She tried everything
just to be loved.
Sadness and despair
kept in her heart.
In her melancholies
that no one knows.
They don't even care at all.
See things through that smile
Someone save her
even just for once.

[transformative melancholies]

frog
in the throat
of a lowing
cow

dad, smoking

two nearby deer
nosing that headlight
into place

poem is dead

~

[her father, his pipe]

all

them broken
babies
of tornado

drills…

eat, she says
to a fog
machine

~

[mom is using after the dream a home pregnancy test as a microphone]

I am counting
the realest
sheep-

my brother’s toothbrush
good as new

in my broken
hand

~

[the rapture]

grief is grief because it attempts to mourn the infinite. my leg’s blood becomes a branch. I breathe and think I’m eating.

~

ALSO

I have a new, privately self-published chapbook/exploration titled {the accepted field} that I’m making available for free for about a month to the first 10-20 people that request it. if interested, message me on here or at bartonsmock@yahoo.com with a physical address.

I'm sorry I lived so short a life.
I'm sorry that my dreams
were filled with sadness and regret.
Forgive me
for always having loved
too indifferently, for my light
still being too faint.

I didn't want to hurt future,
to condemn your dreams to death.
I was born too early to trust
in tears and to renounce silence.

I wanted to love you so much,
but there was still a false
blackness flowing
in my too tight veins.
I didn't understand the warmth
you offered me despite
my coldness and distance.

I'm sorry you waited so long
for my conscience to resurrect
in me, for longing to find its source.
For many years
I extinguished hope in you,
you waited a long time
for me to wake up from
this enslavement.

Don't be angry that I realized
it too late. I believe in the beginning
of the end, in the power
of lost melancholies.

Of perpetual sadness
It is my closet and dearest companion
Speckled writhing snakes of madness
Melancholies gold jeweled scepter
A dark gaunt haunting specter I am
Walking hand in hand with betrayal
The confidant of love

Welcome to my world of voluntary isolation
Playing hide and seek with trepidation
I do not speak
For my mind racing at speeds beyond comprehension
Of these thoughts, I shall make no mention
For they will shatter your beliefs and offend your senses

Welcome to my world
Where sulfur smelling whispering shadows abound
Death hovers round rings of on destiny of his fingers
Waiting watching
Silent patient and knowing

I am a rare painting of violence
Rendered by a greedy vicious hand
Created by a monster who dances behind a smile
That cannot be destroyed

Welcome to my world.



All Rights Reserved @ Tammy M. Darby Sept. 13, 2014.
All Material Stored in Author base

What is the void?
Nothingness manifested?
There can’t really be such a thing…
How can there be nothing?

It’s impossible.

You can’t fault me for having trouble wrapping my head around an idea as intricate and deeply infinite as nothing. From a young age, we’re taught that everything, even empty space, is created from protons, neutrons,  subatomic particles…

Empty space is always made from something else.

Some describe the void not as a place, but instead as spiritual enlightenment and/or liberation. As detachment from everything. Some describe entering the void as the moment one realizes that if you try too hard to understand then you will miss the point; as the moment where the student realizes that he will never be able to anticipate his masters surprise attack, so, instead of being anxious he accepts his inability to know; as the understanding that holding on is suffering and letting go is freedom.

There is no way to truly talk about the void, about emptiness, because there is nothing tangible to be expressed in words. And yet, our curious human minds are so fixated on using dialogue to try and articulate this commodity.

Words will always fail.

Even if we could wrap our heads around this idea of emptiness, this complete and total lack of anything (comfort, love, hate, despair, joy, happiness, agony(all pieces of this complicated fabric known as human existence)) we would descend into the deepest and darkest of melancholies. The sudden moment of realization that non-being and being are one and the same and that the only thing separating the two is the awareness of being aware and the unawareness of being unaware would be too much to endure. The weight of realizing that nothing is everything, that we are 0 (placeholders for nothing (the extinction of our species before a return to nature untainted imminent)) would prove to be the strongest link of all in these shackles of existence.

