"growths" poems
Come friend,
I have an old story to tell you-
Listen.
Sit down beside me and listen.
My face is red with sorrow
and my ******* are made of straw.
I sit in the ladder-back chair
in a corner of the polished stage.
I have forgiven all the old actors for dying.
A new one comes on with the same lines,
like large white growths, in his mouth.
The dancers come on from the wings,
perfectly mated.
I look up. The ceiling is pearly.
My thighs press, knotting in their treasure.
Upstage the bride falls in satin to the floor.
Beside her the tall hero in a red wool robe
stirs the fire with his ivory cane.
The string quartet plays for itself,
gently, gently, sleeves and waxy bows.
The legs of the dancers leap and catch.
I myself have little stiff legs,
my back is as straight as a book
and how I came to this place-
the little feverish roses,
the islands of olives and radishes,
the blissful pastimes of the parlor-
I'll never know.
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I was fit and feisty at fifty
It was no big deal,
Because that's how half a century
Is supposed to feel.
In my sixties I'll take stock
Start making great plans,
Ignoring all the "you cant's"
And embracing all the "I cans".
Can I be **** at sixty?
And try all the fashions and fads,
Wear stockings and suspenders
And Joan Collins shoulder pads.
I can deal with **** at sixty
And wear Vivienne Westwood clothes,
Dress up and go out on the town
Wearing all my buttons and bows.
I'mgoing to be **** at sixty
I'll wear Gok Wan lingerie
Find myself a Toy Boy
Then maybe lead him astray.
Swift and **** at sixty
When I get my Jimmy Choos,
Dancing the night away
To the sound of rhythm and blues.
Oh! I want to be **** at sixty
'cause age is a state of mind,
I'm preparing my body at keep fit
So as not to be left behind.
But, first I have to deal with
Old Skin, Bad Teeth and Grey Hair,
Then remove the unwanted growths
From just about everywhere.
Then I'll definitely be **** at sixty
And undoubtedly done it all,
The only problem is that most
of it I simply won't recall...
© Hazel
Aug 5, 2012
Aug 5, 2012 at 3:05 PM UTC
I was asking for something specific and perfect for my city,
Whereupon, lo! upsprang the aboriginal name!
Now I see what there is in a name, a word, liquid, sane, unruly, musical, self-sufficient;
I see that the word of my city is that word up there,
Because I see that word nested in nests of water-bays, superb, with tall and wonderful spires,
Rich, hemm’d thick all around with sailships and steamships—an island sixteen miles long, solid-founded,
Numberless crowded streets—high growths of iron, slender, strong, light, splendidly uprising toward clear skies;
Tide swift and ample, well-loved by me, toward sundown,
The flowing sea-currents, the little islands, larger adjoining islands, the heights, the villas,
The countless masts, the white shore-steamers, the lighters, the ferry-boats, the black sea-steamers well-model’d;
The down-town streets, the jobbers’ houses of business—the houses of business of the ship-merchants, and money-brokers—the river-streets;
Immigrants arriving, fifteen or twenty thousand in a week;
The carts hauling goods—the manly race of drivers of horses—the brown-faced sailors;
The summer air, the bright sun shining, and the sailing clouds aloft;
The winter snows, the sleigh-bells—the broken ice in the river, passing along, up or down, with the flood tide or ebb-tide;
The mechanics of the city, the masters, well-form’d, beautiful-faced, looking you straight in the eyes;
Trottoirs throng’d—vehicles—Broadway—the women—the shops and shows,
The parades, processions, bugles playing, flags flying, drums beating;
A million people—manners free and superb—open voices—hospitality—the most courageous and friendly young men;
The free city! no slaves! no owners of slaves!
The beautiful city, the city of hurried and sparkling waters! the city of spires and masts!
The city nested in bays! my city!
The city of such women, I am mad to be with them! I will return after death to be with them!
The city of such young men, I swear I cannot live happy, without I often go talk, walk, eat, drink, sleep, with them!
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Girt in dark growths, yet glimmering with one star,
O night desirous as the nights of youth!
Why should my heart within thy spell, forsooth,
Now beat, as the bride’s finger-pulses are
Quickened within the girdling golden bar?
What wings are these that fan my pillow smooth?
