"sieves" poems
i kept my hatches battened but that
didn't stop your love from barreling toward me
like a runaway freight train with faulty breaks.
and god almighty, did we crash.
you came to a screeching halt at my doorstep
and i didn't know what else to do but let you in.
you looked so cold. we did not start with a spark but a full-on fire.
i told myself i wouldn't fall, instead i jumped.
our sinking frames somehow morphed into life preservers,
and we managed to keep each other's heads above the waves.
we had seemingly saved one another.
you tossed your pills, i flushed my razors, and for a while that was enough.
but we learned the hard way that even the deepest love
can only keep the storm clouds in your mind at bay for so long.
eventually our cracks began to show.
missed calls and silent hours built houses of cards
that were blown down by too many miles.
we hardly ever smiled anymore.
my hands were sieves and yours were sand.
i want to break the hands of the clock
that cursed us with this bad timing.
i have mourned all the hours i won't ever have with you.
i have felt the thunder that rumbles in my lungs
when i reminisce about the memories we'll never make.
the moment i realized i would never wake up beside you
an atom bomb went off in the center of my chest.
but the radiation is what's killing me.
the life is being drained from me here in the wake,
in the ache of your absence. but i won't beg.
i will live out the remainder of my days
tormented by wondering if maybe in another world
our love is perfect and neither of us bleed.
- m.f.
Jan 12, 2014
Jan 12, 2014 at 3:27 AM UTC
311
It sifts from Leaden Sieves—
It powders all the Wood.
It fills with Alabaster Wool
The Wrinkles of the Road—
It makes an Even Face
Of Mountain, and of Plain—
Unbroken Forehead from the East
Unto the East again—
It reaches to the Fence—
It wraps it Rail by Rail
Till it is lost in Fleeces—
It deals Celestial Vail
To Stump, and Stack—and Stem—
A Summer’s empty Room—
Acres of Joints, where Harvests were,
Recordless, but for them—
It Ruffles Wrists of Posts
As Ankles of a Queen—
Then stills its Artisans—like Ghosts—
Denying they have been—
3.6k
Five thousand trees between his knuckles
Crushing the bark, choking the oaks
Straining through leaves with makeshift sieves
Angling to find an ankle or two
Praying that even a toenail would do
But all to be found was her mountain laurel crown
Still tangled with strands of burnt-birch down
Feb 26, 2014
Feb 26, 2014 at 11:32 PM UTC
These poems are an extension of me,
A pressure valve to keep my mind from exploding,
These poems are sieves catching grotesqueries
To be turned into something palatable
Poetry somehow doesn't pop without pain,
Somehow inadequate without lurking demons
Fueling passion and longing and fury
These cataclysms are documented and catalogued,
These emotions and stories memorialized,
Their existence in the world a fossil record
Of memories too precious to lose
Oct 5, 2014
Oct 5, 2014 at 11:22 PM UTC
god sieves and strains,
heaps and hurls,
molds and unmakes,
unmakes and molds,
blood and clay,
fire and ‘nay’ to frailties
before sculpting
our hearts.
Sep 10, 2025
Sep 10, 2025 at 4:48 AM UTC
Money can buy you the best proof taken amid all this rest!
Next taken is to experience et!
Dream about it,
Think about it,
Living it,
That's the problem spotting et...
When love takes its chance,
Football when football teams a family with
Kids and a dog,
Utopia raises its curtains,
God breaths a certain light on a table we had been risen,
Money can buy you the best,
Missile box sui generis,
Of its own kind,
Summa *** laude!
In all of its trenches,
Moolah lie deep and it stench es,
But dreams you may find et....
Cry me on silver,
Lime, dime and a sapphire glass river,
Streams a strengthen nugget gold,
Work hard, watch as it sieves, watch as it pours and watch as it gives,
Some where plays and draws you out a revealing point!
It Scratches a sale to a victory,
I like to see it,
Short cut luck no more staring into the abyss buck,
Seeing that face and still believing it,
Hard change knuckle of hours,
A super match set in sky mystery,
Finish off your money to be thy very best O'Reily mystery!
Messi Mason living life in some spiritual occasion,
Still breathing on average abundance of work smiles an ironed shirt and no creases as he plays,
Just don't stop till you've had enough!
Enough, Enough and Enough...
