"dangles" poems
Humanity i love you
because you would rather black the boots of
success than enquire whose soul dangles from his
watch-chain which would be embarrassing for both
parties and because you
unflinchingly applaud all
songs containing the words country home and
mother when sung at the old howard
Humanity i love you because
when you’re hard up you pawn your
intelligence to buy a drink and when
you’re flush pride keeps
you from the pawn shop and
because you are continually committing
nuisances but more
especially in your own house
Humanity i love you because you
are perpetually putting the secret of
life in your pants and forgetting
it’s there and sitting down
on it
and because you are
forever making poems in the lap
of death Humanity
i hate you
285.4k
when god lets my body be
from each brave eye shall sprout a tree
fruit that dangles therefrom
the purpled world will dance upon
between my lips which did sing
a rose shall beget the spring
that maidens whom passion wastes
will lay between their little *******
my strong fingers beneath the snow
into strenuous birds shall go
my love walking in the grass
their wings will touch with her face
and all the while shall my heart be
with the bulge and nuzzle of the sea
50k
Give them to me.
All the pieces of your broken heart.
Give them to me.
I'll take them.
All the rough-hewn misshapen bits of your shattered dreams.
Give them to me.
I will take them.
Give them to me.
They are wanted here.
All the parts of your misspent childhood. All the regrets of ticking seconds behind you.
Give them to me.
And we will build a cathedral. A stained glass window of who we are as tall and as beautiful as it should be.
Let me have them.
And we will make a mosaic that stretches as wide as the sky. Showing every color your heart gained from the bits and pieces left on the ground.
I will take them.
And forge a sculpture of how beautiful the ideas are that we cast out in our failings and we will cast it in our failings.
Let me have them.
And we will ***** a monument of all the small things in the shape that you remember them.
Towering. Looming. Striking. Beautiful.
Let me have them so we might bind the words said and regretted, (or worse) left unsaid in leather and call it scripture.
Our Psalms. Our Proverbs:
*“The tip of my finger dangles like my tongue. Wanting to touch something beautiful.”
“If it were not for him, it would have been us.”
“You were all my brightest colors.”
“I wish I were more like you.”
“I wish I were less like me.”
“I am sped.”*
And we will read them at dawn like litany.
Stretching our voices to the corners of the universe. Asking for the wishes you make when you are scared. Or alone. Or both.
That we may take them.
And make a blanket.
A blanket to cover our childhood and let it rest at last.
I will take them.
All the parts you no longer want.
Give them to me.
Because they are what make us beautiful.
Give them to me.
That I may forge them into pitch and feathers and craft mighty wings.
That I may take flight from your worry. And soar on the updraft of your misconception.
Give them to me.
I will take them.
Because I would rather burn like Icarus than to have never dared to fly.
May 5, 2014
May 5, 2014 at 4:02 PM UTC
there is a monster beneath
the lofty, billowing sheets of my bed
beneath the mattress
the box spring
the carefully crafted wooden frame.
[he lives in the shadows,
in the obscurity there.]
i should feel sheltered...safe,
underneath these sheets,
[like my mother’s arms
tucking me in tight,
don’t let the bed bugs bite.]
but when my arm dangles off my bed,
when i commit that fatal mistake,
i feel a draw to the ground
more forceful than the force of gravity
seizing my hand
paining to pull me under.
and i know it is the monster.
i feel his yearning
for the blood and guts of a child...
his desire to rip me apart
like a lion does his prey.
i take back control of my hand,
wrap my arms around myself,
feigning safety.
for as we all know
that monster could very well
clamber, creep out
climb onto my bed
and swallow me whole.
i don’t know why he hasn’t yet --
perhaps he likes the challenge
of waiting for me
to be susceptible enough to
forget myself
and leave my arm suspended
for more than
just a moment.
i am curled up into a fetal position
paralyzed by my fear.
the anxiety invades my joints
so that i cannot move anymore.
i fall into a fitful sleep
and wake up to sunshine radiating
through my window,
casting the intricate patterns of
my curtains on the rug.
during the day,
the monster cannot survive.
but when nighttime falls
the darkness returns,
my trepidation returns
and the monster is alive.
well, again.
