"compacting" poems
No more the picturebook Eskimo,
the modern Inuit have central heating,
snowmobiles, welfare; they do not need
to fashion harpoons from bone, wait all day
for seal to come to ice hole, drag the body
to a home they have built from snow.
Once they lived with cold
and the creatures of the cold,
fish, seal, and white bear, familiar
if not friends, the snow itself
almost alive in its moods and movements,
falling as flakes, powder, clumps,
floating, flying, dazzling, stinging,
covering, drifting, compacting to ice.
Snow informed their lives;
one word was not enough.
Our life from infancy to grave
is shaped by love, comforting, calming,
thrilling, unsettling, dazzling, stinging,
covering, drifting, compacting to ....
Seventeen words for snow,
How many ways to say I love you?
May 4, 2016
May 4, 2016 at 8:48 AM UTC
I am walking in the park
After a night of empty talk -
Looking for something beautiful,
I find myself reaching down
Taking from my pocket a piece of gum.
Now, I am actually chewing God -
I’ve taken him from the trees,
I’ve stripped him from the fields,
And I haven’t even tried
To look for him in town -
Why bother?
I've got him in my mouth.
Compact and easy to manage,
At worst he might get stuck
To the outside of my lips:
So what?
It's a small price to pay,
For the luxury of compacting all divinity
Into a single pointless blob.
Once, he breathed life into the world,
Now he breathes minty freshness
Up my nostrils:
What's the difference?
He was, at first, the nonsense of the universe;
Now he is the nonsense
That I ****** with my tongue,
For no particular reason -
Same thing.
I often imagine a little face
On his lumpy plastic body,
Whining petulantly
As I chew him with irrational force -
And I find this very funny!
But then I think:
Perhaps he does not mind
How hard I squeeze,
Because really he is sad
That his real home is, you know,
Everywhere,
And instead he's getting chewed,
Whilst I’m laughing at a piece of goo,
When I should be laughing at the world.
Now I'm not laughing
At my gum anymore.
Instead,
I've cast him out,
To this open graveyard on the floor -
And his epitaph reads:
'I was only ever paste'
And he becomes another God
Who I have no desire to taste.
Aug 18, 2018
Aug 18, 2018 at 5:04 PM UTC
Black, reflecting my negative emotions
And yet, also reflecting soft dappling light -
White light, reflecting my optimism for happiness.
Clicking cameras' clinging onto frozen moments.
Curved lenses
Capturing, condensing,
concentrating, and compacting.
A vaguely comprehensible collection
of inconsequence.
Oct 4, 2012
Oct 4, 2012 at 12:01 AM UTC
something beyond BASS
drops because it's sassy jazz
alpha compacting, car garage crushed
older than Lemuria! greater bigger
if you get it, you get IT
smooth as sandalwood.
Nov 15, 2012
Nov 15, 2012 at 12:37 AM UTC
The anvil sky—
The sky that presses its weight down
Heavy against the earth
Compacting the old snow of winter
Dense and thick and complete
So tight the snow warms against itself
It melts.
Only for the anvil’s cold metal to
Freeze the snow to ice.
Locking in the roots of spring
Behind dirt cast bars under
Ice clear windows.
Far up in the anvil sky
There are tiny lights like nails
Hotter than the icy metal
Burning through and warming up—
Small spots like holes in snow
Where daises will surely grow.
