"shallower" poems
fuel desperation,
and so are valuable
assets in the game
of spinning chambers.
one ***** is all it takes.
you might not believe
a person still wading
through adolescence
could harbor such
malevolent intent.
one slight is all it takes.
age is barely even
a consideration when
haunted by the desire
for revenge or need
of self-preservation.
one fragile moment is all it takes.
fewer years simply
equate to shallower
perspective, exacerbating
youthful impulsivity.
one bullet is all it takes.
Feb 6, 2019
Feb 6, 2019 at 12:40 PM UTC
i never wanted to kiss her lips,
just hold her hand
maybe kiss her cheeks because she suited a gentler kind of treatment
something softer and more delicate, quiet;
quieter than the constant raging storms inside my stomach,
inside my mind
(never my heart)
those plump lips
she bit them raw when nervous, and they swelled
blossomed ruby as she looked at me
like she knew this wouldn't last
her eyes remained doughy and mellow
when i met her gaze.
my smile stung as it stretched the lines left by winter's bite
and split them open once more.
she brushed the blood beads away with her fingertips
with a touch so reverent that, for a moment, i thought
maybe she felt as though she were touching rosary beads instead,
and i held my breath to stop myself from chasing her
touch, and pressing her down into the mattress
unholy, chasing pleasure.
both agnostic, but she was much more pure than i;
chivalries always in mind, i wanted to preserve that.
there's always been something inside me
that presses down the animalistic urges with
a conscience caught on consideration and something akin to courtly love-
i wanted to woo her before i pursued her
but i never got further than pressing my lips to her forehead,
wrapping an arm around her shoulders.
i laced my fingers with hers but avoided tying any knots.
i am not a man to be bound,
too free-spirit, too restless, too claustrophobic;
a few months in and i was choking on the ghost of a future;
she kissed me first and i suffocated on the phantom of her hopes for us:
a future that didn't yet exist,
and i didn't want it to.
i never kissed her; i never let her kiss me again.
we tangled fingers over the duvet
the television a background noise to our unsteady breaths,
shallower
than my love for her
i enjoyed her quiet affection like one might enjoy curling into a blanket when cold and ill.
i wanted her smiles, i wanted to fill her memories with goodness
so that she never need feel hopeless, like all men are the same
so that she had something to smile about when she looked back on us;
once the bitterness of our breakup had left her mouth-
whenever that eventual end would be-
she could savour the taste of our sweet, slow-burn, love affair
and be reminded that not all love is true love, but nor is all love heart breaking
i broke her heart anyway.
nobody ever taught me how cruel kindness could be.
May 17, 2016
May 17, 2016 at 9:24 PM UTC
Beauty like hers is genius. Not the call
Of Homer’s or of Dante’s heart sublime,—
Not Michael’s hand furrowing the zones of time,—
Is more with compassed mysteries musical;
Nay, not in Spring’s or Summer’s sweet footfall
More gathered gifts exuberant Life bequeathes
Than doth this sovereign face, whose love-spell breathes
Even from its shadowed contour on the wall.
As many men are poets in their youth,
But for one sweet-strung soul the wires prolong
Even through all change the indomitable song;
So in likewise the envenomed years, whose tooth
Rends shallower grace with ruin void of ruth,
Upon this beauty’s power shall wreak no wrong.
4.6k
I caught a tremendous fish
and held him beside the boat
half out of water, with my hook
fast in a corner of his mouth.
He didn't fight.
He hadn't fought at all.
He hung a grunting weight,
battered and venerable
and homely. Here and there
his brown skin hung in strips
like ancient wallpaper,
and its pattern of darker brown
was like wallpaper:
shapes like full-blown roses
stained and lost through age.
He was speckled with barnacles,
fine rosettes of lime,
and infested
with tiny white sea-lice,
and underneath two or three
rags of green **** hung down.
While his gills were breathing in
the terrible oxygen
--the frightening gills,
fresh and crisp with blood,
that can cut so badly--
I thought of the coarse white flesh
packed in like feathers,
the big bones and the little bones,
the dramatic reds and blacks
of his shiny entrails,
and the pink swim-bladder
like a big peony.