Nov 11, 2012
Nov 11, 2012 at 2:54 AM UTC
I say hello
My nametag dangles from my lanyard
"Hello, my name is Liz
Pronouns are kye/kyr"
it says
They see the lanyard
and they laugh.
"Those aren't pronouns!"
they say
"She is messed up."
Shut up.
A 300lb woman
looks into the mirror
she sighs
remembering her peers' words
"You should lose weight."
"You're very overweight."
"Your obeseity is your fault."
A 75lb woman
looks into the mirror
Her anorexia laughs
remembering the 300lb woman she used to be
her peers then tell her
"You need to gain weight."
Shut up. Shut up.
The boy hides his face
Not giving the teacher eye contact
The teacher calls his name
His stomach flips upside-down
She called on him on purpose
he just knows it
In front of the class
expectant, judgemental eyes glaring
Instinct tells him to run
He looks at his notecards
All he sees is chickenscratch
The teacher hangs her head in disappointment
and growls
"Just sit down if you have nothing to say."
Shut up. Shut up. Shut up.
A girl drags hersef through the day
Everything is black and white
Coming home to wild parents
Who hit her constanty
and then claim
"I love you."
Excuses, excuses.
For every welt, mark and bruise
But when she gets one on her face-
She had given one, too.
In fact, she had given many
How generous she was!
The police came and arrest the girl.
All she heard was
"Her mother is dead."
Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up.
Take a breath
the girl tells herself
She goes to her parents
They stare, wide-eyed
at her dress, eyeliner and nails
they just stare.
She tells them
her new identity
They tell her
"Chris. You aren't a girl.
You're a boy."
Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up.
You read a poem
titled "Shut Up"
About the hardships
The unfair, the despair
of living life.
Please know
Opinions don't matter
If you are happy,
who cares what they think?
If they criticize you
Just smile
and say
Shut up.
Nov 7, 2014
Nov 7, 2014 at 1:36 PM UTC
The beauty of comatose can only be seen through
the eyes of a wizard in a blizzard
strutting in garlic slippers,
or Christ with knees bent at the tabernacle
peeling bananas and kicking prayers
farther than eternity with each gapping second,
or like Basquiat slumped back to the wall,
with ounces of speedball dancing through his veins,
eating 80’s free-based fried chicken *******
as his eyelids paints beautiful nightmares of lemon flowers
and Bacchus bacon over a glycopyrrolate desert
of flagrant cuckold buffoonery.
Or like leprechauns burning chocolate ******* candles
on the mantle of Zion, sipping oatmeal sprinkled
with Staten Island malt liquor bacon.
or like Tupac reading the thoughts of Mother Shipton
through the daze of California cannabis
and hearing the ominous voice of Plutarch sing death assignments
from heaven to Assassins on horsebacks goggling ***** water
to wet the dry bones of their throats as they prepare to fulfill
the gospel of self-fulfilling prophecies of being fell by ***** bullets.
Or like sophisticated wallets of spice and kitchen characters in a bald head
cooking chemical kisses and 18 February nights under Moloch’s skin,
where constitutions are written in charcoal diaries with Egyptian ciphers and razors.
“I had rain sowed into the pockets of my sneakers and composed 1310 eulogies
at the basement of king David’s tower,” said the Kraftwerkian caricature,
as he dangles cigarettes in remembrance of Klaus Nomi and philosophizes on the proliferation
of poetic vandalism at urinals where modernism failed under the phosphorescence of coloration at the avenue of no trees where Picasso's "Guernica" **** Lies All.
Jul 17, 2012
Jul 17, 2012 at 6:01 PM UTC
with fangs prepared
we wait
by stepping out cavern of blue thoughts
and into
night sky
lit by glow of stick-end
night sky
carried on the back of an ant
night sky
begs remorse's end
night sky
brings out unsuspecting fools
to dither aimless
to seek nocturnal sweets
yet hunger dangles in ropy clots
undissolved
only to find acrid wind.
May 5, 2013
May 5, 2013 at 3:57 AM UTC
Love dangles in my eyes.
Love floats in my air.
Love is my every tomorrow
and today is already gone.
I scroll through
hopeful photos.
I see yellow glows
in windows.
Thankfully,
the lamp and the screen
grant me amity.
