"quicksilver" poems
Eroding brick wall
all that remains
refracted, fading
fishermen shadow
red dawn’s early light
brackish still water
shocked violent green
seeps from the desert
to be subsumed
by an unrelenting sea
restless dreamers rise
muscle sturdy pangas
into the churning tide
seeking quicksilver
at the continental edges
returning boats ride low
the shrinking horizon
race to safe harbor
cold beer on ice
under palm palapas
in the restaurant
a young man
shows off tuna
half as tall as he is
to admiring tourists
like me, seeking
the deep, slow burn
salt, jalapeno, lime
a fitting end to this
unraveling dream
Pueblo Mágico
of “no bad days”
walls of contention
in a fractured land
will never separate us
one margarita, two
another raised in defiance
of those who would try
to confine and define
free-range spirits
the Pacific touches
this contiguous shore
from equator to pole
we could catch
a clockwise current
follow Polaris up North
arrive transformed
magnetically charged
disparate souls fused
together bound
Mar 17, 2017
Mar 17, 2017 at 8:38 AM UTC
If I had any super power I would want the power to control time.
To stop this moment
To relive the past
And to see the future.
If I had any super power I would want the power to control time.
To slow it down
To speed it up
And to play over.
If I had any super power I would want the power to control time.
To spend it wisely
To cherish it
And to learn from it.
If I had any super power I would want the power to control time.
Because it is the cruelest villain
It keeps moving regardless of our lives
It keeps ticking and tormenting
It claims to heal all wounds
It is the dictator of life.
I'd be stronger than super man
I'd be slicker than batman
I'd be bulkier than the hulk
I'd be faster than quicksilver
All because I'd have the power to control time.
Nov 6, 2012
Nov 6, 2012 at 12:25 AM UTC
-
crack another thermometer open
on the broken bathroom sink,
pour yourself into me like mercury
and pan the bed of my stomach
for multitudes of gold flecks
like however many myriads
of sickly pill bottles in your
dresser drawer of socks.
-
see all
the shredded speckled petals
i ripped up before i'd let
the deer get to them;
i'm colorblind,
and i can't tell
the sun's reflection from plastic,
or tulips from the broken
pottery outside my front door.
-
and far least from another beer,
and another fifth of whatever
could be fit under your shirt
-
and never a chair pulled up to speak,
from standing like a soapbox
more suited to cleaning
than to preaching.
-
pour yourself into me like mercury,
because it's so much easier
when my veins weigh me down
to distraction, than being able
to think of hydrangeas again.
-
Mar 19, 2013
Mar 19, 2013 at 1:55 PM UTC
There came quiet
the colors of your cinnamon skin,
its taste, persimmon
spread in red syllables
and quicksilver spills
in the folds of this tickled silence,
Laden with prophesy
the white thought of love
leaps through the tamarack pastures,
suet to the shadows of dahlias, flesh
you say, is water
and its symmetry, a penetrating
sound of pure ebullience,
Love, in the pale baton of light
you coax from cognac eyes,
open my veins to every thorn in the garden,
rumors of rain,
say nothing and endure,
Spread over panes of glass
where butterflies drown
in the sweat of our charms
and moths drop from the true color of lunacy,
cold depths lapse softly into my flesh,
I hurt, in that quiet shatter of light,
and from moth-eaten thighs
you soak the ****** of earth
with velvet tears and lavender,
spread its dark balsam to quell the quick faith
with sighs, as reluctantly,
the soul speaks what the body has written,
and gives-in to its asylum....
Jan 20, 2013
Jan 20, 2013 at 1:20 PM UTC
Down by two
the bruised-blue flesh
of the bronze butterfly's
escape through sacrifice,
flays the emotions..
Unwholesome the silence
that goes before her,
a sound like the heart
bound to beat like butterfly wings...
Gently her absence quick
upon me, inhales the night
and swiftly, the dark
sees only ease to relinquish
her candles sheathed in glass
epitaphs that collapse like veins
to fill the fluent air with the spare
embrace of the blue elements...
Down by two in the bottom of the ninth,
two out, two on, two strikes,
the soul's too tragic abhorrence of details
fails to deliver the impossible syntax
of apocalypse, on the lips
of a courteous Christ, crucified
by light, the night fades
far into the furthest exile...
