"preservative" poems
uttering that tenor growl
that only we salamanders know,
I will stir from my salamander bed,
slide from its clinging preservative oil
into the eerie orange of tonight’s hellish glow.
Then we will meet at the shore
of the black stagnant puddle our home,
like a monstrous bootprint
stamped in the mud of our forest.
We’ll slink towards the woods,
slowly gyrating our limbs over leaves twigs sticks
roots and stones five times our size;
a struggle to heave ourselves before
the looming, glowing trees.
At last the heat of the ash trees,
the entire forest swirls in flames,
crackling at our feet,
engorged by the unbothered blaze.
We’ll wait a pensive moment, then take
our first few steps into the burn.
Feb 5, 2010
Feb 5, 2010 at 8:28 PM UTC
the overcast window haze casts shadows over farmlands at distance, past ferns and cottage solemnities out on plains cold and alive; meanwhile, concrete and preservative-laden once-trees cage in the zoo-horde of humanity this lovely city is built upon, through the steep divides between the walls of foreign strangers, still neighbours, calling telephone lines to the lover that makes their heart shrink in the cool sheets at a distance of eight thousand leagues under kitchen sink designs where drips escape onto a blue-grey dishtowel, strategically placed to avoid having to address the issue over farmland holidays when stormclouds gather and sleep 'til the grand show, back over the alps, as the fallabout planes drift under blue over grey with distorted fantasies sandwiched three abreast internally, whispering "you'll be here, I'll be here, seventeen minutes" as the black gown of evening bids its farewells to the long-worn ball of flame we call upon for life's little affirmations, the skin and bone we call home, the constructed caves we wish we didn't, and, letting frost's call begin, the last of the seasons hauls its bulky frame over the horizon and clusters on the fingertips of tree limbs, coercing: "let go, it's late, it's so very late" and so the sidewalks choke with debris under the wearing off of summer feet, and the declination of that peach-pit feeling of sanguinity as the blankets pile up and the distance consumes once again, long after delusion gave up the chase; we all want to be left alone and want someone to pursue us at the same time, we all dream of the grandeur of timeless monuments: the desert road, the glint of illuminated heavens, the mist's rise and fall, the electricity in her eyes.
Mar 12, 2013
Mar 12, 2013 at 5:22 PM UTC
soft-bodied succulents
dutifully separating the perennials
organization crisis, preservative induced
chemically altered worldview
shaped largely by food reconstructed
and the public’s inability to unite against imperialism –
daily newscasts give rise to propaganda
water-cooler hype fest
breaking information
leading with bleeding
enveloping the country in irrational fear
unsafe, even with children
constant threat from every direction
insanity has become the home
of Ward and June Cleaver –
glowing exhaust pipe
as all roads lead back
beginnings resemble endings
all things circular
revolving Revolutionary revolted
remembers regurgitating rancid raspberries
aluminum spray from the sky
coated pesticide residue from below
only the hate left is organic
and pure –
immeasurable, time slides away
plastic incorporated into new organisms
freshly evolved bacteria eat the remains
of humanity and its greatness
traceless epoch forever eroded
undiscovered pockets of micro cilium
dine on the fat reserves
stored in the soil
like oil –
returning gods survey creation version Earth
emotionless and stationary
the process is repeated
as it has been for billions of years
single manipulation
recoding the genetic structure
life begins this journey
one more time –
Jul 1, 2014
Jul 1, 2014 at 12:43 PM UTC
I started dreaming in black and white.
you never seemed to
belong in this
technicolour drenched era,
an age of blood
carnations and sapphire Bomb Pops.
***** yellow cardboard boxes in
fluorescent refrigerated cases:
there are goosebumps on my arms and you
hated grocery shopping; I made the lists
and I made the buys; you made the
money, you made love.
we bought a Cezanne print for the
great room; it hangs above the frozen
hearth, grey sunlight filtered through
the cellulose blinds. there is a too tall
glass of scotch on the coffee table beside
a too empty scotch bottle and a too full
bottle of benzodiapenes: I haven't been
self-preservative, and you've been
self-prescribing.
we weren't cut out for this era,
an age of cum-coated lips and
onyx Benzes; we would've been better
in black and white, where our
color-saturated demons couldn't come, where our gem-studded cancers couldn't
eat us alive.
