"shorelines" poems
Our heart burns broken at the ends, they fail us, keep building
my lungs are wax inside my ribs, you’re burning, well I’m breathing
this back breaks walked on from carrying friends, can’t stop now, still working
your life’s like rain drops on my tongue, I believe you, keep raining
and it’s alright, it’s alright, we are not right now complete
and I’m alright, you’re gonna be alright, we might never be complete
but the water keeps rising, it’s rising, everybody get into the water
and hold each others hands and lives, let’s all push our hearts together....
we’re gonna leave these shores right now, be everything we’ve never been
but you gotta swear to promise that we’ll never go back again, ever again
and we’re not just islands lying beside each others shorelines
we’re all bound with veins and hopes, we are not each others ghosts
our hearts are abridged, let's build bridges to each other
so this river won’t take us under
filled with monsters and goblins, they keep dragging the bottom
our life is a bridge, let’s build bridges to each other
and pray we don’t go under, oh these careless waters
I’m trying not to confuse: being used, with giving all I am
by: being used, and giving everything I have, all I am
so I’ll build a bridge with hollow bones filled with hollow teeth
inside a hollow heart, with the insides carved
and let the blood in these veins freeze
let the water in these veins freeze and break and flood the dam
we are all we have, this is all we need, hold on it may never end
and I might have to drink my teeth again if I wash up on the coast
so I’ll build a bridge with all that’s left, & not make any more new ghosts
show me your life, wide and bright, I hope that patience fills the seams
keep what’s inside, dry and right, you arch the frame I’ll span the beams
our lives are a bridge for us to give, I want to build a better bridge
from every wrong we’ve done to each other, if I forgive will you forgive?
cause one day we’re gonna close our eyes for death or rest
and abandon ourself, this weak mind and breath
and the columns we made, and roots we grew down deep
will be pulled and gathered in to firewood, and burnt for heat
but when the tension shifts, and these braces turn
I’ll try and build a better bridge
and when all our piers burn, and the hinges miss
I’m gonna build a better bridge
our hearts are abridged, let’s build bridges to each other
so we don’t take ourselves under
Our heart burns broken at the ends, they fail us, keep building
my lungs are wax inside my ribs, you’re burning, I’m still breathing
this back breaks walked on carry friends, can’t stop now, still working
your life’s like rain drops on my tongue, I believe you, keep raining
our lives are a bridge for us to give, I want to build a better bridge
from every wrong we’ve done to each other, if I forgive will you forgive?
our hearts are abridged, let’s build bridges to each other
so this river won’t take us under, so we don’t take ourselves under
our lives are a bridge, let’s build bridges to each other
and pray we don’t go under, oh these careless waters
our lives are a bridge for us to give, I want to build a better bridge
from every wrong we’ve done to each other, if I forgive will you forgive?
our lives are a bridge for us to give, I want to build a better bridge
from every wrong we’ve done to each other, if I forgive will you forgive?
our hearts are abridged, let’s build bridges to each other
so this river won’t take us under, so we don’t take ourselves under
May 12, 2012
May 12, 2012 at 3:26 PM UTC
It's funny what you do to me, and I know funny.
I go up on stage and tell ****** jokes for a living,
and look super bad *** while doing it.
But now you've got my *** terrified. Paranoid to breathe because I'm afraid it will be my last
and you won't be there to see it.
Yes, it's cliche. But you do have me listening to love songs, you do have me putting on make up,
you do have me running up mountains so I can have a body you can enjoy while we make-
out in your car to Beyonce songs.
You once told me that I "was the more beautiful person to grace this Earth" but Lover, I see your
grace in everything on this Earth.
And snow makes me smile because you like to ski and I'm from Canada so my face hurts
frequently.
Trench mapped hands, a sign of how many battles you've fought and won, how many battles
you've fought and lost, how many times you've picked yourself up off the dirt, smiled at me
and said "I'm fine, are you okay?"
Honestly, I have no idea how the most flawed person in the world, a girl who leaves her wet
towels everywhere, a girl who puts her keys in the same place but manages to forget where
they are, a girl who plays Assassin's Creed for 3 hours without blinking and wears that like a
proud Metal Of Honor, how can that girl make the most perfect person in the work happy?
