"doze" poems
Thick, warm, fuzzy air
Radiates against your skin, making you want to doze off
You sit on the front of a low red car that looks another era, leaning on the glossy hood.
I want to put your lips on mine
The world feels yellow, and orange.
It's as if clear smoke has filled the air
My eyes are dimmed through thick sunglasses, my body absorbing the warmth through jeans and a small black shirt
I'm in a lucid daze
Looking at you through a curtain of leather black hair, not bothered to move it from my face.
Your eyes the crisp refreshing blue in a world tinted amber
Like a fresh spray of water on my back
After hours of sunbathing
We sit there
We say nothing
We take in the sun
We don't need anything else
May 12, 2018
May 12, 2018 at 6:04 PM UTC
Out here there are no hearthstones,
Hot grains, simply. It is dry, dry.
And the air dangerous. Noonday acts queerly
On the mind's eye erecting a line
Of poplars in the middle distance, the only
Object beside the mad, straight road
One can remember men and houses by.
A cool wind should inhabit these leaves
And a dew collect on them, dearer than money,
In the blue hour before sunup.
Yet they recede, untouchable as tomorrow,
Or those glittery fictions of spilt water
That glide ahead of the very thirsty.
I think of the lizards airing their tongues
In the crevice of an extremely small shadow
And the toad guarding his heart's droplet.
The desert is white as a blind man's eye,
Comfortless as salt. Snake and bird
Doze behind the old maskss of fury.
We swelter like firedogs in the wind.
The sun puts its cinder out. Where we lie
The heat-cracked crickets congregate
In their black armorplate and cry.
The day-moon lights up like a sorry mother,
And the crickets come creeping into our hair
To fiddle the short night away.
30.8k
Lady, your room is lousy with flowers.
When you kick me out, that's what I'll remember,
Me, sitting here bored as a loepard
In your jungle of wine-bottle lamps,
Velvet pillows the color of blood pudding
And the white china flying fish from Italy.
I forget you, hearing the cut flowers
Sipping their liquids from assorted pots,
Pitchers and Coronation goblets
Like Monday drunkards. The milky berries
Bow down, a local constellation,
Toward their admirers in the tabletop:
Mobs of eyeballs looking up.
Are those petals of leaves you've paried with them ---
Those green-striped ovals of silver tissue?
The red geraniums I know.
Friends, friends. They stink of armpits
And the invovled maladies of autumn,
Musky as a lovebed the morning after.
My nostrils prickle with nostalgia.
Henna hags:cloth of your cloth.
They tow old water thick as fog.
The roses in the Toby jug
Gave up the ghost last night. High time.
Their yellow corsets were ready to split.
You snored, and I heard the petals unlatch,
Tapping and ticking like nervous fingers.
You should have junked them before they died.
Daybreak discovered the bureau lid
Littered with Chinese hands. Now I'm stared at
By chrysanthemums the size
Of Holofernes' head, dipped in the same
Magenta as this fubsy sofa.
In the mirror their doubles back them up.
Listen: your tenant mice
Are rattling the ******* packets. Fine flour
Muffles their bird feet: they whistle for joy.
And you doze on, nose to the wall.
This mizzle fits me like a sad jacket.
How did we make it up to your attic?
You handed me gin in a glass bud vase.
We slept like stones. Lady, what am I doing
With a lung full of dust and a tongue of wood,
Knee-deep in the cold swamped by flowers?
14.7k
Can't sleep, it's always the same.
I get to my room, exhausted, lie in my bed,
Close my eyes and the Sleepless Fairy
decides to take the reins of the situation.
Maybe if I go to my computer and surf for a while
I could doze off. Maybe I'll go out and have a cigarette
to calm the Fairy. No, this insomnia is different. I can't fix it
with simple solutions.
This wakefulness is not due to the anxiety of an exam,
or the diffidence I have for that one girl I can't get out
of my head. This insomnia is that small sparkle of
uncertainty that has abounded my mind for a long time.
That feeling of vagueness, of yearning. Yearning of what?
I don't know.
It is simply that feeling that I'm missing something,
whatever it is. I go around the whole day in my mind,
what am I missing? What am I forgetting?
During the day I'm acquiescent, lucid, happy.
But come night... time to go to bed.
Time to perform the daily check for recent events.
Catalog the occurrences with different feelings,
accommodated to their respective memories.
But there's something missing.
I curse the Fairy and its 1001 tricks that keep me
awake and conscious about that which is in the
subconscious.
Will the day come when the Fairy shows up no more?
As long as that feeling is housed in me, like a parasite
clogged on its new victim, the Fairy will keep visiting.
Mar 29, 2013
Mar 29, 2013 at 9:19 PM UTC
They have watered the street,
It shines in the glare of lamps,
Cold, white lamps,
And lies
Like a slow-moving river,
Barred with silver and black.
