"flared" poems
i.
Happy birthday
To thee, dearest
Friend. Mayest
This remembrance of birth
Be another year for thou
To thinkest of none end's;
But a brighter tommorrow.
ii.
Resteth gal sarah,
Put away all of
Thine sorrow's,
Didst thou not
Knoweth; there's
A God who breaketh
The alshshayatin
Who cometh against
Thee.
iii.
Thou art not alone,
As me and mine Jane
Art alway's there to
Be, a friend in need.
Growing seed's, to
Help-another grow.
iv.
Mayest the morrow
Be for thou, as white
As snow; mayest the
Seraphim, who surround's
Thy worries and protects
Thy home, showeth
Thee the light above thine tear's.
Smile mine friend, a friend is here.
Mayest thy sight be clear, and thy crown
Be uplifted and flared. As the world's glare
Hast betrayed thine eye's. Observeth upward
Wherein paradise lies; as thou wilt hath wing's one day
O' laureate of poetry's net. O' brilliant friend; of Jane and mine.
©Brandon Nagley
©Lonesome poet's poetry
©Thepoet(Sarah Ahmed) birthday dedication.
Sorry Sarah day late on b day dedication... But a happy wonderful birthday from me a friend if you ever need one there as you have always been there for me and Jane and have always been a major blessing to me and Jane!!! May the heavens open to you, and may you overcome your battles you face in this world...
HAPPY BIRTHDAY poetic friend !!!!
Feb 14, 2016
Feb 14, 2016 at 7:32 PM UTC
Sinking
To a familiar imprint in the sand
Salt traffic jams
Shark teeth and flared nostrils
Fingers numb
Curled around the trigger
Cannot let go.
But through the noise
Ripples
Quadratic equations
I see a blurred sunset
It feels like the day we first met.
Jul 2, 2013
Jul 2, 2013 at 12:54 AM UTC
Swollen clouds of passion
once crashed across my face
and Fires flared from friction
everywhere your lips did trace
our Chilly fingers sought their shelter
deep in the spaces inbetween
But these spaces, now so spacious
have wicked the warmth from what I mean
And I,
the only audience to your absence,
unable to exist
For you stole from me my reason;
the anticipation of your kiss.
Oct 21, 2016
Oct 21, 2016 at 3:35 PM UTC
the child recieves his paper
****** backward by the one in front
flip the three pages flippantly
one : intimidating . . two : boring
the third adorned unexpectedly
a longer -than seems can be usually- grown hair with a clump of green root
sprung out and slaughtered, down across the width; stuck above the questions beneath
how could he not have seen?
a pile so viscous and obscene?
does everyone else have one???
are they holding their disgust beneath?
he looked up at the teacher.
A look of vigilance his face bequeathed.
B ut now it sprung out almost pus like
a faint smile,
a teachers calm reprieve
he then leaned back on his chair in comfort
drooping his head back
his nostrils flared now toward the child
the hairs brustling from inside, all locked up in a ***** days remnants
all foul
and long
and dehydrated
like a swamp now sunned crisp; reeds on a stale bank
drawn in he felt uneasy
unable to cease to stare
incased inside the world that spawned
in the swamp that lay up there
in the cavernous orifices there
then he saw the teachers eyes, his gaze it
stuck on him, the teacher began to grin
further back his head leant
his eyes jaundiced
his teeth tanned
his face pale
his grin outstretched and thin
Oct 17, 2013
Oct 17, 2013 at 6:38 AM UTC
How long will our bewildered heirs
marooned in possessions not theirs
puzzle at disposing of these three
cunning feignings of hard candy in glass-
the striped little pillowlike mock-sweets,
the flared end-twists as of transparent paper?
No clue will be attached, no trace
of the sunny day of their purchase,
at a glittering shop a few doors
up from Harry's Bar, a disappointing place
for all its testaments from Hemingway.
The Grand Canal was also aglitter
while the lesser canals lay in the shade
like snakes, flicking wet tongues
and gliding to green rendezvous.