And why does Sleep, waved back by Joy and Ruth,
Tread softly round and gaze at me from far?
Nay, night deep-leaved! And would Love feign in thee
Some shadowy palpitating grove that bears
Rest for man’s eyes and music for his ears?
O lonely night! art thou not known to me,
A thicket hung with masks of mockery
And watered with the wasteful warmth of tears?
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the night was already crazy-wild by the time
we arrived at Jarred's pool.
he had a big house but we never went in
4 teens, teen dream, a dream team;
but I knew deep down just what it was
we snuck out for.
a "transform-optional" rite, this hollow night.
but I still had doubts...
as Jarred offered me an aluminum can of something and I nervously said, "no thank you",
the moon had proudly jut out
he had a big house but we never went in.
I hadn't noticed, without the moonlight, just how
sharp Jarred's teeth and fingernails were.
canines, ivory & sporadic. looking at me
I hadn't noticed how reptilian our 2 friends were
The fangs and dislocating jaws, tendrils & scales.
Man-o-war for a head, giant earthworm for an arm
She looked scarier than he.
Those 2 went at each other in a murderous way
A blood sport of sorts. Confusing to me.
She spread her jaws wide - a parachute with teeth
And bit down hard between his legs.
Blood everywhere. Blood spattered on her face
She looked ****** god-awful by then.
The meat of his dead body then re-animated
And assimilated with hers. Anabiosis + Differentiate
Jarred, a werewolf or something like it, approached me.
He had a big house but we never went in.
we chatted poolside for a while
he'd go harmoniously from monster to human, human to monster.
Boiling cancerous growths under his fur
Grew angry eyes that glared at me.
clawhand on the back of my neck,
he went in for a kiss (or a bite)
with a puckered face and bared teeth.
This is it.
I finally felt a grossness so profound that I,
without thinking, jumped in the pool
to splish-splash, cool, to escape, whatever
I opened my eyes and just floated there for a bit.
hanging in the stillness
trying to forget those alien freaks
staring up at the moon
from the bottom of a pool.
Aug 21, 2012
Aug 21, 2012 at 10:33 PM UTC
Your hands lie open in the long fresh grass,—
The finger-points look through the rosy blooms:
Your eyes smile peace. The pasture gleams and glooms
’Neath billowing skies that scatter and amass.
All round our nest, far as the eye can pass,
Are golden kingcup-fields with silver edge
Where the cow-parsley skirts the hawthorn-hedge.
’Tis visible silence, still as the hour-glass.
Deep in the sun-searched growths the dragon-fly
Hangs like a blue thread loosened from the sky:
So this wing’d hour is dropt to us from above.
Oh! clasp we to our hearts, for deathless dower,
This close-companioned inarticulate hour
When twofold silence was the song of love.
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He fell in love like the changing of seasons. With new leaves and new snows and new beginnings and new growths.
There was fall-
With her simple thoughts and opinions
And her kind words to everyone
Not to mention her ability to learn quickly
(He was an unanswered problem on a math quiz)
There was winter-
Coincidentally, she was winter, with a heart like hers.
She was a challenge and not even he could conquer
Challenging herself to play every instrument there was
(Including his heart strings)
There was spring-
Who was the hopeless romantic
Wide and starry eyed
She always had a smile on her face and her laugh traveled
(He was the only one who knew how secretly sad she was)
There was summer-
Because he believed seasons changed
But people are not poems and this is just a metaphor
She was as cold as winter and a season between could not change that
(Summer love always comes to an end, Spring thinks hopefully)
So here I am, Spring, writing about a boy who thinks he can change girls like seasons. He wants to change them for the better. Yet, he leaves them worse. And I, Spring, was already sad enough before he came.