Jan 19, 2015
Jan 19, 2015 at 11:57 PM UTC
"where it stops nobody knows"
Just a few words connect
threads of thought
in a passing moment
A fray dangles
by a strand of fiber
— a conspicuous
temptation—
an interesting
thread to pull:
If it begins to unravel,..
it just might not stop
until the tapestry
is a tangled ***
of unspooled thread
Jesse Stillwater ... September 2018
Sep 3, 2018
Sep 3, 2018 at 11:31 AM UTC
the rope dangles like a noose
I would beg for your sweet abuse
tell me how to hurt for fun
tie me up and come undone
paint my ankles with your thread
fibers rub to crimson red
I'm strong enough to take it
to your love I will commit
tell me all you plan to do
desire and come into
feel your fervour through the rope
feel your tongue against me *****
your need becomes mine to fill
tie me up, I'll be your thrill
Nov 20, 2018
Nov 20, 2018 at 8:13 PM UTC
She frequents here most weekend nights,Big **** long kegs, freaky appetite,Her eyes scan every inch of the club,Wet *** all hard and ***** to hell with love.She licks her lips, and warmly, her other lips respond,She sees her prey and grins at knowing this night will be long,They stroll towards her knowingly, they are the lucky ones,She straddles one, while the other mouth makes her come.Moaning ***** words, and writhing, her **** are bouncing freely,Two on one's her favourite, it makes her come so gleely,Her wet tongue finds something hard and veiny, she takes it in her mouth,Her stroking slips and slides make both guys moan and pant out loud.His ball sack dangles over her, she's begging for a suck,The other's fingers enter her, she loves a finger fuck,Her mouth fills up with pleasure juice, she comes onto his fingers,She licks it off, but takes her time,intent to make it linger...
Feb 26, 2010
Feb 26, 2010 at 6:50 AM UTC
All dimples and curls and pigeon toes when sitting,
purple; and gold dangles
light-skinned girl, dark-skinned girl
depending on the translation
hips swivel to the left, ******* that follow
in commanding black bras
and matching lacy *******
Rolling backwards into handstands for most *************
else on the loveseat
whipping love back and forth between the swell
beneath the shorts
and beneath the outer layers,
the lip gloss smiles and masquerades
beneath the veins and bone and guts:
there's a naked, quivering heater
switched on all year long
its dainty wiring peeking out,
the head of the cord puckered.
Sep 28, 2011
Sep 28, 2011 at 1:28 AM UTC
.
I keep an imp:
It dangles limp,
And sleeps away its time,
Only arousing
To go out carousing,
Painting the town with slime.
O.O
Oct 29, 2014
Oct 29, 2014 at 3:08 PM UTC
She stands gazing out at the lake
the waves chase each other across its surface.
Beside her, a fire
connected to her, it burns softly and warmly in the dark of the night.
She can feel her city miles behind her
its walls shifting, changing, throbbing with her every emotion.
The waves crash against the shore
pounding the sand as hard as it can.
Then...
a silver chain, half buried reveals itself as a wave retreats
She reaches down and grabs it before the waves reclaim it into the black abyss
infinity...
the loop dangles from the silver chain blazing in the light of the fire.
A scream claws its way up her throat
blood-curdling, loathing, filled with hatred.
Beside her, her fire leaps
its flames raging, burning brighter, hotter, higher, faster
The chain falls from her shaking hands
the light illuminating the chain as the waters reclaim it, bringing it back into the black abyss.
How?
Why?
It was a cruel joke
after everything?
Now they were just mocking her
breaking their promise and throwing it back in her face.
Hatred fills her veins
for what the silver chain means
She can feel Him waking
He can feel her rage, her anger, her hatred.
Slowly everything around her begins to fade
the lake, her fire, her city.
He begins to wake
filled with longing to be unleashed upon them
to make them pay for what they did.
He begins to consume her
taking over her till nothing is left
She is on her knees, panting, fighting to control Him, to keep Him subdued
but its too late
He is too strong and she is to weak.
He enters the world
and she is no more
gone...
He wants blood, pain, chaos
He wants to make them suffer
He has no reasoning, no cares, nothing
only the urge to ****
destroy, pain.
He is the Beast
and nothing can stop him.
Her city can do nothing
only watch and wait
Watch has the Beast destroys the world
consuming it till it is no more...
