"momentary" poems
A horror movie scene as the heroine escapes.
Everything is still besides her convalescing breath and the distant, chasing wind.
Not a noise is heard except the fall leave's rattle and the birch wood's moaning bark in the moonlight.
Her body slouches into the protection of a lone shed, and shrouds itself in the aroma of cut grass.
A tense brow relieves and tired eyes close, thankful to receive the momentary peace.
A possible misstep turns the wary peace on end with the jagged cut of broken leaves. The once relieved brow now concedes surprise as wild eyes are cast towards an opaque barricade.
Sly pieces of garden equipment leash a weathered jacket in place as she attempts to stand.
A cackle is heard, a shriek undone.
To spite the brittle wood, the formulaic jump-scare-skeleton-hand bursts through the shed's solicitous walls, set to declare the last of a weary soul as his own.
The wind catches up and spearheads any hole it can find.
It begins whistling around the dim room like a tornado elated to havoc behind a castle's walls.
The tree bark howls, the leaves, now delight.
We learn there is no reprieve for a begging champion.
The camera backs out of the splintered hole, and pans over a silhouetted forest to face the waning moon.
The hero succumbs with muted screams to a gore far below and out of frame.
Our only closure, a black screen, with bright white letters, slowly scrolling up.
The end.
Jul 24, 2018
Jul 24, 2018 at 10:52 PM UTC
Another year gone, leaving everywhere
its rich spiced residues: vines, leaves,
the uneaten fruits crumbling damply
in the shadows, unmattering back
from the particular island
of this summer, this NOW, that now is nowhere
except underfoot, moldering
in that black subterranean castle
of unobservable mysteries - roots and sealed seeds
and the wanderings of water. This
I try to remember when time's measure
painfully chafes, for instance when autumn
flares out at the last, boisterous and like us longing
to stay - how everything lives, shifting
from one bright vision to another, forever
in these momentary pastures.
47.6k
You say doctors will
make the best poets.
They will search your emotions
by the skin; cutting open to reveal
and revel
with surgical precison.
They will play with
heavy drugs and blades--
nothing shall hide beneath
the armors of bone and muscle.
They know the anatomy
of the heart too well.
They will find the things
you have hidden in your chest.
I say
doctors will never be poets.
They are too mechanical,
too fast with their edges
and ridges.
They cannot see the pain
as pain but merely as an anomaly.
That sadness is black bile
not melancholia.
They cannot sing to you
but only clammer in medical jargon.
Poets will use their imperfect words,
and perfect rhymes
to find the secrets of your rib cage
with ease.
They will find every flaw
of your broken body
and make it the best story
you've never heard.
Doctors,
they will put love to define as
a momentary rush of adrenaline,
an arrythmia for another human
caused due to an imbalance of the heart rhythm.
Poets will tell you
that love is the first jolt
of life for them.
They will say love is a state of euphoria
that takes those irregular rhythms to perfect symphonies.
Doctors say that
veins carry blood
devout of oxygen.
I say that they carry your broken emotions
to their feelings factory
to mend it within its beautiful catacombs.
All those doctors
will find and fix you
with perfect solutions.
And these poets
will do their best
to be your perfect solution.
Jan 31, 2014
Jan 31, 2014 at 8:25 AM UTC
I stood there,
Tall and proud,
Half yard behind
Death drop,
Vortex form at toes,
Put fish world in spin.
Crush moss trees with
Splashing feet.
One long gaze
Left to right,
Miles of pool and stream
Spelling poetry in cursive
Through eroded landscape.
Zip down,
Junk out.
Open gates of flesh tap
Muscle relax,
Fresh release
Of human nectar.
Light separation
Casting rainbow shimmer,
A dancing upright
Tower of liquid.
Gravity outstretch
Palm grip
And connect
Via web of
Golden pour,
Chaps eye to
Mother earth.
A converging
Of torrents,
Saturating transparent terrain
With saffron and lemon.
The taste in a frog's mouth
Of sweet ammonia.
Clench,
And donation over.
A momentary meld
Of man and nature.
Those few seconds
Putting context into me:
At one with the scenery,
An extension of environment,
A limb of creation.
Sep 20, 2015
Sep 20, 2015 at 8:15 AM UTC
A sip of coffee
Disclosing my story
Pasting in this scrapbook,
All the photos of us
I took
Writing the captions,
I tear up with emotions
Eternity is a gentle caress
And I recognize
In the end,
There is nothing more
Real in life
Than
Momentary happiness.
