"haltingly" poems
for Olle Dellblad
"When a stranger awakes in the outside, he can't sleep through the inside." -Unknown Roman Poet
As he marched about at sunset, he reached out upon the dawn, found himself in his direct path to the grave. He realized the error of his ways, a concept which is alien to him, as he is so clever he nearly always knows exactly what he is doing.
He jumped down from the boulder and strode confidently and un-haltingly, ever the straight face toward certain destruction, which turned out to really be just alright. He felt the steady burn of such realities that he had to escape before he could reach the fingers of light which crept in through the crack beneath the door.
As he tried to keep his expression as mean and cruel as ever in his career, the much less reputable and times less powerful tried to rope him back in to the cruel life again. He ignored and destroyed him, and discreetly met and signed with the ones who had only yesterday wanted to **** him. He was stuck, completely unrecognizable in the company of the most dreadful of the ****** prisoners. Prisoners of sight and mind, and most of all spirit.
Jan 23, 2011
Jan 23, 2011 at 10:04 AM UTC
My pieces slip out of the hole in my head
And they float away always just out of grasp
The silence is pulsing; my words are now dead.
The soul leaked outward though my blood was not shed
And seeped through the ground, a melted moaning rasp
My pieces slip out of the hole in my head
Since I had not mine, he was the life I led
Until the spears he spoke brokened the heart’s clasp
The silence is pulsing; my words are now dead.
Crumbling lexicon, babbling gibb’rish instead--
Dizzy fall. His glass eyes were widen and gasp
My pieces slip out of the hole in my head
I run, spilling remnants where, as I (were) tread
Haltingly, I faultingly sputter-stutt-spasp
The silence is pulsing; my words are now dead.
I fall and watch him watch, the glass without dread
Once was the soul-spears-scalp-glass-and-ev’ry-asp--
My pieces slip out of the hole in my head
The silence is pulsing; my words are now dead.
-LP
Sep 17, 2013
Sep 17, 2013 at 6:46 PM UTC
Tales from the subway
When you think about it the subway is the best way to observe human life
You see people from all walks and skin tones getting to their destination
If you're like me occasionally you'll encounter the homeless and the visibly forsaken to that mentally ill lady in the last car, we love you dear just keep it down please
And the ***** hippies feeding bread to their dogs, you teach me to value clean
To the Chinese woman reading English aloud haltingly, you show us the reality of immigration
There's the young man with the daycare T-shirt, dispelling stereotypes, one stand at a time
Everyone is here, and everyone has a place
Here on the subway
Just make sure to grab a seat, because you're going on a mental journey
So many ideas, so many places to see, so many new things to learn and experience,
much thanks to that girl who brought out a new confidence in me,
It's plain to see I love the subway
Aug 2, 2015
Aug 2, 2015 at 2:21 AM UTC
Behold, but let it nay an impediment
Be, beauteous babe, my faltering lip,
Because grandiloquence is the very flip
Side, save on the spur of the moment,
Of love; neither my pausing mouth
Consider which seemingly lacks fancy gait
And uttereth its words haltingly straight
Like a verily soaked clumsy lager lout.
Though my solemn tongue pauses, perfect peach,
The lines of my love do make a sublime speech.
Jan 29, 2012
Jan 29, 2012 at 9:24 AM UTC
A mood as dark as a winters midnight
Haltingly adrift, she is rudderless
Bound to a coastal route
As she nears the quay, she cries out
But emits no sound
As strong currents
Guide her soul
To deeper depths
And perils
Where light has no importance
A salient angle away and afar
She collapses in upon herself, like the Black Hole
Black does not describe its murkiness
She is lost to humanity
Aug 22, 2014
Aug 22, 2014 at 7:57 AM UTC
It had discovered
A small shaft of darkness
Wriggling from the pain of light
A mere whispered phantom
Haltingly treading a miasmic path
Continuous dewdrops of ocean water
Leaking from saddened face
And its twisted self
Enveloped in putrid strongholds
Of offensive thoughts
Though veiled in
The absence of light
It has met its match,
A burning flame,
The flowering torch
Of another heart
With moth- like trance
It has followed this luminous being
And become itself
An entity of inspiration
Aug 15, 2013
Aug 15, 2013 at 4:12 AM UTC
Deep summer heat,
A leaf begins to ****
The green color
From its edges,
leaving a chapped
tip.
Moments pass
Slowly, the leaf is full
Of a winter colored crack
that splinters on the surface
Just enough
to reach the stem.
