"garish" poems
I write my identity in gluestick and markers
I am a lamb raised by wolves
swaddled pulsing cosmos girl-child
My limbs are rebuilt like a 7 year old birdhouse
with garish colours and bubbling pride
I am pouring glitter onto my future
the kaleidoscope cannot exist inside
In the end I think there would be
no nobler cause than to
have a life worthy of taping on
the refrigerator that I can
swell with ever-young joy to know I
have created with
trial and forgiveness.
Jul 10, 2012
Jul 10, 2012 at 2:26 PM UTC
My heart I bequeath you
O’ stillness of my universe
I bequeath you my sanity
Spreading this cloak of being in your dust
I bow to your twinkling stars
To the waxing sun and scented grass
I bow to your springing rivers
To the parched grain and blossoming flowers
I bow to the warmth of my lover
And want of my beloved
I bow to your saccharine figs
And honeyed nectar in chalice filled
I bequeath my mortality to your transiency
Blinded by this light in game of ruse
Into your cohesiveness, I fuse
In blinkers to win the race
Espying a king in glass
Presage of being a slave
Yet when darkness falls
I furl my cloak and solemnly rise
For I bow not then
To your barren fields and waning suns
I bow not to your garish colors,
To the cloying drupe and wilted blossoms
Bracing my feeble transience
With my tenet and trail of faith
I bow to the King of kings;
Whilst I beseech for emanating hope,
In my tigers clasp, my God’s rope
I beseech,
Till the noise becomes music again
And as I gaze in the glass now,
All I espy is a beseeching slave
Jan 20, 2015
Jan 20, 2015 at 2:17 PM UTC
I never saw a man who looked
with such a wistful eye
upon that little tent of blue
which prisoners called the sky,
and at every drifting cloud that went
with sails of sliver by.
I walked, with other souls in pain,
within another ring,
and was wondering if the man had done
a great or a little thing,
when a voice behind me said,
"The man's got to swing"
For he did not wear scarlet
nor did he speak of it,
for blood and wine were red
and so was the color on his bed.
He looked upon the garish day
with such a wistful eye;
the man had killed the thing he loved,
and so he had to die.
May 13, 2018
May 13, 2018 at 4:55 AM UTC
the magnolia was a bit of a *******
(as far as trees can be ********
and like very many other things—
like japanese candy from the Fugi Mart in Greenwich
(across from the McDonald’s and next to
the music shop where I got my viola)
and like pokemon cards and nintendo gaming systems
and like Avril Lavigne’s “Sk8er Boi” on a pink CD in a Hello Kitty radio
—that ******* of a magnolia was a distinctive taste
of the years I spent growing up in my house at the end of Wyndover Lane.
the ******* thing was almost perpetually in bloom.
it barged into both spring and autumn
(it didn’t give a **** about timing)
those pink and white spongy petals padding the ground
and at first you think it’s ******* beautiful
sitting in the crook of the trunk where it split into
two large
separate branches
tilting your chin back to catch a glimpse of blue between fat blossoms
then the petals start rotting
water-retentive little *******
and you can’t sweep ‘em away because they stick to the patio
brown clumps slipping under rubber soles
my dad lets loose a string of curses
and the magnolia shakes with laughter
I tried pressing the petals in a notebook once
while I was in that naturalist phase it seems all little girls go through
when you make fairy houses out of bark in the backyard
and put flowers between the pages of books because it feels
oh-so-much-more significant
than picking a pretty thing and showing it to mom
but the magnolia seeped through my spiral ring
and when I opened it up a month later they were dry tan papery things
not at all velveteen and rosy
and there were garish pink bloodstains all through the ten pages
on either side
magnolias don’t preserve well
except, honestly they do don’t they
then of course there’s that childhood tragedy that everyone has
when your dog got hit by some soccer mom’s suburban
or your teddy bear was lost in an airport
or maybe you just liked to cry because some things
were just really worth the tears at the time
but when I came home and found out they cut down my ******* ******* of a magnolia
I bawled
there wasn’t
even
a
stump.
