"scathed" poems
Words are harmless, so they say,
That's where the problem starts;
Sticks and stones
May break our bones
But words will break our hearts.
Words are harmless, so they say,
And point you to their charts;
It's harmless fun,
No damage done.
But... Who will mend our hearts?
The x-rays show no damage
Where words have scathed across,
But it still feels hard to manage,
And leaves you at a loss.
Words are harmless, don't complain,
That's where the problem starts.
It's quite absurd-
A single word-
Enough to break our hearts!
But words are harmless, they maintain;
The subject of their parts,
No less or more,
So let them pour
From all our broken hearts
Nov 27, 2015
Nov 27, 2015 at 4:36 PM UTC
Far away in ancient Jerusalem
Stood a garden, long, long ago
Home to giant oaks and figs
And plants and shrubs of every kind.
On every season, from time to time
Merrily they would burst into bloom
Filling the air with fragrance sweet
And fuelling the hearts with joy and cheer.
Amid the riot of flashing shades
Where Poppies and Pansies held their heads
In a corner, there a Lily stood,
Sans scent and sans grandeur.
A poor loner never once noticed
Nor skilled to steal the show,
Those, brilliant in shade and shape
With contempt openly quipped
‘It’s such a shame
She grows among us
With such pallid shade
And nothing to rave’,
‘Lilies are such lazy lot
Giving only seasonal blooms’
Rang aloud their haughty comments
Rashly blurted out and blunt
The poor Lily wilted in shame
Wishing she had never been born.
Late that evening, through the garden
Into the newly dug up grave
A band of people came with lights
Bearing someone cut and scathed.
With blood oozing, drop by drop
From wounds, left by piercing nails
The body, carefully wrapped in linen
Was the body of Jesus - Son of God
The one who bore the sins of the world
And courted the most accursed of deaths.
The body embalmed was laid inside
And sealed with a giant block of stone
Soldiers posted to guard the tomb
And every vigil so prudently kept.
Early by dawn, three days hence
While it was still very dark
From inside the tomb had come
Rumbling sounds and a blinding light.
Flowers en masse blinked their eyes
Beheld a man, gently walking out
The wounds still fresh on his palm
And the linen that swaddled, lying behind.
As they watched this queer sight
In awful amazement, they did see
A host of Lilies, white as snow
Far more beautiful than any of them
Bowing their heads in reverential glee
And singing Hosanna to the Lord of Life.
All the flora in silent shock
Sighted from whence the Lilies came
They sprang unforeseen in those spots
Where drops of blood from his body fell
Then onwards, without fail
April sees the grandeur and grace,
Of snowy lilies - those delicate blooms
Sprouting suddenly from the crust of the Earth
Joggling their heads in whiffing breeze,
And giving delight to all who behold.
Mar 31, 2018
Mar 31, 2018 at 1:00 PM UTC
Dragons spewing fire
Incarcerating the burning soul
Hatred seeded within
Raging across the premises
Engulfing everything
Turning to ashes
Blown away by the winds
Remnants of soot
Scathed with dark stains
Fire burns one and all
May 20, 2015
May 20, 2015 at 12:39 AM UTC
pulling hair, mounting the scathed creature — feelingfulness straddles
the lovelorn fringe of shadows coming
to a feint.
under the canopy of the guava tree
i reminisce dissonance of claims
drunken recall or some ill fortitude
and borderless as it seems,
capturing the eye.
mirage dazzled, writhing on the
darling loam, fisticuff of birds
swarming ecliptic passages
finding a hidden codex somewhere
in archaea — women pulled from ribs
and men wrought out of tears.
Nov 12, 2015
Nov 12, 2015 at 4:20 AM UTC
You created the distance between us
so don't come back to me
when I boost my jetpack
and fly away to my old passions.
Do not come back to me
when I have settled
with someone else
or when your love life
suddenly starts,
then seizes to exist.
People make time for what they love
but your speech was not justified
when you made me more
of an option than a priority.
Don't come back to me
when I move on and discard
your smooth lies
and when I scrub
traces of your touch
from my hands and thighs .
My candour has been effective
and my armour has been scathed.
However, I have suffered worse
so I will never wish for your return
or our past times.
Living in the past is recipe for destruction.
This is a fact so take the instruction.
