"bumbling" poems
Cicadas whine metallically
In trees along the sweltered streets;
Wasps and hornets arc angrily
Enough to cause me fear.
Late summer’s not my favorite time of year.
Flowers nearly done;
The tulips, irises, and poppies
Long since seeded out;
They’ve had their fun.
Bedraggled day lilies remain,
This is the beginning of the mums.
Bees seek latent nectars
Or tap into their golden stores
To supplement their bumbling runs.
Lawns foist a burnt but stubborn edge
While only thistles still refuse
To bow to August's incessant heat;
Their spikes sprout poisonous defiance.
The dog’s left yellowed pools of dying grass;
I admit the neighbors’ lawns surpass.
I suppose the time to gather
Drying excrement’s returned, alas....
Keeping up appearances is hard at summer's end.
Ennui of season full and just past ripe
Leaves tired old men like me
A chiding cause to gripe.
Aug 18, 2018
Aug 18, 2018 at 10:39 AM UTC
tumbling trees and bumbling branches
leave it to me to **** through the circumstances
perhaps you reflect the mess of second glances
with these days all sideways I'm not much to take chances
I never felt like we were quiet
quite a perfect match
you leave it to me to unravel the riot
I leave it to you to deadly the catch
and you're next
and i'm next
and we're next
and he's next
and one day this will all be mine.
Sep 19, 2014
Sep 19, 2014 at 6:36 PM UTC
Stumbling and mumbling like a bumbling idiot
Feeling like a toddler who is barely learning how to speak
The first steps, tiny baby steps
Into this territory called "love"
"Kiddy crushing, puppy loving" --
That's what they all call it.
Tongue twisters, tying my tongue into tight knots.
These feelings puzzle my brain.
Questioning every movement, every moment
Waiting patiently for everything to click together
Two halves of a whole taken apart
By those who think they are better than us
Word goes around and around
But never seems to land on the truth
Avoiding all the right answers
Even if it was right in the center,
Bolded, capitalized letters, and highlighted
Just for you.
It will slap you in the face and tell you,
"Get your head out of the clouds!"
Because you need to realize that real life is not a fairy tale,
Not a story straight from the classics.
It is not told at night before your bedtime,
Before your parents tuck you in and kiss you goodnight.
It is something learned from experience,
Something that walks in at all the wrong times.
It'll walk in through the doors when you're crying
And it could walk in during breakfast while you're making your favorite morning coffee.
It even walks out, sometimes unannounced
Even during your happiest moments.
Because that's what love is:
Unpredictable
May 10, 2013
May 10, 2013 at 11:14 PM UTC
lovers forgo their faces
defacing in the act
mammering their information to unreadable smudges
they slur in kinetic fluctuation
experimenting material forms fray
each the others face is vented away
betray being human
no separated being
and then...
to return in the tender moments following
a bumbling landfall
then they are athletes
enamoured and praising of the other
flushed and radiating
having rushed the life from their breath
they heave in its return
Later in a **** trip down to the night kitchen
they forgo they faces in a foxes forage
hers ; over-lit by the fridge light
face thrown into a mask by extreme shaddows
his ; beyond this light in the dark
they are bodies
sneak children
the raider and the lookout
after many years make the familiar relation
her face disappears into a hand mirror
and his is pulled out
into a middle distance beyond the dresser
durred in thought and waiting for 'go'
to the restaurant tonite
or that career social that neither wishes to attend
- fell shy of Eden
Sep 11, 2022
Sep 11, 2022 at 8:48 PM UTC
'Love is a drug'
it's a bit cliche at this point but its true
not in the sense of addiction or how harmful it can be
but in the sense of its effects
love changes people and it changes each one of us differently
for some, they become suave people with immense charms
for others, they become bumbling awkward masses that are plagued with a mentality and drive that makes them try too hard
it can slow you down
make you hyper aware
fill up every bit of you
from your toes to your hair
Love is a drug
it can make you do or think or say things you never thought you could
it's an oxymoron that turns you into everything you never were
it's every color and sound and feeling; it's everything at once
it's pure, it's evil, it hollows you out as it fills you up and gives the deepest sense of pleasure as it kills you and eats you from the inside out
Love is a beautiful thing, some might say life's greatest creation
maybe this is true, maybe it isn't but be careful
because its beauty makes so shockingly easy to overdose on when you're in it
Aug 18, 2017
Aug 18, 2017 at 2:22 PM UTC
I think that maybe
I'm a little more than in love
Something deeper, something stronger
If that's possible.
