"cataracts" poems
Western Sources
Mist, rain and snowmelt gather
And soak the Montana crests.
A trio of rivulets carves the slopes,
Grow to rivers that braid into a single course
And the Missouri is born at Three Forks.
Shoshone and Hidatsu rest from the hunt,
Kneel and cup their hands
To raise life giving liquid to their lips
While horses bow beside them
Bellies filled with the refreshing waters.
The river flows north dividing the tall grasslands,
Plunges over the cataracts at Great Falls,
Churns on the rocks below
And drives inexorably toward the sea.
Mandan and Sioux
Soft flute sounds drift from the Mandan village
Intertwining with the riffling music of the river.
By its banks a coarse French trapper roasts a rabbit
To share with his Shoshone child-bride.
Sacagawea sings softly beside him -
Charboneau's son stirring in her womb.
Sioux warriors on horseback
Stand guard by the shores.
How many travelers have passed?
How many are yet to come?
Beyond the rolling hills
A buffalo stumbles and falls
Pierced by Lakota arrows and spears.
Boats in the Water
At River du Bois where the Missouri
Collides with the Mississippi,
Forty men slip into boats and take to the oars
To interpret Jefferson’s continental dream -
Their keelboat laden with sustenance,
Herbs, weapons and powder.
They carry trinkets to dazzle the natives
And cast bronze medals to give them
Bearing images of their "Father in Washington"
That none had asked to have.
May, 2004
Aug 3, 2013
Aug 3, 2013 at 5:42 AM UTC
I am excellent.
Not because I conform
To someone else's standards,
Beliefs, or expectations of me,
But because I choose to live with integrity.
I strive to be the best I can be
Without expecting perfection.
As I am also human.
I falter and fail.
But failure is not the absence of excellence,
It is simply the cataracts that cloud my eyes
And prevent me from seeing
My own arete.
For when I look in the mirror,
All I see is dark spots, blemishes.
And no matter the angle from which I view,
I am inferior, a mistake.
I must first accept my perfect imperfection
And ask for help,
Before the flawed lenses with which I was born
Can be replaced,
And I can finally see with unwavering clarity
That I am a person of worth.
I have significance.
And though I may not always trust
What I know to be true,
It is my intrinsic value as a being,
And not a doing,
That makes me excellent.
Jul 14, 2015
Jul 14, 2015 at 2:28 PM UTC
I am but a single
dry dead leaf
laying beneath an endless willow tree
around the waters bend
close to the toadstool pow-wows
only inhabited by the faeries.
& the moon- she still shine,
captured but by a sphere, yet so free
her light may breathe
a chilling, frigid touch
between the memories you
have buried so deep.
So please do not fret your wondrous mind
over all of your insecurities,
though she may shine with a chilling reminder
I promise that in your eyes
a beautiful soul
is all she sees.
As my mind races I feel
I am unable to describe
the exact emotion you
have gently
injected into my mind.
My eyelids grow heavy
my minds afloat to space
all that is left in my world as I know it,
is the perfection on your face
You see darling,
I am a hija de la luna;
the stars will align with
Castor & Pollux
Cancer, Aphrodite, & Fortuna.
They greet me as old friends,
join me in my nights of fantasy.
tell me darling what do these strange constellations mean?
Oh how I pity thy cataracts
eyes white & glassy
but I promise the warmth will melt your frozen gaze
& in time, you will see.
The horizon shifts as I do to you,
how long do you wish to be at sea?
Alas, you know my poison
doubt seeps into my skin
like an 80 patch.
Through thick & thin,
even on the sorest of feet
I will skip merrily along your path.
Round my head I gaze,
The sky has been stained
with fuchsia & clementine
among the blues.
tell me again, how may I find your presence within the hues?
Wrap yourself within my blanket
of ease & security.
Trust me with your life or not,
for I want to be
there, when you most
need me
You cannot help
you are a broken bird
I cannot deny my psyche as it worries
*does a dove not care about her nest back home
when she soars above
the sea?*
Next to the beating arrhythmia
you try hold dear ‘twixt your ribs
my favourite poem of yours has changed
where I will weave a small nest
dream of your lips
& the sound of rain.
Jan 13, 2014
Jan 13, 2014 at 8:16 PM UTC
women: swipe left guys
who compliment your blue eyes.
they are cataracts.
