"kudzu" poems
A glance from you is a seed of kudzu.
The madness spreads,
wrapping around each tree,
gripping it in a panic.
This is not healthy.
I use you like I would pop pills
to forget about things
I don't like about my existence.
Can you lose yourself
within yourself?
Sometimes,
when I sit alone,
I wish the forest of my life would burn.
I would light the match,
and I could once again
see the sky.
Mar 13, 2012
Mar 13, 2012 at 9:37 PM UTC
This is your reality, the brave new world;
i just hang out here:
birthed in the Cradle of Elam,
a mourning son of Baal,
smeared and anointed
with the oil from the
***** fingerprints of
countless scores of
sweaty neophytes;
carried, dropped, dented;
brought forth from eons passed,
updated for the 21st century,
gilded Krylon-gold.
This nebulous gift,
made tangible and
whole by blood,
a form fitting sacrifice,
transmogrified kudzu,
rootless, digging
talons' clutch into
our minds' construct,
seeks strength of
conviction, action.
Our ship is now
veering off course.
i must respond in kind.
i will not be led astray.
i will not have my good
intentions commandeered.
i will hijack your purpose,
screaming mutiny,
holding Occam's Razor-knife
to the throat of your jihads.
i issue a fatwa of peace,
as you once did,
before.
i renounce a kingdom of hate,
as you once did,
before.
i seek charity in effort,
as we once did,
before.
Let us rebuild.
Let us move forward.
***** a new Babel,
forsaking the sword.
Let our forks be on roads,
and not on our tongues;
a forging of union,
as we'd once begun:
My sisters, my brothers,
my family,
as one.
Oct 20, 2013
Oct 20, 2013 at 7:39 PM UTC
Behind these eyes, insanity
a slow permeation of a voice
screaming truths and half truths
I just don’t want to listen
so I flood the head
just to drown the haunting
but it is ******* immortal
every night I send an eagle
to gnaw on the larynx
every morning it’s there to greet
disguised as a fictional friend
fiend. I meant fiend.
it’s kudzu it’s ******* kudzu
every day is a mid spring day
even in winters delicate palms
I spend the nights soaking in a bath
last night I let the water taste my tongue
soon it will feast on my lungs
I can go out like Plath
except my poems are bad
and my novel is only a paragraph
I will not
let the inner
demons win.
Sep 26, 2018
Sep 26, 2018 at 2:29 PM UTC
I. That summer the radio
Played nothing but Cat Stevens
While I hummed harmonies
In my first car
It was a wild world indeed
when kudzu overtook
The cornfields
All the ears were foreigners
The leaves basked in light
That dead-ended on route 15
II. That fall we spotted UFO's
Shining over the municipal
Park
We chased them across the
Ballfields
To the high school cross country course
A dirt track running
Through the woods
And when there was nothing
Alien lurking there
Our hopes fell
Faster than the stars
III. The following winter
Three inches of ice cut the powerlines
Impounded our school supplies
With the outtages
And the temperatures plummeting
Seventy percent of our hearts froze
All the parts that were water
Expanding our chests
Like balloons
Expanding our vision too
We thought this was the beginning
Of the end of St. Clair county
We though we'd all get out someday
IV. By spring the graveyard smelled
Like lilacs
And dead town elders
Came out to dance in the scent
We played capture the flag there
On school nights
And the cops could never catch us
Behind the headstones
Of our family plots
We wrote our own epitaphs
"I was water and I could have been
A fine wine"
I fell asleep in sweet green clover to the sound of smalltown sirens...
Aug 30, 2013
Aug 30, 2013 at 10:03 PM UTC
i see myself -
unshaven and distraught, at peace with who i am and despaired by a world i saw coming but couldn't prepare for.
i see myself -
sitting in the old house, civil war ghosts whispering through the cracks in the dry red clay. sherman burned this town once and now i get to watch the sun do it again.
i see myself -
the hedges are overgrown and i never stopped smoking cigarettes. the shadows on the walls are mapped out, a mimicry of life in an empty heirloom.
i see myself -
head in my hands thinking about history. The Last Gilded Age. The Second Gilded Age. what good are comparisons if no one's left to draw them? how does the past make room in a world already strangled by its present?
i choke back -
the same addiction that made geraldine shoot herself. it occurs to me that i am probably the last person alive to remember geraldine ever existed. i think that's what drew me to history - i've always had the past living inside me. there's a whole family tree intertwined with my ribcage, like kudzu over tarred lungs.
i fill my -
flask with weedkiller. i inherit an open wound. i try to find my place in a history that no one will ever read.
