"expressionless" poems
Not easy to state the change you made.
If I'm alive now, then I was dead,
Though, like a stone, unbothered by it,
Staying put according to habit.
You didn't just tow me an inch, no--
Nor leave me to set my small bald eye
Skyward again, without hope, of course,
Of apprehending blueness, or stars.
That wasn't it. I slept, say: a snake
Masked among black rocks as a black rock
In the white hiatus of winter--
Like my neighbors, taking no pleasure
In the million perfectly-chisled
Cheeks alighting each moment to melt
My cheeks of basalt. They turned to tears,
Angels weeping over dull natures,
But didn't convince me. Those tears froze.
Each dead head had a visor of ice.
And I slept on like a bent finger.
The first thing I was was sheer air
And the locked drops rising in dew
Limpid as spirits. Many stones lay
Dense and expressionless round about.
I didn't know what to make of it.
I shone, mice-scaled, and unfolded
To pour myself out like a fluid
Among bird feet and the stems of plants.
I wasn't fooled. I knew you at once.
Tree and stone glittered, without shadows.
My finger-length grew lucent as glass.
I started to bud like a March twig:
An arm and a leg, and arm, a leg.
From stone to cloud, so I ascended.
Now I resemble a sort of god
Floating through the air in my soul-shift
Pure as a pane of ice. It's a gift.
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Tiredness is overwhelming,
The distress is stringing,
Thoughts expressionless,
Though my writings are endless.
~A.d | 16 Dec 2014
Mar 7, 2015
Mar 7, 2015 at 7:25 AM UTC
Walking down the street, you catch a glimpse of the most beautiful woman
And in a second, your life flashes by, she’s with you till the end
Your grave is freshly dug, she sheds a tear
You've not had enough of her, you refuse to leave
She goes home and your ghost follows
She holds a picture of the two of you, forces a smile
Dinner seems to be the most silent and most painful
The television helps, at times
The actors fall in love time and again, this gives her hope
They make her laugh, yet your ghost just sits there. Expressionless
She reads, and reads some more
Books seem to be her new love
The pile next to her bed grows weekly as she can’t stop turning the pages
An old friend visits her, they speak about you
She puts on a smile but she’s not ready yet
They drive down to the fields and the grass clears her mind if only for a while
Your ghost takes a walk and leave her be for a while, but it’s not done yet
Weeks pass, your ghost wanders
She smiles a lot more, even laughs time and again
Once again, she has others in stitches
The second passes.
She walks past.
And yet her ghost just sits there. Expressionless
Oct 27, 2012
Oct 27, 2012 at 8:04 PM UTC
I see you, monster...
In your sockets bore dead, dark eyes
They hold the blackest of stares
Nebulous swirling pits of demise
Thin lips would spout the most sibilant of hisses
Every so often would curl into a snarl
Dry and chapped, almost unworthy of kisses
Large, rough snout, jutting out like a crag
You sniff around tirelessly for easy targets
Preying on the unsuspecting minds of those under your flag
Tapering chin, sprouting strands of coarse hair
Unkempt and gritty from your last meal
Decaying teeth, crooked due to little to no care
Your face is cratered; tales of trying adolescent years
Wearing a face only a mother could love
Expressionless but it screams out your fears
Ugly jointed limbs that grew out of sync
Disproportionate, misshapen, grotesque
Little noggin with sparse hair, packed within, a brain that thinks
I hear you, monster...
As you stalk your sleepless nights
Nocturnal ambience be your playground
Lurking in the dark; places with no light
Bulky, heavy feet but deft and silent
Can barely notice when you're up and about
As if cloaked yourself stealthy, with steps ever transient
Respire you do, exhaling breaths so gnarly
Ingesting good air, converting into fervid, loathsome notions
With which you paint a portrait so ghastly
I feel you monster...
Deep within the recesses of my heart
Destroying and distorting all that was pure
Testing my will till I should fall apart
You're but the twisted manifestation of conscience
Feeding on my trials and nurturing them into vile abominations
I despise that of you but I seem to have developed dependence
I see you, monster...