Sep 16, 2014
Sep 16, 2014 at 6:53 PM UTC
Can't cuss on the bus we must trust in Jesus to get us through without a single bruise used as a tool to fuel the fire Lord take us higher cause we are on fire never to retire or expire Your our preservative our lives we give on this trip we flip the script to show that we're hip to the games but don't feel any shame in this game of fame because we have no names we are just representers presenters of the good news a few dudes on a mission of submission to listen to what to speak and hope that nothing else leaks out of the spout of our mouth give us now our daily bread fill our heads hearts and souls I know You'll show Your face in this place that we're going thisflowing You're bestowing is growing on me and one day I'll see a little tiny pieace of a feast called glory! ^-^
Dec 6, 2014
Dec 6, 2014 at 9:57 PM UTC
****** is so subtle in english society
that you almost seem to enjoy it
as if a comeback, but instead
what you should be expecting
is finding Las Vegas in a can of sardines;
those G.I.s were really thirsty on **** juice,
at war they used to drink the preservative oils
keeping the sardines hardly handy, thinking
of their girlfriends... mm meow moo oo.
spoke the tongue for 22 years and they still
think i have a Romanian accent...
lucky ************* i too thought i was sending
the Brits back to the concentration camps
of construction sites... no wait... there's
an office argument: we need new toasters among
other digital applications to push the button...
send in the chemical brothers... and a few Jamaican monkeys
should you have forgotten your riff of:
oom sah la la... sa la la see'h mambo'h;
hey, keep the bald eagle handy on your shoulder,
you never know when it might become a skin eagle.
May 27, 2016
May 27, 2016 at 9:39 PM UTC
As the light slowly etches away the night,
The colours slowly pop up, bold and bright.
They glisten as they finally reach out to their life source,
And suddenly life's denied of any remorse.
The gods have frilled their favorite planet for the grand opening of the year,
A cosmic intervention, a dimension of no fear.
And the trees rejoice, as they humbly accept the gift heavens bring.
And the trees rejoice, as it is the time of the venutian spring.
The planet begins to scorch as the mighty sun brings forth his might,
A new world is put in order, the day shines with the brightest light.
And the nights are shorter, who would want to sleep?
The season is young, brimming, tender and ready to reap.
The aura blankets the lonely planet, a radiance of sheer power,
Automating anything and everything that makes worlds what they are.
And the children rejoice, as they live their childhood like no one shall ever.
And the children rejoice, as it is the time of the mercurial summer.
The third quarter commences, the sun slowly begins to shy away,
The lethargy sets in, the rustling of the leaves fills the empty voids of the day.
What hath this sound done to the mighty Helios, for him to curtail his blazing steeds?
Winds humming, forcing the flame to succumb to their needs.
Orange and gold strewn on the open land, opens the gateway to a world azure.
Dusk dominates this time of the year.
And the winds rejoice, as they blow coupled with the soft rustling percussion.
And the winds rejoice, as it is the time of the erisian autumn.
The year opens to its close, a cloud shedding white precipitate,
has opened itself to the world in which people relate.
A blanket of frost covers all, a preservative by all means.
Few think of this as a time of redeem.
A solitary tree stands, below it, the dead memories of the yester seasons.
The night overpowers the day, rest need not need reason.
And the world rejoices, as it braces itself for the forthcoming year.
And the world rejoices, as it is the time of the martian winter.
Jun 5, 2014
Jun 5, 2014 at 4:01 AM UTC
Defining love
has been at the heart
of
everything I have ever done.
Defining love asks
when
I look deep into your eyes
see you deep inside
strengths and flaws
moments of harmony
moments of discord
moments of acceptance
moments of rejection
Defining love asks for more
Defining love
takes into account
we all have our hours
of
wild eyed insanity
No escape from that.
The question is asked
"irritating and annoying?"
or
are those wild eyes devastating
and hurting every time
defining love demands
stay or go.
Defining love
creates the thought
generates the emotion
brings the consequence
the story
we tell ourselves.
Defining love sometimes sends us to
**** ****** afternoons
exhausted and relaxed
defining love moves to closeness
to
these exquisite moments of release.
Defining love plays up guilt
for everything
that could of
should of
been.
Defining love thinks that educating
is the way to be
slamming knowledge
in
rants and diatribes
"just what
my daddy
did
to me"
Defining love
will make you tough
by
being tough
and selling false expectations.
We all know what comes from this
my endless supply of mental patients.
Defining love doesn't give up
it has been said
******
defining love and feeling it
are all tied up
defining love loves to be defined.
Defining love loves to dance
head off into
a moving with the music
trance
defining love wants to be defined
using no words
defining love aches for romance.
Defining love takes only prisoners
places hearts in solitary confinement
hopefully not condemned to others
or
alone again.
Defining love sometimes laughs
sometimes it comes
in a gasp.
The perfect
orchid
rose
lily
defining love is natural
no artificial ingredients
the only preservative
is
called life.
