"postbox" poems
I stopped waiting for letters which never arrived;
when it started costing me minute per mile;
per smile;
per song that I'd skip for a while.
Making it rain with my valuable time
-wearing a coat in the summer time.
Stopped avoiding my postbox,
to the relief of my landlord,
and happily paid the bills so long ignored.
Drank less, ate more,
much more- self-assured
with one less page in my passport.
I stopped "letting you know,"
popping up,
"just to say hello,"
and "wondering if you fancied coming
or going
to some place relatively unknown."
Cleaned out my head;
cleared out my lungs;
wrote once again, for myself, just for fun;
listened to every song on the album;
all whilst lying naked
underneath the summer sun.
Jun 20, 2018
Jun 20, 2018 at 3:03 AM UTC
A stiff wind broke the morning clouds. It was another gloomy sunrise, in a string of second-rate days. Kiera woke much like the sun, downtrodden and wishing to fall back down. She snapped down on the alarm, knocking it to the floor, and with two blinks was out again—back into a world she was beginning to recognise.
First the flooding darkness. Despite two weeks of this her body still rejected it. Her body hated it. Pathetic. Limbless shakes as the throbbing chill tore its way through her lungs, gripped her skin like sweat. She could smell the sharp stink of iron. When her vision came she saw her arms were covered in blood. A red too bright.
A figure she hadn’t noticed flickered out of her view. She turned her head sharply but saw no one.
Kiera realised she was walking. She held a square, brown-wrapped package, which would not stop squirming. As she struggled to keep hold of the ******* thing, ****** prints coated its sides. A postbox lay on the other side of the road—the same colour as the blood on her arms.
Kiera was furious. The ******* package would not stop squirming. She needed to reach the postbox before she dropped it. She was desperate—scared shitless. Why?
Kiera began to cross the road. Each step sent the package twitching, twisting. Her legs were bone thin. Her skin was shredding apart. Another flicker—edge of the vision phantom—appeared, but she barely noticed. The package was growing so heavy that her toes were breaking on the asphalt. She looked up and saw the postbox had receded. *How dare you? How ******* dare you, you piece of ****
She was on the wrong side. She had never left the sidewalk. How could she? She had no legs. Blood began to pour out of the postbox. It crossed the road, coating her torso, lapping the bottom of the package. The package stilled and began to deform in her hands. It was rotting.
Kiera had an urge to *****
Jan 1, 2014
Jan 1, 2014 at 11:44 AM UTC
puffing out smoke like the entangling of long hair
with my portable hookah of acid apple palette experienced;
then eyelid the softest skin the warm puff puff experienced
when unable to see the gaseous
entangle of thus compared:
cut off the eyelids and become
serpents, rather than circumcising
exchanging loss of masculine
additives with excess of feminine
pin points of skin like the bloating
of the throat: larynx region with a thyroid
cancer bubbling and blubbering:
circumcise and make men eagerly warring...
and women prone to consecrate approval
as if dreaming... a naked sword without a sheath...
but instead of circumcision, the cutting off ********
cut the eyelids! what then? i'd begin revision
of man by cutting off the eyelids rather than the ********
**** me, why not both?! cut the eyelids
and cut the ******** then narrate what excesses of
womankind are worth disregarding:
feminine ******** and perverted religion,
hey, excess skin of man was the culprit once,
now the woman's chance to equate kippah with
a monk's hairstyle, with her own slit of
niqab and postbox of forcing through a hole
as narrow / as tight so that an object capably sat on
can be delivered.
