"mutterings" poems
tell me...
will tomorrow bring,
all the things
i'm longing...
stowed upon its elusive wings,
tirelessly beating
and fighting
to show what's dangling
and hanging...
ready for the picking...
awaiting...
such time so it could begin its need for unloading,
delivering
and dropping,
its gleaming
treasures
on those who are deserving,
in no way lacking
so they could be at the receiving
end of this pressurising,
inking
of dwindling
words...
careless thoughts conceived only to
fuel
my deranged ramblings...
incessant mutterings of a shattering
mind...
bending backwards, almost breaking,
risking...
the chance of ever fully
mending...
hoping and praying
for a sentence that's pending
dawn's approval...
allowing
the rising
of the sun...
paving
ways for thriving
wishes,
unbarring
gates for soaring
dreams, unlocking
latches,
relieving...
the heightening
anxieties of grieving
hearts.
constantly whispering
utterances, promising
good will, happiness
and titillating
sanity.
we're thinking...
the earth is spinning,
the moon is setting,
so the sun must be rising
but...
tell me,
tomorrow...
is it coming?
Oct 12, 2014
Oct 12, 2014 at 3:25 PM UTC
While you were away,
My words seem to fall on deaf ears.
Unvoiced mutterings that fall out in droves,
Burning rants swallowed back in singes and sears...
While you were away,
Time was stagnant; a viscous puddle.
Hours only stretched longer,
The second hand jabbing its ferocious needle...
While you were away,
The clock drove me insane.
Ticking my life away in literal seconds.
Losing sand grain by grain...
While you were away,
And when it's all quiet and dark,
I could hear my heartbeat...
Awaiting the new day to make its mark.
While you were away,
My words seem to have lost their meaning...
As if they were stuck in limbo,
Unanswered calls that keep on ringing...
While you were away,
I am but a little lost foal...
Because whenever you're away,
I am never whole...
Nov 26, 2014
Nov 26, 2014 at 10:51 AM UTC
Twice amongst the meadows watching
from behind a Cyprus tree
he stares at thee with anxious waiting
glances nervous as he yearns for thee.
Twice amongst the meadows walking
plucking blossoms as they bloom
release from capsules such a fragrance
that make the glorious angels swoon.
He tasted bitter poppy petals
chewed to paste they cling and swell
to the innards of his teeth
each tiny bud they do expel.
grass and sun combine to create
an early summers reckoning
that bring about the union of
springs infant buds to bring to she.
From behind his hiding place
he comes to thee with frail mutterings
coyly he presents an antidote
to cure your failing frame.
As that maiden swoons from fever
pale as winter's deadly moon
fight she does for every swallow
that comes from each shallow breath.
Indeed her lover knows her sickness
and with ointment doth he bring
but to late he comes to aid her
for he is a timid thing.
In his arms she breaths her last
and with her dying plea
she implored as to why
he withheld his love from she.
Oct 21, 2010
Oct 21, 2010 at 10:48 AM UTC
Weighing brutality's candour is taxing
Feeling the certainty, heavily dark,
Sonorous mutterings echo in twilight
Whitely, loquaciously, utterly stark.
***** ***** in a temperament simmering
Stalking through rage in a judgemental way,
Lurching for conflict from deep in the mindset
Locked in a skirmish of consequence play.
Searing white pain of brutality's candour
Reeling from obvious lack of control,
Obliquely collapsed beneath blue jackaranda
Flaccidly spent, I surrender my role.
Marshalg
In absentia
7 December 2011
Dec 8, 2011
Dec 8, 2011 at 12:15 PM UTC
So gradual in those summers was the going
of the age it seemed that the long days setting out
when the stars faded over the mountains were not
leaving us even as the birds woke in full song and the dew
glittered in the webs it appeared then that the clear morning
opening into the sky was something of ours
to have and keep and that the brightness we could not touch
and the air we could not hold had come to be there all the time
for us and would never be gone and that the axle
we did not hear was not turning when the ancient car
coughed in the roofer's barn and rolled out echoing
first thing into the lane and the only tractor
in the village rumbled and went into its rusty
mutterings before heading out of its lean-to
into the cow pats and the shadow of the lime tree
we did not see that the swallows flashing and the sparks
of their cries were fast in the spokes of the hollow
wheel that was turning and turning us taking us
all away as one with the tires of the baker's van
where the wheels of bread were stacked like days in calendars
coming and going all at once we did not hear
the rim of the hour in whatever we were saying
or touching all day we thought it was there and would stay
it was only as the afternoon lengthened on its
dial and the shadows reached out farther and farther
from everything that we began to listen for what
might be escaping us and we heard high voices ringing
the village at sundown calling their animals home
and then the bats after dark and the silence on its road
2.9k
Family is
not the humorous, "ha-ha" funny.
