"coats" poems
During youth I was quite the collector
of ocean cretin's annealed sandcastles
Though the hosts inside could not be cheaper,
their fleshy coats were worth all the hassles
Content I was amassing worn seashells;
monthly did this fine collection accrue
Though furnished, barren felt those wooden shelves,
as even pearls are lesser than a jewel
Still, the sand was warm; the waves were soothful
and regardless of what hollowness struck,
the beach granted a chance to feel fruitful
so long as one had either skill or luck
Alone was I, but daresay not lonely,
but I was not merry until married.
Aug 11, 2018
Aug 11, 2018 at 6:55 PM UTC
To be a woman
Is to be property
To act ladylike
Is to mold into the stereotype
To speak up is unheard of
Just go crawl behind the white man you see in front of you
A glimpse
Of steel is all you see before
The warmth of blood drains every part
Every being you thought to be strong
Now gone
Pick up the pieces
Bandage that wound
We have a war
One that was fought before
Blood on the knife
Stained the suit of the man walking to the congress chair
He holds it up with a smile
And the other men in the house follow
As they add it to the closet of achievements
We are strong
We are not blind to perspective
We see in color
Stitch up the knife wound
Targeted at the abdomen
Property does not fight back
A piece of land does not speak words
The cornfields do not unite
To be a woman
Is to have a voice
One loud enough to be heard over laws
That prohibit natural human rights
Our bodies are not to be tagged by the market vendor down the street
Politicians now playing a game of operation in their makeshift white coats
Forgetting all that we have achieved
Women's bodies are now more dangerous
Than a gun on school property
To have a body
Is to have a choice
To be a woman
Is to bring justice and unity to all
Jun 1, 2020
Jun 1, 2020 at 12:25 PM UTC
I spent last night
Crunching numbers
10
Times you led me on
9
Nights we stayed up talking
8
Weeks since you decided I wasn’t worth it
7
Crushed up poems on the floor of my room
6
Outfits thrown aside to make sure I look my best
5
Days I spent trying to get over you
4
Friends that know what we did
3
3 a.m FaceTime calls
2
Coats of mascara
1
Big regret
Oct 10, 2018
Oct 10, 2018 at 6:02 PM UTC
Oh, they a strange brew.
Almost like a union crew.
One minute disagreeing.
Then the next tight as can be.
In house fighting that makes you question their love.
Just to see them turn around and show it.
Siblings, only they can explain it.
Getting to the truth is hard as can be.
Unless you have a young one.
Who will tell on everyone?
Siblings, only they understand that connection.
Parents know their bond.
That if attacked by others.
They gather together to bare arms.
And it's not with any guns.
The world of a child is simply hard to explain.
The way they wants to go outside and play in the rain.
And avoid coats in the snow.
And when questioned about , how things got broken?
Then between them nobody really know.
Siblings, we all been there before.
Unless you're the only child.
Then you just don't know.
This love bond stays between some as they simply begins to grow older.
Their motto , somethings parents don't need to know.
Unless it's something vital.
Then the protection goes out the door.
Yes, there'll be fights.
And lectures from parents.
There's be wearing of clothes that belonged to others.
Who hadn't had the chance to wear them before?
And give you the option of taking them off freely.
Before they assist you to the floor.
Yes, siblings.
They hard to explain.
Counselors advice isn't asked or requested for.
Not by parents that know about these things.
Books wasn't going to be their teacher.
Because books didn't raise them in anyway.
That this new generational thing.
Where judges and courts thinks social workers needs to be involved?
The best instructions is in the book about the teaching of God.
Where we see the same conflicts?
Siblings, there's no one better to have than a sister or brother.
Who had a mother or father to witness it all?
Dec 1, 2013
Dec 1, 2013 at 9:47 AM UTC
Oh, they a strange brew.
Almost like a union crew.
One minute disagreeing.
Then the next tight as can be.
In house fighting that makes you question their love.
Just to see them turn around and show it.
Siblings, only they can explain it.
Getting to the truth is hard as can be.
Unless you have a young one.
Who will tell on everyone?
Siblings, only they understand that connection.
Parents know their bond.
That if attacked by others.
They gather together to bare arms.
And it's not with any guns.
The world of a child is simply hard to explain.
The way they wants to go outside and play in the rain.
And avoid coats in the snow.
And when questioned about , how things got broken?
Then between them nobody really know.
Siblings, we all been there before.