Mar 1, 2012
Mar 1, 2012 at 5:42 PM UTC
I really should want to be here
This impending dread of tomorrow isn’t normal
I claw at my back
Push on my ribs and try
Try to collapse in and maybe just maybe
Concentrating and compacting who I am will make
Me
Clearer and more easily understood
And while my ribs jab my heart and my spine claws my stomach
It is a joyous reminder I have both
My head hurts and my hair falls in front of my eyes
I am just hoping my seams
Are better sown than those of my fading sneakers
Thread bare and fraying I fear coming undone
I don’t want to unravel and be a pile of string
But a ball of yarn is less out of place in this scene than my face
I need change
I don’t want it
Not like you seek comfort
No I seek only survival and change is a necessity to mine
Anyone who has known me long knows this
I constantly cut my hair and change its colors
Wear new things and change the things I have
I am a flowing gypsy not tethered to any place
But no matter how hard I try my personal change holds no grasp on the world’s around me
I am not nor will I ever be
A reflection of the world around me
No matter how I wish and try
I cannot mold the world to reflect the ball of yarn inside of me
I do not hate who I am
I wish not to conform and change who I am
Rather the world to shift its view so what’s inside me wasn’t so foreign and strange
I wish I wanted to be here
I wish I longed to see your faces
But when I take a leave of absence I don’t seek to return
I can take vacations but these journeys are only a reminder of the world that I have to come home to
Not a refreshing break to prepare me to return
There are too many noose filled closets
And too many plastic faces
I wish I didn’t have to face everyone around me as if I was the part of themselves they hate
I wish I wasn’t a target
But I would not change the reminder that I have become
That red flag in the fog in this place that shows people a piece of themselves they tried to bury
I will not change me
I will not change you
But in this twisted backwards world
My refusal to be someone else is a threat to your attempts to be
And I jeopardize your sinking ship of an image you have tried to build
And I am sorry
Not sorry that I force you to no longer deny your identity
I am purely sorry that I live in a world that I have that ability
I am sorry that me and you and everyone sit here
Yet I still am the only one with the power
The only one set upon the task of telling you
That you are human
Mar 17, 2013
Mar 17, 2013 at 3:31 PM UTC
what exactly is this that I'm feeling
a dull ache in my chest
piling slowly
compacting tightly.
It hurts
and yet at times I forget
the ache masks itself as something else.
My collar bones feel brittle
as if with a simple whisper
they will crumble like crushed biscuits
in the palm of your hands.
I need healing
healing only you can offer
or else I fear nothing will stop me
from leaving
floating
following the current like a string on a balloon
Jan 13, 2011
Jan 13, 2011 at 5:59 PM UTC
His cement touch grasped my lungs,
cracking down on the system we had made.
My mind is not quiet until it is numb,
compacting a road for old memories' sake.
This ground takes place in the back of my head,
the gravel makes bumps I always displace.
No one will come; calling 'No Road Ahead'
I am lost in this part for most of my days.
The colder it is, the more likely I'll freeze,
keep driving this way to try and find home.
Frozen in time, I don't know the ease,
between what is 'home' and a house no one knows.
I isolated my heart from the world because nobody cares,
it is worthless to think of myself with emotion.
I'd rather continue just driving this way,
and force myself to keep going through the motions-
Nov 25, 2018
Nov 25, 2018 at 2:05 PM UTC
The twisting and turning, grumbling, churning, elation, desperation and more.
Reflexive minds compacting semiotics until an inevitable meaninglessness rears up in smugness.
*"There is Nothing here.
Nothing for you
Nothing Of you.
Nothing."*
The mind begins again, fumbling, stumbling, eureka-ing, ambling, grasping and more.
Reflexive minds compacting semiotics until an inevitable meaninglessness rears up in smugness.
*"There is Nothing here.
Nothing for you,
Nothing Of you,
Nothing."*
The mind will not accept, that it, in it's biological supremacy, is simultaneously, Nothing.
A joke.
Some vapid expression of consciousness.
The mind will only protect, that which it most values; Esteem.
Reverence of it's own structure.
The Marvel.
A human, student, sales-assistant, a sister...
...Something? ...Anything?...
*"There is Nothing here.
Nothing for you,
Nothing Of you,
Nothing."*
The mind is a tool, one of the most primitive.
Natural selection adding accessories like some distasteful outfit.
The mind means well.
Aching to Justify, with inelegant adjectives, it's fondness of itself.
Petrified of it's "Nothingness";
The wordlessness that conveys meaning no mind can ascribe to language.
*"There is Nothing here.
Nothing for you,
Nothing Of you,
Nothing."*
please Stop mind.
The thrashing and the squirming,
stop flexing your Precocious Verbiage.
just stop.
.
