"eighths" poems
Aine sits in our big chair,
Her legs stretched out,
Her feet are bare;
I'm counting ten wee toes for her,
Toes I love so dear.
They lead her from the crib to stairs,
Though never far from loving care;
Those ten wee toes we love so dear,
Will take her far,
Will lead her there.
They'll get ***** in the garden
While laughing in the rain;
They'll be her fins
When she swims,
They'll wiggle
When she sings.
They'll tap out eighths and quarters
When she plays her songs;
She'll slip them into runners
For a race to last life-long.
They'll get cold on the rink
When she plays our game;
We'll rub those toes quite vigorously
To warm the ice-cold sting.
They'll fit right into heels and pumps
When she plays her game;
But for me those liddle toes of hers
Will always be the same.
Nov 25, 2015
Nov 25, 2015 at 11:00 AM UTC
Unborn
You were alive and kicking
one third a child and one half me
But I was half the person
I was half-dead and hurting
And now I'm half-alive, half-dead, half-empty and half-full
Alive enough to feel the dead part of me that's missing.
In this world I can never make sense of
That makes the unnatural seem so right
Everything natural lead to you, and now I'm siding with the unnatural.
I'm living with half myself and no more you
Beautiful, alive and kicking
Kicking me into the unnatural world and yourself into oblivion
You're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in black and white
But nothing about this was black or white
I'm fifty shades away from the greyest grey
And I miss you. Even if we'll never speak. I miss how much you scared me. I miss my natural world. My world of alcohol and *** and cigarettes and love and me at the centre.
And I still picked me. But you're half me.
This natural world is unfair; people who want you can't get you and people who don't want you do.
Now I'm siding with the unnatural.
But it's too grey to handle, too complex
never as beautiful as you
It's mother's Day today and I am no mother.
And even in your non-existence my hair is turning grey.
What I didn't realise when I ****** the life out of you is that I ****** some of the life out of me, too.
I know you cannot feel, but I wish I could have comforted you as you became sixths and eighths and suddenly nothing to be afraid of any more.
I wish I could have held you and briefly been your mother for just a second as you left me and as you screamed.
But you can't scream.
No, you're just cells. I'm just cells.
A nervous system away from you and
cords and worlds apart.
I wish I could have gone with you to your world as I felt the artificial peace of mine when you left me in my sleep.
I think I will prefer your world to this unnatural one.
Mar 30, 2014
Mar 30, 2014 at 5:30 PM UTC
This eraser is my trust,
huge isn’t it,
there’s so much to give
I have given it to you, now be careful
the more mistakes you make
the less there is,
the more you play with it,
the more it breaks,
the less you care for it,
the more that you lose it,
follow these guidelines,
you’ll be fine,
One, don’t draw on it,
it’s not a paper it’s an eraser,
it can get forget your mistakes,
unless they're written on there,
Two. don’t let anyone borrow it,
I’m trusting you, only you
to care for my eraser,
to be sure that you can handle it
Three, don’t break it in half,
or in fourths, not even eighths,
may seem like more but really,
it’s just easier to lose,
and once it's gone,
you can’t ever have it back.
Jul 1, 2013
Jul 1, 2013 at 3:31 PM UTC
The notes of the song -
the quarter notes
the half notes,
eighths and sixteenths
triplets and all variations -
they form in my brain
through the speaker to my ears
and form a picture,
ever flowing and moving
that depicts, sometimes,
your face and your body.
Images of different sorts
some with color and some with out
that can relax and satiate
or do the opposite
and deviate
from the normal cooing
of my heart,
creating an anxiety matched by no other.
The pictures becoming what I see in front of me
as I walk around in life. My brain and nerves -
dancing along
singing their own words to the song
and making everything right
that was once wrong.
And I’m not sure if you will get this
and understand what I mean
but I know my thoughts will never be clean
of images from sounds
dancing all around.
