"horizontals" poems - Hello Poetry

The horizons ring me like ******* Tilted and disparate, and always unstable. Touched by a match, they might warm me, And their fine lines singe The air to orange Before the distances they pin evaporate, Weighting the pale sky with a soldier color. But they only dissolve and dissolve Like a series of promises, as I step forward. There is no life higher than the grasstops Or the hearts of sheep, and the wind Pours by like destiny, bending Everything in one direction. I can feel it trying To funnel my heat away. If I pay the roots of the heather Too close attention, they will invite me To whiten my bones among them. The sheep know where they are, Browsing in their ***** wool-clouds, Gray as the weather. The black slots of their pupils take me in. It is like being mailed into space, A thin, silly message. They stand about in grandmotherly disguise, All wig curls and yellow teeth And hard, marbly baas. I come to wheel ruts, and water Limpid as the solitudes That flee through my fingers. Hollow doorsteps go from grass to grass; Lintel and sill have unhinged themselves. Of people and the air only Remembers a few odd syllables. It rehearses them moaningly: Black stone, black stone. The sky leans on me, me, the one upright Among all horizontals. The grass is beating its head distractedly. It is too delicate For a life in such company; Darkness terrifies it. Now, in valleys narrow And black as purses, the house lights Gleam like small change.

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3.3k

Sylvia Plath

Wuthering Heights

The horizons ring me like ******* Tilted and disparate, and always unstable. Touched by a match, they might warm me, And their fine lines singe The air to orange Before the distances they pin evaporate, Weighting the pale sky with a soldier color. But they only dissolve and dissolve Like a series of promises, as I step forward. There is no life higher than the grasstops Or the hearts of sheep, and the wind Pours by like destiny, bending Everything in one direction. I can feel it trying To funnel my heat away. If I pay the roots of the heather Too close attention, they will invite me To whiten my bones among them. The sheep know where they are, Browsing in their ***** wool-clouds, Gray as the weather. The black slots of their pupils take me in. It is like being mailed into space, A thin, silly message. They stand about in grandmotherly disguise, All wig curls and yellow teeth And hard, marbly baas. I come to wheel ruts, and water Limpid as the solitudes That flee through my fingers. Hollow doorsteps go from grass to grass; Lintel and sill have unhinged themselves. Of people and the air only Remembers a few odd syllables. It rehearses them moaningly: Black stone, black stone. The sky leans on me, me, the one upright Among all horizontals. The grass is beating its head distractedly. It is too delicate For a life in such company; Darkness terrifies it. Now, in valleys narrow And black as purses, the house lights Gleam like small change.

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The horizons ring me like ******* Tilted and disparate, and always unstable. Touched by a match, they might warm me, And their fine lines singe The air to orange Before the distances they pin evaporate, Weighting the pale sky with a soldier color. But they only dissolve and dissolve Like a series of promises, as I step forward. There is no life higher than the grasstops Or the hearts of sheep, and the wind Pours by like destiny, bending Everything in one direction. I can feel it trying To funnel my heat away. If I pay the roots of the heather Too close attention, they will invite me To whiten my bones among them. The sheep know where they are, Browsing in their ***** wool-clouds, Gray as the weather. The black slots of their pupils take me in. It is like being mailed into space, A thin, silly message. They stand about in grandmotherly disguise, All wig curls and yellow teeth And hard, marbly baas. I come to wheel ruts, and water Limpid as the solitudes That flee through my fingers. Hollow doorsteps go from grass to grass; Lintel and sill have unhinged themselves. Of people and the air only Remembers a few odd syllables. It rehearses them moaningly: Black stone, black stone. The sky leans on me, me, the one upright Among all horizontals. The grass is beating its head distractedly. It is too delicate For a life in such company; Darkness terrifies it. Now, in valleys narrow And black as purses, the house lights Gleam like small change.

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2.9k

Sylvia Plath

Wuthering Heights

The horizons ring me like ******* Tilted and disparate, and always unstable. Touched by a match, they might warm me, And their fine lines singe The air to orange Before the distances they pin evaporate, Weighting the pale sky with a soldier color. But they only dissolve and dissolve Like a series of promises, as I step forward. There is no life higher than the grasstops Or the hearts of sheep, and the wind Pours by like destiny, bending Everything in one direction. I can feel it trying To funnel my heat away. If I pay the roots of the heather Too close attention, they will invite me To whiten my bones among them. The sheep know where they are, Browsing in their ***** wool-clouds, Gray as the weather. The black slots of their pupils take me in. It is like being mailed into space, A thin, silly message. They stand about in grandmotherly disguise, All wig curls and yellow teeth And hard, marbly baas. I come to wheel ruts, and water Limpid as the solitudes That flee through my fingers. Hollow doorsteps go from grass to grass; Lintel and sill have unhinged themselves. Of people and the air only Remembers a few odd syllables. It rehearses them moaningly: Black stone, black stone. The sky leans on me, me, the one upright Among all horizontals. The grass is beating its head distractedly. It is too delicate For a life in such company; Darkness terrifies it. Now, in valleys narrow And black as purses, the house lights Gleam like small change.

