"shallowly" poems
there's a fisherman down by the sea
sitting on the wharf
watching the sun sink into the western sky
a frown frames his house
he looks out the window
at his pole, gear
and especially that of his net
emptiness
metaphors that weigh on him
uprooting his garden
a garden of no delight
one lonely row of forget me not
and regret
all wilting
his foundation
lost
never found or realized
he pauses
runs his hand over his pole
like a belt without any notches
his grip slipping into the abyss
as the last of the orange
sinks
bleeds also
at where the sea meets the sky
where his day slowly turns to night
somewhere out there he sees his image
in nature's mirror
at his crossroads
for deeply
and some may say shallowly
he looks onto the sea one last time
and he means what he says
and throws his fishing gear in
tears welling in his eye
as he watches his teddybear sink
lips gurgling
seemingly asking why
... why
he answers back
there were no fish or bites
in his lonely sea
or wind at his back
... there
his window opens wider
the sea not singing or dancing
he sees the ambient light
correlations
... here
Logan Robertson
7/06/2018
Jul 6, 2018
Jul 6, 2018 at 8:20 PM UTC
It's hard to hide a smile
When you should feel defiled.
Is it wrong to give my soul,
act as a ***** in the bed and
reconcile your acts as nothing but
worthwhile?
My skin and mind are afire
we're lying side by side respirating shallowly
admired, reviled and inspired I let myself wander
with thoughts of our beguiled afternoon.
Love affairs are seedy, needy and just
without my lover I'd feel nothing but bile
for the man I let slip a band on me.
I want to stay awhile, but the room will
be needed by the next coupling.
And, until next time I have to veil my
vile, yet necessary secret
And that I do with guile and style.
Apr 28, 2014
Apr 28, 2014 at 5:34 PM UTC
A blast from some dark past sounds quite murky. Swampy shallows we shallowly swim in, like *** my brand new $2000 dress just got ***** Spend another $1000 on a trendy fashion, or 30. This poem sounds funny, but your selfish ******** sounds quirky.
A little birdie flew by and chirped for me to share the mashed potatoes AND the turkey.
Good advice guy! Once bitten, twice shy they say. Oh my! Nice try.
I'll look up at the sky and wish to live and not die. Wallow in YOUR misery and fry, the fish for YOUR mind.
Blame YOUR fuck-ups on the World while millions perish in the night. **** YOUR fright.
Let's fight the good fight, while we step out of the dark, and into the light. Sounds tight!
You ***** and complain, while others are tortured in blind sight. You only focus on your muscles and might.
I'll focus on my mind, cause I'm right. Here's a cigarette, need a light? Pay it forward, while the Sun is still bright.
Might I inquire to en-light a lost flame? Take your baggage and keep walking, cause WE are all the ******** to blame.
This lion will never be tamed. **** over greedy people and feel shamed. I'll switch my face and my name and wash the past away in the rain. Pain makes you stronger. Never let your patience escape down the sink, or the drain.
Refrain from the wall that reflects sunshine from the stain. I hope this poem speaks to your brain, like ancient wisdom to lost claims.
Insane in the membrane, feelings are brought out in the day. Saying what's on your mind should not be thought lame.
I'm Dave and let's pay it forward and be brave.
Apr 28, 2013
Apr 28, 2013 at 10:02 PM UTC
Her mouth sits agape,
Shallowly wafting stale, dank air.
Each breath drifts down to her lap,
Resting there in a sour cloud.
It reeks of dead fish and swamp mud.
And her middle is drowned in feelings of despair
Which seep sluggishly through the chambers of her heart.
The drunken reflux stains her linen black—
Black as the bottom of some lifeless lake.
She rises from her place at the edge of her bed
Wading through her sorrow—
Through her own viscous thoughts...
She does this
With what little spirit she can muster.
It is the last of what she once possessed.
Aug 23, 2018
Aug 23, 2018 at 12:24 PM UTC
How do I hate thee? I can't count the ways.
I hate thee like a puddle on the street
As shallowly as water touching feet;
Only a time span of just a few days.
I hate thee with a foggy level-head
And a logic that makes no sense to you.
I hate thee passionately without truth,
I hate thee sincerely with words unsaid.
I hate thee with an affection that's stalled
Where faded love blooms into a new mess.
I hate thee with a heart that's like night fall;
Dark curtains hiding light with a fake kiss.