O'Reily@18082014
Aug 18, 2014
Aug 18, 2014 at 7:11 PM UTC
The touch that lingers
Like phantoms in my mind
The feelings
Sieves out of passionate warmth
Hold me closer
Than your body scent
That lives within my thoughts
The more passionate - thoughts
Coils my mind all around
The more pain,
Breaks out in my heart
Like the grip of your slender legs
Squeezes out pleasure
Till
My last drops
How can I hold you more firmly?
In my thoughts
When your passions
Flutter with winds
A storm that comes along,
Leaving behind
Just some shattered dreams
Sep 7, 2010
Sep 7, 2010 at 7:37 AM UTC
It is ok to be
not
what you are
still
becoming. She said
"you're not special." Grinding teeth and sodden rails. My car is exhausted--
downwind, held in the air like branches of birches and pines
humming with each blatant engine-stroke
which fall onto that bleakening
icedock and curl-- culled passengers tossed to sea;
unavoidably
sharp veer left, beyond surreptitious and frantic spectators
and through a once-pearl snowdrift straying into my mind.
M
C
M
L
V
Turtlenecks can't keep us warm and soup can't clear my throat.
I choke on
sliced rubber, seatbelts cut halfway-- from
Spring. pluck us like cattails
amongst my marshy solubles.
Exposes my larynx she-- ubiquitous sonnet spews forth.
What contrite aberration, wears Kalapodi temple dress
made of rose petals blown in beneath love's column
and presses with her thighs my vision?
There is nothing more to say-- meals served
raw on Winter holidays. Steaming
spoonfuls dried up on her palate--
Special in the way I left you there.
Special in being the same as I should have been.
And I, no-- I!
I can not talk any longer! The clouds I thought to taste
won't allow me to
rain
be-- once dangling from the ceiling, my dripping prevented
with a pale, cotton daub.
You see
the paramedics
even as they sheath my torso
and hold your head with thorped sieves:
The driver steered his vessel wrong
an action which robbed his passenger's breath.
Sep 25, 2011
Sep 25, 2011 at 9:34 PM UTC
“Love: an emotion, one that, so low as to bar
From fair desire—self-righteous and self-serving
Excuse, a pretense, lyric, will not inspire.”
I detest to hear him speak—
Adulterer, why, pray tell, do you prey upon the weak?
“Simple in answer, as simple in method. No heart
Rich needs to beat for “that” emotion obsoletes.
Adults, mature, do not even think the distinction
That is kid’s table morality, what mommy
Only says after a few drinks, winking, your father
In his eyes—just where you have come, in fact—
You needn’t think mommy and daddy stayed together
After long spats, strife, and frustration for their waves
Struck the same height or the moon hits mom just right.
It is not the eternal enthrallment of Eros that keeps them in motion
Dear, friend—it is “that” emotion. In bed, hearts
Are inverted and split down the middle
The negative just drowns away in chemicals.
But how bad we’d feel, (no?) if that, the long and short?
Machinate the “thing” justify “that” feeling
Ennobling, beatifying, kindling for sonnets and odes
Fashioning morality and aesthetics onto sweating
Thrusting beasts, one on one in their dance of love.
A harlequin of truth, my friend! When it is found
In contraception, safeguarding our natural predilection.
Ha! Oh, fools! Why trouble with the rituals
When, really, ****** collocations concern capricious
Chronologies and covetous craving for **** and ****
How ****** How crude! But, oh, but oh how true; think:
Admit the urge has primacy, the “L” emerges and
Lies emitted: of connection, intelligence, intersubjectivity.
Given its stage of farce and face, our sieves are at
Ageful capacity and then needs a bargain, more;
The office of “thing” goes unoccupied, its twin
Will gladly keep it clean and orderly, act
As it did: gentle and cordially.”
Blast it! Such ways in truth and walk, for
Repetition in faith of life
Pegs my myths with all their strife,
Strife and succor irony.
Sep 30, 2014
Sep 30, 2014 at 11:48 PM UTC
you're the coffee to my cup
the stitch to my seam
you bring the down to my up
the I to my beam
you're the orange to my carrot
the beef to my stew
you're the fox to my ferret
your cages, my zoo
you're the moat to my castle
the saddle to my steed
your jester's my vassal
your virtue, my deed
you're the fly to my web
the venom to my sting
you turn my flow into ebb
my winters into spring
you're the syn to my thesis
the sun to my leaves
your puzzle holds my pieces
your wire binds my sieves
you're the hedges to my maze
the signal to my noise
your game racks up my plays
like a child collecting toys
you're the sheen to my mirror
the pixels to my screen
you make further feel nearer
than my feelers can glean
you're the ink to my pen
the feathers to my wings
you turn how into when
and whethers into rings
you're the valves to my heart
the fluid to my spine
you're laughing at my ****
(was that yours or mine?)
