"chagrined" poems
Somewhere between the dream of what it could be
and what it wanted to be, this poem hightailed it
out of town. Down the road it went, careening into
hedgerows, jostling small birds from their resting
time. Running for all it's worth, out to the sea cliffs
then arrested, stock still, before all that immensity.
Chagrined by such a rash attempt at escape, even
blushing a bit, it wondered about strange things:
What would it be like to be a badger? To always be
dressed in all those lovely stripes? To never have bad
wardrobe days? Or what about an otter, with such
strong muscles, and an utter delight for swimming?
To never really feel the cold? These are the things a
poem can wonder about, when it isn't quite sure, just
right then, in the present moment, how to be a poem.
Sep 7, 2015
Sep 7, 2015 at 7:26 PM UTC
The Straw Furniture (Summertime and the Living is Easy)
The ancient straw furniture, yellow-white, cracked,
My boon companions from the Sun Room where I write,
Give me a welcome back embrace and purposely snag my sweater,
Crackling a laugh and tween boisterous gasps, all wish me a hearty
Welcome back ancient mariner, to your cottage
On the bluff overlooking Peconic Bay.
The deck furniture exhumed from the garage,
Accompanied by a parade, nay a slew,
Of spiders and insects waving Adieu to their winter palace
Climb aboard to get a better view of their new deck digs,
And of me, the anti-hero of their grandparent's tales.
I go down to the basement.
Chagrined,
I come back up the twisty stairs
which designed, aimed to maim,
vowing never to return.
The refrigerator says do you like modern art?
Mold of multifarious colors, heavenly hues worthy of the
Museum of Modern Art,
I bequeath to you freely, no charge!
The clean laundry left out from last summer,
Looks so forlorn, asks politely,
Make me gone, wash away the winter's dusty grime,
Besides, traces of aged balsamic suntan lotion, still inhabit.
The golf clubs say nice meeting you,
Tho we think we met you once before,
Five or eight years or even never-years ago, was it not?
My obedient servants?
No, my friends, my helpers, my guides,
For in their sheltering embrace, in this holy place,
Inspiration floods, overcomes me and I am compelled alive,
Poet renewed, ****** why am I crying...
May 26th
10:15 AM
Shelter Island
In the Sun Room, weeping.
May 26, 2013
May 26, 2013 at 10:22 AM UTC
this flourishing silence feels more of
a trite hack-job than it is a writing stint.
my fingers (frenzied, brazen) continue to tap
and my mind starts to spill like a spigot
left open. I have taken to smoking and laughing
away
in an obscured day for myself in the parking lot
and sometimes I can do without company; only the snarl
of the well-oiled tractor in front of me.
the days are full of yellow and the Sun is a dog
on a leash. the roses smell of brine and their slender
stems bones of the young.
I can see cheeks flushed with red and skirts
neatly trimmed just above knobby knees
and I know somewhere in that tender flesh,
a man sifts without knowing what it feels to eat
bone before flesh, flesh after bone. my silently augured
procurement of today’s induced comatose is but
a Freudian slip – the world with its burly physique
is a chauvinistic man
drinking whisky in the red light district of hazy Makati.
each slapdash word in penitent reprisal
is the moment’s clearest reprieve. I am glad that this room
is darker than the eyes of the love I have lost
staring back with a mound of the abysmal or the yearnings
of a chagrined mother startled back to her home;
it must be dreamy, the dogs outside pant in heat
and the obnoxious *** of vehicles outside bears the cadence
of two people starting to fall in love: all chaotic and unmoving,
fastened to the Earth, aware of the passing minutes,
wishing to be somewhere else but there.
