"rafts" poems
say goodbye to the bucolic summer
the rafts of winter are upon the banks of your desire
please placate the wild streets of abandonment
let the edges of your neediness
take you into independence
i am less dense than a fly
and more round than the sky
i am a shade too dry for some people's liking
are you wanting a more permanent vacation
the icing on the cake is the real equation
immediate desires all forsaken
our love is worth practicing non-anticipation for
if you kiss me now i’ll be forever liberated
if you show me how
i’ll take you to the 9th dimension
seventeen floors above the world
and we are standing on
an indefinite embankment
i am intimidated by your perspicacity
as the persimmon sun sets upon the horizon
Jul 23, 2018
Jul 23, 2018 at 3:01 PM UTC
~~
The soft chill winds
a cloudy day
ah! what a feeling!
drifting with the streams
how the life instills!
Waves of song coming from the distant
white Storks flying as the fall guy
how the dreams come and go
between you and me
between the land and sea
In the sky rafts of white clouds
crafts the arrival of autumn
assuming the flame of Love
what a beautiful play!
what a fairs of tune!
~~
Oct 11, 2015
Oct 11, 2015 at 3:11 PM UTC
Don't do that, babe,
don't tell me I'm not trying.
I swam through 12 oceans and drowned
in every single one of them but
each time the water swept into my lungs
and the fish started swimming
in my bloodstream.
I spat it all up and went on swimming
'cause I know I can't face another day
without you in my mind.
There will be no life rafts
and I will definitely not pop in the middle of the ocean
like murdered bodies in crime scenes.
I am a ****** sinking ship.
I promise you
I will make it to shore alive, though.
Jun 7, 2014
Jun 7, 2014 at 5:05 PM UTC
The Lehigh is chaffing
at the shoulders of her banks
Swollen
with mood of mud
brown and flat and far too fast
She tore those young girls
from their rafts
Decorated the trees
of a midstream island with them
hanging on like the leaves and silt
once did
Their cries swallowed
as she roared past
harvesting souls with clinging hands
Chosen
to be victim
Chosen
for a reason
to be spared
Aug 14, 2018
Aug 14, 2018 at 7:58 PM UTC
three
days
among rafts
trees rivers
lakes streams
waterfalls
I walk the
fear-infested
office floors
like a king
nothing troubles
me, wade over
grim swell and
fatal seriousness
as I float on my back,
spread arms, feet, heart,
a cloud has another helping
of an azure sky
May 7, 2016
May 7, 2016 at 12:53 AM UTC
My body is a garden,
My soul a swimming pool,
My mind a deep black pit of doubt,
And all this is for you.
And in the garden, you plant seeds,
With a kiss on my lips,
Or your breath upon my cheek.
Your hugs all leave me feeling weak,
My body is a garden.
And in the pool you like to swim,
Or float on rafts of joy.
And in the pool you’ll always stay,
If you’re a dream I wont awake,
My soul is like a pool.
And now you have the pit of doubt,
Of which you try to ease.
You nurse it like it has the flu,
Erasing doubts of me and you,
My minds a pit of doubt.
But then the truth shines ever there,
Deep in my heart, is Love.
Love that blooms for you, my dear,
Ill never stray, ill stay right here,
Because I do love you.
Nov 6, 2012
Nov 6, 2012 at 2:48 AM UTC
This is when she can become herself.
Not anyone special.
No one famous.
She is not anyone at times like this.
Just her.
Moving in ways never to be understood.
Defying gravity with her shoes.
The children call them Magic Shoes.
The world moves because she tells it to.
She needs no one.
Her only companion is the music.
She likes it this way.
They become one.
She is music, the music is her.
They are a blur of color and sound.
The music is the most beautiful rainbow.
It dances across the space.
It is the spot light.
Enhancing her.
Her problems fade.
There is no war, no disease, no hate, her mother is not dying.
The floor is far beneath her, the people are far below, too far to touch.
Comparisons are not able to be made here.
She is fierce with power and passion.
The one place she is strong.
Most would crave praise in such a place.
But no applause is necessary.
Her Magic Shoes send all the feedback she needs in their echoes.
Energy races though her body.
But by watching you can not taste it the way she tastes it.
She can not help but grin.
She feels unstoppable.
She is captive to the music.
Her feet have grown to the Magic Shoes.
They are intertwined.
There are blisters and cuts.
Sweat, and blood.
It is all part of the game.
They are a small price to pay.
They fade away as she continues.
She flows effortlessly.
