"fumbled" poems
Here's an ode to myself, or what I once was
For each day we change and begin
To become different people and it's okay because
Sometimes we need to be different to win
Here's an ode to myself, or what I won't be
Because I've ventured this path for too long
My eyes closed, I fumbled, and failed to see
All the good deeds in life and the wrong
Here's an ode to myself, for I've never once heard
That it's taboo to talk of one's self
Though truth be told I could use that one word
That I padlocked away on the shelf
Here's an ode to myself, or as much of an ode
That will ever be written to me
For I fear in the future all poems will bode
An ill sort of meaning for me
Aug 7, 2013
Aug 7, 2013 at 1:17 AM UTC
She saw the world through a camera lens
And that's just how it was
With filters and Glares from strangers
Who didn't feel the sun
She took photos of the rain
And dewdrops on the grass
Of smiling warm faces
And things that were just crass
She dreamt of her pictures
Under bylines and over books
Her documents of others
Filled with stills that could speak words
She took pictures of her girl
Who was black and blue in depth
Who wanted to be colored
But her filter shown red
She captured her in pain
And in her rare bright smiles
She told her that things
"Just take a while"
She made portfolios and scrapbooks
Of their adventures and their muse
She never knew that her girl would take her life
At a quarter after two
She cried and cried weeks to days
Until the tears just stopped
When she took a photo of the rain
And felt her sadness drop
It shattered all around the floor
And she fumbled with the keys
She printed all the pictures
And posted them with ease
She scattered them around the town
Then fell down to rest
For she could feel a burden being
Lifted off her chest
she went to the school
Of the boy who had hurt her
And her girl
She stood up
She told them
"Has she finally done enough?
She ripped her skin with blades
And fasted for days.
She lit skin on fire
Just because you are liars.
Look at this picture
Do you see her
Look mister
She was beautiful
Yet you made her feel
Like she was void of zeal
You're the ones who told her what to do
And she took her own life
Just like you told her to do.
Are you happy now!
Or are you feeling blue
Are you regretting what you told her to do!"
And with a single crack
Of a baseball bat
she took a picture
Of there bodies cracked shells
As she plumbed them to hell
She saw that red filter
And she felt the pain inside
She could feel herself laugh
Mania arise
The she took one final shot
A picture with the the two
Then killed herself to rise anew
And she got her picture under bylines
And became famous for her art
For everyone loves the artist
Who kills for their art.
May 20, 2014
May 20, 2014 at 5:36 AM UTC
I don’t think you understand,
because I don’t, this wasn’t what I planned.
So I’m wondering how you can understand, when I don’t.
I won’t lose myself loving you, I won’t.
You’ve got me feeling too many different things,
got me contemplating cutting our tethered strings.
Falling in love has me tripping
over my own two feet? Maybe. All I know is I’m slipping
face first into this tangled mess
and now guilt eats at me as I slip from your arms half dressed
in the mornings when all I want is to escape,
wishing I was Wonder Woman with that red cape.
I slip away, but it hurts-
but I’ve seen it; my family, we’re cursed.
Concerning love, we’ve had no luck
I can’t lose you, so I’m labeling us a causal ****
I hear you yelling now that you know my reasons,
promising our love could survive even the coldest season.
But how can he be so sure?
Doubts plague me as I slip toward his front door,
because love didn’t come with a brochure.
I hear you figuring aloud that I don’t love you enough.
You come to the conclusion,
“if this is how you feel, then I’ll set you free”
I got in my car, driving around till the clouds were dark and the clock said three.
Your words had been like knives,
but then I started thinking about my dad’s four wives.
My brain’s all jumbled,
it’s like there was one second left, I was on the one yard line, and I fumbled.
Is the risk worth it?
Could my heart even take the hit?
When I got home, in the dark I saw you standing
my heart was demanding
that I make my way over to you
but my brain said these feelings needed to be subdued.
I heard you say “I love you too much to set you free”
It was then when I looked in your eyes, love was all I could truly see.
My scalp tingled in realization,
as I floated toward you with some type of natural gravitation.
My heart had already taken the risk, without permission
and that’s when I mumbled my belated admission;
“I love you too and I’ll take my chances,”
My brain finally conceded to your romantic advances.
But really, truth was, I’d been under an illusion
because our love had always been a foregone conclusion.
