"pinprick" poems
It’s just easy for them
Isn’t it?
This couple on the train.
They walked on laughing together
Holding hands
And I felt that familiar something-
Not jealousy
Not envy
But...
Chagrin.
Astonishment.
Incredulity.
Incomprehension.
Looking at them feels like looking at one of those
Impossible pictures
Where the stairs keep going forever in a loop.
It’s just
Easy for them.
It doesn’t hurt anymore, that thought,
But thinking it feels so odd in my mind
When I can’t imagine loving someone without
Shame,
Without pain.
They fit.
These people,
They fit without having to carve anything out.
They fit without punishing each other.
They fit like puzzle pieces cut from the same board-
No worries, they just go together, and that
Is that.
They fit like
“Of course.”
Like breathing.
Neatly.
Simply.
Carelessly.
I can’t imagine what it’s like
I can’t comprehend it-
To fit
Somewhere
Much less to fit somewhere
With someone.
I am always trying to corset myself into this world,
Lungs burning,
Trying to remain small enough to squeeze by
Catching myself by the wrist to keep from reaching
For anything.
And if there seems to be a spot where I might be able to exist as I am
It is always
Occupied.
Like a shiny pinprick
That thought hurts-
Not like the others it is newly cut
And still ******
The idea that maybe there is a home for me
And that maybe I was too late for it.
They’re laughing.
He says something clever,
Passes a hand along the small of her back
And she leans into it,
Smiling because she loves that he wants to touch her innocently.
They seem to exist behind glass.
Not for the first time I wonder
If I could just slip into that life
Like a drop into an ocean
I want it badly
I want it stupidly
And I examine all the parts of myself,
All the edges and cracks,
All the things I’ve worked so hard to protect and repair.
It is not a welcome sight-
I am not a home
I am like an old ruin
Full of murmurings and cold spots
Full of dusty sunlight.
I sigh,
Knowing the secret I keep so poorly-
That if I really had a choice to be otherwise
I would have already made it.
I couldn’t reach them if I ran for a thousand years,
They are too far away.
They walk off the train, arms linked
Talking about nothing
And I watch them go
Like a hallucination,
Like a mirage in the desert.
Her perfume smells like forgetfulness
And it lingers.
Sep 28, 2018
Sep 28, 2018 at 12:48 AM UTC
the future was a tunnel
with no pinprick of light at the end
and i stumbled blindly
sensitive fingers keeping balance
by the roughness of the walls
eyes never fully adjusting
you tore the roof off
sunlight is a powerful thing
to someone who is used to the dark
Apr 1, 2014
Apr 1, 2014 at 9:57 PM UTC
poem in two parts (a plane and bird)
You are a sound in still silence; a point against negative space toward which my eye is drawn. The sun set, peeking beneath a blanket of storm clouds, painting the underside, as a plane, an infinitesimal photon, a plane flew as an impossible pinprick of optimistic light, moving slowly against the immense parallax backdrop of bright and hazy pink-orange glowing thunder clouds. You are the first breath I took. You are the product of all infinities, divided by itself, the sum of all integers. When the earth falls into the sun, long after humans left, long after you left, and any recognizable trace of you is swallowed, your memory will persist. You will have still lived; You will have been the last breath I took.
A fulcrum of loss and a wedge between two equally lost people, but between them, between them still a bird, flying farther than any eye can see, but should the lights of the lighthouses lose you against their foggy panes, or should the salty wind dash you against something equally heavy, call out, and cast your voice into the sky, upon the sea, and against the stars, and maybe its echoes will live a little longer than you.
Dec 24, 2015
Dec 24, 2015 at 5:27 PM UTC
You have no idea, do you? You don't realize that every time you tell me you love me is another dig into my own grave. And every time I remember that you don't is another pinprick that never heals. I've got scars on my back from the last time you kissed me and there are bruises on my arm from when you last looked me in the eye. I miss you so much that I feel like every thought of you constricts my chest and makes it hard to breathe. All I ever wanted was to have your hand in mind and feel like for once I'd never have to be so alone every time I walk past another tree.
