"saltine" poems
Ephemeral lips blooming fully crimson, loosening
Harmonious conjugation of rosewater and saltine sweat
Underneath my effigy of innocence
3 brittle thorns stick detached and of no use; pressed precisely, pinned to place
Making of me a bumblebee, lifeless in strong uninvited arms
May 9, 2013
May 9, 2013 at 9:57 PM UTC
I walked past my pantry
Late one Friday night
To the sounds of what appeared to be
The goings on of a party inside
I grabbed a hold the latches
Swung wide open the door
With absolutely no earthly idea
Of what was soon in store
Colorful lights were flashing
Somewhere in the back
I moved aside the ketchup and mayo
To see where it was at
I took out the pickles and saltine's
So I could better see
What all the commotion was inside
Of my food pantry
That's when I saw the flashing lights
Inside the jar of Nutella
I picked it up right away
Me being a some what curious fella
As I held it at eye level
It vibrated in my hands
In what felt like a driving rhythm
From a 70's Disco band
Can't say I wasn't nervous
As I loosened up the lid
No telling what was going on inside
What dangers lay ahead
With both hands slightly shaking
I removed the rounded top
There was a party in the making
And it was going on non stop
The Nutella had it's boogie on
Or if you prefer, it's groove
Whatever you wish to call it
A party was the mood
There was a strobe light and confetti
Even a tiny Disco ball
As I gazed over the edge of the jar
I saw banners wall to wall
I guess you could say Nutella
Is quite the party treat
That may cost you at the grocery store
But once home the cover charge is free
Jul 4, 2014
Jul 4, 2014 at 8:22 AM UTC
I don't like to call myself anorexic anymore
because I no longer skip meals
I haven't thrown up over a toilet
and I haven't weighed myself in a year
but the thoughts still exist
my mind still counts calories
for example there are 420 in the saltine ******* I just ate
which is already half way over my daily calorie intake
or would be half way over my daily calorie intake
if I was still anorexic
which I'm not
even though I haven't thrown away my scale yet
It just sits in my room like a prized possesion
Like a priceless talesmen I gained from my last adventure
sometimes I look at thinspiration
just to remember how good it felt
not that I save the photos to my phone anymore
not that I recite the words they say in my head
my favorite one though
not that I have a favorite one
would be having collar bones that collect raindrops
because I could do that
If I really tried I could get skinny enough to capture the rain
to walk outside, feel the drops, and have them stay
I still never finish my food
not that I'm counting calories anymore
but if I was the extra pieces of food on my plate would still count \
even when I eat food just to spit it out
not that I do that anymore
not that I'm anorexic again
because I'm not
I still think I'm fat
but who doesnt
I mean if you saw me in a dress you would know what I mean
I started wearing baggy clothes again
not that I have to hide how skinny I am
Because I'm not even starving myself
You know I gained 22 pounds?
Not that that's a problem
105 was underweight
but being in the 120s is not okay
maybe I'll cut back a little on what I eat
but I'm not anorexic
trust me
Feb 26, 2017
Feb 26, 2017 at 1:38 AM UTC
Chocolate & Hazelnut
Blended smooth as butter—
To delight taste buds,
Like no other.
Covering
Savory, Crisp
Saltine.
Just one more,
Please.
Dec 9, 2018
Dec 9, 2018 at 12:13 AM UTC
Bleary-eyed, an old man asks for change,
coins rattling in his hand. A woman
hands him saltine crackers across the aisle.
“God bless you,” he mutters, takes a seat,
and unwraps the plastic with shaking hands.
He smiles at her before she leaves the train.
Tonight, the passengers on the train
are surprisingly quiet for a change.
We are all staring down at our hands.
And then the silence breaks - a woman
cackles aloud to herself in her seat.
Her laughter travels up and down the aisle.
I overhear a conversation across the aisle
between a couple who’ve just entered the train,
and are searching for a pair of empty seats.
They’re muttering “the country is changing”
and they say they are afraid. The woman
sighs, and reaches for her lover’s hand.
I look over at a child holding her mother’s hand.
