"shins" poems
Emaciated bones
Shivering in shrunken clothes.
Wrinkled faces,tired eyes
Watching the sun is their only prize.
Tears burn their cut up skin
Work injures up their shins.
They cannot speak for they weep for their farmlands
They are so used to work,even with their old hands.
They are dying,dying like flies
Because they are poor and these are their lives
Apr 6, 2014
Apr 6, 2014 at 4:18 AM UTC
In a playful vision sent
Your ****** homologue
Of amber shins and pale phalanges
Weaves four-leaved clovers.
In response,
***** spurs
And protean winged descent
To float into your kaleidoscopic star:
Gliding,
Freely falling,
To rest in lace extremities.
There in our bed of sensual feet,
Sunflowers breath,
Whose burnished rotating petals
Gather me in wisps,
Each spiral frond,
Gyring
Before death's voids
Is drawn in purls.
And in pleasures held,
Cossetted in latticed limbs,
A ***** lustrous rich embrace;
Denuded and alive!
And with abandon kissed:
Bony toes
Tendons
Deep arches
Shins
Ankles,
Sweetmeats,
Light and delicate.
As here between pretty shins
And fleshy silken feet
Our ascent begins
Rising,
From low regions,
To scale new night,
And crown our heights.
This lovers' leap into prismatic
reproduction
In the empty Cosmic wastes
In a web is caught!
Where feet and toes inspire
Continuity for pointed stars.
As material possibilities collide
The lust for life
Is born in non-existence:
So in our nest of feet,
Mating in the game
With heads thrown back,
Of lust drink deeply we.
Nov 3, 2018
Nov 3, 2018 at 5:11 PM UTC
Here.
Attempting to write something
To match your eyes.
Something that will make you see things
The way I see things.
Noticing.
Every mark.
Torn by fences climbed
To get away from those who didn't take your hand
And fly.
They left intricate laddered rips in your jeans,
Though you try to hide the fact that you know,
That I know that is the case.
We play childish games of denial
Because all romance is to be transported to a time when we were innocent.
Back to a place where ‘I love you’ is what your parents said
When all the screaming, laughter
And the innocence of loud noises stop
And is replaced by silence.
‘I love you’ made that warm feeling
Growing and radiating out
Eventually finding the tips of your fingers and ends of your toes
And bursting out,
Moving through to the next person you touch.
*Contrary to popular practice,
‘I love you’ is not just three words to be said
When you are trying to break the awkward silences
Left between two people who have simply gotten used to each other.*
I love red licorice.
It gives me a warm feeling of sugary goodness.
Though artificial,
In the times when the weight of the world is the weight of your sheets
That lay a top of your body
Which you tell yourself over and over and over
It is not good enough for that person
Who gives you the inner warmth
That a campfire gives your shins;
I find that artificial red licorice warmth is good enough.
And sometimes good enough is the best we can get.
Here.
In the hope that the words that must be said
Stream from ink to page.
I hope my hand moves so fast over the page
That smoke starts flowing and my words mean something...
But no words come.
No letters.
No ink scratches the page.
I just want you to see the way I do.
Dec 27, 2012
Dec 27, 2012 at 7:48 AM UTC
outlines of red for a head
purple lines for a spine
icy pink run the length of arms
blue and green swirls for hips
silvery golden shins rise above brown feet
colored for heat and earth
the mind is deepest
here all things melt and meld
to slide down the spine
and cool to hardened action in the arm
the hips support and are friendly relief
the shins reflect the stars
and feet ground you to nature
the essence of where you are
Jan 2, 2015
Jan 2, 2015 at 4:39 PM UTC
Sunshine,
Birdsong
And children drunk on
Lemonade
And laughter.
That Welsh picnic
Has lasted forty years
And will last forty more
In daydream
And nightmare.
The stream babbled
Over pebbles,
Fern fronds
Brushed our sun-browned shins
Till the dead sheep
Slugged us in the guts.
Bloated and bulbous,
The body dammed the stream,
Its lifeless eyes
Crawling with life.
Those pearly marbles were
A child’s looking glass into death.
The rocks we hurled at it
In reckless revulsion
Were the screams
Of violated youth,
And those empty dead sheep thuds
The dawning of our mortality.
