"headstones" poems
This is the light of the mind, cold and planetary
The trees of the mind are black. The light is blue.
The grasses unload their griefs on my feet as if I were God
Prickling my ankles and murmuring of their humility
Fumy, spiritous mists inhabit this place.
Separated from my house by a row of headstones.
I simply cannot see where there is to get to.
The moon is no door. It is a face in its own right,
White as a knuckle and terribly upset.
It drags the sea after it like a dark crime; it is quiet
With the O-gape of complete despair. I live here.
Twice on Sunday, the bells startle the sky ----
Eight great tongues affirming the Resurrection
At the end, they soberly **** out their names.
The yew tree points up, it has a Gothic shape.
The eyes lift after it and find the moon.
The moon is my mother. She is not sweet like Mary.
Her blue garments unloose small bats and owls.
How I would like to believe in tenderness ----
The face of the effigy, gentled by candles,
Bending, on me in particular, its mild eyes.
I have fallen a long way. Clouds are flowering
Blue and mystical over the face of the stars
Inside the church, the saints will all be blue,
Floating on their delicate feet over the cold pews,
Their hands and faces stiff with holiness.
The moon sees nothing of this. She is bald and wild.
And the message of the yew tree is blackness -- blackness and silence
36.3k
let it not be confused
let no one else's name
ring throughout these sentences
let this be a hatchet
let me put this to rest
this is not a test
i don't want to think
about shipwrecks anymore
i am tired of folding apologies
into origami birds
and placing them
at the headstones to your tantrums
this is not is not geology class
these are promises
written on razorblades
*& if you are getting choked up
then maybe you should be*
maybe we should be buried
with our telescopes face down
my mouth is full of sorry
all for being honest
we are falling out of orbit
we are burning bystanders
so cast away your callous condolences
because no one is clapping
in this waist deep water
this is not a baptism
so do not tell strangers
that this was a chance to drown
any differently
i am not a catalogue
of constellations you cannot name
this is not mythology
so stop believing your horoscope
i am not a wishing well
i am just a wall for you
to paint post nuclear fallout & antonyms for catharsis on
we destroy the things
that are not ours-
the wanton ways
we embody wrecking *****
and then cry over the rubble
this is not a heap or a mosaic
this is leaping
off a thousand story building
with no one to catch you
at the bottom & maybe
that's why some quiet moments
are so fragile, maybe that's why butterflies have mimicry
your words are black powder
and poetry is your musketry
i guess that makes me your blindfold
Apr 29, 2014
Apr 29, 2014 at 11:21 PM UTC
there are some who want a thinner waist
and others who just don't like the taste
of food they feel they do not deserve
some eat cake with their eyes
while others are busy planning their demise
one wants to see bones, another, headstones
one could love themselves if they were just 40 pounds thinner
"maybe i'll love myself if i just skip dinner"
the other has no appetite, a battle with calories she does not fight
a battle, rather, with herself
to **** herself or stay in living hell
too preoccupied to care what is on the pantry shelf
there are some who want a thinner waist
and others who just don't like the taste
of food they feel they do not deserve
Nov 20, 2014
Nov 20, 2014 at 11:12 PM UTC
The steeples are white in the wild moonlight,
And the trees have a silver glare;
Past the chimneys high see the vampires fly,
And the harpies of upper air,
That flutter and laugh and stare.
For the village dead to the moon outspread
Never shone in the sunset's gleam,
But grew out of the deep that the dead years keep
Where the rivers of madness stream
Down the gulfs to a pit of dream.
A chill wind blows through the rows of sheaves
In the meadows that shimmer pale,
And comes to twine where the headstones shine
And the ghouls of the churchyard wail
For harvests that fly and fail.
Not a breath of the strange grey gods of change
That tore from the past its own
Can quicken this hour, when a spectral power
Spreads sleep o'er the cosmic throne,
And looses the vast unknown.
