"skim" poems
Life is an open book.
Time is an oscillating fan.
I've had to learn to skim-read because
before I can read more than a few paragraphs,
that ******* airhead comes circling back,
blowing pages like a medieval **********
The cool air feels nice, though.
Sometimes, when my head aches,
I let my eyes relax
and I enjoy the breeze as the words blur.
Mar 19, 2015
Mar 19, 2015 at 4:42 PM UTC
for leather accrues
The miracle of the streets
The scents & smogs &
pollens of existence
Shiny blackness
so totally naked she was
Totally un-hung-up
We looked around
lights now on
Top see our fellow travellers
~~~
I am troubled
Immeasurably
By your eyes
I am struck
By the feather
of your soft
Reply
The sound of glass
Speaks quick
Disdain
And conceals
What your eyes fight
To explain
~~~
She looked so sad in sleep
Like a friendly hand
just out of reach
A candle stranded on
a beach
While the sun sinks low
an H-bomb in reverse
~~~
Everything human
is leaving
her face
Soon she will disappear
into the calm
vegetable
morass
Stay!
My Wild Love!
~~~
I get my best ideas when the
telephone rings & rings. It’s no fun
To feel like a fool-when your
baby’s gone. A new ax to my head:
Possession. I create my own sword
of Damascus. I’ve done nothing w/time.
A little tot prancing the boards playing
w/Revolution. When out there the
World awaits & abounds w/heavy gangs
of murderers & real madmen. Hanging
from windows as if to say: I’m bold-
do you love me? Just for tonight.
A One Night Stand. A dog howls & whines
at the glass sliding door (why can’t I
be in there?) A cat yowls. A car engine
revs & races against the grain- dry
rasping carbon protest. I put the book
down- & begin my own book.
Love for the fat girl.
When will SHE get here?
~~~
In the gloom
In the shady living room
where we lived & died
& laughed & cried
& the pride of our relationship
took hold that summer
What a trip
To hold your hand
& tell the cops
you’re not 16
no runaway
The wino left a little in
the old blue desert
bottle
Cattle skulls
the cliche of rats
who skim the trees
in search of fat
Hip children invade the grounds
& sleep in the wet grass
’til the dogs rush out
I’m going South!
40.3k
so I noticed that we both drink coffee.
just like anyone, we both like ours a certain way.
i like mine sweeter, with just the aftertaste of coffee there.
caramel, sugar, creamer.
i think about when i’ll have my next cup, and the idea of it alone makes me happy.
i don’t care what time of day i have it, i almost always have a cup.
i make time for my coffee.
it might be safe to say i think you like your coffee black.
you might add just the smallest touch to soften its bitter taste, but never too much.
sometimes i think you just pour it and carry on, as though it’s nothing important at all.
as though all it is, is just some quick fix.
like you just want to get it over with.
we drink it in two different ways.
i drink it slowly.
i note every flavor in every sip, i enjoy it.
i note the warmth it brings me.
i like it all hours of the day.
you drink it quickly.
quicker than me, at least.
you don’t care if it burns your tongue, or perhaps you’re used to the pain.
you accept it.
you never let it last, you move on to something else soon after.
i lay in your bed, watching your eyes as they skim the screen in front of you.
your mind is somewhere else.
i savor the moments you look my way, if even for a second, and smile at me.
i wonder if you even notice them.
i feel your laugh vibrate my bones, making the hair on my arms stand on end.
do i make you feel at all?
i reflect on it every time i drink my coffee.
i think about it with each and every sip, taking my time.
something tells me that you don’t do the same.
after all, it's just coffee.
but i put my all into this coffee.
i think you like your coffee black.
Aug 29, 2018
Aug 29, 2018 at 4:07 AM UTC
Float
into the blue
Skim
the mist
Row
far out
Dive
into the murky
depths
Sink
into an unknown
world
Drown
in the beauty
of your surroundings
Laugh
in the face
of opposition
Dance
in the winds
of time
Kiss
tranquility
on the cheek
Slip
off your shoes
Feel
the sand between
your toes
Walk
among the fish
Stroll
beneath the
surface
Float
softly alone
Sleep
you are
at home
Close
your eyes
Forget
your troubles
Embrace
this world
Slip
further
with me.
