"petrifies" poems
for Ruth Fainlight
I know the bottom, she says. I know it with my great tap root;
It is what you fear.
I do not fear it: I have been there.
Is it the sea you hear in me,
Its dissatisfactions?
Or the voice of nothing, that was you madness?
Love is a shadow.
How you lie and cry after it.
Listen: these are its hooves: it has gone off, like a horse.
All night I shall gallup thus, impetuously,
Till your head is a stone, your pillow a little turf,
Echoing, echoing.
Or shall I bring you the sound of poisons?
This is rain now, the big hush.
And this is the fruit of it: tin white, like arsenic.
I have suffered the atrocity of sunsets.
Scorched to the root
My red filaments burn and stand,a hand of wires.
Now I break up in pieces that fly about like clubs.
A wind of such violence
Will tolerate no bystanding: I must shriek.
The moon, also, is merciless: she would drag me
Cruelly, being barren.
Her radiance scathes me. Or perhaps I have caught her.
I let her go. I let her go
Diminished and flat, as after radical surgery.
How your bad dreams possess and endow me.
I am inhabited by a cry.
Nightly it ***** out
Looking, with its hooks, for something to love.
I am terrified by this dark thing
That sleeps in me;
All day I feel its soft, feathery turnings, its malignity.
Clouds pass and disperse.
Are those the faces of love, those pale irretrievables?
Is it for such I agitate my heart?
I am incapable of more knowledge.
What is this, this face
So murderous in its strangle of branches? ----
Its snaky acids kiss.
It petrifies the will. These are the isolate, slow faults
That **** that **** that ****
4.2k
We're still their,
in that world
we ****** each other into
That beautiful realm
where reality meets fantasy
and grass is luscious and warm
Where no matter the night,
the moon shines bright
and glows in radiating symphonies
And when the morning rolls in
we sink deeper in
finding wonders and pleasures, how?
Looking in those deep eyes
intensity petrifies my spine
I roll back my own in moaning sighs
You move
I move
Synced
Even this vast distance
is a meek, weak exposure
a classified holder
*******
this life,
no words to describe it
just feels
s.q.
Sep 12, 2014
Sep 12, 2014 at 1:20 PM UTC
I wasn’t born to write
With every bent petal,
and every fallen leaf,
my ma’s sweet kisses
And papa’s gentle smile
I learned to write
A five year old me was once fascinated
by the loop of an ‘e’
and the playful swing of an ‘m’,
The wide smile of a ‘d’ delighted me
Words were powerful and mesmerising,
now they lie discarded and ignored
in broken stanzas of self proclaimed irrelevance
I watch the black ugly marks
That taints countless sheets of paper
They surround me in a sea of ink
That once flowed carefully and slowly
A thousand thoughts with each single word
Drained lies my mind, my breath’s not a whisper but a plea
My heart pumps blood not ink, I’m not a poet, it says
Incoherent scribblings mock me with their existence
As a child, confined spaces scared me
But now, a confined mind petrifies me with just a glimpse
A pen stays gripped in my hand
I wonder what it fears more
My inability to let the ink flow coherently
Or my arrogant ramblings, regardless
And fearless of consequences
While I stumble on disjointed verses
A paper aeroplane is my best accomplishment
In my two hour search for freedom and thought
Who cares for pretty words and mystifying couplets?
When the idea of a paper boat seems much more exciting
-പ്രിയാന്ഷി ദാസ്
Jul 17, 2014
Jul 17, 2014 at 8:05 AM UTC
Is it bad to want to be dependent?
I don't want to be able to stand on my own.
Is it wrong to be socially ignorant?
I would really just rather be alone.
Would I?
No, that can't be.
I want to be alone with you.
And you with me.
To be completely alone,
Scares me.
To be cared for too much,
Petrifies me.
I want to be alone,
Yet scared to be so.
I want to be liked,
Never loved.
I never think I'm good enough,
Yet I am better than her.
What a contradiction,
I must be.
Apr 3, 2013
Apr 3, 2013 at 5:36 PM UTC
azure sestina
July 16, 2013
Brought to face ourselves finally,
what choices do we have in capturing the moment?
If I were given this chance
it would be most important to know for sure.
