"papayas" poems
Sprang forth with no branches or leaves. Small roots.
Bore mangoes, papayas,guava and bananas. Hybrid, mid limb grafting.
The trunk is a figment but it stands non less. You see
my family tree never was and always will be.
A roadside shade with low hanging fruit.
Was never planted.It was a deposit from the bowels of an exotic bird
of the jungles that sampled at leisure the offerings of the rain forests.
The Hardtack and marmalade came on ships with the kings business
Mixed with the Nigerian Fu-Fu ,the Aztec maize the Mayan legumes.
and all points of the compass.
Old Joe Denegri, The Blancaneaux , The Cattouse, The Melado, The Pinks
The Flowers,The Orozco and more. And boundless from the ***** of opportunity.
Piecemeal and untethered. But it is the tree that I must cling to.
However rough the bark.
The sap runs heavy and slow in the humid Belizean heat.To meet the earth.
Cool breezes blow a haunting disharmony. A sweet unity in chaos.
The soil is rich,pungent and forgiving. Soon, A bell tolls in the distance.
The Sea mists my dreams.
A stairway of coconut fronds to azure skies.
Nighttime smells like creation.
The still slackened pace.
The small rat race.
Tempest in a teapot.
Urban-rural.
Coolie gal.
Creole boy.
New Chinese.
Old African.
Ubiquitous Espania.
Garinagu. Mosquito coast.
Children of Mennon.
Old Basque faces.
Things we call races left with small traces
of what?
My tree, her tree, histree.
I am you and you are me.
I see me in your face and you see me.
We are and will continue to be.
Blended.
a hybrid. An orchid wild.
Feb 22, 2013
Feb 22, 2013 at 5:02 AM UTC
It’s never easy
starting midstream,
when your joints squeak like old vinyl.
Worse to end just as you begin,
editing hope into bullet points,
buffing your portfolio like a coffin lid.
You kneel to metadata while the holy algorithm decides
if you're human enough to be blessed.
Better to read old Nabokov,
nap in your robe
(the good one with pockets),
wait for the mail like it’s 1998
when catalogs still mattered.
Let purpose dissolve, like the vitamin
you dropped in the sink.
You failed to fail,
which sounds noble
but feels more like
accidentally surviving.
So drift toward the grocery by the newsstand,
nod to the pretty barista with the knife-edge bangs,
pretend the papayas mean something.
You’re the median of middle-aged.
Your knees, both traitors.
Your dreams, reruns.
These lines limp
like your fifth attempt
to rebrand the layoff as a sabbatical.
"Don’t derail, just project
your better self on a screen."
Crop the hair, dim the lighting,
hide the existential dread
behind a well-placed emoji.
Let rhyme stutter
like a pull-string toy,
half-broken,
slightly too cheerful.
Feet unsure, eyes fogged
(by pollen, by memory, by news).
There’s no noir here,
no brooding detective,
no dame worth lighting a cigarette for.
Just this:
the echo of effort,
forms half-filled,
where even your name looks uncertain.
So let’s call it.
Let’s bury the draft,
archive the ambition,
delete the app.
End
where we never really
began.
Jul 28, 2025
Jul 28, 2025 at 10:03 PM UTC
there, the air is thicker
it hangs full, like the ladies
all the sadness lived in the
capsules of trapped air in
woollen jumpers left behind
men with their toothless
smiles and shining skin
coax laughter from a steel drum
the market boasts a rainbow
of sarongs, papayas, star fruits
offered in jangling song
it was a medicine.
the coral blooms in the reef
are teeth in a dog's mouth,
guarding.
Mar 25, 2012
Mar 25, 2012 at 10:20 AM UTC
You were freer than a free verse
And even sonnets could not keep you.
Tonight we got drunk on papayas,
Sitting on the sidewalk sipping
drinks, careless laughter
exploding from our mouths when
the moon split itself
Down our throats. In the messy
medley of the night I felt you on
my skin, remember:
How I lost myself in the fine lines
Of your lips where you claim
Your flaws fall into.
How I tried to swallow them like
apricots and how - in almost exact reciprocation
Of the same passion -
your eyelid moves which say:
I love you as much as I love God.
You are four light years away
And tonight I got drunk on papayas.
This is not a poem because
Sonnets could not keep you safe
And free verses compete but lose
Their flame, for
Like a landslide you let love slide,
I let love leave then.