Jun 30, 2015
Jun 30, 2015 at 4:31 PM UTC
“Oh you’re Irish?” he said.
“Did you learn the language much?” he said.
Honestly, what can I tell him? I was raised in the North - a ****** wasteland for such a naïve question.
Vague memories of fumbled classes where our secret history was ditched just to get straight into the basics (Cad é mar atá tú?)
No – seriously - I was not tied to it – it was anonymous to me at that age.
Forgotten like some distant echo of once visiting Coole House as a child.
Sure, we knew it was “important”, “our national language”, “heritage” etc. and we were warned it was quickly slipping into the drain of Western hegemony.
But it was baffling, unsexy and only the blunt-faced humorless IRA thugs amongst us were in any way keen.
Then it was gone, just like the faded memories of “The Children of Lir” from my primary school.
Looking back I wonder, what was the point?
A half-full measure paying lip service to our identity.
Teachers and headmasters terrified of the grand colonial reveal that the lessons might have hinted at (were they trying to stop us being Provos-in-waiting?).
And all of this against the awful shame of a common tongue that had no foe yet was slowly vanquishing from our shores.
It could have all been so different.
Rather than rushing to get something in our empty skulls, they could have given us a sense of joy, pride & belief in our own culture.
Calling on Yeats, Behan, Heaney and others to drown us in the language of our ancestors.
Telling the stories of old that only the academics & hippies were keeping from us then.
You know, it might kept us all on the same beautifully illuminated page.
We might have been comfortable in our skins and open to others,
not looking deep into our worthlessness and lashing out at them.
Language is being and language is connecting, I’ve learnt.
But that’s not something I got from my secondary school.
June-July 2018
Sep 12, 2018
Sep 12, 2018 at 6:06 PM UTC
So tired yet so awake
I sit at the edge of an ellipsis
crimping the charred innards of my tattered soul
to make a masterpiece of gore
and internal war.
over the years of self loathing
I finally love myself
but getting ****** up feels ****** perfect
and watching this world unfold anew with each hit
or shot
rocks my mind
unkind but exemplary in it's own fortitude
to prevail my own veils
aside they're cast and fumbled with
as thick smiles seed
and the pace is set for the evening
I can't help but think that leaving
could do me good
but who backs out before the last shot?
who leaves before the deafening toll of midnight?
Cinderella's umbrella of security
and purity
is at jeopardy
and with great haste she wastes away the good looks
for late night *****
and nicotine
forgetting to clean
her closet of supreme validity on
the functioning teen
trying not to be mean,
but completely obscene in gestures
with the barbie's manufacturers groping for caspers
in the utopian disasters of the girl they forged
many decades back, but lost track
of the track that played that summer night
in the moonlight of immaculate humor and love
above all the oozing essence that manifested
now tested, for virtual ******
your cerebellum will tellem the positive
credo
that we all know is hooked on the days drift wood with
byzantine benzodiazapines to guide her haunted spirit
till
the cracks turn to crevasses and prehistoric protons mate with electrons
in the vat that is abrewing to plot the lies
watch the skies fade to grey as it may
be about time for the ecliptic rhymes to find
reconciliation
in the bladed grains of mortality and sigh
for being high in this lowered juncture
of subsisting future
buys you time to mull over such a daydream
as your last breath
Jul 22, 2014
Jul 22, 2014 at 7:51 AM UTC
drenched in blue moonlight
I admired her through
the sheet of smoke
in the gap between us
Carefully I
swayed and our arms
greeted with a gentle graze
"I tend to see the glass as half empty–
sometimes completely."
Sudden words drew me
like water from a well
A cigarette pinched by
the uneven crescents of her lips
pulsated, her sallow face
awash in a delicious red glow
"Either way, it's a beautiful glass,
isn't it?"
time nonexistent
She fumbled another
to a faintly open mouth
I lit it in silence
Jun 30, 2016
Jun 30, 2016 at 11:23 PM UTC
We spend one day together, in the park and now the sun reminds me of you.
It was 29 degrees and the sun still couldn’t match your brightness.
29 degrees and you were still the brightest star in my sky.
I think back to my diary, when I told her we would forge a picnic from the empty living room and yet here we are.
The cream carpet, now green grass and my heart melts in your hands.
Sizzling air beats down on our pale skin as my heart beats a mile a minute.
