"restrung" poems
You unscrew the jar; Orion’s climactic sigh spills—
A cello’s low A hums—our triad, C and E—the night skies.
Your thumb caresses pulse down my throat, andante, it drills
through myth—not his hunt, but the damp heat between our thighs.
We’ve plucked Lyra’s rusted chords, restrung her spine
to thrum with your breath, not some dead muse’s cords.
Stars crack like old records; we skip, we refine—
our bed, a cradle for light, shed our sheer white peignoirs.
You fear the jars dim? Let me mouth the black core
of Cassiopeia—choke her brittle groan,
then laugh as you arch—my crescendo, your score—
each note a plum’s burst where her language had flown.
Your teeth score my shoulder. The dark soars, unconfined—
We swallow the arias. Let the void choke on mine.
Apr 18, 2025
Apr 18, 2025 at 8:06 PM UTC
Behold bright symphonic Blast!
Halt the snail bite damage of youth.
There is none to resist the place and time of one who missed the equal avenue.
Dropping before your phantom, dispirited dew, before shadow portrait drops.
Swine with silver throats!
Corpse of embers preamble multi-various multi-vacuous semi-forte polar rhythms.
Sequencing selves in wood and wire. Pinions at drifted tempo, quavering for poly-syllabic idioms,
In sectioned hostels for their sense and glory restrung.
Dec 17, 2013
Dec 17, 2013 at 10:30 AM UTC
if they call them "heartstrings"
then
someone must have untied your end from mine
someone must have cut your end from mine
someone must have picked and picked until
the string frayed and split
someone must have unknotted every knot we tied to hold us together.
if they call them "heartstrings"
then
i need to be restrung
so my heart isn't hanging around
broken
for everyone to see.
May 28, 2012
May 28, 2012 at 1:21 PM UTC
How do I love you?
I obsessively read
Pisces love horoscopes
though I am a Capricorn
How do I love you?
I vividly imagine
our colorful future together
though I know it's unlikely
How do I love you?
I unhesitatingly take
your jabs at my best efforts to please you
though I know you're projecting
How do I love you?
I ask myself, constantly, repeatedly
why my love for you isn't enough
though I do know the answer
How do I love you?
I incessantly interrogate myself
a beggar for love, begging away
though there's a treasure trove inside of me
How do I love you?
as I look longingly at my reflection
at the woman who is still learning to love herself
though her soft, open heart has be restrung like a treasured violin
Dec 10, 2020
Dec 10, 2020 at 12:20 PM UTC
I’ll ne'er forget that day
The sky a lavender canvas outstretched
It was the day I broke my timepiece
And the puppets called me wretch
My empire of daisies wilted 'round me
Closing me into my grave
I was buried with my handgun
Under layers of black lace
And the sea doesn’t weep
And they birds they still sing
All the colors haven’t faded
Why don’t they mourn for me?
The stars haven’t dimmed
No expression grey or grim
I hear a distant happy hymn
Why don’t they mourn for me?
I’ve restrung my violin
To play my sorrowful song
I won’t drown in my self pity
For I’ve been dead for far too long
And the sea doesn’t weep
And they birds they still sing
All the colors haven’t faded
Why don’t they mourn for me?
The stars haven’t dimmed
No expression grey or grim
I hear a distant happy hymn
Why don’t they mourn for me?
Apr 7, 2010
Apr 7, 2010 at 4:44 PM UTC
Imagine it's all a faze, that it will all fade
Stop.
Cease.
Halt.
END.
Dirt filled shoes, and grass weaved hair
Fierce eyes that won't free their gaze
Fierce hands that won't grasp the emptiness they hold.
Fall for shame that consumes the pride
that's willingly left up for grabs,
Bare.
Vulnerable.
Marketed.
Ready to be diddled, fiddled and bargained.
Hold them coins high
Watch them turn to ash
Feel, as the wind filters through your fingers
and from your hand, the I-couldn't-care-less set of mind
take its place among the synapses that are
cut and restrung,
erased and retraced.
Fall for shame so that you know your chest cavity center piece
still feels as it should,
when worn on your sleeve.
Maybe, if you can regain pride
If you consume shame
If you kick of those shoes and kiss the dirt
Gold will become like coal
And the wind like a string of pearls.
