"bookends" poems
Stillness,
Waiting for words to come while you sit still
Wanting the perfect simile
To tell you what you mean to me
But each passion charges right to the end of the pencil,
Breaks and falls off as mumbles
Like the pencil lead that crumbles
Until there's so space on the paper
Just the scars and scribbles
The pencil gives in and sits still
Seeking stillness amidst the busy city circus
It's the end of the longest day
We wait, wordless, wanting not to work
Letting the steady melody of Old Friends
And Bookends lull us,
Lead us, keep the world at bay
I'm mute except for simple words
But holding out for more
Biding time until it feels right
Finding the stillness inside
Stifling the roar
Fighting out a title
Then the page falls to the floor
You smile, say goodnight
Walk off towards the door
Still the pencil sits still
The pencil sits so still
Dec 19, 2012
Dec 19, 2012 at 8:34 PM UTC
**** bookends
**** closure
**** the black and the white
**** the knots
Tied up neat
Cause that really ain't life
Life's messy
There's dirt
It's not simple and clear
It's the road
It's the journey
And the path you take there
Feb 10, 2019
Feb 10, 2019 at 9:59 PM UTC
Agnes McDuff collected strange stuff,
Or so the story goes:
There were old pots and pans,
String, rubber bands,
Boxes and boxes of clothes,
Newspapers, plates,
Books stored in crates,
And candlesticks lined up in rows.
Some mason jars,
Toy trucks and cars,
A model train with a whistle that blows,
Needles and spools,
All kinds of tools,
And shoes with holes in the toes.
There were tables and chairs,
Bookends in pairs,
A grandfather clock that was broke,
An old brass spittoon,
Some Sunday cartoons,
And a bicycle mssing a spoke.
Four or five hundred old wooden blocks,
Twenty-three pair of grey woolen socks,
A Christmas Edition bottle of Coke,
A board game missing directions,
A bat, a ball, a catcher’s mitt, two baseball card collections,
And a great big rusty tuba. What a joke!
There was other stuff, but you’ve heard enough;
About what was stored in
The Attic of Agnes McDuff.
Part 2
Agnes’ attic was quite special
But not for the things it contained
But for how she had to get there
Please let me explain!
Agnes had a one-story house
A flight of stairs led to the attic.
When she opened up the door,
The light came on automatic.
It opened to a hallway
Where there was another door
Another light, another hall, and more stairs, which
Led back down to the first floor!
Where an elevator waited
To take her up again?
But it had just one button
And it was numbered “10”.
When she pushed it, it was crazy
The elevator turned upon its side,
Grew wheels and drove out on the street
For an amazing ride!
Across a long suspension bridge,
Then underneath a tunnel,
And then it went around and round
Like circling down a funnel!
It dropped upon a railroad track
Hooked onto the caboose
And followed to the roundhouse
Where it finally broke loose.
It turned around a couple times
And ran out toward the street
The elevator ran, of course
Because it had grown two feet!
It ran across an avenue,
Around a lake, and through a park
And then through another tunnel
Where it was very dark.
A mile later it emerged,
At Agnes’ house, by her front door!
The elevator walked inside,
And was on the second floor!!
So that’s how Agnes reached her attic,
Perhaps someday you’ll go there too,
Push the elevator button,
And you’ll find my story’s true!
Part 3
Agnes stood there in her attic
And smiled at all her stuff
That almost ends the story of
The Attic of Agnes McDuff.
But Agnes’ story can never end
Her smile turned to a frown,
Because you see poor Agnes
Forgot how to get back down!!
PwL May 1, 2015
May 1, 2015
May 1, 2015 at 8:17 AM UTC
Bookends with fatty livers and bad backs
squinting at instructions
for another **** fool distraction
and the laughing, thankfully
On the walk, bees, butterflies,
catkin reminders of time and loops
and irregular pooping
as constants
Thankfully, laughing
requires just enough muscles
from those that still work,
but I’ll feel it tomorrow
Mar 26, 2022
Mar 26, 2022 at 9:23 AM UTC
one on the left and one on the right
us little ones in the middle
one on the left
one on the right
like bookends, bookends for me.
one on the left and one on the right
with four little ones in the middle
and i look to my left
and i look to my right
my sisters and i smile and see.
one on the left and one on the right
precious little ones in the middle
one on the left
and one on the right
strong, beautiful bookends for us.
and i hope one day,
when i'm finally a man,
i can be a bookend, too.
i'll be on the left
she'll be on the right
strong, beautiful bookends we'll be.
