"plainest" poems
when i was a boy,
i collected seashells.
i had the most beautiful collection
when i was a boy.
i dreamt of seashells
and what i dreamt was beside
me every morning of everday
when i was a boy.
i had red ones and blue ones
white ones and rounds ones
ones of beauty and of majesty
when i was a boy.
the world marvelled at my collection
the world coveted my collection
i had the most beautiful seashell collection
when i was a boy.
one day i looked out through a window
and saw a boy walking along the beach
he picked up the plainest of seashells
and smiled
i raged and raged and raged
for forty days and forty nights
i raged
when i was a boy.
Jun 19, 2010
Jun 19, 2010 at 6:41 PM UTC
Cierra la boca,
Mi dulce criatura.
Estas hambriento
Lo puedo notar.
Mas hoy no hay comida
y, yo lo presiento,
No la habrá en un tiempo más.
Cantaré un rato, si eso es de ayuda
Siéntate quieto en éste lugar.
Olvida el hambre y duerme profundo
Sueña que en un banquete estás.
Basta comida, música viva
Corre y ve con el general.
Dile que en casa los niños suplican
Por una mordida
Del más simple pan...
*********translation
Close your mouth,
My sweet child
You are hungry,
And I can tell.
But today, there is no food
And I can just feel it,
There won't be
For another long while.
I'll sing a while, if that helps a little
Sit down still. Right here, beside me.
Forget the hunger, sleep peacefully
Dream that you are in a feast.
So much food, and lovely music
Run to speak to the General.
Tell him, back home the children are begging
For just one bite
Of the plainest bread
Sep 8, 2014
Sep 8, 2014 at 10:17 PM UTC
Sitting in a restaurant
Over a cup of coffee
And silently having our dinner
With hardly anything exciting
Either to brag or blather
My eyes got hooked
On the occupants of the table, next
Two kids, seated on small chairs
A boy and a girl, obviously a pair of twins
Adorably cute, their father, so young
Who having placed the order
Were in wait for their turn
Carrying a tray, as the waiter arrived
With something of the plainest kind,
Small cartons of French fries,
Bottles of sauce and plain ice cream
The little faces gleamed in excitement
Their beaded eyes riveted,
And their heads bobbed in happy approval
As their Dad opened the carton
And placed before them
French fries sprinkled with some sauce
The children, sprang to their feet
With an upsurge of delight,
Jumping up and down,
Clapping their hands and shouting!
At a small distance, sat we
‘Solemnly’ consuming our meal
With nothing to titillate our palette
Or excite our toned nerves
I thought;
How, in course of time,
Everything becomes a routine ritual
And what stark difference
Between our subdued composure
And the overwhelming excitement of kids!
They haven’t learned yet
That such open expression of emotions,
Is not in keeping with accepted norms
To what peaks of joy, they get catapulted
With mere trifles and silly baubles
While we remain ever at the bottom
Unable to be lifted up
Is this what we call aging?
Or is it
The death of spring
The summer’s dirge
Autumn’s mellowing
Or the chill wave of winter’s blast??
Jan 11, 2017
Jan 11, 2017 at 6:39 AM UTC
A quaint little bazaar
In the heart of the town
Tells a story
Of a thousand moments
Dal Bazaar as they call it
Or "Curry Market" for others who don't know.
I have fragments of memorable memories
Deep within my mind
The smell
The intoxicating smell of spices
Blended with the quiescent yet cacophonous lives
Of Merchants and Beggars
Of Buyers and Sellers
Of Bullions and a single calloused rupia
In the hands of the old *****
The sunlight baking
Bags of turmeric.
Suspending the scent
In the minds of men.
Capering clouds of black and grey
And the sudden squall
Stirring the monotony
Of the customary.
The pirouette of rain
The one that excites the plainest of the plain
Painting the whitewash with shades of grey
The chalky walls
Dust
Moist corriander
And the relief of earth
Conciliating
So rewarding
For the ruins of the bare sun.
This flashback into my soul
Where all my senses seem to be so awake.