Sep 1, 2014
Sep 1, 2014 at 2:58 PM UTC
supple and orange to the taste
like a water slide to a desert
in a wild goose chase
just a hair short of a bone
ninety nine of the smallest ones
cracked open ventilating
dancing vapor
a slow shift in flowing feel.
soak up the gray
you turn to cellophane
only on the inside
you're alright
the ball keeps on rolling
around that big old fire
the cushion smiled
warmed by your seat
pressed into a drowse
you catch the change
wonder the time
about that
settled cataracts
smooth rolling cadillacs
big old Adirondack
smiling in the cottage.
Dec 18, 2014
Dec 18, 2014 at 4:52 PM UTC
The doctor of Geneva stamped the sand
That lay impounding the Pacific swell,
Patted his stove-pipe hat and tugged his shawl.
Lacustrine man had never been assailed
By such long-rolling opulent cataracts,
Unless Racine or Bossuet held the like.
He did not quail. A man who used to plumb
The multifarious heavens felt no awe
Before these visible, voluble delugings,
Which yet found means to set his simmering mind
Spinning and hissing with oracular
Notations of the wild, the ruinous waste,
Until the steeples of his city clanked and sprang
In an unburgherly apocalypse.
The doctor used his handkerchief and sighed.
3k
I am reading this poem,
late, in the snug familiarity of my bed,
with gentle night-light and sable night-sky,
stars swimming beyond the glass,
warm breaths fogging up the panes.
I am reading this poem,
curled on a beanbag in a library with her my by side,
breaths stirring against my skin,
like the winds of time, of change, taking me away from here.
I am reading this poem,
in a room that is abound with remembrance and days gone by,
where the bedclothes are heaped, fresh and steaming with warmth,
with the same freedom that the open valise speaks of,
a journey ending in success, a triumphant flight.
I am reading this poem,
as the underground train screeches to a halt,
and before heading up the stairs,
towards the love that life has bestowed on me.
I am reading this poem,
by the glow of the laptop screen,
where the headlines flash and flicker,
for once, joy is splashed across the monitor.
I am reading this poem in a waiting room,
of meeting eyes and crinkling smiles, more friends than strangers,
without fear.
I am reading this poem by firelight,
in the simple joy and jubilation of the young who know they matter,
and live with hope and inner liberation, from the earliest of ages.
I am reading this poem,
freed of the curved lenses, the cloudy cataracts,
and I can see the letters for what they are and I read on,
because this freedom is precious.
I am reading this poem as I sit by the radiator,
the milk is already warm (electricity isn’t cut these days)
child in my arms, book in my hand,
because life is waiting for me to live it,
knowing it is never too short or too long but just right.
I am reading this poem not in my language,
while she sits at my side and helps me translate,
because tongues are free to roam now.
I am reading this poem listening for something,
stopping to savour the taste of freedom,
to be able to refuse the task I cannot turn to.
I am reading this poem because I can,
and there is so much left to read
I have now and forever,
to soar untamed with wings unclipped, clothed as I am.
Jan 12, 2014
Jan 12, 2014 at 1:56 AM UTC
How is it that I am now so softly awakened,
My leaves shaken down with music?--
Darling, I love you.
It is not your mouth, for I have known mouths before,--
Though your mouth is more alive than roses,
Roses singing softly
To green leaves after rain.
It is not your eyes, for I have dived often in eyes,--
Though your eyes, even in the yellow glare of footlights,
Are windows into eternal dusk.
Nor is it the live white flashing of your feet,
Nor your gay hands, catching at motes in the spotlight;
Nor the abrupt thick music of your laughter,
When, against the hideous backdrop,
With all its crudities brilliantly lighted,
Suddenly you catch sight of your alarming shadow,
Whirling and contracting.
How is it, then, that I am so keenly aware,
So sensitive to the surges of the wind, or the light,
Heaving silently under blue seas of air?--
Darling, I love you, I am immersed in you.
It is not the unraveled night-time of your hair,--
Though I grow drunk when you press it upon my face:
And though when you gloss its length with a golden brush
I am strings that tremble under a bow.
It was that night I saw you dancing,
The whirl and impalpable float of your garment,
Your throat lifted, your face aglow
(Like waterlilies in moonlight were your knees).
