"overturn" poems
Their boat turned in towards us
ready to board our vessel
to take us to their island,
a fastness, craggy, bleak, treeless.
To winter peat fires, gales, darkness,
weird northern tales of gods and trolls,
black nights seared by bright light curtains,
a violent Viking heritage.
A place where cold sea and ocean
overturn the crippled sea stacks,
our lives in the boarding party's
hands and our skilful Shetland pilot.
Jan 30, 2016
Jan 30, 2016 at 9:53 AM UTC
I’m going through withdrawals. How awful it is to have to keep yourself from speaking to someone because you know if they wanted to speak to you, they would. I’m so deeply rooted in the sand that no waves that crash on land could overturn me. Your footprints are leading away from me, you are moving further and further down the shoreline, your outline growing smaller, smaller, smaller, blending in with the horizon where the sun is setting in lovely shades of red. I do not fear that you will not be loved, because even now I see how the birds adoringly sing your name. I fear the drops of saltwater that fall down my face each solemn night will one day be able to collect into ocean of their own. I fear the birds will be able to love you better than I have. I fear that this titanic amount of heaviness weighing on my heart will be ever-present. Your name is written in the clouds, and I cannot escape it, for no matter how far I run, I can never escape the sky. When I look up, there it is and so are you.
Jul 16, 2013
Jul 16, 2013 at 10:25 PM UTC
Not marble, nor the gilded monuments
Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme,
But you shall shine more bright in these contents
Than unswept stone besmeared with sluttish time.
When wasteful war shall statues overturn,
And broils root out the work of masonry,
Nor Mars his sword, nor war’s quick fire shall burn
The living record of your memory.
‘Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity
Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room
Even in the eyes of all posterity
That wear this world out to the ending doom.
So, till the judgment that yourself arise,
You live in this, and dwell in lovers’ eyes.
5.7k
I’ve seen colors melt, colors mold over, colors who stick to the sides of
Other colors
I’ve seen colors which soak to the quick of wood and skin, ones that spill over
Or dry like deserts
I’ve seen colors that congeal like the living, I’ve seen the same ones mixed to death
I’ve seen colors pool, colors rust and colors boil
I’ve seen colors that don’t read maps
Colors that overrun, overturn, overlove their neighbors
And ones that play well in sand
I’ve seen colors that drink cocktails, drink water, drink blood
Together
Colors that get bored, colors that get sexed
I’ve seen colors ripped from the earth
Seen them ghost to other places
I’ve seen colors give up, every time, waiting for air, for shelter,
For Godot
I’ve seen colors grow cold like science
Grow loud like a flag unfurling
Grow up, move out, move on
I’ve seen colors stuck in between things
These same colors fill empty spaces
Fill vision, fill cups of coffee
I’ve seen colors tell white lies
They aren’t white
They are happy
And they aren’t here for us
May 16, 2010
May 16, 2010 at 6:34 PM UTC
I turn my head to the most beautiful sight of all - the sapphire, green-brown, grey ocean.
(Breath In)
The thick blue ocean that rolls, churns, and glistens.
And the glisten slices, the glistening currents. The ripples that move the ripples that have no ending or beginning.
(Breathe Out)
____
Every shape, form, and structure captured in the liquid.
It smooths out.
It rounds out.
It rolls out, it crashes down.
It’s smooth clarity. It’s smoothness it beyond me.
Its beauty is truly found within its movement. It’s constant change, exchange between all forms;
Connections throughout,
Different experiences of the same object throughout,
And out and out.
I see this giant blue gulp, of sea of truly magnificent bodies of water held in a single space.
As I see the land overturn over:
In new shapes, colors, lengths, and everything that contrasts one thing to another
I just see so much brightness, dimness, and something that overturns into another.
,,,,
I can not believe this sea
How it makes that sound
And when nothing is around
It just profound,
How every jewel of the dancing ocean
is a collection of drops
connecting forms throughout
_____
When I feel the truth of this beauty
I see,
the ocean, something I never created
It was there to touch us
To hold us
This ocean was made to believe in us.
Without realizing it I just fell into a deep sleep.
I fell into something so deep.