Feb 22, 2011
Feb 22, 2011 at 10:27 AM UTC
I wrote a tragedy with my lips
the story of our love
the pages of your hands across my skin
paragraphs of our hidden desire
our stolen kisses written in-between the lines of the public eye
the ******
metaphors to mask our immorality
chapters filled with indiscretions
the leatherbound catastrophe of your infidelity
the bookends were our lips
and between them was the story of our tragic love
Feb 9, 2015
Feb 9, 2015 at 4:14 PM UTC
I'm disowning my name.
In America, my name is cumbersome
and clumsy
and confusing
so I'm leaving it behind.
See,
my name starts with an S and ends with a Z
and one's a mirror of the other
so they're like bookends
for a collection of letters
that spell a name
that I never really felt belonged to me.
Every morning, when I wake up,
I wriggle into my name
but it doesn't feel quite right.
It's like borrowing your best friend's jeans
even though she's tall and skinny
and you've got a hundred generations of Puertoriqueña swirling around the blood in your hips.
I don't like my name
cause it doesn't diffuse across your lips.
It bursts through your teeth.
It's got a weight on your tongue
that brings down the sound with the weight of
a thousand sinking ships.
I've got a
Hispanic Titanic of a name
but my skin's so white
it seems impolite to claim an ethnicity
that only lends its elasticity
because of my father
and the people that brought him here.
My name is not me.
It never was.
It is an anchor that keeps me on the island of what my family used to be.
I am not a race.
I am not a category next to a box on a sheet of paper.
I am the syncopated heartbeat of a tribal drum.
I am the ****** whisper of water on the sand.
I am the sunburn on the corrugated tin.
I am the hunger in the stomachs of the working poor.
So when I die
let me not be remembered by
fifteen letters I did not choose
seven syllables I did not select
three titles I did not ask for.
Let them tell stories of
what I did
where I went
what I saw
who I loved
the words I spoke
the thoughts I formulated,
ignorant of my race
free of bias and prejudice
and preconceived notions
of what I should have been
because in the end
none of this will matter
I'll have no strength for words
but with a penultimate breath
I'll still be able to smile.
Aug 2, 2012
Aug 2, 2012 at 10:27 AM UTC
The sound of small plastic wheels
On the ridged metal lip of an escalator
Bookends each trip between home and birthplace.
The first two uptempo, eager
To race to the smell of marble and leather,
Perfectly cooked fish and pastries with blueberries
The next two, piano, as I cross back,
Result of exhaustion, arms full of clothes and sorting small bottles into bags.
But on exit
Not due to vents, air conditioning, or the sensory assault of shopping under halogens,
Home smells of rust.
Of dirt and smoke - burnt.
Home smells more damaged and ****** up than its neighbour
And it's apt position on the map
Behind our back
Peering over the shoulder of the small ursa, overbearing and controlling.
But it's not the smell of burning petrol and tissue in glass,
Nor riot shields and plastic armour,
And only slightly of over emphasis on Northern Irish poetry during exams.
It's the stench of friendships, bouquet of break-ups,
Awkwardness and overconfidence,
Fake tanning and too much tea.
And like bonfires and cigarette smoke,
Burnt wood and tobacco embers,
It's the one perfume I can't get out of my clothes.
Sep 15, 2011
Sep 15, 2011 at 9:25 PM UTC
Birth and Death
Are the bookends of our life
Beginning and end,
Life and Death,
new and worn,
young and old.
As we live our lives
We encounter duality
at every stage
It affect us, inspires us,
and shapes us into the
people we are
To think to much
about death is deemed morbid
Our culture is
devoted to perpetuating
the myth that we can
stay young and vital
Being aware of death
my encourage is to
live a good, meaningful,
and virtuos life.
Rather than
chasing after non essential
causes and getting upset
Over minor matters .
