"phloem" poems
Deception feeds on ignorance in every lane,
Missiles are wrong symphonies in Ukraine.
The world won't rise with the cries of a thousand,
Corruption sneaks into the bones in Thailand.
Humans and bodies are wars' cheapest lance,
The riots take back stolen rights in France.
Starvation is stronger than the dignity of men,
Begging for food is integrity, in Yemen.
Moms paid, with their children, the fees.
Souls taken, are countless in greece.
There, living in an empty land is the plan,
Women, children and men, murdered, for power, in Sudan.
"Spending eternity in peace, is a ban",
Told the people, between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Depravity spreading in man like Ameba,
A losing game of change played in Cuba.
Billions of harassment cases, you bet,
Are, will be reserved in god's eyes in Egypt.
Buried her father, brother and,
desire of existence, dear Haya,
She, and millions another, in fenced Libya.
In the name of religion, crimes covered, disgracefully,
Chastity thrown, in land of churches, the Vatican City.
Shattered wood under a phloem,
Are the confused inhabitants of oriental Jerusalem.
Too many sects, invading the minds, anon,
Conflicts will split the one entity of Lebanon.
Washing souls with lies of worship, is a key
Says the elected president of Turkey.
To be served, pure blood awaits in the line.
It rains glory and sacrifice upon Palestine.
To regain true reality, they had to wham,
Under snow, through fog, numbed rain, in Vietnam.
Lost a thousands of years worth of legacy,
Guns are the rulers in Damascus city.
Jun 29, 2019
Jun 29, 2019 at 6:07 PM UTC
From my new book, Poems of Ancient Rome and Greece, available in paperback on Amazon and Barnes & Noble, as well as eBook on Kindle, Nook, and Apple Books: https://www.amazon.com/Poems-Ancient-Greece-Christopher-Saitta/dp/B0DS6933HB?ref_=ast_author_dp
My mother the sea,
She woke my sandy eyes,
Just to tell me she had to leave,
Draw past the markets where the fish are sun-dried,
Snarled by the coral-rough hands of divers deep.
My mother the sea,
She left her running tab
Of the grocer’s choicest greens,
Thumbed the velamentous rinds and spiny scarola,
Her xylem and phloem are the slow moving cruciferousness of a breeze.
My mother the sea,
Charwoman of tides,
Who dips and delves upon her knees,
Who scrubs her brothel-coves with chamber lye,
Cyprian mistress of the salt-stained sheets.
I have looked for you, mother,
A scugnizzo amid the striped awnings of the marketplace
~ like sails to the sky ~
Where the fishmongers hawk their pride
Of conch, cavallo, and black sea bream.
I have looked for you, mother,
Walked sun-forged along the boardwalk,
Amid the neon-mascara of signs,
Hand-in-hand with only the ladyfingers of salt and vinegar fries,
Toward the crisp syllabub of pebbles and sand.
A beach is window-warmth spread free, cosmopolitan,
The longeur of eyes crushed in the glass-dust of cities.
And in the sputtering of the frosted spume of tides,
Held broken seashells in my hands like broken needles,
Heard the pump-click of the ventilator through your mask of sand.
My mother the sea,
A naked convalescent,
Whose ever-turnings have taken
A turn for the worse.
Who will know her by her death, who but me?
Jan 21, 2025
Jan 21, 2025 at 8:29 AM UTC
phloem in your veins;
your tongue curls around
the syllables of my name
erotically, and I'm
daydreaming about
your tongue curling around
my ******** while you talk circles about
calculus and chemistry.
woodgrain and
blood veins and
gun-splattered gore-brains,
the kitchen counter
saturated in sherbet and
awash in girl-cum
while you writhe next to the
fruit bowl, in flagrante delicto.
we conquered the universe with a
steady stream of xenon ions, probing
deep into the velvety wet folds
of the galaxy, two fingers
to the laws of physics, two fingers
stretching you out.
Sep 14, 2014
Sep 14, 2014 at 4:18 PM UTC
If I were a tree
then a poem, to me
would flow just like
my xylem and phloem
May 14, 2016
May 14, 2016 at 2:39 PM UTC
It's like trying to tickle someone when you have no fingernails
It's like writing poetry with no heart and with no words at all.
It's smoking cigarettes everyday for awhile and not thinking about it,
they say lung cancer wants to see you after your show, don't forget skin cancer called too
It's getting a massage from your ex and your girlfriend enters,
It's like hearing sirens but not seeing red and blue,
It's not remembering why you got their but do
you remember the path you walked to see those iron bars?
It's a hat with no brim, or an animal lacking primal instinct
it's trees without phloem but osmosis is falling on itself
it's a painter without eyes, a prophet whose own cat got his tongue
its all about armed forces, arms dealers, war on drugs, war on terrorism, brothers in arms, support the soldiers, remembering those fallen, veterans, astronauts, republican nominees, presidential faults|
"We want the world to stabilize."
It's like vanishing and coming again, its not a reflection from water
it's not a magician revealing his trick or certainly not receiving a wizard's staff
it's more like having Shakespeare's pen but not quite enough paper
it's sort of like having the world in your hand but immediately getting your arm cut off.
