"mildewed" poems
Black waters, cruel heart,
The Kelpie sits upon his throne
For eternity, doomed to play his part
And wait in vain for his one true own.
His servants are the poisonous eel,
Sea serpent, corpse, and dead man's ghost
Of his victims - though no pain they feel,
In death must earn his wrath the most.
In daylight was this lord's last goodness
Spurned and cast to mocking sea;
From damsel's touch this heart of darkness
Sprang, shall remain eternally
So: Once a time of cool recklessness
Brought the Kelpie ashore as the sun descended,
In pursuit of the voice as sweet as goodness
That sang ere the song of day had ended.
The Kelpie left the waters
For love of land-born daughter
And laid upon her lips a kiss,
And wove her his enchantment: --
"Tell me, maiden, do you weep
For Love's encounter sorely missed?
Do you not know the deep seas seek
Such tears as yours - they shall be kissed
"Beyond remembrance of those sad eyes,
Without recall of downcast smile
(The sea must love you in disguise
Only to scare sweet sorrows awhile.)
"Then let my voice your heart caress.
Come, take these hands to lead you hence
Into the surf, leave all duress
That land can offer; Love's light is sent
"To guide you, though the soulless waters
Close above your grief-bowed head.
Know, I will always follow after --
I, dark prince in daylight's stead."
He drew her to the sea's dark shore -
His eyes focused of one foul will:
To take her breath on ocean's floor
And so to bid her song be still.
*But the girl wouldn't go.
Behold! the mourning dawns
screams the shadows
away from the living orb!*
*Dark man -- melts the mask
Away: Black horse, drown
Your sorrows forever at the
Bottomless depths of loathing.*
She would not listen to his charms
When sunlight's worth came hers at last;
Now night, now day, his empty arms
Clutch mildewed dregs of the past.
Cruel waters guard the frozen heart
Of the Kelpie who sits upon his throne,
A slave to Love -- his one true part,
Bestowed by a gentle earthly voice
she left him alone.
Sep 17, 2012
Sep 17, 2012 at 5:39 AM UTC
I, ConnectHook
DEMAND recognition as The Most Boring Poet of all.
You’ll never touch me so don’t even TRY.
Don’t even bother dipping your quill again,
you mere drip on the mildewed scroll of antediluvian parchment,
you cuneiform Cunégonde, you proto-Canaanite pottery fragment,
you keyboarding failed clown
and archeological relic unworthy of preservation
in a third-rate underfunded Albanian museum…
I, and I alone, dragged myself up from the protoplasmic slime
to BORE you.
I transitioned from amphibian to anthropoid
before your mama even MET the postman.
I stood upright upon the ****** battleground of evolutionary struggle
and SELECTED MYSELF (naturally).
Now pass that banana right over here.
Dec 30, 2016
Dec 30, 2016 at 2:45 PM UTC
The sky resembles the robin's eggshells
scattered across the ground,
a blue so seemingly infinite yet fragile,
cracks running between understanding and madness
complementing each other
as divine truths in their own right
to conquer my mind,
to unhinge the doors,
making it unnecessary to pick rusted locks
letting thoughts fly free,
releasing love out into the horizon.
If frozen within caged snapshots of mildewed expectations,
it will surely die,
but even so,
I was willing to strangle it by holding on too tightly.
Until I saw the sky and eggshells today
Peppered clouds reflected on the water,
paralleling speckles on the eggshells,
remind me of the freckles on your face.
We need to be wide-open-free,
we need to fly,
without focusing too hard on shells of yesterdays.
We need to unclench our fists,
unclench our tongues,
explore the vast blue peppered sky
on wings of letting go....
so that we can once again feel with purity,
so that we can hold each other ever closer.
05.24.12
May 24, 2012
May 24, 2012 at 3:02 PM UTC
Kisses
His lips
Stained red from cherry lip-gloss and his skin still damp from midnight lust.
Our arms and legs lay tangled beneath the stars.
These are the good nights
The, Nightmare, Night terror
Free nights.
Filled with burnt out cigarettes and hushed tones.
These are the nights
That push the cortisol from my mind to be replaced by a
Cheap serotonin fix.
These nights are my lullabies and goodnight
Kisses
His lips
Push their way against my squirming flesh, my tongue too tied to protest.
His hands caress,
My arms and legs. twisted behind locked doors.
These are the restless nights
Tossed and turned like mildewed clothes
Filled with empty cups and muffled moans.
