"litany" poems
Give them to me.
All the pieces of your broken heart.
Give them to me.
I'll take them.
All the rough-hewn misshapen bits of your shattered dreams.
Give them to me.
I will take them.
Give them to me.
They are wanted here.
All the parts of your misspent childhood. All the regrets of ticking seconds behind you.
Give them to me.
And we will build a cathedral. A stained glass window of who we are as tall and as beautiful as it should be.
Let me have them.
And we will make a mosaic that stretches as wide as the sky. Showing every color your heart gained from the bits and pieces left on the ground.
I will take them.
And forge a sculpture of how beautiful the ideas are that we cast out in our failings and we will cast it in our failings.
Let me have them.
And we will ***** a monument of all the small things in the shape that you remember them.
Towering. Looming. Striking. Beautiful.
Let me have them so we might bind the words said and regretted, (or worse) left unsaid in leather and call it scripture.
Our Psalms. Our Proverbs:
*“The tip of my finger dangles like my tongue. Wanting to touch something beautiful.”
“If it were not for him, it would have been us.”
“You were all my brightest colors.”
“I wish I were more like you.”
“I wish I were less like me.”
“I am sped.”*
And we will read them at dawn like litany.
Stretching our voices to the corners of the universe. Asking for the wishes you make when you are scared. Or alone. Or both.
That we may take them.
And make a blanket.
A blanket to cover our childhood and let it rest at last.
I will take them.
All the parts you no longer want.
Give them to me.
Because they are what make us beautiful.
Give them to me.
That I may forge them into pitch and feathers and craft mighty wings.
That I may take flight from your worry. And soar on the updraft of your misconception.
Give them to me.
I will take them.
Because I would rather burn like Icarus than to have never dared to fly.
May 5, 2014
May 5, 2014 at 4:02 PM UTC
Teresa climbs on the bus
before the sun, if she has
the fare
to get there, where she
makes the bread; she's been at this
two of her nineteen years
yet she has fears, they will
come for her--green card or not;
though they like her rolls
she kneads the big ***** pulls,
pinches, a sculpting of dough, a laying
of trays, one after another
then, from the Iglesias,
they come, decked in their finery
though she does not see
she only hears the litany
of language she can't comprehend,
a clanging of trays, laughter
the urging of the jefe to work
faster, bake the bread; the communion
wafers did not fill them
now they are here, breaking fast,
forgetting the words they just heard
the songs they sang
Teresa does not complain; she
is glad to feed the worshipers, though
they will never know her name
nor will they stop for
her in the pouring rain,
the blistering sun
Teresa never wavers
next Sabbath will be the same:
dawn, the dough, the oven
it is the work--her hands
which make the bread others break,
the grace granted to serve
holy, holy, holy...
Apr 2, 2017
Apr 2, 2017 at 8:49 PM UTC
You speak of forbidden love
And relish in its passion,
Like a fat sow rolling in ****
You cannot smell the stench,
Of your joined betrayal,
You couple with immorality.
Go home to your true partner,
Cast away your paramour,
There can be no happy ending here,
There is no love where there is no innocence,
I know as I once danced late into the hot nights to this very same song.
I could show you a skeleton path littered with the corpses of past lovers,
Empty shells of who they once were, skin shredded by snakes, leaving the stench of our distaste behind,
A litany of curious choices,
A dirge of the fallen's passion,
But you will not listen,
For your ears are deafened by the drums of need,
The screaming voice of your own conscience,
And the death rattle of your lost integrity.
