"quintessential" poems
man (?)
the tomatoes?
patty m.,
a grievous error thy commissioned
tomatoes are the quintessential feminine fruit
red juicy, round, curvy, sweet
with a flavor at once the same,
yet never again always different, diffident,
asized, and blonde or red, never contrived
without it,
would pizza be pizza?
without it,
would **** ***** love,
be merely a good salad
or a poem
ever be the same?
“me love tomatoes”
cookie monster
Apr 19, 2018
Apr 19, 2018 at 11:33 AM UTC
a september bride her hollow sounds
fearfully echo on the leaf strewn trail
with intonations of a blushing bride to be
she makes a graceful vision
obscured only by her hamfisted collection
of undesirable father figures
who stand round the groom and brow beat
him with dire dreams
but his eyes are for her alone and
the tigers of her sensual rainforest
"lions, tigers and bears...oh my!" she whispers
into his eager ear with a sardonic grin
her hollow sounds both haunting and beautiful
they will stay with me as a soulsong
long after history has devoured her
namesake and words
a quick poet of the three line shoot from the hip haiku
pink glossy eyes all damp with remembered tears
she is the quintessential september bride
the long summer nights swayed her
the longer cold winter may undo her
but it is a girlhood dream that
she knits with papier-mâché knights and
bubblegum queens
she waits for me there
to officiate the proceedings
with a bottle of red wine and single red rose
wrapped in the tender notions of
loves sweetest kiss
Aug 25, 2014
Aug 25, 2014 at 4:55 PM UTC
A message heart delivered by a musing troubadour
left footprints upon a well weathered rivers’ rocky shoal
the lazy days of the summer’s simmering
ethereal breezes lazily waft astir
Unknown distance ‘tween yonder skies azure;
thoughts of nebulous distances fearlessly ignored to be sure,
connectedness sown and deference’s soar from high above,
yet beyond vast breadth afar the great divide
His brimful heart in hand fulfills passersby thirst
needing love here, hearts on sleeves sincere,
wellspring sensibilities handed out willingly here
voids filled by word of quill …
right now is the known needed time
Glasses half empty suffused to their half full brims;
do unto others you will reap just what ye sow,
a poet beyond the bounds of his own demure,
bearing immense understanding
The quintessential essence of family love
drips from heart like heavens rain,
testifies the heart's purpose for being
A poet’s voice speaks in soul’s timeless tongues
unknown breaths from another understanding realm
too deep for words;
yet the word sayer struggles to see his forest ‘s poetic beauty
for to see beyond the pendant beauty
within its magnificent grandeur
of his own gifted heart’s nurtured trees.
~
The Twist
This poem was not written by me.
It was written almost four years ago,
lying fallow in some passing cloud.
Writ for me by someone effervescently more talented than I,
and one of the poets whose quality of work, and command of our shared language is something to which all of us should aspire.
I post it now as yet another homage to the true author.
For in reading it, never was a poem was far more clearly,
an unwitting self-portrait.
**It was written on August 21st, 2013
by Harlon Rivers**
by Nat Lipstadt
Apr 15, 2017
Apr 15, 2017 at 12:53 PM UTC
We dance in the ashes like
Literary scavengers.
In the ruins and after rages
We draw the shreds of words and pages
Around our naked bodies like Blankets,
A quilt of the quintessential struggle
Which all people suffer
Apr 10, 2018
Apr 10, 2018 at 3:25 AM UTC
The creature waits clenched.
It waits hunkered and steadfast
For the quintessential moment to
Dangle your pride and cut its
Throat where you can see it.
The creature waits fuming.
It waits - shadowed and drip-fed -
For the penny to drop from its height;
To pierce the soft body of calm
And let loose the mess.
The creature waits grinning.
It waits smug and hysterical
For the time and times before this
Where it beat down a smile by
Forcing the question:
What is wrong with me?
Jun 16, 2015
Jun 16, 2015 at 12:27 PM UTC
I am not beautiful...
I am choked up tears, cover-up smiles
the kind of light that turns you blind
from having too less or more than enough.
I am not beautiful...
