"crusting" poems
Searching my heart for its true sorrow,
This is the thing I find to be:
That I am weary of words and people,
Sick of the city, wanting the sea;
Wanting the sticky, salty sweetness
Of the strong wind and shattered spray;
Wanting the loud sound and the soft sound
Of the big surf that breaks all day.
Always before about my dooryard,
Marking the reach of the winter sea,
Rooted in sand and dragging drift-wood,
Straggled the purple wild sweet-pea;
Always I climbed the wave at morning,
Shook the sand from my shoes at night,
That now am caught beneath great buildings,
Stricken with noise, confused with light.
If I could hear the green piles groaning
Under the windy wooden piers,
See once again the bobbing barrels,
And the black sticks that fence the weirs,
If I could see the weedy mussels
Crusting the wrecked and rotting hulls,
Hear once again the hungry crying
Overhead, of the wheeling gulls,
Feel once again the shanty straining
Under the turning of the tide,
Fear once again the rising freshet,
Dread the bell in the fog outside,—
I should be happy,—that was happy
All day long on the coast of Maine!
I have a need to hold and handle
Shells and anchors and ships again!
I should be happy, that am happy
Never at all since I came here.
I am too long away from water.
I have a need of water near.
31.5k
Saturday.
what a glorious time of week.
laundry hangs on the clothesline,
the ghosts of the week left to dry
as we softly stare out the window, chalky panels
between crusting paint. Attempting to
listen to the silence,
muffled by words, we discussed
a day free of demands, and the boy
in his blue shirt, with his ball.
If I were to wish anything on anyone
it would be a year full of
Saturdays.
Jun 6, 2014
Jun 6, 2014 at 6:35 AM UTC
as soon as these blue speckled
socks go, that's it. A new bright black death.A solemn weir on a stark horizon.Give me a reason to wear color. My hueless affidavit
runs me into the Earth, where I sprout up
a pallid keb- brain orf'd, you could drag my etiolated ebon
body through the ovine fold or take me to the theater. When I was just a minor teg, I sheared my mim kip, I fuckinggave it to you outright. In this little
cote my wan mien nigrifying; my calamitous black, quaffed full of congou in demitasse, of souchong & saucers. My atrous wethered body albicantly degenerating in the atrous sun. I'm crusting over with wanness and you, you're fortifying in the cwm where I used to yaff and stray. Your ovivorous hunger,something I never knew, when first you came for my jecoral flesh, just another bot digging through my soft toison. Like Dall's Prometheus being sheared from the flock-you cut me away. In this drab and achromic world, you put the wanness in my flesh, the gid in my heart. Still.
Just these blue socks are left.
Apr 26, 2014
Apr 26, 2014 at 5:20 AM UTC
We have no prairies
To slice a big sun at evening--
Everywhere the eye concedes to
Encrouching horizon,
Is wooed into the cyclops' eye
Of a tarn. Our unfenced country
Is bog that keeps crusting
Between the sights of the sun.
They've taken the skeleton
Of the Great Irish Elk
Out of the peat, set it up
An astounding crate full of air.
Butter sunk under
More than a hundred years
Was recovered salty and white.
The ground itself is kind, black butter
Melting and opening underfoot,
Missing its last definition
By millions of years.
They'll never dig coal here,
Only the waterlogged trunks
Of great firs, soft as pulp.
Our pioneers keep striking
Inwards and downwards,
Every layer they strip
Seems camped on before.
The bogholes might be Atlantic seepage.
The wet centre is bottomless.
4.2k
The
weight of the world sitting dumbly on
those fructose eyelids.
They, in turn. melt into the mummified
morning.
laying in the corner forever like a
favorite-shirt
ruined in the wash.
Every other stripe on you is stained pink
from
some cheap volunteer tee that ****** up
The whole load.
Each ray from the blinds
Takes some life away.
Searing past you- into the floorboards
with
quiet fury.
Time passes_
It shoves us down into compact spaces.
