"sightless" poems
Mistah Kurtz—he dead.
A penny for the Old Guy
I
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar
Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;
Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
Remember us—if at all—not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.
II
Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death’s dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind’s singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.
Let me be no nearer
In death’s dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer—
Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom
III
This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man’s hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.
Is it like this
In death’s other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.
IV
The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms
In this last of meeting places
We ***** together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river
Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death’s twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.
V
Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o’clock in the morning.
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
Life is very long
Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
17.9k
I wake in the dark and remember
it is the morning when I must start
by myself on the journey
I lie listening to the black hour
before dawn and you are
still asleep beside me while
around us the trees full of night lean
hushed in their dream that bears
us up asleep and awake then I hear
drops falling one by one into
the sightless leaves and I
do not know when they began but
all at once there is no sound but rain
and the stream below us roaring
away into the rushing darkness
12.1k
SLOWLY the Moon her banderoles of light
Unfurls upon the sky; her fingers drip
Pale, silvery tides; her armoured warriors
Leave Day's bright tents of azure and of gold,
Wherein they hid them, and in silence flock
Upon the solemn battlefield of Night
To try great issues with the blind old king,
The Titan Darkness, who great Pharoah fought
With groping hands, and conquered for a span.
The starry hosts with silver lances *****
The scarlet fringes of the tents of Day,
And turn their crystal shields upon their *******
And point their radiant lances, and so wait
The stirring of the giant in his caves.
The solitary hills send long, sad sighs
As the blind Titan grasps their locks of pine
And trembling larch to drag him toward the sky,
That his wild-seeking hands may clutch the Moon
From her war-chariot, scythed and wheeled with light,
Crush bright-mailed stars, and so, a sightless king,
Reign in black desolation! Low-set vales
Weep under the black hollow of his foot,
While sobs the sea beneath his lashing hair
Of rolling mists, which, strong as iron cords,
Twine round tall masts and drag them to the reefs.
Swifter rolls up Astarte's light-scythed car;
Dense rise the jewelled lances, groves of light;
Red flouts Mars' banner in the voiceless war
(The mightiest combat is the tongueless one);
The silvery dartings of the lances *****
His fingers from the mountains, catch his locks
And toss them in black fragments to the winds,
Pierce the vast hollow of his misty foot,
Level their diamond tips against his breast,
And force him down to lair within his pit
And thro' its chinks ****** down his groping hands
To quicken Hell with horror-for the strength
That is not of the Heavens is of Hell.
8.3k
Not near-sighted; not far-sighted
Just blinded by stupidity
By rich inhumanity
Lack of love in society
Absence of insight; omission of outsight
Just censored curiosity
Loss of credibility
Condemned abnormality
Futures foresighted; actions unsighted
The past, no punctuality
Death by immortality
Buried from reality
May 7, 2015
May 7, 2015 at 7:33 PM UTC
An era of feminism,
Which should never be questioned.
Empowering women
To strive, and strive again.
We speak of desexualization.
To free the ******
Unveil carnal harassment,
And speak our minds.
But we can be sightless
Toward the sexualization of man.
The way we view testosterone
As broad shoulders and shirtlessness.
Do not sift through my words!
I believe in the power feminism.
But I am disappointed
With the sexualization of man.
We're determined to trump the blurred *****
Yet drool over a man in Calvin Klein.
We frown upon the "Perfect Body" campaign...
But applaud a "built" man.
I wish for bodies to be just that:
Bodies.
For sexualized men and women
To be more than carved features.
Nov 3, 2015
Nov 3, 2015 at 11:48 PM UTC
The song is gone; the dance
is secret with the dancers in the earth,
the ritual useless, and the tribal story
lost in an alien tale.
Only the grass stands up
to mark the dancing-ring; the apple-gums
posture and mime a past corroboree,
murmur a broken chant.
The hunter is gone; the spear
is splintered underground; the painted bodies
a dream the world breathed sleeping and forgot.
The nomad feet are still.