May 2, 2013
May 2, 2013 at 4:48 PM UTC
Oct. 25
Everything is different and I don't want to explain things.
Nov. 1
I crave the glittering, garish city lights, the loud raw music, the feeling of being completely and dangerously free.
Nov. 16
My heart hurts.
Nov. 17
I want to love you. I want to love you so much that I can't stop writing beautiful lyrical poems about the stars and my heart beat and your skin and I just want you to love me too.
Nov. 18
I think that if he knew me, really knew me, at all times of the day and night, he wouldn't love me.
Nov. 20
It's really funny how people can change.
Nov. 24
This is not paradise; this is hell.
Nov. 24 (later)
I'm materialistic and shallow, but frankly I don't give a ****
Dec. 14
My heart is literally pounding so hard I can feel it moving up and down in my chest. I'm blushing.
Dec. 20
And the butterflies live on, perpetually fluttering around in little circles in the pit of my stomach.
Dec. 21
He says I'm like a daisy.
Jan. 1
I downed a bottle of sparkles and sang like a drunk man would and he told me he loved me.
Jan. 25
He's so sweet and I think I love him.
Feb. 8
Long, content sigh.
Feb. 14
I'm going to blurt it out all at once because I'm feeling giggly so he stopped at the side of the road and kissed me and I feel like I'm floating.
Feb. 22
I feel trapped.
Feb. 28
He's always on my mind. Always.
March 13
I broke up with him. I'm not upset, and I'm worried about that. I don't feel anything at all. Are feelings supposed to just walk away and disappear like that?
March 29
His voice is irritating. I'm not a damsel in distress.
April 2
I think young love is only a glittering, fleeting illusion. I'm not sad about it.
Dec 31, 2014
Dec 31, 2014 at 7:30 PM UTC
In the drawer were folded fine
batiste slips embroidered with scrolls
and posies, edged with handmade
lace too good for her to wear.
Daily she put on shmattehs
fit only to wash the car
or the windows, rags
that had never been pretty
even when new: somewhere
such dresses are sold only
to women without money to waste
on themselves, on pleasure,
to women who hate their bodies,
to women whose lives close on them.
Such dresses come bleached by tears,
packed in salt like herring.
Yet she put the good things away
for the good day that must surely
come, when promises would open
like tulips their satin cups
for her to drink the sweet
sacramental wine of fulfillment.
The story shone in her as through
tinted glass, how the mother
gave up and did without
and was in the end crowned
with what? scallions? crowned
queen of the dead place
in the heart where old dreams
whistle on bone flutes
where run-over pets are forgotten,
where lost stockings go?
In the coffin she was beautiful
not because of the undertaker's
garish cosmetics but because
that face at eighty was still
her face at eighteen peering
over the drab long dress
of poverty, clutching a book.
Where did you read your dreams, Mother?
Because her expression softened
from the pucker of disappointment,
the grimace of swallowed rage,
she looked a white-haired girl.
The anger turned inward, the anger
turned inward, where
could it go except to make pain?
It flowed into me with her milk.
Her anger annealed me.
I was dipped into the cauldron
of boiling rage and rose
a warrior and a witch
but still vulnerable
there where she held me.
She could always wound me
for she knew the secret places.
She could always touch me
for she knew the pressure
points of pleasure and pain.
Our minds were woven together.
I gave her presents and she hid
them away, wrapped in plastic.
Too good, she said, too good.
I'm saving them. So after her death
I sort them, the ugly things
that were sufficient for every
day and the pretty things for which
no day of hers was ever good enough.
May 9, 2018
May 9, 2018 at 6:24 PM UTC
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is the story of two lonely souls....
Who found each other, without cajoles...
Neither had ever had a mate....
Yet Jack and Gill decided to date.....
They felt an instant connection....
As both were Chefs and had a fixation....
One for Chicken the other for Bacon....
And so decided to take their direction....
From what they had learned in life....
Party animals that they were....
And perhaps now you can concure.....
Their feelings for each other....
Was so far from any another....
People just didn’t understand....
Why when they walked, it was always hand in hand....
They never strayed and held tight to their ways....
Believing their world was just another phase....