And I think that maybe
I could keep you
If not for forever
But for a while.
You're smile
Makes me shy
I hide my eyes
Beneath my lashes.
When you look at me
I can't help but grin
And want to just wrap you up
In my arms.
If I could find a word
To describe how I feel
I'd write it over and over
In a love letter to you.
And if I could find a song
To describe how I feel
I'd play it over and over
For you.
It's something silly
But isn't that real love?
Bumbling, clumsy
And fun.
I can say very well
That you bring out the best in me
And I feel like that maybe
I bring out the best in you.
This isn't the best poem
But I've been wanting to say for a while
That you make me so happy
More than I can describe.
I love how you look
How you look at me
How you smile
How you smile at me.
And I can feel your love
When you're talking to me
Hear it in your voice
Like a tone only I can hear.
And your actions speak volumes
Loud enough and large enough for me
To know that you truly love me
And I don't even have to ask.
So just so you know
I hear, feel, see, breathe your love
And it's enough
I couldn't ask for more.
Except maybe for a kiss
To remind me
A smile to make me smile
And a hug to feel your love.
I love you.
Mar 21, 2011
Mar 21, 2011 at 5:16 PM UTC
~
dark early pre-dawn
body suspended between the-dark ochre earth tones of night,
and the teal pealing notes of warning of an impending morning,
signs aborning, me rising with urgency of the leaden half deaden,
torn from the bed casket to venture into a different kind of twi-lights,
nature demanding both intake and outtake, a restoration of balance
but first a bumbling wobbling, the body as carnival bumper car,
installing soon-to-be-bruising for later examination-exhumation,
lurching from handhold crevices in the walls like crazy cliff climbers,
my balance disturbed, eyes try tearing apart the sticky glue of night,
my sense of direction keeping me from free falling into green glass
edges of glass tables, barely, and not always, red cuts evidentiary
“my balance disturbed” words fresh formed, and a poem expulsion
required to balance the unjust scales of spirit soul and the body cage,
patch an negotiated agreement between warring cousins, just a
twenty four hour ceasefire to retrieve the wounded and the
corpses unfounded in the small copses of false shelter,
like my ancestors expelled from Spain, making escape to be
strangers in strange lands, or remain hidden in place neath disguises
of clothes of new poems, prayers for old and new gods
this new poem comes quick like a young man making first love,
for the poem has been written by thousands nights of practicing,
so ready for quick retrieving in a smattering of a few minutes,
expulsion expulsion
what a perfect verbiage to capture the night terrors, the differentials,
the procession path between what was and what will be,
when my balance restored and this poem’s completion installation
in the body of my work, as a nail disguised in the works of my body,
entering by command of the pitch black gods
May 21, 2019
May 21, 2019 at 8:42 AM UTC
I had slept for too long, I know, for my eyes crusted over,
and when I rubbed them I felt relief from sleep.
Walking into my kitchen undiscovered, like a mars rover
I stumbled towards the counter in a bumbling flesh jeep.
the fruit bowl overflowed with bananas and mangoes
and they were beyond their years, wrinkled and hot
from the heat of today, and yesterday, their death grows
towards a beginning only a fly could know, but not.
their fermenting skin was armied in fruit flies,
they had built quite a formidable force and I
wondered had I slept so long? Their fleeting red eyes
scurried in my presence without a question of why.
opening the cherry tomato container unleashed an army like Agamemnon’s,
I feared I had slept that long, in a house of Aegisthus,
a deceptive horse unleashed
flies about my cheeks and eyes-
I feared their anger, only in that moment though,
I hadn’t even thought about it before.
a cider vinegar trap was the plan,
with a plastic wrap coffin,
and in some hours a cider vinegar graveyard
full of crimson eyed drowners.