I looked into his eyes
which were far larger than mine
but shallower, and yellowed,
the irises backed and packed
with tarnished tinfoil
seen through the lenses
of old scratched isinglass.
They shifted a little, but not
to return my stare.
--It was more like the tipping
of an object toward the light.
I admired his sullen face,
the mechanism of his jaw,
and then I saw
that from his lower lip
--if you could call it a lip
grim, wet, and weaponlike,
hung five old pieces of fish-line,
or four and a wire leader
with the swivel still attached,
with all their five big hooks
grown firmly in his mouth.
A green line, frayed at the end
where he broke it, two heavier lines,
and a fine black thread
still crimped from the strain and snap
when it broke and he got away.
Like medals with their ribbons
frayed and wavering,
a five-haired beard of wisdom
trailing from his aching jaw.
I stared and stared
and victory filled up
the little rented boat,
from the pool of bilge
where oil had spread a rainbow
around the rusted engine
to the bailer rusted orange,
the sun-cracked thwarts,
the oarlocks on their strings,
the gunnels--until everything
was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow!
And I let the fish go.
4.2k
I wish I could go back in time
and save myself from you
Fix all the mistakes I made
change all the words I said
Reform the way I held your hand
relive the night you kissed me in the rain
Over and over
Feeling your breath on my skin
Absorbing your warmth around me
Forgetting the empty feeling I live with
Loosing my memories of rejection
And I'm back
The loneliness
The separation
The depression
You left me again
Just like before
The same kind of pain...
but worse
a deeper wound
a shallower soul.
Apr 21, 2012
Apr 21, 2012 at 4:28 PM UTC
All this time I thought I had become shallow
That I lacked substance
Worth
A life worth living
But now I realize how shallow you are
Shallower than the pool of tears
I cry for you
Get out of your ******* bubble
Put down your phone
And start talking to me
I'm going through depression and all you can do is demean it
Why don't you just look up
And catch my tears
And show you understand
We are an amazing couple but I can't fight the screen for your eyes
Or be stuck inside your room
Any longer
I've lost myself trying to fit your routine
When you can't show a little compassion or eye contact
You are my world now
I'd love it if I could get to know it better
And that maybe you'd show an interest in what you don't know
About me
Shallow lover
Look beyond my smile and my quiet voice
There's a lot lurking deep below
It's an everlasting well
I have the richest waters
If only you would close Facebook
And dive in
Oct 16, 2015
Oct 16, 2015 at 5:26 AM UTC
They say there's an ocean;
They say its vast and deep:
Profoundly deep.
They say that you fall into it,
A simple slip, maybe even a dive
But once it surrounds you,
You dive deeper, and deeper
So deep that the world fades away.
You forget the surface,
Get lost in the depths,
Wrapped in it, you find warmth
You linger in its caress and you find
Your lust for fresh air.. fades away.
They say its vast, some say infinite.
It stretches to a wondrous eternity
You explore it and explore it
Looking not for something specific
Just to find all it holds
You search for years and lifetimes
But you find it has no end.
They say there's an ocean;
I think there's an ocean,
But I fear few are finding it
The explorers are distracted
They set out on their search
And find a river, a lake
A trickle, a puddle.
New explorers seek it,
Driven by the tales they've heard
But some veterans are less sure
"Swim in shallower waters" they say
"You can do it now and at least get wet"
But the dampness is superficial
It leaves you seeking your next dip
Maybe a deeper one, but often not.
Some stop seeking, some just give up
Some believe that it simply never was.
I still believe what they say:
They say there's an ocean.
~D.B. Guy (November 16, 2008)
Nov 3, 2012
Nov 3, 2012 at 2:26 AM UTC
Can I ask you?
With vice and disguise,
Are you happy with what you are?
Inflated with pride,
Knotted with jealousy
The unknown balloon burst
With a just ***** of words.
Camouflaged beauty as you were,
Coated and polished to be the society,
Mastered were the words,
With strokes of affection,
Appreciated as I felt.
I swam in the pits N holes
While thinking of the oceans
The deeper I tried to discover,
Shallower did you get.
Layers and layers of faces,
None uncovered to the core,
What you are still a mystery
I breathe in the pain of phrases,
Toxicity of incoherent love,
I feel the wrenching smirk,
Once which was a curved smile.
