"phosphorescence" poems
*erstwhile a halcyon extant universe incessantly ceaseless
cradled itself in hues of violet phosphorescence
laced with cobalt shimmering stars
perpetually whole it nonetheless
sought to know itself
encompassing all that is bubbling over in effervescent ebullience
intertwined with indescribable catastrophic splendor
it shattered into tens of millions of splinters
of eloquent efflorescent light
shining in the night
each splinter heretofore imbued with sempiternal felicity
began to conjure sumptuous dulcet elixirs
furtively seeking out savory emollients
to mollify the pique of separation
plummeting they fell
into monstrous competition seeking demesne they lost the purpose
of gaining awareness and intelligent consciousness
surreptitious estrangement overflowed
deluging them in excruciating agony
thus an epiphany was born
the carving of the beleaguered fragments inked with tremendous pain
created a transfiguration of splinters to crystals
hence enlightenment commenced as the gems
magnetized together constructing a world
where omnipotence shines
the ineffable beauty formed by the reintegration of crystals
far exceeds the original as they dazzle with universal light
bursting from diamonds etched in deep wisdom
flooding the firmament with kaleidoscopic
rainbow strobes cascading the sky
©2016janetaylor
May 1, 2016
May 1, 2016 at 1:23 PM UTC
The beauty of comatose can only be seen through
the eyes of a wizard in a blizzard
strutting in garlic slippers,
or Christ with knees bent at the tabernacle
peeling bananas and kicking prayers
farther than eternity with each gapping second,
or like Basquiat slumped back to the wall,
with ounces of speedball dancing through his veins,
eating 80’s free-based fried chicken *******
as his eyelids paints beautiful nightmares of lemon flowers
and Bacchus bacon over a glycopyrrolate desert
of flagrant cuckold buffoonery.
Or like leprechauns burning chocolate ******* candles
on the mantle of Zion, sipping oatmeal sprinkled
with Staten Island malt liquor bacon.
or like Tupac reading the thoughts of Mother Shipton
through the daze of California cannabis
and hearing the ominous voice of Plutarch sing death assignments
from heaven to Assassins on horsebacks goggling ***** water
to wet the dry bones of their throats as they prepare to fulfill
the gospel of self-fulfilling prophecies of being fell by ***** bullets.
Or like sophisticated wallets of spice and kitchen characters in a bald head
cooking chemical kisses and 18 February nights under Moloch’s skin,
where constitutions are written in charcoal diaries with Egyptian ciphers and razors.
“I had rain sowed into the pockets of my sneakers and composed 1310 eulogies
at the basement of king David’s tower,” said the Kraftwerkian caricature,
as he dangles cigarettes in remembrance of Klaus Nomi and philosophizes on the proliferation
of poetic vandalism at urinals where modernism failed under the phosphorescence of coloration at the avenue of no trees where Picasso's "Guernica" **** Lies All.
Jul 17, 2012
Jul 17, 2012 at 6:01 PM UTC
Breath of life, it is a wild ocean
always a tide coming and going
in this place, it does not linger long
never holding on, only drifts quietly into night
into stars, into fleeting sparks of fire flies
or in the night waters, a ghostly glow
of phosphorescence, a transient trail
of luminescence that soon
fades and reappears to light
the deepest depths
of sea
Jun 2, 2014
Jun 2, 2014 at 11:52 AM UTC
slipping past my bones
deeply over the rim
nightfall liquid rushing
through the crown
of my head
eyes wide, a-glow
with new vision
Yes. I will meet you there
in subconscious phosphorescence
pools of knowledge
forming between
the feather weight
of our lashes
wait for me
for I am floating
stellar-dipped arms
outstretched,
feeling the particles
the soft space between our
eyes, aligned
Come
let us receive each other
in astral ease
a rocking delight
of non-physical
until we can one day
touch
Feb 25, 2018
Feb 25, 2018 at 4:05 PM UTC
i am convinced now that
no passion exists
like that between
a man and his craft.
no love
like the love for solitude,
by which one can enter
a world all his own,
and plunge to its unfathomable depths,
carelessly disregarding his return.
no quest otherwise compares-
oh how could it?
when countless years of history
can never be retold,
never be reenacted
with different players and different settings?
a man plays a role for
a day, a month, a year, a decade,
then withers in the sun, a palm in the desert.
