"putty" poems
"This girlchild was born as usual
and presented dolls that did ******
and miniature GE stoves and irons
and wee lipsticks the color of cherry candy.
Then in the magic of puberty, a classmate said:
You have a great big nose and fat legs.
She was healthy, tested intelligent,
possessed strong arms and back,
abundant ****** drive and manual dexterity.
She went to and fro apologizing.
Everyone saw a fat nose on thick legs.
She was advised to play coy,
exhorted to come on hearty,
exercise, diet, smile and wheedle.
Her good nature wore out
like a fan belt.
So she cut off her nose and her legs
and offered them up.
In the casket displayed on satin she lay
with the undertaker's cosmetics painted on,
a turned-up putty nose,
dressed in a pink and white nightie.
Doesn't she look pretty? everyone said.
Consummation at last.
To every woman a happy ending."
-Marge Piercy
Sep 23, 2016
Sep 23, 2016 at 10:08 AM UTC
I watch the prom Dance,
In an awkward stance,
my friends walk in with dates,
and the excitement Abates.
Alone in a corner,
I mope like a mourner,
With no partner to dance with,
No gentleman to prance with.
Amidst the mirth and cheers,
My eyes fill up with tears.
I rush out into the open air,
And by Jove! I see Voltaire!
With his satirical charms,
He draws me in his arms.
As I sway to the beats,
I'm waltzing with Keats.
Causing my funny bone to arouse,
Enters P.G. Wodehouse!
Using nonchalant wittiness,
He acknowledges my prettiness.
And then walks in Shakespeare,
Who wipes away my tear,
And my senses curdle like curds,
As he showers me with words.
While I repress the excited child,
I'm swaying with Oscar Wilde.
I'm rendered helplessly mute,
With his phrases so astute.
With a proposal so verse-y,
I'm serenaded by Shelly B. Percy.
And before this fantasy can spoil,
I fox trot with Conan Doyle.
And thus literally seduced,
into putty I'm reduced.
I am platonic-ally smitten,
By the genius of what they've written.
The dating circus can’t make me cry,
because a host of paramours have I.
Jul 3, 2014
Jul 3, 2014 at 3:20 AM UTC
Oh Ramen, Sweet as sugar
You shall fill my stomach with a myriad of tastes.
I am like putty because you’re my ******
Your enchanting dance at an unstoppable rate
Sip, slurp, and swallow
Everywhere you go I follow
I can’t help but be the cooker
Since you’re an amazing looker
You’re the heart inside my soul
seeing you every day is my goal
It is my heart that you stole.
Jun 5, 2017
Jun 5, 2017 at 9:49 PM UTC
People are loopy
People ain't right
Inside of their heads
Out of their minds
People are nutty
Loco coco bean
Imaginary buddies
Putty for brains
People are batty
Fruit loops that fly
Come in different colors
Confetti minds
People are special
They say with a wink
Jumped the train trestle
Over the brink
Pick one or the other
No answer is wrong
It's all the above
When people are off
Dec 5, 2018
Dec 5, 2018 at 9:24 AM UTC
You're sitting across a table, in the next room- and it's the month of July.
And as the beads of sweat chip off your forehead
like a shank of butcher's meat,
your dorcel fin peaks through the sand where my toes peak through. The picnic table where I write letters; post cards.
I take photos, make reservations, and
even after I'm canceled on for walking around
downtown in my bright neon-pink underwear, I still roll to the
left side of the bed sit up and drop the cigarette I fell asleep on. You're just sitting, first entry: Stardom.
I don't have room for you in the corners.
The corners of this room, padded walls,
shifty vaseline sway- the white cotton stick
of a sucker pointing out of your mouth, its red numero forty dye shines
in the specks of light flicking
out of the horizon like a carousel ride
around and around.
I'm getting a bit dizzy, and even less honest.
If you want to see me spring,
like the silly string on my birthday, yellow silly-putty; molding the monster face,
I observe you through a kaleidoscope of dexedrine and morphine.
Your catastrophe with Xanax, passed out
in alien-green ******* at that party in the abandoned firehouse
on News St., how you could lay trust on me after that
(a daydream with sawing you called me)
sixteen-year-old mishap of an afternoon.
&
Apr 26, 2014
Apr 26, 2014 at 4:31 AM UTC
I'm a honeybee.
You're the smoke
that has molded me like putty
in your calloused hands.
Once I'm out of the hive
that is my soul, you come
in and steal parts of me
I have a hard time creating
and replicating over again.
