"downturned" poems
.wet as
long-sound
footsteps on the scuff of downturned sidewalks
estranging.
distance
.from us
as wrought iron bridges
meeken,
aching.
like a saxophone
.the
pin-patter
Sep 10, 2012
Sep 10, 2012 at 9:03 AM UTC
I
An orange overcast this
evening splayed pink
hues stripes and
saccharine beads. The
twilight caricatures live golden years.
Restless becoming in the garden of
her drunken sons their flowers
soaked in brass, seams
bursting in uncontrollable
laughter we pause. To
admire the briefness
of that era exploding
its petals peppering
spraying saliently we spill
indoors churning across tabletops.
My arms hang dead by my sides.
Her eyes gaping sway
swiftly biting deeply the dottedfaces
lurch. Streets fall unconditional
amidst tears we comb lips
sharply distinctly
her stubborn *** stumbling
handles loosening she holds
my hand my arms hang
dead we pause.
II
Children babble sunlight across
lawns; I hear sirens traffic icecream nips
our tongues twinge on windless
pipes gust our hair flying smiling
at laughter from the
playground behind us.
Placid smiles stain enamoured
halls; for glimpses
we mumble necks crooked
sheets flap draped over bars
her eyes waver glisten
shiver. A warm breeze
dries my hair.
III
Wallowing I oscillate utmost trep-
-idation entangling grappling but
hushed beneath foliage eyes
downturned soil clings when her
fingers impress deeper through
to where rivers end.
Glowing dawn I turn further
lighter almost her hair caught
between the floors;
gently feverish we see turgid
lines the tinniest cracks we pray
on tranquil mornings.
Window panes blemished it was
spring only darker from
deafened rivers throbbing;
under lucid eyes I fold
and heralds blare. We consume
the silence sounding from still lakes.
Aug 26, 2013
Aug 26, 2013 at 9:22 PM UTC
You said this,
that I gave more than you wanted
that I surrounded you,
smothered you with plumped up pillows
and forced you into swaddling clothes,
too tight for a grown man.
You were wrong.
And now I wear bedsocks to stave off a chill that
has nothing to do with barometric pressure,
mocked by a too big duvet in an aftershave scented bed.
I take my usual route and stare at the downturned faces
of busy people who don’t wish to look my way,
no matter, they haven’t realised how special I am.
I’m here to win you back.
I’ll come at you with perfumed cards.
Accost you with sugary tokens.
Stab at you with flowered stems.
Your letterbox is your eyes and ears
and I’m jamming myself into it,
waiting for you to come home.
Dec 19, 2010
Dec 19, 2010 at 12:08 PM UTC
Check in impatiently
hauling light luggage -
downturned eyes,
bundled fifties,
skull packed with sickly
sugarplum notions
Stiff key-card door and
three hanger closet -
leave your mittens, jacket,
and conscience dangling
Towels
cotton-knit sandpaper
no softer than well-trafficked
threadbare tawny-port carpet and
your hands and feet pretend
not to feel it
nervously,
a bit numbly,
you notice her standing
with glacial stillness
moments away from
the foot of the bed
Two crooked lampshades and
dim headboard lights
close their eyes when
the mattress springs
first compress,
the air tingling
with dustbunny snowflakes
This room is too dark now,
something like snowblind,
but you don't really want to see
do you?
Frostbite when she touches you
and somehow this bed
is more welcoming
than your own
you'll remember her
february fingertips
and hailstone hair,
a sensation of northerly winds
strange how heavy the comforter feels
sprawled across your skin
you envision an ice slab,
see it suffocate
a slow-flowing river,
and your breath quickens
if only because your lungs
have been crushed
then, just before hypothermia,
she leaves,
lights off,
wallet lighter,
you stay whiteknuckled, lightheaded,
half-consumed by a snowdrift,
beneath the duvet -
dazed
your tongue sits confused,
having asked for peppermints
and been given ice cubes instead
and when you finally rise,
and thaw your limbs
and try not the slip
on the black ice
she always leaves
by the door,
Try to forget
you paid
hourly rates
and shed your clothes
that you might find warmpth
in a blizzard
Feb 7, 2018
Feb 7, 2018 at 6:29 PM UTC
Grief is not a song you wrote once
Nor the padded, downturned corners of your face.
