"overexposed" poems
Off that landspit of stony mouth-plugs,
Eyes rolled by white sticks,
Ears cupping the sea's incoherences,
You house your unnerving head -- God-ball,
Lens of mercies,
Your stooges
Plying their wild cells in my keel's shadow,
Pushing by like hearts,
Red stigmata at the very center,
Riding the rip tide to the nearest point of
departure,
Dragging their Jesus hair.
Did I escape, I wonder?
My mind winds to you
Old barnacled umbilicus, Atlantic cable,
Keeping itself, it seems, in a state of miraculous
repair.
In any case, you are always there,
Tremulous breath at the end of my line,
Curve of water upleaping
To my water rod, dazzling and grateful,
Touching and *******
I didn't call you.
I didn't call you at all.
Nevertheless, nevertheless
You steamed to me over the sea,
Fat and red, a placenta
Paralyzing the kicking lovers.
Cobra light
Squeezing the breath from the blood bells
Of the fuchsia. I could draw no breath,
Dead and moneyless,
Overexposed, like an X-ray.
Who do you think you are?
A Communion wafer? Blubbery Mary?
I shall take no bite of your body,
Bottle in which I live,
Ghastly Vatican.
I am sick to death of hot salt.
Green as eunuchs, your wishes
Hiss at my sins.
Off, off, eely tentacle!
There is nothing between us.
19.4k
come here. i’ll wrap myself around you
most of the time i’m sure i’m a sliding glass door
obvious like a schoolgirl crush
never able to hide the pink in my cheeks
or bury the truth behind enough broken parables
i’m about as vigilant as a chihuahua
perched on top of a sofa barking at the mailman
forgetting for a moment that you could pick me up
and put me down on the floor but
i promise i’ll just jump back up again
never fully accepting the plainness of my bluff
the winters crack my knuckles but
i don’t want to buy another pair of gloves
i’ve got ripped fingernails turned ******
and a kitchen sink full of unwashed mugs
and you’re pulling my hands away from my face
trying to show me how much we look the same
Mar 27, 2021
Mar 27, 2021 at 9:05 AM UTC
a child
unassembled
and loved
by two
strange
women-
a man breastfeeding in private-
this love
only a mother
could face-
overexposed photos
of a healthy
family-
a gathering
of bird watching
great
uncles-
great
blind
aunts / with empty
pill
syndrome-
a prayer basket in the lap of a boy
sitting on a swing
during
a downpour-
a disabled brother
and his three
rubber
nails
Jun 3, 2013
Jun 3, 2013 at 12:21 PM UTC
For a short time,
Supernova outshines galaxies;
It explodes and
Imprints images
Across Andromeda's face,
Overexposed across its gaze,
Blinds & Spills in all directions,
Up & Up. Down & Down. Around & Around.
I’d drag these regrets to the far-off reaches,
Just to be left speechless,
As we watch it outshine the Sun,
I would.
I forgive you, and myself too.
It was supernova, not meant to live
Long.
Forgiveness
Is like a Nebula’s Kiss,
It gives birth to new life
And leaves the past behind.
A star dies in supernova flame,
And the view from here is spectacular,
Don't miss it.
Dec 23, 2018
Dec 23, 2018 at 1:26 AM UTC
keep the photographs
the city is overexposed again
take more walks in the nearby woods
the world we knew as children
watch out for frogs and detonators
mind the wires
new aerial boundaries at dawn
no one steps inside by choice
adapt to the proper order
and no sleeping under tables
the reflection tower is a good place to start
tourist trap, a certain approximate
bring the thing under the couch
in case of an unexpected visitor
more nightmares cut out of the newspaper
what is an Astra 600?
three different hat sizes
Hannie says yes to ménage à trois
the joy in discovery
the joy in forgetting
like God without a compass
not a lot, just forever
Jan 2, 2023
Jan 2, 2023 at 11:32 AM UTC
Osprey flood-pathed junctures
in the
middle
of Paradise.
Overexposed and diluted
by the
sounds
of the missing heartbeat
and the
loneliness
of the beakless egret
we all feel.
The expression of
the sunlit
reflective pool,
for the
paradise
we know and sense
and understand.
Not quite at the
end of
earth,
but almost.
While the ball
of fire
exposed and
diminished,
flourishes to the
very end., and
awakens on the beaches
of Casey Key,
toward the dusk of
the beautiful day
in paradise…
I smile
Feb 25, 2011
Feb 25, 2011 at 3:16 AM UTC
Gauge Symmetry
It was an eminent arrival: to awake in a definite
location in time and space, involving the single
***** with more zeal than the rest. But where
am I really? Staring at these thorny lines engraved
in my palm during an hour I should be asleep.