The immaculate salesgirl, in her aloof
Italian succulence, sized us up,
a middle-aged American couple,
as unserious shoppers who,
still half jet-lagged, would cling to their lire
in the face of any enchanted vase
or ethereal wineglass that might shatter
in the luggage going home.
Yet we wanted something, something small ....
This? No ... How much is ten thousand? Dizzy,
at last we decided. She wrapped
the three glass candies, the cheapest
items in the shop, with a showy care
worthy of crown jewels-tissue,
tape, and tissue again sprang up
beneath her blood-red fingernails,
plus a jack-in-the-box-shaped paper bag
adorned with harlequin lozenges, sad
though she surely was, on her feet waiting
all day for a wild rich Arab, a compulsive Japanese.
Grazie, signor ... grazie, signora ... ciao.
Nor will our thing-weary heirs decipher
the little repair, the reattached triangle
of glass from the paper-imitating end-twist,
its mending a labor of love in the cellar,
by winter light, by the man of the house,
mixing transparent epoxy and rigging
a clever small clamp as if to keep
intact the time that we, alive,
had spent in the feathery bed
at the Europa e Regina.
4.5k
A city to be proud of are nick name is Scousers
Do you remember The Beatles in flared trousers
The Soccer and songs of “You Never Walk Alone”
So many songs include “In My Liverpool home”
Two great Cathedrals that light up in the night
And John Lennon airport where you catch a flight
With two big soccer clubs there is intense rivalry
But when it’s all over there is plenty of camaraderie
It’s a city of culture with museums and History
It’s my Liverpool home, where i'm proud to be
David Swinden © 6/1/2017
Jan 6, 2017
Jan 6, 2017 at 1:42 PM UTC
Out of the dark forest I stumbled
onto the pebbles of a moonlit lake
my languid eyes bumbled
swallowing down philter mistakes
a pale goddess in the flesh
how my stupefied eyes stared
at the beauty of her nakedness
something in me flared
flared and turned and burned
my flesh no longer mine
stag in form standing taciturn
she calls out for my canines
I run and try to yell
nothing escapes my lungs
pattering of legs hungry to quell
come to rip flesh with teeth and tongues
stumbling and tripping over
stones, limbs, roots and mud
left to a new life a stag rover
I hear the ******* and the studs
faster and faster I try to move
from this typhoon wave of carnivorous hounds
but curse these feeble hooves
the claws and teeth came crashing around
flesh stabbed with a thousand teeth
a pack of mouths tear and pull
a stag corpse I bequeath
to the hunger of my own wolves
Aug 16, 2018
Aug 16, 2018 at 2:07 PM UTC
In Đà Nẵng my friends cradled me like a child.
We screamed Taylor bridges,
tequila-toasted in bars until the lights blurred.
A single candle in the bathroom
danced warm sighs through open windows,
and all felt calm.
I grew new muscles balancing on a motorcycle,
sometimes gripping Harry’s jacket,
sometimes throwing my weight into the wind.
The city flared neon and gasoline in stuttered traffic,
but along the coast
he drove so fast the vibrations in my chest harmonized.
I pictured my bones becoming butterflies if I let go.
I had entered the Year of the Dragon on a futon,
swayed to half-sleep by a hundred chanting voices
from the temple next door.
I did not dream of dragons.
I only learned to breathe fire.
At midnight Bailey stood at an ancestral altar,
kumquat branches, apricot blossoms, red envelopes, wine,
burning full sticks of incense,
and smoking half a pack of Esse Lights.
This is how the year turns over safely.
Tết is not about faith; it’s about continuity.
The Year of the Snake slid in with new bones and old habits.
It hissed that suffering could be scripture
until letters slithered free from the page
and coiled like cold jewelry around my wrist.
I didn’t make it for Tết that year
no silk áo dài, blood orange, too big
for a body that learned shrinking
before it learned staying.
That was the shedding.
Salt water peeling old skin away,
songs shouted so loud they drowned the ache,
poems that did not start tragic,
nights when my body finally kept time with the moon.