It was that night I heard you singing
In the green-room after your dance was over,
Faint and uneven through the thickness of walls.
(How shall I come to you through the dullness of walls,
Thrusting aside the hands of bitter opinion?)
It was that afternoon, early in June,
When, tired with a sleepless night, and my act performed,
Feeling as stale as streets,
We met under dropping boughs, and you smiled to me:
And we sat by a watery surface of clouds and sky.
I hear only the susurration of intimate leaves;
The stealthy gliding of branches upon slow air.
I see only the point of your chin in sunlight;
And the sinister blue of sunlight on your hair.
The sunlight settles downward upon us in silence.
Now we ****** up through grass blades and encounter,
Pushing white hands amid the green.
Your face flowers whitely among cold leaves.
Soil clings to you, bark falls from you,
You rouse and stretch upward, exhaling earth, inhaling sky,
I touch you, and we drift off together like moons.
Earth dips from under.
We are alone in an immensity of sunlight,
Specks in an infinite golden radiance,
Whirled and tossed upon silent cataracts and torrents.
Give me your hand darling! We float downward.
2.4k
The mine shaft’s gaping mouth
yawns like the throat of an old, useless god.
Gnats hover by the scattered rocks.
This is real not a set, or a scene,
a spit of dirt shot through the sluice, all things like
a picture cut to kiss my America expectation.
In the surrounding bush, tamaracks curve towards the clouds.
The clouds where, above the furry tips of conifers, cataracts
plummet down mountainwalls, and ask:
“afraid?” And I am, I am. I fear the sheer
slopes of tough granite slashing the giant sky
in two; the hard-edged mountain face. The expansive air.
And this split is brooding old and unknowable
tunneling briskly into the unfamiliar, bruising
Montana a grisly purple-red
when the sun swings underground
and shades the hot **** by the mine with cool night as
behind it, the mine appears to growl.
Feb 1, 2010
Feb 1, 2010 at 9:09 PM UTC
"Love is Blindness"
is inaccurate
Love is the buffer
That sees all imperfections
Makes them perfect
Love is the cataracts
Blurring all troubles
Into a milky sweet balance of good and great
Because bad days are now still good
Love are the pupils
For life
Letting in nothing but light
Blocking out at darkness
Love is syrupy sweet brown eyes...
Even though you thought you liked blue
But Sweet Browns now hold your universe
Love acts as the glasses
Sharpening everything you used to see
Creating the picture of where you were meant to be
Love is the depth perception
For feeling
Used to calibrate all emotions
Love is You
but mostly
Love is sight
Because of Love
I can see
Sep 15, 2014
Sep 15, 2014 at 10:38 PM UTC
choo choo
next stop.....perdition
(no, not really...no-one believes this Stygian opacity)
1.
look how Time doth ravage thee
look what it did to thy visage
in smithereens, lies youth
it so artfully takes away
what is held so dear
rivers and streams
valleys and hills
arching to ecstatic heights
plunging to abysmal lows
into the ravine of chance
stirred by the spoon of Time
slowly around the cauldron
brews the self-same mixture
then poured into chasms of forgetfulness
using the eternal sledgehammer
it
smashes the foundation of thought
grinds the nutmeg of speed
pulps the fruit of mentality
slows the pulse of sensation
and pardons none.
2.
what was once sensuous and voluptuous lips
now are merely two dry slits on your face
once stared-into eyeballs, now glass over
vitreous cataracts steadily grow, weed-like
toned into lithe elastic bands now stretch
away into forever, a pale platform to walk on
life's morn is encompassed by years' slanting
clouded and bedimmed by mists of age
butterfly's existence outweighs a man's
by mere night-veiled windowpane of true sight
draw the curtains; close the shutters; screen the eyes
the time has come to shed all blinkers and face the sun.
3.
crimp
sag
limp
drag
mud cracks down a dipping dale
scalding pain sears sore half-foot
yes, time is but a disease
ravaging all
without fear or favour
sunken eyes
slower reflexes
tardier mind
scraggly body
hides not
condescends not
forgets not
the glimmer of ....
a time of ...
