"slivering" poems
Listen to the slivering paths of the Autumn breeze
The coming velvety skies drenched in ink reflecting silver stars
Wave goodbyes to the elusive flawed brown stone with pensive eyes
A heart will gasp years ahead for callousness past shown now in tears
Remember those golden sunsets for now woeful days are never azure
Watery eyes and wrinkled mask lament a time you could have shared
A King's ransom at your feet twined with an honest heart assured
Hear the whisperings of the mockingbirds and muted cold choruses
Rainbow starlights betrays pots of gold hidden never to be found
Maidens dance retro and the harpist pluck for painters with brushes
By sunkissed shores blends of contrasts joyous in customary ponds
Smiles pure from honeyed caves same when as waxed spears plunges
Save me a place in the delights of Troy and tell Helen to send a sound
Bring me home to peace and love, rescue me from lions in golden cages
[email protected].
Sep 18, 2018
Sep 18, 2018 at 11:09 PM UTC
Hand softly against your cheek.
Lips pressed to your ear.
The whisper drifts into your consciousness, almost inaudible.
It's a request. A wish. A desire. A quench for passion.
The words tickle your canal as they enter.
The hairs on the back of your neck stand up tall.
The speaker does not own these words but rather they own you.
Captivating, filled with desire, a yearning, wanting more.
As they trickle in, you process the slivering snakelike progression of words that just met your ear.
"Kiss me."
The very word "kiss" can set you on fire.
There's something about the word.
The way it's sharp and bold in the beginning...
Yet...electrifying at the end.
It is drawn out, poetic, tongue tying.
If you close your eyes, you can almost envision getting lost in the letters.
First, there's the K.
That crisp, clean K that is proud yet does not boast.
That K cuts like a knife, no not a knife, a kite, it cuts like a kite, soaring high into the sky. Never planning on coming down.
Then, you've got the I.
It stands tall but it's shy and sandwiched in the middle.
It cowers from the past and even more fearful of what is to come.
It is elusive, slightly **** coy, perhaps even unattainable.
Then you've got the electrifying, alliterative "ss."
Almost as if you're not ready for the word to end, holding, dare I say, clinging onto those last precious letters, dragging out every last sound.
Every last breath has come to this.
"Kiss."
It comes and then goes before you can say it.
Fearful of missing it.
You hang onto that "S" for it is the last thing that ties you to this.
Kiss. Kiss. Kiss.
Once you've said it, never stop saying it.
Kiss Kiss Kiss.
All good things, though, must go. Then the time comes to let it be.
So then you say,"Kiss me."
Apr 1, 2014
Apr 1, 2014 at 11:26 PM UTC
stand(ing) here alone in the dark
like a head of tack pirouetting away
to no music - only acrid scruple
of this being with and not being with,
one is always alone.
space occupies the potteries in
the garden as a steady arm of light
stills in its mouth, a flowering dark.
it is only 3 o'clock in the morning
and the heat clambers the wall of
the vacuously atrabilious moment
of just plainly existing. the slender
harlequin of moon, like an old lover
having its own way with me, a child's
yelp coming home — the hermetic
air crushing the light, slivering it
revealing all the ensconced phantasms
too commonplace like a fork in the road
that i know, or the wayward metropolitan
that teems with a concatenation of roads
and gutters bilious with the squall of day.
a figure moves entering a warm miasma,
receiving the star of aloneness,
vacillating between
place and placelessness
telling this originary of repossessing
the moon with a hand in my hand,
pressing a question of where
have you been all the raging while.
Oct 8, 2015
Oct 8, 2015 at 3:52 PM UTC
The way he held me
How his eyes sparked
When met with mine
My god it threw me
Into a hope
Consuming
But hope is tricky
And slippery
And devouring reason
Committing treason
For a season
Then returning
In the yearning
Of the glance
From a new boy
From a new romance
****
Phases of the moon
Of the heart
A slivering slice of a crescent
The
Oh dear god
HOPE
Of a new start
LOL.
Just kidding
This new moon
And this new thing
Can’t be seen
In the dark of night
In my limited sight
Black-on-black
It’s all just the same ****
Right?
No way, baby!
Call it a maybe!
Call it a feather
In your hat
On your wing
Just fly into the horizon
Of the hope
Of this new thing
Until the arrow
Of the truth
Enters the marrow
Of your VIP booth
This is not cool
This is ruth…
Listen to me
You idiot
You fool
Remember boy one
Who held you
And flew too close to the sun
He burned you to ash
Then said “goodbye forever
I’m done”
Well, **** me up
That was fun
Then boy two
Who shoved you
Into the abyss
Wait...I’d be remiss
Not to mention
All of that ****** tension
Simmering
Steaming
Boiling
And Gleaming
Like the rays of the moon
Is she full yet?
