"shallowest" poems
I.
*“You can only fight the way you practice”
― Miyamoto Musashi, A Book of Five Rings: The Classic Guide to Strategy*
His lessons started late
As always, and as always
What is thrown is a question
You grip tightly
around your fingers
as one would,
as one always should.
With a branch he beckons:
“Come” he asks,
*“if a stick is struck from this angle,
what would your answer be?”*
Always, the old man taught
With each strike, each parry,
Each disarm and lock,
Each time my knuckles
Would hurt. This way
he makes it sure
that my body
remembers.
This is always
the first step.
My mind might forget.
But the body
Remembers.
II.
*“It is difficult to realize the true Way just through sword-fencing. Know the smallest things and the biggest things, the shallowest things and the deepest things.”
― Miyamoto Musashi, The Book of Five Rings: Miyamoto Musashi*
With him, everything starts
The vague quality of nonwords
Taught from pain, simplified
Through science:
the fulcrum and the lever.
Each joint, each turn,
a pattern to comprehend,
all things work in context:
*A framework of the undeniable
Fact:*
*the world is separate
In only these two words:*
Taub at Tihaya
The colloquial words for
Face down and face up;
This is a pattern
of the body.
III.
*“If you wish to control others you must first control yourself”
― Miyamoto Musashi, A Book of Five Rings: The Classic Guide to Strategy*
Tihaya
The lesson starts
When he presses
His thumb forward
to a hand asking for alms
like turning a doorknob
too far to the right.
Taub
when I pull back
four fingers
on a giving hand
too far to what is left.
these are the means
for control.
When I know
How much is necessary
To push or to pull,
To teach or to break.
- 18 October 2017
Oct 18, 2017
Oct 18, 2017 at 5:57 AM UTC
who took away your softness
and made you feel
the harshness of the ocean?
who took your tide away?
your lips tasted of salt once.
but the blue dye of your
ocean has begun to fade.
you were then,
so plump and mighty.
but today you lie flat
in the shallowest of
water.
tangled in the algae,
gathered by
your fingers.
Nov 24, 2017
Nov 24, 2017 at 12:23 AM UTC
Truth: We call ourselves deep
Sometimes: We call others shallow
But really: We are the shallowest of all
**For we wear our hearts on our sleeves
Inflate our pain
And pine for that which we do not deserve**
Dec 25, 2014
Dec 25, 2014 at 4:38 PM UTC
O, how I faint when I of you do write,
Knowing a better spirit doth use your name,
And in the praise thereof spends all his might
To make me tongue-tied speaking of your fame.
But since your worth, wide as the ocean is,
The humble as the proudest sail doth bear,
My saucy bark, inferior far to his,
On your broad main doth wilfully appear.
Your shallowest help will hold me up afloat,
Whilst he upon your soundless deep doth ride;
Or, being wrecked, I am a worthless boat,
He of tall building, and of goodly pride.
Then if he thrive and I be cast away,
The worst was this: my love was my decay.
3k
The optimistic existentialist
getting by on
the vapid knowledge that
nothing has meaning
but thinking it might
someday.
The shallowest
deep-thinker you’ve ever met
in a constant war
between vanity and philosophy,
drowning in mirror-hating narcissism
and my humble ego.
Introverted loud-mouth
socially inclined,socially incapable
assertion-loathing people-person.
Vengeful peace-maker,
violent pacifist
fists littered with deceptive,
fallacious,faint purple bruises.
All these things are the
drip drip drip
of drops in the bucket
of a level-headed psychopath.
I dare you
to dive into the water,
headfirst,
of my mind
where I constantly contradict myself,
like it’s a game.
Nov 17, 2012
Nov 17, 2012 at 10:44 PM UTC
One glossy raven perched, stately,
atop a snowy hill, Unearthly Long flowing wings, hanging down the slope, framing the hill
on the face of which,
were interposed two glacial ponds of blue.
Between these pools ran a simple strip of sloped marble,
But at the base of this was the most gentle depression in the snow.
In disbelief I observed two rows of strawberries, blossoming,
heavy laden with the richest red.
Each gentle bite of these more delicious than the last.
I continued my survey,
down to a long narrow hill of the freshest snow.
Here I came upon a wide expanse, a plain,
two long, slender berms extended at opposite sides.
But this was no true plain, and all the better for that,
For two equal mounds of snow enchanted the landscape.
