"smithereens" poems
Whirlpool of whirling quaint
Inequality brewing in the
Winepress of smithereens
Fragile polity.
Voices of weariness cried
Out from the wasteyard of
Waste for succour,
Pointing fingers of
Recrimination towards
The abyss of drouth ,
Entangled in conflicts
Of interest.
Winds of improvised emblem
Bearing hunchback of
Woes,
Raising hands from the
Drowning deep sea
For rescue like
A dejected beautiful
Vigaro in a
Turbulent ocean of quarrel
With her spouse.
Whereas reddish fluids of life
Runs across the same veins
And arteries of haves
And haves-not but
Cottage of interests
Hoisting avalanche of
Rainbow-coloured flags
Standing aloof on the
Pole of misrule,
Demarcating their interests.
No accommodation for wants
In the corridor of affluence.
Wants on a trade mission
With wealthy but caged in
The confinement of wealth.
Winds of inequality blew
Whirler of wants into
The marrow of the
Haves-not.
Rains of inequality passing
Through a lockage of lack
Into the improvised,
Doling-out poverty to
Gain the control of
Wealth.
Alas! Blindness sees inner
Vision of darkness from
The households of political
lamia.
Alas! Deafness hears
Discordant vague voices
Of failure from the forest
of frustration.
Alas! Dumbness speaks
Language of gnomes out
Of the vale of forgotten
treasures.
Alas! A four year tenancy
turning into decades
of challenges.
But we shall revive our hope
and raise our voices
tomorrow.
Feb 22, 2019
Feb 22, 2019 at 8:19 AM UTC
Civilized life is rigged, O land-dwellers!
With landmines hidden
in trails of Society's doctrine,
'Too often is it stepped on,
Too often does it explode.'
Blowing constitutions to smithereens,
Where you then rummage within your nucleus
to piece together your scattered jigsaw,
Misplacing your natural elements,
Overcasting your ability to side with beauteous aspects in simplicity—
Of those ethereal-resplendent butterflies.
Disillusioned on land thus is you (the complex you).
Let go—
Rise above your materialistic graves—
Walk on air!
My kindred wisps
Walk on air!
Aug 19, 2018
Aug 19, 2018 at 4:56 AM UTC
Funny how Someone can
Asunder a heart of thine
And thou still dost adore them
With all thy riven smithereens
My love, please come to me,
In my life thou dost linger
A love from my sweet past
That beamed than many a star
My love, long have I endured
A heart sundered by love
Though wherever I wander
Thy sweet love I still dost crave.
Oh my love, come back to me
So we may pick these riven pieces
That like sea waters scattered be
And I'll smoother thee with kisses
Together we'll never sunder
For my love will be thy love
Beaming so bright forevermore
As thy love will be my love
Blissfully we'll dwell ever after
Like twinkling stars in galaxies
With our enchanted passion
Effulgently lingering in perpetuity.
Jul 23, 2015
Jul 23, 2015 at 2:14 PM UTC
all my life
ive only thought of one thing
YOU
you are why i got an education
why i tried so hard to make beautiful things with my hands
why i got dressed up
why i learned to sing
and dance
why i never stopped trying to make a living
why i always went to the gym
and worked out to be diamond hard
why i was polite or inconsolable
why i ran seven miles a day
why i tried to be charming
why i could never stop playing with myself
why i got through james joyce
why i learned
conversational hypnosis
neuro linguistics
magick
and
witch
craft
to invoke a spell
that would compel
YOU
to dance
the wiggle wiggle
naked
from hot rhythms
and slow melodic
sways
as i prayed
burning
blood red candles
during the darkest moon
for adorations
with endless masturbations
to your beautiful *** and feet
for tender red lipped mercies
kisses kisses kisses
because
you are beauty piqued
from your golden angelic head
soft silken hair
to your sweet pink arched feet
and twinkling painted toes
magnetized
to yank my eyes
and be your
**** boy *** toy
my goddess glitter ****
queen of heaven
all paradise any man needs
BUT
sometimes i couldn't have
YOU
and
it velvet crushed me
taught me hopelessness
broke my will
gave me fear
made me cry
and shiver inside
tore my heart to smithereens
twisted my in-nerds
like jagged metal
melting me
as i spiraled
down
into madness
all burning veins of fire
until inferiority dragged deep
suffocating me
shuddery
like
winters
midnight freeze
and howling winds
through
hollow desolations
marrow-less
bones
Feb 4, 2017
Feb 4, 2017 at 1:25 PM UTC
.