Only the rider's heart
halts at a sightless shadow, an unsaid word
that fastens in the blood of the ancient curse,
the fear as old as Cain.
6.8k
~explaining light to the blind~
~for Suzy~
the insanity of even attempting
who among us, the sighted,
has the capability to clarify
an animate inanimate,
an untouchable invisible,
that can be folded, bent,
travel universes unseen
at its own chosen speed,
even to another sighted
and to the blind...
imagine then light
as something that
be recognized from the inside only with
in- sight
~***think of the continuum from
warmth to steel furnaced heat,
that is an element of what is light,
the sun cheek kissing, the furnace of chests
when you grasp another’s body first time
think of light as water,
the faucet spigot a measured pouring,
that can overshoot, the stream behind the house,
a toe tickling masseuse caress,
a dam’s waterfall endless crashing,
a sea, wave licking sudden raging dangerous
blend these sensations that belong to all,
and you’ll know light better than most,
indeed, light is for those who cannot vision
except from the inside with a sight that can be
touched, felt, imagined, and which the sightless
command better than us ordinary thoughtless
indeed light is as simple to understand as
abc,
which you have never seen, but creates the words
that we all
use
even share***~
Jul 22, 2018
Jul 22, 2018 at 6:34 AM UTC
Alas!
They so bittersweetly croon in mine ear,
“Thou art as lovely as that morbid Queen Persephone!”
Have I been such a fool, cruel and extreme?
My hollow footsteps do fall here
Bringing forth wintry winds of death.
Alas!
They so eagerly whisper in thine ear,
“Thy lover art as lovely as that dreadful Queen Persephone!”
Hast thou been such a fool, sightless and mad?
Failed to listen for my light steps,
And forgot to feel winter’s dismal chill.
Alas!
They so desperately murmur in our ear,
“Thy love affair is as fair as that of the wraithlike Hades and Persephone!”
Have we been such fools, violent and severe?
Our footsteps resonate here forevermore,
The Lilies from our garden washed pitifully upon the Plutonian shore.
Apr 24, 2011
Apr 24, 2011 at 10:48 PM UTC
617
Don’t put up my Thread and Needle—
I’ll begin to Sew
When the Birds begin to whistle—
Better Stitches—so—
These were bent—my sight got crooked—
When my mind—is plain
I’ll do seams—a Queen’s endeavor
Would not blush to own—
Hems—too fine for Lady’s tracing
To the sightless Knot—
Tucks—of dainty interspersion—
Like a dotted Dot—
Leave my Needle in the furrow—
Where I put it down—
I can make the zigzag stitches
Straight—when I am strong—
Till then—dreaming I am sewing
Fetch the seam I missed—
Closer—so I—at my sleeping—
Still surmise I stitch—
4.2k
*flowing rivers simulate the virtual reality of love
warriors topple over forgotten
like cartons of used milk
silk worms speak sovereign messages and warn us of our fate
are we ill or are we healthy
stealthily imprisoned by our visions
finish the sentences and sever your attachments
respecting tradition leads to detachment
a semblance of serenity
the giver of the dawn used shards of standard force
hover in the mind’s sky
houses pass you by
in finite allegories
gardens blossom
governing movies and seating our jobless
go outside now
remove the shades from your eyes
breathe in soma and drink from the sky
sightless sorrow forges on towards tomorrow
art is a balancing act
she came out of her shell in order to tell you a story
of garlands of silver and gold
woven finely into ribbons
greased with oil from a rare toad*
Oct 31, 2017
Oct 31, 2017 at 11:33 AM UTC
Stretching and shouldering night away a sun crouches
to birth black's ousting
by one more empty circle of dark's hollowed pouches
then outs in sparkling showers.
Spangled with myriad star-labour unfolding membranes,
like numberless leaves
dreamers listen to soft serenades as the universe favours
lullaby-songs to deep breathing.
Silvered surface shivers with night-eyes as glittery dust
follows with dart-swift
flight each soul's winged journey while murmuring such
mysteries to those sleeping still.
