"flaking" poems
Sitting at the bus stop bench
Making odd faces to the rain
Watching for a bus that never comes
Distracted by the city light and noise
Wood rot, cement legs, poor paint job
Advertisement ghosts peeling and flaking away
Stranded here on a forgotten bus stop bench
Waiting for a bus that never comes
Apr 12, 2012
Apr 12, 2012 at 9:33 PM UTC
Body of shame.
It haunts in tatters.
All this grief smites all that matters,
'til there's no one left to blame.
It has the fading scars
of good ol' times
plastered
like flaking paint:
Tattoos of radiant beach sunsets;
forgotten "beneath" a shore
of its memories
like an ordinary pebble
under a mountain of stones.
Ethereal grasp
never touching a thing,
yet finding itself
touched
by desire.
Where goes the time?
Past yet to come.
It has broken scales that balance wine,
yet it's sober to passion's drum.
Mar 18, 2016
Mar 18, 2016 at 8:45 PM UTC
Dust flowers up from the Chilton County dusk
Rust is flaking off the pickup that has a skunk musk
Bullet , the blue tick hound from your sleeve pulls it
Could it be another hot day in August , would it ?
Peaches have last month gone to fill the niches
Beaches at the river are low , full of leeches
Summertime in Alabama is a long ******
Funnier than that song , swing low number
Gathering distant dark blue clouds that are a mattering
Battering thunder rolling , lightning shattering
Huge drops splattering on clay so Rouge
Deluge now soaking , coming down like a luge
Passing with one loud Crack blasting
Massing clouds now are just in a fasting
Nov 20, 2014
Nov 20, 2014 at 7:18 AM UTC
As I scale the slope
I note the melody of the wind
With its sweeping symphonic shifts
My nails grind against granite
Before flaking and falling into the abyss
Yet I persist
Upward along the lone path
Where the air recedes like tides
And frost forms fellowship upon my eyes
Before seeking to turn my sore limbs, frigid
Icily assuring each ache is anchored in anxiety
Which stems from the worn clothes of society
Yet as I climb, the fabric is discarded
Like old styles of yesteryear
Now basking in all my naturalness
I finally summit, my thoughts thankfully descend
My heart lifts up its scepter and then my chin
Beating with Brilliance it grins
Furls up it sleeves and wordlessly begins
The work of healing from within
Aug 4, 2018
Aug 4, 2018 at 8:28 PM UTC
Friend Rockstar,
Listen, yield to a robust think-tank,
earlobes skidding against wheat and grain.
Terrible story, yes, what happened to that little girl.
Sterile teddy nightgowns weeping in the squad car windows.
Teacher – Teacher, do you harken my yodels for grace?
I’ve never been maternal.
Put the game on. Abortion.
That’s what I’m about.
Grab a bra. Sling some weight.
That’s what I’m about.
Some housefly wings on a weathered corn cob.
Some downhome, homegrown twang for those fancy, fussy britches.
Muddy workboots. Sweat-soaked collars.
That’s what I’m about.
Him done made me read, sir.
What sacraments did we write today?
I can still remember my first broken bone.
I can still remember my first broken *****
That could be what this is all about.
Mary, Mary, you can be contrite,
so knife – so critter – so laze – so stalked.
Who fertilized your seeds? Who reared your sprouts?
Cockle shells and silver bells, honey,
can’t grow up
to be pretty little maids all in a row.
Sterile teddy nightgowns – green bells in gaseous gardens.
Friend Rockstar, you may have to sleep.
This restless harbor is a shivering anecdote spilled from a belly,
a vast, deep cavern with love notes written in milk.
Your fried, stern smile was a flaking fingernail adjacent to the crack in the flowerpot.
Some garden, I say.
May 31, 2012
May 31, 2012 at 7:12 PM UTC
I am not well suited
To existing in silence
White sheets in plastic bags
Absently turning printed pages
Scrolling through screens
I find nothing
No, I am not well suited
To these silent hours
That I fill restlessly
With hopeful solitude
And shivering despair
All to find nothing
But old flaking paint
And old mistakes
Jan 28, 2013
Jan 28, 2013 at 10:03 AM UTC
Over the years, I taught so many classes
in many different schools,
long-term or short.
