateau;
... of tasting cool torrential rains,
beyond the realm of binding chains,
and sipping freedom they exude
in quite drops of solitude;
... of vanquishing a galley crew
aboard a ship in midnight dew,
beneath the pierce of seagulls' screams
that mock the strands of scarlet streams;
... of sating once an aching craw
with tearing beak, with ripping claw,
and echoed by an eldritch screech
while feasting on abandoned beach;
... of restive thoughts and weary wings
that drift on haze in smoky rings,
obscured within the opal shroud
of her resemblance in the crowd;
... of croaking caws in broken rhyme
in winter woe, in summer clime,
while building nests of sundown sage
beyond outside a barren cage.
May 10, 2013
May 10, 2013 at 8:28 AM UTC