"punctuating" poems
What lies beyond this wall?
What lays on the other side?
What's at the end should I take the fall?
Where's the destination punctuating this ride?
Will there be a bed of green as my cushion?
Will there be a ceiling of azure comforting my eyes?
Will fingers of the sun soothe my delusions?
Will the drops from the sky quell my cries?
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Will my back be received by hardened soil?
Will the angry earth be crusty and cracked?
Will my lungs taste the heated air of turmoil?
Will my posture still be bent by the weight I packed?
What lies for us beyond this wall?
What would happen when we pick a side?
Would we survive if fate controls this fall?
Will we be hand in hand or hands apart by the end of this ride?
Oct 26, 2014
Oct 26, 2014 at 10:22 AM UTC
Coastline, rocky, rugged, proud,
Crumbling cliffs in ozone shroud,
Sun-kissed drifts of desert sand,
Golden frame of a sea cradled land.
Fishing village, atmospheric hub,
Brass band playing, outside quaint old pub,
Boats, all sizes, rest near harbour wall,
Wading birds sift through tide-filled pool.
Foliage explosion of a Cornish hedge,
Country lanes snake, and young birds fledge,
Ruminants, punctuating, quilted hill,
Buzzards soar and wise hares are still.
Tin mine engine house, towering stack,
Roof caved in, gorse and bracken’s back,
White clay peak, geometrical and sleek,
Earth’s riches gouged, canyon deep.
Moor-land, open, untamed, granite strewn,
Wild ponies dance to a skylark’s tune,
Tor and beacon, barrow and mound,
You’re in God’s own country, when you walk this ground.
Jun 10, 2017
Jun 10, 2017 at 5:05 AM UTC
forgiveness for self is a thunderstorm ferocious,
cracking sounds so god awful fearful
that one questions his-her sanity,
an overage so unnatural that
only nature could create it
it is a moment momentousness
when the exhalation of exhaustion,
the winner and loser, both you,
surrender ne’er knowing
which you is which,
life’s son of ***** or just a plain jane mothering version,
either way you say to yourself got to
get past that lousy stinking
love affair
win the race to clean slate,
where the end is insight where everything replaced
in its used to be placed
goaded into melted nothingness,
goaded into believing that’s a real thing,
that when you finally get there,
enough is enough,
get out of jail ticket will work,
but it ain’t never free,
even if you paid for it in
what you call
throwing bad after good,
monopoly money,
nope, ain’t never free
no idea what to put in the second empty closet,
who needs an attached to-the-wall-tile
toothbrush holder with one extra emptying space,
where to hide picture albums in a space
outta sight, outta mind, you still can find
why you didn’t care enough to
daily mat-wipe street shoes before
riveted in place
before entering your own! apartment and no,
you are consciously unconscious immobilized by
the missing calling out of her “don’t forget”
in the car’s ashtray,
a red kissed blotted red lipstick
tissue that needs discard-action,
but you incapable of either,
those collected records and cd’s,
her teasing your old fashion ways,
reluctance to let go
so you read
“that to forgive one self doesn’t forgive forgetting”
and it hits home, home run, score to the core,
since you wrote those words on a sun rain afternoon,
a punctuating thunderstorm day
refusing to decide
which
haunts worse
<>
Jun 30, 2019
Jun 30, 2019 at 5:04 PM UTC
My hands are trembling more than usual,
so I have altered my coffee to a camomile tea.
I administer everything as if it were medicine;
a chemist punctuating his day with
guilty cigarettes and vague homoeopathy.
*It's all ******** I know-
but whatever gets you through the day...*
In the season of advent, my fingers are bitten
down to the quick; throat seared with
half-functioning lighters and fragile matches;
I can scarcely operate either in this state.
The fairy-lights turn the high-street to a runway.
*But all I see are charity shops
interceded with bookies and coffee houses.*
This home-town exists to keep up my interest
in finding some purpose. A path to eventual escape
from all of these old bonds and ties,
pinning me down with memories of ***
and all of the street-names I have learned by rote.
*I'm treading water here-
living in the comfort of a sink-hole.*
Dec 8, 2014
Dec 8, 2014 at 1:41 PM UTC
humans born a mess,
messengers carrying blank notepads, sheet music,
brought from within to the without
a baby-sized handful of historical residues retained,
garnered from all too brief a prelim existence,
arriving possessing hints of what may be
most emerging crying,
crying over loss of the womb security,
for seers all, all see unaccountable futures clouded
by an inevitable chance of rain
and death
all of us, no one excepted,
covered for months in **** stained fluids ,
a holy, ***** combination
of amniotic nourishment,
and our own waste
a hint of what is to come?
