"paralleling" poems
The best places are hidden
like stones in central park
secret roof top not
accessible except
for the morning staff
overnight, the sheer weight
of moonlight
paralleling through a Brooklyn
window pours on
to a frozen floor of
patterned tiles
where touches are like
turning on a lamp
dimly at first. Flickers
a bit then
bright as Chicago (1871)
Sep 10, 2014
Sep 10, 2014 at 8:01 PM UTC
The sky resembles the robin's eggshells
scattered across the ground,
a blue so seemingly infinite yet fragile,
cracks running between understanding and madness
complementing each other
as divine truths in their own right
to conquer my mind,
to unhinge the doors,
making it unnecessary to pick rusted locks
letting thoughts fly free,
releasing love out into the horizon.
If frozen within caged snapshots of mildewed expectations,
it will surely die,
but even so,
I was willing to strangle it by holding on too tightly.
Until I saw the sky and eggshells today
Peppered clouds reflected on the water,
paralleling speckles on the eggshells,
remind me of the freckles on your face.
We need to be wide-open-free,
we need to fly,
without focusing too hard on shells of yesterdays.
We need to unclench our fists,
unclench our tongues,
explore the vast blue peppered sky
on wings of letting go....
so that we can once again feel with purity,
so that we can hold each other ever closer.
05.24.12
May 24, 2012
May 24, 2012 at 3:02 PM UTC
I stare out into a Bob Ross painted sky, drifting in and out of a black and white dream
Watching colors fade away and appear as I open my eyes, the scenes played out in front of me challenge my beliefs
I get lost in the shadows of an evil that seems to dwell, it's trapped too deep inside me to hope for anything
Like a movie playing, I can't seem to tell, which character is the most related to me
I'm an on and off switch trapped in a tornado warning of emotions I can't begin to understand
Stuck between two paralleling lines I can no longer command
I couldn't tell you how fast I'm going or if I'm even really here
And as the paint drys on my life, an unfinished product is my only fear
Jul 1, 2016
Jul 1, 2016 at 5:56 PM UTC
I'm not taken aback by the beauty of the sun or moon.
But that's okay, at least I've learned in time that there are very little differences between objects labeled mine and days considered wasted time. Entitlement is a false concept paralleling a religious purgatory.
That's not the point anyways. I'm left with unbearable heat and a pool of thoughts best resembling some sort of molten pudding left out in the sun for weeks of stifling inattention.
Let it just be known that the smell was not my intention.
Regardless of what fills your nostrils ephemerally, keep in mind that this stench haunts me perpetually. It's apathy towards my sensitive skull stifles me. It's as if I was able to just shake off these shadow-inducing invaders like a bad habit. But no matter how much you try to **** a shadow, it's always there following you. Breathing on you. Casting oxygen upon your neck until there's nothing but sweat and fear left to expose.
With such an affinity to what darkness lies behind me, there are few words to authentically compose.
How can I continue? How can the beat stay in rhythm and my words stay in tune when I'm a butterfly stuck in a cocoon? If these hollowed walls could speak I bet they'd entertain the idea on meaningless entrapment.
Go now. My words for this horrid state of mind have run dry. They do nothing but mask themselves and then exponentially multiply.
So leave me for the beauty of the sun and the moon. I'll never wish anything more than a simple, concurrent release of everyone from his or her respective cocoon.
Aug 10, 2015
Aug 10, 2015 at 12:33 PM UTC
I respect my body.
The same way I respect my house.
My red brick skin
Blushed with flowing blood
From my space-heater heart
My air-conditioner lungs I have routinely maintained
With long drawn out breathes of cool wind
I have protected my house with toxic pockets
Of termite poison
To protect my wooden frame
And I hang up pictures of love ones with
Nails inside tattoo guns that spell out their names
And I paint my home’s walls with different shades
Of colors to bring out its ascetic value
Like how I use blue eye-shadow so my guests
Can better see my eyes, bright blue
I eat vitamins like I vacuum my carpet
Cleaning up and persevering its worth
The ting-tang sound of a working vacuum
Paralleling the pitter-patter of those circular pills
As they fall down my throat
I seasonally change out my couches and my chairs
When I go to my mirror and tie-up my hair
A different look for a different season
Because my house deserves a separate look too
For when it feels the wind changing
And like myself my house would rather not be bare
So I dress it in marigolds and poppy flowers
And ivy that I have to cut down when I notice it growing too fast
Because like my house I am too beautiful to be covered completely
Each shrub I trim another inch of skin I can share
And I respect it when I get home
I say just a little bit
More skin at the top
To show off my brick house.
May 23, 2012
May 23, 2012 at 1:27 PM UTC
We have forgotten.
With glorified technological advances,
comes the silent social issues that are paralleling in complexity.
