"levees" poems
The shivering eyeglasses lazily coating the ground
Break way to the budding of the season.
To reincarnate is to live the anomaly,
The evergreen boughs bend in the wind.
Coalescing crystals form dew on our morn
To leave a fresh taste, on lips, on tongue.
The time is imminent, but the dawn is young,
My white Orchid, born to the sun.
Simply, optically, it's to weak to touch
Unworthy digits, to blind to see.
My scarlet levees, to right to feel.
The ivory blossom, to right to be real.
Under the canopies, the shimmering outline
Moves closer until the mirror cracks
And our reflections are polymorphicly one,
Our hearts still polyamorously two.
I yearn to dream of lucid lavender,
The aroma surrounds the dream, still dreamed
The scent so real, or so it seemed
Encapsulating this moment in amber.
Until we sleep, until we fly
Together. Our wings open to embrace the quilted high.
Our mouths embrace to fill the void,
Unleash the magic, bathing us in light
Bricks and mortar overlap my thoughts
But time alone is not a wall.
Time alone, it cannot fall
And it still ticks with the beat of my pendulum.
Oh flower, oh life, vitality aplenty.
Your hideousness, a secret untold,
Withers to your beauty, yet to unmold.
Le voyage fantasme is here for me now.
And now the grains slip between my toes.
The sandcastles caress the glass of our hour.
It's never too late, but always on time,
So before the light fades, kiss me and say
"I'll sleep tonight,
I'll dream of you."
Orchid, my Orchid, love, my love
I'll dream with you forever.
Nov 3, 2010
Nov 3, 2010 at 7:39 PM UTC
Obsidian wind chimes
welcome the crashing waves
as another day exits, slowly
sinking beneath the bay.
Cool waters drenched in
an almost amethyst hue
offer mental reverberations
as I ponder what I am next to do.
Though the sea is but a tide
that ebbs & flows-
repletes & recedes-
her words of wisdom forgo
past the banks of her beaches
& spread a breeze to every corner
of night.
She beckons me within myself;
her deep abyss but a mirror.
Her waters shine in a glimmering splendor
as she makes the path ever clearer.
To leave this shore that raised me
is not a sign of disrespect, but a show
of honor. My broken levees have her
to thank & for that, I call her mother.
Sep 9, 2021
Sep 9, 2021 at 5:33 PM UTC
"A patient man bides his time,"
Theodore tells the man in the mirror
Tomorrow, all the levees will break
And all the fables will be told
Of distant Decembers and forgotten fathers
Livelihoods will be threatened
And remorse will fall by the wayside
He watches as icicles on the awning
Melt away into puddles on the ground
"Warmer every day," he thinks to himself
He hangs up his scarf and overcoat
The way a simple man, with complex demons, is wont to do
And as his wants devolve into needs
And as all his anchors deteriorate to rust
Her smile unnerves a once-settled man
To think of the quality of glove necessary
To hold onto the wagon in this day and age
So Theodore pulls the door to,
Leaving Chopin's "Horseman" to gallop in peace
And in pieces
He watches her from across the courtyard
"Such sweet bliss in her footsteps," he sighs
And it seems to him as if the snow dissipates
Just from the warmth in her steady gait
Just from the radiation behind her brown eyes
He slides open the dresser drawer
A haven for scattered trinkets, odds, and ends
A place of respite for the weary souvenir
There, amidst all the corroded memories
Lies a corroded pistol, unspoken and unburnished
"And a lonely man drinks his wine,"
Theodore says, as intrepidly as he is capable
For there is a time when fathers stop teaching
A time when mothers stop singing
And a place where the sins stop searching
A last breath is deeply inhaled
But never again will find its escape
With a thud that echoes to Seymour Street
Theodore crumples to the cold wooden floor,
A simple man, finally free of complex demons
Jan 25, 2023
Jan 25, 2023 at 1:19 PM UTC
Sometimes
I feel a well
dug deep
into my heart
I try to stop it
but it quickly
becomes ocean
and overflows
into great tsunami
rises over all the levees
rushes past dams
breaks down tall
city structures,
edifices crumbling
in its path
all the squid and octopi
skitting forth
in wild pulses,
tentacles entangled
in doorways and rooves
slipping through narrow
window-openings
as they pour ink
in clouds,
shifting shapes
in cephalopod excitement
while blue whales
and humpbacks
breach over bridges,
phosphorescent jellies
light up
the dark streets of
my arteries
electric eels illuminate
the alleyways of
desolation's thick syrup
and I cannot stop it even
if I wanted to,
these darkened,
swirling waves
I am both floating and flying
like a jumping manta ray
curling around the ferries
bobbing in seahorse iridescence
weaving between buses
as if they were corals
And when the storm subsides,
colorful rockpools form,
rich in diversity
It is there,
in between the
multicolored ***** and
succulent shellfish,
in a mermaid's
voluptuous smile
and turquoise eye
that I see you,
so crystal clear
I could reach out
and bring you to me,
holding you tight
until the
gentle break
of
morning
Sep 3, 2017
Sep 3, 2017 at 5:31 PM UTC
Your eyes.
