"reticent" poems
There's one thing
I have to tell you.
I can't stop uttering,
anything about you.
Whether its about the midnight rain
and how it describes your voice so well,
or the way you won't stop singing,
till you're satisfied and sewn me to sleep.
If I look at the dark orange spotted afternoon,
or the satin red leaves of autumn.
I'll know its been a while since I've thought
of you.
If I hear the chalky barren concert of concrete,
or the uproar of the arid wind.
I'll have forgotten what your voice
sounds like.
If I feel the reticent tremble of winter,
or the cold bitter piercing destitute bed.
I'll remember why our adulation had
my heart in a headlock.
I cannot give you the world
or my name.
Because I do not own them.
All I can give you is my love and lungs,
that is all that I have and hold.
All I'll ever ask of you is for your voice and love.
You make my head lighter with just
some notes you sing.
Sep 23, 2011
Sep 23, 2011 at 1:09 AM UTC
the Silence became
like an old lesson learned
a broken heart intones
a voiceless song
resonating a refrain of Silent echoes
in a voice that never heard a word
yet spoke so clearly ... lingering
in realms of subtle ambiance
soundless remnants
stacked neatly as
building blocks;
another brick in a wall,
already too tall to see beyond—
growing like a bunker
without a sense of safe harbor
as the Silence became
time and space,
a stillness beset the melancholy air
as if a world without song
foreboding an unpredictable storm
beget vestiges of broken windfall,
reticent leftovers hushed after a gale
s i l e n t l y
an acorn fallen — became a mighty Oak
a wind-broke twig — became a weeping willow
a neglected child — became mother nature's son
the Silence became
a blind prophet —
in its voice held forth
smatterings of truth
and undertones of an unrequited
fool’s hope
the Silence became
a strong, abrupt rush of wind
uttering voiceless exhalations of breath;
a hovering dawn mist
befallen after a summer storm—
surrounding all in all
bedewed in a feigned peace
... the unabated sounds of silence
become
Jesse Stillwater ... July 20th, 2018
Jul 28, 2018
Jul 28, 2018 at 11:44 AM UTC
Time is fleeting
as the spring river runoff
that gushes out to sea
A heart trickles out
a moment,
minute by minute,
in a timeless ink drop;
unmeasurable expanse
immured in spilled ink ―
manifest in the lexicon of poetry
For only purged words
cannot quench this thirst
that is loneliness;
it's a hunger that gnaws
like an unsatisfiable ache ―
a starving emptiness
all hearts
do one day taste
Left in the sight
of doubt
and eyes that fail
to believe what they see
lain fallow in the silent
indifference
Lost in a lingering void
unburied all around,
bespoken out loud
alone in plain sight
a feigned understanding;
reticent letters shape
reluctant words
to hold forth
enunciated breathe
The only words
that still echo unstilted ―
uttered words
indelibly felt
from lips once sweet
as daybreak dew
upon musing tongue ―
tasting the only
voiceless truth
that ever broke my heart
a vanishing wave
that moved an ocean
deeply ...
Jesse Stillwater ... 06 6 2018
Jun 6, 2018
Jun 6, 2018 at 2:38 PM UTC
Like a hearth,
Her hair was inviting
And warm, red mahogany
Her deceptive eyes
Sensing danger
Betrayed only
by her quivering crimson lips
Back against the wall
Separated by arm’s length
Sobering distance
Maddening silence
She, reticent siren
Far from the ocean
Far, far greater than its depth
She, from the wild
A wolf’s howl
Far from the forest
Far, far greener than its leaves
She was shelter,
In the mountain
I found myself lost
Oct 9, 2014
Oct 9, 2014 at 6:05 PM UTC
1748
The reticent volcano keeps
His never slumbering plan—
Confided are his projects pink
To no precarious man.
If nature will not tell the tale
Jehovah told to her
Can human nature not survive
Without a listener?
Admonished by her buckled lips
Let every babbler be
The only secret people keep
Is Immortality.
12.9k
1356
The Rat is the concisest Tenant.
He pays no Rent.
Repudiates the Obligation—
On Schemes intent
Balking our Wit
To sound or circumvent—
Hate cannot harm
A Foe so reticent—
Neither Decree prohibit him—
Lawful as Equilibrium.
