"exploratory" poems
You said
The most brilliant thing
You said it was
Like a heart surgery
But he was only a
Surgeon in training
And had neglected to
Mention beforehand
That it was only
Exploratory cardiac surgery;
And it was just for his
Simmering curiosity
*(He couldn't have carried
Out a simple angioplasty?)*
That he cut the aorta
That's what you said
And his curiosity subsided;
And he left as you bled.
Jul 2, 2014
Jul 2, 2014 at 5:54 AM UTC
lush cornucopia of greens
and overlapping canopies.
rays filtered through
somewhat a broken lens.
an arbour found
which carelessly took root.
calling out,
inviting,
offering sanctuary
from the shrill calls
of the turbulent outside.
a harbour
to which my heart
had taken to.
and had intended to stay.
but such is the nature
of man.
*no other man's peace
can be left unruffled.
no other man's cocoon
can be left unravelled.
no other man's haven
can be left uninvaded.
and no other man's trove
can be left unraided.*
like before I'll have to go.
and just like man's exploratory nature,
I leave seeking another
unfound recluse.
inadvertently,
paving the way for more to come.
Apr 30, 2017
Apr 30, 2017 at 10:14 PM UTC
Clearing ivy,
pulling up handfuls of
choking bindweed,
uncovering delicate
wildflowers in
neglected garden corners,
and there’s this
tiny bird
lying in the dirt.
Feathers sparkle
pretty and golden,
as fairytale light
falls through
parted vines.
Surely dead,
but then
- like Snow White
surfacing from
magic apple-induced
dormancy -
the bird moves,
woken by the kiss
of sunlight and
being witnessed,
and seems to breathe.
A gloved finger’s
exploratory, leathery ****
a moment to realise,
then disgust,
sharp recoil.
A wing lifts;
gleaming feathers
parting reveal the
crawling mechanics inside,
the writhing, parasitic mess
behind the sick illusion,
the briefly faked miracle
of something
like life.
Away over a fence,
Union bunting
***** erratic and jarring
in a neighbour’s garden.
In a stuffy town hall,
the town band is practising
God Save The Queen, but
still can’t keep time.
Our betters wave to us from
high palace balconies
and golden coaches, and we
cheer them for it.
There’s such hunger, such
pain and desperation out there,
you can feel it, if you
forget to stop yourself.
There’s so much tragedy and injustice,
you have to go numb or go crazy.
There’s no future we can see,
and the past has been rewritten
to reflect the views
of focus groups,
fascists and fantasists.
And there’s a bird
lying in the dirt,
garlanded by fragrant petals,
feathers flashing like jewels,
so dead
it looks like
it’s breathing.
Jun 3, 2022
Jun 3, 2022 at 7:31 AM UTC
I could drown myself in cups of coffee, in nicotine, old books, and whiskey.
But that won't make me crave you any less.
I could immerse myself in the deepest of enthralling literature, poems, a sea of colloquy,
Waves, strangling the current of my mind.
But you'd still be the resonant word.
I could listen to the sweetest of voices on repeat, golden like honey, sticky,
But my ears would only ever truly answer to yours.
Serpents tend to bite their own tails, a mythological and alchemic symbol of the cyclic nature of the universe: creation out of destruction.
But I'm not breaking my heart, loving you.
Swollen, yearning, daydreamed astray, gathered fast by night.
Curiosity deniable no more, innocence lost, hands wandered exploratory below.
Clambering desperate over themselves, those hands fell over folds of warmed flesh, over forgotten nooks and unfound crevasses, over trembling thighs and aching calves.
Astounded by the vast array of fresh delicacies, of unencountered sensations and deepest pleasures, she stood by loyal as those hands swiftly accustomed themselves to pursuing true ecstasy.
What divine rapture. What soaring heights of pleasure to ascend to. And what a delicious revelation to encounter such unimaginable ecstasy.
That twelfth year become a fourteenth, a fifteenth, a sixteenth.
And with the passing of each came a series of ever more adventurous trysts, the sorts of which Cousteau, Armstrong, and even Columbus could all be truly proud of.