It more resembles the "ah-hmm,"
intriguing, pensive sort of funny.
It's the only unconditional love
you're nearly promised to receive.
It comes and goes with every
passing situation
surrounding an ember-filled fireplace
of an eve gone by,
blindly staring at the lights
as they flicker across faces
so worn from storied conversation.
An occasional outburst ends in laughter
if one tries to contain it,
it subsides in subdued breathing
from under-breath mutterings,
and upper teeth, cheek-strained smiles.
Maybe we're to love
only in this way,
only in the way of trusted, known,
unabandonable looks, for you,
only for you,
truly,
and those whom you love.
Aug 8, 2012
Aug 8, 2012 at 10:20 PM UTC
Walking, always walking,
Puzzled youth being funneled like cattle,
Seek shelter from the sun,
Jeer and poke at each other,
All from the safety of their cell phones.
Constantly seeking that one undesired retention
Of jukebox explosion catapults.
Thrusting us deeper into the mind/brain paradox
What is this?
What are these strange mutterings in the dark?
Babysitting wasp nests by electro shock railroads,
Disgust in the face of the many.
Where is this golden eclipse we’re all waiting for?
How can I not see the spiders on my windowsill?
Are these anguished, infantile youth truly desired?
Aggravated Neanderthal men
Try to impress pulsating goddesses of Light,
All to no prevail.
Sickening feeling in the gut,
Why aren’t you here?
Well I suppose,
Things have changed.
The Empress of the tunnel
Seeks out the empire halls
Of the tunnel-bound angst,
Musicians in the hall strumming
There thoughtless musings,
While the the debutantes watch and listen.
The intensity is unbearable to them,
They must seek shelter in their ipods.
Milk, must have it.
Watching them creep through the cafe,
May they one day find what they’re seeking.
Where are they?
Sitting here by myself,
Look at them jeering at each other
In their own jargons.
Have they seeked out the pleasure of life?
Dream-like meditations,
Well-rounded views of life,
Happiness within.
Dumbly smile at each other,
Seeking closeness,
Mind/body consciousness
Feb 28, 2011
Feb 28, 2011 at 1:05 PM UTC
let me first say, i have absolutely no idea what i'm doing
and i don't really know what this is or where to start.
i am comprised of scratched porcelain and bad dreams -
made up entirely of half-hearted attempts at sanity,
countless unspoken "i need you's",
and ever-faltering faith in myself and those around me.
i am not a poet, or at least not a good one, i don't think.
i feel a lot of things, sometimes all at once -
other times i don't feel anything at all, which scares me beyond
a level of which i am capable of explaining to you.
i nearly jumped in front of a train in april of this year. i don't know why.
my feet ventured toward the platform before it had even registered
in my head that they were doing so. i heard my best friend speak my name,
and snapped out of the trance. not a lot of people know about that.
i've been in love a lot of times with a lot of different people.
i have a fear off falling but a tendency to jump from high places.
i don't read books as much as i used to, but i'm working on that.
i'm in love right now and it's really difficult but it's nice. i'm happy.
i grew up with five brothers, so i like to think that made me sort of tough.
(but i cry every time i see a deer or a possum on the side of the road.)
i don't smoke cigarettes anymore, partly because my father hates them,
partly because they remind me too much of someone who liked them more than he liked me.
i write a lot about people who i don't talk to or see anymore. they don't live in my heart,
but the curse of memory is more often than not unbreakable. i call it leftover poetry.
then again i don't consider any of my pitiful mutterings to be poetry. just a bunch of
raggedly strung together words that sometimes rhyme a little bit.
i used to want to die and i wrote a song about it that a lot of people really liked.
i don't want to die anymore. i will never show that song to my mother.
i am much more content with watching people talk than actually talking myself.
this piece of writing feels too personal and i don't think i like it, but i'm pretty sure
Eleanor Roosevelt said something about doing one thing every day that scares you.
m.f.