Cabs go down it,
One,
And then another,
Between them I hear the shuffling of feet.
Tramps doze on the window-ledges,
Night-walkers pass along the sidewalks.
The city is squalid and sinister,
With the silver-barred street in the midst,
Slow-moving,
A river leading nowhere.
Opposite my window,
The moon cuts,
Clear and round,
Through the plum-coloured night.
She cannot light the city:
It is too bright.
It has white lamps,
And glitters coldly.
I stand in the window and watch the
moon.
She is thin and lustreless,
But I love her.
I know the moon,
And this is an alien city.
9.9k
Ruler of beauty
Grace as a dove
Thy name Aphrodite
Goddess of love
Power to sway
Thy lustful mind
Ability to lure
Man of every kind
Appealing charm
Equal summers rose
Thou pleasant aroma
Could make all man doze
****** attraction
Alludes all thy wants
Goddess so elegant
Created thy flaunts
One defect slays
Aphrodite soul within
Profound jealousy for
Psyche thy alleged twin
Aug 6, 2014
Aug 6, 2014 at 11:01 PM UTC
Flittering, fluttering, dancing in their flight
Glittering like emeralds throughout the night
The dance begins before sunset and goes on by the light of the moon
It is a ritual we hope won't end soon
In May every lightning bug gets excited
To this dance every firefly is invited
The dance begins when they hover in the air
Then one by one turn on their light for flair
They spin, dip, and dive
While others are continuing to arrive
The lightning bugs continue on through the night
Showing off their little lanterns of light
Finally, they come to a close
After this long dance, a firefly has to doze
Like candles being blown out, the green flashes of light are no more
But not to worry, they will continue for weeks until the final encore
May 29, 2015
May 29, 2015 at 9:43 AM UTC
As you doze off tonight,
I'll toss and turn.
As your sweet dreams take flight,
I'll crash and burn.
While your heart flutters free,
I still can't breathe.
And when you stir in your sleep,
I hope you think of me.
Sep 23, 2014
Sep 23, 2014 at 11:24 PM UTC
Happy the lab'rer in his Sunday clothes!
In light-drab coat, smart waistcoat, well-darn'd hose,
Andhat upon his head, to church he goes;
As oft, with conscious pride, he downward throws
A glance upon the ample cabbage rose
That, stuck in button-hole, regales his nose,
He envies not the gayest London beaux.
In church he takes his seat among the rows,
Pays to the place the reverence he owes,
Likes best the prayers whose meaning least he knows,
Lists to the sermon in a softening doze,
And rouses joyous at the welcome close.
5.5k
As a child the frustration and aggravation we caused our parents counting down the days until Christmas or our Birthday.
And those afternoons in elementary school trying not to doze off while counting the minutes until the dismissal bell would ring.
The older I got the more I've counted my life away.
Count the years until 16 to be able to drive and be free.
Count the years until 21 to be able to drink and feel like a grownup.
Counting the months then years of the length of each relationship
Waiting to be wed.
Then counting the negative pregnancy tests over and over becoming hopeless that I would ever be able to count little toes and fingers.
Counting the tears that I shed for my husband, as the fairy tale family I dreamed of turned into a nightmare.
Counting the nights left alone, scared and waiting for him to return home.
Counting the minutes between each contraction.
Counting the moments before my miracle would arrive.
Then counting the staples in my belly where she had to be taken from my body so that we would survive.
Finally counting ten piggies and ten little fingers
Counting the hours and days daddy left us alone and scared in the hospital for him to party and drink.
Counting the paragraphs on the separation papers
Counting the steps to the court house
Counting the people watching as my romance and love was flushed away
Counting the almost endless nights praying for me and my baby
Counting her smiles, counting her wishes
Counting her Birthday's
Counting the moments I am blessed to be her mom
Counting the hours of work to be able to return home to her.
I will spend my lifetime counting.
Feb 2, 2015
Feb 2, 2015 at 2:40 PM UTC
And in the whitest dark I
Ask for only that
To keep
Me there, for just the span of
Your snowglobe smile
That aftershock nightlight in the
Afternoon heat
Wait for me there
With your bayonet heart
Hands
Shoulders
Beneath the powerline
Wire, asleep but for me
Awake but for
The rest
And doze after
Half-light dreams and
Headrush spotlights that
Blur and
Mar my
Little love frame
Bright night air, fill
Every niche
Till whole is all
And all is this
Nov 8, 2012
Nov 8, 2012 at 11:05 PM UTC
How many milligrams a day must you take to fill the emptiness your body is so used too.
depression feels like a fire,
burning your insides endlessly.
Bones wither away,
embers barely lit light the skin
that once knew it stood for more
than just skin.
