"outlasted" poems
Our last connection with the mythic.
My mother remembers the day as a girl
she jumped across a little spruce
that now overtops the sandstone house
where still she lives; her face delights
at the thought of her years translated
into wood so tall, into so mighty
a peer of the birds and the wind.
Too, the old farmer still stout of step
treads through the orchard he has outlasted
but for some hollow-trunked much-lopped
apples and Bartlett pears. The dogwood
planted to mark my birth flowers each April,
a soundless explosion. We tell its story
time after time: the drizzling day,
the fragile sapling that had to be staked.
At the back of our acre here, my wife and I,
freshly moved in, freshly together,
transplanted two hemlocks that guarded our door
gloomily, green gnomes a meter high.
One died, gray as sagebrush next spring.
The other lives on and some day will dominate
this view no longer mine, its great
lazy feathery hemlock limbs down-drooping,
its tent-shaped caverns resinous and deep.
Then may I return, an old man, a trespasser,
and remember and marvel to see
our small deed, that hurried day,
so amplified, like a story through layers of air
told over and over, spreading.
9.5k
My love outlasted yours
like a tool, I let you use me
like a fool, I let you trick me
When you were silent I responded
because I knew you needed me
because I knew you could use me
You pushed me 300 miles away finally
but at least now it's just me
at least now it's just me
Feb 5, 2018
Feb 5, 2018 at 4:33 PM UTC
I know they know I have potential
To get to be celestial.
Alas, no one has ever seen it on
As if they see everything’s gone.
Bet you can call me a wandering soul,
Outlasted and luster has fell in a black hole;
It will never be in my universe,
A gift has made its reverse.
Woe to this shell of emptiness,
Never deserving for happiness;
Silent death will then rip my heart,
Too bad, I can no longer play a good part.
Soon, expiration date is coming away,
No one else can extend as much as they want my stay.
Perhaps departure will be a tumble,
For I will disintegrate like a bubble.
That misfortune’s like the dead star,
Brilliantly shiny from afar.
But looking closely away the moon,
Such sight not to swoon.
Jul 11, 2014
Jul 11, 2014 at 11:07 PM UTC
1.
I feel
fractured splintered defeated
entirely insular
and spread to thin
all at the same time
covered with insecurities
like a cheap suit
or hollow exoskeleton
nothing more than a lie. I grow tired.
I'm bluffing my way through this life
a brutal honesty
I lack the courage to accept
hiding my face
from every mirrored surface
a halfhearted attempt
to prolong this detrimental denial.
I can't ******** my way
through self-reflection
and trying to improve my image
feels positively improvised.
I lack sincerity and authenticity
an individual breathing without zeal
I need a break.
2.
Here I am again a lonely itinerant migrating
to the proverbial and often visited crossroads
rather than contemplating
a direction worth navigating
be it following in the worn footprints of others
or a path long overgrown with neglect.
I'd rather lie down on the gravel road
and nap in the open air
just to wake up confused and temperamental.
The destination remains unknown
my indecision remains intact.
I give impetuous a bad name
by reputation and repetition alike
conjoined twins that speaks to
fate and circumstance.
Like Houdini
I'm secured in a long sleeve shirt
dangling upside down from a burning rope
placing blame on the flame.
I need a break.
3.
I'm not as intelligent
or insightful as I once thought
my wasted youth is a testament.
A modern ruin
like so many a Blockbuster
I've outlasted my usefulness.
I imagine what could have been
clueless as to what lies ahead.
A jovial repentance
seems as likely as
success, or stability, **** simplicity.
Is it all too much to ask?
I've been on break too long.
4.
reboot jumpstart
Alleviate my stagnant, vacant lot in life
and cast off these first world problems.
Consider not the flat champagne
or the distance that separates
today from death.
Speak positively to the people
that would not otherwise attract minimal attention.
Set goals both grand and plausible
with no worry of dividends
and release cynicism
and determine a trajectory
that I may see through to completion.
If for no other reason
but to say that I tried.
