"papered" poems
woman
you are
dazzle,
powdered
stomp of
colours,
mist dew
bright of
song,
melody
of a hum
when you
speak,
clear eyes
sparkle on
the surface,
delicate,
serene,
today you
said softly,
budge a little
in the path of
an evening sun,
it gets into my eyes,
you shall be
the death of me,
should I be left
with words and
rhyme,
these stiff
laces of device
I call poems,
of what use
are they,
you will
not be
here,
my heart
gnaws,
twists,
caught
in perils
of desire
oh garbage
words,
you are a
beggar's
lament
be away,
let me
gaze at
her while
time benignly
spins a top,
soon it
is bound
to topple
this alphabet
string,
pearl scatter
of a necklace,
be away,
verse,
futility,
to live in
a papered
world when
loveliness
shrivels
to another
lost moment,
be away,
illusion
let me see
it as it is
her yellow
dress,
gathering
light,
her terse
shades,
her yellow
dress
let
dreams
tarry a
little,
speckled,
hypnotized,
sunshine,
her
yellow
dress
shall be
the death
of me
May 12, 2016
May 12, 2016 at 11:08 AM UTC
An hour before midnight
On the night of 1930
Fire blazed in hearts to fight
For their Independence
And to attain their rights.
Yes, it was the night of 1930
And in the cold winds of 26th Jan
They declared to fight for our freedom
And they had a simple plan.
They promised to give Swaraj
To all of their natives
Something that was just a mirage
Until it really happened.
Yes, India got freedom
On 15th August, 1947
That was when they decided
To transform India into heaven.
They completed our Constitution
On 26th November 1949
And they had their contribution
In their hands but that date wasn't fine
To enact the book of laws.
To pay respect
To our fighters
The law was finally enacted
And was papered a bit nifty
On January 26th 1950.
(The End)
[Note: Happy Republic Day!!!]
Jan 26, 2015
Jan 26, 2015 at 6:39 AM UTC
Working at the amusement park is a grand old time.
There’s nothing like having to hide
In the ticket booth when you wanna smoke a joint
So your boss doesn’t find out and fire you.
Every ride has bright, multicolored lights
And this is how I waste my time away.
The closest bathroom is half a mile away,
Those Porta-Johns are full all the time
And always smell like Marlboro Lights
It’s where those teen brats like to hide.
A kid always asks for another toy gun from you
And immediately bends it all out of joint.
Jocks, barbies and snotty kids mill around this joint,
Throwing all their money away
Buying more and more tickets from you
Screaming, complaining, cheating all the time
And there’s no good place to hide
With all these obnoxious lights.
They’re poor substitute for big city lights,
They only illuminate this cheesy joint,
Don’t even let ***** gutters hide—
I’m surprised they don’t want to look away.
Cotton candy disappears in your mouth every time,
But you think it’s worth it, don’t you?
The only boy who ever liked you
Works across the park, beyond the lights,
But you miss him waving at you every time
Because some skeez is yelling, “Let’s blow this joint!”
And a mom drags her eight kids away
Screaming, “One more word and I’ll tan your hide!”
Why do the five-year-olds always play hide
And seek in the Fun House? “Hey, you!”
Where the hell are your parents? Go away!”
Finally Anna, who manages mini golf, lights
A gloriously white-papered little joint
And we smoke until closing time.
This is where I hide, and yet these lights
Are poor substitutes you know, for home, the joint
You tried to get away from, before you wasted your time.
