"liana" poems
into this pink grist
run mercury brooks
from the tower of liana
and ruptured mist
pools an ovarian sky
barefoot through milky way city
above strawberry ice cream lane
stratus clouds scale the ruins
and
the maraschino cherries ********** rain
Oct 20, 2013
Oct 20, 2013 at 12:49 AM UTC
(Written in 8th Grade)
As I grew up along-side of memories, I realized that my name grew with me; shaping and morphing itself into who I am today. But wouldn’t it be fun to not be me for a single day? Not have the name, Alice? I could be someone smiling bright, maybe Melina. Or might I try on the name Jessie. Nah, too laid back and chill; so I take the name off and put it back on it’s hanger. I could be haughty and proud, with my nose in the air; I could be a Penelope. I window-shop for more names, browsing among all the different personalities. Fern seems fun, friendly and cordial. Or I might stick around and act as a Sam. Boyish? Aw yeah. Just maybe not for me. I’ll be Stella, all book-sharp for a day or I could be a Chloé, exotic and beautiful. Or switch my style into the retro girly Natalie. What would it be, to have the name Katie, just for a day? Zoey, Liana, Stacy, Diane. Isabelle, Marilyn, Delia, Hannah. Maybe give my name an exotic twist, Alyssa? After trying on names of all kind, some just weren’t for me. Too ‘krazy’? Shy? Ecstatic? Cool? Like a huge circus parade with different costumes, the loud gaudy colors blinding me. Like all the different shoes at Aldo’s; sky-high heels, wedges, sandals, boots. I slip out the shoes, I peel off the names. Because for now, I’d like to stay in my own skin; as a plain old Alice.
May 7, 2014
May 7, 2014 at 8:41 AM UTC
The slipped knot of now into will be
is such a gentle strand,
the braid undoes itself from yesterday
as easily as a garment's clasp,
as easily as abseiling liana.
Can I hold soft
the line?
To not look back
but keep the mountain's imprint
emboldened in the eye
To unknow
the difference from ascent and descent.
O day, o cloud: what do you know
that hasn't been pressed through my palms?
Nov 27, 2012
Nov 27, 2012 at 9:37 PM UTC
Tengo tu mismo color
Y tu misma procedencia.
Somos aroma y esencia
Y amargo es nuestro sabor.
Tú viajaste a Nueva York
Con visa en Bab-el-Mandeb,
Yo mi Trópico crucé
De Abisinia a las Antillas.
Soy como ustedes semillas.
Son un grano de café.
En los tiempos coloniales
Tú me viste en la espesura
Con mi liana a la cintura
Y mis abóreos timbales.
Compañero de mis males,
Yo mismo te trasplanté.
Surgiste y yo progresé:
En los mejores hoteles
Te dijeron ¡qué bien hueles!
Y yo asentí "¡uí, mesié!".
Tú: de porcelana fina,
Cigarro puro y cognac.
Yo de smoking, yo de frac,
Yo recibiendo propina.
Tú a la Bolsa, yo a la ruina;
Tú subiste, yo bajé...
En los muelles te encontré,
Vi que te echaban al mar
Y ni lo pude evitar
Ni a las aguas me arrojé.
Y conocimos al Peón
Con su "café carretero",
Y hablando con el Obrero
Recorrimos la nación.
Se habló de revolución
Entre sorbos de café:
Cogí el machete... dudé,
¡Tú me infundiste valor
Y a sangre y fuego y sudor
Mi libertad conquisté...!
Después vimos al Poeta:
Lejano, meditabundo,
Queriendo arreglar el mundo
Con una sola cuarteta.
Yo, convertido en peseta,
Hasta sus plantas rodé:
¡Qué ojos los que iluminé,
Que trilogía formamos
Los pobres que limosneamos
El Poeta y su café...!
Tengo tu mismo color
Y tu misma procedencia,
Somos aroma y esencia
Y amargo es nuestro sabor...
¡Vamos hermanos, valor,
El café nos pide fe;
Y Changó y Ochún y Agué
Piden un grito que vibre
Por nuestra América Libre,
Libre como su café!
