"monochromatic" poems
Why is hellopoetry.com black and white? I've always wondered about this... why my colorful photographs are required to travel back in time. How does this effect the poetry in any way, shape, or form? But I understand the wisdom of this design now. And it sets a great metaphor for all of the people of the pen involved in this truly noble motion, this secret society for people with passion, talent, and troubled minds and souls. Hello Poetry is black and white not because it has to be monochromatic and modern, but because us poets fill these pages with enough inovativeness and color already with our words, ideas, thoughts, songs, senryus, ballads, heartbreaks, insecurities, that adding literal color to this website would be overwhelming. These soft undertones of gray, black, and white may be considered drab and depressing to some, but to us poets it represents timelessness. And this is probably why we are all here. Hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, or even yearly publishing poems. Because we all know we are not going to live forever, and we are so entirely insignificant in the broad scheme of things and of the universe itself, that it is a bit comforting and helpful to have this coping mechanism or soft blankie to calm our fears, that this literature we write, however insignificant it may be, is absolutley permanent. And that maybe someday it will be remembered so a small bit of us may live on. Tom Riddle knew the needs and wants of man kind before anybody else realized it. Maybe he was just trying to cope with the fact that he is insignificant. These poems are all our Horcruxes so viveamus per camenam nostram.
Apr 5, 2014
Apr 5, 2014 at 5:19 PM UTC
I've gotten so used to greyscale
On this faulty monitor
That I've almost forgotten what colors look like
As they dance across the screen
I have had enough of this monochromatic monotony
So I snip wires, rip out cords
Do anything I can to see if I can get the color back
The only cable I leave alone is the one connecting it to the wall
I stand there in the robotic wreckage
And see a bit of red blinking on the screen
My world is not yet in technicolor
But this is a start.
Feb 9, 2015
Feb 9, 2015 at 2:46 PM UTC
Sanctuary is here; hiding in plain sight
Bedimmed beings step into the light
Stumble upon you may; hear us you might
All is welcome; no guard dogs that bite
Step inside, matters not armed or unarmed
Come as you are; steady or alarmed
Sip and drink from our collective fountains
Rest your eyes on our self painted mountains
Come on close and meet us all
Under shady trees or beyond the knoll
Some of us don masks or hide behind names
Some come naked but we're all one and the same
See our lives, spun from heavy layered bales
Woven intricate telling fantastic tales
Weavings we let fly, to catch each other's fables and stories
We admire them for what they are and the seed each carries
Be aware... Should you not understand
We may bear similar signatures but wear different brands
We, the people, trade in euphemisms
Broken sentences and long forgotten idioms
We are weavers, dreamers and scribes
Pouring here the outside world we imbibe
We are unguarded hearts speaking in metaphoric tongues
We provide safe haven for bruised souls with punctured lungs
So welcome traveler, shed your load
You might like it here in our coveted abode
Revel in the monochromatic sights you see
Where freedom of thought is revered in this here Sanctuary...
Aug 24, 2014
Aug 24, 2014 at 2:12 AM UTC
Writing a poem is like making a necklace,
Bead by bead, pattern on pattern,
Complex or simple, colorful or monochromatic,
The good ones take talent, but chance luck can help.
This one for that friend, that one for this day,
Good words like fancy baubles,
Well placed they make the string,
Wrong placed and they ruin it.
Some come easy, some are long thought out
Oct 14, 2014
Oct 14, 2014 at 4:59 PM UTC
In front of a silky white chair,
An aura of complete despair,
We try to contrast and compare,
This monochromatic nightmare.
I stand before this noose I dare,
To loop my neck and mark a tear,
On my skin that is not so fair,
A bright red strip exposed and bare.
I try to jump without a care,
The chair and rope comes in a pair,
Yet I loosened it with a swear,
I need to live... a life unfair.
Oct 25, 2017
Oct 25, 2017 at 10:30 PM UTC
Lend me your eyes.
So I could fill them
with the bursting stars.
Telling tales of the spellbinding universe,
singing songs of exploding suns...
and of splintering quasars.
Lend me your thoughts.
So that if I may,
write of them.
Fantastical scribbles of love
and praise.
Meticulously lined
and carefully stitched...
with immaculate lace at the hems.
Lend me your breaths.
I'd catch them as they fall...
between the words you would say.
