"retrospective" poems
They, you and I.
Are?
Interpretations, opinions,
Fears and convictions,
Likes-dislikes,
History and anticipations,
Of life.
All, save the living of it, maybe?
A song heard months back in time
You mused over the major & minor,
I'd pondered over the rhyme.
Each of us
As convinced about its presence.
Winter tastes different in my memory.
Epilogue:
You must choose between
His bespectacled vision
And my retrospective conclusion
But you must know
Which you chose
And why.
May 10, 2014
May 10, 2014 at 6:27 PM UTC
Sleepless eyes wide awake
During a sleepless night
Tossing and turning
The bed is so uninviting
Not allowing my soul to rest
Listening to the dark lull
Turmoil in the mind
In retrospective mode
So many incidents come alive
Darkness giving me clarity
Of my experiences
Trying to decipher the past
Imaginary solutions
For episodes from my past
Time travel, visiting in reminiscence
Not sure whether I am happy or sad
More of a neutral state of mind
Sleepless night engaging me
In a futile attempt to resolve
Only memories can visit the past
Time, has long ago taken me miles ahead
My sleepless night indulging
In hallucinating my mind
Ramblings of a sleepless soul
From the experiences of sleepless night
Jul 14, 2014
Jul 14, 2014 at 9:48 AM UTC
*As I call upon the night
To have a conversation
Darkness gives way
And night comes alive
Conscious mind at rest
Sub-conscious takes over
Memory box is brimming
So many anecdotes
Not afraid to emerge
Confident around the dark
Shying away from the day
Night has a life of its own
Feeling antsy and inundated
Quivering hands open the box
Full of pictures in sepia
A retrospective of events
Which were long buried
Sleep has abandoned me
Old memories keep me awake*
Jul 25, 2014
Jul 25, 2014 at 4:33 AM UTC
I am reading poems by Billy Collins:
AIMLESS LOVE, a retrospective,
A sampler, as it were
For the Books and Brew;
Our monthly selection.
Nine manly men
Meeting for monthly meals
And book-talk
And politics
And, of course, good beer.
They like nonfiction,
I like fiction.
Richard Hughes,
British writer of poems, short stories, novels and plays said:
“All nonfiction can do is answer questions;
It is fiction's business to ask them.”
Still, my repertoire has expanded:
Nike shoes.
Civil War.
Institutional racism.
Opioid addiction.
Rafting the Grand Canyon.
Climbing mountains.
With Baron Von Humboldt.
And now this:
Poetry.
Nine manly men
Reading poetry to each other
While sharing a meal,
One lovely poem after another.
You can't read a book of poetry
Like you consume other books,
Fiction or nonfiction.
The table of contents:
The lid of a box of exquisite truffles—
A map of pleasures contained within.
You look at the map,
And make a selection.
The caramel truffle
Is not the coffee truffle.
You look at the map,
Make a selection,
And bite!
The crusty chocolate cracks!
The darkness melts,
Floods your mouth with taste.
Then the rush of caramel!
Flavors, smells sloshing
Swooning with sensate memories.
What? Turn the page and read another?
Reach for the coffee truffle?
No. Linger with caramel;
Luxuriate on aftertaste.
Is that a note of citrus or salt?
I will enjoy my coffee truffle tomorrow.
Apr 2, 2017
Apr 2, 2017 at 12:26 PM UTC
Grievous grace, has due yesterday’s blue
Autonomous avarice enigma entity’s hue
Identity crisis guidon guile’s due
Mystic symbiosis’ existential true
Apostrophe sabbat transcendental kitsch
Consortium liaison’s libido’s glitch
Translucent opulence’s lambent’s a *****
Metaphysical mystique is black as pitch
Terrestrial equestrian tellurian's terrene
Adamant tenacity’s obtusely obscene
Obstinate loquacity spiritually serene
Maniacally meticulous dexterity’s preen
Lucid cogent fecund’s maieutic
Incarnate’s manumissional eidetic
Spatiotemporal telemetry’s fanatic
Logistical tactician’s primal ecstatic
Chicanery dynamism’s opulent fealty
Intrinsic innate retrospective cruelty
Indigenous endemic inherent frailty
Corrupt costume counselor subtlety
Gambit alluvium aloof impunity
Immunity is epicurian absurdity
Who are we to us credulity
Nimbus nimiety nihilism’s congruity
Jun 1, 2013
Jun 1, 2013 at 8:39 AM UTC
And I did it once again.
Skin picked and shaven,
Cakey frosted ivory,
Faceless, nameless,
Plasticity contusion.
