"paintbrushes" poems
shoutout to the girls who have become strangers with their first kiss and held lipsticks like paintbrushes on their fingertips. I am one of you now.
May 23, 2014
May 23, 2014 at 10:18 PM UTC
Welcome the new day
As night lifted her screen
The sun had brought its palette
Boasting of colours never before I've seen
Rays like paintbrushes
As they dove into the water
Light explosively burst into emeralds
Ripple and eddies would sparkle and shimmer
Bolts from the orange orb
Speared the tops of trees and sprawling ground
Tinting their leaves with green of olives
And grass with freshness abound
Its wand touched the tip of the distant lighthouse
Turning it the brightest green
It brought life back to my surrounding
Layered my eyes with the greenest of sheens
Such beauty laid bare
The difference was literally night and day
But my heart is also green
To readily accept what my mind has to say
As if a child
Or yet still a greenhorn
I should ignore the stains of yellow
And enjoy this new day that had just been born
Apr 5, 2015
Apr 5, 2015 at 11:35 AM UTC
Loving is inevitable.
Yet somehow, people say that love is a choice. You can choose to love or
not love somebody. I never wanted to, but I did. Loving you was not my choice—
not mine to begin with. But I did. I love how your calloused fingers, all beaten
up because of your love for paintbrushes and canvases, held mine tightly and
intertwined with them; dancing along with mine, which smelled like the enticing scent
of old, wrinkling books due to my love for reading. I love how your eyes are
lighter in color, more radiant and distinct than anybody else's. I love that scar of
yours placed just atop your crescent-shaped eyes. I love the way your crooked
teeth is still perfectly misaligned; not too much and not too little. I love how
your breath brushed against mine, smelling of nothing but you. I love how you
make yourself be like you and you alone. And I know that art is never supposed to
look beautiful, and that art is supposed to make you feel something, and that
you are. It's not my choice to begin with, but I did. Loving you was beyond my control.
Letting go isn't.
To let go of someone is a choice you can make. You can't let skies, or stars,
or moons, or signs to tell you when it has to happen. You either let go and free
someone, or cling onto someone you know will eventually get hurt or hurt you.
Letting go is something you can grasp onto with your fingertips and decide upon.
It is the fact that you have to let a part of you stray away that makes it hard to
do so, because loving you made me take a part of myself just so I could make
you feel as if you were mine and I was yours. Because once a part of you is given
to someone, you never truly get it back. It stays with them, long after you've
both moved on and fell apart. It sticks with their souls, reminding them of what
you two have had and have been. Once. I could've chosen to not let you go, but I
did, because we never should've been together in the first place—*ironic how first
place even appeared here, because we both knew I never was*—for a second. Letting
go of you was my choice. It always has been to begin with.
Feb 17, 2016
Feb 17, 2016 at 9:16 AM UTC
I love turning pens into paintbrushes,
gliding over the canvas of your mind;
then stepping back to see if there’s a picture,
or only a collection of colored strokes.
Jul 17, 2012
Jul 17, 2012 at 12:38 PM UTC
Inaction in action
A most frightening thing
Eyes flash from green to brown
Was that a smile or one of your cute frowns?
I can’t tell up from down
In this vacant hole
I feel like I am supposed to remember
Impact has dried up
Like a drought that makes farmers
Wonder if their crop ever did flourish
Or if the dust simply snuck into their heads
With paintbrushes and vivid imaginations
Of what fresh picked berries once tasted like
I want to run
Faster than ever to where I once was
To where my emotions began
To when a kiss was still intoxicating
And you smiled at clasped hands
Mirrors in my mind turn
Reflections of you blur
Engraved lessons I’ve learned
Were you ever my home?
I trace the walls of your character
Each knot and groove familiar
Reflexive fingertips
Gliding over walls as they turn inside out
I forgot what all this was about
Do I long for a light that once shown
Or just another culpable excuse
To regain the throne
My wishful thinking kingdom
Though my senses are honed
To both authenticity and mirage
I fear I am equally prone
Even so.
If…
If you were ever
Or still are
And we cross paths again
Or maybe for the first time
Kiss me with your brown eyes
Or were they green?
