"discernible" poems
Broken glass lines the path
as if they were shattered dreams themselves
fragments of hopes lost in the whisper of the wind
in the night they lie still
I feel like I am dancing on the shards
as I walk, knowing I am blessed
but it makes me sad too
trash litters the ground
life is tossed into slums
many never get the luxury to escape
merely adding to the glittering pieces
they pile up unending
eroding, until the glass is no longer discernible from sand
I am talkin' 'bout the ghetto baby
and it ain't no easy road
Jan 2, 2013
Jan 2, 2013 at 11:55 AM UTC
Hands shaking as they clumsily undo
Buttons, zippers, clasps
Articles of clothing discarded
Every word that passes between us
Hangs suspended in the air
Like dust motes
Only larger, more distinct
Each facet perfectly discernible
By its own beholder's eye
This was wrong
I could feel it
As my synapses fired
Unconsciously guiding my hands down his back
Arching mine
It feels wrong
But mostly it feels
So
right
Now.
Oct 6, 2010
Oct 6, 2010 at 10:36 AM UTC
Momentary
mourning peace.
Mama pours a glass of mulled wine,
lights a scented candle
(- "cherries on snow" -)
and drinks to ol' Joan.
Passed down with the jewellery box,
somewhere in the will, the daughters
receive the annual chore of roasting
the turkey (delicious!) and the veggies
(good job!) and (could you pass the?) breadsauce
for their brothers and husbands huddled
on a threadbare sofa -- and a younger girl,
barely there, staring at a laptop screen.
Mama's not festive - always too tired -
barely celebrates, but orchestrates.
Years barely there 'cause she's needed in their kitchen
and someone's gotta cook can she please get a hand? and
one chivalrous male puffs out his chest, takes one for the team, gestures to the girl with no discernible attention span and
half-laughs an "ay, one day this'll be you!
Best get in there while you're young!"
((A baritone chorus of laughter.))
"You outdid yourself on the turkey."
"S'great, ain't it? Pass the potatoes."
Sometimes here, sometimes Spain.
We stay over. It's tradition: we're
scattered across the country,
maid duties are the least she can do.
Never our kitchen or living room.
Tiny. Messy. Unwelcoming.
Come Boxing Day, Mama gives
a bear hug goodbye and an
"it's good to see you";
Because it is, she thinks.
Thank you for inviting me
to carry out your labour.
I'm just grateful to be needed.
A month of red 'SALE' tapes
scouring the clearance shelves;
overtime for extra cash
scraped to afford the food she cooks you;
paying half for gifts she'd brainstormed
while Dad buys partial credit on the gift tag.
We vanish from your house
- like elves -
by morning.
Dec 7, 2018
Dec 7, 2018 at 8:17 AM UTC
While I pretty much opined for this impeachment
my fellow Americans voted for this guy and they could be right
I’ve been wrong before, stuck as we are with a system
that generates some perplexful leaders, democracy being the worst form
of government—
except for all the others.
Anyone can be president, that’s been proven time and time again.
Wars can start for no discernible reason other than
radical purity, avarice, cupidity, gluttony, rapacity, even affluenza—
meanwhile life goes on outside all around you
perhaps you identify as Jewish, Latino, Muslim, Indian or Filipino
asexual, cybersexual, somasexual, hypersexual, homosexual, pentasexual
it doesn’t really matter, nothing **** matter matters, matter
content of life (serious, love it) hate death for the hell of it
to see what it’s like inside the heart of darkness.
Not that I accept their god, their void, I accepted humanity as a natural
part of nature
demisexual, downsexual, ecosexual, Eurosexual, eversexual, exsexual,
extrasexual, femtosexual, Francosexual, geosexual, gigasexual,
Grecosexual, Indosexual, intersexual, kilosexual, macrosexual,
malsexual, megasexual, metasexual, microsexual, missexual,
medisexual, mocksexual, monosexual, muchsexual, multisexual,
mustsexual, nearsexual, neosexual, nonsexual, oftsexual,
omnisexual, oversexual, pansexual, parasexual, partsexual,
photosexual, polysexual, postsexual, presexual, pseudosexual,
psychosexual, quasisexual, rentasexual, selfsexual, semisexual,
Sinosexual, subsexual, supersexual, telesexual, terrasexual,
ubersexual, ursexual, ultrasexual, undersexual, vicesexual,
weresexual, wikisexual, zoosexual.
