"deadpan" poems
So many thoughts feelings expressions emotions
locked behind deadpan eyes and a voice that's toneless.
A mountain of a person consolidated to this form.
A body unimpressive.
A face unexpressive.
The chaos upstairs requires all of my attention.
Conversing takes a back-seat which is why I seem distant.
Too many things to say only leaves me in silence.
I don't know how or where to begin.
If only I could let you inside to weather the storm
maybe you could make sense of this nonsense and bring me to port.
Apr 16, 2016
Apr 16, 2016 at 8:16 PM UTC
Skinhead
super short
military hair
with a strong jawline
jutting out
I saw you
One random
blindingly hot afternoon
In a jeep
I tried to squeeze in
the small space so the two guys
could scoot over
You’re the guy to my right
Reluctant to pass to the driver
my exact change
You sat upright
Your right arm lifted, hand
closed on the security rail
I could only see your profile
Your jawline and Aviators
Mouth set in a deadpan line
Lean, quietly confident
Dressed casually and carefully
Odd eggplant-colored shirt over
whitewashed jeans
You turned slightly,
your nose strong
chin dignified
skin clean, with slight
blemishes of stress
Pretty eyes
That never landed on me
Your lips slightly curved
as if remembering something
You are beautiful
Arrogant-looking
Bored
Worldly
You’re not from here
Not from common places
Not from this wretched community I belong to
Then my eyes traveled to the back of your head,
An inscription was tattooed
at the back of your skull.
Your hair growing, beginning to cover up
the past?
A dangerous past?
New life?
A mere change of look?
Where are you going?
Where are you from?
Why are you taking this route
to and from common places?
What is your agenda
on this high afternoon?
Are you a rockstar?
Are you a poet
A gangster?
Then finally it’s my stop.
I got up and wished you
were following behind
That we have the same destination
Just so I could look at you
in full view
I stepped into
the sad, bright afternoon
Then I turned around
You’re not there
You sped away
To some place
Some life
With your Aviators
And your principles
And it hurt
That I never even
knew what
your tattoo meant
Oct 21, 2013
Oct 21, 2013 at 3:36 AM UTC
I didn't sleep again last night
my yesterday is still taking place
as my fingers gently press these keys
so as to not wake my brother
restless,
I realized,
I've seen a sunset
but never a sunrise
the streets were still asleep
the only ones about
only the down and out
the poor black folk
the aimless hipsters
the homeless
the single mothers with three jobs
who wait alone
under a flickering street light
for the bus which will take them
to their deadpan jobs
the puddles from last night's storm
rest with not a ripple
and the pretty little birdies
start finding their voice
restless,
I realized,
after the sunsets
the world opens up her eyes
periwinkle horizons
blend easily with the grey skyline
and the line between man and God blurs
the sky is tropical mango cocktails
and pillows of white Caribbean sand
the smell is left -
like a residue -
chasing after the tail of a storm
but the air is wet to the touch
hinting at repeat of the downpour
and I would've sat on the arm of that denim sofa
hour after hour
until the world was ready to wake up
giving me a chance to sleep off their insecurities,
only,
I felt like writing this poem
only,
I felt like a sunrise
or maybe a sunset?
or just maybe
a god **** supernova
I felt good
brimming with peace in my gut
like a warm fire
restless,
I realized,
that after all is set
I will still love the sunrise
Jun 8, 2013
Jun 8, 2013 at 6:08 AM UTC
We were building a boat.
A sea-worthy vessel made for two.
A cosy little nest,
a shell of the promise for me and you.
We made it sturdy...
From keel to hull.
We sang to each other
to oust the lull.
We spoke of the adventures,
together we'd avidly chase.
We braced for the storms,
we'd most likely face.
As the last drop of sweat...
Fell freely to our feet,
the boat was done.
What were once planks, was then complete.
I climbed aboard
and hoisted up the sail.
You lingered for a bit...
Seemingly cautious that the boat might fail.
The craft quickly drifted out to sea...