Lear wanders in stormy open, bares warring elements,
The heavens blister, crackle, night is balmy shroud,
Wretched monarch babbles in sprinkles of wind cold,
Arguments lost by ones own pouring perturbations
And raining sky said 'nothing will come from nothing.'
Howl, howls into blackness treed in lightning splits,
His outcast soul, reels, fleshed, cut to smithereens,
Tang of salt burns on the bluffs and the sea rages,
So entire and ceremonious is Lear's fall meted out,
Air spoke, 'nothing from nothings ever yet was born.'
Sky proclaimed to man child King, here is a reckoning,
Each mad choice was self infliction, now wind flays
And sweet Cordelia lies in her innocent **** grave,
Sky, in thralls of thundering asks, 'what say thee now,
King of highborn follies, even purple heaths are rags,
Yet black and above you and night shades, whine,
Unworthy King, done in by compounded effects,
The might of maelstroms in low butterflies wings,
How now, bare trees, knifing reeds, skeletal flashes,
To rains of night are ever your lanyards my lord,'
Sad Lear so near oblivion fell mute, sky went on,
'Howl and cry mad King your reaper calls beyond,
The icy brisk heavens await to brusque you away,
Your slipshod kingdom was mere and fools' dream,
Howl, til howls abrupt abate, for nothing now comes.'
May 27, 2015
May 27, 2015 at 10:10 PM UTC
Alexander K Opicho
(Eldoret, Kenya;[email protected])
Daughters,sisters and brethren in the African womenfolk
Hail you, you are blessed among all the diversities of nature
You are blessed for all peace and love beahviour in all of your times
You are blessed for resilience and spiritual energy to soldier on
By being a woman,wife,a girl , a mother and a grand mother
In the African conditions which have no time for the women,
Daughters of Africa both at home in Africa and the diaspora
In Americas , Cuba,Brazil,or the whole Caribbean
Be blessed for your virtue of love and forgiveness
That swells your hearts as you ever treat to oblivion
Those who **** you whether in war or in peace
Even in marriage and the the offices
On the platter of polygamy, rituals and crudeness of culture
In the selfish farm labour where your spouse
Gives you a remote encounter with brutality of bourgeoisie culture
You always pick up the pieces and go for your stitches
Whatsoever the number, like the appalling one
Of above six stitches for the **** victims of Congo wars,
You have always consolidated poor Africa from
Smithereens of war and terrors of selfish male war,
You have often mocked the cult of dictatorship on its face
You have enticed social inclusions as societal virtue
You have snooked to tribalism,racism and class bigotry on the face
Them the cultic vices that have cemented Africa’s cult of dictatorship,
Daughters of Africa stand up and make Africa the a temple of God
Entice humanity with your wholesome fibre
Restore Liberia to a national state in the song of Sirleaf
Restore central Africa to a national family in the song Catherine
Restore art and poetry to Africa in the arms with Marriama Ba and Micere Mugo
Sire and Nurse African ecology unbowedly in the spiritual realm of Wangare Mathai
Restore and forge Africa forward you dear daughters
For the strength of your beauty my dear ladies
Has a global testimony in the prime of your motherhood.
Jan 29, 2014
Jan 29, 2014 at 9:10 AM UTC
Sweet Earth, each molecule of me has come from you.
Sesame seed, broken into amino acids and calcium,
became my tiny bones; bananas, potassium,
the cells of my brain.
If we could trace each atom back, we'd find
Kansas, Iowa, Ecuador, Spain.
And further still, through unimaginable millennia,
these same atoms --the very same-- were flung from a supernova,
only to recombine, here, on Earth.
"Of star-stuff, are we made." Carl Sagan said.
And then (when I'm dead)
the same in reverse:
the atoms' slow dispersal:
pulled in by roots, washed by rivers, melted in magma,
blown, finally, to smithereens by the exploding sun....
