"preferring" poems
For centuries philosophers have speculated the role sleep plays in society
But it was not until the 1950s that sleep woke up in academia
And today sleep studies show what dormant minds really look like
Information about our rest we've never seen before
However, I've always understood the importance of bedtime
You see my parents taught me that sleep and love are soul mates
My mom
She's the sleeper
She loves to sleep
She cuddles up on any piece of furniture in my house and snoozes for hours
Never views a sitcom past the first commercial break when she's tired
And she's okay with that
Dad never lets her drive on road trips when night falls
Preferring his sleeping beauty tucked safely in the passenger seat
Their hands meet as she lets the stars serenade her to slumber
While he anchors his left hand on the steering wheel
Thanking his lucky stars for his real life princess
My dad
He's the snorer
He loves to snore
He roars like a lion on his love seat and naps for hours
Never views a sitcom past the second commercial break when he's tired
And he's okay with that
Mom never lets him sleep alone too long though
Keeping his nose plugged strong enough to signal for bedtime
They both stand together as he lets her guide him to slumber
While she ushers her left hand around his back
Thanking her lucky stars for her own prince charming
Now my parents call me the dreamer
And I sure do love to dream
It seems my parents are textbook role models for me
Because when you live inside a fairytale for far too long
Your reality becomes an endless stream of fantasies
Your expectations are exceptionally out of context
Strictly written for poetic lines in picture books
Never meant to be held
Never meant to be felt
Only meant for spines stuck on rosewood shelves
My parents call me the dreamer
And boy I love to dream
I believe in creating the unthinkable
And when you live inside a fairytale for far too long
Nothing is fictional
You picture a life with storybook endings
Praying the author never runs out of ink
You crown each syllable the king of the moment
Treating each page like royalty
And I've always been okay with that
So when I asked my mom when she knew she fell in love
She spoke of an instant of unadulterated emotion
She said she knew instantly
She didn't need to sleep on it
When I asked my dad when he knew he fell in love
He just smiled back at me
He must have known instantly
He didn't even speak on it
So when I ask myself when I might fall in love
I can't help but smile
Think of fairytale titles
Mile wide love notes in all shapes and styles
And a moment where my reality sets my hopes on fire
And I won't need to dream about it anymore
Feb 4, 2014
Feb 4, 2014 at 2:35 PM UTC
Education is currently being used as a weapon
to arm the educated to defend the system.
Question the system.
Go out there and equip yourself for the right belief.
Be a dreamer. The dream is beautiful.
The problem with dreams is that you don’t know
the dream has turned into a nightmare until you wake up.
Are you awake? Be awake.
The problem with being awake; we need to rest.
Lucidly dream. Be lucid.
The problem with being lucid; you’re lucid.
There was a dream not long ago. The dream was beautiful.
We liked the dream, the dream became ours and we slept.
Slowly we all grew tired.
Those that did not need to sleep,
those that did not like our dream,
we treated like children.
We know that we need to rest and we were tired. We left our children to starve.
We forced others to sleep and so, we forced our children to sleep.
Even in our sleep, we forced others to sleep.
And so the big dream grew.
It became nightmare.
We all dream. Be aware of others dreams. Be aware of others while we sleep.
Be aware of those that sleep while we awaken.
When you wake and see your siblings rest no longer.
That their dream, once ours, has turned to terror.
The problem with dreams…
We force our children to sleep.
Is this bad? Always question. Should we force them to wake?
Force can create. Force can destroy.
The problem with being awake, when we know our brothers and sisters
sweat in there nightmares; we have a choice.
That is not a choice to wake them or not. To hope for the best.
That the nightmare will end and the dream will return.
A dream that has travelled
through the terrors of our minds
will not return the same.
Would you like the red pill or the blue pill?
Is there good and bad? Force can create and destroy.
Be mindful of how you wake.
Be lucid of how you force others to wake.
Tea or coffee; a cigarette; some breakfast; some fear?
Use balance.
We are all unique.