So here again stretch the vale and plain
That moons long-forgotten saw,
And the dead leap gay in the pallid ray,
Sprung out of the tomb's black maw
To shake all the world with awe.
And all that the morn shall greet forlorn,
The ugliness and the pest
Of rows where thick rise the stones and brick,
Shall some day be with the rest,
And brood with the shades unblest.
Then wild in the dark let the lemurs bark,
And the leprous spires ascend;
For new and old alike in the fold
Of horror and death are penned,
For the hounds of Time to rend.
12k
cemeteries worn
delicately fall on chests
like grandmother's old necklaces
and inscriptions from headstones
draped in cold bronze
bought and sold, their epitaphs
like grandmother's old word
her lovely verbs
swathed in gold,
and ever were costly rhinestones weaved in
until every meaning to her lovely words were lost.
Oct 5, 2015
Oct 5, 2015 at 5:29 AM UTC
It is so real to me.
I see it's harmless name everywhere, and it looks so innocent off of the context of your skin.
It haunts me where ever it is or whatever state it is in, and it is so shadowed to me.
But also extremely real, and vivid.
So chilling, but it also sets me to fire.
I see other harmless names and I am foreign to the lands of those graves.
I am glad, but I hate that this stands out to me.
I am walking the path of the graveyard, and will I fall in to my likely grave?
Or will I break off onto the swept path?
I will not know, but I am passing the graves of others who have succumb to the rough grips of these names.
And on these graves there are things written, telling what pushed and buried them in these graves.
And I see many empty graves and blank headstones ahead.
I know that mine may be waiting for me, and self harm is pushing me along the path to it.
Still, I am pushing back and I will ***** the swept path with my muddy feet.
And once I am there I will run far away and never let myself be pushed again.
I will not be buried in the dirt of self harm.
Mar 25, 2014
Mar 25, 2014 at 2:29 PM UTC
Mum had been gone a couple of months, six I think… (An ordinary day, feeling hollow but doing OK) …when I realised I could get rid of the sofa.
I thought it was ugly, she thought it was a bargain. A sofa’s not a keepsake and it was certainly no heirloom. I’d not inflict it on my kids. I got rid.
If I could’ve had her back then? I would’ve done. Even if it meant keeping the sofa.
Redecorated. Bought a new telly. Spent frivolous amounts of cash on scatter cushions. She disliked scatter cushions. I thought they were cosy.
My little boy drew on one of the cushions. On purpose. I was about to smack the back of his legs… (Mum would have, she smacked me when I was little) … I stopped.
I never wanted to. Had known all along, somehow forgotten.
If I could’ve had her back then? I would’ve done. But she would not smack my children.
Mum had been gone a year… (Planting bulbs, feeling conspicuous carrying a shovel ‘round the churchyard) …and I missed her.
It was as hot as the day she died. There was no breeze up on that hill, no cloud. Beautiful views stretched right out to the sea.
My little boy had grown, he helped carry water and dig holes. My baby was learning to walk, she wobbled on uneven turf between the headstones. I wanted Mum to see.
If I could’ve had her back then? I would’ve done. No question.
Mum had been gone three years… (Bulbs were doing OK. There was nothing left to plant that rabbits wouldn't nibble) …and I realised it was time to move on.
I kept the ghosts quiet while agents showed people round. The house sold. We moved away. A warm, terraced place in a small town by the sea. Dad died.
Mum has been gone eight years and I miss her.
Looking out from the Downs across cliff-top and sea, the churchyard seems nothing more than a soft-grey fleck on the green edge of town.
If I could bring her back now? Everything’s changed.
Ghosts exist. They sit in empty chairs and speak kettle-whistle. Wishing us well.
