"inkwell" poems
You are going to ask: and where are the lilacs?
and the poppy-petalled metaphysics?
and the rain repeatedly spattering
its words and drilling them full
of apertures and birds?
I'll tell you all the news.
I lived in a suburb,
a suburb of Madrid, with bells,
and clocks, and trees.
From there you could look out
over Castille's dry face:
a leather ocean.
My house was called
the house of flowers, because in every cranny
geraniums burst: it was
a good-looking house
with its dogs and children.
Remember, Raul?
Eh, Rafel? Federico, do you remember
from under the ground
my balconies on which
the light of June drowned flowers in your mouth?
Brother, my brother!
Everything
loud with big voices, the salt of merchandises,
pile-ups of palpitating bread,
the stalls of my suburb of Arguelles with its statue
like a drained inkwell in a swirl of hake:
oil flowed into spoons,
a deep baying
of feet and hands swelled in the streets,
metres, litres, the sharp
measure of life,
stacked-up fish,
the texture of roofs with a cold sun in which
the weather vane falters,
the fine, frenzied ivory of potatoes,
wave on wave of tomatoes rolling down the sea.
And one morning all that was burning,
one morning the bonfires
leapt out of the earth
devouring human beings --
and from then on fire,
gunpowder from then on,
and from then on blood.
Bandits with planes and Moors,
bandits with finger-rings and duchesses,
bandits with black friars spattering blessings
came through the sky to **** children
and the blood of children ran through the streets
without fuss, like children's blood.
Jackals that the jackals would despise,
stones that the dry thistle would bite on and spit out,
vipers that the vipers would abominate!
Face to face with you I have seen the blood
of Spain tower like a tide
to drown you in one wave
of pride and knives!
Treacherous
generals:
see my dead house,
look at broken Spain :
from every house burning metal flows
instead of flowers,
from every socket of Spain
Spain emerges
and from every dead child a rifle with eyes,
and from every crime bullets are born
which will one day find
the bull's eye of your hearts.
And you'll ask: why doesn't his poetry
speak of dreams and leaves
and the great volcanoes of his native land?
Come and see the blood in the streets.
Come and see
The blood in the streets.
Come and see the blood
In the streets!
23.3k
Murdered by the sky.
Among the forms that move toward the snake
and the forms searching for crystal
I will let my hair grow.
With the limbless tree that cannot sing
and the boy with the white egg face.
With the broken-headed animals
and the ragged water of dry feet.
With all that is tired, deaf-mute,
and a butterfly drowned in an inkwell.
Stubmling onto my face, different every day.
Murdered by the sky!
9.3k
the needle on record
catches a scratch
the music’s awry
happily writing a story
the inkwell
runs dry
interruption of
fairytale endings
where nobody dies
awaiting a biopsy
out on a limb
nowhere to hide
©2016janetaylor
May 22, 2016
May 22, 2016 at 6:45 AM UTC
I am not a poet.
My words were never made for the masses,
Made to pry emotions from your heart.
Rhyme can sometimes leave me at a loss,
And my inkwell is more often empty than not.
I am not a poet.
I can write only what I know and feel,
Each poem I give a little piece of me.
Every line is just a wisp away from existence.
Each poem might just be the last I write.
I am not a poet.
Yet why do you feel like my muse?
Your eyes remind me of a thousand places,
Like sea glass glinting green in the hush of tide.
Your voice has its command over my pulse.
I am not a poet.
But poetry you are.
How else do I describe this feeling,
If not with flowery words and rhyme.
And yet no words can hold it right.
I am not a poet.
I would be lost if I were.
For if I give a piece of me,
It will always be here in this poem,
With You.
Jul 24, 2025
Jul 24, 2025 at 10:00 PM UTC
HORSE OF A DIFFERENT COLOUR
Auden & Isherwood
strolling in China
trying to soak up
The War
by the process of
osmosis
staining it
with words
observe
(at first what seems)
green horses
but turns out to be
only white horses
painted green
for camouflage purposes.
That evening in Canton
also offering them
the futility of two men
trying to put a rat
into a bottle
a woman who lived
in a beehive
pouring water
into a sieve.
War knocks
over the inkwell
spills
into men’s lives
covers the white pages
of their wishes
makes the idea of Hell
...all too real.
