"halved" poems
The street
filled with tomatoes,
midday,
summer,
light is
halved
like
a
tomato,
its juice
runs
through the streets.
In December,
unabated,
the tomato
invades
the kitchen,
it enters at lunchtime,
takes
its ease
on countertops,
among glasses,
butter dishes,
blue saltcellars.
It sheds
its own light,
benign majesty.
Unfortunately, we must
****** it:
the knife
sinks
into living flesh,
red
viscera
a cool
sun,
profound,
inexhaustible,
populates the salads
of Chile,
happily, it is wed
to the clear onion,
and to celebrate the union
we
pour
oil,
essential
child of the olive,
onto its halved hemispheres,
pepper
adds
its fragrance,
salt, its magnetism;
it is the wedding
of the day,
parsley
hoists
its flag,
potatoes
bubble vigorously,
the aroma
of the roast
knocks
at the door,
it's time!
come on!
and, on
the table, at the midpoint
of summer,
the tomato,
star of earth, recurrent
and fertile
star,
displays
its convolutions,
its canals,
its remarkable amplitude
and abundance,
no pit,
no husk,
no leaves or thorns,
the tomato offers
its gift
of fiery color
and cool completeness.
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*on the verge of wilderness
imminent silence*
welcome
the sun stroking
peaks aglow
the thundering falls
mist-kissed rain
the solitude
so rarely reached
too often breached
stillness loosen
untamed words
in the native tongue
before thoughts
unspoken
became yours
mine
ours
to the wild
bear these
cryptic symbols
scrawled on
my halved heart
tokens of longing
succor
for the lost
Jul 1, 2016
Jul 1, 2016 at 10:28 AM UTC
I have a painting of a purple-haired
kurt cobain hanging in
my bathroom so I can feel the
nostalgia of being a broken
head shadow
put in a
anechoic heart-shaped box
a dream split inside myself
halved and halved
again
like I’m living on a tiny
blue sun stuffed in a jar
filled with vinegar
shooting speedballs
in a lukewarm bubble
bath
Nov 8, 2015
Nov 8, 2015 at 2:18 PM UTC
Where did you come from, bright star?
What heaven did you leap from, dear love?
How can I spell your name
Without the sound of autumn
Underneath my tongue,
Without acknowledging the lovers who bent me in half
Bless them for bringing me to you
How can I say your name
Without also breathing the words
My god, I found you.
How can I ever speak again with this mouth
When it has found where it belongs
When you touch me, I am a bed of calla lilies
I will build a house and fill it with evergreens
I will paint sunsets on every wall
So you can only see beautiful things
How can I say love
Without wanting to fold myself into you
Like a thousand paper cranes?
Dear one,
I was halved the moment I was born
Either piece of me is inside of your mouth
And I was found whole the moment you spoke.
Oct 3, 2014
Oct 3, 2014 at 10:35 PM UTC
Zeus, your predilection for banishing Titans to Hades...
anathema of them--revolt was theirs of you...Titanomachy.
Enter Prometheus, second generational Titan, brother
to Atlas--Prometheus of whom Titan revolt at first ran
no fire through his veins.
Thus, Zeus was well pleased and employed Prometheus
to put earth to water, water to earth...as to yield man.
As so man was, and was unto Prometheus...a fondness
entered him of them.
And in of passion Prometheus' veins were run through
with fire...fire fought fire--thus Prometheus reached out
taking hold Zeus' lightning.
Hid in a hollowed fennel stalk, to be bequeathed unto man.
Torrents of fire now ran Prometheus' veins, and in a fit of
infamous mockery presented Zeus with two packets of
slaughtered animal parts.
A hubris was born in Prometheus that being so halved
God-man gave itself fully to that polarity...he gawked at
Zeus and bade him choose between the two packets.
One of ox meat and innards coated in stomach lining, the
other of ox-bones coated in its own abundant fat.
Thus Zeus chose, the wretched lesser of the two...
inconsumable ox-bones coated by fat.
A charged and terrible air cut and heavied all direction,
pointing assuredly that Zeus was one given over to the
surface of things, a psychological casualty of his own
vanity.
Zeus overcome with Prometheus' disaffection for the God
of him struck at Prometheus' family.
At length, this assault could not, would not put asunder
Prometheus from the ground he stood.
