"carmine" poems
470
I am alive—I guess—
The Branches on my Hand
Are full of Morning Glory—
And at my finger’s end—
The Carmine—tingles warm—
And if I hold a Glass
Across my Mouth—it blurs it—
Physician’s—proof of Breath—
I am alive—because
I am not in a Room—
The Parlor—Commonly—it is—
So Visitors may come—
And lean—and view it sidewise—
And add “How cold—it grew”—
And “Was it conscious—when it stepped
In Immortality?”
I am alive—because
I do not own a House—
Entitled to myself—precise—
And fitting no one else—
And marked my Girlhood’s name—
So Visitors may know
Which Door is mine—and not
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Drowning inside hands.
A fluorescent chime.
Skin scrubbed radiation.
Force-feeding plastic and sugar and flesh.
Pushing and pulling until tendons flail weathered
Up. And. Down.
Up and down upanddown until the store of powders, prints, nails tumble out carmine and is sobbing
gagging on a high chair.
The candied calculator like heart-shaped pupils and sticky soles.
Opaque ID’s and strands of you abandoned in navy sheets.
Shoulder tassels taught on Adam’s apple.
Love stitches bedding and hollows bodies.
Love lights the West and lines waste baskets wet.
Love is a little girl vomiting into a lion’s den.
May 5, 2015
May 5, 2015 at 4:36 PM UTC
The half-stripped trees
struck by a wind together,
bending all,
the leaves flutter drily
and refuse to let go
or driven like hail
stream bitterly out to one side
and fall
where the salvias, hard carmine—
like no leaf that ever was—
edge the bare garden.
5.3k
Cherry flower
spreading
on silken down
of midsummer like
maple leaves
at carmine dawn of
autumn
falling upon a
carpet of golds.
At this blossom
festival, scents
of burgeoning
pistil are heavy
as cherry bloom
on warm
April air, though
morning brings
a premature
rain-pregnant
May.
Lipstick in shades
of crushed petal
is leaving lips
for skin of thigh
or tangled
curls in colors
of two, a heady
separation.
Jan 15, 2020
Jan 15, 2020 at 9:41 PM UTC
I'm a poppy made of dried metallic blood; bitter,
wilting and fading in a never ending winter,
my lifeless petals falling like brittle carmine confetti so solemn
upon the grass where a newborn papaver rhoeus will begin to blossom.
Jan 12, 2016
Jan 12, 2016 at 5:05 PM UTC
I bent down to her ear and said
Thank you for all you’ve done
Not just for
NY
But for the World
She looked at me expressionless from her chair
I don’t think that she understood nor cared
Then I handed her a little
Bag
Containing two lipsticks
And two pencils
I think she threw the pencils on the floor and
Wondered aloud
Why was everyone giving her pencils?
She did not notice that of the two that I gave her
one was stamped in gold
With the one word
Hustler
And on the other, two
Strictly
Business
I made no suggestions nor references
I didn’t smirk
I must have appeared a bit sweet
A treacly aberration
It doesn’t matter
I had selected two perfect reds in LA
One a bit more blue
and one
a classic vampish carmine
Blood red can be a challenge even against
pale
pale
Skin.
Standing in the lift
Fully attuned
she caught me
not merely looking into her eyes
But seeing what I saw
A death’s head?
I hate when I’m caught doing that
Under the fluorescent light
She was dog rough
Pasty with sad sunken eyes
I was thrown, but by what exactly
Her magpie distress?
Her etheric calamity?
Her puffy, aging face?
We sat and spoke for a while later that night
She did not recognize me at all and apologized
maybe it was the next day
that the three of us had lunch
Everyone in good spirits
The mandrake’s screams
Forgotten with smiles and a wink
Memory bamboozled and
Make-up duly applied
She took out the lipstick
And redrew the lines
She liked the shining black case
with the little black ribbon for a pull
She told our companion sitting on a stoop
smoking cigarettes
I like your friend and
I wondered does she realize
that we already know one another?
Sep 20, 2018
Sep 20, 2018 at 3:52 PM UTC
I come face-to-face with my Shadow
hungry
devouring
depraved.
The lupine
before a full hunter moon
bristles.
Hot saliva
falls
from hurtful pointed rows
in pearls.