Merging mine with yours...
introducing colour...
and vigour
to my monochromatic world of
black, white and grey.
Lend me your heartbeats...
for mine thumps erratic.
As if beating in silent mock.
I depend on the steadiness in yours.
So they could usurp
the ticks of worldly clocks.
Lend me your hands.
Palms up as a sign,
perhaps as an invitation...
for me to take them.
And maybe...
hopefully fill them...
with mine...
Jul 31, 2015
Jul 31, 2015 at 10:06 AM UTC
~
*Lift the veil from a grayscale morning. Vividly imagistic. An odalisque no more.
Her shape beneath the gown is a foreign land, a series of quiet revelations. Its pattern manifests as pinpricks of light perforating the shirred fabric of his heart.
The preponderance of dream in her eyes becomes a call and response evoking purely imaginary spaces. The contained chemistry is beautifully insular, monochromatic.
And there her lips. Into claustrophobic kiss. This lower register of love comes in unadorned, subtle colorings like the darkest part of night.
One thousand shades of gray.
One single light of white.
And everything merges in the night.*
~
Nov 24, 2023
Nov 24, 2023 at 11:47 AM UTC
*Elemental Metamorphosis & Transcendental Milestones,
Sempiternal Origamis Of Her Temperamental Clones,
Spiraling Perpetuities & Her Sacrosanct Fortitude,
Procreating Tipsy Ruptures In Her Permeating Solitude,
Perplexed Momentum & Her Outlandish Constellations,
Nuclear Decay Of Her Masked Radiations,
Verbal Shadows & Her Tranquil Ascendance,
Encasing Her Tears In Liquefied Transcendence,
Yearning Oddities & Entropic Oceans,
Vitalizing Inexorable Emotions Into Phosphorescent Potions,
An Hourglass Existence Of Her Fabricated Virility,
Dwelling In Quantum Ascents Of Ardent Agility,
Silver Ghosts Of Her Prismatic Abyss,
Convicting Glass Houses In Her Ecstatic Bliss,
Telepathic Shades & Hollow Palisades,
Detrimental Novelists On Uncharted Crusades,
Pernicious Scars In Her Profound Gaze,
Erupting Genesis Inside Her Dimensional Maze,
Perplexed Periphery & Digital Fictions,
Annexed By Her Hourglass Depictions,
Breakdown Sanity & Her Concealed Screams,
Lifelike Dewdrops In Her Visionary Dreams,
Satellite Searchlights & Love//Less Progenic Mutation,
Paralyzed Sunlight Sparking Genetic Alteration,
Monochromatic Streams & Cinematic Realms,
Static Screams Of Her Toxic Schemes.
- 05:43 AM -*
Apr 5, 2017
Apr 5, 2017 at 11:18 PM UTC
resuming textual trip
testing experimental procedures
visualizing model tsunami
augmenting facetious environment
catching abstract architecture
noticing rhythmic exchange
projecting subtextual database
airhorning reggae royalty
adding atypical party
resolving twitter question
noticing emotional mission
awaiting emotional dialect
installing metaphorical experiment
intensifying animated trip
displaying dynamic victory
programming abstract development
releasing emotional exchange
deriving fata morgana
glorifying referential sequence
intensifying facetious map
noticing harmonic trip
observing radical ratio
compiling nomadic message
predating google rebranding
reticulating facetious panda
using hyperreal feedback
exploring virtual panda
speculating graphic gallery
throwing mundane exception
targeting graphic experiment
replenishing emotional trap
localizing asemic animal
dropping rhythmic trip
propagating immortal experiment
displaying lowercase database
invading orange bubbles
crashing animated trip
running conceptual topography
remembering collapsed buildings
crashing hyperreal coverage
propagating hyperreal stipulation
finishing western library
envisioning neon tessellation
reciprocating network likes
processing animated device
releasing haptic quality
examining building seven
awaiting rhapsodical ratio
sampling death sauce
sensing lowercase clone
examining symbolic tour
processing potential development
encapsulating spatial lottery
displaying digital paragraph
reticulating theoretical source
perpetuating western paragraph
transmitting monochromatic structure
anticipating ambient quality
transmitting asemic environment
intensifying atomic quality
remastering history poem
keeping future light
hypothesizing eternal game
using future library
rearranging masonic language
transmitting masonic development
continuing ceremonial ritual
questioning party's legitimacy
deferring western coverage
finishing asemic hypertext
mollifying ostentatious presence
synthesizing allegorical icon
forming categorical unions
sketching app wireframe
programming immortal repository
Sep 15, 2015
Sep 15, 2015 at 6:52 PM UTC
my soul is stuck
in old, coastal towns;
a cup of strong coffee in hand;
i can drown in its taste
mixed with my heartbeat running amok.