"We're the kids of the future."
Will there be kids in the future?
Oct 29, 2014
Oct 29, 2014 at 1:32 AM UTC
Tensions build,
Issues turn to tissues,
and you fold into your fears.
The calls turns to cries,
you were so happy
The downward scrawl of your note,
paralleling the downward spiral of
your life.
so full of potential
In physics class we learned to calculate the force of tension for a rope weighed down by a mass.
I got a 96% and a full scholarship to our dream school.
Working towards my PhD.
My thesis you ask?
"Predicting the force of tension for a rope weighed down by a mass."
But sadly
you just
can't
stop
gravity.
Apr 28, 2013
Apr 28, 2013 at 7:01 PM UTC
When the light from the darkness shine's in bright like a diamond, paralleling your face is the
reflecting the moon light off your, sparkling eye's, My heart starts to beat. Our eye's
locked in love, embracing holding each other, separating only with a tug, only his arm's do you ever feel,so much love affection dreams paragliding,in forever changing winds inside my mind, Blank pictures began to feel, with seductive images that cloud the mind like a stormy day.
pillow's began to pop! as the goose feathers fall down like snow flakes on a
white Xmas,our body's began trusting sweat start to poor,we breath simultaneously as one hot oiled up hands wont stop moving across your tight but fluffy frame that keeps calling my name echoing between the sheets/ free at last/ free at last/ thank God almighty we are free at last .
Dec 4, 2013
Dec 4, 2013 at 8:07 PM UTC
Shadows.
In all directions I look,
I am surrounded by shadows
that make it hard for me
to decipher the dissemblance
when my eyes are wide open
and when they are sealed shut.
Darkness hovers over me
like it is fused with the air I am breathing;
suffocating me and making me gasp
for the unseen
that is imperative to keep me subsisting.
It seems that my lungs
turn into two small plastic bags
that need to be refilled
every quarter of a second
regardless of how abysmal
I drag air into my system.
With each breath I take
paralleling each time that passes,
I drift farther and farther away into oblivion.
Maybe this is how it feels
to dispossess yourself
and let the phantom take over
what is left of you.
Maybe this is how it feels
to be lost and remain unsought.
Yet even with treacherous memory I now have,
there is still a fragment that fails to vanish.
It is the fragment that remembers
the glimmer that used to keep the darkness away.
The scintillation that awakened love, hope, and faith
that lounged within me.
The light.
My light.
You.
Oct 24, 2013
Oct 24, 2013 at 4:42 AM UTC
I turned the unopened pages of your book
to the fire blazing chapter filled with chaotic
diction, scrambled alliteration, sinking similes,
jumbled metaphors, piercing personifications,
raging landscapes tumbling into shrunken
shadows, clouds of tormenting destruction
surfacing in the darkness, thundering asteroids
blasting down upon fiery dimensions, creeping
demons ******* the blood deep within lifeless souls,
vicious animals gnawing on scattered strips of flesh
across the sunken graveyard, hovering bats circling
the horizon in search of their next fallen angel, as
my eyes drifted deeper into the inner core of your
magnificent work, how my eyelids faded into the sharp
edges of your reach, how my smooth suntanned skin
became a hard-splintering wood, its grainy texture
a paralleling frame of your flaming design, the way
I could feel every part of my presence losing the
blossoming beauty within my canvas, the way as
I continued reading your captivating creation,
my anger amplified a thousand times,
mind bottled thoughts became a wrecking
ball of burning flames.
Jul 23, 2018
Jul 23, 2018 at 9:48 PM UTC
nana,
my love for you is immeasurable. i hold you with fierce love, packed into a brief and firm hug. i try to put all those years of pure love you've had for me and this entire family in a quick brush of my lips to your cheek. i hold you as if it was the last. i've never felt more joy than seeing you at the dinner table, smiling when i gave you some of the hot cocoa i made. hot cocoa, i know. it probably meant nothing to you, just another night at the dinner table. but in that moment, i understood.
i made that hot cocoa with love and i understood why you spent all those years on your feet, hunched over a huge *** of tinola. sinigang. mungo. pancit. i understood the love you put into everything you do, paralleling the love you have for this family.
i remember your face lighting up after taking that first sip. you're diabetic, believe me, i know. sugar is a privilege and your diet is strict. seeing you, with your hands wrapped around the mug and your smile lighting up your eyes. i saw youth. i saw happiness. you laughed. and i did too.
i know i haven't been the greatest granddaughter to you, and i'm sure i'll think of 500 ways i've wronged you in the future. but i just want to immortalize my sentiment, even if you'll never read this. i know i've strayed from tradition. i know i've took the opposite fork in the road. i know i'm not who you hoped i would be. but i also know that regardless you're still proud and that you love me. i just want you to know how much i love you too. and how i hope you understand. i love you.
