"oblong" poems
the average cost of a funeral is
$8,515
death is unaffordable for me
put me in big oblong cardboard box
2 feet by 3 feet by 6 feet
packing list enclosed
fragile (not really)
please handle with care
keep upright
or
supine
send me to the
grande vide
postage due
Jul 30, 2019
Jul 30, 2019 at 12:55 PM UTC
Doom train hurtling along
Through the fog in my mind
Towing freight, rectangular and oblong
Dim headlights, you're travelling blind
Five carriages long, excluding engine and caboose
Metal against metal, spitting sparks on steel
Undetermined path, rails will choose
Chugging along on dirt covered wheels
In the cabin, I see the light
Emanating from your furnace
Swallowing up coals in your gaping bite
Tongues of flames licking the surface
Fire breathing, spewing thick black smoke
Almost unseen, against the dark of night
A long plumy arm as if extending to choke
And plug the remaining sources of light
Meandering precariously on tracks that weave
Over uncharted, unfathomable terrain
Your store, so reliably you heave
Worming your way through my brain
What's in that cargo of yours?
What lies within those boxcars?
What drives you to diligently run your course?
What fuels you to travel near and far?
Loads of self pity, self loathing and self reproach
Snaking your way to an unknown destination
Screeching brakes as if a stop you approach
Herald the train of dubious intentions
Light is upon you, dark will dissipate
Your plumes starting to lessen from your stack
The dawn breaking horizon you didn't anticipate
To see another charging towards you on this very same track...
Sep 27, 2014
Sep 27, 2014 at 4:16 AM UTC
O Distinct
Lady of my unkempt adoration
if I have made
a fragile curtain
song under the window of your soul
it is not like any songs
(the singers the others
they have been faithful
to many things and which
die
i have been sometimes true
to Nothing and which lives
they were fond of the handsome
moon never spoke ill of the
pretty stars and to
the serene the complicated
and the obvious
they were faithful
and which i despise,
frankly
admitting i have been true
only to the noise of worms
in the eligible day
under the unaccountable sun)
Distinct Lady
swiftly take
my fragile certain song
that we may watch together
how behind the doomed
exact smile of life’s
placid obscure palpable
carnival where to a normal
melody of probable violins dance
the square virtues with the oblong sins
perfectly
gesticulate the accurate
strenuous lips of incorruptible
Nothing under the ample
sun, under the insufficient
day under the noise of worms
11.8k
A Noun: The oblong: a thing:
The name of that lounge : a place
By the face of the strange shaped lake...
Dinosaur Egg / oval / green grapes.
An Adj.: Oblong Longboard
That’s such the coolest name
A person: Not a thing
oval shaped .
Mr. Ellipsis made no complaints
About tiny alien ant farms
“From Outer Space!”
The natives made to slave.
*Oblong grew his beard out
After the sideburns days
Mr. Ellipsis far far away*
Fires of the Sun
Will not discern—when
The Light returns
The wyrm will burn .
In oblong throes of defeat.
At peace : A Verb.
Jul 9, 2018
Jul 9, 2018 at 5:10 PM UTC
*“...Your words were found and I ate them.
They became a joy to my heart. In my mouth—
a sweet delight, but in my belly—bitter...”
--Jeremiah*
...But that night
by dim background of next-room light
I could not see your face
just feel your hush of shadow words
on spine of shudders
Seems we dropped this bomb
that would not stop exploding!
...And I was sure?
that it was right?
because...because....!
Their eyes were slanted!
So they could not see—
the “Good Guys”
VANISH—
WIDE-EYED—!
in its TOO-MUCH-LIGHT
Still your voice insists
in pause and fissioned hiss
that I MUST KNOW
in tender half-life
TRUTH
too pure
too deadly white
I swallow lethal glowing dose
HOW CAN YOU SPEAK
SUCH WORDS SO CLOSE!
EXPOSED!
“...in mouth sweet—in belly bitter…”
Stories? and the Grandma Song
rendered tender—lull of voice
Soul’s cabinet cleared of venial sin
Last of all—the tucking in.....
They say you first get sick....
Seems we dropped this bomb
that would not stop exploding!
And I am invisibly ill—with truth
approaching critical mass
Will angry rads incise their ways?
Will leaden swords of angels drive them back?
In this night—
my bedtime stories fainted at your
whispers...whispers...WHISPERS—
fusing an oblong fear
that I MUST NOT DROP!
but I cannot hold!
Fetal-folded
frail and freezing
under covers— just barely peeking
“Jesus hanging on the cross…Tell me-- was it I?”
