"serifs" poems
My Vellum
Alluring and demure
In your virginity
Never yet
Creased nor crumpled
Your tight young corners
Remain stiff and pert
In their newness
Your long lithe sides
Tense for my careful touch
Lest blood be spilt
My gold nib
I dip
In midnight ink
Piercing its surface skin
And lift
It drips
One
Two
Black
Secrets
Back to their bottle
My hand is poised
Over your pristine smoothness
And with calm precision
I carve broad majuscules
That twist and cut
To hairlines of breathtaking
Intimate intricacy
Quick teasing serifs
Long lingering descenders
Strokes of tactile
Joy
Then stand back
Empty
In wonder at
Your calligraphic beauty
Mar 21, 2011
Mar 21, 2011 at 3:16 AM UTC
I want you to see all the stories I’ve written for you
But I’m scared the characters will chip and fall apart
Serifs sharp like broken glass
Are you still breathing
while you drown in me?
There is a curve
In soft vowels that create you
and any letter that drops below the baseline, like a sinking rock in the murky shores
My words more often than not drift like wood at sea
Part of something once
But no longer whole
And crushed constantly by blue waves of doubt
That pushes and pulls me
Into every direction
Every lighthouse I've ever seen
has never shined bright enough
to guide me home
May 11, 2014
May 11, 2014 at 5:46 PM UTC
My lover saves his words,
he tucks them under his tongue
I chew on his serifs,
Aerated, punctuated, hyphenated
His desires, they get caught in my teeth
the boldness of them wearing on my enamel
And then,
his smile melts onto my tongue
I push it behind my cheek, our own
little secret, sweetheart
Now I’m smiling too
And he hasn’t said a word.
Mar 20, 2015
Mar 20, 2015 at 1:38 PM UTC
my fingers tap dance on the keys
hopefully the rhythm rhymes
wrapping words round the relief
my sans serifs have symbolized
if i can alliterate the literacy
& make allusions to my usefulness
maybe it will hyperbolize the symmetry
& let similes diffuse the mess
so please believe in paper wings
ink blots will not weigh me down
i'll deceive with dialogue & themes
while i antagonize the ground
Feb 7, 2010
Feb 7, 2010 at 7:44 PM UTC
I am not
the prettiest girl
or the sexiest
not the smartest
or most talented
but I am a unique
array assembled
of whozeewhatsits
(razor blade analogies
fluorescent petal lips
coloring book flips shifting
hues and lines in real time
intense passion pigments
softened by maniacal sillies
black glitter, tears, tongue, teeth
synaptic syntax screams
billowing belly cavern
sacred swallows swimming
serifs seeping thru sweat
into fluffiest warm cotton
pinksugar dewbloom)
that will render
equivalent yet opposing
inverted complementary
juxta pair of anglepants
exquisitely speechless
with sheer me-ness
hallow mirrors blinding
four egoic eyes igniting
incinerating the dim
and in that stillness
I will feel their them
and feel it feeling
my me
betwixt twisting
our empty brimming
with eternity
...
or maybe
that happened
already
Apr 14, 2017
Apr 14, 2017 at 5:14 PM UTC
icicles through my arteries
and a frown resting upon your face
lines losing control
nothing left to be misplaced
i want You, i want You
and lead bits in a plastic bubble
graphite poisoning: your love's humor
wriggling and embracing trouble
she's gone, drunk on confections
and darkness consuming
chocolate wrinkles brushing birthmarks
a skinny boy fuming
be Mine, only Mine now
perch on caulked sandstone blocks
stitched sleeves will scrape bricks
and bricks pulling locks
let's don masks and hastily pretend
the atmosphere is painted with limit
serifs blurring my vision
drive your spaceship into it.
Sep 25, 2012
Sep 25, 2012 at 11:20 PM UTC
The first time I say your name, it is a new sound on my tongue.
I take it and roll it around a bit, mispronounce a few syllables.
The marks on paper that define you are an absolute work of art.
It is curious and new and alive, and so are you.
I say your name thousands of times, then; again and again
til it is worn thin with familiarity.
Soon I no longer need your name at all: I have expressed
your entire existence in a single breath.
Your name becomes a formality. Like clothing, it is not
entirely necessary. You do not wear it to bed.
On the streets, it is how people recognize you;
but I do not even remember its fullness any longer.
Something changes. Speaking your name is an insult,
a raised voice, a painful twist of annoyance.
I hurl it at you like a sharpened knife and it sticks
deep in your chest, tearing through the parts of you
I once knew with such certainty and confidence.
Then it is a plea for forgiveness. I use your name
As an item to trade with: I will whine out your existence to you
And in return, will you return?
Please say yes. (You don’t.)
Empty beer bottles line the corners of your name.
Sleepless nights fill in the dark serifs and smooth lines.
Your name makes my heart ache in my chest
where it has broken in two, due to you.
