"ribbed" poems
Her face, flawless and filtered, flows over
my chest, ribs, stomach, hips, fitting the curved
mounds of my body, and even within simplicity
of thread and dye, I sense her presence as her face
hangs from my frame, a statement louder than pillow-lips,
Nancy Sinatra-hair and a glamorous 60’s ***** face.
When paired with leggings and an artfully-distressed denim jacket,
I become a member of the “freshman generation of degenerate
beauty queens,” a hipster fallen to the circumstance of youth,
but I wear her face and the romance of it all reminds me:
we are not defined as Lolitas lost in the hood, or distant,
airy voices in a sea of crude jokes and half-baked skits
meant to highlight shortcomings of a person who doesn’t give
two ***** Lana fits me better than my ribbed, red
sweater and even amidst gods and monsters,
this T-shirt makes pretty last, and I am just as cool.
Apr 8, 2015
Apr 8, 2015 at 12:33 PM UTC
The dayseye hugging the earth
in August, ha! Spring is
gone down in purple,
weeds stand high in the corn,
the rainbeaten furrow
is clotted with sorrel
and crabgrass, the
branch is black under
the heavy mass of the leaves—
The sun is upon a
slender green stem
ribbed lengthwise.
He lies on his back—
it is a woman also—
he regards his former
majesty and
round the yellow center,
split and creviced and done into
minute flowerheads, he sends out
his twenty rays— a little
and the wind is among them
to grow cool there!
One turns the thing over
in his hand and looks
at it from the rear: brownedged,
green and pointed scales
armor his yellow.
But turn and turn,
the crisp petals remain
brief, translucent, greenfastened,
barely touching at the edges:
blades of limpid seashell.
5.9k
between my thoughts
she streaks like eyes
down lines of farmland
razed for tithes
a naked field
to the nines
dressed up in sunsets
through ribbed spines
Jul 5, 2014
Jul 5, 2014 at 2:27 AM UTC
I pull into my driveway and
my neighbor is standing in
front of his door wearing a
wife beater and basketball shorts
that go to his mid calf with
his bare feet shoved into
slides that are too small
and he's owned since 2005.
nearly every part of him is
large, except he's 5'7:
his beer belly protrudes
from his ribbed cotton shirt
his his ego escapes from
his perpetually messy house
(his door is wide open, all the
cold air is escaping, it smells like
cigarettes and being ******* over it).
he watches me park
his woman (I have to set this picture, there is no better term)
stands up straight at right
underneath his eyebrow
and glares at me in unison
I let my hand trace the chair sitting
on my front porch for a few seconds
and wonder why I’ve never sat here before,
residue rain falls from the outside banister
and I feel as at home as I’ve ever felt in this
stupid god forsaken piece of **** apartment
my neighbors are still watching me and
I realize it’s because they don’t recognize me
because I'm really never here
with the hair on my arms all
standing up in unison
I unlock my door and step inside
drop my money and count my keys
my knees are rusty, I feel small
there’s only so many times you can do this
and only so many times I can too
Sep 19, 2018
Sep 19, 2018 at 3:06 PM UTC
Every year it was brought down from the garage rafters. Green metal frame and
springs, green canvas with white fringe and a little green pillow. It was laid out, hosed
off and erected. Grandpa couldn't have done it without us grand kids. He said so. It
was placed in a spot of honor. Just a couple of feet from the picnic table and in a spot
that was always in the afternoon shade. A folding T.V. tray was placed next to it to
hold cold drinks and snacks. Within a few days, the grass under the frame would be
brown and dead. The grass at the sides of the hammock would just be plain gone.
Scuffed away by feet, as we kids sat on the edge and swayed side to side.
After mowing the lawn, washing the car, or doing any other chores needed, Grandpa
would go inside and put on his "Hammock clothes". This consisted of a pair of Bermuda
shorts and a ribbed tank style Tee. White socks and brown sandals completed the
outfit. Once dressed appropriately, he would head for the hammock. The first "sit" of
the summer season was always a bit touchy. One had to get use to the hang of it.
There he would stand, next to the hammock. Cold drink in his one hand, the T.V. tray
forgotten. His slightly bald head and stick thin legs already slightly sun burned. Slowly,
he would start to lower himself. Reaching back with his free hand to grab the edge of
the hammock.
Note** of course us kids, grandma and mom would all be spying out of the corner of
our eyes to watch this ritual.
