"oxidized" poems
rich with the depth
and intensity
of oxidized blood,
a plushness caresses my bare skin.
my fingers tracing against the grain of the fabric
slowly seducing
as the canvas
becomes duo chrome
the tip of my finger
a nymph
cunning and artful
the strokes
offering an insatiable
thirst
yet so in control
finally it succumbs
turning a tide of new color
permeating from where my touch once was
a culmination of sorts
leaving you enamored.
Sep 2, 2015
Sep 2, 2015 at 8:04 PM UTC
My heart was mechanical
Oiled always by love
Cogs moved independently
Springs always moving in rhythm
This was love in my heart
Intricate pieces moving as one
Affection,
Emotion,
Trust,
Was what fuelled this love
It beat strong
Never wearing down
Always would it beat strong
But then betrayal
Disloyalty,
Sorrow,
Neglected
Dirt had entered this heart
Oil contaminated
Springs oxidized
Cogs bent out of shape
Broken parts,
littered the floor of this heart
What once ran smooth,
Started to go cold
Cobwebs,
Vines,
Empty,
Was this damaged heart
Where once movement
Who could mend
This once loved heart,
Then the tinkerer entered her life
Full of friendship
It took Time, for her to let him in
But what once was reclusive
Friendship,
Blew the cobwebs away
Companionship
Cut the vines away
Loyalty
Filled that empty space
Love
Was the catalyst, that started
This clock work heart again,
Some piece, still lay
On the hearts floor,
For if a clock work heart is broken
It will never be as it was before,
The rust faded oiled once more
A clock work heart is a fragile Piece,
Only give it to those who will
Hold it gently in there grasp.
Aug 25, 2014
Aug 25, 2014 at 7:12 AM UTC
~
late winter’s dusting,
on tarnished ores;
a dreamer’s seeds,
these rails once bore.
rain-washed colors,
on sun-warped steel;
their conjured hopes,
an age once real;
oxidized
by rust and time
blackened timbers,
no longer bind;
what still remains
are worn out ties,
a distant memory,
of centuries gone by,
now mere after-sighs.
structures standing,
but just by chance...
a gust may blow them down;
these buildings where
men’s dreams once danced,
now a ghost, this town.
though no soul is left inside,
still a body here resides.
so long ago
her carried goods,
these rails rode,
to distant homes,
built dreams of wood;
like dandelion wishes,
scattered... gone,
tracks going nowhere,
now a fading ode,
just another dusty song.
for advancing progress
never fails to leave
someone's dying dream behind.
~
*post script.
Oregon’s hills and back country hide these relics of a time when a nation’s spirit was fed by the sounds of industry, steel and steam, the whir of saws, and men calling, “timber”... long before the age of wood and rail were left in a saw-dusty bin of history by the sweeping hand of time. i could easily be persuaded that this change was for the best, yet this can't erase the longing sense, left beneath my breast... advances do not come without leaving something or someone behind.*
Mar 12, 2017
Mar 12, 2017 at 4:11 PM UTC
I thought you'd left us, long ago
desolate on a swing
rocking stale, dry grass and still air
crossing
never quite the hurdle
lost
unaware
sweating youth in this humidity
I thought we'd never make it past the
rusty red and brown of weathered fences
like
felt moun
They
tains
Made of dirt
(guilt)
and an endless turmoiling scent, still fresh
I thought you'd forlorned us
h e a v y r a i n and warm bodies
standing next to oxidized hoops
one adjacent to the other
The haze of the heat hard, but not impossible
to withstand swaying like the gust of wind, swaying
the blazing sun and my open palms swaying
Why was it here that it felt like you left us
stumped,
unaware,
consuming with no
idea of the Greater
2.
W H A T was it about inner cities
And skin that would tan
Or resist the sun
that made you mutter murky words
judgement
that made me hike a
K
A
E
P
that for so long made feel like a (lost) traveler
unable to come find my way D O W N.
Still on a mountain top
Never quite crossing the hurdle.
That’s how you wanted me
A
B
A
N
D O N E D.
3.
But my tongue made sounds
copper pots and plastic measuring cups
became the pious accompaniment
of a song sung inwardly
until it manifested
Words on lips
Lips willing to kiss the purple clouds made out of strange fruit and a high border walls over my hand and back
4. A Swimsuit and a pool that could cool
me
small children see the cicatrixes
But I walk towards the water; I have long abandoned shame.