I felt the ocean's arms
embracing me
Apr 2, 2019
Apr 2, 2019 at 9:51 PM UTC
there's no one like you
but even still
I will scour the earth
overturn every leaf
just to find a piece of you
Jun 7, 2014
Jun 7, 2014 at 8:47 PM UTC
V
I lift my heavy heart up solemnly,
As once Electra her sepulchral urn,
And, looking in thine eyes, I overturn
The ashes at thy feet. Behold and see
What a great heap of grief lay hid in me,
And how the red wild sparkles dimly burn
Through the ashen grayness. If thy foot in scorn
Could tread them out to darkness utterly,
It might be well perhaps. But if instead
Thou wait beside me for the wind to blow
The gray dust up, . . . those laurels on thine head,
O my Beloved, will not shield thee so,
That none of all the fires shall scorch and shred
The hair beneath. Stand farther off then! go.
2k
*I feel like river water.
And I don’t belong to stagnancy,
yet I’m caught in a lake.
•••
*I’m destined
to move silt and sediment.
And overturn
submerged pebbles
so they won’t see
the green of moss.
I’m meant to surge
and eat into banks
so I could be split -
to make more of me...
My reach would extend
far and wide -
like scraggly fingers
grabbing at the
face of the earth.
My energy channelling
through careless forks
and into slimmer branches.*
•••
My soul is river water....
And my heart renounces
the throne to idleness.
Yet I am,
but a lake.*
Jan 17, 2018
Jan 17, 2018 at 9:47 AM UTC
I frequently read my old poems and
feel my glass heart splinter with impatience
and demand why my muse escapes
my passions, and my talent must
sleep cold and lonely within the shadowy crescent
where an oil-fire’s tongues dare not lick.
Then, when face with banal, bittersweet
mimicry week after week, therein
braces a bothered stirring of flavorful
jumbles as aimless as houseflies bouncing
against the window blinds.
And, once again, my poems,
with their phoenix lifestyles, breathe brave
gulps with scarlet-robin-breasts puffed
with gung-ho vigor.
Where the poet’s rhythm takes on equestrian
expression along the staggered verses,
bequeathing shine to syllabic shine
and stealing pop from pursed, pronouncing lips.
Each doting word may kiss and nuzzle the
splinters that recognize a cut so rare
that this world’s physical balance would overturn
with no presence of such wondrous oddity.
Feb 16, 2012
Feb 16, 2012 at 5:10 AM UTC
When everyone else has left
When every expectation is not met
When emptiness sets in
And heartache finds a way to begin
You are there
Again and again
My eternal light
Love of my life
Under every rock
Every leaf I overturn
Every note I sing
Every tear that I cry
Every ripple
That I swim
You carry me
You are my
Eternity
My sacred
Home
With you I am
Never alone
Never alone
Even in the darkest alley ways
We find light
A light so bright
Even in the darkest of
All nights
Midnight black
Pitch packed
The cards are stacked
Against the atmosphere
Manipulated by
The world
If but to
Curl up
And fade
Away
No
Not another day...
The Universe is so big
Filled with
Friends I thought were friends
Yes even when all friendships end
You do not leave my side
You do not run and hide
You still find a way to
Stand behind me
Stand beside me
You are inside me
Watch me go
Watch me rise
Watch me glow
When everyone else has left
When every expectation is not met
When emptiness sets in
And heartache finds a way to begin
You are there
The spirit in my soul
Again and again
My invincible
Under a bridge
In a closet
Filled with broken dreams
Between the cracks
Of misery
You are my
Eternity
My sacred
Home
I am with you Spirit
You are with me
Never alone
Never alone
You are the strings
Of my heart's
Symphony
You are the drum
That beats from
My chest
You are the chords
That echo from
My throat
You are the best
You are the tap dance
That vibrates from
My feet
Beneath me the earth quakes
Into concrete
You are my armor
You are my umbrella
You are my wings
You are my antlers
You are the star
Of every evening
That guides me and
Believes in me
Invincibly
The Universe is so big
Filled with
Friends I thought were friends
Yes even when all friendships end
You do not leave my side
You do not run and hide
You still find a way to
Stand behind me
Stand beside me
You are inside me
Watch me go
Watch me rise
Watch me glow
You are
My Invincible
© tHE tERRY tREE
Dec 29, 2014
Dec 29, 2014 at 3:17 PM UTC
There are secrets hidden between the lines of these pages
which crease like the sheets on your bed when
you turn and overturn them with a
misplaced foot or an erring hand in search of
bits and pieces of mahogany scattered across your seabed after
tumultuous waves rocked the ship back and forth
back and forth across the seascape where I learned to
let go and swim good and
break to the surface gasping for
your breath infused with the aroma of imported coffee and
the lingering aftertaste of sea-weed on your taste buds between
the hidden corners of your cheeks within
the hidden corners of your mouth,
I delved deep, swam good, delved deep,
swam up and down, up and down,
until the tumultuous waves swelled up and tossed
my body back and forth, back and forth,
slamming it against solid rocks into
bits and pieces of mahogany scattered across your seabed.
