"seam" poems
In all my paralyzing confusion, only one thing is needed; in all my anxiety over my much less than ideal circumstances, only one thing is needed; in all my this-is-so-unfair discouragement, only one thing is needed; in my pressing-down-like-a-boulder-on-my-chest grief, only one thing is needed; in my feels-like-my-insides-are-being-scraped-out sorrow, only one thing is needed; in my falling-apart-at-every-seam life, only one thing is needed; in my can’t-seem-to-muster-the-will-to-get-out-of-bed depression, only one thing is needed; in my sure-I’m-finally-going-crazy state of mind, only one thing is needed; in my so-mad-I’ve-got-to-throw-and-break-something anger, only one thing is needed. In the scorning and tormenting face of rejection or betrayal or failure or devastating news or disfiguring disease or the worst fears of my heart coming to pass, only one thing is needed—to come and sit at Jesus’ feet and listen to what He is saying.
To entrust myself to Him, to acknowledge His presence with me, to submit myself to His perfect authority over me, to just look at Him and recognize His all-surpassing worth, to feast on Him, to wait for Him to speak and know that He longs to do so more than I long to hear it, to meditate on His Word and speak it back to Him both in praise and request and to ask Him exactly what it means for me right now, to be ready to respond to Him in obedience and follow him wherever or however He leads, to be willing to tune out every competing voice no matter how well-intentioned and to say “No!” to whatever He has not called me to, to believe that He cares deeply and passionately for me both in His emotion toward me and in His personal tending of me, to see that the details of my life matter even more to Him than they do to me and that He holds every one of them in His hands and is perfectly directing them for intimacy and glory, to refuse to be drawn away or worried or upset by the many preparations and distractions all around me by casting every burden down before Him and taking up His all-sufficient grace for every need, and above all to want Him more than anything and to let everything else fit into that all-pervasive desire—this is the ONE THING that is needed both now and throughout every season of my life, and if I will choose it, it will not be taken from me. It is the one thing worth fighting to the death for and will, no doubt, require just such a dying again and again and again...
Jul 24, 2017
Jul 24, 2017 at 7:27 PM UTC
A new year is come and you're still not gone.
I can feel you creeping up on me. You feed on my energy, yet, I cannot see you. I'm glad I can't see your face.
You smell like an old forgotten rot underneath a seam of doors hiding the old death of forgotten men. Your cousin looms, taunting me to acknowledge your presence.
You climb on my back--you've caught up to me.
I've tried running, it doesn't help. You live under my shadow; you're quiet like him too.
I can hear the smack of your lips graze across my consciousness, your breath--icy. You touch my eyes and they freeze without freezing. The hairs on the back of my head hurt because they stand on end amidst your frozen breath. You make your move and whisper icily into my ear,
. . . . You're nothing.
I almost agree.
. . . . No one loves you.
My wife does! And my daughter too!
. . . . No one wants to hear you speak.
Fine, I'll shut up. I look into a mirror to see my reflection staring back at me. My icy stare sends chills to my bones. Is that really me?
. . . . Yes, you're dead.
Sometimes I feel like it, yeah.
. . . . Nothing matters.
Finally, we agree on something.
. . . . It would be better if you just weren't here.
I begin to cry.
. . . . Remember your daughter, here's a picture.
She's so beautiful. I cry some more.
. . . . You will fail her.
. . . . You have failed her.
. . . . I will consume her.
. . . . You perpetuated this all on your own.
. . . . You're a fraud, seeking pity.
. . . . You're a sorry person, aren't you?
. . . . Feel that burning inside you? This is what happens when you let in the dark passenger.
. . . . I shall consume you, too.
. . . . --AND IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT.
Yes, it is my fault. Like the fault line in the earth's crust, my mind splits in twain.
The excitement ends when I've become drunk with madness, not seeing the light around me. I sleep a little, contemplating all that I convinced myself.
