"graphite" poems
To expel the outlines piled in my mind on paper,
With a light pencil in one hand,
And slice of rubber in the other,
I parent an impression of hope.
Therein lies the potential and the excitement;
A basic figure given the foundation of grandeur,
Amplifying in complexity before me,
With every scratch of graphite.
As it evolves, a heaviness sets in.
And I pause,
And I stop...
I've given something beautiful a half life, again,
As if it was birthed human,
With no flesh to cover its nerves,
And no breath to cry out its agony.
It remains still in my lap,
Eyes blank as ever staring, maybe, at me .
Out of humility, I tack it up on the wall,
A space shared by its many siblings.
I retreat shamefully with the promise to complete them,
Fumbling with the reality of what I do;
Playing God, I shape the husk of a soul,
And drop it when it's still brittle.
Nov 10, 2014
Nov 10, 2014 at 2:26 PM UTC
Love is a ***** soup going stale but steaming like it's brand new;
And I'm Oliver twist walking up to the *** with a rusty spoon full of desire and hope asking for more but getting none.
Love is a Doctor gathering dead bodies and shackling them up in chains;
And I'm a green freak with Frankenstein bolts ****** through my head walking around with only a mumble to muster trying to love people who just want to run away.
Love is a white paper rolled so finely, full of sedatives and drugs;
And I'm sitting by a fire reaching in for a log to smoke.
Love is puzzle made by Einstein and Sam Loyd;
And I'm a child with eyes made of glass and hands made of thorns crying to my mother because that puzzle is a *****
Love is Navy Seal training on a beach covered in cold water spilling blood for a chance;
And I'm a pot-smoking hippie who holds up signs and tells soldiers they’re monsters as I take a puff of death.
Love is a ten-syllable word compacted into one;
And I'm a hooked on phonics children’s thesaurus struggling to find a comparison that I can actually pronounce.
Love is a white egg timer sitting on the fridge set to all nines;
And I'm a busy housewife waiting to cook dinner at the sound of its bell.
Love is a robber with a 45 in his belt;
And I'm an eager dad trying to protect his family with a wooden stick.
Love is hot coffee from a luxury beverage shop;
And I'm a plastic party cup melting away.
Love is a doctor with a PHD in heart surgery;
And I'm a sick child waiting with his mother with no healthcare ******* on a free doctor’s-office lollypop.
Love is a huge pink eraser;
And I'm a graphite pencil struggling to write while me and the eraser fight.
Love is a pickup truck speeding through town drunk;
And I'm a lost puppy running through the same intersection looking for my owner.
Love is meant for fish;
And I'm a bird.
Dec 21, 2012
Dec 21, 2012 at 12:18 PM UTC
I’ve written words since I found out that those graphite sticks
could form them and wrote my name
on the top of a kleenex box
when I was four.
I’ve written words since I learned that each one
held a meaning I could hear in my head.
I’ve written words since I realized that writing
releases them from my mind,
so that I can hear myself think.
I’ve written words because numbers run away from me,
just out of grasp, teasing me with
their teamwork and rigid cooperation
and parenthetical expressions.
I’ve written words never read by anyone,
words which embarrass with their frankness
words which I’ve burned thinking they would die.
I’ve written words which I longed to share
because they fit together better than numbers
and made my skin crawl with their
deliciousness.
