"converses" poems
On a comfortable breezy evening,
my mum converses with her sister via Skype
exchanging quirky tales
They broach the subject of her lemon tree.
"It's the most peculiar case;
it was growing so divinely
until, suddenly, it stopped."
Silence. Then the punchline:
"Reminded me of your daughter."
They exchange hoots of laughter
Meanwhile, I sit in the corner
arms folded, eyebrows knitted
unamused
Sep 25, 2014
Sep 25, 2014 at 9:52 AM UTC
1
Ever musing I delight to tread
The Paths of honour and the Myrtle Grove
Whilst the pale Moon her beams doth shed
On disappointed Love.
While Philomel on airy hawthorn Bush
Sings sweet and Melancholy, And the thrush
Converses with the Dove.
2
Gently brawling down the turnpike road,
Sweetly noisy falls the Silent Stream —
The Moon emerges from behind a Cloud
And darts upon the Myrtle Grove her beam.
Ah! then what Lovely Scenes appear,
The hut, the Cot, the Grot, and Chapel queer,
And eke the Abbey too a mouldering heap,
Cnceal'd by aged pines her head doth rear
And quite invisible doth take a peep.
6.9k
Apeneck Sweeney spreads his knees
Letting his arms hang down to laugh,
The zebra stripes along his jaw
Swelling to maculate giraffe.
The circles of the stormy moon
Slide westward toward the River Plate,
Death and the Raven drift above
And Sweeney guards the hornèd gate.
Gloomy Orion and the Dog
Are veiled; and hushed the shrunken seas;
The person in the Spanish cape
Tries to sit on Sweeney’s knees
Slips and pulls the table cloth
Overturns a coffee-cup,
Reorganised upon the floor
She yawns and draws a stocking up;
The silent man in mocha brown
Sprawls at the window-sill and gapes;
The waiter brings in oranges
Bananas figs and hothouse grapes;
The silent vertebrate in brown
Contracts and concentrates, withdraws;
Rachel née Rabinovitch
Tears at the grapes with murderous paws;
She and the lady in the cape
Are suspect, thought to be in league;
Therefore the man with heavy eyes
Declines the gambit, shows fatigue,
Leaves the room and reappears
Outside the window, leaning in,
Branches of wistaria
Circumscribe a golden grin;
The host with someone indistinct
Converses at the door apart,
The nightingales are singing near
The Convent of the Sacred Heart,
And sang within the ****** wood
When Agamemnon cried aloud,
And let their liquid siftings fall
To stain the stiff dishonoured shroud.
3k
Shards of sail staple sky to sea as fingernail-thin boats lean in to the horizon.
The surge of surf converses constantly with the silent shore, urging its message upon the oblivious beach.
My children scramble on the man-made groyne, a facsimile of wild rock, in which they find caves 'with a proper rock on top' (Bea) and 'a hundred miles deep' (Willem).
We are here on bikes, salt wind in our hair, and my *** slowly absorbing moisture from the almost-dry sand as they unburden their youth upon the rocky playground.
And then come the treasures.
A flat shell the size of my palm and worn pearlescent smooth.
A fossil pebble of concentric ingrained ripples.
'Something amazing Mummy,' comes the cry. 'You have to see this stone; the colour of Coca Cola,' shouts my boy.
More treasures emerge and are grafted on to the sandy pile.
Quartz-like lumps and a mussel entangled with tiny seaweed strands and miniature white shells, like micro leaves and hints of feta in a fancy restaurant.
The boy wears welly boots, no socks, and a plastic medal around his neck. 'Batman, Batman, Batman,' comes the cry, while Bea determinedly scans heaven and Earth for jewels to stud her imagination.
Sep 28, 2013
Sep 28, 2013 at 11:03 AM UTC
He doesn't see past the horizon of his life
He doesn't indulge in the myth of the hereafter
He doesn't believe he is worthy of such a notion
He doesn't make it a habit to put pen to paper
But with her...
He envisions the future like he's lived it before
He sings of his plans that span several lifetimes
He romanticises his thoughts as soon as they're conceived
He converses in paintings and writes only in rhymes
Jan 5, 2017
Jan 5, 2017 at 11:48 AM UTC
There's a reckless wind
whipping 'round the
frayed ends of my hair,
its exodus from the sides
of cars blurring by.
Jazz drummers cycle
flurries of taps and nods.
Twitching wrists for dollars,
their cornflower blue suits
rising with the street sound,
becoming a tent for sweat,
reaching for the dangling dark
held up by clouds and the
screams of horns and the
chimes of chatter.