And I will try my best to recognize
A love I fear I’ve never seen
But I can’t muster pursuit when consciousness is stolen by a dream
Inaction in action
Is a most frightening thing
Aug 29, 2015
Aug 29, 2015 at 11:25 PM UTC
Sitting in a café in mexico
Listening to French songs on the radio
Drinking a pacifico and trying to remember how I got here
I think I caught the ship in San Francisco
After I caught the blues in Tennessee
And then I got kicked off down here in southern mexico
Yea, I think its finally coming back to me
And im
Sitting in a café in mexico
Listening to French songs on the radio
Drinking a pacifico and trying to remember how I got here
Well I watched Singyn ride the rail
so I jumped on that train
had close calls and broke some laws
never even felt the pain
ran all over town that night red paintbrushes in hand
I cant explain no more cuz I don’t think you’d understand
Well the ‘One Stop Mariachi Shop’
Is where we bought our leather vests
Tried our luck at bullfighting and lost but did our best
Found out roller skates don’t work when you’re on cobblestone
All out of pesos and I just want to go home
(c)2008 CJG
Sep 22, 2012
Sep 22, 2012 at 12:37 PM UTC
It was once said that we "accept the love we think we deserve",
and I think of you and all the ways you'd shatter my nerves;
when you'd raise your voice or even a hand
every time I did something wrong - a mark on my skin you'd brand.
I was your canvas and your punches were the paintbrushes colouring me in,
painting me in explosions of blue, purple, red; completely covering my skin.
I took the poison you leaked and absorbed it entirely,
calling it love and I thought of you very highly.
I'd just wipe away my tears and apologise for making you mad,
convincing myself that I was the one who was bad -
but really you were the gunman shooting me down,
and the one pushing my head under the water hoping I'd drown.
It was once said that we "accept the love we think we deserve"
and as I sit here reflecting our "love" with reserve,
I realise I thought I was worthy of nothing but your violence,
but now I know better and the compassion I truly deserve is priceless.
Dec 5, 2015
Dec 5, 2015 at 6:18 AM UTC
I am a vast dichotomy of tasteful ideals.
I desire to dream the dreams most people deterred.
Paintbrushes touch canvases then lift
as if unsure if they should grace the world with their
beauty or hold back with chagrin.
Bodies burrow under blankets with
banned books instead of men.
I warm myself with beverages in a coffee mug on a
rainy day rather than
a body lying next to me.
Feb 27, 2016
Feb 27, 2016 at 12:58 AM UTC
sun girls:
they’re all bright eyes and warm hands, they’ll kiss you on the cheek. beautiful freckles. glowing skin, sunflowers and paintbrushes gripped tightly in their hand.
moon girls:
dark clothes and a eyes-closed kind of grin, beat up sneakers and an arizona iced tea, hair that shines, they sparkle even in the dark. soft kisses that taste like spearmint.
mercury girls:
smooth talkers, could convince you to do anything. big eyes and round lips, hair tied up or tucked behind their ear. late night walks and quiet conversations.
venus girls:
lipgloss and breathless laughing, soft hands and tummy. kissing their girlfriend randomly. a voice like honey. hypnotizingly lovely. muffled music and strawberry lemonade.
mars girls:
quick winks and subtle smirks. would **** for you. a love deeper than the ocean, strong shoulders and collar bones. ****** knuckles healing over and tight hugs.
neptune girls:
dreamy girls, hazy around the edges. tilting their heads to the side and sleeping soundly. delicate hands and cherry chapstick. hot cups of tea served with knowing eyes.
saturn girls:
sharpened pencils tucked behind their ear. serious eyes with a hint of laughter. tapping their toes and paying attention. books piled high with the pages well loved.
jupiter girls:
moving their hips and applying lipstick. a smile that electrifies you and lips that entrance you. has a hundred admirers but loves the one girl she can’t have. red lights and excitement.
pluto girls:
confidence that carries through the air. tastes like energy drinks and lightning. crooked smile messy hair. continuous movement with no time to talk. gesturing hands and shuffling papers.