Hundreds and hundreds of students,
all ages, three to eighteen years old.
But how could I remember
all of them?
I was the teacher; they were there to learn.
Those were our roles; that was the contract.
They would move up and I move on, for all of us
always a new beginning.
But now and then
one will return to haunt me, like the girl
whose secret friend, Little Mister Hansford,
drove a tiny red plastic car.
I keep it now, in my drawer,
and remember.
The boy, his skin
flaking and cracked with eczema, trying to resist
the urge to scratch, but always failing.
How could he bear to wake each day to face that life?
Yet I was proud he claimed me for his brother;
On a school exchange visit,
an older girl, seventeen,
crossing the Alps in a coach,
moved beyond tears
by her first sight of real mountains.
Do they remember?
Maybe they do.
A young man I met by chance
one day on a Spanish street
surprised me by recalling
how I read Winnie-the-Pooh when he was small,
and did the animals in different voices.
So many children, so many years have gone,
but memories, like love, can linger on.
Jul 15, 2016
Jul 15, 2016 at 12:40 AM UTC
She doesn't know me, nor recognize me anymore,
as if the trees have changed shades of blue they never were
and dandelions have melted into an orange color.
She stood back in a shocked unacknowledgement
a painful stare right through my flustered skull
taking notice to every little ant but silly old me;
the chilled sizzles in her passionate eyes
passing by my attention seeking debonair,
easier than skipping stairs on her way
out of work every Friday afternoon.
she sometimes speaks to me, but the tides are shallow,
and our depths couldn't even bathe a babe.
Red flakes of the greatest nothing
incapable of breathing the slightest spark in her mind,
but her blazing hair has caught my attention.
Flaking embers that have sprinkled thousands of burnt marks
upon my coarse skin
like freckles stained to my body unable to be brushed off.
Her burnt heart is on my sleeve but I'm afraid not in my arms;
a fire pulsing through my veins like a slightly more addictive ******
because she is my little red, of course, from afar
and that is all I could ask for
no more, no less
because she is my little red
Dec 31, 2016
Dec 31, 2016 at 12:13 AM UTC
comparable to a parasite
but with a higher mortality rate
it has opened its mouth
and found a way to my insides
it began to multiply
an asexual creature
and slowly I was being consumed
they nested in the linings of my stomach
giving me sudden lurches
which triggered my anxiety
then frolicked in my eyelids
irritating the iris
and I was forced to cry
then such creatures
tunneled their way back to
my flaking epidermis
and for a split second my body remained its shape
but one could soon see
I fell victim to a consumption
Oct 21, 2012
Oct 21, 2012 at 11:01 PM UTC
Mechanically he put out his best press
Straightened his yellowing pages
In spite of little pieces flaking off
Like dandruff
Ow !
His spine was not as strong
As in younger presses
He bathed and used aftershave
But still he had that musty air about him
He lay claim to nervous fame
As he fidgeted with the book markers
About to be given as gifts
For her , his blind date
She came in fresh in expectation
Her beauty made him full of dejection
Her cheerful voice proved
to be more than exhaultation
He fumbled for the first sentence
Of subjection , but
Managed only to say
"Please ! I'm just an open book to be read"
She eased over
And ran her fingers over his cover .
down his bindings ,
then inside his yellowing pages
She sighed ,
with pleasure ,
"Yes , this is my perfection "
May 2, 2015
May 2, 2015 at 6:41 PM UTC
1
Another space arrives. The newborn cries.
And the destiny determined:
Oven or matchstick.
Descendant of both; inheritor of another:
A machine that dreams itself into being,
Dragging its sleeping subjects after it.
Sustenance of nightmares, the food of what
God is, blood the earth pumps forth.
The plastic legacy is siphoned off,
Its artifacts cheap jewellery:
Enamel glinting white and turquoise.
Flimsy chains that never last,
And yet last forever, the paint flaking off.
So too does the rust on this delicate orchid.
It is an oracle of poisons.
2
The city burns in its incandescence.
The indelible halo
Of a lime-green candelabra
Makes light of midnight. Our slumber is
Punctured by gunshots and the drone of the
Ambulance.
Not a foot but a juggernaut,
Pandora’s box,
Sowing the seeds of your distress.
