"quandaries" poems
recurrent moonlit distractions
captured by words
tied down into morsels;
separated and concealed,
contiguous yet sheer greetings
of each other’s skin
had left wanton burns
and gushing streams
of a brooding lover’s propensity
for unsusceptible matters of the heart.
there, he stood,
on the precipice of tomorrows;
ruminating and scrupulous,
forlorn yet never dithering
over mundane and quintessential quandaries
of the tepid gloss of incertitude
dangling off syllables
dictated by sordid agony.
there, he stood,
in the midst of everything;
from the otiose adoration
poured out of empty caskets
to the lenitive shades of his eyes.
with the ripples of moonlight,
the gestalt of doleful flower-like hearts,
there, she stood,
and waited.
Jul 26, 2018
Jul 26, 2018 at 10:15 AM UTC
This One Time,
I stripped naked
and ****** my couch.
This other time
I threw a copy of The Fountainhead
at an RV moving at 64 miles an hour
I have a tree
In the foothills
named Clementine Valencia Jeff
and the same day, me and John
made a religion with Adam based
on cloud formations
You see, I'm a weird guy
I got
I got problems
I see a therapist
Her name's Rhonda
She likes Batmaa aaaaan
She sees people worse than me
but recognizes I got problems
and she
she tries to help
cause
cause I got problems
and the
and the problem
with having problems
is
is function
You
You can't do anything
You live to defy expectation
And - and it's really hard
to get into college
You never really get accepted
and and
and even if
even if you do you
you
you never really accept that
It's hard out there for a freak
I get lost within my own
ridiculous quandaries
You feel like you're not
you're not built right
like something's wrong
and you just punch and
and kick and
and destroy
Whatever feels des-
destroy able because it gives
purpose
Bu
But I finally think I -I
found my mantra
My my
My compass thing
My map whatever
It has the same number of
letters of something very very dear
to me
and
and that holds meaning
I
I wrote it on the back of my door
my door
and- and I sprayed it on a
shirt
I actually got it from a videogame with
with a
with Ayn Randian themes
It's religious
and
and every night now
before I go to sleep
I
I- I look into Neil Patrick Harris's
eyes
feel the warmth of my wonderful blanket
admire some handiwork
read about serial arson
close my eyes and tell myself
She is our Salvation
Nov 6, 2011
Nov 6, 2011 at 2:05 PM UTC
**A ***** wanderer,
from life to life; I am a butterfly,
fragile, but my desires take me from,
flower to flower, in search of new flavors,
I often find, myself in quandaries, quagmires and coal fires.
And at the end I am left with nothing else, but unfulfilled desires,
the nectar, that used to be my bait, I thought would be the end I seek;
but now it is clear, there is a jewel I want to adorn on my crown: Enlightenment it is.
Now I am aware, a seeker I am first and last, my hungers will vanish when I embrace cosmos.
This butterfly's flight through the mist will end when a flower will feed me with nectar eternal.**
May 18, 2013
May 18, 2013 at 7:58 AM UTC
exhaust’d thru months of
stress’d quandaries. have
clear’d the worst. and
i ripped through older
pages, stealing the words
that sound’d best. the
only ones
able to fluidly
patch fragments. brake.
been a long couple day(s);
singular, i guess. and
the sassy black chick,
she doesn’t give a ****
never did. and friend is
asking why, asking
questions of the sky.
- what if what’s complicated
is so because we never
let it be easy?
infectious thoughts of
what to do to complicate, or
of how we might proliferate.
and ringing:
- why not just be easy?
and ringing:
- you’re just going to have to
stop having fun for a while.
and ringing:
- i mean, not quit, but
ease up. don’t spend
your money.
knowing is ninety-percent
of the problem with
stubbornness. and remem-
bering when first told
to get on with it –
to let go –
the other ten-percent.
and being one day closer –
to be one minute closer –
brings restlessness. and
i lay my head to rest, if
only to pass time as lids
squeeze light from eyes.
and thoughts, peaceful a
moment prior, begin to
rage. to thrash and stomp.
to draw from dead qualms
and questions. and past
turbulences become reali-
gn’d. yet,
most were left behind or
under the Pinelawn.
something missing,
memories of how her
**** were like tiger claws.
brake. get on with it.
and the vessels of my eye
throb in ticks. forcing
metronome. and i count the
seconds, the seconds
on minutes
on hours
on eternity. and if
i were here – if
i were awake – when
the sun came ‘round,
then perhaps the metro-
nomes tick would cease. or,
let it go, get on with the
passing of time.
getting on with it, to
force the dawn sun
to rise of me.
