"dessicated" poems
You're only seventeen -
the light seems to shine
right through you,
peach-furred skin
dessicated
drawn in upon itself
- and old.
Your moisture-dewed youth
has evaporated.
It’s been emptied
****** clean
dried and drained.
You reach out
with snappable wrists
Your brittle bones
bulge and bow.
Your ribs vibrate
with every breath
air thrills and ripples
the whole chest cavity.
Your hands and feet
Minnie Mouse big
too big
for the fragile framed
tiny dancer.
Your hips have become
pelvic bone butterflies
that arch and flare out
from your sunken abdomen
concave
and strangely hung
with loose folds of skin.
Your eyes like oases
in the desert of you
cartoon-cute big
but sunken deep
into your head
as if drawing away
from the sight of you.
Just a few more Kilos
and you’ll be gone.
© M.L.Emmett
Jul 30, 2014
Jul 30, 2014 at 11:53 AM UTC
the rain has come
finally
first in thunderous
clould burst
big fat pregnant drops landing
labouriously on
the dessicated dirt
leaving craterous footprints
as evidence of a
glorious dance
more fall to the cloud's internal beat
a steady rhythmic fall
into the mudpit dancehall
that once was dry dusty street
the rain has lessened
now wavering
between drizzle and mist stragglers late,
to raindance fall ball.
Aug 16, 2014
Aug 16, 2014 at 7:17 PM UTC
all day long, their banging disturbed me at my work
startling me from my reverie, lost deep in the world
of I Wish I Had A Heart Like Yours, Walt Whitman
the birds, returned early from wherever it is they hide
during the long winter, have come to fling themselves
against the over-sized picture window in my living room,
songbird pitch themselves into my poet's dull daytime
so that i am moved to rise from my desk, to look out,
to seek a bird flying away, or peer down to search for the
tiny body maybe roosting among the stalks of the overgrown
hydrangea, which captured autumn’s maple leaves, worn
like a Chicago matron's mink to keep the winter chill at bay
and, as the spring surrenders to the warmer days, i mow the
brightly greened grass, innocently cutting row after row,
to turn finally to the narrow strip nearest the picture window,
a mixture of grass, dried leaves and tiny twigs, all mulched
by the power mower, where i discover these dessicated bodies
exhumed from shallow graves at the base of the newly leafed
hydrangea, their stiff, dry feathers bristly, colored a washed
out grey, tiny feet tightly balled, with all the soft parts missing
and the beaks a startling white, as though bleached, bright against
the dullness of the little corpses which seem to have sunk into
the mosses of the yard, so that they lay preserved below the blade
for the first late-spring chore -- mowing the bird bone garden
i sleep with the bedroom window ajar despite the overnight chill
and dream of the memory of birds, their shapes, their white beaks
and, still, the bird songs wake me in the cool green spring morning
May 18, 2012
May 18, 2012 at 8:56 AM UTC
three ripe figs: maiden-mother-crone
fresh and green, not fully grown
gravid, blushing, ripe allure
nut-brown, wrinkled, sun-matured.
which of these the sweetest be?
high upon this old fig tree
maiden tartness bright and young
full womanhood upon the tongue.
drooping breast and brown age-spots
spurned by youthful hungry thoughts.
adolescent, first one picked
complex taste is not quite fixed.
plump and ready, sun-touched mother
ripe fig flavor like no other
ignored by most, her dried-up skin
sags dessicated on the limb.
with sweetest nectar deep inside.
never plucked and never tried.
Mar 1, 2012
Mar 1, 2012 at 1:22 PM UTC
in the east
a dry man stumbled through the lush panacea of a dessicated prayer
his faith moved mustard gas. gasping for clarity, he spoke a thing no god could answer.
he languished in the Eden of empirical Dodos
a succulent squab in the oasis of fables. he joined the throng. his shackles were mended.
his bonds, repaired.
in the west -
a rye bread crumbles along a path to a candy house -
to a furnace of blank stares.
it waits moonlit and rustic, alas - it's mad and verily cloaked in a thing no ' nothing ' would ask for.
it leads to a breach.
weary of " who knows ? "
a truculent husk of a drought mislabeled. an actual flood.
it rankles the vision...
it plots despair.
in the north, a gunga din fumbles through the arid Earnest of our Importance. There -
we play crude brass. Profundo. at last, we nearly...
and even though we wide spark the char of our scorched affair
we vanquish any Southland
and the warm sun
frosts a glass eye
like pyrite.
and polly wants a lacquer, dark enough to maroon...