Anxiety eats at you,
unknowingly your body has become cannibalistic.
There is a war raging inside your mind,
destroying the ability to decipher
what’s pain and what’s not.
here’s a bottle with 35 pills
I hope it helps.
" Don’t over-doze "
Aug 10, 2014
Aug 10, 2014 at 11:07 AM UTC
While continuing
My voyage across the sea
Aboard this gracious ship
Here I am spinning
A web of disgrace
In the name of seafarers
Around the open sea
Looking forward to
An islander's love
As I doze into below deck
While the ship rocks me to sleep
Caressing
As I nest
This lovely sea gull
So gingerly
Gazing in it's eyes
With passion
As I set her free
To the open winds
While I'm dreaming at sea
Feb 11, 2010
Feb 11, 2010 at 5:48 AM UTC
It’s a new day dawning yet we’re still living in the past
Embracing colonialism and saving the rest for last
You know, the rest meaning the other cultures because you think they don’t matter
But it’s time for that glass of classism and racism to shatter
It’s funny how when I go to University I’m rarely taught by people who look like me
No matter how much the white lecturers may try, they will never understand my cultural identity
So don’t get mad if I doze off in your lecture because I just can’t relate
If I speak up I may start the great debate
Learning about Ancient Greeks and those who lived in Rome is fine
But what about the indigenous people of the Caribbean or stories of what went through the slave’s mind?
University is more than just learning about what makes Western culture great
There’s more to this world that we can truly celebrate
America and Haiti both had a revolution
So if we want to make a change we need to come up with a solution
It’s a new day dawning and we plan to decolonise
Despite our obstacles, we will rise
Mar 29, 2017
Mar 29, 2017 at 7:39 AM UTC
The dreamy sea washed ashore bringing
little bubbles of life to its end
Children splashed and jumped as wave after wave fell in
Bucket and ***** at the ready as castles from the sky
formed from minds in youth and fairy tales
Cream at the ready as grandads cap retreats
crisped from the comfort of his strippy deckchair he waits
Mothers blankets blown from the wind held down by
a shoe to be lost and a stone found yet not cast
These were the days we remember
These are the days we forget
These are the days to be treasured
A fine sad old memory from a past we most had
Ice cream sounds calling at fathers request
Is grandma still yawning from bingo's night fest
a donut for mother all sugared and warm
don't forget Charlie as woof is all heard
A match game of cricket from children about
or footy at lunchtime sweet sand in your mouth
These were the days we remember
These are the days we forget
These are the days to be treasured
A fine sad old memory from a past we most had
Asleep from the sun and a sneaky quick pint
as dad tries to doze be free to unwind
A call for 3 strikes as rounders is found
hear grandad all snoring more cream to be crowned
Tis time for a dip to twinkle your toes
to jump back a mile oh blimey its cold
These are the memories all children should have
a time when no phones when a time wasn't planned
No little computers to spoil the day
just fun and great memories of children at play
A time when your family all joined in the fun
a shame we have lost this to greed and the sun
Jun 16, 2012
Jun 16, 2012 at 1:33 AM UTC
As swarm of aggressive multi-coloured ants,
Evening traffic charms the highway,
Eerie tree shadows haunt the carriageway at three o'clock,
Shadows will reconfigure and extend as time passes through the sundial of my trip,
This burning night, on the way to smoky city,
Inflames the melting tyres, smoking as if sticky molten caramel,
Bathes highway with red hot haze,
I jump as air conditioning, kicks in,
Conning me my journey's nearly done,
In the heat of the evening sun,
Wakes me from my slumbers doze,
Traffic slows through rush hour jams,
Dances,weaving lane to lane,
Through rush hour congestion's indigestion!
By ladylivvi1
© 2013 ladylivvi1 (All rights reserved)
Jul 12, 2013
Jul 12, 2013 at 6:05 PM UTC
This terribleness. The blur of traffic lights and puddles paints Los Angeles on my face at night. It's so hard to know who will doze in my blind spots. Sunflower seeds and ******* lining the carpet. I sat on the front porch for five hours gutting the wolves from my appendices. Usually the headaches go away with the squashing of the lights. Fluorescents are the worst, halogens second, and 60-watt 120-volt light bulb the bane of my existence. I look at my phone but I cannot summon a quirky 120 character quip. I need excedrin but all I have to grape flavored children's aspirin. I should have asked for the water. How many unfinished glasses of water have I left around this world?
Maybe Bruce and I will squash after work. I can hear his weekly catalog of two night stands with those married transient women who drive from Santa B. I hate golf, I could have made carried a career in this resentment. Maybe rolling down the window will alleviate some of this pressure. Maybe it's barometric pressure, The Baby is here in time to drag the houses out to sea. It feels like Michelangelo is carving The David in my head and it's the chiseling I've never wanted. It's Tuesday and the drugs were horrible. They killed five of them today. We wrapped their heads in blankets from the Thrifty, and had to have the interns find clothes that would fit for the Christian caskets. Two days until Giving Thanks Day.
