"recognising" poems
In frames as large as rooms that face all ways
And block the ends of streets with giant loaves,
Screen graves with custard, cover slums with praise
Of motor-oil and cuts of salmon, shine
Perpetually these sharply-pictured groves
Of how life should be. High above the gutter
A silver knife sinks into golden butter,
A glass of milk stands in a meadow, and
Well-balanced families, in fine
Midsummer weather, owe their smiles, their cars,
Even their youth, to that small cube each hand
Stretches towards. These, and the deep armchairs
Aligned to cups at bedtime, radiant bars
(Gas or electric), quarter-profile cats
By slippers on warm mats,
Reflect none of the rained-on streets and squares
They dominate outdoors. Rather, they rise
Serenely to proclaim pure crust, pure foam,
Pure coldness to our live imperfect eyes
That stare beyond this world, where nothing's made
As new or washed quite clean, seeking the home
All such inhabit. There, dark raftered pubs
Are filled with white-clothed ones from tennis-clubs,
And the boy puking his heart out in the Gents
Just missed them, as the pensioner paid
A halfpenny more for Granny Graveclothes' Tea
To taste old age, and dying smokers sense
Walking towards them through some dappled park
As if on water that unfocused she
No match lit up, nor drag ever brought near,
Who now stands newly clear,
Smiling, and recognising, and going dark.
18k
PER NOCTEM IN NIHILO VEHI
( TO VANISH BY NIGHT INTO NOTHING )
my death approached me
but: went on by without
recognising it was I...
i hid in the filthy alley
of a passing hour
Death now furiously searching for me
no...Here: here
no...There: there - either
this tiny piece of time
the once and once
only
but Mr. Death had missed the moment
had to return empty handed
I finding myself madly in love with
the next second. . .
****
Mr. Death elects to speak in Latin...thinks it gives him a certain je ne sais quoi...
It's always great to cheat Mr. Death and his henchman Mr. Heartattack. I swore to myself that I would love the next second with all my heart!
May 14, 2017
May 14, 2017 at 2:52 PM UTC
loved seeing your face
knowing you fell asleep when you normally don’t
hearing your laugh
Recognising voice
Before I knew you were there
My failed attempts at sneaking up on you
With every thought,
I find how much I miss your humor
Our daily conversations;
About everything.
Opening up to you came so naturally
The acceptance you showed
Respect you exserted
The confidence you gave me
The positive outlook on life
All things I learned
Just by knowing you
How easy the “L” word was to say
Not many people do I say “I love you”
Although I can’t help but hate myself “
I let myself get attached.
Without you
I’m vulnerable.
As I make impulsive decisions.
I walk with my head up
And act like everything is perfect.
Im aware I only hurt myself;
Wanting to be alone
But longing to be alone with you.
To tell you why I’m upset
Wanting to believe you
When you said you loved me
But with that expectation
I find myself broken and alone.
Although now;
I know what I want
Is what I can’t have
Continuing without you?
Not only broken and alone
But the feeling of desire
Once again;
For someone I can’t have
No way to feel as optimistic
As I once did around you
Can’t bring myself to talk to anyone.
Knowing they’ll misunderstand
Staying occupied seems best;
Avoiding the thought of you
Being so passionately spontaneous
Not passing up an opportunity
Keeping myself busy
Nervous at the mention of your name.
Hoping to find you
And that you’ll come home okay
I miss you.
I love you.
I just want you home
Until then I’m counting the days
Attempting to be happy and appreciative
But with you gone;
My happiness is as well
It’s quite unfortunate how it all played out,
The haircut,The uniform
I’ve always supported your decision
But it’s affecting me
More than I thought it would
I’m more proud of you than I’ve ever been of anything
I know you’ll stay safe
And you’ll come home happy
I look forward to that
Just promise me something..
“Keep your shoes tied.”
