"flattening" poems
We are renters
Living off leased land
Never land owners
Years of finances poured into revolving doors
and recycled down into intricate designs creeping beyond the
comprehension of the reasonable woman
(or man)
Why do we fear so much the need for one another?
Desperately flattening desire into hardened emotion
We can't even breathe properly anymore
Oozing smoke and conspiracies out of our pores;
anxiety became our lifeblood
Oct 10, 2016
Oct 10, 2016 at 1:29 AM UTC
Nobody in the lane, and nothing, nothing but blackberries,
Blackberries on either side, though on the right mainly,
A blackberry alley, going down in hooks, and a sea
Somewhere at the end of it, heaving. Blackberries
Big as the ball of my thumb, and dumb as eyes
Ebon in the hedges, fat
With blue-red juices. These they squander on my fingers.
I had not asked for such a blood sisterhood; they must love me.
They accommodate themselves to my milkbottle, flattening their sides.
Overhead go the choughs in black, cacophonous flocks --
Bits of burnt paper wheeling in a blown sky.
Theirs is the only voice, protesting, protesting.
I do not think the sea will appear at all.
The high, green meadows are glowing, as if lit from within.
I come to one bush of berries so ripe it is a bush of flies,
Hanging their bluegreen bellies and their wing panes in a Chinese screen.
The honey-feast of the berries has stunned them; they believe in heaven.
One more hook, and the berries and bushes end.
The only thing to come now is the sea.
From between two hills a sudden wind funnels at me,
Slapping its phantom laundry in my face.
These hills are too green and sweet to have tasted salt.
I follow the sheep path between them. A last hook brings me
To the hills' northern face, and the face is orange rock
That looks out on nothing, nothing but a great space
Of white and pewter lights, and a din like silversmiths
Beating and beating at an intractable metal.
5.4k
Sea settling,
Birds flying,
Air whistling,
Storm coming.
People leaving,
Raindrops falling,
Clouds gathering,
Storm coming.
Sun hiding,
Wind howling,
Waves thrashing,
Storm coming.
Lightning striking,
Dogs cowering,
Thunder rumbling,
Storm coming.
Tree's creaking,
Lighthouse flashing,
Ships crashing,
Storm coming.
Rocks falling,
Fear heightening,
Rage frightening,
Storm coming.
River flooding,
Forest flattening,
Landscape changing,
Storm coming.
Jan 19, 2015
Jan 19, 2015 at 12:59 PM UTC
I did my part, by staying in.
So effective, bored.
It’s a sacrifice.
The soul is very passionate.
The isolating, the flattening.
Foraging coercion.
For Immuno compromised persons!
Stay in your homes.
Prevent the increase in tombstones!
Then pat yourself on the back.
Knowing all the people you have saved!
Staying in, flattening the curve again.
Outcome, only time will tell.
Feeling relieved I’m not the only one!
And the stupidity will **** us all.
Hoarding toilet paper from the aisles.
But no one else can see.
The effects this has on the elderly.
Social distance, social distance, social distance.
Social distance, social distance, social distance.
Oh, there are arrogant ******** not taking this seriously.
But there are others doing their part.
The nurses and doctors have gone mad.
With people taking all their masks.
But when we cure it all,
The faith will be restored,
Who hopes we will be blessed?
We could start over,
Just cover your mouth when you cough!
It’s that simple.
Now there’s time to watch streaming platforms.
Helpfulness, committed.
To doing what I can.
I’m not the only one.
And the stupidity will **** us all.
Hoarding toilet paper from the aisles.
But no one else can see.
The effects this has on the elderly.
Social distance, social distance, social distance.
Social distance, social distance, social distance.
The limits of the research.
The limits of the research.
The limits of the research.
Fake news outlets (social distance)
Only check AHS, for info (social distance)
Your support to fund research would help (social distance)
Can’t stop the spread (social distance)
If you don’t stay home (social distance)
This is a must (social distance)
I’m not the only one.
And the stupidity will **** us all.
Hoarding toilet paper from the aisles.
But no one else can see.
The effects this has on the elderly.
And the stupidity will **** us all.
Hoarding toilet paper from the aisles.
But no one else can see.
The effects this has on the elderly.
The limits of the research.
The limits of the research.
Apr 5, 2020
Apr 5, 2020 at 1:51 PM UTC
A bird in an aurulent billed mud-face,Living as a four foot two inch dragon in a San Franciscan cave,
Lifts off from a hot breathed murmur of Gideon.
Even in night the whole grandeur of movement
Soaking in red beeping heart-pangs
Fasten to the thrusts of his arms.
