"scrapes" poems
I hear the carve of oars,
I see your palms enfold the wood,
as shards of stars shred
a black and glistening wave.
I hear the carve of oars,
the shore is breached,
we reach dank granite stairs, climb
a tower in moon gritty light.
I hear the carve of oars,
you speak, your turgid cheek
blue-steel-gray, your gaze grates,
my salt raged eyes summon waves and stars.
I hear the carve of oars,
waves rattle a candle's flame,
chill the bed frame, the wet stony room ––
the door closes, it scrapes.
I hear the carve of oars.
I know your lurching gate,
the clank as oar lock’s turn.
You slip the shore.
I hear the carve of oars
Copyright © 2002 Gary Brocks
Aug 28, 2018
Aug 28, 2018 at 8:47 PM UTC
bike's rusted chain
against the walls of my childhood
a new family lives inside
but what they don't see
are the notes of cardamom and burnt orange
rolls of film that my parents and I left behind
capturing sneakers over gravel
along the east river
toward the steel Hell Gate
as dad jogged beside me
his caramel skin
against the sycamores
my first time learning how to ride
they don't feel the bruises and scrapes nor
taste the paella we shared for dinner that evening
they only see what we gave them,
an empty house with matte finish
Nov 8, 2017
Nov 8, 2017 at 8:40 PM UTC
I know I should be sorry
I know I should feel bad
Because here I am doing the thing
I said I'd never do again.
I said I wouldn't hurt myself
But that's been ******** all along.
The only thing that kept me clean
Was knowing that if I slipped
I'd be hurting more than just me.
But now I'm sitting here
Like I have so many times
Tearing at my skin
For a glimpse
Of sweet relief.
In the grand scheme of things
A few small scrapes
Doesn't make a difference.
It's nothing dangerous
And it's not hurting anyone
It's just a way for me to silence
The monsters in me.
I don't care anymore
About taking care of me
I'll do what I want
Even if it kills me.
I'll do what I want
Even if it means
ruining nine months
Of a fleeting fantasy
Apr 18, 2016
Apr 18, 2016 at 12:21 AM UTC
*The Road to redemption
Is a daunting path
It’s an uphill battle
That is slippery and steep
It goes against the current
In the frigid rough rapids
With rays of blistering sun
A jagged wall of obsidian
And a sea of sand
There are no shortcuts
Only cuts, scrapes and bruises
What you did in the past will never be forgotten
But what you are remembered for will have changed.*
May 30, 2016
May 30, 2016 at 4:54 PM UTC
I am thankful for the mountains
I am thankful for the music that comes from the mountains
I am thankful for every fire that is lit by nothing more than the embers of a fire that raged before it
Only these fires can truly comprehend what it is like to suffer and be born again
I am thankful for the knowledge that every human being has in them a true spark
Only some don't care or are too busy
Or let their dreams be squashed or didn't have the fuel to burn in the first place
I am thankful for the holy beat poets
Kerouac and Ginsberg
I am thankful for the poet saints
Rimbaud and Lorca
And I am thankful for my saints of folk music
Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie shaped me long before any of this
But all in all I am thankful for the holy ghost of Carl Sandburg
Without him I would not be writing this poem or any
I am thankful that these poems allow me to say what I need to
I don't expect my words to be recited at weddings or funerals
But I don't mind because both atmospheres depress me just the same
I am thankful for every trail I have walked
I am thankful for every breath of Rocky or Appalachian air ever to enter my tragic lungs
I am thankful for the bonfires I have lit
I am thankful for the sticks that snap in my hands and leave scrapes that bleed only enough to remind me that I'm alive
I do not need such reminders but it's always a nice thing to have
I am thankful for every lost love
Whether I disappointed them or ****** them off is no matter
All that matters is that there is humility
I am thankful for the fact that these lost loves are leading
Completely happy lives with or without me
Knowing someone's happiness is dependent on me is a responsibility I cannot bear
I am thankful for this typewriter
It was my grandfather's when he was my age
He passed away two years ago on the week of Thanksgiving
He was born that week too
And it isn't pilgrims or stuffing that help me to feel thankful
It's the people like him
Nov 29, 2015
Nov 29, 2015 at 2:19 AM UTC
i am running out of
air
i am running out of
scrapes on my knees
running out of
new corners to cross
in this neighborhood
we are growing up in the same houses
with the same curtain of trees draping
their limbs over our windowsills
we are sleeping in the same bedsheets
wrinkled from the imperative
tossing and turning
of adolescents.
we inflate our chests
and float away like red balloons
a freckle in the pale complexion of the sky
for this love affair with the pavement
has lost its edge
this slipping on
slimy banana peels
has stabilized
we have bitten and scratched and stained
the doors of your fingers
studied every trail of your fingerprints
we have grown older in the palm of your hand
your fists raised to the sky
it is time for you to open them.
