"distractedly" poems
The horizons ring me like *******
Tilted and disparate, and always unstable.
Touched by a match, they might warm me,
And their fine lines singe
The air to orange
Before the distances they pin evaporate,
Weighting the pale sky with a soldier color.
But they only dissolve and dissolve
Like a series of promises, as I step forward.
There is no life higher than the grasstops
Or the hearts of sheep, and the wind
Pours by like destiny, bending
Everything in one direction.
I can feel it trying
To funnel my heat away.
If I pay the roots of the heather
Too close attention, they will invite me
To whiten my bones among them.
The sheep know where they are,
Browsing in their ***** wool-clouds,
Gray as the weather.
The black slots of their pupils take me in.
It is like being mailed into space,
A thin, silly message.
They stand about in grandmotherly disguise,
All wig curls and yellow teeth
And hard, marbly baas.
I come to wheel ruts, and water
Limpid as the solitudes
That flee through my fingers.
Hollow doorsteps go from grass to grass;
Lintel and sill have unhinged themselves.
Of people and the air only
Remembers a few odd syllables.
It rehearses them moaningly:
Black stone, black stone.
The sky leans on me, me, the one upright
Among all horizontals.
The grass is beating its head distractedly.
It is too delicate
For a life in such company;
Darkness terrifies it.
Now, in valleys narrow
And black as purses, the house lights
Gleam like small change.
3.3k
The horizons ring me like *******
Tilted and disparate, and always unstable.
Touched by a match, they might warm me,
And their fine lines singe
The air to orange
Before the distances they pin evaporate,
Weighting the pale sky with a soldier color.
But they only dissolve and dissolve
Like a series of promises, as I step forward.
There is no life higher than the grasstops
Or the hearts of sheep, and the wind
Pours by like destiny, bending
Everything in one direction.
I can feel it trying
To funnel my heat away.
If I pay the roots of the heather
Too close attention, they will invite me
To whiten my bones among them.
The sheep know where they are,
Browsing in their ***** wool-clouds,
Gray as the weather.
The black slots of their pupils take me in.
It is like being mailed into space,
A thin, silly message.
They stand about in grandmotherly disguise,
All wig curls and yellow teeth
And hard, marbly baas.
I come to wheel ruts, and water
Limpid as the solitudes
That flee through my fingers.
Hollow doorsteps go from grass to grass;
Lintel and sill have unhinged themselves.
Of people and the air only
Remembers a few odd syllables.
It rehearses them moaningly:
Black stone, black stone.
The sky leans on me, me, the one upright
Among all horizontals.
The grass is beating its head distractedly.
It is too delicate
For a life in such company;
Darkness terrifies it.
Now, in valleys narrow
And black as purses, the house lights
Gleam like small change.
2.9k
even the gulmohur looks confused
--"where is the sun?", it seems to ask
the dark rainclouds
as it sways distractedly
outside my window,
its orange flames
flickering rhythmically,
engaged in a waltz with
the falling rain.
the bamboo --wiser,
greener, stands unperturbed
barely reacting as the
water rolls off its leanness
nothing seems to surprise
its experienced being
- Vijayalakshmi Harish
06.03.2013
Copyright © Vijayalakshmi Harish
Mar 6, 2013
Mar 6, 2013 at 6:48 AM UTC
like the time i walked a mile
to her house with no shoes on
she was waiting with a bowl of cold water
the pavement was wet with heat
twenty nine **** cigarettes on the teenage balcony
trying to hit the neighbors house with spit
or ash because they
never really liked us, distractedly stroking the dog’s back in
every crosslegged seventeen year old
too hot to breathe sticking minute
the bathtub is overflowing because
i’m talking on the phone
ghosts slip on the stairs
i’m needlessly concerned with everything, with
victory, drooling blood all over the bathroom
i get in trouble for the things i do with my boyfriend
in the 35 thousand dollar swimming pool
and in the foyer of the two million dollar home
that i’ve been ******* around in since 1995
distractedly mouthing words every crosslegged
fourteen year old minute, we are both
licking our lips
looking at all the cars in the driveway i’m
somewhat tired of gentle eye makeup remover
the classic morning lens flare in the guest bedroom
artifacts gathering light instead of dust, it’s all
growing white through the glass blocks, carefully installed
wary of “architectural importance”
(the cars in the driveway are all
just people looking)
i’m pooling in this glass
and all over the walls like a thrown egg
i can’t help but kneel here
and keep my face turned up,
licking up sweat, waiting for the fever to break
when the tornado comes we’re pressed
together in the safe room
where the house is the most dark
if you look outside, you can see owls
and where the turtles were buried
the swimming pool
the gasping fingers clenching
the high water pressure-
do you know what i’m talking about?
