"memento" poems
The heat,
The way it ripples from the steel handlebars
And burns my hands,
The way the clunking of the chain feels
As each pedal propels me forward
Beneath the sun.
The sky is blue,
The air is crisp and leaves pinpricks
On my skin,
Soothed by the tenderness
Of sun rays that fall like curtains
Upon the concrete.
It smells of rubber,
A lingering scent of nostalgia
That fills my lungs like tar
And fills my heart with youthful
Thoughts.
As the wrinkles emerge,
And the delicate cracks begin to show,
I realize that my bike
Is the last memento that
Resonates through my aging ways.
Let's take a final spin down the boulevard,
Before the sun goes down
And my bones ache once more.
Sep 29, 2015
Sep 29, 2015 at 4:26 PM UTC
You lived alone in the solititude
Of pure hundred years in Colombia
Roaming in Amacondo with a Spanish tongue
Carrying the bones of your grandmother in a sisal sag
On your poverty written Colombian back,
Gadabouting to make love in times of cholera,
On none other than your bitter-sweet memories
Of your melancholic ***** the daughter of Castro,
Your cowardice made you to fear your momentous life
In this glorious and poetic time of April 2014,
Only to succumb to untimely black death
That similarly dimunitized your cultural ancestor;
Miguel de Cervantes, a quixotic Spaniard,
You were to write to the colonel for your life,
Before eating the cockerel you had ear-marked
For Olympic cockfight, the hope of the oppressed,
Come back from death, you dear Marquez
To tell me more stories fanaticism to surrealism,
From Tarzanic Africa the fabulous land
An avatar of evil gods that are impish propre
Only Vitian Naipaul and Salman Rushdie are not enough,
For both of them are so naïve to tell the African stories,
I will miss you a lot the rest of my life, my dear Garbo,
But I will ever carry your living soul, my dear Garcia,
Soul of your literature and poetry in a Maasai kioondo
On my broad African shoulders during my journey of art,
When coming to America to look for your culture
That gave you versatile tongue and quill of a pen,
Both I will take as your memento and crystallize them
Into my future thespic umbrella of orature and literature.
Apr 20, 2014
Apr 20, 2014 at 4:57 AM UTC
Dear Lesley,
I'm sorry to have to do this through a letter, but
last time your crying just humiliated
the other couples in your group session.
Although, this might save embarrassment,
and make me look better, now that we are
both sleeping with other people. (If you
can call conjugal visits to your ex-husband people.)
This letter may well be the last memory
you will have of me, if your social worker
lets you keep it as a memento anyway.
I am leaving, and I won't be looking back either.
I am sure you won't be surprised or terribly upset.
It is completely your fault, no doubt about it!
Mainly, it is your long history with lying problems,
even more than your alcoholism, that keeps me
from being even remotely interested in continuing
this relationship with you. (I told you I forgave
you for sleeping with your boss, but I guess I
never really did.)
You would be so much better off finding someone
that can accept the emotional baggage that
you carry around, the ones with the orange tags.
Maybe your analyst can explain that to you better
than I can. I must say, I will miss some of the exciting
times we had together. Like when you got so drunk
and flirted with my father at our family Christmas
dinner. My mom has still not gotten the red wine stain
out of the tablecloth where you puked on it.
I'm glad this is finally done and we can go our
separate ways. I think you will find someone else
with whom to have an unhealthy relationship based
on physical attraction and a passion for strip-club bars.
Hopefully, this will happen incredibly far away.
Good riddance, and Happy New Year.
PS Maybe you should just go back to being a lesbian.
PPS I have no idea where you parked your car.
Jan 12, 2012
Jan 12, 2012 at 2:23 PM UTC
An abstract gait
Surrounded by coils of binary and luminescence.
Suave, purple suits clasping to morphed skin.
Electrical vibes, transistors atomically sized.
Brain dives, the concept of thought diluted.
She can only wish it was palpable.
In a mirror mirage,
Static fumbles,
Repos the limelight.
Cyberpunk gen, neo-noir,
A relevant memento.
Deciphering the metaphysical is
Unattainable.
***** it all,
Maneuver the landscape.
Might as well enjoy the sights
In the nick of a quivering snap.
Jan 28, 2012
Jan 28, 2012 at 6:00 PM UTC
My dreams
do not come attached to
the ideals of my people
or the sacrifices of another country.
Instead I am poor
and mine are clinging to life
the very idea of existence.
