"caption" poems
i am me
you are you
let me be
you have no clue
stop talking like you understand
i'm tired of swimming toward your dreams
i can hear my heart stop beating
drowning in my own feelings
a shattered mind lost in sand
catastrophe appears on my screens
but i'm no God
no one in particular
the most ordinary thing
full of aspirations
imaginations
and colors
i'm not going back to the corner
i'm gonna run farther
i'm gonna make it better
the fire ignites
the ocean send its waves
raw emotion spilled into motion
it's not broken it's golden
why should i listen to others
when i own the colors
it's not only a caption
it's satisfaction
all the beautiful colors
took a long time to show
i do not fear it
i do not hate it
i'm proud
i'm shining colors
you can never see
Jul 27, 2018
Jul 27, 2018 at 7:44 AM UTC
She captioned his heart like she captioned
her own pictures of herself:
seemingly profound but obvious
and unrelated to whatever
touch-screen-camera-phone-app filter she used
to unshade her blackness,
his blackness,
their blackness; with digital
skin-lightening cream.
As if to be dark was a sin.
And so she edited herself
to forgive herself.
Because Jesus had eyes the colour of her contact lenses.
Blue.
Because to be holy is to be arbitrary.
Because to caption his heart like she captioned herself
was easier than to just ask for his soul
through a no make-up selfie.
Or whatever else she thinks is actually her,
but still isn't.
Sep 29, 2014
Sep 29, 2014 at 5:30 PM UTC
00:31 and it's been about an hour since i saw you'd removed the word "happiness" from your caption
and ever since then it's been all i can do to
overthink; it's all i can ever do
wondering if, maybe, just maybe, you'd finally seen what i see
how i am not good enough for you
i lose myself inside these thoughts at night when loneliness is my only company
and darkness is my only right hand man, doing me no wrong
i think about the times i've held your hand and then suddenly
he hugs me tighter than anybody ever has, darkness, that old friend of
mine - something which you are yet to be... hopefully
i'd be yours, too, if you'd have me
but i'm overthinking again, just always overthinking
you said you needed time before we could begin now i'm starting to think we never will
i get the need for space, i really do
i'm just so insecure i feel like i'll be replaced by you
baby
you give me panic attacks
and i think about you, your smile, your laugh
how you removed "happiness" from your caption on that photo of us
and now i'm wondering if i was the one that did it somehow, thinking maybe i ****** up already
how is it that we're not even together and i can already feel myself rattling
my nerves responding to a break-up that hasn't even happened
i guess that's just part of how broken i really am
i closed my eyes and let my head hit the pillow three hours ago
how is it that i'm more wide awake now than i was then?
all i want to do is sleep yet here i am
my mind a merciless prison - i tell you: thinking murders me
i'm begging you to figure yourself out before my paranoid anxiety does it for you
please
i'm such an impatient man
patience is a virtue, they say, and i guess i have neither
patience nor virtue
just another of the many ways that
i'm not good enough
for you.
Apr 27, 2016
Apr 27, 2016 at 7:49 PM UTC
Take a look
At this decade's eternal light.
Youth, beauty, happiness.
In theory.
Is that how it was for our parents?
Top tags on this website
#depression #suicide #heartbreak
Are grandma's photo albums fairytales
Or has something changed
Without shame
Unmarked blame
Just a change
Perseverance died
At the doorstep of sarcastic self-deprecation,
Cool-to-be-lame facades,
Glorified depression, growing vines on glowing laptop walls
With a generation, fetal position, ripped jeans and eyeliner, inside
Self proclaimed ****
If you say it first
Those twisted lips of others
Won't press on such a fresh wound
And here we lose the metaphor
Cut yourself
So everyone else
Is picking at scabs
No one would hurt another
Who hurts themselves
Unless they're an ***
So the words are silenced
Are you stronger? Happier? Healthier?
And so we can always be safe
In our self loathing
Until puppy eyes and perfect pictures
Leave us hungry
Hurt by the people who don't mind being *****
Gaining assets, stealing rights from under
Our droopy dismal noses snapshot
Caption: **** up, let down, repeat. Hate me.
-politicians and companies will bash your head on rock bottom
Looking up in disbelief at chemical burns from Big Mac's
We'll look back down to pout about our pain.
The only way to save ourselves?
Perseverance
Positivity
Hope
Though I conveyed none of those emotions in this poem.
**** me.
I'm a hypocrite. But my point still stands.
Perhaps even stronger.
