"peripherally" poems
*towering gently overflowing with heightened awareness
subtle hints of blade’s keen glittering chiseled edges
untamed rugged surface powerfully averts gale’s acrid tempest
vigor pulsating that doth persuade the cloud’s reflections
if i shall not again embrace a meager glimpse; a demure echo
of thine towering mounts my soul shall ever suffer
my spirit soars with e'er one glance of thine majestic presence
replete with reminiscence seasons stir and beg thine tender mercies
to house the changing leaves at dusk of autumn’s auburn portraits
and give birth to crystal snow cascading peripherally in winter
which melding into spring then begs thy bluffs to cover
in soft amethyst of columbine blossoming first light of summer
‘tis not paramount to scale high aloft thine peaks in escalation
for small sheer glances stamp forever with imperial impressions
and ‘tho i’ve traveled ‘round and savored nature’s varied essence
none can compare thine evergreens laced in aspens nuance
my breath is gone and shan’t return ‘til in thy shadow casting
i stand and look upon thine hallowed face the rocky mountains
©2016 janetaylor
May 3, 2016
May 3, 2016 at 4:42 PM UTC
***** dishes piled peripherally
Melting muscles begging to be built
Education egging me on evilly
Facebook friends warning I may wilt
Clothes choking roomish rubble
Coldhearted clocks click callously
Traffic tickets to trouble
Prodding for payment perniciously
Feb 11, 2010
Feb 11, 2010 at 7:32 PM UTC
check it out check it out
chic chicky boom chicky boom chic chic
it's da state of this here disunion
this here bangalore torpedo seeks yer minefields
this here suffering hero
n
crows about strafes
multitudes peripherally
****** blind prophets
exclaim
chic chicky boom chicky boom chic chic
it's nothing but beginning
of beginning & z end of approximation
time's sweet angry subluxation
universal caving in on U & U
chic chicky boom chicky boom chic chic
when was z last time U really loved
i mean really really really loved
ha i could only hold to z imagination
z skeleton z allegory z myth
'cause everything slides & falls
screams careens outta control
chic chicky boom chicky boom chic chic
she brought in rrrrevolution.evolution.now
is z caustic effervescence of her wit
eroding my sandy castle of deceit?
ha and repeat ha
chic chicky boom chicky boom chic chic
forgive-me-notes are written high
on z forehead of my despair
a cursive flowing interdiction
malediction cruxifiction err-u-diction
en-passant
in each pyrotechnic moment when we don't see I-to-I
on anything relevant to what we once hoped was us
but we continue dance dance dance
perseveration aberration indiscretion cha-cha-cha
chic chicky boom chicky boom chic chic
she said *** is z engine of z world
like engine like world like ***
like like like
could say no more
oh it's tiresome to go on
describing that chimeric uniting
flesh-to-flesh-in-flesh eliding
we all are guilty of
do not end a line with a preposition such as
that or a proposition such as this:
given angle a prove that old triangle theorem
two simultaneous loves don't make a right
cherchez les angles les anglais la bon mot
ya know
chic chicky boom chicky boom chic chic
when i die please bury me upside down
prone to z ground making dead love to earth ya kno
while the centuries lie down next to me
chic chicky boom chicky boom chic chic
chic chicky boom chicky boom chic chic
chic chicky boom chicky boom chic chic
chic!
chic!
Jan 24, 2010
Jan 24, 2010 at 3:14 PM UTC
Our father liked to play a game.
He would count each hawk
preying, circling above veiny tree lines
graying like shadows of industry.
There’s a redtail, he would say, look
at its proud chest and talons of mastery. Our
eyes searched for the creature, noses
pressed to cool glass and 65MPH speed.
Sometimes we’d catch the bird with two eyes, one eye
or none. Meanwhile, our father never took his eyes
off the road, fixed on painted yellow lines stretching
to heartlands down New York’s I-90 West.
With age my eyes became engaged, detecting
the slightest movement peripherally. Rods
in retinas distinguished plump plumes from leaflet
tufts, razor beaks from thorny stags, white breast from
billowing plastic bags. My sideways scan
of leafy fringe is an artifact of habit
when traveling down state roads of this infra-structured
nation. I search for evidence of its natural relation,
beyond all that is manufactured by the jelly-
spine of convenience, beyond wheels spinning
at deafening speed, beyond the grubby hands of greed.
Still, our connection to place is still here and Earthly,
coexisting in delicacy, like the hawk’s nested-blend
of twig and trash. I trust there is a chance for us yet,
despite cloudy puddles of progress, despite integrity
lost in capital gain, despite a forgotten native name.