Star-stuff, once again, become.
Aug 1, 2017
Aug 1, 2017 at 2:33 PM UTC
1
**My dad suddenly walks in,
as if nothing has happened,
and he hasn't gone anywhere, leaving
six of us behind, notwithstanding-
all these years of absence and
pain unimaginable that changed us all
to see life in a new light that gets dim
without the lamp he held in front of us.
A shadow transparent gets in to the room,
he stands near mom sitting inside her cocoon,
lost in an ancient evening, pensive, forlorn
as if she feels an absence, tangible right there.
Dad's absence stands silent, perhaps
curiously looking at her with loving eyes
that's how he was, after a period of absence.
The pantomime, tears my sense of reality
in to shreds, I sit upright,
with my hands pressed against my palpitating heart.
Do I see it really or hallucinate him looking,
wistfully at the coconut groves dancing
beyond the extending rice paddy billowing,
in front of our farm yard, sleepy these days,
for a moment I think time has
taken liberty to flow back
and everything is right there
where we'd love it to be.
2
The absence was a hollow,
in the middle of everything,
breaking the mirror of reality
in to smithereens, the dark space,
in between sprang-
opening its mouth to swallow,
wherever one turned,
it stood in front defiantly,
posing a challenge at times,
it came behind hollering noiselessly,
bringing unbearable memories,
from moments hard to forget
spent in his company,
in my palmy days of yore.
3
Absence was fire within,
that needs no fuel to burn,
flood waters without a source,
that can wash away,
till one becomes nothing;
then little by little,
one comes in to terms with the absence
and at last it too is laid to rest,
and that eats a part of the soul,
causing bleeding in slushy green,
transparent white and blobs of sad black.**
Jan 17, 2014
Jan 17, 2014 at 8:11 AM UTC
*I gave her the permission to uproot you whole from my Heart, however painful, however unfair it feels
because I believe I've waited enough...
I've waited until I've reached the end of my patience
where holding on is no longer a valid option...
I love you so much but sometimes true love is just knowing
when to let go,when however firm one grips to the past,
nothing changes and nothing ever will...
I gave her a go ahead to pluck the memories leaf by leaf
from the wonderful hello to the sour goodbye,
it isn't an easy process and I'm only going through it
because dreaming of us together is telling myself a lie...
I once preferred (to living without you) rather to die
and picturing back to those times makes me want to cry
I have to forget you...
I've allowed her to cut the logs of hope right from the root system
so that whatever I feel for you should whither instead of bloom..
I've charged her with nursing my wounds till they are cured
and collecting the smithereens you left behind
I've implored her to bear with me till the raw and tender love
I feel for her has matured,till the memories of you have disappeared
It's really hard on her...it's killing her, it's written on her face
how difficult it is to fill the emptiness in this place
to heal the wounds, to warm the cold and stitch the cuts
she's trying to submerge it but through her smile
I can see the melancholy and how much it actually hurts
that's why I'm sure she's willing to go an extra mile...
she's blistered and really hurting but most of all
she's cutting and cutting and cutting...
because I gave her the duty to complete our parting.*
May 5, 2016
May 5, 2016 at 9:09 AM UTC
Mother thinks that because she’s seen the tip of the ice burg,
She knows whats beneath me
Mother thinks that because she’s seen me hold myself together,
She knows that I’m strong
Mother thinks that because she makes me smile,
She knows how to fix me
Mother thinks that because I laugh,
I’m happy again
Mother,
Tell me how you know all of these things when you’ve seen nothing but
The shadow of myself I mask to keep you happy
Tell me why everything I touch turns to smithereens,
When I’m trying to hold it all together
Mother,
I’m holding it together for you,
But I just don’t know ******* how
Apr 27, 2015
Apr 27, 2015 at 4:55 PM UTC
I like to do those quizzes
in glossy bubbles that you
find
in Cosmopolitan and
Elle and
Seventeen.
Which girl should I be?
Should I
dump paper flowers
on my milkmaid braid?
Long skirts, long chains, and
Beatles on my radio
during their ‘Indian’ phase?