Dec 1, 2013
Dec 1, 2013 at 8:14 PM UTC
The sprouting buttercup
dangles into the purpled,
doting sky. It's waxy spangles
nuzzle the moist,
crisply dewed, fluff
whilst billowing across merry air.
The yellow buttercup
dozes in spiced, lean dapples,
setting its soul ablaze in sumptuous echoes at the sheer
drape of dawn.
The teacup buttercup
outspreads it's wings
amongst tall spiked grasses
and wild flowers.
Shifting shafts and shards
of grass and glass
and forever awaiting the larks cry
which means its time to die.
May 19, 2014
May 19, 2014 at 7:24 AM UTC
Sun slits in through slats
of kitchen window blinds
and she is alone.
The art major is cooking
spaghetti,
pretending her thrifted T-shirt
bearing a cotton copy
of Campbell's Soup Cans
is not stained with tears and blood.
Oh, but that's hysterics and
hyperbole;
art has a tendency of making its worshippers
melodramatic...no?
The blood is only tomato sauce
and the tears...
well, what are tears but
water and salt?
After all, dramatizing the
mundane is just one awkward shade
of artistic temperament.
Visualizing life through
a heavy silk screen.
The art major sighs and
stirs.
The spaghetti is redder and
redder as she cooks.
Just as
her paintings bleed more blood
as she dangles a brush over them -
the teary-eyed watercolours.
The art major has decided
that drawing out extremities
of colour
might transform
her own life into
a pop of a Warhol painting.
The art major sighs and
stirs.
She thinks, tries to
think
in technicolour.
Today's thought-pencilled thesis
concludes (like a brush stroke of uncertain finality) that
love is the red of tomato soup cans.
Anger is the boil, passion is
the gulp,
danger, caution, warning,
the hot breaths, fleeting warmths,
the burn and sweet and tang.
She looks down at the
scarlet of
Warhol's soup cans,
blooming in worn out cotton
on her chest.
It might as well be blood, she
thinks.
It is,
it is,
it is.
Blood red love -
tomato soup cans.
Sun sets in slits
through kitchen window blinds
and she is still alone.
The art major sighs and
stirs.
The spaghetti is ready.
Aug 2, 2015
Aug 2, 2015 at 6:41 AM UTC
She sits on the bow and dangles her feet
A rigid, cloaked figure looms on the stern
She runs her hands across the skeletal vessel
Thick mist twists and slivers past her cheek
A coin-filled cage hangs off the Ferryman's arm
as he pulls an ore through the ominous glow
A rusty lantern rocks and steadily creeks
Bright green flames lick the Ferryman's robe
Into the void, into the churning ink
He gently rows across the river of woe
where no one hears her scream
May 22, 2021
May 22, 2021 at 11:28 PM UTC
Hair mottled like
an aged mare
she descends
the steps
one withered leg
dangles from
a purple dress like
a frost nipped
cornflower.
Oct 13, 2017
Oct 13, 2017 at 8:41 AM UTC
I’m at mercy’s end.
I’m at the edge of my seat.
The rope I held so tightly
now dangles out of reach.
I question who I am.
I question who I was.
I find that my search for peace
ends not with love.
My heart is numb with pain.
My mind quakes with fear.
I swallow to choke back my pride,
and find my eyes filled with tears.
I saw you today.
I saw that you were all I could see.
I used to feel a connection with you,
but you saw right through me.
When we crossed paths you smiled.
When we parted, you went your own way.
You hardly noticed that I was there,
It was then I felt betrayed.
Betrayed by my own thoughts.
Betrayed by the feelings I bear.
I looked over my shoulder in a futile attempt
only to find you were not there.
I hate this place it many ways.
I love it in many more.
The memories that I harbor here
are those that I adore.
And sometimes it rains at night.
And sometimes the moon does shine.
Like a thousand mile mystery,
severed crossly at mid-tide.
And yes, I still notice you.
And yes, you still cross my mind.
Like the love we shared so long ago,
you haunt me late at night.
But is this love I’m feeling?
Is it only regret?
I should have buried this long ago,
a mistake I shall not soon forget.
When you’re out of luck.
When you’re out of time.
Your heart is broken,
and you strain to grasp at life.
You find with every moment.
You find you want to live.
You give all you can to those you love,
until you have nothing left to give.