It's not so bad this imagined and dire circumstance.
Relax and go on break.
Feb 11, 2013
Feb 11, 2013 at 7:48 PM UTC
Come For Me
Come for me
In darkness
Like all cowards
Come for me
When I am starved
And deprived of
Comfort
Come for me when
I am crazed
For want
Of a woman's lips
Come for me
When my days
Have outlasted
The portion in my
Beggar's bowl
Come for me
When I have
Watched the mongrel
Suffer in the ditch
Come for me on
Lorcas's birthday
And Akhmatova's
Wedding night
Or Bastille Day
Come for me
In my darkness
And I will show
You how
I write poetry
Aug 12, 2015
Aug 12, 2015 at 10:52 PM UTC
Go ****** your opinions and your political minions up another ass’s ******* or maybe take that noise, and show some glamour and some poise like the bigs wigs on capital hill, filled with the ideals of the real, reality sets in with a pen on paper and a veto or a stapler to add another pile to another pile stacked high with paper and anger and a wager on top of all that to rate his and her, him and them, freedom or not, this is when the world goes black, back to a rack of what was and what wasn’t and isn’t and hasn’t been or whatever may come, from, whatever’s the machine in charge of the largest country on a scale of humility to ego, eating eggos daily, watching bombs drop and proms go on like any other day, a dance filled way too high with alter personalities and ratchet fatalities. This is another normality in this bleak reality of life. Full of wisdom, full of strife, take your knife and force it down someone’s throat, coat it with words, thoughts, sought after beliefs and chiefs of the mind. Find what’s real, what’s good, something borrowed something bought, this freedom we fought for, blood sweat and tears for, die for, cry for, ride it till its outlasted every past and bold and rash incision upon decisions. Fission fusion and confusion driven, is a country with stripes stars and bars, filled with past and present Heros, veterans, bet again they’re there for the third night in a row, about to row away down te river of blood and dirt and dignity, until the tugging of righteous voices slices the void of sorrow, but that’s tomorrow, today is just a work in progress.
Mar 12, 2013
Mar 12, 2013 at 11:43 AM UTC
I arrived at my station in Kaliningrad
as if posted there by an army of desires
entering through the gate with a firm set jaw
into the guarding teeth of iron girders
driven into the soft soul of the soil
by hammering heels as bold as yours
approaching a fateful encounter quite naughty
amidst ghosts in an Eastern European night
its sights built when all roads led to Königsberg city
taking pretty daughters of frightening Prussian knights
to a military parade past the rust of heavy industry
a call to arms wrapped tight up against youthful skin
dark forces dressed in lace trimmed girdles of passion
its secret codes covered by accents slightly Russian
sounding like love slipping into a cold war assignation
you were too beautiful by half
too perfect to wear jeans
so like the uniform concrete paths
abandoned to such ghastly stains
they attract me like works of art
that someone envious of being outlasted
had to spray with swirling tattoo paint
yet the matt camouflage fades fast
while your beauty is chiseled into my days
its ageless gloss defying the wind and dust
whipping across the wonderful blocks called home
built by socialist bloc labourers whose ***** hands
must have toiled for the day you were born
and set free the naked ambition of men that yearn
for a dessert of finely moulded vision
beyond the blue vein cheese and a little wine
into warm baths steaming away the tension
which had crossed our paths with precise chains
snapped together in a demand for attention
“stop - no tourism beyond here after 5pm”
but you knew diversions locked in 'till round 2am
a stress release submitting to the pull of a comforter
gentle in the peace of the goose-down we slept in
the softness of the rattles
the worst
of your corrupters
Jul 13, 2014
Jul 13, 2014 at 9:18 PM UTC
Here lies a scar
a short cut to a shortcut
on the journey home
to the heart
I almost died trying to
find a way out of myself
to release my own demons
free the inside of me
in the split second
of a split vein
the moment i almost lost
all of my moments
the breath of life
i realized its importance
there is no easy way out
you will hurt the ones you love
when you are here now
then suddenly gone tomorrow
there is no easy way in
there will always be trauma
that aches beneath the skin
things you want to escape from
escape into
life is full of paradoxes
you want to live
but self sabbatoge your life
though the same God
who created the stars
created you
you feel yourself undeserving
to be among the living
Yet you are here
In almost giving it away
I learned life is a gift
i must not squander it
eventhough I feel squandered by it at times
that I am wasting my time
These ill feelings pass
and ill get past my past
and the future will at last
be the last thing I grasp
my last will and testament
that I faced the present
my sadness, my fears, my anxieties
deep depression
fought them all tooth and nail
raised hell
to be comfortable in my shell
accept myself
And I outlasted it
won the battle
Lived
Survived
Thrived.
