"curlicues" poems
he laid hands and lips upon
canvas of aching nakedness
igniting...
wanton hunger; pressing into
my palate; fingers painting tender
curlicues with subtle strokes
tracing...
each line and curve, tongued
with passions ink as climactic
quivers, pause; nipping as I
ebb and flow...
he rides in cresting waves, teased,
seduction blankets our embrace;
firmness delves deep...as breath escapes us
scarlet lace lays puddled at our feet
Jun 29, 2012
Jun 29, 2012 at 1:45 AM UTC
darkness extends its warm arms around
me and its fingernails trace the delicate
purple veins tattooed on my forearms
thin curlicues and tiny vessels of this very
thing-- this thing that reverberates and
reverberates and reverberates within
this tiny black knife makes its first vicious
forceful trace-- the curls becoming
faucets of this bluish purple liquid
a puddle which defiles the pristine floor
-- maybe this is a suitable cleaning
device-- a thin rod with this pointy
shiny silvery tip, collecting tiny mercury
***** from the puddle, as I rearranged
the puddle into the thing bluish purple
liquid curlicues just like that whence
they came
Jul 10, 2014
Jul 10, 2014 at 9:43 AM UTC
In place of memories — embers.
Inextinguishable, yet untrue
to the fidelity of what was.
The smoky curlicues, too,
have been denied. That whiff
of the past. Smouldering,
it warms the prudent hand.
Sears the lingering one.
In place of you — embers.
Charcoal flake anklets at your feet.
Wrinkling, shrivelling.
Your impassive verse-marked
way of staying. But when asked
to disappear, become so
unwilling.
Sep 26, 2013
Sep 26, 2013 at 11:59 AM UTC
Sands of time
tinkling through an obscure artefact
the light in you as you recognise your own.
Why and how are long-trodden tracks, forgotten
as my mind unfurls with a fresh green vine
whence before the stubborn old clung dry, and crisp,
those bitter octogenarians of perception.
R&M;, those sweet surprises
winking from behind a hidden door
were small shards in the bright crystal of our day
that felt woven only for us.
You trailed your fingers in the lukewarm water
And across my neck, both, at every opportunity
the warmth of the day
to turn to burning heat of us as light and inhibition fell.
'.....a thousand kisses deep', you read
And those you gave enthralled me
Cruel-clever Fate, to plant us as seeds apart
that sad, never understood genus or cure
to find now the curlicues of tendrils touch
And all to make pure, beautiful, joyful sense
our flashpoint clear in its providence.
How clear and fine, luminous, perfect
your touch and kindness and intellect drew
these feelings from myself, not forgotten
but rather, felt in that day anew.
an older......deeper.....creature are you
curled in dark and bookshelves and things unmachinated
You're art, and never be apologetic
your sorrows, twisted mad moments and lust
sift through you to paper, golden dust
and I find you entrancing
in no hesitation
still, I find I've one eye on the snare.
A red orb signalled our day into night
red wine and red running beneath my skin
I see you so clearly my dear, in mind's eye
and know the feel of your hair in my hands
and your elegance contrasts with slyness and salt
and the glint in your eye with its knowing purport.
Forgive me, I cannot relay
all I felt
forgive me, I cannot I know, more I can give?
but know, incandescence you drew from me surely
for you, kindred soul, have reminded me- live.
Jan 13, 2013
Jan 13, 2013 at 3:27 AM UTC
“When do you feel sexiest?”
kisses liquor-infused whipped cream
and a broken remote.
A new comforter.
red and blue blinds
throbbing beyond my eyelids—
“you’re falling asleep”
no I’m not
Chest hair curlicues
iron on the floor
cement block with contact lenses
and condensation from early morning.
kisses sighs fresh sheets
and a broken remote.
“Get naked”
all naked or just a little naked?
new haircut stolen DVD’s kisses
on cocoa butter skin—
where’s the remote?
Nighttime spasms.
Legs and diaphragm.
kisses liquor skin wet –
sweat and strawberry flavored love.
A,B,C, or D?
definitely A.
Missionaries.
Sensual.