A brash plan, yes-
or maybe an overthrow of a sluggish ruler
with a small army of energetic soldiers,
my crushing hand slicing like a scythe,
only to be matched by a putrid hatred of a kitchen subjugator,
a hatred the ruler understood himself-
a fear of waking up to it left the fruit
bruising in the basket
in
the
first place.
May 9, 2014
May 9, 2014 at 7:39 PM UTC
Sharp shrieks piercing night,
terror or pain, a mother’s worst fear.
Old husband bumbling, fumbling,
but a mother is vigilant.
Rush forth, answer quick.
There is no time when they cry.
What is it, what is it?
Monster, human, or worse?
Child’s chiding tone calms the heart,
but arouses it another way.
Why so difficult, so stubborn?
Unruly and cruel, but so beloved.
Door ****** open, lights flicked on.
There it is, sight not believed.
Glint of metal, shocked face.
A mother’s worst dream not understood.
Explanations falling out, knife hidden.
Less a plea and more an excuse.
“I wasn’t going to, it’s just a joke.”
Why such japes all the time?
The other cowers, child of womb,
cries and crawls back, still so shaken.
“It’s fine, Mom. Really,”
That’s what he says.
Can’t stop, won’t stop. A mother’s fury.
Simply unacceptable, so unthinkable.
“How could you, why would you?”
Scolding stings mothers more.
Knife is relinquished, hesitating, unwilling.
More excuses, more assurances and from both.
A sibling’s honor goes before all,
even one’s comfort, even one’s life.
Father arrives, so late, still grumbling.
Too late for this sort of thing.
Oh, what is even going on.
Shut up by realization. Oh God how?
Talk on the knee while father comforts son.
Scolding, molding, pleas and questions.
But still there’s a hug, and kiss, and tears so many.
A mother’s love so resolute. Always. Always.
Nov 13, 2017
Nov 13, 2017 at 11:41 AM UTC
A swell in-throat
Tumbling boat
Bumbling sailor
Not quite awake
Quickly, give him a hard shake.
A swell grows paler
Closer still
Loneliness turns shrill
Awareness bereft
Beating all that is left
Eating all that stands.
Lighthouse growing dark.
Jul 13, 2013
Jul 13, 2013 at 8:02 PM UTC
there are those
who read this stumbling
bumbling
work who are truly
beautiful
compassionate
people
thanks beforehand
for understanding me
without judgement
IN SEARCH OF THE LOST CHORD
i've been searching
all my life
for the lost note
there is a chord in the
cacophonistic chaos
which is my
existence
i simply miss
my otherwise
nimble hands simply
can't bring out
the magic
the music
the majestic
harmonies which
i hear in my mind
but are not translated
to my fingers
i believe it
is due to my assertion
that i was unloved as a child
i was not a planned
pregnancy
my mother fell
on her stomach and
i was a preemie
I was not touched
as an infant due to this
i was in an incubator
i was also
severely neglected as
an older child
due to my mother's
inability to cope
with two very small children
(I was born nearly one year after my sister)
I have also been
TARGETED
for twenty years by
by the
"CHURCH" of SCIENETICS
(name has been changed)
so if I am
slightly dark and
seemingly insane in
certain respects this is why
ONLY GOD CAN HELP ME
I've already learned
not to play my music
drunk or ******
but i am still
in search of the lost chord
♡ love ♡
Catherine
Dec 9, 2015
Dec 9, 2015 at 1:05 PM UTC
Out of everything I saw, I remember
the thumb.
Swollen and lopsided.
There it was, conquering the wires--red, blue, and green,
commandeering the clear tubes coated with stomach bile.
And the nail. What a healthy nail.
A pink rosebud with cuticle trim. Piqued with a white crest, curling.
Prime for at least fifteen more back scratches.
A drawerful of button-ups.
Pockets of heads and tails.
