"snowbanks" poems
Once upon a winters eve, there was a young little fox. As she played around in the forest and snowy plains she kept trying to walk along the thick snowbanks. But she always seemed to fall into the snow. In the distance there was a older, but still young, snow leopard, watching and giggling as the little fox kept falling through. The snow leopard decided to get up and walk closer to the fox and softly he said with a happy laugh, "so what are you trying to accomplish?"The little fox looked up at the leopard with an annoyed looked as she poutingly explained, "The snow is to high and I am to small, and I can't seem to walk on top of it." She then sighed softly. The snow leopard laughed and smiled, "You can't just jump on it then. You can't try to walk on it," the leopard said with a grin. The little fox looked up at him in befuddlement with her bright blue eyes. The leopard slowly walked around the snow hole she was in and proceeded to explain, "You have to let it lift you," he smiled, picking her up by the scruff carefully, takeing her out of the hole and softly placing her on a less deep part of the snow bank, "Only when you understand this, may you be able to walk atop the snow."The little fox was still confused but was willing to learn, "What do you mean 'let it lift you'?" the little fox asked. The leopard smiled and lay on the snow, sticking his paws into the snow, "Every flake, like us, is different. Each one being different gives it it's own type of life, melting fast, or melting slow. Sticking firm, or lightly." he then softly blows the snow off his paws into her direction, "You have to let life of each of the snow flake be as unique as your life is and let it lift you. Let them lift you, as if it they were trying to show you somewhere new, to bring you places." He got up and started walking off atop of the snow, but then stopped and turning around and said with a big smile "Now do you see?" The little fox was still kinda confused, but when she looked at the beautiful snow, and saw each snowflake, a different shape, a different size, she smiled and believed what he said. The little fox looked back up at the leopard and softly placed her paw down on the snow before she said to him softly, "I think I get it..." She was afraid but she slowly started walking on top of the snow, step by step, not looking down, But looking to the leopard as she got closer to him. The leopard with a happy laugh, smiled and congratulated her, "There you go. Like a natural." The little fox smiled brightly and ran up to the snow leopard happily and excitedly asking him, "What can you teach me next?"The leopard laughed and patted her head with his paw. "My my, Looks like I have a little apprentice" the leopard said with a smirk, "We shall see where the wind and sun takes us and what lessons we have to learn as the days go on," the leopard said as they both started walking out into the setting sunlight.
May 10, 2014
May 10, 2014 at 3:57 AM UTC
Those great sweeps of snow that stop suddenly six
feet from the house ...
Thoughts that go so far.
The boy gets out of high school and reads no more
books;
the son stops calling home.
The mother puts down her rolling pin and makes no
more bread.
And the wife looks at her husband one night at a
party, and loves him no more.
The energy leaves the wine, and the minister falls
leaving the church.
It will not come closer
the one inside moves back, and the hands touch
nothing, and are safe.
The father grieves for his son, and will not leave the
room where the coffin stands.
He turns away from his wife, and she sleeps alone.
And the sea lifts and falls all night, the moon goes on
through the unattached heavens alone.
The toe of the shoe pivots
in the dust ...
And the man in the black coat turns, and goes back
down the hill.
No one knows why he came, or why he turned away,
and did not climb the hill.
7.4k
i've been
reading poetry
ee cummings and--
sylvia plath
pretty pools of words filled with color
--and ducks
charles bukowski is a
***** old man
lots of ***** old
words
and images
but real dirt, not pretend
real's so hard to find
these days
they talk about love like it's
broken--painful--deadly--
always wonderfully beautiful
(like the beautiful snake whose
poison's killing you)
that's not
love
because it's falling asleep with warm breath on the back of your neck and your bed a little too small
because it's laughing so hard that you almost snort macaroni and cheese out your nose
because it's doing laundry and pausing just to notice how your clothes smell like her
because it's waiting alone, imagining how big you'll smile when she comes back - it's always bigger than you think.
because it's knowing that the pain's not part of love, it's part of being human
they don't know
nearly as much as they
think--
they do
i love--
baseball in the park when it's not too hot
(I play shortstop)
chocolate ice cream cones in the hot sun
(dripping down my hand)
flying kites in autumn winds
(the falling leaves make the difference)
sledding through the snow
(and crashing into snowbanks)
i love--
coca-cola
(in the glass bottles)
root beer
(with vanilla ice cream)
7-up
(it's better than sprite)
mountain dew
(caffeine!)
i love--
you
(and the soapy smell after you shower)
you
(making me laugh more)
you
(how much you care about people)
you
(and you let me, too)
that's my proof they
don't know
(what
they're talking about
that is)
so--
i think poetry
is overrated
Jan 25, 2010
Jan 25, 2010 at 10:08 PM UTC
(sonnet #MMMMMCDXXXII)
How rain's nigh ghastly light haunts vague suspense
Ere darkness yield to after. In the pale
Note follwing, whiter morsels chase th'exhale
Which moves atwixt these firs as if pretense
Could not decide oer snowbanks' worn intents
And newer puddles thinking of betrayl,
This fragile romance in surreal tones' bail
Lost in the flurry of just whither hence.