I meet the little girl’s gaze from across the aisle.
I see myself as a child too, but to her I’m a woman.
I wonder how often the little girl rides the train.
Does she long to see something else for a change -
something other than the back of a seat?
I notice a lady who has started dancing in her seat,
snapping her fingers and waving her hands,
bobbing to a silent beat. I imagine her changing
into a sequined dress and waltzing down the aisle,
giving everyone a performance to watch on the train.
I imagine standing up and dancing with that woman
and then everyone begins to dance with the woman -
we all jump up onto our seats
and suddenly we are in a ballroom, not a train.
We are tapping our feet and clapping our hands
to the music - the little girl across the aisle
is dancing with the old man who asked for change.
The train stops. We’ve arrived at my station. The dancing woman leaves the train. The passengers change and now there are strangers in their seats. I wave my hand goodbye to the little girl as I walk past her down the aisle.
Mar 6, 2021
Mar 6, 2021 at 7:50 PM UTC
Take me, Satan, for I have sinned.
I fell down on the job, fell down on my sword
but with no real purpose or cause. A martyr
for the sake of martyrdom is as useful as a
parka in Mexico.
Slit my wrists with a freeform kiss.
Cracked teeth, cracked skull, saltine crackers.
Counting calories, skipping meals.
Did it hurt to ascend from hell, and
how did you wash away
the grime?
I want to believe that you love me
but the world is unkind.
I need a shot of reassurance like a shot of
eighteen year old scotch, neat.
Rapid fire rejection, thunderstorms
of doubt. **** me with a smile. Rebuild
my psyche, brick by brick. Mortar me,
babe, and I'll adore you for it.
Melt into my mind and live there,
the mice who currently occupy
the quarters are hungry for
touch.
Ride my metaphor like
a throbbing **** longing for
release; please, release me.
Oct 8, 2014
Oct 8, 2014 at 5:02 PM UTC
Music pulls me into its arms,
made a bed for me in this sea of white noise
and for some reason,
it makes sense to sing about crying too
loud or unpacking suitcases or
open windows or
a spider’s web when you are as sad as I am.
It comes and it goes
as saltine waves or a heartbeat or drumming.
I wait for the day when I will become
a mermaid, able to breathe
underwater everything I have ever felt.
Tonight my body does not want to sleep, but
drown in a song of existence.
She floods my ears
through removing lesser known parts of me.
Jul 4, 2013
Jul 4, 2013 at 1:32 PM UTC
some mornings
even my hair
seems to behave,
when i don't need
it to -- like weather
or feelings.
after
today, i was content.
i finally got my bed
just the way i like it,
settled in, surrounded
by cush, and plush and
(dead insects)
despite
a growing discomfort
in my belly, i'm still fine;
saltine remedy, mint tea
potion.
a lovely girl asked
me to catch dreams for her.
of course i will, in jars like
fireflies, natural lanterns
to light up your
imagination.
but the
aching in my belly
seems intent on staying
until addressed appropriately--
sneakily
creeping up on me
like adolescent shenanigans--
acknowledgement is
reminiscence, the kind you
don't fancy at 1:00 am.
so i mulled it over,
going home; like
a kick in the shins,
it made me realize
that the little place
in me, maybe a vein
or vesicle, is still
missing.
it used to
be an ***** a limb;
in months it shrank to
an extremity, a digit,
finally infinitesimal--
but still
missing.
(now) i'm having trouble
making my peace
with the fact that you'll have
that artery, or capillary,
or soul atom for awhile
or forever, maybe.
but i think, i posit
in fact, perhaps
by march, a few
months more,
i'll forget and
be able to say
"it's yours."
Nov 20, 2012
Nov 20, 2012 at 4:45 AM UTC
We meet
in Spring,
but began in
the Fall.
Looking out
the window
of your car
I imagined running
my fingers over
cornfields like pages
of a book.
Watching the sunset
in the rearview mirror
as we moved forward
together, needing
two of my hands to
touch just one of yours.
Followed by 120 days
of realizing we both love
saltine crackers and both drool
when we sleep really well.
