"dashes" poems
Like a captive, I capture rapture wrapping around stakes that matter
Joan of Arc battered
Also tattered but, easily dismissive
Refracted from fractured prominent phrases people play with
Distinctly persuasive and evasive, dressed boyishly attractive, lax stature, dawning armor crafted by absence as if asked about it-
I’m drifted
Protection is principle prerequisite, when fire is lit
I sort of implore your aorta before it’s incinerated to ashes
Dethatched as a habit, with swords or hatchets crafted to singe heartstrings that attached it
While I slash slick Rick as a quick fix,
To fend for pretend pretenses or presumed tricks,
I can’t quit
Cause I hit lips against hash spliffs fashioned with dashes of passion all while rationing fireball cinnamon sips
Martyr to avoidance
I gaze at fabled dazed gossipers galvanizing grips on gritty grapevines while licking warning labels through smoke haze on blurred lines
Capably unstable
Other eyes attending scandal circles able to shout lies and rekindle handed arguments on tables with locked smiles stay boxed in
Avidly amiable
Searching for counterparts when combusted or branded
Toying with matches loses meaning when rules reseed
Those vagabonds claim love is some all end hard bent to mend what the same above can’t comprehend.
Breaking boredom, I pillage pillows with night terrors
And ardent arsonists yearn for flames that churn, turn, liquefy and learn learned thoughts and smoldered feelings
Completely complacent
Melting in one another they are completing each other like two candles tryst true at a wedding day
However later the blaze is severed, smoke sears, and charred black wick stands alone for them.
Aggressive and progressive.
As for me never pleading, fire forever fleets to streets between iron bars I built that cage in deep heat and seep dire dreams once desired
Suppose I’m a skeptic
Roasted or disconnected
Just jaded, just met you
Always over it too soon
Burnt but I’m amused.
I’m useful.
Jun 9, 2014
Jun 9, 2014 at 11:59 PM UTC
Hummingbird:
Small,
Fast,
Beating wings,
Hovers,
Dashes,
Darts,
Pretty,
Clever,
True,
Cuts,
Darts,
Dashes,
Hovers,
Beating wings,
Fast,
Small:
Hummingbird.
Aug 28, 2012
Aug 28, 2012 at 6:02 AM UTC
The allure moon,
Dashes through the tepid nightsky of Autumn,
Just to sink into the horizon, bidding us farewell,
What remains, is but a starlit, cold night.
~ Umi
Feb 5, 2019
Feb 5, 2019 at 7:49 PM UTC
As days jitter by gleamed with such sheer and merry,
Then comes the memoriam-filled allegory;
Called the times of meditation and redemption,
Purple-shrouded cloth with blood has brought salvation.
40 days to drop down and be poured on ashes,
40 nights to commemorate for such dashes;
A memoir to be sung, flinging an elegy,
Sacrifice of the Son tuned to a eulogy.
But have no disheartened faith heard on stricken grief,
For a promise of sacrifice is worth that brief;
It’s the moment to recall, repent, and renew,
Making a mark not turn to long the past askew.
Lenten season speaks of turning from the darkness,
Losing a part to share with Him pure happiness;
Just as Christ suffered for the shortcomings of men,
His Church must respect and join for the time given.
So do not grieve for his loss, or that of your own,
It will be worth such a gain and it shall be sown;
For that choice, a short-time loss is a long-time gain,
With God, He provides us courage to surpass pain.
Such as to come thwart on our midst His forthcoming,
Prepare not only now but till life deems rusting;
But until time hovers to an eternal halt,
Apprehend, amend on such light and grave faults.
Jul 6, 2014
Jul 6, 2014 at 9:14 PM UTC
A thousand tumbles takes a bottle in the sea-
a thousand dashes and whirls and swoops.
A million grains of sand takes that bottle in the sea,
to break apart, to come to me
in fragments like a snowflake fractal.
How many mermaid miles till she hands that glass to me?
