"roughened" poems
Ilion gray
poet extraordinary
is away
learning the codes hidden in raindrops
no reason for surprise;
for the mountains of Brooklyn, the Manhattan caverns of Sunhenge^, corridors of narrow focus for trapping the declining sun rays,
neither high enough, narrow blinding,
to keep a good man from doing good things that life provides as opportunities
to do the right thing
he muses that it took five years for the other poets to understand our
poem-dreams;
avant-garde he says,
but I laugh,
never felt more misunderstood
and reply take care, be
en garde!
no matter for he is learning a new language,
the codes hidden in raindrops in a land of wheat
once called Indian Territory and eager
await his return so we may
walk along the Brooklyn shoreline,
beginning from under the Brooklyn Bridge
where Washington’s men escaped a British trap
and he can decode for me the whispery thunderous noises of
NY
showers that come up so sudden, so roughened, but right now,
the seductive sun blinks in Manhattan windowed towers reflecting back on to our East River as golden blinks of nature
We will walk lost in the absorption of our
different commonalities, holding the hands of
his young son, and my Wendy,
both of them equal in possession of round saucer eyes
that give us poems
He calls me me friend,
I call him brother, teacher, master, better than the best,
well recalling a late night message that bred
a five year conversation ongoing
not everything need be coded
what you read here
it is not coded,
for the raindrops come clear and clean
and the poems land on our tongues
bounce on the foreheads and eyes of the babes, all stored and saved for the future blessings spoken in a single tongue
7/18/18
^https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattanhenge
Jul 18, 2018
Jul 18, 2018 at 10:41 PM UTC
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Infinity's Mirror by Nat Lipstadt
Two mirrors, set in opposition observe created notional blending,
a reflecting pool of bonding's of unglued, contrary compositions.
Mirror to mirror, his imagery, fuses to Sylvia's images, hers,
faintly recollected, now living face, face to face, with his past insurrections, alters his future visions.
From cold water lake she's drawn, impaled by refracting regrets,
retrieved, drawing her words upon him, an awakening slap to drink,
beloved, tragic magic, infinitely captive. But this old man's tiddlywinks, land-locked words, blunted instruments, needy for release & salvation, are neither silvered or exacting, just stains on a dulled, tarnished brass spittoon, except for the brunt'd bunting of lines across his roughened terrain'd face, black and white, pen and ink etched illustration of howling agitation.
His words worn down, hardened, red faced, purloined speckled pellets, damp to roll on down her rutted, almost ancient, tear streak paths, disbelieved superstitions, sacrificed for one of her living morsels of words.
Man, here to her, pledges allegiance, audaciously defiling her poetic sanctity, a visage endless repeated, delivers her shiny poem-poised countenance, even though no forgiveness from time can a mirror afford for either, from her words, confession born, terrible truths beyond, beyond the finite.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mirror by Sylvia Plath
I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
What ever you see I swallow immediately
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.
I am not cruel, only truthful---
The eye of a little god, four-cornered.
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
I think it is a part of my heart. But it flickers.
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.
Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,
Searching my reaches for what she really is.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.
She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
I am important to her. She comes and goes.
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.
Apr 25, 2016
Apr 25, 2016 at 4:17 PM UTC
In a strange mood - see/write art
in a strange way, disorganized but straight on,
light tinted magenta, issuing, in frothy large pours, from my mouth,
knowing what to say, and the meaning too,
I can more than walk, can write, on water,
where all can read weeping, Mary-miracles of seeing, living words,
themselves, on light waves lapping in a
shifting rotunda vision, color reorienting spatial senses.^
in a strange, strange stitch, seasonal spirits and witches,
Chagall, Baez, Dylan Thomas, Donovan, Richie Havens
doing their knitting in my brain, from Montmartre to the Midwest to Monterey,
painters and poets in lockstep head-messing with me,
imperfect clarity but still one voice,
see/write art,
so went and caught the wind, going gently into night
to banish the hodgepodge of uncertainty from inside out.
knowing well you don't understand fully, but jumbling tumbling
verses are sliding off my rusted tongue as fiddlers fly above,
roughened words, hewn from a paper cup, spilling diamonds uncut, imported from Sarajevo, Montparnasse, the Lower East Side.
wretched me, in the hour I first believed, this amalgamated conception conceded,
seceded from my mind into your palate for a tasting,
tho neither drugged, nor deaf and dumb, just slammed poetical-like, this write is
all I have to portend is your affections, your attentions, to yours, am beholden.
a ***** well respected man in daylight,
the hidden references accuse,
woke up to see Wednes-day Caesarian born,
askance glanced at the prior passages of the night before,
when my palate clefted,
when eyes chose not to distinguish
between right and lefted,
in the nightlight,
a ***** man disrespects language convection/convention,
and lays before you activating stanzas and his mind, prone,
but always the truth, speaking,
the visions, leaking, mind to eye,
recombinant, into our minds eye.
