"physiognomy" poems
Katie Price
Had a collection
Of last season's
Brassieres
Which she indexed
With the help
Of a sincere
Bilingual reindeer
Dressed in spandex
Who for some reason
Was single.
Taxonomy
Is so important to me
Said Katie.
So they were labelled
And kept in taxis
At disused angle grinder factories
Near the Tower of Babel
So posterity
Would be able
To analyse
The finer points
Of her physiognomy.
Quite an unusual praxis
And something of an anomaly
For someone like me
Wouldn't you agree?
Cross my heart
And hope to die
I agree.
May 9, 2014
May 9, 2014 at 2:42 PM UTC
1138
A Spider sewed at Night
Without a Light
Upon an Arc of White.
If Ruff it was of Dame
Or Shroud of Gnome
Himself himself inform.
Of Immortality
His Strategy
Was Physiognomy.
7.9k
Yes,
I threw your champagne glass at the wall.
Yes, the door did hit me on my way out.
I know you did it because you know my secret.
You know why I wear those turtlenecks.
You knew how I scorned humanity,
And the good name of anthropology,
Psychology, and physiognomy,
You could tell I didn't think the lake was so beautiful,
Because I was the only one who notices the algae.
The only one who noticed the pollution from the Victorian chimney,
And the only one who didn't just see you in your reflection,
But your volatile doppelgänger.
Dec 21, 2013
Dec 21, 2013 at 4:35 PM UTC
One’s-Self I sing, a simple separate person,
Yet utter the word Democratic, the word En-Masse.
Of physiology from top to toe I sing,
Not physiognomy alone nor brain alone is worthy for the Muse,
I say the Form complete is worthier far,
The Female equally with the Male I sing.
Of Life immense in passion, pulse, and power,
Cheerful, for freest action form’d under the laws divine,
The Modern Man I sing.
4.5k
1437
A Dew sufficed itself—
And satisfied a Leaf
And felt “how vast a destiny”—
“How trivial is Life!”
The Sun went out to work—
The Day went out to play
And not again that Dew be seen
By Physiognomy
Whether by Day Abducted
Or emptied by the Sun
Into the Sea in passing
Eternally unknown
Attested to this Day
That awful Tragedy
By Transport’s instability
And Doom’s celerity.
2.5k
1733
No man saw awe, nor to his house
Admitted he a man
Though by his awful residence
Has human nature been.
Not deeming of his dread abode
Till laboring to flee
A grasp on comprehension laid
Detained vitality.
Returning is a different route
The Spirit could not show
For breathing is the only work
To be enacted now.
“Am not consumed,” old Moses wrote,
“Yet saw him face to face”—
That very physiognomy
I am convinced was this.
2.5k
.the rorschach test... and the gestalt theory... and taking a selfie... esp. if one does so using two mirrors - to achieve the profile: side "invitation"... or rather... i'm not minding the chronology... the imploded darkness... what is Gestalt to Rorschach? x-ray minus vision? the psychology of bones... or... what is gestalt and rorschach within the confines of physiognomy? ink-blot: either a butterfly or a pelvis!
to take a selfie, proper -
i always require to use two mirrors -
to take a selfie i need to bend
light - or at least my eyesight...
i need to use two mirror:
to take a selfie...
because... i know what it feels
like to have your picture taken:
by a "third" person -
and i want to remember how good
it feels like...
when someone takes a photograph
of you: with you being caught:
unsuspecting...
a picture taken when: you're not
in a group and about to say:
charlie loves wensleydale!
no... i need two mirrors to take a selfie -
and it's always... a profile picture...
the gestalt pause -
two faces meeting or a lamp-shade?
profile: on the side.
Feb 8, 2020
Feb 8, 2020 at 6:42 PM UTC
Words…..because words are all I have……..:) Edgar
endearments generosity incantatory new sagacity surprise heresy dissipation violating abyss language warning culminates dalack obdurate serving waiter ossuary occurrences tortured beware silence calm bow physiognomy paucity occurrence exegeses transmogrification effectuation Adjunctive dairy tenure contention tenner reins happy indomitable, connoisseur artifice concatenation vivacity voluptuous solemnity enigmatic burdened glorious line huge……………………some I made myself…..:) Edgar
Nov 2, 2012
Nov 2, 2012 at 4:07 PM UTC
Symphonic
My fist was first five fingers
Flowing Favonian into the palm of my radiant mother
As cheeky as a sprite, soon I revelled in the
Crisp light of the fridge and all its chilled visitors,
A skin-deep draft last week, a raging harmattan yesterday,
Barren among the fruitless lands of Mesopotamia.
Crawling, my sergeants and I led the way through our childhood fantasies.