String
your bow
Let
loose your heart
Watch
her fly
See
her soar
Come
further with
me
And surrender
to the seduction
of
the deep.
Jan 20, 2015
Jan 20, 2015 at 6:31 PM UTC
I wish I was a dragonfly,
Blue in the shimmering sun
Settling on the tropical palms,
When my breeze guided journey was done.
The tips of my wings would softly skim
The water of the pool,
A microscopic dragon in flight
My eyes, two kaleidoscope jewels.
My family would have existed for three million years,
Or more,
But I shall glide for just six weeks,
Enough time to see, what’s worth flying for.
Sep 12, 2014
Sep 12, 2014 at 5:30 AM UTC
The ocean,
oh it looked so blue,
shades of colour swimming around like clouds around the moon,
The water,
oh it looked so clean,
but it was just the sun's reflection making it clear,
Underneath the waves lay a graveyard,
a promise of death,
a promise of extinction,
Tombs made of plastic,
slathered in oil,
steaming with toxic waste,
and all the people know,
The damage is unfolding faster than we are evolving,
The turtles are ingesting plastic as if it were their only meal,
begging for their fins to just be free,
so they can dive through the sea,
The seals are tangled in nets, lines and lures,
plastic bags and packing bands,
till they're tied to their grave as if life were just a brief phase,
The seabirds skim the ocean waves for fish and squid,
yet plastic is their only catch of the day,
leaving them broken inside and out,
and dead on the beaches we claim are our own,
The whales are submerged beneath the sea,
eating most things that they see,
plastic, plastic everywhere beneath,
not giving them much time before they can no longer breathe,
The dolphins are gliding through the sea,
taking what they can to eat,
plastic as their only meal,
tearing them apart from within,
leaving them starving for weeks,
till the grave is the only thing they see,
Us humans are so weak,
we can’t see how deep the pain seeps,
but when nothing is left for us to eat,
and the rich have nothing left to steal,
we’ll end in the same graves as all the lives we could have healed.
Jan 23, 2019
Jan 23, 2019 at 12:16 PM UTC
Behold!
The great
Leviathan, with
teeth of steel, with
feet of clay.
Subjected to this
giant's whim,
the sweet sojourn
of life decays,
Infected now, we
lie and skim; while
markets mire
mother's way,
rejected reason,
presses on, to
try again
another day.
May 3, 2015
May 3, 2015 at 11:09 PM UTC
I feel invisible
Yet you claim(ed) I am the air you breathe
And perhaps like air I am always present,
But presently forgotten
The heaviness of your hush is crushing me with empty blows
This silence leads me to wander down a path cloaked in a heavy mist
That whispers harsh truths such as:
Our hopeless, fictitious, drawn out infatuation is like
A library book that was checked out last March
You underlined and doggie-paged the first few chapters
And then left it on your shelf to collect dust all of April and May
I foolishly kept begging you to finish the book
Read the last sentence
Take time to skim over the epilogue
Please
Find your way to the back cover
I foolishly ignored your “I can’t”s
And now it’s late August and our love is long overdue,
In the opposite sense of what the phrase typically means
I write with angry lead because
I am too stubborn to admit I just filled a trash bin with tissues
And that the cuffed sleeves of my flannel
Are damp like grass’s morning dew
I have so much more to say,
Although I cannot find the words
To say anything more than
You should’ve written.
Because two weeks of nothing
Was enough for me to realize that you are just a passing breeze
Seldom present, presently becoming something of the past.
