"childlike" poems
smuggled in for a lucrative trade
beaten, bartered
broken in, until i obey
i used to be childlike
innocent and safe
now i’m someone else's treasure
a strangers pleasure
smothered in shame.
Mar 22, 2015
Mar 22, 2015 at 4:34 PM UTC
Time sails around us,
leaving the present left to rust.
All my love is written below the earth
and spaces between the stars,
in the oldest language.
And we lay on our backs
crushing the grass.
You told me to wait,
but I can't wait forever.
so you said, "come along and travel
among these childlike places with me."
I said I'd follow you as far as to the moon's oldest side.
And then all at once, I'm a child again.
A child who would waste their time playing
in the naked creeks and thought of the unthinkables.
I was always trying to find my way to you
yet I was never scared of getting lost
for I followed the stars you mapped out for me
on the back of an old construction paper
that you scribbled across with stardust.
And on the night of the blue moon
I found you on a piece of paper
written 70 years ago.
you wrote to me telling me to always
keep looking and wait patiently
for the days that are to come.
and wait I did.
Jul 25, 2013
Jul 25, 2013 at 11:41 AM UTC
The form in which we live our lives
Breeds in the midst of demon hives.
For dogs do bark in senseless fright
At shadows lurking in the night,
And souls shiver at that unseen;
Cathartic reasons not to dream.
Voices whisper ideas, faux truths,
That knowledge has no valid use.
And when we hear, we do obey
The voice that blocks the light of day.
Lamplight dances against cave walls
And childlike wonder slowly falls.
Pavlov shakes his head in sadness,
For we, indeed, are his madness.
And Plato weeps within his cage
For all his truths leave him in rage.
Is all that we can ever see
Vague words that tell us not to be?
Nov 15, 2012
Nov 15, 2012 at 3:10 PM UTC
Today, the words came to me
Wrapped in their exclusive finery
Ready to take me with them
On a tour of the unknown alleys
Of my heart, not visited by me
Each word is a guide, leading me
Towards the core of gratitude
Being an avid traveler
I was yet to take this journey
With childlike glee I read each word
Feelings which lay unexpressed
Were touched by the magic message
Like each new day brings fresh hope
Each word spoke with such grace
The roots of joy are rejuvenated
And springs to blossom eternally
To greet me with varied colors
Of happiness, gratitude and hope
Living each day in wonder
Soft morning light ushers new day
Gratitude in my prayer
Before I start a brand new day
Oct 10, 2014
Oct 10, 2014 at 9:04 AM UTC
Who is she? I do not know.
Inhuman. She tangles my mind like no other.
One look, she glances over your soul
With her pale hues and feline eyes,
I have been baffled with her tight grasp.
Celestial. Confusing. Crafty. Cold.
That she is,
She has casted a spell on me,
That can only be broken by her.
Who is she?
Puzzled. I have been,
A witch? Could it be?
Her voice is melodiously venomous,
I have been mesmerized,
She has clung to my soul.
A distinguished walk,
The childlike enthusiasm,
An enigmatic character,
Her signals are vague,
She is full of anonymity.
Marked with beauty, a mask hides her personality
The possessor of the key to my heart,
She is a mystery.
Dec 26, 2014
Dec 26, 2014 at 2:48 PM UTC
Her face is wrapped in snakes
Her skin shingles of mud
and when the rooster crows
she comes to save her blood.
The loss of childlike purity
it was never hers to lose.
Chained to the bed
wishing to be dead
but the man must always choose.
Apr 23, 2014
Apr 23, 2014 at 4:43 PM UTC
.
*So here I am once more, in the playground of the broken hearts.
One more experience, one more entry in a diary self-penned.
Yet another emotional suicide,
overdosed on sentiment and pride.
To late to say I love you, to late to re-stage the play.
Abandoning the relics in my playground of yesterday'.*
The first words you killed me with.
The first Script to make me cry.
The opening song on a plate of sorrow.
The opening sight of my Poets eye.
Your words soaked my childlike mind
as I lost on the roundabouts and swings.
The Jester stands with violin and quill,
composing tears on his broken strings.
I sat and chewed those daffodils
and I still struggle to answer why.
I grew up and left that playground
but its the place where my heart died.
So I never did write that love song,
My words just never seemed to flow.
The martyrs twisted smile haunts me,
my Harlequins head dreams in sorrow.