May 2, 2014
May 2, 2014 at 1:32 PM UTC
She took my niece,
Made her, her-daughter.
Two of them sippin' coffee
In yoga clothes,
Watching sun-rising over the bay @
7:00am, on a Sabbath-Saturday.
She took my niece,
Made her, her-daughter.
Life, a puzzle, a jig saw dance,
Just found, right now, the right spot,
As I espied them, this poem,
Product of a momentary glance.
Another poem, another piece,
When,
She took my niece,
Made her into Her-Daughter.
7:02am
August 24th 2013
Aug 24, 2013
Aug 24, 2013 at 7:04 AM UTC
A man I once loved told me he wished I “cared more about my body”
But I do care
I care for every lump and curve as much as I hate them
As much as he hated them
I remember yearning for puberty
A thing to make me tall
And thin
A biological fix for my
PROBLEMATIC BODY
Does he know the history?
The gain and loss
The bullies
The pushed-into-puddles
The nightmares
I despise the power of his lips
A lover disfigured
That’s the vibe
His words birthing a mantra of shame
And I’ll never outrun this skin
Thirty years later
And he’s pushing me into a lake
No principal to save me this time
No dry clothes
He left me years ago
Found a much thinner replacement for my side of the bed
It’s for the best
I tell myself as I drunkenly throw rocks at his window
“Don’t think
Just eat”
Is this just a game I play?
Three glasses of whiskey and a Postmate
Won’t chase the horror away
Momentary pleasure
(add guacamole)
Is that enough?
Will I ever be enough?
No
I am too much
Too much skin
Too much softness
Too many folds
Too much of me is filling up space
That’s what they tell me
I see the reflection and I hate all of this excess ME
“I wish you cared more about your body”
What is the remedy?
A perfect diet
A perfect exercise regimen
Pills
Sweat
Porcelain
Think before you speak on a body, sir
Because your words alone
Have the power to ignite a hell
Of
The
Utmost
Destruction
His venom is still pulsing through me
And I’m burning up
I want to escape
Crawl out from the water
Become pure wind
But how do I love me?
How do I allow myself to occupy space?
To stop hiding from every mirror, every glance at the ocean of my belly?
I don’t know
I’m not there yet
I am on an opposite shore consumed by self-hatred
Longing to set sail for somewhere
Somewhere I can cherish the secrets that these sacred ripples of flesh hide
Where my waistline is a treasure map of my wisdom
A place where his words have no power
Where I collapse into the sunset and set myself...
F
R
E
E
Feb 15, 2021
Feb 15, 2021 at 11:46 AM UTC
I am the breath you exhale
That sends dandelion seeds asail.
To you, a momentary pleasure,
While it gives my life new measure.
You've plucked me from home,
Blew me into the unknown.
I might be a seed under your boot,
My existence could seem moot.
But next summer, when you've lost incentive
In momentary pleasures, no longer attentive,
I'll be in full bloom.
Pick me up, I'll rebound again soon.
Jul 9, 2014
Jul 9, 2014 at 1:18 PM UTC
so i get this idea sometimes
that you enjoy being coy
when it comes to me
to conjure momentary spectacle
& make me wonder
if you paint catharsis
on the doors of a home
you've never lived in
as a memory of our first night together
because i do, i remember you
beaming white on blue
speaking softer than any storm
i ever knew, i often think that maybe
you live that night in your mind
when your pillow is cold
& you can't sleep, it makes me wonder
if you do as i do, and rewrite three years fictionally beginning with a kiss somewhere
maybe a balcony or a quiet car
on the sand or in a sunlit grove close to your home but always a familiar scar on the maps we know we know by heart
i wonder if sometimes
the idea of me loving you is too real
and if it teems under your tongue
to stay observant but distantly intrigued
if by this distance you think it safe
to get a dog and pass time
on the couch with a journal & some wine
what i really wanna know is if your fingernails ever wish to have my skin under them
or if they would boast
about winning a war with my headboard
i wonder if you can imagine me
meeting your parents in your apartment & shaking your fathers hand
as a first of many calloused palm readings
and if you know that i trembled before them
how insignificant i had felt
to not know their daughter
in the way i had envisioned
how i picture such poignant moments
so tangibly sharp that sometimes
i replace my memories with little stories
i tell myself that i can't count on two hands
the number of times i've seen you
& that i don't feel like a crater
when i recollect our collisions
i want to know if you still find madness
in the words that have always been about you
i wanna know if your imagination of me
looks more like an anniversary or an obituary
Feb 10, 2014
Feb 10, 2014 at 12:59 AM UTC
Shabash
Shābāsh (Hindi: शाबाश, Urdu: شاباش, Punjabi: ਸ਼ਾਬਾਸ਼, Bengali: শাবাশ, Telugu: శబాష్) is a term used in the Indian subcontinent to signal commendation for an achievement, similar in meaning to
bravo and kudos.