But eventually the world would accept you see....
That what they had was called * “ smaltzy “....
*Yiddish word for rendered chicken / animal fat or a garish over the top fancy party...
Apr 13, 2015
Apr 13, 2015 at 11:28 PM UTC
The clock strikes, the hour shines
A warm rain brings fruit to the vine
An evening cool, a freshness divine
The sweetest grapes, the finest wine
In this hour, time churns
Life breaths, an ember burns
And ever still, the earth turns
As a glowing moon crosses the sky
Waves crash to shore, minutes grow dim
A cool wind directs a flowing hymn
A mornings warmth, a sparkling gem
The reddest rose, yet the greenest stem
But in this hour, time dissuades
Life chokes, the ember fades
And ever still, the earth waits
Until a garish sun crosses the sky
~D.B. Guy ( December 14, 2008 )
Nov 3, 2012
Nov 3, 2012 at 2:27 AM UTC
When, as the garish day is done,
Heaven burns with the descended sun,
'Tis passing sweet to mark,
Amid that flush of crimson light,
The new moon's modest bow grow bright,
As earth and sky grow dark.
Few are the hearts too cold to feel
A thrill of gladness o'er them steal,
When first the wandering eye
Sees faintly, in the evening blaze,
That glimmering curve of tender rays
Just planted in the sky.
The sight of that young crescent brings
Thoughts of all fair and youthful things
The hopes of early years;
And childhood's purity and grace,
And joys that like a rainbow chase
The passing shower of tears.
The captive yields him to the dream
Of freedom, when that ****** beam
Comes out upon the air:
And painfully the sick man tries
To fix his dim and burning eyes
On the soft promise there.
Most welcome to the lover's sight,
Glitters that pure, emerging light;
For prattling poets say,
That sweetest is the lovers' walk,
And tenderest is their murmured talk,
Beneath its gentle ray.
And there do graver men behold
A type of errors, loved of old,
Forsaken and forgiven;
And thoughts and wishes not of earth,
Just opening in their early birth,
Like that new light in heaven.
4.3k
Nighttime sharpens, heightens each sensation.
Darkness stirs and wakes imagination
Silently the senses abandon their defences...
Slowly, gently, night unfurls its splendour.
Grasp it, sense it tremulous and tender.
Turn your face away from the garish light of day,
Turn your face away from cold, unfeeling light -
and listen to the music of the night...
Close your eyes and surrender to your darkest dreams!
Leave all thoughts of the world you knew before!
Close your eyes, let your spirit start to soar!
And you'll live as you've never lived before.
Softly, deftly, music shall caress you.
Hear it, feel it, secretly possess you.
Open up your mind, let your fantasies unwind,
in this darkness which you know you cannot fight
the darkness of the music of the night.
Let your mind start a journey through a strange, new world!
Leave all thoughts of the world you knew before!
Let your soul take you where you long to be!
Only then can you belong to me.
Floating, falling, sweet intoxication!
Touch me, trust me, savour each sensation!
Let the dream begin, let your darker side give in,
To the harmony which dreams alone can write,
The power of the music of the night!
You alone can make my song take flight,
Help me make the music of the night.
Apr 17, 2014
Apr 17, 2014 at 12:25 PM UTC
About me young careless feet
Linger along the garish street;
Above, a hundred shouting signs
Shed down their bright fantastic glow
Upon the merry crowd and lines
Of moving carriages below.
Oh wonderful is Broadway -- only
My heart, my heart is lonely.
Desire naked, linked with Passion,
Goes trutting by in brazen fashion;
From playhouse, cabaret and inn
The rainbow lights of Broadway blaze
All gay without, all glad within;
As in a dream I stand and gaze
At Broadway, shining Broadway -- only
My heart, my heart is lonely.
3.7k
Last words with her,
So indifferent, so short,
The spoken tongues lashed
Indecipherable, unearthing
Doom, whitewashing the truths,
Forgotten blues of California sky,
Abandoned in that glean, garish glare
Of yellow sun,
Fearing naught, the dark moon
Would soon arrive, taking place of all
Our glazed, lost, light.