You loved listening
to my heartbeat and telling
me how it sounded and
when I couldn’t sleep
you’d pull my head to
your chest and tell me
to listen to yours.
120 days of you guessing
my favorite flower,
complementing my favorite cardigan,
picking my favorite book off the shelf
and reading to me, and attempting to tie
my hair in a ponytail or a bun.
And you touched like
my skin was ice and
your hands skates,
but that turned into you
grasping at me like
the room is flames
and my body oxygen
On the 120th night
you crawled into my bed,
I could taste the alcohol
on your mouth when you
told me you loved me
and I became addicted
to the taste.
After a week
I was Rory and you Dean
and with that began
our 39-day happy hour.
Until the 159th night
when you took back
that you loved me and
I knew I never could again.
My skin regressed
back to ice and the next
45 days was our last call,
numb to it all.
On the 204th day
you were Summer and
I was Tom eating pancakes
in a diner.
All I did was stare
at the buttons on
your shirt and think
about the time we
saw the moon and you
asked for me to write a
poem but little did you
know I have been this
whole time:
Iris Moon
Marble Moon
Missed Moon
Monday Blues
Button Moon
Spring Cleaning.
And never moonstruck.
We lasted 12 more days
and when we ended my first
thought was that I can now:
cut my hair
count again
and write again.
Jun 22, 2015
Jun 22, 2015 at 2:02 PM UTC
i know you said i shouldn’t wait for you
but like sandra d
when it comes to love,
i have nothing better to do
every other boy is
a dry saltine *******
so let me keep my broken mood ring, babe
i don’t care if it’s stuck on blue
Apr 10, 2013
Apr 10, 2013 at 12:24 PM UTC
I was borderline batshit,
I hadn't slept for two nights,
and every time I closed my
eyes, my desperate mind
sent itself into R.E.M.
The hallucinations
were only fun up to a point,
as soon as I saw monkeys in
gas masks, I fixed another ***
drank three or four cups,
I promised I'd wait up,
and Ms. Gloria had promised to come by last night.
My belly began to roar,
I ate a saltine, one **** packet
left, and then no groceries.
I opened the freezer,
a couple trays of ice,
half a fifth of *****
"Ah, hell," and ****** off
the remainder in three or four hits.
I turned on the tv,
I forgot their was a war going on.
It didn't take long for my mind to bite.
I took a front row seat for the
viewing of my ego's defeat.
I was holding up well,
using the gunshots as a
backing symphony to
some poetry I was clumsily
penning.
It was something about
texting girls and semi-trucks,
but I lost the ******* notepad
I was writing it on,
I stood up to go take a ****
and my head fell to the soles,
back met carpet quickly,
monkeys and gas masks,
I heard my phone ring,
I rolled on my side,
in an attempt to crawl to it,
then woke up 6-hours later,
to someone pounding the ****
out of my door.
Nov 4, 2010
Nov 4, 2010 at 9:30 AM UTC
In a dream I am standing small between ceiling high cherry wood shelves;
books of blue, red, black, white and taupe glow as gemstones set on a neat and comfortable display.
I scan my minds library, my nose tensing with the tickle of soft, thick air.
A dust has settled over the milky calfskin with the plated gold zipper,
cross nestled securely in the fold of the top left corner.
Inside gilded pages stand ***** and entombed, making a catacomb of unread stories, of forgotten lives.
Once opened, unfamiliar text peels from the page,
soon figurines of ink dance for me before hardening into rows of letter like statuettes.
After indulging my curiosity
my cheeks are left wet with the saltine byproduct of sorrow, bloodshot eyes glazed over.
Like the televised open-heart surgery we find ourselves perpetually glancing up at
I read on.
Brown faces contorted and pallid feature wide eyes
whites more yellow than white with spherical black centers.
A thousand babies cry to me as if in mourning
and with their despair buzzing in my skull and crawling on my skin
I shut the book and pull the zipper.