.
allow Me to quell your convolution, using your own Pig English;
you are unequivocally a Thing.
And, there IS Nothing here.
And it is NOT For you.
And it is not OF you.
//It//Is//Nothing//
you, Are a possession,
I, the possessor.
Therefore you,
My most precious of things,
Will never fathom Me.
.
*Because you are Something,
and so, you are not.*
But I am Nothing.
For, I - am.
Dec 19, 2014
Dec 19, 2014 at 12:39 AM UTC
In early evening darkness, an endless entourage of engines sails streets exactly as Doppler predicted.
His trolley case traverses cracked concrete until her heels slow, halting to heed a busker's beat.
Polite soles approach the pair, sidestepping into loose layers of leaves - compacting gold and brown with a crunch.
Well-travelled tongues whisper foreign fears and wishes in a fog of white noise, fading to null as four eyes silently share three special words.
Nov 19, 2012
Nov 19, 2012 at 5:33 PM UTC
The way the light played across your face
The way it sparkled inside your gentle eyes
The way your hands made feel cherished
The way your wonderful mouth tasted
Dreams are made by your gentle caress
Hopes by the way you can make me forget
All the things I have witnessed
All the horrible places I have been
The desire you fuel, the ****** thoughts you inspire
Till I am nothing more than a smoldering pile
I crave your touch, the way it makes me feel worshiped
I need the way you hold me, as if I am special, unique
Perhaps this is but an addiction
Like a very special drug someone fed to my system
Or rather that I imbibed too much of
And became dependant of the feelings stirred in me
…
The desire that rides, tends, and feeds the fire
Is the thought of lying alone in bed with you
To feel your hands glide along my skin
To feel your kiss upon my breast
The sensation of you nibbling along my ear
Shooting lightning and fire down to my core
All I want is to rake my nails down your back
To hold you close, to hold you still to my attack
To bite your neck, and lick the wound
To laugh and purr as the emotions wind through me
The reality of that moment overwhelming
The knowledge of possession, of you within me
…
The ecstasy of the moment
Truth within a treasured dream
Holding you within my heart
Feeling that missing part to my soul
Reconnect, the wound sealing closed
Knowing that it is you that was missing
Never wanting the building pressure to end
Never wanting to leave this haven we’re in
…
Sighing gently to the night wind
Remembering heaven
And in whose arms it had been
Alone in the silence that is the night
Embracing my memories
Holding myself within precious moments
Gathering the power surrounding me
Compacting and adding until It is ready
Ready for me to send forth with command
To the one man who can hold my hand
…
Inside of you I see my missing soul
With you I see my future unfold
Next to you I see myself forever stand
Beneath you I find the heaven I demand
Without you I see no life at all
Without you I find that my hopes would fall
Jan 20, 2010
Jan 20, 2010 at 7:18 AM UTC
My fingers be cracking
Signs of my skeletal frame compacting
Lines of words that I'm retracting
I'm getting old. Getting lonely. Losing vision
Tired of being told and judged for my own decision
Mired in the present
Staring up at the crescent
Daring thoughts bubbling in my cup
Oozing out staining my mug
Look inside and tell me what's up
If you spot my heart strings, give them a tug
Dec 12, 2014
Dec 12, 2014 at 4:00 AM UTC
Everyone has a a billowing pillow that's larger than their troubles sitting at the bottom of their cliff.
It's comforting, it's warm, and suffocating as you land on such sweet bliss.
The pillow envelops you, compacting you in a small, tight cocoon.
The pressure forces you to to gulp in air and squeeze your eyes shut tight.
"Everything will be fine," they whisper. "No need to fright."
And suddenly, as you're wrapped up in a pillow, everything seems to be all right.
Feb 15, 2017
Feb 15, 2017 at 1:32 PM UTC
At my father’s grave
I stand on the berm
over his chest
his holes filled with dirt and time
a clear vantage point
for
peering into my holes.
The earth rising-constantly
strata filling
with generations
of fathers and sons.
Soldiers, plumbers, thieves
Estranged, beloved
Sharing
the same moon light on cool etched stone
night after night.