no amount of memories can be remade,
and no amount of care is remembered.
he is destined only to be vessel of loneliness
for others to mistakenly join and unjoin.
but in his craft
a man loses himself.
he has only his love to invest
and only his love to be returned.
when stricken with failure
he selfishly laps it all up,
gathers it close to his heart,
and holds it as treasure, locked and filed.
he searches for the bottom with lighted torch,
the end with relentless fervor,
finds no evil along the way to be a hindrance,
has no expectation dashed and destroyed.
his eagerness for success drives him deeper.
his delusions of grandeur,
perpetually emboldened.
come find me, i am waiting for you
the solitude beckons him into its fissure,
the cleft in the crust of civilization,
indescribable and hardly intelligible to others.
yet its perfection is infinite as the stars are remote.
with enthusiasm does a man pursue that perfection,
does he pray to be with that god,
Lord of his life and Giver of his breath.
he is a post for flags to be hung,
seen only by those who wander the same mountains,
searching for a chasm of their own.
he is unaided in his walk with the stars,
windowless and guided by celestial phosphorescence.
a man needs silence,
darkness beneath his eyelids,
and space in his bed to breathe.
Apr 12, 2014
Apr 12, 2014 at 2:18 PM UTC
Sunrises make a promise every morning that the Sun is here to stay, but at night it just leaves again. The Sunrise is a lie. At least the Sunset is honest.
i remember sitting beneath the sunset with you. i watched the sunset past your face. it looked more beautiful to me by the minute. the sky was as dark as it gets before the moment of complete nightfall, hued in shades of purple and blue and pink, from streetlights and phosphorescence and the world past its closed horizons.
i remember sitting with nothing but silence between us, because all night "Goodbye" tried to find my lips from where it was stuck in my throat like a pill that wouldn't go all the way down. so i pushed it farther down with every sip of my drink.
Jul 11, 2015
Jul 11, 2015 at 4:26 PM UTC
I see your ghost everywhere
The ghost of who you once were
Before all the **** went down in your brain
The beauty that flowed from you till you woke up from the dream that was your life
That dream shattered right out
Right out from under you
Made you want to forget
Forget who you were
All brought for nought
Fragments still rattle
Behind your eyes
Those candy rock promises someone whispered in the night
Lost that luster, didn't they?
Couldn't find the silver lining?
What was once radiant phosphorescence
Became gangrenous and insipid
Leaving a malodorous taste
Stagnant in your mouth
The feast turned to crumbs left for the rats under your skin
You become to stately for our unostentatious life
Now you've painted the Petunia's colors of your choice
Rearranged your furniture
To play at being all grown-up
Bit of turpentine blotted on the canvas might smear the lines
But that won't erase your past
Your fingerprints are etched into
Every discarded can of spray paint
Lips carved into the pores of to much skin
You'll slice them off to get rid of the feelling
Keep up your newly minted fascade
That caused you such strife
To grow in the petri dish
Under your mothers sink
While you tryed to burn your
Bridges to ashes
Ashes embedded forevermore under your fingernails
Now you linger in ghosts
Haunting cities you've never been to
Places you're naught to see
In them breathes a
Chilly air wishing to keep you alive
Sep 13, 2017
Sep 13, 2017 at 9:25 AM UTC
It is summer and soon the Perseid showers
I have gone from my desert home
I wander far from crowded towns
my feet in grassy, bee clover
deep summer, all daisy flowered
green leaves, wild blackberries
await the August sun fire.
Here amid the slowing of mars retrograde
of my love returning home too late
no long goodbye, only the weight
I watch oceans of seaweed sway
at night the phosphorescence
the lonesome of sea stars trailing.
Jun 8, 2016
Jun 8, 2016 at 11:09 AM UTC
sometimes it feels as if
I have too many milk teeth,
too many parts of me that belong
to a time when I climbed trees to touch the sky
and I swam in sunflowers
and fireflies -
to a time I have long since
painted in sepia tones,
long since pushed
to the back of my mind
with hands so tired
of being filled with splinters
- too many seeds
and not enough light.
there are too many parts of me
that I have placed underneath pillows,
that I have kept behind closed lashes,
that I have slept upon, waiting
for the morning to arrive and them
to be g o n e ,
replaced with coins that I could place
underneath the tongues of the dreams
that I could not ferry to my
frail realities.
but in the morning, they return -
one by one into my mouth,
daring me to speak them,
daring me to sing,
daring me to find someone who will listen.
listen.
it feels as if
I have too many stories,
too many secrets,
too many sins and not enough space
for the words to fly out of my mouth
and into the world -
I have too many milk teeth
that I cannot remove.
and sometimes I think maybe that's why
I don't understand
permanence.
