"indentations" poems
They say the pen is mightier than the sword
If this is true then God was the sword and you were a pen
And I was the pencil who laid you a foundation of erased mistakes only for you to trace upon them as if they didn't exist.
And I was cast in the bottom of some cluttered bag
while you were gently capped and placed in a box lined with blue silk,
And you knew I would always be there to test the waters before you spilled the pages with your brash delicacy.
But you needed me and I craved you for completion.
Together we created sweeping illustrations and lengthy novels with dozens of sequels.
We depicted a tale of modern love in our ball-pointed journey.
But my graphite stayed intact while your ink started to run out.
I could see as our pages unfolded that your colors no longer spread as boldly.
You became more and more invisible as I desperately etched harder and harder into every page hoping to give you clearer guidelines
but you no longer had it in you.
And soon enough we couldn't make anything beautiful.
You had run out.
And I'm still hopelessly drawing maps desperate that you can regain what you once had and use the indentations on previously blank pages to find your way back to me.
Feb 17, 2015
Feb 17, 2015 at 11:11 PM UTC
My eyelids seem
to be the strongest part of me.
When the rest of my body
falls
into the ocean
of blankets they
float open upon the white water
atop
the waves of sleep.
This is when you come back.
In this mattress I am a piece
of clay and I can still feel the deep indentations of where your fingers
wrapped themselves like Ivy around my hips.
Hips, that stuck out like white flags of surrender and
fell to the ground in a straight line.
I can still hear
you.
I am a broken record,
and your whispers are the only track that plays at this hour.
“You are fat”
“Look at how flat you are Emma, no boy will ever look at you.”
“You are ugly.”
These are the nights when I can
feel the spiderwebs your words wrapped around my ribs and
listen to the way my heart beats constricted
in its cage, your hand still clenched around it.
Can’t you see me bleeding?
Safety lies
beneath my eyelids but you pull them open
I can feel
your icy touch behind my eyes as I stare
coldly at the ceiling.
you demand to be heard.
Did you mean to put your words
in my pocket when you reached in to steal the sleep that was nestled there like crumpled dollar bills?
Do you realize that you stayed with me?
Can you take your stolen midnight hours back and place them on your pillowcase?
Will your eyelids close?
Or can you still hear my cries of protest as your soundtrack plays into the night?
I don't understand?
Did you think it wouldn't hurt me?
Or did you want to live forever,so you put your
fingerprints where you knew they wouldn't fade.
Mar 28, 2016
Mar 28, 2016 at 11:36 PM UTC
An urban legend of sorts they said, of a tree, of a
branch that took any weight given. it has nickname
It had a place in secluded nature where no one seen.
**"The *** tree,**
"Really,
"Ye but you have to watch your step,
"Why??
"Well lets just say its a well fertilized ground,
"The earth and plants feed well on the,
"Sap,
"Seeds,
Not from one but the many, I heard the branch
Can take any weight, a gentlemen of plentiful weight
Tested the legend and got stuck **** naked
Not for a,
"Moment,
"Minute,
"Hours,
"Was he stuck, birthday suit and all,
His lady friend had jogged off with wallet and all,
Its on YouTube,
Called tree hugger nudist,
There is loads of dents little *** holes,
Some say its all the ***** *******
So many hard ones poking dents,
indentations forever of ******* against this tree.
"I've been their done that,
Really,
"Never again,
"Were standing on this branch,
"What's that look for,
"Nothing,
(Giggles under breathe)
"Getting into the moment,
"Thought sap,
"Tree sap,
"Was seeping in to my hair,
"Don't stop what happened stuck,
*"Pants down skinny **** man up tree,*
(giggles loudly)
"Dude I'm 6 foot 5inches,
It was sap of a different kind,
(Gags in mouth)
No Fudging way,
Yep that's not the worst,
"How the hell does some one seed a tree that high,
**"It was like the tree was ******* itself,**
"Old juice, sap, Klingon,
"What ever I throw up on her,
She bit down,
I, we feel three feet out the tree,
"So that's what the plaster cast is from,
"Is that why your walking funny,
Twenty nine stitches its like something
From a Frankenstein film,
Never again my friend a bed is where ill be from
Now on, she fell in a puddle of Jib juice triplets
She had all three different, DNA tests on all
Who visited the tree.