Jul 3, 2012
Jul 3, 2012 at 3:07 PM UTC
I say;
The drifting rain dissolves sea salt
Turning tears into dangled monsoon
Under the bleak ballad of dying dawn
Where I long for heat unbroken
You say;
The drifting rain drenches my tiptoe
Witching smiles into deranged equinox
Upon the downpour of ancient daybreak
Where I pray for old snow long sunk
All was as if the days faded
And morphed into younger sunset
It was as if mercy was drained
And no one preach as desired
The downpour stench though remains constant
Of rotting perfume of the rouge graphite
You drowsily drip from dowsing fingers, they lit
Into pages of burning, dancing melodious lads
As will, you may keep those imageries for you
And give up old stories as my slumber lyre
Whether it is about the burnt down marching boy
Or the bloodstained pianist from our ancient joy
For the bleak heart aesthetic
has affected a new kind of love
And the bleak heart aesthetic
would never let you feel so certain
So please keep your drifting rain of strings
During the downpour of the deranged equinox
When the snow goes black and slowly sunk
Into pages of firespit melodious lads
Feb 3, 2015
Feb 3, 2015 at 7:19 AM UTC
They say the pen is mightier than the sword
If this is true then God was the sword and you were a pen
And I was the pencil who laid you a foundation of erased mistakes only for you to trace upon them as if they didn't exist.
And I was cast in the bottom of some cluttered bag
while you were gently capped and placed in a box lined with blue silk,
And you knew I would always be there to test the waters before you spilled the pages with your brash delicacy.
But you needed me and I craved you for completion.
Together we created sweeping illustrations and lengthy novels with dozens of sequels.
We depicted a tale of modern love in our ball-pointed journey.
But my graphite stayed intact while your ink started to run out.
I could see as our pages unfolded that your colors no longer spread as boldly.
You became more and more invisible as I desperately etched harder and harder into every page hoping to give you clearer guidelines
but you no longer had it in you.
And soon enough we couldn't make anything beautiful.
You had run out.
And I'm still hopelessly drawing maps desperate that you can regain what you once had and use the indentations on previously blank pages to find your way back to me.
Feb 17, 2015
Feb 17, 2015 at 11:11 PM UTC
some are hidden
by long sleeves
and baggy sweatshirts,
behind bloodshot eyes
and stale breath
written in light graphite
on crinkled sheets
in shoeboxes,
therapy sessions
and 2am text messages
May 10, 2013
May 10, 2013 at 6:35 PM UTC
My pink mechanical pencil
Is sitting right beside my computer
The brand and lead size
is worn off, from all the use
The eraser has been changed
Countless times
There is graphite dust
in a few places in the grip
My other pencil
the same but purple
Lost its clip
I wiggled my pencil too much
Which is why the purple one
Is out of order
When I'm bored
or anxious
I'll pick up my pencil
Spin it, wiggle it, open and close it
Take apart
and put back together
Anything that can be done to my pencil
Will be done
Thanks to my constant need
for motion
Jun 1, 2016
Jun 1, 2016 at 2:32 PM UTC
you were quiet and i was loud, talkative
you asked to borrow a pencil so i gave you the one with the hellokitty stickers on it just to see you smile
you gave it back with a note and i read in my car in the parking lot after class
it said that you thought my hands were beautiful, but i always thought that they were too small and definitely too pudgy and said so underneath the scrawl of hellokitty’s graphite. oh, and thanks
when i gave it back, you looked confused and turned the scrap over to show me the name on the front and it wasn’t mine
that same day someone slashed the tires on your honda accord
Feb 20, 2012
Feb 20, 2012 at 11:08 PM UTC
I fell in love at a McDonald’s. I expected it to happen in an overpriced cafe or a fancy Italian restaurant, but it happened at a McDonald’s and it was love all the same.
We were on our way back from the beach. We went whale watching but the ocean could have been empty for all the fish we saw. We paid good money for a caricature of the two of us. The graphite image of a happy couple with our faces sat in the back seat of your car. It would be framed and put up. We went into the sea as deeply as we dared and laughed and screamed as the waves came and came and came.
We were driving home with bits of mountains and boulders stuck between our sandaled toes and that’s when you pulled into a McDonald’s.
You ordered a sandwich, 100% real beef, never frozen, and asked me what I wanted. I said I would have the same. 100% real beef. Never frozen. I hate spending time and money on that which can only be consumed. We sat down with our food underneath the fluorescent lights next to a Happy Meal kiosk and I decided that I was in love with you and it was love all the same.