Jul 17, 2014
Jul 17, 2014 at 2:58 PM UTC
To Ezra Pound
These are the names of the companies that have made
money from this war
nineteenhundredsixtyeight Annodomini fourthousand
eighty Hebraic
These are the Corporations who have profited by merchan-
dising skinburning phosphorous or shells fragmented
to thousands of fleshpiercing needles
and here listed money millions gained by each combine for
manufacture
and here are gains numbered, index'd swelling a decade, set
in order,
here named the Fathers in office in these industries, tele-
phones directing finance,
names of directors, makers of fates, and the names of the
stockholders of these destined Aggregates,
and here are the names of their ambassadors to the Capital,
representatives to legislature, those who sit drinking
in hotel lobbies to persuade,
and separate listed, those who drop Amphetamine with
military, gossip, argue, and persuade
suggesting policy naming language proposing strategy, this
done for fee as ambassadors to Pentagon, consul-
tants to military, paid by their industry:
and these are the names of the generals & captains mili-
tary, who know thus work for war goods manufactur-
ers;
and above these, listed, the names of the banks, combines,
investment trusts that control these industries:
and these are the names of the newspapers owned by these
banks
and these are the names of the airstations owned by these
combines;
and these are the numbers of thousands of citizens em-
ployed by these businesses named;
and the beginning of this accounting is 1958 and the end
1968, that static be contained in orderly mind,
coherent and definite,
and the first form of this litany begun first day December
1967 furthers this poem of these States.
December 1, 1967
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In the searing airless midsummer-
Clockwork morning rewinds
cobalt into a bleeding orange yolk dripping across
the canvas of the world.
Sky, turn the colour of dreams. Heart, turn the colour of love-
I’m posed over a skyscraper
Because I wanted to touch the stars. Because I wanted to touch you.
There’s a beauty found in the smallest spaces
Gaps in your heartbeat, getting your toothbrush mixed with mine
Honey-lemon on my tongue
So maybe you loved me, but not in a way I comprehended
I’m thinking of your lips, your eyes
and the way you said goodbye-
The word wrapped around your tongue like a prayer.
Pink bleeds into violet and it looks like the 5 a.m. Berlin skyline
might tear itself apart, like a heart bursting or a car crash.
So it’s dawn. So I’m inconsolable.
And if the angel sun sets,
then so be it.
Oct 20, 2018
Oct 20, 2018 at 10:44 PM UTC
In the hour of my distress,
When temptations me oppress,
And when I my sins confess,
Sweet Spirit, comfort me!
When I lie within my bed,
Sick in heart and sick in head,
And with doubts discomforted,
Sweet Spirit, comfort me!
When the house doth sigh and weep,
And the world is drown’d in sleep,
Yet mine eyes the watch do keep,
Sweet Spirit, comfort me!
When the passing bell doth toll,
And the Furies in a shoal
Come to fright a parting soul,
Sweet Spirit, comfort me!
When the tapers now burn blue,
And the comforters are few,
And that number more than true,
Sweet Spirit, comfort me!
When the priest his last hath pray’d,
And I nod to what is said,
‘Cause my speech is now decay’d,
Sweet Spirit, comfort me!
When, God knows, I’m toss’d about
Either with despair or doubt;
Yet before the glass be out,
Sweet Spirit, comfort me!
When the tempter me pursu’th
With the sins of all my youth,
And half damns me with untruth,
Sweet Spirit, comfort me!
When the flames and hellish cries
Fright mine ears and fright mine eyes,
And all terrors me surprise,
Sweet Spirit, comfort me!
When the Judgment is reveal’d,
And that open’d which was seal’d,
When to Thee I have appeal’d,
Sweet Spirit, comfort me!
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He clears his throat,
offers a hand,
lady afloat
begging to stand...
but where is she now?
The gentleman's moon...
his strides upon Earth
whose labors to croon?
Here, gentleman, hear
her breaths are so soft.
Need this dough like skin,
a taste so aloft?
Her pulse like a symphony,
her steps on pools glistening,
her lips your night litany,
her hands light-wrought ivory.
Gentleman she swoons!
Her hips like snow dunes,
her words gentle noons
that light up your Junes.
Yet you stay away,
your respect holds sway.
Though she is nectar,
you drink not as night
does day.
