"evenness" poems
If I could love, I would take the best of marble and dove,
And craft her eyes like inlaid tombs in stone skyward flight.
Just so, the Egyptian khamsin wind, by way of Rhodes,
Alights with evenness on the trullo stone of Alberobello.
Just so, the weighing of the heart lies between marble and dove.
Dec 7, 2021
Dec 7, 2021 at 9:27 PM UTC
my hidden shames
are an excellent source of moral fibre,
nurturing, but not nutritious.
we coexist in a quiet
mutual acknowledgment,
coexisting but un-categorizable,
nonetheless,
among my oldest cohorts,
their singular coordinated characteristic,
they are mine alone,
not meant to be shared.
But they will someday
make an excellent poem.
Mon jan 2 2023
6:47am
@here
———————————————————-
the askew
are my oldest companion,
dating back to my naissance,
faithful, eternal, but single-minded,
with a rueful sense of humor,
of course,
refer to my relatively plentiful hairs
inherited from my mother’ genetics.
a morning chore,
to return their antics
to an adult,
dignified pose,
plenty sufficient to be be brushed,
straight back,
the preferred orderly compose,
of older men
who cannot waste time
with foolishness,
the excessive vanities of
curls, parts and pompadours,
and yet,
every day they wake me with
ridicule, mockery, by presenting
themselves.to me,
as if electrocuted,
each
hair raising itself
pointing to the heaven,
whence
their true Creator resides.
no amount of product
persuasive,
they do what they must do,
akimbo, askew,
with inordinate amount of
malice aforethought and
a venomous sense of
hairy (and now hoary)
absurdity .
a splash of water,
a handful of rigorous brush strokes,
returns order
and the pretense of a serious mien,
an adult demeanor.
But their purpose accomplished,
they have reminded me of the
absurdity of human vanity,
to humble myself
before forces
more powerful
than human self-aggrandizement
by accentuating
our human foibles.
7:13am
same time & place
——————————————-
morning prayers are
always
a trilogy
the rounded evenness of three,
provides the necessary gravitas
of sufficiency,
three being
not too short,
not too long,
not too quick,
just three right,
to impart
the seriousness
of gratitude
for having gained
another day upon earth,
with it,
many multitudes of
chances to share
thankfulness,
kindness,
yes,
& love too,
and to write,
one more poem
encapsulating
all of the above.
7:35am
same day
same place,
same cup of coffee
Jan 3, 2023
Jan 3, 2023 at 9:17 AM UTC
I am your product,
But not your likeness.
I borrowed from you,
You borrowed me.
There is an evenness to our bargain
As long as it stops now.
You laid the cards and instilled my empathy.
To never say no because I couldn't, you needed me.
To listen to your explanations of family,
But you stopped protecting me.
Always saying it wasn't enough.
That you worked hard,
That you worked long,
That I had no excuses,
Because It's true, I didn't.
I had facts of my reality;
Fact of otherness,
Fact of alone.
Of ostracism,
Of wondering if a crowd would bring me companionship.
Of thinking a man was the only way to happiness,
Because you seemed to think so.
Of cursing your talk of family when you left to find your missing pieces in another's bed.
You needing me to be strong because we were all we had;
Shutting my mouth,
Pressing words back into feelings.
That you used me just like they claimed you'd done to them.
Baring their children, not caring for their say, not asking for more.
But you wanted more from me
You told me often and over.
Leaving me to be the milk-less maid.
The child mother to her mothers children,
Your sweet little children;
The ones I fiercely love,
The ones I fear you'll let break,
Like you have broken me.
My sweet little sisters.
You were my first love,
My first true hate.
The woman who bore me,
The woman who cast me out.
The wisdom in my head,
And the fool before my eyes.
My mother, the bringer, the borrower.
The one person I thought would never betray my trust;
The deserter in my time of need.
You may have borrowed my childhood;
Forever unreturned.
You may have taught me kindness in your selfishness,
You may have been my hero,
I thought you were one...
Someone to aspire to be...
But it's so simple and straight who you are now,
Now that you aren't seen through the rosy cast of my child love.
