"mirthless" poems
Dear titanic, tell me of how you survived your last hurrah- tell me of how you didn’t see the iceberg, tell me of how it felt to lay down on the ocean floor, tell me of how empty you are, the skeletons of your passengers are all but hollow husks- skeletons from a time that is now gone.
“I am not empty,” the titanic says back to me, her voice muffled by bubbles and groans from rust coated pipes.
“But you are, I say. “You are empty but filled with ghosts- yours, the oceans, theirs. They party and laugh and drink and dance and run in your rooms, your hallways that go on forever.”
“You are the empty one,” titanic whispers, rusty railings creaking.
Dear titanic, how did you feel, sinking, ripping in two- unable to be put together again, how did it feel becoming a broken heart? Did you bleed? Did you do it to yourself?
“Was your sink an accident?”
“What do you think?” She growls- groans and moans echo all around.
“How did the music players continue on as you sank- their instruments and lungs filling up with seawater as their somber music filled the ears of your passengers?”
“They just played on, soothing my pain,” came the reply.
“Dear titanic-” I started.
“Let me ask you- why have you come?” She demands.
“To learn your secrets of course.”
“That’s not why.”
“Who hurt you for you to seek me out? Why have you come?”
“I've come to find out what you did to survive.” I reply.
“Then you know now” She whispers, pipes groaning as she shook with mirthless laughter
“Do I?” I questioned.
“Yes.” I imagined her smiling at me- broken glass as teeth and sharp lines for lips.
“How did you survive?” I whispered, my heartbeat echoing in the stillness- needing to hear the words I hoped she wouldn't say.
“I didn’t.”
— dear titanic, tell me of how you survived your sinking // a.
Feb 25, 2020
Feb 25, 2020 at 9:57 AM UTC
December has arrived
You promised me a million things
You said you'd make me happy
And always be there
December has arrived
you promised to love me even harder
and make me the happiest girl alive
December has arrived
Your promises were undistorted
but I was totally wrong
Those were just lies
As December has arrived;
Mirthless smile was drawn on my face
you promised to fix
the broken pieces of mine,
Yet-
you left me a little emptier than before
a.r
Dec 10, 2015
Dec 10, 2015 at 3:18 AM UTC
✨BITTER SILENT CRIES
LETTER TO MY LONG GONE CHILD ,
Dear child,
You came as a surprise,
By turn out of events,
Everything happened so fast,
Mind-blogging and my fears came to reality,
The planned surprised us with the unplanned.
I feel guilty, mirthless.
Disguised by my actions,
Yeah, I did wish one day I'd have a kid,
I hoped and desired to one day fill it with love and affection,
I hoped that one day I'd get to feel him in my arms and feel it with warmth,
I did hope that one day, he'll be the reason I wake up smiling and inspired to live for a lifetime.
I hoped for a better life.
But what did i do,
Instead of being elated,
I became the terminator,
I killed all my dreams,
Rushed to an absurd decision,
My desires turned out to be my nightmares,
My expectations became the catalyst to my destruction.
Everyday I swim an ocean with no end,
With sharp ends that pierce my soul with sorrow,pain and remorse.
Get to feel the breeze with no significance,
Doomed light that gets me tripping,
Faded sunshine that reminds me that you are long gone.
This load inside my heart's so heavy,
Like a rock permanently placed.
My child,
Will you ever forgive mama?
Are you safe wherever you are?
Do they give you the kind of treatment I failed to give you?
Do they wake up early to check up on you and kiss you goodnight?
Do they teach you how to pronounce words I failed to?
Please talk to me,
Give me a sign,
I really miss you.
Letter from mama
#tortured☆soul...
©tiana...💔😪
Apr 22, 2021
Apr 22, 2021 at 5:16 PM UTC
writing love poetry in/on time of hatred
<~>
not for the absence of love, for there is sufficient out and about,
in the eyes of children who cannot hide their glee at your surprises,
tousled morning hair patted down almost into not-a-horror-show,
a shapely body in a black one piece suit, that speaks of hints and
mischievous frolic, a summer night~right of taking, reciprocation,
god’s coffee delivered bedside every morn, with kisses of tenderness
but
**these are the days when hatred speaks loudest,
volume of volumes,
and the hypocrisy runs blood red in the streets and we we wonder
has the world learned nothing from the horrific history of the prior
century, the absence of easy solutions for those who reject in the
provident supply of the low humane treatment of a world where the
word
society
is a mirthless grimacing joke**
maybe that’s why I I turn on the love songs and music, a soupçon
of cherishing, a wail for its absence and loss,
the thrill unique it provided,
and may yet again, and to just remember, remember, remember!