As a video recorded of all who entered,
Just not the naked bits seen.
**"Nature can keep its *** tree,**
"I'll be lucky if mine works again,
"Mine isn't wood its a limp branch now,
*"Dude you got ****** by wood,*
"Bitten limp by teeth,
"Unlucky bro,
"Hahahahah,
"Rather you than me,
Jul 14, 2015
Jul 14, 2015 at 5:36 PM UTC
It's not OCD
I'm just anal-rententive.
There are two
coffee urns
in my office kitchenette.
Each urn has
a spot to place your mug
beneath the spigot.
Each of these spots has
a circular insert
of gridded plastic
to mark the mug-placement area
and allow spilled coffee to flow through
so this spot
doesn't become
just a puddle of coffee
soaking the bottom of everyone's mugs.
Each of these inserts has
three indentations:
one on each side
at nine and three o'clock
small, arcing parabolas
like reversed parentheses
there to allow someone to
get their fingers into the
coffee mug spot
and under the insert
to remove it
and, presumably
clean it
and then another indentation
more like a groove
or a notch
much smaller, thinner, and deeper
at the top
that fits perfectly with
a matching
small plastic protuberance
jutting from the coffee mug spot
where the insert goes.
In an almost ****** fashion
this protuberance fits into
this last indentation
this notch
this groove
to secure the insert in place.
For some reason
I've never known
perhaps laziness
perhaps inattentiveness
more likely simple
couldn't-care-less-ness
this insert never seems to be
placed into the mug spot
properly.
It is always placed sideways
rotated a quarter-turn
so that the larger indentations
on the side
meant as finger holes
are placed top-to-bottom
noon and six
the small plastic protuberance at the top
being swallowed whole
by the too-large indentation
and its mate
the groove
meant to hold the plastic piece
so tightly
is left alone
to one side
empty
and useless.
This has always bothered me.
Bothered me more than I would like to admit.
It's such a simple little thing to get right
it would take almost no effort at all
and yet, day-after-day
someone
I don't know who
whoever is in charge of these things
insists
on doing it wrong.
And I cannot abide it.
So, day-after-day
when I go to get my morning coffee
I fix it
I twist the insert ninety-degrees
and secure it in the correct position.
Lately
I have noticed something.
Sometimes
when I go to get my coffee
one of the inserts
will already be
fixed.
Someone else has seen
what I have seen
and felt the same
had the same response
took the same corrective action.
This feels like winning something.
I don't know what
but it definitely smells like Victory.
And Conspiracy.
And it makes me happy.
Happier than I'd like to admit.
Feb 6, 2013
Feb 6, 2013 at 10:32 AM UTC
Footprints so carelessly left in the sand:
So varied, haphazard, yet one common band.
The confidant jogger, the beach-combing wren,
The legions of desperate women and men,
Each of them leaves behind wet indentations
For those so inclined to survey and relate them.
How heavy the footsteps of those bearing burdens,
While almost an outline from those sans diversions.
These footprints so often abandoned are strange,
For they effect any who come into range.
How so many strive to make some path go noticed,
When often the same ones leave marks out of focus.
Ghosts of the efforts of steps left behind,
Yet lost to the ages, anonymous finds.
But one thing unites all the grainy debris:
These footprints will be swallowed up the sea.
Aug 13, 2012
Aug 13, 2012 at 7:12 PM UTC
his Eyes are the leafy root of a carrot,
Portals to the sustenance underground.
his Feet are bare but determined to go far.
his mouth is a canopy to a dense forest
Hiding from the world, what lays inside.
his flyaway hair, like a fallen piece of bark,
an imperfection that's part of a perfect picture.
his Thoughts are raindrops pouring off of an elephant leaf,
Small indentations flowing from a vast expanse.
his Voice is the wind, carrying me away to a better place.
his Charisma is Grandfather Mountain who holds old wisdom,
ever durable through the storm.
his Past, a collection of sand,
is molding into a seashell that will take a lifetime to form.
his Soul is a pinecone,
Guarded on the outside but holds something precious to me.