Apr 7, 2013
Apr 7, 2013 at 8:39 PM UTC
Eyes averted
Guilt ridden eyebrows
Dominate expression.
I loved her so much
But now she's ****** everything up
There is remorse in her eyes,
Regret whirs through her body,
But there is also a portion
Steadfast in what she did,
Because something has taken her away
From me and the world,
Swept her off her feet
Leaving a fullness in
Those highs,
My lows could never fathom.
I stare at her once more
Seeing something different
In eyes I used to love
And still love.
There's a hunger for
That adventure
I can never compete with,
The addiction reliable
In the way it holds her close.
And I turn away,
Hoping she'll try
To stop me from leaving.
Hoping I still mean
Something to her
But other matters toy with her mind distractedly.
Her next fix
Suffocates the ounce of love
She has left
For me
And I'm gone.
Jul 12, 2014
Jul 12, 2014 at 11:27 PM UTC
His sense fell from his pocket
rolled away in-between the floorboards.
He did look
But couldn't find.
She's only now discovering
that her own company is lonely
in the light.
Lonelier still when he tries to solve it
Not your problem
not your puzzle.
It is odd she thinks.
He feels real, seems it
This fake lover of mine.
But if she opens her eyes does he disappear?
Just like the real thing?
Sellotape and rubber bands and super glue
and wooden slats nailed across doorways
Hide her from truth
Curious;
She cannot seem to escape this peculiarly tragic trap
she'd set for another
then distractedly stepped into herself.
May 9, 2012
May 9, 2012 at 5:03 AM UTC
Lighthouse keeper by the shore, watching life pass he did the most
Eyeing ships, so bright and lively, that would sail near his post
'Til one fateful night one ship seemed to be set ablaze
Gravitating toward the sight that was a rarity in all his days
One door he swung open, leaving his beacon, bolting downstairs
Of peril and risk, he cared not; to him they seemed like minor fares
Fiery reflections undulated from afar as the keeper dashed to shore
Yanking his rowboat into the water, he paddled toward the source
Opening his eyes truly, he awoke to hands without a single oar
Under a guise he would man his post distractedly in the night
Realizing that the ship was a dream, he turned around to a fright
Precariously placed lanterns had fallen, shattering as he slept
And flames began to claim his home and post, as if collecting a debt
Sleep walking had moved him to the shore, by grace he was alive
The lighthouse keeper would rebuild, but this time he would thrive
Jul 11, 2017
Jul 11, 2017 at 1:39 PM UTC
Thoughts of you
come like hiccups.
Unexpectedly.
Distractedly.
And just when
I think they're gone-
I'm struck with
another.
Dec 4, 2013
Dec 4, 2013 at 7:07 PM UTC
be with the one who sees constellations on your skin and treats you as the brightest star in the sky
be with the one whose arms feel like home and you’d run to drunk in a room of everyone you’ve ever loved
be with the one who is satisfied with just your company and needs nothing more from you but your presence
be with the one who does everything in their ability just to make you happy and doesn’t let you go to sleep sad
be with the one who distractedly traces your skin just to remind them that such a wonderful person is not a figment of their imagination
be with the person that restores your faith in true love and good people
be with that person because they are not common and never let them go
s.s
Jun 24, 2018
Jun 24, 2018 at 10:34 AM UTC
july 19 11:43 PM
my heart hurts again tonight.