4.
cathedral invites the walker in
cool and calm recesses
sit silent
wait....
then they walk in, carrying
one who had but a lucky half-score lot
clear soprano note becomes a rudderless bleat
announcing the folly of stifling ego
now shorn of burning frost of circuitous fervour
beams of mercy cast a final look-see
jump the barriers of
time
to
carry thee off.
pipe organ-stops are pulled out
(art thee ready? platform number 5)
S T, 9 May 2013
May 9, 2013
May 9, 2013 at 9:24 AM UTC
I’ve now seen this rerun some obscene sum.
Gone, I’m off staring at the sun a tad too long.
The part that focuses the fun was last seen wrong.
Worn, like the cliches you so casually parade.
Me? I got cataracts to the hate.
I’m dodging them cats,
while you’re stuck stalking their tracks.
Once again I’m late, but this time I think I’ll stay.
I could cut you with a blade of grass.
I’m nice.
Brigade both sides of The Crusades with a laugh.
I’m tight.
It’s all in the way you read the light,
but sometimes that sun be too bright.
Got drive though,
won’t stop 'til they say DeadBeat can write.
Mar 29, 2018
Mar 29, 2018 at 12:51 PM UTC
The old man gazed at the sun about to set
And its molten core soon to dissolve in the sea
Scratching his head with tremulous hands
And running his fingers on the stubble of his unshaven face
He held once more tight to his wheel chair
Casually he had a glance at his hands
Those dry, weak and shriveled hands
Gone wrinkled with passing years!
His hands once so busy are now limp
His days once so brisk are now long and dull
He noticed the discolored patches on his skin
Under them the lattice of tortuous veins on the dorsum
They run down to join with the bigger ones
Like small rivulets flowing towards larger rivers
He remembered how the streams from summits
So vigorously come down with a gush
Also the noisy cataracts somersaulting down,
Leaving reverberating echoes all around
But they produce only a soft musical sound
As they join with the rivers and pass through plains
And finally end in a kind of hushed stillness
Just before merging with the sea!
The old man philosophized;
Life too, is like a river
Fierce and ferocious when one is young
Gentler and sedate after middle age
And slow and sloppy in old age
With this calm acceptance of the need to de accelerate
Wrapping himself in the shawl against the growing cold
He turned away from the window.
Pushing his wheel chair,
He moved forward,
Knowing no haste…..
Towards his bed for another night’s tired sleep!
Feb 1, 2017
Feb 1, 2017 at 7:27 AM UTC
She was old when I first knew her
To an infant, parents are timeless;
Fairy aunts are just… old.
A tiny scarecrow of a thing,
Her eyes glittered; her mouth
Never offered an ill word of anyone.
She was a good woman. She never tired
Of talking about blind Jim – a good man –
With girlish love in her face;
One man, one love, one life
He wove wicker and filled mattresses
And listened to the wireless in the evening.
Her constant thought companion
As so many might-have-been heroes –
Gone, before I could know him.
Christmas would wend round each year,
With Meg as star guest,
Tipsy before the Queen’s Speech,
Whisky rouging her cheeks; fairy lights
Made envious by her laughter,
My mother, and hers, basking in gleelight.
I grew up there, every other Sunday,
Overlooking the Hospital and the Tay
From the safety of her living-room window,
Inventing spaceships and spies,
Dreaming of who I would be,
As my mother and Meg made small-talk.
Month by month, her daylight dimmed.
I never saw it. She was only ever her;
Happy, constant and true.

Afterwards, I learned about the
Vying accountants and surgeons,
Postponing, year and again,
The procedure. She told me, when finally
Her appointment was confirmed,
That when the cataracts were gone,
She was going to buy a ticket
For the number nine circular
And spend all day upstairs,
Just looking out of the window
At the city she’d lived in
For nigh-on ninety years
A week before the operation
Her home-help found her in bed, with Jim;
Smiling as they danced through the daisies.
She seemed no older when she died
Than when I first knew her.
A good innings, they all said.
Not enough.
If only by the length of a bus ticket –
not enough.
Feb 26, 2013
Feb 26, 2013 at 5:27 AM UTC
On the ocean of life I
Dropped thought-pebbles
Resonances in winds
Rebounding in ripples
Actions born in countless waves
Triggering counter-actions!
Cataracts of wonders, suddenly
Vomiting volumes of gold
Pouring golden flames
Into life ocean purities
Bouncing up hills and valleys
In voyage of expectations
Creating realities in emeralds!
