"crumpling" poems
Today not all of our mistakes are failures
Today I'm closing the door on
the things we keep behind our teeth,
the ways we never learned how to be
soft, but always tried
our best anyway
this is a tribute to the lost sleep
the nights I keep marked in tallies on
my arms, the letters I keep locked up
in a dark drawer,
where maybe something besides moths and regret
will eat away at them.
Today, not all of our thoughts are broken
today you take me out of my skin and I learn how to dance;
the rhythm is choppy but I follow
it anyway, after all we are only testing the waters here
we are only stargazers
awaiting some grand cosmic miracle, we are waiting with our
hands in our pockets for something big to happen,
we are falling in and out of obsession
chasing strangers
around and around in circles,
throwing our
fists in the air claiming "not everything is lost",
slowly coming to the realization that
it's also true not everything is found.
Today you don't know what you're looking for but you can't stop
searching the horizon, like maybe if you peer long enough,
your brain will slow down enough to process
the harsh thump-thump, thump-thump that tells you you're still alive
that tells you you're still here
that tells you you're still waiting
And my fingernails are digging into my palms now from the suspense
of writing and re-writing my name onto fresh pages,
crumpling and collecting them
in the bottom of waste baskets along with
half smoked cigarettes and
last night's rain, because
it is rare that two paths will cross in this world with anything more
than a brief flash of recognition,
it is rare that anything
better can be captured before it slips
down through the cracks;
but that thought was me eons ago
that was me in someone else's skin
today I'm putting nets out to catch the things
we throw around & never keep,
I'm writing your story into my
daily script & keeping a list
of "to-dos" before the big event;
tonight I'm alone and I'm
too busy to look out the window,
maybe the stars will flicker or maybe
they won't, but regardless
I'm still counting my heartbeats to know that I'm here
(still counting my heartbeats to know
the time I have left),
I'm still patching
this wound up with fragments of could have been,
reminding myself that not all
of our hearts are broken, and not all
of our moments are failures.
Aug 4, 2018
Aug 4, 2018 at 1:32 AM UTC
There is something magical
in the whirring
of a midday laundromat.
A cessation of pride,
maybe.
People all dressed in sweatpants
the air full of detergent smell
and the sound of coins clicking
against great tumblers
as they go round
and round
and round
and round...
The people smile back,
no use pretending superiority here.
Whistlers twitter on, folding towels and socks into neat, organized piles.
The children are well behaved,
their hands full of potato chips
given by their parents as a pittance for their patience.
The patient patrons
ponder on,
their empty hands crumpling receipts.
This, with the crunching of chips
and the distant whistle
over the percussion of clicking
coins clattering
in a dryer
compose an unintentional opera,
an ode to humility.
Humility's honorable honesty heals humanity's hubris.
Noisy trucks pass outside the floor-to-ceiling plate glass windows,
Where the hot air wreaks its violence
and men make their ways
in spite.
Oct 6, 2014
Oct 6, 2014 at 5:00 PM UTC
Surround me now, LOVE, like linkage
From beauty to the belly-button of the beast.
Umbelli me here my dear, let me feast
My eyes on your whole from the inside out.
Your flesh and bone, tan-toned complexion
Is ******* with my pheromones.
I crave your privacy; forbidden zones
Between ticklish toes and feather pillows
We'll mingle moments and non-moments of
Equal weightless ness.
A shared glass of milkwith your lips lingering
A lazy-fond sofa-based simmering.
A clinging a crumpling of breath accidental
Harmony undressed by a simple - YES
Feb 27, 2011
Feb 27, 2011 at 2:03 AM UTC
It was hard to miss Jerry
in the corner
holding court
over the bran muffin.
Flurries of judgement and wisdom
flying across coffee dappled pages
as he sentenced a large cup of
Paruvian Dark Roast
to be ******
7 am Dan never flinched
steeling his tenured chair at
a spot one section of stir sticks away
calculably just out of reach
of the regularly scheduled tantrum.
An auburn-haired newbie
fanes camoflage
peeking over two pages of Obituaries
she never intended to read.
Her raised and nearly detached eyebrows
hover above the dateline like a magic trick.
And on every table fall
scattered leaves
of press print trees
unsorted and littered with intent
by careless absorbers of trivia.
Disconnected
ear-budded
footnotes of humanity
see nothing
hear nothing
using the disarrayed World News as
enormous coasters
unmoved by hyper-ventilating compulsives
pushing panic buttons through
desperate quests to uncover
one alphabetically organized set
of local news.
