"salvaging" poems
i want you to imagine standing in the middle of an already collapsing house, and having everything suddenly flip upside down; or after years of homelessness, picture yourself being told you had somewhere you could stay for good, only to wake up just before being handed the keys. these are some of dangers of making places out of people.
1. don't ever turn a human being into a home unless you are prepared to be evicted without warning.
2. when you start to notice their arms taking the shape of a roof over your head, you have two choices: run, or wait for it to cave.
3. if they ask you to stay and burn with them, you have the right to say no.
4. it is not your responsibility to save anyone, and it is not your fault when you can't.
5. salvaging the photos from a house fire will only re-break your heart every time you pull them out to look at them.
6. when the basement floods, hold their hand.
7. if you are not a strong swimmer, remember that the difference between love and codependence is that one of then will drown you.
8. love will never drown you.
9. i knew this from the start but let you hold me beneath the waves in spite of it, just so you could stay afloat. i can't do that anymore.
10. i don't think i'll ever set foot on your hardwood floors again, but i'll pray that someone new moves in soon.
- m.f.
Mar 5, 2014
Mar 5, 2014 at 7:39 PM UTC
My hands were shaking
Not as hard as yours, I'm sure
You almost lost everything and I
was forced to watch,
bearing silent witness to a
destruction not my own
but at which I felt at fault,
thus I digested it as my own
Who knows?
In my mind, I had lived fantasies of
something like this happening--
you, helpless, I hold fast to your life and then
salvaging you, just barely,
scaring us both out of life and then
falling back into something new--
dark, strange, and yet intimate
This has happened to me twice now (for real)
and neither time was nearly as glamorous as
I had played out in my mind
(I'm a stupid girl)
Both times I felt drained of a vital energy I couldn't
call back--ever
I became an echo
of me
and us?
we were skeletons of
the children we once were. Both times
robbed me---
of sleep, and years, and appetite.
robbed me---
of innocence, and soul, and
love
which always
bleeds out uncontrollably
in times like these
unclottable
and out with love
spreads guilt and shame
(I'm a jinx, I'm a cursed girl)
across the tar, filling the black empty
cracks with invaluable energy
Full of foreign weight
cargo stored too long
too far pushed down our throats
too removed
My hands were shaking
Not as hard or as long as yours
I'm sure
Feb 9, 2015
Feb 9, 2015 at 7:28 PM UTC
*Soul is the sole sanctuary
A sojourn for serenity
A soulful journey starts
And sorority with peaceful self
Salvaging the soul from strife*
© Amitav (Radiance)
May 1, 2014
May 1, 2014 at 1:16 PM UTC
Distant shadows,
Traveling into the absence of light.
Illuminating a pathway of sorrow,
Imagining the beauty of Helen’s sight.
Diving into the abyss,
Searching for lost remains.
Encountering a series of melancholic words,
Reliving one's past fate.
Salvaging sunken letters,
Written in Cephalopod ink.
Subsiding into Davy Jones' locker,
In quest of the skeleton key.
Pursuing the Sirens voice,
Inducing a tidal wave.
Awakening to disillusion,
Anchoring hope to reality once again.
By: Michael M. De La Fuente
Apr 13, 2016
Apr 13, 2016 at 10:03 AM UTC
she exiled herself from the
atmosphere that ended her in tears
and she lay flat on the ground,
didn't care, didn't fear.
she made an angel by herself
she wished was here
to banish her griefs
and as a snowflake landed
on her bare, exposed neck,
she fumbled over the word
love just as the snowflake
melted, her blood cells jumped
as the sheer cold drip of water
licks the lovebite solemnly.
two delinquent angles neared her
reeking of alcohol and fresh sins
salvaging her with broken thoughts
and beer bottles;
and another snowflake landed
on her bare, exposed neck,
but this time, it didn't melt.
Dec 13, 2013
Dec 13, 2013 at 6:58 AM UTC
I found myself missing you the other day,
So I made you a little figurine
Out of clay.
It was a little soldier, his sword drawn in
Triumph.
It was just the type of thing I knew
You would enjoy.
You could put it on your bed-side table.
I painted it to match the color scheme of your
Bedroom.
I know you told me never to give you anything,
Since you knew you would feel the need to
Reciprocate.
And I remember how you said you hate doing that,
For fear of rejection, perhaps.
Your pride is inconceivably fragile.
I felt this the moment before we
First kissed.
You stood stoically, waiting for
Me
to move closer.
Waiting for
Me
To initiate.