This post of vainglory was the opening of the year.
In July's open pores,
On a spatial plateau of Dodonian oak.
The Penguin
Unveils his weakened voice.
Flattening into a wide arrow
Draped from Carina he
Sails Westward. Barefooted through the Anavros
Molting under deep helplessness and melancholia.
With his inlaid eyes faced askance
The penguin broods
Among the day's songs
Cast into the poetry of the lyre,
Stretched upwards from Paradise Bay to Colchis,
Where his ebony wings
Soak into the palms of Peleus
Suffering only where the arrows have flung.
Downside up, with children in a pocket of blood,
Among supergigantic siren songs and muse poems
Sewing teeth into a spot of Earth
Races towards a column of toppling strakes.
Apr 26, 2014
Apr 26, 2014 at 5:48 AM UTC
look at your smile,
calming the waves
and flattening the seas,
stopping the sky
and all that it sees,
look at your smile,
freezing time
and brightening the day,
taking all the darkness
and sadness away,
while here i stand,
my body numb
and eyes gazing,
my mind blank
and heart blazing,
while i stand here,
loosing gravity
and feeling no weight,
frozen in time
in this joyous state,
look at your smile,
ending all sounds
and silencing all voices,
altering reality
and changing all choices,
look at your beautiful smile,
more beautiful than the heavens,
more beautiful than land and sea combined,
more beautiful than mother nature,
more beautiful than any creator has ever designed,
Jun 10, 2010
Jun 10, 2010 at 4:16 PM UTC
A drugstore pallid in waning light, always illuminated in halogen halos.
I am earless with music.
Black metal loud in clanging sets and blows-
foreshadowing the smell of cleaning solution,
air freshener and the outside
sweet at my back
all steeped deep in the rip roaring undertone torrent of cigarette smoke
blended with cheap perfume until I cannot tell the difference.
There is a limp familiarity to the underlying odor
born partially of personal encounter and-
nestled in the hive mind of social experience.
A distillation of regret and remorse,
of lonely,
of irrelevance;
this black hole swallows my voice the way of my ears,
eaten by rust.
Four cans of beans,
kidneys,
in cans squeezed without any power against sagging swells
melting into other curves
and I swerve close and around guiltily,
noting you only as the source of this pungent spring.
You are smiling apologies
ignorant of my apparent inhumanity-
blind to my selfish hands..
Pinioning belly flesh,
flattening,
reaching
and gaining attendance from a better man
retrieving every dropped can.
I’m retreating,
shaken,
tense to alternatively slacken.
My sweat slippery palms with whitened red sharp fingers feel foreign
and I am surrounded by razors then shaving cream,
moving from shampoo to conditioner,
the whole store is infected with smell.
Staring at nail clippers/snipers clipping touch smooth sooth my tense mind-
don’t look
**don’t
look**
I can sense little else but dread
drawing closer
you are now crouched so close I’m gagging,
taken forcefully-swept away in an olfactory flood
roiling in rot,
currents of solitude exude from your smiling sullen appearance when I turn to you
fumbling
with my electric ears,
surfacing
in a breath of Amish silence
broken with simple request
and I want to scream at you that I am not a man to ask opinions of
that it does not matter what fake nails she glues to her body
that she is excluded and I don’t know why.
I choose swirls of cream suspended within watery milk,
over childish lady bugs framed by yellow
or dots of red alternating to black,
an epitaph to a lifelike effigy.
Dec 10, 2010
Dec 10, 2010 at 1:42 AM UTC
I feel like a dog
Beaten for returning
Yelled for running off
Dragged along on a leash
Of promises never made
I feel like a child
Chastised for squealing
Laughter too loud
Running too fast
And not falling down
I feel like a book
Left face down
Pages wrinkled, spine flattening
Half way through what was once
Your favorite story
Apr 9, 2014
Apr 9, 2014 at 8:43 AM UTC
The riddle of me
Is bullets of art
Shooting ink stains
In your heart
So you'll always love me
And my mentality
Is a mental breakdown
Of three things
Words, beats and rhymes
Ahead of my time
Thinking of blasting stars
Around your head
Knocked down
Out for the count
Going old school
Wylie getting chased around
On the road running
Laps at the speed of sound
Dropping TNT
Boom
Anvils like beats
Flattening you out
Gettin dizzy quickly
Spinnin and spinnin
Thinking freely
It's my territory
Down a black hole
Following the white
Rabid junk dealing
Cat selling smiles
Getting mad feeling
The wheels are turnin
Inside out
A needle sewn
Through the vane
Injection infection
Man in the mirror
It's a sight to see
Through the glass
Pictures like a memory
Before my rhymes crash
And you see the other side of me
Revealing my destiny
Going insane
I'm the only one to blame
The ink stains
They're smothering me
Slithering inside me
Covering my body
The only thing to see
Is my heart exposed
But you all love me
With these rhymes
And flows
A new era
Another time
A blast from the past
But I'm heading to the future
89 miles an hour
And I'll return
Brake checkin
With tire tracks that burn
With doc in an urn
To lure you in
Back to where it all begins
Tattoos of a heart
Deep within my skin
To replace the oxygen
Breathing nitrogen
Ink stained again
Graffiti trigger
Spraying art
Deadly sins
Bullets tearin you apart
But these are my words
And they come from the heart
Jan 28, 2015
Jan 28, 2015 at 8:31 PM UTC
I unfolded myself today.
