"marvelled" poems
when i was a boy,
i collected seashells.
i had the most beautiful collection
when i was a boy.
i dreamt of seashells
and what i dreamt was beside
me every morning of everday
when i was a boy.
i had red ones and blue ones
white ones and rounds ones
ones of beauty and of majesty
when i was a boy.
the world marvelled at my collection
the world coveted my collection
i had the most beautiful seashell collection
when i was a boy.
one day i looked out through a window
and saw a boy walking along the beach
he picked up the plainest of seashells
and smiled
i raged and raged and raged
for forty days and forty nights
i raged
when i was a boy.
Jun 19, 2010
Jun 19, 2010 at 6:41 PM UTC
You say, "Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels”
but I say surely something
must taste nicer than the burning acid
being forced back up your throat.
Why not hug people instead of
toilet bowls? At least they’ll hug back.
Except Mia is your only friend now.
And her cousin, Ana, of course.
And I understand that you never
wanted to die, but this is a thousand ton truck
hurtling towards the edge of a cliff and
Ana took the wheel a long time ago.
There is no strength in this: in you, in a
fear of calories. Even your bones creak
as your muscles sigh with exhaustion -
for this, is not a war you're winning.
This is a battle with only one contender
and I will not be the one to disarm you.
That's your job and it always has been. I know
you only wanted to be beautiful
like all those stars in the magazines
you saved under a file titled ‘thinspo’
but the only stars you ever saw were in
your eyes from the dizziness
and to tell you the truth, you are not pretty.
For there is nothing “pretty”
about the layer of fuzz your body grew
to protect itself from the big bad wolf
when really, the only growl was coming
from inside your stomach.
Or how your little sister is afraid to touch,
let alone hug you, in fear of snapping you in two.
For there is no glamour in having to
remove clumps of hair out of the plughole
at least six times whilst having a shower,
just to let the water run down.
Or that one time you "accidentally”
took too many laxatives. Messy.
There is nothing admirable about the way
you sat shivering on your bed
at night instead of kissing boys,
or dancing, or eating ice cream.
There is nothing to be marvelled at
in dying.
This, is not a life to be lived.
God, this isn't even a life.
This is being a slave to your own body,
a walking zombie, a ghost stuck
between two sides.
You are not alive.
But it was all still worth it, right?
Slowly killing yourself from the inside out.
A small price to pay for perfection,
a bargain for a broken mirror;
for a half-written book
with 97 blank pages,
a camera
that only captures in black and white,
a clock
with frozen hands.
And most importantly, for a peace of mind
you never received.
No refunds.
Dec 8, 2013
Dec 8, 2013 at 11:59 AM UTC
(Pompeii/Florence, 1997)
Vulcan was real, alive as you were,
you and your language, long dead now.
Your town was prosperous, with its paved streets,
bars, bath-houses, brothels,
mosaics, painted walls, graffiti.
Your domestic gods too were real to you;
they had saved you before,
and when the superhuman hammer blows shook
your houses, you repaired them,
decorated in greater splendour,
erected a temple to your protectors.
But Vulcan was not appeased - years are not long
to the lord of earth and fire.
This time he struck swiftly, sending you death
from his mountain, overwhelming you
as you ran. Your garden
gave you no protection,
hot fumes choked you,
hot ash surrounded you,
sealed in your tomb as you died.
The ones who excavated your town
marvelled at its completeness,
and in the ash that filled your garden
they found hollows.
Filling the hollows with plaster,
they found . . . not you,
but echoes of yourselves,
like statues in a museum.
We came to see you, and after that
to the Academy, standing in awe
at David's perfect marble humanity.
But we were troubled by the others,
the uncompleted ones, the Prisoners,
their twisted limbs, hidden faces,
frozen in the act of emerging
from the stone, recalling too painfully
in their unfinished creation
your own agonised poses
as you died.
*"I had seen birth and death,
but had thought they were different."*
.
Aug 26, 2016
Aug 26, 2016 at 3:02 PM UTC
Woman, you have the backbone of an earth
and a faith that Abraham would have marvelled at.