Littered in the detailed fractures of a swelling stem,
Those skeletal twigs of intangible incestual wings,
splintered in stacks underneath his bed.
Apocalyptic comfort found in the veins of what remains...
Pineal shame,
Puny white me,
Post-karmic, futuristic-retrospective cosmic plan, slowly creeps towards me and offers its long inflaming hand.
Cricket twitch, echoes in the distant introspective glitch of my momentary intuition.
A bitter drip on tongue descends,
Tunneled in an unwanted exploration.
That sour pitched cacophony uncomfortably sung,
Through the ghastly cold touch of a righteous cockroached thumb.
Repugnance,
Spreading the stain of an untouched soul,
Quicksand, morphing me into dust.
Devouring the white and into the red I rust.
Nov 24, 2016
Nov 24, 2016 at 1:40 PM UTC
My sword and shield
Adorned on Ralph and Lauren
Cherry blossoms potions of health and well being
The hunt is on
St. George but an amateur
His quarry old and withered
These dragons of the modern age
Caught in mine eyes through reeds of tall grass
In a flash my blade swings
-nothing happens
but to the magic of illusion
I am a hero, a knight’ noble
In the retrospective
I’m just a boy swinging sticks at dragonflies
And in the retrospective
I hate the retrospective
May 9, 2012
May 9, 2012 at 4:02 PM UTC
Now,
We are mellow.
Having spent the evening exploring the threads of friendship.
That had come adrift of warp, weft and weave.
Time and distance had
silks, snag-tagged-torn,
on the bustling-busy,
hectic-hustling of work
and family.
Teasing-taunt,
needle-gnawing,
small, gap-rip-rents
in the snug comforter
that is... the wonder of us.
Us, so many secrets woven. So many, nights of tissues and sobbing tears.
Darning in daring exploits. Cutting away knotted,
fear-angry-scream-fighting feuds.
Cutting work, for days of delight and nights of desperate yearning.
We used anything at hand, rough wools, pieces of string and twines.
To weave a blanket,
to hide us from life's storms.
We were,
so young, so strong, recklessly-brash,
stupidly-joyous
and braveheart-fools.
And now, time and age,
has softened our work. Felted and fuse-melded,
the fibres into a beautiful entity.
That we store-save in the heart's cupboard,
of special and precious things.
It is an heirloom of sorts.
We bring it out,with occasional, humble-grace,
to be dandled and stroked with reverence.
Caressed and cossetted are our memories held within the abstract weave.
We are the dwindling
of a youthful exuberance
flung-thrown-heaved
to the wild winds.
So now, we are grateful to be curator-custodians of the retrospective nature
as we augment-append
and reiterate-repair.
A new thread here,
now,
embellish-embroider,embed
and tatt-stitch.
My son and your twin girls, squeezed, splashing
into your tiny bathtub
big-grin-giggling in the gurgling water.
Our future, here and now,
is the brightest of silks,
Our past, mellow and yielding in,
the luminent opulence,
angelically-asleep in,
the other room.
May 31, 2014
May 31, 2014 at 6:30 AM UTC
Have I not received my fill of this?
Emotions, which I wish to bid farewell
Turning me into quite the mirror
Retrospective and always looking back
Is there something I can do to break out?
Randomly landing on different memories
Places and people
Faces I no longer see
Emotion at the momentum of sound
Stars keep going out
A violin warbles as the memory echoes out
Like a mountain path winding away
All that is the matter
But a chemical in my head
Jan 17, 2016
Jan 17, 2016 at 5:52 PM UTC
*Wandering the great abyss
Floundering in the dark
Searching the desert for an oasis,
Home fire warming the hearth
Floundering in the dark,
The lost, the fearful younger self
Home fire warming the hearth,
Faded picture on the shelf
The lost, the fearful younger self
Once vivid in imagination
Faded picture on the shelf
Juxtaposed jubilation
Once vivid in imagination
Looking back through sands of time
Juxtaposed jubilation
Travels back and forth the mind
Looking back through sands of time
Searching the desert for an oasis
Travels back and forth the mind
Wandering the great abyss*
Sep 16, 2015
Sep 16, 2015 at 6:44 PM UTC
She lived along the Atlantic coast
and had a collection of lobster pots
by the porch
and her lawn was trimmed for croquet
smelled of clams at low tide
the house was set near barnacle rocks
just beyond a stand of trees.
I found her by looking in a phonebook
next to her name it said, "Poetry Journals,"
so I called the number, and said I was on my way.
