"desiccate" poems
Wicked nether-land. Nether world, white, askance. Capitulating mangroves, verdant trees spliced with hyperbole, onomatopoeia, and manilla envelopes; her world is stuffed with secrets, she listens to gorillas cracking mussels a kilometer away, near a rill. Never she thought. Nothing that could provide....providence. Mangled heliographs sprayed all over the everywhereworld.
"Don't be S.A.F.E.," she whispered. A bouquet of gorse, cistus, and pimpernels squished in her small fingers. She climbed her way through the pedimented stairway, then collapsing on the porch. Legs spent, and spread out upon the desiccate grayed four by four planks of the portico.
And as time elapses, the shuttering shake of the hemlock, which writhes through her skinny nimble dactyls, upwards straining the heart as its toxic bends appendages- crisp cerise lumens bend on the Titanium White walls, where only shadows bend time. The hour, still nine. Every adornment, furnished with red and its hues. Not purple, periwinkle, or any masked enhancement.
These are the symbols that reticulate splines, that curve temperatures, perverse hemispheres and debunk worlds. Upped antes, verbs that terns flirt worth, birth words. Ooh. Aah. Camera. The forest wraps her in its verdant pasture, where at last the moribund tamarisks disperse.
While at the plateau she is quiet and longing. Arms astride, dangling. Vaunt with highs and bliss- a kiss of withstanding pleasure serves her the cure for a lifetime of whining. This, yesterday where her body rattled through crooked vines. Square ships toasting her vocal melancholy in the sweet-waters of Time. So that all of her ripened limbs could grow, no more sheepishly than the magic she knew as a child. Stress free. First among the Earth-words, verbed-up and made jealous by pronouns that encompassed her joy-brimming hide. Closing down her voice and hugging her from behind.
Apr 26, 2014
Apr 26, 2014 at 4:44 AM UTC
Slap of leather magnified
Where Caesar’s legion marched
Setting sun of golden light
Though’ Roman tongues are parched.
Pewter helmets bronzely glow
Sweat cascades from dusty brow
Whilst o’er hill the Vandals mass
Salivating hot blood now.
Short swords cleat with marching rythm
Stabbing lances high and cold,
Metronome in stamping sandals
Onward now to victory’s fold.
Scarlet standards fly on high
The statement of intent is clear
Caesar’s men have promised now
To desiccate from ear to ear.
Grey ghost high above bears witness
Cadence of advancement grows,
Column strides in face of chaos
Lowered lance’s sharp steel shows.
Engagement in a stony basin
Flesh and blood, as one, combine,
Cut and slash in perfect order
Stab a *** and make him mine.
Darkness hides her chilling secret
Brooding silence stills the air,
Dawn’s first rays reveal the spectre
Carnage killed with none to spare.
Grey ghost’s hang in gaunt remembrance
Vespers ring in solemn tone,
Gone forever Caesar’s promise
Dead in vanquished blood and bone.
Marshalg
Inspired by Anselm’s “Broken Promise to Caesar.”
21 March 2013
Mar 21, 2013
Mar 21, 2013 at 1:29 AM UTC
The Deerfield keeps me. My eyes follow the treeline testing my wit, tossing new exemplary corybantic lights. They zoom around me in hurried whirling motion. Then you appear. You can have my moon and my planets, my stars, and I haven't even spoken yet. In the midst of an earnest offering to the first of three heavy drinking boisterous uneasy types. I tell the stranger I'll drive him the, but what- .2 miles to his home- and your light exaserbates my speech.
Maybe you thought I'd go for your nose, but I'm after your breath. Rightly so, too many men have squandered much of the joy from being superfluously strangely with strangers. The drunk party exits screen left, and a new character, a Kennedy evolves from the shadows.
[This is where you begin conducting]
My thoughts brim with colors, patterns, shades, and hues. I paused to take in these profound chakras I thought had become the desiccate dusty footprints, walking around Foley's pond trying to find the best fishing hole through the rough and tangled undergrowth that consumed those hours of my life.
