"rounding" poems
Cold now.
Close to the edge. Almost
unbearable. Clouds
bunch up and boil down
from the north of the white bear.
This tree-splitting morning
I dream of his fat tracks,
the lifesaving suet.
I think of summer with its luminous fruit,
blossoms rounding to berries, leaves,
handfuls of grain.
Maybe what cold is, is the time
we measure the love we have always had, secretly,
for our own bones, the hard knife-edged love
for the warm river of the I, beyond all else; maybe
that is what it means the beauty
of the blue shark cruising toward the tumbling seals.
In the season of snow,
in the immeasurable cold,
we grow cruel but honest; we keep
ourselves alive,
if we can, taking one after another
the necessary bodies of others, the many
crushed red flowers.
17.4k
I'm not ashamed to say
that today,
my ***** look impeccable.
They do—
and that makes me beam
in every possible way.
See,
we're rounding a long winter,
and it's cloudy outside.
I'm smart enough to know
that most days—
you have to make
your own god ****** sunshine.
Dec 6, 2013
Dec 6, 2013 at 3:09 PM UTC
Driving alone in the moonlight
An hour or two before dawn
Jackson Browne on the radio
Big wheels all humming along
Rounding a curve in the highway
I see deer in the road just ahead
The littlest one forgot to run
I hit her and knew she was dead
The body lay still and broken
Soft unseeing eyes open wide
Kneeling I took her up in my arms
And I sobbed, and wept, and I cried
I cried for her broken body
And I wept for her stolen life
I sobbed for all the loves I've lost
Through all the years of my life
Dec 9, 2010
Dec 9, 2010 at 6:04 PM UTC
Thanksgiving is a time that never will I forget
Hopping in the car for a very long ride to grandma's house
With heavy white frost on the grass, glistening in the sun
Singing songs and counting grain bins to pass the time
Now the frost is melting, we are getting close to the grandparents
Rounding that last bend and then their lane up to the house
Riding up to the house I can see smoke coming from the chimney
To the door and into the house, I see my cousins playing, and smell the Turkey
Grandma's brown and gold tablecloth, covered with her silver
trimmed grey dishes and crystal goblets ready for us to eat.
Have to sit and chat while watching the Macy's parade
Saying our blessings and giving our Thanks as we begin the feast
Copyright 2013
All Rights Reserved
Nov 20, 2013
Nov 20, 2013 at 2:45 PM UTC
I tied together
a few slender reeds, cut
notches to breathe across and made
such music you stood
shock still and then
followed as I wandered growing
moment by moment
slant-eyes and shaggy, my feet
slamming over the rocks, growing
hard as horn, and there
you were behind me, drowning
in the music, letting
the silver clasps out of your hair,
hurrying, taking off
your clothes.
I can't remember
where this happened but I think
it was late summer when everything
is full of fire and rounding to fruition
and whatever doesn't,
or resists,
must lie like a field of dark water under
the pulling moon,
tossing and tossing.
In the brutal elegance of cities
I have walked down
the halls of hotels
and heard this music behind
shut doors.
Do you think the heart
is accountable? Do you think the body
any more than a branch
of the honey locust tree,
hunting water,
hunching toward the sun,
shivering, when it feels
that good, into
white blossoms?
Or do you think there is a kind
of music, a certain strand
that lights up the otherwise
blunt wilderness of the body -
a furious
and unaccountable selectivity?
Ah well, anyway, whether or not
it was late summer, or even
in our part of the world, it is all
only a dream, I did not
turn into the lithe goat god. Nor did you come running
like that.
Did you?
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Werewolf stood in front of a puddle.
Four inches deep. Maybe.
Werewolf looked away.
Stickers. Graffiti.
Flem’s Revenge Live Tonight!
The Nifty Nymphos April 24th.
Ballz Deep featuring **** Matikz and Tremaine The Truest.
I’m a long way from Cologne, he thought.
Werewolf knelt towards the puddle.
The wet filth smelled of hot blood.
Exceptionally hot blood, rather.
He spat in the puddle and turned.
One thousand drunk humans.
Ten thousand more, asleep, above.
Not misunderstood.
Cursed.
It’s a very different sadness.
Alexander’s Feast ended.
Rounding out his latest playlist -
Bashfully Baroque.
Werewolf checked the time.
Less than an hour.
He buzzed a buzzer.
I’m here for the Devil’s Cherries.