When the wind, the sail did willingly welcome.
I cried out to you so you could hop on...
So with me you could come.
But you simply stood there...
With a gaze incredibly deadpan.
As the currents pulled me further,
I only then realised...
That I was never your plan.
Jul 29, 2016
Jul 29, 2016 at 12:00 PM UTC
Once a death was enough to awake the sleeping souls,
Now bodies outspread in the gore,
Some snivel, some celebrate the victory,
Victory of won the war,
War; which is making us deadpan!
By: Nida Mahmoed
Dec 4, 2015
Dec 4, 2015 at 10:02 AM UTC
The notion of age
Trickier than time,
We can never decide
On what is accurate
When it is early,
Or definitely too late.
We tend to feel older,
Older than our actual age.
As teenagers alone,
We could not wait,
Wait for that salient day
To be taken seriously
As mature as we ought to be.
I am not a child anymore,
An exasperated sigh,
I make my own decisions now
I have learned all the know-how.
But once we get older
The tables turn
And we are chasing the years
The years we spent acting older.
The wise still comment
Take full responsibility,
Deadpan honest,
You are not that young anymore
You got to think about the future.
And we ponder,
We reflect,
Reviewing the times
We already felt too old
Though our blood was so young.
Recollecting those times
We were surely too young
To be behaving so old.
And you wonder,
Puzzle over,
When is that time
That timing that is right;
Because truthfully,
You are reluctant -
Is there ever a time
A time you managed
To act your own age?
Aug 8, 2012
Aug 8, 2012 at 8:29 PM UTC
My family doctor suggested bed rest.
If that was a statement rather than a suggestion,
I wouldn't know, because the redundancy of those
two words was enough to keep me idle,
awake, agitated for days.
It was around the time he carefully
scribbled his script onto the blue pad
that I began to chuckle. This prefixed
prescript was only a temporary solution
that was barely legible. Whether or not
a scribe in this profession is meant to
be as erratic as nomadic cavern canvas,
it speaks volumes that the DSM IV considers
substantial. Until a once thought preconceived
notion becomes precedent in the ongoing
sought after expansion of knowledge.
A continuation of disorder and disease,
the facts and fallacies,
all become testing.
The standard practice is only as strong
as its weakest hypothesis.
More so when it becomes general practice.
I would like to believe
this to be an emergency,
but the white-coat before me
felt the need to sidetrack,
and thought it appropriate to mention
youth in Asia.
The deadpan humor
was disconcerting.
But not as unnerving
as the redundancies that
were given to me as a solution
for my sporadic sleep.
Some insurance!
Reassure me, doctor!
So, he did,
through his proclivity
for pharmaceuticals.
Jun 12, 2013
Jun 12, 2013 at 8:54 AM UTC
i escaped 2,226 miles away
in hopes of finding
what i've been missing
in hopes of escaping
your
deadpan
tight-lipped
cold stare
in hopes of
peace
what i've been missing
all along
is me
overshadowed by the
hatred of myself
built by you
overshadowed by the
thoughts of suicide
why would i want
to be me when
my own family doesn't
seem to want me
and i know i'm not
the only one with a
story like that but
knowing so doesn't really make
this much easier to handle
i will admit that
i've had a lot of help
and i'm beyond lucky
to have the family i chose
they teach me things like
just because you used to be
doesn't mean you have to be
and
patience and kindness can
tear down the tallest walls
the ones i’ve spent my whole
life building just so i didn't
have to feel all of that **** again
but i’ve been
getting better at getting better
at 2,226 miles away
i think i’ll stay
Jul 16, 2018
Jul 16, 2018 at 4:52 PM UTC
*canst poor smile
amid world in bad-shod fit
writ's a-fire
pardon season's ire*
bring'st forth jollity and smiles aplenty
ne'er plaintive be of the sad woe of man
lift high-sky the bless'd, one and seventy
mind scant the fo'c's'tle head in deadpan
floweth into desires flowers of merriment
push upon life gladness; poem of joy-bright
exult all forms of joviality and rejoice on
cheery-heart to amuse and glide to skylight
be curs'd with melancholia; fry all the frowns
ring in goodly-humour and make-it-all-bright
drown dips of despair and banish the downs
expel the heartbroken-ideals; deport skint-lite
what befits the real-feel to true equal-match
face with beck-n-call smile belies wake-latch
(fake)
S T - 29 sept
Sep 29, 2013
Sep 29, 2013 at 2:56 AM UTC
YADA TASHY ( "Originator Stone" )
Outside the first snow falls.