Sep 30, 2013
Sep 30, 2013 at 7:08 PM UTC
the drama unfolds
and the young grow old
while the old go with a curse
I myself am grown into my fifties
and the people I’ve known
who called me Little Boy
have been called to dust and urn and to river over the decades;
and the kids I would kneel before to speak with them
now they say: Do I see you with hunched shoulders?
the earthly hours pass
and generations come and go
with little knowing though of their own flow
the drama unfolds
and the young grow old
while the old go
with a last bite of a fried chicken
places have changed
and villages and forests lain bare
and once where I stood admiring angsanas
and mango trees and peacocks
now I admire lilly-pillies
and hold the koala and the kangaroo as mascots;
people I have called mother, father
and uncle and aunty and grandmother
they now have gone, some without even a good-bye
some smiling and some with unintelligible mutterings
and ah, some in unendurable suffering
while I walk now as time unfurls like a flag in the square;
and the witnesses
of uncountable generations
of immeasurable life
those stars and the sun and the moon
keep me quiet company
and the sunlight uses the leaves in the garden
to whisper to me the secrets of things;
and in my leisure
these words I speak to you
and when I’m gone
through these you may speak with me;
and the ones I have told stories to
now re-tell the stories to their young
and time, interrupting its slumber,
lifts its head like a garden in the snake
awhile
sees all is right, all flowing as it would expect,
and looks around and gives me a look too
and goes back to sleep;
ah, the drama unfolds
and the young grow old
while the old go with a wink
Oct 8, 2010
Oct 8, 2010 at 8:17 PM UTC
is it your destiny,
to be read
aloud to many
listened and dissected
in unison
leading our
thoughts as one
every crevice examined -
an anchor to gravity
or should you
just be looked at,
at face value
appreciated
for who you truly are
the sound,
flow and rhyme
of your verse
I believe to fully
appreciate you,
you should be
read in many different ways
to see your genuine value
that is often unique to all
though truthfully,
you really are
just the mutterings
of a poet wandering
room to room
in your mansion
Aug 22, 2012
Aug 22, 2012 at 11:56 PM UTC
_Munching, crunching on a bone,
The trolls of Langwood growl and moan.
Through feral mutterings and drivel,
They gulp and choke down last night's grizzle.
In their cave on rocky mountains high,
Their scaly skin cracks from air so dry.
Once human men poisoned by greed,
Transformed into ogres for their misdeeds.
They prayed on people of modest means,
Until our good sorceress intervened.
She protects our land and keeps us safe,
From warlords and bankers filled with hate.
Condemned to live long foul lives,
The trolls of Langwood miss their wives.
For they now resemble their truer selves,
Forever denied the beauty of men and elves._
Nov 20, 2018
Nov 20, 2018 at 2:09 PM UTC
I used to think
the heart was only a piece of
paper.
What else?
While you go through the motions,
he and him leave pencil marks.
Scrawls and doodles, just
hasty mutterings in the marginalia.
You know,
those little hearts with
those little initials
you find in little girls' maths books?
Your eyes don't stray from these scribbles,
ever, no, never,
but
you vow to yourself that one day there'll be
ink
scrawled across that paper.
Black or blue
heart-stamp.
Vivid.
And nothing else would matter anymore.
What the fairytale should really say is
once upon a day
he'll walk in and grab that sheet of
paper.
It'll disappear into his coat pocket forever.
And you won't even know it
until
that paper will crumple,
black and blue, black and blue,
out, out, out of his coat
that he's left behind in the closet.
A souvenir,
a lost cause.
That is your heart,
that is your heart.
Jun 9, 2015
Jun 9, 2015 at 4:01 PM UTC
I shoved that day aside
the moment it started.
Grey skies
with only patches of blue,
internal rhyming
in each casual phrase
said,
tossed,
that meant more
than at first glance.