I have a personal story. As I wrote this, typos occurred in the original edit.
The technology, ‘swipe’ was used. I meant to spell unique and unite was spelt.
Personal became powerful and with turned to WE.
Is there a reason ‘i’ should always be capitalized?
‘i’ wish to be mindful of my readers. ‘i’ want to stay true to them.
We that can read are the readers. ‘i’ am the reader.
When I isn’t capitalized I began to feel more comfortable with using it,
if i gave it arms; ‘i’.
And when I typed to explain that,
I went to preferring if isn’t typing out ‘and then i and then ‘, to just type two of them;
ii.
We don’t want to be alone.
There’s no I in teamwork but
there is and I in kind.
I is complicated. Be you.
Find your voice. Have a voice and be aware.
Others have a voice.
What would happen if we all respected each other’s voice?
What would happen if we all had the same voice?
That was the beauty of the dream.
The dream is travelling through nightmare
and is slowly returning.
It has changed.
Unite our uniqueness’s.
Do you eat fast food? I love it. It is a dream… Do I eat it all the time, I hope not.
Ken Robinson is a good man to ask. Consider food for the mind.
There are beliefs out there. There’s a belief out there that our world is ******
Forgive the language. Understand it.
I wanted to say, ‘that our world is doomed; eternally ****** to be destroyed’ and that scared me. **** There will always be nightmares, disaster and destruction.
What is an ‘aster’? Curious.
When did we chose to destroy; each other?
Could we create; each other?
There’s a belief out there for that one too.
Are you awake, yet?
Sep 22, 2012
Sep 22, 2012 at 9:06 AM UTC
You know the type.
She's probably called something like
Isabella. Rosalie. Ginevra.
and you find her in the sort of novel where
she's outdone by someone called something like
Jane. Agnes. Lucy.
She's remembered in criticism as
Trivial. Silly. Foolish.
She's defined as Shallow. Vain. False gold.
She's analysed as the mirror, the contrast or the foil
and you're supposed to vaguely dislike her.
She'll reaffirm to the reader that the heroine,
whether she be plain or beautiful, is always, in the end,
Rational. Independent. Brave.
She reaffirms the heroine as someone who
learns and grows
while the silly girl is left looking at herself in the mirror.
The thing is sometimes I feel more like the silly girl,
the girl who needs a hand, the girl who reads books
and wants to believe the stories.
Sometimes, I'm looking in the mirror,
chest deep in my own trivial, silly little worries,
looking at the puddles not the lake, and I know.
I know I'd be one of the silly girls,
not the heroine, out there, just surviving.
I'd be one of those silly girls and I hate it - and yet
- what's so wrong with the silly girls?
What's so wrong with the girls who love themselves,
or love the wrong people or love their clothes?
What's wrong with the girls who are
brave but not rational,
independent but trivial,
selfish but practical?
What's wrong with those girls,
because I always find myself preferring
the Ginevras and the Isabellas anyway.
Jan 9, 2018
Jan 9, 2018 at 11:56 AM UTC
Daisies
Are quite like people
(or perhaps people are like daisies)
In full bloom in the light
But in the shade they hide away,
Wallowing in self pity.
Allowing themselves to be picked on
and trampled into a million pieces,
By letting people walk over them.
So pretty
Yet so humble,
Their beauty goes unnoticed, even by themselves.
Until one day someone treasures it
and falls hopelessly in love with the humble daisy,
Preferring it over the other daisies.
Then finally the daisy shrinks
to a tatty mess,
no longer young and beautiful-
Dead.
Jun 1, 2015
Jun 1, 2015 at 3:01 PM UTC
Sometimes I feel **** alien, even in the
Most familiar of surroundings.
Instead of spinning, pointing,
Naming everything Home,
I shut myself, and turn inward.
Day after day the first one at a
New school in a foreign country,
As far from a cool kid as the
Overweight teacher's pet with a
Stutter. I don't even know how to
Speak my own name in their
Incomprehensible language.