Jun 14, 2013
Jun 14, 2013 at 10:24 AM UTC
Nothing is more boring
than the sunset's beauty
abused in every painting
Nothing is more dying
than a river drying
under a sun of spring
Nothing is more deceiving
than a leap over the waterfall
if not on the water you fall
But land on your head instead
or on your *** on dessicated GRASS
Yet ...
You still swoon in the sunset
Float on drying rivers
Blindly trust a waterfall's onset
Addict yourself to HERBS
Then you see the sun at noon
Burning and colorless
Uglier than the moon
Blinding and emotionless
The river, straightforward
Promising and regretless
Washes your anxiety
until you swell with hypocrisy
and deceptive ambitions
You start craving to fly
You start aiming high
Surrender to sense-less decisions
Above bottomless cascades
Until you meet your doom
Far below in the shades
On grass that doesn't bloom
And so you swoon again in the sunset
Re-float on drying rivers
Blindly trust another waterfall's onset
Re-write your fate on dying herbs
You forgot to find bliss!
in warm days and cool waters
in waterfalls' grace and the flowers'
You only aim for more than this
To lift yourself from the abyss
That keeps digging deeper
with every drying river
and herbs that you will again miss
Until your wings can't fly enough
or someone embraces you with love
Sep 15, 2014
Sep 15, 2014 at 4:19 PM UTC
A cardinal traversed within himself
Retrograding, an opposition to time's progressions
Letting its wings cut through memory streams
It notices–
A cold sea breeze
Journeying from dock into the Walled City
Mixing with arid wind and fumes from Manila streets
Twisting and turning sky-high greens
Causing umber to fall, separating themselves from virescent leaves
Familiarity drove it to circle this scene
As the curtains of relativity are pulled back to show it–
A street lamp dims,
Refusing to team with others' gleam
That give the black iron above Charles' skin an auburn sheen
As it keeps on flickering like hints
From an undecided heart, calling out to the man with every whim
Familiarity drove it to land on a tree
Perched on its viridescent sepia shoulders, playing guardian to–
A couple sits
On the rim of the fountain at the king's feet
A hand touches a cheek, a warm caress as their eyes meet
Fitting into each other's gaze
On the dried cascade, dessicated, as the street lamps stay lit
It notices–
As it traversed within himself
Retrograding all of its current progress
Letting his memories cut himself six-deep
May 17, 2016
May 17, 2016 at 6:38 AM UTC
They call it crude.
The dessicated then carboxilated, carbonified,
****** of dead Permian flesh.
This is the reason the salamanders die.
Corporeal concreted, mummified, fossilized.
This is the reason we dance.
Dirges of West Texas dirt romances.
Lost in the flares,
Caught in the gases blaring making nostrils glare.
Requiescat in pace.
All these women.
Dancing through the caliche,
Giving a reason to taste the air.
Through one breath of speechless.
The loam is never settled where boots tread and weather.
Destroying bedrock through hydrolic fracking to the earths core.
I land my toes in the sand of the Llano.
I taste my Mexicans, greasy, with cheese,
With.
Hot.
Sauce.
Dorthy never went to the fest of Oil.
But there's no place like home.
Her silver slippers or prosthesis feet placed instantaneously upon me.
Would bring me directly into a thorny,
Patch of Mesquite.
Apr 14, 2013
Apr 14, 2013 at 12:49 AM UTC
Lament our random tuesday
– I can't see today the sunny day
of our last spring leaves again
in a treeless pathless meadow
that spring day of silver tounges tarnished.
Dessicated earth is seeping in the blue glass,
the dry cracked plain rising above the sun,
the suns clarity as it is in reality,
and where we have been – I will always remember.
