"keepsakes" poems
465
I heard a Fly buzz—when I died—
The Stillness in the Room
Was like the Stillness in the Air—
Between the Heaves of Storm—
The Eyes around—had wrung them dry—
And Breaths were gathering firm
For that last Onset—when the King
Be witnessed—in the Room—
I willed my Keepsakes—Signed away
What portion of me be
Assignable—and then it was
There interposed a Fly—
With Blue—uncertain stumbling Buzz—
Between the light—and me—
And then the Windows failed—and then
I could not see to see—
12.1k
Part II of "Got 0 Followers"
aim high
to keep
it low
expectations
such an
Awesome Awful
curse
others infect
you with
don't, yada yada,
ya wanna be like
Tom, **** and Jane,
even Harry, a transgendered
friend and fellow (ha) outcast,
all with a good job
prospects of a
goodly tented long life?
so ya write poems
to nobody
about nothing and
you are pleased
to be pleasing just yourself
in writing you have
nothing to prove,
so read them
like keepsakes
ya like,
keep 'em & me hid,
in the shoebox
under the closeted
pile of ***** clothes,
special designer outfits concocted
so they keep my remains,
privatized and unsanitized,
my equity,
hidden,
disguised as disgusting
but for god-sakes
don't follow me,
unless
you want to curse us
both with
Expectations of Expectations,
then comes with
illiteracy of
Affection
then the literary
pre-tension
that always follows,
leading to
Affectation,
the first derivative of the infection of affection
yeah,
then comes
caring
and it instantly it's too late,
you're *******
right up the mental heine,
lost condemned
ruined annihilated
crushed subverted
crushed into
mental death camp suffocation of more, please ma,
can I have some more?
crap, why did you have to go and follow me?
Mar 8, 2015
Mar 8, 2015 at 8:14 PM UTC
Her mind is an observatory.
A really fun one. You know,
With rock candy at the entrance,
And a gift shop full of unique keepsakes.
Like compassion.
And warmth.
And when you step inside,
Her constellations are painted upon the dome ceiling,
Telling a story only visible
To those willing to connect the dots.
A story of glowing blues
And scattered specks
Of burning red,
With a dark void
Occupying the gaps
You so desperately wish to fill.
She has an entire solar system
Inside of her,
Hidden within the stars.
A heart as gold as the sun.
A soul as old as she wants.
And when she speaks,
You fall in love.
Because you don't have a choice.
Her voice echoes amphetamines
Along the walls of my skin.
Her smile shines
Like the crooked panels
On every straight paved sidewalk
I've ever known.
And when I look into her eyes,
The universe stares back.
I think she's a goddess.
Oct 5, 2014
Oct 5, 2014 at 9:04 AM UTC
The poem was inspired by a particular photo of the WT C, and after that by my first visit to the 9/11 Memorial. On the day of 9/11, I was working about a diagonal mile away, and from our windows, we could see people jumping to their death.
Open sky annulled
to bordered lines of
uptown edges,
worldview momentarily
forcibly redefined by
memories of buildings and sadder days,
recollections of pillars of biblical smoke rising
A photograph
makes me look up,
and sit down historically,
need to catch a breath,
to rest mentally,
upon a storied small bridge's steps,
that I well recall,
a disappeared street stoop.
all were rubble then and once
upon that day.
Wear, tear, and older eyes distill perspective,
but the hardy heart is hardly stilled
by the recognizable gray upon
bon vivant gray reflective surfaces of
memories of buildings and sadder days
So today, on a reborn street,
I rest upon reconstituted speckled curbstone,
the city's lowered down ledges,
the city's lowered down-town boundaries,
constantly redrawn, but
nonetheless, always rebuilt from their own
regenerated stony compost,
and the NY passersby doesn't even notice
a man, head in hands,
silently weeping, thinking that:
We throw away so much we should have kept.
We keep so much we should have thrown away.
Lose keepsakes, but keep our mysterious sadnesses
locked away in compartments that open only to
benedictions uttered in ancient tongues.
Make your own list,
be your own curator,
catalogue visions of sophomoric triumphs,
museum mile pile
those early poetic drafts,
be unafraid of memories
raw and ungentrified,
overlaid, buried underneath
postmortem of dust-piles of senior critiques
Finally went downtown to see
where the blessed water falls
into catacomb pits that once
were the foundations
of buildings that ruled the cityscape,
downtown anchors
for a modern city that exists
only because it was built on
million year old granite bedrock
Stone monuments are stolid, discrete.
Memories are of grayed, frayed edge consistency.
