"flatten" poems
They are always with us, the thin people
Meager of dimension as the gray people
On a movie-screen. They
Are unreal, we say:
It was only in a movie, it was only
In a war making evil headlines when we
Were small that they famished and
Grew so lean and would not round
Out their stalky limbs again though peace
Plumped the bellies of the mice
Under the meanest table.
It was during the long hunger-battle
They found their talent to persevere
In thinness, to come, later,
Into our bad dreams, their menace
Not guns, not abuses,
But a thin silence.
Wrapped in flea-ridded donkey skins,
Empty of complaint, forever
Drinking vinegar from tin cups: they wore
The insufferable nimbus of the lot-drawn
Scapegoat. But so thin,
So weedy a race could not remain in dreams,
Could not remain outlandish victims
In the contracted country of the head
Any more than the old woman in her mud hut could
Keep from cutting fat meat
Out of the side of the generous moon when it
Set foot nightly in her yard
Until her knife had pared
The moon to a rind of little light.
Now the thin people do not obliterate
Themselves as the dawn
Grayness blues, reddens, and the outline
Of the world comes clear and fills with color.
They persist in the sunlit room: the wallpaper
Frieze of cabbage-roses and cornflowers pales
Under their thin-lipped smiles,
Their withering kingship.
How they prop each other up!
We own no wilderness rich and deep enough
For stronghold against their stiff
Battalions. See, how the tree boles flatten
And lose their good browns
If the thin people simply stand in the forest,
Making the world go thin as a wasp's nest
And grayer; not even moving their bones.
23.6k
flatten your tongue
slip it between your teeth
_n._
your little lips
forming an elipsis
_o._
put them together
and may you declare
a word you’d so carefully deny—
_no._
you spell it out
on table tops
shout it
from the rooftops
and when cursed hands
seek to defile your shrine
may you exclaim
_"i am mine"_
Mar 27, 2018
Mar 27, 2018 at 1:03 PM UTC
_...All I remember was
Cancer and my hospital room,
My green gown, my bed,
My white hair and mustache
Until suddenly...
...Reality started to stretch…
…And flatten into a brief euphoric white…
…I felt a cathartic release
As I was encapsulated and bathed
In a glorious sensation…
...I floated for an eternity…
…Until I felt my euphoria lifting…_
…As my eyes reopened
I found myself gazing
Upon a room of tiny lights,
Blue and pink specs
Dotting the inner workings
Of large wall sized machines…
…They lifted me upright
In a gray metal chair
And with sharp robotic groans,
A long arm from the wall
Held up a mirror to my face...
...In the reflection was a young man
I thought I would never see again…
…I had a wife back before,
But now I have a new one
Everybody in my situation,
("Reborns", as they are called)
Has brand new things and people
Filling their lives and concerns
They bring nothing with them
When they make their returns...
…Every morning I wake up
On the west 402nd floor
Of a residential tower
Next to my slim, youthful wife
And the trails of flying cars
That populate our view
From our wall-spanning window
As they soar through the city…
…I was told of technology,
Created and discovered
That could reawaken people
Who, like me, had died
In an earlier era and time…
…It’s strange that my past,
In all its importance and meaning,
Memories, friendships and scenery,
Seems to no longer be of concern,
Now that I have all this…
…I love what was, very dearly,
But the life I live now is for me.
I have new children, knowledge,
Friends and technology…
…I’m quite sure it’s possible
That old family members
That passed before me
Could exist in the same place
That I now live and find myself…
…But I can’t be certain,
Maybe they live further,
Deeper, in an unknown future
That I can’t even comprehend…?
…All I know is that, like me,
They have a new life somewhere
So I’ll do what I tried to do
My first time around…
…I’ll continue to grow and live on
In this new, world-spanning cityscape
Fueled by the love and memory
Of a past life remembered
only by me...
Oct 6, 2018
Oct 6, 2018 at 9:01 PM UTC
i wasn’t feeling okay
so i put on my overalls and went
outside
to wander around my backyard,
trekking around in clunky rain boots
as i hummed and tried not to think
i like to write
little notes
on the leaves that are now
changing colors
and when i’m done
i let them
fall
so i can flatten them
beneath my heel
till the small words
are crinkled and no longer legible
amongst the dirt and grass
and so desperately,
i wish i could
let the thoughts in my head
fall
to the ground
so i could flatten
these
pitiful feelings
beneath my heel
until they were no longer legible
amongst the hurt and hopefulness
in my heart
Apr 24, 2014
Apr 24, 2014 at 10:07 PM UTC
I used to stand in awe and watch Grandma making biscuits.
