Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Amitav Radiance Aug 2014
Absorb the silence around
Know the silence and it messages
Connect with the inner self
At rest is the soul and mind
Moments that reveals the truth
Silence douses the flames of uncertainty
Rendezvous with silence
As silence is there to be deciphered
Tom Leveille Oct 2014
and i am eleven again
feeling like tomorrow
is a couple yesterday's ago
smothered in cayenne pepper
hot enough to take off taste buds
and tonight i am eating a meal
only worth burning
it tastes like my parents anniversary
it tastes like a zinfandel
left on the counter too long
it's a bad story, see
there's no silverware
'cause my mom sold it
to keep the lights on
and somewhere in heaven
somebody in a suit
doing commentary
on this fiasco
is telling someone else
in a suit that
"you have to eat love with your hands"
so we sit, four plates on the table
for the two of us
my brother's long gone
dad's even further away
& he's not the one who's buried
i carry both their names like anchors
that i cannot unmoor from
while she looks at the empty table
and says something about the news
she says something else
but she's not talking
we aren't proud of this, see
my dad likes to wax his car
he's proud of it
and my mom says
she sees a lot of him in my hands
says, i touch the things i find
like they didn't belong
to people sleeping in the ground
she says i touch photo albums
the same way-
you know,
i never used to believe
that history could repeat itself
not until i could
fast forward seventeen years
and still wake up to smoke alarms
how i would go into our kitchen
to find it empty
and the dinner smoldering
& my mother in her bedroom
looking through family photos
like it's a just another summer day
and the sirens are just the birds
i don't ask, i never say a word
in this moment
i am an archeologist
afraid to dig up the past
cause history repeats itself-
you see
my brother is dead
and my father is gone
they have been for some years now
and my mother
sometimes forgets
and sets their place at the table
like they're still here
and in the confusion
ends up ankle deep
in pictures of how it used to be
she let's dinner burn
and douses it in red pepper
hoping i won't know the difference
RW Dennen Oct 2014
Trees hold the deep earth together way below with crooked fingers of the underworld and catches foul above
Upward to the heavens on finger towers,
clapping on winds they shake their dander
And the makers of green bras on mountain tops

They are the landlords of ground,and air beasts, and
incumbent giants of the ages
They whisper being puppeteered by winds of old
They are the alchemists of oxygen
They are dangling playgrounds
They are the Autumn crunches beneath our feet

Trunk etchings by bards, trees reflecting
cultures' dissemination
We walk under penumbras that deny the scorch of summer
as cool water douses fire, so too, shade douses heat

Watching trees in my pleasant reverie I observe how they
help break the carpeted land, bringing about a  certain diversity in moving tranquility and rustling of their songs
This poem was inspired by my poem "Ancient trees of Majesty" which catches rhymatic couplets
L B Oct 2016
"There in the midst of it so alive and alone
Words support like bone..."  Peter Gabriel's  "Mercy Street"

Orion abandons the sky
dropping his club
casting his belt toward the horizon
Just once, for a moment, he glanced away
from exalted ****
his vanquished prey

He’d seen the picture—
A girl of sixteen
lying awake—muses in her head
eyes shut, arms thrown back
behind pillow
Tee shirt stretch across lean chest
Hips mingle with blankets
She is scattered there
among the minions of her hair
behind her mouth of unkissed words
____

McCaffery's Coffee is open late
He’s seen the picture
Muses in his head
His arm almost around her
Hers on his shoulder
Small—feather-light fingers
lift the hair of his neck
Reaching around her
his hand searches and slides
along her silk-draped hind
...and the view he has is amazing!
___

Music— and waves pounding and lapping
at the life he fears....

Little boat stranded in gray mists
till a thousand tiny birds alight
in a peppering and fluttering
stir of time
in greens of brine
as the sun pries through….
___

McCaffery’s is ready to close
but the owner, knowing
douses the overheads and turns away
leaving candlelight to crouch and duck
and blink in circles

How long and free we
are allowed to gaze....
so full of wind and riffling water
Stars above and stars below
blooming on the floral silk of night
Vespered lilacs exhale
Votives of warmth
beneath his hand
Silk sweating—
familial in their rocking

Distant lightning loosens eternity
You might listen to this music with it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYw9UrsFJa4
"Swear they moved that sign...looking for mercy"
"I am with the Father.  I'm out on the boat, riding the waves--riding the waves--of the sea"
Emma Watson Jun 2016
Writing letters in Spanish to Penthouse magazine because everything sounds better in español.
It was a beautiful loving thing before it all exploded like a train wreck.
Are you furious?
A country that douses itself in English and then drowns you at the hearth.

