"searchlight" poems
I am the hunter
I’m the chased one
I am the wrong
I am the right
I am the shadow
I’m the phantom
I blow a cold wind
Through the night
*You won’t see me cry a tear
Switch on the searchlight
And in a second I’ll be near
I am the Dark Dark Knight*
I am the fearless
I am the horror
I am the broken
I am the strong
I am the famous
I’m the unknown
I am the knight
Who rides alone
*You won’t see me cry a tear
Switch on the searchlight
And in a second I’ll be near
I am the Dark Dark Knight*
You are the youth
You are the beauty
More than most men
Could ever take
You touch my skin
You kiss my armour
Drawn to a heart
You’ll never break
*You won’t see me cry a tear
Just close your eyes
And in a blink I’ll disappear
Into the dark dark knight*
Mar 25, 2015
Mar 25, 2015 at 7:49 AM UTC
"And then taking from his wallet
an old schedule of trains, he'll say
I told you when I came I was a stranger
I told you when I came I was a stranger."
--- Leonard Cohen
I'm the most surprised person on the planet.
Your coming to see me off at the airport
has my mind scratching glass seeking words.
Why is it that in this relationship,
you seem to have gotten all the speaking parts?
You're well aware that I have loved you
for the better part of two years,
bottling that emotion, afraid to pop the cork.
Your eyes implore mine, rotating like
a searchlight over Baghdad seeking
the stealth laying carnage to your heart.
Twice in the last week you've made it evident,
the Grail was mine, but for the drinking ---
That and finding a shorthand for adultry.
I'm guilty courting the love of a married woman,
made worse, you're here at my departure
telling me we aren't free to choose who we love.
I know my desire must die of thirst,
so I turn, boarding pass in hand,
the last words I ever hear from you,
Write me! --- Thirty-five years later I have.
Jul 2, 2012
Jul 2, 2012 at 12:54 PM UTC
I'm barely hanging on
Walking the same road every day
But I know when I'll see you
Where I have to go to make you smile
Amidst the faceless masses
that walk past every hour
You shine out like a searchlight
Pointing me to the reason
I'm still here
Mar 22, 2012
Mar 22, 2012 at 9:58 PM UTC
Gears keep churning.
Midnight oil is burning.
For months on end,
My mind keeps wondering.
How I want to fend away thoughts of when,
You came around.
A switch inside of me turned.
Behold! A soul was found.
My feet hovered above the Earth,
The searchlight you shone illuminated my heart.
Like a plant drawn to sunrays, I unfolded before you.
I waited. But my lifesaver never came.
A Romanesque silhouette can be seen now because of you.
I falter.
May 18, 2010
May 18, 2010 at 9:19 PM UTC
I’ve got fifteen years tied in knots
of green and brown and I have
decided that it is time for a change
of scenery. So I climb onto the roof
and pretend I am a chimney, spewing
smoke of blue and grey and lung cancer and
voggy Hilo mornings. A helicopter
circles overhead at an altitude of 805 feet, its
searchlight catching the neighborhood
lying spread-eagled on the living room
floor, brutally desecrated and left
bare-bones to die. I am a catalyst,
an instigator, a cynic with a palm tree.
Today I read an atlas and find
naught but “A Hui Hou” scrawled across
the pages in black pen. I burn the
book, the bridge, and the old tires in
the backyard.
On Saturday it rained and the floodwaters
took my bicycle.
Sometimes I sit by the roadside reading
Bukowski with hibiscus in my hair and
Indiana in my eyes. Hunting dogs
clash with rescue dogs at the house
with the stop sign. The moon falls
from the sky and engulfs the mynah
birds and the plague. The floodwaters
recede and leave a jigsaw puzzle
on the slopes of Mauna Kea. “I am not
afraid,” I say, “for I am only gravel.”
I play the eight-bar blues on Fortieth
and sing songs of drugs and missed
connections. I am hit by a truck and
a little gold car, but I proclaim myself
immortal as I am flattened to the pavement.
I am the Ki’i Pohaku beatnik, and
I write of nature and nurture and
the never-ending rain.
Someone has painted my walls blue
and my hands grey. So I pack my suitcase
and run down the highway for
seven thousand miles and all I see
are mistakenly-numbered houses and
blank maps and dead neighbors
from families I used to know.
There are torrents of rain now,
forming puddles in the forest.
I know the reason. It is twelve
in the morning.
The neighborhood grows obscure.
