Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Tom McCone Dec 2012
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.
I couldn't think of a title, which ended up in lawn research
my sister said "I think I'm here", as I embraced another goodbye and I was already opening the door
[this was unnecessary, but I liked the line]
I am tired,
too tired for my own good. and, still, awake.
It has been another day.
Like any other.
Sara Brummer Dec 2021
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 .
Tom McCone Aug 2013
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.
i think this was a small series. i don't know if it's complete. i don't know anything.
Ginger Gray Feb 2012
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?
Wonderful title thought up by Glenn McCrary.
A Dash of Red Apr 2016
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
I don't know if this poem has any flow to it, or if it's even understandable.
I guess my thoughts are a little stormy right now as well.
Donall Dempsey Nov 2016
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!
C B Heath Apr 2013
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.
10th piece for NaPoWriMo.
Lorenzo Soldera May 2014
There is a path.
Its rickety bridges dangle you over the jaws of despair;
I welcome the jagged teeth with pursed lips.
A planet does not choose its sun.
This diminutive island orbits obediently, tracing an oblong avenue
Around a heavenly beacon which burns at close range,
But protects from the uncharted perils of a frozen infinity
Beyond the horizons of our understanding.

Books.
Here they are seemingly as plentiful as stars in the great expanse.
For every one I read, there are a thousand more
That could pour out of my fingertips without warning.
Here on these shelves (and in my hands) are words –
Legions of ideas, cries for help, and declarations of the self –
Collecting dust to pass the time.
Bound by a spine, each page is a painting,
Or a singular brush stroke;
It depends where on the museum’s crisscrossing paths
We place it.
I am allowed to manipulate
These likenesses with my own unkempt paws.
I sift through each layer with great care.
Poised above my isolated figure is a cloud of silence.
Luridly dark, it threatens to immerse every shelf in its corrupting solitude.
My fascination decays into sorrow.
Curators grow weary.
Thick lenses become damp with labored breath.
A tomb of these words encases the regenerative key
Our depleted cityscape so desperately needs.
But the museum has not received enough submissions; funding is being cut.
Fingers spanning a soiled palm have grown tired of the dirt.
Limp breezes are now strong
Enough to disconnect them
Permanently
From the words that burn at close range.
They allow themselves to drift, because it’s easier.
It is cleaner, more “cost-efficient”.
Straying from the museums, we drift from realization (from reality, even)
Into delusions of creation and achievement.
Lo! How accomplished we are!
We, the Cash-Rich People of the Thought-Poor States,
In order to form a more synergized union,
Do downsize the words that disseminate from our digits,
Dutifully drowning them out with more rambunctious
Gurgles from our gullets.


Curators warned and a generation of disobedient phalanges paid no mind.
My feeble hands mold a clay cadaver, grooving oily prints into its hull.
This incoherent signature will fall perpetually unnoticed between the cracks.
No one is looking.
6 May 2014.

the fourth poem from the "Disclaimer" series.

© 2014 by Lorenzo Soldera. All rights reserved.
annh Sep 2020
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.

‘At the beginning of time the clock struck one
Then dropped the dew and the clock struck two
From the dew grew a tree and the clock struck three
The tree made a door and the clock struck four
Man came alive and the clock struck five
Count not, waste not the years on the clock
Behold I stand at the door and knock.‘
- Eric Lomax
The Dedpoet Feb 2016
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.....
RyanMJenkins Jun 2012
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.
Liv Aug 2014
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.
Butch Decatoria Nov 2016
When these days of ours given
mathematical geniuses astrological beasts'
likenesses - to predict a year's character,
which this moment is burdened with
upcoming supposed hardships

like oxen upon the growing fields
(though that animal has known nothing
but to tend its fruition of fertile soil)
we focus with worries interpreted to toil
upon dreading portents from paper place-mats

at East-Met-West dives, eatery-cafe-chinois-cheap
"Which animal falls on your birth year?"
Entertained for a few minutes' read
then emotions in currents associate
horned Two-Thousand-Nine with End Times

Leaving stuffed with after-taste of distractions
day-planner thoughts sifting preparation
and possible aftermath birthdays to come...?
Eyes half-minding the drive home
on interstates turn into a hybrid drone

blank face unflinching - a pondering on doom
wondering how soon?