Nothing here is for me, and
At least E.T. had a home to phone; all
I have is the space i possess as I walk
Through it, eyes firm on borrowed
Footing. No single road leads to my
Rome, and somewhere inside the
Timelessness of my innermost, the
Old, old man watches the young'uns
Talking, dressing, adressing,
Preferring, doing it all the way
Young'uns do, with pale, tired eyes
And simply just
Can't, -tries, but- just doesn't
Understand.
Apr 29, 2014
Apr 29, 2014 at 10:39 AM UTC
I’m peccable not impeccable
prone to making mistakes
to falling down
and getting up
i keep to myself
i’ll hide behind the scenes
i don’t always like to talk
always preferring to listen to anything you want to say
my life is dances to a rhythm
known only to myself
there is a routine (home-work home) in the chaos
everything else gets fit in somehow
you’d never even notice me in a crowd
certainly not the life of the party
you’d never even miss me
i was hardly there in the first place
there is never a plan
just an agreement with myself
to cross every bridge when I come to it
my plans are too messy to be reliable
you won’t find anyone who knows me really
difficult to be understood
but eager to understand
to lend a helping hand
i live mostly inside my own head
making up stories as i go along
open to every kind of ending
always exploring some new idea
my inner world is what charges my batteries
its here that everything comes alive
where electric stuff happens
and possibilities come pouring out
I live for the people and the things that matter to me
for my inner light that guides me
between what I am and what I do
i insist on integrity
- Vijayalakshmi Harish
09.10.2012
Copyright © Vijayalakshmi Harish
Oct 9, 2012
Oct 9, 2012 at 2:11 AM UTC
What joy calls Silent Noise plagues me too
As the new love in young hides behind the sun
The House of Monaco burns
it is a simple matter
and joy pretends in two and three
She accuses that it is all in the eyes
Loosely veiling self doubt in the idealism of love
Complexity contradicts and she gives up
Preferring to live inside
It wants what it wants and Joy succumbs
drinking water she knows is poison
You are not a hopeless romantic Joy
You are a Romantic
You are all Woman
And twice as amazing
-The Zone
Your **** has torn my hinges off..... obliterated my door
Jan 20, 2014
Jan 20, 2014 at 1:07 PM UTC
The deep sighs of fall
send chills across the daisies.
My compass is sick
and there’s a sense of urgency in my eyelashes,
feeling around for the blisters on my skin
searching for a bed to sleep.
Facets of sleep
encourage the rain to fall,
cold weather raising capillaries under my skin.
I wrote the history of the Holocene era on daisies,
microscope lenses tickling my eyelashes;
dim lighting makes me home sick.
My mind is sick,
I dream of oceans in my sleep,
medicine labels printed on my eyelashes
pill bottles coloured like fall.
Tattoos of purple fringed daisies
cover my shoulders like skin.
Teeth full of apple skin;
asking God how not to be sick,
wondering if a sacrifice of daisies
will get my blood to sleep.
My hair is like the leaves during fall;
I hope I get to keep my eyelashes.
There’s snow in my eyelashes,
landscapes of frost form on skin
the cold air begins to fall,
I decide to call in sick
preferring to hide in a hot sleep
until my breaths sprout purple daisies.
How to grow Gerber daisies,
without losing my eyelashes?
My fingernails are full of sleep,
hot tea grasps at my paper skin.
The panacea for the sick
is a perfect concentration of wool sweaters and fall.
You eat daisies in the fever of fall.
Through my eyelashes I am morally sick,
but yesterday I finally let sleep settle into my skin.