These are the nights-- I’m sorry
The nights I pray for sunrise
Kisses.
Her lips
Find their way to my worried ear, stroking, Hushing.
“It’s okay baby girl mama’s here.”
Shhhhh.
These nights are long nights
When my legs are restless from running through my head,
Monsters,
Hiding underneath my bed.
These nights are filled with screams, they
Strangle my throat, and Chills prickle my spine but
These nights are saved
By her forehead
Kisses
May 4, 2015
May 4, 2015 at 12:24 PM UTC
She thought she had it;
Significance
Muddy dress, an outfit depressed
The sunshine blinds
A use for her view
Then realistic features come walking in
Scolded shoulders tower over
Her fishnets and black lipstick hide her
mildewed heart
She fights
Fighting submerged her feelings
Numbing the pain she became hate
Hate became her soul
A control
A defense
A way to save her from death
To bad the devil has a toll
A fee
He envies ugly
Dec 5, 2016
Dec 5, 2016 at 8:52 PM UTC
I had the good fortune
to visit it twice,
the first time
it was like the Marie Celeste,
dark with blue doors
and old coffee dregs shining on the base
of deserted mugs,
a full perfume bottle of Narcissus
glowed on a mildewed window,
for shame I thought , sketches,
letters, catalogues
all congealed together
in sodden shop boxes
I wasn't supposed to be there
then again in a dream,
all the walls were dark pink
and shelves were filled with treasure
trinkets for sale, I stopped at a pair
of silver earrings
and crystaline figures
that danced in unison
gold and black drawings
hung the walls of a bedroom
with roses for a carpet
a melancholy light
stilled the air, I wondered
how in god's name
did he fit there,
that tiny bed
I paused here,
others came in.
Mar 18, 2011
Mar 18, 2011 at 3:27 PM UTC
A shadowy shop with
Shelves that bend and buckle
Under the weight of years.
The dust of the decade
Lies undisturbed
Volumes lined in motley ranks
Anthologies, albums and almanacks
Heaped in
Precarious stacks.
A few flaking pamphlets.
Dream-like sepia images
Dog-eared and damp
Bulge from mildewed and
Musty manilla.
Some are excited by
The acrid smell
Of old books.
Not sure that I am.
A bargain box or a treasure chest
Who cares.
Festered and forgotten
Between the yellowing pages of
A railway timetable
Lie someone's drawings.
Quite clever.
A little deranged, if you ask me.
Nice colours
But you wouldn't want them on your wall.
Jan 15, 2010
Jan 15, 2010 at 11:16 PM UTC
*the droplets of water are singing a trail down the bricks of the houses
through the alleys of the glassy-eyed broken people with soft hearts, a pre-disposition for death
weaving a tabooed trail across the sidewalks that when gazed upon reeks of obscurity
and leaving faint lines on the creased skin of all the sinewy fatalities
the mildewed rain peaks across the rusted windowsill that sighs with familiarity
it sloshes against the children’s playground and slaps at the pavement with a sudden clarity
it empties itself into the spiked maze of the tree branch hoping the leafs will cling onto to it dearly
it mellows into a pond that breaks apart with sharp staccatos when mushy feet run down the street
and it hurls itself into the bitterly sweet lips of two frost-bitten lovers who will soon meet
it daintily steps into the burning embers of the flame, only to be flushed out in shame
it turns to the shower as a last resort, but whines in dismay when it’s slurped down the drain
it embraces the eyelashes until it’s shaken in misery and then watches wearily as it’s blinked away in positivity
it lumbers down the path of the bruised ego, a shattering of phrases that leaves the person’s mouth
and before it has the chance to drop it is scooped up and chastised until it moves no more
the tears and the rain drops wander listlessly for all of eternity
only to be hastily thrown away or brushed into cotton for fear of a restless divinity
it is never to reach a destination and only doomed to be forgotten
and so it seems dear friends, that raindrops are simply you and me*
Sep 18, 2013
Sep 18, 2013 at 9:51 PM UTC
A toadstool is swelling
inside my limbic system.
Spores sweat amongst tissue cavities,
dining out on grey matter,
until they force me
to stay in bed through the day.
What a thing it would be.
Depression as a fungus.
A mildewed mind as damp sets in,
the trumpet player
with athletes foot,
casting out the air-borne blues.
Misfortunes follow one another
along straits of fate,
as if sadness were a colony itself.
I want to take a pill
to **** the mushroom
that plumes over my head.