I am here.
Jan 24, 2017
Jan 24, 2017 at 1:23 PM UTC
If I could go back
and fix it somehow
I'd start with my birth
and change everything until now
I would not have left
my seed scatered
in some furrowed brow
Would have been
more thoughtful
and less of a soue
You know the pig
I've become
Somebody STOP me
My life's on a run
Down to the place I don't want 2 B
Please STOP ME
I rant & I rave
Why do I go on this way?
Sometimes my life
Seems senseless
All caught up in
Should have beens
And could have beens
Pointless and Undefined
I ramble on
As if anyone CARES
Is this pointless?
Or will anyone care?
I've outlasted
most of my piers
BUT that dosen't change
the fact that I'm HERE
Apr 10, 2010
Apr 10, 2010 at 3:32 AM UTC
Sometimes I can't help but wonder
if it's worse to have a skeleton in your closet
or an urn full of ashes
These bones outlasted Halloween
My everyday is October
My ghosts follow me around the world
You may rave about spring cleaning
but some doors are best left unopened
These secrets have a stench
I've heard all the horror stories
All those bones hanging
The silence could wake the dead
Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever grow up
and stop being afraid of the dark
Jan 22, 2017
Jan 22, 2017 at 5:50 PM UTC
My self-esteem I ripped out of this body long ago
Self-respect not long after that
I traded both for a phony veil of joy
To stop feeling the pain of the place I was at
It never outlasted the strength of the ache
Now I own meager scraps and not much else
A heart in disrepair, aura colored black, muted spirit,
Hands sore and ****** from punishing myself
A hole or two would be just fine
But in my chest something's gone dark
A great persistence possesses me to poke
Until my hurt arms are covered in marks
All the way throughout my scarred skeleton
Sorrows lay scattered, sadness strewn about
They invited insecurities in to stay
Now not a single one will get out
Organs uncomfortably crowded by
Irrational fears, worries, and questions
Anxiety multiplies with a million other things
I would really rather not mention
The few shreds of confidence I had
Finally got fed up and fled
Leaving only doubt and shame
Plus negative thoughts echoing in my head
I used to harbor peace inside my marrow
All I feel there now is hurt
Carefree shrugs and smiles departed
Took refuge somewhere buried under dirt
There is not a lot here remaining
Of the person I was before
Better qualities packed up
And exited out the nearest door
These days I'm made of stubborn self-hatred,
Cloudy skin, empty eyes, lifeless hair, no beauty,
Addiction replaced the brightness of my soul with broken bulbs,
Yeah, there's not much here left of me
Mar 8, 2019
Mar 8, 2019 at 9:53 PM UTC
i fracture my soul, a piece for you and one for me.
maybe then i could offer eternity.
we reap what we sow, Innocence tells me.
i am my own, and forever is what we shall be.
pulled a tooth, a wish to be granted;
godsend, our love will not be outlasted.
i take a new color, new face, new soul:
will you ever love me as a whole?
identity is what my youth writhes for,
i take you for your words, because you promised, you swore-
then i remember Youth doesn't cry for me anymore.
i'm nothing to you until i'm everything,
Jun 13, 2014
Jun 13, 2014 at 2:14 PM UTC
One air-conditioned summer evening,
When the waking lamplights
Buzzed and sighed to life and
Yellowed the cooling stones
In the street beside our home,
You asked me a foolish question.