What is the void?

Maybe it’s best not to ponder this any further.

I heard painful derision of the nightfall
drawn me to seclude my talent
into the unknown place where it was not born futile.
It has been years since you ate my mind;
since we met in that strange road
where all melancholies diverged,
you have been my relief, my friend
and my witness when I was crippled by tears.

I seldom asked the mirrors, why should I continue?
If there are thousands of people outside our worlds
who could create you better than I,
who could make you more attractive than my pen?
Why should I continue my dreams?
And so I almost gave up, surrendered in peace;
I always wake up on the wrong side of the bed.

I was sailing edges of the oceans
just to seek for a masterpiece,
but I was fooled by my selfish intentions
and so I laughed at myself for length,
for there were a bunch of times
I could not even bestow you a single word.

I was totally bruised; buried my feet on the ground.
Others love my poetry, others just trifle,
others read it aloud that no one can hear,
others in facade of silence.
It matters no more, I have critics then.

I write not to impress, but simply to express
my undefined emotions, and unstitched fantasies.
Well, composing you is little bit hard for my part,
but you were a butterfly in my heart.

We are but a blinding light,
blinding life and all it's might.

when she sees us, it is all blur.
stars become puffs of light and the moon is
trapped in a glowing sac.

O life is a kaleidescope of chances,
of choice and of left footed dancers.

and when we rest all we see is darkness,
when our bodies die in bed we are free,
we roam the dreamworld like a nomad,
we walk and never see our own hands...

we climb the hills of evergreen,
we ride the blades of the windmills,
we swim the rivers of wine and honey,
we bite the cherries and spit whisky on melancholies. . .

and then we wake. . .

with blood in our lips,
we smirk at life
and we all die once again,
like it all really happened.

I. (The Gone).
They have gone.
Why does it bother me so?
A truth,
only a handful of gems
stay bright,
all others
faded
like pencil on paper
until a faint mark remains,
what was, what now is.
Names in conversation,
a drive down the alphabet
then and now,
clotted recollections
breaking apart
each time, stalled
in silent traffic.
A few, needles I suppose,
a shot in the arm
again, again,
I cannot believe
how many times
their voices
painted everything,
but long gone,
no abrasion or impact
to consider, to revise.
On occasion,
a stretch into fog,
icy melancholies
but not always
a echo,
moments to inform
me they can return
if they wish.

II. (The Bare Feet).
So, it is night.
Whorls of cream
came through the door,
sleepyhead next to me,
ragged, tired,
out of juice.
I can only say
‘I knew you would.’
This is not your home
but we’re not far away.
Lipstick less rosy,
sound of drums
still throbs in our ears
but it was worth it,
for confetti,
flecks of gold
whirling around
you, the crowd.
Peachy lights
spray across
your face,
piano black eyes,
warm bare feet.
It is not real
but we can touch,
we can speak.
On our knees,
we look at each other,
I hold you,
the minutes
stutter past
and for a moment
only silence,
silence is all
we need for our words
are used too much.

III. (The Next.)
It took
over a year
but we saw
each other again.
Since the end
of a grey June day,
two years
elsewhere,
forty miles the difference.
He quit,
the right choice
he tells me
as we reminisce,
that’s what it is
these days,
now he looks
for the next stage
and soon
it will be me
who must fully
step into adulthood,
like a foot plunged
into a bath,
too hot, too cold.
Did we expect this?
If we could see
next year
would we smile
or scowl?
Tell ourselves
it’s just the way
things go,
on, on, on.
Now, as I look
out my window,
the faintest tinge
of orange
descending,
I know, he knows
we don’t know
what comes next.

I don't know what it feels like in space.
What the astronauts feel as they float and look out the window
and see a colossal Earth
As they look out the window and see a glimmering light,
an auratic moon and a vast emptiness
It must be pretty
But I doubt it is anything like swinging in the dawn
As I swing, my black and ***** hair is blown back and forth as it kisses the air
With every swing I take I leave behind my melancholies

I've been hearing the birds sing for the past two hours,
and the sun is not yet visible.
If I swing a few more minutes
and the cloudy skies clear,
it'll wake from its daily nap,
from behind my back.
Maybe I can see its reflection through the water in the pool
that sits a few meters from me.