For I've taken out my very-ness, for you.
- And my crossness.
My judgement and wrath.
I've taken out slight hot breathe
(for you to melt the ice on your whiskers.)
I've taken out my toes when they are reaching for yours in the cavernous blanket world through the forest of our lazy limbs.
I've taken out my righteousness
and my second guessing.
I've taken out for you (a surprise, I was going to surprise you!)
all the times you were going to be wrong to me-
and to wrong me...
taken them out to sea, you see?
In that bottle, pretty bottle. Broken now like too many vows.
I've taken out my knowing best and finding better.
I've taken out the half moon of your thumbnail as well
...I will miss that in my night sky-
(perhaps I'll keep that after all.)
I'll take out the complacency of holding your hand getting out of a chair.
and the mindless strokes
as you explain
my commonplace crazy
to
simpler minds-
I'll take out the very-ness of me, and the we-ness of us.
and fill a bottle with a the brine of a thousand tears from hundred slights not slighted quite yet.
I fill the bottle and gift the sea
with the softness of you and the brashness of me.
A thousand turnabouts it takes to reach you on the beach,
a sea glass diamond ring, engage me you engaging man-
and the tides tickles my feet in anticipation, marry me. marry me.
just a sea glass promise
for a mermaid bride
waiting for the sailor man to sing her sweetly with salt on his lips
Just a sea glass lullaby from the man who loves me so.
Marry me, marry me
And we drink sparkling water from a sea glass flute
and we drink all the us and we drink all the we
for sea glass could never hold a second in,
sea glass is far too vain not to shine in the sun fanning
your invite out in a spectrum of color that
a small child's hand creates when he holds it up to the rays.
Spills out all of my intentions
Spoiled child, loved child,
Spills out all of my intentions carelessly on the sandy floor for the tides to swallow whole.
My sea glass prism chucked unceremoniously back to sea
and me the mermaid bride left at her own alter...
But a seashell to your ear and her my wailing sorrow calls,
'marry me, sailor. marry me.'
sahn 8/5/14
Aug 4, 2014
Aug 4, 2014 at 11:42 PM UTC
∙∙∙◦◦•◎•◦◦∙∙∙
Promenade of Colors
reality ought to fade
watermarks on evening lake
the Lad idling was awake
Torments of Agony
the fear of ambiguity
a broidery of epitaph
toiling the stars up the top
Free of Delusions
impassive feelings strut
to the unknown that fogs
and hems over the mutt
Dashes of Silver
passing vessels of desolate
coxswain sighting out for love
moon bobs from the lake
Willows of Empathy
humming of Mississippi
-a friend that greets
the lake gave its peace
Signs of Eve
the breeze whispered
a wisp of eyes uncluttered
the Lad unshackled
Artistry of Sky
as spirits begins to fly
I was full astound
my purpose, now I found
Aug 20, 2017
Aug 20, 2017 at 11:04 AM UTC
Flashbacks of a confidant fool
Flying through life with out any rules
Headlong into danger
The adrenaline rush is an intoxicating flavor
Thoughts of past injuries are nothing but flashes
As quickly he dashes
With those famous last words on his lips
WATCH THIS!!!!
Feb 25, 2016
Feb 25, 2016 at 10:54 AM UTC
She was painted so beautifully.
With little specks of crimson like the fire that burned in her heart.
Dots of pumpkin and persimmon dancing on that one patch of hair she never died back.
Drips of amber and daffodil seemed to glow around her body as she wished to feel happy again.
And a shaded emerald painted like bars which contained her jealousy because all she wanted was to be perfect.
Swirls of cerulean and teal like the tears that dripped off of her face.
And the violet dashes were her moments of tranquility where her hands created magic out of papers and pen and her mind was finally put to peace.
The magenta smeared across her lips, making her feel a tad bit prettier.
Dabs of maroon like the blood that was shed,
When she used the silver blade to pierce her golden bronze skin.
