"lengthens" poems
Leaning into the afternoons,
I cast my sad nets towards your oceanic eyes.
There, in the highest blaze my solitude lengthens and flames;
Its arms turning like a drowning man's.
I send out red signals across your absent eyes
That wave like the sea, or the beach by a lighthouse.
You keep only darkness my distant female;
>From your regard sometimes, the coast of dread emerges.
Leaning into the afternoons,
I fling my sad nets to that sea that is thrashed
By your oceanic eyes.
The birds of night peck at the first stars
That flash like my soul when I love you.
The night, gallops on its shadowy mare
Shedding blue tassels over the land.
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The days of our future stand in front of us
like a row of little lit candles --
golden, warm, and lively little candles.
The days past remain behind us,
a mournful line of extinguished candles;
the ones nearest are still smoking,
cold candles, melted, and bent.
I do not want to look at them; their form saddens me,
and it saddens me to recall their first light.
I look ahead at my lit candles.
I do not want to turn back, lest I see and shudder
at how fast the dark line lengthens,
at how fast the extinguished candles multiply.
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She walked through the streets in her shimmering
dress that hugged her skin as if part of her being.
Speaking in tongue misunderstood by thought she
stared not at you but within you as if she was gauging
the purity of your inner grace.
"What's a pretty girl like you doing alone?
"Where did you fall from,
One goaded, smiling she replied,
"I fell a long way down,
"Dii me ridere, [loosely translated]
"The gods are laughing at me?
She smirks at those in plentiful urgency to expel
what time they have on tribal necessities.
Wondering into a alleyway she had a few to choose
from but this one barely lit.
The spider and the fly came to mind, but who
was in the web and who was but a husk waiting to decay?
"Lady you going to have a bad night,
"Bad night, try bad millennium you apes make me laugh,
"Who you calling ape woman?
*"Lets see your hairy, you smell, and you scrape your
hand on the ground, no sorry ape is to good for you organisms,*
Her dress seems to separate and he hair lengthens to hide modest
of a body of perfection. before there eyes is an angel but her
feathers are as onyx as coal. "See my true from, As screams
bathe the walls and wisps of smoke ascend not to heaven
but fade in the wind. Eyes are charred echoes of where sight
Was blessed now eroded into husks of nothingness.
*"Silly little things, when will they learn that there are things
in the night you shouldn't play with,*
Walking out of the alley a smile on her face, she hadn't
had that much fun in a while. Scorching a soul wasn't
fun but they weren't worthy of it any way. Now she
was off to see what this nice little black number
would help to get a free drink or two.
Jun 25, 2016
Jun 25, 2016 at 2:46 PM UTC
Open bramble gate, morning lets itself in,
eyes open in welcome. Water stirs – a
glance outside. A jade tiger rises,
blue herons fly to South Mountain.
~~~
Forage through herb abundance on South
Mountain sunlight pooled in cassia leaves.
It’s why you reclused here, hermitage entwined
in viridian mists. I find your footprints
headed to the clouds, so I leave this
poem on your wall and on a whim
ascend South Mountain ridges. Sticks
snap underfoot – blue herons startle away.
~~~
Boundless and empty to townsfolk,
South Mountain peaks. But here
immortals dance among indomitable pines.
Above the sun blue herons fly into
paper crumpled clouds – clouds the body,
clouds the wings. Sonorous bird song -
radiant clarity – makes mountain forests
sing, each beat moves the clouds, red
dust cleared from rivers and peaks,
ochre streams flood forests and fields,
canyons and gorges, jades and emeralds rise.
Petals scatter on crystalline swells, night
lengthens slowly – coldness wanders by
but I will linger here, a little longer.
Version 2
South Mountain peaks, boundless and empty to townsfolk.
But here immortals dance among indomitable pines.
Above the sun blue herons fly into paper folded clouds
- azure heaven change – clouds the body, clouds the wings.
Sonorous bird song radiant clarity – makes mountain forest sing,
each beat moves the clouds, red dust cleared from rivers
and peaks, ochre streams flood forests and fields,
canyons and gorges, jade and emerald rises.
