"chalky" poems
There's one thing
I have to tell you.
I can't stop uttering,
anything about you.
Whether its about the midnight rain
and how it describes your voice so well,
or the way you won't stop singing,
till you're satisfied and sewn me to sleep.
If I look at the dark orange spotted afternoon,
or the satin red leaves of autumn.
I'll know its been a while since I've thought
of you.
If I hear the chalky barren concert of concrete,
or the uproar of the arid wind.
I'll have forgotten what your voice
sounds like.
If I feel the reticent tremble of winter,
or the cold bitter piercing destitute bed.
I'll remember why our adulation had
my heart in a headlock.
I cannot give you the world
or my name.
Because I do not own them.
All I can give you is my love and lungs,
that is all that I have and hold.
All I'll ever ask of you is for your voice and love.
You make my head lighter with just
some notes you sing.
Sep 23, 2011
Sep 23, 2011 at 1:09 AM UTC
At school I had trouble socializing,
And still, The Owl, comes all too late?
My formative years are spent deep within caves searching,
Yet The Owl is never found there?
The failures and sadness accumulate over time,
Leaving The Owl traversing some other’s sky,
I feel life slipping away each day,
And still The Owl never manifests!
Where is The Owl? Does it not come with time?
Will cleverness induce her, perhaps woo her with rhyme?
Quell restless mind, The Owl reforge me so I’m freed!
Grant me your talons so that I may succeed!
And still, The Owl, who never manifests,
And still The Owl never manifests.
I curl chalky fingers into travertine-grip,
Aged ruin takes a hold, in my despair as I slip,
Sans which The Owl never did manifest,
To wit, sans The Owl, pounding sand as I jest,
So what, The Owl, never did manifest?
And still The Owl never manifests.
Life without The Owl, was no life at all,
No solemnity of greatness, a life of doltish pit-fall.
And still The Owl never manifests.
And still The Owl never manifests.
Jun 6, 2016
Jun 6, 2016 at 8:02 AM UTC
Saturday.
what a glorious time of week.
laundry hangs on the clothesline,
the ghosts of the week left to dry
as we softly stare out the window, chalky panels
between crusting paint. Attempting to
listen to the silence,
muffled by words, we discussed
a day free of demands, and the boy
in his blue shirt, with his ball.
If I were to wish anything on anyone
it would be a year full of
Saturdays.
Jun 6, 2014
Jun 6, 2014 at 6:35 AM UTC
Wrenches clanging, knuckles banging
A drop of blood
A new part here, and old part… there
A hotrod had been built!
A patchwork, mechanical, quilt
I drove past the banner that said “Welcome Race Fans”
Took a new route, behind the grandstands
And through my chipped window, I thought I could see
Some of the racers were laughing at me
I guess chalky grey primer is not to their taste
But I put my bucks mister in the right place
I chugged-popped past cars that dealers had sold
Swung into a spot, next to something old
Emerging with interest from under his hood
My neighbor said two words, he said “sounds good”
The voice on the loudspeaker tells us we’re up
Pre-staged, staged, then given the green
The line becomes blurred between man and machine
Bones become linkage
Muscle, spring
Fear, excitement
Time distorts ….
Color disappears …
Vision narrows…
Noise --- becomes music
Speed --- satisfaction
May 1, 2017
May 1, 2017 at 11:36 AM UTC
Dusk. I won't paint you another sunset,
another beautiful striped sea; no, not today.
Picture instead a smooth discolored surface
on which a firmly gripped stone was roughly
ground, causing a painful chalky screech; the
misemployed rock left vague yellow scars and
lavender bruises on the horizon; the sun cowers
behind them fearfully, distraught by the undue
violence; this is the sunset I experienced at
your fragrant side, and wondered - not unlike
that astre - what could possibly justify the
yellow, spectral scars in my heart, the bright,
undue violence brought upon my pride, and
the slighted sunset in my soul. This is Dusk.
May 4, 2015
May 4, 2015 at 9:05 PM UTC
America, from a grain
of maize you grew
to crown
with spacious lands
the ocean foam.
A grain of maize was your geography.
From the grain
a green lance rose,
was covered with gold,
to grace the heights
of Peru with its yellow tassels.
But, poet, let
history rest in its shroud;
praise with your lyre
the grain in its granaries:
sing to the simple maize in the kitchen.
