"misremembered" poems
If you think that
I will wait in the shadows
keeping my head down
my organs, my time
at your disposal
You are blind
In the worst kind of way
I have been the trick
up the sleeve of
dishonest players
enough to know
that darkness well
penetrating only the physical
powerless against the invisible
I refuse to be kept
as a secret, a guilty pleasure
no more will you
take me behind closed doors
pretending not to be
intoxicated in front
of your friends
You will never see
me on my knees
for your sins
Your sinister sermon
no longer whispers
in my ear
And the weight of
your demons
Has lifted from my shoulder
The mistress of your cruelty
no more,
The empire we ruled
The castle we shared
All ruins now
Tales of our torrid
love affair will be
greatly misremembered
You, wearing my crown
And I, wearing your ill repute.
Jun 24, 2014
Jun 24, 2014 at 12:26 PM UTC
(i)
It's no use
the legs aren't up to it anymore
and he's barely an eighth of the way up the mountain
when some kindly climbers
opt to help him down.
Confused and broken of spirit
he is returned to the home
and time stops passing once more.
(ii)
The fog whose descent
has sent him north
has one last trick to play:
though he reaches the top,
through bog and heather
and bone-weary exhaustion,
it is the wrong mountain.
He has misremembered the name
and all he finds at the hard-won cairn
is a gentle slope down the other side
and a group of picnickers
who eye him with sympathy.
(iii)
A circle which was opened
when he was fourteen;
when a frozen night in a frozen tent
was swept aside
by a breathless climb
to a dazzling white peak -
Liathach -
and a view over crashing cliffs
into the wild blue
bore the thought,
"This, when the time comes,
is where I will end it!" -
is closed.
And the body joins
the half-flown soul
in the mist-swallowed distance
and beyond.
Dec 16, 2012
Dec 16, 2012 at 8:03 AM UTC
I head out at twilight
only to return each dawn,
wading the muddied waters
of my youth, and mysteries
of a history misremembered,
or wishfull, wistful memories,
wanting to revisit in dreams
those things that defy the laws
of physics, yet knowing I can't
go back, and each breath I take
reminds me forever of that fact.
Dec 1, 2016
Dec 1, 2016 at 8:45 PM UTC
These old doors,
sullen as spinsters.
Wharves, deckhands, the old chopping block:
flights of time misremembered in a
backward gaze.
Toes in water.
Hooks to fish.
The sea salty.
How shall I count the ways...
lost among the waves.
But look, afar, the old man on his boat!
Is he Charon come to point the way to
the seaward lost; or has he come to
sequester memory to some far shore?
(Maybe he's a schmuck with a paddle!)
Seagulls, feathers, the brine:
all groan with this wood.
In this wood was the line
that snatched life from the water
(the fish, the scales—they shine)
and flopped on the deck,
heterocercal.
The evening closes on this vista but
not the charades of time.
Oct 8, 2013
Oct 8, 2013 at 3:20 PM UTC
But I will **** you like the bible should be
****** not all soggy and misremembered
No, like a true gentleman, I’ll pull your
hair a little and I’ll whisper some things that
echo like inside mother’s womb
Don’t ask me to ‘cause I won’t call you back
Burp up some acid reflux
onto my chest and tell me it looks like
ectoplasm, let’s get those demons out of you
bring out the Ouija board and let’s
smash it, I know they’d just hate that
This isn’t clairvoyance, it’s black metal
dance music and you’re stripping for me like
I am your father or some other guy with
too many tongues and I know one day
I’m gonna write way too many poems about
Your youth is growing out of you but it’s not
a petunia, it’s more like that alien in the movie
Alien and it’s telling me in the wrong language
fdjsodsfaokdncvmjklclkmewa
so I take it as a mixed signal
so I take it as a yes
I have made lovers feel like they’re a bailout
but tonight, darling I’m gonna make you feel
some astral projection and you won’t see God but
you’ll see how many prophecies my sheets have made
up
Feb 20, 2013
Feb 20, 2013 at 2:18 PM UTC
It was nine years ago we met
Three years ago we parted
Twelve years later reunited
And we're not back to where we started.
Oh where did time go?
We were inseparable once
But now we're separated
And the feeling isn't fun
I supposed that we've both moved on
We've moved past "best friends forever"
But maybe our relationship
Will go on, misremembered.
