"limbic" poems
The moon laments in drones of silence
As tides raise-churning waves of violence
The mountains crest the surface of the sea
Now the earth is free to breathe
Can you see her now, oh Universe
Can you see your daughter giving birth
The formation of stars in her youthful eyes
She dreams of life that can never die
Primordial spirits, archaic stew
Volcanic rapture, lands of new
Frozen tundra of ancient ice
Her organic recipe sustains life
Eukaryotas thrive in a muck of wonder
Upon themselves they feed and plunder
Reptilian brain stems to limbic systems
Complex neocortex to indecision
Now she cries out to the universe
I am tired and now I am cursed
Still the moon tugs upon her tides
As we dance into eternal night...
Jul 24, 2018
Jul 24, 2018 at 9:35 AM UTC
I am not in the business of being you
or him or her or they
we doesn't even really interest me.
you hated me within the first 20 minutes
like a shallow predator
experiencing virginal danger
you have the limbic system of a prey
obvious to anyone in touch with their senses.
you were threatened-
you cracked a joke and among
the robotic laughter and among
the generic thoughts
I stood back, blank-faced
a novel piece of art you haven't the ability
to muster up the courage to understand.
aloud, I said it wasn't funny
which I'm sure your emptiness already betrayed
in a booming, and terrifying fashion
*(I'm an intellectual sadist-
I get off watching you squirm)*
you know enough, that you have no basis
that the status quo is the stale stream you do nothing but soak in.
you're superficiality is so pervasive
that your thoughts are unfilled, plastic
discarded long ago by anyone with stamina
(you're a carbon-copy of a Xeroxed person)
looking the same as the others of your degenerate breed
with much less vibrancy than the original
and far less worth.
your boundaries have been in place for so long
passed down by
generations
of
generations
of
generations
great-great-granddaddy's barbed wire is the only thing protecting your prejudice.
you're not funny- you're scared
ashamed and lonesome.
ashamed of the person you wish you could be
but don't have the strength-or the guts
to morph into
lonesome because even yourself is someone you don't feel close to
you are so basically human.
I have no pity.
for you are no Muse.
Apr 24, 2013
Apr 24, 2013 at 10:07 AM UTC
The fog here is thick, until you step into it.
The storm rages until you get to its eye.
I wish this same principle could be said of me, too.
But like a gas giant, you could slip right through me with
the smallest amount of pressure.
There is no calming sense of self at the core.
Gravity does not apply to me.
There’s a boat on the lake cutting through the fog. And then nothing.
More waves.
More birds.
The fog covers it all up again.
The sun slinks and the tide comes in, or is it out? Does it matter?
The moon controls it in some way—the push, the pull of the waves.
At least the lake looks blue today,
looks green today.
The geese are in the water now. The families are packing up.
The ice cream shop is closing.
And I do not remember if I was ever here with you.
This, of course, is a collective you.
Could mean you, my reader,
could mean one specific person,
or two
or three
or four;
could be whoever I'm thinking of when I reread this to myself.
That’s the funny thing about the litany of loss.
It all starts to congeal.
Waves crash against the rock. Starts to chip away, create something new.
That’s what memory does.
It’s not permanent. It’s malleable.
Flexible. Bendable. Moldable.
It smells like lakewater. Like
fish and sand and mud and
gulls and rocks and shells and
algae and fog—thick, thick fog.
Smell is supposed to be one of the biggest memory triggers, and yet
I cannot place a single memory of you here.
And that’s mildly crushing.
So I would take you here:
to where I wish the air was
saliter and less earthy.
to where I come sometimes to think.
where the clouds are so thick and puffy and
the setting sun makes them look like cotton candy on the Fourth of July.
where the sun’s reflection on the water
turns the green lake pink.
where the geese are back out of the water and
onto the shore.
I would take you here with me.
Into a new memory.
Homemade. Handmade. DIY.
Aug 24, 2021
Aug 24, 2021 at 12:46 AM UTC
{Act One-Darkness}
<>
There are no stars tonight,
only the cold lifeless dark.
No hearts on fire,
nor passion plays.
Only the faerie dance of fire flies,
and the myth of love.
{Act Two-Searching}
<>
Are we just bags of hormones
either fortunately or unfortunately
imbued with the chemicals of life?
Will there be a day that we will be singled out
for our levels of hormones?
Will a new prejudice arise?
Oh... she's 68.3% hormonal,
he's 97% hormoneless.....
Will there be hormone police,
checking your levels before you buy a gun,
or have a baby,
or get married?