You walk and you follow with your eyes above ground,
your feet leave imprints of peace.
Woman, you laugh at the sun
You bathe in rays that scorch because you know
That pain only lasts through the night.
Nov 1, 2015
Nov 1, 2015 at 5:21 AM UTC
The pot-bellied Mercedes squealed
As Meursault withdrew and
Marvelled at the flames
Licking
The air
Like marigolds on Ritilin.
'Raymond would have no reason not to admire this act.'
He stopped by a shimmering sea of Ubers.
The scrape and drawl of siren made no impression on him.
Leaking smoke reminded him of
Snow White’s Cottage
Where he had taken Marie when Lucie was born:
The place where he would go out at dawn to chop wood.
He liked the way her roses played
With the restlessness of children.
Then he thought: 'if only mother could see me now.'
Mar 22, 2021
Mar 22, 2021 at 6:57 AM UTC
this bowl can still
be repaired
even if it
seems broken
irredeemably
even if its pieces
have been trodden
underfoot
further ground down
in an effort
to recover those
scattered fragments
as unlikely as
it may be that
these edges can
be jigsawed together
aligned once more
it could simply be
a case of
embracing the cracks
that might remain
filling them
with something
to be marvelled at
Mar 21, 2023
Mar 21, 2023 at 8:52 PM UTC
In the crevice of conflation the planets watch,
In awe as the worlds collide
Each solar system fusing as one
To create a world unlike any other
Being pulled into a hole in the universe
Darker than the empty night sky
And the lack of stars
The constellations pulled apart
Like strings being snapped
When in an instant
It all stops
For a few mere seconds everything is calm
Until BAM
The self destruction of the colliding worlds
Was a beauty to be marvelled at
Each system seemed to explode
And paint the dreary sky
Creating an array of colors
Forming new strung stars,
Reshaping the old ones
And starting a new life for everything
That once was
Oct 6, 2015
Oct 6, 2015 at 12:20 AM UTC
XXIII
Is it indeed so? If I lay here dead,
Wouldst thou miss any life in losing mine?
And would the sun for thee more coldly shine
Because of grave-damps falling round my head?
I marvelled, my Beloved, when I read
Thy thought so in the letter. I am thine—
But . . . so much to thee? Can I pour thy wine
While my hands tremble ? Then my soul, instead
Of dreams of death, resumes life’s lower range.
Then, love me, Love! look on me—breathe on me!
As brighter ladies do not count it strange,
For love, to give up acres and degree,
I yield the grave for thy sake, and exchange
My near sweet view of Heaven, for earth with thee!
2k
Yesterday, a cloud burst in mythologies
and the rain fidgeted over the retreat
of a tidal pantheon; deities swept away
by a current, and we stood awhile, watching
the moon elbow out the dusk. Breathing
is burdensome when cars float on water
and corpses leak out of cavernous
basements. Every tablet, etched, in the cold
heart of building code was read again
and then again. It wasn't enough to blame
Aeolian whim or the raging riposte of Apollo,
now that we had marvelled away Gaia's
ozone skirt. Her amnion always leaked
in folkloric floods each time she birthed
a parable. She once asked Noah to build
an ark so he could ride her waves
and we scrape the sky to impale her
in shards where her womb is soft and yielding,
as we sour the air and burn the water and strip
her of her emerald sigh and melt her hills
and silt her wetlands. Mostly it was the asphalt
plastering her yearning that calcified her veins
and arteries, as she died slowly under our feet.
We could hardly fathom her sorrow for the tears
rolled off her torso like an oil slick
and rode far into the subway for sewers.
Sep 15, 2021
Sep 15, 2021 at 4:29 PM UTC
A famous "Barry Hodges" poem!
I was strolling along the Normandy beaches
In the close vicinity of Caen one day
With a very tasty piece of arm-candy to hand
When I found a bleached human femur on the beach.
Oh dear me, what thoughts this conjured up in my brain
As I imagined whose bone it might have been!
Perhaps some pathetic soldier boy landing in forty-four
Who got slotted by a gallant German gunner,
His eyes feasting on the sacrificial cannon fodder
So foolishly supplied for his target practice.