The game is over.
The game is over.
© Pagan Paul (22/05/17)
May 22, 2017
May 22, 2017 at 1:14 PM UTC
the happy hearts,
the broken hearts,
the sparkling hearts,
the hurting hearts,
the tearful hearts,
the lost hearts,
The confusing hearts
the beating hearts,
the silent hearts,
the tearful hearts,
The sad hearts,
the blessed hearts,
the blooming hearts,
the childlike hearts,
the old soul hearts,
the dreamy hearts,
the beautiful hearts,
The poetic hearts,
No matter the journey
Through thick and thin
as long as we are together,
we are not alone
The game is never over
Rise with grace
And win the race ❤️
May 28, 2023
May 28, 2023 at 2:36 PM UTC
Forest inquires:
How do you decide, choose your design, find its guise,
give it a face, surrender to the poem's own
vanity,
and choose the poem's alignment?
an answer forms:
this alignment idea,
you think it simple,
everybody understands
what your inquiry means
alignment - the appropriate relative position
we live in relative position to each other, our poems too, for they are but written synapses of our close captioned interactions, seemingly random, but assuredly not, as we invest in ourselves, seeking the mysterious appropriate answer
from the Theory of Poetic Relativity
i love your question; hold it to my nostrils,
smell the coffee aroma wake up blast inherent;
kiss its robust childlike cheeks for the simple soulfulness essential arousal;
for you see sir you have found
the appropriate position that relates us, our mindful words;
answer no good, wholly insufficient?
perfect.
as i close this quick cooked to perfection laboratory solution, take note
the earth has moved
our hearts have beaten a measly thousand times
time and space have appropriated our prior
relativity
when you return years hence this poem's shape will perforce have moved. for words are weathered flux constant and yet inherently unchanged except for the part of us that changes with every re-reading
and what was
right before has left and the center has moved again
Mar 12, 2017
Mar 12, 2017 at 9:25 AM UTC
Les sentiments qui nagent dans ma tête
Après t’avoir regardé dans les yeux
(Quand je me sens capable de ce fait) -
Remplissent mon cœur de fébrilité
Trop exposant pour s’exprimer dans ma langue maternelle.
Mes choix de mots et les expressions enfantines
Reflètent mes sentiments -
Maladroits mais purs;
Nerveux mais calmes.
Sécurité et vulnérabilité entrelacées
comme nos mains
——
The feelings that swim in my head
After I meet your gaze
(When I feel capable of doing so) -
Fill my heart with restless excitement
Too exposing to express in my native tongue.
My choice of words and childlike expression
Mirror my emotions -
Awkward but pure;
Nervous but calm.
Security and vulnerability interlaced
Like our hands.
Oct 20, 2022
Oct 20, 2022 at 6:22 PM UTC
There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried. Not for nothing one face, one character, one fact, makes much impression on him, and another none. This sculpture in the memory is not without preestablished harmony. The eye was placed where one ray should fall, that it might testify of that particular ray. We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents. It may be safely trusted as proportionate and of good issues, so it be faithfully imparted, but God will not have his work made manifest by cowards. A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best; but what he has said or done otherwise, shall give him no peace. It is a deliverance which does not deliver. In the attempt his genius deserts him; no muse befriends; no invention, no hope.
Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events. Great men have always done so, and confided themselves childlike to the genius of their age, betraying their perception that the absolutely trustworthy was seated at their heart, working through their hands, predominating in all their being. And we are now men, and must accept in the highest mind the same transcendent destiny; and not minors and invalids in a protected corner, not cowards fleeing before a revolution, but guides, redeemers, and benefactors, obeying the Almighty effort, and advancing on Chaos and the Dark.
Sep 21, 2014
Sep 21, 2014 at 2:08 PM UTC
I gave the hero of this story trust
issues. So that when his castle fell he
wouldn't worry about the damsel still
calling from the ramparts, where I hold court
in the dust. For this is my battlefield
where the headstones will read like love letters
and the weeds will serve as the royal seal.
I gave the hero of this story hope
a magic bean and two old china cups.
But the china, brittle, the bean rotten
as these once fertile lands lie waterlogged.
You can't grow your crops here, boy, go home.
I'll drown this hero before he can stand
the sight of the muddy bank. A hero's death.
