"parallax" poems
poem in two parts (a plane and bird)
You are a sound in still silence; a point against negative space toward which my eye is drawn. The sun set, peeking beneath a blanket of storm clouds, painting the underside, as a plane, an infinitesimal photon, a plane flew as an impossible pinprick of optimistic light, moving slowly against the immense parallax backdrop of bright and hazy pink-orange glowing thunder clouds. You are the first breath I took. You are the product of all infinities, divided by itself, the sum of all integers. When the earth falls into the sun, long after humans left, long after you left, and any recognizable trace of you is swallowed, your memory will persist. You will have still lived; You will have been the last breath I took.
A fulcrum of loss and a wedge between two equally lost people, but between them, between them still a bird, flying farther than any eye can see, but should the lights of the lighthouses lose you against their foggy panes, or should the salty wind dash you against something equally heavy, call out, and cast your voice into the sky, upon the sea, and against the stars, and maybe its echoes will live a little longer than you.
Dec 24, 2015
Dec 24, 2015 at 5:27 PM UTC
Umbrage ultraism infrangible extemporaneous incognito edition
Penumbral platitude platonic proxy photics rendition
Interface fenestration imbroglio pandemonium inducement sedition
Wretched infelicitous extant trajectory sordid intuition
Scandalous scavenger squalid anomalous punitive condition
Panacea chiaroscuro parallax emanate imminent perdition
Equilibrist revision exertion suborn temerity imbues
Indulgent zealous discrepancy apparentness cogitation accrues
Heuristic noumenal psychokinesis extrapolation incursion construes
Aura auspicious primitive prism processional reviews
Obstinate tenacious preeminent edificatory omnipotence eschews
Equivocal gumption ratification constitutional manumission ensues
Delusory apparition extravagance peccavi verity tempestuous
Obtrusive obtusely overt indemnities sagaciously obliquitous
Ephemeral anxiety antonym existential exigency alacritous
Fortuitous emendation phantasm ontological ontogeny acuitous
Indemnify veracious infernal infidel impunities iniquitous
Meritorious fulham presumptive extrication expiation indigenous
Jan 13, 2013
Jan 13, 2013 at 9:20 PM UTC
_[northern hemisphere: on a beach above the 50th latitude at the end of winter]_
_(Winter-export)_, the beach frosted by fingers of polar constellations. It’s too cold to walk without huddling, but we do it nonetheless, because we only have one more night together. Your frothy hydro-rhythm spears into pith, irradiance; I breathe again, deeply. _(Thick lips; quick still-hunt.)_ I rivet fronds of dependence into the seams of your boreal palms, never planning to return the floating colony of barnacles I promised I’d throw back; you, never planning to catch the sun bored through salt spray, clasping crisp foreheads, stitching on glistered lips and froze-shut lashes. And on a day when you didn’t rise early enough, I was left out in the water until my chest was steeped deep in ice over the thought of losing you. _(Glimmering isle)_; my hair disheveled in sea-foam. Annular light. You pushed me in, and I relented. My isotherm sent chthonically. But you, in your legendary mantle, adapted my eyes to see the light hidden deep within your belt; such pinks and fuchsias I have never seen before, suddenly inverted. At absolute velocity, I cut my foot on sea-glass, bleeding blueshift, aligning to the colours of the zenith. You take me back to the starry house and we struggle with your parallax, a nadir inseminated on the celestial pole. _(Parsecs quaking.)_ You whisper, I’ll heal you. I’ll heal you, only if you let me. Only if… you let me… Over and over and over until it’s as mundane as the crashing coast, and unrivaled, I concede to everything and wake up deep in redshift, the whole universe escaping, warmth-ribbons suffocating the abyss: without you, alone on the ecliptic at last. In the spring-sinking, you order me a silver sword, sharp in starlight; to remember you. You stand a guardian, beyond the sun, flinging tiny ice-hot rocks _(freighting gemstones)_; King of the Heavens. I submerge myself into the bathic depths, skulking in aestival despair, as you trade the night for day. Little do you know, my resurgence is also in your hands.