We are demolished.
May 5, 2011
May 5, 2011 at 1:13 AM UTC
Spaces distance themselves--
to isolate the purpose of longing.
A depth where memory forgets
itself...spaces backwashed
lucidly.
Genuine seeing sets in--as if a
searchlight disconnected from
its lighthouse...swimming toward
the horizon's conclusion.
Longingly, as it is to bleed and
be bled for...the exchange of the
heart's chalice.
Eyes are lit by the asking of
salvation...so many eyes...tenderly
placed for their hapless duration.
Spaces distance themselves--to
isolate the purpose of longing...it
is therefrom a genuine seeing sets
in.
How else may emotion unfold...how
else may this temple stand amidst
the wilderness?
A temple destined to die into life...
as life is irreducible from a genuine
seeing.
Sep 13, 2012
Sep 13, 2012 at 11:41 PM UTC
Alone on this dark wet flagstone
hiding not hibernating place
no hedge to hug no worms to dig
stunned torchlit searchlight target
awaiting attack from hostiles
spine chilling prying naturephiles.
Sep 5, 2016
Sep 5, 2016 at 1:49 PM UTC
******** Pure and simple. ********
Be like a vampire
Refine your tracking trait,
Saving time and disappointment.
Recognize it when you hear it,
See it, read it.
I've had to eat beside it.
It rarely smells until identified,
You sense the patties are everywhere,
Inside and outside the paddock.
Speak out when encountered:
******** plain and simple.*
Point in its direction,
Be a searchlight.
The room goes silent
Like a stop-action clip,
Frozen for the stink to seep.
Everything has the stench.
They're skilled,
But shallow.
One needs to go home and wash,
Do the laundry. Clean the kitchen.
Honestly!
Feb 22, 2016
Feb 22, 2016 at 9:39 AM UTC
We are all but sailors who drift upon love's seas
But one thing I can't seem to decipher is if the lighthouse is you or me
For this wretched tide tosses and turns me into a face in the crowd
And I pray to God that searchlight will turn on and finally single me out
For I am sick with love for you and seem to be obscured
Pondering on which of us is ill and which is the cure
And all I know is seasickness is making me yearn for home
And the open doors that are your arms let me know you're sick of being alone
So I will weather the storm clouds and the ever tossing sea
And I will look to you and know I'm the one for whom you're waiting
For when it comes down to star-struck hearts that finally choose to collide
It matters not on the infliction or remedy but that they're brought together in time
With this in mind I will fall in love with you and wrestle my way to the coast
So then you can see the days have been long and of my journey I will boast
And any treasure I find, whether lighthouse or sailor, is worth the world to me
But until then, if you seek me, my love, look outwards to sea
Feb 18, 2013
Feb 18, 2013 at 9:25 AM UTC
On the breakwater in the summer dark, a man and a
girl are sitting,
She across his knee and they are looking face into face
Talking to each other without words, singing rythms in
silence to each other.
A funnel of white ranges the blue dusk from an out-
going boat,
Playing its searchlight, puzzled, abrupt, over a streak of
green,
And two on the breakwater keep their silence, she on his
knee.
1.3k
Another day of cloud and shadow,
has come to take up the stage.
Another sense of empty loneliness,
that so often fills my published page.
That feeling that there is no point,
no rhyme or reason to what I do.
Another day devoid of sunshine,
where dark shadow taints the view.
An ever present feeling of endings,
that assuredly a soul attests are near.
Desolation's discomfort behind my eyes,
seemingly compelled to fill with tear.
Mind now drawn from dreamless sleep,
to wakeful hours as empty as those dreams.
An empty world of loneliness and silence,
where thoughts become nightmare's screams.
Slow moving hands that count away the time,
days filled with shadow immune to every light.
Empty total vacuum unaffected by the hour,
despair, minds refuge in black deep as the night.
Somewhere in this world where darkness reigns,
all dream and hope took turn and lost its way.
So I close again my eyes to drift in dreamless sleep.
to hope that hope returns again some day.