Unless you're the only child.
Then you just don't know.
This love bond stays between some as they simply begins to grow older.
There motto , something parents don't need to know.
Unless it's something vital.
Then the protection goes out the door.
Yes, there'll be fights.
And lectures from parents.
There'll be wearing of clothes that belonged to others.
Who hadn't had the chance to wear them before?
And give you the option of taking them out freely.
Before they assist you to the floor.
Yes, siblings.
They hard to explain.
Counselors advice isn't asked or requested for.
Not by parents that know about these things.
Books wasn't going to be their teacher.
Because books didn't raise them in anyway.
That this new generational thing.
Where judges and courts thinks social workers needs to be involved?
The best instructions is in the book about the teaching of God.
Where we see the same conflicts?
Siblings, there's no one better to have than a sister or brother.
Who had a mother or father to witness it all?
Dec 1, 2013
Dec 1, 2013 at 9:47 AM UTC
Touch Upon My Insanity
She whispers
Into the white walls
Touch Upon My Insanity
She cries
To the men and women in white coats
Touch Upon My Insanity
She screams
At the white buckled jacket
Encasing her
In a never-ending repetition of
Touching Upon Insanity
Dec 14, 2014
Dec 14, 2014 at 4:19 PM UTC
White-furred hill flowers bow
Gust-bent,
Wet in April snow,
Lavender beneath their
Downy coats.
Tender soldiers of spring
Grasp wind-blown gravel steeps,
Stand to beckon brown grass,
Soft-call the life in sapless trees
To ring with green again
Against Old Bully Winter’s
Blustering.
Quaking aspens,
Earliest to leaf in yellow-green,
Curling grama grasses,
Tough food for buffalo,
Cannot boast first life each Montana spring;
Only zombie-lichens,
Rock-fast mosses
Throw off winter’s death
Before the crocus' rise.
On eastern Montana hills
No street-hemmed dandelions
Colonize in chute-dropped ranks;
No time-tamed tulips
Live on wind-round knolls.
Here, the yucca’s bayonet-sharp ******
Here, the wild onions’ scent-strong hold;
But these arrive after early chill,
Following the purple crocus on the hill.
Jan 4, 2012
Jan 4, 2012 at 8:36 AM UTC
Just be real friend.
Be who you are,
and where you are at.
That's enough,
and it's the only way
forward.
Most of us have put on enough masks
in our life time,
to have completely forgotten
our original face.
We've become far too clad
with the heavy coats of expectation,
suffocating under the weight
of the ways we think we ought to be.
You can drop that garb.
There's always mystery
at the naked core of who you are,
and that's just fine.
It's not that we must rediscover
some definable self,
and hand that image over
for validation.
Rather, those solid definitions we
cart around with us
are heavy enough as it is,
but we've continued pushing them
despite the distress.
We've gotten so used
to that awkward play
of needing to be a somebody,
as if that somebody
were other than
who we already are.
We've forgotten how to let go
with all the spontaneity
of a flowers growth;
forgotten the beauty
of our own personal bloom.
That we are a fluid sweep
of light and dark.
That our faces,
like the moons,
wax and wane.
You don't have to be any which way,
other than the way you are.
That sort of self acceptance
is the innate flourish,
is the fluid self cycle,
is the way back into life.
Don't fool yourself
into believing
there is a better disguise.
Strip down to the bare beauty
of your authentic state
in this moment,
and move from there.
