"lighthouses" poems
Eid in Babylon sits on his high chair, on knees of snow. Grandparents smile for the beloved alleys of Babylon and overlook the mighty Euphrates. Eid in Babylon is a bright face of dawn. Magic smiled on his hands like the hearts of the Babylonians. These civilizations have occurred here, do you not see all these lighthouses and the sounds of eternity? Don't you see dew hearts where lovers' poems here mired in their dreams? At sunset, we will bid farewell to the spirit of rebellion. At sunset, a new Eid will be rise in Babylon.
Jul 31, 2020
Jul 31, 2020 at 3:37 AM UTC
poem in two parts (a plane and bird)
You are a sound in still silence; a point against negative space toward which my eye is drawn. The sun set, peeking beneath a blanket of storm clouds, painting the underside, as a plane, an infinitesimal photon, a plane flew as an impossible pinprick of optimistic light, moving slowly against the immense parallax backdrop of bright and hazy pink-orange glowing thunder clouds. You are the first breath I took. You are the product of all infinities, divided by itself, the sum of all integers. When the earth falls into the sun, long after humans left, long after you left, and any recognizable trace of you is swallowed, your memory will persist. You will have still lived; You will have been the last breath I took.
A fulcrum of loss and a wedge between two equally lost people, but between them, between them still a bird, flying farther than any eye can see, but should the lights of the lighthouses lose you against their foggy panes, or should the salty wind dash you against something equally heavy, call out, and cast your voice into the sky, upon the sea, and against the stars, and maybe its echoes will live a little longer than you.
Dec 24, 2015
Dec 24, 2015 at 5:27 PM UTC
In Stardust,
Is where can hopes be born,
But also, where a star has died, violently, explosively, shining out light so brilliant it would roar if it hit the atmosphere, illuminate it,
It is hot, alike the purgatory with a sweet look to gaze at if you observe the planetary nebulae by a far, far distance of course,
The dreams of the nova remnant, spread across space, left is but a small piece of dense matter, pulsating light cast by it's fast spin,
It is but a pulsar, or rather this old lady could be called one of the many lighthouses of our beloved widely beautiful universe,
Shining brilliantly even after death, isn't that what we all desire ?
If sadness clouds your judgement and you have nowhere to run,
And if you feel lonely in a starlit sky, worrying about the past long gone, losing yourself to your recurring, cruel thoughts,
Just remember, that you too, once were part of a bright, shining star which once too used to brighten up the dark, cold night for one else.
~ Umi
Apr 29, 2018
Apr 29, 2018 at 6:08 PM UTC
I will keep looking,
For I am a lighthouse.
I will always see the good in everything,
For I am a lighthouse.
Confused I will search for answers,
For I am a lighthouse.
Help any ship along the sea,
For I am a lighthouse.
Wait in a single spot unmoving,
For I am a lighthouse.
Slowly decaying from the inside,
For I am a lighthouse.
Alone for all my days,
For I am a lighthouse.
Never will have any true partner,
Because no one builds two lighthouses next to each other.
Jul 15, 2012
Jul 15, 2012 at 10:48 AM UTC
In the dark night I was prevented from my satisfying slumber,
as I was troubled by my rooms dark corner.
Though my eyes were soon to be sealed,
may my dreamcatcher cure me from this dreadful darkness to be revealed.
Thankfully, the dreamcatcher protected me through this night,
as I was navigated to an existence so bright.
I was floating above the sea as I saw the lights
of thousand beaconing lighthouses from these ongoing heights.
Keenly guided from all insecurities,
I now clearly see the seas of opportunities.
Jan 22, 2017
Jan 22, 2017 at 5:24 PM UTC
I house thunder inside of these bones.
I contain lightning inside my heart.
I contain raindrops in my veins.
I am the storm.
But, do not worry dear plebeians, I do not strike on dark days of gray,
Only on dark days of pain.
I pour down on the suffering, to wash away all of their troubles.
And I'd rather have a lifetime of saving rain than a constantly-glowing sun.
Because the Sun is just too dim compared to the fire that burns inside of me.