I am scratched out scars, burnt out heart
the kind of storm that wrecks up lives
creeping stealthily through the night.
I am not beautiful...
I am not your quintessential girl
the kind that walks with a perfect stance
swaying waist of 26" and pretty face all made up
I am not beautiful...
**I am edges and curves, messy hair and everything you never dreamt of
The kind that repulses you by skin, and attracts you by mind
Someone you'll never know because. . .**
I am not beautiful.
Jun 29, 2015
Jun 29, 2015 at 1:23 PM UTC
*Quintessential charmer, libidinous crow pheasant, has an eye on him,
thinly disguised mating calls disclose her keenness of intention,
protruding derriere, provocative walk, her amour leaves
nothing to guess, 'what you fancy is my desire' her acts yell out to him.*
Apr 23, 2014
Apr 23, 2014 at 9:20 AM UTC
Beat-Up Old Car
Vastly under-appreciated possession
In dull blue, a MK1, no less, with original rust
Inside lingering scents of Exchange and Mart
top-notes of WD-40 and miscellaneous mix tapes
A car like this gets into your life
in lumpy knuckle-barking unsubtle ways,
stays there in subtle ones
That long drive back to Yorkshire
in the quintessential exemplar
Clutch cable snaps.
****** and Crap.
Hardly helpful but can be accommodated
with enough thought
rough though it is
on starter motor
and nerves whenever
anticipatory powers inadequate
and we are forced
to a complete red-light stop
Brakes dodgier, exhaust noisier
than ideal or legal
Gender-ambiguous
elderly tyres flirt outrageously with slick tarmac
Showing their canvas underwear
and male-pattern baldness
Keeping this unstable, unsafe, unreliable
ultimately essential lump of metal
moving and on the road
is a fine art
Engaging, fluid and intense art;
The Clash and The Specials
Costello and The Cure in support
A distraction then
getting hauled over by plod
somewhere near Bury St. Edmunds
Thatcher's boys.
Tax? MoT? Insurance? ID?
No real interest shown
Any passengers in the back?
Clearly no. Pickets?
Pickets? What?
Please open the boot sir... Oh.
On your way lad. Drive carefully
I was, officer, I was
More than you will ever know
Feb 17, 2016
Feb 17, 2016 at 9:52 AM UTC
We sipped boulder rock from refrigerators doors
and watched the heavens hand out food stamps with IBM logos.
“ode to Mehmet” we sang, and licked the Mossberg—
fixating on the blue collar philosophy that lived in our empty wallets.
Trash cans filled with water bottles stared at us to find our essence—
the one we had lost while being fed quintessential American idioms
in state-of-the-art classrooms sponsored by slaves and Popol Vuh blood.
Six million years of human existence trivialized down to a single sentence—
** Man loved God, man wrote, man conquered God, and now man loves science** —
scribbled on SmartBoards afforded by fire burning from Prometheus’ female liver.
Trees sing with oxygen no more for the sake of making paper,
and eyes soak in the words on paper for the sake of making paper.
Trees make the avenue but the future holds an Avenue of no trees—
… for in the land of the free, anything but freedom ain’t free.
Nov 26, 2012
Nov 26, 2012 at 9:46 PM UTC
The city takes your soul block by block
While you sit on the curb in mismatched socks
Trying to retain your extremely weak but steadfast streak of being unique
Cities aren't 24-hour Christmas
The trick is to remain ambitious
Hands in your lap
No eye contact
Going tap tap tap on your Citizens app
While discreetly doodling a Sharpie spaceship on the subway seat
Hitting the street
With sick beats in your feet
Cuz thoughts of quotas and quarters won't quell a quintessential quest
To push the city to its limits and try your very best
To keep biting your nails behind elevator doors
Cuz no chewed-up hands are exactly like yours
A balancing act
Trying not to get trapped
Or smothered by facts
But undeniably
I love what's inside of me
My heart keeps me alive
But what I love makes me live
The city takes my soul
But I've got soul to give.
May 9, 2014
May 9, 2014 at 3:16 AM UTC
So it is eighteen years,
Helena, since we met!
A season so endears,
Nor you nor I forget
The fresh young faces that once clove
In that most fiery dawn of love.
