"discoloration" poems
drowning in caffeine
breathing the nicotine
my blood cant circulate - your love will stimulate.
the ****** of death in **** will simulate
your touch , my need
as we spiral in to sin
separation , depression , paranoia
anxiety - the absence of my sleep
aggression , desperation
toxicity - of a drama we are in
discoloration - i can't control the spin
screams - muted by bitter pills
our dreams - induced by the acid
capsuled lives - longing self destruction
your embrace - disconnection
release me from what is real
obsession - for what we cannot fix
frustration - for what we can't control
memories - of what we used to be
delusions - of what we could have been
isolation - thoughts of being free
now voices dictate what i should feel
digging through my skin - opening the wounds
put your fingers in
remembering the days when we held
an illusion no drugs could replicate
i can't forget.
exchanging promises of never letting go
was it all in my head?
i can't escape the hole.
i walk the road alone.
Jan 19, 2016
Jan 19, 2016 at 7:35 PM UTC
Overlook the fragile hourglass figure
Beyond corsets and pseudo-beauty rules,
Endorse thy curves and stretch marks strewn,
The dusky skin and frizzy curls,
Braille like pimples on the face
Discoloration, bumps and pores;
This Body shaming, I shall pass.
Writhing in pain and humiliation,
Drenching in rage and insecurity
While I lie,
Society curses me
Defining and redefining my chastity;
'T was the crop top, the alcohol and the sly behavior.
You set the monster free and blame the ****
This Victim shaming, I shall pass.
Beige and ebony;
They call me names blatantly
Betwixt skin color and bleached smiles.
Laugh and scoff all you want.
Harass the Black, detain them,
Prejudiced minds rule your dystopian world.
This Black shaming, I shall pass.
Without creating a labyrinth of stigma,
And seeking refugee in collective blame,
Let's construct our utopian world
Acknowledging all freaks and flaws
This Shaming, we shall pass.
Apr 10, 2020
Apr 10, 2020 at 8:05 AM UTC
Delayed response to ground control, oh how I was crying.
In retrospect, I was just shallow; like an astronaut only watching
himself as the rest of the world kept steadily spinning.
Impersonal up here, never caring about winning or losing.
The star charts that mentors showed lost to what my mind followed,
A winding path through this sacred space which I unhallowed.
I didn't flinch at blastoff; it wasn't bravery, it was me being a coward.
Sweating in a far away bed, steel round walls with no decoration,
Straining my mind fighting the moments of suffocation.
Spots in my vision, distortion and discoloration.
Seeing stars I glimpsed my comet on exhibition.
I would have to come back around. It was just a matter of my rotation.
Retrospect from ages back and to beyond where we will have gone.
Black holes made that can never be filled, endless they came, endless they will come. To touch down in glory, or stay on the run. Life is just a rocket that departs from the sun. The rest isn't lost, it just hasn't been done.
So as we eventually drift into deep space and age becomes our dawn, remember to look out the window and wave to the passerby's.
They will cheer you on.
Jan 6, 2016
Jan 6, 2016 at 1:17 AM UTC
Months ago, I used to apply makeup
for the sole purpose of feeling beautiful,
part of me adored the curve in my eyeliner
or the red in my lipstick; it made me confident,
it made me feel like my smile was brighter,
like any and everything I did, was wonderful.
I can't be sure when the shift happened,
but I find myself less and less capable
of enjoying the morning's application process.
I suppose it's because I no longer wear it for pleasure
but rather, to cover the darkness under my eyelids,
to mask the discoloration in my skin,
and to hide my far too visible exhaustion.
Mar 4, 2014
Mar 4, 2014 at 10:39 PM UTC
(For Harry Clifton)
I HAVE heard that hysterical women say
They are sick of the palette and fiddle-bow.
Of poets that are always gay,
For everybody knows or else should know
That if nothing drastic is done
Aeroplane and Zeppelin will come out.
Pitch like King Billy bomb-balls in
Until the town lie bearen flat.
