"flecks" poems
In a past life she was a mermaid.
Her eyes seaweed green;
bright watery globes,
flecks of aquamarine.
Bones made of coral,
and skin from wet sands.
She devoured lost sailors
and made treasure their hands.
She rolled with the waves
of the great Celtic Sea,
and pulled with the undertow
‘round County Kerry.
I know this quite well,
‘cause in my past life
I was a drunk Irishman --
she was my wife.
Jun 1, 2014
Jun 1, 2014 at 8:05 PM UTC
I have been going to the track for so
long that
all the employees know
me,
and now with winter here
it's dark before the last
race.
as I walk to the parking lot
the valet recognizes my
slouching gait
and before I reach him
my car is waiting for me,
lights on, engine warm.
the other patrons
(still waiting)
ask,
"who the hell is that
guy?"
I slip the valet a
tip, the size depending upon the
luck of the
day (and my luck has been amazingly
good lately)
and I then am in the machine and out on
the street
as the horses break
from the gate.
I drive east down Century Blvd.
turning on the radio to get the result of that
last race.
at first the announcer is concerned only with
bad weather and poor freeway
conditions.
we are old friends: I have listened to his
voice for decades but,
of course, the time will finally come
when neither one of us will need to
clip our toenails or
heed the complaints of our
women any longer.
meanwhile, there is a certain rhythm
to the essentials that now need
attending to.
I light my cigarette
check the dashboard
adjust the seat and
weave between a Volks and a Fiat.
as flecks of rain spatter the
windshield
I decide not to die just
yet:
this good life just smells too
sweet.
9k
-
crack another thermometer open
on the broken bathroom sink,
pour yourself into me like mercury
and pan the bed of my stomach
for multitudes of gold flecks
like however many myriads
of sickly pill bottles in your
dresser drawer of socks.
-
see all
the shredded speckled petals
i ripped up before i'd let
the deer get to them;
i'm colorblind,
and i can't tell
the sun's reflection from plastic,
or tulips from the broken
pottery outside my front door.
-
and far least from another beer,
and another fifth of whatever
could be fit under your shirt
-
and never a chair pulled up to speak,
from standing like a soapbox
more suited to cleaning
than to preaching.
-
pour yourself into me like mercury,
because it's so much easier
when my veins weigh me down
to distraction, than being able
to think of hydrangeas again.
-
Mar 19, 2013
Mar 19, 2013 at 1:55 PM UTC
I’m the perm of a
Poet
I can choke
I can breathe
I can drink a cup of coffee
And you
Are a murmuration
A flock of afternoon
midnight
I will let your
Black mass love me
However
However
However
It can
I’m reaching for you
Little bird
Take me with your arrow
The streets of this
Pure piano
And I introduce the yowling
Trumpet
The dead skin on
my back
Flecks with the quiver
Of flying with you
By choice
Jan 3, 2017
Jan 3, 2017 at 10:37 AM UTC
First glance, I’m a good Christian girl. But dark purple flecks decorate my neck.
In leather and lace I forget to pray and let you do what you want with me
because pain is complex and melded with pleasure.
Do you know what they say about girls that enjoy ***
They never dare to say it to my face but I can feel them staring from the pew
at the dark purple flecks that decorate my neck.
Your hands, more powerful than God, make the earth of my body quake
while I draw fault lines down your back with my nails under the broken
crucifix above your bed. The pain is complex and melded with pleasure.
Deep, growling voice shakes the dusty rosary on your nightstand when we ****
Your handprints are left on my flesh and the hand around my throat
leaves the dark purple flecks decorating my neck.
Coffee in the narthex and I’m labeled a harlot. Sinner. Sacrilegious. Branded as freaks…
Brush it off. I know what you like and how you like me. God will have mercy.
Sensations blend because pain is complex and melded with pleasure
and I can’t have one without the other. To reach our peak
you leave me red, marked and breathless, gasping, “Oh my God.”
Questioning my beliefs with dark purple flecks to decorate my neck,
I know pain will always be complex and melded with pleasure.