Sometimes I like to play pretend.
Cast myself as the role of your love interest.
So during my game I was shocked.
When we step foot in your local corner store, when the cashier muttered a “you too, together”
I thought I’d alternated reality.
Or at least I did for that second and a half.
Before you fumbled over your words and tried to find the ones that would break my heart the least.
You settled on she’s out of my league, you joked about it once we’ve left.
Then I pretended again.
I cast myself as your laid back friend,
As the girl who has better things to think about then a cashier wrong assumptions.
Reality didn’t shift this time.
— p.d.e
Aug 7, 2018
Aug 7, 2018 at 10:09 PM UTC
to more than I can be...
a sad isolated man,
throes of an agonizing,
stretched by her for painful
revengeful gain,
kissed with pointless avarice, divorce.
children deeming
him alienating, his faulty
insensitive sensitivities,
to easy blame
little do they know of the
piercing lowliness, the looniness of
nights he listened to sad-eyed singers,
and his late-of-mid of night scribbled scripts,
where he
off loaded the agonies of a midlife
disaster, not entirely of his-own
sown making,
but still his to bear and bare alone...
some accidents happens for unintentional,
unintended intentional new seasons appear,
stumbled, tumbled, fumbled his way onto
this H~oly P~lace, where someone might listen
to his explanations, expiations, excoriations
of his all too common tragedy, and said:
this broken human, he's got his reasons,
read his overly long treatises, his entreaties,
to those that prowl, rowing, in this corner
of the silence of the internet, where only the
trolls, the cold, the easier to-be-meaner oft thrive,
and found none of that, but an oasis of sheltering,
embracing comforting, those who actually admitted
his writings could be loved, and perhaps the writer
himself, was
deserving
of a second chance, a verbal embrace. a rereading forgiveness,
a pat
on his natback, a sympathetic sensory intaking,
and perhaps-this debt, eternal, that put the
for and the fore in a new baby born, named -
new forever
came into existence
the very same
e
that begins those conjoined words
***e~ternally grateful
"and now I sleep in peace when the day is done"
but the night time
is still the
write time
Sep 13, 2025
Sep 13, 2025 at 11:42 AM UTC
We are afraid of tying knots.
Now, my brothers weren't fond of Boy Scouts, but those aren't the kinds of knots I'm talking about.
Our parents got us velcro shoes growing up (something about not wanting us to be overwhelmed with tennis shoes)
And that, perhaps, was the moment that started everything.
We could no longer trip on loose laces as we ran our races,
Our parents couldn't see our disappointed faces as we fumbled getting ready for school.
It was the perfect contribution to the flawed illusion that the human institution should be prevented from failing.
Oh, yes.
In my lifetime, cordless telephones were placed in every house because we did not want to untangle our own messes anymore.
Failure doesn't hurt as much when it is invisible.
We wanted wireless, no-strings-attached luxuries with no side effects.
But there were effects that couldn't be seen
(how could they until we were older than teens)
Because the end effect was this:
a generation that shirks responsibility
we have anxiety
because our parents didn't let us face our fears when we were young
we are jobless, loveless, purposeless
because we still haven't realized that everything has its opposite
love - lust
success - failure
happiness - sadness
peace - anger and commotion
you see?
there are full-grown adults living in the basements of their parents
watching **** from an illuminated screen
a no-strings-attached commitment to a video that will never require a vow or a promise;
so many see the term "settling down" as "kicking up dust" of a dull life "confined to a four-inch screen."
we've seen our own parents cut the ties
now living separate lives
better that way, but millennials can't fight
for love or for kids or for dreams
because their caretakers' examples couldn't teach
the right way to do a marriage
the right way to commit
we are shirking responsibility--
because we don't want to fail.
still as afraid of tying knots
as we were in kindergarten.
Jul 2, 2015
Jul 2, 2015 at 10:09 PM UTC
I can't ever imagine giving my heart up again. once I gave you mine you were so careless with it, you were my quarterback but fumbled every time
Jul 19, 2014
Jul 19, 2014 at 6:05 AM UTC
You were left behind
A victim of a mirage I’d stepped into
One yellow rain boot too deep.
You, slithering out of your cases
Scratched by the fading sunlight
Are my prized possession
For every moment you held inside
Was as carefree
As the words I spoke.