the sound of the rain
threatens to deform the roof,
as if the midnight sky
was trying
to read her sadness out loud
to the unmarked graves
beyond my ribs;
as if the raindrops
were prison guards
chasing after my soul,
waiting to cage it
back in place.
the broken clock
tells me it's still midnight,
but for all i know,
it may yet be another
sleepless night kinda
monochromatic daybreak
and
i can no longer tell which is louder —
the storm inside my head
or outside.
Jul 2, 2019
Jul 2, 2019 at 2:39 AM UTC
it feels like the blood inside my veins is moving like quick dry cement does ten hours after it's poured
simultaneously a storm brews in them
similar to how mom once brewed soup that tasted of distanced family and bile
bile which still resides in a clump at the back of my throat from the last time i said your name
you are he-who-shall-not-be-named since saying your name is as dangerous as saying Voldemort’s
monochromatic colour schemes make up my world, each day either tinted or shaded
usually shaded because I was told that dark colours are slimming and that thought never left my mind
rain smudges all of the pigments together and even my glasses can't correct my vision
i love rain but my rainbows are always brown-black
like those karate belts you had when you lived
or how she used to mix all of her playdoh together
i used to believe that she created the world that way
god i wish i was right.
Apr 29, 2014
Apr 29, 2014 at 3:08 PM UTC
Now when I look-I only absorb monochromatic colors!
Mar 17, 2020
Mar 17, 2020 at 5:14 PM UTC
I'm waiting in the night
by the red of the light.
I've been left out
under the touch of the rain;
like a photograph
my memories are fading.
Colors dripping,
down the streets streaming;
washed out words are pouring,
down the sewer dripping.
I'm monochromatic,
blind to a world of sheep.
At a standstill,
open arms ready to accept
the sky or ground;
rejecting and forsaking
rejected and forsaken.
A fool in a journey of redemption.
Feb 10, 2016
Feb 10, 2016 at 1:58 AM UTC
Altered by the winds laced with a threnody tune,
life in the northern woods will never be the same without its bloom.
The deceased puppet master continues to pull the strings of the dehiscence heart,
one of this game is forced to take part.
The ears of an indecisive mind take in the plaintive sound,
which provides an ongoing reminder of how these feet are forever bound to this ground.
With the chances of escaping this monochromatic box slims,
one might begin to take a swim.
The ideal way of living becomes a compromise,
the old personality leaves only the eyes.
Shed away in a abscission fashion,
and along with that goes all the passion.
Sitting down to confabulate with a higher knowledge,
carry on the dreams of going to college.
Storybook barriers leave no saltant mood.
Being passed by society is quite rude.
A misnomer indeed,
being labeled wrong because of greed.
Hunger of such has taken a life,
of one upon a lake that was never a wife.
Letters that hold such wicked silence,
that can never be undone even with science.
This blue body surrounded by an invisible malediction,
or maybe that is all just fiction.
He has nothing left from his unmanly lies,
upon keeping secrets he thinks he is wise.
Knowing it all is never enough,
but with an abecedarian brain on might just call it a bluff.
Eventually farewells must be given without hate,
and one might hope to return as if all was in a somniferous state.
Jun 15, 2013
Jun 15, 2013 at 11:57 PM UTC
This town has depleted my soul
nearing the point of no return
The single remedy to redeem my spirit
is to escape what I've known for so long;
the people
the places
the persistent memories-
I'm reminded of every breath this town takes from me
Existence is monochromatic here
and I'm ready to see the spectrum,
to look through the kaleidoscope
and see what life is really like
in the new light my eyes will never forget
that this town tried to hide from me
Jul 22, 2015
Jul 22, 2015 at 1:34 PM UTC
Misery haunts me like a vengeful lover’s phantom
Grey clouds of solitude drench me with the rain of cold silence.
The thunder startles my vision with its sudden piercing vibrancy,
but the accompanying sound is inaudible to my ears.