I want to ask you what you're doing fer
All we have overnight made me and you
Erm, us and we. And scared but driving, you're
Not one bit daunted either. What'd we do?
I've heard of whirlwind stories. Aren't such poor?
You'd kiss my tear-washed face, and say we knew?
03Feb16
Mar 6, 2016
Mar 6, 2016 at 11:13 PM UTC
When my ear first orbited your throat
to listen for a roaming balloon of nestled flesh
I heard trailer home hollowness
in copper vein pipes.
You draped a scarf over your superglued
neck, telling me it was normal to fistfight
death at 35.
On Dad’s desk, your weight breathed feebly
inside a sandwich bag. At night
its nuclear green cast Orions across our ceiling.
I never knew what real stars looked like,
while you had completely forgotten.
Years later,
in the dark of our 17-acre home,
you handed me your thyroid in its bag
swimming in opalescent fluid
and you looked at Polaris for the first time,
as that same glow painted the Big Dipper
on neighboring snowbanks.
I dropped the bag on the dry rot porch.
We heard your cancer flatten to a deflated bicycle tire,
sweating from death,
watched through squinted eyes as its glow turned
from hazardous neon to cinder.
It dried in the moonlight,
a forgotten, frostbitten raisin,
and our eyes readjusted to the perpetuating darkness.
I saw it then like a long constellation
line connecting star to forehead.
It had been a lie before,
but the North Star is truly the brightest
in the sky. We looked through its surface
underneath the star’s skin to its heart space,
and we realized that Polaris can only be seen
when thin plastic holds inside
damaged shadows of family
dinners bathed in deionized salt,
where I ponderously stared at the ****
in your esophagus, drawn with knife
like ruby crayon into office paper.
Dec 1, 2015
Dec 1, 2015 at 4:08 PM UTC
Spring does not occur
in verdant shocks and celebrations
of garden blooms and animals *******
it's a slow parade
it's a hostage situation
there is a crow
dodging traffic for roadkill
there is a boy
who loves a girl who doesn't love him
The Twilight Man
finally learns how to cross the street
alongside school children
The thin ice
which still resides
on the concrete
dares you to be the first to traverse it
and the snowbanks
which lay before you
feign alpine hazard
and I wonder what the naked tree branches are saying
as they reach for the sky with twisted fingertips
with their meteorological braille
we confuse for variations of shade
they say give us back the sun
and we'll give you our leaves
there is a book in each tree we do not cut down
and we read it as we breathe
a forest is a library we breathe
Spring is resolving hostage negotiations.
Mar 27, 2015
Mar 27, 2015 at 11:13 AM UTC
we drove through snowbanks today;
one for the first time behind the wheel
-- one with his eyes fixed on the road
and me, just another passenger along
for the ride.
it was still lacing over the
world with white, like nature pulling
up her comforter and settling herself in
for the season -- heavy down muting even
the quietest quiets; we followed suit, put
on the smiths and sent our tumultuous
evening back to bed to curl up with a
blanket or two, swap stories with tucked-
in and tuckered out madam nature until
we realize we're still alive -- and at this
juncture (both figurative and literal)
during the supposed shift in energy,
spiritual awakening, consciousness, etc,
we embraced the contradictory side
of our cynical teenage bodies and
sent our thoughts back to sleep with
the current of his lilting voice and the
subsequent waterfall of grieving
piano notes, tinkling and sending
splinters of icy shivers down each
of our spines as we drove on through
the gently imposed quiet of a cold
down comforter.
Dec 23, 2012
Dec 23, 2012 at 4:42 AM UTC
There's a Dove
That casts no shadow
Of its story I will tell
It has flown to
Highest heaven
It has sunk to
Lowest hell
It is pure as
Sparkling snowbanks
It could melt them
Like the Sun
In the end, as at beginning
Over evil, Victory's won!