I can't stop writing about them.
I can't stop dreaming about them gleaming like sunlight beaming into the windows of my soul.
And I've been meaning to tell you-
Heighten the blinds.
I can't stop fiending to be the reflection in your infliction
The mirroring of eyes, my line of sight in your line of vision
Our pupils don't just collide, they cause a collision
And uh,
The precision of your gaze fogs all coherency to a haze
And it's seeming
There's a thousand words teeming off the levees of my lips
But you got me in a daze and the waves crash silent
See inside I'm screaming
They say the flames radiated from desire are the fires most violent
And I feel your vibes like radiation;
Hazardous to both mind and body.
Detrimental to the soul.
I believe in whole this is not an illusion
They say the eyes never hide from the truth
-and the truth never lies-
See, I've already eyed your eyes
I'm not convinced this is confusion
I've come to the conclusion that
If I confided in you,
Could you agree it's a delusion
You've been opening the window;
You want to be
Inside.
Dec 3, 2012
Dec 3, 2012 at 4:54 PM UTC
Paradise is a state of mind
In a place where there is plenty-
A place where on your down time
Things look more than just pretty.
Paradise can mean a lot of things,
It can be multiple places.
The coming & going of years
Passing over different faces.
Paradise can bring you fortune-
Her smile may even give some fame,
But she levees a heavy tax
For all who stand to gain.
Paradise takes your heart & soul
Just to make you feel at home,
Not knowing whether you’ll get to leave
Feeling broken or as a new whole.
Paradise is a vacation-
Paradise is a job.
Paradise is exploitation-
Paradise is a massage.
Paradise is a place to enjoy
As others are made to suffer,
With money standing in between
To play the role of buffer.
Paradise is a cup of coffee
Paradise is a broken promise
Paradise is a rolled up leaf
Paradise is a stolen profit
Paradise is whatever you
want it to be,
As long as you make it yourself
& don’t steal it like a thief.
Oct 3, 2021
Oct 3, 2021 at 9:24 PM UTC
I am in cold. I watch that garish ward brimming with false light. Bleached air from his lips touching hers. He hides in her mane, sterile and alone. Why is it so hard, such an insurmountable task for you to see how I lather my face with paint each day just to smile at you?
My face, my heart, my mind not a blank canvas that I hide with these diluted pastels but a deep, rich chorus of colors and oils that were never meant to be hidden. But the ward will never know.
There are thoughts and opinions rolling like a torrent behind this mask I call a face. This world was against me from day one, don’t you dare say I’ve given way to cynicism. Nor optimism, pessimism, or God-forsaken realism. Can't I think the earth is beautiful, God is good, I am right, and people are wrong without someone putting an -ism behind me? Of course not. That's narcissism. Egoism. Egalitarianism.
It is what I unknowingly wrote across my mask. But I never chose to attend this outdated ball, masquerades are cliched. Pure romanticism...surrealism, the kin of commercialism whose visage is a polychromatic wheel of logotypes that you just have to know en masse.
What if I stop believing that compassion Himself can hate me? No, no that's atheism. Agnosticism. And if I'm better than someone because He said so then that is monotheism in all it's delicate flavors.
Can't I breathe alone in a quiet corner? Isolationism. Can't I want to simply be a follower, and think about life, literature, and art? Incomprehensible, that would be totalitarianism, absolutism, authoritarianism. What if I want to give God all the power He gave us, and watch the world change? Fascism. Revolutionism. Extremism, because releasing the wheel is extremism. Existentialism.
And what if I choose to remove the mask, break the levees, release the floodgates, my thoughts and opinions, never watch my tongue, and speak the world as it is: A capital M-madman's schism of logic and faith. As it has always been, and always will be. I will always be in love with the counterfeit ward. And yes, there's a label for that: Catastrophism.
So I watch Beauty and his Beast touching in fluorescence. Bleached breath, save for the smoke of his lungs in hers. Sterile and alone; I am in cold, and cold hurts me.