Jan 19, 2018
Jan 19, 2018 at 3:33 PM UTC
i am a psychopath
i am the queen of terrifying confidence
i am a minipulator of truth
and lies
because i
am a psychopath
who has her eyes set
on the way she should be
on the reasons behind what they think about her
hurt
it swirls around inside yet i dont feel it
it scrapes away at the walls of my heart
which should be painful
why not
because i am a psychopath
Nov 4, 2016
Nov 4, 2016 at 12:27 AM UTC
To be a human being is to be riddled with thousands of imperfections.
Full of flaws; scrapes, spots, and scars cover broken and bruised skin.
But robots need not fear and fret about fixable, trivial defections.
Humans perpetually throw themselves at cold, apathetic, greedy clinicians
Only to be given terrible news and told there is no cure for a horrid death.
Meanwhile, robots bask in the glow of love from a passionate technician.
Humans can never agree when it comes to the dealings of the heart.
Always one-sided, they take turns ruthlessly destroying each other.
Robots, oblivious to the issues of any and all feeling, live freely.
Naive humans will work tirelessly, only to see nothing but certain failure,
But life has never once benefited those of us who are currently living.
So, humans crafted robots, to always succeed where they could not.
Sep 10, 2013
Sep 10, 2013 at 9:22 PM UTC
I am a sculpture
Of life' beautiful scars
Frightening when viewed too close
Perhaps better glimpsed at from afar
Twisting wounds
Healed over scratches
The heart entombed by loves hand
Blood covered latches
Oh masterpiece
Of intentional cuts and scrapes
Purple raised blue bruises
Hidden carefully from the world
I employ delicate spiderweb curtains
And my sleight of hand illusion's
It is only the bearer who understands
Where the deepest wounds are hidden
Bitter tears in a deep bottomless chasm
The unforgettable kiss of affections contusions
These shadows must never be loosened
Forever restrained even by deception
Guarded by spiderweb curtains
And sleight of hand illusion's
All Rights Reserved@ Tammy M. Darby Jan.13, 2013
Feb 25, 2014
Feb 25, 2014 at 10:09 PM UTC
I met a shell of a mountain who knew she was finished
claimed she grew up from a grain of sand
with every year wider she bloomed a little bit longer
to the roof of the sky with outstretched hands
she made friends with the sun, shared enemies with no one
counted weeks like she should of counted days
and swallowed handfuls of night so she could sleep tight
and turn her thoughts from its stone cold ways
and this was the beginning, the start of the ending
you can't die from a broken heart
but from the time the sun rose
to the space where it fell away
she would love, and it wouldn't take part
and every every day she would echo echo
in every single way she should let go let go
but it had her in its sights cupids icy arrows
so she caught every one with her heart like it was her duty
it walked the wrong wrong way down her one way plan
she was surrounded by forests, rivers and beauty
until that glacier froze over the land
and so she blamed herself hated her wealth
she was born at too young of an age
and every night her dreams were touched by witches fingers
until her heart was caged.
with every morning spent not caring if she cares or not
sleeping in the melt and mud, waiting for the earth to rot
burying herself alive she scrapes the hole that it left open
empty as her very heart, that mountain was all broken
all broken, that mountain was all broken
now I can see that her bloods red and she’s got feelings and they always get spilled both without thinking
May 11, 2012
May 11, 2012 at 11:29 PM UTC
We hold onto
each other like
teeth trapping
new wisdoms,
heads crashing
through agony
as the jaw scrapes
and screeches like
demolition derbies.
We'll battle it out,
but who will last
until one is left?
No, drag my teeth
out of contention:
lasso a noose, yank
hard until whipped
numbly off track
to bleed the oil.
Aug 18, 2014
Aug 18, 2014 at 8:37 PM UTC
Never been there.
Can't talk about it much.
I've seen shadows on the wall.
Crying faces down the hall.
I've seen reflections of friends
in the communal toilet while they Puke-TSD.
Can't talk about it much.
It's not a subject I like to touch.
Never been there.
Never talking like I've seen it all.
They have. Ask them what it's like to fall
down and check your face for scrapes
and have other people put band-aids
on your *** ("Oops, my mistake!")
Or better yet, don't.
Don't ask me.
Don't ask them.
They can talk.
I've never been.
If they ask, you can answer with the voice of a friend.
But don't ask. Don't reopen or worse, pen,
their pain and their past. Just listen if they ask.
Have some ******* courtesy till then.