Cooler winds blow,
The leaf wanes
Until the last of its hydration
Has evaporated.
This tree’s feather
Floats haltingly down,
Nov 16, 2012
Nov 16, 2012 at 12:49 AM UTC
One step in, One step out
Her palm pressed to mine urges me on
It's the perfect place
She says
You can rest and think and find peace here
A friend of mine says it's the best
Fog rolls in and out of my mind
Two steps in, I'm forever insane
I remain at the threshold of the door
I laugh quietly in my own head
I sob quietly on the outside
How did I find these shoes?
I look down at them
Are they even mine?
I was that girl everyone said was strong
I was that girl who faced everything awful
Without even a wince
These shoes are now filled by a girl
Who lays crucified to her bed by leaden bricks
While the world makes its demands
As the bricks press her firmly down
Tears form steady streams in paths down her face
She dreams, no, fantasizes of her own death
She knows exactly how she'll do it
Her heart races all night
Listening for slamming doors and
Heavy objects being thrown against the wall
Her brain has become a muddled mess
Of panic and pain, of blacks and blues
And sometimes extreme reds and yellows
The simplest questions can no longer be answered
And yet, she's supposed to make this choice?
Two steps in, insane forever
Or remain at the threshold of the door
One step in, one step out
I break the connection of our palms
Walk haltingly away
I'm not prepared to mark myself forever
The fog lifts just a little bit
A shadow of that strong girl brushes by
"I can do this on my own," I say.
Jan 9, 2013
Jan 9, 2013 at 2:18 PM UTC
I am God
I AM WHO I AM
There are none like Me
The strength of My might is immeasurable
The breadth of My knowledge unknowable
My children I protect
My followers I love
None whom I take into My hand I forsake
Selah!
Blessed are those, O Lord, who hear Your voice!
Be not absent from my mind!
But have patience and be of slow words
For Your servant, Lord, can only write haltingly
I give the dumb speech
To the blind I give sight
The deaf hear again with My touch
My children pass like breaths
But I am eternal
Speak to the God who listens
Oh merciful God, blessed be Your name!
Holy are You that takes the time to listen to my speech
My enemies are forfeit, my mockers destroyed
The God of Abraham, of Isaac, of Jacob, of Moses, of Noah
Graciously, mercifully listens to a babbler, a fool
Humble my heart O Lord
That my words might be pleasing to You
Speak
Listen to my prayer, O God
And hide Yourself not from my supplication!
Attend to me and answer me;
I am restless and distraught in my complaint
And must moan
Lord to Your servant David You would answer
Answer now my pleas, though my heart be crude and unfit
Lord do You see Your child?
He is tormented day and night by thoughts of You
Your hands molded him into being
His heart You placed in his chest and it was made to worship You
But he is attacked and harassed
Lord how he despairs so unjustly!
Deep into the mire has he sunk
He is trapped there in agony
And the prince of lies is his companion
Into his ears demons whisper day and night
Lord, do not abandon him!
You made him to love, to worship You!
His heart You love, his mind You made
What gifts You have blessed him with!
Then how now does he suffer?
Forsake me not, O Lord!
O my God, be not far from me!
Make haste to help me, O Lord! My salvation!
This heart bleeds and weeps at his suffering
In my insolence I thought it was I who could free him from his pain
But no, it is You!
Selah!
God will you crush him too?
Destroy his oppressors and free his soul
He would worship and love You God, this I swear:
These eyes have seen, these ears have heard
All is in alignment, he is made to be your most devoted follower
Let him worship You Lord, for this is right
Forgive him his tresspasses, forgive him his sins
Let him not weep in despair
As he feels Your absence and is tortured still
Are You not his savior?
Are You not his redemption, his healer?
God, Your lover, Your bride weeps to see Your abandonment
She cries to see Your glory
Her pleading will never cease
Till Your mercy is shown
And he is freed from his suffering
And back into the tender care of Your loving arms
Selah.
