"detritus" poems
We attempt rescue, unable to bear
the stardust-coated dragonfly
beat, beat, beating
frantic on the glass.
We entice him to perch
on our extended lifeline-broom
nurse him in a box, where he flutters
quivers, lies quietly blue.
My son cries bitterly
as we place a minute cross
upon the dragonfly grave
while intoning our final goodbyes:
*We honor those who have fallen victim
to this fatal architectural trap, lured
by skylights of enticing white-light death
and the paned illusion of freedom.
In admiration of winged determination
and perseverance in the face of futility
we carefully tend the fragile, curved bodies
lay them here to rest under the mock orange.*
years of gauze-weighted detritus
swept beneath these ponderous shrubs
a reminder - what seems like freedom
often isn’t.
Apr 14, 2016
Apr 14, 2016 at 11:16 AM UTC
Stumbling into ancient scripts, authored a decades plus ago,
ago being a modifier of time quantities, minute or large, unspecific
without an objective adjective additive, that faucets a stream of an interlocutory elocution of a batter of rooted emotional histories,
but not histrionics
fanciful words for dredged up memories, acute, but tarnished,
powered yet worn by a cousin of ago, a/k/a,
age
and yet
renews as of,
at this very second, as if it were a first, a tumult of visions, swelling of remembrances, embodied scars, and I weep anew but not
for me, as much for the resonating simpatico souls with whom
they even now vibrate with resonance of the immediacy of
If not now, When?
Aside: The exterior environment is noisy wet pelting of thunderstorms and ****** sheets of bulleting rain, piercing projectiles, but I am safe in the sunroom, sadly happy my dog is no longer here to shiver and tremble, cuddle and be soothed by steady stroking
But I am here, wrestling with this dredging operation, digging up
tons of sand that require dumping, and I ask, inquire, beg:
Who will take this detritus off my hands, once more, now uncovered,
now recovered, the soil is already soaked and can absorb no more,
the soul is already soaked and can absorb no more, the weakened
heart, damaged and occluded, suffer cannot bare twice the
outrageous misfortune
of unbared recollections, twice, or thrice, and I feel myself drowning in revisiting pain, **** **** **** these old poems, not nuggets, but boulders dropping from night skies, shot from a pitching machine, without letup, piercing of agonies that once ago
freshly desecrated and decorated my basic training in humanity.
Enough whining:
*I wrote those poems to
eject out those pains,
and I write this now, once more,
to realize that so so many still face
uncertain and unrelenting similarities,
doing their own sums,
and I wish them easing,
strength to compose and
thereby dispose of
the ineloquent
and eloquent
words of staining suffering*
3:30am
Thur
July 10
2025
Jul 16, 2025
Jul 16, 2025 at 5:39 PM UTC
Once it was garbage, refuse, trash.
A jumble of foul-smelling detritus hauled to the curb
And removed by sinewy men
Contributing a harder day's work
Than anyone else in the city.
Our energy now removes its entropy.
Sorted and classified into coloured bins,
We add order to our rejected matter.
Specialized trucks arrive to collect
The date-synchronized bins
Emptying them into functionally compatible mechanisms.
Most desolate is the black box of paper and cardboard.
Brochures and flyers, old magazines and letters.
Annual reports and cereal boxes.
Once these were enameled with crafted sentences,
Painstakingly typed, edited and debated,
On the monitors of copywriters.
Now they are just millions of words printed on flattened fibre substrates,
Jumbled into the bruised and scarred black box,
Entering into the recycling stream.
The nouns and adjectives,
Prepositions and gerunds,
All jumble together.
Fragments of precisely-crafted sentences and paragraphs
Are gradually broken, shredded and pulped.
Incomplete thoughts, broken phrases
Like those of a rejected stranger
In an lonely, unknown country.
Then words without context.
Then just disparate letters
Are all that remain.
Their M ea N inG
G r a Du all y
is re mov
e d
.