Mar 3, 2016
Mar 3, 2016 at 4:25 PM UTC
everyday my eyes go fluttering,
here and there, everywhere,
*every hour seems like a year,
waiting for a person in despair,*
*not a person I would love,
but someone I long to see,
every minute of the day,
I may sound confusing,
but pay attention,
'cause I do.*
Attentively watch, await,long,
for that one envelope,*
inside which would be a page,
a white but unblank paper,
with words and exclaimations
About your explainations,
and your whereabout,
as I wait for that person
To bring me a letter from my beloved,
my dear love, my craving,
* my sole purpose of living,*
*I convince myself by saying,
the post man must be lost! *
*or perhaps just lazy and late,
for he never comes,*
and makes me wait in vain,
*Sometimes I loose hope,
the only thing I've got,
but recall your face,
and remake my mind,*
*saying, maybe times are rough,
reason why you can't write to me,
these days,
perhaps just the work*
*that keeps you busy all day,
but yes I do wish you could just take time out,
to write three words on a card,*
i love you.
send it to me,end my vacant wait..*
*It's been five years now,
you never wrote or even called,
ah! yes I received a telegram today,
Right now I opened it,
and as I opened it,*
tears kissed my cheeks,
of happines that you did care!*
but soon my tears of joy
turned into blood sobs,
when I read in the letter that you were gone,
*passed away five years ago,
while saving someone at war,*
sorrow could not leave my side
*knowing it was all I had,
and my heart wept,
my eyes went numb,*
*at the letters on that little note,
but at the end were the three words*
I had longed to hear,rather see,
"he loved you."
*Was all I could bear to see,
my brain stopped working,
my limbs went void,
now, I still don't know why,
I wait for you..*
I'm old now you know?
*I wish you could see me,
wrinkled and stupid,
for I still wait for that day,
when I would get to see you at last,
with a letter saying those three little words,*
"come with me"
*tonight and forever,
we would make up for lost time,
and spend once more our lives,*
but for now my longing is still not over,
for I still wait for the postman,
behind my window,*
and I need no doors or even locks,
as my gaze still remains fixed on my post box..
Dec 9, 2013
Dec 9, 2013 at 1:14 PM UTC
in the next ten seconds,
he opens his mouth to speak to an acquaintance in a room full of acquaintances
an ugly metal faucet that has been dripping for fifteen days drips again in an upstairs sink
he tucks a strand of hair behind her ear as she bites at her fingernails and
looks at the magazines lined up in the supermarket
before she opens the postbox, she inhales
she throws her head back before laughing at his anecdote, her knees feeling the ache
of being crossed for too long
with slightly tremulous fingers, she touches she sleeve of her coat without reason, feeling
like everyone on the underground train may be looking at her
he takes a sip of water and screws the lid back on, checking his watch
a hiccup is heard from the back of a classrm
he kisses her for the first time on the mouth
he notices his hair has fallen out and sits in the shower drain
their elbows graze against one another's in the lecture hall but neither of them
catch the other's eye, both staring straight ahead
she blots her lips over a folded tissue to remove pink residue and looks herself in the eye
in the mirror
her father lets go f her shoulders as she wobbles on the bicycle without its stabilisers
for a second attempt today
he notices a stain of yogurt on his tie and curses quietly
she burns her fingers whilst making toast
she argues with the cashier about the fact that selected juices were marked as being on offer
the rain rattles against the window and he is uneasy with the lack of rhythm in its sound
they put on her favourite song and remember her as she was when she was still alive
someone wipes salt from her cheeks with a tissue
he realises that the tooth fairy doesn't exist and doesn't mind because it means he's grown up
she asks her father if she is pretty and he say anything
she slips a packet of biscuits into the supermarket trolley, her mother sees
and doesn't say anything
an elderly woman cradles his arm as they slowly cross the street
they look at one another and both know
he says I'm so sorry
she says I'm so sorry
he says I love you
she says you know I do.
Nov 24, 2013
Nov 24, 2013 at 9:29 AM UTC
Pit-a-pat, pit-a-pat went the rain on the panes.
And the oh so grey sky was just trails of countless planes.
And those planes brought people past cities, past tiny lanes,
people happier than those on my street.
On the red postbox, was the peeling paint.
And the numbers on the doors were never straight.
And on many houses was a rusty gate,
that's a reality on my street.
Cats prowled the street like lions, a sweet thing I guess,
But even sweet things end in sorrow and distress:
A bird with no guts, a dead kitten, nothing less:
even good things end sadly on my street.
A pile of ******* all mouldy and rank,
An Amazon bill, one side tea-stained, one side blank,
An old can, crumpled, pierced, already drunk,
that's what it looks like on my street.