Feb 16, 2014
Feb 16, 2014 at 11:45 PM UTC
*i once had a girl from poland over,
gave her the tourism of london,
a daughter of my mother's friend.*
i suffered sun stroke one day out
with her, blonde hair and all,
i was bound to feel the cold shivers,
went to a party with a school-friend
of mine and her...
i was left in a bed shivering,
he later said he didn't want to say it
but did, that they kissed...
like i didn't know the shorthand for
oral ***
now i'm drinking a beer, write
one poem weeping, another like this
one laughing prior, slapping myself in
the cheek...
two slaps to the face i didn't receive
from prostitutes **** your moral
relativism, you people only
know that theft and ****** and ****
are equal in the cauldron of einstein's
space-and-time, i accept physical
relativism, but i loath moral relativism,
it's like giving an umbrella to the man
under a champagne waterfall -
and an anorak to a man under a waterfall
of cow **** -
yep, slaps outside the brothel,
the kind women became knights' sparring partners
for the oath undertaken,
it was a practice among knights to get
a handkerchief to ease the sting later...
but when prostitutes don't slap you
for trying to sort your life in order to provide,
you sort of become two knights,
twin siamese, you slap yourself because
all that st. thomas gospel wisdom went into
sex-augmentation procedures and cheap
cancer victims with pill-for-pill profiteering...
leisurely ladies of societies made rich
by easy money, watching operas
but still preferring to notice what
their neighbours were wearing,
the peasant snobism who are more distracted
by what others wear rather than the music...
a herd of wilder-beasts could ease out more tears
at an opera than these "precious" ladies of the new
post-aristocratic society of easy money...
you drink beer, laugh, slap yourself silly on the cheeks
for more laughter... your brain
becomes a monkey in a cage gone mad
rather than turning docile...
so she came over and enjoyed my company,
spotted a fox in an alley to a surprise...
but then i got rudely told that oral *** was a kiss...
well **** me there's a cataphract -
let's ***** slap him silly so no byzantine philosopher
cared to exist.
Mar 31, 2016
Mar 31, 2016 at 8:37 PM UTC
algorithmic street signs
with altruistic elegance
senses and the sensible
of whom Socrates is enviable
a heron, preferring solid ground
but taking to the skies with pride
for she knows that she'll accomplish both
because when born she made her oath
"dear lord, they're all asking you
to give them what they have not
but all that i would ask from you
is to give me the courage not to choose"
and so today she sings her songs
metallic and melodic, perfect balance,
and she knows she's never going to fall
because if you're in the middle, there's no gravity at all
Sep 21, 2014
Sep 21, 2014 at 10:35 PM UTC
Teasing the beast
Looking for a feast
Hounds barking at our ears
Vultures flying up ahead
Circling a bald eagle's fresh corpse
Compartmentalizing symptom after symptom
To hide the great systematic sickness
Labeling the suffering, outcome from desire
We, wholeheartedly accepting being
Appropriated, labeled, discarded
As construing our own oppression and sadness
Enduring the **** of our minds
Being castrated of our consciousness
Before we reap the products
Of its bold liberation and grandness
Its the belly of the beast
And its hungry
Insatiable, amoral entrails
Hoping to salvage a feast
From the casualties of d(e)moc(ratic) wars
Hoping we feed our monstrous fear
Thirsting for the greed
Dripping off of accumulating wealths
Impatiently waiting, we keep parceling out grudges
Disfiguring our minds, our souls, and our bodies
Its misanthropic nature lashes out without conscience
Knowing we'll never realize we are masses
Disappearing the individuals who realize their suffering
Ensuring there's no collective opposition or action
Trying to reassure we are weak
Knowing at some point or another
We all act mute, deaf, and blind when anyone experiences:
Oppression
Pain
Silencing
****
Hunger
Fear
Violence
Repression
Retaliation
Discrimination
Torture
Negation
Alienation
All forms of mental, psychological, physical, and spiritual mutilation
Fearing death more than fighting for necessary abolishment
Preferring to live out our veiled miseries
Endorsing their continuance
Instead of risking our lives for everyone's liberation
Always ensuring the feast of the beast
By its very efforts trying to decree our very human nature
Ingraining greed, fear, animosity, and weakness as if inherent of us
All parts of its most damaging weapon: the seed of discord
Its implantation, a socialized deep desire for self-preservation
Sheep bleating painfully toward our ears
Vultures flying up ahead
Circling a bald eagle's fresh corpse
Signifying the impending recapturing
Of our true transformative desires
May 4, 2013
May 4, 2013 at 11:30 PM UTC
Because I am a man
Preferring men over women
I am often cursed and shunned
By the society we are lost in.
