"chagrin" poems
It’s just easy for them
Isn’t it?
This couple on the train.
They walked on laughing together
Holding hands
And I felt that familiar something-
Not jealousy
Not envy
But...
Chagrin.
Astonishment.
Incredulity.
Incomprehension.
Looking at them feels like looking at one of those
Impossible pictures
Where the stairs keep going forever in a loop.
It’s just
Easy for them.
It doesn’t hurt anymore, that thought,
But thinking it feels so odd in my mind
When I can’t imagine loving someone without
Shame,
Without pain.
They fit.
These people,
They fit without having to carve anything out.
They fit without punishing each other.
They fit like puzzle pieces cut from the same board-
No worries, they just go together, and that
Is that.
They fit like
“Of course.”
Like breathing.
Neatly.
Simply.
Carelessly.
I can’t imagine what it’s like
I can’t comprehend it-
To fit
Somewhere
Much less to fit somewhere
With someone.
I am always trying to corset myself into this world,
Lungs burning,
Trying to remain small enough to squeeze by
Catching myself by the wrist to keep from reaching
For anything.
And if there seems to be a spot where I might be able to exist as I am
It is always
Occupied.
Like a shiny pinprick
That thought hurts-
Not like the others it is newly cut
And still ******
The idea that maybe there is a home for me
And that maybe I was too late for it.
They’re laughing.
He says something clever,
Passes a hand along the small of her back
And she leans into it,
Smiling because she loves that he wants to touch her innocently.
They seem to exist behind glass.
Not for the first time I wonder
If I could just slip into that life
Like a drop into an ocean
I want it badly
I want it stupidly
And I examine all the parts of myself,
All the edges and cracks,
All the things I’ve worked so hard to protect and repair.
It is not a welcome sight-
I am not a home
I am like an old ruin
Full of murmurings and cold spots
Full of dusty sunlight.
I sigh,
Knowing the secret I keep so poorly-
That if I really had a choice to be otherwise
I would have already made it.
I couldn’t reach them if I ran for a thousand years,
They are too far away.
They walk off the train, arms linked
Talking about nothing
And I watch them go
Like a hallucination,
Like a mirage in the desert.
Her perfume smells like forgetfulness
And it lingers.
Sep 28, 2018
Sep 28, 2018 at 12:48 AM UTC
The riled route master and the hacked off hackney carriage weren't bothered by the boris bike, they simply barreled along the bus lane oblivious to the wobble, blind to the blindsided and bent on beating the amber to red, til they were halted by the growth factor of a chelsea tractor straddling lanes and field testing the choice of right or left and failing the screen test set by the sat nav, thereby giving opportunity to the swarm of office staffers snatching their chance and chancing their luck, dancing past with their fat chance of swiping in before nine and avoiding the chagrin of the boss who's been the bane of their short sojourn through the city of lost dreams, chance encounters, thin fortune and rushed hours. This is London.
Oct 12, 2018
Oct 12, 2018 at 2:03 PM UTC
please be impatient with me for I am Female, Age 19 Please be impatient with me. Three quarters woman in a body, a quartered quartet. The crying viola, off tempo, present but unavailable. The boys want me. The men, more, more. The women most of all. The American Girl dolls on the shelf dusty, witnesses to all my demander’s impatience to take, to own, possess & desire my poses all to pleasure them, wanting many morsos (small bites).
Then, when discarded, my body reeks of
con-f u s i o n. A perfect conjugation, an imperfect conjunction; Conning my mind into letting my body be-fused.
The dolls weep real tears in the city of my mind; flipping out, they too, are impatient with me, and flip me off for they have no good words to express their utter chagrin.
May 16, 2018
May 16, 2018 at 11:27 AM UTC
I tore the fabric of space
Interrupting my affectionate stalking
Spurts of longing, interspersed
with spasms of premature *****
In vain, hankering to attain that next level rush
*Oh you're a ***** girl aren't you*
That's when I was discovered...