You're horrid and beastly, an embodiment of absolute horror
I await the day that you would finally dissolve
For I am weary of seeing you staring back in the mirror
Sep 18, 2014
Sep 18, 2014 at 9:23 PM UTC
words without warmth
are like the dry wind
that has lost its water
over the high cliffs of life
they cannot water a wilting soul
but will only take away
the little life left
and leave it collapsed
"thank you"s are tired
over worked, over used
only an ASCII string, no more
"i’m sorry"s stare in the face
of the expectant mind
expressionless
bring words back from the wastelands
give them the life they’ve lost
make them carry between their bits
the warm care of a human for another
Apr 4, 2018
Apr 4, 2018 at 1:00 AM UTC
Avert your eyes
from looking directly
at the monster.
Look only through
that reflective shield,
that glowing rectangle
that parades a
distorted vision of
the objective self,
that which in
dark moments may
suddenly shut off,
revealing one’s face:
inverted, expressionless, petrified—
like when the
mirror of Perseus
at last revealed
Medusa’s horrifying visage.
Jan 17, 2017
Jan 17, 2017 at 3:19 AM UTC
Just as you are different to me,
I cannot understand you.
Every move you make
Every thought, expression
That passes across your eyes;
They say eyes are the window into the soul
But your eyes are expressionless
Blank as a stone slate
Cold as a stone slate
How could you **** someone?
Don't you feel guilty?
The dark malice hidden away in those beautiful eyes
Spur-of-the-moment thoughts, uncontrollable impulses.
How did I fall for you?
People still ask me, every day.
Do you still love her?
How do I answer that?
All those memories we shared,
Every photo taken,
I still look back at them, sometimes.
And feel the toxic rush of happiness
Of fondness, of love.
Love for a serial killer.
While you comforted me,
Gently held me,
Assuring me,
Everything was going to be alright,
You tortured, tore apart others
Who were different from me.
You're a murderer, a criminal.
You took a life, intentional
Every move and calculated plan
All executed like a falling guillotine.
Unstoppable. Deadly.
How did I fall for you?
People still ask me.
I still remember, the memories we shared.
Every gentle word and loving touch,
Filling me with toxic happiness.
How did I fall for you?
How do I answer that?
The best answer, I think,
Is that you were different.
Dec 7, 2020
Dec 7, 2020 at 9:38 PM UTC
Rebuffed
by expressionless faces
you'll never meet.
An image
can't be identified
through a distorted lens.
Weary words
defrost
as egotistical dreams.
Points of view
compete with self-esteem
and dysfunctional genes.
Oct 1, 2014
Oct 1, 2014 at 3:49 AM UTC
as clear as ice, in night or day
reflecting faintly, a soulful reverie
reminding its presence subtly
dewdrops dripping rhythmically
standing in the way, an invisible wall
trying to reach the distant horizon
of which, birds appear and disappear
like speckles of black in orange canvas
eyes—blank and expressionless
mournfully staring in quietude
of the distant mountains and hills
and clouds floating idly
in monotone silence,
a hand reaches out only to be impeded by a cold caress
Aug 10, 2018
Aug 10, 2018 at 7:03 AM UTC
I bent down to her ear and said
Thank you for all you’ve done
Not just for
NY
But for the World
She looked at me expressionless from her chair
I don’t think that she understood nor cared
Then I handed her a little
Bag
Containing two lipsticks
And two pencils
I think she threw the pencils on the floor and
Wondered aloud
Why was everyone giving her pencils?
She did not notice that of the two that I gave her
one was stamped in gold
With the one word
Hustler
And on the other, two
Strictly
Business
I made no suggestions nor references
I didn’t smirk
I must have appeared a bit sweet
A treacly aberration
It doesn’t matter
I had selected two perfect reds in LA
One a bit more blue
and one
a classic vampish carmine
Blood red can be a challenge even against
pale
pale
Skin.
Standing in the lift
Fully attuned
she caught me
not merely looking into her eyes
But seeing what I saw
A death’s head?
I hate when I’m caught doing that
Under the fluorescent light
She was dog rough
Pasty with sad sunken eyes
I was thrown, but by what exactly
Her magpie distress?
Her etheric calamity?
Her puffy, aging face?
We sat and spoke for a while later that night
She did not recognize me at all and apologized
maybe it was the next day
that the three of us had lunch
Everyone in good spirits
The mandrake’s screams
Forgotten with smiles and a wink
Memory bamboozled and
Make-up duly applied
She took out the lipstick
And redrew the lines
She liked the shining black case
with the little black ribbon for a pull
She told our companion sitting on a stoop
smoking cigarettes
I like your friend and
I wondered does she realize
that we already know one another?