Jan 23, 2016
Jan 23, 2016 at 2:41 AM UTC
Exhaling
Grey grumbling
Storm clouds
You sit
So artistically
Arms and legs folded
You form beautiful human origami
With your elegant thinness
Paralleling paper
So enchanting I almost forget
You are not impervious to cancer
Nudging that thought to the back of my cortex
I allow myself to drift with the smoke
And tumbling out of your mouth
I drift onwards, upwards
Away
Lazily but surly
Step outside
This time when you exhale
It’s the air in your lungs
once again I cling to
Anything from you
Even something as empty as this air
So for a moment we’re frozen
Transfixed
Hanging without context
Sitting out in the cold
Things become clearer
You can see the product
Of working lungs
And unblocked trachea
Carbon monoxide
I call upon lessons and remember
This is also poisonous
And that some folks
Breathe fire to earn a living
Wonder if you could be the first
Greatly acclaimed poison breather
Feb 5, 2011
Feb 5, 2011 at 6:23 PM UTC
The wind chill in March
was at its *** end,
the sun in the east
half lit the murkier sky
of that morning
the cloudy patterns
seen through brittle and brown
branches
of the maple trees,
surrounded
a weird silence of forlorn.
the birds left
their broken nests,
flew away to the far end,
paralleling man's flying machine.
It was a scenic beauty,
blended with
technology and ecology.
Yet, the nature's creation
competed with man’s,
a bird from the flock,
plunged down
ablaze, ripped apart
plaintively,
with a sound.
Narinder
Mar 28, 2016
Mar 28, 2016 at 8:04 PM UTC
I dream of
Spreading my wings
Lifting up high
°•Above the trees
Flying freely
~•°Gliding the breeze
Swooping up
°•~Plummeting low
with ease°•
Paralleling the ground
Knowing only one purpose
°•Exploration of life
Soaring through the sky
Whistling peace in my sound°•
₩€ND¥
Jun 27, 2022
Jun 27, 2022 at 10:25 AM UTC
She drove aimlessly, but with care, to not disturb the approaching gravel or oncoming headlights from the south bound, or perhaps the straggling pedestrian wobbling down the crosswalk. She knew they did not understand, nor care about the inner lining, the depths, the abyss, of her memories.
The birds would continue to cleanse the air with song, the bitter city folk would continue to curse the morning dove’s sweet coos, and she would suffer silently in the driver’s seat. Surrounding herself each new day, the same routine, with those who succumb to the hatred and green envy clouding their reality. Them always awaiting her next move, two steps ahead.
She sees them swiftly maneuver in between traffic, blinded to danger, their heads enveloped into the next hour. Because what was next was all that mattered. And her input was useless. They critiqued her longing for the past, while they lusted for the thought of minutes passing by.
Still, she proceeded with caution down the cluttered streets, growing more nervous on the edge of each minute. That she might possibly disrupt a neighboring worrier struggling to cross the street. She’d wonder if they would do the same.
She’d wonder if they would cherish every lasting lullaby from the nearest traffic jam. She’d wonder if they worry about finishing their 24 hours too quickly, or not quick enough.
Or would they cause the head-on collision, colliding two paralleling worlds in this puzzle of an inverted reality, leaving only the faint whisper of tomorrow’s early evening rush hour.
Aug 11, 2015
Aug 11, 2015 at 9:18 AM UTC
A Poem on hearing the voice of nature
The open field
Bordered by firs elders
Covered in blooming
Lemon clover
Left space
Inside this vast openness
I set down my burdens
My worries
& discomforts
And the burlap
they rode in on
What was left was
clear azure sky
Holding a new sound
authored by birds
Toby’s
soft breath
Inside this dome of space
Oh most definitely,
dogs speak
in the secret language
translated by those
who love them beyond
logic
The sun shoots a cannon
across the ridgeline of the trees
paralleling the emerald horizon
Pouring golden syrup over the eastern trunks
of exhausted autumn trees
The sunrise casts a spotlight
over
this magical stage
pulling back the curtain
over the
enchanted valley floor
Dec 1, 2020
Dec 1, 2020 at 3:16 PM UTC
All great gifts,
accompanied by commensurate burden.
Education – confinement:
locked in a covert cage,
screams for change drowned by cacophony.
Power – greed:
prioritization of ego,
addicting, no rehab.
Love – pain:
relations binding ones heart,
only to pull apart.
Yet paralleling these agonies,
real terrors exist.
Death, deceit, despare,
prevalent in millions.
Yet these remain in the smog,
obscured by our own complaints.
However, humans possess unique strength:
the ability to instigate change.
First in our own small world,
and then in the one so large.
Feb 23, 2018
Feb 23, 2018 at 12:58 AM UTC