Jul 4, 2021
Jul 4, 2021 at 10:46 PM UTC
Before you know it, you'll find the sound of your roommate's voice while she's talking to her bestie on the phone to be a burgeoning wedge pushing you into retreat. The demands of your work schedule, the hours of studying to be done, the expectations of friends and lovers. They all crowd around you with their false promises of offering a new path, a light of some sort. But in reality they only hover over you with the disparaging lens of a magnifying glass, while blinding you with a searchlight intent on finding remnants of the person they once knew. The sun used to come through in patches and shine down on you in spontaneous beams, but now that flicker is gone. Now you cannot even remember what natural light looks like. You cannot see any path to what you once longed for. Your options and advances dissipate like a sugar cube resting on a tongue; the sweetness of solitude soon gone. This wall they have surrounded you with, under the pretense of comfort, has turned into a treacherous mistress. What was once the pillow that absorbed the weight of your head is now the force blocking your vision and airflow, as you suffocate underneath its weight in exchange. You'll find yourself cowering in a corner with a noose around your neck, the tension so strong that any attempt to move away will only sever your life as you know it. Any movement at all will only tighten the hold. So you must stand completely still.
Aug 21, 2012
Aug 21, 2012 at 2:41 PM UTC
//winter//
the frost that clings to your bones -
like it lives there -
makes such a home under your skin
in the way that I wish I could
burry myself – deep within,
the warmth of your breath
ghosting the air,
rose tinting on your cheeks -
the snowflakes upon your hair
it is in this season
that your love is a blanket
//spring//
The flowers bloom in your hair,
the pollen dancing to your eyelashes
how can spring sit here
with you?
spend a day aside from the world -
spend a day away from me,
living within your own beauty,
this charm that you share
it’s almost unfair (to us mere mortals)
it is in this season
that your love is beautiful
//summer//
The sunlight in your eyes is a searchlight
calling me through those lazy days
like burning, the kiss of your skin
makes the shiver underneath my own
seem so unlike the season,
you step around
the heat in me
like it’s nothing
like it’s just incandescent
it is in this season
that your love is on fire
//autumn//
leaves fall around you – like a crown
a king of the season
and death doesn’t matter
when you hold so much life,
and drop not a single ounce of care
for the wilt in the flowers stem,
and the lightning, the clouds, the breeze
are side effects
of your touch
it is in my favourite season
that your love is more powerful than I
Aug 14, 2013
Aug 14, 2013 at 4:19 PM UTC
I'd write a poem for the drunk and insane.
The bitter and banged up.
If only I had something helpful to say.
Day comes some days as an enormous searchlight.
Exposing everything and showing nothing.
We'd like to think there's connection in pain
but mainly within it some wither and others assault.
So we just carry on under the glare.
Keeping an appropriate distance.
And carry the memory of night's emptiness to protect us.
Jul 19, 2014
Jul 19, 2014 at 6:44 AM UTC
You'll always be one of the reasons I love being alive.
The look on your face when you walked into the Disney Store.
The way you take nothing too seriously, but always take the things that truly matter just seriously enough.
The inch of skin at your hips that refuses to stay concealed beneath any of your shirts,
(The one that drives you crazy,
That always drove me crazy, too.)
The fact that all the time is time for some good food at your house.
And the unspoken promise that whenever I am feeling truly desolate, you will appear like a distant golden searchlight on a stormy sea
To guide me back from the darkness.
I used to love you in only one way.
It's expanded, and I imagine it will, always.
If ever someday we stop saying hello to one another,
I will find memories of your smile in every foreign city,
And on every morning that I decide my day will be a good one.
Hey, you know, maybe you're the truest love of my life.
Maybe the point is that I don't need to touch you to know
I always have your handprint on my heart,
Keeping me warm,
No matter how foolish or wise I ever become.
If that time I spent with you was the best I'll ever know....
You know,
It was pretty **** wonderful.