Nov 23, 2014
Nov 23, 2014 at 2:29 PM UTC
Nobody clams up over the right things
Flecks of dirt won't make beautiful ever
But those enormous irritations you take with a grain of sand
I tuck those things away
For a long while
It is against my nature to do so
It is awkward to keep salty things on the tip of one's tongue
Without spitting them out
Oh, I long to swallow
How much longer must I be closed up, love?
Jan 4, 2013
Jan 4, 2013 at 4:45 AM UTC
Star light full of silver
Moon beams laced with gold
I'd give you all I gather
For you just to behold
Flecks of gold in sunshine
Silver steaks upon the sea
I'd gather all for you to have
If you would be with me
Gather up the silver dust
Gather up the gold
Gather up the moonlight mist
I will offer up my soul
Gather up the silver dust
Gather up the gold
Gather up the moonlight mist
If you once I just could hold
Emeralds and ruby gems
From rainbows in the sky
I'd gather them for you as well
For you my dear I'd die
I'd mine for diamonds in the night
From the stars up oh so high
I'd gather all if you would be
The one for which I'd die
Gather up the silver dust
Gather up the gold
Gather up the moonlight mist
I will offer up my soul
Gather up the silver dust
Gather up the gold
Gather up the moonlight mist
If you once I just could hold
May 30, 2015
May 30, 2015 at 7:16 PM UTC
Funny the things we recall.
Images that flash through our brain.
Some most vivid for me were of an old man.
Skin like creased parchment paper,
Lined and yellowed with age.
The veins visible just below the surface,
of a thin nearly transparent veneer.
Liver spotted flecks of red,
Charted paths from the toil of many years,
Palms callused forever from a life time of labor.
Big fingers knotted and misshapen,
The two inch tip of one gone missing,
Saw taken, at age sixteen.
Looking at those old hands, one could hardly guess
That still there remained gentleness in their caress.
For an old dog, or a little grandson in need of some
Companionable affection or parental love.
Those aged hands could also make things,
Toy sailboats, and wooden trains,
complete with caboose,
And guard cow catcher.
A cool flute whistle that actually worked,
He said it was like the Indian’s made,
Out Oklahoma way.
And he would know,
He cowboyed there.
His hands taught me to tie my shoes,
Open and close my first pocketknife.
Those same hands could become birds,
rabbits, butterfly's, all sorts of things.
When projected up on the wall,
Silhouetted by a naked back light.
His hands knew magic too,
Pluck silver coins right out of my ears.
His tired face matched his hands,
visual weathered, creased and
wrinkled road maps,
Of 89 years of rugged roads traveled.
Yet, his lively pale green eyes remained
forever fraudulently youthful prisms,
Eyes and spirit of a much younger man within.
But it is his hands most of all I shall remember,
Their imposing look and their reassuring
touches of tenderness.
I shall never forget my grandfather’s hands.
