"palmed" poems
It seemed the space between us became torn and
Profoundly distanced....................
Jamming bony knuckles and spread eagled fingers,
Lying their mapped out journey.....direction on point patrol....
Adorned by silver decoration, delighting in their skinned habitat
Shafted, deceit punching the recipient of the poison digits
Prodding and pushing their intent....dare you contradict
The intended carved out dose of punishment, Risk and
Safety......not yours and never would be; stooped
Down under the assailing bony palmed attachements
That delivered penetrating power, cupped around
Your arm til it became discoloured, pressure points
Backed you into a corner, up against the grain of the
Brick wall, cold and damp, the odour reaching
And scolding your nostrils with its stale internal vows
Refuse, stretching and protruding its foul remnents
An earlier life, when you were not under threat fades
Your very existance in jeopardy, your eyes pleaded for
Normality, willing someone to hear your silence, grip you
Tightly, not with malice, but with bravery and valour
Right now you need that shining knight, that white
Horse galloping down the blind alleyway, yet you
Know that won't happen for you're already sinking
To the floor, the blow comes sharp and stings, warmth
Exudes and trickles a path downwards, leaving your
Body, finding the cold concrete beneath you, travelling
Outwards................
Sep 3, 2012
Sep 3, 2012 at 7:58 AM UTC
Here comes a fire burning, put it out with water and you'll save from drowning. Yes with all that indian pride, and ghostly tails beside. You're still just a wolf howling. Back at that mountain side, the gold down in the creek just waiting. Now it is the time!
Ideas just keep spinning, thoughts and feelings viewed like subliminal waves to the brain. the mythos enchanting, it all is believing. Now, taking up the arrows to steal a look at your master. Wishing harder. oh but your troubles are there, and your devotion unpared. So tell me, do you still want satisfaction? I could do without the bashing. Remember well the planet's storming cloud and know that you are found. The whisper you hear is showing, a dream of all your phoebos. The globe palmed and the stars your home.
Wait. Don't look anyfurther, all you need is laughter; fixing any disaster. They call it, silence. And it stole my brother. My friend, even the hot glow that once filled my soul. How could I not know that it mattered? Wait, do you hear that sound? It's louder than before! Am I normal? Of course not! I'm as unique as the space that falls between leaves! The universe is everything, Artemis hunting, Apollo flirting. Now do you see what I mean?
Your light is reflecting and I sink in the white moon. Oh Sirius the dog star of your master fallen. I know the pain of loving. Embodied with the essencee of apparent contradictions, I go on searching. The pack always watching. Life feeds on Life.
Oct 29, 2012
Oct 29, 2012 at 12:43 AM UTC
Within creased paper lie binded souls
Firmly held within my clutch ,
Ideology hemorrhaging as non-opposables only bend so much.
Thirsty i reached for a swig of your cup
Open palmed
This vessel mishandled
the contents soaked through bedrock
Its remains a drink for the decrepit.
Nov 14, 2014
Nov 14, 2014 at 9:16 AM UTC
A sunny day's complete Poussiniana
Divide it from itself. It is this or that
And it is not.
By metaphor you paint
A thing. Thus, the pineapple was a leather fruit,
A fruit for pewter, thorned and palmed and blue,
To be served by men of ice.
The senses paint
By metaphor. The juice was fragranter
Than wettest cinnamon. It was cribled pears
Dripping a morning sap.
The truth must be
That you do not see, you experience, you feel,
That the buxom eye brings merely its element
To the total thing, a shapeless giant forced
Upward.
Green were the curls upon that head.
4.4k
Since I have no other way
And am in utmost need,
Painter girl,
I filch one of the eight lambs
You have made plump with
Green jackfruit leaves and
Thin gruel with paddy bran.
I will take it to the goat market
And sell it in a jiffy.
I assure you
I will not sell it
To any butcher-
The lamb you made chubby
With sweet sweet words
And much much petting
And nice lilting croons,
Mixing and mixing
Greens with browns.
Don’t be sad, painter girl.
I hear you come running
Searching for your lamb and
Cry out “O my dearest one
Who went grazing in the green fields,”
As the sun in your canvas
Sets in the sea and
The saffron blends with the dusk.
And, see your tears mingle
With the black that you wanted
To adorn the brow of
The naughtiest of them.
