"indeterminate" poems
**** me like the ocean would the moon, Dear Amaranthine.
Teach me as you would any abecedarian, slow with pace.
My pallid arms are spread, and feet are crossed.
Crucify me, like one of your French girls.
Your endless frame arched over mine
a vaulting testament to the heat
of your front against my back.
This scene should have been a chapel.
Through hazed musk I can taste the saline
as it tumbles from your dripping brunette tendrils
forming brooks and lagoons the color of flesh
in the glens and about the islands of my spine.
I wish I could write about you in me
while you dance a contemporary beat
ceaseless, indeterminate, untold are
your feats within and upon my person.
For a split moment, seconds shattered in two,
I am completely and totally permeated by you.
I whine for you to vacillate me, I am ******* begging
to be occupied, satiated, by a rhythm akin to the sway of trees.
Love me fast and kiss me slow, Dear Amaranthine.
My palms are red, and feet bloodied, too. I moan.
Call me your poetaster but don't come on my chest;
There's far too much weight there already, my dear.
Mar 20, 2012
Mar 20, 2012 at 1:30 AM UTC
The boxes
which keep my blood clean
are stacked as tall as I,
a monument
in the spare room
to past battles.
Too many words,
too many thoughts
tied up in the
hand-to-hand combat
with mortality.
No more.
What life I have
will not be defined
by an indeterminate end.
I live to write poems;
I will no longer die in them.
Feb 28, 2018
Feb 28, 2018 at 11:54 AM UTC
I
Through vines indeterminate
Red cherry eyes peeped,
And spied two forms,
Fleshy pink and brown
Trees, tangled at the roots,
kissing in the canopy.
II
The garden was our
Discotheque, the sullen
Moonlight reflected
On the Black Beauties,
Twisted black mirrors,
in the garden of joy.
III
O, to again be mov'd
By your heirloom lips,
I'd give it all, the earth,
the sun, and the water.
A sacrifice: my Homesteads,
for a home.
IV
Soil runs dry.
The sun scorches.
Plagues run rampant.
We burn, we are sacked
and pillaged, and destroyed.
Roma, Roma, Roma.
V.
Maybe the rain,
Or sweet shade,
Or gentle sun,
Or simply the need
To be so defiantly
alive, will bring us again,
And I will drink you up again,
Brandywine.
May 12, 2016
May 12, 2016 at 11:18 AM UTC
a draper is someone who creates garments or patterns by draping fabric directly onto a dress form (Wikipedia)
~~~~
I am a draper,
by trade, by nature, by instinct;
a fling of one arm across her body,
while she dreams and sleeps, rambles, mumbles,
and even convulses,
to hold her tight with two, with both,
soon grows discomforting as the blood ceases to flow,
the heat breeds unsweetened sweat,
and the snuggling impact,
is too fast subsumed by the pins and needles
numbing, deadening,
and ironical attenuation
this is my pattern,
how I address her,
how I dress her,
draping my contiguous,
drawing five fingers
upon her form,
reshaping her in her sleep,
the arm flung, there, and then
there,
to be hung,
at varied places across her body,
higher lower, above below,
but her face,
free and clear,
so not to interfere
with her sensory preceptors
and as I draw my pattern upon her skin,
her body whole,
listening her to indeterminate utterances,
to determine
which
pitter patter pattern
to which.
she feels best suited,
then,
I prepare my
invoice
for her,
for services rendered,
to present upon awakening,
demanding
in voice,
by her voice,
payment in words,
of her own chosen
amuse-bouche,
mmmm, will it be?
good morning my love?
hello you!