She’d take her wooden bowl, then dip the floor and sift it.
As snowy flour would drift to form a mound of just so much;
She’d form a crater lake of buttermilk and shortening with her loving touch.
She would smile and watch our faces as she squeezed the flour to goop
And transform the mess she made into dough that she would scoop.
A pinch she’d take and make a ball to flatten in her palm.
Then with her thumb she’d press it down, so gently and so calm.
With care she next would take the dough and place it on a pan;
A thumb print etched in dough as she continued with her plan,
To place the pats side by side until the pan was filled
By perfect rows all laid out with hands so quick and skilled.
That cozy pan she placed into an oven warmed just right
And closed the door to seal them in and cook them out of sight.
In timely care she’d pull them free, delicious golden browns
Setting fresh hot biscuits on the table, to banish morning frowns.
Now I stand in awe and think of all the biscuits she has made,
Of all the time her thumb has pressed, as her heart has prayed.
Life finds us now, her children, in life’s wooden bowls
And we feel her loving touch as she leaves her thumbprint on our souls.
For Grandma Mary Grace Kindley Davis
On the occasion of her 105th birthday, February 9, 2007
Presented to her at her Birthday Party the next day.
©2007 Michael S. Davis
Feb 18, 2013
Feb 18, 2013 at 12:28 PM UTC
at high noon
at a small college near the beach
sober
the sweat running down my arms
a spot of sweat on the table
I flatten it with my finger
blood money blood money
my god they must think I love this like the others
but it's for bread and beer and rent
blood money
I'm tense lousy feel bad
poor people I'm failing I'm failing
a woman gets up
walks out
slams the door
a ***** poem
somebody told me not to read ***** poems
here
it's too late.
my eyes can't see some lines
I read it
out-
desperate trembling
lousy
they can't hear my voice
and I say,
I quit, that's it, I'm
finished.
and later in my room
there's scotch and beer:
the blood of a coward.
this then
will be my destiny:
scrabbling for pennies in tiny dark halls
reading poems I have long since beome tired
of.
and I used to think
that men who drove buses
or cleaned out latrines
or murdered men in alleys were
fools.
5.4k
The dough in the pizza pan
Becomes my heart.
And with my hand, my fist,
I strike it and flatten it.
I force it to change,
Plaster it into limp pancake.
With my palm I knead it,
But the pain which should ebb out,
Will not separate and flow away.
It stays inside the dough,
The flattened,
Moulded,
Hand-mangled dough!
Dec 11, 2014
Dec 11, 2014 at 5:40 PM UTC
Just inches below the ground
but must be behind the sight
sow the seed for a tree in return.
Deepening down the bottom of the sea
nor lying on the ground dropping off the sky
merely dipping into some foots long body
the soul springs a life.
Take it on the run then should the sky
or earth bends giving a flatten lid.
Even then can it prevent
the soul when rebounds with a life indeed?
An inside scoop, a math, never surfaces
neither in sky nor on Earth, a measured deep,
always behind the eyes but life maker indeed.
Aug 4, 2022
Aug 4, 2022 at 8:33 PM UTC
The Story begins with silence and black out, a void. Not darkness. Nor anything that attempts to define nothingness, because it’s nothing. The blackness or void is only a metaphor representing nothing. Within this point, so close to simultaneous you’d think they were one in the same, a light emerges, emanating divine, pure energy and love. Its intelligence and complexity expands and fills what was once nothing with beauty and truth. At this moment, all is whole, fast as thought, strong beyond comprehension, gentle as a whisper and furious beyond all flame. The wild spirit of happiness is real and alive! The void was never the enemy, only a point in which to be born. Duality can only exist if unification finds an enemy within itself. The enemy is reflected by the segregation and space created between divine and mortal. This space is developed by Ego.
This entity “Ego” is the essence of self resistance, absorption, chaos, consciousness…hate. The inner antagonist rises and begins to cut and eliminate the threads attached to creation and spirit. A mirror that envelopes and contains the living spirit. An orb caging vulnerable souls spread throughout the expansion of life and suffocating energetic flow. The universe and it’s creatures that lost connection being virtually incapable of seeing one another ever again while the enemy exists.