I've tried to hate you, but I don't at all;
Not slightly, or even a little bit.
Apr 18, 2013
Apr 18, 2013 at 11:35 PM UTC
keep me awake
i keep falling asleep
i keep forgetting
that i have
fearfully crawled
into places filled
to the brim with
heartbeats and
suffocating heat
just to find myself
with dry palms
and a soft jaw
minutes later
i hold my tongue
only to cut it off
when i hate
the feeling of it
inside my mouth
and leave it for
him to hold
all pink and slimy
and frantic and cruel
and wonder
why it’s hard for him
to read my poetry
and every night
i lie my head
against the chest
of indifference
and swear that
i can hear the
lazy thump of
his affection
resting shallowly
below thin ribs
i am kept awake
through the
loneliness hours
considering
my own
self-inflicted
wounds
instead of dressing
the deep cut
we both share
Feb 17, 2019
Feb 17, 2019 at 2:09 PM UTC
I wanna run to you in an airport
Like they do in 90s romance movies
Because I miss you and
I’ve been away from home for two years
I want to sit on the beach and explain the landscape that
You know better than I do
In the language it was originally loved in, that
You never bothered to learn
Why would you?
You dip your feet shallowly
Into the water instead of dunking yourself
Like I do, down up down up down
Because you’ll be back tomorrow
And I’ll spend fractions of me
Waiting for a call or a text
For 20 bucks to send you
To breathe plumeria-scented air
From the oil on the skin of your neck
For a picture of the freckles on the webbing
between your index and thumb, and the ring
That I bought you before I left so that in the pictures
you post with your white boyfriend
I’m there on your finger
So when he’s teaching you the ‘local’ lifestyle
I’m there on your finger
So when you island hop for a surfing class
You keep me on your finger, where I can feel the waves.
I want to come home but I can’t, not before
I buy you a new ring, out here
in the empty expanse of a Where’s Waldo puzzle
It has to be
Something expensive, something durable
That won’t tarnish in the island
humidity, something that your
San-Francisco friends will ooh and ahh at
Because I want to see you wearing it when I get home.
I’ve been away from home for fifteen years
I return in my dreams, but the soil
doesn’t feel right, and the love isn’t how
my mother’s father’s father described it
At the beach, lots of people swim, but no one else
Keeps their head under and lets the water breathe life into their hair.
Lets the water into their mouth, chokes, then does it again.
But I like the way you
Dipped your feet in when you watched me
Leave, on a boat chasing Troy
Venus my northern star
As I enter the storm
My boat floats through the violence,
against Poseidon’s abundant will
because my sail made up of duct-taped exam scores
And half-organized sermons
Is mightier than any of his sons
I’ve been away since 700 BCE
But you’ll still know me when I come home
Dec 19, 2024
Dec 19, 2024 at 1:03 AM UTC
Having him near and not touching
Was decidedly tough.
In the end I realized that loving him
Was just not enough.
He liked making love and exploring
The bodies we had
But not enough to fall in love with me
And that was sad.
I knew this heart-pounding affair was
Just for a few days.
And while I was falling very hard, he
Would son walk away.
He mumbled something one time
About being a free spirit
But in those moments I didn’t know
What to do with it.
It was not information I could take
And put someplace real.
It was a kind of romantic connection
That I could not feel.
It didn’t fit with the movies and books
And the fairy tales.
It didn’t end with a swell of music.
It ended with sad wails.
It made no sense at all to me then
How anyone could be
A totally involved ****** machine
And act so shallowly.
How can someone throw themselves
Into such wild action
And have it not mean more than just
Physical satisfaction?
He was the first, there were more.
This kind of guy shines,
And knows how to attract the fools
With attitudes like mine;
People who persuade themselves
To proceed blindly
When these one-night lotharios
Treat lovers unkindly.
Of course, it was not love, I know,
Not even for me.
It was just something called lust
That captivated me.
A gorgeous body and talented talk
Easily woos youth
With so much seduction I would not
Look hard for the truth.
Dec 6, 2015
Dec 6, 2015 at 4:06 AM UTC
You think I don’t want to write love letters,
but you know I solemnly can be better.
Because age truly matters,
everything but looks truly matters.
I treat you as I do any person,
why did you treat me so ill for no reason?
I can’t get myself over your derision,
Stop treating me as less than a person.