When I did that I had to pay the rent and get a job, too.
Feb 4, 2020
Feb 4, 2020 at 7:12 AM UTC
What I mean by bad is not good.
Trust me, what I mean by bad-it's not good.
Into every discernible instance-
we split them up by seconds-
I fell, serendipitously.
No one had ever made a mistake
so gracefully.
There is a trick to this.
*Steph,
hey Steph,
you better
bear my blunder now.
Steph,
hey Steph,
you better
call your cardinal
because my counts are no show now.
Steph,
hey Steph,
I just heard a ****** story,
hurry, I'm freaking,
I'm seeking you out.
Steph,
hey Steph,
I better
come
pick up
those sunflowers
I left in your bed now.*
May 7, 2013
May 7, 2013 at 8:48 PM UTC
The Picture Window
The vista view never changes but daily.
The naked eye, registers the same distances,
resting objects unmoved, modest alterations
by wind and water are noted, but for intent,
for purpose, the watercolor one would paint
be invariably unvarying as a Swiss Alp.
The subtle nuanced worldview, where the sky
stretches from ceiling to a foot above ground, as
I lay prone neath the coverlet, vista always subtly differing,
from its prior reincarnation, self-reflection demands to know.
Alive & Awake? Yes.
Breathing steady? Yes.
Toes? Still can wiggly to & fro.
My soul?
Presumably ok, as I write, because I write, the
picture window into to my insight, though oft blurry,
yet intact, making discernible the changes in light,
temperature and heart rate, as the body/soul contraption modulates, just as the gradient of daylight shifts lighter and higher, with a rising sun bringing more clarity to our interactive encounters with our environments..
The picture window internalized, much the same,as
the vista, subtle modest changes, colorations variegated,
are registered. Today is mostly cloudy overcast, and shall remain so for the foreseeable future, which be about two days hence. Not unsurprisingly, methinks, the future tends to be cloudy.
Beyond that peripheral, no one can say, our macular envisioning only gets weaker,time is a tough taskmaster
and uncertainty is it’s own principle.
But I can say, forecast from well under the comforter,
that more than less, where less is more, this picture window,
ex and in, shall remain, unchanged for the remainder of my years that fortune shall provide, and will & would grant me awakenings to the ex-sight and in-sight of a sculpted landscape, of negative entropy, where disorder minimal.
My musings end here, unless you still wish, come the morrow,
what the marrow the day reveals, what the window will spill,
new and exciting, subtly unchanged, and always different.
Caution: The injection of caffeine may dramatically alter
the windows perspective, as the exogenous always trumps the
endogenous.
5:50 AM
P.S. Making coffee clarifies: If the vista in +/- unchanging,
then, all my personal, own horizons are immortal as well.