Fallout marks the potent epoch.
The neon octopus spews it back,
Invisible print on the murderous air.
Where water drinks
No diving bell can bear
The pressure of such fuchsia.
Oct 10, 2016
Oct 10, 2016 at 9:54 AM UTC
First, garlic.
Dig your nails into its flaking paper,
pink and beige like magnolia petals parched
in the gutter.
Peel back the skin and crush
the weighted bud
with the heel of your hand on your favourite knife.
It has been waiting for this.
The thick expectent smell sits up on the chopping board,
looks up at you like an old friend.
It has burrowed itself into the skin of your hands and lingers there
it will not be washed away, instead
it quietly clings to your fingers, flavouring
letters on your keyboard, the edge of the banister,
every light switch in the house.
The pulped clove is scattered into a scraped frying pan,
your grandmother's; it was never non-stick.
The stuck parts were always the best bit,
and so it goes,
the oil and creamy crumbs find the same spots,
engineered over forty years.
Some were accidents. All were happy.
Yours were ambition-led experiments.
The thumbs in the brown recipe book
were never your thumbs,
the dried-out sedimentary edges
were never your mishaps
but still it is a bible of sorts,
providing answers but never asking questions.
Later after dinner when everything is cleared away
and nobody can tell that you had been cooking at all
bring your fingertips to your nose
and inhale
the remaining relic of your meal,
a letter to yourself,
the end notes enduring but faint
now, lastly
lastly
garlic.
Jan 1, 2015
Jan 1, 2015 at 1:03 PM UTC
Red post boxes stand on street corners like aged prostitutes
rusted and flaking
and they are going the way of phone boxes and TV aerial?
Are there still milkman?
Who writes letters?
Postcards from men
working down a pit?
Stuck in the trench
I killed time by attening seminars about powerful words,
the history of things,
body language as legitimate currency
exposing the micro.
A craven emptiness screaming extinction.
Jan 8, 2013
Jan 8, 2013 at 2:51 AM UTC
I remember the schoolgirl days
when Sister Anne led us out in rows of
blue and white
[mirrored in
the Dutchware my father painted with
quick, uniform strokes]
to the school garden,
pointed hands to plant the
violets.
We breathed their air,
colonies of their gold dust
settled in our lungs; sometimes
we carved out twin plantlets
to grow in our window.
And for all those years
I never saw the flaking autumn nights
when Sister Anne stooped,
nunnery cast behind a bush;
crushed a violet stem between
2nd and
3rd fingers
lit one end
smoked her eyes
blue.
Mar 8, 2013
Mar 8, 2013 at 10:32 AM UTC
A shadowy shop with
Shelves that bend and buckle
Under the weight of years.
The dust of the decade
Lies undisturbed
Volumes lined in motley ranks
Anthologies, albums and almanacks
Heaped in
Precarious stacks.
A few flaking pamphlets.
Dream-like sepia images
Dog-eared and damp
Bulge from mildewed and
Musty manilla.
Some are excited by
The acrid smell
Of old books.
Not sure that I am.
A bargain box or a treasure chest
Who cares.
Festered and forgotten
Between the yellowing pages of
A railway timetable
Lie someone's drawings.
Quite clever.
A little deranged, if you ask me.
Nice colours
But you wouldn't want them on your wall.
Jan 15, 2010
Jan 15, 2010 at 11:16 PM UTC
The flavor of the winter
on a cold morning after
a storm starts with a kitchen full
of busy hand making
while snow is flaking
a warm oven baking.
Steam laced with scents that
engage the heart in happiness while reawakening
childhood memories.
Mugs filled
with the warmth of coffee, tea, or cocoa
that soothes the throat when sipped.
Eyes smiling as
family members not together recently
give good company.
Thoughts of hope and
Happiness fill the soul and the mind
as the holidays usher the year’s end.
~Miguel
Dec 2, 2014
Dec 2, 2014 at 10:24 PM UTC
"They call him a magic man"
"There's no such thing as..."
"As what, magic?"
"..."
And the coffin hit the banks in Burma
Mud on the feet of a white man, stranger
"I came in search of truth, can you help me?"