Mar 21, 2011
Mar 21, 2011 at 3:20 AM UTC
i share my name with a hurricane
how fitting
a set of bruised shins in running tights
who can't get much of anything right
and still hasn't remembered where she set her drink
that's me
i sometimes think they should've named me tiffany
or brittany
or stephany
something pretty and normal
maybe then i would have been a ballerina
instead of just a mess
in a second-hand dress
sometimes i swear
the wind calms when i laugh
and the thunder cracks
when i finally let go
and let myself fade
back into the sky that shaped me
i make it rain
some things never change
not names
or headstones
or birthdays
and some things always do
the sky shifts slightly
setting a yellow kite to sail
and a pair of hawks to soar
maybe they named the storm after me
so that i could see
how beautiful turbulence can be
maybe i just wasn't looking right
besides
a rose by any other name
wouldn't seem as special
Feb 12, 2013
Feb 12, 2013 at 1:09 AM UTC
a home, above all else,
is familiar.
it does not have to be comfortable,
nor does it have to be full.
a home is probably a favorite place to be,
or maybe it houses some of the cruelest memories.
I like homes where I can drive quick and still avoid each upcoming pothole--
ones where old neighbors and new couples hunker down for their respectful chapters of life.
I like homes where I can walk around each obstacle in the kitchen with my eyes shut tight and only bang my shins a little bit.
a home is a sense, an intuition.
it is a place where you can dance while no one is watching.
you can fling your tears and regret at the walls and let them absorb your true feelings,
hushing you with their pillows and soft sounds and views.
a home is a home anywhere you choose it to be,
but above all else,
a home is familiar,
and that is a home to me.
May 26, 2016
May 26, 2016 at 6:23 PM UTC
In the dour ages
Of drafty cells and draftier castles,
Of dragons breathing without the frame of fables,
Saint and king unfisted obstruction's knuckles
By no miracle or majestic means,
But by such abuses
As smack of spite and the overscrupulous
Twisting of thumbscrews: one soul tied in sinews,
One white horse drowned, and all the unconquered pinnacles
Of God's city and Babylon's
Must wait, while here Suso's
Hand hones his tack and needles,
Scouraging to sores his own red sluices
For the relish of heaven, relentless, dousing with prickles
Of horsehair and lice his ***** *****
While there irate Cyrus
Squanders a summer and the brawn of his heroes
To rebuke the horse-swallowing River Gyndes:
He split it into three hundred and sixty trickles
A girl could wade without wetting her shins.
Still, latter-day sages,
Smiling at this behavior, subjugating their enemies
Neatly, nicely, by disbelief or bridges,
Never grip, as the grandsires did, that devil who chuckles
From grain of the marrow and the river-bed grains.
6.3k
1. Sunlight
There was a sunlit absence.
The helmeted pump in the yard
heated its iron,
water honeyed
in the slung bucket
and the sun stood
like a griddle cooling
against the wall
of each long afternoon.
So, her hands scuffled
over the bakeboard,
the reddening stove
sent its plaque of heat
against her where she stood
in a floury apron
by the window.
Now she dusts the board
with a goose's wing,
now sits, broad-lapped,
with whitened nails
and measling shins:
here is a space
again, the scone rising
to the tick of two clocks.
And here is love
like a tinsmith's scoop
sunk past its gleam
in the meal-bin.
2. The Seed Cutters
They seem hundreds of years away. Brueghel,
You'll know them if I can get them true.
They kneel under the hedge in a half-circle
Behind a windbreak wind is breaking through.
They are the seed cutters. The tuck and frill
Of leaf-sprout is on the seed potates
Buried under that straw. With time to ****
They are taking their time. Each sharp knife goes
Lazily halving each root that falls apart
In the palm of the hand: a milky gleam,
And, at the centre, a dark watermark.
Oh, calendar customs! Under the broom
Yellowing over them, compose the frieze
With all of us there, our anonymities.
4.9k
I know whose toes
Peek out below:
Beneath their nose,
Under lips,
Lower than their waist and hips;
Past their knees and their shins-
Toes they’ll use to count to ten.
Better yet,
With our twins,
They’ll count to twenty to begin,
Then move to forty without linger,
Counting on each other’s fingers.