Jan 16, 2016
Jan 16, 2016 at 1:34 AM UTC
I want to be fluid, I want to be smooth
With the ability to soothe
Be like the waters
With seashell daughters
Of streams and brooks and rain
Always tender, always humble, never vain
Yet still ruling with sovereign reign
Nothing should ever be able to stop me
Nothing can stop the ocean or the sea
Not even time
I want to be huge, I want to be sublime
Never hurt, never chagrined
I want to have no fear of the wind
And even less of the heat or the cold
I want to shimmer with gold
When the sun sets
Away from mortal things like hate or regrets
I want to learn to sing like water
Without ever wearying, tiring,
Wheezing or expiring
I want to be the water
When it hums to the night
Chants to the stars bright
Stroking the sand
I want to be water never bland
I want to be the water that glorifies
Which runs, which plays, purifies
Which is sweet and pure, untainted, unattainable
I want to be the water mysterious and unexplainable
I want to be the water when it unfolds
When it holds
The seaweed with maiden hands
I want to be the water when it expands
Dances, sways, flows,
Diverted from the abyss
May 9, 2013
May 9, 2013 at 1:10 AM UTC
Such a tedious thing,
I sense our existence appears.
For my chest to breech to the sky,
A tightened blossom of whipping purity.
Then to sink towards such a vicarious engulfment of hell.
With each palpitating symposium,
My lungs waver.
To crust over,
and bless the,
upon gilded guffaws.
Perturbed of my ascension.
Or shall they sink,
Sallow under chagrined blasphemy,
My horridness inked upon
parchment seasoned skin.
Not but,
a child of bitter consideration.
I shall butter myself in ashes,
just to perceive myself a shadow.
For at dusk's beckon,
perturbed; to kiss the constellations.
Blemishes I conjured,
beneath a quavering lip,
a gentle crease of my nose.
I silence their whimpering of wrongdoings,
which I have failed to rupture.
To exhale,
in such a bubbling manner.
It gurgles at my lips.
Dribbles before me,
Whilst the sun blinks back a yawn.
Yet, upon a lunar serenade,
the talons which protrude from my veins,
writhes gruesome.
To my supposed
talents,
I see no anchor.
From them, to what lay before me.
To where I shall drift.
And good sir,
label my simplistic existence,
if you must.
Yet I shall soon die,
and so, you will too.
And by that flicker of seconds,
we should matter no more.
Dec 3, 2013
Dec 3, 2013 at 8:59 PM UTC
Answer me
by Nat Lipstadt
Why are the children
if not hurting themselves,
so busy hurting others?
I know hurt in ways you cannot fathom,
And I rise up daily with a but a single quest:
Banish the hurt, expel the hurters,
And practice the one true faith:
Kindness and Grace.
Sometimes the madness I read, too much, too much,
And I walk away and store my poems in another place.
But I am reminded,
There is no such thing as too kind,
So I wander back,
Chagrined and Chastened,
Hoping one among you
Will help to raise up
Me.
The Rebuttal
Ask me now to fight your war and I shall vanquish legions vast
Call that I, a mountain scale and I shall conquer summit fast.
Command me firmly, forth to go and I shall strive as best I can
But call me to administrate and I will call you fool, be ******
Thus some have talent to be red and some attend to hues of green
But few have skills of rainbow shade, few, at least, that I have seen.
Some wear fear upon their smile others writhe with minds that burn,
They wallow deep in misery, whilst others stop to see and learn.
Some are black and some are white, for most the favoured shade is grey....
Roar ye might for judgement's fall, but futile friend... as death's delay.
Aug 19, 2013
Aug 19, 2013 at 2:34 AM UTC
Phenomenal woman
You don't abide by the laws of gravity
You have defied the dogma and exceeded your horizons
You are a mention of love, peace and sincerity
You are my greatest gift
You have turned my scars into beauty marks
You have shattered bridges that would bring me to my shame
Endured my bickering and shaped me for the future
With you around I didn't have to be the chagrined child
I didn't have to battle my insecurities
You taught me that mistakes are made by every human being
You taught me I could learn from mine
And seek righteously
See i haven't reached my pedestal
Because to me you have always been my idol
Happy women's day
Mar 8, 2022
Mar 8, 2022 at 4:20 AM UTC
Bill loaded the truck with hard red winter wheat
One night so as to beat the scales at morning light.