(I should have reversed the order of those lines.)
Are we just bags of hormones?
Can we blame the lack of, or the abundance of,
the chemistry in our bodies,
infecting the knee **** reactions of our power hungry egos?
Menopausal, testosteroned, endorphined, dopamined,
all influencing the limbic system.
Soon, very soon a storm is coming.
A storm complete with tattooed bar codes
describing our perspective hormonal levels.
In the year 2025,
separated by island walls.
Are we just bags of hormones?
{Act Three-Light}
<>
You can't love me,
you don't love yourself.
If and until you completely love yourself,
you can not completely love another.
The level of love that you have for me,
can only be the level of love for yourself.
You can't love me
........not yet.
May 28, 2016
May 28, 2016 at 11:50 PM UTC
Is life a story, is life magick dreaming to love?
I gazed up. “Standing below the elephantine magnolia,
the ground still bore Tuscany ochre from autumns last kiss.”
My eyes solivagant orbs fed on spring’s dews in mourning
──jewellery clinging opulently to her naked form.
Dawn chilled the breeze caressing her body as abscission
demanded she undressed her emerald gown of leaves.
Magenta and cream blooms sprang “loudly” seducing
─ blushing mauve crowned centres,
a population of endless figurines perched motionless on aching
naked branches.
Solomon’s seal burned white within me drunk impending suns arrows, opulent words of silver Verbus diablio kissed in a cauldron
of Magnolia words, a banquet for mortals that seek loves gold.
A lone spider echoed silence bearing the sigil of Jupiter’s
vermillion and white spun striations luffing on the breeze
warming. “Magnolia dressed the day ardent in perfumed
── glorious plumes that each set sail across waking skies.”
Ablaze I am luscious dreams wrapped in sweet nectar,
travelling limbic memories breathing deeply, held captive,
wanton within her labyrinths of silk caresses, petals whispering,
sweet love as she engulfs my last resolve.
In raptures white velvet gown my hem sweeps over gold russet
and brittle autumns words forged in winters need for warmth──mind leaves crunching beneath life’s changing seasons,
stitched I cling enamoured to mortal honeymoon summered fields.
I am the female of sapphire tears twisting, glittering melting ice shards, bequeathed of pained black stars travelled on passionate magick fires, breathed on melodious Roma nights.
Rested among the branches a mantel crucified- drunk once more,
a bloom held silent in time weeping, exploding fragrant in a coloured soul, a luffing flower creature to life──crowned
──to sun hope thorns.
©ASPAR (A Sol Poet Arnay Rumens)
Dec 9, 2018
Dec 9, 2018 at 6:17 AM UTC
plead your case. the silence that follows will deafen your prayers... it will eat your rain.
tread where smoke has layed eggs in a nest of flames.
use your thoughts nimbly, and thereby, climb the ladder madly
humbly gone by love, my love.
humbly gone
by love.
these are not the words in my mouth. they are god's frogs. a soft plague of cecil b. demille with ampibians and barbedwire. these are not the fickle neptunes in dischord. you are not the last unicorn. only the basilisk in my zodiac. my marvelous queen.
these are not the feathers of a proud crane. but a wrecking ball reassembling a dandelion with a leather whip and a chair. they tumble from my limbic intimacy with your private lies. i bring genuine venom to cure blindness; but i leave an antidote under my tongue should your kisses beg to be a fool.
i won't say what this is.
i have bruises where your name left a dent in my kevlar.
Oct 9, 2012
Oct 9, 2012 at 8:47 AM UTC
I could tell that you had smoked a cigarette
yesterday before I saw you because
your shirt smelled like smoke and
your lips tasted like
lung cancer. (I like to to pretend
that it doesn’t really bother me that
this is not the only connection
you have with my father.)
My parents, my sister, and you, my darling, all
have green eyes. Green like miniature
earths turning in space, like Lake Michigan capsizing,
like the summer leaves in the woods behind my house.
Sometimes I think that I’m more closely related to
my grandparents because when I
turned down the emeralds, I was given
sapphires to use as kaleidoscopes instead.
And, you know, my father called me a month ago and
wished me luck “in the big city” and I still
do not know if that means he knows
where I am or not; I have
not heard from my mother in over five years.
(I like to pretend that your relationship
with your parents is much easier than mine.)
Do you remember that time when you told me that
“everyone sins?”
I do not think that you took into account
the amount of which we all sin. (All sinners are equal,
but some are more equal than others.) Sometimes
I think that the Viking blood inside of me
makes sure that I identify with
the villains more than the heroes.