Jan 28, 2021
Jan 28, 2021 at 5:46 AM UTC
Waiting on the bus
sunglasses worn by female drivers,
scratched surface,
cigarette hanging,
redundant postbox,
red,
thoughts about letters and the written word.
A future with no pens.
Head shakes.
The pen is mightier than the sword will cause confusion in years to come.
"What is a pen?
a question from a future child - confused looking at pictures of biros.
These relics.
These dodos.
Dec 29, 2012
Dec 29, 2012 at 4:38 PM UTC
wailing soul's slow coach, or...
bredda gravalicious-
two songs you won't hear that much often;
it's not so much being pretentious
as it means being informed -
well, songs are sang,
politics are weaved - the haggis is ate
like a habit rather than a celebration,
people tend to harvest-fields
like they tend to boredom,
but then man can't be coerced into
perpetual work - not twice outliving the
chance change from labourer to priest,
while the lord of the rings
was written with collision between
genitalia revision of the sexes varied
between the female (Egypt's) and male
(former Iraqi and to come Israeli)...
the boxing match was waited for...
which revision of the snippets akin to
the Dobberman's ears' was welcome more?
i guess neither - pagan celebrations
of ******* insignia,
monotheistic celebrations of doubly-phallic
insignia hidden in what became
both the ******** and the niqab - by the english
tongue dubbed "satan's postbox".
Jul 2, 2016
Jul 2, 2016 at 9:12 PM UTC
He perches on his black-crate bandstand,
stationed between the payphone and postbox.
The view from his seat never varies:
a restless audience of briefcases and knees.
He closes his eyes, concentrating
on breath becoming buzz becoming blare,
and he pictures his notes glossing Manhattan’s
thunder-colored walls.
Each tone fills the pavement, square by square
until the sidewalk is a harlequin filmstrip,
colored by notes coaxed from his brass mouth.
Passersby withhold their gaze, because giving a nod
obliges giving a dollar, and no one is inclined
to employ this trumpeter. But he pays no mind;
his own eyes secured until song’s end.
As long as his fingers are jumping,
he doesn’t have to be Gerard Wall–
who lost his wife to cancer and mind to the War;
he can be Louis, Miles, or Pinetop Smith.
When he looks up once again,
sun and spirit have faded,
and he watches the evening embers
drift out of his horn.
Jul 2, 2014
Jul 2, 2014 at 3:39 PM UTC
Every night
I wait till 4 AM
when the moon comes
to my part of the sky
and illuminates my windowsill
with her silver light
Lunar radiance
lulls me slowly
I listen to the soft song
with closed eyes
sung by the southern breeze
like gentle wind chimes
The dead letters of Sleep
finally arrive at my postbox desolate
but not long before the neon dial starts screaming,
"IT'S TOO LATE! IT'S TOO LATE!"
It's too late..
Apr 3, 2019
Apr 3, 2019 at 5:11 PM UTC
I sat on the square of carpet and screamed
very quietly to myself.
I, the boy who
cried
melancholy.
I, the man who
watches his life
through his eyes.
I, the cruel ship that
glazes the waters of
a harsh music.
I, the silly hair that
obscures the face of
a murderess.
I, fit only for sleep
in the white palm
of an arthritic hand.
I, the child counting
backward on an abandoned
island.
I, glass-colored
and triangular like
the start of space.
I, the single ******
that begs for
a just spark.
I, the skin of glue
in a sweating
photograph.
I, the man selling
VHS players for
mega-discounts.
I, who clasped your
hand when you were
so very small.
I, an errant breath
in the postbox before
the empty Jones house.
I, keen on eating the
brick and mortar
beneath me.
I, who shall never
touch his face,
not even the one time.
I, in the midst of heat
and silence without
a single syllable of wet.
I, with a hatred for
your searching fingers
sticky-sweet.
I, sitting behind
long after the film
dies of exhaustion.
I, crayon and
8.5 by 11 inch paper
Valentines for violent boys.
I, second man,
forgotten man,
to my own movie.
I, grinning through
the lame as the
stitching wears.