(but)
I thought of you
In a shoplifter's prayer.
(There is something left that evaporates out in the form of you)
I imagined you
Still.
But growing
Like
Crystal salts
Crusting up the pores of the earth.
Vapors fumbling upwards to rehydrate
My dry fingers_
We make decisions . that stick around.
We break off blisters. Rip little things that hang off our lips.
We take breaks before we need them.
Take too long to say
**** this.
Thoughtlessness.
*Somewhere out there, they are screaming loud.
Somebody either cares or
Doesn't.*
The marks on the carpet know better than
us
How to last forever
Oct 15, 2016
Oct 15, 2016 at 11:59 PM UTC
*everyday chores
wake
eye-crusted
weep
hoping
to free-falling freedom
maybe
splash
words of encouragement
let them
dry
*untowled and untrammeled
upon expressionless lips*
routinize
squeeze
*out the poem
reforming repeatedly*
write
of everyday chores
sleep
go to, to go,
*half awarding awaring
that newbie tears new pooling
will by morn
old crusting creating
and
everyday chores
never ending
I am earth
crusted
no matter how deep
daily*
dug
the untitled
everyday chores
Jan 25, 2015
Jan 25, 2015 at 8:07 AM UTC
*We were squeezed from corruption
armed with the monstrous cutlery
of rippers and tearers of rationed meat
for a day, for a day, for a day:
the butcher gives his best cuts
to the young and godless divorcee
find us, keep us : a spectre hiding
in the dark pig iron rust hooks looping
through your *** and shopping lists:
smelting your coin
and punching your face
Company is the full knowledge
of our protracted, 3 -stage decay
burn drift degradation
eyes crusting shut
in doom and settling bomb silt
palms up, taking a punishment
in the mothertongue
ignoring lessons in the gracious
expectancy of departure
We, A legion of ancient clockwatchers,
in on the joke of time
and folk fetish of apple-cheek poverty
[Gasp!] The gruesome romance of class!
!you cry! !safe! !always safe!
in the nuclear hotdog option , which is
observably, the title of this advertisement
We will never get you[ ]you're awake!
and your atmosphere is still In Da Black
We watch you
watching
the 5 car pile up
catch up rolling down your chin*
Mar 1, 2017
Mar 1, 2017 at 10:20 AM UTC
Years of my tears dry to stale grit
Rusting my skin with crusting corrosions
of Yesterday's emotions frustrations devotions
With time, composting into a dirt coating
Renourishing layers of decomposition
Green seeds in germination with anticipation
Sprouting fresh roots of deeper perception
A Glowing. Growing. Living. New Me.
Feb 22, 2017
Feb 22, 2017 at 8:37 PM UTC
I decided it was time to get the sponge
find the soap underneath the sink underneath the
garbage bags and start piling on the
lukewarm bubbles and wait for it to reach a
comfortable level before I allowed my hands to grab
this bowl that was stacked side by side, tall and wide along with the plates and glasses
grimy with crusting red sauce, an alarm for the bugs reminding them
spaghetti was made last week. I had to put more elbow grease
into that off-white, lightly detailed, crunchy bowl. the
red stain threatened the credibility, questioned the use of
cereal for breakfast or ice cream at night. So I tried harder to
make it disappear and my arm did not
understand and my bowl did not
relent
I almost left the sink full of cold water, void of soap, floating sponge
and I almost left the hard work for someone else who
doesn't give up
but I was fuming and I was frustrated and I was not ready to
fail
so I picked up last week's spaghetti and made it this weeks
ice cream bowl
Mar 5, 2012
Mar 5, 2012 at 5:44 PM UTC
If I lay on that big, white bed for along time,
will you help me find my Father?
If I put tubes in my arm
and didn't eat for a week,
would you show me where he is?
Will the robot standing next to my head feed me
coordinates through rhythmic beeps and blips and red flashing lights?
I will do that.
I will shrink in my bed
and let my hair shed off like snake skin
and let my skin wrinkle like I had been in the bath tub for too long
and leave the windows wide open so my children can watch.
