"engravings" poems
in this
pocketful
of limbo
the distance rises
in curls of smoke
a prairie fire
siphoning into
crisp edge
of forest
Inside my
uncloaked ventricle
primeval forces
turn my blood into
dusted gold
as they pump
sacred texts
into my oxygen
They roll your quintessence
upon my fingers,
playing inside
my psyche's
wild ache
a spread of orifice
in spellbound mantra,
as I spit out
the
hairy thorns,
a holy purge of
internal
engravings
Somehow ---
like a miracle,
I grow ripe seedlings
from deep within
my womb
as I trip into
a universe rising
I take wisps
of your grace
as it brushes
the jut of my
astral collarbone
You are always
grounding me
like this,
my tongue
tripping
over velvet
stance of warrior
assuaged into silk
Without you,
I might be
whisked off into
the periphery
of chaos
but instead
I am simply
tied to
the urgency
of the little novas
about to
explode
While I wait
I tend to
the wildfires.
to make sure they
are still burning
I keep my honey
wet and fresh
upon your
lips,
let my pores
drip moonpools
into your glistening
wet of mouth
and only when
it is time
I let the whole of
me burst
into the
fire -wrapped
tips of
stars
Oct 21, 2017
Oct 21, 2017 at 12:56 AM UTC
"Like Wilted Roses, My Soul Is Torn/
From My Despair, My Emotions Lost!"
"Suddenly, Amidst These Lies, My Death I Can See/
My Dreams Slain, And Thus No Future Left For Me!"
"Engravings Of Love, Tarnished - Lie, All Day Long/
Once Trust - Now Fades, Forever, Like Desert's Dust!"
"All Those Plots, Before My Eyes, Now Flashes/
My Love, Where Once, Would Lust, Now Blown Away Like Leafs!"
"Mirrored Scythe Of Love, Bred The Roots Of Lie/
Blossoms In The Air, And All That Inhale's, Are Sure To Die!"
Jan 5, 2014
Jan 5, 2014 at 8:42 PM UTC
Judgement is offered without being asked for,
Just remember that.
Vyscern
To be a good judge of character
You gotta see further than the books front cover
You have to look deeper, must find meaning
Between the pages and the paragraphs and what it is you're seeing
Know that every page number is another day on scene
Know that pages are stained from the blood we bleed
Know that pages crumple with the words unspoken
And know each new chapter is a lifetime token
Some may label "money", "corruption", "greed"
But know you can help swiftly as Godspeed
They opened up to you and it's up to you to see
That crazy times make people do crazy things
I'm just holding out the hope,
Standing still as I reel against the ropes
Tell me how long til I fall down
Weightless as a feather, gone without a sound
I'm just holding out the hope,
Standing still as I reel against the ropes
Tell me how long til I fall down
Weightless as a feather, gone without a sound
She opened up to me, for strangers advice
Is easier to get than from others in your life
There's no fear of judgement, disappointment, or people
Who like to spill secrets that are too dark and evil
I looked in the mirror and it became see-through
Not a reflection of myself just Myself Mark 2
It's funny how that works, the lies we pursue
The hope that something worse will surely make a better you
Know that the engravings on each book spine
Is a scar from the past, another mark in time
As you run your fingers you ask "where is the beauty?"