Nah, it’s too soon
She’s still hiding
In the newness
Of nothing
Of black-on-black
Call me out
I lack a back
Bone to hold up
Any more hope
It’s all rotting now
In bed all day
Jotting down
Memories as if they will save me
Wow.
Okay.
Less saving
Instead
Evaporate me
Into the ether
Into the sun
Into the moon
The end seems far away
So I’ll just bide time
In my cocoon
Dreaming of the day
When she will bloom
Into her fullness
Picturesque
Over the crescent
Of a dune
Aug 26, 2022
Aug 26, 2022 at 8:54 AM UTC
you sear me
a match burning slowly down to its tip
hands like thundershock on bare skin
caressing progressing movements
near grey eyes
goosebumps
shivering
slivering
sliding
grab me by my white cotton shirt
fistfuls of unspeakable passion
I fall deeply
serenity found
on your concrete chest
Apr 12, 2021
Apr 12, 2021 at 9:39 PM UTC
called me in for a consultation,
“*lean in,” he suggested, with nearly closed eyes,
“see the youthful optimistic predecessor,
the conqueror, who could not be defeated,
his thin images within still resides
the man of firm voice who when he spoke
above the rabble, all fell silent, and when he looked,
all could share his visionary insights and did not hesitate,
saying, we will do and we will listen,
but to follow, just did, wrapped
in your confidence
I want that boy back, smooth skinned, fearless,
do not return him till the shadows have dissipated,
the bruised lines of worry have evaporated,
the hands look unscathed, then raise them in
self-supplication, demanding satisfaction,
then in success, born overhead, marking appreciation,
let us adventure forth, straightening tilting windmills,
punishing renegades and dragons fearful,
saving damsels who waited just for our arrival,
shedding courage upon those who watch us,
cheering and being cheerful
here is your mighty pen,
cut sharp the poems out from the within,
read them slow, winding to now crooked old friends,
who remember everything dear, their youth of no fear,
the best of past, dreaming poems, mist born, fog vapor gone,
of black and waiting white, worthy words all revived
return to me in blazes,
sumptuous colors of derring-do,
I need that child brave, for perhaps
you have not noticed my flaking slivering skin,
the expanding cracks that cross my images,
just like you!
I need you to rebirth you,
I need you to rebirth me!*”
Aug 16, 2019
Aug 16, 2019 at 7:35 PM UTC
I am alone. I am.
The sounds are not naked
Scratchings from outside;
No soft paws scurry in the attic;
The floors beyond are tiled;
The stairs carpeted;
The hinges like cloth;
The curtains drawn against shade;
The phone doesn't ring to vacant voices;
Half-burnt candles would burn
In the whosh of a hallway.
And yet,
I hear you breathe,
Hear the rustle of sleeves;
A light slivering beneath the door.
And I am
Alone.
Apr 6, 2015
Apr 6, 2015 at 12:51 PM UTC
slivering smoke
sinking down my throat
sends satisfying shivers
up my spine.
lurking, living
spirals making me
alive with a lightheaded high
creeping behind
my glassy eyes.
your velvet finger's
soft trails linger
deeper than my skin
could let you touch.
it makes me want to save my breath;
to know your kiss
is waiting at the other end.
choices flowing at my feet
i find myself wandering
in a muddy river bend.
i could choose
to make you
my silent surrender
to my ending hunger
of the comfort
you provide.
or i could mess up again
just get addicted
to the way you smile
because of mine
and the way
you send shivers
up my spine.
spinning smoke
exhaled with a jolt
a cough, a sneeze
a retch, i feel
the weak need
to sit down.