Do not sift through the world,
it will hurt your heart, girl.
take my life sweetie,
have my soul, dearly
Only,
If you stop thinking worldly.
you think I don’t want to watch the sunsets,
but you know I solemnly vow the rest.
because age truly matters,
everything but looks truly matters.
I entreat you as I do a person,
why did you defy me for no good reason?
I don’t understand your derision,
you treat me as less than a person.
Do not sift through the world,
man will hurt you, girl.
Let me have you sweetie.
Offer your soul, dearly.
Only,
I promise to stop thinking shallowly.
Sep 3, 2013
Sep 3, 2013 at 11:46 AM UTC
She forces me to hang up
at 12:30
I think she's uncomfortable talking to me.
I know she's going to tell
her friends people like me
Feel too.
I'm not people
like I told her.
I'm a lot like the criers
The people in black
Self obsessed in their own self pity.
I'm a horrible mix
Of normal person
And complete social degenerate
To where I can't get along with either.
She's going to tell
All her buddies
who think she's such a great person
That she heard a person like me
cry.
Even more
She's going to tell them
She made me laugh.
She was telling me
How I felt.
“You feel like nothing matters”
She's the world's most depressing hypnotist.
“You feel like you're living shallowly”
Yes.
She's a genius.
I couldn't help
But laugh at the silliness
Of it all.
Jan 13, 2010
Jan 13, 2010 at 9:41 PM UTC
My skin often feels like
An ill fitting suit.
Too big in spots
Too tight in others
With seams showing and scratchy fabric.
My life often feels that way-
Something I tug at that settles for a moment
And then shifts back into discomfort when I take a breath.
Sometimes its worn spots let in the cold wind,
Vicious.
Sometimes it sticks to me and refuses to peel away, suffocating.
I feel like a child in church
In her Sunday best
Who knows she must sit still and quiet
Even as the shoes pinch
And the stiff collar closes round her neck.
I sneak glances around me
Trying to discern if anybody else feels
This way.
They all seem content.
Comfortable.
Still.
Perhaps if I just breathe shallowly
And don't move a muscle
I will learn what they know
And settle into my shrink-wrapped existence.
"Tiny people with tiny lives-"
Is it the truth?
Or do they just look small
Because they've learned to squeeze into the space they've been given?
Does the woman ordering coffee in her business suit and heels
Sit up nights, unable to sleep for a longing she can't name?
Does the man mopping the floors
Dream of a woman he will never touch
Again?
I wish I could find those parts of people.
The parts they hide.
Because mine won't stay hidden.
There is something too thin between me
And the world
And it is poorly fashioned
And it is tattered.
And sometimes people look at me with disdain
As if I've walked out of my house naked
Unable to properly clothe myself
And I wonder
If they aren't
Right.
Jan 17, 2015
Jan 17, 2015 at 2:24 PM UTC
There is a certain feeling that arrives soon as the thought approaches.
A sort of dream like feeling that comes to take over what ever mood,
What ever presence that is shallowly felt.
In truth it's the best part of the day.
Finally putting yourself first and making that special trip to ultimate comfort.
A place that you've been but never felt until the feeling grabs you as mutual.
Truth of the matter, life couldn't be as grand as you can imagine it.
The mental aspect of anticipation.
The thought alone is breathtaking.
Taking everything in stride, promising not to stay gone long.
Going to a place that you've always known.
Following a gut instinct, it's only natural.
Not fully understanding it's depth until having left
To truly know just how much it means.
Going home
Jan 10, 2017
Jan 10, 2017 at 11:10 AM UTC
Third time tonight
on the bathroom floor.
Shaking in fear and pain.
A burning body.
Sweat pouring out with silent tears.
Temperature rising
higher and higher.
Can't scream, can't cry;
can only breathe shallowly
from dry lips.
Left on cold tiles,
praying for everything to be over.
No one to save me
only left in my despair,
my hatred, my misery.
Too scared to die
too weak to live.
I can't move.
I'm stuck here to suffer.
Alone on the bathroom floor.
Oct 20, 2012
Oct 20, 2012 at 12:50 PM UTC
Empty homes with dying fires
the fall to follow Rome,
a light to burn the empires.