Apr 19, 2011
Apr 19, 2011 at 7:19 PM UTC
~~~
*a flawless poem
if such there were,
will always be,
the next one
my poor soul,
my rag tag heart,
has no censor,
so careless, reckless,
as if words were but
frivolous treasures,
easy get, easy spent
if only,
how I wish,
could harvest my best,
and with golden cutlery,
excise
the single flawless poem
that I know is in my possess
lay down this hand, so weary,
from cupping tears,
be satisfied at long last,
so much so,
that when my casket lowered,
two hands in repose companioned,
clutching his best,
to ease the rest,
a papered poem record to join his whited ash,
his flawless poem,*
his very best
*now eternal,
at long last*
Jan 17, 2016
Jan 17, 2016 at 9:09 AM UTC
my eyes opened to find
the thin lizard dawn gleaming
after the gutter drank its' fill
of the moon last night
the tambourine
buried in my lungs still
vibrating like these walls
papered with cheap roses
last night i found comfort the
only way i know how
in situations like this
beside a girl wearing
a pretty ribbon
twisted around her waist
pomegranate lipstick
wet clay & tragic glitter
smeared across her eyelids
we spent the night
roped together by
half-removed clothing
& my fingers third
knuckle deep
counting the pulse
of the heart
of the universe
while the wild fox
barked on the hill outside
& the mockingbirds
played riffs in the lilac bushes
her ******* ran tight
around her shins &
she sputtered the dark
lyricism of bees
twisting her tongue
backwards around
itself in my ear
our bare bellies
slapped together as
my tongue found her
tooth enamel &
the trees formed
a tight center loop to
harness the sky
for us & i
held my breath
waiting for her
to breathe first
i can feel her chest
& plump **** now
quietly throbbing
against the tight young
flesh of my back but when
i roll over & see her
eyes darting
green like a thin
ocean laser avoiding
my dynamic gaze &
her pouty mouth emitting
a pink yawn i can tell
she's unhappy & ashamed
of me
i tried to run
my fingers through
the butterscotch tumbleweed
of her hair but she just
popped her gum
& sent me
high stepping through
the soft warm mud
& chest high cattails
of her driveway
callow under the clouds
stuck like gnats to
the fly paper sky
Oct 8, 2015
Oct 8, 2015 at 3:58 PM UTC
Hot !
it was delta hot
With only two choices . . .
for breakfast we had scrambled eggs
toast and hate
The postman waved as he
brought more papered threats
Taking with him all the promises of a better
day
The cut took 21 stitches to heal but it
let out all your will
Overwhelmed , the stars have all fallen
out of the night sky
The street sweeper comes and
washes them down the gutter
May 31, 2015
May 31, 2015 at 10:15 PM UTC
This town is too small for secrets
The sidewalks are adorned with names and dates
Of couples whose love dissolved twenty years ago
While moss oozes out of the letters.
This town is too small for secrets
Through windows at night
The citizens play out their dollhouse lives
And dysfunction is locked away in grandmother’s armoire.
This town is too small for secrets
Where bars close at seven in the morning and open an hour later
And the tenders are purveyors of free psychiatry
Who put advice in bowls between stale peanuts
And place them on the counter.
This town is too small for secrets
Every hour the two churches compete for the loudest bells
But the protestant one always wins
And the Catholics having mass ignore its pleading voice
But whisper politely in each other’s ears
About the scandalous protestors out on Main.
This town is too small for secrets
With its coffee shops littered with youth
Who deny their wealth through coffee steam
And discuss the state of countries they can’t place on a map
And slowly leach out in to the frigid rain
Back to new cars and million-dollar homes
Where daddy pays the bills.
This town is too small for secrets
The college students drink their scholarships in red plastic cups
And scuttle towards their shared flats
Collapse in to bed too tired to sleep
Stare at the ceiling and wonder why they didn’t transfer
Three semesters ago.
This town is too small for secrets
With its gated communities of retirees
Where the homes are manufactured
And the walls papered with the smiling faces of clean-cut grandchildren
And the rebellious ones packed away
From the neighborhood gossip’s prying eyes.