or just an indiscriminate
but yet,
a discriminating
sound of
having been pleasured
by unknown forces
in her deeper sleep, using her lips
to say, to hum, to sing,
a genteel unspecific
but, and yet, a
terrific,
deep from within
guttural remittance,
the sound of a delicious,
mmmmmming
greeting
a new equinoxal gale
of a refreshing fresh
birthing, fulsome
already satisfying
draping of the
day
Aug 13, 2025
Aug 13, 2025 at 5:01 PM UTC
you will go your way
despite my protests
no use lamenting
what was never promised
the sun rides low the horizon
soon it will not clear the treetops
storms gather in the northern sea
needled wind to scattered seed
hoary frost on yellowed grass
dark leaves in mirrored puddles
a suspended death
crystalline and indeterminate
there is no fire hot enough
to stave off the first chill
of a careless winter
the numb hibernating sleep
soft gray melting days
the desperate wish
to regain summer
Sep 30, 2016
Sep 30, 2016 at 7:07 PM UTC
An Open Letter to Really Important People
The Old Dime Box, Texas Statement
A Manifesto Made Manifest in Manifesting Manifestingness
We post this serious looking document
Bloated with long vocabulary words
Sodden with weak dependent clauses
Marshaled in numbered ranks, down, down they go
To the GossipNet all serious like
And everyone has to pay attention to us
Because it’s AN OPEN LETTER, y’know -
You may sign it if you’ve got letters behind your name
Signatories:
Apostle-Disciple Magic Dawn, DD., Non-Binary, Author of Green Polar Bears I Am, Co-Equal-Director of the Anti-Oppressionist Theatre Against the Occupation, Agent of the Revolution, Auteur, Guest on The Wheel of Fortune and Parent of Two AMAZING children of indeterminate Gender with Their AWESOME and AMAZING Life-Partner Sven-Marie.
Massive Ferguson, M.Ed., Poet, Rector of Admissions, The University of Where the Old Circuit City Use to Be
Poncy Tworbst, M.A., PUBLISHED Author, Seeker, Inspirational Singer-Songwriter, PUBLISHED
Heather-Mistee La’ Thwitte-Tworbst, Ph.D., Director of Library Resources at Saint Margaret ****** Homeschool Resource Authority Collective, Inc., Certified Ordained Consecrated Priest in The Worldwide Church of Me-ness and Pastor of the World-Famous Weddings ‘R’ Us Chapel of Rainbow Dreams in Magdalena, New Mexico
Lawrence Hall, HSG, Thinker of Thinky-Ness and, Like, Stuff, Endowed Chair he found at Goodwill, His Mark: X
(Sean Ian Johann Johnson, MBA, J.D., Chief Photocopier Operator at Donald Trump University and Fashion Editor at Gun, God, and Guts Magazine, was not able to sign today; he is sharing a cell with other White House staff and patiently awaiting The Day of Greatness.)
Aug 22, 2018
Aug 22, 2018 at 3:48 PM UTC
tattoo ourselves in electric ink memorializing calendars,
diaries of observantional digits, black on white, no gray,
birthdays, anniversaries, dates of passing, starting lines,
occasional achievements, departure dates, even glaring failures,
sundial mundane records of diurnal habitude…even
defining self by, bye, byte marks upon flesh, upon our calendar
*not my first trip-tracking, he ruefully rues, wry smiling,
many voyages of indeterminate measuring length,
leaving litter of arrays of hopeful estimations & destinations,
each unequal, any or all possibilities, each day notated,
without critique or commentary, the numbers are the
gaols (jails) of goals, target, indeterminate determination,
terrific, horrific, introspections, inverse images resolve, resolute*
a year ago, +/- a few days,, new travelogue commenced,
notated but not annotated, just numerical truths,
(sans comments for the divine nature of numbers don’t lie)
and today my calculator app informs, that I am now
19.4 % lesser, but that clarifies less than expected
naturally this provokes a natty,
spirited, self-inquiry, lessened,
lessor, for better or for worse?
have the physical alterations
accompanying this reduction
mean exactly what,
if, it should be, a greater lesser?
here is the hard part.
your have always been a mirror~poet,
laughing, bemoaning the unvarnished, unshaven
AM sightings of a human perpetual dissatisfied,
the external never denying the interior “less~than,”
a J Peterman catalogue of weathered ****** expressions,
counter-parted by multiple Venn diagram intersections,
of experiential labeled bits & pieces of emotional empirical
less than good, not even close to perfect, so now that I am
*gaunt, spare, lean, grayed, narrower, again ruefully rue,
the even more visible truth reflection eye~hidden:*
I,
am the sum of the weight of my history, my deeds,
my disbeliefs, murderous deeds, weak choices
and that hasn’t changed nary an ounce, no matter
many times examined, indeed I am forever a lesser man,
there, internal infernal
too…
Apr 9, 2023
Apr 9, 2023 at 2:12 PM UTC
No use whistling for Lyonnesse!