Jan 31, 2013
Jan 31, 2013 at 9:32 PM UTC
Sure I can understand your heart
that just assume chop garlic really
and more than imagine
the quandaries
and about the fairly's of lonely's
wide by wakeful heart of eye
I can dream about the hopes, dares
and of your despairs of your great
yet uncertain missions too
Nov 24, 2012
Nov 24, 2012 at 4:55 PM UTC
i hear the whistle of a mockingjay
play every time someone says your name.
a rebel girl in a patriarchal world
defying the absurd iterations of hyper-masculine
oppression that manifest themselves in solipsistic
displays of impotent aggression.
how do you muster the compassion
to forgive seventy times seven?
i want to learn to love like you.
the white noise fades away
when you and i fly
down the interstate.
the breeze teases
your hair, the sun
kisses your face
the way i'd like to.
i hope you hear my voice
every time one of our favorite songs
gets stuck inside your head,
singing in time to the rhythms of love requited.
have faith in me.
and i'm trying hard—
real hard—every day
not to lose my temper
with these circumstantial quandaries
that leave us wondering whether or not
we should press pause.
instead i'll climb the mountains
of your vertebrae so i might find
a resting place in the holiest of holies.
if only i could shrink myself down,
dance between the synaptic gaps of your brain cells,
i could see reality through your eyes—
twirling like twin nebulae,
galaxies inviting me to endless epiphanies.
i want to lose myself in your universe.
your courage is infectious.
when i hold your hand,
i summon the strength to smash the State
and all the arbitrary authorities
trying to dictate the limits of liberty,
that instigate injustice and propagate malice.
it all just falls away until it's you and me,
forever us against them all.
you're like Hermione,
time-turner included,
feeding the homeless,
leading a women's health group,
acting for a short film,
directing a play,
writing a novel,
all in a day's work.
and you breathe white-hot fire
when you fight for the disenfranchised
recognizing that those who are neutral
in situations of injustice have chosen
the side of the oppressor and it's quite
impressive how you stand-up for
the little guy or invite the social acolyte over
to your table to have a bite of whatever
vegetarian dish you cooked up last night.
i see you on the silver screen,
in each new book i read ,
in every single note i sing,
latent remnants in recited rhymes
of poetry from the one and only Bukowski:
i found what i love
and i want it to **** me.
Dec 28, 2015
Dec 28, 2015 at 7:54 AM UTC
This rhyming tongue twister filled with S's and P's
Is said by Sally's sickly sister as she sits by the sea
Selling seashells as she tells Peter the Piper
To pick pecks of peppers presently ripe or
Else forage the forest for frog legs and bees.
But beware of the badger's butler named Steve
Who forgot of the fox in the box wearing socks,
Bought by the duck in a truck for a buck by the docks
Where witches make wishes, of which there are three
One wonders, two wander, but which one are thee?
Seashell selling Sally and pepper picking Peter
Then postulated how preposterous were the nauseous people eaters
Whose purple pales are full of quintessential quantities
Quietly questioning carefully the existential quandaries
Of buck-riding ducks driving trucks by the docks
With a box of a fox wearing socks made with locks
Who is literally elated over Luscious Lake
Where lucky duck Luke likes to lick lemon cake,
While eleven benevolent elephants and three blind mice
Might magically master their moves skating on the ice.
Thus this terrific travesty of a terribly twisted tongue twister
Seashell selling Sally sought to share with her sickly-sister
While the pepper picking piper, Peter, perpetuated his preposterous plan
To provide the purple people eaters with a conundrum of a can.
Can they can as many cans as a can canner could?
Or what of the wood chucking woodchuck should it chuck any wood?
And the purple people eaters ate no purple people that day
Because Sally's sickly sister this tongue twister couldn't say.
And the benevolent elephants and blind mice three
And the licking duck Luke were all laid to rest by the sea.