Grief lives below your footsteps
A black hole with mass
in the shape of a giant ape.
Each of your labored steps begets its sweeping swing below.
Your soles are its vines.
Between each footstep, as it moves with you
you think the weight of it might be gone.
Grief delights in this deception
as it seizes up-down once more,
reaching into the core of you
and pulling it to the bottom of your shoes.
Some part of you, torn away, lands with a leaden thunk
and cramps the delicate inner muscles of your feet.
Maybe it’s the soul
or more likely
it’s some forgotten vestigial *****
which only emerges through its own absence.
Now hollow in your middle
the muscles surrounding contract in confusion
thinking, knowing, that the empty space is wrong
but not quite able to recall
what had been there in the first place.
and so you think your heart is seized by grief,
when really, you are confused, you are feeling only
nothing.
as Grief lives beneath the ground
as Grief swings beneath your feet.
Apr 28, 2013
Apr 28, 2013 at 2:36 AM UTC
Ubermensch gone doggy between your legs,
a minute heathen, incensed prophet, whose
last rites scatter.
Moth-ornate tome in a terrible scream, whose
barbed print appeals to what lucid interval
gains thee.
Heights to take as lovers, brain's genitalia in
a bunch.
Meridians frolic in arms risen, hence, hence--
crushed tumult in touch.
An infectious groveling that other may see,
take hold.
Odd aphrodisiac, you--human half, halved,
halved and halved.
Penumbra, split-screen vision of Zion, come--
I came, I implore with birthright.
A studious damnation leaves us a leprous
expose, eye-candy as sweet as sacrament.
Skies sent and returned gone swamp-green,
can't you feel the interplanetary squelch that's
bound us?
Strange...fool of chills, hunched with electrified
hair come I, full of longing, barren.
Let us decipher one another, break judgement
over our knees, and caress one another's
downturned eyes.
Let us have a look at one another till we become
worldwide, let us perfect our immoderation.
Konstantinos Mark
Feb 22, 2014
Feb 22, 2014 at 11:58 AM UTC
minutes, hours, seconds even
Painfully dance by mocking me
Tick… Tock… Tick… Tock…
Teasing me with hopes of the future
Tick Tick… Tock… Tick Tick… Tock
Leaving me with heartache of the past
Tock…Tock……Tock……… Tick
Deep breaths and Heavy Sighs
They leave my downturned mouth.
Years of youth kept my heart full of hope
But now all that’s left is this lump of regret
Stuck in my throat
Drink it down with the sadness
Time, you’re such a cruel keeper of dreams.
Jan 27, 2010
Jan 27, 2010 at 1:58 PM UTC
The old pine boughs,
Sway, fold, bend,
The sky’s wind tipping them low,
The tips downturned,
In the waving breeze,
But each bough holds,
Against the formidable winds.
When they fold,
The wind tells them to dance,
To sing against the voice of the breeze,
To sway like a flag,
Red white blue,
The colors of an evening sky.
While the boughs refuse to break,
They are just as a prow,
The swerving, pointed-tip of a handsome ship,
Muttering softly against the ocean,
As it carves its way,
Through the deep ocean’s blue-clear-greens.
The pine sits with its old aerial roots,
Its deep nut-brown chest swollen with pride,
Dark green needles catch some air and fly,
Still connected to the old boughs.
The old boughs watch over,
Through the night-morning-noon-evening-night,
Every storm and frost.
The old pine boughs are as great as a grain of sand,
Alone in the deep blue seas,
For no one appreciates that one old pine,
Its boughs each a prow,
For the wind and the rain.
Aug 4, 2025
Aug 4, 2025 at 9:23 AM UTC
I once saw a man sitting at
the bar of one of my favorite dives,
and he looked so handsome in his
profile,
his lips gingerly kissing a bottle
of craft beer,
his suit fitted just right
against his sculpted
frame.
He stared intently through his
trendy glasses
at the glow of his
laptop screen,
and I imagined he was
reading something involving
important business,
or maybe a book about a
new age philosophy as he
pondered the meaning of life.