Toes and fingers, fingers and toes,
Twenty wigglers they’ve come to know,
With twenty fingers to catch and throw.
For now we’ll rhyme toes off to market,
And play Pat-a-Cake
With Ophelia and Brigid.
Dec 27, 2018
Dec 27, 2018 at 10:46 AM UTC
how many butterflies would it take to hide your smile ?
my love is boundless and yet
i cannot say. it's genius, effete and ill suited
to the task. all the while, my doves pigeon home
with valentines tethered
to sky thin shins
and talons.
more smoke and words
than
spoken atoms.
and nothing else
matters.
May 1, 2014
May 1, 2014 at 12:11 PM UTC
I ate a whole bag of
cheetos one at a time,
savoring each cheesy bite,
and watched two seasons of
South Park as my friend tried to
hit a vein.
**** man. I got little ones, they keep rolling.*
It took her hours.
Forearm
Shins
Wrists
Other arm
Calfs
"What the **** man, why even ******* bother? Why not just smoke it like everyone else?"
******* tweakers*
She says the high is worth it.
*That rush, man. Holy ****
But really,
no matter how ****
they are,
or used to be,
nobody likes
a spun out
tweaker *****
Nobody
Sep 7, 2014
Sep 7, 2014 at 6:36 PM UTC
where will they take me
this thick, whirling cloud
of birds?
I lower my shotgun;
my targets were to be
a skein of geese
(corpulent, impertinent
avian freaks I have seen
peck children's shins)
these smaller birds
perform a choreography electric,
black against blue
now I know the meandering
meaning of mesmerize--my eyes
glued to the skies
more agape than the hunter
in me--wishing to watch this wave
undulate an eternity
but alas, the flock turns
into a naked sun; I am forced
to shield my eyes
my hand blocks the blare
of light, with it, the whipping tail of
their liquid flight
when I lower it, they are
but a haze near the horizon, performing
magic for another audience
Jan 9, 2017
Jan 9, 2017 at 8:16 PM UTC
You’re wishing plus wanting
to win the other side
remove your pride,
you untied tidal pool,
the wide subdivide of these paper pages.
Unrelenting numbers
remind you of the next stages,
taking you wildly to Namibia,
surrendering you to Zimbabwe,
the terminal station.
The narration vocalizes the translation of quotations,
your obligation to the violation of the rules, the regulations,
vulgarization of spoken word.
Pretty paintings plaster typecasts,
the pitter-patter of pity’s pretty ******
quickly shifting refurbished velvet sofas.
Overcast symphonies outlast
witty recast stanzas,
scores with notes naturally quote
verses romancing seltzer spines
noticing the negotiation of sore throats.
Oblivion’s oblivious to the people,
obnoxiously obscene with syncopated
saturation of public vital signs.
You’re the vain strain of virus
photocopying yourself within skin,
waste your sin on tattoos trapped on shins
safety pins selecting prints
pinning sets of twins to tanned wrappers
protecting official reports.
The ossuary welcomes records printed on thick paper
suspiciously missing skeleton swords.
Writing stories reversed while tipsy,
quickly preforming risky poetry smog,
sweetly omitting secret words,
trying to spell simply without the proper prologue.
Feb 17, 2013
Feb 17, 2013 at 1:52 PM UTC
We grew up together
I pulled your hair, you kicked my shins...repeatedly....with vigour
I taught you to skateboard
You taught me to tip cows....make a rope swing and cheat at kiss chase
I taught you to roll cigarettes
You taught me to shoot whiskey, drop acid and roll joints
I took you to the fairground
You took me to an illegal rave and screamed RUN!!! when the police arrived
Years between us, you older, me younger
Yet here I am, the bad influence
While your **** smells of roses!
I showed you my writing
You gave me directions....here
I will always be grateful for that
I will always be grateful for you.
Jun 3, 2014
Jun 3, 2014 at 8:17 PM UTC
I came up in Pittsburgh,
the Rust Belt of hard labor
with a deep love of community.
As children, we collected railroad spikes
from the tracks and we cut our shins
on random iron shards in **** hills.
Some of us were union middle-class
and others breathed the gray air of poverty.
