"pallette" poems
I don't live in
a black and white world,
but there are days in which
my pallette is ******* up.
Love and passion
are no longer red,
but hues of grey
fill my soul.
Blues are no longer
beautiful,
but are muted versions
of angry self-loathing.
Nature is not reflected
in pastels,
but my mirror is broken,
for no light exists
in the shadow it creates.
If I truly cared to believe
that the grass is greener,
I could learn to look past
all the melancholic colors.
Dec 4, 2014
Dec 4, 2014 at 10:11 PM UTC
take some oils and a pallette knife
take a canvas and paint your life
make it how it wants to be
so very happy and trouble free
use the colors as you go
paint it easy nice and slow
make the back ground stand out loud
make your picture make you proud
paint it how your life should be
then in a frame for you to see.
Mar 18, 2010
Mar 18, 2010 at 9:18 AM UTC
The Gentle Pads Of My Finger Tips Are Frigid,
The Skin Under The Lip Of My Shoe Is Raw And Worn,
From All The Cautious Steps I've Taken,
The Leafy Green Of My Tired Eyes Is Dulled,
From Hours Of The Presence Of Vision,
The Fraile Glass Windows Are Frosted Over,
Crystallized Molecules Whisper To The Half Moon,
My Heart In A REM State Of Mind,
From All Of It's Beatings,
And The Color Which I Portray Is Black,
Because It Is The Absortion Of The Artist's Pallette
Feb 1, 2013
Feb 1, 2013 at 8:36 AM UTC
I breathe in until I feel like my lungs might explode. I tighten my neck muscels and before I can think - My entire body is tense.
I'm trying to supress it. It has ruined so much but I will not let it ruin another moment...
I grind my teeth trying to supress it further, not realizing that grinding my teeth ... was a tic too.
Letting my mind slip for a second; I come to find that I have failed - once again
I flick my head, blink my eyes violently - turning the day into a stop motion movie - Once again I already know the plot.
Everything is moving in slowmotion around me - my body moving too fast to hold it in I fail - once again my body is dancing to a beat that is not mine.
I feel the pain in my neck. It is sore from giving into the neverending urge - once again it is strained from constant twitching and has been for god knows how long.
I try to ignore the pain and focus on supressing what's coming next, but being distracted by the pain I fail - once again I flick my head and exhale as fast as humanly possible. The exhale doesn't come alone - it never does. A pallette of sounds escape my mouth.
It was not me making those sounds, but the lungs affected by the pain are mine.
I feel the cycle starting over - once again.
It goes through me like a wave of energy.
I have been robbed of the control over my own body - once again.
The power to fight back has ... vanished.
I go to bed early but sleep late; battling this force with every shard of energy I could possibly have left - Once again leaving me exhausted enough to finally sleep, despite the constant twitching.
They say it's a chemical imbalance in my brain.
Too much dopamine is released.
As far as I'm concerned dopamine is a "Feel good hormone", so why does it make me so miserable?
I lay here thinking about when this cycle will end?
And when it finally does end, when will it restart? - Once again...
Dec 30, 2018
Dec 30, 2018 at 7:28 PM UTC
Held up by its wind, a flag will ******
The motion, so liquid,
so solemn and yet lucid.
Floating in its own breath,
meandering,
unleashed along nature’s footpath.
The wind ponders with instinctive movement through and around this clothed vessel.
There are no regards nor any purpose.
The movement, the romance within this dance with nature is fearless.
The wind has its sweetest of palette – a flag.
Mar 1, 2010
Mar 1, 2010 at 9:28 AM UTC
His silence screams like a searching wind
a death-hungry spirit painted in
pallette-knived smears of
grey and fear and crimson
streaking across the night sky of his heart,
lightning-bolt ricochets striking, incinerating
the solitary oak tree of his soul,
scattering his acorns down the hill where they
are lost among the weeds,
shocked into infertility,
But he is a seascape pine,
weather-worn but razor-straight,
Gargantua in wood and steel
establishes his personal space
like a rabid porcupine,
And he is a tower,
hiding his soap bubble dream
while she brushes her hair
one hundred times
one thousand times
one million times
until the dream is
lifeless, breathless, armless
and tucked neatly in a refrigerated drawer,
As his silence screams like a searching wind.
Jun 13, 2011
Jun 13, 2011 at 2:17 PM UTC
▪●☆●▪
Swirls of verbiage
begin to settle.