Because I am a young adult
Mere 20 years beneath my belt
The older generations claim
My fresh ideas could never help.
Because I am a woman
With no children in my arm
Others pull their kids from me
As though I'd bring them harm.
Because I am a Muslim
With a hijab on my head
Millions often blame me
For tears their brothers shed.
-ARI
Feb 3, 2016
Feb 3, 2016 at 8:10 AM UTC
Father Mychal Judge bent down
to the woman on the floor.
His right hand made the cross in sign
like oft he had before.
Above him the North Tower Burned
like South Tower just next door.
The chaplain of the firemen,
Mychal was a Catholic priest.
Born and bred in Brooklyn,
He was no stranger to these streets.
When he heard word about the planes,
his safety he ignored..
He had to go be with his boys
His trust was in the Lord.
The people in the towers had
the choice to burn or fly.
So many that day took the plunge
preferring not to fry.
The raging fires melted steel.
South Tower started to collapse
The Bravest in her stairwells
never heard recall perhaps.
“Sweet Jesus, Make this end now! ”
Some heard Father Mychal cry.
Debris from the South Tower
Like a scythe came flying by.
It was blunt force trauma to the head
laid Father Mychal low.
His friends removed his body,
before North tower , too, would go.
Thousands passed that terrible day;
the mighty and the small.
When responders came with body bags
Mychal was first of all.
Zero Zero Zero One
A strange number for a Priest,
who rushed in where many others fled,
May now he rest in Peace.
Nov 19, 2011
Nov 19, 2011 at 6:43 PM UTC
I'll never forget the way you looked
As you stood with your back to me
No defenses - no walls
Painting with such care
And so much love
as I peaked through the French doors.
You didn't hear me
as I opened the door
Because you have chosen to exit the world
Slowly
First by losing interest in hearing
And then in forgetting short term nonsense,
Preferring to live in the glorious past..
You were painting for me,
My once most picture perfect Mother.
Now with hat and shorts and torn shirt,
and not giving a care in the world
For how you appear
And I could see, in that moment,
Your immense love for me
And I knew it was there from the very beginning,
And that despite scars of our
mythical mother daughter battles,
it would never be lost
Or ever forgotten
And my heart broke
For the millionth time
Into millions of Pieces
For I understood then
That love between mother and daughter
is greater than
Time and life Itself.
Feb 5, 2015
Feb 5, 2015 at 1:53 AM UTC
A passionate lovelife begins at the cutting edge of ones comfort zone. Death ends all ... this too will pass one...is told. Our sun is not gone as it sets alone. Everything changes as it matures & nurtures; a soulhome full of love passion, mindful hearts, quientessentialy enhancing a compassionate empowering peaceful patient presence. Or mere things do not change, we do. Observe pendulum perceive pit. Forhere awakenaware for now reason & argument forsome, their edge, that is it. Pure calm empowering passion consciousness preferring peaceislove for some that is it. Please a privilege for others for police a right of MEIOSIS. A greater fate is faced with an attitude of forherenow passion. Like fights for wit rights must be felt by allowing an intimate interconnectivity of resonating conscious~hearts. Mindful heartbased interactivity compassion with action. Cards dealt one plays around what is being felt. Done sleeping? End beginnings to start endings...what? Energy...awakening is a passionate art. A heartbeat a part to re late one may appreciate wit meiosis?
Dec 2, 2014
Dec 2, 2014 at 11:21 PM UTC
An online Poetry Site is like taking a Lover.
At first everything is new and exciting,
Our juices are flowing.
Our heart beats a little faster,
Endorphins abounding.
We romance and court her,
Our best foot forward,
Play to our strengths,
Beat on our chests,
Try to avoid foolish mistakes.
We get drawn in,
Dazzled by the allure of her attention.
