"reining" poems
If I moved a muscle right now a window would break.
If I took a solitary step the tiles beneath me would crack.
Submerged in the oscuridad save for a small pulse of luz called optimism because that’s just how I was raised.
I know I can’t pretend to make an oasis
Because how well did that work out for me last time
The lightbulbs can yell and scream and punch the air
But nothing will make them turn on without a power source.
I can’t be breathing hard or else the candle stub I have left will blow out I have to
Guard it but keep looking for my next step using its meager light trusting
That the beacon I look for is not further than the reaches of my
Light that I will with the remaining shards of my life to keep on
Reining now is uncertainty that is
diametrically opposed to the concept that the sun is gonna rise tomorrow I promise so let me stroke your hair and shroud you until it does.
I exist in this limbo of heeding the hours that come. The ticking of the clock drudges yet I gulp every last second as it arrives.
I voraciously **** the teaspoon of trust I have left that the
Audience is just watching the plot arc to progress and that
The dramatic irony of some surety is just beyond the radius of the hardly illuminated path beneath my shuddering feet.
Maybe someday I will stumble upon the next candlestick or something.
Maybe someday I’ll find a working light bulb buried in the snow or something.
But here I progress or something.
Un día a la vez or something.
Grappling foot by foot for something.
Something.
Dec 11, 2021
Dec 11, 2021 at 5:37 PM UTC
My animal awakens to dawns emergence
A languid stretch of sultry sleek limbs
As daybreak's ***** air delivers your delicious essence
Senses honed sharp to tease the beasts primitive chant
Through shafts of dusty light I gaze upon your lithe form
Morning glow whispers across male sinew
I smirk at how unaware you seem of my intent
As my wildness of greed growls impatient
My prey, I fear losing control with my desire for you
Reining in animal instincts scattering on a breeze
I stalk your sleepy, carefree movement
Footfalls soundless in the dawn
Voracious hunger claws at my belly
To feast upon your wholeness is needed like air
To glory in your taste of salty spice
My possession of you is not in question
Your strength is no match for my female stealth
As I choose to alert you to my presence
Run from me prey, just a few precious moments
Run, so I may relish this chase
My tasty morsel, your fearlessness puzzles me
The primal pumping of your pulse, your only tell
It's tribal cadence draws me still closer
I will have you beneath me on this misty morn
.
You'll know nothing of my bittersweet turmoil
The aching inferno ablaze in my *****
As your power over me lies in concealment
I am the mistress that controls your destiny
With regal grace I swiftly pounce
Pinning you to the cool earth
I nuzzle the masculine valleys before me
Pleased with the feast you present
.
Feral heat erupts as I scent the need you deny
Glands under my tongue weep yearning
Salivate for the ambrosia of your making
In ecstasy I'll feed to devour my craving
Dragging tongue along incisors edge
I revel one last moment in your heaving breaths
As passions bite pierces your throats hollow
My soul claims it's sensual prize
Submit to your goddess, my courageous warrior
Surrender your pride to my keeping
I possess you now, my beautiful prey
You belong to me...
Sep 6, 2012
Sep 6, 2012 at 5:35 AM UTC
Distorted words from holy books,
hypnotized by the **********
Whirl the swords 'round our heads,
while making their incursion.
A snowball out of control
a firestorm a reining
beliefs too strong to see the winds
of peace within them straining.
We wake to fear, and fear, and fear,
and soon will come the numbing
left by the sound of egos blasts,
cadences of ancient drumming.
Bullies in the school yard,
disgruntled husbands batter wives
Too many with too much and still unhappy
ruining other peoples lives
Who then among us
will take up the banner now
and love themselves, change the world
unfurl their angry brow
I will move the universe.
I will love my life.
I will throw away the gun.
I will sheath my knife.
Mar 26, 2016
Mar 26, 2016 at 12:33 AM UTC
Why did you give no hint that night
That quickly after the morrow’s dawn,
And calmly, as if indifferent quite,
You would close your term here, up and be gone
Where I could not follow
With wing of swallow
To gain one glimpse of you ever anon!
Never to bid good-bye
Or lip me the softest call,
Or utter a wish for a word, while I
Saw morning harden upon the wall,
Unmoved, unknowing
That your great going
Had place that moment, and altered all.
Why do you make me leave the house
And think for a breath it is you I see
At the end of the alley of bending boughs
Where so often at dusk you used to be;
Till in darkening dankness
The yawning blankness
Of the perspective sickens me!