Under a tropic of cancer,
her un-obscured brilliance
pierces the vault of heaven's vast
gathering of angels,
and their illegible scripture...
Shatters the soul in one primal
instant grand slam dream, quicksilver
through her midnight moment's landscape,
every cherished feature in flight, the light
of the bronze butterfly's escape
through sacrifice, to the silver flame
of moonlight's crucial adieu....
Feb 5, 2013
Feb 5, 2013 at 1:08 PM UTC
Willow herb floating
on silent certainty
ashes of sighs
not fleeting,
unvapoured on the
blossom of the rain,
I am too light to
pull or push
the swing of delight
through this land.
The rain left me for a
while
sun unshielding
-a thousand widows
more unyielding than the depths . .
Once shadowed whisperers
of delight,gossamer
sparkling , descending
their chains
of necromantic hope.
Lilith is no night owl
she is mother, eve
and my becoming:
sweet earth spun
at once ,
exhaling her .
The see saw
bumped gently
on my chin
it is a most gentle
form of awakening.
The silence bore no whispers
till sinking through the quicksand
-or was it quicksilver?
-in any case I could smell little
in my amniotic amnesia.
I made ten thousand friends,till their soap
made this place clean.
Is this a seed or a dying
hopefulness
-is my sallow sowing
beyond all shores of
reproduction;
a reflection of the child
they dared not bear?
Is my last breath like this
a forgotton yielding
will they catch me
as I fall ?
-(sweet earth)-
This moth of my ending,
a shallow recantation,
my fears-
their memories, mere
testubes of
stylish hope .
I breathe the elegant stare
you have forgotten .
Once more free
from such
rememberance
I need not ,
remained not ,
your imploded ,
wakefulness .
A thousand pardons
exhaled like silk
entwining
an unfinished race
spider of a thousand eyes .
One may say
I was
stared
to death
but surrogate air
mocks childish pity.
Taut refelexions
bear salt echoes
in silk convulsions
fresh water
a veneered hope .
Easier in death than life
is a child's sorrowed
partings ,
the illusion of
bouyancy
rippled tides
unfelt.
The oceans have not enough salt
for such shrunken sorrow.
if we could but once
have shared
unbreathed aspersion .
The room has come and gone
the pillow quite undry
unforgotten
unremembered.
A web untouched
Sep 27, 2010
Sep 27, 2010 at 7:46 AM UTC
Socrates consumed Hemlock,
Cleopatra embraced the Asp,
Alan Turing ate an apple laced with cyanide,
I, like those before me,
Have picked my poison;
An absinthe-eyed, quicksilver-tongued boy.
He was unsettled when I answered with the truth of his query,
Yes, he is poison,
I knowingly and willingly consume every drop of him,
Not all toxicity is solely adverse,
Radiation treats cancer,
Venom in low doses is an antidote,
Ethanol relaxes muscle and numbs the emotions.
He is my poison and my antidote,
He is the corrosive acid that dissolves gear-stopping rust,
I, in kind, am the poison apple of his eye,
Or so he says,
And so, we two, bask in the destruction of ourselves,
Consuming each other's pain, insecurity, madness, and lust,
Why is it that he, a poison, is the one I trust?
Jun 5, 2017
Jun 5, 2017 at 12:16 PM UTC
Here come the confectionary clouds
Packed like powdered sugar
And
They
Drizzle
All
Over
Her
Hankering
Hungry
Heart
Little quicksilver has
A bit of a sweet tooth
And grubby hands well into
A box of Quality Street
Oct 11, 2020
Oct 11, 2020 at 11:12 AM UTC
. what's the difference between
thieves, and magicians?
not much...
both have quick hands...
and an awake,
yet asleep public communal
presence...
the thief has a public of
the victim,
and the c.c.t.v. "stage"...
the magician?
has a public of the crowd,
and the "dajjal" stage of
a camera replenishing
a concept of:
not enough public...
thieves and magicians are
bedfellows...
you allow one to flourish...
the antithesis will come
along, and in an indiscriminate
fashion...
allow the "magic" / "thieving"
to take place...