We become intimate,
Embrace her charms,
Confide our inner most Secrets,
Whisper unashamedly our Fears.
But she can be fickle, change her mind,
Love us one minute, ignore us the next.
We invite her to judge us,
Then we resent the results.
We fight and withdraw, vowing to quite,
Then find that we are caught in the web,
And can’t follow through.
She commands far too much of our time,
We can even become obsessed, knowing
That we should back off, if only we could.
We begin to resent the time we spend with her,
And yet cannot get through a day without checking in.
In spite of our protests, when gone, we miss her.
So we nearly abandon old friends and family,
Preferring her company instead.
Lose needed sleep to stay up past three,
Just to hold her hand.
Hanging as we do,
On her every word.
Forget to mow the lawn,
Or wash the dishes.
Enthralled and distracted.
Neglect to shower,
Remain all day in Pajamas.
It’s a romance of words on a screen,
Not a living, breathing thing,
But even with this knowledge,
We can’t let her go.
Can’t leave it alone.
I know, because I have tried and failed.
And here I still remain,
Caught like an animal in a trap.
Or is it, a fat happy bird in a gilded cage?
Who would not know where else to go,
Even if the door were left open.
I am conflicted to say the least.
No doubt my need for self-expression,
Is stronger than my need for cessation.
We love what we do,
And do what we love
And **** the consequences.
The good part is, as far as I know,
No one ever got a social disease,
From Words on a computer screen.
Nov 7, 2013
Nov 7, 2013 at 3:03 PM UTC
(AP) Chicago vicinity hit hard yesterday by fierce bracing winds approximating unmanned chainsaws violently cutting across streets sidewalks heavy lakefront blizzard icy snow resembling slivers of broken glass slashing stinging skin news alert of return of dreaded snow worms attacking women and children technically known as Kinorhynchan Oligochaetes Nemertines these deadly transparent parasitic creatures slither slightly ticklish creep inside boots preferring hairless legs of children slimy vipers dig between toes devouring traces of toe jam then gnawing toenails until they reach foot bed where they fester in bitter dark brown green milky juices crippling little boys and girls in shaven women the elongated legless carnivorous ice worms disguised as mere icicle drippings climb up calf knee thigh ****** ****** ovaries feasting on female eggs their favorite food many northern women choose not to shave during winter season so as not to fall victim to the snow worms
Feb 2, 2011
Feb 2, 2011 at 9:16 AM UTC
She never spoke of sanity
Normal never lost her lips
She thought not much of clarity
Preferring to speak with hips.
She never thought to tell me
How memory was in her hair
It curled and fell like weeping willows
But never felt so fair.
She never wanted to explain
How her footprints left the ground
How she walked the clouds and drank the rain
Why she still looked at me when the sun was with her.
Though she left quietly I still recall
She told me why in her hands
She held me like she was about to fall
And fall she did to lower lands.
Jan 21, 2015
Jan 21, 2015 at 9:25 AM UTC
With my pen, I carve out the borders of consciousness.
From the emptiness and out of the darkness, I draw her figure.
As complicated and convoluted as it is.
It is the fruit of my pen, for it spits out magic.
It writes with light not ink.
And as it races across the pages, thoughts come to life and jump off the pages.
Crossing over, like sages.
They climb out of my book and stand over my shoulder.
By the will of my pen, they eternally abide.
My pen is the life giver, But my mind is the shepherd.
My pen is a creator of worlds.
Its light reaches deep into oblivion's belly, and snatches the desperate thoughts from it.
Those left behind can only hope, dream of the day my pen will come for them.
Their turn to shine.
Set free to walk the roads of the world as they please.
All they can ever do is hope.
Absurd! How can hope possibly sustain them ?
When hope itself is but another thought.
Could it possibly be ?
Can hope stand on its own and nourish its peers in the depths of oblivion' where no mind dares to venture ?
Yes, it can.
As absurd and cliche as it may seem. In the pitch black of oblivion, hope stands tall.
It shines in the darkness.