Your writing is far better than mine was at your age.
There is depth and richness in the vocabulary you choose.
Let me kidnap you for a day, present you with the places I like to let
My eyes gaze upon. Between the thatchwork of black and white and gray.
Where are my hands? The Earth is at my back, she begs me
To pry further, to know better the rejuvenating handy-work she
Has laid before me, and the noncom I mustn't reject either.
I cannot sleep. I wouldn't want to sleep if I could. I would reject it as I am. Drive until daylight casts morning into memory, I would recreate another
Fifty of exceptionally raw and indulgent exchanges. This is before the questions begin.
I inquiry myself to draw your story through the sparseness of details I ferociously gobbled up with excitement and profound wonder. I am absent in my own hours, and yet there is frothy balance, no bedevilments of the flesh, but even so we are only the skin and bone and makings of human. I commit to protect you from harm and show you beauty and humor amidst the chaos and crisis of life's evolution. It is your excruciating curiosity and lack of fear that draws me ever more near.
Aug 6, 2015
Aug 6, 2015 at 8:51 AM UTC
you are the cigarette i pull out of the box every other evening
after fourty-six and five thousand strides, three underpasses
and one last pedestrian crossing
as with the cigarette, i look forward to you, look forward to
the high derived from the very presence of you
of your enigmatic entity misting through my lungs like
a sick, heady liaison akin to that of beer and smoke
but as with it which stubs out before the junction of bartley
relinquishes within me a curt perspiration, a heightened vision
you ravel my walk, desiccate my lips, augment a melancholy
that after muddy fields and an overhead bridge
initiates yet another discretion away from blurry headlights
as with the two sticks, tuesday and friday
five~, but only in selected amity
you leave traces of tobacco and filter paper
grinding between my newly dentalised set
as the zephyrs of the monsoon season **** against the spark
the bitter aftertaste of something so wrong, accompanied by
the warmth in cold of something so right
Dec 13, 2013
Dec 13, 2013 at 2:34 PM UTC
The day you died I ate a lime
And pondered how it shared its time
On Earth, beneath the Sun with you.
The light drawn deep through pitted skin
To feed the precious pips within
And swell the flesh, so sharp and fresh,
Sweet goodness, given life.
And now you're gone and numbness lies around us like a blanket
Grey wool absorbing every short, sharp gasp that greets the news.
And as your embers start to fade
The clustered citrus suns displayed
In fruit bowls where your children played
Lie desiccate and drawn
The day you died, I ate a lime
And pondered how it shared its time
On Earth, beneath the Sun with you
And as I scored its skin with steel,
And turned it in my hands to peel,
Its juice fell all around my feet
Like blood onto a Yorkshire street.
Jan 23, 2017
Jan 23, 2017 at 6:08 PM UTC
Covers
deliquesce
-rendered to liquid by
Suns setting rays
Wicked fevered winds
desiccate
smoldered and molten
Remains
Enticed by timid
denudation
sinless famished hands
Claw and wrench
in brine
and moonlight
they bathe
they flicker
beneath
the Indian summer night.
Mar 28, 2012
Mar 28, 2012 at 11:02 PM UTC
Once
by Michael R. Burch
for Beth
Once when her kisses were fire incarnate
and left in their imprint bright lipstick, and flame,
when her breath rose and fell over smoldering dunes,
leaving me listlessly sighing her name . . .
Once when her ******* were as pale, as beguiling,
as wan rivers of sand shedding heat like a mist,
when her words would at times softly, mildly rebuke me
all the while as her lips did more wildly insist . . .
Once when the thought of her echoed and whispered
through vast wastelands of need like a Bedouin chant,
I ached for the touch of her lips with such longing
that I vowed all my former vows to recant . . .
Once, only once, something bloomed, of a desiccate seed—
this implausible blossom her wild rains of kisses decreed.
