"cosmetic" poems
With this pen, I paint an image of you.
Not a portrait, but a true portrayal of you.
The ink flows into words that dance across your hair.
The end of each sentence marking a cross that you bear.
A painting would be suitable for some.
With beautiful colors, cascading down on you from above.
But, those colors mearly hide the truth behind your smile.
With the right shade of light and a light smear, it becomes a cosmetic fix for a while.
My words flow through every crack and fill every shadow.
They bring all light to the surface, for the reader to see within the shallows.
The image of you that I create can be vivid and great.
But with this pen, my words can also design your fate.
You see the truth here is that my words hold all truth.
They leave no place for lies to hide, with each word holding proof.
In the readers eyes, my words are you…
With this pen, I can create you…
With this pen, I can finish you...
- Brandon K. Stephenson
Mar 9, 2015
Mar 9, 2015 at 7:06 AM UTC
You come in late, wiping your lips.
What did I leave untouched on the doorstep---
White Nike,
Streaming between my walls?
Smilingly, blue lightning
Assumes, like a meathook, the burden of his parts.
The police love you, you confess everything.
Bright hair, shoe-black, old plastic,
Is my life so intriguing?
Is it for this you widen your eye-rings?
Is it for this the air motes depart?
They rae not air motes, they are corpuscles.
Open your handbag. What is that bad smell?
It is your knitting, busily
Hooking itself to itself,
It is your sticky candies.
I have your head on my wall.
Navel cords, blue-red and lucent,
Shriek from my belly like arrows, and these I ride.
O moon-glow, o sick one,
The stolen horses, the fornications
Circle a womb of marble.
Where are you going
That you **** breath like mileage?
Sulfurous adulteries grieve in a dream.
Cold glass, how you insert yourself
Between myself and myself.
I scratch like a cat.
The blood that runs is dark fruit---
An effect, a cosmetic.
You smile.
No, it is not fatal.
17.8k
Superhuman in this skin
Red-lipped smile sweetly
(but beware teeth beneath)
I'm Sweet Siren Song
And I won't be long left
within this mediocre maniverse
Pretty porn-portrait perfect
(But there's no staples lacerating this muffin top)
Withstand this cosmetic culture curse
Bedspread silky sodden sheets
Writhing within nightmare glare
silicon butterfly spiked beauty ages anyway
Go away,
I'm finished.
I MEAN IT!
Fucknuts
(I guess Fucknuts isn't an advertiseable commodity. What's with the cheap advertising links in my poetry!)
bedspread.
****
Aug 26, 2014
Aug 26, 2014 at 4:55 PM UTC
I wish she didn't worry bout her look,
wish she didn't worry bout the way her hips shook.
Wish she didn't worry about her make up,
wish she didn't worry about getting all faked up.
Nails, Lips, Eyes,
I think the natural is fine.
But media corrupts what it wanna see,
cause we don't see what we wanna see.
Hair, Ears, Cloths,
all done for reasons I don't know,
jeweled out for reasons I don't know.
Going through pains I don't know.
I thought natural beauty is all that count,
I never understood why you'd get tricked out for self if it count.
Cause then I'm still told their is something wrong.
Why can't you just be with you and get along.
Jun 6, 2015
Jun 6, 2015 at 3:20 PM UTC
What Hope Remained?
What hope remained when hope for hope was spent?
When putrid plumes dulled morning into night
Hope lived in heart-struck deeds of bold intent,
As mortals wept and earthborn angels went
With downcast eyes to clamber heavens height.
What hope remained when hope for hope was spent?
When panicked sirens wailed a lost lament
And backs were bowed beneath ungodly weight,
Hope lived in heart-struck deeds of bold intent
As boots bore souls up treadmills burnt and bent
To scale a void devoid of dawning light.
What hope remained when hope for hope was spent?
For those in sight of angels heaven sent
Atop the world to aid their mortal plight,
Hope lived in heart-struck deeds of bold intent.
When wingless brethren conquered feared ascent
To gift last hope to all who saw their might:
What hope remained when hope for hope was spent?
Hope lived in heart-struck deeds of bold intent.
