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Tay Jun 2016
Don't fall in love with a girl who reads.
The girl who feels everything, who dreams, who writes..

Fall in love with the girl you find in a bar. Find her in the squall of smoke and sweat of an upscale nightclub. Make sure she doesn't mix her coffee with bourbon. Love the one shooting tequila straight from a cheap, half-empty bottle. Wherever you find her, find her smiling. Make sure it lingers a little too long. Use pickup lines and entertain her with meaningless slurs from a long day and mistakes you know are about to be made. Take her outside and kiss her in the rain because you saw it in a film. Comment on its silliness.

Pull her into a tolerable relationship. Let the months pass by without remark. Then let years pass by unnoticed. Talk about nothing of significance and retreat into it when the air grows stale and the evenings become long. Fight about how the shower curtain needs to be kept closed. Propose a little later because you realize you'd have wasted so much time otherwise. Take her to a restaurant that wreaks of marinara sauce and sheepishly ask the waiter to bring a bottle of expensive champagne. Offer up a modest ring and don't become too concerned if you feel nothing of sincerity or commitment. But fake it, ******* it.

Do these things. Because a life lived in purgatory is better than one lived in hell. She will make it hell. I'm begging you, stay away from the one who reads. Who laughs or cries when she makes love. Who can neatly fold her spirit and spin it into prose and poetry. If she loves poetry, run away. Don't dare to look back. She is to be left alone. Dangerous little smiles should make you shake. Do not smile back.

Do not fall in love with a girl who thinks. Who is made up of magic and knows herself. Do not love the one who knows how to disappear inside of a book or a poem or a painting. If she spends any more than a few seconds looking into the eyes of a sinner, get out of there.

Don't fall in love with the girl who is interested in politics, who feels disease in injustices. Don't love the one who is intense, who is lucid and charismatic. Stay away from the one who has any sense of ambition, of rebellion, or even the smallest hint of wonder in her eyes. Be cautious of the ones who can't live without music. If she can draw, quit, and quit fast.

A girl who reads is one who knows herself; who is sure. She is educated and she is fire inside a bottle of rye. The girl who reads is one who is comfortable with goodbyes. Think about it: she's read millions of novels and each one ends. Most end with the death of her favorite character. They make her think. And she flies through the pages like they are wet wine on collarbones. And she is okay with each and every ending. Sure, she might cry, but she'll wipe her face and pick up another book. Just to do it all over again. Remember this if she ever says her favorite book is you.

She is a romantic and how can you match up to the princes and heroes in her books? She knows nothing else. You can't love her the way those characters could if they were to take shape. She holds a vocabulary that lays claim to her ability to distinguish between the specious and the soulless. She holds rhetoric hands that turn black streaks into the books she loves so deeply. She deserves a man who can hold her hand the way she holds her books. Someone who can write her notes and hide them in her lunch box. Can you write in cursive the way she can?

Please, don't fall in love with a girl who reads. Because a girl like that, you never come back from.
Circa 1994 Jan 2013
It’s the way colors would taste if you could eat them. White would taste of contentment, yellow of happiness, purple of infatuation, red of passion, and pink would taste of endearment. Pick your poison; they’ll all be the death of you in the end.
It’s the way it smells when it first begins to rain. Its aroma lingers like vanilla, fresh linen, or an open flame that’s sparks kiss your fingertips. It clings to your clothes and in your hair to be smelled by others around you. To some, this scent may be too strong.
It sounds like complete silence amidst a roaring thunder. It’s at a frequency only you can hear and comprehend. It’s a ringing in your ears that leaves them throbbing or the echo of voices when you’re submerged in water --- starting loud and progressively fading away with the sunlight that rests on the water’s horizon.
It’s the way butterfly kisses feel, faintly tickling your cheeks when they’re damp with fresh tears. Or the way your body shudders at the touch of a cold hand and your temperature elevates, leaving a numbness where fingers traced over your skin.
It’s the way a sea of grass looks when you’re crawling on your hands and knees. It’s the sight of two hands clasped with fingers intertwined. It’s what causes your eyes to widen when you see the expression that lingers on her face when she thinks you’re not looking. The look that says all that can’t be spoken with words.
It’s all the power that lies within that four letter, one syllable word. The word that redefines every one of your five senses. ..
Love.
Love may be like a lot of things, but it’s not like falling. I never fully understood the expression “falling in love” --- probably because it isn’t accurate, and doesn’t make sense. Falling is what people do on a daily basis --- love is when someone catches you.
Namir Aug 2014
Is it a maske?
A front or illusion?
Is it fake? Maybe a little?
Was I wrong? A trick all along?
Im not sure. Because i was blind.
But its not there now. And i can see again.
So even though it lingers still. Goodbye maske.
Soo long and fairwell.
Take it how you will.
Third Eye Candy Oct 2012
don't be alarmed. i have no brick hat so there will be no tornadoes.
sleep now... if you would dream
awake; you'll see the world end
and comets stall in midair
apparent.

sling your ribbon in the fey dusk
and fetch mussels from tide-pools of emaciation / gather your things

it won't be long before the love hates
and a weary lingers lovely
and returns
Inoue Anna Dec 2011
You were there
Every step I take
Reminds me of you

You who I miss dearly

At times I thought you were there
Subconsciously I wish you were there
But it's all just me

Wishing, hoping, daydreaming

At times, I found myself smiling
Smiling at the past
And at times I found myself crying
Crying for the past

Tears of sadness
Stream down...