My lungs will burn out
and you'll put a mask on my face
and add one more tube to the collection
in the crook of my elbow,
adding more weight
as I lose mass
just like my Father.
And after countless times of being told,
"You have his smile,"
I will truly know what they meant
when my lips become sandpaper
and my tongue becomes parchment
and my teeth hollow out in gradients of pale moon yellow.
The iron from my blood
will add zest to every wheezing hack
and trickle down my throat like the morning dew
watering the growing weeds in my lungs.
I will do nothing but blink my crusting, glazed eyes
when my family cries at my bedside.
I will not flinch as their shouted cries echo the hallway
or look up as they throw their hands to the sky,
begging to a name I had long turned away from.
Would I find my Father if the flesh of my cheeks sunk into its bones
and my face was contoured by the ugly shadows in its
every crevice?
Even then, I would not find my Father.
I would not find my Father
until the white coats stand over my bed,
prodding me with pens and magnifying glasses and stinging needles,
and finally tell my family there is no chance.
I would nto be my Father until I refuse to cry
or scream
or become angered
or say goodbye.
I will be relieved that after countless months of being dead,
they finally declare my pulse gone.
Jun 3, 2014
Jun 3, 2014 at 10:41 AM UTC
first, make sure you are very concerned with
unlearned or silenced or misread minorities. this establishes that you
are a rarity, a person of charity,
a champion and deity of the small and the voiceless.
you’ve made the right choices
swallowed the right poisons
so now you’re not pointless,
you’re with the top few
of the economic disparity.
do you aver verity?
not so much.
you just make the choicest noises.
second, it is very important that you stud your vernacular
with words like deictic, post-spaciality, and sub-simulacular.
when you, font of knowledge, squeeze out pearls like turds
in twelve-point, double spaced, times new roman rows,
lined up like crows or some other ***** birds,
be sure to write no sentence shorter than thirty words, and
see to it that two thirds of these words have more than ten letters
that even the nerds in their plaid-patterned sweaters have not once ever heard.
when you walk, A paper in hand, from your car to your apartment, past four vagrants, do not look at them.
do not look into the eyes of the man standing in the rain, barefoot, black, green, and yellow toenails oozing and crusting, nodding his head and shouting at no one, and do not wonder whether or not he’d be there had he been educated.
lexicon is not eloquence.
erudition is not wisdom.
intelligence is not a prerequisite for rights.
you have no rights.
take a dictionary and shove it up your *** and
while you’re at it, shove one up mine, too.
Aug 7, 2013
Aug 7, 2013 at 4:54 PM UTC
Innocent saucer eyes open wide,
Sweet budding lavender laughter.
We’ll all go down-
One by one.
Silence aggravates the wreckage
Of what I used to be.
Into an abyss of false love
I’m falling.
A love that is mistaken,
Shown in the form of tender kisses
In detested secret places-
On a moldy couch
Covered in cat hair.
The crippling angst of your fingertips
Against my cold youthful cheeks-
Tracing the outline of my fatty jaw.
Slow circles of smoke escape your chapped crusting lips,
As chunks of flesh turn to rotting hostility
Against ones own body-
The bitterness of the cold turns to sweet comfort
As a lovely numbness becomes my regularity,
And emotions and physicality become one
Persisting to disintegrate-
my soul has become
a boiling bubble of spoiled milk
With the putrid stench of pillaged skin-
The devastating devouring desecration
of a ravaged--
Nov 26, 2012
Nov 26, 2012 at 4:19 PM UTC
Beauty is not flowers, given by a lover.
Nor is it meadows and birdsong.
And definitely not the pantomime of Weddings, with their
Hyperbolic declarations and parodies of tailoring on
Bodies too well-fed to house them.
Instead, it is the soft curl of cigarette smoke, blue
And graceful against the grime of a steamed window.
Or in a poky kitchen, the remains of our meal crusting on
Our plates, too absorbed were we in conversation
To even remember the taste.