The spilt ink eating
the words of men
who send letters home
and die in pain
never to return
only in other’s memories
& useless dreams
marble memorials
while green horses
champ the grasses
the bridles & the bits
clanking & glinting
in the hot sun
of Now.
as this last lost evening
dies.
Nov 15, 2015
Nov 15, 2015 at 5:46 AM UTC
confessions from
a cerebral inkwell
hemorrhaging the
paradox of spilled
holy water blessed
in unorthodox
black lace.
||shoo.shu ||
Jan 4, 2016
Jan 4, 2016 at 9:13 PM UTC
I once felt like words gave me power
Like they gave my quiet shell of a self a leg to stand on
Now I feel like I have none left to speak, to write
I've been drained of verbs and left broken -- immobile
My adjectives fall soft and simple, even the deaf don't pretend to hear
It's strange
Being so far removed from the one you called yourself
I don't know what there is left for me to say
It's like being a young musician on stage
And people have slowly stopped cheering as they realized
You have no more tunes left to play
Yet I've stood frozen, stuck, despite myself
I'm waiting for them to come back
The words
The crowds
The self that I used to know
That I thought I did know
I haven't a clue to where they've left, to where they'll go
But I hope that they find it
The messages they seek
I can no longer provide them
My inkwell bone dry
My spirit missing it's former vibrance, now dully meek
They once called me wicked
I thought it ironically sweet
That for someone so bitter
Many worshiped me
Sep 27, 2018
Sep 27, 2018 at 10:59 PM UTC
She sits on the sidelines
Outlined by shadow and smoke
Her curling p's and q's go unnoticed
Watching him wallow in darkness
Persephone and Hades comes to mind
Although in reverse
The ashes of her springtime **** craves the bright burning flame of his
Unforgiveness
Coming on like a fifth street ******
Red lips and sky high thighs
She's got bad intentions
His fathomless inkwell craves the sweetness of her embrace
We all aren't built the same she thinks
But she'd let him tap her vein
Violets and stars winking in her vision
His cold touch finally reaches her
Hot skin melting past his reluctant facade
It was all a game he whispers
To get you closer
To make you mine
Jul 17, 2012
Jul 17, 2012 at 3:26 PM UTC
Realizing that my pain
that resulted from past failures
was only temporary because
forgetting that past knowing
that foregiveness does not change
what happened
I am finally able
to move on as the other half
of my heart comes
home.
It does let me take
the first step torward
growth and creation as each time
that one loves is the only time
and a difference of object
does not alter singleness of passion
but merely intensifies it.
I knew that her love
was the other half of my heart
on the day that she came to me
and said that she loved me
and I could feel that love
when she talked to me hearing it
in her voice like a tone
that only I could hear.
Knowing that I have loved her
in numerous forms, numerous times,
life after life, age after age forever
our final journey now begins
as I dip my feather into the inkwell
of the sunset and write about her
sending my love to the
treasure of her heart of which
my heart is now
a part.
I can not take for granted
our future knowing that we have
the love of each other
and more importantly
we have ourselves as we touch
and our hearts became whole
once more and our love
continues to grow
and we both know that our love
for each other exceeds
the need for each other. Jon York 2013
Feb 18, 2013
Feb 18, 2013 at 2:20 AM UTC
when I say the wind blows
you already know
but how do the leaves portend
emerald on the end
or grasping to the limb?
If the Love is Lost, when?
feelings were ample
yet, when unplugged they limp lame
sentiment in lieu of visceral slanguage;
Who needs a Heart when a record can be Broken?
i think therefor iThoughts
Depress into cracked lead
and bled red into inkwell;
gun shots have more potent stocks
tragically hip to be so square ingots
what gracious melodies and languid lives
battered idioms with only one just is to bear
how Sad their flirtatious Ness affair
with Pain must fin' ish and putrefy,
those believers in Death will die
hail a Hashtag worthy of
Octothorp
for phoenixes are found everyday
prostrate your Poetry for posthumous
consumption
apply the alembic of alteration
and
Heal our Hashtag heathen history
or
**** It
Hate the Hashtag
that's Life!
#love #life #sad #pain #depression #thoughts #death #sadness #heartbreak #lost
Aug 27, 2015
Aug 27, 2015 at 8:28 PM UTC
The quill immerses into the inkwell,
and pulls out slowly, careful not to drip.
