"postcards" poems
She keeps songs
locked away in boxes
like secrets.
She will take them out
like postcards
to help her remember
the feeling of
a different time,
a different person
by her side.
She likes the one
that makes her
eyes close
to see the lights.
She smiles at
the one that
makes her stand
up on tiptoes,
the one that
helps her forget
she doesn’t know
what to do
with her hands.
The tune
will carry her.
Like it did
the times when
voices broke
like a heart.
When instruments’ strings
would snap
and hurt.
Apr 5, 2019
Apr 5, 2019 at 1:34 PM UTC
~
In the mist of late night solitude,
from a mislaid plateau,
with a suitcase full of sparks
She observes constellations
reflected as little needy eyes,
peering down at her
They could be midnight directives,
postcards from distant nebula
suspended in gaffa
"Ne t'enfuis pas..." She exhales
Still she wonders:
will her children grow to love
their perfect machines more
than they love
their imperfect mother?
~
Jun 28, 2023
Jun 28, 2023 at 12:06 PM UTC
I was wrapped in black
fur and white fur and
you undid me and then
you placed me in gold light
and then you crowned me,
while snow fell outside
the door in diagonal darts.
While a ten-inch snow
came down like stars
in small calcium fragments,
we were in our own bodies
(that room that will bury us)
and you were in my body
(that room that will outlive us)
and at first I rubbed your
feet dry with a towel
becuase I was your slave
and then you called me princess.
Princess!
Oh then
I stood up in my gold skin
and I beat down the psalms
and I beat down the clothes
and you undid the bridle
and you undid the reins
and I undid the buttons,
the bones, the confusions,
the New England postcards,
the January ten o'clcik night,
and we rose up like wheat,
acre after acre of gold,
and we harvested,
we harvested.
4.5k
If ever I was accusatory
it's only because I too am guilty.
I try at symmetry
only to end up inadequate.
One who cannot amount to their own ideals
cannot know a single thing.
However certain I am of decay,
I still forget faster than memory would allow me to retain
motes of dust scattered across my library
that were once skin,
places I had been,
not one returning from departure.
No postcards
save for my disintegrated cells who speak only
of transformation.
Hushed in dim light,
scattered across oceans of words whispering,
You're already dead you naive little star.
Oct 4, 2013
Oct 4, 2013 at 1:00 AM UTC
It's so strange to be growing older
Somehow I thought I'd never see this day
I will miss things the way they were
Now that everyone's moving away
You left to escape, to grow, to learn
We won't be the same people when we return
Phone Calls and postcards from far away
About weather and work and not what you wanted to say
It's so strange to feel that distance
Our old forgotten moments are following me around
When I finally move on I guess I´ll miss them
They are proof of something I don´t have now
I left to be free, to dream, to thrive
To find the meaning in being alive
Never answered your postcards, never picked up the phone
To become someone else than the girl you left all alone
It's so strange to see the world changing
More and more for every passing hour
You cared, but I could never become your everything
So I had the heartache, and you had all the power
You left to run, to fly, to be understood
You said she got you better than I could
But history like ours rarely dies
You never meant it when you said goodbye
It's so strange to be growing older
At least it is easier to forgive and forget
But I still think about us when I see you with her
You moved back into the street where we first met
I left to thrive, to grow old, to grow up
Now I guess friendship has to be enough
It hurt but deep down I'm glad you came back to stay
Now that everyone's moving away
Nov 22, 2015
Nov 22, 2015 at 12:33 PM UTC
tinted postcards
from Vienna-
Munich oils on canvas-
a self portrait
on a stacked-stone bridge-
rejected, the painter painted
yellow stars-broken glass
Judenstern and Kristallnacht
no starry night,
no van Gogh-
der Führer was no master,
Mein Kampf no masterpiece.
r ~ 8/25/14
Aug 25, 2014
Aug 25, 2014 at 9:53 AM UTC
F*ck the postcards and dried mangoes, baby.
The prayers in The Philippines,
The prayers from and by Filipinos,
will be the best souvenir one can ever get.
The Prayers in The Philippines, by the Filipinos
are what has been keeping our islands, vintas and mangroves afloat
and why more new islands have been popping up like moles.