In the morning the sun is out, shining through the window. You're still sleeping though, dear dark passenger. I try not to wake you. I seek the sun hoping you will disappear and take your darkness with you, but you persevere, keeping your hands at the ready until I am vulnerable again, waiting to make my dance to the tune of hopelessness--always just, "one more time."
Jan 17, 2018
Jan 17, 2018 at 4:39 AM UTC
Rubbing her *****
Through her tight yoga pants
At first glance, the slit, split by the seam
My finger tips, slips, perfectly over her ****
She’s getting wetter with each stroke, it seems
Stroking her bump, as my finger humps,
Her warm, ***** ***** jumps.
Pulsating to my touch.
Feb 7, 2022
Feb 7, 2022 at 9:32 AM UTC
Rubbing her *****
through her tight yoga pants,
Her slit, split perfectly by the seam,
at first my glance.
Finger tips,
slips-n-slides,
methodically over her ****
I can feel the bump,
as my finger humps,
over the fabric,
her wetness,
is lavish.
Feb 7, 2022
Feb 7, 2022 at 7:06 PM UTC
1261
A Word dropped careless on a Page
May stimulate an eye
When folded in perpetual seam
The Wrinkled Maker lie
Infection in the sentence breeds
We may inhale Despair
At distances of Centuries
From the Malaria—
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Artemis of the wood,
sweet skill of deadly
silence,
her accurate aim and steady
strength
finds the subtle seam,
between
all things.
Her swift sentry,
airborne,
elegant and true,
flies with focused
ferocity.
The soft,
wet earth
surrounds and
welcomes;
her realm of the hunt.
The scent
of the fallen leaves,
cool and colorful,
subdue
my soul.
The forest hush is all that
remains...
Apr 20, 2018
Apr 20, 2018 at 10:47 PM UTC
This woman I know
quite the old hippie
gave me this lovely gift
A softened silk and denim dress
Folded loosely
just handed to me, unwrapped
(We felt the same about the waste of paper)
“This is for you.”
Opening it, I saw its gentle gathers from the shoulders
almost elegant, its drape
and the rough
but soft and dark of it
Real indigo dye
with silk laces from bust to waist
...then the tiny stitching...
NO!
Not by machine!
Knew the labor was – intensive
Every edge
was finished, sewn
by her caring hand!
"Oh, lady of my dream
whom I do not know
I THANK YOU!
From my soul"
I would have made this in another life –
time
of hope and longing
And then I saw that seam!
along the side
that wasn't... really...
just those thicker threads
a silk macrame
of knotted net
so – bold
to hold that one inch open
to hint at nothing –
and everything –
in between
“Oh hell! Oh ****
Does it come with an occasion??!!”
She smiled
somewhere between shy and sly
Aug 16, 2018
Aug 16, 2018 at 4:32 PM UTC
When you ask of me, why poetry
I'm not sure you understand
That it's the center of my universe
The very depth of who I am
The molecules in the air I breath
Oxygen pulsing through the veins
The storm brewing beneath the surface
The pounding of the rain
It's the timeless anticipation
Of the thought that's yet to come
The tearing open of life's seam
The beating of the drum
The first peak of the desert flower
When it feels the gentle touch of spring
The smile in the eyes of a child
And all the joy it brings
The in and out of the tide
In the pulling of the waves
When you ask of me, why poetry
What more is there to say
Mar 1, 2014
Mar 1, 2014 at 7:56 AM UTC
Its in these waters, when I was merely a Parr
Or as you might refer to me as a fry,
This wise but young Brook Trout cruised the slow water with my kinfolk fry.
Moving to and fro hiding among the biome vegetation
The sunlight supported my living space and warmed my growth rings.
I dart in and out of the oxygenated seams which help me flourish.
Some days, I had to use stealth to outwit the pine marten and warblers,
I shadowed the cattail and watched them fill their bellies with those around me.
But I felt fate had a purpose for me to be something special.