With long strides, I have picked up my pace
and with time, you will be replaced .
Dec 5, 2016
Dec 5, 2016 at 12:13 PM UTC
Have you ever looked evil in the eye?
I have
And he winked
A tone as smooth as velvet
A grin of a boy
His lips parted seas,
of churning lava
But I saw a pool,
to dip my toes
He splashed playful twists and turns
Till I was soaked
And drops trickled down my skin,
scathed by sin
That murky tank of burns.
Feb 27, 2019
Feb 27, 2019 at 9:06 AM UTC
don’t you spark
the fire and
abandon me,
you abstraction
of insolent
soliloquy of
elegance; all
of existence
craves a taste
of your savory,
effortless
whimsicality;
i’ll sail upon
a thundercloud,
braid the stars
into my hair
and remunerate
for my flawed,
scarred skin,
scathed soul,
with mellow
eyelashes like
rain; macrocosms
look vain,
through a
night-owl’s eyes;
trust my lies
when you fancy
truth, a vile elusive
absolute; trust
my eyes when
you fancy cold
decimation of
love and gold;
the morse code:
remains of your
melodramatic memory;
never look away
from me; i’ll fix
you like a broken
puppy toy, scuttle
across the bedroom
floor with agonizing
apathy, stay forever
and always with me
with your binary love,
you trivial, perfect machine.
Aug 20, 2015
Aug 20, 2015 at 5:45 AM UTC
It is not in idleness
That I justify my reproachfulness
That is where it is judged
Scathed upon
Laughed about
Debated
Still elating in my sorrowful bath
I reproach
Condensation lining the walls of my fragile heart
It feels like cold glass
Throbbing inside a marble cage
Every beat
In every way
Close to shattering it's tiny pieces upon the cold linoleum
That provides the floor
To my aching gut
It's in idleness
That I may remain...
Mar 9, 2015
Mar 9, 2015 at 12:14 PM UTC
One mile down the drunken river
I lost my mind in her midday yellow haze.
Residues of the river-wind-kiss lingered saline on my face,
Wild sun on the wild river scathed my skin copper,
And I glided upstream in blurred eye sweat
Losing and finding the river’s mangrove shore.
My mind in delirious mess wondered
What it was that wined the river, made her a swirling detachment,
Bearing all with the endurance of a drunkard
But embracing nothing like an all foregoing monk.
I dreamed adrift one more mile and then another
Till I was windswept and wined like the drunken river.
Sep 24, 2013
Sep 24, 2013 at 3:27 AM UTC
Picture it when in a flash of a description, brought you the news
it said was your derelict.
when in becoming we ultimately fail
our being championed by our unbecoming
seeking the real scathed by a sizeable truth
like a persimmon in your tender hand.
This is the default
sketched over a sagging paper, plugged within the air
the motes depart and is as easy as it is explained: an elusive
thing that may never be captured. Something the arriving
betrays then assuages with a word treated benignly:
a transit.
let gray define the day: let the file describe the motive:
let presence soil where we stood our place
like a monument: let it seek a real object
or a found language
a wafting presence is lost somewhere gliding over unnamed territories
commencing a displacement said was our undisputable location
roads becoming roads vehicles becoming salvage
birds becoming orchestra shambles becoming complete
thus dearth becoming us before our denied image
from a source that was our implacable place like a deadspot discovered
Jun 14, 2016
Jun 14, 2016 at 3:03 AM UTC
What he will give is the incipient bare minimum
of his heartbeat
He’ll reveal just
the washed out clamoring of his horded desire
all because there would be nothing left in his own perception
of a universe that may reduce his secret lust to nothing.
implode like terrorists on the fantasy of his greatness yet to come…
although we are born magnificent; which then gets blinded out by all the hearsay of our original sin
he won’t go too far with a notion of
blissful ‘otherness’
nor squeeze too many lemons
he’s got no room for confidence sugar stored
on his empty shelf
*however negative space can be
a good thing*
(he has heard)
he’s dumbfounded when he wants more from someone
and expects the best of their yet to be born
mind reading abilities to:
just
understand who he is
or
“be gone I say!”