Dec 12, 2013
Dec 12, 2013 at 3:12 PM UTC
In the divet between mountains
Resides a wooden cabin – ostensibly an amalgamation of the scape
Adroitly - I - quondam female warrior flit
Down massive (ancient) hand-laid, hand-cut carved stone steps
Bounding from contingent step onto the dense pad of turned soil
Tacit compliance between gravity and soil holds footprints bound
A compressed deflating crescendo as pace ignites with bounds
Cadences of protuberant wildflowers and grasses erupt from swollen terra
A winsome chromatic menagerie, dispersed in ecstatic fistfuls
A venerably ancient ritual
My nascent clandestine vocation
Personally meted out - a beatification for my provisional sanctuary
Along glacier-fed stream
Lissome fingers shadow inert stalks –plucking dormant beginnings from their desiccated ligaments
I am austere and unadorned save for a festoon of pyrite flecks trailing my semblance
Residual gilding from my ante-meridian swim taken after requisite gathering of wild blackberries, goose berries, and rhubarb along oft-tamped path
The sun, nestling into its requisite apex endorsed my completion
I reclined into the hassock of soil, feeling the elements settle about with an embossment of my form
Imposing verdure arched subtly as compressed soil beckoned hyperbolic flux
As I lay within the basilica of opulent living columns replete with comestible bounty
Lingering dew honed inflections of sacrosanct petrichor in unison with piquant clover
Wild purple clover buds saccharinely tinted and inundated nestled nerves in mine cribriform plate
Birds pitched and galloped through the frond tips and beyond in the lapis expanse
Frequently snatching damselfly’s and assemblages of midges from their ephemeral drift
Auspicious rays transcended stippled diaphanous gravid clouds
Light inundated ether entered humbly into the cathedral oculus
Pyrite speckled terrain beneath, and my bare gilded form above
Cast a refracted aura about my sanctuary
Precipitously the elusive vaporous embankment distended further
Ashen atmospheric correspondence inaugurated liquescent sustenance to my mountain abode
And I -
Lingered beneath the descending gobbets, curls furled in a puddle
Fresh topsoil cupping my corporal topographic contours
Pressing blackberries into my mouth between smiles
Jan 26, 2014
Jan 26, 2014 at 9:13 PM UTC
I. Herself
To be a sweetness more desired than Spring;
A ****** beauty more acceptable
Than the wild rose-tree’s arch that crowns the fell;
To be an essence more environing
Than wine’s drained juice; a music ravishing
More than the passionate pulse of Philomel; -
To be all this ’neath one soft bosom’s swell
That is the flower of life:—how strange a thing!
How strange a thing to be what Man can know
But as a sacred secret! Heaven’s own screen
Hides her soul’s purest depth and loveliest glow;
Closely withheld, as all things most unseen,—
The wave-bowered pearl, the heart-shaped seal of green
That flecks the snowdrop underneath the snow.
II. Her Love
She loves him; for her infinite soul is Love,
And he her lodestar. Passion in her is
A glass facing his fire, where the bright bliss
Is mirrored, and the heat returned. Yet move
That glass, a stranger’s amorous flame to prove,
And it shall turn, by instant contraries,
Ice to the moon; while her pure fire to his
For whom it burns, clings close i’ the heart’s alcove.
Lo! they are one. With wifely breast to breast
And circling arms, she welcomes all command
Of love,—her soul to answering ardours fann’d:
Yet as morn springs or twilight sinks to rest,
Ah! who shall say she deems not loveliest
The hour of sisterly sweet hand-in-hand?
III. Her Heaven
If to grow old in Heaven is to grow young,
(As the Seer saw and said,) then blest were he
With youth forevermore, whose heaven should be
True Woman, she whom these weak notes have sung.
Here and hereafter,—choir-strains of her tongue,—
Sky-spaces of her eyes,—sweet signs that flee
About her soul’s immediate sanctuary,—
Were Paradise all uttermost worlds among.
The sunrise blooms and withers on the hill
Like any hillflower; and the noblest troth
Dies here to dust. Yet shall Heaven’s promise clothe
Even yet those lovers who have cherished still
This test for love:—in every kiss sealed fast
To feel the first kiss and forebode the last.
5.7k
rich soil
fleck with a bit of black
dark chocolate
parched summer soil
glossy chestnut brown
unvarnished oak
mahogany flecks
apple pips
varnished cork
dessert palm tree
flecks of acorn shell
his eyes
the most beautiful pair
of eyes
she has seen
Jan 20, 2020
Jan 20, 2020 at 3:55 PM UTC
How do you say, "Thank you," to someone who saved your life?
No, no, no..........let's get it right!
I was dead and gone.
I was 2 seconds from being burried deeper than most while life carried on.
I was about to decompose and be a feast for the worms.
I was a walking corpse in no other terms.
And then, she spoke to me and raised me from the dead.
I saw the light in her and followed it instead.
I grabbed a pen and paper and wrote, "Confessions of Him".
Suddenly, life surged! And I could stay afloat and swim.
If not for her this place would have made me a zombie in tomb .
No way to express myself, but, with her light my body was exhumed.
I could hardly sleep placing pen to paper.
The flood gates were opened and the words made me feel safer.
