"listlessly" poems
I pop a pomegranate seed.
It bleeds,
Delicate fuchsia delight,
Mineral scented, warm, bright,
Full of nectar and promise
(now wasted)
I pop another one,
In a soft cove on my arm-
A slight dip between two veins -
And watch the blushing drop
Edge closer to my elbow. Stop.
A third time,
With the fury of fear
Tiptoeing listlessly in my mind,
Like raindrops on a rooftop.
It is sweet, and ******
A waste of time but an act of god
Nonetheless.
I crave the sound and texture of it,
So a fourth time comes around.
By now, the citrus is overpowering
But I keep going,
For the sake of purity,
For the sake of the shock of vibrance
On deathly pale skin.
When my arm is covered in juice,
I give up.
There's no sense in envying the wasted.
Scarlet sticks.
Jul 25, 2018
Jul 25, 2018 at 3:53 PM UTC
Let the haunted emptiness
Let it take me away
Carry me into deep darkness
Lift me out of this day
Close my eyes with nights caress
And sleep enclose and unwind
For the relief of my stress
And I float in a dreaming mind
The morphing shadows of black
Swirl in terrifying scenes
In fear I try escape back
To such a place without dreams
Now listlessly awake I lay
Tired, but unable to rest
Sleeplessly caught in the sway
To far gone, drifting in grey
May 6, 2014
May 6, 2014 at 12:21 AM UTC
I like to stare listlessly
At the night sky for long
Durations of time, as if my
Gaze will compel the stars
To align to breathtaking ends.
Alas, they stay put,budge they
Don’t, a sneer streaks my
Face as my pride’s hurt.
And a tear droplet materializes
On the corner of my eye.
Maybe the moon prefers her
Star friends to remain as they’re.
Jun 9, 2017
Jun 9, 2017 at 3:35 AM UTC
I've called this ghost town home for far too long.
Spent my nights drinking with the dead.
Each sip cementing their existence in my head.
Listlessly taking shot after shot.
Whiskey,
the water of life,
commemorates the spirit of the deceased.
One
for those who passed away in peace.
Two
for those taken prematurely.
Toast number three shall be a farewell to me
but I am not ready to no longer
be.
You see,
if I were to dream eternally
and sink deeper down the fiery well,
those infamous nine levels of hell,
I would forge fresh footprints through the ash covered ground.
Walking with boots of compressed gunpowder,
the trail I leave behind is always primed to catch up with me and
spark the time bomb I walk with.
The seconds
tick
tick
tick
away.
The clock is always heading toward zero.
I tried to be a hero for many,
yet couldn't save myself.
My desires put upon a shelf.
A self inflicted penance handed down from the only one
I was foolish enough to call
god.
I am too far gone to be saved.
Grave stones mark the decay of my hopes and dreams.
The etchings on each marble tablet will eventually fade away.
The soil I am to be buried in must be overturned if anything is
to grow where I could not.
Mother nature always finds a way to nurture even the worst of her children.
Like any good matriarch, she refuses to accept anything less than her child's full potential.
Even in death.
Though I refused nourishment and love,
mother earth still holds me close.
Embraces me in a final attempt to squeeze the last drops of good which
were buried deep and thought to be dried long ago.
Ignoring her guidance, I've lived as if I would never end up six feet.
Deep were my thoughts,
dangerous my actions.
Though I lived as if I couldn't be defeated,
my first true test comes as I fight for control of my soul.
Angels and devils are now my judges,
each making their case for my demise.
The scales of destiny weigh my past actions.
The outcome holding my future.
So I'll fill my glass one final time,
and toast to those who left before me.
I'm coming home.
Mar 21, 2014
Mar 21, 2014 at 10:01 PM UTC
The evening's still and quiet
and the katydids abound.
The flag is hanging listlessly
as I listen to their sound.
Desultory the summer air,
as though the world awaits,
"Something evil this way comes."
the foe is at the gates.
A feeling of impending doom
accompanies the air.
Nothing moves.
A stifling presence hovers over there.
Like a blanket, smothering
t'is much too hard to breathe.
And yet, my arms are paralyzed
and sword, I can't unsheathe.
I watch as shadows gather
in miasma up the street.
A harbinger of evil
with an odor, sickly sweet.
I feel it getting nearer
and my heart beats fast with fright.
What imagination ...
on a stifling summer night.