The What?
The, ahem, Devil’s Cherries.
He’s cool. Let him in.
And just like that, he was let out.
A line was forming for Flem’s Revenge.
While a bright moon reflected in Werewolf’s puddle.
Werewolf shouldered through.
Cursed.
Clutching his score.
Apr 10, 2012
Apr 10, 2012 at 1:19 PM UTC
Routine tests
failed
Number Four reactor
Walls melt, floor buckles
Gamma disaster
one half million men mill
by the banks of the Dnieper
Level Seven Event
Unprecedented disaster
Flesh sloughed off
Rounding the corner
cellular structure instantly scrambled
eggs toast and jelly
Gaze upon the elephant's foot
Bathe in green glowing brilliant stochastic calculation
Mutant dogs roam the tainted halls of Prypiat
Disparities reflect
true death toll unknown
Concerned Scientists shed their lights
on the encircling environment
Glittering glass carpets coat abandoned streets
Creaking Ferris wheel slowly turns into madness
Toxic twin of Fukushima
Thyroid Leukemia Cellular Damage Tumor
the caustic clouds still settling today
Generation after generation
dead women and children
Global impact particle spread
none have been spared
even into tomorrow.
Jun 14, 2012
Jun 14, 2012 at 5:07 PM UTC
Winter break my boyfriend and I Drive downtown.
He buys incense
lets me pick out my favorite smell.
Coconut.
We get in the car
he lights a stick and hands it to me.
The smoke flipping over in the air,
rounding like winged bats.
I breathe it in as he turns the car wheel.
Twist the scents
between my fingers,
watch as the air fills with
pipe cleaner smoke.
Wiggling,
Convulsing.
The next week my
Ex-boyfriend decides
he loves me again.
Pulls me over at a party,
beckons me to sit on the stairs.
He tells me he loves me
through drunk tongue
and I watch the wooden panels
begin to twist and curve,
tug at my tattered limbs
until I am sitting.
He pulls my arm towards him,
asks me to love him again,
asks me why I don’t.
I think of the incense
as he pulls me closer,
the delicate flips of smoke,
the moment only a smell can give you.
I breathe in and can taste the coconut,
he pulls me into him,
the coconut smell,
our two bodies,
his lips singing to kiss mine,
but I think of the coconut.
Breathe in,
twist my fingers,
leave.
©DelaneyMiller
Mar 5, 2014
Mar 5, 2014 at 10:18 PM UTC
From out the dragging vastness of the sea,
Wave-fettered, bound in sinuous, seaweed strands,
He toils toward the rounding beach, and stands
One moment, white and dripping, silently,
Cut like a cameo in lazuli,
Then falls, betrayed by shifting shells, and lands
Prone in the jeering water, and his hands
Clutch for support where no support can be.
So up, and down, and forward, inch by inch,
He gains upon the shore, where poppies glow
And sandflies dance their little lives away.
The ******* waves ****** and tighter clinch
The weeds about him, but the land-winds blow,
And in the sky there blooms the sun of May.
4.7k
Supersonic Skydive
Tell me, what's your helmet like?
Can you hear the roar of breaking
barriers of sound?
Or is it silent in your dome
Have they built you like a home
A cradle for the jumping few
Who chose to do as daring do?
Supersonic Skydive,
Tell me, what's the view there like?
Can you see the rounding planet
Arching back in every stretch?
And do the stars look different here
Beyond the blinking atmosphere,
And when you rushing, sink away,
When do you find the blue of day?
Supersonic Skydive
So lucky to be so alive
And as you plummet to the ground,
Tell me, do you look up, or down?