The setting sun cast a pink light at the peak of each pale globe,
So beautiful I wept.
As I passed between their valley the snowy distance continued.
I observed an infinitesimal sloping on the Western and Eastern edges.
This expanse, perfect of any true blemish, was punctuated by the shallowest little empty pond at its narrowest width; which only served to enhance the beauty.
The length of this snowed plain was far greater than its width, the edges slowly creeping into the narrowest part before flaring out to a wide expanse.
And there in the lowlands was The Delta,
to the side of which extended two of the longest and most shapely tapering ridges I had ever observed;
each ending with graceful peaks.
But that Delta!
Though snowy, the darkest , shortest scrub had capped its mound.
At the apex of The Delta was a precipice,
on its face a cavern, pink walls glistening with wetness,
at the caverns base, a cave.
Its tunnel, with walls ribbed, was warm and humid despite the landscape of snow.
This is the landscape I cherish most.
May 28, 2018
May 28, 2018 at 9:50 PM UTC
behind the castle walls,
behold a girl who's been hurt,
a girl who's been taunted,
a girl who's been broken into pieces,
a girl who's been tossed aside like nothing,
a girl who's been torn down.
behind the castle walls,
lays a girl on her mattress,
eyes trimmed with water,
as her gaze is fixated on her ceiling.
behind the castle walls,
is a girl who doesn't understand love,
because she's numb to the feeling,
something that stings but no longer pains.
behind the castle walls,
is a girl who's tired,
both emotionally and physically.
behind the castle walls,
is a girl who doesn't want to breathe any longer.
because even the shallowest breath,
burns like flames.
Jan 25, 2019
Jan 25, 2019 at 9:26 AM UTC
*White.
Female.
Middle Class.
Heterosexual.
Agnostic.
Libertarian.*
Yeah.
That's me.
That's that first layer,
thin as the paper you could
read it on.
Just a
Jane Doe,
a nameless, faceless
demographic.
But peeling back the layers,
ripping through page on page of a complicated novel,
digging
down
into
a
bottomless
hole
to
China,
unravelling
the intricate
web of
stereotypestruthsliesassumptionsprejudice
and
there you will find
me,
a colorless genderless asexual
spirit whose frame
is crafted and molded
not with how the world
chooses to see me and
who "they" deem me to be;
no.
A guy that didn't know me well
once told me that I
spoke more urban than he
expected,
and I couldn't help but wonder why
someone from an urban area
couldn't speak like they were
from a city,
like somehow what he saw in my
whitefemaleheterosexualmiddleclassagnosticlibertarian
prologue forbade me
from speaking in colloquials and
abbreviations.
Oh, I apologize,
I laughed later to my friend,
**law students are supposed to speak
with an ostentatious vocabulary and
an heir of
(superfluous) arrogance.**
I am rarely a prototype
of what it means to be
White,
of what it means to be
female;
middle-class or not,
my parents insisted at age 8
that I begin to understand
the value of a dollar;
my sexuality indicates little
about my level of attraction
to the world around me;
agnostic is really just a term
I put because I'm still trying to
figure out whether I really
believe everything I was forced to
learn at Catholic school;
and isn't Libertarian just a fancy
word for I don't want to
choose liberal or conservative?
It's insulting to
ingest how much is
insinuated about
my depth in
the shallowest of pools.
My cheeks burn hot
with frustration as I
try to balance on a beam
cracking underneath the weight of
a world that is constantly begging me
to go back in the neatly
wrapped package from which
the world would prefer I
came.
I'm not someone
you can put in a *******
box and
label;
you can't contain my
shine behind
blackout blinds;
I will burst out of your bubble
and break your glass ceilings;
I will scream at the top of
my lungs in a soundproof room
until you HEAR me.
I'm not meant to be judged
by my cover,
and neither are you.
We are meant to be read.
Mar 11, 2015
Mar 11, 2015 at 10:51 PM UTC
In deepest mire
In shallowest pride
Holy Spirit, be Thou near
My Friend, Guardian and Guide.
Walk with me through flame and fire
And on waters deep and wide
Let us enjoy Thy heart's desire
And together, forever abide.
Jul 23, 2016
Jul 23, 2016 at 9:55 AM UTC
AN OVI/VICTORIA'S POEM
COLLABORATION
What brings an undaunted Warrior down on his knees?"