The Prayers in The Philippines, by the Filipinos
are what has been keeping the storms, typhoons and hurricanes all but a joke.
Another one? Bring it on and on and once more.
The Prayers in The Philippines, by the Filipinos
are what has been putting earthquakes and tsunamis to shame.
My grandmothers have been through worse,
what's a little bit of motion and shake?
The Prayers in The Philippines, by the Filipinos
are what has been keeping this country a curse and a miracle;
why we have mountains that we have today,
why and how they're shaped that way.
Despite the chaos of politics, corruption and news of crimes...
Why we have oceans that are bright blue
and how they could make a weary traveler or a desolate native feel brand new.
Despite the familiar dangers and age-old stereotypes...
The Prayers in The Philippines, by the Filipinos
are what has been holding Filipinos together,
be it with each other or to fight through another day for much longer.
The Prayers in The Philippines, by the Filipinos
are what has been keeping this country ever magical and mystical,
even if some days it's harder to feel that way.
The Prayers in The Philippines, by the Filipinos
are the reason why I'm here, why I exist,
why I'm alive and kicking,
full of dreams and spite and hope, writing,
the reason why I'm full of life, full of love
and will keep on living and loving.
I will live and die saying my prayers
in The Philippines,
as a Filipino,
for The Philippines
and for other Filipinos.
Dec 7, 2023
Dec 7, 2023 at 2:03 AM UTC
Shopping mall close to closing time
Neat rows of carefully designed family packs
10 000 square meters and me
Sweet serenity
At the counter - sudden confusion!
Failing to pack the things in a smart way
Thinking of what the bag lady just said
"Moose postcards! Do you have moose postcards here??"
Oct 28, 2009
Oct 28, 2009 at 3:24 PM UTC
I am not going to lie anymore, it is easy to write about you.
It is a gut instinct.
It is muscle memory.
I kept the letters, the postcards.
The first one you sent is in bad shape; folded edges, crumpled body.
I almost set it on fire twelve times.
You don't understand how every night I stand outside looking at the stars
realizing that we can probably never see them at the same time.
There is nothing poetic about how we feed off of eachother.
There is nothing healthy about holding on to this.
But all I know is that when I talk to someone, I almost always say I'm sorry as a greeting.
Because nothing I ever say will be pretty anymore, I have a serpent tongue when you're gone away.
And I'm sorry that they're not you.
I will still get your words on me. I will hold on to the pain of the ink seeping into my skin.
Forever doesn't have a fighting chance against the chokehold grip you have on my thoughts.
Instead of this train of thought, paper bodies.
Ignition.
Fire.
Think of me when the candle goes out.
Think of me when you're drunk again.
Instead of this poem, broken bottles.
Instead of this poem:
Blue sheets. White pillows. Your hair was never this color before.
Your poems were never about me.
Slam poetry in the way you threw my necklace in the river.
Find me waiting at the window for you to let me in.
You left the bottle open, it smells like whiskey in here.
Blue sheets but yellow flecks of sunlight and candlelight and streetlight.
The light has almost disappeared since you went away.
Instead of this poem:
Come back. Stay away. I am fluent in ******* things up.
Fire.
Ignition.
Paper body.
Think of me when the candle goes out.
Apr 26, 2014
Apr 26, 2014 at 8:54 PM UTC
None but the cobbled Hackney will accept
Their Postcards sign this Doveling Bond, betwixt
So both decide a Limo; And dated Theft
Of many Soul-Chasers which do not Exist
From there both Virgins took a Scandal-Plate,
Wrapped in Hookahs only the Wise could see
Goodbye, First Perfume! Not from what will sate
The Photographed Script of what they should be
From this a Problem looms. In such Stone-Bowl
We become the very Thing we disgust
Hearts still cry out for the Thunder they stole
And baste their Image on the Throne they must.
Realise, just now, the Name of this Theme
From Enlightenment whose Founder they blaspheme.