1.2k
It means almost nothing to me when it is said someone loves my curly hair
It means almost nothing to me when people say they love my green eyes or anything else
The best compliment I have ever received is
"Liana, you're so weird, but in the very best way!"
Nov 17, 2024
Nov 17, 2024 at 5:52 PM UTC
i fear that when i love
it is far to much like a vine.
always longing to cling
and unable to grow alone
feeding off the sap of another
deteriorating any of my host trees
competing for their light
heavily vine laden trees grow more slowly
produce fewer seeds
less fruit
and due to their deteriorative effects on trees
most people seem to advocate the removal of vines.
i fear that when i love it is far too parasitic.
Feb 14, 2018
Feb 14, 2018 at 7:30 AM UTC
Who here hasn’t been someone else’s careful prayers on fire? Please don’t write again.
Even I’ve said, “I won’t take I won’t take no for an answer for an answer,” right after I’ve said,
“Don’t ask. Beg.”
Turns out I’ve become the heavy luggage of cameras and spring a friend’s lost in a done decade.
But believe me even in this dark we hear the same bent music.
Do you remember when
we went nowhere alone. I often went without myself but not always. I still feel at home
there, the street where a girl told me she felt like a reason to rush into the night.
Like leaving, nothing there’s ever finished.
But asked to give a compendium on the tenderness of those days, the only there and then
I’d swear to, I’d call it What we talk about when we talk about
“What we talk about when we talk about love.”
(Elsewhere, but at least still glittering we thought.
At least we thought then, Ray. I too do what I can.)
Literature burned. Our eyes fire-dyed green. The stories all sky sized.
I left home and came back home.
I left for the fall for the country and slept next to Liana in flannel on the kerosene-heated porch.
I came home to Newark again and friends arrived gently, poor and impossibly gorgeous at the door.
The story goes the table can’t hold the chandelier’s stars such dust I’m telling you the story goes.
There’s no honest way to arrange the bouquet of lightning
those memories assemble in me this morning.
Just too many crushed thoughts to bury in eternity
I can’t do anything but genuflect in front of them—
What do you think this isn’t, impossible?
*I remember how she smelled like a commercial lavender farm. Minor stars. I always wanted
a fistful of that expensive haircut she refused to shake out.*
That other one was brave too early in the century. Remember him.
*On the ride out of town she sung about how it’s still yesterday on the moon.
How whatever’s gone’s still out there somewhere.*
Oct 16, 2014
Oct 16, 2014 at 1:37 PM UTC
Ay mi más mimo mío
mi bisvidita te ando
sí toda
así
te tato y topo tumbo y te arpo
y libo y libo tu halo
ah la piel cal de luna de tu trascielo mío que me levitabisma
mi tan todita lumbre
cátame tu evapulpo
sé sed sé sed
sé liana
anuda más
más nudo de musgo de entremuslos de seda que me ceden
tu muy corola mía
oh su rocío
qué limbo
ízala tú mi tumba
así
ya en ti mi tea
toda mi llama tuya
destiérrame
aletea
lava ya emana el alma
te hisopo
toda mía
ay
entremuero
vida
me cremas
te edenizo.
450
your footprints are still there 6.25.25 (12:41 pm / 12:41)
your footprints are still there
pressed into the beach
unmarred unmarked unblemished by the tide
you seem endless
i guess there are still happy things
drawing stars in damp sand
saying
i was here
i was here, you were here
i said we share this place now
your footprints are still there
but mine
too close to the water
too close to the relentless currents
they were washed away
the sand says i was never here
[playing: rises the moon by liana flores]
Jun 27, 2025
Jun 27, 2025 at 6:20 PM UTC
Sweet, ****** nutty, kind
Anja, Rose, Molly and Liana
In my heart forever
A sweet friendship
And an amazing one
Tears fall for you all
I'm going to miss your smiles
Your different and strang laughs
And the fun times that will stay with me forever
I wish to say goodbye in person not in a card
So goodbye it is
Goodbye friends
Dec 9, 2014
Dec 9, 2014 at 3:32 AM UTC
Thank you Liana
For taking time
To read my
Doggerel
Rhymes.
