"likenesses" poems
say something or just
keep on makin' ghost-patterned, intervening silences,
singing
or half-murmuring
verses, those ones from slow songs under low light,
the same refrain that runs between all the others,
through the passage of weeks, stained tobacco sweet by eleven-thirty iterations;
* [post-meridian or particulate matters only,
of course,
it's hard to wake before noon anymore.]*
with the way these rhythms keep us down
and out,
counting the methods-
the summations of potential miseries,
and the probabilities that all would or could turn around, before the end of the week.
or the next one.
and,
outside the door, the one after that,
over the acres of concrete and pale shade,
streetlit likenesses hushing air through melting neighbourhoods,
I make imaginary footprints,
wondering which, of the field of household starlit comforts,
is the blade of grass you cast seeds from
to inadvertently germinate and sprout a well of aspiration, the wind in a stranger's ribcage,
continually growing, hiccoughing leaf litter,
with every last breath.
Dec 11, 2012
Dec 11, 2012 at 6:24 AM UTC
The alarming realm of the vertical,
so immence a hue – a blue
of such majesty that wonder
comes over all.
The magical universe of color –
linear filigrees of tone sheened
on unlikely surfaces : clandestine
rose and violet, a shout of crimson,
a whisper of pastel.
Sun-honeyed pine trees,
wind-silver rumpling of fields
falling into manes of lustre,
galleries of varying shades
fading into each other,
mirroring a marriage
of likenesses, mauve
through cerulean.
Tinted pavilions of firmament
overhung with luminescense
where mind is lost in the
amazement of impermance .
Dec 8, 2021
Dec 8, 2021 at 4:51 AM UTC
i woke up and tried to
forget but was reminded,
instead, of the way your
lips gather like dawn
and dusk on either side
of the relentless night of
your insides, all points laid
out, shining light in form
constants: you, unknowingly
lit up, like cigarette tips under
city lights. so, is this how
you do it? how you smuggle
small likenesses, the
reflections upon slight layers
of water across the surface of
your eyes, into my waking
thoughts in ever-decreasing
intervals? finally, ending in
slow sequential convergences
with me seeing
you in
oceans of sleep,
seeing your eyes, the soft
skin of your palms, bent
visions emerging in my
ventricles, aortae, arteries
of
how this ends.
Aug 14, 2013
Aug 14, 2013 at 3:51 AM UTC
I awaken
On your shoulder
Lost to the meaning of this
Gesture
Who am I
To you
Who is that
Girl
Your skin
Soft
On the rough
Angles of my face
I have missed this
More than what you
Know
More than what you
Will ever know about
You are a righty
But then again
So am I
A singer
A musician
An artist
A dramatic being
So many likenesses
But it is far too hard...
For both of us
Always
So many flaws
So many issues
Ropes between us
Chains on my ankles
A knife in my gut
Your hand
Soft on mine
A beacon in the darkness
A comfort
Another question to ponder
Another problem to solve
I love you
I do...
So much baby.
But why the **** did you bring me back?
Feb 3, 2012
Feb 3, 2012 at 11:41 PM UTC
_Pale-faced beneath twilight’s awning, shadowed time skips
A beat measured in dust motes and attic silence;
Frameless ether holds its breath and portrait likenesses
Swivel eyes right, suspended between the minute and the hour;
In sequence, Whittington’s chiming sepia tones wring out
A tulip of port and one last cigar from drapery long hung;
As floral meanders unwind from a walnut casing
Inlayed with the gamine whimsies of our cherried youth._
Sep 23, 2020
Sep 23, 2020 at 4:55 PM UTC
Sometimes I find myself with likenesses of water.
To most, I am to be drank,
Taken in, one sip at a time.
But I warn you,
Don’t drink too much of me,
You might just drown.
I can be crystal clear,
Or muddy and darkened,
However, no matter what I am,
It doesn’t take much to see right through me.
All it takes is a little something,
And all becomes clear to anyone who dares to look inside.
I can be beautiful,
Mysterious,
Depressing,
Dangerous...
My emotions are most comparable to the Atlantic,
I’m there, at the beach,
Though most days I’m a little too cold to fully enjoy.
I can give life,
To things that range from small and beautiful,
To large and horrific.
I connect things one wouldn’t expect,
Like Belgium and Mexico,
See? Didn’t expect that, did you?
I’m a little different to everyone,
When I use a term as general as “water”,
But let’s go to the heart of it all.
All bodies of water begin and end with the oceans.
And at the heart of each of those…
Is a storm
A hurricane,
Whirlpool,
Tidal wave,
Tsunami…
Enjoy me all you want,
But one day,
I’ll destroy everything
Even myself
Apr 22, 2016
Apr 22, 2016 at 10:05 AM UTC
EVERYONE WAS SOMEONE ELSE
Neville Chamberlain
gets on at Barking.