Jun 22, 2016
Jun 22, 2016 at 2:01 AM UTC
it's been months since I bothered opening my eyes before the birds have finished their song and the sun is casting 5 o'clock shadows on the faces of those who work and strain and cry and just want to put food on the table for their loved ones. I never thought about what was just below the surface what was edging towards the eerie fog about the lake just as I turned my back. you told me flowers always sprout when rain and snow and hail and sleet and every form of tears god could throw at us whip your face and you're still not crying and why aren't you crying you're bleeding and I'm aching and have you ever thought about how clouds are just vessels for rain and how maybe you're a cloud and I'm a torrential downpour but I'm more like a thunderstorm without the lighting because nothing shines like your eyes when you hear your favourite passage read aloud and I hope you hear my voice in your head I hope that omnipresence you always complained about comforts you when your bed is the last place you want to be and I hope you dream harder than rocks falling down mountains until maybe the figures you see in sleep become real. until the apparitions you claim have plagued your mind are left with no safe house and no real home and you can box them up like pictures and firewood and the couch cushions with the stains on them like Why the **** didn't we get those cleaned. why didn't we clean up our mess why is the window still shattered it's getting cool at night and the blankets are itchy and the grass looks comfier than cots in prison cells and what kind of prison cell is this with birds and lights and piers with boats that never seem to come in and lighthouses that never seem to guide them home. like nothing could ever guide you home, like nothing but light and wind and waves crashing and you'll probably never see the captain again. the ship is never sinking but the captain died many years ago sending smoke signals swallowed up by the clouds who lost their rain.
Aug 8, 2014
Aug 8, 2014 at 10:26 PM UTC
he's terrified of her voice
that whips his eardrums like kashmir switches
and tickles his diaphragm until he convulses
in nervous laughter inside his head
the way it inquires broadly,
like an opera written in tornado sirens and megaphones
and the brightness of lighthouses,
for conversation he thought
had drowned long ago and only
reemerges as bubbles on the lake's surface
a boiling body popping deafeningly
with anxiety, and plumping
bravery pasta, which smells seductive,
which he loves...
he's just not hungry right now.
Oct 10, 2013
Oct 10, 2013 at 2:49 PM UTC
You have
inner-city-Chinese-restaurant-koi-pond
eyes; infiltrated pupils
that sit behind and spy on the others sitting around,
all whilst remaining dark: a hallmark I admire.
There's a maternity queen wrapped tight in a dress,
blue and white, who sits at the front and speaks and
you write down what leaks and you make it
stick with a biro you bought with a virgin-first
pay check envelope-
ripped open with an eager thumb I'd like to hold
when winter rolls up and in.
Lighthouses look across bigger ponds to warn
of storms that are yet to come.
From afar they see and decide,
weigh up and divide choice into digestible chunks of
we can save them, or if not, we'll guide them whilst they swim:
you make me do this endlessly, almost every day
and this poem is to stop me from thinking
your falsetto hums, that pause in mid air, free, are for me-
you've another bow in brown hair and our corridor conversations
lead nowhere-
I'm gracelessly in love and I just said love and
it's a kind-of cliché, a boring over used word
that we all use when we're excited;
when we run laps around a track that we cannot navigate,
when we're hungover and don't want to work with another desk clerk bore
who sits and talks and works as if an unpaid chore,
but it is true and I wish you'd notice me.
Oct 29, 2013
Oct 29, 2013 at 1:16 PM UTC
Half a candle burns full light and flicks shadows on my wall tonight,
I raise my arms and make a face
and somewhere out in time and space
a star explodes.
I wonder why it's called the butterfly,
just for effect?
Sep 7, 2013
Sep 7, 2013 at 1:24 AM UTC
JESUS emptied the devils of one man into forty hogs and the hogs took the edge of a high rock and dropped off and down into the sea: a mob.
The sheep on the hills of Australia, blundering fourfooted in the sunset mist to the dark, they go one way, they hunt one sleep, they find one pocket of grass for all.
Karnak? Pyramids? Sphinx paws tall as a coolie? Tombs kept for kings and sacred cows? A mob.
Young roast pigs and naked dancing girls of Belshazzar, the room where a thousand sat guzzling when a hand wrote: Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin? A mob.
The honeycomb of green that won the sun as the Hanging Gardens of Nineveh, flew to its shape at the hands of a mob that followed the fingers of Nebuchadnezzar: a mob of one hand and one plan.
Stones of a circle of hills at Athens, staircases of a mountain in Peru, scattered clans of marble dragons in China: each a mob on the rim of a sunrise: hammers and wagons have them now.
Locks and gates of Panama? The Union Pacific crossing deserts and tunneling mountains? The Woolworth on land and the Titanic at sea? Lighthouses blinking a coast line from Labrador to Key West? Pigiron bars piled on a barge whistling in a fog off Sheboygan? A mob: hammers and wagons have them to-morrow.
The mob? A typhoon tearing loose an island from thousand-year moorings and bastions, shooting a volcanic ash with a fire tongue that licks up cities and peoples. Layers of worms eating rocks and forming loam and valley floors for potatoes, wheat, watermelons.