Sep 20, 2018
Sep 20, 2018 at 3:52 PM UTC
I see you looking back at me,
but I have no memory of you,
no name or event to link us
as kindred soul.
There's a sun playing
expressionless games
about to fall from the shelf,
my feet may burn, but never my heart.
My mirror is a broken window,
the broken window, a city,
and a man and woman
are crossing into it,
—crossing my mind,
fused together.
Their laughter like
claps of thunder,
bursting forth in a sky
devoid of any signs of me...
Nov 21, 2022
Nov 21, 2022 at 6:40 AM UTC
Look around,
You will find all eyes down;
some expressionless,
some desperate,
and few smiling!
Both tiny and fatty thumbs
yearning for a rest,
after typing those texts.
Some consulting the Doc
for having a smartphone thumb
and some for lacking vitamin D!
Posts wanting more and more likes.
Kilograms of followers on Instagram!
Swapping stories on Whatsapp!
Unopened notebooks
when you have a Facebook!
Television screens consigned to oblivion
when you have a Youtube!
Discovering the veiled world,
missing the real scenes around.
Emoticons spreading fake feelings,
Stupefying infants swiping through the screens,
Kids imploring to their parents-
To drag out the patterns.
What is more satisfying?
Hitting play button on the screen or
Hitting a six on the field?
Carting products online or
Shopping on a girls day out?
Dribbling a basket ball or
Dragging down the newsfeed?
Watching daily soaps without a dish or
Helping your mother out to wash the dish?
Sharing the snaps of poverty and hunger or
Reaching out to them with eager?
A game of candy crush or
Gifting a candy to your crush?
I feel like whooping out to myself
and to people around;
To raise their heads and
Look around!
Jul 18, 2017
Jul 18, 2017 at 11:22 AM UTC
Black lake, black boat, two black, cut-paper people.
Where do the black trees go that drink here?
Their shadows must cover Canada.
A little light is filtering from the water flowers.
Their leaves do not wish us to hurry:
They are round and flat and full of dark advice.
Cold worlds shake from the oar.
The spirit of blackness is in us, it is in the fishes.
A snag is lifting a valedictory, pale hand;
Stars open among the lilies.
Are you not blinded by such expressionless sirens?
This is the silence of astounded souls.
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White as winter skin,
expressionless faces z i p on by,
looking straight ahead
Timepieces remembered,
drudgery over leisure time
All in cadence, same beat, same drummer
Putting on Mona Lisa smiles
and handing out business cards
Numbers dominate words,
words mesh with numbers
Fast food, fast digestive systems
join Popeye's Whimpey ranks
Plop Plop, fizz fizz
Companies, corporations, amalgamations
merge then COLLIDE!!!
Sep 19, 2014
Sep 19, 2014 at 1:55 PM UTC
At one end of the couch
you sit, mute as a pillow
tossed onto the upholstery.
I watch you sometimes
when you don't know I'm watching
and I see you. Who you are.
You are a self made man.
Hard suffering. You are grey
stone and damp earth.
A long scar on a pale sky.
The television is tuned to CNN.
The world's tragedies flicker
across your face like some
foreign film.
You are expressionless.
Your usual gestures ground to salt.
How do you explain yourself
to people that do not know you?
How do you explain to them,
this is me; that is not me.
However many words you choose
in whatever context with
whichever adjectives you use
could not compare.
Even you describing you
would not be you.
Not totally.
Your hands are folded
together, resting in your lap.
I study those hands until
every groove becomes familiar.
Like a favorite hat,
you wear your silence
comfortably.
I sometimes can not help
but wonder what we will
talk about if we ever
run out of things to say.
You are the curve
I burrow into. The strength
I borrow. You are the red sun
rising over the mountain.
You are the mountain.
3.9k
Perfection makes this day
Polite expressionless faces
Rich and luxurious, they pray
Rationally irritating, that passes.
Perfection is I, quoth he
Pretty pointless faces, I say
Reasonably intelligent friends, said he
Rather boring folk do they convey.
Perfection is ******** I utter
Probable mix-up, they record
Realize the beauty! I order
Render it proper on my own accord.
May 2, 2013
May 2, 2013 at 1:42 AM UTC
Wizards, witches, and warlocks
Charge nurses really,
Isn't that ionic
And yes I really do think
Much more intelligentsia than wet nurses
But everything has a time and place
Expressionless Gene
Wilder
And warlords destroy beauty and intelligentsia chasing a lost or stolen dream
Sep 16, 2014
Sep 16, 2014 at 1:04 PM UTC
I wish I never met you. Not out of hate but out of love.