Negatives resurrected that survive digitally,
all blend synthetically, layer upon layer,
essence distilled in a single,
black and white photograph
that serves to
disturb complacency,
awaken stilled pain,
reflections suppressed,
are restored
Sep 11, 2013
Sep 11, 2013 at 6:36 PM UTC
~for better days for the poet betterdays~
mournful tunes play silently, but still too often,
eyes wet but in corners kept, recurring then the
memories, keepsakes, letters, books, small trinkets,
not dusty, but dusky, resting on in-between ledge of a
mountain-sized twilight of well lit shadowy haziness,
edgy dark brilliance, a comprehensible contrast non-comprehendible
tunes that bless with equal measures of grief,
comforting, by memorable card flashes of good relief,
a dividing line, hazy and frequented crossed, a sort of path,
with no destination signaled, as if the path itself was an end,
to a meaning, a solution, with no clarity divined, a division
of sight and insight, providing an ill fitting reconciliation
mourning is electric, morning is electric,
letters, words bottled up in evaporating perfume bottles,
seeking the comfort of dissipation unto a larger atmosphere,
the scent in everything tangible, stronger still yet, in intangibles
that can erode but never ever fail to return instantly when voked,
by vision, odor, a particular child’s smile, line in a poem volunteered
recovered, uncovered, a post first writ to be written, discovered,
when time and place coincidentally breathe together, at last,
beckoning you to places where memory serves only as a pleasuring,
upright mind marker, decorated in chains perpetual reforging,
absent pain, gleaming dreamings full-replacing longings for pasts,
new verses composed, passing, a grand addition to a child’s legacy
May 18, 2019
May 18, 2019 at 8:50 AM UTC
Green is the sky and all the lights of heaven
Are peeking eyes, up to us in given blossoms
Of the flowering clover and bright are new daisies,
Wee sparks of fire who squad, roams of butterflies
And bees on bouncing airstruck mission waysides,
The shot stems of wildlings breech, lancing into sky.
I am the gardener with suns aborning in my eyes,
To pull the weeds wildly and declare all is garland,
I hear trumpet of bindweed, see hearts in the leafs
Of coltsfoot, crowns in the thistle, tapestries, vines
For dress of hair and eye and walls on cottage dry,
Are lovemakes true and keepsakes of joyous times.
Aug 12, 2015
Aug 12, 2015 at 11:24 AM UTC
Old jewelry box
accepting
of all my broken baubles
for stories told
Aug 28, 2012
Aug 28, 2012 at 7:31 PM UTC
I lie strategically in place
Innocent framework fused
With royal carapace
Frail and allknowing fingers clenched and intertwined,
Mimicking the honest silver circuit in the night sky
As candid as the shore
Each slumbered and delicate breath
Vitally delivered from those sublime lips
Both damp and potent
I get a candied wind of
An accidental consolation
To my crippling worry
Sorrowful, I am, my love
For eavesdropping, but
My reveries are your keepsakes
And I,
Watching you sleep, carefully
In A placid coma, caging waves of covenants
And exhaling tokens of a life once dreamt of
I envisage the unvarnished truth,
your marrow as my sustentation,
Your veins, My lifeline
Where each filament of platinum and sorrel remain entangled and sprawled in forever, impeccably
And how drawn out and vexing
My intervals of lingering for you
Have been
And then you leak a sigh in a dream
And exhale a veil of whispers
Directly to my ribcage
And I simper, cradling you tighter
So you can breathe my craving,
My contented tribute
To my one veritable sentiment.
And I seal it all in the midst,
Of a drifted and slumbered and deathless
Kiss.
Nov 26, 2013
Nov 26, 2013 at 7:24 PM UTC
spoon fed my keepsakes as nothing blots the sun so much
you teach me how to cringe in spun sugar. the nape of your
neck.
gleefully, we usurp the thicket of our mild dementia. sullen
joy equipped. a sumptuous dirge curdles the myth, your fins
***
as troubadours, we malinger in the pith of our blunt fruit. crust
removed from our daily bread. our basket of basilisks, bathe
in stone.
duel wielding our gazebos... we bivouac in our ambivalence, by
turns we move. you tip toadstools as i milk maidens for their
candelabras.
our palominos run. we do
violence to timpani and click mice.
pc
drifting in the cyberwocky. we transit the binary auto-bond
and paste
whats
clip.
blue thumbs thread cranberry noose. our ***** nods off. fronds
of juniper and cannabis slap the window pane. throughwhich
a *** mouse pounced on frond’s sway.
startled, we move the furniture of our eastern proclivities.
for thine is the kingdom
of our discontent !
swing-shift lap-dogs, trundle west of the east village. smell
of ****** and nag champa. idiots sting.
idiots braid zodiacs with greasy fingers. [ indeed ]
and
you
preach from your gut...