Published by The Lyric, Writer’s Journal, Grassroots Poetry, Tucumcari Literary Journal, Unlikely Stories, Poetry Life & Times. Keywords/Tags: kisses, fire, incarnate, lipstick, dunes, ******* heat, lips, breath, sighs, passion, desire, lust, *** bachelorhood, recanted
Mar 26, 2020
Mar 26, 2020 at 3:14 AM UTC
How strange it is to finally be free
Like the freedom that tickles your neck or
Trickles down your spine, hot, like a July day
The freedom of spoken words
Impossible to contain once released
In the air, that’s the secret
Invite it to dance on your tongue
Or desiccate your flesh
Scream into the air, scream into freedom and
Be free
Oct 31, 2012
Oct 31, 2012 at 1:21 AM UTC
I want to feel you profoundly
I want you to mean so much to me
that I'd die for you
It seems I'm always losing friends
It seems as though I'm losing my mind
I am not your kind
Introspective and shy
Less than meets the eye
You thought you were,
But I knew you weren't right
I want to write songs about heartache
And mean it
I need you to come into my heart
I need you to wrap your arms
Around my neck
A little tighter
Become one with my skin
I want to feel you
in my veins
Make me forget that I am in control
Fool me into thinking you are
my only way home
Because I'm no good or bad, I simply exist
And I'm tired of living
Like this
I prefer small significant moments
Over big grand gestures
Edible as a sunflower
Put me in your mouth
I want to taste myself through you
Raw
Sustaining
Satisfied
Moving five countries away
Will never rid you from yourself
You can pour liquor to fill
The drought in you
Temporary self-inflicted
Oblivion
You'll still remain
desiccate and vacant
In the end
In the end
unknowingly
so promising
Something is not right with my brain
I don't believe the words they say
This is the truest lie I've ever written
I mistake you for the moon somehow
My anxiety is here and I am real
Where do all the others go?
My skin falls off of my bones
The boy behind the computer screen
Is the closest thing to love I've known
I can feel my soul departing from my clothes
All of this to tell you something
All of this to express nothing
Keep breathing
keep breathing
This is what you chose
Sep 26, 2014
Sep 26, 2014 at 12:56 AM UTC
the ceiling i now wear my eyes up
plastic black garbage bags and the rainbows fuse
wood-stock, bare beams and studs fixed with lines from dried
desiccate nails poked through
on
Milwaukee Avenue the miscarriages of newer child abuse shows through
characters worth keeping close are quieter than I'd choose, the mean grifters are so loud it's trying too hard to be obtuse. Anyone can be an ***
but my assholedom is strained from confusion and too much use. Underneath the mountains inside a record box, I only want to live where you're a fixture and a friend. My fingertips are bent, I can sew, I can write, I can breathe inside your mouth if you'll allow me too.
Jan 31, 2016
Jan 31, 2016 at 9:45 PM UTC
Sweet, sterile, smooth, smothering
Epithelial aerobics abound
Cells curl and desiccate like tips of leaves past their prime -
Just give me one second.
I now live authentically, I say to myself
My heart is in the mountains
Despite words gurgled from my sweaty face in the swirling splendid solitude of darkness –
“Help!” is what I mean to say, but as I break the barrier between liquid and atmosphere
It is the air that chokes my breath -
Just one moment.
Bacterial bile bubbles up
At the sight of
Dirt – contamination – fear
Everywhere.
In pores
Out of pores
Under nails –
No, no more nails now –
Stuck deep inside my skin –
That no brush’s bristles can ever scrub away
Still, I try – God knows I try! –
Skin raw and red and deserving.
They’re in my wounds, too –
Salts and chemicals I choose to douse
But it only eats deeper
There is a ragged red hole in my skin now -
Just give me one second.
Jaw tight, teeth ache, head pounds
Hands dry despite the fatiguing humidity
So it helps to see the crimson creeping up the flag of my disposition
I like this proof of biological clarity,
Like rainwater gliding up the capillaries of a plant
In reverse -
So just hold on one moment.