Dec 31, 2017
Dec 31, 2017 at 4:27 PM UTC
Because man made spheres of synergy are treading on the verge of life support
No cooperation within the conglomerations
Perhaps we need brotherhood outside the cubical
The economy failing
Middle class working heroes about to **** themselves
But they have no money to buy a gun…out the window it is!
As insurance men and tax collectors and bill collectors beat a smile from my face with overturn fees and late fees with interest
And are all my reactions just misplaced projections?
I say **** ‘em I have no money
I’ll pay you when I can
What more can I do?
Feb 10, 2014
Feb 10, 2014 at 11:31 AM UTC
The garbage man came
as I drank my coffee, flavors mixing
with my cigarette and
The Great Gatsby.
I watched him pick up the dumpster,
overturn it in his truck
and I thought of asking
what he could do about
my garbage, my treasures;
a torn bumper on
the corner of 11th and Montana Avenue,
a broken lucky cigarette,
proving my superstitions to be false, maybe,
and a half-full soul
trying to find its way
back into my heart,
that I gave to her
many years ago
but it wasn't my heart I wanted back,
just her, because
she at the time, was elsewhere
and that I couldn't handle.
I stayed silent as
he drove away
with things unwanted
wishing he could too
pick up the things
I so greatly miss
and return them to me.
Dec 13, 2012
Dec 13, 2012 at 10:15 AM UTC
Some place where fame
holds no sway
Some world where violets
never fade
Somewhere someday...
Lies a dream reborn within a dream
Dreams overturn reality
When your thoughts flare with the stars
It's impossible to be an artist
With your feet on solid earth
In all the antiquity of art
we live in a time that barely notices
that while our ideas may levitate
the course world keeps our feet pinned down
We can try and float above the expectations
But the tyrant label will tie us to the earth
Shamed with the name of “struggling artist”
Which you don’t rise above
Instead you sit
With a copper coin cup at your feet
Selling your soul daily
In the torments of time
When I look into the deep eyes of art
I see this lack and struggle and longing
and I am thrown back into despair,
into the starved storms of any fading morning
The best we can do
Is turn the despair
Into something worth admiring
Take the past
And display it
On our present-day canvases
The world is stacked against the very idea
of taking creativity seriously,
except as a hobby,
yet we try anyway
although we know this from the start,
because the alternative,
Conformity,
does not satisfy our restless minds
I clench my fists in the corner of the room
As the eyes stay fixed to silicon screens
Everything turns a hazy shade of blue
As social media fills the air
All I want to do is write a poem
One filled with imagery that contains no character limit
About how the eyes of the lonely
Stay glued to phones
Dominating our reality
But is the scene truly filled?
Or is it a vast emptiness?
How real is real?
That tells me that we, the sensitive different types, need one another
Or they will surely clone us
In their own image
So I encourage you
Breathe poetry
Cry paint
Do not let the world turn you monotonous
for the second we lose
Those colorful tears
And those darkly beautiful words
We lose something more than a hobby
We lose a life worth living
Or else it's a black and white reality at best
Although some see style in the monochromatic
I prefer colors and light
Enough to see
It's a black and white world without you,
It's a black and white world without you
Sarah Kersey
Joseph Paris
Dec 4, 2015
Dec 4, 2015 at 6:34 PM UTC
“A demagogue, in the strict signification of the word, is a 'leader of the rabble'.” — James Fenimore Cooper, "On Demagogues"
a political leader who seeks support
by appealing to popular desires &
prejudices rather than by using rational argument;
A demagogue or rabble-rouser is a leader
in a democracy who gains popularity
by exploiting prejudice & ignorance
among the common people, whipping up the passions
of the crowd & shutting down reasoned deliberations;
rabble-rouser, agitator, political agitator,
soapbox orator, firebrand, fomenter, provocateur
"he was drawn into a circle of campus demagogues"
Only in ancient Greece and Rome
was it a leader or orator who espoused
the cause of the common people;
demagogues overturn established customs of political conduct,
or promise or threaten to do so;
demagogues have appeared in democracies
since ancient Athens. They exploit a fundamental
weakness in democracy: because ultimate power
is held by the people, it is possible for the people
to give that power to someone who appeals
to the lowest common denominator
of a large segment of the population;
demagogues usually advocate immediate,
forceful action to address a national crisis
while accusing moderate & thoughtful opponents
of weakness or disloyalty
Sep 1, 2018
Sep 1, 2018 at 7:44 PM UTC
~
Dear Nest made by golden strings,
Remarkable Guardian, dazzling Thunder,
I don’t want you to watch me burn.
but, I do know, that one way or another...