( your left breast marvelous with taint) and saltwater taffy.
we
laugh again-
at things we have
and now
only
harbor ghosts
where the rain
should have
been.
should have
been.
should have
been.
should have
been.
should have
been.
should have
been.
this is the new
intimacy.
Jun 5, 2013
Jun 5, 2013 at 7:03 AM UTC
Our fragile lips never touch.
Forbidden fruit.
Poisonous pain.
As you go up
I must come
Down.
I gaze at your perfect reflection.
I try to linger for you.
Do not weep dear we have a job to do.
My opposite obsession.
A contrary coincidence.
My unfortunate state leaves me watching lovers-
Who could be us.
I’m left with unresolved dreams at twilight.
You may seem dreaded by most but
I count down the stars disappearing in my presence.
I’ve never seen your rays.
Your flaming passion holding our world together
As I fall apart.
You take pieces of me with you.
Have them.
Keepsakes of our nonexistent love exchanges.
For how funny a fairytale for our children.
When the moon fell-
In love with the sun.
Mar 20, 2013
Mar 20, 2013 at 3:08 PM UTC
The end of our journey
on the horizon's center;
the last stop to this asylum
in the midst of winter.
Darlings of destitution painting
****** distractions on the latex;
the essence of ambition covered
within the toxic keepsakes.
Cold doors keeping out
the warmth of affections;
our bodies wrapped tightly
within the canvas of preconceptions.
The thumping of our minds
beneath the crumpling distress;
ideas illuminating our perilous
potential. ****** beads of sweat falling
into the darkness.
Crazy notions spewing
all over the floor; the
filthy piles of wasted
time is growing.
Insanity within this circle
of trust; our dreams mislead us.
No windows to expose the sun as
we recline towards amnesia.
Dec 28, 2013
Dec 28, 2013 at 11:12 AM UTC
Play on.
Pretend.
Drum your anxious fingers out
In sync with the drip-drop of the melt,
Seeped prolix, distraught faucet mouth
Leaky kitchen sink, we drowned
Everything we could think to rinse
Meaning from
Down the drain. Our thumb prints
Scrubbed smooth away,
Quicker than crumbs
We followed and rationed and named
Stale keepsakes to keep us thin through Winter.
Thumb drummer, play on.
Pretend.
Facetious rhythms could kindle us
Warm enough to hibernate.
Thumb drummer,
Play on.
Dec 11, 2013
Dec 11, 2013 at 6:58 PM UTC
Rose petals fall,
One after another,
Ticking time of
Wilting flowers.
One petal for friend lost,
One petal for dead dog,
One petal for time gone,
A last for constant pain,
A wilting rose,
Has not a name,
Lost its color,
Hates lover’s game,
Flower sits pretty,
For a time it stays,
In the best vase,
A handful of days.
One petal for loss,
The other for grief,
Pink petals for lust,
Black for jealousy,
The flower is nice,
But soon fades away,
Turning dark black,
Petals piling up.
Just throw them out;
Have no more pain.
No more keepsakes,
Only memories remain.
Sep 20, 2010
Sep 20, 2010 at 12:07 PM UTC
"Who am I, mother?
Who am I and what do I do?"
–Norman to his mother Norma, "Bates Motel"
And so it goes, a split self - the protagonist defending the darkness as
Bizarre murders satisfy obsessions of a mothers love, taking a
Chefs knife, stabbing victims to death.
Dualistic wars within, a helpless man whose mother taught him of the
"Evils of women," instilling her own moralities of their wickedness.
Fostering the antagonistic personality of his mother
Giving to his incomplete soul a sense of wholeness.
Hidden behind the boy next door innocence, a terrified man
Incarcerated; locked & bolted
Juddering with fear - promising to adhere - set free said to be "cured."
Kleptomania returns; unearthing bodies from their graves, stealing skulls; a comforting souvenir, as
Loving anyone meant destroying them also.
Multiple personalities dominate him
Norman Bates becomes Norma; his mothers persona, crawling into her skin
Originating from their very kiss, kick starting a timeless love affair
Paraphernalia of skins tanned, butchered conquests -keepsakes turned to art & now protecting an un
Quiet mind
Reasons pertaining to mental insanity
Sectioned to institutions
Taxidermy as a young boy fascinated his mind
Urges to **** & fill, feeding euphoric highs, & even
Vertigo.
Women thrilled him; their smell lingered on each garment he kept.
Xenos to himself; who, am I mother?