Painter girl,
It’s all because I have no other go
And it’s of utmost need.
I could have broken into the
Two-storeyedhouse you sketched
And stolen the ornaments in
Secret lockers that even
You are unaware of.
Or, I could have
Palmed the golden girdle
Of the beautiful ***** princess
Whose portrait you made,
The one with a nose stud.
Or, drugged her with my kisses
And plundered the harem.
Or else, I could have
Entered the snake shrine
Guarded by the dark serpents
That you often drew
And fled the country with
The precious jewel.
Or, I could have shot down
The birds that you drew
And sold them grilled.
I could have axed down the
Mahagony trees you nurtured
And sold them as timber.
I could have blinded your Kanhaiah
And made him a beggar
To become rich from the alms he earned.
I could have enslavened his Gopis
And handed them over
To the red light streets.
Painter girl,
It’s not for anything of this sort.
I take just one of your eight lambs.
Sell it for a good price
And fulfill my need.
Now, perchance,
If a new tenant comes to rent
My brain where nothing resides
And if they pay me a fat advance,
Painter girl,
Surely will I buy back your lamb.
And tether it in your painting.
Don’t you dare say then
Don’t you say then
That you have forgotten it.
Don’t you say then
You have exhausted your stock of
Green jackfruit leaves.
(Trans from Malayalam by Ra Sh)
Nov 3, 2013
Nov 3, 2013 at 10:04 AM UTC
No more lords.
No more rules.
Dictated by cloud headed fools.
Dogmatic commands issued
from chairs in the sky.
Telling those without wings:
How we cannot live,
And terms when we die
Speaking endless promises
yet speaking in riddles,
circles, and lies.
Life is a game
Of slicked palmed
councils on clouds
Telling us,
Work hard enough!
Aspire high enough!
And you can earn your wings*
(*of feathers and wax)
All your hard work
Will be rewarded at last!
So, work hard today
and pay us our taxes.
Perhaps tomorrow,
you get your wings.
All lies.
We toil today.
We toil tomorrow.
We toil until our loved ones
Gather in shared sorrow.
Buried with unfulfilled dreams
Of flying
Tomorrow.
May 13, 2015
May 13, 2015 at 5:04 AM UTC
Black eyes,
Deep and endless.
Shines a light,
Bright and timeless.
A kind smile,
On a gnarled face.
Handsome in his
own way.
Honesty.
A lost virtue,
In this wasteland
We call home.
Smoke drifts
from a parted mouth.
Escapes into the
nothingness of the
green-tinged sky.
*"Moments like these,
I know all that karma
stuff is all bull."*
Those are your words.
Not mine.
*"Because no one like me,
should be this lucky."*
There is no one like you.
A man out of time,
in stolen red duds.
tricorn hat tipped
to the side.
That smirk,
that damnable,
smirk, plastered,
forever to your smug mug.
Your ruddy hand
reaches back.
Open palmed
full of scars.
To grasp my mine.
Much smoother skin.
"Come on love,"
you say,
with your voice
full of gravel.
*"Lets get this freak show
on the road."*
Jul 8, 2016
Jul 8, 2016 at 8:41 PM UTC
this is a poem about the summer you dropped acid.
this is a poem about the summer you called me and said you loved me.
this is an insecurity.
a sweaty-palmed handshake.
a speech on something you only half believe in.
I am nothing to worship, I want you to know that I am nothing
and still want to come blow smoke in each other's mouths.
this is a poem about the girl that said she wanted to kiss you but didn't.
this is: lonely nights, big sweaters, my blurry vision, your pale face.
this is a hallucination.
I want to say-
If she kisses your lips before I do, whisper into hers that she is not the first, the last or the only.
I want to say-
If she says she doesn't understand you, show her the photograph that laughs with your mother.
I want to say-
*everyone you love will leave for California.
everyone who loves you will stay.*
Apr 26, 2014
Apr 26, 2014 at 8:59 PM UTC
All this air is getting so thick
With sick, powerful people, taking the open space all away
Concrete on the parks, we use to play
Imprison the mind until those dreams start to fade
We're fighting for oxygen
Suffocating on the stuff they make us breath.
We're fighting for oxygen
Make like the trees but, denied the ability to leave.
We're fighting for oxygen
They sold the air for a lot of corporate greed.