There were too many forced alliterations,
too many under-the-breath mutterings
cluttering the belly
of every once-white cloud.
The ground was too hard,
the world shifting
too easily beneath my feet,
and the air was too supple,
too slippery to breathe.
Not just another day;
no catastrophe in sight,
but no rainbow ending either.
And no word from you.
Oct 11, 2012
Oct 11, 2012 at 12:52 AM UTC
Moldy mutterings-
A char-broiled doomsday
Licks the salted air, no condensation in clouds
Dry and cracked.
Elephant stomp
Pounded ground where
Lizard-scaled turnip roots drip
Into dirt, drooping low and quick.
That senseless racket, the incessant buzzing
Yellowed a crusted earlobe
The cauliflower cult.
Chipped to smithereens
As the sun split
In sizzling heat.
No porcelain skin to drizzle
Tender sweat beads
Blackened back-burner.
Conquest of detention to
Contain lackluster irrelevant lessons
Blessed with a dead hand
Crumpled flesh stump.
Hunched Trapezius circle person
Cowering in familiar corners.
Glisten as an oyster's ravaged shell,
Sour cream pearl dangling between your *******
Twinkling Adam's apple
This speech could sink its teeth in.
Spurting eloquence
Gushed up word juice.
Swallow hard and whole
Choke on the knowing.
Feb 20, 2014
Feb 20, 2014 at 1:52 PM UTC
Inside cockpit command control, a proud young captain sits fiddling with his tie. Out on the runway, a parade of boisterous holiday makers stream through a wall of steamy-sticky heat.
A scraping of cases amid jubilant faces, as they flock to their seats in frantic fashion. Offering warm greetings, the sun spreads its orange glow; kissing the face of many a passenger.
Raucous voices become feeble mutterings, drowned by roaring engines. Knuckles white as chalk from clenched fists: an anxiety that is to be short-lived.
We ascend to the clouds, above motorways and mountains; entering an endless wash of blue. Smiles chucked around like confetti bringing a sense of: new opportunity, hope and adventure. As we rise above.
Jul 10, 2021
Jul 10, 2021 at 1:29 PM UTC
One legged Anne
sat in her wheel chair
by the white table
on the lawn
watching the other kids
at play
on the swing
and slide
or sitting around
playing I Spy
hey Kid
she said to you
push me out
to the beach
I can't watch this crap
makes me
want to throw up
with all this
goody two shoes stuff
so you pushed her wheelchair
along the back path way
towards the back gate
where you going?
Malcolm asked
away from you lot
as far as possible
she replied
o
Malcolm said
what will Sister Paul say?
couldn't give a fig
what she says
Anne said
push on Kid
she said
so you pushed on
along the path
I'm going to tell her
Malcolm bellowed
go kiss her backside
for all I care
she bellowed back
come on Kid
push push
so you pushed
and out the back gate
and on to the path
that led by the beach
you smelt the sea
the sound of gulls
you moved along
the path pushing
the wheelchair on
here here will do Kid
she said
pointing to an area
of beach
so you wheeled her
onto the beach
but got stuck
in the sands
ok ok here will do Kid
so you stood behind her
and stared out
at the sea
and the horizon
thanks Kid
she said
here come stand beside me
and so you stood beside her
her one leg sticking out
from the short blue skirt
the stump just visible
out of the skirt's hem
thanks Kid for being a friend
she said
that's ok
you replied
thank you for helping me
out of the bath last night
she said
didn't want those pesky nuns
getting me out
with their constant
mutterings and prayers
that's ok
you said
recalling the bath episode
she calling you in
the bathroom
sitting there
in the bath
she beckoning you over
don't shut your **** eyes
how can you see
to help me out
with your
******* eyes shut
she'd said
so you remembered
putting a hand
under her arm
and she was able
to get up and out
and said
hey bring me that towel
so you recalled
bringing the towel
your head averted
here
you said
and she took it smiling
and covered herself
and began drying
and said
ok you can go now Kid
and you left
and closed the door
behind you without
looking back
see that horizon Kid?
see the seascape?
she asked
yes
you said
well that's what I want
to be like
free and open
not some hemmed in girl
with a thousand hormones
bashing against my skull
hormones? you said
what are they?
never mind
she said
you'll know
when they kick in
and she gazed out
at the sea
her black hair moved
by the slight wind
her hands on the side of the chair
just you and she
silently being there.