In The Fall
I chanced upon a stranger in the fall,
Cosmetic garb of office black and white
Portraying calm demeanor of his plight
As shadows panicked on a stricken wall,
And oft' I find my mind in numb recall
To look upon that helpless human kite
Who tumbled from the terrors of a height,
Yet graceful as an eagle in a stall
Before it plummets earthward -- 'Neath the pall
Of twisted steel rended by follied flight,
That stranger lives forever in the light
Suspended in iconic timeless sprawl.
I wonder, in the briefness of his fall,
Did he derive the meaning of it all?
Sep 4, 2015
Sep 4, 2015 at 7:20 PM UTC
one more for Joni and the one who accuses me of
"owning the courage to care so blatantly."
<:>
accused of writing with blatant courage,
a 4 credit requirement for caring
blatant is a word of merger -
open obvious unsubtle and unashamed
and a dissembling misleading one!
it is all of these and yet can be a contradictory mask of
opposing, differing faces
my blatant is none of these
but appearance only
**** muses keep me coming back
to a particular lyric,
keeps seeking me out, so successfully, wherever I go,
I hear it
it’s invading my both sides now
the dizzy dancing way you feel
you think I have my own blatant courage, untrue!
so oft you mistook my dizzy dancing,
all fluff all humbug so obvious so ashamed,
a cover up, a most subtle cosmetic pretense of the truth -
of
no courage at all
and yet (they mock)
you do care...
just another of my peculiar
life’s illusions
(self-delusions)
I really don’t have blatant courage at all
Jul 3, 2018
Jul 3, 2018 at 9:18 AM UTC
We're born, we live, we die.
That's called life. What is life
about? For so many, it's just
about survival. For a tiny number,
it is about acquisition of things.
For the blessed, it is about love--
love of self, love of another,
love of all. I wrote once that
the greatest thing you can ever
be is your real self. To be true to
your real self is to be true to all
others, true to the Cosmos.
Fame is a social cosmetic.
Wealth is unconscious com-
pensation for lack of self-love
and thus for lack of love for
others; political power much
the same. Leadership is an
amalgam of real power, self-
love and love of others, and
the courage to do the right
thing. It is uncommon and
precious. To live your life
fully, you must be fully
your real self.
TOD HOWARD HAWKS
Jun 20, 2020
Jun 20, 2020 at 11:21 AM UTC
Prescient, her essence
Casts a demure persuasion,
Endowed with verve and vision;
Concept to consummation,
The serenely possessed,
Creator, originator,
Allusion to the eternal azure,
Logos of abstraction,
Word and image collision.
Tonal palette of faith infused reason
Beauty and sublimity,
Serve to season
Verse, canvas and film,
Mediating aesthetic, seminal senses blossom,
Lyrical each permutation,
Seeds of vibrant chroma diffusing the mystical.
Visage and hair, her figure haunted
With perfection - a work of Art
Nurtured and lived invocation,
The canon of taste;
Crystal for the *****
Devotional fragrance ,
Holistic ethos, melodic invention,
Animated, pure -
The embodiment of redemption.
Transcending form, parenthetically
(Merely) the decorative,
Allure, artistry and symmetry
Superlative complexity,
Her erudition satiates, supplanting
Winds of constructive banality.
Purveyor of an uncommon savor,
She collaborates in the peculiar
Pursuit and reward,
Encounter with depth, explored,
Human and divine, prosaic meets sublime
Igniting within an Eros
Passion for truth, being and Telos.
Visionary of grace and peace
Transforming our earthbound dissonance;
Our caprice,
Hope and abundance, the myth of scarcity,
She narrates the Good.
Pen, lens, color and stage
Vulnerable, unrepressed, effusive
Romantic articulation,
The reservoir deep,
Innately primed conduit of Love.
Beyond plebeian, cosmetic, the trite
Woman of substance, pulchritude
And delight.
Effervescent - her smile exquisite,
Eclipsing suffering,
Wordless expression, understood language.
I am transported, my imagination replete,
Sonya Rose -
Art personified; unabridged, complete.
©2008 & 2013 W.S . Warner
Mar 28, 2013
Mar 28, 2013 at 12:28 PM UTC
A frozen avalanche set my night aglitter,
A festive shroud descends upon the theater.
Crimson sirens cleave apart the verdant veil,
Into the darkness we stride without fail.