Answer? I have no clue, but you don't have to cheat on any test, because I'll stay. As long as you
want me to, I'll stay.
Here for you when you get weepy, or angry, or curious to see what we can do behind closed doors.
I won't say "I love you". Not because it's not true. Nothing could be more true. But if I say it, I'll cry,
You'll kiss me, and I can't guarantee what will happen to our clothes after that.
So instead, I'll keep making the "that's what she said" jokes, until you're reminded of snow, or
maps, or breathing.
And I have fallen so hard for you that stone boarders between countries couldn't stop your
gravitational pull.
And like willow tree roots growing into shorelines, I get wetter every time you hold me.
So, I'll send you Steven King length facebook messages everyday.
I'll ring up my phone bill to $500.
Light candles for 3 hour skype dinners.
Because, long distance relationships are hard, but not being able to call you "mine" is excruciating.
Because, it's funny what you do to me.
Because, I love funny.
Sep 3, 2012
Sep 3, 2012 at 2:19 PM UTC
*She got star dust sprinkled evenly
Within the shorelines of her ravishing eyes
And stardust, pristine naïve look benignly
Creasing her soft supple aristocratic face no need to accessorize
Her posture upright and poised
Elegance, charm and grace effortlessly effused
By her, emotional hazards posed
By a presence so spell-binding, one will be amused
At the hypnotic effect experienced by
All and sundry
Though she turns a blind eye
A scathingly sultry
look suddenly evident on her sweet face turned sour
She undoubtedly is a toxic flower.*
Jan 15, 2014
Jan 15, 2014 at 9:37 AM UTC
Intimacy begins with the most innocent of gestures
A curious smile
The lips speak a sweet word, yet not explicit; the intimacy prevails.
It hides behind soft kisses
a gentle touch
sometimes in your sublime presence alone the intimacy is far too much.
Intimacy is not behind closed doors
It does not always reside between sheets
It shows itself in a knowing look
In forests, shorelines, streets.
Intimacy sends you shivers through a written word or song
But between you and I it hasn't shown itself in far too long.
Apr 15, 2014
Apr 15, 2014 at 11:49 PM UTC
~for Verlie Burroughs, a ‘fellow’ islander poet with a sense of human humor~
walking the reservoir on a warm spring day,
Central Park littered with tourists and pale face,
fellow islanders, all of non-Algonquin Indian descent
released from Rikers Island (of course) Prison,
six month sentence served
behind bars of winter grayscale skies
and snowy steel and grey prison everything
an out-of-townsfolk young lady passes me in a pink t-shirt,
where humans these lazy days declare their entire philosophy,
“I’d rather live on an island”
and thus a poem commissioned
well, rather brought forth from the chilled, deep waters surrounding the brain where winter vegetables rooted but cannot surface,
the iced ground frozen impermitting bodies to be buried,
no war and death monument foundations to be poured,
flower-powered poems unable to pierce as well,
even with the upwards ****** of cesarean birth
and or, one last push and me begging
breathe
winter strangled
but I walked today
the Central Park reservoir and
all I got was that stupid t-shirt provocation
with
tulips and daffodils, dogwood and magnolias, and
cherry blossoms confirming,
it’s okay today to write of
islands and shoreline once more,
of
boundaries now and again
though the idea had prior brief transversed
the thought canal, was struck into action
when realized suddenly a dawning -
a l l m y l i f e, I h a v e l i v e d o n a n i s l a n d
counting backwards seven decades with a
collegial exception, of living by a great lake,
which is but an island in reverse,
poet *** prophet had to always walk on water to get home
<•>
my poems are travelogues,
not pretty words and tonguing talk,
sorry not,
more tales than wagging tongue wordy tails
but dumbstruck by the ocean notion that I live by the
grace of an Ocean that waits patiently to reclaim my island,
stealing my unborn poem children and
tried with a Sandy haired girl a few years ago
hurry home to scribe, and imbibe,
write upon its streetscape
with colored chalk and
upon it once more,
the concrete paths and
a reservoir dirt path surrounding and shorelines
that are all the shaping of me
all my life, and Neverland realized
I am a seagull disguised as human*
Apr 16, 2018
Apr 16, 2018 at 11:25 PM UTC
Homecoming body:
A grey cardigan strips down,
bonding skin to
night’s air,
penetrating
Chevrolet safe havens
drowned in lover’s spit.
