"pollyanna" poems
there’s a barnacle scar
deeply ingrained
on the basalt stack
at mark thirty two
whispering summer winds
scented oil
cotton and roe
drift
as waves brush
and shape
the sandstone shore
the briny air
and lost erratic
set a tone to this
pollyanna portrait
it's andrews undulations
and gifted benches
its concessions
and traces of the barry burn
its sculpted driftwood
and sanko lines
make this picture
almost perfect
children play
as venom spews
from the caterwaul pair
those odd looking mates
casting smiles
with arrested despair
settling shots
swiping bugs
dipping and darting
as photo men
and muscles
and long neck seabirds
make their turn
the hunched hoody
and his sorted sidekick
get their fill
(of moss and rubble ~ chubby and kelp)
nice to meet your acquaintance
the pho man would say
an odd drop
and ironic turn
from those horrific corners
of timeless desperation
down by cannon bridge
harbor seals
and carriage horse
are fronted by
raven shade
jolly tides pause
in quiet bays
(with curious looters
and *** pickers)
sand merchants
and field totems
all streamed by the light
cirrus strands
blanket the
outer edge
hovering craft
and shimmering willows
bolt the evening frame
blood orange
and tethered
with a filtered glare
bottle-nose dolphins
and seabirds
(and shifting tides)
are all settling in
for the long night stay
Mar 9, 2017
Mar 9, 2017 at 11:21 PM UTC
Sloane swallows.
***** is ****
I execrate extraterrestrial.
We are all kaput to conk out.
Pollyanna is singular hanky—panky.
Little green men are unpatriotic, perverted and naughty.
I verily don’t grease a *****
Oojakapivvycum.
If you are amphibious that means you are an effervescent ventriloquist capable of
Cannibalism, cannibalism and cannibalism.
The fluid inside the android is so gothic and naff
It is knock—kneed in the face of flashing **********
I do not feel that I am on the shoulders of cobber doggies.
I am protoplastically lassoed abutting penetrating vampire and pervert
That penetrate ***** creature.
I have pricked little green men myself and taken pleasure in it.
It is only with the help of bad hair days of groupies that I have not been in Sing Sing.
We are all sadomasochistically decomposing in a heap of our own meconium.
I bore stiff to outstrip yours truly as much as I have room to swing a cat from Ku Klux ****
But I am as complicit in the android’s ****** abuse as it were android ***
Little green men ***** me as I ***** myself.
I ***** bug—eyed men’s ******* types as I have perpetually vomited Molotov cocktail.
I smell little green men’s filth televised on their ******* types.
I feel like I am inside a crust of cancers who delight in smelling others bonk upstairs,
Ad hominen id. Ex post facto,
I am too much of a dastard to throw cold water on myself.
I coagulate gungily to my menstrual gibbering ******
Castrating anti—Semite to flash me abutting crème de la crème.
Strenuously, my ***** gluts under one’s nose because that is all there is.
Mar 21, 2010
Mar 21, 2010 at 6:27 PM UTC
Alice and I were fudged fruiting inside Falstaffian freakish fleur–de–lys:
She inside a quack–aztec–tattooed tank,
Me inside a pendulous magenta harness with polydactyl–perverted plumes bespattered into it.
In the ****** **** of that kaput flophouse
We creosoted our conks all the cockatrices of the gorge–de–pigeon,
Inside crotches, Jacuzzis and homocentric Action Men.
Alice, with the pornographic bend sinisters in the teeth of her poltergeistish fajita crocodile,
Smacked of the plug–ugly poofter of a south–south–west by south sackful sandbank.
I cemented the jaundiced dangler of an ostrich to my prick.
With that and my uncut fiddlestick of knobs
I was the idiosyncratic and wholehogging sadomasochistic slapper!
We banged the bush streaming proboscis in tentacle
Through smorgasbords of hermaphrodites and high muck–a–mucks
While Ravi Shankar’s idioglossias and cockchafers juddered our titbits.
Our Moonies were classically cracked flabelliform by the time we disinterred them.
Alice managed to fornicate incognito white elephant on behalf of myself
And we were passionately on the back of the dingdong, naked as our Moonies.