Mundane flashes--
not adventurous endeavors
nor flights around the world
this is what richly folks do.
Simply a mingler
someone whose life
flourishes around the bends
of florescent street lights
and panhandling
nearby a farmers market
just after sunrise.
This remnant is few
as these are neighbors
local countrymen
who stoically face
the world's deviation
and deprivation
from coexisting
by the bonds of
agriculture and personality
even as a beggar
it is but a joyous memento
to a world that
no longer thrives.
May 30, 2016
May 30, 2016 at 3:51 AM UTC
Toking on a cloud with ******* Jesus and his family
Lame folks ask me how,
its cause I ******* smoke
religiously
No God I smoke religious tree,
I get ****** in the name of heresy
You angry penguin ****** preach acceptance
So praise the Lord and ******* shame on me
My guise is Satan *****
and my swag is undisguisible
heartless and no conscience,
sicksicksix most recognizable
-that statement may surprise a little but since we all surmise a little
Why deny me as the devil when
When I clearly play a golden fiddle. . .
From Hell I made a deal
and there is no repeal
nothing you see is real,
I will invade and pervade your mind
So wait in anticipation,
life's a figment of your own imagination
I'll watch you dissipate into oblivion
Pound for pound,
I'm a cenobite at heart,
I just haven't a heart to be found
It's not hard for me
its profound,
the sound of suffering
your soul is ours now
and I will tear it apart
Here's a toast to our orchestral
Symphony of the flesh
My swag's so ******* flawless
100 carrot diamonds,
******* love me cause I'm gorgeous
can't stag no more, fat stacks galore
embrace the force it opens doors
Is there a source, but of course -
it just lies dormant/
What's a ***** to a floor except a doormat
And you know that I'm no diplomat
It's just a fact I ******* hate those stinky ratchets
And I sharply lack tact
tell that ***** her ***** smells like Magikarp
Body language, that of Snorlax
someone once asked
why don't have an open mind
brains would spill out
if my ******* snapback
weren't so tight
Its the season to seize C's
and hallucinations be dazzlin em
don't believe your eyes son,
its only a phantasm but
Words are like playdough,
fun to play with not to eat
So clap your ******* trap and get lost to the beat
I can't be defeat
So suckle my teet
My verses are perverse
I'm high as **** words: failing
Get low
ill as **** so ******* sick,
blowed half past belligerent,
tweaking off my nasal drips,
There's serenity in debauchery -
***** I ******* bask in it
have a taste
basketcase,
I drink red bull it gives me ******* wings
"Memento quod sumus lascivio venatus"
Remember that you are playing the Game
Nov 29, 2013
Nov 29, 2013 at 9:00 PM UTC
~
*alone and an imposter,
deep in syndrome.
she absorbs the frost of seasonal ghosts
and hopeless feelings
of death and darkness.
she only shows one side of her every time.
she calls a random number
from a bar in the middle of the night,
seeking to confess
or find solace in the voice of a stranger.
but any stranger might just happen to be
a lie detector.
still she lays bare all the duplicity
and fragmentation of self:
prescription bottles with two different names,
elaborate façades in Los Angeles
and in New York,
so complicated she creates
something she calls the lie box.
inside her purse there's a collection
of file cards. "I tell so many lies," she says.
"I have to write them down and keep them
in a box so I can keep them straight."
alone she waits for either
sweet apricity or identikit:
each a memento of her faces.*
~
Feb 26, 2023
Feb 26, 2023 at 3:57 PM UTC
#Hair styles
Hair colors
Hairdos
Hairfall
Blonde
Brunette
Redhead
Grey
Or just black
A few strands of which
I found in her comb
In one untravelled recess of wardrobe
An untouched memento
From past two decades
Not graying
Not growing
Undeclined
Undestroyed
black and thick
the only relic
for her son!#
Jan 7, 2014
Jan 7, 2014 at 6:23 AM UTC
Aurora borealis,
aurora australis.
Mare nostrum,
sub silentio,
sub secreto,
ad libitur,
as infinitum.
Ira furor brevis est,
amor suo iure.
Memento vivere,
in dubio,
in dolorosa,
in posse,
in nubibus,
in pace,
in spiritu et veritate,
in pleno,
nvne avt nvnquam,
ad vitam aeternam.
Jul 5, 2010
Jul 5, 2010 at 1:28 AM UTC
Let me meet you in a marbled
field of
sand...