Aug 14, 2018
Aug 14, 2018 at 11:24 PM UTC
I lift syllables to plant
They will ripen in your mind
Like wheat of the ancient fields
Where our ancestors ate language
And leisure, like we have never known
We who labour like machines
As slaves might, while our lives
Is as a poem where the trees incandescent
Must watch themselves wither
As sheets of paper gone to waste
I lift houses of sound
To your legendary fracture of silence
These vacant lots of night-time
Where a pale puddle of your
Grip upon reality suddenly blazes
With figures of your once dreams
The summer has oxidized mornings, sunsets
A weightless winter awaits, as scattered
Pages are left to turn, each one
Words in the shape of a cloud of dust
As white as snow, as lingering
As the cold, and the murmur of a million
Leaves that once were, but are now only
The idea of color, the texture of earth.
Oct 15, 2014
Oct 15, 2014 at 10:19 PM UTC
feel my breath
on your neck -
misty with an oxidized smile.
don't say no.
i cannot take more opposition
but across the universe,
my breath resonates like an unpitched percussive.
the sound is inaudible
but the sun in my mouth plays loudly
for no one to hear.
Jul 18, 2014
Jul 18, 2014 at 2:27 AM UTC
Even as ship was sinking
Having hit Titanic iceberg
Still silly ship captain me could laugh
At go down with it self-tragedy
Now resting (rusting)
On Atlantic ocean bottom
Can't laugh without air to breathe
No humour left in these old oxidized bones
Having missed the lighthouse
No sea shells to share
No crashing waves
Dead eyes stare out window
Laid bare barren wastes
Blair station
Near where used to live
Pretending we were still a family
Dec 1, 2014
Dec 1, 2014 at 1:37 PM UTC
Profound profanity, he says, is the key to germination.
But why, I say, would one ever want to procreate?
For the experience, he says, which is about the journey and not the destination.
I can understand this,
it's like riding a bike
a stationary bike
that goes nowhere but see, you're going! Going and going.
I do see
and so does he
so what do we do?
Not a whole lot, just sit and talk of trains and temperature and how pirates walk.
He likes to do litmus tests of our saliva and hang them in the windows for all to see
that we are not acidic, but on acid, and sometimes a bit base in nature,
like the trees and the crysanthimums and corinthian columns in Greece.
We traveled to Greece, once, on our stationary bike
it was beautiful and real and there was much salt in the air-
they grow olives and fish in the trees
and their water is just teeming with rust.
We put our rust on buttered toast like cinnamon and munched at the oxidized metal,
crunching like captains and cheesin like goats
just a random bunch of fools with our silver and tenticals and suction cups of steel.
We are like robots, fighting crime and boredom with music and shrugs
because frankly my dear we don't give a ram or an aries or any other kind of anything.
We simply do not
because we will not, and refuse, above all else, to sleep without a star in the sky.
May 18, 2012
May 18, 2012 at 7:28 PM UTC
Corroded reflections see through
the visage of my life I'm just a shadow
puppet of existence and this is
my gift to those I love.
*"I'm a vacant lot of amore,
"Loving others is now a hollow chorus.*
*"I've loved each of you like death greets
a dying man, I feel nothing anymore.*
*"Looking beneath me, I'm a collection of
oxidized memories, each if drowning within me.*
*"Children where my anchor, but that ship sank
beneath the waves of my own hurricane of despair.*
My censorship will now collect on others, satisfied that
I have worded this, as it dries my breath fades out.
I was a chorus of lullabies, now I wonder off to the quiet
place where my troubles delicately fade out....
Aug 6, 2017
Aug 6, 2017 at 4:24 PM UTC
The smell of grandma's porch was wonderful
but not in the clothes on the line or fresh apple pie on the windowsill kind of way.
Grandma's porch smelled of old paint
of winter even in the summer and of
damp wicker, an ancient outdoor rug, oxidized aluminum siding
and dust from the cars on First Avenue speeding to,
or from,
the Post Office on Main Street at the bottom of her street
These were not necessarily "good" smells
We'd wash them off of our hands before we ate lunch in front of
the TV with grandpa, watching Jeopardy
but the old one not the one with the Canadian guy
But they were good smells to us because
they reminded us of a grandma who allowed her grandchildren to build massive forts
from blankets
and every chair and sofa cushion in the house
TV tables too
As long as they were dismantled before Noon when Jeopardy came on
and grandpa would want his lunch
and the vapor rising from his bowl of Campbell's chicken noodle soup
would wash away the smell of grandmas porch from our noses.