Another movie and a
fresh pair of sheets.
kisses liquor and a
broken remote.
Mar 16, 2011
Mar 16, 2011 at 3:00 PM UTC
I see bodies
Huddled on the floor
Laying lifeless
Drained of hope
Deprived of what could be
Decorated with knives
Tattoos stained with
Resentment
And self-hatred
Does anyone care?
They fade into the shadows
And left abandoned
A beauty forgotten
Crumpled
Withering in defeat
From your words
That stab swords
Through hearts
Do you care?
Their eyes once saw
Mountains that touched infinite skies
A blue
So pure and clear
That once mirrored the innocence reflected
In their own
Mountains they planned to climb one day
And reach that place
So high
Their eyes saw (but you never seemed to notice)
Lakes that appear shallow
But hold deep crystals beneath
Along with a whole life force
Flowing curving
Ripples of delight
Ecosystems
Families
Friendships
That harbor her treasures
All connected by watery strands
Of energy
Webs weaving passions and dreams
And touch the depths that dive into hearts
Of the matter
Dreams and passions that can be followed
Pursued with unrelenting
Mysteries to unlock
Their voices spoke words of wisdom that could
Transform into flighty doves and claim wings
That softly land into unbound books
Scrawled in personalized script
With the little curlicues
And indigo ink puddles breathing life
Into blank white pages
All of their own ideas
And opinions
You never cared about their opinions
Their hands caressed another
Their bodies hugged
And encircled
Holding on tight
And passed so much to each other
Saying everything
And nothing
By touch
Contact sizzles
And fire burns
Pressed against another
They never found love
Hearts that beat so loud
And resonate in tune with
The rhythms and patterns in that
Of another
And lost themselves piece by piece
Until their identity reflected that
Of another and became
One
Maybe so
Maybe not
But you’ll never really know
But you said you never cared
Anyway
They once sparkled
Shimmered with life
You took it all away
Their beauty
Their light
Do you care?
Dec 18, 2013
Dec 18, 2013 at 9:28 PM UTC
evening alights, finding love
assailing poetry's tongue;
kissing parchment's fragility
fluent in dark of night, resonating
deep within her heart
and...
curlicues of light stream in
facets; shone upon her soul
as whispers beckon in song;
twining body and mind in things
unforgotten, eyes bedazzled
in poetic grace
fore...
love prevails in the wisp of
time; leaving heart to vibrate,
as he articulates to an open
heart, breathing her space;
tracing the poetic beauty of
her face
Jan 11, 2013
Jan 11, 2013 at 2:36 PM UTC
I flourished in a town bound by darkened facades
as shadows creeped along its soot filled walls;
I'd daydream and words came to me, in whispered
curlicues...faint but, envisioned while they lingered
3 dimensional...dangling.
Giving me a voice in syllabic ruminations like a
rhythmic drip drip from a faucet; I set sight on its
auditory ping and I'd sing its lulling lullaby verse
by verse; scribing thoughts that unleashed itself
from inner walls of me.
Gleaning the taste of poetry from mind and savoring
its aftertaste in the pit of my soul, steadily scribing.
Jun 29, 2012
Jun 29, 2012 at 3:17 AM UTC
Light Shows
Wafting up this hill
From the town below
The fetid air this morning,
Whispers sleepily.
We sat here with a crowd
Last night, anticipating
The finale of the Fourth of July,
Expecting colored fire
And fierceness in the sky
To erupt above the lake
As a flotilla of boats,
White and green and red markers glowing
Took their bobbing places
Too far from us to see expectant faces.
The morning grass lies matted,
Littered with bits of celebration:
Candy wrappers,
Bottle caps,
Crushed cans...
Only the motorcycle and I
Overlook the restless trees and water
Uncertain in the morning breeze below....
The fireworks this year amazed us all,
Arcs and constellations
Shattering the air
Drifting off to die in smoking trails,
Whistling curlicues,
Weeping-willow shreds of gold,
Strings of blue and white and red,
Cacophonies of power,
Echoing and echoing again.
And yet, again,
God won the show...
Sent a humble lightning bug
To fly across my grandson's path
And captured, captivated his attention.
