"reframed" poems
Cold white layers pile over the grey concrete
I did not expect the storm but I
Needed to face the journey
Someday
We knew it could not last forever
And in that moment
An accident in my vision,
Maybe the music screaming into my ear
Distracted me from the obvious truth that lie
Just through the windowpane
Leading to a collision straight into reality
Your words, the concrete divider
That hit hard enough to take deep damage
Yet not hard enough to stop me from moving forward
The unexpected truth that came at the least expected moment
My ignorance overlooked the obvious signs
That i could not stay safe forever
Not at the speed we drove..
My skin hugged my knuckles tightly
Enough to match the descending snow
As I knew from the first swerve
Your first word
That inevitable fate
I surely faced
Death loomed close in my mind
But I drove on
Grabbed the wheel and forced my way through
The place where I felt nearest to the grave
Until I reached a safe enough space to see for myself
Just how much damage I endured
And, like my car,
I am totaled
Broken into pieces that cannot be reframed
Some lost at the point of collision
Others gradually passing over time
And some still holding on
In the eyes of an astonished mechanic
The car shouldn't even start
And according to everyone else
I should be dead
But I'm not
And though neither the car
Or my own life will ever fully
return to their original condition
We still drive on
Moving forward on the unpredictable
Icy
Deadly
Highway of life
Mar 3, 2015
Mar 3, 2015 at 3:28 AM UTC
Hildegard of Bingen
the most musical abbess
of the year 1097 a.d.
met with Jung the unconscious detective
and Ginsberg the howling poet
for lattes at some Starbucks
in a vibrating city
on a shimmering afternoon.
Angelic minuets keep flowing,
effervescing through my chakras
like tonal champagne . . .
the glowing femme declared.
Beams of ethereal light infuse me,
tsumanis of energy tempt me
to dance right out of my habit.
Ignoring the possibility
of seeing a naked nun drink coffee in public,
Alan mused behind his hornrims . . .
I get what you mean
like I have felt the same perfusion of joy
watching cans of peas and ayahuasca
dance with talking bananas
at the A&P; Market near my pad in Brooklyn,
can you dig it?
Still suffering from his Freudian hangover,
Carl reframed them both . . .
Any conclusions or convictions
drawn from such experiences
may not self-verify because
your introspective identifications
attempt in vain
to concretize the amorphicity
of decentralized psychic sensations
which reach conscious awareness
only at the expense of extension.
What did he just say?
Hildegard asked Alan.
I have absolutely no idea,
the portly poet answered
as he doodled an intricate mandala
on his hemp napkin.
Jan 1, 2012
Jan 1, 2012 at 12:21 AM UTC
The west coast is ablaze
A conflagration reconfiguration
Efforts heroic as forests fall
And cost of lives lost
Homes no more
Neighborhoods gone
**** and dust
Terrains reframed
The new world:
Fire cyclone zones
Hotter, drier, bigger
The culprit: us
Aug 22, 2018
Aug 22, 2018 at 8:45 PM UTC
By Arcassin Burnham
If I was hard on myself like am now ,
She would have been reframed from this some how,
Their minds are gullible like purposely tipped cows,
I got no time for your smart mouth,
Like That they say to me,
I once had chemistry,
With someone into me,
She was a beauty queen,
With some broken dreams,
Momma had stronger genes....
I loved her blue jeans,
The way she treated me.....
Never come back to me,
memories come back to me,
If she's smarter than she was like she is now,
She would never ever come back to this lost town,
So I don't have to hear her lecture when she's not around,
I got no time for your smart mouth,
Like That they say to me,
I once had chemistry,
With someone into me,
She was a beauty queen,
With some broken dreams,
Momma had stronger genes....
I loved her blue jeans,
The way she treated me.....
Never come back to me,
memories come back to me,
Cause I don't got no Time.
May 9, 2017
May 9, 2017 at 11:28 AM UTC
Did you hear their silent whispers?
Of broken cries and moans?