That hardly mattered. As we stood atop
foothills that overlooked the city skyline,
soot embedded under our fingernails,
we lived as kings and queens
that oversaw the future.
-Ron Gavalik
Jul 18, 2018
Jul 18, 2018 at 2:18 PM UTC
eat terrarium dirt
**** seeds on polished wood
churn the german blood funnel
clock in; rise on the **** morning
licks her bruising shins
sleep on the creaky railing
under the vents the roaring subway
Mar 4, 2014
Mar 4, 2014 at 10:08 PM UTC
Your pale grass colored eyes flickered towards me in the passenger seat;
cigarette out the window
I stare at my ruby colored lips in the side view mirror
You drum your fingers on the wheel to Blue Bossonova
I remember the dream catcher hanging from the mirror catching my eye;
a majestic golden hue from the sunlight reflecting off of it.
We weren't supposed to be driving the car,
We both knew this, but we were rebels
So I had climbed out my window without my parents knowing
ripping my jeans in the process
just to be with you.
Had I known it would be the last time I'd touch you;
Had I known it would be the last time I'd kiss your lips
I would have stayed in my bed
The Shins blaring through my headphones
Thinking about all the things I'm going to do with you
Had I known it would be the last time seeing you smile
The last time hearing you breathe
Hearing you talk
Touching your skin
I would have obeyed my parents rules for once.
Instead of staring at your pretty green eyes
I stare at the pretty headlights coming our way
I feel the car swerve to the left;
the dream catcher falling
The car spinning like a dradle in the air
It was like everything were in slowmotion
As I look over at you in horror
your pale green eyes flicker away from mine
closing as if to say
"I'm sorry."
The car comes to a hault.
You were motionless as we were upside down
Tears fall down my ****** cheeks
I scream at you to wake up;
but you wouldn't
Then I stopped wasting my breath
I stopped
Like your heart
Had I known it would be the last time I'd touch you;
Had I known it would be the last time I'd kiss your lips
I would have stayed in my bed
The Shins blaring in my headphones
because now I'm fantasying about all the things we could have done
About all the things we could have said
like
"You're paying for the electrical bill this time."
or
"I do."
Now I'm stuck listening to Blue Bossonova
blaring in my headphones
thinking about all the things I'd have to do without you
Had I known
May 15, 2013
May 15, 2013 at 11:18 PM UTC
What the Tide Knows
—a Sestina of one night shared with our sister moon
Night’s first blush leans low against the tide
that licks the sand; moonlight unhooks the darker seams of our skin.
The air stings sweet, crystalline breath of salt.
A feral moon, she leans close—silent, luminous, wet.
Her ******* dip the water; the water dips us—oh…slow pull
after slow pull—silk unraveling into constellations—we are, at last, bare
bare-foot, bare-hearted, bare-assed—every hush of fear laid bare;
satin chill a caress, sliding up shins, over knees, exploring the secret tide.
Between us, dampness trembles—a harp-chord plucked across our skin;
notes of brine flare and fade in the hush of moonlit salt
Desire itself echoes each pull she tightens—loosens—tightens again in the moon’s slow, intimate pull.
Night after night we bend to nature’s lust—its intimate pull
a deep, slow kiss—honey for dreams, our spirits once more bare
on a starlit shore that forgets and remembers the faithful tide
that knows each breast, each soft fold of skin
until our footprints shimmer, then vanish in a tidal pool of salt
while water’s slow tempo keeps time beneath our same bare-breasted, sister moon
Brine prisms drip between our thighs—soft, shimmering salt
as we sink into sand—breasts and breath—utterly bare;
above us, the hush of waves keeps time with the tide
while our sister, the ****** moon, unbuttons herself—O luminous moon,
her silver hand wandering, circling, stroking her own pale skin,
her gasps spilling down to embrace us oh so tight into one, shuddering, pull
Dawn’s silk-white wraps moon-bruised ******* gathering the last flecks of salt
that cling to lips—a hush of spent sighs riding every slow pull
of breath. Ocean-wet, sunrise-warmed, we rise wholly bare
beneath a sky tinted with our spent, satisfied sister moon,
and wade until cries of ecstasy between waves swell, matching the tide
washing footprints, sand, and shy shimmers from our glistening skin.