May 4, 2021
May 4, 2021 at 2:15 AM UTC
We gathered our water
and packs at daybreak
to hike hand in hand
toward the distant ruin—
a tall stone chimney planted
on otherwise empty acreage,
a kudzu-covered tower,
the ghost of a farmhouse
now a home to field mice,
black beetles and bats,
with bricks the color
of weathered blood,
vertebrae stacked
a century and a half ago
by a stonemason’s craft,
still solid and bonded
despite the slow decay
of arthritic mortar.
How long have we
walked together?
The morning
is all we have
left to ponder.
We walk for hours;
the chimney grows
larger at our approach.
I want to ask you
a question about
the night we met,
what you said
just before I held
you for the first time,
but then I catch sight
of my hand and realize
I am walking alone,
moving inexorably
toward a ruination
of my own making.
How could I have been
so careless? Unable
to stop, every step
strips something away:
my hair thins and falls,
as white and weak
as sickled wiregrass;
another step and my
body atomizes into
the stuff of stars,
pollen scattered
on a rising wind.
So this is what it
feels like to decay.
By the time I reach
the ruin I am mostly
cinder and ash,
a sorry vestige
sown in a quiet field,
a forgotten landmark
that strangers will visit,
if only to contemplate
how the evening fog
spindles like smoke
along the enduring
column of my spine.
Feb 9, 2017
Feb 9, 2017 at 4:30 PM UTC
Royal Road slopes
enough so that your toes know
which way you are going.
Kudzu and ragweed accent the driveway
pitted with bushel basket size
holes amid roaming plastic grocery bags.
A 1960’s version mobile home
fights Mimosa and blackberry bush
to remain visible.
As I ascend the creaking steps
a neighbor cracks the quiet
to announce that, “Jesse is on the way.”
I hear the clop, swish, clop
as Jesse corners onto Royal Road
and chugs toward me.
Sweat rivers from his beard.
He greets me with,
“Thanks for the groceries.”
I said, "I need you to sign
to show I brought food."
I didn’t ask, “How did you lose your leg?”
Nov 20, 2013
Nov 20, 2013 at 9:58 AM UTC
Find constructed love
a piecemeal beauty
on those winding roads toward
Memphis
within rolling hills of
kudzu
the south, of red roads
black birds and white
in the swamp
a shock
cotton fields span
quiet, still the machines sleeping
the sun seeping
the car were in, **** covered
streaming
tall black and pastel along cars
friendly
I also saw a prison
carved in a hill side along a skinny
road, Mississippi
barb wire gem stone shine
white sign,
do not pick up hitch hikers
the humidity, heavy guilt
on dried clay
boiled peanuts
sightseeing in a
crime scene
Feb 13, 2015
Feb 13, 2015 at 2:45 PM UTC
Brassavola nodosa: Lady of the Night
Drinking deep the cold water
with her loose, slender petals
that wrap the aspidistra tree,
she waits, just before dusk
to release her moonlit fragrance.
Dark welcomes this ghost-white
orchid that proves love blooms
in nature with a night to drown
the stillness of a leafy bedding.
The wild-eyed child opens her gaze
to this wonder hidden in kudzu vines
of a Brazilian forest that does not sleep
so soundly with its dragonflies.
Only the moon knows she speaks
of fallen petals and longed for rain.