Your gentle ways
lengthen the days,
though distance kept,
you oft' purvey
a sense of love,
as she turns your way.
Apr 28, 2016
Apr 28, 2016 at 10:44 PM UTC
”against your will were you created,
against your will were you born,
against your will do you live,
against your will will you die, and
against your will will you stand in judgment before the
King of kings, the Holy One, blessed be He.”
Rabbi Elazar HaKappar (C.170 - C.200 CE)
(Ha Kappar: the one who made and gave atonement)
<§>
***in these, the years of my erosive declination,
when the noble prize, time for introspection,
once was a chore of delaying, now no longer can be off-put,
the certainties of Elazar, offer guidable satisfactions***
***the nighttime review, resurrecting my life, the gaps,
the untaken actions, those dream-schemes speak loudest,
memories of what should have been, are a litany of what ifs,
prosecutorial accusations of crass wastage***
***against my will, the charges brought,
against my will, plead guiltily my innocence,
against my will, knowingly, time’s erasure judgment,
secures my fate, all the granular cells causal dissipation***
***my warped willingness to be a coward,
it was my meditative, to natural be the lesser man,
choosing the safety premise, the road most oft trod,
the addition of my meager totality, willing given***
Even if all these land mine/roadblocks
and summary judgements are against my will,
willingly do I confess, in all innocence, my guilt,
“if it be my will”
Apr 4, 2021
Apr 4, 2021 at 2:45 PM UTC
Tomorrow I shall see the birth of the awaited dawn
Today it seems I am locked in a midnight zone
Tomorrow I will not walk into the dread of the night
But shall be led by the blazing light
Tomorrow I will carry my yoke manfully
And never recite the litany of my woes mournfully
Tomorrow I shall slow down and stop by the mountain side
And watch the silvery stream joyfully down way glide
Tomorrow I shall seize every chance that comes my way
And never wait for them to fall on another day
Tomorrow I shall be out of my prison cell with discord round
And shall enter a palace with joys abound
Tomorrow I shall willingly partake of another’s grief
And never seek solely my own relief
Tomorrow I shall wait for the calm that follows the storm
And not grumble in haste that life is a withering dream
Tomorrow I shall look beyond the clouds of gathered gloom
And see for myself the beauty of stars that in hundreds bloom
Tomorrow amid hostilities I shall keep alive the sparks of friendship
And never mourn the absence of anyone for companionship
Did I hear someone teasingly say to my utter surprise
“Your resolutions sound so good! But what if tomorrow doesn’t arise?”
Aug 11, 2016
Aug 11, 2016 at 10:43 AM UTC
My bed is a mass grave
My toilet is a mass grave
My kitchen sink is a mass grave
Stretched out in lines of chrysalis coke, choking the evanescent life that could have been. Straight into the empty Coca Cola can you go. A litany of atrocity in every bed, futon, desks, truck stop bathroom, camera lens, attempting to capture the genocide on film.
Alas, the lens is Covered with white, bioluminescent death.
Choking the unborn in the ****** drain.
Coffee mug refill, for but a single dime,
sweaty palms connected to strained veins on wrists,
connected to thrusting elbows.
Firing wrist rocket, V2, V1, buzz bomb.
Unsuspecting future citizens, blocks of thousands at a time.
Tadpoles, rotting in murky basement suits the world over.
The war is on.
Auschwitz, Dachau, Sachsenhausen.
Arbeit Macht Frei.