And When the time was right, I'd propel myself above the water into the night air.
The large circle of orange light filled my eyes and the night sky was filled with luminary.
I imagined what it must be like to live outside this riffle domain.
This morning, through my refractory vision I spot some floating objects,
And through an inherited sensory recall I can see these are hatching green Drakes.
I immediately shoot to the surface and fill my stomach, then swim back to the undercut for cover.
As the years pass by and maturity abounds, I find my self settling in behind a large boulder
Right at the tail out of the back eddy, providing me with an ample food supply.
And it's here I prefer to live my life in the slow current, content and peaceful.
And one day as I swam into the current seam, I spotted what appeared to be,
A different looking bug with yellow belly, so I make my move.
He's not moving much so I decide to raise my head above the water line and sip.
As I grab the hopper I start to slide back behind the boulder,
When I feel a pinch, as if someone try's to pull me towards the surface
I fight with all my might but this force proves to be stronger than I.
It's now I realize a human reels me towards the shore line, and I'm fearful.
This one called a human, grabs my tail and places his hand on my under belly.
Pulling me from my home, he dislodges the hook from my mouth. I gasp for oxygen.
He looks me over from nose to tail, smiles and says how beautiful I am.
He looks me in the eye And says " This was a wonderful fight my friend, enjoy the rest of your life,
He places me back in water, gently reviving me and finally lets me swim away.
I dare to turn and look back at him for a moment and as he continues to watch me,
I hear him say " I fish, knowing everyday on this stream is a gift."
Feb 7, 2017
Feb 7, 2017 at 3:59 PM UTC
gun in hand
hands bound are
bound to dream
finding one seam to
rip apart
open
and leave
what are
ballots
but bullets
ready
squeeze
squeeze it
you faceless ****
you,
through teeth
gritted and
jaw working,
white knuckle
got-up
buckled up
safe
you
show me
how dirt
really tastes
because you always
ever knew that
ballots are
bullets binding
ready to
sunder
me
Sep 21, 2010
Sep 21, 2010 at 6:37 PM UTC
A thread and it's needle
Bobbing up and down
In silent unison
My flesh is the fabric
Each seam pulled taunt
With intricate ruby rivers
Cascading down
May 11, 2014
May 11, 2014 at 10:20 PM UTC
It shifts, dual purpose,
Illusions, truth,
Mirages in deserts,
Purity, the stream of life,
It flows, it flows.
The young lady, she stands there,
Her voice muffled in the silence,
She says something but not a sound escapes,
I take her hand and,
She guides me through this crevice,
Between reality and spirituality,
A key between the black door and the white door,
A way out of the waiting room,
She guides me.
Trees a burning gold,
Everything is connected,
Branching out into infinity,
I walk until the path leads me,
To the two rivers in the seam,
I stand in between.
Silence.
What does it mean?
Perhaps an exaggerated dream,
Foreshadowing,
Of what is yet to come.
I walk, and walk,
She guides me,
The deer wanders,
Behind unboundedly,
Liberated, not a care,
Time is an illusion.
We walk until we stop,
My legs like fluid,
No restraint,
A body of water,
Made from the purest glacier,
Connecting from the two rivers,
Understanding.
A towering mountain stands,
King of everything.
Dipping my face in the water,
Rejuvenation and comprehension arrive,
I see a peek of truth at the bottom,
Swim down but I am stuck,
It's not my time.
I surface as she takes my hand,
We walk down the path,
So inebriated with the vision,
Unaware of the avalanche,
Everything collapsing,
Falling, falling, crashing,
I am not to grasp it yet.
A taste of possibility,
The perfect amount of tranquility,
The Creator poured just enough of each ingredient,
A glimpse of what I need to change.
I take the first step into the last days,
A different man.
Nov 15, 2012
Nov 15, 2012 at 3:07 PM UTC
I am the wind when the tide is high
And the clouds hang like broken picture frames in the sky,
Holding on for a moment of glory
While the poet’s haunting words write me life’s little story.