45

Stop! Stand there in that yellow line That line, yes, painted in yellow Extending relentlessly in horizontals Dividing our world and will keep me away from you Now I can see you, and so do you You are just 10 steps away from me But 1 more step and you'll break that line, which is yellow No, not the yellow line, your shoes should not touch its edges Oh my poor yellow line Just an old habit, intoxicating myself in the wonders, Now I wonder, wondering if once you stepped in that yellow line You might see the oddities of my world revolving in solitudes Plain gray celestial bodies and dull stars It's simply really boring there you know..(while shoulders shrugging) My way of stopping you is such an abomination! Diabolicaly unacceptable! Causing this whole fiasco to be more catastrophic, you can rebuke me if you please How could I? Forgiveness should not be given right? Its too much to be deserved by the person behind those yellow lines which is not you Now you are walking away I'm just there gazing at your back then back to my precious yellow line I just noticed now, why does the flute i'm playing produces no sound? It looses its voice, must be broken for the first time No, not in the melancholic blues again I've been too much indulged there Maybe I should paint my moon green? A touch of blue in my sun, Then a little red in my stars Orange in the asteroids then Rainbows in the planets Of course, yellow in my whole universe Now it's so bizzare and confusing but I love it But nope not to call him back Nor the other shoes to step on that yellow line No shoes should touch my yellow line Now, there i'm sleepy but before that I just realized, Monsters inside you simply be awaken and unleashed through playing with poetries And again, the line which is painted in yellow

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May 22, 2015

May 22, 2015 at 10:34 AM UTC

rhiz

Don't step on the yellow line

Stop! Stand there in that yellow line That line, yes, painted in yellow Extending relentlessly in horizontals Dividing our world and will keep me away from you Now I can see you, and so do you You are just 10 steps away from me But 1 more step and you'll break that line, which is yellow No, not the yellow line, your shoes should not touch its edges Oh my poor yellow line Just an old habit, intoxicating myself in the wonders, Now I wonder, wondering if once you stepped in that yellow line You might see the oddities of my world revolving in solitudes Plain gray celestial bodies and dull stars It's simply really boring there you know..(while shoulders shrugging) My way of stopping you is such an abomination! Diabolicaly unacceptable! Causing this whole fiasco to be more catastrophic, you can rebuke me if you please How could I? Forgiveness should not be given right? Its too much to be deserved by the person behind those yellow lines which is not you Now you are walking away I'm just there gazing at your back then back to my precious yellow line I just noticed now, why does the flute i'm playing produces no sound? It looses its voice, must be broken for the first time No, not in the melancholic blues again I've been too much indulged there Maybe I should paint my moon green? A touch of blue in my sun, Then a little red in my stars Orange in the asteroids then Rainbows in the planets Of course, yellow in my whole universe Now it's so bizzare and confusing but I love it But nope not to call him back Nor the other shoes to step on that yellow line No shoes should touch my yellow line Now, there i'm sleepy but before that I just realized, Monsters inside you simply be awaken and unleashed through playing with poetries And again, the line which is painted in yellow

37

Look, up in the clouds full of black horizontals; a night is born in little dawdles, in brown day bank gasps, earliest stars bowling to break. I am here, with you, under it; planning to grant you the little pictures that you so desire. This chapter belongs to us; to us. Look, left of the moon, by the rain steeples; a night is born.

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Jan 11, 2021

Jan 11, 2021 at 8:05 PM UTC

EvanS

Love Song, Night

Look, up in the clouds full of black horizontals; a night is born in little dawdles, in brown day bank gasps, earliest stars bowling to break. I am here, with you, under it; planning to grant you the little pictures that you so desire. This chapter belongs to us; to us. Look, left of the moon, by the rain steeples; a night is born.

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And we left faery rings where we danced And giggled, in old classrooms. And what we spoke, in soft murmurs, Was poetry. More than the ramblings Of our teacher could be called. Every word we whispered In uncertainty, up on tree branches, Was poetry. Poetry was the words we mumbled into each other's mouths On balmy, rooftop evenings Following our days in labyrinth-like malls And each time he caresses my face And tangles his skinny fingers in my hair All I can think about is you All I hear is whisperings of your name Even when i sit with pen and paper And write with conviction and structure about his dusky caramelness Your eyes break through in my words And your face seems plainly written, Hidden between lines, Mocking me till I spot it. The rustly pages whisper your name to me. And the words about him Change slowly their meaning And evolve into adjectives Singing about the sugar in your voice And the warm love of your arms. It is a slow transfiguration/ a transformation Like a children's flip book With the torso of a pot-bellied clown And bottom half of Adonis In the way that, slowly, The lines become about you. Giggling secretly to each other In disjointed horizontals.