Aug 2, 2013
Aug 2, 2013 at 10:26 AM UTC
i feel your energy surging through me
-
through the veins that keep me breathing
and the scars that keep me fighting
(though i wish they didn't)
through the extremities of my fingers
all the way to my tippy toes
-
your energy is all i need
i feel your smile energise me
-
through your whitened teeth
and your crooked beam
through the timid smile i can't help but create in response
i know with all of my soul
you are far brighter than a thousand suns combined
-
your smile is all i need
i feel your breaths complete me
-
through your oxygen
that circulates through my body
through my detritus that yearns for you
(and just you)
i've come to realise
you've become my only supply
-
your breaths are all i need
Mar 6, 2015
Mar 6, 2015 at 7:53 PM UTC
I am at the fire as I would likely be, come the chill
hours of inactivity, having gathered up the dead
detritus from the yard and put to match some old
wood rested on it. The lifeless pile took flame
with greed, as if surprised by need of it,
and gratefully gave itself to be consumed by fire.
For a time the world is all ablaze, all red
and yellow hot upon my face, flush with pregnant
sparks giving birth to ever greater iterations of fire.
Then I think let it all burn, all that is useless;
let it burn, all that is cast off and idle; in my mind
an eternal flame, even as the wood before my eyes
melts to ash and climbs to heaven on a pillar
of smoke. Ash settles down to earth with me,
ash in the air darting through shadows, bitter
on the tongue, gray in the hair. The universe
is cold; the space between the stars blank.
The bodies of the universe are all ash.
As long as there is flame I stay with it. I inch
closer as the cold elbows in, jealous of my place.
I stir. Chars catch a breath and come to light,
soon fading, embers weary of their work, blinking
heavy eyed, nodding off to sleep. When at length
all that can burn has burned, refined to its last
remains, glowing scarlet crystal, intensity wanting fuel
denied, I leave it to its vultures, satisfied
all becomes at last what does endure.
Nov 11, 2012
Nov 11, 2012 at 11:10 PM UTC
Life moving fast
Like storm cell rain
Washing, running
Torrent and quickly
Through the drains.
Some daze,
In this cold and constant place
I wish I were a folded paper boat
Tipping, curving crests, afloat
And chasing the stream
Downwind.
Away and washing clean
A waxed vessel
Escaped
Pouring through
Concrete flooring.
I would steer for the sea
On waves awash with
Urban weeds
Detritus sweeping across
The deck
Of my paper boat built
For one.
I would run
With the water
A creased and soggy me
All folded and falling apart
At the seams.
Feb 9, 2010
Feb 9, 2010 at 2:15 AM UTC
It is early.
and the world hangs silent, but the birds chirping their chime,
An angelic choir of vibratos
And tenor beaks
humming sweet
to the early tangerine crest of sun
slivers a powerful bar of light over the peaks
to a newly brilliant horizon.
Sweeping the dredges of darkness away
as the stars fade
like coal dust
back again, packed into their cupboard of night
one by one,
lanterns snuffed and sent
into the vibrating blue
as if the whole sky should erupt into fire
azure, hallowed morning pyre
Encircled by the gradient hues
of coral pink and castille yellow
Mediterranean teal
A symphonic
cacophonic
**** of birth
Good Day, Sweet mother earth.
Squeezed through the valleys
canals
allies
every nook and forlorn cranny
kissed with her blissful photonic army
And the infantile creatures cry with glee.
The dewdrops clutch the blades
the tender palasade
of petals
remembering their darkened escapades
slipping tender rain
to feed the dirt,
the lonely detritus
elixirs of the lovely night.
And the world bursts into a veritable
kaleidoscope of life
With a trillion pairs of eyes
accessing the mother dream
Aug 8, 2018
Aug 8, 2018 at 2:48 AM UTC
When Coyote witnessed
the Creator making this world
he thought
I will make a world like that
for myself
And so he formed a copy
of every living thing
from the mud
from the branches
and detritus that he gathered
there on the banks
of the Columbia River
But all of his
carefully wrought figures
elk and deer
fish that sparkle in the shallows
black bear
who hides from two-leggeds
the wings of the air
who mingle with the leaves and branches of the forest
all melted back into the mud
of the riverbank
at the next rain
Undeterred
Coyote set out
on a quest
He found a new country
a pleasant land of vast expanse
with every manner of good things
When Coyote came into this country
his hunger
was greater than myth
sharp as the edge of a knife
And there he spied Crow
on a high cliff
with a mouth full
of deer fat
A plan quickly formed
in the caverns of his cunning
Coyote called out
Chief Crow
I am told that your voice
is as sweet as spring water
as pleasing as a woman
in the night
Sing for me
Great Chief
and I will reward you richly
Crow is a vain creature
and being called Chief
gave him great pleasure
He preened
opened his silver wings to the sun
and sang his rough song
but in a muted tone
in order to save
his delicious morsel
Coyote called out again
Oh Chief!
