"parenthetical" poems
I’ve written words since I found out that those graphite sticks
could form them and wrote my name
on the top of a kleenex box
when I was four.
I’ve written words since I learned that each one
held a meaning I could hear in my head.
I’ve written words since I realized that writing
releases them from my mind,
so that I can hear myself think.
I’ve written words because numbers run away from me,
just out of grasp, teasing me with
their teamwork and rigid cooperation
and parenthetical expressions.
I’ve written words never read by anyone,
words which embarrass with their frankness
words which I’ve burned thinking they would die.
I’ve written words which I longed to share
because they fit together better than numbers
and made my skin crawl with their
deliciousness.
Jul 3, 2012
Jul 3, 2012 at 3:07 PM UTC
No parenthetical this time in my rhyme, I'll lie flat the baseline like, Here are my cards, bro. Take a look at them all, bro. Get started with just the light kinds of gospel like, Bro, did you know I got a **** down there? Taken aback you say, What? Bro, did you know I'm packing a tackle, though so modest in stature, bro, instead of a package I joke split/second to cope and still manage to crack a satanic smile as I call my most modest hose a gigantic, titanic ****
Word. You got nice lips, still, though, how bout you look up and get down on me, yo? Word is that I handle it with alarming aplomb considering how I present myself to the world. So what I got a culturally appropriated slab of ink tattoo yo. Just a guy trying to get along with the little he's got, and then on top of that I like to slide my **** n stuff. How about me too? Cause I can get down on you if we both repeat **** like we believe it. You got ***** bam, and plump curved fat just as all the girls growing up had, fashionable hair and even a soft face. You, girl, I can bend you over. Sure, be glad to bend you over.
Rough riding baring face to the wind on highways
I never thought I would be here deciding
Do I believe in others' abilities enough to believe that they know me as
If they would know a human?
Get close, pry in, to my life,
you'll find a lion, lonely, dragging coats of molted skin
with wire stolen from her other lives,
the desperate lioness devours the food she can.
Dec 30, 2014
Dec 30, 2014 at 6:29 AM UTC
treacherously torrid and torrential torrents of totally tangential tumultuous tortuous ; tyrannically torturous adjunct viably salient seethe.
procrastinating pandemic plenipotentiary prosthesis ; prosaically pragmatic parenthetical predication predilection premise prognostication
panoramic tableau preternatural propensity proclivity prestidigitation gesticulation :
gyration guidon ; ghastly gruesome grotesque hideously horrible horrendous heinous
grotty gnarly
diabolically maniacal dementia brusque macabre abrupt
awful
amalgamated anathema analysis agnate aggregate aberrance
somatalogy virtuoso cognate obduracy
worse
rudiment ebullience , confluence effluent effusion affluent , prolific profusity opulence , cogent fecund secular secund , recondite redolence abstrusely obstreperous mesomerism resonance resilience
protractive perpetude futurity
blither blandishing blabber burnishing boresome blahs
lithe blithe jabber prattle chatter tithe
morose morsel moribundness
stolid stoic
stalwart bastion bulwark
Oct 24, 2013
Oct 24, 2013 at 5:45 PM UTC
my mother taught me the alphabet and 2 + 2
(but everything always adds up to you)
my father taught me to be patient & kind
(but it's you that brings balance to my mind)
my brothers taught me how to be tough
(but you still tell me daily that i am enough)
my high school government teacher taught me to be bold
(but in you i find my courage, given your hand to hold)
the birds in the sky taught me how to sing
(but it's you who hides me under your wing)
all of my heartbreaks taught me how to write
(but you gave new meaning to sleepless nights)
- m.f.
Sep 24, 2013
Sep 24, 2013 at 5:25 PM UTC
Totally like whatever, you know?
by Taylor Mali
In case you hadn’t noticed,
it has somehow become uncool
to sound like you know what you’re talking about?
Or believe strongly in what you’re saying?
Invisible question marks and parenthetical (you know?)’s
have been attaching themselves to the ends of our sentences?
Even when those sentences aren’t, like, questions? You know?