A certain Haphaestus was summoned by Zeus...whose
directive was writ in torment.
Chain Prometheus to Mount Caucasus...where from on
high a sackcloth cloud shall shake loose an eagle, whose
homing hunger shall have only a taste for Prometheus' liver.
Day in, and day out, that accursed ***** shall be the
bounty of itself!
Jan 17, 2012
Jan 17, 2012 at 6:06 PM UTC
# *Twin glasses of orange juice, froth quietly fizzling out
A plate of turkey bacon piled overzealously high*
I would cook you French toast every day, if you'd let me.
*Fresh croissants from a bakery down the street
Halved strawberries drizzled with honey*
I'll sprinkle cinnamon in our coffee, just like my grandmother used to.
I don't know much of love, but I know this:
When the sun breaks through my kitchen window,
I hope you'll be sitting at the table. #
Nov 17, 2022
Nov 17, 2022 at 4:14 PM UTC
man who wears a hat sits still near the back unmoved by the world or the exposed breast of a statue (brain waves do not discharge through a fedora)
tag attached: bald is sanitary
oranges have more delicacy raw smelly and afterward singing allons enfants de patrie ding dang **** like that, all frog-ese so we don’t understand chanteused stiff basso profundo to excite to let us see with the clarity of a dream curled with hate set firm, firmer in the arms of a sleeveless girl then slung to sea level white as a leopard’s eye
remember its peroxide bathed, bleached inclined on the pillow just at the angle of expectancy without a hat sideward glance and the crippled heels of angels sparking down the hall
bulletin: young man willing to wear false beard to ease the pain for all
or trumpet blues broken played horizontal touched by seaweed hands in the light of boats (unfurled)
slowly
and the memory dies slowly half-forgotten, half-remembered
halved again
slowly
only
to begin
again
grim molecules of love
4.9k
When my heart beats black inside my chest, and the days I have are filled with death, and the girls I know won't walk with me, then I have my choice in misery. All the birds have died, and the plains are dry, the skyscrapers aren't lit up at night, and the city's sound sounds like nothing, then I have my choice in suffering. People talk a lot, but they hardly speak, all their voices creak in the summer streets, everybody walks but they're not moving, I try to only observe but then I start screaming.
I ******* hate the way that you look at me, your skin's so ******* clean that it feels ***** your eyes move around but you're not seeing, the way I hurt each day but you say nothing. If I tried to leave you might be happy, so I sit and be and go out at night and cheat. I would break your heart, but it hardly beats. You're my walking dead, my darling zombie.
Each day is second rate, I bore so easily. It's like the day we met ended your pleasantry. I startle all the time, you seem so unaware. I chose you number one, you chose to not even care.
I caressed you once, and undressed you thrice, you abandoned me in the middle of the night. All the time I halved, you had your own account, of every thing we did, it wasn't the right amount. Now I hardly care about the drugs you're on. I'm quoting blasphemy out of every psalm. Even the words I write don't tell half of the truth, about the way I felt chasing after you.
Apr 26, 2014
Apr 26, 2014 at 5:41 AM UTC
1575
The Bat is dun, with wrinkled Wings—
Like fallow Article—
And not a song pervade his Lips—
Or none perceptible.
His small Umbrella quaintly halved
Describing in the Air
An Arc alike inscrutable
Elate Philosopher.
Deputed from what Firmament—
Of what Astute Abode—
Empowered with what Malignity
Auspiciously withheld—
To his adroit Creator
Acribe no less the praise—
Beneficent, believe me,
His Eccentricities—
4k
The man to my right was more than eight feet away. I was going to have to move closer to him to catch my limit of four trout. I halved the distance between the two of us and noted the sideways glance he shot me. I apologized immediately and asked if I was crowding him.
“No, you fine,” he replied within a thick Serbian accent.
“You’re with them?” I asked, pointing to the crowd of people on the bridge some 30 feet upstream from us. I had heard the crowd of eastern Europeans talking earlier, and their accents were unmistakable to me. He nodded and we continued fishing.
With my new angle I was better able to pick my fish in the water, so that’s what I did. I spied one and tossed my jig toward him. It took five casts but eventually, he took the bait. As I netted it in the swift, ice-cold spring water the man beside me congratulated me on the catch. I thanked him and added it to my stringer. This made three, and I only needed one more.
“What’s your name?” I asked him.