Mar 12, 2013
Mar 12, 2013 at 6:50 PM UTC
our typed up words hide emotions unseen
where sound can give a taste of truth
and even postcards can reveal
the tangles of the century and it's related loves
of technology's soft whispers
of clicking keys and computer buzz
in those ones and zeros that hold us close to heart
the miles are still real, seemingly we'll part
another buzz another ring another taste of you
but can these magical machines bring
me more than just the best of you
I want to hear the stutter when you're nervous and can't speak,
the whisper's of the secrets of what we'll do next week,
I want to see your hair disheveled when you get up out of bed
the slight portliness of figure like the bearded fella wearing a suit of red
I want to taste the treats of the dishes that I've seen
and of course
I want to taste your lips
carrying the flavors of cigar and wine
See the the glimmer in your eye
When some little excitement passes by
And hear loquacious diatribes as to gladly chime on in
starting from your normal dinner topics to our lives of sin
But all those ones and zero... and our miles still remain
hopes of this togetherness from which my brain
can not refrain
Dec 31, 2015
Dec 31, 2015 at 1:07 PM UTC
A hollow ‘hello’ from Hell! Yes, from Hell.
Where do names come from? This Hell is
a sleepy fishing village and the best
spot that we’ve found on Hollow Head,
a Sleepy Hollows, so to speak.
We are in the ‘Bridegroom’, a little Bed
and Breakfast, run by a Rip Van Winkle
wise enough to know it was Empedocles
who jumped into Mount Etna. Empedocles!
Is my face red! Yet it will glorify
my pronoun to perfection—‘he jumps’. Yes,
both poetry and philosophy ought
to have the same antecedent. They forge
a world that’s capable of consciousness.
The self, per se, remains vestigial—
the voice of the volcano, not its source.
Your pronoun is the antecedent, not
your noun. Problematic resolved. Perhaps
I will go for a walk in Hell, perhaps
I will take the air, take the breezes.
A wonderful day in Hell! Ha-ha!
Apr 18, 2010
Apr 18, 2010 at 4:49 PM UTC
I swallowed her and now
She lives inside me or I live
Through her, we are alive.
I’m her friend, her teenage
And fantasies, a sixty year old-
Hair and books she ever read
Long distance phone calls
And delight matched our
Love for Sujata, Mr And Mrs Iyer
And I sat on her couch on my
Despised vacations sketching
Letters to Milena, Quabbani
And we spoke of her brothers,
Generations and cafes I went.
I’m Delhi, Bangalore and
Endless conversations-
She never met and she’s my
Lost Malayalam, postcards and
A world so familiar, a childhood.
Hold your breath and relax
I’m going to stay and listen
Till you are out of stories and
I repeat, remind and you smile.
I’ll get you melodies and 60s
Harold Robbins and Nutan,
Your weirdness and aloofness.
You don’t grow old with me
I’ll live, I promise as your fonts
Visit places you walked and
Write to you all, deep- blue
Letters, deep- blue-letters.
You are my first high-heels
Strawberry fields and music system
I’ll recite you a love story
Picture him as our classic heroes
And giggle as girls sixteen and
Seventeen. You swallowed me
And I live through you, we’re alive.
Oct 15, 2015
Oct 15, 2015 at 12:25 PM UTC
*Butterfly Desires & Fictional Highs,
Magnetic Spells In Her Emerald Eyes,
Bleeding Perpetual Fire & Toxic Cries.
Lucid Screams Of Her Plastic Love,
Paper Towns & Serenity Above,
Refracting Into An Apocalyptic Dove.
Postcards Of Her Estranged Serenity,
Diffusing Into Polaroids Across Infinity,
Rhythms Of Lusts Erupting Obscenity.
Bluest Shade Of Her Misguided Confessions,
Uncharted Fragments Amplifying Obsessions,
Profane Prodigies Detonating Desecrations,
Digital Dreams & Fictional Desires,
3D Symphonies Inside Her Crystal Wires,
Purple Streams Translating Fires.
Tunnel Visions Transmitting Reality,
Suicidal Trance & Static Eternity,
Molotov Solution Is Her Lighthouse Of Ecstasy.
- 04:19AM -*
Mar 13, 2017
Mar 13, 2017 at 6:56 PM UTC
These streets are postcards.
Moments of my youth,
My loves.