Jun 26, 2013
Jun 26, 2013 at 10:51 AM UTC
the animated man moves with languid effect
against the scattered clouds of the sky far overhead
he walks at a slow stumble
on the oil stained pavement of suburban driveway
'this is where the light blue mustang was parked'
he is carrying a stone carved into the shape of a head
its mind leaning precarious over the edge of sanity
you can taste its butterscotch candy laughter
and its salt water taffy tears
its face frozen in apocalypse of conflicting thought
he moves along the dirt road
hemmed in by trees and wild growths
the humidity so thick you swim rather than tread
but the feral grin sewn into his face
with her needle and threads
is what moves her
she adores its primal bloodletting
a self contained self abuse machine
she leads the way down the dusty road
to the clearing where night children gather
to make celebrations to dark matter
and the things it spawns
her thighs tingle at the thought of dead flesh
and feasts of the eyes filthy mind
the images in her mind are never really clear to her
just **** flesh rubbing cold things
i am disturbed by her dark dream
seek to flee on wings of night
but fail as he arrives head in hand
and pronounces logical rules for the slaughter
this night has no end
just the rest of fitful dreams
Apr 28, 2014
Apr 28, 2014 at 7:15 PM UTC
Your hands lie open in the long fresh grass, -
The finger-points look through like rosy blooms:
Your eyes smile peace. The pasture gleams and glooms
'Neath billowing skies that scatter and amass.
All round our nest, far as the eye can pass,
Are golden kingcup-fields with silver edge
Where the cow-parsley skirts the hawthorn-hedge.
'Tis visible silence, still as the hour-glass.
Deep in the sun-searched growths the dragon-fly
Hangs like a blue thread loosened from the sky: -
So this wing'd hour is dropt to us from above.
Oh! clasp we to our hearts, for deathless dower,
This close-companioned inarticulate hour
When twofold silence was the song of love.
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The gloom that breathes upon me with these airs
Is like the drops which strike the traveller’s brow
Who knows not, darkling, if they bring him now
Fresh storm, or be old rain the covert bears.
Ah! bodes this hour some harvest of new tares,
Or hath but memory of the day whose plough
Sowed hunger once,— the night at length when thou,
O prayer found vain, didst fall from out my prayers?
How prickly were the growths which yet how smooth,
Along the hedgerows of this journey shed,
Lie by Time’s grace till night and sleep may soothe!
Even as the thistledown from pathsides dead
Gleaned by a girl in autumns of her youth,
Which one new year makes soft her marriage-bed.
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This restless and irritating
little tick in my skin
won't leave me alone.
I scratch and I pick
and I peel away
my flesh, digging
away the rotten.
My words are matted
cat hair and
malignant growths, needing
to be cut off and out.
I reek of apathy
and whiskey
and lies
and lost sleep
and I feel
as if I am
caught in a swirling
whirlpool of
the kind of loneliness
that consumes men whole.
This has to end.
Jun 25, 2013
Jun 25, 2013 at 4:46 PM UTC
Dull ruts and periodic lulls, cast
Iron wrought.
A life of sea salt;
Choking on ocean foam, walking
On rusty bones
Sifting through ashes.
It's all growing old
Oct 24, 2023
Oct 24, 2023 at 10:21 PM UTC
I smell death
Cancerous growths
Test subjects and GMO's
Pesticides, hormones and unknown disease
Sickened, weak and MSG
Unusual pallor
I smell death
Nov 30, 2012
Nov 30, 2012 at 4:46 PM UTC
Bah!
Getting older *****
with all the aches and pains
and worries about growths
and tumours,
cancers and heart failure
my prostrate is fine,
thank you very much,
but can you check this mole?
this pain, this ache?
this over impending sense
of mortality knocking at the door?
the late night harrowing
discoveries guaranteeing
no sleep
until a call to the doctor,
the cutting back on everything
while increasing vitamin intake
exercise, stress free times
for self reflection
and discovery of ailments
and illnesses, inducing stress
increasing heart rate,
needing a drink to calm down
but not too much, as the liver
has already suffered enough
the days advance into night
and the night advances to day
and before you know it
it the sun sets one last time
Nov 9, 2011
Nov 9, 2011 at 12:45 AM UTC
Just up ahead is a trail
Where people seldom go,
Sidling down the gravel hill
Into growths of ash and birch and elm,
Thickets of wild plums,
Chokecherries, leaves turning dusty,
Verdant armies of stinging nettles
Protecting coveted stands of juneberries.
Bittersweet vines entangle aged elms,
Siphoning life, to produce four petaled reds
As summer goes down to autumn.
Leaving the wind above
To batter the old truck,
I descend into the silence,
Trees stand tall, but low
Below the breeze.
