"narrower" poems
tattoo ourselves in electric ink memorializing calendars,
diaries of observantional digits, black on white, no gray,
birthdays, anniversaries, dates of passing, starting lines,
occasional achievements, departure dates, even glaring failures,
sundial mundane records of diurnal habitude…even
defining self by, bye, byte marks upon flesh, upon our calendar
*not my first trip-tracking, he ruefully rues, wry smiling,
many voyages of indeterminate measuring length,
leaving litter of arrays of hopeful estimations & destinations,
each unequal, any or all possibilities, each day notated,
without critique or commentary, the numbers are the
gaols (jails) of goals, target, indeterminate determination,
terrific, horrific, introspections, inverse images resolve, resolute*
a year ago, +/- a few days,, new travelogue commenced,
notated but not annotated, just numerical truths,
(sans comments for the divine nature of numbers don’t lie)
and today my calculator app informs, that I am now
19.4 % lesser, but that clarifies less than expected
naturally this provokes a natty,
spirited, self-inquiry, lessened,
lessor, for better or for worse?
have the physical alterations
accompanying this reduction
mean exactly what,
if, it should be, a greater lesser?
here is the hard part.
your have always been a mirror~poet,
laughing, bemoaning the unvarnished, unshaven
AM sightings of a human perpetual dissatisfied,
the external never denying the interior “less~than,”
a J Peterman catalogue of weathered ****** expressions,
counter-parted by multiple Venn diagram intersections,
of experiential labeled bits & pieces of emotional empirical
less than good, not even close to perfect, so now that I am
*gaunt, spare, lean, grayed, narrower, again ruefully rue,
the even more visible truth reflection eye~hidden:*
I,
am the sum of the weight of my history, my deeds,
my disbeliefs, murderous deeds, weak choices
and that hasn’t changed nary an ounce, no matter
many times examined, indeed I am forever a lesser man,
there, internal infernal
too…
Apr 9, 2023
Apr 9, 2023 at 2:12 PM UTC
All the girls with their knees in the sand, stretching all throughout the shore, like a mass modeling gig
And me, I laid on my side, curled up and somewhat hidden in the sand
The buildings with their business, and their free form people, stood up and looked straight down on me
And I closed my eyes, and I held myself and cried
It was there that the salt air invaded my thoughts, breathing in, nose was running, I picked myself up, merely stumbling from where I arose
And I was warmer, climbing out from that umbrella, the sun touching these brazenly exposed parts of my body that I still tried my best to hide in such a setting
And Dandy, he's been gone for a bit now
So I split down the narrower parts
And the sun started setting towards my back, and my bare feet were starting to get cold
But the lights, they stayed lit, and dim like a friend in a moment of doubt
And a song played from the bar, it echoed a ways about, and all the people were hoping its words could save their moments and keep them somewhere
And some people gathered around me, asking me questions and looking concerned, from what I could tell
But I wasn't quite listening, I was too busy singing a song to myself
hoping my words would save my young body
from death
from aging
from something I felt
Dec 30, 2018
Dec 30, 2018 at 9:06 AM UTC
We've got bigger heads but narrower minds.
Why there is always a boundary between our heart and mind?
©IGMS
Jun 2, 2015
Jun 2, 2015 at 8:50 AM UTC
*The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings, but shorter tempers; wider freeways, but narrower viewpoints.
We spend more, but have less; we buy more, but enjoy it less.
We have bigger houses and smaller families; more conveniences, but less time;
We have more degrees, but less sense; more knowledge, but less judgment; more experts, but more problems; more medicine, but less wellness.
We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry too quickly, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too seldom, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom.
We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values.
We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often.
We've learned how to make a living, but not a life; we've added years to life, not life to years.
We've been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet the new neighbor.
We've conquered outer space, but not inner space.
We've done larger things, but not better things.
We've cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul.
We've split the atom, but not our prejudice.
We write more, but learn less.
We plan more, but accomplish less.
We've learned to rush, but not to wait.
We build more computers to hold more information to produce more copies than ever, but have less communication.
These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion; tall men, and short character; steep profits, and shallow relationships.
These are the times of world peace, but domestic warfare; more leisure, but less fun; more kinds of food, but less nutrition.
These are days of two incomes, but more divorce; of fancier houses, but broken homes. *
Apr 19, 2015
Apr 19, 2015 at 7:27 AM UTC
the scrapping of rubber shoes
on the pavement alarm me
frantically gliding as if
in search of something
the halls are suddenly
narrower than yesterday
and all the other days before
this always happens
whenever i am rushing
and i am always rushing
so i wonder why i'm always
surprised to find myself this distraught
when its color isn't pretty on me
Jul 16, 2015
Jul 16, 2015 at 11:13 PM UTC
The old poets haunt me
they taunt me from the shadows
following every keystroke I type -
they’re critical of phrases,
they demand narrower themes
and mock the very clichés they invented.