“Ivan”.
“Have you been in the states long?” I asked, after the pause following his short reply seemed to invite more questions.
“Since ‘96, my family live here. It is good.”
“You like living here?” I wondered aloud.
“Yes, the fishing is good. It is like back home in Serbia, or in Germany. We have this fishing there.”
“You mean trout?”
“Yes, trout...and some other fish like these, in water like this, but I can’t go home now.” He looked away momentarily. His lips pursed, and his brow furrowed. I pulled my line in, wanting to ask him more and not wanting to be distracted.
“Were you in the war?”
“Yes, I was in the Serbian police force.” My heart pounded. “When I was in the Serbian police force, we did what you see on the news. We went into villages and we killed them. We killed them all.”
I cast my line back into the water, spying another trout. Ivan shrugged and cast his own line. I couldn’t tell what he was using but it looked like cheese of some kind. “I was drafted in Serb police when I was 15. I had no choice. If I refuse, they **** me. I did what I had to do.” I nodded, and ****** my line, missing a fish. “Before the war, I fished. After the war, there were not so many people, so fishing was very good.”
The air around me was alive. The trees were greener, the water was colder and clearer, the sun was brighter, and the sky was bluer.
“I’ve been fishing for a long time as well,” I responded. My father used to bring me here as a child. He nodded and continued.
“After the war, all the fish come back, no one fished during the war, so there were many of them. You just had to be careful of the mines.” He grunted and gazed skyward.
“The mines?”
“Yes, during the war they mined the water.”
I watched trout number four take my jig and I carefully reeled him in. Ivan congratulated me a second time, and I thanked him in return.
“You’re a good fisherman,” he said turning back to his own pursuit of the four-trout limit, as I left the water to clean my catch.
Sep 21, 2019
Sep 21, 2019 at 8:33 PM UTC
A satisfied appetite is a simply joy
Overlooked and simplified
Like a growing urge, a salivating need
That is entrancing and glorified.
Everlasting for moments we call meals
Forgotten in time, lingering above
But the taste, the lonesome lover pushed aside
Gazes afar and near wanting to be enjoyed again
The young lady with a tongue of raspberry delight
And the matured widow with darkened cacao lips
Ripening nectar of a sliced peach center
Halved and topped with mascarpone crème
The man with a skin of caramel glaze
Caressing and savoring
With a fragrance and scent
Of hazelnut coffee indulgence and sin
In the pursuit of a brief love affair
What oral sensation did my taste buds want?
My odyssey of gustatory endeavors await
Through the seas of lined people and waiting staff
Generous portions and humble pies
Decadent desserts so rich you’ll die
Vine cherry tomatoes sliced and sauté
Over al dente rigatoni in a roasted cashew sauce
A robust aroma and savory appeal
Basil leaves with garlic strips
Olive oil to top the surreal
Hubristic meatball aborigine
Elysian cuisine or many dreams
Teasing the senses, warming the pit
Of flowing pleasures
And tingling fingertips
Without moral measures
And succulent wines
Rotisserie lamb falling of the bone
Seasoned with Sicilian herbs
And paired with broiled asparagus
Drizzled with lemon juice
And a glass of Merlot
Spices I hardly know
Lachrymose apologies beside a bottle of faded sorrows
With love there is pain, passion endured through the names
Thin soups, flavorless and dull, feeding street-thrown bums
Breathing hard against the delicatessen glass
Hickory smoked hams, pepper-seasoned pastrami
Vinegar cultured pickles and hard dried salami
Unpleasured, without measure, at one's leisure.
Forever my endeavor
Blackcurrant tea laced with slivers of gooping honey
Layers of cinnamon hair atop olive skin
red-painted doors with cedar trim
crushed almonds mixed with hazelnut butter cream spread
devilish rounds of crumbling rum-swirl bread
Smells and wonders, tastes so ...
oh god
Divine and sublime.