Look life in its eyes,
and see their sad shade of deep, blue, azure.
No matter how black my heart taints, or how bloodied my lips are stained, all that matters is azure.
I'm up against a stare that petrifies me, until I beg for freedom finally.
But I am powerless to escape those eyes.
I begin to enter your forever after ending never, in just one moment,
and I feel as though I can't say goodbye until I die, so I can be sure.
Sure that there really would be no second chance.
I first told you, "Take a chance,"
but we started with an ending, engulfed in azure.
My heart stretched further apart, as yours stayed unsure.
It broke finally.
Vanished in a month's mournful moment,
by the blink of those refusing to cry eyes.
I had to see things through your eyes.
So I could know that I should have left this all to chance.
You can blame me in the end, for ruining the moment.
As I rope back in my emotional tide, from the dark depths of azure.
I'll dock that torn up boat at your door, and conclude the voyage finally.
You wanted space, so you've got it, sure.
Dec 25, 2013
Dec 25, 2013 at 8:01 PM UTC
I covet the hideous cult of fame. Spending my days in despondent cafés manically scribbling passionate love letters to recognition.
I'm not in love I'm insane.
Suffering from self-diagnosed misunderstood artist syndrome. My heart cries silent. I am a shadow in the distance. Warped, distorted and dark I scream alone; never to be touched.
I am a poser, a fame ****** and a hero worshiper. My vitriol view on the world hinders me. Constantly on the verge of crying in public. Staring at train tracks, they invite me away. Looking more comfortable then a bed.
I try to live in the now but the future petrifies me. I can't escape my own mind.
Y culture, My culture, Counter culture, **** culture, Love culture, Hate culture, Phonies.
I can’t see past the haze of disappointment I have designed myself. I smoke **** because it relaxes me, makes me feel like what I assume normality feels like. I drink because it makes me feel like how I assume those happy people feel. I take heroine because it makes me feel euphoric and takes me close enough to death that I want to live another day.
A brutal fear beats my anaemic mind. A peculiar fear grips my inner-self and I can’t bear to open my eyes and see that I had survived the night. I become saddened by the thought that I might also survive the day, living to see what I will be tomorrow.
Happy in the madness. Longing for that sick feeling. In love with the sadness. Searching in the dark recesses of the mind for inspiration. I can’t see past my fate, it’s too dark. I sit and source inspiration through the emotions and physical fits of ************ Self-abuse. Clawing for red gold in the catacombs that meander through my pale arms.
Beat myself out of sight beat me out of sight beat me beat me till I float. Beat me beat me till I float.
I am a poser, a fame ****** and a hero worshiper. My vitriol view on the world hinders me. Constantly on the verge of crying in public. Staring at train tracks, they invite me away. Looking more comfortable than a bed.
Relapse is fine by me. I want this. I want this. I want this. I want this. Not a tortured artist just tortured. Not a tortured soul just a cracked shell. In the name of art but in the corner of sickness.
Beat myself out of sight beat me out of sight beat me beat me till I float. Beat me beat me till I float.
Jun 12, 2014
Jun 12, 2014 at 10:57 AM UTC
And so are my eyes
The ash is white, the fire black
Flames offer a silent scream
Hurricane winds radiate light
And a dust of powdered sugar petrifies the desert
Quickly, and mysteriously
Not much to do but a lot to learn
The turkey flies on scattered wings
No offense made but
Much is taken
Phantom letters state their presence
Poplar burns in the sun
Prickly pears sparkle red
and
The moon lets go of her compass, passing
it on to another
Flying above all
Shooting bullets toward purple blue skies
Notebook in one, pen in another
Falling through steam
Crashing to dry, cracked earth
Saguaro stands in a forever wave
Blackened mountains singe the backdrop
Red purple brown rocks form deepest
Canyons of collective consciousness
Feed a bright blood river below.
Jan 24, 2013
Jan 24, 2013 at 2:01 AM UTC
Have you seen the old hag in rags
Mumbling nonsense in the town square?
Her odor so pungent, even flies gag,
A Medusa who petrifies with her stare.
Her name unknown, her story a secret,
The butcher claims she’s God incognito
Here to see if we aid those who need it,
Though doubtful, such torture He’d veto.