All perform their tragic play,
There struts Hamlet, there is Lear,
That's Ophelia, that Cordelia;
Yet they, should the last scene be there,
The great stage curtain about to drop,
If worthy their prominent part in the play,
Do not break up their lines to weep.
They know that Hamlet and Lear are gay;
Gaiety transfiguring all that dread.
All men have aimed at, found and lost;
Black out; Heaven blazing into the head:
Tragedy wrought to its uttermost.
Though Hamlet rambles and Lear rages,
And all the drop-scenes drop at once
Upon a hundred thousand stages,
It cannot grow by an inch or an ounce.
On their own feet they came, or On shipboard,'
Camel-back; horse-back, ass-back, mule-back,
Old civilisations put to the sword.
Then they and their wisdom went to rack:
No handiwork of Callimachus,
Who handled marble as if it were bronze,
Made draperies that seemed to rise
When sea-wind swept the corner, stands;
His long lamp-chimney shaped like the stem
Of a slender palm, stood but a day;
All things fall and are built again,
And those that build them again are gay.
Two Chinamen, behind them a third,
Are carved in lapis lazuli,
Over them flies a long-legged bird,
A symbol of longevity;
The third, doubtless a serving-man,
Carries a musical instmment.
Every discoloration of the stone,
Every accidental crack or dent,
Seems a water-course or an avalanche,
Or lofty slope where it still snows
Though doubtless plum or cherry-branch
Sweetens the little half-way house
Those Chinamen climb towards, and I
Delight to imagine them seated there;
There, on the mountain and the sky,
On all the tragic scene they stare.
One asks for mournful melodies;
Accomplished fingers begin to play.
Their eyes mid many wrinkles, their eyes,
Their ancient, glittering eyes, are gay.
3.4k
There are metallic, life-like statues of human figures scattered through my city, often on park benches. You must look twice the first time you spot them, and sometimes, each time, as they are so nat-ural, that they fool the retina image of man.
The traffic light,
red to green,
yet my limbs,
froze fruit solid,
release catch stuck,
unflippable,
somehow plastic freezes,
mobility skills rusted
by December's hampering
cheeky cheeks,
a seasonal reddish copper
discoloration of the extremities,
a harmony of no sensation
A comet stuck in
pedestrian neutral,
collided/jostled by
starry eyed
Fifth Avenue
street walkers and tourists.
my presence sensed,
touched, yet avoided,
unnoticed,
like streetlight,
lamppost, mailbox,
I am, a body,
at rest,
unseen
but on display
in the art gallery of
Manhattan's Lost and Found
In the section of the paper
where the
unimportant local news is
sliced n' diced
into single paragraphs,
of human interest,
tidbits, amuse bouche,
items of
major minor interest,
The New York Times
reported the discovery of an
unauthorized lifelike
bronze n' copper sculpture.
eyes of polished nickel,
heart of stained steel,
rendition of a man
so lifelike y'all do a
triple take, smile,
take a cell photo,
phone a friend
his embodiment can be found
on the rounded corner of
Columbus Circle, @59th St.,
where you enter Central Park.
upon a bench,
man clutching Sunday newspapers,
a pair of scissors,
coupons cut,
scattered at his feet.
a homely but comely,
****** expression,
one of bewilderment.
A tiny plaque on a brass plate,
at his feet,
hints of his progenitor and human origins.
Artist: Unknown,
Materials: Organic Metals
Title: A Living Finish
Nov 18, 2013
Nov 18, 2013 at 5:38 PM UTC
Mark Twain to Helen Keller
“Oh, dear me, how unspeakably funny and owlishly idiotic and grotesque was that “plagiarism” farce! As if there was much of anything in any human utterance, oral or written, except plagiarism! The kernel, the soul—let us go farther and say the substance, the bulk, the actual and valuable material of all human utterances in plagiarism.
For substantially all ideas are second hand, consciously or unconsciously drawn from a million outside sources and daily use by the garnerer with a pride and satisfaction born of the superstition that he originated them; whereas there is not a rag of originality about them any where except the little discoloration they get from his mental and moral calibre and his temperament, which is revealed in characteristics of phrasing.”