First, a fine beard
fluttered in the field
above the tender teeth
of the young ear.
Then the husks parted
and fruitfulness burst its veils
of pale papyrus
that grains of laughter
might fall upon the earth.
To the stone,
in your journey,
you returned.
Not to the terrible stone,
the ******
triangle of Mexican death,
but to the grinding stone,
sacred
stone of your kitchens.
There, milk and matter,
strength-giving, nutritious
cornmeal pulp,
you were worked and patted
by the wondrous hands
of dark-skinned women.
Wherever you fall, maize,
whether into the
splendid *** of partridge, or among
country beans, you light up
the meal and lend it
your virginal flavor.
Oh, to bite into
the steaming ear beside the sea
of distant song and deepest waltz.
To boil you
as your aroma
spreads through
blue sierras.
But is there
no end
to your treasure?
In chalky, barren lands
bordered
by the sea, along
the rocky Chilean coast,
at times
only your radiance
reaches the empty
table of the miner.
Your light, your cornmeal, your hope
pervades America's solitudes,
and to hunger
your lances
are enemy legions.
Within your husks,
like gentle kernels,
our sober provincial
children's hearts were nurtured,
until life began
to shuck us from the ear.
5.1k
A lowly hill which overlooks a flat,
Half sea, half country side;
A flat-shored sea of low-voiced creeping tide
Over a chalky, weedy mat.
A hill of hillocks, flowery and kept green
Round Crosses raised for hope,
With many-tinted sunsets where the slope
Faces the lingering western sheen.
A lowly hope, a height that is but low,
While Time sets solemnly,
While the tide rises of Eternity,
Silent and neither swift nor slow.
4.3k
My dad shouted up that the
Space Lab was passing overhead in
The next few minutes
I put on my adidas and a hoodie
And stood in the snow and mud
Of the front yard trying to find the
Passing station as it traveled past
Hundreds of miles up
It was more excited than I had seen
My father in a long time
And I was glad to be out there with him
We almost missed it
But I caught it in the chalky
Luminescence of the moon
It glided past easily
And my father shouted excitedly
I stared straight up and took all the air
Into my lungs between the passing station
And my body on the ground
Until it was lost
In the sanguine of the night sky
Like my father's excitement
It passed too quickly
And we ventured back inside
To watch TV in separate rooms
Mar 24, 2018
Mar 24, 2018 at 9:40 PM UTC
Oizys, son
From behind the leaves, I saw you, trembling
In your presence, your power strengthening
In the empty, midnight parking lot
While the street lights hummed
And moths danced around your illuminated frame
You turned slowly, onyx eyes of shame
And dirtied bare feet, male hair long and white
The street lights flickered when you blinked and cried bitterly
And I saw, for my first time, the eyes of Misery
Achyls, daughter
You were in an empty field
No premonitions did you wield
An ancient silo in the distance
Leaning over a chasm black lamb
Dark skinned, dressed in black robes
With tribal painted face
Digging earthen fingers into its black lace
When you looked up, I saw your cloudy eyes
Churning of a storm, cataract yet wise
Your lamb had absent vapored eyeballs
The Mist of Death made my skin crawl
Hypnos, son
Secluded in a cave by the sea
A silent, empty place to be
While gray waves crash into jetties
The clouds gather in the distance
Poppies at the mouth changing time in an instance
I go in your palace and rub my cold skin
For pulsing blue glows from deeper within
You, a lanky youth, with thick brown hair and heavy eyes
Sit there with a paper mask
Illuminated by the penetrating glow
In the center, surrounded by whale bones
Humming a song I remember fondly
You trapped me in your Dreams, singing lullabies softly
Eris, daughter
Violates a bedroom with utmost hate
There are paintings of kings and statues of satyrs
Pillows of silk and animals on the walls
Usurping the gold clawed palace
Silent but kicking and throwing with malice
With black skin covered in a chalky white substance
I peek through the crack in the mansion’s door
Lips formed in a silent shout, you notice my presence
Naked and bruised and plagued with no voice
Suddenly stops and lays against a ****** wall
Through your electric black hair
And fiery red stare
I witness a Child of Spite
Woman of Strife
Nyx, mother
I am a crawling shadow of trees
And wicked heart of night
I am the wax on the cold leaves
And the glow of the moon’s light
Apr 30, 2011
Apr 30, 2011 at 7:24 PM UTC
A quaint little bazaar
In the heart of the town
Tells a story
Of a thousand moments
Dal Bazaar as they call it
Or "Curry Market" for others who don't know.