……………………………………………
a poem writ sometimes, oft,
snaps back,
I was surprising recipient
of a commendation in language
I knew not
the poem spoke well
of broken boundaries,
between in this instance,
Jew and Muslim,
capturing a momentary parting
of the seaways and
walls of misbelief
and mischief,
normally employed
to keep our divisions,
parted perpetually
I’ve decided to begin to
use shabash now,
my ‘go to’ word
from now on,
a small quiet way
to say
well done
it starts with one word,
a stretching hand across
the face fence,
imagining John Lennon’s
imagine-world,
who lay dying when I was
a young father of thirty,
me residing less than a
mile away from each other
little could I imagine then that
poetry would pick me at all,
especially to write of words
in dialects I don’t speak,
but imaging their pastel colorations
flying by in gentle breezes,
eager to be grabbed,
plucked from the air,
tongued and loved
so!
when I say to you,
in the softest spoke,
shabash!
to all of us,
for choosing this path,
using your words in
every dialect,
to spread the imagination
of good will
8-4-2019
10:10 am
S.I.
Aug 4, 2019
Aug 4, 2019 at 10:28 AM UTC
in this age of vanishing dreams
and crying ghosts
I find myself drawn again and again
an undying connection
to this work of art
so out of time upon its creation
as to be an endless fascination for me
so unlike the artist
this suffering soul
who's immense love and anguish
for the less fortunate
coupled with a talent too immense
for one man
created a burden that weighed upon his shoulders
and his heart like a million captured tears
then once upon a beautiful dream
or perhaps just a clever thought or a baby's smile
a brief respite from the pain
he created the contradiction of his lifetime
as if to say to all that may come to know him
through what history dictates
'You see...I was not crazy!'
and The Smoking Skull
was born
Dec 26, 2017
Dec 26, 2017 at 8:50 PM UTC
We wandered our gazes
to the semidarkness Illuminated
above our sight.
Looking at the allurement
that were now empty caskets
hanging on tombstones of lights,
clinging to there eventual demise.
Lying on the earth,
we felt at peace.
Knowing we were one day
to be woven within its fabric,
empty shells of pebbles lost in
a lake of timeless moments.
We would be seashells on its shores
gently corroding with each wave.
till we were grains of eternity
variations of us everywhere.
Looking upon each other,
our hands clasping like a
momentary fissure
sealing a grain of moments
between ourselves.
*"Death is a moment where life
is cherry a falling slowly,*
For we each hang on delicate
moments,
growing till we do as everything
does. Descending till we evaporate
from reflections and thought.
"Where all echoes who've already past,
Jul 8, 2017
Jul 8, 2017 at 5:43 AM UTC
Sundays, too, she got up early and let her feet lead her through the dusty alleys of that small town
It was a luxury to have this kind of time alone, silence was vital food for her soul
Enduring the weekday demands to relish a few hours of nothingness, rare meditation,
An escape from a world of momentary necessity
The sweet morning air that kissed one’s skin now turned heavy and stagnant
Back down again through the same storied streets that,
Had become unbearably hot by the noon-day sun, the pace of life slowed accordingly
A weight came over her, the sort of fatigue where every exhaustible cell in your body yearns for rest
She would wander all day if she could, meandering over ground hallowed by history
By now the shadows of the afternoon had casted their long, lanky bodies behind the old chalk buildings
The pulse of life reached a complete pause, as if away on vacation in a more hospitable place
Everything bent, decaying, surrendering to the heat, and everything marked in contrast by the sun’s glare
Here, she stands straight and strong, gazing into the burning face of the oppressor and giver of life
And deny it the desire to win this vague war of attrition
When rung out on the floor she’d smell of autumn and satisfaction
Speaking to me she’ll tell of the faith in self, strength in solitude, and love of something greater than we dare to know.
May 10, 2014
May 10, 2014 at 11:59 AM UTC
When people tell me
That I'm strong
I'm beautiful
I'm amazing...