The hand trembles with excitement to spell,
it moves across the page with only the tip.
The author breathes deep, the muse speaks softly,
words come easily, flowing like water.
The muse commands, the scribe follows blindly.
The words appear faster, the hand a blur.
A smile plays at her lips, her breath catches.
The ink like a tattoo, leaves a dark trail.
Faster, her hand, Fire, leaves only ashes.
The muse completes the symphony, hands fail.
The quill falls, the author breathes out a sigh.
The black spreads. This writing can satisfy.
Jun 27, 2015
Jun 27, 2015 at 1:36 AM UTC
You strengthen me
Stretch me tall in fond pursuit
And call my waking trees to move with subtle hints
Familiar as the folding sound
Between quiet rustling parchment leaves
Becoming new our newest sounds as an inkwell drawn
Like a sunlit jewel your dulcet glow
Is stumbling down a penciled path of painted memory
Colored by every season anew with the hues of you
Don’t cry when I am no more seen, my felicity
It was always and with you in mind
That you made me want to try
Sep 20, 2019
Sep 20, 2019 at 11:41 AM UTC
*My crystal-clear
inkwell
ran dry,
so I dipped
my quill-pen tip
into the sky.
I said
a little prayer,
and blew it out
into the air.
I spent a tear,
I sighed a little sigh,
I tried so hard
not to breakdown
and cry.
I took a deep breath
and closed my eyes,
I hoped
that the heavens
would hear
my silent cries.
I sat down
with my back
against our big tree,
it still looked
exactly the same
as it used to be.
A white dove came
and greeted me,
I then remembered
those words
you once said to me...
"It's in your blood,
it runs through your veins...
Just let your inner voice
guide your hand,
its ink
will leave beautiful stains!"
I thanked
the Gracious,
Merciful Lord
up above,
for he,
sent those words to me,
through the beautiful
white dove.
The white dove flew
from the branch
of our big tree,
I knew
that the white dove
was sent
to watch over me.
By Lady R.F ©2016*
Dec 20, 2016
Dec 20, 2016 at 3:57 AM UTC
Oh clockwork child with inkwell eyes
that penned mens doubts in promised lies
and watched as all that's born now dies
for nothing more than greed
Oh clockwork child with parchment hands
that mapped the hearts of war torn lands
and bleached the blood stained foreign sands
where children came to bleed
Oh clockwork child with torn page skin
that kept the scores of all mens sin
of wars they lost they could not win
as if they gave a ****
Oh clockwork child with gilt edged breath
who's whispers were the screams of death
that Rose the corpses from the depths
to herald the end of man
May 14, 2013
May 14, 2013 at 10:57 AM UTC
I've a sinking friendship,
Torpedoed by the ********
And listing.
The first mate mutinied.
Once a blood brother,
Like no other;
An intimate
At an imminent end,
An alter-ego
More than a friend.
I've been too patient,
Veered off course
With understanding.
I'm quite sure
This Pythias
Would run and leave me
Hanging.
I'm on a cliff
And won't hang on
To a blade of trust,
A fawning pawn.
He had my back,
I turn,
He's gone.
This partisan
Must part
A homeless homeboy,
A dissembling fraud.
No longer a mainstay,
He's insecure,
His equivocations
Make lines blur,
I don't believe
Him anymore.
He really needs a soul-mate,
Classmate, playmate,
But he's become a reprobate,
Lying prostrate,
Lying up straight.
I'll drown my Boswell
In my inkwell;
No longer
An advocate.
The laughs have left,
Yes,
I'm bereft,
But I'll catch the wind.
My course is true.
This friendship
Can't be salvaged.
It's scuttled,
And I won't
Sink with you.