I have fragments of memorable memories
Deep within my mind
The smell
The intoxicating smell of spices
Blended with the quiescent yet cacophonous lives
Of Merchants and Beggars
Of Buyers and Sellers
Of Bullions and a single calloused rupia
In the hands of the old *****
The sunlight baking
Bags of turmeric.
Suspending the scent
In the minds of men.
Capering clouds of black and grey
And the sudden squall
Stirring the monotony
Of the customary.
The pirouette of rain
The one that excites the plainest of the plain
Painting the whitewash with shades of grey
The chalky walls
Dust
Moist corriander
And the relief of earth
Conciliating
So rewarding
For the ruins of the bare sun.
This flashback into my soul
Where all my senses seem to be so awake.
The feel of the wooden veranda
Scent so inexpressible
My eyes devouring the sunset
Tasting the heavens
Hearing it all.
Feeling it all.
Oh the plight of poets
The ritual to end a poem.
Painful.
Aug 16, 2014
Aug 16, 2014 at 3:33 AM UTC
chalky white
or
deep tar black
afternoon quiet
but my head pounds
it could be
steam summer
or
prickly leaves
of autumn
but it never changes
though i hope i do
just as the uncarved block
hopes for an artist
to make it
beautiful
so the rain
and the wind
shape it instead
unless it can learn
to shape itself
Dec 16, 2014
Dec 16, 2014 at 7:56 PM UTC
A nobler king had never breath--
I say it now, and said it then.
Who weds with such is wed till death
And wedded stays in Heaven. Amen.
(And oh, the shirts of linen-lawn,
And all the armor, tagged and tied,
And church on Sundays, dusk and dawn.
And bed a thing to kneel beside!)
The bravest one stood tall above
The rest, and watched me as a light.
I heard and heard them talk of love;
I'd naught to do but think, at night.
The bravest man has littlest brains;
That chalky fool from Astolat
With all her dying and her pains!--
Thank God, I helped him over that.
I found him not unfair to see--
I like a man with peppered hair!
And thus it came about. Ah, me,
Tristram was busied otherwhere....
A nobler king had never breath--
I say it now, and said it then.
Who weds with such is wed till death
And wedded stays in Heaven. Amen.
3.3k
My eyes are slits
As my reflection is not familiar
— with her
But she has my attention
She is smoking from her ears
Her voice trembles
Her lips are thin lines in dry chaps
And her tone is well—
Seriously monotone
Like nails on a chalky stone
It sent violent shivers of discomfort
Up my spine
down again
This body
A zombie
I snapped back to my face of wasted time
She is an escapee from her own death
Her tone crosses me
Like a knife on my bone
In solemn droning
To the girl with bloodshot eyes
Though not from tears
But from bursting inside.
Feb 3, 2019
Feb 3, 2019 at 12:33 AM UTC
In toasting Mike I recollect
His steady watching gaze,
I recollect his calm
On a thousand stormy days.
I recall his jaunty humour
In his funny cockney style,
And the rationale behind it
And the pleasure of his smile.
And the quiet determination
In the steeliness within
And the love that emanated
When his Jules laughed loud with him.
When he held her hand and strolled
In the life they shared as one,
In the racket of the grand kids
As they shout and leap and run.
Through the years of hardy seamanship
From England's chalky reach,
Across the ocean's vastness
To far antipodean beach,
To the soft greens of New Zealand
And the promise of this land
And the shining eyes of Jules
When he offered her his hand.
And the life they shared together
Through the joy, the strain the tears
The utter joy of baby Kristin
And her beauty through the years.
The seamlessness of craftmanship
In tradesman's art supreme
And the pride of his achievement
In a sweet successful dream.
A chasm has appeared in life
Where old Mike used to be.
Dreadfull death has exercised
It's right to set him free.
But I can't feel bad for Micheal
For the brilliance of it all
Is celebration of his life well lived
And my toast to judgement's call.
Marshalg
@theBach
Mangere Bridge
10 January 2010.
Jan 10, 2010
Jan 10, 2010 at 6:51 AM UTC
Sunday morning,
the air froze, the dahlias
once bloomed angry,
now they shiver and sigh.