So I did.
Months pass by,
And I figure that giving you my little soldier,
A tangible token of my affections,
Could serve as a similar
Initiation.
Because really,
It is far too late to prevent me from giving you anything.
Such pride-salvaging boundaries are impractical when
I have already given you the most
Intimate part of
Me.
It was merely my body’s warmth, at first.
A throbbing desire,
A muscle spasm,
A rapturous aftershock,
And then, unwittingly,
Those things transcended flesh,
Becoming the reality of my
Soul.
So you see,
You have already given me more than you
Intended, either.
And I just needed to give you something palpable,
So you could see me, and touch a piece of me
Even when I was away.
Because I was hoping that you were missing me
Too.
Until this morning,
When I clumsily knocked my little figurine
Off of the kitchen counter.
All I have to give you now,
Is in dozens of
Irreparable pieces.
So I am inclined to believe
That the reality you kindled
Within my soul,
Was too fragile and too fleeting
To be
Initiated
In your own.
I picked up the shards
Of clay, and
Cried in regret.
Knowing that you would really have loved what I
Made for you,
Had you ever gotten the chance
To see it.
Dec 28, 2011
Dec 28, 2011 at 11:55 AM UTC
waiting outside of the recording studio
near the train tracks and the tall buildings
running out of time.
an old gypsy woman
wearing magenta rubber boots
and riding a stained crimson fixed gear
passes me, trains come and go billowing
their impatient whistles
as I take double exposures of them and the sky
with my lomo 35mm.
Ate nothing but six shots
of espresso
and a pack of cigarettes last night, with
a side of liquor which
reminded me too much of memories too good
to be worth remembered .
Best advice I've read in three months;
wear sunscreen, and realize that
good advice is wasted on the young,
advice is also a form of nostalgia,
the givers of it reach out to the dirtier parts
of their memories, clean it up into something
hopefully worth salvaging.
another train passes and I start to grow
impatient myself, a long day of work
ahead of me.
Jan 26, 2012
Jan 26, 2012 at 1:58 AM UTC
Before the birth of Me
I felt a warm light shined on my eyes, informing me to prepare for the World.
And my birth felt like an employee stepping out of a building into a cold, blistering December
where your toes and fingers are numb as a soldier's brain
but your heart keeps pumping like an Ethiopian salvaging water in the wilderness
Dec 12, 2014
Dec 12, 2014 at 12:20 AM UTC
Hey Mom,
I just wanted to tell you about the amazing day I am having. First, I woke up to water dripping on me, as if the leaky roof were trying to improve the lumpy bed by giving it a good soak- when the brochure said I “would feel closer to nature more than ever,” I didn't think it meant so literal. After salvaging some semi-dry clothes, I went outside to realize my car window had been broken into. It was dumb of me for leaving my laptop bag in the car when I got in last night, I was just so exhausted from the drive. Well, you know how I get when I get upset, so I chunked my phone, as if it was the one causing my great morning. It landed in some bushes, and after wrestling with the branches for a bit, I finally saw him. Not even ten feet away from my phone did I see the most beautiful pelican. Something about his simple eyes, looking at me with some mixture of boredom and apathy, made me realize where I was. The cool air filled my lungs, leaving smell of salt in my nose. The sand I was sitting in was warm from the sun, feeling like that cozy quilt grandma made for me years ago.
So yeah, today was an amazing day.
With Love,
Chris
Sep 15, 2021
Sep 15, 2021 at 11:39 AM UTC
Spine tantalizing sensations
Bringing xylophone ribcage shivers to a halt
Salvaging an output of love
From an input of purity
Find me tangled in webs of elation
Laying prey to your immensity
Riddles I don't want to solve yet
Simply to relish in moments of you
Each day comes as relinquish
From times before we found love
Hidden in blanket forts and wedding rings
Loving each other like children
Feb 25, 2015
Feb 25, 2015 at 2:16 PM UTC
I thought I was on my way home but who's to say I got the right directions;
Curious and afraid so I dissect myself like an insect,
Parts of me scattered across this city like windshield manslaughter at an intersection.
The sky wept with harsh cry and pained screech; the clouds evaded.
I could use more shade for ***** deals in shady places,
Dark corners and alley way sections where the shadows burst and cross the line to devour my body and run the worst parts of my mind.
Where did I go wrong? How am I not dead?
How did a silhouette become so mislead?
There's no salvaging anything. I rebuilt and in the end everything returned to being burned.
I'm alive in the furnace though my ashes have surfaced.