Oct 12, 2017
Oct 12, 2017 at 9:16 AM UTC
A tortured artist
Going the hardest
On the verge of a rest that will last an eternity
But not until the masterpiece is finished
Diminished sanity because of the paintbrushes vanity
But it’s ok because the art will transcend mortality and define reality
So I continue to stare into the destructive void for the arts benefit and beauty
Sep 2, 2014
Sep 2, 2014 at 12:27 AM UTC
I close my eyes and
Try to imagine all the
Impossible things—
The things that God has
Done that I simply can’t wrap
My little head ‘round—
The continents He’s
Designed, the canyons forged and
The rivers that He
Made to flow, all the
Flowers He taught to grow that
Bloom in their seasons.
The world sings of the
Power of God, of the One
Creator of all.
This world He did sculpt
All for us with His perfect
Paintbrushes of love.
Oct 7, 2021
Oct 7, 2021 at 9:56 PM UTC
The silenced weep on pastel colors
While rainbows pass through windowed thoughts
Deep within my mind is a trail leading to a universe
Stellar happiness draped upon rivers of joy
Going out on a limb, to jump from dreams
Onto pages of hopes written ravishingly
Imagination runs away from me wildly
Remaining intact with its childlike ways
Jumping into puddles of mirages
Swimming in pools of fantasy
Hallucinating on what may come
Imaginary imagery dancing upon moonbeams
Jarred in glass jars held upon windowed shelves
Closing eyes tightly around the glimpses of sweet serenades
While musical tones create beautifully painted canvases
Once blank without any reflection
Mirrored images of the future grants introduction
While paintbrushes meet color tones in seduction
Secluded rendezvous leading into ****** sensation
Alluring lust into temptation, leading away from separation
An everlasting desire of dreams entering reality
When morality grows a deepened mortality
A work of art is born on vacant sheets
As contentment drives on desolate streets
Harmonious melodies playing through radio beats
Creating muffled brightness through dusk’s doorway
Sun shining in through my mind in a magical way
A beginning to a brand new day
Has started, Today!
Apr 9, 2010
Apr 9, 2010 at 2:58 PM UTC
at the desk, applying for jobs
there is coffee in my cup
and paint in the creases of my fingernails,
on the wall, a whiteboard with new song lyrics
and a list
of things I need to buy,
of course, once I have the money to buy them,
which brings me back to the desk
which an empty bottle of Cabernet Merlot
sits with an empty glass
and notebooks and a mason jar
with cloudy brown-red water
from the bristles of my paintbrushes
my coffee is cold
the french press is in the kitchen
but my flatmate is filming in there
so I’m stuck at my desk
with two sips of cold coffee left,
applying for jobs.
I feel very fragile
right now,
partly because I didn’t go to a job interview
today,
partly because I didn’t go to a job trial,
on friday
though I don’t want to be a waitress
and **** modelling for art classes scares me.
there’s a plant on my windowsill
named Lucy
and she doesn’t have to do anything
and there are two vanilla candles and an incense holder
with lavender incense burning
but **** all the things that
"bring peace"
like small plants, candles, incense, crystals and photographs;
I want a healthy and clean life,
so I have these things
part as a protection
from my own mind
but to be perfectly honest,
I’m at the desk, browsing jobs online,
saving them for later into a bookmark folder entitled
"Wellington Jobs"
instead of actually applying.
Nov 24, 2013
Nov 24, 2013 at 10:08 PM UTC
this is
your open field
this is
where you lie on your back
on a fluffy, plaid duvet
eating strawberries
forgetting the sound of honking cars
and car alarms
this is your studio
replace the clay with bars of soap
paintbrushes with shampoo bottles
write your thoughts on fogged glass
lists of run-on sentences, scribbled
without inhibition
this is where the water runs off
your shoulders
this is where you reflect
it is not poetic
it is quiet, it is ordinary
knots of hair from gushing wind
smoothed over with aloe conditioner
everything is spinning, but here it slows
this is where you pause
this is where you breathe
this is where you begin again
Jun 3, 2018
Jun 3, 2018 at 11:32 AM UTC
Puzzle pieces laid out flat,
Why don't they fit like the
Dried up canals on our palms
Used to fit?
Maybe the persistent mist has
Given up -
Decided to land
On the Sunflowers
Instead.
The only Puzzle I touched,
Hard plastic between
Long fingers.
Cold, Complicated, Confused.
Shock my brainwaves into
Reality -
With the warmth of
Unfamiliarity.
Trace the blades of my shoulders
With your electric paintbrushes,
Creating a masterpiece in me
That is craving
To come to life.