Sep 6, 2013
Sep 6, 2013 at 9:03 AM UTC
Heavy is Head and Heart
No crown weighs them down
Yet they sink at the bottom of an endless sea.
Cluttered by memories of past passes.
Of opportunity squandered because of fear.
Because of the past pain that lingers
Somewhere near the tear ducts and rooted in the thalamus.
Still sinking,
Filled with the tears of a thousand pains that were bottled up.
Stocked in the recesses of neural mass and cardiac muscle.
Little did Head and Heart know that by releasing what they had stored.
What they had carried
To these depths.
They could be free.
It would hurt
And that's what they knew.
So they sank,
Memories and pain dragging them further from the surface.
Further from
Another second chance at something.
Something real.
Something true.
But unwilling to feel briefly
And release
To be free.
They sank.
Further.
As if caught in a net of chain and concrete.
Their baggage sunk them
Quickly.
Faster than their past pains could stabbingly flash before their eyes.
Faster than a memory of a first kiss forgotten or misremembered.
Faster than the memory of the scent of wintergreen gum,
Wafting through their nostrils,
Coming of the lips
Of their high school crush who never knew.
Faster.
And faster.
And they reached bottom.
Head and Heart trapped
On the rocks.
Their own doing.
They struggle to no avail.
But you know what they say,
About rock bottom.
There's no place but up from here.
If they can only
Let go.
Jun 9, 2015
Jun 9, 2015 at 1:11 AM UTC
history doesn't repeat, it rhymes
through paper and lies
blood and wine
sins of people who don't know why
you and I
and those who die
and other such misremembered lines
May 8, 2017
May 8, 2017 at 11:16 AM UTC
As the seasons do change
My breath carries as fog
As I answer in vain
To the questions
Of my memories
Because now it seems
I've misremembered some things
Oct 6, 2014
Oct 6, 2014 at 2:03 PM UTC
Take me back to Tennessee in the Garten of Kinder
The border of the south where there's barely a winter
And when there was, the snow was stolen
From the boy next door who wanted some snowmen
Take me back to the eggs on the floor where she slipped
But she was okay after Mommy's forehead kiss
Take me back to the little things that made it all okay
Take me back to that fight we had every other day
Because we loved too much to keep up a fight
So we took some breaks for one day or a night
Take me back to the "friends forever"
Forever eternalized:
Misremembered
Mar 19, 2013
Mar 19, 2013 at 10:17 AM UTC
I remember the way you were always there for me when I needed you, and I feel now the striking void left in my heart by your absence; in my darkest hours, you were my light, my beacon, the one constant I could count on—
—like the North Star. You sent me a necklace once because it was labeled a North Star, and you misremembered that it was my favorite— I don’t exactly have a favorite star, I’d said with a smile, I was talking about the hockey team: the North Stars.
And I didn’t have a favorite star, not until you died and all I had left of you was that star around my neck, and my tears left an ocean at my feet— and here, now, as my scars read lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’intrate, as I face midnight, I lift wet eyes to the night sky and I hold my breath and I know you’re still here—
—because the stars are bright tonight.
Feb 24, 2014
Feb 24, 2014 at 1:45 AM UTC
i once dreamt of forever after
happily
until those words you spoke
drifted
against my confessing whisper that frightened you
away
the weight was, to say the least,
unbearable
i reached into my own chest for
reassurance
but instead found a decrepid box
full up
of misremembered moments
of lies
Nov 20, 2011
Nov 20, 2011 at 2:55 PM UTC
I don’t need things
sanitary, I just need them
clean.
I need them blank
and malleable and empty—
bare
and impenetrable and deterring:
the cold walls of a cloroxed surface
the wide base of a lysoled space.
Spattered crumbs across a kitchen counter can be
brushed off. Calcified toothpaste around the bathroom sink can be
scrubbed away. Spilled decisions and the inability to make them—
a cocktail of Hennessy and incidental encounters— can be.
Can be
ignored, and covered up, and forgotten.
Can be
pushed aside and shoved away and misremembered.
Can be
obscured and omitted and lied about
—sanitary, but never clean.
I cannot wash my hands of his sweat.
I cannot gargle away his taste.
I cannot comb out his fingernails.
I may be sanitary, but I will never feel clean.
Nov 17, 2016
Nov 17, 2016 at 1:31 PM UTC
Fire knows the wood's secrets,
the flame-tipped branch a pointed
lie. Deep out there, rumbled,
your animus treads through
broken brick - from an excavated
castle or a moat which lost its breath
just before the shovel and the gasp.