This
in Goodge Street Station's
Underground
where a poster
promotes
The Hunger
a page-turner
The Clown in Soho:
3 Chocolate Martinis
4 lagers
1 gram of *******
300 press-ups
7 mile run and
1 sachet of Kamagra
… the night begins …
I howl with delight
- that’s me -
cracks open
a smile
yellow eddies swirl
in thrawl
to that shadow beast o’ mine.
This monstrous
I
can never satiated be --
a beast to straight jacket under the influence of the waning and waxing moon
and on the night of the carmine moon
release
My phone rings
(Excuse me, while I take this).
‘Hello, am I speaking to Ashley?’
‘Depends on who’s asking,’
I respond
licking my lips.
‘You Ashley Chapman?’
I like this kind o’ game.
‘Like I said,
who’s asking?’
Frustrated he repeats, ‘Confirm your name.’
I yawn and tell him as savagely as I can:
'No!'
Wolves
know 'no'
to the pack.
But as in Beauty and the Beast
(the Cocteau 1946 version, of course)
beneath that thick molting hair pelt
beasts have culture
and feelings, too
(a lion's heart?)
and mostly
(occasionally not)
given
space
food
The Den
a willing mate (or two)
we’re okay
affectionate dogs.
For when all is well with my shadow
-- no problem
in peace
in chains
'til the looped moon!
Oct 8, 2017
Oct 8, 2017 at 1:38 PM UTC
In the place of your kin I found you,
In the meadow left out to dry
Your porcelain face,
Glazed in white, glassy blood.
No carmine kiss had spoilt it
On the eve of its last breath,
But the flood, the flush
Of bluish-purple life-fluids
Decaying within your chest.
Hydrangeas will grow from the tears you wept,
And the crows will carry off the bones you left.
Is it best for your love to run out,
Rather than be caressed by death?
Sep 27, 2016
Sep 27, 2016 at 12:13 PM UTC
25
She slept beneath a tree—
Remembered but by me.
I touched her Cradle mute—
She recognized the foot—
Put on her carmine suit
And see!
2.9k
What pulsates, in here?
All of life, a carmine boom,
In a stark blue room.
Ice will chill, but blood is warm
Racing, chasing blues away,
Begging love and happiness to stay.
Red, forever reigns
Scarlet heart shall overrule the gloom
In this forsaken, sharp blue room.
Jul 12, 2014
Jul 12, 2014 at 6:11 PM UTC
I'm still waiting for you to kiss me
With those crimson lips so smooth.
And I'm still waiting for us to be alone
When the pain in your bright eyes can be soothed.
I'm still waiting for you to get help
For the carmine rivers that you trace.
And I'm still waiting for a reason why
You broke the promise you put in place.
I'm still waiting for my head to stop spinning
The rose hairclip means I see you down the hall.
And I'm still waiting to tell when my stomach flips
If it's good or not at all.
I'm still waiting for my logic to return
But love gives an alazarin tint to every drama.
And I'm still waiting for a chance to talk to you
But I seem to have bad karma.
I'm still waiting for that hug you owe me
My ruby hair shoelace flopping in my eyes
And I'm still waiting to be the tall one of the pair
As I try to move on, part of me dies.
I'm still waiting for that movie date we planned
And the ketchup coloured earring you wear in the left ear
And I'm still waiting to dance and twirl you round
In my arms I could hold you near.
I'm still waiting for when you blush
Vermillion as insults are thrown across the street
And I'm still waiting for the chance to set that right
Remmembering you defending me in the stifling heat.
I'm still waiting for the time to tell you
How much you're in my thoughts
And I'm still waiting for your birthday so I can gift
The cadmium sketchbook that I bought
I'm still waiting for the coral pain to stop in my heart
It's there for you, of that I have no doubt
And I'm still waiting for the laughter to return
To my life when we sort this out
I'm still waiting for the trip to the coast
The bergundy viking boat alight
And I'm still waiting for what will never be
But then again, it might.
Jun 6, 2014
Jun 6, 2014 at 12:50 PM UTC
We watched the sun fall down and scrape its knee again, across the horizon.
Effusing amaranth, carmine, and cochineal across polluted vista.
It felt petty to issue guttural laughs, or engage the myofacial crescents beneath its visual lament as the Earth turned its back again.