You wouldn't understand all the hands
Shaking ***** plans behind closed doors
You wouldn't understand all the rich
Switching winning sides of a poor man's war.
How can I respect this beautiful land
When it's governed by grease-palmed ******
How can I respect these political felons
While I'm just fighting for oxygen?
They tell me to take a stand for what's right
In this place I still call free
They tell me to take a stand
"But only if it holds the same view as me"
I'm looking up to stars, light years from this place
Aligned to show a for sale sign on my face
They'd sell the earth I enjoyed living in
And make me fight for this oxygen
Mar 2, 2017
Mar 2, 2017 at 1:00 AM UTC
In a steady, illiterate static
this room is my study.
And you are my book.
Legs spread 'cross my lap
hands firmly upon my frame.
I lean in to see the words.
Your soft lips graze mine
like branded cattle in a glen.
Wet and cold we sit there.
Then your tongue begins flickering
beguiling like the serpent of Eden.
How could I resist but to bite?
I kiss you sweetly
and you kiss me back.
Minutes pass in the study.
My tongue examines your mouth
like a cartographer mapping a new world.
Each slick and slope is wholly new to me.
Teeth clink like crystal glasses
during a wedding day toast.
Eyes shut tight make the black of mourning.
The noises dribbling from our mouths sound akin
to a murderer tromping through the forest mud.
Shovel dragging hard. ...Plop...Plop...Plop...
Our hands run over each other's bodies
open-palmed like a child examining the globe.
I want to feel you from pole to pole.
I pull back and run my fingers through your hair.
Your color is rushed with red and you wipe saliva from your lips.
Your smile is without flaws, and you taste like ambrosia.
I love being literate.
Mar 9, 2012
Mar 9, 2012 at 9:00 PM UTC
With my heart I picture you in polaroids
tinted blue by my eyes, surrounded by crushed leaves.
In the skipping track of my inner eye
your mouth, the way it moves when you focus
the open-palmed reaching of marimba chorale
and softening of your brow from the vines
of midnight-colour hair.
From many perspectives, again and again,
in the skipping track of my inner eye,
photographs shot with love.
Nov 17, 2012
Nov 17, 2012 at 12:04 PM UTC
short-handed love letters
written in the daydreams of a deliberate narcoleptic.
i send you the paper plane promises of summer
(sealed tightly in sweaty palmed envelopes)
you're not one to read poetry
yet i always manage to find feather light stanzas draped across your shoulders
held down by nothing more
than freckled thumbtacks
years fall away
like too heavy eyelashes onto cheeks
waiting to be brushed away
by the callused fingers of patient lovers
our slow and natural tendencies
our lips mimic the rate of gravity
you use a box cutter to lengthen the creases in my palm
but borrowed time
and fickle fate
will never heal heartbreak
Nov 13, 2012
Nov 13, 2012 at 4:00 AM UTC
For the girl with the bow in brown hair,
the heat from the upstairs
restaurant cures the street where we walk,
the freight’s in on the track,
you can tell by the horns,
I from the diesel smell below the
afternoon clouds, faint above,
sometimes when we speak a heart rate
somewhere peaks,
another graph pinned to an office wall
shows this clear,
sometimes when we talk tense chests
fear the answer you may say,
the graph strays past paper and onto
those office walls, in red with a palmed
smudge where you forgot where
the words ended.
For the girl with the bow in brown hair,
your eyes are theatre-light reflections in twenty-four hour
window panes sat packed neatly off the corner of West 47th
and 7th, for you’re my central Times Square.
Oct 2, 2013
Oct 2, 2013 at 12:20 PM UTC
Since I have no other way
And am in utmost need,
Painter girl,
I filch one of the eight lambs
You have made plump with
Green jack fruit leaves and
Thin gruel with paddy bran.
I will take it to the goat market
And sell it in a jiffy.
I assure you
I will not sell it
To any butcher-
The lamb you made chubby
With sweet sweet words
And much much petting
And nice lilting croons,
Mixing and mixing
Greens with browns.
Don’t be sad, painter girl.
I hear you come running
Searching for your lamb and
Cry out “O my dearest one
Who went grazing in the green fields,”
As the sun in your canvas
Sets in the sea and
The saffron blends with the dusk.
And, see your tears mingle
With the black that you wanted
To adorn the brow of
The naughtiest of them.
