"captions" poems
A sip of coffee
Disclosing my story
Pasting in this scrapbook,
All the photos of us
I took
Writing the captions,
I tear up with emotions
Eternity is a gentle caress
And I recognize
In the end,
There is nothing more
Real in life
Than
Momentary happiness.
May 2, 2014
May 2, 2014 at 1:32 PM UTC
i am seven and in your living room
with antiques & photographs
of family that are more like strangers
and handshakes at christmas
there is a jar of circus peanuts by the armchair
and i remember being told that these are here because they are never out of stock
and that *they are the only things
children will not want to take from me*
i still do not like the color orange.
i am eight and round the bannister
to an upstairs that reminds me
of heaven in that
place i can't go sort of way & i am
knuckle deep in your pumpkin pie
wiping it on my uncles suede jacket
our hands still shake but the jury is still out
on if he looks at me and napkins the same
i hope you do not sleep
with my apologies under your fingernails
i will not say them out loud
i know i should have mowed your lawn
i should have been a home
for second hand smoke
if i could go back i would be your ashtray
i remember the day you forgot who i was
i bound into the room and throw my arms
around you like an armistice
and you ask who i am
we are not in church
but everyone stops singing
i am passed from child to child
while we all laugh
but my lungs feel like
they've been mugged in an ally
who's son does he look like, mom?
my father says like gospel
you pull on your cigarette
sip from your watered down wine and shrug
and i am neck deep in forgetfulness
i imagine alzheimer's
as being born again every day
so, we will spend ages
looking at captions to photographs
telling your stories to strangers
as my father begins to forget
and when i imagine probate
an unfamiliar hand unfolding a will
to be read to wayward angels
i want to burn down the house
and sleep in the ashes
Mar 17, 2014
Mar 17, 2014 at 3:00 PM 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
Why does my heart freeze up
when
I read words you’ve written?
How is it that
I can read writing
that makes my heart press hard to escape my ribs
But yours liquidates my blood
Until my fingers go numb?
It’s like this
You’ve got a canyon filled with knowledge
On how to hurt
You’ve got a library filled with textbooks
On how to make a heart drop
You’ve got a sky filled with rain clouds
That drop tears you’ve inspired
into the eyes of others.
Everything you touch
is sent into a whirlwind orbit.
You’re important
You’re dangerous
You’re vital
You are never merely an effect.
You affect me.
Never forget that.
Jan 14, 2014
Jan 14, 2014 at 10:07 PM UTC
underling animals
in times
of quake-
slight
swellings
in brain
of maybe
one mole
bottled
now
for sea-
if on a baby
your hands
would be
so cute
but as
an adult
you glove them-
world as wheelchair
the wheelchair
from which
god rose-
as sporadic
surges
switch on
the sink’s
disposal
pull thorns
from the rabbits
you dream
Apr 3, 2014
Apr 3, 2014 at 10:42 AM UTC
unravel my thoughts,
like a bunch of necklaces tangled together.
unscramble my words,
like a puzzle.
decode the meanings behind my Instagram captions,
to try to understand my ways.
Oct 30, 2018
Oct 30, 2018 at 11:16 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 think those who are in love on this era is cursed,
not that their love is delusional nor artificial
But because their manisfestation of love is perceived
by how society visualizes and defines it
We think someone genuinely love us because
they upload hundreds of photos of us
We think someone sincerely love us because
they write essay competition-worthy captions
We think someone truly love us because
they praise us at all of our selfie posts
To me, love is listening to a music
and suddenly it reminds you of them
To me, love is reading a good book
and suddenly wants them to read it as well
To me, love is when winter comes and all you ever think is whether they wear their warm clothes
To me, love is when the night comes and all you think of is how their day was
Well, then again, Chbosky once said that
"we accept the love we think we deserve"
And maybe we don't get to choose the way we love
or the way we want to be loved
Simply because we think it's the kind of love
that deserves us
Nov 21, 2018
Nov 21, 2018 at 10:45 AM UTC
Doot doot
I hear the trumpets of the deceased
The rotting calcium
The bones
An army of many arise
Doot doot...Doot doot
Their weapons edgy,
and captions random
Doot doot
May the great raid begin
Spooky memes spammed in the thousands
An extreme dose of spooky chemo
Doot doot.
Oct 20, 2015
Oct 20, 2015 at 1:05 AM UTC
Foundlings lament beneath their shrouds
For the Givers they never knew.
Shouts of terror, gone unheard, loud
And bright in the fright of selected few.
Shadows cast beneath sunlight's flags
Are trademarked captions made of stained silk.
They trod the daylit bog in dusty rags,
Secretly living, they and their ilk.
Nov 9, 2010
Nov 9, 2010 at 3:10 PM UTC
stethoscope to this chest reading one of these "dubs"
as captions to italics sometimes, we lead
too patient lives, one as receptive the second as disruptive
covertly, convertedso to alleviate, vindicate
these dial tones
exchanged -so to compliment- verses in the clarity
of LP vinyl tracks
posture within degrees
to hear a “Hello?”