Tumbling air in blues
Skies beatific glory binges
In endless waves in azure skies
Echoing sounds of depth
Deeper than the deep
Launching into the Deep
Harvesting immortal gold
Reaping eternal glory!
Mar 14, 2019
Mar 14, 2019 at 9:28 AM UTC
The green combusts, the cherry sclerotized mask dances above
the invisible paper carapace.
Stuffed full with Rotten skunk innards and burning,
tongues of heat sweat away its crystalline hairs.
Aren is hunched and crooked, all teeth and lungs,
under the mixed halogens of suburban porchlight,
being bathed in bluescale waves from the
strobe of the neighbor's telescreen.
Ropes of smog pour from the slats between his picket fence ivories and get frayed.
I drink the filth, choking down the viscera of the vermin.
It doesn't seem to get easier.
Stumbling inside, my feet detach and I throw myself on the door
until I've locked out the sickly tide pool light of dawn,
and I'm rolling toward his bedroom.
Jolting and sputtering, and
grasping at the hands of the clock,
listening for the steady metronome to
count me through.
And then numbness.
I know the feeling, and next come the
pins, digging into my
fingertips and the pads of my
toes, and then I'm all body and silent prayers.
And I'm whispering sick thoughts to Aren -
*"Those adrenaline demons
will do me in,
and if only I could relax,
and my dear mother
used to have a stalker,
and I almost got run down
by a car on the highway when I was five,
and asthmatics are five times as likely to have a
generalized anxiety disorder."*
The adrenaline demons gather my tendons in pincushion palms,
tugging at the strings,
panicked arthritis and my fingers are
twitching and curling backwards
while I glare on with shallow breaths and cataracts.
The organs moan in the cavern of my body,
with thick wet air pouring from the opening.
I'm standing now,
a fetishized devil doll,
shaking out the pins
and the needles
and the sick splinters of glass
and the long holy skewers
and I'm breathing again
and I sit and
I breathe.
Nov 1, 2013
Nov 1, 2013 at 3:05 PM UTC
Ever seen the inside of a Teletubbie's belly?
I did
that **** gave me cataracts and glaucoma
which lead to injesting large amounts of guacamole
got huge
mostly in the head-
found a homeless man, let him sleep on my couch
he liked to tell stories about his encounters with celebrities
oh which he was one
back in the day, I think he was on Rosanne
never watched it but he was cool enough
we biked to the overpass to drop waterballoons on those who needed them most
like fake-tanned blondes in convertibles
and bicyclers.
I love all kinds of people and can forgive their beligerence
though mine are quite strange
I like canoing in trees and making mosaics from bone fragments and rubies
just a bit of a mind juggler
smacking singles on counters for pregnancy tests and breath mint
tell a tubby his belly is wide
and boy you'll be scoutin' a whole new skull.
Jun 2, 2012
Jun 2, 2012 at 11:31 PM UTC
There is a great river this side of Stygia
Before one comes to the first black cataracts
And trees that lack the intelligence of trees.
In that river, far this side of Stygia,
The mere flowing of the water is a gayety,
Flashing and flashing in the sun. On its banks,
No shadow walks. The river is fateful,
Like the last one. But there is no ferryman.
He could not bend against its propelling force.
It is not to be seen beneath the appearances
That tell of it. The steeple at Farmington
Stands glistening and Haddam shines and sways.
It is the third commonness with light and air,
A curriculum, a vigor, a local abstraction . . .
Call it, one more, a river, an unnamed flowing,
Space-filled, reflecting the seasons, the folk-lore
Of each of the senses; call it, again and again,
The river that flows nowhere, like a sea.
1.8k
It seems she denied to the end
the source of the cataracts on her eyes
the cracked and suppurating skin of her finger-ends
till she could no longer hold a test-tube or a pencil
She died a famous woman denying
her wounds
denying
her wounds came from the same source as her power
Feb 15, 2015
Feb 15, 2015 at 8:20 AM UTC
I have long sought quiet.
And please, let me be clear: quiet.
Not the quietus Hamlet desired,
No “consummation devoutly to be wished” for me.
No, with or without a bare bayonet,
UNBEINGNESS is hardly what I seek.
It is not the predicament of death,
But the quiet spectacle of the grave I envy.