Sometimes I think that
you are the hero.
But, darling, there so many things I
tip toe around when it comes to you, and
I am not sure why—religion, politics; the
Chernobyl boy, the inked boy, my father, my mother; the
moths that live inside my gut, the layer of dust over my limbic system.
I wish that I had the words to say that I can never
be what you want, what my
family wants, what anyone wants.
I wish that I could tell you how I
think I am drowning in the in the gene pool,
how I am convinced that I’ve broken three bones
without actually breaking them, how I lay awake
at night, scared to death that my
dreamcatcher will stop working and that the
nightmares will finally catch up with me.
There are broken wishbones in my bed that
I keep as trophies of losing to luck and
blood stains on my clothes from all
the lambs that I’ve been forced to slaughter.
All I want to do is tell you why I prefer
cigar smoke to cigarette smoke
and how I would rather have you
quit all together than live another day knowing that
you’re dying faster than me.
But darling, I watched the world spin last night
when I opened my eyes and looked at you
looking at me, and for now, it’ll do. You
can be the nightlight in the corner of my room.
Wait for me in my chrysalis. Listen to my wings flutter.
Oct 6, 2014
Oct 6, 2014 at 3:03 AM UTC
A toadstool is swelling
inside my limbic system.
Spores sweat amongst tissue cavities,
dining out on grey matter,
until they force me
to stay in bed through the day.
What a thing it would be.
Depression as a fungus.
A mildewed mind as damp sets in,
the trumpet player
with athletes foot,
casting out the air-borne blues.
Misfortunes follow one another
along straits of fate,
as if sadness were a colony itself.
I want to take a pill
to **** the mushroom
that plumes over my head.
You can only diagnose
through words and symbols,
only treat once you set down your pen
and hold the hand
of a patient lover,
of the savant drinking at the bar.
For now I will let air in
through the open window,
watch the dreamcatcher sway
and hang like a tarantula
over the stars and crescents,
spilling out over my bed.
When I close my eyes
I hear the ocean in distant traffic,
sounding as waves when rolling by the door.
I will drown in seawater
and hallucinate a scene
of happiness.
Of a place for a poet's retreat.
Sep 8, 2014
Sep 8, 2014 at 9:01 AM UTC
words are limbic
chemical nonsense
a whole mess
wallpapers my cranium
in semantic membrane
but
my floating mass
still greys with age
I am but a brain,
swiss-cheesed
and ink-addicted.
Jan 30, 2013
Jan 30, 2013 at 10:43 AM UTC
There are men (fair knights) who always get what they want.
If suddenly, Mr. Knight doesn’t get - say, a girl (the fair maiden) - he’s confused - what IS this, he wonders but he doesn’t KNOW. We will assume that getting this thing (girl in our example) is important to him.
Though his perceptual systems are still searching for answers he gets a sinking feeling because his limbic system reacts faster. It tells him something’s wrong - and it might be a predator (the dragon) so he starts sweating, he wasn’t prepared for a dragon - for chaos!
Why didn’t I get what I wanted, he will ask himself.
Maybe I’m not attractive? (That would be a horror of the 1st order)
Maybe this girl is trying to hurt me.. attack me? (the predator) - that may be a thought, but it’s unlikely and an unhealthy one.
Rejecting that he must ask himself questions: Did he come on too strong? Was he acting like a **** Did he make too many assumptions? Am I well dressed? Did I shower today? (he smells his breath, checks himself in a mirror) He goes back over the encounter in his mind. Was he really trying his best?
If he decides, at this point, to go on, he must face his unrealized world in order to slay the dragon of chaos blocking him. The issue may be something outside of his normal, conceptual structure.
In that case, the problem is literally, the snake in the garden (his walled conceptual garden - his view of the world and his place in it).
Now this IS something - a snake in the garden - again he can give up - quit with this girl, quit trying period, quit dating, bathing, eating - that’s how the dragon can ****
Failure is a message from the implicit world. The good news is - it’s a message from the real world and it may be a gift - the best thing that ever happened to him. A slap that says: wake up, learn something, clue-in.
It can be a treasure, the gold that dragons hoard.
Dec 2, 2021
Dec 2, 2021 at 9:14 AM UTC
i am hunted
and haunted
by memories -
once good times turned sour.
vines claw and grasp at my feet
while i try in vain to trudge forward.
i am picasso with paintbrush poised betwixt my teeth-
arms bound
by a straightjacket sewn from sorrow.
the lacrimose landscape of my limbic system is a scarred battleground.
fear and regret clash with my spirit and sanity like angry gods.
i fear i may be broken.
how many times have i apologized?