Jul 8, 2013
Jul 8, 2013 at 2:02 AM UTC
Title-out of place- by meself. A boor I am to peasantry's sultry disgrace, cargo to be tended, I subsist unamended, how childish I play these games. Liquer buds, saltine love crumbles beneathe day room lock-outs! Eyes stare ablazed, the hued sunset repeadily turns masterpiece of horrid honeymoons idealistic and realistic to discussions seeming strange. Partial bodies secrete the grassed out hills, morning calling awaits.,,,,,
May 9, 2015
May 9, 2015 at 11:03 AM UTC
There is an inch of sleight in this house – this cold chair,
a burst of cologne clogging a 20 minute stride. The stringent
air tonight blusters deeper than gashing sheens.
The little dryad of dew outside and the cadenza of frogs
after lambaste of rain. Whenever you sing, your voice
communes an immense pain, something unconscious of its
gravity, something that levitates back to momentary ululations
swelling in the grime of times and heady chances. A long stretch
of a day submerged in silence resembling a howl underwater.
There will be many sorrows and they will take form of doves,
assume the skin of the populace. They will come in a volume of
names pressing the linoleumed musk the way the body turns
maneuvering over the saltine, the mattress, juxtaposed to a lover,
a brusque aroma of coffee brushing away the calm demeanor
of the morning, dragging along the weight of its lassitude
towards the sprays of fern opening a dense ornate of forget,
you, in all places that pulse without recall – an obtuse
fish feeling its life in a surge of blue, overtime, finally knowing
what it means to sing and drone only words.
Feb 3, 2016
Feb 3, 2016 at 10:20 AM UTC
Take me to the place I know.
The lake that looks cold, where the wind stings your skin.
Take me there, away from here. Away from
saltine tears and diminishing reality.
Take me to the place I think I know.
The cliff by the sea, where the waves crash loudly.
Take me there, take me anywhere.
I don't even know what is reality.
Jul 9, 2021
Jul 9, 2021 at 4:55 AM UTC
Weird words of working men
Collar wearing ******
Peacemakers clanging swords
Breastplates of hate
I watch us all get churched
On the ways of cruelty
I can’t stop crying
Cause love used to be
So beautiful to me
Two men holding hands
To friends kissing publicly
No shaming
Now there is violence
We break the silence
With days of silence
But it never seems
To stop the screams
And suicides
Children hang out
Flailing lifelessly
The memory haunts me
Even though it is not mine
Pale boy loves a brown boy
Sweet proclamations
Of their affections
Poetic exultations
Holding each other
As their salvation
To be loved is a wonderful thing
To be touched is a mercy
But fire burns to close
To the core of fury
Angry faces hide behind
Masks
We ask
For love
But brutality
Is their response
And now the saltine sorrow
Overflows
The ocean grows
As one more love
Is demolished
And the world becomes
A lot darker
Oct 31, 2015
Oct 31, 2015 at 5:19 PM UTC
"THE BREAKDOWN COMES WHEN YOU STOP CONTROLLING YOURSELF / AND WANT THE RELEASE OF A BLOODBATH" - JENNY HOLZER
I. Vanitas Vanitatum
[The stage is set: a paper moon against a starless, greyscale sky. GINSBERG howls. He's nostalgic for all he'd assumed was forgotten; desperate to never recall it again. His numbered days are manufactured: ELIOT reclines, watching the world end.]
CHORUS OF PROPHETS:
In our own sins we trusted,
both in essence and in nature.
Hell was never an inferno:
it is an echo chamber.
We have nothing (-- we have nothing --)
but maxims and jumbled alphabets
and lightly-sparkling bitterness
when the cork pops feebly from the bottle;
(-- nothing! --) dripping saltine hate.
We've lived large and small, been tiny and tall;
always filling too much space in a too-big room
where our presence is ironically scarce.
There is nothing for you here,
bar vacant lungs and river water --
take a breath and join us
in sinking to
(sinking!) the
(sinking!) bottom
(sinking,) of
(sinking...) the
Styx.
II. Et Omnia Vanitas
[Enter PLATH, SEXTON, WOOLF, BYRON, DICKINSON and VARIOUS PHARMACEUTICAL BRAND REPRESENTATIVES.]
