"pocks" poems
i have 5 -
two by my mouth
two on my cheeks
and one in my chin
(plus others
in places you can't see -
elbows and knees and
secret spots)
and they burst when i smile
and when i cry
and when i speak, the two by my mouth
punctuate what i say,
with little pocks and creases -
puckish and
emphatic.
i have 5
two by my mouth
two on my cheeks
and one in my chin
(plus others
in places you can't see)
Nov 4, 2012
Nov 4, 2012 at 12:35 PM UTC
These hands have clawed with blind eyes
Chipped nails on fingers working on knots and ties
Fingers that recklessly point to reproaches and blames
Never to self, righteousness through arrogant claims
Now aware, these palms have covered my face in contempt
For they've partook in activities; indulgent and unkempt
Rubbed skin raw on life's coarse sandpaper
Ever searching for the coming of the unanticipated saviour
Broken flesh hopeful for newly formed skin
Like tattered souls pleading for absolution of sin
Only skin deep but unfavourable experiences do fester
Expecting the proverbial infection to blow over
Here they are, held unclenched and riddled with pocks
Weathered and sore from time's infinite mocks
Maybe thereafter, will be awaited healing
Perhaps soon after, I will be forgiving
See now... Hands faced up, parted as halves
Asking not for alms but instead your acceptance as salve
Take into yours, these knackered, gnarled up palms
Let your porcelain-like touch relieve like life reforming balm
Sep 3, 2014
Sep 3, 2014 at 10:35 AM UTC
We have fallen in the dreams the ever-living
Breathe on the tarnished mirror of the world,
And then smooth out with ivory hands and sigh.
W.B. YEATS
* * * * * *
My soul looked down from a vague height, with Death,
As unremembering how I rose or why,
And saw a sad land, weak with sweats of dearth,
Gray, cratered like the moon with hollow woe,
And pitted with great pocks and scabs of plagues.
Across its beard, that horror of harsh wire,
There moved thin caterpillars, slowly uncoiled.
It seemed they pushed themselves to be as plugs
Of ditches, where they writhed and shrivelled, killed.
By them had slimy paths been trailed and scraped
Round myriad warts that might be little hills.
From gloom's last dregs these long-strung creatures crept,
And vanished out of dawn down hidden holes.
(And smell came up from those foul openings
As out of mouths, or deep wounds deepening.)
On dithering feet upgathered, more and more,
Brown strings, towards strings of gray, with bristling spines,
All migrants from green fields, intent on mire.
Those that were gray, of more abundant spawns,
Ramped on the rest and ate them and were eaten.
I saw their bitten backs curve, loop and straighten.
I watched those agonies curl, lift, and flatten.
Whereat, in terror what that sight might mean,
I reeled and shivered earthward like a feather.
And Death fell with me, like a deepening moan.
And He, picking a manner of worm, which half had hid
Its bruises in the earth, bur crawled no further,
Showed me its feet, the feet of many men,
And the fresh-severed head of it, my head
2.1k
Looking at pain
From the inside out
Stepping off steep
Into an unknown, falling
Loose and tightly wound
At once
In one
Spinning straight-line lies
Wanting them to be true
From here to there exists
No mess between
No life
No humanity
No mess
Only simple
Straight-line lives
Like the heartbeats of our politicians
Got no room for deviation into mountains
Down to earth
Got no time for beats and bravery
Floating on in mediocracy
No, democracy
My mistake
Found a word and made it look
Like cool
Made it sound like hope
Made it work like ****
To cover up the sins of what was truth
Not pure or real
But what was on
Got hammering down
Got seeping in
Got on with getting on
Dig pocks in Devon and call it progress
Take chunks of the mama and look surprised
As she spits us all out from her centre
You, me and everyone who had no idea
Who sat behind their 5 mile screen and said
**** happens
When it was about the starvation
And said
More’s the pity
When it was about monstrosity
And said
Gotta be thankful
When it was about the tanks and the bombs and the guns
In some other guys garden
And screamed
What the **** is going on here
With tears and snot and terror all over their tan-stained brows
When the phone broke
And the plane was late
And the dog shat
And the restaurant ran out of hors de ******* oeuvres.