We become as one, a shared pulse—wave after wave pressing into skin,
A sousing of honey and ocean on lips—sweet with salt,
as night’s last breaker swells, arches, cups—one unquenchable pull
before it raptures. We bloom wide, throats singing, utterly bare
of nothing but vision of her white-hot spasm, our sister moon,
dragging us under—flinging us back—gasping—embraced by the heaving tide
O sister moon,
embrace our last slow tide,
your gentle hand forever filling our dreams, forever caressing our skin
Sep 1, 2025
Sep 1, 2025 at 6:01 PM UTC
slowly carefully
as i might an ancient diary
still full of young dreams
and even perhaps
the salt of young love
it hurts
to carry adolescent obstacles
given my age
and all those hateful skeptics
it hurts how they gleefully profane
yet settled dust is yet dust
i sit willing to love
amid my dust
i sit in ever deeper vasts of love
in existential sacrum wag
kindled crown and fullness breath of all the scents of varied forms of love
lighthouse toes inspire seas ancestors swam
lyric feet to message myth of travels won
my calves and shins knees and thighs
crawling climbing walking running jumping kicking at the start
physiologies of courage ****** ahead
as future unmade moulds invite
caress the bodied length intent provides
singing fingers scale my world in chords of gliding love
tips of arcing sensate dawns
diverse as nightsky suns
my palms divine an ever giving gift
no futures could unveil--
the toucher's touching touched
aligning novel insights wordless as the womb of time:
perhaps a symbol flare could squint
and grant a vision of horizon's end--
another pleasure game
a bonsai love to soften age
another twisting meditation's emptiness in form
as motion stillness spaces words
to perfect pitches tempos sound
though all of which will never meet
and never meeting meet
as one
Sep 22, 2015
Sep 22, 2015 at 12:01 AM UTC
Sun-dried moss
hangs in clumps
from the eaves trough.
Morning dew glittering
in the dawn.
The floorboards,
covered in peeling
gray-blue paint,
crackle and creak
beneath my bare feet.
My joints feel rusted,
and my eyes don’t see
as far as they did before.
Before all that happened
happened.
My hand on the doorframe
is alien to me.
But it moves when I ask,
so it will have to do.
I stagger through
the warm porch,
where a soft,
sweet-smelling breeze
drifts in through
torn metal screens
and cracks in the
rickety door.
I open it as quietly
as I can.
There is only me here,
but I like the quiet.
Three wooden steps
down to a gravel drive
that passes side to side
out front.
Bare feet,
too well-worn to
feel the stones,
tip-toe across
to the rough,
brown-green grass.
My feet are wet
now, and
when they find
the sand just beyond
the patch of grass,
it clings.
I scrunch up my toes,
digging, until I find
the cool, dry
layer below.
The lake is clear,
and the soft rustle
through the pine trees
along the shore
reminds me again of years
gone by.
Sticky fingers,
covered in sap,
pine needles sticking
between my toes,
and scrapes on my shins
that hurt back then,
but sing sweetly in my memory.
I sit on the little beach
between the trees,
crossing my legs,
and plunge my hands
beneath the sand.
Peace.
And what a joy,
to be here
and feel it
in the coarse sand,
the cool caress of morning breeze,
and the utter
silence of the still lake.
Have I come so far,
to wish for so little?
Have I lost something
along my way?
The anger has faded,
and in its place
sits a quiet resolve.
The games they play,
I’ve long since lost,
but finding myself here,
I wonder if I’ve not
come out ahead.
The water calls to me.
I may visit her soon,
once I’ve had my fill
of sand.
The wind grows bolder,
and the pines whistle.
A loon calls out,
somewhere unseen.
I wonder if today I’ll
climb that same tree
from so long ago.
Wonder if it has held
its form better than I,
and which may break
a limb first.
I smile,
because I know
it’s foolish,
and the beach is so
soft beneath me.
Warm and yielding.
But oh,
the sweet,
stinging memories.
