"pockmark" poems - Hello Poetry

I have never heard grey more grey then the words which you say to me so condescendingly. Never endingly. Black and white means naught in a world of (k)nots and (flattened) cans. And dressed up in blue, you’re always beautiful. But crude and **** we stand in the sun; every pockmark illuminated, tungsten bright. The light of night to never shine again against the delicate steel door that closes like your hand around the flitting, panicked moth. Magnesium smiles and pain pill duplicity, the simplicity of a (remote) controlled world. I am trapped between the clean street signs and the signs of a dead language. Where is the line of your back and what is the time? Have I lost the only things that made me sigh with relief? (Who is the real thief?)

0

Jun 18, 2010

Jun 18, 2010 at 11:21 AM UTC

amanda-rae

Thieving Tungsten

I have never heard grey more grey then the words which you say to me so condescendingly. Never endingly. Black and white means naught in a world of (k)nots and (flattened) cans. And dressed up in blue, you’re always beautiful. But crude and **** we stand in the sun; every pockmark illuminated, tungsten bright. The light of night to never shine again against the delicate steel door that closes like your hand around the flitting, panicked moth. Magnesium smiles and pain pill duplicity, the simplicity of a (remote) controlled world. I am trapped between the clean street signs and the signs of a dead language. Where is the line of your back and what is the time? Have I lost the only things that made me sigh with relief? (Who is the real thief?)

21

Behind a speakeasy in a ***** moonlit alley silhouettes climb up a tired and worn out stairway vacancy signboard beneath an incandescent light bulb marks the nondescript entrance for the nights commerce Outside the window ledge a billboard hums an electric tune between the blinds neon light sneaks into the room casting shadows on a naked landscape across the mattress spread totally disinterested pockmark flesh limply waiting Clumsy hands fumble to unzip stained denims hobbling with unsteady steps to the edge of the bed a drunk smelling of cheap whiskey and ***** smiles at me with two rows of rotted stumps my first customer of the night

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Jul 26, 2010

Jul 26, 2010 at 6:48 PM UTC

silentreed

Night Walker

Behind a speakeasy in a ***** moonlit alley silhouettes climb up a tired and worn out stairway vacancy signboard beneath an incandescent light bulb marks the nondescript entrance for the nights commerce Outside the window ledge a billboard hums an electric tune between the blinds neon light sneaks into the room casting shadows on a naked landscape across the mattress spread totally disinterested pockmark flesh limply waiting Clumsy hands fumble to unzip stained denims hobbling with unsteady steps to the edge of the bed a drunk smelling of cheap whiskey and ***** smiles at me with two rows of rotted stumps my first customer of the night

24

Landscape silhouettes pirouetted off pockmark lights in the dark; the city shivers in its myths and windy whispers, Just a subtle rumble 'neath his humble feet, heart aflutter, stuttering palpitation structure sputtering; the lightless rain glanced across the window brackets of the moving train. Silence yawned across his vapid eyes like labored lullaby sans interlacing rhyme device - Home, the beckoning, fulfillment's underlying premise calling off at every stop 'til seats bowed under weight of emptiness. Friendless in the long stretch between conductor's breath, fresh with mints and benevolence, punching tickets with a lonely sickness... Ah, fitful sleep awaits us past the sliding doors and walk to familiar shores, horizons bleak, and nothing more. Locomotive groans pervade the embers of the gloam and glitter bright, against the clutching fingers of this woeful night.

0

Aug 4, 2011

Aug 4, 2011 at 7:38 PM UTC

misadventuresofcrow

Commute

Landscape silhouettes pirouetted off pockmark lights in the dark; the city shivers in its myths and windy whispers, Just a subtle rumble 'neath his humble feet, heart aflutter, stuttering palpitation structure sputtering; the lightless rain glanced across the window brackets of the moving train. Silence yawned across his vapid eyes like labored lullaby sans interlacing rhyme device - Home, the beckoning, fulfillment's underlying premise calling off at every stop 'til seats bowed under weight of emptiness. Friendless in the long stretch between conductor's breath, fresh with mints and benevolence, punching tickets with a lonely sickness... Ah, fitful sleep awaits us past the sliding doors and walk to familiar shores, horizons bleak, and nothing more. Locomotive groans pervade the embers of the gloam and glitter bright, against the clutching fingers of this woeful night.