human then spends the rest of life
cleaning up after himself,
mostly with tasks of addition,
punctuating by the occasional cleansing of
elimination subtraction
making room for the next love,
labored birthing of a baby poem,
from your womb, midwifed,
haunting ghosts of three note tunes,
begging for a set of lyrics and a
great chorus everybody can sing,
a completion competition
going along, all along, to the goings on,
all our routes preternatural crooked,
lived a life of pretense, a straightened out life,
which is the nuanced, connected summary of our components
which are all curves, dots on a line
and the composition source,
the secret chords employed,
tech installed just prior to birth,
effacing glorious sadness, glorious joy,
the human building blocks,
with the certainty that
*everybody knows,
that's how it goes
everybody knows,*
only fools believe,
you'll live forever
but live at least long enough to sing and write of
a man cleaning up his own life's messes,
and perchance, after our absence,
leaving the world better for it
Jan 7, 2017
Jan 7, 2017 at 10:49 AM UTC
your clothing fills the space on my floor
with such defined intention
like that of a form cast onto an abstract canvas
perfectly articulating and punctuating
wordless conversations from the night before
Aug 3, 2018
Aug 3, 2018 at 11:08 AM UTC
**On my heart, you write with your eyes,
punctuating each line with a deep sigh;**
*scooping colors of love, I paint it in my mind,
and subtly encase with subconscious.*
Oct 12, 2012
Oct 12, 2012 at 3:00 PM UTC
The Smell of Honey, Coffee and Apples and Messes of Words, but
No Love Poetry
<^>
*my poetry suffers from a literately literacy,
the adjectivally of imagery wears away with
time and age eroding the imagination, when one’s
days are numbered, being serious is an natural
unpleasant hazardous haze, never in doubt
The morning meal of cooked oatmeal, steel cut,
laced with wildflower honey, slices of honey crisp
apples and Hawaiian coffee brewed,
singes the
Tropical Storm Ophelia thrumming humidity
that overhangs the ugly grays of NYC sky-paths,
one tickles me awake with contradictory impulses:
sweet and sour,
a robust stimulative, competing with the smothering of
grayling clouded weather weariness of
48 hours of rainy continuity,
a spirit suffocate
you see!
give you myself, my environment, in précis,
unimaginative exactly as it occurs to me, sensually, yes,
but cannot shake my disappointment that no,
can’t combine visionary notions that spin your swivel
chair around, powered by your exclamations of
ooh, ahh, and little stabs of weeee punctuating
our shared atmosphere
and bring forth
only love poetry
but no mas,
the love poetry doesn’t comes to the fore,
the forehead stuffed with words best listed as
basic, observable, factual,
Miley Cyrus, accuses me of being jaded,
but not with accuracy, more straight jacketed,
way past that half-way point of no return,
turning back is not a listed menu option
love poetry
demands, requires and requests
envisioning, precursor to dreaming,
but I am choking on matters-of-fact,
questions of survivability,
that do not
shed love poetry words,
I
love exclaiming
to any and all within hailing distance,
my loving firmament, but the damp atmosphere
swallows my hopes and sounds, even though
still can smell the lingering nearness odor of honey and apple,
yet, other hints of memory beg to differ,
and I sadly and easy confess,*
this is not a lovely poem…
- * -
Sep 23, 2023
Sep 23, 2023 at 12:44 PM UTC
Letters are old school, but I guess so am I.
In a way, I guess that is true,
I sometimes feel like I am an old fool,
Stuck in the Motown groove,
The 21st Century is not for me,
Waiting a minute before I can hear the next song,
And when it eventually comes on it's one filled with hate,
And let’s not even talk about trying to date,
They said to leave a message after a beep,
For my old soul that means a beat,
That brought with it dance and heat,
Words and rhymes and a drumbeat,
See back in my day, a letter meant waiting on the mail man,
And not looking for blue ticks from an app I got from an online store,
It meant post stamps and asking friends to proofread,
It meant punctuating every line so that you knew without you I could not breathe,
Being in love was not just words and play,
It meant dancing in the street; we called it grooving,
Not sweet talking and lying,
The old fool in me is tired of trying,
Am not saying that you are lying,
But you are in no way trying,
To meet me in the street,
Or groove to a Motown beat,
I wish you were sending me flowers,
While you were out there spending time,
With worlds that were not even meant to be real,
My old soul needs more than one-off dines or drinking box wine!
See back in Motown, when a man loved a woman,
He could not keep his mind on anything else,
He did not put a little loving on her, or shelve her
It meant the whole street knew her, and even knew her favorite beat!
I have known only one other of your kind, the sweet-talking guy,
You have me down on my knees wondering when you are going to leave,
That is not love, I don’t know what it is,
Feels like it, but this is something else!