Should I
paint it all
black, strip life down to
a middle finger,
blare punk at full
scream,
and cram my toes in ratty Docs,
smash all emotion
into smithereens?
Should I
sugar-coat my mouth with
Maybelline, button up
collars, laughs, opinions,
read books on behaving
just like a
daydream,
sip teas, bake cookies, aim for
Ivy Leagues?
Which gilded box do I crawl
into?
Which skin to don
this week?
Which fashion editor-friendly
stereotype to fulfil?
Which girl should I be?
Apr 30, 2015
Apr 30, 2015 at 3:24 PM UTC
War of the worlds,
men bartering money
Dollar bills left abandoned,
blown to smithereens
Battling dusts of torment,
acceptance of surrender
Waging a money war,
business men flee
In the shadows rises,
a fallen angel
Akin to a phoenix,
from the ashes
She symbolizes a renewal,
dying in fires
Sparks burning a nest,
immortality supplying coffins
Diabolical legacies of past,
bow & arrow
Punctured wounding broken heart,
wings disallow flight
Stumbling a splintered hip,
reborn a chance
Of independent determined autonomy,
la Cuesta Encantada
Fallen at the gates,
an enchanted hill
San Simeon seeking redemption,
death awaits her
Carrying body & soul,
Santa María Maggiore
Of Roman baroque temples,
small cascading pools
Death releases her body,
the Neptune pool
She floats without dissension,
sinking in grace
In all her glory,
Hearst Castle will
Entomb body & soul,
memories of her
release release release
Absolution.
© Sia Jane
Apr 2, 2014
Apr 2, 2014 at 12:12 PM UTC
Behind the smiling faces
Written, a poignant story
Hearts lay there in smithereens
Still unable to find the pieces
Lost forever in the crevices
Moments frozen in the past
Feelings wrapped in a bubble
Smothered and relegated
To the corridors of oblivion
Yet, the spirits are unbound
No chains can hold their energy
Fighting a vicious battle
To overcome the defeats
The smiling faces
Spread happiness and positivity
So others can find solace
And find the courage to fight
Smiling faces are beacons of hope
They tell a courageous story
When you are willing to listen
Dec 20, 2014
Dec 20, 2014 at 9:20 AM UTC
it's looking into the horror-filled eyes of a four year old girl
holding her shaking hands
as she watches her father, her mother
blown to smithereens
it's the family of five
reduced to three
it's the grandmother of fifteen, who is over filled with love
now that she only has six to share it between
it's the cousins, brothers, aunts
packed into a tiny sail boat
who are we to deny the happiness of those who don't think they'll ever be happy again?
who are we to turn away the freedom of people who believe they will never be freed?
Sep 13, 2015
Sep 13, 2015 at 9:33 AM UTC
choo choo
next stop.....perdition
(no, not really...no-one believes this Stygian opacity)
1.
look how Time doth ravage thee
look what it did to thy visage
in smithereens, lies youth
it so artfully takes away
what is held so dear
rivers and streams
valleys and hills
arching to ecstatic heights
plunging to abysmal lows
into the ravine of chance
stirred by the spoon of Time
slowly around the cauldron
brews the self-same mixture
then poured into chasms of forgetfulness
using the eternal sledgehammer
it
smashes the foundation of thought
grinds the nutmeg of speed
pulps the fruit of mentality
slows the pulse of sensation
and pardons none.
2.
what was once sensuous and voluptuous lips
now are merely two dry slits on your face
once stared-into eyeballs, now glass over
vitreous cataracts steadily grow, weed-like
toned into lithe elastic bands now stretch
away into forever, a pale platform to walk on
life's morn is encompassed by years' slanting
clouded and bedimmed by mists of age
butterfly's existence outweighs a man's
by mere night-veiled windowpane of true sight
draw the curtains; close the shutters; screen the eyes
the time has come to shed all blinkers and face the sun.
3.
crimp
sag
limp
drag
mud cracks down a dipping dale
scalding pain sears sore half-foot
yes, time is but a disease
ravaging all
without fear or favour
sunken eyes
slower reflexes
tardier mind
scraggly body
hides not
condescends not
forgets not
the glimmer of ....
a time of ...
