"poles" poems
cedar planks line the dim lit hall
morning snow begins to fall
sepia print in a chipped wood frame
embers spark from the franklin flame
rustling sounds from bunks below
records play in a tight alcove
bacon grills on an iron sheet
gloves are warmed by baseboard heat
bean bags tossed on colored ****
papka placed as a punching bag
red brick wall with mounted poles
windows filled with glacier bowls
whiskey jack on the southern rail
a frozen patch of wine and ale
pine cones fall in gathering white
brothers bathed in firelight
sleighs are on the table top
canyon road is at a stop
northern winds that bite the face
lines are up the gondola base
cornice clipped by gully goats
the rubber man appears to float
alpine depths are on the rise
peaking sun through parting skies
triple ropes and nordic luge
honored guests from baton rouge
gelande jumps on rainbow drive
nostalgia’s light and warm reply
Jan 2, 2017
Jan 2, 2017 at 5:50 PM UTC
I'll be eaten alive one day:
one day, i see it in my mind
so close to closure along an empty street
late at night
(owls just retired and birds
not yet up),
orbs of light tethered to tall electric poles
cast dappled circles on cracked pavement;
illumination and safety
(for that two metre radius).
Stepping between them
like a girl child on stones
across a garden,
I anticipate each missed step
as sinking into sand or frightful waves.
Singing drunk back-alley lullabies
i'll soothe the skelebabies in their sleep,
their poor crusted noses snuffled against
a cold shift of air
(their private torment plastered over billboards
with corporate logos and dim colours,
suggesting the city's lights have gone out and
the local government is in frantics.
That is, after all, what you'd focus on)
Girl child games were so tipsy and magic
(and so close to real coldness);
between two orbs of light i'll slip
through the cracks
in the pavement.
THE END.
(eat me alive,
eat me alive,
eaten alive by the
wolf at the door)
Sep 25, 2014
Sep 25, 2014 at 6:36 PM UTC
Yesterday saw us through in a stroll
Unaware of the marathon we've begun.
By day's end we found ourselves bearing future's toll
Realised we were in it to secure today's sun.
Today saw us slightly worn thin
Indulgent naïveté in this marathon we've begun.
Into each other's strengths we lean
Hoping to see the end in tomorrow's sun.
Tomorrow may see us out in the cold
We may not be done with this marathon we've begun.
At opposite poles save for the binds that hold
But still planting hope in future's sun.
The future might see each breath to be drawn
In this marathon we've begun.
Only to be swallowed by each new dawn
Inadvertently still chasing the sun.
Oct 30, 2014
Oct 30, 2014 at 2:46 PM UTC
We wear this city on our feet
Planting our roots with each step
Our shadows
cast shapes of ancient oak trees stretching out over old squares at daybreak
We grow here
with the spirit of buildings past,
present and rising like a staircase to heaven in the distance,
the plumes of white smoke from their rooftops as burnt offerings for incense,
spires for steeples,
the bundled masses of people moving beneath as the calloused soles
of our feet pounding the pavement,
Our congregation
seated in reverant silence on the R-Line hissing to a stop
Their hushed prayers filing out from within to bring the reclaimed sidewalks of Fayetville Street back to life to join this pilgramage
They march
downtown toward Capitol
holding signs for disarmament
They bar-hop through Glenwood toasting to deliverance
They move in a blur of faces that become us,
Rush at all hours through our veins
Cross our hearts and keep us breathing,
Moving
wearing the city on our minds
like the greyest pieces of their winter sky and the way it caps the peaks of Mount PNC, BB&T and Wells Fargo like hoodies over our heads
We assume monk-like appearances
in robes color-coded by season- from blue collar sweaters to cold hard sweat
We'll wear their city until we're worn out and wet,
We'll wear their dreams at night
like streetlamps flickering on beneath wired telephone poles carrying conversations about each one as far south as Florida, fears unspoken, made visible
on iron park benches too cold to sit on at this hour
We'll keep walking
and wear this city like backpacks over our shoulders
under the watch of their heavens,
the skyline
a glowing testament
of every step taken
toward someplace higher.