Of the papers not strewn
the remnant holds anxious
on a distant wall
a throng of flopping
rabbit-eared
step children
dangling precariously
from unaccomodating magazine racks
like smoky orphans from
windows in a fiery building.
Disordered.
Disrespected.
Discarded...words are
Jews in the holocaust.
Death of a voice.
We are irreverent in our silence
diminishing genius through apathy
put off by the imposition to be challenged
choosing disposable principles
above responsible knowledge.
Everything is disposable - cameras, cars,
relationships, loyalty, babies...and wisdom -
crumpling Pulitzer prize authors
and discarding WW2 veterans
just to get to the cartoons.
Apr 30, 2014
Apr 30, 2014 at 11:15 PM UTC
See the Rabbi. See him tormented by choice. See his people. See them wracked by hate. See the others. See their anger radiate outward in glowing spokes, exploding firebrand in a tinder city.
On a night like any other, the moon at sixth house, fulcrum of pinwheel zodiac, the Rabbi, awash in lidless starlight, rises somber and makes his choice. And when the sun is furthermost, he and three of his others gather at the murmuring riverbank where the brown clay is most pliable and begin to dig, sifting rock and root from trundled earth. Hours spent exhuming the clay, molding it, kneading its muscles, tracing its veins, baking its skin in the starlight. More hours spent in whispering prayer, the words bent and somersaulting over themselves like tumbling books.
See Truth drawn on its forehead, life etched from clay and word. As the sun rises, so it does, wavering at first, but steadier, lapping at the river, and their faces move slowly across the water. See the Rabbi speak to it, his words winding its mechanism. See it stride past the ghetto, wade through the market, and into the borough, siege unto its own.
See the others scream for mercy from the kiln of its stare, from their flaming tenements, their crumpling rooftops.
See it wade back through the market, past the ghetto, back to the riverbank to kneel in the underbrush. See it tilt its head to the lilt of a stranded daisy caught in a vagrant gust. See it caught, too, and see it see. It sees the colors of Eden in the ferns. It hears the river churning sediment, fossils, gravel, whirling over driftwood. It touches moss on a rock; gently rotates its hand to let a grub complete an oblivious circumference. See it sit in silence.
See the Rabbi meet with the others, then his others. And on a day like any other, when the sun is at its apogee, they slip down the riverbank where it still sits, still. It ignores their autonomous logic, their homunculus rationale. They are perversions of variety cloaked in righteous intention. So it remains.
See the Rabbi and his others gather at the murmuring riverbank, shadow conclave in shifting sunlight, then rise somber and decided. They pin it to the earth as the Rabbi chants, invoking the void in which forbidden knowledge spirals. It squirms under the power of the Word, mind-forged manacle as incantation. See the Rabbi draw to a close. His hand is arbiter, swooping down to smudge Truth from its forehead. What is left but Death.
See its hand crumble in its passage as it reaches for the stranded daisy. See the colors of Eden darken in its eyes, its own body the dust that denies it light. See it collapse into itself, the clay that was once animate spilling onto the riverbank. See the Rabbi and his others shimmer then fade into city grey.
The daisy stands still.
Dec 15, 2011
Dec 15, 2011 at 4:22 PM UTC
Candle flicker
Keeps mosquitos away
The wind is picking up
No sound to be heard but paper crumpling rustle of aspens
A **** seagull squaks; only here
This is desert living
Desert loving
We have a porch
It kind of feels like heaven
Just the moon and lamplights
And pajamas with no undergarments
Citronella smell
Dry breeze
Skin no longer chapped
Weathered from my initiation
During the apex of summer when I read outside at midnight
Jul 14, 2014
Jul 14, 2014 at 2:21 AM UTC
it's a compulsion
everything inside
is crumpling
falling apart
caving in
for
g
e
tt
i
n
g
what it felt like
to continue.
it's a trigger
where it can't be
fixed or fought,
it just has to happen
and then you
cope
and
try
to push past it
and pretend like
at any moment
you won't
collapse
in the hurricane
of emotions that
hurl through your body
and pulse through
your veins.
Dec 4, 2014
Dec 4, 2014 at 12:44 AM UTC
The winter comes; I walk alone,
I want no bird to sing;
To those who keep their hearts their own
The winter is the spring.
No flowers to please—no bees to hum—
The coming spring’s already come.
I never want the Christmas rose
To come before its time;
The seasons, each as God bestows,
Are simple and sublime.
I love to see the snowstorm hing;
’Tis but the winter garb of spring.
I never want the grass to bloom:
The snowstorm’s best in white.