Petals scatter on crystalline swells – night lengthens slowly -
coldness wanders by but I believe I will linger here, a little longer.
Version 3
South Mountain peaks, boundless and empty to townsfolk.
But here immortals dance among indomitable pines.
Above the sun blue herons fly into paper folded clouds
- azure heaven change – clouds the body, clouds the wings.
Sonorous bird songs radiant clarity – makes mountain forests sing,
each beat moves the clouds, red dust clears from rivers
and peaks. Streams of ochre flood forests and fields,
canyons and gorges, jades and emeralds rise.
Scattered petals on crystalline swells – night slowly lengthens -
coldness wanders by but I believe I will linger here, a little longer.
Jan 24, 2012
Jan 24, 2012 at 8:02 PM UTC
There is a silence in the house
An empty voice
There is a lack of something
And I cannot find it
I wake up early
And get out of bed late.
I do little chores but
I never get anything done
I drive to coffee shops
And cafes
I search for places that have people
But still I am alone
And so I come home
There is a vacancy here
That I cannot explain
There is a void that grows
And every day it feels larger
And the silence gets louder
As if the space in which there is no one
Gets bigger day by day
The echo of it lengthens
And the sound of footfalls
And the creak of old wood stretches outwards
And at the end of it all
It feels like a stadium filled with no one
An arena of empty chairs
And all the howling, cheering life
That isn't there
Aug 16, 2014
Aug 16, 2014 at 2:10 AM UTC
I.
I would not if I could undo my past,
Tho' for its sake my future is a blank;
My past for which I have myself to thank,
For all its faults and follies first and last.
I would not cast anew the lot once cast,
Or launch a second ship for one that sank,
Or drug with sweets the bitterness I drank,
Or break by feasting my perpetual fast.
I would not if I could: for much more dear
Is one remembrance than a hundred joys,
More than a thousand hopes in jubilee;
Dearer the music of one tearful voice
That unforgotten calls and calls to me,
"Follow me here, rise up, and follow here."
II.
What seekest thou, far in the unknown land?
In hope I follow joy gone on before;
In hope and fear persistent more and more,
As the dry desert lengthens out its sand.
Whilst day and night I carry in my hand
The golden key to ope the golden door
Of golden home; yet mine eye weepeth sore,
For long the journey is that makes no stand.
And who is this that veiled doth walk with thee?
Lo, this is Love that walketh at my right;
One exile holds us both, and we are bound
To selfsame home-joys in the land of light.
Weeping thou walkest with him; weepeth he?--
Some sobbing weep, some weep and make no sound.
III.
A dimness of a glory glimmers here
Thro' veils and distance from the space remote,
A faintest far vibration of a note
Reaches to us and seems to bring us near;
Causing our face to glow with braver cheer,
Making the serried mist to stand afloat,
Subduing languor with an antidote,
And strengthening love almost to cast out fear:
Till for one moment golden city walls
Rise looming on us, golden walls of home,
Light of our eyes until the darkness falls;
Then thro' the outer darkness burdensome
I hear again the tender voice that calls,
"Follow me hither, follow, rise, and come."
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lunar luminance lights his lucent lordly lair.
leaden legs languish lazily as he lay, laconic--
lexical loquaciousness long lost.
his latent lupine lust lignifies and lengthens,
longing lonesomely for his lovely limber lioness.
with lips of luxurious labial liquer,
and licks lapping like lashing lingual lightning,
liquifying his lavish lover, luscious lyrical lubrication.
May 25, 2013
May 25, 2013 at 1:14 AM UTC
you have always been half a world away
but now my heart is only breaking more
i don't know if you're really gone
but your silence only lengthens this war
even though you never knew it
you helped fight the demons in my mind
just the thought of you leaving me
erases all hope i could ever think to find
i honestly can't say that i'm surprised
i always knew that one day you'd leave me
but i still don't want to believe it's true
because my heart still says that it can't be
i didn't even know that i could break more
but i guess that's what you do
you poison and destroy
then leave when it's convenient for you
even though you've ruined me forever
to me, love was never a lie
and there is no way that i could ever say
goodbye
Nov 2, 2014
Nov 2, 2014 at 1:45 AM UTC
for Richard, the boy who narrated life
Today, leaves are falling.