She is nothing.
No one.
Elegantly she can float.
She floats like the feathers the ducks leave behind in the river.
Like the toy rafts they used to make.
She is reborn here.
The mock titles given to her fall away.
No longer is she plain, boring.
No judgement can linger.
Harsh words are gone.
Time does not exist.
No one can torment her here.
She can not bully herself.
Being in the Magic Shoes she is calm.
When she puts on the Magic Shoes the world changes from a dull grey place of monotone sounds.
What is felt are the colors here.
The sounds.
She feels joy.
Purple.
Birds chirping.
Strength.
Green.
A downpour.
Weightlessness.
Yellow.
An opera.
Excitement.
Red.
The hushed hum of a distant helicopter.
The music is so loud it is not heard.
Only felt.
Music is her favorite emotion.
The floor hurts.
This is the only moment her trance ends.
Falling.
She is broken.
Bent out of shape.
It is the source of her imperfections.
She can not be a professional.
Her bones are wrong.
I will never be a ballet dancer.
Aug 26, 2014
Aug 26, 2014 at 9:46 AM UTC
Bored of beauty.
**** and ***
blizzard white teeth
insertable parts switched out like lego blocks.
Inching away from this faulty form
with which I was imbued in genesis.
Long live that junk, ******
Gimme those thighs!
Let free that emotional magma
boiling up from beneath, ready to burn this world
or at the least leave your laces singed.
The tip of this iceberg will bring you all down
so ready the life-rafts.
Gimme that.
Don’t give me blizzard teeth, silent in a quaffed muzzle.
Be the jaws, the howl, the tender tongue on young necks.
Great stories don’t read “one day I was beautiful”
they say “the world seized me and tore off my limbs, and I toppled end over end til I came to rest between the legs of the Colossus
and that’s when it got interesting.”
Jul 30, 2015
Jul 30, 2015 at 3:36 PM UTC
self destruction like burning bridges you know full well you'll drown without
being reckless with your rafts and your lifesavers
and feeling the heat of the fire prickle your forehead,
beads of sweat teasing your skin
and making it impossible to ignore the deep water already lapping at your feet,
clearly prepared to completely engulf you in liquid darkness.
self destruction like inhaling the fumes of a hundred toxic promises,
made to you by old would-be lovers;
sugarcoated words and lies roughly covered in white,
feeling the poison seizing up your struggling lungs,
fingertips flicking through dictionaries with cracked spines:
desperate to find a word that isn't even there.
self destruction like breaking hearts that aren't yours for once,
just to hold the power of corruption and allow it to make you bloodthirsty,
much like slaughtering ants beneath magnifying glasses,
watching them struggle and turn to unrecognisable ashes,
whimpering half hearted apologies whilst trying to convince yourself
that you are not a bad person, but simply a broken soul.
Mar 24, 2014
Mar 24, 2014 at 5:58 PM UTC
I want to ask society why it
broke so many of its people
Why are so many productive
people feel driven to suicide
Who took their self worth and
nailed it to the mast of net worth
Why are the wealthy inflated
with arrogance and the poor
burdened by shame
Who took self esteem and
married it to our income
How did a tool of measurement
directly become value
Why is it fashionable to be rich
and look down on the poor
Why are the words of a rich man
listened to, so much more
Why do people not recognize their
small creations at the ground level
Why do we rob the poor of respect
too give too the over elevated rich
Why are the poor demotivated by shame
while pride drives on in a ruthless
appetite possessed by the rich
Who disconnected self worth from
the flower of produce and replaced
it with money
Who thought it a good idea to abandon
people on their tiny rafts and throw them
into rough waters of fear and greed
Who said fear and greed make
a good flower bed
Why have people not been guided into
deeper waters where currents flow and
a richness in the heart can be explored
Feb 8, 2015
Feb 8, 2015 at 9:26 AM UTC
I lift baby onto my back. baby is twenty nine years of outsider atmosphere. baby swallows and my stomach becomes the pecking in my stomach. baby is distracted by the attention eternity demands. baby drops and my mind enters a snowball disappearing centermost of a dark summer pond. baby’s mother rafts workaholic to where work suffers to invent for the harmless
today this trap door
for an unfinished
fly.
Mar 3, 2014
Mar 3, 2014 at 1:26 PM UTC
Entering the room, sharing the tentative first kiss of the day,
Your lips beckon me closer, and as i sit i see forked lightening behind your eyes.
You are a storm, waiting to be unleashed,
The steam of your breath sending a chill through me, i awaken.