At home the water did not move.
At home the dog’s teeth found my hope.
A terrified mouth rerouted rivers
through my soft parts.
A jewel carved from my nose.
Six punctures blooming across my arms like altars.
In Vietnamese stories the snake waits beneath the water
to claim whoever dares the bank.
I wonder if I was chosen the moment
I opened my mouth in those bars,
when I leaned into the bike’s curve
as if danger could be a swan song.
Now I lie awake at hours unnamed,
tracing scars that hiss answers back.
Something from Vietnam keeps breathing through me,
the candle’s heat, the coast’s long nerve,
voices braided into salt and night,
and I cannot tell if they are echoes
or fangs testing the dark.
They say snakes shed to grow,
but no one warns you how thin the new skin feels,
how everything burns against it,
how you mistake survival for prophecy.
I touch the scar and wonder
if I am still that girl clinging to the bike,
or if the snake has already swallowed me,
patient, sleepless,
feeding on my own venom.
Sep 11, 2025
Sep 11, 2025 at 1:24 PM UTC
We sat,
******* the shreds
Of chicken
From our teeth,
In a cloud of smoke
From tempers flared
That burned to the quick.
The record spun,
The needle stuck
In the endless
Circle groove
At the disc's
Center, but
Neither of us
Moved.
We didn't change
The record,
We didn't
Shut the
Player off.
We sat,
And watched our
Fingers and toes
Evaporate.
We looked on
As the
Room dissolved,
We made no pleas,
Or any noise at all
As our world
Was erased.
In the eggshell light
Of our rebirth
The seasons passed,
With no attention
Paid, like
Sudanese children,
Left to collect sunlight
In the pores of their flesh,
Are ignored
By their God.
The air was a sea
Of vibrations,
Writhing and alive
In the periphery
Of our perceptions.
Do you remember
How it felt to
Be reconstructed?
Cell by cell
We came together,
Our blood vessels
And lymphatic tunnels
Wove through
Tendrils of bone
And wisps of
***** tissue,
Our nerves snaked
Their way through
The jungle of our
New-found existence,
A supercomputer
Materialized within
Each of us,
And they began
Discovering themselves
And each other.
We had arrived prematurely,
And our flames
Were snuffed out
In the claustrophobic
Incubators.
Here we now sit,
White noise
Filling the void,
Waiting for
Something we'll
Never see
Come to be,
But can't avoid.
Oct 26, 2012
Oct 26, 2012 at 11:54 PM UTC
Brigid was born on a flax mill farm,
Near the Cavan border, in Monaghan,
At Lough Egish on the Carrick Road,
The last child of the Sheridans.
The sluice still runs near the water wheel,
With thistles thriving on rusted steel.
Little's known of Nellie's early years;
Da died before she knew grieving tears,
They'd turn her eyes in later years.
She's eleven posing with her class,
This photo shows an Irish lass.
Her look is distant,
Her face is blurred,
But recognizable
In an instant.
She was schooled six years
To last a life,
Some math, the Irish,
To read and write.
Her Mammy grew ill,
She lost a leg,
And bit by bit,
By age sixteen,
Nellie buried her first dead.
Too young to be alone,
Sisters and brother had left the home.
The cloistered convent took her in,
She taught urchins and orphans
About God and Grace and sin.
There were no vows for Nellie then.
At nineteen she met a Creamery man,
Jim Lynch of the Cavan clan;
He delivered dairy from his lorry,
Married Nellie,
Relieved their worry.
War flared, men were few,
There was work in Coventry.
Ireland's thistles were left to bloom.
Nellie soon was Michael's Mammy,
Then Maura, Sheila and Kevin followed,
When war floundered to its end,
They shipped back to Monaghan,
And brought the mill to life again.
The thistles and weeds
That surrounded the mill,
Were scythed and scattered
By Daddy's zeal.
He built himself
A generator,
Providing power
To lights and wheel.
Sean was born,
Gerald soon followed;
Then Michael died.