She was a colorful girl behind the grey mask she hid under,
All to avoid the threats she received in black and white.
May 2, 2014
May 2, 2014 at 11:58 PM UTC
Earlier today,
I laid outside atop the snow,
A feat that I haven't tried
Since life's true colors showed.
The frost numbed my body,
I'm sure red flushed into my cheeks;
I stared speculatively at the sky,
My eyes searched and seeked.
I wanted to understand the beauty,
That nature offers so readily, the solace,
That it blankets us in even on cold days;
I wanted to understand beauty that is flawless.
My tired eyes embraced small, soaring figures
That coursed through the air with grace;
Content to go their own paths,
Not engaged in a petty race.
The figures were falcons,
That spiraled and sailed on wind above me,
Probably heading south,
For warmth to set them free.
But in that moment I compared them
To man-produced ashes;
Gray soot that courses through the air
Dashes, in varying directions,
As fire burns.
In that moment, the birds drifted through the air
So aimlessly, like the ashes do,
Landing faraway,
Wherever they flew.
Nature itself could be ashes,
If people continue on this path;
This destruction ought to incur
Some sort-of wrath.
Dec 20, 2015
Dec 20, 2015 at 11:43 PM UTC
We're all mad here
the day you accept the bier
the moment you accept the fear
you understand, we're all mad here
We're all sad here
all is sorrow, a single tear
there is no tomorrow, no home pier
you understand, we're all sad here
We're all angry here
all is lost cause, so strange, so queer
all is far, yet so near
you understand, we're all angry here
As a white rabbit dashes by
As a time flashes by
Late, late, late
for nothing and everything, too late
Mar 8, 2021
Mar 8, 2021 at 6:42 AM UTC
---
A bag of clothes, a box of books, another smaller box of letters and photographs & an old guitar are sitting in the backseat.
It's 3am and she's driving through the Blue Ridge mountains. All the windows are down, warm summer air billows in and sends her hair dancing.
She doesn't know where she's going, but the warmth calls to something in her blood so she heads South.
She'll probably end up on a beach somewhere in a little East Coast town. Maybe she'll sell flowers and jam by the roadside or find a little bookstore that needs help, she'd wash floors all day if she had to and wouldn't think to complain.
It all feels like freedom.
The air smells like rosemary and thyme that grow wild along the roads. The stars are so bright she can hear them breathing. A jackalope dashes across her headlights & is gone before she has time to turn her head.
She parks in the back corner of a gas station somewhere in the Carolinas & stretches her legs out the window, takes a few sips of whiskey and reads a while before she falls asleep. Lightning bugs dance in a nearby field to the voices of cicadas.
Somewhere a voice is screaming, glass is breaking, sirens pierce the stillness of a quiet street, but she doesn't hear it & she never will again. Even in sleep she is smiling.
Apr 24, 2020
Apr 24, 2020 at 12:59 AM UTC
flowing river, crashing rain
together troubles sow,
yet do not mend.
a silent sorrow,
sullens sour solitude.
light mist envelopes autumn,
west wind waves the water,
soundless severance scatters clouds,
blossoms fall on flowing water.
memory of spring dazes gaze,
alters flow as whirlwind dashes,
summer's sunlight sets,
dual waltz of lotus leaves,
In remembrance of cherry blossoms.
Oct 23, 2017
Oct 23, 2017 at 3:14 PM UTC
Acidic Memories of Flying Free on LSD!
(FOR J,S, and N.S)!!
Miniscule piece of blotting dot,
Slices through my brain...
Swear I felt it sitting there,
Time and time again,
Stereo sound distorted,While wild mind cavorted,
Feeding much imagined images,
Mirages in a mist,
The light fantastic, it was stripped,
Brain enlightened as she tripped,
Is it night time?
Dark or Light time?
Haven't got a clue,
Free riding wild,
Runs as sparkly space pilot,
On the end of the bed,
Hell on earth,
I lost my head!