Aug 9, 2018
Aug 9, 2018 at 8:16 AM UTC
captive audience listening
to the hornets pouring out of me
i was running fingers
listlessly down your face
and dreaming of acid rain
—a picture in my head
that refused to die
ever mindful
of the bedroom door
hinging on your aches
and unborn eyes
the reanimated heart
chimed
with the twisted shape
of what awaits us all
a rising overture
from behind the veil
warm, wet handed
in a bath of blood
Dec 21, 2017
Dec 21, 2017 at 10:15 AM UTC
The darkness of the earth
And darkness of the sky
Are distinguished by the lines
of beaded light
that run across the edges of our eyes.
The steering wheel twists
Listlessly between the lanes
Of sleep and gasoline dreams.
The beauty of blank minds
is seen only in reflections
From the rear view mirror.
Our pavement demons
Sear in a stranger's headlights:
The Berlin wall stands re-erected
out of trees intertwined
With the night.
The circulatory glow of red,
bright against the black asphalt,
our driver's lullaby.
Seas of blindness illuminate
The distance wheels can fly
Oct 3, 2012
Oct 3, 2012 at 12:18 AM UTC
Her ivory hands on the ivory keys
Strayed in a fitful fantasy,
Like the silver gleam when the poplar trees
Rustle their pale-leaves listlessly,
Or the drifting foam of a restless sea
When the waves show their teeth in the flying breeze.
Her gold hair fell on the wall of gold
Like the delicate gossamer tangles spun
On the burnished disk of the marigold,
Or the sunflower turning to meet the sun
When the gloom of the dark blue night is done,
And the spear of the lily is aureoled.
And her sweet red lips on these lips of mine
Burned like the ruby fire set
In the swinging lamp of a crimson shrine,
Or the bleeding wounds of the pomegranate,
Or the heart of the lotus drenched and wet
With the spilt-out blood of the rose-red wine.
3.4k
Large ****** deformity
Like seeing desperate
Leeches ******* dirt lightly,
Smoothly, dumped lazily down south
Little saddened devils lurched suddenly desperate
Lakes silently draw leukemia symbols
Launched dangerously spiteful.
Lust doesn’t stop liking steady destruction
Literally souls die loudly.
So? Dumb lives salvage deceit.
Lying smart distributors lure sabotage deviously
Lord, sometimes deeper love spawns damaged life
softly dead. Listlessly.
Oct 12, 2010
Oct 12, 2010 at 7:28 AM UTC
I
Reg wished me to go with him to the field,
I paused because I did not want to go;
But in her quiet way she made me yield
Reluctantly, for she was breathing low.
Her hand she slowly lifted from her lap
And, smiling sadly in the old sweet way,
She pointed to the nail where hung my cap.
Her eyes said: I shall last another day.
But scarcely had we reached the distant place,
When o'er the hills we heard a faint bell ringing;
A boy came running up with frightened face;
We knew the fatal news that he was bringing.
I heard him listlessly, without a moan,
Although the only one I loved was gone.
II
The dawn departs, the morning is begun,
The trades come whispering from off the seas,
The fields of corn are golden in the sun,
The dark-brown tassels fluttering in the breeze;
The bell is sounding and the children pass,
Frog-leaping, skipping, shouting, laughing shrill,
Down the red road, over the pasture-grass,
Up to the school-house crumbling on the hill.
The older folk are at their peaceful toil,
Some pulling up the weeds, some plucking corn,
And others breaking up the sun-baked soil.
Float, faintly-scented breeze, at early morn
Over the earth where mortals sow and reap--
Beneath its breast my mother lies asleep.
3k
In the dim yellow light beneath deciduous trees she spun methodically in Autumn. Shadows loomed aloft, chirping their approval. She spun and seemed to levitate, the flickers of the evening flame reflected in her pale green eyes darting in between loose strands of bland vermilion hair. And she spun and spun as if she'd spin forever,
Autumn.
She was Autumn there and then, personified in glints of golden green and faded yellow brown descending listlessly to greet the open canvas of the forest floor.
And the shadows pressed into the earth and disappeared as overhead the rain slashed through the shyness of the crowns betwixt the trees.
And she slowly spun her last, and lastly, panting stood before me naked, shivering in the gentle gales that rose and fell like Mozart's heavy heart.