Or really I am dead and what you see is something darker has my body and with it always comes it's purpose.
Could it be I've been gone for a long time?
Why say sorry, when it's a waste of breathe,
Don't try to change the path, it's a waste of step,
My past always defeats me, an attribute that I regret.
We make the best with what we get.
We make the best with what we get.
What is it called when we go bad?
Not expired, because we're not dead.
But we're rotten to the core.
Should I write and play the chord,
or should I I leave and cut the cord
Jun 9, 2014
Jun 9, 2014 at 2:00 AM UTC
A little girl; so innocent
Broken, like concrete
Forsaken in this world
As God had chosen to replete
Forever damaged
Spare me the deceit
That I have long encountered
Mentally ****** and incomplete
I broke the mirrors
That distorted my vision
I am not perfect
I am far from precision
Just a judicial decision
To execute this excision
To ensure that this provision
Of unwanted unborn children
Remain broadcasted on public television
For the captivity of the elderly
Scorned, defeated and miserable
Left in utter decay
Salvaging day and night
Part of this twisted foreplay
That took place on Christmas Eve
For Chirst to be born
On such a horrible day, to entail
This sad story of evil
Demons from hell rose in this tale
But Jesus did nothing
Except to defy the Holy Grail
My exorcism, my ghost
To whom shall I toast?
To the one who left me to burn?
To define myself in these lies
God, I am flawed by your unconcern
Jesus, I am mocked by your reputable lies
For that you deserve a noble prize
Can't you see the concern in my eyes?
I have lost my allies
And I have become the worst
That I could possibly be
Part taking in these sins
Is that what you wanted from me?
You deny my existence
You hide behind pride
You force coincide
And you deny individuality
You force this conceited ******* to form
Or so you implied
Turns out the shock was worldwide
But that didn't stop you
From setting me aside
Sitting in your corner
Contemplating
Is she human or a mutation
Something somewhat malformed
Or perhaps just a devil
An ogre at best
Fine be that way
I am not one to detest
My worst side though
I do not advise you test
I am not blessed
For it is in black that I dress
"Satan's spawn!" they protest
Is it my fault that I am possessed?
Conniving and witty
I am sick of this mess
God you put me here
But nevertheless
I am obscene
And forever your mess
Dec 11, 2011
Dec 11, 2011 at 5:10 PM UTC
There is an uncomfortable ledge on the tip
of your tongue. It is the place where your
flimsy thoughts uneasily sway, and in these
debating moments of loosely hanging on,
you decide to spit or swallow. For you, it is
the worst place for words to stoop, and
sometimes your tongue just flicks them out
like cigarette buds and all you can do is look
down the ledge in disbelief. I catch the words
at the bottom, salvaging rusted-penny-like
sentences. If I pocket enough, I know I will
be able to give them worth. I will surely turn
uncertain stammers into something much more
amiable and toss myself up the sill; our anxious
balconies colliding and combining. I absorb
the last fretful words, out of your mouth,
and sip the apology slowly off your lips.
Jan 30, 2014
Jan 30, 2014 at 2:41 PM UTC
*I want my kisses to burn a hole in your head
your body, pressed against mine
your moans and screams salvaging my ears
I want to make love to our memories....*
Mar 4, 2017
Mar 4, 2017 at 11:33 PM UTC
It's a shared pain that shifts weight as denial grows. Each of us has suffered the grief of loyalty unreciprocated.
You held my faith as I held your hand. Your grip loosened and like salvaging a favorite paperback book, pages slipped out individually until an empty shell met back to front.
That shared pain is called to fill in the empty spaces that naïveté leaves. The weight becomes a burden on those of us who expect more.
There is no resolution for betrayal. I lock my fears up tight and covet the pain.
You can see the ones who shoulder this burden in the warm grave of routine, going through the motions of daily life without a smile or by putting off life's responsibilities for the sake of blissful sleep.
Jan 4, 2014
Jan 4, 2014 at 7:18 AM UTC
The soles of my feet,
raw.
Mile after mile, i run
To clear my mind, but deep down it’s to see how far away I’m able to get from this version of myself
My spine,
bruised.
Sticking out like thorns in a garden, piercing the skin
Every sit up brings me closer to pain.
Fingers and toes,
cold and brittle.
The blood does not flow fast enough anymore to keep me warm.
Once iron filled, now ghostly pale.
But
don’t you dare try to write me off
as if I am completely broken
when all I am is cracked.