We wandered to and fro,
Who knew not how to woo,
Those eighteen years ago,
Sweetheart, when I and you
Exchanged high vows in heaven's sight
That scarce survived a summer's night.
What scourge smote from the stars
What madness from the moon?
That night we broke the bars
Was quintessential June,
When you and I beneath the trees
Bartered our bold virginities.
Eighteen -years, months, or hours?
Time is a tyrant's toy!
Eternal are the flowers!
We are but girl and boy
Yet -since love leapt as swift to-night
As it had never left the light!
For fiercer from the South
Still flames your cruel hair,
And Trojan Helen's mouth
Still not so ripe and rare
As Helena's -nor love nor youth
So leaps with lust or thrills with truth.
Helena, still we hold
Flesh firmer, still we mix
Black hair with hair as gold.
Life has but served to fix
Our hearts; love lingers on the tongue,
And who loves once is always young.
The stars are still the same;
The changeful moon endures;
Come without fear or shame,
And draw my mouth to yours!
Youth fails, however flesh be fain;
Manhood and womanhood attain.
Life is a string of pearls,
And you the first I strung.
You left -first flower of girls! -
Life lyric on my tongue,
An indefatigable dance,
An inexhaustible romance!
Blush of love's dawn, bright bud
That bloomed for my delight,
First blossom of my blood,
Burn in that blood to-night!
Helena, Helena, fiercely fresh,
Your flesh flies fervent to my flesh.
What sage can dare impugn
Man's immortality?
Our godhead swims, immune
From death and destiny.
Ignored the bubble in the flow
Of love eighteen short years ago!
Time -I embrace all time
As my arm rings your waist.
Space -you surpass, sublime,
As, taking me, we taste
Omnipotence, sense slaying sense,
Soul slaying soul, omniscience.
4.4k
Quincy Valero
Everybody’s best friend
Jet black hair
Shiny brown eyes
A boyish smirk
Standing six foot something
Coming out of catholic school agnostic
Attending state college
Every word that came out of his mouth was a riot
A funny story of a bad situation he was in that he can laugh at now
An awkward moment with a girl he tried to get in bed
God awful train rides with a clueless conductor
Quincy Valero
A wanna-be Casanova
The irish-italian self-proclaimed “Don Juan of Dumont”
Roaring down the suburb streets in his bright yellow mustang
From Bergen county to Trenton
Edgewater to Ewing
Bumping R&B; from the 90's
A main girl
A side chick
And a few back pocket broads
Leading them on
To where?
I’m not even sure he knows
Quincy Valero
My best friend since I’ve been here in Purgatory
My lifelong cellmate
My hetero life mate
My brother of second thought
Our token white boy
He’s had his ups
Wild ragers until day break
A four way with me and two girls in my four door sedan
He’s had is downs
Falsely charged with domestic abuse
Community service, endless court room hearings, suspensions and a whole bunch of nonsense
Quincy Valero
The quintessential example of the modern day male
Stays up all night
Sleeps all day
Opportunistic
Egotistical
Miserly
*****
And hungry
Always aching to put in his two cents
And leaving everyone in a howl of laughter
An Adderall popping
Seasoned drinker
A professional *** smoker, coached by yours truly
Fast talking baritone voice
With a half serious tone
Yes, Quincy Valero
The tight plain white t-shirt wearing
Chino sporting
Nostalgic, slightly racist, sexist, anti-semitic
Bust usually honest, friendly and apologetic
Good hearted dude we all love to hate
And hate to love
Bed-headed
Pajama bottom ***
Talking about his Svedka regrets
And we laugh and laugh and the stupidest things
Then remember events that seem so long ago
And then make plans for tomorrow
Yeah, one of my best friends
My oldest friend
That’s Mr. Quincy Valero
Mar 12, 2014
Mar 12, 2014 at 11:56 AM UTC
A quintessential detrimental light to the dark,
Its essential for potential blooming in our hearts,
Fitting puzzles is no trouble if we do our part,
We can struggle and rebuttal if we only start,
Work together towards the better having piece of mind,
Cut the tether love the weather peace is all we find,
Forget the clock just never stop there's no such thing as time,
Dodge road blocks pull up your socks and just watch for signs.