And here I lean, inside a corner
between an entrance and an exit.
My dreams are starting to
last as long as these cigarettes,
I probably spoke into the chainsmoke --
being pretentious and afraid
under the spill of streetlight.
And here I am, harmfully hoping
my friend comes back, that he
didn't suffer, that he is with god,
that god exists, that I grow into
something that would make
him proud, my parents proud,
make me proud.
All the pretty girls trot the walk,
like surreal thoughts with
white converses and high-waisted
jeans holding the eyes of the few
guys and girls going home alone.
There's no proper way to end this
besides for raw *** real violence,
and more money.
My government only cares about me
once every four years.
My bank account controls me.
I can't buy anything unless
it wants to **** me or love me.
Mar 3, 2017
Mar 3, 2017 at 12:57 PM UTC
Anesthesia seeps into me and settles
like plaque into my arteries
where it converses with my blood.
I let its ugly yellow fingers swagger through,
waving their malicious banners
proclaiming my surrender.
My lungs breathe chafing dust
that conspires
and leaves me suffocating
under the silent sands of guilt
that build up into graceful dunes.
My mind loves the desert in my lungs
despite the lifeless contours;
it is far away, removed and sees
a sweeping landscape, patterned
by the winds, my rattling breath.
But my heart lives next door
to that forsaken terrain.
It feels the pain of the parched *****
gone unacknowledged by my mind.
It feels the lecherous caress
of the ugly yellow fingers
that violate my blood,
stroking, disgustingly, inside my veins.
Still my mind remains
Doorless
Windowless
Refusing to see.
Serenely smooth, impenetrable Reason.
My heart has no hands
to hold a hammer or a sword.
Yet Your tongue is a sword,
Your words a hammer of consciousness,
Your expression the oil to reignite
shimmering embers buried under ashes.
My mind’s shield becomes an eggshell—
it shatters, flinging shards away,
letting the newly lit inferno roar
through every capillary, burning away
the ugly yellow fingers.
Winds from within gust through my lungs,
force the desert from my chest.
The sand rends my throat and lips
in its storm of escape,
and the blissful tears that rain from my eyes
quench my arid lungs.
The fire recedes into my heart, where it burns
white-hot and pure—
My eternal sun that gleams within,
to You, I surrender.
Oct 26, 2012
Oct 26, 2012 at 12:19 AM UTC
As you sit in the cafe
in the shopping mall
you see Sophie
and her man friend
smooching across
the table
he with moustache
and thinning
combed back hair
and she
with dark black hair
straight to the collar
of her white blouse
they purse their lips
he closes his eyes
leans forward
she likewise
as if
in some French cafe
in some 1950s film
you sip your latte
watch the show
he once worked
pushing trolleys
in some super store
she unsure
but with a carer
sometimes seen
walking the mall
or in the bank
or shops
and some days
she’ll come up
and say hello
in a loud voice
as if she’d not
seen you
in a thousand years
other days not at all
or she’ll tell you
some news
about her life
or some small trouble
that’s got her down
today she sits
and kisses
and converses
with the man friend
and he’ll laugh
and maybe she too
and hold hands
over the cokes and cakes
you sit back
in the chair
and watch them there
repeat their kissing
or holding hands
the Romeo eyes
now open
leaning near
mouthing words
you cannot hear
she lips still pursed
says loudly
of a love
she feels
or how hot
the weather is
or how his scarf
untidy looks
or unbuttoned shirt
others who do not
know them sit
and gawk
and make snide comment
behind their hands
make judgement
in their bourgeoisie world
but you like others
who know them of old
sit and drink
and make no judgements
of what they say
or do but watch
the kissing
and holding of hands
like in a B feature
at the cinema
waiting for
the real thing maybe
but content to see
the movie through
having no where to go
or other things to do.
Jul 15, 2013
Jul 15, 2013 at 2:45 AM UTC
by: T.S. Eliot (1888-1965)
PENECK Sweeney spreads his knees
Letting his arms hang down to laugh,
The zebra stripes along his jaw
Swelling to maculate giraffe.
The circles of the stormy moon
Slide westward toward the River Plate,
Death and the Raven drift above
And Sweeney guards the horned gate.