**It is a Woman,
A woman's tears can pierce into the most rigid of souls.
It is her charms and calls
that falls like splendors on morning leaves.
Her sway and bounce, that sends shivers into the hearts.**
*Such are the nights
she envelopes him in a tailwind,
both of them buoyed
in his regard
of her every thing.
Quenched and drunk
on the essence
of love in action
happen the mornings when he
is the rising sun itself
that draws her
like a mist from the ocean.*
**And as the moon transverses the lone sky, searching for a mystery to peruse the earth with brooding glow,
So she glows her man into a brighter him.
She encloses within her, moments of illumination, that even the darkest of souls cannot quench.
Such are the days of her unending rainfalls, where she wets up the shallowest of earth's depths....
Intertwining between seasons and spheres.
Her heart is like the endlessness of the ocean,
Constantly drawing him with her hips into a wave of boundless journey.**
*And so it is
as it always was
through the ages of transience,
their enigma constant,
unending prevailed
against the steely, storming skies
of angst en masse
that would test loves mettle,
where true warriors, undaunted
rise above, arced
in kaleidoscopic triumph.*
**Ovi Odiete and Victoria©
All right reserved. 10/9/2016**
Oct 9, 2016
Oct 9, 2016 at 6:20 AM UTC
In this society
of souls from the millennium
Invigorated by validation
Drugged only skin-deep
With toxic actions and words
And prices ruling like
A silver-spoon-fed princess
The value of an individual
Plunges deep into the depths
Of the shallowest mirror-like pools
I can only sigh
As I sit in this new class
Alongside new faces
And the absence of the professor
I think of refunding my expensive tuition fee
When I pay my utmost attention
To everything around me
Jan 17, 2018
Jan 17, 2018 at 5:54 AM UTC
How fast fade most pinkest trees
How digits dance 'neath Catalpa breeze
Ignoring last October's deadest death
They arrived on time then took last breaths
Scattered seeds among their foes
Had no need of planting earthen work
As cycles shadow ploughman's dream
The fickle fruitless cherry grows
He rode rough crests over wildest waves
His ship stayed unsunk under skinny toil
His family landed and held holiest hope
Now blossom buds over grassy graves
Darkness darkened darkest health
Metal sheets broke bones full force
Lungs would not get the care of air
But hours still channeled wisdom wealth
She bent the knee for sacred loves
She scraped it on the firmest strife
Her pies nor pulchritude but soul inspired
Now stillness stays beneath starry moves
When bloodiest blood ****** didn't produce
It drained itself from veins and strained
Veiling valleys making mountains make-believe
But sharpest tongue emptiness refused
What meagre maggots worthless worms
Are those of us who never yearn!
We rarely learn to live so well as they
Who gave us genes and grace and days
All I offer oft only when I try and I work
Nothing else can I do nor more can I hope
This most modest shallowest honor to give
Of them in springtime remembering is
May 8, 2015
May 8, 2015 at 12:00 PM UTC
a poet who can't write
a dog that won't bite
a hill that can't climb
a clock with no time
an ist with no ism
undead but not risen
an endless schism
of self sedition and indecision
a two headed coin
a completely missed point
a light in the void
a limbless joint
Bo-Peep with no sheep
the shallowest deep
an unsailed sea
of dreamless sleep
Jan 20, 2019
Jan 20, 2019 at 4:31 PM UTC
There is a man walking slowly in me
And he’s going through each room, one by one,
Turning on all the lights while passing by
Stripping the scenes with silver dollar eyes.
With a flick of his chicken bone finger
The kitchen lights violently flare up
To reveal tomato stains, upset
Stomachs, windows and broken table legs.
“Call the medic now!”– In the living room
The lights just found choked up throats and down town
Sticky red wine stains that bleat beat up
Little lambs for little peeps and little
Mistakes that become big scabs and big scams
That swallows the shallowest of waters.
Now the man who certainly loves the light
Is in the bathroom where the peeping brights
Gouge and grind the snuffed and lying young man
Till he is but the pulp and rind and juice.
“Where’s the medic?” Screams the mad running blood
“Where’s the ******* medic?” They cry again.
Now he tricks the porch light into being
Forcing it to leer upon this **** scene
Of a man barely living, most likely
Sleeping, with a garden hose stuffed down his
Gorgon throat seeping– weeping – all at once.