I hear the Echoes of my wails,
Strumming in the veins,
Tears were never there
But unseen scars dug deep.
In brighter days,
Darker shadow growing,
In hours,
A nightmare breeding.
You were what dismayed me,
Much more than breaking,
Maybe a peaceful shattering .
Apr 22, 2021
Apr 22, 2021 at 3:20 PM UTC
Shorter skirts and lower tops,
They're doing anything to get noticed.
Smoking and drinking to fit in
To a world that has changed forever.
Increasing teen pregnancy
And teen dads that walk away.
Fifteen has become the new twenty
And kids aren't kids anymore.
What was once cool became lame
And girls became more and more shallow.
Caking make up on their faces,
Pulling duck faces at the camera.
As we are more connected
We interact less.
Technology ensures seeing people less.
Getting to know someone face to face
Will soon become non existent.
We live in a world that's evolving backwards,
By caring less about others and who they are.
Popularity has become a bloodbath
And people are shallower then the sink.
It would be nice to live in a world
That was evolving forwards.
Dec 2, 2013
Dec 2, 2013 at 12:51 AM UTC
You are not condemned
To the confines of life
Nor the sounds of being locked in
And hit by dirt
You do not belong
To the flowers they send
The wishes they write
Or the tree they plant in your name
You are not prisoner
To a shallow grave
And a shallower gravestone
Not even to the duties you left behind
You have not been claimed
By the years you will not see
The tears you cannot dry
Or the hugs you cannot return
You are not captive
To the sounds and words
That defined you
Or the way people shaped you
Because you are free from condemnation
From the clutch of sickness
Free to leave and wipe the tears
And hug the ones that hesitate
To throw the dirt over the years
You are free from prison,
From proclamation,
From captivity and condemnation
To help and to inspire
And to free others from a prison
Of grief.
Feb 21, 2014
Feb 21, 2014 at 2:27 PM UTC
He looked into my eyes, deeply, and seldomly blinking. His body was trembling, as if the very earth herself quaked within his veins. He was breathing heavily; the intake shallow, the output, shallower still. His skin was damp from the nerves, of course, not the heat. For it had barely begun. He reached for my hand and held it tightly and a part of me, for but a moment, enjoyed the fact that he needed me. He clung to me with his face pressed against my chest occasionally emitting a quiet moan. Eventually, I felt his wet warmth soak into my shirt. It hurt me, but I didn't make him move. I stayed still and held him until the panic attack was over, until the wet tears dried. This is how I defined my love; how I make love. Acceptance, compassion, guidance, and a friend.
Jan 21, 2015
Jan 21, 2015 at 5:46 AM UTC
Janice
sans red beret
walked with you
to Bedlam Park
where you swam
in the open air
swimming pool
(she swam
you tried
but failed)
there in her
green swimsuit
her arms pulling her
through water
her hands
pushing away
the water’s skin
while you stood
waist deep
gazing at her skills
her wet hair
her bright eyes
you gingerly standing
feet on the bottom
feeling the water’s
pull and push
come on
she said
try to swim
be brave
and you dived forward
into the water
and splashed
and sunk
like some broken boat
water in your eyes
and ears
you rose
helped by Janice
to the surface
choking
and spluttering
wiping water
from your stinging eyes
she had her hand
in yours
holding you steady
keeping you balanced
she apologised
for not helping
should have helped
she said
not just stood
and stared
and you gazed at her
through wet eyes
forming an image
making sense
of the shape of her
her eyes on you
her damp hair limp
against her skin
o mermaid of the deep
you said
where is your tail?
and she laughed
and took you
by the hand
into the shallower water
her warm hand
in yours
her thin fingers
clutching
her damp swimsuit
dripping
try here
in less deeper water
she said
and let go
of your hand
and she lowered herself
into the water
and showed you how
to put your body so
and hands and arms
to move and legs
to kick and push
but all you could hold
in mind
could bring to bear
was her beauty
swimming there.
