"recollections" poems
I recognise
those tired eyes
with fond recollections
how we made them so
by the lush warmth of the fireside
through the night:
decadent movements.
Oh,
how those eyes and your body glowed.
Nov 18, 2014
Nov 18, 2014 at 6:01 PM UTC
Stumbling into ancient scripts, authored a decades plus ago,
ago being a modifier of time quantities, minute or large, unspecific
without an objective adjective additive, that faucets a stream of an interlocutory elocution of a batter of rooted emotional histories,
but not histrionics
fanciful words for dredged up memories, acute, but tarnished,
powered yet worn by a cousin of ago, a/k/a,
age
and yet
renews as of,
at this very second, as if it were a first, a tumult of visions, swelling of remembrances, embodied scars, and I weep anew but not
for me, as much for the resonating simpatico souls with whom
they even now vibrate with resonance of the immediacy of
If not now, When?
Aside: The exterior environment is noisy wet pelting of thunderstorms and ****** sheets of bulleting rain, piercing projectiles, but I am safe in the sunroom, sadly happy my dog is no longer here to shiver and tremble, cuddle and be soothed by steady stroking
But I am here, wrestling with this dredging operation, digging up
tons of sand that require dumping, and I ask, inquire, beg:
Who will take this detritus off my hands, once more, now uncovered,
now recovered, the soil is already soaked and can absorb no more,
the soul is already soaked and can absorb no more, the weakened
heart, damaged and occluded, suffer cannot bare twice the
outrageous misfortune
of unbared recollections, twice, or thrice, and I feel myself drowning in revisiting pain, **** **** **** these old poems, not nuggets, but boulders dropping from night skies, shot from a pitching machine, without letup, piercing of agonies that once ago
freshly desecrated and decorated my basic training in humanity.
Enough whining:
*I wrote those poems to
eject out those pains,
and I write this now, once more,
to realize that so so many still face
uncertain and unrelenting similarities,
doing their own sums,
and I wish them easing,
strength to compose and
thereby dispose of
the ineloquent
and eloquent
words of staining suffering*
3:30am
Thur
July 10
2025
Jul 16, 2025
Jul 16, 2025 at 5:39 PM UTC
I am not the master of my writing
-
my writing masters me,
seizing me when the seizure is a sure thing,
it dictates to its enslaved scribe
what it desires this utensil to reveal and expel -
the contraries
who having battled to a ****** draw leaves the battlefield trembling with indecent indecision; the optimal conditions for its macrobiotic invasion of my brain stem;
the she-muse offers me two choices:
she wants a poem writ forthwith
on the lyrical expression
of depression and refusal is
non optional
so I fantasize escape and that becomes
her property as well;
evidence against me to be used at my trials,
the one where there is no statue of liberty
from the limitations of prior bad acts;
I offer the she-muse two choices:
give me a cabin with WiFi
and self-enforcement of solitary confinement and
tie me up with the rope remainders of broken bonds,
bonds that tied me up worse
when they were broken
and the peaceful withering
that won’t disrupt disturb nobody
from a distance
my other choice is to bury me
forthwith next to my parents
and shutter my constant tearing eyes which are drop-resistant
muse says that’s no choice
I own your voice stilled or not,
will bill your soul’s account for
denial of poetic services
weep; i don’t want the noises that curse this troubled
bodyship don’t want recollections good or bad
the muse-bitch cackles with insanity of delight
for she accepts this writ as partial payment
on her commission, whispers I love your
lyrical expressions of depression
that ****** recognition algorithms
alert me that seizing time is nigh
there is no on/off switch for one like you:
father son and holy ghost
Apr 28, 2018
Apr 28, 2018 at 9:31 AM UTC
*Cast out entirely this time around.
There's a beautiful world waiting,
But it's easy to be blinded by what you think is beautiful in a beautiful world.*
In the dark for so long.
The retina I own captured false images
Of what i once believed in.
So much effort stored in a mirage,
lodged in doubtful recollections.
I want no sympathy,
I can only evolve through the chasing of symphonies.
Villainous, aren't you?
The conflict is the enemy.
I'll do away with this blame game,
You're just so awfully gifted at how you play.
I was the warmhearted prey
Fooled into what appears to be defeat,
Due to stupidity.
I saw what I wanted to see,
And clearly my vision was wrong.
(c) 2014 Brandon Antonio Smith
(Originally written 10/31/10
Revised 9/27/14)
Oct 2, 2014
Oct 2, 2014 at 2:48 PM UTC
My New Year’s Eve
was spent
collecting fragmented recollections
to confirm
that my dignity
had truly died.