_[i watched Orion slip from view every night this spring. No doubt he’ll return next winter... it’s sad losing a friend like that, for so long]_
May 25, 2014
May 25, 2014 at 3:07 AM UTC
I
I wish I’d seen it sooner, you are parallax,
Your lipstick fooled me for so long, you catalyst,
You trapped me in my own heart, you are Calypso,
I kept my fears hidden behind a mental citadel,
You tore it down, your touch was selcouth,
But only to me, you were too beautiful, you are kalopsia
II
Even your fingernails lied, you are kalopsia,
I shouldn’t come down from cloud nine, this parallax
Should’ve been more apparent, not selcouth,
Not how I thought it, you are TNT, a catalyst,
You demolish with your winks, even my citadel
Fell before you, but you still kept me in, you are Calypso.
III
Tell everyone you’re real, you are Calypso,
You are not a myth, you are simply kalopsia,
A breathtaking lie, you didn’t need a citadel,
Nobody could break you anyway, you are parallax,
But you’re evil at all angles, you are the catalyst
Of all things lonely, this no longer feels selcouth.
IV
You are kalopsia, the gorgeous catalyst.
You are parallax, wrecking citadels.
You are not selcouth; you are Calypso.
Jan 31, 2014
Jan 31, 2014 at 12:49 PM UTC
I'm so lonely
for someone I
can be alone with
a million tongue notes
flicked upon a rogue
scale of silence
echoing unsaids
across flesh parallax
seeing you seeing me
is enough, it's so much
I can barely handle it
and it all stays
in mouth
or drips
down the corners
where I lick
May 5, 2017
May 5, 2017 at 9:22 PM UTC
Umbrage ultraism infrangible extemporaneous incognito edition
Penumbral platitude platonic proxy photics rendition
Interface fenestration imbroglio pandemonium inducement sedition
Wretched infelicitous extant trajectory sordid intuition
Scandalous scavenger squalid anomalous punitive condition
Panacea chiaroscuro parallax emanate imminent perdition
Equilibrist revision exertion suborn temerity imbues
Indulgent zealous discrepancy apparentness cogitation accrues
Heuristic noumenal psychokinesis extrapolation incursion construes
Aura auspicious primitive prism processional reviews
Obstinate tenacious preeminent edificatory omnipotence eschews
Equivocal gumption ratification constitutional manumission ensues
Delusory apparition extravagance peccavi verity tempestuous
Obtrusive obtusely overt indemnities sagaciously obliquitous
Ephemeral anxiety antonym existential exigency alacritous
Fortuitous emendation phantasm ontological ontogeny acuitous
Indemnify veracious infernal infidel impunities iniquitous
Meritorious fulham presumptive extrication expiation indigenous
Oct 12, 2017
Oct 12, 2017 at 9:10 AM UTC
1286
I thought that nature was enough
Till Human nature came
But that the other did absorb
As Parallax a Flame—
Of Human nature just aware
There added the Divine
Brief struggle for capacity
The power to contain
Is always as the contents
But give a Giant room
And you will lodge a Giant
And not a smaller man
2.2k
in perfect motion, lost in time,
I subdivide the outer lines.
the enigmatic parallax;
dilation of the centered mind.
microbial in grander schemes,
my breath is born to exit me,
inhale the holy entity;
become the dreams
in vivid scheme.
intrinsic shapes of destiny
envelop my entire being;
a calculated entropy
that grants subconscious unity.
magnified, this smoke will bleed
into my every living deed,
tied into every breath i breathe
I stretch my being; exude peace.
I’m only what I dream to be,
as I ask myself to pray for me.
May 6, 2013
May 6, 2013 at 5:37 PM UTC
Your aspect ratio’s wrong.
Stretching the truth
this long sows fertile ground
for artifacts, glitches,
quirks & bugs, worming
& squirming beneath pixel
shrugs. The worst kind
plump the frame to god-
awful proportions, bloating
bigger & bigger & bigger ‘til
vision’s engulfed.
Or the kind that squeeze
spaghetti confetti onto
our plates, drenched in
the Sauce of the Week
that “can’t be beat!”.
Your skewed parallax
attacks the facts at hand.
Recycle your *******
fax machine this second before
it grows smarter than
you. Yes, you—with the rolly
polly eyes & feint surprise—
quit pretending you’re dumb,
'cause you ain’t that numb
to the stings & pangs of change.
Your sloppy hacks produce
quantity @ the cost of quality
to benefit the greedy & satisfy
the needy, becoming seedy
to the logic of reason.
Correct your inputs to render
outputs worth tender & please
remember, it’s what’s within
the frame that’s important,
so get it right.