Jesus hanging in the cross
TELL ME! IT’S NOT TRUE!
"Tell me, mother
Were you God talking?
I could not see your face
by the next room’s light..."
May 9, 2017
May 9, 2017 at 11:40 AM UTC
Yesterday my childhood came.
Playing and jumping around.
Unburdened, without any aim.
I kept on looking, spellbound.
With half eaten oblong eclair.
He ran after the goats herd.
Stopped to look at the hare.
And scared the tiny blue bird.
He moved slily to catch butterflies.
And plucked flowers from a tree.
I kept looking with yearning eyes.
Baffled, surprised he looked at me.
He ran towards the narrow ravine.
And disappeared into bushes green.
Dec 19, 2014
Dec 19, 2014 at 3:55 AM UTC
The broken biscuits lay in a tin
An ordinary oblong tin
With turquoise pattern
And pink embossed flowers
Gold edged to finish the job.
How many times I visited
That tin on the middle shelf
In the top half of a cupboard,
Sawn door, to allow for fridge,
And quietly took out the tin.
Broken biscuits were my delight
All shapes and sizes tasty bites
Wafers, bourbon, custard creams
Rich tea, digestive all suited me
Sometimes fig sandwich, pleased.
Love Mary
Aug 11, 2018
Aug 11, 2018 at 7:05 AM UTC
Guns,
Long, steel guns,
Pointed from the war ships
In the name of the war god.
Straight, shining, polished guns,
Clambered over with jackies in white blouses,
Glory of tan faces, tousled hair, white teeth,
Laughing lithe jackies in white blouses,
Sitting on the guns singing war songs, war chanties.
Shovels,
Broad, iron shovels,
Scooping out oblong vaults,
Loosening turf and leveling sod.
I ask you
To witness--
The shovel is brother to the gun.
3.1k
Curiousity killed the cat,
What of it?
I am not a cat and neither am I curious,
I think.
I want to know and see, but few things hold my interest.
Lately I crave being craved,
Lately I hate that I love the concave of my stomach when fasting for a smaller waist to contemplate in my mirror before going to work,
Lately I’m waking up moody,
Lately I’m grateful.
Lately I need more sleep,
Lately I’m not quite in the place I used to be,
Lately I think I must be growing or changing because this new sense of knowing is gnawing so softly on my skin it feels like luxury.
I think I must be on the edge of an expansive biosphere of me, complete and untouched, because the vision of her is fading as my ten little prints and their oblong archless counterparts bring me closer to the edge.
Staring boldly, daring no one proving nothing peering down into my canyons.
Just on the edge of this cliff, feeling my wind my edges my rivers holding me up,
And up,
And up,
And down so far below.
Though it’s not down that I will go.
It it through.
And richly on the other side I will emerge.
But for now that is not my concern.
Standing on the edge, arms spread wide, I’m alive.
Quite Grand Indeed.
Aug 20, 2018
Aug 20, 2018 at 12:09 PM UTC
Take me to the Rookery with its many paths
A tea house selling refreshments in pretty glass
Three striped lollies covered in chocolate beads
Biscuits and sandwich are all that we need.
The garden was set out, in brick oblong beds
Raised from the ground and divided by hedge
Many bush roses, of the older kind, smelling of
Cold cream and sweet camomile.
There was a terrace with steps leading down
To a sunken garden where the roses reclined
Hanging over arbours, pink , white and cream
And other perennials added to the scene.
This place a haven at the top of Streatham hill
Does anybody know it, it might be there still?
My daddy took me often on a Sunday afternoon
To ramble in the sunshine, and play at my will.
Love Mary x
Jun 15, 2018
Jun 15, 2018 at 8:02 AM UTC
a tiny round pearl
a thin oblong sapphire
a small smooth ruby
a fat opaque opal
keep me alive
control me
erase me
i want to smash them
implode them
they are not worth the effort
it takes to mine the earth
i am powerless
not real
i do not exist
May 12, 2013
May 12, 2013 at 6:06 PM UTC
We sat outside the coffee shop
next to a fire,
watching the sun set behind decrepit buildings.
I lamented over the lack of a roller rink in the area,
reflecting on memories of wobbling around in circles
with dizzying lights and blaring speakers
ejecting Pink, Daft Punk, and Eiffel 65 onto my critical youth.
I felt like a king.
We finished our smoothies and retreated
to an empty hotel parking lot,
where I taught her to skateboard.
One foot over the front bolts,
the back foot over two of the back bolts
but resting over the tail,
kick, push,
it's in the ***** of your feet--
weight distribution.