We watched the sun rise, bruised, tender and shy this morning.
Its muddled contusion obviated by the gauze of fog.
A mottled neophyte -
Luminescent crepuscular rays defied dregs of interstellar debris and cloud.
Aching to kiss your skin -
In stellar cloud nursery, it eschewed the torque of orbit and gravity - eras before verity of your essence.
Humbly settling concentrically about oblate sphere, and gaseous tome.
Latterly - It altered the atmospheric pressure on the other side of the planet a week antecedently, as you clung to your dream lattice, and Earth innately turned oblate nucleus.
Its intent –
A veneration of you.
It bade the atmosphere convey a breeze echoing about your dermis, as it gilded your frame laconically, betwixt shaded steps beneath cloud and arbor.
The sun yelled at me at its pinnacle today,
Pallid bone – molten - miasma of rage
Its core missive garnered inertia – coronal plasma warping ellipsoid factions in inflections of elusive filigree
Pirouetting spicules spattered smelted torrents in the dismal anchorite
Atomic schism – silent but felt
It stoked humidity under shadowed niche - casual vaporous smears evinced no clemency.
Flesh torqued, and seized beneath itself, briny globules shed from puckered pore.
Culminations of sensitive fluid sacs scorched into the shallows of my chassis.
Insignia knit in cellular shrapnel
The sun ignored me today – or perhaps, it was I it.
Enigmatic tenacious resolution – an echo of its gravitational collapse
Inverse thermonuclear fusion
It is not fear in a relationship that keeps you apart, it is neglect of the infinitesimal.
Jan 26, 2014
Jan 26, 2014 at 9:13 PM UTC
The sky’s a light carnelian’s shade
and, as the brightness starts to fade,
from carnelian to carmine he turns, too-
soft to vivid tones of the hue.
Looks into the ‘windows to my soul,’
(‘windows to one’s soul’ he called them)
The intensity nearly swallows me whole-
his windows a pair of solitary gems.
Eyes the colour that fire should be,
a fury to turn flames green with envy.
So as carnelian turns to carmine
and the heavens light up with his glow,
a firefly’s brightness is overshadowed,
but the yellow is whitened down in snow
A lone, saphhired rhododendron in full bloom
unaware of its death in a pluck so soon
The furious ball of rage sets
and us (three!) need to return
-a lingering gaze for a moment too long,
cheeks of crimson and burn!
For too long have we tarried,
our hours have wasted the day
Find no longer a reason
nor any excuse to stay
Peer over the edge a last time
(indecision, in control)
At the vast expanse of cerulean, sublime
(pause to contemplate my goal)
Tucks the blooming rhod’ between a lock and an ear,
breathes, “it looks prettier still here,”
for another second holds ( ) near
and in parting’s ‘sweet sorrow’ starts to disappear
A gunshot echoing, a resounding sound,
as he turns away from the mead’.
His body slowly hits the ground,
and I know I’ve killed him dead.
For the first time, a lamenting tear’s grace
rolls down one side of my face
and all I see is red.
A gunshot, a second time, lying in bed,
brow, hair, pillow- all soaked in red.
Jul 11, 2014
Jul 11, 2014 at 1:47 PM UTC
Since we met in this life we’ve been so together
The trees and the sky will tell you, just ask them
Since, frankly and completely as one
Searching our souls, discovering each other and ourselves
Loving, living and learning with no effort at all
Moulding our life to divine goals, elements exploring
Each day we grow, smoothing our rituals and tasks
Simple, small, understated and beautiful
Yet enormous, devastating and wonderful
I’ve never been clearer in mind nor more ordered
Serious or intended, structured yet mesmerised and dreamy
Child-like pleasures our little hearts
Honestly, knowing you has given an exclusive season of patience
A crown of peace with measures of muted resonance
My emotion and behaviour jangle with excitement
Gaining speed and velocity as our developing love fertilises everything we do
If any part of me was withheld or absent it was without cognisance or most importantly intent
I was always here totally, loving you with an undivided heart
Building our future and having the truest most delightful life
Such destiny within two earthly beings, such kismet
But no..earth is not from where we sprung
No logic or contract by human standards but from cosmos and celestial forces
Stardust, moonbeams, sunlight and energy
Our future is viridian, cobalt, alizarin, ultramarine, carmine...