Apr 9, 2018
Apr 9, 2018 at 7:27 PM UTC
Human directives, veracities unverified
Bellies belching with anger, murderers
Udders dripping hate, foundling banters
Hunters striking the hungered, unfortunate
Glare sight to seek the truth, hold me lets sink
Tear motions and debates of inequality
My Dafur, the realm of the fur, demise
All armed in Sudan, the arid, a battlefield
Emergency alarms sirens from 2003
The indefinite complications and hunger
A land of the displaced, starving nomads
Hear me out in these non-dissolving conflicts
Guantanamo bay detention a prison vicious
A base for “war in terrorism”, reciprocal laws
Inhumane human interrogations persists
A breach, a revolt, the hunger riots devolve
Force-feeding, torturous measures applied
All undressed, humiliated, genitalia exposed
A Rwanda slain in divide and rule
Civil clashes, mashes, all trashed
Swaying war rapes, tapes, the raves
Machetes slashing necks and hands
A lust of power, a genocide slaughter
The Tutsi slewed and unsewn from a patch
Autocratic regime boring divisions
Territorial ethnic cleansing, a holocaust
The oppression of Jews, Romanis, Poles
Homosexuals, the disabled and mentally ill
Indifference pooled in pits and camps
The institutional social indoctrination
The honor and killing to expose shame
The violation and dishonor of moral fabric
For what is “good”, “bad”, fixated moral values
Buried waists and head, awaiting stones to hit
Confessional secrets of only what lays within
A torment watching witnesses, all dangling
Marxists calls ships to stow ashore
Masses kidnapped, confused in deceit
Invalid contracts awaits signatures
The white immigrants to be enslaved
All aboard, now abroad to revolve labor
Wage packages taken to pay for freedom
Humans bought and sold to be owned
Slaves yorked and counted as assets
Bounded to serve plantations and homes
A human, non human, a chattel, a slave
A debt ******* offended and *****
Untamed and made to obey a master
A falling global strings unturned
Tunes strumming hate, war and pain
Human trafficking, violence, inequality
Child abuse, civil conflicts, capitalists
Commercialism, zero hour contracts
For if we have no rights, I have none
For if we have no peace I have none
Jan 20, 2016
Jan 20, 2016 at 6:54 AM UTC
My Frankenstein monster
erects in the dense night
a soliloquies of remedies
traced on pasted wall paper
It bids faster as the kites fly
high above the Himalayan
feeding respect to the sun
to radiate its vector rays
It whispers of this world
a spice of colours and patterns
a windy dainty silky road
wrapped with satanic ribbons
As the masses gather on the poles
to dance the mayday festival
the pagan gods shake the monster
their gold merry as the cloud chills
The bonfire embers and trembles
the palates vanish in the ashy wind
the crowds grow in bonded unity
the monster smiles in rhymed terms
Jul 12, 2016
Jul 12, 2016 at 5:47 PM UTC
We perpetuate heartbreak culture,
teaching girls the man who holds her loves her despite the bruises,
or it was her fault; she looked older.
We fetishes shoulders,
prize youth from the young in return for pre-chewed gum,
swallowing down the same tired ideals from those who still wield them like flags,
waving their patriotism on poles of bone before a throne of medieval ********
They chant mantras with beer stained breath about how 'our' country 'bested' the rest,
but what about the brutality?
The blood split on foreign soil in return for prehistoric oil?
Our land is deemed pure so long as the violence on our hands never reaches our shores,
but the ocean is red and staining our sands.
How can you have pride in a country who's sole identity is based off having the worlds largest navy?
Congratulations. You bombed your way through countless continents, collecting cultures to gather dust on pedestals and alters
We sin on Sundays, drink till we're ****** then wave at the seven deadly's (they don't apply to us here).
We teach preschoolers nationalism before they can walk,
indoctrinate our children before they can talk.
George killed the dragon.
Hood gave to the poor.
we all jumped on the bandwagon before we realised the princess had no choice and the rich still ruled.
There was no voice in the tale for those whose wail could be ignored.
What about those without lines in the script?
Those kicked to the curb, then kicked from it?
Our pavements have no room for nonconformists,
they're tailored to for same mind, same mindless wanderer,
squandering on the lasted polyesters even though that mouth on the street hasn't eaten in over a week.
'God save the Queen' from the vermin;
the homeless have been tossed out of the trash.
Why help them when you could save your cash by turning a blind?
After all, out of sight, out of mind.
Welcome to England, we hope you like what you find
Because we’re not changing it.