Death is not the ending
It’s a wake up call
to profound your
explanation for livin’.
Oct 17, 2018
Oct 17, 2018 at 9:28 AM UTC
In between me and you
There are volumes untold
We the bookends
Kept the stories within,
Pop up books
And color by numbers,
There's still crayon splatters
Across the pages,
Folded corners
And still wet edges,
Wilted bookmarks
And underlined sentences,
Highlighted passages
And crossed out paragraphs,
Pressed in between some layers
Are dry roses and leaves,
Memories that left the letters smeared,
And though our stories may finish
And remain unpublished,
I just want to tell you
Our love was volumes
With no bookends...
© okpoet
Jan 18, 2013
Jan 18, 2013 at 3:14 AM UTC
monday hit you like a stack of bricks. ultimately, she tried to fix you. you probably dated her early on. fists full of highlighters and notebooks left no room for your hand to hold. she was too focused on the future, she forgot about the present. half here, half there, flittering in and out of reality. she made being together feel scheduled. monday drowned you in her sea of checklist bulletpoints.
you can’t remember tuesday all that much. the milky blue of the tattoo on your left knee is all you have left of her. you finger it fondly, a ghost of a memory.
wednesday made you want to change yourself. but you are not play dough, not created to be moulded. she gave you the urge to be someone new. but you lost yourself in her passions. you will never understand wednesday.
thursday got you back on track, but it felt like a routine. surely there’s something more. there were things you loved about thursday, but it felt like you were waiting for something else. you sat on the couch together like bookends, not a pair. thursday was a marionette show, you were run by the strings.
friday was a dream. she was a perfect 10. you felt free with friday. but then friday got a little crazy. you couldn’t keep up with her. carefree nights turned into mornings of advil chased by black coffee. when she snuck under the rusty chain link fence and beckoned for you to follow her to paradise you walked away with a scar from a stray wire. she only gained happy memories. you were sinking in the very tequila shots that made her float.
after you recovered from friday, you met saturday. aren’t we all racing through monday through friday in hopes that we finally meet saturday? saturday was fun. she was different from the others. you fell in love with saturday. but sometimes, saturday doesn’t always work out. you had plans and hopes for saturday, but as you look back and realize, she wasn’t everything you always wanted it to be. saturday broke your heart. but, for every saturday you face, there will be a sunday.
you know when you see sunrise after staying up all night and a feeling of pure serenity washes over you? that’s what it’s like to meet a sunday. you can be yourself around sunday. sunday helps you become a better person. she kisses your scars left from the others. sundays are magical, but they are also human. she will not sit on a pedestal, but sit beside you in the most human form. there will still be bumps on the road, but that road will lead to happiness.
Apr 13, 2016
Apr 13, 2016 at 4:44 PM UTC
Four kings rode in with strings and skins to bring salvation to me on the streets of New Year's Eve. My friend would lend contents of bookends that induced solutions to a common teenage problem. I became incepted and indebted to the greatest escape artist, plus drowned-out voice who talked me through the agony of lonesome pains. Though association fades, those days still replay in heavy bass, or on the screaming face of a DVD case. But when handshakes are met with drunken compliments, it makes me question what it all meant. Veins no longer contain baselines or nets because the rent doesn't even cover travel expense. There are hotel pillars in a lake up town, tacky Christmas decs have been taken down, while two Jags are parked up outside dad's house. The nice-eyed lad, Welsh running track, smiling dancer and security-defying chap in a flat cap keep me from collapse. As the album dies, benign podcasts thrive. Franchise rise, repeated lines, gym life, energy drink lies and paper bag highs make laugh-cry emojis hard to find. With Wi-Fi or offline.
Sep 28, 2020
Sep 28, 2020 at 11:57 AM UTC
The water had fallen. And then it rose. And finally, it was green again.
And it was as I descended into the river bed,
through the streams and bramble,
beneath the lush green canopy,
that my peace came back.
It was wild and alive.
And it would fill my soul to be there.
The rich smell of the soil, like something primordial and sweet,
set my memories into motion.
With each step I followed my history backwards,
eager for the lessons that the rain and wind would bring.
And I thought about what was and what is now.
And I recalled so many who had once wandered these wild ways with me before.