I can’t help but think that the love of a life
should have spared me.
A caption below the photograph in the times reads
It’s an illustration of a tactic employed by Hezbollah
and Hamas to use their own civilians as human shields.
And somewhere else laying on rubble, once road, a blood
smeared newspaper ruffles in the breeze, then violently
unfolds from a burst of wind, never to be read, a stray dog
licking a wound pauses and perks it’s ear.
Earlier, in the library I walked the spiral staircase
and traced my fingers down a dusty spine:
“How
we
became
Post-Human”.
It must have been an artificial insemination.
My skull throbs from an inoperable legion
of fractal thoughts which I developed upon listening
to the sounding tremble in Pathetique, too immature
to know the power of what it heard like that time
I foolishly laid my eyes on a carnivorous
tulip, it spat me out alive.
Moon is no comfort, only an aperture. The day
is overexposed and my eyelids clasp
down like a shutter, I try to fall asleep
to remember where I really am and where
I've always been.
Jul 14, 2011
Jul 14, 2011 at 7:56 AM UTC
While passing quiet morning moments,
A breakfast feels abandoned on the bed,
And bright window light illuminates drafts,
Like dreams strewn 'cross a darkroom, and shadows
Of negatives, overexposed in cold tones,
Fluttering like flashes of thought in my head.
I sit hardly trapped as much as captivated
By a life lead in dread of realizing potential
Like a great actor afflicted by stage fright,
If the proud eagle were afraid to take flight,
And though power comes with such telling insight,
I sit hardly trapped as much as captivated,
Sighing in surrender, paralyzed by my Light.
Aug 6, 2010
Aug 6, 2010 at 9:18 AM UTC
i think i know
that somewhat ulterior suggestion that you crept into my mind
like a vivid rainbow across your face
light transmissions offering up your words
your image is on repeat
and our sentiments are all quite something else
always on hindsight
on turmoil
easily not speaking
confused about what we want
overexposed to death
we each smell detached
the way we sound in the distance
often too frail to reach inside our beautiful loneliness
Dec 20, 2021
Dec 20, 2021 at 5:12 PM UTC
I went to find your place in the woods today
but as I rounded the bench near the
fray of trees I couldn’t find the fallen log
where we sat for so long that i became the cold lichen too,
colored like an overexposed photo
pale and unmoving, drawn to and
at the mercy of the elements. I was overexposed as well,
not just because i chose to wear only a sweater in the
waning days of autumn but
because I drew out these spider silk memories for you
to see, me, as only my sheets and bathroom floor see.
Part of me expected to find you among the trees,
looking for a new mossy place to
watch the walkers and the swans from,
thinking as you smoke away thoughts of
a current past given up fast to the ether.
before the sun sets, you’ll be with those memories,
lost to the ever presence of an unrelenting time.
I suppose the cold will keep you inside for a while
until the womb of your flat can keep you no longer,
and drives you out, back into your space in nature.
and when you find it,
you’ll see your fallen perch has finally hit the ground.
I found my own perch, looking for yours
and watched the smallest of birds hop
between the edges where the water meets the damp land and
I suppose one day you’ll again sit among the faded leaves
watching as your smoke, breath and body heat make
fleeting picture clouds for you to read.
so I rest here with a sachet of tobacco, some rolling papers and
tumbling thoughts to ease the strain.
and while i sit supposing, you suffer in barbarous silence.
But the one thing I’ve learned from being force fed
everyone else''s woes and crumbling glories:
its hard to sew a wound
under seven layers of skin.
Nov 7, 2013
Nov 7, 2013 at 11:34 AM UTC
I have been shaped, some bruised and molded statue of clay.
To obey and proceed with attentive caution, wary: "Do not stray!";
Have a walk to clear your thoughts through the Rose gardens.
Some purpose: to love, to nurture, to care.
Alas! I have not been adequately made aware,
That my mind's Ghost gives no steps to share.
A bee for a flower and even fish for the sea,
But how to compare with a human like me?
Let my gills breathe in the stream's current--
And let me pollinate the wicked flower.
For I also must learn the ways,
Of today's quick and increasing dismays.
They say, "You must live, so long as you are alive"
"Do not ever yourself of intense feelings deprive!"
But who knows what's better and right,
And whether we were all born Good and White.
Sentiments overexposed and worn-out for some,
For them become quite weary and numb.
A glimmer of hope through a cloud of fear,
Perchance to say, "Ok, I'll give them my ear"
But the frost built up and fresh wood decays,
The mist has grown dark with a deadly-ash haze.