There are no oasis' on my equator.
The Wendigo subdued with pale skill.....
Whose corpse can fail to compare with my soul,
if despair and courage aren't in my heart! -
And if your scent, a mundane beast,
tears at my knees everyday,
and the suns dull golden light,
chilled by a slow approaching wave
for all of our words?
Jul 3, 2012
Jul 3, 2012 at 4:45 PM UTC
Like Breugel's Icarus
my brother Michael
dropped into the depths of the sea
unnoticed
Born at the bottom
of a crater of the moon
the sweetest foundling
since creation
His swaddling clothes
were denim and the blues
his pillow
a bottle of rye
This sweet soul
lived half a life
in halfway houses
and cheap motels
reeking of cigarettes
reeling from the *****
When he punched his ticket
on the midnight train to eternity
no one was surprised
I arranged the cremation
a fire that burned
more than one life
I gathered his ashes
and set out
for the crest of the Sierra Nevada
Alone
with my memories,
his ashes
and the cold stone
of those adamant heights
and then east
through the wastes of Nevada
the endless expanse
of the basin and range
A pilgrimage, of sorts
dedicated to nothing
and no one
Just the upthrust range
the solemn and self-absorbed peaks
the dessicated pine
and a wind
that scoured the soul.
Aug 27, 2016
Aug 27, 2016 at 9:15 PM UTC
I do not detest you but i will never forgive you,
For what you have done to me,
How can I forget such thing?
When I first met up with you, I got mesmerized
I just thought I am the only one in your heart.
Hoping that our love bonds will be tightened forever
The stream of contentment was flowing between us,
And we were dreaming of each other
Meditating on each other at all time
Oh yeah! We were like saliva and tongue.
Our love was blazing and blazing more
But now, no even small pieces of coal,
It seems as the fire reed,
That blazes in high flames,
And ending up losing power.
Our love withered as the dessicated leaf,
You have broken my heart unexpected,
This pain will not be relieved.
Sep 21, 2018
Sep 21, 2018 at 1:29 PM UTC
He asked to see my words
Joy in unexpected interest
But to share a glimpse inside the emptiness
The truth I've hidden for years
The fact that my feelings lay bare in ink
Though no longer reside in my soul
He asked to see my words
Answers to unasked questions
The truth of my daily struggle
The demons dancing within
The reason my heart is dessicated
The shame of my reality
He asked to see my words
To learn I do not trust
To see the dark prevail
So different from what I show
Frightened to lose someone else
Someone I dared to pretend to love
He asked to see my words
Hidden within is truth
The fact I try to no avail
That I only betray myself
To risk a loss of one so dear
There will be no recovery from nonacceptance
He asked to see my words
Mar 17, 2014
Mar 17, 2014 at 6:42 PM UTC
Sometimes, you must take action
In order to avert a calcification of the inner self,
A slow and sad decline.
My brittle heart was dessicated,
A cuttlefish, broken and alone,
Upon a windswept shingle beach.
Now, it pulses, it throbs,
The bass beat background to my life,
An eternal dance of joy.
Sometimes, life will gift you a great friend, a kindred soul,
Sometimes, you find someone
To revive you, make you whole.
Apr 5, 2014
Apr 5, 2014 at 12:43 PM UTC
We like our anger pickled
dessicated, fried.
We've had it boiled, baked,
rewarmed, microwaved on high.
We most enjoy it on holidays
served across the table
by siblings that we despise.
Dec 24, 2010
Dec 24, 2010 at 9:40 PM UTC
Like **** you look; like you cry yourself to sleep.
I want yeah love, not yeah tears.
You laugh in public, but in private you're crying.
Stuck to old fabric when you should be in silk with me.
'Cause of me, you say,
You can't hear The Bees.
I want yeah love, not hyperbole.
I thought I had you lost,
But you know,
I see:
Holding up,
That face, yours,
Behind the big plastic frames,
Who you kiddin'?
Not me.
I see the blue.
Who you kiddin'?
Not me, babe, not me.
So we're both unhappy, you in yours,
And yours in you,
And me in mine.
Mine in me.