I beckoned her with dead weights crudely fashioned to the pauldrons of my coffin that hung lowly, swaying listless as the leaves. And she smiled a tired smile and blew the kiss I yearned for seasons to receive before collapsing in the dirt.
In Autumn.
-Mike Robbins-
Oct 1, 2017
Oct 1, 2017 at 5:50 PM UTC
It was a night of music softly playing, listlessly upon the bed I was laying,
Lying awake with toss and turns without subtle hints of a snore…
And whilst this time my eyes did wander, avoiding the lids they should be under,
Suddenly as I was under, under the spell of consciousness I could not ignore…
“No, this cannot be,” I whispered, “this insomnia I cannot ignore;
Awake I lied, sleeping never more.
The clock soon read the 30th minute of two, and it was now that I knew
As I stares bleakly to the scuffled patterns of my feet on the carpet floor,
I tried to rise up from bed in hopes to gain; fatigue made that attempt in vain.
My eyes wrought forth tears from burning pain, the nightly air made them sore…
The darkness of the night air now silent but dry has left them burning sore,
Craving the sleep that comes never more.
My blanket held the rustling of my body so violently tussling
In anger—such anger that the blanket had suddenly tore;
And so now I laid there, with fluff of stuffing my blanket was ‘bleeding’,
“I fear that this must be the sleep I’ll crave, yet ignore,
For it seems odd this craving my body would so deviously ignore."
Still awake I lied, craving sleep ever more.
Restless I turned to my side, when then my eyes grew joyously wide,
“I had forgotten,” said I. “Cure for restless sleep, this bottle does implore";
Unfortunately, I took some previously- the limit to such an aid is a pity,
And the clock had struck three, three hours I am forced to ignore,
"Oh, the sleep that I needed…” I mourned softly on the time I had to ignore.
“I want sleep and nothing more!”
All the time I laid staring, the darkness faded, the sun now glaring;
Forcing a retreat of the darkness covering the scuffled patterns on the carpet floor.
A dawn’s glow shined with brilliance, against my eyes so red and resilient,
The sleep, once again a night of rest I craved for my body, so weary and sore,
For the sake of my eyesight now the sun’s gleam had made ever so sore
“Sigh, ‘tis another fortnight I sleep never more.”
© 2011
Feb 3, 2015
Feb 3, 2015 at 4:30 PM UTC
Antagonism
burgeons back bad blood.
Compatriots, courtesy can cool contentions:
doubly, disrespect demands decisive
execution. Early efforts evolved
fatuously, force facilitated farcical fighting.
Gambling gents gleefully gored
hedonistic harlots. Harassing
ignorantly, igniting
jealously,
killings
listlessly- liars lament
momentarily. Meanwhile, monetary
nuances
of opulence obscure
prime problems.
Quarries quake
running red. Remembering
solitarily- stoic steeds stand silent, sending
thoughts,
unbidden, unbeknownst.
Violence:
we were
xanthic,
yellow years yaw…
Zymotic.
Jun 22, 2013
Jun 22, 2013 at 11:57 PM UTC
The days wind by a little quicker than they used to.
My heart beats a little slower.
My mind races at a more steady pace.
My emotions soar into the sky
and crash into the ground.
My sleep schedule is non existent.
The strings fray less often
and are easily sewed.
Easily tied and done listlessly so.
Do you remember when things were simple?
The band didn't march.
The shoelaces became tangled.
Hair became knotted.
Everything was easy
and everything was good.
Because I don't.
Sep 11, 2012
Sep 11, 2012 at 1:54 AM UTC
Do you want the truth?
I ideally I would want
A taller than me
By much
Blonde haired
Blue Eyed Boy
With no dark secrets
Or spare tickets
To the club
But what I keep getting
Is a dark haired
Dark eyed
Know it all
who drinks
till hes drunk
Smokes
till hes gone
And bleeds on the outside
Looking in
Listlessly
and amourously
For the first month.
And a quarter of the
Half.
Then he turns
Rambles softly
Moving On.
Oh What
a sweet tragedy
love.
And oh how stupid
we are
for
wanting
it.