Defining love finally settles down
and comes around for acceptance
tenderness
a
child that sleeps in pure innocence
what really matters
is
the innocence
within us
all.
May 17, 2014
May 17, 2014 at 1:13 AM UTC
...whence? I know, I know, you've the florist's packet of preservative mixt for your cut flowrs don't you? Good luck.
(sonnet #MMMMMMMDCCCXXV)
Lo, tulip capes so thickly clustered they'll
Ne'er blossom, like sardines is it from hence?
Wait greenly by the back stoop for a sense
Of April in the wings. And jonquils' hale
Green tendrils wait likewise for that detail
I guess, as maids whose innocent suspense
We fail to notice, full of vain pretense'
Auld lies as if such might at last avail.
Girls have been known as flowrs, since oh, in tour
God's Scriptures told us that, I spose. Aye, do
Men ink laments of this or that as twere
It's thus: "...her virgins, pure, deflowrd--" they knew.
These latter days we are taught lies, (in poor
'Scuse know by instinct) and cut flowrs down too.
29Mar19a
Mar 31, 2019
Mar 31, 2019 at 3:54 PM UTC
I will look with unglazed eyes
onto this nebulous existence
and I won’t hesitate to cut it
with a knife, unsympathetic to those
who would hinder or impede me.
They are not my life, I am my life.
I cannot imagine not turning over
every last effulgent piece of
this Earth, and so I will
not leave one drink undrunk,
one feeling unfelt, one sigh
unsighed. I will take what this world has
by force; I am here but once, so do not
stop me, block me, weather me in,
it will fail. I am an intransigent
being, uncompromising in my need,
unforgiving in my ways, strident in
my demands. Like a preservative,
feral mother I won’t let the one
I love become victim to famishment,
and I am my child today.
Feb 2, 2013
Feb 2, 2013 at 4:42 PM UTC
(20 minute poetry)
Preservative
to give to me
longevity.
Her lingerie to
give to me
Ideas.
Colouring
to give a tone to
this shop of horror
skin on bone.
Additive addictive
included in each pack,
the knack is not being
stuck with
a stiletto in your back.
But that was then in sixty two
before I knew
the damage they
could do.
Now I'm old before my time
each day becomes my drug,
my
preservative is now prescribed, where longevity was once understood it now may be denied.
My DNA wants to disqualify monosodium glutamate, but
I really like a steak and kidney pie,
the DNA will have to wait.
Jan 12, 2016
Jan 12, 2016 at 7:53 PM UTC
Find me in the far East with a bow in hand and a tree at my feet and a deer fleeing to the sunrise. I hope to find a way to escape the sun before it overtakes me. The deer seeks light. I seek nonbeing. The tree has been destroyed. The North still governs where I set my feet.
Find me upon layers of ice with an ax in hand and a mammoth at my feet, buried under a million years. I cut through a thousand and then a hundred thousand and then I’m there and my ax is cutting into ancient, frozen blood and my own is flowing and I am dying a million years ago. Snow begins to fall. The million years ago meets the now and I have an adequate grave.
Find me in a casket six feet underground with a rope around my throat in case I escape again. It’s happened twice. This time, when I wake, the rope will secure me and I will not be able to dig myself out. This is good. This is what my family wants. It makes things easier. It’s good.
Find me awake in my casket, hands ****** and lips bloodier. I kiss the silk lining of my coffin and the rope cuts off my breath and my claws cut through the rope and I push forward and wet soil falls into me. It is raining. I escape the graveyard in my white and red and brown suit and I hide in a trash bin before they can find me and **** me and bury me again. This is the eleventh time I’ve escaped. It is the last. My veins are filled with preservative and it is colder and drier but I am alive and that’s all that matters. The sun comes soon. I’m not ready for it.
Find me on desert sands with a rope in hand and a horse nearby, thirsting for the river a mile off. I am mesmerized by an image before me. It shows an island. My mind tells me that the island is where I want to be, so I mount the starving horse and make my way to the island. I am clad in a white and red suit and the horse pales and they call me Death. They call me Death because I scare their children at night and I seek the island that harbors my dreams. I don’t know that the grains of sand beneath the hooves of my horse are lives.
Find me on that island and know that this is my destiny.
Feb 21, 2015
Feb 21, 2015 at 2:43 AM UTC
Honey in its natural state is a preservative.
I walk into the room and I see
A honey-filled jar that sits upon a shelf, bathed in spring sunlight.
A deep golden-hued shadow cast across the room
Washing over me as I approach and
I kneel and press my palms into the cold tiled floor and
I begin to pray.