He seemed so comfortable
and familiar in his
solitude,
like he traveled often and
had grown to love himself
immensely;
he valued his alone
time.
I imagined he went to some
ivy league school,
like Brown or Cornell,
where he studied business and
made his parents proud.
He still likes to learn and finds
the world to be a
blissfully curious place.
I was enthralled with
the picture I had drawn in
my head as I
gazed at his strong jaw
and white smile,
and I couldn't help but whisper
to my friend how
infatuated I was with the
view from
my seat in our wooden booth,
when my friend chuckled
nervously,
his brows downturned as he
erased all I had
drawn and replaced the
picture with
he's homeless.
Jan 29, 2015
Jan 29, 2015 at 9:28 AM UTC
She sits with her eyes downturned,
Legs and arms crossed closed
I can feel her heartbeat against my hand resting on her back
She rocks her body slowly backwards and forwards
She rocks away from me
A single tear drop rolls down her cheek
Sitting, glistening with the faint light of the moon
She slowly raises her head
Her eyes and face contorted with grief
The flood gates open, and tears begin to roll down
I feel my insides spasm, contract and writhe
I start to feel nauseous, I knew this was coming
Why didn’t I see it?
Maybe it was just me
How could a girl like her ever consider me...?
A girl that glides into rooms
Dress flowing with each and every step
Weightless,
Elegant,
Beautiful...
I try to reach out, to grab her, to hold on
But she’s slowly moving away from me
I try to grab on harder, to pull her into me
Her body feels limp, empty and hollow
Now she’s standing
I feel my heart skip a beat
My hands are shaking, uncontrolled
I feel cold, barren, and desolate
I feel heart-broken
Now I’m standing
“I love you, don’t leave!”
She turns around
Her eyes glazed over, lifeless
I see her head drop a little
She’s made up her mind
I hold her vacant gaze
She’s looking through me
Exposing me
Tearing me apart
She turns away
My eyes swell up with tears
They feel puffy and sore
I stare at her back as she walks away
Her body slouched and tired
She doesn’t look back...
Sep 11, 2012
Sep 11, 2012 at 6:49 AM UTC
Take your sweetness
and bury it deep,
for now is the time
that fire is needed;
hide the tenderness
where you'll remember
to never forget, for
the only fear to fear
is the wild running
through your veins;
take your boldness,
your coffee black nerve
and steady hand squeezing
a hot coal without a flinch;
take your bravery,
your sea legs stiffened
against the storm
of indecision;
take your bright eyed stare
into the dark clouds coming,
take them and nod your head
with downturned lips
at all you were afraid to be.
Mar 25, 2018
Mar 25, 2018 at 9:34 PM UTC
Death, my friend, your hands are so cold.
You cup my cheek and ice ****** my teeth.
You’re so cold, Death, my friend. So cold.
Don’t you want some heat, some warmth?
Will you take some from me?—
I’ll gladly give it, you know—my warmth.
I’m not using it. But you can, if you want.
Death, my friend, you look so sad.
Your eyes are drawn, your cheekbones haggard;
The corners of your mouth are downturned.
Smile, Death, please. Smile for me.
I want to see the flicker of colour in your skin.
Will you smile genuinely for me?
I’ve seen your wan smile, you know.
That is no way to smile—monochrome
Has no right to alight on your face.
Death, my friend, you look so lonely.
You’re not alone, not forgotten.
I’m with you, I see and remember you,
I am not afraid of you. I like you.
You’re my friend, remember? Your friend.
Friends want friends to be warm,
To smile with every colour that has ever graced
A paintbrush, a canvas, a child’s dream.
Death, my friend, why are you holding me?
Is my warmth helping? Have I made you happy?
Death, my friend, your arms are so warm.
Or am I just cold in comparison?
Death, my friend, thank you for smiling so beautifully.
I’m glad you’re warm.
Jan 18, 2014
Jan 18, 2014 at 12:39 AM UTC
Face stung by depersonalization, caked and gobbed
makeup so eyes of two can tower anonymous.
Round and round, makeup descended, blood runneth
cold...blood runneth warm.