i cant help but feel stupid on nights like these. i feel clingy and annoying, everything he's so grateful i'm not. when i looked at the sky on my walk home i was engulfed in colours and shapes reminding me how much the world has to offer me. the first thing i thought to do was share this with him and when his phone went to voicemail without even ringing the waves were suddenly taunting. the wind as if it was just waiting to push me off the edge. i reminded myself to appreciate my own skies sometimes and to let him do the same yet somehow i had already dialled that familiar number. someone else picked up the phone and i begged the wind and the waves to welcome me. he didnt see my calls. i shouldnt have called. i shouldnt get too attached and i shouldnt let myself fall. falling only leads to crashing, a sound so familiar to the cavity in my chest as he distractedly told me he couldnt see the sky. im so selfish. im everything he hates wrapped into a package that he's convinced himself he loves. "cloud 9's never felt more like home" and ive never felt more alone. a sunset that reminded me of so many beginnings began to remind me of nothing but an end. the clouds drifted together and the stars spelled out "closed". one by one their lights burned holes and i became the ocean as salt water replaced air and i remember how to drown. i do it so well now. my thoughts are beginning to feel like quicksand, the more i struggle the more i sink and suddenly it is just me and the pit and im the only one doing any falling.
Jul 20, 2015
Jul 20, 2015 at 12:28 AM UTC
in words that come after "i'd never thought i'd"
in the instrumentals that give me time to digest the lyrics that remind me of you
in my smile as i'm coming up the stairs for the 67th time at work that day
in the color of the sky that i look up to distractedly thinking of you when we're apart
in the 2 am creeping up on me as i try to write something that even remotely captures how fleeting the moments we have together are
in another contented sigh
thank you.
May 31, 2014
May 31, 2014 at 1:32 AM UTC
I tripped through a life filled with trashed crevices
Leaving me with a holey heart & mind
Tonight I sweep up the rest of my wines
Hearing no voices
Tonight only mine
Alone in thought, taught but not
Form lays dead,
Stinking,
Dead in my bed
She came over last night drunk
Asking to be wed
I said no
And told her to ******* go
She wept as I swept
I laughed at the terror filled tube
As she poked at her left swollen ****
I propped up a book
An insult she invented & mistook
Collapsing transfixed membranes waddle faster then she does
Corpses lay lighter when not embraced by an angel's fun
Towards the end of the night
Toads croaked outside my door
Seemingly & distractedly bored
By this women's torrential teary down pout pour
I poured a drink but she did not drink it
I made her food but she did not eat it
I slapped her face but she did not show pain
I kissed her mouth but she did not kiss back
Our Sun rose,
She stood there still froze
I collapsed on the floor
Grabbing my back, my sack
Exhausted,
I took a naked floor morning nap
I awoke at dusk
To vowels shimmying close with consonants
Similes giving lap dances to metaphors
All dancing like overpaid whore's,
I wanted more
But Form
Who had once stood frozen
Had gone,
Disappeared
Had vanished,
"Never,"
I thought...
"Her..."
I must have been
Soo drunk
Too lazy
Soo stupid
Too young
But at the time,
She wasn't any fun
Feb 7, 2011
Feb 7, 2011 at 8:05 PM UTC
I take tea in the afternoon
as I wait to hear his foot -
falls approaching
I am on
edge until they
kiss my ears in their
heavy booted sound
I add sugar cubes
distractedly, as my
mouth adjusts to
the taste of him
a heaviness on my
lips, upon my neck,
the scratch of a scarf
that looks softer
I imagine the scratch
of a vampire fang to be
worse and breath in and
out my prayers that at
least he is by my side
before nightfall
he is a thing of
paleness and impatience,
I am a woman who works
the dead into shapes
that speak
we both seek answers
but know they will not
be found in the arms of
each other
yet still,
our hearts beat
as one
Feb 2, 2014
Feb 2, 2014 at 4:31 PM UTC
as if he knew
the peculiar pictures
behind my eyelids,
sleepless in sleep, ******* bruises
so bittersweet
to dream of you still
i hate you so much
and not at all, all at once
never trust him again
and he... he still misses me
he trusted me—he TRUSTS me
he trusts my steady quiet and
my shaking hands and
this and that of me
i missed him, i think
maybe, distractedly
but not really
only in a lie
and a liar isn’t me but
he makes me speak them so
since my honesty would hurt him
earnest and afraid, my admission:
i do not want to touch
his emotions
and so to curb the awkward truth
i missed him
and none the wiser
Sep 11, 2018
Sep 11, 2018 at 8:45 PM UTC
I visit you in dreams,
and my visit is always unexpected.
I’m always excited and more
than a little apprehensive.