Feb 21, 2014
Feb 21, 2014 at 12:10 PM UTC
We sat in the overlook above the Serpent Mound
in the heat of that garish July afternoon,
sunlight scorching our pallid skin,
like rays through a magnifying glass,
till we could endure no more and
sought the shroud of skyscraper elms ---
halfway houses of leaf, bark and cellulose.
Minutes before we'd signed our names in the visitors book,
like giddy high-schoolers autographing a yearbook,
recording our wayward lover's sojourn
to a site the Hopewell worshipped in celebration of existence.
For what purpose do we worship this ground?
I wondered as we walked beside the curving icon,
that undulated in rolled earthen coils down the slope,
sine-waves loosed from a colossal oscilloscope.
Are these coils symbolic of our future's meandering relationship?
Her exploring hand upon my ****
drew me from thought to evaluation of this unexpected caress.
But for the heat, I'd have shown her what idle foreplay begets!
*Great Serpent, this was not Eden's carnal karma
acted out in a second Genesis!* ---
though a symbolic egg spews from your mouth.
Mar 1, 2012
Mar 1, 2012 at 2:10 PM UTC
I thought of being an artist
A career I’ve always dreamed
But perhaps I wasn't the smartest
It wasn’t as it seemed
The lines disconnect and break
These colors a garish hue
A piece most bleak and fake
Is one I always rue
My hands mislead my mind
Unable to recreate for me
The picture I imagined, I find
This frustration a hefty fee
Art is expression, or so they say
But how can I express, I ask,
When my art only blocks the way
And proves a more daunting task?
Dec 10, 2013
Dec 10, 2013 at 4:56 PM UTC
1.
Inhaling poison like it’s a sweet spring breeze,
an antidote to the pounding heart and aching stomach empty of comfort or substance
Meeting with pavement in a tiger’s crouch
fingers float toward parted lips
awaiting the taste of relief in the form of smouldering leaves.
2.
One tentative epidermis approaches another
tendons and ligaments straining, aching for contact
attempting nonchalance in the lamplight privacy of early morning,
cocking ears to detect voyeuristic insomniacs
who would disturb the disorderly expressions of early experimentation.
3.
White lady dusting the concrete path, sterile and unconfined
laid new before careful feet making their way to shiny metal boxes
bundled in seasonal expectations they trudge through stardust
on their way to blood borne obligations,
leaving behind careless tracks in ****** flesh
4.
Blazing sun presses down on shoulders hunched behind compact table tops
peddling penny prologues to unabashed strangers
bartering unwanted pocket change for rejected trinkets
haggling over half-dried finger paints and unfinished chess sets
rescuing garish afghans from dusty closeted life.
Oct 17, 2012
Oct 17, 2012 at 7:33 PM UTC
Hers was the first face I found
freshman year at FSU.
I'll always remember that garish orange and green gator shirt,
and pin with the picture of a bulldog,
hanging from a noose.
I thought, oh Jeez, she's got school spirit,
and I shuddered at the image,
of cheerleaders, and sports stars, recieving preferential treatment,
but my first impression was far from the mark.
She had a smile for miles and eyes to match.
And a laugh that could shatter a frown.
And she laughed any chance she got.
The few pictures I have left of her,
she is laughing and smiling in each...
That big toothy smile,
and that magical laugh...
I remember the first time she kissed me.
I was playing my guitar on campus,
back when everybody did it,
not just pretentious **********
trying to show off.
She came up behind me,
and did the old hands over the eyes routine,
and of course I knew her voice immediately.
She turned my head and kissed me,
for the first time,
and I could hear the whispering,
and feel everyone's eyes on me,
and it felt pretty **** good.
How I wished someone had snapped a picture,
for the FSView, with the caption
" Future valedictorian kisses scruffy hippy freshman.
Entire student body baffled."
I was baffled.
She was the talk of the campus,
she spoke her mind always,
and she was active all over the campus,
doing this and that.
I asked her one day,
"Why do you make your life so complex,
when do you rest?"
and she said
"My life used to be complex, because I made it that way.