"Do we have a lasting relationship?"
No.
No, my love, we have nothing
Of the sort. No roses or chocolates
Or love-letters have ever outlasted
The final rasping, dusty cull that must
All mortal, fleeting things befall.
No whispered words, like golden
Birds on the morning wires can
Ever aspire to live beyond their
Breath. Each serenade fades with
Death. So shall our love,
When we go to worms, be gone.
But do not cry, my whispered love,
For though I cannot hold you past
The expiration of my arms,
You, too, will be the dullest dust:
Insensitive to my absent charms.
Sep 5, 2010
Sep 5, 2010 at 3:18 PM UTC
Swaying ever so slightly in the ever so slight breeze
With no competition and an abundance of leaves,
The limbs stretch out horizontal with ease.
Saggy branches cast shadows ever changing not still,
Surrounding the ground at the base of Greg's mill.
The death of the farmer, an absence of relation
Resulted the rotting of wood and the estates decimation.
From the numberless seasons of decay and neglect
The mill, exhausted from age is still somehow *****
Thick grass and means weeds form a bush-like combination
That blankets the mills base and destroys the foundation.
Dilapidated, homely and a touch out of place
With time, the farm, a memory will be easy to erase.
Things will run their course, land and estate will all fade
For nothing can escape Mother Natures crusade
A thought thats ironic and slightly more grim
Is the fact that Greg's creation has outlasted him.
Since immortality is a myth that She will never permit.
Soon the mill will be gone like the farmer who created it.
Apr 23, 2014
Apr 23, 2014 at 3:28 PM UTC
Oh? But what wandering eye?
You curse me so still?
I have given you my dignity, my chastity, my love and my hate.
Why must you demand?
These shackles you hold around my feet,
They are frigid, fickle... Frugal.
Surely I am not to blame! Surely, surely!
Oh, but wandering eye,
You have outlasted all, you have tainted all in your cruel excitement.
You are my well-lived enemy
Oh, but so fair, oh but so tall, and oh,
How you vitiate my love and loves!
Oh, how you have bound many before you!
What flickering excitement you bring, and what black ruin you warrant.
Jan 13, 2015
Jan 13, 2015 at 10:50 PM UTC
Still the slumbering fog rolls upon your face,
Unlike the trees as they bleed, behind the hidden bookcase,
Filling up the spaces in my mind
I stand assertively to the side, with open palms gripping the hand of my wife
As they speak to me that our son is no longer alive
Letting go of a star whose brightness should of outlasted your own,
Leaves me with nothing but shear terror, of the unknown,
Darkness can’t hold back the emotion in my mind,
Lined up in a row,
Being shot at
One at a time
Just don’t let go
Just don’t let go
Thats all I ******* hear
Nothing but the voice of my son, ringing in my ear
I taught him how to steer
He used to sit on my lap, and shift all the gears
He went off to war, in less than a year
and now he’s gone,
My heart is forever torn
I wish I could hold him again
Like the day he was born
Sep 8, 2014
Sep 8, 2014 at 11:12 AM UTC
I have not known a loveliness,
As yet within my years,
That outlasted its’ predestined day,
Not predisposed to tears.
And I have not known a beauty,
That did not reach it’s prime,
Greatness always turns to ugliness,
If just but given time.
Back and forth, to and fro,
The pendulum swings always,
Good and bad, light and dark,
They each but have their days.
Oct 24, 2011
Oct 24, 2011 at 8:18 PM UTC
The shoreline stares back at me—
Almost tasting it,
A distant, golden line lies ahead.
The tide is like a clenched fist,
Tightening around my ankles,
Dragging me down even further.
I tell myself I know this sea.
I have swum through it before,
Charted its depths,
I felt its pull, outlasted it.
But today, the water rises,
My chest feels the pressure.
Salt and silence fill my mouth,
Despite my kicks, the current grows stronger.
The waves swallow my screams.