why we obsess about crazy love in the artistry of our lives
so, I will force myself…to write of tenderness, let sneaky,
much needed,
sentimental in…
oops, looks like I already did…
Nov 10, 2023
Nov 10, 2023 at 8:40 AM UTC
I was not invited
So I didn't come
Feeling sad and slighted
My thoughts begin to run.......
................................
Meaningless and worthless
Fate spun it's unforgiving wheel
Leaving a life that's mirthless
Dealing sorrow with gleeful zeal
I find myself alone again
The wheel can only spin around
Ending where it begins
On familiar battleground
On my shoulder sets the crow
Memories continually fanned
Very slowly I sink below
Standing firmly in quicksand
©Pauline Russell
Mar 26, 2017
Mar 26, 2017 at 10:47 PM UTC
The fire in her eyes tonight
calls forth the thought that they invite,
though I recall, not long ago
my absence seemed more apropos.
The smile that lingers on her lips
says more than many verbal slips -
the times it pierced me, sad and grim
lie in the past, though far from dim.
She flayed me once... nay, more than twice,
she flayed me both with flame and ice,
and once again, predictably,
she primes me for catastrophe.
The curious naively watch
her try to carve a deeper notch,
for even they don’t claim to know
the depths to which she’d really go.
Upon my face a smile appears
which hides my thoughts, obscures my sneers,
for now I too have learned the rules
from her - ah, yes, the best of schools.
Because I’m acting somewhat cool,
thus pouring on her fire, fuel,
she burns and yearns and wants me more
than when I was her cuspidor.
Since, unbeknownst I’m not the same,
she plans again her guileful game.
But when her teardrops seep and swell,
will she be proud she taught me well?
The others leave, I stay behind
(they all know what she has in mind)
and take her in my arms once more
then slip her through her bedroom door.
She whispers secrets in my ear,
as I once did (she didn’t hear);
I listen with a mirthless smile
while thinking of a desert isle.
The night is passed, her trusting grows;
I leave before the morning glows.
Aroused, she’ll seek a waking thrill
but find instead a dollar bill.
May 1, 2013
May 1, 2013 at 7:48 PM UTC
A sadness deepens itself into the center of my body
An uncontrolling undesired sadness
That meanders my heart
& perturbs my mind
An uneasy feeling of grievous loss heaves into me
I feel repulsed by these unfortunate feelings
& I'm trying to will them to leave
I cannot explicate this harrowing pain that dredges in my mirthless soul.
I am crying out for comfort
Because my desolate-being is overwhelmed with grief
For I have been mislead by someone I thought I could trust
But they were disgraceful
& abused my solicitudity
And now I'm sitting here baffled
Because who knew.. That you could make me feel so terror-stricken
I trusted you to keep me safe when I told you my sacred secret...
The one secret that ruined me completely
But this goes to show, that you cannot trust anyone
But yourself.
Jun 25, 2013
Jun 25, 2013 at 12:54 AM UTC
Casting waves of pure lore
To line the yielding lips
A heart of splinters like the crown of thorn
Chasing the shade of an eclipse
Shirt drawn open, pulling smoke
Staggered to the racing strait
Tilted head as he spoke
Prose of prayer to the landscape
Pleading to follow the saints
Plunging to kneel like a ribbon to gravity
Make him in canvass and paint
Trace him in the chasm of apathy
As the horizon peaks and pales
He's dizzy with indigo fumes
Abides home by the formidable trail
And cursing the mirthless tune
May 4, 2017
May 4, 2017 at 3:14 PM UTC
bubbling, boiling, the ****** acid sizzles
my insides like water hissing as it turns to steam
helpless against the fury of a forest fire
it chars my throat,
tears springing to my eyes
i can taste the salt on my face
but all i see is red
mirthless laughter echoes
the way black coal smoke billows
from the smoke stacks of my
lungs
the searing heat of hatred
irritates the skin on my wrists
i scratch and scratch and scratch
until the skin is raw
until the skin is broken
until the skin hangs off the bone
i feel nothing but the rage
giving me strength
giving me focus
giving me calm
the lava rises, shrieking,
into my eyes,
pouring from my ears and nostrils,
seethes between my clenched teeth and sealed lips
my breathing
even, deep,
matches the rumble of the cracking earth
and from its core more fire comes
evaporating the tears on my cheeks
the blood on my arms
the rain from the very sky
Aug 29, 2021
Aug 29, 2021 at 3:42 PM UTC
I.