what is a magician,
a public figure... compared...
to a thief?
i can't see the difference...
the audience was fooled
by the magician...
the individual was fooled
by the thief...
are they... so much unlike
each other?
magicians can own
a theater stage...
thieves, sometimes... just sometimes...
own the, basic...
pointlessness of english
c.c.t.v. mechanics,
to make police officers make:
a follow-up investigation...
oh, but i have genius
interrogation practices...
no one wants to listen to...
like 10 hours straights of listening
to stefan molyneux...
or 48 hours, sleep deprived...
listening to BBC 24 hour news reels...
that **** could crack anyone...
what the americans did to the Iraqis?
last time i heard...
they blasted the slayer oeuvre
down headphones into their ears...
Americans... feeding conquered
Iraqis with a slayer oeuvre?
BRAVO! BRAVO! ENCORE!
and didn't the encore come?
******* retards...
crows feeding seagull chicks
with sinew and
regurgitated scavenger meat!
if only they played them some
Bach...
i'm pretty sure...
the Iraqis would still be left...
disorientated...
but the American army "interrogators"...
ha ha!
played them the slayer oeuvre!
WEE-TARDS!
anyone... and i mean anyone:
will relieve themselves as being
"tortured": doubly charged up,
and ready to ingest hyper-coffee
in the form of the Luftwaffe tactic
of ingesting amphetamines
(pervitin) -
night-raids... the londoonoirnischt
blitz, sloth krieg...
ya ya yawn...
urgh... burp...
and always... those poncy -
english, gay, aristocratic men...
and their... psychotropic women...
so what's the difference between
a common thief...
and a spectacle magician?
one "owns" cctv footage,
the other owns a stage...
yet both share a: quicksilver
take on, what cannot be
interpreted in either handwriting
or stenography...
hmm...
can't be sure whether
both could be considered legal.
Jul 31, 2018
Jul 31, 2018 at 12:16 AM UTC
NEW AGAIN
AGAIN I AM LONGING.
FOR AGAINS ARE REPETITIVE.
IT SEEMS I NEED TO HURT.
I NEED TO OVERCOMPENSATE.
BUT I AM BROKEN FROM BEFORES.
SHOULD I AGAIN, AGAIN?
QUICKSILVER THOUGHTS,
RUNNING MADLY,
DEADLY IF CONSUMED.
AND I AM CONSUMED AGAIN.
THE INNOCENCE OF EYES,
MY OWN FAILURES REFLECTED BACK.
I AM MOTHER, DAUGHTER.
EX-LOVER, EX-FIANCE… EX HUMAN?
I AM TEARING AT MY SOULSKIN,
A WEREWULF AT FULL MOON.
MY INNER BEING IS SUFFOCATING.
IT’S TOO EASY TO BE HAPPY.
HARD IS GOOD.
I MUST BE GOOD.
A GOOD LITTLE PUPPY.
A BAD LITTLE PUPPY.
WILL I BITE THE HAND THAT FEEDS ME?
Feb 17, 2010
Feb 17, 2010 at 3:42 AM UTC
When by thy scorn, O murd’ress, I am dead,
And that thou think’st thee free
From all solicitation from me,
Then shall my ghost come to thy bed,
And thee, feigned vestal, in worse arms shall see;
Then thy sick taper will begin to wink,
And he, whose thou art then, being tired before,
Will, if thou stir, or pinch to wake him, think
Thou call’st for more,
And in false sleep will from thee shrink,
And then, poor aspen wretch, neglected thou
Bathed in a cold quicksilver sweat wilt lie
A verier ghost than I.
What I will say I will not tell thee now,
Lest that preserve thee; and since my love is spent,
I’d rather thou shouldst painfully repent
Than by my threat’nings rest still innocent.
2.1k
An original creation, that's what you are
in vibrant colors nature carefully assembled,
as you sashayed through your time,till here
now all across the front page one can see you
arousing pleasure that moves me deeply,
done in bold sweeps of a brush immersed in joy
making onlookers stand agape, thrilled
mumbling inanities as none has the grasp
of the quicksilver aesthetics that rules you.