Aug 13, 2012
Aug 13, 2012 at 4:37 PM UTC
And another morning happens,
awoken by the oxidized groan and stretch
of the lumbering machines
that live in the dirt pile
in front of my apartment
there used to be a farm there,
and there used to be someone
in my bed and darker curtains in my room
but a lot changes in a year
there's still a tiny hole
in the corner of my bathtub
that greets the curve of my foot
every time I step into the shower
i can't tell if it's gotten any
bigger or not
or if the water i hear dripping
is from some other fixture
for me to look at another day
i know my kitchen sink still overflows
not with bubbles
not anymore
but with the dishes i've put off
for almost three days
i wish the men in hard hats
across the street would do the same,
tell themselves that they'll get to that
concrete patch, hole digging, pipe laying,
belt grinding, beam building, horn honking,
sound of trucks backing up
tomorrow
so i could sleep in for once
but they've got a job to do
and sandwiches someone wrapped for them
in aluminum foil
to eat at lunch
and i've got to do the dishes
so i can have a spoon
for my cereal
Jan 9, 2023
Jan 9, 2023 at 4:50 PM UTC
You kept me entombed in a coffin of thought
Never free cockroaches of doubt crawled
Around my chained thoughts.
The nails rough on my mind, jaggedly etching
oxidized stagnation of my embalmed understanding.
Why would you keep me in the dark.
I am solitary in this shallow wash of waning moments
Could I just crawl in to this sea of disbelief and
Drown slowly in my entombed darkened thoughts.
Aug 31, 2015
Aug 31, 2015 at 6:04 AM UTC
Missy, Missy Mortimer
How does your steel heart beat?
Your bloodline oxidized by hate
Satan can’t compete.
Missy, Missy Mortimer
Who do you think you are?
A pure facade of intellect
Matched by your ugly scars.
Missy, Missy Mortimer
Obstinate, careless, crude…
Hell awaits your filthy soul
As you practice being rude.
Missy, Missy Mortimer
Insult; demean; degrade
The power you pretend to hold
In your foolish mind is made
You cast away the moral code
Or perhaps it’s just amiss
You justify your horrid ways
Your arrogance now bliss.
Manipulation, you hold dear
As if all cannot see
With precision you decide your mark
You aim, and shoot; well pleased.
Missy, Missy Mortimer
No warning you deserve
To crush and stomp on human hearts
Compassion; no reserve
Oh Missy, you may think you’ve won
A pin for your collection
You controlled and shoved me out your door
Unjustified rejection.
As soon as I can gain the strength
Forgiveness I shall find
Your ugliness is pitiful
But the Lord’s a friend of mine.
He watched you’re actions closely
He sadly shook his head
Your Father, He wants more for you
But on thin ice, you tread.
Missy, Missy, Mortimer
I pray you hear His call
Until then, you stand on the edge
Your back against the wall.
Mar 30, 2011
Mar 30, 2011 at 10:02 PM UTC
i have been introduced to a fragmented universe
blue and silver
amid temporal ruins
oxidized epochs extract from me
thought processes and aural distillations
of a catatonic rage, that discards all trivia
in its scrutiny of minds
in a chronological diversity of words and images
it is a kinetic fluency of gestures
in an ****** calligraphy of expansive
transferable threads of thought
it is the real and the imagined
one that precludes inquiry
which leaves me infused
with a compulsion of composed complications
in episodic inspired delirium
Apr 14, 2013
Apr 14, 2013 at 12:46 AM UTC
These streets knew feet in days gone by,
bustling sidewalks, crowded storefronts,
laughter, light and dancers leaking
out of smoke-filled bars.
Cars would wind through intersections,
blood cells between neighborhoods.
From The Corner came The Roar.
He remembers how the Autumn sounded
back in '84
when Alan Trammell brought The Series home,
the arcing shot off Gibson's bat,
the rolling wave of soaring voices.
Old English
"D"
tattooed on the hearts
of a city
who's been hurting since the 50's.
Bless You Boys.
Ya did it--
went and Sparked up Michigan
and lit a dimming town again
in Corktown's widening eyes.
In 20 years, though, losses pile up.
55 and starved for signs
of trends reversing, luck upending,
impending relief or just some kind of
something.
Sickening, cloying rapid decay
as neighborhoods die.
These streets know crumbling cinderblock
walls and blistered paint coats don't
cover ribcages starting to show--
steel girder bones--and windows blown
out, like teeth lost from a well-spoken mouth,
allow the Lake Michigan wind to howl
out the tale--
through oxidized bones--
of just what it looks like
when economic war hits home.