a.r.h
Aug 20, 2014
Aug 20, 2014 at 9:48 PM UTC
bitter winds bite
a desperate heart
as early darkness
unsheathes winter's
slivering moon
the perfect
celestial sickle
threatens to thresh
exposed digits
wayward trundlers
heaving bulky
sacks of woe
scutter down
the city's
darkest
side streets
making haste
to the only
lighted room
that still
welcomes them
cots boast
lumpy clots
of errant springs
and jagged hooks
grappling the lodger
atop a mattress
in bumpy knots of
institutional green
coughs and snores
cusses and laughter
sighs and tears
all ceaseless
prayers
some mumbled
some shouted
some thought
some roared
some farted
some cried
some sung
speaking mutely of
the weighty day
resenting new
hard memories
hoping for a
dreamless sleep
Friends Shelter
NYC
12/31/08
jbm
Music Selection: Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers: Moanin
Dec 1, 2011
Dec 1, 2011 at 9:51 PM UTC
unendurable, long and exhausting
are the pains
presumptuous like appeals
from a jaded pulpit
such as they are, are powerless
a passage from a discarded tract
such are these pernicious pains
that swarm in a slivering hiss
upon dark and lurking shadows
aesthetically applauding themselves
as they push here and there
in their wounding commentary
of painful narrative
agonising enough to reduce
the soul to debilitating bouts
of disagreeably damaging experience
with startling exaggerations
that produce disgraceful extortions
upon mind and body
squandering unbearable isolations
fragmenting the cracks
in a delicate structure of personality
uprooting it from a sanctified paradise
providing instead a monstrous, shameful loathing
that makes one choose to become another
other than those unthinking
other than this misery of anguish
other than this pain
deliberately to provoke an anger
the other with ingratiating timidity
or rebellious defiance
favours a rejection of
all resentful obligations
all that is distasteful
all that is not worth carrying out
such as with a contempt
that allows one to escape into an emptiness
of the ridiculous and the impossible
through thoughts to an absurdity of beliefs
through the deserted streets
the neighbourhoods of the lie
pass the filthy inadequacies
of obscene caresses
where one is mocked
by exquisitely satisfying ******
of vicious pains
pains that control behaviour
freedom of movement
time and space
who appear at the corners of the mouth
where lurk sarcastic secrets
now I know in these horrors and torments
that time has stopped in all dimensions
eternity has ceased
May 8, 2014
May 8, 2014 at 2:18 PM UTC
unendurable, long and exhausting
are the pains
presumptuous in their plenty
such are these pernicious pains
that swarm in a slivering hiss
upon dark and lurking shadows
aesthetically applauding themselves
as they push here and there
in their wounding commentary
of painful narrative
agonising enough to reduce
the soul to debilitating bouts
of disagreeably damaging experience
with startling exaggerations
that produce disgraceful extortions
upon mind and body
squandering unbearable isolations
fragmenting the cracks
in a delicate structure of personality
uprooting it from a sanctified paradise
providing instead a monstrous, shameful loathing
that makes one choose to become another
other than those unthinking
other than this misery of anguish
other than this pain
deliberately to provoke an anger
the other with ingratiating timidity
or rebellious defiance
favouring a rejection of
all resentful obligations
all that is distasteful
all that is not worth carrying out
such as with a contempt
that allows one to escape into an emptiness
of the ridiculous and the impossible
through thoughts to an absurdity of beliefs
through the deserted streets
the neighbourhoods of the lie
pass the filthy inadequacies
of obscene caresses
where one is mocked
by exquisitely satisfying ******
of vicious pains
pains that control behaviour
freedom of movement
time and space
who appear at corners of the mouth
where lurk sarcastic secrets
now I know in these horrors and torments
that time has stopped in all dimensions
eternity has ceased
Apr 19, 2015
Apr 19, 2015 at 5:32 PM UTC
Slivering through the star-covered sky,
Crazing down at you in your sleep,
Telling it's story,
As it's supposed to go,
Hogging your fate,
Otherwise,
Sharing your destiny,
Like you don't exist completely,
Nobody knows your secrets,
But everyone knows your future,
Let the shining moon tell you your flying
Stars.
Jan 19, 2011
Jan 19, 2011 at 5:03 PM UTC
And the forest was silent again…
Splintering shadows creep slowly
across the overgrown footpath
frantic fingers slivering in sinister shapes
Slumbering moon beams cloaked,
abaft of a stately oaken veil,
a canopied thorn and branch woven tapestry
Wallowed whispers cling to cavernous winds
pushing chinaberry stalkers deep
under the cover of moss coated roots
When suddenly…
Underbrush fantasies flourish
behind vine wreathed curtains,
on fallen leaf stages of assorted colors
Foot light fireflies trim the edges
in panoramic illuminations,
flickering to tickle every fancy
Fairies perform pirouettes on tippy toes
Glistening wings flutter, shimmering to the
melodic sounds of hedgehog harmonies
As bullfrog baritones and spider web sopranos,
sing the sweetest songs in the key of autumn
bringing smiles to all of the creatures in attendance
When suddenly…
Far away on the eastern horizon
the faintest specklings of amber appear
slipping through the densest drapes
A great horned owl yawns and blinks,
gazing eyes follow the turning head
as he surveys another day in his life
Sounds of scurrying, bristled brush
echo through now glowing limbs
signaling the end of the evening
And the forest is silent again…
Oct 2, 2014
Oct 2, 2014 at 7:38 AM UTC
Death is a dark, cold, house full of malice.