My wish..
that they land
to connect a thought.
Overflowing as
grapes cascading atop
sides of vessel
butter cup yellow.
Fruit of the
darkest purple persuasion.
I have visions.
Ribbons of colour.
Movements of flutter
Wet paint on pallette,
waiting for a
canvas to present itself.
Shambolic as to how to
put it all together.
Can almost sense
the fit,
yet unable to develop
the arrangement.
The words,
the vision
the pigments are there,
on the tip of my mind.
I wonder if, in the event
it all came spilling out,
I would be brave
enough to reveal.
Begin to heal.
If my canvas of words and
colors could describe.
Maybe then, it would all melt
together, becoming the
black of all colors, the no color...
allowing me
to begin anew.
▪○☆○▪
Copyright © 2016. Christi Michaels.
All Rights Reserved
Jan 28, 2016
Jan 28, 2016 at 4:25 PM UTC
A Palette of Sunrise
Bronze spears waltz with pure aubergine
amid cauliflower cumulus –
gold touch-paper.
Sugar sprinkled wash with
candy pink bubble-burst
stains church spire and oak.
Saturated in spongy tangerine
night-shapes meld into broken egg yolk
coffee spills through fields.
Foggy wool tufts
grasp mushy-pea hillocks,
sweat drops from tired shoots.
If I was a mender of souls
I would prescribe
five minutes, twice a day.
Jan 25, 2014
Jan 25, 2014 at 2:22 PM UTC
*Today Is A Quiet Pallette Of Blue Which, In Fact,
Sits Secluded From Every Yellow, Pink, And Red,
It Is Cold And Quiet--Idle As An Afternoon Rain,
Lethargic And Angry, Hard Yet So.. So Silent...
Today Is A Blue Day, It Is Bluer Than My Very Soul,
It Is A Blue Tuesday, Darker Than A Saturday Night,
The Sky Is As Gray As The Sea, But It Is Twinkling,
The Notes It Sings Turquoise As Tropic Waters
Today Is A Soft Baby Blue, Contorted By A Tough Navy,
A Harsh Golden Sunrise Has Turned To A Gray,
The Mush Colored Sky Is Tamer For The Blue Eye,
And The Blue Eye, Is A Window To A Blue Heart*
Dec 10, 2013
Dec 10, 2013 at 10:25 PM UTC
It's acold misty morning
The large grey cobblestones creating valleys by themselves
The old black lampposts casting the imaginings of light
The buildings shuffle between dark grey and black as if they were a depressed Chameleon
A man walks along this pathway
His dark black Brioni suit covered by the enveloping arms of his coat
The buttons undone as the coat ***** dramatically in the wind that isn't there
The outfit is completed with a black fedora which he wears upon his head
He walks down the pathway and passes a small man
With ragged clothes and a baggy hat
He barely notices the painter as he Iis consumed with his Own demons
The painter holds a brush in his right hand
An old thing with paint and chips on the wooden handle
The bristles are long
Not imacculate
But well used
In his left hand he holds his pallette
It has every colour imaginable
But only a small splotch of it
The painter walks behind the man with the fedora
And he painted
He painted galaxies on the cobblestones and valleys separating them
He painted patterns into the sidewalk and stories into the bricks
His style a rough painterly style
Jagged geometric lines creating organic spirals and waves
A Van Gogh style
Painfully wild strokes
That seem to contain the souls of suffering and pain
His flat yellows contrast to his vivid reds
Powerful imagery created by nothing but contrast
Emotions toyed with by jagged currants and swirls
The painter painted
Trying to catch up to the man with the fedora
Painting eruptions of beauty from the lampposts
And birds and flowers floating upon the air
As the fedora man's heels lifted paint was laid down in insane yellow
Driven insane by trying to catch up to this man
Driven insane by trying to show the man beauty
The painter ran out of paint
A masterpiece a mile long
Seen and admired by all who walked behind
But the artist had failed
His face Contorted as his emotional suffering manifested physically
His heart broke again as he realized that this man with the fedora wouldn't stop
He would live his whole life
Without seeing beauty
The painter was put in a nice jacket and a white padded room to live the rest of hus days
Forced to live in his misey....
His emotion....
His failure...
