"sallow" poems
My thoughts are crabbed and sallow,
My tears like vinegar,
Or the bitter blinking yellow
Of an acetic star.
Tonight the caustic wind, love,
Gossips late and soon,
And I wear the wry-faced pucker of
The sour lemon moon.
While like an early summer plum,
Puny, green, and ****
Droops upon its wizened stem
My lean, unripened heart.
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Was it love? or was it an arrow?
My heart, you took, left me in sorrow
Your heart, may I borrow?
Till death, I will keep, not returned by tomorrow
My fortune is narrow
That what left my heart hollow
And my face sallow
Your secret, I revealed, left me feeling shallow
Running in agony in the furrow
Towards the nearest tree, willow
With no one fellow
Sitting on the branch lonely with my shadow
What a blue life! Thought it would be yellow!
Memories of you are my softest pillow
Such emotions, I shall not allow
Your fingerprints, your footprints, your trail I will follow
With all of my might, we become the lovers of the morrow
The pill of hope, I will swallow
--Hisham
Jul 15, 2018
Jul 15, 2018 at 6:43 PM UTC
one April dusk the
sallow street-lamps were turning
snowy against a west of robin’s egg blue when
i entered a mad street whose
mouth dripped with slavver of
spring
chased two flights of squirrel-stairs into
a mid-victorian attic which is known as
O ΠΑΡΞΕΝΩΝ
and having ordered
yaoorti from
Nicho’
settled my feet on the
ceiling inhaling six divine inches
of Haremina in
the thick of the snick-
er of cards and smack of back-
gammon boards i was aware of an entirely
***** circle of habitués their
faces like cigarettebutts, chewed
with disdain, led by a Jumpy
***** who played each
card as if it were a thunderbolt red-
hot peeling
off huge slabs of a fuzzy
language with the aid of an exclamatory
tooth-pick
And who may that
be i said exhaling into
eternity as Nicho’ laid
before me bread
more downy than street-lamps
upon an almostclean
plate
“Achilles”
said
Nicho’
“and did you perhaps wish also shishkabob?”
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Two girls there are : within the house
One sits; the other, without.
Daylong a duet of shade and light
Plays between these.
In her dark wainscoted room
The first works problems on
A mathematical machine.
Dry ticks mark time
As she calculates each sum.
At this barren enterprise
Rat-shrewd go her squint eyes,
Root-pale her meager frame.
Bronzed as earth, the second lies,
Hearing ticks blown gold
Like pollen on bright air. Lulled
Near a bed of poppies,
She sees how their red silk flare
Of petaled blood
Burns open to the sun's blade.
On that green alter
Freely become sun's bride, the latter
Grows quick with seed.
Grass-couched in her labor's pride,
She bears a king. Turned bitter
And sallow as any lemon,
The other, wry ****** to the last,
Goes graveward with flesh laid waste,
Worm-husbanded, yet no woman.
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(1)
The day she visited the dissecting room
They had four men laid out, black as burnt turkey,
Already half unstrung. A vinegary fume
Of the death vats clung to them;
The white-smocked boys started working.
The head of his cadaver had caved in,
And she could scarcely make out anything
In that rubble of skull plates and old leather.
A sallow piece of string held it together.
In their jars the snail-nosed babies moon and glow.
He hands her the cut-out heart like a cracked heirloom.
(2)
In Brueghel's panorama of smoke and slaughter
Two people only are blind to the carrion army:
He, afloat in the sea of her blue satin
Skirts, sings in the direction
Of her bare shoulder, while she bends,
Finger a leaflet of music, over him,
Both of them deaf to the fiddle in the hands
Of the death's-head shadowing their song.
These Flemish lovers flourish;not for long.
Yet desolation, stalled in paint, spares the little country
Foolish, delicate, in the lower right hand corner.
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drenched in blue moonlight
I admired her through
the sheet of smoke
in the gap between us
Carefully I
swayed and our arms
greeted with a gentle graze
"I tend to see the glass as half empty–
sometimes completely."
Sudden words drew me
like water from a well
A cigarette pinched by
the uneven crescents of her lips
pulsated, her sallow face
awash in a delicious red glow
"Either way, it's a beautiful glass,
isn't it?"
time nonexistent
She fumbled another
to a faintly open mouth
I lit it in silence
Jun 30, 2016
Jun 30, 2016 at 11:23 PM UTC
My darling, will you marry me?