Gossip circulates the town at every corner,
But I know the truth of this old woman.
It turns out she’s the Duchess of Arbor
Who gave it all away to the poorest children.
The fools are quick to judgement impart,
But there’s an occulted truth in every heart.
Nov 11, 2015
Nov 11, 2015 at 8:59 PM UTC
Its only 12:42 and I've woken myself up five times by asking where i am
Every place that should feel like home petrifies me
You say I'm spoiled and you don't think i give a ****
But it's not that I'm ungrateful,
It's just that I'm dead
I try to say thank you, but my voice is too small
My throat becomes a vortex,
Stealing the words my lips long to spit out
Leaving my mouth an empty drought
Sitting still in hopes the cinder block will migrate to the rest of my body,
Wishing i would turn to stone
I feel so fragile every time you speak,
As if my bones and destined to one day turn to glass
And why am i awake if sleep is for the weak?
My heart is an earthquake, my whole body's shaking furiously
Ripping my insides apart laboriously
I try so hard to find my brain and put it back in place
Jan 25, 2014
Jan 25, 2014 at 2:08 AM UTC
9 am I woke with a broken heart
it had been shattered, unbidden
in the place after empty and before disappearing
-That-
To jump in a lake fully clothed and
realizing that you're too weighed down
to surface...
it hurts in my tummy
it hurts in my chest
it hurts in my throat
I am afraid.
The past is a broken red balloon
dragging on the ground behind me.
Every glance backward sends me reeling
sick and dizzy to my knees.
the breathless sorrow petrifies.
There are ghosts in my skull
(I know them by name)
Perhaps, that's the trouble-
I know how to call my haunting.
How many years of happy will it take
to even the cost?
I cannot do this anymore,
but it seems both my destiny and my doom,
I'm suspicious I've already lost.
May 23, 2012
May 23, 2012 at 10:06 PM UTC
I speak not of the sun neither speak to her for the winter it has left in my care. My conversations with the cold snap and the polar vortex had gone stale.
The sun and I had our falling out and if these words should find their way to her doorstep, let her know I don’t miss her warmth. I don’t leap out of the bed to tug the curtain and let her silver light fill my room and let the motes dance in her rays like I used to.
I shudder at her supple shadow swirling, flowing and flitting about, and the halo she wears petrifies me. Her pestilential disposition burns through my walls fortified with years of heartaches. For these, we must part ways.
Oct 4, 2024
Oct 4, 2024 at 12:26 AM UTC
Twelve years of difference
I still can't stay away
I've been swept up in your voice
And pulled into your games
The thought of loving you petrifies me
But the thought of forgetting you stabs
It seems I'm stuck; not a soul at my side
Doomed to wander, heartbroken, through the lands
Here I stand in the darkness
As my heart swells at the mention of your name
Our story is as great as Daniel and Lucinda
Yet, I bet we could put them to shame
So, as the days are rolling by so slowly
And I just wish to call you mine
I'll sing the song of a hopeless romantic
Trapped in the wrong time
Jul 29, 2015
Jul 29, 2015 at 7:13 PM UTC
A beast is me
At least I'm me.
Beauty petrifies
me,
saddens me greatly
except for beautiful women
and imagining them wanting me.
Hence beauty and a beast.
There's no feast
in store
for me
I bet
as I get set
to eat the meat
off my bones
just to hook that beautiful woman
I'm such a beast.
We shall see
what we shall see
about
"the beast"
as some black guys
who've been
in prison
say I'm called here.
I heard why I am the beast.
I'm oversexed
domineering,
licentious,
in people's scope.
I even break the heavy
and I'm ultra
unpopular
near as I can tell!
Apr 19, 2017
Apr 19, 2017 at 3:05 PM UTC
It was today when I realized. . . I "actually" realized, how unpredictable life is. How you could leave behind your loved ones, incomplete dreams and life that someone dreams of, in the fist of life and step in the darkness of death.
Death petrifies me. Because, while the people who dearly love you and the people who are expecting to be saved by you, suffer with unbearable pain of your loss, you will feel nothing; no sadness, no happiness, just numb. That just feels self-centered even if it is not one's fault.