It will be in your arms that I will overturn.
Glide through those adorable winds.
Embellish that Sky with your finest colour.
She wafts well your powerful wings,
With real echoes as a celestial lover.
Dear immortal and treasured Valentine,
Irreplaceable you were and always will be.
Blissful new edges frost our noble Storyline,
Royal Blessings to you, New Melody.
~
© Christina Philipe
May 6, 2016
May 6, 2016 at 3:49 PM UTC
You're in love with a rotting Ginsberg
The desert's tanks are overturned
and your motifs are stale
Fooled into the belief that anyone cares
That clumsy wordplay is acceptable
or that your name carries weight
It's the same piece, week after week
With drugs in your system
and stoic aromanticism
How do you expect to write a novel
When ideas melt in tablespoons
or are blown in dusty clubs
You sit and watch rain fall in archaic gravel pits
By a window, long overdue for cleaning
and Jandek plays mournfully
Watch as that jaundice coloured sky opens
When the winds overturn dustbins
and form trash streams, ironic
Another languid day you waste on cannabis and ennui
Whilst the world burns; it's people raving
and the war is raging
Dec 24, 2013
Dec 24, 2013 at 10:08 AM UTC
To makeup for injustice.
You must offend those that thought it was justified.
For they will hide behind pride.
To overturn wrong.
You must point out the truth.
Especially to your chosen group.
And we very aware that the truth hurts.
May 13, 2013
May 13, 2013 at 12:22 PM UTC
I am just going to lye on my grass and allow the bugs to do what they want
Because as soon as I bask in my freedom, lying on that glistening green grass
Here comes the bugs getting ready for their attack
As soon as I flick one off, another comes
And as hard as I fight, the bugs are the ones who have won
Not because the quantity is too much for me to take
But because I let them get to me and over exaggerate
Realistically the bugs aren't going to eat me alive
It's the way you perceive these bugs, so you let them eat at your mind
And the more you allow it to happen, the more bugs will return
And will soon become a habit to much to overturn
but how am i suppose to free myself of becoming bug baite
Or convince myself that I am not everything I hate
I cant, and ive come to the conclusion I never will
Because as soon as I plan my picnik, I notice the ants making their way up the hill
Nov 27, 2013
Nov 27, 2013 at 7:43 PM UTC
we have been deceived.
corralled like tepid sheep,
fattened beef
waiting beyond
the doors of the slaughterhouse.
as pigs lick their lips,
a daemon’s death dirge drifts
listless across the
Atlantic, an erratic dichotomy
corroding rationality—
this executive edict
barring refugees.
caught without a compass,
a flotilla of ships weathering
the elements.
for forty days
and forty nights,
we’ve been lead
two-by-two
by elephants
and donkeys.
demagogues commandeered
the lighthouse, directing
our ark across
scattered rocks.
an armada
of shattered splinters,
remnants of water-logged vessels
we’d hoped to sail to utopia.
caught in the webs
we wove, droves
of drones spewing
bombs across Aleppo.
as spittle collects
on spluttering orange lips,
will we
pause
for but a moment?
collect
our thoughts.
reflect.
history is a shattered
mirror and we’ve pricked
our fingers trying
to piece the image
back together.
there’s a hunger
for blood
refracting in our eyes.
a misanthropy
that smarts and stings.
a recalcitrant population
coerced by a television
rhetorician’s clever
devices, devised
to separate and segregate
during this crisis
caused by our missiles.
there is no moral arc
to the universe. hope,
Hedges wrote, is mania
if it remains vapid
and refuses to address
the depravity of our
physical reality.
we’ve already lost.
just ask the children
barely clinging to life,
covered in the debris
of their former homes.
all that’s left for us
is to bash the fascists.
smash every illusory border
in our heads and hearts.
burn down the walls
they try to build
around us.
overturn the tables
of the oligarchs,
stuff Molotov cocktails
down their bloated throats.
open revolt is our only hope.
we’ll build a sanctuary
in this City Beautiful.