Declarative sentences—so-‐called
because they used to, like, DECLARE things to be true, okay,
as opposed to other things are, like, totally, you know, not—
have been infected by a totally hip
and tragically cool interrogative tone? You know?
Like, don’t think I’m uncool just because I’ve noticed this;
this is just like the word on the street, you know?
It’s like what I’ve heard?
I have nothing personally invested in my own opinions, okay?
I’m just inviting you to join me in my uncertainty?
What has happened to our conviction?
Where are the limbs out on which we once walked?
Have they been, like, chopped down
with the rest of the rain forest?
Or do we have, like, nothing to say?
Has society become so, like, totally . . .
I mean absolutely . . . You know?
That we’ve just gotten to the point where it’s just, like . . .
whatever!
And so actually our disarticulation . . . ness
is just a clever sort of . . . thing
to disguise the fact that we’ve become
the most aggressively inarticulate generation
to come along since . . .
you know, a long, long time ago!
I entreat you, I implore you, I exhort you,
I challenge you: To speak with conviction.
To say what you believe in a manner that bespeaks
the determination with which you believe it.
Because contrary to the wisdom of the bumper sticker,
it is not enough these days to simply QUESTION AUTHORITY.
You have to speak with it, too.
May 3, 2014
May 3, 2014 at 7:27 AM UTC
Lexical littorals illiterate foal
Talus and cirque shore and shoal
Iconoclast anarchy vortex knoll
****** matrix vertex peak
Semantic regalia flux and seek
Torrid allusions own and keep
Dichotomy paradox surge and swell
Primordial integumence purge and fell
Contiguity confluence dirge and knell
Reliquiae requiem show and tell
Accession assertion deliberative need
Transcendent ascension expiate seed
Subordinate ancillary exigency deed
Subliminal subjunctive sensorium seethe
Uxorious usury detinue blithe
Contiguous currency decimate tithe
Tractive proximity critical lithe
Delusory phantasm futurity kithe
Alacritous tactile acuity interstice
Accidence ambience resonance quipy pith
Scenario synopsis resilience gist
Endergonic protensive progressiveness rift
Prestissimo preterite retroactive gift
Poignant puissance piquant myth
Fable fantasticate legend list
Preternatural gesticulate proclivity pith
Propensity assimilate diabolical mist
********** fornicate zooidal mist
Parenthetical erudite erumpence fist
Quiescent gossamer lecherous wrist
Militant mercenary actuator aorist
Jul 8, 2015
Jul 8, 2015 at 8:04 PM UTC
i am a terrible poet.
the words i tied together in attempt
to annunciate
the way your kisses felt
along the soft of my
cheeks were
mediocre and just barely enough.
just barely.
there weren't enough ways that i could describe
the mouthful
of stars that spilled at the seams of my
lips as you gently traced them with warm finger tips.
mm, your finger tips.
your finger tips felt like a personal extension from god himself as
they dusted the empty jars i left untouched
in the forgotten spaces of me.
you held them tightly and filled them to the top
with a breathful of morning secrets
and hidden places to meet.
i found you.
i found you and allowed the words to slip
through my small hands
as you kissed my palms gently and sweetly
and folded them into your own to keep for just a little bit.
(
i could stay here)
i could lay underneath your tired smiles
and messy hair
until stars realigned themselves and directed
me to you all over again.
(
i could stay here)
i could tangle in-between your pale sheets
and make up all the words that
effortlessly translate the way i melted and simmered
at the sheer thought of waking up and knowing you again.
i could illustrate all of the galaxies you whispered
onto the trail of my back with
colors and warmth i never knew
and turn them into poorly strung together,
black and white strings of thought.
you were my favorite secret
and the cause of all of my writer’s block.
(i could stay here)
i’ve lived in florida my entire life
and have spent more days than i can count
under the sun and in the wake of rays that always burned,
but i’ve never felt more warmth than lying underneath
your expired thoughts and eclipsing eyes
as the moon seeped through your broken window blinds.
i forgot what it was like to breathe
until you took my face
sweetly and sincerely
and kissed me.
the paragraphs and ellipses that perforated my parenthetical
sighs of relief
stained the corners of my mouth
and lingered
long enough for me to remember
the after taste of your recycled sunshine
as you left me.
i am a terrible poet,
but a better kept secret it seems.