Aug 17, 2013
Aug 17, 2013 at 3:32 PM UTC
Anxious
Dull, a boy is he
names he would not plea
eyes like baby blue-
lips a crimson hue
Feelings like me and you
Reclusive
Outsiders he'd not choose
In his mansions he bore
luring himself-
with enchanting lore's
drifting away, loosing woes
A Xenos
Traveling in his hallways
unknown, ominous
a wretched life he portrays
even in his heart, he'd say-
"Loneliness, such a Cliché"
Forsaken
Befriended, unseen
though he's not a devil
-for I believe
tortured, battered on thee
delude by his mistress' skim
He Left
portals out from misery
gone himself eagerly
then comes back, with such
-A Victory
for now, a statured man is he
Knights & Kings
upon bended knees
and everything he please
from a man to a boy
-in a dream
A Castle, now he redeems
Jul 14, 2017
Jul 14, 2017 at 7:48 PM UTC
A petal haired army saluting the call of the skies
- it made my heart go to her
until I hope her into being
and I look into her eyes -
eyes that shimmer with every shade of springtime
with frolicking lambs and trumpeting daffodils
with the glint of her chocolate stained Sunday dress,
dancing and whirling with the matriarch blues of six generations
to know our dance, but to write her own song -
a song composed of notes she will fashion for herself in
flower petal perfume and dirt and birthday cake tummy ache
and she can write them in gummy bears or wiggly worms
in any way she might choose, on bill boards or in locked diaries
but it will be beautiful beyond words because its her way -
her way - choosing to skim cliff edges over mama's apron strings,
tearing frills on tree branches and turning back her watch to arrive home late
and you can bet when she dreams him in her sleep she won't be feeling that pea.
But so long as she takes her dreams to heart and cuddles them to life
and knows that she is perfectly imperfectly beautiful and remembers that -
that life is lived as much on cliff edges as it is in your own home
that dress tears and stains speak joy every bit as much as a photograph
that mama's apron strings stretch far and wide,
and that though the shades of seasons change, she must sing her song
and dance.
Jun 26, 2013
Jun 26, 2013 at 6:12 PM UTC
I want to be your dreamcatcher
And skim sweet dreams
Off of nightmares black.
Made by the most careful hands
To hang over your bed on the darkest nights.
Twine entwined 'round a circle never ending
And feathers tumbling to the wind
That seeps in through the
Window cracked open.
Night night
and only the sweetest of dreams
to plague your sleep.
Oct 22, 2012
Oct 22, 2012 at 12:59 AM UTC
I’m talking to you
in my head
been cultivating this shyness
since I was three years old
talking to inanimate objects
painted smiles, rubber-skinned
metal frames
turning wheels
the family minivan kept me company
as mountains rose and fell
like held breaths
let go.
playing games with pregnant raindrops
rolling down the glass
obsessed with the shark’s fin triangle
the wipers could not
reach.
I’m obsessing over seeing you.
always trying to be invisible
your eyes beginning to skim past I,
they didn’t used too.
*“The voices that once spoke love
but did not mean love.”*
the withered rose living
in the trash,
abandoned friends in the attic
forgotten songs
unfinished books
I am the forgotten
I am the abandoned
I am the left behind
cobweb-and-cotton-dust-collector
the silence connoisseur
I wear loneliness like an unwashed favorite shirt
If I die
Will you read this?
Does anyone else think such things
or is Tonio Kroger my only brother?
I am Kafka’s cockroach,
everyone is waiting for me to die
or to change into what you want me to be.
my name will not be in the history books
by the time my children’s children will have children
I am no one.
Everything fades in this world
like whiteboard-marker on acetate lives.
Desolate corners and garbage
tell stories
art is vandalism, vandalism is art.
and people wear diamonds but they are worth nothing.
and babies inherit their father’s eyes.
I am not yours.
You are not mine.
Isn’t ownership objectification?
If a man owns a clock
does the clock own the man?
Let’s be
money and greed
or
greed and suffering.
one cannot survive
without…
Let’s be
the mismatched pyramids
of wealth and population
form a parallelogram
like bricks on an unstable wall
never falling down.