Apr 2, 2014
Apr 2, 2014 at 2:34 AM UTC
~
he sings to her
in floral bloom,
melodic language
all his own;
his magnolia
blossoms heralding
the rays of warmth,
his utterance to come.
its shyly spreading pink,
and softly budding green,
proof enough
to her aching heart
that winter's cold
cannot for long contain,
within its icy grip
any life that
from their union came.
for deep within
these roots,
yet he lives again
in breathing form;
that every year
til him she holds,
winter's loss
must yield to spring.
she beholds
this heralding;
as with slowly,
warming heart
she tilts her ear,
listening;
waiting for
this dearest voice.
for to her ears alone
and to her heart only
a rising medley,
tender melody,
a lullaby returned,
to her...
for her...
he begins
to sweetly sing,
unmistakably,
recognizably...
his magnolia lullaby.
.
~
post script.
*inspired by a dear friend's photo and accompanying caption...
"Logan's magnolia showing her first winter bloom."
a remembrance of her title bequeathed at his birth;
a reminder of his legacy that has not, will not ever end.*
Feb 20, 2015
Feb 20, 2015 at 9:56 AM UTC
It is funny to see banners wishing Happiness displayed with cinematic glamour,
the pictures and hordings of Banner heroes.
The one at Tannery Road junction was peculiar to mention.
Here it was common
The captions "Happy" used to summon names of sundry festivals-Local and national, even internstional.
What's uncommon was the bold prints
of a hero's name ARUMALAI outshining
The caption and his larger than life picture establishing the photographer's digital brushing skills.
A passer by wondered who'd be this Arumalai,
Is he so great as to be advertised in polivynil?
His glorious deeds may be what they want you to heed
Still never ever seen or heard of his manners
Anywhere than in these motley banners
Just as a function
at the Tannery road junction
Each one passed by this colossal glance attracted provoking protracted ruminance what do this expensive banners really mean?
In another occasion
the glaring glorifying picture
of ARUMALAI followed the tag
Corporator,
Below the man posing a DICTATOR.
That was a period to a period of mystery!
Banners changed with seasons
with greetings on religious occasions
Festivals of importance
Birthdays of men even
with crowded profiles of hailers
Whose unrully manners
Too clogging up the banners
Like a wanted list of jailors.
One day a strange banner
hooked by the Tannery cross over
Spooked and shocked every passer-by
There the usual banner cut out
the larger than life image blings-out
Arumalai the BBMB corporator
Posing as dictator!
There was no wish of any kind.
It was a notice startling any mind
The sad demise of ARUMALAI
The BBMB corporator
Still possed as dectator
By his living promoters.
"He was sick and the local dispensary advised a minor operation.
He was administered
the necessary treatment.
Was referred to a super-speciality
centre and was declared dead.
His sad demise was advertised, he was forty.
His chummies complained of medical negligence", was the only news summary
in major news papers...
What was the reason for the minor surgery
What're the preparations
for the corporator's operation
All are mystery for a causal itinerary
passer by crossing over the Tannery Road junction, wondering at the strange envountering with banners
that come and go
Keeping no annals
Floating on the mind for a while
Stopping at the red's knell,
Moving with the green signal
The rise and fall of heroes
As binary one and zero
The banners tell a story tertiary
Of the rise and fall of a luninary
Within a plane ofmomentary
Variation of red and green
On the Tannery road's screen.
Dec 7, 2018
Dec 7, 2018 at 5:13 AM UTC
I got no more ***** on my arms, vaginal schemes and gospel psalms. Very private skinny tribes, lit up with oversized black lights. In the very end, everybody walks this way, they all move like idioms, they all wanna be lit up like stars. Some could be prevalent like cascading dreams, nauseous just like mesquite BBQ baby-back wings.
Fly away little bird, fly away. But don't try to leave
Or you won't get paid.
I know very well, just what kinda caption your capsaicin
Can be, lit up like honey blunts, golden stars on top of your christmas tree. Strawberry Swisher Sweets, Blueberry Dunhill flavors, poke your hand through the fence, make friendly on your neighbors. If you like Kimmel Live, Conan at Midnight too, recipes for the zombies, SS ****** Youth. Blow-up and be a party. Get off work and drink your check. Get down, get off- I'll show you. Just how Martin pays the rent.
Apr 26, 2014
Apr 26, 2014 at 4:21 AM UTC
Sunsets.
Growing up I never liked the nights, As a child it signified the end of play with the rule that you had to be indoors at dawn.
I remember the evil ticking sound of the tremulous hands of time as we were separated from our friends,
with the sun wrapping up in the fragrant petals of the freezing cold nights.
A spirit locked inside a world of silence and pure nothingness.
The hot fire sparks assaulting my fragile skin of the hands over the fire at the compulsory fireplace,It's streaks of sorrow still trace their way into my soul.