In dream variations, your reactions shuffle
like poker cards - you’re surprised and pleased,
or wary, or even politely disappointed.
Dreams can be a harsh mirror and as in real life,
my emotions are poorly protected.
Brushstrokes of truth hide behind the
tricksy falsehoods of dream-scapes. After all,
I’m an unworthy suitor in practically every way.
In the real world, I’m sure early, favorable
impressions would fade to inevitable boredom.
I have that effect on adults - I’ve seen it
- a quick nod my way and I become invisible.
I should be a bank robber - “What did the
robber look like?” the police would ask.
“Well... the teller would say,” fading off to vagueness.
I could stand right there looking at my phone.
“Did YOU see anything?” The cop would ask me.
“I was playing candy crush...” I’d begin,
but the cop would walk distractedly away.
By the time they got the video evidence, I’d be long gone.
Nov 24, 2020
Nov 24, 2020 at 7:19 AM UTC
Cigarette ash on your bedsheets
awake on coffee and tea.
I do not want to be the person
you know like the back of your hand
or for you to know the titles of every poem I have written
I want you to touch me distractedly.
I want a boy with a car and a mindset like yours.
we do not need to make ourselves into anything beautiful with each other.
we are ugly, empty poets.
therefore,
you love me for what i am.
but if you don't love me,
go ahead and tell me.
your tongue stained with coffee
you're not just some ******* artist
who is going to fill my heart with lilies
and paint.
and I want you to make it hurt as much as you ******* can.
teach me the world is cruel.
because if you can teach me how to write
love poems,
you sure as hell
can show me how to be dark
all over again.
this isn't about creativity
and this isn't art
this is existing.
Oct 6, 2016
Oct 6, 2016 at 2:45 PM UTC
i just want a boy who touches me distractedly, like you're sitting watching a movie and he just kind of drags his fingers over your skin while watching and he doesn’t have a motive he’s not trying to tickle you or be ****** with you he’s just touching your skin and feeling the shape of your bones under that skin like it’s physically comforting for him to know that you’re right there under his fingertips.
Jun 23, 2014
Jun 23, 2014 at 7:36 AM UTC
I want to call you mine
But mine you are not
I want to say I've fought
But for you I cannot
For I cannot come across a plot
But don't think that I haven't thought
I'm just distractedly caught
Because I don't have a shot
You're way too hott
But I think about you a lot
Which might seem a little distraught
God for bit, I hope its not
More confidence I should've brought
You tell me, do I have a spot
In your heart is where I sought
So please, I beg, don't let me rot
Nov 29, 2012
Nov 29, 2012 at 12:28 AM UTC
If my hand touches your skin,
instant accidents happen: unexpected
flowers bloom, earthquakes,
fires, revolutions perhaps,
sudden climate changes, delays
in train times, people
urgently kissing in the streets. We’ve
witnessed it: the solar explosion
of precise things, the road opening to the heart
of all beginnings. This is your skin
where my hand, barely touching
it, will feel unknown landscapes of flesh and
from where your eyes come back, two deep
lakes, two restless headlights slicing
the night, regardless of how often Adorno
may have said that lyrical poetry no longer
befits the world. If Adorno himself
had ever touched your skin, he would have climbed down
from his entrenched conviction and asked poets
to tell, once again, the world
that begins in your skin. Trees grow close
to the timid miracle of its tremor,
rivers run from a spring
as you lift your eyes. An immensity
so like the sea when you slowly move, or
when you hesitate, distracted in your pacing. A
moon rises when you speak, and the night
slightly darkens when you leave. If I could
inhabit you like a house perched
on a mountain slope or like a thoughtful
fisherman watching the sea from a quiet shore,
if I knew how to keep you in the morning, as
the flower keeps the dew, or hold you
as a fruit is held in a child’s hand, I would
set off through the hurried ways and settle
in you as in my homeland. The promised
land to which I could return, and where
at length I’d build my house. But I
look. I look around and see
you are not there. It was only the dream of you
and, waking, I realise the abrupt
illusion of fantasy. I raise
my unconvinced hand towards the ever-
lasting bookcase looking for Aesthetic
Theory. I leaf through it, distractedly,
feeling the most lyrical sorrow of being.