Her wounds are photographed.
Spoken of.
Described in detail.
Technical.
The overhead microphone
takes it all in.
Being dead she is
more naked
than she ever was.
Stripped of her
humanity.
She had ceased to be
who she used to be.
She is now
merely a cadaver.
The autopsy can not tell
her name.
She is Kuzuku.
Her mother called her
KuKu.
She had been born
with a caul.
KuKu was pregnant.
She was going to call
the child if it was a girl
. . .Yuki.
She couldn't conceive what
she would call it if a boy?
It was always going to be
a girl.
She liked candyfloss
and her hair up.
Now her hair is down.
It touches her shoulders.
As if her hair were
still alive.
The autopsy
wound by wound
tells of the hell
of her dying.
The voice is
deadpan.
Mechanical.
The coroner
breaks for coffee.
Bitter. Black.
"Ya da!"
as the Turks say.
"...with nothing..."
***
Kuzuku was named after the flowering plant/rampant **** Her mother always drank a tea made from it. Only her mother called her her pet name; "Kuku!" Her blacker than black hair always seemed like a living entity in itself as it danced upon her shoulders or splashed over her clavicles. She always wore off the shoulder dresses or tops even in winter cold. I once told her she had the cutest clavicles( "rekishi no naka de kawaī sakotsu" )in history which....always made her laugh. I told her she had well tempered clavicles and she laughed even more when the pun was explained to her. She had been born with a caul...a red caul. She it was who told me the Turkish tale or the Yada Daşı and of the Yadachy.
She had just met the man who would eventually stab her to death and she was greatly in love with him and his culture.
All these little scraps of humanity could not be disclosed by the autopsy which could never tell of how beautiful she was and what a joy she was to be around.
Her death was a horror tale told by a friend of a friend of a friend and hard to comprehend or believe.
Aug 27, 2016
Aug 27, 2016 at 6:12 AM UTC
You lit my way to this place I never thought I could glint.
When I got cold feet, you're all thumbs; giving me a lift.
You let malaise rotate 180 degrees,
Which turned into thousands of exuberant stories.
I was perturbed when the lights dimmed.
Wanted to go on your way but it is winding.
Determined hands tried to reach,
Throat was screeching but your ears were stitched.
Can't define what you have-
Complements the colors of my well-being;
Spur this mettle and ebb away tides
Albeit you're deadpan at times.
Why can't I ***** out and snuggle somewhere without you?
Maybe the reason is Y.O.U.
11-04-11
Nov 4, 2011
Nov 4, 2011 at 5:00 AM UTC
I’m tired of influencers faking nervousness.
my generation wants to care less
these days.
it’s a counter-current hack.
we want to be less defined.
we can search and reflect for ourselves.
we’re sick of the emotion
that’s all over everyone’s faces,
the unsightly splotches of opinion.
the entire election machine,
the process of getting there, is smudged.
It’s a curated mess, an advising spin,
an incomprehensible hex:
“Oh profit pondering,
contradictory means to an end
- bless weave, and conceal,
bloodless dollar debt options,
painful penny pincher paradoxes,
and deadly debt bliss dilemmas..”
“Is this a witch or an arbitrager?” Lisa asked, after rudely leaning over and reading up to this point.
“I was shooting for a numinous type of beat,” I revealed.
“We’re supposed to be working on our thesis definitions,” she said accusingly.