Sep 23, 2010
Sep 23, 2010 at 7:29 PM UTC
Bare face, full moon, we danced in irony.
With swollen eyes, anticipating dawn,
We jumped to the abyss for clarity.
Succumbing, you were fighting and withdrawn.
Swirling and twisting aimlessly, I fell.
Flaming broken bones, soaring hastily.
Your eyes pierced through me, a poisonous spell.
Damp cheeks, bitter tongue – growing vacancy.
Come hither, frightening solace of dusk,
Darkness echoed your face in paragraphs.
Part these lips with punctuations and brusque,
Poignant blank verse, depicting parallax.
Second crescent came, it was disaster.
You vanished in thin air, my sought after.
Mar 10, 2015
Mar 10, 2015 at 1:41 AM UTC
he missed the days when he could sit down and relax
a paradox
a parallax
the stories of youth and tales of old
the nights of flame and soot and coals
colors blurred and faces too
he needs a way to get him through
the night is his home but the day is too long
so he spreads his worth till the yawn of dawn
and he gets by because he needs to
he's gotta prove them wrong
a soul who has been flushed
but the drain is clogged
they would have let him go
but hearts are softer now then ever before
travis was a wise man who got caught up in the feel
now *** and mary j replace his every meal
Apr 8, 2012
Apr 8, 2012 at 12:17 AM UTC
It's September; cold in the copses,
Feverish in the kitchen.
The sink clinks and exorcises
The china like an Italian sonata.
My lips merge into ether
At the sky, a periwinkle parallax
With the pork lard carbon monoxide
Clouds, at drive with suicide.
My Buddha hisses at the window,
Ripping the tentacles off weedy carrots.
The knives are clever & precise
Hiding in their handled shoals
Like luminescent Jackanapes
Out for the thrill of the ****
The **** of the stake of steak,
A 'Cow'ardly act.
I wrap the red & dead
Into a Beef Wellington.
It is not pretty at all;
But neither am I.
I'll drink tea to keep my peace,
Swallow my spirituality like a pain killer.
The teabag sags its straggled string,
Scolding me.
The pillbox is dead on the edge
Of the ornamented kitchen sill
A lot like me; sullen and teasing.
I wanted to roast my head like a potato
If the pudding *** over boiled,
A cauldron of sugar and cream
Fattening me ugly and crazy.
The weather is miserable; I mustn't lie,
It's enough to make any young woman want to die.
Stirring my thoughts with the dishes,
Trashing potato peels like my wishes.
And the stacks and stacks of kill-me pills
Surround like troops in their barricade cupboards.
I have no allies,
Everyone is asleep;
I curl up like a fat snail and weep
Blackening the words of the miracle-working Priest.
Feb 3, 2014
Feb 3, 2014 at 8:56 PM UTC
Open eyes
With sun's rise
Rouge roused room
Four by six box
Satin lined
Episcopal ritual,
Bury the dead
Mother, Father
Don Apache garb
Hymnal hummed
Candle lit
How could nature see this fit
Suspended
From casket
Rise
And rise
And rise
Above autumn leaves
Struck with vigor
And love unobtained
Taunting with every flick of the wrist
Breeze blows through hair
I rise
And rise
And rise
Far above atmospheric scene
Aesthetics please
Sculpted by hands pure and clean
Mountains and sea
Gifted unto me
Love unrestrained
Rise
And rise
And rise
Celestials gleam
Forever in a day
A glimpse I've obtained
Descend
And descend
And descend
To gift bestowed
To forest spring
Nestled in
Mother's green
Descend
To casket
Forever in sleep
Forever in dreams
Open eyes
Rise
And rise
And rise
May 1, 2014
May 1, 2014 at 11:49 PM UTC
If the world were flat I would argue
there would be more suicides,
Jumping from the edge of the earth.
The act would somehow be more redeemable
Than say, swimming into a concrete walkway.
City crews wouldn’t have to wash the mess
and children wouldn’t see the naked truth.
The news could do an expose
On this trendy new trend
In the inward homicidal debauchery.
I imagine the lower three miles would be much like purgatory
The pale-blue breath holders
With their glass frozen eyes
All floating in the under earth
Not sliced and bleeding,
Or comatose from pills,
Or lessening the brain via bullet,
Or gas like Plath,
Not even rope burn from a hangman’s noose.