Jun 4, 2023
Jun 4, 2023 at 6:34 AM UTC
In hope
of skies blue,
vast and undeterred
are drying tears-
collected by unseen smiles
In threats of frigid
but burning ground below
is repentance-
A repentance found both sooner and later
One heavy with pastures of green- but none ever greener
In ancient words
from gilded pages,
bound in leather
hope and need
Are no ripe answers for the raging revolution,
only variant notions
shifting from here to there- and back again
The method of the three,
is mystery
beyond compare-
Black like the dark hours
that hide
the light of the day
Now and then-
all that can be done,
is to follow-
on bloodied foot,
over barren land
The aim of the carpenter
and his dinner guests
is and always was
direction
Purpose from an old- but new compass
in which one chooses to follow, deny
or silently go in search of other lovers-
all of a lesser degree
At the table of offering-
is space for bended knee
and an odd but abstract desire
for service
Not to self-
but to those who surround,
and swim in the very sea
in which the struggle
it is to cross
At the heart of creation
are mountains
and sandy crystalline beaches,
then city roads
All leading to country lanes,
fields, rivers, lakes
and vague dreams
Alas though,
no discernible
or translucent choice prevails-
All that's left
is the true and meaningful will-
of the weary traveler
Oct 10, 2010
Oct 10, 2010 at 11:48 AM UTC
the soul of a writer can be found
in words
s cr
ib
b led on
crumplednapkins -- like horcruxes--
when sleep feels like a far off dream (when people watch you, wondering if you are strung out on coke while you scratch words on these thin sheets of paper in restrauntsbarscoffeshops
half
mad
eyes glassy)
in discernible handwriting comparable
to some
primitive
hieroglyphics-- a language of voices in your head and dreams too vivid
they can be found on the backs of hands
and journals
and popcornbags
when nightlights are too dim in the early hours of insomnia
and moonlight is obscured by curtains
in drinks like london fogs
and ***** chais
and black coffee
and black tea
in packs of empty
American Spirits
and half-full (empty) gas tanks
and piles of books that will never be read that will be re-read and quoted
and tweed scarves and
empty journals and chipped nail polish
in dead pens and phones
in unanswered texts, emails, messages
and unrequited love
their souls can be found in the
stained
bottoms of coffecups
and sticky shot glasses
and wine glasses (some still half full of cheap
redwhitezinfadel
because rent is hard to pay
when no one wants to
read words
scribbled on the back of a napkin
Jan 29, 2013
Jan 29, 2013 at 10:03 PM UTC
An art movement is a tendency or style in art
with a specific common philosophy or goal,
followed by a group of artists during a restricted
period of time, usually a few months, years
or decades or, at least, with the heyday of the
movement defined within a number of years.
Art movements were especially important in
modern art, when each consecutive movement
was considered as a new avant-garde;
According to theories associated with modernism
and the concept of postmodernism, art movements
are especially important during the period of time
corresponding to modern art. The period of time
called "modern art" is posited to have changed
approximately halfway through the 20th century
and art made afterward is generally called contemporary art.
Postmodernism in visual art begins
and functions as a parallel to late modernism
and refers to that period after the "modern" period
called contemporary art. The postmodern period
began during late modernism, which is a contemporary
continuation of modernism; and according
to some theorists postmodernism
ended in the 21st century. During the period of time
corresponding to "modern art"
each consecutive movement
was often considered a new avant-garde.
Also during the period of time referred to as "modern art"
each movement was seen corresponding
to a somewhat grandiose rethinking of all that came before it,
concerning the visual arts. Generally
there was a commonality of visual style
linking the works and artists
included in an art movement. Verbal expression
and explanation of movements has come
from the artists themselves,
sometimes in the form of an art manifesto,
and sometimes from art critics
and others who may explain
their understanding of the meaning of the new art
then being produced;
In the visual arts, many artists, theorists, art critics,
art collectors, art dealers and others mindful
of the unbroken continuation of modernism
and the continuation of modern art even into the contemporary era,
ascribe to and welcome new philosophies
of art as they appear. Postmodernist theorists
posit that the idea of art movements
are no longer as applicable, or no longer as discernible,
as the notion of art movements
had been before the postmodern era.
There are many theorists however
who doubt as to whether or not such an era
was actually a fact;
or just a passing fad.
The term refers to tendencies in visual art,
novel ideas and architecture,
and sometimes literature. In music it is more common
to speak about genres and styles instead.
See also cultural movement, a term
with a broader connotation.
As the names of many art movements
use the -ism suffix, for example cubism and futurism,
they are sometimes referred to as isms
Oct 4, 2018
Oct 4, 2018 at 6:54 PM UTC
Blood in all the right places.
Your square ******* head
looks just the same,
a little older maybe,
some new lines around the edges.
Still the same crazy shine in your eyes.
Years later the same traces,
barely discernible
to the unknowing,
of earlier
disgusting
scenarios
being played out
in your living room.