I don't understand
change.
I don't understand
growing up,
growing out,
growing apart -
I don't know what it means
to stare at the sun
while your feet are moving forward,
only forward, never back.
because I have spent all my life
climbing on the shoulders
of mountaintops and moonstones,
and standing tall
was never an option.
sometimes climbing is tough
when my mouth gets too heavy
with overgrown memories
and I can almost feel myself cry out
"save me," can hear myself whisper
"listen."
but pride and false bravery sew me shut
and I'm left to watch my bones
taken over by page-pressed petals
and old phosphorescence -
and it's in moments like these
that I stop climbing and think
maybe it's time for me to grow now,
on my own:
hands and legs
and lungs and heart,
spine and ribs and
collarbones, cranium,
and with baby teeth bared I am
blooming fire and gold and
facing the sun -
smiling.
Oct 1, 2013
Oct 1, 2013 at 10:36 AM UTC
setting sun
blood red orb falling into mercury sea
breeze gentle like a lover’s caress
a stillness so pure
inky blackness
endless arch peppered with stars
planets blink, flying fish dance
phosphorescence luminous in the wake of your footfall
and so you sit
breathing
absorbing
the very essence of earth, sea and sky
moon rise
full, swollen with fecundity
silence embraces you
life’s negativity is cleansed from your soul
and so you sit
dreaming
wishing on a star
sun rise
pink, peach, soft
enveloping your being
giving birth to a brand new day
to a brand new you
Dec 17, 2010
Dec 17, 2010 at 12:53 AM UTC
Places I love come back to me like music,
Hush me and heal me when I am very tired;
I see the oak woods at Saxton’s flaming
In a flare of crimson by the frost newly fired;
And I am thirsty for the spring in the valley
As for a kiss ungiven and long desired.
I know a bright world of snowy hills at Boonton,
A blue and white dazzling light on everything one sees,
The ice-covered branches of the hemlocks sparkle
Bending low and tinkling in the sharp thin breeze,
And iridescent crystals fall and crackle on the snow-crust
With the winter sun drawing cold blue shadows from the trees.
Violet now, in veil on veil of evening
The hills across from Cromwell grow dreamy and far;
A wood-thrush is singing soft as a viol
In the heart of the hollow where the dark pools are;
The primrose has opened her pale yellow flowers
And heaven is lighting star after star.
Places I love come back to me like music —
Mid-ocean, midnight, the waves buzz drowsily;
In the ship’s deep churning the eerie phosphorescence
Is like the souls of people who were drowned at sea,
And I can hear a man’s voice, speaking, hushed, insistent,
At midnight, in mid-ocean, hour on hour to me.
1.3k
Desire has a nuanced way
Of rearing its ugly head
Disguised in a pretty red wig
A cinnamon girl, a wild mare
Racing a hot summers night
And I, a king of trash, lost
Deep in the ocean of vulnerability
That glimmers behind your eyes
Sinking, swimming, submerged
It's hard to stay afloat
When you're ten feet above water
And you can't breathe
When your lungs are full of lust
But maybe just for tonight
Among the places we've drank
The cars taking us here to there
The cigarettes, tequila, and drugs
The warming sensations
The stupid decisions
The too close conversations
A longing gaze, a hand on thigh
Your beauty closes in on mine
And our lips would touch
Igniting a flame, burning me
Embers to ashes, dust to pain
For we'd only exist this night
A memory in the making
A heart of broken shame
A possibility too perfect
The product of fantasy
Something I'd wish for
But never come to fruition
Intuition screaming at me
*Don't kiss the girl
Leave before you **** yourself up*
And in comes the reaper
Here to collect my debt
Of too much ingested
I feel sick, losing control
Get me the hell out of here
I want to go home.