Like a storm, PMDD surges—
No warning, no mercy.
My ribs tear,
Its voice floods my mind—
Why bother fighting it? Let go. Sink.
I claw at the water,
Not from strength,
But from fear—
This time, maybe I won’t make it.
Rage consumes me.
I rage that I can’t trust my own body,
That my mind betrays me,
Dragging me under,
While the world above remains calm.
Even as I sink, somewhere—
I feel it:
The part of me that will not drown.
She remembers the taste of sand,
The heat of sunlight was on her skin.
She will not let go.
Not now. Not ever.
The shore is still there,
Even if I can’t see it now.
I will rise to meet it.
My power is inevitable.
Jan 5, 2025
Jan 5, 2025 at 8:48 PM UTC
I breathed, and with my breath
gave birth, again and again and again.
My lungs housed planets
which flew from my lips
to rest in a space not too far from the nest
of infinity-wide hips.
I perfumed myself with the stardust
that lay about my shelves,
while my eyes wandered to the children
who kept their quiet and took their time
to build their lives away from mine.
Nine children: four boys, four girls-
One lonely in-between, the closest to my breast,
chilled by the distance from its father's heart.
My third child, of the cleanest hue
leapt bounds ahead the others, covered
white, green and blue.
If the others are jealous, they never say so
for their silence is their virtue,
their mystery their status.
But, despite her siblings' monarchy glamour,
it was my third baby, who became a mother.
I paint my nails with the polish given
as gifts from my un-answering offspring.
They throw me pieces of their atmosphere
to wear around my neck,
and I accept all these gifts with gratitude,
glad they exercise respect.
My third child sends me probes, satellites,
and sends rocket ships to her uncle.
Her children thrive and mine her body,
and she sits daintily, between her sister and her brother,
allowing them to farm her so; her duty as a mother.
As I age, the wrinkles of my skin deepen, and
occasionally, something far away collapses.
I find I age better than their father; better than
all the fathers that came ahead.
I have always outlasted them.
I will never lie upon a deathbed.
It is my duty as their mother to watch
as my babies eventually perish.
Aged well, aged strong, dramatic endings.
But such is life, and such am I, and I am always law-
and after death comes life again, multitudes and more.
Nov 5, 2015
Nov 5, 2015 at 5:43 AM UTC
This bark's outlasted
The wintery blast,
But at the cost
Of the main mast.
Raise the spiniker
And the jib,
Hoist a sail,
Man the pumps,
There's no good reason
To jump - just yet;
We're temporarily adrift
Searching for a friendly shore
To lay anchor deep,
Waiting for your
Lighthouse eyes
To show the way home.
Jan 31, 2015
Jan 31, 2015 at 11:39 AM UTC
A center stripe on such a road would be no more than affectation,
The prospect of two vehicles on the same stretch of this blacktop
Which ambles from nowhere to nowhere, old logging path
Morphed into a convenience for fishermen or bird watchers
Heading to the odd bits of Adirondack Park land
Scattered higgeldy-piggeldy in its path
All but a mathematical impossibility.
Indeed, the fog lines are barely visible, a series of dots and dashes
Along the crumbling berm of the shoulders,
And the signs testifying to the calamitous curves ahead
Are faded and pock-marked
In testament to generations of pellet-gun marksmanship
And twelve-ounce projectiles.
There remain the odd traces of the byway’s former usefulness:
Rusted blades or unevenly-spoked wheels
Left behind by ancient logging outfits,
The odd abandoned hunting camp, and here and there,
Visible through gaps in thick, ancient stands of pine
(Having outlasted the original settlers and logging concerns
Through the sheer stubborn implacability of biology),
You might see an anomalous abandoned bus up on blocks,
And there are those who have sworn they have seen them
Adorned with curtains in the windows,
But that is most certainly a trick of the light,
A mis-apprehension of something half-glimpsed
By the drivers as they sped by.