You were delicate artwork
not art as in paintings that were to be hung
carefully in the front of a museum
but the ones curling at the corners
slipping from underneath fridge magnets.
With my eyes pinned on the screen
seeping into my temples
Your naked feet fumbled with the sand
Fumbled with the hopping and twirling toes
of beach dancers
Fumble with the endless badges you have gained
over the ribbon on your chest
places you have gone
but, it is all as futile as it is alluring
sand is just tiny, little rocks
You will fade, these images
will fade from my memory
like the endless
titles in a bookstore
and I will return to my reflection
ingrained in silver circle.
Oct 15, 2017
Oct 15, 2017 at 2:32 AM UTC
That unexpected surge of passion
who knows from whence it came
But we just had to have each other
over and again
Barely time to make it through the door
before clothing it got shed
no time to waste on buttons
things just got ripped off instead
fumbled for a light switch
staggered 'long the hall
moonlight through the windows
as family photo's started to fall
dining table cleared
in a single one armed sweep
who cares about the noise
it's too late to be discrete
skirts lifted to save time
******* just pulled to one side
belts undone, zippers ripped open
so suddenly inside
a display so animal in nature
as your nails dug in my back
groans of passion fill the air
patience was all we lacked
Eventually its over
****** acheived, ****** shared
panting in the moonlight
bodies naked, passions bared
This doesn't happen every day
and maybe never will again
That unexpected surge of passion
who knows from whence it came
Aug 27, 2010
Aug 27, 2010 at 10:26 AM UTC
Dream ,
after dream ,
caught me dreaming
I dressed reality
in dreams
As flesh and skin
on bone
And my only crime
was never beyond
skin deep
"In silence I listened to the sounds of silence"
"I fumbled futility and it fell on a field as faultless as sin"
"Perfection was mine to make and along the way to lose"
"Anguish was the name of every moment we remember , regret his brother"
Jun 1, 2015
Jun 1, 2015 at 10:25 PM UTC
A bracelet of blue upon her hand
Made it easier for me to imagine
The way they loved each other;
I saw his eyes in every rock,
In emotions solidified to glistening bits;
I saw his attachment to her soul
Like pendants hanging from her arm
I saw his eyes in every piece of stone,
Now cracked;
In the midst of the serenity in a glittery blue gem
I saw collateral damage.
I saw hope in her eyes
And dry tears accumulated on the side lines
For she decided that, that is where they belong;
She clenched to a cup of tea
Like they were his arms,
Warm as always,
Soothing as usual,
Just the way it was when he was around.
I saw his imprints on her fingers
I saw him fiddling with her words,
Although they weren’t much,
For some words she decided to keep for him
Some words are just between them…
And those were the words that mattered most.
Dear martyr I saw in stone,
They wrote your death sentence
But I wrote you sentences on my bones,
I dreamt of a country for you
I dreamt that you would be in it
But all that’s left of you is stone.
Bracelets cuddling hands;
Hands that wrote on papers
The future of tomorrow.
Dear martyr I saw in her eyes,
You are safe there;
But it is very dangerous in my mind.
You have drowned in her tears
Rested upon her eye lashes,
You swam your way in between
Her wavy hair,
You have held her hands
With mugs of warm tea.
Dear martyr I fumbled on my papers,
My papers will not fade away,
My words will collapse on buildings
Destroying walls they have built to hide the truth
Unwiring bombs they have planted
As they try rewire our minds;
My voice will be ours
And your voice will rest.
For your place is in the vacancies
Between every piece
Of a bracelet
That had you
Written all over.
Jan 16, 2014
Jan 16, 2014 at 7:59 PM UTC
I'm a fan of Vontaze Burfict
Though he may not be perfect
For he gives players concussions
To continue the daily discussions
Of the power of his percussion
To receive a hall of fame induction
That is where his value is derived
So what do these penalties imply?