I am the sun when the world has no shine,
A gleam lost within the precious folds of time.
My manner of pride surpassing
What so long ago became everlasting,
For the days have become nothing more than an actor’s last scene.
I am thunder rippling in the dark
As the raindrops wound the already fragile hearts.
Sorrow falling upon the world like a blanket,
Wondering how much longer our broken souls can take it.
I am lost when the storm shatters the world,
Breaking the glass as the space between the lines unfurl.
And wandering like no man wanders before,
Hanging from the busted seam brought by greed, hunger, and war,
Never allowing their dreams to wash upon a dusty shore.
I am lightning, vibrant and ready to be a guide in the night,
Ready to end the darkness with a future promising and bright.
I am lightning, leading them through the storm
And abolishing the suffering that our hearts and our souls transformed.
I am lightning amongst thunder, ironically quiet and frightened,
Yet, they forget that their darkness too deserves to be lightened.
Jan 25, 2017
Jan 25, 2017 at 2:30 PM UTC
I rolled my ankle last month,
but didn't pay much attention
to the swelling because it didn't feel
like nougat flesh with a pushpin
center. It felt like skin, tendons,
and fishnet bones.
But now, when I make my bed,
I have to waste two or three
soft pillows at the foot of it.
So, I'm left with the burgundy ones
from the couch that I tried to patch
with boot liner and an eighth-grade
comprehension of sewing.
I stuck a rat's thimble on my ring
finger, so I could push the straw-thin
needle through the beefy seam.
No such luck.
Finished the stitching
with a Band-Aid beneath
the thimble. And I left
the cheetah-print liner hanging
off like a piece of skin,
hoping it'd fix itself.
Feb 18, 2015
Feb 18, 2015 at 11:22 AM UTC
Somebody has unstitched my heart.
Pulled the thread and let it fall apart.
And I'm empty now, it's all hollowed out
And I'm trying to breathe with the lungs I'm without.
It wasn't me, and it wasn't you,
Life did what living tends to do,
It stretched the seams and split the sides,
And I felt nothing here inside,
The only thing that's telling me
That things aren't how they ought to be
Is the seizing stop of breath
Inside my outside heaving chest,
And a familiar ache along
The seam that seemed to last so long,
That now across my ribs agape,
Allows my reason to escape,
Along with not a little blood,
To seep beneath me in the rug.
I could tell you I'm surprised,
But that would surely be a lie,
I feel some grimly got relief,
To succumb finally to belief.
I'm not sure that you understand
I'll be waiting here until the end.
Jan 1, 2013
Jan 1, 2013 at 6:25 PM UTC
sitting across from you
at the white kitchen table
or cross-legged on my side of the bed
is someone hollow.
not as sweet as a fig. not as dead
as the inside of a black rotting trunk
but close. i do not hold beautiful things
like a terracotta vase. inside my head
is a seam ripper that splits everything
down the middle. sometimes
you are standing in front of the bright window,
glowing like a saint. sometimes
i let you fall into an algae-lined pool
that i will not pay to have cleaned.
everything is floating within me.
i haven’t figured out
how to anchor this stuff down.
no one ever taught me how
Feb 27, 2019
Feb 27, 2019 at 5:15 PM UTC
It started as a puncture,
but the seam slowly ripped;
a thimble can't protect
from a poison needle tip.
She tried to mend it
by making more holes;
the tear only grew
and grew out of control.
At the spinning wheel
her life would quickly dwindle;
frantic attempts to hem
were depleting the spindle.
What started as a puncture
of seductive sedation
fueled the abuse
of machined perforation.
"Don't mourn a living corpse"
were the last words she said
as she drew the needle
that held the last thread.
Jan 21, 2017
Jan 21, 2017 at 10:56 PM UTC
1104
The Crickets sang
And set the Sun
And Workmen finished one by one
Their Seam the Day upon.