Beyond the jubilation lies the next chapter,
With adamant fortitude we give thee cheer.
To each their own joys; for none with least,
Lest we drown in today, few dice are cast.
Behold my picture, let the verdict be: asleepy.
I jest, I grin, yet within: smooth boreal sea.
Tis simpler to repulse that which is coveted,
A gaze that levels souls; I've gladly forfeited.
Why? I cannot answer what I do not know,
Yet reason continues to war with my soul.
Let the rain cleanse my self-aimed ire,
From whence come this burning desire?
By dulcet caitiff, I set my conundrum aside,
The crux of life remain, my Draconian hide.
Plebeian ennui paralyzes my gifted facilities,
Enough sophistry, let I bid thee turgidities.
Let mine eyes be painted blind.
How else to behold beauty so fine?
Why, my sober vision...
Scream in revulsion! :DD
Aug 28, 2010
Aug 28, 2010 at 5:13 AM UTC
plants do not require papers that state from where they came
they are caught and pulled by the bite of birds,
seduced by the between-legs of bees,
seized on the legs of the wind and animals by thistles and burrs
and the blessed are pollinated by the hummingbird
I do not know where I came from (really?) (really.)
or where nature and nurture intertwine within me, precarious balance from discipline and my genes
I twist bunches of grass between my fingers, feeling the good in a strain
racked on top of white bones, pushing sheets of freckled skin
out, spreading cancerous aluminums under my arms because
an artificial flower smells better during *** than human sweat,
what a pity, we are unable to reveal with the bursts of Walt Whitman (!) in
our own organic mechanism's ability to produce salt. The ultimate flavor.
I grin. Inhaling deeply while alone and unwashed, Whitman would've been into it.
Maybe I can find someone into it too. Someone who'll read me Henry Miller.
But instead I'll wear expensive perfume. I grin, again. Sardonically.
And I've been told I have a beautiful smile.
I should,
that smile cost blood and five grand for something cosmetic and quirky,
train-tracks over teeth, I now stain yellow with obsolete cigarettes.
I wait in the tropical heat, languishing while I bake, a freckle factory
and tan--adrift--awash with memories recalled by the smell of green
and the fearful hum of bees.
Why did I start smoking again?
I look at the red hummingbird feeder, and wish I could trade
standing still as a hummingbird, I lie and say I cannot wait.
Jun 23, 2013
Jun 23, 2013 at 5:16 PM UTC
What could be worse
Than a garden
Full of gnomes and trolls?
Is it:
Lawn jockeys and yardells;
Chuck adjusting his carb every Sunday afternoon;
Bathtub ****** Marys beseaching us to love;
Metal flowers on outside garage walls;
Fish ponds with gills in the filter;
Red gravel flowerbeds with little white fences;
Cosmetic door knockers;
Swimming pools without diving boards;
Mirrors on fences;
Burning ******* in fire pits;
Backyard landfills;
Icicle lights;
Weedy neighbours and an east wind;
The screech of tires;
The thump of metal;
The sound of screaming;
The absence?
Yeah. Plenty could be worse.
Jan 5, 2015
Jan 5, 2015 at 4:25 PM UTC
If one pulls
A sheep astray
The flock is sure
To move that way.
To fish in a troubled water
De-constructing history
Thwart we could
The old social fabric of unity
And create we shall
A generation
Suffering a crisis of identity!
*“Ask me not why
They are better than
My peers and I
Also sensitize me not to deny,
What I see with my naked eye!
In attire,grooving,life style ,
Cosmetic application and civilization
They galvanize youth's attention!”*
Come up with a generation
We shall
That does not bat an eye
Our dictates to buy,
A generation that does barter
An age-old culture
With fads,for such a venture
Proves to it an adventure.
To achieve what we terribly sought
If we use somebody of note
Fame that has got
Say an artist or a poet
The mob will not
Fight-shy to drink a lot
From our poison ***
Without a grain of salt
“God doesn't exist "
Could be top on the list!
Alas, we could say “Worship us!"
*"Forget the Key And Lock theory!