it felt like pulling apart a paper crane's wings
and flattening out the paper
to see the creases and folds and torn corners.
they were always there
but I couldn't see them.
fold the crane back up again
it's not standing nearly as tall
I know it's better to leave things be
but my weakness is my curiosity
I just wanted to know what I was inside
but now the crane's thin, paper wings
are much too crooked to fly
Aug 18, 2015
Aug 18, 2015 at 6:28 AM UTC
Falling in love is as
beautiful as watching
the sun shining on the rain
in Spring
An ineffable yearning,
Is serendipity,
A blissful sorrow,
Is not lucid.
Falling in love is
picking shards of
broken glass knowing
you'll bleed,
Is a veritable tornado,
The eye of a hurricane
flattening everything in
it's path
And it doesn't abate
It's roller-coaster you must ride
Only to throw up after.
May 12, 2014
May 12, 2014 at 4:12 PM UTC
1
The surging water threw strange shapes,
Waiting crows with stabbing beaks
In the sky and in the drowned souls,
Festering in the swell.
The huge irrepressible waves
Spread wings flattening houses with a single downward swipe.
It was a sudden death,
They died screaming-avidly watched by millions nestling before TV sets
Unmoved if sympathetic.
They had watched enough CGI
Not to be bothered by such drama.
2.
The girl quietly combed her hair,
Bitter black in the lamplight,
Watching the snarling fox shoot from its lair
Slathering with fright.
As she lifted her arm again
The salt spray struck her, flattening her face
The wave soothed where her smile had been
Her limbs acquiring a greater grace.
It ****** in cars and houses, gulping down
The unresistant landscape with unforgiving speed,
Turning the living green into regurgitated brown
Digesting the landscape with ******** greed
It drew her little body back into the equalising sea
Just another bit of debris.
Jul 27, 2016
Jul 27, 2016 at 4:59 PM UTC
Here is Cedar Draw, a stream which
spills free from the dam upstream
and then slowly licks its way westerly
among the billowing cottonwood
and volcanic boulders that still appear red-hot,
flattening out, pooling here and there
where fat trout and perch can feed
on luckless grasshoppers and mayflies
blown into the water by the wind.
Here is Cedar Draw, widening into
lush shallows with bulrush and cat-tails
clicking in the wind, showy red-winged
blackbirds clinging to stalks high above
the waterline, and where snowy egrets
ply the mossy banks for frogs. The
only sound heard is the chittering of
birds and that warm summer breeze
softly moaning and sighing for you alone.
Here is Cedar Draw, as fine a place
a poet could every hope to find to relax,
meditate, sip a little port wine, tease the
iridescent-blue damselflies that abound
here, cool one's feet at water's edge,
scribble in a notebook disjointed thoughts
that may or may not make it into a poem,
perhaps to doze a little and finally to
rouse up and thank your muse for such
a great day and such a splendid spot.