^ http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/exhibitions/on-view/james-turrell
Rather than write extensive notes on the many references, inspirations in this poem, if there is a line that intrigues, ask me
Aug 28, 2013
Aug 28, 2013 at 2:49 PM UTC
The
curves
of
my
body
laid with oblivion;
We didn't love
with the same intentions.
The softness of my
skin roughened;
Your touch lacked
admiration.
The whisper of my
voice grew volume;
His voice lost consolation.
But Please,
Acknowledge me,
Even if I become
any less beautiful,
today.
Jul 2, 2014
Jul 2, 2014 at 7:13 AM UTC
Composing Hallelujah
Fractious lines crack,
holiday decorate the spirit inferior,
while each note upon the priest's guitar
penetrates the aspirin roughened interior,
face slaps me, daggers and accuses,
you're not composing hallelujah.
So I mislead, big deal,
composing the anti-hallelujah,
yeah, I was ******** with you,
as you sit across from me electronically
pretending, me to you, you to me.
Lie to each other with smiling faces,
you too have reaped,
been emotionally *****
by what our minds see and sow,
scowls and howls,
we've both grown our own demons.
My secrets, maybe are all there,
maybe, writ loud and clear,
in the songs I choose to share,
and in the unrevealed ones,
buried alive, held in reserve,
but not, for your average, rainy day,
could be today, you have no say.
Are we not all veterans of a kind,
don't we all have ribbons on our chest,
stripes and stars on our khaki blouse,
a record of our own great campaigns,
including the war to end all wars,
the never ending one,
the one the psycho-historians renamed,
"The 24/7 Year Conflagration"?
It used to be just my secret, no more
don't need a cartoonist to tell me that's
the enemy is us, and there are moles, traitors,
hidden deep in our intelligence organization,
planting seeds, urges, pushing to
out the identity of our communist friend,
Depression
I don't mean the ordinary, garden variety,
a mere moody blues recession,
when funk is sourced from gray clouds,
served up proper, cold and wet,
then travels on when sun warmth
clarifies temporarily, the aspirin kicking in.
So I misled,
composing the anti-hallelujah,
yeah, I was ******** with you,
sit across from me and lie to me,
lie to each other with smiling faces
we reap what we own,
scowls and howls.
A chorus of harmonious poseurs
inside your own City Center,
vocalize the lyrics of the anti-hallelujah,
a composition of questions directed at
whomever in tonight's audience deserves it,
asking, nerving, to sing too loud, at decibel speed:
Are these verses, curses
about D,
our mutual acquaintance,
or just research notes for further followup,
part two of a pas de deux, and,
did you go this time, too far,
or still not far enough?
-
Sep 18, 2013
Sep 18, 2013 at 7:29 PM UTC
Last night I dreamed of roughened hands,
And pristine walls with spackled sand,
And feeling less,
But wanting more,
Of windows open,
And a creaking door.
Last night I dreamed of voices mild,
And smiling faces, and laughter loud,
I dreamed of grackles in parkling lots,
Of finding familiar and imagining what.
I dreamed of witchcraft and of lore,
And linen hidden in a dresser drawer.
I dreamed of you,
I dreamed of you,
And all the things I'd like to do.
Feb 6, 2013
Feb 6, 2013 at 2:40 PM UTC
You would love me more
if you knew
the things I don't say
love me more
for the tears repressed/unseen
the thoughts that rise
yet fast sequestered,
virus quarantined,
lest infection spread
occasional
moan groan
an Ebola moon June
escapes,
inquiring ears overhear
and ask...
but quick deflected
with a
** hum,
nothing luv,
pushed back into
the hidey hole of opprobrium
and acid reflux
why why
suppress
if loving you better
the net net of it?
this is not the candy coated,
but the coal glow strife
that cannot be
quenched nor
solved with
anti-pain
meds
so put away, aside,
push back inside
you would
love me better
for the sharing,
but love me enough
for the be I be,
let my roughened edged pains,
be buried with my remains
a love unfettered
will place no obstacle
before you
from within me
love me for the man I am,
just the average man iam,
knowing that not knowing all,
not a deceit,
but a reprieve,
what I share,
strained and sleeved,
tho unrelieved,
it is relief
that burdens but,
only me
Nov 1, 2014
Nov 1, 2014 at 11:08 AM UTC
I trace the stars on your skin
Trail my roughened fingertips
Through the patterns in your constellations.