I play my hand, laying them down
Forthright and coming.
To let you know that I am no longer yours,
No longer yours to borrow.
I am my own,
You can no longer claim me.
Apr 2, 2013
Apr 2, 2013 at 3:01 AM UTC
Not the stillness
but the never-ending motion
not on the head of a pin
but in base of the broad basin
not a perfect evenness
but the wealth of variance
Not two opposing pebbles
laid on a lever atop a pivot
not a balance
more
like a train car
arriving at the station
where people board and disembark
while their total never changes
Similarly
not good opposing evil
not black and white
or self against the other
more
the summation of the ins and outs
of all that simultaneously occur
when nothing ever happens
Sep 16, 2019
Sep 16, 2019 at 7:11 AM UTC
I was born with the biggest eye sockets the nurses had ever seen, but unfortunately my eyelids weren't even
Because of genetics, or from a Hispanic superstition my mother told me, I have uneven eyelids that make me take pictures with my left side because society told me to find my good side since my whole face wasn't good enough
Wasn't pleasing enough
or wasn't beautiful enough
That lasted about the first 11 years of my life
Then I met a boy in California who said my eyes were so big and so brown that my eyelashes reminded him of spider legs because of all the coats of mascara and black eyeliner I used to compensate for the lack of evenness, and how the color of my eyes reminded him of brown sugar cookies his grandma use to make him when he was sad
That's when I fell in love with myself
In love with the fact that my eyes were described to be the size of the moon with or without make up
How the brownness in them turned darker with rage, jade when calm, and a honeysuckle color when in love
I fell in love with the way my eyelashes touched my eyebrows on a daily bases
And even whenever I cry, I still love the way my eyes can tell someone how I feel better than words do
To this day I don't know what that boys name was, but I thank him
For reminding me that my faults, even the slightest ones make me unique
make me beautiful
Mar 27, 2015
Mar 27, 2015 at 3:35 PM UTC
One flick of the match
And you lit up
To destroy the evenness
Of her functioning
Burning on one end
Glowing ember
Self destructing yourself
As well as her minutes
She quickly exhales
You slither through
The veins and her lungs
Clasping her blood
Her eyes being the reflector of the sins
Everyday those twenty bucks
Distributed in innumerable spaces
For preparation of Her funeral
For the ashes in the vase.
Mar 6, 2014
Mar 6, 2014 at 7:37 AM UTC
So many relationships like bad business partnerships:
green bottles falling from walls; messages stuck in bottles
rotating in great gyres; swallows never at home North or South.
(Anti-Confessional? — It’s a fashionable trend just now
and yet what is it not to confess, when we claim authorship?)
Suburbia’s flat evenness suffocates (but I’ve repeated this
so many times and I’m still here!).
We need to find the cracks in which to grow, in which to place,
our errant thoughts like rude whispers in a darkened room,
and nobody about to hear you anyway!
We express ourselves well in silence but me, I gyrate,
not quite on one side or the other, a kind of even fullness,
or, that’s what I like to think, let’s get this straight:
I’m an uncouth wind against plains that offer no obstacles.
Better to wear me that way — it saves the snap under pressure.
Dec 6, 2015
Dec 6, 2015 at 5:36 PM UTC
As I check the evenness of my afro in the reflections of storefront windows while walking by
Smiling about whether the eyes watching
Are scared of where blackness has been
I am proud
Apr 30, 2019
Apr 30, 2019 at 2:52 PM UTC
it comes down
from the heavens
or the sky
and blankets
the earth
or ground
with an evenness,
a fairness,
a peacefulness,
and we forget all our mistakes,
all the paths we took,
and we can’t see or
remember the ones
others carved.
the snow comes down,
down, down, down,
from the heavens
to the earth
or from the sky
unto the ground
snow, snow
you wonderful thing
you make all things even
and give us one chance
to fix them
Jan 10, 2011
Jan 10, 2011 at 11:45 AM UTC
You preach philosophies,
wishing to melt mountains with your mind.
You find its presence unfair to the desert,
always blocking out rain.