I love to see the tempest come
And love its piercing light.
The dazzled eyes that love to cling
O’er snow-white meadows sees the spring.
I love the snow, the crumpling snow
That hangs on everything,
It covers everything below
Like white dove’s brooding wing,
A landscape to the aching sight,
A vast expanse of dazzling light.
It is the foliage of the woods
That winters bring—the dress,
White Easter of the year in bud,
That makes the winter Spring.
The frost and snow his posies bring,
Nature’s white spurts of the spring.
2.8k
The flowers bloom
on empty grass
The decaying tree
continues to bud
The bird
falls from the nest
But lands on the soft cushion
of forgiveness
Not the concrete slab
of reality.
A second chance
Is what we all need
A second chance
Is what we seldom get
The shock parades
Up
Down
Across
Around
As I fall
Missing forgiveness
And crumpling into reality.
Apr 10, 2012
Apr 10, 2012 at 10:47 PM UTC
on your first moment of being alive
you’ll wonder why god’s in the sky
and how the ***** of your soul
can’t grab hold of the air
to steer you to die
and on your last day you’ll attest
that the plane in your chest
can take the air from your crumpling house
and fly you to god’s bed in the clouds
the clouds will spray and dazzle
with lightning purely designed to unravel
all the twine lashed around your heart
that keeps it form flying out into the dark
of some columbonimbus forest
where the pine trees are black
and you’re only a tourist
through the trillions of droplets of static
don’t panic
you won’t become static
if your being is healthy and your course erratic
through the eclectic college of higher thought
and liar’s losses where
what you said you’d ever do
is who you are and it is you
flowing through your floating soul
far away from your crumpling home
and what you said you’d never do
is who you are and it is you
and it’s flowing through your dying blood
tainted brown with air and mud
and who you are is how you fly with
wings of soul and ***** of lung
piloted by how you die
with tar and drink and merrier things
than you’ve ever known in a crumpling home
because flight is happy and death is euphoric
and falling is a trap sprung by calling for nothing
but concern and disdain will slash at your face
like raindrops cushioning a pilotless plane
Nov 7, 2012
Nov 7, 2012 at 4:33 PM UTC
I first cried
where freshness itself struggled
to breathe. Outside
the Ganges,
asthmatic,
began to cower
back in fear, in
disgust, in
disease, browning
like the discarded banana peels
on the roadside below.
I first cried
in a dirt town
where kings and queens
drank to grass avenues
and swaying music in the realms
of history books.
I first cried
where those books
aged quietly
in forgotten rooms.
I first cried
where the streets bled
out crumpling homes and
cardboard stores with misspelt names,
spilling children in dust dresses
and hair matted
into rust pieces.
I first cried
where those children hung
babies on their arms
like my mother swung
her handbag, a flag
of Valentino, while stumbling on
crushed cans and dog ****
and foetid mud-water
on the way to the dentist.
And the children cried
out snot, their arms
perpetually reaching
for a rupee
from the traffic.
I first cried
where white-lit department stores
sprouted in defiant sanitation
between eczema-covered apartment blocks
in which washing lines drooped
and parking was always a problem.
I first cried
where many gods and goddesses
resided on the footpaths
decked in glitter
and cloths of rouge
as old men with
skin weathered into mottled
leather shook
beneath sheets of jute
on the roadside below
and offered tiny flames
to their gods
as morning bellowed and their coughs
grew worse.
I first cried
where stareless men burnt
their fingers
on the Chinese noodles with too much
chilli powder
they cooked and fried and cooked
for those who never saw them
but to haggle over a ten
rupee note,
on the roadside,
on every corner.
I first cried
as thread-blanketed teenage girls
with wrinkled faces
squatted amongst cows
in the middles of roads,
chanting prices, in voices
full of tar,
of the mound of peas
they were selling for that week.
I come every year.
And I'm ashamed to say
I'll never live here
but in my verses
because I can't stand the smell
of the place where I was born.
I first cried
here.
I first cried here.
Dec 19, 2015
Dec 19, 2015 at 2:55 AM UTC
Lately I've been getting
really bad headaches
and I can't seem to figure out why
because this has never before been
a problem.
I try to go about my day and be happy,
but the second i do,
migraine.
They're bad, too.
My head literally feels like it's going to
implode,
leaving me to be a headless ghost
falling to my knees
and crumpling to the ground
in a pathetic heap,
never even knowing what happened.
I don't know whats going on,
but I feel like these headaches
might just mean something.
Maybe its too much stress
or too much pressure.
Maybe I just cant deal with
the weight of the world
for too long.