“One day Aaron will watch the falling leaves.”
The first day of school arrives.
“One day Champ’s mom will take him to school.”
Life is the story of life, says the narrator.
Life expands. The story lengthens.
The intertwined threads begin to pull apart.
Life is surface and sheen,
laughter, tears, opaque signs.
The story strains after fictive frames,
the hero’s epiphany, the villain’s inner pain,
and undreamt creatures beyond human sense.
And so myth and magic
give form to stories
that we no longer star in.
New worlds take shape
where the story creates its own life,
an escape from "the shock of recognition."
In time the threads converge again.
Life’s pattern breaks and needs a new plot.
The stories yield their human meaning—
maybe we were in them all along.
The story ends and life goes on.
Life ends and the story goes on.
May 22, 2016
May 22, 2016 at 6:21 PM UTC
*When at the peak voltage
streetlights **** the stars
and behind closed doors
rumbling slumbers
down the cries of the nocturne
awakes a world of opened windows.*
Home from the last show
eyes colored with screen idols
shadows huddling over supper
talk of the length and worth
the plot intrigues and intricacies
the creator's whims and fantasies
while unbeknownst the night lengthens
tiring the shadows
that excavate the trash bin's bottom
for living through the morrow.
*The filaments feel lonelier
as those last windows shut down
starlight wasted
on an enveloped town.*
Aug 16, 2017
Aug 16, 2017 at 10:06 AM UTC
Inspired by Shel Silverstien’s “Hungry Mungry”
They’re coming. They’ll get me.
They’ll get me, and hit me, and make me bleed my young blood that looks just like theirs,
With skin that looks just like theirs, but something in me’s different.
As different as my mothers before me.
It doesn’t matter.
They’re coming.
Their dark boots clomp down the hall, begging to bash my ribs, or my face, or my shins, or--
--They’re here. They take their fists and their feet and their words, taking turns finding the soft flesh
Covered by my backpack and my shoes and my clothes and my bones.
They found me, and they’ll beat me, and they’ll **** me--
That’s what I think until--
--I change.
I grow. My shins and my fingers and my skull and my toes.
My body elongates, it stretches and lengthens.
I’m still bleeding and bleeding and still bruising and bleeding.
But the blows stop.
They back away, at least I think so, but my body pushes them farther and farther,
I’m pressed against the ceiling, pressed against the lockers, until I feel them give, and I’m free.
I break through the ceiling, I break past the rain, I--
--Stand up. My head skims the clouds, misting my face. I feel myself drift away from this place,
As my head reaches farther, my neck, my chest, my stomach, my legs.
Trees break beneath my feet.
They crack and splinter, just like the houses, just like the schools.
The ground gets farther and farther away, my feet so big they spread across the land and the seas.
I’m blowing up like a balloon, like Violet-fucking-Beauregard, from that book I read in in the second grade.
I push back against mass under my feet,
Let them feel the fire, let them feel the heat.
Earth is flying too close to the sun, as I grow, and I grow, and I grow.
The stars drift around me, popping blistering holes in my skin as I grow and push against them too.
I stick my hand in Jupiter, in Neptune, in Saturn.
I crush Mars like a dirt clod inside my fist, and slap nebulas together with a flick of the wrist.
I am the sun, and I am the storm, and the wind and the waves,
From the place I was birthed--
--The place I was birthed? Where was I? Where’s that?
I look to my feet and see naught but a speck,
I do a summersault to examine it closer--
--Not an inch from the Sun, my home withers and dies.
But still I grow, and I grow, and I grow.
Earth is now too small to hold
Still I grow, and I grow, and I grow.
I see so many things from here, but I shan’t get closer, for fear they’ll disappear.
But that’s not enough, still I grow, and I grow, and I grow.
Pushing them away like so many I know.