I remind these frightful spirits of how tenuous
life was, how I’m blindly living these experiences,
how prevalent desire is, how human it is to chase
the things we’re told will fulfill us, like goals and love.
I try and explain this Internet thing,
how the more copious my writings,
the more people it says are following me.
How I really don’t want to sound paranoid
but as hard as I try - I don’t see anyone.
.
.
Song for this:
Too Much Time On My Hands by Styx
Reelin' In The Years by Steely Dan
Aug 19, 2024
Aug 19, 2024 at 10:31 PM UTC
It is always our mind that separate us from our own soul.
Bombing every district with our words
Burning every houses with our sentences
Why it is always;
give and give -- if your kind
take and take -- if your greed
Did actually there is no give and take?
We live this world with an open mind
Believing that if we could explore more
Our world will expand into something bigger
Did they even realize that we live now in a bigger world with a bigger heads but narrower minds?
©IGMS
May 30, 2015
May 30, 2015 at 2:58 AM UTC
Narrower than anticipation...
and wider than its
happened hour,
otherness for day...
trailed by specificity.
Where the path may
be the breakage
of the heart, and
the step that mends it.
Jun 8, 2015
Jun 8, 2015 at 4:38 PM UTC
“This Insubstantial Pageant Faded”
(spoke by Prospero, The Tempest, by W. Shakespeare)^
<>
Our words are all actors,
a long run, run its course,
our long playing record,
scratched, love~worn to
worn out extremity, yet
yeoman service did offer,
extreme only in magical
transforming plain sight
into visions, a legacy,
bent gray, tarnished by
weary wearing aging,
their brief sparks now
but reclamation flares of
burst lights of waning days
in short lived tastings of what
was and can be nevermore
everyone’s magic has its preset
timed timing, and with
every day, each a concentric
ring marked and hallowed,
a heartbeat ring narrower
than its predecessor,
a shallower hollow,
a fair represent of both
all that came our way, and that
we resent with no resentment
into a cloud capped atmosphere
for all to ****** from a flailing,
flying breeze, their brief gleam,
multiplying, thus envisaging,
illuminating the manuscript of our
hinted future forward’s next percept
*
“And like this insubstantial pageant faded
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep”*^
Mar 2, 2024
Mar 2, 2024 at 8:23 AM UTC
i.
i drag the canoes over the granite shingle
of our island's beach the battered Aluma-Crafts
leave my hand a dark metallic looking gray, which
even smelled of metal we walk up to the
campsite, a ridge, overlooking the lake,
spread out around a fire ring set beneath
pine trees so thick that no understory grows
ii.
as the long summer day cools we decide after dinner
to explore choosing one of the island's many
game trails, leading from the water back up into
the woods beyond the campsite, we pack the
food back into the bear proof barrel, grab our
boots and set off down the trail
iii.
the pine give way to a grove of aspen, the
leaves fluttering as if by some wondrous
enchantment, as the shrubs started to grow
thickly on the ground channeling us into a
narrower game trail with the large, misshapen
granite boulders like a maze stretched out before us
iv.
suddenly we stood face to face with a giant
bull moose with velvet covered antlers that seemed
to be at least four feet across, he shook his head up,
like a horse shying, so i slowly moved us behind a tree
to give him the trail
v.
around the fire wrapped each in our
own paddle-worn thoughts
we could hear wolves, calling
across the island in mournful howls
such a delicate balance of nature at work,
my moose so full of life and spirit would be
safe yet from the
wolves
Feb 3, 2012
Feb 3, 2012 at 6:23 AM UTC
High wisdom holds my wisdom less,
That I, who gaze with temperate eyes
On glorious insufficiencies,
Set light by narrower perfectness.
But thou, that fillest all the room
Of all my love, art reason why
I seem to cast a careless eye
On souls, the lesser lords of doom.
For what wert thou? some novel power
Sprang up for ever at a touch,
And hope could never hope too much,
In watching thee from hour to hour,
Large elements in order brought,
And tracts of calm from tempest made,
And world-wide fluctuation sway'd
In vassal tides that follow'd thought.
1.2k
Where are those honours, IDA! once your own,
When Probus fill’d your magisterial throne?
As ancient Rome, fast falling to disgrace,
Hail’d a Barbarian in her Cæsar’s place,
So you, degenerate, share as hard a fate,
And seat Pomposus where your Probus sate.