30

"May poetry be our salvation, liberation and Nirvana" Bala *so many ifs in our daily lives the ifs that pockmark lives individuation, look-back crossroad regrets, daily harvested, road poorly chosen, the kiss not taken, a brother, for a petty sake, forsaken, a sister, sea-drowned, left undefended, by foolish parental expectations many are the global conjunctions, commencing and ending with an "if only," today's state-of-the-world curse, uttered when reading the front page's mayhem and senseless, never-aging, new and old excuses raging so many palliatives on offer, what matters yet one more, none seem able, none proven capable, of essencing a humanity so simple basic when the moment at hand needs a redirection that a loving rhyme can sway but in my inbox from India comes a hope, a wish, that leads a man to dream, envision societies that could surround-sound itself with wisps of words, in the oddest places, throwing us offsides, in a make us see ourselves in better ways a morning poem before the TV weather, a verse insert tween news reports of who murdered whom this day, subway poems, a Super Bowl commercial recitation that makes us lick our lips, poetic literacy in small things, a minister or president's speech a recitation of a nation's verbal wealth, instead of rejoinders and accusations ah just a foolish notion at 4:22am, there is no money in poetry, thus its possibilities to soften and stem, cure and elevate enhance the perchance of a different way to, salvation, liberation, and nirvana, seems so unlikely but there is that small step one could take, leave a poem on the night table, a first thought, a morn pill of humankind, be a softener of a day just begun*

0

Jan 27, 2015

Jan 27, 2015 at 4:48 AM UTC

nat-lipstadt

may poetry be our salvation

"May poetry be our salvation, liberation and Nirvana" Bala *so many ifs in our daily lives the ifs that pockmark lives individuation, look-back crossroad regrets, daily harvested, road poorly chosen, the kiss not taken, a brother, for a petty sake, forsaken, a sister, sea-drowned, left undefended, by foolish parental expectations many are the global conjunctions, commencing and ending with an "if only," today's state-of-the-world curse, uttered when reading the front page's mayhem and senseless, never-aging, new and old excuses raging so many palliatives on offer, what matters yet one more, none seem able, none proven capable, of essencing a humanity so simple basic when the moment at hand needs a redirection that a loving rhyme can sway but in my inbox from India comes a hope, a wish, that leads a man to dream, envision societies that could surround-sound itself with wisps of words, in the oddest places, throwing us offsides, in a make us see ourselves in better ways a morning poem before the TV weather, a verse insert tween news reports of who murdered whom this day, subway poems, a Super Bowl commercial recitation that makes us lick our lips, poetic literacy in small things, a minister or president's speech a recitation of a nation's verbal wealth, instead of rejoinders and accusations ah just a foolish notion at 4:22am, there is no money in poetry, thus its possibilities to soften and stem, cure and elevate enhance the perchance of a different way to, salvation, liberation, and nirvana, seems so unlikely but there is that small step one could take, leave a poem on the night table, a first thought, a morn pill of humankind, be a softener of a day just begun*

54

each nun my mother sees is shorter than the one after it. this too shall pass? she remains nonverbal. I try to include my son. my depression is a tractor beam that attracts newborns. my thoughts are a thought below the whimsical race. I take photos of escalators paralyzed by three dimensions. I give them as gifts to my father lost at land and sitting on steps to hear the silence in his head. a toy pup expires with a yip in a ransacked store. you are made melancholy not by the pup but by its fallen battery pack belly. I say to a pockmark what I say to immortality.

0

Dec 10, 2013

Dec 10, 2013 at 3:45 PM UTC

barton-d-smock

superiors

each nun my mother sees is shorter than the one after it. this too shall pass? she remains nonverbal. I try to include my son. my depression is a tractor beam that attracts newborns. my thoughts are a thought below the whimsical race. I take photos of escalators paralyzed by three dimensions. I give them as gifts to my father lost at land and sitting on steps to hear the silence in his head. a toy pup expires with a yip in a ransacked store. you are made melancholy not by the pup but by its fallen battery pack belly. I say to a pockmark what I say to immortality.

1

We Are So Lightly Here “So come, my friends, be not afraid, we are so lightly here It is in love that we are made, in love we disappear Though all the maps of blood and flesh are posted on the door There’s no one who has told us yet what Boogie Street is for” Leonard Cohen “Boogie Street” <~> my body, my eyes, my entirety, tattooed, with a city map, here, at this exact place, our eyes glanced, our eyes closed, who among us does not possess such a living guide, memories presented in a 3-D versions, constantly edited. placed your hand on my privacy, bid you enter, not a dare, more an invitation to risk, become a true love of mine, share exhilaration, desert valleys that pockmark unexpectedly, changes us to we, regresses, you and me, post-survivalists cut. 2 gather, modify highs/lows, meet & peaking@peculiar tunes, ever embraces residuals a sour film upon our lips, a puzzling, what excites, pacifies, returns us street corner, X’d our map, glances exchanged across an empty street, seeing each, not.

