"kilter" poems
I barely know you,
Yet my words just spill out with no filter.
I want you to just see me,
Without a mask and a little off kilter.
Crushes are weird.
Jun 9, 2014
Jun 9, 2014 at 10:42 PM UTC
what's the point of buying a portrait if you are blind?
nothing i would see is worth my precious time—
just more metal, bad skin, and tired, jealous eyes
senseless sensibility is a cold kettle boiling,
nonsense steam fogs up the jaded glass.
draw a picture with your finger,
smile as it fades to apathy,
all that lovely water turned to gas.
i lick my palms to play pretend with illness,
stay in bed with the quilt kicked off-kilter,
crawling with the brood of the six-legged past;
they are eating the nests of the threatened, bitter future
change the cable channels in my brain,
but only stations two and five are clear,
and eight if a wire coat-hanger antenna
is bent at an angle from my dominant ear
so i can sit, content, and watch the weather
sneaking in exhaust from every orifice
gets me passed out stupid every time;
a coping mechanism,
coated **** between the gears,
and only this pollution left behind.
Jun 23, 2012
Jun 23, 2012 at 11:13 PM UTC
With mighty aplomb
You drop your vitreous 'view bomb'
With unorthodox precision
You squander my decision
You have one filter
And that is to kilter
The views that don't come from a stranger
The views that echo in your echo chamber
Fair pity to those who reach out with an olive branch
To give you another chance
A chance to move away from grief
A chance to turn over another leaf
Jan 6, 2021
Jan 6, 2021 at 7:21 AM UTC
i.
i know that the ear is connected to the nose and the nose is connected to the throat and the throat is connected to the mouth
which is probably why, when we kiss, i hear symphonies
and when i hear "i love you" travel from your lips to my ear
i taste bliss on the tip of my tongue
ii.
i read somewhere that smell is most strongly attached to memory
this means that i will keep your t shirt forever, and maybe your shampoo, too
apparently photographs are not enough
iii.
someone told me that it is not the eyes, but the brain that sees
eyes are just transmitters
but what i see in front of me must be love because it does not register with my mind at all
but my heart translates it beautifully for me
it knows exactly why its own beat becomes erratic when you enter my thoughts
it knows exactly what's going on in this tenement of flesh i call my body
iv.
they say that the last of the five senses is not touch, but equilibrium
which is probably why, when i don't feel your hands in mine
when there is air and not skin
my whole world is off-kilter
i know what it means to fall in love
Aug 25, 2014
Aug 25, 2014 at 11:05 PM UTC
"Cash, Grass or Ass-No One Rides Free!"
reads the bumper-sticker slapped on the ratty Harley.
Its black leather seat is cracked, tattered and torn,
the headlight is busted and there's no friggin' horn;
with mismatched saddlebags strapped to each side,
the panhead leaks like a sieve, but it's still quite a ride.
The gas-tank is dented, scratched and coated with muck,
the chrome no longer shines, but who gives a flyin' ****
Its tires are bald, the spokes are all rusted to ****
and the frame is off-kilter from a cage-driver's hit.
The biker just puffed the last hit from his pipe,
slammed down the rest of the J.D. from the bash last night;
then he hops on his hog, kicks the monster to start,
the muffler-pipes blast flames and roar like a ****
Together they roll down the road like old pals,'
with nowhere to go, just obnoxious and loud:
the tombstone tail-light flashes bright red on this mess,
'though Cashless, Grassless and Assless, they couldn't care less!
Sep 2, 2010
Sep 2, 2010 at 1:34 AM UTC
That day I met her at the Shelter
She said, “My name is Dora",
While hanging upside down, off kilter,
“I’m Dora the Explorer!”
Balanced on the armoire door
Beckoning me to help her retrieve
Hanging high above the floor
A ballet that I couldn’t believe...
Up on one toe she dangled
As she demanded I help her reach
Some toys she longed to wrangle
Until we heard a commanding screech!
“Get down from there! Wash your hands!
Asia, it’s almost time for dinner!"
Dora leapt-trusting- she lands
Her high-flying act a sure winner!
Oh, Dora, who is Asia?
She said, “I don’t like that name-sorry!
Later let's play a new game?
After dinner my name is Laurie!”
Since she answered to that name
I schooled her in her name’s history
But Dora just wouldn’t be tamed
“Not a CONTINENT-I’m a MYSTERY!”
Asia, alias Laurie Dora
After supper, brushed and scrubbed
Gave the best, my airy explorer-
Dora's monumental hug!