Jun 28, 2010
Jun 28, 2010 at 10:36 AM UTC
That dark patterned line
crossing straight the moon,
centering the frozen sphere-gate
of a misty autumn night-sky,
is not a cloud to sink down on only
and float subtly for a while
< so I can feel the aura of your skin mixing with the mine >
but it is also a five line staff
and tells me an aurally perceived absolute secret so that ,
through my hearing ,
you will
rise,
glide,
twirl
and cross
other lines,
tune my gaze
and engrave a mystic score beyond your shine,
plant each of ‘you’s,
note by note,
in ones, halves, fourths, eighths , sixteenths and ‘pi’s
in the heart of each
<beyond the clouds away from my reach>
twinkling star
so that anyone that could look up with a heart,
<maybe on a clear night sky>
would see a commencing song-
singing the dance of an ever weaving light-story
visible to those eyes with a knowing only that
<the knowing about a wish is
a wish that shall eternally be kept a secret>
has the enlightening technology to recreate a reflecting galaxy
with an authentic memory
that expands infinitesimally
<which we in our terms would say it expands by love
but in truth would not really know how
unless the terms are lost and we have got no time except to > - be now-
be now
be now with me now
and now and only now
be now and with me now
and only now and now
Would you come and meet me then?
there?
but I don’t know where… just there?
wherever all these sky lookers are
and be one of them, again ? as we did once– on a terrace
one summer night, we watched our own story under stars, among crowds while I asked for your light and you kissed me awake for eternity and so
would you let me kiss you this time - one more time
just for the last time and forget that eternity eternally this time?
Nov 13, 2014
Nov 13, 2014 at 11:37 AM UTC
For seven-eighths of each day
I long for those instantaneous moments of
Unbridled joy.
I bid so long to Marianne
As I hear the full bubble of wine
And welcome Suzanne
And the fullness of her moistened lips.
Oh, if the eyes are portals to the soul,
Then the throat must positively be the vessel
To all that soothes the thunder
and causes our souls to shudder
In the watery pits of our gut.
These toxic tonics that we hold
Betwixt our baneful id,
And our most pathetic of egos.
This lamb that tames the lion,
Purple hearted with paranoia
and a lack of trust to rival even the most barbarous
Of governments.
**** me or don’t.
Perhaps the only mark of solace in this life
Is to be stabbed in the front
And to avoid the hustling of the scheming lovers
Behind the roman blinds of your devotion.
Set fire to Marianne.
You can lay with Suzanne
But don’t share a smoke with her.
Because she will take.
And take.
Take.
T.
Sep 12, 2012
Sep 12, 2012 at 10:47 AM UTC
I wake up,
I never sleep
I fill my lungs,
I never breathe
I move my lips,
I never speak
Broken pipes that never leak
I open eyes,
I cannot see
I spire thoughts
I cannot teach
I drip in eighths,
I cannot listen
Outside you see happiness
on the inside theres nothing,
but tortured souls that cannot glisten
Jul 1, 2013
Jul 1, 2013 at 4:54 AM UTC
He still felt deafened by the terrible noise
From the huge field guns that both sides had
Been firing hour after hour for four days. You
Could be scared to death just from the noise.
An eighth didn’t seem like much
Two sixteenths
Four thirty-seconds
Eight sixty-fourths
Sixteen one hundred and twenty-eighths.
Following his recent promotion to Colonel
He was sitting in his new office at his new desk
Hesitating to put his pen to paper
Resisting the inevitable sorrow to come.
He was writing down the numbers – thinking
Thirty two two hundred and fifty-sixths
Sixty four five hundred and twelfths.
Now the numbers looked much bigger.
When he reached
Five hundred and twelve as a
fraction of four thousand and ninety-six
He stopped.
The number now seemed insurmountable
Yet it was still that small fraction.
But he now had to write to that number
Of wives, mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters
And tell them that their boy would
Never again walk through their front door.
An eighth is so much more than just a fraction.
©JRW2014
Feb 7, 2014
Feb 7, 2014 at 3:22 PM UTC
The hollow of the cheek, rosy yet
Maplewood, quiet, yet stirring
breathless against the pale of the thigh
Eyes flicker in eighths upward touch secret blue
Hers is the downbeat of his coronary bolero
He, the maestro for her skyward glissando-
the unspoken, unbroken fermata
in the dying wash of sound
in the instant before the applause.
Sep 10, 2012
Sep 10, 2012 at 4:02 PM UTC
And at him She
can't get up *****
***** She won't get
Down roundest town
She got snow seek ritz.
Not in ease et al.
Sipped at air
Owe win.
Thin call parties
Heard ur now
Sewn unwell been
In fight head.
Know shuns Felt
Ired real lies ten
Spied her
Sell fear yeah till
All ill own.
Thoughts big inner red
sighed dread kin days
pull its fair ingots
true an ask whoop
A Fool.
Errand freight sands
rebate witch whit
Wit sending she sings
A mall of us
Sudden leaps
wings to retch doubt
stun dare each tout
Ooh dues we
fund her joy
none drive all seas
Her Hollers treat tang
Urge greed sold eighths
Whim bling out
Loud Uncle Ear....
All good thin geese
must
calm.
tune
in.