A nine year old,
His Daddy's angel.
Is this what turns
A father strange?
Francie arrived,
Then Eucheria,
But ten months later
Bold death took her.
Grief knows no borders
For brothers and sisters.
We left for Canada.
Mammy brought six kids along,
Leaving her dead behind,
Buried with Ireland.
Daddy was waiting for family,
Six months before Mammy got free
From death's inhumanity.
Her tears and griefs weren't yet over,
She birthed another son and daughter;
Jimmy and Marlene left us too,
Death is sure,
Death is cruel.
Grandchildren came, she was Granny,
Bridget, Nellie, but still our Mammy.
She lived this life eduring pain
That mothers bear,
Mothers sustain.
And yet, in times of personal strain,
I'll sometimes whisper her one name,
Mammy.
Feb 12, 2016
Feb 12, 2016 at 5:09 PM UTC
a battle ensued
across the skies
meteors and comets
impacted
upon each other
fierce were the explosions
a trembling quake
rolled through the planetary spheres
neutrons and protons
collided
monstrous and massive
destruction
befell the galaxies
which were ******
into the battle's vortex
combustible fires flared
burning for millions of years
the war didn't abate
the kinetic energy
compelled
more
devastation
catastrophe
lasted
until
eternity
Oct 9, 2014
Oct 9, 2014 at 7:18 AM UTC
You wanted a love like in the movies;
rain drenched white shirts, palms covered
in daisy pollen; I love you more than--
a phone call, long distance, your fingers
curling the telephone wire like you're pulling me
towards you
like a fibre optic pheromone.
Soundtracks of a jazz piano, and old jukebox hits,
flared skirts and Mary Jane shoes, square dancing.
But most of the time, we don't get to choose
the colour of the bedsheets. In this story,
I know you're going to leave me. I can sense
the zoom of your eyes, rolling away from me.
The lighting in the room, like the ones where something
awful is about to happen: a sad, sick orange
like a cheap sunset; the music, or lack thereof,
the way you bite your lip like you're about to
break my heart.
You look to the ground, and I know this is where
the narration will start;
*this is the story of the first time
someone broke my heart.
She's going to look up at me
and say the words,
It's all over-*
and in a jump frame
the thunderclap will mask the sound
of my heart shattering, the sob disappearing
into my throat.
You wanted a love like in the movies,
honey,
we all did.
But then the rain came, and the flowers
drowned in their beds.
You left your umbrella by the doorstep,
I hope you don't catch a cold.
May 1, 2018
May 1, 2018 at 10:11 AM UTC
I gave an idle
Skyward glance,
When night is blackest
Blue,
There flared a meteor,
Long as a blink,
Through
My atmosphere.
It helped,
I think,
That I recalled,
How you once
Caught my eyes.
Aug 28, 2014
Aug 28, 2014 at 11:42 PM UTC
Wait for the door by the pillar
because she’ll be back again,
with an arm around her neck
to keep her warm against cold
eyes looking down, from the surrounding guys from around the bar.
Every jackpot ever, was won in their hearts that night
in that shadow of time that they called light.
Single girls will always be watched,
and those girls with a man attached
will always seem unmatched in the eyes of the lonesome.
I waited by the door and joined in with her stride,
a pace set with vigour and pride.
Did I speak?
No, never spoke up, just let it carried on
until it lit and flared up.
When that match hit okra runway slip
everything comfortable flipped and switched
into a cushion of stone that now dismantles backs,
blisters fingers and causes calluses that stop and linger.
Hate myself?
Increasingly.
Personification was me, to her
and to me, she was just that.
I should really get in contact,
and apologise.