I will learn how to fill the missing pieces,
the parts that slowly dissipated behind closed doors.
Trust me,
I am worth salvaging.
Sep 8, 2018
Sep 8, 2018 at 4:09 PM UTC
post dim sum,
I had my lights dimmed.
walking back to the car,
slipping on the winter-slicked
tile steps of my favorite Chinese
noodle hut, down I went.
limbs and crutches akimbo,
there was no salvaging my dignity.
I lost the daily challenge after enjoying
some twice-cooked pork.
Cerebral palsy doesn’t **** around
in the wintertime.
and I was reminded all too thoroughly
just who the boss is,
and it sure wasn’t me.
when asked to describe my day-to-day
to the able-bodied,
I always say: “It’s like being born with roller-skates on
but never being able to learn how to skate.”
and I still don’t know.
(my elbow, my knee, and Pam are well aware.)
***
-JBClaywell
© 2016 P&ZPublications
Jan 6, 2016
Jan 6, 2016 at 6:29 PM UTC
- You gave me in the shining image raw with
Water, claws and streaming head
- That oblate crunch of teeth
Set in a grin that lives and dies with all our rivers.
Loving on the run,
You keep your red blood rapture close:
Defiant body heat
Amongst the Winter reeds and ******* eddies
Lit with bone white moons coldly
Whispering to the quaking weak
'you..and you - you will not see the Spring...'
But YOU - You will
You've got it sorted you have - YOU!
And I know about your Previous -
Oh yes, Sunshine, the list goes on:
That already-landed trout,
The picnic scraps,
The soggy **** (a shock they were!)
The little girl in daddy's boat
Who so wanted you for home and comfort...
But you love and leave them all YOU do.
Hey! Come back here! I've got more questions to…
But you've gone of course -
A bark, a twist, a finger (if you had one) to the bleary world.
Taking your pagan grace to depths we cannot see.
The Celtic torq of crystal bubbles track
Your ancient underwater poetry and poise
This artist's camera lightly saves.
And me?
My hopeful words: a suffixed flap
Of flattened gestures;
While slim you slip away
To snap your life on Life,
Salvaging the Sun
For Spring,
For us.
Feb 4, 2010
Feb 4, 2010 at 10:07 PM UTC
14
Every song or sonnet
singular in its intricacy,
in time it becomes something
other, hyper-personal and resonant.
14 things may burst into millions.
13
Three times I've felt alone
this minute. I should stop tallying
hours in my schedule, messy
rubric.
12
11-years old and jumping off
mud-mounds, playing King of the
Hill. The strongest rises to the top.
The cleverest usurps.
11
One thing for certain:
we are human. We are
not human.
10
Six times in school I got
detention. It was often due
to my willingness to be a
follower, silly sheep to a
slaughter.
9
Five languages of love we are
sure of, no more so far.
8
10 tally marks looks a lot
like less. Some things, like
people, refuse to show their
face.
7
13 is supposedly an unlucky
number. At this age I uncovered
a part of myself I did not know
before. Discovery. This is luck.
6
A dozen is meant to represent 12
because it is simpler, same syllables
only one less letter, a convenience.
5
If you flip an eight on its side
you can see forever.
4
Seven times I've thought this poem
gimmicky.
3
[redacted for time constraints
and continuity]
2
The artist places her pen to
paper and borrows, not stealing
so much as salvaging, wrapping
old presents in neat new bows,
satin or silk or rough twine.
Nine variations on the same
subject.
1
Four lids harbor two eyes,
a galaxy, universe,
each hiding half a heaven
from view.
Jun 20, 2016
Jun 20, 2016 at 3:23 PM UTC
Salvaging through all the minds of the forsaken,
The blunt-force-object I carry is shaking them up again.
If this is the end,
I'm going to break,
Not bend.
The decent ones all think I have wasted,
To trash in their little laced-up lives.
They're giving me hives,
And it makes me want to die!
If you speak one more time,
And tell me to get it right,
You'll be left out for the flies!
You're cutting all your corners,
And you'll feel the weight of the world,
I eat the curses that you hurl,
Like a bleach and razor meal.
At least the ******* rats on my floor,
Know when they are done for.
You're not even a rat!
You are your own designed filth.
How about you use your whining mouth to blow me,
I won't rest until you are killed.
Maybe you won't be complaining if you're buried alive in cement.
But this wall keeps me out of Heaven,
Maybe the wall is heaven-sent.
It's not good versus evil,
More like hemophilia and war!
I'll laugh when you're jokes aren't true.
