"semaphore" poems
Her arms semaphore fat triangles,
Pudgy HANDS bunched on layered hips
Where bones idle under years of fatback
And lima beans.
Her jowls shiver in accusation
Of crimes cliched by Repetition.
Her children, strangers
To childhood's TOYS, play
Best the games of darkened doorways,
Rooftop tag, and know the slick feel of
Other people's property.
Too fat to *****
Too mad to work,
Searches her dreams for the
Lucky sign and walks bare-handed
Into a den of bereaucrats for her portion.
'They don't give me welfare.
I take it.'
6.5k
being a poet is not planned
**~for Gabriella Garcia~
~~
*a sixteen old soul says she understands,
being a poet is not planned,
forcing an old mans re-collection of the first time,
he made love to a virginal white
papyrus with muscles trembling,
body bent, chest bursting a rockets red glaring,
eyes marking the sheets with salty drip spots
what possessed the wrist veins
to wrest a cheap ballpoint pen to transfuse pain,
in a semaphore of uncoded ink blotches,
what was he thinking
was he thinking?
that it was an ejection
that it was an ***********
that it was a tribulation expiation
that it was a tribute explanation?
that it was an injection
that it was a circumspection inspection
that it was a circumscision surgery of emotional complexion
excising an infection with a written genuflection?
try, but no might, the first is subsumed
by the thousands that followed dutifully
though his one poem flawless, expertly recalled,
it will always be the next,
and unplanned just like this one too
who anointed his brow, the hair and forehead,
with oil pure, dripping down onto, into his cut cain marker,
who is not answering a query relentless
is this his plan, his appointment,
is this his flawed excellence,
is this his imperfect penance perpetual?
knowing well and full
now
the unplanned is his plan,
it’s his faceted flaws
that refract his coloraturas*
~~
upon this he reflects,
praying that
god protect the
young poets
from planning
______________
https://hellopoetry.com/poem/2893127/unplanned
Feb 27, 2019
Feb 27, 2019 at 1:27 PM UTC
I dreamed that dead, and meditating,
I lay upon a grave, or bed,
(at least, some cold and close-built bower).
In the cold heart, its final thought
stood frozen, drawn immense and clear,
stiff and idle as I was there;
and we remained unchanged together
for a year, a minute, an hour.
Suddenly there was a motion,
as startling, there, to every sense
as an explosion. Then it dropped
to insistent, cautious creeping
in the region of the heart,
prodding me from desperate sleep.
I raised my head. A slight young ****
had pushed up through the heart and its
green head was nodding on the breast.
(All this was in the dark.)
It grew an inch like a blade of grass;
next, one leaf shot out of its side
a twisting, waving flag, and then
two leaves moved like a semaphore.
The stem grew thick. The nervous roots
reached to each side; the graceful head
changed its position mysteriously,
since there was neither sun nor moon
to catch its young attention.
The rooted heart began to change
(not beat) and then it split apart
and from it broke a flood of water.
Two rivers glanced off from the sides,
one to the right, one to the left,
two rushing, half-clear streams,
(the ribs made of them two cascades)
which assuredly, smooth as glass,
went off through the fine black grains of earth.
The **** was almost swept away;
it struggled with its leaves,
lifting them fringed with heavy drops.
A few drops fell upon my face
and in my eyes, so I could see
(or, in that black place, thought I saw)
that each drop contained a light,
a small, illuminated scene;
the weed-deflected stream was made
itself of racing images.
(As if a river should carry all
the scenes that it had once reflected
shut in its waters, and not floating
on momentary surfaces.)
The **** stood in the severed heart.
"What are you doing there?" I asked.
It lifted its head all dripping wet
(with my own thoughts?)
and answered then: "I grow," it said,
"but to divide your heart again."
3.8k
my body is no longer my body long
but a short grunt
of atmospheric
twine
entangled in the long con
of birth
and the shambles of our every
dream...
the semaphore
on a dead wind
of a flat Sea.
to rival the catacombs of your placid menagerie.
higher than brick kites
we.
and some of the absolute
squanders the never fails
and the dead end
lives at the end
of the block
where you're
mental.