Apr 15, 2012
Apr 15, 2012 at 7:46 AM UTC
i will never know the black mother’s ache,
but i imagine that if the phrase “adding insult to injury” had a feeling,
that would be it.
i will never know the black mother’s ache,
but i imagine that it sounds like “hands up, don’t shoot,” like “i can’t breathe,”
like blood hitting a pavement that seems as though it was built
to catch those droplets.
i will never know the black mother’s ache,
but i imagine that it tastes like skittles and arizona tea,
four years old but still carrying the fresh sting of a wound just opened.
i imagine that it tastes
like history repeating itself,
like seeing your son or daughter recycled each week
on every news report, on every tv station.
each time it is a different body,
but it is always the same hand pulling the trigger,
the same black blood being spilled,
the same cries left unheard;
we shout “black lives matter”
and yet, still,
they cut them too short.
i will never know the black mother’s ache,
but i imagine that it looks like a web of lies too thick to cut through —
every strand another weapon that he did or did not have,
another order that he did or did not follow,
another sin that he did or did not commit;
the only black they care about
is the color of the ink they use
to draw your angel-headed boy
a set of horns.
i imagine that it looks like evidence hidden,
like sparknotes-type skim-throughs labeled “thorough investigations,”
like another unindicted officer walking freely atop the cries of those
who charged into a battle they knew they would, but hoped they would not, lose.
a battle they have fought too many times before.
i imagine that it looks
like an empty chair at the dinner table,
like cold-blooded ****** disguised as justice
with the help of a blue hat and a badge.
i will never know the black mother’s ache,
but if you listen closely enough,
you can hear it
in every cautious goodbye she says to her children whenever they leave the house,
or in the silence that those goodbyes used to fill.
can you hear it?
you will have to push past the shouts
of the big bold letters that they want you to believe.
somewhere,
somewhere in there,
a black mother’s heart is crying.
it is a gentle, hushed cry
that the world does not want to hear.
but the tears are still just as wet.
(a.m.)
Jul 7, 2016
Jul 7, 2016 at 4:18 PM UTC
Digging down deep is difficult
So many things these days only skim the surface
Or what we are capable of
No one dares to look inside
Afraid to shovel out the bones buried in the graveyard of memories
Afraid to be paralyzed with the fear that is ever apparent
Cry the tears that are ever evident
Be struck with the burning lightening of anger
Or the shallow mallet of loss
We bury them all so deep
We believe nothing can touch us
There is no way any being on this earth can touch this stone cold iron heart, no one
Then someone comes along
And without knowing, teases out little bits of that heart
Melting it slowly
Leaving us vulnerable once again
Exposed to others
What we wished to avoid in the first place
Sometimes, the person tosses the glass heart aside
Shattering it into a thousand sharp pieces
And other times, they cradle the masterpiece of human desire gently between their hands and place it on a shelf only they can reach
And toss you theirs for safe keeping
A gamble of emotion
An exchange of hearts
Love it is
Feeling all
Embracing all
Fearing not
Love it is...
Mar 13, 2015
Mar 13, 2015 at 10:24 PM UTC
You are my morning cup of coffee,
My hot, steamy, caffeinated beverage made to wake me up,
I sip you,
Bitter,
Some sugar to cheer you up?
I dowse you in vanilla cream…
Any better my darling?
How come you are so nasty?
Not a morning person either?
Well I can't blame you,
Why do I think I drink so much of you?
Because I like you?
Well I do,sorta, the effects you bring to me are quite uplifting,
I shake,
Nervously,
Oh you startle me and delight me,
I feel comforted as you break open into my bloodstream,
My body on fire and ready to start my long and trying day,
Maybe we can get through this together,
Another cup is what I think I need of you,
Whether bitter or not we can make it through,
So my little cappuccino, so frothy and frilly,
I want you to know that I need you,
Like to start my morning, my every morning
Whether you are just black, or a venti latte with skim and carmel syrup stirred inside,
Or else I be stuck in bed all the time
There be no you to keep me awake or alive,
No reason to go outside and try,
No motivator, no mover, just me living my days on my own,
How terribly depressing I must add,
So I'll keep you company if you keep on stirring my brain with your caffeinated ways
Oct 17, 2012
Oct 17, 2012 at 10:55 AM UTC
We drift along through moss and moon,
the currents swift from love's typhoons,
skim fingertips through stirred up sins;
we never speak of daybreak things.
Jan 2, 2011
Jan 2, 2011 at 11:04 AM UTC
Cockcrow harbour:
the gulls whining like tethered dogs
about rooftops
paliophobic cars and
grounded vessels..