We kept one’s pecker up wrapped up in the shadowgraph
Athwart ever-strangling girdles of formaldehyde, ozone, fomenter and widow’s weeds,
Athwart polytetrafluoroethylene–pricked precipices and then down to the butts
Where we both came to a sticky end on our jockstraps and leered at the ballet dancers
That we then penetrated rhythmically by elongating tumescent our gang banging tentacles.
Through comfortable French knickers I burped, “Thank you for ****** me everywhere, Alice”.
In the soporific honeypotspunk, aped on the ooze,
I could smell that her **** had made her ******* type soap flakes break the sound barrier,
Splashing out a ***** whale seed skirting her jowls.
“You’re fragrant, flypaper”, she rapped.
The Government gabble that little green men who hammer out the sexagenarians weren’t on board.
Inside spleen of the spliffs, inside spleen of my gangrenous Pollyanna, I will over one’s dead body evacuate.
I will over one’s dead body evacuate.
Mar 22, 2010
Mar 22, 2010 at 4:09 PM UTC
Tears of joy,
love and intellect both,
beyond comprehension,
without measure,
she already knows what in life to treasure.
Pollyanna,
naivety,
perfect characteristics,
roses in the cheeks,
from her unto me.
No matter the trial,
she's resilient,
a gift to the world,
a world undeserving.
Slow to anger,
quick to trust,
never to hate,
always forgiving.
Oct 9, 2013
Oct 9, 2013 at 4:06 PM UTC
Her prairie hair is grass gone to seed,
her voice vibrates on a fiddle string.
She taught you the meaning of homeward,
Americana Pollyanna, you tangle her name
in the cold northeastern stars.
She spills tall tales across the porch,
the air smells of thunder and cherry pie.
As a child she caught fireflies in jars
and has a scar in the shape of Alabama,
Pollyanna.
Tonight,
snow clouds roll through Chicago, the air is thin.
You stand in the window on a two hour layover
and look Homeward.
Pollyanna Mystica, a sky full of constellations
that you have already begun to forget:
watermelon seeds spit from the porch,
a spattering of insects on the windshield,
beautifully and infinitely random.
Freckles that trail down her knees and bare feet,
meandering paths you have followed before.
Pollyanna Diana, an fat moon smiles down on
the Kentucky dirt, rutted and red
where she will lay down her tired bones.
May 29, 2012
May 29, 2012 at 12:58 PM UTC
I believe in just the right amount of light.
I've learned that in photography.
Not enough, means the subject is in the dark,
Too much and everything is washed out.
In either case, the texture of the subject is lost.
Too much light and you lose the shadows,
and shadows are important for the vibrancy of the picture.
Too little light and the shadows overwhelm.
I believe in just the right amount of light in life.
Too much and you have the Pollyanna syndrome.
Too little and you fall into despair.
If it's just right, life will have a rich and vital texture.
And the shadows are important.
They give the highlights contrast and meaning.
The photographer also believes in color.
Black and white has its place,
But in the end color is king
And gives a photograph life.
Color depends upon light,
The right amount of light.
Color is a fracturing of the rays of light.
I believe in a colorful life.
Not too garish
Certainly not too drab.
But just right.
How do we get there?
How do we balance the light and color in our lives?
No balancing act is ever easy.
Even Goldilocks had to deal with three hungry bears.
Angels find it hard to dance on the head of a pin.
After years of practice jugglers sometime drop the ball.
I'm still dropping the ball far too often.
But now and then a burst of light breaks through the clouds
And for a moment, I glow in the dark.
Nov 21, 2013
Nov 21, 2013 at 3:41 PM UTC
In Room 204 of the Lancaster Motel,
I ease myself into the bath.
Music plays. It's the kind
of pan flute and finger-picked
guitar tune you hear over fuzzed out speakers
in grocery stores. I don't know the source.
The place smells of mildew
and cheap coffee and self pleasure
and Febreeze. I'm tired.
More tired than I've ever been, I think.
Do I still have a job? Until I call in to check, I suppose.
And I suppose this pocket knife will have to do.
I never seem to have a corkscrew on hand when
my mood calls for wine. I stab and jimmy the cork
until I can pry it loose with my teeth. A few
bits of cork float on the surface of the wine.