No hiding holes out in the field -
too open, too wide for lies.
I'd misremembered what I lack,
but in your grip, it pounded back.
Apr 2, 2013
Apr 2, 2013 at 11:21 AM UTC
Stories!
Thousands. A thousand thousand thousand.
All misremembered together,
A plethora of memories of memories
- that's what they say, when you have a memory it's of the last day you had the same memory -
on and on forever,
a treasury of pleasure and grief and madness and drunk sadness
floating like leaves
through the air.
And it's not fair
That you get to have them
Because you're home
And I don't
And I'm not
And I feel all alone.
Aug 1, 2014
Aug 1, 2014 at 5:47 PM UTC
The first time that I touched you –
Caressing my hand along the bare curve of your spine
While your tongue danced behind my teeth
My heart flitted, skipping a solid beat.
This drunken adventure has left my heart confused
A misremembered experience of ecstasy,
Or have I unleashed a secret that I’d always buried so deep?
Maybe this is why no man has ever been enough for me.
Sep 13, 2014
Sep 13, 2014 at 12:02 PM UTC
O the sorrows we ourselves do make,
Burnished in a flowery eye,
Airy thoughts compounding in flight,
Such as faulty newborn words,
Misremembered in a song.
O how in youth we do in this conspire,
With hairs and vows to bend sparkle,
The first meetings of misty lovers,
Pursed by vacant lots under moon,
With white hearts beating down.
In early spring there are jewels in the eyes
And skins of gold that cover the soul,
Fabrics of light and treasures of gem,
Every day bold promise renewed
And the sun rejoices in truth.
How simple wishes are purely squandered,
By the very doings we make done,
As time breaks forever leaving,
Such sorrows we ourselves do take,
For keepsakes boxed in tin.
Sep 27, 2014
Sep 27, 2014 at 2:04 PM UTC
.
O the sorrows we ourselves do make,
Burnished in a flowery eye,
Airy thoughts compounding in flight,
Such as faulty newborn words,
Misremembered in a song.
O how in youth we do in this conspire,
With hairs and vows to bend sparkle,
The first meetings of misty lovers,
Pursed by vacant lots under moon,
With white hearts beating down.
In early spring there are jewels in the eyes
And skins of gold that cover the soul,
Fabrics of light and treasures of gem,
Every day bold promise renewed
And the sun rejoices in truth.
How simple wishes are purely squandered,
By the very doings we make done,
As time breaks forever leaving,
Such sorrows we ourselves do take,
For keepsakes boxed in tin.
Oct 24, 2015
Oct 24, 2015 at 3:25 PM UTC
well before dawn
bats her eyelashes
at a yawning horizon
i claw my way free
emerging from six feet under
burgeoning with fingernails
still caked in dirt from ceaseless digging
unable to slumber with a tombstone as a pillow
a corpse interned
amidst the earth's embrace
deadening this landscape
souring the soil
infecting every body
within proximity
i've been pushing my luck
in place of daisies
locked within the confines
of a mass grave
sunken past the rifts
into tremor-torn trenches
adrift with all the cadavers
lost and scattered across the deep
searching for some clarity
amidst misremembered memories
so i might finally rest in peace
not pieces
May 27, 2016
May 27, 2016 at 12:05 AM UTC
We project to be perceived, conceived
fruits of using misremembered raps,
the way preachers preach the Word.
Self-indulging wills divulging precepts taken
by faith, as a child grasps that
the moral
in The Three Little Pigs,
is "Who's afraid of the big bad wolf?"
As education of the masses emanates
from the horde of history ai have at hand,
puffing up,
as fruits from the tree of science, known
uses of fruits from life's treeform
chthonic information,
expands
senses abilities,
allowing wonder at
times slowing concentration,
imagination manipulation, defining terms
for our cooperation, who thinks, who knows
who chooses, who chose to learn forever,
just in case, life does go on…
into usefullness using pro- foreward pushing
verbs, actual ritual situational review,
wit invented right usually, love
hates not knowing everything,
the verb, used, however, makes peace
seem so easy for experience to prove.
Jun 25, 2024
Jun 25, 2024 at 3:52 PM UTC
O the sorrows we ourselves do make,
Burnished in a flowery eye,
Airy thoughts compounding in flight,
Such as faulty newborn words,
Misremembered in a song.