It was a sweet escape but it
was laced with the fact
you would only use me.
Why did I let you in?
Jan 2, 2015
Jan 2, 2015 at 4:59 PM UTC
Mediocrity isn't my favorite flavor
But I make do
Tasting other sensations and qualities as well.
Like candied revenge,
And carmeled success.
But mediocrity is slightly different
It's bitter...
But not enough that it would ever cause me to settle
For something else
That was further from my seated reach.
It's also stale, at times,
As if it were left out on a bar all night,
To be eaten by others looking for, well
Anything.
As I bit down on mediocrity once more
I couldn't help but salivate
At the thought of achievement and drive
Memories of their savory aftertastes overtaking the putty being mulled about my teeth.
And I swallowed the paste.
Mostly to get the taste out of my mouth.
But as my taste buds clear,
And my thoughts drift elsewhere.
The idea that one more hand full of mediocrity
Might not be that bad.
Creeps into the back of my mind.
After all,
It is within reach.
Jun 3, 2015
Jun 3, 2015 at 12:13 AM UTC
"I'm afraid of the dark," he said,
but what he meant, I couldn't grasp.
I'm afraid of the light instead.
What more could terrify me than a future I have to face,
a gleaming torrent of certainty,
a resounding push forward,
but the dark?
The dark is my putty; a shadowy liquid,
a fickleness that prays on hope and fear,
and with it holds an escape.
He fears the dark because it can deceive him.
I fear the light because it is the truth.
Nov 20, 2015
Nov 20, 2015 at 10:59 PM UTC
*November 29th, 2014
Dear Chris:*
I miss you dear, I'd like to say.* Though it's been six months, thoughts of you are here to stay. My words turn to putty and I wish to form them like clay because there's so much to you I wish to convey. I've been traveling and unraveling the belt loops of life, and striding through gliding on ice skates from strife. I don't know if still I can sing the same tune. Our dreams from the Bay have been vexing me; perplexing me since June. The ring you gave me has my fingers swollen like my head, just like a balloon! And I don't know if it makes me sullen to confess when you asked for my hand, even hypothetically, I was to be your wife complete with white dress. Somewhere along the line that dream has changed. Though I feel that this letter was written selfishly. I really must say.. All I know is that I miss you Chris, I have missed you since May.
-Adeline
December 1st, 2014
Adeline:
I was wanton and flagrant when your letter was received. I was bounding and bursting; hardly contained in my seat. Your familiar fragrance beseeching my heart's conceit, and in your confidence said that you're missing me. Until the usual silence declares again it's already half past three. Time to wash away delusions that are causing my hope to reek.
Still..
Certainly there will be another chance to hear from you next week.
Dec 6, 2014
Dec 6, 2014 at 3:02 PM UTC
We had a giant ship where we'd go for short boat rides. We'd throw out the anchor that kept time in the middle of the ocean and see the moon up ahead. Sometimes we made love and other times we enjoyed each other's company. And sometimes both. There was laughing and crying because knowing the ride was short, it made it all the more worth it. I always had to leave, I was always the first one and it crushed me. I didn't know what it did to you though. And now you were the first to leave this time. I know what it feels like. I wish I could stray away on that boat and float through the entire ocean just to find you because I hope you come back. I want to throw away the anchor to get rid of time. I want to know what it's like to fly because there's a hole in this boat that's slowly sinking and I don't know how to swim. The crack in the boat so far is only a crack. Where you could only hear a slow drip and sometimes it flows faster than others. That's when I get scared but I only have to breathe. You said you'd come back so I'm going to find tape or maybe some putty to fix the cracks. I'll clumsily fix the boat and throw the anchor away. An infinate amount of ocean surrounds me but there's only one anchor. I'll leave it right where we were so you know where to find me. But if I'm not back by the time you find it again, wait for me there so you can see me with wings.