I, strategic misery
on a tempest moon:
contemplating contemplating.
I, the laughing door
with a struggling ****
and no keyhole.
I, who commits
suicide every Tuesday,
Thursday, and Sunday.
I, with cigar boxes
filled with all the tiny,
grandmotherish pieces of ****
I, the knot that slips
off the head of a lonely
purpled finger.
I, and my
cloverfields,
and my rust.
I, with my dreams
about Japanese furniture
and magic, geometric roads.
I, dancing to a song
I cannot hear that issues
from a nonexistent room.
I stood and walked outside.
May 10, 2010
May 10, 2010 at 2:05 PM UTC
On a cold and lonely day with a hint of a breeze
The red metal box alone and lonely started to freeze
Would someone need him today he thought
A lovers tiff, an angry couple who'd just fought
A well placed word on parchment or better still
A poem from the heart to elicit a thrill
Night and day, day and night
the postbox remained resolute hoping to see the light
Sep 17, 2019
Sep 17, 2019 at 2:23 PM UTC
Mother's world exploded.
'Twas July in 63.
Hell broke free.
A kicking dervish whiling.
A noisy hurricane.
A twister.
Megaphone.
Bringer of joy.
Carrier of performance art.
Drama queen.
A bit of a worry.
Always in a hurry.
A hurt.
Impatient as a fly.
Annoying.
Irritating as a spot red and hot.
Perfect match for an old fashioned English postbox.
Burning hot.
Cold as ice.
Cute as candy.
Sharp as lemon drops.
Mellow as a ****** summer's afternoon.
Peaceful as an Indian brave.
Relaxing before rest with my greatest friend.
My only lover, my very chewed on pen......
(C) LIVVI
Apr 18, 2015
Apr 18, 2015 at 7:14 PM UTC
i've been synthesising my sleeping pattern
for 9 years, i haven't experienced lucid dream
for wakes upon turning
365 x 9 equal for 3285 mornings, or afternoons,
i can drink lukewarm whiskey & coke
and feel happy, but i managed it, simulating
the natural byway into sleep and mythology,
nine years of synthetic sleep patterns,
i should have been encrusted in the Auschwitz
medical experiment of sleep deprivation,
thank **** no Muslim will mind wearing
satan's postbox - unless you're willy-nilly
and Lenin and politically correct - like bi-,
swings both ways, they tried to shoot Trump
while i got a spare tire to boot...
oh please **** off with your Muslim friends
to Saudi Arabia and satchel up on Bangladeshis
building up the new pyramids of
of Dubai... cos there's a nation of saints
somewhere, somehow? this ain't the antagonising
hypocritical Vatican mind you, also,
you know what Islam means to me?
it doesn't mean a submission to god... given then 72
virgins for martyrs, it just means: competing with king Solomon;
so there, i "said" it, get a jihadist on my *** straight away,
i'll be waiting, eating strawberries and a yogurt
watching Wimbledon, oh come one,
do it nice and pretty with me like a Barbie doll,
i can't be bothered with your ******* attempting
the altogether possible, but seemingly impossible -
it just gets boring after a while fearing mortality
with your Marmite smeared ninjas attempting
an American cheeseburger of sports that's played alongside
the Oakland Raiders, Philadelphia Eagles, New England Patriots...
oh wait, you can't antagonise me, because you didn't
fish with a bait like Mickiewicz, or Tuwim... or Prus...
yawn.
Jun 21, 2016
Jun 21, 2016 at 7:32 PM UTC
The grind
Facing the wall again, deep awkward and painful staring at the floor
Tittering a laugh, cruelty unintended but the long grind of waiting
The stucco church, solid near the bulk shop
He started earlier than the rest and they never could catch up
He left earlier as well.
Where to turn?
Well elided turns makes a lazy talker, yes m'am, no sir
Carry over from prior months, a horror thick with worry
Fish swim no more here, Auriole has been called home
And the child she took from autistic streets rakes thoughts together
Rugged ones hardly expected success from the slower one
Well, surprise.
Stone
Baking rays, in the shade we climb
The spider said to the vine: how art the tidings there?