Umbrella, stripped trousers
the whole kit and kaboodle
just like the cartoonists
drew him.
Almost expected him to wave
that piece of paper and declare
"Peace in our time!"
But he only snapped open
The Times
with Trump trumpeting
some more inane lies
like a Dumbo
on acid.
At the next stop
the Chamberlain look-alike
got off and
an entity like something
Beardsley would have drawn
got on...yawn...fell asleep.
A girl at the end of the carriage
looked like she had just stepped out
of an Edward Hopper .
People kept assuming
the likenesses of others
no one was
themselves.
Here was a real dead ringer for
Meatloaf.
There the Mona Lisa
in a micro-mini and
still wearing the same
elusive smile.
Me too
even I
had awoken this morning
a badly drawn boy
feeling like nothing but
a bunch of scribbles..
I stayed on to the end of the line...
not wanting to get off
just going nowhere.
The next stop
the American elections!
Nov 7, 2016
Nov 7, 2016 at 6:27 PM UTC
Shush, if you present gods - always are
their glassy likenesses in what’s
just past the door. The mushrooms,
those brittle wooded floors. Glossy
instances of truth, shielded
so elastically from what is.
It’s not only past the door though.
They make it up; they lie within.
Gods are always present if you shush.
Apr 12, 2013
Apr 12, 2013 at 1:35 PM UTC
They always said
How much the little girl
Was like her daddy in
The way she stood
Walked
Movements
Gestures --
Cute when she was small
But the older she gets
The more she takes on
More serious aspects of
My strengths
My weaknesses.
Proud to see her
Strong personality --
Flashbacks of my youth.
Strong-willed
Free in spirit
As a young deer
Kinking up its hind legs
In defiance of constriction.
A free spirit sees
No need for the fences
We build to contain it
To control our so-called
Base instincts.
In her my strengths are
Magnified
but oh
So are my weaknesses --
My weaknesses magnified?!
Looking at this
Living mirror of myself
Seems to
Magnify
Intensify
A normal father/daughter
Relationship.
I think I see clearly because
I think I know myself so well.
I chastise myself
I condemn my weaknesses
The mistakes I made in my youth.
I look down at me
She looks up to me.
They say she is
So much like her daddy
But she is much more.
Part mama
Part gran
Part grandma
A tapestry of traits
All formed in her
Along with what her social
Environments have
Sown in and reaped of her.
The teenager often sees the
Outward beauty of a
Model or movie star.
Someone is always
Better looking
Someone else always
Has more of something.
I try so hard to help her see
That this is so common
A feeling.
She is above all this
She is not run of the mill.
I know she knows this
Somewhere
Deep inside.
Time has proved
That I see more
Than what meets the eye--
But this knowing
Holds possible dangers.
I can see ahead to
Warn her of trouble
But there are troubles
That she must endure.
Over-protection
Every caring parent knows
This pain.
I do not want to fail her
But distance seems to grow
Between us when
I monitor her progress
When I push and ****
To make her less like daddy.
She shouldn’t be too much
Like me --
I have too many regrets.
In the night hours
I sometimes hear sounds
That I cannot distinguish.
I hear fluttering sounds
That I think are birds
Flying out of the trees
But in reality it is the wind
Blowing high
Through the pines.
I see shadows of strangers
Seeking mischief
Shining bright
Lights at the family tent
In the cold
Half-dream-state
Of the cold night--
But reality says it is
The distortion of the campfire
Through the fabric of the tent.
I cannot always distinguish
Certain sights and sounds
At certain times
But time reveals what
They truly are.
But to bite the tongue
When I wish to scold
Out of season!
To stop focusing on our
Likenesses to the point
Where I cannot differentiate
Between what she used to be
And what I used to feel
And the individual soul
That my daughter is!
They always say how
much she is like her daddy.
Maybe daddy needs to change.
Nov 19, 2024
Nov 19, 2024 at 8:39 AM UTC
Like ashes swarming
Sunken in the debris of the form,
Or even the crossroads
Where a stop is received open,
Holding the pace bearing down
On one's reach, far out in the distance;
Where am I going in a rushing brush with life?
The question questions the self,
An answer spades the mirror,
So quick like a plume of smoke
Out of a hurried motor,
The comet that comes and goes
Slicing generations in waiting,
To and from encircling eternal likenesses,
Uncertain about Faith's certainties,
the ceaseless wheel keeps spinning,
A dizzying compass.
The why is immobile, the what is is the experience.
I half shed a tear when another
Bites the immortal dust,
What is a damp ravine drawn
At the cliff of a road lined with stones?
All is erosional,
The enormous draws out endlessly
With poignant time,
So I pace myself
Down to the exploding minute,
Because time only burns
But never passes.....