I hope and I dream for this ride to stop, still I grow, and I grow and I grow.
I grow, and I grow, and I grow.
Oct 1, 2020
Oct 1, 2020 at 12:15 PM UTC
i have survived
storms.
i have survived a father's voice like thunder;
handprint lightning flowers petal over my skin
like i am a garden to sinners-
adam and eve call my grassroots their home and hum lullabies-
i have survived
anger.
pros and cons of
clock-ticking therapy sessions where money is thrown at my gaze,
fixed on the wall,
dollar-a-second drumming fingers
screaming so loud that heaven shuts the blinds and hangs a "closed" sign on the door.
pros and cons of
stumbling home,
under a murky peerless crowd of smoke,
slurring words trail around and behind me like moths to a porchlight.
morning headaches,
angry adults
damaging drywall and breaking family portraits
exhausting search for answers
exhausting search in a silence that lengthens the disconnect from child to mother
where your mind goes red and the honest truth that stays stuck to the roof of your mouth falls out
where you become an overflowing mailbox and your hands shake
the absence of parents who never taught you to hold your tongue
i have survived
hurt.
i have survived the specific type of loss that you feel in the pit of your stomach
the one that lies next to you
when you stare at the ceiling and your face hurts from crying
tears scrub your eyelids raw and you promise,
"if i ever make it through this,
i will never be here again."
i have survived giving up,
taking it all back, throwing it all away,
parallel structures of contemplation and decision
i have survived
lonely.
angry storms of abandonment, melodies of the lonely and the hurt
i reprise to the ones that add injury to insult,
you are not the worst thing that has ever happened to me.
i echo choruses to the people that force me to grow up at sixteen
i have destruction embedded into my neurotransmitters
i have shooting post-traumatic pain in my memories
i have survived
a hell that your hands are not stained enough to touch.
i assure you,
my love,
i will survive
you as well
Oct 5, 2016
Oct 5, 2016 at 8:18 PM UTC
Within walls the humdrum echoes
footsteps magnify into monsters
so do journeys untaken, unplanned.
Step by step conquest is mastered
in real motion forward
mountains climbed
distances measured with hard muscle
counted in steps -one by one.
Nothing impossible
to the journeyman
No yardsticks to measure success
even God is a step closer.
Meditate dreams in sequence
until nirvana nears
at the journeys end
and reincarnations materialise
step by step.
Walking on the wild side
lengthens the shadows of darkness
until we fail to see the light
that will lead us back to the beginning
to the first step from where we started.
Step by step
in rhythm with the heartbeat
we all work through life
and onwards into eternity.
Author Notes
Step by Step. ' He who wants to walk the whole world must take his first step'
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.
Apr 19, 2014
Apr 19, 2014 at 1:46 AM UTC
As the sound of her footsteps diminish in proportion to her figure
her shadow lengthens across the street
The horizon eats everything and I am always on the inside
from that same hunger I yell, please.
/
She told me a secret
Now I make maps from empty pages
and hide my poetry in her
I believe in nothing else
/
In the emptiest hours of evening
through an open window to your kitchen
stray animals are lured by the scent of flavours they've never tasted
and I knock on your door hoping you are not home
/
In spite of the chemicals
and circumstances that we are
I kiss the stars and lose my place
upon the pages you are writing
/
I long to be collecting
on your tongue
like snowflakes
like secrets
/
I see now
how
after the third try
a genie fails to complete
what comes naturally
in your arms
/
childhood is a secret we'll remember someday;
for the heroes we were, for the monsters we saved
/
hope everything falls out of your pockets
hope you arrive at the gates empty handed
hope they can forgive you for arriving empty
Jul 7, 2014
Jul 7, 2014 at 12:33 PM UTC
The cordoned off cricket pitch,
behind orange tape long,
is waiting for the grass to grow
for when the summer comes along.
The leaves are shedding their autumn gown,
upon the grass it lays,
and in her winter-time-zipped-up coat
a small girl runs and plays.