My Mind
thanks Google,
enabling electronic bibles
to leave disciples stifled
with religious quotas,
an excuse to quote us —
“Trouble at the Border,
read the former
court room reporter
working for the,
sensationalized,
through remnants of
blood stains in our eyes.”
Midway through Chapter 1 —
reeks not only of
of *** in the backseat —
but of Venezuela’s shorelines.
Of her high school hallways.
Of the intrigue of the unexplored Mexican neighbor,
her freedom amidst constraint,
where Visas
lease us
advertising campaigns
for maquiladora made lampshades.
Despite their protest,
common sense
lent comparisons,
a consequence
of stories told in reverse.
They hover over Venezuela’s familiar curves,
her long black hair straddling my shoulders.
Jan 5, 2012
Jan 5, 2012 at 8:00 PM UTC
my mind moves faster than my mouth could ever hope to
and i so often find myself in self-inflicted messes,
embarrassed at my painfully apparent lack of finesse
when it comes to crafting syntax in a way that actually makes sense.
endlessly i stumble, desert-throated, over meager words
that could never accurately convey the hurricanes inside my brain;
no matter the conviction with which i speak them.
the war for stillness rages on in the chaos of my skull,
shaken by tremors of memories like atom bombs.
my mind is screaming but it's all in a language
that i can't understand no matter how hard i try.
reduced to heaving sobs and irrevocable disgust for my inability
to to speak due to the lack of air inside my lungs.
thunder crashes and lightning flashes through my synapses,
looming in the form of opaque storm clouds above my bed.
i am sinking, no, i am absolutely drowning,
but there is no water around to be found for miles -
so i guess that makes these waves my thoughts,
and that must mean i waved goodbye to sanity's shorelines long ago.
- m.f.
Nov 8, 2013
Nov 8, 2013 at 1:11 PM UTC
my DNA is a self-made daisy chain
strung together with the best of intentions
and a few yards of dental floss
it's always getting tangled up in moon beams
and boot strings
tugging me in one thousand directions at once
like the sea pulling at the limitless shorelines hem
i am magic
my flesh reflects the hue of the desert dust the winds bathe me in
speckled with freckles that occasionally line up with the stars
what a fool i'd be to paint myself into obscurity
with make-up brushes and lipstick hues
no
i choose me
excessively sensitive to the energy of all other living beings
always feeling everything
all the pain and happiness
love and fear and angst
at once
lumped in with the leaves of my tea
destined to forever reside within
me
the high-priestess of the immeasurable things
the guardian of treasures unseen
constantly filling my sundress with ***** pebbles
broken feathers
and all the stardust i can find
i've spent the last one thousand life times
being everywhere at the EXACT same time
you should know
you were there
and oh
such love i've found
hiding in the shallows
in the mud
and under the edges of your finger nails
even in the darkness of the vast
and ever-stretching sky
there is so much light
so very many precious gems
hoisted into timeless settings along the milkyway's head-dress
i promise
where i am right now
is the best place to be
and if you don't believe me
crane your neck towards the stars
Sep 19, 2013
Sep 19, 2013 at 11:12 PM UTC
Walk through my soul forest
and sense
Anciently evergreen and wise
Fresh dampness deep with life
Rocket through my mind galaxy
and know
Burning nebulas of inspiration
Infinite dustings of thought constellations
Fall into my heart ocean
and taste
Tides brackish with emotional brine
Love foaming on shells and shorelines
Breathing life into my body
Blooming peace into my life
Take a moment to see me
And these natural forces of mine
Jan 21, 2017
Jan 21, 2017 at 3:26 AM UTC
I am tossed upon the tempest
I am tested on the tide
I have heard the ocean restless
I will by the sea abide
But I long for drier shorelines
Far from sandy bottoms deep
For a tower wrapped in rose vines
Above a sunny keep
I have played in water shallowed
I have frolicked in the spray
But while this sea to me is hallow'd
My heart draws me far away
My soul is meant for moonglow
My heart the sunny glade
But my home lies far below
Where the coral reefs are made
And never shall I leave it
This realm of wave and foam
For my dreams may be on land lit
But the ocean is my home
May 18, 2016
May 18, 2016 at 7:46 PM UTC
In summers past, hot and hazy,
we wandered northern shorelines,
sand whipping salt brine and
vinegar enveloped, marveling that
even the Amish possess swimwear.