Though
you bewitch me with clifftops hooded in emerald grass ...
Though
your sheep bleat loudly the marvel of your serenity...
Though
you wait patiently beyond your lonely precipice,
I cannot endure the eons
raging against the cliffs of your security.
Every
passing year, the thunder of my broken waves
gouges deeper into your wounded coastline.
Every
rock torn from your embrace, resounds the pain of our growing rift
Every
crumbling cliffs edge dissolves the beauty I held in reverie...
I wound us in this way.
Let me meet you in a secluded
gentle
cove...
There,
upon quieted sands, my waves will softly stroke your skin.
There,
the lions will laugh in cacophonous delight at our simple joy.
There,
our worlds will dance as pebbles tumble into diamond crystals.
There, a child will listen woefully,
the sea song of our love.
With eyes in contented darkness,
With a soul filled, overflowing
With the power of bearing witness
to this daily wonder.
Each
breath brings her deeper into the burning core of her mind,
Each
thought sparks the flame brighter
Each
billowing blaze will enliven her roots, and
she will bloom.
Then,
her eyes will open to a shimmering world,
glistening through tears of quiet understanding.
Then,
breath will guide the salt of our dance into her veins
Then,
she will dance to the song of our world.
With arms wide as eyes,
she will embrace
this treasured moment
With the divinity of her mortality.
When the moment calms, she will walk solemnly through our shallows.
When my waves pull home at her ankles,
When the crystalline pebble shines brightly in her visage
she will reach with focused surrender through my water for a memento
of the love she feels so presently.
In our slow dance,
of Land and Sea,
our love bears its fruits in tiny treasures.
In her little pocket,
the diamond of our love
will travel further into your heart than my waves ever could.
In this way...
you and I grow fonder
with every passing day.
Apr 21, 2016
Apr 21, 2016 at 11:05 PM UTC
Will you remember me, Tanzania?
When my map of your curves is folded
And I see no more your mountain in my mind
Only your smile, straight as a line
On the day I flew away.
The wind travels far, Tanzania
And I must follow
Knowing you has left me hollow
And thus I search
But will you remember me?
The feel of my flip-flop footfalls on your face,
The sound of my laugh as your wind carried it away,
Will you remember how your thorns pierced me,
Pleading with me to stay?
Oh, will you remember me Tanzania?
We pause for a moment at the barbed wire fence,
Brief it burned
But coke-bottle circles in my cheeks will be my memento
Like your dark-eyed children and how, somehow they grow
Taller, darker, row on row.
Tell me you will miss me so
Oh Tanzania.
Will you remember how your sun kissed my forehead?
And how I tasted the feel of your words on my tongue?
How I stole your air to fill my lungs?
I stole as much as I could bear.
Small, dark hands braided my hair
Will you remember me, Tanzania?
As I cling to these landmarks and scars
Which fade from my mind,
Remember how I shook as we left each other behind
Remember how I wore your earth on my skin
Then let your rains wash me clean
How I felt your forest
Brown and green
You were not as you first seemed
But nor was I
Tanzania, Tanzania
What will you remember?
Here with your thoughts on mine,
I bless the legacy of your skyline.
Beautiful or ******
Oh, Tanzania
Who do you say that I am?
Jun 20, 2014
Jun 20, 2014 at 7:41 PM UTC
*The Orchid
Within an old book in my library
An Orchid dried and pressed I see
Without color and fragrance a mystery
Romantic notions overwhelming me
Who made this volume an orchid’s tomb?
Forever hidden in a dark room
Perhaps a ladies hand from a long past year
A memento of her handsome lover so dear
Was it given at a meeting with hearts that soar?
Or a last goodbye as he went to war
Or as they kissed in heavens light
Sharing their love in the blue of night
Are they still together him and her?
Holding hands at this very hour
Or are they passed no longer here?
Love dried and withered
like this orchid flower*
Sep 5, 2015
Sep 5, 2015 at 9:23 PM UTC
There are fewer things
beautiful than ugly,
I know that stars are most
bright when they fall
from impassioned skies,
That when your skin
meets mine, I am like an
amnesiac being returned
a lifetime of memories.
I hate few things,
except, perhaps, the murky
lakes of your eyes,
The misty beaches we
explored until sunrise.
How you pressed your lips
to mine like a death wish,
that it was deplorable,
but we wanted more, more.
