"crescendoing" poems
making love with no love
(kissed her with his freedom)
<•>
a new person in an overnight stay in a strange,
aptly named,
bed and breakfast
and
you do all the same things that just feel good, careless loving
that comes from practiced renewable remembering,
kiss her neck for hours, drink in her crescendoing cooing
rename her Appalachia, bemused, wondering why,
she gasp-asks, when your tongue traces her odyssey body
from her Georgia to her Maine, then no need to explain
it all feels familiarly strange, imbalanced, shaky, loving the thrill
of your first solo bike ride, an invisible hand letting go,
the wow of walking the line of new freedom and
old responsibility that you have walked on both coasts
carry on, love is coming to us all lyric, enacted-recalled,
loving yet another
long cool woman in a black dress with unquestioning
how to explain to her, how to yourself, loving with no loving,
and the best you can stammer is it is like writing a poem
with too many commas or none at all
she laughs you up with one mouth lingering,
then one amazing kiss on your heart
and nose,
grabs a piece of toast and gone girl,
then you are returned to alone, to the dreams that
may or may not have occurred and two hands overflowing with
too many commas
and none to keep
<•>
11-18–17 2:54am, somewhere
Nov 18, 2017
Nov 18, 2017 at 10:13 AM UTC
I can't quite wrap it around my head
**** polishing hobgoblin
Gobbling hot fudge banana split sundaes
topped with ***** cherry toppings
What I'm looking for
Just on the tip of my tongue
Just the tip
I can almost put my finger in it
*On it
Oops!
A slip of the lips
Verbally retching
Wretched word *****
Armed with an armada of double entendres
Sensationally double penetrating your ear canals!
Jan 17, 2014
Jan 17, 2014 at 7:57 PM UTC
Shadows thrive upon complexity
Vague and nonsensical
The untrained, without resolve
Welcome all to cast their shades
Deeper inside they oft reside
Wilting, transfiguring
Til the field they presume to preside
Flourishes with roses black
as obsidian
Yet the seed may still be planted
Yielding a flower tall, light and bright
Consuming those beneath until vacancy remains
High is the Sun, white is the Orchid
Tempered radiance, gradual growth
More shall fill the newfound garden
While Day brings its gifts
Crescendoing by the simplest
of cool Spring breezes
Coming and going through
The end of another season
Promising its constant return.
Jun 9, 2015
Jun 9, 2015 at 10:52 AM UTC
Through the eyes of heathens
Dancing altars made of poppies and ash
Coat jaded tongues in bittersweet memory
We are eternal yet our spark is on the verge of annihilation
Government needs a turnicate
Big heads bloated, filled with ego
Defiled our homeland
Seemingly snuffing forever the bright flame of freedom
A sea of distraught bodies marching onward into the night
Their chants of "HELL NO TO GMO" crescendoing as it passes by into the packed square
Those in power so easily comforted by their AKs and steel walls
Dia de Los Muertos masks hide determination
As the bombs ignite setting fire to the sky
Comprehension of our purpose is realized
We are not here to ask nicely
We will not be obedient to our peers as masters
Behind our smiling sugar skull masks
We grin as they burn
Aug 26, 2012
Aug 26, 2012 at 10:18 AM UTC
Millions of specks
Millions of people
Scattering
Scampering
Ever moving towards the light
Is there light at the end
Or is there only dark
Hearts keep beat
Breath keeps time
Our body
A finely tuned orchestration
Ever crescendoing towards the finale
Feb 10, 2015
Feb 10, 2015 at 10:41 AM UTC
I woke one morning feeling like
I didn’t belong in my own
body—
that the skin I saw was not my own
but the flesh of a cadaver;
I thought that the bones within me
must be made of balsa wood and
the deteriorating muscles were surely
thin strips of fabric with
no actual value.
I decided that it was not me on the inside,
but someone else.