Gloomy Orion and the Dog
Are veiled; and hushed the shrunken seas;
The person in the Spanish cape
Tries to sit on Sweeney's knees
Slips and pulls the table cloth
Overturns a coffee-cup,
Reorganized upon the floor
She yawns and draws a stocking up;
The silent man in mocha brown
Sprawls at the window-sill and gapes;
The waiter brings in oranges
Bananas figs and hothouse grapes;
The silent vertebrate in brown
Contracts and concentrates, withdraws;
Rachel née Rabinovitch
Tears at the grapes with murderous paws;
She and the lady in the cape
Are suspect, thought to be in league;
Therefore the man with heavy eyes
Declines the gambit, shows fatigue,
Leaves the room and reappears
Outside the window, leaning in,
Branches of wistaria
Circumscribe a golden grin;
The host with someone indistinct
Converses at the door apart,
The nightingales are singing near
The Convent of the Sacred Heart,
And sang within the ****** wood
When Agamemnon cried aloud,
And let their liquid droppings fall
To stain the stiff dishonoured shroud
Jul 18, 2013
Jul 18, 2013 at 3:25 PM UTC
I awoke from pseudo-sleep to frigid sweats and an unhealthy heartbeat
my mind snowy as the television opposite me, morning, half past three.
I dreamt up a personal narrative, reflecting on dreams forgone
time deferred, potential memories collecting dust on a suburban lawn.
Similar to that of books gifted to me, never read, and currently locked,
Vonnegut converses with Hemingway within a cavernous box.
Tucked neatly beside the dehumidifier, bottom level of my fortress
My once-manicured front yard so overgrown, you'd expect wild horses
galloping about like I once did before my femur weathered like sea glass,
leaving me like my alabaster figurines, just more stationary mass.
I've grown accustomed to drawn curtains and opening them at nightfall,
my eyeballs have grown to love staring contests with my blankest wall.
Not-quite-yet-discarded alcohol bottles have become my closest fellows,
kind enough to let me grasp them as action figures between my yellowed fingertips. We'd make dates to watch Local on the 8's together,
humming along blissfully to the muzak without regard to the weather.
Since my everyday life now remains a comfy 72 degrees, accompanied
by a soundtrack of leaky faucets and turning pages of AARP magazines.
Now completely alone I float, clinging to life in a sea of unknown
Clawing a barely buoyant lifevest filled with styrofoam and rhinestones
If I were still as spry as a spring chicken, I'd walk ten paces in the kitchen,
I'd draw my nine and snipe a mirror for displaying an unpleasant image.
If my eyes had less cataracts I'd be in the process of shredding them to bits
because I never wanted to peer through lenses so dull and spiritless.
If my ears were better, I'd hear fewer phantom telephone rings,
answer every telemarketer, hear more synthetic voices advertising things.
I'd never touch my college sweaters for the regrets they would conjure,
But now I'm finally grown up, wasn't that what I always wanted?
Jul 16, 2015
Jul 16, 2015 at 6:57 PM UTC
It was the rhythm of the fingers
Running through the black and white keys,
The feathery strum of the hollow guitar and
The beat of the arms that converses with the melodies.
The voice of the soul is not lyrics but song
That slowly lured the tie that has grown so strong.
This poetry’s not aimed at singing the tune
But only to hum the memory that began in a June.
You lit the room where the poet longed for a brother
And lay a hymn to the unsung dreams.
You strike a chord at him not to grieve and bitter
About life’s shrill discordant volumes.
Jun 21, 2012
Jun 21, 2012 at 8:37 PM UTC
I waited while you reached to my aphotic depths,
Felt you caress my heart of hearts with your being,
Even as my breathing came in gasps,
And sweat beads on my collarbone,
My tensed body, quiescent at its core converses of,
My irrevocable, unhinged addiction,
To the way you weave into me,
The fiber of life in intricate patterns,
Beautiful, like you.
It hurts.. ecstatically,
Like my soul in cimmerian delirium,
Trance-like;
When you take my Eldunari,
With you,
When you leave.
Nov 14, 2012
Nov 14, 2012 at 10:25 AM UTC
by: T.S. Eliot (1888-1965)
PENECK Sweeney spreads his knees
Letting his arms hang down to laugh,
The zebra stripes along his jaw
Swelling to maculate giraffe.
The circles of the stormy moon
Slide westward toward the River Plate,
Death and the Raven drift above
And Sweeney guards the horned gate.