Heartbeats still find footing
in Motor City streets, beneath
the Old English "D,"
but mind the scoreboard smart;
the Tigers lost a hundred games
in 2003.
May 11, 2015
May 11, 2015 at 6:58 PM UTC
Trickle,
You are picturesque abstract
Elongating droplet stroke
Smiling on surfaces
Fondling oxidized tissue
Making love to ozone
From afar
Trickle
I am painfully patient
deliberate witness
to your
becoming
A river
Breaking my o-zone of comfort
Vapor distorting solidity
Fall back unto me
Bring back the salt
that I squandered
But don’t
Deliver this clarity
razor-sharp
Through the fabric of irises
So impossibly deep
In the flesh of my
Indigo sky
Embedding eternally
That state-shifting
Thought foreign body
Lost in the cobwebs
Of amber-caught impulses
Mar 14, 2017
Mar 14, 2017 at 11:16 AM UTC
the universe is one room, one pocket of energy
and it's expanded void
just like life is made of two cells,
star dust, and waves of orange and pink
and a sickening red
burning into sun like grapefruit
oxidized and covered in incense
skin only stays smoke
torn by time and time because it's torn
useless is the same
sometimes I feel real, but I usually see out of myself not through my eyes
it's almost
like my blood isn't in balance with gravity
sometimes it pushes up against my skin, expands too fast for force,
towards the stars
which is where we all start
and all start to end.
May 21, 2011
May 21, 2011 at 8:52 PM UTC
hope crumbles like
leaves in the fall
It seeps from emerald and orange-brown, the
show of coral in the Caribbean Sea.
Melancholy gathers in the veins of the fisherman
taking a **** off the seashore.
He, as many, put lead arms over the sea. Twin
suns intertwined, produce solar flares of
sea-blue and scarlet changing the air.
Too bright ----
Ruby and sapphire pour through pores
like oxidized blood flowing from an open wound.
Four black mountains,
molehills---
depends on who names them.
Blue-green the sea washes back unto itself
carrying away drift wood as
happiness carries sadness with heavy hands.
Oct 15, 2010
Oct 15, 2010 at 1:07 PM UTC
the sky is on fire;
the rest is a series of grays.
wrought iron, rot of ages.
earth besot by metal, metal besot by rust.
an oxidized baptism.
clouds are made in factories now.
the silver lining is a carcinogen
toxic as the underside of peeling paint.
spring is devoid of sound.
persephone speaks in whispers
with a copper taste in her mouth
and lungs filled with blood and dust.
an old nosebleed has dried in rivulets down her face.
cross-legged and bony on a rusted y-beam
she counts down to doomsday
in dried flower petals.
a lone figure amidst a sea of flags of surrender
rendered in miniature
and shivering, flapping in the gale
she ties ribbons to the slender limbs of the condemned.
the falcon is long gone.
there is no-one home in the cobwebs.
at night, the smog blots out the stars.
she wraps her arms around her wasted frame
stands in opposition of progress
and waits for the sirens
and a new clear winter.
she remembers a time when there were still blank spaces on the maps.
but this is topside, and there is no undiscovered country.
Nov 21, 2011
Nov 21, 2011 at 7:42 PM UTC
Far yonder aether and spaces traversed in countless night years.
The tremendous travel on light waves till oxidized on ozon layers.
The tedious wait for an elemental suit equipped with sensory marvels.
To sense the air fire water firmament chequered with energy levels.
The suit was made to order at a court woven by matching hearts.
The landing to a cosy slumber bag enacted by eye catching arts
The jovial journey accomplish with purpose meeting the reach.
The cause of the entire travel tip off further detailed research.
Nov 30, 2018
Nov 30, 2018 at 11:04 AM UTC
thread hangs dewy bright
oxidized aluminium contrasts
grey glassy grey
crumpled in doorway a song
through whiskers licked
yellow and smoke flecked
black ash.