She sprang to my arms without warning
Like a monkey from a vine
I wasn’t aware until morning
It was the best hug of all time!
Mar 16, 2016
Mar 16, 2016 at 4:47 PM UTC
Brown-Eyed Girl-
they say she is the weakest link
gone and sprung amuck
through clouded fields of poppy seeds
and cottony ****** they say she is a sprain
of chortling pain in the dumpling
maker's yeasting wrist.
brown-eyed girl seeing powdered
blues of glass-stained eyes,
he wore a plaid shirt, nip-and-tucked,
rat-a-tat-tat, and a silly looking bow-tie
slopped slightly off-kilter and to the right,
a frenchie little pear of a man. he said he liked her-
tie-dye thighs. she said, he said, she liked his
dumpling hands - and flakey chest.
they say she is that button-down clad-
sunflowers-printed kind-of, sad.
memories tainted, she said, he said,
she's the kind of girl you've got to love every night,
my kind of a woman. my salted oils, fried
and phat-
brown-eyed girl.
Nov 11, 2015
Nov 11, 2015 at 9:49 PM UTC
I have a million things to say.
Yet I keep silent.
I pepper my conversations with pregnant pauses --
Uncomfortable breaks which throw the whole thing off kilter
and send the other party slinking away.
Much later I practice what I might have said --
Something remarkable or brazen, hilarious or incredibly insightful.
But it's much too late.
Like a show horse balking at a gate, I arrived at the moment of truth
and chickened out.
I could have made the jump, I just lacked the necessary courage.
I marvel at people who are so
comfortable in their own skins that they can
talk with ease and aplum in any situation.
I envy them.
Truth be told, I hate them.
Don't they know I have something great to say?
I'm just a little slow on the draw...
Okay, a lot slow...
But I do have a million things to say.
Jan 21, 2013
Jan 21, 2013 at 5:17 PM UTC
the sol and solitude
scalpel~dissect layers of tissue,
marrows of nuclei separate,
the warming is discomforting
dismayed and dissuaded,
cannot be in two places,
either/or/or simultaneous,
my centerpiece is a-kilter
wavering and waving,
my balance is mis-weighted,
teetering and tottering, in a land
lightly and thickly discriminating
between bodies and disembodiment
I am neither
I am both,
therefore,
I am invisible
to eyes that are shut by
obstructions of
willful
blindness
Nov 26, 2023
Nov 26, 2023 at 8:39 AM UTC
I am a tight knot of chaos and impulse
I am erratic, spinning in a wild off kilter dance
I am poison to the beautiful things I love
I turn them sour with my touch
Apr 19, 2015
Apr 19, 2015 at 10:05 PM UTC
Jonathan Anderson's collections walk a confounding tightrope between naïveté and decadence. Much of his new menswear looked like clothes for a futuristic, spiritual retreat (Anderson himself said he wanted something "laid-back, Zen-like"), but the buckled patent shoes were purest dancehall honky-tonk. The fitted leather jackets were pretty flashy, too, especially when contrasted with multi-pleated pants in plainest calico or denim.
"He took himself seriously," said the voice-over that launched Michel Gaubert's stirring soundtrack (a journey all in itself), but that felt like Anderson poking a little fun at his own expense—or at least anticipating reactions to his quirky rationale. He insisted his collection was actually like an imaginary world that a child might create for himself, akin to the tree houses he and his brother used to build. The preciousness that such a boy would bestow on things that are essentially valueless was reflected in the ordinary objects—keys, tools—that were transmuted into jewelry, the board game that mutated into a constructivist jacquard, and the calico or denim artfully constructed into the pants that made up the foundation of the collection. Some of the models were carrying a small metal frame on which curious little things were suspended, almost like charms to ward off who knows what.
That subtly occult tinge has become something of an Anderson signature, the way he disturbs the refined with the raw, for instance—a thin strand of bamboo or a bandage of calico nipping the waist, or a crude smear of paint across a tulle top so fine it is barely there, or even a white feather stuck to a shoulder. Such touches feel last-minute spontaneous, but also off-kilter, which is exactly where Anderson wants to keep us. But his work is now so consistent that off-kilter is proving a rather pleasant place to be.Read more here:www.marieaustralia.com/evening-dresses | www.marieaustralia.com/formal-dresses
Jun 15, 2015
Jun 15, 2015 at 2:01 AM UTC
When she says she hears voices rattling and battling in the deepest recesses of her mind, then it's time to beware, take care, and make choices saddling you and leave her behind.
Shes a case study of its kind. That even Freud would throw up his hands, make a grand stand in his frustrations and demand a vacation to unwind.