No if the world were flat, they would be floating.
Some stitched with government satellites
Payment in the mail for their families.
Why yes there are other benefits too
Like executions,
Orbital burial and visits,
even gps tracking.
But I am no sales man
You should talk to
Samuel Birley Rowbotham
He holds a parallax
Between history and accounting.
Feb 24, 2011
Feb 24, 2011 at 10:19 PM UTC
No. 1
there is a pane of glass
which now occupies the air between us
an indifferent arrow has flown through it
leaving a web of cracks
for which I am trapped
reaching for you
No. 2
the light you bend reaches across room
the same distance travels your voice
it makes me a ghost not to touch you with all that I am
exhaling wanting in your direction
as stars are brought down over head
by the weight of unfulfilled wishes
No. 3
victim to a whisper
pious to an echo
tomorrow I'll be swallowed
I didn't even need a name
lost and unwanted things are entitled
to each other so long as they don't hide
no. 4
it's an open hand
it's a broken window
it's a perpetually naive sky
it's off beat but we're out of line
and I'm waiting for you
one hundred percent of the time
no. 5
out of context
misshapened in parallax
past my expiration date
but you looked at me in a way that dared both of us to exist
when all this is dust
the loudest we'll ever get to be is a secret
May 18, 2015
May 18, 2015 at 4:08 AM UTC
small flock of doves in velvet sky
seven sisters in the crisp night air
these old girls are hot, blue, luminous
ancient constellation between the bull's horns
a parallax of stars.
the sisters are crones at last
huddled together for warmth
their pale aura a dime-store
blueing trick. their wise eyes
wrinkled as elephants, their
expanding memories ascending
the cosmic ladder
into oblivion
Mar 2, 2012
Mar 2, 2012 at 11:28 AM UTC
trim and clipped,
a puff on sheets and—
oh my—a parallax
fairies down like
cars being pulled
across an ocean.
I ate you.
three times ten to the
power of light, a cobalt
yellow and megaton
of arum lilies
wreathing your
apple’s bottom.
Jun 30, 2017
Jun 30, 2017 at 8:34 AM UTC
the body of the name lying naked on the tongue
the touch of rust
the sunset at the change of the season
the sea coming home to a lonely shore
the lips asking for more, the ears the amorous organs
emptied of echoes, the cities built on bones
from scrambled noise emerges syntax
that conjugates attraction in parallax
and someone or not-one spoke a metonymy of solicitude
in the beginning in the end, in the garden in the ruins
events ever fragile, encounters that were almost nothing
the hounding difference between a thing and a word
between us and us
between the data, the predictions thereof
and the unexpected
that we have not yet learned to trust
the body unspoken, the touch untranslatable
May 6, 2016
May 6, 2016 at 5:47 AM UTC
Your childhood dream
Your teenage dream
Your 20s dream
Your 30s dream
Your 40s dream
Your 50s dream
Measure them in decades
Transfixed before a distorted hall of mirrors
A cycling fun-house
While presidents come and go
Parachute pants, bomber jackets, bangs
When you’re drifting off to sleep
What feeling awakens in your heart?
What small feet run across your translucent landscapes
Cubists blocks of what might have been
Twisting , reforming…, parallax
Like Etcher in motion, Inception
Dark cities floating overhead while eclipses burn red
Do your hands tremble with rage or with despair?
Or do you lie perfectly still, resigned
Practicing for your casket
Selfies of your head sinking into starched pillows
You’re responsible now
Clerks and coroners pat you on the back
The least you can be is responsible
Hunting down dreams in dreary forests
With bow knives and bandanas
Is foolish
Better to fill out your W2s
Calculate your interest and help with homework
Don’t be selfish
Let others burning with madness, desire and discontent
Dream for you
Shape the future for you
Preferable to be content
An anti-pioneer To Nest in paperclips and razors
Satisfied with consolation prizes, Ms. Congeniality
To sink silently down the toilet of trivialities
Floating listlessly like a ****
Flushed out into the polluted ocean of time
But let us not dwell on dreams
Let us drill, let us dance, let us down
Korean BBQ and snap-shot sunsets
Never mind the shadows swirling
Through you, deepening with every tock
Civilization calls - You must be integrated.