…(hehehe) -writer could not help it-
scathed in baby blisters by his choices so far...
it was of course!
all the:
****** babble of growing up in his _Family of origin_/original sin
where he learned to swim so comfortably in precious
Aloneness ----- -Aloofness-
and there he became more real than ever
---Ahh well...it’s the grand excuse for
most of his life
until he feels the scratch of his riotous ‘settling for’
is bleeding ****** ******
and then one day he looks in the mirror and a ghost like
stroke (not yet manifested)
spotlights his over bearing mind to feel what it has
~done did~
disconnected with deeds of the heart
and foresight/manipulation
for naught
he then finds out his heart needed more than a cup of
tea and a scone (mid 40's)
he finds out his emotional impasse was so ****
false (almost 50)
and that his lack of allowing others in
was truly a waste of mental constructs
(Solid 51)
this I know like my own dry eyed nodding
I was him
(the now pleasure of hindsight... 55)
but all the 'do right' stuff is cohesively on time
all the contrast that created a calling for
again and again
this leaning
to love
Linaji 2011
Nov 9, 2011
Nov 9, 2011 at 12:58 AM UTC
In fidelity sleeping
a tremulous void
that circumvents
the face of lies.
I’ll tarry here,
where the room
drips madness
thick like congealing
blood in the rain.
And the walls separate
twisting in deception
for my mind unbound
scathed in trembling coals
My blood
I am the madness
Dripping.
Oct 27, 2012
Oct 27, 2012 at 5:04 PM UTC
Yesterday, she touched my lips with her fingers.
I wasn't so dizzy but I laid my head on her thighs.
I kissed her on her cheeks, I hugged her so tight.
We talked about our petty little secrets.
We stood on the rooftop taking all the night lights in.
She leaned her head on my shoulders.
Her face complemented the night sky.
I stared at her and I swear she's the most beautiful creature I've ever been so close to.
And I knew in those moments we were just playing some pretending games.
I thought I was contented. I thought.
Now, I know we should stop playing this game.
I'm losing all my cards.
I'm afraid that maybe after we're done playing inside our own storm, I'll be left alone engulfed in the sea of darkness. Scathed by the memories of her. And no matter how hard I try to keep swimming to the shore, I won't be able to find my way out.
Jul 9, 2016
Jul 9, 2016 at 9:11 PM UTC
This is the point of no return
The point where the roads no longer converge
The point where endings don’t meet
And the last tear of sacrifice has dripped.
All the path is ablaze
All spin of memories wrought
Photographs and visions burnt
And the birds of darkness have flown across the coast
Swirl and hurl into a tailspin of sins
Flesh is intact but scars won’t heal
It leaves a mark so indelible it cannot be healed
Pains of the past keep repeating
Soul in solitude, now in misery
We walked along this dreaded path
Scathed, restless like streams
By the river, we promised the moon we shall move on
Time said I did, and still I am
Yet alone, yet in vain
For life is but fair
Fair to child’s fragile heart hoping
Fair to every dream candid
Fair to every life not spared
The destiny weeps for my daunting decisions.
I feel sorry for my life.
Jun 24, 2013
Jun 24, 2013 at 8:43 PM UTC
what sadness is leached from your heart to your brow?
unable to show what you truly emote
scathed in darkness
your treachery lies there
hidden still by the magic you've used to fog my eyes
but i am here
standing in the street, neck craned up at the sky
searching for hope, light
but the moon does not appear
cloaked by your entity, your shadow
what light prevails there, beneath the darkest blanket?
what bought breaks past your distant window?
is it the stillness inside of you rupturing?
someday it shall emerge
grotesquely from your centre
and devour all that remains
and there your body will lie, twitching
a blood-filled cavity
useless attempting to repair the fatal blow
and i will miss you
for now all that remains is hollow
the lifeless look in your stare haunts me
so i will not return here
for in my mind, you died that day
and all that i had ever hoped for
went away with you too
Feb 22, 2013
Feb 22, 2013 at 11:46 PM UTC
I’m learning to jump through rain puddles again,
even though I was afraid that some were full of glass.
I am starting to believe in superheroes again even though in between then and now,
I realized that heroine and ****** weren’t spelled much differently.
I’m starting to put the bandaids on my own scathed knees,
and whisper comforting words to myself when facing my dark, empty closet.
My social anxiety sits on my shoulders, but I am tipping him off of me,
and finding the childish ability to create friendship by just simply saying
“Hi, I’m B. And we’re friends now.”