Mar 29, 2015
Mar 29, 2015 at 7:57 PM UTC
I want a flag,
A serious flag is required.
Banners, ribbons and semaphore
Are the poems.
I want the flag
With red for alerting distractions,
With all rainbows,
All.
And though it will flap
With some fearsomeness,
The ******** double cross
Circled with olympian rings.
And a white flag emerges.
Eye white.
Naturally I hoist it,
And surrender.
Under interrogation
I spill my guts.
Jun 18, 2014
Jun 18, 2014 at 12:31 AM UTC
Talent was not worth it,
Until it turned into skill
Rise against the odds
To go in for the ****
Thought it was supposed to be silky smooth,
Thorns in a bed of roses lay still
Hate it for the un-nerving truth
Victory accompanied by a sunken face
And a broken tooth,
What once was
A mountain to climb,
Now within my reach
The peak of ascent
Toiling along the way
A threshold to breach,
A view so spectacular
I could live there forever
Alas, the only thing worse,
Than an incoming frown
Is the dream I was having
Of getting to the top
Without ever putting a foot down,
A ghost of perdition
A drunken semaphore of
Nihilistic fortitude
Scarring enough to even put
Any effort in the journey,
Thinking all I had was
What I ever needed.
Oct 3, 2022
Oct 3, 2022 at 3:55 PM UTC
Love carried on the whistling wind,
It screamed your tag initially,
Now in a wild whirling whisper when you wonder what each message spells.
Semaphore and smoke signals, carried on the winter wind as storms collide within your eyes.
Deities of chaos, went and wrote a book of words.
In shreds of insular letters written on ice, in crystal clouds.
Something like I love you.
In Sanskrit symbols, carved in old woods.
Where women run naked, who say that it's good.
And all the information thereby, carried on that whistling wind.
(c)LIVVI
Sep 21, 2016
Sep 21, 2016 at 6:27 PM UTC
'Neath Nimbus Dark
Eerie sings
Nature's Acrobats
Million wings
Splendour reigns
Cascades crash
Aeriel Ballet
Swooping splash
Mesmerising movement
Semaphore Correlation
Phenomenon splendid
Starling Murmuration
thank you
Apr 27, 2017
Apr 27, 2017 at 6:32 AM UTC
You had the truth in your hand
But I guess you couldn't stand...
...the demand...
... of being a real human
So why does your shame
Make it necessary to blame
The others for suddenly being
A stranger
Does that not create the danger
Of rearranging the facts
While jumping the tracks
In your haste to move forward
What could be the reward
For striking such a chord
Of internal discontent
Where your morality is bent...
... To the point of almost broken
While fueling the fires you alone were stoking
I had relinquished the remote
As I felt the chill wind blow
Still I did not don a coat
Out of righteous indignation
Or from forlorn resignation
Although there was temptations
I let you hem and haw - have your say
So you could do it your way
The window view instinctively knew
And slowly dropped it's shades
The window curtains instinctively knew
And dropped... so as one side fades
Going back into the obscurity
There is a melancholy pull
Looming large and weighted down with insecurity
Even in that first moment of triumph
The serious side knew
This was no contest
It was an awakening
While nowhere near sleep
As if the dreamers shuffling steps recede
Scuffing the floor in metronomic
semaphore
Sounding like the best the best the best the best the best the best the best
Continuing as it crosses the room
The best the best the best the best
right on out the door.
Sep 14, 2016
Sep 14, 2016 at 5:52 PM UTC
In this sling shot,whatya got 'cause we ain't got a thing
I bring to you a different view of how
to get along,
singing from the same sheet has got me beat 'cause it don't work,at least it don't for me and though I try to be,I cannot be amazed by new technology,give me a pen and then some ink
let me link the letter trail,let me trace out through the nib the thoughts I pull from Adam's rib and Eve's delight
let me write in semaphore and pour my heart into the page,uncage the reasoning behind the everyday in which I find most everything,let me bind my feet until I meet the pen that walks the other way,let me stay in suspension,pension me into,flood the ink through me,let the words bend into me,open my eyes so my mind can see the oceans inside of me,
and inside you,
where once thoughts flew like blue birds,do you remember?
can you fall once again into the speeding of the brain as it rushes to its end and pretend to pretend that it's real,can you feel to be higher,lick your lips like the fire licks the wood,could you imagine what it's like once more to write the opening of the door,can you make love with the ink,link into the think that you will?
does this view fit the bill?