Why should you worry?"*
Or social and religious norms
We could rock
With *“A lock could lock a lock
even in a wedlock!”*
Feb 27, 2016
Feb 27, 2016 at 10:05 AM UTC
Mum, was the Messenger real when I heard
He agreed to Deal after the Event
His Five-Rings Birthday made Flesh of the Word
Jab Stings to his Leather; A Totem forms then?
Which, in Real Cosmetic, itself no harm
If rely on his Throne responsible
He has a Deaf History; A Long-Since Charm
And every Girl he knew is Commendable
This is your SON. Your Mirror's Primal Truth
And no way my Purchase must interfere
Dad did his Job to keep Tradition's Youth
So the Choice lies on the Good that is here.
Thus the Paper was signed, out goes the call
Enter Twenty Years. His Mark shows it all.
Mar 11, 2013
Mar 11, 2013 at 3:03 AM UTC
Difference involves a discernable set of identifiable concepts, where soft cheese can be wrapped in cosmetic triangulations.
I know that electricity is a paradoxical commodity, where black diamonds resonate with something which is dissimilar to the larger expectations of society.
Like I said: miscellaneous conceptions of mature virility are evident to three-sided arguments. Aren’t they? There are three sides to every savoury story.
Dec 23, 2013
Dec 23, 2013 at 1:16 AM UTC
My complexion is too dark, too dark to be viewed as beautiful. He told me that the color of my skin is what makes me appealing, which then makes it a blessing. So I took some time for reflection, as I started to question myself... The blue eyed news reporter, the fair skinned cosmetic advertisement, the tall Scandinavian woman on the bus.. the lack of representation... what was it that they had, that I didn't... The words of my mother became the bullet I so desperately tried to dodge but couldn't ... "save yourself my child and paint yourself white" .. My beauty was not welcome in my own home. My skin I tried to peel off my body .. the diaspora reeked in my veins. My hair that I tried to straighten . My knees that I tried to hide with long socks. My body was tired of hiding. As a result I began to self hate at first grade, until it became the reason of my escape to a place of no return.
Dec 11, 2016
Dec 11, 2016 at 6:39 PM UTC
In the bowl where beauty lies
enriching its in its glow
remains an enigma that drives
deep shadows to the surface
we don't see everything we want
to see or show , analyse, own or disown
we may fail to seek all the answers
a torrid past, a broken heart
a blistered and bruised ego
something fragile, festering fuming underneath
the facade , creating a silhouette skin,
cosmetic exterior, mannequin interior
a patchwork quilt of emotions
restless, unready, growing.
we take what we see
in complete trust, faith beatified
drawn into the magnetic depths
seeking the pole star
sailing unkempt oceans
raging against the silhouette
that clearly conquered
the magnificence of the moment.
Love has no shadows
just a glowing light.
Author Notes
The journey to love.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, a month ago
Oct 29, 2014
Oct 29, 2014 at 4:23 PM UTC
at the end of the day she removes her shield
and all that's left
is a **** face
with a broken heart
and shattered dreams
and even though
she can cry freely
without the burden
of running black and blue eyes
she doesn't
because even without her disguise
she still acts
as if the veil was never removed
Mar 29, 2013
Mar 29, 2013 at 12:42 AM UTC
1.
Her speech is like gold.
She smiles, sells veils in bulk.
Find bliss in these shrouds.
2.
I cannot save you
But I will make you perfect.
Drink deep from this cup.
3.
Plastic is our king.
Watch me move mountains with it.
Christ was made from me.
4.
Consume me, monster.
Loneliness to be no more.
He says, I'm sorry.
5.
He says, I love you.
Her heart is in the backyard.
The dogs live there now.
6.
Red runs down her arm.
I am a God, she murmurs.
Everything goes black.