If you look past the cover you may finally see
I'm just holding out the hope,
Standing still as I reel against the ropes
Tell me how long til I fall down
Weightless as a feather, gone without a sound
I'm just holding out the hope,
Standing still as I reel against the ropes
Tell me how long til I fall down
Weightless as a feather, gone without a sound
I can't tell you how to run your life
But I tell you it's dangerous to run with knives
Maybe you don't care because pains the prize
Trust me, it's a trap that'll **** you as you fly
Icarus himself fell from the clouds
And plummeted to the ocean, an arrow straight down
I will help you surely as Jesus Christ
Has been told from three days to come back to life
So I may die, but that's okay
With wax wings I flew too high anyway
The pain is a trap that'll **** you as you fly
And I'm not ready to ready another goodbye
I'm just holding out the hope,
Standing still as I reel against the ropes
Tell me how long til I fall down
Weightless as a feather, gone without a sound
I'm just holding out the hope,
Standing still as I reel against the ropes
Tell me how long til I fall down
Weightless as a feather, gone without a sound
I will hold out for you
Talk to me, make me see
Convince me that its true
That it's not worth helping you
I'm just holding out the hope,
Standing still as I reel against the ropes
Tell me how long til I fall down
Weightless as a feather, gone without a sound
Feb 24, 2017
Feb 24, 2017 at 5:40 PM UTC
When I release the engravings within my heart’s collection
I find my needs are swirled within a sleepless sea
Silence is where I find the reflection
Of wisdom
Staring back at me
Nov 30, 2010
Nov 30, 2010 at 12:03 PM UTC
How the strings have intertwine
with this Lady Lazarus of mine!
I’ve prepared your regular feast
Of words and tears.
Here, Here
Lady Lazarus, now may I ask.
Why you bind me to thee?
You’ve choked me
until I’m a pale flesh
stripped down into my knees
and in my own chest
you’ve branded me as your own slave
--sent me crumbling into my untimely grave.
Here, Here
Lady Lazarus, now may you see.
nothing permeates from this age old skull
nothing but the word of ‘null’
the hue of all my lights have became so dull,
The shade I’ve could see are from engravings of your hair
and all colors only simmers from the iris of your eyes.
For every meat, I've ate is sand.
and the aroma of every rain feels so bland.
As the winds move clouds in the air
clears the way to set the stage of stars in the skies
syncing into the melody of beauty; I’ve called as fair.
Here, Here
Lady Lazarus, now you may know.
You’ve always rise from the tomb
which I’ve sealed in you in; a matter of time
-till you’ve bring me flowers into my sanctum
and I returned it with these somber rhymes.
Dear, Lady Lazarus of mine
****** me with your words.
Let me perish and die!
For now I know, You couldn’t die
until I can finally call you as mine.
Dec 4, 2016
Dec 4, 2016 at 1:32 PM UTC
Vibrant colors flood through the engravings in my skeleton,
the bright lights shining through my skin,
along every nerve as they illuminate themselves to make known their pain.
What a useless light show,
that nobody asked for,
telling everybody in vain
that it wants to be released.
Oct 21, 2018
Oct 21, 2018 at 4:48 AM UTC
Imagine seeing a silvery blade dancing to the music of death.
Marred by the poetry of blood
A trumpet to the cries of war
But it also reflects the wielder.
When looking at it, you can see yourself.
But in my eyes, I can see the steel's heart.
As it's in your hand, preparing to protect, it's polished until it shines like luna wildfire.
In the end, I believe the true beauty of a katana comes not from the hilt or engravings, but from the steel.
How many songs has it sang in our battles, can you imagine...?
A katana's beauty comes from the polished steel as it's shines so brightly
with victorious prayers.
Nov 7, 2017
Nov 7, 2017 at 10:17 AM UTC
Do you remember our bulletproof afternoons?
The ones downtown wandering the pawn shops, looking for nothing.
Remember the antique Coca-Cola bottles you loved?
Remember the good deals on the old Nintendos?
Remember kisses you gave me in the back of the store?
Remember pretending the cameras couldn't see me touch you?
Remember holding my hand outside?
Remember your hand on my waist?
Remember the rain on the sidewalk?
Remember me laughing?
Remember the old books on the shelves?
Remember me stroking their spines?
Remember me writing my own stories about how they got there?
Remember watching me and loving that?
Remember the jewelery?
Remember the bracelets and necklaces? The trinkets of broken loves?
Remember the rings?
Remember watching me sooth the lonely rings through the glass?
Remember what I said?
Remember how it broke our hearts, to see them broken beneath the glass?
Remember how the engravings broke our hearts?
Remember how you held my hand and kissed my shoulder?
Remember how you told me not to worry?
Do you remember pawning my ring?
Remember pocketing the cash?