Cherry vanilla
Obsessive compulsive
Mint and lemon-grass handwash

The only things that matter?

Thoughts from when I first woke up this morning... Still in that fuzzy bit where you don't open your eyes and no matter how you're laying, it's always comfortable. A feeling I take for granted. I think about you kissing my ******* and not about how you're falling in love with my best friend; but if she's happy, I'm happy. Good morning.
Vamika Sinha Feb 2016
tea
for the unfinished assignments
for the time of the month
for the boy who douses you with salt
for trying to feel loved

wine
for your tired eyes
for your loneliness, a butterfly
beating its wings on your ribs,
for trying to grasp
what freedom is.

my darling,
don't you love to heal?
don't you love to escape?
find more of my work on my blog La Vie en Rouge (les-etoiles-tombent.tumblr.com) and share the poems that you like!
Brycical Sep 2011
Coalescing, cuddling life
swimming inside.
Cleansing, like a mother
would a child,
scrubs away
collected  stains.  
An attention to detail
rinses, washes food,
blessing it into our bellies with an aqua kiss.  
A coolness douses the summer heat,
A relief quenches thirst
Of human and animal alike.
A babbling sound, bubbling
into a relaxing,
lazy Sunday…
Wrote a companion piece to this that can be found here... http://ww.hellopoetry.com/poem/water-rage/
Heidi Shavill May 2013
Sunshine warms my aging face
I pray God keeps my loved ones safe.
For it takes a toll upon my heart,
pondering that in time, death will do us part.

Dearly missed are those who have passed on,
I cannot believe it's been 9 years since my son's been gone.
I've often wondered through the grief how it never stayed my feet.
Why don't I join, what I can't beat?

Am I truly moving forward?
What then, am I aiming toward?
I thought I'd die the day he did,
Instead his absence increased my will to live.

What if the bible thumpers are right?
And the truth is if you take your life
the darkness douses the proverbial "light"?
Leaving the soul ill-fated, eternally alone,
Stuck somewhere between Hell's fire, and home.

On this note I've decided not to take that risk,
It won't be long, for life is brisk.
If Heaven truly exists I'll see,
my angel son has saved a place for me.

Heidi Shavill
2013
To Alexander the Great,  Ashleigh Michelle & Gram
Joe Milton Dec 2012
Talking softly like the last flickers of a fires light,
Spoken as little more than a hissing whisper.
Water douses the cluster of solitary embers.
Eachs ignited, Alls extinguished.
Eachs start, Alls finish.

Talking softly, clouds utter to the stars,
Heard as little by them as the clouds hear us,
Arms out stretched to a vastly empty sky.
Eachs question, Alls solution.
Eachs clarity, Alls confusion.

Talking softly a man reasons with his dog.
The mass of people bustle endlessly by.
Mans best friend sees no logic in his master.
Eachs mystery, Alls solved.
Eachs hatred, Alls loved.
Kayla Hollatz Jan 2014
My touch can start brush fires.
My fingers are ***** matchsticks,
the kind your mother warned about.

My petaled lips spark against yours
like flint against steel.

My volatile breath, an overcast of smoke
creeping from the belly of my throat.

My twisted tongue douses your chalky skin
with fuel, a gasoline spreading to your logged limbs.

I leave your organs to curdle,
and by morning glow,
you’re nothing but a burn victim.
Shailesh Otari Jun 2014
As I hear her distant laugh
Resonate in my lonely mind
A dark thought creeps up, again
Distasteful, shameful, unkind.

I rejoice in her laughter
Sweetness of which would long remain
Yet – I sense with it some bitterness
That douses my love in pain.