Apr 24, 2014
Apr 24, 2014 at 2:56 PM UTC
The space between chaff and
grain...misshapen yield vying
for the ecliptic plane.
As eye to eye...to be plucked
from what is gathered.
Moments timeout their
defining...what beauty hobbles
its poetry?
Something in league with or
without...passes off a kinship
nearer and dearer than bone
in plain conglomeration, as
strung to skeleton.
A seeing through of boundary...
as always open to season,
change by its allowance changes.
Our parenthetical infinite is
blessed/cursed with peripheral
vision...anonymously...
glory blurrily grows.
Begs from form what itself begs
form...we are thus force-fed
finitude, till what infinitude comes
of our eyes.
Mar 2, 2015
Mar 2, 2015 at 11:46 AM UTC
Face all of crag
Lined out in youth
And smoothed where Time thinks best.
Parenthetical mouth.
Asterisk-ine blush spreads
Where Doubt lingers.
Question marks pronounced
Exquisitely through lips.
Like a tactile symphony,
No harsh chord exists.
Not in the lines of the face
Though it looks as if its
Planes were imported from disparate periods.
From a Baroque cheek
To a Tudor brow
And a smirk that even James would be
Hard-pressed to translate.
To my initial A. Long may he reign;
For I feel in truth whatever he may feign.
Feb 23, 2010
Feb 23, 2010 at 7:33 PM UTC
Apostles and their apostates
Murderers unrepentant and
Mere manslaughters' mistakes
Epistles, that evokes the language of religious ritual
Selective honesty, Deeply and creepily
You want to be a doctor, therapist and priest
You are none of these things, as if these positions
Actually help people. They are stations presumably
Of some importance = stature, status, strength
Donning a standing
Polby Saves
Copyright © 2011
Dec 29, 2011
Dec 29, 2011 at 4:21 PM UTC
Come, let me lavish love
upon your shoulders to start;
thumbs probing for stubborn
points of stress, rolling them
about, plump grapes of pressure
aching to pop. s l o w l y
s t r e t c h i n g
long ropes of back muscle,
langorous luxurient strokes
all
the
way
down to cup the flexors
around
(your parenthetical)
hips.
you didn't even know
you were tight there, did you?
Feb 2, 2011
Feb 2, 2011 at 9:41 AM UTC
I carry you like a badge of dishonor.
You rest on the left side of my chest, fastened to my skin, causing me to bleed. My scarlet letter of wrong. I am avoided by the parenthetical deeds of day. I am oppressed by the dense solitude of night. A crowd is nothing more than an overgrown forest. Silence. There is only silence. Once there was laughter and arms and warmth to call home, though now I cannot keep my eyes high enough to search for a wandering smile. I grew a new pair of bones in your absence. They are brittle. They need to strengthen. They keep breaking. I tried hope to calcify them, I tried love to mend them, I tried tears to set them.
I am still crippled.
Each time I stand, trembling, the sky shakes and the earth moves and I fall, again and again and again until I am looking up from the mud in the ground. I cannot open my mouth to question or cry out. I endure. I lie until I am entwined with the path itself, until feet cannot distinguish between dirt and flesh. I watch you fly. I try to accept the ache of emptiness.
I cannot.
Nov 28, 2013
Nov 28, 2013 at 9:46 PM UTC
I do not believe in heaven or hell, but I believe
in whatever vindictive god left me here
like an unfinished sentence: incomplete, unenclosed, trailing
commas and semicolons and dangling prepositions
in my wake, tethered to nothing but my own beginnings
in a world obsessed with the way things end—I did not ask
for answers, and yet they were given to me;
I did not ask to be dragged down and anchored to a single story,
trapped between well-meaning parenthetical smiles (“put a period there,”
they say, “and begin a new sentence"—
but how can I start over when I have only just begun?)