It will fill your
Soul with longing
It is the End
'Fore time's begun.
There's a Lion
On the prairie
He has strength
That over-awes
In His Face
You'll see compassion
He forgives
Egregious flaws
You can find
Your comfort, solice,
You could sleep
Between His paws
He is ferocious
He's Protection
He is gentler than a lamb
Yet he has the
Greatest power
For he is God -
The strong I AM.
There's a Rose
Within a garden
It's blood red,
For It's been torn
The Rose itself
Has greatest beauty
Tho It wears a
Crown of thorns
It is pure as
Light unblemished
It has grown
For death was born.
It has a scent
Beyond comparing
It has light
That shines within
It has died,
And yet is living
With it's fade
It took your sin
Come, all you
So weak and weary!
All three of these,
The trinity,
Will come into
Your life together
Give you eyes,
That you may see!
Yes, come, bring
All your broken places,
Your heart, or so
The Bible goes,
You'll find help
You will find healing
*The Dove, The Lion,
and The ROSE.*
SøułSurvivør
(C) 6/24/2017
Jun 25, 2017
Jun 25, 2017 at 12:47 PM UTC
it’s cold now.
it was warmer back in january,
the sky was made of bleach,
falling on our heads and christening us
angels.
i put a *** of water on for tea,
take out a pick, and carve out
iceblocks to hold the moon
in. a bird is painted into the
snowbanks, its eyes popping
from the force of july’s fever.
giving up on the idea of
mac and cheese or chicken noodle
soup, something substantial,
i order chinese takeout. the deliveryman’s
lips are purple. i eat it cold, like
it’s meant to be.
Feb 7, 2011
Feb 7, 2011 at 1:10 PM UTC
The birds are chirping
It's a new day
Snowbanks are melting
Summer's on the way!
Mar 27, 2019
Mar 27, 2019 at 7:01 AM UTC
What is love but a serendipitous
Slide into a swirling wintery breeze
From the fall into the chaotic white
Or a journey hand in hand, that spans
Miles of light while moving only eyes
Back and forth from the stars to each other
How the simple joy of intertwining, leading
Resounds with a more transcendent meaning
Thoughts crystal clear that won't take shape
That pass from fingertips to fingertips
And return to me through scarlet lips
Feb 28, 2010
Feb 28, 2010 at 4:36 PM UTC
Puddles beneath snowbanks
Finally; spring
(c) White Mountain Publications 2013
Aug 19, 2013
Aug 19, 2013 at 9:50 AM UTC
I wonder why
all the poems I write
Are composed at
the mercy of lovers
And why my lovers
can't be the green grass
that peaks out of
melting snowbanks
in early spring
Or the first sip
of coffee at 8 a.m.
on a mellow Saturday morning
in a cafe next to the lake.
Why do we choose
to rest our weary hearts
on things we can't depend on
When we know that the grass
will appear every spring
and we can sip our coffee
and the sun will rise
and the lake will be full
and so will our hearts
If only we requested
simple things to thrive
We could sip coffee with lovers
Next to the lake
At 8 a.m.
And not feel such pain.
Apr 8, 2015
Apr 8, 2015 at 11:36 PM UTC
I pray this pupil’s prayer,
penitent for desiring
an end to this madness
of clearing away snow,
only to find more, compact,
beneath the loose surface
No two snowflakes alike
each snowflake falls with grace
absorbed by tuition fees,
books, books, books!
O the books pour down
clusters of refurbished
cognitive technicalities
Each unique in its crystal formation
drench my shoes to full with repositories
of Professor gods’ wounded knees and sore egos
do I leggo my Eggo
to feast on academia’s wine
glut on the ambrosia of fine whine?
What privilege to live in Snowflakia
the snowbanks are too high, Sir!
-still I climb, seeking purchase-
It takes too much time!
-yet I wade through the drifts-
of alabastards’ Judas kiss
A Snowflake ingrate nation
in turn taken for madness
I cannot find a flick
to fling away wet sopping masses
of absence from classes
brain drain juices taste like molasses
I revile the texture of their pasty *****
You haven’t a chance in Hell-
-Ye Gods! Mea Culpa!
I am sorry, O Ponderous Purveyors,
for my blasphemous prayers
I will see the glass is
full of wine not molasses,
I will be a good snowflake and fall
into my pre-planned place
Your liquid body will purify the well
I want to fall with grace
so I may rise without disgrace.
~
NM
02/04/19
Mar 22, 2020
Mar 22, 2020 at 10:45 PM UTC
Love is like spring,
There will always be pain,
Equal parts sunshine;
Equal parts rain.