Then came the "Grandpa Sit". Grandpa would rock slightly forward and back on his
feet. 1-2-3 and ....SIT! A few wobbles. A couple sloshes of his lemonade. All of us
yelling "Whooooaaaaaa". He would sit there on the edge of the hammock, holding
himself steady with one hand on the edge. His feet firmly planted on the grass and his
other hand holding his cold drink high aloft.
Now, the sandals needed to be taken off. One of us grand kids would run over and
help take them off. Tickling his feet as we did so.
So far, no damage to life or limb.
Ah, but he was not yet fully on the hammock yet.
Now came the "Swing and lie down" move.
Slowly, grandpa would reach behind himself and grasp the far edge of the canvas.
drink in his other hand still held aloft. O.K.....1-2-3...SWING the legs up and quickly lie
back. Let the hammock come to a stop.
Where's Grandpa?
On the ground on the other side of the hammock soaked in lemonade.
Summer was officially started!
Jun 27, 2010
Jun 27, 2010 at 11:02 AM UTC
A dream tree, Polly's tree:
a thicket of sticks,
each speckled twig
ending in a thin-paned
leaf unlike any
other on it
or in a ghost flower
flat as paper and
of a color
vaporish as frost-breath,
more finical than
any silk fan
the Chinese ladies use
to stir robin's egg
air. The silver-
haired seed of the milkweed
comes to roost there, frail
as the halo
rayed round a candle flame,
a will-o'-the-wisp
nimbus, or puff
of cloud-stuff, tipping her
queer candelabrum.
Palely lit by
snuff-ruffed dandelions,
white daisy wheels and
a tiger faced
***** it glows. O it's
no family tree,
Polly's tree, nor
a tree of heaven, though
it marry quartz-flake,
feather and rose.
It sprang from her pillow
whole as a cobweb
ribbed like a hand,
a dream tree. Polly's tree
wears a valentine
arc of tear-pearled
bleeding hearts on its sleeve
and, crowning it, one
blue larkspur star.
3.5k
crammed in corrals
hissing whispers of escape
and hoping their
size and shade
captivates
the next sticky-fingered cart rider
mother's mind so mobbed
and arms so grocery-laden
that the ribbed
and loosely coiled ribbon
remains unknotted, unbowed
to slip
from pudgy-fingered grips
the orb bobs and sways–
laughing, helium-high
as it makes its getaway
unknowingly following Icarus
to a solar ******
that is, if beak or plane
doesn't reach it first
POP!
shattered and tattered, irreparable
it plummets back to earth
its noose
still dangling from its neck
Jun 28, 2014
Jun 28, 2014 at 2:04 PM UTC
Iris peels back
three generous petals,
ample in exposure,
a gravitationally drawn
dress, **********
with drops and folds, a downward-
opening, bares elegant anatomy,
stripped from the waist
of a lighter three petals, lifting,
inside, reflective,
reaching skywards, and naked
ribbed with natural frill,
raw with the colours of flower flesh
white tiger stripes
and purple veins,
curling towards the ground like tears
and lifting up like laughter,
with centered yellow streaks
that lead into the heart,
where another tri-petal formation
folds in on itself,
as if to contain some sacred secret
that is gently holding at her *****
a trinity
within a trinity
within a trinity
of beauty
her naked convolutions coil into
just the right amount of earthly space,
so perfectly held there in the air
with poised and dancing stillness,
the perfect allure
of a delicate goddess,
rooted in the ground
but living also
inside the I,
elevated by the gaze
into limitless imaginal expanse,
no mere flower, in relation
she is
an entrance
into love
Apr 12, 2014
Apr 12, 2014 at 4:25 PM UTC
Music curls
In the stone shells
Of the arches, and rings
Their stone bells.
Music lips
Each cold groove
Of parabolas' laced
Warp and woof,
And lingers round nodes
Of the ribbed roof
Chords open
Their flowers among
The stone flowers; blossom;
Stalkless hang.
2.6k
On the mud flats of Padma Delta
where the mighty Ganges slides
into the Bay of Bengal
ships come to die.
Rusting oil tankers,
container ships from Panama
passenger liners,
and cargo ships from Zanzibar
North Sea fishing boats
research vessels and mother ships
anything that floats
each one has made its final trip.
Steel Leviathans
low tide beached
oil-slick stuck.
Metal monoliths
****** deep
into black sand.
The people of Sitakunda
come marching, ants
across the slippery surface
of diesel sand
to pick the carcasses apart.