The moment of laughter she enjoys most
Though blissful, eternal, and heavenly,
Comes only when she laughs aloud
To wash away my memory.
Bruised Orange Apr 2015
His letters scatter loose upon the ground,
She clenches fists despite arthritic hands
that rail against the words she never found.
To spite the golden noose of tarnished bands,
she douses tomes and quick lets loose a flame.
A tendril's curling wisp of past desire
snakes toward the sky. Still the ash of blame
survives the ceremony's futile pyre.
What fire ever burns away the dross
or dulls the tempered edges of we're done?
Yet embers coax; they succor heat not lost
to years they burned together each alone.
The groan of ache sounds low within her hips.
One letter saved, pressed tightly to her lips.
NaPo 4/5
Jade Jun 2018
The eye of the universe

bats its lashes at a

a single sliver of splintered light

blinking boastfully in the opaqueness–

a crescent m☽☽n is birthed,

carved by the Huntswoman’s

      ➳silver tipped arrows➳

on the night I–

a demi-goddess-

am born.



And this Hunstwomen,

my heavenly mother,

my celestial nurturer,

Artemis

plants antlers atop my

hairless skull in the hopes that I,

her daughter,

will grow wild

as the deer Her Greatness

has vowed to protect;

as the cypress whose limbs

swell with greenery;

as the moon who must wax

as surely as it must wane;

as Artemis herself,

whom they call

“Lady of Wild Things.”



And I too

am a Wild Thing,

for I am a women

of extremity.



How can I not be,

when I come from a long line

of deities,

whose veins palpitate

with the very atoms of chaos?



How else am to explain the fire

the seethes inside of my soul?

A fire kindled by Zeus,

the Lord of the Sky,

the God of all Gods.



Lightning bolts play hopscotch

across my collarbone,

crack against my ribcage

like Poprocks crack against tongue.



Some days,

these flames enable

the crusade of my passions,

accelerating me onwards,

like the wheels of

pegasus drawn chariot.



But there is such as thing

as being too passionate,

for with great passion comes

great emotion,

and with great emotion comes

the capacity for great heartbreak.



I love with the catastrophic magnitude

of a category five hurricane;

it ’s no wonder any other mortal man

is capable of reciprocating my musings,

for there is no emulating this storm,

there is no matching the desires

of Aphrodite’s offspring.





And you should see my heart

when it’s broken–

the way it snaps so eloquently

like the neck of a swan,

how it metamorphosizes,

scorching itself

to a point of  αγνώριστος

(unrecognizable)

blackness.



In the pit of my

cracked palms,

I hold the charred

f

                     r

         a

                         g

m

              e

n

                  t

s

of my heart–

kaleidoscopic shards

jagged enough to draw blood.



When the palpitating ache

in my chest proves to be unbearable,

I sprint to the riverside,

well aware that it is the closest

I will be able to get to the ocean

on such short notice.



I take off my socks and

my worn down Doc Martens

and wade into the water.

Entranced by its

refreshingly cruel coldness,

I baptize myself in its

precarious currents and beg

Poisedon to extinguish the fire in me.



He douses me in his spirit

in an attempt to console the embers

that lick at my heels.

But this attempt proves

to be unsuccessful;

for there is no way of curing

the daughter of Olympus.



Fire and water merge,

imposing on to my being

a molten existence.



I    l~i~q~u~e~f~y.



Tendrils of lava crawl

up my oesophagus,

sear the impression

of a laurel atop my head,

burn so violently,

they turn purple.



“Dear Gods,”

I plead

“Take away this body,

this mind,

this soul–”



“Child,”

a lyrical voice

echoes back to me.

“You must not forsake yourself

like this, ”

she declares.

“The mark of the Parthenon,

of I,

your third mother,

Athena

dwells among your fingertips–

There is

p

o

e

t

r

y

in your bones,

an emblem of my wisdom,

of Apollo’s bestowal of enlightenment.



And so you,

my demi-goddess,

must carry on the legacy

of your ancestors through

your wildness

your extremity

your chaos–

your poetry.