Perhaps the deafening screams of my soul have rendered them useless.
Misery bites into my flesh like a famished Hellhound
the crimson of unrequited love bathes it mercilessly.
Its dagger like fangs bite into my calf,
but the accompanying feeling of pain on my skin is nonexistent.
Perhaps the innumerable pinpricks inflicted by words have rendered it numb.
Misery paints me like a mournful artist,
into the monochromatic shades of abandonment.
The slicing strokes of his brushes, highlight crimson suffering,
but the accompanying cries of bitter pain are not possessed by my throat.
Perhaps the incessant demands of respite made by it have rendered it sore for an eternity.
Misery slithers inside my nostrils like a toxic repulsive snake.
Trails of blue betrayal are left by its slimy flesh while it travels to my lungs.
Its venom covers my nerves in the burning sensation of ridicule,
But the accompanying smell of approaching death seems absent
Perhaps the putrid smell of my burning conscience has rendered my senses immune.
Nov 18, 2014
Nov 18, 2014 at 10:24 AM UTC
I'm that record player that keeps going on,
Playing the same old, outdated song.
I'm sorry.
All my poems spout the same cliches now.
Hell, I'm the embodiment of those cliches now.
I don't know why I'm suffering from the disease
Years after my exposure to patient(s) zero,
But here I am, sick, bed-ridden and sleep-deprived,
Scratching sores I thought had long healed up.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry that I don't see colour anymore,
Just the monochromatic shading of decay.
I don't know how to pull myself back up again,
Can't remember how I did it the first time.
I was a ticking time bomb without even realising it,
And I don't even know if I've exploded yet,
Or if this is just the precursor, the countdown
To ripping apart everyone in my vicinity.
I'm sorry.
They say pain makes for the best artists, the best art,
But I'm too repetitive to make anything good.
Even the violent strokes of red have turned dark grey,
And they get darker the further down the abyss I go,
Where the darkness is so dense that light can't penetrate,
And I don't see the nightmares that have come back.
I'm sorry.
Nov 6, 2016
Nov 6, 2016 at 12:14 PM UTC
When dawn descends into dusk
I am caught in moonlight clutches
claws digging deep into ever
so suggestible flesh —
like the werewolves I see
while sitting on my porch
basking in the days
last puffs of smoke.
I similarly am going up in
plumes of carcinogenic
madness, brain ravaged with
thoughts of aliens
coming to steal me away —
thieves in the night.
Such is this twisted tango danced,
with the familiarity of lovers
interwoven in my brain —
tarnished neurons,
friendly fire dopamine,
spilling over into visions —
but not the kinds of sugar plums.
no, this fruit is rotten;
bearing gnashing teeth,
breathing fire.
But this phoenix will rise from ash
from the remains of deluded thought
of broken tongue words
misplaced and slithering
figures in peripheral vision
with their monochromatic hue
I will be rainbow reborn,
the full spectrum anew, because
every storm will pass —
and I
will not
be beaten.
Dec 10, 2023
Dec 10, 2023 at 1:51 PM UTC
everyday is exactly the same
there is no love here
and there is no pain
every single day
consists of only
gray
though my sight
is not colorblind
I exist
in a monochromatic world
at first
when I discovered
my true self
hiding
in my shadow
I found I was
drowning
in the deepest sea
of dark blue misery
anchors of shame
sunk me
to the depths
unable to pull myself
back up
my soul died while submerged
and since then
this sunken vessel
has been empty
sea of sadness
I am
one with you
the pressure
is no longer
overwhelming
it has become
unnoticeable
as with
all else
no joy
no sunshine
can touch this
void
myself
immune to sadness
immune to all
the colors of emotion
please make me real
I just want to feel
Apr 29, 2016
Apr 29, 2016 at 12:57 PM UTC
She's wheat-skinned and coarse-haired;
In a fair and lovely world. This woman embodied
Perfection; without ever journeying on a quest to seek it.
All the other girls understood themselves,
Each and every bit of them. She simply
Forgot; to look in the mirror, to be aware of her singular quirks, to be daunted by the schools of swordfish.
*In the tribes of North Africa, communities banged drums and danced to please the Gods.
