"dusted" poems
I can’t wait to be a hundred;
turning over the thoughts
and plots, of Caledon
floating on Zimmer inserts
and dusted Florsheims
three steps forward
in a dream woven
summer afternoon
Through the barn doors
and bee keeper flats
assimilating voices
from Sachems
and Forbes
and Hope Healers
coming and going
as the countryman
comes and goes
You can feel it
in a place like this
the 3 in the tree memories
of Allis Chalmers
and combine parts
of Sundrim poppers
and shallow carp fields
of patterned lawsons
and fading caulk
(on the ripped and rolled
frontier seats)
it’s a wishing well
for the peddler
and bold hydrangea...
both peeking their way
through the rusted
grinders wheel
Jan 24, 2017
Jan 24, 2017 at 11:55 PM UTC
it falls through the glow of the wintry trees
building a cover under the breeze
luminous lights sparkle and hatch
snow pack high on the briar patch
pine cones fall from rustic fir
squirrel and robin shuffle and stir
sitka spruce at tunnel bluffs
ravens roost on the cedar rough
dusted peaks at hurley pass
snowline cuts the avalanche
fox and lynx are on the prowl
hollow eyes from spotted owl
cool winds up the valley trail
whirling snow round diamond vale
chilling flakes in candle hands
moonlight shines across the land
northern lights in krypton green
the sounds of verve are bitter sweet
curtains hang from a cold dark sky
counting stars, a lullaby
Feb 17, 2017
Feb 17, 2017 at 12:17 AM UTC
Once, a boy came, new to the coast
tall figure, his skin supple dusted with white,
he was silent at times, quite
sometimes laughing like a child,
vulnerable yet strong, she sees.
The mermaid was in awe, but she didn’t realize,
a crashing wave, that’s what he is.
Day by day, she drowned herself
In thoughts under her ocean dream;
baffled by his presence, in doubt she continued.
On the third tide of their apogee,
without warning the boy vanished,
like a wind, leaving no trace, not a foam.
Devastated, in losing her one precious pearl,
the mermaid cried in remorse.
Every night she sang to the skies,
until she felt an ethereal glow,
deep down she knew
what was needed to be said.
A celestial granted, for once again they met.
In valor with trembling hands, a note she had professed.
Prospective and believing still
the prince she had wished for,
turned out to be nothing but a loving sin.
The mermaid smiled as she disappeared into the sea
with every song now comes a broken, and shattered dream.
Sep 27, 2016
Sep 27, 2016 at 10:33 AM UTC
~ Ode to Joy ~
White gold ambassador
canine past eight
soul seekers ascend
(from cirque to seven)
to peak
to peak
to peak
Saddlerock spearhead
ptarmigan
and flute
Christmas trees
in winter glades
over dusted crystal scape
Fissile (eiger) sanction
open shale and tusk
indiscriminate members
roll the bluffs
and ice falls
above the
north face steep
Dead silent dawn
breathless, bitter cold
the beating hearts
and brahmas
warm the spirit
of pakalolo
Dec 11, 2016
Dec 11, 2016 at 8:38 PM UTC
my tears aren’t forced
they flow in that
dark tunnel that she
dreamed so long ago
she wasn’t ready
to take her first steps
I wasn’t ready to
take mine without her.
Little things bring her back
like empty bowls or the tower
of books she’s never going to read.
People have been calling this a
trauma, but they’ve forgotten the
loneliness of life’s journey. She dreamed
a tunnel and added bright lights
and dusted the floor with powdery snow
she traveled far yet I can
only see the trails of
milk puddling around the lost key that she
dropped under blankets
of memory and phrases of
I-promise and tomorrow. I’m growing up as
she falls down. She wasn’t
perfect but that’s why it
was so easy to love her.
My journey’s ongoing, and the
deep undercurrents of pain and
grief are pulling me through
that tunnel.
I’m rowing softly by,
quietly, quietly,
as she is laid to rest.
her memories swallow the emptiness
she is kneeling at the throne.
I follow slowly and leave my
tears for her to know that life’s
path isn’t paved in water but
with sorrow, with endings, and with lost
boats on turbid seas.