Nov 30, 2013
Nov 30, 2013 at 7:59 PM UTC
land of no responsibility
except to give in to that burning urge
that prickles up the back of your neck on waking
to be off out running under sun
barefoot as soon as out of sight
adventures wait and time belongs to you
you fish for sticklebacks in a field of golden corn
where farmers wave in anger at the trail to the pond
and take home tadpoles in glass jars on string
breathless at the sight of legs emerging
pick bluebells in the wood for mother
but then arrange them in old tins
in tumbledown cottage the gangs den
scrumping crab apples in overgrown gardens
never getting that stomach ache all Adults warned of
roaming hedgerows looking for hedgehogs
hoping for signs of any living thing
all long fled at the collective noise you make
catching butterflies to look at their wings
putting crysillis in greaseproof papered jars
to watch them emerge for flight on glistening wings
when you return them to the wild
lifting up old drain pipes to look for slugs to race
not forgetting to put them back at races end so they dont shrivel
basking in hot sun after watching trails of catapillars
whose prickles mother later tweezers out
amidst a small flood of tears because they flame red
having a bath with bubbles then tucking up in bed
drowzy but anticipating tomorrow is waiting
Jul 9, 2012
Jul 9, 2012 at 7:01 PM UTC
Ghetto child, dusty brown face, hopeless eyes, dandelion flower,
piles of dirt surround him.
He quickly runs across glittering pieces of glass
that mimics the sound of ice crushing beneath his
paper-thin soles.
Sirens scream! Radios blare! No angels to be found,
at least not here.
Tall brick building,
six stories high,
so worn and torn from many loveless years.
Baby doll, blond and white,
tossed from the high rooftop late last night,
cracked face,
broken smile,
she once brought solace to a lonely child,
she now lies forgotten amid a maze of discarded trash.
Drunken man leans against a blood-stained wall to
support his failing body,
brown papered-bagged bottle he clenches in his bandaged
hand;
he struggles to reach his lips to swallow its pain-killing
contents.
"How bout a date, sweetness?"
He slurs to two young girls passing by,
who carefully ignore his cry,
but jokingly remark of his haggard condition
as they quickly pace down the noisy garbage strewn street
and he fades within the darkness of the heated night,
without as much as a prayer to soothe his waning soul.
In this neighborhood lost,
at high human cost,
in the heart of the thriving city......
Feb 1, 2014
Feb 1, 2014 at 1:36 AM UTC
since I last
rode a bus,
no, poems aplenty
have poured and dripped
from ink-saturated fingers,
here there and everywhere,
disguised by many a nom de guerre
the bus riding infrequently,
as work no longer demands me,
I ride for the occasional occasion, when legs won’t
carry me the far away distances
they say violence in the city
is random, and just seems worse,
seemingly a newspaper creation,
but I know better, and random violence &
poetry inspiration do not walk or talk
hand in hand, not for the hands that write…
in every crack, lamppost,
festooned
with flyers for concerts years ago,
poems reached out to me, write, right?
I too am papered with memories of long-ago
city travels, picking up scenes & dreams
that became poems, instantaneously, scrambling,
to get home with them retained, untainted,
preserved with the freshness of city smells,
city swells, homeless, rowdies & oldies shuffling,
the interwoven of disparate desperate humans,
fodder once and now for Walt Whitman’s leaves,
each distinct needy for something else,
but for me,
just one city big view, a Cloister’s museum tapestry,
remade, rewoven anew every moment of every day
and a poem-rough tumbles from
without
&
within
,
Oct 24, 2023
Oct 24, 2023 at 8:55 AM UTC
Living in a car
in New York City
I hide underneath a tablecloth
which substitutes for a blanket
It is quite uncomfortable in the backseat
with that bump in the middle
pushing my lower ribs into my gut
as I lie on one side, and hide
Though so much better then the
cardboard box with news-papered roof
I once pretended, could protect me from
the rain
If only I could figure out the
alternate side of the street on
which to park
Nov 3, 2014
Nov 3, 2014 at 2:44 PM UTC
I soon noticed the Nature of your Smile
Even for Purpose that we have just Met
Still your Assignment to me was on-file
And Commitment the Creed which must be Set
Once that Moment I rejected my Cool
And caused some of my Friends to burn with me
Your Grin was there; Reminding me a Fool
To trade my Flesh for an Honest Duty
Are you a Promise, M'am? Not which must Break,
Then Tender the Papered Dread we all Fear
Yet this Nature-of-Calls are what Thoughts based
And tell our Clients what they want to Hear.