Medora had stolen all my energy and light.
I didn't know a place could make you give up your will to fight.
You'll know her when you see her.
Her beauty will never fade.
She glows in the distance like a lighthouse in a storm.
And up close she is blinding, but, its comforting and warm.
Her voice is like music and her smile makes you think of ****
Yea! She's that GREAT and fills you with delight.
Her laugh is free and hearty.
Her skin is rosey with flecks of white.
Her hair is a flame.
I have to say, "Thank You," and share her name.
Kayla, you were the fresh drink I needed.
Without you knowing I heard your words and heeded.
I am alive again!
Writing feels too good to be true!
The only way I know to say, "Thank You," is to immortalize you.
I wrote you this poem so I will never forget.
I want the world to know I owe you a debt.
You reminded me that words were a natural part of my soul.
And, to deny that I would always be half and never whole.
So, I ask the world to join me at my imaginary gala.
Hold up your glasses in a toast to the AMAZING Kayla!
Keep letting your fire burn because your flames ignited my oil well.
"Thank you," for saving me! From loneliness. From hate.
From Medora. From HELL.
Sep 13, 2012
Sep 13, 2012 at 7:37 PM UTC
I look up at the starless sky
Without the stars who should be there
Sharing this moment with me
This moment that hold no significance
While I look, I miss the sky
I miss the stars
I miss the light they provide
All that’s left is the moon
All alone that poor moon is
Glowing in the dark
When it should be glowing in the light
Just like me, alone when we should have others
I feel the moon’s sorrow
For I feel the same
The empty sky is no place
No place for either of us
I wonder what happened
Those poor little flecks of light
One day here
The next day gone
Not a single word was said
About their disappearance
All forget about them
Except for the moon and I
Every night I would look
Waiting for the stars to come back
To see the moon no longer alone
To see the sky back alight
Every night I would look
And ever y time I would despair
For the stars are still gone
And show no sign of returning
I hear the moon weep
The man on the moon weeps
The tears silent
But the sorrow is deafening
After eons passed
The stars did not return
I waited, and so did the moon
Finding comfort in each other’s presence
There are some nights
When the moon is gone
And the sky is dark
Missing the moon
I detest those nights
Fearing the worst
That the moon had gone
And joined the stars
My fears never came to pass
For the moon would always return
At first a sliver
Then it would all be back
Even in the darkness of space
The moon kept it bright
A single candle in the darkness
Burning ever bright
I went out one night to see the moon
That was my reason now
For I knew the stars were gone
But the moon was still there
And on that one special night
I realized with keep insight
That not all the stars were gone
That one was still left
For the moon was not a candle
But a mirror
It reflected the light off another
The light of the Sun
I told the moon what I figured
And the moon was joyous
For not all the stars had left
The Sun was still there
And armed with that fact
That one star was still there
A glimmer of hope rekindled
And I knew what I had to do
I said farewell to the moon
It knew what I was doing
I left for the sky
To bring back the stars
Jul 25, 2010
Jul 25, 2010 at 8:00 PM UTC
He had been becoming older
I looked at him the same
his dark hair showed no signs of it
his beard had flecks of grey
I remember we would take refuge
under blankets
or a fort made of cushions
we'd stay up later than our mother knew
soon he would be the parent
being hidden from
when his little boy grows up
maybe he'll be a rogue, like you were
occupied in work
with the thought of coming home to be a father
it feels like we're living the future now -
he's married and so settled down
light blue sheets cover the weary mother
they catch my eye, I smile
because they match the cap and romper suit
of his new-born baby boy
Feb 6, 2017
Feb 6, 2017 at 4:46 AM UTC
THE SMELL OF PURPLE
She says she can smell yellow.
She says she can smell blue.
despite, not being able to
spell either colour.
“Yellow smells the same - as blue.
...like a wet kitty drying by the fire.
Red smells like
Mummy when she kisses.
Her kisses smell different
when she kisses you...
...then she smells like flames
with little orange tips!
Purple is my favourite smell...
...it smells just like a magic spell!”