You were she who abode
By those red-veined rocks far West,
You were the swan-necked one who rode
Along the beetling Beeny Crest,
And, reining nigh me,
Would muse and eye me,
While Life unrolled us its very best.
Why, then, latterly did we not speak,
Did we not think of those days long dead,
And ere your vanishing strive to seek
That time’s renewal? We might have said,
“In this bright spring weather
We’ll visit together
Those places that once we visited.”
Well, well! All’s past amend,
Unchangeable. It must go.
I seem but a dead man held on end
To sink down soon. . . . O you could not know
That such swift fleeing
No soul foreseeing—
Not even I—would undo me so!
2k
You need to remember,
You can never reach the heavens,
If you were there all along.
You have to start below,
To jump high,
And reach the stars.
It is better that way,
Than to start all the way up,
And hit the earth, hard.
Life is just something that confuses,
Both me and you.
Sometimes, you fall when you’re up,
But when you least expect it,
You rise again.
But when you are reining the heavens,
You fall.
But when you are so close to giving up,
You rise.
You should always keep in mind,
That you can never stay in one place for too long.
Life has its ups and downs.
Allow it to bring you down,
And it will allow you to take flight.
It’s tough,
But that’s just how it is.
Jul 27, 2014
Jul 27, 2014 at 3:34 AM UTC
I remember how heavy you were;
you left footprints in the grass
and on my chest.
I remember your eyes;
glazed crimson
dripping sweat on my *******
clenched beneath white knuckles
and stained cotton sheets.
I remember the birthmark on your left hip;
its ugly face smirking
past greasy thrusts.
Your breath a heavy whiskey drowning my lungs;
whispered in my ear
hot sticky grunts.
An ink splotched lion tattooed on your thigh
grinded into me,
twisted itself into my heart
ate away at my preserved innocence.
I’d saved myself for long.
And then there was nothing left after that.
“Have fun in college.”
A closed door.
I carry you in every moment.
My hands pressed firm against his abdomens
as he tries to make love to me,
I wait for that lion to reach out and
scratch my face velvet.
I wait for the pain and the shudder of his pleasure
As it ripples through his shoulders and he presses into me.
I wait for it to be over
So I can bury your face back down into blankets.
I wait for him to smile and kiss my temple before he drifts to sleep
And then I shower to scrub you off of me and out of me.
But I’m never clean enough
I walk around with your dirt caked around my core
I’m branded by you,
I’m drifting to sleep and my fall awakes me to your snarling neck.
I remember hearing that now you’re a youth pastor,
a true saint.
you’re working in South America with empty children
and hopeless mothers
you’re building homes for the homeless
and saving lives
you’re teaching the lost
all about God’s reining love for us
but guess what baby—
I’ll never forget the night you ****** me.
Nov 23, 2011
Nov 23, 2011 at 4:29 PM UTC
I have never known love.
I have never been held by somebody who said
“We fit together”.
There has never been another
And that is fine.
I can’t live up to someone’s standards
And I can’t give more than I can take.
Of my heart to only one.
There isn't a part of me
That I can let ache
Because I need him by me.
I can’t give up drinking, and messing myself up,
Until I am tangled and bent.
It is my art, and it is an instinct
To remain convoluted and tormented.
It’s not a burden I can lay on someone without guilt.
Everyone is shallow to some extent,
And unless he is beautiful superficially,
I won’t be able to step out holding his hand.
Walk, head held high,
Telling the crowd that yes, he is mine
And I am his.
There are parts of me I love,
Slender ankles, fragile eyes,
But too many that I hate.
So it is impossible to believe someone
Who tells me that I am deadly
Beautiful,
Until those parts are blotted out, fixed.
I will continue to have to deal with anorexia and depression,
States that will always threaten to asphyxiate me
And I understand these are things that most people can’t understand.
This sort of continual struggle
Which I let creep beneath my thoughts
Every single ******* day.
Parts of me that are locked away,
Quietly pushed to the furthest corners
Under the bed
Shamefully.
There are dreams of coffee in the morning,
Cigarettes after ***
Fingers down my back,
And falling asleep on his lap.
But I am unsure of what to say, and how to act
So he won’t have feelings of being oppressed or worse
Unloved.
I swing between extremes,
And there is no in between.
I live explosively, and that’s not something
Easily accepted.