Barefoot, with only blow torches
hammers and brute strength
wrenching rivets, nuts and bolts
breaching beams and deck
splitting welded seams
until the hulls are gutted
ribbed struts broken down
and torn from the edges of shape
Bit by bit
they scour and empty
right down to the core.
Bit by bit
they carry *****
to the waiting shore.
Where melting pots are kept boiling
giant stock pots stewing goodness
in a broth
but metallic flavours and oily spiced stench
hang in the misty bleakness of the bay
Skeleton hulks shift and ride
lurching, lifting with the tide
rolling, dangerous still
collapsing, with groaning creak
to maim, to crush and ****
the daring, the slow and the weak.
© M.L.Emmett
Nov 10, 2015
Nov 10, 2015 at 10:29 AM UTC
She counts her shells
her feet sand ribbed
her toes ricely white
her hair windy vagabond
her eyes low tide sea.
She gives me back my years.
Through tears
I count eternity.
Oct 28, 2015
Oct 28, 2015 at 11:32 AM UTC
One glossy raven perched, stately,
atop a snowy hill, Unearthly Long flowing wings, hanging down the slope, framing the hill
on the face of which,
were interposed two glacial ponds of blue.
Between these pools ran a simple strip of sloped marble,
But at the base of this was the most gentle depression in the snow.
In disbelief I observed two rows of strawberries, blossoming,
heavy laden with the richest red.
Each gentle bite of these more delicious than the last.
I continued my survey,
down to a long narrow hill of the freshest snow.
Here I came upon a wide expanse, a plain,
two long, slender berms extended at opposite sides.
But this was no true plain, and all the better for that,
For two equal mounds of snow enchanted the landscape.
The setting sun cast a pink light at the peak of each pale globe,
So beautiful I wept.
As I passed between their valley the snowy distance continued.
I observed an infinitesimal sloping on the Western and Eastern edges.
This expanse, perfect of any true blemish, was punctuated by the shallowest little empty pond at its narrowest width; which only served to enhance the beauty.
The length of this snowed plain was far greater than its width, the edges slowly creeping into the narrowest part before flaring out to a wide expanse.
And there in the lowlands was The Delta,
to the side of which extended two of the longest and most shapely tapering ridges I had ever observed;
each ending with graceful peaks.
But that Delta!
Though snowy, the darkest , shortest scrub had capped its mound.
At the apex of The Delta was a precipice,
on its face a cavern, pink walls glistening with wetness,
at the caverns base, a cave.
Its tunnel, with walls ribbed, was warm and humid despite the landscape of snow.
This is the landscape I cherish most.
May 28, 2018
May 28, 2018 at 9:50 PM UTC
Bless all the barmaids that have ever lived
who carried featherlite, n knobbly ribbed,
who listened to waffle n crap I spoke
who granted liddle me, a slap n poke,
who parted ***** whilst in drunken stooper
n gave the bird, to the party pooper,
the big ones, the small ones, the fat n thin
god bless slappers, that invited me in,
bejeezus begorra, mag da horra,
bless all barmaids, I'll **** on the morra,
big **** big *** n the ones that pass gas,
god bless the ones that I’ve yet to harass,
for whisky, for beer, god bless ya m’dear,
even big sally; fer the gonorrhea.
Alan nettleton.
Jun 17, 2010
Jun 17, 2010 at 10:08 PM UTC
Some day, when trees have shed their leaves
And against the morning's white
The shivering birds beneath the eaves
Have sheltered for the night,
We'll turn our faces southward, love,
Toward the summer isle
Where bamboos spire to shafted grove
And wide-mouthed orchids smile.
And we will seek the quiet hill
Where towers the cotton tree,
And leaps the laughing crystal rill,
And works the droning bee.
And we will build a cottage there
Beside an open glade,
With black-ribbed blue-bells blowing near,
And ferns that never fade.
2.2k
*Weathered oak of ancient age
Sandblasted by Sirocco storm
Ribbed and dry and redly sage
Deep corrugated graining, worn.
Grown on hillside far away
Far, in England’s verdant land,
Hewn by artisan of old
Hewn by axe and sinewed hand.
Hauled across a raging sea
By barque of seaman’s sail and hope,
Washed by salted wave and gale
Lashed to deck by weathered rope.
Dragged across hot dunes of sand
To a land called Galilee,
Hauled by He, betrayed by man,
Upon the hill of Calvary.
Hoisted high by Roman hand
Stark against a leaden sky,
Red blood stains on oaken cross
On which His Crown of Thorns shall cry.*
M.
Easter Sunday 2014
Apr 20, 2014
Apr 20, 2014 at 7:32 PM UTC
We will know no sorrows here..