Depths sounded, crevasses plundered, self’s nectars tasted and devoured, the pleasures of the flesh went unearthed.
Elaborate constructions lovingly shaped, waxed and honed, years of heady experimentation, trial and errors, fantasy and dreaming, all in the pursuit of even harder, better, faster, stronger ******* Perhaps it was that, or was it more a case of welcomed companionship? Ambidextrous frustration? A carnal appetite, most terrifying in its magnitude?
Isn’t it time then, you tried a little tenderness?
Be good to you.
Dec 6, 2013
Dec 6, 2013 at 3:20 PM UTC
She noticed the basking shark was wounded,
weeping vaginal blood.
The tall man in a fedora whispered as he passed.
Whipped by exploratory waves, she blushed.
The horizon was a hazy green line dipped in red.
She had been there since morning
searching for love,
and found it
from a six-pack merman offering solace
as he rode on the silvery
back of a ray.
As he approached, the sun at his back,
she moaned and threw out her arms
like a supplicant.
Complete at last, the sand grasping at
her shoeless feet, she sank
towards the earth’s distant core
using her arms as uncertain ballast.
She awoke with a shiver
brushed away the sand
and headed back home.
The shark had turned belly-up,
scavenged by seagulls.
Another day-dream enjoyed in the
empty hours between lunch and dinner
between her third cup of tea
and fourth cigarette,
her children snoozing in
the back bedroom. Half-slumbering
in a town barked at by bothersome seagulls
where an unencumbered sun
set on a postcard shoreline.
Planning the rows of petunias to be
planted by the hedge,
making shopping lists,
writing novels, never to be published,
staring out of her windows at the sea
she waited for her husband’s return,
tedious evenings of T.V.
and coition under the brightly coloured duvet.
The waves that overwhelmed her, flooding her senses,
were her own. The man
in the fedora had made her smile.
Jan 12, 2016
Jan 12, 2016 at 10:59 PM UTC
1
In petrified personal history
far back in a page, this image-
a boy, eyes shut
lays supine embraced by
mother earth.A wakeful dream.
His bare body, smells
sweat, hay, mud, pollen
and grasshopper songs,
resonating in his ears still,
the sacred morning mantras;
his Hindu mother's incessant chants-
to appease mother earth.
* Shanthi..Shanthi..Shanthi
Peace descends on magical wings.
2
He feels time standing still
like trees frozen on a windless morn,
Earth was the mother, the presence,
that poured in to consciousness
music without sound,
an warm embrace without touch,
that painted the inner world with
her myriad colors.
3
Earth where secrets spurt, spread and die down as ashes,
my windy bed, gentle balm, end of every hunger,
I've dug deep in to yielding earth,
on those days of rustic childhood,
in a frenzied exploratory spirit,
prompted by a deep primordial urge,
that kept churning my dark inner caves,
with unknown currents, perhaps a wish
to go back as far as possible,
to the past and find the nest where memories slept,
where my history lay buried in layers,
unhatched eggs of dinosaur past,
waiting to be discovered,
by the probing hands of present and future.
Perhaps a desire to reconnect with past,
now crusted secrets of an uncertain time,
that would talk to me in cryptic codes
of life, death and transcidence
and in a flash reveal what it all means
to an intergalactic traveler on eternity's wings.
4
My eager body gets smeared with soft earth,
covered at places with sticky mud that exudes
a sensuous scent,
feel of a woman, that takes one
to the unreal plane of a savage urge,
that arises from depth, a yearning to melt in to her,
to give birth to a future that would bring back
in a new form, the histories of yore,
on the starting point once again.