Sep 8, 2015
Sep 8, 2015 at 6:37 PM UTC
The strings
the way I pluck it
gives extra strength
to my soul.
The notes
I try to read
drives my thirst
spirit.
The lyrics
I write in a paper
expresses every single
emotion.
The music
I hear and I make
mends shattered
feeling.
But
The passion
I have
and truly love
seems fading.
The comparison
I get from others
is breaking every
notes.
The people
who are showing that
I am no good
made my paper empty.
Discouragement
scrapes the willing
and hoping
heart.
-Steph Dionisio, July 26, 2015
Jul 26, 2015
Jul 26, 2015 at 10:05 AM UTC
Through the white, beating Texan heat,
water towers cry out titles
high above the flat land
where kids from the roadside houses
run around in stained tank tops,
dreaming of their own names up there.
The long and burnt grass cuts their ankles
and the dry cement scrapes their feet.
The midday ritual begins in a racing circle
raising dust over the roofs and into the shy afternoon.
Around 5, the roadside families reunite
in front of their houses to watch the daily traffic jam
and observe the variety of faces through the glass windows,
which after a short while do not seem to vary at all.
But today, something else had their full attention.
The sky was never seen this low and the clouds
turned a shade of black
so dark as to be almost green,
so the eldest women on that single row of houses
declared bad omen. The next early morning,
the closest water tower laid gravely against the ground.
Already, a small boy had climbed on top of the tank,
soles bleeding, and waving
his shirt into the wide clear sky.
©2018 Alex Bex - www.alexbex.net
Jan 20, 2018
Jan 20, 2018 at 12:54 PM UTC
Windex mice squeak through the windows,
biting newspaper as it scrapes across.
Soap from a new age fills the kitchen,
sheeps' fat long forgotten,
the sod-house of Laura Ingalls Wilder left behind
with its crumbling Lincoln logs,
the ceiling that drops dirt crumbs like a gritty pastry.
Our world is shiny,
so blinding that even the cough of newsprint makes it brighter.
A bottle sneezes across the counter, spurts those
bubbles of ammonia, gathers with the
rivers and tides that surge with ethanol,
it bursts the air with a neon smell and erases
everything that has come before.
Feb 28, 2012
Feb 28, 2012 at 1:01 AM UTC
Saturday Saturn and Santa Clause Satan
Captain Crunch Kringle and Krampus cry madchen.
Bed sitter seniors sit back and lament.
Another day's Christmas ducats mis-spent.
When the log scrapes,
When the door bleeds,
When you hate your Dad.
Remember that you just might run out of food.
And that would beeee,
quite bad.
Dec 20, 2013
Dec 20, 2013 at 6:42 PM UTC
Ever since I first laid eyes on your scars
I knew
I wanted to be your hero
I can't save you
No only you can do that
I am your hero on the sidelines
Cheering you on as you take on the world
Kissing the scrapes and bruises and picking you up when you fall
I am here to make sure you keep going
I cannot save you
I'm just here to remind you that you're worth the effort
I will never leave
I want to be your hero
Jul 1, 2014
Jul 1, 2014 at 1:46 AM UTC
I am a helpless hopeless witness
sitting idle on a courtroom bench
as if in church
kneeling backwards beneath slanted
stain glass
light
with my hands clasped tight
and pressed neat against my forehead
but there is
no
one
to pray to when
there is no faith;
I am invisible in the eyes of a clairvoyant god.
My heart beats rough
almost
p
o
u
n
d
i
n
g
straight out of my chest
to the beat of the grand judge's gavel.
"Guilty,
guilty,
guilty,"
they chant, and
"Selfish,
selfish,
selfish," too.
"We find the defendant cowardly."
They never even put me on the stand.
They will not sentence me to execution--
for that would be too kindly.
I am destined to a life
of praying for death without parole
and folding
a plethora of pervasive glances
tightly between the
lines
on
my
palms.
They shoot their looks from
all
different
angles,
and
even with this accumulation of grayscale smoke above my head,
I
can't
escape
it.
After every much belittled blink
they taunt me with another slice of glass
that scrapes off my skin cells
one
by
one
and leaves my body hair in a standing ovation
pulsing with anticipation--
but they never draw blood. A cruel
and unusual punishment.
At confession I can never find the breath to reveal
the heart I've taped to my chest to keep from f
a
l
l
i
n
g
or the soul in my hands that's been
crushed
between sweaty fingers.
How can they punish me when I am already a walking jail cell
with skinny white lines for bars on my wrists?
I am to repent until I am no longer human, but here's the thing--
I never was.
I am much
much
more.