May 3, 2013
May 3, 2013 at 2:32 AM UTC
“This Insubstantial Pageant Faded”
(spoke by Prospero, The Tempest, by W. Shakespeare)^
<>
Our words are all actors,
a long run, run its course,
our long playing record,
scratched, love~worn to
worn out extremity, yet
yeoman service did offer,
extreme only in magical
transforming plain sight
into visions, a legacy,
bent gray, tarnished by
weary wearing aging,
their brief sparks now
but reclamation flares of
burst lights of waning days
in short lived tastings of what
was and can be nevermore
everyone’s magic has its preset
timed timing, and with
every day, each a concentric
ring marked and hallowed,
a heartbeat ring narrower
than its predecessor,
a shallower hollow,
a fair represent of both
all that came our way, and that
we resent with no resentment
into a cloud capped atmosphere
for all to ****** from a flailing,
flying breeze, their brief gleam,
multiplying, thus envisaging,
illuminating the manuscript of our
hinted future forward’s next percept
*
“And like this insubstantial pageant faded
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep”*^
Mar 2, 2024
Mar 2, 2024 at 8:23 AM UTC
No one notices the sky's perpetual gray, until you are
covered in ash and gunpowder.
Light is not welcome here, and yet the flames of
burning cities blaze a welcoming path.
Shallow graves and even
shallower hearts. . . .
You were only seventeen
when your role in this battle began.
Dec 31, 2010
Dec 31, 2010 at 5:13 PM UTC
We allowed the lies of our lives to expire, when we used to dance around fires, while the heat of our bodies perspired to the gods without names that we lived to be desired by, that we saw from the rocks and the trees to the birds in the sky, and even though this once bitter soul might try, to figure out the deepest questions, the ultimate, 'why?' He's left to walk alone, in a world that's let its heart die, because we gave into the greed, and negated a need, from every drop of blood that we bleed, to the words of our fathers we didn't heed, so we can beg while we plead, in the dirt, on our knees, breaking pottery, and scraping bone, the only grievance we've ever known, the gnashing of teeth, from the torture we've shown, to those less than worthy for the fortune we've claimed as our own, this destruction we left on the shoulders of our descendants, their discomfort prevalent from the weight of our pendants, that we parade around as we hear a cascade in sound, that cries from the heavens, 'We're broken, please mend us!'. But we neglected the ones who defend us, the ones who turn every trend against us, because our hearts are shallower, and we give in to the devourer, when we should have found a love, and with selflessness empower her, with our mouths, and hearts shower her, with all the grace and emotion, that could prevent a commotion, if only we could for the sake of our devotion, give up the notion that we are owed something, because we crowned ourselves queen and king, though to the table we've nothing to bring, instead with jubilation our hearts should sing, until the bells in every temple, church, and house of our gods ring.
Aug 16, 2014
Aug 16, 2014 at 5:30 PM UTC
Thee Artiste Carvó's "Fumility"
I am a tróubled Tróll, yes I be
draped in bonds of turgid fumility
endowed with a mind's inanity!
Indeed, I fantasize the glóry of Thee
floating like a cork in lunacy
at the edges of the dredges of futility!
But then, as I hallucinate visions of greatness in I and me,
the Vóices come, singing fóllies of my destiny
buzzing in my head like a bumblebee!
The mystic maggóts envelop the I, the fartistic see
birdies tweet to coo coos in the jujube tree
while the lónely Lóg swims in I and Thee,
counting buttons, deviant in insanity!
Some souls are just simply shallower than others. There is no shame in recognizing I's ówn drabness, and appreciating the bóredóm Thee'self has unleashed upon the world. When Thee writes crap about the greatness of I, Thee is displaying I's disappointment for I's lack of gifts...
Would you yourself not feel pity for the finest fartist alive?
*Original ('Humility') by: Thee Artiste aka Logbrain Crappó
Reworked by: CrE aka Trollminator*
Jan 10, 2015
Jan 10, 2015 at 12:09 PM UTC
you were a swimming pool.
and i wanted to dive
into the deep end.
but you were much shallower
than you appeared
and i ended up
hitting my head
on the bottom
of your
empty
*******
heart.
Jun 26, 2014
Jun 26, 2014 at 12:29 AM UTC
Walking in the forest an ocean of green,
Sunlight slips down through shallower depths.
Currents made of wind move this sea.