"Is that ok?" I added hesitantly.
“Well, yes,” she laughed, “You can come buy one.”
I passed the sign for fresh eggs
and arrived at a black wrought iron gate that said,
"Poetry Journals - 2 for $5.00."
“You’re the first one
who’s ever made it all the way to the house for a journal…”
“In four dozen years,"
she said.
Then she asked,
“What’s your name?”
“I don’t really have a name," I said.
She nodded and understood.
She'd heard from Byron
that the Banshee drags souls out to sea
but sometimes the nameless
manage to float back looking for poetry
these lost ones are like driftwood
bringing a sense of chilly dusk
a retrospective on the sea
in a seashell
appearing by happenstance
at low tide
"yes, I hear a distant mumble of waves,"
she might have said of me
I was one of the lost
turning her porch into a quay of despair
the first one in almost 50 years
who had made it so far
to latch on
until high tide
when the rush of sea returned
washed me out again clinging for dear life
to a raft of poetry
Oct 9, 2017
Oct 9, 2017 at 11:02 AM UTC
~○~○~○~○~○~○~○~○~○~○~○~○~○~
1. Take care of your teeth and gums
Brush & floss, everyday (Seriously)
Keep your teeth, if at all possible.
They are your very own precious Ivory.
~○~○~○~○~○~○~○~○~○~○~○~○~○~
2. a. Eat well. Do not deny your body
nourishment. Gals, you will want a nice
set of ***** Trust me...eat.
b, Try to not put on too much extra weight.
(no judgement here) Just that it is very
hard on your body. Ridiculously
difficult to lose when you're older.
~○~○~○~○~○~○~○~○~○~○~○~○~○~
3. Love the skin you live within. Try not to
bake your bareness too long in the sun,
or burn your precious epidermis.
Cleanse, exfoliate. Most of all, drink plenty of water and moisturize, moisturize, moisturize
~○~○~○~○~○~○~○~○~○~○~○~○~○~
4. Hang on to all of your bones.
You will miss them when they are gone
Take care of your hands, neck, hips and knees.
Once your joints wear out, it's a total ******
~○~○~○~○~○~○~○~○~○~○~○~○~○~
5. Keep movin' and groovin'.
If you stay still too long, you will get stuck
~○~○~○~○~○~○~○~○~○~○~○~○~○~
6. Find the humor in everything. It is there!
All of life's lessons placed before you.
When all else fails, you can laugh about it.
(Trust Me. Your going to need this one)
~○~○~○~○~○~○~○~○~○~○~○~○~○~
~Christi Michaels~May 2015~
Copyright © 2015 Christi Michaels.
All Rights Reserved.
May 31, 2015
May 31, 2015 at 4:38 AM UTC
you have entered the realm of life after separation.
gone are the daisies she tucked behind your ears. it’s autumn now.
you are getting older. your boots are heavy and your chest is heavier.
you were given something gleaming, but it isn’t yours,
anymore. you seethe in your own ache.
this is your first silver october. the blushing leaves have gone greyscale,
like an i love lucy rerun. they evoke a stab of grief between your lungs.
you have to rewrite the story of your life now,
go forward knowing that everything after will be somehow
lesser than her. no person will reach into you the way she did.
you are a lost girl. resignation is all you have left,
resignation and streets bitter with dead leaves, streets where you run and shout
a silent prayer of loss.
but then:
but then.
you are reciting a poem for a room of people and your words
belong to your body now. a deep glow has fallen over everything,
right onto a girl you’ve only seen once before.
front row. face open. taking in what you are saying,
your retrospective sorrow, with a particular kind of attentiveness
you have needed all along.
everyone is listening, but she is hearing you.
in that moment, when you are raw and earnest,
you think that perhaps there’s something different about
this one. how even when you are done, she still seems to be
hearing all the words you cannot say.
and then:
and then.
spring is thrusting its way out of cold dirt
and you are twisting and breathing and this girl,
this girl, she is one million ******* shades of red. all you can do is
look at her without turning away, as if you could do such a thing
even if you tried. maybe this is how rembrandt felt
when painting night watch.
full of thick, rich burning too immense for language to hold.
this girl, this girl in the midst of life after. this girl so good
she’s put meaning back into the messy coming of spring.
you have learned not to trust. not to believe.
to love with a window open, a hand on the door,
in case of incineration, ready to run.
but this girl, says your heart,
says the peachy light bleeding onto her lips and nose,
this girl is not like those who came before her.
you’ve been a stranger to yourself for so long, but this girl
is reintroducing the two of you, rubbing you raw with longing.
do you understand, you want to say to her,
how stunning you are.
standing there like that. in your sincerity and laughter, as it weren’t
breath snatching to witness. as if it were commonplace,
unexceptional. as if you weren’t the tenderest work of art.
do you.