May 27, 2014
May 27, 2014 at 5:25 AM UTC
We live in a house, simple and nice
With a garden lined with crotons in rows
Not so neatly trimmed or pruned as before
And a lawn not always well manicured
But abounding in plants with blooms of varied hue
From shady corners, orchids peep
They bring forth flowers in bunches and mass
Only on certain seasons, not the year round.
Then a visual treat to the eyes, indeed!
Trees big and small border our land
Mango trees and jack fruit trees
Coconut palms and guava trees
Twining creepers with globular passion fruits
Bushy plants of sweet and sour berries
Rose apples, papayas and Chinese limes
An epitome of country abundance!
In front of the house was once a stretch of fields
Lush and fresh with paddy plants in June
And in autumn, bent with arching sheaves of corn
Green parakeets used to come from far
To eat the grains ready to be reaped
Having their fill they would fly westward in flocks
Such scenes were a source of instant delight
But sad enough, those fields were gradually filled
In place of paddy and other seasonal crops
Industrial units, big and small have emerged
By degrees, the quiet and coolness of the place
That once soothed our frayed nerves are gone
Now an exodus of men have landed here
Laborers who have come from Northern states
To eke out a living in a better clime
Speaking languages, Bengali, Hindi and Tamil
Leaving the area noisy with incessant chatter
Along the road that runs parallel to our house
Now speeds past, motors in unbroken row
Honking horns and raising a screen of smoky dust
Spoiling the ambiance of our verdant setting
And badly impairing the neat surroundings
But with every change of scene and setting
We, like nomads cannot change our stay or dwelling
Well acclimatized to all noise and commotion
We now stick to our home, our humble haven
And strive to create within an inner landscape
Not polluted by the ravages of time or clime
Home is the sanctuary where we roost and rest
A sweet dwelling, more than all mansions blest
And it should be an abode of love where hearts embrace
Every turn of life, grim or merry with no fuss but with grace
How sweet it is to dwell beneath this roof
Our wedded life’s enduring love’s living proof!
Jul 29, 2017
Jul 29, 2017 at 9:35 AM UTC
*Under the banyan few bamboo stalls
Baskets of garden’s produce
Whiff of fresh fish from fishing trawls
Buyers the sellers amuse.
Brinjals and pumpkins papayas and gourds
Small catch from neighborly streams
With buy and sell exchange few words
Alike a sketch seen in dreams.
Small things small price wish don’t soar high
A few coins to relieve bowel’s pain
Will do enough to let the hopes fly
No need for too hard bargain.
Will be left behind not all will be sold
The fragrance of freshness will stale
They won’t rue hearts of true gold
Having learned this hard fact too well.
Some hours spent when shadows grow dark
Sun decides to recline in west
Wind up they all under moon’s arc
Happy souls homebound for rest.
Sighs the banyan long standing witness
Pains it the quietude of stars
Holds it through dark watches endless
Coming and going of pedlars.*
Jun 12, 2014
Jun 12, 2014 at 7:17 AM UTC
En un mundo de cristal que no puede ser roto,
Monstruos muestran amor y
el heroe consigue enfermo.
El mundo al reves y
comio un arco de iris,
El predicador pidió por una Dos Equis.
Fui buscando por algo que
no puedo recordar,
Pero yo se que es algo que
nunca yo he visto.
En mi camino un hombre viejo
me detuvo,
y dijo,
HIJO. Ven conmigo!
Asi, yo fui.
Todavia no puedo recordar,
Algo sobre los duraznos en las playas,
o tal vez eran papayas,
Pero nos encontramos un fuego
que nos mantuvo frio.
Durante el noche el sol
herido mis ojos,
y a la vez yo recordé todo
que yo sabe.
Dec 3, 2016
Dec 3, 2016 at 1:41 PM UTC
I am from a row of white and gray
houses on a loop,
from green lawns
manicured and rugged
Bird song, barking dogs
living silence,
the crying of peacocks.
One of the oldest
kids in
this neighborhood.
I am from a green gray house,
screened by blue Plumbago and Orange Vine.
Deep shade under
reaching branches
overflowing with red.
From bromeliads and wind-chimes,
slippers piled by the door.
Lived in rooms with
messy harmony.
Music slips from under doors
and books
stacked
high.
I am from a family of four,
Dad yelling, red in the neck,
“Do your homework!”
Mom watching, trying
to keep me doing my work.
“God helps those that help themselves.”
Brother playing Halo on legendary,
DeadSpace only at night.
“ Before all else be armed.”
Me doing math,
headphones on,
a world away.
“She wasn't where she had been.
She wasn't where she was going…
but she was on her way.”