Feb 2, 2013
Feb 2, 2013 at 6:57 PM UTC
*Fickle Silver Maples lie forlorn in the -
stillness of Noon , melancholy belles that change -
their sullen tune by the belated , crosswind steamy Georgia afternoon
Dandelion sprinkled prairie of home , bordered in thick , red clay
trenches , kudzu covered period homesteads , Spring peach
and pecan orchards drenched in wild , unabated orchid and coneflower
Sweetgum cones rattle in nightfalls cooling breeze without respite , riverstone retaining walls , whitewashed barns and gravel drives , Bantam hens perch Live Oak branches along flint , cobblestone pathways*
May 11, 2016
May 11, 2016 at 7:35 PM UTC
Particularly towards a distant echo
One I hope may reverberate these bones yet
May not be for ages
Life's heartsong is thick kudzu vines furry and soft and little creepy tendrils that can break down walls and smother everything in fuzzy warm green love
That's what the left paw is holding in palm
Courage-bound
For happy comes in three - two to love and one two challenge that fever with rampant fire
Words to start a cross-world touch
Face like furry red flame and I'm sure you aren't cold
Take me by surprise and I'll feed you to my sunrise
Love
Jul 12, 2015
Jul 12, 2015 at 2:51 PM UTC
I am from my grandmother,who snuck out of the house to smoke camel non-filtered
I am from the middle of nowhere, not far from town.
I am from the pine tree with a water hose tied on it, where I imagined I was Indiana Jones.
I am from the woods, where the cicadas sang at night.
I am from the kudzu that blanketed the trees and menaced the garden.
I am from the apple trees in the front yard, whose fruit never turned red.
I am from the middle of nowhere, not far from town.
I am from my grandfather’s plaid pockets, where he would pull out suckers.
I am from my father’s mustang that i crashed into the driveway.
I am from my great-grandfather’s picture, proudly displayed on the wooden mantle.
I am from my grandmother’s bible stories, in the back bedroom where she read every night.
I am from the middle of nowhere, not far from town.
I am from Highway 494, where the trees were leveled to build subdivisions.
I am from the soft red clay and moist brown earth of the backyard.
I am from the moonlight I could see from the top of my house late at night.
I am from the sweltering heat and uncut grass in the front yard.
I am from the middle of nowhere, not far from town.
I am from the small cemetary past the corner store, where my grandfather lies next to my grandmother,
and my father next to her.
I am from Uptown New Orleans, where my daughter learns her A.B.C’s in the back bedroom
where she prays every night
I am from the brown bag from the Shell station that i fill with suckers, and sneak to her when her mom isn’t watching.
I am from the picture of us dancing at a music festival, her on my shoulders, displayed proudly on the wooden mantle.
I am not from from anywhere, in the middle of town
May 15, 2015
May 15, 2015 at 1:07 AM UTC
A simple peace exists
In all the lines between
And balanced upon the throne
You are, precariously strung up
Let go of the crumbling precipice
Breathe in the lucid flame
Strip the grey of your soul
Proceed to devour the filth
Enjoy the stonehenge of your years
Make another mark in the Earth
And bind the roots of life
To the dreary mists of days long past
Take first the heart of jaded lies
Then shatter the cracked backbone
Let loose the tides of weary men
And bring forth the unspoken champion
Refuse the offer of eternity
Trust the deception in reflection
For who am I when I am with you
And who am I when solitary
You wish to journey in fluorescent tunnels
To find many paths left untrimmed
Brush past the weeds and kudzu
That degrade the refusal of submission
Jun 24, 2015
Jun 24, 2015 at 1:37 PM UTC
girls are made of glass crickets and sunshine. they eat words that float.
they wear shoes that hate feet. girls talk.
girls are made of dark secrets and kudzu. they seep through your ghost.
they wear moods. they play deep.
girls are soft.
girls are soft bombs with long nails, painted.
they buy clothes. they wear food on their hips. they impair speech.
girls know that's ironic. girls dance naked to pay for college.
some learn from it. others tarnish.
girls are made of everything that's wrong with you.
they have eyes
that sing babies
to sleep
that can **** you.
Jan 17, 2013
Jan 17, 2013 at 1:56 PM UTC
The winds
only
whisper
when
I'm
drunk.
The tea leaves
wither
in the soup
only when
I'd had a few.