“Did you know they placed your relic upon a baker’s rack
In a kitchen just small enough to house its appliances?
They ask you to bless things that you don’t have domain over.
Little do they know that I pray to you
To become too present in my own body--
Blood rushing is something loud when you’re attuned to it--
A love letter to life and the drainage of it
And the discomfort of realizing my tongue is too big for my mouth
Praise feels like the haloed light in this room:
The smell of a cream sauce seasoned to perfection
Offerings of homemade food and drink,
Dried sunflowers,
The last bit of ink in a well-used pen with the end chewed on,
Notebooks and sketchbooks filled to the brim with coded doodles whispering ****** secrets in tongues familiar only to you, and
Annotated horror books upon the shelf
I remember the day I found your body.
I remember draining your blood into a bucket.
I remember removing your head from your neck.
With a handsaw I found in my grandfather’s shed.
He still doesn’t know it’s missing.
I bought honey from the woman who sells it
Out of her home down the street from the elementary school
And I poured it into the largest jar I could find.
I carefully pushed your hair to be perfectly curled in the way that you liked it
And your eyes are closed, I made sure of that
Because when they stared back at me,
I stared back for as long as I could trying to find some meaning in it all.
And now the light catches the bubbles
Still slowly floating up from the largest sunflower I could find
A bed for which I rested your chin upon
Before delicately pouring in the honey on that day.
I kissed your forehead before adding the last jar.
Have you ever stared down at the ground and wondered
If someone--
Anyone--
Could hear the pleas crying for help and forgiveness?
I pray now for forgiveness, sweet saint.
I pray now for forgiveness for stealing a kiss and
Placing you here and
Pressing my hands to the last thing you have on this earth.
Forgive me.”
Jul 30, 2019
Jul 30, 2019 at 8:56 PM UTC
A series of flashing lights simulate a reality that no longer extends farther than the boundary of your back door.
You sit complacently in your living room while the world outside your window turns to ash and the re-constituted chemical pastes you eat as food slowly transform your body from flesh to a synthetic meat by-product.
I am more preservative than man
Your perpetuated existence is a lie. Maybe once the plugs pulled those incessantly firing neurons will catch up to what's already done and stop. You've been decomposing for years but haven't lived enough to ******* notice.
That's it folks,
the show's over.
May 6, 2015
May 6, 2015 at 10:29 PM UTC
Like this,
You're any way I want you
Wrapped up safe and sure
Inside my head.
Pull the string,
I unwrap you with
Closed eyes
Play with the gift I was never given.
My mind
Is the ultimate preservative
Where time touches nothing.
Aug 7, 2017
Aug 7, 2017 at 9:25 AM UTC
Ultimate fear only stops one from truly succeeding. It does not always work to be preservative and not explore. It does not always work to sit back and watch while others partake in the extravagant event that is life itself. It only takes courage to be able to stand up and act according to what your heart tells you. To what you truly feel is right deep down to the core of your soul. It never is easy to stand up and go against the norm black and white of life. Would it not be wise to simply be your own person and not wait for the world to catch up? Would it not be wise to be the one that sets fresh footprints in another direction, one that has never been taken before, or would it not be wise to the one who is not led by anyone or the one who does not lead but simply, one who stands alone because the belief of what is right is greater than that of being wrong but in numbers.
Jun 12, 2014
Jun 12, 2014 at 8:55 AM UTC
Ye are the salt of the earth; . . . (Matthew 5:13)
Preservative or pickler in the brine,
To render flora, fauna for our good,
Or season, that the flavor ever should
Appeal to palate, coarsest fare refine.
That drawing, drying halite from the mine,
Which whitens pasture, threatens livelihood,
Keeps calling out for only That which could
Begin to slake, assuage its arid shine.
And what but Water satiates our thirst?
The salty food that makes us crave the cup,
That bone-dry want for quenching from Above
Just proves the pow’r that salt had from the first
To drive us toward the Life that fills us up--
And plunge our thirsty souls into His Love.
. . . but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him
shall never thirst;
but the water that I shall give him
shall be in him a well of water
springing up into
everlasting life. (John 4:14)
Feb 17, 2017
Feb 17, 2017 at 1:42 PM UTC
enough it seems
is two eggs
and lightly buttered
toast-
coffee..some
preservative..
yet,with-out love
we can not live..
Jul 1, 2023
Jul 1, 2023 at 4:25 AM UTC
giggleticklebellylaughfeathersmarshmallowbrownsugargrassicecold waterontoeslustrousairbreathinghugsgolden huesoldtreesdamaskpuresilk&Shakespeare
poetry
.......