The feel of the wooden veranda
Scent so inexpressible
My eyes devouring the sunset
Tasting the heavens
Hearing it all.
Feeling it all.
Oh the plight of poets
The ritual to end a poem.
Painful.
Aug 16, 2014
Aug 16, 2014 at 3:33 AM UTC
you're on my mind
let me lend you my shadows
let me give you the crannies to sit in a while
and contemplate this kind space called life
because i don't mind the layers that you made on top of my skin;
they kept me a special kind of warm.
I can still feel you from here.
Let that whisper reach you through the depths of my ribs
they rub together like the horse hairs played on a violin
so coarse and yet so finely tuned.
let it lay across them until we pluck the plainest melody that
we have yet to hear because we are too young.
It takes 200 strings to make a proper bow. A violin is a genius saw;
It cuts kind of deep, stroking until we shiver into sleep.
May 15, 2013
May 15, 2013 at 4:31 AM UTC
Jonathan Anderson's collections walk a confounding tightrope between naïveté and decadence. Much of his new menswear looked like clothes for a futuristic, spiritual retreat (Anderson himself said he wanted something "laid-back, Zen-like"), but the buckled patent shoes were purest dancehall honky-tonk. The fitted leather jackets were pretty flashy, too, especially when contrasted with multi-pleated pants in plainest calico or denim.
"He took himself seriously," said the voice-over that launched Michel Gaubert's stirring soundtrack (a journey all in itself), but that felt like Anderson poking a little fun at his own expense—or at least anticipating reactions to his quirky rationale. He insisted his collection was actually like an imaginary world that a child might create for himself, akin to the tree houses he and his brother used to build. The preciousness that such a boy would bestow on things that are essentially valueless was reflected in the ordinary objects—keys, tools—that were transmuted into jewelry, the board game that mutated into a constructivist jacquard, and the calico or denim artfully constructed into the pants that made up the foundation of the collection. Some of the models were carrying a small metal frame on which curious little things were suspended, almost like charms to ward off who knows what.
That subtly occult tinge has become something of an Anderson signature, the way he disturbs the refined with the raw, for instance—a thin strand of bamboo or a bandage of calico nipping the waist, or a crude smear of paint across a tulle top so fine it is barely there, or even a white feather stuck to a shoulder. Such touches feel last-minute spontaneous, but also off-kilter, which is exactly where Anderson wants to keep us. But his work is now so consistent that off-kilter is proving a rather pleasant place to be.Read more here:www.marieaustralia.com/evening-dresses | www.marieaustralia.com/formal-dresses
Jun 15, 2015
Jun 15, 2015 at 2:01 AM UTC
I wake up at 7 AM, its raining, go figure. I catch the bus by Cohen’s Food Co., soaked, on the bus now, and the windows are down. Lucky me. I brought my big Boss head set because last night the convenient apple iPod ear buds got soaked too. I guess it was karma. But at least these have good bass. Transit bus, not yet to arrive to the station, we travel over a vi doc, the distant fogged *** view? A St Louis skyline. Busy people in and out of the station. Babies. Druggies. Fuglies. The woman in front of me has no teeth. She kept doing a ritual gum technique with her lips. Smacking them inward as if her teeth were actually there. **** I ride for awhile through the town. The plainest Jane land around, at least this Monday morning it was. My feet can’t touch the bus floor when I sit in the back. I like this, it reminds me of trips to California when I was small. The rental car was boring though once we got off the plane, Dad was asleep through the whole desert interstate. And my birthday, and your birthday. I’m at school. This junior college of filth. Free coffee though, I take a high advantage. MATH DRILL. Math. Simplifying the trickiest equations. Ratios and angles. Lateral products and dividing something half way through solving the problem. ***** math. 30 minute break. Smoking section. Nice little ash trays they supply, it would be a total turn off to walk far for a smoke in the wind. More coffee, I hate the taste, but need the caffeine. Second class starts. Writing. I like writing, but the projector smart board was broken, so we covered grammar from a text. We read something about complete sentences in the early 1920’s. In Europe. They would try as little as possible to use add verbs. Re-read this.