Each park bench enveloped within,
Licked and pressed to
My forehead.
Return me to those times.
I want my streets back. My memories
Present and my friends
Still readied for me.
Pour moi.
Pour me another drink
Whilst I forget the ones I had.
Red wine has long since replaced
My blood,
My skin; gone stale.
The streets press in on
My chest.
I can’t breath for the dizzy memoirs,
Yowling at the moon in
My brain.
The simple sway of a tyre swing,
You and I,
The chains.
The simple fog of your ice machine,
You and I,
The cider.
The simplicity of you and me,
You and me,
The years.
These streets are ghost ships now.
Bounty once abound, now gutted.
Do not tease me with your platitudes
Oh town,
And just let me be on my way.
Aug 9, 2013
Aug 9, 2013 at 8:09 PM UTC
You sit next to Randal
By the river. He brings
Out the postcards he’d
Bought. Best send one
To your mother, he says,
Don’t want her worrying
About you and how you’re
Doing. You take the offered
Postcard and put in on your
Knees. Amsterdam. Randal’s
Been here before, he knows
The place well. Came last
Year with the French girl.
You wonder why he dropped
Her soon after their return.
Maybe she wouldn’t let him
Or maybe she did too often
And that put him off. You
Look at the picture on the
Front of Amsterdam at dawn.
Ann Frank’s Haus yesterday.
You remember that. Haunted
You; you felt some aspects
Of her were still there. What
To write to Mother? Why bother?
Part of you thinks, she’ll look
Between the lines, see things
That aren’t there, imagine things,
Suggest you did this and that.
She never trusts. Randal writes
His scribble fast, usual crap:
Weather, food, whatever. He’ll
Not write to say he shafted you
Twice the other night between
Hot sheets. His parents don’t
Know him; think him so sweet
And clever. Shaft girls, smoke
**** Never. You take a biro
From your bag and neatly write.
Dear Mother, we are well and
Enjoying the sights (guess what
We do at nights? Leave that out)
And the weather’s fine and food
Is plentiful and yes, I do change
My underclothes each day and yes,
We have separate beds in the hotel.
(Lies are cheap) you pause. Randal
Has done, he licks a stamp, presses
It onto the back. Finished? He asks,
Placing his hand on your knee, giving
A squeeze, sending a buzz between
Your knees. You smile, nod, and
Hand him the card. He reads and
Shakes his head and grins. All lies,
He says, and all those hidden sins.
Aug 28, 2014
Aug 28, 2014 at 3:49 AM UTC
Looking back at life brings on a shiver:
landmarks and stygian fragments,
radiant corrosion.
Will my feet still carry me home?
The morning breaks,
turn the blue skies on!
we're committed now,
guided by a God few know.
On Earth the math is made up,
8 billion people
and 1,000 questions,
out here the days
are numbered differently.
But in the ether aura
there are silent obligations:
we're trading passengers midflight
--the jester and the acrobat inside the LEM,
Marco Polo on the rocketship,
we're eating the survival kit,
making postcards of the trip.
All spoils for survivors.
Post signs for a near perfect disaster.
You are on my mind.
You are in my heart.
Are you in my blood?
I would die for you.
If this is goodbye, remember,
these things happen...
Jan 15, 2025
Jan 15, 2025 at 8:39 PM UTC
~
*scarlet wind sails
upon an ultrasounding wave,
postcards from tiny islands;
nebulous, indefinable, floating,
fresh as a field
of crackerjacks;
nodding happily
from minute one,
celebrating the mountains
and valleys of being alive
in excelsis; irresistible and impish
in its understated insinuations.*
~
Dec 12, 2022
Dec 12, 2022 at 12:08 PM UTC
As I walk through your museum,
I admire all the art.
I admire the postcards and love notes
carefully stuck the home of
your beloved.
As I walk through your museum,
I wonder what time She comes home.
I see how everything in her existence
has been tainted by you,
as I quietly reassure myself it won't be soon.
As I walk through your museum,
I see you turn to face me;
and I feel my heart flutter so hard
that it must have flown out of my chest.
It doesn't matter, I tell myself,
He only wants you.