It is the chuntered breath, just after,
When we are both trying to ignore how bad
We smell, and getting slightly annoyed that our heartbeats are out of sync
And thinking how nice a drink or a shower would be.
It is seagulls beside a river, in a military line, with
White trails of **** Jackson Pollocking down the wall
On which they stood, and how they all took flight one by one
Like dominoes as I approached.
It is certainly not sunsets. After all, they occur every day
And can be captured in a photogaph. It’s the accompanying silence
That makes sunsets special, and that is better found in libraries anyway.
It is somehow more impressive to silence human tongues than watch
The suns tired routine once again.
On a bus full of rowdy, starched schoolboys with filmy faces,
Posturing about experience, Beauty is the one boy reading.
Beauty is not safety. It is daring and bold. Or perhaps it is quiet and
Trying to be ignored, I don’t know. Perhaps we shouldn’t care a jot.
Beauty is that thing that should be ugly,
But is not.
Dec 5, 2011
Dec 5, 2011 at 2:32 PM UTC
I still have more to give
cried
the rotting leftovers
in the back of the fridge
Desperate to be
used
ripped
snagged
just take me off
this crusting tomb
I
want
to
feel
what it is like to be
reheated
just zap me
:45
ill be tender
ill be good
enough to eat
alive
and the last streams of red can trickle onto
your paper towel
all the mess
****** away
by the quicker picker upper
slip slip slipping
on this plastic plate
because you dropped all your fine china
you broke all the glass
you cracked all your chances
for divine dinning
I can watch your eyes roll around
from the inside of my lightening storm
a game of Yahtzee- snake eyes 4 times in a row
scanning everything
forgetting everything
are you feeling lucky?
:10
almost almost
almost
drip drip dripping
is the drool from your mouth
you forgot how good I can be
use the knife and cut away the bad parts and ill be
the prettiest picture
you've ever seen
i'll taste just like I look------ a piece of rotting meat with the corners cut off and the juices all dried with a warm reminder of hot all dumped onto a plastic plate.
delicious
Feb 24, 2012
Feb 24, 2012 at 12:57 AM UTC
I often begin my poems right here
directly inside of this box
this "body"
and I think that it's really the only way
to put out things I like
It's fresh and raw
and a little bit squishy
but that's okay
some people really like squishy
here I am in this squishy little body
this raw poetry
the only time I will ever like this poem
is when I can still feel the salt
crusting over on my squishy cheeks
and I've never found it so difficult
to type out the word "squishy"
so many times in a row
my face feels so crusty
but at least it will taste nice
to a passerby who may happen to lick it
I often regret poems
but this one is squishy
and some people like squishy
so I guess I like squishy.
Mar 5, 2013
Mar 5, 2013 at 1:44 AM UTC
a million little miracles
standing in a line
laughing at the little man
who chooses not one time.
crowded, there.
elbows and hellos and farewells.
dream
after
dream
after dream
withering
decaying in a flash of images
of people that will never be
and chances that will never be
taken.
encounters
that will never
occur.
again, a new dream
stands up to take his place.
his place,
and the air rushes in
to fill the gap
where the old dream is no longer,
and the new dream has yet to be.
the air rushes in,
closes in,
fills it all in
and when the disappearing dream
declines all else but its own
decay
it blinks.
vanishing into a single point of
light
a frozen face
a
fractured
(smile)
a piece of god
of self
of soul
and when it
blinks
it winks
it darks
and it is gone.
the dream is
worse than dead.
the dream is
worse than gone.
it simply never was.
it simply never was.
the air rushes in
again
always filling in
and the new dream swells with pride.
i
am the dream
that will make
the miracles
and save this man
from the self he
secretly serves.
the new dream opens its eyes.
the air
rushes
out,
grows thin,
breath becoming ragged
before it has even begun.
eyes tear.
drip and run and **** sadness
and water and cloud
at the heat
left behind
in the wake of the evaporating atmosphere.