Jun 10, 2014
Jun 10, 2014 at 9:58 PM UTC
Ageing so beautifully.
Classically as diamonds do, never ageing gracefully
Her eyes fire her up, fire you up too,
This Goddess,brings forth the huntress, out on the **** for a thrill.
Never cheap.
This individual will never ever weep.
Just a kindly miss, not lonely,
So don't take the Michael.
Nourishment needed.
Overtly she's principled.
Quintessential English,
Rapturous as summer days and Sundays.
This trusting Utopian dreamer.
Vehement pen.
Wicked humour full of woman.
X rated at times,youthful and zany.
(C)Livvi
Jan 20, 2015
Jan 20, 2015 at 3:21 PM UTC
you draw your self hatred out like a kid draws out small pictures
and play double dutch with the hands on a clock, knowing how
unsafe it is out there, flirting with death and flicking me off when
i wrote out the reasons why you should stay, that this autumn fallout
is only a misconstruction of your mind's witching hour, that dystopia
won't linger and utopia will be home soon, it will blossom into your lungs
and turn the simplicity of your broken soul into something completely
quintessential and complex, like an origami rabbit, i fold my sharp edges
and twist myself to be malleable and secure for you, maybe i'm not too certain
of myself or you, but i'm not too certain on a lot of subjects, i'm worried
of being thrown into the arsonist world you started, covering up the sky with
black dense fog, the type of fog that would happen only in dangerous wildfires
i'm a controlled wildfire, but i let my fire spread just to help control your fire
- kra
Jan 22, 2014
Jan 22, 2014 at 5:23 AM UTC
You are the Love that I Remember,
You melt me through Aeons of Winter.
You make me the blazing Djinn,
You make me the Christ without Sin.
You are the Cure for The Cold
and my love is like Footsteps in Snow.
Where I follow with Feather and Rose.
To give you my Heart and my Soul.
You are the Love that I Remember.
You are the Love that I Recall,
You are the Spirit of my Crossing,
You tie me in Beautiful Woes.
You are the Essence of Color.
Also the midnight cruiser.
You are the spring fawn,
and its your laughter that makes me grow.
You are the will of the bright.
You are the source of my spiritual writing.
You make me the king in blessings.
Blessings of virtue and light.
You are the love that I remember,
the truth and the love that is tender.
You are the ocean of responsibility,
that I pick up when reason is withering.
You are the quintessential virtue.
That all there is to know is full.
The fullness you supply, I imbibe
these virtues; with intimacy, grace and time.
Jan 24, 2022
Jan 24, 2022 at 2:27 PM UTC
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
Charity starts at home don't we say?
Be kind to your kith and kin come what may.
A family's not only your safe haven
Tis pals your very own roots
Water these shoots with love devoid of hate
So they bear you sweeter fruits.
Maybe you'd say that's not so easy
but perhaps that's coz you just too busy
Or your clock just don't chime
for quality family time?
For if you can't make time for a letter or a hug
Then let my poem give your conscience a gentle tug.
And if this may sound like a very preachy homily
Deserves much more mention and affection the family
If you can make time for so many other things
some of them not even worthwhile
Try discover the happiness family brings
Just a tad modify that routine lifestyle.
My words in crystal clear clarity
sing compassion is likewise a charity
Charity need not be for strangers only
Find out who needs help in kindred and family
Ties of kinship severe not
Value the relations you've got
Your siblings, cousins from your family tree
and all else that you call family.