Sep 23, 2011
Sep 23, 2011 at 8:33 AM UTC
~
Miles of nothing,
beige on beige on beige
The sun is screaming,
blistering my skin,
draining me slowly
as breath is heated
and tastes bitter
Shoulders slung low
I can’t stand straight,
bent over struggling,
nothing is anywhere
and nowhere is here
Leaving footprints
for the wind dancers,
black feather fathers,
winged circlers
High above, watching
sifting time
in weakened increments,
hourglass patterns of
falling granules
sinking deeper
Water is a dream
and this dream, a nightmare
for it is there,
just ahead, I can see it glistening
but it does not exist
nothing exists,
as the oasis in my mind
dries up, leaving
empty indentations
on horizontal planes, flat lands
of arid emotions
drifting in and out
reaching for…
reaching
Aug 3, 2015
Aug 3, 2015 at 12:03 PM UTC
Rotting meat lined the walls
of the spot where the crime was committed
Locked from the outside
Shut in as the oil burned,
the smoke engulfing,
the flames consuming the people as they screamed, "Let me out"
but the indentations of the footprints on the door spoke loudest
They spoke of 25 beautiful faces
lost in pursuit of the American Dream.®
May 2, 2018
May 2, 2018 at 6:33 PM UTC
I gave her a book of poems
for her birthday.
And an eraser.
Not that the graphite words
were exceptionally poignant
but I felt that a gift
with a little something
scribbled on it
would be a bit more personal
than one that’s unblemished.
Even though the letters were destined
to be as fleeting
as those on sand,
even though the waves were the gentle
graceful strokes of her fingers,
even though it was a sanitisation
that could have easily been avoided
had she chosen me
over him,
I wrote them.
Because I knew that like scars
the tiny indentations would stay
and her beautiful fingertips
would feel them
if she ever chose
to run them over the page
while thinking of me.
If she’s ever thinking of me.
So I wrote with a pencil
and didn’t flinch
when my affection was reduced to
little grey globs of synthetic rubber.
“For my dearest , Love Anjuman”
was all that I’d written, anyway.
Oct 23, 2013
Oct 23, 2013 at 10:25 AM UTC
His name was meant
for someone three times his age.
Someone who reaches into
the pocket of his sweater
for little hard candies,
amidst games of shuffleboard
and canasta.
I would have never pegged him
for a Walter or a Leonard.
(Wait, was it Larry?)
But then again,
the way he
sweet talked me into
his bed that night,
I would've never expected to
wake up alone
the next morning.
A post-it note balancing delicately
on the indentations of his pillow;
Had to go to work. Nice meeting you, doll.
Aug 28, 2012
Aug 28, 2012 at 10:41 PM UTC
Since adolescence
I have been an insomniac,
something sought after
these days,
by ignorance
masquerading itself as
open-mindedness.
An hour to me is not an hour to you.
The same standards apply,
only because those
restrictions can not be lifted.
Such a beautiful tragedy,
concerning a man made
mandate,
that dictates calendar years
and sixty second intervals.
The sound a scribble makes
at three in the morning is
a continuing story of dark circles
and ever slowly forming indentations
that are everlasting countenances.
The sound dead leaves make
as they're stepped on quickly
shows a path yet to be discovered,
leading to an uncovered face formed
by bark, mottled with sweat
as sweet as syrup.
A petrified face.
Covering a worn sponge.
One willing to grow and absorb.
A tired brain.
Swimming in Dextromethorphan.
Controlling a hand
that extends to yawn.
After counting
sixty sheep,
I'll start my next interval.
One nod to know
it worked.
Nov 20, 2016
Nov 20, 2016 at 3:15 PM UTC
A glimpse of blond and shadow,
tall and hunched.
I would paint him as a morning sun,
a blood orange with pinks and golds,
my strokes would be soft
like the blush on his
cheekbones and
the indentations beside his mouth.
I would paint his face a grey,
like clouds that are confused, swirling
and whirling but
amused by the slightest thing.