The sky outside my window was only
a meager, pale shade of grey, like the ashes
of what her body used to be, and I
watched as the pale pink ribbon of
the horizon began to bleed with the birth
of a new day and I thought about how
all those words you said to me
were actually time bombs because when
you first said them, I brushed them off
but now all I can think about is them and
my brain has been blown
to kingdom come.
I think I might be brain dead.
But your school picture is still on my
bedside table and when I look at it
a fist grips down on my heart and
I wonder how you are and if you’ve grown,
I wonder if you’re even still alive anymore;
my anxiety is a yew tree bending in a
new formation influenced by the passing
of time and minimal communication—
I become someone I don’t know.
I think that we’re all born with
a different destiny to follow but
when you get right down to it,
no matter how much you’ve changed, or
how much I’ve changed,
on the inside, we’re all the same—
skeletons.
Except for the fact that I think I might be a
barely surviving Hiroshima victim;
a charred skeleton with no other
contributing human element.
Sometimes I compare you to
Chernobyl
and I wonder if you ever
draw that connection
too.
I wonder what it’s like to be nuclear.
I wonder what it’s like to burn alive.
There are dark clouds churning in the
early morning sky and I wonder if it
might storm again like it did on that
night when I drove home alone and
that one song was playing on the radio
over and
over and
over again
and I couldn’t possibly shut it off because
who was I to end the life of a beautiful,
(highly relatable),
song when it was just growing out of its
babbling infancy and into its
crescendoing teenage years?
If I were to write you a letter now
I wonder what I would say,
what I would tell you that I haven’t already,
(accidentally), spilled to you in those
rushed visits we had every blue moon—
I think I would tell you how you
broke my heart;
I think I would tell you how he
shattered what was left;
I think I would tell you how
I don’t believe I have a
soul
anymore.
Sep 17, 2013
Sep 17, 2013 at 11:54 PM UTC
in my mind,
i work at a third world convention,
bleeding saliva and avocado paint
behind a mule's *** like
seeking coverage was difficult
or something.
now it's past
the pillaging of painted americans,
valleys once rolled with corn and feather's weight,
but seized by nation's serious fathers.
the table creaks as sister
literally screams, "Grace!"
and the cotton tablecloth even
bows its head in poultry's spicy scent.
i said it was past,
un-remembered after a
murderer (more than)
antagonized another's HDTV
(bold, high, pronounces, and shrieks
more shivering-ly
than when a spider stepped on my toe).
now there are halos
beginning to blush,
vibratos crescendoing to
the last of leaf's sultry breath.
Noel was large-eyed,
carols twirling lighter than snow.
they made the Lord
wonderous, because o,
my baby king,
the manger was not a velvet cushion,
and neither will his
(or your)
days to come.
Nov 28, 2011
Nov 28, 2011 at 6:42 PM UTC
Encapsulated;
Pin drop atom bomb sparks
an incise, rasping raw hiss.
the instantaneous buzz ignites a crescendoing, numbed fuzz belonging to no known octave
Mar 24, 2013
Mar 24, 2013 at 1:29 AM UTC
A belly of butterflies
Danced to the sound
Of harmonica trees
And the violin leaves
Synesthesia bound
To the whispering winds
Of the sweet nothing skies
Playing fungi Fall fiddles
To tempos of riddles
Sensational melodies made in her eyes
Resonant love
In a breath of fresh air
These orchestra waves
In my deepest sea caves
Drifted away to the shores of nowhere
Then bottled-up notes
In time-signature sands
Wrote ballads of blisses
From strawberry kisses
Plucked from the tunes of our heartstring commands
And each nymph and faun
Composed of the Earth
Out of many songs one
And our voice was the sun
Crescendoing to a symphonic rebirth
Jan 31, 2017
Jan 31, 2017 at 12:22 AM UTC
Pulse after Pulse,
Wave after wave,
Ethereal Blue-- silver and misty, violently real yet entrancingly True-- collides, creates, reverberates, spreads like warfare as it envigorates the endless Sea of Diamond Comets that refract, reflect and beautifully protect a, delicately cradled and elegantly undone, Celestial Symphony-- whose conductor is a wise Blue Sun.