Poetry, my Madam, is not a Fad
Unless you open to the Moments you had.
Mar 9, 2013
Mar 9, 2013 at 7:12 AM UTC
I have no idea why that first line came to mind while I was indeed cleaning. I've not read Austen in years, nor watched movies in months.
(sonnet #MMMMMMMCDXLI)
Jane Austen's drawing rooms I'd feign avail
Me of, whose wainscot's polished oak is dense
With import as the papered walls from hence
Look smug; yes, take a turn in sheer betrayl
Across those gleaming floors, dressed ah, to scale
In empire-waist' floor-length is it pretense?
And for the *** of tea I'll sip for sense,
The dainty patterns on those walls' sweet bail.
Don't ask me why. In scrubbing bathrooms' tour,
I could not settle on just whither to
Until that note piqued languid thoughts as twere.
I've been there so oft for discussions through
Each novel, t'would be quite refreshing, poor
As fiction's vain suggestion, if'd could do.
11Oct18a
Oct 13, 2018
Oct 13, 2018 at 4:13 PM UTC
So That Others May Live
My son and I go down to the beach today
And lay claim to a small square of sand
Where we ***** a blue plantation of shade
Inside a red umbrella city founded by dermatologists.
Slow cooking like a pair of pork chops basted in SPF 30
He reads a Jack Reacher novel, myself the LA Times
Occasionally, he looks up from his book and shares a passage:
How about I show you the inside of an ambulance?
The girlfriend his from Kentucky has never been to the beach
She is ensconced in the best chair eating watermelon
Reading poetry by Rupi Kaur god bless her
She should have the best seat if she’s reading poetry.
People form Iowa and Minnesota you know the ones
In the parcel of sand between us and the ocean
Have lain towels and blankets far too near the tide line and
Come noon we enjoy their Midwestern diaspora to higher ground.
We body surf in waves that are bigger than they look
He wears the right fin and I wear the left
I bounce off the bottom and get my *** sand papered
Then tumble into him like a forgotten dollar bill in a wash machine.
In the parking lot laughing and spitting salt water
I pour a bucket of sand out of my wetsuit onto the hot asphalt
And realize it will never be this way again and it won’t
The lines in his face a perfect nautical map of the future.
Jul 18, 2017
Jul 18, 2017 at 12:31 AM UTC
*and i too thought the english banknotes were big,
but by god... have you seen imperial russian's
banknotes?! you could wipe you entire **** with one.*
no, i don't own an imperial russia's
banknote,
or a kopek dating pre 20th century
that Dostoevsky might have used to
gamble,
no, i don't own an imperial russia's
banknote with tsar Nicholas the 2nd's
face on it;
you can rob me all you want,
i think the banknote to be cursed...
a cursed luck of lost reason and logic...
but when i look at that all familiar face
and stare into the ageing face of elizabeth the 2nd...
i see papered ****** gravitating
to forfeit a chance of excelling in Olympics...
Olympics indeed, of muscles turned
into oyster mush... about to be exercised
in breathing exercises of forgotten
oxygen toxins...
no... i don't own imperial russia's banknote
with Tsar Nicholas 2nd's face on it;
i did tell you my maternal great-grandfather
spoke 7 languages, didn't i?
only bothersome and subsequently fake
nobleness stresses its point...
the true aristocrats suffer with enforced
ailments that only breed an exaggerated libido,
to quote myself... *i'd **** anything that moves
within the framework of the trinity of mouth
**** and **** my ******** are always
goosebumps frolicking to a tingle and i
just want to relax with an unloading of the content,*
i didn't read marquis de sade for no reason,
other than the quoted bibliography of
the marquis himself, having read books
using only one arm, with the other...