Her shrieks royally flushing my cheeks with shock
-Superseded by pallid chagrin
I fumble to bail,
Pants entrenched around my ankles
Premeditative,
Of absent-mind, in haste
Prime directive a method of escape
Evasion failing
Detection:
Imminent
Reflecting a grim lack of circumspection,
accursed **********
Trying to conceal my turgid ********
Her father particularly beyond reason
And not fond of my indecency for his daughter
Proceeds pummeling me to death with my beloved binoculars
Devoid of clairvoyance;
I am coincidentally sent
outward toward oblivion
Bon voyage through the portal
Falling facefirst into an abysmal wormhole
Its then I voyaged backward through time
To the moment of Creation
And witnessed the universe
**** itself from naught to existence
Spewing forth such cataclysmic splendor
Jan 12, 2014
Jan 12, 2014 at 10:48 PM UTC
Water in the millrace, through a sluice of stone,
plunges headlong into that black pond
where, absurd and out-of-season, a single swan
floats chaste as snow, taunting the clouded mind
which hungers to haul the white reflection down.
The austere sun descends above the fen,
an orange cyclops-eye, scorning to look
longer on this landscape of chagrin;
feathered dark in thought, I stalk like a rook,
brooding as the winter night comes on.
Last summer's reeds are all engraved in ice
as is your image in my eye; dry frost
glazes the window of my hurt; what solace
can be struck from rock to make heart's waste
grow green again? Who'd walk in this bleak place?
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She loved the catnip
Straight for the hip
She was like an alley cat
With a worn out welcome mat
Her tail rang a chime
And every tom stopped on her dime
Petting was blunt
For all the toms went for the hunt
Affront of the beat
Two cats in heat
Nights played out in false hearts
Howls were off the charts
Brief was the moment
Lost was the fulfillment
Days sagged later
A same old story, bye alligator
Much to the chagrin
Of the alley's spin
When her baby was born
She was forlorn
Like a woman out of wedlock
Dealing with tom's, full of croc
My sister, I watched you fall
My words to you hit a blank wall
You played the game
Without a flame
Sadness as your son bleed
Now years later he followed your lead
Logan Robertson
8/09/2018
Aug 9, 2018
Aug 9, 2018 at 2:38 PM UTC
I took the path less travelled by,
and found to my chagrin
that the path I walked was paved in good intentions
and devoid of friend and kin.
Though in walking those trails, I only meant well,
The herd is the entity that most oft prevails;
The lion devours the lone gazelle,
who of the well worn path did not avail.
Jan 13, 2015
Jan 13, 2015 at 2:04 PM UTC
The boy haden't bathed in over a month
His **** crack was itching and burning
His underpants were soaked in slimy, wet muck
And his toes a thick jam were churning
His armpits stank worse than a fat pigs raw ***
His breath smelled like rancid fish
His hair was so oily, matted to his head
His own mother wouldn't give him a kiss
"Enough!" he cried as a passing fly died
When he raised his arm to exclaim.
"I must bathe right away! I am long overdue!"
"I sure hope the washcloths are brave."
"To the bathroom man!" He shouted as he ran
And his underpants sloppily squished
"I will remove this filth and brush my green teeth"
"And my mother I will kiss!"
"The closet's ahead!" He said as he sped.
And he stopped there to get some stuff.
Some soap, some shampoo and a towel or two.
But he knew that it wasn't enough.
Look though he might, to his horror and fright,
Not a single washcloth could he find.
Then panic set in 'cause the stink of his skin
Was driving him out of his mind.
He looked yet again but to his chagrin
The washcloth shelf was bare.
The washcloths had run off
For they would not wash
So filthy a boy on a dare
"Oh what will I do!" "Boo-hoo, boo-hoo!"
The boy cried as flies swarmed his head.
"I'd **** myself but I already smell"
"Far worse than anything dead!"
Then one washcloth came back
Holding it's nose and a sack
Of bath salts that smelled like dill.
It said to the boy "Go pickle yourself!"
"And give me a nausea pill!"
So the boy rejoiced and filled the tub
With water, hot as he could stand.