Those that have begun to tend their own gradens.
Rows of flowers, orchards, roses, and ivy (trained to grow along ivory latice, like castle walls).
Each thing in its place.
Watered. Nurtured.
Painstakingly cared for and thriving.
But not you.
You are still the winding creek, filled with life and lined with secrets. Ready to rush with fury and beauty at a moments notice.
You are the tall cane and alder making a canopy thick enough to halt the light.
You are the seep willow and the cottonwoods drinking the river bottom directly in to your soul.
You are the raven caw. The calling falcon. The cooing dove. The scream of the hawk. The sound of the sky in every brush stroke note of your voice.
You are the thick brush that touches each bank, powerful and unruly, like bookends to sacred wisdom.
You are the mighty things. The ring of mountians encapsulating the horizon. The clouds that lay with silent fury. The crashing lighting and the echoing thunder. The deep and silent woods.
You are not the garden.
And I prefer you wild.
Jan 21, 2017
Jan 21, 2017 at 12:37 PM UTC
The aspects of the Spirit
Have been compared to fruit
They're like jewels
within our crown
Brought up from the root
Of the Vine of Jesus
With the grapes so sweet.
Love is like a diamond
The priceless Kohinoor
It's matchless worth & loveliness
Eternally endure!
Joy is a fiery opal
Sparkling it whets
The fire in our spirit man
Reflecting sparking depths!
Peace is bluest sapphire
Pacific and serene
Imagine a perfection
As it Subtly gleams!
Patience is a virtue
The largest perfect pearl
It has sand within it
Yet gives grace to
all the world!
Kindness is a topaz
Unrivaled in Its warmth
It invites you to lie down
By its amber hearth.
Goodness is an emerald
The finest ever seen!
It shares its wealth
with all who need
So it stays ever green!
Humility is a chancery
Like the moon it glows
It is beautiful and so rare
Yet pride it never shows!
Faithfulness is turquoise
Persian and SO rare
It believes and it receives
Blessings not yet there!
Meekness is a beryl
Strong as Samson's arm!
It could break mountains in two
And yet it does no harm.
Long-suffering a ruby
It triumphs pain with good.
It's cut into a perfect heart ❤
Red as Jesus's blood.
Love and our Long-suffering
Are bookends bright and tall.
They keep all the rest in place
Yes... they keep them ALL.
SoulSurvivor aka
Write of Passage
2022
Apr 11, 2022
Apr 11, 2022 at 5:33 AM UTC
I grew up between bookends
with the holy word held between
one fell off the shelf with no amends
now the shelf is filled with words unseen
So I read of other options
now I question the thread
of these fairy tale adoptions
which have been so deeply embedded
Christian school, weekly church, prayers before bed
my childhood filled with these epic tales
of a guy who died and then rose from the dead
and if you don't believe, well, see you in hell
They are good stories, some even great
but that's all they really are
to live by them is to live a life castrate
burning bush and a man inside a whale, a little bizarre
I am not mad I grew up this way,
but now I live a life of questioning
of what's beyond the pearly gates
without all of the one sided lecturing
Sep 17, 2018
Sep 17, 2018 at 9:59 AM UTC
They say, the dying are greeted, by their mothers
She comes for them at the end
Her love reaching further than bookends
Loving before, when you’re but an idea
A single cluster of cells,
Pregnantly waiting,
For birth
You came into the world quickly,
Precariously, the way you moved in life
Your pace blazing—light speed
A glow that burned from the beginning
You were likely, the first person I ever held,
Me being too little to hold onto anything much bigger
But of course I adored you right away,
Right from when I first held you,
You made more than a daughter
You left the world quickly too,
during the month the sun burns the hottest,
August sweeping you into the air.
So I wonder, who came for you?