Soberly,
I perused
the bars and clubs,
and walked aimlessly
up and down crowded streets,
feeling like my life
had somehow
been shifted
into slow motion,
while the rest of the world,
engaging in joyous celebration
and ffestivities,
was knocked out of rhythm
from my existence.
How in the world
could the clock strike midnight?
How could people embrace, and kiss
at the dropping of the ball?
How could they laugh and smiile,
and wish each other a “Happy New Year!”?
More importantly,
how could those god **** traffic lights
have the audacity
to continue changing
from red to ggreen to yellow,
then back to red again.
My dignity had just died.
My dignity had just died.
My dignity was dead.
My dignity was gone.
In the days and weeks
that followed the death of my dignity,
I noticed
that life faded
from colloquial to iconic,
like something mystical,
or an intangible object
of deep longing.
And recurrent images
of those *******
obnoxious traffic lights
insensitively
switching colors
replay in my mind
to remind me
over and over
in the greens (go),
the reds (stop),
and the yellows (be careful),
that my dignity
had died.
Memories
of the ddays
before my dignity had died
run through my mind
like old home movies
with centuries
of black and white film
stuck on repeat,
and slowly fraying,
around the edges,
because of the harsh demands of time.
It is life’s
harsh and cruel irony
that these images,
once my greatest joy,
have now become
inflicters
of the greatest pain
that I
have ever felt.
Like a sound wave
of pain,
so powerful,
that it has silenced
any other pain
that my heart
has ever heard.
So now I know,
it is true
life is a bitch.
The fading
of my dignity
has made me
overly aware
of the earth
turning on its axis.
As spring approached,
for the very first time,
I noticed
the way the flowers
seem reluctant
to bloom,
as if uncertain
of their
welcome invitation.
Such a cruel reality,
that the flowers
would choose
to bloom,
and nature
would choose
to carry on,
slipping
further and further
away from the day
that my dignity died.
And still,
to this day,
those ****
traffic lights
keep switching colors
Jan 10, 2018
Jan 10, 2018 at 8:32 AM UTC
The picturesque glow from the full moon enkindles youthful swooning and yearning; orotund voices rising above prattle conversation yield celestial affirmations in conjunction with analogous, supernal relations
Full acceptance of the shimmering stars sacrosanct messages coruscating through the sky - fulsome oracular expressions instilling mesmerizing past-life recollections.
Dec 6, 2014
Dec 6, 2014 at 10:56 AM UTC
I met you at the station
you said wanted to go anywhere but here.
I said to look for the tracks that
are the most uninviting. You
took my arm. I wished for
something better and here it came,
disguised by dirt, dislocation and greying days.
Your ticket says no return but
mine is undefined, watchful, ready
to bolt or to linger. You say you love
the stations from afar.
There's not much of me
requested, but the splinters that you
do, I gift hopelessly. The
smallest glimpse of light approaching
filtered through dank, oppressive air
are superior, surely? than finite life
exhausted watching the dark.
By the night you amplify,
when you have enjoyed my fill and
left with little but fingerprints and
recollections, casting parallel shadows
on directions that await.
I give you almost everything
except for the words that
travel nowhere but my head.
You gave me the signal
a briefest flash of red
that stopped this in its tracks.
May 16, 2015
May 16, 2015 at 6:04 AM UTC
Time
Slipping through my fingers
Like hourglass sands
Once to pass, never to return
Memories merely photographs;
I glance back at ribbons
Tied round fingers,
Quick thoughts of times once here
But all things fade and wither
Cycles of death take hold
And all is one day lost.
I ponder the question,
Weighing on those with recollections,
Do you remember how much
You've forgotten?
Apr 19, 2015
Apr 19, 2015 at 8:00 PM UTC
Oh, What a View!
from this hazy morning hue,
Familiar faces interlacing
back-trip Flashes
Heart is Racing
In my brain &
through my veins
i still feel the
ACID STAIN
Recollections of
Reckless Havoc,
Wreaked when I was
Trapped in Magic
man
last night
who was i ?
right now i'm fading from my sight
I am here while i am There
and I have yet to Find my Mind .
May 7, 2014
May 7, 2014 at 10:35 AM UTC
***Fill my glass
of vintage
pleasures,
top it til the
bubbly overflows,
as memoirs
& recollections
effervesce
beyond lucid
drunkenness,
hungover midst
an endless
toasting of
intoxicated
sensibilities***
Jun 26, 2015
Jun 26, 2015 at 7:14 AM UTC
The poem was inspired by a particular photo of the WT C, and after that by my first visit to the 9/11 Memorial. On the day of 9/11, I was working about a diagonal mile away, and from our windows, we could see people jumping to their death.