Maybe thats the problem.
I simply can't handle life.
These migraines are warning signs
that my breaking point is near
and I need to just break myself away
from society,
for at least a couple moments
just to take a breather
and massage my temples
and calm down
and possibly even cry
because crying really does help sometimes
and tell myself that its going to be alright
and that I can handle this
and I can handle life.
These migraines really will be the death of me.
~kns
Apr 5, 2013
Apr 5, 2013 at 1:46 AM UTC
The end of our journey
on the horizon's center;
the last stop to this asylum
in the midst of winter.
Darlings of destitution painting
****** distractions on the latex;
the essence of ambition covered
within the toxic keepsakes.
Cold doors keeping out
the warmth of affections;
our bodies wrapped tightly
within the canvas of preconceptions.
The thumping of our minds
beneath the crumpling distress;
ideas illuminating our perilous
potential. ****** beads of sweat falling
into the darkness.
Crazy notions spewing
all over the floor; the
filthy piles of wasted
time is growing.
Insanity within this circle
of trust; our dreams mislead us.
No windows to expose the sun as
we recline towards amnesia.
Dec 28, 2013
Dec 28, 2013 at 11:12 AM UTC
Silhouetted against a blank
Wall, lips curving
Dangerously;
Be still, my tender
Heart, your rapid palpitations will no
Longer be rewarded. In
Dreams your
Existence thrives within my own,
Five fingers wrapped
Around
Five fingers.
Slowly we were twisting, devoid of
Grace.
Once you were in full bloom.
A thousand repressed seeds,
Little
Whisps of hope sauntered effortlessly
From your lips,
released;
I was the warm summer wind, tugging each
Delightful murmur free,
Languishing in
The wealth, the weight of those promises, the scent
Of a new beginning..
How soon it became Autumn,
Your leaves tinged
With brown
Crumpling up, one
By one.
Those sweet seeds
Quickly made a home within the belly
Of a love ravenous
Fool, dissolving as
Steadfast as acid corrodes
bone.
Away, away....
You drifted purposely,
Without purpose.
Languidly, you attempted to brush away
The words, the very sentiments
That have stuck
To my ribs,
Like oatmeal.
What lives within the
Contoured ridges of your soul must be one hell
Of a mess.
Jan 13, 2014
Jan 13, 2014 at 11:13 PM UTC
My mind is forever playing
sensuous-tricks on me,
constantly,
I am engulfed
by your moist-tenderness,
crumpling my silken sheets,
hugging
& kissing my
empty pillow
& still lying here
alone.
Apr 10, 2014
Apr 10, 2014 at 6:58 AM UTC
They sing songs
Of desert gypsies
And chain smoking bulls,
Of mirages that kiss
Your throat
And linger quietly
Waiting,
While you quickly catch
Your crumpling breaths,
Drunken wisps
Of sandpaper snow
Flickering and coarse—
Palms warm to the touch.
Jan 15, 2014
Jan 15, 2014 at 3:59 AM UTC
Sleepless sorrow,
Deafening agony,
Crippling brutality,
Grasp it's soul,
Pulling under the moistened pavement into the forgotten bumps and cracks,
Break thy hope.
Shatter the stare with malicious chatter,
Each droplet adds another bone to split,
Crumpling what is left,
Leaving but an emotionless corpse,
Forever gawking at imaginary friends.
Stuck in her own tomb,
In between worlds.
Failing to reach any higher magnitude.
May 27, 2013
May 27, 2013 at 10:03 AM UTC
I didn't hold tendons between my fingers like
street boys on rain city rooftops,
crumpling their futures up to smash into shredded jeans,
shredded hearts,
some wrappers escaping, flying over this city
as our neglectful witnesses.
Their hands were broken bottles. The black top
made my guts look like escaping snakes,
my eyes hoping to be Medusa.
Fictionalizing gets me through most things.
Sometimes pain tastes like metal, sometimes like cherries.
I stare at the sideways sunset, a wrapper spit up
and drying out, a pipe dream promise;
reviewing my time strips as if they'd had a spelling change,
recounting every drop of blood word and smile.
Sometimes I forget that I'm real.
Sometimes I'm not.