5
**Earth, is the sensuous woman, I relentlessly seek,
the destination of my destiny in the end,
the womb, where seeds of my dreams take root,
when I come back to her, to create me all over again,
with her elements, minerals and salts.**
***
Dec 6, 2012
Dec 6, 2012 at 8:08 AM UTC
the island’s delineating shape is not its realized limitations,
nor a redoubtable defense
against the elements or invaders of the mind
the skin of the land welcomes tides and waves
as gentil lickings,
a seductress’s first caressing volley enticing, firing
but calming
even when the crashing contemptible violent contretemps come,
the winter’s stormy wrath or hurricane tongue lashings of the fall,
partially forgiven for its forced renewal,
but only,
but only so much
the island - my home,
is not a prison but a happy imposition,
its restrictions make inward looking, mirroring, front facing,
a truthfulness demanding,
our self-exploratory word surgeries are precious, precision treks,
required to survive, then revive, declaim,
then exclaim
we are island folk and though our island's firmament defined,
it's poetry
is ever unlimited
Apr 11, 2018
Apr 11, 2018 at 3:57 PM UTC
You see terrible things
Maybe you're a child or a teenager
You talk to a therapist
They give you "medication."
You take drugs
You forget.
You get sick somehow, and it's bad this time
You see some weird doctors with titles you can't pronounce,
Maybe you spend some time in the hospital
You see your therapist again
They make sure you're still on your "medication."
You take drugs
You forget.
You're in school again now and you're taking some sort of exploratory writing class
You always end up writing about the same character and you're not sure why
Every time you try and write something else, it turns out like **** and you throw it away
You're too afraid to show your parents or your friends, so you hide your work, and
You take drugs
You forget.
Maybe you've finished school now, maybe you haven't
Your writing class has been over for months, maybe years now
But you still remember that one character, and you pull out your notebook
Looking back, you wish you had tried harder to learn something new in that class,
Maybe tried to experiment more
You put the notebook on the shelf of books you're done with
You take drugs
You forget.
You've been having nightmares for awhile now,
Sometimes you can't sleep at all
You start to keep a log,
Suddenly, you don't want to forget but
You don't want to be sick, and you don't remember what all of these pills do so
You take drugs
You forget
You've grown up with all of these ticks and habits
It was fine when you lived with your parents, but it annoys your roommate
They say you talk in your sleep and you say you're not surprised
All of your books got shuffled around in the move and you notice your notebook from writing class
You promise yourself that you'll read it sometime soon, until then
You take drugs
You forget
You dig out that old notebook and think a lot of that character you always wrote about
They are exactly what you wanted to be, but you aren't now and that upsets you
The notebook reminds you of the log that you kept and you dig that out, too
You really don't want to forget anymore
You feel like part of your mind has been drowned in this stuff and suddenly you care about all of the blank spots in your memories
You spend all day looking at photo albums and reading about your "medications" one at a time
Your mind and body are suddenly your decision, but
You're tired
It's been a long day trying to fill in all the blanks
You take drugs
Your write yourself a note in the half an hour before you fall asleep
You forget, but not completely
Not this time.
Oct 24, 2016
Oct 24, 2016 at 8:06 PM UTC
If - Vancouver was born
“Quite fun. Ran up this with my partner on our first time
up to the top of the Chief. Great fun!” - Juler 2011-09-03
Then - The alpine was created
Mountaineers started at sea level and they walked
into a
“Million thanks to the one who put
permanent draws on the bolts” - calvinclimb 2011-09-07
veritable howling wilderness
to counter this foreign **********
Thus the alpine was created by us:
Learned cosmopolitan alpinists
Would not could not cannot popularize
The exclusive sport of learned cosmopolitan alpinists
To popularize was to vulgarize
“My buudy took a big fall fell clipping,
lucky falls are super safe” - boulamania 2013-06-05
Take for instance Art Cooper’s statement:
You've heard about the Squamish Chief,
The way they go up that rock wall
I don’t think that’s climbing at all.”
No Art, certainly not
Now they do not stay long enough to feel diminished
Unlike us learned cosmopolitan alpinists
“Everyone in the free world has climbed this uber-classic!