Jun 17, 2019
Jun 17, 2019 at 10:49 AM UTC
recent recognition of
surprising butterfly
power
wings with influence
both near and far..
science’s magic
a poem might share
finding joy and strength
a freedom flight…
a poem as bone
a spinal light
iterating downward
then looping up..
4 words
3 words
2 words
one..
one word trembles with
joy/suffering
finding its home
on the spine alone..
a punctuating /
introduced above
our fraction slash
a new poetic linkage
an evolving vision
separating/joining
our fractured world..
a special invitation this /
new awareness
finding dimensional paths…
poem’s spinal light
expanding
vibrating
curves and colors
on many scales..
simplicity/chaos
a name with slash
butterfly/wings
an eternal dance..
poem’s garment
weaving
light/chaos/suffering..
she must stand right here
absorb this darkness
become this pain..
locating at last
the waiting bone
spinal light connecting
once more and
once more…
our butterfly/wings
even now returning
freedom flight arriving
a prayer
a poem…
Jun 22, 2012
Jun 22, 2012 at 10:07 PM UTC
The night is still;
Quiet.
Chirps;
Punctuating the silence.
In the dark,
I see your silhouette.
A beauty,
A Goddess;
Heaven Sent.
Oct 3, 2019
Oct 3, 2019 at 9:23 PM UTC
Coastline, rocky, rugged, proud,
Crumbling cliffs in ozone shroud,
Sun-kissed drifts of desert sand,
Golden frame of a sea cradled land.
Fishing village, atmospheric hub,
Brass band playing, outside quaint old pub,
Boats, all sizes, rest near harbour wall,
Wading birds sift through tide-filled pool.
Foliage explosion of a Cornish hedge,
Country lanes snake, and young birds fledge,
Ruminants, punctuating, quilted hill,
Buzzards soar and wise hares are still.
Tin mine engine house, towering stack,
Roof caved in, gorse and bracken’s back,
White clay peak, geometrical and sleek,
Earth’s riches gouged, canyon deep.
Moor-land, open, untamed, granite strewn,
Wild ponies dance to a skylark’s tune,
Tor and beacon, barrow and mound,
You’re in God’s own country, when you walk this ground.
Jun 21, 2017
Jun 21, 2017 at 4:21 PM UTC
the donkeys bray
and panic
when bricks
fly through
bank windows.
gobsmacked,
the ***** ogle
the trashed Starbucks
and ask,
"but...who will serve us
cappuccinos?"
the elephants intone,
"violence is never the answer"
and neglect to add
that's why they pilot
remote-operated
predator drones:
you won't see those stomped
in the elephants' stampede.
their ***** wars are covert.
peace cannot interrupt
the cash-flow.
as pigs fit armor over
bellies buttressed
by doughnuts,
they stare down
the wolf pack—a bloc
awash in black—
and slap their sticks
in primitive percussion
shouting, "do not resist,"
punctuating the order
with concussion grenades
and tear gas.
the wolves howl back, "no cops,
no KKK, no fascist USA!"
equal parts bark and bite
in the fight for humanity,
solidarity with the least of these,
laughing in the face of the State.
each time the wolves show their teeth,
the pigs shrink back
and quiver in fear,
while the wolves roar,
"refugees are welcome here!"
we will make racists
afraid again.
antifa, here to stay
so long as there remain
Nazis to punch in the face.
Feb 2, 2017
Feb 2, 2017 at 9:25 PM UTC
My heart has been
d,
since your eyes met mine.
i
The little gaps punctuating the Z's are
filled by the little crease line that gently brackets your mouth right before you smile,
z
the way your eyes flickers in amusement; it's like a dozen of stars winking at me.
The words you speak from those lips flit recklessly in between.
z
It's the tiniest of winks that causes my heart to stutter a little.
Just a little, ok-ay, sweet-heart?
Don't flatter yourself.
y
It's that inexplicable yet silence that does not quite feel like silence.
Mar 14, 2014
Mar 14, 2014 at 7:22 AM UTC
Sitting on my porch,
A refreshing morning
Breeze gentling blowing,
Conveying aromatic scents
Of yard plants blooming,
The hum of fluttering Bee’s
Seeking Nectar among them.
The songs of early birds
punctuating all this convivial congeniality.
You can not purchase a ticket
to this particular show at any price.
Other than say,
An invitation to sit beside me.
Young dog at my feet,
Him with full tummy,
Basking in the sun.
I can almost see a smile on his face.
Already he knows how to live.
There is tranquility here,
In my yard,
Among these plants and trees,
This grass so green, still fresh
With drops of recent rain a dripping,
The ethereal scent,
Of now wet earth arising.
No real need to go a traveling,
Far or even near a field.
I have almost all I need and want,
Right here in my yard,
on this porch of mine.
There is one other strong sensation here,
It is my feelings of utter contentment.