Nov 5, 2012
Nov 5, 2012 at 11:53 AM UTC
somehow
I managed to cram my ***
into these fashion pants
so I can make it to the days sales meeting
to check my fleeting self esteem
somehow
this all got out of hand
I misunderstand what I misunderstood
this sick trip down
becoming Johnny Hollywood
champagne glasses and next years denim
learning to look just right like them
just to get tight with em
learn right now
that you are small and you can never be like them
so learn to eat everything they're feeding
and pick your teeth clean
with the bones of those you're cheating
this is Hollywood
red carpets and models' stares
This is Hollywood
designer drugs on designer rugs up spiral stairs
this is Hollywood
rich ***** kids with tempers flared
this is the top of the world in your dreams
and no one else really cares
somehow
I managed to fight this depression
looking for a job in a recession
my hair lines recession
partying like it's an obsession
somehow
this rip off called growing up
has me over a toilet throwing up
gagging on everything I misunderstood
becoming Johnny Hollywood
model chicks posing and poser friends
learning to look at them both with the same fake grin
learning right now
that you will live to lie and do it again
you'll bite your tounge to the powers
and when your dream fails
you'll buy new friends
this is Hollywood
******* business cards and winks
this is Hollywood
everyone talks but nobody thinks
this is Hollywood
hit top but beware if you sink
when you're number one everyone loves you and stares
but when you're Johnny Hollywood
nobody else really ******* cares
Apr 26, 2012
Apr 26, 2012 at 12:51 PM UTC
I sat beside my dear old friend,
Who’d gone and died last night,
When in our boat on gentle seas,
I saw a welcome sight.
In the distance stood an island,
In the brilliant evening sun,
Atop, a lighthouse standing proud,
I knew it was the one .
It sat atop a rocky plot,
A gray and barren place,
Where in it’s majesty around,
It lit its shining face.
There had to be someone there,
I thought to myself inside,
I started to bury my now dead friend,
At the turning of the tide.
I walked around to see him there,
My Captain standing fervent,
He said with a smile warm and glad
“Well done my faithful servant.”
He lead me to the lighthouse,
Where a feast had been prepared,
Where many other sailors were waiting,
While the lighthouse mirrors flared.
Feb 18, 2015
Feb 18, 2015 at 8:15 PM UTC
Bridget was born on a flax mill farm,
Near the Cavan border, in Monaghan,
At Lough Egish on the Carrick Road,
The last child of the Sheridans.
The sluice still runs near the water wheel,
With thistles thriving on rusted steel.
What's known of Nellie's early years?
Da died before her grieving tears,
But burn her eyes in later years.
She's eleven posing with her class,
This photo shows an Irish lass.
Her visage blurred,
Her eyes look distant,
Yet recognizable
In an instant.
She attended school for six short years,
The three R's, some Irish,
And a Doctorate in tears.
Her Mammy grew ill,
She lost a leg,
And bit by bit,
By age sixteen,
Nellie buried her first dead.
Too young to be alone,
Sisters and brother had left the home.
The cloistered convent took her in,
She taught urchins and orphans
About God, Grace and sin.
There were no vows for Nellie then.
At nineteen she met a Creamery man,
Jim Lynch of the Cavan clan;
He delivered dairy from his lorry,
Married Nellie
To relieve their worry.
War flared up, and men were few,
So the work in Coventry
Left Ireland's thistles to bloom.
Nellie soon was Michael's Mammy,
Then Maura, Sheila and Kevin were carried.
When war floundered to its end,
They shipped back to Monaghan,
To work the flax mill again.
The thistles and weeds
That surrounded the mill,
Were scythed and scattered
By Daddy's zeal.
He built himself a generator.
And powered the lights and the wheel.
Sean was born,
Gerald soon followed;
Then Michael died.
A nine year old,
His Father's angel.
(Is this what turns
A father strange?)
Francie arrived,
Then Eucheria,
But ten months later
Bold death took her.
Grief knows no family borders
For brothers and sisters, sons and daughters.
We left for Canada.
Mammy brought six kids along,
Leaving her dead behind,
Buried with Ireland in familiar songs.
Daddy was waiting for family,
Six months before Mammy got free
From death's inhumanity.
Her tears and griefs weren't yet over,
She birthed another son and daughter;
Jimmy and Marlene left us too,
Death is sure,
Death is cruel.