Sep 29, 2015
Sep 29, 2015 at 7:56 AM UTC
Stardust dusted across your cheeks
Light brown ones, hard to see
The sun peaks
The warmth of the sun in your embrace
Your gravity is keeping me down
Unfamiliar space
Are you the milky way?
Am I the lonely astronaut?
Led astray
You are making my head spin
I am no moon, this isn't love
I can still taste the gin
From Mercury to Neptune the colors are all there
And time goes by, measure it by light years
Just stare
Sort of a single slingshot gravity
Keeps me from shooting further away.
The beauty, over your capacity
If the whole galaxy was in front of you,
would you come near it? Could you?
** When you are only allowed to enjoy the view **
Feb 20, 2016
Feb 20, 2016 at 6:53 PM UTC
No poem in the world could ever describe the abundance of love you have showed me. Nor every lyric to a love song could ever compare to how you take care of me, how you caress me into your arms for a hug after a bad day I was having and in that moment I knew everything was going to be alright with you by my side. Lovely Stoner I want you to know, you mended my broken heart and months ago I was on fire just waiting for myself to burn. But when you touched me, you turned that disastrous ugly burning fire, into a magnificent lovely firework and showed me off to the world just to remind me that my existence and my beauty is still admired by other people. Lovely stoner thank you for reminding me that I don't need to search for my other half because I'm not a half, I am full just by myself. That I am full of love and beauty that only a few people could ever see and you felt bad for them because they couldn't see it. Thank you for being good for my mental health, for loving my insecurities and my flaws and for making a heart for each of my flaws, because I should learn to love myself no matter what. For showing me that I don't have to prove my importance to other people because you said if somebody can't see what a masterpiece I am, they didn't know what art looked like and you called them amateurs. I remember you once told me I am like the moon, who goes through phases because of my mood swings and the moon isn't always bright and full, for I have my bad days and I feel this emptiness at times but you said "you don't ever stop loving her." You told me that throughout your dark time I was the moon to guide you through and the moon dusted has clouded your vision and I lit up your life like no one else has. In that moment you said the most honest and heartfelt thing to me and I've never been so close to anyone ever. Thank you for only making me cry out of laughter and my stomach doesn't even hurt from laughing and realizing in the middle of the laughter that you are the one. I wouldn't want to go through the bad times with someone else and through my good times I just want to spend it with you. Thank you for making every day as special as it can be and for having the patience with me. I love when you take me high through my lows. I know you aren't the romantic gesture type, but thank you for always showing you love me in the simple little gesture type of way. Thank you for accepting and loving me just the way I am lovely stoner.
Apr 2, 2016
Apr 2, 2016 at 10:37 PM UTC
i hate ice cream.
but when i was a child, ice cream was my mother's
band-aid
apology
celebration
reward
treat
synonymous with a cool rough hand on my forehead
far away now, in brown-dusted
cactus-studded hot hills
in baking cobblestone streets
between tall crooked stone buildings
i'm reaching for her hand
it melts sticky under my fingernails
and the taste is wrong in my mouth.
Jul 22, 2013
Jul 22, 2013 at 7:03 PM UTC
Fun is fun when it runs along in its merry way
but when the sky turns liquid gray
all the fun goes away
cause through my eyes
my dull gray eyes
I see right through your foolish lies
I know that you do not know
and I do not let it show
be that as it may
with my eyes of gray
powers of plenty
I look within my realms
of mind and heart
you can't look into them
you can't look away
from my enchanting eyes of gray
driving driving driven on
to other lands and a further dawn
the deserts sandy storm has blown
and all the dust be dusted clean
and filtered through the cracks unseen
© Crystal Erickson 2007
Dec 30, 2014
Dec 30, 2014 at 9:06 PM UTC
You picked me off of the damped earth,
dusted leaves and years of dust away,
sealed my cracks with kisses and tape of woven eyelashes.
I was afraid,
but I wanted to love you too.
So I said I would love you,
no, i promised.
That I would love you if you promised me this --
that you would never, ever leave.
your fingers were crossed.