Colours drawn from a bow of happiness with arrows of true love
Thudding into our hearts every single moment
Rainbows of kindly sparkly crystals reflecting each tiny emotion
Willow tree flexibility, cool streams of pure clear water whisper in our ears
Look to your soul and to the memories of our short time together
Begin to believe that life is so very good ,so treasured like us
Darling Jan my complete lover
The wife I’ve always had, true soul provider, custodian of my heart
Clearer in the transformation from Jan and Max to a ‘whole’ inseparable
By anyone or anything for all time and eternity..
Even better knowing that as always
Now even more.....I’m all yours
Feb 3, 2010
Feb 3, 2010 at 12:22 PM UTC
My soul whispered a secret to my heart,
It spoke of spilled blood upon a rose,
Rouged lips within the garden,
Drops of crimson liquid blush.
[CHORUS]
Nature’s beloved colour is green,
So red speaks of originality,
Blood is a passion,
Scarlet bleeding from thy own,
A claret sun dawning beyond,
Sanguine stained skies.
When the little cardinal sings sweetly,
A doorway opens I never chose,
Visions of a bloodshot key,
A lock rusted with dried blood.
A glimpse through the keyhole,
A pale forest awaits on the other side,
Showers of cherry blossoms,
Falling upon the snow.
Red berries bloom under crystal snow,
Glints of sunlight touch down,
Sparks of fire captured within,
Just beyond this rubicund door.
[CHORUS]
The dreams I am allowed,
Burn and scar my will,
When the door swings open,
Of its own accord.
Damask petals on the wind.
How warm and gentle that spray of blood,
Like a hundred tender kisses,
And the golden keys to Heaven.
I glimpsed the gules of true heraldry,
A suffused spirit at the dawn of memory,
Imprisoned by a cage of vermillion frost,
Warmed by a glass of spiced wine.
[CHORUS]
A roseate palace at the end of a long walk,
Painted titian by my tear drops,
Caress a florid complexion,
Carmine not my own.
Roan stones dusted,
By the fall of Angels light,
Make-believe incarnadine carpet of,
A mirrored auburn dusk.
I settle back into the maroon night,
The darkness flushed by concealed art,
Bay canvas touched-up with unreal imagery,
Indifferent to the passing of my former life.
[CHORUS]
Rubies fall from ruddy clouds,
These gems are not for me,
Reddened glass has come to pass,
The moment of my undoing.
[PAUSE (Epilogue)]
Red is not for me,
Red was not meant to be...
May 24, 2014
May 24, 2014 at 10:32 PM UTC
Cloudy,
the sky is filled with heavily condensed water,
and birds flying away taking shelters,
and swaying long grass dancing,
whilst all I can hear is the loud sound of leaves blown by the wind,
No sun,
no shines,
clouds are marching,
soon, very soon,
waters gonna fall,
under the broken bus stop,
with broken rooftop and rusting metal,
I hold my small Carmine coloured umbrella
with the lush green leaves paint the background
the sky cried,
and the tears dropped onto my umbrella,
and millions more followed,
the tense smell of water mixing with the earth,
the smell of rain,
the smell of loneliness
perfectly captured by my friend, nature,
I stood there, looking upward
heavily cloud is darkening and darkening,
it is crying it most heavy downpour,
and all the nature too, silent,
and all the nature too are in deep grieve,
water is rising and drowning my feet,
the ambience is not creepy but tranquillizing
nature most expensive marijuana,
As cold as the ice,
clear like crystal,
so pure, so wild,
the heavenly droplets,
I stood so long at the bus stop,
waiting for the one bus that never arrived,
my feet were numb and start to sore,
move on,
move on,
so I let the rain washed away my uncertainty,
I took the first step,
of my agonizing journey,
through the deserted road,
whilst the rampaging storm is abusing me,
I decide to lose my umbrella to the wind,
and learn how to dance in the rain,
After a storm comes a rainbow,
the saying goes,
I believe in those,
cheap and cheezy echoes,
Rain or shine,
I am fond of them all,
nature is wild
wild is good
good for my unsettling soul,
so let's dance,
dance in this cold unbearable blizzard of rain,
of feelings,
let the healing begin,
aren't we all need healing?