And using the bath salts, he jumped right in
And the pickling began.
He lathered the washcloth with water and soap
And scrubbed with all of his might.
Away he washed all of the filth
'Til none was left in sight.
He washed his hair and brushed his teeth
And dried and dressed himself well.
And the washcloth exclaimed as it hung on the tub
"Holy crap! that was pure hell!"
So the boy now clean ran to be seen
By his mother he loved so much.
And she gave him a kiss and said "This is pure bliss!"
"I can kiss you and keep down my lunch!"
The moral I'll tell you and true I will be
So no one will say that I lied.
Don't wait a whole month to take a bath
Or you washcloths may run and hide.
Aug 1, 2012
Aug 1, 2012 at 7:53 AM UTC
Shattered once was I
So many awkward pieces
Too many remain
Rest my weary eyes
My dreams more than forsake me
It leaves me insane
Despite raging storms
No winds dare disturb this night
Yet, it howls within
Love fuels what it calms
In darkness or divine light
Bittersweet chagrin
Forgive my desire
I’m so long without love’s touch
Better off alone
Adding to the fire
Loneliness beyond too much
It scars to the bone
Somewhere in between
Nightmare with no end in sight
Can’t seem to outrun
Future yet unseen
Save me from myself tonight
I’m coming undone
Loving me is war
I’ve lost myself many times
Nothing much remains
Will no other heart
Wholly broken just as mine
Show me no refrain?
Mar 5, 2017
Mar 5, 2017 at 10:40 AM UTC
A dancing Bear grotesque and funny
Earned for his master heaps of money,
Gruff yet good-natured, fond of honey,
And cheerful if the day was sunny.
Past hedge and ditch, past pond and wood
He tramped, and on some common stood;
There, cottage children circling gaily,
He in their midmost footed daily.
Pandean pipes and drum and muzzle
Were quite enough his brain to puzzle:
But like a philosophic bear
He let alone extraneous care
And danced contented anywhere.
Still, year on year, and wear and tear,
Age even the gruffest, bluffest bear.
A day came when he scarce could prance,
And when his master looked askance
On dancing Bear who would not dance.
To looks succeeded blows; hard blows
Battered his ears and poor old nose.
From bluff and gruff he waxed curmudgeon;
He danced indeed, but danced in dudgeon,
Capered in fury fast and faster.
Ah, could he once but hug his master
And perish in one joint disaster!
But deafness, blindness, weakness growing,
Not fury's self could keep him going.
One dark day when the snow was snowing
His cup was brimmed to overflowing:
He tottered, toppled on one side,
Growled once, and shook his head, and died.
The master kicked and struck in vain,
The weary drudge had distanced pain
And never now would wince again.
The master growled; he might have howled
Or coaxed,--that slave's last growl was growled.
So gnawed by rancor and chagrin
One thing remained: he sold the skin.
What next the man did is not worth
Your notice or my setting forth,
But hearken what befell at last.
His idle working days gone past,
And not one friend and not one penny
Stored up (if ever he had any
Friends; but his coppers had been many),
All doors stood shut against him but
The workhouse door, which cannot shut.
There he droned on,--a grim old sinner,
Toothless, and grumbling for his dinner,
Unpitied quite, uncared for much
(The rate-payers not favoring such),
Hungry and gaunt, with time to spare;
Perhaps the hungry, gaunt old Bear
Danced back, a haunting memory.
Indeed, I hope so, for you see
If once the hard old heart relented,
The hard old man may have repented.
4.6k
Ruby red slippers, rich with passionate love
for you, dear state, as I search your land,
grazing the colors, the life, and the mystery
of weeds choking gravestones, tangling the dead.
But you, dear state, yourself is so gentle.
Kansas, you stretch to ****** my curls;
to stroke my tender cheek with a
flock of sunflowers, blooming vivid gold and
a mizzle of musicality, too high, too loud for me.
Your screams of country overwhelm me.
Why you, dear state, never treat us to
tangles of concrete nor mazes of glass?
Kansas, your heaven gives me migraine.