Sea-cold, sea-cold it certainly is.
Take a look at the white, high berg on his forehead-
There's where it sunk.
The blue, green,
Gray, indeterminate gilt
Sea of his eyes washing over it
And a round bubble
Popping upward from the mouths of bells
People and cows.
The Lyonians had always thought
Heaven would be something else,
But with the same faces,
The same places...
It was not a shock-
The clear, green, quite breathable atmosphere,
Cold grits underfoot,
And the spidery water-dazzle on field and street.
It never occurred that they had been forgot,
That the big God
Had lazily closed one eye and let them slip
Over the English cliff and under so much history!
They did not see him smile,
Turn, like an animal,
In his cage of ether, his cage of stars.
He'd had so many wars!
The white gape of his mind was the real Tabula Rasa.
2.8k
Ferry Me
Ferry me, but once more.
The last ferry rides of Indian Summer,
Always arrives on schedule which is
Always and precisely, too soon.
Then, the imprisonment months,
Sentence, indeterminate.
*A Grand Jury trial of months,
I, and my co-defendant,
My sanity, this time, the Oddsmakers say,
Won't survive the lockup.
The source perfume of driftwood words,
Very ferry distinguishing marks,
Sails and seagulls, diesel fumes and saltwater,
Sunsets and seagrass, flying fish and multi-mollusks,
The stuffing of my summer turkey, the currants of
Poems and dreams, sad-eyed longings...
Now,
Evidence used by prosecution,
Confession freely uncoerced,
I Am A Summer Man
Adjudged and convicted,
Guilty of Winter's Discontent.*
But it is these last few passages,
Not of words, but over water,
The absence thereof, crush, ravage,
Worse than any grey calendar captivity,
Forlornly, I mouth silently, repeatedly,
Ferry me, but once more.
The course, straightforward,
Voyager, but a few minutes, but long enough to
Love it deeply, need it like a fix,
The mania of the mainland left behind,
The island, thinly lit, more shadow than real,
The approaching dark, shelters, comforts, embraces.
Perhaps, likely, I deceive myself.
No matter how the island comforts,
The brain always rumbling,
Can never make stop questioning,
Prisoner of 24/7,
But it is lessened, left behind,
As I am ferried away both,
In body and in mind.
Sep 11, 2013
Sep 11, 2013 at 2:23 PM UTC
If all a top physicist knows
About the Truth be true,
Then, for all the so-and-so's,
Futility and grime,
Our common world contains,
We have a better time
Than the Greater Nebulae do,
Or the atoms in our brains.
Marriage is rarely bliss
But, surely it would be worse
As particles to pelt
At thousands of miles per sec
About a universe
Wherein a lover's kiss
Would either not be felt
Or break the loved one's neck.
Though the face at which I stare
While shaving it be cruel
For, year after year, it repels
An ageing suitor, it has,
Thank God, sufficient mass
To be altogether there,
Not an indeterminate gruel
Which is partly somewhere else.
Our eyes prefer to suppose
That a habitable place
Has a geocentric view,
That architects enclose
A quiet Euclidian space:
Exploded myths - but who
Could feel at home astraddle
An ever expanding saddle?
This passion of our kind
For the process of finding out
Is a fact one can hardly doubt,
But I would rejoice in it more
If I knew more clearly what
We wanted the knowledge for,
Felt certain still that the mind
Is free to know or not.
It has chosen once, it seems,
And whether our concern
For magnitude's extremes
Really become a creature
Who comes in a median size,
Or politicizing Nature
Be altogether wise,
Is something we shall learn.
2.3k
_As his feet moved even faster, and he twirled and whirled and cantered across the stage, it was as if he existed in an indeterminate space - blinded by the footlights, deafened by the orchestra, absorbed in his own rumbustious choreography. Beyond the pit, in the anonymous darkness, the audience rippled and flared appreciatively in response. So he danced on until, with a final rapturous gesture of his outstretched arms, he plunged to earth as dizzy as a snowflake. And waited.