Sep 29, 2013
Sep 29, 2013 at 2:34 PM UTC
I hear myself talk
In parenthetical echos
From your downward eyes
While you text
Someone absent,
Yet closer than I;
I hear myself grow silent
As you smile,
Then look up,
Surprised I'm here.
Mar 15, 2015
Mar 15, 2015 at 3:30 PM UTC
Two souls, the footprints of space time.
Another conversation.
Behold!
The bucket's bottom. There are lines.
Above but still below zero, are your promises.
My greatest achievement is securing your only ******
The mess and the tendrils of confusion, the beacon for infidelity may remain his.
Deity. ******* symbol of immense warmth and firmness.
I turn you away.
Grant me witness.
And strength.
And restless nights.
A blood disorder. Yet mine fight all natural bodies.
A stuttering problem.
I've just the time to find my place.
From a fiery prison.
Peace and love with one cost.
Your firstborn tainted. The king's seed on innocent's belly.
What is your answer?
Parenthetical or textual?
Frustrate the ***** of his people. All around decisions leave in rings unmade.
The *** boils over and the mystery vanishes.
I am finished. I am to weep tonight.
My sobs and shudders move my shoulders and break my lease.
From the front door, down the copper staircase and further down into the well of opportunities.
I crawl and move my trail of tears underground.
From the fire to the furnace I rise with skin as bronze.
Jan 21, 2015
Jan 21, 2015 at 4:18 PM UTC
your greedy metal mouth (the taste of tin will never leave my tongue)
engulfs me
(my parenthetical affection can only last so long
)
Feb 18, 2013
Feb 18, 2013 at 12:01 PM UTC
in a parenthetical existence
see the shadow of reality
through infinite lenses
distortions of distortions
the infinitude of humanity's
misunderstanding
pick a side for no reason
but why not?
then pierce strawman enemies
with low resolution image macros
which ignore the macrocosm
both sides return victorious
over their lifeless enemies
and await tomorrow's call
artists of ambiguity
find new ways
to draw the same lines
resculpt the truth
leaving nothing
but a monstrous mass
of homogeneity
favoring the profane
Mar 10, 2015
Mar 10, 2015 at 10:26 PM UTC
If earth should be protected,
We are a scourge.
If earth is a mother,
We are a scourge.
We think we're caretakers
But we are a scourge.
Hu-Man, agent of Entropy. (<-- that thing to the left, try not to hate; it's kinda like a middle eight)
Maybe earth is something else
Or else we are a scourge.
Jun 15, 2015
Jun 15, 2015 at 4:42 AM UTC
Ah, Jacob
I love you
(look! I have personalized my poem! But alas, that means I have isolated
the audience.
By mentioning your name-
such a wonderful name, it reminds me of church bells
Doritos
and a good shower after a long run-
by mentioning your name, I have ensured
that those not in love with a Jacob-
and I pity them, for if they do not have one, they should seriously consider finding one-
Anyway
By mentioning you name, my love
I have ensured that those not in love with a Jacob
will never understand the soaring
joy
sorrow
trust
security
never understand what it is they have just read).
May 18, 2013
May 18, 2013 at 11:09 AM UTC
His name was Adam Chester,
and I killed him.
He was something early thirties
still built like twenty-two.
His eyes were as green as life
and the corners of his mouth could
shine enough certainly to
photosynthesize.
He was dying.
I was something late twenties,
young enough in Hollywood
to still be exposing my ******* for parts.
My hair still had more red than shame,
and my body still looked like a
parenthetical aside
in all the right places.
I had never felt more dead.
He said he saw me in some room
with some people sometime
and that the spark in my eyes had
restarted his heart,
cause he was surely dead,
just waiting to die.
I said I understood,
and I drank daiquiris.
Later, he would tell me
my skin felt softer than the
Egyptian cotton sarcophagus
entangling our legs,
that my lips tasted like cherry,
my breath like alcohol,
and my skin like so many
squandered summer nights,
bikini tops and Tanqueray,
riding solar flares between friendships
and not taking no **** from no one.