Glimmers on sightless horizon reveal light's celebration
while untrodden dew
newly writhing in close-capped life waits inertia's frame
stirring to shake before rising.
Piercing the brain time's needle regathers worn threads
and remembers that more
sown seed means now-grown grain needs re-collection
in daylight's mind-aware storage.
Open-eyed, naught is over as hinging on less or more,
sun, with slumber done,
now hurries to open the thin partition between yawns
of torpidity to more hours won.
Mar 4, 2017
Mar 4, 2017 at 5:12 PM UTC
Many months had whispered by
Unbeknownst to me
The sheaths of ice retreated slow,
And buds furled from the trees.
I had not stopped to grasp and hold
The notion laying stagnant
Within my chest, there thawing too
A sunken, fading, fragment
This withered seed, this dying shoot
Lay wilting in the dark
Until my sightless, bourbon eyes
Saw what was in my heart.
May 18, 2015
May 18, 2015 at 2:15 PM UTC
In the witching hour all is quiet except for the beating sound of two hearts entwined with passion and agony beating more angry by the minute.
Blinded eyes try to pierce through the dark abyss to find sanity in a place of cold nothingness and desolation, as the tortured mind cloudy with regret slowly fades away..
nails claw at blinded eyes longing to see the clouds part and behold, his goddess is there basking in the pale yellowing aura of the moon, as he looks longingly upon her..
skin and curves of perfection soaking up the yellowing, becoming golden upon his slightest gaze.
Knees become burning furnaces of pain and torment as he falls to kneel before her, begging with soundless words of an open mouth for release.
Paralyzed, hungrily devouring as her sightless eyes fall upon her brooding brow trailing down to the blinding stars that become her eyes under the harvest moon.
The wind blows fierce surrounding her in a halo of color plucked dead limbs, trailing off into oblivion.
She gazed upon his visage, her fierceness burning his soul in eternal torment she smirks and glides toward effortlessly slowly,
tantalizingly slow,
causing him great anguish and letting her sadistic humor known to all..
he lashed out and traps her in his iron eyes transfixed on lips so full and soft as crimson color them tricking down her body hungrily eating her perfect curves he kisses her
hard throwing themselves down a bottom less pit entangled in passion he forces her legs apart he slams into her as she drips wet in anticipation..
She moans breathlessly in extract, her ***** like velvet greedily devours his hardened **** of stone repeatedly ****** her innocence, tired bodies continuously fall exhausted.
She tried to flee, but his fires flamed inside hotly he takes her again.
His embrace hard, intense
his iron will dominating her.
Breaking her wild spirit, she gasps as he unleashes a relentless force inside her driving her to the edge of sanity and back again.
Her eyes close for the last time giving into his dominance
she embraced him.
Her wild flaming spirit shattered knowing that as he worships her it is she who is forever a slave of their passionate love,
melding bodies together,
as they fall endlessly in the abyss.