Should you get lost, ask the party in front of you where to go” - rock climbing.com
Who drove our teeth through our lips for our
Exploratory climbing
Now
A well used recreational area
Oct 12, 2015
Oct 12, 2015 at 5:26 PM UTC
“extra condoms” (explicit!)
a title deposited in the poem-to-do file/notebook,
with no body yet to follow through on or upon
which she tumbles to, an irresistible unrepentant
crooked finger hook line and she is sinker stinker caught,
worming in her feigned anger
current curiosity comes
fast and furious further,
demeanor—demanding
ex-explain-nations,
how could this
ever be a
poem?
stare ferocious, I am the prettiest pretense
of a pride incarnation hu-mane incarnate
call me in another language
Vasco da Gama
a sea route to India will uncover
on your worldly tattooed body,
drawing maps as we go along
devour her neck with stingless bites,
explorer voyager a rambunctious tongue undenied,
every space in and between needs
surging surgical tastings, erupting into her indentations,
inserting her appendages into my places where they
have a business going-knowing
just in case that’s the one!
secret passageway canal holy crossing crossover
later she whacks me because the question goes unanswered
and no sheath employed when my tongued fingers are ten times
more demanding and supple and supply the exploratory course closing with spices and woven silks in Indian colors vibrations
*why then,
extra?
god she is so lovely locomotive annoying!
to peak you peeking
to see your astounding astonishment,
you are our provisions for a sea voyage
and put the risk in, the trigger in,
when wherever you see the world-word,*
extra
May 18, 2018
May 18, 2018 at 6:06 PM UTC
awas amidst
the bits and bobs of my pseudo-sleep,
check my watch oft habitually,
understand
that the precisive time is not
what I seek,
no,
what I desire is reassurance of
some sort, that time is present,
that it is
a measurable actuality in,
my about,
a breathable actuality
woven into my
Body’s Constructional
Constitutional Cconsciousness
that time is there, here,
for it is rhe
wondrous of all wonder,
it is a
present of, from,
and,
is love itself,
love is time…
(think on it)
it is all and only
butpossibility,
the future in
slow mo
is both
realizable & visible ,
even some part knowable;
its somes & sums,
as we daily
practice realizing it,
as if
time is a
smuggler of snuggles,
comforting but not
for too long
like
a new lover’s
exploratory
beginning beguiling explanations
reforming our ardor
into
viability
or
a glove
asking us each:
slow s l i d e
your hand inside,
then,
newly commence
waving yours,
airy all about
conducting a new self
into your
precious moment of precarious
existence,
that we dare not waste!
so:
write and right
are no accident,
but purposed
equals,
friends,
brothers and sisters,
one and both
coexisting
at
in
the same time…
Sep 17, 2024
Sep 17, 2024 at 7:36 AM UTC
We started out being cheap,
but being impoverished eventually saved us...
It became a fad,
almost everything did.
Whoever had money,
would spend things to make themselves more connected to the singularity,
more tapped in.
We were all suffering from information addiction,
looking for our next fix.
Likes were a thing of the past,
we didn't just want digital affirmation anymore,
we needed to feel more powerful.
Of course this was just something we created in our mind because we saw others gaining this perceived 'power',
of course if you can,
in your mind,
research,
copy,
paste,
spellcheck
- everything a computer could do,
you would seem more capable of a human,
but in reality,
once you left your mind's energy up for just processing power,
you were nothing more than a machine...
some of us let our minds go entirely,
favouring searches and what is already known to fill in the blanks for our own exploratory research.
Mods weren't cheap.
But so many people were willing to pay for convenience.
- mods help us think,
they can schedule our lives.
- certain ones are just cognitive enhancers,
basically a microcomputer that knows which electrical impulses to fire in your brain for improved cognitive functions,
muscle controls or even releases of certain chemicals (serotonin)
- Others are just things like ocular mods (contact screens)
- Viruses are terrifying.
- New wave of humans who choose to be 'fed' - near braindead. Enabled to know made unknowing,
allowed to follow,
sometimes the struggle is necessary.
Reporter
main character either snaps back into reality or
overpower systems with willpower
she sees past the hiccups of self
and knows how to command the bots
break it down, robot girl,
make the demons dance for you,
Sep 9, 2014
Sep 9, 2014 at 5:58 PM UTC
He wanted to drown
Not in liquid, but in sound
Raucous rapture bellowing beneath
Hands too heavy to hold his own
Heartbreak.
These lions labeled ladies
Making ****** hearts sing.
The candid caucus of cartographers
With eyes too cold to cry
Mapping and marring,
Partitioning paradox with every stroke
Witless wizardry without
Love and longing.