What supports and buttresses your family tree are your very own roots
And what keeps the tree living on are your beloved offshoots
Love and regard is quintessential to reaping sweeter fruits
Dec 19, 2018
Dec 19, 2018 at 1:09 PM UTC
There's that sunset
Where you'd
Look
upon
The horizon
and watch the sky
pull a symphony of colors
Where the atmosphere and clouds
simply refract light;
creating an array of complex hues
the sky became emphatic
to show off it's beauty
That was today
There's that sunset
Where you'd
Look
Upon
The horizon
And see the clouds move
slowly and yet hastily
And despite the Coriolis,
the clouds form shapes
And represent
such figures to you
whether human, animal, or object
It reminds you of
memories, places, people
That was today
There's that sunset
Where you'd
Look
Upon
The horizon
And just look at the grandeur of it
Where you cannot tell where
The sky ends and the earth begins
no trace of the sun nor the moon
Like the earth felt God's redamancy
and God felt the Earth's
and our worlds finally became one
That was today
There's that sunset
Where you'd
Look
Upon
The horizon
And the moment you lay your eyes Upon it
all the questions, all the queries
finally become answered to
like quantum theory and "beauty"
ultimately became understood
like you now have an answer
to your most enigmatic problem
That was today
I looked upon that sunset
I have an answer
I finally have an answer
I now have an answer
That was today
Aug 2, 2015
Aug 2, 2015 at 11:41 AM UTC
One autumn day in Providence
I opened up a door,
And entered into a stuffy room
Called "Edgar's Nevermore",
A curio shop with things forbidden,
And things bizarre and perverse,
And obelisks of ancient books
Occult, arcane, and diverse.
I poked around the pint-sized potions,
Inspected a petrified eft,
But made no purchase; and empty handed
The merchant's lair I left.
Returning home, to my surprise,
Like one who'd broken the law,
I found I'd taken a good unpaid for:
A little monkey's paw.
It tightly gripped, with fingers curled,
A flap of baggy sleeve;
And there it stayed, upon my jacket,
When I hung it up at eve.
For many days it didn't move,
And seemed the perfect pet;
But never trust a monkey's paw,
Or this is what you'll get:
I went to bed a drunken evening,
And slept as though I were dead;
And I didn't hear the monkey's paw
As it crept beside my bed,
The monkey's paw that had bided its time,
And waited, still as could be,
To choose this night to strangle it—
My voodoo doll of me!
(Why did I have a voodoo doll
Of me, you ask? Well, I...
Well, let's just say...well...I can't tell you...
I'd blush to tell you why...)
I awoke (with bleary, blurry vision)
To the monkey-fisted grip,
Then died without a single curse
To swear upon my lip.
And in my town I'm still remembered
As that quintessential loner
Who died alone with a mangled throat,
A creepy doll...and a *****
O.O
Oct 29, 2014
Oct 29, 2014 at 3:13 PM UTC
To be imbued with the conviction that empathic listening is a panacea,
by the surreptitious, murmurous harbinger and his mellifluous words,
provoked brooding that my comprehension of his susurrous eloquence was a mondegreen,
when this scintilla of sagacity left a fetching ingenue crestfallen.
By the surreptitious, murmurous harbinger and his mellifluous words!
I adopted a propinquity to this furtive, ephemeral epiphany,
but when this scintilla of sagacity left a fetching ingenue crestfallen,
I discerned this lagniappe beleaguered our dalliance.
I adopted a propinquity to this furtive, ephemeral epiphany.
When she became inured to petrichor I knew my method pyrrhic,
and when I discerned that this lagniappe beleaguered our dalliance,
I vowed to rectify the imbroglio for my quintessential cynosure.
When she became inured to petrichor I knew my method pyrrhic,
and I ruminated that her insouciance was only forbearance.
I vowed to rectify my quintessential cynosure of the imbroglio,
and fabricated a denouement to return her to halcyon incipient.
I ruminated that her insouciance was only forbearance,
until hearing her state our conflation made each a moiety of our own panoply.
She fabricated a denouement to return us to the incipience of halcyon
with ineffable felicity, and I remembered with ebullience my inamorata's words.
Hearing her state our conflation made each a moiety of our own panoply
provoked brooding that my comprehension of her susurrous eloquence was a mondegreen.
With ineffable felicity I found ebullience in my inamorata's words
and was imbued with the conviction that empathic listening is a panacea.
Nov 26, 2013
Nov 26, 2013 at 4:58 AM UTC
Do not bother me with your absurd theories;
Reason, logic, and evidence have no place
In the heart of the true and righteous believer.
Faith in holy texts should be your guide,
Your faith should be blind, unadulterated, and quintessential, or
Risk a dreadful and eternal damnation.