Before sun up, he kissed Margie on the cheek
And roared out of the yard,
Overload springs sagging,
Engine fierce, but groaning,
Toward the town.
Two miles out,
The scale light said "Open,"
Giving Bill a momentary chill.
Shifting down, he exited
Before arriving Scale Hill.
A gravel detour waited
To take him on the long way 'round
And bring him back the other side of town.
Most situations similar
Go from bad to worse.
The truck eased down into a swale.
Beneath the surface gravel,
A bed of soggy clay
****** down the wheels
And stopped the farmer's way.
The creaking truck began to settle,
Testing Bill and
Leaving him chagrined
As the Transportation Deputy
Drove up to see the mess.
"Looks like you need a pull!"
What could Bill say?
And so he took the offer,
Then followed flashing lights
Back to the scale, and paid
A hefty fee to compensate
For being cheap too early
And learning much too late.
Jan 28, 2012
Jan 28, 2012 at 3:25 PM UTC
Upon entering the orchestra pit to take my
chair, I noticed someone else was sitting there.
My ressentiment was without notes;
therefore, I was unable to emote.
With my head hanging down,
I felt chagrined because no one
would allow me in.
Up the dark streets I began to walk,
pondering my dreary thoughts.
What had happened to cause this rift?
Perhaps I never possessed a gift.
The playing of the music was sublime
but maybe it was just imagined
in my mind.
It's very quiet and lonely on ths block
except for the ticking of a clock.
The time has come for me to step outside
the fray and determine if there is value
in what I have to say.
Sep 26, 2013
Sep 26, 2013 at 12:52 PM UTC
So, it was a dark and stormy night and
Father Larry O’Flannigan
Was feeling excited as he
Maneuvered the rainy streets with
Five extra-large cheese pizzas
Elated and happy because
Teenage catechism class
Had gone so swimmingly well
He wanted to reward them
Hence the crusty comestibles
Crossing 10th and Vine
Rain pelting cars and pedestrians
He slipped and tripped
Pandemonium of pizza boxes
Pell-mell into puddles
The chagrined good father
In an unsettled state
Hurt, wet, disheveled,
Exclaims:
“Jesus Christ! God Almighty!"
A pious passerby exclaims
(An older lady dressed for rain)
“Father! Please! Language!”
The sheepish priest sputters:
“Em, cheese and crust got all muddy…?”
Mar 1, 2019
Mar 1, 2019 at 11:48 PM UTC
Why are the children
if not hurting themselves,
so busy hurting others?
I know hurt in ways you cannot fathom,
And I rise up daily with a but a single quest:
Banish the hurt, expel the hurters,
And practice the one true faith:
Kindness and Grace.
Sometimes the madness I read, too much, too much,
And I walk away and store my poems in another place.
But I am reminded,
There is no such thing as too kind,
So I wander back,
Chagrined and Chastened,
Hoping one among you
Will help to raise up
Me.
Aug 18, 2013
Aug 18, 2013 at 11:00 PM UTC
A dark visage expressed
In jest,
But rejected and chagrined.
Unable to conceive a rescind
Of the psychosis
Precipitated in youth by a subtle hypnosis.
A dogmatic view,
Unable to break through
This vision
Of correct cognition
Instilled in all to prevent remission
Of the human condition.