I kiss her goodnight
like lilac (only lighter)
with little flecks of purple
scattered here & there.
Feb 28, 2016
Feb 28, 2016 at 6:10 PM UTC
His eyes ...
The most beautiful
shade of emeralds
deep as jungle
holding many secrets
reflecting his emotions
his smile lighting up
the golden flecks
in his iris
like the sunlight dancing
in the lush green meadows
his demons turning
gold flecks into black streaks
like shadows ready to
take over the jungle
but
the moment her hazel eyes
looked into his emerald ones
she knew
she was lost in the deep
jungles
never to be found again !!
Feb 8, 2016
Feb 8, 2016 at 1:47 AM UTC
I've been missing
authentic selflessness
devoted kindness
and the soft laughter
you let out
when I used to do things
like try to cheer you up
I've been missing
fiery conversations
deep and vibrant
they used to dance across my face
every time I had a stollen space
alone
with your voice
I've been missing
grace within strangers
the signs of simplicity in nature
The way you'd stuff me into your
envelope embrace
and those hearty compliments
that I used to save up for calloused
malnourished days
I miss
you impressing my brother
with your dutifulness
and natural peace,
showing big bright flecks of acceptance
in your eyes
I miss
the lightness I would feel
the second I pulled into our parking lot
and saw your muddy shoes outside
our place
I miss
noticing the yellow parts of the day
brought by your soothing spontaneity
I miss
laying my wild heart down at night
and being able to close my eyes
without wasp anxiety
stinging the lining of my stomach
I miss sleep and
the way I used to be with you.
Pure beautiful lovely and utterly unique
Nov 7, 2012
Nov 7, 2012 at 6:25 PM UTC
*I want you to know that sometimes I become so scared of the future, tendrils of birds burst from my rib cage.
I can feel the cuts on my palms from trying to push back time.
Memories claw out of my fore arms and drip down my finger tips.
I can feel the venom of broken promises course theough my veins.
And I am terrified.
I have witnessed the aftermath of a hurricane.
And the first handful of dirt thrown into the grave.
I can't be your silver lining anymore.
I can't be your saving grace.
I can't even be your still day.
But I can be your shadow.
The wind.
Maybe even a stain on your soul.
I want you to know that I could see stardust when you were with me.
And hear angels when you smiled.
That it may have taken awhile,
But I realized what god was everytime you laughed.
I want you to know that you were the best part of me.
And that if I tried to hold in my hands, all the seconds that I thanked God for your existence, it would spill out of my hands like grains of sand and dry up all the oceans.
I will miss the gold flecks in your eyes.
I will miss the skip in your step.
I Will miss your compassion.
It may hurt, but i want you to fly.
Fly, and never look back.
Not even for me.*
May 13, 2014
May 13, 2014 at 4:20 AM UTC
I am not going to lie anymore, it is easy to write about you.
It is a gut instinct.
It is muscle memory.
I kept the letters, the postcards.
The first one you sent is in bad shape; folded edges, crumpled body.
I almost set it on fire twelve times.
You don't understand how every night I stand outside looking at the stars
realizing that we can probably never see them at the same time.
There is nothing poetic about how we feed off of eachother.
There is nothing healthy about holding on to this.
But all I know is that when I talk to someone, I almost always say I'm sorry as a greeting.
Because nothing I ever say will be pretty anymore, I have a serpent tongue when you're gone away.
And I'm sorry that they're not you.
I will still get your words on me. I will hold on to the pain of the ink seeping into my skin.
Forever doesn't have a fighting chance against the chokehold grip you have on my thoughts.
Instead of this train of thought, paper bodies.
Ignition.
Fire.
Think of me when the candle goes out.
Think of me when you're drunk again.
Instead of this poem, broken bottles.
Instead of this poem:
Blue sheets. White pillows. Your hair was never this color before.
Your poems were never about me.
Slam poetry in the way you threw my necklace in the river.
Find me waiting at the window for you to let me in.
You left the bottle open, it smells like whiskey in here.
Blue sheets but yellow flecks of sunlight and candlelight and streetlight.