The silence shifted. The soft rumble of engine noise played softly in the background, while the chain-link fence rattled in the squall which blew fresh off the harbour. He opened his eyes and watched the cars crawling across the overbridge above him; the empty basketball court littered with yesterday’s snack papers lay in shadow. In the middle distance, a familiar figure walked briskly towards him.
‘Matthew! Matthew! You come here this secon’ or I’ll whip your **** right off, already.’
‘Yes, Auntie.’
‘What you doin’ tryna waste good time?’
‘Nothin’, Auntie.’
‘Ain’t that the truth, boy.’
As he stooped to gather up his satchel, Matthew saw out of the corner of his eye the concertmaster lower his instrument, incline his head, and begin to tap his music stand with his bow. From the balconies the first of a thousand rose petals began to fall with the evening rain, the applause thundered while the lightning clapped, and there in the gods stood his mother waving and blowing kisses at him, as he followed his aunt down East Street towards home._
Sep 4, 2019
Sep 4, 2019 at 10:29 PM UTC
Falling for a writer is a venture
Whose destination is so indeterminate , as to travel the infinity and beyond to only realise you haven't moved an inch , also to have been still and been carried to around to eternity !
As baffling my words sounds so is the very thought of falling for a writer!
They could read in between the lines yet sometimes fail to see the perceptable words in those lines,
The little things they notice are like the million piece puzzle of the alluring picture they paint!
Only to discern how much it would break them to realize a piece is missing from picture!
We don't fall for them we live through them
Most of us as a chapter in their book
Only a few to have been the witness to their exhibit!!
Don't fall for a writer as it's a venture to the unknown
Sep 12, 2018
Sep 12, 2018 at 11:34 AM UTC
the galleries of independent machines
are put onto display in the gilded halls of long corridors
bleached away by
anti-
bacterial soap.
and we say that we are the universe.
and we are the ones that tell you what to do.
preachers of mephistopheles,
creatures of indetermination.
and indeterminate
origin,
the goat-footed gargoyles treat us as play-things.
and the winged seraphs as day-things.
but we know that we are night-things.
and night-things fly away.
she wrote her number in red-lipstick, hit the high-notes like a whisper,
and whispered.
she got under my skin
and she crawled around while she was in.
she bat her lashes
and bit her lip,
she tasted her painted
fingernails
as if licking her claws clean
and threatened -
to swallow me whole.
Jun 21, 2012
Jun 21, 2012 at 12:21 PM UTC
I call it the Changeover;
like an analogue radio searching for a signal
sometimes it's clear
sometimes it's static
sometimes it's in between
somewhere between far away and near
somewhere lost in the middle
between Signal and Static.
Clear Day the signal reaches out its arms as far as the eye can see
and the ears can hear
and the senses can feel
and taste buds pop and linger
and revel in new experience
and comfort in knowing
and wrapped in wonderment.
Changeover Day is somewhere between Clear Day and Nowhere
struggling to tune in
backwards or forwards
or sideways or upwards
to something
to anything that resembles a signal
like hearing voices in another room
an argument through a wall
the indecipherable murmur of music
the clamber of ushered noise
the mishmash and cacophony
like a symphony of Morse code.
Static Day is dark day
there is no signal
no senses
no sound
only indeterminate fuzz
and the crackle of broken glass
and the foghorn
and the white noise
the confusion and delusion
the paranoia of shifting jigsaws
changing pieces that never fit together
can almost make out a face through the frosted glass
the smear like bird **** on a window
halfheartedly wiped with lackadaisical whimsy
and greasy chip shop newspaper.
In the Static there is no wind
no heart to beat
no empathy or sympathy
just
cold
hard
steel
out of place in a room of feathers and feeling.
You just have to ride out the storm
tell yourself:
it'll be calm soon
it'll be calm soon
it'll be calm soon
The Changeover
from Static to Signal
and the welcome return of voices
and breathing
and beating
and feeling.
Apr 18, 2016
Apr 18, 2016 at 7:40 AM UTC
I can hear the nurses over the din
That is my blood in my ears,
Coursing through these veins as if on fire.
I can hear them say "He's struck dumb,
Poor man, gave the boys all he had,
All that's left, of course, is a wordless bag of bones,
And broken heart".