Gloomy Orion and the Dog
Are veiled; and hushed the shrunken seas;
The person in the Spanish cape
Tries to sit on Sweeney's knees
Slips and pulls the table cloth
Overturns a coffee-cup,
Reorganized upon the floor
She yawns and draws a stocking up;
The silent man in mocha brown
Sprawls at the window-sill and gapes;
The waiter brings in oranges
Bananas figs and hothouse grapes;
The silent vertebrate in brown
Contracts and concentrates, withdraws;
Rachel née Rabinovitch
Tears at the grapes with murderous paws;
She and the lady in the cape
Are suspect, thought to be in league;
Therefore the man with heavy eyes
Declines the gambit, shows fatigue,
Leaves the room and reappears
Outside the window, leaning in,
Branches of wistaria
Circumscribe a golden grin;
The host with someone indistinct
Converses at the door apart,
The nightingales are singing near
The Convent of the Sacred Heart,
And sang within the ****** wood
When Agamemnon cried aloud,
And let their liquid droppings fall
To stain the stiff dishonoured shroud
Jul 18, 2013
Jul 18, 2013 at 3:25 PM UTC
I spat out quotes and poetic verses,
Despite how everyone else converses.
I hoped that brains will win the war,
But I never had any brains at all.
I spat out quotes and poetic verses,
Despite how everyone else converses.
I hoped my brains will take me far,
But I never had any brains at all.
I spat out quotes and poetic verses,
Despite how everyone else converses.
I'm stuck here, ****** here, quoting still,
But I never had any brains at all.
I spat out quotes and poetic verses,
Despite how everyone else converses.
My brains are gone with atrophied will,
But I never had any brains at all.
On my tombstone lies a quote
From verses other people wrote.
A lackluster creative must
Existed within; my internal, eternal, rust.
Oct 11, 2013
Oct 11, 2013 at 3:48 AM UTC
A woman walks down the pavement
An image of beauty
With a red dress and the adoration of men
Her black heels click on the tarmac
A man converses with his mates
The definition of charisma
With a suit on and a beer in one hand
He commands the respect of a crowd
A little girl plays on the seesaw
With her friend who is without a name
But when others walk past
They see the little girl is alone
The old man looks at the photos
Reminders, memories of him and his beloved
Framed permanently in sepia tones
A tear rolls down his cheek
The woman walking down the pavement is lost
The man with his mates is close to breaking
The little girl feels rejected
The old man is laying flowers on his beloved's grave
For though the sun shines today
The pain remains
Their loneliness a constant reminder
A constant tormentor
Jul 16, 2015
Jul 16, 2015 at 5:51 AM UTC
Worn converses scuff the floor.
The crowd sings, and they roar
his name. Things aren't the same
like anonymous Mondays before.
He pulls out his strings. Silence.
Steel vibrates and sings; Violence
erupts and again he hears his name.
It isn't the same... but he finds it
strangely fitting; On this stage
he's the benefactor and the tyrant.
He's the laughter, killing quiet.
It's not your average Monday
but no surprise, he finds he likes it.
Sep 12, 2015
Sep 12, 2015 at 10:33 PM UTC
Beneath the bridge where I found my summer love,
We drank tequila and listened to The Rolling Stones
While sitting on the bonnet of an abandoned car.
Ripped jeans
White shirt
Scuffed converses
The heat
I felt truly intoxicated
By the brunette curls,
Blue eyes that were fixated on the creases in the palms of her hands,
The tequila was just the numbing remedy of the inevitability,
The end of summer.
We talked until the heat of the sun had fallen into the Earth,
Listening to the cars above our heads,
The sound of sirens in the distance cascading between buildings and the darkening sky.
I want to get away from the City she whispers, The beach.
I want to feel the sand between my toes
Feel the sea foam bubble around my ankles and the gentle pull as the waves retreat from the shore
We will, tomorrow I promise her.
I'll be gone tomorrow she replies.
Why?
She turns to me and smiles faintly, the tears in her eyes glistening under the street lights,
Tomorrow is the beginning of Autumn. I have to go.
My heart sank like an anchor plummeting to the sea bed.
I'm sorry, I really am.
I traced her jawline with my fingers,
Down her neck and onto her chest.
Her heartbeat was soft,
Pulsing like the very waves she yearned to see.
Her hands intertwined with mine and she sighed.
Don't be sorry. There's always next year.
Jul 5, 2013
Jul 5, 2013 at 11:25 AM UTC
The wind moves at a slow pace
Creating a whispering voice
Talking to shadows as they creep
Through the eerie and morose night.
Deep in a graveyard, the wind comes
It whispers untold stories to the dead.
And as the wind converses, death replies
With its own gruesome story.
It whispers the stories of the thousands dead:
Fighting wars, giving birth, protecting citizens.