Mar 4, 2012
Mar 4, 2012 at 3:15 AM UTC
You smile and laugh,
Lightness incarnate.
I think about corrupting you.
I want to feel your skin sweat under my fingers,
Watch your muscles clench.
I'd **** to bring a moan out of you,
Die to hear a grunt.
I want to taste your hostility,
Heated and ashamed.
I will rip your evil forth.
To see it spill through you,
Oh.
I bite my lip.
The levees are cracking,
I can see it in your eyes.
Mar 23, 2012
Mar 23, 2012 at 3:33 AM UTC
We will know no sorrows here..
Dark matter poured taut
in ebon plastic,
elegent, limber, perched on spikes.
Confined in chosen monochrome,
so lithe in gritted temper.
Full fraught on waves of jaw - smoke,
tumble nails from this wretched pelt.
Enscribe my will
on soft , ribbed, levees
Spread and buttered oysters
downed , your earthy spices ground
against my viscid grin.
Now raise the dead in frantic transport
Sound the depths of this cracked voice
Imagining....
We will know no sorrows here.
May 6, 2017
May 6, 2017 at 5:16 PM UTC
Lilac-scented winds
furtively creep through
the window, rhythmically
stroking the lily-white hair
that rests upon her hunched
shoulders.
Thin levees barricade
the emerging seas of salt
as the stationary clouds
dissipate from the
sapphire ice crystals that
encircle her inky
pupils.
Beneath her round,
brittle cheekbones
ancient ravines wind
downwards toward
her steep, narrow
chin, pointing at a
skeletal frame blanketed
in an off-white, floral gown.
Blotchy, autumn, amber
hands cradle the pudgy
infant’s limp body. She
smiles as she presses her
chapped lips on the baby’s
smooth, plastic head.
She leans back in her
chair of solace, rocking
back-and-forth to the
pulsating tempo of her
heartbeat. Her world is
in perfect harmony.
May 25, 2013
May 25, 2013 at 10:07 PM UTC
You matter to me,
You art the ghost in coffee
Clouds whistle around you
Too much energy scares
Hoi Poilloi but we rule these streets
Call us out by righteous name
Love is all you have in the Swamp
I imagine it in the hot night
Running from New Orlins
Tide tryin to eat you
Water mixed with kerosene
There is suddenly no god
My three year old daughter
Left in that miserable
Water, and nobody did a thing
9/11 was a kind of blackened day
But when the Levees Break
Nobody gets out alive
Without money to roll
It’s time to yell truth of my city
Marie Laveau in all her forms
She cried with me
She held my hands and said:
Do not lament forever
Sorrow has its place & tyme
Marie Laveau comes to me now:
Saying Rise Up and Save This City
Something so still, so solemn
Guards the city of the yellow moon
I feel it
Almost reaching it
Hands touch my eyes and
I know them
I dream of Big Chief
Who flew from Heaven
Bringing the saving of the 9th ward
Nothing can save the 9th
But Marie Laveau, both a dem Ave Maria’s
No god no Saints came marching
Saving my role on freeway overpasses
Left there to be displayed, to die of thirst
Where were you, oh God?
We loved you even as we died of thirst
In a country that could pf delivered rations to Iraq
In less than six hours.
We have been sacrificed to low cause
No happiness shall come from this
True badlands, had Saints, and Faith
Nature took but once
Government took it all &
Left us standing
Or dying in attics
Screaming
Save Our Souls
Oct 2, 2018
Oct 2, 2018 at 2:28 AM UTC
With the tightfisted budget now handed down
There is a lot of ****** off people in our nation's towns
Mr Hockey has hit the taxpayers with a double decker bus
High and low income earners put well into a binding truss
Revolt in the Senate Chamber is showing on the cards
The government will be in receipt of a few shrapnel shards
Legislation won't get passed in a timely manner
There will be the flying of a double dissolution banner
Then the Abbott mob will be well and truly stumped
Voters are itching to have the extra tax imposts bumped
Canberra shall shortly be in for an enormous rattling
Heft taxing has the nation's populous struggling and battling
Had the GST been set at fourteen percent and on everything
Our tax burden to-day wouldn't be so troubling
Government must learn to live within its boundaries
As the tax paying public are sickening of all the levees
Tax policy is in need of urgent attention too right
For parliamentarians don't seem to see our plight
Mr Shorten has stated that his mob can fix our woes
But his side of politics has not the scent of a rose
We are stuck with a budget which has us ******* down
And it offers us nothing of the lights in mirthful town
The treasury calculator has a very mean spirited spike
Twill there ever be a tax regime which we'll all like
May 16, 2014
May 16, 2014 at 7:54 AM UTC
Ah yes,
fresh starts,
like
fresh white sheets meeting
fresh black newspapers,
doomed to the inevitability,
groomed for the probability,
that their intersection
will be
newsprint contamination,
a black and white
condemnation,
So, a clarification:
this poem,
just like this moment,
a black and white surrogation,
a seventh day progeny
a sabbath moment,
must and will
and by definition,
be explained as an
interlocutory.^
fated to be
jubilee ended,
a pre and post
sabbatical
of but a
minute,
by law and custom,
destined to go up
in a smoking trinity of
white flame,
red wine,
and a cloud of
myrrh and salt incense.