I can hear them frivolously care for the others I cannot see,
Whose names, are to me, little anchors that weigh me
To reality, like a nail in the ground holds a kite down
To keep it from breaking free.
I am silent, struck dumb
Why can't the thoughts that swirl in my mind like mist
Materialize into words and sentences so that a living eye can read them,
So that a living ear can hear them, as they flow from my mouth
In little indeterminate streams,
That can remind me that the world exists beyond what I have seen.
Sep 17, 2015
Sep 17, 2015 at 2:26 PM UTC
Into this world
of ancient earthen homes
heated by fragrant native wood
comes gentle and silent snow.
Within the delicate fibers
of this newly formed heart
one tapestry is being woven.
Its indeterminate colors
barely visible, shimmer.
Longing, and loving
one presence, dancing closely
finding balance and resolution
in this sound, in this knowing
in shraddha.
Aug 21, 2015
Aug 21, 2015 at 5:54 PM UTC
Home made zombie voodoo whistles past
Wicked pastiche
Betrayed and murdered
Sitting on beer crates
She admits how Unsalvageably evil she is
Sparkled in the moonlight
Fires were not uncommon
raise a quizzical eyebrow
Remove my coat
Sniffing language
Orange silver glow
Murky waters
Slime and filth.
Dec 20, 2011
Dec 20, 2011 at 7:18 AM UTC
He glides across the cold asphalt
this man of indeterminate age,
Hair tinged gray, eyes to match.
Singing and grooving to the music
Of the celestial spheres heard clear as mountain waters.
Collapse into his manhood
He is not like the other men,
a beer and a historical allegory,
He will guide you to a lumberyard,
where he'll record our voice, and photograph your mouth.
Paint the walls passion red, greed green, purest aqua.
When he enters, and the portcullis opens,
Ringing of a bell, there will be noise.
You will open fifteen portals, and swim with your senses.
Outside, an intermittent, pindrop noise and Cold waters, that taste of honey.
the release ... of a night sky of solar energy,
White, red, yellow, and blue lights blazing.
He'll follow the cloth to the seam and memorize each stitch of your skin,
Bend your strings until two hundred silk pillows shower down,
Two bodies buried beneath breathing only each other.
Sep 8, 2012
Sep 8, 2012 at 8:24 AM UTC
The Sorceress, Jacob's Most Beloved
she had eyes for me
I knew it
she knew it
man among boys
stare beguiling no accident
entrancement, entrapment,
of course, her eyes hid,
but knew it anyway, for
her warmth dripped into my body,
resting happily within my centre.
why not?
her sorcery, profound,
when she cast the words,
she cast them instantly
without human fore thought,
thus pleasing and being pleasing,
when her branded magi magic
home in other people's minds
did come to rest.
the spells cast
in and on me
own me as much
as I now am possessed,
and in possession of them,
though which is more powerful
is indeterminate,
for I am stained
either way.
in a quiet hamlet,
in an ancient thorp,
the lambs, white and happy
prance on the commons,
the El god's angel disguised,
fresh and unbroken,
I observe the only one,
spotted, stained, like me,
open hid on this earth.
bleating,
I am my beloved's,
and my beloved is mine,
mine very own sorceress.
Dec 5, 2013
Dec 5, 2013 at 4:39 AM UTC
Fireflies amidst tall trees
silently chase away darkness
on a cloudy moonless night.
A flash here,
a sparkle there.
Too fast to pinpoint
where they are.
Tirelessly through the night,
they dazzle everywhere.
Let there be a
million fireflies
to illuminate
the darkness of our minds
in our lives’ voyage indeterminate.
Gita Ashok
10/10/10, 10:45 am
Oct 9, 2010
Oct 9, 2010 at 9:20 PM UTC
I have always thought of home to be a place
have described myself within a myriad of
different protagonists, herbs and flaccid analogies
i have been birds nesting in rafters, wolves
and nothing more than a willowy spirit without a
body--
and i thought for a moment that people could be homes
too, the way you walk into hugs or are metaphorically
gathered, i watched him in the mirror sliding around
my waist, resting on my hips, smelling my hair, picking
me up to put in a vase, ridiculously pretty, you know that?
