"frays" poems
Deep within a leafy dell
There lived a hairy fairy
Who very often cast a spell
That was frightening and scary.
The only friend the fairy had
Was an old green warty toad,
He never thought the fairy bad,
Just lonely and old.
So he’d sit with her and croak
And watch her practice magic.
She very rarely often spoke,
This to him was tragic.
The fairy dress; the fairy wore
Had seen better days.
It was ***** tattered, creased and tore
The hem hung loose in frays.
Her head seemed always in a cloud,
He never saw her smile,
Her wand no longer taut and proud
But still she was not vile.
Somewhere inside he saw her love;
He longed to be her mate,
So he prayed to God above
And asked her for a date.
She thought he saw her as a joke.
He was playing with her heart.
Up she went, in a puff of smoke,
That gave the toad a start.
Never having seen this done before
He had a mixed-up feeling.
His warts and looks she must abhor
And she found him unappealing.
For days he waited there for her
Because he was alarmed;
A toad and fairy love was rare
He thought she might be charmed.
If she would only hear him out,
That he may just explain.
Then she, he felt, could have no doubt
His love just would not wane.
But if his looks she hated so,
Then this he’d have to take.
He’d just hop-off; away he’d go,
Take bravely his mistake.
He realised, ‘how sad it is,
I never asked her name.’
With one loud bang and mighty ****
Back to his side she came.
“It occurred to me, you might be kind,
My name is Nuff,” the fairy cried,
“And I can read your mind.”
“Fairy Nuff,” the toad replied.
Then she kissed him on his cheek
A shock that made him wince.
Before he had a chance to speak
He was a fairy Prince.
She was beautiful and young,
Like his clothes, hers were new.
A love that’s ‘Magic’ is not wrong
Especially for these two.
Dec 7, 2009
Dec 7, 2009 at 11:13 AM UTC
The curtain frays at the edges
Unwinds, disobedient
Only to reveal
No bed (where one should be)
Dainty white muslin
Conflicted, floats
Away from the pane
More like a halo (than a shroud)
Here, in the cage of your mind,
Lies a mandolin
Hollow (with no music in its heart)
Towards another window
Its brother may lie
Born of nothing (but of itself)
Mar 27, 2016
Mar 27, 2016 at 7:51 PM UTC
a zit—(white iceberg tip
infection-floating)
a heart (yours was always lipid-
slippery)
an ember (firefly abdomen
exhaling in black velvet)
a full bladder—(toilet-bowl relief:
a temporary prescription)
a bag of hot chips (extra habanero
for a spicy explosion)
a sink pipe (domestic artery rupture
of your sledgehammer swing)
a water balloon, (concrete-spiked,
insoluble rubber jigsaw)
spaghetti in the microwave: (blood
stain pattern analysis of metal walls)
a seam. (sewn ending
frays: leave the stitch, re-exposed.)
Apr 26, 2014
Apr 26, 2014 at 9:18 PM UTC
Things sometimes fall apart
Among sisters and brothers,
No matter what they once were.
Childhood picnics and dreamy games,
Memories of trips with Dad,
Since Mom was tired of us.
We would climb Appalachian peaks
Or drive to look at the Mayflower.
Every summer there was a golden week
A lakeside cottage and all-day swims
In crystal water, becoming mermaids.
But time passes and bitterness accrues.
Imagined slights grow like slow tumors,
Never excised but nurtured by some.
I go to college and am freed
From the poison of ignorant rage,
From the creeping depression left
Like diesel fog on an endless floor.
Four or five years of delight pass
With only hints here or there
Of a sibling’s misery at home.
Of a once close sister, Maggie,
Who is ignored and never loved
By any man she pursues.
She blames me for it, for reasons
I have yet to fathom.
Of a brother, Francis, deluded, drugged,
Steals the family car in a rage
And drives to New York City.
Of Deirdre, the middle sister,
Whose friend who knows men who feed
On her ignorance and rebellion.
Only Susannah tries to rise above
The maelstrom of misery.
I send her to a school far away
And she sheds despair, at least.
Decades drawl, children are born to us,
While the bridge between us, obscured,
Sags and frays under weight of rancor.
Christmas dinners and birthday parties
Turn into chores, invitations kept as scores.
Petty grudges, like acid, sever the bridge
At last, all ties are abandoned.
When we are all grown and scattered,
No one speaking to anyone else,
Unaware, uncaring about the others.
Only Susannah visits me and smiles,
With no ulterior plan for insane revenge,
Or accusations for errant slights.
Her once dark hair is grizzled and wild
And her girlish skin now creased.