Until the day [God knows when] I saw the beauty of colors blending together, forming a magical hue through (You guessed it.)
a cheap camera lens.
Sunset is twice as beautiful through a camera lens.
Now more than ever I go sit at my betch, snap the beautiful sunsets, and caption them with a nervous pulse knowing it’ll soon end. Only fair since nothing lasts forever.
Darkness closes in, the fun begins. I reach for your hand.
"Come with me into darkness."
Jun 19, 2015
Jun 19, 2015 at 4:36 AM UTC
In Worcester, Massachusetts,
I went with Aunt Consuelo
to keep her dentist's appointment
and sat and waited for her
in the dentist's waiting room.
It was winter. It got dark
early. The waiting room
was full of grown-up people,
arctics and overcoats,
lamps and magazines.
My aunt was inside
what seemed like a long time
and while I waited and read
the National Geographic
(I could read) and carefully
studied the photographs:
the inside of a volcano,
black, and full of ashes;
then it was spilling over
in rivulets of fire.
Osa and Martin Johnson
dressed in riding breeches,
laced boots, and pith helmets.
A dead man slung on a pole
"Long Pig," the caption said.
Babies with pointed heads
wound round and round with string;
black, naked women with necks
wound round and round with wire
like the necks of light bulbs.
Their ******* were horrifying.
I read it right straight through.
I was too shy to stop.
And then I looked at the cover:
the yellow margins, the date.
Suddenly, from inside,
came an oh! of pain
--Aunt Consuelo's voice--
not very loud or long.
I wasn't at all surprised;
even then I knew she was
a foolish, timid woman.
I might have been embarrassed,
but wasn't. What took me
completely by surprise
was that it was me:
my voice, in my mouth.
Without thinking at all
I was my foolish aunt,
I--we--were falling, falling,
our eyes glued to the cover
of the National Geographic,
February, 1918.
I said to myself: three days
and you'll be seven years old.
I was saying it to stop
the sensation of falling off
the round, turning world.
into cold, blue-black space.
But I felt: you are an I,
you are an Elizabeth,
you are one of them.
Why should you be one, too?
I scarcely dared to look
to see what it was I was.
I gave a sidelong glance
--I couldn't look any higher--
at shadowy gray knees,
trousers and skirts and boots
and different pairs of hands
lying under the lamps.
I knew that nothing stranger
had ever happened, that nothing
stranger could ever happen.
Why should I be my aunt,
or me, or anyone?
What similarities
boots, hands, the family voice
I felt in my throat, or even
the National Geographic
and those awful hanging *******
held us all together
or made us all just one?
How I didn't know any
word for it how "unlikely". . .
How had I come to be here,
like them, and overhear
a cry of pain that could have
got loud and worse but hadn't?
The waiting room was bright
and too hot. It was sliding
beneath a big black wave,
another, and another.
Then I was back in it.
The War was on. Outside,
in Worcester, Massachusetts,
were night and slush and cold,
and it was still the fifth
of February, 1918.
3.5k
he held up a dead coyote
like he had just won first prize
smiling from ear to ear
a look of pride in his eyes
the caption said "predator control"
which brought a question to my mind
if we call survival being a predator
then what do we call our kind?
Apr 28, 2016
Apr 28, 2016 at 1:11 PM UTC
A picture of your dog
With the caption
"Are you doing anything this weekend?"
As trivial as it seems
No message has ever given me
More hope
Jun 5, 2014
Jun 5, 2014 at 12:26 AM UTC
Hers was the first face I found
freshman year at FSU.
I'll always remember that garish orange and green gator shirt,
and pin with the picture of a bulldog,
hanging from a noose.
I thought, oh Jeez, she's got school spirit,
and I shuddered at the image,
of cheerleaders, and sports stars, recieving preferential treatment,
but my first impression was far from the mark.
She had a smile for miles and eyes to match.
And a laugh that could shatter a frown.
And she laughed any chance she got.
The few pictures I have left of her,
she is laughing and smiling in each...
That big toothy smile,
and that magical laugh...
I remember the first time she kissed me.
I was playing my guitar on campus,
back when everybody did it,
not just pretentious **********
trying to show off.
She came up behind me,
and did the old hands over the eyes routine,
and of course I knew her voice immediately.
She turned my head and kissed me,
for the first time,
and I could hear the whispering,
and feel everyone's eyes on me,
and it felt pretty **** good.
How I wished someone had snapped a picture,
for the FSView, with the caption
" Future valedictorian kisses scruffy hippy freshman.
Entire student body baffled."
I was baffled.