Guiding the lost ones.
It is the beacon to which my pen navigates.
Snatching the enlightened ones from its vicinity.
Only the enlightened ones will be saved.
For the world has no use for the thoughts that still wallow in self pity
It has no use for those still drenched in darkness.
Those who refuse to answer hope's calling, preferring the familiarity of darkness to the absurdity of hope.
While those who do answer the calling chant and sing as they move towards hope's beacon.
" Hope, Hope is our savior
Its calling we answer
It bidding we serve
To its guidance we swerve
To its will we give in.
Give in to the warmth
Give in to the innocence."
As if to answer their chanting, the reluctant ones' voices rise.
"Hope is a false promise
Unfounded optimism
Hope will get you nowhere.
It won't take you anywhere
And on your naivety it will feed.
Its will you obey and its guidance you follow
To your demise it will lead.
It is but a false prophet
It is the devil."
Fully aware of the reluctant ones' message, the hopeful still insist on marching on towards the light.
In their optimism they reply.
"Yes, hope is the devil
It is the devil inside
A devil that aches to come out
Aches for freedom
Yet you refuse to set it free.
Instead you smothered it.
Buried it deep within
Drowned it in the darkness within.
In your arrogance you thought you could win
In your ignorance you thought you could contain hope.
Time will prove you wrong.
Oblivion herself has embraced hope.
Who are you to deny it ?"
True, Hope needs no acknowledgment.
Hope lasts forever, against all odds it flourishes.
Its power lies in its fragility, in its scarcity.
Hope is what beckons to my mind.
My mind is what guides my pen and my pen is your savior.
Jun 30, 2010
Jun 30, 2010 at 10:23 AM UTC
Allowing my heart to plummet into iridescent spiraling tides Dipping my thoughts into iridescent spiraling tides
Trailed my fingers through the cold waters of the mind
Releasing thoughts from the subconscious purposely hidden
That by self-command were long forbidden
Reviving emotions once deliberately struck from thought
The body a pale failing vessel
The faint beat of a frail heart
In my, despair I leaped into the waters of time
Disappearing into gathering memories
Chose not to rise
Preferring a surreal obscure existence
Immersed in rivers of doubt
At loves insistence
All Rights Reserved @ Tammy M. Darby Dec. 25, 2016
Dec 25, 2016
Dec 25, 2016 at 10:05 AM UTC
I love
Empty rooms
Because empty rooms mean no locked doors
They mean no hidden screaming matches
No unquenchable tears, from those you never thought would cry
They mean no sister doing stupid things
Or stupid people
That will only hurt her later
No sister you wish you could protect, like she’s protected you
No sister you wish you could save from heart break
Or impart to all the wisdom she’s taught you
They mean no sister who will spew the venomous words
That hurt more than any blow
They mean no whispered voices
Validating all of your biggest insecurities
No hushed secrets denied to you
No closed doors, locked or otherwise
Or even slightly ajar doors—that are really closed to you
Even a door closed on an empty room is an open one
Empty rooms mean space
They are a place to breathe when everywhere else suffocates you
They are a place to run to when staying hurts
Empty rooms are a solace you weren’t sure you’d ever find
A break from cold reality
And a pause from the crushing weight of the world that constantly pounds against you
Empty rooms don’t make you cry
Or think of what it would be like to finally die
Empty rooms are peace unlike anywhere else
Yet empty rooms leave a bitter after taste of longing
Because for all of the gloriousness of blessed empty rooms
They are still lacking and they leave you hollow as ever
With no one to fill the void
Still I love empty rooms
Because hollowness doesn’t stab through your heart with sharp fiery pain
Preferring to remain a subtle manageable ache
Apr 15, 2012
Apr 15, 2012 at 6:24 PM UTC
I. LONELINESS
Her Word
One ought not to have to care
So much as you and I
Care when the birds come round the house
To seem to say good-bye;
Or care so much when they come back
With whatever it is they sing;
The truth being we are as much
Too glad for the one thing
As we are too sad for the other here—
With birds that fill their *******
But with each other and themselves
And their built or driven nests.