The thick sludge builds up,
It's hard to trudge through,
There are obstacles,
Involving two.
Then snowbanks unfreeze,
There are boundaries no more,
Now aware that this weather
We can no longer ignore.
Tears always fall,
Words always fail,
The love that we had,
Melts away with the hail.
Raindrops come down,
Into puddles they descend,
We have to face the bitter truth,
Our time has reached its end.
My heart is as broken,
As the ice on the lake,
I see the cracks and wonder,
If underneath it feels the ache.
Icicles are dripping,
Disappearing like oxygen,
Along with any chance I had,
Of being with you again.
The hole in my chest is the same size,
As the one in our ozone,
The season will soon be over,
The snow will thaw, I am alone.
Jan 8, 2018
Jan 8, 2018 at 12:26 AM UTC
We are grasping at words hidden beyond this wall of misunderstanding
Misconceptions and harsh observations become the crux for our downfall
and your words lash against me as sharp and stinging as willow branches running.
So much pain behind the eyes which watch mine with a distant ache
and I cannot stop.
If my happiness is your hatred how can we go on?
How can we proceed with truth as our mat, honesty our flying carpet and love the wind that buoys our stiff limbs.
My love is tied to the fresh peaks coalesced in my heart as the atoms of my survival and their laughter is written in the snowbanks we fall upon, the gravel spat back from beneath our hot tires racing down old overgrown trails, the burning heat of flint and steel fires gasping in the breeze
we are so different.
my honesty you call selfishness.
We are both new developing beings with the world open to us in every which way.
we cannot hold eachother to what we used to be and your accusing glare grates on my worn nerves and
I cannot stop.
I cannot stop hurting you with my happiness because it is found in trees, wind, rocks, gurgling river beds
places you cannot contend with
I know you hate it.
and maybe we are better off apart
maybe we need space to breathe
to learn how we are as individuals
who we are.
I will still love you.
a small part of me will always love you
but perhaps this is the crossroad
for our relationship
perhaps I will go left
and you will go right.
It will not be nice
It will not be clean or kind
But it will be healthy
and we will grow
and find loves that lift our wings
not dampen them..
May 13, 2016
May 13, 2016 at 2:09 AM UTC
I watched a plastic grocery bag roll down the road like a tumbleweed.
I was on my way home so I thought I'd pick it up.
The wind was blowing it my way so I walked along behind.
It was cold but the sun was coming through high clouds.
It hit a bit of water puddled from melting ice.
It stopped and breathed and quivered and I wondered briefly if this puddle had ended the bag's joyous rolling tumble in the sun.
With the help of the wind, the bag turned over and soon over again and, compact and steeled now with a quickly freezing brown water on it's sides, rolled faster than ever over snowbanks and driveways and lawns and the road.
A few houses from mine, the bag tumbled far up onto a neighbor's lawn and came to rest upon the sticks coming out of a garden.
In front of the bag now if the wind kept up was a long hedge that looked very ready to catch it safely and hold it until the neighbors saw it and decided to pluck it up and send that plastic bag on it's journey to the dump.
I smiled a little, as I got to keep my gloves on while I walked up my driveway empty handed, as I love to be.
Feb 4, 2017
Feb 4, 2017 at 4:01 PM UTC
The pond by your father's place always froze over
The ice always reaching no matter whether the weather was freezing or not.
The silence on either side of the window panes killed you, you said.
You told me the patterns on the glass reminded you of bleeding.
You used to have donkeys, and they always loved you.
Bringing them pears and soft touches behind ears.
I was a boy, still, but it all made sense.
The way that your mouth moved
when whispering memories to me.
I remember that Spring that we fell through the ice.
Jangled nerve endings felt stabbing. Cold knives.
Wet hair. Lucky to make it out.
The last time you saw me you told me, "You're bleeding..."
I smiled and spat once and said I was fine.
I'd tripped on your driveway whilst walking to see you
and busted my lips on your mailbox.
You wiped one ring finger, stilled my moving mouth.
It was only a little. (Blood, that is.)
You wiped it again on my shirt.
You ***
I wish we'd drawn pictures in the snow with it.
The Winter has claimed me, I think, since then.
Blizzards well up in the corners of my eyes from time to time.
Snowbanks form on my brows when I furrow.
I furrow a lot now.
The bees in the tree at the edge of your father's place
Stung up your back and neck that Summer. Remember?