Years of hints
I decided to ask
Is it wrong for a woman to ask first?
Disbelieving
His reaction
His breath heavy and heaving
Fidgeting in his chair
My face, sallow in its seriousness
Cast a cold shadow on his bones
His body turning away
The back of his head
In my veins moved oxygen pure
My breath calm and subdued
Knowing the answer before it was asked
Confirmation from his lips due
What does one do after many years?
Is it ok to force one into marriage?
Am I giving myself up?
Am I giving in?
My darling. Will you marry me?
You are the love of my life.
Will you marry me?
No, he said.
Apr 29, 2022
Apr 29, 2022 at 8:06 AM UTC
I feel a little confused
Like I have something to figure out
A little twisted up and chewed
My mind is racing on doubt.
I'm trying to put my thoughts
Into words in this writing
My hand it jots
The nails on my fingers I am biting.
It's hard to say how I feel
But I definitely know that I am feeling
Everything inside is real
I just have to find it by peeling.
My skin it itches from nerves
I look sallow and wrecked
I've stretched myself thin and over all the curves
I can no longer object.
I had to cry today
Because I drove myself up a wall
Repressing things I've wanted to say
Has somehow made the mountain I have, to climb, very tall.
It's not like my problems are anything important
But I guess they tend to wear me ragged
It's sometimes because I can be expectant
Of people and things that are jagged.
I have some things I still need to learn
But I'd rather be learning then at a stop
Like how not to expect and sometimes not to yearn
And when to skip, rather than to hop.
I try to keep my heart open wide
But that leaves it to be bruised
I have to let some things subside
And not let myself feel used.
I'll learn to be compassionate
But still protect myself
Though somehow I feel like I'm in debt
To all the dolls on the shelf.
I conclude this work of emotion
Still upside down and withered
At least I've crossed further, the ocean
But I have yet to meet the blizzard.
Mar 24, 2011
Mar 24, 2011 at 9:29 PM UTC
forced to ask 'is it all bullshit'
this field of study just completed
this path now flying feet fleet'd
I, alumni all outwardly faux alacrity
but instead really inside shades drawn
hiding shame useless
waiting for the sun's forebearant rays
to pull dead drunk me off floor again
still sick sinning spinning lies
on nodal web patterns
of activation
just a narcissist sociopath-in-training
(was I?) being taught how better
to manipulate other's fate
for personal gain
great fat magnificent magnanimous beast
loafing on liar's chair o'great victory-defeat
doublespeak tho Orwell is long dead and we do mourn him so with eulogy eyes
that weep crocodile tears of
well hidden liars
having long forgotten how to believe
in anything aside from own ill-gotten
gains, they mean nothing more
than bloodstained verses
anemic murmurs
whispered great
whisky hopes
and sallow
cheeked
dreams
Aug 13, 2014
Aug 13, 2014 at 11:04 AM UTC
I am the zombie of Tinkerbell
Her living corpse
Dress sparkles all faded
Tinkling like a broken bell
My fairy dust no longer brings children the gift of flight
But endows my prey with the curse of second life
That I may twice devour their
Squirming, wriggling,
Writhing, scriggiling
Flesh
Just the way I like it
With a wide dark grin across my face
Teeth stained with blood and broken into points
Eyes dim, dull, and hallowed
Skin sallow and torn by the fighters,
Who battle for their death
Combatting the loss of their dignity
I lure them in with stale illusions and sickly sweet snares
Torn wings are no match for swift feet, but I manage
Pushed onwards, pulled forwards by a need, urge
To devour, consume, and engorge myself
Again with tender meat
And imbibe upon the sharp lifeblood
Of faerie.
For I, am the zombie Tinkerbell, and I hunger.
It's dinner time...
Oct 15, 2012
Oct 15, 2012 at 9:08 PM UTC
Profile:
Yuwen Chengdu is the son of Yuwen Huaji, who was a general of the Sui dynasty. He is a warrior of Sui, only secondary to Li Yuanba, who is naturally super powerful. As recorded, he was as tall as ten feet with strong waist and body. In the appearance of golden face, long beard and thick eyebrow, he often hold a weapon as heavy as 350 pounds.