The burnt patches on your
Index finger have quietly been
Snuffing out the cigarettes you've
Been inhaling ever since
The start of this
****** conversation—
All too deep, I suppose.
II.
Your cigarettes remind
Me of my shriveled up crayons:
Wayward patches of yellow and
amber in between
Countless granules of
Fairydust;
Gaudy amalgamation
Of mirthless colors.
III.
As you leave the downtrodden
Sods of my mind,
I can't help but pick up
The stubs you've been grounding
Out all night.
Light a match.
Listless.
IV.
You'll be delighted to know
My bedroom walls now
Come in different
Shades of gray.
Apr 14, 2014
Apr 14, 2014 at 10:59 AM UTC
The stench of death draws me close,
Overwhelming my senses,
Shrouding my eyes with a deep lust.
I pounce on the leftovers of discarded
By Death
And tear the bleak carcass
With my greedy claws.
A black splodge on the tapestry of nature,
A mirthless outlier, the king of dead.
A pillager, I reign the fallen towns,
I **** His Garden.
I liberate the frail from the shackles of life
And let harmony seep into his creations.
Without me his castle of cards
Will reduce to ash and dust
And scattered shards.
Jan 24, 2014
Jan 24, 2014 at 4:35 AM UTC
She laughed.
It was a mirthless sound, full of echoes
and taught with strain
A sharp flash of insight
to some pulsing, deep-rooted ache;
A crackling outburst of electricity
With heat and light searing through,
The passageway opportunely provided
By the void in the afflicted sound
All which dimmed swiftly
As the noise abruptly faltered,
Caught, died.
With it died his illumination
Of some burning passion she kept,
Deeply hidden, closely guarded.
The sound and percipience had ended.
She could not revoke the gesture.
A silent ambivalence grew quickly.
Sep 29, 2011
Sep 29, 2011 at 3:29 AM UTC
**the sound of his incantations
hung like a fertile cloud in the air
till it became locked in an embrace
with the holy smell of incense bare
and all the while he droned on steadily
like a distant engine upon an incline
the birds of the night spun around him
crazy like a moth willing death to come
the hot wax stuck like glue on his fingernails
as the passion heated up and blew a blast
in the direction of mirthless unseen onlookers
witnesses to a macabre rite in the dead of night
the time for forging ties that bind was well nigh
for what better instrument to weld togetherness
than a grim kind of secrecy in the dead wilderness**
Apr 8, 2016
Apr 8, 2016 at 5:41 PM UTC
With its sinuous green edge and its delicately
decorative white venation this dewy cress laid
on a fine crystal platter would fit well next to that
chunk of cement facade ensconced in a vitrine
at the Art Institute’s new Louis Sullivan exhibition
There’s little cause to wonder why these particular
atoms once afloat on inchoate seas and awash
in the hummed mumbles of humble vibrations
chose to decohere into this one captivating pattern
from among an infinite variety of mattered schemes
even limiting their choicest range to those paired
colors A tree frog for example its narrow lime toes
suctioned on a broad leaf and its watchful pearl
eyes misconfigured with a blind spot too soon
exploited by a beak spouted peril Or the gallant rider
in uniform myrtle and mounted atop an albino steed
who at a mirthless gallop through routed troops
delivers this message Mother I am so far away
from everything They’re oddly jarred couplings but
with any choice whether slapdash had or carefully
considered what’s our guarantee it will live up to
the iron of romantically clad expectations I have
heard It’s always the salad that gets you in the end
Sep 23, 2010
Sep 23, 2010 at 9:45 AM UTC
When the ship was about to sink (heavy with its own weight as the legend goes) the captain’s sweetheart asked him :
“ Don’t you ache from all you carry ? It could be so much lighter, so much easier ”
And the man replied,
I could tell you I want to be the everyday air that inhabits you for a moment
only because I want to be that unnoticed and that necessary,
Or I could tell you what I really want to say,
Which is that I love you
But If I told you I loved you,
Would you remember me through the summer haze of your sea-kissed city,
And look for me in the reflections of your effortless smile,
When time stopped occasionally on stormy nights,
To let in the dreams scattered through our broken windows of - “what if”
Would you run with me in empty alleys,
Paved with improbable bricks of surreal happiness ,
And leave your hurried footprints like a shower of kisses,
Even if the city lights played jealous gods,
To the mirthless mornings of separated worlds.