I remember the last time you made me smile. You were lying on my lap the day before you had to fly off and you were listening to me talk about the other people I had known from my journey then to now. I was playing with your hair and I remember thinking that there was nowhere else I'd rather be and no one else I'd rather be with. I remember thinking that maybe I could finally set my roots and follow one path to one place, but you took that away from me.
In the same day, you put a stake through my heart when you disappeared and said nothing, no call, no whisper about leaving so I started walking back home but waited at the end of the road for an hour to see if you would follow. You didn't. Love didn't.
I was already in love with you then. And it hurt to realize you didn't really care all that much to make sure I got home safe.
We ended things. Or at least I did. You argued that even if you were in the middle of a vast ocean and I was on the mainland, our love could've traveled distances and I reminded you that there was no love here and that you were the one who told me without saying a word that you held no love for me but expected me to love you in places beyond our reaches of the galaxy.
But my hands could only stretch so far, and my heart could only take so much before the pain of being with you and without you all at once began to dance on my skin like folk songs around a bonfire.
I know my heart and I know that it believes in the worlds away and it holds so strongly it can hardly take the pain but keeps pumping anyway. But for once, the blood pumping in my veins understand that it's alright. It's alright to let go of love and it's alright to let go of you. My eyes understand it's okay to weep and that my lungs breathe better without tears choking it.
My hands will shake and be taken over by tremors but they'll know that you were never love and love would never again be you.
Jan 5, 2015
Jan 5, 2015 at 9:01 AM UTC
dripping rose red
clung to the curves,
the hips and *******
laced backs peeking
to shoulder blades
and pinprick skin
echoing clasping heels
ripple of fine fabric
bouncing jazz music
dazzling yellow lights
bare neck and white teeth
arms tucked to the side
fiercely dazzling
Mar 6, 2016
Mar 6, 2016 at 12:29 AM UTC
There goes Lady Fate,
donned in solar sparks
and her lace corset
whose overt promiscuity
catches the attention of
one unsuspecting astronaut–
his helm fogs as he exhales,
his breath crude and lascivious.
Even Neptune’s eyes themselves
glitter wetly with passion
as she struts towards Polaris in
her pinprick stilettos.
She adjusts her stance accordingly:
I. Purse lips into a smoulder
(might as well look
pretty while ya get the job done.)
II. Aim for the desired target
(that there’s the bull’s eye.)
III. Wreak havoc
just as any Fate is meant to do.
(But, of course.)
She picks up her staff and fires.
The universe tremors
in an unbridled spiral
of colour and chaos
as the planets
d a r t
about like billiards, * * *
colliding/|\with/|\ the/|\ stars
who, in the midst of the madness,
d i v e r g e and c* r* o* s s
for fear of being vanquished.
A cluster of mismatched constellations
and forsaken cosmic particles
settle into a state of
mutual negligence and destruction.
And, together, they liquefy into
a festering pool of molten silver.
Lady Fate grins–
yes, she has the stars right
where she wants them now–
and, in a final act of defiance,
she strikes against the earth
and watches with satisfaction as
it hurtles towards the silver
and sinks down into the molten
like an eight ball.
(And everyone knows it’s
Game Over
once you’ve sunk the eight ball).
From where she stands–
bent over Polaris
in seductive pretentiousness —
she relishes
in the screams
of some wretched lover–
the first to ever be
betrayed by the stars.
Jul 24, 2018
Jul 24, 2018 at 2:44 PM UTC
Were you to ask it
query it
seek it
the answer to my heart
is there shade on the eve of love
indeed, there is
a shade like mountain's umbra
a gloom cast from the deep
a shadow that cloisters
clutches
croons in one's ear
sorrow of the like one wishes experience only once
if at all
There is a time to be glad,
but not on this eve...