For you were made

in the image of the Gods.”
Sensory deprivation douses my days
Neither perfume, nor pictures
to placate
No cadence of a voice contrasted
No distractions, now look away

Ban all Color
chromatic avian avoidance
But It only takes one slip  
to oxygenate those sacred sepia images
You were the reason!
you eviscerated “grey”

the enormity of a
pixilated instant:::
the shadow of a look
Arise again, stand tall and seductive,
awaken a cleft heart again
but the pleas go unheard
and
callous knees make for hollowed souls

this crawl so familiar, hallowed, fetching... as I look now, upward at your
carnal,
cardiac,
catharsis
I find that familiar rush
The drilling down of blood :::
Presses through once indifferent veins (my lamentation inoculation... you are viral once more)


Imagined love had seemed so tame.

The cataclysm corners, hidden well in  green eyes,
inauspicious,
until
it’s time (to strike)
tensions feast on the remaining light (dusk remains, night yields, but those eyes they’ll  haunt forever).

When was the last time I grasped your fingers?

When jungle lust simplicity gave way to
the steady silent ether of complacency
I knew
I had
lost
her

Yet, I still reach for the smell of you on my hands. It’s no longer there. The cruelest of nostalgias to soothe my most masochistic of reliefs.
Jake O Apr 2015
I don't see it very often
But when I do, it looks like this

It looks like red hair
Tied back in a pony tail
With eyes that no one thought could be so blue

It looks like 7:00 at night
As well as 6:30 in the morning
When the sun douses the sky in hue

It looks like the west
Or the east
Depending on where the mountains are

It looks like the girl three seats back
Who keeps tapping the desk nervously
Worrying about the scratch on her car

It looks like the pitch dark
With the small dots glowing
That you see when you look up at night

It looks like the beach
With the people swimming through the waves
Or lounging in the sand, soaking up the light

I never really knew beauty though
Until I first met you
With that confident smile
That you don't see very often
And eyes that no one thought could be so blue
Travis Dixon Jul 2010
As the waves crash the spray glows along the ridges.
In a cloudless sky, a kite plays around the sun
in a breeze that can hardly be felt,
as if in slow motion--as if it's growing tired--
just like everything else.
On the beach wall sit wanderers and travelers,
couples and lovers, the happy and the sad,
all come to witness and share
in the end of another Saturday--
a surprisingly warm and clear
December Saturday--and no doubt
Saturn is smiling from his throne.
The birds, the gulls, they sense the transition,
just as aware of the daily phenomenon as we are,
perhaps filled with just as much wonder and beauty as we are,
because birds look better in the setting sun,
just like everything else.

As the sun descends slowly toward the horizon,
as the horizon slowly engulfs the sun,
I look wearily into a new year,
one filled with great hope and great despair.
There's no doubt this country will be struggling greatly.
The question is whether we'll weather it,
like usual.

As I stare at the sun it consumes my vision.
A flaming ball descending into the sea;
the dark negative trails burn into my retina & glide
upward like smoke into the chromatic sky.
The horizon distorts its apparently perfect circle,
appearing like a melting pad of butter;
a mushroom cloud of an atomic bomb.
It accelerates toward night as it approaches the horizon.
Its rounded top distorts into edges,
now looking like a house.
And as it douses itself in the sea like a hot iron sword,
it becomes but a twinkling strand of golden beads
on the surface of the waves,
finally disappearing,
leaving only a distinct glow in the sky
where once,
it was.

The wanderers and couples
shake out of their giddy trances & move
into the chilly San Francisco evening,
and I do the same,
wondering whether my final sunset
will be as calm
and beautiful
as this
one.
We’ll give them the glass stares they want,
And they’ll eat us alive.

In the background,
I can hear knives sharpening.
White bones waiting to be
Sliced by a certain solitude.

The walls are blank,
But the paint is heavy.
This room is hard to
Hold up on an
Empty stomach.

So we’ll leave,
(Promise that we’ll never come back)
And we’ll be cold when the
Snow blankets our eyelashes,
Douses our fingertips in blue, but

We’ll wait to be rescued.
We’ll have red crosses stitched over
Our chests.

We’ll stop on lonely our way because of
Something curious.