--
Sep 18, 2011
Sep 18, 2011 at 11:27 AM UTC
Sadie was a doubtful one
Her mind was tightly shut
When faced with the fantastical
She’d fold her arms and tut
She pranced around her garden
With an playful evil aura
And dealt a merry flattening
To all that passed before her
Their bodies lay around her
And an imp of mischief found her
She loved to trap and poison
And wished she’d been a spider
When a fizzing overtook her
When a rumble grew inside her
When a shrinking and a shrivelling
Across her form did tickle
And soon did Sadie realise
That wishes can be fickle
Her legs and arms divided
Her eyeballs multiply did
So sorry Sadie scuttled
Alternating creep and crawl
She tippy-toe’d across the grass
And past her victims all
And sadness was upon her
And with mourning in her eyes
Her grief compounded hunger
And an appetite for flies
Her lengthy limbs belied her
Sorry Sadie was a spider
She loped along a lily
And her sorrow turned to guilt
Her carapace was aching
For the blood which she had spilt
She wept a web of anguish
With her sticky little tears
She wound a downward spiral
Like the falling of the years
Her malice had been stunted
Her fangs were dull and blunted
Sadie gained existence
On a web of worldly woes
She fed her tiny tummy
Where the buzz and flutter goes
And she learned the price of living
So she killed just what she ate
And she knew why killing needlessly
Was such an ugly trait
And with a human soul inside her
She chose to be a spider
Jun 17, 2013
Jun 17, 2013 at 12:56 PM UTC
sickened
by media lies
legislative disguise
rotting food
attracting flies
beguiled by trite examples
limited poling
and internet trolling
expressionless selfie
apathy as fashion
androgynous culture
manly men are maligned
while supermodels ******
minds
warped youths scramble
attempting to grasp
beauty
through surgery
and consumerism
their tiny orange bodies
reflect social illness
its glare blinding
bound to the taxation system
pre-social security number
these zombie babies
march to Red Bull
FOX news
and social media ************
fluoridated and infected
they reject ideas
not rooted in technology
…mock astrology
believe in genetically altering
living organisms biology
practice unlicensed psychology
and pharmacology
all the while supporting
underground government demonology
…….. my apology
lost in this madness
I feel trapped and isolated
and the irony hits
flattening my preconceptions
“As part of, I am responsible for…”
…..darkness and pain
crash on aging shoulders
realization
and defeat
Sep 16, 2014
Sep 16, 2014 at 1:02 PM UTC
Sometimes, if I try, I hum between the tumbling
Hills of the world bracing domesticated beasts.
They graze and grunt all over again,
Entering slumbers following the daily sweep
Of lactic creeks, thin enough to guide tree roots.
Dusk is explained by the party of two, embracing the dividing sun.
Look left to see coral reef skies swim attempting to grasp what is to the right of the Sun:
Silhouettes outlining prayers flattening dimensions of rugged Mosques
Still dusty from wheat flour and patterned by uncooked lentils, that
Slipped through missing seams of Burlap, blackened from the hearth
Malleable as a result of dependency.
Though only half of my sight functions, I reason that
Earth shifts without you. Watching centuries and some odd
Years of changes, I yearn to know where you have gone.
I peer from the peacock’s tail, feeling the pulse of the
World tick away as the fearless pray to someone new.
Your countenance, I interlaced with feathered fingers
Depicts movements, curves. A shame to be without
Language to fill the contours of a nebulaic expression
Or swindling modifications.
You put me here. My eyes anyway.
Expecting me to retire along with buildings for your worship
Powdery paint has spilled and faded along with
Others who have modified your appearance, their someone new.
Even as the shadows swells
A million replicates of Io, moo and sway home, tired from the
Beating sun, to which eyes remain fixed.
One momentary memory visits.
Vision simulate traces of wonder, travelling on
Pathways believed to be conquerable. The people have learned
What I have not. They pause, breathe.
Feb 15, 2015
Feb 15, 2015 at 1:32 PM UTC
Never ending,
continuously reminding,
unpausing,
haunting.
My grief.
A cliff where my love hangs on a thread,
clouded behind this smile,
this laugh.
Care to look closer?
My grief.
Growing,
Flaring,
Exploding,
My grief.
Dwindling,
Deflating,
Flattening,
My grief.
Strengthening,
Time consuming,
Soul-sucking,
Depressing,
Enlightening,
My grief.
Nov 7, 2021
Nov 7, 2021 at 3:03 PM UTC
Six or seven women ranging from thirty to sixty
stand chit-chatting in a somewhat-circle outside the State House.
Slowly, they dry their skin and dye their hair in the smoky sunlight
of the morning break; taking their time off with each long pull and curl.
A light skinned black woman dressed in navy sweater and
pinned with power star speaks to the group.
Deep inside her lungs a road is being paved.
You can hear the tremble of the rollers flattening molten pavement,
the rumble of the endless packs of 100s of dump trucks
the wisp and rasp of steam, the cough and hack of working men who’ve spent too
much time paving roads.
I have never heard anyone say a word in the way that woman said that word
this morning. What was her tone? Condemning?
In her blue commando, she pointed right at me (without ever seeing me)
and said, “Us and our cigarettes...”
Feb 19, 2013
Feb 19, 2013 at 4:36 PM UTC
My tired eyes,
my fatigued mind
falls slow and time becomes obscured by
the drowsy raven sailing sunset sky boulevard.