I am wrapped in copper and stuck in amber. I am acquitted by nonsense and stipulation, sick with nausea and pushing my forehead into the steering wheel. This is all terrible. The lying I've never told myself. The people that don't even know it's lying. Her and I always seem to escape with our happiness and pleasure in tow. The odds are slim, but our clothes have never fit too tightly.
Nov 25, 2014
Nov 25, 2014 at 2:54 AM UTC
BOX cars run by a mile long.
And I wonder what they say to each other
When they stop a mile long on a sidetrack.
Maybe their chatter goes:
I came from Fargo with a load of wheat up to the danger line.
I came from Omaha with a load of shorthorns and they splintered my boards.
I came from Detroit heavy with a load of flivvers.
I carried apples from the Hood river last year and this year bunches of bananas from Florida; they look for me with watermelons from Mississippi next year.
Hammers and shovels of work gangs sleep in shop corners
when the dark stars come on the sky and the night watchmen walk and look.
Then the hammer heads talk to the handles,
then the scoops of the shovels talk,
how the day's work nicked and trimmed them,
how they swung and lifted all day,
how the hands of the work gangs smelled of hope.
In the night of the dark stars
when the curve of the sky is a work gang handle,
in the night on the mile long sidetracks,
in the night where the hammers and shovels sleep in corners,
the night watchmen stuff their pipes with dreams-
and sometimes they doze and don't care for nothin',
and sometimes they search their heads for meanings, stories, stars.
The stuff of it runs like this:
A long way we come; a long way to go; long rests and long deep sniffs for our lungs on the way.
Sleep is a belonging of all; even if all songs are old songs and the singing heart is snuffed out like a switchman's lantern with the oil gone, even if we forget our names and houses in the finish, the secret of sleep is left us, sleep belongs to all, sleep is the first and last and best of all.
People singing; people with song mouths connecting with song hearts; people who must sing or die; people whose song hearts break if there is no song mouth; these are my people.
3.6k
i saw my little cat in my christmas tree
taking of the baubles and bringing them to me
dropped them at my feet all placed upon the floor
then gently running back to go and get some more
he climbed up to the top and brought the fairy down
with her magic wand and a lovely golden gown
then he got the tinsel rolled and rolled around
in between the tinsel he was truly bound
he managed to escape undone it from his head
crawled in to the corner and jumped into his bed
his little game was over his eyes began to close
he curled in a ball to have his little doze
Dec 28, 2013
Dec 28, 2013 at 10:29 AM UTC
Crushed, crushed, crushing
The struggle to expand
- and my throat is closing again
Heat, hot, dry
Floats over ribs
Seemingly detached
Yet hugging me tight
Claustrophobic
- And this sickness
(I'm sick of this sickness)
Threatens to rise out
Threatens, bubbles, teases
But I'm all shut up now
Not a whisper to escape
Tired.
Brain fogs
Fingers doze
All is fuzzed over
All is removed
All is discomfort
Sep 29, 2014
Sep 29, 2014 at 4:08 PM UTC
Oh your milk which calms me down
I love it so much that it forgets why I frown
Please Rin, please let me enjoy being close
I wouldn't want yet to doze
Though the land of dreams is not as sweet as your gaze
Please don't lleave please let me admire your face
Its those piercing eyes of yours which I chase
your warmth which I can enjoy
So what do you say dear, do you wanna cuddle ?
After we leave eachother in a puddle (of sweat)
From being close....
~ Umi
Dec 16, 2017
Dec 16, 2017 at 4:44 PM UTC
Dizzy and uncontrolled, I open my eyes to see the smoke crowding the air.
For, my body has just become a safe haven for your hands.
Temptation has won tonight.
Moonlight is dancing upon our bare bodies and I am immersed in pure satisfaction.
Our lips have synced with the circadian rhythm we possess and the fire has started to erupt.
As the flames get more and more intense, so does the love we pretend to have for each other.
It continues to grow until we convince ourselves it’s real.
The bedsheets serve as our common ground for our broken hearts to rest on.
As we are climbing and pretending; pretending and climbing,
The fire is getting hotter, the love is getting cloudier, and our bodies are getting heavier against on another’s.
Faint whispers of phrases we dare not say otherwise fill the room.
Finally, the fire is extinguished and we are left to lay with nothing but reality.
Clutching each other for protection from yet another fire, we doze off hoping to wake up in love with each other.
Apr 6, 2014
Apr 6, 2014 at 4:04 PM UTC