Mar 21, 2014
Mar 21, 2014 at 3:05 PM UTC
With the red lights in my eyes
And the gray haze in the sky
With the fire red reflecting back
The neon skin distracts me from where I am
And where I should be
In the winter clear, I sit
And I'm sick of it
As the snow falls on cars
On pedestrians and bars
Wrapped in pea-coats and ***
Under the foggy winter sun I slowly stroll
With a woman in my soul
Like a gypsy king and queen
In a lucid fever dream
Up in the offices and desks
With stress in their chests
These people think of home
While their lovers are alone and stuck with screens
Like windows into scenes
They thought money could buy
As they drift and die
Pouring out from the walls
Of worship chapel halls
With hands in their pockets
Stealing trinkets and lockets to give to the men
Who promise the end
But all will be right
If you pay the right price
From the streets of gods
That will one day rot
Under our wandering feet
When we longer speak but are just memories
Passed on like a disease
On death, I've made my peace
Until then, let me be free
Dec 10, 2015
Dec 10, 2015 at 7:04 PM UTC
dear chemistry,
you are a detective
you hold scientists
in an enchantment
of protons and neutrons
you dissect me
identifying the components
that allow me to waltz
across light and holy ground
while you are bound
to seek solace
in what my atoms
cannot give you
i cannot give you motion
or allow you speed past me
that is my task
my task is to entrance
philosophers in the "whys"
and "hows" of my force and energy
and i'm sorry that
you are bound to be prose
when you seek to be poetry
i'm sorry that if you were a musician
you'd have all the words
and i'd be the melody
we'd be the song
that could never meet
i'll meet you in between the horizons
when my masters
speak to yours
pondering on what allows
the why to occur and
how does the event happen
i'll meet you in between
question marks and white coats
i'll meet you in the next life
when maybe the future
will allow us to be trees
instead of branches
my arms will spread
to reach out to your matter
past the artifices
and your atoms will
race towards me
all force, energy and velocity
and i will ask the "whats" and "hows"
and maybe you will answer the why
and maybe the answer
will be a discovery
a phenomena of sentences
all questions already answered
always yours, physics
Mar 18, 2016
Mar 18, 2016 at 8:12 AM UTC
The smile of iceboxes annihilates me.
Such blue currents in the veins of my loved one!
I hear her great heart purr.
From her lips ampersands and percent signs
Exit like kisses.
It is Monday in her mind: morals
Launder and present themselves.
What am I to make of these contradictions?
I wear white cuffs, I bow.
Is this love then, this red material
Issuing from the steele needle that flies so blindingly?
It will make little dresses and coats,
It will cover a dynasty.
How her body opens and shuts --
A Swiss watch, jeweled in the hinges!
O heart, such disorganization!
The stars are flashing like terrible numerals.
ABC, her eyelids say.
11k
when the moon has finally succumbed to the flirtatious will of night
and even stars grow weary of guarding peaceful slumbers
the sneaky temptress twilight makes her move and slithers through my window
as she glides into my bed, I can tell she is up to her old tricks
my eyes forget to close and my mind forgets to sleep
the darkened outlines of my room crumble as each breath escapes my lips
and now I remember where I've hidden you, blue eyed boy
how strange a sensation to remember your body
a rekindled sullen mood
your arms are a heavy warmth against my waist
and your legs are clumsy giants that wrestle with mine all night
yes, this is how it feels when your cheek nuzzles the nape of my neck
and even here, your breathing rumbles like a storm rolling out to sea
Your heavy exhales compose a sensual melody as each crescendo crashes against my clavicle
I'm at the mercy of your lingering shadow
I'm the casualty of the pressure in this room
I want to stop breathing because I feel that I could make love to you
in the blackened air my hands trace out your handsome face
and place two gems for your brilliant eyes
and caress the sharp angles of your cheek
your lips were delicate so I use only my right hand
I'd give myself to you so honestly this time
but here, loneliness slowly swells your lungs
a tar that coats the lining of your throat
you are a cruel asphyxiation brought on by the mystic twilight herself
but her ruse won't last forever
I'll drift off into the sweet solace of sleep
and ponder on how you love me more
when my bed is empty, blue eyed boy
Sep 13, 2012
Sep 13, 2012 at 12:50 AM UTC
the hardest thing i do as a disabled person
is not
"fight my disability"
we were never at war with one another
like me, it just wants to exist
and so i let it
to some extent
i’ll never “become my disability”
yet i don’t believe it’s a bad thing either
i’ve come to realise that he’s become a part of me
as he’s helped shape my thinking
and maybe even my personality a little bit
i owe all my stubbornness to him
nah
i don’t fight my disability
we’re bffs
the hardest thing i do as a disabled person
is not
"get up every day"
though for a while, i thought it was
getting up is easy
facing the world?
getting easier
i used to blush at the thought of getting a wheelchair
i’d bury my face in my knees and cover my ears with my hands, thinking that if i couldn’t see it or hear it, i wouldn’t need it
i cared too much of what society would see me as
not “normal teenage girl”
"sad confined possibly a teenage girl?"
normal is overrated
and to be honest?
so is society
the hardest thing i do as a disabled person
is not
pretending i’m okay with mainstreaming
dear teachers, “mainstreaming” was never in my vocabulary
pretending?