While thundering explosions pinwheeled overhead,
An insect blinked his tail,
Walked up young Parker's arm,
Disarmed the bombing of the sky,
Attached a young boy's quick affection,
Earned the title, "Sparky,"
And hitchhiked home
To be released alive and well
On my front lawn.
Jul 5, 2014
Jul 5, 2014 at 10:48 AM UTC
We are
the creatures
of the night
no tears for us
as we soar
taking on
such glorious
heights
up through
trees, up
through the
invisible threads
between stars
in silvery wefts
I will bring home
the nourishment
to my little ones
nestled in their
warm nesty twiggy
holes safe curled
in lairs
we are
the protectors
of the light
that starts
in darkness
and arcs
like a flare
we ride alone
but when we give
we yield
completely in
full thrusts and
curlicues,
glow-in-the
dark patterns
as leaves
cascade and
comets fall
around
the shadows
then, in the
morning's first
sun peeking
I land and find
that peace
a kind of
proximity to
that love
I'm
seeking
'
May 14, 2016
May 14, 2016 at 6:49 PM UTC
The shadows flick
Faster and faster of
The fan until it
Turns into a UFO and
Detaches from the
Ceiling to fly away.
I'm drunk on
Exhaustion
High on
Poetry.
The invisible pattern
On the wall begins
To dance, the curlicues
Tangoing with fleur-d'les
To the silent drumbeat
Of my heart in my ears.
I'm intoxicated from
My thoughts
Completely smashed on
Shards of mirrors and the
Dregs of any
Innocence I had left.
I'll watch the numbers
Flash backwards, just
Let time turn around
Clocks will melt
Even in air-conditioning
I've got a
Pounding headache and
Tomorrow I'll be
Hungover
On my soul.
Jul 4, 2016
Jul 4, 2016 at 4:16 PM UTC
When we are making love -
mouth, breast, chest and sweat
genitals joined in circles and loops
of whole bodies - curlicues
coming together, joining
land edge and sea rush
tidal, our vast ocean.
After, we drift away in our minds
our flesh still held hostage
still, our bodies linger close
until the whole earth is silent
and we quietly release each other
becoming two selves, flat on the sheet
skin, side by side beating with heat
sharp and tingling
with the taste of salt.
Jul 14, 2015
Jul 14, 2015 at 12:42 PM UTC
she watched curlicues of sweeping clouds, and
loved how they painted the sky like van Gogh
the Line of smudged charcoal smoke severed the
(sky) blue bodies apart.
when The wind stroked her face.
it was cold and woke her up.
spilled Synapse after synapse
onto Dream after dream.
the surface of the sun,
when it was almost, but not quite,
drowned by the sea
= the most visible feeling she had seen.
Apr 17, 2013
Apr 17, 2013 at 11:33 AM UTC
I would always be by your side,
This is all l desire.
Every day, in so many ways, I can say
I am almost with you
For you I will be this great oak tree
The roots of my love grow deep in my soul
I will be your strength, sure and steady
Certainty in the face of each changing season.
I am the cool water that clears your mind in the heat of the day
My hand is the gentle breeze stirring your hair
The raindrops, my wet little kisses on the earth at your feet
so flowers might spring ahead of your every footfall.
Open this book of poetry, listen close...
My voice echoes softly in each lovers’ verse
My desire moves here in these inky arabesques and curlicues
Entwining words that seek only to touch you
To comfort you, to soothe away any storm.
Feel the texture of these pages, the soft and the smooth
This is me beneath your fingertips
Ivory skin, dark of my hair, velvet and silk
Breathe deep, here is the scent of every Rose in my garden,
Each one a promise, a wish for the future.
When day is done, close your dark eyes,
Open yourself to the beating pulse of night...
To hidden songs in the breeze that drifts through your window
There is my voice, calling your name.
I am weaving my yearning and trust around you...
Crying in your loneliness, know l am there
Taste the salt of my tears on your lips
I am waiting in the landscape of your dreams.
Distance and time may conspire to keep us apart
We will yet be together
In each day, in the secret of ways of lovers,
I will be
Almost...with you.