Feb 22, 2010
Feb 22, 2010 at 2:14 PM UTC
Not in love
I may have been once
But I don't want to be
Anymore.
Sep 2, 2015
Sep 2, 2015 at 9:51 PM UTC
I wonder if you play the guitar.
I wonder if you can sing.
I wonder if you write long captions in your photos,
or maybe if you even write poetry.
But you know how they say that love is blind?
I realized that love can be tone deaf too.
And you are the rockstar to my heart.
And only you know my favourite tunes.
Oct 5, 2014
Oct 5, 2014 at 9:33 AM UTC
She lived in my inbox,
a constant pulse of memes and midnight thoughts,
fragments of her days in a city I’d never walked
a movie recommendation
a reminder to sleep early
a nudge to wake up and try again.
Even from miles away
she found a way to stay close
weaving herself into my new routine
as if distance was just another setting
to adjust.
Her life moved forward in photos and captions
shared glimpses of places I could only picture
I watched, I listened, I responded
but slowly, the messages thinned,
the spaces between them stretching wider
until silence settled where she used to be.
Yet
even now,
some nights I still hear her voice in my head:
“Go to sleep early”
as if she’s still looking out for me
somewhere beyond the screen.
Mar 3, 2025
Mar 3, 2025 at 10:14 AM UTC
It's a three pronged hum-a-long.
No captions while you sing-a-long.
Mumbling, stumbling
over words that don't belong
in your mouth.
May 27, 2013
May 27, 2013 at 10:08 AM UTC
I had once herd a tale of both gooblins and goblins
that hide by the house on the hill full of robins
where no cats would lie
not a feline in site
in that case nor a horse and toboggan
If when the sun set
by your luck you'd have met
a most suddenly sense, you'll most likely regret
to inform that the norm is is most vital
a chorus recital while sleeping, the feeling is seeping
of course, he fears for the reaping
To come?
Is it done?
has it happened?
No third party captions
his captor
a mind full of rapture
to hear ever after
a rapping, a tapping
his own hands just clapping
the door doesn't move
but the grooves in the wall are expanding
these dreams so demanding
Demented dimensions
his body retention of fear and the queer
have him panting
gasps without asking
a sublime such as this
and the temperance of bliss
have the curtains been called
or is it all but a miss
guided ventures of vengeance
His soul but a remnance of courage
is left in the depths
and before us he slept
such a man who believes
in trees where the robins at ease
do enjoy such a breeze
That breath air in the room
where he lay quite awake
Till his wake
Dec 3, 2012
Dec 3, 2012 at 12:15 AM UTC
Lo, the drunken ordinance of light through
stained glass, lest to rehash the peopled
white of infinity.
Reach...with what folding passion second
guesses the labor of its love...the warm
footfalls of the sun overlaying the intricacy
of a snowflake...as captions of bone
dissolving upon the motion picture.
Perpetually opening seasons enamored
directionless...cancellation and activation
which is The Spark upon dark...striations
of dreams upon the gyres of galaxies.
Proofs positive of palpable breath, given
and taken in gloried passage.
The cloistered ghost gifted the laughability
of its cloister.
A polish fit for heresy...listen to the
crystalline structure as it bats its eyelashes.
Oct 11, 2014
Oct 11, 2014 at 10:27 AM UTC
if he is not made of them wholly, branches, he will be soon. they are everywhere, and he steps on them, and they are arms from hell. he wears a child’s football jersey, torn at his size and his sorrow. he reaches into it and pulls out his heart, a red balloon given the what for, inside of which he blows his nose. he returns the heart.
a yellow adherent hangs from both nostrils, as two ropes being cut at and then loosed from his brain. the first keeps an arm from heaven; the second he catches and loops twice to put on his neck. one is never out of the woods here, and he knows it, knows here is Baltimore, Ohio. he has watched the people, some of them, leave; their happiness would be better called remission.
he is giddy when he comes upon a man wearing only a barrel and he tips it with joy and makes better his headway home. the rolled over branches shriek and wake the man who nakedly bails. the branches up their shrieking.
his mother he has no dementia of his time in her womb. why for **** the despondent are given captions like ‘blank look’ he can’t say for in his mama naught but canvassing eyes. she’s what he calls ‘at grocery’, shaking a coffee can she’ll buy because a done melon can’t hold pennies. she often at the neck is saddled with two toddlers but in his projection now there is just one making miracle of not kicking the coffee can into another’s back.
any girl that occurs lets him take her with his tongue only as she seems to know he was circumcised and after that much paddled.
he starts thinking on dad and dad’s laughing when mother’d say boys be home before dog because that’s how it sounded from seizures and of course rock candy in the summer. the barrel splinters beneath him to be forgotten and his legs go to bleeding stilts.
his last things by his face are insufficient; rock candy, barrel, and twin. I talk on the barrel, I don’t need it, not anymore.