Jul 2, 2015
Jul 2, 2015 at 1:09 AM UTC
chlorophyll green,
verdent, colour me trees
freeze dry to
amber, yellow, cardinal red liquid gold, titian, xanthous, carmine, deepwine burgandy, magenta, saffron, orange, rubicant, henna, bronze and copper burnished, cracked terracotta
and then finally...
bittersweet crumpled brown
what a pallette of cold night air painting daubed on wooded canvas'
life portrayed in leaf-ed glory
all before our autumnal eyes
Mar 24, 2014
Mar 24, 2014 at 6:07 AM UTC
I wanted to paint,
A trail of red,
Down your chest
leaving nothing but,
The stain of my lips,
To lay in contrast,
To your fair skin.
You brought forth,
A pallette in my eyes,
Birthed within a new,
Sight of purples,
Left behind,
By the lost ramblings,
I drown in after ***
Dec 20, 2015
Dec 20, 2015 at 11:12 PM UTC
The cut is yet deep.
Standing in the crowd holding her hopes like a child with a balloon
the rain wet street mirrored on her cheek
she sees only ghosts and memories around her.
Her soul contorts and twists under the weight of her loss
weeping for that which was
and faded dreams lie in litter at her feet.
Shadowy solace hovers impotently
loath to approach lest he be burned in her cold fire.
Her thoughts hang in strands:
"O, fountain blood be my salve
for hollow loneliness is my home"
Unheard, unheeded, unreleased
they echo and play across her mind in metallic tones.
And the cut is yet deep.
Pain sings in her heart
marking her world with it's dissonant pallette.
Bright and brittle, with a lover's hunger
offering a seductive embrace she can no longer resist.
Siezing to it's sharpness and brilliance like a keepsake
she draws it to her willingly
and loves it.
But hers is not the step, the end, the sleep.
"I am queen here" she cries to an unknowing world
"Heed me, for I shine"
and shaking off the woe she turns from the path.
Fierce Nike takes her hand and leads her forward,
onward to a new beginning, a new season, a new hope.
For yes, the cut is yet deep
but cuts will heal with gentle touch
and even scars may fade in the sun.
Nov 12, 2010
Nov 12, 2010 at 5:22 AM UTC
Wild grapes grow on vines
From the trees next to the Fields
A bunch of us harvested the yield
Purple fingered in buckets
A Galvanized Antique
Wash Tub on Wheels
With the Hose at the Bottom
Filled up with The Make
A log of Firewood was used
To smash the grapes to pulp
As the Juice Drained out
Collecting in a Bucket
Pounding the pulp up
Taking Turns, Arms Ached
In the Back Yard, Sun Baked
As we plied our Log to Make
In the Kitchen 20 Lbs of Sugar
And gallons of Water Boiled
Watched and Stirring Constantly
Till the Syrup Batch Roiled
A 50 Gallon Oak Wine Keg
Prepared a Wooden Peg
A Hole drilled through
Coiled copper Pipe put to...
An ancient wooden Spigot
Gently tapped into place
The warm Syrup is poured
Yeast Added and then Grape
The Plug with the copper Pipe
Tapped into the Top of the keg
Coiled up Copper Stretches Down
To water, in a Redwing Crock
Halloween party we
Tapped some pitchers
A Light and fruity Vin
Sweet Pallette of wine
Christmas we Tapped
Merry Pitchers to toast
A Fine Full bodied Note
It made a Merry toast
For New Years we
Tapped the Last
The Marc of Dregs
Potent as Sweet Sherry
The Winter Wine
Tasted Fine
With Merry Toasts
For a Good Time
Feb 23, 2015
Feb 23, 2015 at 4:43 PM UTC
Based off what you're telling me, you no longer believe in magic.
you have chosen to be forgotten
you have chosen to be fatigued.
Based off what I'm seeing, your a dying soul, a fogged out rainbow
greying out of the spectrum.
I'll pity you tomorrow
Im too busy sniffing flowers.
Come to me next week and I'll have your color pallette ready
I'll rub it in your face, your skin
I'll cover you with petals and daffodillies.
There now, go to sleep
rest your eyes
become obsolete
Rest your head, never wake up
your trapped in a world of grime and muck
This is what you have chosen.
this is what you believe.
leave me to my fairies, I'll be seeing you beneath the trees.