Oh, how the wind is cool.
It blows away those dandelion flower seeds that hit my skin.
When I swing and glide through the wind,
it becomes the closest thing to flying or anything akin.
It does not oppose
Instead, it pushes me higher, closer to the sky
as if I could fly, giving me wings, like the birds that sing.



If I could go to space or wake up early one day,
I would choose to stay.
Here I can swing and kick the air,
hear the birds’ serenade,
and smell the freshness of the moist earth in the air.
This beauty cannot be compared.
I rather swing and observe the forming of this beauty here
Like I do the early Thursday morning .

When, torpid, the sun begins to grey
In the outlines of clouds on the move
But in no hurry, autumn reaches for its full potential.
What leaves there could have been
Were shot away, we’d have paid them no mind, anyway.
There is a roughness tangled in your hair,
It’s best, I think, to let it be
And, instead, to view the wide expanse of beach,
Which marches into the frigid sea,
Debating with itself and at last achieving a landscape
Pure enough to match the temperature: 40 degrees F.

I can feel your hand stiffen and I
Too sense the tension in the afternoon,
A resistance to our huddled, timid presence; we’re nearly frozen in the process.
Drawing closer, hoods, tightening our jackets
Won’t do much to prevent the
Days from shortening and the hours’ agonizing stretching-
Out.  It’s not time enough
To take in the red and white display
Which umbrella shades act out tiredly before us.
Then the waves, mischievous as ever,
Creep up the sand to ****** at our shoes
Before they swagger back to the sea.  Love
Is lounging in the break, sopping wet
And fully-clothed—boots and all.
In the brief moments when our thoughts and talk collide, hours fit for memory
Flit us by.  Hairy swathes of weedy dunegrass
Wilt with hindsight.

Please, slow.  A rushed gaze and a blink are futility
At the shore; looking, here,
Is tenderer than you’d imagine.
Finalized versions of the day are worth one short glance,
But no more than that; you see
Too many things are
Strewn about these days; it is unclear who is
At fault for these mysteries, only that today,
At the boardwalk there are many brooding melancholies.
Silently, a hard wind licks the sand.

I'm not in figedty and in perplex manner
whenever thine populace aren't in sync
onto bridging in the gaps
  that's not so befitting--
well-intentioned unique individuals
and somehow finding uniformity,
ways to connect, naturally,
--lies into thinking, sweetly,
of the welfare o' others firstly.

whilst entitled to do as
he pleases with himself
so far as it in no wise,
interferes with one's
rights to live at peace
with himself, otherwise!
in haste o' the modern-day- pressures,
is such a waste
in the Truest deepest sense,
we ought not missed eternal ideals
o' t'is' life's difficulties,
whoso, nonconformist,
mine earthly near at hand.
as we all set ourselves to bite a bit
o ' that and apiece
o' life's lion-shares
alongside pie in sky-
biting the hand that feeds us,
[ so to speak...]
for an average joe,
Suchlike give much thought....
Unbeknownst, waiting and longing
As yet benighted throughout the mooning
darknest and cloudest dilemmas
ALAS, lest alone, coincides
with dread o' e'ery dusk
smothering haziness
in love -when-it melts...
AS nightfall subsides
up the ole buttermilk sky- full o' star's twinkling - sighing and tearing apart..
unyielding enough unto my innermost
along with the falseness o' being trick
partly because o' being majestic
practically - realistic
In life's perpetual wisdom I so carry by far. .
Thereby,  we, but learned the storms o' life:
how anyone conducts-as-antagonistics?.
Pessimistics
Agnostics
solely wound up to grievous lull,
and wish to conquer undesirable
tendencies and kiss o ' death!
UPPERMOSTLY, vastly regained,
moreover, abreast-again
Oh my good gosh, it's therapuetic!
HENCEFORTH unto
picking
myself up after I have
been knocked - down-
TO KEEP on when e'erything seems to be against all odds o' the "blame game"...
back into nothing which spells boundlessly..
so can I right away pick up the pieces?