Be told unlike, the searcher's dream wilts slow in a postbox
The chart burns, and discrepancy marches again.
Jan 21, 2015
Jan 21, 2015 at 12:53 AM UTC
I met her first
in the afternoon,
in May,
When the streets
were crowed with people;
living their lives.
She stood leaning
on an old green postbox.
She was a friend of a friend.
She said she had seen
my face before somewhere,
I was not so sure, I undoubtedly
would have remembered hers.
Her face was like
an actress' from the '50's,
one that was usually
reserved in black and white or
preserved in monochrome,
Bette Davis style.
But nonetheless it
was there before me,
in youth and charm.
The way she spoke and
pronounced certain
words peculiarly,
she was very like
myself in that way.
Its been said,
that if you get everyone
on Earth to stand in a line,
one by one,
that you will never find
someone just like you.
But I think that
sometimes you
come close, and
I surmise that
I came pretty close
that day.
I wanted to tell her,
but did not;
Knowing how absurd
it would sound,
I grasped it inside.
She moved
when she spoke,
just a child would
be all jittery and
unable to stand
still after too many
sugary things.
Always, there was
that that hyper-activeness
running through
her body like
electricity.
But all the while,
her voice was silk.
She had my humor too,
anytime I made jokes,
she would laugh.
It was such a
brilliant laugh,
the kind that poured out
and poured
out in big bursts
and did not give a ****
who heard
or judged.
Even when she was
slightly smiling,
you could still
see her teeth,
perfect and white,
like a toothpaste
advertisement.
She was not afraid
to look anyway at all.
Her face was
naked without makeup,
she did not paint over
any blemish at all.
She knew that people
had their flaws,
and it was those people
who laid their
flaws bare to the world,
they were the ones
the brave ones.
- Jamie F. Nugent
May 21, 2016
May 21, 2016 at 12:12 PM UTC
I met her first
in the afternoon,
in May,
When the streets
were crowed with people;
living their lives.
She stood leaning
on an old green postbox.
She was a friend of a friend.
She said she had seen
my face before somewhere,
I was not so sure, I undoubtedly
would have remembered hers.
Her face was like
an actress' from the '50's,
one that was usually
reserved in black and white or
preserved in monochrome,
Bette Davis style.
But nonetheless it
was there before me,
in youth and charm.
The way she spoke and
pronounced certain
words peculiarly,
she was very like
myself in that way.
Its been said,
that if you get everyone
on Earth to stand in a line,
one by one,
that you will never find
someone just like you.
But I think that
sometimes you
come close, and
I surmise that
I came pretty close
that day.
I wanted to tell her,
but did not;
Knowing how absurd
it would sound,
I grasped it inside.
She moved
when she spoke,
just a child would
be all jittery and
unable to stand
still after too many
sugary things.
Always, there was
that that hyper-activeness
running through
her body like
electricity.
But all the while,
her voice was silk.
She had my humor too,
anytime I made jokes,
she would laugh.
It was such a
brilliant laugh,
the kind that poured out
and poured
out in big bursts
and did not give a ****
who heard
or judged.
Even when she was
slightly smiling,
you could still
see her teeth,
perfect and white,
like a toothpaste
advertisement.
She was not afraid
to look anyway at all.
Her face was
naked without makeup,
she did not paint over
any blemish at all.
She knew that people
had their flaws,
and it was those people
who laid their
flaws bare to the world,
they were the ones
the brave ones.