Today, we experience love's eclipse
a respite from charm and wonder
a delay of inevitable passion
a somber
slow
seething
slump
into a chasm of finite eternity
where seconds last years
and moments are lifetimes
but not cherished times
not a calm before the storm
it is despair before victory
the long sigh of anticipation
as one is disemboweled
waiting for death's promise
a metaphorical death of
all our hopes and dreams
as the queen of night
suffocates our sun on high
we dream a waking nightmare
but know
it only lasts the night
And suddenly
like the snapping of a finger
it appears
not sound
but light
a pinprick
and
though small
it envelopes one's whole mind
a shard of light
like a rope of hope
penetrating your soul
you know it
the eclipse draws to an end
A sliver of its radiant face
the sun peeks round the corner of doom
smiling wanly at first
but as the eclipse abates
you know the warmth
the curling of fingers around fingers
eyes connected
you see them
as if having waited centuries to see them, despite it being first sight
embracing, you are taken adrift
into a flight so free that wings are an inconvenience
arm in arm with your lover
you cascade out into reality
up and down and down and up
the eclipse is no more
love is free
a breeze so firm and sweet that
your lungs feel brand new
your chest swells with pride
you're found
and you have found
together,
you and your lover,
ascend heaven's heights
and dream of eclipses no more
Bound in freedom
free in mind and soul
hearts as one
under the sun
despair
no longer takes its toll...
Sep 23, 2022
Sep 23, 2022 at 7:32 PM UTC
i’ve always loved the rain.
but today was different.
today the rain wasn’t hydrating me,
the rain was drowning me.
poundingpoundingpounding
so hard yet
i couldn’t get up,
just laid there under a smoky sky
a monotone grey
letting the raindrops hit me,
one by one a pinprick
a sting
of the cold water on my bare stomach.
i couldn’t speak, couldn’t move,
couldn’t breathe,
yet at least it reminded me
i am still alive.
-a.c.b
Aug 3, 2018
Aug 3, 2018 at 6:45 PM UTC
Late afternoon, haze hung low, heat and sky
holding breath. You’re it. No tag-backs. Asphalt
freckles our knees. Dinner is anytime: bologna
on white; Kool-Aid cut thin with tap. No hurry home
unless for the news. We don’t.
We want what’s coming, not what’s been.
Paper fortune tellers flutter open, close.
She writes the answers first, back turned.
Lift one flap: your dog dies. Another: a prince
charming. Another: best party in town,
limousine awaits. He lifts a flap: her name.
actually meant for you, her sister whispers.
Then rain, the blue-lined paper sags, ink settles
in cracks, bare feet scatter, futures wash
mid-fold into a storm drain. At Cheshire and
Green Meadows, a drunk witch swears Venus and Jupiter
will make us all rich. She leaves out how long
the sky makes you wait. Lunch money turns
to lottery slips. Rounding the corner, moving vans
idle over chalked hopscotch, our names folded under.
Aug 17, 2025
Aug 17, 2025 at 1:35 AM UTC
You scrape my chin
to my profile—your teeth,
the source of gamma ray burst.
Everything massive,
collapsing. Events on the horizon
eating light, getting us out
of the boon. The small things
of us reduced to a
pinprick at the center—a singularity
of gas and cloud.
I imagine
myself being crushed and
strung backwards.
Jun 1, 2017
Jun 1, 2017 at 12:59 PM UTC
You held a gun to my head and called it a love letter
whispering, "I'd do anything for you
except die."
But you still sang for me, that night on the rooftop,
our legs dangling off the edge
and pinprick flowers cushioning our fall.
I think I understand now why some storms are named after people.
You were a perfect storm. You swept me
off my feet, darling, and you never put me back, did you?
there is a creature inside my skull
trying to get out what happens
if I cannot contain it as well as I should like?
The world begins and ends with you,
angel, dawn and a pearly sunrise against my throat,
hands clasping mine like a prayer.
Paint me in blue, stars dying all around us. This is how you will know me.
This is the only way I will let myself be known.
Starved and dying and silhouetted against the rising sun.
You've seen this all before,
sweetheart. You've seen my neck,
my collarbones, my hips swaying like a breeze.
This is nothing new.
I'll wish on old trees and memories
and storms tearing down the earth one town at a time.
I feel in all the wrong ways, a thousand and one
errosions of faith
Don't ask me why I do not feel like you do
Ask me how many stars are in the sky, ask me
about the scar on my left cheek and
I will answer you. I will try.