I don't feel anything.
Tell me these things
When I cry about the pain
That has lasted me years,
When I'm up at night
Even when I'm lacking sleep,
And
When I'm expected to smile
My whole life when I don't feel your warmth.
This ice palace I reside in,
Is it my lifeline?
Because if it is
Wouldn't it be better if
It melted?
All these moments
Have become entangled
And the momentary lapses
Irregular,
My world all
Grey
And
I just can't do this.
But my calls are stuck
In my throat.
I'm frozen.
I'm not resilient.
It's taking me so long
So long
To stand up.
And my heart is giving up
It's beat
Fading.
Oct 17, 2018
Oct 17, 2018 at 10:32 AM UTC
Moments of grace, moments of glory
times I can be myself and not be sorry
but they never stick around never seem to stay
unlike the clouds hanging in the skies on a rainy day
Clarity has become rare since silence became violent
when I said that I love you, but you remained quiet
reeling from the knife you twisted in with force
from my attachments to you I need a divorce
I've never been one to gripe or complain
but lately the way you've been saying my name
has left me completely drained
and there are terrible thing Ive wanted to say
but karma's a ***** i don't want to **** (with)
so I'll sing sad songs like you keyed up my truck
in a bad country love song
gone so very wrong
left here a knight without a kingdom
fighting for nothing just like Don Juan
But growing up means letting go
I hope you find love
some other place, someone else's arms
but never mine
I'll attempt the same and I just know we will be fine
Apr 16, 2015
Apr 16, 2015 at 9:54 AM UTC
I just stood transfixed, letting her eyes light
the smothered wick in me that needed the oil of love
with anxious stutter I asked, "Is your name Grace?"
"It really is, you are right there, but pardon me
I am Grace Fallen" I took it as a joke and smiled,
"Dear fallen flower, your grace resurrects my crucified spirit"
I have seen them all, blooms, perfect, fragrant,
the ones that catapult one to momentary bliss
with a wink, a word that touches somewhere tender
or share love, fresh like butter, that seems gushing from the depth
that not even expect any kind of reciprocation,
blowing like fragrant breeze, caressing drooping trees.
Women with such luminance ,bless their ilk
whom one only could think as incarnates
came down to lift this miserable world
up from the quagmire, the ***** pit it has fallen
because of the absence of feminine grace in abundance
Sep 25, 2014
Sep 25, 2014 at 7:32 AM UTC
Sludge and blood. The smell of deep red iron
filtering through the rocks and bodies bruised to the touch.
Grotesque collections of pills and broken skin;
infections and secretions and violent affections -
Spit stained fingers and dilated pupils at thoughts thick with resin.
Waking up with sickness in your stomach and bite marks on your neck
The pull of clutching hands at strands of hair and bitten lips and sweat
Pulling deeper, sharp inhale of self-done stitches
Ripped open insides and the moment his breath hitches -
aches forever. Pulsing, swollen, bleeding on the brain
Sweet and sickly, gorgeous and gorged veins
Momentary singularity in pain.
Mar 20, 2017
Mar 20, 2017 at 6:20 PM UTC
Your lies were dipped in bittersweet chocolate;
with a heaping amount of caramel sauce drizzled on top.
I gobbled up more than I care to openly admit;
in fear of what others will think and say.
After enjoying your momentary treats;
came the truth;
with so much salt, it was baffling to eat.
A.K.A
(10 w)
The lies I ate, but
the truth I couldn’t take.
Mar 24, 2016
Mar 24, 2016 at 8:27 PM UTC
There’s a strong urgency in ************
The longing for there to be another human body
pressed up against your own, so much so you envision
it vividly in your mind, painting hundreds of
thousands of scenarios until you find one just right
for your hand,
for your body.
It's not about pleasure, but about that momentary loss of place and time,
a further commitment to your imagination but
to your loneliness as well.
Dec 29, 2013
Dec 29, 2013 at 11:35 PM UTC
Draped,
in a long sleeve
shirt,
to cover the evidence
And painting an expression
of contentful bliss
But it is simply an illusion
for the sake of others
Denial the easiest act to employ
Crimson tears stream down
and pool on the floor
A slight shudder
from the sting of the razor’s kiss
Momentary reprieve
from the turbulance in her mind
This pain her only time of joy
But the outside world only sees
the smile on her face
A subtle attempt to make it seem
like nothing’s amiss
Her false expression
of happiness forever a burden to her
Because no one wants a broken toy…
May 11, 2015
May 11, 2015 at 10:11 PM UTC
My mushroom was watered by your juices
fertilised the head grew in your dampness.
the seedling grew in anticipation, would it
seed in needed spaces or would it be launched
to the gravity of its surroundings and fall cold.