I smell the rancid
sweat of old men.
I taste the curdled,
sour milk
of your breath,
recently begging for
alms.
I hear your hands
pleading whisper,
palms
being offered up
as your eyes
lower.
He owns you.
Jan 17, 2013
Jan 17, 2013 at 3:26 PM UTC
your affection waxes and wanes like the moon
but unlike her
you come and go in no discernible patterns
you leave me parched for a glimpse
you let me glut on your presence
i sit shrouded in the dark
with my heart in my hands
and a telescope of yearning
Sep 27, 2018
Sep 27, 2018 at 6:17 AM UTC
the lovely picture window (always the same, always different)
There are painters who must,
having found the place, must,
repaint it, compelled to repeat it,
each a variant, yet always the same,
always different
I awake to a perspective that is wide,
always differentiated from the prior,
always almost similar, but never with
the same exactitude, differing attitude,
same longitude, identical latitude,
always different
horizon distanced, in all ways a view
encompassing, duality near, far distant,
harmoniously, eyes open, magnetized
to wake before 6am by the suns modesty,
first light, first clarity, a curtain risen, yet,
always different
am I so blessed or thus cursed, for the urge
to disclaim and ode, compose and thus self-
decompose, analyze, reflect, slice apart, needing
the comprehensive understanding this me/place
scripts the raw appreciation, daily differentiated
always the same
this peaceful venue seizures, chest calmly
pounding at the insistence it commands,
the price I must pay for the prize to praise,
to sing, weep, reward restful sleep with lyrics
eked out, pouring, unsustainable yet finished,
always different
a single May Iris, returns, born from a torrential,
thunder, lightning, sky mayhem, rises by a sundial
greets midst a planted clump, upright rises, lavender,
in a majestic solitary, absent but a day prior, yet mine eyes
failed to witness its discernible emerging birthing creation,
always different,
always the same
here, I am Iris too, always the same, a day aged,
but the differences minute but stolid actualized,
this overnight sensation, my body’s restoration,
what I visualize, indivisible, now visible, realized,
miracle of continuity, unchanging chained change,
always different ,
always the same
wonder, am I more blessed, or a s~lightly cursed being,
my breath restored, wet eyes full brimming, changed,
revived but always modified, a newer old man, whose
sum total always a different number, but in sequential,
compelled to confess, no understanding of this miracle,
always the same,
always different,
this daily visionary miracle
6:36 AM
Fri May 24
2024
Silver Beach,
Shelter Island
May 24, 2024
May 24, 2024 at 6:53 AM UTC
There are loves that can create a new universe, there are
loves that would fill outer space
where stars are just drops of mango juice
and every person you wish wrote poems about you, does.
A macrocosm so vast that
tragedy is only powder and cold coffee does not break
my heart anymore, sadness does not fit in
an oven but float, phantom-esque, in black air
no longer pollution
that slowly asphyxiates, hardly discernible in our palms of
tangible love. You will not have to tell anyone that you
love me because the whole world is our bedroom.
I felt I was dangerous the first time
you tried to **** me, like I would be too tight
and shatter every last porcelain bone under your skin.
Like my body was a vacuum ******* you in
unable to escape, inland something other than a stranger.
Instead, we became the cosmos
pouring fruit-juice-stars on the unlucky and the unloved.
May 23, 2013
May 23, 2013 at 3:27 PM UTC
Ocean currents exuberant, spell out what turbulence, really is
expressions of brute force, takes over the whole of ocean depth,
a puny little fish, blinded by thick foam, navigates alone, finding path,
sheathed in a silence going beyond mind,to a destination luminous,
never perturbed, calmly exploring that state, not fully discernible yet,
an impression abstract, getting infused with more and more clarity
each passing moment,then the orchestra of waves resonates with heart.