You can only diagnose
through words and symbols,
only treat once you set down your pen
and hold the hand
of a patient lover,
of the savant drinking at the bar.
For now I will let air in
through the open window,
watch the dreamcatcher sway
and hang like a tarantula
over the stars and crescents,
spilling out over my bed.
When I close my eyes
I hear the ocean in distant traffic,
sounding as waves when rolling by the door.
I will drown in seawater
and hallucinate a scene
of happiness.
Of a place for a poet's retreat.
Sep 8, 2014
Sep 8, 2014 at 9:01 AM UTC
Not many tensions,
nor any excitement
Life has ever been
a placidly flowing river!
Single and free!
Over differences,
never been any disputes
never had to consult,
nor seek consent
Single and free!
but doesn’t his house
with its cold, mildewed air
reflect his heart?
A house so full of things:
a hoard of well stacked books,
exquisitely carved Victorian furniture,
antique collection of curios,
ornate drapery
Yet so full of nothing!
The prim order of the house
never disturbed by naughty hands
nor shuffled by dusty feet
dirtying the Persian carpets
or smudging the glistening floor
The well laid bed covers
never get creased
by the body’s desire
and Love’s tight embrace
and never, they bear
the fragrance of female scent!
Sometimes he would shake
from foot to crown
at a question hurled by
an unknown voice;
“Did you squander away your life?”
Then he recognizes….
he has been a lone traveler
ever walking through
a one way lane
that will wind off
with a few more steps!
If, by chance somewhere
a new track
branches out
he would no more be
a solitary *****
There would be a companion
to hold hands!
Now it is too late!
Apr 29, 2017
Apr 29, 2017 at 12:09 PM UTC
City limit space expands,
it's threaded through with veins--
grey-black dendritic strands
span
across this moldy brain
of a city.
Our rotting nights spray hits around
the places players play.
The impulses will whitewash all complaints
'til the glaring day.
I wanna spit-shine every storm drain,
stain the cracked sidewalks in white,
take this town to Sunday morning Mass,
though she was born for Friday nights.
We're gonna trickle past addresses
now,
Electroshock through habit streets
these crosswalks sneer with snide expression.
Mildewed thoughts we'll hardly think.
A conversation you're repressing
I'm smoothing out my wrinkled brow
Another weekend's blurred out
blank confession
melts off the tips of tongues,
I can taste it now.
Circulation space expands,
we're threaded through with veins--
this bio-asphalt plan
spans
all through this molded frame
of a body.
But rotten thoughts, like ships aground,
teach sailors how to pray
when impulses have buried all complaints
'neath the foaming spray.
I wanna shade out every bruise now,
paint the dumpsters all in gold.
Missoula, listen: You're a lady.
I don't give a **** what you've been told.
A moldy brain dreams slattern makeup
for a prizefight town each night
so let's take up every artist's brush,
paint shadows on these barroom eyes.
We're gonna flow right through these boule-
vards.
Electroshock through habit streets.
These dim lit yards and spoiled thoughts
are hyphens placed between each week.
A conversation you're repressing,
I'm smoothing out my wrinkled brow.
Our city's made-up face is running
off the tips of winter and I taste it now.
Feb 15, 2015
Feb 15, 2015 at 1:19 PM UTC
The house
stands open to the weather.
Walls cracked;
roof collapsing
A mildewed teddy bear
moulders
in the crumbling fireplace.
Woodwormed floorboards;
rotting stairs.
Glass in the windows
shattered
like broken dreams
and everywhere
the sour smell
of regret
and lost ambition.
10th February 2017
May 3, 2017
May 3, 2017 at 4:37 AM UTC
Quips and quibbles of
A teenage heart
Drip drop dribbling
Through my chest as
Teardrops made of rain and
The screech of tires
And flashing city lights
Pour through my veins
Running writhing wriggling
From soul to stomach
Twisting turning
My mind is
Sick with
The feeling of
Nothing
Because
My heart is
Iron and ice and ire
Steel bars separate
Emotion from
The streets that lead to
Freedom and expression
Release
And Happiness rots
Alongside Rage
Molding and mildewed
In the deepening darkness
Where Rational and Reason
Locked them up
Long ago
But I?