4.
cathedral invites the walker in
cool and calm recesses
sit silent
wait....
then they walk in, carrying
one who had but a lucky half-score lot
clear soprano note becomes a rudderless bleat
announcing the folly of stifling ego
now shorn of burning frost of circuitous fervour
beams of mercy cast a final look-see
jump the barriers of
time
to
carry thee off.
pipe organ-stops are pulled out
(art thee ready? platform number 5)
S T, 9 May 2013
May 9, 2013
May 9, 2013 at 9:24 AM UTC
Two people lurk in everyone
the star and the scar
born from building high citadels of power
and cascading into smithereens
when the switch is tripped.
Maybe the voltage ran low
or the circuit breaker was poorly constructed?
I dont know.
I operate on a three phase armour
of emotional stabilisers
that spark and twitch when overheated
with too much energy. But I return
with black faced integrity
collars up and smoking
to fight on another electrifying moment.
'Thats life' I hear
the rollercoaster ride
built into the system
going around in circles
always facing the sunrise
and sunset. We scream and tumble
into the guts of the incline
the switch and roll of events
swerving around corners
holding on tight white knuckled
until it finishes its rumble
and we walk out wobbly and vomity
until the better side takes over.
The darker side recedes
into an unknown pocket.
Author Notes
Thanks to Cinderley13 who wrote about Catfish and Lydia and Lyda and made me wonder what the hell was being alluded to? It now makes a bit more sense.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.
Apr 21, 2014
Apr 21, 2014 at 6:41 PM UTC
Running away from her feelings
Don't want no hurt
Don't want inspiration
They only subvert
Her poor fragile heart
She gives her all
Gets smithereens in return
Don't want no broken dreams
Don't want empty hopes
Don't want those sleepless nights
It's a periscope
Couldn't see it before
Now she knows
She's a shell of the old her
No signs of reverting
Built walls around her heart so high,
The heavens are confronting
It's comforting
This deserting
Feeling of the heart
No one's gonna break me
She says asserting
No one's gonna hurt me
Her lips reverberating
Eyes full of misery
Her loneliness shines through
Captivating silver eyes
Moist with morning dew
Or are those tears?
Taking a hue
Of molten silver
Or the dark stormy nights
They've witnessed all along
When they all eschewed
When they all ran away
Well, adieu
They don't deserve her anyway
Don't deserve her beautiful soul
Don't deserve her unconditional love
Or the compassion she holds
Her blinding bright smile
Or the twinkle of her eyes
The softness of her lips
She exists to mesmerize
So, adieu
Because she's a fighter
An igniter
Of the passion he holds
Adieu
He says thankyou
Because she's a queen
And all his to love
Oh if you only knew.
~S.L.
Jan 23, 2017
Jan 23, 2017 at 6:14 AM UTC
O LOVE! O LOVE! WHY ARE YOU EVER DEVOID OF LOGIC?
Alexander K Opicho
(Eldoret, Kenya; [email protected])
Mankind in its pathetic folly entice you in a dint of stupor
Knowing not your true colour and texture
Endeavoring to achieve glory in your mastery
With the so limited human capacity
In grey faith that you are a cradle of bliss
But O love! Why are you ever crooked?
Young men and women in strength of their sinews
Toil day and night in ******* of humanity
Praying and whining incantations with the hope for optimal love
Ornamenting their bodies with diamond and bronze
Fibre and silk ornamented to helm of providence
In the foolish quest for love equillibria
But in full stretch of your vice, you impish love
You catapult all away to the shifted goal posts
O love! O love! Why are you ever ruthless?
You hate the learned but you favour the strong
You hate professors but you favour the soldiers
You hate the rich but you favour the agile
You hate the lawyers but you favour the footballers
You hate the pastors but you favour the ruffian
You hate the whites but you favour the Negroes
You hate the groomed but you love the ragamuffin
You hate the chaste but you favour the mistress
O love! O love! Why are you ever illogical?