Feb 8, 2014
Feb 8, 2014 at 6:25 PM UTC
Standing on the coast of the oceans
Enjoying the breeze yet lonely
Young Joseph, pushed into the pit of single self
An ochestration of fear
The fear of betrayal and unfaithfulness
Wait did I
Call did I
Calling out for a help out there
Calling out with the voice of afability
Then I saw a light flashed in the pit
Searchlight it seemed and that was it
It was your love
Exactly what I need
Reminiscing the night you took my number
It was satisfaction that suddenly killed my hunger
I'll keep it a memory lasting much longer
You gave me a clothe of friendship in the cold wearther of loneliness
Oh my God am rescued
The days of loneliness seemed like of yore
Your smile like the rising sun brought a whole differnt light of mood
The joy of your presence is of beggars belief
While your absence like a broken bridge on the highway
My goals seem very very far then
But with your intelligence they seem like at an arm's length
Your voice, a courage to my down soul
And your assurance, the fuel to my weak bold
Accomplished dreams I see with you
And the awareness of your love keeps me going in the days of trouble
Your sadness like a dark cloud covers my joy
And your sorrow penetrates my tough soul
It wounds it
That saddens me
It makes me feel restless and helpless
For this, I will always make you happy
No matter what
Do remember
The relation is only a ship
The ship may sink before we get to the coast
But the love will always stay afloat
Jan 9, 2023
Jan 9, 2023 at 10:31 AM UTC
I’ve been mistaken for a conquistador
When really I just break hearts by accident
There’s no evil in my deeds
And no wickedness in my words
I’m just looking for lovers who are lost
I’ve been trying to fix the unbroken
And all I do is break what can’t be fixed
There’s no cleverness in my words
And no thoroughness in my deeds
I’m just a lost soul looking for love
So you will know me by the trail of broken hearts
And the flower in my buttonhole
And that smug look on my face
And the searchlight in my mind
Aimed at nothing in particular
Dec 2, 2015
Dec 2, 2015 at 9:16 AM UTC
There's a searchlight in the sky,
Casting watchful
Yet pock marked eye
Upon the weary wanderers
That roam under the light.
Suspect by nature
When you navigate the night.
Guilty by virtue of where you
May retire,
Or not as the case may be.
Under streetlight
I follow foxes.
Or do they follow me?
Among dreams of clocks
And mirrored razor blades
Rusted by the sea.
Dec 26, 2013
Dec 26, 2013 at 7:13 PM UTC
July 3, 2011
These were the orders of the day,
issued by admirals
who monitor the lanes surrounding
this sea island and that now include
my desolated, desecrated, heart waves
that wash ashore.
With beacon searchlight,
high powered, prowl,
be a coast guard on the bay
of humanity, following wakes,
intersecting misaligned paths,
undoing crisscrossed roads
on a plane of water,
forever search,
permissioned only
to never cease, tasked only to:
Save the young ones.
For there is no cost
we will not bear,
take our mind's light,
our speech, the music from ears,
the fiber'd essence of
our tissue-thin life's weave,
but let us be, leave us,
to save the young ones.
Leave us not becalmed, baffled,
broken, discovering
what sound we make
when our throats are
grief engorged beyond bound,
so leave us the young ones.
When we fail, what it is,
I do not know,
how to name it, cannot,
for I am forever
star gazing, star lost, confused,
with every breath ruptured,
my own value to wonder,
and on and on to ponder:
Is there no end to the reservoir
of tears that accompany these
spilled and spoiled thoughts,
stained kisses on paper
where ink and saltwater connect,
and lay upon the surface of
memories that can't be blotted,
never be replaced or,
cry out, cry out,
be added to?
How many sad poems.
must yet invade my fingers,
ripping my mask of reason off,
making me unhappily familiar
with jagged edges of the sea,
each drop - a tipping point
into places I wanted never know,
a rendering reminder of
these days of disorder,
Save the young ones.
Sep 2, 2013
Sep 2, 2013 at 2:18 PM UTC
I can't help but be flustered.
Reflections. Monsters. Mirrors; Captured souls.
Release. Awakening. Repress. Make-up; Mask.
Alternate reflections. Hate others;Hate self.
Push. Face fear. Be fear. Perception;Reality. Responsibility.
Remove mask. Breathe. Add Mask.
Accepting time. Day and night/birth and death/alpha and omega.
Create/Destroy. Destroy/Rebuild. Greetings. Farewell. Wounds and scars.
Children. Adults/Scarred children. Children are people. People are children.
Bad seeds or bad fruit? Bruised fruit. Too many bruises. Too many scars. Rotten fruit. No hope.
Always hope. Humans. Nature. Human nature. Optimism. Search for hope. Search for light. Illuminated Searchlight.
Conquest. Journey. Propel forward. Repel backward. Traveling nowhere. Fast.
Duality Deceased. A Dice Roll of Disease.
Feb 18, 2015
Feb 18, 2015 at 7:02 PM UTC
tonight:
no lemon slice moon,
no searchlight of white.
a black cradle for black bodies.
cylindrical wax, it’s all cyclical –
mike brown, eric garner,
freddie gray,
meagan hockaday
– across the street
white boy shreds black asphalt,
a sloppy chorus of happy birthday
spills like their foamy pints
over brown tables and black eulogies.
those pale faces, those pale fingers,
preoccupied more with the bubbling
and the stretch of their pizza cheese.
look up from your porcelain plates.
hear our rage bubbling,
see communities stretched translucent.
there is blood on your hands
and guilt to your name.