The notes that I find in my lunchbox are the ones I left for myself,
saying “You got this! P.S. I hope you enjoy your fruit cup.”
Grey skies have always clouded over my mind,
but today I bought a rainbow kite and flew it through dusty, dreary weather in the park by myself.
I have been feeling so low,
that I forget how good it felt to climb a tree and be up so high.
There are still glow in the dark stars hanging above my bed,
that remind me even though I can’t see them, the real ones are always above me.
I have been so concerned with changing,
that I forgot the power of regaining.
When somebody else makes you feel inferior,
and you believe yourself to be less than you use to be,
remember that you once thought dandelions were flowers,
until somebody else told you they were weeds.
Feb 27, 2017
Feb 27, 2017 at 3:57 PM UTC
Once upon a time I knew who I was and kind of what I wanted, or rather expected from life. I was sure I knew who I was. I had a plan, general ideas on a tentative time-line. This comes before that, and so on. I got swept away in the rapids of others. Tossed around and wrung out.
**Swept away
White water, no raft
Lonely ride**
Left in the gutter, I found my way home; vacant-eyed and sullen, Jaded and confused beyond the realm of humanity, but home. What had I done to attract such things? Why was it okay to be garbage to others? Abused and unwanted, still far from myself. Plastic bubble gum smiles, no one asks and I don’t tell. Made it home, scathed and broken. Thinking the me I knew couldn’t possibly have done that. So, was I ever who I thought I was?
**Beautiful masks worn
Thin veneer of porcelain
Hides maceration**
Jun 30, 2010
Jun 30, 2010 at 9:36 PM UTC
Oh prairies of paradise,
why do you dwindle in our grasp?
Do you not want to share in our expansion
of democratic duty?
What would you consider the proper path,
my plants scathed in acidic dew.
Do you feel the life leave the soil?
When your roots are outstretched for a water bed no longer located under you,
will you weep your petals knowing what is to come?
I weep for you prairies.
When smoke stacks stick from our lips
do you choke on the phlem expelled from our lungs,
tempting your wilted parts?
(There is water in there, just break it down with your
leaves and find the pieces you need.)
How rational do you view these rationalities?
Oh prairie please remember we care for your beauty,
but care not how it will stay. (How long will you wait?)
You have fought mother nature,
her winds and worst droughts,
but not knowing father time,
can you comprehend the offspring that is depleeting
and cheating you?
Will you weep when the bugs stop scratching your stems?
I weep as the bees leave and the beetles begin to belch
from their green guts after ingesting your roots...
for I know what is to come.
I weep for you prairies.
When blossoms are only pictures on walls,
you will unfortunately, be too soon forgotten.
I do not wish to deliver morose messages,
only to express to the winds in my ears
that I too, howl, and push through
(sometimes a destructive path, )
forever challenging and constantly changing.
Priairies, I too will one day wilt,
my memory too soon forgotten,
My prairies, I weep for you tonight.
Dec 25, 2013
Dec 25, 2013 at 8:44 PM UTC
scathed by bruises and marks of your discomfort
i know not where they descend
for i am stumbling through polluted rivers
shades swirling in its malcontent
hot drops of clear water
scorned upon the ashes
stealing from my purity
with every second i sink further into the malicious waves
rippled with your treachery and drowned in my fears
drops; suspended
drops of me
pooling there
ambitious to cascade over the edge
and crash through the walls builts here
tides
back and forth
swaying
i feel their pull
distant on the shore
buried by the sea
cut ties
enclosed in a silver box
i hope it sinks into the unknown depths
accompanied by sweet serenity
Dec 2, 2013
Dec 2, 2013 at 6:30 AM UTC
Lamps that light with lingering flames
quench dreary eyes of midnight pain;
hin'dring such precarious Names,
who've come to find they sinned in vain.
The Baker appeared, and took hold his stake
for the Name who tried to steal the Baker's bread.
Poor stum'bling Name was stopped in cold regret.
Staunch whiskey perspiring upon His head,
He ponders all the threats the Baker'd make;
turned and sprinted against the wall
of wheat and grass and trees and all,
but brazen hands, fire-scathed, wed
His life, ironically, to the art of baking bread.