Dark matter poured taut
in ebon plastic,
elegent, limber, perched on spikes.
Confined in chosen monochrome,
so lithe in gritted temper.
Full fraught on waves of jaw - smoke,
tumble nails from this wretched pelt.
Enscribe my will
on soft , ribbed, levees
Spread and buttered oysters
downed , your earthy spices ground
against my viscid grin.
Now raise the dead in frantic transport
Sound the depths of this cracked voice
Imagining....
We will know no sorrows here.
May 6, 2017
May 6, 2017 at 5:16 PM UTC
You who have lifted up your sunburned face,
Long-told of peasant warmth and the forest tableaux.
Barefoot, you brought the book of hours upon dusty roads,
Ungoverned, little flower from Jeanne to Lourdes to Lisieux.
Our Lady, osculum pacis, the kiss of peace in wood and stone.
Burned out to those dusty eyes,
Now-empty look of rosework from the forest-fall of sunlight.
Medieval prayer, earthly-dim to its rafters of oak,
Come un-cinctured in ashen cloud of amice and alb,
And the murine blackness of plague-like smoke.
Birds that sit blinking at the winged fossil of intrados,
Pipe air through your own ribbed vaults, organum pulse.
Let the city rise in your vining voices—and hold the note.
The great ***** intones from the runs and pedal stops,
Along the turbid streets of the rue de la Cité to the empire of catacombs.
Beside his candle, the monk in sadness knows
All loveliness of heaven except his own.
Our Lady, every sunset is your faded candle hour of peace, for us to know.
Holy Father, so passes worldly glory,
Over the roofs of Paris like fire-scorned and leaden wings.
Apr 24, 2019
Apr 24, 2019 at 1:47 PM UTC
Nothing these days is truly failsafe.
You buy some Ultrathins and the babies might win,
even the Trojan horse had issues for the boys of Troy.
Fancy ribbed models can end up in shreds
& I've seen the reservoir tips burst.
But if you're still ***** & thirst for safe ***
you should try different combinations
of tubed-latex along with 'the pill'
dispensed from
the fancy circular monthly-packages.
That's your best bet,
your best chance of survival.
If anything, don't be a dinosaur
thinking your living Jurassic,
this is about being prophylactic
'cause nobody knows
what killed those ornery
unprotected beasts.
The experts believe,
it was probably
a rare disease
that got 'em.
Aug 25, 2014
Aug 25, 2014 at 4:20 AM UTC
In the beginning was the three-pointed star,
One smile of light across the empty face,
One bough of bone across the rooting air,
The substance forked that marrowed the first sun,
And, burning ciphers on the round of space,
Heaven and hell mixed as they spun.
In the beginning was the pale signature,
Three-syllabled and starry as the smile,
And after came the imprints on the water,
Stamp of the minted face upon the moon;
The blood that touched the crosstree and the grail
Touched the first cloud and left a sign.
In the beginning was the mounting fire
That set alight the weathers from a spark,
A three-eyed, red-eyed spark, blunt as a flower,
Life rose and spouted from the rolling seas,
Burst in the roots, pumped from the earth and rock
The secret oils that drive the grass.
In the beginning was the word, the word
That from the solid bases of the light
Abstracted all the letters of the void;
And from the cloudy bases of the breath
The word flowed up, translating to the heart
First characters of birth and death.
In the beginning was the secret brain.
The brain was celled and soldered in the thought
Before the pitch was forking to a sun;
Before the veins were shaking in their sieve,
Blood shot and scattered to the winds of light
The ribbed original of love.
1.7k
Hurtling across the horizon
inside the belly of a great ribbed
silver beast, barreling singlemindedly
down its prearranged tracks at speeds
previously unobtainable my mere mortal men.
Modern marvels of man-made comfort
surround us daily. So that we can exist without
need of fear or worry from our environment.
Our fight or flight responses are being systematically
removed, slowly, generation by generation.
Our dominance of the material world
and the animal kingdom is destroying the world
as we knew it. This world of ours that we now reside
within is entirely foreign to what existed before us.
We are the aliens of our own futures.
Jul 22, 2013
Jul 22, 2013 at 8:55 PM UTC
Chapter I
I once was young minded,
vulnerable with wide tooth grins
and fluttering words,
binding soft skin with liquid
metals - like gallium,
clustering in my ribbed fingertips and
letting love level in my lips.
I turned old the day I watched
rough bodies portraying the new style
of
***
on a vhs tape, and he
gave me a shaking milkshake to
turn off my developing
voicebox.