Introduction of ****** makeup:
****** makeup, or Lian Pu, refers to ****** designs for Jing and Chou roles. It originated from daily life experience, describing such changes of expression as white for fear, red for shyness, dark for suntan, and sallow for illness. Most ****** designs attach great importance to the eyes. The ****** designs for the Jing roles are made by painting, powdering and coloring in the basic forms of Zheng Lian (keeping the basic face pattern), San Kuai Wa Lian (three-section face) and Sui Lian (fragmentary face). These types are widely used to represent generals, officials, heroes, gods and ghosts. The Chou actors can be recognized by the patch of white in various shapes painted around the eyes and nose. Sometimes these patches are outlined in black, hence the term Xiao Hua Lian (partly painted face). The Chou roles fall into the following two categories: Wen Chou and Wu Chou.
Features:
****** makeup bears three main characteristics. Firstly, it is the unity and contradiction of beauty and ugliness. Secondly, it is closely related to the personality of the characters. Lastly, the patterns are stylized.
Beijing opera is one of the most popular drama widely welcomed and loved, no matter home and abroad. It is now acknowledged as a sign of Chinese traditional culture. The photos of ****** mask can be found on large buildings, product packages, various porcelains and clothes. It has gone beyond the stage, from which we can see the deep influence of ****** makeup. More and more foreigners have interest in it and begin to explore the secret of ****** makeup.
http://www.toywill.com
Aug 26, 2013
Aug 26, 2013 at 3:02 AM UTC
1524
A faded Boy—in sallow Clothes
Who drove a lonesome Cow
To pastures of Oblivion—
A statesman’s Embryo—
The Boys that whistled are extinct—
The Cows that fed and thanked
Remanded to a Ballad’s Barn
Or Clover’s Retrospect—
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And now, the sickness presents itself on my face.
It arrives in the form of two dark circles,
The color of a stranger’s shadow,
Which linger beneath eyes
That have seen too little of the world.
It arrives in the form of skin so sallow,
Of cheekbones so sunken,
Of a mouth too tired to open
And say all the words I wish held more meaning.
And I long for sleep,
I ache for sleep.
As the hours pass,
My limbs become as weak as my will.
If I only had an enemy lesser than consciousness,
I could have won by now.
But every time I envision the sweet escape
Of unconsciousness,
My broken-record-mind violently hurls me back
Into my abandoned realm of reality.
Nov 2, 2012
Nov 2, 2012 at 8:23 PM UTC
Coffee on my breath,
wearing a frown.
Sunshine, my sweater,
my soul turns brown.
Lips slick with chapstick,
chics' licking sack n' ****
drag off a ******* *** n' lean,
obscene in the sense,
the ******* fags' a drag queen.
Rival the bible,
hell to sell any,
whats worse, church
bells smell ugly
under my nose.
I chose the shallow dirt
road to death, even the
tallest tales hail the same frail fate.
Fill my urn to earn my fill,
**** it.
There is no still
frame to capture the moment,
fracture the film and leave it alone.
Yellow toned, below me,
sallow, cornered in color coordinates.
Drenched cover but dry at the core of it;
dazzled by **** dazzled by diction,
you write the dirtiest fiction
and I'm the ******* ***** in it.
Leather bound, cable wound,
leather bound. Black.
Leather.
Sep 18, 2010
Sep 18, 2010 at 7:30 PM UTC
With eyes bled red by oozing tears
His sallow all-pleading visage wan
Weeps my grandson at the dentist's
Convinced the man is a dealer in pain
The little boy inside of me weeps too
What can I do, what must be must be
Each boy must find out for himself
Sep 6, 2016
Sep 6, 2016 at 5:49 AM UTC
Today my long tall tulip fell
His pearl-pink bulb had dared to swell
But blushen hung now like a bell
His slim and slender stem once towering
Arced to earth with posture cowering
Burdened by his glory flowering
How quickly he had seemed to climb
To bask in sudden sunlit prime
The longest flower, the shortest time
His adolescent orb once closed
With youthful promise, then exposed
More beauty than we all supposed
And eager straight he stretched to see
The furtive squirrels’ revelry
And blue jays jostling high in tree
His handsome head became a hand
Outstretched to welcome wide and grand
We who’d pale beside him stand
But now his palm points to the ground
Where loyal subjects once were found
A fallen king with withering crown
I saw you flower – be sure of this
Your scented cheeks I bent to kiss
Nor did a day of beauty miss
Though brief your waxing and your wane
Your colours left the purest stain
That in my mind’s eye does remain
In all the world where flowers grow
We sallow souls rush to and fro
Preoccupied, we miss the show
But when we pause to smell the blooms
Held captive by arresting plumes
Forget the sundry that consumes
Thus precious harried minutes take
Our reverie to gaily break
I noticed you -- make no mistake
I studied you that rare of gift
You gave my care-worn spirit lift
Then cut its soaring hopes adrift
Today my long tall tulip fell
Surrendering to Nature’s knell
And left us where he deigned to dwell
Feb 26, 2014
Feb 26, 2014 at 7:21 PM UTC
Willow herb floating
on silent certainty
ashes of sighs
not fleeting,
unvapoured on the
blossom of the rain,
I am too light to
pull or push
the swing of delight
through this land.