An astronaut to search your spiraling star system
I map your every region in height, depth, breadth,
Every atom to be thoroughly examined
Until a single touch from me
Sets to a pink blush your galaxy
Nov 30, 2016
Nov 30, 2016 at 4:14 PM UTC
I've been cracking my knuckles since I was six,
but back then my bones were still practically cartilage.
My mother could only make me stop during dinner.
Her brass voice echoed through the house,
like the trumpets in a marching band on the Fourth of July.
(Although not as patriotic.)
My mother didn't know about all the times I cracked
my knuckles when I was by myself.
Sweet sixteen and the joints between my fingers still
crunched secretly under my skin and between
what was now developed into hard white bone.
I've only broken one bone in my entire life.
It was my nose during my homecoming soccer game,
senior year, under the lights and across the street
from the stone-cold brick building that housed
my Catholic education.
Soccer ***** have hit my stomach and my chest countless times,
leaving hexagonal imprints in scratchy blotches of red
over an empty envelope of acid and oxygen.
This time it hit me and I fell to the cold and frozen dirt,
my jersey conforming to the brown-green of roughened grass
and the blood from my nose providing contrast
and complement all at once.
Someone picked me up and I became conscious and self-conscious
that someone’s hands could touch my skin and
that someone’s hands could feel my body.
My hands hung off the sides of the stretcher I didn't need
(I thought it was crazy, all this fuss over a broken nose)
and they swung as I was carried, bringing blood
to my knuckles so that they could swell and expand.
My mother tripped over her questions
when she asked if I could
breathe or eat or speak or if my choking was cause for concern.
“B-b-baby don’t d-d-die,
I m-m-made rice and b-beans.
B-b-baby don’t d-d-die,
I m-m-made your f-f-f-f-favorite.”
You tied me in a robe and stuck a tube down my throat.
B-b-baby don’t d-d-die,
it’s your f-f-favorite.
Oct 18, 2014
Oct 18, 2014 at 9:05 PM UTC
It started at the beginning of adulthood
where the wandering into the new house
became a chore. The doorway greeted me
by snagging my woollen jumper.
The motorway was screaming, the battered gate happily hanging from its hinges.
His image first flashed into my sight,
And when I stared through the fogged up windows
I could still figure out his figure.
Loutish, he sauntered past
On a hillside, desolate.
He didn’t move for three hours.
He was most probably entwining the thorns from the bush
into his complex mind. Maybe
the boy with the thorn in his side
Had been brought to life by this mystery animal
With a mass of unkempt mane.
Unruly, unnecessary, untouched.
The notebook on my kitchen table lay untidily
waiting to be roughened up. I picked it up
and cast light over the paper.
I imagined him doing the same
But his art was thunderstorms
And mine merely a drizzle of rain.
I made progress
and the flowers were growing from my fountain pen.
Confidence developing, I invited him inside
And there were still no words from his unfathomable jaw.
A month later, we became one
and I still didn’t know where his intentions were lying.
I’m a girl afraid, does he even have any?
Ink *** after ink ***
I ran even further in this marathon of confusion.
I slowly slid from his dismissive grasp, his matted paws light
I had drawn graffiti over his portrait.
a permanent marker changed beauty into art.
I crept before his wake, into his sleep
And his lyricism lay imbibed in the walls, the desk, the door.
I felt the gale force energy cry inside
Which erupted like a volcano, turning remnants into ashes.
Face down, mane rough, scars bright, fur singed
Interior managed.
In the morning, I lifted his heavy paw away from me
And placed it peacefully beside him.
Dec 12, 2013
Dec 12, 2013 at 3:40 PM UTC
There is a new roof fitting itself to the sky,
sea-roughened and grey as the vast paving
I dropped teeth on as a child, lightheaded
and living faster. Outside, a steep hill drops sweet
like the dip of a spoon, and in this life I see
my own reflection. It may come from narcissism.