Feb 15, 2012
Feb 15, 2012 at 7:07 AM UTC
How you mesmerize
How you mimic the seasonal calm
And quietude of the restless ocean
How you bow in concentration
To arch your absorbent nature
And rapture in a cosmetic smile that
Swallows like a whirl pool
How you carry the gravitation field
And the forces that pull and bind
How you repel sadness and sorrow
In all faces and brighten some gloomy soul
How you set the stage for colorful dreams
And some “sweetistic” imaginations
How you define beauty in high definition
A creature of absolutely amazing design
Turning a ghostly atmosphere of earth
Into a haze of bliss and paradise scenic
Wafting some breeze of glory
Refreshing souls lost the inferno beneath
How you dim audacious eye gaze
By the razor of your eyes that pierce
How you outshine daylight and light
Outsmarting the very phrase neat and tidy
You’re the best and not the rest without debut
It’s why they find no rest and burst for you
How you dazzle and outwit
Injecting madness in minds active
Accelerating the speed of hormones
Beyond light or supersonic speed
Desire giving way to passion sway
And the vocal chords automated confess it
How you **** and make alive
When you put it short and tight
And the fabric can’t bear it a moment
Reproducing a perfect figurine clone of yours
As though you would burst out from it
Electrify and sizzle hearts inflamed
That’s how you mesmerize me
Walk no more in my sight her highness
How you catch my eye miss sacred
And reign enthroned in my frontal lobe
How you consume my thinkative energy
And gear on the driving seat of my life
Feb 1, 2012
Feb 1, 2012 at 8:10 AM UTC
In a lavatory a pink transvestite
Applies ruby and rouge
To my cosmetic mask
Hoping for a wished encounter
A fiction overcomes us
Conveys us as strangers
Into an unknown territory
Leaves us there
The two of us, stranded
Our location inaccessible
As intuitive yet unpredictable
Thoughts cluster
In constellated
Images around
The rehearsed persona
Of myself
Jan 15, 2013
Jan 15, 2013 at 6:03 PM UTC
she won't say a single accursed word to me, those angelic lips won't even curse me out. I think I'm upset but ?? it doesn't really matter. I've still got her black lace ******* hidden away in my second place in the 800 meter relay trophy: metaprize. they still smell like she tasted; I still know that she was fantastically insecure about her gorgeous ***** so much that she spent the majority of her summer researching labioplasty under the guise of a newfound interest in cosmetic surgery: her parents would never understand. I still know she takes deserved pride in how her deltoids flex beautifully in her mirrored closet doors with her hands on a boy's chest, not mine any longer but that's okay, as she rides him not like a cowgirl but like a demanding coach, like a kid freed from training wheels, like the Hell's Angel of epifemme *** I still know she's the best thing that ever happened to me and I still know that I ****** it up. I still know I loved her and I still know I love her. I still know.
Sep 21, 2013
Sep 21, 2013 at 10:12 AM UTC
From a cold Shoulder,
Sharp honed Tongues speak barbed with a silent whisper,
Emptiness under fine silks and cosmetic canvas,
This chosen heard gambles in the dreamy bliss,
Illusion of choice saves the Shepherd staff from the dirt,
Living in this fishbowl where the fish act like sharks,
Lured by the shining bait of glitter,
Already we know,all that glitters............
Learn quick what fish act the same in a rising net,
Lose time for those eat the others.
Good evening ladies and gentle men!
Step right up....step right up and marvel at its reflected glory,
See how it glows when the sly dizziness covers the vista.
Who dare goes where the great unwashed go?
Gaze in amazement as the crock self exaltation simmers.
Try see like the blind.
Know that when she sings you wont be ready,
Hold reserve and smile as she fades back into the soft flowing tide.
Become accustomed to her song,
Like a well fed dog lying in the sun, problems are forced into small spaces
and nudged into open water
Shadows become old friends with familiar voices,
The odor of the Summer Sun wafts by,
Even if you hide in the Winter cold,
The Trees do the dance of spring,
She dines feasting on the edible Star Drops
He is happy melting at the thought of nothing
They all toast the Cosmos as it waves back.
Feb 13, 2013
Feb 13, 2013 at 10:16 PM UTC
Comic relief
Cosmic disbelief
Cosmetic grief
Cosmopolitan relief
Jun 20, 2014
Jun 20, 2014 at 5:37 PM UTC
in the quest to look younger
women have face lifts
the nips and tucks
along with those Botox injections
all in the name of beauties perfection
but after a few years
the procedures
are repeated
to give the aging dames
that perfection
once again
a recent photo of a mature celebrity
featured in a magazine
her face resembled
that of a cat
restoring one's face to a youthful glow
isn't always the prettiest of shows
the cosmetic surgeons
are making a motza
for a face lift
Mar 31, 2013
Mar 31, 2013 at 11:22 PM UTC