Love, I revere you for wickedness and irrationality
In all of your history you scored sum *** laude
In the duo as blend of your domain, Look;
You never dwell in a genuine companionship
You like where the couth will interject;
Amidst fornication between married and single ones
Amidst adultery in the triangle of foul compassion
Amidst miscegenation between black and white
Amidst infatuation between the whole and the lame
Amidst conjugal appetite between the old and the young
Amidst concupiscence between house master and houshelp
Amidst immorality of married master over the wallowing servant
Amidst libidos between literate teacher unto the peasant pupil
Amidst disordered passion among the sly lesbians
Amidst impious ********** among the suave gays
O love! O love! You are the most wicked force!
Love I am told; your colour is red
You may be red or you may not be red
But all in all, you deserve poetical veneration
For your herculean ability to bend the most wise;
In your force you made sagacious Shakespeare to bend
In your force you made Princes Diana to bend and bend
Bending downwardly stooping for Afawoyed the moor,
In your stupefying dint you made Napoleon de Bonaparte
To bend and bend downwardly stooping for Josephine
Josephine a famed she-Casanova in the gone Paris
Among the then humanity and the then animality,
In your impairing machinery you set sons on their fathers
In the roman empire of Antony and Ceaser
In the scramble for Cleopatra, the Egyptian queen
Beauty of her aquiline nose heavily hovered perhaps
In the eyes of the Roman beholders
The father and the son only to sent the empire
To the love forlorn smithereens!
Dec 3, 2013
Dec 3, 2013 at 5:08 AM UTC
I see it in
shades of
liquid coal
slaking
my aching
thirst in
black ocean shoal
onyx crystals
washed up
in tides
of barely
peeking,
night-lava eyes
silently spoken
and through
the waters of deep
my soul is
waking up from
eons of sleep
weaving garlands
of darkest green,
seaweed tips
that I tenderly keep
strewn, in chlorophyll strips
across the stardust glow
of my naked skin
as I liquid float,
spirit whirring within
eyes bright
in illuminated
moonstone glow
picking up signals
of halted flow
This is needed here,
in this darkest of dark
waters abundant
with tight, broken sparks
shards of the living
and fragments of souls
a luminosity of darkness
making us whole
And pulsing next to me
in beauty's surprise
phosphorescent creatures,
a feast for the eyes
loving, gently brushing
my outstretched fingers-
bioluminescence divine
on my body lingers
from jellies to squid
to jet -hued sharks
knifing through layers
of dark on dark
within the
lush waters' quiet force
a dance in faded flicker
conjures the source
within the depth
of the depths
of my endlessly
wet
in my darkest of dark
between blood and sweat
penetrating the mysteries
that quake through
this heart
filling it up
as it tears it apart
smashing it
to smithereens
creating sutures
of ironic healing
until through the cracks
both wide and slight
shoots up
the flare
of my own
inner
light
Oct 15, 2016
Oct 15, 2016 at 7:28 PM UTC
•
When I saw you crying,
My heart was crushed into smithereens,
*Your sobs reverberated into my world,
And gives the most disconsolate euphony within me,*
**All I ever desire,
Is for you to be happy,**
*Oh how I really wanted to hug you,
Comfort you and wipe away all those tears from your eyes,*
But I knew we are far from each other,
**So let my genuine love enclasp you,
And give you the best console.**
with love <3
© Earl Jane
♥ E.J.C.S.
Aug 16, 2015
Aug 16, 2015 at 8:54 AM UTC
why and how should you know?
behind beneath in between the teeth
my fingerprint whorls and whirls
under other's names and
my secret identities
a word a phrase a hatchet a blade a
pruning knife,
a confession of confusion,
relieved by my cutting saves.
my stamp secreted my ***** implanted
my style unseen yet bidden,
my name hidden, my children born
but still is my heart,
like the parent that
has given up the child.
but you love my
screamed and un screamed, and my undoing of
the doing you not see me named
nature in paces and means
admit pleasure at my scrivinings
there but for the grace of whom
but to me
for am I but the
editor
o'er my bones that
*nobody knows
nobody sees,
nobody knows,
but me^
you tread,
crunching my invisibility
to smoke and smithereens,
the pimple on the poem
lifeless turned luscious,
yet, gnome gone the next day
Jan 5, 2014
Jan 5, 2014 at 11:25 PM UTC