Volcanic moons spew molten streams of pure gold on to their eternally glittering surfaces-- mountains topped with Emeralds of green and Rubies of red-- existence is their only purpose.
Suddenly, a wisp of lightning from Under the Blue Sun, makes its way into Life just for a little fun.
Coiled up like a spring-- its journey cusping to begin-- it spontaneously releases, gracefully whole not in pieces, from its creator and its captor with a wiggle, push and squeeze. And with this dance it now does sing, every burst crescendoing faster in tempo not in speed. Becoming rainbows, becoming glass. Becoming kinetic energy with every passing moon, every passing meteor, every asteroid and comet-- beyond the gold, beyond the shine, beyond space and all time--
A wisp of Lightning, under a Blue Sun, leaves its home to create Life where there is none.
Apr 30, 2010
Apr 30, 2010 at 1:14 AM UTC
There is Presence. Presence....and there is Light.
“Where am I? What and Who am I? Am I alive or dead?"
A suppressed thought makes itself known, “You were once Enkidu....” The simultaneous recognition and brilliance of the place kept Enkidu awestruck and unable to act. Suddenly, sounds. As if they were coming from somewhere inside Enkidu rather than off in the distance. They funneled into each other, a chorus of voices both alien and familiar crescendoing finally into an empty silence from which the most clear whisper he had ever heard trickled forth. Its reverberations vibrating his form as it spoke:
*“This is the Kingdom of light, as it is, which no city on earth can equal. See how its network of light points provide the foundation for the most masterful of physical world’s architecture. Climb the undulating, gyre staircase, built of alternating circuits of thought and emptiness. Go! And approach the dwelling of your true Self, sacred to the all that is, and equalled by no earthly aspect that could ever be. Make your way through the kingdom of light and follow it through to the end.
Realize the equanimity of its presence, examine the truth that creates this platform of existence and see how it pours itself constantly into the construction of the physical world; its palm trees, gardens, orchards, the glorious palaces and temples, the shops and marketplaces, the houses, and the public squares. This is the dwelling of the infinite presence pervading the universe as an imperishable and unchanging force. Welcome to that which is beyond both is and is not...."*
Feb 22, 2016
Feb 22, 2016 at 1:43 PM UTC
time flows like an uninterrupted stream
building steam and crescendoing into
a raging river
instead of flowing against it, I try to be
like a leaf flowing with it instead of
fighting the current
sometimes I am caught in an eddy and
time stands still as I wind in circles
until I'm off again
I can't always see the larger picture,
but when I am centered in a loving Divine Presence
then I remember I am flowing to the Great Ocean
Each hour is precious and a chance to open up,
so I may move closer to the greater whole
a destination I can't even imagine
Jun 19, 2014
Jun 19, 2014 at 4:44 PM UTC
Why can’t anyone else hear the music?
The sound so alluring and entrancing.
It guides my every step in this melancholy world.
It spins around me and in me like the quiet kiss of a an Autumnal breeze.
The colors are sounds, every note a changing mood lifting my spirit with each new song.
Each new aria swelling and deluging my soul.
This feeling of devastating peace I cannot describe nor live without.
So why can’t you hear it?
Why can’t you feel it?
It’s so emphatic so intrusive and belligerent yet here I stand in the midst of this crescendoing chorus, ears ringing with this music but nobody dances.
And no amount of sonder can take this isolating feeling away.
This panging loneliness that cradles me.
Why am I the only one?
Why can’t you carry this sustaining chord along side me?
I though I saw you hear it once.
You blinked those dismal eyes at me and in them I saw you.
They sparkled and opened up with the wonder of a child.
Your head turned to the sound and your face softened to a visage I once knew.
But soon they we’re shut.
Clamped down and locked, choosing to be blind and deaf to the song.
Turning away in shame and anger.
Oh how ignorant you are, choosing to turn away from this beautiful epiphany that could set you free.