Aug 4, 2014
Aug 4, 2014 at 7:35 PM UTC
happy are the moneylenders
happy are the moneylenders
who charge the egregious rate
of friendship
they sleep with furious calm
their principle well invested, its return guaranteed,
for this lit pinpoint pinprick in their sleepy cerebrum
is the mini red light that illuminates the otherwise
dark bedroom of the mind so they can see and say with
equality and equanimity
I too, am, who I am.
Does this answer the question?
1/7/17 12:56pm
Jan 7, 2018
Jan 7, 2018 at 1:01 PM UTC
Unwavering in front of a sliver pistol,
I challenged the bullet
To fire between empty eyes.
Lucid, in limbo, falling with neither time nor space,
My head expanded
Filled with nitrogen oxide.
Blinded black velvet, floating away from expansion,
I strained my eyes open,
To see the other side.
Blanketed black silk covering every corner,
But a pinprick hole torn,
A lazily winding light.
Mar 26, 2018
Mar 26, 2018 at 5:02 PM UTC
To start your mornings with
blood on your hands
smearing across pages
is
incriminating
and inspiring
And you must know
if you were to slice open
my veins would also
spill black fountain ink
If you were to sever my tongue
my hands would speak
for me
Go ahead and gouge my eyes
I can still see
And when I die I desire
to be cut as a cadaver
All the words visible
under paper-white skin
so they will know, too.
I do not aspire to be a skeleton
with brittle bones
I want blood
to pour with every pinprick
of a pilot pen pressed
on a page
But blood makes people squirm
Blood makes people gag
so I intend to
leave this world
with a crime scene behind me.
Let them shake and shudder
for they know not
the life they’ve lost
They live in fear of papercuts
and I carve myself open
again and again
And I will continue to
until I bleed out
and my ink dries up
If it sounds violent it’s
because it has to be
The world could use a
few more bloodstains
Makes it more uncomfortable
Makes it more interesting.
Mar 8, 2021
Mar 8, 2021 at 3:54 PM UTC
I was once too young for exhausted sleep
So I tiptoed to the window for a peek of excited light
Flickering in the solid wall of insufferable darkness
I wanted to hold that tiny pinprick of moonshine
Twinkling and twirling just our of reach
I was once too young to know what forever was
So I grabbed a mason jar,
Coaxed a bemused spark to the secrecy of a sleepless room
And sealed the lid just a twist too tight
In the morning I found my once glowing prize
Dark at the bottom of his suffocated tomb
And in that moment I learned to fear the darkness
Of tomorrow’s dreaded night
Dec 15, 2012
Dec 15, 2012 at 6:04 PM UTC
The noise surrounding misbehaves;
The presence of devotion.
Covenants made until the graves,
Or some heart's first emotion.
The adorned comforts in delight,
She is curled up yet open;
Clingy with ladybug wings bright
And the actions soft-spoken.
Deep within a chamber of blood
This pinprick of loneliness,
Pulsing with an empty deep thud;
Wishing the same - to caress.
Feb 12, 2010
Feb 12, 2010 at 7:36 AM UTC
when you love,
you’re a country,
pierced by daily border
exchanged crossings,
to your closest neighbor
and though,
one rerun~returns home by night,
to your prior defining borderlines,
somehow
the externals of the container has
had its internality's modified
for the lines that prior defined
have altered
by passing the
point of prior,
now by thousands of
tiny holes breaching the
thickened protective lining,
by love punches ‘n kisses of
pinprick punctures
the resistance,
pulverized
<>
you are changed,
new language combos spoken,
embrace another with a
bilingual tonguing,
a real treat
to entreat each other and
that hyphen,
that little tiny
linear
~
punctuation mark is
reflecting your creativity of a
Singular Duality
it is mark that
speaks to a new
U~no individuality,
blended and connected
somehow a duo of
someone’s pulverized lines
forms a single stronger
chord
first a puncture
then a patching
finally
an adhesion pleasuring
and a new working word:
composite
the opposite
of
opposite*
Nov 14, 2024
Nov 14, 2024 at 7:26 AM UTC
Quick little pinprick
barely breaking the skin
small welter of blood
filling in fingerprints.
Once a past shared
fleeting moments among years
erased in lieu of bigger smiles,
more pleasant portraits.
Just a quick little *****
reminding me, despite a
decade of turning away
that once, I faced the flash too.