Jun 6, 2010
Jun 6, 2010 at 4:29 PM UTC
Blue-eyed and bright of face but waning fast
Into the sere of virginal decay,
I view her as she enters, day by day,
As a sweet sunset almost overpast.
Kindly and calm, patrician to the last,
Superbly falls her gown of sober gray,
And on her chignon's elegant array
The plainest cap is somehow touched with caste.
She talks Beethoven; frowns disapprobation
At Balzac's name, sighs it at 'poor George Sand's';
Knows that she has exceeding pretty hands;
Speaks Latin with a right accentuation;
And gives at need (as one who understands)
Draught, counsel, diagnosis, exhortation.
1.6k
It was just simple summer home,
Nothing fancy, really.
Water with a slightly odd taste,
And furniture with a distinctly "coastal" flair.
We called it "fish camp"
As an affectionate reminder that of the houses on the street,
It was the simplest, the plainest.
Meant to be lived in only for short times.
Not far from Harker's Island,
The sound became my playground.
My mother would play with me on the sound's gentle shallows,
While my father and grandfather would fish.
Even after my grandfather remarried,
And moved into his new wife's home
(A permanent residence down the street from our beloved fish camp),
Fish camp stayed in the family.
Now, our fish camp is ours no longer.
No longer is fish camp of the McMullan clan.
It belongs to another
Whose name I do not know.
What I would not give to be there again,
Now that I am older, hopefully wiser
More attuned to the rich history of the sound,
Of its waters, of its places, of its people.
What I would not give
To learn the waters of the sound
To learn the shallows and the tides
To sail with my grandfather again.
And, at the end of the day, to come home to
the fish camp at Straits.
Nov 5, 2013
Nov 5, 2013 at 12:01 PM UTC
Hello again, heartless friend.
So slyly in the backgrounds blend.
Your veering vanish, vaguely here.
Your gaze of increments - insincere.
Healer of the hearted scars.
Swallower of the heavened stars.
The paths in which we dream and delve.
Allow the doubling ones to twelves.
Slices of the eternal elude.
Movements of monstrous magnitude.
A hesitant dawdle. A lingered delay.
The mountainous sway is steered away.
Hoarded heaps of hourglass bliss.
Outnumbered by wasted nothingness.
With interludes of want, of miss.
To slowly morphed indifference.
The pendulums that abruptly swing.
The burdens they still hope to bring.
The envied earn of Earth's endeavor.
The better late. The better never.
The eerily empty echoed need.
The blossomed tree from planted seed.
The curse of a continuous grief.
The ever stealthy, silent thief.
The cogs, gears, hours and hands.
The burn of beauty, bleak and bland.
The coziest, surrounding choke.
The whelm from the transparent cloak.
The running out. The ever essence.
The grand keeper. The watchful presence.
The potential of the plainest plan.
The currency of the wisest man.
What horrors - hallowed by the tick.
Will sound for both healthy and sick?
Will compose secrets, never told?
Will fumble flame to frigid cold?
The end stays always promptly nigh.
For the intimate, infinite blink of eye.
I fear your wasting, more and more.
The constant count to twenty four.
Unresurrectable and second to none.
Airborne, regardless of having fun.
As retrospective wisdom blinds.
Our youthful hopes and manic minds.
On and on. From time to time.
Song to song and rhyme to rhyme.
Betrayer of all mice and men.
Less of if and more of when.
Mar 26, 2016
Mar 26, 2016 at 6:39 AM UTC
my time was wasted, your ego was bruised
it takes more than a memory
to keep me amused
but in moments of sadness, of plainest regret
i surrender to feelings
i ought to forget
so melancholic, i sit and think:
my mind - the abyss
into which
i sink.
Jun 6, 2013
Jun 6, 2013 at 7:51 PM UTC
So When It Comes To Poetry...
What Really Can Be Deemed...
To Be A... " MASTERPIECE "... ?!?
A Really COOL HAIKU...
Where Words Number A FEW... !?!
Or A Poetic... Stanza...
With IMPERVIOUS Data...
That HITS Like A Gun Clapper... !!!
Or Verses That SHATTER...