Jan 11, 2014
Jan 11, 2014 at 12:43 AM UTC
I walk down the street whisked by the fragrant aroma of a ***** floating above the clouds
Encased in venom but dismantled plumes of disembodied hair gave her a shroud
I saw in her minced reflection the swindled lust of a happy conclusion
To years of isolated rebarbative delusion
To serenade with penultimate swaggers as though I have been fully swooned
Too soon to aim my praise at an adoring moon
Tugging on mutual hearts entwined with the summer breeze
Trying to garner the summer heir and the summer flair
A panache to clothe every armed bear, disarmed by a propitiated care
A crisp lament crashes the party as a heckler gouging for blindness
I clinch a ****** anger as a riotous engine crafted from wineskins
Belonging to an ageless agelast scurried in dismay
I warp the warbled marble sleet a craven disarray
Then I clamber, risqué in fleeting moments a criminal repartee
I wallop the emerging consensus as the 16th hands me over dumped tea
And a ****** tree laughs as the whitewashed sanity of sanitarium ******
I swerve away from the indecency of a pepper enclosed in chosen wax
A gibbous shackle crumpled on a concrete semaphore
An erratic blithe minatory metaphor
Saturnine clout sweeps the dusty apron from the desuetude of homespun lethargy
Rampant clovers distilled from a dreamscape a raspy sea
Trespassing whisper surmounts the lambent alpenglow of a newborn sun
A sleek potter’s spell encumbered by a lapsed pun
Doors ajar and vats wed with an aimless spar
I finally see the fullness of majesty adorned as a breathing star.
Jun 30, 2016
Jun 30, 2016 at 7:42 AM UTC
One day our spines’ll tesselate under sage soft duvets as storms sweep across us and no one will cry;
not one noise shall slip from tongues
‘cos strength comes from keeping quiet
or carrying on.
You’re a now realised kindness that doesn’t know what breath is
or how the north circular works in festive rush hours home,
but I’ll kiss the answers upon your tender carbon tapered chest and hope the toner never runs low
(your dad would’ve handcrafted every thing he knew in semaphore if he’d have pulled through,
but you’ll learn in time, too, that time does not ruin fewer experiences than being).
I lean in. Whisper this (above) across your one body,
three eighths the size of a coffee table hardback book:
the result of patience pined for
that I mimed along to motherhood the best I could for nine months
and now, here, I lift the hood and work out what to do next in this rush to settle down and sit,
sip until you snooze off into silence.
Here I carry you and do not notice the weight,
stare at the gape of you, my newly framed little one held in the palm of my hand,
squat full four pinter named after someone we knew.
You landed lunar surface side up,
smoothed new to the toes
and I wonder how I’ll meet you
I wonder how this goes.
Feb 28, 2016
Feb 28, 2016 at 3:13 AM UTC
Momentary Love, sweet as time on hold
My desires are in your form
In these days inconsistent and always constant
My need for sublimity, for your understanding
False reflection of me in your eyes
Who are you indeed, white or black soul, or gray
Be mine for a while, three minutes and thirty four seconds
Or maybe quarter until the full hour
Lover and friend and everything that do not exist
In the moment of regret for undone possibilities
Pathos or honesty in the cradle
Streetcars and lights, concrete mass and human faces
Where did you lost yourself, heavenly touch, with blue wings
For whom did you cry and which one you loved
Only one touch in the night, no high emotions
Fragile and strong at once, so go away now
You will disappear as all did before, somewhere in unreal
Through semaphore lights on crossroads
I worship the line of your neck and your eyelashes
Your words are glass half full of solace
Bath me with your gaze and with one tear
My lover and friend, spirit in the night
Jul 27, 2010
Jul 27, 2010 at 6:42 AM UTC
Within your system
of abstract data I'm the
invariable
one; the broken semaphore
who yearns for an error-patch.