I always wore this barbie nightgown
that had tears from the nights before,
but that's ancient dust that folks
flip past in encyclopedias.
as he knelt down to tie my veins
together in little bows,
I untied after each loop was set in
my bones.
his acidic fingers braced my eight
year old metal frame,
so I broke the nuts and bolts since
I wanted to see if he was
a part of the human race,
I wanted to see if he could bleed
iron-richness that kept myself breathing.
Chapter II
he was beautiful.
his philosophy branched in
segments and he tasted of
earthy tones, but sometimes
he couldn't smile easy and
I felt his love only in acts of passion.
The football game stuttered in
pure vertigo,
as if my body was still
positioned in missionary.
he held me in concern, his arms
laced as protection from myself.
as a survivor, his words felt like
whiplash or lagging from too much
flying in the high altitude.
I needed to forget, float, forgive
and begin the process over again.
I would never see the shades of love
from anyone other than from him,
his words used to brand me.
Chapter III
I drank too much.
I wished on meteorites,
lead-filled, hoping they wouldn't
fall on the tent.
my luck was never strong enough.
I felt as if a wildfire was singeing
my dysfunctional limbs.
I wanted him off. now.
and my tongue was made of
parchment paper. crisped.
I woke up ten after nine.
my body repulsed me,
throwing up the last of poisonous
alcohol I left stranded the
night before.
I devoted that I will never sleep in
a tent again.
Chapter IV
I am finally free.
I still have energy in these
old bones,
and I want to put them
to good use.
so I'll walk for centuries to
find truth and trust.
I use my voice to tell myself
I am more profound than the
surface film those insignificants swept
on my skin.
I found my voice again.
Mar 31, 2011
Mar 31, 2011 at 4:51 PM UTC
1)
this part sparkles -- like your smile
which sparks a grin in me
to heat the heart and ribbed
adore
the laughter waiting in the covers
from our wink and whisper
beds of personalities
spring and comfort, stain and dust
but love, sweet love to swoon away
and lust the anchorage of speaking
as we do each tone and syllable
a light, touch, tinge to waken flames
and dancing light
familiar of my origins
a conjured shape in what you single out
each focus frame of sentence what
to what we ought to do
what sunday shall we both approve?
in sync we dialogue
in mood of dire wrack of blah
in boon of happy overflow
our musing 'tra la la'
ideas, toys to turn and pirouette
or taunt the sun to match our beaming fun
2)
this part sparkles too,
but gives itself to me
so i might quench the burning
brightly lighting sultry flesh
i gaze, and overyearn
to tumble in the sheets
that billow layers--layer-winds of time
you tug and pull i toss and tear away
to open bare the inward soft
that peach-like drips from chin
in breathless constantly
voracious tonguing whim
an asterisk for starburst flick delight
salts deeply into savor sweet
the loin-surge powers me in your embrace
to deep, deep clenching ahh
our skin undone as with a solar flare
across the earth a flood of radiating us
lips and bones
coalescent sense
no match for 'bliss'
or moan moan moan
unending veins traverse to toetip axon
ancient crown of hugs from two to one
3)
this part Is the whole
unknown we meet again
again, again from words
to trusting vasts poetic patience
chance to sound the voice of
yearning manifest from tips to core
and back again we plan on more
in hoping wonder possibles revised
the real of you too natural
to rebuke the care beyond
the searching for
to inhale sight of being there
to step from cab
and offer kindness
mystery of universe
transmuted into meeting once,
twice, every moment new
you bring an often baffling array
of sublime other than i knew
you reinvent me too
Sep 21, 2013
Sep 21, 2013 at 2:23 PM UTC
Mildew clutched tight,
hollow-boned, manic thrusting,
marionette-faced, barrow-lunged,
nails bit to the bone-gristle,
lips raw with spit-polish,
redacted eyes, redacted eyes --
two palpable creatures,
transient drifters of soulspeck,
one unraveling the other constructing
one unraveling the other constructing
forever,
sallow truth would dissolve skin.
Lips read: founder a self.
Rusty copper
with adamantine eyes.
Steel core, unbroken by absence.
Drown in opposite directions,
oceanwater salve, yes
calloused tongues jostle,
ribbed in salt and rust.
Unlaced corset,
striped sweater,
grunged trainline veins
run on endless.
A clock,
abandoned in the middle,
I think once
it very much mattered.
Dec 12, 2013
Dec 12, 2013 at 11:27 PM UTC