Sep 2, 2014
Sep 2, 2014 at 11:42 AM UTC
each emotional wound becomes an inkwell of blood. each crack in my unstable mind lets in sunlight. each dent in my ego catches rainwater and dreams. everything is repurposed,all lemons squeezed dry for my metaphorical lemonade.
but no matter what/
I'm not
made of talent
but/ no matter what I'm /
still inferior/
no matter what, I'll still be/
a shell of wasted/
potential, each mile / traversed
there's two ran away/
no matter how I /
use and abuse myself, I /
am still
useless
in their eyes. /
Feb 22, 2016
Feb 22, 2016 at 8:50 PM UTC
docking on the fringe of a dry spot
the rain died in...
i set sail in solemn siroccos, fraught
with endive and lemons...
no chop. flat listing in the leaning theme
impervious to words lost
my ship dips in clean drink
and dark thought.
away, my anchor prods starboard
planks of salt wood...
clangs in a grog of lurching halt
raw ***** mauve tossed - and shriek blind.
a pennant of mock cause.
a scant curl of smoke, seized
in unseasonable Hypnos.
a whimsical Charybdis -
a thing i choke on.
i scoff
cough a terrible pen
my inkwell, topped off
with black pond,
quill qualms
of love's
dross.
the serenity of my tempest
and the skipping stone it cracked,
now, white sharks, prowling the yonder
of the nearby,
in debt to a far gone, yawning
rings,-
concentric to the naked eye, you clothe not.
lest the raiment be
the Emperor's
new lot.
A Stitch of Odyssey In Epic Fail...
to get more gone, but less lost
a journey of a single step
begins because... and
just because
you stop
stopping.
Feb 3, 2013
Feb 3, 2013 at 1:54 PM UTC
She is the typesetter’s “e”
The once-rounded uncial script,
Unbroken like the solemn vow of a monk,
His whisper, a shepherd of words under the cowl,
Murmurations of the Holy Mother to the lambswool shroud of candlelight.
His candle-flock of dreams to some hill of penitent towers, war-cowed
And broken open like faith-unfended helmets, littering the ground,
With their unspeaking tassels in babbling pagan sound of wind,
That hill too, once-rounded bare under the glittering apostles of twilight.
In the abbeywork of air, calligraphy was a cipher of souls,
He unwrested demons from an inkwell of sunsets, smothered them in blotting paper,
Freed the incarnate whole to the book of hours, nib-pointed in quills and illuminated in gold,
Line by line, in Carolingian winding sheets, he returned the misshapen to the fold,
To the carpet page of home and the warm ligatures of their waiting women.
So the shutters of the heavenly house could blow light in slanted rays to a wilderness in storm.
But he never tamed the aero-elongated, descender of Troy in a “t,”
He never knew the unholiness of the underscore or fonts as ******
Or the world unwilling to know itself in serif robes of ancient lore.
His life was a simple rounded-out syllable of one man,
Left in the muddied, unintelligible text of faith and war.
She is the typesetter’s “e” and now belongs to any hand.
Jul 6, 2019
Jul 6, 2019 at 9:21 PM UTC
How is it
That every perfect word has already been spoken,
Have all dropped off another person's tongue?
I feel I cannot pen originality, but chosen
Poetic words and poetic lyrics from poetic songs.
If a fledgling writer dips his quill in another's inkwell,
It's stealing and lack of imagination.
But in other's rhymes, lifting becomes an art
That leads to success, a homage rebranding genius.
Apr 14, 2016
Apr 14, 2016 at 6:05 AM UTC
my thoughts, so potent just before--
like fresh-pressed olive drops
that lingered, lipping from the fragrant spout--
now pass, diffuse atop an ocean vast.
i imagine willing it to be a pond,
not for its lesser size alone
but mostly for its calm,
reflective height; yet
these waves are
distort ruthlessness
of liquid dust
by slapping, tower-high
the central ocean rip-whirl tide:
and gone--
as Homer's heroes screaming as they drown,
deaf as oars but for their final gasps
of yearned-for clarity:
of nameless pride's Ithacan king
abrading lustful wrists
restrained to blind a god's son's single eye
by tentacles of twisting, tactful fate.
by threaded loom rethreaded
soon i see my salty self in suit
of sameness, tricking time
by indolence or theft--
from truth, from others' hearths--
the difference winks in bubbles on the cosmic shore...
foam so clean i grin to call it spume,
grin to brace the seabed to my algaed chest
in salinating crush of sand, of blood-sharp shell and rock,
in sungreen warmth of blue and life
in crashing sinus wince
i grit aegean nereids in my sneeze,
splay their formless sexing into pelvic scrapes
of quickened starbursts anciently reborn,
squeezed in pleasure tears and laughing drops--
as all pelagic ***** must
within the pressure of a world,
its breathing darkness spotted with transmuted sun,
expel itself in sensate gusts--
as octopodal spurting flings
in liquid ****** of purpose forth,
(or backwards, sideways, in and out)--
so too i think
and thinking, drown my ink
instead of drowning thinking in my ink
.