Though when i wake i find that the dream is real,
I smile, watch the storm and find myself amazed by your pristine beauty,
Down to every little blemish you can no longer hide,
Now my eyes are used to the dark.
I hear thunder, sparks fly when you touch me,
And the gentle moans make me feel alive once more.
And here's the strange part,
Once it is done and you're purring softly, happy to sleep,
I move to leave, thinking my purpose to you is done, no longer needed.
She brushes my arm and says "stay with me, even 5 minutes more"
What bashful eyes you have when they look into mine,
A curious surprise, i am no longer needed, i am wanted.
I am no longer needy, but i want for her like one who is tired of being cast away.
5 minutes passes in a blink of your electric eyes,
and soon you plant the most gentle of kisses on my lips,
I try to keep the wind from souring this most blessed goodbye,
But i feel you shiver.
I tell her she should go back to her room,
And she kisses me once more, her eyes smile, and i walk away.
Her words still ring in my ears, echoes in a happy heart.
"What do you want me to be?" i ask her, she knows i'm broken.
"I want you to be you"
"What do you want me to do?" i ask, her hand in mine.
"Make love to me," i relive these moments, and the memory salves me,
Time, people say, is a great healer, he seems to be in Fast-forward.
We sail in time, on our little rafts,
And this castaway found another such lonely soul, Drifting on the waves.
Such beautiful coincidence, that we should dip our toes in the same Ocean.
Sep 30, 2012
Sep 30, 2012 at 10:02 PM UTC
you're unaware of your plasticity
but it's plain to see to me
you're an artificial fabrication
of what you think you should be
but the rescue boats are coming
if you'll throw your hand out for an oar
help you'll find
from people like life rafts
who'll drag you to shore
yet you stab at the boat
puncturing it's tender flesh
the water's rising
it's hard denying
you did this yourself
Jan 18, 2021
Jan 18, 2021 at 2:17 AM UTC
Before air became gas
And water waste;
Before light became lasers
And fireworks cannons;
Before cars got wings
And trucks got tracks;
Before rafts were raiding ships
And we breathed underwater;
Before sticks were arrows and spears
And we exalted ourselves;
Before Empires rose and fell
And rose and fell,
A femur crushed Cro magnon's skull.
It's a marvel
How any of us
Are here
At all.
Nov 12, 2014
Nov 12, 2014 at 10:18 AM UTC
As a child, I drowned fireflies
in the river because I envisioned
them setting ablaze the forest like arsonists.
I thought if I strained my ears,
I could hear them sizzle.. like bacon on a grill
as they flopped about in the water.
But they kicked their legs, belly-up
in the cascades of currents; leaves,
their only life rafts, pulled them further down stream
their beacons flashed a silent SOS.
When their glow softened to a dull ochre,
I gathered the ones closest to shore,
tied strings about their tiny bodies,
and as though they were hanged men,
I sacrificed them to the trees.
One summer, I overheard
that Sadie's baby drowned in the river
while she ****** a married man
on the river's bank. I imagined
the baby's tiny body: arms flapping
like firefly wings as he gulped
water into his mouth; his immature lungs
expanding as he cried a silent alarm;
and his too-large blue eyes staring blankly
into the world of trout and bass below.
Alms to Nature.
Now, floating down stream, inner thoughts
bobbing, arms extended, I pay homage to the river:
O sacred deity.
I inhale and plunge backwards,
further into the cool recesses of its currents.
As bubbles rise, my breath escapes; my lungs panic.
Desperate Child.. Self-Sacrificing...
Yet the currents lift me; I surface unclaimed.