The light has almost disappeared since you went away.
Instead of this poem:
Come back. Stay away. I am fluent in ******* things up.
Fire.
Ignition.
Paper body.
Think of me when the candle goes out.
Apr 26, 2014
Apr 26, 2014 at 8:54 PM UTC
father of the bells swinging.
great weights
to give praise while
we set aside our silent
alleluias.
what gives us
cause to build with
symbols, brick upon
storied pages, is
the opportunity
to teach us
generosity,
could there be a
greater gift than that?
we seek unusual
beauties, a flower
in a dying woman's hair,
bearing witness
of the fresh
clean linen
table cloth,
hidden there small
flecks of flesh
and spotted blood,
we become,
swinging in the
breath of god,
as sounds
from the bells
summoning us
to sleep.
Sep 24, 2025
Sep 24, 2025 at 2:43 AM UTC
find a lover who writes you sonnets
who uses the darkest flecks of your eyes as ink
and the shades of your skin as paper
writing along the edges of your wrists and arms
with tongue and teeth
with purpose, truth, and love
find a lover whose heart sings to yours
a pianissimo summer sonata, dolce
using their words sotto voce against your ear
melodiously humming against your body
with their lips pressed to your neck
with passion, fire and tenderness
find a lover who creates art
using line weight in colloquy and canvas alike
to paint you with diamonds, as they see you
watch them carve your essence
with rainbows and pearls
with intensity, feeling, and beauty
find a lover who gives to you
who presents all the joys of life
unselfishly and without expectation
and when they give freely and openly
ensure that you, too, become a lover
who writes, sings, creates, and returns
Jun 20, 2018
Jun 20, 2018 at 10:37 AM UTC
All things must end in time
Regardless of who when where or why
I am absolved by the setting sun
In this absence of light the darkness is All, the shadow is One
The Ray of intellect pulls pieces from the vast darkness
Attached by fear, chased by longing
We run in circles, burying Truth beneath flecks of meaningless illumination
Frustation, anger, the illusion of danger.
I am a fool.
I sit, surrounded by water in a rowboat without oars demanding control or salvation.
There is no alternative, no freedom of suffering from pain nor dehydration.
My body, my boat, my ocean are destined to fall to dust
The wise man knows this and worries not.
Just as the sun sets, the rays that illuminate are impermanent
All that ever was transitions to all that can never be
Beyond suffering, beyond pain
Beyond illusory words orchestrated on this page
It is held by a fabric that cannot be named
It resonates in our being as love
It’s the deepest darkness that holds the brightest light.
You may heed my words or continue the Material spin
It’s up to you where it ends or when you begin
But know this truly and deeply my friend,
When your travels are over
Lessons learned and suffering done
We will be made One
Destined to recuperate in the womb of the Sun.
Aug 6, 2012
Aug 6, 2012 at 9:07 AM UTC
A painted mirror
With the image of love
Only intended to show her exterior
No matter the size of the shove
They pick spitefully
Tossing flecks of dried work
But she responds oh so delightfully
Forgetting her crafted worth
Born to show others an image they'd like to perceive
Dead to have not even the maker grieve
Jul 16, 2018
Jul 16, 2018 at 10:13 PM UTC
What rarity can acclaim to this elusive title? Where surely
claiming it itself is against its nature.
It might be what our mothers told grubby faced, knee
knocked flecks that dart from graffitied parks
when light turns dark.
Is it in the eye of the beholder, a stubborn piece
of irritating dust? Perhaps those who search
will never be rewarded with a glimpse as
perfection becomes unfathomably further.
Why does the haughty swan rise when the
it squawks more than the pigeon?
Beauty is boxed. It is wrapped in parcels and
swaddled in ribbon until one forgets that it is in the child's
face and not his hands.
Unmeasurable pleasure shouldn't be contained, it roams and commands like a caged tiger. It controls the eye and navigates,
onward soldier. So perhaps it is not rare at all but there
for all customary enough to
anticipate the undeniable.
Sep 29, 2014
Sep 29, 2014 at 12:19 PM UTC