Feb 28, 2017
Feb 28, 2017 at 12:00 PM UTC
mum's well intended tough upbringing ended in a two sided razor sharp sword
i am independent, intelligent, and successful
that same achievements cause me no shortage of frenemies
and a severe debilitating starvation for true friendship and love
men wont touch me with a 10 foot poll
both sexes make me out to be weird beyond the point of recognising there reflexion in me
imprisoned in a life i wanted, successful
with a incurable case of loneliness, i'm drowning out with food and bad poetry
this is my roaring twenties, hooray
cant wait for the next 80 years
going senile will be a blessing
no longer haunted by pain and unreached potential
Nov 9, 2013
Nov 9, 2013 at 1:10 PM UTC
Why is it that Poetry has never yet been subjected to that process of Dilution which has proved so advantageous to her sister-art Music? The Diluter gives us first a few notes of some well-known Air, then a dozen bars of his own, then a few more notes of the Air, and so on alternately: thus saving the listener, if not from all risk of recognising the melody at all, at least from the too-exciting transports which it might produce in a more concentrated form. The process is termed "setting" by Composers, and any one, that has ever experienced the emotion of being unexpectedly set down in a heap of mortar, will recognise the truthfulness of this happy phrase.
For truly, just as the genuine Epicure lingers lovingly over a
morsel of supreme Venison - whose every fibre seems to murmur "Excelsior!" - yet swallows, ere returning to the toothsome dainty, great mouthfuls of oatmeal-porridge and winkles: and just as the perfect Connoisseur in Claret permits himself but one delicate sip, and then tosses off a pint or more of boarding-school beer: so also -
I NEVER loved a dear Gazelle -
NOR ANYTHING THAT COST ME MUCH:
HIGH PRICES PROFIT THOSE WHO SELL,
BUT WHY SHOULD I BE FOND OF SUCH?
To glad me with his soft black eye
MY SON COMES TROTTING HOME FROM SCHOOL;
HE'S HAD A FIGHT BUT CAN'T TELL WHY -
HE ALWAYS WAS A LITTLE FOOL!
But, when he came to know me well,
HE KICKED ME OUT, HER TESTY SIRE:
AND WHEN I STAINED MY HAIR, THAT BELLE
MIGHT NOTE THE CHANGE, AND THUS ADMIRE
And love me, it was sure to dye
A MUDDY GREEN OR STARING BLUE:
WHILST ONE MIGHT TRACE, WITH HALF AN EYE,
THE STILL TRIUMPHANT CARROT THROUGH.
2.6k
You see,
when I escaped your love
I had rocks tied to my ankles in knots,
and I walked into the lake
barely recognising myself,
just caught up in a memory and replaying
the pain in my head, so numbing that
I detached from anyone else’s love.
I thought love, real love, was about sacrifice.
You fed me lies about true love -
never ending ‘happily ever afters,’
and in my naïve mistaken heart,
I trusted to believe real love meant death -
that true sacrifice was self-sacrifice.
So, dressed in the wedding dress
(I was to wear on Monday)
my hair plated the way you liked it,
your grandma’s emeralds around my neck,
earrings dropping as a pendant, and the ring
on my left hand, I walked.
I walked.
I held tightly onto the bouquet of lilies
(were they not always meant for funerals)
and I stepped into the lake.
Cold water rising up my thighs,
cold water which actually felt more ‘known’
than the unknown land of your love.
I wasn’t even scared.
I’d washed down fear with
a bottle of pain.
I washed down fear with
pills of despair.
I just kept walking.
And the only sound I remember,
is my humming of Beethoven’s Für Elise.
In my mind, I could see you dancing
en pointe- your feet as eloquently poised
as the pianists fingers,
never in a race to finish -
just movements of grace.
And that’s who I am today -
I am the dancer
(Odette and Odile).
My humanity is now outdated -
I too, throw myself into the lake,
and, as I take my final breath
we – you and I, my lover –
are seen flying past the moon.
© Sia Jane
Nov 6, 2015
Nov 6, 2015 at 3:34 PM UTC
Revenge for her parents death the drive
that became her passion.
The story began when she was a child
witnessing their killing!