Swim for dear life
Apr 29, 2014
Apr 29, 2014 at 11:54 PM UTC
the first time i felt like a woman
the ends of my fingers polished, lashes crusted to the sky, and sticky gloss that glued my mouth shut,
cotton bullets on strings in cardboard casings and demonstrations of crushed
flower petals—feminine virtue
defined by the presence of a *****
the first time i felt like a woman
fingers curling around the rubber fetus in
my pocket, nine year old hand
pressed to my nine year old womb, as
my classmate’s mother, donning culottes
and the armor of God, issued
Psalm 139 bookmarks to the class
the first time i felt like a woman
the stain of Life, wine dark and blooming
across my blue Fruit of the Loom’s
during fifth grade band class, at home
my mother demanding to know why i didn’t tell her of my first period, she asks if
i am a compulsive liar and leaves the
Wal-Mart bag in my room, unaware she
bought me the wrong bra size
the first time i felt like a woman
my first love said “I’m not putting it away until you touch it” and i hear his voice
when i check for ankle slashers
under my car before i climb in
the first time i felt like a woman
in tenth grade the chapel speaker’s mouth saying “the most precious thing a woman can give to a man is her body” to a room full of teenagers, i wonder if
my future husband sits among us,
and if he wonders what i look like naked
the first time i felt like a Woman,
my girlhood had to die.
Jan 9, 2023
Jan 9, 2023 at 4:27 PM UTC
Just because they have disappeared
does not mean that
i'm clutter-free.
It's a cluster-free, a clusterfuck of ******* insanity.
My uncle left right after
my Grampa's funeral,
split like a chicken's *****
"he's in the airforce
or some other human-processing factory,"
Ma would say to me.
My aunt mable,
dipped out
dripped out two kids
then split
like a pillsbury biscuit.
My aunt pat's mom,
left Aunt pat on Aunt FLo's doorstep,
in the sole of her instep,
stepped out on a kid
and a husband
with a left shoe,
the right one
was left behind.
My pops
was forced out,
I saw him drag Ma
through the halls,
saw him whip her face in
with the brass-end
of a leather belt,
everybody's face was leathery
when the cops came in.
There is a litany of disappearing faces
in my family picture, a litany
of the disappeared
who reappear
over thanksgiving and christmas dinners,
when we wax nostalgiac
or hurt
over turkey,
gravy,
and biscuits.
Over love
and how many are missing.
Jan 25, 2012
Jan 25, 2012 at 12:24 AM UTC
Let lore luster lax,
Lingered love leavens.
Let love loop lilac lei lavishly.
Listen lovelorn lilt, laconic liken
Lisping liturgy, limping litany.
Litmus-leaking longing, languor lengthened.
May 10, 2013
May 10, 2013 at 1:28 AM UTC
High ground
I concede to you
in the disproportion of a time allotted to you
for the choice of robe to grace
a glorified cameo around your flesh
like a sheet designated for an overthrowing
in an honorary statue's unveiling
Liturgy is looming in the bathroom
already hot-boxed in the metal waterfall's
mist of moisture and the mountain range of bubbles
I have settled comfortably into in wait
High ground
awaits your hallowed prance
into the concealed languish of your man's
dangling imagination
I salute you with incentive
through a lowering of eyes made necessary
by your towering above my horizontal soak
I'm beseeching you to wield royal sway
over the humility of my reclined posture
with the hidden scepter of your body
fated to dictate the pace of my
anticipated knighting
The gentle thud of fabric on linoleum
incites a turning of my head to take in
the litany of parts available to my
frenetic feels and jumbled focus
Stationary in your naked smile of proximity
you extend to me excessive time to entertain options
as I coat myself in lukewarm opportunities
and rise to meet you for a bathing in my excess wetness
I accelerate my exit to negate the bubbled tribuataries
sliding to the floor to meet the remnants of your mystery
The wall is cold and you protrude
haplessly to meet the rapid chilling of my undried frame
Warmth is of the essence
Fingers split your hair in celebration
of our uniform heights and I feel you slouch
signalling our first hint of friction
and a twitch in my diviner of your cradle of essential warmth
Do you realize you now rescind creative license?
Or have you filled the snare of your intentions?