Apr 5, 2012
Apr 5, 2012 at 3:05 AM UTC
A Shoelace Knot (An English Assignment)
A shoelace dangles between my fingers.
It is my gift to you this Valentine.
It's a bit muddy, stinks of sock
and is coloured a fading blue
The aglets still remain, but are worn with use,
something like my feelings for you.
I know you love cheesiness and chocolate,
But accept it, my love, for it belongs to the shoe,
that led me to where you stood.
Tie it around your wrist,
so that I'll stay around you, in your mind,
around your beating pulse,
lest you forget
all the journeys we undertook.
Look.
The string is tearing at places,
but we'll just tie a knot again.
We'll be inseparable and true.
I fall with your fall, and you match your footsteps to mine,
because like the tied shoelace,
our lives are tangled and knotted.
Accept my gift, an old shoelace
and tie us together
Tight.
Nov 16, 2014
Nov 16, 2014 at 9:07 AM UTC
on a sapphire lawn,
a glass vase of mushrooms
stands on its head.
a platter of crème custard naps,
while a bunch of grown
sunflowers tease us with their posture.
the moon is low, drunk, & stretching its borders,
over oval bushes, a little lorax hides behind them.
by the flower patch, a golden mushroom statue
is squinting. the black beam on his head sprouts tall,
arches, then dangles the celestial chandelier.
i am laying on the grass,
under the bubbled & weeping cerulean tree.
come and join me
for a dinner of daises.
Dec 25, 2013
Dec 25, 2013 at 6:36 PM UTC
Every book I open
Every story I read
Another adventure I start
Another Life I begin
I live with them
And laugh
And run
And cry with them
I just don't belong
Not in the real world
But however unlikely
In literacy I find a place
In the end
The pages ripped my heart
They pull me apart
They ruined my life
And they changed who I am
Yet without them
My life is nothing
I am incomplete
The author who holds the knife
Dangles it over my head
With each character's death
A new tear in my soul
A new life in literacy
A gift not all can receive
Without literacy
I would have no life at all
Such is the curse of the reader
Do not feel sorry from them
Feel sorry for those those who do not read
For those who live but one life
A life a ignorace at that
Mar 10, 2017
Mar 10, 2017 at 11:42 PM UTC
It's like stepping up to a golf ball. A white glove grips my left hand and an 8 iron dangles in my right. I slowly ***** my tee into the moist ground. I place the white ball upon it. I think of the possibilities of what could go wrong when I strike the ball. I aim. I breathe. I think: back straight, arm straight, mind straight. I exhale. I swing. Then watch and wait, like hearing that sharp drone and waiting for the flat line to waver so I don't have to say, "I'm sorry, but there were complications."
Sep 24, 2011
Sep 24, 2011 at 12:58 AM UTC
As seen through amber in the colors of Venus and Saturn;
Sun opens upon her face as gold spills in spun blonde,
And the rose’s thorn brings about liquid rubies
That drips on the youngest lily of the valley.
Butterflies aligned with the unseen Mars on the horizon
Scatter as their wings seem to burn away in the
Brilliant firelight, touching the water that reveals
Sapphires in liquid form; an affinity for Neptune that
Dangles on her fluttering eyelashes alive with what she sees!
More rubies fall in the emerald vast as her fingers move
Across the vine, and the crystals tear through the dahlias
Like the storms of Jupiter this canopy veils!
They rest among the pink rhinestones that resemble
Cherry blossoms in perfect discord when the last one
Is drained of its color under a wooden bridge at
The foot of the forest; an old bridge covered in patchy moss,
Showing its long years of absent footsteps.
They are only distant memories to the *****
Who emerges from the brush and drinks
From the stream in constant relief.
I watch her majesty fading her vibrant colors at sunset when
Uranus drifts. The colors fall into onyx when the sap of
The trees resemble amethyst in the moonlight.
And Mercury holding more silver falls in the stream with her
And all of her plume that we cherish as much as
Her earthly leaves, for we use both as covers for sleep.
Daydreams entwine with nightmares and become as cold
As Pluto. Ice lingers as tanzanite tears in those bright eyes;
Diamond eyes that cut through the towering clouds to discover
Stars that are made of everything here!
Nov 11, 2014
Nov 11, 2014 at 2:04 PM UTC