Every detail taken in by her big eyes
to get the killer the prize.
Seventeen years painfully trickled by her
becoming an assassin.
As the hatred coursed through her veins
revenge drove her on.
Though wanting to seek the love she craved
retribution on her soul engraved!
She had found a man making it complicated
her fine tuning distorted.
This new friend had found her mobile phone
saving her photo image.
Trying to find out about this mystery female
allowing others to find her trail.
Gangs had lost foot soldiers to her expertise
who acted like a shadow.
For the first time had to be far more aware
her parents murderer alerted.
The last pages of her diary soon completed
could this evil be defeated?
Knowing he would catch up with her soon
she prepared to strike first.
Entering his mansion in a covert manner
dispatching silently his crew.
Until he was there without support alone
recognising his arrogant tone.
From a hidden point confronted head on
glaring with a cold stare.
Going to fire the gun held in sweaty hand
diving found a hidden weapon.
A bullet went right through her shoulder
he was quick though much older.
Her shot caught him in a main thigh artery
shattering the femur to.
There before her the man she hated so much
was now at her mercy.
She had prayed for years to see him die
openly then did she cry!
One more deep breath she shot him in the head
cruelly on his face a smile as he lay dead!
Knowing she would be a target vanished from sight
revenge in the end did not feel right!
The Foureyed Poet.
Jan 27, 2013
Jan 27, 2013 at 8:20 AM UTC
Today I am a tourist
In romance, her swaying hair
Across my lap
She showed me this long night
And I bit into it
Laughing loudly and aroused
Not for sensation, but for feeling
She showed me the stages of joy
We folded our lives
As we folded laundry together
Ate our meals in complete comfort
The interior of thirsty years
Of suffering, made worth it
In a few months of purest joy
Loving her was like a Jewish legacy
Of an expression of American hope
I could hope I belonged
But romance usually had a way of
Burning my letters at a bonfire
For a muse I couldn’t have
So much color, so much sadness
So many postcards from
The women I believed I loved
Thus I remember your face everywhere
Like a poet infatuated
With the idea of love
Who has some difficulty
Recognising her at “face level”
Oct 15, 2014
Oct 15, 2014 at 9:33 PM UTC
You came too soon, the four of you,
into this world. Your mother,
recognising the feeling,
did what she had to do
to give birth to you,
cleaned you,
disposed of the afterbirth
in nature's economical way.
But you had no experience,
no knowledge of how to be kittens.
Almost still foetuses,
furless, unmoving, cold,
you did not stimulate
her maternal instinct.
She did not recognise you
as her babies. Lying against her belly,
you did not know how to suckle,
and she, not ready to feed you,
walked off.
You had no future.
A bucket of water, I thought, would speed
your departure from the life
you had barely started.
But you, recognising the element
you had so lately left,
were at home in it,
swam untroubled under the surface
like tiny, pink sea creatures.
Unwilling to watch longer,
I gave you a quicker end.
Your mother, unlike me,
resumed her life
as if nothing had changed.
Jan 2, 2017
Jan 2, 2017 at 2:28 PM UTC
It's when you're teetering on the edge of insomnia,
When every pound of your being is exhausted
To the point where you're seeing colours,
Without recognising objects, people,
Kind souls, kindred spirits,
That you soar to the most wonderful place
Of creativity and life-fulfilling happiness,
Or at least if not happiness, then
Contentment or satisfaction.
But, like insomnia, that teetering
Is the fundamental factor -
Because that same day,
In that same continuation of euphoria,
You can be waiting for a train,
And whilst you teeter at the edge
Of the cold station platform walkway,
You can plummet to the depths of depression,
Return to those comforting, suffocating clutches,
And that cry for help is stifled
By the thundering railway carriages,
And all that is left is a ****** stain -
Stained in your mind,
The knowledge that you'll never escape those clutches,
That grasp for the underneaths of railway carriages
Or the cordless bungee of tall buildings,
The comfort of the warm ground below,
And, naturally, a poem,
Flittering away in the gust of the train
Storming through the station
Like your ever-dwindling happiness...