Jul 1, 2012
Jul 1, 2012 at 1:34 AM UTC
You were the cause of the worst week of my life.
You caused a week of torture.
A week of misery.
A week of pain.
A week of weight gain.
A week of sad songs.
A week of only talking to my dog.
A week of re-blogging sad quotes on tumblr.
A week of night sky pictures with sad captions.
A week of not knowing which way was up.
A week of only heading down.
A week of tiredness.
A week of hell.
A week of being weak.
But just as much as
someone can run out of strength;
someone can run out of weakness.
I am done being weak.
This week is over.
You showed me how weak I can be
So now it's time I show you just how strong I can be.
Dec 1, 2014
Dec 1, 2014 at 5:58 PM UTC
This is to the camera, that sees me as nothing but
Delicate bones and pearly whites
My essence captured through awkward captions and
My worth measured by likes and heart bytes
A photograph carefully composed
Of a girl with her true thoughts [boxed up tight]
This is to the boys who see me as nothing but
Geometric shapes
Circles and curves and parabolas
**** and *** and legs and waist
And an irrelevant concave where my brain should be
My “radical ideas” make me a butterface
This is to the academy, that sees me as nothing but
3.97 and a good SAT score
A scholar of great potential
That will donate millions or more
As an honored alumni
Of the greatest institution in the world
This is to society, that sees me as nothing but
A golden gal who always colored inside the lines
Mrs. Goody-Two-Shoes, no fire in my soles
“She’s never insubordinate, ‘cause she’s never been inclined”
Determined but docile
Go ahead and assume I’m not the rebellious kind
This is to myself, because I see that
My mind is a kaleidoscope of technicolor dreams
Ideas colliding like specks in sunbeams
And I’ll call myself a feminist or riot grrl if I **** well please
You are not my dictator or an office label machine
It’s 2015; I’ll be whatever the hell I want to be.
Mar 28, 2015
Mar 28, 2015 at 12:52 PM UTC
im done learning a language rooted in vanity
like I need to take a selfie for my latest avi to go along with that tweet
and we're up in arms fighting, but its on the hush hush in our subtweets
thinking these anons that ask questions to boost my self security
telling friends, give me just an instant to update my insta
yeah, we're full of wit
spitting captions to gain cheap chuckles
lacing 140 characters together to make a point
less, we're spending time thinking of a cheap rhyme
while in the meantime our headlines are suffering from the lack of attention
because if one more ******* person tells me they're gaining fame
online
with meaningless angles, and pop culture retweeted
im going to lose my ******* mind
this **** is such a waste of time
this shrine made up of the kind of things you call mine
and we're washing out the brilliant minds
that are taking the time
to tell you something worthwhile
we're using a shovel as a ***
and plowing this tool into the ground
when artists all around are trying to dig through the ********
just to show you
that somethings are actually worth noticing
Sep 8, 2014
Sep 8, 2014 at 4:01 PM UTC
You send up clouds of deepest dark despair,
And with my dancing i tried to repair.
While i dance in the light of the coming day.
All of those hearts strings broken will end and fray.
Pull back the cover and bare all to see,
Let my hands cover and retain delicate dignity.
This initimacy that belongs to you and me,
I will protect in every eventuality.
You present all to the world and its busy lover,
But never think of me laying beside you in your cover.
For the cameras flash and beauty bleeds.
And captions raise while gossips feed.
"Who are you to touch an untouchable perfection?"
"Your love corrupts like squalid infection."
"Another man to take the trophy,"
As they **** you in some catastrophy.
A plastic heart that splinters violently,
As he is left in jilted unmatching harmony.
Alone again, you sell your story,
To another scavanger that feeds on memory.
The tale thats told,
Leaves you broken and old.
While the lover lives bold,
In his world of hollywood gold.
Jan 27, 2011
Jan 27, 2011 at 5:21 PM UTC
It should go without saying
that I go without paying
any attention to you
Your life is my strife,
existence a pun,
and makes you look like a fool.
So you eat lots of shrooms
and listen to Tool...
what do you think that makes you?
When deep is skin-deep,
and piercings eat you,
the tattoos will only accrue
To "tell your story,"
and Whaddup, homie?
until death parts you
From the *** you don't get
and the lies you believe
to sleep at night, ****** and blue
If you were a book,
there'd be lots of pictures
and captions that just read "Who?"
with a cover to judge
and be pretty true
an accurate description of you.
Jul 30, 2010
Jul 30, 2010 at 1:47 PM UTC
Happy with the way things have turned
Though a hard fought race was given and earned.
Sacrifices was extended and considered to deepest horizons,
spawning towards, what we thought infinity captions.
Transpired over and over, as tomorrow is faced,
with grith and angst over as we were below, hoping,
for an ultimate turnaround with a minimal chance.
hoping for tidal shift towards satisfaction, hoping
to seek and and find ourselves waiting.
to catch every opportunity as we persist and fight,
stand up and understand, this constant quest called Life.
Mar 11, 2011
Mar 11, 2011 at 7:18 PM UTC