Painter girl,
It’s all because I have no other go
And it’s of utmost need.
I could have broken into the
Two-storeyed house you sketched
And stolen the ornaments in
Secret lockers that even
You are unaware of.
Or, I could have
Palmed the golden girdle
Of the beautiful ***** princess
Whose portrait you made,
The one with a nose stud.
Or, drugged her with my kisses
And plundered the harem.
Or else, I could have
Entered the snake shrine
Guarded by the dark serpents
That you often drew
And fled the country with
The precious jewel.
Or, I could have shot down
The birds that you drew
And sold them grilled.
I could have axed down the
Mahagony trees you nurtured
And sold them as timber.
I could have blinded your Kanhaiah
And made him a beggar
To become rich from the alms he earned.
I could have enslaved his Gopis
And handed them over
To the red light streets.
Painter girl,
It’s not for anything of this sort.
I take just one of your eight lambs.
Sell it for a good price
And fulfil my need.
Now, perchance,
If a new tenant comes to rent
My brain where nothing resides
And if they pay me a fat advance,
Painter girl,
Surely will I buy back your lamb.
And tether it in your painting.
Don’t you dare say then
Don’t you say then
That you have forgotten it.
Don’t you say then
You have exhausted your stock of
Green jack fruit leaves.
Mar 21, 2016
Mar 21, 2016 at 11:57 AM UTC
The gruff factory worker
in the coarse leather boots
and stained zubaz pants,
yelped with displeasure
when the tour guide of
the Pullman company town
revealed himself to be a
PhD candidate in English
during a Q-and-A.
He questioned his credentials,
dismissed him as overeducated,
as soft-palmed, not of his caste,
loudly declared that he was
just another bureaucrat in waiting.
"Institutions just exist to perpetuate
themselves; they don't care about
the people, just about keeping
themselves alive," he theatrically
confided to his friend,
wanting to make sure he heard him,
took note of his flagrant, raging skepticism.
"They got to pay the lawyers."
"All these institutions, they don't care about the workers."
We strode on, amid the shadowed reaches of the empty train car factory the owners long ago abandoned to the rustling prairie,
left to the wind and weeds and elements.
Sep 5, 2018
Sep 5, 2018 at 4:16 AM UTC
I am twenty-one years old and
I have saved two lives—
a girl whose throat closed despite her
and a boy who thought he had no other choice.
By all accounts, I am
a heroine,
a savior,
some divine-palmed human spread thin
among peers who are the same. The same—
who fear the dark as fully as I
and need the quiet, sometimes,
when the din of all the mouths talking at once
becomes more heavy than loud.
Be gentle, love, approach me slowly—
do not touch my shoulder when
my eyes turn to glass and
know that I hate to be hugged
because your arms will trap my fear somewhere
within me.
I suppose there’s a reason no one writes
what happened to Odysseus
and how the gods felt after their story ended.
Jan 29, 2015
Jan 29, 2015 at 11:23 PM UTC
The bonsai grew all wrong
Its branches outweigh the base
And the wood is whispy and pale
Without the spring a sapling entails
It's big, much too big, too long
A band stretched past its place
Becomes a twig in impatient hands
Pressured, and snapped, and palmed
Bonsai's mature slowly
With snow and vibrant leaves
To rush things is more than lowly
You've sold their soul you thieves
Sep 3, 2021
Sep 3, 2021 at 1:18 AM UTC
He palmed me a bismuth,
*You remind me of this crystal.
You're not flashy but you're beautiful.*
Feb 20, 2015
Feb 20, 2015 at 9:37 PM UTC
The angels come more frequently now,
Their visits like spring primroses,
Full of five-petalled, open-palmed beauty and quiet energy,
An unexpected surprise.
For they will come again; persistence is a virtue, it seems,
And I’m not quite lost yet.
They smile encouragingly and their sparkling laughter fills the void;
It lingers in the memory.
And with them I can breathe full-lung and be joyful,
Shout and dance naked in the street if I like.
Or dye my hair blue.
But of course I don’t.
Because for now I am content to let them fill my soul with wonder,
To be their angel in return,
And to wait for next year’s blooms.