Jul 22, 2013
Jul 22, 2013 at 5:42 PM UTC
I heard John
sing a song
a sweet melody
for his ocean child
with seashell eyes —
windy smile
his lyrics halved
into meaningless
his heart subdued
in one morning moon
bring tears dripped
on eighth notes
crossed out by Salinger
I listen again
this time through
cupped seashell
intoxicated
on ocean musk
only to see
this chick
with golden hair
glimmering, shimmering
in the floating sky
she smiles
she sings
her name
Julia
©2011 chuck a stetson
Jul 6, 2011
Jul 6, 2011 at 2:03 AM UTC
The essence of true beauty
Lingers in all-encompassing rainbows
Of your joy and laughter
You hold my hand and smile
As we ensconce ourselves in our world of fire
Our love is all there is
I touch your face
Your gentleness astounds me
I'm held in the honour of your love
Then overnight, the wrold truns suor
61 mInnIts past the ELevenTHH HouRR
I'M A L 0 N E
3.1k
***All the heartfelt words
Are struck across with a line
Dividing each word’s meaning
Halved feelings of dilemma
The line created a divide
That was not meant to be
Either, stay in this situation
Or expunge them forever
Express your feelings
With new words***
Jul 1, 2015
Jul 1, 2015 at 11:11 AM UTC
iii.
He reminds you that you may never be loved
In the way that you are supposed to
His heart opens as it should
A halved pomegranate
And the jewel flesh spills forward
In effortless bounty
Yours was wrapped in butcher paper
With care, long ago
It lives in the freezer
In the way, way back
Ice crystals form slowly
Until they resemble a silver blanket of moss
Sep 12, 2019
Sep 12, 2019 at 1:39 AM UTC
~
my shelter,
*two arms,
a human lean-to,
a pup tent,
all with a
welcome mat,
for you,
await
with graceful patience
simpatico smiling,
always avail,
awaiting,
no life clock countdown
prematurely pushing,
come when
there is
no other place
all,
on offer,
shelter places
that become
your home,
if you so
honor them thus,
your choice,
your decision
when to come n' go
shelter you,
no questions asked,
cloak all with human warmth,
easy silences, no pressures*
for when my arms
bear your load,
now mine,
my load,
somehow
halved!
Jun 13, 2015
Jun 13, 2015 at 7:51 AM UTC
: LAST NIGHT—
I watched a ***** internet video;
a man getting halved by an Elevator.
It was a slow process.
— LISTEN:
I am not really sure if I want
to think about it at the moment— and
I certainly don't want to write it out. That would require me
a stretch of contemplation —AND
a reach to be descriptive on my part, or at least
not to be redundant.
No,
In order to tell you about it,
I would really need to Stress the details that
got me: That really human kind of **** you know? LIKE:
the expressions on his face, and how closely his step brought him to near freedom—just outside that metal box. Just before it came down hard, and took 50% of the **poor ******* with it.
It was the manner in which he got stuck that pushed me There, and
not traditionally.
Think long-ways.
The exact scenario from my nightmare so far back— with a single deviation. Setting.
Of course, inside my twisted anti-fantasy: it was the antagonist was suffering, also this character I had come to know by name and action.
...Anyway that segment shocked me.
And I don't get shocked that often.
It was a sort of fate that I never actually thought I would observe in person. There is always the stopping point when watching gore online and that was mine.
Apr 24, 2015
Apr 24, 2015 at 2:17 AM UTC
A young man was walking along when he came across monk who was sitting on the side of the path meditating.
The young man, curiously stopped. “You are not from here? For I know everyone in this kingdom, and everyone know who I am. My name is Narcissus, son of Cephissus, and I am King of this land. Where do you come from, and what are you doing in my kingdom?
The Buddhist monk sat silently, and continued to meditate. His eyes were closed and at his side was a banana and a pale of water.
“Did you hear me? I am Narcissus and I am King of this land. If you know me like my people do, you would know that; I am honest, I am kind, and I am loving and full of compassion. I am fair and just. I am an advocate of peace, I judge no-one, and my subjects love me. And you sir, what are you?”
The monk opened his eyes, took the banana and peeled it. He halved it and offered Narcissus the King the other half, then continued meditating without saying a word.
Narcissus ate his banana, musing at the monk who didn’t speak. Why do you not speak?” asked Narcissus. I am the King and I demand to be answered when I ask a question.”
It was deathly hot, so the monk offered Narcissus a drink from his pale of water.
“I am thirsty. I will accept your offer,” said Narcissus. He drank all that was in the ladle and helped himself to another. He stood and waited for the water in the pale to become still again. Then he pitched over and looked into it, admiring his reflection, and smiled. I am still beautiful he thought. Again he addressed the monk, asking him who he was.