Ali Baba's fortress, the ruins of Babylon, and up to the lately perturbed Euphrates.
I dropped my automatic rifle,
hurriedly snatched it up in the unforgiving desolate,
just in time to
narrowly dodge the absent onslaught of enemy gunfire
Only to witness a serpentine strike and an explosive splash
Of metal violating my infantile hand, a hand that was trusted and was caressed
Now merely a bludgeon to satisfy the steel-clawed slash of the shrapnel
A buffer to the skin of my wide-eyed physiognomy.
Waking up in the loose sheets of a completely unremarkable beige bed,
With the deoxygenated breath of the novice surgeon liquidizing in my veins,
It was almost too much to handle (if you'll pardon my pun).
These days it is
The good hand with which I
Uncork, pour, and serve.
It's with the utilizable limb with which I
Ignite, shift, and steer.
It's with my brain that I
seethe
And it's with my stump
That I knock.
Sep 24, 2014
Sep 24, 2014 at 12:16 AM UTC
1499
How firm Eternity must look
To crumbling men like me
The only Adamant Estate
In all Identity—
How mighty to the insecure
Thy Physiognomy
To whom not any Face cohere—
Unless concealed in thee
1.7k
~
*Or migrated pod
Or fleeing refugee
Or corban
Or carbon dioxide
Or yubitsume
Or van Gogh's ear
Or black Friday
Or lazy evening at the carnival
(Tomorrow has already started)
Or free range
Or gated community
Or breast exam
Or storage crisis
Or fallen leaves
Or germ warfare
Or temporary file
Or permanent wave
Or thigh gap
Or physiognomy
Or soap made of heroes
Or multiplanetary living
(There's a floating graveyard between this world and the next)
Or logical fallacy
Or irrational number
Or elementary analysis
Or college guess
Or cardiopulmonary resuscitation
Or extrasensory perception
Or ten fingers and toes
Or a dozen eggs
(They say there's strength in numbers)
Or fifth floor, corner room
Or high as a kite
Or bellwether
Or mingled with bells
Or police sirens
Or loitering around in silent films
Or rule of thirds
Or tombs of second-hand kings
Or face in the rain
Or pareidolia
(Otherwise, at first light you might be smiling...)*
~
Nov 19, 2023
Nov 19, 2023 at 9:11 AM UTC
quicksand waves of
sunsets as I
sink into umbral
moments of internal skull
watching.
pictures play upon
my eyelids, dancing to and fro--
whispering foreign
thoughts to my neurons.
as i open the curtains of
my physiognomy, light
prickles my corneas, signaling
the retreat of my
midnight adventures
into the darkest
caverns of my
mind.
Jan 3, 2014
Jan 3, 2014 at 4:11 AM UTC
So numerous were the pits and gashes dotting Walsutaddel's frown that, looking at it, one was tempted to apply to it a thin coating of crushed shale for the purposes of examination (at the natural but, sadly, not at all deterrent horror of Walsutaddel himself). Endearing as this characteristic may have been, however, the deep pits of his eyes caught one slightly off guard, and so it was that many a potential acquaintance was driven away after an initially being so taken fascinating molding of the poor wretch. This is mind, it should be no great mystery that the face that delighted and lured in so many passers-by was contorted in such an expression of sorrow, but it was rare, one having seen the eyes of this beast and thus having the information absolutely necessary for this inference, that one gave the creature a further thought, to the exclusion, of course, of the universal and, one might say, basically human, shudder, if that can be considered a thought at all. In addition to the marred canvas of his face, the only other qualities to which one could apply the term «alluring» were a severely mangled spinal column, at some points reaching the regularity of a helix and at others simply resembling the path of a garden hose draped haphazardly over a stretch of hilly terrain, and a pair of wrists somehow more flaccidly attached than if they'd lacked bone and ligament altogether. The rest of his physiognomy was of such terrible shape and demeanor as to be totally unworthy of description.
Feb 6, 2012
Feb 6, 2012 at 8:44 PM UTC
Plastic love entwined inside the drunk texts
All of our love is metaphorical ***
And astronomy
Physiognomy and vibrations.
Vibrations and our innocence
Our ****** social innocence
It can't be what I want.
I can't be what you need.
walk through my road of different shades of red
Tread, tread, tread,
And revive me if I'm dead,
Then tell me how much you masturbated today.
I'll squeal a bitter "yay"
And pretend I know who you are.
A robot.
Taut,
Squat,
Astronaut.
Dec 21, 2013
Dec 21, 2013 at 4:36 PM UTC
THAT ADLESTROP MOMENT
Train stops.
Stranding us in real life countryside.
Townies gobsmacked.
Silence attacks.
The world melting
in a heat haze.