Otherwise be silent too.
Mar 25, 2014
Mar 25, 2014 at 6:54 PM UTC
Blood in the thoughts
Destruction and abyss
Antithetical to nurture and growth
The bleakness has become real
There’s no excuse,
Muse, but still you will loose
There’s no one to blame this time
Take it how you will but it’s not the world
Its just you
You broke the world and you didn’t even know
Trust and worthiness was left wrapped in your arms
But you rapped them both without a doubt
Now you realized what you did and it’s too far-gone
The only dove in the world was entrusted in your arms
And you shot it because your veins were raging with blood
So you lost your judgment and your sight
Don’t blame the sky for being too blue
At the moment you knew what you were shooting
And you took your aim
Now the peace has been shattered down to the ground
Even if you repair the wound there will always be a scar
And you have just tainted peace a little bit more
Instead of protecting it from the same danger
Like you promised all along
A pact between ocean and the stone that fell
Just remembrance, for the pain and joy was being dragged
To the depths of the dark hidden ocean floor
But it could not stay down forever as it washed ashore
Before it disappeared again into volumes of blue
But the moon is not forgiving for it pinches the ocean
And the stone gets spat out for the pain to be seen on the beach
How can it be destroyed before more damage is reached
Even the tides of time are having a difficult obstruction
In the dissolution of the stone for it keeps building form
Every time it comes back to the surface
Meanwhile the ocean is fighting to suppress it
Make it disappear with only but a trace
And the mess you made
Better do something with it before its too late
Don’t let it drag you away
Before you lose the way you’ve made
Oceans disturbed, doves broken, and entrustments ruptured
There’s no turning back but only looking forward
To salvaging what has been kept you moving along
If only a treasure you cared not to care
So you damaged it deliberately because you were desperate with desire
Now take what you will and detach the stone from your ocean
Save the dove for the voyage but don’t take from it what is not yours
And rescue the entrustments for it will carry you both
Aug 5, 2011
Aug 5, 2011 at 6:09 AM UTC
Your shoulders, sturdy,
hold me, heavy,
I am groggy but awake.
Push at a rock and hope it will move.
You reap what you sow but I did not
plan for your barren lands,
I hadn't thought of the desert,
I have not been able to dream, I have yet to fall asleep.
Watch me fall into the abyss of my own unconscious, salvaging dollops of conversations we have not had.
Look at you ramble... uneasy, too afraid to let
a comfortable silence sit between us, too insecure
to share anything but emptiness disguised as words.
I did not believe in the power of company,
and their influence.
Now all I can do is stare inertly at the fallow lands of my nightmares
Only to awake, heaving, still heavy, gesticulating wildly,
reaching for familiarity.
I hate this obstinate reality.
We are friends by habit not love.
Dec 29, 2013
Dec 29, 2013 at 6:25 PM UTC
i never understood why people decided to couple such symbols into images esp. in fictional narratives rather than see the sound in lipstick smooched for symphony; how hard you try, the a to z will not provide you with a mental cinema image of a giraffe; more like a gaff, and what's a gaff in photo? leopard on giraffe or a giraffe on a leopard, because it's all very fine telling the narrative of traffic coordination evolution coming back from africa with the zebra to suit pitchfork stoppages in hay on the redneck lazed walk. the sole reason why it's understood: fiction is the use of lettering for the creation of images, poetry is the use of lettering a bit like a waterfall for a bored emperor apprehensive of the sound of thinking; and philosophy is the reverse of all that, strike two flints together, and enter the realm of ideas with the onomatopoeia of the image - given that onomatopoeias act like surgical scalpels, or a miscarriage of ideas bundled up for something else by kandinsky; actually, saying that, onomatopoeias are images in motion, prior to the movies, when all you had was a painting embraced by a fancy rim - still life of decay of the royal flotilla on the thames with a mouth moving: chatty chatty boor of a bloke who talked.
i see the dead sea when i cry,
and i wager
a salmon with other sea fish cropping up flying
into a butterfly net:
before the assemblage of bacon
into the mouth watering eye.
i see the dead sea when i cry,
and i wager
to have seen a thousand flamingos
strut invoking tide -
on a boneless march into marsh of
a bubbled gill of fish popped for whatever name alive,
or dead in the disco crescendo for a nixon:
tears of a robot had always the glory of man laughing akin;
since annexed was the dualistic ambiguity
of the theatrically mistaken two masked.
Sep 14, 2015
Sep 14, 2015 at 8:27 PM UTC