you're the hints to my clue
the hunch to my claim
you turn my false into true
and my wild, you tame
your splinters are my plank
your twist, my *****
you're the toothbrush to my shank
the red to my blue
you're in love with my hatred
you honor my shame
your church bears my cross
your tombstone, my name
you're waging my war
your shells fill my tanks
your rich, my poor
your spit, my thanks
you're more to my less
the vowels to my needs
you put the sure in my guess
the plea in my pleads
you're the soles to my feet
and the depths to my sea
but in case we don't meet
here's from you to me
Oct 29, 2011
Oct 29, 2011 at 6:47 PM UTC
I braved the mark of God and the Devil on each side of my ribcage,
an empty spot in my chest,
a heart that was never whole on the left
Unmarked by flesh but made by rose petals and battery acid,
brimstone, muck,
shadows that weren't just shadows, reflections of blue eyes and purple circles, veins that weren't normal colors,
doubt but certainty that this is me,
this is it,
this is all of me.
People talk.
There is a uniformed unity that swallows the red sea behind our eyes and the sea,
it leaks out through cracked pursed lips like a Russian lullaby,
the branches of love and hate permeate a scent so sweet that when it touches your nose you begin to beg God to take you home to the place you felt the afterglow of all of the people you know against the wall and in the picture frames and under the kitchen sink,
Ones vomiting lines of songs after drinking bottles of where they went wrong,
Coming down off of a high of lies from rails of love that weren't cut thin enough,
Seeking resilience after being hammered into the pavement by a hand that believes in ****** and grief and
Hiding your metaphors under the sheets you once slept
beneath,
Drifted,
Drowning your last bit of
bitter
in the river under the bridge
you
spray painted
"God doesn't exist"
on;
Running from everyone.
Around the house there are keepsakes of everything that reminds me of the way my skin is my bandage and everything underneath is an
open wound that has never healed
and every time the bandage is tampered with
the
wounds
get
bigger.
Asphyxiating the roots that link everyone and everything, asphyxiating my heart,
asphyxiation of me,
this is how it should be.
Silent and shivering
Ripe with nothing
Raw with all of our sieves leaking,
we must remember we're still breathing.
May 4, 2015
May 4, 2015 at 11:45 PM UTC
come choked up bled up fed up folks
and drink my robust brew my sweet Catawba
no, my sauterene or rock and rye
brush that musty blue off your cog stained collar
and stay a while
pay a while
two beers later when your tongue seethes dry
try my salt savored fish, my baked bean surprise
tilt your nostrils and inhale my dried herring
my free lunched ties really please the eyes
I’ll saturate your wet drawn gobs
like sand slips through sieves
teasing you by my strategic arrayed feast
until dollars are quenched out
by watering tongues that then dry the eyes
so come stand social where men may be men
enter through my wood swinging shut
-tered realm
and slug down your ticking inhibitions
gobble up this wonderful enterprise
and leave with that coat savored
by the mixed smell of sawdust, alcohol and cigars
hell, there’s no manners here
and class only exists in tolerance
for it feeds a fine exchange for a parcel of wage
to forget that day you bonded your body to your lady’s gaze
to forget the rascals of tots that teeth at you feet
to forgot the boss that tills your knees
so lets play mirror medley choose your poison
and chose it quick
this may be the Poor Man’s Retreat
but pocket less men make me tick
Sep 23, 2010
Sep 23, 2010 at 3:02 PM UTC
Oh to be a rich man in the storehouse of society or in the the cellars where sobriety is but a ***** word,
and the words are drinking Bollinger that trickles through the silver sieves and no one gives a second thought
to those, whose labour bought the feast.
But they don't care,not in the least
the nature of the beast runs in their veins and frames the have not's,pigeon holes them,
what men these riches make that would serve to overtake the moral due to me and you,who slave away for men like this most every day, excepting Sunday when we go to pray so we may lay more fat underneath their belt.
They,
who've never felt the touch of ice that spikes the hair and freezes breath,
for whom death is but the interlude,
between the courses chewed
and we,
who have never seen such food that ends up in the pigswill bin
will watch in awe and later in the cold of lamp lit living rooms will tell the story of what we saw,
and not be
believed.