I do not know
Happiness
I do not know
Sad
Trying very hard
To understand
What’s
Good and bad.
Read your poetry
It has lots of meaning
So thank you liana
I will carry on reading.
Sweet.
Dec 7, 2024
Dec 7, 2024 at 7:23 AM UTC
Oh Liana,
Your name spills from my mouth,
Like classical music in an empty auditorium.
For the room must be empty,
Because if you were here with me you'd notice my affection,
Right?
Never mind, now I know,
You could never be you for you,
You wouldn't even be you for me.
It's not my fault,
But if it isn't, why does it hurt so bad?
You were the one thing I wanted,
You were my one and only dream.
I put you in front of my needs,
I ignored the water rising to my eyes.
I ignored the feeling of my heart dying inside,
Just for you, Liana.
I did everything for you,
You did nothing for me.
I don't blame you,
I know why you couldn't.
But darling please,
When I say I love you could you at least respond to me?
Dec 13, 2024
Dec 13, 2024 at 4:31 PM UTC
He’d call me into the bathroom
Pinch my arm
Or find cut on my skin
And rub alcohol on it
“Doesn’t that feel good, Liana?”
He’d say
I knew I only had one option
And that was to say yes
Apr 17, 2025
Apr 17, 2025 at 12:20 AM UTC
"what do you wanna do, Liana?"
My mom asks me
"Death"
I respond
"Do you want to eat something?"
"No, I just want to die"
"What are you thinking about?"
"My death"
She laughs
Smiles
She doesn't understand
She doesn't want to understand I'm not joking
When I'm telling her
"What do you want to do tomorrow?"
She asks
"I don't want a tomorrow. I want to die"
I answer
She giggles
"That's not an option" she chuckles
She doesn't know
Jun 15, 2025
Jun 15, 2025 at 10:02 PM UTC
Inocente Murano del rocío,
canto del pino, miel de la mañana,
la flor del camalote en la fontana,
viento de Mayo sazonado frío,
y Diana dirigiendo mi albedrío
hacia la selva, fronteriza liana,
donde alza el mirlo su jocunda diana
y empieza el roble a flor de caserío.
Madrugadora fiel, sobre la frente,
me nace el sol atempranado, y siente
mi sangre la salud del fresco día.
Los nervios tienen un cordaje cálido
y se ilumina el rostro enjuto y pálido
con una nueva luz de epifanía.
314
thank you 6.21.25 (8:42 pm / 20:42)
i think i made someone's day happier today
i don't think you have any idea how wonderful that is
the feeling that instead of ruining something like i always do
i made it better
you'll never know how happy that made me
to realize i could help someone else be happy too
she said i was a star
the kind that comes out from behind clouds
on a too-dark night
i have never been told anything more beautiful
all the stars are on your side, liana
thank you
Jun 21, 2025
Jun 21, 2025 at 11:53 PM UTC
"This isn't a book, Liana"
"Things are as they seem"
"This isn't science fiction"
"This isn't a dream"
My friend tells me
Blames it on how many books I read
"Prove it"
I say
She can't...
Jan 24, 2025
Jan 24, 2025 at 9:30 PM UTC
I feel little,
Compared to the poets whos' poems trend for days.
If they came 'hot off the press,'
They'd burn the printer's office down.
Their flow is perfect, and every poem has a clear purpose in their line up.
How can I be like them?
Traveler, Peter Garrett, Ben Noah Suresh,
All big names.
They have years of experience compared to me,
Traveler's poem trended so much it's temperature matched the year.
If I asked nicely,
Could he teach me how to make my poems great?
I learn so much from every poem on here I read,
Liana's a person, a poet, a vine.
That nobody cares about the number on the scrapbook poem,
They just care they're there.
I write because I want to show people a window into my life,
But deep down there's a part of me,
That wants to be famous more than anything.
So here I am,
Feeling little,
Feeling small.
Dec 16, 2024
Dec 16, 2024 at 2:49 PM UTC