How could you choose this life of apathy and abhorrence?
Why do you turn your face from me?
Is my music not enough?
Here I’ll wait and dance.
Spinning slowly to the sounds of my spirit.
Singing along with my own song until the day you sing it with me.
May 7, 2018
May 7, 2018 at 6:11 PM UTC
By Steven L Herring
If I were a poet,
I'd be damaged goods
and all the world would whisper
as I sought beauty in the woods
If I were a poet,
a peculiar one I'd be
Robust in every single way
morning, noon, and end of day
all I am is me
If I were a poet,
an oddity in fact,
I'd start my days with gasoline
and the brightness of a match
If I were a poet,
I'd bleed on every page
Silence,
sadness,
laughter,
love;
crescendoing in rage
I am a poet!
A wordsmith if you will
But even if you won't,
a poet I am still!
Mar 14, 2021
Mar 14, 2021 at 8:54 AM UTC
He cannot hear
I just now realized
He's deaf to it, it's all disguised
Everything, all of it, is crystal unclear
What's up is down and what's far is near
The radio boils
The microwave sings
The telephone listens, while his ear rings
But he hasn't noticed, his ignorance is loyal
To his strange world of backwards turmoil
His eyes tear up
At the toasters dull ding
Oblivious though, to orchestral strings
Crescendoing, divinus, in joyous buildup
An Ode only heard as a course hiccup
Puts books to his ear
But hears no voice
Thumbs through jibberish, but his hands hold Joyce
The steak tastes like spam and the wine of beer
He's deaf to it, all of it, everything I fear
He runs in squares
And lounges in circles
Tears down hopes, and builds up hurdles
Will flail in shallow water and fall up stairs
Then write love letters to hate-affairs
Has two left feet
And no right moves
His rhythm and soul have lost their groove
It's tragic, greek, a heart that offbeat
Might mistake victory and chance for fate and defeat.
He's wrong. What's more?
He's oxymoronic
His light-hearted prose are mostly sardonic
Wouldn't know an apple from an adonic core
Or discordant beats from euphonic score.
He's deaf to it,
Yes ears and all.
Despite what words I might here scrawl.
It will never get through to that dumb misfit
He's deaf and blind and full of ****
Apr 6, 2021
Apr 6, 2021 at 1:06 AM UTC
The bells are tingling, crescendoing impatiently, creating a ruckus of taps within your chemically imbalanced head
Your hands shake with all the untold words, bottled up within your throat and unable to explode like a volcano of molten rock until people stand in shock and admire not the destruction but the beauty
You enclose yourself into a small corner as soon as their is an unknown force that you cannot adequately deal with and hope they leave soon so you can lower your defenses just a bit; for you are afraid of leaving the house and being stared down until you run away like a kicked dog with his tail tucked between his legs
You apologize for things you didn't do, not out of guilt but because you feel obligated to
For you see, when you have social anxiety it is hard to communicate with anyone, even yourself. You live in fear of saying the wrong thing, of messing something up, of splitting apart like an egg cracked in the middle and all the yolk spilling out beyond your hands reaches
When you were a child, you would ask the closest person to hold your hands and count to ten, and that closest person was usually yourself
Your heart flutters like a butterflies wings flapping wildly in a storm
Your breathing shudders as you try urgently to not shed tears not from sadness but from fear
Some describe social anxiety as naught but a tiny fear when in reality it is more like treading open water in the middle of nowhere with no help in sight, and the waves threaten to push you down until you are far out of reach
Some imagine people with anxiety as being introverts, when in reality it also happens to extroverts. It happens to all races, genders, and sexualities
When you live with anxiety, it is all you can think about. You strategize how to survive each obstacle of the day
One thing you can tell them to do if you cross paths and you notice their shallow breathing and their shaking and sweaty palms is to just
Breathe.