Remember watching the pawn man place it beneath the glass?
Remember the couple holding hands, hearts breaking over my ring?
Do you remember breaking their hearts?
Feb 7, 2013
Feb 7, 2013 at 6:32 AM UTC
I am just an artist
Collecting and enduring
all your fumbled words and emotions
Your helplessness ,
The pity I feel for you
How needy you feel for me
How my single touch can calm down your senses
And how your soul rages with ecstasy
My devil eyes piercing into your angelic heart
Numbing your skin
Icing your blood
Everything going
acrid , poignant
Turning all such strands
of ineffable feelings
into deep dark engravings
scribbled
onto the
realms
of
time
Apr 1, 2015
Apr 1, 2015 at 6:26 PM UTC
after a night with you, people began to ask questions.
color blossomed on my skin in shades of purples and red,
interrupted with the occasional broken-blood-vessel lines
where you tried to sink your point into my skin,
bas relief engravings into my superficial self.
my lips are cracked and bleeding,
and my eyes are ringed in black.
whispers slip past me,
ghosts dancing along hallways about the stories my body told.
the only people who know what happened were the people in the room.
love and hate look a lot alike,
lust and violence practically synonymous.
it's all just semantics, after all.
Mar 9, 2012
Mar 9, 2012 at 1:58 AM UTC
Hopelessly blinded by the flash of his camera,
I could pay no attention to your watercolors,
engravings, charcoal sketches, oil pastel portraits.
The stark white background of headshots
was all I could see; no room for florals and foliage.
Preserved by his image, I thought I was permanent.
You let me see that I am pastel and charcoal -
smudged, with colors distorted, but never quite destroyed,
always with original traces in the deepest layers.
He was watercolor - he could be washed away,
with only watery blotches as remnants.
But you are an engraving, on the strongest, most brilliant metal,
with your lustrous being etched into every atom of it.
You leave your mark on my skin, beneath the bruises and scrapes,
beneath the rusted appearance and tarnished memories,
down to the fragile ribs, through the recovering heart,
immortalized for centuries of admiration.
Oct 21, 2015
Oct 21, 2015 at 8:18 PM UTC
Under your skin.
Lies an undead relic rooted in beauty.
Submerging an eon of engravings within
This lake of repulsions.
Denegrating liquid
Giving shelter to the serpent: impermanence.
I bathe in a floral decay of interstellar emotion
Manifesting itself in your cellar door.
So tell the black rabbit that my eyes are still red.
And searching for clarity in this watered-down blue.
Dec 5, 2012
Dec 5, 2012 at 1:10 AM UTC
It is the emptiness; vastness of
Space between materials, that
Defines the size of a place,
Even within thin walls.
A half-long walk from my house stand
The ruins of a medieval church
Struck by lightning so many times
Over the last nine hundred years
-As if the Lord Himself kept saying
*Stop building me this **** and
Just LIVE-* that they finally let
Its 1100s stone walls remain
Open to the weathers of the skies.
Some Norwegian churches are so
Old, they still carry runes and
Engravings to honour Odin, Tor
And Balder. It's a difficult thing to
Let go. To just bless the tree and
Surrender it to the rains and suns
Of time.
Feb 19, 2015
Feb 19, 2015 at 4:36 PM UTC
Take my fetus and go
Through and through the mighty seas,
Cleft of stubborn knocks and the bayonets
Rocking through and through the eves. Whose pirouettes and epilepsy crooked, Asunder, blessing the attenuated biology of Say, a field mouse or the hummingbird. What nuisance it transcends itself into. How It has marred even the plight to lock oneself In that windowless box of time. The Atemporal box featuring those curious amaranthine engravings about its sides, upon its top. Though the blood may not spill from side to side, and while the nellypot may collywaddle, there is an immense sincerity akin, fused afore to the intimacy of an authenticated orphic boketto.