Autumn breeze, faint but still,
the padded ghost-steps
of your laugh, running wild,
like vintage photographs;
scattered Polaroids of
my memory - a smile here,
a grimace there.
How the heat of
emotions buries itself
in the clothes of yesterday,
How difficult it is to
fetch from the seams.
The needles only *****
at a faint feeling.
I wonder; do you forget me
as winter forgets the living?
Because once an old man
told me I had sad eyes
Sunsets melt to chalky lines,
like cigarette stubs, they died
when you met her.
These days only my fingers
remember summer,
I touch the hearts of others
to warm them too.
My voice wind chimes,
the eulogy of the storm,
when I breath your
name I shudder...
And listen-
because I am in
the echoes
of her, of us.
Feb 19, 2016
Feb 19, 2016 at 11:54 AM UTC
birches and tastsy jerky wood. resin in the immediate shubbary.... and dust and cobwwebs growing adjacent to the jerky wood. Myraid of birds, ranging from small birch-types to crows. A lingering dominant hawk. A giant possum crossing between borders carrying unborn infants. Dusty walls with abandonded spiderwebs- insect carcassases dangling, still. Pool motors revving in every direction lets of a subtle hum that compliments the planes descending and ascending oer-head
the water is grainy yet cool and healing. the sprinklers function at midnight and sometimes on the weekend. Maintinance trucks, expensive commuter vehicals, modest vehicls, unmanned vehicles, arrowhead trucks, macdonalds trucks, safeway trucks....
the earth is still wheaty and chalky adjacent the jerky trees, the jerky trees have little hairs and appetizing off red color, the bark saddles off with grace and with a satisfying tare.
Jul 18, 2018
Jul 18, 2018 at 6:24 PM UTC
Methodically planning
steps
and stretches
Muscles twitch, anticipating
The Climb
Jul 16, 2016
Jul 16, 2016 at 11:02 PM UTC
I woke in the tired bitter morning,
Lying in dew laden grass,
Muscles aching,
Throat dry,
And lips cracked,
We're beautiful but unseen,
Beating out our own sanity,
The walls we built are sculpted in ice,
Ice castles, buried. Blurry.
Clutching at anything our pale, spidery hands can grasp,
Flushed free of hope,
Chalky eyelashes,
Fluttering,
Sending shifts of snowflakes to the ground,
Like raining infinity,
*******
Because it makes you feel lost of horror,
It's a mess, because we're curled up in confusion,
Skin like rain,
A disaster in hibernation,
I swear we are not lost,
Please, we are not lost.
Just wondering
Wondering and wandering
Aug 23, 2013
Aug 23, 2013 at 11:19 AM UTC
O beautiful seashell,
sitting atop my dresser--
whiter than the purest milk,
or untouched snow.
Smooth and chalky,
as if crafted by a potter.
O beautiful seashell,
sitting atop my dresser--
crushed under the weight
of a fallen frame containing
the oldest photo
of my friend and I.
O beautiful seashell,
sitting atop my dresser--
I'm sorry to say you've suffered
from the same fate
as my
friendship...
O beautiful seashell,
sitting atop my dresser--
she shattered us into
dozens of tiny pieces,
and left me as the only fool
bothering to pick them up.
Jul 18, 2015
Jul 18, 2015 at 4:24 PM UTC
IN THE POOL OF THE LOST MAIDEN SONG
1
Down in the shrouded wood a wanderer walks
And dreams the dreamers story he has lived.
Sidled by the stream that sheds blue waters
By the beds, trailing the rail of loves unknown
Kiss and a voice that conjures truest bliss,
Down in the drink where sweet Ophelia sleeps;
In the pool of the lost maiden song.
And the dreamer, he is dreaming . . .
Hair, that ropes the stoic man upon his mount.
Hair, making souls’ lost ending breath a shout,
And hair that weighs the wind, teaches it to sing;
Hair, wending whirlpools waving fools to dive in.
2
Lost at land’s end the sea lions, washed-up, wail
And buzzards coast where eagles flail, rip tides
Assail and chop the collected bones they drop;
It is a chalky bone-yard break, golden escarpments
Wake and a seamen’s salty sermons shake;
Where gathering ghosts glom and chide steeping,
In the pool of the lost maiden song.