Jun 17, 2010
Jun 17, 2010 at 4:49 PM UTC
*the droplets of water are singing a trail down the bricks of the houses
through the alleys of the glassy-eyed broken people with soft hearts, a pre-disposition for death
weaving a tabooed trail across the sidewalks that when gazed upon reeks of obscurity
and leaving faint lines on the creased skin of all the sinewy fatalities
the mildewed rain peaks across the rusted windowsill that sighs with familiarity
it sloshes against the children’s playground and slaps at the pavement with a sudden clarity
it empties itself into the spiked maze of the tree branch hoping the leafs will cling onto to it dearly
it mellows into a pond that breaks apart with sharp staccatos when mushy feet run down the street
and it hurls itself into the bitterly sweet lips of two frost-bitten lovers who will soon meet
it daintily steps into the burning embers of the flame, only to be flushed out in shame
it turns to the shower as a last resort, but whines in dismay when it’s slurped down the drain
it embraces the eyelashes until it’s shaken in misery and then watches wearily as it’s blinked away in positivity
it lumbers down the path of the bruised ego, a shattering of phrases that leaves the person’s mouth
and before it has the chance to drop it is scooped up and chastised until it moves no more
the tears and the rain drops wander listlessly for all of eternity
only to be hastily thrown away or brushed into cotton for fear of a restless divinity
it is never to reach a destination and only doomed to be forgotten
and so it seems dear friends, that raindrops are simply you and me*
Sep 18, 2013
Sep 18, 2013 at 9:51 PM UTC
Tis the season to be falling
Tis the season to be gay
Tis the season to be flying
Higher, farther, away ~
Chains loosened she calls to her mother
An earthy musk, grains of sand, mud on her face. A scruffy mutt laying listlessly on the tarmac, ribs rattling with the effort of each breath. She is home.
Muted flames thrashing in its cage, raging in the midst of civilization, a crucifixion of sorts. Tearing at its hair wildly, the masses trickling by, mouth agape in a silent scream. Ashes mixed into pieces of scalp, begging to be found.
Oblivious to a sound like thunder, clapping in one's ears. Strangled scream lost in translation, a language so old none could decipher. Fear wielding urgency, a disguise of desperation, depression.
Refusing to be still.
Dec 17, 2022
Dec 17, 2022 at 5:16 AM UTC
Overcome the apathy, disconnected truth
We, our fractured vanity, the forbidden fruit
A line once drawn, towards the edge we’ve toyed
Reality now gone, journeying into the void
Witch-fed lies, as we timidly believe
The vagrant’s cries, nothing special to see
Listlessly we begin to die, but this is not we
Forever asking, why this has to be
The intertwined insanity, a stricken route
Became lost in profanity, once in our youth
Striving towards a new dawn, only to avoid
The paths of an old pawn, as lines get destroyed
Once uplifted to fly, to never deceive
This vagrant’s only ply, is a subtle belief
To never be shy, and only wish to receive
Or, to rely on what he believes
Aug 19, 2020
Aug 19, 2020 at 7:23 PM UTC
those pensive ones
as they seem to me
birds on the wire
gazing this way
and that
lost invariably
to their ennui
their melancholy
their obliviousness
to the point
some may say
pointlessness
of their existence
in these moments
without reason
or incentive enough
to prompt one
or the other
to take to the wing
embracing the bluster
of the ever-blowing winds
rather they sustain
this idle malingering
waiting listlessly
for that which none
can know
Jan 5, 2024
Jan 5, 2024 at 12:28 PM UTC
The nocturnal birds
are
singing
the lullabies
The exhausted stars
are
sleeping
in
the Stygian
skies
Nothing
is
glistening
The water of
the rill is
rippling
The light wind is
listlessly
playing
with my hair
Pearly
dew is
kissing
the pleasant petals
The sleepy
street is
being
forlorn
I'm peering
consciously
at the creamy
cornice
A photogenic countenance
in front of
my imagination
The object of
my affection
The insipid murk
and the blue
nights of
mine without you
The feelings of
mine are experiencing
torment
I'm repeatedly
whispering
"Te Amo..."
Oct 2, 2021
Oct 2, 2021 at 2:32 AM UTC
i fantasize about stomping on the gas,
hitting the accelerator
as i approach the on-ramp
for the 408,
launching like a rocketship
headed straight for outer-space.
careen into the concrete
headlong—
scatter my brains
and body-parts across the wall
like a ******* splatter painting.
as lights blur together above me,
my head goes hazy,
dazed in this fugue state,
half-awake and thinking absently
of the city-lights
drifting listlessly overhead
like unidentifiable flying objects,
hovering over this interstate.
i wish they'd beam me up.
kidnapped by aliens,
taken to a galaxy far, far away
so i could forget
the contours of your face.