Aug 24, 2013
Aug 24, 2013 at 7:00 AM UTC
We toil
And slave
And sweat
On mundane tasks of day-to-day
In a trodden path
We pace in circles
Through a routine
Thicker than molasses
Our arm extended to both sides
And fingers spread as fans
We make the struggle even worse
In an effort to ensnare
Not matter,
But what matters
The idle chats when days draw to a close
A gentle, loving stroke
A smile, a laugh
A joyful tear
A warm embrace before the dawn
And sometimes
(if we're lucky)
Even a plump adventure
All of which we catch
In the sieves that are our palms
Bringing them
Closer to our core
Kneading
Forming
Sculpting
Into prisms of pure light
Shining like the sunrise
Placing those
One on top the other
While keeping on the go
Brick by brick
We build ourselves
A home
Dec 12, 2018
Dec 12, 2018 at 4:07 PM UTC
There are Times
When I am
Groping at the vapours
Of nothingness
Hoping to churn out
Life and hope from it,
(With a desperation
That makes me feel
As though I were
strangling emptiness itself.)
There are Times
When I wish with all my might
(Believing for just that dead moment
that my thoughts are powerful indeed.)
That the concrete reality
Would crumble and melt
into nothingness.
There are Times
When I remember
That it's darkness
Staring at me in the eyes
[Threatening me or encouraging me,
I know not.]
And I shut my eyes
To crawl within
The cold comfort of familiarity
That I first meant to escape.
There are Times
When I seek to
Merge into a shadow
As the gust of Light,
Having shot out
From unseen corners and walls of impasse
Now straining its eyes at me
Sears and sieves through
The dust of opaque fear
Settled since long before I was born.
There are Times
When I realise, a truth
Shall not be uttered by me
Not the right time,
How do you set a time for truth?
There are Times
When I must not let
The truth run amok
Lest it wreaks havoc.
Aug 9, 2014
Aug 9, 2014 at 1:44 PM UTC
You’ve gone to find what you had lost when you
Were young and we were young and love was still
Inside of us. You took my words and to
Your end you left them there like cups to fill.
And now they sit upon the window sill
Collecting dust and bugs and rain like sieves;
They’re dripping, draining--- and we’ve time to ****
Before fall down our tears like autumn leaves.
But what you lost was love; it gathers cobwebs in the eaves.
Now by my side you sit silent, alone---
You say you’re shouting inside, but to you
I’m blind. Have not I well enough you shown
My love, my care, and feelings towards you, too.
Quite like a bird you think from you it flew.
It’s lost on you, and here now you despair;
And there to gray skies turn your skies of blue.
All lost, all lost, and whither shall you fare?
Once you are dead and gone, no, I shall not meet you there.
Jan 24, 2011
Jan 24, 2011 at 3:29 PM UTC
See before you a silver light.
Liquid motions shape its space,
its time is kept by the beat of hearts,
the pulse that starts beneath your feet:
the Earth, its smell the sound of ocean stones,
holds the throne on which
your ancestors sit, those that let your life.
Their eyes the silver light;
their blood, their hair
this night.
With your breath, with your sight,
the light is drawn into your roots
than shoots to the leaves
and weaves,
shaking
and breaking,
making doorways of sieves,
and though it fades
it never leaves.
It is we.
Mar 14, 2013
Mar 14, 2013 at 3:13 AM UTC
I sway outside a wrecked poet's window
daily I see his mind raked
by fingers of clawing creation
I know his smiles are faked
My fractal arms forever aloft
my waiting blossoms and leaves
see his progress on falling apart
a soul strained through so many sieves
Changing seasons, personal treason
troubled the poet till May
when the spring brought his desired muse
as I am sorry to say
This story's been sung time and again
through mine own branches told
if you hark unto the sweet spring air
you'll see it yourself unfold
Sep 15, 2010
Sep 15, 2010 at 7:01 PM UTC
things are getting interesting.
the sky has elaborate paintings,
I'm back dating
and my smile feels settled.
it no longer teeters, on the fence
to appear... worried to offend
someone. a smile.
its just me.
since I can truly claim it
I can just smile.
Im happy in happenstance,
the shift of the feet, quickly aligning
to please only me.
I can smile because I see,
the beauty of the beast.
the beauty of you.
like I had sat there with you
for centuries.
like your smell was what I
knew it would be.
like hey here's me… please
try not to categorize me.
I fall through sieves
and flow with the sea,
with the bits of We then permeate
the pools and the aquifers.
no box deep enough for her.
expansion always necessary.
now its just getting interesting.
your smell got me,
yes,
though I could forget it
easily.
not subconsciously,
there we are One.