The instigation is tolerated by those who always continue the journey. The emasculation of Ego, commences as the divine resonates it’s vibration as a weapon like a solar flare, piercing the Ego. Then the inner spirit begins to open up and claw its way out. The Spirit sees that vanity is leading the despair of self pity into the heart as it remains a vessel dwelling in a false world channeling a false force. This awareness makes The Spirit lifts up, against and out of a matrix constructed within the crystal ball cage that refracts the true sun’s rays. Together, The Spirit and The Divine begin to crush Ego. Ego begins to flatten, compress and then combust. Through the flames the chord of love between The Divine and The Spirit bursts like a shooting star towards the kinship’s re-established nexus. The collision creates what was pure and full in circulation again and the expansion becomes an infinite motion harmonizing with the void in an adventure that goes on forever. When Ego tries to slither back in after a nearly insurmountable time of hiding between the gaps that contains new life, it is given no room by anything in thought, theory, in any form of existence.
Nov 8, 2012
Nov 8, 2012 at 7:40 PM UTC
*Should the prodigal sphere of daffodil
Finger your hair divine with its powers
And hold a communion of flower to flower,
May my heart flatten like a humble plateau,
So when you smile the smile of the City of Bacolod,
I can clumsily tell you the poem of I love you-s.*
© 2015 J.S.P.
Feb 24, 2015
Feb 24, 2015 at 1:12 AM UTC
i always seem to be sitting
in the middle of intersections
like a traffic light that hasn't
hung itself yet, always
seem to be waiting in the
middle of the ghost town
of where our love was first
built. there's a hospital
down the road where the
waiting room chairs are
much more morbid than
the hospital beds and
every electric heart rate
line sitting on the screen
of the heart monitors flatten,
make long beeping sounds
like an alarm clock, like a
wake up call; they make
long beeps like the ringing
i hear inside of the phone
when i call the owner of
the voice mail i've seem to
have made a home out of.
they took every place
we kissed and turned it into
a church that closes on
Sundays and holds a choir
full of people that lost their
voice in their own war. i've
been in the line for the
confessional for about two
years now because every
time i go up to say how
badly i want you to feel it
back, i let the girl wearing
your t-shirt cut in front of
me. the sidewalks only
seem to crack when they
remember how it felt
when you walked on them,
when you gave the ground
its purpose. one of these
nights the traffic lights will
come to their senses,
drop into the intersection
and crumble right next to me
because it's not like they have
anything to stop or at least
slow down because this is
a ghost town, & nothing is coming back.
Oct 21, 2014
Oct 21, 2014 at 7:04 PM UTC
Tedium brought them here.
Bored with routine head-counts,
museums and man-made landmarks.
Impulse told them
To flatten the silent fronds,
Blindly tear down the hampering vines,
Rattle the industrious cities beneath their feet.
Curiosity led them
To this patch of unkempt squitch,
This sacred space littered with clean bones.
No words came with them.
Only Observation...
... a leaping fire tended by savages
Polished teeth strung around their necks,
The bark-ridged skin,
The supernaturally piercing eyes,
Their ashen members grazing the farinaceous earth.
At the heart of this sacred place
Littered with the clean bones,
Condesention covered them with coats,
Misinterpreted grins exposing evidential remains.
Fear penetrated their too-white skins,
Their souls through the sockets of their eyes,
Their clattering teeth.
All this is true :
The scattered bones,
The brass buttons blinking through starved ashes,
The arrows in a glass case.
copyright © Caroline Grace 2012
Feb 23, 2012
Feb 23, 2012 at 10:27 AM UTC
It was the boys’ bath night
and you had bathed
and were drying yourself
with the white towel
they had given you
when the bathroom door flew open
and Anne stood there one-legged
in her pink flowered nightdress
perching on her crutches like a hawk
her eyes bright and dark
a smile lingering on her lips
well ****** me
she said
what a sight
for a girl’s lovesick eyes
and she entered the bathroom
and pushed the door shut
behind her with her bottom
almost uncrutching herself
in the process
you pulled the towel
tight around you
and stared at her
it’s the boys’ bath night
you muttered
girls aren’t allowed in
while boys bath
she moved over
to the mirror
and gazed at herself
you’re right
she said
I’m not a boy
I’m a tight titted girl
and she laughed
and crutched herself
over towards you
making you flatten yourself
against the wall
gripping the towel with one hand
and holding her back
with the other
and she leaned down
and kiss the back of your hand
then looked you deep in the eyes
what have you got hidden
behind that towelling skirt then?
she said
and you gripped the towel tighter
with both hands
and she menacingly moved
one hand cautiously towards the towel
her armpits gripping
the crutches tightly
as she moved
you shouldn’t be in here
you said
I’m not in there yet
she laughed and grabbed
the towel away with a force
that took her and the towel
toppling to the bathroom floor
where she lay
like an overturned beetle
you stood naked
your hands covering
what your father
called your toolbox
gazing down at her struggling
to get up
well don’t just stand there
like a prize parrot
help pick me up
she said
and so with one hand covering
you knelt down to help lift her up
but then she pulled you
down beside her
and laughed
and her laughter echoed
around the walls
but then she paused
and put a hand
over her mouth
hearing Sister Bridget’s
nearby footsteps
and noisy calls.