Tic, tac, scrape, thud--
she falls repeatedly
and gets back up.
I admire her resilience and perpetual smile--
This is what skateboarding is all about.
We roll around the hotel parking lot,
our endpoints being a lone luminescent lamppost
and a telephone pole beleaguered by a plot of shrubbery
that demarcates itself from the pavement.
We circle around the poles for hours,
forming an imaginary oblong track between the two,
our laughs carrying into the cool summer night lullaby
that sang the drowsy small town to sleep.
The fading throb of the wedding reception
at the bottom of the town square by the wharf,
carrying over to us.
The stores closed up hours ago,
silent empty windows reflecting the lonely streetlights
and our ambulance back at us.
We skated on unperturbed into the night hour.
A man walks outside the hotel
to have a cigarette on the sidewalk--
I imagine he is watching us and admiring our glee.
Rolling between this telephone pole and lamppost,
the glare and reflection of the empty silent windows,
the soundtrack singing above our heads,
our laughs, and the tic-tac of skateboards
and groaning of wheels over stubborn pavement
bringing my melancholic reverie to a halt,
recognizing and understanding happiness in the present moment--
This is my roller rink.
Jun 12, 2016
Jun 12, 2016 at 1:13 AM UTC
A fruit bowl,
Adorned with colors,
Red, yellow, orange, green;
And shapes,
Round, oblong, curved, curvy;
And sizes,
Large, medium, small, smaller,
Create a beautiful image,
With their contrasting differences.
Inspire an artist to experiment
Colors, shapes, sizes,
And inspires the poet
To see communion and beauty
Between those that may be different.
Jan 13, 2014
Jan 13, 2014 at 12:21 AM UTC
IN the cool of the night time
The clocks pick off the points
And the mainsprings loosen.
They will need winding.
One of these days...
they will need winding.
Rabelais in red boards,
Walt Whitman in green,
Hugo in ten-cent paper covers,
Here they stand on shelves
In the cool of the night time
And there is nothing...
To be said against them...
Or for them...
In the cool of the night time
And the clocks.
A man in pigeon-gray pyjamas.
The open window begins at his feet
And goes taller than his head.
Eight feet high is the pattern.
Moon and mist make an oblong layout.
Silver at the man's bare feet.
He swings one foot in a moon silver.
And it costs nothing.
One more day of bread and work.
One more day ... so much rags...
The man barefoot in moon silver
Mutters "You" and "You"
To things hidden
In the cool of the night time,
In Rabelais, Whitman, Hugo,
In an oblong of moon mist.
Out from the window ... prairielands.
Moon mist whitens a golf ground.
Whiter yet is a limestone quarry.
The crickets keep on chirring.
Switch engines of the Great Western
Sidetrack box cars, make up trains
For Weehawken, Oskaloosa, Saskatchewan;
The cattle, the coal, the corn, must go
In the night ... on the prairielands.
Chuff-chuff go the pulses.
They beat in the cool of the night time.
Chuff-chuff and chuff-chuff...
These heartbeats travel the night a mile
And touch the moon silver at the window
And the bones of the man.
It costs nothing.
Rabelais in red boards,
Whitman in green,
Hugo in ten-cent paper covers,
Here they stand on shelves
In the cool of the night time
And the clocks.
2.5k
There were not many at that lonely place,
Where two scourged hills met in a little plain.
The wind cried loud in gusts, then low again.
Three pines strained darkly, runners in a race
Unseen by any. Toward the further woods
A dim harsh noise of voices rose and ceased.
--We were most silent in those solitudes--
Then, sudden as a flame, the black-robed priest,
The clotted earth piled roughly up about
The hacked red oblong of the new-made thing,
Short words in swordlike Latin--and a rout
Of dreams most impotent, unwearying.
Then, like a blind door shut on a carouse,
The terrible bareness of the soul's last house.
2.4k
The ocean crashes and I dodge jellyfish
carcasses, bloated, white and ****** like
loose spittle, drenched across the sticky sand.
I hop over this dead thing, so limp, so fragile.
Then, I see it. A black shine. A giant pupil.
Turn it ‘round in my hands and the rock is
smooth as plastic feels when wet.
Black, contrast, battered soft and hard
by the tumultuous waves that had
birthed it from existence into a sandy, shallow grave.
Oblong, like and oval smashed,
I slip the rock into my pocket,
sinking pink toes into mushy
wetness as the salty water laps at my thighs,
chilling them.
Oct 18, 2015
Oct 18, 2015 at 10:40 PM UTC
Eyes chanced upon a brown object
Nestled on a crowd of multi-colored subjects
A bunch of dried and fresh leaves,
Small, thin and soft spikes of twigs
And I wondered.....how on earth
Did fibers and strips of polyester sack
Get included in this mix?