“Are you not challenged, here, hour by hour?” I asked sarcastically.
“I need ideas - well - I have too many ideas, I need some focus, I wanted to see what you had.”
I deadpan looked at her, “Well, you broke the spell - I lost my train.” I complained dryly.
“Don’t put me in a situation.” she said, waving my gripe off as insignificant.
.
.
Songs for this:
Easier Said Than Done by Thee Sacred Souls
drive ME crazy! by Lil Yachty
Melt by Nilüfer Yany
Oct 14, 2024
Oct 14, 2024 at 3:06 PM UTC
It aches when I smile.
My State's a disaster.
Coal rollers, burnouts and days full of rapturous
laughter and "Red Face"
down in Lusk in the hot days
of Summer--it's boiling;
Winter winds burn up your face.
I first learned to hate
myself in a snowstorm
on Dow Street in Sheridan.
My best friends are the slow warmth
that spreads through the chest,
lifts a cold heart, grabs popcorn and pints
at the Blacktooth on hundreds of nights.
And 500,000 simple souls are a sight.
Still they're just half a million salty
drops in the ocean--
A quick squall of rain on the Bighorns.
They've opened the floodgates for *********
morons, bigots and rednecks
and rich, ******* ranchers thinking
everyone owes them.
And their dollars are deadpan
gallows jokes down in Cheyenne.
But I've seen cheap smiles 4 miles wide
out by Sundance.
And I've got good friends that I still carry with me
like the potent, sweet, earthy afterburn of good whiskey,
or the smell of the lodgepoles in the Spring
up in Story.
And it's still my home
even though it's so empty.
It's still my home
though it sometimes seems ******
That State's in my bones,
I don't think it'll leave me.
So please understand that some nights
when you find me,
you've stumbled across a small splinter
chipped off of Wyoming.
Jan 25, 2016
Jan 25, 2016 at 1:12 PM UTC
The thrumming clunk of shocked wheels
Eat up road worn smooth by big junking beasts
Smoking up crisp air
Hungry for a taste of stunted freedom
The rush of wind the pained panels
Pulling a mass of curls with sticky cold fingers
Raking across my scalp
Shaking in the silence
In wake of thought
The bass drum barking out a numbing melody
Sliding like thin blade into the back of my mind
Enhancing melodramatic mood
Touching my tender heart
Fresh from the lash of lonely
Bludgeoned by the deadpan distance between
My soul
Snack sized bit of flesh clinging to the slick walls
Of reason
Hammering in my chest
Still riddled with the mark of your claiming
The imprint of my nails still bleeding
In refusal
But claim it you did
Snatched it up out of my chest
Trailing arteries and the copper stench of blood
Empty cavity
Filling up with dreams and the sweet taste of your breath
Leeching into my limbs and whispering love into my being
But this road is ceaseless
No matter how many times I visit
That long stretch of highway
Promising me the Spector of your memory
The ghost of your touch
Warmth of love
Acceptance
Renewal of my existence
The green glint of freeway sign
Showing me where I would have found you
Down that dirt road
Swing hair pin turns hearing your laughter as it chases me closer to where you should be
Were you will always belong
Where I could have found you had life been kind
Your savage dissection of my soul keeps me yearning
Reaching out and grasping my independence hostage
Where you have become a necessity to whom I am
What I am
And who I will be
Hinges on your well being
Fading into nothing
Where I am defined by you
My angularity is tethered down
But the road yields no answer
Only the Spector
The sad shadow of memories that refuse to fade
Die instead of rotting
At least with death it can be buried
Living with the death of my heart
A tragedy I would not allow to part
Oct 30, 2013
Oct 30, 2013 at 6:40 PM UTC
You can try
and apologize
But you’re not superman
and you can’t
turn back time
So, baby, don’t try
How odd, to recoil from the touch of your hand
I forgive you but I don’t think you’ll ever quite understand
That feeling when everything is finally going right
And suddenly you’re fighting yourself for your life
I tried to run away down roads that went nowhere
Dead end streets dripping with deadpan humor