Would you dance with me on the edges of changing shorelines,
Where the recurring waves match the music of our heartbeats,
And the sands shifting below our feet,
Become invisible like the ghosts of unexplored pleasure,
While my promises of tomorrow merge into your twilight of today.
If I told you I loved you,
Would it even make a difference to the songs you will sing for your eventual lover ?
I was hoping it would.
May 12, 2016
May 12, 2016 at 3:15 AM UTC
Yester' I stood by the lagoon
The air was fair at that dry noon
Oh and my heart grew dearly fond!
Of that sight just next to the pond!
A bush of lavish strawberries
Just as sweet as my ripe cherries
Young like a bunch of chaste ladies
Dart'd I to harvest some berries!
Sang I 'till spill'd the dazzling snow
Unlike the frightened tomorrow
White and holy its shine and glow
Felt I how it smeared 'long my brow!
That moment my legs but grew still
As snow streamed downwards like a shield
'Tis got me scared gave me a thrill
As I stood pale right on the field!
The ragged plants the mirthless clouds
Haunted abbey and reckless shouts
Tore my sights into 'nother world
In some music and wan long chords!
I was 'fore a dark corridor
When you're 'bout to walk out the door
How your scent's just what I adored!
And yon black jacket that you wore!
But suddenly in sprang the wolf
In the blink of a thunderbolt
Scythed you in a terrific howl
Left you lifeless in bitter jolts!
I screamed I called you out in vain
'Cos you could no more hold the pain
Blood swarmed your wrist as it grew weak
I was the last to hear you speak
That you loved me and needed me
Said those praises undoubtedly!
I kept wailing I couldn't think
My whole love would go in one clink!
I buried my head in your chest
To embrace all but its last breaths
I rubbed my tears upon your breast
'Fore you went to eternal rest
I wailed for ho'rs till came the night
No-one to help me was in sight
I was desp'rate and torn by fright
When I caught a dim gentle light!
The light was no-one else but thee!
Thou graciously sat there by me
Amongst the snow beside the tree
'Twas a dream but I now was free!
And bending thy face onto mine
The snowfall's no more but sunshine!
Wedded my keen love into thine,
to other loves would I be blind.
Dec 27, 2012
Dec 27, 2012 at 1:34 PM UTC
Fingers locked in one emotion
eyes don’t stray, they’re falling skyward.
Watch the nights with lights exploding
Fireworks rain down, you’ll notice
confessions leave the heart exposed and
much too weak but keep your focus.
Just be brave and be courageous
She’ll thank you after for your love,
though you may think she is facetious.
Hesitation makes you mirthless.
Love’s like this: it’s full of hurt and
scars and petty disappointments.
While I learn the art of patience.
Come some day you’ll be her one.
Bend the doubts which mostly lead
to love’s inebriation
and watch my crimson patience
drain from full to empty.
We’ll fight in fright as floods
of rage are stitched to merry words.
She is every bit as lovely
and wistful as I know,
though every time she beams
her brightness is so blinding.
In love and years, I’ll wait
like this and nothing less.
The moment will come when all
the hopeful lies I hold,
I’ll trade them for her truth.
Though we’re young and full of folly,
limerence is a madness still.
Aug 18, 2012
Aug 18, 2012 at 6:10 PM UTC
A harbinger he was born
a puppet to dirt farmers in the
fatalistic empires of lost liberty
He spent his boyhood drifting in aimless
pursuit of a less broken home
but his past eats him from within
His greedy grasping hand is fear
with self indulgent dark eyes he
comes to my haven and bringing
his hand in tow and lays its sweaty meat
on my soul
Its cold dead feel crawls down my spine
like migration of hope to forgotten places
He is a mirthless man
the trumpeter in the parade of dying
quests to find a better future
He is preaching his own brand of God
from the poorhouse soapbox
shouting wildly with his hands
he is a small man in a tall frame
who feeds on poverty of pocket and soul
preys on the weak and unwary
he is a apothocary to the souless
Jul 18, 2013
Jul 18, 2013 at 8:37 PM UTC
Step out of my dreams
If only
To catch a fragment of my broken self
Always lost in endless thoughts of you.