Oct 22, 2015
Oct 22, 2015 at 9:14 AM UTC
these are
fixtures,
daily grinding superficial.
with little
resemblance to the
prophets we pray to.
desperate men with facile
tongues,
perfect answers
to petty, practiced
questions.
and they, being so many with
one discernible face,
one alterable religion,
liquid to the palms of
deathly thirsty children,
aim
where aim would do
the most
to damage
and we
fail
victim
with only ourselves
to blame.
Sep 20, 2025
Sep 20, 2025 at 4:26 AM UTC
the defense of your legacy manifested into strings of saccharin
and phrases like ‘Come on in from the rain. We all need a torrent to own the storm, just- take off your clothes, don’t mind Kierkegaard.’
your sincerity is a cipher
you’re something of a conversation piece between good friends
who were artfully made of pre-engineered steel on a day Jove tremored in his bed
you’re something postured beneath a javelin
and likewise- something propelled for decorum
blackguard, black coffee and a birthmark turned into a running joke.
inevitable.
you searched the bottoms of summer pools
and found no discernible trace of your history
her sable crown whips back and forth in your head
and you maintain the chaos with aureate cries of preservation
it’s a halcyon boom, a lonely and sexless halcyon boom
it makes every yellow and red dress chimerical
it makes your neck unassailable
drugstore cowboy
they got close enough
to see you sweat
to note that heat and her magnificence could purge as quick as they reinstate
and you still beat
like they do
stubbornly.
Oct 17, 2011
Oct 17, 2011 at 10:20 AM UTC
In the East, the sun luminously gleamed
And bid the nebulous vapors fly
Changing the gloom into radiant blaze
Cheering the languid drowsy sky
Lying in bed, I looked around,
Saw my room so cozily set
With things just enough to make it fit
For a sweet haven for me to rest
Each little thing in it began to muse
In a language discernible for me to grasp
Of the secret of success so elusive to man
Which striving to catch, oft slips off his clasp
The clock ticking away at the wall
Alerted in a tone of rhythmic resonance
That ‘each minute is precious and dear’
And not to waste it in trifling appurtenance
While the ceiling fan, spiraling above
Discreetly hummed, “Be cool and do not fret”
The open window, to me did urge
To ‘look out far and watch the world in beat’
The mirror neatly fitted on my bureau
With a gleaming countenance beckoned me
Asking me to ‘reflect’, ere venturing into anything
That from fatal fallacies, I shall ever be free
The calendar hanging inside the room
Reminded me not to lag or put off things
But keep my assignments and learning up to date
That to great heights, I can soar on wings
And the woolly carpet gently mused;
“Bend your knees and kneel down to pray
With a heart copiously filled in gratitude
Before a God who didn’t leave you aimless to stray"
With such counsel, silent and salient
Got out of my bed with resolutions profound
To greet the morning and start the day
In greater zest with a mind, saner and sound
Nov 7, 2016
Nov 7, 2016 at 6:49 AM UTC
It's been a while since I've let my fingers do the talking
Subtle clattering intermittent between self consuming stares into space
Strange and conventional instrumental atmospheres driving fantastical thought
And that self indulgent need to be heard by people without discernible cells
I guess my poems are a hobby of sorts
A collection of ideas, observations and metaphors put forward (barely) structurally
Though I admit the process is more for introverted enjoyment than anything direct
What my tongue would sound blurting these words is a fantasy in itself
I try to stay optimistic in them
Holding on to my passion for the positive, despite the convoluted dysfunction of the day to day
I do it with the same eyes as speaking to others, trying to be someone who's worth being around
Ending with some ******* non-committal message about an approach towards tomorrow
I hope one day I'll get around to reading these poems
Hearing what my inner monologue sounds like in that quiet but intently occupied space
Taking the time off poor sods who'll listen, hoping that the messages mean more than just metaphor
But I'll get over it if life doesn't produce such idealistic circumstances
Thanks for reading what I've written
These white spaces have given me a quiet personal realm for exploring ideas
A place where I can explore my intelligence beyond academia
Indulge my passion for the written word by pouring out gallons of ********
And hopefully make someone, somewhere, smile in the process
Jan 3, 2013
Jan 3, 2013 at 3:50 PM UTC
This afternoon, I smell like a hungry gardener
a green thumb with a wart attached:
both perfumes of a rose are discernible. The soil, the falsetto sweet
reaching up onto your nostril fur as monkey bars
until it can scatter seeds, some wild and collected by fruit.