Splintered between the cracks on the sidewalk is
Sadness –
A drop of rain struggling to run its course –

Winter’s fortitude.
CommonStory Aug 2014
It seems you'll be inside of my head 
Until I lay dead


Until I die
You whisper to me you can't make me leave
Goodnight
Sweet dreams
With the memories 
That turned into enemies of imagery
Everyone like a bomb
That douses me in exploding shrapnel
To the memories that I can't let go
And won't let me forget
That haunt my every movement
That invade my daydreams 
That bring me to my knees in tears
If you love me let me go
Because they are the sharpest knives that reopen my scars
And every time I'm torn apart
You've found a way to burrow to my heart
From there to my mind 
Those memories aren't kind
And until they shovel dirt on my corpse
I guess it's my fault for remembering what hurts
The mind that gathers pieces of the forgotten memories
maria Feb 24
Like soap, your poetry cleanses my soul.
On paper, I'm filthy from your touch,
and your honey is sticky on my fingers.
But, your words and your laugh are a spring
that douses me in bubbles and gold.
I sip from your tears and sweat,
and youth revitalizes my skin and bones.
You are an oil that enriches
and cannot be rinsed away with water.
You are the dirt that gets under by fingernails
and houses the seeds of a hundred flowers.
When the love is gone,
you feel all alone.
The spread of cold through your veins,
where once before a fire flamed and raged.
Numbs your soul and douses the fire.
You sit reflecting on what once was,
only to realise that love goes on.
On to higher ground.
On to higher realms.
On to greater things.
© JLB
26/09/2014
09:58 BST
Kenny Brown Mar 2012
The sun slowly sets and the streetlights turn on while
I sit at the kitchen table, trying to take one step away
From the fire and brimstone storm next door.
Sitting next to me is my father and a saltshaker,
He douses his roast beef with it and digs in ferociously.

Last night while I was standing on my front lawn a man
Wearing blue jeans and a grey sweatshirt approached.
He had a friendly demeanor and dragged on listlessly
Whistling a familiar tune, difficult to place.
Walking right up to me, the mysterious creature put his
Hand on the back of my neck and we began to grapple.
Struggling to keep my strength I was thrown to the ground.
His force couldn’t keep me down for long, I got him under me
And pinned him down for a short minute until he mustered
All his strength to push me off and we were on our feet again.
Eight hours passed and one had not overtaken the other
Until with a slight twist he popped my right leg out of place.
I said thank you and proceeded to sit on my front lawn,
Injured by myself.
Beinghonest Mar 2016
So,
I feel as though,
I messed you up,
Like, I shouldn't have even allowed what happened,
Happen.

I feel like I'm responsible for any hurt you're feeling,
But "I'm sorry" isn't gonna help.
"I still love you" won't change anything.

So,
I don't know,
Did you really want me in your heart,
Even though I was slowly corrupting the innards of your heart,
Slowly changing you,
Making you someone you weren't?

So, do you actually still want me,
Even though I've made it clear,
That things won't end well -
Simply because,
I'm a disaster walking on two feet,
A fireman that douses flames of love,
A selfish boy who only cares about himself,
A hopeless romantic who can turn out to be overbearing...
Do you still want me?
Because I can't see why you still want me,
I can't see what I did to earn your love,
Your heart,
Your attention and time...
I'm worthless -
Can't you tell?!
I'm not good for you...
At least for now.
You'll forever be the girl who won't leave my heart - but I'm not going to subject you to a relationship with the current me... Because I'm not where I want to be and I don't want you to be with the current me.

-just being honest
Barrow Jun 2015
X
Cross the line into my heart, and mark it with an X.
For I am yours, and nothing in this world can make me believe in anything less.
Less than perfection, less than the air I breathe, and the words I speak.
I am totaled in this underlying affliction, between pain and glory, surrounded in little words that no one seems to speak.
So here I am, and there you stand.
Standing in the rain that douses you like falling pins and needles, I see you, and you see me.

For that, I am sorry.

Because I am the X that holds you together, the glue that fashions paper bones and weathered hearts. I breathe, and you breathe.

You see, you and I are rattled together in an endless cycle.
A singularity, if you will.
And as dangerous as things may seem, or may come to be...
I wouldn't have it any other way.

Because you are the X that stole my heart.
Lawren Jun 2012
Sound flows piercingly through the air.
A wave of warmth slaps across my face,
And douses my clothes as it moves
Down
My body.

The harmonies and atonalities
Cause my heart to
Flutter
With arrhythmia.