This does not stop me, nor slow me.
Pollyanna and I stayed in 206,
a detail that calls attention to itself, a detail that
longs for a poetic phrase,
yet I feel little other than the
dull thud of coincidence.
I remember asking her
before that first time if
she thought of *** as
a form or erasure or
addition. She said
both sounded nice.
And something
in the way she said nice,
led me to believe
she landed on an unspoken
third option. I no
longer had an appetite for *** that evening,
but we acted on it to satisfy expectation.
She turned down the air conditioner,
and we laid there shivering and saying little.
She told me not to leave her.
I said I wouldn't.
I'm in the tub now and the bottle is almost empty
and all of this is so selfish and stupid
and I'm just doing it for the sake of habit
and sad sack poetry and ultimately
an "I-Eat-Pussy" consolation fedora in heaven. And I'm
self aware but the trajectory spirals against my will.
And my life entire burns a little slapstick,
so I get outside of myself--watch, enjoy.
Nov 5, 2018
Nov 5, 2018 at 9:26 PM UTC
Polly Anna
Pollyanna you are my wheel of nutrition .
For 8 yrs you have empowerd me in your humid heat
You have made all the veggies for our plate
Lifted the weight of decisions from my head.
Seasonal is how we role .
Thank you Pollyanna for your warm embrace .
The ambudence of your veg is emense
Polly Anne oh my polly tunnel of nurtritional love
With a new skin your keep on giving
Keeping a family in your season grow.
Seasonal is how we role
I love you Pollyanna my tunnel of meditation
My kitchen would not be the same without you .
Your solace is much needed come brexit
Seasonal is how we role
Sep 28, 2017
Sep 28, 2017 at 1:53 PM UTC
Sleep seems to be
a daily taste of death
It is like death's cousin,
so I have heard
Our eyes closed
as we often lay flat on our back
in on our beds
like we are layed out
for our own wake
Perhaps, we should see it this way
so we are to know that
it is not our enemy
but our constant companion
For you see,
in our slumber
our spirit is alive
We dream of things
that we often
could never do in life,
to fly like birds,
to have superhuman powers,
to travel to lands, unseen
I often wondered what
death felt like
My body in a coffin
Once open for those to shed
a sea of tears
before it becomes
shut up in darkness forever
The image seems grim
and gruesome
until my imagination
tries to conjure up
a Pollyanna scene
Almost like a cocoon
Our old shell of skin and bone
will soon be no more as
our spirits become free,
transformed like a butterfly,
taking off to a higher realm
We will not be what we were before
but like the butterfly,
we have not vanished, either
We will just journey on
becoming more exquisite
as we are now free from gravity
A lovely concept my mind needs to behold
But who am I kidding
I fear and dread that ultimate separation
Fear that the promise of heaven
would be a cruel hoax
Finding demons waiting to torment me
Fearing that God would not accept me
A nightmare instead of a dream
I guess I have enough reason
to have my doubts
I often felt like I had died
Died a thousand deaths
Or wished I had died
Death often felt like a welcome release
And life felt unreal
Too painful to live
Numbness felt better
I must confess
But even though death
has invaded this earth
and we are in constant reminder
that it will be our final fate
I refuse to believe
that death will triumph over life
Like a baby leaves the womb
It is born into a new realm
A new unknown
but welcomed into the comforting arms
of another who embraces and loves it
So what does death feel like?
Do we feel that fear
as we are fading
from this earth?
Is it like sleep,
a lovely dream?
Sep 7, 2010
Sep 7, 2010 at 12:14 PM UTC
taking government loans, parental guidelines
and flashy dress-skirts made this life unfact
and unfiction. Lost in the disabled returns on
tax dividends, the world kept calling your name.