The rain left me for a
while
sun unshielding
-a thousand widows
more unyielding than the depths . .
Once shadowed whisperers
of delight,gossamer
sparkling , descending
their chains
of necromantic hope.
Lilith is no night owl
she is mother, eve
and my becoming:
sweet earth spun
at once ,
exhaling her .
The see saw
bumped gently
on my chin
it is a most gentle
form of awakening.
The silence bore no whispers
till sinking through the quicksand
-or was it quicksilver?
-in any case I could smell little
in my amniotic amnesia.
I made ten thousand friends,till their soap
made this place clean.
Is this a seed or a dying
hopefulness
-is my sallow sowing
beyond all shores of
reproduction;
a reflection of the child
they dared not bear?
Is my last breath like this
a forgotton yielding
will they catch me
as I fall ?
-(sweet earth)-
This moth of my ending,
a shallow recantation,
my fears-
their memories, mere
testubes of
stylish hope .
I breathe the elegant stare
you have forgotten .
Once more free
from such
rememberance
I need not ,
remained not ,
your imploded ,
wakefulness .
A thousand pardons
exhaled like silk
entwining
an unfinished race
spider of a thousand eyes .
One may say
I was
stared
to death
but surrogate air
mocks childish pity.
Taut refelexions
bear salt echoes
in silk convulsions
fresh water
a veneered hope .
Easier in death than life
is a child's sorrowed
partings ,
the illusion of
bouyancy
rippled tides
unfelt.
The oceans have not enough salt
for such shrunken sorrow.
if we could but once
have shared
unbreathed aspersion .
The room has come and gone
the pillow quite undry
unforgotten
unremembered.
A web untouched
Sep 27, 2010
Sep 27, 2010 at 7:46 AM UTC
My pupils scatter and drag.
I dream and eat the round, brown beads
In fitful sleep, my tongue pale and sallow.
This consciousness will not float.
The lids clatter shut like a kettle drum cooker,
A thing alive inside, more or less.
There is an echo,
Scuttle, and a cough. Strangers in the cellar.
There is no rightness to this, only sacrilege.
The unjust man chatters in my skull.
"Go home, go home!", I cry.
The sense of it all withers with the passing of the years.
Apr 5, 2018
Apr 5, 2018 at 10:31 PM UTC
All it took was three steps up
Doors swung open before me
I approached Him, who sat still and unmoving.
unaffected by Time but ravaged by the pain of doubt and ignorance
All it took was three steps forward
Then, strength and courage left me
Worn-down
Beaten by life’s merciless hand
My knees sank as Life’s hand grasped my shoulders and I felt his burden
My whole being collapsed upon the marble floor
The sound echoed and cruelly dealt a strike to my ears,
My senses and my soul
As if Moses struck the rock with his staff
The water came forth
Flowing freely from my soul against sallow, weary skin
Hands trembling
Body aching
I closed my eyes
I saw darkness but an image appeared
****** and bruised
It took all my strength
To utter three questions:
Why (to the Father)
Why does the grass grow, rich and fertile
only to provide for those that destroy it?
Why does my neighbor strip me bare and steal my coat
To leave me unsheltered from the cold wind’s bitter punishment?
Why must I walk this lonely and sullen earth
While the black crow pecks violently at my flesh?
Why? For I have loved but have been despised in return.
Who (to the Son)
Who is the snake that lies?
The brother that prays and the brother that kills?
The husband that beats and the wife that endures?
And the ****** Mother that reigns over all, even you?
Even me.
Who? For I know none and all of them.
Where (and to the Holy Spirit)
Where does the sky end and the Earth begin?
Is it where the body ceases to be and the soul takes over?
Is it where I made my first steps
And tumbled right after?
The indeterminable line between sea and sand;
Truth and lies
Where? For I have looked and looked.