Winged schools swim and hide from those bigger.
Such noisy fish nest here.
Death returns creatures and plants to the floor.
Crude compost becomes the energy of nature's milk,
in both ocean's blue and green.
by Daniel Bottoms
May 31, 2014
May 31, 2014 at 2:54 AM UTC
Blackbrush -- Coleogyne ramosissima
the dominant understory shrub
in the pinyon-juniper canyons.
Mountain-mahogany -- Cercocarpus montanus and ledifolia.
Single-leaf ash -- Fraxinus anomalus
and possibly a western hophornbeam
by the small birch-like leaves
and the shredding bark
in a moist stretch of joint trail.
The joint-fir, green ephedra
looks like an ocean plant.
Could the wind or white water rivers alone
have shaped these sandstone, red rock forms?
Network of canyons, inverse of mountains.
It had to be ocean
ebbing and flowing, emotionally, like wind,
moving atmosphere, thicker
shaving, scraping, polishing, gouging, digging
fish canyons
then, shallower, dinosaur swamps
now, dry, rock gardens.
Explain the human history with water:
did the Anasazi visit neighbors
along the canyon rims and deep within,
combination caves and red-rock houses
small windows, doorways, just crawlways,
with corn gifts on summer evenings
when the canyon bottoms held permanent, not intermittent,
streams? After them
came the Ute and Navajo, Spanish and English.
Ravens dine on road ****
A few long red roads connect some canyons.
The unprotected flats are overgrazed, rabbitbrush.
It is interesting
that as I learn the woody and herbaceous plants,
walk the desert foothills, I too could stay.
Aug 9, 2015
Aug 9, 2015 at 2:19 PM UTC
the mortgage is late
the electric bill’s due
all i can do is keep breathing
she didn’t take her pill
the waiting is gonna **** me
all i can do is keep breathing
with or without her
weighing pros and cons
all i can do is keep breathing
but the breathing gets harder
it gets shallower, less satisfying
the cigarettes are catching up
and the air won’t taste the same
all i can do is keep breathing
until you can’t
Oct 31, 2010
Oct 31, 2010 at 3:16 PM UTC
I sit at the table too high for me,
Slipping the poison down my throat,
Sewn shut my mind through mouth,
As I feel the darkness bloat.
Yet I know it’s due to me alone,
My hand the wretched doer of the stab
Which rends my heart at my bequeath,
Yet how can I help who I am?
The invisible flame all too bright,
Casts my shadow invoking fear,
I willingly forget not to shun
The things I held most dear.
My mind falls deeper into the mire,
Shallower with each sinking death,
I tell them to ignore the silent screams
Though I cry for help under my breath.
And though these echoes are not heard,
They crash and boom and threaten to break
Innocence is swallowed whole again,
As I stand chained at the hand of fate.
A different man I stand today
Than the one who failed once before,
Yet I fail again, this time completely,
It is being me I must endure.
For leaping only leads to falling,
First time jumping interceded by floor,
Sitting in shame that isn’t mine
How can I hope to jump ever more?
I ask with a resounding
Question “Who am I?”
Praise from the edges of my view,
But never from the distant sky
Yet somehow the light appears ahead,
The rescuers lifting me from the shadows within
How could I have sought this ugly fate,
When there were others bright that could’ve been?
I’ve wasted time on distant stars
So shining, beckoning in my mind.
Why should I wait longer to start the rest of my life?
It’s time I left that path behind.
Dec 16, 2012
Dec 16, 2012 at 11:22 AM UTC
I've found myself again in this place,
Alone with you.
Just the rocking bodies of sweat stained Lucifer beating against our chests,
And there you are,
Right next to me,
But I don't find you in my grasp nor in my thoughts.
Only can I live, as I have before, so I try to think
But I can’t help wanting to escape.
And so there we are,
Just me and you.
And the gyrating bodies of adolescent lust lashing out with open fists and closed lips,
But I can't hold you in my arms
Or place your teeth to mine
Because your mouth interlocks so nicely with the world.
Can't I be the world?
Can’t I be the dream or the dream of dreams that never escapes your mind?
I thought I could, but you didn't know.
Here we are,
Just you and me.