The mob? A jag of lightning, a geyser, a gravel mass loosening...
The mob ... kills or builds ... the mob is Attila or Ghengis Khan, the mob is Napoleon, Lincoln.
I am born in the mob-I die in the mob-the same goes for you-I don't care who you are.
I cross the sheets of fire in No Man's land for you, my brother-I slip a steel tooth into your throat, you my brother-I die for you and I **** you-It is a twisted and gnarled thing, a crimson wool:
One more arch of stars,
In the night of our mist,
In the night of our tears.
2.4k
I walk down the pier,
All sea-salt dreams and hand-spun darkness
The buildings are bent from the wind
As are the people inside them
But it is voluntary,
So they still appear strong.
A man sits on a corner
Wearing only his clothes and half-moon smile
I think he must have been born
Before the flood took Kwakwaka’s voice
And thunderbirds were more than midnight cries
Of feathered laughter on the Chinook
I think he must know that for which I search
He calls me over to his barnacle throne
And says in a black-bear voice
“If its fish you want,
Be here before the rain
That comes on the heels of daybreak
And buy from the man with the golden tooth,
His fish are good
And his hands honest.”
That night I dream of lighthouses
And the way the stairs wind like a promise
Out of the toss and turn of the night
And the way they hold boats and the men inside them
All those tangled strings
In a fist of yellow light
And the way that light becomes a phoenix
To those who choose to give the land a second chance
Or a third, when the sea proves more fickle a friend
Than the women who have given up hope
Of being more a lover and less a lion
Than the blue-dress lady with a red-dress song.
At daybreak there is a black bear at a fish stand
His arms are laden with bodies like silver coins
I know he does not fish for wealth
Besides that of the wisdom brought
By knowing your home and purpose.
I think he must know that for which I search
He calls me over
And says in an old-man voice,
“If its love you want,
Be here before the sun
That comes on the heels of the breaking tide
And watch the one true glory of the earth
Give birth once again to forgiveness.”
I believed what he said because I could still see
The sunrise reflected in his eyes
Like a prayer.
At dawn there are two figures on the horizon,
Hand in hand,
Brothers maybe,
They jump into the breathing chaos
Of the still-dark waves
And become the fish that beat in their mother’s chest
Become her heart and her blood,
Her veins and
Her children
Jan 27, 2012
Jan 27, 2012 at 6:52 PM UTC
Ink
Worked in
Into skin
Patterns emerge
Secrets not for me
Obvious but hidden
Questions arise, why that design
What meaning does it hold for you
Flowers, skulls, lighthouses, birds and words
Intoxicating as they explain why
The reasons why they’ve changed themselves now
Into who they’ve become today
Remembrances and just because
It was pretty, it helped
Because life is hard
And this helps some
Remember
It goes
On.
Feb 21, 2015
Feb 21, 2015 at 11:42 PM UTC
Sadness carried on the salty breeze
The waves dance upon the shore
The cool sand feels good to bare feet
Seashells collected in buckets
Horses galloping on the shores
Enjoying their freedom and eternal ecstasy
Golden memories carried in the wind
Forgotten thoughts linger in the breeze
Pristine palm trees standing on the shore
Ukulele songs in the tropical air
Lone tropical girls dancing
To the everlasting song of the waves
Tropical sunsets silhouetted with palm trees
Lighthouses standing on majestic islands
And I'm standing here alone
The sun kissing my brown hair
Its rays reflecting in my blue eyes
And my fair cheeks feeling its warmth
Caressing my face
This place feels sentimental to me
And I treasure it above
The hidden ocean treasures
Buried under the foamy waves
~Marian~
May 17, 2013
May 17, 2013 at 12:11 AM UTC
because love when cut,
lets loose
an empire of blood:
i have in my lips,
a treaty of oblivion—
releasing an embittered lemon.
in the throne of the sea,
waves repeat the crash
of perfidy.
by the mountains they ride,
the thick air of strobe.
rocks receive the genital fire
of lighthouses
exposing intones of shadow
one by one.
the beast maimed
behind the zither of trees
makes no sound like
an aleph.
i herald the collusion of night
and children
and weep at the solicitude of mothers,
because pines swoon in the dark
and with its hand, the gentlest war
threshes the flesh and blood,
raining on us forever.
hostile eyes bypass the silence of things
and lovers closing doors repeatedly,
disrupting the vale from its slumber.
it is because when love is let loose,
it releases both of us — weary, inescapably ripe with the wind, looking
for each other as doves do in flight,
separate and obscured, opening gates;
nightfall:
the savage aroma of wood
on the leaves that sway fervently
tippling away from boughs.