Feb 23, 2013
Feb 23, 2013 at 4:44 PM UTC
**You are
My ellipsis dots,
trailing away, unspoken
. . .
You'll always belong
on my horizon.**
Feb 24, 2016
Feb 24, 2016 at 8:31 AM UTC
How quiet it gets
Just after snow
When at 5am walking out the front door
Onto the lawn
Hearing muffled road noise
Slipping like sand through a sieve
And whispering peripherally
Until sputtering out in indivisible steps
Dimming and fading
Like a cigarette
In a glass of
Water
Flowing slower and slower
Like a river freezing
Locking and waxing
Until woven into outbound threads
And creaking as it settles
Grasping on to tree branches
Yellow glow
Silent 5am scene
With streetlight
How moonlight so easily mingles
Oct 8, 2010
Oct 8, 2010 at 2:21 PM UTC
You held my hand with love
as we strolled down the way
Peripherally, i saw wings up above
nothing said, but all to say
As we strolled down the way
frolicking children flourished the air
Nothing said, but all to say
Engrossed in them as we prepare
Frolicking children flourished the air
not far from my bed
Engrossed in them as we prepare
no longer filled with dread
Not far from my bed
peripherally, i saw wings up above
No longer filled with dread
You held my hand with love
Feb 2, 2012
Feb 2, 2012 at 10:43 PM UTC
She texted all through dinner again.
Clickity, clickity, clickity.
Describing to someone something about what the waiter was wearing.
The ******* waiter?
Maybe if she took the time
she would find me at least as interesting,
as handsome, or ****
as her 2 dimensional clicking keys?
Clickity, clickity, clickity.
They don't write letters on paper here in Clickityville anymore.
I even use to have my favorite pen and ink.
Now they "pencil in" time for everything,
Clickity food, iPod jog, or even clickity ***
Trying to fit it all so neatly on their Clickityville plates,
but they never do.
When I talk to Clickityville people now
I can tell when I start to glass them over.
They reach for their clickity, clickity, clickity.
So ******* rude.
I'd rather they said,
"I'm sorry, but you bore me and I would rather,
you know.....
clickity clickity clickity."
I can see it in their Clickity eyes,
while they are trying to listen peripherally,
They want so badly to clickity, clickity, clickity.
****
they asked me to give them advice on their Clickity relationships.
And while fidgeting in their Clickityville North Face jacket pockets,
looking for their clickity, clickity, clickity,
I was attempting to give them some of my best nuggets of gold.
Just give
your lover
your full attention,
and they will do the same.
Jan 25, 2013
Jan 25, 2013 at 11:45 AM UTC
Intimacy is a hell of drug;
When I see you peripherally,
My thoughts are done.
The way light hits you
Just makes me nervous,
Bouncing ‘bout in my retinas,
Mixin’ with spirits.
Which, you might say,
Are oppressing my brain,
But I’ll misattribute you
All night and day.
Takin’ that serotonin,
Puttin’ it in your name,
As you run your fingers
Down my face.
Because, these impulses
Are shootin’ through me,
Driving my prefrontal insane.
I try to regulate feelings
That have no name.
I want you tactily, in-fact-ly
I want your intimacy,
‘Cause if you’re into me,
I want that dopamine.
On oxytocin, I’m choking,
These emotions, are roping,
Like I just overdosed
And am dangling,
Floating.
So if you’re itching,
I’ll fill your prescription.
Nov 24, 2012
Nov 24, 2012 at 3:24 PM UTC
concave,
convex;
you stretch and shrink
from the blood and chocolate
on your tongue.
a mouse, peripherally,
jumps sobbing out of your
breadbox.
you drive your fist through the mirror and when
i walk in you
are at the dining table,
playing chess with the pieces of your shattered
soul
the blood still running
from your knuckles.
May 24, 2012
May 24, 2012 at 3:47 PM UTC
in peripheral vision lives a little all seeing wizard
wand in hand he waves in apostrophes
but if like me you are we ignore
go on a merry path until;
the sun seems to no longer shine again,
handcuffs get slapped on,
the electricity goes off,
some quick tow truck finds your title loan ride,
or you wake up....
Feb 25, 2015
Feb 25, 2015 at 9:25 PM UTC
Can there be intimacy without proximity?
Empathy without vicinity ?
Can we live without touch,
keeping brothers out peripherally?