Jan 15, 2016
Jan 15, 2016 at 12:08 PM UTC
The morning awakes with stuttering respect
Night time peace is past.
The new day to me is opportunity
Familiar movements from my love
Sadly recognising that rest is done
At least for the moment
Refusing to wholly awake is one I know.
She feels that more sleep would be...well
Even on days off the climbing out is a considered move
More considered, than move
I love her for her familiar ways
My moderated interaction has taken time to evolve
I understand, we can't all be the same
I love her for what she is and has taught me
Patience and tolerance
Oh how much I've learned about myself
Love is an acceptance of difference
A morphing of two ideals
A belief that neither is right but then...
Neither is wrong
Maturing love is a joy that has moved from blindness
To being at peace with your lover
But most of all it is the recognition
That you are with someone
Who cares, understands and forgives you
Overlooks odd ways and strange sayings
The underlying passion of true love
Never recedes or diminishes, but grows
Easier in the knowledge of an element of comfort
In wonderment and true happiness
Our jagged edges of self are no longer apparent
And the depth of our rounded love clasps us together
In time and space
Jun 19, 2015
Jun 19, 2015 at 7:43 AM UTC
Do you ever escape your grief?
Do you every find release from sorrow?
I can’t say today, perhaps tomorrow,
but today I’m growing round my loss
- not diminishing its presence, but recognising
that my present is not my finish
and that I add to this grief
my joy, reminiscence, and celebration
of those who are no longer at my surface,
but remain my foundation.
Do you ever escape?
I think not – I hope not.
For they are not a shackle,
but where I found my feet.
Feb 19, 2022
Feb 19, 2022 at 5:52 AM UTC
A car that never changes character.
A master in going against the times.
Its high raving engine proves it's nothing close to an armature.
The legendary kidney grill never declines.
Ounce I heard that the iconic M5 is now available in x-drive, my face resembled a wet cloth but as I finished reading the article...thank god there's a setting for the tyre shredding two-wheel drive.
BMW is a car that gives you a reason to stare, BMW lovers recognise the different models by looking at the linings...something rare.
BMW's so called rivals are always claiming they have"high tech suspension", but that's only on paper then the track testing starts. That makes you wonder how much do two faced women spend on makeup.
While other motor brands have "ambition", BMW has reputation. Its rivals are stiff in corners but the Bavarian beast simply drifts... Into position, clearly spelling out two words "no competition".
BMW doesn't exactly showcase the skills of a driver, it actually displays the behavior of the car...call that ecstasy in motion, the real capture of emotion...nothing has ever been so close to perfection.
The roaring power produces a sound that is distinct, out classing a band that is full equipped. A luxury sedan that is rated five star but deep inside it is a sports car at heart. The kidney grill ensures us that even in a hundred years from a hundred metres we will have no trouble recognising a BMW.
Something we may never measures is shear driving pleasure. The only drive that BMW knows is dynamic and although the average folk might not be interested in the track runs which are always epic, he or she knows that BMW is the perfect remedy for traffic.
Ambition is BMW versus reality.
Jul 2, 2019
Jul 2, 2019 at 8:40 AM UTC
Don’t pick apart what I feel for you.
No, there has never been anyone before you.
But, I am not an emotional *******
I know myself, and my mind.
Am capable of recognising what it is I feel.
Love you. Kind of. Maybe. By half.
I am on the way to love, at least.
You vacillate in the doldrums, a land of grey uncertainty, rather than travelling in either direction.
I’ll wait. Not forever.
It’s like having a part of my body outside of itself.
Vulnerable and full of the absence of something divided.
Something that was previously mine given to you.
I knew love would be hard when it came.
Not this sad, or this sort of hard.
I expected modest love, and humdrum hard.
This is like being the wife of a sailor gone out to sea.
Interminable longing and painful waiting.
My heart pulls in my chest, the steady drumbeat too loud, loud enough to feel in my fingers, feel in my legs.