Nov 4, 2014
Nov 4, 2014 at 4:13 PM UTC
you will only look for which road i have
passed, with girth of oceans startled
to hip-curve, bow-legged darling
hiding behind pretense of rose frailty.
when words ripen, they fall.
from vaudeville of fools to silence
in all its exactness, i take my place
amongst people in stations, machines
adorning rotundas, courtyards to a flourish of twilight-bells, the men with retinas spry behind cloaks of smoke—
plain, **** drunkenness assaults
the billion-blooded sea, each line fraught
with inebriation: a god is borrowed with
what light fruits from a slow nature, quick
to burst and torturously maimed in stride.
fated to arrive at one morning —
being in total placeness and making merry
once again, the dreary face waiting at
the portico of days collected.
when these words start to wind-hover,
a string of birds will appear clearer,
mounting umbilicus of lines.
as in hounds shear the metastasizing dark,
going back to chagrined kens,
i make truth out of the tragedy:
trace the source of this stream and find
my trampled body, floating with
the sandalwood. when the still, clenched hand clock-punches,
make real the insignia of my arrival:
words start with limbs to cross
this scalped Earth which moves suddenly naked, leaning in, gropes you
in stillness, resuscitating the moon from
the working of insolvencies we rear
in derelicts of days.
drags it closely to ends — left trundling
in woe's wearisome vessel. and if in
this newly thatched home it screams,
let this voice deftly shred
so i may once more lie straight to your
half-illuminated faces, a call i
only hear.
Dec 4, 2015
Dec 4, 2015 at 10:02 PM UTC
Today I saw a photo of you
Holding a little puppy and smiling
And your hands were in its fur and I looked a second too long at them
And I found myself thinking how much I love your palms
And the creases in them
And how soft your fingertips are
And how you are one of the only people
With hands smaller than mine
Small and perfect and smooth, like a child's.
And the force of how much I love you
Crept up behind those thoughts
And crashed through in a wave
And I looked away, chagrined,
Embarrassed to have such beautiful thoughts
About somebody who won't even speak to me.
Jan 16, 2015
Jan 16, 2015 at 8:51 PM UTC
🌹 🌹 🌹 🌹 🌹 🌹
mighty hills on both sides
the haughty river dancing jovially
the sight made my heart tremble
like an anxious bride-to-be…
melting frost and snow
began to slowly hypnotize
my wild wild heart
and this chagrined mind…
amidst cloud-kissing peaks
and pines so sky-high
I forgot how lonely I was
despite no soul in sight…
my heart grew fertile
rosy dreams galore
I felt like a new person
on a frozen wintry road…
🌹 🌹 🌹 🌹 🌹 🌹
#badbookthiefpoetry
Apr 6, 2020
Apr 6, 2020 at 6:14 AM UTC
The man I met, short of height
was lightly built, with pale skin.
He was covered in dripping sores
As if to vent the ill within.
He was decayed to the core;
it had worn his frame thin.
"Hello, my friend," his mouth extruded,
Saliva flowed upon his chin.
"I have no want," I replied,
"For a beast so full of sin,
that his body has surely died,
long before him."
His brutish face contorted
and he looked as if chagrined.
"Don't let your eyes deceive you,
I believe you won't again,
once you've tasted of the power
Of Rumpelstiltskin."
At this, I knew for sure,
If I fought, I would not win,
So I listened, and I thought,
That I felt frost upon the wind.
Oct 30, 2017
Oct 30, 2017 at 4:17 AM UTC
"That's the right word,"
I say to myself,
Writing the next line.
Before I can finish,
My thoughts are interrupted
By my boss's yelling.
"Come on," he calls.
"You've gotten your fix.
Now back to work."
My head ****** up,
My scribbling hand stilled.
The boss's words smart,
But I must work
If I'm to eat.
Back to routine's kingdom
I voyage, utterly chagrined.
Memories of my escape
Join the mist's evanescence.
Like the treacherous ocean,
I am always running,
But forever fated to
Return to the shore.
The dictates of duty
Govern my restrained passion.
And thus, I yearn
For escaping through words.
To put it succinctly,
Mundane reality is terminal,
It will **** your soul.
Art is the soul's
First and best defense,
Whether words or pictures,
They represent your soul,
Fighting for its survival.