The monk leant over and kissed Narcissus on the feet, and bowed to him without saying a word.
Narcissus peered down at monk, smiled, and said to himself, “strange man,” and moved on.
The monk resumed his position, smiled, and whispered to himself,
“I am nothing.”
Dec 5, 2014
Dec 5, 2014 at 3:54 PM UTC
her eyes are bluest in the bathroom
in early afternoon on the west side of the building
(but you probably knew that)
those are the lights, there
and there are lions in the lights and their gold circles
are halved and the gold circles
beneath her eyes are halved
and there are lions in her eyes, too
except in the bathroom, on the west side, in the early afternoon
it has always been something but not this
always there but not so big
her eyes are bluest in the bathroom
where you wouldn’t think to follow her
you tell the story and it is
happily-ever-after, goodnight
(day is so much better still)
she’s unready still
always unready to run with lions and so she tames them
in her eyes, and in the lights (it is ethically challenging)
and the gold half-circles
are bigger
and so is that other thing
always there
always unready
May 6, 2013
May 6, 2013 at 3:23 AM UTC
My boot prints leave train tracks in the snow
Because I walk with a shuffle
My parts are incomplete; I find
walking uncomfortable
No one step feels the same
But right now it’s okay
Because between three feet of snow
A moon so perfectly halved
Under a sky naked of its stars
I feel
As if my shuffle
Is graceful
As if my walk;
Permanent
As if my steps
Are purposeful
Even if a little
Awkward
I am standing under a street light in three feet of snow
Not feeling cold
Or alone
Even though its cold
And I’m alone
My mind
It does not mumble
My speech
It does not stutter
My hands they do not shake here
I
Am permanent
I am whole here
My veins
They do not show here
They are not vulnerable in their color
Here
My heart
Doesn't skip a beat
My breath doesn't waver
here I do not hear
Ticking clocks in my head
I do not say clicking tots in my head
My speech is free of stutter
My mind as certain as these disappearing footprints
My walk, well
I still shuffle
Jan 18, 2013
Jan 18, 2013 at 5:56 PM UTC
On this day,
Twenty-eight years ago,
I realized that love is not divided...
Not halved between.
A father's love for his children...
Is a multiplication,
An expansion.
How do I explain?
Meanings of life change;
Additions and subtractions aside,
Love multiplies...matures:
Exult or suffer, it endures
Even the agony of division.
Mainly now, love suffers,
But always it endures.
Mar 25, 2012
Mar 25, 2012 at 8:30 AM UTC
I am an empty jar
of artichoke
hearts.
Halved, sliced,
salted and eaten whole
with mouths open,
hearts
upon sleeves, she
gingerly caresses
parted lips. See,
marinated
hearts
beat tenderly
beneath linen made
of artichoke
hearts.
That is, until
I am left. Emptiness
consumes me, her
hearts
in the right place
but my hearts never there.
Empty, Broken.
Hearts
are delicious
until they expire.
Oct 28, 2013
Oct 28, 2013 at 4:41 PM UTC
In this world,
Sawn always appears after the darkness of the night.
Misfortune halved.
Fortune and misfortune are intertwined
They are all part of the scheme of things.
Mar 15, 2015
Mar 15, 2015 at 1:08 PM UTC
I’ve always been the outsider.
The girl who dreams.
The girl who laughs too much
and cries too much.
But most importantly,
I've always been
the girl who reads.
I raised myself with books.
In words I found salvation,
in those rows and rows of
soldier-like words
I found my closest friends.
From books alone, I learned
about friendship and family,
and love, and tolerance,
equality and death.
Like a sponge, I absorbed those ideas
and words, and phrases,
and all I read about,
and when the time was ripe,
the sponge bled out
with all the words
it had taken in,
and its ink blood
covered myriad pages.
I am so young, just a kid, really,
and my life so far has been
just a pile of books I’ve read.
I want to change this,
to create a new pile –
of the books I’ve written,
of the worlds I've made.
Clumsy poetry and short stories,
and unfinished novels,
and the constant voice
making up stories and characters
in the back of my mind -
that's what I live for,
and the air I breathe.
I’m so young, just a kid, really,
but I know what I want from my life –
I want to write books and shape the lives
of other little kids who will pick up my
books, and read them, and learn about life.
Apr 1, 2014
Apr 1, 2014 at 1:30 PM UTC