I have no reason
To feel this way
My love-sick stomach is
Always fed
And university walls
Surround
My head is
Bewildered,
Brilliant headlight-beams
Blinding my
Aching eyes as
I stumble home
Twelve hours of
Class and work weigh
Heavy on my
Mind is hung-up
On him
Again
Still mostly
My life is
Fire and whiskey
And friends
That burn off the
Chill
And soften the scars
Except on these
Winter nights when
Alone in my room
Blood pounds cold
Through shrieking veins
White-water-whipping
Whirling and
Storming through my
Soul and I
Know
I am nineteen years old
But my teenage heart
Isn’t so hopeful
Or naïve
Anymore
Jan 17, 2013
Jan 17, 2013 at 10:50 PM UTC
Another day, another night.
You say their debt outweighs their death.
Logic dispels the search through trash and mildewed lore.
Makeup runs and your choices stay.
Becoming much thinner now yes?
The air is unintelligible.
These things will last.
Abandoned not loved, the fate of your newest choice;
a most crystalline series of poor choices, calculated missteps and those carefree mistakes.
Like the smoke flown from your lungs over the roof of neon discotheque.
Either/or.
You smell of spoiled treasure.
Move past the decay, past perfumes and powders.
There is you, skeletal and shaking on a small bed in the middle of a dark place with a hint of light all around you, shadows form on the edge, the mythos surrounding your empty head, but never bending to enlighten you.
Stay still.
Jun 27, 2016
Jun 27, 2016 at 11:06 AM UTC
and suddenly it was as though
all of those fleeting moments
that I had been grasping for,
all of those feelings
slipping through my periphery,
all of those things
that I could never quite
taste-
they came rushing into me.
And suddenly, I understood
what it was that was escaping me.
I knew exactly what it felt like
to see my heart beating
in someone else's body;
I heard my thoughts
spilling across your lovely lips
and saw my spark
reflected in your eyes,
speaking languages
that I wanted to learn.
I spilled forth all of the rusted,
mildewed things that were hiding
in the recesses of my memories,
and I held them up to the light
and let you touch them,
turn them over and hold them.
And that old feeling
in the helplessness of
my naked soul
was replaced with
a lucid sense of weightlessness.
I found you, and I thought
that you might be able
to know me,
to really know me,
without turning away.
Mar 26, 2015
Mar 26, 2015 at 8:44 PM UTC
Momma was a bleeder
***** on the stairs outside the complex
Mainstays all unraveled
mildewed and rotting on the concrete decks
Her ceaseless curtain calls
belied the prescriptions for falling down
She was a butterfly hurricane comin’ from the coast
makin’ eddies swirl sanguine pools
Even Kruger wasn’t dumb enough to jump in her grey-outs
the guy simply walked away
Feb 10, 2010
Feb 10, 2010 at 7:01 PM UTC
broken in paradise
the love(r) that wears a knife
the dreams that smoke between the nights
stale in a room of wonder
glitter dancing in the gutter
I’m calling for you I’m screaming
please be nice
please love me
please please please
a broken record of a woman
alone in a ruin
of mildewed furs and bad aftertastes
sunrise
sunset
it’s all the same
a waste
spread legs and no chase
thrill
stupid
**** **** **** **** ****
love that hits you like a truck
dying in the middle of the road
carcass picked on bones
begging for more
begging
come home
Feb 26, 2011
Feb 26, 2011 at 5:31 PM UTC
Tiny wool mittens
Roughly sculpted my frame
From a flat land of snow
To a girl with no name
2 frosty green peas
Became blurry eyes
Then 10 little craisins
Made a smile so wide
My arms were uneven
One thin and one thick
Many shades of brown
But of the same stick
A mildewed blue hat was
Placed right on my head
Plus a scarf round my neck
That was cardinal red
All my wonderful features
Yet I don't think I'm real
'Cause I'm a girl with no name
Who can not seem to feel
Dec 5, 2016
Dec 5, 2016 at 11:43 PM UTC
Gazing toward Utopia
she danced the night before the mildewed morning
with glassy eyes dazed
half-sleeping with folded arms
she gazed out toward tomorrow
Feb 16, 2014
Feb 16, 2014 at 11:59 AM UTC
If it were to only rest upon my hands and breathe through my life..
to posses what others view when they smile fondly on their past
instead..
I feel velvet scars rising
forming into reminders;
my dreams slept were only nightmares
my dreams awake were only mirrors to night
the only one to hold me was my dead teddy bear
cold, stale, mildewed from my tears
suicide preached upon, with words of parents
A happy childhood is all I asked for..