Feb 28, 2016
Feb 28, 2016 at 11:11 PM UTC
FAILING GEOGRAPHY
A drop of blood.
On the Indian Ocean.
Blue turning slow
l y red
as the Indian Ocean
is engulfed by this
singular drop of
blood
coast to coast
a crimson sea.
At first there is
no pain.
The thumb remains
unaware it has been
cut.
Paper cut.
First, the heart skips a beat
then the pain ~ rushes in.
The continent of India
invaded by my blood.
I close the school atlas
in fear teacher will see.
Scream silently
put my thumb in an inkwell.
Disaster co-
-auglates.
The ****** pages
stick to ****** together.
The Indian continent
ripped apart
allowing one to see
to the next sea
on the other page.
I fail
Geography.
Feb 16, 2019
Feb 16, 2019 at 1:09 PM UTC
If I summed you up
I’d abstain from strained
refrain, from those mushy
lines that read like a hike
through a swamp. An inkwell
tipped, they pour from trite
lips and taint a masterpiece.
But you were not made
to bathe in black cliché;
you: the product of Someone’s
fantastic oration; spoken to life,
left in my sight. And I, but the
by-chance observer, who only
knows what not to say.
Feb 6, 2010
Feb 6, 2010 at 2:45 PM UTC
That I know..
You are very much hurting everyday
You feel like you just can't get away
Tears of blood cloud in your eyes till you can't see
Hurting and hurting longing to be free
Tears congregate and form into a puddle
Silently you are masking the pain, the struggle
All these while you are suffering in silence
Quietly resisting the emotional violence
You lift your eyes, but dimmed with grief
Your sorrow lends but only weak relief
You die everyday, you are wearied
It's like you're dressed at the funeral of regret, not yet buried
The stabbing pain you don't wish to bare
Nothing could make you feel better even if you share
You are gathering the strength you have in your soul
To beat the drums, feed the fire with coal
You are dipping your pain in inkwell heart
And scrawling out what you are feeling
Those words becoming the tourniquet
You don't know when your heart will stop bleeding
Jan 17, 2015
Jan 17, 2015 at 6:20 AM UTC
wax runs slowly from his candle
as ink flows freely from his pen
daydreams stretched out on his anvil
where each word he hammers into rhythm
with skill he’s tooling an ode of mourning
beside his fire lies a sonnet undone
paintings of prose around him are scattered
and unframed verses his walls adorn
a haiku sweet graces his table
a ballad long covers his floor
his home already filled to overflowing
one wonders if there is room for more
he’s unable to sell them, try as he might
though each skillfully crafted is a work of art
still driven he labors long into the night
his blood turns to ink as he pours out his heart
down at the market where men sell their wares
poems fetch only a penny a line
he’s chosen a craft that a pittance pays
he’ll have to settle for a book of rhymes
his inkwell low he walks down to the store
where he refills his stock of whiskey and wine
exchanging his farthings for bread and butter
and a chance at a glance of a fair lass fine
she, his inspiration, and fuel to his fire
yet she’ll ne'er know, she’s his psalm to be sung
so on marches time and their verse can't be written
for his words flow on page, just not from his tongue
so the wax keeps running from his candle dim
the ink from this wordsmith continues to flow
his daydreams he hammers over his anvil
but prose they might have written we’ll never know
Oct 6, 2013
Oct 6, 2013 at 2:29 PM UTC
picture this,
o sons of judah:
arctic shallows, a
shellbeached leviathan cordially extending
an invitation to this
everfast slowdance of heart
throb lust in the
inkwell satisfaction of knowing you bleed
india blue & bone china and the moths that got
into the tent will swallow the naphtha in time;
*there are parts of you that
are never clean.*
yeah isn’t that
wonderful
? mark the few drops of
tequila left & a
heavy sunrise in your
swankissed beechwood
heart;
*there are parts of you that
will not be released.*
Nov 8, 2012
Nov 8, 2012 at 6:17 PM UTC