"making bookmarks", ha.
Feb 4, 2016
Feb 4, 2016 at 6:15 PM UTC
Musk. Wind
whispers mysteries in the form of it;
it thickens thin air until it turns black,
black enough to
hush. Wind,
being black, absorbs your thoughts,
makes violent curls of them; thickens,
thickens thin air until it
transmogrifies
into pages and pages
stained black with disaster-
as if a hurricane crumpled
those could-have been white aeroplanes, potential
papered to fly, and flung them
into the pit of your mind to
sink
deeper
and
deeper
and
deeper
until
your poems were written and the casualties numbered:
each line a suicide of a thought that could have been,
each syllable ink-stained and bloodied black
by artistic integrity, or madness: the same.
This wind is your hair.
This wind is your territory.
Not mine. Never could I have met you here,
in this place
of your solitary being: where real poets exist.
I am not a hurricane: and I am not your disaster.
I have learnt and re-learnt how useless it is to define you
in terms of myself; how useless it is to define you
at all. A rationalist like me can never truly understand
what it is to be part of your endlessness, the sheer
mountainous immensity that constitutes your thrill.
Yes,
your hair fascinates me as much as any ancient,
spiralling, far-away Andromeda- but the fact
that even now, I've already tried to limit you
with words
shows the absoluteness, the solidity,
the density
of my misunderstanding of your... your...
And
real poets know that rationalists are fools.
You know
I am a fool.
I write these meagre verses
with unreachably cold computer technologies
thinking
that these words could somehow save us. Yet,
simultaneously,
I am some drunken nuisance knocking
vehemently
at your door, who turns and strolls
away
right before you finally
answer.
I am a fool
going home and seeing clouds
in the darkness. It is my first
time seeing them in the sky. First
time in nearly a month.
The moon illuminates the clouds,
and so do
the towers of highway lights in the middle of two roads.
One road leads forward, the other backwards.
As the car passes the towers,
the two lamps attached to each of their heads glow.
They streak on as the car speeds on homewards.
They leave fading tails like shooting stars, except they do not travel.
They are stagnant mind lights, peripheral memories; unmythical,
artificial.
They are not like you.
When I pass you,
You....
You...
You.
Please,
never believe-
for even a whisper of musk
to yourself;
for even a black hush,
to yourself;
for even one sliver, one strand
of Andromeda hair, falling
towards yourself-
that
Grahamstown
didn't mean anything less than Eternity to me.
It does.
I am not a hurricane. I am not your disaster.
You are far too much of yourself
for me to be even a zephyr
to you.
Jul 29, 2015
Jul 29, 2015 at 2:58 PM UTC
Once pink now tawny wallpaper peels inside a closet, ballerina
dreams shucking off like husk. Little cartooned princesses cling.
Last holders-on from a 1950's design scheme with all good
intention, twirling memories glueyness is backed seemingly
to astound or perhaps dishearten. In "the boy's room," you
find in the closet an equally petrified, yet opposite motif papered.
It's animated baseball. I remember how quotes such as, "Never
let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game,"
did don those walls back in the day. I think it was Babe Ruth
attributed to that one. He and I were supposed to have shared
the same birthday, but I must confess, it stopped right there.
Eventually, that was all figured out, and I have no lamented
grievances for what parent's wishes were for their children's
would-be assigned roles. It was and is still popular to choose
decided decors as such. Who is to know how Bobby may envy
tiny dancers chosen for his sister's room or how Sue might prefer
basketball or even hockey? Even more politically correct
consciousness is a confusing choice. Who gets the dinosaurs
and who gets the daisies? In any case, no one papers the
closets anymore. So, when the time comes for cleaning out
old spaces and memories, future grudges might be less frequent.