The last time I say your name, it is the name of a stranger,
someone I once knew but no longer care for.
You will always be with me, but your name
has moved on. Someone else wears it now.
Consistency is a lie. Your name is a different moment,
means a different person every time it is spoken.
I do not trust in the undefined words that define you,
instead, you are to me still that single breath of pure existence.
Apr 2, 2013
Apr 2, 2013 at 1:21 AM UTC
Remember all the old familiar faces?
Helvetica's the nicest of the lot.
Gill Sans and Johnston take the second places;
It seems as though the serif has been shot.
Verdana has its own intrinsic glories;
The fairest text that ever left my desk
Was set in these-- for essays or for stories.
But using them for sonnets? That's grotesque.
And gravestones are a special case as well:
A mortal lack of serif fonts would be
A certain kind of typographic hell
With Comic Sans for all eternity.
In death, the Roman lettering is best.
May flights of serifs sing thee to thy rest.
May 23, 2010
May 23, 2010 at 6:19 PM UTC
Most of the time,
I find it difficult to harvest
the proper words from the curve of my neck
where the skin dips down
and shakes hands with my chest.
The fine hairs raise and fall,
the color of wheat,
exhaling what others want and inhaling what I need.
In,
out,
in,
out.
Using my primitive tools,
I rip
the necessary parts of speech
from my throat
and use the so called precious arterial mud
that is equatable to manure
to fertilize my lungs
so that although I am dead,
my voice
is
not.
Sometimes,
I can pluck
proper phrases
from my eyebrows;
I can hunt them
through the tall grass that sits
upon my livid plains.
I imagine my pencil
is a spear
and try not to look
when the graphite
pierces their pure bodies,
killing the meaning
as yet another mediocre artist
paints them upon the lines of his notebook,
wounding
the effect words have on the world
because if they are used too often,
they mean nothing at all.
Occasionally,
my ink pen
forms a circle of deep blue
into which I can cast my line
and retrieve the perfect letter from a sea of ephemeral pieces.
I am merely part
of a larger industry
that traps
the delicate curves
of spines
and sharp points
of serifs
nestled between ascenders
and shoulders
into nets
made from blue lines on bleached paper.
I desperately cling
to the descenders
that hang past the edge of the cliff
because by God I will not die
even if it means shooting something as beautiful as that
which I rely on to keep me afloat.
However,
there are times,
when that is too much effort -
too much exertion required of my small, inadequate equipment,
I am left
to abandon the ink-laden sea,
to discard my fields of words and phrases
in search
of a way
to pull the plug
at the bottom of the bathtub in my brain
and watch as the opaque,
grimy,
filth-ridden water circles
around
and
around,
exposing things
I never knew were there.
In those milliseconds
where the contaminants drain away
and there is complete transparency,
I find what I am looking for
before I am even certain
what I needed in the first place.
Dec 15, 2013
Dec 15, 2013 at 3:13 PM UTC
i'm so tired
of wanting to become something --
grand designs
doing pirouettes in my little head --
i just
need
more time
to think things through
plastic tines
stab at forks
in the road
silly you!
trying to stop the decision-making process
like a child
with a rhyme
speaking of the devil,
for a limited time only,
**** the walking dread
that paces at the foot of your being
like a thing in need --
how? thought you'd never ask ---
i'll get to that, in due time
-- i will say this though: it's not with an ax
or bow
or some moralized TV show
nope
nothing like that
the need to be
to be --
that
is the imperative --
timeless
tasks tasked with go-forth --
we feed on it --
always pressing forward
always-already doing things,
going places, lurching concern,
consuming steps steps steps
listen
progress is
a stone alone inside my pocket
-- watch it
bloom tumultuous
into a decision to be undone ----
I am
The backward startle
Flesh made text
Know this:
All will be retraced till
All that remains is
a waiting cursor --
Blinking blinking
Blank page staring
Into your you --
The mess undressed, ****** --
Don't unfuck it --
Allow it --
Let it **** you for a time
Then go hardly softly into the night
With steps alighting
Bold events of past doings lit
Given another chance
The was made present
A specter sent
To turn the insides of your bones
Into channels --
Canals of then-time (makes sense)
Get to know the script
Then flip it
Budge its molecular structure
See its words squirm
Make its serifs recoil
And strike at your command
Crazy? Yes
Impossible? Perhaps
But your verse must be heard
The play goes on and on and on
Until you decide
To interrupt it
Jun 20, 2014
Jun 20, 2014 at 1:11 AM UTC
who you are
how you feel
what you
want
and how
to get there
but these
slit serifs
shielded wounds
and white knuckles
are some things
in the way
give them
fresh air exodus
the walk is through
never around
remember:
the quickest way
between two points
is always & forever
a straight line
Jul 28, 2017
Jul 28, 2017 at 7:02 AM UTC
I am out of time’s clutches; -
Spiraling my irises downstream, until they penetrate
The solid wall of translucent wrapping paper
That encapsulates silver beads into a
Necklace that never breaks.
