"phosphenes" poems
Aquiver mellifluous ineffable hiraeth nefarious somnambulist epoch sonorous serendipitous limerence bombinate luminescence ethereal illicit petrichor iridescent supine aurora solitude syzygy phosphenes oblivion ephemeral incandescence denouement vellichor eloquence defenestration Sondra effervescence cromulent cellar-door debridement
Illustrator icon verdant cerulean aeneous albicant amaranthine azuline argent chartreuse damask ferruginous haematic hyacinthine ibis ochre primrose russet sanguineous virescent mystborn transcendence
Mar 20, 2015
Mar 20, 2015 at 10:31 AM UTC
#do you know what phosphenes are?
when you rub your eyes
those little blinking dots
the ones of different colours
that dance around alluringly
you are very much like phosphenes
a vast array of colour
destroying boundless darkness
make me forget my fatigue
i immerse myself in your beauty
breathtaking, indescribable
but as soon as i open my eyes
you disperse into nothing
i'm met with the sight of another bleak day
until i close my eyes again
a̶n̶d̶ ̶m̶a̶y̶b̶e̶ ̶r̶u̶b̶ ̶e̶l̶s̶e̶w̶h̶e̶r̶e̶
Aug 4, 2018
Aug 4, 2018 at 5:02 PM UTC
Writing letters in Spanish to Penthouse magazine because everything sounds better in español.
It was a beautiful loving thing before it all exploded like a train wreck.
Are you furious?
A country that douses itself in English and then drowns you at the hearth.
Cherry vanilla
Obsessive compulsive
Mint and lemon-grass handwash
The only things that matter?
Thoughts from when I first woke up this morning... Still in that fuzzy bit where you don't open your eyes and no matter how you're laying, it's always comfortable. A feeling I take for granted. I think about you kissing my ******* and not about how you're falling in love with my best friend; but if she's happy, I'm happy. Good morning.
Jun 22, 2016
Jun 22, 2016 at 4:17 PM UTC
~
*black tie, bare feet,
a walk through dandelions,
following the scent of wine
and mirthful promise
phosphenes and paresthesia
—slow dazzle motif;
the bluebird of happiness
echoes in a shallow bay;
pieces of places to claim as theirs:
moth wings, flower petals,
and blades of grass
seduced by eventide,
unhurried mouth(s), lips searching
and soft, all words seem to have
a few extra vowels;
sudden ubiquity
to collisions and slippages,
cultivating suggestive shapes
from aleatory arrays
of objects and forms
in the surf they mingle and link,
emancipating adrenaline;
they love like they were
water for life*
~
Apr 17, 2023
Apr 17, 2023 at 5:11 PM UTC
Dwelling is a razor
regret, drip-fed poison
guilt, a creaking chain as it tightens around my neck.
Stockholm syndrome has me
in that
lovelifedeath
grip.
And as my own jailer
I rail against myself
Caught in a purgatory-
safe
drawing blood
then consoling.
I can't see........
My corneas tear in the wind
there's some metaphysical connection, I know it
I don't want to look at my life as it is
The guilt twists my guts
I'm pathetic in my failures
and grasping at a fading light.
Ah perfectionism, my abusive lover;
you endow me such power, then beat me senseless
I'm goddess, then mortal-
panicking
frail
with nowhere but elusive horizons to go.
Phosphenes
those bright spots of colour
as I rub my eyes-
Once again I wake too early
and that too-familiar cyanide starts to leak through my veins
and anxiety grips me
How'll I ever get it right
make it out
fix it all
come out from under
breathesucceedrelaxenjoybeworthsomething
in short
has my bright patch of colour had its day?
I can't
face it.