She was the talk of the campus,
she spoke her mind always,
and she was active all over the campus,
doing this and that.
I asked her one day,
"Why do you make your life so complex,
when do you rest?"
and she said
"My life used to be complex, because I made it that way.
But believe it or not, with all I do around campus,
really my life is simple and fun. If I didn't love what I am doing
I would stop Will. Life is too short for complexity."
I laughed, and I thought to myself,
this woman is more complex than she lets on.
We went out for my entire freshman year,
but she graduated my sophmore year,
and she got a job in London, and she moved away that summer.
I said I would visit...I never did..
She said she would write...she did, once,
to tell me she was getting married,
she even invited me, but of course I didn't go..
She enclosed a photo of her and her fiance,
and it was clear what she saw in him..
he had a smile almost as big as hers,
and of course she was smiling too..
Of all the images burned into my memory
that picture is the one that hurts me most.
I wrote back, wishing her luck, and I told her I couldn't come,
I never heard from her again, but I prayed that night,
that he would treat her right, and if he took away her smile,
I prayed he would suffer, until he put it back.
Every time I close my eyes, I see that picture...
that smile...
I hope she's smiling, even as I write these words.
Aug 30, 2012
Aug 30, 2012 at 10:11 AM UTC
A skeleton in a fingerprint
A dancing bag of bones
A cantilever shade of gray
A prisoner all alone
A silent pulsing partner
A drift this blot of ink
A catch phrase in the darkness
A caption on the brink
A blistered swirl of images
A channeled mystery
A skeleton in a fingerprint
A different piece of me
May 5, 2014
May 5, 2014 at 7:01 PM UTC
Up in the air the parachute went
Droplet in gold and came in a box being sent
The Gold parachute shined from above
There were many ideas one could think of
As the parachute dropped down
The parachute sparkled all around
Two couples kissing in the parachute in descend
A romance being started from a different kind of blend
A parachute reading, “SPREAD LOVE TO ALL”
Also underneath caption, “WITH LOVE SOMETIMES YOU FALL AND YOU MUST GET UP AND NOT LET IT BE A STALL”
The parachute descended safely down to land
It became its own fanfare.
Mar 30, 2014
Mar 30, 2014 at 1:57 PM UTC
I caption this
'The Kiss'
A greeting
lips that meet
anticipating
tongues that touch
arms around you holding tight
such is the kiss,
not a marble statue
not Rodin's
just a man's
imagination.
Jan 2, 2014
Jan 2, 2014 at 1:42 AM UTC
yes you can mention how cold it is
Though you can't expressly show the cold.
literally breaching my innocence
To capture your heart.
we don't count memories of love
much as they greatly shine in our lives
only the wonders of how its started
reflects its stages in flow.
Time developes it and so does it fade with it
worse than a burial
laying ....the dangers of s waterfall
tameable on probability
In
a nightmare of a swim on land.
Sep 16, 2014
Sep 16, 2014 at 4:15 PM UTC
For stale appearance I don't give a fig
since I won't see my friend for quite some while
but wit and humour always are in style
and I have grown to like this sort of gig.
Put on some hair, the deal is not so big
as you imagine. I do not revile
the belly laugh, nor yet the honest smile
since I am me beneath the longest wig.
In prose or verse the sentiment is true
that we're the grace that we have got to lend
to each occasion where the good may meet
to speak a while and give good peace its due
in wintertime. Still all fine things must end
and happy moments pass with foot too fleet.
Feb 24, 2010
Feb 24, 2010 at 2:52 PM UTC
mantra and insolence hand in hand
intercepting the idea of the baby boy crush applying to me like kinetic sand
barbie dolls at the marriott
saccharine jewels in the sewers rot
with
the old girlie i had a tap on
lipstick peeling away like a deteriorated vinyl record's song
let the angels waver, barter, become sicker
and quote 'say anything' as if it's a 90s sticker
have vomit-stained carpet posted
and
uploaded to the black market webs
caption it ****** me"
and let the media do the rest
tired of these wicked games
isaac position me with rachel some day
at the mosque, eve and ann is scratched out into the old testament books
pack the bags
let's go
the hilton's booked
etch and sketch situated on the train tracks
along with two birds together
feet lazily dangling
bargaining with god to finish them over
****** denial, toothbrush stuffed in the dog's mouth
ran down the line, kissing him to the south
lost the baby girl along the way
let the dirt do the talking
gargled some milk and jack daniels honey
in large arms, lucid dreaming never seemed so calming
Sep 25, 2018
Sep 25, 2018 at 7:54 PM UTC
on ruby jacobs walk, a
small girl
asked us for money for ice cream.