Dead behind the eyes as they walk,
Of all the sadness you have sown,
Leaving them to question the reason,
Your heart is full of villainous treason.
Did you look away as they bled?
From another youthful blade?
Forever questioning the reason why,
The hellish world that you have made,
As the streets turn a crimson red,
‘50,000 more nurses’ is what you said.
Did you taste their scared skin?
As they wept over fresh war wounds?
Children killing themselves for freedom,
Just wanting to write life saving tunes,
But you look at their skin choosing to hate,
Is that what you’re to be remembered for, mate?
Did you touch my screeching wail?
From the sorrow I have regained?
Searching for relief from this solemn pain,
As my selfish loneliness is now reframed,
Now lying on my deathbed I wonder,
How long until I’m called from down under.
Dec 23, 2019
Dec 23, 2019 at 7:35 PM UTC
to let me out when I steped in
to break me I'll wait you here inside
to fill me up with your regrets
to free me from this endless stun - run
i want to mend it
i want to find a cure
seize this obsession
depleting me inside when i am with you
it's starts with a mistake
and it has been reframed
we're running in cycles
I can't break it to know that I can feel another life now
If you let me I would step in
To break these chains of past I try
To figure out what you're up to
To free my soul or ruin it down
Sep 2, 2014
Sep 2, 2014 at 8:11 AM UTC
Translating emotional state
Takes some discipline and listening
From thoughts to words in place
Don't lose sight of actions in flight
Tame the beast before it feasts
Monkey brain reframed
As allowing a creature out of a cage
isn't necessarily the best way to participate
Elevated above this primate state
Contest shortness of breath in the chest
Slow feelings in controlled action
Pause for a rest and step left in turn
Observe the effects that reflect on you best
To check what you've left
Oct 5, 2020
Oct 5, 2020 at 1:29 PM UTC
Bright lights may blind me
but it isn’t the light I see
slipped back into time,
you see
it wasn’t the right time for me
Daily pains become mundane
it's the insane reframed
within this window pane
shattered glass that
once reflected my inner mass
scattered on the floor
swept into the past
A different point of view
than you, it isn’t new
it's just a clue to how
the tables turn like pages
even though they’re burnned
like sage is
Jul 6, 2017
Jul 6, 2017 at 8:51 AM UTC
by Arcassin Burnham
Sweet Fridays wake the sun again,
The wind takes care of them
that never ends,
The beauty in them reflects the
beauty in you,
and you shall prevail giving them
an awe display,
let them know your name,
all shall unfold and be reframed,
people kept the strain,
this flower bed reminds me of
the war that when an officer holds a
gun up to your face,
sliding a flower into the hole,
and they continue to fire,
makes me really sad and angry at the world,
and what people portrayed it to be in the
end......
/
...Sometimes we gotta pay the price
for the mistakes we've made
the people we've hurt,
the sins we commit,
in the end it doesn't mean ****
cause we were all born to die,
all to die,
no use of staying alive,
so put the noose around your neck,
and keep hope alive.
Nov 5, 2015
Nov 5, 2015 at 10:59 PM UTC
Where do we meet ?
Can it be said
You have the same words
In your head
Or ideas reframed.
Do your eyes drop tears
And your hands reach out
To touch the soil
Do we ever meet
Different voices in the wind.
Love Mary ***
Jan 26, 2019
Jan 26, 2019 at 9:11 AM UTC
Neglected
Abandoned
Used
Unamused
Abused
Refused
Recoil
Obtuse
Toil
Recluse
Excuse
After
Excuse
After
Blame
And
Reframed
Misuse
Of my fruits
The truth is plain to see
It’s you, not me
I expected more
Than to feel like a cheap *****
To be thrown to the floor
Like a rag - nothing more
I’ve been here before
Not much left to explore
Just feelings that I abhor
Feeling low and unadorned
I often feel shame,
I often feel scorned
I told myself I’d stop this
Yet, here I am forlorn
Not to toot my own horn,
But I know I deserve more
After what I have seen here
There’s no reason to Implore
A burning and a yearning
I’ll never collect my earnings
The passion isn’t here
And this fills me with fear
What is coming next,
Will I always be so vexed?