Mar 15, 2012
Mar 15, 2012 at 3:16 AM UTC
If you ask me, he lit the match that set the Moon on fire
It’s not a myth; I was there, when I had no home
And I walked in Saturn’s ring rain for so long it sloughed off my skin
I marched, trying to flatten the crater I’d made
Because I was ashamed of it
I was the last meteor to hit his heart; the loudest
But that was so long ago
The quietest revolutions are usually the most violent
If you ask him, I smelled like Genesis and Revelation from the inside
******* insatiable
I slathered honey on my cheeks and boiled my blood
so hot until my arteries turned charred black
I licked my wounds from the impact and discovered just what the hell was poisoning me
If you ask me, I didn’t know him last night and I won’t know him on the last night
But my God, he inspires me
May 22, 2019
May 22, 2019 at 8:28 PM UTC
We have fallen in the dreams the ever-living
Breathe on the tarnished mirror of the world,
And then smooth out with ivory hands and sigh.
W.B. YEATS
* * * * * *
My soul looked down from a vague height, with Death,
As unremembering how I rose or why,
And saw a sad land, weak with sweats of dearth,
Gray, cratered like the moon with hollow woe,
And pitted with great pocks and scabs of plagues.
Across its beard, that horror of harsh wire,
There moved thin caterpillars, slowly uncoiled.
It seemed they pushed themselves to be as plugs
Of ditches, where they writhed and shrivelled, killed.
By them had slimy paths been trailed and scraped
Round myriad warts that might be little hills.
From gloom's last dregs these long-strung creatures crept,
And vanished out of dawn down hidden holes.
(And smell came up from those foul openings
As out of mouths, or deep wounds deepening.)
On dithering feet upgathered, more and more,
Brown strings, towards strings of gray, with bristling spines,
All migrants from green fields, intent on mire.
Those that were gray, of more abundant spawns,
Ramped on the rest and ate them and were eaten.
I saw their bitten backs curve, loop and straighten.
I watched those agonies curl, lift, and flatten.
Whereat, in terror what that sight might mean,
I reeled and shivered earthward like a feather.
And Death fell with me, like a deepening moan.
And He, picking a manner of worm, which half had hid
Its bruises in the earth, bur crawled no further,
Showed me its feet, the feet of many men,
And the fresh-severed head of it, my head
2.1k
She's a fighter through and through
Seen so many things
in her 18 years
Some to horrid to name
Some so heartbreaking it will make you cry
some so joyous you will shout with glee
She is a fighter through and through
She'll flatten her ears and hiss
claws out ready to fight
for what she believes
Blonde hair
blue eyes
A bekon of light
My hero
my partner in crime
my sister
May 8, 2014
May 8, 2014 at 12:19 PM UTC
Somewhere there is
a boat made of sunstone crystals. Watch the
river flatten
its tongue underneath your sails and color
night. The world around you
always shimmers, the sky’s full of gemstones.
Jul 18, 2013
Jul 18, 2013 at 11:05 PM UTC
2012
A year accused
A year acknowledged
To be the end
2012
A year to change
How we view the world
A year to wonder
What is to come
A year of intrusion
As the skies grow with metallic glare
With rumors to bring knowledge and friend
as well as foe
2012
The timing down to the flatten of winter
Spread by twos to bring new heads
To our lead, and to be our voice
But
Will our voice actually be heard
Or will it fade like
The previous ideals of love, respect and knowledge
Is our lead a true thread, or a needle fired into the blanket
2012
A few have risen
A few are chosen
To flow into a new reality
As a change is occurring
The flip of Earth
The flip of defense
The flip of conscience
We flip to see that
We are ready for our true purpose
Once again
2012
What will it mean
The strength of our world
May be weakening
But it is only the beginning
2012
Change is on its way
More then what was promised
But never sewn
Change is coming
Happening in each one of us
To build on
To live on
To grow on
To a new world
2012
As for what will exactly happen
I cannot truly say
A forward look I attempt
Jumps farther then I need
A foreseer brewed from generations I may be
But my talent is not enough
All I can say
All I need to say
Is things will be better
The universe is self healing
Any holes made
Are filled
Any marks
Are covered
2012
How is this
How can we be going through this
When the universe prepares
All are united
Every bead in us
Is born from a worn star
We are the universe
We are all the same
No matter how different we become
2012
2+0+1+2
2+1+2
2+3
5
Remember the number
Aug 9, 2012
Aug 9, 2012 at 1:36 AM UTC
we can watch the waiter clean the dripping puddle of spilled chocolate milk and see how he looks at me disapproving my clumsy hands kinda wishing I never stepped foot in the restaurant and later we should try swimming but not in a pool not in a pond but a great lake (with jellyfish that don't sting) and the ripples will flatten out mimicking the puddle of chocolate milk against the white towel and deep into the night we can imagine the number of glowing bulbs and blades of grass never ending just like the moment just like the day just like the way your hand moves over my arm gliding smooth smooth and flowing glassy without interruption highlighting the way a group of words can manage to escape punctuation leaving behind the choppy tension only dancing on and on to a place that can't be ended with a simple spot of ink directly below the last letter.