No, that path only leads deceivingly
further into living life more miserably
So rather than espousing self-sufficiency
let's discuss band of brotherly
A brother unity that unconditionally
maintains a mature masculinity
A unity revealing a core fragility,
yes - a humility that risks indignity
I'm talking about an increasing capacity
a growling capability
for actual manual connectivity
I'm calling for a comprehensive solidarity
that embraces fierce timidity
You see I stand against living artificially
I'm all for living purposely
Yes, I'm here loudly
Campaigning
Against anyone
Living
Miserably
Sep 7, 2019
Sep 7, 2019 at 4:32 AM UTC
i lie quiescent
listening to the conversations of bees
and the roar of butterflies as they
begin the chaotic whirlwinds
of strife
this is a moment....of nothingness
when my eyes are closed to the rat race
when the green green grass..
......subsumes me
and i am peripherally,
at one with myself.
mother to all,
mother to none.
i hear the ants
tunneling beneath
and the bugs flying above
the earth speaks and moves
and i listen...
the sky smiles,
the tides greet the moon
and I am but one small heartbeat
...............among millions
Jul 24, 2016
Jul 24, 2016 at 9:31 PM UTC
The journey has begun
It’s her journey,
But, of course, it’s mine as well.
Different roads we’re on,
She is on a path of discovery;
A new land. A new man.
Perhaps even a path to freedom.
My travels are inward
Trying to grasp the changes
Which will surely come.
Like a billboard rushing by
In the glare of headlights
Its message seen peripherally
Is that what it said? Maybe not.
Just trying to get a sense
Are we traveling apart?
Or simply in different lanes
Parallel. Watching each other
Always mindful of the gap.
Or am I following her
Mimicking her every turn
Destined to never catch up?
Jul 5, 2014
Jul 5, 2014 at 12:44 AM UTC
So this is what my life's become?
A solitary drinker in a crowed pub;
Nursing a burgeoning alcoholism
And entrenching melancholy with self-seclusion.
Worse: compounding isolation by ignoring
Or minimally acknowledging, peripherally,
Those Sunday night lushes;
Instead, focused on the static dynamic of an evolving city;
Absorbed by a blue-meshed scaffold adorning
Another modern eye-sore of urban consolidation.
Mar 6, 2014
Mar 6, 2014 at 12:49 PM UTC
I'm sitting on the carpet of my rented room
Swatting neurotically at gnats and fleas that may
Or may not
Actually be there,
On my arms and on my face.
The only proof are the little red bites,
Up my left arm and across the bottom of my chin, where they stop.
As if my blood boils while I sleep, leaving little red marks to show that I need to
Chill out
Calm down
De-stress
But I'm
in distress,
Destroyed.
I need a higher up.
I need a voice that speaks with more experience,
With firm understanding,
With the knowledge of everything.
And I can't seem to find it in Bibles, Torahs, Quarans, or other holy scriptures.
I only hear it whisper from old history textbooks,
I hear it only
Chiming softly like drowned out cymbals from the radio talk
I only see it peripherally in my rear view mirror,
Can only taste it as an after taste of many drinks.
It is ribonucleic acid,
It is thymine, guanine, adenine, and cytosine.
It is the carpet of my rented room.
Dec 12, 2015
Dec 12, 2015 at 7:05 PM UTC
so happy anniversary
of yesterfray
when I peripherally laid
my eyes on you
the day I
didn't believe
because why???
it didn't compute
so my brain pushed it
away away away
because how
could you find it so easy
to replace me and ricochet
between four arms that were
not me
that was my logic:
if you loved me, if it meant
- anything ever -
you wouldn't have
made those decisions
like a haphazard hellbat
rattling off the tracks
so it was
quite obvious
I was just hallucinating
just pasting my aching heart
onto some random guy
who was oddly
not dancing
the truth is deep
and I'm trying to not
have you OD but I think
it's time to increase your dosage
and we're getting closer
closer still to
a mouthful
and one demispoon is
I noticed you the instant
you hit my periphery
maybe 15 feet away
I guess by noticed
I mean my stomach
did a nosedive down
through my intestines
resounding repetition
internal to the tune of
this isn't happening
as you made your way
in front of me
I was petrified
losing my mind
it made no sense
but that feeeeling
had your name
beating down
my lips
and I even pondered
tapping you on the shoulder
to ask something as asinine as
do I know you?
so, here comes
another serum dose
it wasn't until I was
contemplating the potentials
of reactions by you
or not-you
that I remembered
I wasn't alone -
I was, how you say...
with someone?