She's all that and more.
She'll wrap a man around her fingers make him putty in her hands,
leave him babbling in his mirror
trying so much to understand.
He should feel something, but just can't comprehend,
left a mute, numb, mumbling...
carcass, of a man.
She's like an itch that becomes a
scratch that's becomes a pestering,
festering **** till you look down
horror bound as the ****** swollen
thing has taken on a life of its own...
then it starts maxing out your cards,
throwing your clothes out on the yard,
yelling hard. Snooping on your phone. Won't go home. Won't leave you alone.
Is it a wound or a woman or a woman or a wound or both simultaneously, concurrently? Yes and no.
Oh the trials and tribulations I've known!
You can really pick em.
Daddy used to say, in his haphazard way, and really lay it on me in the harshest of phrases, meant to dazzle and daze me, rile and faze me, knock me a kilter off my normal day.
Son, you stimulate and exhilarate the
spirit of an untamed, pained, wild
child woman and it'll be the same, and here this,
as an insane drain on the brain most personally and certainly and most notably and you can quote me. It'll leave you feeling like the beach storming at Normandy.
Jun 16, 2018
Jun 16, 2018 at 5:38 AM UTC
when you only
see the world
through the prism
of an Instagram filter,
the spectrum's
overshadowed
by black and white
vignettes.
brick-by-brick
you build that wall
around yourself,
closed off to the plight
of every one else.
who needs borders
when you refuse to see
beyond the periphery
of your iPhone's screen?
refugees? border patrol?
endless war?
merely fragmentary
snapshots
in off-kilter
snapchats
casting grim light
on contemporary
outcasts, rebels
built to outlast
the vitriol leveled
at modern-day martyrs
by tyrants and overlords.
'cause when you neglect
to read the passages
of history, you scapegoat
the brave, can't see
the forest for the trees,
reduce the complex
to Manichean binaries
of Good vs. Evil,
Left vs. Right,
an infinite etcetera
of demagoguery.
noses glued
to illuminated screens,
ignoring the visionaries
for illusionary fantasies:
one-click—purchased
happiness, bread
and circus.
advertising
has us chasing
a feeling fleeting
as a riptide when we
ought to be rallying
on the front lines,
punching Nazis.
a black bloc
tossing bricks into
storefront windows.
Apr 1, 2017
Apr 1, 2017 at 12:46 AM UTC
APEIROPHOBIA: [n.] the fear of infinity or infinite things.
—
you are love at the end of the world, something spelled without a glottal plea
the stars on my crown hang heavy tonight and i’ve barely slept for an hour but my mind drifts off to weary constellations and i sometimes wonder if we were aligned at all
you, vague hurt, you, toothache in the middle of a birthday party
you, a love like no other
and running without wolves to guide our journey, the forest scratches every inch of bare skin and i would cry out if you hadn’t done the same to me in your restless tossing and turning, there is love in your eyes but no love in the blood you make me bleed
there is still something left to be said. but my mouth is dry and full of sand, kiss it and catch a fly on the wall, smear ointment on its wings and maybe i’ll tell you about how i feel
and it isn’t a good one, it isn’t a love i towed beyond fathoms of seawater and across miles of irradiated coastlines, it isn’t me, count the distance and end up with infinity in one sitting, infinity with end, infinity to beg you of love
beg me of a message unclear, home sweet home
it’s better than nothing. the woozy way i walk into the ocean with a pocket full of rocks and a mind full of bitter sloshing around, is better than nothing, love
it’s better than everything love
because it’s something i still wish to keep, wish on a nebulae cluster that doesn’t exist the second you force yourself to breathe out, screams
no comforting the choir, i’ll drape mine around your bruised shoulders and shake both of them softly until i’ve killed half the universe with my hubris, until we’ve killed off every erstwhile incandescence just to look a little off-kilter, early morning, i’ve never felt better despite never finding out what repose meant
the sky is red at sunrise and then what
and then we, and then we
feel fine
you are love at the end of the world, and i am ready to struggle for survival. invite me into your rose-tinted apocalypse and allow me to decide a fate which was never mine to rewrite
it’s nothing
it’s better than nothing love
Feb 28, 2022
Feb 28, 2022 at 2:07 PM UTC
dismay is felt when opening the newspaper
to read Athena's astral charts
on many occasions her predictions are well out
which tend to make the readers doubt
to-day she stated that all Geminis
were in for an adventure
but she failed to also mention
the possibility of a misadventure
Taurus individuals supposedly