Down in this steep place
The wind cannot come,
The sun, when it finds its way,
Warms gently on the coldest day.
The spring my father dug
Before I was born,
Set into the weeping gravel hill,
Runs steadily,
Strong enough
To fill the battered tank,
To keep a goldfish or two alive,
To host strange crustaceans:
Tiny shrimp, just larger than ants,
Pebble crusted creatures
More insect than fish,
Frogs in the tank,
Toads out...,
Mosses and mud
Thirty years or more
At home.
Deer come to this tank,
On hot days or cold;
Coyotes, too.
Porcupines dine on treetops
Swaying quietly
A hundred feet below
Wild Montana winds.
Cattle in winter find life
In the quiet, constant water
Flowing here.
I am taken back
To a stifling July afternoon,
But cool here in this protected place,
Dragonflies floating
And cicadas sawing in the trees,
My mouth full of juneberries
As I circle my way,
Eating more than picking...
Coming face to face with a coyote.
Was he dozing?
Passing through?
Or, do coyotes eat
Juneberries, too?
We stop hard,
Stunned.
Then bolt in opposite directions,
My juneberries flying
From the milking pail;
His tongue between his teeth,
Tail low,
Feet flying into the brush beyond.
Jan 5, 2016
Jan 5, 2016 at 10:51 AM UTC
"...There are presumably images in the experience of lower animals...They have not that future and past which gives them, so to speak, any rights as such..." -- George Herbert Mead.
Lower being a term relative to concepts like the limbs of trees or the position in a list, only a careful, philosophical assessment was capable of blooming as a flower from the starfish to the stars. The past was an increment creating a (perfected, preferred) series of growths unfolding by the propagation of a (blueprint, dream). The dreams quantized ideology to make the receptivity and the discoveries made by grape hyacinths or hardy grass.
[ d _ cos ln d ( g , h ) P ( t ) ] = { [ tau n ( u ) d I ] / ( d e ) } :
int F ( B ) d I = dfn q ( r ) d r .
Best liked was the colorful effect of self enthusiasm, bringing shade, from the darkness to the twilight, of the trees. Yet, the animals had learned to grow claws and legs. Were the birds not learning to fly? Striving brought a weight of labor, the years were fading into prehistory. Predestiny had been a decision by tulips. Disturbances had been required to bring evolution. Insects were living a fantasy with flowers. This looked across to obscurity. Those hidden were not like those dancing.
Jul 21, 2014
Jul 21, 2014 at 8:22 PM UTC
Rana Pratap Nandi
Waiting for you
by my lonely riverside,
in my twilight mood
motionless, counting the ripples,
tipsy with the musky smell
of first satiated earth.
Lusting for more.
Thinking of you, a few words,
a silver lining, becoming one
with the ivy growths on my
ancient sturdy castle.
A young breeze comes singing
of you and another brings
a tuft of cloud,
sailing on a silver lining.
A piece of white satin
blood and gold seeping through.
And streaks of dusk.
Dec 16, 2015
Dec 16, 2015 at 5:03 PM UTC
rooster crow.
goat horns clash.
sudden sutured glow
for what is left
of
this
soul,
comes forward
into thought.
soon i'll know
what it feels like to find roots;
or i won't,
idk.
afternoon slow
blue sky flies
off the tips of treetops;
old-growths,
ancienter than dragon bone femur,
scraping aged skylines.
im
earthing
in
my
mind.
May 9, 2016
May 9, 2016 at 3:18 PM UTC
I am the illuminated one
The light at the end of this road
I am the inspired one
Holding tightly to truths that are whole
I am the strong river flow
Unleashing my power, and when the wind blows
I am the unstoppable one
The chaotic whirlwind bringing changes unknown
I am the loving one
Reminding those who fear to let it all go
I am the understanding one
Whispering secrets to those that are closed
That they are the only ones
Who can stop these old growths
From swallowing their hearts whole
I am the one
The messenger holding your wishes close
Defending our right to grow
I am a soul
A complete part of the whole
I am the ancient warrior of old
Reminding our foes
You are the awakening one
As their illusion comes to a close
Jan 24, 2015
Jan 24, 2015 at 11:32 AM UTC
Again
Such a vivid yet abstract motivation, a warm sense of meaning in my gut concocted from some poignant expression
And again I'm at it
Clattering into a comfort, a comfort absent of the cellular and substantial, yet so personal and surreal
Without a definite direction, do these words have meaning?