Jan 10, 2014
Jan 10, 2014 at 11:59 AM UTC
What flawed design is this? Framed by greed, eyed by chance,
Do you think so easily you can entrap me in this dance?
It is a marriage contract in which I have no choice -
I have no ground, no sound, no voice...
I cannot. What? Either it is my future or my siblings' in jeopardy.
I exaggerate - We can afford this, but barely.
Minimum student loan: The bane of many, the burden of many
Burden of unrealistic measures. You ask me to live off borrowed money
On borrowed time? You ask me to learn as others did off reflections from the past,
When time has moved on, and moved on fast?
When the world is barking at these measures, and still it continues,
And I, at risk of being denied an education, cannot refuse
To do things, not just by halves, but by even by eighths.
And would I, I would refuse another year, and hope the Fates
Prove kind. Do they prove kind to those who complain?
Who ever loved a rebel, when the rebel was alone?
Sep 16, 2021
Sep 16, 2021 at 5:02 PM UTC
Intention can mold a face
On either side of the head
Seven eighths shadowed
And one half lit
Bridged nose comprehending
Life-red cheeks
And seeking.
Sun-heated path
In any direction
Meets oak park benches
By park lamps.
Feet tinged by chilled swaying greenery;
Move forward,
Or change faces and digress?
Jan 17, 2014
Jan 17, 2014 at 10:33 AM UTC
Soma
a pharmaceutical usurpation
some subjunctive psychedelic
noxious decoction
of the capital kind
wrought by unoriginality
a conjuring elixir
to ignite the material mind
Maya
will have you
if you don't recognize
behind appearances
is always a disguise
beyond the superficial
over what eyes can surveil
may entitle you to what is
to be entailed
Yuga
beyond the ages
beyond the sages
epochs and eras
multiplied to infinity
expecting some recourse
exponential beyond sanity
gauges of the cyclical planetary
Akasha
ubiquitous aether
all pervading
all invading
revelations' recordings
substratum of
then and now
rife marshaler of how
Ishwara
great atman
ultimate overseer
transcending all time
cosmic conscience
consciousness sublime
beyond everything
sight unseen
Samadhi
reign over me
the be all and end all
of life's raisons d'être
superconsciousness
enlightenments
bestowal
of divine grace and mercy
Gunas
by knowledge of these moods
this will allow you
ambrosia of all roads
in your journey ahead
to navigate solely
without flag or fail
through equipoise unassailed
Ahimsa
through this your lips
can no longer trespass
over your welfare
or the welfare of any other
true liberation
from human inebriation
true love for one another
Siddhis
they will misunderstand you
not being like the same
eschewing commonality
for the perfected mindscape
a narrowed perspective
to focus more completely
upon the rarest of views
Om
what can be said
of this holiest sound
that permeates all ethers
the skies and the grounds
Brahman of this plane
and all that surrounds
now perish all that confounds
Jul 27, 2016
Jul 27, 2016 at 7:06 PM UTC
they are taking all of the ideas which once worked
and are forcing them into the corpses of dead horses
kids are slitting each others’ throats for the clothes on their backs
or are in charity stores stealing from the poor
the tension in the air at the dinner party has half of us
leaning on lean towards outlawdom and fifty dollar eighths
a spark of flint in the dark gives away your position on the wrong side of tracks
with eyeballs and ears waiting around every single ******* corner
so now private is *********** and they are ************ with fury
the constant race with fake identities until we find one that is safe
we caught a glimpse of the earth turning lazily on its axis
and realized how far away we all are from hand holding kumbaya camp fires
the tribes of black and metal and steel and concrete and blood are tearing through the land
and they don’t tend to take prisoners
we kept on churning out the same ******** and then got confused when they all stopped eating
so now they hunt for new witches to scapegoat
burning them on crosses and pyres until all the screaming ceases
all we can do is find a little inch of free ground
and defend it with all we have got
Mar 17, 2014
Mar 17, 2014 at 1:00 PM UTC
One day our spines’ll tesselate under sage soft duvets as storms sweep across us and no one will cry;
not one noise shall slip from tongues
‘cos strength comes from keeping quiet
or carrying on.
You’re a now realised kindness that doesn’t know what breath is
or how the north circular works in festive rush hours home,
but I’ll kiss the answers upon your tender carbon tapered chest and hope the toner never runs low
(your dad would’ve handcrafted every thing he knew in semaphore if he’d have pulled through,
but you’ll learn in time, too, that time does not ruin fewer experiences than being).