Now your balance shivers in the mercy
of my curled leg of leverage
and an coiled arm collecting your ambrosial attributes
like an ice cream scoop
Uniform heights allowing eye contact
makes optional the visual acknowledgment
of my elastic hunting in the smooth field of your breast
with a dancing thumb
I connect and latch onto what is now
our binding axis and shuffle eye contact
with the universal rhythm of a pelvic power ballad
Apr 25, 2014
Apr 25, 2014 at 10:54 PM UTC
I lay on the ground below
the curved hips of the hills at sunset
The aperture of my eyes, my *** my eyes
and the narrow escape
of mind from body
I am ten again
and they’re calling me falsey
“Big **** No bra!”
Shoving them into the lockers
of Holy Name’s pool
My eyes? Brown. My hair? Brown
My body? Invisible, lean and “Leave me alone!
or I’ll punch your lights out!”
Meanwhile, Mom is mortified
but not cause I’m banned from the stupid pool
All I want— is to run bare to the waist
Ride my bike, maniacal
Be a bird
Swipe ice from the milk truck
Marvel over maggots in garbage
Catch toads, caterpillars, pollywogs in jars
Later, sell lemonade— get rich!
…and pretend…pretend…
till the litany of our names, hollered from the porch
till the street lights come on….
*****
“This is for something you haven’t got yet”
says the matron of the fitting room
Bones in a bathing suit?
What I haven’t got?
or they haven’t got?
will never get—
in their worlds of curtained cubicles
Cause of death:
Strangulation by measuring tape!
*****
In my plaid two-piece
sunburned shoulders, wind-wild hair
By sweat and the afternoon’s imaginings
I built a fortress of sand and stones
to endure forever….
But she— shook the blanket
at the tide’s full reach
Peppered the air with an epoch
Clouds darkening
the wind-torqued sea
Finding my flip-flops, we—
trudged off…
into the changing… changing
Aug 24, 2016
Aug 24, 2016 at 9:45 PM 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
When the dark comes down, oh, the wind is on the sea
With lisping laugh and whimper to the red reef's threnody,
The boats are sailing homeward now across the harbor bar
With many a jest and many a shout from fishing grounds afar.
So furl your sails and take your rest, ye fisher folk so brown,
For task and quest are ended when the dark comes down.
When the dark comes down, oh, the landward valleys fill
Like brimming cups of purple, and on every landward hill
There shines a star of twilight that is watching evermore
The low, dim lighted meadows by the long, dim-lighted shore,
For there, where vagrant daisies weave the grass a silver crown,
The lads and lassies wander when the dark comes down.
When the dark comes down, oh, the children fall asleep,
And mothers in the fisher huts their happy vigils keep;
There's music in the song they sing and music on the sea,
The loving, lingering echoes of the twilight's litany,
For toil has folded hands to dream, and care has ceased to frown,
And every wave's a lyric when the dark comes down.
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the roof over his father’s head.
the rain.
the guardian angel
and the imaginary
friend
loving
over the loss
of toy.
his brothers on the roof
playing possum
with a possum.
her.
her and her mother
separated
by a grocery
aisle.
by litany.
his father sleep *******
on a secretly
fed
dog.
crop circles. eyeglasses. his monsters
led away
by a group of mimes
the genital
mimes.
Mar 25, 2014
Mar 25, 2014 at 12:20 PM UTC
Muggy murky dawn clogged with gloom the abbey
Where his grampy sleeps ,
Through
the drizzles fizzle
As native orchids embosoms and blossoms in his lost vault.
like a curfew drawn in the church
The pew lost its crowd
With the paws of time.