Not like days of yore
On the hunt
But wrenched into a mechanical maelstrom
Input into a coded vision
An alien incubator zooming through metallic tubes
You are an app
Of Aborted dreams
Of pragmatic passiveness
Fingered by millions of strangers
To **** time and hope
Jul 23, 2016
Jul 23, 2016 at 6:59 PM UTC
I am a wax wife
a parallax
a displacement of his
true love.
My position of wife
is viewed from
two lines of sight,
his and mine.
Our views are skewed
yet we remain
the same.
I'd like to relax in
His arms
as a flesh and bone
solid woman.
But, knowing you're
one of the ranks
rankles, causes
jealousy and hate
makes me want
to plant
an axe
in his head.
Time to smooth the
cracks in the wax.
Apr 28, 2014
Apr 28, 2014 at 12:36 PM UTC
The city's a blur
ceasless
as the rotation of night
into speeding flight...
a parallax.
This town's deranged
greasy
like the hands of perverts
afterhours.
I don't understand
that you're still here,
Mystere'
while nothing happens
in this billboard valley
with its mannequin loves
and ****** students;
nothing comes of this
dustbowl
with Christmas blinking in the center
and promises on the cusp
of learning / curves
say Huh?
I know, you say
there's a fabulous place
beneathe
the buzzing web of profits
its busy electric streets
business of passing feet
a wonderful niche
besides
the lions and tigers and Cher
(Oh My!)
secrets only you would know
of its afterglow
because you call it
home.
Dec 10, 2015
Dec 10, 2015 at 12:26 AM UTC
The sun rose pink over Lancaster;
Its frozen rains came quick in tow—
Here, we sense the passive and the active:
To take the drag or pull:
He is dragged by the way of the automatic hand-to-mouth;
The Other, is my command—
But that, even, impelled snowfully toward
A closed fist, a locked grasp, an unwilling departure.
I suggest a dislocation somewhere in parallax:
Take paper dimensions and fold them 104 times
And everything flattens out—
The ocular inversion becomes like-real; I’ll swim in that!
Puddles are dragged by the wind, whilst the pull thinks in spite
Of I, its strange corpus of author, and opus
Drags to the creature of appetite deign to call to order.
But a power powerless to its name given it:
Destined desiring of sunnier metaphors—
The alcoves of the thread, brought to just us
Caesuras of what satisfies, in food, in just us
The depth of image holds true: one cannot live on bread alone.
Thus, I muse and mull back to locks of hair and bellybuttons
Waiting, in time—the deepening of time’s cloth
Where my hand caresses her thigh—
One can feel the gravity pressing on the heart,
All the love that self-reflects, combs out the wrinkles,
And has faith in the good inertia.
By this secular host consubstantiate
And Other (surely a pleasing affair) is but moments away.
And she and I look so pretty together,
Our is of whom and what and the third conditional.
That which presses upon itself, the one dimension,
Cannot disentangle from name or alliance, nor faith,
Greedily picking at the oily ruptures, effulging in transparence,
Contradictions care not for astrology,
And whether you are poetry
Is not important here.
Mar 10, 2015
Mar 10, 2015 at 9:01 AM UTC
Do not take her to the city
The building and lights she’ll see
Their stellar parallax no more
between you and such grandeur
Skyscrapers and your back
Bridges’ tracks and your fingers
Hungry people and the look in your eyes
She’ll fall in love with the city,
and she’ll fall in love with you
The city is her dream
In which you took part
Another tall building in her heart
You became to her
as eternal as this city, pure
Later on,
when you are gone
Because of the past
The city’s joy won’t last
Do not take her to the city
Its magic isn't meant for you
to use
Because soon,
she’ll love you, too.
Dec 12, 2014
Dec 12, 2014 at 2:50 AM UTC
Introvert
Inverse, retrace, replay
Cloven hooves
Humans trace
Flooded sod
Amidst vines
Foliage flawed
Decay, dismay, displace
Contort
Exhort
Jubilee
Changing mask
******* flee
Inverse, retrace, replay
Retort on a whim
Falling branch
Rotted limb
Draw and release
Spirit's scream
Resounds throughout
Arid peace.
No alert
Vivid leaks crimson
Monotonous chant
Parts silence like
Rabid sea
Urgency nonchalant
"X" hails the chief
Betrayed by rays
Stagnant and serene
Immovable husk
Found in it's sleep.
May 1, 2014
May 1, 2014 at 11:48 PM UTC