The thought of you
Lingers in my mind
These memories...
That makes me cry night after night
Poetic T Nov 2014
Red balloons* litter the floor,
Out numbering the pure ones before,
What once was *white
now
Discoloured
Violated
Shrouded
Float from view
Each a moment of life
As the balloons once white
Now no more,
For all is stained red
Crimson,
Droplets,
Dried
Upon white like a tear,
It slides down marking
Before greeting the floor,
Expelled air, ruptured by the
Violence,
Anger,
Death
Still lingers, an after image
Of the life that was here before,
Red balloons float leaving their imprint
Splatter effect upon floor & wall
Cold eyes stare seeing both
White
&
Red
Balloons
Clinging around this fallen life,
Where white once was now all
That floats is the stench of death
Red balloons huddle around,
Each carrying a moment with them
When life became death &
White was scarred by crimson,
Life is static, still, for death  now floats above the floor
Time has passed, and you’d think I’d be over it by now,
But I still blast music in the shower to drown the memories out.
Can’t stand to be clean, but I don’t want to be *****.
Healing’s been so slow, and I am in a hurry,
Trying to feel like a whole human being
Find the places on my body that you haven’t been.
This landscape’s all mountains to climb when I long for the valleys
Of hips, knees, and skin that don’t feel like dark alleys.
I wear these scars like armor, but they don’t protect me from myself
Try to box up your images and put them on a shelf.
I lay awake at night alone in the dark
With visions of the marks you left- your own kind of art.
Telling myself I wouldn’t wish it on my friends,
Thinking in the quiet spaces the name that I would give,
And it’s hard to think about how used and empty that I feel
When I remember your literal blades made of steal.
You could always take what you wanted
Knew how to override a “No” leaving me feeling haunted.
I don’t feel safe at night when I go to sleep
Because even when I was unconscious, you couldn’t keep your hands off of me.
I shudder to think what kind of man you think you are
You said everyone was out to get you as if you weren’t the one leaving marks.
I struggle to tell my story out of embarrassment and shame
Am I just a product of your own twisted game?
I’d like to think someday the nightmares will be few and far between,
And my body won’t feel so much like a crime scene.
Until that day comes I keep it all locked inside,
Trying to lay down my weapons because I’m tired of the fight
Lysander Gray Oct 2012
Her mouth glittered agape
With sacred promise,
Like a box of unused
Engagement invites
Christening invites
Birthday invites
Still in the wrapper
For sale at a
Lifeline.

When you’d rather live
In a car
Than the zombie stance
Of a modern house,
Clean and soulless
With a hermetically sealed lawn,
Winter pageantry draws to a close
With bogan’s shooting-
Pearly eyed paupers
With constellations in their gaze.
With eyes full of hope and stars
That burnt bright and fade for
Flickering lens light.

Their voices murmur soft
Through catacomb
And underbrush
As only the ephemeral things are whispered of –
Dreams.
The addicts of ideals
The junkies of hope
The drinkers of despair
Have tiger soft tongues.

They lap and feast gladly,
From broken vessels
Chipped with hazardous teeth
That seek to fill their
Ermine mouths with the ******
Draught
Of truth.
Stumbling through wine-hour
They swarm, with tongues ******
And all constellations burnt out.

The hyacinth rides wild
Upon her shoulder,
Writhes in the silver brunt
Of moonlight,
Writhes in the stillness of dead perfume.

Marching to the beat
Of my enemies drum,
My hands inside my pockets.

Little bluebirds spun from dream
Sit on the holy perch,
A branch in all innocent minds.

The redeemed and patient
Make a subtle art from
Long distance perversions.

Similarly as we chase ghosts over Daffodils.

Fields of winter
under lunar glow
sway without us.

Long distance love
lingers with loose lust
along Regret street.

I hung it next to the memory
Of childhood cooking and Indian summers
Without further thought.

It slipped into the novel that took the form
Of an old coat, slipping into the lined pocket
It sank with a sigh.
Satisfied with itself.

Bombarded by the pounding
Dead eyed stare of ***** goddesses,
Broken by the undisputed angelic
And unglued ones,
All moon faced
All hopelessly optimistic
All lawfully rebellious
With green serenity
We pasted our dreams
On a wall so real it shone gossamer.
He counted the imperfections in the glass
With mind hesitation
As the whole world went black,
In a sea of much deserved discontent,
Wishing for the soft.

A moment of pure luck?
Jesus was an astronaut
Smoking Zen by the fire.

Suicidal angst
never had you in sonnets?
What a ******' shame.

Our life is but a song
We never hear.

I chipped away at the excesses
of my baroque person,
each strike took a
Railing
mounting
wall
decoration
desire
demand
exclamation
from the battlements.
All left now, a hill.

I paid for my banquet
with a sip of loneliness
and left behind the question
that asked all quiet poets
the meaning of love,
that asked all quiet poets
to answer with a villanelle
shouted from every
distant peak.

They sent the troopers
to greet me instead,
and my library was put in shackles,
and I kissed their ***** feet.

I answered that I carved this mountain
from the baroque bedrock
upon which they laid their city.
They smiled and asked about the aqueducts.
I wept and spoke of kitchenettes.

A meal provided
on a lead cast plate
my jailor asked about freedom
I answered with defeat.

There were two atoms
One questioned the meaning of existence
The other the existence of meaning.
             -Regardless they looked the same.

An apple on a branch,I took
The same way history takes a footnote.

The same way cashiers are all doctorates.
The same way trains find the station.
The same way you sing like a bird (and I like a cow).
The same way we never really wish to be writers.
The same way our final friend is made of pine.
The same way all streets lead to nowhere.
The same way all jobs **** society.
The same way we always lie to our children.
The same way a man loves a woman.
The opposite way we ****.
The opposite way we make love.
The way that I know a man who’s totem animal is a worker ant and he is unemployed by choice.
The same way we take old memories and turn them into fashion.
The very same way all sacred things become profane and all profanity becomes sacred in the eyes of many.

Dying relic of the Optimistic Seventies,
A new coat of paint for the old irony
     -slap dashed with obscurity.
Although I wear the costume of my enemy,
I will write the exaltation in blue smoke
As **** by an unsuspecting victim
Occurs in the dark.