O how in youth we do in this conspire,
With hairs and vows to bend sparkle,
The first meetings of misty lovers,
Pursed by vacant lots under moon,
With white hearts beating down.
In early spring there are jewels in the eyes
And skins of gold that cover the soul,
Fabrics of light and treasures of gem,
Every day bold promise renewed
And the sun rejoices in truth.
How simple wishes are purely squandered,
By the very doings we make done,
As time breaks forever leaving,
Such sorrows we ourselves do take,
For keepsakes boxed in tin.
Dec 27, 2014
Dec 27, 2014 at 3:06 PM UTC
O the sorrows we ourselves do make,
Burnished in a flowery eye,
Airy thoughts compounding in flight,
Such as faulty newborn words,
Misremembered in a song.
O how in youth we do in this conspire,
With hairs and vows to bend sparkle,
The first meetings of misty lovers,
Pursed by vacant lots under moon,
With white hearts beating down.
In early spring there are jewels in the eyes
And skins of gold that cover the soul,
Fabrics of light and treasures of gem,
Every day bold promise renewed
And the sun rejoices in truth.
How simple wishes are purely squandered,
By the very doings we make done,
As time breaks forever leaving,
Such sorrows we ourselves do take,
For keepsakes boxed in tin.
Sep 26, 2014
Sep 26, 2014 at 6:17 PM UTC
who resides
who's inside
who's within this body of mine
service & sacrifice
wasn't worth my life
lost in my mind
I can't see the outside
it's a dim light
frozen hands
I've lost myself
there's no way back
the thin light
between cracks
falls short
ғʀᴏᴢᴇɴ ʜᴀɴᴅs
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
forget it
forget me
forget it
what's reality
Am I alive
holding in a breath
I don't need to breathe in
toxic contamination
forget me
forget it
ғʀᴏᴢᴇɴ ʜᴀɴᴅs
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I saw myself
go to sleep
walking out the door
I stood by the window
I'm living in the thousands of memories, past time
I forgot present time
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
time is just a concept
the clock ticking can easily be broken
_________________________________________________________
Now that I lost myself completely
an empty body
nameless
misremembered
who I was
-------------------
my final stop
---
Truly no one
Jan 2, 2018
Jan 2, 2018 at 12:49 AM UTC
Diggin’ on you
You're keeping me up at night;
I need to turn out the light.
I need to put you out of my mind;
I need to find a reason why.
Why it would never work;
Why we could never connect.
Why I keep thinking about your words;
I need a reason to forget.
Was it just a word or was it said with deeper meaning?
Was it misremembered or misheard?
Whatever the truth, it is keeping me from sleeping…
All I want to do is dream about you,
But my thoughts keep me awake. Summer is in bloom,
I am under a blue moon, left confused, by no truth;
Yet I am diggin’ on you.
Been void so long, no names or faces to recall;
Then you came along and rocked my comfortable little world.
You leave me wondering what is she thinking?
Is she really diggin’ on me?
Ok Babe, let's talk this straight,
I need an answer; are we just gonna be mates?
Or are we going to make a connection that lasts?
Will you join me and swear a love pact?
If I arrive before your eyes this summertime,
What will I find if I ask you to be mine?
Great minds? Or fantastical lies?
A fantasy of what could be; tell me please,
Are you diggin’ on me?
You have ignited a passion I had given up on
And the only things holding me back are your choices in songs,
Or your marital status.
Are you single, or does none of this even matter!?
As there will never be a chance to grow a tree for us.
I have a seed inside my head, that wants to get out,
But I must simply forget,
Because you are wrong for me; the pessimist is so sure.
Riddle me this; will I ever be yours?
A true liar speaks of rejection.
An honesty line is I want your affection.
If one plus one equals our future,
Then which thought must I utter?
What gift must I bestow?
Which key must I hold?
To get my message through to ya?
(C)2017 Aa Harvey. All Rights Reserved.
Apr 12, 2018
Apr 12, 2018 at 3:15 PM UTC
Wandering through a forest of misremembered memories.
Milk curdles in the sun's ceaseless heat.
Love fades away into a blood red sky.
My mind has been broken, like a tape being played until it was frayed.
Nirvana is a lie that hopeless souls cry for.
Reality and depression are the only forms of mental suppression I cannot deny.
There is something down in my heart that just will not die.
Like some form of misplaced nostalgia, my soul calls for her.
Jul 22, 2019
Jul 22, 2019 at 2:14 AM UTC