So you call yourself ambassador,
telling the mountain of the desert’s plight.
The mountain agrees,
lowering itself so that the clouds may be free
to travel elsewhere.
It gives equal chance to the desert.
But what to call a mountain
who no longer blocks the sun?
Who’s peaks no longer stand, among
thinning air?
What to call a desert, who’s
no longer dry?
The clouds dislike the evenness of travel,
the openness with which they glide.
Apr 23, 2012
Apr 23, 2012 at 6:28 PM UTC
At times it is impossible- to keep balance
When things weigh too much on one side.
The teeter totter effect of a scale fighting
to maintain some perception of equality,
reminds me of parts of my own life.
Vertigo makes my head spin and leaves
an overwhelming sense of falling down,
grasping at any chance to stand again.
One thing must compensate for another
to preserve the harmony we seek.
If at once, a feeling of evenness
presents itself, thank your cerebellum,
It’s feeding the body’s equilibrium.
Dec 6, 2012
Dec 6, 2012 at 10:19 PM UTC
I want to be pretty.
Not in the way magazines do it
where everything is tucked, twisted, tuned and polished
because I am not an ideal.
And I will never be the Mona Lisa
with a coyness that leaves people wondering
what I've smelled, touched, tasted in
every moment of my life,
because I am not a treasure.
I want to be the kind of pretty
where my little sister can see a galaxy of pride in my eyes
and know she's ten times more beautiful
than I could ever be
(or at least she'll know I think so.)
I want to be pretty in the way that
strangers don't know if I'm kind or
powerful or
manipulative
and are timidly curious that maybe I'm all three.
I want to be pretty in the way that
I am all three, and so much more.
I want to be pretty
so that when I'm older
I can be half as beautiful as my mom.
I want to be pretty so that
my friends see honesty in the corners of my eyes
and security in my fingertips
and hold my gaze with evenness as my equals.
I want to be pretty,
the kind of pretty where you bring me home,
we reflect each other like lighted mirrors
and your mom will smile that knowing smile
because in three years you'll want to see a ring on my finger
and she knows her baby will do it in five.
And I want to be pretty so when my hair is damp,
my eyeliner cakes my face like charcoal
and a towel is wrapped around my body...
When I look in that mirror I see fireflies and lightning
and not an abandoned house
in a quiet street
with the attic light left on.
Jun 17, 2014
Jun 17, 2014 at 3:15 AM UTC
Honesty exists
But in anonymity
And only
In the evenness
Of blinded enemies
May the blind really see
The truth
Analytically obtuse
As in truth
There is only
What is
In front of you
All the rest
Is moot
****
Oct 4, 2013
Oct 4, 2013 at 10:06 PM UTC
The ground appeared level, but no
minor bumps eroded the sanctity of evenness
at odd pockets where the soil sustained repeated injury
there lurked creatures of all sorts.
Few were long nosed, impervious blood suckers,
others like two horned underground creepers that snitched
and larked on fellow mates found solace in company.
Further down racists blended with the beautiful
and both white and dark temperaments moulded
together, as if, sustained by a creed and greed.
Further afield there were hangers-on who ruefully
were iron-fisted and aplenty, lurking amongst the poor
and wretched, ******* solar power from the weak,
fiddling with the filth and holding back on sustenance.
These were the parasites of the field.
Turning to the left of centre, the holy melted in the crowd
of doomsayers, prophets and penitents, preaching
a word distorted to draw attention to themselves
under the guise of royal purple robes and stolen sceptres
pompous idiots who claimed to own the field, but
wore egoistic hot air and lead balloons of pride
and prejudice.
On just the one small section of the field you could play
delightful soccer, kick the ball or backsides and feel proud
you played a fair game, in spite of the pale bellied creatures
that roamed the tunnels and turrets of the level playing field
ready to draw you in for dissection. Of course, they smiled
benignly, when you passed by them, watching you slyly,
but all the time with hands at the back of them
clutching razor sharp daggers to shed your dignity
and lay waste to your humanity.