Nov 29, 2017
Nov 29, 2017 at 3:08 PM UTC
there’s no rosetta stone to decipher the engravings on your bones, old as the core of the earth itself.
i trace my name onto your skin and
i breathe my heart into your mouth but you never want anything more than my hands further south and i
want you to be happy so i do
what i hate and i pray it’ll make you content
because when you cry i swear i hear the heavens crying too, the sun looks on as though it disapproves of us and i’m shaking enough as it is, darling
april is over and the drought has brought us nothing but weeds.
Aug 17, 2012
Aug 17, 2012 at 2:17 PM UTC
My teary eyes behind these happy reflections
can only be camouflaged for a moment more.
These thoughts burn in my mind like permanent engravings,
scratched on the surface. Etched into my brain.
Attempting to find the love that was once there.
That love, consuming every ounce of my body,
is even too great for this pain to use anymore, for happiness.
So my eyes continue to cry until I'm forced to forget about it all.
Until my eyes are no longer camouflaged, and my pain becomes a part of me.
Aug 9, 2014
Aug 9, 2014 at 6:45 PM UTC
The sharp whistle of winters breath upon my neck
beckons that I turn my head and look back at the foot prints that meander behind.
These complex engravings may share the same code as another individual,
but the trail will never lead to the same place.
As my nape is kissed by death herself
the past is slowly turned over with the fluid motion
that follows my mind through the path of yesterday;
which never seems to fill itself up more than once.
Worthless, it deems itself, as it’s an area that
i’m already proficient with knowledge of.
Though archaeology has proven to dig up
more false statements than any
jury duty has ever rested a decision on.
Suddenly authenticity flutters into my eyes,
with a clear glimpse of my frozen toes and all the glitters that come and go.
This movement of enlightenment occurred
the same instant my mind transferred back to reality, and what lied ahead.
Apr 3, 2014
Apr 3, 2014 at 9:53 AM UTC
And in the night
We danced among the dead
Our feet moved swift
The strike of a match on its head
The Earth, black with dew
Whistled for me and you
We drank under the moonlight,
Velvet and pearl
And put ourselves to rest
Upon engravings of the past
Death never felt closer
And as we woke in the birth of dawn
Our passions were remembered
By the traits of the moist cement
That so generously scuffed our skin
May 10, 2016
May 10, 2016 at 10:17 PM UTC
I should lie to tell you the stars shine
to catch a glimpse of her eyes.
That they wake million year dreams
to gaze for brief time, dreams of
never waking up to never
vividly see.
I should yell to
grandfather light warming closer
moving steps incubating fetal
positions inside feet splashing cracks
across arching pavement ways.
Intentionally broken back, Mothers’
spinal chord seeps ***** through
cracked nerves,
solicitous beads fornicating
under lamps flaming orange
currents.
Your saliva spins images of
laughter for me to see in cloudless
nights over rivers swimming
oceans’ way. Capillaries open
across my eyes crawling towards the ground,
fractured concrete
searching nurture, natural born life steeping
into my blood stream upon sleeping.
Legs carry dallying moments,
lagging steps tripping closer to
never missing cracks in stone encrusted
fallopian tubes.
I want to touch your skin,
fingers pulling back layered
wind sharpened capsules
reach sprouting seedling under
shoes bouncing soul to
toe and back again. Our words
feed;
sketches of moon-tide engravings
upon carbon traces, molecular hair
catching my eyes.
We smile at each other.