Oct 24, 2016
Oct 24, 2016 at 2:36 PM UTC
here i am, unidentified.
tho, i have an identity.
pictures of a cat, starfish
and sea shells,
a blurb, that shelters me well.
you know some,
some read and see more
but not all of me, far from all.
you could pass me by,
in the street,
not ever knowing who i am.
few have links to me.
most care not to
and that's ok
i am an ambiguity,
who, tinkers away with words, creating,
sounds to roll off the tongue, tickle the ear
and burrow and settle in the rooms of your mind.
as do,
you all,
do for
and
to me.
we are but, ships upon
a sea of words,
sailing blithely on.
sending semaphore greetings,
across great distances.
before traveling on.
identified only,
by monikers and pseudonyms,
remaining anonymous
except for style and nuances
that give small clues,
to the daily worlds,
we inhabit.
where the veiled secrets
do not dwell openly,
as they do here,
on bright white pages.
here i remain, here
i am unidentified,
bar for a nom de plume.
yet still, more than comfortable with myself.
May 3, 2014
May 3, 2014 at 11:53 PM UTC
Position, at its utmost
buckles into meter,
losing originality,
condemning itself to fate.
His sister is Horizon,
annal of the past,
coming up to meet us at
the moment before dawn.
The records show that she has moved
but no one here has seen it,
no one can read semaphore
save the lovely moon.
And if we ask her for her word
she echoes back but silence,
so must we waste the evening
without accounting Highness.
Feb 15, 2019
Feb 15, 2019 at 9:27 PM UTC
still talking to myself
on the tin can telephone
if i shouted any louder
my tongue would be a semaphore
im getting nowhere faster
than a paraplegic tortuga
tortuously touring
a mini minotaur in its mystic maze
running marathons before the bulls
hit all the china plates
youve placed in every possible avenue
of escape
Nov 14, 2018
Nov 14, 2018 at 8:45 AM UTC
Curfew dogs pay no
heed to black sheep
Darkness differentiation
derides no delegates
Church bells silence
testicular pendulums
Hands semaphore -
timeless clock towers
Shadowless alleys
cat controlled kerbs
Embers doused, ashen
Phoenix faces cindered
Light rationed through
ill fitting shutters
Charred wood remnants
wafting weightlessly
Whispering eavesdrops
cobblestone chattering
Town crier echoing in
mnemonic mutterings
A rising intonation
dies on rebound, silence.
<>
Lockdown |ˈlɒkdaʊn|
nounN. Amer.
the confining of prisoners to their cells, typically in order to regain control during a riot. the lockdown has been in effect since October 1983.
• a state of isolation or restricted access instituted as a security
measure: the university is on lockdown and nobody has been able to leave.
<>
Curfew |ˈkəːfjuː|
noun
a regulation requiring people to remain indoors between specified hours, typically at night: a dusk-to-dawn curfew | [ mass noun ] : the whole area was immediately placed under curfew.
• the hour designated as the beginning of a curfew. [ mass noun ] : to be abroad after curfew without permission was to risk punishment.
• the daily signal indicating the beginning of a curfew: they had to return before the curfew sounded.
Oct 26, 2020
Oct 26, 2020 at 9:12 AM UTC
the feeling forward
instead of backward
for a change,
triggering my body
into whole new
sensations;
as if I never had
any urges before
this time,
when our lips met
it killed
the innocence
of crawling
before running,
which my heart was,
faster with every passing moment
like a drunken semaphore
of hormones raging
inside and out,
the brevity of time
and of life
clearly out of the window,
for when we collide
to come together
instead of falling apart,
like this poem
not a reckless serenade,
then it hit me
a moment lost in creating one
when she fixes me,
would be a pity
to know we can't
go back.