I wish you never showed me how it was to be happy.
Because now that you're not here... Alone to myself and my emptiness,
an absence so deep it crushes me breathless.
A love unfinished unappreciated undiscovered utterly uprooted.
Without you I'm unloved.
Without.
Just me.
Emptiness curbed by the hope you're still waiting for me.
Waiting upstairs - waiting,
calling for me to come to bed.
I long for that again.
The need for a connection ... to you, to myself.
A purpose to exist and care.
When its just me in a room within, there is too much space.
Just empty closets of your memories.
Loaded gun of emotion with no target.
Bound and compressed to dust.
A diamond will arise from the ashes but not for you.
Never again will I let you inside my expanse.
Just to hurt me and watch me bleed.
When you were in pain, my shoulder is where you lay.
When you were happy, my eyes were your gaze.
When you were in love, my chest your head fell.
When you were lost, my heart you stayed.
Now all that remains.
When you pushed me away, beside you I stayed.
Forever I could have been there, stepping through the mud.
No hope, no love, no mud, no longer.
Pain is double edged like your two faces.
With one comes the other.
One I never thought existed.
One I never thought I'd see.
One I can't let go of and dispel.
One - a memory that deforms my existence.
Understanding chaos is a never ending deployment.
Lonely and expressionless with
No muse for my fingers.
No figure of beauty to adore endlessly.
Trapped now within my prison of passion.
A vessel to pour my unbound passion.
An unlikely companion stifled immature and premature.
Incapable, incompatible - irresistible.
An unlikely companion clearly conceptual.
Nov 28, 2015
Nov 28, 2015 at 9:29 AM UTC
I gaze at my reflection
in a gilt picture frame.
She has the slimmest
sliver of a smile painted
on her expressionless face.
Her perfect eyes are so
intense, so empty.
Am I this predictable?
Sep 5, 2014
Sep 5, 2014 at 5:14 PM UTC
He didn't know the love she had
Buried beneath her skin
Held behind the bars of her rib cage
Her heart was there, burning with desire
Beating within was the song of love sung by a lark
Alas, he couldn't hear it
From the surface he only saw an expressionless doll
He never listened to her when she tried to sing to him
That deafening sound that refused to please him
So instead of being left with a song
Destined to drive her to madness
She released the lark within
But that boy couldn't let her go
Tortured by the thoughts of her
Haunted by the memory of her
He defiled their trust
She could no longer stay silent as she planned
So she opened her mouth and told him
He was not a man
She hurt his pride and didn't mind
Her lark returned
But that pretty bird was consumed by rage
Her heart now burned with a different flame
Jan 30, 2019
Jan 30, 2019 at 10:51 PM UTC
She was beautiful.
But not in a Cosmo Model, Megan Fox, or Tara kind of way, not how you would expect. It was strange, her beauty. The kind that has you peering through a crowded room to see what you were really looking at. Her eyes, her smile, the way she held herself; strange how just holding her head up a few vertebrae higher could catch such attention. And the way she was around people, was a mystery. She would be all smiles, childish and comic at one moment; but the next she would lean quietly, her face relaxed with no thought of expression.
When she smiled, it took little effort to make her smile brighter, and the promise would make her giggle and laugh. Her laugh could make even the saddest man cry out for joy. And sometimes she would sing, and her voice was like the angels from heaven, to get her to sing was just as much a task as it was to make her smile. While, on the other hand, when she was relaxed, her expressionless face dominant, the task to make her smile, to get her to laugh grew hard and tiresome.
Such a strange beauty, like a well painted piece of art, was rare. She stuck out like a sore thumb in the cluster of thin no bodies. Each girl prim, thin, perky and down to the letter. Each girl barely had a mind of their own, barely had wit enough to keep them. But this girl…this girl could tame the whole room if she pleased. This girl could open her mouth wide and get the whole company into a dance. She had personality, she had spark, she had emotions, she was alive.
That’s why he liked her so much. He loved just looking into her auburn eyes, the almond shape of them as interesting as her topics of conversation. He could listen to her voice for hours, just as beautiful as her singing voice. And she could pull your heart like nothing else. That’s what he liked about her.