Perhaps, death is not as dark as we say it is.
What if, death is tranquil. A place were you can't feel anything, but peaceful. Away from you happiness and worries, cradling in serenity...
Jun 16, 2021
Jun 16, 2021 at 2:18 PM UTC
In the North we had the cold war. Sirens screamed; we crouched under desks, thin arms covering thinner heads. We were post Pompeii petrifies waiting for a future dig. We never left an atomic shadow.
This sums up all life-threatening fears of the Boomers, the Echoes, the A's through Z's. Of course, Boomers then were too young to worry.
We've never had planes or bombs fall from our skies (there was the Arrow disaster).
We've never had a crop blight, famine or drought.
Food has never been rationed.
Hurricanes, cyclones, typhoons or tornados don't happen here;
We get snowfalls we plow through till they melt.
We're non-tsunami. Flooding is seasonal, geographically isolated, and dealt with.
We've had no great fires or earthquakes like San Fran or London.
We've never been drafted, and only go to wars of our own choosing.
We have not been invaded or occupied;
P.E.I. has no extermination crematoriums.
We avoided Inquisitions, Salem witch hunts and Small Pox blankets.
We've had no Race Riots, but a few barricades have gone up and down.
Death comes to us as to all. Car accidents, ******* accidents, and even ****** Though never expected, always anticipated. We grieve, some longer than others. It's not easy, but we manage the shock.
When the glaciers glide past the coast of Nova Scotia, on the way to New York, my generation (and probably yours) will have been replaced.
But now! We're asked to Social Distance and wash with soap and water. In Canada we have plenty of both. I'll occupy my three square feet of space for several weeks (knowing there are only 52 in a year). No complaints. No asinine TP runs. Just behaving myself, HUMANELY.
Mar 18, 2020
Mar 18, 2020 at 5:44 PM UTC
The crows fly back
Into the ground
A chilling wind
Blows all around
A watching eye
Peaks through the trees
A crying voice
On bended knees
A colorless world
Devoid of reason
Without change
For there is no season
A burning pool
Of water and blood
Petrifies the ground
Sinks into the mud
My shadow lengthens
Stands up on its own
The silence deafens
I wish I weren't alone
May 4, 2016
May 4, 2016 at 1:28 AM UTC
I want to get home so that I can sleep for 17 hours with my mouth hung open so wide you’d mistake it for a black vortex where planes and people and boats and Ameillia Earharts go mysteriously missing and it petrifies the **** out of you that these things exist on this planet if you think about it for too long your eyes beady and blending into the dark of your bedroom or I want to jump out of my window and die or run up and down the four flights of stairs in my ****** apartment complex until I feel the muscles and tendons and ****** pink strings in the meat of my thick thighs burn and come to life and the fat rupture and break apart beneath my skin, or maybe I can just run a regular marathon but that’s so ******* boring that I would rather gouge out hollows between my ribs with a spoon because why the **** would I want to run in a straight line, I want to run up and down and zig and zag and left and right and upside-down and on my head and with my legs tied up behind my back and at the speed of light like the energy-never-dies organism that I am, all that I am really comprised of, the bare bones of what this body is broken down into in actuality, except I swear to ******* God I better die one day
Apr 3, 2019
Apr 3, 2019 at 9:49 PM UTC
The nature of her art is in her wits,
Sure, sharp, subtle and coy,
It soothes and raises beleaguered spirits,
Who doth her comic arsenal employ,
To batter down the barricades,
Of seriousness and solemnity,
Though raucous her jokes are ever made,
In the spirit of love and amity,
Stoicism petrifies the soul,
Makes it alone,
Converting passionate spirits,
In to sombre heart's of stone.
Reticence is good enough when feelings start to dip,
But humour is much better for stoking comradeship.
May 7, 2017
May 7, 2017 at 4:24 PM UTC
*The wind likes to make itself scarce,
To never touch the waves more than it needs,
And that's why it travels the world alone,
After it turns towns to ruins, it runs and claims itself freed.
And here we stay jumbled and rearranged,
Watching it as it takes more than it should,
Yet it never grasps the meaning of everything it's taken,
The days will roll as long as the map looks good.