She will plead until You are glorified
And Your children love You as one
Hold back not Your glory
Love Your children
Forget them not in Your wrath, o Lord
May Your mercy come down like a cloud
And Your love as a rain
Amen and amen
Glory to You forever and ever, o God
Mar 13, 2017
Mar 13, 2017 at 11:31 PM UTC
***the lyrics are
burning with emotion..usually..
with earthy attractions and
experiences..
but with new perspective
our focus widens and deepens
with the ring burning
our illusory smallness
bringing awakening
to that which lies
beneath the ring..
with never ending defocus
and haltingly at first
we fall into that
infinite sea of love..
and we abide as that
which we always are...***
Love is a burnin' thing
And it makes a fiery ring
Bound by wild desire
I fell into a ring of fire
I fell into a burnin' ring of fire
I went down, down, down
And the flames went higher
And it burns, burns, burns
The ring of fire, the ring of fire
I fell into a burnin' ring of fire
I went down, down, down
And the flames went higher
And it burns, burns, burns
The ring of fire, the ring of fire
~~Johnny Cash
Jul 31, 2018
Jul 31, 2018 at 4:40 PM UTC
She leads with her
chin. Delicate as it
is. Bent slightly,
moving haltingly
with elbows at
sharp angles.
Do not be fooled
by her jarring,
reckless gait.
She is an
undeniable
force.
Mar 21, 2017
Mar 21, 2017 at 2:52 PM UTC
He stepped haltingly over stones and debris
while descending the hill that abutted the tracks.
The steel rails seemed to vanish into the earth
just a short distance beyond where he stood.
The ruins of a station arched high into the pulsing sun;
casting uneven patterns of light upon its dark interiors.
While crossing the threshold of a large stately room,
he thought he heard a whistle blowing.
Once adorned but now decayed walls enveloped his thoughts
as tall weeds tapped gently against a cracked window.
He rested in front of his reflection in the dusty pane;
weary from the journey and warm from the sun.
Gazing intently into the face before him,
he saw the changes that had taken place.
His hands began to tremble and his breath began to seize
as he recalled the promise of his youth.
He awoke from several hours of restless sleep
on a long wooden bench in the waiting room.
While confessing the obsessions that possessed him,
he realized that a destination had to be chosen.
His eyes became fixed on the remains of a wine bottle;
its leftover bounty having long been dried by time.
The sharp jagged edges reminded him of church steeples
as he tightly cupped its base in his hands.
Rumbling sounds had become ever louder;
so he returned outside by the tracks.
Smiling broadly, he plunged aboard
before the darkness surrounded him again.
Sep 29, 2016
Sep 29, 2016 at 9:28 PM UTC
Silence that bleeds
And breathes across
The cavernous void
Dividing us.
Consuming our words,
So haltingly uttered.
So fearful they fall
Ripped unwillingly
From this broken whole.
Aug 2, 2013
Aug 2, 2013 at 5:23 PM UTC
The moon reaches down on the utopia,
An ablaze morass sits down on the streets;
With its clement, walks through
A crowd of ignorant bliss.
The life is adamant on the visionary city,
A sigh of relief nestles on the back of the throats.
An imminence punches out the onus
That satiated the courageous float.
When the mud of unknowingness gropes the ankles
Of haltingly walking hesitation,
Among the heads full of buoyancy,
It glitters for the heinous castigation.
Do not doubt(!)
For you are smothered
In between the hands of the mud
That melts out from the heads full of
Buoyant and ignorant bliss.
Do not ever bellow!
Swallow the defiance
Down on a singeing insight,
The unknowing city never
Stumps on the muddy and deafening ground.
Do not ever hear(!)
The knell that screeches out from the heights,
The sigh of death disguised over the steps of the foolish crowd..
Dec 31, 2017
Dec 31, 2017 at 7:53 AM UTC
the pain you feel
howls out within
to be articulate
and haltingly
you start
to carve its silhouette
on people's minds
knowing that nothing's gained
unless your pain
meets with itself
in others
Mar 13, 2015
Mar 13, 2015 at 6:10 PM UTC
Everyday you rise and fall,
Ready to ever fail.
But the challenge you rise to raise,
Leaves those on you to bail.
Foolish is he to touch the heart,
Where all you show is stone.
Beating dead the horse you bring,
Leaves you again home alone.
Fire and brimstone you sometimes spew,
With belts of sorry in between.
It wouldn't be so haltingly horrible,
If you weren't so equally mean.