If Einstein knew so much
Why do they call his premise the “Theory of Relativity”?
If Darwin was so sharp, why is it the most
He could up with was the “Theory of Evolution”?
The answer is simple, they really had no clue,
They simply did some scientific research and, in the end,
They came up with nothing more than theories.
And, what about all those archeologists
Claiming the earth is billions of years old, or
Cosmologists with their “Big Bang Theory.”
Everything is nothing more than
Theories, theories, theories.
Turn your back on these absurdities;
Trust, instead, the ancient, sacred texts
That offer immutable, unquestionable truths.
How ludicrous the idea that
The world is more than 10,000 years old,
(Carbon dating of fossil rocks is just mambo-jumbo)
The universe and all creation
Were made in six days,
God, tiring after all that work,
(Wouldn't you after working 24/6?)
Rested on the seventh day.
It's there in black and white,
For everyone to see.
(Assuming you've read the right version)
Men were created from a clod of clay,
(Or mud, but you get the point)
Women from the rib of man
(Which is why they should be subservient to men).
What nonsense from biologist and paleontologist
That claim we evolved from micro-organisms and apes,
This notion is total sacrilege, a blasphemy.
Life is too complicated, too complex to just evolve,
Intelligent Design is the only answer,
All the talk to the contrary is nonsensical hyperbole.
God made everything happen.
Read the holy texts, the truth is as obvious,
As plain as the tip of your nose.
Everyone knows that all the anthropological data,
All the purported archeological digs,
With reports of dinosaurs and missing links,
Are fabricated to fit nerd scientists' preconceived notions of
What they would like everyone to believe.
When in doubt, refer to the holy texts,
You will see all the unsubstantiated, ludicrous claims
For what they really are:
Trash, trash, and more trash.
Do not bother me with your facts, or
Your scientific data or findings;
In the end, everything boils down to more idiotic theories.
Have unquestioning, blinding, and total faith,
Read the holy texts and they will set you free.
So, the next time someone questions your beliefs,
Claiming there is no merit or facts to support them,
Remind them that to question the word of God
Will send them, along with their theories,
Straight to hell.
Amen!
Oct 1, 2010
Oct 1, 2010 at 6:19 PM UTC
there once was an art
fashioned by alphabet
and life and diction,
but the papers have been consumed
hungrily by starving brains
and purged upon the ignorant
to be eaten once again
and precisely expelled;
citations unknown.
Nov 1, 2012
Nov 1, 2012 at 9:23 PM UTC
More a French shave than five o'clock shadow,
the young artist's way of backing off,
announcing danger, an air of the unexpected,
as the King snake has evolved to feign the Coral.
Yet, where camel hair touched canvas calm,
where quintessential light met quotidian ennui,
not the advertised blackened rose or orchid,
rather the sizzle, the honeyed-heat of azalea.
Each stroke portended floral intifada,
pastel yellows and oily greens igniting
upon a fired-umber background,
threatened to melt the easel into tar.
I stood gape-jawed, nodded approval,
eyeing the second creation within a single flower.
Feb 19, 2012
Feb 19, 2012 at 8:25 PM UTC
*I found peace,
on water's ample *******
the river cascaded,
plethora of questions,
the fervent lover,
wanting to know more and more
though she knows me
body and soul, in and out,
from the days
I was small.
We became lovers
at the first sight,
tickling my bod'y secret places
she taught me, alphabets
of a woman, one by one
now I can read each,
a cryptic tome, full of
secret murmurs and symbols,
hieroglyphycs, Sanskrit,
all rich, obscure languages.
My river, the quintessential woman,
power of meandering serpent, immense
her hands supple,
fingers, mischievous,moving,
which make my mouth go dry,
with the pleasure that erupts in me.
Embracing her cool waters
I come alive,
even when my heart is on fire.
We have spoken to each other
long long hours,
spilled every secret, forbidden wish,
made sure depths of each is filled with
the scent of other,
I found my peace on the bed of water,
where I had spilled my seeds first, ecstatic
never forgotten that moment, ever.
Oct 3, 2012
Oct 3, 2012 at 8:31 PM UTC