Originally a city mouse,
I am familiar with the urban soundscape.
I know city noise, amped up in decibels.
Noise-induced stress, shrill and enervating,
Add to the mix a working-class neighborhood,
Where someone is always hammering,
Using a power tool of some kind,
Repairing, improving an older, somewhat decrepit home;
But a steal as the realtors say.
Or vehicles, like Old Havana relics,
Held together by secular prayer,
And thriving underground Cuban capitalism.
Then just for fun: *"Let’s send the son of a ***** to war."*
Tympanic membranes be wary and be ******
Stretched and perforated,
Compressed and torn,
Shredded like wheat.
Pummeled by shock wave.
I was Lear wandering the heath,
Your ass-cheeks cracked:
*“Cataracts and hurricanes . . .
Oak-cleaving thunderbolts . . .
Sulphurour and thought-executing fires . . .
Singe my white head!”*
Cue Cabaret music (Cabaret (1972) - IMDb www.imdb.com/title/tt0068327): “Willkommen, bienvenue, welcome . . . to Indochine,”
First a Weimar-Saigon suckee-fuckee,
Then out to *The ****
Mind-numbing concussion,
Reek of jellied gasoline,
Charred meat,
Assorted red entrails,
Obliteration of thought complete.
Jun 27, 2015
Jun 27, 2015 at 8:48 PM UTC
Away, ye gay landscapes, ye gardens of roses!
In you let the minions of luxury rove:
Restore me the rocks, where the snow-flake reposes,
Though still they are sacred to freedom and love:
Yet, Caledonia, belov’d are thy mountains,
Round their white summits though elements war:
Though cataracts foam ’stead of smooth-flowing fountains,
I sigh for the valley of dark Loch na Garr.
Ah! there my young footsteps in infancy, wander’d:
My cap was the bonnet, my cloak was the plaid;
On chieftains, long perish’d, my memory ponder’d,
As daily I strode through the pine-cover’d glade;
I sought not my home, till the day’s dying glory
Gave place to the rays of the bright polar star;
For fancy was cheer’d, by traditional story,
Disclos’d by the natives of dark Loch na Garr.
“Shades of the dead! have I not heard your voices
Rise on the night-rolling breath of the gale?”
Surely, the soul of the hero rejoices,
And rides on the wind, o’er his own Highland vale!
Round Loch na Garr, while the stormy mist gathers,
Winter presides in his cold icy car:
Clouds, there, encircle the forms of my Fathers;
They dwell in the tempests of dark Loch na Garr.
“Ill starr’d, though brave, did no visions foreboding
Tell you that fate had forsaken your cause?”
Ah! were you destined to die at Culloden,
Victory crown’d not your fall with applause:
Still were you happy, in death’s earthy slumber,
You rest with your clan, in the caves of Braemar;
The Pibroch resounds, to the piper’s loud number,
Your deeds, on the echoes of dark Loch na Garr.
Years have roll’d on, Loch na Garr, since I left you,
Years must elapse, ere I tread you again:
Nature of verdure and flowers has bereft you,
Yet still are you dearer than Albion’s plain:
England! thy beauties are tame and domestic,
To one who has rov’d on the mountains afar:
Oh! for the crags that are wild and majestic,
The steep, frowning glories of dark Loch na Garr.
1.7k
Check out my books www.amazon.com/author/richardratliff
Aging Gracefully
It gives you clarity, perspective and appreciation
Always thought cataracts were rapids in a river
Or a boat or something: fuzzy thinking
Don't think they give clarity
Even bifocals don't help
As a kid I wanted to be a king like Arthur
Didn't realize getting a crown would be painful
Like a poke in the eye: going down the canal
And not a canal in Venice either
Always enjoyed a smile with dimples
But time adds wrinkles to the smile
Causing ever so slow changes
As my dimples turn to jowls
I found out that PSA
Isn't a pro sport authority
Doesn't regulate the rules of golf
But It can affect my game
Copyright 2016
Jun 16, 2016
Jun 16, 2016 at 12:33 PM UTC
My pockets hold coarse wisdom stones
that have yet to be eroded and known.
No deed has been done with many tears,
and my matter has yet to turn gray.
Except for two dark circles
wrapped snug around no-sleep eyes,
I am pristine, I have soft skin,
no chips or scratches to bear.