Oct 11, 2012
Oct 11, 2012 at 3:51 PM UTC
Here’s the bouquet you say you deserve
After all that you’ve been through
Here are some flowers
Symbolic of whatever
I couldn’t care less
It’s on the table next to the dinner that you said I never cook
Off center is a hallmark card about how I don’t love you enough
But should
We are stagnant like holy water
Which is stage three in the second half of a relationship
according to Knapp’s Model
I did the math and researched the reasons why we don’t work anymore
Here is the math
Sometimes
I is less than or equal to U
Not that
I could or ever should be greater than U
|But I want our equality to not be a battle to maintain|
We don’t need each other anymore
I don’t need you like I don’t need teeth in my *******
And you don’t need me
Like an extra head on your shoulder hanging so heavy
So here are your flowers
Here is your dinner
Here is you apology letter to the both of us
For how long it took for me
To tell you to go
It’s simple math
It’s 20 minutes over dinner in silence
+3 bags I’ve packed for you
+1 20 minute drive to your friend’s house
It’s the remainder of me
When the fractions don’t fit
And I want to be whole
This is me becoming whole
The square root of dying to an over-exaggerator
Maybe you deserve flowers
I deserve to deal with life in whole numbers
I’ve fallen from your fractions
Been rounding out my edges
And I’m almost done
Now go
And leave me to the simple math of being alone
Apr 30, 2012
Apr 30, 2012 at 4:16 PM UTC
XXII
When our two souls stand up ***** and strong,
Face to face, silent, drawing nigh and nigher,
Until the lengthening wings break into fire
At either curved point,—what bitter wrong
Can the earth do to us, that we should not long
Be here contented? Think. In mounting higher,
The angels would press on us and aspire
To drop some golden orb of perfect song
Into our deep, dear silence. Let us stay
Rather on earth, Beloved,—where the unfit
Contrarious moods of men recoil away
And isolate pure spirits, and permit
A place to stand and love in for a day,
With darkness and the death-hour rounding it.
3.2k
traveling through a large plane
an opalescent sky
wide, encompassing embrace
soft lavender-gray clouds float on a string
hovering like distant islands of heaven
a land promised
tender gradient pink to gray
mile-long notations drift
isolated in blue and soft gold
in shifting rays
your voice is holding me aloft
burnished and blending
drawing me
filling my movement
rounding my heart
the rising moon
the sweet aching fullness
the deepening
twinkling colored night
is to you
I'm drawn
Jan 5, 2015
Jan 5, 2015 at 1:37 AM UTC
whenever I feel the tremble start to ooze its way
from my compact mind to the tips of my fingers,
I immediately anticipate the fate
that I have always been able to foresee
whenever that familiar first jolt of an anxiety attack sails its way,
like a vessel in a storm
throughout my entire body
heart pounds an intolerable caution
lungs wheeze frigid determination with a rough friction
that lightly scrapes my core with a ticklish flutter
shoulders lift up into a hunch; absolutely automatic
the top tray of teeth lock clenched into the bottom tray’s hold
a fleet of air hisses in and out of two nostrils like a monk’s meditation
capacious eyes flicker from
the lid to the lash to the iris to the pupil to see everything
everyone is staring
everything is too intimidating to look at for longer than two seconds
then, the tunnel
the clearest, acute vision waters into a soft edged frame,
into a pixel mud of a picture, into a black peripheral,
black corners rounding in – a narrow and petty circle
I use it and follow it to wherever my
deepened impulse decides to take me
silently contemplating,
silently speculating,
silently examining
the fears I let my feeble self
get swallowed up in.
Sep 3, 2012
Sep 3, 2012 at 1:42 AM UTC
I have sailed the River of Yellow Flowers,
Borne by the channel of a green stream,
Rounding ten thousand turns through the mountains
On a journey of less than thirty miles....
Rapids hum over heaped rocks;
But where light grows dim in the thick pines,
The surface of an inlet sways with nut-horns
And weeds are lush along the banks.
...Down in my heart I have always been as pure
As this limpid water is....
Oh, to remain on a broad flat rock
And to cast a fishing-line forever!
2.9k
Mariana in the Moated Grange
by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
With blackest moss the flower-plots
Were thickly crusted, one and all:
The rusted nails fell from the knots
That held the pear to the gable-wall.
The broken sheds look'd sad and strange:
Unlifted was the clinking latch;
Weeded and worn the ancient thatch
Upon the lonely moated grange.
She only said, "My life is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!"
Her tears fell with the dews at even;
Her tears fell ere the dews were dried;
She could not look on the sweet heaven,
Either at morn or eventide.
After the flitting of the bats,
When thickest dark did trance the sky,
She drew her casement-curtain by,
And glanced athwart the glooming flats.
She only said, "The night is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!"
Upon the middle of the night,
Waking she heard the night-fowl crow:
The **** sung out an hour ere light:
From the dark fen the oxen's low
Came to her: without hope of change,
In sleep she seem'd to walk forlorn,
Till cold winds woke the gray-eyed morn
About the lonely moated grange.
She only said, "The day is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!"
About a stone-cast from the wall
A sluice with blacken'd waters slept,
And o'er it many, round and small,
The cluster'd marish-mosses crept.