Feb 10, 2018
Feb 10, 2018 at 6:43 PM UTC
lately i've been having these good days
i don't have sad wet cigarette saxophone nights anymore
i watched the sun wake up six times last week
i found a blue bucket of tulips &
gave them to a bald-headed krishna girl when
she sang to me on the sidewalk
i hired a boy to hide in the foyer
& peel a fiddle if i rouse from sleep during the night
or whistle through a harmonica
if i'm wet-eyed during breakfast
i finally got rid of all the pictures you stuck
to your side of the dusty bathroom mirror
except the blissed-out polaroid of us
perched on an old oak tree limb
like a couple of soft doves versus the turreted sunset
i deleted your number because you don't call me back anyway
i stopped mailing letters to your father's house
i haven't listened to the Plantasia record
you bought me since you left
i never feel the gray heat from your
staticky hand warming my shoulder
i forgave you for the blood in my kidneys
& old smog in my mildewed vinyl lungs
i sleep under the running green vapor light
of the moon & stars instead of the frothiest pillows
rippling on an ocean of sheets & project quilts
i finally scoured the lipstick stain from my collarbone
after what seemed like two years
i forgot how your armpits smelled
i sewed all your sundresses into a shower curtain
& i never see your delicate ribcage
peaking through the streams of hot water
i hardly ever notice the noose
you left hanging in our apartment
Feb 10, 2016
Feb 10, 2016 at 4:20 PM UTC
Is there space in this system for new rules
Can we find them hiding behind old books
Some dusty office at the top of a pole
Bleak ivory with a view well known
to all of us, who have got what we want
Whose privileged breath breathes deep of high times
stuffed with all those norms and expectations
litigating obligations ignored,
ignored; yet enforced by free tyranny
of the individual, of ones rights
without the weight of responsible
judgement. NO, there is no space up here, NO
not for straighter rules or greater fools
though latter too many, former too few;
These old rules are crooked, like hind quarters
dragged up the long torrid stair to the top
held up by lofty ideals, righteous… no
We seem in these high places to have forgot
whyfore we came to be here or how rotten
we are, that rot set into the books, the rules
the shelves, the pages, the walls, the food
Into the words, the system, the wages
paid to those shoring up this modern day
Babel. No well-intentioned roads lead here
No one will choose to walk these ugly stairs
No one will come, those lonely inventions
Freedom, liberty, the individual
Let them gather and groan in old walls
Mildewed bricks and misted rattling bones
Left here forgotten by those living below
Seen from on high in this ivory tower
This pale tower where no one lives, no one.
Aug 31, 2016
Aug 31, 2016 at 1:33 AM UTC
There is something stirring in the hardwood,
the color of stained honey, suffocating
under Skittle-colored plastic bins bulging
with the weight of laundry, fishing lures, mildewed books.
I follow the small pathways into each room of my father’s
apartment, just big enough for a unicycle—tributaries
of wood lathe where yesterday he was eating oranges
and reading Popular Science before folding
himself into the mattress for the last time.
The tiny ridges of floorboards were once
smoother than good whiskey. The rippling
water in each knot is the story
of what it is to grow. Trees grow branches like mothers
grow babies and all end up here, on the floor
together. I look for the veins
in these mounds of ***** dishes
and towers of magazines, some sign
of movement. We are all being held, kept
from what’s been running beneath us.
I want to scale the piles of shut-in relics,
climb into old age and never again
think about the wet hourglass
of snow tracked in from both doors
that kept us from collapsing
in exhaustion with our inheritance.
Feb 3, 2012
Feb 3, 2012 at 9:23 PM UTC
Ince St. Child
by Michael R. Burch
When she was a child
in a dark forest of fear,
imagination cast its strange light
into secret places,
scattering traces
of illumination so bright,
years later, they might suddenly reappear,
their light undefiled.
When she was young,
the shafted light of her dreams
shone on her uplifted face
as she prayed;
though she strayed
into a night fallen like mildewed lace
shrouding the forest of screams,
her faith led her home.
Now she is old
and the light that was flame
is a slow-dying ember . . .
What she felt then
she would explain;
she would if she could only remember
that forest of shame,
faith beaten like gold.
Published by Piedmont Literary Review, Songs of Innocence, Romantics Quarterly and Poetry Life & Times. This is an unusual poem that I wrote in my late teens or early twenties, and it took me some time to figure out who the elderly woman was. She was a victim of childhood ****** hence the title I eventually chose. Keywords/Tags: child, abuse, ****** fear, night, faith, prayer, screams, shame, beaten
Apr 5, 2020
Apr 5, 2020 at 4:12 AM UTC