As the bow continues,
My calm is slowly replaced
By fiery passion;
Hot,
From the slapping of the waves.

I am soaring,
I am free.
Watch me.
Listen as I express
My inner voice.
DC Lee Mar 2019
****** Joe \ Hero In Joe


They called my friend ****** Joe today
A name I greatly dislike
Said with hatred as if foe
As if Joe ****** them
And cursed their air
A judgment not quite fair
You see they didn't know Joe
They didn’t know his heart
They didn’t know his kindness
They didn't know that Joe lact happiness
Feeling the air
****** Joe lives here…

A name that rattled my bones
Like a barefoot walk on sharp stones
His pains within exhaling out as moans and groans
And Joe kept sticking that stake in his veins
As a way to try and numb all those pains
Sowing seeds intwinted of rage
An empty audience to a lonely stage
No one cared about Joe
And so those seeds did grow
Vines that encompassed Joe’s mind
Trying to fill an endless void
With a drug that would destroy
Leaving nothing but fear
****** Joe lives here…

Hiding away in abandoned houses  
Slave to the drug that douses
His life in misery
I myself tried to help Joe
Regain his footing and low
Off he disappeared into the blue
Never to be seen again
But no one even knew
And nothing was really quite clear
****** Joe lives here…

You see the sad factual reality
Is that Joe was real
And in all actuality
He died on a cold day in December
Fizzled flame, ash, and ember
Goodbye to you Joe
And oh
How will they remember you?
Will you be a hero?
Will you be a zero?
Or will you be the same old name
Attached to your unwanted fame
Why couldn’t we have tempted the hero in Joe?
To fight for his life
And vanquish all foe
Maybe he could conceal a tear?
****** Joe lives here…

Why constantly repeat these words?
As if always muttered but never heard
It is to keep the memory of Joe alive
But not only the memory of Joe
But the memory of all those lost will survive
Lost to a truly gifted reaper of this earth
Lives otherwise doomed since birth
This reaper known as ******
Defeated all of the heros in
Those hurting souls
And I pray that Joe lives forever
As if a bird to sacrifice a feather
And that we can severe hate
From this fight against destruction    
These words are only but a minor fraction
In this war of attrition that has taken so many
And by the way…
They called my friend ****** Joe today
A name I greatly dislike
Vamika Sinha May 2015
I'm 'sophisticatedly' sticking a pen
in my mouth, pretending
to smoke a cigarette.
I don't have the courage to hurt
myself, but
I do.
In 'subtle and implied' ways, he
says.

I make watery coffee and convince
myself, my happiness
lies in there,
floating. And I pretend
I'm in a Parisian cafe.
But these are pipe-dream dregs,
nothing else.
I guess they can't substitute the
vividness of being,
living.
Of sharp technicolour experience that can be
smelt.
Dregs, indeed.

Today, I borrowed Birthday Letters by
Ted Hughes from the library.
I'm wondering if
salvias were his favourite
flower.
His favourite.
I can't figure it out.
For his words are only stricken,
messy with the rawness of
too-technicolour experience.
Beautiful.
But sharp
enough to pierce and
poison,
like Paris.
My Paris, your Paris,
our little Paris.
So startlingly, breathlessly
red.

I suddenly know why I have written this.
The colour of salvias,
of Paris,
of me and you,
is my soul's favourite.
His favourite.
And salvias, their fragrance, it
douses the fire that's threatening to
suffocate, swallow my
life whole,
incomplete.

Red is my favourite colour.
And it's yours.

But I really don't think I want it to be.
I've been reading Ted Hughes and thinking .
phantasmal Aug 2013
red
the rivers flow with viscous blood
your anger stains the flood
you string your bow with sorrow
and release it with an arrow
your eyes are blinded by passion
of a regret with no reason
they are tinted glass prisms
drowning in delirium
you're losing all your bets
yet you can't ask why
because in a world of sunsets
its color douses the sky

- - -
nico papayiannis Jun 2017
The perception you have
This cloud that mars your judgement
A lack of compassion
And of vision
Has handed to me
Your transition
From lover to long term sufferer
And my metamorphosis
From your rock, to the reason,
We may never recover

How time has cracked
The fate we sealed
How nonchalance and reluctance
Have become the swords we yield
No time it would seem
To continue to dream
Just to watch the harvest burn,
Of our fallow field