It may come from gut. But its momentum is trapped,
a statue on one foot, it asks to be uprooted. How can I
carve this future into something soft and creaseless?
If I was an artist, I could catch its outstretch—
I would pull the army by the hand, out from the dark
intrusive damp, and ask it to stay.
On the line, a white sheet takes hard gulps of air.
I'm quick to learn its rhythm.
But in the morning it has lost its breath;
in the morning there is a small damp circle
under my cheek.
Apr 28, 2016
Apr 28, 2016 at 5:32 PM UTC
your roughened fingers,
black with the work of a man,
twist and roll a cigarette.
your eyes flick
from it to me
and as you light it, you
inhale that long first drag.
i smile and wait my turn.
Dec 10, 2012
Dec 10, 2012 at 1:58 PM UTC
*And it's not a cry that you hear at night
It's not somebody who's seen the light
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah*
a cry you hear at night (my nighttime vocabulary), the same repertoire as the daytime residents, yelps and screeches, groans and screams, bleating whelps and yelps, grunts and curdling silent low moans and pierced wails, crues du cœur, (cries from the heart) but at night when these orchestral sounds are released without modification, freed from the governor of self-consciousness, the embarrassment of waking mirrored witnesses, atonalities as raw as a violin string snapping, the terrible sounds, twice as harsh as the scrape roughened roaring sound of the hoarse word, raw, when spoken out loud but I count them all as friends, these then my nighttime vocabulary companions.
each deed, each sin, committed, lifelong repetition, dances in a chorus line, across my eyelashes, each demanding my punishment with a different matching sound; the reciprocal noises of the lives I shed, the lives I've taken, the forsaken forsakings, the blatant ones done with no excuse, no pretend rationale, these are my very own
songs of the night, conductor, musician, audience, one for all,
all for me, my torment of endless and relentless unforgiving sonality
Oct 5, 2017
Oct 5, 2017 at 2:27 PM UTC
All the roads, footpaths, and roughened trails of my beginnings
Lead me to the map of your heart, that long buried treasure.
I will trace words and phrases along the contours of your lips,
And glide cautiously across the footbridge of your wanting.
You will be stilled by the weight of my breath upon your brow,
And you will know love at a pace that awakens you to your own preciousness.
Feb 13, 2013
Feb 13, 2013 at 1:51 PM UTC
Dearest,
All those days,
I let you tread over me and gave you a place to stand,
and you with your untrained, weak bladder dog,
your clumsiness,
your laziness,
your unwashed clothes,
your ***** shoes and smelly feet,
stepped on my trust.
I hope you get pricked by the scraps of food,
bleed out with a paper cut
and stumble on my torn out, roughened edges
and I get to smother and roll up your inanimate, dead body
to it's rightful place.
Ruefully, yours.
Jan 20, 2015
Jan 20, 2015 at 12:04 AM UTC
I see you as a burst of ocean mist
******
Into a nestled and worn monument.
Breathing over a humming terra nova
slowly etching away the noveau stone
You are the water tipping
about the crystals
of lone rock husk
freezing and seizing at precise locus
Then expanding about the form
Edging it to molecular capacity
before it heaves heavily - wedging
A simple puzzle lain right beside its obvious match.
The edges might be roughened
but you can tell they belong
They lay there beside one another
echoing curve and angle
of that which they once clung crystallized
Now they lay beside one another
braving the same storms - and shifts of land
but having different drops of rain fall
about their own dynamic crystallization
and different animals walking over them
and different blades of grass clinging densely
in the padded earth beneath them
brushing
Sometimes bridged together
by an animal astride the two
they are together once more
Over time they burnish into fragments
and dance about the creek beds
and about the base of grass beds
and again - though maybe temporarily,
are together again
Jan 26, 2014
Jan 26, 2014 at 9:26 PM UTC
Fall away suddenly
--gasp no more;
sigh no more—
there is no need.
Into roughened hands fall indefinitely,
and dwell there infinitely,
for no other love
will match one as such.