As death continues to tell the stories,
Wind begins to whimper, until it becomes a storm.
The storm rises into the dreary night,
Until it bursts into tears,
Giving the landscape a glistening effect
And gives life to the seemingly dead planet.
Death becomes quiet, no longer whispering
For life has taken over the Earth
And the wind comes in at a slow pace
Creating a whispering voice.
Jul 2, 2013
Jul 2, 2013 at 1:29 AM UTC
floral dresses
pink converses
chewing gum
wind blown hair
sandy beaches
balancing acts
hope for us
we'll work everything out
i smiled at my memories of you
Jul 8, 2013
Jul 8, 2013 at 4:25 AM UTC
there was a tear in the ankle of his converses.
he tapped his foot to the tremors of the bus
he carried a coffee cup like his life ambitions
i stared at him over the top of my book,
reading the lines of his mouth
they captivate my attention like a novel never could.
arm draped over the back of the seat next to him,
he glances my way.
my gaze plummets to my lap
i sneak a peak his way.
he gives me a smile
i gleam like the sun.
Jan 24, 2012
Jan 24, 2012 at 3:50 PM UTC
her heart burns with fiery passion
it sparks in moments unfathomed
her mind converses
in soliloquy
it reigns above knowledge
unconquered
her facade divulges
the potency of strength
it conceals the scars
and wounds unhealed
still she stands ablaze
clothed in golden streaks
and red flames of life’s
euphoric haze.
May 30, 2017
May 30, 2017 at 10:37 PM UTC
Tuesday, marked four years.
Four years since God ripped away someone
someone very precious to me.
Heaven did gain an angel,
but I lost so much more.
I lost one of the only people I have ever trusted.
A mentor, an inspiration.
Mere words cannot do him justice,
but an ode of recollection might suffice.
May 20, 2009
Regional track meet,
bright-eyed freshmen thrower
excited to show he belonged.
First toss
scratch
Second toss
scratch
Then a phone call.
There was an accident.
Her stifled sobs
echoing through the speaker.
Third toss
didn't come.
Tears splash against the pavement,
then thudding from the Converses
as the feet try to take him away from the arena,
from everyone.
May 22, 2014
Today.
Broken.
Directionless.
Clinging to what was passed down.
Interests shriveled.
Seeking to fill a void
that just keeps growing.
May 22, 2014
May 22, 2014 at 9:13 PM UTC
a man of my esteem can digest direct violence than witty violence known as ridicule / the sorrow grows bigger when the sorrow’s denied (pearl jam).
so be it... unless i be irish and my use of english be celtic,
then i trully am raw potato with raw cabbage
with lettuce and raw tomato speaking through my ****
so be it... i’ll concentrate all the world’s republicanism
on the democracy of england and see england and those it
deems kin to export democracy elsewhere -
reduce old age to dementia rather than wisdom - to be forfeit;
what can i learn from you old man?
fucky fucky sucky sucky retirement is grand?
it took an old man to define the failures of democracy...
it will take a youth to define the failures of republicanism...
one by one... that thing on the cross digesting its kidneys
is in no way the in-between.
*each abhores his father, but each returns to his father
for guidance akin to a compass in defining the definition
of what's north from sun, and east from the moon,
so if friendships only provide conversation
as means of exchange, a fox provides more to man
than man unto man...
because it provides the sort of conversation
that prompts thought...
and man without woman converses with thought
rather than the obedience for a continuum
that woman is modelled on...
man's guardian, man's womb without woman
that is thought is what abides to philosophise...
but philosophy is a bad joke in england these days...
hence the convenient safeguard of darwinism
and american politics to simply provide the nodding
for the first oscar of mexican wave build-up of un-originality:
easily philosophise only reading psychiatric
books or logistics of a missing soul with an engaged
logic of 2 + 2, as the english intelligentsia is prone to excuse
when it uses it... why practice psychiatry when
you have not read a single book of philosophy, why, english psychiatry?*
Nov 21, 2015
Nov 21, 2015 at 10:16 PM UTC
Splattered paint on jeans like a mural cover cold pale legs on a moving train
Converses beaten with color show a rainbow of hard work done by the feet it keeps warm
I don't know the face beside me and I dare not look
I don't want to judge a book by the cover fot it is more important to judge their shoes
The sneakers cry creativity, art, and passion
And his body remains as still as a painting
The sneakers finally shift and leave at 14th Street
Only for a pair of black boots to take its position
Bye bye motley Converses
Mar 16, 2015
Mar 16, 2015 at 3:52 PM UTC