Well... what means a lot to me right now? What clenches against my skin, burning it red with tension in pure uncomfortable distraction? What insecurities make me feel as though my bones and bits could brittle to the point of sand?
Well.. the usual. Clarity, validation, ****** release, a definitive admirable prowd sense of self, a bunch of ethereal concepts that haven't had the decency to manifest themselves and be nice enough to kick me in the face, shocking my nerves into a smile of reality. And the usual reflection on these worries reminds me of the usual image glimmering back, a response of criticism. For fuck's sake.
And it is then I say **** you to the irrational and rational growths of pressure, and try to discern, rationalise, make distinct what matters. Or I let it all go, but remind myself soon enough that the world is waiting. The usual.
I wonder if that job, career, book, **** even if that house would center the scales, but I doubt it. I wonder if the girl would massage my mind into tranquility, or if that girl will even be close enough to not notice me there. Or if a new someone will wander in, force me into a unavoidable eye contact.
Either way..
The rooms are less foggy, the words are more clear. The mirror man does look sexier. The critiques will keep coming, the work will cycle and the validation won't be felt for a while, and may not be felt at all from the sources associated. But my tongue has more words and my throat has more volume. The stigma of the eyes from a thousand people morphs from suspicion to callousness to clarity.
So yeah. The meaning here... well...
I'm fine thanks.
How are you?
Nov 6, 2013
Nov 6, 2013 at 6:36 PM UTC
<>
*“rootless in shallows of momentary mayhem
and no matter the change in horizon,
there is always some thing to be found
that could remind me
of the worst ways I have ever been.”*
from “Harlequin Days of Fecund Fervor” by Victoria
<>
rereading these your words, upset forces me to break a recent vow,
my own writing banished, now faceless in the ranks
of just another poet, busted in rank, chose my own
decommissioning but then your momentary mayhem
plea, fecund you, your third harlequin, states construct!
stay the constriction, the recalling of our worst worsts,
for there is always something to be found, recalled,
that the horizon’s only constant is constant change,
especially the worst worsts
I am colored by your treats, your word plums ripe even
out of season, and the mayhem is mine only mine,
robbed you for it is I, rootless, given up my planting, then
the cobblestones of old new york, trip me up, saying
even old things such as you, have a prime yet to come,
stones fecund seeding, predicting I am not done, just undone,
and fetuses within this dying body, may yet be carried to term,
may yet, maybe, may be, but may be caesarean stillborn
rambling this, mostly musty unclear, so summarizations a
sensible thing, a pardon requested for clarity is a sometime thing.
rare are the days that the terracotta colored soil
darkens my fingernails,
it is dried blood from my scratching deep beneath the skin’s topsoil,
but nothing grows that’s whole, warped are the word fruits.
my soup is hot water with salt, a tasty dish apropos for one
whose growths are rootless in the shallow, infertile dirt of stones
that reside in the shallows of a garden of mine own
fecund may-hem of the grey fall sky autopsy turvy
Nov 7, 2019
Nov 7, 2019 at 11:56 AM UTC
Freedom was a writer from whom his name was stolen.
That of whom left his breaths on every page he wrote the meanings of which, were torn from his chest.
He was the fruit of his works,
of his labour.
And was the whistle in the wind that blew that blew through silence.
Hanging tastefully in the air.
A sweet sensation.
Who grew from dismality, was named and married to him as Hope.
The growths of their union,
the words of the tormented writer and the melodies of the candied breeze,
were songs of story sung for acres.
And who’s dawned legacies are the working times of their lovechildren,
Emancipation and Liberty.
Jul 21, 2021
Jul 21, 2021 at 9:15 AM UTC
Ohhh plant my garden, keep the weeds I have a need
Take me to the fruit they seem to not be able to grow
I must labour another year
Please forgive me dear
I forgot to say I planted your seed
If only you wait a year you can see what it can be
Ohh please
Forget the failed growths I believed
Feb 6, 2019
Feb 6, 2019 at 7:24 AM UTC