6.1k
my Mumbai woman
~~~
to my Indian poets & friends
all be advised,
my piety, my muse,
has decamped me for weeks on end
to your
yon far and fair lands
the red dot beside her
electronic signature
a sign of her absence,
seemingly to have been
magically transferred
to her forehead
so perhaps my love poetry
will become absent, reticent,
quiescent
or perhaps
it will build brighter, effervescing
in my very own Taj Mahal,
an edifice built by great love past
and yet ever still present,
for I testify,
I have many times it,
seen imbued,
lovingly observed
between a certain
men and women here writ large,
who there permanent reside,
and in my heart as well
spend a minute many,
all my fingers and
toes employed
how many, so many,
Indian fellow travelers
on poetry lanes and yellow dust encrusted roads,
in cities unpronounceable
that this illiterate literary fool
has come to know and multi-arm entwine
to you,
I commend and command to you
her safety,
asking immodestly for
an imposition, an interference
pray to the local gods,
your heads of state and highest nature's,
that they be her
beside,
her unobserved
safe-keepers,
as she treks your country's
Northern pastures
let her skin glow from
your brighter rays,
eyes even wider~wiser opened
by the newness of your antiquity,
your glorious,
poetic place
in our world
of words
Mar 6, 2016
Mar 6, 2016 at 2:17 PM UTC
A reticent fox slinks by beneath
the trees
that still have leaves
conversing for now
the change in colors
sleeps still, unannounced
the rain smells of ploughed earth
& freshly hung-out clouds
& wellington boots
Autumn's child cries it's first word
& inside a low-lit pub
a crisp old cider's poured
September's dreams
fermenting
Sep 3, 2015
Sep 3, 2015 at 3:20 PM UTC
the october rose is wistful and reticent
our defenses dense like sediment and sentences
love descends like a fog
and we begin as quickly to depart
our dialogue takes many turns
from staunch to raunchy in a few minutes
there is no need to be concerned
its only in our heads
our needs no longer mean anything
love is lost in forms
amidst the storms of anger and rage
imprisoning our souls
dinosaur bones roam the earth
i went out in search of chrysanthemums
and instead i found you lying on the ground
making a pillow out of superconductive fungi
to test your theories of interconnectivity
what transpired cannot be spoken about
all my doubts vanished and the words that were spoken
resounded for days in my being
as if they echoed from within some part of me
that had always longed to hear them
Apr 15, 2018
Apr 15, 2018 at 11:44 PM UTC
It's something I will never be,
I'm a laptop among PCs.
Closed, reticent, quiet and private
Amid typhoons, peaceful climate.
They say I won't ever belong
They feel that something must be wrong
They don't know why I am this way
They think I'll never be okay.
Maybe I'll always be alone
Remaining attached to my phone
Maybe, somehow, I will get by
Without ever finding a guy
Not that I need one to survive
But it'll be nice.. to feel alive.
Don't laugh, as you read my weak words
Please don't think that I'm sad or weird
This is where I can fall apart
With poetry, I can pour my heart.
I do write much better, you know
But right now, I feel a bit low.
Forgive me for not being brave
The world is loud, and I have caved.
Nov 25, 2018
Nov 25, 2018 at 11:12 AM UTC
come, come with me
on this backward path
of shattered mirrors
and sidewalk cracks
walk, walk with me
and listen to the sounds
of the wondering birds
and things the wind found
dance, dance with me
at a bashment of bashful bows
wild twists, sylph-like twirls,
and elegant falls
lay, lay with me
in a passage of dreamt things.
i will place my heart
in your palm and try, try to breathe
breathe, breathe with me
can you not let me go?
melt away the malarkey with silence and
cure the angry thoughts with “i don’t know”
speak, speak with me
confabulate, but don’t ask what i feel
for i’d be reticent, or worse,
pre-occupied from thoughts by what’s real
meet, meet with me
can you find me halfway
in a field of resplendence
at the end of the day?
run, run with me
get you wild (like untamed flowers)
make you leave
(he’s a forest fire)
fall, fall with me
Wonderland doesn’t hurt if there’s two
when the Queen of Hearts sees ours
she won’t even conceptualize what to do
sink, sink with me
when i’m drifting, drowning, and there’s nothing left
but promise me you’d swim to shore
if it was between loss and loss of breath
leave, leave with me
and shall the world pull you away
in my heart, I’ll keep the pieces
of the promise that you would stay
scream, scream with me
tell the air and the dirt and the weeds
what is dry, what is broken, what is hurt
what you need
hold on, hold on with me
to memories and tales of the trees
of climbing limbs
and freedom in little things
stay, stay with me
in this bleeding, beating, of hearts
don’t get too close, but
don’t go too far
trust, trust with me
though it's complicated
and whims take the garden signs
and try to repaint them
pray, pray with me
see, the petals scattered to the breeze,
are not a concise coincidence
but the story of an averred belief
grow, grow with me
i hope that love will show us how
it starts as a seed, then a bud
then a vow
dream, dream with me
of crepuscular magic and roses in June
droplets are constellations
and irises the moon
feel, feel with me
in your embrace i seek shelter
hands like daisies in my hair
feet intertwined, we're ivy, but better
wonder, here with me
we don’t know what we’ll find
but if you keep me safe, dear one,
i’ll keep you wild.