The suns warmth that to my bones brings strength
Leaves me, in Winter alone almost at arms-length.
Sing, and rebel. WE must drink and remind ourselves-
As one task goes by, another awaits.
Time no longer dances around an infants thumb,
Rather whips and rides the very Sun.
The heart bends, salvation is within!
Where is He so that I may not sin?
But have a walk to clear your thoughts through the Rose gardens.
Because nature's beauty does not take off without warning.
Bags packed and set aside through an evening sleep--
Words of a prophet: "As you sow, so shall you reap"
The long and heavy pendulum of those sighs spent,
Cuts deep into the flesh; a spirit to torment.
Nov 26, 2012
Nov 26, 2012 at 10:49 PM UTC
My mum tells me to be careful as I close the front door
Every footstep the tick of a bomb about to go off
And I know that she will worry until she hears me return
That maybe this time I wasn’t careful enough
But I know Careful
Careful is a woman who walks in our skin when the door shuts behind us
Faceless and watchful
With keys jammed between each finger
And her honey voice is flowing through a perpetual conversation with the home screen of her phone
Her gait wide and her hood up,
hair down but tucked away
She never looks up
only shifts her eyes from left to right on a pendulum trajectory determined to read the cadence of the shadows
Like they are palms or tea leaves or a CCTV in operation sign on the front of a shop window
On the walk home
She is always moving
A waterfall rushing down the steepest drop to get back home with all her foundations in tact
Careful is always waiting for the other shoe to fall
She is texting texting texting details of her plans
Where she has been
where she is going
what is the license of the taxi she is in
Are the doors locked as soon as she shuts them?
How salty is too salty for a margarita or a tequila or a glass of water
Can anyone vouch for the milliseconds that her drink was out of her sight?
She has a pair of earphones attached to nothing jutting from her ears
and her key clawed hands wrapped tightly around a can of pepper spray
And her car is parked right outside the building
Careful is always a woman living in a war zone
where the enemies can be the ones that she has trusted most
Or strangers that cast long shadows
She is a landmine that is always in danger of being stepped on
She is made into a three star salad that the jury reject because she was underdressed
Overexposed like the photos that Careful should never have sent
Because even she knows that she cannot exist
A woman is always careful
But never careful enough.
Mar 28, 2018
Mar 28, 2018 at 2:27 PM UTC
there is a long pink road
lime trees walk its path in judgement
twists of dazzling colors
zigzag through
unclaimed silences
coaxing a belief in magic
dismantling and reassembling minds
i remove one eyelid then the other
there is an immediate
diaphanous color of red
a flimsy dimness
that shows an escape route out of time
displaying the fragmented mosaic
of my disordered mind
scarlet watches me
searching my face
trying to seek out
a geography yet to be discovered
i feel an overexposed rhythm
of alpha spirals
they collide with the colors
among the lime trees
a coca-cola bottle
smashes somewhere
I hear the secret song
played in the time of the assassins
Feb 24, 2013
Feb 24, 2013 at 1:56 PM UTC
Screaming
In bright lights, bold colors
Driving by billboards,
TV, magazines The
Lies
For young children to see
That distorts the meaning of value and beauty
That it’s all about
The wheel at your hands
The house at your feet
Your
Skin
White as bones, overexposed
Whose name is wrapping your
Stick, sick
Flesh
*It’s all about
Me
In this consumerism*
To believe these deceptions
Is to
Deny and shun
What He has said,
What He has done
And to accept these distortions
Is to
Push Glory’s embrace and
Spit at Beauty’s face
For the way of the world
Is a blind subversion
Against The
Holy
Holy
Holy God
‘Cause He said
He bought you with a price
His beloved Son, Jesus Christ
No need to chase this and that
Turn back
He has been chasing after you
That is fact
Are you lost?
Are you broken?
Well in Him you are loved
Not just accepted,
Chosen
He is Father.
And from enemy you became
His son, His daughter
Can the world just please know that
They are
Children, royal heirs
Not tools
Not meat
Not slaves
To tree fibers flattened together
To the ogling eyes of men
Just as ***** and blind as theirs
It’s an honor that this
We Christians know
In the world we are tasked
The Truth we must show
So do not conform
To these unattainable norms
Take heart
Set yourself apart
For tomorrow is the due
The Lord will do amazing things among you
Remember:
One coin is one vote
For the kind of world we want to see
For the kind of world we want to be
Ponder
That those trash are only made and sold
Because people lust over those worldly strongholds
So, make certain
That the things that you buy
That the votes that you cast are for
Modesty, security, purity,
God’s name, God’s glory.