There was a time when I felt truly free,
I know it in my heart of hearts.
I was free once
Certainly, I was free
I was free
I was truly free -
So just give me one second.
Oct 14, 2014
Oct 14, 2014 at 4:08 PM UTC
Wounds emptied my veins
Speechless, weakened
Cannot get up at all
Lying, waiting
Only the rain can mend
Dew drops come
Moisten my skin
Before it desiccates
To be thrown away...
Mar 19, 2016
Mar 19, 2016 at 9:22 AM UTC
I am riddled with 30. The strike of midnight, it eats me, starting at the toes, bare and lively and barely alive, I struggle along a seam. My thoughts hang on the graveside. I wonder if anyone can see this? Thirty has me, she's a cruel contender made up of sinew and string, red rope licorice and DNA, blinds me when I walk with my face in the wind, steps over me like a Chicago pothole; the entire size of an apartment, 30 lives in the laundry room, tumbling over and over until its dry, desiccate and dry.
30 sends mail from Washington State too, it don't leave no line for greetings, it don't whoopdy-whoop the white-prentenders. No flowers for Kristine, no merriness of mirth, or dog on tin roof or nothing. Absolutely nothing. Thirty is the wickedest weapon of the new millenium, nothing so fiercely glum as this- boots won't even fit me, my hands' knuckles is swollen. My socks have finished their last **** verse too. **** man. 30 is the poison drug. Gator, 30 is Gator with speed and disease. Harmful tremors, shakes, phone 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
Mar 15, 2014
Mar 15, 2014 at 5:15 AM UTC
Me, up on the snow-rock white glacial cliff hedges mountaineering my way in the moments-after-twilight-sweeping-black. Execrable cold, a death-making quiet, Not a seal, not a hare - this Earth of gelid death. I climbed out above the snow Where my expiration left sinuous brandings in the copper light. But the Weddell was siphoning the darkness to the katabatic deep valleys - piceous lees of the brightening umber - cleaving the moon in two like the split eye of a winter lynx. And I saw the penguins: Little specks of black in the limitless white - fifty together - obelisk-still. Their inaudible coo, they sat motionless, nearly mute, With creamsicle feet and amber-eyes, incomparably mum. I proceeded: not one chirped or swiveled its little fur cap. Black silent fragments of a black silent world. I hearkened in the barrens of the desiccate plains. While the wooly bears came from the sea to see of the silence. Slowly edges oozed out of the darkness. Then the moon ivory, porcelain, azure erupted Quietly, and halving to its heart and shot mist, shaking and the ocean opened, crying blue, And the giant mountains lunged-. I stopped Scrambling, as if up from my voice at the mouth of a nightmare, down towards the snow-rock, from their glacial sheaths, And came the penguins. There stood they, still-, silent, in the river of blue light: Creamsicle feet and amber-eyed Thwacking the ice in a grand fête While everywhere was gray and rimy. And still they did not speak above a breath, Not one squeeked or cawed, Their nestled shining beaks dug into the polar rim, Low into the valleys, in the blue shimmering rays - In throngs of the congested cities, living among the years, the faces, May I some day greet my memory in such solemn a world Into the estuaries and the azure-skies, curious wooly bears, Listening as the ice tholes.
Apr 11, 2017
Apr 11, 2017 at 4:40 AM UTC
A soul’s vine is encased with demise.
Towering stalks desiccate to bister mummies and
Aflush dreams of romance capsize into sour, obsidian soil.
Exhausted leaves crumble when the sun goes down
And amber tears of stinging sap drizzle from hollow sepal’s
That once hugged tender safad petals in the raw night
Like a child clinging to their eham biar yadashte.
Eclipsed roots search for taskeen semblance.
Divest thorns flourish on their throne,
Devouring golden seeds of promise.
Tishna fruit wither into ember dust,
Particles brushing away in the restless wind
Until all that lays are flattened memories
Forgotten, forsaken, fanni.