and overcome these unsettling uncertainties
o ' living life from day in and day out.
truth o ' the matter of - fact- of thine ingratitude world!
People in general get entangled
with busy-nest-web
amidst foreboding fretfulness
that unravels fleeting worries
about to and fro-
uproaring ebbs of tides
o ' the seafaring winds - blowing..
just as it is happening nowadays
up to cold-hearted - shoulders
moment full o' melancholies
thus thou,  one don't reach out
nor canst not care out and about
but just be on their own self
DOOMED himself ungrateful spirit!
seen as egotistical maniacs
contrary to my beliefs
and my faithfulness..
LET alone -Thee bestows
unceasingly triumphs
just because it's okay
not to be okay
to say the least
It's un-manly
and play- decoy
YET LIFE,
moves forward under
DIVINE CONVOY!
INASMUCH,  manipulative PLOY
to mind one's beauty
or disguise chaste morals
for the uttering dews to
injure or harm a'other
in turn to get "square even-steven"
SOWITH holds true with beguilement
think for a moment,
I'll meet that person
halfway between the lines
with patience and its silver linings. .
hasty words that slows any anger
whereforth, oblivion takes over scar!
that's luring to a smiling brood...
Imperfections are what we are made of,
Hey, the noblest prettiest
yeah, at bay with silence
I LOOK within....
First off, God on my side. ..
For He heareth at my bedside..

Within thine foundation
o ' thine goodness
Sure that ne'er fails. .
Hopefully, get rid o' the evil!
While I was dancing with the devil!
So does thereby,
wilst ever bubble up
if thou languish
to each its own rights
to dig his own heels..
and the outright layer of its color, creed,
and value from stern course o ' self-discipline,
such and such a rearrangement o' character
whom stands to live a sane contemplative state o' the mind..
launching anew,
better on higher-end
level o' spiritual
aspirations;
glamouring stance
Bestowing light to others
Sharing - LOVE for others
shouldn't be in rash,
indecisiveness,
rather, intellectually
with good reasonings,
good judgements
passed thine genial compliments,
WHEREIN, thou soled- loving-heart dwells
insofar as mere,
happy-ness-charms,
Mine thy lonesomeness
-the-soul-into - satisfying
at ease the love I deserve
hankering and longingly-
Even tho' forever-waiting
in its stillness-
I'd bewriting it down
and speak my mind
in any shape form,
aforesaid
and done
bewailing free verses,  
thus,
soul-lonest-mine swells
A LA MODE
Essentially,
at my Fervent HAVEN!

dark watch beyond
whose melancholies sang of a savage sleep
and the dimly virtuous poets
who lingered like the kindness of death
writing their peace out line by line
into uneasy slumbers
many nights far afield
where we held up their verse like a lamp
the grace of the muse still showing the way
serene as unexplained stars by day

Maybe I've not woken up
so promptly.
Maybe I've not silenced
so prudently.
Maybe I've never listened to you.

"The deep cut
is not the only pain
felt in this world.
Do something lovely,
otherwise, I get confused."

I hear the orchestra play.
It announces tragedy
which I persisted in not to remember;
however, the symphony describes that day:
too many suspended melancholies in the air.

I asked you not leave like this
and you asked me to be courageous.
And suddenly, the explosion took you from me
as well as from your pleasurable love.
How can I go on without one for whom I came?