But believe it or not, with all I do around campus,
really my life is simple and fun. If I didn't love what I am doing
I would stop Will. Life is too short for complexity."
I laughed, and I thought to myself,
this woman is more complex than she lets on.
We went out for my entire freshman year,
but she graduated my sophmore year,
and she got a job in London, and she moved away that summer.
I said I would visit...I never did..
She said she would write...she did, once,
to tell me she was getting married,
she even invited me, but of course I didn't go..
She enclosed a photo of her and her fiance,
and it was clear what she saw in him..
he had a smile almost as big as hers,
and of course she was smiling too..
Of all the images burned into my memory
that picture is the one that hurts me most.
I wrote back, wishing her luck, and I told her I couldn't come,
I never heard from her again, but I prayed that night,
that he would treat her right, and if he took away her smile,
I prayed he would suffer, until he put it back.
Every time I close my eyes, I see that picture...
that smile...
I hope she's smiling, even as I write these words.
Aug 30, 2012
Aug 30, 2012 at 10:11 AM UTC
We used to play billiards
and fight all the fire.
We'd drink tea
from cheap mugs,
read The Economist
or newspaper,
chat about boyfriends,
girlfriends,
what was and wasn't a rumour?
The printer munched on paper,
lounge about on scratchy chairs.
50% revision, 50% laughter.
Psychology was me
with a group of girls.
How many people, where, when,
and what was it Freud said again?
Spanish was the same,
me, L, C and E.
Picasso's view of war, a bull and a flower,
grammar overload in the afternoon.
And then there was English.
Can you hear me Fitzgerald?
On a row of females (not just one),
roses, four stories and a single trumpet.
On the garish bus
to see the Manor or the specialists,
to walk up and down aisles in Asda,
talking music with baguettes and meatballs.
Two years came, two years went.
Exams, goodbyes, brown envelopes arrived.
After tapas and a holiday
came sly September.
Here I was with fresh men,
different faces from different places.
So I walked up the steps
into the next avenue.
Apr 20, 2012
Apr 20, 2012 at 3:14 PM UTC
The insanity that you left with me with
has become all-consuming.
It has eviscerated me and I have no organs left,
only maniacal thoughts and illness.
The lunacy is my epidemic,
the madness is my disease.
The inferno where my heart once was,
supplants the warmth that your wicked love used to fill me with.
My mind has been dethroned by ghoulish memories and succubus visions.
My two lungs no longer breathe air,
but rather intake black roses and expel brimstone.
The deranged delirium is my only comfort.
The hysteria, in lieu of love,
is now what keeps me intoxicated.
The most garish part of all,
is that I've never felt more alive.
Jan 18, 2013
Jan 18, 2013 at 4:47 PM UTC
I was a chaparone at the All Hallow's Eve dance.
Listening to the band play Halloween faves,
and watching the eyeballs floating in the punch.
The background decor, seems made for Doomsday.
Grungy, haunted house theme, hellish ghouls,
Gargoyles gone mad, witch's brew, and bats all aflutter.
Here and there between the goth and the empath,
a psychopath roams, silently stalking his prey,
amongst the frightening selection of costumed kids.
The mental resilience to survive such horrors,
depends on your grasp of reality. Realizing the lights,
the music, the garish dress, meerly decor for this night's festivities.
And yet, underlying this ghoulish fun, a sense,
a sense of doom, and ********** by something
otherly, stalking its prey, seeking that single moment.
To bring to light in the dim, ghostly haze,
a wickedness yet unknown to those attending.
That ever vile teacher, bent on making those around her suffer.
We have all seen her, stride the halls purposely,
Giant mole on her chin, Ruler in Hand.
Striking fear in the strongest of souls.
That authoritarian of witches, Ms. Nasher the Head Basher!
Run for your LIVESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!
Oct 24, 2010
Oct 24, 2010 at 4:53 PM UTC
I am in cold. I watch that garish ward brimming with false light. Bleached air from his lips touching hers. He hides in her mane, sterile and alone. Why is it so hard, such an insurmountable task for you to see how I lather my face with paint each day just to smile at you?