The face of another love stares down at me.
I smile.
Yet I know it is not her.
I weep.
A sudden method sparks revival.

Jackie Pleasure wore a gray smile,
The anthem of a lost generation:
‘Happiness is lost in smiling.’

You are dead to me,
the boatman calls
I will not taste of your amber lips
I will not taste.

The welfare of all never hinged on darkness as we fear the fall,
A multitude of angels sang their songs
And never learnt to say goodbye
Or cast a long distance eye
Over half spent desire.

Drawn out caricatures,
Paraded intoxication
Flirt with our mistress death
And have her pick up the tab.
She pays with silent music.

The ***, we learn, is a bridge
Between all words and waltz’s,
Our Light Brigade to conquer art.

In the twilight of this, our mansioned night
Let us ring out true with indulgence,
Excess, abandon and the call of ‘yes’
Kali rang on the wire of a golden telephone.
Her name
“Kali, Kali…”
Like a quarrelsome minotaur
Flew through the waves of silk ideal
And strangled the babe
With cool breath.

There was ice (oh yes!) and fire and song.
With our candles burnt down to the ash of all streets
We walk then. We walk.
All life is but a song.

The ghosts of all forgotten stamps
Now echo on the wind of speech.
On High! Oh speak!
Of songs sung but never danced
With our broken dream.
When starlight meets the dust, and
Shadow eats the snow,
All our stories are satin sheer
And all our wants are gone.
We watch the memories march, until
They find a sliver of chrome that showed that place
Where all piano’s live and breathe.
My father in the wishing well,
My mother played trapeze.
My sister never saw the light,
My brother never born.
That was that,
Where stars meet dust
And floorboards sing off key.
Over the course of several months, I carried a small notebook in which I kept random musings and poetic snippets that came to me. This is the compilation of that.
Luisa C Sep 2016
i'm taking in your scent that still lingers against my hands
before i go to sleep,
to remind me one last time of the day i had with you,
and to pretend you're here whispering goodnight
with soft protective arms wrapped around me.
gothic mistress Nov 2010
my entrails seaping crimson blackness into my heart
Bitten by the rotting incisors you force into my flesh
My body seeking your gaping void
mere mortals describe as a mouth

Your dark hollow soul blackening Cutting my thin cold skin i let you in. Feeling our flesh merging in this torturing oneness,
Filling the cavities of endlessness.

i yearn to feel you feasting upon my clammy cold covering desiring for the essence of your inner being to take me whole devouring my crescent moon in undertones of a wild demonic frenzy

Extracting dark passion from your soul Staring into darkest nights of your mind's cavity.
Through your soul, a black gaping hole. Darklights seeping through my sanity.

searching for a searing flame
it matters not that my etheral love is a force from another plain
i can only believe in the feeling of you

Perpetual fear of being hurt long i went through.
This torturing love you wrung me through.

my cold dead heart lingers in a state of confusion
serving only to terrorize my mind
forever playing tricks on me
for a soul ive left behind
copyright gothic mistress and satan 2010
andrea hundt Jan 2014
This is where your heartbeat lingers:
somewhere between hospital bed sheets
and the new-found aching in my chest.

The bed in which you slept
has been soiled by silent tears
and your nervous sweat.

You were always home to me,
but I was robbed by all your misery.

Replace your sorrows with an absence
of yourself, and I'll make my home
in your hospital bed sheets.

For some, this is a place of miracles.
For us, it's one of tragedy.
forever writing about suicidal friends
Amitav Radiance Aug 2014
Music is my only refuge
Expresses the soul of Nature
The mellifluous journey between notes
Lingers in my heart, the silken veil
Drives away the melancholy, music cradles
Soul to Soul, I sing away Nature’s notes
mikumiku Dec 2018
I met her on a narrow street of old Verona
Her beauty’s magical, her name was Lady Mona
She rolled a cigarette between her diva fingers
A little cherry smoke around her gently lingers

She had a long deep fire-coloured autumn hair
That with the wind dance as if out of very care
Her eyes are brighter, gayer then azure sapphires
Two little diamonds that can start unholy fires

Her ******* are full of life, the sweetest goddess milk
It taste like childhood memories wrapped up in silk
The skin – an undiscovered lands of sinful wild
It sends you on a trip so rough yet very mild

She was so picturesque, a genuine sugarbomb
Like rays of sun that dazzle through a naked palm
I pray thee, Jupiter, align the heaven stars
And let me be the one who strikes of her guitars

Wish I could walk to her and ask her dearly out
I feel so brave yet nervous, want to scream and shout
I want to spill it out, express my inner passion
But that’s not me behaving in such crazy fashion

Hell to the no! I go! I’ll spit my fire lines!
I am a blonde! I curse those stupid *** designs
I’ll offer things to her, I promise I’ll pushy
****, I am gonna offer her my cola *****

If men be ***** models, I shall be one too
I have one in my mouth – a nasty point of view
If men can flirt and conquer, so can ******* I
This Aphrodite’s taken, she is only mine

I walk to her, approach her like the mighty Taurus
Rehearse my lyrics, shuffle through my love thesaurus
I smell perfume – ambrosia, nectar, lemonade…
Formation, hold up, queen of… ******* Lemonade..?

“What is the name of thee, do tell me, pretty dear
Just like the beauty goddess you to me appear
By any chance you are one of the youthful Graces?
Be careful, darling, I can see your leather laces”
Xoaquín Oznian Feb 2019
[Intoxicated by Freemasons is playing in the background]

(A smokin' hot intoxicated woman walks up to me initiating a conversation in the club.)