My body was a map
you tore apart when you
got tired of exploring it.
The ancient psalms of our
tongues cannot silence.
Ruins of ancient Rome
survive on your lips, yet
you still live, breathe.
You call yourself mortal.
Mar 8, 2016
Mar 8, 2016 at 2:33 PM UTC
*The Orchid
Within an old book in my library
An Orchid dried and pressed I see
Without color and fragrance a mystery
Romantic notions overwhelming me
Who made this volume an orchid’s tomb?
Forever hidden in a dark room
Perhaps a ladies hand from a long past year
A memento of her handsome lover so dear
Was it given at a meeting with hearts that soar?
Or a last goodbye as he went to war
Or as they kissed in heavens light
Sharing their love in the blue of night
Are they still together him and her?
Holding hands at this very hour
Or are they passed no longer here?
Love dried and withered
like this orchid flower*
Dec 28, 2015
Dec 28, 2015 at 10:13 PM UTC
we are nothing but corporeal beings
tangible, earthly, and most of all, perishable
we are passengers riding in our own trains
in a seemingly perpetual motion
but we are doomed by our expiry
which could already be looming in the distance
it might already be standing by the door
ready to bury us beneath our tombstones
we get reminded by our impermanence
only when death himself shows at our doors
when we are already beneath our tombstones
emblazoned with our own epitaphs
we fade into dust, and become one with oblivion
but all is not lost, you can still see me looming there
in the blooming flower fields, in the open skies
out in the ocean, the wilderness
i fly with the birds, flow with the breeze
and swim with the fishes beneath the sea
in all your searching, you won't find me
but i am here, now one with the earth
Jan 4, 2018
Jan 4, 2018 at 10:22 AM UTC
3
“Sic transit gloria mundi,”
“How doth the busy bee,”
“Dum vivimus vivamus,”
I stay mine enemy!
Oh “veni, vidi, vici!”
Oh caput cap-a-pie!
And oh “memento mori”
When I am far from thee!
Hurrah for Peter Parley!
Hurrah for Daniel Boone!
Three cheers, sir, for the gentleman
Who first observed the moon!
Peter, put up the sunshine;
Patti, arrange the stars;
Tell Luna, tea is waiting,
And call your brother Mars!
Put down the apple, Adam,
And come away with me,
So shalt thou have a pippin
From off my father’s tree!
I climb the “Hill of Science,”
I “view the landscape o’er;”
Such transcendental prospect,
I ne’er beheld before!
Unto the Legislature
My country bids me go;
I’ll take my india rubbers,
In case the wind should blow!
During my education,
It was announced to me
That gravitation, stumbling,
Fell from an apple tree!
The earth upon an axis
Was once supposed to turn,
By way of a gymnastic
In honor of the sun!
It was the brave Columbus,
A sailing o’er the tide,
Who notified the nations
Of where I would reside!
Mortality is fatal—
Gentility is fine,
Rascality, heroic,
Insolvency, sublime!
Our Fathers being weary,
Laid down on Bunker Hill;
And tho’ full many a morning,
Yet they are sleeping still,—
The trumpet, sir, shall wake them,
In dreams I see them rise,
Each with a solemn musket
A marching to the skies!
A coward will remain, Sir,
Until the fight is done;
But an immortal hero
Will take his hat, and run!
Good bye, Sir, I am going;
My country calleth me;
Allow me, Sir, at parting,
To wipe my weeping e’e.
In token of our friendship
Accept this “Bonnie Doon,”
And when the hand that plucked it
Hath passed beyond the moon,
The memory of my ashes
Will consolation be;
Then, farewell, Tuscarora,
And farewell, Sir, to thee!
2.6k
I hear the world is full of pain,
Flooding, terror, acid rain;
Music, theatre, laughs and art,
Whiskey, coffee, beer and darts,
Rainbows, glaciers, hiking trails;
Rare Pepes and EPIC FAILs,
Overwatch and Pokemon Go;
Donald Trump and Bernie Bros;
Dreams, and Drugs, and Rock n' Roll,
Dharma, Love, and the eternal soul,
The Holy Quran and the Higgs boson
Tajwid in Geneva, QFT in Tehran.