When our days intersect and collide with each other
almost to the point of not noticing or fugued
Deja Vu - Hindsight blind
because we are engrossed in our daily grinds
disappointments, disillusioned in disbelief

where did that indistructable kid
with mischievous imagination go to sleep?
where did youth misplace its charmed slipper, flee?
Left it behind chasing after Midnight:
dragging and pulling pumpkin seeds with them, mice

hoping for another ballroom
dance with regal dream come-true,
a future prince choosing you - having endured
being good even in chimney soot
and life cat-naps at our desks

employment heavy on our weary flesh
fantasy consumed at lunch in an hour's time
forgetting and ignoring traffic
signs - bright stars or skylines,
eyes wide asleep in living, in sunshine

When our days become half awake
still wide asleep - our vision not quite seeing
how HD crisp beauty slows on dew
or love of life - in radio tunes imbue
days will fly like circus knives

on spinning victim sideshow act
knowing the truth is matter of fact
no better time to live than to feel your moment:
a drop of rain in your hand

Now
wake and be
where you stand...
Unedited original from my writerscafe.org page.
six pm Mar 2021
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
Stella Stardust Dec 2014
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.
Hunter Adam Hill Jan 2015
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.
Blue Flask Apr 2017
***** 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
Dennis Willis Oct 2019
Owing the day its homage
I writhe just in recollection
of its intensity

I am pulled thin
my eyes flit about
breathing in gasps

The unsettlement
of intense delight
Spread over my daily dread

A persistent sore
stings this side
of my face

As you kiss passed
hesitation
and ham hocks

into surrender
and pistachios
and frozen concoctions

and likenesses
of fantasies fast forwarded
to the good parts

Oh this day
rattles to Dionysus
of its deeds

I am smiling
unsettled
and so satisfied
Arlene Corwin Jun 2020
A Swedish Midsummer 2020

Geography the usual;
The place on planet just the same;
The night light full till after midnight,
Daylight’s dawn at one or two
With so few hours in between.

This year then,
A little different.
Last year when
A crowd would meet
To dance and sing and drink and eat
On park or lawn or balconies,
Families and friends to hoopla til a dark
Which almost never comes
Makes the ending for them.

This a deviating year;
Debating and departing from
The customary dancing, prancing,
History may chronicle as Distancing,
Fiascos, blunders, six-feet-unders.
Romance from six feet of space

This midsummer in the North
Coming forth with likenesses
Has, by the laws of nature
Put the  emphasis on differences
Which we, survivors aa a race
Will surely neutralise and chase away
One future day.

A Swedish Midsummer 2020 6.16.2020 Nature 0f & Nature In Reality; Our Times, Our Culture II; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin
Onoma Sep 8
Franz Xaver Messerschmidt sculpted his face
sixty times--an arcanum of flesh's malleable
appeals to a skull.
his: "Character Heads" yanked out in front of
a mirror's propriety, a natural madman
exceeding a chimp's ****** expressions.
the inverse catatonia of a pickled alien--
where colors don't clash.
Franz believed he was hunted by the:
Spirit of Proportion--due to his mastery of
sculpture, its punishable likenesses.
whose features' puff-**** brands ether with
magick, the idolatrized signal of rebellion.
his sixty: "Character Heads" were meant to ward off
this equalizer of art--sort of like how Vlad the Impaler
stuck countless decapitated heads on pikes, outside
his castle walls, to unnerve enemies.
*Franz Xaver Messerschmidt was a German-Austrian sculptor.
They always said
How much the little girl
Was like her daddy--
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--
My strengths
My weaknesses.

Proud to see her
Strong personality—
Flashbacks to 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 their 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
Magnifies
Intensifies
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 and reaped.

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.

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 grows
Between us when
I monitor her progress
When I push and ****
To make her less like daddy.
She shouldn’t be like me--
I have too many regrets.

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 my feelings
Or 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.
©2024 Daniel Irwin Tucker

— The End —