Jan 31, 2013
Jan 31, 2013 at 3:57 AM UTC
"That felt like forever,"
and I meant it
as the sound broke through the noise
of the Saturday morning experience
I was having
and enjoying
I caught your eyes
and you hid from my blurry face
behind the thin flesh
as the phosphenes flickered blue and red and yellow
like my father's old television
that clicked loudly when I'd turn the dial
I buried my burning face
In the soft fabric
that's been through the wash one too many times
and I smelled fresh ink
in the sensation of mallets
colliding with my temples
You wrapped all of you
around all of me
and I felt the crude, harsh lines of your figure
against the curves of my hatred
I held my breath
and released my soul
The building collapsed around us
and in the debris I found photographs
of a face I only vaguely remember
and that old broken heirloom
that I still keep around
even though I know it's not worth anything
But for that one second
when my body and spirit connected
and my consciousness slipped away as I fell into a new dissociation
I woke up and understood
that we were existing only for this
and it felt like forever
Nov 20, 2012
Nov 20, 2012 at 10:48 PM UTC
Exploring hands encounter no defence;
Recollecting endeavours drives her to a dry pain
Throbbing, throbbing
Hamlet's hamartia discards her to the lowest of the dead
His vanity requires no response;
Her life on the line and he's got nothing to lose.
So much more the eye can see
Caressing, caressing
Her brain allows one half-formed thought to pass;
Leave me, carbuncle:
Words she has never been able to utter . . .
Loudly, she thinks it
It doesn't translate
Shivering, quivering
Brittle monster bestows one final patronising kiss
I must exercise some form of self control
Hardly aware of her departed lover,
She lays in a yellow blanket;
Phosphenes in the emerging light of day.
Apr 22, 2015
Apr 22, 2015 at 2:10 PM UTC
No
im not that betrayal creatures
which disappear
once i felt cherished
right after they call me
but what about people who forget me
when im done cherishing them
what about me
you see
im flawed
i can't stand them forgetting me
just like that
im not
as real
as bright
as victorious
as the stars
but im one of them
but just a different kind of one
i have to dissapear
putting those blames on me
im okay
Aug 17, 2013
Aug 17, 2013 at 2:54 AM UTC
gaslit streams of dreams
and now you're psychedelic
soaking in highs and higher you're
throwing me over the bridge
and under a bus but
_>is that a bucatti?_
and im telling you
_>no, its just another dead thing_
and that seems to catch your blown eyes for a moment
because you smile at me
as if I can't already see the phosphenes dancing behind your gaze but
not before you say
_>what if we could make it one?_
and now i'm smiling too because
_>who's to stop us?_
the night seemed impossible and
unfortunately, we were still awake.
Jul 22, 2018
Jul 22, 2018 at 12:47 PM UTC
i want to
see stars in
daylight, so i rub
my eyes.
Mar 17, 2014
Mar 17, 2014 at 5:13 AM UTC
In a castle constructed of bones on a mountain high,
our hero sits alone on an ivory throne,
waiting for his current state of jejune to pass.
Whisperings of a voice, mellifluous air,
a singing so beautiful his heart skips a beat
at the gentle murmurings of such an ethereal voice.
And so he vacates his ivory throne
in search of this songbird that has invaded his walls,
the voice instils a certain hiraeth in his mind,
that village once so dear to him that now lies in ruins
due to his incandescent bursts of magical madness.
The owner of this voice, the eloquence, the elegance,
the image in his head that of a maiden on a rock,
as naked as the day she was born
and bathed in an iridescent sunrise.
A scintilla of a break in her voice
and she begins to sob at the meaning of her words.
He finds the source of this angelic sound,
a woebegone but comely creature supine on a table,
her eyes staring into heavenly mountains of madness.
She does not look to meet his wild-eyed gaze,
instead melting away until she is nothing at all,
leaving only dancing embers and phosphenes where she had lain.
He hears this burst of angelic quavers every day
but his madness permits no memory of each
to reside in his brain, comfortable and snug.
Instead, he suffers this delusion every morning,
when his head his quiet and thoughts are oblivion.
This siren swansong has no source in reality,
it is the last vestige of a mind damaged by time and solitude,
where the dawn chorus each morn’s twilight goes unheard,
but the ghostly choral vocalisations of a bitter memory
break his trance and he searches for the only sound not real.
Jul 15, 2017
Jul 15, 2017 at 8:03 PM UTC
my eyes are tired
of drinking daylight
a breeze rustles the vines
outside my window
will it be cool tonight?
the phone goes unanswered
the tv remains off
it's time to rest
upon my pillow
there is nothing but darkness
phosphenes
the sound of ears ringing
and dreams of you
Mar 5, 2010
Mar 5, 2010 at 3:09 PM UTC
I take a pill each morning--
"to keep the madness away,"
declared the doctor,
her tone clinically nonchalant
as she handed to me
a prescription for
small, white tablets
that leave a bitter chalkiness
in your mouth
when you've left them
on your tongue
for too long
before swallowing.