Oct 6, 2012
Oct 6, 2012 at 10:02 AM UTC
You pulled apart my heartstrings, restrung them again
And sung a ballad of how we'd end
Feb 13, 2015
Feb 13, 2015 at 8:27 AM UTC
Come, Friend.
I'll show you around the house and tell you all the trivial things that remind me of her.
(Here in the hallway)
These stacked, empty shoeboxes,
That I now keep my poems in,
These bare walls that I suppose,
She could make a better use of,
(In the living room)
This monochrome vintage tv,
That she'd have thrown out,
My books lying haphazardly on the table,
That she'd have cleared up,
My guitar that hasn't been restrung for 7 months,
The pictures of Dutch tulip fields,
The multilingual posters on the wall behind the TV,
Like a pretentious polyglot,
(Now,the kitchen)
And this bitter fragrance of tea leaves,
This divine scent of cardamom,
Rising from a hot cup of tea,
The rattle of kettles,
These dying rose petals,
Parmesan and cheddar,
The cheesier the better,
All of that pickled food,
According to my mood,
The battle of spices,
Those gingerbread slices,
Everything-
Everything reminds me of her.
"She's but a figment of your imagination,friend."
She's but a figment of my imagination, friend?
Apr 5, 2019
Apr 5, 2019 at 6:32 AM UTC
Zero is not an absolute.
I have seen worlds open inside her circular form--
the expansion and contraction of edges, curved
longings curbed: suppressed then exposed--
everything we've wished for in our beds.
Zero has infinite chance--
ringed and rung out-- sung and restrung
her points connected positive and negative glued and preserved
presorted for our convenience.
There is nothing convenient in the sputter of our silences
we spit and bite, tender nothing
solicitous starvation.
Our sympathetic matter of course.
Zero is not nothing.
She's bigger than comprehension--
compensation
and competition
Zero teaches us:
What alone could be
If we alone, weren't one.
Jan 23, 2010
Jan 23, 2010 at 6:03 PM UTC
My life is full
Of hollow wood
And 4 strings
My ukelele
Is a better cure for depression
Than any drug
You've taught me to sing
You've taught me to laugh
You've taught me to be alone
And not to be lonely
You hear all of my bad thoughts
And hide them away from me
Where they stay
Forever trapped as I play
Every scratch
Every dent
Every broken string
Every note off key
Has changed me
And fixed me
And restrung me
And painted me
Until I'm like new
Sep 27, 2015
Sep 27, 2015 at 6:33 PM UTC
separately simulated
through words; ideally
separated simultaneously.
restrung, hung, ******
far beyond recognition,
misquoted.
May 16, 2014
May 16, 2014 at 2:13 AM UTC
In due time I will take your hand and walk us through the museum of us. scanning the wall of past dreams and souvenirs from memories untold.
Below, the floor is transparent, revealing our deepest fears- things that made us repel each other, and kept us from reaching full potential
However, the end of this museum is the beginning
An all white room takes vacancy within us, waiting for the next chapter- for the tokens and trinkets to hang from the ceiling, recalling fonder times and thrills that made our skin rise
Things that will bind the past and present together
our hearts will be restrung and our bodies, made with thicker skin -
Love will inflate our hearts and she will introduce us, letting us feel without thinking this time. Letting us fall together
Jul 11, 2017
Jul 11, 2017 at 9:36 PM UTC
When I look back on my past
All I see are strangers
Unfamiliar faces
Cloud my memories
Portraits all around
Hung about my walls
The faces I remember
But the names I can’t recall
Its such an odd phenomena
every man convinces himself the world cares about his yada ya
To think the universe gives a single thought
to the cost of our lost friends
a departure we taught ourselves to
fight
the light
is no longer litten
we watched it quaver and waver as our destiny was written
we saw the disappearing.
sounding throughout our hearing,
and told ourselves what would be done
But soon the notes of our heart had been restrung
we waited, heartstrings faded
out of tune, out of motive, melodies flat
The rhyme scheme of life ended like- this.
When I look back on my past
All I see are strangers
All the familiar faces
of past friends I’ve failed
Portraits all around
Hung about my walls
Force me to remember
The names I wish I could recall
Sep 7, 2015
Sep 7, 2015 at 8:03 PM UTC