Jun 3, 2016
Jun 3, 2016 at 9:29 PM UTC
I watch as the droplet eases itself
down from the wound, into a strip of paper,
scarlet on crimson. some might call it a stain,
but this is no mistake, I will fold myself
in, like blush on cheek, I will make it look real.
is it pathetic to imitate what we can never achieve?
the night sky gloats in silent mockery. the trail of
her dress drags along my dry eyes, and she burns
a hole for every jewel I cannot reach.
is it a sin to covet a sin? my fingers run along
the grooves of my carved pupils, and I can't
remember anything aside from the warmth
of a star in another orbit.
I fold my three hundred and fifty second paper star.
Does the moon believe that these are her children too?
Or are my paper cuts for naught? One day, I know
the paper will be skin and the star will be a sun.
but until then I will bleed, and until then
I will have to suffice with a constellation of scars
that glow in the dark on my ceiling.
Mar 10, 2025
Mar 10, 2025 at 5:23 AM UTC
the setting sun
blood red orb falling into mercury sea
soft breeze tracing your skin like a lover’s caress
stillness
so pure
inky blackness falls
an endless arch peppered with stars
planets blink
flying fish dance
phosphorescence sparkles green
luminous in the wake of your footfall
and so you sit
breathing
absorbing
the very essence of earth, sea and sky
the moon rises full
swollen with fecundity
silence embraces you
life’s negativity is cleansed from your soul
and so you sit
dreaming
wishing on a star
the sun rises
pink, peach, soft
enveloping your being
giving birth to a brand new day
to a brand new you
Nov 29, 2011
Nov 29, 2011 at 5:31 PM UTC
Some nights it
is alarmingly
imperceptible:
an exoskeleton ascends
on iron rivets and steel;
unseen scaffolding tapers
to a steady pulsing point
of phosphorescence—
a mechanical heart
circulating red light
into leaden clouds.
Some nights the air thickens
with cordite, grief, and snow.
Tonight with winter here
we can see the tower’s
beacon blinking through
a tangled scrim of trees
half a mile across town,
and yet even with our
bodies squeezed together
like radio dials in the dark
we are unable to tune it in—
the signal that would calibrate
our estranged transistor hearts.
Nov 30, 2016
Nov 30, 2016 at 10:44 AM UTC
Nights, we take the boat out
paddle our way green through water
swum by inlet waves, full moon apace
shadowy, ancient tribal faced
lose all trace of the shore, black
but for phosphorescence
glowing, trailing from the oars
a haunting ghostly art
green and breathing, disappearing
back into darkness, swallowed
by black water, by night
strange this death,
this rebirth and breath
felt in each and every moment.
Sep 19, 2015
Sep 19, 2015 at 2:50 PM UTC
The water is black
late night of a new moon.
I dive into it
swim underwater
away from the fire
and drunken noise
my heart beating hard
at odds
with the cold silence.
I scream ---
mostly bubbles
and a mouthful of salt
I gag and surface.
"Open your eyes underwater!"
you scream from the shore
"There's phosphorescence!"
I open them for the first time
in salt water
and see the algae lit
a tunnel curved in my hands
I do a somersault
then float
knees pressed to chest
blowing light bubbles.
I get back
no towel, sand in my pants
huddled by the fire
I press you close,
But your head is
bent, away
"I can't love you"
you mumble to my chest
squeezing harder.
Nov 30, 2010
Nov 30, 2010 at 10:16 PM UTC
The camp fire burned brightly in the cool air
Flames leaping to touch the sky
Our eyes transfixed as we sit entwined
Watching the little sprites dancing around
The yellow glow of phosphorescence
Bathes our faces and gives a strange
But healthy brightness, eyes sparkling
Lips drawn back in a grin, watching
Many times the central flames danced in unison
Then on their own, looking to be the best
The tallest, the most active, the restful
Flicker in the night then streak upwards
Competing with the stars yet such a new light
An old light, primeval and reliably warm
Protective, dissuasive to wildlife, they too
Enthralled by the crackle of the hot licking flames
Three feet away our toes curl, enjoying the heat
The comfort of the enveloping energy
Every element a paradox of danger versus cosiness
Gripping our fingers, soaking up the radiated waves
Hands stretched out at arms length, spread fingers
Rubbing together and pushing back the hair in our faces
Cheeks rosy, clothes giving that just ironed smell
Evocative and basic, life-giving and wondrous
Feb 2, 2012
Feb 2, 2012 at 6:48 PM UTC
They say that music uses your whole brain,
Lights it up like phosphorescence.