Regretting is out of time
– empty thing, rather unstable.
Staring at the sky, I remember the words of yore:
"the dawn is so admirable
after the night goes away."

pandora opens her chest at midnight:
it is a box left out in the rain,
a wound unstitched in despair for october,
a small voice hushed by forlorn hours.

and dead gods forget so easily,
but
pandora still opens her chest at midnight
and the walls huddle to look at an ugly wound
left open to bleed all over
dusty pink cosmos flowers.
and drapes huddle, too,
to look at a nest of sorrows creeping about,
as though a wake, a vigil,
a somber watch that only ends
with all of my bones breaking.

but dead gods forget so easily,
and dead girls forget so easily,
and i forget so easily
all the aching hours that had kissed my skin
and their graceless, moonlit pull,
and i am left to lie
languishing on soft, breakable spots.

and so pandora closes her chest:
a box to never be opened, a vault behind a frame.
a flash of stray light on a wound sealed shut. safe. secure.
there is no space for conspicuous melancholies.
there is no space for anything —
there is no space for hope.

and the gods forget so easily.

I am so far from dreaming about
a cursed heart. That's how far away
is the star that will be
the last to go out.

The uncertainty of your words
hurts me - even more than thoughts
that are lost in a moment.
Drop by drop, melancholies collide,
freshly conceived, still purple.

I dream of your memories,
I recall sadness that died in silence.
Darkness curses my cry,
the entirety of the sky
finds a mirror in your mind.

I don't hear the sound of the wind
that brings me close to your scent,
your taste, in which I still find myself.

I curse the times in which
I sought salvation.
I agree with the promise that everyone
has their own shadow.

A part of the future will forever
remain at the bottom of tenderness.
The otherness of tomorrow
will only give a few tears
that are too blue.

I will find in you the longing for which
everyone still goes to sleep.
Where do you look for words
to find your thoughts?

Or maybe it's the lack of satisfaction
that makes us disappear
into the distance, fall apart?

it tickles lifts silt around my toes
and washes downstream melancholies
as much the red painted sunset often does
into a future turn of bank around a corner
my hopes and dreams sit still
with feet dangling from the limb overhanging
the tributary, One step more I wish, to take
and feel her flow, all over me,
take me there.

Trying to capture my feelings into words with meanings.
Trying to outcast the melancholies that surpass the evenings.
I can feel it pounding ready to explode,
So much love fumed in its area that it’s such a heavy load.
Water drops shimmers, sparkling the eye, that smile can’t keep telling those lies.
What are we really doing?
Running into circles stuck thinking should we give up.
We can’t leave each other alone, maybe its luck.
I just want to be emotionally stable
But we keep trying, fighting for a label.
I just want all the love I give in return,
I just want to be loved the way I earned.
I overlooked pretty much anything because ultimately I am just terrified of being alone.
I knew I should’ve kept my guard up, I felt this coming way too soon.
I overthinked and made scenarios, guess I shouldn’t have expected.
Breaking my own heart knowing this would be so hectic.
Tired of trying just to end up in the same position,
It was you I was missing, just wished you would’ve just listen.
Put yourself in my shoes, feel it from my perspective,
Constantly getting hurt though I’m so selective.
Patiently waiting on my time,
No matter how pure my heart is and how I’m so kind.
I’ll look back and realized that it was really me who wasted my own time.


-dpk

Melancholies of the mind
Troubles of the heart
Misery that darkens the soul
Pain that consumes the beauty of the day
Sadness that alters the mask

A persistent ill that lingers undeterred
A vulture to take prey of a weakened man
Locked in a dark room
A prison with neither window nor wall
Gloom and weeping the menu for the day

Troubles of this life never-ending
Each new day bears its own demons
Smiles replaced by tears
The laughter of children by the groaning of men
Visions of joy only for the sweetest dream

The day passes fighting a ferocious dog
That is set and locked its jaws
The pain and sadness who can withstand
It fades the hope in men
The strongest soul cannot resist

A pill for this aching soul
A remedy for this life of distress
A drink from a river of smiles
A day full of sunshine's embrace
A joyous life my heart desires
A hope that will linger on