You can do it, Grandma.
One, two.
Heads, tails.
Up, down.
Up for braid, down for bun.
Braid? Yes. Braid.
And then there are two small thumbs bumbling through foreign terrain.
The braidee now braiding. The baby,
aging.
Tucked in, lulled by echoes of strange mothers. Bleeping pressures, sugars, drawing lines and colors.
But you have me.
And I have this thumb,
hidden under mine.
I’ll keep it safe for you, here in this shadowed palm—sanctified, secret dome.
I’ll protect it from the unhooked jaw.
From placid flesh curtains, over a damp backstage.
White light hanging over the insect—splayed on a lightning-gleamed car windshield.
I’ll hide it away.
Intermission.
Hush now.
Quiet, you. The show is not yet done.
And ****** it won’t be. Not with this thumb.
Not on my time.
I bite it.
At you. Skyward you.
Elusive and slippery. Shiny, rubber-like, all but new.
A blank belated card, lost in the mail.
What it might have said,
had I left a forwarding address.
But we’re here now in this dark hand cavern.
Tucked away, safely in lines.
Those of the palm.
Of tree rings.
Of love songs, and
Pretty things.
Lines, like wires
red, green, and blue.
They bring me closer
And closer
To the thumb.
Fat, with shiny aged skin,
stretched new.
And suddenly, I’m
Old.
Numb along one side.
Useless and dumb.
A limp puppet
plunked down
during intermission.
Sep 19, 2012
Sep 19, 2012 at 3:38 PM UTC
Barren halls, devoid of children
echo with the ghostly staccato of gunfire
and the mockingly musical tinkling of spent brass.
Specters of children set free through violence
mutely stand vigil over stained tile and carpet,
shocked by their sudden transition.
Parents, siblings, grandparents and family reel
from the sudden void caused by the senseless
and cowardly actions of a 2nd Amendment zealot’s son.
Christmas presents without recipients sit untouched
in secret places – never to light up the eyes
and faces of eager and happy children.
Flags fly in solemn respect at half-staff
signifying a nation in mourning, yet a nation
so reluctant to address the core of these issues
which have made these crimes so common-place.
Bumbling and incompetent politicians – securely
in the NRA’s and gun-lobby’s pocket are quick to *****
the party lines: “Guns don’t **** people.” “My fork and knife made me fat.”
All the while the mentally tormented and dangerous
continue to take up arms and slaughter innocents –
as apparently their constitutional rights are more sacred
than the life of a first-grader.
How long America, will you dip your pens in the blood of children
and write the laws that take their lives?
How long America, will you wrap yourself in a blood-stained flag
and spew the toxic and hateful lie that guns don’t **** people?
How many more must bleed your ink and feed your mill
before we cry, “enough is enough!!”?
© 2012 Michael Hunter
Dec 20, 2012
Dec 20, 2012 at 9:47 PM UTC
How long the minutes seem
Sitting in the stream
Of thoughts going rotten
Of ideas long forgotten
My stomach is rumbling
But my hand just keeps bumbling
Along the lines of the paper
Until the rhymes start to taper
But the genius I must ration
Because my mind is lost in some other nation
Somewhere deep inside my head
For all I know it is dead
I can’t seem to do the assignment
Something is wrong with the alignment
Of me in this school of strife
And the position I’m in for the rest of my life
For some unfathomable reason
I feel as though I’m just breezin’
Through these hours upon hours of classes
Time going slower than molasses
But I have to drudge through it
Even though I want to say ***** IT
Because I’m bored out of my skull
But with out it my life would even more dull
Mar 9, 2013
Mar 9, 2013 at 4:51 AM UTC
Tongue twisting musings
Are all too confusing
With a mouth filled
Through anxiety willed
The stumbling fumbling
Of a poet bumbling
Dec 14, 2014
Dec 14, 2014 at 9:08 AM UTC
Dear...