Jul 31, 2018
Jul 31, 2018 at 10:20 PM UTC
you weaved your way
through each level of my
humanity...
i let you into my curious
mind
and somehow,
you invaded my reticent
heart.
i showed you my maimed and scarred
body
and entrusted you with my bare, naked
soul.
...and after you'd seen me in
whole,
and realized that im a
settlement -
never to be an explorers
home,
you abandoned
what you had once
so carefully
mapped.
Sep 8, 2018
Sep 8, 2018 at 7:47 AM UTC
*A faint wheeze
Running through my lungs
When there's nothing else to hear
I'll drown in silence
Without the sound of you
And find solace in death so near*
Sep 17, 2015
Sep 17, 2015 at 9:03 AM UTC
It was the first gift he ever gave her,
buying it for five five francs in the Galeries
in pre-war Paris. It was stifling.
A starless drought made the nights stormy.
They stayed in the city for the summer.
The met in cafes. She was always early.
He was late. That evening he was later.
They wrapped the fan. He looked at his watch.
She looked down the Boulevard des Capucines.
She ordered more coffee. She stood up.
The streets were emptying. The heat was killing.
She thought the distance smelled of rain and lightning.
These are wild roses, appliqued on silk by hand,
darkly picked, stitched boldly, quickly.
The rest is tortoiseshell and has the reticent clear patience
of its element. It is
a worn-out, underwater bullion and it keeps,
even now, an inference of its violation.
The lace is overcast as if the weather
it opened for and offset had entered it.
The past is an empty cafe terrace.
An airless dusk before thunder. A man running.
And no way to know what happened then—
none at all—unless ,of course, you improvise:
The blackbird on this first sultry morning,
in summer, finding buds, worms, fruit,
feels the heat. Suddenly she puts out her wing—
the whole, full, flirtatious span of it.
2.5k
I am one of those guys
Who are reticent at first
But open up, as you get to know them
And once you've loosened my tongue
There's no stopping me
As I will go on and on
Till you die of boredom
Jokes apart, I am autistic
Which means that I may struggle
When it comes to social interaction
And can often be absent-minded
However, on the brighter side
My long-term memory is really good
And autism doesn't impact my work in the slightest
I am a good listener too
You can trust me with secrets
And I'll take them to the grave
Without a second thought
You may mock me as much as you like
But lay a finger on my close friends
And I will send you back to your maker!!
On that warning note
It's time for me to wrap up this little monologue
However, if you've attended job interviews
You would know that they usually begin like this
"Tell me about yourself"
Well, if you want a suitable answer
Then use this poem of mine as a reference
Just joking, don't even think of doing that!!
Mar 11, 2023
Mar 11, 2023 at 12:44 PM UTC
Cooking up a blizzard.
Lost and unguided tendrils of space hold me captive,
the trebles of your heart beating
leads me back to my my Home.
That infinite gaze of yours into my dilapidated eyes,
is like a portal to you to look into my soul.
You blanket all my darkness
With your semi-pixie cut.
You’re my tree of knowledge
I bask in it’s shade.
Powdered Sugar coating on cupcakes.
Your silk armour protects your vulnerability,
My sincere apologies to all the arrows that gaped through.
Cover me under your angel wings,
Dab away my streaming reservoirs and replace them
with pollen and sweet nectar.
Your wishbone sacramental daydreams and dreams.
I feel so lost without you.
Bandage my old wounds with your tender hands,
Kiss me with your lush lips
sending jolts of star dust upstream,
within my veins dancing with yours palpitating feet.
My shot of euphoria and bleeding antidote.
My poetry.
You, Kalon.
Let’s raise a toast to your
beauté remarquable éternel, mon soleil
your free spirit,
your beauty of a ghost,
your heart racing with joy,
your heart steaming up with reticent sadness,
build up anger that come crashing down
like a typhoon detaching from the human perspecta.
I miss you.
Your emotional mess and literal mess,
I’m your magic broom.
You, my inspiration.