The benches around the park border
sit solemn, scuffed and lonely,
if only someone would put them back together again
before they become broken debris
The sky lengthens overhead,
a puzzling sight to see,
it stretches forth over the horizon line
buckling past the old oak trees,
and the people walk in straight lines narrow,
concentrating on the ground,
if only they’d look up not down,
they’d see the city’s teeth and not it’s frown
Nov 4, 2013
Nov 4, 2013 at 12:17 PM UTC
the real nature
hidden beneath many layers of skin
there is truth
deeper in those myths
many doors
to the same corridor
met each other
quite a lot of times.
Many scene changes
the travel lengthens
along grows like and dislike,
dark and white.
There are many dimensions
the time relative
evolution and decline
and all the unknowns undefined.
There is the pride
with the many passions
dragging us towards another illusion
the mirage stays for the eyes.
Existence questioned
time blinks away
only in grasp of enlightened
others effort futile
this chance while.
Acceptance will keep the peace
no appeal, no appease
keeping still
the background wheel
initiating the end of the suffer
meditating to get better.
The inner light
shaded and dim
concentrate to ignite again
to the right bright
remove the leftover dirt
all that spins it
and revive the lost spirit
the one hidden beneath.
Feb 22, 2018
Feb 22, 2018 at 12:19 PM UTC
There's times that seem
to fit and make it all more real.
Like the snapping of the
plastic seal on that
cheap bottle of
*****
Just as she slams the door
for that final time.
Frusciante on the radio
and you with a needle in
your hand.
The seagull who passed and
dropped his waste
upon your sunset.
There's images that swirl
inside your head and
leave behind deep grooves
within your memories
Impressions like her
sculpted face in candle light.
That strung out you in the mirror
that even you didn't recognize.
There's that love you
thought was dead
and those addictions
you swore you
left behind.
There's times and ways
that seem to fit.
And it's what lengthens
this life that are like the
pages of a calender.
One on top of the next
to be written over.
All to be lived
one page at a
time
Jan 21, 2014
Jan 21, 2014 at 12:06 PM UTC
it is what you most fear, your reoccurring nightmare, the thing you can not grasp, understand, that shorts your brain, that death is the end, there is no after life, no purpose to your existence, no just god sitting on a throne, dispensing justice, punishing the evil, rewarding the good. reality is too hard and harsh, you pray to god, is it true, you are more my creation than i am yours.
how do you reconcile the fact that you know so deep down inside is true. you lie to yourself, suppress the fear, repress the thoughts, ignore what you see with you own eyes. the fear rises, the anxiety worsens, the insomnia lengthens, you fall prey to cognitive dissonance. to understand is to forgive, the anger, the irrational behavior.
the idea that you are mortal is unbearable, that you will die, your flesh rot, and be forgotten. how any man can make sense of it and live, court, marry, have children, when the world has spun out of control, the three horses are here. the pale horse is coming, it will soon be time to die.
Sep 12, 2019
Sep 12, 2019 at 2:04 PM UTC
Now lunacy kicks its hoof,
throwing dust across my heart.
The taste of sour gin
lengthens out the smart.
All the the things I've ever
felt entitled to are gone.
I've felt deeply about too much,
I've felt it all too long.
I guess I understand now,
if to understand is to think.
Where and when and how
are still fabulous unformed things.
There isn’t much reason
to heave these dense veins
unobligated and alone.
I lay down and let the rain
cry for me instead.
On my face I can tell
it wished it was frozen,
cryogenic as it fell
so it could be solid, strong,
colder. It would never fall
again, just melt to a throng
of puddles and vanish.
I realize now nothing
I thought was mine was.
Not the spectacular waves
receding or the buzz
of beer. Not my guitar,
its rich sounds,
that shooting star
that I wished on in the desert
August of 2008.
Not my first lover
or my big brother’s hate.
Right now I discover
what was mine is here:
my veins, my skin, my eyes, my face,
my happiness and hurt:
small sanities in the rain's lace.