Jul 8, 2010
Jul 8, 2010 at 11:12 AM UTC
She said she'd pinprick your watershed
Leave alone , it must be bled
A cold and somewhat silent shiver went through you
She tossed your hair with fingers flared
Before she rapes your lips she says she cares
And cautions ,"I am no where near through with you ."
She rips your shirt , rakes your skin
Over and over again
Till blood trickles down upon you
She licks you dry
And praises the sky
saying, "God is jealous of you guy ."
Then she sits upon your lap
Knocking off your tip top hat
And throws a ****** to you
The first and third lines rhyme
She takes away your time
Makes you scream in agony and ecstacy
All of mercy . , .
More on mercy . , .
Tasting pain . . .coated in pleasure
The memory lingers
Burning like a scorpions stinger
And now your mallingered aren't you
The second and fourth are lines of choice
Developed rhythm for the course
And you grade your decisions running through you
She left you dead , hurt your head
And then she fled
Tossing your heart into the river
Your grateful that you live
but still you go on and grieve
Or at least wished you did
As you are trying to relate
All you do is quake
And start to uttering
"All on mercy . . .
More on mercy . . .
Have mercy . . .on me ."
Oct 15, 2014
Oct 15, 2014 at 3:31 AM UTC
A harsh wind kisses my fingers into sleeping.
Blurring the movement on the toggles of an anorak,
But my eyes dart quick, oiled and fleeting,
searching for my beloved old salt, looking back.
Funny, how in those footprints,
the piercing night that bites the ears and cries
can feel as soft as sheets
washed in the light of the moon, pulled by the tide.
this darkness which surrounds us.
it makes the world one of thrashing silhouettes
And as the earth breathes in gusts
It gives calmness to a mind, to comfortably forget
this, lulled swoon of nature pulsating hits
the windows, we can't help to be animated.
we cannot be closed to it, cannot obscure it
the call of the waves that past fishermen created.
pausing, that sun-baked, sinuous arm rose
and peering through his cigarette smoke specters.
the steam of my own breathing, softly froze
As the sky illuminated my weary lenses.
the theatre of sky before us fight light polluted filling
My mind left wandering like waking sleep.
These gladiators of light bleed ochre from shining artillery,
Their particles drifting into the night's sea, so deep.
Sparks spat by suns lie suspended above me
held like dew in nets of celestial string.
as the sunlight comes peering through these
the intensity in a pinprick, unearthly passion within.
lancing the sky too are spears of my dreaming
as neon cobras strike and churn to flee.
these heaven-borne beings carving visual song
Cutting luminescent pathways into my memory.
The soundless iron giant is now still as a caryatid.
Holding me before that blacksmith showered light.
an artist plucks flaming dewdrops from the wind
illuminating my foray into this night.
I sensed a small piece of gene pierce his yang
a black taint to his overall brightness.
In my black yin a spark from him i hang
and I'm proud of the infections we posses.
As he narrates this landscape, he narrates himself.
a new side to a shape I felt I knew.
As far into feelings as his masculine paradigm delved
like a square’s seventh face, always hidden from view.
Sep 2, 2013
Sep 2, 2013 at 6:37 PM UTC
Shooting stars fell in a line and danced across my eyes in quick succession
though the sun outshone them all
and who ever worshiped the stars anyway?
Then like fireflies flew north before broke,
and from the south I saw the great Diamond City
reach out above a jungle of metal concrete plastic plastic with lights
Oh! lights
Pinprick window TV stream style smiles selling streets projecting the moon for
advertising space; the population rises
Factory stormclouds only irritate umbrella stand footsteps who pretend
to hate the rain
and outshines dim sunlight baptizing all in electric glory
Candleflame prisons of light that honk through haze through
rainy Monday 6:30AM’s
choke on each others breath until we have nothing left but CO2;
dandelions inherit the earth.
Jul 22, 2014
Jul 22, 2014 at 11:51 PM UTC
.
The street lamp barely pierces the gloom
as darkness fills up Nature's room.
Any icy breeze blows down the street,
the air is full of rain and sleet.
She stands beneath the murky light,
one of a few out working tonight.