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Apr 13, 2015

Apr 13, 2015 at 2:31 PM UTC

crepuscule

Poetry

And we left faery rings where we danced And giggled, in old classrooms. And what we spoke, in soft murmurs, Was poetry. More than the ramblings Of our teacher could be called. Every word we whispered In uncertainty, up on tree branches, Was poetry. Poetry was the words we mumbled into each other's mouths On balmy, rooftop evenings Following our days in labyrinth-like malls And each time he caresses my face And tangles his skinny fingers in my hair All I can think about is you All I hear is whisperings of your name Even when i sit with pen and paper And write with conviction and structure about his dusky caramelness Your eyes break through in my words And your face seems plainly written, Hidden between lines, Mocking me till I spot it. The rustly pages whisper your name to me. And the words about him Change slowly their meaning And evolve into adjectives Singing about the sugar in your voice And the warm love of your arms. It is a slow transfiguration/ a transformation Like a children's flip book With the torso of a pot-bellied clown And bottom half of Adonis In the way that, slowly, The lines become about you. Giggling secretly to each other In disjointed horizontals.

35

all our money not my money not my life not my problem not my problem yeah I have time no problem, we have a problem call your sister call your dad and then ring mom up, buy the groceries clean the fridge out find more blue bags and buy more blue bins and sort it all out just get yourself sorted and everything always works out for me but that popcorn seed is still stuck in my teeth and my heart is screaming and yet scary unfeeling but you just have a sparkle to you, it's so great having you but we wish you never came and I wish I never came and we'll all wish to go somewhere else but we're still here smiling, struggling to eat I don't like it, but I'm eating it doesn't feel good but I'm eating finished the whole bag look I'm eating all these salt lines under fingernails forgot to cut them last week haven't touched my toes in god knows how long except for when I tripped in the shed big bruises on legs that don't feel like pulling their weight and I'm lost and stumbling and I'm not really falling because that would mean I was upright and I'm more of a horizontals kind of guy, I'm fine.

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Sep 11, 2024

Sep 11, 2024 at 10:48 PM UTC

KayBee

I'm fine

all our money not my money not my life not my problem not my problem yeah I have time no problem, we have a problem call your sister call your dad and then ring mom up, buy the groceries clean the fridge out find more blue bags and buy more blue bins and sort it all out just get yourself sorted and everything always works out for me but that popcorn seed is still stuck in my teeth and my heart is screaming and yet scary unfeeling but you just have a sparkle to you, it's so great having you but we wish you never came and I wish I never came and we'll all wish to go somewhere else but we're still here smiling, struggling to eat I don't like it, but I'm eating it doesn't feel good but I'm eating finished the whole bag look I'm eating all these salt lines under fingernails forgot to cut them last week haven't touched my toes in god knows how long except for when I tripped in the shed big bruises on legs that don't feel like pulling their weight and I'm lost and stumbling and I'm not really falling because that would mean I was upright and I'm more of a horizontals kind of guy, I'm fine.

2

I talk to myself as the night arrives in little caskets slipping over yellow rooftops. Winter slithers & rattles back under the doors, while spring slews in on orange cloud. I say your name & a luster throbs across the walls. Late hours are breach born, full of bent bays of lamp light, I plead into the ceiling until I fill with sharp shapes draped raw, & my little speeches perish in gloves of air. Out of the window, black ribbons streak the riverbank face to the moon etchings. High tides blot me: I still feel as I did when I met you. You're a heart shaker, you wrest the lid from the world, your joy fills my naked mouth. But something has gone wrong, hasn't it? Disordered, melancholy - you, too, see the night-caskets, don't you? Dublin facades vanish beneath rain scissor arms. But it needn't be so - come and lean on me. I will remind you that spring is come with green armies of blithe devotion, trees flick with leaf, & you are loved. I know you don't even like me to call you babe, not anymore, but I'll live with that - I'll tell the floorboards, the starlings and magpies, the unsealed horizontals that report at dawn: it will be alright, it will be alright.