You know not what you could be
but merely what you are
and that alone is traumatic enough.
Taste it, a slice at a time:
the disillusionment from having raised your hopes beyond rotting in the soil,
the anger upon realising this was your own fault and all you want to do is scream,
the bargaining, the denial, the scream (you were not born to live). The gradual processing. The scream!
Scream at the moon and scream at the walls and scream into pillows and howl and wail and hack away at the flesh and screech until plastic surroundings melt and it is only you and the void you willed upon yourself.
III. Epitaph (What Now?)
[A white-fur baby seal is camouflaged upon the ice
and, eyes closed, fools itself into thinking it survived.]
What happens next is no act of evil:
this is survival of the fittest.
We are bottom-rung of the food chain
and starving predators need to eat.
[We lick the ground and taste defeat.]
Ruby poppies reach heavenward --
small birds take their maiden flights.
I shrivel, putrid in the soil,
in the winter of my life.
Aug 29, 2019
Aug 29, 2019 at 7:44 PM UTC
I can only summon feelingfulness like the passing of a dove,
postponing its arrival mid-air, somewhere along the tucked
bramble across Poblacion, starting with metaphorical sensibility
or an insensibly bland space to procure wanted meaning.
Girls prefer roses and their bright foreheads diademed with more
flowers, and boys, their chiaroscuro or lack of a color thereof, seems
to be fitting in this maladroit contrast, and so I begin, as always,
with your very vague and caged memory. Your face, the whiteness
of snowcapped alps. Your strut, my slalom in a treacherous course
of words reduced to whisperings, to flutings. Your voice, though nuanced,
flitters with an overtone of arrogance: if sound was clothed, yours would
be flamboyant ermine. And the line in front of you before I, my arbitrary turn,
assimilates into a picturesque form of waiting somewhere in Cubao.
I wanted to smash myself with train-speed towards the metallic turnstile,
which, would then famish me even so, just as much as I wish to be a car crash
somewhere within the outskirts of your town, heavily vandalized by the swill
of squalor hefting itself like the rest of the world conscious of its viscera.
This is how I start you – like waiting for the sun to emerge by Borobudur,
or the clandestine *** of mildew and grass, a hundredfold of images appear
before me and I cannot choose upon my whims and caprices. Are you a dove?
A spear of Sun? A thunderous crackle of an impending rain? A harlequin?
A moseying cirrus? Or just another by-stander in the crowds where I ultimately
seek your being?
This answerlessness measures my knowledge of star, and my breath snuffed
out of me while I sigh from exhausted penchants, outweigh dissimilarities and symmetries.
A progeny from all superseding conundrums arises: are you a retrogression of a wave
back to its saltine wound, flailing in brine? Or are you just the vast sea and nothing else
on a fine and lucid day where children skip stones and chant name-callings?
I sense the peril in this undertaking, and much to my chagrin, I still
do not know how to end you.
Jan 27, 2016
Jan 27, 2016 at 3:09 AM UTC
My *******
My redneck
My backlashing
My slave selling
Mi ******
e
Mi amigo
a hick
that's a ****
Mar 8, 2016
Mar 8, 2016 at 5:29 PM UTC
I know the world has only space
for a woman and her heart, her ******* emblazoned in the trees,
her depths in voluminous books – let only the saltine water
touch her brindled body atilt amongst the lilies in the silver dawn
and that her cusped hands demand a softer hue of love whereas
the salacious wind continues its grasp championing things both fragile
and sturdy: the world slides in the coloured curve of a woman
and the men dare too, follow the road where they meet first with
death sitting still with the roses like a splendid fragrance stilled in the mind
leading you to a garden which thorns are ensconced
in a smoothness that sings salutations to love – as I remain to be
nose-deep sheath after sheath, **** after **** stalking the
perfume of the world a woman owns.
Jan 16, 2016
Jan 16, 2016 at 4:07 AM UTC
Title-out of place- by meself. A boor I am to peasantry's sultry disgrace, cargo to be tended, I subsist unamended, how childish I play these games.