The icons, the trends we
Have been following,
It’s time to start leading
Do not falter
This generation we can alter
No need to be economists, politicians, or preachers
Just as Christian consumers
We have the power
Those are not mere dull coins or crumpled bills in your hands
You know what it is?
That is the future
Oct 24, 2013
Oct 24, 2013 at 10:00 AM UTC
I am raw, plucked
bare and overexposed;
ashamed of my emotions and
too vulnerable, too fragile
I am not threatened but I do not
feel safe, I ache to hide but where can
I hide from my own mind? I need
time to decay my histrionics and my
need for affection so that it never
resurfaces again, so that I never
resurface again -- I am drowned in
something benign but chaotic, replicating
it's mutation endlessly, perpetually, until
I cannot breathe because I am overexposed --
bare and
plucked raw.
Jul 23, 2017
Jul 23, 2017 at 2:35 AM UTC
I.
You walk through these streets
like you think you know what you want.
But tell me honestly,
inside the pockets of your coat
your fingers never uncross,
do they?
II.
I drown you in photographic film
and sometimes I wonder how time
stands still in a painting.
In the middle of the bazaar, you stood
like a painting
while people moved around you
like an overexposed reel of film
and time still stands still to this day
III.
You're coughing it all out; winter
on your lips and spring in your lungs.
Drink me.
I am a tincture of a daydream.
The sun is always brighter, my dear.
IV.
Our hands interlace in the darkness
and melt away with the consequences of time.
You are a bottle of something precious.
Put me to sleep, sing
me to sleep.
V.
Undo the buttons of your dress
and wear away with the night.
Shed this old layer of skin
and something about rebirth
we can tell beautiful lies
but how long before the bread soaks up the milk
and the blood on the carpet
seeps into
the wood.
VI.
The ice on the lake
can't hold up this dream anymore.
You're a hallucination
and all I needed.
Mar 2, 2018
Mar 2, 2018 at 1:36 AM UTC
Wicked gaze draws the life
To blossom bright through too wide eyes
Overexposed, like blowing bulbs
They crackle and crack
Leaking dead hope
Mar 26, 2013
Mar 26, 2013 at 5:06 PM UTC
the daughter of Apollo
whistles back at birds
reminding them to stay close,
she knows that Icarus
was a dense
bloke so it goes, they circle
in the overexposed
sky and come back just
shy of the shine, and the cicadas
always know when it's time.
then she says, "come along,"
and they all know to go,
following the whistle
of the daughter of Apollo.
Aug 3, 2016
Aug 3, 2016 at 8:58 PM UTC
Almost a year later,
I still wish I
hadn't lost my focus.
I let the
Lens focus
on the wrong things,
In the wrong places,
And it’s all just a
mess.
An accidental shutter,
Now the picture's
faded, and
It's hard for me to
discover what life’s
meant to be
When it’s just me
Out in this vast,
dark world,
feeling lonely.
Burning out,
Just like a dying star,
Feeling temporary,
I'm barely
holding on.
Just being alive
doesn’t feel alright.
Feeling out of place
and overexposed,
Just like the
Polaroid on my chest.
Looking at the smiles,
A bittersweet moment,
A moment in which
I hope I don’t regress.
I know it’s hard to progress,
And I know I just need
to convince myself and
trust the process.
I know this won’t
last forever.
Photos capture
moments,
And I must remember
This isn't the end
of my chapter.
The world moves forward,
and moments last forever,
and hurt is only temporary.
Sep 1, 2023
Sep 1, 2023 at 8:12 PM UTC
Have you ever been so infatuated with someone that you thought you’d die? My memories are fresh - and embarrassing - there’s no sense of time’s distortion.
I was twelve and we were living in Shenzhen, China.
When my heart went off like a grenade for this fourteen year old boy.
I was so beguiled that I started writing poetry - always a bad sign.
I was exposed - turned inside out by it;
like my guts were hung out for birds to peck.
I writhed in that particular, lonely agony.
All I ever had to offer him was my helplessness.
He didn’t take advantage - I think I scared him.
I wonder what memories he took from me?