And I, obscure , at the best like a crop circle
done in the secret hours after midnight,
or a cryptic mural on a dull wall, long past it's prime
doodled by an interplanetary traveler gone astray,
a drawing in grey fading slowly in to oblivion,
yet to be deciphered is the benediction,
it carries from light years far away,
it will be gone soon as the light from galaxies far
want to make it their own, little by little each night
Am I not transient and to be forgotten soon?
But you are steadfast and adamant
very rooted in your reasoning
sprung from a center devine, we both
claim together.
"Am I not a woman and lover first?"
Your eyes, gleam, exuding a timelessness that speaks to me.
"I would only dream of lying naked under your
sweet heaving heaviness, to receive the nectar,
the transient ecstasy that gifts me the precious seed
that'd grow to heights immortal,on the bank of the milky way"
Jun 14, 2016
Jun 14, 2016 at 11:37 AM UTC
They keep asking us where we were
last night and we
Could tell the truth
but where's the fun in that?
The world wants answers and we've only
got big dreams and
empty stomachs.
So what do you want to be when you grow up?
Your smile is all teeth.
Someone.
Getting high,
Getting loved,
Getting glamorous on
thrift shop discounts.
Getting plastered.
You'll write your confessions
in the fog on windows,
and worship
deaf gods.
With quicksilver tongues and
eyes like mercury,
We can't wind
the years back
but
we sure as hell can try.
Jul 9, 2019
Jul 9, 2019 at 9:39 AM UTC
My love, my love these shaky Isles
Abandoned in the vast blue seas,
Born in Mesozoic times
When sedimentary oozes ease.
From far Antarctic mountainsides
To windblown dust from Austral plain
They lay in layers thick and deep
Beneath the Tasman Sea's domain.
A thousand million years of ******
Of plate tectonic shear and drift,
Mid oceanic larva seep
Determines continental shift.
Deep magmatic plumes arise
From down within the planet's core
To burst asunder from the crust
As mountain God's volcanic lore.
Ash and larva from the vent
In pyroclastic feirce display,
Obliterate the cold blue sky
Explosively in massive way.
Rooster tails of feiry ash
And bread crust bombs cascade about
Vulcan roars his rage to all
In violent, vast, volcanic route.
Ignimbrite flows from the vent
In sheets a hundred meters deep
The incandescence, from on high,
Would, watching Angels, cause to weep.
Like quicksilver, it cloaks the land
To cover all in burning flow,
To last a million years as sheets
Of sharded rock where 'ere you go.
So the land was born of fire
And bent and twisted by the force
Of upthrust from the great, beneath
And earthquakes felt throughout, of course.
Earthquakes of unearthly fear
Wrack foundation's very base,
Sudden as the artic gale
Unpredictable to face.
So the shaky Isles were born
Here to lie in ocean's vast,
Clad in forest lush and green
Snowclad mountains, rivers fast.
Well kept cities, well kept towns
Population proud and clean,
Beauty all around is felt
Perched atop creation's dream.
So the Shaky Isles exist
Perfect in their place in time,
Perched atop subducting plates
Perched in ignorance sublime.
What's around the corner now?
Who's concerned, who really cares
For Kiwis make the best of now...
The rest remains as chance declares.
Marshalg
Celebrating a love affair with my beautiful New Zealand.
