"rectangles" poems
we aren't mute
we aren't shy
we aren't strangers
yet we remain with not a word escaping our mouths, staring into little rectangles of light.
Jan 3, 2015
Jan 3, 2015 at 12:32 PM UTC
Clicketyclick —
sickly screens,
shooting
sixty
picture-frames
per second
Tickety ticktock, rapid-fire
photon cannons,
ripping holes
through our
faces
rectangles,
riddled with anxiety ridden
read scripts
the resultant
retinal scarring
Wicketywicked, weary eyes,
dripping with serrated pixels
triple dotted,
typing-awareness indicators
create silly suspenses,
inducing temporal
dramas,
emotional
micro-traumas
every second a slice
through my,
now practically nonexistent,
patience
Am I a server,
or am I a servant?
Eyes, sunken, with
withered skin
I'm waiting for my fix
Ding-ding
Bloop!
Pinggg
Here comes the dopamine! —
—Clicketyclick
Oct 23, 2014
Oct 23, 2014 at 12:47 PM UTC
A little boy
Neat white shirt ironed to perfection
A monster truck plastered on the front
Denim jeans, fitting his skinny waist just right
Innovative
Imaginative
He loves creating new things
Making plain old cardboard into the next best thing
He gets his crayons
Sharpies and all
And runs to his room
All excited on his new project, his new creation
One piece of cardboard after the other
Rectangles flying everywhere
Coloring what looks like door handles onto cardboard?
The vision isn’t clear, yet it will come together soon.
He works quickly
With a due date set in mind
Full of ambition
The vision isn’t clear, yet it will come together soon.
He finishes his new achievement
Smiling happily at his new jumble of handiwork
Glued together precisely
The vision isn’t clear, yet it will come together soon.
He attaches the different shapes to himself
Straps glued to the cardboard
It seems he’s wearing armor
With doorknobs and wood grain painted on it with pure artistry
He hears someone come in the front door
His smile turns to panic
He quickly cleans up the supplies
Throwing things around the room anywhere they fit
He runs to the corner of his room
He quickly pulls the “armor” close to him
As he sits in the fetal position
His armor becomes a small dresser that looks as if it was made for clothes
The father bursts into the room
With rage spelled out on his forehead
The boy hides brilliantly afraid of the wrath to come
The father looks around the room carefully
*Come out Come out
Wherever you are
The next time I see you
I’ll give you more bruises than last week altogether*
He closes the door with a loud slam
The boy unfolds his creation, a simple dresser
Who knew that a young boy’s imagination
Would protect him from all of the horror and pain usually unleashed on him
May 26, 2014
May 26, 2014 at 9:27 PM UTC
over-caffeinated like a maj-gician (the electricians of existence), Matilda sang her morning brew a lullaby as she convinced breakfast not to panic from the pain of the frying pan- "sit quietly, take the pain, feel the burn- SIZzle! soon you'll be a human being and begin your life as a synthetic deity free within the skin of metastasized consciousness."
soon the egg seized in pleasure; a masochistic joy overtook it as yoke splurged from within like ****** ***** during ******* when the gimp has forgotten the safety word, screaming
BANANA
NEW YORK
CODE ORANGE
! ! !
while the perpetrator continues to scream verses from the Bible and Leviticus 1:3; an audiotape of On Being and Nothingness sends chills down the dark-sides spine in a hyperreal realization of the role choice plays in evils mortality.
must we listen while we speak? does reciprocity die in egoic colonization of the African subcontinent of the mind? is this the beginning of an age of autism born within the confines of illuminated rectangles of permissible distance and social hell-frozen-over?
man, you weren't even paying attention.
**** you.
Jun 7, 2013
Jun 7, 2013 at 3:06 PM UTC
It was there.
And then it was gone.
Frantically scrolling up and down I somehow knew the search was useless. The frustration streaming through my blood kept my mind off of everything else in the world. I was mad. Angry. Questioning why this would happen. Hard work pays off? Or hard work gets "accidentally" deleted by the stupid device that I have ignorantly become so dependent on. It has become our way of communication; our way of becoming something else. We try to make technology a mold of ourselves. Piling in personal information until we are left holding our entire life in our palm. We stick our faces behind 4x2 rectangles of wires and data, instead of looking each other in the eye.