Epitaphs
at my head board:
Loving father,
provider
Dedicated son.
A breeze carries
a warmth
from that lower ground,
it’s a quiet wind,
so I can
sleep –
blanket half shorn
One leg in
one leg out.
The ground rises to meet me
daily
As I fall preparing
a spot
for my son to stand
compacting the dirt
in my holes
May 6, 2014
May 6, 2014 at 10:36 PM UTC
Crushing teeth,
Open mouth,
Compacting until eventually,
Oceans of fear then,
Nothing.
Unless,
This is not the end.
Jul 15, 2015
Jul 15, 2015 at 4:45 PM UTC
Ballistic relativity within a causal space
Broken is the glass eye of forever
Compacting melancholy reveries ******
As star streams descending parish beyond night
Ephemeral are the inner feelings and sensations
Articulated when we are alone…vacant
For if, a star falls was there ever any color at all
Or was there no bother burning bright
Landing is harder then blazing out
Because every star will crash
It is all in proper maintenance
Who cares to drive the machine?
It is not just who or how you get there
More about how hard you gleam!
Feb 19, 2014
Feb 19, 2014 at 2:02 PM UTC
Boulders are weight down on me...
Compacting my thought process, strangling the words that I'm trying to pass on....
The moon sits on me as if the stress wasn't enough, not including the names that come out of others mouth. The words that people think define, identify, and make me
But they are wrong
On a scale of **** to **** I've been called all..Despite those names, THESE are the one that matter.
Marvelous, go getter, dream catcher, insightful, wise, and beautiful
I like to believe I made myself to who I am.
I like to think that I...that I am a work in progress and improving on the way.
Until now, I thought they were right
I thought I was everything less than human..To societies standards I meant nothing. I didn't meet their standard, my talent didn't matter nor did the help that I assisted other. The only thing that mattered was my appearance and wrong choices I've made
Until now I thought that was who I am. I am much more than that, and I am aware now.
Mar 6, 2015
Mar 6, 2015 at 10:58 AM UTC
I never understood the real meaning behind poetry and philosophy.
The former takes great meaning and condenses it by duration reduction; Compacting enormous information and emotion in just a few beautiful words.
The latter is the priors direct opposite, opposing condensation for elaboration to the grandest questions a mortal being could ask. It's defined as a love of wisdom but really it's just the wisdom we love.
Both portend to be a front of art and an artistic mind.
So it makes you question these opposites and the balance they bring?
If combined "what is the product" of poetry and philosophy?
I'll tell you,
It's Prophecy
Apr 17, 2016
Apr 17, 2016 at 7:18 PM UTC
Her heart is a black hole
It soaks up the surrounding life
Always curious, ever wanting
More
More adventure, more to love about this
Crazy, vast universe that surrounds
On rare days you can glimpse the
Radiant, blinding star it once was
Yet still overwhelmingly, breathtakingly
Beautiful
As it takes all of these
Immense moments after
Exploding with passion and emotion and thoughts and words to be
Still
Be still and merely be
Before absorbing, compacting those memories
Into that deepest of meanings that she craves
Hoarding it within her heart
To begin with again someday
Aug 29, 2015
Aug 29, 2015 at 10:32 AM UTC
I may not have the most perfect physique,
but as I sit here,
having a beer and becoming aware of myself,
I realize that it is all that I need.
My neck, though it grows stiff on occasion,
is the perfect slope for the face of a lover.
My spine is long and narrow,
but crunched into itself
from years of compacting.
I want to reach inside my skin and set it free.
My shoulders are sloped, but sturdy,
and carry the weight of a thousand worlds.
One of my biceps is bigger than the other,
but that's okay,
its a natural phenomenon
and when I flex my right arm
it makes me feel strong, and powerful.
Capable.