May 22, 2018
May 22, 2018 at 5:02 PM UTC
it's the management
here to inform you
your lust has been hacked
we know what your thinking
what you hide
we are all up in your business
like cyber terrorist's
don't ruin your life with to much self respect
we are all watching you **********
to mamma mia meets a hundred shades of crimson
and fight club blood ****
while you ***
screaming
ooooooooh god
licking
holes and poles
like a pig at a trough
praying to be handcuffed and on your knees
sweating and hysterical, a red moon struck **** face
high on drugs
in a dream better then this life has to offer
life is full of yogas
***** pony position
bouncy bouncy
i'm the light in your darkness
i know what you do
i want pieces of you, you wont show anyone else
your sickness, is my own
you are my love slave
turning me *********
who loves to hurt you
who's the *****
who's the switch
your flawless
now
cry me a river
move a little bit faster and to the left
your **** is a cartoon
**** grinning emoji
bleeding shrieking
fu fu fu fu *******
your brains running out of your eyes
gimmie all your venom
***** movie poem's
*** tongue and *****
your mouth like hemoglobin jewelry
saliva diamonds
kiss that
you'll never go back
squealing smooth heat
breathing winds of perfume
love and pain
united by
tragedy and desire
by
the grotesque and the beautiful
like thirst holds stones
stop crying
you know baby
you look your best on the toilet bowl
shameless
a delicious little *******
that holds me close to life
like a baby to the womb
please
stop banging on the door
i'm using this stall
Thank you
The Management
Sep 22, 2018
Sep 22, 2018 at 11:43 AM UTC
I could have gone to the cemetery,
or back to my high school lab,
find him lecturing from a podium,
bony finger raised,
demagogue of the dead.
I could break him down piece by piece,
cram him in a duffle,
a femur jutting the zipper.
Ignore the groan-
Skeletons are
by nature
never satisfied.
Instead I found myself
in the carnival lot,
The dog was long dead,
the sign kept guard.
Rusty rides slouched like tumbleweeds.
Cotton candy in memory-
blue tack crunching my teeth.
Lewd.
Skeletons fixed on poles,
spiked up through pelvis and spine.
Use ****
Grip shoulders. twist. lift.
When one slid free,
he collapsed into my arms
all bone-light, lovely,
mine at last.
I just brought him home.
Sat at the kitchen table.
Named him Curly.
Zoom howled: WAG’s gone weird!
What’s his name? What’s his name?
His name is Curly,
I said, but I knew
his name was You.
We drink wine by the pool.
He never sips.
Sometimes I pour a second glass for the glint.
Sometimes he tells me Danny Elfman
wants to play his ribs like a xylophone.
Sometimes he sighs,
he hates Oingo Boingo.
I laugh. Obliging.
So do I.
When the wind kicks up
he smells of sugar and rust.
Sometimes he rattles the glassware.
Sometimes he won’t sit still.
Skeletons are
by nature
never satisfied.
Sep 25, 2025
Sep 25, 2025 at 12:11 PM UTC
My body spun
From one side of my garage
to the other.
In between the pillars of poles
creating space between the cars
parked in the two car garage
perfect family, right?
not even close
I unlaced my skates
tossing them in a case,
unorganized as my chaotic brain
I leaned down to pick up
a mess of what looked
like plastic
like a broken water container
crushed by the weight
of a basketball tossed without looking
being the good girl I was
I picked up the charred plastic
placing it in my hand to
throw it in the trash
I dropped it in the can
letting the pieces fall
one
by
one.
As I wiped my hands
I found a piece I had forgotten
it had the label of Prego on the side
I realized then
It was a broken spaghetti jar
I ran upstairs
to help with dinner.
I asked my mom
what I could do to
She said
"You can run that blood
under a cold water faucet"
I looked at her confused, saying
"Where am I bleeding?"
She turned my arm over
showing me the cut
glazed over my forearm
I hadn't even felt it
I didn't know
that was the moment
I would find an advantage
to not feeling pain
and an interest
in the impure
realization
that bleeding
wasn't scary...
that it couldn't hurt me
as much as the rest
of my life could.
Feb 17, 2018
Feb 17, 2018 at 11:07 PM UTC
Up at the poles,
towards the north of the north,
in those magical skies,
exists a Goddess called Aurora Borealis.
Full of her vivid electromagnetic charm,
and her luminous green path of pure sheer light,
appeared in my dreams and whispered in my ears,
"Why don't you join me here for a night?"
I said I wish I could but I have a responsibility to bear,
She replied, " C'mon now sweet girl, your job is right here.
Channel your energy through me and I will give you everything you desire."
I agreed to her and closed my eyes,
of course, how would I repudiate the Goddess of Dawn and Ice?
Lifting my head in surprise,
following her line of sight,
far off the velvety night.
She came close to me and whispered, " But what is it that you no longer fear?"