Dec 15, 2015
Dec 15, 2015 at 4:32 AM UTC
Use your fingerprints
decorate walls,
stain old world maps.
Whorls spiral into
comic book wallpaper,
vertical designs and heart lines.
Glass pillars fogged with secrets,
bits of chipped concrete,
2:34am security footage.
42 minutes of prepackaged snowstorms.
Lying corners of the mouth
whisper plans B through Z.
Rusty sleep theories,
half-truths
in runaway boats.
A static pulse
casually remembers menthol cigarettes,
apple cores and
eighties music.
Espresso roast washing
blue and white porcelain from 1683,
knotted pale navy dots.
Wisps of kites anchored in the sand,
anthropology in lighthouses
stretching for the aurora borealis.
Jan 14, 2013
Jan 14, 2013 at 11:37 PM UTC
I love lighthouses;
Lonely, desolate, cold
Grown out of rocky outcrops
Designed by monolithic architects,
Where only ascetic souls can call home
Their light, a beacon in the darkness
To protect sailors from the smouldering sea,
And all her whiles and trickery
One lonely light, that shines out
Like faith, like hope, like love
So mariners will not plot a course
Into the shallow depths of death,
Book a room in Davy Jones’ Locker.
Jun 28, 2019
Jun 28, 2019 at 1:47 PM UTC
I take a cigarette break to the beach at 2AM every time i'm on the graveyard shift. The whole atmosphere of being at the edge of a continent with an endless body of water living and breathing in front of you is emotional. When the sea is calm and the tide is low it feel like you can relax, listen to the tide rippling off the rocks and it soothes the soul. When the tide is high and the sea is rough you realize the pure power of the ocean. I imagine the lives previously taken by the merciless sea, engulfing ships and crashing into mountains and piers, cities, lighthouses, residences, and boat yards. Unforgiving, and yet, majestic she is responsible for more life than we can fathom. A whole different part of our world we have such minimal access to. I look out into her endless brilliance as the wind warns me of her presence. Blasting the smell of salt onto my skin, as i take long breathes with ease. The ocean is wise, she has been here much longer then i have and has experienced loss, life, tragedy, war, ****** and survival. Nobody's around at 2AM, just me and her. Every night she gives me the same feeling, like a women you love but cant control, a free spirit, wild for her own pleasure, thirsty for love and affection but resilient to the idea of being confined. For you can not control the one who manipulates you. I am being manipulated by the sea. As i exhale my last puff i walk back inside to work. "Ill see you tomorrow".
Jun 16, 2013
Jun 16, 2013 at 5:15 PM UTC
This ship is sinking, your sea is violent.
There's so many words I have for you.
Never spoken.
Instead they take a pill, fall asleep inside my head.
These watery words rise above me.
They travel down my throat and into my lungs.
I thought I took enough air before I went under.
How wrong I was.
Calm.Quiet.Ocean.
I'm struggling now.
Reaching out to nothing there.
I can't seem to get back to the top.
Blue.Green.Silver.
There's an anchor pinning me to your ocean floor.
Your waves have swallowed me whole.
Jetsam tumbling through like driftwood on high seas.
I set my eyes on two green jewels.
I'm locked on them.
Two lighthouses guiding me through this storm.
I should swim away from them.
Instead they draw me near, beckoning to me.
I swim hard, I swim fast.
I'm out of breath.
I can no longer go on.
Feb 24, 2013
Feb 24, 2013 at 7:14 PM UTC
We make shapes with our hearts.
Concentric rings that ebb and flow like spice and mystery.
And though the rings are not eternal..
They will intersect from time to time like lighthouses.
Look to the shore.
The beacon is simply my eye
reflecting your light back to you.
Oct 15, 2011
Oct 15, 2011 at 6:42 PM UTC
Your backseat,
that backward pickpocket,
that schemer taking cell phones and jackets and wallets
the pilfered seeds sewn, like lighthouses when they sprout
guiding me back again
back to you
back to that ******* backseat
May 14, 2010
May 14, 2010 at 4:43 PM UTC
150: "I've never had a fat girlfriend" your now ex-boyfriend explains when questioned about the reason why he said the two of you just won't work. He tells you that "he thinks you're cute, but would be much cuter if you lost a few pounds". His words echo in your brain until eventually insults are the only thing you can force yourself to swallow.
120: Everyone is congratulating you on your extraordinary weight loss, they all want to know your secrets. You don't tell them that every night you're on your knees worshipping the toilet bowl. That the only chocolate you've tasted in months is the chalky, sweetness of the laxatives that you take like a daily vitamin. That you don't allow yourself food until the emptiness inside you threatens to steal your consciousness. Instead, you smile and say "must be good genes".