Look:
on the hoary horizon
a glaucous strip
beguils
with backwater.
Not putting on a show
the frigid sea benumbed..
Easily,
with a tail of emerald jelly
skim a vanishing lane off that
lustrous sheet
and watch
the trailblazing mainland
scuttle.
Now,
Only scattered dreaming is possible.
In it's bachelor pad,
cradling over crinkles,
away from the meretriciosness
of validating the real by sharing it,
THE WIND
blusters off any veneer.
Here,
stale but spry,
fare your way around the inoffensive isle
to it's most shyest of harbours:
a mouth full of silver
saving it's breath.
The windows facing the sea
seem
black & white,
their wooden frames hooked to the wind,
the splattered gulls meow
your name
in a way
that's
personal.
Of course comes to mind.
The pines
are demanding a visit,
They're whispering
so you can hear them,
each as different as every snore,
these pines know
how to grow in the sand
and still reach for
the Nimbostratus with heads in unison.
The spaces
between their trunks illuminating
the blazing needles
raining down
painting the ground
familiar
to your lover's
skin texture:
Feel her closeness
from jilted borderwatchtowers
as she speads her mire
like no one's watching:
weedy and sugared
with bellflowers,
the waves in her shallow armpit
billeting a pair of white swans:
demurely they float
sometimes as pillows and sometimes
as question marks..
Go ask the seasoned locals,
they say the bones she parked
when she let her ice sheet melt
are portals
to her noble underbelly.
Hidden in the woods
reminiscent of your heart,
the red
tank-sized stone
is sealed,
but what the lighting reach cannot
the rain shall sluice apart
dumbly.
And though her hair has
come to be
the moss
black and hoarse
as sailor's beard,
there is still time.
The void says
her noisy neighbour is nothing
to die for.
The theadbear car with absent doors
incites
to drive her
in reverse gear
to the first few
days of holidays:
her golden locks a-blaze,
her arm around your
hind-sighted doppelganger.
Jul 20, 2018
Jul 20, 2018 at 2:20 AM UTC
I think in statistics,
and you in heartbeats.
I am. You are. I am. You are.
I am chemical-based, you are a meaningful scar.
You explore,
covet,
and hoard,
anything near you.
While I am
stuck,
looking at my addiction,
through a lens.
I am forever cursed:
to skim for importance,
to look only at the bigger picture,
to glance only with logic's borrowed eye,
but you are here beside me, and you take in every little detail.
To me, blood is but a fluid,
yet in your eyes,
it is the fuel for lovers and the ink for poetry.
You are feather pens, I am erasable chalk.
The insomniac that is so filled with dreamer-talk.
So enticed by the world, that you couldn’t close an eye.
My mind is logic, reasoning, and your complete opposite.
Every word has a different meaning in your perspective
and every syllable holds a secret—
one you must find out.
I am textbooks and punctuality and schedules.
But you, you are the only person I can wait on.
This is a cycle with ragged edges, bizarre.
I am. You are. I am. You are.
We are combined; a marvelous oxymoron.
Oct 18, 2011
Oct 18, 2011 at 10:40 PM UTC
The river flows over empty promises
depositing sediment
in the form of confusion and stagnation
leaving a bad taste in one's mouth.
I hang on your every word.
Grainy is the trail
of crumbs left for inspection:
affectation over articulation;
all the better to hear you.
Skim a stone across the surface
leaving ripples of insecurities
and questions past.
The message is clear.
Apr 25, 2012
Apr 25, 2012 at 7:51 PM UTC
At the end of the pier you could look out to sea
Listening to the swell flap on the rusty cast iron
Of geometrical supports.
Barnacles clung, sealed like gold nuggets
And in the distance the slow **** of a tanker.
The wind would whisk around the terminal
Throwing hair to the sky
Floating chandelier skirts tipped
Revealing best underwear.
And the clock sang its time to the birds.
Over both sides were fishing rod rows
Their owners sitting on canvas stools
Above seagulls nibbled the air for food scraps
And beneath strong swimmers bobbed
Watching children skim pebbles in the waves.