You, my groove.
You, my you.
You. My everyone and everything.
You’re fun filled supressed omnipresent electric feel.
You, The only Solis in my galaxy.
I love you.
Sharing your grandoise orangy tinge yellow light.
Bottling up a few star
in a bottle of red wine,
For her Luna.
Solis is 21 a (000,000,000) today.
You’re irreplacable.
Oct 19, 2015
Oct 19, 2015 at 10:14 PM UTC
Nobody understands children
Or plays their games properly.
Nobody looks them in the eye
As equals
Or tells them a secret
In return for one of theirs
A real one.
No one cares what they think,
Just how they are, and what people think of them.
They do not exist.
Their opinion is not there.
It’s sad because
In many ways
They’re good at life
And in many ways
We’re not -
We take on too much,
Live unsustainably
And end up
Disappointing all round.
Oh well.
Julia exercised her power
Over the happy family’s
Holiday photo shoot at dinner.
To cage the moment
The adults sent a camera to either flank of
Her and her father.
She was suddenly reticent, shy, they thought.
Her face dancing away from the camera
While she monkey hugged her father
(For some more haribo).
But he would not give in, because he did not have them,
And everyone wanted a picture of them together,
The spotlight was on them now,
He was sweating in the glare of the media circus,
The pressure was mounting, no retreating now.
So when daddy said,
"Come on Julia, smile for the camera!"
She narrowed her eyes
And clung harder to his neck,
An all-encompassing embrace -
Not so much of love, but of
The only power she had –
To hide her
Face.
"What's up Julia?" Asked Dad.
"I'll smile for you if you want,
But I'm not smiling for the camera." She said.
Feb 22, 2011
Feb 22, 2011 at 2:37 AM UTC
Ten years old again,
In a tree ten feet high again,
In scuffed shorts with tangled hair,
And with the boys I longed to be.
Sanctimonious girls in dresses and frills,
Boredom and constraint personified,
Stare up in incredulity
As I heave myself over mossy branches.
“Girls don’t climb trees.”
I do. I roll in mud, play racing games,
Never brush my hair.
“You’d be pretty if only you tried.”
You’d feel alive if only you tried.
The wind on my bare arms,
Dirt beneath fingernails,
Scrapes on my shins
Red and out of place
Like smudged lipstick
On children’s faces.
I’m not you. I’m me.
Boxes serve to keep us in,
Deliver us neatly packaged
To a society which cannot cope
With fluidity,
Individuality,
Uncertainty.
Boo!
She says those two misguided words:
“Make over”.
Impossible. One cannot start afresh.
This is the result of every waking moment,
Of every word heard and spoken,
Each memory joyous and painful,
A piece of art nineteen years in the making.
Not to be destroyed in one act of disguise.
Yet curiosity is my mistress.
She leads me to boundaries
I never knew existed.
Up goliath trees,
Into foreign beds,
To the brink of reality
In mind-bending worlds
Of parallels.
Like a mannequin, devoid of identity
I give my image to you
And you place yours jarringly
Onto my reticent body.
The obliging cheers
At my transformation
Into an eloquent femininity
Feel hollow and worthless.
I have done nothing of merit.
I totter like a toddler
Uncomfortable in my own skin.
I’m on stage, an act,
A project. Not a person.
How bizarre it feels
To wear a stranger’s façade
Of dresses and frills,
When you know you belong
To a different world
Of dirt, and treetops,
And freedom.
Dec 19, 2012
Dec 19, 2012 at 4:26 PM UTC
A group show in a city church.
Nothing religious,
but selections from an evening class
occupying otherwise vacant space:
only a tomb here, an extravagant memorial there.
These are 'advanced' painters,
and decoding their statements,
examining their work,
it's possible to imagine daily lives
where art lives in the spare room.
Lewis paints you know.
After Laura died, and with the children distant,
he did this course in Norfolk - oils I think.
That large landscape in the sitting room is his,
all sky and salt marsh.
Jayne is studying the disorder of ******* dumps,
the contents of skips, what's left after a fire.
Her photographs she prints herself you know.
She says she loves to control the image,
chemically, and you can tell.
And more and others,
their 'work' holding stories,
other worlds of imagination and
depths of looking;
the silent collecting of things,
photograph after photograph,
the tidy sketchbook
(with last week's life class experiments).
And yet and yet
at the group show the finished pieces glow
in this badly-lit corner of a city church
where few visitors venture - but you must see this.
It's good, arresting in conviction and purpose.