Kadija: Hey I couldn't help but notice your gorgeous self from across the room!
Me: I can definitely say the same about you. Matter of fact I'm saying it right now because I'm a free spirit lol.
(We both laughed)
Kadija: You're so **** hot!
(She grabs my face and starts making out with me very passionately.)
(The kiss lingers for about a minute and a half.)
(She then breaks the kiss. Both of us gasp for breath.)
Me: You're pretty ******* hot too!
Kadija: Can you sign my *****?"
Me: Sure I love signing chicks *****! It's one of the best **** party favors in America!
Kadija: I know right!
(She pulls her top down flashing her beautiful tan ***** and tan *******.)
(She briefly rubs/twists her *******.)
(I sign her ***** and put a smiley emoji along with a smiley with shades finishing her off with a deep kiss on each of her ***** giving a little bit of tongue swirling action across her *******.)
Kadija: Whoo! Hell yeah!
(She shakes her ***** from side to side and briefly jumps and down. I was mesmerized by the way they were moving up and down then puts them back into her top.)
Kadija: Thanks for the kiss babe!
Me: No prob. You have beautiful *******. I like them.
Kadija: They like you too lol.
(Grinning from ear to ear I smile.)
Kadija: Come on baby give them a squeeze lol.
(I grab her ******* and squeeze them.)
(She grips my **** through my pants and starts rubbing it.)
Kadija: Mmm thanks babe. These ***** have been needing a little TLC anyway. They've been bored to death and needed a little fun and excitement.
(We both laughed again.)
Kadija: But if you really wanna see them in action there is a bathroom right behind us.
Me: I'm down
Kadija: Come on baby let's go.
Benjamin Davies Nov 2010
De-winged and flightless
         is the dragonfly
              that tried to slip by
                       in my slipstream,
It found instead the pickup
          traversing the alleyways
               of my convoluted imagination.
I don’t know why I’m driving,
          ever driving someplace
                unrealized and unexplored.
I feel so disconnected,
I feel so disrespected by the world
                sometimes
But that’s not fair
           it has been good to me.
I feel so disconnected
        sometimes
and yet it comes in times
           when I’m most consumed
                most surrounded.
Maybe I’m just tired
        and the walls around me quiver only
from the struggles of my waking eyes,
Maybe I’m just bitter
        that I can’t have the perfect life
                 and feel as if nothing could be better,
Maybe I’m affected
        by this liquid life I’m draining from my cup
                 in hopes of finding a different day
                                            at the bottom.
Is it jealousy that lingers in my mind
        or mere longing tinged with a heavy
                 dose of confusion?
I am confused.
And yet I’m still alive
        unlike my dragonfly
                  and so I stumble onward.

-*BRD
Copyright 2010 by Ben Davies
Genevieve May 2014
Burn incense to block out the smell of death and self hate
 that lingers in your room
, as you sit up
 at 3am 
thinking too much
.
(your mind is
 never at rest)

Because the musky scent and stuffy atmosphere
, will breakdown your thinking pattern
 and leave you mellowed
 and able to sleep
 for a while…
lijo jose Nov 2016
Glistening wid water on your body
You were there a mile away ..
I called after you a ten times;
But you were splashing water
Your smile was a little different,
It was not warm rather cold;
Your eyes had gone a bit dark.
I tried to walk away but could not,
As my last wish was to see you again,
And I was glad that I found you.
I put my fears back
Fears of rejection
Fears of your future,
Fear of love.
But I moved forth to embrace them all,
And I came closer to you,
And you just turned back before I called you
As if you knew it was me
As if you still recognized my scent,
Your eyes shined with a tear,
Your smile was a happy one .
You were glad to see me
I didn't know what to do,
To kiss you right there or to hug you
Or a mere handshake to someone I barely knew.
But you pulled me close
Close to your heart
Your heartbeat was too fast.
I felt two bodies and just one soul,
You cupped my face and looked into my eyes,
And I felt your urge to ask.
And I said I do forgive you for the past .
And you pulled me even closer and your lips were on mine urgent and needy
As if I was the last drop of water,
And I pulled back and laughed,
You were laughing the same smile we shared
I was happy and just den..
You were moving too fast.
You were going deep inside..
You were drowning merely dying
I cried.. I tried to save you.
But you were gone ..
I tried to **** myself with you
And I just realized I was in my bed..
But , alas, the kiss still lingers on my lips
Robert C Howard Aug 2013
A graceful water weaving dolphin
swirls wakes of gentle waves -
a white, silver blue phantom
shimmering in the noonday sun.

Piercing the surface,
she dances an aquatic ballet
of corkscrew pirouettes
and majestic somersaults.

Diving beneath the spray
she churns her engine upward -
soaring through the flaming hoop
to the "oohs" and applause
of a throng of short-sleeved hominids
bleachered beyond the rails.

Plunging into quiet depths,
she lingers for a moment
perhaps to recall the fresh sea air
and the borderless waters
in the golden days before the ships came.

*January, 2007
This poem is included in my book, Unity Tree available at Amazon.com and will be included in a textbook in the International Primary English series published by HarperCollins
Locksley Hall

by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Comrades, leave me here a little, while as yet 't is early morn:
Leave me here, and when you want me, sound upon the bugle-horn.

'T is the place, and all around it, as of old, the curlews call,
Dreary gleams about the moorland flying over Locksley Hall;

Locksley Hall, that in the distance overlooks the sandy tracts,
And the hollow ocean-ridges roaring into cataracts.

Many a night from yonder ivied casement, ere I went to rest,
Did I look on great Orion sloping slowly to the West.

Many a night I saw the Pleiads, rising thro' the mellow shade,
Glitter like a swarm of fire-flies tangled in a silver braid.

Here about the beach I wander'd, nourishing a youth sublime
With the fairy tales of science, and the long result of Time;

When the centuries behind me like a fruitful land reposed;
When I clung to all the present for the promise that it closed:

When I dipt into the future far as human eye could see;
Saw the Vision of the world and all the wonder that would be.--

In the Spring a fuller crimson comes upon the robin's breast;
In the Spring the wanton lapwing gets himself another crest;

In the Spring a livelier iris changes on the burnish'd dove;
In the Spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.