What I like to imagine,
and most desperately hope,
Is that you were greeted by a softness
A loving net cast by our grandmothers
Rocking you slowly
Pulling you back into our linage
Oct 24, 2020
Oct 24, 2020 at 11:19 PM UTC
Pressed together like autumn Oregon leaves
Wet with morning rain;
Hot like the taffy liquid in a
Chipped mug leaving coffee rings;
Mysterious and hurried like the breath of
Two young people, standing on the porch in love;
Weary as a new mother tilting bottles,
Preferring not to sleep, but instead
To thank her Lord above;
Rested like a helpful hint nobody will use,
Which came in the night but
Went with the wind too soon;
Pensive like two friends sitting
Like bookends on a fallen log,
One sighing, the other patting a faithful dog;
Airy as a Venice lady in a lacy dress,
Planning parties, creating the most beautiful mess;
Stretching like the blue sky over the dry fields of Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Pelennor;
Hushed as an old street in Ishpeming just barely
Coming into dusk-
Your understanding of my appreciation for you
Is a must:
A must,
And nothing but.
Mar 11, 2013
Mar 11, 2013 at 5:24 PM UTC
I see,
I know,
I feel,
I recognize your pain.
All that you attempt to hide
from the world is a gloriously
open book...for me.
For, you see, I live in that
same pain as well.
We are neighbors, you
and I, though you
don't seem to know it.
We share adjoining rooms
there...like bookends,
holding up the spined
volumes of our
injured, fragile
lives.
But no fear,
for what I've seen
and all I know..of you...
will never leave my
sight and will never
be discarded or
disclosed to others
who will never,
could never...
truly understand.
You mean more to me
than even I dare admit,
and you always inspire
worlds of thought,
as you have carved
yourself a unique
space in this tattered
heart....
and I will protect this
'gift' of you...
as long as I draw breath.
-by Mercurychyld
Copyrights
Aug 9, 2014
Aug 9, 2014 at 7:46 PM UTC
It started with a brofist
*Interest fenced in
By the facade of indifference
Fueled by pride*
And it ended with one.
Do you still remember
When we first met?
Us stealing glances at each other
You gnawing on your nicotine-stained nails
Me soaking in contrived nonchalance
Both of us clouding the air
With the static of bro, man, **** that, dude*...
Supremely confident
In our juvenile, preconceived mastery
Of subterfuge.
How idiotic we both looked,
But how wise of us
To stay our hearts and tongues
With the ancient wisdom of abstinence.
You still sitting there
With half a heartful
Of words left unspoken -
Perhaps an apology was in there somewhere -
Staring in barely-concealed disbelief
At my abrupt flight,
I sensed your hesitation
As I waved goodbye
For the final time,
My back to you,
As I disappeared into the night.
May 12, 2014
May 12, 2014 at 1:04 AM UTC
Sigur Rós played Fljótavík
A reverent calm
Between bookends of heaven's thunder
We were, everyone of us
Hypnotized, given over to a beauty
So consuming
Like water to drown in
I don't know how long into the song
But a thought of you broke into my heart
Experimenting with chords
Trying to hit the high notes
Failing, even so all the more endearing
Those notes were really high
And you tried
I wanted to give you something good, pure
Something to remember me by
To take the edge off the bitter memories
I blame on depression
Memories nonetheless, ones that loom large
Proven by miles and miles and miles
Between
So I wanted to give you something good, real
To serve as a bridge to one day cross
Above a dry river bed
That should have been teeming with water
As Jonsi hit the really high falsetto notes
I felt something like a bolt of lightning strike through my very being
He hit them perfectly
But that's not what I heard
That's when I felt that old familiar bittersweet feeling
In the pit of my stomach
And had to fight to keep my mouth from twisting
I finally surrendered to the feeling that words will never describe
But I kept the tears from dripping down my eyes
Barely
And soon enough I was glad the song was over
Even while wishing it would never end
I sat back in my seat
I looked around to see if anyone noticed the anguish in my face
I had to confess to a strong sense of paranoia
Because really, who would take their eyes off of the stage
When Sigur Rós plays Fljótavík?
