"mustaches" poems
The artichoke
of delicate heart
*****
in its battle-dress, builds
its minimal cupola;
keeps
stark
in its scallop of
scales.
Around it,
demoniac vegetables
bristle their thicknesses,
devise
tendrils and belfries,
the bulb's agitations;
while under the subsoil
the carrot
sleeps sound in its
rusty mustaches.
Runner and filaments
bleach in the vineyards,
whereon rise the vines.
The sedulous cabbage
arranges its petticoats;
oregano
sweetens a world;
and the artichoke
dulcetly there in a gardenplot,
armed for a skirmish,
goes proud
in its pomegranate
burnishes.
Till, on a day,
each by the other,
the artichoke moves
to its dream
of a market place
in the big willow
hoppers:
a battle formation.
Most warlike
of defilades-
with men
in the market stalls,
white shirts
in the soup-greens,
artichoke field marshals,
close-order conclaves,
commands, detonations,
and voices,
a crashing of crate staves.
And
Maria
come
down
with her hamper
to
make trial
of an artichoke:
she reflects, she examines,
she candles them up to the light like an egg,
never flinching;
she bargains,
she tumbles her prize
in a market bag
among shoes and a
cabbage head,
a bottle
of vinegar; is back
in her kitchen.
The artichoke drowns in a ***
So you have it:
a vegetable, armed,
a profession
(call it an artichoke)
whose end
is millennial.
We taste of that
sweetness,
dismembering scale after scale.
We eat of a halcyon paste:
it is green at the artichoke heart.
16.7k
We know you, and your little dark colors too. A picture book in your purse penned in mustaches on the full faces of your fare. We call you from bed, 8 o' clock in the morning, dog-light you slow wander the Peruvian darkness making jellyfish tentacles with your hands while you feel your way through Salem. We're colder than night and we wake thrice the bits of your day gig. You collapse in a green field of dandelion where thrushes drown you in Brown. We gorge ourselves on mango slivers, pineapple yolks, a half of grapefruit. We know you are close to your end.
On the tops of the cities you call to your lycan friends, the half-sick and muted bray allures them to you, from Bratislava and Mimon, the thoroughfare through the suq. We wait. The foregone untold, the beep beep jug jug swoop sound of the nightingale, in all her dun glory, we wait. Then, as if descending through the moor-lounging silver smoke, the cool stickiness to your fingertips; the fog.
We are there when the blue-less and smoky screen surrounds you, when you shank the auburn Scot hair of the sly fox that stalks, say, a cigarette from your lips. When you take the corners swiftly, gadding the streets. The prize king of vulpicide. You rub its matte fur against your bristly gray beard. And while you lay in your lumps of twelve carat flesh you bleat and you nag. One day you will never come home.
May 2, 2014
May 2, 2014 at 3:14 PM UTC
The artichoke
With a tender heart
Dressed up like a warrior,
Standing at attention, it built
A small helmet
Under its scales
It remained
Unshakeable,
By its side
The crazy vegetables
Uncurled
Their tendrills and leaf-crowns,
Throbbing bulbs,
In the sub-soil
The carrot
With its red mustaches
Was sleeping,
The grapevine
Hung out to dry its branches
Through which the wine will rise,
The cabbage
Dedicated itself
To trying on skirts,
The oregano
To perfuming the world,
And the sweet
Artichoke
There in the garden,
Dressed like a warrior,
Burnished
Like a proud
Pomegrante.
And one day
Side by side
In big wicker baskets
Walking through the market
To realize their dream
The artichoke army
In formation.
Never was it so military
Like on parade.
The men
In their white shirts
Among the vegetables
Were
The Marshals
Of the artichokes
Lines in close order
Command voices,
And the bang
Of a falling box.
But
Then
Maria
Comes
With her basket
She chooses
An artichoke,
She's not afraid of it.
She examines it, she observes it
Up against the light like it was an egg,
She buys it,
She mixes it up
In her handbag
With a pair of shoes
With a cabbage head and a
Bottle
Of vinegar
Until
She enters the kitchen
And submerges it in a ***
Thus ends
In peace
This career
Of the armed vegetable
Which is called an artichoke,
Then
Scale by scale,
We strip off
The delicacy
And eat
The peaceful mush
Of its green heart.