Apr 13, 2022
Apr 13, 2022 at 9:04 PM UTC
after some grey days
comes the sun
summer heat
spectacle on the Seine
to commemorate
"La Route de l'Armada"
a fleet for tourists
that never was
yet nice to watch
nevertheless
with fireworks
& stately masts
sails folded orderly
decks scrubbed
the crews all smiles
ready to answer
all the children's questions
in between
gray & inaccessible
some men-of-war
of more contemporary make
among them
somewhat tarnished
one single ship
that really carried
allied soldiers
in its sightless hull
on that gray morning
and suddenly
if only for a moment
you smell the sweat
of fearful courage
hear ammunition
click into magazines
the waves break dull
with hollow sound
amidst the crashes
of firework artillery
that splits the waters
upward from the ground
Mar 11, 2015
Mar 11, 2015 at 7:27 PM UTC
You are not original
You are not unique
There is nothing special about you
You are every step taken
By every sole
Of every shoe
In the history of shoes
You are every vein
On every maple leaf
That has ever fallen
And every one that has
Grown as replacement
Everything
Everything
You are every joke
You are every stroke
Of every painbrush
Every pencil
Every pen
Every primitive crayon
Against a cave wall
You are every sightless
Creature in every cave
You are every speck of dust
Stuck to every speck of dust
In the cosmos
You are every diaphragm
Contraction
Of every laugh ever laughed
You are every
Perverted thought
In every brain,
You are every measurement
Of time
Of weight
Of temperature
Of character
You are every pressure wave
From every pair
Of clapped hands
You are every pigment
In every premature obituary
You are every hair follicle
On every bison
You are every decision
God or bad
Or wise or naive
You are every influence
Every force
Every imagined deity
Every word ever spoken
Every word you are reading
You are every sunset
On every satellite
Of every star
You are every villain
Every success story
Every tragedy
Every spark that has
Birthed a flame
You are every set
Of rolled eyes
Every kernel
On every ear of corn
Every oxidation
Every drop of alcohol
Ever consumed
You are heaven
You are every molecule of water
In every hot spring
Every strum
Of every guitar
Ever played
You are condensation
You are every witch trial
You are every frown
Every school of skipjacks
Every byte of data
On every hard drive
You are every meadowlark
You are every broken arm
From every fall
Off a bicycle
You are the way Autumn smells
The way he looks at you
The way she makes you smile
The way earthworms
Escape the mud
when it rains
You are every passing car
Every glimmer of hope
Every plane crash
Every time math fails
Every swift defeat
You are everything ugly
And everything beautiful
You are nothing
You are everything
Everything you've done
Has been done before you
You are every paradox
You are beautiful when you sleep
You are me
We are nothing.
Everything,
Everything.
We are everything
We're not.
We are nothing we are.
The snow has fallen,
Terrible is the sound.
Sep 3, 2012
Sep 3, 2012 at 10:53 PM UTC
Like a fool, with an unrecognized devotion,
I loved him deeply yet I wasn’t loved in return.
I got fed with all our irrational argumentation,
Often gave up, yet still had doubts if I’d end such relation.
Then I asked myself, shall I give him a chance?
Must I endure this unrequited love?
Hear thy mournful cries of trepidation and doubt,
“Why can’t I find the remnants of thy piteous heart?”
They say, better leave him and make a new start
But intense emotions of ambiguity would thwart.
Thus I tell myself, give him a second chance.
You’ll be happy soon; hold on though it’s an unrequited love.
Tears would then fall to somehow ease the sorrow
And try to veil the truth that thy heart cometh hollow.
But even if all tears’ dried up today ‘til tomorrow,
When all rains would halt, still, no rainbow will follow.
But I tell myself, wait for another chance.
That time maybe, he’ll learn, and it won’t be an unrequited love.
Years after, I still loved him amidst the endless plights.
He drained my soul; brought me to a black hole in life.
Thoughts that ‘I don’t deserve this’ amassed to greater heights
Then a string cut loose, I faced the sightless sight.
Now, I begged myself, none more of these chances.
Please, I plead, quit enduring this unrequited love!
Beneath a thousand twinkling stars in my windowpane,
Lies the most perfect replica of wishful thinking in suffering and pain---
My self with an unrequited love.
~Danessa Jutba~
Oct 22, 2011
Oct 22, 2011 at 5:23 AM UTC
*keep folding your cool designs
they hold afloat all your dreams
waiting on that raft
to it all*
1.
how I marvel at your vigour to grab any sheet of paper
to create shapes to your fancy
your vision sees further-use in adverts and pamphlets
so creative and undaunted by the wide-ocean
windy-rains may come, whip away your lovely paper-boats
but you set forth fleet-footed in salt-spray
your eyes follow their route on bobbing-smiles
you watch their trail and scout over rocks
yes, they sink soon.. yet, you don't cry
how you run ruddy your cheeks -- oh, how you do inspire!
2.