Apr 25, 2013
Apr 25, 2013 at 12:42 PM UTC
this year is my year
i cut my teeth on the years before
i scraged my knees in '15
bled from my bitten tongue in ‘16
'17 saw me merciful and forgiving
and then loveless on the bathroom floor
sitting in bathtubs
my existence held
in the displacement of water in porcelain
this year is my year
try and take it from my bloodied knuckles
take it from my hanging jaw
the years before chipped away at me
with chisel and work roughened hands
the years before cut me out of marble
carved my mouth closed
swathed me in veils, made my stone flesh
look soft
this year is my year
your chisels will blunt on my skin
and when you turn your back
to find something sharper
i'll slip down the stone steps
leave my veils on your studio chair
and melt out into the night
this year is my year
there’s no material thing keeping me
nothing mortal holds me here
this year i am free to drift
between the realms and rifts of space
i will be interstellar
hung in the place between stars
this year is my year
******* try to take it from me
i wonder if the years before
made you into diamonds too
the only thing that can cut me now
is me.
Mar 10, 2018
Mar 10, 2018 at 12:56 PM UTC
I know this girl.
It started off good. We were friends. I'd smile at her, and she'd smile back. It was simple. She would fascinate me. We'd touch fingertips, both having wide eyes and expressions of innocent amazement.
As I got older, I began to ignore her. I didn't seem to have time to see how she looked or what was going on. My life was busy, and I stopped caring.
But as I grew up, suddenly she was all that mattered. I'd seek her every chance I had. Before I went anywhere and after any adventure, I would always think of her, conspicuously glancing at the people around me to see if they had as well.
Time roughened and then came the crying. I couldn't bring myself to consider her. I'd turn her away. I couldn't bear to see her. When I was fine though, she was still all that mattered.
Sometime that year I began to insult her, calling her fat, and stupid, and many more maiming words. Most days the roles would slide between us. She would judge me as well, shaming my body and appearance, making sure I never felt comfortable in public. We hurt each other. We hurt ourselves.
I've always thought it would be simpler if she wasn't around. We have too much in common. I know how to perfectly shatter her. She points out all my flaws.
Sometime in my life though, I'm going to have to stop.
She shouldn't tell me that the outfits aren't acceptable. I shouldn't tell her that she won't ever be worth anything. We need to stop talking. We need to stop listening.
We need to be friends again.
Its hard having such a battle with your reflection. Mine is everywhere, haunting me. Sometimes she's beautiful. Sometimes I'd even say she's worth it. Sometimes I love her. Usually I don't. Usually all I see when I look at her is how much I've let myself down. Usually we aren't friends. Usually I don't even know this girl. Usually I hate her.
It's not good.
But I know this girl, and I know her strength. I know she how can overcome. I know someday it will all be good.
I know this girl.
And we can do it.
Jan 19, 2015
Jan 19, 2015 at 10:08 PM UTC
1431
poems in ye old inbox,
genteel knocking,
whispering thru stolid front door
love me a little lot,
little lot, love me?
this is not mere work product,
collegial-laid upon me for gentle shared, for pre-review,
Nottingham Forest arrowed, bow shaped
pithy comments,
these are the holy-of-the-holies
attention-me-crystal-cries,
prayers, wry observations, nature collations,
me and thee adorations, heart rendering
screams of need,
these are the moments in your life
raw-roughened gifted or threaded smooth cursed,
but tendered unto my caring.
(an aside:
perhaps you understand better now
why woman-in-the-moon imagery,
red bowed, grapefruit tasting hearts,
all the lovelies, word shape shifts a/k/a
Imagery
language delights!
but time-using, confusingly confuses,
and has been erased from my own poetry frame)
gnawing doubt me routs,
god gave me humans,
and gave them speech,
to bring me
closer to him
thru them.
somewhere in those 1431 essays of labor,
dashed off, handcrafted, pithy or poor,
just might be the one
justification for my opening my eyes
this poetry someday Sunday sun-day.
put the cofe on
(saving letters, saving time,
deleting unnecessary e's
from my life till when I am dying on
all-on-that desperate
e-n-ee-dy day).
loaded my shotgun heart with
loves and likes,
yellow thunderbolt bullets firing,
and considered yourself
notified
I'm a-coming over,
shoes on the cofe table,
breaking taboo's
gonna read 1431
and when dining done,
gonna pay attention to my muse,
my woman, cause she is the
original e,
that provides the raw materials,
in ye old nat-box,
that lets me love ever one of them,
she is the e
in me
and me will be in you,
starting now.