That the referees have a preconceived notion of him
And are preemptively looking to treat him grim
Which gives his team a lesser chance to win
Which makes the biased referees grin
We are a country that idolizes quarterbacks
Every other position we're quick to attack
We only care about who has the ball
And laughing at others when they fall
We worship that which is shiny
And view everything else as grimy
Quarterbacks become celebrities incredulously
While everyone else is treated impetuously
The NFL is like America
Politics makes it harder to watch
The Patriots are boring and plain
They win constantly
The Bengals are entertaining and rough around the edges
They show promise and potential that is never realized
In a nation
Of provocation
I'd rather proudly call myself a bengal
I know that seems an idealistic angle
But Cincinnati provides no coziness or protection
You must always avoid discriminate detection
Of those that call themselves patriots
That drive blue and white chariots
And penalize players unnecessarily
For African Americanning
We really fumbled the ball
Because of the ref's call
That treats us unequally
How they have fun evilly
They can arbitrarily treat whoever however
But a concussion will make them less clever
Nov 12, 2017
Nov 12, 2017 at 5:31 PM UTC
You have to be careful of what you touch
Everything you ever lay your hands on
Will forever remember the way you held it
Until it fades away into the dust that it came from
The pen will remember how you held it between your fingers
How much pressure you put on it when you wrote her a love letter
Her doorbell will always remember the way your hand shook
The day you took her out for the first time
The passenger side door handle will remember
How your hand was slick with sweat when you tried to open it for her
The fork and knife you used to cut your steak that night
Will remember how you fumbled with them because you were so nervous
The steering wheel will remember how tightly you held it
As you drove her back to her house after dinner
They will always remember every detail of your touch
So think twice before you reach out to her and take her hand
Because when you touch her your fingerprints aren’t only left on the surface
They will sink below the surface of her skin and seep into her blood stream
They will course through her entire body
And just like the pen she will never forget the way you touched her
~W.C.
Mar 2, 2014
Mar 2, 2014 at 10:07 PM UTC
How can you hold the very makings of disaster?
How do you ease yourself in finding trouble to hold onto?
You are gripping the hands that once
fumbled for a tearing of skin,
bore blood at the fingertips,
greeted the brick wall with excitement and shattering
my numbness along with it.
What comfort do you seek in weaving your fingers
with ones that tugged desperately on hair
and swept away floodgates of water from tired eyes,
proving to me I was weakened once again?
But I look down at the shaking documents of disaster
when your embodiments of happiness reach for them
and cover the wounds in an unhesitant embrace.
And I know those previous questions don't matter;
your infectious comfort of my hands rests in the palm
and spreads.
My hand is now only holding your hand.
Only.
And that's the only thing it should now do.
Jun 10, 2016
Jun 10, 2016 at 10:38 PM UTC
some years back, not too difficile to recall,
revive and animate those memories of love and disasters,
but the distance is comparable to half-a-dozen
eighty day trips around the world, many frequent
flyer miles accumulated with trips to love disasters,
interspersed with the days of shock and awe believing
(sigh) that stumbled, fumbled my way in what we silly
call true love, which is really the high of believing
that you deserved the easy way, but now know, there
is no easy way, and romance is a hard earned privilege,
and sensory deprivation can fool you, absence makes
you vulnerable, don’t be vulnerable, stand up right,
**** out, and eyes smiling but phasers on full, nonetheless…
this not a downer, but a dis-claimer, even I claim the
never be sure of the 100% foolproof methodologies for
discerning the genius of genuine,
when the risk is the reward
maybe when your 22, even 23,
you’ll be better at true discernment,
but until then be wise,
there is no saving the day,
till your knees are scraped,
and crackling and cracking
heart seem like the same thing
but they’re not
do not confuse
causality with correlation
love is not your cause, be-all,
or even the end-all, do the work
on your self to betterment
24/7, knowledge to be wiser
comes with vive les expériences!
and
someday you’ll senses will be tickled,
and the aroma of possibilities will
arose that dormant hunger, and may
be a correlation to another human in the
immediate vicinity, a man, swimming
in your moat without permission, then,
check him out and maybe, jump in,
once you’ve passed the red cross lifesavers
test, cause the murk is murky, and is never
fraught with just rose water, but jump a
few toes in and if you’re still sinking,
hell he’ll
find away and give him the rope to help
you climb a board, yeah, a broad tough as
clear varnished nails with a heart radiating
the nuclear fission of Strontium 90.