Jan 28, 2017
Jan 28, 2017 at 10:12 PM UTC
at midnight,
as I take off my shoes,
my coat,
shirt, tie, vest,
socks and
pants,
I am caught in
the delirium
of
revolution
this revolution
takes place entirely
within me
my kidneys are
attacked in destructive
raids,
my knees knocked
and sweltered with
war,
my mind shot at
and frantically
mended,
my heart has
seen much better
days
it is an uprising against
myself
a war
to overturn
the old thinking
regime
outside of me,
I can feel the sting
of bullet and
blade
inside of me,
I can see the pain
of evolution and
change
I rest my weary head tonight
drunk on thoughts of an end
to all this
by the morning’s
cool touch
I will find myself
rid of such
thoughts
wondering only if
she’ll be there for me
when I call her twenty;
thirty; forty years
from now
I watch the night turn about me
and rest my eyes for the first time
May 14, 2011
May 14, 2011 at 9:01 PM UTC
Everyday we will smile and play
Windows will shatter across our platters
The morning will come and bid us hello
As you can imagine everyday was fantastic
All of a sudden the world came crashing
Rivers overturn and tress were falling
Echoing around me where sounds of animals screeching
The colors slowly fadding
Light cried goodbye, Night rose awake
Now these forbidden colors washed into grays
I try to tell everyone but no one listened
blinded by their own injustice
Green has been replaced by death
and i try to bring them back to life
all i have are ashes
The world grows form the tinniest of seeds
And blossoms into the flowers that captivates our sights
We pull form the ground and we stop its life
And for what?
To see it die in a glass container in our house
Forbidden colours of a field in full bloom
But not anymore
Greys have blocked the sky's light from reaching them
The world is slowly coming to a screeching halt
Winters are longer and summers are hotter
I wonder if we will survive
Forbidden colours
Of ice in the north and south that are melting away
Into the blues of oceans that are heating
The rush of water that is filling our land into a swamp
People try to fight against something they cannot control
People will like to blame anything at all
But themselves
All of these colours
fade away as we destroy their homes
And become extinct
Have filled the world with ash
Dark and thick like ink
Forbidden colours
Of the ocean blue
Magentas and purples of coral reefs
Red of the uncut redwood forest
Forbidden colours
Of white mountain tops
And cerulean of shining lakes
With underground forest vibrating viridian
Forbidden colours
Meadows that flow of fushia and lavender
Or fields of golden corn
With the rich brown of dirt
Forbidden colours
Of our pink lungs not filled with industrial vile
© Sofia Villagrana 2018
Jun 2, 2018
Jun 2, 2018 at 6:15 PM UTC
This whole connection
Turned out to be a misfortune
A misfortune that I saw in my dreams
My dreams are
The only true inspiration
Drifting my life away
Always getting a
Head start on
The end
Patches of lies hover
Overhead; turning, transforming, and ironically
Never meeting the criteria
Focusing intensively
Never seemed
So helpless
To me
Airbrushing the ego
Rapidly before we
Overturn a mirage
Feb 3, 2010
Feb 3, 2010 at 8:42 AM UTC
killing isn't It, whaT is?
ending an old begInning
fallIing down a bottomleSs hole
talks of a new start
overturn the old
what is it if it is not kilLing?
a name
a game
a way Of life
death beyOnd the thousands
believing iS not right
feelIngs are crushed
uNder a specular light
practice may make perfect
but perfection isn't real
you may be the best
but there is always a better
cut the resolution
scraped in anythinG else
Die under my nAme
oR don't die at all
fill my missing blanK
and if kilLing isn't what is?
the message is in the capitOl
stop, think, liVe, find out, tEll me please.
think you can figure it out?
Apr 14, 2010
Apr 14, 2010 at 6:30 AM UTC
Girl says no.
Girl says I said no.
Boy says nothing with his mouth but
moves with hands that say *let me start my
cross-examination of the witness* and
looks at her with confused eyes that say
*may I remind you, ma’am, that you are under
oath. Would you like to change your answer?*
Girl says no, I said no.
She is jury,
she is judge,
she is verdict.
She is gavel banging against sound block
on a case closed.
Boy still says nothing but sheds
his clothes like last season’s skin
and when his jeans hit the floor
they say *Your Honor, I am asking
you to recuse yourself.*
He is still confused because
buying dinner is just a more polite way
of buying a girl on her knees
so he wrongfully believes that
his libido has the right
to stand in as a judge in appeals court
to overturn her ruling.
This is the only trial that she will see
because prosecution does not want
to press charges with a case that they do not believe
will result in a guilty verdict and ****
is still widely accepted as
just a he-said-she-said civil case.
*According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reports out of every 100 rapes, 32 get reported to the police, 7 lead to an arrest, and 3 are referred to prosecutors.
Mar 2, 2016
Mar 2, 2016 at 11:38 PM UTC