I lingered at the taffy shop,
toe-raised peering through smudged
glass and candy bins, spying
both worker and robo-worker
pulling long tough ropes of
salty confection and memory.
Our time on the path is pulled taffy,
event-pummeled, tugged asunder,
reunited bittersweet.
baked boardwalk beneath feet,
cobbled personality planks
stretching taffy of time
In summers past I was there.
In summers present i am there.
In summers beyond we are back
there once again
folded and kneaded
smiling, reunited.
This is the back-end of forever,
yet do not fear;
the dying of the light
is the dawning of the dusk:
a wheel that we spin,
a point that we traverse,
a keeping of a promise,
a memory of a scent,
a vision of disorder,
and the chaos in the calm.
Cower.
Rejoice.
Repeat.
Amen.
Sep 28, 2013
Sep 28, 2013 at 8:34 PM UTC
Tenggelam dalam riak nafasmu
Bagai ombak bertalu-talu di tepian kalbu
Terbuai oleh lantunan irama kehidupan
Bersenandung dibalik kerangkeng iga
Aku perahu di lautan luasmu
Tanpa dermaga yang hendak ku tuju
Hening malam tak kuasa membungkam
Detak yang berteriak memuja semesta
_______________________________
*Engulfed in the ripples of your breath
Tides pulsing at the shorelines of soul
Lulled by the chanting rhythm of life
Strumming against the rib cage
I am a boat in your vast ocean
Without a harbor to go to
The silence of night can't hold in
the heartbeats that bellow praises to universe*
Jul 22, 2014
Jul 22, 2014 at 11:43 AM UTC
.
I am
bound by the
belief that
life,
with
all of its
dark tunnels
following tracks
of hurt
caused by someone who
claims to
have cared,
shorelines
of empty promises
vacant of any feeling
washing your dreams
into a sewer system
of nightmares
and
twisted stairways
of all that was shared
crumbling beneath
the weight of a
broken heart
gets no better
than this,
and I am
ecstatic
by the
fact
that it
eventually ends
Oct 18, 2016
Oct 18, 2016 at 11:10 AM UTC
/ *because such examples have to, have to(!) be perpetuated, reiterated, perpetuated, reiterated... these... "things"... these minor quests of establishing being - against, the authoritarian rule of the democracy of beings.*
you don't shout,
you don't disturb the "social", "peace",
of proverbial english society...
nope...
shouting does not good,
akin to:
silent water eats
away at the shorelines...
what you do...
is akin to what birds do...
you don't gnash your teeth:
i.e. clench them molars...
gnashing means clenching
your molars -
a gnashing a gnarling,
a pestle & mortar scenario...
no...
no shouting...
silent movie era of hollywood
translated...
you... simply... chatter...
you strike incissor teeth against
each other... crafting a lightling storm
like crackling sound,
like corn flakes...
in a bowl of milk...
you... chatter...
inspiration? birds...
bird calls...
you... chatter...
mind you, unlike the english,
looking into my mouth...
the jaw should fit within the confines
of the skull...
the upper set of teeth
should accommodate the jaw's
line of teeth...
but you simply... chatter...
which is embodied by attempting
to take a phantom bite at "something"...
you...
echo:
central incisors against
the lateral incisors...
you subsequently: chatter (χατερ)...
i missed the eta (η): given that i also
missed the excess of tau - in what isn't,
a translation - other than a phonetic
equivalent of putting on sunglasses...
because, when your neighbour,
tells you... that you can't smoke...
in your own home, perched on a windowsill,
out of the window,
implying that the smoke is
vacuumed into his bedroom?
and somehow, the law,
and the air, we share, is somehow his,
and his alone?
and i can't do, what he can,
within the confines of his property?