Jan 25, 2011
Jan 25, 2011 at 2:05 PM UTC
Those sleepless summer nights
Sweat pouring from every crack
In thinly layered sunburnt skins
It was all panties-on-the-floor
Blood-on-the-sheets
And *******
Living out highschool fantasies
Like the cool kids
Life before 22 was all a dream
Of midsummer swelter and
Salt water
In the mind of the dog
Chained up in the universe's yard
Tethered to the ether world
Racing rabbits through space
While I was turned into an ***
Staring at the mirror
And my expressionless face
*This must be how cancer feels
Growing increasingly smaller
In a world where cabinets
And aspirations grow increasingly taller
She met the devil
For coffee on diagnosis day
But the deal they made didn't take
Her hair fell out
And her body atrophied anyway
She found herself
Floating far far away
Her blood coagulating like
A broken thermometer
Of mercury*
Salvador Dali painted this fall
The house of salvatore
Minds gone to roost under warm eaves
Staring fireplaces
Hungry couches and singing windows
It's all ******* drooping like clocks
And derailing thoughts
The local biddies
Cluck their tongues
At the absurdity of infinity
And the girl in Ace Hardware
Buying shoepolish to hide her tan lines
Yawns, as her boyfriend feels her up
*Meanwhile I collapse
Like a house of cards with a flick of the wrist
Thinking about life's mathematical beauty*
Sep 10, 2013
Sep 10, 2013 at 6:11 PM UTC
*everyday chores
wake
eye-crusted
weep
hoping
to free-falling freedom
maybe
splash
words of encouragement
let them
dry
*untowled and untrammeled
upon expressionless lips*
routinize
squeeze
*out the poem
reforming repeatedly*
write
of everyday chores
sleep
go to, to go,
*half awarding awaring
that newbie tears new pooling
will by morn
old crusting creating
and
everyday chores
never ending
I am earth
crusted
no matter how deep
daily*
dug
the untitled
everyday chores
Jan 25, 2015
Jan 25, 2015 at 8:07 AM UTC
At the stroke of midnight,
When sleep is at its height.
A ghoulish mist engulfs the town,
Bewitching even the Gothic Parish.
Marring its beauty with sinister a frown,
Ivied gates forbidding all that is nightmarish.
Its tall angels now grotesque gargoiles,
Tis when the witches own the sky.
Hidden by moonlight, for youth they toil,
Decades of immortality, watched with sharp an eye.
The towns square, a friendly place,
Now expressionless, a face.
Rings with its blurry past, haunting,
It's residents hiding, whence the hunting.
The witches doth confess,
The town's too quiet for us to obsess.
Begs the darkest one:
"Let us recess, to that dark cess,
Whence we came from.
Tis better to live a day hungry,
Than to be denied your place in history !!"
Jan 23, 2018
Jan 23, 2018 at 3:17 AM UTC
I used to swim across the channel to rattlesnake island when I lived
in Florida . We all knew the sharks loved
the funneling action of the channel to the bay . And we were always aware that there were sharks near by . We saw them every day . Yet the allure of the island just a scant one hundred yards away was to much for a 10 year old to pass up . So I would swim across holding a rod and reel high so it would not soak in sea water . I admit there was apprehension evident in my strokes and kicks but I made it across . On the other side there were no rattlesnakes anywhere .
Just gorgeous unclaimed white beaches and aqua clear water . Needle fish scooted across the surface and schools of mullet jumping were all I could see . I did little or no fishing , just running and jumping into the surf . What an afternoon it was . But the sun slid down and we knew we had to leave soon as the big sharks move in at dusk to feed into the night . So we stepped into the swirling waters of the channel and then plunged in and swam . Sharks have all black eyes . Cold black eyes and an expressionless grin that is all business sporting a mouth full of jagged dagger teeth . They are cautious up to a point but no one knows where that point is . Once that point is reached . . . well you don't want to see that point while your in the water . So about half way across the channel we see a dark shadow swim by in front of us between us and the beach . We know it's a shark , a big one . Perhaps more than fifteen feet long . We can't stay where we are at , but we fear to move on . So taking a deep breath we swim on slow and steady . Finely the beach is at hand , our feet touch sand and we run up on the beach and collapse . Then with heaving chests of fear we look back only to see the shark swim by . Needless to say that was my last visit to rattlesnake island .
Apr 8, 2016
Apr 8, 2016 at 11:55 PM UTC