But you see, the problem is, you can't bleed into a device. It won't absorb. Your feelings, your life will merely sit on top of it until your phone eventually shuts down.
But you can bleed into paper. You can write and write and only be concerned about how badly your hand is cramping. You can hold it, you can feel it. And you can hope others feel it too. You can carry it around and never worry about it becoming "outdated."
There are no upgrades.
There is only inspiration.
~pw
Oct 24, 2013
Oct 24, 2013 at 12:28 PM UTC
His wife is as
assiduous as
a mother bird.
She keeps
the windows
clean with rags
and buckets
of vinegar and
steaming water.
What happens here.
He sweeps
the ceiling
and ponders
the meaning
of the word
perspicacity.
There are
mornings
spent fussing
over underused
demitasse sets.
What happens here.
There are
afternoons
side-by-side
on the front
porch glider,
watching clouds
attenuate across
a porcelain sky.
What happens here.
The smallest
sounds never
fail to surprise
them.
How sparrows fold
like feathered paper
below rectangles
of polished air.
*What happens here,
happens over there.*
Jun 16, 2017
Jun 16, 2017 at 2:28 PM UTC
soft words and their way of making people sing
lull me like a sweet tune in this chimney, in this place
in my head, slurring over and over until lines would draw up triangles of sleepy infant "jeux",
circles of faded fantasies would come to life and pray,
plus rectangles and cornucopias filled with fun and livelier days.
clouds of droopy golden light drip over our heads as we both lay
in soft blankets made out of my personal handmade Heaven's embrace
lush silk pillows under our overweight, over-bearing, strongly fastened necks
'cause they hold Atlas' weight and the answers for today.
the cycle ends for another shortened day...
the air seems rich with the smell of freshly-made pancakes.
little troll walking down the stairs with a new spring in her step.
lean into the chocolatey sweetness of a mother's oven-like haze,
close your eyes and wonder
if you'll ever feel the same.
Jan 21, 2019
Jan 21, 2019 at 1:28 PM UTC
Two silhouettes muttered through cigarette smoke next to the tall, black double doors at the head of the corridor
unfazed by the white rectangles flickering above us. The doors parted
next thing I knew, I was in
a black box of four tall black walls, and a clammy black floor
made of the same padded fabric as the entrance doors.
Riotous bass pummelled through the room like a tortured bull.
There were hundreds of people here; maybe more
but they were all lying docile, faceless and still
against each other.
They were all young. I picked up an inconsistent rhythm of chests rising and falling
like ripples ushered across the sea by a gentle breeze.
Yet it was the overwhelming sense of flesh here that
lit a snarling viciousness within me. How it excited me and how
I feared it.
I was a butcher, afraid of what he could do.
I saw someone I recognised – her brown hair was tied back, her eyelashes
twitched in her slumber. I stepped over and sat behind her. She pulled herself closer to me
and kissed my cheek. I buried my face in her neck and placed my palm on her bare stomach
took my index finger, and ran a circle around her navel.
I can’t remember what happened after that. Images slip through like
water in cupped hands.
But I remember the raw beat, and the gentle ripple of chests
and how it reminded me of the sleeping new-borns in a maternal ward.
Sep 7, 2015
Sep 7, 2015 at 10:59 AM UTC
Metropolis is dust,
the smoke of unfaded coffin nails,
she's a sensual bonfire
littered landscape,
the burning lust running in my veins
between safety and risk,
circumcising the stage
where Dylan went electric.
~
"I didn’t belong to anybody then or now.”
Swing-shifting to mercenary mode,
but sinking my face value
by ordering takeout religion,
sharing a cab with Hepatitis C,
and all those sky-high boxes
and rectangles
—existing in one, spending nights
with her in another.