Me and ******* me.
Still, I am free to not be free,
You are love, that can't.
Now ain't that a pretty irony?
Why aren't we turning?
Like we're meant to - two matchsticks burning as they coil each other round -
The white,
Burnt charcoal for all to see.
Oh, yeah, I forgot, blind ambition for a dream - that through entreaty - can't be met.
From tinctured gray hair,
And looped repetition,
Patriarchy's silver,
Its forked deceit.
You ********* you.
Come here I'll flail you proper,
Open up your flesh with my acid tongue,
Lash you to a better place so make your skin red like the devil's own.
Ahhh, come on!
Summer's buried,
So to our hovels,
Our fake wombs,
And see what emerges when you can't long any longer our hardened decay.
When desire finally awakens and brings you skipping to our light.
I'll be there in the shade,
Waiting to dominate,
As best you had.
Come lover,
Before all meaning's lost,
All passion's fury spent
On false gods who live to lie.
Come dart with me in the shadows and the light.
Take me to the sun's core.
Strip me,
Make to me, again,
My deepest rings penetrate,
On my face scathing drip,
Savage in my ears,
Over my minced and dessicated body rage,
Your clear **** in my hair.
Animal; you, I miss.
Oct 11, 2019
Oct 11, 2019 at 7:28 PM UTC
And there, ascends the seraph winged of fire
into realms azure beyond ours
that here lighted our lives
with courage and dreams:
what humble the beginnings, that
we see not in humility of conduct,
what joy of the spirit
that does not come flooding into our hearts
and dream, that does not lift a people
that millions rise, ignited
heeding your call,
O King by demeanour,
in palace but a pauper with books,
and the rhythms of our souls
when parched for some,
wandered we
by the mirage wells of a nation
dessicated of hope,
oh Thou dispenser of our destinies,
did you not send a message
scribbled across a smile
that connected silver curls of age
that now leaves us broken
for we shall never be the same
until we meet you there
in realms azure beyond ours
Jul 27, 2015
Jul 27, 2015 at 2:16 PM UTC
This long life has been
informed by love. We shared
each other Oh! for so
short a time.
Like fruit we hung onto
the sweet drops of new
nectar's night.
We peeled each other
to the pink skin of sighs.
It was a delicate scent
when blown into the
stars quiet Space. We
sped into the walls of
destiny and crashed
in the pulp of sorrow.
But I miss you in this
orchard of dessicated
memories.
I am rawed by the thought
of you.
Caroline Shank
Apr 16, 2021
Apr 16, 2021 at 1:55 PM UTC
there i was
standing on the edge
of the earth
rolling away from the sun
frozen in the doorway
of a dream
with twilight
pouring over me
flood waters churning
dust and mud
tumbling through
the dessicated planes
carrying life away
as quickly as it came
Aug 6, 2014
Aug 6, 2014 at 11:57 PM UTC
I need the rain.
Hard,
broken,
dessicated limbs hang
low and heavy
like twin pendulums
of shattered lead.
I need the storm
Cold,
cracking,
drained roots coil
notted and gnarled
like a cage
of sun bleached bone.
I need the flood.
Dark,
engulfing,
suffocated leaves wither
rusted and dying
like an endlessness
of time-ground sand.
I need the void.
Apr 12, 2024
Apr 12, 2024 at 10:50 AM UTC
dead summer
sun shines between my bones
long crooked shadows
how long have I sat here?
oaks shade gave way to yellow
oblique rays illuminate
these dessicated sockets
gilded parched pastures
all dew has been up and took
long before I first awoke
autumn crows' appetite
my earthly flesh plucked away
I hear my heartbeat
thump thump as the rabbit runs
knowing winters frosty breath
the rabbit-catcher's campfire
cannot warm shivering bones
under their dry leafy quilt
all desire is quelled . . .
content with malodorous meat
from this hollow frame
my ice-glazed scaffold
coyote steals a femur
it was mine to freely give
suffering it was his to take
my gnawed bleached bones
scattered ,full transformation
predator to prey
play to the nature of things
sea transience by precipitant moon
4.12.12
A collaborative renga written with tsac
Apr 13, 2012
Apr 13, 2012 at 9:20 PM UTC
Tonight, the dark feeds with splintered teeth,
The moon a bloated glutton, spitting light like shards of bone
Through corpse-grey, carrion clouds.