Jan 6, 2016
Jan 6, 2016 at 8:34 PM UTC
secrets, pried from slack fingers
unencumbered truths; she told me
everything
almost, everything
drunk it in a distilled spirit she told me everything about
her being gone from me when we stood
together and slipping away when i turned my head
being in the room, i
—lines—
stole from her everything, spoke questions that
turned into truths, she spoke haltingly and choked,
i was
steady
“i do love you.”
and i let her pause
my breath came as steady streams
and my electric buzz under control
“i do love you.”
i drew her out from under her coverings,
limply she said
“i do love you.”
i smiled like a curve was my mouth
tried to control the way my eyes glinted forward, yes
that’s control
“but i’m not in love with you.”
revelled in the perfection of my predilection, yes
i suspected as much from the way she turned her eyes
and let me
falter under doubts
“but i’m not in love with you.”
i asked a lot of questions
slid blades under collar bones and spread her open
moved with my heart pounding, soaked in her adrenaline
but there are some things i didn’t ask
how did she
know she was not in love with
me
how did she know she loved me but didn’t
love
the curve of my skin and the way i laughed, didn’t fall and fall when i walked in the room, no
is that how she knew?
“have you been in love before?”, i don’t ask that
“are you in love now?”, i don’t ask that
and she knew when i didn’t
was grateful (still is)
she was right, when i look back and see how much she were given and how the balance was so tipped and how inevitable
yes i was entirely undeserved
Dec 12, 2012
Dec 12, 2012 at 11:27 PM UTC
Unblinking reflexive opinions lean
indubitably, favorably and certifiably
with minimal pandering soliciting
uber voodoo yawping woos
socially quintessentially obviously markedly
consciousness brakes alignment
defining mine political views
loosely yet not strictly, jerry-rigged,
hidebound Democratic
fealty haltingly pledged ones and twos
to roster of candidates
slated to challenge incumbent Republicans
all to quickly accused,
sans participating sinister ruse
this active voter puzzled at controversial
eyeopening ex post facto
fractiousgovernmental
harmfully injuriously jaw-dropping
suppression within top secret queues
during nasty donkey kong braying p's and q's
(case in point) scurrilous, opprobrious,
and malodorous Clinton administration,
where (based upon my recent perusing
"The Peoples History” –
me strongly endorses
(authored by Howard Zinn news
worthy revelation, (whose recounting
atrocious, calumnious, egregious
glaring ignominious knowledge
jackbooted, mandated, predicated
on blind trust, essentially billeted
charade, facade, inlaid faux Hope loose
bandied cutthroat gratuity legislation
favoring pandering "pork" via
pretentiousness to wealthy gentiles Jews
abandoning average civilians snuffing out
sputtering, grousing, and hoo's
flick erring tapering fuse
whereat this news worthy informed citizen
totally tubularly unaware of any clues
pertaining to antithetical maneuvers,
(loo win ski) shenanigans, and undertakings
today yields genuine boo's
toward Clinton, where I despondently feel
he renegged promises
made to electorate (except top 1 %) got souled
(sold) to remaining 99% cheapest bidders
as-sized thirteen duff heated no nothing
sneezing Schnorrers
spluttering phelgm at me at-chews.
Jun 16, 2018
Jun 16, 2018 at 3:11 PM UTC
Beauty
Only skin deep
So they say
But how deep is skin?
I think it's pretty inaccurate to describe skin as deep
More of a measure of thickness, no?
So, I'm sure we all know that skin
Skin isn't so thick
Think about it, just a ***** of a pin and we're giving the walls a fresh coat of paint
Our own brand of paint
Made in a unique way
That only each one of us knows how to make
With that out of the way
Beauty
We've established is only skin thick
Deep
Is for oceans or rivers or ponds or puddles
Beauty
However
Beauty
Is special
On second thought
I take back my previous statement
Yes, deep is no way to describe beauty
But neither is thick
That's a rather horrible adjective when you think about it
Nothing that's thick is usually pleasant
Therefore, it probably wouldn't be suitable when discussing beauty
Again
Beauty
Mulling it over now
Beauty
Again
It doesn't surprise me
That it's taking me so long to come up with something
Because when you have a word
That is supposed to be used to describe something... someone
To encapsulate that thing or that person
It honestly, truly, adamently
Never does it/he/she justice
Beauty
A nice word, I admit
Not sure if it's because of it's connotations
And what it represents in the world
Or just the way it flows from the throat
To the lips
But
On a scale of something beautiful
To something breathtakingly
Heartstoppingly
Lung-haltingly
Beautiful
I just don't think it works
Dec 4, 2012
Dec 4, 2012 at 11:40 AM UTC
*Your eyes looking at me with parental love
Freezing like snow drops
Your legs nearing me haltingly
Dissolving like water drops
Will you take me in your arms
Will you allow me to call you Mother
Do you know the yearning inside me
For the love of a mother’s heart
Leaving me abaft accepted selfishness
Is that you are doing now Mother
Though near you are afar from me
I am waiting mother with pain
Will that day come you recognizing
This poor creature, your daughter !*
Jul 18, 2017
Jul 18, 2017 at 10:17 AM UTC
In the gullet of September you feel a strange constriction
A rust colored hand around your throat
digging into the memory of what you never were
Its nails scraping up dead things
of skin,
of uncertainty from a teenage year
A bellowing illness
once forgotten from walking so far
left to waste under bare feet
until the weather came round
and the conditions laid,
for an autumn gross with the pain of knowing
Wishing you didn’t know
Wishing so hard it accidentally comes true
and haltingly,
sorely,
life is no longer of the present
Sep 7, 2017
Sep 7, 2017 at 1:23 AM UTC
A movie,
Written haltingly,
Is shown
In flashes
Of light upon the dark.