They curl
like disgusted fingers,
or fists.
I scrounge
my pockets.
I litter in Marlboro butts.
I can't go to sleep
without
the biting panther
of the drink.
Those lemon eyes
make sense
by nine
when I've had a few sips
and my lips
are filled with their tears.
Do you know
the forrest of my heart?
Do you understand passion
that destroys
as it grows?
This is kudzu
this licqour.
This is meaning
this licquor.
This is happiness
this licquor.
This is the dissolution
of my anxiety
and fears
this licquor.
I will end
on a sour note
and say
that I cannot sleep.
I cannot sleep
when I am sober.
Mar 28, 2012
Mar 28, 2012 at 9:21 PM UTC
Oh here is my map
What does it look like today
Oh
Here among the kudzu walls, enthralled
With life and all its possibilities
How frozen the landscape, how
Bountiful the harvest of
Minds filled by ideas, concepts
Burning like the wasp stings around my ankles
Far from the place I will be far from
Soon, but now
Oh here I invest, to
Hear what there is to listen to and
Speak of things unseen, walking
The shadowy path beneath trees and
Taunted by the sun, as
Forever is a world of a word that should
Never leave its cage
[remember the last]
Second before the grasses grew tall and the
Roof sodden with rust, a perfect sandwich
Rotting on your dusty counter to await your
Oh here
of disgust whenever it is you
Plan on returning
Oh here you are beside it
Chomping away at nothing beneath the
Beautiful fountain where
Time means next to nothing and nothing
Lives for time and whatever is thought exists
Not as a conjecture solely but in tangible or
Perhaps an intangible form of peace, a quiet
Hillside on which all good things grow
Inside or out, and no punctuation to
Restrain these words, no sire and
Yes ma'am I do believe we've come to the
End of our tour now, so
Be sure to take your impact with you and
Have a lovely rest of your night while we
Break the morning
Jul 14, 2011
Jul 14, 2011 at 4:08 AM UTC
love is gravity
& hearts plummet.
oxygen seizes
so why summit.
white flies lick
****** knees.
red skin burns
muddy pleas.
time is helium
& lies numb it.
suboxone eases
just for a moment.
marigold dyes
lazy grips.
kudzu spreads
like raging fits.
Dec 11, 2018
Dec 11, 2018 at 11:32 PM UTC
the inspiration to sleep doesn’t take much
if any of the three
infernal organs
does It’s job
one escape is suspension
then, not even that
grayscale made Technicolor
and now it’s with you still
slipping, weaving, screaming like kudzu rust
pulling away from it like Velcro
and for a second peace
whilst the reboot-
hell, there’s the three again
so easy
to lapse
and away
Oct 6, 2010
Oct 6, 2010 at 5:59 PM UTC
the inside of me is overgrown with moss and kudzu.
tell me i am an issue,
cut me down and yell timber.
don't make it a question
make it an exclamation.
a statement of the things you've destroyed
to make room for something new,
but not bright eyed.
i am an overgrown tree
with roots too far into the darkness
of the cool dirt-
smell the musky scent of my bark
after the rain.
even if the rain couldn't wash this away,
at least your ax stopped it
from growing.
no matter how low to the ground
you cut me down
i will still have
my roots.
Nov 6, 2016
Nov 6, 2016 at 5:15 PM UTC
i’ve been losing sleep lately plagued by dreams of strong arms tightly wound around my ribcage like kudzu and an overwhelming scent of musk and dried paint that lingers like a heavy shadow in the breaking of morning light. i stumble through the routines ripping my nylons and bruising my hands along the way. all i can think about are the mistakes and lies i’ve scattered across all that i once held dear to me and how i’ve burned every ******* bridge i ever built in the gold light of vulnerable youth. i don’t know what i want anymore and every man i’ve ever loved ultimately never adds up to the man i imagine them to be. i fill in the empty nooks and black holes within yourself you don’t even know you have and i build you into the man you never have any chance of becoming and it’s just downhill from there, babe. i’ve got my back up against a wall with my spine so firmly pressed into the surface i wonder how hard it would be to just simply fall through and disappear entirely. i look into the eyes of hundreds of strangers everyday knowing i will never see them again and all i can think is how in god’s name are people ever able to find each other?