Oct 10, 2012
Oct 10, 2012 at 2:04 AM UTC
i see today,
the first glimmering
of summer,
in the curl of green nails,
on the deadman fingers
of the frangipani.
i see today,
the last sighs of winter
in the dessicatted, crumbling, leaves being,
blown ever which way
by the gusting, September winds.
i see today spring,
coming up,
in shoots of green,
sprung from the rain softened soil.
all different hues,
of potential and expectation
rising from the ground.
i see today, the the last glimpse of autumn,
in that pallette of a leaf,
stubborn throughout the winter now finally,
come to grief and floating, serene in silent submission, on the pond of koi.
the oranges and browns
blending into the watered background.
i see today,
all the seasons,
in the sky
and all around me,
time moves forward
and every moment,
counted as precious
and noted by this poets eye...
Aug 31, 2014
Aug 31, 2014 at 8:00 PM UTC
As the revered taste of the Cuban
expertly rolls from his tongue
And the frivolous sounds of his friends and associates whisk
past his ears
And the bouquet of the wood cling to his pallette
The judge reminds himself ironically
As he confides in his glittering blanket high above
Even retrospection is a needless visitor
And introspection is of no use
When you've brought the gavel down on your own life
And condemned yourself
to a Beachwood bench in the middle of nowhere
Where nobody gives a ****
May 31, 2018
May 31, 2018 at 1:40 PM UTC
Persistent fever
And a hole in my pallette
God save me from this awful habit
Shy away
The beast will come another day
Maybe you won't believe the lie
It's not even a high
But in my warped mind
A lens of vision only on me
I've always been intrigued
With publicized insanity
I want to be the shooting star
Red carpet
Robert Downey Jr eyes
On a ****** not even fit for
Heath Ledger
I want to disengrate in the sky
A slow public suicide
Blame it on gravity
It's homocide
It seems some can escape mortality
And become grand deities
In the mind of humble losers
But I know its not my life
No spectacle too see
The only one who watches
Is me
Sep 26, 2015
Sep 26, 2015 at 2:26 AM UTC
Its thick leather wraps like the layer of skin
Broken into by God
Our souls resting beneath its core
Its veins run course from the streaks of light it sheds
A delicate orb of moisture providing the very same life you once had
Now snapped at the vine of Earth
Banished forth to the afterlife of our bodies
And now torn by the thick paws of the beast
Claws rushing down your spherical canvas from the moment HE swallowed your breath
To the day He ripped all else from the tree
What gives you the urge to trickle the bright red from your blanket
Once patterned with gold but now soiled in the aftermath of a war
I used to breathe love but my lungs breathed hate
The same way a fire gives warmth but will shed to **** life
The corpse of your tongue stays moist and warmer than all
The sole pallette living with the flavor of fruit
Craving life like the way you crave it's sweetness
But once the taste dies down
So does your will to continue on
Thus the consumption of the fruit is the desecration of a breathe
Your last memory of your last sense
The touch of a golden sun
And the grime of a sweetened moon
Apr 19, 2017
Apr 19, 2017 at 12:22 PM UTC
A gliding entity between ecstasy, my eyes grew from seeds
to inversely unbounded trees, oxidizing, breathing into the collective
a collection eclectic; the ripening ages convene the gods' pallette
so mortal and clean. From the vantage of mauve mountains,
beholders pressed through the ravine. "The bewildered be wild"
She crooned on to me.
Deepening the night, scintillant ancestors dug
with Light, unearthing cherished retinal prints.
The vulpine maw imposed no sin, indigo glow
and a patina sheen, feral bliss had greased
the chain. Lineages span millennia as scions cast
the sacred Heron, spear of the World beyond
the eros plane.
So She crooned on to me
Her sybilline Dream.
Nov 20, 2012
Nov 20, 2012 at 7:28 PM UTC
(out in the open)
Eyes see a plane gaining speed...now airborne
Soaring...from a background of bright, lush horizon
Out in the open
I see the high and low....of slopes...undulating,
Curves and points abound...showing
A rising
A falling.
Surface is covered with grass, bushes and trees
A pallette of nature's colors...brown, yellow ochre, red, orange, green
All are nurtured by light from sun
All are watered by dew and rain.
Outdoors, or indoors...there truly is a rising
always followed...by a falling
To show and prove, a story of birthing
how it is.....when surviving
and what transpires...when in the process of dying
Alone...out here in the open
I am infinitesimal...just a dot, amidst this vastness
There's no one, just me...no rush...nothing is hastened
When i speak...aloud, in whispers...Somebody always listens
Even when i don't speak at all.