But
there is only so much
modern-day pharmaceuticals
can remedy.
Sometimes,
I can still hear her,
you know--
sweet.
lost.
mad
Alice
scratching at the
tessellated patch-work
of my psyche.
I can still feel her
as my fingertips flit
across the liquor bottle--
"Drink Me,"
it murmurs.
Curiouser
&
curiouser
I become with
every shot.
When the room
starts lurching,
when I am too
dizzy to stand,
I close my eyes only
to find that the world
is still spinning.
Or perhaps
I am just falling.
Yes,
D
O
W
N
the rabbit hole I go.
And, as I plummet,
the phosphenes of colour
behind my eyes
transmute into the most
peculiar images:
a mercury-tainted top hat
encompassing the harlequin
countenance of a man
as crazed as I;
the trundling wings
of a Jabberwock
and the heaving snout
of a Bandersnatch;
a pocket watch,
its face lustrous and
encrusted with Jadestone--
"Time. It's time!"
it chimes.
"Time for what?"
exclaims the girl
in the periwinkle petticoat
(she appears simultaneously
excited and terrified
by the impending chaos).
"Bloodshed,"
reckons the squire
of the pocket watch--
the March Hare,
a grisly little thing
in a tattered waist jacket.
"Bloodshed, bloodshed,
off with her head!"
And that girl in periwinkle?
Why that girl is me,
and the Queen of Wonderland
has dealt her cards--
she'd like my head
(and my heart).
But
sweet.
lost.
mad
Alice
has a trick of
her own to deal--
a Wild Card
tucked beneath her sleeve.
She is capable of imagining
at least six impossible things
before the high is over,
you know.
All it takes is a
simple flutter
of an eyelash
and then,
gripped between
her fingers,
appears a substance
foreign to Wonderland--
***
"Bottoms up--
for with this,
I shan't feel a thing,"
she surrenders.
"What?"
roars the queen
upon her arrival.
"You will not fight?
Why, you must be mad!"
"Haven't you heard?"
replied Alice.
"All the best people are--
Cheers."
Oct 7, 2018
Oct 7, 2018 at 2:32 PM UTC
whispered dreams and echoes in the dark
throwing tantrums at night for a *******
piece of death between my frozen-in-motion
lips that mouthed the three words in the living
*i need you
because i do*
i pressed the tips of my fingers to my eyelids until
i saw phosphenes and everything hit me like a bullet
so i ****** oxygen inward as if drowning and
then i realised i needed you even more than that
more than the oxygen that kept me alive and alone
more than the blood that fills my veins and whole heart
more than the alcohol that ***** my liver and lifts my head
more than that what makes time move forward
more than **** gravitation that has the earth turning
more than whatever it is that makes me think at all
i need your hand on my back to keep me steady
i need you talking to me like i'm real and i'm here for you
i need you walking beside me in the alleyways of town
clenching my hand in case this is over too soon
i need your hair stroking my cheek like it used to
i need your eyes on me in all the ruddy colours they are
i need you with all your laughter, cries, **** ups, frustration,
caresses, shame, fears, dreams, echoes, tantrums and lips
you and i
it's engraved in our skin
that's why.
May 23, 2014
May 23, 2014 at 8:25 PM UTC
Your eyes are the colour of the starry night sky; I close my eyes watching the
Fireworks of phosphenes
And in my vision I see your cold blue stare: warm, friendly, loving.
Too warm, too friendly, too loving.
My hands reached forth meeting a blistering nothing.
Our palms are two halves meant to be one, fingers intertwined and locked
Yet locked is your heart to which a key I have not.
My heart raced while watching you from afar
A spark ignited and soared into the black sky.
Exploding, it lit up the dark night and showered me with your warmth and fire
One I enveloped and was blinded by; I could not see the light
Fade into the stark starless nothingness
Instead, all I saw was you (and the life I wanted with you)
Countless, fruitless attempts of baring my soul to you made me question
Perhaps Cupid misfired, made me askew, and still I yearn for you.