Then, as I grabbed my lady friend's juicy ****
Causing her to turn and sink her tongue into my earhole,
We sank onto the sands in order to sate our lusts,
(enflamed by a very delicious meal of moules marinières
and a bucket or two of well-chilled Muscadet sur Lie)
I thought, what the **** does it all matter?
This is now, and that was then, and this old world
Has become a much nicer place nowadays;
But how mistaken I was in that fond thought;
Oh what an idealist I am in a world of woe.
For, all of a sudden, a contingent of fat dwarfs appeared,
Totally naked apart from their luminous Uncle Sam hats
And the Stars and Stripes hanging from their arseholes;
How I marvelled at their disgusting shapes
(and how surprised was I to find their genitals
were of normal measurements and thus
rather intrusively large by comparison
with the rest of their miniature bodies).
O dear Lord and alleged Father of Mankind
Forgive their horrid ways verily and forsooth.
With a whoop, those demented military retards, [see note below]
The famous 118th battalion ****** Marine veterans,
A contingent of whom emerged from a portable toilet
(which must have been a bit of a tight squeeze),
Chopped my girl-friend up with their bayonets,
Whereupon I crapped myself in terror and pity,
Before retrieving the purse from the eviscerated corpse,
Realizing that her PIN number was still useable
Until 'les flics' discovered her unfortunate remains
After the shore ***** had partaken thereof.
Mar 10, 2015
Mar 10, 2015 at 8:08 AM UTC
The highest market town in the land
and
I've been there,
sat in the town square
looked down across the valley and marvelled at the peaks,
wondered how the sheep survive
so high
in Hawes.
The summer pours its Yorkshire sun on those who come to visit Hawes,
ideal for those who like to pause amidst the scenery
**** in the greenery
and just be still.
I will return to watch the seasons burn the land in colours bright
and I,
hold tight to this my dream
for I have seen
Gods handiwork
at work among the dales.
Nov 10, 2013
Nov 10, 2013 at 6:10 PM UTC
Beyond the pale of memory,
In some mysterious dusky grove;
A place of shadows utterly,
Where never coos the turtle-dove,
A world forgotten of the sun:
I dreamed we met when day was done,
And marvelled at our ancient love.
Met there by chance, long kept apart,
We wandered through the darkling glades;
And that old language of the heart
We sought to speak: alas! poor shades!
Over our pallid lips had run
The waters of oblivion,
Which crown all loves of men or maids.
In vain we stammered: from afar
Our old desire shone cold and dead:
That time was distant as a star,
When eyes were bright and lips were red.
And still we went with downcast eye
And no delight in being nigh,
Poor shadows most uncomforted.
Ah, Lalage! while life is ours,
Hoard not thy beauty rose and white,
But pluck the pretty fleeing flowers
That deck our little path of light:
For all too soon we twain shall tread
The bitter pastures of the dead:
Estranged, sad spectres of the night.
1.5k
The music shot into her eardrum like a trance-inducing drug, each bang of the drum, each rhythmic flow, each string of the guitar would slowly take her under. Under hypnosis.
The power of the beat was so intense, that it lifted her chin and shoved her into the floor of dance. There, was where she found herself in a state of uncontrolled and vigorous rhythmic movement. The music had somewhat possessed her limbs as though they had a mind of their own. Her routine was calculated and her foot movement, unique.
She, all at once, knew and knew not what she was doing. As her surroundings stood marvelled in awe, she was alone. Her hips shaking and bouncing as though a chemical mixture was being synthesised deep within her, a mixture that was yet to explode. Explode with power so great, it would possess others in her 'roundings. Surroundings that would, in time faster than inhalation, be under the same knife. With movements and sways that embodied and humanised the worship of music.
Rhythm is their God, the controller of beings. Almost as if dance is the ritual of prayer, and the club, a mosque or sacred ground.
Like rhythm is the favoured slave-driver. Like rhythm is the unfeared tyrant. Like rhythm is what brings the animalistic spirit within us all back to life after daylight and spiritual rest. Like rhythm is the pair of unspoken arms that push them, its subjects, over the precipise and into the river of flow. And under The Rhythm's spell, they will move, they will love it.