In a circus tent he found
That circuitous catharsis
Amid tremulous trapeze swinging
Watched by the sloughed skin of sinners
Vice and virtue muddied by malice.
Exploratory tongues
Giving preface to loneliness
Too tranquil to be twisted
Too torpid to be tangible
Romance recondite,
Sold to us by our world
Leaving us with nothing but
Fantasy and
Broken bones
Jun 18, 2014
Jun 18, 2014 at 9:47 AM UTC
Wheeling our way around the continent
On an eight wheeled whistlestop tour
We sample cities with bite-sized sightings
But our bites are big because it's our choice to make
Walking in wonder until even wheelchair weakens
And our legs are limp from exploratory ache
And our bites are big because also
We share the same love of sampling food
So we get a daily dose of deliciousness
Healing our hunger with what locals bake
Too much temptation here to watch waistlines
We want to try every traditional taste
And our bites are bigger come tea time
Once we've crossed country again by day
From breakfast we watch out the window
And wander new place on the way
Miles mounting high on the dashboard
On our mission for mobility's sake
And so we've had a big bite of Europe
Big bite and plenty bites each day
These bites are teasing our tastebuds
We want more world at a later stage
May 17, 2014
May 17, 2014 at 12:06 PM UTC
.
do you feel it ?
like an empty unhaunted room
with the night fooled
it's curtains drawn ?
like a forrest
extinguished of creature sound ?
do i feel like my child feels
like when he is sad or neutral
or pondering the number of his age (5)
or figuring how to tell us he broke a thing
or to brag
about his new favourite discovery ?
do i feel as nature
( for surely that is unavoidable ) ?
or like a forgotten astronaut
(later to be noted in song) ?
whatever i feel
it's some kind of exploratory action
that's always the way, isn't it ?
a 'goddy' thing
i feel like i'd rather not feel
i know fear explored provides reward
but i habitually drivel information
and check in inflamed on habit patterns
Jul 17, 2025
Jul 17, 2025 at 8:48 PM UTC
There are evident walls of invisible matter which maintain the appearance of enviable rectitude, even though the blatancy of our traits confront the myriad of personal dishonesties over timeless planetary separations of union.
So delicate are those seemingly subconscious mechanisms which are subject to our explanatory naïveté and unfathomable presumption.
In this case of psychological avalanche, every metaphorical snowflake within our lives has offered a “not guilty” plea.
Oh, jurors of celestial cities, our mantras have subsided down slopes of exploratory fumbling where excitatory satin slips from the shoulders of a wanton seductress of socio-political exploitation.
Let us ***** an altar, and present an offering to the universe, which surpasses the veneer of familiarity and self-righteous redemptions.
After all, our fantasies are a reality, don’t you think?
Jan 12, 2015
Jan 12, 2015 at 9:48 PM UTC
i want to live in a warm place, in a place like the desert, but with water. so that it's warm at sometimes, and when it's warm, it's very warm. when it's cold, it's freezing. like our bones will freeze to our souls if we don't move them. like the beach in canada, or something. i want to live in a place that's small, in a place that sort of doesn't require much upkeep. like a one-room apartment with a large bed and a desk. i want it to be high up, so that when i smoke i can look out at the water. i want to smoke and drink and be naked and cold and go skinny-dipping so i'm all covered in goose-bumps. i'd write all day, and spend all evening tearing apart every last word that i wrote before. the days would be spent swimming and smoking and drinking. we'd be wild and free and not care about anything at all. then when kids came along, we'd get a small house, and raise really exploratory, artistic children. we'd smoke in the night time, when the kids were asleep, and we'd all have sorta artistic-y type jobs that meant we didn't have to stay put, but could travel whenever we wanted by train. the most striking image to me is wearing something small, but being mostly naked and being cold and smoking and looking out over the water. i want to be able to speak russian, german, italian, and english. i want to wear glasses that fog up in the rain, and i want my skin to taste like smoke and dust and salt and tea. i want to have ***** *** in the summer and sweet *** in the winter. we'd collect coins and scars and burns and kisses. we'd learn how to sail and we'd eat pears whole as we play chess, getting juice on each of the pieces. we'll play video games in the cold with trembling hands.