Apr 15, 2015
Apr 15, 2015 at 2:34 PM UTC
i share my name with a hurricane
how fitting
a set of bruised shins in running tights
who can't get much of anything right
and still hasn't remembered where she set her drink
that's me
i sometimes think they should've named me tiffany
or brittany
or stephany
something pretty and normal
maybe then i would have been a ballerina
instead of just a mess
in a second-hand dress
sometimes i swear
the wind calms when i laugh
and the thunder cracks
when i finally let go
and let myself fade
back into the sky that shaped me
i make it rain
some things never change
not names
or headstones
or birthdays
and some things always do
the sky shifts slightly
setting a yellow kite to sail
and a pair of hawks to soar
maybe they named the storm after me
so that i could see
how beautiful turbulence can be
maybe i just wasn't looking right
besides
a rose by any other name
wouldn't seem as special
Feb 12, 2013
Feb 12, 2013 at 1:09 AM UTC
Winds from far foreign climes beats upon the Lizard rocks
Gulls driven towards the blackest of crags, yet pass over safely inland
In the darkest skies they wheel and spin as if torn by some giant’s hand
White horses gallop crests of waves as they rush towards tiny harbours
There to crash savagely and rend cut stones from their secured places
Men work to save their boats, fighting the storm which mothers sent
Nature conspires to take their very lives as they struggle with her might
Rocks gnash their teeth and boats not safe yet, pass near their faces
Hoping for the safety of their port, men’s white faces line their gunwales
Black, white, red, blue and yellow, boats colours lost within the spray
These same boats that forge the men they carry out upon the sea’s wrath
But now just seek to bring them safely home to their worried wives
Their women stand upon the quay or stare worried from their windows
Churchyards on the hills above seaside villages filled with headstones
Men’s deaths caused by storms in past times of fishing for their living
Leaving spouses, their children to carry on their traditions and religion
Headstones cut from the very granite of the weather worn Lizard cliffs
Menfolk deep beneath the Cornish loam, there to rest for all eternity
Whilst below in the thrashing storm, the families fight once again
Then as quickly as it came, the storm blows out, waters return to placid
Men stretch their aching backs, those hidden from storm turn out
The seaman’s mission helps as it can the fractured families
And church maybe rings for those lost out to sea, never to be seen again
There will be time to mourn, and the village will then lament together
And those who are left, they return to their sacred craft of netting fish
Return to shining calm, to ply their trade, to bring food to this isles shore
Oct 4, 2016
Oct 4, 2016 at 8:56 AM UTC
Broken headstones speckle
the even sea
of your grassy hill
Panorama of your crest
hugged by blue sky
Among the memorials
long since uninhabited
the residents
returned to the earth
My thoughts are seeds
and your soil is fertile
Dec 14, 2014
Dec 14, 2014 at 4:44 PM UTC
She said to me, over the phone
She wanted to see other people
I thought, Well then, look around. They're everywhere
Said that she was confused...
I thought, Darling, join the club
24 years old, Mid-life crisis
Nowadays hits you when you're young
I hung up, She called back, I hung up again
The process had already started
At least it happened quick
I swear, I died inside that night
My friend, he called
I didn't mention a thing
The last thing he said was, Be sound
Sound...
I contemplated an awful thing, I hate to admit
I just thought those would be such appropriate last words
But I'm still here
And small
So small.. How could this struggle seem so big?
So big...
While the palms in the breeze still blow green
And the waves in the sea still absolute blue
But the horror
Every single thing I see is a reminder of her
Never thought I'd curse the day I met her
And since she's gone and wouldn't hear
Who would care? What good would that do?
But I'm still here
So I imagine in a month...or 12
I'll be somewhere having a drink
Laughing at a stupid joke
Or just another stupid thing
And I can see myself stopping short
Drifting out of the present
****** by the undertow and pulled out deep
And there I am, standing
Wet grass and white headstones all in rows
And in the distance there's one, off on its own
So I stop, kneel
My new home...
And I picture a sober awakening, a re-entry into this little bar scene
Sip my drink til the ice hits my lip
Order another round
And that's it for now
Sorry
Never been too good at happy endings...