Then her cheek was pale and thinner than should be for one so young,
And her eyes on all my motions with a mute observance hung.

And I said, "My cousin Amy, speak, and speak the truth to me,
Trust me, cousin, all the current of my being sets to thee."

On her pallid cheek and forehead came a colour and a light,
As I have seen the rosy red flushing in the northern night.

And she turn'd--her ***** shaken with a sudden storm of sighs--
All the spirit deeply dawning in the dark of hazel eyes--

Saying, "I have hid my feelings, fearing they should do me wrong";
Saying, "Dost thou love me, cousin?" weeping, "I have loved thee long."

Love took up the glass of Time, and turn'd it in his glowing hands;
Every moment, lightly shaken, ran itself in golden sands.

Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with might;
Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, pass'd in music out of sight.

Many a morning on the moorland did we hear the copses ring,
And her whisper throng'd my pulses with the fulness of the Spring.

Many an evening by the waters did we watch the stately ships,
And our spirits rush'd together at the touching of the lips.

O my cousin, shallow-hearted! O my Amy, mine no more!
O the dreary, dreary moorland! O the barren, barren shore!

Falser than all fancy fathoms, falser than all songs have sung,
Puppet to a father's threat, and servile to a shrewish tongue!

Is it well to wish thee happy?--having known me--to decline
On a range of lower feelings and a narrower heart than mine!

Yet it shall be; thou shalt lower to his level day by day,
What is fine within thee growing coarse to sympathize with clay.

As the husband is, the wife is: thou art mated with a clown,
And the grossness of his nature will have weight to drag thee down.

He will hold thee, when his passion shall have spent its novel force,
Something better than his dog, a little dearer than his horse.

What is this? his eyes are heavy; think not they are glazed with wine.
Go to him, it is thy duty, kiss him, take his hand in thine.

It may be my lord is weary, that his brain is overwrought:
Soothe him with thy finer fancies, touch him with thy lighter thought.

He will answer to the purpose, easy things to understand--
Better thou wert dead before me, tho' I slew thee with my hand!

Better thou and I were lying, hidden from the heart's disgrace,
Roll'd in one another's arms, and silent in a last embrace.

Cursed be the social wants that sin against the strength of youth!
Cursed be the social lies that warp us from the living truth!

Cursed be the sickly forms that err from honest Nature's rule!
Cursed be the gold that gilds the straiten'd forehead of the fool!

Well--'t is well that I should bluster!--Hadst thou less unworthy proved--
Would to God--for I had loved thee more than ever wife was loved.

Am I mad, that I should cherish that which bears but bitter fruit?
I will pluck it from my *****, tho' my heart be at the root.

Never, tho' my mortal summers to such length of years should come
As the many-winter'd crow that leads the clanging rookery home.

Where is comfort? in division of the records of the mind?
Can I part her from herself, and love her, as I knew her, kind?

I remember one that perish'd; sweetly did she speak and move;
Such a one do I remember, whom to look at was to love.

Can I think of her as dead, and love her for the love she bore?
No--she never loved me truly; love is love for evermore.

Comfort? comfort scorn'd of devils! this is truth the poet sings,
That a sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things.

Drug thy memories, lest thou learn it, lest thy heart be put to proof,
In the dead unhappy night, and when the rain is on the roof.

Like a dog, he hunts in dreams, and thou art staring at the wall,
Where the dying night-lamp flickers, and the shadows rise and fall.

Then a hand shall pass before thee, pointing to his drunken sleep,
To thy widow'd marriage-pillows, to the tears that thou wilt weep.

Thou shalt hear the "Never, never," whisper'd by the phantom years,
And a song from out the distance in the ringing of thine ears;

And an eye shall vex thee, looking ancient kindness on thy pain.
Turn thee, turn thee on thy pillow; get thee to thy rest again.

Nay, but Nature brings thee solace; for a tender voice will cry.
'T is a purer life than thine, a lip to drain thy trouble dry.

Baby lips will laugh me down; my latest rival brings thee rest.
Baby fingers, waxen touches, press me from the mother's breast.

O, the child too clothes the father with a dearness not his due.
Half is thine and half is his: it will be worthy of the two.

O, I see thee old and formal, fitted to thy petty part,
With a little hoard of maxims preaching down a daughter's heart.

"They were dangerous guides the feelings--she herself was not exempt--
Truly, she herself had suffer'd"--Perish in thy self-contempt!

Overlive it--lower yet--be happy! wherefore should I care?
I myself must mix with action, lest I wither by despair.

What is that which I should turn to, lighting upon days like these?
Every door is barr'd with gold, and opens but to golden keys.

Every gate is throng'd with suitors, all the markets overflow.
I have but an angry fancy; what is that which I should do?

I had been content to perish, falling on the foeman's ground,
When the ranks are roll'd in vapour, and the winds are laid with sound.

But the jingling of the guinea helps the hurt that Honour feels,
And the nations do but murmur, snarling at each other's heels.

Can I but relive in sadness? I will turn that earlier page.
Hide me from my deep emotion, O thou wondrous Mother-Age!

Make me feel the wild pulsation that I felt before the strife,
When I heard my days before me, and the tumult of my life;

Yearning for the large excitement that the coming years would yield,
Eager-hearted as a boy when first he leaves his father's field,

And at night along the dusky highway near and nearer drawn,
Sees in heaven the light of London flaring like a dreary dawn;

And his spirit leaps within him to be gone before him then,
Underneath the light he looks at, in among the throngs of men:

Men, my brothers, men the workers, ever reaping something new:
That which they have done but earnest of the things that they shall do:

For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see,
Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be;

Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails,
Pilots of the purple twilight dropping down with costly bales;

Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rain'd a ghastly dew
From the nations' airy navies grappling in the central blue;

Far along the world-wide whisper of the south-wind rushing warm,
With the standards of the peoples plunging thro' the thunder-storm;

Till the war-drum throbb'd no longer, and the battle-flags were furl'd
In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world.