Liquer buds, saltine love crumbles beneathe day room lock-outs! Eyes stare ablazed, the hued sunset repeadily turns masterpiece of horrid honeymoons idealistic and realistic to discussions seeming strange.
Partial bodies secrete the grassed out hills, morning calling awaits.,,,,,
May 9, 2015
May 9, 2015 at 10:09 PM UTC
moist eyes fall upon the limp figurine
of a jewel encrusted snowman with a corncob knife.
i dream walk through the ether of our dislocated soul.
i comb the beach of our lost island
and build a raft from our bones
and a lock of your eyelashes,
flashing in the wink above -
your high cheeks
in the moon glamour of your perfect skin.
we smile untethering the harness
from our rogue star
we sally forth across the empty streets of Hell's burg. on the outskirts
of an astral cataract...
a laughing gloom with night's teeth tearing at the hem
of your lace robes and my nakedness.
with moist eyes drooling saltine gems
like dewdrops dripping from the lip of a cracked goblet of frozen fire.
our eyes that fall upon the void, weeping from the answer to a foolish prayer,
answered by a jealous god. our testament is dust and deep Love.
we have no other sky above, as is the custom of deep space...
we drift with our horses, across the nether bridge of our uncertainties....
and there
we part ways.
you go where the sun
has slain the moon.
i go where the moon's never been. and sleep in droves.
holding your hand like a grain of hope
and your heart like a golden
shadow
too heavy to lift
from the
unknown
Dec 25, 2015
Dec 25, 2015 at 3:49 PM UTC
sangkutsa— sana'y kartada nuwebe
stove -- so much inner blue
in this gruesomeness,
still soft is the orifice, maiming
the speech whirling in warm press;
hand -- to just blindingly toss out
in wording it so that then this is true:
we once had each other in the
simmer of feelings, leaving
our shadows crazy-eyed in
elegiac silence.
rawness -- boiled to a broth:
thawing largeness, tipping away in
and of feeling.
final stages --- half-done in waiting,
half-undone in wanting. darkness
condoles with the aperture of
clouds twitching to rain tritely
against the tiled floor. islands of
wet footmarks make the traverse
viciously slippery on my way
to your side of breathing.
all of it -- hand's gentle breeze,
salt of lake-eyes, melee of tactical pressures sizing down spots gleamed
and honeyed with ires. a hiss
on landscaped neck where a peregrinating perfume sits, feverish with
desire and nothing else,
blood boiling, whistling through the pores are the saltine sweat
poised, almost
for the mouth's readiness
in consummation.
Oct 11, 2015
Oct 11, 2015 at 8:14 AM UTC
borderline obsessed,
reach-for-the-stars-over-the-fence
with a side of nausea & self-loathing.
bus side advertisements like Post-It Notes,
Manolos and Choos berserk in clouds of smoke and storms of ***
lots of ***
rice pudding, saltine ******* sandwiches
and coloring with breakfast banter
illuminate a beige bed of two sullen indents
draped in love
Aug 25, 2015
Aug 25, 2015 at 3:23 PM UTC
There once was a girl who couldn't look in the bathroom mirror without shedding a tear
who couldn't think about the size of her stomach without wanting to shove her fingers down her throat
who didn't even want to eat because she thought about her stomach increasing in size
as if eating a saltine ******* would make her gain 10 pounds.
She thought this girl was gone.
until she realized she wanted to be able to see her ribs. but she couldn't.
so she cried herself asleep for the hundredth night in a row as if crying could make her shed a single pound.
as if no one could love her because the thickness of her thighs
she thought she wasn't good enough to be loved, that no one could even look at her without a disgusted face unless she weighed less than 100 pounds.
but then she learned.
you should love someone because you care about their well being,
not because of the way they take their clothes off
she realized that you are worth so much more than the number that appears when you step on a scale
your beauty isn't about how clear your skin is
it's about the way your eyes sparkle when you talk about the things you love,
the things you adore
it's about the way the sides of your mouth curl up when you smile
and the way you laugh when you're happy
your beauty consists of your imperfections.
May 21, 2016
May 21, 2016 at 9:57 PM UTC