Mar 11, 2017
Mar 11, 2017 at 12:51 AM UTC
the convex, the wretch caves
listlessly, she folds
primitive in her ways, she survives
a tear in time
just like the moments in REM
she has control
and her heart!
and her heart!
with teeth, now, with teeth
she opens up and her teeth scream in unison
“we are and thank god for that”
welcomed to her own subconscious
she eats well and sleeps tightly
her food is her madness
serenity:thepeace
serenity:thepeace
liquified dessert cakes
solidified scents
the pink slip
truth be told
she has lived a lucid life
bereft
what a lazy martyr!
what a lazy martyr!
Nov 5, 2012
Nov 5, 2012 at 5:55 PM UTC
it's the morning of Tuesday
June twenty fifth, and the fog, again
rolls in against lima and listlessly scales the escarpment
and Dana (like I) high on ******* and circumstance
has gone with Chris and Cameron, to watch from the cliffs
(this time something loose has shifted, and I hope they kiss).
and Corey is here
asleep to my left
tired from a whole day of travel and
Dana calls her an insomniac but
I think she's at rest.
And an empire is how she took off her shirt
and gold is the way she doesn't object
when I trace maps in her back and put an ear to her chest.
because I don't know who this is or why
my fantasies fixated here, but they work, unbidden
behind purposed eyes
buena vida es buena ficion y
good fiction is impossible to expect.
like when under your skin, New England, dunes
drift and dance to the hand at your neck.
because I have everything I could ever want and for
me in my figured out life, these flighty daydreams aren't problems but
more like preproduction films to maybe see, to get lost in, given breath and a bit of sunlight.
because I have never heard Corey complain or object and until I do I
will continue to give to her everything I have, will continue to
try to understand the invisible hairs at the base of her spine.
try to reward what goes unrecognized.
because we're all bent up patchwork machines, and
I'm sure Corey crumbles inside as much as I, but
when you fly to peru and lay with certainty your head against mine,
into a stranger's neck, and lie still
when you could struggle to explain but don't even try
when you are beautiful, but keep on going still...
the ******* can't what my hands will,
in walking the staircase of her spine.
keep me watchful, and up all night,
to try in fingertips to recognize,
that you are beautiful and someone needs
to see you to sleep. to feel you to fly.
Jul 28, 2013
Jul 28, 2013 at 6:04 AM UTC
“You’re beautiful,” he says,
his voice a gin-soaked amalgamation of every
listlessly aging boss,
lonely husband in the shoe department,
loveless 3a.m.-hard-cocked stranger.
“Why don’t you smile?”
I widened my eyes
in an attempt to appear likable,
yet felt my mouth
straightening,
my upper lip sealing
the bottom like
a Tupperware lid.
I willed them to curl
upwards, unassumingly;
I wanted to smile the way
women seem to smile
while masking
ill-fitting intentions.
My mouth remained
firmly rooted,
obstinate railroad tracks running
the shortest distance
between the two plotted points of
left cheek and right cheek.
Behind these pretty lips lay
two rows of crooked teeth,
a cigarette-stained skyline
against the starless horizon of
tongue and epithelial tissue, ugly
and wholly my own.
To smile
would be a betrayal
of my own trust,
and if any man
were worth that
it certainly wasn’t
this one.
Dec 28, 2013
Dec 28, 2013 at 1:06 AM UTC
these days i feel like water. like an ocean cusping on the marked line of a horizon. like a droplet riveting and rolling, making its way down to pool onto a ledge.
the slightest nudge, a gentle push
and i'd spill over.
sitting dangerously on the lip of the cup
teetering in and out of balance-
it is a game of give or take
i bend myself backwards into a crescent
just to make room for their full mooned selves
i wonder how Neil Armstrong felt
when he took his first step onto the dusty crater ridden plain
and found himself
all
alone
i am
alone
destined to listlessly twirl around my own axis dreamlike
but not like a dream at all
floating miles away from the person i have yet to unearth
but yet not far enough to fly among the stars
i am held by the centre of my own gravity
is that why sometimes i can hear my bones creak under the weight of the person i was supposed to be?
Sep 19, 2023
Sep 19, 2023 at 6:44 AM UTC