That wasn't much.
not like the stories
I have been told.
Please sing your song again
with feeling!
Crow rose to his full height
****** his sharp beak
into the air
and gave full voice
to his raucous song
for the sake of every crow
on earth
We know the end of this tale
because Coyote taught it
to our ancestors
The deer fat fell to the ground
and Coyote
trickster
scarfed it in an instant
Hunger dampened
he ambled along the well-beaten path
to find the next fool
And that is the story
of Coyote and Crow.
Keep your pride in check
or be the next one laid low.
Aug 4, 2016
Aug 4, 2016 at 4:01 PM UTC
Nights pass and I pick away at my skin.
Supine in this hallowed hollow of unwashed bedsheets and detritus
Spending my time, the most precious currency to date, trudging through virtual stacks of head shots of those I've known or half-known.
A healthy reminder that you are alone.
You are behind.
You ****** up early, kid.
You are behind in some sense, even if half the acquaintances pleasant or otherwise in your class are working jobs not much better than yours.
What I really hate is seeing joy.
Seeing these people and their ****** happiness, it's great.
Really strengthens the misanthropic beast I've been feeding all week
And it feels good, anger
Especially when the only other things I'm used to feeling are
worried or
bored
So its nice to indulge, I guess
I don't have to look for something to fuel my complaints, my bitter unwarranted jealousy –
that's an annoying component –
the awareness –
this would all be much more enjoyable if I didn't notice these things about myself
but noticing is a habit I've nourished
for years far exceeding
the time spent with a cigarette between my fingers
Dec 20, 2012
Dec 20, 2012 at 7:59 PM UTC
But I'm Not Bitter
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
a dark and dreary day ( I know its Tripe but today it is true )
rain makes me sour and truly an old crone
My skin is too tight and my bones are not nimble but stiff and useless
Stairs are insurmountable and the phone seems too far away for the effort
I no longer try to be pleasant and am left alone
but for my furry mob who can care less my bad mood
my desk chair is surrounded now with hot water bottles
electrical pads and nuke em packs and of course pill bottles
the detritus of pain
It is now a companion old and well known to me
I am told ever "Its age my Dear, Just live with it
I am told "It's all in your mind there's no pain at all"
I am told :Push through it and endure don't acknowledge it ignore it"
When will it leave ? at death ? What a thought to have to drag it with me at the end.
I curse his name
His Family
His Heritage
His Intellect
His Temper
His one action one blow in fury his one tantrum ...
And the sentence is life ...for me
I wonder ..If I saw him could I strike back?
I know there is no forgiveness no saint like pity or absolution
Every time I hit the ground in a seizure he has hit me again
Everyday I cannot climb the stairs in my own home He has thrown me once again through the window and I fall the 6 floors again
Stop holding on to it you'll never get any better ... And I try ..I really do ...
Then the seizures come or I cannot do a simple household task
or I must once more tell a friend I cannot meet them for tea (a selfish luxury)
You know I bet he has not thought of me in years ..but his actions govern what I can do every day of my Life
But I am not Bitter
Solita -2006
Author's Location: Toronto, Ontario
Jun 13, 2014
Jun 13, 2014 at 5:33 PM UTC
Hi! I’m a hamster on a Wheel!
Gamely running on my bony little legs
[I’m getting somewhere! I’m getting somewhere!]
Every once in a while, I look left or right
See my **** and my compressed pellet food sitting in the same positions
as an hour, a day, weeks ago – and I realize:
IT APPEARS THAT I’M ACTUALLY GOING NOWHERE!!!!!!!