Word Search
Machana Ruh (roo): A Wilting Soul
Safad: Pure milky white
Eham biar yadashte: That feeling of something from our childhood that gave us inanimate affection. Something we, still to this day, can not let go of because it carries all our intimate memories and emotions (Like a teddy bear or blanket).
Taskeen (Tash-kean): The warm feeling of home
Fanni (Fa-nee): Mortal fragility
Tishna: When a person is dehydrated to the point of death
Feb 18, 2021
Feb 18, 2021 at 4:42 PM UTC
Let him sleep tonight
For his bed has been made.
A corrugated cotton sheet spangled red and blue
Reposing over hackneyed *****
Soothing the sores and aches of his daily grind.
Let him sleep tonight
For his eyes are heavy
From the sight of comrades blown sky bound
Where he hopes to unite with them
For moments where they can rest at wanting ease.
Let him sleep tonight
For he has already heard his lullaby -
An opus of shrapnel and sirens
Bleeding through a shell-shock ensemble
Singing to the rhythm of the reloaded gun.
Let him sleep tonight
For his flesh has gone cold
And his voice left desiccate,
Thirsty for the warmth that only an eternal blood and
Brotherhood can offer.
Jan 22, 2017
Jan 22, 2017 at 4:08 PM UTC
Shed on that certain kind of warmth
You give the waters that washed away our footsteps
Illumine the dark leaves of our past
Blown away by the indifferent breeze.
Desiccate the grass that invited conversations
But leave the roots unscorched.
I prayed to Autumn to blow away my pains
But Winter entertained me instead.
I won’t let Spring visit me
Until you burn down her cold heart, Summer.
Jun 21, 2012
Jun 21, 2012 at 8:12 PM UTC
Rain falls; licks, and tastes-
drips and drops from contours, traced.
Lightning's lash, electric laced;
anxieties anticipate
but under clouds bears no escape-
and here I find my fury: fate.
Twisted bouquet of buildings placed;
no windows, stares an eyeless face.
Hollowed husks commiserate,
though storm will wash and dissipate.
These diseased dreams lie dead, disgraced;
tombs for what I desiccate,
and blood upon this dead landscape;
but hurriedly, its here I haste
for fear of losing steady pace.
Dec 22, 2016
Dec 22, 2016 at 8:18 PM UTC
Me, up on the snow-rock white glacial cliff hedges mountaineering my way in the moments-after-twilight-sweeping-black. Execrable cold, a death-making quiet, Not a seal, not a hare - this Earth of gelid death. I climbed out above the snow Where my expiration left sinuous brandings in the copper light. But the Weddell was siphoning the darkness to the katabatic deep valleys - piceous lees of the brightening umber - cleaving the moon in two like the split eye of a winter lynx. And I saw the penguins: Little specks of black in the limitless white - fifty together - obelisk-still. Their inaudible coo, they sat motionless, nearly mute, With creamsicle feet and amber-eyes, incomparably mum. I proceeded: not one chirped or swiveled its little fur cap. Black silent fragments of a black silent world. I hearkened in the barrens of the desiccate plains. While the wooly bears came from the sea to see of the silence. Slowly edges oozed out of the darkness. Then the moon ivory, porcelain, azure erupted Quietly, and halving to its heart and shot mist, shaking and the ocean opened, crying blue, And the giant mountains lunged-. I stopped Scrambling, as if up from my voice at the mouth of a nightmare, down towards the snow-rock, from their glacial sheaths, And came the penguins. There stood they, still-, silent, in the river of blue light: Creamsicle feet and amber-eyed Thwacking the ice in a grand fête While everywhere was gray and rimy. And still they did not speak above a breath, Not one squeeked or cawed, Their nestled shining beaks dug into the polar rim, Low into the valleys, in the blue shimmering rays - In throngs of the congested cities, living among the years, the faces, May I some day greet my memory in such solemn a world Into the estuaries and the azure-skies, curious wooly bears, Listening as the ice tholes.