Open sky annulled
to bordered lines of
uptown edges,
worldview momentarily
forcibly redefined by
memories of buildings and sadder days,
recollections of pillars of biblical smoke rising
A photograph
makes me look up,
and sit down historically,
need to catch a breath,
to rest mentally,
upon a storied small bridge's steps,
that I well recall,
a disappeared street stoop.
all were rubble then and once
upon that day.
Wear, tear, and older eyes distill perspective,
but the hardy heart is hardly stilled
by the recognizable gray upon
bon vivant gray reflective surfaces of
memories of buildings and sadder days
So today, on a reborn street,
I rest upon reconstituted speckled curbstone,
the city's lowered down ledges,
the city's lowered down-town boundaries,
constantly redrawn, but
nonetheless, always rebuilt from their own
regenerated stony compost,
and the NY passersby doesn't even notice
a man, head in hands,
silently weeping, thinking that:
We throw away so much we should have kept.
We keep so much we should have thrown away.
Lose keepsakes, but keep our mysterious sadnesses
locked away in compartments that open only to
benedictions uttered in ancient tongues.
Make your own list,
be your own curator,
catalogue visions of sophomoric triumphs,
museum mile pile
those early poetic drafts,
be unafraid of memories
raw and ungentrified,
overlaid, buried underneath
postmortem of dust-piles of senior critiques
Finally went downtown to see
where the blessed water falls
into catacomb pits that once
were the foundations
of buildings that ruled the cityscape,
downtown anchors
for a modern city that exists
only because it was built on
million year old granite bedrock
Stone monuments are stolid, discrete.
Memories are of grayed, frayed edge consistency.
Negatives resurrected that survive digitally,
all blend synthetically, layer upon layer,
essence distilled in a single,
black and white photograph
that serves to
disturb complacency,
awaken stilled pain,
reflections suppressed,
are restored
Sep 11, 2013
Sep 11, 2013 at 6:36 PM UTC
A tragedy miles of time away,
The anguish almost forgotten:
But pain is a stubborn stain;
Counselling never washes it away,
New love never smothers it.
Like a stubborn ****
It is always there,
Rooted in composted memories,
Finding nourishment in the briefest recollections.
The slightest trigger allowing it to briefly blossom.
Dec 13, 2018
Dec 13, 2018 at 7:17 PM UTC
Look at yourself
All *****
Blackened with a sour demeanor
Rip the top off
Take a look inside
An endless carousel
See the stars
And be thrown to the next page
Never to come back again
The stories for the next chapter
Clenching to previous excursions
Remnants, recollections of once new beginnings
Once you start you can’t stop
Can't turn and have second thoughts
Once you’re out
You’re gone
Falling to pieces
Smoking, dangling
A mental spasm
A lapse, relapse
Push them away
They speak too loud and bright
A half baked scheme
It’s something to pass the time
Hedges of red
Busted fence posts
Inconspicuously
Punctured shell
To the roots
Vibrations to my brain
Purple furlough
Roofs fall
Pedal till they bleed
Bleed dry to the bone
Till the bone breaks
And the pain grapples me into submission
We ignore the fruits in front
Of us for the mirages
We pretend are real
Putting In hope and taking out lies
Riding the ignorant air of pride
Crawl in desperation to continue
It wouldn’t lie
Stick to the plan
Raise the voice
So they hear and believe
We won’t stop till it’s found
They won’t stop till I’m in the ground
Buried, out to pasture
Fresh fertilizer here
I hear his deceit meshed
Deeply in his voice
Yet I fool myself to
Believe due to my denial of doubts
It won’t let me continue
Smile for no reason
When I think about it
Disorientation follows
Don’t utter another word
The grass is dead on both sides
So let’s make them equally green
Plant the seed
Pack a lunch
As we walk, we remember
The lesson we were taught to never
Tread here
Dec 3, 2013
Dec 3, 2013 at 12:52 PM UTC
Vague recollections,
Of curio collections,
Salt and pepper shakers, unused
crystal ashtrays, reflecting rainbows
of northern prairie light on days bright.
A prairie girl, did you miss the place near the Arctic Circle,
your home? Did Odin and Freya call you away from here to
there, or was Thor, or Loki the thunder in your angry voice
that I feared and may have hid under the steep basement
stairs, quietly in the dark hoping you were unaware.
Some of your children, and
your spouse, left before you did,
I know that was tough, and a shame.
You were tougher, though, you did
suffer in you aging frame.
I know you loved us all, I know you knew me too,
very early you said of me "he is a sensitive child", which
I have found to be all too true, many years after you have
gone I miss you, grandpa and dad, Audrey and Vic too.
Did you all find Valhalla at Heaven's Gate?
So I will not stir up the past, nor
will I hurry, through each day, for
I will remember, and smile at those
memories that brought me joy, prose
and rhyme not of a child, but a Viking man.