7.2k
simple reminders:
beach towels,
mustaches,
grilled vegetables
beetles,
time.
Jul 6, 2010
Jul 6, 2010 at 10:54 PM UTC
I hate poetry.
I think it's a waste of time.
Trying to think of ways to say things.
And then to make them rhyme!
Some poems are dark and artsy.
Some poems make you laugh.
Some poems make you think or cry.
And some poems are plain ol' crap.
Some poets wear thin mustaches.
Some poets wear fancy hats.
Some poets make up their own words.
Some gilberty hilberty crat.
But I'll tell you this my friend.
That there's nothing in the world more truer.
I'd rather pick up a pen and write.
Than pick up a shovel and move manure.
Oct 25, 2012
Oct 25, 2012 at 12:57 PM UTC
Reese’s Pieces are for people who
Are used to picking up the pieces
Of broken hearts
But they still want to make it
A good experience
Smiles that look like peanut butter
And kisses that taste like chocolate
Butterfingers are for the kids who
Are used to being picked last for
Everything except to cheat off of
In math class
They’ve grown accustomed to
Not being thought of
Popular kids like the M&Ms;
Because in the end
What else do they have except
For the stories of muses
And the parties they attended
One-by-one they picked apart
Everyone who didn’t act just like them
Pop Rocks are terrible and
So are Peppermint Patties
Crunch bars and 100 Grand’s
Made the jocks think they would actually
Go somewhere and do something
With their lives
Hope comes in strange forms
Monkeys don’t know the difference
Kit-Kats are for the hipsters
Talking a little too loud about mustaches
Listening to music that nobody knew
Grouping around vegan lunch tables
They would break off one by one
When another clique accepted them
Anything made by ***** Wonka
Was a favorite of the kids who
Knew who they were and
Weren’t ashamed
After all, what does candy say
About any of us
Clothes and shoes
Were only disguises
To hide us from the world we
Desperately wanted to fit into
If you had a Five Star notebook
Started mattering a lifetime too soon
When I step into the convenience store
I picture the kids that I know
Because of the candy they ate
I regret having such a sweet tooth
To pick apart kids’ lives
With nothing to satisfy the bitter
After-taste of social humiliation
Mar 23, 2013
Mar 23, 2013 at 12:02 AM UTC
Mustaches (so grand
and furry on their faces)
take men great places.
Apr 27, 2010
Apr 27, 2010 at 3:02 AM UTC
I don't like mustaches and you remembered
You kept it till last December
When you knew you'd see me one last time
You dropped out of highschool for an extra dime
My friends say you're not good for me
And I understand
A dropout and the girl with the principal as her biggest fan
But I live for the moments we have together
From Subway dates to running home in bad weather
My friends don't get how happy I am
How I understand that you aren't a good guy, but not a bad man
You have a warrant out for your arrest
But I sometimes fail my tests
We all have our bad things, we regret and don't flaunt
But you are not one of mine, and I'm of yours I hope not
A bad analogy I understand, but take a moment to see what you can
He's a sweetheart and a charmer for sure
But he loves me for me and that's pure
I dont get guys like that much if at all these days
And I know he means good intentions in all of his ways
As bad as they may be
And my friends remind me
We mustn't judge a book from the cover
Simple as can be
Mar 25, 2019
Mar 25, 2019 at 2:07 AM UTC
I watched you there, sitting in the small booth. You were sitting in your denim pants, with your arm draped over the top of the bench’s backing, as if someone had been sitting with you, less than moments ago. A thought flashed into your eyes, and your posture became awful, it bent like a string that was meant to resound and hum, but instead twanged and then broke. The way you sat brought the table closer to your chin, and your eyes became watery.
You were gazing into your brown drink. You hadn’t touched the rim yet, hadn’t moistened it with your lips, which hid under a forest of coarse growth.
Did you notice the consistency of the foam in your glass? I bet you the waiter had spat in it. He didn’t like your tone; even as glass with something thrown in the middle.
He couldn’t place it.
Maybe it was melancholy with an aftertaste of maybe. An aftertaste of hope. Or it was an incurable sadness that hadn’t permeated the deepest caves in your lungs. Your heart, I mean.
Did you feel it in your chest? This emotion? Let me tell it to you backhand-style, because I think I understand.