Lone man sleep
In deep latin chants they petrify you
Before sheol purifies you
And litany literature lecture limbs you
When in overprotected embankments of battlements
They dry their garbs
Where your lore forayed growth
And sweat smeared smelt breathed wealth
Chagrin dreams washed ashore
lay as upon a cold mornings recollection on a tabloids sold column
which drew your freckles bolder
In a savour of remembrance
For your zealous zealots
Who on an another 'all souls day' reoccur revisiting
the truth of their establishment
in prayers
The good Lord adorn you
Let Lekker dreams cradle you
Your consorts concert never consume you
And earth never haunt you
May 20, 2012
May 20, 2012 at 1:47 AM UTC
the moon with its lunatic face dog’s grin i throw shouts at it in the night and it hides scudding behind clouds
the world is mad and i run after birds
pigeons
like a kid in the park
trying to spit on them
give me a gun and i’ll blow off my head
one tight squeeze like on a breast on a ****** *** until it hurts saying ouch it hurts to cut a hole through your skull until everything hurts, even a quick kiss
cold eyes in the night see nothing and the moon is silent on the topic yet rising from the low bough of some hedge beneath the bush of some garden come words, mumbled love copulating briefly on black air into silence then two shadows of each *** rushing away with their disturbed laughter a fading night breeze toward dawn
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The litany of tears
Can not cease
Till man learn
To love
The people we meet.
Nov 11, 2015
Nov 11, 2015 at 8:08 PM UTC
I wish I could wish I was more in the moment and less in the haze of a memory
Find me in a nonregulation tankless sensory deprivation simulation to deep dive into why my history grips so tightly
It's not lost on me that it feeds off of the litany of my bad energy, a never ending supply and still greedy
Can't say it's a mystery, not completely, hesitation is hard wired in on the heals of every lesson in misery
Honestly it's never a surprise, not really, the first complication to arise naturally is my own reactionary jurk of the knee
Even though that's never worked out for me, never seem to benefit any, quite the contrary actually
It's entertainment for my inner dialogue, continuously laughing menacingly as it nurtures this three-ring calamity
And I'm left to recite a sorry apology with the conviction of a hostage on VHS tape through a grainy TV
So why do I do it? Clearly it's not a chosen journey but rather some hopeless, helpless destiny
One I prayed would never find me but it was as timely as untimely could be
And now, this is me
©2023
Jul 8, 2023
Jul 8, 2023 at 7:22 PM UTC
Suddenly, it's not love anymore, it's a memory.
I'm alone, drunk in a bathroom and my thoughts don't crawl to the section of my brain where you are located.
You don't have a place in my blood, I can count on one hand the times I've said your name in the last year.
Does that make a sinner because you were once my God? I'd swallow every syllable uttered in my direction, scripture licked from my lips, and wipe my face clean with your affirmations.
And I was clean-bogged down by a perpetual hangover and hands that won't ever stop shaking and hair that never smelt like anything other than your cologne and cigarettes- but I was clean, I was saved.
And every time I knelt before you, I was saved again and again.
So call me unfaithful because I have forsaken you, though long after you did me, and you did, you did.
You've been gone so long, I can't even remember what your voice sounds like.
All I have is a memory of a grin plastered on a face, all teeth and a head reared back: gleaming, mirth incarnate.
But that image can't force me to perform ceremony in your name anymore.
My eyes will only water, no streams fall down my face.
The earth you walk on now is scorched, by women who no longer see your face any time they close their eyes. You are Moses in a desert with no followers, just an endless mirage: a girl who will never love you beckons you further and further. And I am sure you are thirsty.
Then, call out my blasphemy, I swear I won't hear your accusations over the litany of curses muttered along with your name.
I am Judas, I am Brutus, in the last circle of hell, for I am betrayer of the only religion that ever made me feel whole.
But I couldn't spend another prayer on my knees.
Aug 13, 2018
Aug 13, 2018 at 6:39 PM UTC
CHATTER of birds two by two raises a night song joining a litany of running water-sheer waters showing the russet of old stones remembering many rains.
And the long willows drowse on the shoulders of the running water, and sleep from much music; joined songs of day-end, feathery throats and stony waters, in a choir chanting new psalms.
It is too much for the long willows when low laughter of a red moon comes down; and the willows drowse and sleep on the shoulders of the running water.
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