Jun 6, 2015
Jun 6, 2015 at 1:23 AM UTC
In geometry we learn how to measure the distance between things
The space between things
The empty space between lines
How long is the shadow cast by a branch on a tree if it is two o’clock and the branch is east facing and 7 feet above the ground
A train departed Madrid in rush hour at 5:40pm and arrived in Barcelona at 8:15pm it went 63mph for 50 minutes how fast did it go the rest of the way if it is 386 miles between the cities
A trove of treasure held 300 cubic inches of gold and had a six inch square face, how long was the box
If it takes 3 seconds for my phone to chime after you send a text message and it takes 2 seconds for my brain to recognize your name on my phone how long will my stomach flutter if I’ve loved you for a month
Assuming my stomach flutters for that long and you ended our burgeoning relationship yesterday to stay comfortable in your current surroundings and we both don’t want to give up how real it all feels, how much silly putty does it take to fill the empty space in my chest
If Wal-Mart sells silly putty for $1.36 per package and each package contains 4 oz. of silly putty and I work for $13.51 per hour and $13.30 of each hour’s wage goes towards bills and other essentials how long will I have to work in order to save enough money to buy all the silly putty required to fill my chest with it, assuming I live in Oregon where there is no sales tax and that I only drink one six pack at $8.99 a week
More importantly though
If I fill my chest with silly putty, will my heart bounce back after it’s dropped next time
Nov 3, 2015
Nov 3, 2015 at 11:39 AM UTC
..............there’s such a clamour
so much choring
memory thread
I sit
armchair
rocking head
receiver of motion
bleaker of putty trauma
creator of mammary craving
.....best take up knitting or wood carving
the fortress of thought
(in strict connivance with a bewildered host)
compiles the 'person idea'
protects the fragile calculator
from biting at its own exposed
and useless self mating psychology
from glutting on its own tail
and merry going mad
in a tune of hoops...
..stammering to achieve valuation
for our decent management
projector
may you continue operations falser still
defeating our own polygraphs and making fools of our internal courtrooms
i sit on this chair
things go still
thoughts occur elsewhere
am i left to not be ?....................
May 11, 2021
May 11, 2021 at 10:00 PM UTC
Resilient?
***** resilient.
I don’t feel resilient.
I feel alone, confused.
I feel pain.
I feel pain now as if I had never felt pain before.
I feel my lungs, aching to cease movement being the first thing I notice every morning.
I feel the way barbed wire tangles itself around my ribs and pulls in.
I feel the tears on my face when I wake up in the middle of the night, panting, as though I’ve just been submerged in a lake of ice.
I feel the memory of you.
I hear the memory of you.
You are in every call my phone receives, every text that comes in.
You are in every place I go.
Things you’ve said.
The way you laugh.
The way we were.
I remember the first time we told each other we loved each other.
And the hiding us from our families.
I remember the late nights and the ungodly early mornings.
I remember falling in love with you.
I remember all of the arguments, the eye rolls, the times apart.
I remember the way you made me feel like I didn’t want to want to die anymore.
The way you could make me smile with just a sigh.
The way you turn me into putty.
I remember being yours.
How territorial you get.
How you always listen.
I remember the plans we made.
The life we wanted.
I remember us.
The couple our friends were jealous of.
The fairy tale story we wanted to tell our grandchildren.
I remember who I was with you.
Who I wanted to be.
How you made me softer but somehow stronger.
How you taught me to love without being scared.
How I loved you and I wasn’t scared.
Because I had you. And it was us.
So no. I don’t feel resilient. I feel battered and broken. I feel tired.
Oct 13, 2018
Oct 13, 2018 at 7:12 AM UTC
You’re all over me
Soaking me
Like hard rain
Steady
Cleansing
Removing the scars
From my heart
One by one
You’re revitalizing
And fun
Full of surprise
Grounding me
Then uprooting me
Rooting for me
Moving me
Making me think
And think
A little wink
**** smile
And I’m putty
To play with awhile
completely content
A puppy on his back
Begging for more
Not a care in the world
Just a girl
And her eyes
The goddess of the butterflies
Feb 6, 2012
Feb 6, 2012 at 7:22 PM UTC
When she says she hears voices rattling and battling in the deepest recesses of her mind, then it's time to beware, take care, and make choices saddling you and leave her behind.
Shes a case study of its kind. That even Freud would throw up his hands, make a grand stand in his frustrations and demand a vacation to unwind.
She's all that and more.
She'll wrap a man around her fingers make him putty in her hands,
leave him babbling in his mirror
trying so much to understand.
He should feel something, but just can't comprehend,
left a mute, numb, mumbling...
carcass, of a man.
She's like an itch that becomes a
scratch that's becomes a pestering,
festering **** till you look down
horror bound as the ****** swollen
thing has taken on a life of its own...
then it starts maxing out your cards,
throwing your clothes out on the yard,
yelling hard. Snooping on your phone. Won't go home. Won't leave you alone.