Step out of my dreams
If only
To hold a thread of my tattered soul
Stubbornly clinging on to you.
Step out of my dreams
If only
To hear a rustle of my tuneless sigh
Singing mirthless songs of you .
Step out of my dreams
If only
To steal the dew drop on my palm
Preserved exclusively for you.
Step out of my dreams
If only
To awaken my solitary self
Once again dreaming ceaselessly of you.
Oct 23, 2010
Oct 23, 2010 at 6:31 AM UTC
Where is my life headed?
To a greener field or a greyer dread?
What are driving my thoughts?
A killer behind or a murderous rage ahead?
Is my desire for peace a mirage?
Are the shadows crossing my heart soothing not?
Is my dream of satisfaction a farce?
Or a pursuit of happiness, the harbinger of gloom?
What dreams am I running after?
Is an afterlife of glory worth sacrifices of now?
Are vices of today, just tools of mirthless laughter?
Controlling those, who are too bored of freedom?
Is my desire for peace a mirage?
Are the shadows crossing my heart soothing not?
Is my dream of satisfaction a farce?
Or a pursuit of happiness, the harbinger of gloom?
Is a tired poet with a broken guitar
Just a delusional disappointment waiting to happen?
And his empty song books, his empty lifestyle moves
A naked body in the line of a barrage?
Is my desire for peace a mirage?
Feb 11, 2018
Feb 11, 2018 at 12:07 AM UTC
Conditions are prime
preservation will occur
as another murky layer
settles and sticks
The smoky dawn
holds no redemption
harsh words have left
their scorch upon the tongue
In one room, he lifts the toppled glass
In another, she straightens sheets, silently
A careless word, a glance
might prove the unwanted spark
No explosion will follow,
not with this black and bitter tinder
Only a slow smoulder,
a quiet, crawling conflagration
Amber light in the quiet kitchen
sees him unscrew the cap
tip the whisky down the sink,
penitent, confessional
Dull thoughts
of drunken microbes
a mirthless smile
and a bottle, as empty as the gesture.
Apr 22, 2015
Apr 22, 2015 at 8:21 AM UTC
Shadows
by Michael R. Burch
Alone again as evening falls,
I join gaunt shadows and we crawl
up and down my room's dark walls.
Up and down and up and down,
against starlight—strange, mirthless clowns—
we merge, emerge, submerge . . . then drown.
We drown in shadows starker still,
shadows of the somber hills,
shadows of sad selves we spill,
tumbling, to the ground below.
There, caked in grimy, clinging snow,
we flutter feebly, moaning low
for days dreamed once an age ago
when we weren't shadows, but were men . . .
when we were men, or almost so.
Published by Homespun and Mind in Motion. This poem was written either in high school or my first two years of college because it appeared in the 1979 issue of my college literary journal, Homespun. Keywords/Tags: shadows, dark, walls, evening, starlight, moonlight, men, souls, drowning, phantoms, shades
Apr 13, 2020
Apr 13, 2020 at 5:40 AM UTC
She was a source of life,
The incandesence of my darkness,
A glow worm to my eyes.
Selfless, she lit me even when I never reciprocrated her
Indefatigable love.
She was irritating at times when my eyes wanted mirthless isolation.
Nevertheless, she kissed every nook and cranny of my being.
She escorted my blindness, navigating the travails of life.
She furnished words into my soaking spectacles.
She gave me solace, she gave me space to abate my prostrated
Solar cells.
An exquisite garland and a crown of thorns.
My soul will be snuffed out without her; my existence invalidated.
The fogdog of my hazy life.
Edifying light—she revealed
The beauty of the cosmos; my corporeal self, manifest.
Jul 26, 2015
Jul 26, 2015 at 11:21 AM UTC
This is the life
Right
Or is it a strife
Spite
Where are my emotions
Numb
Senseless and **** pick up my
Crumbs
Find myself pointless, worthless
Empty
Every aspect so dark and mirthless
Modus Vivendi
Jan 28, 2013
Jan 28, 2013 at 3:45 PM UTC