Apr 5, 2014
Apr 5, 2014 at 1:19 AM UTC
if only it was as easy as
putting a band-aid on
and kissing it
when you were young
and you scraped your knee
off you went, crying to your mother
where she would sit you down
get a band-aid, slap it on
and kiss the top
it made everything better
you again ran off
to get more scrapes and bumps
because the band-aid was
an easy fix, it stopped the pain
in an instant
...
Jun 8, 2013
Jun 8, 2013 at 11:28 PM UTC
===
!!!!!
!!!!!
=== !!!!! ===
!!!! !!!!! !!!!!
!!!! !!!!! !!!!!
!!!!! !!!!! !!!!!
!!!!! !!!!! !!!!!
!!!!!!
!!!!!!
!!!!!!
## # !!!!!! ####
#### ####### ### ## ######################
sentinel, you grow in peace
you who have seen war
you saw the native people
killed off by the score
you continue on your way
the source of tale and lore
you have a heart
that will not cease
for a hundred years or more
this is the great saguaro
he scrapes the sky with arms
flung up to the heavens
though huge you do no harm
you have thorns aplenty
but also have your charms
you will watch forevermore
ever sounding the alarm
soulsurvivor
(c) 6/11/2015
Jun 11, 2015
Jun 11, 2015 at 2:21 PM UTC
A child wakes up , to mosquito bites,
and Christ-on-a-bike-it’s-diwali , the fiesta of lights.
the welcome vibes of halcyon tarried
as hugs and gifts and smiles are carried,
and waving her wrinkles mid-air ,daadi
says today! god , to his land was ferried.
Afar, the bronze herald of worship time,
the temple bell goes off in a celestial chime.
and cometh the priest , for the fire-ritual,
line my pockets now , come on , be spiritual.
but duh! your dhoti hast no pockets , saintly dummy;
tsk.. fret ye not , for it goes straight into my tummy.
mid-morning now , and mummy’s high-strung;
‘dust it well and dust it thorough and dust it till you burst a lung’.
‘garam pakode’ !! cries papa in his croaking tenor ,
‘but one by one’ and now he begins with the manners.
mummy is the last one , picking over the bones,
she always has been , for what a family she owns.
A muezzin somewhere cries the holy decree
heads bow down and a pigeon flies free,
from the onion dome , below the staccato claps
‘Ooparwala ! … ‘ the muezzin gasps ,
and ‘Ooparwala!.. ‘ a crowd chants in tow ,
and ‘Oops ! … ‘ the bird sheds it’s something and *****
soars high , and takes a bow .
hey presto! the night has come.
the moonless night of the homecoming lord.
sweetmeats and sugars and syrups and us ,
laddu-barfi , well , that strikes a chord .
Lakshmi , her owl , the glutton god with his mouse ,
revered an’ pleased an’ fed an’ flattered ,
and coaxed never to leave the house
while out there , bombs and crackers burst and batter.
The witch’s hour already , and the man ain’t home yet
the lord is home , to get things straight,
while the men all out on a greedy conquest;
pennies on the dollar , unwavering faith still,
for the beckoning bait .
A child wakes up , to mosquito bites
gone now is the carnival of lights.
a goddess fled , a father bled
a child scrapes off the waxy remains ,
the leftovers of candles ,pains, and no gains.
Oct 19, 2017
Oct 19, 2017 at 3:15 PM UTC
I quit letting you steer my beautiful life,
causing this sort of internal strife
I quit letting you steal a memory from me,
having me escape for a moment selfishly
I quit letting you fester in my lungs
and defending you with my poisoned tongue
I quit letting you be my constant escape,
using you as a bandaid to heal my scrapes
I quit letting you be a part of me
because today and forever I am clean
Jul 13, 2015
Jul 13, 2015 at 12:45 PM UTC
DEAR PENPAL PEOPLE, some questions are never answered---they are floating in space scrapes till now:\
who are you?
where are you?
are you there?
you still there?
your staggering blues begged
for my attention in the shackles of chaos
now what?
where are you gone?
call me right on the phone?
------ravenfeels
Apr 3, 2021
Apr 3, 2021 at 1:36 PM UTC
I have let my nails grow some
they are well over the tips of my fingers,
i’d say considerably long.
noticeable is their length as i text smilies
type similes. sincerely, i am apologizing now
and well in advance for any future scratches,
scrapes, welts. any body mods. highly probable are scars to your skin too,
later revealing themselves, after a bath like a photograph
being developed. i dig deep in the heat of-brushing, my lips
will serve as nurse, medicinal in purpose.
so there is no need to worry.
Nov 10, 2011
Nov 10, 2011 at 5:04 PM UTC