As I near his chest, I
would paint his heart a purple, so dark and deep,
juxtaposing his bashful smile and *****
blond hair.
The 5 o'clock shadow
spreading its graceful limbs along
his angular jaw,
I would paint a mauve brown,
reflecting the days
of nerves and sadness
as his red-stained lips drop, the smile
gone.
Like the knock of an elbow,
harsh and sharp, eyes
seeing stars, the pain is all consuming
at first, all he can think about and then
the ground stills, the sky is pink,
the grass
a burnt yellow.
I would paint his face blue.
Jun 14, 2015
Jun 14, 2015 at 4:49 AM UTC
It was a trackless railway
In the woods
A bit misunderstood
Stripped
Abandoned
And secluded
It was Illusionious
In its imprints
Its indentations
Of footsteps
Intersecting
In sections
With the phantoms
Of past steps
The glints
Of stimuli
Widened my eyes
In My
Accension
From feeble
Mindedness
Suspended
In rhymes
In rows
In times
And places
But this time
It's just different
As I
Blindly
Signed the sky
In denial
Of the price
And paid nothing
Jun 8, 2013
Jun 8, 2013 at 1:55 AM UTC
Stare at your bedroom wall
and bard me a story about
the creeks of white between
the sun-patches of blue paint,
the faded yellow of the door
where the damp towel was hung
day after day after day.
Tell me about the mark
of a swept paintbrush
that accidentally destroyed
distinction between wall
and radiator.
They're no longer clean,
either of them.
How are the door handle dent marks
from that hurried moment when
you rushed into your room
away from our argument?
What of those stories?
Will you need a new place
to erase the memories from your mind?
The flies and the walls cannot speak
to anyone but you now.
It's all rotten anyway.
The sweet stink of evenings
spent in an intimate supine,
with a cleaver caught upright
in the cutting board bedpost.
We were atop one another
with our faces to the ceiling,
reading passages of poems aloud
after drenching the bed sheets
in varied indentations.
Cut words and minced gazes,
we grayed as shadows
against those weathered walls.
I remember those walls,
moonlight had reflected off the frames
of littered photographs, those stories,
and created a dance floor pattern of crescents
and plank-meeting-plank askew.
Those walls will tell me stories
even if you decide not to anymore.
I'd buy them all up, I would,
as I do the meat hook-hanging
in the butcher shop.
Sep 9, 2012
Sep 9, 2012 at 1:01 AM UTC
I want to run my fingers
along the indentations
your favorite pants
left pressed on your hipbones
after a long day
Jun 21, 2013
Jun 21, 2013 at 1:35 AM UTC
You think you're the better writer with
Your indentations,
Arrogant alliteration,
Games of Rhymation;
When You Capitalize For No Good Reason
OR TYPE IN ALL CAPS;
When you type in italic just because you can;
With thy ineffectual employment of Shakespearean formulation
Or elongated conveyance of your articulation,
When you type in
funny patterns to
better express the
thoughtfulness and
superiority behind the gemstone
artist,
And, all- your; meaningful, strategically placed' punctuation!
And perpisfuly mispled wurds bcuz yur so ironic,
And your cryptic title that's meant to come off as genius.
Dylan could crack a skull without a hammer.
Mar 18, 2014
Mar 18, 2014 at 2:45 PM UTC
oh, violet,
where have you gone?
i miss you.
stars still enliven the shadowy night sky,
but those far-reaching streaks of lavender
escaped
the evening’s backdrop
before I could engrave them into my memory.
the snug, lilac comforter on my own bed
no longer a safe haven,
a rigid, metal cage,
trapping me within my midnight hallucinations.
eyes close over and over again,
yet i can’t find a way to escape
from the pale, mauve speckles
that dotted your brown eyes
whenever the moonlight shined down on them.
oh, violet,
where have you gone?
i miss you.
i followed your footsteps,
etched into the remains of my heart,
repaired so below par with the thinnest papier-mâchéu.
but they only led me to a solemn place
where no soul had ever set foot.
faultless, pallid fingertips
trace over deep, orchid indentations of your name,
carved heavily into the walls,
framing my hiding place,
wholly staining your acrid touch into yet another expanse of myself.
every last brush of skin on the hard plaster,
sent me searching, further and further away from you.
laying motionlessly,
overtaken by worn-down gusts of yesterday’s altitudes.
oh, violet,
where have you gone?
i miss you.
daybreak sun rises,
somber shades of purple escape from the horizon.
i haven’t slept a second,
for i fear the dark purple tint that lies behind my eyelids.
light pours through thin cracks of closet doors,
yet the illumination fails to cast shadows off your rigid silhouette .
oh, violet,
where have you gone?
i miss you.
i miss you.