Apr 27, 2015
Apr 27, 2015 at 8:22 PM UTC
I once said I was on cloud nine, but who's counting, anyways? I would, but, you see, I have too many things to tell you at once, more than I can count one one or two or six thousand hands - even still, the sun in your hair is doing a pretty good job of saying the words that they haven't made up for you yet. In my mind, the world would be happier it they'd stop looking for heaven in the sky because the universe that exists where my fingertips stop and your skin starts is not clothed in all white and there are no pearly gates but in this small fraction of a moment, nobody is dying. In some way, something taught us to tilt our heads back and stare at the starry expanse of the celestial universe above us as though we were looking for the answers to every thing we've ever been to afraid to ask but, in my peripheral vision, something about you glittered and my neck was tired from staring and calling out to whatever existed beyond our world and getting a divine busy tone, it was nice to see something beautiful in these human realms, for once. So if there is room to buid even the smallest shelter in the spaces between the small spaces in your teeth, I promise to construct one out of gentle words; if there was a scripture to make the veins under your skin sing praises a little louder, then I would write and rewrite the Bible until my hands bled. Just let me be the reason you are hungry but do not starve, let me show you the way that a body can unfold without crumpling first; I will trace a pattern onto your skin without so much as a single sound, but still, it could, perhaps, be something close to music.
Feb 19, 2014
Feb 19, 2014 at 3:15 PM UTC
like a star
the girl shines
plastic packaging removed
double-a batteries inserted
and with a flick of a switch
she lights up
beaming twinkling
amidst a galaxy of stars
that look just like her
that smile just like her
that behave just like her
she is held together by her own gravity
set forever to whirl and twirl and swirl
about her own little axis
dancing prancing
for the sentinels
for the solar systems
for the universe
like a star
the girl dies
inwards not out
crumbling crumpling
from the weight of empty mascara bottles lipstick tubes-face paint
to the weightlessness of her own self
Apr 2, 2016
Apr 2, 2016 at 1:37 PM UTC
i enjoy england
with its little houses
hips brushing, faces smushed
together to revel in quaint rumour
among gentrified lilies and pink
lady apples that blush in the summer
its walkways and alleys
dribbles of soft lamplight guiding
the drunkard, moth-brained and ill
with silk threads to a blind spot
of amber where muck can be spilled
the people on transport
with their airy talk, their mindless
silence, heads lolling idly on
windows, eyes crumpling like napkins
against the leaking crumbs of warm scone sun
pretty little England
where exploitation is vintage
and runs like rosé
down the dusty store windows
here we are free to stumble
down streets with sweat
in our hair and manic karaoke
reverberating off the walls
glee drinking is government protected
I'm quite in love with england,
this field of dew and white roses
fed by gore and sweet tradition
where fresh-faced, sunny children play.
May 10, 2020
May 10, 2020 at 9:48 AM UTC
My love for you is like a new box of tissues,
You keep using more, pulling one more out,
It seems as if there is an infinite amount,
Never running out.
You don’t even think about.
You use one more tissue,
Just a little more love whenever you need me.
But you don’t realize I’m not a what,
Realize WHO you are using.
Just use another, two at a time.
Discarding with ease.
One more,
Two more,
You can’t possibly run out.
Soiling it,
Crumpling it,
Then throwing me out.
But one day you’ll pull the last tissue,
Leaving nothing but an empty box.
Then what will you do?
I am not just a box of tissues.
My love WILL run out.
If you keep on using me,
Throwing my love away.
I will leave you.
Feb 25, 2014
Feb 25, 2014 at 11:23 AM UTC
liquid crystal display
glimmering salacious self-imagery at you,
your lips parted and breath
staccatoing along, flitting just
behind the beat, like your aunt's
first dance at the wedding reception (before
she's had enough to drink) or
her last (when she's had
too much)
she was in the passenger seat
on our drive homeward, leaning in
to the driver's seat conspiratorially,
oblivious to your beauty splayed out
exhausted in the backseat.
"she's my
baby niece, and you better not
**** with her
heart, you hear me missy?"
and I assured her I wouldn't as you
laughed and laughed, bell peals
in the backseat and church bells
echoing in my ear, past and possible
future, sodium vapor lights
slipping away along the highway as
your aunt slid back into the passenger seat.
"so"
"so"
"she's quite a
character," I say, bemused, and your
eyes crinkled at the corners like
newspaper redesigned during crumpling as
kindling for the fire, blue and blue and blue
in the backseat.
"that's true"
"just like you"
"just like me" you agree,
crossing your legs, legs that go on
for dynasties in thigh highs and
your dress riding up too high for my eyes
to focus on the taillights ahead of us when
paradise is in the rearview:
love is
cold lobster bisque
in a big bowl in bed in the morning,
two spoons and a carton of orange juice
arrayed on the covers atop our
entangled legs.
Jan 12, 2015
Jan 12, 2015 at 11:32 PM UTC