Grandchildren came, she was Granny,
Bridget, Nellie, but still our Mammy.
She lived this life eduring pain
That mothers bear,
Mothers sustain.
And yet, in times of personal strain,
I'll sometimes whisper her one name,
Mammy.
May 7, 2016
May 7, 2016 at 2:49 PM UTC
I see you stirring
out in the far southwest
Just now I feel your wind
licking my face
I see something so awesomely
beautiful .
I want you to come home to my place
I see your naked thighs
shaking your hips of desire
I am amazed as you snake
through my ruins
Throwing kisses of debris
Stripping off the bark
of my trunk
I long for your twisted breath
in my hair
as you pound my foundation
to the ground
You splinter my resistance
My bricks fall into your embrace
Your black hair goes flared
Be my tornadic love affair
Stay with me until your thunder bares
All lightnings charge
making me glow everywhere
Twirl me , separate me ,
take your toll
I lie under your spell
Feb 10, 2015
Feb 10, 2015 at 8:48 PM UTC
The oil lamp cast its noble glow,
while shadows darkened all around,
on leaders in the global know
whose darkness by its light was found.
Just then, the lantern's leaky wick
flared up. The whole benighted place
ignited like a Wiki-Leak
inflaming each tyrannic face.
The Media pitched their low-ball gloss
and tried to polish up the mess
by spinning such a global loss
as sure electoral success.
Oct 29, 2016
Oct 29, 2016 at 8:49 AM UTC
body genre
at a carnal address
sensory and sensuous effects
materiality
digital images
anthropology of desire
she tied a knot around his ****
a wedding band made of licorice shoelaces
for the art of tongue and ****
driving it in her pink throat
back and forth
like a shift stick
flared for the retina
a puzzlement and fascination
haptic screen of fiction
adventure of being pinned down
an unpremeditated punctum
fucktum sucktum
the stadium of desire
a shop window
banality transcending banality
the literal transformed
into the ******
a ****** smiles red
girl in a suitcase
with a hole to ****
a treasure chest
the leaky boundaries of erotica
sing in
musical blood whistles
I packed her up
limbless and threw
her on the bed
and with tender kisses
of endless
wet permutations
banged
three oozing holes
into finger ponds of oblivion
she taunted
age play- ageless
***** class
a weird ethnicity
from Timbuktu
racially motivated lust for a
conveyance of
fleshy intensities
way past help
a big **** dips
a tender dimple
like a barnacled whale
in a deep dive
the violence of
a preemptive strike
for everything imaginable
across raw lips
in her cosmos
of swinging hips
and cross bone riddles
oh happy *****
suicide ******
at the computer screen
**** bullets birthday cake
in a River Styx of flames
Jun 21, 2020
Jun 21, 2020 at 4:40 PM UTC
In a garden,
As beautiful as heaven,
At night Jasmine,
With white silky lips,
Unfolded its perfumed petals,
Blossoms in ethereal beauty,
With a creamy glow.
In the morning the Red Rose in bud,
Drenched in dew,
Unfurled its petals one by one,
On a single stem with its prickly thorn,
Sassy and beautiful.
Each with an ego of,
"I am the best",
Their hatred flared,
In fumes their scent flowed in waves.
The birds and insects looked on,
Prayed for peace,
Tried to pacify them.
Then one day their enmity changed to love.
Bees and butterflies sang and chanted love songs,
As they sipped their nectar.
Soon The Rose proposed,
My love, let's get married,
For long have we tarried.
So the hummingbird flew them to them to a famous wedding planner,
To be stringed into garlands,
Jasmine for the bride,
And The Red Rose for the groom.
The couple took their vows,
So did The Rose and Jasmine.
They made a beautiful pair,
And their children were called Jasrose.