Dec 9, 2016
Dec 9, 2016 at 1:20 PM UTC
I gave the hero of this story trust
issues. So that when his castle fell he
wouldn't worry about the damsel still
calling from the ramparts, where I hold court
in the dust. For this is my battlefield
where the headstones will read like love letters
and the weeds will serve as the royal seal.
I gave the hero of this story hope
a magic bean and two old china cups.
But the china, brittle, the bean rotten
as these once fertile lands lie waterlogged.
You can't grow your crops here, boy, go home.
I'll drown this hero before he can stand
the sight of the muddy bank. A hero's death.
I gave the hero of this story bread
water, and melody. To help him sleep
soundly and noiselessly, still. Arms, pillows
sway to the metronome of the city
beating such a heroic retreat. Stand
with fingers touching, childlike and brave.
Until the next wave comes and holds. It breaks.
Jan 4, 2010
Jan 4, 2010 at 10:34 AM UTC
A sunflower grows
"tall and simple".
And so does a cancer
small and simple.
Holes grow larger
around me.
A field of sunflowers
and headstones.
The power of recovery and discovery;
the kick of a pen
during unconscious behavior.
Chatty beats taking control
of the morgue.
Not letting the rivers in--
only the shivers.
Chatty beats taking the liver,
putting it in a living corpse.
Chatty beats opening the door in the clouds.
That's but a bedtime story that's
read to the youth and
told as the truth.
Hypnotize so I can't criticize,
stick my face in the water
and show me the baby otters I loved
from my childhood bedtime stories.
The glories of floating
on my back into a
brand new habitat
filled with sunflowers
"tall and simple"
and holes growing larger
to keep me warm and breathing
under the water.
Feb 10, 2013
Feb 10, 2013 at 12:03 AM UTC
Etched into my headstone
please write
"eternally happy,
eternally free"
Oct 6, 2023
Oct 6, 2023 at 8:59 AM UTC
My brother finds comfort in calculators.
He assigns every number a name.
He believes that they add up to certainty and he is upset with fractions that remain.
So I examine these maps with my eyes, and at best I can trace with my finger
all the way to that town where she went in an attempt to forget the cracks and the lines of my face.
So Jetsabel cleaned out the closets for me and she piled up the boxes in the hall.
Tomorrow when she wakes she'll come take them away and they'll never haunt me again;
but it is still hard to sleep with the moon's heavy beams.
I run barefoot to the backyard, just to freeze in my place by the rod iron gate;
too afraid and ashamed to advance.
Today I walked through the snow and found a field of headstones.
They were in rows like the weeks in calendars where each box is a day you can never escape
without pills or the poison of sleep.
These memories leak from these faucets that weep.
Hot tears splash against the shower floor and I stand in the steam as if inside a dream--
I can see her again by the sink.
From behind the bathroom mirror she pulls a thermometer and places it under my tongue.
She said, "You're as pale as a sheet. You look awful, my sweet. Lay down and wait for the sun."
So I stayed in that bed. She brought me water and read each night from a volume out loud.
She whispered soft poetry. Her favorite was Anabel Lee.
And those words, like these drugs, comforted me.
But the clocks kept waving their hands
and she couldn't understand why temperature would never drop.
And though she promised with tears that she would always be here,
I heard truth like the sounding sea.
I said, "My Arienette, how soon you forget this house will never be your home,
and you will leave in the fall when the trees become graves and their colors lie dead in the grass."
Gold and green torture me like the lies I believe too easily.
Oh my Jetsabel, look at this hell that I have made.
If you want, maybe drop by sometime-- put some flowers on my grave
so that I will look beautiful in my silent sepulchre.
Yeah, that's fine. Throw some dresses away. I don't want anything of hers.
For the moon never shines and the stars never rise without bringing me dreams,
haunted by the ghosts of those bright eyes.