Which surprises me each time it crosses my little hamster brain, until I’m distracted
By my pellet food, the call of the Wheel, and other sundry carnal desires
Roiling superficially in my hamster-angst
While working the Wheel, surrounded by the detritus of my saccharine prefabricated life
I fail to notice
Outside my cage
Hands, lifting, carrying
Thousands of miles traversed
Steaming deserts
Steaming jungles
Steaming cities
Brutality, kindness, sensuality, love, hatred, atrocities, age, youth, heat and cold
All flashing by my glass shell as hands carry me towards a final resting place
Until
A jarring, toppling blast shakes my world
Tearing me from my Important Work on the Wheel
I look up, pellet crumbs falling from my mouth
Just in time to see my cage tumble from hands
Over a rail
Down
Down
Flash of blue
Flash of brilliant light
Flash of blue
Down
Smacking into a vast expanse of water
Unimaginably immense
Outside of my realm of comprehension – I mean, I’d never seen it in my hamster cage before, so why should I even expect it to exist?
What is it’s purpose?
It makes no sense!
It has no place in the world!
And as I slowly drown in the secret withheld from every hamster since the beginning of time
I take one last longing look at the Wheel, the cage, the pellets
And curse them
Curse the Deception that told me they were all that mattered
Dec 15, 2013
Dec 15, 2013 at 9:15 PM UTC
The sea cast a gift ashore
one stormy sullen day
and the barren rocky coast
was suddenly recast
as a natural history museum.
A whale.
A real whale, just lying there
shining on the shale
In another time,
we'd have known how to react.
This astonishing bounty
would have been quickly stripped
Bones for building
baleen for support
blubber and oil for fuel.
But now it lay
surrounded by detritus
made of better stuff.
The truth was,
we didn't really need it,
couldn't really use it,
like being presented with
Casablanca on VHS.
A sign appeared:
"Quad bike rides, £2",
red paint on rainsoaked cardboard.
I wasn't tempted.
Children poked it with sticks
in a desultory way,
stricken, intrigued, ashamed,
and utterly dwarfed.
The weeks passed
as we coughed in embarrassment
not knowing what to do,
until finally
someone brought a digger down
and discretely buried the beast.
By now, it will be a perfect skeleton
a prehistoric wonder
an artefact from unjaded days
when nature could still astonish,
trampled by unknowing tourists
as they dream of sunnier beaches.
Jan 1, 2012
Jan 1, 2012 at 3:06 PM UTC
Upstanding citizen of forest floor.
Tall and proud.
Lowest level.
Tall and strong.
Home to many.
An ancient realm.
Mighty den of bugs and grubs.
Detritus munching in the hole.
A deciduous conifer.
Gets undressed for winter.
Redresses early spring.
Parody of pine tree.
Wood as red as fire.
The itching sky she needs to scratch.
Always reaching upwards.
Until her time is done!
By ladylivvi1
© 2013 ladylivvi1 (All rights reserved)
Nov 3, 2013
Nov 3, 2013 at 10:14 AM UTC
a knuckled skull
with no where to go
made of mud and blood
took a needle to sew
made her
during a blood moon
her parts for pleasure
some one to spoon
did it in shadows
so angels couldn't see
fashioned detritus
scraped a dead tree
gave her toes
and a small chin
played a samba
and shaped her thin
after I wove her
from spiritous mist
she called me god
i did insist
i wanted her ****
incantations and ****
made to do the who-la
resurrection did come
in barbarous tongue
enshrined truth on her head
she animated
and got out of bed
who am I
she begged to see
my lover always
i said with glee
what is love
she did inquire
its feelings of warmth
that do inspire
where are they, where is it
is it in this room
i have nothing in me
where does it loom
i pulled down my pants
she looked up with shock
oh my god she cried
what a beautiful ****
she came at me
unbridled and mad
grabbed me and broke me
and called me dad
she starved for a stuffing
and ****** like a pig
huffing and puffing
my **** got so big
we lived together
till I dropped dead
she lives forever
still waiting in bed
Apr 25, 2017
Apr 25, 2017 at 8:40 AM UTC
Well, what a week, full of revelation
Enough to stir this talk of revolution
Makes your hackles turn on end
Then send you round the bend
The southern gentry have found oil
Right beneath their derriere boil
Now most of us on this golden isle
Need not worry about this pile
Those who wear weekend country tweed,
Built their fortunes from housing greed
Have already decided
That it will be one sided
They’ll say it’s theirs, by rights
And if we argue, will read our last rites
The South will declare independence
In certainty of their full ascendance
Over the outer reaches of this nation
They pounded into servitude, by taxation
And if we have the nerve to debate, I’ll be bound
They’ll leave it horded in the ground,
Then blame the anti frackin’ hound
Now I may need a political re - education
In a 1984 establishment for rehabilitation
But I can see it coming a five-nation island
Southland, Wales, Scotland, N. Ireland,
And the Detritus
Apr 15, 2015
Apr 15, 2015 at 5:27 PM UTC
I shield my eyes
against the glare
and see the lighthouse
far distant
stand *****
beside the sleeping sea
the tired strand
where seabirds wade
children play and
parents guard their
moves and makings
. . . at my feet
the detritus of time:
tide-gathered wood,
salt-stripped,
sea-stained yet
polished by restless
turn and tilt
of the absent moon.