Mar 19, 2012
Mar 19, 2012 at 11:30 AM UTC
moonshine on the lawn
amish rocking chair, creaking listlessly in the white wind snapping
howls
murdering crows with a swallow
fists to barking dogs and the dead bark, we are the 99%
of deadness on trees
only you are the leaves and root tips and phloem that thrives under the weight of dead things
and death
Jun 29, 2014
Jun 29, 2014 at 5:41 PM UTC
pick and choose and prioritize
you have one hundred different kinds of days to live
about 30,000 chances to repeat them
where does your heart live
in the depths?
or in the stars?
he said:
"you gotta hit it hard in the guts, blood and thunder and all like"
life is fraught with peril
like a foreign film without subtitles
you choose how it ends
the subtleties
the inconsistencies
the balance of here and there
the cliche duality of life
good and evil
god and devil
now or never
he rolled 13 cigarettes
took one glass of whisky
stepped 3 times down the stairs
walked 3 miles down the street
and fell 6 million times in the dark
i was born like a tree
arms raised like branches
growing through my chest
leaves falling all around me
naked in the winter
clothed in the summer
roots go deep
no time to sleep
come here and flow up my xylem
lay in my phloem
my chlorophyl will fill you up
my sap is like wine
stay drunk all the time
Feb 16, 2012
Feb 16, 2012 at 4:11 AM UTC
The bark is the mistakes along the way,
The squirrel holes are the passed up opportunities,
The twigs are failed attempts,
But despite all this there are thick healthy branches,
That couldn't be made possible without all its other parts.
Apr 30, 2012
Apr 30, 2012 at 12:47 PM UTC
Do not touch me,
I would burst off,
Into flecks of chagrin,
And delate your propinquity.
I am rain dropped,
On the greener grass,
And there I hang slackly,
Upon its trenchant blade.
I am betrayed by vagrant clouds,
Suspended from moving sky,
My abode is forsaken,
Taken away by winds.
Do not touch me, rather
I would embrace the soil,
Seep into pores and phloem,
Meet the river and rise again.
Sep 20, 2012
Sep 20, 2012 at 3:46 AM UTC
The sun's setting,
though it may leave you darkening,
is the start of the burning
far under your soles.
The browning now crinkling of
Summer's endlesseeming greening
is but the start of Springtime's
asylum in Xylem.
Phloem's sweet ware will
flow in 'em somewhere
down the line.
It’s pithy, I know
but life is born in death.
And though, come Fall,
trees seem seemingly sapped,
there's an inspiration transpiring.
The firepit's cooling
it's embers cast only shadows
and shades of memories of warmth
and story
and light...
None gather round, the gloomy.
The dormant circle
an ashen reduction
of oak and of fir
but its blackdust when wetted
(yes, ink!)
and dipped in by brush
will one day,
with luck,
be the source of a poet's
enlightening words.
The monarchs have gone -
a silent orange rustle
and, all at once,
the milkweeds go dry;
the once-green
stalks stand stock still,
Rods of Asclepias whose
seedlings are ever
the earliest snows.
Leaving home:
wherever the Earthbreaths may
take them -
bleak, brokenhearted,
hope in a coma...
How unlike the joy of the
flutterbys whose time now
has fluttered by, a chorus
as uttered by
the ungiven hope
who, though unasked,
has wandered the winds
to bring its daughters
(each healing, each hopeful)
a deathgiven panacea
to lands now in their
own limited unlimited Spring.
And you! I know
your (sic) fiercely pretending
not to be crying.
Hell, to never've cried.
I know your lifework is
'manly' (your words) or
some other idiocy (my words)
and unbroken. Hell, unbent.
But think on this:
if she's gone far enough,
far enough along,
far enough away;
enough time gone by
since you broke into One
('broke in two' is NOT how it feels),
if enough not enough Her
has passed,
then she's also
more than halfway back
to you,
to Whole.
Nothing can go,
nothing is lost
for there is no
'away' within this Here.
No one now, either
at a loss -
for the knowing
is nigh.
Even the knowing
cannot be going
for long 'fore returning;
the yearning is turning
from far-off to nearby.
The Sky lives as well
in every dark puddle.
Its blues, now on Earth
where all even All is at Home.
Nov 2, 2018
Nov 2, 2018 at 1:31 PM UTC
Through a split lip
red foam,
froghopper froth
fizzing, haemoglobin, half-life
sitting thickly-thick,
on a paving stone.
Looking like Clinton’s cards
think human hearts
are shaped like.
But mine’s an artichoke
a watery phloem thistle core
folded in fronds and furs,
bristles of cowlick baleen,
sailing, ship-lapped bark,
darkness and birdcages.
Mine’s a rigour-mortis pill bug
potato fly, oddball, ***** slug
an ammonite, a butterfly tongue,
a bending toe curled in ecstasy.
Exponential shell chambers and septums
ending alongside everything.
And the guts of my heart
incessantly churn mechanically,
maniacally and obliviously rhythmically
Keeping me malleable
soft,
moving,
un-enveloped by beetle wings.