He fastens it behind my neck, reminding
Me of those parallel universes, those mirrors I
Used to play within. But that is over,
We are separate.
…
I am out of tune, a piano that has been left dusty.
Musical notes rot inside of me. Inside the damp, dank
Habitat that I fashioned out of my organs.
Laughter was being harvested, under the most desirable
Conditions. Artificial lighting shone and droplets of
Dirt held it in. No one ever got close to escaping.
Not from this body.
And so they leave me to gather dust, dismantling
Every inaction with a word that is made of serifs
And daggers. I cannot go back.
Apr 18, 2013
Apr 18, 2013 at 2:59 PM UTC
Time is spent
unfolded,
melting into itself.
Roots, like an oak,
extend from me,
a tired stretch.
They coil themselves
around you,
catching your skin.
A sluggish act
of self-preservation.
Prose is spent;
each letter fluxes and fuses --
shaping nonsense.
Words hang in the air,
dangle and drop;
my serifs and cross strokes
litter the floor.
They soften,
and you're ankle-deep in verse.
Comfort is spent.
Restless nights ensue,
doubled over in mourning
for nothing;
to rather curl into you,
like a shell
a beautiful,
disastrous fit.
The future is spent
spread before me,
a rich expanse of black.
I feel the desperate longing
for constellations
nothing to name after you
but a slow, dull ache.
I am spent.
Vacuous at last
I've bled dry.
Like dust,
you have absorbed me.
Press on, press on.
And like everything else,
the tar on my lungs
looks suspiciously like you.
Oct 12, 2011
Oct 12, 2011 at 12:15 PM UTC
animating your fears and
character assasinations
in my direction
(as an attempt
by your ego to protect
that black-iced velvet heart
that's dying to know
the me I really am
or already does
and wants a reunion)
I'll be here
just
being me
this brain, this pulse
this history all on display
and FYI, I've
never shown mine
like this to anyone -
every millimeter of skin
every satin-wrapped dream
every jagged edge of broken
every malady that made me
me
your ego says
oh hell no, because
it knows my laser eyes
and furnace heart are gonna
burn that mother to the ground
with just one look
(a.k.a. 10,000 jade-lit
kaleidoscopic stones)
and in its place,
architect realities with maybe
a mother-in-law cottage
for that grippy gripe old bat
(at best) out back
behind crystal palace
atop bone graveyard
while we dine on serifs
washed smooth by
thrashing shores
on cosmic waterfront lot
with sugarsand paused
crystalline, still and
completely
ours
Jun 23, 2017
Jun 23, 2017 at 12:27 PM UTC
Hips calligraphic lithe alive
Serifs flare up immortal coil
Her mouth speaks to me
Between my legs
A language draped in ebony curtain
Unknown and inscrutable
Rising up
Mounting me
Her fingers splayed on my chest
enter me
Five pens
Now digging
Pecks taut
Flecks of red burst
Tattooed unspeakables writ
Her stare penetrates mine
Authoring my little demise
Jul 7, 2014
Jul 7, 2014 at 6:12 PM UTC
My thoughts flow, words
My dreams come and go, script delay
My hands touch, hoping they stay
Letters curve so slightly, sensual
Serifs barely touch, hesitate
Testing the boundaries of space, flirting
Lyrics weave my tousled hair, joining sound waves
Make their way in, touching me
Coursing alongside my thin veins, pressure
Fall swiftly down my arteries, suggestively flood my soul
Mar 22, 2018
Mar 22, 2018 at 5:20 PM UTC
the words she uttered,
marked by a fine soot, scribed themselves
on the inside of my sore ribs;
with wrist and finger adroit,
it burned off the serifs
i had used to write myself down
as something utterly known.
i stood there, before her - before myself -
dross coating my feet, altered
by this strange medicine.
naked and sparse and
unknown, chiseled
before her strokes, i am.
it will
hold and
i will heal.
Jan 23, 2016
Jan 23, 2016 at 11:04 PM UTC
i touch myself
wiping serifs from the elements
pressing this object's edge up against
my writs
where old lines layer
i'm having thoughts of editing again
until the blue cursor blinks over white nothing's glow
i can sense it's call
like autumnal grip
about to fall
into short sweet no more
Dec 24, 2015
Dec 24, 2015 at 4:12 PM UTC
I swim amongst the many.
Churned amidst the chaos.
Blended in the crowd of Serifs,
Calibris and New Romans.
Strong-armed by the bold.
Submerged beneath the underlined.
But I will stand out...
If only you’d
keep me italicised.
Apr 15, 2020
Apr 15, 2020 at 10:47 AM UTC
i chase the poem
until my words become true
recalling all of your lines
tangling mine
serifs
torque
Dec 27, 2015
Dec 27, 2015 at 9:31 PM UTC