NOW WE HAVE A PROPER SHITSHOW!
some english are ******* backward
hardly insulting the ****** community,
with some succumbing to prosopagnosia,
while some (notably down syndrome)
actually having a memory capacity...
that curious look and a familiar expression
waiting for a smile...
i basically live next to a mental illness
example, par uno...
and englishman who "thinks"
he's king, rather than a convenient
citizen...
****** won't budge...
guess all i'm equipped with is
my chatter remedy;
and english society still "thinks"
that i'm the "mad" one.
- because it's like...
how can you dictate, what someone can,
or cannot do, on their property?!
like smoking a cigarette,
perched on a windowsill, outside a window,
with the accusation:
the smoke is coming into my bedroom...
oh right...
so...
erm...
you own the dynamic of air
to suggest such a bias?
Jul 22, 2018
Jul 22, 2018 at 11:30 AM UTC
Between autumn's offerings
And spring's wings,
Our winter lights are everything.
Crisp sky nights string tinsel streams,
And crystal air heils winter's dreams.
Poplar trees that snowed in summer
Are treasures held in winter's slumber.
Bare branches reach in silhouette
For crowning stars where none now sit.
Here dreams of flight and fancy thrill
Shimmering eyes on a gift-wrapped hill.
Shorelines once rubbed with reeds,
Are splashed by our moonlight beads.
Knolls wrapped in wreaths of herring bone,
Like sirens call us from our home.
Stars held in place by poplar fingers
Ring our ponds like carolling singers.
There nestled by framed winter scenes,
Our winter lights glitter red and green.
These lights that through our window stream,
Bring to mind warm Christmas dreams
Dec 19, 2015
Dec 19, 2015 at 1:46 PM UTC
One day you're here,
the next day there,
No connection
between the two
but you.
Not like a boat
leaving the dock
and having the
shorelines fade
slowly away
Not like an airplane
above it all
when it all becomes so
small,
Until landing
brings it back up
to size,
Not like that at all.
Not like watching
them waving,
Fading away
as you drive down the street.
Yesterday at work,
In love,
Home with your parents,
Your spouse,
Your children
Today it's not present at all,
Whole ways of being,
Don't dissolve,
The program changes,
Lights on,
Lights off,
Maybe a flash
in-between,
But that's all,
can you tell me, my friend,
What does it really mean?
Yesterday, today, tomorrow,
I guess we are not all three,
The present is not a flow.
Just you and me now,
As we go.
All is
this composition book
in front of me,
With one more period
to go.
Jul 17, 2015
Jul 17, 2015 at 10:32 AM UTC
i fell in love with you
once
long ago
with my eyes closed
and the dream-screen drawn
we danced
like music notes across their barred landscape
we danced
the loveliest late-night lullaby
you became my hiding place
lilac and lace linens
stretched over a lumpy matress
my indiana jones
waiting patently and poetically
in a long-lost temple of slumber
you come back to me in waves
softly and subtly
while i'm half awake
you're kissing the broken down shorelines of an insomniacs holiday
i wish i could keep you
like an empty bottle in the window-sill
or a heart arrhythmia
this lonely romantics cardiovascular waltz
let me snag you up from my dream-dust
and stitch you to my sole like a lost boys shadow
let me find you in my reality
tip-toeing over an underlined paragraph
of a beer stained paper-back
i'll find you
someday
after a long-over-due nights sleep
perhaps in the guitar strings
or type-writer keys
or at the bottom of a bottle of whiskey in the ever-humming freezer
be mine
evasive valentine
i'll even let you hide in the curls of my hair
or under my fingernails
i'll keep you
if you'll let me
just don't forget me
come sun-up
when you gallup away
from my sub-conscious escape
take my heart-rate with you
tucked into your breast-pocket
like a floral handkercheif
or a photogaraph taped to the dash
come back
to the grey matter kingdom
tucked behind my eyelashes
i'll meet you in the idiosyncrasies of my synapses
writing love stories that never once happened
Dec 20, 2012
Dec 20, 2012 at 12:56 PM UTC
Cradling snowy doves in your soft palms;
fluttering wings and fluttering smiles.