Torn children's clothing piled on funeral pyres
Abandoned hallways, crumbling spires
Unorganized, unreliable, unfit to be king,
solemnly awaiting what his future will bring
The frost and wilt, deepening their wound until spring
His decade of rule, never sparing anything
Watch the skyline, now kiss it lightly
find the final flower and hold it tightly
Petals will fall, plunging into the universe of the unsightly
Mourn its beauty, and pray for a world more sprightly
Scaffolding in ruins, hallways lonely all along
The final moment of the crown,
a serenade of sparrow song
A lively toast to a drawn-out life that went all wrong
Wounded always, but shallowly at most,
'Life', as they say, 'must go on'
Towns rebuild, and castles to destruct
Earth's natural tears drown and erase ten years' bad luck
Winter melts away, and the world's icy soul thaws at last to interrupt
The cold, once widely-told chattering of a kingdom corrupt
Corroded statues, no more laughter at all
A new man settles in, the trigger for the downfall
The world freezes again, crops iced once more, and the livestock dead in every stall.
If there was ever a valid point to living a life,
the people could never recall
Sep 1, 2015
Sep 1, 2015 at 10:13 AM UTC
all of the things you brought out of me
shouldn't have left their first home
a stone that was buried under the sea
floats to the surface - atoned
every confession rolls like a wave
crashing itself into veins
of bodies inside the watery cave
shallowly rendering stains
trade me your drink, i'll pass you my wine
sip what you can and let go
the chalice will break and bind you the time
needed to capture the flow
hold out your hands and see what they caught
diluted versions of me
which of us found what they had sought
which of us lost reality
Nov 9, 2012
Nov 9, 2012 at 3:58 PM UTC
**Why does every poem published feel risky?
Why does it cause me such a hard time?
I think "What am I even doing?"
And "Am I wasting my time?"
Is it recognition that I'm seeking?
Or is there something else I'm trying to find?
And just what is wrong with me?
Is this a talent, obsession, or is it an affliction?
If you could only see the way i scribble addictively..
I wouldn't be shocked if you staged an intervention.
Am I a poet or am I losing my sanity?
And could all my hopes be founded in fiction?
Still, my goal isn't nearly defined.
My mental organization could be improved..
I write as much as a nut case of some kind.
Is it in my best interest for my pen to be removed?
Patterns and stanzas keep me shallowly refined.
I'll ignore the hazard; it's excused.
No reason to admit defeat because of cold feet.**
Nov 11, 2017
Nov 11, 2017 at 4:09 PM UTC
slipping silently into your arms
i look up into your warm eyes
and see heaven in them.
my eyes slide lower to those
warm soft lips that ask
softly to be kissed, to be
gently plundered of wet treasure.
i inhale as your warm hands lay
bare upon my arms and pull me into you.
my naked face tipped upwards
longing for your lips to slide
over mine, gently caressing the
curves of my mouth.
my breath warms your skin where
i breathe shallowly and quickly
in anticipation of fulfilling your needs
of fulfilling mine.
Jan 31, 2012
Jan 31, 2012 at 8:16 PM UTC
Every feeling drawn from so much depth,
That I have to learn to embrace the deep,
The blackness of the pit with no echo,
The unreachable place from which they creep.
I’ve not been privileged to love shallowly,
Nor unrequited love not quench my soul,
Nor experience of fleeting sadness,
But to love my dark and bottomless hole.
Shall I be better off without darkness?
Feeling love as strong as jealous anguish?
Shall I pray to never feel crushing hurt?
So loving shall be an incomplete wish?
How often rejection brought me despair!
Oh to be hopeful as my hopelessness!
The deep emptiness that ***** down my pain,
Is the same depth from which I can’t love less.
Emptiness do not fill up with healing!
That dark abyss is my space for feeling.
Jun 14, 2018
Jun 14, 2018 at 12:45 AM UTC
i stand for a while,
ankle deep,
in the soft sinking sand,
at the tip of the tides reach.
the final inches of
the curlique wavelets
wash over my feet
and take with them,
on their return to
the brotherhood of
salt and water,
my footholds.
the water, refreshingly
cold on this hot muggy
summer afternoon.
i wade further in to
the calmer wash area,
after the waves have broken,
to about mid thigh
before
i dive shallowly through
the caesious waters
of the green room's
breaking waves,
and swim out,
to beyond the rise
and swell of surf.
to float in the
embryonic embrace
of the sea
my heart sings
with primal joy
at the saltinate communion.
after time slows, sufficiently,
i return to the beach.
and stand in
the pressing warmth,
with rivulets
of my mermaid self
dripping onto the sand.