It’s a ******* sin, that’s what it is
To call yourself a restaurant and not have what’s on the ******* menu.
A ******* sin.
The world’s gone to ******* ruin.
Buy me Barrack Obama and let’s call it evens.
Nov 15, 2012
Nov 15, 2012 at 1:11 PM UTC
There is something intrinsically enchanting about traveling—
Meeting small destinies,
Feeling the flow of life sweep you along—
It’s not all about running away,
Or where you end up,
Or how fast you go—
Rather, it’s about the actual act of
Moving Forward.
You sit in the car, or on the plane, or in the back of someone’s pickup, and you can see the landscape undergo its natural metamorphosis again and again
Into unique multifaceted checkpoints down the list of
Things To Experience:
People to laugh with,
Hands to hold,
Memories to make…
I look out into the alternating horizon and see
‘Opportunity’ spelled out in the clouds.
I look out and can see all the reasons why I should just
Take to the wind,
Flit and float across vast spaces of life—
Set free my spirit of all societal burden for the sake of introspective sentience and honest self-discovery—
I get the appeal;
I have tasted from the goblet that decadent ambrosia,
That flavor by which coats and balms my self-criticizing soul—
Soothing away all the hack marks,
The pocks and nicks and dents that blemish and tarnish the delicate skin protecting my psyche—
I am healed by travel,
By taking life seriously as that journey by which to merely ‘enjoy the ride’,
By making a literal journey out of life,
(Via journeying.)
Ah, even as I drive onward,
Even as I am propelled ever forward along the Devil’s Backbone, and Montezuma’s Castle, chasing the setting sun,
I am already thirsting for more
Jan 28, 2014
Jan 28, 2014 at 11:51 AM UTC
clinging to the night like a wet sheet
naked beneath it’s sweat dirt & stare
dreamin’ of nowhere runnin’ runnin’
all of us movin’ movin’ movin
to whatever was out there
a great unanswered scream
--------
I was starin’ at all the imperfections
of an orange shapes, dents, pocks
nobody cares
as long as it’s juicy
----------------------------
there was a street light
& all of us were movin movin’
dancing on shingles singles
bangles of tigers
claws & smiles
fashionable dresses all torn like the moon
sometimes I feel like I don’t know
where i’m supposed to be
& if i do know i don’t
know how to get there
footstep, footstep
at least you’ll be
somewhere
----------------------
the car is blasting
boom boom boom
we all b movin’ movin’
parkin’ lot party
& then
i twirl
i twirl so fast
flashes of blue satin
black jeans, plastic
rings, beercans
skin, rhythms i
twirl spreading
my arms his eyes
stop
his eyes
6/12/11
May 14, 2011
May 14, 2011 at 7:34 AM UTC
A bleak day
and bleaker still
Rain pocks the pavement
and my windowsill
Come heavy winds tonight
they say
casting eerie shadows
as the trees will sway
The earth will shake
with thunder and doubt
But make no mistake
That's what life is about
Each storm brings the promise
of life and decay
You may die tomorrow
oh, but you're alive today
And when fear holds you
and darkness persists
please remember, my dear
that true love exists
Mar 29, 2016
Mar 29, 2016 at 12:35 PM UTC
if pimples were encountered as beauty marks,
pain was a pleasure and sorrow was a privilege,
and day was horrid and nights were breath taking,
life would be feel quite right-
but I'd be living in fright
for
I would not be I.
if hell was heaven and heaven was hell
would you go bad to go up
for good to go down,
If a lie weren't a lie,
chicken pocks were lovely and good health was a disease.
for it would be wrong,
a unknown singer would write a song,
I'd be in suspense,
the waters too dense.
you would not be you
if the moon came up at sunrise, would the trees say good morning or good night,
if a thousand words meant one thing,
would you write me a poem about anything,
or would you write me a novel telling me everything.
yet today would still be present and yesterday would still be the past
try walking through glass,
we would not be we.
more than thoughts stay in minds
and dreams take action,
thanks to mr.cummings
now I'm stranded with ifs
rather than dancing with why nots.