This haphazard poem was written solely for you
Matterless, what you came garbed in
Fever elicited, passion anew
You’ve graced me, the repetition of ‘could-have-been’
I loved the way you speak
Of knowledge and triumph
And I, bumbling and meek
Tirelessly I sought and now still seek
Your council, your court
For my amusement, for my sport
Conversing over a poisoned well
I listen in genuine
Raise my voice
Sing with my friends amongst the din
Higher on the pillar, you I hoist
Pure skin my well intentioned hands mar
Clumsily, I lean into a similar heart
To discuss life and literature, fantasies these hands take too far
How eloquent the silk you weave, which you impart
Which inveigles and entices, cajole us into the city
On pale page, the street lamps and dim moon, art
Palpitations and liquor test the pity
Of light and fire
I cannot help but explore your shapely form
And yet, without bar
Across miasma, my guide is a cute little hand
Solitude, the pulsations do doggedly solicit
I just want to be close, you grant this
Bewitched by the creamy satin of pale skin
Distantly, warmly, I gaze in those God-given sculptures
Of the richest green and azure hues, bespeak feminine
Engaged in the other’s stare, two drunken apers
The night, black as sin,
The mould of outcome of we are the shapers
And I shape regret that rises with the sun
You come back vividly and lucidly
Distant and opposite, worlds across, you from me
A nondescript ghost in the corner
Who speaks so placidly
I remember with regret
I remember with exultation
I’ve ruined our relationship
Our relationship topical felicitation
I haven’t had time to apologize
I haven’t had enough time with you
If I ever see you again
I’d mend everything
I’d discover the girl behind the name
And cleanse the projection askew.
Love, Me
Dear... .
Sep 10, 2013
Sep 10, 2013 at 12:10 PM UTC
A bee is a bee.
Just to be. As a bee intended to be.
A wasp, but a wasp
The shadow
The other
The disillusioned brother
Is not quite how it was meant to be.
Being the bee, to be the bee,
Bumbling, life, freedom, truth to see.
Or to be to be the wasp
Facing anguish, loathing, avarice and loss.
It is not the fault of the bee or the wasp
But it is the energy from others
The fallacy that is our world
It is the ego, the cost.
To **** another for food, for power
Sounds familiar.
Or to love the earth, and feed from the flower.
The nectar of life is rich and sweet
Take not the straight road
But walk with ease, swerve, dance, use your feet
The now has come – we must make a choice
Would you rather bee or a wasp?
Jul 12, 2012
Jul 12, 2012 at 5:12 AM UTC
Your wife gone, you snore asleep upstairs.
A man with the vital essence of a Bull--
Connie's iron shoulders.
A post-depression butcher of South Philadelphia,
Our Mario the Butcher.
Bumbling music follows you into the room
Whistling Italian-American joy
All the saints and their parade too
"YEAH, TOMORRAH!"
YOU. ARE. SUCH. A. COOL. GRANDFATHER.
And what a man.
From this generation to yours, the Greatest
Respect!
I love you and I love your style
(Not to mention your Santoro smile)
(genes)
The stories hang from your brass jaw like ribbons
You held out your giant hand and told me to hit it.
Oh I'll hit it alright
I'll give 'em a knuckle sandwich.
Jun 4, 2016
Jun 4, 2016 at 1:20 AM UTC
We rest deeply within our cote laying
the fields of quiet and peace.
The silence that lives underneath
an opera singers voice.
In our stillness we float up with
a sweetness of the finest essence
After the storm Noah sends us out
to fulfill a dream to find the
promise land.
As we search all direction we
carry no frustration as our
paths are completely open.
Our love has a steely aggressive
streak cutting through any
emotional obstacle.With a light
but forceful peck we find all
our boundaries broken.
As we slide through every challenge
like a train running through a
mountain.
Hidden behind an invisible wall
we find our isolated heart feeling
broken.
But with our beak a few light taps
and a wave like wand we find all
our spell are broken.
As the little self guards all his
inner wealth, but another voice
singing , " start sharing" as all
casts are now broken.
On the edge a little chick looking
down staring and just standing with
a little voice saying don't let go
keep on holding.