May 22, 2013
May 22, 2013 at 12:53 PM UTC
I've always marvelled at the human brain,
And the beauty of its complex intricacies.
It can process at speed beyond comprehension,
Its more efficient than any man-made invention,
Until I'm talking to a female... then it just really ***** me over.
Mar 22, 2017
Mar 22, 2017 at 5:27 AM UTC
i am ambidextrous – i can count how many times you’ve hurt me on both hands and i am ambivalent, i love you but i hate you
there is a certain ambience i recall in flashbacks and unspoken memories, however it fades as quickly as my smile when your name is mentioned
there is so much ambiguity in your eyes when you gaze at me – i stopped marvelling over you and your thoughts and instead marvelled over myself
who am i, without you? what am i, without you?
i am a life of ambition
you are a life of indifference
Jul 20, 2015
Jul 20, 2015 at 6:19 PM UTC
And the knowledge of the hedgerow plant, I found embedded in leaf veins ... like in mine, etched along blue lines of a notebook. In the ripples on the remnants of water that pooled, before the mudflats claimed them are the striations of ol'butot near Naivasha. His stories tell of caves, a gleaming obsidian of a pre historic introspection. Do forty day fasts suffice to exorcise the springs of sulphur or the forced baptism of a flash flood washing six souls to Hades ? The sun glinted at me through a narrowness of fate, a gorge of interminable seconds and I marvelled at the strata of time in a warp, for it blurted out a moan.
Love spoke in nuanced layers of molten flow that crawled to stillness. Can I not say that stone speaks? A couple of hundred years back in time, self titled discoverers had seen land that had not been unseen by the thousands who lived for thousands until then. So yes, the strata spoke to me, like the striations in the leaves and the lines that were everywhere telling stories of interminable seconds. Time grooves like a death valley in an engraving, etched like a memory of that which has never been, ripples on sand, circles on water,
Apr 12, 2021
Apr 12, 2021 at 10:49 AM UTC
Silenced, in awe,
They watched her paint,
Bringing life to a canvas.
Bold colours
And fierce brushstrokes.
They marvelled at her masterpiece.
Me, I watched her face as she painted,
The emotions sweeping over her,
Bringing life to the canvas she was.
And I was humbled
And I was in awe
And I marvelled
At the true masterpiece.
Aug 8, 2015
Aug 8, 2015 at 8:26 AM UTC
When I was younger they told me I was always
full of heat even when I swam in the sea and danced in the puddles,
I could be feral and free because I was always 37 degrees.
They marvelled at me.
How things change, swathed in blankets. I am always freezing.
I produce just enough body heat not to denature enzymes,
I am only warm with someone beside me, so dependant
that I need you not just for my dreams, my skin craves your heat.
Oct 28, 2013
Oct 28, 2013 at 2:42 PM UTC
I have stood out on a dark night with no cloud to hide the sky.
And allowed my pupil to focus to become a night time eye.
I have marvelled at the bands of pearl all strung upon the air.
And gazed upon the awesome beauty of the magic awaiting there.
Wisps of faintest cloud stretched through the sparks of light.
Shine like opalescent jewels against the blackness of the night.
Dark filaments and veils against the brighter bands.
That in minds eye give the illusion of fingers sifting sands.
On such nights I have raised a scope to see what I could see.
And have been astounded by the wonders uncovered there to me.
Stars so very distant and of every fiery shade and hue.
Some seem of yellow gold and some of the most crystal blue.
I have looked upon the clouds of gas remnant stars no longer there.
And seen the lustrous beauty of how stars die painted in the air.
Silhouettes of dark clouds that hide where new light is born .
Against backdrop much brighter seemingly blown apart and torn.
Lens turned to the blackness where my eye could see no sights.
Magnifying an endless field so distant of heavens burning lights.
Endless is the wonder and vast and timeless is the scale.
Out upon the universe where only light has time and speed to sail.