May 30, 2015
May 30, 2015 at 4:29 PM UTC
artists of flesh
wielding shades of exertion
splashing on canvas sheets
bright through closed eyes
I'm your thumbprint expressionist
mattress impressionist
bristles for taste buds make
broad strokes the emphasis
aptly utensil
fills focal to edges
though tipping the easel
conception seems effortless
brilliantly tincture
accentuates fervor
while crescent depressions
raise apogee further
Sep 29, 2014
Sep 29, 2014 at 2:46 AM UTC
The Lies were better
The gossip was sweeter
I'm slamming my fists against his chest
I never appreciated the effort all that pretense took
I didn't see how much simpler it was
Not to know
I don't want to know
When the rumors began to unravel
I was the one who tore them apart
It was as sadistic as ripping a flowers' petals away
to see inside
I saw all I needed to see and more
I saw it all before my time
I couldn't stop the Lies from falling at my feet
I tried to patch them together again, gently,
but they fell apart
and unraveled
some more.
Now I will always know
And I will always remember how the Lies
crashed into my mind
Like the rough waves of the sea
that leaves violent indentations on the sand before they leave again
silently
I never really knew him
Until the Lies began to unravel
I heard the rumors and he fell a little further
When I put my face to close to the fire
I was hungry for answers, but I didn't know
That I don't want to know
and they
burnt his memory ever so slightly
Then the truth escaped
and he was set on fire.
The night was better
The Lies were easier
living in darkness makes it easy to put out the flames
Living in this daylight is too bright, too real.
I loved the subtle distortions
but now they've become ugly truths
Oct 21, 2013
Oct 21, 2013 at 11:17 AM UTC
the novelty fades
along with the glamour
sprinkling down like a cheap glitter shower
a spring shower;
soft
creeping along your hairline with the smell of light lilacs in a secret garden
dribbling wonderfully through a greasy scalp
one of the most ****** showers that’ll take place for a while
leaving loose indentations and wet feet and a swirling drain clogged with six years of hair
i should have thrown myself a line
now there’s just stale-smelling rooms and a lost little creature
rich in words
shallow in talent
its mouth is a river and help help it’s drowning
my head’s turned to mush and my heart’s turned to stone
i'm a rock caught between the spokes of your bike
twirling and whirling my hair brushes the ground with the bumpity-bump-bump of each rise and fall
it's hot down here, so close to the pavement
worms are frying, they better watch out,
or the rubber sole of a midnight wanderer will eat them right up
also your feet stink I would wash your shoes if I were you
i wish i wish i wish i wish
i wish i could make words fly from my tongue and spin worlds and not cower from the unseen
i wish i could melt through carpet and slip through cracks in the concrete
i don't want to be anymore
being is hard
i would be satisfied with a nonexistence
no more bridges to burn or heads to crack
no more bleeding eyes and empty shampoo bottles that cost too much and run out too early
no music that will get old
no glasses that will drain themselves
no more trying to fix something that isn’t there
no more pathetic musings
no more tear-stained pillowcases and forced laughter through one-way glass
goodbye persona 182
you were beautiful while you lasted
Jul 13, 2013
Jul 13, 2013 at 2:46 PM UTC
It's hard to walk
the dunes of depression.
Not only from the loose shifting sands,
but the presence of soul eating,
demonic illusions
that pretend to be poetic
yet are just rotting, hypnotic words
hell bent on falsifying your mind.
The ironic indentations
in this madness
is you are standing amidst
blue sky lithium dreams
of xanax desires,
stuck with rainbow's
colors pounding at you,
making you think everything is fine
as the whole world burns;
a "one day at a time"
horror show
that shouts a **** you
symphony in B sharp major.