Hard by a poplar shook alway,
All silver-green with gnarled bark:
For leagues no other tree did mark
The level waste, the rounding gray.
She only said, "My life is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said "I am aweary, aweary
I would that I were dead!"
And ever when the moon was low,
And the shrill winds were up and away,
In the white curtain, to and fro,
She saw the gusty shadow sway.
But when the moon was very low
And wild winds bound within their cell,
The shadow of the poplar fell
Upon her bed, across her brow.
She only said, "The night is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said "I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!"
All day within the dreamy house,
The doors upon their hinges creak'd;
The blue fly sung in the pane; the mouse
Behind the mouldering wainscot shriek'd,
Or from the crevice peer'd about.
Old faces glimmer'd thro' the doors
Old footsteps trod the upper floors,
Old voices called her from without.
She only said, "My life is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!"
The sparrow's chirrup on the roof,
The slow clock ticking, and the sound
Which to the wooing wind aloof
The poplar made, did all confound
Her sense; but most she loathed the hour
When the thick-moted sunbeam lay
Athwart the chambers, and the day
Was sloping toward his western bower.
Then said she, "I am very dreary,
He will not come," she said;
She wept, "I am aweary, aweary,
Oh God, that I were dead!"
3k
Late afternoon, haze hung low, heat and sky
holding breath. You’re it. No tag-backs. Asphalt
freckles our knees. Dinner is anytime: bologna
on white; Kool-Aid cut thin with tap. No hurry home
unless for the news. We don’t.
We want what’s coming, not what’s been.
Paper fortune tellers flutter open, close.
She writes the answers first, back turned.
Lift one flap: your dog dies. Another: a prince
charming. Another: best party in town,
limousine awaits. He lifts a flap: her name.
actually meant for you, her sister whispers.
Then rain, the blue-lined paper sags, ink settles
in cracks, bare feet scatter, futures wash
mid-fold into a storm drain. At Cheshire and
Green Meadows, a drunk witch swears Venus and Jupiter
will make us all rich. She leaves out how long
the sky makes you wait. Lunch money turns
to lottery slips. Rounding the corner, moving vans
idle over chalked hopscotch, our names folded under.
Aug 17, 2025
Aug 17, 2025 at 1:35 AM UTC
My minotaur has mad cow's disease.
The FDA is rounding up each one
in a forty mile radius for slaughter.
They're incinerating the bodies
at the trash-to-steam factory. I hear
gunfire and wailing children. Sharon
next door is in shock. She's been
on her knees down on the lawn
mumbling, "please, please, please,"
for the last two hours. Crimson clouds
bleed into sunrise. How will we
escape the seepage?
I'll stop at the Getty for a car wash
before I pick you up. Have some
sandwiches packed.
O for the love of God,
the moos, the moos.
Nov 14, 2015
Nov 14, 2015 at 9:25 PM UTC
Stepping up to the plate,
I knew what was coming next,
Hot and fast,
A little curve at the end,
I could get to first base,
I guessed,
Rounding the corner,
maybe second.
A little hustle in my step,
A slide perhaps,
A double on opening night.
Anxiety as I approached,
Ready to swing away,
'can I do this?'
I stepped out of the box for a moment,
My turn to shine,
Stepping in,
Choking up,
Relaxing my shoulders as I prepared to follow-through,
Eyes fixed on the pitch,
A homerun would be nice,
Then I realized,
Just getting to first-base would be a home-run for me,
This rookie,
My god,
Dating is sooo hard.
Jul 28, 2013
Jul 28, 2013 at 6:59 AM UTC
i like to watch the sheepdog rounding up the sheep
first a little run then a gentle creep
rounding up the herd as gentle as can be
drives them to a pen a clever dog his he
listens to his master to his whistle blow
so he understands which way he has to go
always very faithful by his masters side
just to watch the sheepdog fills my heart with pride.