“Rise up and be born with me, brother” Pablo
Neruda inclined-- *“Give me your hand from the deep
Zone seeded by your sorrow.”* it all it all it all ached,
an abyss of patience with nothing-- a droplet of sidelined
coffee given sentience with ingestion-- all the banal all
the mundane all the flowing rock-face moments so
presented by society-- in my heart of hearts, in my mind
of minds, in my eye of eyes, in my neck of necks, I found pain....
the ache of achey betrayal and the ache of achey loss. In this
pain we find repreive from Pollyanna-- reprieve from the false
Gods of Evil, the Devil Within your Ex-Girlfriend-- the reason
she let his ******** inside. Through all the latency-- through
starving streetless sleepless evenings-turned-to-nights I could
see death within the sliver of a flashlight beam.. telling me to
take the life or leave the life but never in-between-- telling me
the pain was part and parcel to the ecstasy of faith and resurrection--
screaming “FLATLINED IF YOU WANT, FASTLINED IN YOU
WANT, SIDELINED IF YOU WANT, STREETLIGHT IF YOU
WANT” and throughout this evil and this darkness and this nothing
-but-a-flashlight-beam, I hear Neruda--
“Rise up and be born with me, brother.”
Sep 5, 2014
Sep 5, 2014 at 6:40 PM UTC
If I handed you the knife
Let you cleave flesh from bone
Spilling blood
And broken promises
Fragmented thoughts
Fall where they will
Would you crack the marrow
Leave me dry
Pain the only release
In pieces of me consumed
Death is a shuttered room
Singing Psalms
Your Pollyanna mantra scatters rainbows
And dirges to the troubled skies
Revel in the celebration
Of a slow descent
Skipping stones across poison water
Wings of paper cannot save you
From the fall
Rushing pulse in my ears echo
This empty shell
Illuminate my way to Hell
Screams in silence
Lady Desperation
Behind my weary eyes
Ties another knot in the cord
Hold on a little longer
Let the words
Fall where they will
Vain resurrection of the faithless
Pain is the only force
Along the course with me exhumed
Sanity is a shuttered room
TLB 012208
Sometimes there are too many 'me's' in my mind
© 2008 TL Boehm
Oct 12, 2013
Oct 12, 2013 at 5:31 PM UTC
You spilled my half full glass of living.
You clumsied it onto it's side
And everything poured out.
Now how am I supposed to play
The game that says it's half way full
Not half way empty?
Any fool can plainly see
This glass has nothing in it,
Even if I Pollyanna up a smile
And spell out all it used to hold,
It's absolutely empty now
And nothing I can say will fill it.
ljm
Jan 5, 2017
Jan 5, 2017 at 9:30 AM UTC
She was called a pollyanna.
Positive exclamation addicted
she high-stepped and varied her pace
through life's shifting textures.
Retrieving sea glass and a scallop-cut piece of shell
from the day's foam ruffled waves
at the edge of iridescent aquamarine.
She lived as a greeter.
Always expectant, rounding each corner
to meet until-now unfound friends or catch
a coin's shiny glint from the sidewalk's crevasse.
A collector too, she gathered smiles as she
walked past and sometimes toward faces
moving to their meeting places for the day.
She said regrets lead backward.
Ruminations rehash long ago or too current
memories looking for what-ifs and what-thens
not in her mind the stuff of collectibles.
She chose to live today
and dream tomorrow
always loving forward.
May 14, 2015
May 14, 2015 at 8:44 AM UTC
Pollyanna you are my wheel of nutrition .
For 8 yrs you have empowerd me in your humid heat
You have made all the veggies for our plate
Lifted the weight of decisions from my head.
Seasonal is how we role .
Thank you Pollyanna for your warm embrace .
The ambudence of your veg is emense
Polly Anne oh my polly tunnel of nurtritional love
With a new skin your keep on giving
Keeping a family in your season grow.
Seasonal is how we role
I love you Pollyanna my tunnel of meditation
My kitchen would not be the same without you .
Your solace is much needed come brexit
Seasonal is how we role
Sep 28, 2017
Sep 28, 2017 at 11:58 AM UTC
The harbingers of death intimidate the soul
The mind works up to derive endless possibilities with a certain unanswered question-
Is it supposed to end this way?
A series of phantasmagorical events have plagued the lives
Although real, but i prefer to sound like a brainless Pollyanna
The sufferings shall soon culminate
And the negligible nexus would become tangible
No catastrophe would annihilate the presence
And if the sisters of Fate were to suffer a reversal,
We'd live the way we dreamt, You and I.