Youth denied, cried away
Zenith ended; his final resting place behind the bars of Mendona Mental Health Institution, 1984.
© Sia Jane
Feb 1, 2015
Feb 1, 2015 at 8:21 AM UTC
Plastic picnic
plastic spoons
plastic love
plastic moons
plastic vows
plastic years
plastic ******
plastic tears
plastic promise
plastic flowers
plastic fuckless
plastic hours
plastic hospice
plastic dying
plastic caring
plastic crying
plastic boxes
plastic keepsakes
plastic palaces
plastic mistakes
plastic bride
plastic honeymoon
plastic false alarm
plastic lover soon.
Sep 17, 2021
Sep 17, 2021 at 9:26 PM UTC
I imagine my friends as walking holidays, days that roll off souvenirs like sweat
and become keepsakes in a suitcase that breathes sunscreen
onto my white, hopeless skin.
Green grass is Rachel. When I want to invent
cloud animals, I think of her old backyard, five miles down the road
because it was good for such things
the kind of things that open your pores and your mind and your chest all at once.
She would draw on my eyes
while we sat knee to knee, or knee to something else soft.
I would try to become a model for the world as she understood it, wanted it
and hoped she saw the sky on my eyes,
tinged with magma when I got sad and could no longer take sleep.
Then, there was a day in the alley. A murky place
with brown weeds between concrete, and she was there, too, but she was not a
part of the memory I have somehow –
she only fits against the sunshine and clear air. I remember her most
when I want to lay down
on a blanket without needing to rest and grow a garden without using my tears as
a fertilizer for the only beautiful things I have ever created.
Sep 17, 2013
Sep 17, 2013 at 7:03 PM UTC
doing the heavy lifting
*picking up my emaciated heart,
letting the rest of my wilting body
tag along qualifies, but is not the
heavy lifting referenced above.
we all have a meeting, the bits and
pieces, the bobs and keepsakes
that constitute my mien, a constitutional
convention of 13 colonies that raucous
write of burdens, of freedoms, with wild
inspirations and cold political calculations
this combining document hoping to topstitch
my reeling mind and deteriorating physic,
to write words of hopeful praise but rising
to a world that is baking in hatred into fabric
and tissue, and that is the heaviest lift of all
Sunday morning, coffe-d, somewhat rested,
a full day planned, and a Mike Message says
it’s me that does the heavy lifting and I know!
he knows! the displaced state of my mind, and
the hardened ache of writing with fresh hope,
when there is so little, that it is lost in the litter
of endlessness of a world gone, not going,
mad~insane and murderers are
illogically celebrated,
and yet here I am punching words on my
AM Morning Punch List of worthy words
available that aid us needy for repair & yet
might move us together to a state of full repair;
but I am punchy from trying, to find words
themselves that require do not require, a
truth washing,
a new word recleansing
and*
(they put the load right on me),
*and naïf-not, see the troubles ahead and get
me more paper to add to the list of lists of
worldly worrisome words that are heavy
lifting of the world as it is but know I weep as
I write this for not in my possess the light airy
words, the wordsmith is crushed neath the weight of***
tonnage of human word-lessened-ness
Sunday Morning
Oct 22 2023
9:02am,
writ in a singed single cry
Oct 22, 2023
Oct 22, 2023 at 10:09 AM UTC
I'm caught up in the street lights once again.
I feel like I'm a titan at the peak of Mt. Olympus.
My head feels like I'm violent, but my mind is violins,
as I shade my eyes from the sunrise from way back when I was 9 or 10.
We could stare forever at these break lights or look through blurry pictures that we took on all those late nights.
You looked so happy even though I knew we had a cast on
but you can only see your face because I forgot to turn the flash on.
We ran outside that night, we noticed it was "too cold for our feet" snow.
We kept it up and gave it our best, but the times were hard to keep so now they seem more like keepsakes.
Is that a cursing or a blessing?
They say that life is worth the learning, but they want me to teach the lesson.
50% white noise. 50% radio.
Those are the thoughts of a quiet broken heart that sits in the passenger seat.
My driver wants to **** me...but I'm not really that scared though.
Tell me I'm alive.
Tell me I'm living.
Tell me that I'm not alone in this world.
You say you can't sing...but as long as you're singing, I will know I'm more than last December.
Oct 1, 2014
Oct 1, 2014 at 8:31 PM UTC
Tired clot of night
in the moon’s slight of hand
in the moon’s slight—
place to hang my hat....
Winter clouds come tumbling toward
the gray
Raked clean by barren trees
Yard waits with its leaves
tucked in corners by the wind
along hedges, stairways
mingling with renegade trash
Stuffed in layers like elderly keepsakes for—
no one cares...