A Readers BRAIN MATTER... !!!
Because Of Wordplay...
That’s TRUTHFUL And BRAVE...
On Subjects That Make...
Most Writers AFRAID... !?!
Or Masterpieces Releasing.....
The PLAINEST of Speaking...
And TRUE DEPTH of MEANING... ?!?
Or... Poetry Seeking... ?
To BREAK Through Glass Ceilings... !!!
Where Judgements Are Made...
About... What Is Claimed...
To Be A... " Masterpiece "...
Are Judges Like THESE...
Those... TRULY WORTHY...
of KNOWLEDGE And WISDOM...
About... ALL Words Written... ?!?
Are They REALLY Objective...
About Words That They Credit....
As Being … IMPRESSIVE... ?!?
Is A Masterpiece Short...
Or... Can It Be LONG... ???
Can A Poem Be Thought...
To Have Masterpiece Form... ?!?
Like That of A Painting...
Because of Its CADENCE...
And POETIC Statements... ???
AND.............
Whose Mind Can Decide... ?!?
What It Is That DEFINES..
A... MASTERFUL Piece...
of Verse And Poetry... ???
And What About WRITERS... ?
Do We REALLY ASPIRE...
To Have Our Written Works...
Be Seen As GREAT VERSE... ?!?
Or As A MASTERPIECE...
of A... Poetic Breed... ?!?
Sounds Like EGO To Me... !!!
I’d Rather Inspire Young People To READ...
And Write REALITY Within Their Poetry... !!!
That ENSURES LEGACIES...
of Words With... Qualities...
That Breed MORE UNITY...
That Have POSITIVE Impacts...
On... HUMANITY... !!!
Because THAT HONESTLY...
Would Be The Kind of FEAT...
That I TRULY Would See...
As Something That Could Be...
A POETIC Piece of GREAT Artistry... !!!
That Indeed Could Be Deemed...
As A REAL...
..... “ MASTERPIECE “..... !!!
Oct 1, 2020
Oct 1, 2020 at 1:40 AM UTC
This is it;
the deepest I can fathom,
the fastest I can light
the flying arrow quick
released from not
so sure cocked
finger.
This is it;
the flattest I can color
the plainest I can reek
thru silicon weaving
densely threaded cloth
fibered shirt,
insignia emblazon
on Polo front
pocket.
This is IT;
the peak,
the twin peaks.
The n-peaks?
I realize
the game continues
and IT sets to zero,
derivatized as partial
IT-equations, is easier
to solve.
Jun 30, 2013
Jun 30, 2013 at 11:31 AM UTC
She sits with her legs folded to the right,
head covered in red satin bordered with gold brocade.
Strands of dark brown hair sneak out from under the satin.
Gold earrings dangle from her small honey colored ears.
She has the plainest lips I’ve ever seen.
They’re just a centimeter apart with no hint of a smile.
Her dark brown eyes are laden with thick black mascara.
I keep trying to look away.
I wonder what she’s thinking as she sits there,
clueless like a young bride.
I think about how many have lusted for her scent before me.
The silk curtain in front of her window closes,
solidifying the boundaries of our two worlds.
Her voluptuous shadow visible behind the curtain pulls me away from my world
and ***** me into hers’.
It’s gone now, and I sit back in my chair and look around.
I hear people discussing the stock market plunge but all I can think about is the dark figure behind the silk curtain.
She will never know I had been so close,
and the woman with the plainest lips will forever remain my secret.
Dec 12, 2011
Dec 12, 2011 at 6:16 AM UTC
There has always been excuse made for the behavior my father has displayed.
The mean spirited remarks at family gatherings, feelings hurt and egos bruised.
Everyday routines have turned into the **** of a joke
There is nothing you can do to stop it. He'll always be an *******
There once was a time when I wanted a relationship with my father.
I used to try to find ways to communicate with him, in the plainest of ways.
I tried for years but . . .
Nothing ever worked, I failed every time.
Spending your childhood afraid of a parent and never feeling loved
It leaves you broken, and feeling unwanted.