notes
float
coats the space
between a boy
silver bits
(remnants of magic cards move
moving Mother)
from pocket to pocket
"silver linings, eh "
scaffolding reached a little higher
and somehow mucus trails
had a musical movement
Nov 23, 2016
Nov 23, 2016 at 2:14 AM UTC
loss
and rainbows where two edges meet
orchestras of cellos (purposely out of tune)
shallow gasps manifested in rest notes between the spaces of off-key melodies
mosquito bites and your suggestion that my blood must be sweetest but I can't take you as a compliment;
this is not a time for threats, my darling, nor is it a time for deaths. it is not a time for spaceless thoughts nor for confessions with political motives under white garments of smiles and spices and seductive entices
the breath gets deeper even if only for a moment and then the gasp returns:
the window blinds my glasses
the windows blind the masses
the windowblinds conceal the sun from me which hides my sanity and peace behind the instruments and their voices but it is probably to be found in the rests where the bars meet each other at the edges, where the silences collide and burn as substances react to oxygen and oxidized carbon and I don't feel god and that is startling,
it is starting to sound like a long bar of rest notes
or a mind which deciphers like stars out of their constellations
out of their occupations
out of their spheres
like stars unaligned
like lies out of signs in the open blinding sun shining minds sparkling like water after a chemical synthetic process (like most of our bodies) and my condescending opinions on all who give in to fabrications and useless surgeries and drugs to feel
or to stop feeling, or to reverse the effects of
our sadness our misery our traumas and dramas
without seeing them face to face, eye to eye, because to turn around blindly is
so. much. easier.
Jan 11, 2014
Jan 11, 2014 at 10:05 AM UTC
some days, when the pain is bigger than before, when it manifests itself into a coyote hunting down the prancing memories of the good days, chasing the sunset,
it's these days I ask myself if it was truly worth it?
is it better to have loved & lost; to have lived and died, than to be a spec of dust on the wind, washing the sky in colours undetectable.
we painted the clouds in rosy hues,
& loving you was like painting a canvas in every shade of red from every berry in every forest.
but when the paint dried & oxidized, & roses looked muddy like they had been stepped on out in the rain,
it was days like that I felt it was not worth it.
being shackled to the ground, sprouting from the soil and instant destruction,
this love was so young, so pure, so new and senseless,
yet agony awakened as your spirit drifted away from these leaves & thorns,
& I am just a small rosebud begging to blossom but you keep picking petals, playing a game of "I love her, I love her not"
how does this flower bloom if every day she fades back into the ground, trampled by the crash of timber from the shaky earthquake of your voice.
cowering in the corners from the thunder your voice emits, from the high heavens.
so holy you seem with your voice so high, so above and beyond the trees my petals could never reach.
& yet so terribly close you feel, how your voice carries on the wind, howling from dawn to dusk.
so I understand now why it hurts so much.
how you were once all of nature, but the forest burnt to the ground, ashes to ashes,
we, the remains of nature, scattered across the earth.
you're love was so short, a glimpse of light, a lunar eclipse,
& the forgetting is so long, a year of April showers, a mourning period where flowers don't grow, flash floods in my eyes & around every corner.
forgetting is all to difficult, but I'll take it.
I'll take the rain any day, to have felt your light if only for a fraction of a moment;
if only to have it vanish like the wind.
Feb 17, 2016
Feb 17, 2016 at 8:42 PM UTC
That night he reached for my hand
My fingers corroded.
Every nail of mine rusted over and began to crumble;
But, I kept holding on and fought against all the chemicals in my body working against his touch.
When he talked, I tried to keep up with simple conversation;
However, every time I went to speak
My lungs became oxidized.
I would choke on every letter that managed to escape;
But, I still said things I probably shouldn't.
And as he kissed me, I felt my mouth
Crystallize entirely.
Snowflakes frosted my lips and my teeth hardened into quartz;
But, I allowed it to happen over and over because
He always "loved how my smile shined."
When he was near, every atom in my body buzzed
Pressed against my skin and bones.
All protons, neutrons, and electrons collided against each other.
Fighting to escape
As if the cells that made me knew as explosion was near;
But, I didn't listen because I thought chemistry was just about balancing equations.
Jul 20, 2016
Jul 20, 2016 at 3:04 AM UTC
The room was dark
Except for my little nightlight
That depicted some kind of children's Bible story
That I no longer remember
But it glowed and reflected against my face
And when he looked into my eyes
I swear he saw an endless sea to explore
Greedy and only searching for a treasure
And it didn't take long for him to find one
A chest he stole and emptied into his hands
Shaking out every piece of worth
Until nothing remained but a shell
His hands oxidized the gold -
Shattered the gemstones -
And took away all that belonged to me
Leaving me in my bed
Staring at the nightlight,
Until my eyes got heavy and my hand reached forward
It didn't look like mine anymore
It looked like a child's: small and innocent
That wasn't me now - he had taken that, too
I flipped the switch so I didn't have to look
Jan 9, 2020
Jan 9, 2020 at 3:49 AM UTC