Aug 30, 2013
Aug 30, 2013 at 10:10 AM UTC
The garden served little purpose
It sprawled across the bored ground, despondent beneath the yawning sun
My mother would wail her annual rage
At the snarling weeds that softly smothered the flowers
How I loved those flowers
Rejected footballs perplexed the lawn
Their obtuse hulks spoiling that ripple of green
I found a four leafed clover there once
He poked his obscure head above his brothers: a suicide mission to bring me luck
They are all dead now
I didn’t waste nearly enough time reclined on that jealous cushion
Watching the lethargic clouds wobble on
But most otiose of all in that seldom wandered paradise was the Wall
That Wall was never high enough
I see it from my back door
Squat, depressed, sighing, each dusty clot of red brick seems so lifeless
Doomed to live out the rest of its days as a failure
All flung ***** that compress their rubbery bodies against it will soon vault over
It crudely bookends the busily neat hedge
Simply because that is where the drunken soil runs out
It fails too at its chief instruction:
Be the purgatory bridge between Our heaven and Their hell
But the Wall was never high enough
I remember the other side of the Wall
How I crouched in filth
Needless to be afraid of a cut from a single blade of grass
Impoverished chickens clucked in the squalor
How they survived such malnourishment awed me
The friends I thought I had there cheated me
And I ran from that disastrous place
Where chaos twisted the agonised branches of the hedge we shared
But it followed me like an age old Gypsy curse
Even today, a writhing, mewing splodge of night will sit on the Wall
Looking too fat for its own fur coat
It will viciously attack the thin air for a while
Perhaps accept a stroke but, seeing no morsel, wander home
But I am not spared
For I can see its wasteland kingdom from my window
It is not an evil place
But the Wall was never high enough
Apr 24, 2013
Apr 24, 2013 at 4:04 PM UTC
Resting against the bookends
Musky pages and emotions penned
Blurry vision within the morning light
Our dreams have come to an end
Jan 17, 2014
Jan 17, 2014 at 11:05 AM UTC
Preface
Life is bookended by nothing.
Grasp what nothing truly means.
Nothing is not another form of something.
Nothing is — nothing.
*****
Where were you long ago?
All that time before a tot.
In some distant god’s château?
No. Not there. You were not.
Perhaps a soul in surplus stock,
A spirit not yet wrought.
Dressed in some heaven’s frock.
No. Not there. You were not.
Then came a twist of fate,
***** and egg were now one.
In this way did they create.
Your life had begun.
So began your book of life,
That in volumes three.
The past, the present,
and the yet to be.
Life is always in the now,
Presents itself as a choice.
Many matters to disavow,
To others, you give a voice.
Life is more than career,
Love is much more dear.
To love another earns its worth,
Makes your mark upon the Earth.
Take the time to stand and stare,
Feel the sun burst in the air.
Enjoy laughs and romance,
Work at love, at every chance.
And when the last word is writ,
There is no more, yet to be.
Life for you did quit,
Not something faced with glee.
At the end, where do you go?
To the place you were taught?
To some distant god’s château?
No. Not there. You are not.
Your Book of Life, a mere spark,
‘Twixt bookends of eternal dark.
*****
This poem is also on Vimeo
Runs 3:39
https://vimeo.com/432650832
Jul 20, 2020
Jul 20, 2020 at 5:13 PM UTC
theres something so final about a period
which is as it should be
commas always get in the way
coming and going like anxious insects
trying to make themselves important
as they scatter over a page
already overrun with too many words
question marks have a slightly
swooping profile curve just above
a period
theyre kind of elegant
they remind me of a swan
with a regal attitude
i saw once on a pretty pond
parentheses embrace words like **** curves
and brackets are like steel gray bookends
fencing words in
exclamation points are so abrupt
and rude and angry
like an outburst
in a classroom
like fireworks
in a funeral parlor
dont mess with them
they mean business
hyphens dashes colons semicolons
apostrophes
and quotation marks
that surround what we say
and dont forget the ellipses that
take the place of
words we omit
sometimes i like to write stories and poems
with no punctuation no capitalization
no grammatical rationale whatsoever
dare i ask
how did i do
Oct 27, 2015
Oct 27, 2015 at 3:23 PM UTC
Every time I say goodbye
I don't mean it much.
I will be bookends and you
will be a hat rack and people
will use our memories to sell
cars. There will be suits
hand-woven from our handshakes
and I won't cry even a little at
the soundtrack by the fountain
when your lips get fuller and your
eyes take on planets.
I will just say the words and
remember that when they
refashion me for proper use
you will be holding a businessman's hat.
Oct 30, 2011
Oct 30, 2011 at 4:02 AM UTC