Jun 11, 2014
Jun 11, 2014 at 12:58 AM UTC
A coffee shop afternoon can say it looms significant
In the steamer’s sweet humidity
And the idle legs pace for more
I hear the whispers of world-changers and gossip mix
Local color of a quiet little town.
Sit humble and lean, a fixture ‘till showtime
And ask lines around just we’ve they’ve been
And who they’ve seen.
There’s a poetry in the patron, come
My gaze permits and intervenes
Its narrative and scheme, in lover’s hand enweaved.
Graphite plays its frustrate part the writer
Seated far, far in a blissful nadir
Bristles in his pony tail like drawers end to no avail.
Sep 30, 2014
Sep 30, 2014 at 11:44 PM UTC
It’s an odd romance,
Yet it felt so right,
The charcoal that paints the pristine whites.
Like the scratches and scores across the flawless skin,
The smell of graphite sunk in her skirts,
A touch so rough, yet she yearns.
The creator smiled in delight,
The satisfaction shown in the depths,
From the soul the words formed,
Strung to a garland that met the lead.
The curves and lines the charcoal drew,
Made her quiver in pleasure and pain.
The creator dwelled in these sounds and sights,
Of the romance between his pen and paper.
Like water for a parched throat,
The words soothed many souls.
Aug 10, 2018
Aug 10, 2018 at 8:39 AM UTC
Let me tell you, I thought I knew love before you came around.
I mean, I’ve written a million love poems.
But the subjects, they’re more or less the same, black ink, red ink, graphite.
And the graphite smudges, and so the picture is never perfect.
I try to re-write it all without mistakes, but I don't have an eraser.
Which is to say that I have commitment issues, but no issue committing, I just commit all the time, to everything.
I've canoodled with paper, but there's never enough space on the page for all the love I have.
Sometimes, I’ll meet a crayon that brings some colour to my life, but they’re just too waxy and impressionable. Too immature, too naive.
Naive.
I’ve never actually been in love.
But you, you are so much different and way hotter.
You bring a spark into my life that I’ve never known.
Baby, you set my world on fire.
I tell myself, blue pen, don’t let this go up in smoke.
Let me tell you. I would do anything to know love.
You see, there isn’t much to me, but I’ve got this way with words and I’ll write you into every poem that’s ever birthed hope in the eyes of star-crossed lovers.
I’ll draw you a map of my heart so when you feel lonely after you’ve been put aside and forgotten in the back of a cupboard, I’ll be there.
I want you.
I want the good things and your sweet embrace of smoke smells really good right now.
I want the good things but I’ll take it all. I’ll take the bad things too.
Fill my lungs with your poison, show me what it’s like to love something so much it kills you.
Teach me how to give all of myself to someone just so they are satisfied, even if it leaves me crushed on the cement.
Let me become addicted to you.
My whole life is written in ink and I can’t escape the mistakes I’ve made so if you’ll have me, here I am.
I can’t guarantee that I’ll be right for you, who knows what you write with but I will be here.
Let me tell you, I will still love you after watching you kiss the lips of every person that craves your taste.
I will still love you after you steal the oxygen out of helpless gasps and sunken cheekbones.
I will still love you after your temper sets forests ablaze.
I will still love you when you suffocate me in your fumes, leaving me choking on everything I should have said to you.
I will still love you when you burn out and your ember softens against a pillow of ash, and your smell, your taste, your everything lingers in the air like a nostalgic dream that I never want to wake up from.
Let me tell you, I am forever.
I am infinite and I can create and write anything you want, even if it’s just prose on a piece of paper or a picture of the moon on nights when you’re the only good left in the world.
I can be anything you want, and if that is someone that will love you because they want to, and not because they have to, then I will be that.
I won’t quit you.
I can’t.
Nov 19, 2018
Nov 19, 2018 at 2:36 PM UTC
Robin hums as she tends her garden
while birds perch all around
waiting for rustling seeds
to fill the slender columns.