It’s the time when the little boy runs off the cliff - but the mother or father snaps their fingers around the child’s hand. When you open your eyes, the child isn’t what you thought he would be (gone). He isn’t a soul that, with the loss of him has ripped the living, beating heart from your bare chest. He hasn’t. No, no, but the claws have grazed your skin. Still, you live, the child lives. This is because he hasn’t stolen the air from your heart. Your lungs, I mean. When you see him alive, then your lungs swell, swell, swell, then they pop.
Then, and only then, you know you’ve reached your capacity. Ah, but listen now; when joy leaves, it empties a room. The room can get very empty, and cold, like December, and meaningless like July afternoons. The rupture from the pop heals, and where do you go? You know what you’re missing, and you can’t get it back.
There you were, back at the shrinking booth. The foam hadn’t nestled in your mustache - yet-. The waiter turned away. You couldn’t see inside his mind, but your eyes told me the loss in yours.
I sipped my orange juice, all the while wondering how you were, wondering why I like to watch.
Dec 20, 2012
Dec 20, 2012 at 10:31 AM UTC
She likes toy soldiers with mustaches
and rolling camels from newspapers
(that way she has something to read when she smokes)
She likes spin the bottle at recycling centers
and starting arguments over produce
(she prefers steamed vegetables, you see)
She adores staycations in someone else's house
and dinner theatre for breakfast
(a little Hamlet and eggs)
She likes every other Tuesday
and clocks with only minute hands
(it's more her speed)
She likes hunting for change in penny arcades
and five & dimes
(but not dollar stores...go figure)
She likes soda crackers (but not soda)
She likes beer nuts (but not beer)
She likes wine cozies (well, you know the rest)
Jun 21, 2021
Jun 21, 2021 at 2:30 PM UTC
the thing that left an impression on me was how free and cool they were... like the breeze of a star child, wild and free doing what they **** well please.
Jan 23, 2013
Jan 23, 2013 at 10:16 AM UTC
I laid there staring
at the insanely
bright and rude
fluorescent light
that
mocked my suffering.
The cold concrete
floor felt
good against
my screaming aches.
My body was
pleading with the
Gods for just a
taste of what
had been taken
away.
My bowels were as
controllable as
a teen aged
beauty.
With a ****
I brought my
burning face
toward the cool
silent cold metal
toilet.
Ugly yellow bile
that only a tired
and tortured
body could
produce
spewed forth.
A moan and a wipe
then a hollow knock
on the graffiti
covered cell door.
"You made bail"
an almost robotic
sounding voice
says.
With a thousand tiny
swordsman stabbing
at my face I
managed to smile
into my own bile.
I looked at the
mustached uncaring
face in the
small window.
"You look like Death Pal"
The mustache says to me.
I spit the acrid taste
of day old *****
and ****** resin.
Then rise and run my
sweaty palm through
my hair in an
attempt at looking
presentable.
The mustache opens
the door and
as I walk out
I look directly at the
rogue hairs
protruding from
the mustaches nostrils
and say.
"Death Is Beautiful"
The mustache holds
the door as I walk out.
I'm feeling better already
"Oh Yea well so was my Xwife
look at how much trouble
she still causes me".
The mustache says
Every step
I take down
the institutional colored,
masonic checkered floored
hallway causes
my body
to scream with hope.
I can feel the sweat
roll down my face
but I refuse to let
this mustache
see my suffering.
We stop at the
property window,
I sign a half
of an X where it
says signature.
Then before
I gather up
my belongs
and head
back out into the
night I looked
over at the
mustache and said
"You had a Wife?"
Jan 8, 2014
Jan 8, 2014 at 5:03 PM UTC
The men shout at me as they drive by
****** walk like a man!”
They hoot, shout, and laugh
As sunlight blinds their white-trash getaway.
I look around and think
How ridiculous to be unable to walk
How insane for me to think that these legs
Move on their own.
How silly for me, the queen that I am,
To think that my kingdom was
Any place I was welcome.
To be queer and visible
Is to challenge
The stained muscle shirts
“wife beaters,” strung across
Tattooed skin and handlebar
Mustaches of the “real men”
Whose siren calls
Police my step.
Most men hate us
The Children of Naomi Campbell
Men, YES MEN, too unafraid
To straighten our walk
Loosen our pant legs
And be invisible.