Is it a wound or a woman or a woman or a wound or both simultaneously, concurrently? Yes and no.
Oh the trials and tribulations I've known!
You can really pick em.
Daddy used to say, in his haphazard way, and really lay it on me in the harshest of phrases, meant to dazzle and daze me, rile and faze me, knock me a kilter off my normal day.
Son, you stimulate and exhilarate the
spirit of an untamed, pained, wild
child woman and it'll be the same, and here this,
as an insane drain on the brain most personally and certainly and most notably and you can quote me. It'll leave you feeling like the beach storming at Normandy.
Jun 16, 2018
Jun 16, 2018 at 5:38 AM UTC
You get me hooked again from the minute you sat down
The way you bite your lip got my head spinning around
After a drink or two I was putty in your hands
I don't know if I have the strength to stand
Trouble troublemaker yeah that's your middle name
I know you're no good but you're stuck in my brain
And I wanna know
Why does it feel so good but hurt so bad?
My mind keeps saying "Run as fast as you can"
I say I'm done but then you pull me back
I swear you're giving me a heart attack
Troublemaker
It's like your always there in the corners of my mind
I see your silhouette every time I close my eyes
There must be poison in those fingertips of yours
Because I keep coming back again for more
Trouble troublemaker yeah that's your middle name
I know you're no good but you're stuck in my brain
And I wanna know
Why does it feel so good but hurt so bad?
My mind keeps saying "Run as fast as you can"
I say I'm done but then you pull me back
I swear you're giving me a heart attack
Troublemaker
Why does it feel so good but hurt so bad?
My mind keeps saying "Run as fast as you can"
I say I'm done but then you pull me back
I swear you're giving me a heart attack
Troublemaker
Maybe I'm insane
Cause I keep doing the same old thing
Thinking one day we gonna change
You know just how to work that back and make me forget my name
What the heck you do I won't remember
I'll be gone until November
You won't come back until next summer
Typical middle name is Pravda
For you like a glove girl I'm sick of the drama
You're a troublemaker
And it's like I like the trouble
And I can't even explain why
Why does it feel so good but hurt so bad?
My mind keeps saying "Run as fast as you can"
I say I'm done but then you pull me back
I swear you're giving me a heart attack
Troublemaker
Why does it feel so good but hurt so bad?
My mind keeps saying "Run as fast as you can"
I say I'm done but then you pull me back
I swear you're giving me a heart attack
Troublemaker
Jun 13, 2015
Jun 13, 2015 at 2:12 PM UTC
I’m nothing coming through.
A ****** a let down.
I’m a plan turned mistake.
I slipped out into a world to be forgotten in it.
Cold, slimy, smelly, and stupid.
I’m the putty they use to fill the gaps of history.
The time between now and when.
A time where something, anything happens.
Walk on me, I’m here to move you on.
It feels as though we’re nearing the end.
Centuries before, fate was branded.
In its burned flesh we made our mark.
It’s come time to slaughter.
But we’ll be the squealers.
I’m coming through into nothing.
A mother abused by her young.
******* dry and sagged from their greed.
Fat, weak, and stupid now from gluttony.
Next winter will bring their snuffing.
So pull me out.
This pink portal.
Into somewhere I belong.
The nowhere we are right now.
The nothing we’re going to be.
Oct 24, 2021
Oct 24, 2021 at 3:42 AM UTC
The ninth beatitude
Blessed are the transformed
and the transformers
For they shall know gratitude.
Hair attitudes are our beatitudes
How can I not love my hair
Short, cropped. *****
Long, cascading locks
Braids falling adoringly
Embracing cheekbones of
Historical beauty.
Hair diva's
Divinity, defying gravity...Black hair
Submitting to heat, or the nimble.
Fingers of scientist, chemist who
Are born to a life dedicated to
Beautification of her sisters and daughters
None since Madam C.J. Walker has had
This talent in abundance.
She put her wrist in the twist.
And the "aid" in the braid… new wave
Whose passion is to adore what
She's put into you; She is the true
“goddess of hair”
You are In good hands as
She dares you to move, or
bat an eyelash less
She bashes you, or threatens
to abort the mission Leaving you to
Your own device-Her advice is to become
at one with her- Become putty in her hands.
Her hands plant, plaiting love and patience
into every wrung…Moms,
And Hair Magicians, growing hands
That loom, weave and condition;
Grooming reluctant ducklings.
Into graceful swans
Grooming you for greatness.