Aug 7, 2018
Aug 7, 2018 at 11:55 PM UTC
Now, when I mention Poetry,
your eyes will glaze, I guarantee,
and then you’ll smile and say to me;
“This modern stuff's is *******
You’ll claim it’s clouds with beige and blues,
bedecked in caerulean hues,
all fancy words and curlicues.
“That's right. A load of *******
You’ll say it’s nonsense, sometimes crude,
pretentious, sloppy, often pseud;
no more than prose, with attitude.
“A bucket full of *******
Not me. I write a different way,
in words which mean just what they say;
more like the Giants of yesterday.
My writing isn’t *******
I take a theme and, where I can,
I fit it in a structured plan;
what’s more, I make it rhyme and scan,
as verse - and not as *******
Then, should you like my classic style;
perhaps it’s when I make you smile
or ponder for a little while?
That’s proof. It isn’t *******
~
Aug 20, 2010
Aug 20, 2010 at 9:10 AM UTC
You swept through
Like a forest fire,
Burning everything in sight.
Wanton devastation,
Reckless and cruel,
Leaving only ashes
And smoke
Rising in pretty curlicues,
The last sign of beauty extinguished.
Sep 25, 2014
Sep 25, 2014 at 7:44 PM UTC
This summer, as ever, there's much to do.
But only one or two things I want to do.
I told Alan that, like him, I'm never bored.
But today, like a teenager, I'm both tired and bored.
The long expanse of summer stretches forward. Alan plans
the next 2 years in advance, always moving forward. I can't plan
the next 2 hours, sitting on my **** undecided whether
to clean the house, make a list of prospective donors, or check the
5-day weather
forecast. Fires out west, hurricanes south, drought here
in the east where the garden phlox withers and the corn's stunted. We
hear
prophecies of armageddon, doom, but humans may go on another
thousand, million or billion years
undaunted. What is that to you. A day alone in your room and a year
are inexplicable. Now and then a vacation, baseball game, night of
love.
A divorce, a death, a drouth. To survive and prosper we must love
all of it, insect infestations and world wars, cloud curlicues and square
dances, work
and weekends off. Knowing the unknowable = never knowing how the
world works.
Aug 11, 2015
Aug 11, 2015 at 4:56 PM UTC
It stifles me,
A thick wool blanket that's
Butter-soft with a butter smell,
Wrapping around my sinuses like a
Tissue stuffed up a nosebleed.
Curlicues like optical illusions,
The lenses of the 3D glasses that
Weren't handed to me
Bring my flat insecurities to life:
I'm the kernels on the bottom of the
Popcorn machine
Needing to be blown and buttered
Up to be presentable.
Until the expectations
Along with the glasses
Come off to be recycled
To another empty corn husk of a person
Who needs air and butter to fill them
(But who really doesn't.)
Jul 7, 2015
Jul 7, 2015 at 11:14 AM UTC
It is not my favorite book
but it reminds me of things prickly
and those things ***** my mind
with flung dreams and stars.
Do you think?
I think, though I am
a paper cut-out doll pasted into
the clothes I’m wearing and scribbled over with inky stars,
smeared curlicues on the back of one hand.
Dec 16, 2013
Dec 16, 2013 at 12:22 AM UTC
Packages are beautiful,
resplendent in their colors
bright and cheerful,
attractive in their shape
and tempting in
appearance, wrapped
in ribbons richly hued
with curlicues and bows
We love to carry them
about, showing everyone
how fortunate we are
to have such gifts
in our possession,
letting everyone join
our wonder about
what may be
in there
But I prefer a plain
brown wrapper
bearing no disguise,
or better yet the
contents revealed
to my eyes
To me, it's not the
package that's important,
it's what's inside
Mar 21, 2014
Mar 21, 2014 at 1:29 PM UTC
you pour your soul into a bottle, siphon away your last redeeming qualities
and think, perhaps if i write a poem, i can save myself
perhaps if you wrote a poem, you would condemn somebody else.