©DWE032013
Mar 3, 2013
Mar 3, 2013 at 3:02 AM UTC
Hello underground. Hello to all of your shadows. I meet with the dimming light here at midnight. Hello small cracks in the wall. I peak through at you. See what is really true. Hello dust devils. Silence swept you away. My recollections are all I have to say. Hello leftovers. Time to eat my yesterdays. And start cooking what tomorrows say. Hello milky skin. Pale as moon and taste like love. Its what has always been all of the above. Hello underground. Goodbye to all of your shadows. I leave the dimming light at noon. Just a visit is all it was and ill be back soon.
Sep 23, 2015
Sep 23, 2015 at 11:25 AM UTC
We can make this edible
without utensils
In a strange, menuless kitchen
Well, can you not make a salad?
Take a cucumber of memory
Slice it so thin that none of the recollections hurt anymore.
Mince some olives so fine
Their oil leaks onto the cucumber like OK.
Add the pulsing flesh of bright red tomatoes
But don’t slice them
Just squeeze them with your hand
Until they explode like wet epiphanies
And dare to dice a garlic clove
Without turning your nose away
As invisible olfactory reality
Assaults you with truth so pungent
That ECT would pale in comparison
To that very assault on your boundaries of understanding
And then toss the whole thing
Watching how it changes color and texture
And just when you both start to get hungry
And you both want to cry
The 50 minutes are over.
Dec 23, 2011
Dec 23, 2011 at 11:08 AM UTC
Memory is like a sunset
for once it fades....
You only have recollections of it elegance
but never again see it the same..
Feb 4, 2017
Feb 4, 2017 at 12:09 PM UTC
Sick and cyclical memories linger, how unjust it seems
In somber city streets, her father's name she screams
When the fix is late and her body sodden and shaking
Her childhood recollections waking, every joint aching
Falling on tarmac, tearing stockings and fleshy knees
Through the distant mist it's a saviour that she sees
Marvin on a white steed, motorbike and leathers
To get her straight he only requires her nethers
What difference could it make to such a worn woman
So little that her eyes glaze as he announces his comin'
And she's immediately put to work after initial transaction
All night shifts, ****** abstraction, customer satisfaction
Returning 'home' to Marvin where the earnings are counted
Giggling schoolgirl as playful stories of John's are recounted
And Marvin's insatiable perversions are compounded
****** cocktails and deviancy, her psyche confounded
The **** sleeps blissfully beside his new top girl
And through ****** daze, she examines her world
Nov 27, 2013
Nov 27, 2013 at 9:51 PM UTC
I think I've been a little lost lately.
Maybe more than a little.
This dull ache takes shape of your voice.
It lulls and tugs repeating familiar soothings
Past words of comfort now are readily sharpened
As I close my eyes and attempt to drift
Yet, I am tethered to the waking hours
How I weep for neutral slumber
Denial burns a fire deep into the hours
As I evade past recollections of your touch
Floating in bitter melancholy
This eternal blending of the not easily forgotten
Slowly I begin to peel off the layers
My protective armor, now as brittle as parchment
Easily sloughed off leaving the inevitable truth
vulnerability seeps to the bone
Then words that acted as knives
Become my salve as I (defeated) apply
Wrapping myself in the old familiarities
Gently cursing you (me) for feeling so raw.
Nov 12, 2012
Nov 12, 2012 at 11:33 AM UTC
I sit on a droopy windowsill and gaze out
at the stars above me in the stately sky of coal.
I let the smoke fill me, pollute my corrupted lungs,
‘til it plugs me, completely consumes my sticky soul,
and midnight sorrow blanket hugs the heart in my hole.
I sit and I consider the sky
with its million-and-one jewels
that adorn the vast carpet of night
and its one, lone cloud that slowly drools
fat, drippy drops of deep fed'ral blues.
The ashy, burnt taste is still in my throat;
it lingers- a dull, cloying candy cane.
The muted flavour chokes and jabs and pecks
persistently, in the back of my brain
and leaves a steel blue/gray trailing stain.
Vague memories of fourth-grade English lessons
take me with a deep sigh to forgotten thoughts
of Roger McGough and unrequited love-
dazed recollections of school poetry taught
in obscure slate-blue classrooms, littered with blots.
It seems feeling unreturned affection
isn't quite as great as I’d thought after all.
I must've been wrong, all those hazed years ago,
when I yearned to feel unrequited love’s fall,
convinced it would be a wondrous, dazzling ball
Instead, I'm just ******* in the pale-ing sky
that seems to be growing into lighter hues-
the navy’s turned to electric, to powder,
matching the sapphire in my soul of glue.
I'm suppose I'm feeling somewhat, slightly blue.
.
Jul 14, 2014
Jul 14, 2014 at 11:21 AM UTC