Copyright © 2013 Vicki Watson
Nov 20, 2013
Nov 20, 2013 at 6:55 AM UTC
This world's a story
filled with stones: those five
smooth ones; some temple
tumbling to; a mountain's
stubborn bones. Take this one,
pocked, rounded, smoothed,
rocked by currents sure
they'd find the way. Blue
(or vaguely gray), flecked gold
no miners mine, or can,
diminished thing from David's
bolder day, it chooses you.
Palmed in your closing hand,
it's good, the heft of it, live weight
to tell a tale that's true.
Nov 2, 2011
Nov 2, 2011 at 3:31 PM UTC
He kicks the cobblestones
Cold air embraced his stature
A cigarette palmed he walks
Down the cherry blossom avenue
The subtle petals fell with each step
Stony path kissed his feet repeatedly
Lalic light burst through flowers
Lightly touched his burning skin
Night worshiped his casted shadow
Breezes breathed in his fragrance
Aug 15, 2016
Aug 15, 2016 at 2:15 PM UTC
In this chapter of life,
I decipher decisions with my knife,
resting under a tree,
staying out of the light,
i know i must stay alive,
resting my hand on the hilt of my sword,
standing for battle once more,
I lower my mask,
to show my evil core,
a wondering ronin bent on settling a score,
I fight for family,
and poverish,
and anyones who's suffered,
my katana will strike for you,
pride of the samurai,
fire falls from the sky,
let the gods cry tonight,
tonight, tonight,
Using my thumb,
I release my zanpakuto from its sheath,
I'm ready to strike at any time,
but first i think of the ones i love,
for if it wasn't for them,
I wouldn't be standing today,
glancing down to see the three skulls hanging from my waist, residing next to my knife,
the man whom taught me to fight,
the day he died,
he lied in my arms,
i love.....
never getting to say who,
might have been the first time my father cried,
the same king hath slain dad in my eye,
was the same man,
to burn my son alive,
only proceeding to **** and **** my wife,
she ceased to cry,
I never shed a tear,
just held their screaming heads for all to hear,
i started to walk,
I fight for family,
and poverish,
and anyones whos suffered,
my katana will strike for you,
pride of the samurai,
fire falls from the sky,
let the gods cry tonight,
tonight, tonight,
With every clinching strike,
I **** the demons underlings,
slicing and hacking,
I remember each and every soul,
I'll pray for them,
not to be ***** in hell,
standing before the demon king,
grabbing my sword I don't even need,
I could **** this man with one bare hand,
he'll cower in fear as my kin never did,
I cut him once across his chest,
splitting his cage of once were ribs,
his organs spill to the ground,
finger through the blood,
lower down to grab his heart,
palmed his head in my bare fist,
raising my sword to his neck,
you think this is pain?
try hell,
with that said,
I split his head from his neck,
tying his hair to my belt,
a fourth skull i must hold.
Feb 12, 2010
Feb 12, 2010 at 8:38 PM UTC
Fall is an empty street in Rome,
Of byways of dry-leaf stone and moth-haunted hours,
Of market stalls with their over-haggled and fingered rinds,
And melons moiled over and palmed and bruised.
The light blows like once-told ripeness from the basket of fruit.
Jun 1, 2019
Jun 1, 2019 at 9:29 PM UTC
Mei Mei wears the same,
“Signature,” every week,
Silk atop a smell soiled – Mao,
Burnt wood boiling frogs,
And a mother crying alongside
Ditch;
Ancient and ever’ed, leather
Peddling vegetables,
Not so many sold,
And atop something slight,
Thinner than rice whittled wrists,
Her red-printed tender
Intended daughter, “away,”
Under pink bow tie
And dreams wrought a village’s
Wheat and desires ancient –
All they’d offer progeny.
Mei Mei’d been born
And Mei Mei’d be gone;
All a grin, all a stage,
Come left, those who’d know last,
Stone tiers tethered past,
And right,
Others that’d someday follow;
She’d only be the first to leave.
And sure, she’d been frightened,
And sure, she’d been homesick,
With phone, “home,” ‘ever palmed,
And dreams ‘ever determined.
She’d shiver leg, wax poetry
Big cities, and boys so that
Dreamt be dealt,
Demise, be ****** and
“Mei Mei’d,” take on the world!
Note - Inspired by a wonderful student of mine who graduated but days ago; grab the world by the horns, girl! You've inspired me, that's for sure!
Jul 11, 2015
Jul 11, 2015 at 12:34 PM UTC