One would think it might fall, and be slung
But it stayed put, steady, where it hang
I was trying to figure it out:
A cylnder, at first thought...but I had my doubts
I realized, it was a crooked oblong
And, from its opening on one side, came the soft songs
A small part of which, was attached
To the thorny Bougainvillea branch.
Strange.....for it was small...yet steep
A human hand could never go deep
You wouldn't think it could contain anything
And yet...inside it, were resting
Three tiny eggs...warming
And eventually, would be hatching.
Soon, the Red Palm and Sweetsop trees
Buzzed with activities
Birds of many kinds, watched, upon the bay window eave,
High on the electric cables...they perched and wouldn't leave
To and fro.......high and low, they flew
The air was filled with bird sounds i never knew
Soon, too, soft tweeting was heard
Along with the louder chirping of the older birds
Then came that morning, when, a birdling,
Eagerly, tested its wings,
Then fell off its nest
Down to the roots of the Red Palm tree
Where it almost met its final rest...
Suddenly, came to the rescue, two big palms
That put the birdling back inside its home
And reinforced the nearly displaced nest...
Both birdling and nest, were put to a test....
Today, other birds fly around this once busy space
Where life's significant phases
Inevitably took place,
Lonely and deserted now,
For the birdlings are fully grown
They're now flying on their own...
From my rocking chair, I could see
Among those entangled twigs
Hidden among a crowd of sprigs
Still ably rests
An abandoned strange nest
That once told the story
Of an Olive-backed sunbird....and its glory...
Sally
Copyright February 18, 2016
Rosalia Rosario A. Bayan
^^^^^^^^^^
Feb 18, 2016
Feb 18, 2016 at 1:14 PM UTC
I hate love lives
But I don't hate life
I just don't think I could get it right in 8 lives
Each one with 8 wives
That's 64 beautiful women
Thoroughly explored I couldn't find love in em
I relish in hate right...
But I don't hate life
I just can't help but see the stigma that you're stained by
Slithering worthless serpents working circles and sinning
I heard their hymns and verse but couldn't find love in em
I play to their hate right..
But they don't hate life
They're just vulnerable to the flames Nihilists lay by
Sleeping soundly certain that there was no divine venom
Pious verses were immersive yet rehearsed I couldn't find love in em.
It's subjective what's right
But I don't hate life
I just can't shape my morals and at the same time,
Sit in oblong boxes and keep my thoughts within em
I read your laws, codes, and odes but couldn't find love in em
Aug 4, 2018
Aug 4, 2018 at 11:35 AM UTC
*to be
or
not to be*...
he stands at the lamppost, screened from view
evening light slopes across the street
and cuts an oblong square of light
from the Hotel de Ville lobby-entrance.
she wonders who he is, standing there so
almost melding into post, his nondescript shadow sidling alongside
while early eve strolls through Le Parc des Céléstins
steady presence, half but not quite menacing.
he gazes down at his silhouette, Gauloise alit
and it, in turn, looks into the kerb...or up at him...
he turns his head up slowly, hazy wisps
as bewilderment draws reredos.
she hears footsteps clack across the parquet floor
as someone leaves the rez-de-chaussée
she wonders what he wants; why he stands there
who he waits for; and why so long.....
she can never see his face, ponders much on this
she longs to understand, yet feels afraid
as if she's seen that shade before, across the road
moving slowly, as the hours steal away...
visible from her second floor, she eyes
daddy-long legged limbs and dangly shapes
he has merely wandered into his past
seeking only the one he hopes to find.
traveled so far and sought so wide
crossed oceans, traversed treacherous terrain
perseverance the clutch word of the day
only to linger long to recover dashed prize.
later, as she peers into the heavy night
from windows shut, all her eyes can pierce
are nought but empty shadows 'neath that solitary lamp post
seems the mist carried off her spectral fear.... as well.
*or...
did it?*
S T, 28 June 2013 (Fry-day:)
Jun 28, 2013
Jun 28, 2013 at 8:00 AM UTC
my love is that love
swerving in novas, gobsmacked and gibbering...
a funky cuss of lust
oblong in the short run
sprinting to horizons of forgotten doves;
cooling heel and grind-
in peat moss
of mauve thoughts; so lurid you could find them
in pitch dark.
my love is the love
that chinks your armor.
the soft clang of a raging Kismet
port of your starboard !
i am in love with you
and this thing
is "mostly harmless "
Jan 14, 2013
Jan 14, 2013 at 2:28 PM UTC
No. I write against.