May 9, 2015
May 9, 2015 at 5:35 PM UTC
The weather's getting warmer
there's still static in your snowy eyes
and moonlight waxing pale shines
a searchlight
through this night's
humming summer city haunts
frames your face and splashes mine
with the truth that lies behind
a well-intentioned whitewash lie
that we care where we're going,
that we know what we're doing
and daily life don't scare us blind.
The Warden's got his dogs out,
our feet barely touch the ground.
And we're not looking back until
we hear no chasing sounds
so sound the fox horn
and catch us napping if you can.
'Cuz we're just killing days,
running all night and foiling plans.
The silver night was spilling
quiet rainstorms on your dark red hair
and my resolve was waning there
against those
smiles we wrote
in that crumbling concrete hour.
'Cuz we'd never been that close
to divorcing deceased ghosts
and coming clean from mud-caked boasts
that our chains never rattled,
that we never felt saddled
beneath our heavy, self-sewn cloaks.
The Warden's got his dogs out,
our feet barely touch the ground.
We're never looking back again,
and we won't make a sound
so sound the fox horn
and catch us napping if you can.
'Cuz we're just killing days,
running all night and foiling plans.
Tunneled under the walls now
it's high time we put some ground
between us and our yesterdays
that howl like baying hounds.
We'll pound the pavement
and catch a few winks where we can.
And we'll be living days
and sleeping nights and making plans.
Jun 2, 2015
Jun 2, 2015 at 12:11 AM UTC
Under The Bed!
Where shadows creep.
Nightmares lurk.
A child cries.
Fear not dispelled.
Sandman will not venture here.
For he too.
Is filled with fear.
In the secret land under the bunk.
A trunk.
What nastiness concealed therein.
If you're brave enough to move it.
Below it is a hole.
The hole descends deeper and deeper.
At the base of the hole.
Lives the Grim Reaper.
What could be unleashed.
Better put it back quick.
He won't miss a trick.
To put pay to all life on this magic planet.
That would give him such fun.
Should shove it back.
It is very heavy.
The trunk made of wood.
Padlock in situ.
Wrought iron in black.
With eerie designs engraved with strange runes.
Decipher the code.
You can't understand.
Perhaps they said 'leave well alone'.
Being a hero, an intrepid explorer.
Decided he wouldn't be able.
Dragged it out left it by the old table.
No desire to open the box.
Got his caving gear out.
Searchlight on a miner's cap.
Down he went,
Down down down.
Was dark and damp smelled of mould.
Rustling in the ether.
A sound he heard.
Fear set in.
Adrenaline rush.
Rushed faster than he.
Scrambled up the side out of the pit.
A lucky escape I am sure.
Dragged the chest back under the bed.
Shaking he fled back out through the door.
Surveyed the situation.
All was quiet.
Crept back into bed.
Covers over his ears.
Still shaking a little.
Never had a dream as thus.
What it is to be brave in dreams!
By ladylivvi1
© 2013 ladylivvi1 (All rights reserved)
Oct 5, 2013
Oct 5, 2013 at 6:12 AM UTC
I inhale the rain-refreshed air.
Your eyes are grey,
and aren't willing to tell me.
I ruffle your red hair
as sunbeams bend to moon,
but it's "time to go", you've got "work to do".
The moss covers wall,
the squirrel grows fat,
we have kinks to combat.
The noise--tremendous,
I try to distract,
but you turned tail--straight for rabbit hole.
I lost
you
in the sheets.
No heat,
freeze, freeze, freeze--
the wind's grief.
You crawl, wounded dog,
I leap into night sky,
searchlight in love, in vain.
Apr 26, 2011
Apr 26, 2011 at 10:21 PM UTC
Daisy, the cheerful flower
Is actually a dead-inside *****
These are the things they don't tell you about the young and beautiful
Gatsby's mind is so clogged with her golden haze
He can't see past her blinding green searchlight
That is ironically placed right outside of his reach
He covers up his despair with grand parties
Elaborate Loneliness
So she'll say, "Oh, Gatsby! I must have you!"
However, the rich only get richer
And the lonely people with the pure dreams die in the end
While the eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleberg just watch on
Jun 17, 2014
Jun 17, 2014 at 11:42 PM UTC