Show me where the pieces
Spoon and weave together
In the perfect harmony
Of our voices.
Finally.
Complete.
Mar 1, 2013
Mar 1, 2013 at 12:58 PM UTC
Oh such lonesome lives in the west
When the sunshine stings bleary eyes
and telephones receive no calls
How does one survive in the city
When the angular buildings suppress creativity
and free-thought is despicable
See the man, laying in bed for days at a time
With ASMR videos playing on a smartphone propped against a pillow
and his arm draped over that pillow, imagining a body
Bob Ross love affair, the television drones
Each night spent alone, praying for passion, or acceptance, or anything
and joyous noise when paintbrushes glide evenly
A collective of poets, posing as one man
Fraudulent minds, each with distinctive style
and all with crooked broken teeth
Trumpets in the jukebox, cat-calls in the world
Outside the window children are playing
and he cries, for the years are growing weary
She peels skin from her fingernails, mindless on morning commutes
He stares from bus stops, train stations and runways
and never blinking, never blinking, never blinking
The intrinsic value of repetition falling short of artistry
Given that metal machines are perpetual
and when the crow lands on fences in the morning dew,
there is no more life in Ironville, not for me, not for you
Oct 30, 2013
Oct 30, 2013 at 1:16 PM UTC
A man with a hood
With promising words
Carried a small sword
Just in case he needed to
But he chose to use the weapon of unity instead
He had the choice, and he chose the right
Decades of dealing with corrupted taint
He brought the buckets of paints
And started slowly coloring
He was imprisoned for his beliefs
But that didn't stop him from being the man he wanted to be
Unlike the rest, his flavored words hold truth
When the world wanted black and white, he mixed the paintbrushes
And did not go down without a fight
He took over every podium
And showed his mixed colors of unity.
Brother to sister, white to black
He took of his hood and said hatred was what he lacked.
Oct 24, 2015
Oct 24, 2015 at 5:42 PM UTC
the shrubbery looked like sheep
pale like your grandmother before she died
and I climbed though the hills to find you
but this is not your country, this is not your land
the tires shook like trembling hands and we made eye contact through the fog,
signed our names in the mud,
splintered out hands on telephone poles,
replaced our veins for the roots of weeds
said they look about the same,
the waves looked tamed,
I think we'll make out okay.
then I started running, crushing yellow toys under my toes
and you chased after me,
bringing an east dust
that we inhaled like like smoke
and exhaled in a kiss.
we followed the spill in the floorboards
and held eyes
we wet our fingertips like paintbrushes
and stroked 'I love you' 'cross our noses.
you made stories of the dead leaf branches,
told me they were only clouds
but I mistook that for clowns
and I laughed over my shoulder.
you caught me as I fell
and so we fell together
into our favorite weather
soaked our clothes in promises we don't worry about keeping
they will keep themselves
and I'll keep you
here in the tangles of my scarf
in the pictures of my mind
and in the smiles that we breathe.
I traded oxygen for this
and I have never breathed easier,
I have never trusted better,
I have never known this color.
dawn comes with black lids and dimmed stars,
we head home with lightbulb hearts.
Jan 20, 2014
Jan 20, 2014 at 1:58 PM UTC
After the screams
I was coming undone,
splitting at the seams.
I hauled all my watercolors
out of my brother's office.
I took the paintbrushes
and palettes of a thousand hues
lodged between his camo army vest
and his heavy shoes
and I sprawled out in the
spinach-green living room.
I painted
willow trees and silhouettes
and viridian snakes spilling from ***** lips.
At 2am I got up
headed to the deck
and watched the stars
Because sometimes I forget.
I let my nights
be slaughtered by sobs.
These nights, this view
It’s mine, you can’t have it.
Everyone needs a place
and this is mine,
this tiny nirvana,
2 o'clock constellations
in the dark purple bruise of night
are my home.
A pool of watercolors,
magenta, cyan, indigo, emerald and cerulean,
swells in my chest,
in the empty space between my lungs.
A drowning, a baptism.
Everywhere, in everything,
your unblinking ghost.
It refuses to dissolve.
Jun 18, 2013
Jun 18, 2013 at 2:20 AM UTC
I never fix my room, no, never. On every corner, my books perch, stacks after stacks, like hungry butterflies destined to inhale the delight of only three summer days.