May 19, 2014
May 19, 2014 at 5:30 PM UTC
This is so much more than a love song that there is no music to keep your heart bouncing along with my tune. Never could’a anyway. I speak so fast sometimes you know just to nod your head and say, “yeah”. Can hear it in the way that my tongue cracks against my teeth. Sounds like *** sometimes. Not the good kind either. It’s the kind you never really walk away from. **** you like a bass drum. Feel it puttin pressure on your heart. But that’s fine with you. Knew I never really had a beat. Never really had a song. Too tone deaf for something as smooth as that. No. I just say **** Like now. Puttin fingers in all your wrong places. This is more than just a love poem. It’s a *** poem. It’s a ******* revolution of quivers. Tryin to shiver ourselves to fit like shaking will rub away the edges. Rounding out the bad spots till our bodies make sense. No **** necessary. Not this time. As for me. I’m a poet. ***** talk is as natural as breathing. Forgive me for the freestyle I played on your money spot. Too classy for a money shot. Too ***** not to do it right. I’d trade my arms for flight. Gust away your sweat with more than just my breath. Know that you’ll never really tell me to stop. This is more than just a *** poem. More than the revolution of quivers that finally made sense of the sporadic tone to my heart drum. This is freedom. Breakin’ away the chaos, and the bad habits, and all the **** that scares me. Getting lost in the action of it. This is for every lonely bedroom, and bathroom, and pool, and for the backseat of every car that’s held the momentary refuge that keeps me from finally breakin down. This is for you. And all the ***** things I wanna do.
May 16, 2011
May 16, 2011 at 9:40 PM UTC
*
Yes, it’s a poem no matter who reads it,
worded conclusions one line at a time
Splattering ink on the pages of reason,
whether or not you can sense any rhyme
Searching my dreams for the perfect notation,
picking and choosing what I hope she sees
Gathering leaves of our tomorrow seasons,
falling to earth on the breath of a breeze
Echoes I’ve whispered in words used so often,
carved in the essence a float in my mind
Wandering footsteps through valleys of wishes,
happy endeavors in phrases I find
Till comes the day when she sits here beside me,
sharing the beauty her smile does inspire
And of the views framing skies of forever,
promising visions of windswept desire
I write these verses of heart felt emotions,
all of them true in the fashion I send
For very soon I’ll be rounding the corner,
penning her poetic love once again*
Aug 27, 2016
Aug 27, 2016 at 8:57 PM UTC
Plotted, charted according to popular theorem,
meticulously fretted over,
worked and reworked--confirmed.
Follow the order and find the balance.
But, variables.
Solve for x where x is an unknown.
The question may yet have an answer--
a suitable conclusion to prove the proof,
but has the problem a solution?
At rest, we are simple equations,
rounding ourselves to the nearest whole,
adding fractions of a percentage,
drawing a line and calling the bottom number
-------------------------
TOTAL
But, variables.
1(x), where x is an unknown.
And all the fractions we add
leave us fractured,
divided from the solution, the end sum.
remainders to be rounded off,
estimates of ourselves.
Aug 27, 2013
Aug 27, 2013 at 12:29 PM UTC
i'm a yellow chill
a daffodil in the rain
thought i found my place
kinda heard to explain
sip each glass of wine
your palette needs a rest
taste his cracker's brine
along your lips
signing documents
you can't help hide your grin
sweat beading down your brow
my nervous penmanship
is this what they call peace
four hundred dollars an hour
the clock says nine past three
rounding up minutes they devour
caught you dead to rights
my son's new step father
when he sees your blight
harvest grapes turn sour
i feel constant dread
our son can't cope the truth
so far above his head
your soulless attribute
i'm a daffodil, more like a coward in the rain.
Nov 14, 2018
Nov 14, 2018 at 11:22 PM UTC
i lost your direction
with my back against you i begged you
to unzip the sky
i was parched without shade
you looked like destiny
a mirage in a thirsty throat
i kissed the ground and broke my mouth
spit teeth that bled your name
but you came no closer
the pain was not divine
perception rose in red welts around my lips
mountains of flesh that held no beauty
i poured myself into this strange espousal of a world
cold cloudy glass
forever rounding walls
that held me in smeared thumbprints
on a hot day i am static
i dry slowly, paint
i am the ever madonna the lost woman
heroine heroine heroine
corrupt word that bursts like an aneurysm on the tongue
spreads like a warm solution
and we bred closer
fixing flesh on the bones of our connection
meet me when i come to you
don’t grow old with me
i can never change
the leash nerves held
keeping you that same size
until the sky seized with the threat
rain rain rain
and i was no prophet
just a woman you thought you could save
if your feet could make the steps
but i am not lost
i’m just waiting for you
you can find me under broken clouds
you can save me to soothe
your own self
Jan 29, 2014
Jan 29, 2014 at 9:32 AM UTC