Sep 18, 2012
Sep 18, 2012 at 5:03 PM UTC
~
not a fan of reality TV,
plenty of "unreal" episodes
of my own direction stored,
available for further review
in the storage units of
neuronic black and white prison brain cells
which is why I have free~will chosen
to enumerate my poem~videos;
for easy retreat retrieval resurrection
of the travelogue of mind own insurrections
*a garage of mobility devices,
car, rollerblades, cross country skis plus,
a potpourri of escape methodologies
that by definition are all round trippers,
returned to their storage unit after use
and I count them Noah~like,
two by two, as they come on board,
and when they disembark for days of
rest and recreation*
this one, #4,
is born
among headstones,
just anther memory storage unit
specialized,
flag decorated,
but different
This is a one-way,
no return,
unit
but
it can be viewed at anytime
by those who care to be users,
by speaking this:
*Read to me poem number four,
on a day we celebrate,
about free men of every color and persuasion,
who are calling out to
open the door to storage unit four,
so we to can perform
our once-a-year
Tour of Duty
to the those who called,
and answered with limb and love,
for by their glory,
we are
free too*
to remember in any way we choose
~
May 24, 2015
May 24, 2015 at 5:18 PM UTC
opposite
the cemetery
laughter
echoes over headstones
children's peek-a-boo
(C)2012, Christos Rigakos
Oct 17, 2012
Oct 17, 2012 at 3:58 PM UTC
There's a little graveyard
just outside of town
The grass is overgrown
The trees are dead and brown
For as long as I remember
No one's been up there
And from the look of the dead flora
Nobody really cares
It's about a mile east of here
The fence is almost gone
It's never going to get mistaken
for good old forest lawn
There's not a stone of granite
Most are white, or made of wood
There are spots among the headstones
where others may have stood
I thought it was a potter's field
for those destitute and poor
but, upon close examination
i have discovered so much more
The names go back before the war
The civil one I mean
Back before the Pilgrims came
back to sixteen seventeen
There is no history of them at all
The names aren't from this town
But, there they are on ancient stone
Buried in our ground
It's really something different
The feeling of knowing who they were
Were they here in search of riches
Or chasing down the wealth of fur
I've checked all the stones still standing
Two hundred thirty one in all
that includes the stones rough hewn
left leaning by the wall
The town itself was started
Back in eighteen forty two
So compared to those here lying
The town is fairly new
The graveyard is neglected
There's no body here at rest
from since the town was started
laid in this hallowed nest
There's crosses and carved angels
Whole families as well
With this much soul protection
They will never go to hell
No one knows about them
But in this field the dead still lie
About a mile east of Vickston
With the road, cars passing by
No one will go up there
To tend those who came before
So, they'll sleep soft here forever
And dream of life forever more
Mar 24, 2015
Mar 24, 2015 at 12:08 AM UTC
The vane on Hughley steeple
Veers bright, a far-known sign,
And there lie Hughley people,
And there lie friends of mine.
Tall in their midst the tower
Divides the shade and sun,
And the clock strikes the hour
And tells the time to none.
To south the headstones cluster,
The sunny mounds lie thick;
The dead are more in muster
At Hughley than the quick.
North, for a soon-told number,
Chill graves the sexton delves,
And steeple-shadowed slumber
The slayers of themselves.
To north, to south, lie parted,
With Hughley tower above,
The kind, the single-hearted,
The lads I used to love.
And, south or north, 'tis only
A choice of friends one knows,
And I shall ne'er be lonely
Asleep with these or those.
2.7k
IF I should pass the tomb of Jonah
I would stop there and sit for awhile;
Because I was swallowed one time deep in the dark
And came out alive after all.
If I pass the burial spot of Nero
I shall say to the wind, "Well, well!"-
I who have fiddled in a world on fire,
I who have done so many stunts not worth doing.
I am looking for the grave of Sinbad too.
I want to shake his ghost-hand and say,
"Neither of us died very early, did we?"
And the last sleeping-place of Nebuchadnezzar-
When I arrive there I shall tell the wind:
"You ate grass; I have eaten crow-
Who is better off now or next year?"