I lean in. Whisper this (above) across your one body,
three eighths the size of a coffee table hardback book:
the result of patience pined for
that I mimed along to motherhood the best I could for nine months
and now, here, I lift the hood and work out what to do next in this rush to settle down and sit,
sip until you snooze off into silence.
Here I carry you and do not notice the weight,
stare at the gape of you, my newly framed little one held in the palm of my hand,
squat full four pinter named after someone we knew.
You landed lunar surface side up,
smoothed new to the toes
and I wonder how I’ll meet you
I wonder how this goes.
Feb 28, 2016
Feb 28, 2016 at 3:13 AM UTC
"One eighth of my heart is for tea & penning silly things on blank pages."
she murmurs under her slow breaths.
A little inward gasp falters her heartbeat upon the realization that the seven eighths of her heart has been unwittingly stolen by Mister Him.
"Sweet-heart, you have managed to take one ∞ of mine."
His voice is like buttery sunshine on winter-bitter skin.
"That's not possible, silly boy!"
Her smile punctuating each letter, sighs of bliss lives in the spaces.
"What I meant was: You have taken all of me. Not just my heart.
Soul & body.
The little kaleidoscope of moments I think at 2am are already hopelessly tangled with that hell of a smile, the astute wittiness
and
the
curve
of
your waist."
For now, I have only taken one whole of your lips. I think. He pauses and winks a upside crescent moon.
I have made you
speechless.
Apr 16, 2014
Apr 16, 2014 at 8:42 AM UTC
My pupils are turning green
that loot, that coin, that greed
money doesn't grow on trees
**** straight, but I throw cash
on eighths, domed so my foot
don't hit the brake.
high on the way, I don't tail gate
I pass
Hear a bump in my trunk
my stash,
rattlin' around to the amp,
off that ramp, round the corner to the
courthouse,
sippin' on a shake
bought with food stamps
**** this I'm out
home to crash on the couch
and scheme
cream, cream, I want my cheese
stacked like chedda' on the line
at my minimum wage grind
Cops gave me a fine
like I got time to pay that ****
can't blame 'em though
they tryin' to get what I got
in my pocket
my wallet
you called it
Money
Apr 25, 2013
Apr 25, 2013 at 7:34 PM UTC
montréal, je t’aime.
—but sometimes, you can be so loud,
so noisy,
that i wish i could cut you into eighths;
devour you, piece-by-piece,
eat away the hustle and bustle until
silence is all that beckons to me from the dark.
May 30, 2011
May 30, 2011 at 9:45 AM UTC
There is an edge.
To me.
Where the lines meet the air, where I am a juxtaposition between the earth and the sky.
Where I am black or white,
Never grey.
There is an edge,
Folded in half, into quarters, into eighths,
Into infinity edges are folded
To fit, to puzzle, to contain
A box, a boat, a decision.
There is an edge,
There is the stopping point,
There is a long way down,
A line I cannot cross
A place I have dared to venture,
And died a thousand times.
There is an edge,
And here I sit on the precipice,
Here I contemplate the fall,
Contemplate the sky holding the air,
Sharp to the tongue, and whipped into the ears
Here is the edge
Where the mind and the heart,
Do not cross,
Multiple edges, of juxtaposition,
Of falling, of dying, of breaking,
Between the earth and the sky,
The black and the white,
The heart and the break.....
There is an edge,
Where I sit and contemplate,
The line between life and death,
The edge between safety and chaos,
Between fear and bliss.
There is an edge,
to me,
Where my edges met yours,
Where lines were crossed,
Where bliss met fear,
Where the edges of my heart,
Thawed,
Where my edges met yours,
Between the earth and the sky.
And I'm here on this edge,
And in tears I wonder why.
Jan 21, 2018
Jan 21, 2018 at 8:26 AM UTC
maybe i need to accept my flaws
what flaws?
no darling no more denial
you jump without leaping
leap without jumping
you dont think about the situation in its entirety
you didnt think about the situation surrounding her
you just saw her and your feelings for her
you didnt think you just leaped
youu leaped without jumping
and jumped without leaping
you need to do both
you need to jump and leap
you need to remember that situations come in wholes
not halves or quarters or eighths
they come in wholes
jump and leap my darling
jump and leap
Aug 30, 2017
Aug 30, 2017 at 12:26 AM UTC
After forgetting to sharpen her saw,
Wanda the Wonderful truncated her act,
Cutting her assistant in half,
Instead of eighths.
The crowd loved it just as much.
Injuries down a quarter.
May 28, 2025
May 28, 2025 at 4:40 PM UTC