My yard—a neglect of winter woods
but for towels waving stiffly on the line
and the squealing crackle of my footsteps—
Being there
Stairs sigh differently coming home
Blind search for a key hole
I could die searching!
the frustrations of the blind
the fumblings of “locked out!”
I—
know where to go....
Pretend
in my warm lonely
fling—mittens on the table
Survey the ***** dishes...and
close my eyes
Nov 21, 2016
Nov 21, 2016 at 10:31 PM UTC
Above the public pool
a volleyball so cool
stuck for years
in the rafters
Someone’s
breath of life
trapped in
it’s bladder
Evidence of
their lingering
presence, me
wondering
if they ever
pondered the
relevance of
the essence they
left behind?
Singsong thoughts
turn inward …
What about me?
In all the places
I’ve been,
pieces of me,
residual traces
of myself
left behind,
cast away!
Small links, unforgotten,
faithfully preserved
by old friends—
threads of connection
reinforced by timeless bonds—
who keep my words,
moves (dancing!), and
shared memories as
precious cargo,
cherished keepsakes,
A clear reminder that
I exist! I matter!
I’m something much more
than simply air I breathe
on an unremembered day …
Like that beautiful volleyball
in the rafters
W I L S O N ! ! !
Mark Toney © 2023
Aug 30, 2023
Aug 30, 2023 at 10:10 PM UTC
The whole world talks in code
Somehow yours I understand
In you I find a resting place
In you I mustn’t fight to stand
And therein lies a mystery
Of twin souls in separate bodies,
With separate minds and separate lives,
But seeing through the same bright eyes
You seem to comprehend my agony
With a soft tongue and wizened lips
I cling to all your keepsakes
When I feel my memory slip
This town is over-bearing
I’m sure my foes make your good friends
But from this nightmare you give relief-
True conversation that never ends
Jul 1, 2012
Jul 1, 2012 at 3:00 PM UTC
tradition is more than yesterday’s stories
old photographs and dusty keepsakes
it is the remembering of tomorrow
it is the nervous acting out
of ceremony with candles and words
of an ancient story of wonder and light
it is the gladsome preparation
of the festive foods for the jolbord
and the pride of happy hosts
it is the gentle noise of children playing
the rumbling conversation of friends remembering
the tear in a grandparent’s eye
it is the leap in our hearts at midwinter’s turn
it is the song that ever celebrates life’s wonder
Dec 14, 2014
Dec 14, 2014 at 10:06 PM UTC
Through a vision in my dream, I see her there standing
a smile, unpainted, authentic and real, hopeful
opening the door, I feel a smile emerge, and the butterflies
oh they kick within me, like a life is growing there
a baby in sight, with no bump or pulse, just a gathering
of fluttering wings, that should I rip my chest open
out they would fly, a mélange of colours and shapes
purple swallowtails, adonis blues, lacewings, painted ladies
and finally, my favourite, the Menelaus Blue Morpho
escorted by the Duke of Burgundy, my springtime hero
each flutter, each movement, a collection from the continents
my self, my soul, my body has travelled, wanderlust
keepsakes of beauty and bliss, bordering on extinction safe within me
in a heartbeat they cover my whole self, they move around my body
my legs tremble, barely able to hold, this grown woman upright
a gulp, a gasp, a stare in wonder,
speechless, tongue tied, dazed, dumb, silent
my head empties, no thought passes, the parietal lobe vanishes
adrenaline is racing through my body faster than the light hitting my eyes
moments later I find vocal sound waves breezing past my ears
they are in slow motion, her voice mumbled, incoherent
she touches me and I jump in fright,
my eyes adjust, my heartbeat slows down, my legs steady
"Rachel!"
"Rachel!"
I wake up alone.
© Sia Jane
---
*"In through the window a moonbeam comes,—
Little gold moonbeam with misty wings;
All silently creeping, it asks,
"Is he sleeping— Sleeping and dreaming while mother sings?"*
Eugene Field
Dec 28, 2013
Dec 28, 2013 at 7:02 PM UTC
A warm coat on a snowy day
Words meant to be said
Stories told over and over
To-Do lists left in her head
Promises made
Bowtie for a worker’s uniform
A pair of red gloves
Umbrellas in a storm
A charger for a phone
Many different passwords used
A library book now overdue
And lessons learned too
Places which have been explored
Goals which have been made
Random keepsakes they hoard
The way that things have changed
Textbooks for a class
What makes someone strange
Combinations to a lock
Setting the alarm clock
Feb 4, 2013
Feb 4, 2013 at 3:45 PM UTC