Aug 10, 2014
Aug 10, 2014 at 9:59 PM UTC
Alexander K Opicho
(Eldoret, Kenya;[email protected])
But I remain a believer in my ancestral religion
Whose God is wele but not the Germany world, it is a religion,
Like most of universal ancestral ones,
With appalling moral threshold,
When Elijah Masinde of dini ya Misambwa
Despised those who condemned man as notoriously religious
He meant human religious approach to life is absolute in nature
However diverse religions compete for human ears
Rich ones glorified in the luring away of modal ears
But all are devoid of spiritual impetus
Disappointing the progenitors of religious imperialism
These short-cutters in matters of sanctimony
Will not come to our heaven
They will get me sharing a cup of tea
With my sister- in-law; Mary, the mother of Jesus
And I will shun them, I will not know them
I will not invite them to a heavenly cup of tea
They will be suffocated by cadaverous appetite,
For we honor our religion with ancestral regard;
The Faith of Our Ancestors
But in ridicule they call us kaffirs, pagans, christo-pagans,
Animists, atheists, gentiles, non-believers, mediumists,
Rebellious rebels or whatsoever they call us;
The anti-muhamedan-mis-christologists,
Let them delude themselves,
If they disparage us with sick contumely
Abreast the dumbfounding development in sciences
Plus so fortuitous humanistic awareness,
Humanity in Religion has to adjust optimally
Religious masters have to help
Interpret the religious Books, bible, gita, quran
All Written or verbalistically in the glory of epical orality
In tandem with the best centered
Life extant,
Otherwise selfish religions becomes an old wine bag
With its old and stale wine,
You will persuade Russian carousers to drink
But to your chagrin, none will condone, your stale wine
Do not seek to sell your faith
Because every human community
Has an ancestral faith
Respect them all for that is gods in their accolade of
Omonipresecence,
Any man or woman without religion is dangerous
But do not advantagize yourselves
At the expense of people of other faiths
It is good you reciprocated
Planet earth is our only sure and known abode
If we lived well here, and there is another world
For those who will be good, we hope the conclave of Gods
Would all sit in judgment for their credit
And reward those who helped humble humanity
Of their religions as well as those of other religions
As for all the Gods love humanists.
Dec 17, 2013
Dec 17, 2013 at 10:17 AM UTC
I dream about writing you a love poem
One that is not misted over.
One that is not about him
But you, my beloved,
Because you are the only thing that I have ever wanted and I am tired of being so shy.
But this is hard.
This is even harder than I thought it would be.
I am staring at the her at the end of my first sentence and trying to figure out how it will sound when it finally breaks free from lips.
I imagine it will coat my tongue in a strange new liberation and we will both rejoice.
I refuse to write of you equivocally
And blend you into a neutral they
Or let yet another poem fall to chagrin.
I will not let shame cast shadows on our glorious love
No declararion of the truth could ever be an aberration.
So I write this love poem to you.
I do not scribble you deep into the binding or dust you lightly across my untruthful words.
I want to stain these pages with the red ink with our love.
You are not my secret to keep anymore.
You are the color I want to paint the sky.
Dec 13, 2014
Dec 13, 2014 at 2:25 PM UTC
534
We see—Comparatively—
The Thing so towering high
We could not grasp its segment
Unaided—Yesterday—
This Morning’s finer Verdict—
Makes scarcely worth the toil—
A furrow—Our Cordillera—
Our Apennine—a Knoll—
Perhaps ’tis kindly—done us—
The Anguish—and the loss—
The wrenching—for His Firmament
The Thing belonged to us—
To spare these Striding Spirits
Some Morning of Chagrin—
The waking in a Gnat’s—embrace—
Our Giants—further on—
3.1k
Alexander K Opicho
(Eldoret, Kenya;[email protected])
There are more and more misfortunes in the world
Known to you dear people in your diverse conditions,
But my life and experience has taught me unique lessons
Of kindred to befit me Elizabeth, a daughter of Zinjathropus
Hailing in the savannah desert, Turkana County of Kenya,
I have graduated in to a single lady without test of marriage,
As desert men look at me in their irritating impotence,
**** clothes wrapped around their slender waists passing on me
Like a dog passing on American dollars; cursed be desert men,
I thought my beauty of dark African complexions will give them a ****** tease
But to my chagrin; desert men have a fear of beautiful ladies
My conscience tells me that my beauty is an eye sore to them,
I thought my bulging hips will entice them as is a promise of fertility
Leave alone not to mention my concupiscent ****** warmth, uhmmm!