Jun 9, 2017
Jun 9, 2017 at 12:43 AM UTC
Elusive.
Cunning.
Effected by nothing
and sparked by no one.
Spontaneous,
yet constant.
It may hide when you want it,
appear when you do not.
It comes with haste,
or slows its pace.
A child mischievous,
rebellious,
innocent, oblivious.
To force the hand of change,
like paper tossed to air...
A direct path it does not take.
Aug 8, 2012
Aug 8, 2012 at 1:26 PM UTC
Retrospective vision makes every task seem simple
Except for the one ahead
I forget the struggles I fought
Inside my own mind
Looking back, I choose to erase the doubt that weighed down every decision
And yet, with each new choice I make
it’s there
Mar 20, 2013
Mar 20, 2013 at 4:37 PM UTC
Oh God … please …. NO!
**NO!
NO!
NO!**
The last **** thing that I need right now is that ******* manic depressive poet writing yet another painfully boring trip down
MISERY LANE
Oh …. How he loves his retrospective analysis.
Ok …. So you had it hard!
So what!
So ******* what!
You are not the only person on the ******* planet who had a **** upbringing.
Get over yourself!
You are beginning to bore your readers!
I honestly don’t think that I can bear any more self indulgent tales of abuse, segregation and bullying.
*It's just so
dernière saison.*
Nov 30, 2010
Nov 30, 2010 at 5:18 AM UTC
<>
“Have you reckon’d a thousand acres much?
Have you reckon’d the earth much?
Have you practis’d so long to learn to read?
Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?”
Song of Myself (1892 version) by Walt Whitman
§§§
*A night of reckoning, calculations repeated-checked, sums divided,
did I use too many, or not enough, words to be understood, verbiage eloquent,
did daytime reveal my poetic meanings, or double-occlude it’s essence?
I have reckon’d Manhattan Isle, circumnavigated its riverbed boundaries, a younger me, by kayak rounded it, from the Spuyten Duyvil Creek to the Battery, 14,500 acres give or take, a lifeatime to complete a dead reckoning, an unfinished full configuring.
but haven’t reckon’d that Earth and I will be entwined/entombed in each other’s arms, until such time, one of us or both, will be reduced to cosmic dust, our pride, our poems, will be equally unimportant and irrelevant, I reckon.
in retrospective rear view perspective, come to understand that we spend every moment of our lives, reckoning, determine the odds of which fork we will take, laugh out loud, for each moment, a poem is titled, the resultant, a poem - who needs a muse, you’ve got choices!
So, yes, Walt, the questing answers you’ve requested:
Aye, yes, yup, but no to pride, for pride and poetry in one sentence is
a death sentence at multiple levels, pride, poetry, ego, suicide,...sins,
so better no proud for it is the entree, the invitation to fall-fail...*
§§§§§
12:03AM Frieday
May 15th
my deadline missed,
but what is three minutes,
but empty pride...
Manhattan Island
May 15, 2020
May 15, 2020 at 8:51 AM UTC
summer afternoons
where the cicada screams were a deafening silence
heat and humidity, offset by shade and sprinklers
long days, warm nights
star gazing, cloud watching, day dreaming
nostalgia and retrospective bring me a peace and serenity
I once again long for
simplicity and carefree
summer afternoons
thunder rattles the walls as rain tap dances across the windows
puddles for splashing
nestled up reading, mornings come too soon
no worries with nigh limitless freedom
forts to build and pranks to play
laying on the porch swing listening to music
tide coming in tide going out
brackish water on the breeze
fiddler ***** scurry
lazy rabbits and cheerful birds
wonderful and longed for
endless
eternal
summer afternoons
Feb 22, 2021
Feb 22, 2021 at 9:36 PM UTC
"Things don't need to last forever to be perfect." - Daydream Nation
Can you recall when your innocence was lost?
Maybe it had to do with all the alcohol you've drunk?
Without knowing how to cope, resulting in night terrors.
Impenetrable, irreplaceable, imcombustable, irrevocable memories.
Trying to relive, revive past memories, experiences, pictures, and videos framed for all to see.
Memories etched into our brains like an etch-a-sketch board.
Do you remember the innocence you had as a child?