We subside into solitude
The construction of,
Our pre fabricated fortitude
And all the worries, the strains
And the stress
They all shall drown
As our lives digress

No passing of grace
Just a funeral pyre
With time it douses
The burning desire
To turn run and find
All those years we left behind
Discarded with ease
No longer here to please
This heart-breaking separation
Now has become my emancipation
Clem N Tine Feb 2016
I am eleven again
feeling like tomorrow
is a couple yesterday's ago
smothered in cayenne pepper
hot enough to take off taste buds
and tonight i am eating a meal
only worth burning
it tastes like my parents' anniversary
it tastes like a zinfandel
left on the counter too long
it's a bad story, see
there's no silverware 'cause my mom sold it
to keep the lights on
after my brother passed
when I was eleven
and somewhere in heaven
somebody in a suit
doing commentary
on this fiasco
is telling someone else
in a suit that
"you have to eat love with your hands"
so we sit, four plates on the table
for the two of us
my brother's long gone
dad's even further away & he's not the one who's buried
i carry both their names like anchors
that i cannot unmoor from
while she looks at the empty table
and says something about the news
she says something else
but she's not talking
we aren't proud of this, see
my dad likes to wax his car
he's proud of it
and my mom says
she sees a lot of him in my hands
says, I touch the things i find
like they didn't belong
to people sleeping in the ground
she says i touch photo albums
the same way-
you know,
I never used to believe
that history could repeat itself
not until i could
fast forward seventeen years
and still wake up to smoke alarms
how i would go into our kitchen
to find it empty
and the dinner smoldering & my mother in her bedroom
looking through family photos
like it's a just another summer day
and the sirens are just the birds
i don't ask, i never say a word
in this moment
i am an archeologist
afraid to dig up the past
cause history repeats itself-
you see
my brother is dead
and my father is gone
they have been for some years now
and my mother
sometimes forgets
and sets their place at the table
like they're still here,
and in the confusion
ends up ankle deep
in pictures of how it used to be ...
she let's dinner burn
and douses it in red pepper
hoping i won't know the difference
Jamais Vu
Sia Jane Dec 2014
I?
I am kneeling;
Cold bath water
A lamb to the slaughter;
My eyes forced shut
My head tossing back & forth;
The weight of my hair
Knots when tumbled over my head
Dark nights.

I
See skies part
An intoxicating light
Each pink sky; an awakening dawn
Drinking myself to death
Haunted, glancing reflections bathroom taps,
Gasp, choke, drown sorrows,
Hearing the notes of my own beating heart
It fights.

I
Knock over the glass,
Sancerre douses the floor
Flooding sirens play, & dim the noise within
So grand;
Scream, a plea for death, last stand
Tears within
Porcelain hand held & gashes my skin
Hear me.

I
Must remain unspoken
A sinful hurricane drunk,
Standing in ferocious waves hitting empty shores,
Bodies in motion
The sky opens filling a roaming ocean,
A deep coldness resides
Your heart bleeds, your body stiffens, Mother Nature asserts, you abide,
Respecting she.

   © Sia Jane
Completely unedited and an attempt at referencing; Sylvia Plath - "Soliloquy Of The Solipsist"
http://allpoetry.com/Soliloquy-Of-The-Solipsist
Shashy Quinn Nov 2011
2.
My eyes will be heavy,
My body lay still,
The pain in my chest
Douses flames with my will.

You do not know
Of that I've made sure
So your image of me
Remains untainted and pure.

If you tore me apart
And looked from inside
You'd see pain and disgust
Embarrassment and pride

So please leave me be
Morning skies
Streaked with feathered clouds,
My eyes open to the light
Free of the night shrouds,
I turn to the warmth next to me,
She is so beautiful;
She fills me with glee,
Her breathing soft;
I embrace her form,
Her skin so yielding to my touch,
Not of the norm,
I reminisce about those other days,
Id wake up alone, cold, in a daze,
Now the sunlight's rays I welcome,
I look forward to tomorrow,
And more days to come,
Had she an idea
Of what she means to my eyes,
Shed blackmail me,
Tease me, and tell me lies,
But as she wakes from her slumber,
I look into her eyes
As they open without a cumber,
I see the love, joy and admiration;
That she holds for me;
I would not dream of desertion,
Would there not be a body
To those eyes; her face;
I would not care
For nothing more but a trace,
Because with her eyes,
Those sky speckled spheres,
She embraces me; and loves me;
And douses all my fears;
I feel whole, a man;
With someone to love and protect,
She will not want,
She will not need, I will effect...
© okpoet
Abraham Esang Oct 2017
To begin with there begins a little sprinkle, only a delicate sound

just delicate, a small "titter" as it taps on your secondary passage.