There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe,
And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law.

So I triumph'd ere my passion sweeping thro' me left me dry,
Left me with the palsied heart, and left me with the jaundiced eye;

Eye, to which all order festers, all things here are out of joint:
Science moves, but slowly, slowly, creeping on from point to point:

Slowly comes a hungry people, as a lion, creeping nigher,
Glares at one that nods and winks behind a slowly-dying fire.

Yet I doubt not thro' the ages one increasing purpose runs,
And the thoughts of men are widen'd with the process of the suns.

What is that to him that reaps not harvest of his youthful joys,
Tho' the deep heart of existence beat for ever like a boy's?

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and I linger on the shore,
And the individual withers, and the world is more and more.

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and he bears a laden breast,
Full of sad experience, moving toward the stillness of his rest.

Hark, my merry comrades call me, sounding on the bugle-horn,
They to whom my foolish passion were a target for their scorn:

Shall it not be scorn to me to harp on such a moulder'd string?
I am shamed thro' all my nature to have loved so slight a thing.

Weakness to be wroth with weakness! woman's pleasure, woman's pain--
Nature made them blinder motions bounded in a shallower brain:

Woman is the lesser man, and all thy passions, match'd with mine,
Are as moonlight unto sunlight, and as water unto wine--

Here at least, where nature sickens, nothing. Ah, for some retreat
Deep in yonder shining Orient, where my life began to beat;

Where in wild Mahratta-battle fell my father evil-starr'd,--
I was left a trampled orphan, and a selfish uncle's ward.

Or to burst all links of habit--there to wander far away,
On from island unto island at the gateways of the day.

Larger constellations burning, mellow moons and happy skies,
Breadths of tropic shade and palms in cluster, knots of Paradise.

Never comes the trader, never floats an European flag,
Slides the bird o'er lustrous woodland, swings the trailer from the crag;

Droops the heavy-blossom'd bower, hangs the heavy-fruited tree--
Summer isles of Eden lying in dark-purple spheres of sea.

There methinks would be enjoyment more than in this march of mind,
In the steamship, in the railway, in the thoughts that shake mankind.

There the passions cramp'd no longer shall have scope and breathing space;
I will take some savage woman, she shall rear my dusky race.

Iron-jointed, supple-sinew'd, they shall dive, and they shall run,
Catch the wild goat by the hair, and hurl their lances in the sun;

Whistle back the parrot's call, and leap the rainbows of the brooks,
Not with blinded eyesight poring over miserable books--

Fool, again the dream, the fancy! but I know my words are wild,
But I count the gray barbarian lower than the Christian child.

I, to herd with narrow foreheads, vacant of our glorious gains,
Like a beast with lower pleasures, like a beast with lower pains!

Mated with a squalid savage--what to me were sun or clime?
I the heir of all the ages, in the foremost files of time--

I that rather held it better men should perish one by one,
Than that earth should stand at gaze like Joshua's moon in Ajalon!

Not in vain the distance beacons. Forward, forward let us range,
Let the great world spin for ever down the ringing grooves of change.

Thro' the shadow of the globe we sweep into the younger day;
Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay.

Mother-Age (for mine I knew not) help me as when life begun:
Rift the hills, and roll the waters, flash the lightnings, weigh the Sun.

O, I see the crescent promise of my spirit hath not set.
Ancient founts of inspiration well thro' all my fancy yet.

Howsoever these things be, a long farewell to Locksley Hall!
Now for me the woods may wither, now for me the roof-tree fall.

Comes a vapour from the margin, blackening over heath and holt,
Cramming all the blast before it, in its breast a thunderbolt.

Let it fall on Locksley Hall, with rain or hail, or fire or snow;
For the mighty wind arises, roaring seaward, and I go.
solfang Mar 2018
your voice lingers,
my hands tremble,
the distance—
so close yet so far.

it was a never-ending passion,
every word you muttered
was another reason for me,
to live on a little longer;
we were chanters—
you're the executioner.

bright lights shone,
your talent shimmers,
your humour;
was the heartwarmer
the stage was brighter
you make heads lighter.

encore, encore, encore,
your presences drugged
the audiences;
and made them want more.

I was lost in thoughts,
as I stood by the railings,
and barriers were formed;
what was the reason again,
that I heard love called?
Attended a James Blunt concert today. I don't really care about what others have to say about him, but it's by far the best concert I had attended.

Regrets: Really should have gotten the front row seat instead of the end row. Probably one of the worst choices I had made in my life.
inthewater Apr 2018
she reads books and she plays music
the cute, innocent
clumsy girl
with freckles on her cheeks

you like to read and listen to music
the cool, handsome
sweet-talking man
who likes freckles on her cheeks

[ or at least you said you did ]

she rolls her eyes at your compliments
the cautious, bright
guarded girl
with curiosity in her eyes

you lay them on thick
the certain, sharp
imprudent man
with hidden agendas on your lips

she lingers a little longer
in hopes of crossing your path throughout the day

she laughs at your jokes
and you know they're not funny

she sings for you in the car because
you like her voice

[ or at least you said you did ]

she's become good at excuses
the hopeful, naive
kind-hearted girl
with sureness in her words

you soak them up
the stark, ill-intentioned
vacant boy
with uncertainty in your voice

she gave all she had to care for you,
the smooth, clever
self-serving boy

you convinced her that you loved her

[ or at least you said you did ]
sweet nothings are just sweet nothings
A late lark twitters from the quiet skies;
And from the west,
Where the sun, his day's work ended,
Lingers as in content,
There falls on the old, grey city
An influence luminous and serene,
A shining peace.