Terrified of all these rules and warnings
And reining back,
I would rather be alone.
Aug 3, 2014
Aug 3, 2014 at 12:56 AM UTC
and all I can think of is sad things about wood
about how from child to adulthood
it's stuck where its put
and stood where it stood
I wonder if wood would avert its eyes if it could
soaking up the blood of Hemingway's brain
and staring into the grieving eyes of bed ridden Twain
unable to scream at the Adam and Eve, twain
as they fruitfully leapt into the mortal plane
does it retain in its rings and grains
(more than brick walls and marble veins)
memories of plague strains and reining Charlemagnes
do they like their scars and bloodied stains
or is this just a little inane/insane
Mar 19, 2017
Mar 19, 2017 at 5:44 AM UTC
I want Neptune
to come out
of the Gulf
reining
pale
untame
charioted waves
I want his imprint
on the brined wash
and
I want to ask him questions.
Do mermaids dance?
(for example)
Are hippocamps?
(for another)
Are starfish fallen celestials, antic?
Is drowning frantic?
I want the vasty deep to erupt
into answers, synaptic explosions
connections
connecting
to
me
I seek myself in saltwater
Creation's alphabet soup
to swallow me
to disconnect the disconnection of me.
Come Neptune. Come from my primal self
into my Self and connect me to me
and me to you and us to them.
Push your wild beasts from the sea
and come into me.
c. Roberta Compton Rainwater 2014
Mar 31, 2014
Mar 31, 2014 at 11:35 AM UTC
as we're celebrating
with family and friends
on Christmas day
give a thought to nations
who are in the fife
of a destructive flay
there will be no peace
all harmony unkempt
the tones of happiness
in these lands exempt
munitions reining down
terror in every street
the frightened war weary
caught in a violent cleat
the wailing of innocent children
the grieving heart of a mother
humanity lost in the woods
the planet's brotherhood in smother
and the joys of Christmas
we'll have to share
yet there will be places on our orb
dowsed with pain and despair
Syria and Iraq
those trouble riven territories
where there is an ongoing
legacy of animosities
merry and mirthful
shall be our Christmas day
but let us not forget war torn countries
far beyond our homeland's bay
Dec 20, 2014
Dec 20, 2014 at 8:05 AM UTC
A rose swallowed down to the bone
One thorn to slit the thrown
Choked on by a contorted king
Crushed in the abdomen of his anatomy
We now have discovered his reining soul
The stem soon grew from his eyes
His skin takes all control, most of it lies
Picked by her
The Queen, her majesty
He leaves his ground
And follows hers
Hands were pale and cold
All was under her control.
Aug 2, 2010
Aug 2, 2010 at 2:45 PM UTC
Sweet sensuality
my lover is queen
A heaven within her
a fallen angel redeemed
Addictive sweet nectar
passionately exposed
A view conquering sunsets
on her back she lay posed
Mouth watering for a taste
hands dying for a touch
Reining back haste
because I want her so much
The rest of my life
dedicated to my goddess
Hell has been quenched
in deference to her hotness
Tonight, I take my fill
and **** my little girl
(as though against her will)
and rock her ***** world
070313 ~ 10.49a
Mar 18, 2015
Mar 18, 2015 at 2:22 PM UTC
Love, light, beauty and truth
Magic misappropriated by an all too common world
And turned into clunky words
That leave no trace of what they mean
Except to poets and children
Which are really the same thing
When you think about love, you do love a disservice
When you feel love, you are at one with all things
But when you embody love, you are the light of the world
And you, child, you are such a light in the darkness
What is beauty if not this?
To see a sea of contrast and recognise truth
Amongst conflicting ideologies and persuasions
That become meaningless
When in your arms
Defying the supposedly immutable laws of the Omniverse
And reining time to a halt
Sep 26, 2012
Sep 26, 2012 at 12:41 AM UTC
Slate, black and still.
It's for your protection
Imitate slate, cold, impersonal rock.
Don't let it show
The turmoil and chaos reining inside
The frantic thoughts,
The panicked breathing
Be still as glass on the surface
Like a rip tide, undetectable.
Take a deep breath,
And pretend.
I can't live like this anymore.