Where has our real
reality gone?
Tracks lead away from us
be we are going
nowhere
fast.
As if the future
had ceased to exist.
We are like the male member
caught in the teeth
of a too hastily
done-up zip.
Yep,,,,,,,doesn't go up!
Oooops,,,,doesn't go down!
A kestrel free
of our dilemma.
Laughs at us
"Humans, eh....who'd 'ave 'em!"
Smaller birds gossip
discussing this all too human
situation.
I recite Adlestrop
in my mind
to my reflection
staring dumbly back at me.
"There is a countryside
in my face..."
I Marvell.
As if Nature
had invaded my physiognomy .
"Unwontedly...something
something something or other."
Oh bother!
"No one left and no one came."
The birds stop to listen.
"Yes, we remember Adlestrop!"
they twitter.
"Hear it one day
in what you humans
call
the Past.
Wot a laugh!
They unaware that there is only
one great big forever."
I fell silent.
Deserted by all thought.
"Give us some more
of that good old Adlestrop stuff!
The birds chirrup.
"No what less still and lonely fair
through cloudlets in the sky."
I ventured.
"Naw...naw...naw mate!"
a crow caws.
"The bit 'bout us birds
if you please!"
I cough and continue.
"Farther and farther, all the birds
of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire."
The birds all cheep and cheer.
"Hip hip hooray for Edward Thomas!"
The train remembers itself.
Rouses itself from its slumbers.
As if all this
had been but a dream.
"Yes, I remember Adlestrop"
But not all of it.
It was June.
Mar 21, 2018
Mar 21, 2018 at 6:22 PM UTC
I saw this damsel in a restaurant sometime last week.
She looks more like a girl I used to know.
She glows in her chocolate skin, and radiant physiognomy.
Elegant, with dazzling eyes, she's pleasing to the eyes.
I was amazed at the closed resemblance, and was stealthily glancing...
But lo!
She caught my eyes.
I smile at her and she smile back with a friendly smile that dazzled me even more.
She had the same smile as the girl I used to know.
I pretended to be minding my business, then squinted her again, only to see her touching her neck in the same manner the other girl used to habitually touch her neck.
There and then I concluded that they would have the same behavior.
I just stood up and walked away after emptying my bowl.
May 7, 2016
May 7, 2016 at 5:01 PM UTC
I really feel more than sad,
To know that thou art gone—Dad.
Dragged away by winds of time,
Far away to a very distant clime.
Leaving me upon shores of life alone
With a physiognomy but forlorn.
Such grievous news unto mine ear,
That nevermore to hold thee near.
Yes, thou art out of human sight—
But may thee dwell in eternal light.
And when my earthly life is over,
Searching thee I'll incessantly halt never,
But wend along the wildest river banks,
Clobbered by wild winds, nest upon trunks,
Journey myriads of galaxies on yonder
Just searching for thee from star to star,
Simply because till we ever meet again,
I'm doomed to languish in a vale of pain.
REST IN PEACE DAD
Feb 10, 2017
Feb 10, 2017 at 4:45 PM UTC
longing creates canyons
a row of well behaved days
a new physiognomy for metaphors
the night has paused
no semiotic skin between me and my lover
ecoutez-moi
listen to the spaceless desire
this woman lost in me
my womb chimes, utopia
Unlimited
Sep 9, 2016
Sep 9, 2016 at 5:53 PM UTC
i dare say, silent movie in the genre of horror?
Sven and me, no, not Geoffrey or Norbert,
Sven, the coconut,
donned a red woollen glove on his coconut
scalp and told him: you're a cockerel alarm
clock from now on; Sven liked it,
i told him: you're not a bowling ball,
you've just chewed cashews
in your mouth socket, and now the
undigested pulp; if not then off to the
bowling alley with you - ah my sweet
tropical island smurf / cannibal necklace
skull of a little monkey of imitated kindred
physiognomy, oh pooh bear, pooh.
Mar 11, 2016
Mar 11, 2016 at 8:56 PM UTC
One's-self I sing, a simple separate person,
Yet utter the word Democratic, the word En-Masse.
Of physiology from top to toe I sing,
Not physiognomy alone nor brain alone is worthy for the Muse, I say
the Form complete is worthier far,
The Female equally with the Male I sing.
Of Life immense in passion, pulse, and power,
Cheerful, for freest action form'd under the laws divine,
The Modern Man I sing.