So I sought erosion and tragedy
to inspire wise and epic truths,
but to my dismay! all that I found
was that these only come with age.
Constantly, all day and night,
wonderings overpower my sleep;
I fear these truths, that they might burn
the darling rosebud life I built
into a cynic's deadbeat embers.
So to the stars! I beg to see
if even a fleck of goodness
exists past youth's gilded screen.
For I hope that even through cataracts,
the world will still be good,
that wrinkles will forge deep valleys of love,
that gray hair will be streaked with joy.
I hope my dying hands will hold tightly
to my death bed's plastic sides,
I hope to look in terror at Heaven above,
to whisper, with wide fearful eyes,
"Please, I don't want to go"
But for now, I am young and unknowing,
and I embrace my rose-colored light.
The thing is, though, I must know something,
you can call it naivete,
but whether it be with gray hair
or smooth skin, no matter what,
even if I had nothing left,
I'd still use scotch tape to hold back ****** rivers,
to prove to you that there is love.
Mar 12, 2018
Mar 12, 2018 at 3:02 PM UTC
Do you find it
boring
to spell out the word
"subconscious"?
Not the way I spell it.
Many step onto the first "S"
as if it were
a ***** rain puddle,
but I'm sufficiently alert
and can see that one must dive
into the word's application,
nimbly rummage through the
annals of its history
before conducting one word
in or against its favor.
Glide downward
through the
rhythmically breathing curves
of the voluptuous prefix,
"sub-",
as you begin
dreaming
further
down
towards the comatose
of the rickety construction
that is your superego,
to the "you"
no one knows about
in clear daylight
(even the mirror).
Minor turbulence
may occur
within the rest,
"-conscious",
just a few jagged rocks
stirred into Cloud Nine
to alter your perceptions
like a face hit by a bus.
This is the meat of your matter,
the acidic ruptures
that only the most cunning
infiltrators
can identify and nudge
with their index fingers
using a painful precision,
the ***** band of undergarments
that always seem to loiter behind
in the town laundromat.
But a jagged rock
is a jagged rock,
never eternally bordering
the outline of the planet,
just lodged within the corners
of your comfort zone,
their presence
a necessary evil
for the times you must steer
through the swarms of cataracts
and endure the exrcuciating agony
of becoming a better human being.
You launch yourself
from your adolescent crutches
like the roots of teeth
erupting from the base of the jaw
and prevent single definition,
hack away the tentacles
of emotional paralysis,
by remembering to mend
the tear between
two polar halves,
"sub
conscious."
Under your false promises,
your Freudian timeline,
your ever-quivering Id...
every single one of you.
Apr 29, 2010
Apr 29, 2010 at 10:53 AM UTC
It's stories above where the butterflies rustled,
Whirring between the lights in aeolian bustle.
I'm smiling spritely at a neon halo,
While my organs writhe in jacqueminot El Niño.
Wading the nightscape with a glitched simper,
I could not change nor attempt to tinker,
Just breaching the moments passing to linger.
Fingers, then palms, then lips, then black,
Then for a few seconds the world collapsed.
A breath, a sip, some wit, I'm back.
Shed the murky vision of captive cataracts.
And now,
The sylph saunters in epitomized elegance,
And I've buckled on the inside to the resonant reverence.
I follow the fragrance in her wake as paralyzed sedatives,
And anything I might say could only lack eloquence.
Then magnanimous mantras attract exact,
It seems way down the rabbit hole I've finally met my match.
There's a mesh of flesh, a smooth caress,
Then I wake and realize these were not visions yonder death.
Particles of my brain erupt,
I can't explain away the unfading elation of touch.
Every pose palatial down to the pixels,
I'd gaze deep in the sheen of her mind gleaming as crystals.
Her eyes open like daybreak in flashes,
Sunstreaks glint over the horizon of her lashes.
There's morning songbirds behind the taste of coffee,
I think she's figured I'm just a well decorated softy.
Unveiling my most human of contentions stripped to the eclipse of logic,
My former self laughs in tones pitched sardonic.
Euphorically strumming at gossamer heartstrings,
Etched in the fabric as sakura carvings.
Oct 31, 2017
Oct 31, 2017 at 8:48 PM UTC