And the seeker, he is seeking . . .
Eyes that turn the sands and are mirrors,
Eyes that taught the books of Alexandria,
Eyes that shook the flesh and are seers,
Eyes that lit the pyres, burned true believers.
3
Deep in the dark wood the waters rush, hush,
Cramp, crew and creep, melodiously tread,
Trammel, and burn as furies in keeping true
The melting moon, the onerous owl, fluttering
Things, muttering wings, cones in darkness
Flings and filmy time flicks by the wayside;
In the pool of the lost maiden song.
And the lover, he is longing . . .
Love, lithe and lyric, he sees your sweeping shapes.
Peace, parsed and pained he hears the voicing gape.
Blind, bliss’d and shamed he wears the votive drapes.
Hungered, thirsted and gone; seeks your pearly gate.
4
Out in the forest maze the jarring sun seeps
And swirls, only to roust the traveler onward
Where soon he must meet the faces in the grotto
Down in destroyed lands by the seas’ unreasoning
Chime, deep in the dark whine of the shining mermaids,
Where the doomed cry, round the navel of the world,
In the pool of the lost maiden song.
And the doomed, they are crying . . .
****** beauty bade us, in a star crossed chrysalis,
Made us, choose a desert’s winter of loneliness.
Heed our fate and leave this valley torn of bliss;
The many millions of locust fall in ripest fields.”
Mar 14, 2013
Mar 14, 2013 at 1:26 PM UTC
By midnight shine of streetlight glow,
On streetlight road fell citrus snow:
The chalky streams and powdered tides;
The tangy shores now come alive:
And to ignite the ember'd brook,
A cloudless clime so tender hook'd.
The night of sweet persimmon air,
Of quiet trees in quiet flare,
Instead of cold, white, winter blaze
My sleepless night soak'd auburn haze;
And sleep made be the dreamy flight,
The streetlight road ran just alike.
And this for me the lunar blue?
Some felon crime of citrine hues:
A nameless joy abstracts the heart,
Serene it is and set apart;
On streetlight road I met a truth:
And seamless be its natured proof.
Feb 7, 2021
Feb 7, 2021 at 5:38 PM UTC
And there she was
A rough scab on a smooth perfect knee
With a chalky cigarette between bony fingers
Chipped red painted nails
Matching crimson accenting glossy white walls
She knew she was dreaming
Because of the ****** sun in the middle of the room
Chapped lips crack with scarlet, staining teeth
Surgical gloves reaching out from her beating heart
Held in by pale marked skin
Needles pricking gums, calling upon beads of ruby
Incisors and canines fall out one by one
Heavy tongue tastes gory wine
Indifference and apathy sistering one another
Stitches hold right-handed fingers in permanent crosses
Though an opal ring falls through
The shattering crystal lights the room ablaze
Intangible flames lick the ceiling as it rises and the floor sinks
An ever-expanding room flashing over and over in endless continuity
Like a repeating reel of film catching on fire
And then she was gone
Nov 15, 2022
Nov 15, 2022 at 4:12 PM UTC
Like, the red and blue chalky color of pain,
Their words bled from me.
Then, like, the the sweet and minty taste of happiness,
You cleaned and mended the wound.
Sep 29, 2016
Sep 29, 2016 at 5:03 PM UTC
I again visited my garden of despair
Watered with tears of woes and neglect
And now that the pond of bliss is arid
I once again asked myself
What flowers can thrive on these barrens?
Then I glanced at the blossoms of withered memories
Scattered as wreckage from a landslide
The bushes of harrowing pain I found
Arranged in a line of endless thorny shrubs
Decayed trees bearing the fruit of deceit
Still cast a shadow of contorted lies
I then trod as lightly and slowly as I could
Then plucked a fruit from a rotten tree and got its seeds
And with a chalky smile I hummed a quiet tune
Even in the death of my garden
I saw the promises of healing
As I walked past the rusty trellises and tarnished fences
I welcomed my sanguine memories of perfect and scented blooms
Visions of sun-drenched leaves greeted my anguish with a sliver of silver lining
It doesn’t matter if my garden left me with nothing
What now matters most is here in my hands are seeds of hope
Feb 23, 2019
Feb 23, 2019 at 10:10 AM UTC