Desert men have dared not to see and appreciate my **** bossom,
They often pass on me driving their donkeys and emaciated carmels,
I thought my ***** sharp pointed ******* assign of virginity
Will call them to me into a treat of love, affiliative love,
But sadly enough; these dudes are erotically blind,
They they nonchalantly pass on my **** *****
Wielding a begging bowl in their ***** long hands
Running like drunkard chimpanzees going to Oxfam stores to beg for food,
Cursed be Oxfam an imperialist agent, it has crashed flat
The testicles of our desert brothers into ****** insensitivity,
Oxfam has made African desert men to beg like Hebrew lepers
Other than standing up on their feet to feed their women,
Normally as men would do from the sweat of their brow,
I thought my education will attract them to me,
To love me with those romantic University kisses,
But desert men have crude cultures and slavish religion
They rebuke girl child education as if it is a devil,
Oh my dear God of the forsaken desert ladies
Of the forsaken African daughters,
Take me out of this ****** desert
Take me out of the city desert of Lodwar,
Take me to the equator line and give me a husband,
My eggs are pretty ready to conceive and sire children
Sons and daughters for your own glory O almighty God,
Take me out of this ****** desert,
Where no man treats a modern woman,
Take me out of here and give me a fresh man of my dream.
Because I have known from today;
It is accurse to be a woman in Africa
It is a curse to be a beautiful lady in African deserts
It is a curse to be a woman graduate in the African desert
It is a curse to have ***** ******* in the African desert,
O! Help me God.
Mar 5, 2014
Mar 5, 2014 at 9:58 AM UTC
I am a vast dichotomy of tasteful ideals.
I desire to dream the dreams most people deterred.
Paintbrushes touch canvases then lift
as if unsure if they should grace the world with their
beauty or hold back with chagrin.
Bodies burrow under blankets with
banned books instead of men.
I warm myself with beverages in a coffee mug on a
rainy day rather than
a body lying next to me.
Feb 27, 2016
Feb 27, 2016 at 12:58 AM UTC
1379
His Mansion in the Pool
The Frog forsakes—
He rises on a Log
And statements makes—
His Auditors two Worlds
Deducting me—
The Orator of April
Is hoarse Today—
His Mittens at his Feet
No Hand hath he—
His eloquence a Bubble
As Fame should be—
Applaud him to discover
To your chagrin
Demosthenes has vanished
In Waters Green—
2.9k
See that little match-stick,
see that candle there?
See that hard-worn photograph
taken for a year?
Take them punches, boxer-girl!
Much to your chagrin,
it comes back in equal part -
hard and deep within.
Consider bonds between us heat.
And fuel, the time we spent
sleeping close in tousled sheets -
a sky towards us, bent:
gray and cloudless, quick and fleet.
Candle-flame is meant.
to take those memories, and to eat
the message that you sent.
Photo attachment 1: You, him - bottle of Cointreau. Bite marks on your thigh like only I should have left! Grass (both types), a camera. Wrestling. ****** ***
Photo attachment 2: You, him: carousels, cloven-footed balloon-man (whistling high and wee). Hot dogs. Ocean. Wrestling. ****** ***
Photo attachment 3: There was something about a penguin… and there was cake involved. Polarbears - must have been a zoo. Causing me to mope at the keyboard: wrestling, ****** ***
Photo attachment 4: It’s really just *** now.
Photo attachment 5: Please stop.
Shouldn’t be so callous:
that password is personal.