Feb 25, 2022
Feb 25, 2022 at 8:41 AM UTC
if you went back in time
and found my eighth grade self
you would find long sleeves
pulled way down her arms
and you might notice
she was hiding something
that she got awfully tired of hiding
and tired of stares when she wasn't
i'll give you a hint
my ninth grade self
had bright red scars
seared into her shoulders
my tenth grade self
was still finding leftover
pink horizon lines from
safety razors on her thighs
my eleventh grade self
found all her skin remarkably
pale but her coping
mechanisms still unhealthy
and my twelfth-grade self
she was the weakest one of all
just had the strongest
jaw to hide behind
and enough self-confidence to
stretch thin across her neuroses
but if you could go back
and find my eighth-grade self
please tell her
something for me
she won't believe it
but i just have to tell her
that in four years she will buy
the most beautiful sleeveless
white dress with navy lace
and she will wear it with
sneakers and bruises on her knees
a smile the overexposed
color of her insecurity
and nobody
will say a
**** thing
about her scars
bleached into
a memory.
Aug 17, 2016
Aug 17, 2016 at 7:37 PM UTC
Good Morning America
Act Now!
For today the price is right.
Our American idols have been conveniently portioned and pre-packaged for your enjoyment.
The wheels of fortune have turned in our favor,
laying us down in our warm beds of satisfaction.
Dreaming of the X-factor that will give us our
fifteen minutes
A girl,
no more than sixteen
and pregnant
strives to be a top model.
Overexposed and underdeveloped
barely able to read or write,
she is paraded in front of a camera and lights.
And the studio exec will keep cuttin' those paychecks
as long as you keep tuning in for another
fifteen minutes
The education can wait until the spotlight fades
who needs class mates when you got fans,
as long as those lights keep flashing on your fame, you got another
fifteen minutes
Mar 25, 2013
Mar 25, 2013 at 7:17 PM UTC
A sloppy connection made through dry sockets
Man-child trembles at his capabilities
Poor thing, my charge
A fifth of *** and a bit of battery acid
So true
A false wall that keeps the roaches in
Volunteer for a bit of community service
I serve, teach, and protect (frail ego systems)
I serve it up spiced and garnished
Cut up neatly with uniform premeditated precision
Little bite-sized baby food morsels for his mouth
So easy to chew
So true
So easy to swallow
The boy, lewd rude lust thrusting
(Drag in his line, correct its arc, and begin again, slower now)
Poor thing
The spotlight making his naked man-machine
Glow surreal satellite white, overexposed;
Pour viscous shadows into every exquisite crevice
In repose, underexposed
He begins to decipher my light projection
I put it to my lips…
My motive *****
Poor thing, always at a lack
Pretty vacant boy bomb
(Sigh…just lie still life)
Just one of the boys
Just one of the luscious little wind-up toys
Just another pound pounding of flesh
(Fact: humans are mostly dark meat)
He passes out before I can do any real damage
Superimposed, film the oily residue cell by cell
It is my body, oh yes
My doppelgänger dictates the disease
(White sound waves will wash my body
Clean to a distant, lonely shore)
Dip me in saliva
I come up gilded, salt streaks straps stinging
So true
I am sick of the flaming hoop trick
I am sick of his radiant Vegas platform
(Sick of trying tying a knot in this cherry stem)
Ambivalence a smeared lipstick stain from yesterday
My thoughts are exactly 21.5 miles away
Just once
I want something pure
Feb 28, 2012
Feb 28, 2012 at 9:07 PM UTC
tired of my drooping Hanes,
my slept-in choice for greeting
a new morning tad overexposed,
my weekend breakfast table
body's accoutrement,
"coverup" she deemed accurately
as in-suffice,
my nighttime slept-in choice for
welcoming the new morning
as a single continuum,
exposing my true colors,
thus declaring biblically,
"Let there be night, let there be day,"
in a manner of speak
she-woman wryly declares
over her slim sizing
yogurt Greek and half of a laugh
of a banana downsized,
"You need some loungewear"
pondering this ponderosa-sized ponderosity,
grasping its monstrosity insulting me,
coffee pouring, Eye, a
first responder
contemplate irresponsibly,
thinking to reply with bravado,
that on said day,
when Eye accrete
such a class of clothing
so nomenclatured as
"loungewear"
upon my person,
or in my ward-so-unrobed found,
unasked for,
Eye will require transgendering
but my tongue bites me,
so instead
draw down on my John Donne,
on the subject of
food, good taste
and being unclothed,
and instead
He-poet
bequeath the she-woman
this riposte...
*"Full nakedness!
All joys are due to thee;
as souls unbodied,
bodies unclothed must be
to taste whole joys.*
wisely retreating than be
defeating,
not wanting
a world war conflicting,
with coffee mugged, Eye return/hide,
under the bed's blanketing comforter,
thinking of the taste of whole joys
of her body unclothed,
when later, she creeps in next to me,
to practice the serious art of
lounging...
Apr 18, 2015
Apr 18, 2015 at 9:30 AM UTC