"Allah, Allah!" they'd temporarily yell to foot-stampers who seemed to invoke the spirits,
Those who took breaths of transparent inspiration and truly,
And truly, lived in that jiffy.*
The entirety of her life was an Allah moment,
For she never ceased to be lit from below, and lit;
From within. Her monochromatic soul shined a spectrum,
And she was perfect, because she didn't need to be.
Feb 13, 2015
Feb 13, 2015 at 2:03 PM UTC
Coffee. Desk. Ringing phone. Clacking keys.
This same pen. This same ******* pen,
that writes the same way—there is a thinning of the ink
in the curve of the E’s and the stroke of the Y’s
Endless stapling. I find myself gritting my teeth every time
as if I’m stapling my skin—or my hand. To my face.
The window behind me offers the same view
of the same skyline of the same ****** buildings!
Overcast, sunny, slight drizzle or deluge—
Doesn’t matter. Nothing matters but the rhythm of my heart
That is no different from the rhythm of my day.
I can’t even remember what happened yesterday. I just remember
The coffee. The desk. The ringing phone. The clacking keys.
At least this way, there’s no use fretting about tomorrow.
Because tomorrow—it’ll be that same pen. That same pathetic pen.
Sometimes, I want to cry. Cry for my wasted hours—days—life.
Cry for those clouds in the horizon that looked no different
from the same clouds in the same horizon yesterday.
Cry for the slowly dulling reds and greens and purples
in the canvas of this miserable life.
Howl for the Wonders of the World,
the Must Watch Movies Before You Die,
the 1001 Books You Have to Read Before You’re Dead,
that I will never get to savor.
Grays and Blacks and Whites.
So monochromatic.
So very monotonous.
At least, in the few nights that I dream…
I dream in color.
Jul 12, 2013
Jul 12, 2013 at 1:59 AM UTC
we started a painting
when we met.
i was the artist,
and you weren't,
but i was okay with that.
you painted carelessly,
and i cleared up all your mistakes.
it was a beautiful portrait,
and i was beyond ecstasy.
but one day,
i guess you became tired.
holding brushes
and painting in blotches and strokes,
you decided to stop,
you quit and left me there.
i watched you walk out of the painting,
i watched you walk out of my life.
so then, very slowly
i grew more tired on my own.
from colors, to monochromatic.
from rainbow to black and white.
our painting turned dull.
one day, i ended it all,
never touching a single brush.
i never finished the painting.
how would i,
when inspiration is gone?
and only you,
were my inspiration.
Apr 5, 2014
Apr 5, 2014 at 4:05 AM UTC
eyes so deep and blue as though the sky in a humid morning
eyes so deep and blue as though the vast ocean, scary yet calming
so deep, i'd dive in the universe they hold
so blue, it colored my monochromatic world
Sep 27, 2017
Sep 27, 2017 at 10:47 PM UTC
Memories of the North Sea
sift in like sand kernels
on a fast, frigid tide:
events that transpired outside
the confines of rhyme,
unfolding exactly
as they were meant to.
Never before had I seen
so many shades of gray;
the overcast, monochromatic splendor
was awe-inspiring,
instead of being bleak and bleary.
___
The smell of salt and seaweed
awakes something dormant and eternal,
deep within me.
I have a surging desire
to flush stagnancy from my blood—
salty blood and water
come together in a communion
of distant relations and movements.
Beside me, a flash of bright red
digs in the sand; my child
is wearing the only vibrant colour
to be seen for many kilometres.
The colour matches her
enthusiasm and energy,
as she moves from one spot to the next
like a dancing flame;
reflected, a fire glows from my eyes.
Unknowingly, I had dressed
in the same colours of the sky and sea,
blending into the scenery
like a chameleon:
an illusion thicker than the clouds;
an illusion of stone
for me to melt and reinvent
at the spinning speed of thought.
I watch my daughter
drink the seascape with a smile of wonder;
it's her first time visiting an ocean.
With our pants rolled up to the knee,
we wade through waves,
and collect stones and shells.
She knows the chameleon
who walks alongside her in the frothy surf.
Observing seabirds cover the steep cliffs
of the island located further out,
in a blanket of black and white feathers,
I wonder if people onshore
only see a solitary dash of red out here,
or if the chameleon
is more noticeable than I had thought.
2012 North Sea Remix
December 17th, 2012
Dec 18, 2012
Dec 18, 2012 at 4:50 PM UTC