This, at to begin with, you have a go at overlooking 'til it's decidedly pouring

it reestablishes and continues invigorating each living thing around.

At that point it streams down the timber of the trees with branches agile

what's more, the leaves surrender clean as, drinking heartily, they sup.

Where the beads make a sprinkle, there the drainpipe begins a ******

or, on the other hand it tickles through the rings 'til it douses into the ground.

In the canal there's a puddle, only a little center obfuscate

at that point it develops into a gusher as it sputters past the control.

This downpour tumbles towards the tar, ten times as quick and twice as far

as the tormented educators pull at both their tunics and their sleeve.

Furthermore, once more, it makes an air pocket and makes a little inconvenience

for the wetness of the water causes sobbing from the astute.

There's a flooding of the fields as the water waves and wheels

what's more, the grieving Mormons on their bicycles are crying to the skies.

While the raindrops keep running round edges and they swell down the extensions

at that point they join the happy excursion at the intersection with a run.

When they accumulate in the canal there's a sputtering, merry splutter

with a splashing and expression, they're singing as they clear out.

There's a stammer and a shake as the gusher battles a fight

with the gravity of planet as it joins the droning throng.

However, it's inclination is constant and disregards each safe

pattern of obstructions as determinedly it wends it's direction once more.

Presently it looks for the last butcher and it jumps into the water

of the sea at the passageway of the place we call the narrows.

There's a happy "hurrah" of adulating to the Ruler who has been looking

down on every one of his youngsters, named or not, who looked for his favored 'Rain'.
Shin Aug 2020
Candlelight douses the dust in amber.
Wallpaper peeling, gathered at your feet.
In your left hand rests a picture of her.
In your right, your cowardly retreat.

Hemp fibers laced gently around your arm.
Cautiously you unwind this man-made snake.
Tossed to a beam in this forgotten farm,
you've found the home of your final mistake.

Stepping on stage, the warmth ensnares your neck.
Tied taut, the noose calls you as an old friend.
You cry now, lost within this dreary wreck.
You pray to dead gods. You have found the end.

Your feet meet air. With a gasp you are gone.
A life wasted, another soul withdrawn.
note: This poem is not a cry for help. I am not currently suicidal. It is merely a window into what that moment on the cusp can feel like.
miles Oct 2016
hi.
i don't know my name,
i've forgotten her again.
she's a stranger in an alleyway.
she's reaching for me.
and her soft, fragile hands;
with rose fingernails,
wrap around my throat and squeeze.
she's the young girl i used to be.
thick, dark eyelashes and a petite frame.
she wears cherry flavored lip gloss.
her long, blonde hair drowns me.
i cut my way free from the yellow rope.
her locks lay at my feet in chunks.
she wails in despair,
i dig my scissors into her gut,
and she bleeds pepto pink blood.

hi.
i don't know my name,
i've killed her again.
a ghost rises from her corpse.
he's reaching for me.
and his rough, calloused hands;
with scraped knuckles,
strokes my hair and hugs me tight.
he resembles my late father,
dark hair and scruff on his chin.
exhausted, sea-colored eyes.
he washes the blood from my hands.
he wraps the girl in a garbage bag,
douses her in gasoline,
and sets fire to the plastic.

hi.
i don't know my name,
but you can call me miles.
i'm tired of hiding and pretending.
i'm reaching for you,
and my shaking, ***** hands;
with scars and bruises,
i ask you to listen and understand.
i am transgender male.
homemade haircuts,
and thrifted boys' clothes.
i will never be a son to my mother,
and my house will never be a home.
but you all are my family,
and your support will keep me warm.

— The End —