Where is he now? The man who loves the lights?
He’s walking to the impressive bedroom.
The lights wrestle and work the shadows down
Looking for the living, the last one home
Hiding away just in his underwear.
The man of lights opens the closet door
Just takes a look at the creature’s features
When he has finished, when he has remarked
He marks the skin with light, then tears it off.
He takes each muscle each tendon and bone
And throws them, crashing the walls as each falls!
Boom boom! Goes the muscle through the bathroom
Boom boom! Goes the bone through the kitchen
Boom boom! Goes the tendon through the bedroom.
Boom boom! Goes the heart through the rooftop
Boom Boom! Goes the head through the frondoor.
There was once a man that walked within me
And he has left the lights to burn on and on
Feb 24, 2011
Feb 24, 2011 at 2:00 PM UTC
I sold my engagement ring to a gold peddler for $995.
I paid off my consulting lawyer.
I purchsed a bottle of 15 year single malt.
I bought gasoline and drove 336 miles.
I threw your wedding band, the one you left me to dispose of, into the shallowest and widest river I could find.
You're welcome.
**** off.
Jun 22, 2015
Jun 22, 2015 at 5:18 PM UTC
She was like the shallowest part of the deepest ocean.
While,
He was like the deepest secrets of the shallowest hearts.
Feb 11, 2019
Feb 11, 2019 at 4:07 AM UTC
She told me she loves me,
like how the sea remains,
even if the shore shoves it away.
On the day she left,
I thought of the words she said.
I shouldn't have felt secured then,
for she compared her love for me,
to the shallowest part of the sea.
She did not love me deeply.
Aug 6, 2017
Aug 6, 2017 at 10:53 PM UTC
Happiness is illusive,
And it lies within the heart.
Now some hearts fill quickly, but drain quickly too,
Others take time to fill, but they keep in what they have earned.
Mine seems to be the former.
Filling from friendly words,
And emptying an hour later over the shallowest matter.
This being said it is not impossible to be happy, many people live happy lives
And I believe the key is to accept it all.
To live life with love.
To not search for what could make you happy, but rather your heart which will make you happy.
Happiness is the only quest in which the goal can be found at the beginning.
Jun 27, 2014
Jun 27, 2014 at 12:59 AM UTC
Even the shallowest thoughts run deep,
within my mind,
among the
should have,
could have,
might have
and what if
you're still dwelling
in between,
while i try to get rid,
I find my self staring at you like a kid,
in front of a TV screen,
as I lean in
to change the channel,
it doesn't matter
all I see is,
you
and me,
stuck in reverse and repeat.
Jun 9, 2015
Jun 9, 2015 at 5:21 PM UTC
she's the kid of girl
who tries wayyyy too ******* hard to please everybody
somebody has each limb
and is pulling her in every direction
boys fight for her heart
the one she wants to win doesn't fight
she leaves herself in the open
taking shots from all angles
absorbs it and shakes it off
like it didn't even hurt
she tells me her deepest secrets
and laughs
from the shallowest part of herself
that smile could make a grown man
a man who gave up on love
weak the ******* knees
make the hardest frown
turn right upside down
the one's who say they love her
**** her up more than those who don't
she's rare
she cares
sometimes, well
most of the time she gets too stressed
and tries too hard to be the best
tear away the seams
your heart is sewn onto your sleeve
rip it off
it might hurt a bit
you might bleed
but it's temporary
unlike the hurt from the ones who "love" you
TEAR YOUR HEART OFF YOUR SLEEVE
put it BACK where it belongs
lock it up tight
let the right one in
not the one who speaks in cliches
choose the one who can look you dead in the eye
and tell you you're beautiful
without looking at your chest or ***
I pinky promise he will come around
I can't promise when
but i swear
be patient and sit back
and watch your life unfold
like opening the pages of a pop-up book
May 9, 2014
May 9, 2014 at 1:35 PM UTC
Teahupo’o (pronounced Cho-poo)
Did you think your actions couldn’t affect someone else?
Do you ever think about anyone but yourself?
It’s the shallowest of waters that can cause the biggest waves.
Good morning, Teahupo’o, I’ve prepared myself for your arrival.
I’ve felt the ripples. I’ve felt the swells. It’s no wonder your waves came crashing down.
My best was taken aback by your rip current.