Sigh with me.
Join in and
inhabit my eyes,
enjoy the unsullied
white blanket
of fresh snow
that humanizes my insights,
and for this moment,
share my peace,
my unedged relief that
the levees have broken
and I am awash in
waves of drifted snowflakes composed
of salt sanctified water
I may be thin and
clarified,
but my visions are still
less than limitless,
my sabbath poems
are but
momentary evaporated residuals of melted snowflakes, heretofore, salty tears, that become
rivers
that become
oceans,
upon which no
Poet-Envisionary
can truly walk,
see his tomorrows,
or even,
especially even,
his past days,
with perfect
clarity
Nov 16, 2013
Nov 16, 2013 at 10:01 AM UTC
I am the coy smiling handsome man
and my feet beat the darkness away when I rush.
And I rush, in the alleys, sightless,
an actor led by lines of wilting dialogue.
And jasmine litters the gutters, fit to be dredged, the
aroma and the petals streaked with reminiscence.
I rush. I am the man toward an apogee,
a scalpel, with tastes as keen as winter lavender,
and eyes that feel the weight of tastes behind them.
As I dredge the depths for rarer tastes
I rush toward the gutter.
And like the gutters I thirst, in the levees and fen-
In the fen the rush of prey caught
Idling fills the space inside my eyes like oil,
and I dredge the lake for traces.
I am the actor, the dredge, my wit rehearsed
and I am acquainted with the lady of the night.
I smile as she caresses my oily deluged eyes-
And her eyes are filled with bile,
accented by jasmine, even
in the dimmest light of
gutters are rushing to an
apogee, fiercer than I'd like them to
appear, but I am the scalpel, to incise the insincere-
I am the prince, an heir to exacting the coerced-
I watch her eyes like windows from the gutter like a vigil
and hold tight to her breath.
I pour her blood in paper cups
until her breath is weightless-
And I rush, an actor, in the scene that we portray-
I am the giver, the oily deluged eyes that close around the flesh
and rend the fruit from the rind.
Mar 27, 2010
Mar 27, 2010 at 12:52 PM UTC
I was riding high until some thoughts passed by.
Saw a few pictures and memories flooded the very limited space in my head
Levees feel like they're about to break through tear ducts, yet still afraid to cry.
But now, at this point there's been many I shed
Very sensitive connections kept us together.
You couldn't speak English, but still spoke through your action
Came by my side during storms that I could not weather.
I wish I knew how fast your time was passing
Sometimes I took your companionship for granted
Often not investing thought in the moment.
Stood by me, even when life.. I couldn't stand it
Now I'm thinking about your fate and how I wished I could've controlled it
Anytime I was home, you made me conscious of your calls
Whenever I was in my own bed you made sure to join me
It's as if now, without you, I'm getting withdrawls.
A bond beyond brotherhood draped in comfortability
The week I house sat for my mom, will remain with me always
Laying on the floor depressed, not only because you were dying
Still get choked up, knowing we showed each other love, before your next phase
But to keep you alive, some witnissed to see how hard I was trying
Weeks later after I moved, I woke up in Nevada thinking "where'd Austin go?"
I swear I felt you, and thought you were there, even though it may've not made sense
Know you're still in my heart, and were always so blissfully pleasant to hold.
I still feel you, and will always make room for your presence
You were the one cat I knew that would actually jump into my arms from the floor, on command.
You held on, never scared as if you didn't wanna let go
Literally wrapped your paws around my neck in a hug-like embrace, or should i say - little hands.
Spent more time together than most of the humans I know
I miss you buddy, and the feelings haven't changed.
Some may think caring this much about an animal is strange.
Truth is we're all animals, and I'll see you at the next stage <3
Dec 9, 2013
Dec 9, 2013 at 4:45 PM UTC
************ no longer feels like I am trying to pull a
glass heart from the smallest hole in my body
but I can still exhale poppy seeds
from between my legs,
have sweat catch my hair with its Elmer’s glue,
split the mermaid fin into ten spread toes,
tune guitar strings with my fingers,
and paint a postcard whenever moonlight spills milk.