Aug 25, 2016
Aug 25, 2016 at 10:58 AM UTC
life ignites, contradiction fuels
moral quandaries, choices ran from
Mr. Nice Guy, a total *******
plaster smile, bleeding clown frowns
something to say, pretentious crap
I love you, I hate you for it
beautiful struggle, an ugly massacre
sun of fire, moon of ice
inhale, exhale, suffocate
intelligence, total confusion
love letters, suicide notes
and everything in between
so fully alive
dead as a door nail
Feb 17, 2013
Feb 17, 2013 at 1:35 PM UTC
This crazy conundrum has been conspicuously contrived quite cordially. Of course, one could concede this cordially contrived conundrum could carelessly conflate the countless quandaries causing quintessential quantities to question the conspicuously questionable conspiracy. Conversely, carelessly questioning conspicuously contrived conspiracies as cordially quantitative quandaries could create considerably confusing claims countering the critically acclaimed crazy conundrum so callously clarified as to continue to count as cordial. Consequently, with careless acquiescence, I must confess that the conceptually contrived conspiracy, so inconspicuously inconsistent, conflated considerably contrary quandaries quite questionably and continues to confuse the crazy quite cordially. To conclude, the crazed conspicuous conundrum confuses the cordially questionable quantities of conceptually countless claims clearly clarified as conflated quandaries continuously contradicting a considerable count of conspiracies.
11/2/16 11:59 p
Nov 3, 2016
Nov 3, 2016 at 11:21 PM UTC
Let me make your life easy
Now that you making so many efforts
To end mine
Guns, Pistols, Bombs and your own body
So considerate , so kind.
So let me help,
Let me whet my trepidation
Lacerate my flesh, from inside
Let me batter my silly quivering, numb
Let me assure them ,they will be insensate
It is only a matter of time.
Meanwhile,
Tell me how would you like it?
Mere flesh soaked in ****** quagmire
Silent in death , heeding to you instruction manual
Or
Crisp shrills rising in cacophonous notes
Reciting curses in quandaries, jabbing your fiend inside
Or
should i use my imaginations
On 'how to ruin my own life?'
So behold and hold
My veins from the end
And haul towards your side,
Twist to cause added agony
Or may be crush my lungs
To hasten me out of my life
See my insipid blood splatter
As it draws tattoos of attainment on you
Hear it gurgle
As you guzzle it out of my body, as if some wine
Nevertheless,
It won't evoke any poignant feeling
Even if you realize in the end
You and i are same kind.
So drown me deep, so deep in the pool which is red
Sorry again,if you were expecting blue,yellow,green or may be white
Descend me twice the force
If i brawl or condemn against your peace of mind
Hear the music of my diminishing gasps till the end
And move on , tattooed and vindicated.
-Pallavi Goswami
Jun 30, 2016
Jun 30, 2016 at 8:09 AM UTC
Whenever I hear that song I'll get a lump in my throat
The size of a grapefruit
It will be your voice I hear gliding through the melodies
In my mind's eye I won't try to hide
Your head tilting back with the high notes
Your own eyes closed, squinting, holding back
A look of pure ecstasy and passion deep as any
Union remembered or forgotten
You sing and you make the song your own
So it is your own and I would not take it from you
Even if I could
Even if I wanted to
The sound drowns and I won't turn it down
It fills the room to overflowing
I fall back into your favorite chair and watch
You skim the waves
I color the empty space blue to give you something to sink into
When you fall
Sinking as the noise subsides
Reaching for my lifeguard arms
With the first line of the second chorus
I pull you down and draw you near
Ease you into your favorite chair
You won't mind, we can share
I've got the song in "repeat" mode and it's played 6 times now
Every single spin my head begins to swim
Doesn't get old, just sinks in deeper
A knife, a nail, sharp enough but painless
It's just a needle for my weakest vein
Injects the feeling I had the very first time I heard it
The first time I saw you hold a microphone to your mouth
Saw you move to and fro to the beat of the music
Already lost, five minutes and nine seconds out of time and space
All of the world's existentialist quandaries forgotten and powerless
You took me with you
Or more like you let me follow, by the tail, hold on for dear life
Knowing that when we burst through the other side
The words and music would be branded into our brains
I could leave it on "repeat" all night long
It never gets old
Still, the next song on this playlist is awesome
You really should hear it
Mar 15, 2012
Mar 15, 2012 at 7:02 PM UTC
the sentimental death wish as i think of your dark flowing hair in the gusty winter midnight sky makes me think of my frivolous existence i look to the somber night for quandaries of life love and happiness i find the moon light exacerbating the adulation of those dead light brown eyes yet with such a effervescent nature to those dark dreary eyes my voice sprouts out infatuation comments words to memorize then i lose myself in the sudden chill of the night i forget my judgement in the brilliance of the morning sunset the beginning of a brilliant love the beginning of something graceful graceful as the first blooming of a flower during the dawn of spring yet still clinging to the harshness of the winters chill.