0

Jun 28, 2021

Jun 28, 2021 at 10:48 AM UTC

nat-lipstadt

“We are So Lightly Here”

We Are So Lightly Here “So come, my friends, be not afraid, we are so lightly here It is in love that we are made, in love we disappear Though all the maps of blood and flesh are posted on the door There’s no one who has told us yet what Boogie Street is for” Leonard Cohen “Boogie Street” <~> my body, my eyes, my entirety, tattooed, with a city map, here, at this exact place, our eyes glanced, our eyes closed, who among us does not possess such a living guide, memories presented in a 3-D versions, constantly edited. placed your hand on my privacy, bid you enter, not a dare, more an invitation to risk, become a true love of mine, share exhilaration, desert valleys that pockmark unexpectedly, changes us to we, regresses, you and me, post-survivalists cut. 2 gather, modify highs/lows, meet & peaking@peculiar tunes, ever embraces residuals a sour film upon our lips, a puzzling, what excites, pacifies, returns us street corner, X’d our map, glances exchanged across an empty street, seeing each, not.

19

I’m wrenched awake with a swaying hangover, the kind that rumbles in the back of your throat until mid-afternoon. I know that I’m late without turning my head but the only movement is the whir of the box fan in the window and the sinewy muscle of my calves twitching near the end of the bed. It’s hard to wake up when the world outside the door has been in this way, insistent in it’s painfulness, and part of me wants to succumb to the quiet hum of this bedroom, disappear into the sheets and pretend for a moment that I never met Jordan Whitaker. A scalding shower and a thermos of lukewarm coffee later, the sun seems way too cheery for the way my insides feel and I want to scowl at it. I swallow the bile for a moment to toss a ‘good morning’ to the old woman dragging her walking cane to the end of the driveway. She used to drop by with cookies from time to time, but it’s been a while. I can see the toll of age and defeat on her cheeks like a fragment of my future and I have to turn away from it, towards the blinding sun mocking me quietly. “You done yet?” I hear his voice before I see him, taunting me in the way only a man in a position of superiority can. Archie is filthy with the kind of grease that doesn’t wash off, and all of my tricks to keep unwanted hands away, even a stubborn and unyielding androgyny, has not deterred him yet. I spit at the sidewalk before his foot lands in stride next to me, and he jerks a bit but keeps pace. “You know, I’ve got someone on the inside of the courtroom today. Maybe you scratch my back, I scratch yours, that kind of thing?” These words are accompanied by a haphazard set of teeth leering in some semblance of a smile. The smell alone is enough to make me want to start sprinting, but I keep my tone and pace level. “I’m not telling you again, Archie. My leads are my own. I’ll get in there just fine.” “Oh, the bitch’s feeling feisty today, I see!” I watch a bead of sweat collect between his eyes as he watches me, like a pockmark. “You’re kidding yourself if you think they’ll let you anywhere near the trial with the stunt you pulled last week. You should stop taking me for granted, you know!”

0

Apr 12, 2018

Apr 12, 2018 at 2:27 PM UTC

translucent

2068

I’m wrenched awake with a swaying hangover, the kind that rumbles in the back of your throat until mid-afternoon. I know that I’m late without turning my head but the only movement is the whir of the box fan in the window and the sinewy muscle of my calves twitching near the end of the bed. It’s hard to wake up when the world outside the door has been in this way, insistent in it’s painfulness, and part of me wants to succumb to the quiet hum of this bedroom, disappear into the sheets and pretend for a moment that I never met Jordan Whitaker. A scalding shower and a thermos of lukewarm coffee later, the sun seems way too cheery for the way my insides feel and I want to scowl at it. I swallow the bile for a moment to toss a ‘good morning’ to the old woman dragging her walking cane to the end of the driveway. She used to drop by with cookies from time to time, but it’s been a while. I can see the toll of age and defeat on her cheeks like a fragment of my future and I have to turn away from it, towards the blinding sun mocking me quietly. “You done yet?” I hear his voice before I see him, taunting me in the way only a man in a position of superiority can. Archie is filthy with the kind of grease that doesn’t wash off, and all of my tricks to keep unwanted hands away, even a stubborn and unyielding androgyny, has not deterred him yet. I spit at the sidewalk before his foot lands in stride next to me, and he jerks a bit but keeps pace. “You know, I’ve got someone on the inside of the courtroom today. Maybe you scratch my back, I scratch yours, that kind of thing?” These words are accompanied by a haphazard set of teeth leering in some semblance of a smile. The smell alone is enough to make me want to start sprinting, but I keep my tone and pace level. “I’m not telling you again, Archie. My leads are my own. I’ll get in there just fine.” “Oh, the bitch’s feeling feisty today, I see!” I watch a bead of sweat collect between his eyes as he watches me, like a pockmark. “You’re kidding yourself if you think they’ll let you anywhere near the trial with the stunt you pulled last week. You should stop taking me for granted, you know!”