This is art without artifice, reticent with meaning,
intense with intention, good, affecting, good
well-chosen tutor-curated;
good enough to come back to.
Consoling? Yes, consoling.
I needed consoling.
It consoled me.
I was consoled.
Sep 25, 2012
Sep 25, 2012 at 3:37 AM UTC
We are a people living in shells and moving
Crablike; reticent, awkward, deeply suspicious;
Watching the world from a corner of half-closed eyelids,
Afraid lest someone show that he hates or loves us,
Afraid lest someone weep in the railway train.
We are coiled and clenched like a foetus clad in armour.
We hold our hearts for fear they fly like eagles.
We grasp our tongues for fear they cry like trumpets.
We listen to our own footsteps. We look both ways
Before we cross the silent empty road.
We are a people easily made uneasy,
Especially wary of praise, of passion, of scarlet
Cloaks, of gesturing hands, of the smiling stranger
In the alien hat who talks to all or the other
In the unfamiliar coat who talks to none.
We are afraid of too-cold thought or too-hot
Blood, of the opening of long-shut shafts or cupboards,
Of light in caves, of X-rays, probes, unclothing
Of emotion, intolerable revelation
Of lust in the light, of love in the palm of the hand.
We are afraid of, one day on a sunny morning,
Meeting ourselves or another without the usual
Outer sheath, the comfortable conversation,
And saying all, all, all we did not mean to,
All, all, all we did not know we meant.
2.2k
Memories of past magnificence
A pall now hangs over her
Echoes of screams in the west
Decomposed disillusion
Inhumanity
Insecurity
Split personality
Search warrants for the haves
Kicked in doors for the have nots
Mr. Officer……Mi innocent
The muzzle of your gun has me reticent
From slavery our ancestors did run
In the streets the blood of my countrymen run
When will di trouble dun
She has been battered and scarred
Her name feathered and tarred
While the gleam in her eyes is diminished
She is by no means finished
Still the heartbeat of a nation
Vibrant, trendsetting, schizophrenic
Sometimes there is panic in this state of chronic
Some more equity is required in my city
The financial capital
What about human capital?
Some deemed worthless
Existing in communities of sacrificial lambs.
Others are sacred cows…..Wolves in sheepskin
Who pollute the air with noxious verbiage
White collar facades hide evil intent.
She will rise again.
If we have the will and the way
My city……KINGSTON!!!!!
Jul 11, 2010
Jul 11, 2010 at 2:34 PM UTC
I’ve
spent the last
six months
wanting
to talk to
you.
Yet, I haven’t said a word.
And how can I?
Knowing that,
I’m
not the one
your
song sings for,
when
all this time
you’ve been
my
only
muse.
Mar 29, 2014
Mar 29, 2014 at 2:37 AM UTC
Perhaps the most positively uninteresting tragedy
Is the story of flawed, impeded love.
For whenever I venture, strive, endeavor—
To exit my haven of solitary isolation
I’m devoid of any bravery.
Though I wish I could say
“People scare me! I don’t want to be judged
For things I cannot control,
For transgressions and loves
Methods, impairment, systems and failures
Despicable lies and harrowing truths
Cringeworthy trances and malicious propositions—
That’s the reason I tragically fear you!"
But such would be blatant lies.
For I am not a reticent sheep,
Not afraid of human, futile words
It’s not any judgement or hate I despise
It’s just that I can’t ever compromise
I’m so terrified of judging
Even in my mind
The people of the world
Precious brethren of my kind—
I don’t wish to hurt a weakling
Or a disgraceful abomination
Thus, I’ll isolate from anyone
For fear of impeding my love
Of all alive, of everyone.
Jun 15, 2014
Jun 15, 2014 at 12:09 PM UTC
I remember vividly,
The days of my tender immaturity,
That complemented an air of naivety I had.
But now I have learnt,
How to maintain a reticent manner,
An agreeable countenance,
And an unceasing anesthesia.
I have tamed my heart not to beat fast at the sight of you,
But it still needs practice.
It needs practice because it has never known how to face its fears calmly.
So, it remains hidden right here in my chest,
Eavesdropping on you.
I have taught the sinews of my wrinkled lips to smile freely.
I have taught them to smile freely because sorrow chokes me.
Sorrow chokes me because I cannot resist the thoughts of your indifference,
Running wildly down the nerves into each sombre inch of my skin,
And every inch of my skin mutilating itself,
Tattooing your name,
Slowly.
Silently.
'Painfully'.
Mar 21, 2019
Mar 21, 2019 at 2:11 PM UTC