The smoke ascends
In a rosy-and-golden haze.  The spires
Shine, and are changed.  In the valley
Shadows rise.  The lark sings on.  The sun,
Closing his benediction,
Sinks, and the darkening air
Thrills with a sense of the triumphing night--
Night with her train of stars
And her great gift of sleep.

So be my passing!
My task accomplished and the long day done,
My wages taken, and in my heart
Some late lark singing,
Let me be gathered to the quiet west,
The sundown splendid and serene,
Death.
Kelsey Brewski Sep 2015
his breath woke me up every night
we lay in bed; no, it wasn't
that his breath smelled of toxins,
but of dandelions and poppies.
his hair smelled like he rolled around in
fields of roses and he was
the single dandelion that begged and
pleaded to fit in.
he would never fit
in but he didn't know that, so
he kept trying and it was
so beautiful to say the least.
underneath his skin, in-between
his veins and his bones are tiny seeds that
i planted with kisses and they
grow with my love, when i wrap my
bony arms around him and
squeeze tightly - it lets him
know that he's not normal, that he's
not right in the head but
i love that. so when he wakes me
in the middle of the night, as
i lie between him and the emptiness of
the night, i think that i'm dying
but the moon light lingers and i
know i am safe with his flower breath
and the weeds growing in-between
us and the roots that grow out
of my heels and strangle the love
picture frames on our off-white
bedroom wall. i stare at those cookie-cutter
pictures and wish i wasn't right
in the head, too, but if we both were
psychotic, he wouldn't be a dandelion.
so i stay awake and watch
his beauty radiate in the darkness of
the night and wish that i
was that beautiful too. but he
tells me that my battle wounds don't
amount to anything to him, that my skin
is a ghost to him. i wish
he saw me for me, but his eyes
see the beauty that he grows.
but several nights he leaves me and
i am cold and i am worthless and
i pray to a god that he will
come back and taunt me because
i cannot stand it when he is
not here between my fragile arms
keeping me warm and safe.
i beg him when he returns to just
stay the night, just one more night,
because i cannot bare to
sleep without the dandelion amidst
all the rose petals. i need
my dandelion to keep me safe
and to be the needle in the
haystack - i need him to be in my
arms because idon'twanttosleepalone.
Taylor Lynn May 2015
the smell of cigarette smoke still lingers on her breath*
T.B.
George Anthony Jan 2018
i asked her, does it look the same?
she gave me that funny look she gets
whenever i say or do something a little dim
it's a mirror image for a reason she said

in the mirror i see muscles, and strength
hips a little too wide and fleshy
but still muscular,
strength all the way down

but when i reflect on myself,
no mirror necessary
it is never the same

i don't feel as strong as i could
don't look as sharp and sturdy as i could
those fleshy sides, too soft
for a battle-hardened brain
and turbulent thoughts

i need angles, i need straight lines
but there's nothing straight about me
and that's half the problem

and the other half
is that i hate the softness that lingers
but everybody else loves it
and i don't want to be warm and
able to be cuddled

i want hard edges
and nimble, spindly fingers;
when i play my chords
i want my bones to tap the strings

and when sadness sheathes itself within me
i want eyes as dry
as my eczema-bitten hands
it's been a while, huh?
hey, guys, how are ya?
my 2018 has been a rollercoaster already
i finally got an appointment with a clinic i've been emailing for three months, and my granddad died
MonkeyZazu Nov 2014
Darkness loves me too much
Always has me in a tight hold
It loosens it grip every now and then
But never really lets me go

Because it consumes all color
It's able to create any illusion
Sometimes I believe it's not there
But really, who am I foolin'

Darkness always surrounds me
Always lingers over my shoulder
Simulating fake happiness and warmth
Only making me colder

For now I endure the shadows
Try to put up a good fight
Still stumbling through darkness lost,
A blind man searching for light
Claire E Jul 2013
Remember that morning you came home with a black eye?
Neither of us ever acknowledged it
Because that's what we do
Maybe we think if we pretend it didn't happen then it's not true
Ignore it. It will go away.
But it doesn't go away
It lingers
And lingers
It lingers like the scent of a cigarette long after it burns out
And we continue to pretend it doesn't exist
We put on brave faces
We act like everything's okay
But it's not
It's not okay. None of its okay.
We have an image to maintain
We want everyone to believe we're perfect
But we're not.
We're not perfect. We're far from it.
We're bruised and broken just like your black eye
And maybe we could heal if we acknowledged our problems
But we don't acknowledge them
Instead we deny
Deny. Deny. Deny.
Denial is deadly
Just look at what happens to us.
Amanda Kay Burke Feb 2018
Oh sunset, your aura still lingers,
A charming shade across the sky,
A perfect watercolor painting,
The first sign of day waving goodbye.

Oh sunset, you're so beautiful,
Your colors paint the air,
Flashes of the brightest hues,
You leave traces everywhere.

Oh sunset, how you grin,
With such a cheerful light,
Your lovely warmth is always,
An unexpected delight.

Oh sunset how you have lit my path,
Tolerated my blurry tears,
You're a familiar place, where I've loved and lost,
But still you remain, despite the cruel years.

Oh sunset, now you're dancing,
Alive, and carelessly free,
Sunset im feeling jealous,
Oh I wish that could be me.

Oh sunset, how fleeting, mysterious,
You never do stay for long,
Just enough moments to make me realize,
What in my life is so very wrong.

Oh sunset I despise your tricks,
The way you flirt with the sky,
I am not as easily deceived,
I see right through your lie.

Oh sunset i see youre wilting,
but please don't go just yet,
I need your flimsy arms to hold me,
and im scared i will forget.

Oh sunset, you fade, silent as always,
A trickle of fear touches my heart,
A sliver of doubt is all that I need,
To tear this beauty apart.