are going to win a truck load of cash
they'll be disappointed
should they not collect a stash
she said all Virgos
would be bidding their time
but how would she know
as few of them can march to a rhyme
this pronouncement she had written large
which told of a Capricorn who'd fly to Mars
yet this person hasn't got a rocket
which can propel him to Mars
here was one that reeled me in
she spoke of a Pisces eating a dog
her info was well out of kilter
we all know that all fishes prefer a frog
Athena was glowing in her outlook
for those Cancer folk saying they'd find a bloke
though none of them are in the market
for finding a bloke
she put in a good line for Scorpios
to be careful whilst using the hose
as they might get the nozzle
stuck to their nose
Libras were given an Athena heads up
not to take their dreams too far
why would she say that
when we all know that a Libra dreamer always makes par
she stated that Sagittarius ladies
needed to buy a spring party dress
though they've all got wardrobes
full of lovely floral brightness
what do you think of her
Leo chart for November and December
during these months
will they have a holiday to remember
she made mention of Aquarius souls
by way of Rock and Roll
few of those sixties baby bombers
have the legs to now Rock and Roll
finally her is what she telegraphed
for our Aries cousins in Perth
they'd all be reborn on planet Earth
yet none are seeking a rebirth
Athena's predictive Astrology page
is one we'll all need to thoroughly gauge
Sep 19, 2014
Sep 19, 2014 at 10:54 PM UTC
From the helter skelter
In a helter skelter dash
For solitude at the esker
I strayed in a labyrinth
Of dark soaring woods
Here-upon, trees begun to move!
An optical illusion it seemed to be,
Though a moment my eyes did love;
But in a mean time, out of kilter
Was the avenue to the esker.
Wandering midst soaring woods
Serendipitously there I beheld
An elegant creature,
A creature with a velvety
Pale unblemished skin,
Lilly white as porcelain,
Gaily yet opalescent as an opal,
With curling glossy auburn hair,
Mellifluously whispering a lullaby
With verve in the wanton air
Whilst flapping her wings
To take wing.
On feasting about her impeccable face,
It thus dawned upon me:
"She was not of this our world
But an alien, an angel rom outer space."
Swiftly, I gravitated towards her
And unto her said I was lost,
Lost like leaves beneath the frost
Upon my way for solitude at the esker
However the sheer cynosure
She'd taken my fancy
Hence moonstruck for sure.
She gagged me, cwtched me,
Enveloped me in her wings
And merrily took wing
Whilst I gallantly kissed,
Kissed her nectar kisser.
Past mullbery skies we soared,
All the way unto her land of bliss
Where upon we swam naked,
Naked in halcyon waters,
Waters of her land.
Together, we made poetry
Of love and life so blind,
Cherishing moment after moment
One could search forever to find,
Whilst gallivanting from star to star,
Only alone by ourselves on yonder
To a very distant colourful clime,
Yonder beyond restrictions of time.
Jul 27, 2015
Jul 27, 2015 at 8:50 AM UTC
Hope there’s someone
Standing like a statue
Cold and silver eyed angel
Waiting
I will kiss his feet
And rest my head on his shoulders
The nights he is kind enough to hold me
The floor of the middle ground
Is the softest earth I know
And I sink slowly as I walk
Not even faith will keep my feet above it
It is a vast expanse of lonely
Damp air but otherwise waterless
This is the place my prayers go
I can hear them like landmarks
Echoing my fears back to life
Home is the distance of a sunset
That never changes
Always in my sight
And always sets so far away
I savor it
And I hope there’s someone
Who will hold me
The nights I get so tired
I risk the earth’s hungry swallow
And give up
There’s a man on the horizon
Statue silver eyed angel
And there’s you on every horizon
I miss you
I am afraid of this place
Wasteland of mistakes
And picturesque landmarks of nightmares
You on every horizon
I don’t want to go
Wherever he is leading me
it is not home
You are home
You are sea sick waterbed **********
Fire sizzle sweat steam
Damp rag soaking up my deathbed
Perfect balance to my off kilter dance steps
You are home on the days I give up
And sink into whatever broken bed I have made this time
You are love in the long hours of insomnia
Head in crook of neck
Even though I know my collar bones aren't comfortable
You are sweet smelling
Rough around the edges
But still so much softer than me
And I hope there’s someone
To hold me
When I am tired
When I die
Because I am scared of that place
I don’t want to go
Dec 11, 2011
Dec 11, 2011 at 7:15 PM UTC
she was underdressed, overtouched. and kept ironing out her napkin at the bar. with blue ink she wrote his last name in place of her own. the fan spun off-kilter. the bartender finished his third vegas bomb. one too many.