Feb 6, 2016
Feb 6, 2016 at 4:37 PM UTC
Oh how I differ from
The youthful beauty of
A pale new flower
Velvet petals of orange,
A stem of vibrant green
leaves as young as I once was
As autumn brings harsh cold
A reining beauty shall fall
Join me and pass away
Your time has ended
As time takes its tithe
your life is now not
Sep 25, 2010
Sep 25, 2010 at 11:52 AM UTC
the gleaming depths appear to be a window
into one’s own soul. the brittle, dark pieces
who shelter filthy playthings. the unholy of devices
angels scorn at when they see.
airbrushed fingertips trail caresses into whimpers,
reining power over carefully timed indentations,
creeping up between thighs of eyes that stitch shut
amongst each thrusted I love you’s.
often, it conceals the unseen memories of
blood and grizzly teeth, of wrists bleeding purple,
of mouths that beg and plead against the shattering of ribs
as carpets tear through unarmed knees, he says
if you don’t stop struggling, I’ll be sure to put you at ease.
the irony bounces between the four panes whispering
how I am utterly insane, integrating the day I laid
frozen in my makeshift grave into each intimate memory
I hold of the ones I’ve loved to date.
while my ribs bruise the breaths I take and my knees
fold up each violet mark, they scorn at me from within,
even the angels can’t save you from this sin.
I betray the body I live in.
I betray the mirror I live in.
Apr 21, 2020
Apr 21, 2020 at 10:11 AM UTC
"Tell me how far you will go if you really want to keep me close.” The lyric sounds present yet absent, too familiar to pay attention to, though it hints me on our unspoken accord. “I remember tears streaming down your face when I said I will never let you go.” As a result it can't advance, it can't take the upper hand. I'm euphoric with that firm embrace though i never ever shared it with anyone else. Without a lucid expression to each other we know that, if we chose to, we could venture into something reckless, even pointless. “Feeling close but we are faraway, farther than we think we are.”
As the cabin fell languish, I found my sentience more lucid than expected. Is the caffeine reining in the back, out of all cases as the most eminent one? It’s way better than the impasse of drowsiness anyway. The interstice of the window shut down glimmers. Amorphous sense of prelude. I’m stunned with and at peace with the pace my two neighbors and I created. At the moment while their breath calmed arms staggered in their dreams, I hope I am too. “There’s monster in my dreams, I should fight’em but I let them in. It’s killing me slowly.”
The nightmare creeped as the plane is declining height. As the air pressure changed, my ears didn’t feel well. All the machinery rumble made a soundscape in and of itself. “Meet me in the middle of night and let me hear you say everything’s okay.” I shut out the world to open up thoughts, to let the inner universe take over. At my inward presence and complete distance came the greatest moment that transcends all language. To compose poetry is not to utter but to listen, so does anthropology.
The astonishing sunset awaits us, no matter the exact time, as long as we dove down high from above and saw through at the right time. The New York City leaned, boosting its colonies of glow that stood in the night. I threw my sight from the window. What's happened there? Whose light is it? Whom is it lit for? I wonder, and I can’t see it clear. But the depth index is too big to see it clear; the blur blurs. Physically and figuratively.
Sep 28, 2025
Sep 28, 2025 at 2:22 PM UTC
I present to you the undefeated, reining, defending competitors hailing from anywhere human life resides. These competitors have no specific expected gender just courage, heart, and art. It takes a lot courage to do what they do day in and day out, weekly or monthly then go back to being the everyday people. The everyday people that walks with us and around us. We know these people very well. Hell we are those people.
The people that put their life, love, hate, business, and memories on the stage. what ever can be done to human being more than likely has been talked about on this stage.
That's what makes them, them, that's what makes us, us, and that's what makes anyone who has graced a stage or a microphone a spoken word artist.
We as spoken word artists put our lives, our history, our passionate interest to words and later to ears of our friends, associates or complete strangers and sometimes allow those same ones to give our narratives, our practices, our life choices scores.
Some people will argue that soldiers have a harder job than us but soldiers takes the orders and choose weather or not to follow them, while we the spoken word artist make the orders, coordinate the orders, execute them and protect ourselves when the time is up.
That's why we say "don't be nice poet". Because we speak the truth, we speak our truth. And the truth hurts, yeah the truth sets you free, free of a job, a connection, a life but we still "go in poet" anyway.
No matter how defeated we feel after every line we write we're undefeated, as long as respect is shown to this stage, we're defending, and every day we survive our trauma to tell we're reining champions. This is what makes me, you, us the reining, undefeated and defending Spoken Word Artist.
Dec 4, 2017
Dec 4, 2017 at 8:01 PM UTC