Dec 7, 2011
Dec 7, 2011 at 5:38 AM UTC
passions were my strong point. every breath lined with a deeper meaning that makes you embrace any emotion including sadness is a blessing.
i can sit and stare at the clouds endlessly. distance myself from human infestation, so i can spend some time alone marvelling the cosmic manifestation.
i read books, conjure up worlds and press pages with fragile paper wings that let me fly in the summer air making me feel as light as a butterfly.
i stay up at nights and end up painting faces of unrecognisable angels and demons that live inside my head. i'm constantly torn between prose and poetry. one lets me live, and the other helps me to get lost.
i am a girl living on wishbones and rusted blood. a girl covered in an ever-glowing soil. a girl toiled with ashes. but i am reborn every time a part of me is scathed. i reappear till i'm completed.
till i'm finite because i was held by strong points:
passions.
Jun 8, 2017
Jun 8, 2017 at 4:58 PM UTC
I'm lost again
Tossed away again
Lying here in waste again
Betrayed again
Sent away again
And still I wonder why
Why do I even try?
Hurt again
Burned again
Insulted, scathed, and spurned again
Wrong choice again
No voice again
To defend myself
Mend myself
Maybe even end myself…
Lied to again
Spied on again
Never should have tried again
Here I am
As I am
Just a sacrificial lamb
Bye again
To die again
I fear it is this time again
Farewell…
Aug 30, 2012
Aug 30, 2012 at 12:38 PM UTC
Sweet silence tamed the breeze
With brisk of pale scathed blue
Granulated through the air
And set my mood
These days before the autumn
Where I have learned to carry
Peddle on and set the marks
Towards all and in whom I choose to pace my care
Frayed I feel my cuffs
Right on the edge
Swaying synchronized within the breeze
And too my steps are fluid
Almost dancing on the seconds
I'm alive to swing my skip
Un-mindingly by abandon houses
Built and raised on my life's road
This memory lane
I am a sail of seasons changing
Autumn winds a fuel cascading forward my vessel
Over known oceans of remorse
What sorrow deepest I had formed beneath the hull
Now act a platforms, open highways to the east
Of our sun rising on a woken world
In active motion to fulfill
What we know must be done
Now here to reach
What loving hands may greet you
Know me in prevail sailing on today
And when assembles evening
Just as eyes fix darker shades
Upon a world that with me swoons in pleasure
I would see a night time soon to rest me
After all has been appreciated
No single point or high
Our autumn is approaching
With life's true care
Reaching out from my truthful eyes
Sep 5, 2014
Sep 5, 2014 at 6:27 PM UTC
I'm scared, lost, and tumbling
Tripping on my shoes that were never tied
Walking blind.
Bollywood movies flickering,
Warm greeting during Eid, putting on my best
The innocence of not knowing what was ahead but still swimming into uncharted waters
The times we ran past the security guards wearing the shoes of adolescence
how we sung high voices, breaking the silence and laughing away the drowned voices and the dead that were never able to cling to us
the colors got burned but the door was still colored against the tree of stupidity; in between the houses we walked through old trash and a bare bed to look back at our acts of defiance
We got high on the words we slurred that meant friendship to us
Walking home everyday until the point where we had to part ways at Woodhaven Boulevard
Now, now, now I hate that word
I'm the only one walking alone; cracked pavements, and potholes steer me from what was always the path to fantasy and the youth
I'm growing older, and older and I know
The key is slipping from sweaty finger tips and I have to choose the right door
My mind has gotten sober from the future in my head to the reality that stops me with its red light
Time is so small and I haven't still found faith and I'm searching walking back to the same intersection, empty handed but finding scathed pennies and hungry dreams greet the soles of my torn shoes
People will leave me and I can't stop them
Why, why, why
Did I hit the walls that were so far apart but now make a square around me pushing and jamming me against the bricks
I want to see past the mist and know the truth
Is it written on my palms or held in my hands where I can clutch it or let go of it
Slowly faces of ordinary are falling under 6 feet and I have to carry the dirt on my back and remember there is a future
A future I'm scared of welcoming
and I get lost and lost in my own fears and swallowing the guilt of not believing and falling to honey dreams only waiting to be stung by a bee
The bee dies
Leaving me lost at Woodhaven Boulevard
Apr 26, 2015
Apr 26, 2015 at 7:04 PM UTC