you squint into the vial, notice the curlicues of ash
and that's weird, because you haven't burned anything recently
nothing except yourself
i thought about donning that visage, of veiling myself in black
i thought about a lot of things
of bruises on perfectly smooth arms
of the silver sheen of a sharp edge
of trying out ceramics and seeing if they're all that great
i remembered what you're supposed to do
or what everyone says you're supposed to do.
lay out your belongings in an orderly fashion
leave a note
what would i say? no one would take the time to read it
no one ever has
maybe this is the note
the note they'll never find
the note even i don't understand
all i wanted to do was talk to you
just talk
just to hear your voice, just to exchange a few words
and i don't know how this happened
i'm lost
and they ******* **** at making maps
and i am jimmi simpson all over again, dying not one not two not even three times
the younger generation of being possessed, of putting your points
in unexpected places
of being utterly unliked and useless
what's wrong with me?
things i don't even feel but i always lead it the same way
i always **** it up
i always do, every time, without fail
i'm no good to anybody, and least of all myself
and the only reason i'm still alive is because i keep thinking
that maybe just ******* maybe someone cares
because i keep thinking but what if
well **** the what ifs
no, the only ******* reason i'm still here is because i'm too much of a god **** coward to **** myself.
Nov 30, 2014
Nov 30, 2014 at 7:48 PM UTC
Asleep on your belly, or, alternately,
on your side, on me; the first night -
the first full night - with the promise of coffee
in the morning and not only allusions to it.
Your full weight on my thigh,
which I’d never tolerate in any night past,
but kept awake by the two scant hours
of partial sleep I had and admiration
of your neckline, the province of your back,
golden boughs embroidered under
thin hair
part umber, part gold itself, cast on the pillow
your left hand
and its short fingers partially unearthed, nested
in a hillock of brown coverlet and blue curlicues,
opening and closing.
Hushed, I sip a drink and read a poem
as you murmur in sleep “yes”
to whatever invitation the one in dreams extends.
The one in dreams; he may be me. Gold from a summer
that has not happened yet, surer with a barbecue,
ready to paint a white thigh emerging from a sheet,
a better rendering than mine
of the one spot you missed shaving.
He may be the husband of Scheherazade, prodding
one more story, one more night at a time.
You’ve a cobra in a willow basket.
It’s not a murmur. It isn’t “yes”.
It’s a gourd flute the land of dream gave you,
and I am not
the servant of the realm, or gold at all,
or worth my silk curtains. One thousand or
one thousand one; I can’t change,
not overnight.
I won’t know, nor ask, but
the snake isn’t transfixed.
It’s only waiting.
One day, I’ll appear in print.
The small merchant in Barataria
with whom Sancho Panza speaks.
You’ll describe those sheets
or some such other linens I have for sale -
an intimate detail of my home, returning the favor
of having appeared here. It will win a prize
you never knew you were competing for and
a dozen men in memory will whistle down “yes”.
Mar 27, 2018
Mar 27, 2018 at 10:25 AM UTC
The Seine a tongue of midnight ink.
Montparnasse, a tepid August night,
star-bundles like quartz-splinters in the sky.
The Dingo bar the place.
Jazz coming from somewhere, melody of mystery,
throng of conversation and smoke,
grey curlicues swaying above our heads.
Hemingway, feuillemort shirt, telling me I look rough.
*‘You sleeping well?’ ‘Well enough.’
‘That wife of yours is pure mayhem, I tell you.’*
The same old chatter. Besides, Isadora was worse,
cradling her drink as if a glass of jewels.
Then he was onto his Pamplona jaunt,
a heat that careened off from the streets,
undulations of warmth in the air
quivering like whispers.
*‘Look here, we’re the best writers in this city
when you’re not gallivanting over to your wife.
Two women, one body, you know it Scott.’*
I sighed, ordered another gin.
‘Transparent poison’, Ernest said again.
On the way home, faded trill de trompette in my ears,
night thriving to every pocket of Paris,
fields of unidentified liquorice flowers.
Young and in love - young with intimacy
skittering around our bodies
like delicate bees.
Apr 28, 2020
Apr 28, 2020 at 11:21 AM UTC