For a moment you're either brilliant or insane,
Distilled from all your pain right to the essence.
Ever felt the cut of a cold winter day?
So frigid that it's crystal clear like a frozen pond.
Ever wish your every feeling far away
And all your thoughts and longings dead and gone?
I woke up on a day like that, naive,
And felt the frozen sun reach through my window,
Ready in my ignorance to believe
That only changing seasons abruptly go.
As the sun had set in rings of red
And bled across the silent snow to darkness,
As the bruising blues of brutal nighttime spread
And shimmered shadows over all the rest,
The burning soul behind sad eyes, it choked and guttered,
Flickering like a candle in the rain.
And battered and abused, a heartbeat stuttered,
Shuttered in a mind unwilling to explain.
A scalding form among the frost blooming like flowers,
Silent and arrayed in lacy snow,
Passed away the last of all her hours,
Numb, full of surrender and alone.
As I'd layed me down that night to rest,
I had a sudden painful urge to pray.
Didn't know quite how- I had to guess.
But I knelt, puzzled, to do it anyway.
They say that when you watch a ballerina dance
Your body tenses like you're dancing too.
I pity those who never spare a glance,
For it fades quickly as all other beauties do.
I marveled tears upon my pale cheeks as I spoke,
And we both shut our eyes at once to dreams.
But in the cold sun only one of us awoke,
And shook off death in wispy silver beams.
You never know what you have done by living here
Until you stumble into the void of what you've been.
On an ice cold silent night with Christmas near,
She closed her eyes forever and I never lived again.
Mar 25, 2013
Mar 25, 2013 at 4:52 PM UTC
Her wishes are constantly
Dancing on air
Feeding on lightning bugs
Phosphorescence rubs off on her teeth
Dazzling the competition
As her twinkling toes
Bruised and bound
Point way toward
First prize
In the Dolly Dinkle Dance Recital
"Here Comes The Sun"
Sang The Beatles
Sang the beetles
Mar 31, 2016
Mar 31, 2016 at 12:48 PM UTC
they fell from a tolleycroft trawler
(about a mile off the gary dock)
tossed in a bottlenose gulf stream
partially pasted on ruk and crustacean
belly ******* ragged
fender bent rolling
drifting on krill chop
past o' malleys
down juan de fuca
rubbing grain
into the gun barrel sea
twisted benjamins
nipped by the hungry swell
blunt on a wayward log
deep in the gutty storm
slack jaw, skinned
medling
over phosphorescence
and grayling
and cold erratic flow
(oh those seedy finman!)
driftwood gorge
at celebration light
sun carts rise
to the homecoming
**** that nuisance moon!)*
crimson tide
and contraband
strung on the greyhound
intervention essentials
with menacing roots
these crackers lack
all disposition
and tact
an enemy mask
lies deep within
blinded rodmen
on a shoreline retreat
where the franklin bills
are spinning
Jul 13, 2017
Jul 13, 2017 at 12:41 AM UTC
A Delphic phosphorescence nests
Kindled was the yellow flame
Exclusive ulterior vibes rest
A Delphic phosphorescence nests
Sensibility shan’t ever subside
Upon sojourning the grain
A Delphic phosphorescence nests
Exclusive ulterior vibes rest
May 30, 2012
May 30, 2012 at 2:58 PM UTC
Summer nights are pushed in
with cold breezes and robins wings.
At night the sun never truly fades,
a yellow phosphorescence lingers
kin to the sticky heat and light bugs.
It hangs in the air, light caught on nothing
like dew caught in a web.
The mosquitoes wings twist the air
into a dour chorus
like a poorly tuned violin quartet.
And sweat sticks to the brow.
And to the sheets.
And to the thin shirt that twists around beneath tight covers.
The eyes that no longer reflect blue
only the slow blink of the fireflies.
Crickets sing the ears to sleep,
and if the ear is trained,
or looking for something to hear,
it might catch the very light buffets
of the frenzied flutter of bats.
The moon hazed from the days heat
hangs low making the sky like the inside
of an immense pin hole camera.
Promising an interesting and bright world on the other side.
Nov 30, 2012
Nov 30, 2012 at 4:42 PM UTC