I didn't mean to silence you
when you sang your song
it's just.. I had a headache
(but you know -- that is poor excuse!)
may the lilt in your voice carry so high
and I pray that grace be mine
when you speak your thoughts
3.
black wings with orange-beaks congregate on the shore
beauty untold when they all take flight
high up in the sky -- what a sight
a flock of blessings in the rain
flying over smiles on paper-boat
*with every flap, thunder rolls its power
and there's little place for lightning to hide
its splendour
it crashes smack-bang within
the silent-blubbering
of sightless-whales*
may dreams land sweetly
and yours..
come true
S T - on 2 march 2014
Mar 2, 2014
Mar 2, 2014 at 5:52 PM UTC
Lift not the painted veil which those who live
Call Life: though unreal shapes be pictured there,
And it but mimic all we would believe
With colours idly spread,—behind, lurk Fear
And Hope, twin Destinies; who ever weave
Their shadows, o’er the chasm, sightless and drear.
I knew one who had lifted it—he sought,
For his lost heart was tender, things to love,
But found them not, alas! nor was there aught
The world contains, the which he could approve.
Through the unheeding many he did move,
A splendour among shadows, a bright blot
Upon this gloomy scene, a Spirit that strove
For truth, and like the Preacher found it not.
2.5k
Christmas is upon the masses
The white flakes fall, but
Hanging
Swaying,
Dripping
Upon the crisp white
A puddle frozen of crimson red,
Baubles of the deceased
Upon a branch, eyes bleed
Baubles,
Red,
Sightless
Eyes, cracked within, as blood
Drips between the cracks,
He hangs them with tinsel rope
Glistening in the sun,
Inscribed,
"Merry Christmas"
Still fresh from the cut
Blood like a leaking tap
Drip,
Drip,
Drips
Upon pristine snow,
"He is the tinsel hanger"
He waits until the white covers
Then he begins his
Christmas list,
He thinks them naughty in is eyes
So they now sway above the ground,
There is not always one,
For what is a tree with but
One
Bauble
Hanging,
More must adorn a single tree,
"Happy Christmas"
"Died Smiling"
"Jolly Dead"
Were his trademarks upon dead flesh,
Birds perch upon limp shoulders
Pecking, upon the dead,
The last things heard,
As he records his crime,
*"Please don't **** us"*
"Have a heart"
"A heart"
"A HEART"
Pleeeasss....
And then there is but muffled sound
"Thump"
Lifelessness now upon the ground,
Another Bauble
For him to hang with tinsel
Above the freshly powdered ground,
He is the Tinsel hanger
He thinks the white gives purity
To his twisted deeds
Pray* that your not just left
A Christmas bauble,
Hanging,
Swaying,
Lifeless
Above freshly white snow, because
You'll not be alone this cold night,
Family will also be hanging around, tinsel shimmering off moonlight.
Dec 8, 2014
Dec 8, 2014 at 6:32 PM UTC
I pace the sounding sea-beach and behold
How the voluminous billows roll and run,
Upheaving and subsiding, while the sun
Shines through their sheeted emerald far unrolled,
And the ninth wave, slow gathering fold by fold
All its loose-flowing garments into one,
Plunges upon the shore, and floods the dun
Pale reach of sands, and changes them to gold.
So in majestic cadence rise and fall
The mighty undulations of thy song,
O sightless bard, England’s Mæonides!
And ever and anon, high over all
Uplifted, a ninth wave superb and strong,
Floods all the soul with its melodious seas.
2.4k
Harbour lights beckoning
Like saintly haloed will-o-wisps
Annointing ocean mists
Jaded haunting memories
Come surging down with tidal force
And flood all other thoughts:
*"Weep not for me o' mistress,
Ever my first love was the sea
And I love her more than thee"*
How oft' those words have plagued me,
How many moons have traced the sky
To fall from high
Reborn to die
And all in vain to answer why
The sea could never save me?