Mark Twain
Dec 1, 2021
Dec 1, 2021 at 3:39 PM UTC
so tightens the end of september
like a noose, rained for weeks straight
and i’m doing whatever feels right
you run your fingers thru my hair
and i’m embarrassed, don’t know
how to tell you how i feel
want to run away into the night
with you, want to drink again
and fight the system, its every discoloration
so each day goes
forgetting what brings the glitter
back in my eyes, smiles fading for no reason
Sep 21, 2018
Sep 21, 2018 at 5:37 AM UTC
<•>
For A:
The Pleasure of Infection
10:53 pm
our all about
is to be the whittler of our personage,
to both hold the knife with care,
but with risky, reckless artistry,
as we shape of what raw materials we are possessed,
into our own reshaped, reformed
most prized bejeweled possession
never mind the shavings and cutaways fallen,
they are fast away, castaway choices made and cannot be retrieved,
for when we whittle, whether our shape desired
which may be prior envisioned or a vision
from the discovery of performing,
they matter no more,
let them go, in their absence too,
they are part and a whit of you,
but not of you, no longer
our commonality in this: everything,
in everything else, so little
but your honesty and crafted, almost dishonesty both ring true,
and infect us with pleasure of recalling
when we
being cut designed and preparing our statue for
an unveiling, but with no date yet set,
and the loveliness of our mistakes,
were precious do-over opportunities
seek out the infection, the infection of discovery,
the risk of pleasure exposed and
your poetry may be either
the antibiotics
when the result is red and unpleasant,
or a celebration,
an invitation to us to be a
semi-silent beholder of your artistry
infections heal after pain and discoloration
but new skin always forms,
but at a different pace for each of us
I see the faces in my carpet nodding agreement,
"always new skin"
oh boy. time to go to bed
go seek out the pleasure of infection,
sadly, happily, it is the only way
good night
from an old man who dreams and schemes of
new skin nightly
but never mind me,
my piece long ago writ
and in need of just a tweak here and there,
call it one too many close shavings,
his poem's treasure trove,
a list
of life's minor irritations
and major lifts
<•>
11:16pm
Jul 17, 2017
Jul 17, 2017 at 11:36 PM UTC
This is ancient land, this is
hallowed ground, this is
21 kilometers worth of tunnels.
Blood stops flowing after death
because the heart is no longer beating;
no longer forcing blood to gush through veins and arteries and vessels.
It gets lazy, becomes stagnant.
Slowly slides down to the
lowest point on the body; creates a
reddish purple discoloration on the skin
similar to a bruise, but not quite the same thing.
This is what I imagine the fifth level of the catacombs to look like:
a reddish purple discoloration
spread across my mother’s back.
This is what I see when I close my eyes and rub them a bit too hard for a bit too long. This is what I see when I look into a hole in the stone walls that is big enough to fit an infant. This is what I see in the reflection of the Trevi Fountain. This is what I see when I try to remember the shape of my mother’s sleeping body as it curled in on itself on top of a flat hospital mattress.
The color of death is not black, is not white. The
color of death is the color of blood: the way it looks
through the skin after having
hours and
days and
weeks to
slowly slink down into the
lowest bend of the body.
This is the reddish umbra of the earth that the
eclipsed moon hides behind.
This is my body given for you.
Take and eat.
Do this is the remembrance of
me.
Jan 26, 2016
Jan 26, 2016 at 6:40 PM UTC
You have not seen me until you have seen me as I see myself
You have not seen me until you see me as I trace my hand over the stretch marks that climb the sides of my torso like veins that squeeze me
You have not seen me until you see me as my eyes become dimmer as I look at the discoloration of my sides
You have not seen me until you see every scar, bruise, and scratch that plagues my thighs and arms
You have not seen me until you have watched my body give in and breakdown because the image I see staring back at myself is one of broken glass, broken dreams, broken memories
You have not seen me until you understand that I am not a towering temple with battle scars and broken beauty marks
I am a shell of lost spirit and soul
I am a body, torn apart apart by hatred and rotten words
You have not seen me
Jul 17, 2016
Jul 17, 2016 at 10:36 PM UTC
divot discoloration blemished imperfection.