But her treacle eyes, “black aggies”,
I used to call them, still shine.
Only Susannah writes a letter,
Wishing us well and
Healing scars made by others,
Returning the word “family”.
To my basket of small treasures,
I carry with me
Into the twilight.
Oct 10, 2021
Oct 10, 2021 at 10:52 AM UTC
∙∙∙◦◦•◎•◦◦∙∙∙
Shut the doors
and drift the words away
we act like rascals
toiling with our frays
weakening to the knees
idyllic river feels,
reaching an ominous sea
longing our moments
as our tale would breathe
She adores many
may it be pretty in pink
or baby in blues
but I like most a lot
how she paints prism hues
unfailingly she tells me
—that she's in love
and I could tell
in her gleaming smile
extending up above
She's the Juliet
I would never trade
the starlight in between
my midnight eyes
the snow I would trail
A poem and A prose
everyone's dying to sigh
a binding might
our hearts of ribbons tied
and we sat to an oriel
—above the bedroom floor
touching hands
grasping each other’s core
a common connection
the afterglows of love
a better reason
as we left kisses to depart
Nov 6, 2017
Nov 6, 2017 at 10:11 AM UTC
empty water bottles everywhere
cheerios on the floor
I can never keep track of myself
or the food I bring out of the kitchen
I'm worse than a bachelor
& my Benadryl is almost gone
I need it to sleep
sleep and to dream
so maybe my nothing
will be something
that it seems
I cannot stop obsessing over
how lonely I feel
in my new married life
I feel better talking to people
I barely know
than I do my own husband
they say the first year
is the hardest
but I think I've just always felt
this way
when your heart clings to something
you can't have
the feeling never quite frays
never quite
erodes in its natural form
I find myself daydreaming about
things that don't happen
true love that doesn't come true
romance is not abundant in these parts
chivalry is carved on a tombstone
a few blocks from my
apartment
& I'm lucky to get a kiss on
the cheek whenever
I walk by
I want to believe that
there is some man out there
who would build me a bouquet of
wildflowers
& play me some classic rock
ballad about eternity
maybe he lives
in this house
maybe he lives
at all
Apr 5, 2012
Apr 5, 2012 at 12:12 AM UTC
Amber drips from the 60’s-style lamps
on two end tables.
Brassy-orange and bulbous,
they illuminate the tangled tracks.
The light spills onto the floor
like heavy freight abandoning its car.
It spawns the locomotive shadow
cast by my grandmother’s sunken-in couch.
I nestle myself snug between the pillows,
dense and flattened by years of Sundays.
Sundays that bring my father
close to his brother, not a brother at all.
I peer over the edge
and heave a hushed “all aboard.”
Grandma sleeps to unwind
the day’s knot of exhaustion.
Each bone-bleach white fiber frays
from the chemotherapy that robs
her gnarled hands of their strength.
This one-way ticket marks the end of a journey
of a once well-oiled machine.
The exhales of a CSX
spout its peppery breath out in opaque puffs.
I am a conductor, tearing the ticket
of tonight’s traveler.
Rising to my bare feet now,
I sink into the cushion like wet sand.
The train thrusts and in a single bound,
I leap from the ledge and leave my lone passenger.
The cars whir and hum alongside me.
Deafening metallic wind rusts the edge of the rug.
I’m still waiting for her return,
and in denial that it was her last train.
Sep 23, 2013
Sep 23, 2013 at 3:38 PM UTC
To love and love again,
with the eyes watching,
staring
Childhood secrets and imaginary pleasures
criticized for naivety by those
who have displaced the memories of a
long forgotten past
Who's insecurities double by the cynical
jealousy built up after
innocence has been torn to shreds
Seductive and approachable
this tree,
this swing
We all believe,
as children,
in that tire swings indestructibility
But
as it ages
and the rope withers from the weight
and frays like a spiders gossamer web
we witness the growth of a sad time
One slow piece at a time unravel
from lie after lie
Love lost several times
Everything holding the rope together
realizing that the end end is near
The tire snaps off and lays
in rest
among the dead and dying foliage
Abandoned,
years pass
and that old tire becomes caked
in dust and mud and
forgotten times
But
that rope still hangs there
swaying with the shifting moments of life
Waiting
waiting to be useful once again
There is only one use left for a lone rope
hanging from an old
and lonely
tree
A rope that offered hope and freedom
can do that one last time
A gift that can once again
release us from the pain
and the suffering
this world throws at us
That old tire swing rope
looped
circled
knotted
is now pure freedom
Standing on that old ***** tire
reaching
for that newly formed circle
Fit it
tighten it
release
and jump
Freedom
once again
because of that old tire swing noose
Jun 6, 2012
Jun 6, 2012 at 2:22 PM UTC
The man he sits,
Upon the bed.