I’d hoped the ice and snow might numb me first
But still my frostbitten heart hurt the worst
Slowly you had me opening up to you
Falling head over heels and out of the blue
Thanks for pretending my text didn’t make sense
But I know you knew I’d do it, before I know I ever did
I’d tried to get it across many times before
But I always came off as drunk and nothing more
I swear to you it wasn’t just the champagne talking
It’s what I mean when I say you’ll understand when I say that something
When it comes to love I admit I’m rusty
You say, “I don’t understand why you can’t trust me”
It’s hard when I still cry myself to sleep
Remembering how much it hurt to have you say those words to me
You can try
and apologize
But you’re not superman
and you can’t
turn back time
So, baby, don’t try
Mar 9, 2011
Mar 9, 2011 at 9:12 AM UTC
Decipher the bowels
that slushes out through my imagination
Crystals and xylophone chimes
Pouring out the ink wells of sensation
Don't pivot pickets to my position
I can't stalemate this war for expansion
For my tongue is a swollen pickle
Dipped in bitterness
and ****** by the lips of semantics
I groove in the basses of basics
and grow a garden for further foundation
For my tongue is a swollen pickle
And boy is it's perfume amazing
I mean
Can you smell the awkward amps?
Pumping veins with Crayola visions
or a Chaplin transcript with deadpan humor
Are you experienced enough for social division?
My tongue is a swollen pickle
Say whatever the hell I wanna say
Crunch me when you digest this sour thought
For the reign of excitement's here to stay
Apr 20, 2015
Apr 20, 2015 at 8:54 PM UTC
People walk all about
Humming a soundless tune of self-doubt
The drinks keep coming
Steeped in endless fuming
Friends joke around
A truth sealed and bound
Hiding behind a deadpan
Sustaining the image of an American man
‘More!’, everyone shouts
Raising their cups forgetting their spouse
Sitting here with a straight face
Wanting to forget my workplace
Apr 25, 2019
Apr 25, 2019 at 3:22 PM UTC
Dead-eyed through drenched days
spent seeping through blank space
to spill another swollen week out
on a crumpled page
I'm young, but not that young
grown up and dumbed down
so I'll drag one more punchline day out
'til a year's ground down
Face the wall...
Aimed at the door...
But we're still here and so
I suggest that we share this bar...
Stumble out
regain my feet
and pluck my keys from the gutter. I've
been dancing with defeat and, now, I'm
driving on the borderline
between familiar haunts
and same old foes that I conjure--
Now I start to realize that, like you,
they've got my number.
They've got my number.
Rhombuses of light
separate us--not by much
but these
square miles of concrete
will divide us just enough
Deadpan Friday nights
space out workday lifelines
until another starving paycheck
grounds another flight
Your time spent so costly
the bill's due, your words freeze
a season's regrets regressed. Empty
bottles taken out.
Besieged by walls
Afraid of doors
the nights leak in, you turn
the lights out, choking down one more
Waking up,
you find your breath
you find your feet and your reasons. You
have found your boots and keys and lost your
fear of the season's size.
Between the years and months
you've been a ***** and a miser
when the skyline creaks and sighs, remember
you've got my number
And I've got your number
The world's got our number--
--it's okay to come over
We can laugh at the night
at sunrise, we'll run for cover
'til the season is over
now, just run for cover...
Oct 6, 2013
Oct 6, 2013 at 6:34 PM UTC
He looked across the boardwalk into the inalienable ocean.
Love danced upon the cresting waves.
The sound of a quantum leap stretched thousands of miles.
A piece of him was still with her.
She looked across the boardwalk with another.
Pain no longer had a home within her golden hair.
She had withstood time, it's waves began again.
His need showcased in the night sky, to her horror.
Deadly, their entanglement remains after being long forgotten.
Poison gas reaches into his head, the same gas rots her mind.
Toxic people and corrosive words melt their being.