Jun 18, 2010
Jun 18, 2010 at 3:29 PM UTC
coaxed by
billow blowing
my back toward
double doors
bloomy blush palms
grace cold chromium
transfixed yet still
slightly froze
by their magnitude
stellar statuesque
ornate etchings
on the outside
engravings tonging
somethings subtly
warbling up vertebra
no longer numb
and I
remember
this hand
this voice
this vibration
this harmony
a fifth or a third
resonant progression
of ordered chords
this same old song
never heard, yet
- known -
buried, now begging
eternal womb
to be born
the want
wavers fingers
in front of the bell
until the know grows
too large to hold
behind stately doors
craving light, space, time
to stretch and unfold
dew-spun carbon
beyond the threshold
Jun 13, 2017
Jun 13, 2017 at 11:33 AM UTC
over the years
life leaves its traces
on our bodies, our souls,
in our memories
the moment when a broken twig
just barely missed the eye
of a cavorting child
the first time promises
turned into cheats, betrayal, strife
adding injustice to the loss of trust
the day when suddenly
you could not read
the writing on the blackboard any more
and needed glasses
the time when playing the piano
got so painful that you had to stop dreaming of a pianist’s career
love’s first elations
followed by despair and disappointment
some lucky instances as well
have kept you kicking & alive until this day
crashing through the old glass door
mostly unharmed
with your first scooter
during a summer job at the steel mill
seeing just your leather working glove
and not your hand
disappear into the hydraulic power press
getting away with just a crick in your neck
when your idiot friend caused a car crash
that left only small pieces of your glasses
in the wreck
out of them all
the scars of loss
or threat of loss
are such that never die
your little son saved
by last-minute surgery
sitting at your daughter’s bed
for several days
until high fever finally abated
your mother’s unexpected death
on the first day of spring
the slow and dreary suffering
your father bore with desperate pride
a few more years
all these engravings
and many more
written by the flow of time and space
are waiting just around the corner
from your daily living room
mixed in with fonder memories
of joyous time and wonderful events
together they have shaped
the person that you are
your life, your world
which you still try
to understand
Apr 17, 2017
Apr 17, 2017 at 10:07 AM UTC
My teary eyes behind these happy reflections
can only be camouflaged for a moment more.
These thoughts burn in my mind like permanent engravings,
scratched on the surface. Etched into my brain.
Attempting to find the love that was once there.
That love, consuming every ounce of my body,
is even too great for this pain to use anymore, for happiness.
So my eyes continue to cry until I'm forced to forget about it all.
Until my eyes are no longer camouflaged, and my pain becomes a part of me.
Aug 10, 2014
Aug 10, 2014 at 4:04 PM UTC
never one for formalities,
faded american jean
like that West Virginian miner
who drank too much,
and never knew his kids
you know the one;
with the ****** engravings,
natural tombstones
saddest epitaphs you've ever read-
but you only understood
recently.
Mar 27, 2013
Mar 27, 2013 at 7:18 PM UTC
we have no mutual friends
but you pop up under suggested
users. I never look you up because
i never want to know and I never
remember your last name because
last names mean aquaintances and
i'm not sure we were even that.
but you're in that little rack, a black
and white photo, you and a pretty face
she must be fantastic, she must go down
on you on the first date, promise to *put
it in her mouth* without even knowing
your mother's name, she must have
been swift at giving in, going under
submitting to your wrath hidden
under nice-mormon-boy-with-a-soccer-ball
or maybe those were just your standards then.
I'll admit to checking the social board and pretending I wanted
to be an English tutor, waiting for you to come out of Math 101,
a chance to talk tacked up with the rest of the pamphlets
And, I dunno, you seemed normal.
under the guise of study-buddy, math **** in the name of grade A +,
we started with kisses and you made a beeline straight for calculus,
and I realized i didn't know how to say No. No. No.
No.
No. No.
Mike pins my hands above my head and tries to unzip my jeans.
it's dawning on me that for the first time in my life I am not as
strong as I thought, but I play my weakness off like a champ.
Have you ever not wanted someone to touch you? You feel it
in your spine, in my spine, in your ribs, in my ribs, the sanctity
of a body barring the doors and cowering in the temple, little
girls scattering for the edges and becoming shadows, engravings
and hieroglyphics.
He never gets there. He kind of gets there. You have things you want to preserve and others you don't mind sacrificing in order to be loved
or maybe just
prized.
Prized for a quarter until Mike is absent the last three weeks of Math 101, supposedly sick with Pneumonia. You offer to bring him soup,
heating pads? Bribes, on bribes on company. But you're just a towelette, not even full-blown dish rag, not even sure why i'm trying
not even sure how to say no to
Suggested Users.
Jul 26, 2015
Jul 26, 2015 at 6:34 PM UTC