For weeks and months we were together. He didn't seem to be wasting any way but spiritually, and I didn't seem to be wasting anything but time. He told me that everybody dies alone, and that he would give anything to break the trend. I told him that of course I would help, and that I didn't love him, but I loved the thought of him, and that in me that thought would live forever. I promised I would find a way. He would touch my hair and smile without showing his teeth - either because it seemed too aggressive or too disingenuous. He told me how our lives resembled Moulin Rouge, except that he was the one on the clock, and I just wanted to drink and **** and that was precisely why he chose me; perhaps if he was never alone, he would never have time to die.
It was the kind of arid night that makes you want to water your plants compulsively.
The air had our lips cracking like sarcastic smiles
and skin too dry like a sense of humor,
unable to turn the pages of our paperbacks.
I asked him to be my chapstick.
He asked me to be his lotion.
I told him that he was gross.
He told me to go to hell.
I told him...
He told me...
I told him...
He told me...
I told...
He...
I woke in the cold embrace of solitude.
She kissed my neck and called me Lover.
I told Solitude to leave me sleep.
She told me she was lonely.
Told me I was breathing, if barely.
More than could be said for some.
She kissed my neck.
My heart stopped.
Time flows not like grains of sand,
but like grains of wood,
back and forth, swaying, dancing,
some ****** understanding within itself
which we have no place in,
no fate with or without.
I saw him laying alone,
saw him stand beside himself.
Saw him wonder
where I had gone.
Saw him go.
Saw him, gone.
When you die alone, you leave even yourself behind.
I went back to bed,
back to my body,
where Solitude could have her way with me.
Jun 27, 2014
Jun 27, 2014 at 12:30 PM UTC
*(Watching you hold my hand
In that old photograph
Makes me smile with tears in my eyes
The self same expression
As way back then
When I treasured your fingers
Twined with mine
Knowing that soon my hand would again be
Empty.)*
Jul 22, 2013
Jul 22, 2013 at 12:11 AM UTC
Just an afterthought
in the story of your life.
(Parenthetical)
Dec 7, 2013
Dec 7, 2013 at 1:21 PM UTC
Start with something casual:
“I miss you” is a good opener,
but don’t forget the twist—
throw in a parenthetical like
“(but not enough to beg)”
just to keep him guessing.
Follow up with a double text,
something vaguely existential.
Maybe:
“Do you ever think about
the weight of your own cowardice?”
And when he doesn’t respond,
add:
“Haha jk, how’s your sciatica?”
Text three should be a song lyric—
not one he knows,
but something obscure and devastating,
like:
“And the skeletons in both our closets
plotted hard to **** this up.”
Don’t explain it.
Let him Google it at 2 a.m.
and spiral in silence.
For text four,
go for the jugular:
“Do you think you’ll ever stop
mistaking fear for wisdom?”
Pause.
Then send:
“Nvm, that was mean.
What’s your comfort show again?
Mine’s Parks and Rec.”
By text five, he’ll start to crack.
He might reply with something cautious,
like:
“Are you okay?”
This is your chance.
Answer with:
“Define okay.”
Then immediately change the subject—
“Wait, what’s your zodiac rising?”
Text six is where you plant the seed of doubt:
“Sometimes I think we’d have worked out
if I didn’t know you so well.”
Wait exactly four minutes,
then follow up with:
“Or maybe if you knew yourself better.”
For text seven, go full cryptic:
“You remind me of that one painting—
you know, the one they had to repaint
because it was falling apart.”
Let him sit with that one.
By text eight,
he’ll either call or give up.
If he calls, ignore it.
If he doesn’t,
send:
“Anyway, good talk.
Hope life’s treating you
as kindly as you deserve.
Interpret that how you will.”
Text nine is optional,
but it’s my favorite:
“Do you even notice the silence
when it’s not yours?”
Text ten is the finale.
Simple, clean, devastating:
“I hope you finally stop running,
and when you do,
I hope it’s too late
for anyone to catch you.”
Dec 28, 2024
Dec 28, 2024 at 5:28 AM UTC