Oct 8, 2012
Oct 8, 2012 at 11:16 PM UTC
we are the wild youth.
with lungs full of ocean water and ribs stained red with sunsets and roses
we have lilacs and honey dripping from our frozen fingertips
with watermelon smiles and candle wax eyes, we pull at our star dusted skin
and howl to the moon.
and with heads full of midnight and our veins swimming in twilight,
we dream our big dreams and pull down the stars, begging for our wishes to
come true
Sep 4, 2017
Sep 4, 2017 at 9:18 AM UTC
They weren’t all cut from the same cloth
*vilified tenders of the iron *****
some were lovers
(or lucid dreamers)
stage romantics
hidden behind jackboots
and skull caps
and switchblade seams
Caste members of a forlorn pack
counting their patchwork and deeds
conjuring up demons
around the console
filling their dreams
with radio reds
and dusted quarries
and faded sepia prints
Brass knuckles
and marches of the few
lightening bolt cracks
from a chilling blood moon
death’s dark specter
cold and ominous looms
the cobalt sea swells
near the nestled, and lost
Clubhouse at Kiusta
Jul 29, 2017
Jul 29, 2017 at 12:15 PM UTC
Let me love you in Silence,
I want to watch you,
observe all your pores
and spots where fine wrinkles have settled.
I want to see you
dance daintily like a flower
or grunt and hoof your way through space
like a grubby animal.
Either exalted or halted,
I want to hold you,
to cup your soft surrendered hands just like a clam shell,
and to cocoon
your weary beating body.
Let me love you in silence,
from afar
like a deer
hiding in the forest,
peeking out at the mysteries of the world.
I want to love you deeply
like the ocean loves the land
as she kisses its gentle shores
and runs away all too soon,
called by the moon.
I lay on the dusted hardwood of our home,
your washing the dishes and the fragrant smell of soap fills the air,
I lay underneath the door frame
tracing my eyes up and down your sweet body, your strong back hunched over. Hard working arms cleaning,
oh the little love secrets I keep to myself.
I want to run through meadows picking the most vibrant wildflowers
so I may lay them at your feet,
gently
quietly.
This yearning in my soul
words do not know this love,
these intangible feelings exuding.
I want to bathe you
in a claw foot tub
and in the silence
watch your eyes grow wide,
I want to see the wonderment
of a whole galaxy of stars glimmering inside you
before noise ushers such things away
before noise pulls me from this fantasy.
This dream that we are living,
it exists,
I know it does.
You can live it too, please please,
just close your eyes
and let love linger for a moment
feel loves sweet breathe
as she breathes in silence,
as she breathes
inside of you
and inside of me.
Apr 24, 2016
Apr 24, 2016 at 7:17 PM UTC
I am in levels. Past levels. This deep, intrinsic wonderful lost, the lawlessness of its fascinating expenditure of excite. Pushing through the wild and feral snow-dusted plains and timber ridges. Like red-spotted dots breathing through the cylinders called the spine. This descends into a narrow channel of scantly clad greenish scenery in a time-soaked visionary wilderness of snow,
Our crab legs dancing down wiry purple highways, our heads could not even look backwards if we had wanted.
Furious, love-latitudes, stalking breaths thwacking fork-ended tongues into a pinkish knot buried into the first layer of organic membrane on this railway of miniature canals, showing. And their pride snuck into the elbows, shooting down each vertebrae as it stepped with great precision every ledge that the currency emphasized. The raw accumulation of stolen heart-beats rattling between the interstices of new fuel careering these red engines. Crashing with exquisite pleasure into one another.
Apr 26, 2014
Apr 26, 2014 at 4:41 AM UTC
You don't need the smoky colored quartz dangling in your hair,
Or the liquid rubies painted onto your soft lips,
Or the powdered gold dusted onto your eyelids to hide the look of pain.
You don't need the silver buttons strung up your shirt to make your aura seem pure,
Or the perfect pearls around your throat to tease and allure,
Or the obsidian skirt hugging your thighs to add the finishing touch.
You don't need the diamond blade to make you bleed imperial topaz onto your marble floor,
Or the laxatives made of howlites to cut your figure thin,
Or the breast implants made of danburites to make you seem attractive.