Could this eclipse of growth be sustained, or
in the throws of becoming dehydrated in the
over gratification of over consumption wither
in needed times and never reach its potential of
what was needed. But become withered in momentary
over indulgence and go limp in the field of warmth..
This once proud mushroom ever reaching new heights,
Its stalk standing once tall but now faltering and lying
motionless where once it stood tall. that warm space
waiting, wanting its seeds to flourish in this damp
place. Know all but dried up, waiting for another flourishing
head to seed its dampness where the other fell silently limp.
Mar 27, 2016
Mar 27, 2016 at 6:26 PM UTC
the other day i sat alone having lunch in a McDonalds.
i found the Big Mac enjoyable and the wedge fries good enough
but what i truly loved was the cold-ass Oreo McFlurry.
actually, that's a half-lie because the cold-ass Oreo McFlurry
wasn't the only thing i truly loved from that McDonalds lunch.
when i was McSpooning the creamy goodness using my left hand,
the hand that should be reserved for ice cream related endeavors,
this girl wearing a polka-dot dress and a beret came in, stood in line,
and i heard her order: Big Mac, wedge fries and an Oreo McFlurry.
she anxiously tapped her right foot, the foot that should be reserved for tapping,
and i felt love for the first time in months. i didn't know her but i was in love.
it was the kind of momentary love developed for strangers that makes you think:
**** I wish we could sit together in silence at a McDonalds, mouths full,
eating Big Macs, wedge fries and McFlurries being the envy of McDonalds residents."
and then the stranger asks for her order to go and the universe collapses.
the momentary love begins fading slowly and the fantasy is enveloped by greasy fast food smells.
reality is a ***** girl in the polka-dot dress and beret.
it's been 5 minutes since you left. i miss you.
it's been 10 minutes since you left. i've tried forgetting you.
Nov 3, 2015
Nov 3, 2015 at 9:31 PM UTC
I hear a knock upon my door.
Or was it there inside my head, where only ever dread for the things in life I can't obtain remains; No matter how hard I may in one form or another train?
And so I'll sell a piece of my soul yet again; My price of admission to taste love's glory for but a momentary grin.
With you it was so much different.
My heart is still broke, but my real loss is more than conviction.
I lost my heart, my soul, my vision.
A future bleaker than a demonic prediction.
My mind is racing as I try to relax but thoughts of you come rushing back.
I try to close my eyes to snore but there's always a monster lurking behind memory's door.
And as I recalled I saw my cursed fate,
Always here to be here but never to stay.
I'm airport luggage thrown and lost,
Maybe sought another day.
But I'll still love you through any amount of pain.
I've loved before you but never loved in this way: So full of passion and love for who we both are and could be. I'd marry you now and yet I've never stopped you to say that you're such an invaluable friend, and I'm sorry I can't be okay.
I hate that I'm not only jealous but hurt when I shouldn't feel so deeply burnt by the girl that stole my heart; She's so far beyond my worth.
But she came at night and without a knife she took my heart off it's throne in life, and put it kneeling like she had the key. As if some Divine being that, before we had even met, had my heart beat.
Your love for him is clear even from afar,
And so my heart will beat forever subpar.
So confusing are you truly to me.
The one thing I know is you are the one to whom my soul and heart chose to leave me to be.
Maybe heartless and soul-less should go hand in hand? Ripped from the body by something far greater than man.
Something unknowingly more than human, yet divined by human hands.
Ill be content that while I'm still so broke, She can be healed and her love will help her float: And she can finally forgive herself for the wrongs He wrote.
She'll shoulder the pain and strife of life,
With love beside her every night.
I can be okay but never better,
So I write to myself and you all this letter.
I'm high as a kite,
And just as exposed,
I will never not hear the call of my soul.
Depart away so you can hate me,
And close the chapter of my life called meaning.
I want only for you to be whole.
Regardless of cost, repercussion or role.
My love for you will live until dawn rises untouched by Earth's rock.
Yet ever haunting as a ghost who only ever knocks.
Jul 27, 2018
Jul 27, 2018 at 9:26 PM UTC