Jun 7, 2014
Jun 7, 2014 at 7:18 PM UTC
never has such a battle ensued
between self 1 and self 2
they know each others moves
trying to second-guess the next two
but all it takes is one move played false
to turn the tide against self on self
the disappointment from self 1
surely, this was his moment
his green eyes flash as its stolen away
by careless mistake
angry, self 1 cries "this *****
self 2 answers in smug tones
"he's so screwed..he does this. Every. Time."
self 1 sighs
disappointment weighs heavily
self 2 crows
and preens distractedly
on the side lines I light a cigarette
bemused, though entertained
this is why I only watch
people playing themselves at chess
May 19, 2017
May 19, 2017 at 11:08 AM UTC
11:06 AM Thu Feb 2
<>
early early morning
when the restless images of semi-sleep haunt, the hazy unknowns and wavy specters ****** you with wild abandon dancing verbs,
all eager to mislead, happy to pronounce distorted truths, seemingly
delicious but confusing familiars seem real, but they are…not
late late evening
when the day’s hours hang heavy round the neck,
the outlook is now the past-look, inevitable raising
words that start with the letter D, none good or delighting,
and looking back, reviewing, is too oft confused with previewing…
dinner time
when family gathers, interruptions frequent, and the
specific gravitas of concentration sinks beneath soapy
dish water, or is burnt in oven, or distractedly spilled and the
words burnt too, anger arrives as a question…when is my time?
early evening
the receding hubbub has numbed the desire, even the need,
flows are stillborn, and for every word composed, ten rejected,
disarray and dissatisfaction, despair, strangle the creativity and the
seductive drugged non-thought of TV, dangerously addict-attracts…
when then?
always. as in everything. anytime. feast on the crashing all about,
source and savor life’s cacophony as purest inspiration gifted,
record, clasp and grasp the passing stanzas that flow from the tap,
quicken the mind, retain the veins of irony, whimsy & despair
for there is no time other than the time…
*when “it” already writ and needy only for the writing utensil, tablet,
blue-lined pad that presents, begging for fufillment, yours & its,
and you need only discharge the torrents of what went before,
the poem, and you, both fully formed and emptied and contained!*
Feb 4, 2023
Feb 4, 2023 at 12:09 PM UTC
there were tiny lights visible,
an insomniac city with deep secrets that
we shoved within its busy guts:
that night
on top of concrete,
on top of you
shivering as the concerned wind
raced against our skins, in a hurry to push us back inside
telling us to forget,
but our bones resisted,
the moon and her stars were in cahoots with our desire
mumbling distractedly at the wind to settle;
everything held its breath as all creation watched
as we melted slippery and dripping into one another
something in the middle of the night,
a psychotic urge to talk to you
on the roof
alone
hundreds of feet over a city that we fought with sticks
in the ***** streets and
pushed against wild, raging crowds
sweaty, sticky with marigold petals
stark against the sea of navy blue
like a second skin.
our hearts tangled in one another ribs
a perfect mirror to the Indian electric cables
in the middle of a dusty Delhi alley
webbing and weaving and terribly tangled,
an interwoven mess
but the only thing that works.
there was something hungry inside of me
and it leaped every time I laid my eyes on you
with a twitch of a memory of your
grabbing hands and
the smooth part above your eyebrows
I was craving like a gaping fireplace after
a long summer
ready to blaze and burn and devour you
I stare at your picture
its embalmed in my mind, a soothing
cream for all the burns that I have inflicted upon myself
realizing my fire is not something to take so lightly
Oct 30, 2017
Oct 30, 2017 at 11:01 PM UTC
I take tea in the afternoon
as I wait to hear his foot -
falls approaching
I am on
edge until they
kiss my ears in their
heavy booted sound
I add sugar cubes
distractedly, as my
mouth adjusts to
the taste of him
a heaviness on my
lips, upon my neck,
the scratch of a scarf
that looks softer
I imagine the scratch
of a vampire fang to be
worse, and breathe in and
out my prayers that at
least he is by my side
before nightfall
he is a thing of
paleness and impatience,
I am a woman who works
the dead into shapes
that speak
we both seek answers
but know they will not
be found in the arms of
each other
yet still,
our hearts beat
as one
Nov 4, 2018
Nov 4, 2018 at 7:18 AM UTC