(Aihmeanlike, against it.)
No, against it.
Like this.
[The point is pressing
A dark circle down down down.]
So (Djiuknowhatuhmean?)
I clash on this. After doing that
All day, on air! With conscious
Breath, (which is just force myself
Breath!) out of the glued muck
Moss in my sere bellum. My
Me do lah. Oblong god. Duh.
How long, these fractured
seams of seemlessness around?
In the meantime, here’s
some words, an image of a
Stream, and I’ll say: “Like a dead
Man(’s passing.)” Look at it.
And you thought infinity
Could be brushed off like a fly!
Wring your wet sloppy self!
Undried, then sundried!
Well. Now, you are one-eyed.
But what about that cry
Of true voice swishing lost
And found in the growing
Concrescent infundibular
Abyss?
Oh, that might be the Sublime
Sadness! (That one mentioned
once.) Keeping the Eternal
Walker out in the dwindling
Afternoons, closer than tears
To littered ponds of cold light.
Will he pull out the solidified
Spirit, or precipitate his freedom
As indistinguishable from the
Mystery? Oh. Please. Then the
Self would be (the question).
And there. Would be. No.
Need for the asked king.
Mar 27, 2012
Mar 27, 2012 at 7:58 PM UTC
I should have skeletons in my closet,
but they've yet been stripped of their flesh,
and I've let them loose in this small town
for a game of hide 'n' seek.
She returned a set of my pajamas, unwashed,
her intoxicating scent lingering on hooks in my closet
where her aroma constructs an illusion.
I bury my face in them,
feeling my damp cheeks pressed into her *******
reaching down below where my hand grasps her posterior
where it takes a firm shape in the loose garments.
I dig into the scent until I go crazy;
I tell myself I'll wash them next week.
I should have skeletons in my closet,
but she's taken it on the road,
in a small town parading it down empty streets
where I can see it clearly,
her oblong sunglasses darkly obfuscating
what I perceive to be her pejorative gaze,
over a narrow ivory face,
sandy blonde hair flowing in the wind.
(I still feel, yes, that smooth pale face cupped within my trembling hands, that sandy hair tangled around my fingers reaching up the back of her neck, pressing her face more towards mine)
I look for the shallow dent
in her ubiquitous red minute two-door seater
on the passenger side, where she was gently T-boned
by a student driver practicing their three-point turn,
and the smiley-face lemon-scented air freshener
dangling from her rear-view mirror,
having lost its freshness years ago.
(I still see, yes, us in that hardware store parking lot,
in the closed evening hour,
sitting cramped in the passenger seat,
her knees on either side of me,
our shirts off and skin warm and sweaty, nervous,
trembling, trembling, lips aching and souls yearning--
where were we headed to again?)
I look for it so intensely,
I forgot my goal was to never see it again.
Young love looking for little things in a small town.
For years I play this game of hide 'n' seek,
and part of me should realize
that at some point she got up from her hiding spot
and moved on with her life.
(and no, I won't look at her engagement photos,
nor the photos of her newborn child,
nor the Happy Anniversaries and the congratulatory sentiments--
I can see them without social media's derision)
I still scan the streets
like a vulture over roadkill,
yet I thought I was the one
engraved into the grainy streets
where she commutes over my remains.
I should have skeletons in my closet,
but I let them walk out of my life
so I can chase them all over town.
May 22, 2016
May 22, 2016 at 11:02 PM UTC
The house broth trickles onto the plywood floor
Filtered by fiberglass cotton candy
A humid breeze slams the oblong door
and knocks over the table I found so handy
This storm has brought my ceiling down on my head
The rafters are surely next to fall
Thunder sings songs with words never said
That entices the slugs to climb the wall
A deathtrap, a battlefield, a childhood home
have fused to form this cocoon of mold
The flies have settled, no longer to roam
and I'm left for the winds to bend and fold
This leaky old roof that Grandfather built
can barely now stand, let alone shelter strays
But if I leave in the night, I drag only my guilt
My body goes wandering, but my dream world stays
Aug 22, 2013
Aug 22, 2013 at 11:12 AM UTC
you smelt like pears
your eyes were rivers
your soul was the moon
watching over the night
we breath in and take shelter
I walked into the fields
found a moon shaped rock
and carved you a heart
you wore it round your neck like a diamond
breathing only the air
we laid on soft oblong shaped couches
you laid on me
our hearts beat like drums
I kissed your neck
you taste like peaches
Jul 24, 2010
Jul 24, 2010 at 12:14 AM UTC