Sep 9, 2013
Sep 9, 2013 at 2:50 AM UTC
I am the poison ivy coiled around her feet
Rendering her motionless and helpless
With lesions covering her body
She loves me violently and without limitation
Offers herself as sacrifice
In the hope of seeking my emancipation
Succumbed to the disorder, once again
My area of expertise
Mutterings of my meaningless sorries evaporate in the air
My head stays bowed
Just a relapse away from my demise
Immersed in water
Caught in the cruel unrelenting undertow
The weight of my burdens dragging me down
Sinking now
Suffocating
Suffoca……
Dec 31, 2013
Dec 31, 2013 at 11:19 AM UTC
I often have conversations
With objects around me -
From
Mindless banter *********** into
Heart-to-heart conversations,
To
Waking up in the middle of the night,
Fumbling for the right switch in the darkness
To put the lights on so I can see
For a split second,
Things obligingly lying still in their place,
As they stagger through burdened time
To lull myself into sleep
With an assurance of familiarity.
On days I enter my room
With bottled thoughts, when these things,
With all their weathered, withered strength
Spur me on to etch out utterances at length
Knowing as they do,
You don't always seek
A response, reaction, remark, judgment,
To something you nevertheless feel the need to speak,
Which at times starts to turn incomprehensible
To yourself and to the other,
As your tongue rolls them out
In the gibberish of vowels and consonants.
So I start off on a mindless rhyme
At times confessing my mind's crimes,
Scraping out fears rusty with neglect
Pulling out halted thoughts from a staggering stack,
Laughing as I admit to myself that joke was funny.
Crying with relish for I won't be accused of being weak.
Stretching out a tune I'd only ventured to hum [in public],
Into a song, hearing my voice sing & strum,
In a long time.
[Hitting the table with a pen
To make up for the beats.]
Dancing with awkward steps on my two left feet,
But dancing nevertheless.
[Thank goodness I have feet to dance.)
P.S At times, when the familiarity
Of my own presence poses a threat,
I need their company, these non-living things,
The only solace sensitive to my minds' mutterings.
Apr 27, 2014
Apr 27, 2014 at 12:43 AM UTC
Aleta mentions in her tender letters,
Among a chain of quaint and touching things,
That you are feeble, weighted down with fetters,
And given to strange deeds and mutterings.
No longer without trace or thought of fear,
Do you leap to and ride the rebel roan;
But have become the victim of grim care,
With three brown beauties to support alone.
But none the less will you be in my mind,
Wild May that cantered by the risky ways,
With showy head-cloth flirting in the wind,
From market in the glad December days;
Wild May of whom even other girls could rave
Before *** tamed your spirit, made you slave.
1.1k
I had the bottle
I had the well
I had the population
and the cold interest
in consequences.
So simple:
tip it in, see what happens.
But it would have been too obvious.
I was not interested in being caught.
It gnawed at me,
for all my polished indifference,
the knowledge of the power I wielded
but could not use
Then one day
strangers came,
rolling into the village
in their painted caravans
And I wasted not one second.
As soon as the moon was full
I crept out
through the villagers' suspicious mutterings,
unseen by the baleful glances
cast at the foreign shapes and colours -
forgotten, in all my oddness,
in the wake of this new devilry.
It was the work of a moment,
a soft sound like summer's rain
then back to the shadows
to wait.
And now,
riding past the lynch-mob's clumsy justice,
circled by merry crows,
briefly entranced
by a burnt-out caravan
I can finally
enjoy
the silence.
May 15, 2013
May 15, 2013 at 6:22 AM UTC
Said the mirror to the poet
"Can you really over think?"
Said the whisky to lonely
"Can you really over drink?"
The coffin creaks to the undertaker
"Are you satisfied with your work?"
She grimly replies to the casket
"Well, it has certain unique perks."
The earth sighs to the human population
"When will this violation eventually cease?"
We ignore her pathetic mutterings
And order "production must be increased!"