There is calm...yet the sounds are endless
The mockingbirds are singing...wind is whirring
Somewhere, water is flowing, running,
...all are ceaseless...
Now and then, heart beats, way too restless
Followed by a moment of helplessness
Have i strayed towards a path of selfishness?
Could there be a need for more...of selflessness?
In this diurnal existence, i am surrounded by mountains
On my own, i could never conquer those soaring cones on my horizon
But, i lift my eyes, up there...without a fiber of pretense
Surrendering my shoulders, my all, to a known Omnipresence.
I dwell on a promise long time spoken
That, no matter how high my mountains
No matter how heavily laden
Just a look up to the Heavens
Will make a big difference,
For, in my heart,
I know,
I believe:
Prayers
Can
Move
Mountains.
Sally
Copyright January 8, 2016
rrab
Jan 20, 2016
Jan 20, 2016 at 7:58 PM UTC
It is seven o clock. This Thursday, the sun will set forty minutes from now. It is the becoming of seasons. My exit from Summer, steps closer to the true Fall.
Time's tainting of nature is shifting, not quite set in its normal, crystalline pattern. It is close. The leaves on the trees have oranges and yellowed. The air is crisp and its wind breathe but do not howl. The ocean is no longer a pleasant extension of one's self. It is chilling, a reminder to be wary of entering abysses.
The time is close to alter our physical clocks. The sun is setting earlier and earlier, the days and their light feel shorter.
Before my mutations, these things passed by me and I did not give them much thought. I would wake and notice the sun risen at irregular times. Feeling uncomfortable and something close to disoriented.
But now I feel the changes in every cell of me. I grow thin waiting for the day Death grants me mercy. I will then leave this existence which demands my tireless consciousness from what is to come and the effects of what was done.
I climb an impossible vine. This origin born in a deeper Hell, extending past Heaven.
My song is melody light and these rhythms churn complex.
And I seem to complicate every relationship silently.
Internally I am coarse meat. A withered pallette suited to last semester's tastes.
Yet externally, accidentally I am steel and wine. The simple beauty of complex
Oct 10, 2015
Oct 10, 2015 at 7:45 PM UTC
I dreamt of you that summer night
Windows open ever so slight
We were together in a field of flowers
Your windswept hair dangling carelessly from the sides of your floppy, straw, hat
The warmth of the sun as radiant as your boundless smile
You took my hand, and paraded me through a pallette of petals
My clumsy boots stumbling with each step
In my stupor, I reached and plucked a flower
It was destined to be yours
The coppery-orange petals a perfect compliment to the hue of your hair
Both of us blushing as your lips met my cheek
It was a perfect dream
A testament to the time we shared
Ended by a morning sky, and a nostalgic cup of coffee
Staring vacantly at the blooming flowers in my overgrown-garden
Mar 31, 2021
Mar 31, 2021 at 1:44 AM UTC
The first vision you ever had for me was blue,
albeit, a bit hazily speckled across my canvas,
sparsley separated from the rest of the daunting white,
but it wasn't enough.
You pondered it for a few minutes but thought better of yourself,
so you cleaned up the blue and added red instead.
Oh red, what a wonderous color,
but over the years you've diluted it to pink,
and that's okay, it suited me best anyway.
You couldn't be sure of your inital sketches,
lined in yellow across my sides,
and so you would work, rework,
and work again; and that was fine.
I've always found it funny,
you know,
how your pallette can be so so very small,
and yet create so many different works,
I wonder how you know which of us go together;
to line your halls with canvases, different and alike,
how are we to make such a satisfactory gallery?
Once, not too long ago,
I met a man, and I think you wrote him in green,
lathered the sides with a smooth ink,
and clumped, in oil, a bright orange near the bottom,
and I think he hopes no one notices the edge,
but I've always found it to be the most beautiful.
It's rather peculiar, really,
to see one color morph into another,
for a shape to become something much larger,
and to see the techniques mimicked in a chain,
a group of us, only linked by the initial movements,
brushed over so many times we might just forget.
Each of us,
a work of art,
separated only by years,
colors,
and life's rotations.
Apr 20, 2016
Apr 20, 2016 at 8:52 PM UTC