Apr 11, 2017
Apr 11, 2017 at 4:42 AM UTC
I read them over and over... Those few words you said to me.
They almost seemed to be enough, but for how long would it hold me over?
Is it enough to keep the thought of you alive in the back of my mind or enough to keep the thought of us a distant memory of something that never came to past?
I read them over and over again; Those words.
Forward and backward... All saying the same things.
You are glad I'm here and you know I'll stay.
Yet you keep floating away.
What's to happen next seems deadly complex when they're truthfully simple.
So simple just for you to say I want to stay. I want to stay forever until I no longer can.
I want to hold on to you forevermore...until my bones themselves desiccate.
And I'd reply saying to you I’ll hold on like I once did when the mere thought of you was enough.
Like I did those words I once read over and over; forward and backward.
Feb 5, 2015
Feb 5, 2015 at 12:25 AM UTC
Bleed me dry,
Desiccate,
I beg you;
Anything
Would be less
Torturous
Than this love
I feel for
You, you, you.
Jun 5, 2016
Jun 5, 2016 at 7:11 AM UTC
Let the sorrow coat my carcass
I once existed and now I’m gone
To enrich death place it upon me
I will leave this earth and be bound
My skin will become rigid to the touch
My soul will settle and slowly drift away
My lungs will desiccate my ribs will cave
Will I grow wings ?
As you Grasp on to my fingers as I try and leave
Slipping into the void that I know all to well
The anguish can I let it go?
What is upon me should I know?
Will I be able to hear sound?
Can I make a noise?
Will I witness evil where does it reside?
A new foundation just for me
Thinking of the mountains thinking of the sea
I’ll relish in being free
May 27, 2012
May 27, 2012 at 10:54 PM UTC
CFM. (Adult)
5 January 2022
Hunger-wearing-black-booted-
Midnight-shadow-street-corner-blue-
Bartender-bassoon-smooth-wailing-horn,
Tonight pull me while I'm burner-raw-torn.
Desiccate-night-thirst wake me. Tease.
Moon CFM drown me, break me.
Roaming-desert-music, seize me.
Viola-tight-throat-hum-love, sting!
Tonight no hope, I need to sing.
Jan 5, 2022
Jan 5, 2022 at 11:43 AM UTC
When you gaze upon me,
Tell me what you see?
Squinted eyes and crooked smile,
Or buried misery?
I hide these wounds,
I hide them well,
They seeth beneath,
And burn like hell,
Don't pry that door,
Nor turn that handle,
Peak not in windows,
My life in shambles,
My hate is boiling,
The kettles black,
I'm ****** again,
and can't hold back!
Alas, I'm free of your ****** cage,
And now you too shall share my rage,
You can't control me, little boy,
The spread of misery does bring me joy,
I take the things you claim to cherish,
And twist them til they seem nightmarish,
You asked me once, what do I feel?
It's ,
Taste that coldness you're turning numb,
No wait, the suffering has just begun!
You shall not quit, you spineless wretch,
I throw out anguish for you to fetch,
You chase it down and pounce upon,
Now bring back what I have thrown,
Your teeth sunk deep into this bone,
This bone of hate, filth, and decay,
Now it is your turn to slay.
And breathe... breathe...
I smell it on you, like perfume,
This scent of hatred that you exhume,
It's curled and wicked, it permeates,
This rage, it smolders and conflagrates,
Flesh curled from bone, seared away,
Lash with tongue, til hearts are flayed,
Wound and strike and desiccate,
Released from chest is all my hate!
Eyes roll back, this ecstasy,
My soul, now cleansed, is now set free,
My words and hate I must now sheath,
Beware, my friends, what lurks beneath.
Jan 9, 2019
Jan 9, 2019 at 5:29 PM UTC
left myself to
desiccate, without
ripening. a drop
from him is
all I need.
animal, beast --
come from hibernation,
reveal yourself in
a grand
naked
finale.
Mar 30, 2016
Mar 30, 2016 at 4:42 AM UTC