"necklaced" poems
She was always
Simply
A
Lock
Away; all they needed was the
Key.
Those who found it
Lost it soon enough too.
But those who fashioned it,
themselves
Without deterring from the task
Without trying to replicate a lost key
With nothing but a
egami euqinu
In their minds
Of what the lock looked like
And what the key should look like
Only those few,
Few, very few
Wizards
who toiled to work their magic
Succeeded.
And they never lost their key
They necklaced it around their heart
A symbol that was now etched into
their existence
Entangled in the life of the veins
That this heart so solely depended on
Becoming one with them
Those were the lucky ones
The others, the ones she wished mattered
Were still only searching
Searching
Meandering
Probing
Ferreting
Still only looking for
A key that had once been used
And whose lock was now
Rust rusting rusted
With time.
Still searching
But never creating, of course
Always only searching
Until they found it
And then lost it again.
Jan 31, 2015
Jan 31, 2015 at 2:48 AM UTC
Its simply very easy.
Kiss them.
Hold them.
Make them feel safe.
Loved.
Wanted.
Then leave them.
Don't call them.
Don't text them.
Then show up out of the blue
With an
"I still love you"
On the tip of your tongue
With another girls Hickeys
Necklaced on your neck.
Keep your distance.
Call them late at night.
Fall asleep on the phone
To them.
Give them hope.
Remind them that
They
Haven't
Moved
On
At
All.
May 20, 2016
May 20, 2016 at 7:11 AM UTC
Its perspective skewed,
the lie of this land
is all tilts and angles.
Black-thorned hedges
rise in white clouds
to the hilltop farm.
On this Damson Day
it is a damp-mist morning,
the horizon a grey smudge.
Up forest trail and fell-ward,
on the left, a winter-laid hedge,
to the right, a mossy wall.
A riot of new growth lies
at the feet, by the hand:
wild garlic, wilder strawberry,
fresh ferns, and the tiniest violets
hiding on this old path.
Steep steps climb
to a four-acre orchard
primrosed under the pint-sized
trunks of its wiry trees.
There’s the blossom, white as snow.
*Hard to imagine
five months hence,
fully plummed and picked,
Bullace and Damascene
driven by the cartload
to Kendal market.
250 tons they’d reckoned
once, taken by train
to the Preston canners.
Nearer home the fruit
was gined and beered,
cheesed and chucknied.*
Then into the forest,
a plantation girdled
by a dry stone wall
tall on the moorland edge
where beyond
the grey limestone shards
have broken through what
little grass is left
for absent cattle.
Wild with wind
up here today,
so down to reclaim
the forest’s shelter,
and down through fields
to a farm en fête
all cars and crowds.
This, a damson day of best-judged jam,
with artisan breads, Morris with swords,
fiddling folk, agility dogs, St Kilda sheep,
blue eggs and tents of crafts galore.
In the mist and drizzle
homeward and facing west,
there across the valley lie
outposts of blossoming,
fields embroidered,
and the farms necklaced.
Apr 14, 2014
Apr 14, 2014 at 4:18 PM UTC
It is a mystery to me
How you all breathe with such consistency
I cannot hold a breath
I gasp in symphonies
I grasp at air running out my lungs
Your hands
Necklaced around my throat
Are tight. So tight.