Clown's base rigor mortis white contrasted by pools
of blood-red.
Upturned lips to smile, downturned eyes to cry.
Nose...of a consummate drunk, or irritated swell of
tissue-happy crying.
****** motion spent in a capering given to the clown's
colorful daemon.
Bloated aerodynamic garb giving the birthday-suit
room to free fall the roles it was cast in.
Clown...pinch...perfect...overdone, multicolored
burning bush wig at home...ever at home with clownish
head.
O clown--built by laughing tracks, and the hollow of
broken peanut shells.
Oct 31, 2014
Oct 31, 2014 at 11:53 AM UTC
Swollen eyes, dark and deep,
Hollow pits from lack of sleep.
Rolling down her porcelain cheek,
A single tear, helpless and meek.
Downturned lips kept tightly shut,
Holding back thoughts and words that cut.
Bitten nails wrapped into fists,
Battle wounds curve round her wrists,
Hate and shame across her skin,
She learnt to hide it, she learnt to fit in.
Insecurities lurk beneath tattered clothes,
A world of secrets that no one knows.
The looking glass shows her broken, afraid,
And to herself this is how she’s portrayed,
But to lens and to eye this girl cannot be seen,
To the world she appears as any other teen.
Surrounded by friends she laughs loud and smiles wide,
So no one will know the pain she suffers inside.
Jan 27, 2017
Jan 27, 2017 at 5:25 PM UTC
I found within the shattered pieces
of this broken heart
a glowing golden orb
emitting an enchanting light,
soft and soothing
A calm swept over me
like a warm gentle breeze
on the most beautiful spring day
of which I had never felt before
My eyes were wide
as a smile found my face, lifting corners
where only a downturned
form had rested before
Sadness seemed a cloud
that was quickly moving away
from the visions I had lived
Once my eyes adjusted
to their new surroundings I saw
It was you, this glow, it always had been you
Lingering long before we met,
before we fell in love, then sadly fell apart
Yet where others would have ended,
we began again, together
walking out of this darkness
hand in hand, within a different kind of love
as we began our new journey
basking in the glow of friendship
Mar 16, 2015
Mar 16, 2015 at 10:51 AM UTC
She has aged twenty five years
in five
the lines around her eyes
from too many nights
of crying
the downturned frown of her lips
from her love dying
Now she's ancient, centuries old,
the aftermath of sociopathy
being fake loved and discarded
has left her broken hearted
There's no filler for this space
there's no way to erase
the deeds of the takers
so she huddles in a dark cave
silently scribbling out her mistakes
loving the wrong ones
trusting in the wicked
it's a sticky situation
when the heart is pure
like children who love the hand
holding the stick that beats them
everything is gray
the wispy strands of hair
the wrinkled skin of her hands
the callouses on the tips
the false admiration leaving their lips
The blood has left her veins
It was drained by every lover
who ****** her dry
then left her in the pain
like raindrops can erase heartache
like the moon can glue the breaks
She's a cup, shattered on the pavement.
She screams she's hurting
They say "well don't."
as if sadness is a faucet that
can be set to drip so the pipes don't crack
she watches them disappear
because she's too sad
this is the trap
the liquid seeping into the concrete
as she weeps on her knees
scabbed from falling repeatedly
She's aged twenty five years
in five
Sometimes she wonders
if she's even still alive
or if she's watching a mirage
from a death realm that fakes being human
just like when she was
Nights spent quiet away from the hive
counting days until
the one she dies
hoping it goes quickly
even in her sleep
so she can bury
all the secrets she keeps
but for now its
comparisons and agitation
dismissive relations and aggravations
humans walking obliviously by
caught up with their own
uncomplicated lives
they press their heels
into flowers until they expire
or pick them to hold as they wither
She's aging sixty minutes
in one
and the process is agonizing
she didn't make this deal
to be alive while she is dying
in the rubble of the aftermath
she hears God laugh
v.k
copyright @ 2013 dbv publishing
Dec 22, 2013
Dec 22, 2013 at 6:33 PM UTC
alien in a fish bowl.