Walt Whitman from "Leaves of Grass"
Mar 9, 2016
Mar 9, 2016 at 8:13 PM UTC
My fingers are calloused
From the strings of my guitar
Just as my mind is filled with malice
From all of these scars
My heart is weighed down
From the numerous burdens
My physiognomy forever a frown
From all of the exertion
Oct 1, 2013
Oct 1, 2013 at 9:03 PM UTC
*I'd put on a pilgrim's mantel,
Journey along to the far wild;
Break through thorny thickets
And twigs across the wilderness,
To where humans dwell not,
To a world of savage animals;
Right through jaws of death,
Trudge through barren valleys,
Cimb soaring mountains before me,
Dash through mystique woods,
Woods darker than a lonely grave;
Whilst buffeted by wild branches,
Wend along wildest river banks,
Where early boughs grow wild and rank,
Stumble through murky waters,,*
See beyond bounds of mortal men,
*Trudge yonder a wide strange plain,
To fair lands of the emeralds,
Where dawn songbirds perpetually
Croon nature's symphonies,
Where trumpeters, taborers
Harpists and fiddlers
Play the loveliest melodies,
Soothing melodies trapped
In proverbial winds of time,
Where the meanest castle pillar
Is not of silver
But of fairest gold.
A realm of only beauty to behold,
A realm of everlasting youth,
A realm of opalescent skies,
A realm where the sun doth rise,
In the sheer corner of paradise
Just to catch a glimpse
At thy physiognomy*
Only if I could
Jul 1, 2016
Jul 1, 2016 at 8:21 PM UTC
The howling maelstrom of wireless
Haunts the air unseen
Blue toothed demonic
It whips up white caps of restlessness
And drives sleep onto the rocks
Blowing through keyboard tickers
And screen flickers
There’s a digital mosquito hum in the rigging
And the sheets fill with an endless cacophony
Of Arabica bean buzz
Your physiognomy is a book
Rolled up like a chart in a tube
The cabin cricket in its cage
Twittering nonsense
And lusts of cute and food
And anti anti anti
Both bullies and victims at the masthead
Squeal and rage and defecate
Raw sewage dribbling down the bow
In a million billion ones and zeros
Sailors lost in foreign climes
With no purpose on land
The motley crew self-gratify
Thinking
Come the dawn we’ll all be back at sea
Not realising
That with the globe at your fingertips
Both night and day are constants
Lash yourself to the mast
Else be washed overboard
All the stars you used to sail by
Have become little more
Than dead pixels on a screen
© 2018 Steve Kelly aka kellyocs
Oct 30, 2018
Oct 30, 2018 at 9:09 PM UTC
Words failed when we spoke,
Heads wanting to tilt before,
. . . Her eyes said it all.
Jul 27, 2014
Jul 27, 2014 at 2:32 AM UTC
Dramaturgy
1
I believe in the sound of the fall but before the annunciation, a force did not see the brink of all ends. The polarizing image before us: this wall that has no hue. This wall that seeks to be tarnished. To tether a name. To spring it open with premise.
It is coming face to face with a familiar haunt. Strange that it has no name but you remember it from the feel of its touch, the malaise of hands upon stroking the contour, the catatonic stupor of time in fluid standstill when it is said that "It does not get any better than this.", the belief of questions and the faithlessness of answers. He is ready.
2
Thus is the physiognomy: a look so dismantled. The fragile bent of its source. A body, a body of sound treading a straight path backed by centrifugal inertia -- of speed so full and tender with blurs, the end is seen and will soon be met: patience, patience is all and the skies are impossible. She sees all this, takes cues as pain makes him more so, the one anxiously flailing in space.
3
Confess in utter space that the absolute is ideal. The process distills the heavy water of this revenge. There is nothing like this, as there is nothing the identical in your side of the Earth now, or your bed, where you are cut above yourself and across. This is the body realized. To quantify space, to resign to its bleakness, to take all of this and let it flow into the river, to the brink of all the noise, to where light will fall squarely without tremors or erasures.
4
Intent runs with me this evening straight to a place where nothing will be found, no one will be marked in this map. This light so insufficient still guiding, bleeding a borrowed sheen from the **** of evening. Intent is everything, be it a consignment to void.
5
He will repeat what was written in solemnity, in front of the mirror.
6
They will see it falsely, take it as heavy dreaming when he should have convinced himself to be awake. A laudable insistence may be perceived as a conscious labour to survivability, alone, together -- no difference will be met, no criteria to victories will be set. This is all for disappearance, the pursuit is a lie, and to continue this, the irony.
7
Desired impression: tomorrow you will emerge naked and wear me as something a perfume does to skin, or warmth does to bones. Look, when the Sun rises from its deep grave of hills, its vertical crawl will leave no trace in other regions of land, of body. Somewhere in the ornate someone washes the surrounding with a recognizable fragrance. This is all drawn to a possibility: something the world has no use for
Apr 8, 2016
Apr 8, 2016 at 10:37 AM UTC