I am afraid, you know. Yet, a sliver of light slipped between the crack of the closet door
Do I grasp it or do I leave the light be?
(laughs) Forgive me. To be or not to be, wasn't the crux, was it?
Staring at you from across the room, I've come to realize
Hard truths never fail to fall even the strongest—you only have eyes for Others
Cause after all, norms are meant to be adhered to
And the sky is never always a clear blue. Fireworks don't last forever,
Do they?
In the darkness I stand watching them fade. I clutch at my heart, fire ablaze. It shall stay ablaze
For all eternity.
Mar 10, 2017
Mar 10, 2017 at 4:16 AM UTC
My mind is aquiver with these thoughts that swarm like bees
Yet just the same my body trembles by the touch of your skin
As your mellifluous voice makes silent the buzzing in my ears
It's strange you see, the paradox that is us, you and I together
There is terror and calm, there is beauty and horror in it all
Like a sort of Yin and Yang but more so just a tug-o-war
With this I look in the past and question the limerence that was
It blinded us and deceived us like a butterfly hiding from a predator
We thought we knew what Love was, but maybe it was never made
We only rubbed our eyes and like phosphenes we saw an illusion
Colors that may only exist in a moment, but aren’t pure reality
Our lives together became so flawed in all we tried to conceive
The moments of bliss and happiness were always just ephemeral
We got caught up in oblivion, because we lost ourselves before
There never was a truth to see, we were birds flying as if deaf
With this I come to a resolution that our relation was merely cromulent
We attempted to ameliorate something that was doomed from the start
Yet I think there was a sort of dalliance, but simply rooted in the flesh
Jun 13, 2015
Jun 13, 2015 at 9:36 PM UTC
Affection draws me to you
your every part and every moves
and shatters me to pieces
your hair that falls like lightening
sparkles with thunder on my darkest night
like routine, these days
and shatters my conscience
like all those trees falling
helplessly, grotesque and broken
constellations shines in your eyes
and in my eyes are phosphenes
of your images blurred by shadowy lights
floating down the drain of my brain through my heart
as i slowly lose what was once so dear to me
i fall miserably in the salty tears
unable to swim across the dimples that forms in your cheeks
when you smile
i try to stretch my lips from ear to ear
in vain
i am not under my control these days
i have forgotten to love me
since you declined all the love
i showered over you
and that love now flows down the gutter
like monsoon rain
my once big bright enthusiasm now floats around
teasing me to despair
together with smokes of cigarettes i have just begun to smoke
i have been such a reckless lover
you have been always been the better one
my favourite lines of love poetry
which i seem to relate has turned to some
crazy language i can't understand
all those days i sought to hold your hands forever
i dreamt you by my side
brought you all my life, i could't lose
i fed to you, affection so annoying
now life devalues day by day
you have been a chain
even with regret cannot be undone
i wash my hand time to time
unable to wash you from my heart
i turn back and look at you
splitting me away...
from morning to night
as i barely survive
residing on the corner.. dark..
waiting for lightning
thunders, flood... silently
extinguishing the light of my life
with the candle dying over the note
i used to write love poems with your name at the end
does it even sense
Jun 13, 2015
Jun 13, 2015 at 3:05 PM UTC
Bright cold silver moon
Staring into the scales - your nacreous eyes
You are my ******
I touch your hair ever so delicately
Why am I filled with torrid logy?