The blood rushing in my head cries out my eyes
And your hot breath
Stings my eyes
It bites at my words
As soon as they leap from my tongue
There is patience in every part of me
But no tolerance
Not for fools
Not for you, and the heat of your fire only burns it does not warm
I could dare you all the things
Stick a fork in an electrical outlet
Hold your breath under water
Drink this bleach, bottoms up
But you are only a fool
Not foolish
Like my vain, vain hopes
So fill your glass with all my tears
Breathe me in, with all my fears
And take all the air I have never used
Take it, take it, all away
Aug 23, 2017
Aug 23, 2017 at 10:45 AM UTC
Upon (die) re rhea ding previous poem
All In The Name Of "Progress" zen
a glaring, leering,
and twittering left par wren
dared to a right (i.e. bribe)
corrective punctuation measure
slyly slipping Special Ops symbol ")"
for so many yen,
thus see slipped thru my excellent
proof reading, when
lo and behold consternation,
inconsideration, and perturbation
I thought to take a page
from playbook of Sylvia Plath,
and stick my head in the oven
but lo, a sardine recipe
(though a bit fishy),
could be found necessitating cauldron
only available for purchase in Turin
thus donned with a shrouded cape,
aye didst make whoosh,
hence, went there and came back
and frankly tubby earnest,
thence began stir'n
a bubbling concoction brew
though duration for perfect consistency
aye lacked any clue
thus, needed to contact
Hannibal the cannibal
asper what to do
in order (I explained)
to sever livingsocial,
and forever hang my head in shame
cuz, accidentally omitting
one right parenthesis too few
hence, esteemed flawless glory,
(sans error free grammarian
reputation pitched downward
where careless evinced
Kamikaze nosedive, where
matter of fact gross humiliation
instantaneously grew
and the only viable option
forced me to hew
admitting to egregious, fatuous, abhorent
and readily confesses
compunction viz, grievously
blatant Anglo Saxon
Horrifying transgression
involving backward curved "C" sin bent
a most execrable,
incorrigible, and unforgivable
literary faux pas incurring
major cosmic event
stripped of title special
Das Scribe double bubble "A" gent!
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Upon complying never to err again
Matthew Scott Harris since
accepted plea bargain
accepting sentence resting his chin
til indelible necklaced "U" lettered grin
forever visible to kith and kin.
Jun 26, 2018
Jun 26, 2018 at 3:45 PM UTC
TIME is searching in ways we cannot express,
both behind and ahead of us,
an infinite line that sits above and below
the equally infinite squiggles and tesseracts
belonging to the universes cohabiting it
Our ANCESTORS sang songs we no longer know the words to
worshipped sunrises and sunsets like new lovers do
buried their dead in ceremony of necklaced ivory
they told their stories in starlight,
fires unfair rivals to the brilliant galaxy borne into the atmosphere
at the sun's setting.
THEY ******
and ate
and ******
and ****
THEY wanted more.
And here WE ARE,
Dec 13, 2014
Dec 13, 2014 at 5:47 PM UTC
In Memoriam,
Where is the face that launched a thousand ships?
Girls of the age of the waves are named after her
Helen, whose Sparta is now a mundane village
No one breathes in her mythical sillage
No one grabs her golden belt above the hips.
Where is the lithe Hermes and his winged sandals?
Women of today wear him daily on their necklaced throne
Around the neck and the perfume, a scarf is thrown
Do you know of this French house creating scandals?
Does Apollo know he has been sent into space
In an intricate horse of iron called eleven
Here’s hoping he saws the strings of Lyra
He, bringing poetry and Letters to grace.
What about the boastful Paris and his pride?
Cursed by Aphrodite and Helen’s eloper
What would he know of the City of Lights
Paris, paradise of lovers to reach new heights…
And what to say of fair Spartan Hermione
The incarnated actor making much more money
From Hermione to Emma but none of the myth
Both had to fortunately grit their teeth…
Ajax the Lesser who forced himself on Cassandra
Still tears your household and floor asunder
Warrior whose name now scrubs the dust
Off nowadays lame palaces, bound to rust…
Homer, father of the epic poem of Greece
You should hide under your sheep’s fleece
What would you say to the yellowish Cyclops
Benighted idiot, pondering on donuts!
Lyon, March 2- March 4, 2017
Mar 5, 2017
Mar 5, 2017 at 8:19 AM UTC
Tonight, the full moon looks so beautiful
that I am crying. I have lapsed on my knees,
the pulp of every love- shared. subscribed- streams
through follicles of unpardonable zest.
Nobody should know, but they end up aware
of the malpractical jingling pulling us
into the cartoon turbine that wants us first,
into the scratched longing poised in our collars.
Nobody should know, but they end up aware
of the unplanned lobotomy of wrong-
with opaque grunting, sure, maybe,
the necklaced ash-bath, the causal antibiotic for dummies
who dream about a bite instead of the consequence
of our bodies.
There's a full moon, and nobody should miss
on the engine-knock of our throat;
we've not loved for a while, but we still hug warmly
before we leave, smile at the odor of food,
spill it like the children we have never hated or loved but were,
clean up like the hankies we became.
Jan 21, 2019
Jan 21, 2019 at 11:02 AM UTC