Dec 3, 2013
Dec 3, 2013 at 8:32 PM UTC
He cannot hear
I just now realized
He's deaf to it, it's all disguised
Everything, all of it, is crystal unclear
What's up is down and what's far is near
The radio boils
The microwave sings
The telephone listens, while his ear rings
But he hasn't noticed, his ignorance is loyal
To his strange world of backwards turmoil
His eyes tear up
At the toasters dull ding
Oblivious though, to orchestral strings
Crescendoing, divinus, in joyous buildup
An ode only heard as a course hiccup
Puts books to his ear
But hears no voice
Thumbs through jibberish, but his hands hold Joyce
The steak tastes like spam and the wine of beer
He's deaf to it, all of it, everything I fear
He runs in circles
And sits in squares
Drowns in shallow waters and falls upstairs
Nothings left of romance when passion dulls
But crippled hopes and shattered hulls
He cannot hear
He just now realized
He's deaf to it, it's all disguised
Everything, all of it, is crystal clear
What's up is down and what's far is near
Apr 2, 2021
Apr 2, 2021 at 2:36 PM UTC
Is it the red crescendoing of trees lining the icy lake?
Or the pebbles popping under the rubber wheels of my old car?
Is it the warmth of picking up wool scarves from their summer cocoons? Being shaken out and wrapped around cold necks?
Is it this lower state's familiar weather, blending brisk wind with bright sun? The way it heats the second-floor windows in the frigid mornings?
Is it the scents of sage and roasting meat floating through the door, welcoming me home?
Or the mismatched pairs of shoes kicked under the hallway bench?
It might be this last bit of Cabernet slowly tumbling to top my cup, or the ceaseless squeak of my childhood bed.
But yes, something calls me here, back to the beginning.
Back to the autumns of our home.
Sep 26, 2020
Sep 26, 2020 at 4:35 PM UTC
The night slightly hushed by the nocturnal lullaby
The ground wet from the remains of rain
The slanted hills that roll along the land
I sleep there with eyes wide open
I weep to the flowers that drop their heads in pity
I weep to the grass that ebbs in the breeze
A death of someone close, so close to me
That death was me
I died
And now I've lost my way home
Stuck between the world I knew and the one I learn
The girl I used to be
A phantom in a frosted mirror
Asleep inside this imposter
Chained inside a disguise
A nightmare all to real
The trees bow before my tears
The songs grow louder
Crescendoing
Until I lay still
Mar 10, 2013
Mar 10, 2013 at 4:56 PM UTC
Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
If harmony is what you’re looking for
I would compose a symphony for you
I’d create it out of the little things, usually carelessly overlooked
Writing the notes down as I go as if the pages of a book
Breaking form, strutting style
I’ll make it plain for you to see
We compliment each other well,
Regardless of the key
The sunlight burns into the trees but with the prevailing shade
The sunlight catches you in glances, as you walk away
But still I’d conduct a symphony, fingers riding every rift
Laying out a masterpiece, your own personal Fifth
I’d use my mittened hands, keeping the cadence stern
Smiling without saving face, I’m loving to relearn
My music floats atop the beat, crescendoing to the sky
The trees sway to and fro as nature joins in with a cry
Trumpet fanfare, chordal rounds, the most beautiful of sounds
If only, if only you could hear what I hear
And see these beautiful rounds
Venturing off across the medium, a tangent between right and wrong
An exhibit of choreography, justifying every wrong
You would find me smiling, artfully whirling my baton
A conductor at my finest, while trying to impress
As a romantic I expect the worst,
Without losing hope of finding the best
Continuing to break the mold, creation in rawest form
Discussion through composition, a shattering of the norms
As the piece draws to its close the conductor takes a bow
The lights dim with the curtain call as the cheers ring out
Then you’ll catch me beaming, an artificer plain to be
You’re the reason why I smile, it can’t be hard to see
Every time I see your face, all I hear
Is your symphony.