Snippets of images
That
Draw up no remark.
With haunting clarity
Read,
Find the beauty --
Between
The Truth
And the lie.
Jul 30, 2019
Jul 30, 2019 at 12:50 PM UTC
When you ever looked at me
With this sweet uncertainty in your eyes
As if I could get sick of you
And told me haltingly
That it was okay if I wanted to go,
I couldn’t even be scared anymore-
A laugh escaped me
Pure incredulity
And my heart was full for one moment
Of laughter and sunny days
Because I had never heard anything
So absurd in all my life.
Here I was
Fighting tooth and nail
Grappling with my feelings for you
Dizzy with fear tinged joy,
Hoping to steal one more minute with you
Before you found me out and leapt back in shock and fear,
And you were watching me, worried
That I would take back what little affection I’d let escape?
It still makes me smile,
The innocence I saw in you then.
It warms my soul
Not just because it means you care
But because I love that part of you.
Something survived all these years,
All this suffering and turmoil,
Just to gaze at me with that tenuous look
And assume I could do anything but love you for it.
I was speechless, I was floored,
Suddenly reassuring you in a rush-
‘No, no, it makes my whole DAY to talk to you’
Tripping over my words
For a new reason.
It was my first glimpse of why
You don’t know I love you
Even though I’ve told you.
You’re a little bit like me, aren’t you?
You’ve been the sorry one
Haven’t you?
The one who doesn’t belong anywhere.
Darling, I hope you never feel sorry again.
I hope you bloom under this love-
Mine and his,
Mine and his and everyone’s, because they feel it, they have to.
I’ll say it as many times as it takes for you to believe-
Anyone who doesn’t treasure every minute they get with you
Is a ******* idiot
And that’s all there is to it.
Sep 16, 2018
Sep 16, 2018 at 2:55 AM UTC
He’d been away for any number of years,
Days cascading over the spillway of time
Into pools of weeks, oxbows of months,
And though the town was much as he remembered it
(Though a little more tattered and careworn:
Another broken windowpane here,
A wall in grave need of paint there,
One or two more storefronts gone to plywood)
The cemetery was all but labyrinth to him,
A corn maze of granite and narrow drives,
The plots having metastasized, the stones having spread
Like so much crownvetch overpowering the simple grass,
But he’d been able, after any number of false-starts,
Uncounted instances of double-backs and do-overs
To locate his father’s marker
(The man gone some forty years now,
Taken by…well, who knows what
His mother, stunned by the prospect
Of having to step into the dual role
As nurturer and breadwinner,
Too stunned to even think of requesting an autopsy.)
He’d come, ostensibly, to make his peace
(Whatever that hackneyed phrase entailed)
But he’d ended up, if not as mute as the stone he faced,
No more than a cow-country Caliban,
Haltingly sputtering bits and bobs of half-phrases
Concerning the implacability of accidents, the vagaries of chance
The coffin-lid limits on mere men and women.
He’d given up the ghost, finally,
And as the daylight slipped away on the bumpy old horizon
He’d simply brushed some dried bird guano from the gravestone,
Then picked the dead bits from the flowers
Doing their level best to hold on
In the urn he’d wrestled from his mother’s ancient station wagon
Two, perhaps three, days ago
Before settling back into the car to try to divine the way
Back to the main road
(He’d found it in surprisingly short order,
And perhaps a quarter-mile or so down the road,
He’d come upon a small rabbit,
Frozen mid-lane by his headlights,
Finding himself in a world not of his making
Not knowing whether to flip or fly;
He’d missed it by mere chance, nothing more,
And he wondered if the poor thing
Would be so lucky with the cars behind him.)
Feb 10, 2021
Feb 10, 2021 at 12:39 PM UTC