Survival in the escape.
Answer this for me:
Having just once escaped,
Why would you even
Want to come back?
Dec 8, 2015
Dec 8, 2015 at 9:20 PM UTC
{tale of the mouse famous long ago}
Little me said to big me: You may
Be Big but i am the One who first
Imagined you-you really are but a
Small part of me. Big me grinned
Like a cheshire cat and said: You,
You imagined me! Now that is a
Joke. You aren" worth a purr back
A small bite and showed him his big
Teeth like a king looking at a cat.
But I was not chagrined but said if
You will please step aside I can open
A tin of your favorite fish, what will it
Be tuna or
salmon what ever you say
He sniffed the air as if uncertain and
I not to be out done said say what you
Will I am your servant but the choice
Is mine to believe what I believe... and
You are my beloved cat,my Jezabel;
And low she purred for little me so the
End came to our meaningless dispute.
Jun 28, 2017
Jun 28, 2017 at 10:33 AM UTC
Away into the future in days we don’t know
Lived a girl with her dear mother’s wife
And abandoned traditions of decades ago
Made no impact on their joinéd life
The profane was normal and it was expected
That gender give no weight to love
And long dead protesters long since had defected
Though they lose peace long sought from above
But this girl was among those chagrined by their fate
Doomed to carouse in shades of grey
For no matter the forward evolution’ry prate
This upon her good conscience would weigh:
She cared not for caresses of sexes together
But feigned the feeling for fear of misuse
Resignéd to normalcy’s smothering tether
For her one-sided view was to others obtuse
They did not comprehend that her dead eyes did gaze
Upon silhouette man for whom her slow heart beat
And sat quietly she for a number of days
With contemplative question, enamor discreet
‘Till her lips formed the answer with truth late in coming
With sentences all but forbidden
Breaking the chains of society’s numbing
Sympathies quoted unhinged, unhidden
A love once forbidden by color of skin
A love once forsaken for money or pleasure
No more to be bound by the horror of sin
She opened to her mouth to declare without measure:
Affection is lessened by norm that encumbers
To love someone mirroring their ways with thine
It may disgrace you that I do not count in your numbers
I’m in love with a differing gender from mine
And lo that day not a jest was utter’d
To the maiden now soaring with spirit unshuttered.
Mar 27, 2015
Mar 27, 2015 at 1:54 PM UTC
Trellis twines and weeds unthrift, fruit hangs heavy, boughs low
I sense the power in those moves
Are you by the gate?
Full of dust and dried hands, whole day on the feet, shaking so
Sharp twinges in the back of calves
Are you by the gate?
Graying sulk, brand new phase seeks you every day, chagrined
My nerves full of you, futile dream
Never thought conjured.
Jan 19, 2015
Jan 19, 2015 at 5:22 PM UTC
Once there was this little tree
Whose soul was completely free
Branches like willful souls
Fill them in tropical bowls
Whisked onto a sea of pristine canopies
The world itself slowly atrophies
Every word itself an apostrophe
Not even trying to avoid a catastrophe
Wondrous flights shape the continuum
Swallowing speech by disarticulating consonants
What will be the clouds departure
To see that the rain falls through the aperture
Come to see the creations so dexterous
With a resonant jewel in their necklace
Underplaying the quickness of the wind
Just with a dash of feeling chagrined
Aug 29, 2019
Aug 29, 2019 at 9:51 PM UTC
Breitabart was permitted entry of course, you know
'Expel All Muslims' Breitbart, & CNN NYT, & LAT were all
held back by some panting freshly-minted Republican staffer & had
to wait all shocked & chagrined at the closed door as one blank dead
eyed maniacally grinning young newly promoted Lieutenant Miller and
one bull-heavy Bannon strutted like obscene vulture marionettes in their favourite special-wear searingly shiny knee-high Wehrmacht boots which had just been licked mirror clean & furiously polished with their very sweat by a heaving gaggle of simpering craven Republican lackeys who had come comically dancing & prancing when summoned from the floor of the so-called People's House with a "yes sir, no sir ... what can I do next sir" to grease the skids on the Fascist Express with the their very blood & the tears of the innocents gathered so fresh that very dawn with no stops till the sun rises on your New World.