~
*"Oh, lay me down to sleep
upon the trickery of time."*
~
Apr 27, 2021
Apr 27, 2021 at 9:36 AM UTC
I spent months
setting them up
those emotional "dominoes"
black rectangles on end
balanced just so
white spots spelling out
ego
emotions
soul
just a sharp stroke
of a tongue
on one corner
and
they fall...
and fall...
and fall...
they lay
scattered
and
chaotic
on their backs
like beetles
unable to turn
their undersides exposed
and vulnerable
how many times
can they be realigned
how many times
before the spots erode
how many times
before it's empty inside
like dead beetles'
dry, brittle shells?
May 2, 2017
May 2, 2017 at 11:11 AM UTC
Pencil lapsed over paper, strokes struck blank.
Curves raced up and down the stairs, lines longed to curve.
Loops eloped to a wedding
Spirals sprung out,
Dashes dashed,
Crosses squares with circles
Triangles jumped over rectangles
Ovals wove throughout
Dot was left to point out
The empty blank around him
Jun 9, 2014
Jun 9, 2014 at 9:34 PM UTC
Technology wasted on greed and vanity,
Immersed in the web of a fictional reality,
A window to a soul that doesn't exist,
Verbal onslaughts now more powerful than fists,
Modern communications are eerily silent,
Tip, tap, tip tap, can topple a tyrant,
Tunnel vision fixated on the glowing rectangles,
Blue light so bright the mind it mangles,
Hunting for the red hearts of communal acceptane,
If not enough is found on comes a flood of repentance.
Dec 3, 2018
Dec 3, 2018 at 8:53 AM UTC
My hands above my head,
I grasp for purpose,
and pull the Sun to my chest.
Circles become arbitrary.
Squares, the cousins of
rectangles are discredited as
man-made. That's why metaphors
known as squares are seen as
vulnerable shapes in a misunderstood spectrum.
They are dotted lines
dependent on right angles,
left ashtray to explain anomalies.
So for order we justify lines.
We contain music within them.
Until, of course, the Holy Ghost
is found. Because that strike
against the canvas is thought
to be premeditated.
But that isn't human nature.
That isn't God.
It will only become recorded
notes on a page.
It's retrospect.
A future remembrance of the past.
It's the Sun in your heart,
knowing that containing that
kind of energy is hazardous
to your health.
Jun 8, 2017
Jun 8, 2017 at 10:55 PM UTC
Let my fingers
caress the wounds
of your chakras
in multicolored beams
of light
stroking the vibrations
Let me soothe and
lift them
to their peak
strengthen the strings
of violin tenacity
Let my third eye open
and meet yours
for a dance along
the astral plane
our gaze forever locking
For as it is now
we are restrained in our
rectangles of glass
boxes of electric ecstasy
beyond beautiful,
yet
what I would give
to lay one palm upon
your heaving chest
in fiery tender
To brush my lips
upon the tip of
your eyelashed ocean
yes
meet me
lash me to you
let me tremble
into the
humming of
our lips
Apr 28, 2018
Apr 28, 2018 at 12:43 PM UTC
I see straight lines
Binding giant rectangles to collapse
On the nature of what's below
Endless copies
Animals of asexual, mechanical, foreign disposition
I don't think I know what it means to be solid
To be perfect
But as much as I love almosts
and innocence
They're telling me to grow up now
To find a rectangle to waste away in
But my ghost wasn't meant to be form-fitted
I wasn't meant to be cubic.
Aug 18, 2013
Aug 18, 2013 at 2:31 PM UTC
-
we live and die
within a box
with data
at all angles
in an age
where innocence
is compacted
to rectangles
here we see
the wizardry
of Bill Gates in
his valley
the children with
their pinwheel eyes
texting Steve or Sally
around the house
the computer mouse
enthralls another tyke
instantly their Facebook
has another "like"
blood and gore
are commonplace
the victims have no names
what the heck
do you expect?
it is all a
game
they will thus
ENTRAP YOU
you'll do as they bid
for your pleasure
I'll announce
The Wizards of the Id
SoulSurvivor
(C) 6/5/2016
Jun 6, 2016
Jun 6, 2016 at 3:01 AM UTC
There is a concept in religious circles here
(and other shapes;
rectangles, rhombuses,
rorschach blots freckled with faith)
that the way to get closest to a person
is to not touch them.