Of narrow brain, yet of a narrower soul,
Pomposus holds you in his harsh controul;
Pomposus, by no social virtue sway’d,
With florid jargon, and with vain parade;
With noisy nonsense, and new-fangled rules,
(Such as were ne’er before enforc’d in schools.)
Mistaking pedantry for learning’s laws,
He governs, sanction’d but by self-applause;
With him the same dire fate, attending Rome,
Ill-fated Ida! soon must stamp your doom:
Like her o’erthrown, for ever lost to fame,
No trace of science left you, but the name.
1.2k
Dost thou look back on what hath been,
As some divinely gifted man,
Whose life in low estate began
And on a simple village green;
Who breaks his birth's invidious bar,
And grasps the skirts of happy chance,
And ******* the blows of circumstance,
And grapples with his evil star;
Who makes by force his merit known
And lives to clutch the golden keys,
To mould a mighty state's decrees,
And shape the whisper of the throne;
And moving up from high to higher,
Becomes on Fortune's crowning slope
The pillar of a people's hope,
The centre of a world's desire;
Yet feels, as in a pensive dream,
When all his active powers are still,
A distant dearness in the hill,
A secret sweetness in the stream,
The limit of his narrower fate,
While yet beside its vocal springs
He play'd at counsellors and kings,
With one that was his earliest mate;
Who ploughs with pain his native lea
And reaps the labour of his hands,
Or in the furrow musing stands;
'Does my old friend remember me?'
1.2k
A maze made of streets,
They bend and twist
And go nowhere.
They're too huge so you get lost.
Then, narrower and narrower,
They softly suffocate you.
A jungle made of buildings,
Benches and streetlights
And cafès and noise.
The City wants you.
She clearly calls you
With her siren voice.
A cobweb of thoughts,
it hangs in your mind:
"All the efforts have come to nought,
The overwhelming daily grind."
Then a little path appears,
A path that goes backwards.
The only way to escape.
It's made of bright memories
And friendly faces.
It's the need to go back
And search for cosy places.
It's the need to find ourselves.
Nov 18, 2011
Nov 18, 2011 at 7:47 AM UTC
is there
more to see
out there midst those
lonely rocks and snow..?
artists of vision
find much more..
Van Gogh's rocks and trees
pulsate color and form..
our narrower focus
reveals cold winter pain..
by widening
may we find heat
vibrating the stillness
somewhere between..
thereby we locate
where compassion lies
the joy the light
real beauty's home...
Dec 31, 2012
Dec 31, 2012 at 1:08 PM UTC
Charlatans in doorways
Singing of machinery
The sudden breakdown
Into jaundiced fits
They are out soon now
Coming clothed in crow’s fine coat
And the nearest light
Pours from a fiery pit
Their thoughts, carried
With every exchange of gold
Into a narrower sleep
The mariner’s shanty
Is unsheathed
Through the zealots’
Distaste for peace.
Jul 1, 2010
Jul 1, 2010 at 7:15 AM UTC
I lay in my bedroom,
Near lifeless I was,
Hardly any movement,
Neither voluntarily,
Nor involuntarily,
To parents' utter disappointment,
And to their sadness.
I had never thought,
Not even dreamed,
Heavy felt every step,
Never so desperately,
Narrower felt each passage,
To my parents' daily observation,
And to their dismay.
But still they were strong,
Harder than diamond,
Impossible to shake their spirits,
Time admitted defeat in the end,
Thanks to their nerving nerves,
I could only muster strength,
And I walked upright again.
Dec 22, 2015
Dec 22, 2015 at 8:51 AM UTC
We walk, side by side, with life.
Not knowing in which direction,
Not sure where it is taking us.
Of which way we have to turn.
We seem to be travelling that bridge,
Far above the waters of Time.
The further we keep crossing,
The narrower that bridge becomes.
What is that destination that awaits us?,
Will we ever reach the other side, in the end?.
That is a question that lays here, unanswered.
As this bridge becomes more uneven, the further we go.
There will come that day when we run out of space,
Where we can go no further on this journey.
We will come to that corner where we are trapped,
There will be no way across that splintered edge.
Jul 9, 2010
Jul 9, 2010 at 5:05 AM UTC
I saw a ladder
It was set firmly into the ground
Reaching all the way up into the sky
The bottom steps were broad
But as it continued up
Narrower the steps became
Many people could climb the bottom steps
But the steeper and higher the ladder became
The less people could fit onto the steps
Most fell off the ladder
Back onto the ground
The ones who persisted continued upwards
Walking in singularity
No one to the left, no one to the right of them
Single file they soldiered on
At the top there was a bright light
Into which they were consumed
The ladder was pulled back
Like a carpet rolled up
There was now no connection between those above, and those below
And the wolves and the sheep had been divided
Aug 18, 2023
Aug 18, 2023 at 5:07 AM UTC
Caught in a chasm looking for the end,
The stone walls growing upwards towards the sun.