The storybook of my flesh is peppered with these pockmarks of life.
A secret connect the dots maze on my body binding the story pages together.
I grin as I examine my body and all it's protruding oddities, how beautiful it is as I crash course through this crazy ocean my breath still ebbs and flows in synchronization.
I love the nooks of me no one else could possibly understand.
my peculiarly chipped tooth buried in my gums as a reminder of juvenile fun.
I tuck myself into a bed of comfort cradling these imperfections, a grand testament of life.
The girl with the electric smile and lazy eye.
Aug 4, 2016
Aug 4, 2016 at 2:43 AM UTC
I saw my mother for the last time
The mortician whispered in a silent voice I'm aware your mother didn't wear much makeup, but we had to put some on her as she had some discolouration."
I walked through the slightly opened door
Across the room was a light brown casket
Roses as red as the breast of a robin surrounded you
I couldn't seem to get my feet to move
My feet cemented to the ground
All your artifacts lay around you
Step
By painful step
I made my way over to you
I felt the sting of tears behind my eyes
My orchid hearts petals fell slowly to the pit of my stomach
My mom didn't look like my mom
Not with that makeup
But they put it on you to cover the discolouration, the discoloration of the carbon monoxide that corrupted you beautiful mind, or maybe it was the demons that had haunted you for so long
When my tears began to overflow my red eyelids I could have sworn I saw you breathing
My mom is gone
My mom is gone
I kept repeating over and over
Nov 30, 2014
Nov 30, 2014 at 12:12 AM UTC
She,
voracious reader, nearly a book a day,
she loves Rushdie, Ishiguro, E. Stout,
and so many, many more, a daily add
to an ever growing list of auteurs, all
venerable and venerated, my little bits
pale, don’t even qualify to compare,
so what’s a poet to say, or feel, beside
tears in his eyes, so hereby withdraws his
awarded accolade, HGF,
His Greatest Fan
now that there is a vacancy, looking for
fufillment, now that there is a hollowed
hallow plus a clogged artery, side by side,
both within,
even
an officialized fossilized a
doctor declaration of “chronic heart failure”
who knew docs still diagnosed love sickness?
loss of love could manifest
itself so decisively physically,
and yet I blame her not, and
thank her for the inspiration,
for all the poems birthed in
her presence, and what swill
will /may follow will never be as good,
for memories inevitable yellowing,
discoloration infestation inevitable,
earn my pallor palest poverty
and like a used car, good enough
for daily trips to the office, but not
for cross country trips,
and perhaps
that means,
only smaller,
somewhat
used up,
and e v e n
not only,
only love poetry
open to direction
road trip to
Sweet Sorrow Land
Feb 15, 2025
Feb 15, 2025 at 2:54 PM UTC
Hollow words, like hollow bones can break and shatter
They can pierce the flesh, boil the blood
Seething from the open wound comes
Every ill intention
Every falsification
Staining the crisp, white linen
No amount of homeopathic remedy can remove the stain
Try chemicals
But you'll find that for any blood removed
It's replaced with the sour odor and discoloration
From whatever "oxy" product you may try
Is it worth it?
All that marketing and franchising for something that doesn't remove
But replace?
Can anything truly be removed
purely, permanently?
Nov 19, 2015
Nov 19, 2015 at 12:06 AM UTC
no more morning glory
the cells want to refuse,
purported pseudo-deniers
of the man's compulsion
not yet six am,
the old house,
the summering congregation of birds,
correspond with each other,
their words unintelligible to the man-ear,
no doubt talking about the interlopers,
the come-and-go humans,
or perhaps,
just the lousy weather
the sunroom's lace curtains,
a patterned flower filtering viewer,
another impediment to what is out of sight,
for the fog surrounds but can't suppress,
the exterior & interior
combo of noises,
birds uttering their morning prayers,
accompanied by the sabbath choir of chorusing
groans from the untrodden, creaky floorboards,
complaining of aged back pains
from forty years
of desert wandering
and over use
they confirm the man is not alone,
and perhaps, even,
among the living
the bay's water's color,
a small hint now comes visible,
colored from the same paint can
as the surround-sound from which the
fog's discoloration was morning-drawn,
wider brush strokes cover this,
the man's small world
the brains complains, not again!