Feb 9, 2010
Feb 9, 2010 at 7:23 AM UTC
A fist split the silence
the hard packing sound
followed by a liquid clogged choke
and Joe went under the water
limp in my arms
crimson red permeating through the cool blue salt water
of my parents’ pool
Nolan rubbing his hand - laughing
**** I didn’t mean to actually hit him
and we all laughed because it was a play fight
we were young, looking for answers which didn’t exist
so we filled the void like many of us did
with the seething, impotent aggression of youth
It went Gangsta rap
to punk rock
to heavy metal
and Joe and Nolan were in a band
and Joe and Nolan professed their love of Satan
because Satan never made them sit still and be quiet
they burned bibles and summoned demons
from an online version of the Necronomicon
and we went to shows
at fourteen and fifteen
drinking beer and whiskey in the alley out back
with all of the local rock stars
we hurled ourselves -
arms draped around each others’ shoulders -
into the swirling whirlwind of fists
and studded leather
and sweat and beer and blood
where grown men punched us in the face
and we gave back as good as we got
hugging afterwards in the warm glow of our pain
we were alive on the front lines
hanging from the edge that everybody else strayed from
domesticated wolves scared of electric fence flags
Nolan went crowd surfing at the Municipal Waste concert
only to be dropped into a stomping pile of ****** off kids
his lips split open and I gave him my bandanna to soak up the blood
I still have that ***** rag around here somewhere
He needed six stitches inside his lower lip
but we didn’t leave until after the show
even when the fire marshals came to shut us down
when ceiling fans and trash cans were being thrown around like beach *****
we were just kids
confronted with the meaninglessness of everything we had been raised to hold on to
like life rafts
we were just kids to whom
destruction seemed far more important
than creation
if we were ever going to make anything for ourselves
in this concrete clad hell scape
Jan 29, 2014
Jan 29, 2014 at 11:11 AM UTC
Dear family
I know I always seem busy
The devil is trying to get me
I'm M.I.A
And I know that you miss me.
I'm sorry that I've been distant.
Seems everything changed in an instant.
My life is so inconsistent.
I don't know what I'm missing.
Family time, I really don't mean to miss it.
My life it's needs some assistance.
But.
I guess my mind is in another place.
Thoughts off in another world.
I started seeing another girl.
Went up and down man what a world.
But now.
I'll focus on my crafts.
Slowly go up old rafts.
This poem's heart felt that I bestest could finish te draft.
This poem's to the ones I love.
The ones that I miss.
Wish it could all just be cured with a hug and kiss.
Sometimes I go up to the lake just to reminisce.
Of all the things I shouldn't have I know it's a list.
Meanwhile, I'm caught up in my self, in my world with no neighbors.
Stay to myself even if I get handed some favors.
Haven't opened up in a while.
Maybe since I was a child.
When's the last time that I smiled.
Drive in my car Til it's on E.
Resorted to consanants and vowels.
I know they wonder what I'm doing.
What I really be persuing.
Hopeing I can save myself.
Some relationships I've ruined.
Some days I wake up and just ask what am I really doing.
They say family is everything, I feel as now it is the truth.
I should spend more time with y'all.
But I spend it living out my youth.
But it's everything I love.
And it's everything I need.
Family love's the cure and drug even though it not ****
Jan 20, 2016
Jan 20, 2016 at 2:25 AM UTC
you ever feel like we’re too connected?
like everything is so crowded and jammed up that we don’t notice each other
the little things, the stop to smell the roses moments pass us by
and we are rushing from here to there
to and fro
ants in an ant farm
squished unknowingly up against the glass
the sun glares down
like a hungry beast
we scurry into our holes and hideouts
communicating in ones and zeros
but always missing the point
we seek meaning and passion and excitement
but complain we have no courage
our lives move and move like rafts on the Mississippi
But I had better things to do than read Huck Finn
hours of mindless entertainment
and then no inspiration
endless desert of desperation and depression
hop from one city to the next
no end in sight
run from problems
hide from anything that could make life exponentially better
callous and fearless and crude
joking about life and death to cope with grief
take everything for granted
burn bridges, never let them see you cry
let the status quo control you
go to college, get a job
don’t be a burnout, dropout, failure
let them define happiness
and let them measure my success
overweight
sunburned
living in a garage
if that’s not success
I don’t know what is
the adolescent american dreaming of easy money
can’t even drive a car
I need glasses and new pants
bought running shoes
but I’m only running from my problems
bury my anger and depression
nervous laughing
crack a joke, as long as you don’t crack
you’re fine
talk about your goals
but only half-heartedly pursue them
like a cop who wants the donuts more than the punks he chases
I want a wife, a life, of happiness with kids and a house
a degree and income
talk about religion and philosophy
read books, but never bother to finish
inconsistent, and never complete
talk when you don’t know what you’re saying
never admit “I don’t know”
count your friends on one hand
but don’t let it know what the other hand’s doing
my mind has a mind of its own
I never bother to follow through
like a tree that is uprooted by the storm
struck with wanderlust I fly away
Mar 8, 2013
Mar 8, 2013 at 3:42 AM UTC
I knock on doors
that refract light
as sketched shapes of hope.
That chimera of real and illusion.
I remember that in hospitals,
maternity wards and hospice,
doors are to be opened and shut
with gloved hands,
elbows or leaning hips.