Calamine smile, you had me pull out the stingers.
Your dad's debit card, wiped across your back.
"Declined," I said.
You laughed.
And the pond, in my memory, still looks iced over
Even though that was July.
Right after my birthday.
Last month, saw the sign, said your father had sold
his place. Our place.
He misses you too.
I wish you here now.
We're all getting old, but I can't let myself grow.
I'm not any smarter, I'm just clothed in cold
And I forgot how to feel the way we did then.
I'd like another plunge, through thin ice, I think.
Anyway, I hate the Summer time.
The heat's too mean.
You know that about me.
Apr 2, 2025
Apr 2, 2025 at 12:29 PM UTC
I ride through the birkwood,
Passing snowbanks on every corner.
Day's end light blinds me.
Holiday joy turns bittersweet in my eyes,
And my lips are as dry as the air.
A fellow stranger sits by me....
Does he know he shares my name?
...Oh well, I hear a cawing:
From the window I see a hundred crows,
Circling the frozen river....
Friends laugh in the courtyard,
But I will be lonely tomorrow.
Dec 21, 2017
Dec 21, 2017 at 5:50 PM UTC
Putting cigarettes in snowbanks, who would have thought something so pure would cause chest pains
Dec 22, 2016
Dec 22, 2016 at 9:41 PM UTC
in the springtime
all the ice is melting
so fast you feel like
you're drowning
but the flowers are budding
watch where you step
some lakes look like puddles
you spent months climbing
to the tops of snowbanks
when pinks and greens
saturate your feet
they make their way up
to your flowerbed brain
please let them in to stay
you spent all winter erasing
colors from your memory
now the sun cannot
brighten your greys
not alone
when the bees in your head
stop swarming around
you saw each one fly away
and out with each seed
you planted here on earch
where you haven't felt
calm in a year and now you're breathing
to the rhythm of the sun
Feb 22, 2017
Feb 22, 2017 at 2:22 AM UTC
Look outside.
the snowbanks are looking quite droopy.
Maybe they sympathize?
And those trees...
By golly, they're downright depressed.
The sidewalks are crying with me,
But murky,
Water creeps to the highway,
Oh how dazzling it is,
the sunshine upon its glittering dress.
May 4, 2017
May 4, 2017 at 8:29 PM UTC
My bones are weary. It isn't a pleasant state to find oneself in. You wouldn't say so.
Little bones in the neck start to grind together, muscles pulling crisscross and backwards down the planes of your back.
At any moment the fear may present itself; that these bones will squish meat and blood so tightly that they must burst through skin and you are certain, of more than just your own sleep deprivation, that it will **** you.
You’ll see stars, feel the heaviness in the muscles of your arms as they slowly deaden, for how impossible their dream of reaching up and cupping starlight. If only you could embrace it.
Fill your glass up with sparkling dust and drink ‘till you are infused with it. Like more than you were your first summer night - warm, dark - spotted with fireflies, whose wonder stared and blinked back into you as a thousand suns.
Drink until the heat builds and spirals into every nerve, every particle of marrow, until it is lifted from pressure, lifted from being, lifted to a state of not but pure release.
Then remember that you are a story. That stories do not behave, do not twinkle in as timing permits, nor align as a physical presence.
I am glacier inside, I feel the snowbanks drifting through my mind. The little icicles behind my eyes and the floes bobbing sluggish though my heart. I don't know how to thaw.
Aug 28, 2016
Aug 28, 2016 at 2:50 AM UTC
As I watch the water in this glass
Sitting still on the coffee table
I think back to that day on the lake
When the water stood still
And the sun sank on fire
On the rocky beach where we sat
I, in my sundress,
You, in your board shorts and sliders
Which now makes me smile
With disgust at my youthful naivety
And sorrow for your advantageous attitude
That I know has gotten you in dark places
As I watch the unwavering solidity
Of the mahogany table
And its stains and grains and knots
I am reminded of
That long cold winter when the power
Was nonexistent for almost a week
And the snowbanks raised above
My front door
And how devastated you were that you could not visit
I consider myself lucky for those days
As I stare at these bruised wrists
Full of memories and unfortunate mishaps
I can't help but to be moved
And scared at the possibility of relapsing
Into that dark wormhole of depression
Seemingly impossible to escape
As I stare at this glass full of water
Still as stone on my table
I feel a single tear roll down my throat
For I am flooded with memories
And feelings galore
This glass of motionless water
Floods me with life
Jul 30, 2016
Jul 30, 2016 at 12:12 AM UTC