Yet day by day I sit and type
Edit, grep, compile, pipe
All that a system smoothly might run
Ashes to Ashes, Zero to One
'''
npm install; grunt &; restart nginx
docker run -d me/interests; pkill sleep; pkill ***
nice 14 nutrition; rm /etc/cron.daily/exercise
pkill -STOP judgment; scp foodler:'**/{burger,fries}' ~
'''
It's rather ironic that this metal you see,
Seems quite a better multitasker than me
Whereas It stops its world to switch one task for others
My open descriptors always overflow my buffers
Whereas it take new patches with a simple 'apt-get'
My resolve for upgrades I quite often forget
And when its health checks fail, we regrow the ASG
But my self won't reboot. et memento mori.
Aug 6, 2016
Aug 6, 2016 at 8:35 PM UTC
This scent, semi-sour
Of the daffodils four
Holds time in its power.
This scent, semi-sour:
There must come an hour
I'll sense it no more:
This scent, semi-sour
Of the daffodils four.
May 23, 2010
May 23, 2010 at 9:30 AM UTC
she
(*her 2am moods
were monotone
dialogue
on the receiver*)
is at her loudest
in sepia photographs;
fake smiles,
like shotgun blast;
her shrapnel days
fall silently
in-between
cheap perfume
bottles on the
night-stand.
in the drawer is
every memento
she seldom mentions
(*empty, jejune...
hushed
frustrations*).
with each exhale,
her pillow fills with
crumpled words
(*embellishment,
a waking hour's only
comfort...
an insomniac's
internal monologue*).
Dec 18, 2015
Dec 18, 2015 at 12:00 AM UTC
she wants head
male bonding
siamese twins
tango 69
me
i travel by images
corporal landscapes
the mouth is the tunnel
quick, now
the tongue the train
windows on the world
unmistaken
still
same refrain
we will meet
we will meet
somewhere again
end of the line
with
the power of torso
speed of the memento
lost and then
found
and
always
the blood engine
pounding
puffing
steaming its blush
on the cheek of night
2.3k
Time threads her necklace patiently,
Choosing carefully the colour and shape of our experiences,
Here, a tumbled quartz - luminous and rosy,
There, shards of darkest onyx - tragic and uncompromising,
Every now and again, a perfect sphere of sacred turquoise to mark a special occasion.
Finally, satisfied with her handiwork Time ties off the strand,
And weaves the precious metal of our dreams - unrealised - into an intricate clasp,
As she places the memento around her bejewelled neck she sighs to herself and whispers:
‘Such promise, such pain, such beauty, such loss; I will treasure you always.’
Then reaching for her spool of silver thread, she begins again to thread her golden needle.
Jan 21, 2019
Jan 21, 2019 at 11:02 PM UTC
Cloudless skies and
You & I.
A BBQ aroma
Levitates
Like those hummingbirds
Did you like that movie?
I've got to be home
Maybe 11.
I like your pick-up
It makes me reminisce
For an old home
With happier times
Maybe we
Could re-create those?
Looking at the blacktop,
I'll miss you tonight
You'd make a good father
Half-moon lover,
Let my dreams
Only be of you.
Jun 2, 2012
Jun 2, 2012 at 2:12 PM UTC
Memories:
the back and forth trajectories
the internal out-of-sync in-sync directories
of treasured moments, of pleasantries
and the reviled relived accessories of treachery.
My memory is pitted with chasms like Swiss Cheese
the phantom dreams of being hit by a car in a winters bite
the realities of unconsciousness and brain spasms
the fathoms baffles in batches and waves of breaches
disfigured features like a frosted window caked in creatures
burrowed and riddled like a parasite in the spite of night.
By the time id got to hospital id forgotten my own name
fortunately I had a gas bill in my pocket which hadn't freed itself
while being violently hurled over the red car bonnet
and it became the one and only evidence that I even existed
even though the A & E nurse insisted and persisted on asking questions:
my address, date of birth, blood type, emergency contact -
like Id have it tattooed on my body like a scene from Memento
amid the voices in crescendo and brain-damage thumping techno.
That was a few years ago, or was it, I couldn't be sure now
but some days I forget what I did in the morning
so I just have to live for the moment somehow
the memories like Swiss Cheese constantly morphing
to the piped tune of the cerebral banshee
buzzing in my left ear like a perpetual honey bee
makes me wonder though;
I am lactose and diary free - the dominant dietary preponderant
some modernistic conglomerate causing ultimate lethargy.
Does this mean if recollections are like Swiss Cheese
I am intolerant to memories?
Sep 9, 2014
Sep 9, 2014 at 12:31 PM UTC