As I walk through your museum,
into your venereal grasp,
I feel your certain hands
pull away at the little modesty which remained.
You do it as surely as
a bee follows honey.
As I walk through your museum,
into that place where everything changed,
I can't help but see how
lovingly you gaze upon Her.
It's in all the frames affectionally placed
on the walls of the place, She calls home.
As I walk through your museum,
and I feel your hands begin to empty me
like a pumpkin on hollows eve,
I see Her. I see everything I knew I would see.
I see the pain at what you are doing
and I know that I have made a girl like me.
As I walk through your museum
towards the door with a choir of screams and tears following,
I remember how it felt to be a girl like me, on my first time.
And I smile,
peaceful with the knowledge that
I am not the only girl like me.
Oct 20, 2018
Oct 20, 2018 at 2:44 PM UTC
Red post boxes stand on street corners like aged prostitutes
rusted and flaking
and they are going the way of phone boxes and TV aerial?
Are there still milkman?
Who writes letters?
Postcards from men
working down a pit?
Stuck in the trench
I killed time by attening seminars about powerful words,
the history of things,
body language as legitimate currency
exposing the micro.
A craven emptiness screaming extinction.
Jan 8, 2013
Jan 8, 2013 at 2:51 AM UTC
I entered the display case
of people educators
subsidizing snobs
the multirich and companies
among tourists and inhabitants
who want to be seen
in the museum café and
with sophisticated pastry lard
the conversation with careless clauses
they quote from an authority
whom nobody has to understand
to get the intention
of the praised artists
The shop was crowded
Spotlights on show-pieces
fancy coffee table books
and chic presents
for the season and the next holidays
Especially the past
is on sale, postcards
of the attractions
and sights of the city
interchangeable
like the collections
which graduated stylists
cast in international moulds
to magnets for visitors
Nov 18, 2018
Nov 18, 2018 at 2:48 AM UTC
The girl with red hair, she would lie in the grass all day, she said it was better than any bed.
The girl with red hair, she painted her nails purple once, because it was bright like her hair.
The girl with red hair, she wanted to be the heroine of a story but thought she wasn’t too brave.
The girl with red hair, she’d stare at the wall and when people asked her why she’d say “The walls tell stories, you know.”
The girl with red hair, she claims she has never fallen in love, she believed she was incapable of loving.
The girl with red hair, she would read a book in one sitting, she said it was easier to absorb and forget it that way.
The girl with red hair, she didn’t believe in a higher being but said if there was one, he would probably be a poet.
The girl with red hair, she felt confined all her life, like flames caught between the walls of a fireplace.
The girl with red hair, she ran away when she was twenty-five and left a blank note with her name on the bottom.
The girl with red hair, she would send postcards every week, and when one day she didn’t, they knew she was gone.
Nov 12, 2011
Nov 12, 2011 at 10:52 AM UTC
Come home, darling
Hop into your Jeep
And pray my soul to keep
I tire waiting day after day
But I will send you postcards
To keep you company.
Jun 8, 2015
Jun 8, 2015 at 1:24 PM UTC
The embers blushed before the caressing eyes
of my new lover reaching out to snuggle against
the flickering light of welcoming warmth
naked and close
the room smelt of subtle wood chips and ash
roasted coffee beans and aftershave lotion
sexuality.
She was radiant in her skin tone
so exposed to accentuated curves
carving the fireside flame
into a furnace of wantonness. Uninhibited.
The snow outside cocooned the cabin
into a nest of togetherness.
I found here basking on a bar stool
eyes cast deep in thought on a gin and tonic
contemplation of dejection.
" He found another woman"
" Oh yeah, I just found my own woman!"
We giggled into the glass.
"Take me home to the mountains
of your mind and share with me your
meteoric rise to a metaphoric magical kingdom
where poets live and dream!'
" I have a furnace waiting for you"
" Lets go !"
Very short introduction to ecstasy.
Two days later
I dropped her off mid-city
near a replica of the Statue of Liberty
in a shopping window full of
picture postcards.
I had enough stored in the memory bank
to write a whole new dash of fireplace poems.
Mar 3, 2014
Mar 3, 2014 at 6:55 PM UTC