She is a little bit broken, just like me.
This is what makes her so captivating.
She pulls me in with those brown eyes of hers that reflected deep melancholy.
She is definitely quite similar to my melancholies.
The pain in her eyes drew me in because she made being broken seem as though it is grand and exquisite.
Her pain was so beautiful and dark in the way that she still wanted something out there to take it out of her.
You could tell she was somewhat of a hopeless yet sweet creature.
Crawling around aimlessly as though she were on delicate glass, afraid to cut herself and others. She believed in many ideas and people, practically everything, except herself.
People around her envied her but she had no idea.
Her life was as chaotic as the ocean filled with lovely little beasts.
There was fearfulness flowing around her, but none of that mattered to her, because she still believed, naively, even so she believed.
Feeling anything with her was unlike anything you could ever imagine.
Most people were phenomenal at making broken look unattractive. It was easy.
Her darkness was worth drowning in and everyone wanted to have the last breath in her miserableness.
When I met her I could tell that her feelings toward me were a mix of hatred and love.
Because she wanted to feel an emptiness like mine. It was a hunt a consensually sad hunt.
And I wanted to feel all her emotions at once.

A blank page
My heart was
You were my colored brush
Filling in the white spots with the red of our love
But only to wash it away
I always swept water over it
Not intentionally at all
Maybe I am colour blind after all?
Could you not see the dedication I put to dissolve myself in you?
And in your pain?
I don’t know how to define it, but that’s what my love is
When you couldn’t absorb anymore darkness of the colours you were dipped in me
I engulfed you in my deep ripples to absorb your sufferings

So how could you stop this cycle?
Why did you turn away to other waters?
When you know well enough that without you my oceans will dry up
And I won’t survive long enough
Even if I catch my breath my last wish would be you dipped in me
And I truly would attain salvation.

So come back please?
And give brighter shades of happy songs of love
To my gloomy melancholies of heartbreak and loneliness.

I swear I wouldn’t survive long enough
And even if I catch my breath my death desire would want you dipped in me
Only then, I will attain salvation truly!

Strings hung gently on the air
Sell a sweaty yellow theme
Pulled like strands of flowing hair
Slither through my cold blood stream
Rocks catch in my throat again
Lips taste tears, and brain cells throb
Punished knuckles glow with sin
Hurting is their only job
Kiss a neverending fall
From the bottom to the top
Slit my throat the whole way down
Pray that I survive the drop
Eating teeth to cage my tongue
Cures the symptoms, not the sick
Til my final song is sung
Keeping quiet does the trick

And should my grim perceptions falter,
Melancholies stand unaltered.

Our jacaranda tree waves
with eastern movements,
and fast September shifts.

Teaching my temples
to hold on for moments -
months of abrupt melancholies
and state-less depressions.

Pouring worser shades on
brighter faster mornings.
I find my pieces in what I’ve known

All along -
an unhinged gate
to a fortress of starving pansies
overgrown and unloved.

As when a numbing illness or hard times past do part,
Could it possibly be that a terrified body and mind,
Does envelop in warm thoughts to repose a childhood rhyme?
Will every leaf in the forest, every stone on a path then release,
an unheard lyric to accompany melancholies departing spirit?
Does her prompt arrival with ***** wings and crusty eyes,
In poor days of ill health, low spirits and mournful times,
then bode well for her later departure with joyful cries?
A shy creature then am I, trembling softly from the dusk,
To view calamities past, through melancholies truthful eyes.

You see me as a person
A single one,
But within me,  
There are thousand me
One who cries within
And sometimes shedding tears
In the loneliness of own world
And then there's another me
Stamping out melancholies with a smile  
Talking to faces me on the way
Known to me, with bursts of merry
Sometimes cry my eye’s out
Within hands that hold me tight, as own
And sometimes I refrain from dropping tears
As not to drench their heart with my tears
And pan out to  opt a happy face..
Not letting anyone know
What's within me …
Again, The world sees me as a whole..
While I'm whole in pieces .!!

The words we use
Are hollow expressions
That fail to grasp
Deeper melancholies
And sweet truths
But suffice for directions