I opened my eyes in surprise to only watch her disappear,
and that is when I realized,
it's time to dream higher than the Ionosphere.
Nov 13, 2018
Nov 13, 2018 at 12:01 PM UTC
the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls
are unbeautiful and have comfortable minds
(also,with the church’s protestant blessings
daughters,unscented shapeless spirited)
they believe in Christ and Longfellow,both dead,
are invariably interested in so many things—
at the present writing one still finds
delighted fingers knitting for the is it Poles?
perhaps. While permanent faces coyly bandy
scandal of Mrs. N and Professor D
….the Cambridge ladies do not care, above
Cambridge if sometimes in its box of
sky lavender and cornerless,the
moon rattles like a fragment of angry candy
7.8k
They hate the shadow of the bird
over the high water of the white cheek
and the conflict of light and wind
in the salon of the cold snow.
They hate the bodiless arrow,
the precise handkerchief's farewell,
the needle that keeps the pressure and the rose
in the cereal blush of the smile.
They love the blue desert,
the swaying bovine expressions,
the lying moon of the poles,
the water's curved dance at the shore.
With the science of tree trunk and street market
they fill the clay with luminous nerves
and lewdly skate on waters and sands
tasting the bitter freshness of their millennial spit.
It's through the crackling blue,
blue without worm or a sleeping footprint,
where the ostrich eggs remain eternal
and the dancing rains wander untouched.
It's through the blue without history,
blue of a night without fear of day,
blue where the **** of the wind goes splitting
the sleepwalking camels of the empty clouds.
It's there where the torsos dream under the gluttony of grass.
There the corals soak the ink's despair,
the sleepers erase their profiles under the skein of snails
and the space of the dance remains over the final ashes.
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Bricks and mortar, steel and boards,
Phone poles lined with power cords, on
Pothole streets, where engines roar,
'Neath smoggy skies, where jet planes soar,
Where penny merchants peddle wares,
And news reports pretend they care,
Where vagrants sleep, and children stare,
And people work for lives not theirs,
That's life in the jungle, adrift in the herd,
Where terrestrial beasts envy free flying birds
Where the pundits stand polished, and speak empty words,
And the artists paint portraits, while posted on curbs,
Where the men push carts, full of empty cans,
And the women spend paychecks, for spray-on tans,
Where the truckers drive loads, 'cross a thousand mile span,
To appease the great gods of supply and demand,
Asphalt and tarmac, girders and glass,
Terrarium trees in cemented sod grass,
Ripe with the stench of exhaust fumes and gas,
As the choir lines up for the 10 o'clock mass,
While the brokers all scream, at a packed stock exchange,
As the veterans in wheelchairs sit begging for change,
That's life in the jungle, it's just a big game,
But remember you're playing, lest you go insane.
Mar 24, 2015
Mar 24, 2015 at 11:01 PM UTC
We're on a train
in London's subways
and everyone stands
with a dead-eye peer
down the carriage, so
please, hold my hand.
They're all like apes,
hung on bamboo poles
and strung vine-straps,
hunkered over the small
space I have to myself, so
please, hold my hand.
I think you've become
just like them, Daddy;
a ringed-eyed orangutan
or narrow-staring lemur.
You've become much less
human it scares me, so
please, let go of my hand.
Apr 21, 2014
Apr 21, 2014 at 4:18 PM UTC
"Many a physics graduate student has gnashed her teeth in frustration over the mathematics of general relativity. Perhaps she should try envisioning a flat, boundless desert, with rocks of various sizes scattered across its surface, whose mass creates dips of various depths in the sand. A sturdy canopy looms over that desert, stretched tightly over a skeleton of tent poles linked by bars, matching the rises and dips in the sand beneath it. The desert is all the matter and energy in the universe, while the canopy is the geometry of space-time. The poles and bars are the equations of general relativity, connecting the stuff of the universe with the shape of the universe. As Halpern writes: “Mass and energy warp space-time, telling it where and how to curve. The shape of space-time, in turn, governs how things move within it.”
-------------------------------------------------------
My mass and my energy are both warped, so the where's and the how's and the eyes of my curves are the poles and the bars of behind which I relentlessly cease to exist, only to seize what lies beyond the constraints of time and space, as eye wait for the bus to stop in the No Standing zone
The Bus Poet
Stop!
May 3, 2015
May 3, 2015 at 12:53 PM UTC
Saturn is in
line with
Venus tonight
but, nothing's easy
when you're down.