Crying to myself
while they put me on a shelf
Falling to my knees because I’m so eager to please
This is what they see
An opportunity to seize
When I ask for what I want,
nothing more than a sneeze
It’s my fault you won’t love me,
the way that I request
It’s certainly not you,
you’re doing you’re best
Chalk it up to I’m “too loud”
because you can’t find the words- too proud-
If you ask me, it’s a cosmic joke
You came here only to provoke
I suppose it’s just a lesson learned
Embarrassed that I can’t discern
I learned this lesson once before,
But somehow I’ve forgotten
I’m not sure where to go from here
But I hope it’s where I’ve NOT been.
History repeats in cycles
I have clouded vision
I need to shake you off of me
and get back to my mission
I look for love in all of the wrong places
And become fond of people and their faces
But when they show me the facts
I need to take a few steps back
Try hard not to - too- 2 react
But I’m full of heat and it’s discipline I lack
Your demeanor begs that I cut you slack
When I feel I am being attacked
I don’t know how to remedy this
So I bite back tears as I clench my fists
To you, only your own trauma exists
So I should be more careful when taking these risks
Dec 16, 2022
Dec 16, 2022 at 12:12 PM UTC
What if, beyond the great unknown of death,
there is nothing
but fragments of memories
flickering into place
like a flame just ignited,
memories of all the good times,
all the first kisses
and starry nights,
family gatherings
and the wind dancing through autumn leaves,
all the moments that filled your heart,
and all of those that shattered it just the same,
all the stupid fights
and good jokes
and fruitful meals,
all the common day sights
reframed in to odd familiar beauty
when juxtaposed against an eternal scarcity,
all the long drives,
anxious waits,
and books you never quite did get around to reading,
all the long nights
and early mornings,
all the conversations you'll never forget,
and all the passing words you wish you hadn't,
to each season of your life,
each phase, each desire, every dream,
all the people that molded you,
even the ones that linger in foggy memories now,
what if, when the heart is weak and the body
begins to wither,
when your bones succumb to
to the gravity of existence,
what if this is all there is,
blurring in some melancholic haze,
forever reverberating
against the weightless expanse
of the void always yearning?
Jan 26, 2021
Jan 26, 2021 at 1:50 PM UTC
In one of her last few semi-lucid moments
my mother quizzed me.
She gazed at me myopically
and seemed to be asking
herself as much as me.
“Did I really love you?”
It was the first firm indication
of a previously suspected
demonstration of approaching
senile dementia.
There were others,
more mundane,
less cerebral,
mainly related
to her toilet habits.
Clues that were easier to ignore
than to acknowledge.
What did she mean by it?
“Of course you did”
was an instinctive but meaningless response.
She peered at me uncomprehendingly,
as though my reply
bore no relevance to her question.
A question that has haunted me
for over forty years.
But how could I doubt her love?
Had it not been for her concern,
I would have perished ‘neath the surgeon’s knife
on my return from evacuation
in Fakenham.
She never would have dared challenge
a doctor’s diagnosis
on her own behalf.
She was of the generation
and the class
that treated medical practitioners
as gods.
But for an offspring she was quite prepared
to fight both tooth and nail
in some basic, ritualistic simulation
of a jungle tiger’s protective shield
at a perceived threat to its young.
And later,
when she rushed my sister and myself
into totally unorganised evacuation
to Llanelli in order to escape
the sudden perils of flying bombs and rockets.
How could I ever doubt the love
that she exhibited in my presence
in her debate with the headmaster
of the local Grammar School?
Her insistence that he accept me
despite my lack of Welsh
that would ordinarily be a
basic entry requirement.
Her refusal to accept
the rules and regulations
was a mother I had never seen
nor could I have imagined her
to be capable of
such persistent challenging.