Feb 14, 2013
Feb 14, 2013 at 2:39 PM UTC
Never before has stillness been so moving;
Vulnerability yes, fearlessly inspiring.
This moment in time that is so temporary,
But the effect so powerful, will stay indefinitely
So quietly chaotic, but peaceful in mind,
In a life of reflection: freedoms I find
A moment so grounded, floating on air
to touch the intangible, daring to care.
Her hands move over me, such;
exploratory precision.
So destructively perfect
A Beautiful collision
The gentle strength- felt by her touch
The terrifying confidence of unshackled trust
The need for control, complete self reliance
Now desired and cared for, a potential alliance
To be so comfortable with complete contradiction,
So hopelessly hopeful…
So full of conviction.
Dec 2, 2017
Dec 2, 2017 at 11:10 PM UTC
Everyone loves Californians -
And I'm no exception.
Those intrepid '49ers
Seeking gold and finding
Paradise after the hard works.
Westies, like me - Holly's
Templeton's happifying
The Globe at their expense.
When Coffee meets Tea,
We'll be on the same page -
Although I know, as you,
That the sheet is opaque.
Those exploratory launchers
Targeting a future calamity
Awaiting a firm landing,
Solidly stoic in the face
Of an ignorant populous
Eager, but innocently unaware.
Mar 8, 2014
Mar 8, 2014 at 5:13 PM UTC
My heart pounds within my chest, my breathing intensifies;
The chasm inside my stomach reminds me it is anxiety not excitement.
Tumultuous thoughts tumble through my head and he can see it in my eyes.
So many words cycle yet I remain silent.
My body screams vulnerability.
He tries to reassure me but everything he says is wrong.
I don’t want to be a liability.
He should not be responsible for my emotions, regardless of how strong.
I claim it is a social construct
But I’ve refused to indulge in the curiosity.
It will simultaneously, in society, induct
Me, while others cry atrocity
I am trying to draw lines,
I want no shades of grey.
Our relationship, this will not define.
Not my heart, but my mind it will betray.
I have so many expectations,
But at the same time, I hold none.
I never pictured myself yielding to temptations,
Especially not this one…
Yet here I lie, shaking, while he climbs atop me--
I want this, I’m saying yes, but I’m terrified.
He walks confidently through my unfamiliar sensuality;
My hands, my lips, my chest, my hips: he is my guide.
The pressure builds between my legs, but that’s to be expected.
My breathing hitches -- He switches our position.
He shatters the construction society erected.
I succumb to inhibition.
I creep back into familiar territory.
When did this become familiar territory?
My hands creep back up his chest, no longer exploratory
In the light, my ring glistens. I wipe my mouth: Purity.
Dec 30, 2016
Dec 30, 2016 at 12:15 AM UTC
I apologize
If my first instinct
When I come upon you
Is to stare; dropped my cookie
And look you up and down
Every inch begging
For an exploratory
Discovery,
That is; until you speak
And I am drawn
To your siren's song
Orchestra from your voice
And the depth of intelligence
Spilling from your mind
I want to swim
By you
In your pool of thoughts
I want to sit
By you
In your Café of ideas
I want to lie
By you
In your bed of beauty,
Letting me gaze upon you
And imagining
All your beautiful bones
Beneath the splendor
Of your smile
Spell you've cast
Upon my eyes;
Slowly rooting
From within my heart...
APAD13 - 082 © okpoet
Mar 25, 2013
Mar 25, 2013 at 3:12 PM UTC
I can't look at you in the eyes.
Because all I can see are lies.
You told me I'm the only one
but I know it's more than one.
You said "I'm sorry"
It's some kind to worry.
For few months later,
You're gonna do it way better.
Should I accept your apology?
To give another chance of hurting me?
I guess it would be another set of exploratory.
Might as well give the best of your explanatory. ;)
Feb 3, 2015
Feb 3, 2015 at 8:44 AM UTC
Exploratory dives into yestertime,
rare finds, ancient wines soaking revery
Dec 9, 2011
Dec 9, 2011 at 3:33 PM UTC