On the chair sleep those clothes I was wearing yesterday, and the day before yesterday, and last Monday and weeks ago, like fallen unremembered friends. It still has the scent of the woman sitting next to me on the bus, beside the window, her fleeting heart and endless readings and the way love flipped between her forefinger and thumb. That was the type of love that not the world could interrupt; not even the hundred years of common existence could contain.
It still has the sound of our broken steps on the pavement, the feel of the scraping wall, the drunken scent of the stranger I ****** with. His skin against my skin, his mouth staining the length of my neck, his hair wrapping my fingers, my breath on his temple, his leg, my leg, his arm, my arm, the stars dancing and our warmth defying the curse of human mortality.
Scattered on the floor were the paintbrushes, unwashed palette, stacks of newspapers I use to cover around my interminable uncertainty. I hear the wall, almost every day, discussing about my inferiority complex, about how it impedes me from creating something original, something infinite, about how it trails behind me, gasping, grabs me from behind, locks me in then eventually enslaves me.
How dare they are to go about the spectrum of these endless wanderings, these filthy fellows who knew so well that I never comb my hair and that I have always, always, hated the boring Murakami.
I never fix my bed, no, never. The propped of my pillow, the uneven creases, they will serve as the living reminder of our final encounter. I must have disarrayed the bed sheet – I cannot remember exactly when –but I have no plan of rearranging the constellations any moment soon.
My blanket swallows me alive, its edges draping on the edge of my bed, sometimes flipping reluctantly, savoring the vacancy of the afternoon, the way the light scars my books, glistens my skin that I have strewn everywhere for the mother of otherness to eat.
Most of the time, in my sheer insanity, I set my room afire.
Apr 4, 2013
Apr 4, 2013 at 11:02 AM UTC
Love me for my destruction, for my mayhem --
after all, loving you isn't so much different,
I could have chosen cigarettes, smokey ashtrays over your
smokey eye make-up,
Or maybe alcohol, sip at lukewarm beer, and become embittered by how
your lips are stained elegantly wine,
and then again, I might've had the opportunity to inhale car exhaust
but your breath is much heavier than monoxide
and much more deadly--
turns out nuclear warfare is much more easily attainable by
your explosive needs
for genocide -- you love those broken hearts,
you little radioactive succubus.
Knives, I could have made love to a knife, but I guess your nails served the same purpose, you've left your mark, okay?
I have a target in the shape
of little crescent marks on my back from you and
people keep
staring.
And yes, I could've injected myself with something stronger like morphine, but
you're already running through my god **** veins --
I looked up "infatuation" in the dictionary but the words kept
blurring because all I could see was your blushing expression
when I used my fingertips like paintbrushes
on your cheekbones.
Nov 12, 2014
Nov 12, 2014 at 12:28 PM UTC
I nurse immortal longings
at my girlish chest
Pacing, rocking, swaying
agitated pluck at an instrument
and am lost for sounds
paintbrushes crusted with acrylic
dim florescent basement hum
I pick up a pen
and it burns my palm
turn and turn to a looking glass
and scrutinize my limbs
these 23rd year limbs in the
autumn of youth have
barely begun to wrinkle
I ransack my renaissance boudoir
An artist, poet, musician, healer
one, some, any of these,
or none? I gather my trappings
and hold them to me like a toddler
hoping that perhaps they will impart
purpose, or authentic human feeling
palpable happiness, cutting sorrow
I used to feel so much more then-
where have my feelings gone?
Jul 20, 2012
Jul 20, 2012 at 12:16 PM UTC
you and me both know that sometimes when something's beautiful
you want to touch it, even if you start to burn up
the beauty of that if precious above everything
(remember that time I wanted to kiss you in the rain?
it's like that.)
people never understand me
and I think that's part of the reason
I'm almost too afraid of touching the beautiful thing
for the fear of the beautiful thing being disgusted
by the shade of my eyes as they look at something
so wonderful
it's like smiling when you're sad
why would you smile to hide your feelings?
your feelings are your everything and yet
no one wants to share them with the world
I don't either, but I want to hear everyone's feelings
I want to hold them and tell them that just because
their feelings are lying, discarded on the floor,
doesn't mean that they're like spilled paint
that dries on the art room floor until years later
the janitor ventures in and frees
those hopes and dreams that died right there, on the floor.