I gave the hero of this story bread
water, and melody. To help him sleep
soundly and noiselessly, still. Arms, pillows
sway to the metronome of the city
beating such a heroic retreat. Stand
with fingers touching, childlike and brave.
Until the next wave comes and holds. It breaks.
Jan 4, 2010
Jan 4, 2010 at 10:34 AM UTC
Mahatma Gandhi
Young visitors in a gallery,
Stood before a portrait of Gandhiji,
Charmed by his toothless smile,
Eyes sparkling through glasses round
And an old watch dangling from his waist,
With his chest bare and a **** cloth
Covering his lean , frail frame.
While they wondered how the good old man
Could shake the mighty British empire
And fight without weapons of destruction,
They were thrilled to behold a vision rare -
The smiling Gandhi emerged from the frame,
Saying that his weapons were invisible,
Yet, they could vanquish the most powerful
Without hatred and shedding no blood!
His loving voice and childlike smile
Combined with an unbending will,
Wielding the power of truth and nonviolence
Could conquer his mighty ruthless foes
And turn them into everloving friends!.
Feeling amazed, the visitors stared
At the Mahatma moving back into the frame;
Begged him to remain and lead them again.
"My countrymen," he said "seem to have forgotten,
" The bloodshed and horror of partition.
"Terrorists and fanatics **** and burn
" And innocent victims feel miserable and forlorn.
"Twice a year, on my 'samaadhi', flowers are strewn,
" While helpless millions struggle and groan.
"In these days of endless greed and senseless crime, "
"Guided missiles and misguided men,
" My words seem to have no relevance,
"Yet, if they listen to their own conscience,
" Give up greed and serve with compassion,
"The India of my dreams will arrive soon."
Sad and surprised, the visitors stared:
Though the figure vanished, his words inspired
And they resolved to follow his noble ways
And strive for the welfare of all mankind.
********* M.G.Narasimha Murthy
Hyderabad, India. [email protected]
Nov 25, 2015
Nov 25, 2015 at 8:16 AM UTC
A pale homemade dress hung to dry in the blazing sun;
It's original color not quite clear but presumably purple.
That stain that never faded, a spot of innocence...
I closed my eyes and remembered the night she wore it,
Childlike with that smile of hers.
He threw promises of love and eternal bliss;
She believed his words and followed him to the train-yard.
An invisible moon hovered over them as they entered
An old rusted cart, abandoned for years and years.
He didn't bother taking her dress off,
She couldn't wait to feel loved.
Right there beneath a dark sky, a man stole a girl's innocence.
But how can love find it's way through the Cairo Slums?
Where human lay on top of another, like cracked bricks;
They bleed.
A grayish sleeveless undershirt hung to dry in the blazing sun,
It's original color not quite clear but presumably white.
That rip that was never mended, a tear of hope...
I closed my eyes and remembered that morning he wore it,
As he maneuvered through downtown traffic
Trying to make easy money, as ordered by his jobless father.
A child of seven or eight running around with beads of
Sweat rolling down his tiny face.
Mr. Policeman grabbed him by his shirt, slapped him around,
Beat him to the ground for approaching Mrs. Businesswoman in
Her air-conditioned car.
But how can this child find hope for the future in the Cairo Slums?
Where human lay on top of another, like cracked bricks;
They bleed.
Let me take you down to the Cairo Slums,
Where people are animals in their nests
Of carton-paper, waiting for the big bad wolf,
To huff and to puff and to blow their lives away.
But soon you'll realize that evil's not born but raised,
That hate is brewed, and money is everything.
Let us disregard this urban jungle under a glass jar,
Let us use them for advertising or marketing our products,
Products they could never afford.
O' what irony, what strife.
The girl and the child never had a chance,
but they deserve one.
They bleed.
They bleed.
So without further a adieu,
Welcome to the Cairo Slums.
Oct 25, 2011
Oct 25, 2011 at 12:21 PM UTC
A young girl growing up
must always remember
her inner child.
Her inner child lies deep within
waiting to come out and play
help her shed her grown-up skin for a day.
A woman needs to laugh
find her playful self
longing to come back into the playground.
When times are challenging
she must look deep within
her inner child will always be there.
Her inner child will always welcome her back
to those magic gateways of childlike wonder
sometimes forgotten.
Her inner child can take her hand
help her find her path when she is lost
give her guidance along the way.