So
they laid in your car side by side,
her elbow holding her head up like
an exhibit on falling, on disbelief
and you puffed up your unshaven cheeks
and blew in her face.
It blew her eyelashes back and they
bowed their blonde-headed arms at you,
They heard you tell her a
bedtime story with your eyes closed
and they laid down to sleep too, lacquered down with
air conditioning fluid brushed wet through the desert nighttime air.
At dawn,
you promised you wouldn't touch her
as you
lit a cigarette and held it to her mouth,
her lips an inch from your knuckles
and she breathed you in and blew
the smoke out the car window where it
hung suspended like a ghost.
Jul 16, 2011
Jul 16, 2011 at 4:42 PM UTC
Small squares dot the hildside
Tiny ants scurry about
Moving rectangles cruise on along
A few building blocks stand tall
This is the view
timeless,
peaceful,
ever stirring.
Mar 10, 2013
Mar 10, 2013 at 4:25 PM UTC
Love triangles try angles
Love circles tend to trap you
Into rolling with the punches.
Love squares box you in with
Rectangles, for the longer.
Love is better, out of shapes,
I think.
Apr 14, 2015
Apr 14, 2015 at 5:54 AM UTC
What if the Moon was a Triangle
The Sun was a Heart
The Stars were Circles
The Earth was an Oval
And We were all Rectangles
Unable to figure out
How to hold Each Other
Without becoming Squares
Apr 18, 2014
Apr 18, 2014 at 12:07 PM UTC
Sparse farmlands spread out below
scattered popcornish clouds;
a farmer's harrow;
his sun-baked, callous-caked hands;
two or three farmhands idling.
One hundred thousand rectangles:
property lines
from a 737's window.
West Illinois looks legal
from 30,000 feet.
Jul 29, 2012
Jul 29, 2012 at 6:23 PM UTC
Dear Circle,
I’ve met a triangle,
I’ve chatted with a pentagon.
Seen some squares,
And some rectangles.
But, you’re still not here.
I’ve always wanted one shape,
Just one shape.
These other squares,
Rectangles and triangles
They still have sides.
But, me,
I have no points,
No angles.
No edges.
With room for you in my center,
Where are you, my circle?
I’m ready to hold you
And forget all the shapes with sides.
I’ll keep looking but,
Oh, if I find you, circle
Will you be mine?
Jan 7, 2011
Jan 7, 2011 at 12:58 PM UTC
o1.
B L U E
blue lines on paper, running from one side of the page to the other
blank white rectangles in between where words are meant to go
but i can't think of the right way to tell you i love you
(years later, i will be in the same situation
but instead, i'll be trying to figure out
the right way to tell you i was
wrong about you
and
i)
o2.
R E D
dark red lines against pale white skin
from every time you told me i wasn't enough
from every single time i feared you didn't love me as much as you said
and from the days where your love wasn't enough.
dark red fades to a light, wilted pink
lines that will stay forever, lines that will always remind me of you
no matter how much time passes and no matter how much
i promise myself i don't care
o3.
P I N K
lines on the palms of my hands that are meant to tell me
how long i'll live, how many children i'll have, how my love life will go
a long curved line from one end of my palm to the other
how do you translate that into years?
and you used to run your fingers up and down those lines
you used to tell me i was going to have three children
and i always used to think they would be yours
o4.
W H I T E
white lines spread across the table
just to get you out of my mind
i say goodbye to my brain cells when i inhale
i wonder if the long pink line
on the inside of my palm
shrinks as i shorten my life
after i decide one line isn't enough
and i need at least four more
because i can't stop thinking
about the line i drew
between you and i
and how you crossed it
like you never even saw it
in the first place
Sep 8, 2015
Sep 8, 2015 at 12:25 AM UTC