how many times will you compose,
drawing from the molecules of
this view,
no one cares,
but composition compulsion,
****** for what makes
the man breathe,
denies the deniers,
praying in the loudest thought voices,
to the principle that best defines
the moment,
(him?)
human, give thanks,
on this, the seventh day,
for the feast of life provided,
(even the reasoning atheists go respectful, humble silent)
as the man-poet acknowledges here the
*One,
who remembers,
is faithful to,
fulfills the covenant and promise,
by making fresh daily,
the works of creation*
Silver Beach,
Shelter Island
5:30am,
June 4th, 2016
Jun 4, 2016
Jun 4, 2016 at 6:23 AM UTC
Done feeling the shivers from cold blows of wind
No longer need the warmth of those thick sweaters
'Coz now the sun is out shining so bright enticing us to unwind
Feeling its warm kiss on my skin while its rays reflect like glitters.
People going on out of town vacations
Beach resorts are the common target locations
Chillin' out under the sun, not worrying to have some skin discoloration,
Wearing colorful swimwear that get a lot of attention.
Summer is the perfect time to have some rest
Be freed from all the stress;
Like living life at its best
Feeling the sun rays' warm caress.
Mar 24, 2013
Mar 24, 2013 at 11:22 PM UTC
isn't it bittersweet?
how our parallels meet so sweet
the way we smile, when we show our teeth
it's not so tiring
never jaded by the repetitive cycle
gears are ready to the arriving battles
weapons are edgy, prepared to rumble
non-exhausting
this proximity ain't absolute without warmth
because heat is the firing art
a touch of spice is the endearing part
it's not so tiring
every second, every minute
there comes a time when we thought about quitting
but we are each other's motivation
then we kept going and said,
"it's not exhausting"
everything seems so nice
like a perfect house of cards
but it's starting to fall apart
and it slowly breaks my heart
confuse, refuse
radiant, abuse
mistaken, rebuke
forgiveness, I choose
first, I fiddled the turmoil to see what was wrong
then I asked fervent questions to see what was wrong
third, I sought help above the clouds then hummed my song
but nothing seems so wrong, what happened?
I tried bringing stains to the discoloration
I tried serving flavor to the tasteless correlation
I tried giving hints to the dying consideration
and see if there's a resurrection to our disconnection
it's proof that too much sugar
can over sweetened you
and too much spice
can truly burn you
yes, I got tired
and I supposed you did, too
the ingredients of our love
are not as stable as it used to
we may have been unbalanced
or fell out of the missing pieces
we shouldn't forget the essence
of how we both started
it was tiring yet exhausting,
how miraculous it is that we didn't die
if 'nice' is what we yearn,
I think we should give it another try
Apr 15, 2019
Apr 15, 2019 at 5:01 AM UTC
Looking into the large bathroom mirror
Before the bath
I catch a glimpse, a flash of something
A darkened area of discoloration
Almost as if some future dead thing now inhabits me:
A too old cut of meat turned a familiar greenish hue
Dead corpse waiting to sprout
A glaze eyed figure in the haunted house.
The spot may reveal itself on the face,
Or along a shoulder or arm. Just for a second.
Looking again, it was only my imagination.
The infamous man who dug up graves
To take parts of the bodies, spoke of a woman's body,
That it flushed red where he began to take off
A part of it, by cutting it.
Even that dead for a week body knew
Something violent was being done to it
And stories abound of the still-growing hair, fingernails..
Not just haunted tales to scare children
It seems a little bit of death resides in the living
And a touch of aliveness remains even in death:
The boundaries of when we are transformed
Into house of wax characters
Are never as clear as medical textbooks imply.
Mar 9, 2010
Mar 9, 2010 at 5:12 AM UTC
<>
“Stop this day and night with me
and you shall possess the origin of all poems,
You shall possess the good of the earth and sun,
(there are millions of suns left,)
You shall no longer take things
at second or third hand,
nor look through the eyes of the dead,
nor feed on the spectres in books,
You shall not look through my eyes either,
nor take things from me,
You shall listen to all sides
and filter them from your self.”