Her clothes do not reflect the weather,
miniskirt, t-shirt, long boots of leather.
Pinprick marks upon her arm reveal
a habit to hide all that she feels.
A daemon that has to be well fed,
from money made in a punters bed.
A low rumble, the quiet is disturbed,
creeping slowly, pulling up at the kerb.
Quick furtive words, a deal is complete,
she opens the door, slides into the seat.
Sometime later she has returned to her place,
crying and shaking, blood on her face.
The blood on her shirt is already dry,
and purple black bruises adorn her eyes.
She does not complain, she does not speak.
It just happens. At least once a week.
There is always one will have his way,
beat her about, and refuse to pay.
Give her a minute to fix her smile,
she will be back in just a short while.
Waiting tartly to be once more defiled,
hoping tonight she can feed her child.
She dreams her daughter will never see
this sick, dark side of her society.
For her sake she hopes to escape
the drugs, the violence, and the ****
Maybe one eve she will not show
her charms under the street lamps glow.
Has she escaped to a better life instead?
Perhaps she is in the river, floating dead?
But 'til then she walks the pavement.
Big smile, **** out, making a statement.
She won't wait long for another ride,
she will block out whatever happens inside.
And the cycle repeats almost every night,
beneath the lamp with the murky light.
This is her spot, her street, her world.
This is the life of a poor street girl.
© Pagan Paul (03/03/17)
Mar 5, 2017
Mar 5, 2017 at 6:30 PM UTC
So many words between us—
The caustic breech of abatement, ruin
Runs atonal, in recitals of indifference,
How even the ****** birds now sound
Discordant and rain crushes as it falls,
Ballistic.
The pinprick stars are merely eyes
Undraped to the worn soul's veil
And gorgon time roils setting our feet
In the crust of wishes and delusions
Kept.
The bullet riddled skies in absence
Of colour are but particulates of lime
To the moonless night. Words have no
Eyes, they can only finger.
O the sorrows of the untouched—
The cruelty of the sightless and bent blind,
Drab vermillion stars felled like forced tears.
Jun 6, 2014
Jun 6, 2014 at 10:57 AM UTC
The sun in the air is a pinprick
And heaven is leaking through
Birds shot forth as arrows
Rip through divine scenes
Of colorful vibrance
With their songs
Infecting my idle tongue
With rhythms of untold tomorrows
Living inside of the holy kaleidoscope
Shaken in an infinite snow globe
The time is melting down the brick of city walls
To pool in the streets
Like gasoline rainbows
Clipped winged angels eating Eden
Without any notion of good and evil
Black and white
Reality flickers like static
And I am a man
Lost in the sanctity
Of a wonderfully calm
Vast sea
Apr 11, 2014
Apr 11, 2014 at 1:29 PM UTC
~for she who will know~
the Mother of Muses came to me
on bended knee
come for to confess
a lie so grand it boggled
the heart
*we bring you nothing more
than what you already possess,
the jewels of rose gold are emplaced
in your dual ventricles,
the veins stained with blue green sapphires to
feed the right and left hemispheres,
where the emerald heat and the yellow gold,
raw melt the alpha word-finery awaiting,
the pinpointed pinprick of an eyed glimpse
to release the oxidizing words atmospheric
we are not needed, just proceeders,
*** stirrers? no. *** watchers? oh yes.
all contained within,
this then, the art of the human heart,
where the external stains rest awaiting,
completing, complimenting, coming
to fruition in a reforged new birthing
see how the child looks with adoration,
perceiving the art of the mothers heart,
the spilling of time at the precise moment
when the exchange is as long as an eye wink
and as short as an entire lifetime
We the Muses, not teachers, nor inspirers,
just peddlers, collecting thimbles of words,
polished with hued syllables of tarnish,
experienced watchers discerning the exacting,
the interactive interactions of the cells,
the DNA concoctions of singers and sinners,
priests and the unforgivable, trying to tie
what deserves untying, which is an everlasting
poem that needs, laughing, an original act
of the art of the heart, yours, permission to say
The End*
11:14pm
nyc
Sept. 18, 2019
Sep 18, 2019
Sep 18, 2019 at 11:22 PM UTC