Just like the platelets
of my hardening spit-heart
are, blackening blood,
amber caught bugs,
clay in mud,
elliptical,
eclipsing.
Nothing
like we think it is.
May 31, 2016
May 31, 2016 at 5:21 PM UTC
I've become bilateral tainted--
By coincidences and ageing
Aegis fragments,
I wear sickle seeking madness-
Telling water to float, so dryads
Could root with xylem or phloem.
While the amoebas play
Webs like violin; harps-
The trees felt sorrow singing
--And dropped, but one leaf.
For--
This-was--
A waking-
'Wake'
I only tried-to-die once.
Jan 19, 2015
Jan 19, 2015 at 6:32 PM UTC
************ mornings coughing up grey phlegm
Phloem and Iggy’s Stooges walk on the wild side to dirt
Playing in the background
Smell of rubber
Bands and angry men singing
***** words and healthy birds outside the window chime in
Getting skinnier
Having bizarre twangy renditions played out in the mind
And laid flat on keyboards in bat-swarmed attics
fantastic dreams of large cocked sailors
Muggy Mondays sold with a half bored flourish of enthusiasm
Jun 9, 2014
Jun 9, 2014 at 10:21 AM UTC
I lost the sincerity in my eyes.
A long time.
I spat the fire out,
Replaced with a fjord.
A glacier cut mountain hole.
Shake and fake trembling.
I killed a little boy in my head
Using logic as a razor to cut his throat and sever his spine till all the jelly in it spill.
Replace with a steel core.
Unmoving.
Brittle, albeit,
Courser skin.
Less heart,
And more dead.
Cadaveric,
No love inside.
Only abhorrence,
For every single existent existence.
But I got girls.
What's that helped me.
Continuation of cycles of self-deprecation.
Grew roots,
Spread limbs,
But cut the phloem out.
Bleed the ******* sap.
Mar 8, 2014
Mar 8, 2014 at 9:20 AM UTC
Above the rock
Land and sea
Beneath the rock
Molten rock
Beneath molten rock
Liquid nickel and iron
Beneath the liquid
Solid
Behind each word
Is meaning
Behind each sentence
Purpose
What are you saying to me?
What is your desire, your purpose?
Beneath the bark
Is cambium
The cortex
The phloem primary,secondary
The vascular cambium
Xylem
Secondary,primary
Then the pith
Behind each vibration
Is energy
Beneath our skins
Is flesh and bone
Beneath our clothing
We are animals
What are we saying
To the world?
Aug 17, 2016
Aug 17, 2016 at 2:39 PM UTC
Although I've, in the past, twisted myself around like climbing vines to maintain such subtle nuances of attraction, I am no longer comprised of flexible xylem and phloem. I cannot twist and turn and tighten around you. I have becomes as the great willow tree- strong, immovable, but still so capable of creating shelter and safety.
Apr 3, 2016
Apr 3, 2016 at 1:25 PM UTC
If you have all the egoism of a child and none of the innocence
try bringing your body back from the wild and pen it behind a fence
Instead, pen the page with your ink
-its your new sweat and blood-
Don't stop to think
let it come out in a flood
and throw in the kitchen sink
trust me. This growing bud can't get enough drink
once your words have been spoken
you may feel empty and broken,
your soul ****** up the plant's phloem
and that is when you have written a poem
Jul 30, 2015
Jul 30, 2015 at 8:26 AM UTC
We made it so
That lively rock found its way around the sun again
Firepit kicks up and we burn Christmas store shoeboxes to make colored flame
I love those tendrilled heat-waterfalls that fly towards the sky
And disappear almost instantaneously
Inside the boys sing lonely country tunes
The development walls encircle somewhere in the dark
I watch from the lawn chair and stare towards the interstate
Orion takes the dog star for a walk through moonlit sphere
In my flaming eyes what would be seen
I want to know, please tell me
Do you remember what I did? Had?
Nah, neither don’t I
Get up to stoke the fire
Starbright flames twinkle in between the airfoils
Two hundred year old phloem cracks under the stress
What would take my soul maybe eight minutes
Happens in the momentary second
If there was a stellar plane we crossed we wouldn’t have known it
Nor’th we could distinguish the areo-planes from the stars
Sixty more of these and the world will have come far
And yet we have never touched home
Light a cigarette or crack the can-seal
Lets make sure we forget this moment
I’m already buzzing with anticipation
To awaken in that dreamless bedspread
The flames sizzle out now
Someone poured a beer on them
They hiss with a rush as they dampen
A cauldron of dying time-snakes
Drunken songs fill the gravel as the procession begins
We repeat yesteryear for the lack of change
Detergent of any heat
And the ease in which we slumber now
Nature has its fill in the cracking
Flame
Drink them instead
Jan 3, 2018
Jan 3, 2018 at 10:19 PM UTC
he speaks to me about the xylem
and the phloem, meaningless to me when
the only thing i want to do is listen
to him yap, and to gaze at his eyes
like it’s the sun, and i’m a plant
Jun 6, 2025
Jun 6, 2025 at 6:17 PM UTC