Apr 29, 2021
Apr 29, 2021 at 12:33 PM UTC
i stand right here,
in the middle of
the empty street,
next to the semaphore,
whose green light
is on, which
indicates a car
to run me over,
so it can soothe
my pain and sorrow,
and finally, after
a long time, i'll
feel nothing.
Apr 23, 2014
Apr 23, 2014 at 2:54 PM UTC
wet gutter stone
submerged in the rill
blackheavy and round
and the weight beneath me:
a smooth cold killer of light
night is a forest
wet banquet of noise
small epiphany’s happening at street lights
and wild-life electric
far off are the radios
the occasional violence
hits the melancholy,
hangs with urban drifters
patches up a night sky
night is a forest, a jungle of audible character
damp activity
light and shape struggle to hold meaning,
as momentary glimpses
glistening with hope
capture an uncertain semaphore
Sep 26, 2014
Sep 26, 2014 at 11:29 PM UTC
We will all soldier on because that's how we're made
one more commando
one more daylight raid and we soldier on.
Long after we're gone and the archaeologists move in to dig up our lives and try to begin and understand the way that we ticked
the way we picked fights,the wounds that we licked,
I'll be in somebody's sights as they examine my bones,searching for clues,considering how I had lived so, with a body abused and wondering if time had it all his own way or did I have some say in the way that I lived and the way that I died.
In the glass cabinets of museums the people will peer at me and what will they see but an old bag of bones covered in rags, a bolognese of a man all knotted then cleaned up and slotted,pigeon holed, allotted my own private page which reads,
'this is a man from the second dark age'
and in years to pass when the glass cracks with the weight of the history inside it
I'll step outside it and continue my soldiering on.
But we'll all make the raid until we're finally laid
at rest,
waiting for the semaphore,the telegram,the history man marches on.
Jul 21, 2014
Jul 21, 2014 at 11:13 PM UTC
She makes with me eye contact
in protracted conversations and
I stutter out my yearnings in
confetti flavoured feelings,
then she takes my hand in friendship
which is more than I could hope for,
walks me off into the forest where
the trees are waving signals in
search of semaphore
induced survival,
and we lay down at the crossroads
where she opens up the bible,
passing psalms like Chinese whispers which
my ears can barely hear.
we are home.
The lady with the beehive who was once known as
Medusa
comes to wallow in the silence and release the snakes
that use her,
doesn't notice that the tide turned in the
hollow of her cheekbones
and is drowning in self sacrifice, where her
victims close their eyes in order that
they cannot see her
but the moon strikes trails across her face
and tears build oceans in her,
she is home.
Nov 19, 2014
Nov 19, 2014 at 6:04 AM UTC
Done,
but the day happened along and all sorts of krap got in the way,
over for now and I'm out of it, can't bother me now and how I detest it.
A means to an end means it must surely end or so I believe.
When they ****** all the fun from the sun that was,
they took out the lightbulb too,
no longer alight my day is the night and by they
I'm referring to you.
A star will rise and also drop
I close my eyes and this will stop or not
if I think real hard and harder still is to still the quill that begs me persistently to write.
Write to ease
Write to please.
If pain is the concert
I've heard it before
gone head to head with it
and come out bleeding
and raw.
I close the door on this moment in time,
It wires me
and
tires me to do it this way.
Tomorrow is but a hashtag away and I blame
social media for
everything.
Mar 10, 2016
Mar 10, 2016 at 4:07 PM UTC
To move in Reflex, as Earth and Air kiss
Sport Water to fare that Steel Jungle cool
And stunningly Ritual; One I dare miss
Bid the Twinkle-Toes and harped like a Fool
Fools. So saturated yet most reserved
That a Semaphore my Loose Restraints such
To feature my Craft; Though Elements conserved
And leave you Two free to hone your fine lot
Figures. That Speech slumber by your instinct
Yet left me asking which Equation true
Amongst your limbs - flip Angles by distinct
Then shaped the Art and Miracle as you.
Quite expected, though not in such Degree
With her in-waiting, as I chop a Tree.
Mar 21, 2013
Mar 21, 2013 at 3:33 PM UTC