Watching his sister die.
"No don't go" he says,
Eyes glowing red.
He's losing his mind.
The house, the house!
Is dark and defied!
He roams about,
Only hearing her cries.
The eyes of gray,
With no sleep.
He has no one to keep; to love.
His heart is very weak.
My dearest,
Fear thy presence.
She has come..
Within the rising storm.
He's gone now,
Blindly chasing a dream,
Her voice.
Insanity now holds his chains,
It won't be long now,
Before the blackness reigns.
Eyes bloodshot,
With a wolfish grin.
He's become thee,
Insane Usher again.
This house, it haunts.
With the dead below...
Where restless souls creep,
Carrying solemn cries.
There Usher Stands,
Lost in his agony...
The land where his sister sleeps.
No diary of his sweet.
His face is written,
In superstitious derail.
Beyond Hells Gates,
His final line frays...
The name of Usher will end,
This day.
No more sons,
To bear thu name.
A sibling is lost,
In this game of fate.
The house has fallen,
Broken and decayed.
Where no life breathes.
The fall of the house of Usher,
The tomb hath stayed.
Exposed by nature.
Never to live again.
Insanity takes thee,
Drowning out the calm.
Superstitions rage wildly,
Within the Ebony storm...
Mar 20, 2014
Mar 20, 2014 at 9:34 AM UTC
~
Sitting on my rhinestone lotus pond floating around in my oceanic bedroom
The haunting begins its sinister buzzing with a silent ‘vroom’
Wooden door opening by itself
My jeweled heartbeat falls from a bone frame shelf
Demons hanging like poisoned vines from the painted ceiling sky
Gods then pours their breath inside my empty soul, drowning all insinuated lies
Butterfly piano keys fluttering their enchanted melodies
The notes dripping pearls of discarded lullabies into my hidden pleas
Lost dreams entangled in my seashell hair
As I sit cradling broken memories in my emerald iris, the ones I’ve forgotten to share
Dead skin peeling from my fingertips as I turn a dusty page in my notebook
Loose frays of secrets coming apart, falling away in my Underland outlook
I remember the day I recreated my being, as I drew Self into a mermaid rose
Piercing my revolving face with a jagged pen,
**** fairytales bleeding from my lips, a new world I chose
My dress of ivory seaweed has caught onto a sharp end
I sink into the onyx murky depths of my rhinestone lotus pond, wishing for a friend
Discarded
Bombarded
Licking death, seeing the dead
My attire drifts in the sulphide air, swirling with the essence of dread
I now leave my surreal sanctuary
As rhinestones melt, the pond drains, the lotus folds its metal origami
I’m back from the world I created
Back to reality where a sententious poet is constantly hated
Back to a butterfly wallpapered bedroom where hallucination spend
Yea I’m back, but not for long, not until inspiration comes and I swallow my pen
And into my notebook realm I will be back in my own world again…
~
Sep 26, 2014
Sep 26, 2014 at 3:17 AM UTC
past wavering lights
B. Serrano and Bagong Ilog
love struck us down — sees no votive
clearing of the fog or a word sharper than any blade wrought from frays.
i have a photograph of you
somewhere in the ken of my silence
and on it paints lightsome hue
and sometimes pale when it rains.
KM 24 on a blue alloy and underneath,
a Baguio — some memories we keep
almost left by the last carriage homeward
from too much fire in our hands
only tremors could extinguish both
striking a balance and counterbalance;
the frequency of the electric and the
immense decibel of lions drowning
the disquiet. some places or some
looking back makes you want
to lose yourself in slight wonder and when
a memory comes back with the dreary
weight of its forgetfulness,
we fall asleep traipsing the steeples
of our dreams of each other
all-telling, still dizzy with the pirouette
of some distant longing bracing
the fall, triggering our darkness
and shooting out
ourselves, small,
love striking us down. arraying a triplicate
of hazy trails forking all roads
and we cannot find each other again;
throwing stones rippling
multiplied waves by the sea arriving
at separate mornings beneath
our feet,
bends on the bludgeoned curves
of love and hate ascertaining something
so unsure as a door agape and swiveling
in tense wind, tender is the night
and love continues
to smite us down, locking in, predatory precision,
running away, and away, and away
from the ache of it all.