The low Grass loaded with the Dew
The Twilight stood, as Strangers do
With Hat in Hand, polite and new
To stay as if, or go.
A Vastness, as a Neighbor, came,
A Wisdom, without Face, or Name,
A Peace, as Hemispheres at Home
And so the Night became.
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617
Don’t put up my Thread and Needle—
I’ll begin to Sew
When the Birds begin to whistle—
Better Stitches—so—
These were bent—my sight got crooked—
When my mind—is plain
I’ll do seams—a Queen’s endeavor
Would not blush to own—
Hems—too fine for Lady’s tracing
To the sightless Knot—
Tucks—of dainty interspersion—
Like a dotted Dot—
Leave my Needle in the furrow—
Where I put it down—
I can make the zigzag stitches
Straight—when I am strong—
Till then—dreaming I am sewing
Fetch the seam I missed—
Closer—so I—at my sleeping—
Still surmise I stitch—
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The root suggests multiples,
a pair of shoes, yours and mine.
The prefix is a verb in motion, a
positive direction; a triumph of gravity
in defiance of its equal and opposite reaction.
He stands by the car in the grey light
with drizzle beading up on his shoulders.
Our life upset, torn at the seam into his and mine.
Turn around,
the coward whispers from my mouth.
I see my face reflected in the glass window
staring back at myself, the coward,
half of a set now rendered unusable, sold as scrap.
Turn around.
Multiples reduced to singular nouns.
My shoes are kicked and left by the door.
Everywhere his shapes are cut out of the dust.
The coward in me grins wide as a sickle
In the bathroom mirror. Our set of ghosts are
making too much noise, all night they keep me
up.
Nov 13, 2012
Nov 13, 2012 at 10:24 AM UTC
937
I felt a Cleaving in my Mind—
As if my Brain had split—
I tried to match it—Seam by Seam—
But could not make it fit.
The thought behind, I strove to join
Unto the thought before—
But Sequence ravelled out of Sound
Like Balls—upon a Floor.
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I am cutting all of my shirts this summer
to change each seam into a headband,
one that matches my stretchmarks –
twenty-two, in fact,
that are in perfect style for anyone to see.
Apr 11, 2013
Apr 11, 2013 at 8:42 PM UTC
328
A Bird came down the Walk—
He did not know I saw—
He bit an angle-worm in halves
And ate the fellow, raw,
And then he drank a Dew
From a convenient Grass,
And then hopped sidewise to the Wall
To let a Beetle pass—
He glanced with rapid eyes
That hurried all abroa—
They looked like frightened Beads, I thought—
He stirred his velvet head
Like one in danger, Cautious,
I offered him a Crumb,
And he unrolled his feathers
And rowed him softer home—
Than Oars divide the Ocean,
Too silver for a seam—
Or Butterflies, off Banks of Noon,
Leap, plashless as they swim.
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a zit—(white iceberg tip
infection-floating)
a heart (yours was always lipid-
slippery)
an ember (firefly abdomen
exhaling in black velvet)
a full bladder—(toilet-bowl relief:
a temporary prescription)
a bag of hot chips (extra habanero
for a spicy explosion)
a sink pipe (domestic artery rupture
of your sledgehammer swing)
a water balloon, (concrete-spiked,
insoluble rubber jigsaw)
spaghetti in the microwave: (blood
stain pattern analysis of metal walls)
a seam. (sewn ending
frays: leave the stitch, re-exposed.)
Apr 26, 2014
Apr 26, 2014 at 9:18 PM UTC
1371
How fits his Umber Coat
The Tailor of the Nut?
Combined without a seam
Like Raiment of a Dream—
Who spun the Auburn Cloth?
Computed how the girth?
The Chestnut aged grows
In those primeval Clothes—
We know that we are wise—
Accomplished in Surprise—
Yet by this Countryman—
This nature—how undone!
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