I hold myself to a few words:
I needed to go
and so I do,
"one-step at a time,"
when fortitude warms the path
And otherwise,
I remember a red light in the dark
at 6 am in February,
chortling engine
with two hundred miles to traverse -
I was sleepy and restless
and beneath my hums on coffee breath
a seed sprouted
barbs and blossoms.
I doubled down on heartbreak
and the fertility of schisms,
because the world is shaped
by twisting plates that ****** and slide
into one another in dumb collision,
and for all we glean of how,
it may as well be on stone rafts of fate
we built our hopes.
Nov 17, 2018
Nov 17, 2018 at 2:01 PM UTC
Seven slugs ******* beer
from a bowl in their garden of Eden
rocking out to Miley Cyrus.
XM top 20 on 20
radio and gardening and slugs
swim like Phelps
but opposite
like life rafts
shriveling drunks
contorted and slimy
old school nickelodeon
green slime on your head
washing off in water
crossing bridges
entering temples
where the **** is the shrine of the silver monkey?
Oct 4, 2010
Oct 4, 2010 at 9:12 PM UTC
The night is a creeper bent laden with brooding meditations and the mists of time:
Tonight, the moon is a distant jasmine bud; nascent fragrance waiting to pour into the world.
I've seen your work, magicienne, how you roll the stars out from your hat.
A wand wave, and the celestial chorus of chants and hymns pours out from the skies.
I've walked with you, on the old beaten steppe, pole star,
I've seen ships dock at ancient inlets of water
engorging in parched lands - they were reed boats before;
they were catamarans later, rafts and sailboats;
This is how we rose from the mollusc, seeking you in the stars;
When thunder strikes the lonely peak and rains wash our plains,
I've seen your footsteps, half-erased by the swelling riverbanks.
I was in your womb, and never afraid of the primordial waters. Yours, an umbilical love.
The clouds part for your evening sojourn through the western sky,
where the larks go forth spreading cheer.
I am the wood, the last refuge of all mysteries.
I am the clearing where a solitary home hangs in time.
I house all the antiquities.
I am the subtle space that hosts bubble worlds.
I am Hyperions.
Feb 5, 2015
Feb 5, 2015 at 7:26 PM UTC
on the opposite side of
the world
the green budded fingernails
of the frangipani unfurl
to their lush full verdancy
all the flowers stand tall
to see the sun
and open coloured arms
for a full-scented hug
the birds are all a twitter
with nursery nests
and sqeaking chirking beaks
and in the pond small rafts of gelatinous eggs are watched over by frogs
there is that wonderful
tang of warm salt and
eucalypt wafting inthe breeze
autumn for us down
under just a pleasant
memory...
here we now look forward
to the summer sun..
Sep 17, 2014
Sep 17, 2014 at 7:28 PM UTC
Dreams of boats and dinosaurs
eschewing everyone
without weapons and rafts;
green, tangled pieces of iron lie
dying
beside rickety picnic tables below.
We’ll likely die here, as well.
In Florida; the hot meridian sun
heating everything.
Our perpetual youth is embodied in
dilapidated buildings
and war memorials.
Past empty,
we walk. Gas stations and burning hotels
all blaring radios or alarm-clocks
set to Spanish polka.
No maids to listen to them here.
Or to turn the sheets and place
chocolates.
The sun laps up the flood now
exposing
rusty iron tools
or fossils.
Maybe blood is like oil or soda
removes wine stains.
Snapping open mortgages is brutal at first
-- like oysters halved and
emptied on a plate.
But they must
stop
hurting, eventually,
after we boil them.
Mar 12, 2011
Mar 12, 2011 at 5:42 AM UTC
I have realised today that majority of people seem like empty shells washed up upon the shore.
Maybe I say this because I just watched them from a distance,
But they all seem either meaningless or uncertain.
Uncertain of their existence.
It's like they are simply just floating on the current of the sea,
Not trying to swim out of the tide.
Perhaps they like the feeling of comfort,
Knowing that eventually the water will push them onto the sand.
Why not explore the depths of the water?
Why have shallow living when you where meant to expirence the joys and the hurt of this world?
Maybe they are afraid of feeling isolated, all alone in the big empty sea.
They allow themselves to be blue rafts on blue water, they want to blend in.
Don't they understand the importance of solo adventures?
Of discovering abandon ships that remind them of themselves?
Why be an empty shell buried under sand when you could be flooded by the beauty of the world?
Nov 8, 2015
Nov 8, 2015 at 5:00 AM UTC