Earthly,
here I could forget you
easily. and be free to explore
the outside of entrapment,
of attachment. just be me.
and still love you.
expansion. trust what I see.
patience. just be the real me.
less options now.
Oct 15, 2015
Oct 15, 2015 at 4:19 AM UTC
running through the trees
dodging roots and leaves
As I live and breathe
stories that I weave
are the only sieves
Worthy to edit me
weakened knees
under the sheets
you take your leave
i fall asleep
I don’t like the space
My body inhabits
Dreams disappear
Like white rabbits
and the fear
of thrown fits
and spits dripping slick
of some sick
grows near
to the thicket
where my dear
and i would kick it
share words
and share spit with
loose tongues
that won't quit
i love her
and she knows it
Sep 6, 2010
Sep 6, 2010 at 6:59 PM UTC
At the beach or at the park,
So serious...
Lips tremble,
Back in an arch;
You try your best,
So concentrated
To stifle your moans
As whispers break through;
Breathing hard,
Shaky gasps
And thoughtless words:
You say my name,
And I say yours.
Knuckles white
Leave yours and search...
Caress the earth, search,
Something to grab,
To connect with;
They trace,
Up, your sides,
And up,
Around your halo,
Fingers crawl,
And up yet,
Something to grab,
They dig...
They need the weight,
So down, into the earth:
Whether sand
Or grass
Or locks of something else...
They find and hold
And squeeze and tremble yet.
From feet, to thighs,
To **** to back,
To shoulder, to neck,
To eyes,
You're a taut cord.
We climb higher,
Faster, and higher...
You peak
(We peak);
You scream...
Let tingle, shaky tingle
Turn to numb ecstasy.
And love fades in
And logic sieves out.
Emotions spasm
As spine relaxes...
And now,
I'm just a friend again...used again.
My payment:
Your moans,
Your ecstasy,
Your moment(s) of triumph,
Your high...your happiness.
Used again...
But who's counting, not me.
My sadness [your happiness] is
My happiness.
Little did you know,
Though not perceived,
We were one,
Connected, joined,
Through the earth [earth's ground],
And you and I were us.
Apr 16, 2014
Apr 16, 2014 at 11:42 PM UTC
The rich herbal infusion of your blood
It blots on paper, makes funny shapes,
You giggle-
Teabag skin stripped by a paperclip,
Torn so easily, it smells like rain
Like the first time your bare feet touched soil
You long to lick it,
It's the liquified form of tension,
Some inner tangle propelled outwards,
Tempting, tempting,
Like stuffing a yarn doll with its own string;
The re-consumption is only natural,
But allow it still to flow-
It is water let loose from a dam or a hose
That's been blocked with moulding leaves
And now sprays fitfully just because it can,
A thousand explosives set loose
From their trembling captors.
By no means is it neat,
But the sieves of your veins have kept it
Fresh and scarlet with health,
So it isn't unpleasant to look at.
Drain it, let it pour like honey across the table
Where your family sits, silent and traumatised,
Watching the deluge do what it does best.
Pour them a cup of it to have with their slices
Of cake and biscuit crumbs on their plates;
Haemoglobin is good for the brain,
Gentle terror for the soul.
Aug 1, 2019
Aug 1, 2019 at 10:26 AM UTC
Here is my knife, my scalpel to be exact.
There is your body, your torso in the act.
To slice in the midst, and the sieves on your wrist.
Some want you whole, but I feed on the soul.
Your temple is numb, the reason why I succumb,
To the play of lies, and its mysterious ties.
Yet I keep my self sane, and trying without vain,
I just wish that the windows wouldn't pain.
But I see the tears rushing down like rain.
It cracks me up, in a bad bat of a pup.
Why you place your mask, and leave the trash in my cask.
It keeps me asking why, without a mind to give,
Advantage over the shy, which the latter is how I live.
Your game of tag I am no less than glad.
That it is done, in the hopes of a gun.
To the sky it will turn red.
A shot like a bird it will run, aimed highly at the sun.
Until we both are bled, to the ground each will be wed.
Feb 7, 2016
Feb 7, 2016 at 10:51 PM UTC
Every morning when I wake up
Two sieves catch my eyes
With their blinking tiny eyes.
The metal one bears
Seven stars on its bottom
Where seven dreams are sitting.
The other one is made of fine-meshed plastic
Bearing a lone hexagonal star
Where I lump my questions
Of whys:
why we dream
and why we aspire.
Jul 6, 2016
Jul 6, 2016 at 9:53 PM UTC