90: You get into a fight with your mother after she tries to force you to eat dinner with your family. You ate yesterday, this will throw off all the goals you've been striving towards. You no longer know how to survive if you're not destroying yourself in the process.
90: You run into your ex boyfriend at the local Walmart with his new girlfriend. She's heavier than you are, but her eyes still shine like lighthouses, he hasn't gotten to her yet. You try to telepathically tell her to run, to leave while she's still whole, but you know the message gets lost on its way. So you settle for a smile, and a compliment to the figure she still has.
120: It's so hard to live in a society where perfection is unattainable but at the same time required... However, it's not impossible. You are already in recovery, you've made it through the hardest part. It's so much better to be full of food than full of empty wishes.
150: Your new girlfriend whines about how jealous she is of your curves, compares your body to that of an ancient goddess. You hesitantly accept the compliment, still not comfortable with imagining your body as anything other than the curse he made you think it was. Darling, your body is not the curse, your body is the blessing... I'm glad you've finally started treating it as such.
Oct 5, 2015
Oct 5, 2015 at 10:29 PM UTC
Part I.
I tried to die
in the arches of your orchard heart
struggled for breath and bleeding
but my blood was not willing
it loves me like you never would
red lead weights
on the dogeared notes of last weekend
yellowing with antiquity
like the singing saints of Hyperborea-feigned
in paper cathedrals
if only we could see them
once
the moon waned
to these tobacco-trance stains
that creep beyond the door frame's edge
- dreams of Apollo.
You will sing in light
but your eyes will burn
and when the sky falls to night
the halls of your arms will yearn
and your song will laugh at you
in the hollow of its silence
if only my mouth could marry a love like that.
I often dreamt of lighthouses
then
you came from the water's edge
and brought the sea with you
stupid saltwater
sodium mouthfuls
nothing grows from you.
Part II.
Summer crept
in to the holes in your jeans
as the sky fell to dusk
we saw the sun die
under waves of golden clouds
summer kept us warm in to the night
now only the sea sings its praise
to the promise of the evening
a promise that will fall with Arcadia
and the loudest of silences
to the archaic indifference of apocrypha-lost
few others could speak
in a way that grew between us
with the colours of a love not yet lost.
Now all my books are burning
beneath the palm of your eye
your iris twists
and burns with the sky.
Dec 16, 2012
Dec 16, 2012 at 3:29 PM UTC
I've been having these...
Audacious ideas lately.
Ideas better left contracepted by reason
before taking root in my mind;
I've been playing hopscotch with What If
so long that I forgot he was just
and imaginary friend.
I've been thinking about you.
They're just thoughts but see,
These feelings I have for you
are so very contradictory
because the very reason I like you
is the reason you keep your distance.
You pray to a god I don't believe in
and according to my church,
you might be called a heathen
Yet I couldn't imagine anyone else in heaven
with more ease.
I've been having these...
Audacious ideas lately.
Ideas that took root and
for the life of me, won't scoot
for things like logic.
These here ideas are utterly tragic.
We share the same basic morals
but you stick to the script,
and I'm a little more improv;
with my Saturday Nights Live,
while you're at home praying
prayer number five.
Trust me when I say
I didn't mean to
think about you
dream about you
pray for you
constantly.
It wasn't until I heard you.
Every word was poetry,
and all I could ever do was stutter.
When I think of these audacious thoughts,
I begin to shutter.
Mainly because I'm walking
down the plank into heartbreak,
and those nudges at my back
pushing me forward are
the smiles you beam like
lighthouses in this dark world.
It's as if they start at the ground floor
of your soul, take an elevator
to the corners of your lips and
Spread.
I don't beleive in the prophet Mohammed
but am I a horrible Christian if I thank him
for inspiring someone to be so angelic?
Not only are you peaceful,
you're revolutionary.
You could change the world
with two hands behind your back
and still have prayer time in tact.
MSA President,
captain of the school team,
superlative for the biggest dream.
I like you for who you were, are,
and who you will become.
And it seems as though
every
one
of your actions
is rhythmic to my hearts drum.
I've been having these...
Audacious ideas lately,
Ideas better left unsaid,
Ideas better left dead.
Jul 19, 2011
Jul 19, 2011 at 7:46 AM UTC
We've grown distant
two lonely lighthouses
in the middle of the ocean
our glow shining away
from each other
Sailors come for safety
little did they know
We are searching for
the light too.
Aug 16, 2018
Aug 16, 2018 at 12:39 PM UTC