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Mar 6, 2021

Mar 6, 2021 at 8:17 PM UTC

EvanS

Spring Speech

I talk to myself as the night arrives in little caskets slipping over yellow rooftops. Winter slithers & rattles back under the doors, while spring slews in on orange cloud. I say your name & a luster throbs across the walls. Late hours are breach born, full of bent bays of lamp light, I plead into the ceiling until I fill with sharp shapes draped raw, & my little speeches perish in gloves of air. Out of the window, black ribbons streak the riverbank face to the moon etchings. High tides blot me: I still feel as I did when I met you. You're a heart shaker, you wrest the lid from the world, your joy fills my naked mouth. But something has gone wrong, hasn't it? Disordered, melancholy - you, too, see the night-caskets, don't you? Dublin facades vanish beneath rain scissor arms. But it needn't be so - come and lean on me. I will remind you that spring is come with green armies of blithe devotion, trees flick with leaf, & you are loved. I know you don't even like me to call you babe, not anymore, but I'll live with that - I'll tell the floorboards, the starlings and magpies, the unsealed horizontals that report at dawn: it will be alright, it will be alright.

65

Behind almost all things Where the trees meet the edge of the frame It could have been not this but that In the distance is a darker shape Its position decided on a collection. Falling like snow without regularity The canvas surface is patches of colour Horizontals and verticals intersect The park with its green avenues Glides in and out of a century of stories. Its conclusion resting On a final brush stroke. Love Mary xxxxx

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Mar 28, 2018

Mar 28, 2018 at 7:36 AM UTC

mary-gay-kearns

It could have been.

Behind almost all things Where the trees meet the edge of the frame It could have been not this but that In the distance is a darker shape Its position decided on a collection. Falling like snow without regularity The canvas surface is patches of colour Horizontals and verticals intersect The park with its green avenues Glides in and out of a century of stories. Its conclusion resting On a final brush stroke. Love Mary xxxxx

13

Shake the hands of the Devil Wag the tail of the dog Open the side of the great wide sea Shimmering in the tears of burning trees Dear Devil, grant me my three wishes You have my soul and all that is told The sea is bubbling over onto the great plains Watch the insane grip their books and their canes Purple fish in a cloud of deep wonder Car horns blow in my air like a great wind The win we were hoping for will not come And my eyes are bleeding from staring into the sun A care free husband and a strict down to Earth daughter Free water in pails rusted and depraved Makes my pulse skip a beat, my heart catapult A man sits next to me with a vial and a sulk Two walk together without anything to say The children play with their toys While their mother is lost in line away Father tells me I can go as long as I pay Star tended sky with streaks of pearl and blue We sat side by side with her hands in a tie Your feet were larger and warmer than mine Your smile in the moonlight so wide and kind "A snarl for your thoughts?" asked the shadow. "I've got all the time in the world as long as you're not bothered." "A snarl?" I returned, "Why not a white lie?" He nodded and I say, "When night falls, be calm." Concrete horizontals with black and tan misfortunes The straw is in the shake and we're down to the last drop I allow myself forgiveness, but others, they do not Sometimes love feels like handcuffs, strapped down, and caught Whisper through the window from the midnight moon Go to the window and declare yourself free A shout, a plea, a lonely man speaks to a burning tree Wishing for direction in a world so devoid of divinity The locks of her hair tumbled down her face Like rocks down a mountainside. We watched the rings of the sun turn, Listening to the changing of the tide. I take no boundaries to the limits of this and that A cradle only rocks for so long a time Magazine covers of pretty girls who never end The separation is coming. The divide of us and them.

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Mar 24, 2014

Mar 24, 2014 at 8:46 PM UTC

ashby-brown

Us & Them

Shake the hands of the Devil Wag the tail of the dog Open the side of the great wide sea Shimmering in the tears of burning trees Dear Devil, grant me my three wishes You have my soul and all that is told The sea is bubbling over onto the great plains Watch the insane grip their books and their canes Purple fish in a cloud of deep wonder Car horns blow in my air like a great wind The win we were hoping for will not come And my eyes are bleeding from staring into the sun A care free husband and a strict down to Earth daughter Free water in pails rusted and depraved Makes my pulse skip a beat, my heart catapult A man sits next to me with a vial and a sulk Two walk together without anything to say The children play with their toys While their mother is lost in line away Father tells me I can go as long as I pay Star tended sky with streaks of pearl and blue We sat side by side with her hands in a tie Your feet were larger and warmer than mine Your smile in the moonlight so wide and kind "A snarl for your thoughts?" asked the shadow. "I've got all the time in the world as long as you're not bothered." "A snarl?" I returned, "Why not a white lie?" He nodded and I say, "When night falls, be calm." Concrete horizontals with black and tan misfortunes The straw is in the shake and we're down to the last drop I allow myself forgiveness, but others, they do not Sometimes love feels like handcuffs, strapped down, and caught Whisper through the window from the midnight moon Go to the window and declare yourself free A shout, a plea, a lonely man speaks to a burning tree Wishing for direction in a world so devoid of divinity The locks of her hair tumbled down her face Like rocks down a mountainside. We watched the rings of the sun turn, Listening to the changing of the tide. I take no boundaries to the limits of this and that A cradle only rocks for so long a time Magazine covers of pretty girls who never end The separation is coming. The divide of us and them.

44