Thus, my mother, tottering on the brink
of what was to be a life-annihilating
dementia, asking me, in a rare, lucid
moment, if she had ever loved me
would seem to be a non-sequitur.
Was it a sudden recognition of
a coldness that she might exhibit
to the world, but which did not reflect
the love that she really felt but
failed to exhibit?
For that matter
was the “me” really me or was it
some other family member with whom
in her later stages of dementia
she confused me.
But it has induced a question
that now I have to pose myself.
The recollection of those many
wonderful experiences
that demonstrate
the lengths to which she was
prepared to go
to defend those values
which she honoured
though rarely overtly.
render the question
meaningless.
Unless, unless it be reframed
into an accusation of my own
failure to recognise
to appreciate
to reveal
the extent of my own feelings.
Perhaps it was I
who should have posed the question:
“Did I really love you?”
Apr 12, 2017
Apr 12, 2017 at 6:50 AM UTC
Endings are often sad, we had one yesterday.
He was a proud stocky three-year-old Angus
steer, the last of our small herd, filled out and
contented on augmented buckets of grain to
fatten him up over the last few months and
lessen his lonely estrangement from his
departed or sold off family herd.
All alone in the pasture he would often bellow
mournfully, which he would also do twice a
day to remind us he wanted his grain.
When the box truck pulled in, he trotted to the gate,
curious I suspect. The two men in not so white overalls
stepped down and approached their side of the fence.
One man held something at his side. The steer raised
his head and ears, stepped back a little, perhaps he
sensed danger, the man raised his rifle from ten feet
away and a shot rang out.
Dead in a heartbeat, the big steer collapsed in the dust.
Deceased before he hit the ground. Yet in his throws of
death his legs thrashed violently in sad reflex. The
accomplice killer opened the gate and cut the beefs
throat to bleed him out and the thrashing soon ceased.
This was mobile butchery, done on the spot, the skilled
butchers knew their grisly tasks and bent to their work.
In about 30 minutes the steer, (we stopped naming our
cattle, all but the mothers, when my grandsons grew old
enough to understand that these animals were meat on
the hoof, not pets and names made the partings harder).
Useful Farm Boy emotional armor I suppose.
In half an hour the two halves of our animal were bleed
out, gutted, skinned, washed, dismembered tagged with
a number and hung up on hooks in the truck, alongside
eight other steers of the day, all on the way to the shop
for further cutting up and packaging. Then placed into
flash freezers. Ready for our family to bring home or to
sell to friends.
Raised without injections or hormones this is healthy
beef, tasty too, but which I reframed from eating some
years ago. Having watched our cattle born and growing,
I became too soft hearted to eat them. Preferring to buy
nameless, faceless meat with no personal history, from
grocery stores in neat little clear plastic wrappings. To
at least avoid some of my old man hypocritical guilt.
Nov 11, 2023
Nov 11, 2023 at 4:46 PM UTC
On the wall of my living room,
Hangs a broken mirror.
The glass shattered into hundreds.
I kept it as a memento,
To remind me of the day my heart broke into that many pieces.
The kaleidoscope of hundreds of sorrowful eyes,
Used to stare forlornly at me,
Giving neither reason, nor hope,
To take the next step. Or breath.
On the wall of my living room,
Hangs a broken mirror.
Still shattered in the hundreds.
Today, it is reflecting dazzling beams of sunlight,
Into what used to be a darkened cube of concrete.
Through the fragmented glass,
I see bits and pieces of me.
But I felt whole. Unbroken.
On the wall of my living room,
Hangs a broken mirror,
But it has been reframed.
And that put my life into perspectives.
Myriads of eyes with crow's feet and smiles,
Looking back at me,
Telling me I've come a long way.
Next to the mirror,
There is a portrait of us,
Of our very first kiss
After the wedding vows.
Nov 25, 2023
Nov 25, 2023 at 9:30 PM UTC
I sold my memory
for a present reframed
The past in revision
—the future in shame
(Dreamsleep: July, 2022)
Jul 21, 2022
Jul 21, 2022 at 10:53 AM UTC