Hell,
no wonder
I love the "blues".
Aztec Warrior 7/12/15
Jul 14, 2015
Jul 14, 2015 at 9:38 AM UTC
Alone in her room, she writes feverishly,
Fueled by adoration:
“I love you because you fear
The very thing that will unite us;
I’ll remember you, even in oblivion.”
Alone in her thoughts, the moon rises
With her chest as she takes deep breaths
As she smears the ink, the liquid words that read:
“Can you feel my heartbeats
In the indentations of this letter?”
She begs him to remember,
To try and picture their first date;
She says, “I know it’s hard right now,
But you are stronger than the things
That have ever dared to bring you down.”
She begs him to recall
Sitting in a coffee shop somewhere
In the heart of a beautiful fall
And if he wakes up, she wonders,
“Will he remember me at all?”
This letter is not about her,
Though her scent engulfs the page;
No, this was never about her,
Though she wants him to remember her name
When he wakes from someone else’s mistake
And if the sound of her voice
Is not enough to provoke
Even the simplest memory of their love,
She prays through tears that her
Ink-stained words will be enough.
Dec 3, 2013
Dec 3, 2013 at 6:27 PM UTC
In any mirrored face
the homeless sees nothing shuffling
from his favorite stores
At night they feel their wild
canine teeth
Words surfacing
uncollected in fragments and scratches
besde underdeveloped manors
in the city's growing mold
and buildings separated by dust like a ream of books
on the trail to the open west
Noise clock, sharp chiming
and unbearable
soot blackness of perpetual rain
pulsing faintly in a palsied
flow of the oppressive
heats and sounds
My sister is a forgotten composer of rebellion
given only the courage
to think her words will merely be
a droning
cello's moans
and preludes unsettled
and old
Without authority
someone might hear her
centuries too late
when few will give her a wait or wax cylinder
of words no better than it's tremorless
indentations unseen by the eyes and ears
The days of crystalized quartz
and effeminate handshakes and kisses
vacant gestures and the beautiful
view of the destitue on a warm
spring morning in the park
Oct 20, 2011
Oct 20, 2011 at 1:23 PM UTC
“extra condoms” (explicit!)
a title deposited in the poem-to-do file/notebook,
with no body yet to follow through on or upon
which she tumbles to, an irresistible unrepentant
crooked finger hook line and she is sinker stinker caught,
worming in her feigned anger
current curiosity comes
fast and furious further,
demeanor—demanding
ex-explain-nations,
how could this
ever be a
poem?
stare ferocious, I am the prettiest pretense
of a pride incarnation hu-mane incarnate
call me in another language
Vasco da Gama
a sea route to India will uncover
on your worldly tattooed body,
drawing maps as we go along
devour her neck with stingless bites,
explorer voyager a rambunctious tongue undenied,
every space in and between needs
surging surgical tastings, erupting into her indentations,
inserting her appendages into my places where they
have a business going-knowing
just in case that’s the one!
secret passageway canal holy crossing crossover
later she whacks me because the question goes unanswered
and no sheath employed when my tongued fingers are ten times
more demanding and supple and supply the exploratory course closing with spices and woven silks in Indian colors vibrations
*why then,
extra?
god she is so lovely locomotive annoying!
to peak you peeking
to see your astounding astonishment,
you are our provisions for a sea voyage
and put the risk in, the trigger in,
when wherever you see the world-word,*
extra
May 18, 2018
May 18, 2018 at 6:06 PM UTC
The return ~
It was a trackless railway
In the woods
A bit misunderstood
Stripped
Abandoned
And secluded
It was illusionious
In its imprints
Its indentations
Of footsteps
Intersecting
In sections
In phantoms
Passed
In half
Steps
And in glints of stimuli
I widened my eyes
In my
Accension
From feeble mindedness
Suspended
In rhymes
In rows
In times
And in places
But this one time
It was just different
As I
Blindly
Signed the sky
In denial
Of the price
And paid nothing
~
Feb 2, 2014
Feb 2, 2014 at 12:53 AM UTC