she eyed our cones
yours, lemon
mine, strawberry
with a child’s hunger
glinting and opportunistic
as she held out her palm for coins.
i was not yet accustomed to the shapes and sizes,
to a dime being smaller than a nickel,
and in any case wanted to preserve them for souvenirs
so we shook our heads and walked away.
a year later, writing this poem,
i learned that ruby jacobs was a local restauranteur
who, as a boy,
illegally sold ice creams
for a nickel on the boardwalk.
a nickel is the larger coin
the size of a ten pence piece.
i know that now.
the wide atlantic rose from a sloping manicured lawn
star-spangled,
like everything here,
the airborne flag
above a wide pavilion
a fanatic wedding cake topper
against the blood-blue sky.
i slipped
out of my shoes and let
the white sand burn my feet,
and jaggedly fill the spaces between my toes.
the atlantic held open its arms
though we weren’t, as we imagined,
looking east
looking home
but south to new jersey, across the bay.
the gnarled boardwalk was a
song of the twentieth century
a roll-call of mass-market capitalism
here in the city that didn’t invent the concept
but certainly perfected it:
hot dogs
amusements
ice creams (we’ve covered that)
fridge magnets
baseball caps
i bought an espresso cup with a picture of the president
and the caption:
‘huuuuge!’
i stopped to take a photograph
of a space-age building from the fifties
which turned out to be
a public toilet.
later
from the sunbaked d train,
brooklyn spread out beneath us
the houses garnished with flags,
then the city coughed us up on seventh avenue
and night fell five hours early.
Jul 20, 2019
Jul 20, 2019 at 7:51 AM UTC
If, one day, a fairy went to my room and grant me a wish, I would ask her to give a one day tour at fairy tale land.
First, I will seek Cinderella and introduce her the new released washing machine. I will give her an elegant Primadonna shoes and create an escalator in Prince Charming's castle for her convenience.
Next, I will wake up Aurora from her nightmare with my full blast metallic rock music. I will give her the gift of gorgeousness and she will be called "The Sleeping Gorgeous".
I will look for Rapunzel's hidden castle and give her a new pixie cut hair. I will suggest her to have an elevator in her elevated castle. I can endorse her Prince the microphone, so it would be effortless for him to shout "Rapunzel! Let down your hair".
I will also go to Snow White and add bananas, mangoes and cream to her apple and give her the recipe of fruit salad. To maintain her white skin, I will give her BB cream and cherry red lipstick from Mac, for her kissable lips.
Lastly, I will take a photo with the fairy tale characters and post it on Instagram, with a caption "TOUCH DOWN! FAIRY TALE LAND"
Jul 22, 2014
Jul 22, 2014 at 1:58 AM UTC
814
One Day is there of the Series
Termed Thanksgiving Day.
Celebrated part at Table
Part in Memory.
Neither Patriarch nor *****
I dissect the Play
Seems it to my Hooded thinking
Reflex Holiday.
Had there been no sharp Subtraction
From the early Sum—
Not an Acre or a Caption
Where was once a Room—
Not a Mention, whose small Pebble
Wrinkled any Sea,
Unto Such, were such Assembly
’Twere Thanksgiving Day.
1.9k
you're the same as I remembered you:
eyes like daggers
swim towards my barefeet
it's almost summer again: it's too hot to hold you, or
anyone.
sighs about tomorrow: "you're just going to fall asleep again."
I avoid the mess and go straight for the spill: lips. eyes. brain.
you're the lipstick on my coffee cup, the smell of smoke after a house burns down.
she screams about the horses, the costumes, the memories:
I tell her to be quiet.
"just shut your mouth! just shut your god ****** mouth!" and again,
"you're hideous" in a different way.
the anger moistened breath (shouting)
released her from the frenzy of being herself.
standing in front of you, arms shaved and knees lotioned:
"thank you", from the voice of insanity,
signed on the back of a handmade book
with your name on it. exit: left ear right ear left ear right ear left here.
Words like ghosts they go straight through her.
lack of empathy lack of mourning lack of desire lack of satisfaction
it all goes down the drain: in this house
(clogged with hair [it doesn't matter who's, so don't ask]).
the boredom cries out (again) with freedom
and instead we call it "relaxation".
(things we think
but we never think)
to say: I lost the meaning of vacation counting license plates on the way to Texas.
(would bring back more than just the dead)
it would bring us back to dead,
and death would say
(something ringing in our ears) that we understand.
that we understand the things we want to,
whatever they may be,
and then maybe: in death
we can find peace.
May 22, 2011
May 22, 2011 at 1:24 PM UTC