12

let me be prophetic let me romanticize bones, pearls embedded where teeth should be… i am smoke and blood and poison diamond chips for eyes, hard, colourless & cracked facets she is unstained my skin every possible colour every pockmark visible and ugly; every sacrifice carved in lines below my chin ticking down the breaths counting them, holding them lovingly in the hollow of the throat that they may blur together and strike a sickly rainbow that she may find her salvation at the end of mine.

0

Dec 16, 2013

Dec 16, 2013 at 4:57 PM UTC

thunderbirdexpress

visions of futures past

let me be prophetic let me romanticize bones, pearls embedded where teeth should be… i am smoke and blood and poison diamond chips for eyes, hard, colourless & cracked facets she is unstained my skin every possible colour every pockmark visible and ugly; every sacrifice carved in lines below my chin ticking down the breaths counting them, holding them lovingly in the hollow of the throat that they may blur together and strike a sickly rainbow that she may find her salvation at the end of mine.

15

To be Among My Owned Script-U-R- the First, No Greater Thrill! <> <> a small coterie, a cohort, this mess of thoughts and not too big around, that prayers, poem notions, reads me regular~like, who've come scattered & disordered, been for the long haul, know my blunderblus shotgun spewed, foibles, my excesses, my habituals, all leaving a pockmark upon but of late along comes a suprise! soul, a mental scarring of an IOMe new poets here, with 0/very few These indented scars, some fresh followers, touch me with a forefinger, some old enough to be ancient perhaps unawares of my traditions, that I carry the Imperative, to makes them my most favored nation, complete, turn feat from defeat, for I am well supplied, with ample satisfying a necessary condition supplies of courage + encouragement to exist, therefore I am, a being! for the honor, for the thrill, to be each poem transformed from scar among the number of their first to shoulder stripe, turning what followers, to leave my intials on was mere rank, into a high rank, their someday colossus, to bask with each completed poem, I in their fresh glow of new extra *stand taller, ***** lighter, bright*, bright light simply enlivening bright light, simply enlivening

0

Apr 6, 2025

Apr 6, 2025 at 3:03 PM UTC

nat-lipstadt

~~~~~~~~~~~~Two: Side/by/Side~~~~~~~~~~~~

To be Among My Owned Script-U-R- the First, No Greater Thrill! <> <> a small coterie, a cohort, this mess of thoughts and not too big around, that prayers, poem notions, reads me regular~like, who've come scattered & disordered, been for the long haul, know my blunderblus shotgun spewed, foibles, my excesses, my habituals, all leaving a pockmark upon but of late along comes a suprise! soul, a mental scarring of an IOMe new poets here, with 0/very few These indented scars, some fresh followers, touch me with a forefinger, some old enough to be ancient perhaps unawares of my traditions, that I carry the Imperative, to makes them my most favored nation, complete, turn feat from defeat, for I am well supplied, with ample satisfying a necessary condition supplies of courage + encouragement to exist, therefore I am, a being! for the honor, for the thrill, to be each poem transformed from scar among the number of their first to shoulder stripe, turning what followers, to leave my intials on was mere rank, into a high rank, their someday colossus, to bask with each completed poem, I in their fresh glow of new extra *stand taller, ***** lighter, bright*, bright light simply enlivening bright light, simply enlivening

21

You have no tears Volcanos pockmark your skin Scars left behind the turmoil that was your soul Every once in a while The universe still throws something your way An asteroid Anguish Your skin craters But your core unmoves The volcanos no more erupt their fury The veins no more bleed Can something wrung dry still freeze?

0

Apr 22, 2018

Apr 22, 2018 at 10:25 AM UTC

christa-ziegler

Men are from Mars

You have no tears Volcanos pockmark your skin Scars left behind the turmoil that was your soul Every once in a while The universe still throws something your way An asteroid Anguish Your skin craters But your core unmoves The volcanos no more erupt their fury The veins no more bleed Can something wrung dry still freeze?

12