Feb 8, 2013
Feb 8, 2013 at 12:33 AM UTC
There's this thing in life
This thing that we call love
It transcends gender, age, ethnicity,
All of the above.
Love is a beautiful thing
Not too unlike a rose
As roses have thorns, and thorns can sting
As love often does.
Love is a painful thing
A blade across your wrists.
Words never spoken,
Agonizing bliss.
Love is a curiosity
An enigma, misunderstood.
Three small words, yet also large
Do you really think they could?
They can, and have, and will again
And so will you, sweet dove.
You'll mend your broken wing
And soar on skies of love.
For love, despite it's quandaries
In all it's highs and lows,
Is something meant for all of us
To receive, and to show.
And if you think
No one loves me,
I say think again!
For in these words
Inevitably
You've found yourself a friend.
Jan 12, 2015
Jan 12, 2015 at 5:32 AM UTC
incogitable is the question
you've asked yourself
since you could form
thoughts dense enough to grasp
quandaries these daily citizens
are encouraged
"not to be contemplated"
unthinkably aware of your surroundings
that you tend to notice cracks
in the side-stomped concrete
three-point-five seconds before
my ankle ever twists
and yet, your eyebrows carved canyons
in sweaty, porous sediment
caked onto the blood-fed silkscreen
stretched below your hair
you didn't believe me when i told you
cameras will litter the city streets
innumerable greater than the lampposts
illuminating your view of my sprained ankle
(you missed that one, by the way)
you honestly believed that everyone
thinks about everyone else
because that's what you do
but boy, I gotta tell ya,
you are not like anyone else
you're the high-flyin pilot
star visible to the naked eye
caught behind the crescent of the moon
yet still shining through
and some may even come close enough
to brush heat waves you emanate from that hot heart
unfortunately, your perennial denizens
rely on waxen wings
crashing anxiously homeward
to moss-laden paradises
they make up
twisting neural networks into bundles
here i recline
pierced through the retina
held fast iron-gripped heart
legs tight and fingers licked
incogitably cognizant
of each
and every
answer
|| Restricted Access Memory ||
will not permit to ponder
ponder for longer than
a second anyway
but a second is all you
need to receive
seventeen-thousand-four-hundred-and-forty-two
percent of your daily value
of vitamin E
(that stands for Enlightenment, people)
Jun 19, 2013
Jun 19, 2013 at 2:48 PM UTC
I. ANGER
Dear you. Calm down
Take the drama lay it down
Sit yourself find the truth
Find out what’s wrong with you
I’m pretty sure that its not me
But hey who can be sure these days?
I take it back you’re being crazy
Cause just maybe … maybe …
Its you that’s causing problems
Think your smart with all your quandaries
Philosophies and history
Or maybe your just repeating
The facts with hyper-meaning
Cause if you say it nice and boldly
Suddenly its new and golden?
You talk around in circles
When you stop you leave me hurdles
Should I respond? Is it rhetorical?
A silence meant for an oracle.
Cause if I say and disagree
Suddenly the tricks on me
If I lie and say your right …
I think I’d rather fight
Cause either way I lose respect for you
But If I lie I lose respect for me
I love you (god knows why)
But I just can’t tell a lie.
II. SADNESS
I think I’m stuck. I didn’t want to say it.
After years I can’t speak truth to you
I’m crying. What’s it worth to you?
Cause you say that you love me.
And that you want to know whats on my mind.
Oh If only you knew what you’d find.
Well it doesn’t seem you’d care …
III. CONFUSED
If only you’d stop time like you used to do
Open up to whats confusing you.