You are my narcotic, you
Unknowingly sew
the lids of my eyes closed
Cross-stitched phosphenes of your face
under my eyelids
I am overcome with a voracious thirst
to drink you, or the glass of moonshine
balanced precariously on your lips
Everything is better when my being
splinters, fractures, and crumbles into your lap
Moonshine, take us to the cosmos tonight
May 21, 2016
May 21, 2016 at 8:46 AM UTC
sun’s light plays through disbursing clouds winding the day down; long legged spidery shadows
glinting reflections ignite phosphenes inside his closed eyes
cool finger-like breezes a sensual treat for warm body and tired mind
beyond papa’s peeling painted porch, sparse leaves on a rose bush’s bramble of dying brown branches sway and tickle with wind chimes
white wood railing diminished by dry rot
carnitas’ aroma remoras, zephyring eastward, riding in from a nearby restaurant; the faint perception of hunger
birds and traffic rush silently by; muted by hearing loss, drowned by tinnitus’ ringing and snapping
neon’s colors flash down the daytime street too far to read
miniature pedestrian people peddle in the distance, dwarfed by utility poles and power lines perspectively
from the hospital bed set up in his living room, he watches his open front door like tv
amidst a clutter within arm’s reach
Jan 27, 2016
Jan 27, 2016 at 3:50 AM UTC
brush your hair
comb the edge
get rid of your blemishes
upkeep things
organize
nyquil for the idle hands
know you're wrong
don't say so
arguments are a lost cause
snapback hat
novelty
time for the collection fee
walmart brand
can of worms
guilty for the selfish hearse
you're alright?
yeah, i am
throw it in a garbage can
cellophane
selling pain
dip head in the ocean plain
saline eyes
retina sees
iridescence in the trees
shutter flash
phosphenes lie
LED painted sky
thumb moves past
impulse read
why don't you stay in bed?
travel blogs
saved to note
corkboard creaks, tilted down
birdcage closed
food poured in
aluminum paper thin
fields of wheat
eyelash closed
only at the tip of your nose
dusk rolls in
pavement hides
suburbs in your alveoli
inhale once
exhale twice
chew on tepid freezer ice
Sep 19, 2024
Sep 19, 2024 at 11:54 PM UTC
Sometimes the person you fall for isn’t ready to catch you.
May 17, 2015
May 17, 2015 at 11:48 PM UTC
I wished you stayed, I wish you stayed, I wish you stayed
but you are made out of shooting stars and made to be loved from
a distance
I wished to feel you, I wished to feel you, I wished to feel you
but you are made out of phosphenes and made to never be touched but drunkenly seen
I wished you were mine, I wished you were mine, I wished you were mine
but you are Equuleus, Pegasus, yearned after constellation, and made
to be yours and yours alone
I can't say bye, I can't say bye, I can't say bye
for I am a creature of immense love, immense emotion, immense denial
I am a galaxy, and I will love you until my stars burn out.
Jun 7, 2016
Jun 7, 2016 at 2:16 AM UTC
Staggering to my feet from the icy bathroom floor
One hand raised to shield my swollen red eyes from the
Blinding sunlight filtering through the dew-stained leaves of maple trees
Another hand weakly grabbing onto the porcelain white sink
When a sudden wave of gut-turning nausea caused my knees to buckle
And the white room spun
My vision peppered with phosphenes like holographic dust
My skin drenched in cold sweat
No longer sweet since the day you left me
My blood’s a bitterness you can’t imagine
Nov 26, 2017
Nov 26, 2017 at 7:17 AM UTC
phosphenes float in tired eyes
memories orbiting by
mind lavished in color
our world isn't smaller
Aug 4, 2015
Aug 4, 2015 at 4:57 AM UTC
black and fuzzy and walking through a vivid nightmare of things moved around and skewed. rushing and a sharp zephyr that grazes your skin and rustles your hair. its incredible. there is bright light. burning my retinas and pushing on my brain.
i walked around again last night. pulsing in the temples and sniffing e+++rs or whatever you call them now. the urge to binge boils in the pit of my stomach.
infinite visions of infinite timelines of infinite versions of me and myself and everyone around me. my bougainvillea froze and slowly obliterated my memory. the page turns and the blur comes to wipe out the color from my eyes, shut now, fractals danced and the phosphenes came. then stuttering im coming out of it. what?
is this? what is this? another shallow poem that considers itself? low art on the internet begging to go viral? an avant garde approach at a genre begging for something new? just a puff of smoke?
the yellow is nice it takes the sterility of my surroundings the color of it all drained and depleted. at night I choose the sterility and let the colors sharpen and blast.
the smell of earth. that dirt and wind smell from the rain and the loamy soil. the imagery and lucidity glows in the background. feeding on my periphery. come and whisper with me.
Mar 29, 2018
Mar 29, 2018 at 11:48 AM UTC