Sep 22, 2012
Sep 22, 2012 at 3:19 AM UTC
~~~
*dedicated to the three, who read this first
(S.B, J.A., & T.M.R.)
and know it all too well*
~~~
more than ever presumed,
more than ever thought realizable,
indescribable attainable,
a modernizing magic powder,
synthesizing my intemperate body
~
at last, all ego falls away,
now but corn husk mulch,
detritus, non-toxic nuclear waste,
for growing better visions,
fruits undiscovered
~
write for me,
my recordings, my blog,
not to differentiate,
to substantiate,
to integrate
your gasps imagined,
mine realized,
exhalations upon lips grazing,
the soil of our rainforest
wetted by
living smiling,
eye droplets,
forming a singular stream
~
write for you,
sharing too close,
are you my first or second skin,
for there are no spaces
~
satisfaction discovered that is insatiable,
this pleasured seeing,
this pleasured sharing,
this poetic reason,
to exist
Aug 13, 2015
Aug 13, 2015 at 6:23 PM UTC
Tell me those
things I did,
did not, do.
Talk of me
as a thing
in the past.
Leave me there,
plucked or tossed,
left as detritus.
Then I shall
be nothing to
no one; -gone. *
Apr 29, 2017
Apr 29, 2017 at 10:02 PM UTC
'Every night, It's like ******* clockwork.'
'What is?'
'You! Turn the lights off. Turn over. Lights on. Get back up. **** Come back to bed. Turn over. Kick. Get back up. Go to fridge. What the **** are you eating, anyway?'
'Sticks of Pineapple.'
'Sticks of Pineapple? Jesus.'
'What?'
'It's just…weird, that's all.'
'What's weird about it?'
'It's not the done thing, is it?'
'No - biscuits are not the done thing. Crackers and biscuits. Crumb detritus, hazard for all.'
'What else have you got there?'
'Jelly babies.'
'Fucking woman.'
"They're soft! They're not a bed hazard!'
'You sure you're not pregnant?'
'What was Robert like in bed then? Straight to sleep, was he, old Robert?'
'He was, as a matter of fact.'
'Yeah well. Bully for Robert.'
'Alright, let's not bring Robert into this -'
'Eat this bit of spat out pineapple. Go on. Eat it to show your devotion.'
'I'll punch you in the face, is what I'll do.'
'Eat it. Enjoy it. Swallow it.'
'Has the sleeping pill kicked in yet?'
'I'm getting there.'
(He eats the spat out pineapple.)
'Now got to ******* sleep, ya degenerate.'
Jul 26, 2014
Jul 26, 2014 at 7:05 PM UTC
pride
falling from a
suspension
bridge
easy
death leap
sparks
a final
thrill ride
splashing
down with
conclusive
thudness
an epic
detritus
skimming
along the
heave of long
regretfull
rivers
buoyantly
bobbing
atop eddies
of hubris
cresting
aimlessly into
nothingness
one way ticket
expiration dates
are strictly
enforced on
leapers
but the final
gulps of
briney pride
swallowed
by loved ones
chokes them
in welling
floods of
unresolved
incomprehension
forcing the
bereaved
to forever swim
in a churning
flotsam during
unexpired
lifetimes
Cab Calloway: Jumpin Jive
Paterson
10/24/13
jbm
Oct 24, 2013
Oct 24, 2013 at 1:42 PM UTC
The sun, so lover-like, ran her fingers
Through the glistening leaves,
Movements soft, so full of intention
Their waxy dew, shuttered in response,
A low moan played in the breeze,
The light of sonority contrasts the electric
Disharmonies in the stormy afternoon.