To be properly gay
Acceptably gay, to be
Tolerable is to be invisible
To hide, to be “real man”
My manhood is ghostly
Terrifying even
My walk so dangerous that
It is unsafe to even drive by
My community is still
Dangerous, unreal
Waiting for the next truck to drive by
To beat me, tie me to a fence and leave me
Like Matthew Shepard
A ghost on a fencepole
Unwanted, dangerous,
My people are a threat
Legs too long threatening the ability of
“real men” to have simple desires
They will do whatever it takes
To keep it easy.
Walk like a man, they yelled.
I yell back the names of my family:
Tiffany Edwards,
Zoraida Reyes, Kandy Hall
Yaz’min Shancez
Bodies that didn’t walk the right way
These ghosts were once threatening too.
Simply existing means threatening
"real men" and their women
Swinging my hips is literally deadly
To be flirtatious is to be threatening
To invite violence, attention
To get what I want, to be made a man
Real man, I am not real
As if my only job is to
Show others how to walk,
As if the rest of me
Is simply fake, fantasy, irrelevant
See how easily queer people
Are watered down to something unidimensional,
Something that is only a fragment of
“real” people – we are ghosts
Moving among you
Threatening, ******
Never just going to work
But always somehow
threatening, challenging
And forcing fantasies onto the world
Why do we always challenge
What is real? What is normal?
Why can’t a man strut? Why isn’t manhood
Something other than what swings with my
Legs?
Real. Ghostly. Fake. Invisible. Dangerous.
What I hear is *powerful, noted, interesting,
….maybe even desirable.* (GASP!)
When I walk now, I walk with an army of ghosts
Led by the fallen, queens, and divas
who threatened the men of the past.
I live their lessons and proudly
swish my hips in honor of my adopted
****** ancestors.
We Sashay however we want
Because we've realized that
a "real" men is always
Just a step away.
Jul 26, 2014
Jul 26, 2014 at 5:49 AM UTC
cowboys without
mustaches are just dusty
illiterates. yeehaw!
Apr 26, 2012
Apr 26, 2012 at 4:16 AM UTC
What is it about **** that attract men and women.
Is it the ******* the sights, the sounds or is it their fantasy.
Is it their neurotic or ****** styles of motion that leaves them at awww,
or the sizes of disbelief.
What is it that attracts men and women. Is it lonlyness, cellabsy or the lack of.
Is it ok to watch **** during a bachlor or bachloret party. With your partner for ****** arousment, a boring day, or because your parter no longer particapates, or just because.
Yes some hate it, yet most love it.
**** **** **** **** **** ****
Even the word **** sounds ***** yet ****
Why is it hard for people to pull their eye's away even though they say it's disgusting.
****
From the funny mustaches and the funny beats in the 70's. To the ****** implacations, to live websites.
There's teasing **** soft **** hard core **** group **** ****** hurting **** painful **** **** beyond belief.
Me, yes I have watched **** but never paid for it. Yes, I've surfed the sights. But why, curiosity ? Who's to say.
Jan 13, 2015
Jan 13, 2015 at 10:13 AM UTC
fishtail braids
sock and sandals
drawn mustaches
left over food
songs on repeat
semi stinky feat
sweatpants and suits
unicorns and cupcakes
phone charger cords
long summer nights
Oct 28, 2014
Oct 28, 2014 at 7:09 PM UTC
I watched you there, sitting in the small booth. You were sitting in your denim pants, with your arm draped over the top of the bench’s backing, as if someone had been sitting with you, less than moments ago. A thought flashed into your eyes, and your posture became awful, it bent like a string that was meant to resound and hum, but instead twanged and then broke. The way you sat brought the table closer to your chin, and your eyes became watery.
You were gazing into your brown drink. You hadn’t touched the rim yet, hadn’t moistened it with your lips, which hid under a forest of coarse growth.
Did you notice the consistency of the foam in your glass? I bet you the waiter had spat in it. He didn’t like your tone; even as glass with something thrown in the middle.
He couldn’t place it.
Maybe it was melancholy with an aftertaste of maybe. An aftertaste of hope. Or it was an incurable sadness that hadn’t permeated the deepest caves in your lungs. Your heart, I mean.
Did you feel it in your chest? This emotion? Let me tell it to you backhand-style, because I think I understand.