.... oh yes indeed.
Feb 27, 2017
Feb 27, 2017 at 11:48 PM UTC
There is a smile
Slightly chagrined
Light red grin
Adding clear lake reflections
Of soft water sorrow
Existing on the verge of
Partially forgotten loves
Chapped lips partly parted
Nearly whispering
Almost trembling
With the pain of
Remembering
Night clears the fog
Dulls the deadman’s drums
Slows the engines hums
Bidding all old thoughts
Enter anew slightly renewed
Some pleasurable
Others come unwelcomed
Specifics exist
But abstractions
Are better fits
Vagaries are safer
Smiles grow smaller
Tightening till
Their terrible weight
Explodes and dissolves
Jan 28, 2016
Jan 28, 2016 at 4:22 PM UTC
beard, ashen grey, swept by the winds
of years and centuries, aeons gone by,
misunderstood, forever chagrined
by the earth and the men and the sea and the sky
on staff he leans, weighed down by sins
of the heart and the mind and the hand and the hip
wild hair and locks bellowed by winds,
white shredded sails on wreck'd mast of ship
he'd put down his scythe, his sickle and reaper
bought a break as death's doorkeeper
but the hubris of world dictator
bade him grasp the detonator
soon swarms of poppies blood-red
scarlet and pink as tired sunset
angry as the blood of maidens
blushing as illicit bedspread
scattered as myriad bloodshot eyes,
of mothers mourning as child dies,
as gore spurting in the skies
as brothers shot amid war-cries
ploughed the fields with hearts that bled
plagued burnt hills as barrows of dead
mutilated, youth-abated,
limbs of lives amputated
the squeal of babe, the cry of lamb,
crushed as raspberries in a jam
mulched the fields in pants o' breath
****** by masters of their death
for death now trampled underfoot
the innocent boys, girls and babies
turned their skin to gunpowder soot
ravaged their limbs with famine 'n tabes
ash and hail, desolation,
earth reeling from stagnation
sent death pleading for abation
from the lord of creation
but 'twas nowhere to be seen
not in the heavens with his queen
nor in the throne-room overseeing
for he is forever the elusive being
now hiding from celestial choir
now living in eternal fire
now head burning in funeral pyre
at one with souls as they transpire
as the madness and the envy
mad desire, lust and frenzy,
continue, continue, unabated
till all consumes, as is fated.
broken, bent, o'er his staff,
bent over countries in bloodbath,
o'er the bodies rent in half,
o'er waste of human wrath
over the greed that never ends
never pays dividends
devours 'n divides family 'n friends,
itself consumes, in the end.
Feb 22, 2022
Feb 22, 2022 at 5:57 AM UTC
I grew up in a tree and believed it to be,
safe as the branches enclosed around me.
On strings of breeze God may pull as he please,
the life over leaves dances with ease.
But when I watched by bees and birds as they fly,
my limbs chagrined as branches down wind.
Unaware before, I then yearned for more,
now feeling bound to my link in the ground.
Shifting my gaze, grip turned to graze
as my eyes slid down to the trunk I had found.
What could it be that afforded safety
as I sat above graves among the leaves and the aves?
Was I anchored by tombs no man can exhume,
or was this decay the cause for trees' sway?
To the mound I fell by gravity compelled,
but when I did peel at what earth had concealed
I found vines much stronger than ivy.
Now posture is prayer so I look to the air,
thanking the roots for taking such care.
But before I feed fibers completing the rhyme,
I must find time for the trees I will climb.
Feb 28, 2020
Feb 28, 2020 at 12:23 PM UTC