But a higher force with a heavy boot
just shoves us off, while screaming,
search for something higher.
So a little bird starts tumbling with desperate
little wings that feverishly flapping red face
fluttering.
But caught in the unexpected currents of life
winds push us lower.
Then though all of a sudden like an orchestra
that has just found its conductor or a singer
finding her voice we start flying.
Defenceless little birds I find ourselves powerless
to the forces from above as we are caught but
not in a cage
but in LOVE.
My wings out stretching my heart opening I
find my tiny self racing like a rocket into
an infinite space.
With my love inside my breast you will feel
the tickles of feathers inside your chest.
Fumbling and bumbling chest filled
with love we find no room inside
our home.
With chicks bursting we find our heart
full of explosion. The endless love of a dove
letting go into freedom rising steaming
just keeps on evaporating.
With this incredible task a little birds cover
the world, keep streaming from a magicians hat
they keep on appearing.
As we sink into feathery arms we are delicately
warmed and like a radiator we start glowing.
Love is the hope that hangs in the air
like the star of David.
So when you snuggle into
the love of a dove you will find
yourself anchored at the bottom
of the sea but also high in
the sky above.
So let us travel in the wings
of a doves love
Nov 4, 2015
Nov 4, 2015 at 3:27 PM UTC
The art of a mountain climb,
so perfect and humbling
while losing all sense of time
One must **** early to be prime
surrounded by the bees bumbling
The art of a mountain climb.
The start is like eating a lime
Your tummy and mind crumbling
all while losing any sense of time.
Hands and body covered in grime
but there is room for little fumbling
the art of a mountain climb.
The view is worth no dime
after painful stumbling
to lost all sense of time
I will repeat it again like a rhyme
for the experience, life-encompassing
The art of a mountain climb
in order to lost a sense of time.
Feb 26, 2015
Feb 26, 2015 at 11:03 AM UTC
Looking out the fishbowl;
The bumbling bees, buzzing to serve the ravenous queen.
May 27, 2013
May 27, 2013 at 7:30 PM UTC
Hey, I'm really glad we're talking like we are. [delete]
I know what you're feeling. [delete]
I feel the exact same. [delete]
Yes, I know how much you like this girl. [delete]
I'm sure she knows too. [delete]
Is it me? [delete]
It's you, you bumbling idiot. [delete]
I love the way you fumble and the way you mumble. [delete]
I kind of really love you. [delete]
I love the way you look at me. [delete]
I love the freckle on your thigh. [delete]
I love the way you touch me. [delete]
I love the way you sigh. [delete]
I love how you laugh with me. [delete]
I love how much I try. [delete]
Hey, it's been a while. How have you been? [delete]
Hi. [delete]
I really miss you, man. Please come back. [delete]
I love you. [delete]
Why the **** do you keep acting like this? [delete]
Am I the problem? [delete]
So do you intend to **** me up the way you do, messing with my god **** mind? [delete]
You love her, you like me. [delete]
I hate the way you look at her. [delete]
I hate all of your lies. [delete]
I hate the way you touch her. [delete]
I hate the way she sighs. [delete]
I hate how you laugh with her. [delete]
I hate how much I try. [delete]
I hate how much I love you. [delete]
May 20, 2014
May 20, 2014 at 3:34 AM UTC
I cry for you.
I don't know why
I cry,
but I do.
My heart aches
for you
I wish it wouldn't break,
but it has, all the way through.
They say love heals,
it also reels,
and feels,
like you've been shot.
Not
in the cute, cupid-like way,
but the day to end days,
crazy killer-kind way.
So you stumble,
and mumble,
sounding like
a bumbling fool.
They make it look cool,
the movies, the books,
the romantic wins in the end,
if they aren't lovers, they are the best of friends.
Reality doesn't play this game,
it isn't over, end credits,
smile, you can have the same.
It is harsh, and true, and we fight for it.
Have we all lost our wit?!
I would like to say, not I,
"I quit!"
But, alas, that would be a lie...
Sep 5, 2013
Sep 5, 2013 at 12:16 PM UTC