I look around and only see one way out,
The way I came caved in, the exit, getting narrower.
I run as fast as I can towards the exit, dodging falling rocks and skipping hidden passageways that I know in my heart will trap me instead of setting me free.
Scared for my life, I'm determined to escape,
I reach the end as it closes, there's no way out.
Up
Down
Left
Right
Darkness.
Losing hope, I question why I bothered to explore this musty place.
The earth rumbles beneath me as the ground starts to tear
A chasm within a chasm I fall
Awaiting certain death I accept my fate
Water surrounds me, the current too strong to swim against
Pulling me under, I'm sure I'm a goner
A log stops me, allowing me to come up for air
Above me I see the chasm, caving in it's final pieces, zippering up it's thoughtless problems
I've made it out alive, never so happy to see the sun.
Feb 9, 2014
Feb 9, 2014 at 6:54 AM UTC
And it’s coming.
It’s going to come around.
The night is getting shorter
and our attentions' getting narrower.
The moon is getting brighter.
The eastern’s presence is getting closer.
And we’ll search and search
in cup of gold seas.
And we’ll search and search
in camel sand dunes;
in moments all alone
with aplomb, long gone
Ancient crews.
Then the coming
Glaring sunrise.
They’ll see us and hate us.
But mostly they’ll have
unwavering awe, respect, and fear of us.
Jul 18, 2017
Jul 18, 2017 at 1:25 AM UTC
lazily lost
to crony capitalism
corporate cobwebs
hunger
unsatisfied
first come served
rich get richer
walls get bigger
the river deeper
the gap is wider
the poor get
poorer
the black get blacker
the rift grows wider
the police get narrower
shootings
more common
more people dying
politicians
appear more frequent
on the TV
and nothing gets better
solved
are the next elections
nothing more
Aug 30, 2016
Aug 30, 2016 at 3:48 AM UTC
Before the lullaby ends, before the eyes are closed,
My fears ,staying inside, come out and lie disclosed,
My greatest trepidation blossoms in the dreams that I see,
So much it haunts sometimes, that I wish to flee.
*"I am seated across the window, gazing at the stars,
Should I keep dreaming I can reach that far?"*
Because I am not sure, if my dreams are real,
Maybe another minute obsession, another joke concealed?
If I choose to chase would it be a wrong way to go?
Narrower at every step? Misleading as I grow?
*"I dream as I walk, I dream as I talk,
I am day dreaming always, never looking at the clock.
Should I stop? Should it cease? Should it not supervene?
Should I forget and move on? Wipe it all clean?"*
Shouldn’t I go and jump, If I am supposed to fall anyway?
I will break some bones but at least...freely falling through the way,
And who knows, I might not fall but instead learn to fly,
And maybe that’s the reason, it should be worth a try,
After all broken bones can heal, and crippled body can work,
But crippled dreams, abandoned and forgotten, becomes a haunting smirk..
*"I am lying on earth, should I look at the sky?
Should I really ever think I could reach that high?
What’s the harm in thinking? Dream it anyway,
Because if you won’t, it won’t, if you do then it may…"*
Apr 6, 2013
Apr 6, 2013 at 7:25 AM UTC
The moment when you couldn’t wake up in the mornings.
The moment your hands stayed cold when I bound them in mine.
The moment you made dates with the TV screen.
The moment you forgot to call and all the countless times you had no service.
The moment you became too busy and every single time you made me wait.
The moment you needed a cigarette every 10 minutes.
The moment your lips forgot how to dance with mine.
The moment your shoulder couldn’t bear the weight of my arm around it.
The moment your eyes got narrower and your brows stiffened.
The moment your hugs cut me too much slack.
The moment you stopped getting the chills.
The moment your heavy cheeks couldn’t budge a smile.
The moment your heart stopped skipping beats.
The moment you froze when I told you that I loved you.
The moment fear became your vice.
The moment you hid behind closed doors.
The moment I had more in common with strangers.
The moment I became embarrassing to be around.
The moment when you needed drugs for a good time
The moment you fought me just to feel something.
The moment I was just like my father and the moment you cursed my mother.
The moment you slammed the door in my face and the moment ‘I’m sorry’ left your vocabulary.
The moment the bruises healed.
The moment the word ‘give’ was spelled t- a- k- e.
The moment your dreams were only visible in sleep.
The moment I realized that you weren’t worth another moment of my time.
. . .
I gave you everything and you came out with nothing, which now is the very thing you are to me.
Feb 14, 2013
Feb 14, 2013 at 12:22 AM UTC