Aug 10, 2019
Aug 10, 2019 at 6:43 AM UTC
I want a shrine for my remains
A hole full of dirt & creepy crawling things
No preservative fluids pumped in my veins
Just bury me in silk & my favorite rings
I will not pray to extend my existence
I will not be received by the omnipresence
I am undisturbed in my terra firma pocket
with fungus sprouting from my eye sockets
Mar 26, 2021
Mar 26, 2021 at 2:36 PM UTC
We trudge barn-bound,
To find appalling sites
Of vagrant shrouds.
Soon though we stumble,
Among vain citadels
of stubborn intent;
Self-confined to Hells
Of preservative pride
And tribal tutelage.
All wishing to hide
In plain sight from those
Who threaten impingement
On such hallowed ground.
Suspicion grows.
Just right of us, we are unable
To unsee the scene which unfolds
As monster unveilled,
Appearing no more or less
Unfeeling or inhumane
As you or I, turns and
Refuses to entertain
Even such a concept as to
Engage and conform.
We though know our duty through.
Years of prodded incentives
And dictated routine. Captive
We stand and welcome the bolt,
Simply hoping its passage is clean.
Jun 4, 2018
Jun 4, 2018 at 4:13 PM UTC
Healing from pain
Is easy
The hard
Not measuring others by this
Allowing each new person to bloom
In there season in your life
Only by complete forgiveness time and forgetfullness
Can this happen?
How to get there?
How to heal a lifelong insecurity and abuse
Yes they used me and then discarded
Yes they lied and betrayad me
Yes they healed but abandoned me
Yes they devalued me to fit in there box
Yes i was left to not return
This person is totally not them
I need to stop comparing him to them
Change my deep ingrained selfdestructive
Yet self preservative thinking
My only hope
The voice wispers but what if your feelings are wrong
Jul 7, 2017
Jul 7, 2017 at 12:32 PM UTC
Jesus was a Liberal,
He partied with the rabble,
He’d a brazen disregard for the law,
So said the Pharisees...
They thought him full of heresies;
He was stuck firmly in their craw…
They thought him radical and tragic
But didn't know the DEEPER magic,
"Let's trap this friggin' upstart", said they
His father, a staunch conservative,
Set down some rules, preservative
Of people that he chose back in the day.
*Then there’s the Holy Spirit, or "Hoppy" as he likes to be called,
He’s harder to pin-down politically… and he has no time for tarrying,
On social issues, he's had no comment, or none has yet been scrawled,
But rumor has it he's backing the Libertarian*
Nov 8, 2017
Nov 8, 2017 at 9:50 AM UTC
(Me slippery fingers slither,
slip and slide splashing ala
Jackson ******* sans slap
dash experimental, swiftly
tailored and harried writing
style, yes on par with purging,
spewing, venting...unexpurgated,
unexpressed, unexplained...
words, which this Engelbert
Humperdinck singer/songwriter,
(whose name inexplicably popped
into the mind of this Dadaist)
offers "FAKE" apology for any
self inflicted, or sadomasochistic
flagellated cranial contusions
out of utter futility to make sense
regarding following gobbledygook!
GOOD LUCK!
Mine groovy palmar flexion creases
forever moistened by porous size
**** leaking levees provoking deluge
outranking Biblical flood - handy history
(in miniature) replete with Ark keel
logical artifacts discovered by hall n
oats marked wainwright - about 10 stone and
5 pound huckster, circa Fin de siècle,
when callous ten hooks (calisthenics,
eh) caught without Noah shadow of a
doubt proof positive by Matthew Scott,
(amat sure his surname) linkedin to storied
testament rivalling epic of Gilgamesh,
nee the entire spoilers alerts since
dawn of civilization writ small impossible
mission to decipher indelibly etched,
(what appear as Egyptian hieroglyphics),
methinks his perspiration contains
preservative agent, (a natural formaldehyde
like substance) generated nsync to maintain
eternal youthfulness, which stumps
medical community, and earned him
hashtagged "hotmail" (eagerly sought
after human commodity), a blessing
and curse palms plagued with chronic
wetness, yet lines (little flushed streams
of consciousness) rowed by itty bitty
teensy weensy merry daydreamers harkens
back when life held faint promise for
scattered (contra) bands of bipedal
hominids fiercely competing with trumpeting
(Taj Mahal sized) beasts (donned tousled
windswept hirsute trademark) Euclid
heir'm barreling along barren steppes
all around the one straggly mulberry bush,
where one pensive monkey (protohuman)
chased the weasel all around the world wide web.
Feb 13, 2019
Feb 13, 2019 at 4:02 PM UTC