Nov 20, 2017
Nov 20, 2017 at 8:11 PM UTC
mining my jewels
tapping into a new field
one undisturbed
one layered for this time.
tunneling through each.
permeation of the rocks and such.
traveling deeper into my core.
burning my oil.
releasing its essence to be free.
being my own resource.
charging my self.
internal viewpoint is path
of least resistance.
trusted, tested, outlasted.
looking within, depending on she.
trusted, tested, outlasted.
confidence in my stance, here.
planting seeds, watching others grow.
sprouting using stored energy,
moments waiting to be.
infinity and, still too...
moments of me... as I search for you.
that grace of the waves
that smell, of energy being made.
charged, welcome, at last
home is recognized.
the resource.
Jul 7, 2016
Jul 7, 2016 at 2:45 AM UTC
When I think of past loves
I get lost in the feeling
of memories-
For the boy with tattoos
I smell musty perfume
and recall the recklessness
that raged through that summer.
For the boy on the bike
I see crisp fall nights
that were plagued with regret
of not leaving sooner.
For the boy who drove the jeep
I hear distant cars on the street
as we're stumbling in skates
wearing smiles that we faked.
But for the boy who plays guitar,
defining you is hard.
You outlasted every season,
different phase and stupid craze.
When I think of you I think of years
several smiles, several tears.
There is no scent that triggers your face,
no sound nor touch nor place.
I only fathom of today, and as for memories-
they're still being made.
Nov 24, 2013
Nov 24, 2013 at 11:50 PM UTC
Arbiter Elegans
When we were young,
we pried the cavern's darkness with our eyes,
and every autumn evening
we outlasted even day,
until our shadows blended with the night.
Then we turned away
toward the village where we lived.
For we had hoped that time
had lasted with the years,
had linked us with that past
in some enchanted string of moments
from the first to what would be the last.
Breathlessly we paused outside the cave,
our faces shadowed by its mouth,
our ears straining for her cries
(growing weaker, we surmised,
with every day that aged her).
But in December when,
emboldened by our youth,
we stepped inside the cave
(not half as deep or dark as we had thought),
all we found
was an amber bottle dashed upon a rock.
That was years ago,
and I recall the empty faces of my friends
when we emerged,
and how our footsteps scuffed
and lifted up the dust
in our dismayed retreat
toward home.
Feb 1, 2017
Feb 1, 2017 at 12:15 PM UTC
but each truth-seeking man seeks no marriage, no eden as such, but the turbulent fate of a brotherhood: a family of men thrown into the depths of the north sea with no sight of feminine comforting, for a thousand years at least if note more: so she might be strained for giving affection and refrained from philandering: the wiser the man the more reward he sees in a brotherhood, than a harem.
that seagull white backdropped against the plum
purple bruises of the sky pampered with immediately
lashing out a torrent but for seagull's sake
withdrawing for a consistency of colours not mingling
into a drear opening of a letter addressed
for some dear mr., in that virtuoso of waters cascading:
wishing i too had no umbrella
or be miniature under a mushroom,
as i am and forever will be, an ant's lack of sweat lifting
its bodyweight and more over bookmarks
and crevices we sweated rivers for,
and died, exaggerating... the outlasted remains
of chiselled rock, when others took to
climbing non-chiselled rock of mountain
for a compass they thought would
make others plagiarise their lives for theirs,
having accomplished the climb of the heights
thus suggested with no other comparative issuing
of demands... indeed to what height to what
depth is there a guarantee to be given?
to what depth to what height is a guarantee
of adoration lawfully bindingly fulfilled
with red carpet 24 hour surveillance paparazzi?
we have unlearned the face broken
by stone and forest pine...
instead we learned to be an epileptic narcissus
blinking into the frozen mirror of the lake...
but our face breaks a thousand upon a thousand
more times like this... for in looking elsewhere,
we forsake ownership of the things that
never reflected us, but were made mandible by us,
so now we have become mandible by them,
for the once prized mirror of narcissus in the lake,
has become a blinking circus act we dare not believe.
Feb 4, 2016
Feb 4, 2016 at 10:39 AM UTC