You are worth more than the emeralds that people compare your eyes to.
You are worth more than the sapphires that make up the water in your body.
And you are worth more than the taaffeites that compose the air you breath.
You are a perfect angel without the expensive things.
Just sing sweet lullabies of the truth and be yourself,
To ensure you live in a beautiful reality.
Mar 5, 2015
Mar 5, 2015 at 9:31 AM UTC
Talk me down,
In meadows,
Lush,
Come touch me,
Undress me,
Love me,
Hold me,
In your heart and head,
As one,
Ravish me,
On fire,
While dancing through your art,
Hold my heart,
She'll kiss you,
When absent,
She'll miss you
Up and down,
Inside out,
She'll come long to greet you,
In style,
Fantasy met,
Talcum dusted,
Gold plated,
Saturated,
With her lovers art,
She bows to him,
I due respect,
And shares with him,
Her heart!
May 31, 2013
May 31, 2013 at 5:42 AM UTC
This is my world, this is my world.
All men and women wear eyeglasses.
All truths we are tasked to seek on dusted glasses
Of windowpanes behind the windowpanes.
Ah, we see clearer, said the top, we see better
If things are viewed on top, by top, the top
Refuses to see, they refuse the refuse.
Screen them, screen that. They will not see
Them, believe us, trust our hindsight, we have foresight
Bring us the microscope, that magnifying glass.
This is our world, you’re living in our world.
Wear that eyeglasses, we customized them for you.
Jun 6, 2016
Jun 6, 2016 at 11:13 PM UTC
All winter the fire devoured everything --
tear-stained elegies, old letters, diaries, dead flowers.
When April finally arrived,
I opened the woodstove one last time
and shoveled the remains of those long cold nights
into a bucket, ash rising
through shafts of sunlight,
as swirling in bright, angelic eddies.
I shoveled out the charred end of an oak log,
black and pointed like a pencil;
half-burnt pages
sacrificed
in the making of poems;
old, square handmade nails
liberated from weathered planks
split for kindling.
I buried my hands in the bucket,
found the nails, lifted them,
the phoenix of my right hand
shielded with soot and tar,
my left hand shrouded in soft white ash --
nails in both fists like forged lightning.
I smeared black lines on my face,
drew crosses on my chest with the nails,
raised my arms and stomped my feet,
dancing in honor of spring
and rebirth, dancing
in honor of winter and death.
I hauled the heavy bucket to the garden,
spread ashes over the ground,
asked the earth to be good.
I gave the earth everything
that pulled me through the lonely winter --
oak trees, barns, poems.
I picked up my shovel
and turned hard, gray dirt,
the blade splitting winter
from spring. With *** and rake,
I cultivated soil,
tilling row after row,
the earth now loose and black.
Tearing seed packets with my teeth,
I sowed spinach with my right hand,
planted petunias with my left.
Lifting clumps of dirt,
I crumbled them in my fists,
loving each dark letter that fell from my fingers.
And when I carried my empty bucket to the lake for water,
a few last ashes rose into spring-morning air,
ash drifting over fields
dew-covered
and lightly dusted green.
5.8k
the urban ecosystem
breeds the urban beast;
the two-legged feral brute
they board their clockwork motorcages
the young ones in predatious packs
the old, too weathered to care
animal autonomy
born from sweatshop routines
i imagine myself
as a metropolitan jane goodall
observing and assimilating
taking note of the cacophony of
hoots and and hollers
the city-born mating calls
the high-topped courtship dances
******* civility born from enslaved mindsets
a young, dark-skinned boy
let's rhyme flow freeformed
to the rhythm of a young girls dancing feet
stomps and claps excite the celebration
of abandoned social etiquette
and of my foreign presence
i resemble some exotic missing link
a mix of this, that and the other
my skin, a rare quilt
and this draws more attention
than a gold-dusted african queen
i place myself in the back
peering through the windows of this transit jungle
feeling my heart skip beats
boom...boom...shhhh...