The two men sat awake, drinking alcohol
Fermented and brewed by hand and the locals watched
Flaking hut, the bamboo was broken, he wondered how
"They say he has the power to heal"
"And yet I don't believe you"
"Find him"
The trees were dusted and the Antelope were grazing
In the Kalahari I found my guide, we smoked and died
By the fireside, I lied about the tide
He took my hand, I lost my stride
The Nile ran red and I awoke covered in sweat
Phantom structures of glass and brick, apparent not to I
A world of stars and the translucent eyes of a **********
The grinning dawn was mournful as we fell from barriers
The guards were boiled alive but their guns survived
And the California beaches were beckoning
I lay down on the road, calling out to Kerouac and receiving nothing but a jolt as the cars massaged my flailing back, and the monkeys were howling as a witch doctor calls
The small boy read the lacquered book with glistening nails adorned
The tide was vile, washed him away with a sly smile
A great **** at the doors of a church, masks discarded
The preacher man watched with a snarl, upturned lip
Gripped by fear the small boy clawed his way to the banks
He banked on life
Gambled with a choice and won
Burmese man-child, hashish in the pipe
Tell me of the story of your life
The bamboo pipes
A lighter falling through space, as the astronaut suffocates
Nicotine daze and a greyish haze, through the eternal maze
And we lay awake for days and days
A tank would fall from the mountain top
Crushing just one daffodil
and the bamboo mourned
Muddy river ran dry
Today, the day I die
Apr 10, 2013
Apr 10, 2013 at 9:48 AM UTC
I FEEL THE FURIES DESCEND -
HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO SAVAGE A PILE OF MEAT AND MUSCLE
THE STENCH OF IT, O GOD
O GLORY SCREAMING, WHY
RAGING AGAINST SOME BROKEN
DYING THING:
PEEL THE SKIN FLAKING FROM MY BACK,
WEAR IT AS A TROPHY
FASHION MY SKULL INTO A SICKLY CROWN
YOU DESERVE THIS THRONE! YOU
REALLY REALLY DO!
HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO DIE
FROM SELF HATRED
PUTRID FIRE AND MALEVOLENCE
REMINISCING LIKE OLD FRIENDS, AND
MY FINGERS LYING AT THEIR FEET
I WAS NEVER ALIVE! NOT IN THE
RIGHT WAY, AT LEAST, SING
SONGS OF MY COURAGE
SACRAMENT AND DUST SENT OUT TO SEA
ON A FLAMING BOAT
NOTHING BUT A SHATTERED URN AND A
DECK OF CARDS
AND A SUICIDE NOTE THAT SAYS SORRY,
WRONG NUMBER
THIS ISNT - THAT IS TO SAY, IM NOT -
I CANT BREATHE, NOT WHILE
EAGLES SWALLOW MY LUNGS, A FLY SWARM
TURNED HOLY SCREAMING
REPENT! REPENT! REPENT! REPENT! REPENT! REPENT! REPENT! REPENT!
May 5, 2015
May 5, 2015 at 7:21 PM UTC
There always was a face
under this mask--
living skin, stifled
under the thick, white layers
immobilized by:
fear
the expectations/exhortations/excoriations
Logic found at the bottom of
empty wine bottles,
the dregs and sludge of sediment.
Hairline cracks, deepening,
flaking, peeling,
tiny pieces, larger chunks,
the slow work of years
until
my fingers ripping, prying, tearing
a sudden rending of it all.
I raise my naked face to the sun,
feel the wind on my cheek.
Take one, long, full breath.
Hello. It's good to be.
Oct 11, 2016
Oct 11, 2016 at 12:37 AM UTC
His eyes were galaxies reflected in the vortexes of her heart
Shimmering nothings she loved to be lost and found in
Whenever he gazed upon a horizon or tabletop or cup of tea
She could almost see
What he saw set off the foreshocks in her own soul
Capricorn kaleidoscopes and faerie fliers
Of flaking eternities and sauntering demises
Eyes brimming with the untold fantasy of the pinned butterfly
He could see over the folds of Time
(carpet smothering bodies of resistance)
Second hands writhing from the slither of reversible realities
Eyes dripping smoke from the burning within him
He had a beauty no one could envy
For he was the eighth wonder
That he managed to survive in this world
Jun 18, 2013
Jun 18, 2013 at 8:01 PM UTC
It's shedding season--
a time for growth and flaking
away dry, dead cells.