pfft dear teachers, this is 100% real contentment
IEPs got some getting used to but after 16 years of endless doctors appointments, people in white sterile coats, plastic latex gloves poking, prodding demanding things of me
"mainstreaming"
won’t ever exist in my vocabulary
i know i’m smart
and i know i can do it
so don’t you DARE cry at my graduation
it’d be pretty pathetic if i believed in myself more than you do
the hardest thing i do as a disabled person
is
accepting the realities
i don’t know when i’ll take my last step
i don’t know when my muscles will give out for good
i know that every day i won’t know what’s right in front of me
i know that i’ll never be able to run another mile in my life
and i know that i won’t ever stop dreaming about the things i wish i could do
would love to do
won’t ever do
might do
one day
Dec 28, 2014
Dec 28, 2014 at 10:50 PM UTC
The veil, the veil, it coats me in labor and delay!
I tarry not by will but by mass, form, and time.
Face turned to heaven, toes to its floor I will let the sea overtake me,
As though its current could slake this hiraeth,
This riptide of yearning that pulls at my soul.
Truly, to stand before the sea is to be audience to the world.
Jul 28, 2014
Jul 28, 2014 at 4:45 PM UTC
they can't see, they can't see
that it coats my bones, bulges against my skin;
those little yellow bubbles
that make me want to give in.
Sep 18, 2022
Sep 18, 2022 at 11:53 AM UTC
It's advent:
Angels invite you to
Adventures in worship in your
Annual observation in
Anticipation of the divine,
Awaiting, acclaiming the King.
The red coats are coming,
The red coats are coming
(but don't let them distract you).
Nov 23, 2016
Nov 23, 2016 at 3:43 PM UTC
I walk around my neighborhood with my sister
We wear white mask and black coats with hoods
There’s never anyone in the neighborhood
She said
"It's too quiet."
Yet you could hear the sink left on
From houses people forgot they had
Maybe they lost their house keys
"Did you know that before that house was bought, there were squatters ?"
"How do you know?"
"I know because they were teens like me, but they ran out of luck.”
“They had no money, did they?”
“No money for what? Oh, they had money, but not enough.”
“Enough for what?”
I said “Making dreams come true in reality.”
I remember telling my mom what I wanted to do for others in life
Once I got done she asked me
“But what do you want for yourself?”
I said
“To be known.”
She said
“What if your not known like singers, dancers and actors?”
See I hadn't thought that far.
Maybe that's why they became squatters
In a house with broken blinds
There was not a place for them
My sister said
“Maybe their dreams slipped through a crack in the floor of their old house.”
Of the house in which they prayed for things to get better.
Paid light and water bills
And barely made it
She asked if they were lovers
“If they were, I wouldn't know. I doubt it.”
We wipe the condensation from the insides of our mask
With the ends of our sleeves and adjust our hoods
As they adjust their blinds to the outside world.
May 24, 2016
May 24, 2016 at 1:52 PM UTC
people **** people
with nothing but fingers and hair
and their very heavy breath.
their breath like a crow beak
before crucifixes of straw. like a tightening banishment of a lung.
remember when we would blow it
onto our car window and create that
consistent mirth of fog to
begin in?
the bodies riddled with bullets that flank
the highway are no such thing.
the schoolchildren lying face down in the corner of the closet are no such thing.
they are just winter coats with schoolchildren to fill them
for the time being.
no amputation of what’s mine
will aid them into the grave.
no mass communication grief. so
why would you call it a mass grave when in truth it was just a pit i dug to fill with crowds of people who died under the pretense that they had previously done so,
that nothing was new under the sun.
and when people **** people like people
do with their instruments
as ways of extending themselves into the world and into the marrow of our body
obliterating organs of people with their stretching of the muscular rib, shoulder.
one eye closes firmly.
it’s nothing but a hand gun
as if to say a hand eats the gun
and makes it whole.
as if to say the reinforced metal door
exit plan for people who are being killed by other people clicked shut and locked
15,000 years ago and i can’t quit slamming what’s left of me into it.
your kid is very dead.
but then again so is mine.
suppose they killed each other.
suppose they both made the mistake of dragging their small, stupid bodies through the trajectory of another body in the first place. in the chip aisle of a gas station maybe. in theaters this christmas.
in the midst of a good song that began playing on the lobby radio
just a minute before,
oh yeah before,
things really got going.
i saw people killing people
on television the other day
with their
whole bodies,
devouring themselves like surgical gloves
slick with oiled consumption
and bleeding out
and i could do nothing.
some kids died just because
and they told me so and i was told nothing could ever help them because they were just people and they were dying.