Apr 23, 2014
Apr 23, 2014 at 12:35 AM UTC
She's a toxic poison worse than the nicotine I let fill and corrode my lungs.
Her beauty, mind and figure blow me away yet I'm troubled and left in such dismay.
Oh how I let her use me over and over.
Weakly my mind is erased and swept underneath me.
Shallowly I drink whiskey to escape the mess I've made.
Escaping from the grasping width she has me constantly tangled and drained.
Use yes use me again, because at least the pain is something I can feel during my days when you're away.
Am I a backup plan while you **** your bitter *** life to a **** shame?
When you're the only girl I've been getting with is that my sweetest mistake?
You take me for granted and sleep in some other men's sheets that you cause to stain.
While they **** you to far away constellations and I'm miles and miles away.
While all I do when you're here and there is care and try my awfully best to be the man you truly need.
I'm drenching myself in pills at night again because you don't seem to care nor need.
And I've found myself lost within you, but you're never there, even when you are it seems like somehow you're still not around.
It's only when you need me that you seem to care.
But **** me you do have the most beautiful hair. With your radiant smile and honey suckle eyes I'm left in awe and great despair.
Yet I'm taken for granted by you, thrown around like waste that you can just dispose of when you please. You take off to see the other men that arouse you which we do not like to speak.
Each night when you're seeing other men I'm left recklessly on my knees.
I cave in hoping you return or I at least I hear you call to speak.
If you gave me the chance will you see what we could be?
Or am I wasting my time hoping for you and me?
You're toxic, yet so beautiful and tragic. And for me my body feels weak as I bleed on my silk fabricated sheets.
Like the stains you lead on the other men's sheets.
Is this the best we can be?
Deep down in my heart this isn't how imagined it to be.
Sadly I just can't find myself to leave.
You **** me in so disgustingly deep.
Jun 17, 2017
Jun 17, 2017 at 11:58 PM UTC
Please
bury me there--right there--in the
shade of the sycamore where the
sand will never dry.
When you carry me down feel the river rocks they
groan and grate beneath our weight.
Bury me shallowly so that
someday
if the rains return
the water will swell and find the strength to
carry me home.
Sep 21, 2017
Sep 21, 2017 at 3:09 PM UTC
The sun winks cheekily from behind a thinning cloud
And, like a great golden grin, gilds my day.
White light pulsates on the inner wall of my eyelids -
Mood lifting; warmth spreading; glorious light.
A faint breeze, feather light, lulls;
Softening the edge of the sun's heat.
Time drifts and thoughts linger
On the sumptuous sensation
Of a perfect morning.
A seagull screech brings the scene to life
and, with eyes closed, I look at the moment
and see the sounds arising.
Distant voices in the morning's chatter and the rhythmic whoosh of waves.
I feel the touch of sound as my heart beat strolls now;
As my mind idly paddles at the water's edge.
I breathe in the tepid air ; it glides softly, slowly through my nostrils
Reflecting the ebb and flow of the sea without.
Rising and falling with the tide's swell.
Limp limbs lie abandoned on the
Cushioned bed as each breath shallowly lingers, patiently anticipating the next.
No thoughts now.
Just image and sound and the sweet sensation of the intermittent breeze
As I float on a velvet sea of my own making.
Jan 3, 2017
Jan 3, 2017 at 3:33 PM UTC
Shallowly
My body quivers
Out
In
So, frantically begging
To open
And be filled
But nothing changes
Nothing moves
Nothing
Silence, physically pleading
Pouring into the meaninglessness
An ocean with no shore
A storm with no eye
Life
Without living
Death
Without dying
Nov 7, 2012
Nov 7, 2012 at 8:40 AM UTC
I linger here as you consume
Imprisoned by this monster
Helpless, I lay an infant on the highway
The flesh of my bones unable to carry me to safety, despite the awareness of danger
You hunger for relentless destruction
Tried, you have, to ****** me maliciously
Brute force, where wartime laws are found obsolete
Ravaging the victims of your demise, you still feed evermore, and for what reward?
The feeling of power, perhaps?
The stimulating sense of controlled chaos, resting shallowly in the palm of your
cold
wrinkled
pasty-white hands
**** I feel ***** ripped, ruined, as this 55 mph ******* approaches my debilitated figure
Where I await my devouring
Dec 25, 2012
Dec 25, 2012 at 9:09 PM UTC