Was that funny micro-dot, purple, pink or blue,
Confused in a bedroom,
Where the hell is the door?
Couldn't escape, till toxic fit left..
After too many hours,
Shut my eyes,
Tried to sleep,
Not a chance in hell,
My mind flew well,
Trippping on flashes of dots and of dashes,
Colours of rainbows,
Flew through my head,
So much more so when I needed my bed !
CopyrightLivvi Kent 30/04/2013
Aug 26, 2013
Aug 26, 2013 at 5:44 AM UTC
Like a frightened animal,
sleep eludes me.
Like a lithe, scared kitten,
sleep dashes away as I get closer.
Yet,
while I chase the frightened kitten around my head,
I'm blessed with an exquisite 5 am sunrise.
But fear not little kitten -
a magic cocktail of pills will soon encroach on you
like a fisher's net!
Already, I can feel their effect,
pulsing through my veins.
Soon, little kitten, we'll catch you,
soon, we'll finally get some sleep!!
Aug 3, 2014
Aug 3, 2014 at 12:25 AM UTC
Half of a stale croissant,
A cupcake with no icing,
Partially consumed slice of cold pizza,
A special computer file,
Called old and cold,
Some files nothing more
Than titles on a snowy screen.
A smorgasbord of delicacies,
A mason jar with a lidded hole
To keep the prisoners alive but in,
The insides of my refrigerator brain.
Where the partial poem pastries reside.
Some jots and dashes get microwaved,
Served up instantly, hot n' piping,
Read me read me now for I am
Ready to be served.
Ah, the others, miserable creatures in a
Special Victims Unit,
In a ward where the doctor has no more
Release forms to sign,
Dream on, awaiting a super nova,
A comet tail, a torn screen window corner,
To engineer an escape.
Kitty, my kitty,
Give me your tired, poor scraps of prose
Yearning to be free,
I have a place for them, where
They will reside unhappy, but free,
In good company,
Waiting for the day they get to see the
Statue of Liberty.
Until that day, when,
Your happy love poems yearning to be whole,
Say, "now I have the ending,"
To let them breathe...
Now I have the closure,
That is the opening,
I will guard them closely,
As if they were fragments of mine own
Blood, sweat and tears.
Sep 21, 2013
Sep 21, 2013 at 6:17 AM UTC
Farewell to the bushy clump close to the river
And the flags where the butter-bump hides in forever;
Farewell to the weedy nook, hemmed in by waters;
Farewell to the miller’s brook and his three bonny daughters;
Farewell to them all while in prison I lie—
In the prison a thrall sees naught but the sky.
Shut out are the green fields and birds in the bushes;
In the prison yard nothing builds, blackbirds or thrushes.
Farewell to the old mill and dash of waters,
To the miller and, dearer still, to his three bonny daughters.
In the nook, the larger burdock grows near the green willow;
In the flood, round the moor-cock dashes under the billow;
To the old mill farewell, to the lock, pens, and waters,
To the miller himsel’, and his three bonny daughters.
2.9k
Through lines
attach themselves to me
I'm a zip line zipping through the canopy.
Zip lines
through lines
My life in dots and dashes.
There was that darkness
before I was born
don't remember much about that.
Parents were through lines
for a long while
then they died
grandparents before
they all had their time
through lines
zip lines
strings
the true string theory.
Homesickness, school, bullies, too
the Sunday Night Blues
riding those zip lines
through lines
what are you gonna do
they aren't leaving you.
************
Resignation
private fantasies
too private to tell
through lines too
on the old zip line.
The voices in your mind
that's been a through line
through and through.
Poverty that was true too
that's what happens when you
peak too soon
and
you're a late bloomer too.
Children, the through lines
children of children
and you too
through lines zipping through
along the old zip line.
Poetry, a through line
sharing secrets
sacred circles
those are through lines too.
Body parts
hearts, limbs, lungs, guts and toes
though those tonsils
had to go.