Jul 16, 2016
Jul 16, 2016 at 5:04 AM UTC
Calling nearest janitor
response to minor spill
unidentified indefinitely
a k-11 spill
It bruised burned
extinguished extraneous existence
left minor mess
ignore and maintain
absence of mentality
Shuffle left
avoid sticky shoes
unattended children should abstain
from carmine fingerpainting
Chocolate rations rose
red rose
again this week
enjoy the rapture
thank you come again
A leaf falls
unnoticed
A **** at americana
not from it
belittled no napoleon
Big boy voices only
at the counter
naked pockets mean
no thing
nothing missing
no thing messing
me sing
last mess
cleanup, aisle twelve
Jul 11, 2012
Jul 11, 2012 at 5:26 PM UTC
"Every time I look into a mirror I see the eyes of the devil".
The perpetual flame of life
A new dawn, an enlightening dusk;
The translucent sun
The convection of eternity,
Abysmal adversary,
The convocation of co-eternal legions!
''Every time I cry I see the face of God".
Influencing twilights perfection,
Hells paradise devouring
The ardent fervour of the carmine flame
Piercing the atmosphere,
Constantly tantalising the air- fuelling.
The forests engulfed, bellowing from the apse shaped canopies
Violet blue threads of of ribbon;
Wofting unto nothingness
Vapourising smoke.
Natures delightful beauty, casting a shadow
The conflagration immanently consuming lands;
Raging across the earth
Dehydrated and scorched.
Baptismal tears vanquishing the fire,
Heavens standing ovation, applauding
A contained flame,
The sound of rain the fires lamentation.
1997 ELEETE J MUIR
Jan 11, 2014
Jan 11, 2014 at 12:38 PM UTC
Words:
whispering sybils
of concealed worlds.
In betweens and beyonds,
somewheres and nowheres,
truths for making believe.
Words.
Carmine nostalgia of the unexperienced.
Utopia upon a time.
Windmill wings to grow a heart,
flavours and scents of new seen worlds,
tangible places pulsating in snow globes,
cosmogony of what is not.
Words:
scribbling, engraving a forever world.
Aug 29, 2014
Aug 29, 2014 at 3:45 PM UTC
We were,
Scarlet when we discovered each other
We were,
Carmine when we found ourselves
We were,
Ruby when we said our promises
And all of sudden,
We were Blue.
Dec 3, 2018
Dec 3, 2018 at 9:02 AM UTC
I spilled some blood on the bathroom floor, mama,
But I swear it was an accident.
See, my hand slipped across porcelain, mama— my skin tore like satin.
The paint flowed like a river then, mama,
And colored me a crimson sunset.
Oh, but it made such a mess, mama,
And I know messes make you upset.
So close your eyes, mama,
'Cause you're weeping red and the tears might stain.
Red for your lost love and red for scarlet fire,
and red for the young rose cut from the briar.
Maybe now I could be poetry, mama
The type you wrote about in your younger days.
Golden sun swallowed in carmine, mama
With its last rays dying in a blaze.
Apr 8, 2020
Apr 8, 2020 at 12:54 PM UTC
Cigarette smoke whispers, writhing
Silently it tendrils up
From the glowing end in spirals
Pirouettes to cancers' cup.
Nicotine stained fingers tremble
Wrinkled, thin, arthritic claw,
Lips of carmine part to reveal
Yellow dentures gilding jaw.
Bacon breath of sour demeanor
Vacant eyes reflecting strain,
Hacking coughing greeting morning
Light another, **** the pain.
Silently the reaper beckons
Cavernous his grinning maw,
Welcoming the souls entrapped
In stultifying black tar gore.
Marshalg
Mangere Bridge
14 September 2010
Sep 14, 2010
Sep 14, 2010 at 1:54 AM UTC
I lace my fingers
with the snowy night
as I rest upon
carmine linen and lilies,
my hand out of
the window,
wet snowflakes caressing this
open palm of mine
with heavens I speak
of slumbering spring and
your name and how
both of you see
my stars, my peonies,
yet you
hide yours from this
open palm of mine
I lace my fingers
with the snowy night,
for I am weary
of you and winter
my hand out of
the window,
wet snowflakes soothing this
open palm of mine
Apr 20, 2017
Apr 20, 2017 at 8:26 AM UTC