Mar 4, 2014
Mar 4, 2014 at 10:31 PM UTC
Oh, I can't - can't you see -
witness such things as these
and stay entirely nonplussed as waves on the seas;
as the sun sets and swaddles
the canvas of clouds
in her shadows and shrouds, while the stars come out
peppering & salting the night sky
we meanwhile lay by
and get baptized again and again
'til we both die and rise to the heavens
of rich conversation
alive in the wealth of ourselves
But there's no Saint Peter here.
These celestial bodies maintain what can only be seen
as an esoteric echelon with humanity eschewed
and no regard for our whims and wiles.
This is where our verse breaks down.
Here is where.
We don't have words to fuel their fires,
make them burn brighter,
send them our life - we can only admire
and pray that our subjugation is enough
to appease these pocks against pureblack.
These rebels mirror us in some manifest destiny
blended with beautiful blasphemy
that they presume to appease God
by simply not being human.
Well this does not bode well for us, I dare say.
I can no more avoid abusing the air for a day
than I can embody radiance.
I've learned my place.
Here beside you, I've collected myself,
my thoughts, my things,
and I can swallow mortality as its own punishment.
I cannot allow myself to go unnoticed, though,
so I'll show myself out.
No idea where I'll go.
You are welcome to stay still, lay on the grass.
I'm certain keep watching and some comet may pass
but I'm off to find somewhere the sun won't set
and these hands can be bathed in warmth of work and wealth
and these bead-eyed bodies can look down through ozone
and I...
I can simply ignore
and carry on my merry way.
Jun 11, 2016
Jun 11, 2016 at 11:52 AM UTC
there were oil stains outside his house
where the car had sat
like the stains,
he bore marks
little pocks
that had worn on his face
from a life he lived
al a erosion
though each scar, skin deep
as shallow as the rest
he felt best
when they bled
Nov 16, 2020
Nov 16, 2020 at 8:01 AM UTC
Quiet. Silenced. Violent little knives of emotion too potent to speak. Build a wall of knives and stories around the strangled hopes. Feel the hilts against your back and know the blades face out, out, out to your enemies, out to those who would do you wrong. And out to those who wouldn't. Both ways. Keep one in, keep another out, let none through either side. A wall built high and close to keep you safe from pain and suffering and joy, for you are too fragile for joy. Joy might shake the mortar from the wall around you and leave you bare and leave you alone and leave you afraid. Fear makes you build walls.
But walls fall.
And walls forget what it is you built them for.
Knives are forged for fighting but these knives are far too small. Their blades are sharp and their points sting quick, but you’d never search for blood. You’re young, too young, when the first blade shows, in your wall of safety, shows its point turn in, not out, out, out, but at you and the lies you tell yourself. Pluck it from the wall, bury it deep in the soil beneath you. If anyone saw this blade, this rebellious blade turned against you, they might know the truth. Bury it where you never have to see it again and no one will ever find it.
But you only gave yourself so much room.
And knives are hard to sit on.
Pocks and dents and creases form against your soft, protected flesh. Rounded hilts and sharper hilts, hilts inlaid with gems. They press against your back, your hands, your quiet, folded features and stain your skin with shame and fear as the cold creeps nearer and closer and more violating. The ground beneath you shimmers of metal and regret and the walls grow thicker every day, closer to your soul. You hurt.
But you’re too proud of the walls you've built.
Even if they **** you.
Apr 1, 2015
Apr 1, 2015 at 5:37 PM UTC
No, don't change me!!
because I don't want to
Help me grow
even in a way that is out of your will
Let me learn from you
so I also have something to offer
Set me free, for my heart to expand
til the edge of the space
until it grows fonder
You watered the flowers where it blooms within me
when it takes a lot of persistence
to keep them alive
Don't scrub off the scars
marked by the pocks of hurt
because it's how I get here
how I empathize with others' pain
that made me realize how much people needs people
My ache chose you long time ago
over a thousand splendors
But you still wanted anybody else
and shun my embodied pool of stitched soul.
May 29, 2016
May 29, 2016 at 4:47 AM UTC