Song of Myself (1892 version) by WALT WHITMAN
§§§
*These admonitions are the ten conditionals
commandments of straight talk,
boy,
you’ve spent a life lessening and lesson-learning
and all laid before you for taking, gaining,
but for what? for naught?
Start this day, having spent my night with you,
possessing less than what is my now
completed,
this,
my unfinished commencement,
provisioned, a simultaneous beginning and finishing,
emptying a void of
fulfilling questioning.
What does this life desire of me,
that it granted and then removed,
the knowledge of perfection?
leaving me striving, writhing,
shivering unceasingly,
in my saddened, bursting, hacking
and hackneyed chest.
I walk the same cobblestone streets,
observing the descendants of your ancestral tugs
portaging, paying homage to East River tides,
carrying those goods,
the origins of all poems,
from where? to where?
unknown,
but always past our conjoined eyes.
And yet do I look, with our merged eyes,
filtered by a century’s discoloration,
forgive me Walt, for now recalling sights
that you first observed,
that I witness first hand,
100 and fifty years later,
sharing a stolen wisdom with you.
Todays new millionth sunrise bids me stand,
observe the river traffic from my kitchen window,
accept that my takings are debts,
a few, even paid back,
yet, most still owed,
for the origins of all my poems,
are oddly and oddity old,
unoriginal, second, third handed
as I look through the eyes of the dead,
and yours too,
this my unoriginal,
original sin....
(pretending I am a poet)
§§§§§
6:24AM
Manhattan Island,
By the East River
Thu. May 14, 2020
May 14, 2020
May 14, 2020 at 8:33 AM UTC
Upon your body
were the littlest
of imperfections
that caused you
to miss the
beauty
and the art
they had created
Scars
Discoloration
Lack of pigment
Combined
they have made
perfection itself
Aug 5, 2017
Aug 5, 2017 at 11:01 AM UTC
I am leaking silently,
like pipes beneath the kitchen sink
You find out that mold had nested, accumulated
in the corners and caused the floors to rise up
Heave their wooden planks and produce discoloration,
My chest is that floor and the water has
no place to go so it soaks and strains,
***** sighs, releases fluid in
t
e
n
d
r
i
l
s.
Mar 19, 2012
Mar 19, 2012 at 3:55 PM UTC
I only wish I would meet you
Surrounded by daisies
Infinitely shining and spinning
Only your eyes keeping me caught
In one reality.
If I could just touch your hand
and shiver with elation.
Fingertips playfully mingling, unaware
of the rest of each other
for the moment,
and the universe would sigh
with warm relief.
Simply I want you to hold me
like you've never held a thing before me,
like you've never even known
what it is to hold something
before your hands reached round
to grip my weakened body.
Weak in all the best ways,
Exhausted from happiness,
my face pained from how often
you make it smile.
And I'll be as perfectly content
as a leaf on the breeze, swept up and falling,
falling fast in ecstasy.
And I'll be as agonizingly breakable,
as a thin glass ornament,
dangling helplessly,
catching all the light of the world,
prisms of color reflected in my eyes.
Everything about you will be gorgeous.
every hair, every discoloration,
every subtle expression
will be another reason I'll have
to love you unconditionally.
Without even the condition
that you love me back.
Without even the hope
that I will have you forever.
Without even the guarantee
that you won't cut me off and watch
when I shatter.
Nov 11, 2013
Nov 11, 2013 at 2:26 PM UTC
I cried too much
but was it enough
I can't run
hiding the turth to all
I must be done
crying pain of blooding tears
the sickness I have
will never heal the scars
the discoloration of my life
will never show
depressed in my only feels
doleful face
that I try not
to have any motion
so long to being successful
strain to pains holing might
I will never win the fight
I cried so many tears through life
can't say sorrow will come
I can say no elated this will some
Cried enough, done
Feb 21, 2011
Feb 21, 2011 at 1:56 PM UTC