'til sandpaper throat
and crimson finger
from repentance and gripping pen?
not enough.
Sep 22, 2013
Sep 22, 2013 at 6:07 PM UTC
Coagulation in the limbic system
The pineal gland commence emission
Insemination within the vision
Clouded by foreign dubbed derision
Fray the edges, fringe incision
Behold the schism, parabolic business
Subtitles for the learning minions
And it is booming like v twin pistons
Streamline slithering tunnel vision
Between the rock and hard resistance
Living the lie, we're deathly hidden
Not just fire but the end decision
Resulting is the pouring human
A sudden break elastic intrusion
The hour spawned upon confusion
Forever running through illusion
Jul 31, 2013
Jul 31, 2013 at 1:39 PM UTC
It's not the shy flowers that beckon
it's the distraction of perfume.
A predetermined breath
designed to confound the senses,
drag you to your knees,
excite olfactory receptors,
jangle neurons, axons, dendrites,
wow you with silken notes
of milk and honey,
no.....musk,
no.....warm vanilla,
no.....
(attempts to translate their fragrance
would dumfound a dictionary)
Then, Parisienne sabonettes come to mind,
in limbic wafts spilled from a half open box.
copyright © Caroline Grace 2011
Oct 1, 2011
Oct 1, 2011 at 7:41 AM UTC
in the rictus of an amethyst eve lays
the indomitable promise of cotton festering
under salient groves of hot fingers licking
the ridge of supple ******* in profusion dapple
crescent lips and sickle rivers running heavy
drunk limbic tickling breathes. so wet. the damp
ember carousing. in fragrant discord. all sensual
clamor violently. in verily know my limbs and every
atom of my dew
for i shall sprawl upon your effigy the clusters
of my heart
Aug 14, 2010
Aug 14, 2010 at 4:17 PM UTC
In between the media, gadgets and social
anxiety, I have feelings too. They
tell me to stop and listen to something
other than YOLO and FOMO. As I browse
through feeds, the limbic
part of me raises the bar a little, while
the frontal part of me swings
between dissatisfaction and hope.
I look at you
from the peripheral field of my mind. I know
you won't stop. Craving
more is what we were made
to become. Somewhere in our heads,
we lost our hearts.
May 20, 2017
May 20, 2017 at 8:03 AM UTC
Drama queen dreams
have been restructured
by good therapy
which has exposed
how close I was
to practicing popping.
Stabilizers expected
to shorten the time
between hurt and healing.
She said a week
or 2 is enough
time to try again.
Scared straight sane
by the threat
of a prescription
and the visual
of the structure
of my categories.
Troubled by realizations
of not loving them all
as much as some others.
I say "I Love You"
more to them
than some family
hear it from me.
Loved, they should Be.
Revision in progess.
It is my work
since it takes much
longer to sink in.
Real love is constant.
I've experienced pain
then emotionally reneged
when a higher love
was due and within
my giving power.
Make a decision,
she said. I am
reading the lines
instead of marking
my dreams between them.
I flip closing pages
while a tilted can
revives a life, once,
wilted in my hands.
Nov 24, 2012
Nov 24, 2012 at 3:59 PM UTC
There must be a part of my brain missing.
An important segment that never fully developed.
A special sector designed to tell me
how to feel, when to feel it and
how to share it with others.
And they say I’m callous,
they say I’m detached,
they say I’m heartless.
But I know I feel something more.
I can feel it stirring inside me,
Just waiting for the right moment to escape.
So I’ll wait. And wait. And wait.
I’ll wait for the day when I can finally make the change.
I’ll trade this empty, numb feeling for a million beautiful ones.
Then I will spout them off, one-by-one, all by their given name.
Oct 7, 2013
Oct 7, 2013 at 7:09 PM UTC
Poetry, the attunement of syllables,
harsh sounds, soft sounds,
rhythmic stanzas
pleasing to the iris,
sound waves to the ear
drums invite Neurons
to experience ecstasy.
They celebrate in unison,
shouts of cheer, roars of joy,
electric screams of fulfillment.
Some pass out in disbelief,
others wave handkerchiefs
in the air and shout
Yes, that’s right!
While somewhere in the limbic
system, the other side
of the hemisphere they whisper,
No, that’s not what we meant at all.