- Jamie F. Nugent
Sep 3, 2016
Sep 3, 2016 at 5:27 PM UTC
What i really want is just to build up a home. Where we happily live away from all this competition and pollution. Away from this dark side. I want to live in the brighter one. I want to build a home where on the door there is this name plate with our name craved with the wood and then there are our handprints . The bigger one being his and the tiny one is mine. And then besides the door is the postbox. The postbox that has got its ***** a little loose with rust all over. But, Ah! The happiness it gives when in the middle of the pile comes your mom's letter. And you get so excited that you never close the box and run into open the envelope. Then as you enter there is this massive wall that has so much of charm in it. There are these tiny snapshots of when we went to our honeymoon in the islands , There is this grand photo of our marriage. There are portraits made by you. And everything inside of that walls gives so much of satisfaction , so much of happiness , that even if something happens to US , we have so much to miss , so much to remember , so much to cry and so much to laugh tooo. All that's lighted up with very pretty xmas lights. And then besides the wall there is the kitchen. Oh! How we wish that we could just shift our bed over there. Our kitchen- it will be like the most enchanting place. All sorts of junk. And the fridge- everything from ice cream to alcohol , from Chocolates to candies. It will be our happy place. We will cook together. We will dance together until the oven buzzes. And we will eat like no one's watching. Like we haven't eaten for days , like , like its the last pizza we will ever taste. We will **** together , we will make fun of each other , and at the end of the day we will laugh so much about all the super crazy stuff we did. We will sleep on our bed remembering everything. And i swear you look just the prettiest head when you're asleep. So i pretend to sleep because i know you are gazing at me. I wait till your snoring starts and it doesnt take a while to start , because you are so good at sleeping. And then i just stare you my love with the deepest love inmy eyes. Feeling your breathe against mine ; And even though we have come a long way together , i still don't believe the fact that i got someone like you , the fact that you are so pretty and you are so kind and gentle and sweet and caring and the qualities they can never be described fully. So i just lay down there kiss you on your head and sleep with me wrapped around your arms.
Not every story has to have drama , some are just real life stories.
Jan 3, 2018
Jan 3, 2018 at 9:23 PM UTC
A beautiful moment
Behind
the
corner
lies.....
A perfect little package
Waiting for your eyes
Oct 11, 2018
Oct 11, 2018 at 9:46 AM UTC
Kept under your bed is a rope of dried twigs,
Elderflower and lemongrass,
Exudes from the chipping paint.
Go, now;
Away from those who remember you leaning upon the neighbourhood postbox,
Next time, I’ll have younger skin.
Apr 20, 2024
Apr 20, 2024 at 3:31 PM UTC
No, it didn’t happen in classrooms
Of syllabus and assignments. But
Somewhere amid the iron rusty
Windows Of 28-rupee bus tickets
From yellowed Platform signs. All
from
(Kayankulam to Cantonment)
No, not the gust, but visits a florid
Breeze after 6 over my garnered age.
Sliding beneath her gold embroidered
curtains, under the ashen newspaper
Speaking of potholes and crows.
How you commute in colored notes
(Adoor to Adoor)
from district to the next is unfamiliar.
Surely, spicy how it rolls from me
Tongue to hers/his/theirs. Carried on
To the red slits on their skin. Fleshed.
Pages, the her-story of breasted warriors,
with ease. You slip off the sky’s night
gown. On the same earth hurried kings,
Queens, and ivory throned British malice.
(Adoor to Thiruvananthapuram)
Exiting from a throbbing earthen stilt
kindness, a dry sandy footstep. From your
children’s 44 rivers, where song and dance,
clamored from the shore. Must be that glued
pride, divine of your esteemed royalty
(Periyar, Achenkovil)
Perhaps a brown rattlesnake, you slither
into all riding on health magazines, pamphlets
and late news debates. In hymns of praise and
folded envelopes of austerity from the rain dren-
ched postbox.
Like drizzle at night from a cup.
And if you were a spirit, you swim about
in the death of fishes in cat mouths begging
around with crows in busy smelly harbors, stray dogs
with their tongues out flicking ripened mango
( Aluva Central Stn. To Thiruvalla)
pickles on railroad tracks packed with rice and Coconut milk.
Children of mammal and mamma fighting out for
A leaf foiled bundle or rise and rotten fish.
You and I
We share a familiar vision of spring
Bedding an acid sting like memory
(Kottayam toThrissur)
Of raw plantains in mouth. Coconut oil
On head. Crying with my tooth on a
String from my greasy door handle.
There’s a way she rolls of my mouth
To his/hers/theirs.
After all it’s the better language
To kiss with. And after bury with.
(Adoor to Ranni,Kollam)
Jun 23, 2020
Jun 23, 2020 at 4:39 AM UTC