Condemned to the hell he calls home.
Pull and push, he pushes on, she pulls away.
He continues his war march into this nethermost dwelling.
She escapes into the day, burning at its torrid sunlight.
He destroy her mind, She prolongs his pain.
In the end, they're just two toxic people in love.
Never to see each other again.
Jun 28, 2016
Jun 28, 2016 at 6:55 AM UTC
There is no hope.
We walked in circles round the worm, its amorphous purpose lost on us. A sleek, black, rotting corpse, buried within skyscrapers and city streets. We could see no end to it. Everyone had done their best to avoid mention, even as traffic backed, markets stalled and entire city blocks went down.
The pier was bustling at noon. Sweet, burning, haze of smells. Business men wandered out for lunch, laughing to themselves as they secretly wondered how they’d pass the black mass. Children scurried round it, morbidly curious. Their parents would wring their hands, shooting sights at everything but the worm. A throng of oblivious teens skated into it and were knocked flat on their backs. A business man stepped over the moaning mass, eating a hot dog.
Three days passed and nothing had been done. The smell worsened.
The media continued their daily fluster. Weather. Sports. Local news. Farmer John had gotten pink eye again. They held awkward smiles in their teeth, and deadpan concern in their crows feet. His meat would be safe once cooked.
The government were curiously absent.
Conspiracists were already calling it Non-entity 012. The world worm. The dead god in the room.
If we close our eyes, will it disappear?
-- Anonymous Male. New York, USA.
Dec 8, 2014
Dec 8, 2014 at 10:58 AM UTC
With perfect deadpan delivery
The doctor called it cancer
You laughed so hard you cried
And called it a challenge
You said you had always dreamed
Of being a cancer survivor
What an opportunity
Oct 30, 2011
Oct 30, 2011 at 1:28 PM UTC
It’s nice to have some holiday downtime and not be all go-go-go. I’ve even gotten in some Animal Crossing play. After 40 minutes of picking up weeds, Bianca, one of my villagers, told me she’d heard I was dead.
Later, we’re in Lisa’s living room taking turns playing songs from Spotify.
Lisa just played “Woo”, by Rihanna. When the song ends, fading out, Leeza deadpan said, “That song is pure evil.”
“You guys, I forgot to mention it but that is my energy song, it makes me feel so HOT.” Lisa adds with a chuckle.
“It has an evil vibe,” I admit. “An evil vibe,” Leeza confirms.
“Don’t be judging,” Lisa reminds us.
“Your next,” Lisa said, nodding to Leeza, “What’ve you got for us,” she speculates, “some mental health rock?”
Leeza’s had this girl-punk-rock group called “Vancougar” playing on a loop in her room. At first, I wasn’t enthusiastic but now I think they slay. Her mom’s even gotten on board, dancing “the twist” to “Philadelphia” when it rolls around. Leeza has great taste in music although she leans a bit EMO (emotionally hard core) for me. She makes me feel old by introducing us to all these new bands like “Youngest and only,” “Calling all Captains” and “Beatrice Dear.”
“I’ve got one song to play,” Leeza says, “Paparazzi, by Lady Gaga.”
“I’ve been listening to that song all WEEK!” I gasp, “I love that song, it may be her best - that’s so random,” I finish saying as the song starts.
As Paparazzi ends Lisa says, “That song has major Gwen Stefani vibes.”
“It DOES,” I agree, “It could be “Cool” or “Sweet Escape.”
“Yeah, for sure,” Leeza agreed, “shoutout to No Doubt.”
Leeza says, “I have a conversation topic: What’s something we all acknowledge is cheugy but we still do anyway?”
“Being blonde,” I say, which gets stitches of laughter because it’s true and Lisa and I are.
“That’s true, that’s fair,” redheaded Leeza laughs. “Anyone blonde is dead to me,” which gets her a pillow in the face.
“Ok, I’m going to come for a lot of people,” Lisa says, “but yogurt, yogurt is cheugy.”