I shouldn’t really have it,
Well, this is what I get for exploring the caverns of iniquity
(that’s slang for your hard-drive),
***** little …
I can’t … cuss you out.
All photographs marked 10/18/07 for devastation.
Now, this thing has ended:
sad, though brief and gleeful.
We were consumed by happiness, never sorrowful
and nothing meaningful;
everything beautiful, nothing painful.
Princess, that work was masterful -
breaking that, making great things hurtful.
But worse still?
I can’t hate you.
Mar 5, 2010
Mar 5, 2010 at 11:29 AM UTC
Can you hear me
dropping the pin
Can you see
my chagrin
I won't force this
dismiss my provocative nature
Pretend you didn't see
Pretend you couldn't hear
Apr 20, 2014
Apr 20, 2014 at 9:24 AM UTC
You're half a world away and I don't care
I see the true beauty that lies within
I see beauty with you I wish to share
I can't prove my love much to my chagrin
Such a positive force I've never met
God such hope I have not felt in so long
One word comes to mind, one word this kismet
For always it is sure that we belong
I will do anything to prove to you
How beautiful you make this world for me
Without a doubt my love for you is true
Anything less I do not wish to be
Soon enough it does not matter how long
I will hold out for you, I will be strong
Nov 4, 2012
Nov 4, 2012 at 1:46 AM UTC
The curtain opens, and I am lit alone.
Chagrin is my monologue.
On opera balconies, giggling wraiths shield themselves from my humorless improvisation.
Served on a platter, I am on stage, eyes squeezing out precious salt, holding my hands over my red-tipped ears as they still roast from the taunts of my imagination's cruel gossips, who sit, deliberately carving into my breast, intending to cut out my breath. Jabbering, with ***** claws clasping at tarnished silverware.
I stammer and my throat begins to hang itself with a velvet string and cat-gut noose.
I sweat, clothed by the filth of makeup, menstrual blood, and leftover food stains. Palms held up, dramatically surrendering on the condition that mercy be extended, for they have seen my miserable condition and that it is me. The cloying stench of uncertainty and greasy hair envelops me.
I cannot kneel, for the coals on which I stand,
make me suffer more from the pressure.
No water in my heels to soothe this felon.
I cannot provoke or endure, my performance is to be left early. Hume would not grant me fame.
If you have a heart, do not waste ink or time or money on me. I am a clot of blood, clogged in the sink. I will die in a ***** bed and no one will care, not even myself.
I just wish it will be swift and fleeting if it is painful.
Hoping harder, I am not remembered as a miserable girl, the way I am.
So, sing violins, and let me swing for the cannibals.
Feb 26, 2013
Feb 26, 2013 at 8:44 PM UTC
I saw her from a distance
observing quietly
unassuming and innocent.
Not a sound or
even a verbal cue.
A shadow amongst others
fading in the background
quiet and still.
All seeing, all knowing,
yet not seen or known.
She savored solitude, seclusion.
Gazing over, eyes lock.
A prompt stare at her feet.
Slyly, strategically, stealthily,
I make my move
through the mass,
an over populated room
of senseless chatter.
Drawing nearer to the
lovely, lone, lady leaning
against the brick wall,
the ways finally part.
Much to my chagrin,
she’s vanished without
even a faint whisper.
Until we meet again.
Mar 23, 2015
Mar 23, 2015 at 5:00 PM UTC
He's always with my friends,
And I'm always with them,
And I kind of see him every single day.
The funny thing is this,
That I have a secret wish
To see how long—if—he can stay away.
One Sunday he slept late
And boy, I felt great
Knowing he'd miss church with us together
But smiling with chagrin
I saw him back again
When everyone meet up to eat our dinner.
I mentioned it that night
Before he I left his sight,
And he suggested—with us laughing together—
That someday, both of us
Should, without a fuss,
For fun, passively avoid each other.
Today has not been long
But so far I've been strong
And haven't sought him out, or told him so
But I know that tonight
We'll meet again, alright
And once again the count shall be zero.
Dec 8, 2015
Dec 8, 2015 at 3:54 PM UTC