Surrounded by a garden of dead flowers and trees with a deadly disease
With black leaves covering the hateful lawn.
It is the darkest place I've ever seen.
I hear things, snakes, spiders, slivering in the ground
I want to turn away but something keeps me tempted into this scene.
So I keep walking in the twisting darkness, a faint whisper of cold air blowing.
The leaves rustle beneath my feet, swirling in the wind and bleeding on my clothes.
The damp air has turned my tears to ice and the black memories of my past
are now drawn about my shoulders.
I close my eyes.
When I open my eyes I gasp in horror at what is before me in this house of loath.
The room is lightened with red broken hearts.
I am surrounded by bodies with empty eyes
the smell of alcohol and stale cigarette smoke is overwhelming.
It is too much to bear, but as I stare into the darkness,
I force myself to face the darkness inside myself.
I sink down to my knees and sob big, heart wrenching, horrible sobs that shake my entire body. I feel bile rising up into my throat and I ***** until my stomach is as empty as my heart and soul.
Eyes tired
Mouth dry
Heart beats
Death she cries
No emotion
No devotion
No creation
Dead inside
Sweet silent sleep
Awake no more
Bless her heart
Death she greets
Oct 1, 2013
Oct 1, 2013 at 11:40 PM UTC
In these days of past,
contemplation and unease have consumed my anxious mind.
My puzzled heart at the base of such reflection, stirs.
Confused, bewildered, bemused.
With the pain of the past slivering my hearts now thickened hide, aches to be held.
In your hands I wonder, can I let go of yesterday?
In your hands will my heart be kept?
In your eyes I see loves yearning for itself,
reflecting your caring heart and child like soul; in your eyes I see happiness, contentment.
In your eyes I see my loves love for me.
Still this befuddled being seeks loves reply to pains of past.
I look to you with hope filled eyes.
Your innocent smile, your love filled gaze.
With but a whisper from my loves lips,
loves promise.
Armor falls to flesh and my loves love sets me free.
In your hands my heart will always be.
Feb 14, 2011
Feb 14, 2011 at 7:06 AM UTC
I was supposed to marry you
Supposed to help you
Supposed to aid you, cure you,
Carry you
Instead I watch you from afar
Watch you through computer-screen sickness
Watch you through pussy-madness
Watch you through whiskey-gladness
Watch you through oblivion's sadness
And while you falter in life but not me
I mend your clothes
I sell your merch
I feed your slaves
I feel your worth
All while you falter in life but not me
The years pass by
Like slivering scales
And I'm still in your palm
Tiny ***** limp with slavery's tails
It's only my reflection I fear
A reflection I fear when you're in the room
God-speed to all the times you are and were
God-speed to all those nickel-days
A lifetime of being invisible
You hold what I crave
Mirror image
You falter in life but not me
Nov 25, 2011
Nov 25, 2011 at 8:00 PM UTC
i have not felt for some time now,
my barricading skills are better than i’d like to admit,
and i cannot remember the last time i stepped outside of them.
i misunderstand the difference between conquering, and suffering
because in one,
you win,
and in the other,
well,
it is easy to be swarmed with grief.
i wore grief like a badge.
but in both,
to conquer you must suffer first in order to know what you are fighting for.
i have yielded nothing but emptiness in my hands as others swung their daggers and swords
scraping my surface as prologue,
then finally slivering down to my bone as epilogue.
but my story is not over,
my barricades are crumbling stone by stone
and maybe my sun will shine again,
but i am a force to be reckoned with because queens will conquer,
and my legacy is just beginning.
Mar 8, 2018
Mar 8, 2018 at 12:15 AM UTC
Once we ran with freedom
Our hearts floating in the sky.
Love fell abundantly.
Drenching you and I.
Boom!
A selfish thunderburst...
Lightning on the scape.
Our love once bedewed...
Gone without a trace.
Sunshine can't conceal...
My swollen cirrius pain.
Nor the slicing breezes...
Slivering the rain.
Life devoid of nature.
Sunbeams lack the reach.
Indoors.
Life in a tiny cell.
Reinforced with steel.
Heavy dungeon door.
Bars made out of tears.
Melodramatic dreams.
Stir an exotic drink.
Making love on my cot.
Beside the stainless sink.
Life without parole.
Without your tender touch.
Love in the first degree.
Now I never see you much.
Will you visit me?
You are my lonely prison...
My emotional cocoon.
Your love a distant thunderburst...
Far beyond the moon.
You are the pin-up girl...