Dec 1, 2012
Dec 1, 2012 at 10:27 PM UTC
FLASH
"the exposure looks kinda funny"
"maybe just adjust the aperture a bit"
"add in the lighting"
"is the white balance set?"
the chair squeaks as it moves to the left
the weight shifts the couch in their direction
heat radiates from the family
whose fake smiles are nearly as blinding as the flash from the camera
despite the tripod, the camera sits off kilter
like the uneasy tension in the room
it feels hot--no, sweltering
unsettled emotions sit like
discarded mail
away and out of sight
CLICK
"Okay, we're good"
and the family heads off in their separate ways
with no goodbyes for the others
May 19, 2019
May 19, 2019 at 1:01 AM UTC
I make trips to the corner store, at 12 in the morning.
Calling all cars to get the **** out of the road,
I'm swerving.
Calling all lights,
blink and be gone. Streetlights,
stoplights, lamps, lighters,
blunt tips, cigarette butts,
all lights be gone.
Dear Earth, get low in the darkness.
On my first trip,
I was accosted by rabid dogs who drooled shoelaces
and I could tell they were being hounded
by the kilter of their angry maws
and sawed-off minds.
They barked like guns.
And they saw me--completely irrelevant---
popping caps off Lokos
taking sips that could **** up an Orca,
completely swimming.
I had to kick them home.
At work today,
Someone got caught stealing five pesos worth of food,
and got threatened with a felony,
but they've got some lint in their pocket,
and knew how to keep it cool.
My girlfriend operates in ideas.
I've been at work for so long,
that I yell and walk around,
like I'm in the shower.
Dec 15, 2013
Dec 15, 2013 at 10:35 AM UTC
How do I deskribe a kiss?
The most blessed of gifts:
It's the keystone of romance,
Kaleidoscope of lips.
It knocks me all off kilter,
Like a kick right to the knee.
But it doesn't hurt, it's keen and kind...
At least initially.
A kiss kannot be shared with kith,
Nor relative or kin.
Just with one who's only kismet
Needs me to kindle its flame's begin
Karma, too, works through the kiss:
She uses Koalemos to kayo.
But so does Keb, the kinder god,
who kills the kildness- my heart's snow.
Still, how do I deskribe a kiss?
Kamikaze? Prepared to ****
Or delikate as floating kites of kids?
Definition eludes me still.
Mar 12, 2013
Mar 12, 2013 at 9:46 PM UTC
What miserable circumstances these are I must say,
All seriousness awaits every young mind,
Dust turns to dirt,
And thy dirt turns to slime!!!
Lying in the state of orient,
Thine place of buckeye hatched Nazi's!!!
Thine place where flies stay nutritious,
And gamblers turn to yahzee!!!
Turnaround,
For pickaways thy decadent view,
Just as Shawshank there's no escape,
Just white t-shirts ,
Straps replace laces and mindrapists of me and you!!!
Such colorful words used in a slander!!!
Falcons to replace birds,
Snake's here to smell out every tasteful salamander!!
No dancers,
No lovers,
No swings,
No palliation!!!
No invitations to weddings,
No wedded rings!!!!
Constitutional rights,
Forgeteth them thou reader of ohian laws,
Thy bloodcells extend,
Muscles bend to flex thy own callibur to thine jaw!!!!
Miracles of dark and lighted angels appear in sequences,
No recommendations,
Just case workers to fill bus help stations!!!
Proverbs to psalms will open to eyes that have not yet seen,
Where pearlied gates are out on display,
No movie theaters,
No freak like scenes!!!
All reality, no aura in the Catacomb of unknown kilter!!!
Pacification leads me successfully with a peace of minds own capture,
Prevailing to Sentiment,
To Amour ever after!!!!!
May 22, 2015
May 22, 2015 at 7:31 PM UTC
On a smooth cushion of silken air
I stand moderately off kilter.
We are elated and healed
Everyone is astounded.
We stood there like living sculpture,
We fed each other hope and affection.
I will kiss you eternally
I will never treat you like a slug.
On a smooth silken cushion of air,
Standing moderately off kilter
I don't get rude comments,
From adults, strangers, enemies and teenagers.
Everyone greets us with Hello, hello.
And then laughter hijacks my mouth.
You have been unshackled
Their death, my life, our cradle,
Our bodies, our souls unfettered.
On a smooth silken cushion of air
We will lay, moderately off kilter.
Aug 5, 2012
Aug 5, 2012 at 9:42 AM UTC