I may not be thin enough
for you to count each tiny, delicate rib, but
I have a strong abdomen
and can do many sit-ups
or pull myself out from under you,
sit up suddenly to kiss you,
and anchor myself to the earth, yes -
My hips aren't as narrow as I'd like them to be,
but my quadriceps are strong and sinuous
My reflexes, feline
and my calves pure muscle,
I know
because ever since I turned thirteen,
I have been staring at them
after soccer practice in my cleats and shinguards
at the pool as the water drips off my legs and catches in the hairs
I've worked so hard to groom
in the morning as I stretch and caress their skin-
My feet
wiggle their toes into the moist, warm earth and keep me firm
and my eyes
pry into you,
always seeking
for things unknown
Aug 7, 2016
Aug 7, 2016 at 2:31 AM UTC
Deep inside
The demons she hides
Can't deny them
Compacting my emotions into a gem
Tossing it to the sea
Will I ever be free?
I have love
But it's not enough
I thought it would be
But they won't let me be
It's only dragging me further down
But I don't want to let him down
He's too sweet
Too kind
What a find
Still
I am here
Unchanged
Deranged still
Un-resting
What have I become?
While I sit here
Wondering what has become of me
They try to "get help" for me
But I'm not taking the bait
I'm not going away
I'm not leaving my world behind
So confused
Lost in myself
Afraid of everything
Running blind
In a forest so dark and unknown
So familiar
But I can't see
Just bring me out
Take my hand
I know not why
I can't just deny
This strangeness
Chilling my bones
I love, and I love
But I lose
I love, and I love
But I lose...
I always lose...
- Jay M
May 10th, 2019
May 10, 2019
May 10, 2019 at 4:35 PM UTC
I gather a lump of snow in my hand, compacting it into a small ball
You stand across from me, turned away and completely oblivious to the oncoming onslaught.
I pull my arm back, and launch the snowball at your back. It makes contact and you stumble forward slightly due to the impact.
You turn around and our eyes meet.
Then, we're suddenly laughing, clutching our sides in mirth.
You return the favor by throwing a clump of snow at my head while I'm doubled over. The snowball fight rages on.
We traipse back inside, exhausted from our icy battle. Our faces rosy and our arms aching, we collapse next to one another on the couch.
I grab a nearby blanket and wrap it around us, pulling us closer together. We bathe in the warmth of each other's body heat, and take comfort in one another's presence. I softly kiss your forehead and fall asleep in your arms.
I wake to the sound of sizzling, and the smell of sausages. You're in the kitchen, cooking breakfast. I sneak up behind you and surprise you by wrapping my arms around you and giving you a tight squeeze. You jump in shock, but quickly relax and continue cooking. I sit back down on the couch and savor the time we've spent together.
Mar 22, 2018
Mar 22, 2018 at 9:00 AM UTC
I here the whispering of the walls that surround me,
They talk of my memories and tragedies that glimmer in the distance,
The halls fantasize of having a voice to speak freely,
Not having to stay still with a blank expression,
I lay on my bed positioned parallel to the wall, hearing the words of condescending judgment.
I start to drown it out with the subconscious thought of a dead,
frozen winter with snow that covers the ground.
This season i long for to feel the numbing rush of arctic blast,
And the shimmering of white flakes descending from the sky,
Compacting on the ground.
I stand out in the cold motionless in envy of being free,
Blown in the wind to escape the erratic reality of being trapped.
The hollow creaking of the trees haunts my dreams,
Acting as a soul from long ago.
I stand here waiting as winter passes with a swift, but devastating,
Toll on my mind as if i was a snowflake falling in the dead of winter.
Dec 22, 2014
Dec 22, 2014 at 7:41 PM UTC
I've run a marathon of emotion
my heart can't catch a breath
insides twist dramatically
lungs feeling empty yet dense
blood drained from my face to my stomach
a lump of fear makes home in my throat
my brain is all but a bipolar muscle
anxiety climbing an unsteady slope
are the walls as close as they appear to me?
my organs compacting and imploding
squished by the pressure of the deep sea
I open my lungs and gasp for salvation
succumbing to the bitter waters of anxiety
god
must
be
sadistic
just
as
he
is
distant
Oct 10, 2018
Oct 10, 2018 at 9:42 AM UTC