The simple things are always the best.
Jun 27, 2014
Jun 27, 2014 at 2:05 PM UTC
The sweetness in the air, when you're with me
Has followed me into my daydreams
Shadows now birth memories of our love
Behind sunset eyes, lives love eternal
Led by the truest heart and kindest soul
The Universe, she is both cruel and kind
The grandest of all loves to be cherished
Plagued by time and unfortunate distance
Fills the senses and fuels a beating heart
Nature's bass drum keeping rhythm within
Ah yes, the sweetness in the air, your scent
Follows me, punctuating my silence
Infusing my memories with desire
Filling my desire with the love of dreams
Apr 19, 2015
Apr 19, 2015 at 5:20 AM UTC
There were little ways, once, when things could sparkle and spread the light
just like I spread your legs
then.
Away I could turn,
and feel your eyes on me,
the breath for breathing in always fresh and free between us,
the staleness now punctuating every sentence, drooling from my lips
and off away somewhere…
nowhere.
The infant
me lying next to the mother
of you in the creeping sun
running away over the edge of the world
like Magellan.
I could chase it,
I would,
I swear I will,
if you would ask it,
and I would tumble over that dark cusp
and off into a six-year terror of death and disease,
just to return,
spinning the Earth under my feet,
pushing it with my hands like paddles,
kicking it back with toes,
sweating bleeding shaking
and collapsing
back into
you.
Aug 24, 2012
Aug 24, 2012 at 3:48 AM UTC
self-reflection churns out an image of a clicking cicada of an aggressively ****** young girl, who due to the pressing weight of a blue silk chord around her throat possesses
a shiny dark, green exoskeleton (refracting light and resistant to moisture)
(SO ******* KAFKAESQUE) (!!!)
who sings as she rubs furry legs together and has decided to spill pain whenever possible onto screens and sheets, throwing up wherever she lands, without true cause in a careless disarray, breeding narcissism (let's throw a party)
biting into shattered satin, like a moth feeding off of human wetness and stains while punctuating words with mispronunciation and self-absorbtion
because she is deathly afraid of being boring and a daily routine, how predictable
(the crowd looks on miserably, fanning their faces with paper plates, sweating profusely)
this poem is predictable;
sorry.
I never have tried to **** myself, it would be silly to think that not killing yourself or killing yourself would have an actual influential impact on most of the world, except in rare cases.
Death is looming, I am grinning, I have not yet seen it so I guess I will live forever and subside off the hearts of men (no, not really, I'm kidding).
Jul 11, 2013
Jul 11, 2013 at 2:26 PM UTC
Outside in a clearing, mere feet beyond the treeline. The bonfire crackles and spits, punctuating conversations fueled by cheap ***** and raging hormones. The stars are bright in the clear country sky. The scent of roasting wood mingles with freshly blooming trees. Spring is finally here.
Tuesday's Gone begins to play. Fitting, seeing as the evenings events seem to be winding down.I gaze out over the scattered clusters of classmates, some familiar, others, un. That's when I see you, sitting away from the group, staring up at the stars.
Your ginger blossom locks fall in folds around your collar. The burning, emerald eyes set deep in your tiny, freckled face widen as a shooting star passes overhead. The moons glow reflects faintly off of your snow white skin.
I rise from the group and move to sit next to you on the log by the riverside. I don't say anything. I simply sit beside you, and stare at the stars above, millions of miles away.
May 30, 2014
May 30, 2014 at 11:05 AM UTC
The haunted place was a taunt to mind,
was wrapped in a different kind of silence
that felt more like an accumulated absence.
Absence spoke in the words
of disturbing silence
or punctuating meaningless sounds,
all of it choked and evoked a
formless presence bound in itself,
without any point of reference
name or connections,
all erased by some quirk
time played on the turn of events.
What remains is an eerie
absence pointing to aggregated loss
which binds the collective will to express
The ghost's relevance diminished
to mere nuisance, nothing more.
This ghost has no clue where
it belongs or where to attach
still it's a faint movement between
the shadow of absence and a vague desire
to appear as an apparition.
Mar 20, 2017
Mar 20, 2017 at 10:20 PM UTC
Blank pages, first it was Miss Her that began the first words.
"Mister Him at the corner of that dusty pavement.
Autumn balmy hues mingled with coffee's bitterness.
One kiss on a forehead, an inward gasp."
Then, Mister Him began to dot the dots on her (i)'s,
punctuating it with little smiles, crinkled eyes
and sometimes,
though he will
n e v e r
admit,
a slight crimson painted on cheeks.
So,
sweet heart,
that is a
love story.
My words become yours.
Yours became mine.
Oh, it does seems like our heart-beats
rhyme.
Mar 30, 2014
Mar 30, 2014 at 6:59 AM UTC