Leeza gasps, “You think yogurt.. It’s not cheugy!” she practically yells, “It gives MOM.”
Dec 28, 2022
Dec 28, 2022 at 3:33 PM UTC
the first thing people would say upon our engagement is show me the ring like some bling is an ode of your love to me. i am not a homemaker i am a homebody. i excel in colombian coffee and monday night pub specials and cheap wine with expensive labels. i excel at being one of the guys and by being one of the guys i mean not being your wife. i filled the crevices you scraped in me like some kind of sculptor smoothing over past mistakes like being your wife was some kind of placebo pill i can sweat out with half-empty pizza boxes and grease stains on a couch that was never mine. when i first tell people about us about what i've done they say
but you two fit so well
but i liked you together
but you were going to get married
but but but
but they don't see your knuckles almost shaking hands with my jawline or the time i stared at you deadpan i'm not scared of you and i think that's what scared you that i'm no battered wife that i'll take you all bleed you dry then smile from the corner.
i am no battered wife like the woman who raised you
whose christmas-gifted blanket i'm currently curled under but whose 4 a.m. whispered words i cherish more he can't make you forget what you felt like your lies would forge me into the *bat **** crazy ***** you christened me but what i felt in your booze-stained breath amaretto-sweet words ice-diluted eyes was i am no battered wife
i am no laying next to you in bed at 30 with kids i couldn't convince myself to want and bruises that fit your fingers on my ribs. i'll take my tuesday tequila and too-loud laughs, my scrounging for quarters for just one more cup of coffee over your stability smirks.
Feb 25, 2017
Feb 25, 2017 at 5:41 PM UTC
Bring together.
Tear apart.
(SIMULTANEITY)
Command or be carried,
be free or be ferried,
believe or be bleary,
wear on or be weary.
The bedpan of old age,
the deadpan of expression--
at the end
before beyond,
inward evacuation
/
outward ingestion,
a life lived to die--
but life exists, after all.
The "pan" of Pangaea,
the pan of a camera--
at the start
before tectonic cataclysm,
localized catastrophe
/
universal symphony,
indifference until perception--
but perception exists, after all.
Either
/
Or:
equal opponents at one moment
until chosen.
It could be said no dimension is parallel.
-LP
Nov 26, 2013
Nov 26, 2013 at 10:04 PM UTC
I.
I want to walk out
into the ocean’s gentle swells,
and feel God’s palm
cupped around me.
II.
I want to step,
over the smooth, fluted stones,
and the whorled shells
of bright abalone,
to sink down
onto sundrenched
sea-ground
and close my eyes
to see my blood-red sun-lit lids
flicker and flash, as
shuddering net-designs
dance, threaded and lacy;
as they curl,
tangling across me.
I want to slide my fingers
through the slithering white sand--
the grains carved into
ivory ripples by the
currents’ deft hands.
III.
oh, I want to lie
and close my eyes
and feel the soft lurch of each wave
jerking overhead, its
strong tug like a kite,
watch the shining fish
scything past above,
and let each dancing point of light
reflected
from their scales
scar my pale face.
IV.
Oh, there is a howling, starving dog
that circles on the shore,
alone.
he’s keened his frantic misery to the
deadpan moon
for so so long
that no one listens anymore--
they gave it up long ago
and just sprawl, licking the dunes;
they lie and swear the grit quenches their
aching thirst
until they choke on their sand-covered tongues
and die.
V.
You see,
I want to see the moon rise,
quivering through
deep-water blackness;
listen to the dolphins’
ghostly shrieks and clacks,
and the whales’ deep, grieved noises.
I want to forget
the sound of human voices.
I long to close my eyes,
sink,
and never rise.
VI.
bright, irregular globes
flutter from my mouth
quick,
coruscating orbs
of prayer,
they shudder and
dart upwards
VII.
saltwater, salt tears,
ask Him if He hears
you gasping.
Apr 25, 2013
Apr 25, 2013 at 10:42 PM UTC