The poet sheds a crocodile tear
As the shadow of insanity looms
The lonely empties another bottle
Staggers back from the shop and resumes
The undertaker makes final plans
For her own elaborate swan song
A sun drenched plot of gravel reserved
Beneath which she will soon belong
And the Earth despairs at her children
She did not raise them to be this way
And just like the forlorn undertaker
She is also planning her final day.
Jun 13, 2014
Jun 13, 2014 at 7:29 AM UTC
I am the darkness
I am the thick black mud
That corruptly consumes your every thought
That seeps into the cracks of your porcelain psyche
And stains the self-righteous purity that you claim to love
I am the puppeteer
Tugging on your strings to move you forth
On the sordid little journey that you call your existence
The hand, forced up through your *** to grab your vocal cords
And stifle insatiable mutterings that you can not help but to gush
I am the fire
That glows in the pit
Of your infernal gut every time
You gaze upon the vileness that is
Your own reflection, looking upon you just to laugh
I am the blood
That falls upon the tile
Like God's tears as he gazes
Upon all of his creations and realized how wrong he was
In giving life to those who would rather ****** it back in his face
I am the emptiness
That you feel as you stand
Upon your wooden pedestal, prepared
To give it a solid kick and change it into a stairway
Into an eternity, devoid of any contact from those who made you suffer
I am the guilt
****** upon those you leave behind
As they struggle to find an ounce of reason
Fumbling to come up with a single logical answer
Behind your fleeing escape into the eternity filled blackness
I am the madness
That crawls into those who remain
And wallow in the filth and puddles of self-pity
Telling themselves you're still beside them as you lie
In your darkened hole underneath the sole of the weeping
I am suicide
An act beyond all human greed
Selfishness that claims no equal as those
Who are blind enough to lose sight of any and all hope
Take the easy way out while their loved ones struggle to breathe on
Oct 1, 2013
Oct 1, 2013 at 5:06 PM UTC
afore death there is one unfrivolous blossom
blooming in a perilous garden who doth
converse with love and her ancient feathers
***** about the endless musk fat and rapacious
in the air fairies. olive skinned mutterings
dote 'pon the lucid fluttering angles of
wings. i felt and walked the paths littered
of decay and amour gently dead, skulls
grinning unfinitely. but a breeze greets
the stocks and buds, fragrant and huge,
mesmerizing the fickle lungs blowing stagnant
promises unkept. i butchered and laid my
hands to her core brimming of dainty
darkness and made my self in her blood.
i now wear it in every stifled beat, beat,
beating in my breast...
Sep 9, 2010
Sep 9, 2010 at 11:49 AM UTC
the face turned into the haze of the sun
and in the corner of its unseeing eye
i perceived the nature
of these truths
its in that turned face
its empty gaze cast over the far distant landscape
we all seek to sate the thirst
for a sweeter wine
unleash the mystery of self
unlock the untamed within
its smooth plastic features
hides nothing
but some would say that only reveals that it hides all truth
in its pastel faceless features
that we all see ourselfs
in its pastel faceless features
i see all my loneliness
all my shared joys
all loves all sorrows
all my years struggling against the tide
mishap and perchance
its in that man made face
that we perceive the distance we must travel to find ourselfs
the trials we must endure to discover the truth
behind our own eyes
coiled in its depths are the answers we all seek
after all isnt it that simple
we create the troubles we seek to destroy
in its smooth plastic skin
she finds comfort
free from the fear of another's unpredictable madness
she can explore her own illusions
and that too seems sure
we destroy what we live for
on the beaches of my puddles
and in the forests between my lawn
and the kitchens back door
of my childhood home
the ages have worn away the questions
that once kept me staring off hopeful to the dawn
trying to decipher the meanings
from patterns of a gods casual breath
and so here i linger
these lifetimes later
waiting for the answers
that an inhuman human face hides
pastel kaleidescope
of the turned face
the barren night filled with wishes
and wishes filled with regrets
its pastel tones
haunt the night
its dark mutterings
play along the road that she bicycles on
whistling a girlhood tune
as she fades into loss
the light in her eyes gone forever
sometimes answers are the last thing we need
May 22, 2013
May 22, 2013 at 1:54 AM UTC