Humming birds hover
to sip sweet nectar mixed for them alone.
On concert nights her voice takes flight.
and fills the hall with her radiant soul.
On quiet mornings
graphite joins with paper
and a flower's form and meaning
are captured by her vision.
A friend fallen ill or reeling from loss
receives her gift of comfort words
and a card or meal soon follows.
Grandchildren rush to greet her
and happily fill her arms.
at night they cloak themselves
In love quilts sewn by Grandma’s hands.
If you want to learn how love abides
or long to know its fullness
follow my Robin for a day
Her gift is in the gifting.
July, 2006
Aug 30, 2013
Aug 30, 2013 at 10:10 AM UTC
sing me your inspiration,
so that words may blossom
through the rings of the tree
in my paper.
gift me your passions,
so that pathways may carve
through inked rivers
and graphite daydreams.
paint me your love,
so that I may palette
your rainbow
and color my canvas
with my favorite colors of you.
the soft pink
of the inside of your lips,
and the offset grey
haloed through your eyelashes.
tiger lily freckles framed
by sweet peach
and wallflower blushes.
rainfall wrists
and dutch cocoa silk.
all my canvas needs
are the colors of you.
Dec 30, 2018
Dec 30, 2018 at 11:04 PM UTC
this is for the Dreamers, Lovers, and Surgeons
for the Hopeless Stargazer who immortalized his Subject with one hundred and eight sets of fourteen lines in iambic pentameter
for ***** tight clad teenage boys who envied frisky fleas, struggling to make holy ungodly passions with cheap arguments and metaphysical pick up lines
for Disillusioned City Dwellers, who, wandering lonely as clouds, stopped to quietly reflect upon wind-beaten moss-covered crags, and heard God’s whisper thunder from petals and blades of grass
this is for the Dreamers, Lovers, and Surgeons
for Bespectacled Slave Drivers who submersed idle minds in anthologies, forcing them to **** neon yellow on dreams deferred and rivers; slicing and dicing Grecian urns with red ball point pens; bruising and battering, in blue ball point, roads not taken; scalding supermarkets in California with pyroclastic flows of graphite
for those pushing to tear apart lines and letters, reconstructing ,deconstructing, agonizing, imaginizing, bullshitting, and brooding on to crisp white sheets in times new roman twelve point font
for the Monsters and Lollipops that exist in the millimeters between a skull and a brain
this is for the Dreamers, Lovers, and Surgeons slumbering beneath Restless Leaves Under the Moon
Nov 29, 2012
Nov 29, 2012 at 10:39 AM UTC
This bold mahogany dawn never retires
Buckets of roses unfold along the slopes of this graphite mountain
Smoke stirs from the cave wall paintings
Where wild horses lead the feral battles of yesterday
The most vulnerable humans could ever be is now
With four eyes and four arms open.
She might be as wet as a blonde Swedish shark- no matter.
The best and worst of life comes from the sacred triangle
Oct 14, 2015
Oct 14, 2015 at 5:18 AM UTC
I wrote a note today, how I felt. I was finally honest, even if only with a piece of paper. I loved that note, the comfort it gave me. It didn't cry or shame when it heard my pain. But like scars, it was visible. It could be seen. So I had to shred my honesty, piece by piece to make sure no eyes would see my insides. My words were not for anyone but myself. The graphite on my fingers is easier hidden than the blood on my skin. So tonight I wash my hands, so I can write again tomorrow.
Sep 10, 2018
Sep 10, 2018 at 2:36 AM UTC
Too lazy to decipher scrawl,
she took to typing.
But graphite gratified,
thunderbolts struck her empty.
Nostalgic for
the soothing scratch of pencil
as a child cloistered,
shuffled between states,
who translated her life
to pass the days.