All of us are listed on this game. Some play, some referee, some refuse,
mostly spectators, watching and cheering, unaware
of how the level playing is set out in layers of deception.
Have you purchased your tickets for the next game?
Author Notes
A huge metaphor for injustice and greed. Play the game as you are expected to unless you want to be part of the underground network of deceivers. Pick a part in this game, which involves everybody. The colour of your skin dictates the price of the ticket to the game. Please take part. If you are a spectator
in this stadium with bright lights and pom-pom dancing girls, you will know what I'm talking about.
The game begins everyday at sunrise!
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.
Apr 7, 2014
Apr 7, 2014 at 12:08 AM UTC
upon a tiny pin
the brain does finely balance
much like a see saw
will it at some stage
lose the evenness of keel
to crash in a pile
with great interest
we'll watch the tetter totter
on it's slight pivot
Sep 4, 2016
Sep 4, 2016 at 7:18 PM UTC
*What lines offer evenness
Amongst a passionate play?
Would not actors stand in line
Waiting to play in the heated Malay?
Roles cast of heart strings
Tied between lines whispered phrases.
What right has any character
To come alive whilst on stage?
One scripted part comes right on cue
As one mark meets the other
Right in the middle of the author’s view.
The background accompaniment
Playing softly to the screen test.
When suddenly one moves the other
While that one moves all the rest.
They stray from the script confusing all the stage.
At first tip toes lead into a scripted kiss
But then she falters losing her gauge.
Music continues its composure
While feet flounder in the demise.
She becoming the new composer
As he gets lost somewhere in her eyes.
They came to try out,
To play love in a play.
But what began to play out
Was a true love – some say.
For they could not hold back
And before all the audience,
Shoulders touch while hand in hand.
He breaks rank against the lines
While their lips cover each others
Engulfing love’s unscripted reach.
The music changing tempo
Giving more meaning to each.
Passions groping forward
Creating a brand new play.
She losing her shoes
As he shed his spats.
Non refrained skin opens and just
As this was about to become a part of that's,
The curtain swiftly closing as
The audience’s heads all tilt sideways.
Oh well - after all it was a passion’s play.
Maybe the author knew it wasn’t important what to say.
Once started, the lines conjure up
Loves unscripted intent.
Unprepared actors
Lose their marks
Lovingly spent.*
Jun 6, 2017
Jun 6, 2017 at 9:58 AM UTC
You light me, I light you
Yet, too much light may burn us
From darkness to brightness you turned me
Yet, too much brightness may hurt us
You revive my life, You make it shine
But, shine may once **** us
together forever you say
But, togetherness is not the equal to for evenness
Nov 11, 2019
Nov 11, 2019 at 5:35 PM UTC
The glistening glare of dawn,
Dampens my view,
My eyes are all blurry,
Yet I seem to see it all.
The hollow shell that I am,
Fondled with the color of dawn,
Seem to find myself yet again,
The perpetuality of dawn,
And its evenness,
Makes me jealous and nonchalant,
Yet I seem to sense nought.
I find myself thinking yet again,
All these moments are irreproducible.
I wonder when I said this before
Feb 1, 2020
Feb 1, 2020 at 9:28 PM UTC
I wanted to hurt her
Well, I wanted to make her feel what she had done to me
****** something precious of hers, as she had done me
Something small and insignificant
So that when she publicized her pain, no one would care
They’d say, it was just a trinket, not like it was valuable
But, oh, something worth so much to her and only her
Something that would make her understand just what she had stolen from me
Something that would give me a petty sense of victory, of evenness
I wanted what had gone around to come around,
So as she had sent pain to me, I thus sent pain to her.
I wanted to study her
See what was it about her that he desired
If not for brains, beauty, or heart
Then why did he hurt me for the sake of her?
I wanted to figure out why she was better than me in the eyes of so many
So I fixated on it without even trying and I learned more about her
And I think I understand now why he wanted to hurt me, for her sake;
I now know why I wasn’t good enough, why she was better than I was.
Feb 21, 2018
Feb 21, 2018 at 3:26 PM UTC