It’s the time when the little boy runs off the cliff - but the mother or father snaps their fingers around the child’s hand. When you open your eyes, the child isn’t what you thought he would be (gone). He isn’t a soul that, with the loss of him has ripped the living, beating heart from your bare chest. He hasn’t. No, no, but the claws have grazed your skin. Still, you live, the child lives. This is because he hasn’t stolen the air from your heart. Your lungs, I mean. When you see him alive, then your lungs swell, swell, swell, then they pop.
Then, and only then, you know you’ve reached your capacity. Ah, but listen now; when joy leaves, it empties a room. The room can get very empty, and cold, like December, and meaningless like July afternoons. The rupture from the pop heals, and where do you go? You know what you’re missing, and you can’t get it back.
There you were, back at the shrinking booth. The foam hadn’t nestled in your mustache - yet-. The waiter turned away. You couldn’t see inside his mind, but your eyes told me the loss in yours.
I sipped my orange juice, all the while wondering how you were, wondering why I like to watch.
Jan 18, 2013
Jan 18, 2013 at 12:15 PM UTC
Before I knew that I could fall in love with another boy,
I had already had those feelings stolen out from underneath my feet
50 years old cold and old with a lust for blood,
and innocence,
At 16 years old there wasn’t even a whole lotta innocence left in him,
But he worked and moved in places that felt like dark alleyways,
and promises that seemed too good to be able to break,
The way his tongue slithered out from underneath the church pews,
looking to lap up whatever he seemed to have missed from his youth
I remember the first time I went to therapy,
the way that my therapist kept asking me if I was confused about my sexuality,
It shouldn’t have started like that
Wrinkly, angry, and full of adrenaline, young in the head and sick in his veins,
He liked to touch them,
He liked to hold them,
His eyes always matching theirs,
he made it perfectly clear that he’s not looking for a fight,
he’s already fighting,
and he knows he’s going to win
I’m not a religious person, but I believe the devil comes to all of us in different ways,
Sometimes beautiful and forgivable,
Other times in a black t shirt and a pair of nikes, disgustingly promising,
a place to make you feel comfortable
We let so many people use our bodies to prove their points, it’s so exhausting,
I can’t tell the difference anymore between wolves and sheep,
But I know that he’s a wolf,
And I know that no one listens to a boy who cries ****
And the blood is always going to be there,
The alcoholic breaths taken deep into lungs that promise to carry on, are always going to be there,
The hatred and phobia of old men with mustaches and eyes that look just a little too inviting,
is always going to be there
Your Innocence is always going to be there, just don’t let anyone convince you that they can steal it from you
We are more than their torn muscles and “really, I’m a nice guy”s,
More than their “I’ve never done this before”s,
More than their “You don’t have to mention this to anyone”s,
More than what we think we deserve,
More than what love used to mean to us
We don’t have to love like that anymore,
Our bodies are new,
Not used anymore, but brand new,
We just have to teach our bones how to use the beautiful new skin that they’ve worked hard for
So to the man who taught me how to love myself,
You are nothing more than a distant memory I’ll continue to pack into the bag of luggage I carry and unload when I need to remind myself that I am more than whatever you made me think I was
I forgive you, but only because I forgive myself
May 23, 2018
May 23, 2018 at 11:13 PM UTC
Laying back
I stare at the mustached men
Staring down at me
They all have white hair
And blue eyes
They float on by
With half smug grins
Holding back their pride
Of their mustaches
Some have big fat ones
Some have long wispy ones
Some are bristly
Some sway in the wind
Like an old sock on a telephone pole
Their stern gaze
Judge every face they see
Once in a while
Their faces swell
And get dark and puffy
Then the mustached men cry
And shower the landscape with tears
I wonder what they see
Looking down at us
That makes them so sad
Sep 12, 2011
Sep 12, 2011 at 11:27 PM UTC
Stomach full of liquid.
Black eyed peas
And obsession with relish
Finally paying off.
Trees
Collages
Dancing
Seductress.
Knowledge
Healing
Three small boys dressed as their fathers
Playing checkers
Giggling
Marimba chops
Echoing
Twice stolen earphones
Volume control
Old south
1933
Shallow grave
Shallow sleep
Fresh cars
First to drive
Survive.