(To my best friend)
https://scontent-ord1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xfp1/v/t1.0-9/11026273_1641865029363011_1932455644687694397_n.jpg?oh=2c95a0eb069b5f996f26494e277bd734&oe;=56C6FF8B
Oct 28, 2015
Oct 28, 2015 at 6:19 PM UTC
You found me staring, hair full of sand:
I had tried to embrace the water as my blood
and was reprimanded by a wave for my daring.
Around us the thick grass like palm-sunday fronds
and the path of boards lifted from a painting
dissolved into steel wool. The rest of the scene
has been redacted, smeared from my mind
with an inky thumb.
You found me between sleep. I am still
waiting to be returned to , or
wherever the quarter-light carved your back
into soft photograin beneath my childs hands.
You said, "
", words warming me
with the bloom of a chrysanthemum beneath my chest.
Does the crown of petals still ***** like the cigarettes
off that balcony, overlooking ?
I burned my body into your imagined contours.
The space between ours folded over and
again, an origami figure slowly taking on mass and attitude.
It sat on my shoulder, Incan headdress grown solid one day,
stock right foot the next. It cleaved and cleaved.
We joined at or maybe , in the rain.
Or was it? My face was wet, and hands or moths
fluttered against an aquarium window.
If dreaming, I awoke when : the train
flattened its memory like a penny.
Here it is, squashed between my fingers. The face pushed
like putty, smoothed like the faces of and
and of course , who remains
only as a scratchy, juvenile voice.
May 12, 2010
May 12, 2010 at 7:28 PM UTC
I want to taste your skin
and see how it makes you shake
you'd think that I’d like you more
with all the love that we make
I’m just here to ease my mind
of my own lonely lowly life
I’m not looking for a mate
I’m not looking for a wife
I’m in it for something primal
for each urge and utterance
I’m here for selfish reasons
for my ego’s own exultance
I’m here to make you quiver
just to show that I’m capable
turn you in to putty in my hands
just to prove that you’re shapeable
I want to taste your skin
and the spirit that lingers under
I want to be a flash of lightening
and leave you alone with the thunder
Dec 6, 2010
Dec 6, 2010 at 7:56 PM UTC
Brewing your bitter sap
From the sour, dank sod
In which your feet
Are so comfortably shod
Silk purse made from the bile
Of good-for-nothing land
Your are on the river
In the bog early green
A smile on Spring's young face
Russet tines raking winter's putty
Bearded bonsai of icy summits
Run-maker on summer greens
Webster-woven into creels
For peats, and baskets
For logs of firewood types
Promise me a sprig of ***** Willow
Almost a tree
A match for any tree
Feb 20, 2011
Feb 20, 2011 at 6:11 AM UTC
Through me on the bed
Kiss me wherever
They hell you want
Even though it’s
The holy month
Make me feel like I am in
Paradise with kisses
,your in pure touch
And tounge
Please me
And will be putty in your hands
As you love me please
Making me make
Me moan and beg
As loudly
As kiss me in places
I never knew
Existed
As I do the same for you
Sweetnesses
I am your subby
Loving pierced goddess
Kiss me gently and tenderly
But yet passionately
I wonder your taste
Apr 16, 2021
Apr 16, 2021 at 11:30 AM UTC
Today I met a witch
she tried to trick me
she held both hands
and said
How many fingers do i have held up?
so I told just eight
she said are you mad
for I have ten.
I said no
you have have eight and two thumbs
at that she dissolved
like putty in my hands
and ran between my fingers.
Jan 15, 2015
Jan 15, 2015 at 4:06 PM UTC
Careful.
I’m fragile.
A heart made of glass.
Reflecting light throughout myself with each passing glance.
Shimmering,
A diamond.
But not as strong as I seem.
If I cut through glass does that mean I cut through myself?
Ruby seeps from my slippers staining the floor.
There is no place like a dream.
Opalescent,
but empty.
Carved from hopeless tears that dropped and froze.
Sharp edges melt if you hold them close enough.
And fill up the open space if you chase away the cold.
Crystal,
A gem.
Galaxies swirl and spin as you play with my emotions.
A vortex of sweltering heat turning
glass,
a diamond,
an opalescent crystal,
Into a compliant putty in your hands,
Soft and yielding after your warmth shattered the frost encasing it.
Careful,
I’m fragile.
Though even if I am engulfed by flames.
I can't promise I won't covet the burn.
May 25, 2015
May 25, 2015 at 1:00 PM UTC