I don't want to be spilled paint,
even though I'm already there
the only reason the artist keeps me around is too
comfort those aching paintbrushes and to
make sure they keep themselves neat and orderly.
You can't have paintbrushes having breakdowns when you're an artist, can you?
only paint can calm the paintbrush but why
would you make a paintbrush continue the same
miserable way if the paintbrushes only wanted
to paint in black and white
and I am a dark blue,
as dark as the ocean, but not like the ocean.
i want to be like the ocean.
too beautiful to touch, but touching everything.
how are you like the ocean?
I want to know how to be like the ocean
which has strength to go on everyday
breathing air into someone's lungs who hasn't breathed
by themselves in years.
everyone needs to breath sometimes,
so keep breathing darling
in and out is the constant cycle of the ocean,
and your breathing.
maybe it's not the ocean I want to be like,
i just want to be beautifully dangerous to hold you
at 5 am when you're breaking down and I don't know
what to do.
when you can't breathe those beautiful breathes
I want to be strong enough to pump the life back into you
I'll work through the night pushing you to live, for me
but then I'll wake up in the morning and realize
that you were never there in the first place.
just wisps of my wishful imagination floating through
the night sky.
anything can happen during the night air,
including finding a beautiful dangerous ocean to love.
perhaps one day I will wake up and
the beautiful ocean struggling to breathe won't be
a strike of imagination and you'll actually be there next to me.
but for now I'll be wasted paint on the floor.
if I can't have an ocean to love, I will be wasted paint
to help the paintbrushes paint a beautiful photograph of dangerous
oceans with beautiful, crashing waves.
I hope that they will all remember it when the world has
faded into dust and the only thing left is that
picture burning a whole in their minds and they, too
slowly fade into dust.
Apr 29, 2014
Apr 29, 2014 at 10:53 PM UTC
Your travel has given me freedom.
But what is freedom when
you possess a soul divided?
What is the chronic sea without
its unfathomable dominions?
My soul is thirsty for you.
My cold and naked ankles mope
around your desolated castle;
Jinn, dust, and piercing silence is all that echoes
in this darkened dungeon that I have succumbed to.
And then there is me.
A heavy-laden wasted artist with
Spiny paintbrushes and faded color.
I refuse to leave the spaces that you read and play.
I refuse to exhale the memories of your sky painted blue irises.
My skin hungers for your delicate surface.
My teeth long to bite into your fleshy thighs.
In the hour of the noontide I feel you most
For our souls sahasrara blooms colorfully in the hour
Of the sun-the ancient mother of our roots weaves
Love with all of loves children and meets us with pneumatic cosmic kisses.
This is when I feel closest to you.
Without you, the world is just as it seems;
the sun burned into cinders,
Leaving the crops belonging to the sacred
soils of my flesh to prune and wither .
Ay! the droughts that you spread with your distance.
These are the days of my reaping
These are the days of my sulking.
The gardens are now closed and the
black raven cries out to a mournful mothers son.
Your scent died along with the laughter of the flowers
And the butterflies wont even flutter
Without your lovely eyelash kisses.
To live another day without the energy
Your presence fills my heart with,
Is to live an eternity hugging
Your coffin with sobbing rage;
fain would I take deaths hand.
The suffering of your glorious dawn
Wedded the universe deep beneath my skin.
You are the light,
And the absence of your holiness
leaves me opaque and hollow.
In my solitude I have watched the hours burn
And in each hour your fragrant sighs
escape with the dust motes
Surrounding the beaming light that
breaks through the cracks of the curtains.
I sit in the depth of myself
And listen for the echoes of your sounds.
A mother am I and a pitiful one too.
Like the rawboned mother with sunken eyes
carrying a baby in the womb, draining all of
the nutrition her body has to offer,
Your distance maps a massacred trail
Of my health and happiness.
You are the mother of patience
And the descendent of beauty and love.
You are the tsunami, and the still waters.
You are the uprising cub leading and mending.
You are the sap that feeds the giving tree of life.
You are the prince of wisdom.
You are
My flesh
In purest form.
- Arizona
Jan 12, 2013
Jan 12, 2013 at 8:37 AM UTC