Every breath
Every heart beat.
My through lines
your through lines
we all got'em
parallel points on parallel lines
I can't say
I know we sometimes together zip
along that same highway
then one will fade
and one will go away.
But where we all meet
each day,
I can say,
in the molecules
of every breath we take.
Sep 9, 2014
Sep 9, 2014 at 12:01 PM UTC
I'm trading sticks of cigarette for a poem
Bottles of beer for a few more
Whiskeys make me forlorn
Why not a few more poems
So I scribble and scribble some more
I'm trading my loneliness for lines
Rhymed or rhymeless, why should I mind
When the please the eyes and tickles the mind
I sure will memorize and mimic them like a mime
So I'm still scribbling on this torn paper of mine
I'm trading my hearts pain
Trading it for a paper and a pen
Like a painter ready to paint
I deep my petite paint brush in a bowl of paint
Dap dap, little dots, strokes and dashes as I dare to paint
Little by little the whole picture is becoming plain
I'm trading all love's tears
Tears shade in secrecy for a poem shared publicly
Though seemingly absurd but poems brings this inconceivable peace.
So I'm scribbling and scribbling my way to serenity.
I trade it all for a piece of poem
I may not have made the point
But I've washed clean my plough
And starring at this beautiful not-so-beautiful poem
I have read and reread it that it is starting to sound like a song.
Reading one last time, "my best trade ever".
Mar 3, 2015
Mar 3, 2015 at 7:16 PM UTC
Runs through a sunbeam.
A single red hare
Burning the ground he dashes past.
A single red hare
Jumps to the sky
And the ground creates a crater.
A single red hare
Flies through the forest—
Every tree aflame.
When he goes through the forest
He gives the trees their dance.
A single red hare
Dives into a black hole
In the ground
Looking for a wall
To break the barrier
Of hell.
Nov 27, 2011
Nov 27, 2011 at 7:42 AM UTC
I play with these words out of boredom and habit.
There's so many of them! From "Aardvark" to "Zoo".
And then you add in all the odd punctuation
Like semi-and-hyphen; And Oh! Exclamation!
(and poor little Comma: He hops like a rabbit...
He's never quite sure if a Colon would do.)
I play with these words like a cat with a twitching
Small mouse in his grasp all squealing and itching
(the cat... not the mouse... for the mouse is a wreck...
With pussy's teeth grasping the small of its neck.)
The cat is quite happy! It just takes its time...
While Comma allows the Ellipsis the rhyme...
I play with these words and the dots and the dashes;
Parenthesis [brackets] and to/or/from slashes-
With all of the keys 'neath my ten little digits
"Somewhat like the cat with the mouse as he fidgets".
I've learned to write well from my Pa and my Momma:
Yet still I feel bad for that poor little Comma.
Jan 22, 2011
Jan 22, 2011 at 6:13 PM UTC
when my faith is tested
i recoil into the lurid nest
by moonlight, by the sound of a lyre
whose blood whispers dank currents
into the low hillside.
and over the hillside
pour screaming maenads
who pluck from the damp ground
snakes for their altars.
a timid peak out of my grotto reveals
a crawling sailor scattered on the rocks.
Apollo’s choir releases hymns
from underneath dark sediment.
i am secure inside the den
the man writhes on the shore for help
but even if i let him in,
i will consume his rooted soul,
so he dies one way
or another.
foot
steps
does he really wish to
become absorbed by this
dark cloak? where he will kick
and drool and never again
see rain stretch over the Aegean?
as i have not seen past this
constant haze of lead,
an infinite bang on a finite drum i
played long ago into infinity?
and the swirls
of infinity
shedding outward like the
tresses of a fire haired fae.
a sprinting sugar fae,
the wind inside the hair
outside her head,
blowing behind her.
she dashes through the wood
until her feet fossilize
within the rock below.
one day several naturalists will find
the slabs of granite
and make a map of elegant
collarbone etched into hardened stone.
all the while i will guard this cave, alone.
and if my foes send winds as
messengers, i will saunter in
amusement, with an olive
on my tongue
the wind cannot destroy
the seashore,
the moon and sun
command the tides.