Love Mary xxxx
Apr 28, 2018
Apr 28, 2018 at 10:34 AM UTC
Some chemical influences are necessary.
Experimentation is mandatory.
Skim the syllabus and you will see,
MDMA is chapter three.
Hemp is the strongest ****
At least that's what I learned in Botany.
Biology came as quite a shock,
When the plants pulled out their *****
English came as such a breeze,
The Diazepam brought poetry bees.
They pollinated the dopamine receptor,
Which greatly impressed my psychology professor.
When the zombies rose for dead weeks droll,
Adderall and Vyvanse kept us cool.
There's always a place in the Union Bathroom stall
To do a dome some Coke before study hall.
Of all the girls in my dorm floor
Roxy and Molly were just next door.
Art history wasn't the most entertaining,
Until Absinth was my painting water.
Finals were such a stress, so I'll admit
We laced our gin shots with Xanex.
College was an experience, I'll admit,
But Chemistry got me on the DEAn'S list.
Mar 6, 2013
Mar 6, 2013 at 2:20 AM UTC
Clusters of lights like lilies,
Or like boiling craters in obsidian
The black is inky,
It could swallow me whole,
I'm thankful to be strapped in
The horizon scrolls back as the plane lilts
Like an image in an old slide projector
Suddenly the moon is below me
Icarus should have winged by night
I’d be god if I weren’t strapped in
Clusters of light like lilies
In this lolling pond we skim
Light strung like dew on spider silk
A flattened web to stretch the land
thankful not to be attached
Shimmering grids draw nearer
Enveloped in their seductive shimmer
thankful not to crash
Oct 20, 2018
Oct 20, 2018 at 3:52 PM UTC
On rising heat, killdeer flush
to decoy enemy--
threat to its young that roams too close
They rush to skim on hayish blur
wailing over wildflowers drying
Fretful twitter in perpetual flight
swifts-- twirl and hurl their bits of bodies--
debris
from a cumulonimbus of a late-day sky
toward a ridge of stag horn sumac
presuming horizon primordial
behind which time and city-- drift and wobble
on rising heat-- after rush hour
Rising Heat
Rising--
to meet my mind
on its way down
from my post behind
the laundromat
where I view it all--
rising--
where I usually go in search of quiet
to almost hear the ocean
two hundred miles away
to strain words from wind
in careless conversation
to wonder over
missed whispers....
But not today
In rising heat, I went down
in search of something better--
your eyes again
solvent for my presence of mind
dissolvers of hours and the order of things
But I need an excuse!
To turn, to trespass, to disturb the peace!
For your eyes again!
And still I need more-- being feverish, weak
Or?
Or... should I take the cure?
To deny ...To deny
To deny what?
Overtones from a sea of years?
I don't know! Whatever it was!
Nothing explain it...
I melt... I'm gone....
Aug 8, 2018
Aug 8, 2018 at 12:51 PM UTC
Deranged and rearrange
Obsessed and repressed
You skim the surface,
Proudly believing you know the inbetween
*** is a flame,
Still tamed
Perfect doll patiently coaxing
It's a hoax,
Attention you spent
A rotted scarred, heart
Depiction of the girl who giggles and says yes
She died when she was thirteen
Along with her virginity
May 7, 2016
May 7, 2016 at 3:12 PM UTC
"Oh tell me once and tell me twice
And tell me thrice to make it plain,
When we who part this weary day,
When we who part shall meet again."
"When windflowers blossom on the sea
And fishes skim along the plain,
Then we who part this weary day,
Then you and I shall meet again."
"Yet tell me once before we part,
Why need we part who part in pain?
If flowers must blossom on the sea,
Why, we shall never meet again.
"My cheeks are paler than a rose,
My tears are salter than the main,
My heart is like a lump of ice
If we must never meet again."
"Oh weep or laugh, but let me be,
And live or die, for all's in vain;
For life's in vain since we must part,
And parting must not meet again
"Till windflowers blossom on the sea,
And fishes skim along the plain;
Pale rose of roses let me be,
Your breaking heart breaks mine again."
3.6k