Mother asks why my knees are shaded.
I have been on them, I say, breathing life into green berries.
Free them from that cage, their wire straitjacket
and breed breed breed:
this afternoon, everything I touch will stay alive, including me.
Apr 13, 2013
Apr 13, 2013 at 6:51 PM UTC
A myriad of views from the window pane
sparks buried memories.
August has always been that Augural Month
the time of Achromatic colours,
painted as crumbling stone walls
from a bygone Age.
Ice wine drank from the rind of the gourd
ranked sour, a season's poor worth -
nature's tithe ?
The colour of the meandering smoke
discernible from my window,
will count for more promises
like a laden Kaleidoscope apart.
Apr 22, 2012
Apr 22, 2012 at 8:44 AM UTC
I lie-
Not from a beating heart, bleeding and breaking always
for the cynic in all of us, for the human spirit's relentless wane between birth and death,
*but from the bottom of a mind unburdened by feelings of empathy or loss I
hide* behind deep mahogany eyes, the ones you whispered
shone through to illuminate my soul which was a dinghy lost at sea, a quiet storm
or the full moon reflected off a placid lake at night.
If I were honest I'd tell you that I only see reflections of myself in others eyes, the world
a pallor shade of something not quite discernible and not quite good; I'd say
the lies I will never convince myself of are the truths you use to fall asleep at night.
You said I was enlightened. You said my mind was beautiful. You said
you wished you could see the world as I do.... The grass is not greener.
The scene from where I'm standing is dim and growing darker.
True love is... and it is truth, and my truth is a world of melancholy grays,
memories of all the things that have ever hurt and a forgiveness in which I hope to claim solace.
My love is: never forgetting that I've been undeserving; rising each morning
in a place devoid of hue or tint only to keep up appearances and expectations;
The beautiful lies I whisper as you drift off to sleep...
The lies I make you believe just to save you from the truth...
To to save you from me.
- because I love you.
Sep 20, 2011
Sep 20, 2011 at 6:22 PM UTC
Put the long boat in the deep waters of the mind the calm peaceful knowing all is glowing we glide not
Knowing where were going the subconscious will be our guide dividing the two worlds the quiet
Submersible is wild anything may be floating in these depths we have left shore far behind truly
We have entered unchartered waters there is no fixable Bering a lustiness takes over there is no helm
Just a pervading looseness not unsettling but truly uncharacteristic for the coconscious must always
Have a grip a grasp of what is where it is and every detail must be quantified now all senses are blown
A storm is brewing its far reaches unknown but there is softness that excludes fear the overriding
Thought is possibilities can be forged maximized eternalized thoughts are ghost like unknown entities
They were formally known but now remain a mystery dislodged from thought bases that are not solid
All is free association tantalizing in one sense then disconcerting in another what do I do with my mind
Surly it has jumped off the track I could be bewildered if I could get a hold on the situation free flowing
Unspoken but still distinctively saying volumes where is the slow button reams voluminous thoughts
Are spewing into nothingness being lost I can’t keep up the discernible is mixed with eons and theorems
Time and space is void of meaning the world here is elastic mass it convulses at will no parameters exist
The only thing constant is high velocity change being in one place is impossible all is jumbled who stirred
This caldron in my mind voice and pure thought are the same think it know it what burdensome lives we
Live when it is all a tattered sail on rough seas we behold nothing know nothing in the extreme
Romanticism blurts out sail for Trafalgar we are strangers in a plush gifted void try as we will there is
No simple answers but we are a simple people truly the only time were are fit is when we are sound
Asleep well then sleep on and I will do the same dreaming is therapeutic just think how crazy we would
Be without it
Nov 17, 2011
Nov 17, 2011 at 5:41 AM UTC