Though I could feel a forest now eased
The river that runs through
Carried the blood of a plural heart
Beating with a passion akin in power, though enemy in fashion,
As its waves beat the banks
Eroding them into, eating up the aridness
As though slaking were its due, muddying the sky’s blue
From its surface, piercing the eyes from its reflection
Discouraging, this turbid froth, from worth of further inspection.
It rages and rages over rocks so violently
Picking at its slimming walls, making and claiming
Detritus along the path so that all the beauty a river is
Crashes, collides, and disfigures—a chaos growing
Bigger and bigger—the speed of its wrath
Bespeaks of its wake, blasting the earth (Watch it dissipate!)
Out of my sight it runs its due course south
Spitting the detritus that arrives
At the mouth.
May 5, 2014
May 5, 2014 at 12:43 AM UTC
there is no privacy anymore
tinker with your settings,
imaginary dragons, but to no true avail,
your scathing privacy has since sailed,
only to return for another sinking
what you forgot,
is very well remembered
in a some very overlooked place
see me in my summer camp class photo,
blonde crew cut and goofiest of grins,
find my poems of eons ago,
in living tricolor,
to my now better understood
"eternal" embarrassment,
they writ on, vainly looking
for a way to enjoy a
natural unnatural aging,
a wordlessly, self-destructing death
on a someday,
though the probability is that
someone's gigabytes
will cloud store them forevermore
because accumulation is
cheap and easy and
whatever
everything you need but didn't want,
the tangled webs, births and deaths,
multiple divorces and successes,
ancestors, progenitors,
children who no longer acknowledge
parenthood,
the detritus of lives writ even larger than the
original reality life show
confrontation tween my suppression
of long term memories that
are dangling participles,
going gone being been,
confusion resultant in
the tenses of existence,
I was therefore I still must be
but no longer
the me
I pretended to be
*there is no privacy anymore,
especially,
not even from thine own
prying eyes and faulty memories...*
when they ask what is my name,
to better trace my leavings,
I will
like Jehovah to Moses respond,
I Am that I Am
(אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה, ehyeh ašer ehyeh)
Jun 20, 2015
Jun 20, 2015 at 11:55 AM UTC
Sketches of being nonchalant through symphonies of unsent letters. Playing.
Drinking the melancholy through a cloudless night, alone. Swings betrayed.
Stealing the numbers, sitting in the blue, sinking.
How red the moon hangs below?
How crushed are the fairy lanterns?
She lived. She died. She survived.
To breed a demon within.
She wanted a pause. She wanted a release. Not weeping. Not longing. Surviving.
To breach the silence its thickness, She pretends to crumble her summer.
Idle musings to feel the blade cut of the grass, dancing barefoot, losing a grip.
As laughter emanates, pockmarked with a mortal sense, trying the road, less.
Inhaling does not hurt anymore. And nor does the whiskey in her tone.
From her hidden detritus, she laughs.
Dec 4, 2014
Dec 4, 2014 at 12:00 PM UTC
Here comes the sun in all its glory
tracing the hemisphere in its slow
rise over rubble, but first the tallest
steel and concrete dedications to
the lives living high while their
green shadow casts below over
the desecrated. I see bright night light
shining blue. I see wide, wild light
only high noon. Morning, all day
veins are caving under the rubble
under the tallest.
Here comes the nasty truth, suited
in belts clasped with wealth for
well being, beating the lies with
a dollar sign, until the ugliness
of the first story presses like
meat into the underneath, under
the detritus concealing lives in
the dirt with the needles.
I see bright night light shining blue
in the park restrooms. I see wide, wild
light only high noon from the under-bridge,
waiting for trains to come crush.
Aug 3, 2015
Aug 3, 2015 at 8:23 PM UTC