speckled with shame
squirming under
the microscope
of
speculation and
imposed so-called
'morals' of
those who
take it upon
themselves to
regulate
others.
jaws disengage to drop further still
to the ground.
eyes shot out needles
to pierce every exposed
inch of
flesh on
my body.
eyes wide
swell like an ocean wave
from all sides.
there is a permanent furrow in my brow.
lips downturned at the slightest
potential threat.
at 4 i was invincible
at 5 i could fly
at 6 i could talk to wolves
at 7 i was one with nature
at 8 i drew shamelessly
at 9 i was a trapeze artist
at 10 an archaeologist
at 11 i braided grass
at 12 i crushed berries to make paint
at 13 i died a little inside.
and a little more each year thereafter.
May 29, 2014
May 29, 2014 at 10:53 AM UTC
Thousands poured into the Great Hall
Waiting
In this haunted, empty room
For something to happen
Nobody sat upon the throne
But order still remained
Maybe it was in the fear
That left them silenced
The throne was industrious
All blunt, sharp lines
Of cold, heartless steel
Fogging up as the peoples’ breaths brushed it
No heat in this desolate hall
Only people’s nervous, frantic heartbeats
Echoed through the room
Marking their place as prey
Footsteps followed
Each step
A quick, sudden staccato
Steady with every beat
The people spun around
Looking for the one that approached them
But there was
No one
Anxiety wrecked through the large hall
Rebounding off of the delicate stone arches
Sailing across the cracked, concrete floor
Filling everyone’s bodies with dread
The footsteps stopped
And their leader materialized onto his cold throne
His gaze held no emotion as he crossed his legs, staring at his people--
Who returned his glare with downturned lids
He bore a crown of silver
Glittering with the madness
Atop a thick forest of black hair
That you could get lost in
His eyes were a dark stormy blue
Appraising his guests
His people
That lay scattered across the hall
A slender frame
Overshadowed by a black velvet cape
And a white collared shirt
Pure of the injuries that he had wronged others
Form fitting grey pants slung tightly over his hips
Along with a matte hand pistol
Further accentuated by his knee high leather boots
That shined with the sweat of a thousand shoe polishers
He was their dictator
They were his people
With a snap
They rose to meet his commands
Without him, they were nothing
He called for disease
Infection spread rampant
the sick fell at his feet
He called for war
The clanging of swords broke out
And wet, hot blood began to coat the slick ground
He called for famine
Hunger gnawed away at the empty, acidic stomachs of the starved
Many fell, glazed eyes betraying their desire for food
He called for death
And suddenly the survivors fell
Only a hundred of the thousand had been left
To die at his feet
The hall was empty of all souls
But one
His
He commanded all that his people could give
And left with nothing to bear
But a single throne
Of cold steel
And an bare skyscraper
With a single, Great Hall
Oct 28, 2018
Oct 28, 2018 at 4:14 PM UTC
~
Don't you cry tonight
Give me a whisper and give me a sigh
Those soft words following the emotions in your eyes
Exhaling poetry on my whimpered dreams
Take from me all that I can give while
reaching for that sunset…a distant prism of light
Give me a kiss before you, tell me goodbye
Soft lips in sad shapes, downturned towards darkened fears
Moist as they meet in wilted wishes
Walking away…a silhouette of that which I long for
As tears drift on questioned zephyrs
Don't you take it so hard now and please don't take it so bad
To know this feeling, I swear I don’t
Still calling out in echoed chants flowing naked valleys
Hoping you hear, praying you smile, asking you to listen
Before the moon fractures in cosmic sorrow
I'll still be thinkin' of you and the times we had...baby
Eternal visions find you and me, hand in hand
Dancing on quiet shores, melodic surf rhythms
In memories of what once was, what should be
and the stars drip into anguished teacups pleading
Don’t you cry tonight…
May 6, 2014
May 6, 2014 at 6:37 PM UTC
Give me a whisper and give me a sigh
Those soft words following the emotions in your eyes
Exhaling poetry on my whimpered dreams
Take from me all that I can give while
reaching for that sunset…a distant prism of light
Give me a kiss before you, tell me goodbye
Soft lips in sad shapes, downturned towards darkened fears
Moist as they meet in wilted wishes
Walking away…a silhouette of that which I long for
As tears drift on questioned zephyrs
Don't you take it so hard now and please don't take it so bad
To know this feeling, I swear I don’t
Still calling out in echoed chants flowing naked valleys
Hoping you hear, praying you smile, asking you to listen
Before the moon fractures in cosmic sorrow
I'll still be thinkin' of you and the times we had...baby
Eternal visions find you and me, hand in hand
Dancing on quiet shores, melodic surf rhythms
In memories of what once was, what should be
and the stars drip into anguished teacups pleading
Don’t you cry tonight…
Nov 26, 2013
Nov 26, 2013 at 7:34 AM UTC
His eyes seem to be
almost as if he is sleeping,
dreaming of New York City and
bright lights and other girls
dancing among flashing strobes,
their trendy halters halting his breathing
and startling him back into awareness.