Nov 3, 2015
Nov 3, 2015 at 7:11 AM UTC
You are forbidden from returning to my dreams. Taunting me, provoking me, torturing my subconscious mind with your narcissistic sadism. I'm no longer your ********* I'm no longer your tattered rag doll with frays at the knees and threading that refuses to hold. No longer will you find a thrill in viewing the black and blue-toned soft spots about my body, find pleasure in the fact that you created them. No longer will your fist adorn my neck and the blood you drew decorate my limbs like threats scrawled in crimson ink. I no longer live in the cage you forged specially for me to occupy. I'll never again ***** lies that have been ever so carefully ingrained into the crevices of gray matter within my battered skull. No more contracts written in blood and marrow, surrendering the black pulp of a soul that may not even exist within me. I'm now my own. I no longer retreat from battle, I storm the walls that you constructed around my heart. I am truly loved and the scars that once reminded me of terror and cowering in corners are now covered up with the finger paint that is left behind every time her hands dance across my flesh. You never won. I have reigned victorious and you'll know it when you look inside your pillowcase for that last slice of my consciousness you refused let go of. You'll know it because it will no longer be there. It's back with me, where it always belonged.
Rebecca Madeira (C)
Sep 25, 2017
Sep 25, 2017 at 9:27 PM UTC
The leaf frays under chaste
turpentine which fractures
it's skeleton and tumbles
to bed whilst
raining silver strikes
air raids to the wind and fires
the sirened sun
who was soaking asleep
in a bath of roses as the moon blossom glided down the slippery slope.
Apr 27, 2014
Apr 27, 2014 at 12:29 PM UTC
~
sunlit feather,
frays cut a shadow
of barbed wire
.
Sep 14, 2012
Sep 14, 2012 at 9:52 PM UTC
the worst thing I’ve ever done
was letting the world
know that I write,
it’s not the 2am phone calls
asking if I’m okay,
it’s not the regret of
of relationships or
the running away,
it’s the look in my mothers
eyes when I write about dying,
it’s the regard to kin
when holding certain
emotions in,
forging positivity
and relaying
the antiquities
of struggle,
the minuscule
moments of will
drill into minds
painting all kinds
of doubtful abstracts,
creating spousal transacts
of how to fix their son,
it’s not the questions
about what I mean when I
say my skin spits goose flesh
or my eyes wrap yesterday
in spruce mesh that
eventually frays,
it’s the days where
I get kindred
phone calls
wondering if I’ll pick up
because of writing
the night before
stating that
I’m skating
on thin ice,
I dont want them to worry
I’ll be fine,
but for now it’s the pen
that has to unwind
the noose from
confining words
I refuse to say.
May 26, 2016
May 26, 2016 at 1:23 AM UTC
It’s been two decades and I’m still sweating out this fever
My eyes haven’t stopped watering since my family tree fell over,
branch by branch we collapsed into the river,
rushing faster and faster to mutually assured destruction,
no one is getting out alive here
No one is getting out alive here in this world,
so we might as well get it while the going is going because one day the going is going to stop and we’ll be left holding on to as much as we can,
We’ll feel so sorry for ourselves then
I’ve walked with snakes on my shoulders for as long as I can remember,
All my hearing has amounted to hisses,
and all of my bones have broken to bend and expand to hold all of the feelings I’ve eaten
Made love with the ****** and prayed to every angel I’ve seen in my paralysis,
In my dreams I see flowers,
Red like blood,
but clean like a mended heart,
Slowly but surely I’ll likely tear myself apart
But I like it like this,
It gives me a reason to wonder,
and wander,
So I’ll continue to wonder,
and wander
We all just drink to get drunk,
We’re all just ghosts without a house to haunt,
I’ve been feeling this sickness creep up into my throat,
and it’s been drying to get out, and I think I’ll let it
I’m still learning what falling in love feels like,
Still coming to grips with realities that don’t involve bruised eyelids and unforgivable I told you so’s,
Sometimes it feels like I’m coming to the end of my rope but then it frays all over again and I’m stuck trying to wind it back up,
How selfish to think I can fix something that’s too broken
Cut to my grandmother getting dolled up for her closeup because the church taught her how to become her own messiah, now she doesn’t know how to love the right way,
I’m starting to think that none of us do
I’m starting to run with the wolves,
The moon speaks in tongues to me,
I keep asking her to take me back where I belong,
Every painting hanging in my room is blank,
Blank and powerful,
but afraid,
I’m starting to think we all are
I’ve been sweating everything out,
It’s taking longer than I want it to
I just hope that by the time I’m laying on my deathbed,
I’ll be as dry as this all bled me
May 7, 2018
May 7, 2018 at 7:30 PM UTC
Cat! who hast pass’d thy grand climacteric,
How many mice and rats hast in thy days
Destroy’d? How many *** bits stolen? Gaze
With those bright languid segments green, and *****
Those velvet ears - but pr’ythee do not stick
Thy latent talons in me - and upraise
Thy gentle mew - and tell me all thy frays,
Of fish and mice, and rats and tender chick.