It tightens in discomfort, and sends me spiralling.
I wish I could hold you.
I wish I could heal you.
But neither is possible without you.
And I’m still waiting.
Sep 17, 2018
Sep 17, 2018 at 7:05 PM UTC
Months of sweating
vetting every word written
Shivering over all
that remained hidden
Rocking back and forth
Recognising the demons scream
Asking to be fed more
Inside of empty dreams
Then the words, they spill
from cracked and broken lips
bleeding onto tissue paper
inking stains of fatal trips
Then comes the rush
a verbiage of torrential pain
Crouching on a backlit screen
pockmarked with finger stains
The first spike of adrenaline
fizzes inside a broken mind
The churning end to a journey
that has completely left you blind
Collapsing in upon itself
is the high that's found a low
and when the reader is gone
You wonder where you'll go?
Perhaps you'll find a new pusher
Someone else to feed your pain
Someone that will dig that needle
deep
even deeper into the vein
Mar 7, 2017
Mar 7, 2017 at 5:12 AM UTC
*Remember
When I kissed
Your naked soulfire
Gently caressing the time
We spent between moments so fragile
Like porcelain dolls
Fragile in their meer existence
Capable of splender
Or distroyed
Crumbling to dust
Time has come full circle
Meeting in my dreamtime
Shades of a new horizon
Exquisite upon the ivory keys
A melody of life yet born
And yet so silent is the tune of my love
Bare not a scorn
For past illusions
I lay soulfire naked before your throne
Pheonix rise to meet your challenge
A myriad of emotions freefall
Landing upon your eyelids
I may put fear where fear is unwanted
But remember
Your soul is beckoning you
To be all that you can
So in letting go
You are merely
Recognising
Yourself
Within the illusion*
Mar 2, 2013
Mar 2, 2013 at 6:48 PM UTC
He could write only perhaps a page at a time so scarred was he of losing the brilliance that he had somehow found again. After a few minutes of writing he was haunted by introspection reading back on what he had just written he couldn't escape the notion his words had been penned by some greater man and if he were to continue, to add to it, he would only be lessening a beautiful portrait. The effect was that each page he wrote looked like a biography with each chapter recorded by a different writer giving his work the disjointed feeling of having many contributors all compiling their experiences to tell this one story. He had never bothered to understand Durkheim's theory of alienation, but he imagined it was something close to this – not recognising himself in every story he wrote, only knowing that it was somehow someone different each time and that they were all trapped somewhere deep inside him.
Jul 12, 2012
Jul 12, 2012 at 3:24 AM UTC
Night, gripped by future thoughts I lie,
Mind nocturnal, never blinking eyes,
Day's events and those to come don't rest only rush
Heart hastens shadowing pace, moves respite out of touch
Perspective the enlightener sprouts a shoot,
A momentary distraction which begins to take root
Breath is vacuumed slowly from nose to chest,
Streaming laden air out, a peaceful wind lays upon breast,
Mind slows recognising nights familiar touch,
Sleep content, knowing, I'm but a mindful piece of dust
Sep 29, 2015
Sep 29, 2015 at 5:48 PM UTC
The hardest thing back then
was recognising the joys -
often hidden in plain sight
often throttled by the noise
but not without a fight.
So later, we knew the joys
by their red tears
by their diamond belief
that even in the discord
their clarity would remain
that the deepest caves
will give echo to truth
beyond this darkness.
Sep 20, 2025
Sep 20, 2025 at 4:15 AM UTC
Why do you smoke?
All your thoughts begin to choke
Your weak windpipe, delicate from pain,
And now you’re alone, hurting again.
Why are you smokin’?
Are you truly that broken?
So desperate to leave this place,
No one to have as a safe base.
Realising all the pain you cause,
in your head, sarcastic applause,
Recognising your life is a joke,
Is that why you choose to smoke?
May 7, 2018
May 7, 2018 at 6:33 PM UTC
There flows between us on the terrace
an underwater light that distorts
the profile of the hills and even your face.