There were times when I looked at the father/daughter relationships all around
Jealousy overcame me. I cried at night because my uncles were nicer, my grandfather was nicer.
Little did I realize back then as a child that things would work out.
I had father figures in my life, just not a father - I had many fathers.
My seven uncles would protect me from everyone and everything.
My grandfather would teach me to swim.
I would get a love of the outdoors from them.
I would learn to ride a bike, tie my shoe, mathematics, and self-defense.
My father is still a hateful, passive aggressive man.
Someone that no one truly wants to be around,
I think sometimes that even the TV anchors despise him -
Maybe they can hear him calling them names and yelling at them when they cant pronounce a word correctly.
Time has passed by, I'm in college now.
I'm a part of the International Honors Society.
I've made the Dean's List every semester.
My father has yet to acknowledge my accomplishments.
Somedays it hurts, others I could care less.
When I run into my uncles now, they see me two ways.
The girl they helped raise, and the woman I have become.
My uncles always greet me with a kiss hello and a compliment.
I know they're proud of me, that's what matters.
The man who is a seated statue in front of a big screen TV doesn't care
The men who showed me the world and continue to encourage me do.
I remind myself that I am more like them.
They are the ones who raised me.
Aug 28, 2011
Aug 28, 2011 at 6:44 PM UTC
Flowers so rare and fine,
Missing from this dry world,
Lost, unwatered, unseen, yet
No ones and none despaired,
They then planted their garish
Seed in blot sun, most sodden,
Soppy soils sprayed which fell
On the plainest, most commoner
Grounds, such fertile dirt, wrought,
Then, all who came to view where
But gaggles of proud mediocrity
Who arrived to revel and preen,
Unjust, they remade this earth,
Once lively, to be lame, what
Celebrations they now need
What praises they do crave,
Sadly, they could not know,
A flower for the weeds.
May 28, 2015
May 28, 2015 at 3:14 PM UTC
Wise and for granted,
Don't call it being shy.
You die for those who **** you,
And you never ask why.
Take comfort in the plainest things,
Or run on none at all.
Stand still between turning tables.
Humble, silent through the fight.
Extract truth from penny fables
Imagination recreates,
All the things you lack.
Gave hope away, but not refilled.
Weighed down, yet still believe in flight
Subdued for now, But soon shall see
Trust has won eternity.
Jan 19, 2011
Jan 19, 2011 at 7:50 AM UTC
And why is it that with every sip of bourbon
I gaze into your eyes?
How can it be that I smell your perfume everywhere?
What sense does it make that I see your face in my dreams?
I have not seen you in so long yet almost every thought I have reverts to you....
Though I do not complain,
Somehow it causes pain
To see all yearn, no gain, from seeming I'm insane,
I awake with your kiss on my lips,
For false dreams and hopes, your memory sticks,
What's worse, is that we converse with quips
Of how it may have been, yet is,
You sway as the ocean's tide at dawn,
When beautiful sunlight crest's its yawn,
As innocent as a devout deer's fawn,
Yet your guile does show its brawn,
Your vision to me in dreams is steady,
Stagnant at night while my heart grows heavy,
If only you knew, if only I'd say
That the warmth for you yet grows each day,
Each moment that passes craves detention,
Respect for all my admiration,
Betwixt your legs and arms' invention,
I pray to spend each night's volition.
Of all the words in my graspable language,
You escape all knowledge of my brain's sanguine,
And of all the things I could say and do,
The plainest and strongest, I Love You.
Nov 10, 2013
Nov 10, 2013 at 9:41 PM UTC
~
smile and weep,
love the shallow for its deep,
finding amazement in the complexity of life
*this prior script-thought
re-arrives but this time,
tonal differences,
a spoken aloud cascading cacophony,
no protective cocoon of silent email,
jus plainest pain masquerading beneath a tensile casual remark
and how you wish you could poetry, write, torrentially in simple lines,
to match the transverse and reverse
the only two gears,
so overcome with anger worry and pain no killer can
****
so deep and swift
its haphazard rambling rambunctious
cursing coursing
and all she said was this:*
this is going to be the end of us
and you, charged to interpret this sentence,
like your namesake Daniel
the invisible handwriting on the
Babylonian wall
that is under construction for which
you will both pay
equally
Nov 12, 2016
Nov 12, 2016 at 10:50 AM UTC
.