The night feeds and I shrink.
My dreams are dessicated,
All desire ****** dry, the marrow of me mourns
For the incarnation of before.
I was plump, proud, succulent, I lived
for the delights of the night, but now
the stars themselves spew from the sky
Like the ***** of a long neglected, hobo God.
Tonight, the dark feeds with splintered teeth,
All are devoured, we are an amuse-bouche
For who? For what? And why?
Jun 15, 2014
Jun 15, 2014 at 3:53 PM UTC
i can’t even keep a cactus alive
i forget to feed the fish
my sims, playing god,
kept in bowls
floating squarely upside down
i bet if i kept the cold
virus inside a petri dish
in my ***** room, it would die
as well as any pet,
as sticks and stones
collected as a child, coloured in
snapped or shattered, inevitably lost
and yet
and yet
in nine months’ time
i will be
one hundred percent loaded
a poorly dressed specimen
of adult human life
imaginal stage, caged
bug eyed girl
growing moths, cultivating mould
far too scared to be so old
still packed in with cotton wool
all bundled up inside myself
walking on eggshells
wings wrapped around my head
a feather bed, an endless humming
to block out every bump
in the night
my body is a cephalopod, sucker
attaching to every
rock or hard place, petrified
of the space between myself and
love and caring
needing a taste of everything
that looks safe to ingest
my restless limbs
can neither hold you nor let you go
whereas my cactus heart
tears skin and fingers far apart
the second we huddle in
too close, pins and needles
a pillowful of hurt,
a careful collection,
dessicated exhibit
iron maiden
cold and unbeholden,
longing to be held
i am half empty, i need water,
so much that i could die.
Feb 18, 2014
Feb 18, 2014 at 10:11 PM UTC
The perimeter was limiting,
the interior more inhibiting
and the Islander lived alone,ambitions dissipated,sun dried,dessicated,he waited for the ship to come,
he lived on coconuts and *** and Wrigleys spearmint chewing gum and two tonne of cargo from the hull of the ship that nearly pulled him to his death.
He was blinded by the sun and sand,so carried lightly in one hand a parasol (made in Taiwan)
not one known to complain,he found it hard to explain to his companion,
a turtle he'd named Marion,in honour of his life and his poor departed wife
just how he felt,
but he knelt before the sea creature,which, though he didn't know it then
would feature in a hot cooked stew somewhere in the distant future.
Sad to tell that the Islander spent eighteen years on his Island hell and went quite insane
thought the sand was rain and bathed in it twice weekly
leaking fluids from his skull he swam out to the rotting hull and danced a jig on the ancient deck,
both man and wreck sank deep below where only sharks and shellfish go and the sea ****** both to their sad demise.
No stone marks the resting place,no words remark on who lies there,but the Island stares out to the sea and knows the turtle was eaten for tea
and Islands never forget.
Jul 24, 2013
Jul 24, 2013 at 7:36 PM UTC
Supine, I sonder...
all syzygies and cromulent salons.
Stalking inlets, outbound.... surrounding swathes of
simpletons and awkward savants.
Sublime, I bombinate blithely... babbling
oblique begonias -
abloom... beyond barbarous gardens.
I tune my loom to weave
a wondrous garland -
the envy of every Harvest Moon
eclipsed...
[ and beg no pardon ]
As The Aurora
of our angular momentum
aptly allude to our diluvian droughts.
boundlessly departed
from all dominion... Like -
a dessicated deluge
dormant at the heart
of an epibenthic
pearl of dew.
I slake my thirst at
the First Well...
desolate of mirth.
yet ever at
peace.
contiguous in the extreme.
Supine, i sonder....
stitching my
brother's shadow
to the heel
of my odyssey.
My Wilderness
complete... when I go
missing.
[ where i oughta be ]
May 12, 2018
May 12, 2018 at 12:02 AM UTC