Feb 22, 2013
Feb 22, 2013 at 8:10 PM UTC
i don't know which birds sing in the mornings.
i like sunrises, but only if i haven't been to bed yet.
i like to emerge from my sheets and pillows when the sun is high
and the shadows are gone.
before then, the sun is too young and exuberant
and i have such an old and heartbreakingly tired soul.
the sun was barely over the old church outside your bedroom,
painting the bare walls of your room with the colors of the last supper.
you woke me up, soft and sweet,
like i know you can be, when you put to rest your premature bitterness and apathy.
i don't know how long you lay beside me, the ***** of your feet pressed against my shins,
your pinky finger tracing the freckles on my arm in the same pattern, countless times.
but it was the softest way i've ever woken up, and it reminds me of summer.
it reminds me that bruised does not mean broken,
and even shattered pieces can be reassembled.
it reminds me that there is love everywhere,
and we once had it in the most morning-sun way.
Oct 24, 2012
Oct 24, 2012 at 11:54 PM UTC
what i really need to do
is get a dog and name him teddy roosevelt
and sing him john lennon songs
and teach him to stomach gin
what i really need to do
is learn how to play piano
and sing songs about cigarette smoke
and lie about having a twin
what i really need to do
is find someone who calls themselves petunia
and bend low and scoop them up
and teach her to stomach gin
what i really need to to do
is learn how to play guitar
and sing songs about her knuckles
and the delicate shine of her shins
what i really need to do
is shoot dice with old black men
and hang out in alleyways
and wallow in filth and bathe in sin
what i really need to do
is learn how to play the harmonica
and sell ******* to rich white girls
and not feel a **** thing about it
what i really need to do
is find someone who calls themselves best friend
and bend low and scoop them up
and teach him to stomach gin
Oct 25, 2011
Oct 25, 2011 at 12:29 AM UTC
We’re going through a transitional period
trying to be good friends to one another
yet overwhelmingly self absorbed.
We got no time to think about legacy’s.
Our future takes cover from
the worry of the present
kicking the shins of our courage.
We smoke to forget
Drink to muster the drive to begin
Eat out of pots washed in
gas station sinks.
We collapse each moment into a screen
capturing scenery with black boxes
documenting life behind pixels and glass.
We thrive on uncertainty
Middle fingers up
to the system
that gives us shelter
that we exploit to find freedom
overturning the stones of a complex world
looking for definitions and characters
to call culture.
Sep 24, 2015
Sep 24, 2015 at 10:58 PM UTC
I was last on the register, so
as soon as I said
that I was still there
everyone stood up and left.
Katie was still there
and she pointed at me and
asked me if I was coming tonight.
I said that guessed not and she asked me
If I knew that she wasn’t
my girlfriend.
I didn’t answer so she informed me
that I wasn’t allowed to be jealous that
she goes to parties that I don’t.
I asked, ‘what party?’ and she rolled her eyes
and left. I walked out of the classroom alone and
wondering what the hell just happened.
James saw me across the yard
and shouted
if I was coming tonight.
I told him to **** off
and walked quicker
every time he tried to
call me back.
A few kids on the bus
swore at me through
the open window, their
middle fingers and crude words
working together in pitiless tandem.
I turned up the volume
in my ipod
and kept on walking.
It carried on snowing. It had been
three days now and three times
we had been called to assembly
so the headmaster could announce
which schools had been closed for the day.
That morning he was
proud to tell us
that we were the only school
in the area
to still be open.
The snow was four inches deep
and rising and grey and dangerous.
Through the frosted windows
in the front door I could see
my keys. I kicked the wall
and nearly shattered my toes.
I climbed over my gate to the back of my house.
For a while I thought about
breaking a window.
The cat found me and pawed me shins
and I told her I was sorry,
but I couldn’t let her in the house.
I sat in a frozen plastic chair
and looked across the white
and green garden. The cat
joined me, and sat on my lap,
her body as close to me as possible.
I zipped her up inside my jacket
so only her head poked out and
we sat there,
watching cartoon’s on my ipod.
Batman fought The Joker again, and
Gumball finally got to kiss Penny.
The Joker escaped again
and Gumball realised
that it was all a dream.
It got cold and dark and eventually
both the cat and I fell asleep.
My mother shook me awake
and unzipped my jacket to let the cat out.
She asked me if I had a good day at school, and
I rubbed my eyes
and told her that
I couldn’t remember.
Oct 12, 2012
Oct 12, 2012 at 10:53 AM UTC