Her inner child waits in dreams
on all womanly highways
the roads leading her back to herself.
© 2014 Stacey Handler
Mar 15, 2014
Mar 15, 2014 at 9:13 PM UTC
It is
And it's changing
The wind into summer shower
Into mushrooms and birds mouth
From river to the sewer
It is and it's changing
From dark to light to dim with
Speckles of sun born by the
Mirror in you childlike hand
You are catching dust bunnies
Sneezing and laughing
And the dirt could be followed by magic
And the kiss isn't greased by the notion
Of sin and the sin is only a word from the book
Death and insanity
Are frightening and profound
Your world is built from
No buts but ands
And they flow into peace
Just as well as the film of oil
On the ***** puddle
Astonishes you with
An iridescent rainbow
Duality is born by fear
You split and separate so
Caught up in the survival game
To keep that face and partake
Of wealth and fame
Empty is locked in the dungeon
And the words interlock
In plain patterns
Yet alive as they produce sounds
And the smell of tangerines
On a tree by the coast of Sicily
Reminds you of the day
When you could still enjoy
The warmth of sun
It absorbed into its juicy flesh
And there's no need to run
No need to stay
No need to cut off the ties
When life offers you more
And the heat and cold are feelings
That gets names as they replace each other
As they flow unstoppable
Dripping reactions
Burning like acid and smooth like milk
All in one glass
And when you have no thoughts
Ask questions
And when you feel the pain
Stay present and consider humanity
May 28, 2017
May 28, 2017 at 9:43 AM UTC
ya throw fits at the mall
speak in a childlike voice
i hear delicacy in your dialect
but it's optimism, imagination
on my part, trepidation and mistaken
ya throw tantrums, spilled coffee
deforestation in my thought-tree
skinny love, drained in sinks
listening to that song
ya don't dig a whole lot
about him
but you drive your
pink nails in the sheets
it's probably why i can't escape you
Oct 25, 2018
Oct 25, 2018 at 1:46 AM UTC
∙∙∙◦◦•◎•◦◦∙∙∙
A soul welcoming spring,
the heart of autumn.
Gentle leaves flailing, A scene of pictures falling.
Rapture of one's old past,
but rain was out of site.
The roads were a barren land, as birds did not sing.
As days were meek of the night,
though I was aware:
My seeking heart desires, seasons through the eyes.
Sweeping a material dream,
fading out of sight.
Till it came to life,
suspending what bridled me.
And everything changed, a future beyond the wall.
Luminous summer:
vigor upon meadow fields.
Her daffodils blooming, heat of the breeze within.
Written on the wind,
the scarlet tied between our lines.
Transcending all is well, an image of a childlike faith.
My ought to trust and wait,
for now, I'm brave enough to tell.
May 4, 2018
May 4, 2018 at 9:22 PM UTC
I do not attempt to justify my existence-
I get whimsy over the things that I find.
It must be the flickering of my bedside light,
my dreams of dancing under the pale moonlight
(my sanity in the precipice of my mind)
You tell me about the frivolity of human life
I'd be inclined to agree,
if it weren't for the fact that
you went under the knife
and chose to remain oblivious
rather than putting up a fight
(my sanity in the precipice of my mind)
See, I once had dreams of becoming a lover
Of life, of chance, and of a higher being
In the belief that I'd find a purpose
greater than the gnawing emptiness that
resides in me
(my sanity in the precipice of my mind)
But some days I drown myself
in the words of Kerouac
or a bottle of Jack-
Either way I'd find myself paralyzed,
sick and left to my own devices
I have burnt down the turret of my life
(my sanity in the precipice of my mind)
How do I accept my feeling of insignificance?
Lost in a place of doubt and indecision,
I am without relevance.
The childlike quality of my dreams
is no longer enough to sustain me.
My sanity, my sanity-
What am I without my sanity?
Find me; find me
(I seem to have lost my mind)
Apr 2, 2017
Apr 2, 2017 at 9:57 AM UTC
Baby soft scruff
Eyes, pacific and sultry
Sly yet honest
Childlike and sensual
Witty and innocent
Bring forth the animal
The infectious mischief
The ***** rhythms in darkened rooms
The stolen moments in Lower West Side alleyways
Long, piercing looks over a bottle of Dal Forno Amarone
Savage concupiscence
Your eyes suggesting the next move
Bodies entwined in the back of a cab
At the bridge and we walk across
And I indulge in your juxtapositions
All the way to Brooklyn
Jul 17, 2011
Jul 17, 2011 at 4:39 PM UTC
You stripped my soul,
Ripped me from my shoes
Where I stood
in innocence.