refusing to gasp or swat at tears,
the dream stands straight and tall.
i
am the dream
that will make
the miracles
and save this
man
from the
self
he secretly serves.
one moment of attention
a second’s worth of will
and the air would be endless and free.
the dream would be endless and free.
before blinking
the first
(and only)
time,
the newborn eyes
swollen, itching
eyes
grow wide in unfeigned horror.
dream after dream
from the footprint under his shoe
to the ****** horizon
of crimson and death and loss
stood screaming.
dream after dream after dream
standing and screaming and
weeping
clamoring to be heard.
a cacophony
so loud
so very ******* loud
his newborn crusting eyes
saw the sound
through the red tint
of sorrow
and loss, the tint
that in mere moments
had become
the only vision he would ever know.
saw the sound
he
saw the sound
so loud
the fragile air
pulsed and scattered, convulsing.
the sound so loud, he saw it
before the sensation
of hearing
occurred.
before hearing
before blinking
but weeping, always,
weeping . . .
he saw the screams of all the dreams
through eyes that leaked decay.
one instant.
one flashbulb spark
second in time
to give this dream
(any dream
any of these dreams
any ******* dream at all)
breath.
one second to pause
to give
one thought
to give
one chance
to give one breath.
to give. to give.
and the air would be endless and free.
the air and the dream,
both endless,
and free.
i am the dream
he chokes,
his eyes burn and
weep,
itch and weep
that will make this man
he cries,
ears ringing
forsaken dreams
******* screaming
crimson and ****** and loud
save the miracles
he secretly serves
he shrieks,
hands clenching
into futile fists,
&
Apr 28, 2012
Apr 28, 2012 at 4:45 AM UTC
Foetal positioned in the womb of her ampersand,
a child to the connected string of unholy clauses,
always adding more and more and more
and,
and,
and,
stuck in the expectation to carry on,
creaked and crusting under the weight of the words
you promise you’d put back after you used them.
It’s getting hard to distinguish between rest and end.
ъ
Dec 23, 2014
Dec 23, 2014 at 8:27 PM UTC
Awake! With morning darkness burst
Cracking rich eye crusting sleep
Ignore the strident bell of life
Outward cold warm snuggle deep
Ward against the nagging throng..
Heavy somnus dragging down
Yet buried in the fogged dark mind
Stirs nagging tendril hazy thought
Waste not the day the moment bright
Life much holds more than lazy sleep
So lift mind's eye to misty height
Great life romance spread out before
Adventure waits rich quandary cries
Mountain steep ascend short breath
Summit reach proclaim rapport
Plunging deep crash water roar
Piton ***** stretch rope zing out
Axe bury thud strain upward reach
Snow underfoot sharp crunch give soft
Peace vista birdsong rise aloft
What journey waits?
What dreams?
What Fates?
Agonise decision ........ wait!
Heavy lids snap open gate
Hah! Exclaim loudly joyous shout
Burst upwards throw aside life's wrap
Brush away veil laden doubt
Cast aside all thought save one ....
Awake the dawn of comrades share
Banish prison walls of toil
Embrace the spice rich life before
Lost freedom of existence glory
Live the life few dare to hold
Climb cragged rock - Trek lands far flung
Forge white streaked waters sheen
Cross the desert dry and bright
Brave wilderness dark verdant green
Stand wind whipped face brave peak stand out
We know what it’s all about
So-Facilitate deep need within
Live the life all seek few dare
Complete existence venture far
We pass this way but once - bemuse
Grasp this opportunity or lose
Oct 16, 2010
Oct 16, 2010 at 1:01 PM UTC
Fingers through grass,
Green.
Stained against flesh,
Guilty.
The water will never
wash away your crimes.
Rip it from the earth,
dirt against skin,
Brown,
Mud,
Crusting.
The water will never
wash away the sin,
Forever marked
against your
Pale
Plaster
Skin.