Jul 13, 2023
Jul 13, 2023 at 1:31 AM UTC
careless kisses
fumbled apologies
clumsy hands
parched lips
thighs craving
eyes wandering
she thinks your lips
drip liquid gold
words like
gilded treasures
meandering between
the soft curve of your shape
drinking your nectar
Persephone's tether to Hades
working her way
inside
she knows
it works
for when the gold
fades to ***** grey
your eyes
speak lies
yet your lips
beg me to stay
husk of the seed stale on my tongue
I do not move
Jul 23, 2018
Jul 23, 2018 at 5:58 PM UTC
They were masked
with obedience of terrorism on their lips
shoot people mercilessly
played with their souls
in their eyes, no sign of remorse
that dreaded night
when Mumbai cried rivers of blood
death toll increasing with the politicians giving zero *****
ten men killed approx 164
so many injured
so many scarred
lest we forget them from our hearts
martyrs left a legacy
they were many other than Salaskar, Kamte and Unnikrishnan
They played with blood in
Taj, Oberoi, Cama Hospital, Nariman House, CST and Leopold Café
their minds were moulded to be like this.
the innocent tried to hide in hotel lobbies
she watched her husband die
and then she died a silent death
they shot her unborn child
they ignored the infant's cry
they killed humanity
they came with guns
tied their hostages to a pole
and had fun.
The bomb exploded
shattering all their body parts
nothing but chunks of human flesh here and there
the innocent hid themselves in a room
took up the phone and fumbled words
they found the innocent
and...nothing.
the phone line went dead
6 years later,
we still can't forget
Nov 26, 2014
Nov 26, 2014 at 7:51 AM UTC
The kitten moved very slowly
She was a motherless lost kitten.
Again and again,she fumbled blindly,
Like everything was hidden.
She searched everywhere
And cried From dawn to dusk
But her mother was nowhere!
She dug into the earth's crust,
And tried to climb the olive tree,
She scaled the neighbor's wall
And wondered where could mom be.
So she began the desperate call;
"Mother,mother,where at thou?
Are you somewhere looking for me,
Are you trying but don't know how?
Mother,you I search but I can't see,
From me the world is hidden!
Why don't I see anything at all?
Mama,mama help for I haven't eaten!"
#IvanBrooksPoetry
7/22/2018
Jul 22, 2018
Jul 22, 2018 at 3:31 AM UTC
sneaky stan, the builder man,
who laboured on the site
wheeled a barrow full of straw
for two weeks every night
foreman feared some pilfering
and searched it every day
he fumbled round, but always found
now't below the hay.
but sneaky stan, a gardening man,
unhappy with wage rates
had stolen fourteen wheel barrows
and sold em to his mates
Mar 12, 2010
Mar 12, 2010 at 2:08 PM UTC
208
The Rose did caper on her cheek—
Her Bodice rose and fell—
Her pretty speech—like drunken men—
Did stagger pitiful—
Her fingers fumbled at her work—
Her needle would not go—
What ailed so smart a little Maid—
It puzzled me to know—
Till opposite—I spied a cheek
That bore another Rose—
Just opposite—Another speech
That like the Drunkard goes—
A Vest that like her Bodice, danced—
To the immortal tune—
Till those two troubled—little Clocks
Ticked softly into one.
2.9k
Your skin wasn't so soft
Not the softness you'd find
In great love stories
You didn't always have the
Words to say something
You fumbled with them
While I babbled
You snored -
Only a little, I promise
Yet in ways I found
Them so endearing
Perhaps it was just you
And I find myself
Tripping and tumbling
And scrapping ideas
Of not needing love
Or just not being aware
Because I'm just yearning
To brush against that arm again
Stories be ******
May 29, 2015
May 29, 2015 at 4:43 AM UTC
Friday,
you smiled at me,
as I made my way out of the wreckage
Your smile was all I noticed,
set in your soft face,
teeth brighter than energy-savers
Now I know why you still smoke
And now it seems,
every man clad in black or grey,
a trench coat that buttons up to the neck,
is you..
You are an effigy,
of every man who masqueraded under the guise,
of potential lover
Who fumbled for their phones,
requesting mobile numbers,
Whose sallow hands have caressed me,
unwanted
But their teeth were unseen
Yours are a badge,
you proudly show off,
in all those smiles,
you give like gifts to me
But I can not keep them,
because they belong to the girl,
whose swollen lips you kissed,
not long ago
There is always another,
who expects your smile,
and knows by heart,
The number of teeth you keep
Dec 4, 2014
Dec 4, 2014 at 4:10 PM UTC