i must've left my rhythm in my other heritage
because i can't catch the ancient flow
but my neck leads my head in bobs
my brain rattles with old soul memories
and i see these young folks on the train
held back by centuries of black struggle
but forever rejoicing in african pulse
forever embodying our ancestoral pride
and i think, how peculiar
on the outside looking in like a fishbowl
exiled from my own brown-skinned tribe
with my oppression fitted like a glove
my blackness a mere disguise
my blackness camouflage
my blackness
not quite
black
enough
Feb 1, 2012
Feb 1, 2012 at 4:45 PM UTC
She calmly unlocks the front door
as the wind flings the screen
through wild tantrums. She droops down
into her dusted rocker, pushing
with her lavender heels to start the sway.
Her sole taps softly,
as the chair creaks onto fallen lacquer
and the porch plays in discord
through dancing lace.
Interwoven hands lie atop her lap
in a sea of navy with floral ships
at its surface. Silver strands
fall from her clouded bun
and a few locks float past her sunken shoulders.
With jaded eyes she looks at the corner
to a poor table, where a cold candle
peaks among a grassy field of melted wax
riddled with burnt fuses.
And near the candle, a dusted white hat
remains anchored to the wooden surface.
She can still smell the stale cigar smoke
lingering in the room. “He’ll be here soon,”
she thinks as her daze slowly sets in.
The world seems quiet
as she fills her eyes with sleep
and the chair continues its march.
Her hands unlock from their grasp
and the screen door gently knocks.
Mar 23, 2014
Mar 23, 2014 at 6:19 PM UTC
Because the thirst wouldn’t simmer; it ruptured cities into boils,
turned cultures into armies, an armageddon of cheeky stubborn Irish Catholics and thick veined Germans couldn’t imagine a world without their stout hearty headed pint.
Because white dry protestant angels thought crime existed in a vacuum, in a filthy saw-dusted saloon, the hub spawn of evil.
Because twice as many of those saloons were ******* by unlicensed blind pigs, not through free swinging doors on the streets, but in the domestic sphere; in the dark crept crevices of household sanctuaries.
Because bootlegging capitalist princes turned the industry into a stenchy liability with their home brewed distilled poisons. Alky cookers wrapped the commodity fetish and dubbed it moonshine.
Moonshine – spirits for the poor and blind.
Because this social reform was a moral reform lost in the oblivion of politics, lost in the timeliness of progressive spring-cleaning referenda’s.
Because the ragged, toothless class had to be scold, striped clean of their traditional barings,
because wisdom is everything and they’re spirits ran vilely wild.
Sep 26, 2010
Sep 26, 2010 at 6:57 AM UTC
I'm grinding
and the dirt
I'm grinding
and the dirt
I'm grinding
and the dirt
And I don't
understand?
I DON'T UNDERSTAND.
please help me,
*"The clawed hand is not for shaking,
although it has amazing grip."* -zₑᵤₛ
*"Eat a pork shoulder
dusted in granite powder...
dash of cumen, a salty pinch
you'll get over it."* -ᴾᵉˡᵒᵖˢ
"He is a porky one isn't she?" -ᴱʳᶦˢ
Betty, uh, Ms. Page,
didn't it bother you?
"Bother me?"
Well you know,
being a person of God,
-doing those things for money?
*"Silly, I do what I do
BECAUSE I AM a believer!"* -ᴮᵉᵗᵗʸ ᴾᵃᵍᵉ
Feb 25, 2018
Feb 25, 2018 at 8:25 PM UTC
Talk me down,
In meadows,
Lush,
Come touch me,
Undress me,
Love me,
Hold me,
In your heart and head,
As one,
Ravish me,
On fire,
While I'm dancing,
Through your art,
Hold my heart,
She'll kiss you,
When absent,
She will miss you,
Up and down,
Inside out,
She'll come along to greet you,
In style,
A fantasy met,
Talcum dusted,
Gold plated,
Saturated,
With her lovers art,
She bows to him,
In due respect,
And shares with him,
Her heart!
Ladylivvi 31/05/2013
All rights reserved!
Aug 26, 2013
Aug 26, 2013 at 3:00 AM UTC