Apr 29, 2016
Apr 29, 2016 at 9:07 PM UTC
from between 2 somethings
arose a kind erosion
saying, "your you is a light lie crusting on the tongue of truth"
i could not
find a suitable
vocal enunciation to repeal
this tepid assertion
so i gave
him a measure of myself
laughing
May 5, 2010
May 5, 2010 at 1:11 AM UTC
Drunken ...
I can stumble through brick walls
Vapor and steam I fall between the cracks in the street
Until I wake up in a certain crooked alleyway
Made whole by the presence of blood
Crusting to the side of my head.
I can hardly breathe- the air is too heavy for my lungs
I am fog resting against each unlit windowpane
They put their heads together and whisper
They laugh at me
I feel nothing when i spit blood and teeth in their direction
I claw at the face of exhaustion
Telling myself with each step to keep going
to the cave entrance covered in ivy
it is dark and cold
in it's deepest most ancient cavern
lies a lake with frozen water
A grotto of salt crusted stalactites
Green glowing mushrooms with neon spots
It's quiet almost
I can lie on the bank listening
To water run the rock smooth
Droplets echo as sleep whispers
*Somewhere far above
Two black eyes watch
Dilated completely by darkness
It's feet find purchase among the razor sharp rocks
Taking a moment to drink heavily from a puddle in a dark corner*
It must be my imagination
I feel as if I am watched
...the sound of bare feet on the wet bank
It cannot be, but my eyes
Something is above me
Warm breath on my face... smelling of rotten fish
A smell of death and decay send my mind reeling into the darkest corners of my imagination
I wake with a start
In my bed
I lie back to listen to
My heart beating in my ears
Aug 18, 2012
Aug 18, 2012 at 10:29 PM UTC
i wake
starving for a body
he craves flesh and blood and bone
i shake and shiver as he holds me
unbound from this mattress of
seven nights before
when starry eyes and small words flooded
from our crusting mouths
my tongue like sandpaper
Sep 15, 2012
Sep 15, 2012 at 11:10 AM UTC
The crisp air engulfs my lung,
As I begin my downward run.
Trees whip by in an endless haze,
As I zip through their leafy maze.
Downwards I go, but to where?
Only to the depths of my own despair.
Fear scours from the brain.
Loss of sense drives me insane.
My body rushes to the end.
To an outcome no medicine can mend.
I hear the wind’s furious roar.
So loud, that I cannot ignore.
Like an eagle’s screech it sinks in.
Leaving me desolate within.
Slowly pain creeps into my ear,
Until even the raucous wind I cannot hear.
The wind is no longer heard,
Yet the scent of pine is still observed.
Natural incense accosts my nose,
In unending scented tidal flows.
As I ascend, their sweet fragrance drifts away,
Until the nose, too, loses its way.
Fear scours from the brain.
Loss of sense drives me insane.
My body rushes to the end.
To an outcome no medicine can mend.
The mute unscented wind enters my throat,
As I scream, its icy tendrils freeze within my moat.
The tongue becomes non-dependent,
As taste buds become less apparent.
Instead of the crispy icy-taste,
The wind-ridden flakes become a senseless waste.
As I plummet coldness baths the skin,
Damp snow covers me from head to shin.
The frigid warmth of its crisp flakes,
Causes my skin to numb as it chillingly bakes.
A tingling sensation flares through me,
Luring me to numbing amnesty.
Fear scours from the brain.
Loss of sense drives me insane.
My body rushes to the end.
To an outcome no medicine can mend.
All that is left is the sight of the trees flying by.
My vision blurs despite what ever I try.
Daggers of frost singe my eyeballs,
Crusting my vision of nature’s wondrous halls.
All that I see becomes opaque,
Leaving me in a deep black wake.
Here I am approaching the end,
While dreading the life I tried to mend.
I feel my ascent coming to a crashing stop,
As life ebbs from my body’s quivering top.
At last!! Relief from the pangs of life!
At last!! Relief from life’s endless strife!
Jun 12, 2012
Jun 12, 2012 at 10:06 PM UTC