Jack Cade, John Brown, Jesse James,
There too I could sit down and stop for awhile.
I think I could tell their headstones:
"God, let me remember all good losers."
I could ask people to throw ashes on their heads
In the name of that sergeant at Belleau Woods,
Walking into the drumfires, calling his men,
"Come on, you ... Do you want to live forever?"
2.5k
It’s all laundry and cigarettes
White-knuckle odd jobs
And freezing your *** off, at 7 AM, to
Help your buddy out
Breaking and bleeding, and
Smoking and shirtless, and
Spinning your finger and thumb
Counter-clockwise until the
Resulting ring of fire and fury can
Torch your inhibitions
No one ever restricted you from
Rioting with grace
And through the windshield of your vision,
The streets wake up to the smell of
Alcohol and experience
It’s all rubble in dumpsters, and
Spray paint that swears
Oaths, to bands and bandages
Singing the praises of
Stolen promises, their swiftly
Prying minds can’t understand
And you’re standing
In front of the truck
Arms outstretched
Pistons firing air through your
Organs, that vibrate with the
Trepidation of nightmarish resolve
It’s all battlefields and accomplices,
The kid that kicked you down so,
That you’d eat the dirt,
Place your teeth in
Leather pouches,
And taste defeat for decades
You’re pleasantly high on the
Smoke of your still-burning debt
You’re a supermarket superhero
You’re the queen of the Gasoline Dream
It’s in the way that
Your outline is
Edged out
By your insides, and the
Arms of the chair have become
Wings, that unfurl over
Valleys and oceans, of headstones,
And nursery wards
Tinted windows promise nothing
Regarding secrecy of soul
What would your wisdom teach me
About sentience?
Apr 24, 2014
Apr 24, 2014 at 11:36 AM UTC
Vast, empty, midnight hour,
hunchbacked lampposts glaring over parasitic black earth
choking its host.
A parking lot,
an ecosystem’s blemish—
hot tar seeping into the pores of the earth
like a stubborn blackhead in a lip line.
When no cars burrow into the blackened hide
like lice
the great absence of life
is an atrocity.
I imagine myself skateboarding across the tier
as the small town cops
watch languidly with vague interest—
A skateboarder’s paradise
where wheels and accomplice minds roll across celestial barriers
blasting infinite pulses
into the microcosm.
What greasy punks have their mother’s van parked here,
huddling by the heat vents
and jerking off into a Pringle’s can?
Empty parking lot
looks like a cemetery
filled to the brim
where headstones meld
over a mass grave—
delineated by white lines,
the apparitions of vehicles and their hosts
haunt the frozen space.
Another horrible excuse
to waste land,
a wasteland in and of itself
where Tom Eliot saunters aimlessly
and buries the dead.
The saddest sight to behold,
this vacuous parking lot
littered with stray shopping carts,
phantasmal plastic bags,
gum splotches,
***** stains,
candy wrappers,
cigarette butts,
used condoms,
lonely cops
and patient drug dealers,
ambulant skaters,
tired punks,
bored teenagers,
somnambulists,
stumbling drunks,
hunchbacked ***** lights
prying for life beneath its sallow gaze—
The air encapsulated within the perdition
stifling,
the pavement below stifling,
a constriction only visible
when emptied of its contents.
A cop wakes from their choking nightmare gasping
to find themselves trapped,
****** in this parking lot
where the walkie-talkie buzzes
with the weeping and gnashing of teeth.
The warehouse store
looming above the waiting room
lifeless, silent, dark countenance—
Big Brother sees all in the gaping maw.
Cascading before me,
stretching towards the highway passing by,
waiting for the panorama to finish scrolling,
the treadmill to cease its cycle—
all the while lamenting life’s absence
and reveling in the potentiality it possesses.
Dec 28, 2016
Dec 28, 2016 at 10:18 PM UTC