Nov 24, 2015
Nov 24, 2015 at 1:28 PM UTC
**
papered white,
there is one wall in
his room of spines for
a muse. His beautiful
abstraction ~ carved
& polished ~
hung as his
hourglass;
Inverting
light & time
with a resonance
of understanding as
beads of fiction fall**
*Colouring other walls vibrant
these spines shine
with jewels
imbibing
his souls'
faceted
light
with
hope*
* * *free * *
her* * *
* *
Jun 21, 2013
Jun 21, 2013 at 8:07 AM UTC
Between the cool-quarried kitchen
and paint-faded south facing door
runs a windowless wall
sugar-papered with childhood dreams.
Memories of roughly folded gifts
squirreled in satchels,
crossed creases still intact;
curled corners fixed with shiny pins.
Luminescent paint heartens the darkness of a pitch grotto
anticipating a flicked switch
to illuminate dimmed histories
of abstract symbols, visionless figures and countless fingers.
The small pink fists that captured
Time's most precious pieces,
now live with vaguely painted hope
of sheering unsteady walls
in their uncertain world.
May 2, 2010
May 2, 2010 at 3:05 AM UTC
Like clockwork each day
Near the edge
Of the bay
A little old man arrives
He sits down in the grass
Watches boaters fly past
And fishers go on
With their lives
All around the people
Rush about in a hurry
Without a word or even
A stare
To a man with scarred skin
Papered over weak bone
Deep wrinkles
And snowy white hair
His name is James
Though I’m sure you don’t care
But once was a time it meant something
Somewhere
The war has been won
History left it behind
Yet it continues to play
Inside of James’ mind
Jun 1, 2016
Jun 1, 2016 at 5:40 PM UTC
Standing flaccid amidst the crowd
A leaning crystal, alone in the crowd
Mourning and notes, in cream they swirl
Confessions on scraps, to thieves and to girls
Dazzling that vanilla glow,
An open window lovely substrate
I see myself, though not as they see
Dialogues seeded by the beans of genius
All percolate, till the room is black drink
A hot pulchritude of flare and space
Aesthetic papered everywhere, on each and every face
My cosmos lined with little stars,
They, too, are so far away
And charming like a child.
Two engulfing waves lead me by the hand
Both sides can’t hear content
Though too much noise, it’s too quiet
The crystal stands, itself, lost in the crowd.
Sep 10, 2014
Sep 10, 2014 at 11:05 PM UTC
The
Dublin
strand
is papered
in wind,
my old
book
renewed
into
romance.
I love her.
Pen
scratches
the
whole
page
black,
& variant
sprawls
of my
name
repeat
until I
own a
house.
Sister
& I
in dad's
old car
head
up to
Petworth,
& walk
back
under
a sky
that
rolls
& folds,
a bolt
of cloth.
Break
new trees
on the
prison
island,
handcuffs
of ivy,
jump
the fence
& escape
to the
highway.
In
Georgetown,
lush reeds
wave from
the canal
bottom,
easting
in the
chartreuse.
Then cross
to Dupont,
thronged
with
day-enders
and students
shifting
from
coffee to
*****
as the
hour rises.
Scheherazade
cancels,
but I make
the best
of it,
writing at
the bar
next to
the girl
in leatherette.
The day
ends
with me
fighting
the pharmacy
of my
sleepy
blood
while I
break
the bed
I always
hated
and
throw it
into the
orange.
Day's done.
Another
year to
come.
Thinking
of her -
sleep.
Apr 12, 2019
Apr 12, 2019 at 2:58 AM UTC
She wrote your name on her paper heart
Swore to hold you close
But you could not see fragility
Under blue skies, rain, or smoke
And just like that she tried to hide
The rip, the tear, the pain
Your gushing river tore her apart
Like papered artwork in the rain.
- c.t.
Oct 4, 2015
Oct 4, 2015 at 1:29 PM UTC