The clowns walk
around, dressed in
yellow; fast food smiles
and cheeseburger
souls, and nothings
easy when you're down.
The dancers with poles
and sadness, that Halloween,
fires burning, childhood
perfumed dreams,
kind of sadness fills the
navy blue night.
I can't find the North star,
and the jack-lanterns lie rotting
in the streets of Nebraska
and Kansas, and the candies
all gone, and the kids wait.
And I can't find
the deep blue shirt I bought
at Goodwill, and Billy Burroughs
is filled with worms and earth,
and Bukowski looks at Satan
and says, "what do you
mean, we're out of whiskey?"
I've never been much for the stars,
and family and Thanksgiving are
painfully overrated,
and nothing's easy when
you're down.
Nov 22, 2021
Nov 22, 2021 at 9:53 PM UTC
If I'm the last white cloud at sunset
You're the morning hue of the sky (orange-red).
If I'm the concentrated chaos in my eyes
You're the mirthful flash of your pearly whites.
If you're the cool blue pool in summertime
I'm the orange orange (which doesn't even rhyme).
We're poles apart, you and I
But once in a while we see eye to eye
And the space in which our gaze meets
Is as close as I'll be to infinity.
May 7, 2015
May 7, 2015 at 9:55 AM UTC
Oh it's all hanging threads,
Hanging ligaments with drops of red:
Vines without poles - flesh without bones.
Events roll out in scarlatine flashes:
Eyes in crowd flap down their eyelashes
And in silence the suspense grows strong;
The bricks are set, the façade is over,
But from within, the house still lacks a structure:
One penetrates rooms without walls.
A memory from the depth is brought up,
A storyline used to link so many dispersed dots:
Leaves are flying free as the childhood tree rots...
Oh it's all hanging threads
Hanging sources, hanging roots:
Scars over the sun revolving in loops.
And the conduit narrows down,
Leaks a single bolt of light to glow:
An empty room as throne and crown
And a thorn, pain escaping death,
A frown of estrangement in the face
Of all that's known - what's most unknown.
Spectators stare deceptively
While promises of relief are spared;
They too are suspended in the air...
Oh it's all hanging threads
Hanging loose, hanging dead;
Waiting for the artisan to ease the noose.
Sep 6, 2018
Sep 6, 2018 at 11:21 PM UTC
70
“Arcturus” is his other name—
I’d rather call him “Star.”
It’s very mean of Science
To go and interfere!
I slew a worm the other day—
A “Savant” passing by
Murmured “Resurgam”—”Centipede”!
“Oh Lord—how frail are we”!
I pull a flower from the woods—
A monster with a glass
Computes the stamens in a breath—
And has her in a “class”!
Whereas I took the Butterfly
Aforetime in my hat—
He sits ***** in “Cabinets”—
The Clover bells forgot.
What once was “Heaven”
Is “Zenith” now—
Where I proposed to go
When Time’s brief masquerade was done
Is mapped and charted too.
What if the poles should frisk about
And stand upon their heads!
I hope I’m ready for “the worst”—
Whatever prank betides!
Perhaps the “Kingdom of Heaven’s” changed—
I hope the “Children” there Won’t be “new fashioned” when I come—
And laugh at me—and stare—
I hope the Father in the skies
Will lift his little girl—
Old fashioned—naught—everything—
Over the stile of “Pearl.”
4.8k
The shadows have their seasons, too.
The feathery web the budding maples
cast down upon the sullen lawn
bears but a faint relation to
high summer's umbrageous weight
and tunnellike continuum-
black leached from green, deep pools
wherein a globe of gnats revolves
as airy as an astrolabe.
The thinning shade of autumn is
an inherited Oriental,
red worn to pink, nap worn to thread.
Shadows on snow look blue. The skier,
exultant at the summit, sees his poles
elongate toward the valley: thus
each blade of grass projects another
opposite the sun, and in marshes
the mesh is infinite,
as the winged eclipse an eagle in flight
drags across the desert floor
is infinitesimal.
And shadows on water!-
the beech bough bent to the speckled lake
where silt motes flicker gold,
or the steel dock underslung
with a submarine that trembles,
its ladder stiffened by air.
And loveliest, because least looked-for,
gray on gray, the stripes
the pearl-white winter sun
hung low beneath the leafless wood
draws out from trunk to trunk across the road
like a stairway that does not rise.
4.7k
Poles apart attract each other......
Just like you and me.......
Jun 14, 2014
Jun 14, 2014 at 1:51 AM UTC