Jun 25, 2014
Jun 25, 2014 at 10:42 PM UTC
A ghost used to dance in my mirror--
she moved like a picture taken in motion,
though her dress remained still as the background.
But she has since stopped dancing and
grown bruises beneath marigold eyes.
Once, she whispered to me “It’s not your fault,”
but her breath reeked of rotten flowers
left too long in a molding vase--
her skin delicate as dried viscaria petals,
flaking and crumbling ever since
a man’s uninvited touch lingered there.
She stands pretty from across the room,
though her beauty is measured by the distance
I have forced between us--
five feet and counting.
Feb 5, 2015
Feb 5, 2015 at 3:12 PM UTC
So the other day I put on my big, black hat and hobbled down town
(Yep, hobbled as I fell stupidly playing in the yard pretending as though I was a kid and tore a ligament)
I donned my black chucks and I was hot **** again for a while
I threw on that big fur coat my grams left me And a few of her gaudy jewels
Anyhow, I went down to "L" street and sat on that bench again
The one in that make shift "park" where they lined up a bunch of big rocks and called it good
I sat and looked at that giant lady painted on the side of that falling down brick building for more than a bit
"L" street, The bad part of town where you can get anything
Not named L street because it's L shaped, but because of a pill that apparently makes you Tripp
I guess you can or could get them there, the L pills I mean
So I sat there thinking and being mad
Staring at that giant, painted, brown woman
She advertises tobacco from 80 years ago and she's almost gone
Flaking and peeling,
Pieces of her lost to the wind, and to time itself
She smiles
And she's beautiful
And I hate her
But since I was 15, She draws me to her
That Tobacco Lady, with her smile, and red dress and feathered hair
She always smiles
When it rains, she smiles
When it snows, she smiles
Hell, when half the ******* town burned
That ***** smiled
I cry, she smiles....
That Tobacco Lady
Feb 27, 2017
Feb 27, 2017 at 6:22 PM UTC
“Love does not exist”
“Love is ****
“Love is just a word that we make up in our heads to fill our infinite emptiness”,
Is what I say to myself. As if I could drill these beliefs into my head, subliminal messages to soothe my cracked and flaking heart.
These lungs are my own personal generator fueling my skull
Turbines working overtime
Maybe love is the only tangible idea within this existence
Maybe I am just scared
So I bury the idea under the earth, waiting for the tree roots to weave themselves throughout my love
And sprouting a small, delicate oak tree. And one day, it will grow.
And like all flowers or trees, this seed will need water
and plenty of sunshine
Nov 19, 2012
Nov 19, 2012 at 8:07 PM UTC
I had poor sleep last night.
I tossed and turned with the light on.
The light kept me safe from the quiet darkness, but not the words that scrambled to abuse me in my mind.
I've cried till my face is dry and flaking.
I cry cause of the stupidest things....
like do I wait to finish our shows? How long would I wait?
Do I watch them without you? Can I text you if something makes me smile today? Who am I going to have Thanksgiving with? Will you think of me then? Will I be a passing thought?
I didn't think more tears could even come out of me.
I have moments where I remember being unhappy with you.
Stuck and misunderstood.
I want to ride off those thoughts and use it as fuel to become whole.
But its not true... I still love you, and I feel so broken that you left like this.
I still can't eat. I can't focus on my work. I just feel so empty, and I know thats the codepedence in me, but it hurts like you ripped a part of my soul deep from me.
Last time I lay in bed with you.
You said you would come back and we would marry, and start a family.
Then you left, and said I should get a roommate.
Who does that in the same day?
I'm so tired as I write this, just jumbled nonsense I need to leave my mind.
You left to clear your mind, but you cleared me out too.
and now i'm stuck in an apartment full of memories of you and our 7 years together. I'm stuck because you said it's a find, and that it would be a shame to let go. Before you said it's cause you're coming back. I feel let on, and so ******* confused.
I wish you'd come and take the rest.
I wish you'd come and take me to.
Oct 31, 2019
Oct 31, 2019 at 12:54 PM UTC