Nay, look not down, nor lick thy dainty wrists -
For all thy wheezy asthma - and for all
Thy tail’s tip is nick’d off - and though the fists
Of many a maid have given thee many a maul,
Still is that fur as soft, as when the lists
In youth thou enter’dest on glass bottled wall.
1.5k
A Husk of Thule brew..
A Fjord born tang of Fenrir cold
To yawn the must of comet tails
In rings, around the naked oak.
That broke the spineless whims
Of reed, that set the Heron folk to flight
From scrivened rims of frosted pools.
To run in footless constellations
About the broads of bitter miles
And, there to spill the coffered frays
of Autumn’s final standing.
Dec 9, 2016
Dec 9, 2016 at 12:20 PM UTC
please leave me alone
to walk these pathways solo
I was hoping you wouldn't notice
but I think you already know
I know I have problems
and I'm trying to fix them
but what words can be enough
for a desire to even say them
for every time I open my mouth
I wish that I had closed it
remembering the times I messed things up
and the disappearing moments
I give far too much
and I know that I shouldn't
cause I have nothing left to give
so at least I know I'm used to it
throw the page away
so you can make the same mistakes
tear the edges so it frays
i just want my hand to fade
Jun 21, 2021
Jun 21, 2021 at 2:26 PM UTC
One
Two
Three
Four
One means hope
Thinned hair
Nausea
One
Two
Three
Four
Two frays your nerves
Bald heads
Tired limbs
One
Two
Three
Four
Three brings pain
Chemo filled veins
Faltering hearts
One
Two
Three
Four
Four is the end
Fills you up
Destroys you
One
Two
Three
Four
Mar 6, 2018
Mar 6, 2018 at 8:56 PM UTC
To flow
Lost in the mind of unattachment~
Relation floats to the top,
Bubbling in iridescent mounds.
Blood spinning full body,
Taken ancient ritual
To lands unknown,
Abyss flies,
High collapse,
Forms dissolve to absorb.
Human knows, mankind blows its ashes
Into the sea
Where fish nibble surface gifts,
Crawl to form surface, lifts
Familiar exotica,
Erotica basks
In sunshine frays,
Grays may blend broken rays
Off the pleasure. Desire
Bubbles & brews to the top,
Furling into forms to which our touch is born,
Our travels sojourn,
Ever sifting, filtering the moon & the sun.
Feeling joy form & torn,
The reverb sung & proverb born,
Chug on, truck on
Traveling Celestial Mist.
The smoke sends its message to our ancestors,
Thanks & quests, may we rest &
Face our tests &
Jump off the highest crests &
Flow down through the darkest depths.
Fearless, shall we be, tearless, never be.
The taste & the smell, Earth’s story we shall tell & retell to our kin,
Our progeny rebel against the story of sin,
Announce the return to our dance, making sense of the din.
We may collapse the columns, but in deep truth
The cycles form regardless of ruth.
With that knowing smile,
A goddess wraps her finger
Round his golden locks,
Open, as always, they dangle and glisten,
If we would listen,
The fear would instantly disappear,
Jeers against the queer would shift into gear
To endear us to the weird &
We would cheer!
The dampness will burn,
The heartache will churn,
Our souls still yearn for
That moment when we lose it.
The bruised tips healing in the instant,
The shock waves reckon this is it
& the feedback expatiates past the limits.
We already have the wildness,
The bliss of expansiveness,
Still spinning in the Spiral Ever Endless.
10/28/12
Nov 3, 2012
Nov 3, 2012 at 3:19 AM UTC
A broken swing on the old oak tree
A scrap of blue fabric holding it together
Messy braids on a head
Wrapped in thin blankets
The wind howls
Moans at the broken glass
The tears in her eyes
The scars, they were here to stay
I wish we could too
The fabric frays
The swing finally falls
The wind keeps howling
howling
and howling
Aug 26, 2021
Aug 26, 2021 at 12:24 AM UTC
In these short dark days
Where the fireplace is ablaze,
I lay with you under the blanket frays
And into your eyes I often gaze
As we break our fast on a donuts glaze,
And in the kitchen we lightly graze,
As I play a little of Martin Gaye's
Songs to which my body sways
With yours on our linoleum.
Dec 10, 2015
Dec 10, 2015 at 3:33 AM UTC