15 june, 2012
Jan 12, 2013
Jan 12, 2013 at 12:14 AM UTC
there was an interesting
night to roam; to be indoors, and
she knows she'll never be upright,
a nuisance;
i am actually a big difference
between what i have been
a great deal with.
so don't try to get me.
we're just imperfect
and you, a crippled horse.
and if i had the time to get a free
chance
it would not be worthit.
hogwash, like the vista cruiser
forgotten in the kudzu.
and in the brambles do you question?
what does it mean to matter?
if you're no better than what you envision?
Jan 7, 2015
Jan 7, 2015 at 9:16 PM UTC
I have a habit of overthinking
hard as I try I cannot stop the growth of a thought
once the seed has been planted
(I remember driving to the city once
we wanted to take my niece and his nephew to the aquarium
the kids asked about the blanket of vines and leaves that formed wall-like structures on both sides of the interstate
we told them about how it was an invasive species from Asia, and that it spread all across the south and engulfed whatever plants and trees that originally stood there
the whole hour ride they sat in the backseat,
shouting "kudzu!" every time they spotted it out the window)
kudzu
kudzu
kudzu
kudzu
kudzu
kudzu
Jan 12, 2021
Jan 12, 2021 at 10:14 PM UTC
If your lips are roses,
soft and sweet with dew,
Then your arms around me,
are ivy or kudzu.
Your eyes are wildflowers,
their beauty so unique.
The first time that I saw them,
I forgot how to speak.
Your smile is sunshine,
on a blue-sky day,
Your laughter is sunset,
Made of colors I can’t convey.
Your thoughts are dandelions,
After a springtime rain,
Sprouting, budding, blooming,
And filling up your brain.
And your kisses, they plant seeds,
In my mind and on my skin,
always helping me grow,
And find my strength within.
So If you are a garden,
May I be a bumblebee?
To take what you offer,
And turn it to honey?
Bring sweetness to your life,
And help your garden grow,
You do the same for me,
Probably more than you know.
I’ll try to be sunshine,
When the clouds are gray.
I’ll be a cool breeze,
On a too-hot day.
If you let me in your garden,
I’ll help tend the weeds,
And shower you with love,
Anytime that you need.
Feb 25, 2019
Feb 25, 2019 at 6:22 PM UTC
I still can't put into words how I feel about you
so I'm going to close my eyes and say the first five things that come to mind
One
Every single time I look at you I can feel the butterflies knocking at the door, dressed up as a pizza delivery guy, only to deliver more butterflies, such a shame that I am still unable to fly
Two
When you told me that I may never see you again my hands froze and it became harder and harder to continue my drive home
You probably thought nothing of it
We both live in the moment but I wanted this one to last forever
I just hope you don't forget me
Three
I told you that it feels like I fell from heaven and landed in your arms yet it all seems to feel the same
Maybe I wasn't meant to fly
Maybe, maybe I was meant to lose my wings
falling right into the place that I was so afraid to be
see, the last time i was here, love had made a fool of me and I haven't been myself since
but love, when I'm with you I'm more of myself than I've ever been
Four
It's been a long time since self confidence was in my vocabulary
I look into the mirror now and I see myself and smile
Knowing that I'm looking at the face that brings you just as much happiness and you bring me
Please believe me when I say I don't need love nor do I rely on someone else to make me happy
It's been a long time since self confidence was in my vocabulary
I look into the mirror now and see myself smile
Knowing that I'm looking at the face of the man who takes all of your stress away just as you do to me
maybe we were made for each other
Five
I wake up thinking about your voice and how it gives me chills even in the hottest of weather conditions
Five
I haven't had a bad dream since the day I met you
Five
Sometimes I think I like you more than you like me and that scares me because my love is like kudzu and I just don't want you to suffocate
Five
you make me feel like I can fly
Sep 14, 2017
Sep 14, 2017 at 11:15 AM UTC