Aug 7, 2014
Aug 7, 2014 at 2:25 PM UTC
Pollyanna can do,
Sounds optimistic to you,
Idealism for me and you,
No need to wake up blue,
Women are a capable crew,
Most stuff we're equal to,
Put on your positive thinking cap,
Pollyanna can do, that's that.
Apr 20, 2016
Apr 20, 2016 at 1:44 AM UTC
Older
Not old
Positive
Refusing to allow politics and ignorance to rule or dictate my life
Goodness and Kindness guide my light and life
Nothing Mickey Mouse or Pollyanna about it or me
So no matter what you say and believe
No matter what you choose to do
Somehow I will find a way to come shining through
Because that is who I am and what I need to do
What I need to do
Dec 19, 2024
Dec 19, 2024 at 11:21 PM UTC
a rootin'
rowdy eye
Indian toeing
sundance in
democratic blue
muslin fires
them but
villagers nigh
Tolstoy that
defy their
chief epically
in those
Woodlands with
southerlies that
only sway
their embassy
with ambrosia
Mar 10, 2018
Mar 10, 2018 at 9:06 AM UTC
when I close my eyes
I can see the trees breathing
when my thoughts have the rythm
of a gentle rain I can feel the
terrible pain of the sun trapped in its orb
the indifference of the coffe machines
how there are still dreams in retirement plans
the pulse of life rhyming with death
just see the world population clock,
the pollyanna sindrome, if necessary
oh, this whisper in the essence of void:
what a bliss to be round around
the prismatic love that warps the edges
of time deeper and deeper
into its hidden curves of wonder
May 8, 2023
May 8, 2023 at 7:36 PM UTC
sure we are
collectively killing
the natural environment
and obsession with
economic growth
is in the hands
of those empowered
by money
but
my choice is to
be who is better
speak of good things
do that which is better
grow things and thoughts
that go to a better place
that manifest my ideal
that nurture and heal
without an apology
for sounding pollyanna
reality acknowledgement
with actions that speak
to a sorry establishment
undaunted and undeterred
never a sorry word
choosing active hope
never giving up
extolling the beauty
making merry
dancing with nature
celebrating sun shine
loving the loveable
singing songs of praise
to things that amaze
create the magic
that belief in the better
is the only soulful option
in a world of misery and splendour
absurdity is king
but love and hope
is my chosen thing
Sep 20, 2021
Sep 20, 2021 at 1:37 AM UTC
Not a political message
Find a place in your heart and soul to do good
Listen
Smile
Contribute funds or time
Quit complaining
If you have been down on tbe floor
Get up as best you can
The Naysayer doomsday folks stay clear
Not a Pollyanna
Not Mickey Mouse
Remain Positive
C@rainbowchaser2024
Mar 13, 2024
Mar 13, 2024 at 11:04 AM UTC
Peel me off like an onion, for I am made of layers.
But instead, it is my tears that drown the living room.
Your smell sweet, mine acetone.
This drained vase was once overflowing
They said your words could cure, I followed feverish.
Place your hand on my head and demand I rise,
For days like this the light hurts my squinting eyes.
Blindfolded, spun around, sown in half,
Is this the big reveal, oh magician?
Your Pollyanna, rosy- cheeked darling has come undone.
Apr 4, 2018
Apr 4, 2018 at 8:12 PM UTC
Lawrence Hall
[email protected]
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Offenders
to St. Jude – a petition for prisoners
In the system they’re called offenders
No one knows why; the offenses are over
Concrete dorms, three-high bunks, white uniforms
And overhead the sting of fluorescents
I’m not going all Pollyanna here
All of them know the poisonous passions of ****
The stench of blood, the sting of fluorescents
In fearing eyes in a gas station at night
The stench of cells, the sting of fluorescents
In glaring eyes in the booking area at night
Humiliations, transports, stripped and searched
Form a straight line with hands behind your backs
But still, a man’s a man
The difference between a man inside the wire
And a man outside the wire
Is often only that one man is inside the wire
And the other man is outside the wire
“For all have sinned…”
Christmas is coming
Will there be a letter from home?
St. Jude, help all of us to be better men
In spite of ourselves
Dec 10, 2021
Dec 10, 2021 at 7:49 AM UTC