“breaking news” ended up just being people again.
in those moments, i was eating breakfast.
our houses were very quiet and needed me in all of them, grandfather clock over CNN, clarifying what has already been
committed and committed again.
the cipher was others lost blood.
Dec 9, 2019
Dec 9, 2019 at 12:24 AM UTC
i could be that girl
whose voice is low and melodic
and coats your mouth with
acacia honey
whose eyes are the color
and depth of
midnight
whose presence is thick like
new york summers
rosy like
los angeles in early spring
if i braid flowers into my hair
if i write enough poems
if i learn to show the skin of my essence
but remain an abyss—
i will stop making art
when i become it
Sep 17, 2018
Sep 17, 2018 at 9:39 PM UTC
Nothing works out in the end.
All of us will be gone.
Our name will not be remembered.
The signs and lights will fade to black.
The Hollywood sign will collapse of old age, like us.
Poppies shrivel up, their red coats falling onto the scorched earth.
Grapes transcend into wrinkly sacs of bitter wine.
The way your hand slipped in mine,
the fingerprints will rub away.
Our heart beats slow,
diminish.
Our laughter evanesce,
wanes
as our voices descend past the Pacific ocean.
Sep 28, 2015
Sep 28, 2015 at 12:33 AM UTC
Over hill, over dale,
Thorough bush, thorough brier,
Over park, over pale,
Thorough flood, thorough fire,
I do wander everywhere,
Swifter than the moonè’s sphere;
And I serve the fairy queen,
To dew her orbs upon the green:
The cowslips tall her pensioners be;
In their gold coats spots you see;
Those be rubies, fairy favours,
In those freckles live their savours:
I must go seek some dew-drops here,
And hang a pearl in every cowslip’s ear.
7.9k
bathed in the cool light of the moon,
my sweet puppyhead and me,
sit.
under the full soft light,
her ray’s illuminating the yard,
the woods.
footsteps crunch drying leaves,
fox, deer or foe?
waning canopy,
boughs lighter each day.
fall, majestic, peaceful
dying for another year.
plants and creatures,
taking refuge in the deep dark void
of mother earth,
of mother nature.
squirreling away tidbits for a late winter snack,
coats blooming, thickening.
such delight,
each night,
sitting outside,
my puppyhead and me.
quiet and solitary,
no humans
annoying me.
silent and still
only nocturnal creatures
meandering about.
what magic,
what sacredness.
what mystical delight.
never apart,
only the ONE.
such silly confusion,
thinking a person,
separate and small,
quaking with fear.
the big deep dark mystery
laughing and jovial,
always here,
here for us all.
open your eyes,
feel your nature,
always here,
never apart.
fearing death
fearing life,
what a silly way to live this
life!
the moment you were born,
you began dying,
what a relief,
knowing the score!
relaxing into the madness,
laughing at it all,
pure and free,
forever more,
and not……
being,
not being,
eons of reflection,
sages and rishis
revealing the truth,
it can’t be done for you,
only you can become
that which you are….
that which you always were.
my sweet love, my sweet life,
my puppyhead and me,
sitting here in Fall.
~~~
Sep 13, 2015
Sep 13, 2015 at 6:32 PM UTC
Lost to backdrops scrolling past,
She sits knitting
in the carriage of a train.
The vague needles
They scintillate and glimpse
With the cadence of the wheels –
Upbeating ceaselessly.
Strips of tiny loops
And eyelets like dewdrops
Of condensation
Grouped on the superior rim.
Once in a while,
She gives a heave
To loosen more yarn from the skein
Of Filipino-made wool,
brushed worsted weave.
Spun and carded
from the richest fleece,
Deeper in the wicker basket by her feet.
The needles flash,
With ancient rhythms and attack
Of duellists in their chainmail coats.
With little hesitation she can tack
From plain to purl to blackberry.
Count back by rote or slip a stitch
While the fish-eyed gimlets gleam.
All gather profusely in her lap,
As windfall trove, rich-patterned
And warm with peach-fuzz nap,
All crafted from a single line of yarn.
Marvels fall continuously from wise
Spell-binding hands and all is well for now.
(9/11/13 @xirlleelang)
May 27, 2014
May 27, 2014 at 10:10 PM UTC