These days nothing is confusing you
What true human lives that way?
Cause if everything so black and white
That means that you have solved this life.
And if you’re done then why do you need
The comfort of another.
You have no space for new life it seems.
I do not expect everyone to live like me
But I thought you understood
That no day starts with the doors all closed.
I’m trying to find simplicity
You seemed to me to disagree
And (of course!) I’m fine with that.
No humans are the same until they are dead
Soulmates are two, not attached at the head
I do not want to argue whats clear to me.
Stop now please before we bleed.
IV. DEATH
I mourn the loss of loosened seams.
Ready for the world to tighten.
Or relaxed to blow and live unfrightened.
I’m alone again, stuck in my head
Perhaps to loose to live unsaid
Without you the wind is lifting
And we our separate ways, thoughts adrifting
Nov 10, 2009
Nov 10, 2009 at 9:20 PM UTC
I did not expect to lose you.
It seems this ending was inevitable, perhaps even predictable.
But those quandaries aside, losing you tears me up inside.
We live under the same roof, yet are you still here?
You say "hello" when I walk in the room, but are you my friend?
I loved you like a brother, and told you so.
Somehow in doing so I angered you.
Suddenly I was wrong and in denial.
"There is no way you love me that way." He said.
He smirked and walked away into the next day.
A lonely text flashed across my screen.
"I think it's best if you and I were rarely seen."
Tears welled up in my eyes.
Losing my friend, roommate, and brother all in one night.
Feb 9, 2019
Feb 9, 2019 at 5:06 AM UTC
Brilliant blue, swimming in an ocean black;
pinprick of light barely visible from distant planets,
the sweet, living dirt on which all our hopes,
dreams, plans, history, and future reside.
Fragile, but strong, older than time,
our home.
Swinging in wide ellipse around brilliant flame,
small yet full to brim,
our Earth.
When the men of the future finally bid goodbye
to this, our green oasis in the darkness,
will they shed tears?
Will they remember the violent history? the blood
and tainted soil? the tears of mothers?
the schemes of politicians?
the passing quandaries that envelop us now,
but will be meaningless then?
Will they cry to leave our home behind?
Small, little planet circling a sun,
solar system in the arms of a spiral,
one of millions in a galaxy that is
one of hundreds in a cluster that is
one of billions in a universe-
we are so small,
and it is beautiful to be so.
Product of billions of years of chance-
expansion from a single point, energy
bringing destruction and creation in
symbiotic, chaotic harmony.
In a few more billion years, our home will be gone,
and the universe will not be changed greatly
by the absence.
What will become of the Humans,
that precocious species that once inhabited
a starspeck, and thought they were
the center of the cosmos?
Will we have survived our self-destructive tendency
to **** our fellow man?
Will we be standing in gleaming vessels,
watching the sun expand and
consume our Mother whole?
Will we cry to see our old home burn?
Jan 31, 2014
Jan 31, 2014 at 10:35 AM UTC
i find myself drowning in murky waters,
an oil spill of equations and metaphors,
quandaries and paradigms.
the sun is a constant overcast even on the most blinding days,
faces are grim even with the brightest smiles.
messily scrawled words read chaos on pristine canvases,
incessant scribbles drill canals into my brain.
one tentative tap away,
always one tentative tap away from reality,
but never quite there,
and so i fall deeper.
thin heels clicking against glossy tiles,
heavy footsteps shuffling into classrooms,
distant chatter stalking my shadows,
actuate stings of dread luring me in.
thread-like strings are attached to my limbs,
a marionette with a feeble attempt of procuring freedom,
i am a victim to disorder.
inundated with scattered pages,
furious streaks of neon hues form riots across my desk.
before me stands a mirror of my very own thoughts,
and my mind takes everything in
only to be left with nothing specific in the end.
i work with a jumbled puzzle set,
consisting of no essential moment
to print itself onto my memory.
yet there remains a fascicle of nerves
screaming,
waiting to be heard,
but it becomes like me—submerged in murky water.
living in chaos is living
where moments are constantly out of focus
and the abundance of simply everything is too overwhelming.
but to wake in the earliest hours of the day
when the sun is still yearning to lie upon a mattress of stars
and neighborhood lights are flickering onto rusty street signs and empty tar roads,
is a blessed refuge from the tumultuous scenes
that plague me daily.
silence slices through the fog of my cognition like a bayonet,
and i blink away my sleep-addled state to take a dip in the tangerine skies.
nascent rays gleam over rooftops,
trees become silhouettes on an oil painting,
and golden clouds blush from the soft caress of the sun.
for some reason,
the experience felt foreign,
like a mirage of all of the images i was never able to grasp.
dawn is a portal to another realm,
a shelter to shield myself from the murky waters,
only there’s still no escape—
i’m just no longer drowning.
instead,
i find that i can breathe.