Every gesture of yours, cut from you,
looms on an elusive background; enters without wake,
and vanishes, in the midst of what drowns
every furrow, and closes over your passage:
you here, with me, in this air that descends
to seal
the torpor of boulders.
And I flow
into the power that weighs around me,
into the spell of no longer recognising
anything of myself beyond myself; if I only
raise my arm, I perform the action
otherwise, a crystal is shattered there,
its memory pallid forgotten, and already
the gesture no longer belongs to me;
if I speak, I hear this voice astonished,
descend to its remotest scale,
or die in the unsupportive air.
In such moments that resist to the last
dissolution of day
bewilderment endures: then a gust
rouses the valleys in frenetic
motion, draws from the leaves a ringing
sound that disperses
through fleeting smoke, and first light
outlines the dockyards.
…words
fall weightless between us. I look at you
in the soft reverberation. I do not know
if I know you; I know I was never as divided
from you as now in this late
return. A few moments have consumed
us whole: except two faces, two
strained masks, etched
in a smile.
Eugenio Montale
Aug 28, 2015
Aug 28, 2015 at 4:31 PM UTC
To the joy
We dance, we jest and joust
The complex interplay of two
Souls recognising selfness
Seeing the edges fit
To the sorrow
This memory fades, surely, swiftly
A conversation half remembered
The realisation that ..
I can't recall your voice
To the sweetness
A softly remembered moment
The curve of a finger
Tracing line across memory
To the senses
That I can't feel those arms
Lightly, a tear traces a path
I feel it slide down my cheek
Then unseen weight grips
To the Anger
Against moments expectation unmet
When the collision occurs
And unwanted words come forth
The rage unchecked
To the self
The clash of the ego and id
tripartite vying for casual dominion
Eros and Thanatos war
Action dictated by thought
To the internal
The experience of
A lucid world of love
of longing, of joy
And it's counterpart; sadness
As I remember that I will
Never see you again
We will never speak
You will not know
How much you are missed
To friendship
To the joy of finding each other
To the gift of you, selflessly given
To the kindness
To both sides of a being
To the present
To Finding ways to exist Sans those who've faded
Always to persevere
The interlocking of past and now
Always seeing and remembering the essence of their being
Just breathe
To the heart
No words exist for this journey
From innocence to sorrow
And back
But when led with..
Nothing is insurmountable
Mar 9, 2017
Mar 9, 2017 at 12:27 PM UTC
Even though the distance
Of light years between them
Will never subside
And will always remain
Interminable
But this has never stopped
The soft waves of cerulean
Seas and oceans
As well as their moonlit lover
From recognising and feeling
The gracious presence
Of each other
And joyfully confessing
their sparkling eternal love
To each other
Even in the absence of
Any means to ever
come close
Or touch each other
Oct 22, 2018
Oct 22, 2018 at 9:03 AM UTC
I couldn't have made it
without you
from recognising a kindred spirit
to discovering a soulmate
beyond passion, beyond even love
you are part of me
Jan 16, 2022
Jan 16, 2022 at 1:53 PM UTC
Two new ladies walked into the project kitchen for morning tea, one was lithe, petite and attractive, smiling, welcoming, the other, tall and lumpy, plain and withdrawn with eyes averted.
Clearly the planet treated these two women differently. Their different auras could not have been more stark, more reflective of how the brutal game is played universally..
This great eternal injustice meted out to all the plain Janes, everywhere.
I greeted them both, then, recognising the hurt, the galling expression of the expectation of another rejection, reflected in the big girls downcast gaze…. I reached out, made a gentle fuss of her, drew her into the group, gave her warmth and equality…all in a very human, non- demonstrative way ……
And, do you know, I was rewarded, with a miraculous emergence of dancing, alive eyes…. and really, the loveliest smile in the room.
M.
Hamilton,
NEW ZEALAND.
Feb 19, 2019
Feb 19, 2019 at 10:57 PM UTC