It appears and disappears in mismatched mornings,
And we can never have enough time to be prepared,
For the coldness that petrifies, as it tries to make us believe
That this departure is only done for our sakes.
The wind only knows one perspective to wear,
And it gets washed and re-washed in the downpours we cry,
So it lays there like an after taste after it fades,
Its only ally is that its presence could easily be denied.
So in an ever present fall tumbling into a winter,
We never know when it will hit and what it will take,
So we lay on our backs and let it walk all over us,
We're done being hurt, our hearts shall be opaque.*
Feb 3, 2017
Feb 3, 2017 at 5:54 PM UTC
There is no light, in my world,
The world deep inside,
Inside my soul like poison,
That haunts me day and night.
I cannot face the world,
When all I see is red,
I use my umbrella to stay alone,
Because I'm abandoned and afraid.
I'm trapped in this world of darkness,
The world full of pain,
No distinguisher to put out the flame,
That burns me up inside.
My furry strangles me helpless,
As I lie here to cry,
But it's been so long, I just can't,
They only pour-out on the inside.
Execute this pain that petrifies my soul,
Dull the suffering, so it seems less real,
I feel dizzy, alone and scared,
Dissolve this pain that sickens me.
It intimidates me, calling my name,
Luring me into its grasp,
The urge is to powerful,
But I must be strong.
I'm a weeping willow,
Without a single cry,
I can only cry on the inside,
Like Always.
Sep 7, 2013
Sep 7, 2013 at 9:52 PM UTC
Everything I touch starts to melt more or less
I mainly roam around inside planet earth, what am I, can you guess?
Things around me I bring along in my flow
When you and me collide, life around us start to show
I'm a destroyer, but don't see it as a hurdle
I bring death so there can be life
Together we complete the circle
You cool me down and show me the way
Calms the toxic ashes and bouldering flames inside me for that day
My warmth makes you fly and spread your energy
Mixed together we shape sculptures of life and love, I hope last through infinity
Through time though, elements petrifies me randomly and it starts to show
I desperately seeking your shores before it's too late for me to know
I find your shore but it's a stormy weather
Sometimes I can still reach the ocean though
Before what I am freezes altogether
If I'm too cold, I should return to earth's core
Instead of just being in a stasis on your ocean shore
Trust in me, be sure that I bring the key to life
I can't help it, a sculpture takes form without you, hurry raise your tide
Inside screaming and crying in vain fighting to postpone the process
Trying to break the growing crust outside on me so I can let in my ocean goddess
I naively without your element try to join the ocean
But I'm solid now, drowning and choking in your tenderness and loving devotion
I hope I learn someday to master my creature
Even if it means to fight this nature
Apr 2, 2017
Apr 2, 2017 at 1:24 AM UTC
I see white, I see nothing
yet tugged behind the corners
where dust may began to collect,
I know that light and color
is brimming, waiting to race
onto another dimension
of timeless captivity,
I see white, like a thick haze
and it petrifies my bones, locking joints
into an empty embrace,
so now, trudging through the timeless echo
I know that the time will come
for the blankness to implode,
for the spirit to by spurred forth
like that of mourning widow
seeking revenge on the docks
of an alien shore
Jun 4, 2017
Jun 4, 2017 at 7:45 PM UTC
As I leap forward to touch
I pull myself in danger and terror
like the forbidden tree
I enter into a forbidden trance
A place where only desire resides
where hands are restless and reach for love
where bodies arouse
I enter into a forbidden trance
A mixture of feelings and emotions
a wave of fear that sweeps off the smile from my face
i touch my finger tips to yours and caress you
I enter into a forbidden trance
The thought of loss petrifies me
your soul conquers me
it is you that I yearn for knowing the consequences
I enter into a forbidden trance.
Sep 6, 2017
Sep 6, 2017 at 7:07 AM UTC
cut stone
lichen roam
over your
shut mouth
mineral lochs
run through
slowed vein
ex
tend
your hard hand
take my face
and wake the sleep
that petrifies me
sunk into this bed
ancient thing
ancestor to the mountain
what tales of brokenness
you must have
break them
over mine
widen this time
give me eyes farther
Sep 4, 2016
Sep 4, 2016 at 9:36 PM UTC