Pasted on my wall.
You are my prison warden...
Life's not fair at all.
Jun 14, 2018
Jun 14, 2018 at 6:48 PM UTC
I was born –
The horizon leaked me, a slivering line
Choking the azure, circling the Sun
Bleeding light
From his corner,
Colours poured forth: meat pink and red wine
From melted spectres. A solar-shunned
Final fight
I rejoiced
In the silence of it all – the glorious quiet
Of black void, of absence, of the dark
Dark night
Though angels voiced
To souls through holes, singing disquiet
Using stars as windows to mark
Constant sight,
I ignored the heavens.
With a slowly blinking eye
I, Night, moved above the sublunary
Displaying a Borealis here or there
Singing my silence in frosty airs
Living on shadows, breathing earth
I ignored the heavens.
My death arrived
With supple sparks of changing tones
In the fabric of my widowed veil
Sun woke up, made dust to bones
And sliced my sky with a fire sail
I disappeared, let him reign
Over and over and over again.
Oct 16, 2013
Oct 16, 2013 at 6:32 PM UTC
Take wanting for, abandon – and then one will begin.
Who is approaching close enough to devise an entrapment
will not see image clearly: him, as he will offer you a face
and a hand to desolate – put a lacking so you can flinch,
and a hand to brace you from it. Prophesying that a body
and another body cannot be singular. To hypothesize
an effort as a sharp encounter. To be given the world
to know its limits when a border has been reached,
to slowly unravel a form and a shape from the scope
of its representative and bend a spoken dismissal precisely
to generate content. To take wanting for, abandon then,
so you can begin to reserve a function for the body to elope
with and thin into an arbitrary.
So when you begin from an instruction, reshape a simulation
so your actual body could hold you in for your yearning –
to begin again, so you can abandon a want to remember how
slivering a house is when two cannot be one and does not admit
it so to be true – facing each morning delighted the walls
each moment when together to untangle, meeting, surprised
that we have still become remainders.
Jun 4, 2016
Jun 4, 2016 at 6:28 AM UTC
gentle lines surround the lips
crows feet corner the eyes
sliver hairs over come fake dye
forehead dotted with sun spots
growing old
keep it that way
be proud that you made it
you got to get wrinkles
living didn't **** you
embrace your slivering hair
crows feet make your eyes stand out
sliver hair sparkles in the sun
sun spots show you have lived
you did it
you grew old!
C:
Jun 9, 2013
Jun 9, 2013 at 9:24 PM UTC
His hands were like snakes
slivering up my back
his voice was like ice
as cold as it could get
his breath was like a bottle of whiskey
a sickling smell to the air
his eyes pierced into me
like i was his belonging
like i was a library book
like i was his pencil
like i was his girlfriend
i was never his to keep
i was his little puppet
i was his secret,a secret that died with him
Aug 22, 2015
Aug 22, 2015 at 12:59 PM UTC
cast death to who hears it most reverberating.
he hears it at noon, at sundown, at the
raising light of moon, half-mast set
glaringly through a pond of the word.
he hears it goad through the synagogue,
the pew, the assault of avian,
in the most chilling cold, in the ferocious
water of heat sinking ships to
their metallic deaths.
he heeds it now, fencing thick air
attended by the densest shadow,
he moves with it, its compelling invitation
from darkness to darkness, the faith
of contrition fizzles into the splintered hour, moves with it, moved by it;
he writes, tottering animal of furious wording; the hill there yonder draped
by heavy cloud, rinsed by rain salting
its *******
cast death to who feels it most sensuously.
he opens his eyes and darkness is infinite.
he opens the window and no light
lifts, awakens.
these juxtaposition of roads, the feasting
of the lamppost, feeding the wick with
infinitesimal flame, quickening the twinight, the courtyard, the amble of strange populace.
he words the earthenware, the figment of deepest abstract, says her name,
Martina, he has her gone in
the ashen hour, the wind that once blew
spruced stillicide on the roof of this home has dithered away in the inexorable.
he squints to inconsolable brightness
Martina sheds trembling in her
eyes ready for ever now,
and then writes as time trickles from
the ephemeral gush of spigot,
slivering the horizon by the unending stream of the familiar dawn, repeats its hymn, beheading the garden.
he will not name the end of all,
he will not count the hours dead
wearing the hand like a glove,
a word from stiff dark to flagrant one:
cast death upon him who knows not.
Oct 19, 2015
Oct 19, 2015 at 4:29 AM UTC
Quick-slivering gardens attune to faultering apples.
Apr 19, 2015
Apr 19, 2015 at 9:01 PM UTC