and it's not that I longed for more,
that I have longed for where, for a here that
i am acutely aware of how i vacillate between empty
and overflowing, of my own thoughts, i have heard
you think too much and maybe I do-- maybe too much
of me lingers
In dreams I unzip and turn myself inside out
like a dress, fold my shoulders down and the mountains
reappear, i am all the grass of a former self, before the tides and winds and men, before my choices bent me back
and took a swiss army knife to whittle me away
i think i am longing to be clean
to be over to breathe and not feel the strings
the way my voice splits into a rank of pipes swelling into a hundred voices and he only hears a few, i am many
longing to be one, he cannot twist the drawknob
because I am already filling the cathedral in the words of
Stravinsky, *the
m onster never b r e a t h e s*
and I feel like i never have
i am earnest to fill my lungs with air instead of water
join the present, but the Welsh knew me too well,
the portuguese, saudade and the Germans, sehnsucht
put a letter to the things that can only be described in paragraphs or tears or indeterminate intervals of time sitting on his bed while he showered, all the doors slammed, empty coffee cups,
clogged sinks, unswept floors, long drives,
shots of whiskey, withering glances held on tension and
te amo mouthed across the room--
we wonder, can we be reached? wrought? touched. found.
in our deepest hearts, wounded mysticism, an untapped sense of joy that can be lanced and spilled, I am wistful, anxiously waiting to be siphoned,
Hiraeth.
Apr 9, 2017
Apr 9, 2017 at 9:41 PM UTC
The probability of life itself is unpredictable
For I can’t extract your mind or heart to decode
Likelihood of possibilities in measurable quotient
For I can’t retract a past gone by to encode
Continuums of even chances and certainty
The toss of the toasted dime, the weigh of sides
Slashed slide all smashed and thrown in mines
Fallibilism of my indefinable opinionated delicacies
Attenuations of what life is attacks and strangles my neck
Global troubles of war, bombs, hunger, anger
Illogical connotations of overlapping determinism
I burrow like a termite in a convex rising molehill
Terminated in contrasted stations as we convene
Gripping hands to grasp our existence in life
I wonder about the whole of it, I think of it somedays
Jan 15, 2016
Jan 15, 2016 at 10:50 AM UTC
These special summer afternoons
have no time markers,
no human dividers,
no watches watching
or clocks clocking,
just grins and smiles,
divining the divide,
painting lovely
the one canyon
of humanity and nature
attending to each other
These summer afternoons
have no time markers,
but drift perfectly sequentially
from sun to nap to
black striped grilled franks,
and red watermelon,
orange cantaloupe,
cold coronas,
and desserts of
indeterminate beach walks,
and quiet talks
These summer afternoons
are as close
as I remember,
what it was like to
be seven or eight,
years of age,
knowing only
carefree summer months
that were
carelessly treasured,
thinking there is
always another,
looking forward to tomorrow
to do nothing in
exactly, happily,
the same way innocently
I am an adult
and that means,
cares are ever present,
ever fair or fear not,,
they lurk and
attack the goalie,
with noisy or subtle unrelenting attacks
but as I overlook the waters,
scenario soul gentling me
under the cooling coverlet of
the perfect breeze and
what lurks
is the moment
the eyes and heart
are fulfilled,
satisfied by what they see
The bay,
dotted with the boat traffic
not too much,
but just interesting,
a right tiny armada
to entertain,
all of us,
inattentively observing
the submerging
descent of
summer daytime friends,
and I think of you only,
at this perfect second
and I am besotted
with grief
and guilt
why can I not grant you the moment,
that I desperate wish to share
my arm is not, not,
careless slung, but
grasping firm with squeezes tight,
finger under chin chucking,
come friend be with me,
and for just this moment
your anti-toil tool here,
your plight beyond my comprehension,
though I live a life on the unknown edge,
what matters is the relativity of us,
and I relate to your weariness,
I weep with desperate knowledge
transporting you here is still an
impossibility
though my eyes see glory,
though my heart cannot refuse
the scene's peace invading me,
it is not fair, it is not fair
and I want you
to have this more than me
so I can keep it too
until then it is a glaze,
surfacing the coating,
that is me
but substance is untouched
until this guilt morphs into a
shared pleasure
Jul 4, 2014
Jul 4, 2014 at 4:36 AM UTC