Aug 13, 2014
Aug 13, 2014 at 8:38 PM UTC
Her blood is cyanide
She cannot seem to hide
She is light as helium
She's strong as aluminum
She is graphite carbon
As subdued as boron
Abundant as hydrogen
But toxic as nitrogen
She's precious as platinum
Her skin is thallium
In her lungs there is radon
She is as rare as xenon
Helpful as iodine
Whose life is astatine's
She is soft as lithium
Her eyes are beryllium
There is nothing I can do
Already the tumor grew
Apr 28, 2016
Apr 28, 2016 at 6:57 PM UTC
Your birthday is soon
The air is ashen
Scented with burning leaves
I ride this shaking yellow chariot without you
Passing yellow-green crops and empty ditches
It’s rather lonely, really
You’ve finally gotten a car
Though you don’t like it all too well
It’s old and used
But there's no need to worry
It will take you where you need to go
Your birthday is soon
You’ll be an adult
If you could truly call eighteen years an adult
But I’m proud of you
You’ve grown so much
Even taller than me, now
Maybe someday, you’ll love yourself as much as I love you
I wish I could do the same for myself
Soon, it will be my birthday as well
I’ll be an adult
But you know I’m still a child
Small inside and immature
Thinking about the childhood ripped away from you
Of laughter and joyous grins
The large hands of a father that gently grip little fingers
The one we both deserved
Your birthday is soon
And we’re almost off to college
And though you don’t believe you have a future
I know you do
With your graphite-stained palms
You manifest entirely new worlds
I find it beautiful
And you take yourself for granted
Your birthday is soon
And as I write these words
This terrible jostling machine slows to a stop
Peeling my body from navy leather seats
I dig out my keys
I will head home
Just like I always have
Sep 7, 2022
Sep 7, 2022 at 1:47 PM UTC
Write about me
Hold the pencil (as if)
It were my waist
Whisper of your mishaps
as if I were a page
And as your guilt trips
exude the bitterness
of your heart...
allow me to explain
why you're in my thoughts
(But)
Graphite can decipher
yet so little
To write about you
(Your feelings aloof)
Would be the story
at minimal
So, I hold the Pencil
Loosely, without claim
I refuse to explain lust
...
Next Time I write,
It'll be about us
Feb 11, 2015
Feb 11, 2015 at 5:33 PM UTC
the complicated patterns here
that i've drawn into the snow
feel like a labyrinth
look like a puzzle
and i'm trying to find the answer
before the pieces melt away
and even though i know i have the time
this cold will stay, it's only december
i still feel like the moon's hands
are ticking, beckoning me
forward, telling a story
where i speed through the next few months
and arrive at that fork in the road
the numbers don't add up
there is too much here
too many words, too many pauses
too many buried feelings
and possible causes
of probable scenes that play out
in my head
and the figures just don't work
pencil after pencil
lead, graphite and ink
crumpled paper, metaphoric cinders
and this is when i realize
i have never been good at math
and now it's finally catching up to me
as i try to add
you and me
together
and the equation just doesn't work out
Dec 14, 2013
Dec 14, 2013 at 8:16 PM UTC
Temples throb.
Ears burn red hot.
Myriad thoughts
Collide, coalesce and split.
Coalesce again.
A dark sand storm of doubts
Fear and panic brew
In the charred barrens.
Hands to my face.
Distant melancholy themes.
Overwhelmed.
Violent conceptions
Need release.
Red flows
Through graphite
At Fahrenheit 4-5-1.
Feb 3, 2014
Feb 3, 2014 at 1:33 PM UTC
Here I lye with you-
you don't listen, so my words
write reversed haikus
I don’t need your drugs,
but I do need you to know
no one deserves this.
I choose to let you
treat me like I’m blindfolded;
Still, I gift to you-
Graphite and color
a blank sketchbook (with this piece)
Inscribed in the front.
Art is all I know
so this opportunity.
to express it all-
Has such strong power,
you might never truly know…
Still- I hope you do.
Oct 24, 2022
Oct 24, 2022 at 11:39 PM UTC