"insulates" poems
bebop, bebop
sway your hips
tap your foot
tap, tap, tap
Cold November Evening
Cambridge, MA
Scarf, Pea coat, Flannel
Hot mulled Cider
Leaves have turned.
Red, orange, yellow.
They clutter the ground.
Wipe your feet.
sing, sing it loud
dance with her
dance with him
one two three four
Body Heat Insulates
472 Massachusetts Ave
Skinny Jeans, Toms Classics
Chilled Brooklyn Lager
Lights on the stage.
Red, orange, yellow.
They warm the atmosphere.
Play one more song.
Don’t let this night end.
Sep 1, 2013
Sep 1, 2013 at 2:10 AM UTC
I’ve been counting stacked bricks
running my hands over the grout,
tracing each corner with my fingertips,
building them up to cover my doubt.
You could marvel at the beauty in the stone,
completely ignoring that it fully insulates
it keeps all out and ensures you’re always alone,
can’t even slip through the cracks or the grates.
I was dying to get out from where I was in,
oblivious to my own paradise,
with a tongue in cheek and **** eating grin,
ignoring all the ways words can slice.
I’m always left with empty hands
and your court is overflowing with *****
a simple truth no one understands;
there is no life beyond Verona Walls.
I’m inspecting crumbling support beams,
running my hands and my skin catches a splinter.
It’s not as structurally sound as it seems,
but the continuing construction it does not hinder.
What do you even label an impenetrable wall,
is it a friend or is it a foe?
Do you judge it on it’s length or if it’s tall,
I guess only the person on the other side will know.
I was waiting to escape my own dwelling,
unaware of the safety it always could bring,
could I ever return home, there is no telling,
but the consensus is a no that can sting.
I’m aimlessly drifting among the sands,
and you mistake my pleas as cat calls,
a simple truth no one understands;
there is no life beyond Verona Walls.
How can you know if the grass is more green,
if you cannot even glance to the other patch?
It could be more vibrant, or just more clean,
or it could just be a perfect match.
When you know every corner and every nook,
you can’t help but feel that you’re Iocked in a cage.
Maybe I’m dismissive and should take another look,
I mean sometimes you have to re-read the same page.
I’ve seen that time keeps going on
and that our lungs continue to breathe,
but the blue skies and sunshine are gone,
I’ll never forget the day it chose to leave.
I’ll cling to all crumbs and strands,
ditch rivers and streams to chase waterfalls,
‘cause no one ever understands
there is no life beyond Verona Walls.
Dec 20, 2018
Dec 20, 2018 at 1:09 PM UTC
"People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones" she said.
"Well" I said
Maybe I don't mind this glass house of mine being shattered, maybe that's the idea.
Maybe I'd prefer to be seen in all my transparency so you can no longer doubt or question me, cause maybe the glass that forms the walls of this cage isn't see through enough for me.
It fogs with the breath left from all those half truths and words I use to give you clues as to Who I am and Who I'm not.
The words that echo back to me creating so near, so far images of the me that I've forgot.
Maybe in that fog you're not the only one that can't see me properly.
I can't see out...looks frosty
I'm cold, yet I can't stand the heat
As this glass refracts light from gazes
Of spectators and haters pointing pointless fingers as they take a seat,
Insulates a rage in me!
"People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones" she said
As if I couldn't take what was about to come.
As if to dismissively say
You're not ready yet
Don't let this cocoon you've
created come undone.
Giving me forewarning
so I could standstill and run.
Look at me!
I stand still but I run!
But Maybe I don't mind being homeless,
Maybe if I'm home less I'll feel home more in myself absent of barriers,
comforts and fears of wealth and worth
So I grit my teeth,
dig my feet into the earth
"People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones" she said
As I hailed the first one at her
Watched the crack spread
Across her face
Creating lace shapes
And split her head in two
As her image struggled to cling on
With every molton strand of sand
Left to her but she had no time left to seek
as she fell creating a mosaic of shards,
broken glass at my feet
Stepped over them
People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones she said
Well I just did
Cause I helped raise this Glass House in fear
And I will knock down any monument to dictatorship
Oct 6, 2015
Oct 6, 2015 at 10:12 AM UTC
Snow insulates the insulation wrapped around my meat and bones.
An extra 2 layers to keep the cold out.
Each pill ceases consumption and the amber **** disappears into thousands of days of memories. My body starts to thaw and my heart beats so hard it's visible through the thin skin on my chest.
You become nothing and he becomes so much more that everything has to be re-thunk...
I don't have to be anything but what I already am and when I want more I take comfort in knowing I am not what I was before.
Sep 12, 2012
Sep 12, 2012 at 7:52 PM UTC
Cottony numbness
Envelops my lightning-bolt thoughts
Soothes me, insulates me
I can barely think
But at least I'm not getting
Struck by lightning
On a regular basis
Anymore
Jul 26, 2014
Jul 26, 2014 at 10:42 AM UTC
I have no idea what to write
For the first time since I began poetry.