Aug 23, 2019
Aug 23, 2019 at 10:38 AM UTC
Skinned knee, tree-barked knuckles,
fights in the long grass pal.
Friends so long that we've our own,
private language
(which renders these public outpourings
largely irrelevant)
and can go years, now,
with no contact
yet never really be apart.
Last Christmas we hooked up,
marvelled at the passing of time,
and you recalled that the last time we met
I gave you a book of my poems.
"Did you read them?" I asked,
and brilliantly, unembarrassed,
you replied:
"No. I looked at the first one,
saw that it went over the page,
thought: 'Oh, that's long -
I'll read that later,'
but I never did."
And we laughed uproariously
as I seldom do with anyone else.
But I know
that long after every other copy
has been thumbed ragged,
misplaced,
passed on
and lost
your copy will remain
pristine and safe
on your shelf
Because although you have
no more interest in poetry now
than either of us did at the age of eleven,
you'll look after it
because your pal wrote it.
Mar 7, 2013
Mar 7, 2013 at 3:58 AM UTC
Our faults lined up like constellations
Shown alight on the midnight sky
We marvelled at them lovingly, in silence
From your bed and mine
Our sins kept us warm like the morning sun
Keeping life within our reach
They awakened our hearts, killed our darkness,
Kept our resolves breached
Our love polluted our hearts with selfishness
Planted resentment in our minds
And now we hate for never finding
Where each other chose to hide
May 5, 2015
May 5, 2015 at 12:42 AM UTC
My soul is an empty crisps packet
caught in the sour mood of a shouting wind
She snarled and I careened
— a drunken trapeze artist
That moody spirit let me fall upon a mountain top
at the feet of a brick of a black man shouting
he has seen the promised land!
My heart cracked as an egg that slipped from the bench:
his people still stumble in chains
My shouting mistress carried me aloft and I fell
in the slit of a rock upon another summit
where the finger of God scratched Hebrew into stone
The wizard’s face burned as the Lord’s shadow
passed before him as the orange tears of a volcano
I know, I heard him call up to the Almighty. They’ll
melt their earrings and innocence and cast a calf
Beneath the roar of my mistress’s temper I heard the
wizard plead like a lawyer, forgive them Lord
They don’t yet know
That temper carried my dizzy soul to another peak and
I beheld a young man slap the Devil on his left cheek
Get thee hence, Satan, he said, rejecting a throne
offered by that beauty with the stinging face
I heard the wind hiss and I cringed awaiting another crash
I broke my fall like a child off a bed and marvelled
at the sight —Oh God what a sight!
ten thousand prostrating candles hurling shadows from a cave
and ripping sleep off a man with the bugle command, Recite!
My soul my soul! I am overcome. I begged the wind to return me
to my home and she took pity and swept me in a final gust
Apr 22, 2016
Apr 22, 2016 at 10:26 AM UTC
The marvelled servile manifestation of faces in the waves
mere grains of sand
against the world.
Nov 27, 2011
Nov 27, 2011 at 12:26 PM UTC
Here I'm at this point(the present) standing placidly and astoundingly glancing at the zenith with wishes of reaching that peak and pinnacle of success. One step at a time, till you learn how to fly and I've heard a few say "patience is a virtue" and I believe so too,I believe patience is a harvest that's fruitful and can only bring forth happiness. Greatness takes time to acquire and for you to discover it within you requires qualities such as determination,patience and ambition. Those play a vital role for you to embrace that greatness.
As I reciprocate to my thoughts and reminisce about the years gone by,a phenomena occurs..I get a vivid glimpse of the future. Marvelled at my willingness to catapult beyond confinements. I give thanks to my inner peace that sources of this confidence so I could unflinchingly go toe-to-toe with any obstruction that gets on my path.
I live my life aware that with each breath I take I'm blessed therefore I'm appreciative of each day I get to live. I strategically calculate the steps I have to take to land me on the podium. In patience,occurs unnatural omens which signify the skies never receiving your hope. So even if I fail along the way I could never be inclined to give it all up.
P A T I E N C E = G R E A T N E S S
May 14, 2015
May 14, 2015 at 12:52 PM UTC