Whether coming home to a pre-cooked meal or riding your bike around aimlessly.
Storing memories in the attics of the mind.
A dark & dusty room filled with cobwebs,
Perhaps you'll find those packs of cigarettes you lost.
Similar to the stories in books or movies on Netflix.
Trapped between delusion & fictional fantasy.
We are the retrospective light - angelic humans.
May 27, 2018
May 27, 2018 at 5:25 AM UTC
Most women do not
cook and and clean house
in preparation
for violent invasion.
But you did,
the countertops ache for lack of dust,
the appliances self-conscious in their sterility.
More than sufficient-
for anybody but the figure on the doorstep;
who, using only a key
has already torn through
your first, only, and tastefully painted
line of defense;
has pulled pins from verbal grenades to throw upon
bursting into the kitchen,
where you waited
white tablecloth of surrender and
tea like a peace offering.
Dec 8, 2012
Dec 8, 2012 at 9:59 AM UTC
A log on the river
Time keeps on flowing
The past comes quicker
Than the future can keep growing
No more retrospective
Only blinders forward
No more fresh perspective
Only preying to an earthly lord
When the future is waiting
Nobody can stay
To maintain your daydream
Again ends the day
A fighter against the current
Gets stuck in time
A victim less prurient
Than the status quo’s kind
No longer is the present
So long is the future
Condemned to be a resident
Of a time so impure
All we do and see
Only a chip in the log
Flowing against our plea
To stop and stare agog
No more wonderment
Desire long gone for us
A race without an end
Slowly approaches the finish
But waves crash even in the river
Divine nature swaying in the balance
Fighting for our lives, we find a giver
Beaten against a timely phalanx
A river runs and grows weary
As our oars are sacrificed
A happy race no longer cheery
Our hopes and dreams put on ice
Mar 25, 2012
Mar 25, 2012 at 4:04 AM UTC
She looked up to the towering evergreen and wondered if the paradoxical romance was yet to begin again. She hadn't given up, was it the rolling synapses that captured her heart or the lonely thoughts? And would she ever know? Was she meant to? Scouring her brain for the reckoning, imaging his cynical gaze meeting her own,that sudden illumination it dawned, and capturing smile that followed. Retrospective Love uncertain. Only one truth lingered: his brain was the one she craved another chance to explore. A sleepy afternoon to lead him down the rabbit hole once more. A Crow materialized in the branches of the lush tower above.Would it become a ******
Jan 27, 2015
Jan 27, 2015 at 2:53 PM UTC
A vicious attack of that crackling brainiac anthrax
To give back to society
Slack then just grab the heat,
Feed it to the needy who receive it thankfully.
Call it poetry.
Who could see repressed punctuality proceeded
By the kick of a hit or three?
Gimme these retrospective variants
To a counterpoint's last stand,
Or voices
Speaking to a lost cost for freedom
That rips at the rotting veins of humanity-
I stood up for what I believed in,
But the world will too crumble when the sun's light dulls dead.
You can call this rambling for something
To take the brain-scraping ache away-
The pain of the mistaken vacant escape.
Who's to say that we're all just thrown here
To die and to try to believe in something that exists,
And if we can't find it then we're lost and wrong and
Guilty.
Leave me barely breathing if the seeing is now ceasing
To a state of gray monotony,
And melancholy monsters creeping
Out from under the bed where my habits sleep-
And threaten with a scratch, hiss and screetch
To
Wake
Me
Up.
Jan 30, 2014
Jan 30, 2014 at 9:57 PM UTC
Please I beg you,
to end my life,
Squash me with a shoe,
Grab the hunting knife,
I haven't lived long, I know that now,
But ahead I see, infinite ways for my life to flow,
It's all just a stones throw from my sacred vow,
The world is unbalanced, her sobs and her woes
Guide us all to the future, with the past still fresh
her whispers of sorrow are blocked from all view
If we cannot change she will ********** refresh,
and a new species like Dinos, homos, next in queue
**** sapiens burning the bones,
of dinosaurs, once feared and renowned,
we rely on their power, the system groans,
when it disappears, the masses will groan,
A collective groan upwards of seven billion,
lives in the sand, in the grand scheme so bland,
they moan a tune of immeasurable trillions,
that rest within this vicious land,
And it all flows from positive to negative,
and it all seems so insensitive,
Or perhaps a cowards views are Introspective,
But a retrospective mindset requires sedative,
Collector that is why I have this sickening plea
Think what you wish, I am only me
Oct 28, 2015
Oct 28, 2015 at 9:38 PM UTC