All of the thoughts inside of my head,
Are as clear to me as a pitch black night.
A night void of stars and the moon,
There is no sound,
And not a soul to be found,
Save me, all alone.
This is how I am all of the time,
Except when I am with Kristen.
I’ve never wanted to be with anyone more,
She is the only light in my dark, dark world.
The problem is that I don’t know,
How to show her that I care,
Without freaking her out and making
Things harder for her than they already are.
All I want to do is be able to hold her,
Be with her,
And tell her how much I love her.
I have made myself so vulnerable to her,
That she could take my very soul,
In the palm of her hand
And extinguish it totally and completely.
It would be easier for her to do so
Than it would be for her
To do anything else.
She knows that I care,
And that I want to be with her,
But she has problems of her own
And I don’t want to add to them
Anymore than I already have.
I am inexperienced I this area,
I don’t know what to do.
All I know is that I hurt
When she does;
It’s hard for me to breathe
When she is not there by me.
I constantly think about her
And if she is well and safe.
I wonder around purposelessly
In my life regarding
Anything but her.
I want to change everything I am,
To suit her wants and needs.
I want to give her everything that I have
And be everything for her.
I want to hug her,
Hold her,
Kiss her,
Be with her,
Love her.
I am so confused
By everything that’s going on
And it doesn’t seem to be
Getting any better any time soon.
It’s all my fault for
This pain I am in.
I am a fool,
For thinking I could be everything for her,
When she is the one I am now dependant upon.
My mind is going so fast
That I can’t even understand
A hundredth of what
Is going on inside of it.
The little that I do understand
Is so painful that I block it out.
What I do understand is this:
I don’t deserve her,
It would be better for her if I let her go.
All of my pain is struggling to
Escape and I fear it soon will.
My carefully crafted personality is
Crumbling beneath the weight of everything
That is going on in my life.
It seems as though my entire body
Is tearing itself apart
Mentally, physically, spiritually, and emotionally.
I am trying to take on the pain
Of Julie’s and Kristen’s
Because I care so much,
And that is the only reason I have
Lasted so long.
Taking on their pain
Blocks out the pain I am going
Through and insulates me from the real world.
It seems as though things can’t get better
Because they have become so terrible.
My life seems to be ruled by pain, anger, and sadness.
I still don’t know what to do and no matter how hard I try,
It feels like I can never succeed
But I can only fail miserably.
I cannot give up, though,
Because that would give Julie and Kristen
Permission to give up.
And they cannot give up
Because they have a chance to do
Great things in life.
I don’t understand why I am so
Influential on their lives.
I am such an insignificant being that nothing
Would change in the world
If I had never came to be.
I have affected people’s lives only for the worse
By bringing my problems and putting them out there
For other people to see.
I have made my problems
Other people’s problems and I can no longer
Continue to do that.
My conscious will no longer
Allow me to destroy everyone’s life
The way I have been since I was born.
It must end now…..
Aug 25, 2011
Aug 25, 2011 at 2:08 PM UTC
A sonorous bell rings,
between my eyes,
drenching the senses.
Vibrations travel
till the toes,
a drop of blood,
floats away surpassing
the bounds of time,
trickling through the
winter mist, a blanket
of responsibility, insulates
the hidden vow,
into the lower echelons of mind
pure and untouched.
A dried fallen leaf,
still triggers memories
and the jolt awakens me
briefly and the entities
of problem challenge opportunities
fade into vacant spaces of
love smiles and beauty
Apr 5, 2015
Apr 5, 2015 at 11:42 AM UTC
close your eyes and think
every part of you is slightly moving
that white light
that infects us all
that white light
that is the side effect of consciousness
that electric current
reaches every horizon of your spine
and down through the thighs
it laces your rib cage with ribbons
and insulates your brain
our matter is priceless foam
full of reality
leaving space for fantasy
our matter is a strategic trick
to make us think there is nothing more than this
our soul is our blood
Apr 23, 2016
Apr 23, 2016 at 12:54 AM UTC
The Composition of Shadows (I)
by Michael R. Burch
(for poets who write late at night / by monitor light)
We breathe and so we write; the night
hums softly its accompaniment.
Pale phosphors burn; the page we turn
leads onward, and we smile, content.
And what we mean we write to learn:
the vowels of love, the consonants’
strange golden weight, each plosive’s shape—
curved like the heart. Here, resonant,
sounds’ shadows mass beneath bright glass
like singing voles curled in a maze
of blank white space. We touch a face—
long-frozen words trapped in a glaze
that insulates our hearts. Nowhere
can love be found. Just shrieking air.
Published by The Lyric, Candelabrum, Triplopia, Romantics Quarterly, Iambs & Trochees, Hidden Treasures, ImageNation (UK), Yellow Bat Review, Poetry Life & Times, Vallance Review, Poetica Victorian. Keywords/Tags: writing, poetry, night, monitor, glass, phosphors, web, page, internet, online, social media, sound, files, white space
Mar 23, 2020
Mar 23, 2020 at 9:57 PM UTC