Flowers so rare and fine,
Missing from this dry world,
Lost, unwatered, unseen, yet
No ones and none despaired,
They then planted their garish
Seed in blot sun, most sodden,
Soppy soils sprayed which fell
On the plainest, most commoner
Grounds, such fertile dirt, wrought,
Then, all who came to view where
But gaggles of proud mediocrity
Who arrived to revel and preen,
Unjust, they remade this earth,
Once lively, to be lame, what
Celebrations they now need
What praises they do crave,
Sadly, they could not know,
A flower for the weeds.
.
Mar 30, 2019
Mar 30, 2019 at 5:27 PM UTC
On paper, you are all wrong.
The list is long that describes your faults.
On paper, you are not right, at all.
The adjectives are many that paint you negatively.
But with one drag from your cigarette,
and a grin, cloaked by your black and grey whiskers,
I forget.
When my name flows out of your mouth,
even in the plainest of tones,
I forget.
The long list, the one that I always turn to,
and try to convince myself out of this,
vanishes.
I swim in a sweet, sublime pool of bliss.
I feel love for you, in the simplest of ways.
I love you. Simply and purely.
List or not.
Jul 3, 2011
Jul 3, 2011 at 8:45 PM UTC
Still in my Plainest Sense should Comprehend
How Fortunate be my Base Apples were
Compared to yours; Such Royalty descend
Though Priced in Demand for Freedom defer
So Liberty - now the French-Filled Couillaise,
Took her Luxury to the Plym's Neighboured South
And so were our Hearts cry Supply your Embrace
Though Heads tagged least be Consumed in your Mouth
Was it not then for their Lot's Landlord come
To confirm which Leech be Best sip your Wounds
To Promote for Many; Yet Condensed by Some
Then Harness un-needed Points for your Rounds.
Great Souls still Applaud by the Clothes you wear
Which soaked in Sweat must your Proud Mornings bear.
Jun 29, 2013
Jun 29, 2013 at 2:07 PM UTC
I will smelting the scentest sweet
Smelt it over an 'I forgot' times
Smells the morningest freshness
Will smell petrified joy always.
I will stareding at the simplest complexity
My eyes saw the warmest merry
Seeing night sky spill over sight
Will stare at plainest intricacy.
I felting a sugar glaze
Felt it coat my moonest blue
Feeling his sugary hands
Had warmth so will feel it melt..
Will felting foreverness sticky.
Jul 16, 2015
Jul 16, 2015 at 9:52 AM UTC
~dedicated to Robert Lepage^, a master at remembering~
~
we enumerated our days thusly,
each one was commenced with skyward glance,
eliciting an epithet, a blessing or a curse,
none passed unremarked, the plainest even,
acknowledged with an indecipherable glancing
mmmm from the chest cut or purred,
quick withdrawn and quietly shared
thus recorded, our history disordered,
who can recall if it rained or snowed
on the last Sunday of July of 1998,
or even the sunset fabulous
that was its global signature signing of au revoir
of course, agreed, we remember the great hurricanes
as if they were births or deaths of our most intimates,
but the vast attended, unto mounds collected,
the ticket stubs of dead leaves, sunburns,
rain showered soaked ruined silk blouses
and pairs of good shoes, are not recycled,
but forlorn forgotten condemned men in
a life's imprisonment of an unmarked grave,
with no epitaph possible for no one knows what here lies
~~
written on Sunday March 26th, 2017 9:08am
Mar 26, 2017
Mar 26, 2017 at 9:36 AM UTC
i miss you
in the plainest of cliches
between smoke breaks during work
when taking trains to unfamiliar locations
when i meet new people who share your name
you put love into me
yet left nothing but dry blood
every thing relates back to you
i ate you up
and now i'm having trouble digesting
Nov 22, 2014
Nov 22, 2014 at 3:48 PM UTC