I capture every **** in nature
fantasizing about the points of a star protruding
like *******
It is natural for my skin to slip inside my skin
to break levees the way waterfalls open for summer –
drown sorrows in the sink
that creates freckles on my love’s face.
And when I think of him, and when I finish building a
bridge to the self-nirvana I taste,
I am as a mother bird making a nest twig by twig.
Jun 20, 2013
Jun 20, 2013 at 10:33 PM UTC
Euphoria takes you to places above the clouds,
Floating with the wind.
Not a ****** pleasure,
Just a visceral high.
Clarity within the mind,
The heart unrestricted in the body.
With a gentleness of child.
Euphoria floods the system deep,
Breaking past all levees of pain.
Weightlessness.
Nov 5, 2016
Nov 5, 2016 at 1:49 AM UTC
The tides have fallen,
but the waters keep rising,
choking out the remaining few who struggled to retain their homes.
Shotgun houses,
long abandoned when the levees broke,
and the ocean crashed through the streets,
leaving a wake of more than just sand.
X's
marks on doors,
spray-painted numbers depicting the body count,
telling you if it was safe to go inside,
if you will be poisoned by gases,
or memories.
Volunteers,
thousands of them,
rushed to the scene,
quick, for their moment in the spotlight,
while the house were still damp,
helpful only in the attraction they brought with them,
where are they now?
Now that the houses and the people have dried themselves off,
where are they?
Those who lost nothing,
those who have everything,
where are they?
Out of sight,
out of mind,
out of the way,
locked away,
a secret,
kept tight,
except for the occasional whisper of the waves.
New Orleans,
a broken city,
still fractured,
held together by hope,
and help,
from the few who still venture down
to help put the pieces back together.
The select few
who still care
about the forgotten city,
the cracked town,
a city that's been down on its knees for seven years.
Sep 27, 2012
Sep 27, 2012 at 12:51 PM UTC
Winds were picking up again
Another storm was due
Would it be just like Katrina
Or would it just be an F2?
Windows boarded, cars filled up
Mandatory evacuation
Leaving their homes to stand
Alone in a dangerous situation
Among it all a flower
Grabbing on to gods green earth
Just flexing with the winds that blow
Waiting for the new storms birth
The storm will hit, the levees break
Again FEMA is on sight
And just like every other time
They never get it right
Each time the water comes in
Another parish, another town
No one comes back home to claim
What Mother Nature just beat down
Among it all a flower
Grabbing on to gods green earth
Just flexing with the winds that blow
Waiting for the new storms birth
Another storm, another season
Another choice to make
Do we come back home again this time?
Or would that be a big mistake?
Do we take the brunt of natures force?
Stay, and not know if we will die?
Do we stay here and ride out the storm?
Do we take the chance to die?
And through it all a flower
Rides the storm out to the end
I pray that those who choose to stay
Were like the flower and could bend.
Sep 1, 2012
Sep 1, 2012 at 7:15 PM UTC
There was an unmistakable hint of stardust
when it came to our trust
among the voids and darkness the light specks came in traces
that filled the spaces
where nothing once existed prior
your eyes would search the skies and higher
trying to explain how the proximity to this fire
that burns within you, wouldn't engulf the fragments of us that remain
I'd spell your name
with the tips of my trembling fingers, against the condensation covered glass of your car's window
and when the wind blows
I'd hear your voice
beckoning me to leave
as we make believe
that all is well, blessing our wealth in time spent and crisis averted
yet no matter how you word it
these heart levees feel the pressure of a current that ten thousand dams
could not withstand
as you break the bands of affection, that once kept us close in turn
I'd see the stardust streaming from our trust, merely ashes escaping the burn...
Feb 13, 2013
Feb 13, 2013 at 11:03 PM UTC
your hands they work like levees
and you stop me when you've had enough
too much
build up my walls cause you couldn't handle it all
i am
an ocean
the sea
angry, unpredictable
monsters hide under me
lurking in the darkest corners
inching towards the faintest smell of blood
crave the warmth between their teeth
but your hands
they work like levees
pushing and
pulling away
when you've had too much
one day
it will not be enough.
i will sneak in through the smallest crack
if you give me the chance
walls will crumble like babylon
and i will be relieved
i will get everything i need
not enough
not too much
i will snap your hands
overflowing,
smash your levee down
Oct 15, 2014
Oct 15, 2014 at 3:01 PM UTC