Mar 25, 2015
Mar 25, 2015 at 11:51 AM UTC
i am
enough fire
all on my own
(just like you)
it's engraved
in our bones
remind me again
why we ever feel lost
when the stars up above
are where our paths
have crossed
_we are divine_
there is
no need to define
all our reasons behind
why the moon and its shine
make our heart beat
faster
there is
a reason i master
the look in your eyes
there is magic in how
i undress your
disguise
all this
love in your heart
fills with people whose parts
may be played by the souls
who once sparked your
first star
let them leave
how they are
cherishing
every
scar
just
keep
trusting
_the loving
is right where
you are_
you’re a
blending of “we”
you are all parts of me
we are everything we see:
all we hope, feel, and dream
there is no separation....
no matter the nation
collectively, together
we are one human
ration
my
thoughts
are not mine
but illusions of time
and when i start to rise
there’s a shift in your sight
as i reach to new heights
my movements align
in ways where your
limbic system is
sings out to
mine
we
are not lost
our bodies accost
our souls will be tossed
to the sky and it's loft
our eternity is now
every moment somehow
fills will perfectly sequenced
which, why's, and how’s
you deserve
Love right now
through all of the pain
you have let life allow
when dark is around
just feel for your might
hold your own heart
and avow to your
light
alone
is not lonely
you’re full how you are
realize how far you’ve bloomed
your falls formed who you are
your name’s in the stars
they can feel all your scars
these losses obtained
are not all you
are
you're
your own cosmic hue
you are perfectly subdued
with the cosmos for a heart
your Light fuels the moon
and it is flowing to me
to glow out of my heart
until it recycles
to you and
restarts
May 25, 2018
May 25, 2018 at 2:29 PM UTC
I'm too confused to turn my thoughts into poetry so I let them mix together like paint until I make a nasty, muddled mess. I'll glop them on a canvas and call it "Love, I Guess." I'd like to crack your skull open so you can feel this raw. Then I'd fill your head with termites and watch them as they knaw. I want you to feel helpless so you can understand why I'm so breathless. Why am I so loveless? Why am I so hopeless? Just feel nothing and everything all at once, or, rather, everything and do nothing about it. Maybe I'll feel nothing so I can do everything wrong. I'll dance a dance or sing a song and let rain fall around me without covering my hair because I just don't care anymore. I just don't care. I'm in like and love and hate and jealousy and loneliness and an unfailing passion to have everything I've never had before. Crack my head open and take out my limbic system. Let me be numb. Take out the memories. Let me be dumb. Clean it all off and put it back in. Let me feel whole again.
May 26, 2013
May 26, 2013 at 9:47 PM UTC
Between the hemispheres,
beyond the furls and
wrinkles of the mind,
the limbic brain beckons.
Ancient keeper
of primal instinct,
of collective knowledge.
I open my inner eye
seeking bliss.
Aug 22, 2014
Aug 22, 2014 at 7:01 PM UTC
it's one of those nights again,
when the messy equilibrium
of feeling rears its head and
demands compensation for
the goodness i had so recently.
i guess i could discard
the convenient attachment
and simply blame my limbic
system for subjecting me to it,
but that's dis(honest) to my nature.
it's the worst kind: contemplative;
not grief, or [lone]liness, or any
other illness of the amygdala,
(the heart pumps blood, and
blood is not a medium of feeling).
Dec 11, 2012
Dec 11, 2012 at 5:31 AM UTC
Watching a sunset
Splay its colored body
Against a hollow, indigo sky.
Her children,
Lost glowing specks
Of iridescent dust,
Peek out from behind their
Empty, lightless blanket -
Shy and blushing.
Tongue and tooth
Clicking together,
Tickled by vibrating
Chords hidden in heated
Throats.
Stories slink
From one mouth
To another,
Tickling their
Deep limbic systems
Until every nerve
Is laced with
Oxytocin.
Laying in grass
More brown than green
With stomachs to the sky
Are bodies with connected
Palms.
Formless dinosaurs spin
In shapeless teacups,
While amorphous cats
Shift into mustachioed whales.
Bodies curl around each other
Like clay
Fusing into one piece
And two colors,
Both a shade of red.
A chest meets a back.
Its fluttering heart
Crashing through
Two sets of ribs,
To rest with another,
Both bleeding in tandem.
Love is
Not some byproduct
To gather dust
While writhing, undulating bodies
Coat the air with sweat.
Love isn't made,
Nor is it preformed.
Love is
Nov 4, 2013
Nov 4, 2013 at 9:40 PM UTC