You extracted my childlike traits,
Treated my body
As your ********* paycheck.
My whole future
Was laid out in front me.
Now you fabricated a dent in it,
One that has shattered me
Forever.
I used to smile,
Be full of life,
Slept at night,
My body never reeked the incessant scent
of the lifeless souls you sold me to.
My heart ached everyday,
I longed for home, where safety was waiting for me.
Everyday I was a raindrop,
Trying to cling onto the window of hope,
But always slipped away.
You don’t understand the pain,
You’re only in it for the hunnits
Please understand,
That my dehumanization is not worthy
For what you gain.
My body became an abstract canvas,
For your ugly pleasures.
Bruised, bloodied, beaten, and battered.
Cuts and aches line my delicate skin,
But to you all my pain is fake.
You slapped my delicate face,
every time I asked for my precious prize of my childhood,
every time clear oceans surged out of my eyes.
“Shut the hell up!” You yelled
As I let out wails of agony.
You stepped all over me
Like I was a used cigarette.
You ignored my shrieking screams,
Actually,
You loved it.
You forced me
To comply with their beastly gratifications,
Only in return for your abundant riches.
You stepped on me,
like I was a ***** grimy, muddy puddle,
over and over
Even so,
I was still considered desirable.
I am NOT your canvas.
I am NOT your paycheck.
I am NOT your plaything.
I am worthy of honor,
worthy of respectful awe and delicacy.
I did not feel the worth of a human being anymore.
I felt ill treated, broken, bent, demeaned.
You stripped my soul, and,
Deprived me of my self respect.
And I will never
Ever
Be the same.
The only thought
That seeps into my mind
At sunrise and the brink of midnight,
Is that
I
Was someone’s *****
Listen to the pleas of
Children,
their ribbons shriveling up.
Spouses,
their vows rupturing.
Siblings,
their hearts torn apart.
Parents,
Bawling for their sanities,
Waiting to rejoice
With their miraculous bundles of joy—
Mar 24, 2017
Mar 24, 2017 at 11:13 AM UTC
A neighbor of mine in the village
Likes to tell how one spring
When she was a girl on the farm, she did
A childlike thing.
One day she asked her father
To give her a garden plot
To plant and tend and reap herself,
And he said, “Why not?”
In casting about for a corner
Of walled-off ground where a shop had stood,
And he said, “Just it.”
And he said, “That ought to make you
An ideal one-girl farm,
And give you a chance to put some strength
On your slim-jim arm.”
It was not enough of a garden,
Her father said, to plough;
So she had to work it all by hand,
She wheeled the dung in the wheelbarrow
Along a stretch of road;
But she always ran away and left
Her not-nice load.
And hid from anyone passing.
And then she begged the seed.
She says she thinks she planted one
Of all things but ****
A hill each of potatoes,
Tomatoes, beets, beans, pumpkins, corn,
And even fruit trees
And yes, she has long mistrusted
That a cider apple tree
In bearing there to-day is hers,
Or at least may be.
Her crop was a miscellany
When all was said and done,
A little bit of everything,
Now when she sees in the village
How village things go,
Just when it seems to come in right,
She says, “I know!
It’s as when I was a farmer——”
Oh, never by way of advice!
And she never sins by telling the tale
To the same person twice.
3.5k
'O Jesus Christ! I'm hit,' he said; and died.
Whether he vainly cursed, or prayed indeed,
The Bullets chirped - In vain! vain! vain!
Machine-guns chuckled, - Tut-tut! Tut-tut!
And the Big Gun guffawed.
Another sighed, - 'O Mother, mother! Dad!'
Then smiled, at nothing, childlike, being dead.
And the lofty Shrapnel-cloud
Leisurely gestured, - Fool!
And the falling splinters tittered.
'My Love!' one moaned. Love-languid seemed his mood,
Till, slowly lowered, his whole face kissed the mud.
And the Bayonets' long teeth grinned;
Rabbles of Shells hooted and groaned;
And the Gas hissed.
3.5k