Oh sunset, you smile, wink, just play,
Deciding it's time to make haste,
So gone is the promise of comfort and love,
All hopes, all dreams; a silly waste.

The treetops aloft are golden,
but shadows are closing in,
Oh sunset i would love you more,
If you werent so weak, such a coward, a fool,
To  let the darkness win.
Funny story; I wrote this in my head while on a walk and jotted it down the best I could for what I remembered, and then I lost it so I tried to write it again, now I have stumbled across the old one so I combined them to make one seamless piece of art.
Isabelle Jun 2018
it lingers
amongst the pillow
the roses you left on the vase
it lingers
in the air I breath
on my closet
the scent of you
it lingers everywhere
leaving me yearn for you
***
PK Wakefield Mar 2012
mouth lingers body fragrant

     (dreams peculiar)

violent of redhair sits pretty
alone awkwardly of nothing
precise in a corner quietly
shifts wonders of skin and
reads a book looking like
naked would be better than
Your hands easy
weight, teasing the bees
hived in my hair, your smile at the
***** of my cheek. On the
occasion, you press
above me, glowing, spouting
readiness, mystery rapes
my reason

When you have withdrawn
your self and the magic, when
only the smell of your
love lingers between
my *******, then, only
then, can I greedily consume
your presence.
Regret,
Lingers like the taste of an old cigarette.
Regret,
The one thing you'll never let yourself forget.
Tawanda Mulalu Mar 2015
The last thing the Poet feels of her is the distinctive taste of biltong. It lingers. She had bought two packets at the café.  Their last kiss is made just before the airplane announces itself with a great roar of being. He watches it swallow her and turn her into a memory. And then the plane flies away. He can’t find a silver lining in the plane’s path, so he instead focuses on the gentle return of normality to his skin. Every centimetre that was previously pressed to his Muse is smoothing its goose bumps. The Poet’s heart goes back from verse to prose, just as how it was before she became the subject of his pen.

He turns to say an awkward “dumela” to the Muse’s grandmother. She responds with the tone of a grandmother greeting a boy who has just been making out with her granddaughter in front her: “dumela.” It probably doesn’t help that his hair isn’t combed. It probably doesn’t help that they have not met before. The Poet then asks the Muse’s brother for a ride to school. Now that the Muse is gone, it is time for him to begin studying for the colourless exams that were the subject of his existence before her. The Muse’s brother nods in agreement, and he walks out of the stale atmosphere of the airport with her family. The summer sunshine somehow manages to feel uninspired.

The journey from the airport stretches out like a goodbye that ought not to happen. It is slow, painful, and filled with empty promises of hope from her family. Her brother says she will visit during the Christmas season. The Poet knows she won’t- she can’t- but he has enough novels to keep him company.  They are riding in the same little red Volkswagen that often picked her up from school. If time is simultaneous, she is sitting next to him.

The car is full; time has only one direction, and its wheels stops in front of the school gates.

He says his farewells, closes the car door, and limps to the library to start working on maths equations with his classmates. He barely opens the library doors, barely greets his classmates, and with barely practiced nonchalance, barely explains that his Muse went off to another country. He picks up his scientific calculator and clicks open his pen to attack a math problem. Hours pass in numbers that stubbornly refuse to make sense in place of her. The Poet solves a problem, and then he doesn’t. He asks for help, and then he doesn’t. He laughs with his classmates, and then he doesn't: they have to go home now for lunch.

The Poet cannot go home. He has to wait for his mother to pick him up. He decides to walk out the school gates to eat at the Chinese restaurant. It is placed conveniently outside the school. He orders some dumplings and some noodles, and then tells the waitress that he is going to buy a newspaper at the filling station while he waits for his meal.

At the filling station counter are packets of biltong hooked onto a stand.
Yum.
Soeka laborde Sep 2016
The ghost of you lingers on my mind
The echo of your words tangos across my heart
The feeling of excitement of falling in love in cyberspace
Sexting without remorse or grace
A friendship that hits below the waist
Intelligent conversations that strokes your passion and ignites your fire
I wonder if I'll have anything left to offer
Or would the sight of you take me higher up the ladder of my sinful desire

Your words drive my imagination wild
The touch on my skin, your fingers, lightly caressing my spine
This image in my head is so divine
Seriously hoping that one day, this feeling will be mine.
Pictures and thoughts exchanged on a whim
Something strange grows from within

Intellectually stimulating every part of me
Zeros and ones creates a digital reality
Here I am, imagining being in your arms
The sweetest words you whisper in my ear
My soul yarns for you to be here
Feelings your warm body against mines under the cover
I long for you, my WhatsApp lover


                         *©La Vida Love
Jesse stillwater Mar 2018
Morning falls
from a budding
   cherry tree;

   the colour
of nightsong’s
waning blossom
   comes to be
       an echo
   only heard
   by the wind

Soundless remnants
   of an intimate
twilight odyssey
   tarry thickly,
drifting lightly
through the landscape
      of dawn

   The hushed echo
   wields the silent
         reverie
      of the night,
   gently rippling
   the rivers that run
   through the heart

The poignant taste
of passionfruit lingers
in the sensory traces
      of a warm
   passing breeze;

      penetrating
   the lonely chill
   of a naked night's
      work of art

                ~


           Jesse
.
     14 March 2018
passionfruit:  any edible fruit of a passionflower
r0b0t Mar 2015
the aroma of the dead and dying
lingers heavy in my bed,
yesterdays shirt and tomorrows hate draped across a chair like falling flowers,
like the ones on my desk, picked
with joy and anger, but that has long since faded and wilted,
giving way to the dead and dying, like me,
wrapped tight in blankets,
clinging to the tiny voice of mother, on the other end of the phone,
repeating the refrain, the chorus, homage to the homesick,
"Everything will be all right, with time."

— The End —