He realizes he’s been resting
his cheek on his knuckle, though
all he can really feel is numbness and
a slight tingle as his nerves begin to increase
to match the angle of the plane.
The jolt of landing reawakens his arm
and the buzzing bee inside his brain
as he envisions with an almost painful smile
a perfect dive into the great water before him.
He is there and I am here, but
my hair is dripping wet.
Sep 14, 2014
Sep 14, 2014 at 3:56 PM UTC
That baleful germ watches my going rate.
Comes with blunted spear--chafed flesh
pulled through Nothing come to its tether.
An ingrown horn--gluey eyes sleepless as
any decor in a crooked House.
One wing up on a downturned one.
A roving cackle that stokes the throat of
its fire.
As if the pleasantries of a disfigured humor
abide their disease--know their place
amongst what was, but is no more.
The precipice stilled all the more in dark
of its sky, what land there was to distance
closed...pushed outward the demon's
face as it sped downward.
The All summed up in a word shy of its
Word.
O demon, self-contained thing...whose
slights bar thee by design.
By God's reluctance, animus thee spend,
to rule out what good could come of thee.
As if by the taking you secure increase--
there's no rallying God by the taking...
nay by private fang nor claw core undone.
Your striving put you to what you are.
As so, it is you...that makes the face of
anything--just until it shall have of itself,
bear itself.
That bearing be Godly--your industry is one
of delight in the confusion prior to that
bearing--O demon!
Hence, you are cast out by what sets its
sights by right divine!
Feb 2, 2015
Feb 2, 2015 at 3:33 PM UTC
this morning
I felt it in a damaged knee
smelled it on the air
watched the clouds with
knowing atici…………pation
winter was coming
and its brutishness
would not easily go unnoticed --
the steady preparatory ant
the fattened bear
thick with salmon grease
and sedge grass
ole man Barkley
splittin’ cord wood
dark brown chew spit
trickling from the corner of his
downturned mouth…
and the migrating geese –
my skin prickles at the air
and the visions of the season to come
holiday meals and family gatherings
cooking and sharing
little rolling hills for sledding
trimming a tree
in the cozy warmth
of our country home –
Nov 10, 2015
Nov 10, 2015 at 2:59 PM UTC
The rage, the fury, the wrath that sharply speeds around.
My Chest, My arms, the pit of my stomach.
My mouth is downturned and angry.
My eyes washed with red and black.
Fists clenched and heavy breathing.
You think I am weak? Because I don't fight? Because I don't like violence? Because I am just the "Nice Guy"!? Is that it??
Well, I have 3 words for all of you who have put me through crap and ruined my life...
I've finally snapped.
Apr 14, 2015
Apr 14, 2015 at 4:08 PM UTC
the weight of the tie
around my neck
and the quivers of my jaw
from what I've said.
a flock sits with downturned heads
and the wolves stand, with mocking hands.
as easily as the pencil glides
over the ****** page,
so also it is for the written to blossom
like forget-me-nots in the slanting rain.
Today,
the heavens wrote me
on the wrong end
where the ground is filled with spit
and the sky, grey with the angst
of mourning heads.
Tomorrow,
the writing would not be the same
and I would be
at the right end.
Mar 5, 2025
Mar 5, 2025 at 11:52 AM UTC