And the turbulent manifestation of youth and ignorance on a dance floor,
Clasped by the ever weakening fingers.
It starts to slip into something else,
Something more
And I can't help but try to dive in after it.
But it's so much shallower then when I left my perch.
When I left in search of the one,
Or two,
I was left with zero
We are,
You and me,
The blessed babies of a tormenting world
And all I ever wanted to do was hold you in my arms just a little bit longer.
But the fire was to bright, and your eyes became a window.
The latch was shut, the cloud shone through
And I let myself fall to the glass,
Not knowing whether it could hold me or not.
My life was in its hands.
And it couldn't.
Dec 29, 2011
Dec 29, 2011 at 4:39 PM UTC
Puffing on my third menthol of the night, he looks at me and says "you know, these apparently crystallize your lungs." He's got one between his lips too. But they'll only crystallize my lungs. So I look over to the nearly finished bottle of wine to my left, proud of my handiwork. But as I slip into drunkenness, I know I haven't taken my last puff of the night, so I try to keep my breathing a little shallower, but I end up inhaling even deeper, trying to feel those tiny organs harden.
I talked about myself all night.
Tuned out everyone else's worlds. I've stopped being able to listen. I've become self absorbed, in my cigarettes, in my drinking, in being nineteen and stupid. But the night was warm and heavy, even when the breeze whipped around my dark hair, momentarily obstructing my vision. I was surrounded by people who I perceived to love me. As for me, virtually all love I receive is unrequited. So every work borne from me is about me, is part of me, is all me, because how could I possibly broaden my mental scope when I spend so much of my time alone falling in love with my own decaying reflection.
She really is beautiful though. Those huge, deep hazel eyes. The dark, dark hair juxtaposed to that pale skin. And the accenting dark circles under her eyes from running on four hours of sleep a night for thirty plus days. Self indulgence.
Self hatred.
Inhale deeper and feel my lungs dying.
Giggling at how I still talk like a thirteen year old child.
Laughing at my philosophy that if this teen angst continues into your twenties and beyond, you just become Hemingway.
It's all very funny, really. I truly am a caricature of a real person. I am completely devoid of all authenticity and every ounce of me is contrived.
But this too shall pass.
Jul 4, 2013
Jul 4, 2013 at 5:51 PM UTC
Waist deep.
The thick black syrup meets skin
A sharp black/white line
Across the pores
Like a moving limb of day/night
Across the distant craters of the moon.
To tread deeper and pulls the surface down
The mirror-black surface bending, pulling.
A meniscus
A relativistic bending
Of space and time around a star.
Deep below the surface
Wiggling toes are sluggish
Movement of legs are impeded
A tug at each hair on legs and toes.
And the hydraulic squirt of the liquid
Below the soles as your weight shifts.
Ah, but sometimes shallower now,
Withdrawing belly skin pulls with it
The deep brown-black rubbery surface
That will not be left behind.
It will not relinquish this new intimacy.
What horror comes with the rising depths?
Liquid darkness comes over shoulders, chin and cheeks.
A sweet salty taste now upon the lower lip.
A tug, a pull at the chin with every breath
Every attempt to lift it above the surface.
Fear. Darkness. Unknown.
Over mouth and nose.
Sticking to eyelids.
Thick and warm into ears.
A bubble of air tries to escape from under your chin
And tickles as it pulls up on the hairs it passes.
The cool open air irises-off above your head
Only a momentary depression in the top surface.
Until there is no record, of your having passed here.
Silence.
A sweet and sticky seal, impermeable between this world and the void.
Silence.
Push up now with strength in frightened legs.
The suction is immense, the pull strong.
It does not wish to let you withdraw.
But you push and breaking the tension of the surface
You emerge.
Great thick layers of darkness remain.
Hands claw great gobs of blackness from nose and mouth.
A gasping, stuttered pull brings icy, bitter air.
Standing now, a black shadow-ghost emerging from tarry blackness.
Velvety and warm was the invitation,
Soothing and intimate was the gentle touch,
Silent and heavy was embrace,
A smothering, airless dark at the end
And silence.
But sweet, oh how sweet and warm.
Apr 14, 2014
Apr 14, 2014 at 5:03 PM UTC