I come from boxed cheerios,
Brother's signature explosion on a plate.
Curry, bean burritos, spaghetti,
fish, papayas, steak
and spicy chilli
I come from T-shirts and sneakers.
Forever in blue jeans.
Tunic tops, velvet dress.
Slippers, necklaces, hair ties
and bracelets.
May 17, 2014
May 17, 2014 at 8:06 PM UTC
hurling sherpa into the Sun on a rainy day can open your mind
and your children will wander off from your womb... into the next room.
it's the little things that **** you. and the invisible that redeems.
peeling papayas in a prison is still fruit of the doomed.
if you wish to be free -
i suggest you leave
The Pit.
watch out for Mangoes.
May 2, 2013
May 2, 2013 at 12:45 AM UTC
I was lost in the Bermuda triangle
It was like Egypt in a sea of flesh
the great pyramid
******* in all surrounding life
A tilted triangle I thought
circumscribed around your hunger
but you knew my weakness
Told me it was a fig
fresh
succulent
sweet
so I bit into its sweetness
leaving my smile on your thighs
Told me it was a grapefruit
You were right
I bent down and tasted it
pink
juicy
kind of sweet
kind of ****
I ate every section
lingering
around the center
with my tongue
There were tremors in your skin
as I swallowed your body
as you swallowed my hardness
as your body
swallowed the milk of my trembling
I came to Egypt
I came in the great pyramid
between sky and sand
The Pharaohs were waiting for us
You were waiting for me
I visited the pyramids in Mexico
and was jungled in
like green-iguana-slowness
like Asian fever
sweet and sweaty
swollen like an anaconda
moving in and out
digesting the heat of a fresh ****
In Sudan, the Saharan winds
shatter the pyramids into pieces
I lick their dryness like a cat its fur
let the heat burn my bowels
Now there are tremors on my skin
I exhale breath of wet fire into your lips
and rain down upon your body
like night crashing into the surf
like sweat pouring into the sea
like sand screaming into the wind
I even became the wind
so as to enter every part of your smoothness
slipping past even your seditious skin
The wind has no mercy
We draw shapes in the morning light
with our naked bodies
while only the birds cover us
with their fluttering wings
made of the down
of your brown belly
I tasted that too
like Indian velvet
like a Bahian feast of papayas
maracaja and guarana
Da danca do mar
In Brazil the sensuous sun seeps
into the scorched sand where our form was
and cuts through the hot flesh of the earth
To the center
where all desire has fused
has seeped through the surface
To the center
where my mouth burns from wanting
To the center
where your wetness burns my tongue
To the center
Your center
I
Will
Return
Aug 14, 2014
Aug 14, 2014 at 4:26 PM UTC
Es pingüino, langitud y costa pacífica y pelo color rojo, terrones descriptivos y mujeres en círculos verdes obstáculos en la mente. Sandías hermosas grandes y chicas, sin pepas con pepas, koltrane, papayas descriptivas sin árboles, era raro quitarse el casco al meditar.
Jun 8, 2014
Jun 8, 2014 at 3:58 PM UTC
In the body of a forest
Lies the feet of a tree
Sunk deeply into the soil
Is the root with a heartbeat
Deep earthly eyes
With a presence that is calm
If you let him sink into you too quickly
He will water your every form
Like the spinning of the Earth
He is the drizzle of the stars
The sweetness of the air
And the breeze with every and no care
He is the tunnel system in the city
That connects us through and through
He is the electricity
That lit the room
In a world with different stories
He is the sun that claims no glory
He is the seed that plants the tree
Yet has the roots that found their way to me
Feb 4, 2017
Feb 4, 2017 at 11:05 PM UTC
chimpanzees
climb
the
tall skinny trees
to nibble
on
papayas
then
spit out
the seeds
that
descend
to
the ground
near
the
edge of the forest
without a sound
Jun 29, 2016
Jun 29, 2016 at 2:03 AM UTC
Bring on the cherries
Scrumptious nectarines
Blueberries, Strawberries and Berries period
Mangos, Papayas, Star fruit and Grapes
Melons and Fresh fish
The Farmers markets are so much fun with recipe ideas
So many to choose from
Almond flour always at the ready in the frig
Wonderful nuts and salads to make
Been cooking since I was a little girl
This is always a great time and the freezer will be stocked when glorious Summer takes her leave
Summer Fruit
Celebrate
C@rainbowchaser 2023
Jul 8, 2022
Jul 8, 2022 at 4:40 PM UTC