Weary sea-legs greet the dock,
Where once they brought in stoic stance
An end to fair romance
Your eyes were filled with sadness,
Beacons born of hope and kindness
Blinded by my blindness:
*"Weep not for me o' mistress,
Ever my first love was the sea
And I love her more than thee"*
Stumbling blind from shore to lea,
From tavern, inn and hotel bar,
I search afar
Of ev'ry tar
To ask of all oh where you are
But nowhere can I find thee?
A young man needs adventure,
Yet all I learned from years at sea
Was all I missed of thee
Has time unwound the wounding
Of hasty words once said with zest
With pride and puffed-out chest:
*"Weep not for me o' mistress,
Ever my first love was the sea
And I love her more than thee"*
With all hope driven from me,
I watched a sailor paint a tale
To taint me pale
As he regailed
Of maiden fair and love that failed
And torment that befell thee
Panic wove itself a wreath
Around my heart and pulling tight
It dragged me through the night
From town to shore I stumbled
And there upon the jagged rocks
Espied your ebon locks:
*"Weep not for me o' mistress,
Ever my first love was the sea
And I love her more than thee"*
The beauty wrought within thee,
Noble grace and elegant flair
My maiden fair
Beyond compare
With ***** and seaweed in your hair,
What tragedy befell thee?
Translucent as the water,
You turn with sightless eyes to see
And see but thought of me
The sadness and betrayal
Takes harbour in your haunting face
Now anchored in this place:
*"Weep not for me o' mistress,
Ever my first love was the sea
And I love her more than thee"*
Through years that passed unkindly,
For all my sins of jealous pride
The truth I hide
From thee inside,
My heart and soul with thee reside
And I have always loved thee
The sea I loved has taken
The destined time we had to share
And thee in thy despair
Oh love my love forgive me,
Upon the sea I held so dear
To you alone I swear:
*Weep not for me o' mistress,
Ever my first love was the sea
But my heart belonged to thee*
Feb 19, 2015
Feb 19, 2015 at 4:08 AM UTC
Like two scorpions in a bottle,
The two wolves continue to fight.
One holds never-ending dominance
Relentlessly mocking and scolding.
The slanderous one, better known as the chief
The master, better known as my back bone.
The other wolf; the sufferer,
Facing the horror of the fire.
Like luscious, vibrant air filled with beauty and self-worth
With the intensity and beauty of a glowing golden sun,
Glittering as it beams among the surface of the waters.
The lustrous one, better known as my daydreams
The lovely one, better known as my pure naked self.
Like two scorpions in a bottle,
There was a fight between evil and good.
The winner; the one the operator chooses to feed,
The winner; a display of my blindness.
Blindness, lacking the sense of sight; sightless.
Blind to the naked beauty and worth of the lovely wolf,
The starving wolf.
Like two scorpions in a bottle,
The two wolves continued to fight inside of me.
The delightful became liquified into dark raw evil,
Leaving me drowning, gasping
Gasping the slightest bit of that air of self-worth.
(C) Emily Mckusker 2016
May 4, 2016
May 4, 2016 at 6:30 AM UTC
can I even complicate
my continuum of thoughts?
if so, will I ever be able
to stop?
If I dig deeper
There's no air
There's no warmth
There's not a soul being
in sight
Oh, I'll
drown
won't I?
Oh my mind
It's ill-defined,
hazey
it's left me severed
I'm sightless.
did the unknown hinder a
blind tragedy?
They tell me,
We can pretend for awhile
So i'll pour the sea in my head,
I'll make it full again.
but my mind will only be
under siege
it's a temporary fix
Like leaking my dreams with
matchsticks
can I even complicate the patterns
that I inhale?
such a strange feeling
as if you can't grasp your mind
when your psyche
is flooded
What is real? What is mine?
To what extent is detachment twisted
When you can no longer
reach
the surface ?
I see an oceanic void where
the only movements are
the vibration of my bones
not radiating in dance; they're
shaking,
shaking
in this abyss
Nov 15, 2015
Nov 15, 2015 at 1:10 PM UTC