Jul 4, 2012
Jul 4, 2012 at 7:57 AM UTC
As your hand caresses my face
Your skin converts to velvet
Every sense has been awakened
Every second of time lengthens to hours
The warmth of your touch
Envelopes this cold heart
Wraps it in a tornado of fire
Washing over me like a soft summer breeze
Resurrecting emotion and lust
Vulnerable to every whim
Fumbling for words, unable to speak
Mesmerized by your gaze
Awaiting breathless, for your next move
I close my eyes and concentrate
On every single touch
On every sound of your breathe and mine
Anticipation will be my end
Jan 22, 2013
Jan 22, 2013 at 9:49 PM UTC
A balcony underneath a blanket of stars,
Any other night and it may have been beautiful.
Fearing the unknown; not really knowing what it is I fear.
Standing at the edge of a precipice-
Wondering, waiting for fate’s hands to guide me over the edge,
Or to drag me back into my blinded distrust
Where soothing words smother uncertainties.
Prepare yourself; a thousand questions to which there are no answers,
Only a deathly silence, a blank face, unquestionable-
There is a fine line between eternal slumber and death,
And through the eyes of another I face both.
In darkness, time unmercifully lengthens- in sleeplessness,
I ask myself over and over and over,
But the wind’s whispers are too quiet to hear.
So many others relish the relief of the unknown,
Alone I stand, able to see through their grimaces.
Through self-indulged abandonment have I dug my own grave.
I left you in his healing hands; judgment and doubts aside.
Each marked stone bears the signature of your remembrance,
To all of these days I have walked upon the earth.
Convince me, tell me and take me away from this precipice-
Back into your awaiting arms.
21.09.2010
Anna Elizabeth Rose ©
Nov 28, 2010
Nov 28, 2010 at 10:47 AM UTC
A car pulls up along the shoreside and a man in a suit and tie slides out to find the sand.
The beach has quieted.
A few surfers paddle hurriedly out to sea for a last run in the twilight.
An older couple stands by the water’s edge.
Wisps of the woman’s gray hair flutters above her, caught in the ocean breeze.
The lifeguard station sits quiet, the small, whitewashed house perched on reed-like stilts shuttered for the night, though the sand is still warm from the afternoon sun.
The man rolls up his pant legs and removes his socks and shoes and places them beside him.
He shields his eyes from the splintered sun’s rays as he scans the water clear to the thick black line of the horizon.
A young woman, flaxen-haired, a surfboard cupped effortlessly at her side, the bridge of her nose tinctured white, emerges from the waves.
Wet-suited, bare-footed, head tilted skyward, she hikes along the sand, her day’s work done.
As her shadow lengthens over him, the specter causes him to glance downward.
A few grains of sand have clung to the tips of his polished shoes.
He decides to leave them.
Dec 18, 2023
Dec 18, 2023 at 11:17 AM UTC
A mirror is a perception
A trick of the mind
Try looking in a mirror and saying "I'm ugly"
And surely enough that is what you will see
Tainted looks and lost expression
My nose is too big
I have imperfections, including each and every freckle
I am bossed around by worldly views
Through the eyes of fashion magazines and top model
My thoughts pulse and with each pulse my list of imperfections lengthens
I've gained too much weight
I didn't need that sandwich
I need a hair cut
And a possible nose job
I turn away from the mirror
I look at my hands
I feel my waist
I feel skinny
I feel beautiful
So what is with these false perceptions?
These standards of beauty, only meant for a super human
**** the standards
**** the fliers, the model pictures
**** societies standards of me
Because I don't need them.
I've got mine.
Nov 18, 2010
Nov 18, 2010 at 7:06 PM UTC
In the beginning there was procrastination,
and I can't wait to start putting that off.
To begin or not to begin that divides us all.
Deferring action never increases entropy,
and lengthens the life of the universe.
Completion happens once, but delay has no limit.
I'm not dithering, just exploring all the options.
This "beginning" poem has just been hijacked by hesitation,
and dragged down the rat hole of reluctance.
Oh well, there is always tomorrow.
One can always say, my muse took a snooze.
Feb 20, 2021
Feb 20, 2021 at 10:22 AM UTC