Feb 26, 2016
Feb 26, 2016 at 12:46 PM UTC
Her music was "too aggressive" or "too loud". As soon as her pen graced the paper it was though her well of ideas ran dry. The same happened for her paintings too, an unfruitful harvest of lazily drying acrylics. She needed a new outlet.
She was going crazy in her mind, absolutely insane. Her dreams overwhelmed her nights so that she awoke and felt as though she hadn't slept. Her days seemed to zoom by as though stuck in a time vacuum turned on high. Her attitude and persona was as neutral as the light makeup that was on her face.
Her cup sputtered to the floor, spilling her tea everywhere. She cried out in aggravation. She was so done with being pushed around and ignored and shut down. She needed an outlet and she needed one now.
Post: 38 days
Her life had begun to clear a little. She found an outlet. Not your typical one either.
He was a character in himself with a whole other world in his eyes. He was different in the way he carried himself: confident but reserved. He knew who he was but still let people try to guess. Words didn't phase him one bit, except from the eloquent ones she spoke to him late at night after the rain had succumbed to their presence in the night air.
They worked. They were made for each other, even though an unexpected pairing. No one knew how or why or when but they just seemed to mesh.
They could both attest to their likenesses. As soon as her hand met his, that's when it was all over. She knew nothing else mattered any longer. She found happiness. For once in forever in her crazy and ******* up life she found happiness. She found love. She found herself.
Aug 18, 2014
Aug 18, 2014 at 8:30 PM UTC
The days all come and go, but when it comes to time we have no control.
There are things that eventually puts stress in me,
but I have learned that this life inevitably blesses me.
It takes more than an alarm clock to wake yourself up to realizations,
and despite aspirations, many only step with hesitation - never really putting forth the perspiration that ends up being the precipitation that causes the idea to grow into something beyond.
Despite likenesses and similarities, is there really a good reason that we can't form a bond?
I may not be fond of all that I should be,
but I take the chance and dive into the pond of what could be.
It takes more than to just look, because it won't get you far.
Things are not as we see them, in my book it says we see things as we are.
Jun 9, 2012
Jun 9, 2012 at 10:52 AM UTC
Before the Autumn reaps, don’t you believe that tree’s leaves would enjoy knowing the feeling of reaching and holding another’s branches? All the while these trees cannot conceive of such things.
I like to envision the brain of a dandelion as it tenderly caresses the faces of other dandelions. Before the wind sweeps away with their heads spreading each one’s likeness across distant lands. I bet they’d hold on to one another, these seeds, to the seeds of their lovers hoping to exist together upon the reaches of greener grass.
It’s not unlike me to marvel at what a miracle consciousness is. How lucky we are to share it despite all of its pains. All the while these dandelions might never see their own likenesses the way I can divine myself reflected back in my child’s smiling eyes. It’s such a blessing to conceive of such things. -six pm
Mar 5, 2021
Mar 5, 2021 at 10:25 AM UTC
I used to talk about It, as if I knew It
Whole-heartedly. Ready.
For the Plunge into a blissful splendor
The icy, blue metallic shine that shivers and comes alive!
...but I hadn't realized..
That the flip-fluttering, hands grasped, eye to eye euphoria
Was but a moment.
I hadn't thought much beyond the surface
Of the depth of it...
The Darkness.
The ink-like, curled up shadow that unravels as it waits beneath
So, Wait!
This leap is but romanticized, delirious, and magnified.
Don't break this shallow lens, for it will thrash up and repel
The mirrored, rippled likenesses of you and I
Once skipping on the surface
Now sinking
Stones
Below...
Perhaps...
.....we will float....
Before we settle,
amongst the rest.
Dec 23, 2014
Dec 23, 2014 at 12:06 AM UTC
Rivulets of milky stars
shimmer in the void
crackling blinding likenesses
on gurgling waters devoid
Rippling mirrors wrinkly smooth
tipped with liquid light
refreshed and ever moving
while natures subject remains in sight
The canvas of the fluid earth
absorbs the heavenly art
while babbling notes of calmness
in its naturally aesthetic part.
Jan 17, 2015
Jan 17, 2015 at 3:09 PM UTC
***** drugs pumped into you
To make you feel filthy things
Flask of cheap liquor
Fill you coat pockets
You pull the coat collar up
On these cold spring days
And walk around the world
And you never leave your little life
Assured in your own ineptitude
You drink and dance
And smile on the floor
As the world shakes around you
(A line used too many times)
You smile at your own effigy
Pleased with what you become
Your feline scowl
Mistaken for pride
As the time burns your likenesses to dust
You are happy you had one in the first place
Apr 13, 2017
Apr 13, 2017 at 11:15 PM UTC