31 August 2012
Aug 30, 2012
Aug 30, 2012 at 9:32 PM UTC
Funny how life happens
No rules, no plans at all
just endless days of chaos
sitting staring at the wall
and then right out of nowhere
a spark begins to flame
a meeting, small distraction
but, i won't forget your name
I'm in this for the long haul
I'm in this till the end
I'm in this for the long haul
Now that you're more than just my friend
I'm in this for the long haul
You drive me round the bend
I'm in this for the long haul
I'm in this till the end
Time goes by as always
Lives go on, in different ways
We're still actors going nowhere
on different stages, different plays
One night stands behind us
Wondering just who they were
With no hope for a future
Leaving early, less they stir
I'm in this for the long haul
I'm in this till the end
I'm in this for the long haul
Now that you're more than just my friend
I'm in this for the long haul
You drive me round the bend
I'm in this for the long haul
I'm in this till the end
a lightning bolt from nowhere
like quicksilver on sheet steel
we connected from a distance
And this I know is real
Plans, and yes, a future
Silent thought in both our minds
Not the same yet, but converging
We both have to read the signs
I'm in this for the long haul
I'm in this till the end
I'm in this for the long haul
Now that you're more than just my friend
I'm in this for the long haul
You drive me round the bend
I'm in this for the long haul
I'm in this till the end
We get close, and that is scary
We try to push the other back
We don't know how to show affection
It's a skill we both must lack
But, I swear I'm going nowhere
and nowhere's somewhere new
But, I swear to god that somewhere
Is just nowhere without you
I'm in this for the long haul
I'm in this till the end
I'm in this for the long haul
Now that you're more than just my friend
I'm in this for the long haul
You drive me round the bend
I'm in this for the long haul
I'm in this till the end
Jan 14, 2015
Jan 14, 2015 at 11:44 PM UTC
The firelight was fading
The shadows grew in size
In the distance if you listened
You could hear the faintest cries
Of coyotes and of timber wolf
Signalling the end of day
Howling at the growing moon
Keeping night spirits at bay
The last piece of the sagebrush
Was burning to it's core
The flames that danced as quicksilver
Now, they danced no more
The fire, once was blazing
It's flames a dangerous height
Was now a nest of coal chunks
to warm us through the night
Four days out and three to go
We'd be in two days ahead
The scheduled trip with this years herd
And we'd be back in our own bed
A smaller group of beef this time
But, that's the way it goes
At least we'd leave the mountains
Before the early snows
Coffee from the morning meal
Was still sitting in the ***
Two minutes in the embers
And it was steaming hot
The first round of watch was up
And the coffee was re done
The second watch, for wolves and things
Needed coffee and a gun
Two went down the first night out
We heard the wolves, but missed them all
They'd been following us for three days now
And at night you'd hear them call
They signalled that the day was done
And that the herd was staying still
The darkness was their element
It was time for them to ****
The fire was near finished
The flames were all but smoke
but that cup of cowboy coffee
put life into this old grey cowpoke
If the wolves kept at a distance
And just kept howling at the moon
We'd lose no more beef tonight
And be home two days from noon
The fire spit and crackled
The night was damp and cold
The stars were silent beacons
To the wolves so quick and bold
We heard them in the distance
Howling loud as if to say
Will you make it through till morning?
Wait until we come to play.....
May 7, 2015
May 7, 2015 at 12:11 AM UTC
when I see us its at the white-sand beaches
the scent of turmeric in our hair and
wild quicksilver kisses—
why does salt turn up in your
sweat when inches away from you it laps at your feet miles
away crashes against the
cliffs of dover
does the sea rush through your
veins through your eyes is that why our
seagull cries scatter to the
muriatic air the buoy of the
bedframe bobbing against the wall my hips anchored to
yours should I learn how to
sail
Sep 27, 2012
Sep 27, 2012 at 1:45 PM UTC
A sunlit narrow path cleaving
overgrown green hedge, both ways,
such exhilarating surprises, it too can offer,
but would one expect, in the first place?
On my track, I stand arrested hold that flower,
that made my heart jump, in my front,
felt being washed inside out
by a kind wave, transformed.
The flower, romancing the sun
still is on it's branch,alive
didn't feel the temptation
to pluck it like many times before.
Even the beauty's name is unknown to me,
just another hibiscus,amidst her cousins,
"I love the one next to her, the purple one"
said a female voice, a wayfarer like me.
Standing by me, she adoringly looked at her favorite,
I had no hesitation to accept it, like mine.
no ranking makes sense, each has
own quicksilver tongue, if you 'd listen.
"Look at you! how pleased you look
I love the folks, that adore flowers!"
she sounded like a skylark, hands of
evening sun caressed her, we are kindred spirits.
"You have wide eyes like girls,
eyes seeking beauty reflect it"
we held hands like childhood friends,
long lost, looked at each other's eyes.
Isn't it the feeling one try to capture and define,
when trying to say what poetry makes to happen?
it's there, a tangible feeling, if you know what it means,
on our separate ways we went, gifting what to keep for ever.