Mar 30, 2014
Mar 30, 2014 at 6:57 AM UTC
the hint of yellow
circling the pupils of your blue eyes
are like garden flowers on a window
by the eden on a front yard.
i guess they caught whatever was left
from the pallete spent on your golden hair
the blush of red in your cheeks
when your lips part in passion
is the color of the day surrendering into the night
lit up by a million tiny sparkles
and yes, the mole on your nose bridge
rests like venus on a crescent moon.
the softness of your white skin
forms a blanket with warm pockets,
love escaping from my embrace.
i hear your hands speak of strength
there are areas on it roughened by life
and soft spots that bring a vision
of a little girl playing hopscotch.
and when i rest my palm on yours
the world is alright with me.
i am momentarily lost
tracking the rise and fall of your chest
somehow i could make out your heart
dancing in there, in double step
perfectly in synch with mine
i want to remember every line
every shade, every tone,
every rhythm that compose you
like an ancient god's little toy.
your breath becomes mine
like brooks into rivers into seas
you are upon me
like wildebeasts in stampede
the crash of a mighty jungle waterfall
so many pictures flood my senses
my mind convulsing in a frenzy
from a spark provoked by your face
you are a mine for my metaphors
and i just sit here, ready
my pen poised, my cup is eager
the smell of coffee rises up my veins
i let you come in,open my door
your touch is on my skin
your footprints are all over my body
i cannot move a part of me
without moving the whole of us.
my ache to have you is unending
my devotion is timeless
our moment together too priceless
if i was put in this world to love you
and meant to die when that is done,
then beloved,
i believe i will live forever.
Jul 13, 2010
Jul 13, 2010 at 4:21 AM UTC
You turned my life upside-down when you came around
A triplet, who would have thought?!
Ive always loved you, though I may never have shown it.
I've always been the older sister that secretly watched over you.
now all I'm left with are pieces of who we used to be
a ghost of the sister I used to love
What happened to us?
We used to sing together while I was in the shower, your iPod blaring
And sleep on each others shoulders on the long carrides
We'd stay out late at night with friends and stick our feet in the air
Swimming in the ocean at the beach I'd come up from behind and splash you
I used to pick up on the same line as you just to mess with you and your boyfriend
And miss you when you went away, like you took a slice of my heart with you.
When guys would hit on us, we'd sit back and laugh.
Do you remember the night you, me, and Billy stayed up and we said out first cuss words, barely 5th grade, and we giggled all night?
The promises we'd always be there, through thick and thin?
The calm of our house was shattered this summer
When we realized it was time to grow up.
You roughened my edges with your sharp tongue,
slicing through our bond we worked 16 years to hold together
Cut, and mended, cut and mended
All that remains are shreds and furious remarks,
and a house shared with a girl I can't say I even know anymore.
You roughened my edges, my own sister
Darkened my heart, and closed my compassion
We both have our own problems, does it mean we stop caring?
All our lives we've been compared, it's been a game,
Some kind of competition to gain attention and show off superior wits
Now when it matters the most, I've lost you
I'm running this race of Life alone.
All I really want is for us to get back to how we used to be.
I want to make you laugh, not frown and complain
I want to see happiness cover your face like it did just months ago
But... I'm afraid it's too late.
You've roughened my edges beyond repair
Jan 15, 2014
Jan 15, 2014 at 5:28 PM UTC
howling agitation
~~~
*But this old man's tiddlywink, land-locked words,
blunted instruments,
needy for release & salvation,
neither silvered or exacting,
stain a dulled, tarnished brass spittoon,
'cept for the brunt'd bunting of lines
across his roughened terrain'd face,
a black and a white
Degas pen and ink etched illustration
of howling agitation.*^
Apr 30, 2016
Apr 30, 2016 at 10:06 AM UTC
Fumbling fingers yearning for connection,
Reach out through negative space,
Crash headlong into rejection.
Curl back in defeat,
Clenched fist to deflect,
Fiery agony of regret.
An empty, disparaging inflection
Cut from a hot pink tongue, flapping
Dispassionately disproves theory of interconnection,
Maybe myth, fable, love story --
Or maybe lack of detection,
From calloused palms,
Roughened with each ingestion
Of honey suckle poison.
Was this the original intention?
Or did the son choose to elect
Another hidden path, indirect.
This haze manifests crystalized predictions,
Of hands meeting thighs, meeting hips,
Pushing forward climactic introspection,
Or just another muddled reflection,
Of my endless projections,
Always failing tests of retention,
Mind permanently trapped in suspension,
Of spiraling tension.
Sep 1, 2014
Sep 1, 2014 at 8:06 PM UTC