There is only one thing you’ve forgot.
Once a wave starts to break, it has to crash.
Now you’ve fallen…
You’re crawling back to hide inside your waters, your shelters.
Now the rest of me lays broken at our wake but you still move on.
My dear darling, Teahupo’o, I can only be with you.
You’ve taken my best and left me with the rest.
My dear darling…
Now you’ve fallen. You’re crawling back.
I’ve been left with nothing. I’ll take it all back.
Now you’ve fallen. You’re crawling back.
I’ve been left with nothing, but you’re my nothing.
Sep 4, 2015
Sep 4, 2015 at 10:35 PM UTC
“Mysterious Waters of the Naked and Nervous”
She begins her life
along with nine-thousand seven hundred fourteen siblings
in the shallowest part of the pond,
just four days after being laid as a jelly egg
attached to a fern leaf bent over humid water.
On day seven she sallies to neighboring weeds
using a very circular route
quietly clings to **** watches with terror
as brothers and sisters are attacked
by sharp beaked birds
swooping down to chew helpless tadpoles,
devouring membranes that cover their gills and necks.
One of few tadpoles to survive to day ten.
officially becomes a tiny pitch black pollywog
with continuously wiggling tail and small round mouth
of ***** jaws that scrapes across tiny plants,
searching for something to eat.
She greedily swallows microscopic animals
found inside pond bottom ooze
and slime which clings to pond’s surface.
Devouring a particularly tasty ooze meal,
she is horrified to witness
tadpole brothers and sisters eating each other,
siblings extending their bellies
by swallowing extended family.
Mostly tail with fine stippling of gold,
within twenty-four hours she breathes
from two gills at each side of her throat
as hind legs suddenly sprout
rounded buds that soon turn into toes
amazing her how fast she can propel
away from murderous dive bombing birds of color.
She first demonstrates courage
by a successful attack of black fish that menaces her for hours.,
******* on its fish fins until they are ragged,
not in anger or self-defense
more for tasty algae trapped within them.
But it does feel good to be able to destroy instead of being destroyed.
Feb 28, 2017
Feb 28, 2017 at 8:22 AM UTC
In our sterilized world
condensed selves peek out
Behind our blinding white back lit screens
desperate to draw out blood across the page
If anyone cuts, they'll leave the blood at home
To format conviction from insubstantial photos
Emotionless
every 19 out of 20 are all just pics of color drained of all but the shallowest
human experience
Dying to be loved
Seen
Hardly hoping to be understood
Cutting off all hope
as we cut off all our enemies
And cage ourselves in an impotent haven
No love can sprout, grow, and blossom
Hanging in mid-air
Amidst the talk of pointless pasts and puns
No,
Life
Love
Is Wrought in all the nastiness of Dirt
As earth's pushing pulls the golden threads
up out of all the worthy hearts
And stitches us together with all her lovely arts
It's Face to Face
And pain to pain
Where love indeed does truly start
Apr 1, 2016
Apr 1, 2016 at 12:16 AM UTC
We are escaping. One, two, three, four of us. We are escaping from a shabby, ill insulated trailer home dressed for the 70's. It's poo brown **** carpets and dilapidated yellow wallpaper is behind us, finally. Here we are in brisk mountain air looking over and smiling at one another as we soar down the slopes on our skis. I smile to my right - all the while giggling at our oddly fitted goggles and red, wind whipped noses. I feel completely in control. The other three zip past me and down the slopes. I see them make it to our destination: A nice, contemporary and cozy cottage; but I take my time. I'm moving freely and side to side, wearing a smile as wide as my head. I approach the destination to meet the other three. All too suddenly, rather than coming to a nice stop, I realize that I am approaching a ski jump instead. With out enough time to stop myself, I decide to position my self so that I land in the pond that sits slightly to left of the jump. I hit the jump and soar in the shallowest sky, close my eyes and brace myself for the coldest water my body has no desire of sensing. I become enveloped in liquid warmth just seconds later. It's the most surprising embrace and I almost choose not to leave. But I remerge with my goggles missing and I watch the steam rise from the water in all directions. Asfter I wade to the edge of the pond, I pick up my heavy, saturated body and drag it onto the snow, smiling and unaffected by the cold, wet earth beneath me.
Mar 1, 2018
Mar 1, 2018 at 10:59 PM UTC