Jan 29, 2014
Jan 29, 2014 at 8:13 PM UTC
Soft curtains a drawn
A mist set forth on the stage
Down from the ceiling fell a cage
Elegant in beauty
The crowd watched in silence
For the show to begin
A soft melody fell from her lips
And crescendoing into loud folds of words
The opra began
She draped her body along the bars
And sang about how she wished to be set free
About her soul dying in the clutches of containment
A tear fell down her face
The crowd in awe leaned into the stage
Grasping her sides with a forlorn frown
Lying there
She let out the last of her show
It flew through the room like electricity
And the curtains where once again drawn to hide her face
She fell against the cool metal
Waiting to be set free
But the room dimmed to dark
And her body ebbed in and out of reality
Phantom of the ... Opera
Inside my mind
Dec 14, 2012
Dec 14, 2012 at 11:16 PM UTC
I sink deeper into the atmosphere we were responsible for,
in silence my eyelids and I fight the sunlight’s slow and crescendoing intrusion,
wondering if she is still asleep
or if she realized by now that every time she makes the slightest fidget
away from the center of the bed
I bite her
right where her lower abs meet her hip flexor
on the outside
I wanted to have her learn I am consistent.
she didn’t have to give consent,
degenerates like me don’t care
if I want the cake and proceed to eat it before day break
then so be it.
Nuzzling now
her lips press their frozen presence into the space under my jaw
and a warm gust of her pushes my sideburns up
my chest jumps
lumps in my veins snowball and create
the feel of cherry bombs popping
at every nerve ending I had forgotten
it rings me.
how could I let her trick me into jostling my babe awake?
and all before the alarm.
I grow the wings of a vicious pelican, expanding my span
using my featherish lips to attack her out of cryostasis
she curls up, afraid of more laughter and pushes her tongue through the gap she made
between her bottom and top rows of teeth.
she glows better than the bringer of days
the sun must find me insane.
Sep 25, 2015
Sep 25, 2015 at 12:25 PM UTC
On a night, dark and dreary,
I mused, wearily.
Whatever was I to do
With it watching me?
Wings as black as night,
Ink dripping, feathers like knives.
It has eyes like stars
In a somber, summer sky.
It turned its head and trilled,
Exactly 13 times.
Each note an alarm of distress
Inside my plagued mind.
It was here for me.
It shuffled its black feathers
And unfurled its dark wings,
Showing nothing but a heart.
This heart, my life, my ever-
Changing tune. This song
Began lively, crescendoing.
Ending with a thump.
I watched it falter.
I stared at it and counted.
I got to thirteen,
And then I watched as it stopped.
Aug 13, 2025
Aug 13, 2025 at 12:49 PM UTC
She is the sound of the rain
Soft tapping on the rooftops
An inexplicably calm feeling that you cannot stop
She floods your senses
Rushing gently while you can only float
Who are you, atop the ocean of her gaze?
She is the longing for sunlight
Overwhelmingly beautiful on the brow of a new day
An incredibly powerful feeling that breeds bliss
She alters your heartbeat
Shining intensely while you can only stare
What are you, worthy of being the object of her desire?
She is the most beautiful music
Sending your mind to faraway places
A fantastical feeling that moves your entire being
She quickens your breath
Crescendoing endlessly while you can only listen
Where are you, in the symphony of her being?
She somehow seems to be everything
Your favorite color
Your muse
Your captor
Your love
Everything
She is.
Aug 27, 2018
Aug 27, 2018 at 9:57 PM UTC
Build monuments for her.
High and prime,
with lustrous gold trimmings
and intricate pearl accents.
Surrounded by clouds of lavender,
like tufts of perfection
whispering into a beautiful stranger's ears,
gentle drops of sound.
Strong pillars protecting
a most-prized acquisition.
Love,
cementing every brick,
bridging every gap.
Tides of satin caress the nearby shoreline
in an infinite melody.
Crescendoing all prayers of light
and a mother's kind brow.
Diminuendoing unanswered
sighs of temptation.
Dawn kisses wide arcs,
turning immortal sadness into
her favorite raging affliction,
Home.
Mar 16, 2015
Mar 16, 2015 at 10:24 AM UTC