and maybe you can relate a bit
to how I could possibly find
myself in that situation
so quick
dear Watson, I can certainly now
understand how easy it in fact is
to fall into the arms of someone
you have history and unfinished
karmic business with
when you're
so alone and lonely
feeling lost and hungry
for connection you bypass
all the utterly obvious
ill-fitting cardboard edges
that aren't even the same image
and just focus on the one or two
that click right in, so comforting it is
to walk down the same old street
even though you already know
how and where it ends
it was certainly
a welcome distraction
from picking glass splinters
out of crippled crimson fingers
and now I understand
how you did what you did
and that is why I came back
again...
because it took me that long
to let go of feeling
unloved
and realize
you did
Jul 10, 2017
Jul 10, 2017 at 11:34 AM UTC
there's a shadow in the house
lurking in the kitchen and hallway
sometimes peeking out
into the living room or dining area
I catch its movement peripherally
a flash in the corner of my eye
gone before I turn my head to look
a ghost of the past?
a haunting in the present?
a purposeful visitation?
something insidious?
imagination's figment?
should I be afraid of karma's regurgitation
or comforted as I sit alone?
or is it just a shadow
the movement of leaves and branches
breezing in the window's wind
outside this cold, drafty old house
Dec 1, 2015
Dec 1, 2015 at 2:03 PM UTC
Dear, Arabia Ohana,
This brief but edenic stint shared en masse and peripherally has, a fortiori, made me brimfully ecstatic to have become apart of this ohana. This parcel is to impart my incredulously revered kismeted perspective on this pleasant billet symbiosis that I accredit to the deific clairvoyant who fondly granted our correspondence with utmost prudence. I cannot convince myself some lackadaisical serendipity materialized this perfectly pertinent vista. With profound sentiment I personally express how this considerably blessed boon has merited profuse gratitude, absolute admiration and the reverent affection from my entire family as of quandam, contempto and nigh.
With genuine gratitudinous laud
Jesse Revollar
Jul 5, 2018
Jul 5, 2018 at 11:17 PM UTC
I appear unexpectedly,
For no apparent reason;
And I begin a conversation
You've waited for.
You're reticent when I speak,
When I sit in a familiar chair
In a room we both know;
Where I don't belong.
I've no control over my visits,
No more than yours.
Others are peripherally present,
With marbled voices.
Your focus is me,
Wondering why I'm there.
Do I move to your blind spot, occasionally?
I am invasive and untoward.
I am not plasma, a phantasm or apparition.
I emerge from the mist to your surprise.
What are you doing here?
I ask the same when you visit,
Yet I love to see you, relaxed, intwined.
You treat me as an old friend
With inquiries and interest.
I have so much to confess to you,
But you're disinterested in past failures.
Someone interrupts us,
You leave,
Through the same ethereal.
If you called to say you were coming
For a visit,
I'd get no sleep.
Aug 7, 2017
Aug 7, 2017 at 9:19 AM UTC
My feet move forward but my mind stays stuck,
I walked this road alone before, I tried to stop picturing you with me, no luck.
Though I know you're long gone, I still see you peripherally,
A shadow seeped into the corner of every memory.
Everyone I've ever loved has a home in me,
I let go in body, but in spirit you're weaved.
A tasty snack, an even better smell,
You're in my air, in this breeze, embodying a perfect nostalgic hell.
I have new goals, new friends, new skills
From time to time I still think of our thrills,
Sometimes it's quiet reflection, sometimes its tearful and loud,
It's wild how I can still find you in once familiar sounds.
I can't bring you back but how I wish I could, if I could do it all differently believe that I would,
If I found you now would the spark remain the same?
Souls are so fragile, and who knows what time has changed.
May 15, 2025
May 15, 2025 at 3:54 PM UTC
the stars
otherworldly and untouchable to i
brought me to feel insignificant and far
from worthy enough to look at the sky
and yet
i feel also chosen by
those beautiful unknowns to me they lie
they evade my gaze
staying only peripherally mine
twinkling, flickering, reminiscent of a child
innocent, lovely, and wild
shadows of those jewels is all i see
of the distant stars avoiding me
May 22, 2018
May 22, 2018 at 11:58 AM UTC
You know me
only peripherally
and boldly advise
what I should do
to set my life right
like an HM or pastor
you boasted you knew better
I needed help being on the wrong side
of things-- I would slip further
away unless my conscience I search
bid the past goodbye
you would audit me then
with a warning: 'Our truth you should not deny'--
won't you leave me
to my ignorance and folly?
however wayward I might find myself
yet my life is lived in freedom and I am happy.
Nov 25, 2017
Nov 25, 2017 at 10:43 PM UTC