My face, my heart, my mind not a blank canvas that I hide with these diluted pastels but a deep, rich chorus of colors and oils that were never meant to be hidden. But the ward will never know.
There are thoughts and opinions rolling like a torrent behind this mask I call a face. This world was against me from day one, don’t you dare say I’ve given way to cynicism. Nor optimism, pessimism, or God-forsaken realism. Can't I think the earth is beautiful, God is good, I am right, and people are wrong without someone putting an -ism behind me? Of course not. That's narcissism. Egoism. Egalitarianism.
It is what I unknowingly wrote across my mask. But I never chose to attend this outdated ball, masquerades are cliched. Pure romanticism...surrealism, the kin of commercialism whose visage is a polychromatic wheel of logotypes that you just have to know en masse.
What if I stop believing that compassion Himself can hate me? No, no that's atheism. Agnosticism. And if I'm better than someone because He said so then that is monotheism in all it's delicate flavors.
Can't I breathe alone in a quiet corner? Isolationism. Can't I want to simply be a follower, and think about life, literature, and art? Incomprehensible, that would be totalitarianism, absolutism, authoritarianism. What if I want to give God all the power He gave us, and watch the world change? Fascism. Revolutionism. Extremism, because releasing the wheel is extremism. Existentialism.
And what if I choose to remove the mask, break the levees, release the floodgates, my thoughts and opinions, never watch my tongue, and speak the world as it is: A capital M-madman's schism of logic and faith. As it has always been, and always will be. I will always be in love with the counterfeit ward. And yes, there's a label for that: Catastrophism.
So I watch Beauty and his Beast touching in fluorescence. Bleached breath, save for the smoke of his lungs in hers. Sterile and alone; I am in cold, and cold hurts me.
Mar 4, 2012
Mar 4, 2012 at 3:15 AM UTC
Piss-stained is the color of leaves falling, we say goodbye to ourselves like to lost lovers, ripping up old love letters, tripping whiskey into the distance,
coarse wood chips of dockside hearts burned on future November bonfires spouting unholy flames, burning ourselves on the stake but once these harbor crane streets were ours & our fervent love in the making, not living on borrowed
breath or dying time, joyriding, unafraid of not wearing masks amidst the garish masquerade & someone who made us laugh & love despite ourselves was all we lived for
- remember?
I do.
Oct 17, 2015
Oct 17, 2015 at 12:11 AM UTC
lonely chord tired guitar play
soul numb as callous fingers
heart hollow as sea rusted string
flat wrought steel,
peeled off tire
fire face melted
fleeting garish glimpse of starch shirt 60s
itchy lice life like gene spliced flight patterns
bioengineered space age
Han Solo with (hold) full o'Spice
Synthetic Cannabinoids sprayed on Marshmallow leaf ruin life
Chewie grab the bowcaster, ill grab the glock foe blaster
Smash, mash and crashed'er like Britons of Lancaster
Jun 2, 2016
Jun 2, 2016 at 3:04 AM UTC
Her ugly salmon sneakers
hang by ratty shoelaces when she takes them from the vendor.
I tell her to toss them lest she get a disease
from her gross salmon sneakers.
Her garish salmon sneakers
pitter-patter gladly, mocking me and staying forever.
She says she won’t ever buy another pair since
she’s got her salmon sneakers.
Her silly salmon sneakers
stay on even through our reception, our vows, and our wedding.
Though I do finally get them off that same night,
her wondrous salmon sneakers.
Her busted salmon sneakers
trip her up before she steps in front of a speeding driver.
As I scold her, I don’t even think I’m grateful
to her old salmon sneakers.
Her galling salmon sneakers
always stay two steps ahead of me and everyone she knows.
If only they outpaced the ones she didn’t know,
her ******* salmon sneakers.
Her stupid salmon sneakers
never grace her feet again, and I know she’d have hated that.
I don’t care because that’s all I have left of her,
her ****** salmon sneakers.
Her dreary salmon sneakers
seem so lifeless without her because she was what gave them life.
And I wish with all that’s left that she was there, not
her hollow salmon sneakers.
Oct 11, 2017
Oct 11, 2017 at 12:34 PM UTC