Oct 1, 2014
Oct 1, 2014 at 1:02 PM UTC
Running here running there
doing this doing that.
calling him calling her.
fixing this fixing that.
Im just tidying up the window dressing .
Fixing the facade.
Going here going there
smiling nicely putting on spin
trying to win the face contest.
Just tidying up the window dressing.
The store is out of stock.
The Tax man is a vamp.
Printing money like stamps.
Busting up my camp.
Time is spinning faster. Playing out the string.
The treadmill tilts a steeper angle.
Winners never quit and quitters never win.
Reaching for the next rung. Just like the one before.
Just tidying up the window dressing.
I got stamina to burn.
Tax man. Gas man. Card man
Med. man. Food man. Clothes man
Mortgage man.Rent man. Car man.
Light man. Water man Boss man.
Tidying up the window dressing
Stressing hard about my stressing.
Too jammed up to count my blessing.
Tell the truth without confessing.
Politicians full of ****
Slippery as quicksilver.
Who the hell they playing with.
Left or right I'm done with it.
AGAIN.
Media. what media. Tell it to
Goebbels.
Just pulling down the window dressing
Tired of playing Bo Peep. Big boy time.
Wakie Wakie.
The old shell game.
Never give a sucker an even break
Or.
Smarten up a chump said W.C
Fields. He was serious. I'm serious.
Who's serious about 1929.
Tearing down the window dressing
Dont believe the hype.
Nero fiddled while Rome burned. He was not mad
He had a plan?
Tearing up the window dressing.
Life is much too short for mucking
about with pit vipers bugged on ecstasy.
I'm serious.
Dec 8, 2012
Dec 8, 2012 at 1:36 AM UTC
Copyright Louis Brown
There is a past age
That no one can alter
And tomorrow will be
What tomorrow will be
But here in the middle
Is one precious moment
A quicksilver instant
That challenges me
Aug 28, 2015
Aug 28, 2015 at 1:22 PM UTC
The quicksilver moon’s not secure in her orbit.
I’ve heard that she’s slyly slipping away,
One and a half inches yearly
so a little bit every day.
I, for one, want her to stay.
‘Oh meritorious silver sister, you have no dark side,
and I’ve grown used to your capricious light,
Why do you only hover at night?”
I think of her as my own
though she wears no ring
like that showy trollop Saturn
Our moon has a higher engagement pattern.
She’s a spectacle for moon-inspired dances
and a cupid for nocturnal animalistic romances.
Have you noticed that sometimes she’s dark
and sometimes she’s bright?
What turns her on?
What turns her off?
That’s always the question with ladies,
isn’t it?
.
.
Songs for this:
Dancing In The Moonlight (feat. NEIMY) by Jubël
Fly Me to the Moon (feat. Izzie Naylor) Shoby
Moonlight Becomes You by Jeff Haislip
Jul 18, 2025
Jul 18, 2025 at 10:42 PM UTC
mecury dreams
begetting quicksilver thoughts
enticing in shape and shine, yet
fluid through grasping hands
time meanders, with little meaning
as roses wilt on the wayside
one note sounds a gong
reverberating in the distance
drawing me forward
all the time i am hampered
by the gathering up of past
I walk carrying a backpack
of badly folded origami dreams
hoping oneday they will be art
Feb 14, 2019
Feb 14, 2019 at 2:26 AM UTC
I don't know how to write you and maybe that's the point of it
I think about taxi cabs and single beds and pity my poor stomach
It can't take the shame of fogged memory
Dewed with whiskey and gingerale
Not regret, but it's kin, no fooling.
I don't do regrets
And I've never said a thing that I don't mean
So I meant it when I said it, but the when's important
Because I'm not flippant, or unsteady
But I don't know how I'm feeling.
Just know that I am.
I am feeling.
And I feel that that's significant.
Because I don't want to be a ball of quicksilver
Bright, mercury
Rolling from you in quick, sharp drips
Of poisonous charm.
Don't swallow it.
But do listen.
Just not too much.
Forget I said anything.
I'll stay quiet
Until I know what I'm saying.
Just know that I am feeling
Even if I don't know what I'm feeling.
I am feeling.
Oct 30, 2012
Oct 30, 2012 at 5:32 PM UTC