Jan 11, 2012
Jan 11, 2012 at 11:27 PM UTC
Gum is another tongue in your mouth,
taste-bud studded with sugar and pink
Hubba Bubba Double Bubble
Your jaw feels like expanding bread
when you rest from chewing
flatten it into a saucer and
let it balloon from your mouth,
it distends like an internal *****
or the full stomach of a frog
spilling from your lips
(When he stretches, you see veins
********* across his amphibian chest)
It hooks itself on your nose
and wilts into a pink tangle.
Mar 1, 2012
Mar 1, 2012 at 1:38 PM UTC
White
Coming down in soft flakes,
Melting on my toung
Beautiful for such a short time.
Floating down blissfully
Waiting to land,
Landing,
Softly being crushed under my boots.
As I walk up the hill to go sledding.
As I zip down the hill,
Snow getting in my eyes,
My cheeks red and burning,
Being cut by a million tiny knifes.
Going over a jump and,
"catching air"
The wind is knocked out of me as I land
Reaching the bottom,
Disipointment at how short the ride is.
Going inside to sit on the couch eating popcorn and drinking cocoa.
Watching to snow flutter down out side.
Thinking about what it is like,
To be a snowflake.
To be created high uo in the clouds,
A beautiful piece of ice crystle.
To small to be marveled at
Only to float blissfully to the ground,
To be crumpled up by a boot.
On its way up a hill to sled.
To be flattend by a sled,
As it zooms down the hill,
Hitting a bump and flying into the air,
To flatten may more of us.
What would it be like to be a snow flake?
Nov 8, 2012
Nov 8, 2012 at 7:27 PM UTC
The weight of the wisdom we seek eludes
us as we stagger into dark dens of knowledge
suffused and selected, stored in gigantic libraries
of the mind by those
who know
yet wont divulge the details to those
who wait
arms outstretched
for the yearning.
In between lie wannabes
who seek the sun of comments
to glorify themselves as a birth right
unwilling to accept the acid pen
or pain of knowing how falsehoods
lie like wounds exposed to inspection.
Writing poetry in plain language is better
than compromised with complexity.
Just the words and visuals singing on the same note
should suffice to stir the minds magic
to ecstasy.
The crush of wisdom dispels us from climbing
over the boundaries of decency
to sizzle a comment with depressing ease.
You can hear the ego deflate and flatten
akin to a robust balloon descending
to earth like a flightless fancy
with no wingpower.
Not every poem straddles and sparks
in sheer finery
Lots and lots of them refuse to take off
and surrender to the minds star burst
of meaning.
In a days reading maybe
of a hundred, just one line would light up
a dark sky like a comet racing across the page
leaving behind its fairy dust
for us to ponder upon. One diamond
in the dust of lifeless energies
is worth mining for!
Feb 20, 2014
Feb 20, 2014 at 1:12 AM UTC
Stick straight trees line hills, their arrangement phony
less than 5,000 feet in elevation but elevating humanity for over
sixty thousand.
For more than sixty thousand human beings,
think of fish stuck, are stampeded by shiny black
blocks of detonation.
Explosion for extraction, and teeny tiny port-o-potties
sit, enjoying relaxation where an ecosystem once
enjoyed rehabilitation after March.
We Marched on, up a gravel hill where wind
blew but we bolted our boots to the soil.
Sunglass-clad woman concealed her hurt eyes,
but her voice hurt enough to inspire a kind of
throat retching sensation.
***** up that black, ooey-gooey you old, weathered mountain top.
Explosives like a firm finger shoved down the throat
denote a rock spew; regurgitate and repeat a dozen times over.
Flatten and deform, never to reform
the water-giving, life-renewing, shady shelter, stable
stool, magic majesty of my mountain.
Mar 8, 2014
Mar 8, 2014 at 7:08 PM UTC