Tip-toeing shorelines, wet grass on riverbanks;
sun-kissed shoulders and Apollo's eyes.
Flushed skin in the shade of Pelion,
fig juice in your cold gold hair.
Feb 28, 2015
Feb 28, 2015 at 11:36 AM UTC
Burnt umber in the morning
As the planets do align,
Ominously holding
To the Zodiac design,
Reminding us that somewhere
In the Bible, it was said,
That by the twelfth year of this century
Whole populations would be dead.
They say it is upon us
Those children of the moon,
They say the fingers of our destiny
Shall fall upon us soon.
Calamitous catastrophe
To befall the western world
That fiscal debt implosion
Will result with fraud unfurled,
When abnormal plate subduction
Along the continent's divide
Will magnify the earthquake swarm
Across the planet's hide.
When enormous ring tsunamis
Emanate from deep at sea
To cascade onto shorelines
To wreak extreme calamity.
Across the globe, Astrologist's,
Say something huge is due.
Their whispers quietly amplified
To percolate to you.
What little can be done or said
It's very hard to say
Because authorities worldwide
Refuse to recognize this day,
They won't readily acknowledge
Those symptoms verily to hand,
The frequent natural disasters
Occurring in each land.
Contagion is contagious
The whispers may be wrong,
Perhaps the future holds for us
A vastly different song,
But when the moon is full and white
And I look into her face,
I discern a bleak anxiety
Destined for the human race
I see mother nature poised
To take the heavy, upper hand
With an implacable demeanor
And un empathetic stand.
Burnt umber in the morning
As the planets do align,
Ominously holding
To the Zodiac design,
Reminding us that somewhere
In the Bible, it was said,
That by the twelfth year of this century
Whole populations would be dead.
Marshalg
@theBach
In the cold moonlight
20 May 2010
May 19, 2010
May 19, 2010 at 3:04 AM UTC
She held more secrets than seconds in a day,
mumbling pained confessions in hushed whispers
that bled out like stab wounds trailing paths
on white snow,
painting a china doll façade made of scarlet
as an eloquent attempt to mask the fragility
she aspired to hold
And that is just what she did,
She held,
onto hopes dangling from the edge of skyscrapers,
breath permanently stolen from her lungs
despite shaking hands itching to let go
storing memories made of dust within damaged pockets
even when the weight got so gruesome
she could no longer bear to walk
with a soul made entirely of gray matter,
training heartstrings to stretch
and cradle every delicate moment
she feared losing
before they could even take place
She is the girl who will collect your voicemails,
hoarding letters like seashells
resting along abandoned shorelines
due to the danger of losing the soft breaths
of the only one who was capable
of breaking all of her rules,
who whispered her name like
unfinished stanzas of a poem
she did not know how to write
Fear,
and fear alone-
of the potential that the ocean could swallow
the glass shards and kiss the remnants of her joy
goodnight
before she could even feel them
splashing against the same skin
she never felt at home in
Jan 25, 2016
Jan 25, 2016 at 7:28 PM UTC
thoughts focus... finite and infinite realities
walking on beach tidal wave sand patterns
cold wind caressing hands full of seashells
stay right here
in this moment
for now.
Dec 26, 2013
Dec 26, 2013 at 8:33 PM UTC
it's no coincidence dad autocorrects to sad
or that family autocorrects to dysfunctional nights
spent over-thinking spat out words
that were meant to sting
but not to stay embedded in minds that
just like the ocean
slam against the shorelines of our emotions
pushing us so far out
we have no idea what our words mean
only that we'll regret them
when the sun rises
Apr 11, 2013
Apr 11, 2013 at 11:51 PM UTC