Sonic
Pescetarianism.
Cherry Lime-ade
Walking on the
Green grass
REM interrupted
Curious hands
Laced between
Fingers
Three sizes smaller
Sinking
unbiased truth
peeking an ugly face
around her corner.
Talk of mustaches and
****** orientation
The price of documentation.
Embrace
certainty within confusion.
Tuesday.
May 24, 2012
May 24, 2012 at 4:50 PM UTC
While the wine and cheese and skinny upturned mustaches
Were all there,
Wrapped in gold tissue paper and tied with white bows
The passion, desire, and spark
(which were promised by the $24.99 guidebook)
Were nowhere to be found,
Not even floating down a gondola on the Seine
(or am I thinking of Venice now?)
I wrote home in two postcards
(not because I had so much to say)
But because I thought my family should see the Eiffel Tower in both day and night
As plastered on the pair of plastic, flimsy cards I mailed away.
Being away from Mom and Dad, I thought I’d enjoy it
But after investing in a French-English Dictionary
I learned that the love letters I’d been receiving here
(voulez vous coucher avec moi?)
Weren’t so lovely after all.
I told them that I’d tried French Onion soup,
That I’d walked down that street featured in Midnight in Paris,
and that between the guns slung over shoulders
(worn like fake Louis Vuittons advertised by desperate venders)
and the solicitors outside the Moulin Rouge
the city of love
had shattered my unprotected heart.
Oct 30, 2012
Oct 30, 2012 at 7:53 PM UTC
I wrote this poem with oil, vinegar, and fine foods.
My pen did not.
I drew this picture with eyelashes, mustaches, and tears.
My paintbrush did not.
I thought this thought with lip balm, pine trees, and mosquitoes.
My brain did not.
I do not dream with REM but with caterpillars and manure.
Oh, Jack Kerouac, take me to bed and ease my itching.
Listen to that bluegrass play...
Fall asleep...
Jul 8, 2013
Jul 8, 2013 at 3:08 PM UTC
I WAS a boy when I heard three red words
a thousand Frenchmen died in the streets
for: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity-I asked
why men die for words.
I was older; men with mustaches, sideburns,
lilacs, told me the high golden words are:
Mother, Home, and Heaven-other older men with
face decorations said: God, Duty, Immortality
-they sang these threes slow from deep lungs.
Years ticked off their say-so on the great clocks
of doom and damnation, soup and nuts: meteors flashed
their say-so: and out of great Russia came three
dusky syllables workmen took guns and went out to die
for: Bread, Peace, Land.
And I met a marine of the U.S.A., a leatherneck with a girl on his knee for a memory in ports circling the earth and he said: Tell me how to say three things and I always get by-gimme a plate of ham and eggs-how much?-and-do you love me, kid?
1.7k
I’m driving laps around
Urique’s unpaved streets
with Arnulfo, the world’s fastest
ultra-runner up front
Chugging tesguino disregarding
Young son, Mateas in the back
Handing us the 2 liter Coca-
Cola bottles, full of the mashy
corn brew.
The cholos are drinking
Tecate, mumbling under the palms
stalking the river, watching us
break down at ever lap.
Arnuflo heaves the truck
from behind, alone,
screaming and pushing.
I snap it into second gear
Mateas trembling,
and off we go. Arnulfo hopping in
smoking more cigarettes
passing the tesguino around shouting
Rapido! Poco a poco! Andale!
Rancherra bumps full blast, the
Eternal bumping,
beem, boom, up and down
Beem, boom, beem, boom
Tubas and brass echoing through all the adobe walls
meandering all the way
down the arroyo
to God know’s where.
The cholos challenge Arnulfo
to a race in their harsh stares
under flashy hats and shiny mustaches,
Ed Hardy models with sharp pointed
snake-skinned boots
Ayyeee, Arnulfo says, He won’t race
gainst Oscarine who they say
is the fastest young Chabochi
better than the elders
who used to chase down deer,
gently twisting their necks
after tracking them to
an ending exhaustion.
Arnulfo tells them I can win
as Oscarine snorts more from the bag
they pass around from his pocket
Off we go twenty yards
Around the farthest tree
And I win because of
Arnulfo's ancient
assurance
Nov 20, 2014
Nov 20, 2014 at 3:40 PM UTC