Jul 31, 2018
Jul 31, 2018 at 8:26 AM UTC
Four dots. Four lights
Each floating deep in an icy cavern
Each glints in time to an unknown beat
I see my breath, but I'm not cold
The crystals of water feel like rock,
or plastic
I feel warm here
Watching the four lights
Watching them glint as I speak to them
Looking to the back, at the fourth light
One light fades and goes out
The last light I looked at
The last light I made glint
It glinted fast, and went out
The other two glint
Still outshine the fourth
In the back, growing brighter
Another glints fast, pops away to black
The other just vanishes
Now I am alone with the last light
The brightest of all
And I see
It too was blinking
Faster than the light that faded too soon
Faster than the light that flared and then blew
Faster than the light than just ceased to be
It too was blinking
But I broke that light
And now in the dark
I see how cold it truly is
Nov 7, 2017
Nov 7, 2017 at 3:09 PM UTC
Downton Abbey’s going off the air.
I’m not through yet, it’s just not fair.
Nothing before that show ever had
That kind of class, that degree of flair.
Life without my weekly Downton
Is too sad and inordinately scary.
What will I do without my frequent fix
Of the elegantly snarky Lady Mary?
And will the feckless Mister Barrow
Ever develop a true human soul?
I am sure this handsome actor fellow
Will never again get such a meaty role.
And the Dowager Duchess herself,
She is not someone easily done with.
She is, after all, tradition incarnate,
And under all that, she’s Maggie Smith.
Bates and his Anna filled my heart
With alternating sorrow and great joy
Almost as much as a lady of nobility
Marrying the handsome chauffer boy.
Dresses and hair lengths shortened
And nobility began to get real jobs.
All this was before ****** flared up
And turned starving folks into a mob.
I never missed that we were seeing
The transition from ‘la belle epoque’.
That time was running out for that
In the worlds ever-changing clock.
It was a yesterday we never knew
We of the age of electric equality.
We got to look inside and see it
In all its grandly overdressed reality.
I had begun to recognize artwork, in
Lovely strolls through baronial halls
And huge family meals at table.
I am sorry that it is over for us all.
Feb 4, 2016
Feb 4, 2016 at 12:17 AM UTC
my math teacher has flared nostrils as extended proof
that he inhales nonsense and exhales logic
in matters of seconds
and there is a boy who aces his tests
ribcage rattling with numbers
bloodstream rushing with answers
and during math class, i am the dull girl
with the blank face
you can't furrow your brows because
the teacher will stare at you
and i'm thinking about
brilliance and my lack of it, you know
sometimes i have poetry floating
through my brain
but i'm not going to get good grades for that
there are cookie crumbs falling on my lap
and the boy is staring at me
Sep 23, 2013
Sep 23, 2013 at 9:43 AM UTC
_As his feet moved even faster, and he twirled and whirled and cantered across the stage, it was as if he existed in an indeterminate space - blinded by the footlights, deafened by the orchestra, absorbed in his own rumbustious choreography. Beyond the pit, in the anonymous darkness, the audience rippled and flared appreciatively in response. So he danced on until, with a final rapturous gesture of his outstretched arms, he plunged to earth as dizzy as a snowflake. And waited.
The silence shifted. The soft rumble of engine noise played softly in the background, while the chain-link fence rattled in the squall which blew fresh off the harbour. He opened his eyes and watched the cars crawling across the overbridge above him; the empty basketball court littered with yesterday’s snack papers lay in shadow. In the middle distance, a familiar figure walked briskly towards him.
‘Matthew! Matthew! You come here this secon’ or I’ll whip your **** right off, already.’
‘Yes, Auntie.’
‘What you doin’ tryna waste good time?’
‘Nothin’, Auntie.’
‘Ain’t that the truth, boy.’
As he stooped to gather up his satchel, Matthew saw out of the corner of his eye the concertmaster lower his instrument, incline his head, and begin to tap his music stand with his bow. From the balconies the first of a thousand rose petals began to fall with the evening rain, the applause thundered while the lightning clapped, and there in the gods stood his mother waving and blowing kisses at him, as he followed his aunt down East Street towards home._
Sep 4, 2019
Sep 4, 2019 at 10:29 PM UTC