My lips, salted and mad, trembled
Pain pierced my soul
I felt it all
And felt it again
My body began to thrash
I felt it upon me
Misery, sadness, death, despair
I became Samson, tearing down the pillars upon the accursed Philistines
I raged and roared
For hope, wisdom, strength, and faith
I opened my eyes
And Light filled me
Nov 2, 2012
Nov 2, 2012 at 2:27 AM UTC
Friday,
you smiled at me,
as I made my way out of the wreckage
Your smile was all I noticed,
set in your soft face,
teeth brighter than energy-savers
Now I know why you still smoke
And now it seems,
every man clad in black or grey,
a trench coat that buttons up to the neck,
is you..
You are an effigy,
of every man who masqueraded under the guise,
of potential lover
Who fumbled for their phones,
requesting mobile numbers,
Whose sallow hands have caressed me,
unwanted
But their teeth were unseen
Yours are a badge,
you proudly show off,
in all those smiles,
you give like gifts to me
But I can not keep them,
because they belong to the girl,
whose swollen lips you kissed,
not long ago
There is always another,
who expects your smile,
and knows by heart,
The number of teeth you keep
Dec 4, 2014
Dec 4, 2014 at 4:10 PM UTC
I don't know where, if it will end.
Refuse to voice or recommend.
To treat what ails us is pretend.
Slips through fingers apprehend.
To help more than to hurt,
reflexive sunny disposition
which can cradle sallow sleeping stoic pride.
Distinguishing the dirt,
collective run beside conviction;
acting ladle heavy, heaping, terrified.
Leave things better than you found them
Received our debtors stand; surround them.
I wonder if to soothe what ail,
under apprehension prevail.
Therein lies each us, our grail -
our demons sinking in each nail.
Feb 5, 2015
Feb 5, 2015 at 10:20 PM UTC
Vast, empty, midnight hour,
hunchbacked lampposts glaring over parasitic black earth
choking its host.
A parking lot,
an ecosystem’s blemish—
hot tar seeping into the pores of the earth
like a stubborn blackhead in a lip line.
When no cars burrow into the blackened hide
like lice
the great absence of life
is an atrocity.
I imagine myself skateboarding across the tier
as the small town cops
watch languidly with vague interest—
A skateboarder’s paradise
where wheels and accomplice minds roll across celestial barriers
blasting infinite pulses
into the microcosm.
What greasy punks have their mother’s van parked here,
huddling by the heat vents
and jerking off into a Pringle’s can?
Empty parking lot
looks like a cemetery
filled to the brim
where headstones meld
over a mass grave—
delineated by white lines,
the apparitions of vehicles and their hosts
haunt the frozen space.
Another horrible excuse
to waste land,
a wasteland in and of itself
where Tom Eliot saunters aimlessly
and buries the dead.
The saddest sight to behold,
this vacuous parking lot
littered with stray shopping carts,
phantasmal plastic bags,
gum splotches,
***** stains,
candy wrappers,
cigarette butts,
used condoms,
lonely cops
and patient drug dealers,
ambulant skaters,
tired punks,
bored teenagers,
somnambulists,
stumbling drunks,
hunchbacked ***** lights
prying for life beneath its sallow gaze—
The air encapsulated within the perdition
stifling,
the pavement below stifling,
a constriction only visible
when emptied of its contents.
A cop wakes from their choking nightmare gasping
to find themselves trapped,
****** in this parking lot
where the walkie-talkie buzzes
with the weeping and gnashing of teeth.
The warehouse store
looming above the waiting room
lifeless, silent, dark countenance—
Big Brother sees all in the gaping maw.
Cascading before me,
stretching towards the highway passing by,
waiting for the panorama to finish scrolling,
the treadmill to cease its cycle—
all the while lamenting life’s absence
and reveling in the potentiality it possesses.
Dec 28, 2016
Dec 28, 2016 at 10:18 PM UTC
Flood the sallow walls,
Calling forth the shadows,
My soul in the hands of the knife,
Deer in the headlights
Nov 5, 2011
Nov 5, 2011 at 9:25 PM UTC
An hour passed beneath the willow
Before we saw the sallow light,
It slipped and slid between the depths
Of dusk and clouds that own the night.
Still we sat, watching streams
That danced above the atmosphere
Where gravity begins to fade
Along with most of future’s fears
And still we sit and wonder why
We gild the lilies on the shore,
And still we sit and wonder why
We can’t say what we’re waiting for.
Oct 21, 2012
Oct 21, 2012 at 10:50 PM UTC