Sep 27, 2011
Sep 27, 2011 at 10:00 PM UTC
I feel a grim satisfaction as mud splatters on my white shoes.
What an appropriate metaphor for early adulthood.
My problems are not my own.
The sociological imagination has never
seemed so applicable.
We’ve all been dosed up
On dashes of passion,
splashes of intelligence
and just enough anxiety and depression
to approach existential nihilism and
We’re fed these lies of individuality but
We Know
we are only products of our youth and culture,
ones of many in the long production line
We claim
We are Art,
but We Feel
we’re just generated from streams of code,
prepared to fight to the death for
some algorithm that doesn’t even matter
And so I protest
I can’t just be a number
I am flesh and blood,
my knees are buckling under the
weight of this artificial perfection.
I’m not just a number,
My eyes are staring at the
the marks that
determine my worth, knowing
success is my only option
i am not just a number
My sanity is sinking and
drowning and
constantly fighting to stay afloat
But I am not just a number. -
My mind tells me I’m not making it--
How are these other people making it?
I’m determining my worth
on sets of standards that are as worthy as dust
And it is with these standards i am told
I am just a number.
I feel like
I can no longer speak
because I’ve been
shouting
at the top of my lungs
I AM NOT JUST A NUMBER
But my voice
is too quiet
And the world
is too loud.
I’m so tired of trying to be heard.
Yet these words still sound better
when I scream them,
not just scrawl them down
on scraps of paper.
for someone so happy
I'm so very angry.
for someone so happy
I'm so very sad.
Mar 1, 2016
Mar 1, 2016 at 4:01 PM UTC
god stood by me, he hid in my pocket like a piece of amethyst
when i ran he turned into the forest to envelop me
his spirits became soft grasses, scented woods and colorful flower
The elderly woman in her garden in the early morning before the sun rises too high. She never sprays chemicals to get rid of the snails, instead she works and plants for and around them. This garden is to celebrate life, not to take it away. The wooden fence bordering her property is low and unoffensive enough to allow through woodland creatures who are never shooed away for taking a walk or a bite through the herbage. Perhaps she is atoning for a life of death and destruction. Or perhaps she is a saint.
They enjoyed things like making forts out of sticks and blankets and cardboard boxes and dressing up and going to the opera.
Memories, fresh like a wound.
Sometimes something so small. Going to the post office. A slideshow of post offices in my life. The disinfected paper smell, the lines of people waiting to mail a package, the solid colors of the interior, gray, black, white. A scrubby short haired black carpet, well worn.
I turned into a set of wings made out of crayon or colored pencil markings. As if pushed and pulled by the wind I stunned through the air, waving in the sunlight, pencil dashes of red and blue and purple. Like an animation from Reading Rainbow.
Thrown and tossed about like a lightweight wale in the sea. An enormous behemoth of grey and blue leaping like a kitten among the waves. It should be terrifying and would be if its teeth were any larger or sharper and if there was not such a happy gleam in its huge eye.
Mar 21, 2016
Mar 21, 2016 at 10:49 PM UTC
Caw! Caw! Calls the crow on a crisp fall morning
Nevermore! Nevermore! Yells the ravens forewarning
The mist lifts into the air
As the sun begins to rise
The priests are sending up a prayer
Babies shouting out their cries
The dog down the street going bark! bark! bark!
The canary next door gives a little whistle
Out of the brush in a hurry ***** a swift lark
Away dashes a bunny, straight into the thistle
A squirrel chatters away
At a cat prowling close
Diving in, a daring jay
Caught by the cat, almost
Never was there a morning
So busy as this
To hear the birds all chirp and sing
To describe in a word…bliss
Dec 30, 2015
Dec 30, 2015 at 9:27 AM UTC