(chaos is loud but silence is louder;
i wouldn’t mind listening to silence for a day,
because i’ve already been listening to chaos for years.)
Jan 25, 2018
Jan 25, 2018 at 3:09 AM UTC
*Allowing one’s thoughts to go haywire
To traverse the perverse
Odd and uneven terrain of perception
Neutralizing the amorphous tidbits of "migrainous" quandaries
Coalescing into mind boggling quagmires
Underscores the need to appreciate the wonderment that’s reverie.
The need to take some time to ruminate blindly over anything and everything fanciful.
To laugh even smile at one’s own grandiose deductions
That’ll never achieve the high threshold of logic.
This indeed does crystallize in distinct perspective
The wondrous phenomenon that’s daydreaming.*
Jan 27, 2015
Jan 27, 2015 at 4:34 AM UTC
Wallowing in a shallow pool
Time has lost time
I run like a fool.
Blood pools and pulls.
I wish I were running.
My cup dipped
Halfway full
I cry when I taste it.
You didn’t cleanse me
I want to jump in victory
You didn’t fix it.
I scream out in confusion.
I hear the Lion roar delusion.
I cling to your mystery
I don’t love your plague
You certainly, designed.
You are not vague.
A missing piece
I thought you built me.
Evolution
Incompatible with “thee”
My hands folded without a crease
Trying to impress you
Speaking blessings and peace
Sanity is all the same
They tell me it’s good to…
Good to love you
A spec of blackness on a cloth
Quandaries in the mud
I see a ***** fog in prayer.
Wondering if your there
Mad God
I kneel back.
Loving God
This isn’t fair.
Jan 24, 2010
Jan 24, 2010 at 3:58 PM UTC
Astonishingly crass and
Brave in all situations
Comfortable in all quandaries
Daring beyond belief
Elegant and poised
Furious and feisty, fueled by anger
Grand individuality with a
Heart of ice and hate
Irreverent and haughty
Jester of pride, sarcasm, and sass
King of bluntness
Lively, rambunctious spirit
Mastermind of
Neuroticism, never in
Oblivion because
Pressure cannot persuade me
Quick to speak out against the wrong for the
Right reasons but truly
Selfish motives
Tainting the
Ubiquitous notion that every altruistic attitude springs from
Very bubbly and confident people
Wandering through life with the Greek concept
Xenia exhibited on the sleeve
Yelling boisterous excitements that could a game
Zoning in on all the end goals
These are the misperceptions
That create me
Jul 31, 2016
Jul 31, 2016 at 2:19 PM UTC
ears forced against the down-stuffed pillow
muffle rhythmic sounds of sleep,
perceptible crackles
that rumble from nasal passages
and invade his sleep
(should last night be an entry-
a sin of commission?)
yesterday desire grew
inescapable
until two bodies
pounded into exhaustion
on a mattress musty
and worn
from other nights like this
bird chirps and lake chills
filter through screen windows
unabated.
few diaries document transgressions
in this new age of free love and prosperity
sins are common and plentiful.
later a litany of ****** diseases
would make headlines
now, love is free
secretly surrounded by traps
and quandaries soon to be discovered
he awaits her awakening
in the still of bird songs and snoring
and wonders what she will remember
of the fascinations they held
for each other yesterday
Mar 2, 2013
Mar 2, 2013 at 12:22 PM UTC
Don't you take
another step
leave your trivial problems at the door
(if only momentarily)
This world....when you really put all
mundane human quandaries aside
is a place of wonder, magnificence and
second to none
I love this place
Nov 22, 2014
Nov 22, 2014 at 12:01 AM UTC