II. HOUSE FEAR
Always—I tell you this they learned—
Always at night when they returned
To the lonely house from far away
To lamps unlighted and fire gone gray,
They learned to rattle the lock and key
To give whatever might chance to be
Warning and time to be off in flight:
And preferring the out- to the in-door night,
They. learned to leave the house-door wide
Until they had lit the lamp inside.
III. THE SMILE
Her Word
I didn’t like the way he went away.
That smile! It never came of being gay.
Still he smiled—did you see him?—I was sure!
Perhaps because we gave him only bread
And the wretch knew from that that we were poor.
Perhaps because he let us give instead
Of seizing from us as he might have seized.
Perhaps he mocked at us for being wed,
Or being very young (and he was pleased
To have a vision of us old and dead).
I wonder how far down the road he’s got.
He’s watching from the woods as like as not.
IV. THE OFT-REPEATED DREAM
She had no saying dark enough
For the dark pine that kept
Forever trying the window-latch
Of the room where they slept.
The tireless but ineffectual hands
That with every futile pass
Made the great tree seem as a little bird
Before the mystery of glass!
It never had been inside the room,
And only one of the two
Was afraid in an oft-repeated dream
Of what the tree might do.
V. THE IMPULSE
It was too lonely for her there,
And too wild,
And since there were but two of them,
And no child,
And work was little in the house,
She was free,
And followed where he furrowed field,
Or felled tree.
She rested on a log and tossed
The fresh chips,
With a song only to herself
On her lips.
And once she went to break a bough
Of black alder.
She strayed so far she scarcely heard.
When he called her—
And didn’t answer— didn’t speak—
Or return.
She stood, and then she ran and hid
In the fern.
He never found her, though he looked
Everywhere,
And he asked at her mother’s house
Was she there.
Sudden and swift and light as that
The ties gave,
And he learned of finalities
Besides the grave.
1.8k
Strange. The beginning of this city
is the same;
the personality
of your smell
is my flat
it grows out
across my sheets
back in
and i pay
with the few minutes i’ll need to
when I’m late
later
the sun likes my blinds
and your sleeping back
as i wake
easier
for work
looking up, I blink
and count the scabs I see in the sky
and the shouts from annoyed cabbies
and the cuts in my chin
from shaving
smile,
they leak open
and drip down
into the basin
each one pulls down the time
i’m late
but dress casually
all the same
it’s worth while
this
disorder
this
mixing
as I choose
as I fold my tie
watching you sleep
as i dress
and experience
a new laughing
a.m.
making my work day
an agile song
just,
a man
smiling at a streets raven
through a kitchen window
making breakfast
fixed
with
linking steps
that were loose
as we danced home
last night
i learn to do such things
at my desk
preferring to think
of our feet
twelve hours before
yours – in those shoes i love
mine – clumsy
up the stairs
screaming about something i cannit
remember
back to
flat number seven
seven ***** machine guns
seven
taps
on 'enter' now
sending this email
making me laugh
the peach lifts up through the city
and the power
to tell one person
that i’ll see you soon
is more
than enough gas
to find my keys
just enough
to crawl up my blocks stairs
and relax on my back with you
welcoming
disorder
forgetting my boss
watching
the rest of the morning rise up
from the landscape
whilst you sleep in
i laugh under my breathe
keeping it to myself
letting the rest of the day
rise up
beginning
itself.
Jan 22, 2013
Jan 22, 2013 at 3:51 AM UTC
Just a young sapling
With an unhindered view,
It chose its position
And then grew where it grew.
Just a singular tree,
Not in a forest, copse or wood,
Preferring its own company,
It stood where it stood.
A tree in its infancy
Coping with life’s highs and lows,
It takes on all challenges
And it grows where it grows.
Standing resolutely alone,
An independent tree,
This somehow reminds,
Reminds me of me.
Jul 4, 2021
Jul 4, 2021 at 1:49 AM UTC