My phone is ringing orders and misdirection calls,
that funny little radiation box hollering voices
of somewhere, telemarketers in India, automated messages,
spurious connections anywhere but here.
The rain-shine of approaching April Wednesday
trails golden hues among the treeline being viciously
torn like a gradual atomic bomb flattening the hoary hills
and spectacular firs beryl in frequent times of showers.
Each day I hope for that fabled resurgence,
nearly a year my fingers have been crossed
while wars are still wars, politicians still politicians,
gods still gods. Everything is so still, silence among fury.
Carpet bombings, protests, genocides, reforms, riots, the drowsy
raven circles in view of the window and my thoughts cycle around
my washing machine consciousness wiping off the grit of untruths
of everywhere else but within myself. That seems to be the problem
with most people.
As the clouds roll in, as the sun subsides into darkness,
as my mind is clouded by that ever-expanding raven encompassing
night sky and nightmares, I realize I hadn't even gone out at any point
that day and probably wouldn't the next.
We've become so dull some of us.
Vacuums inside of vacuums.
Mar 23, 2015
Mar 23, 2015 at 11:24 PM UTC
A metallic seat.
Hard orange plastic.
Strip light sickness.
And I look at you.
Disinfectant scrubs my throat,
sterilising the language I want to use.
And I look at you.
Naked feet, white tinged with yellow.
Invisible socks.
Cotton top welts left in your ankles,
flattening the spidery hair.
So much hair.
And I wonder,
when did you get so tall?
And I look at you.
Sallow face, a dehydrated
caricature of youth, erased and lined.
Needles **** the marrow,
the muscle tone gone but
stubble erupting, handsome underneath.
And I wonder,
when was the last time I saw you?
And I look at you.
Frail arms, thick bandage cuffs
giving little comfort to the empty purple beneath.
And I wonder,
was it how you imagined?
Clean blade?
Neat slices?
Choreographed claret leaving a poignant splash
on your final soliloquy?
Head to camera, atmospheric lighting,
ready for your close up.
Someday you’ll be a star.
Or was it sordid?
Brutal?
A smashed bottle?
Hacking, mangling,
uncontrollable blood
aimlessly gushing, drenching the rambling note
so the words washed away?
No camera angles.
No haunting memoir.
And I look at you.
And I wonder.
When did you become so lonely?
And I turn away.
Dec 16, 2010
Dec 16, 2010 at 9:46 AM UTC
Fried Turtles
The little dog chews on the blue wire
His sharp teeth need blunting
So he picked this bomb wire to gnaw
He likes biting and such like
One of his main interests
His master’s fingers and boots
Car tires on parked cars
And his Holy toys
The gold cross from the church
That’s totally ******
Just like the blue wire he has
Look it’s now severed
And the bomb will explode
Killing ten million Chinese
Flattening central Shanghai
Good job the dog and wire
Are ten miles away
He’ll still get a tan
And ten million turtles
Will be totally ******* fried
It was a Taiwanese bomb…
Oct 30, 2021
Oct 30, 2021 at 1:32 PM UTC
And now it's
"We need to talk to you."
It's
awkward giggles through the wall.
Other sounds,
I don't want to know
at all.
It's her
making breakfast
when she hasn't cooked in years.
It's him
walking in the door
when she's not even here.
It's
trying to avoid
awkward conversation
when I'm
high as a kite
put politeness is the expectation.
It's
things in the house
suddenly being fixed.
It's
extra noise when there should be silence.
It's
wondering if he'll try to be my "dad"
and if he steps out of line
you know I'll fight back.
It's
flattening my quills,
remind myself:
he's a different person.
I guess it's
hard to put a family back together
once it's broken.
(or never even existed in the first place)
Nov 30, 2011
Nov 30, 2011 at 4:15 PM UTC
You made me stop believing
in who I was.
You slapped my *** with your shower caddy--
blamed it on invisibility
with a smirk and a wink in my direction.
I saw your reflection
in the hall mirror from the corner of my eye.
Your body was full and half-clothed,
your imagination molding me
as I stood there innocent
trying to view myself
the way you saw me.
It was a dark shadow you cast.
I bathed in your deception.
I saw my own reflection--
in my bedroom mirror at midnight
with your hands on the nape of my neck
and your fingers cradling my skull,
flattening my spine into
what you would fit into your figure.
There was your lips on my ear and I heard
a backwards whisper of a promise you swore,
you swore was true.
It wasn't--
and didn't like who I saw.
Dec 5, 2013
Dec 5, 2013 at 11:19 AM UTC