"souvenir" poems
I breath in the misty air
The birds are chirping everywhere
I pass by a nearby stream
Where fishes looked a sparkling green
The waterfall sprays cold mist
Where Romeo and Juliet once kissed
The sun shines on the forest floor
While I eat an apple to its core
Insects fly and crawl around
A rainbow stone was also found
The leaves are green with big raindrops
They are as big as two gumdrops
The ground is wet and full of mud
The flowers are about to bud
A beautiful and gracious butterfly
It's wings the color of the sky
But now my trip is over
My souvenir is a four leaf clover
But what I will never forget
Are the animals and insects I met
Oct 20, 2013
Oct 20, 2013 at 10:13 PM UTC
(Villanelle)
It takes patience to wait for the perfect light.
Glance away and the image can disappear.
And sometimes the background isn’t quite right.
The moment missed is like a face out of sight
That against all logic we hope will appear
From around a corner, bathed in perfect light.
Or a pause in the music on a moonlit night
When hesitating lips touch, and love leans near,
But voices whisper that something’s not right.
Technology offers consolation in its sleight
Of hand: Digitally correct the analog *here
And now*, counterfeit the perfect light.
Yet we want more than the mastered byte.
We want the flash between the waiting and the souvenir,
The instant when self and spectacle fuse, reality felt right.
And so we hold on to what’s passing out of sight,
The collision between soon and too late, the sheer
Thread connecting to the perfect light
In which the background is precisely right.
Jul 21, 2015
Jul 21, 2015 at 7:51 PM UTC
The one is a myth
I bid farewell long ago,
Along with the illusion
Of lasting bliss.
That was a fairytale, I know-
Concocted to charm little girls
Whose parents could not bear
To break it to them
That they would never be a princess.
But maybe it was not a total lie.
Perhaps there are many ones
Just waiting for
The right moment in time
To stop you with a smile,
Maybe even stay a while.
Then when the season changes,
The one will too,
And you will be blue,
But then you will find someone new.
Is it like going to the library?
My heart is a bestseller-
Someone new takes it for a spin
Until a different story catches his whim.
I was the right book at the right time,
The patron has a wandering mind-
It is not a crime.
It is not like going to the library,
Because they check out my heart,
Then return it again-
But they rip out their favorite page
To keep as a souvenir of the adventure-
Because to them, that is all it is:
Another adventure, another conquest,
Another stop on the road to where they are going.
They do it without knowing
The trail of tears they leave
And the hot fire of rage.
The one is a myth.
There are over seven billion people here,
But that does not mean that for everyone
A prince or princess shall appear
Standing underneath the tower window
Calling, "Let down your hair!"
Hey, I never said it was fair.
Jul 30, 2018
Jul 30, 2018 at 11:07 PM UTC
Take the knapsacks
and the utensils and washtubs
and the books of the Koran
and the army fatigues
and the tall tales and the torn soul
and whatever's left, bread or meat,
and kids running around like chickens in the village.
How many children do you have?
How many children did you have?
It's hard to keep tabs on kids in a situation like this.
Not like in the old country
in the shade of the mosque and the fig tree,
when the children the children would be shooed outside by day
and put to bed at night.
Put whatever isn't fragile into sacks,
clothes and blankets and bedding and diapers
and something for a souvenir
like a shiny artillery shell perhaps,
or some kind of useful tool,
and the babies with rheumy eyes
and the R.P.G. kids.
We want to see you in the water, sailing aimlessly
with no harbor and no shore.
You won't be accepted anywhere
You are banished human beings.
You are people who don't count
You are people who aren't needed
You are a pinch of lice
stinging and itching
to madness.
Translated from the original Hebrew by Karen Alkalay-Gut.
6.8k
Wax captured in all the flex
Structured detail with all the contour molds
Realistic in looks of behold
Wax of Bodybuilding champions at their best
Craftsmanship in not settling for less
It’s all about the pose
All angles covered I suppose
Imagine seeing Arnold Schwarzenegger captured at the time he won the 1970 Mr. Olympia
Then Sergio Olivia comes to mind
A waxed monster in the crab pose
All the veins looking like an intense fire hose
It would be competition in being prepared
The time vintage bodybuilders stepping on stage, and commotion in making the competition mad
The idea of muscles captured in pure wax
To attend I hope they don’t add any tax
But Bodybuilding is about facts
Achieve with a will and it’s no matter what age being still
Picture weights molded into wax
A bodybuilder lifting feeling a little perplexed
But it is true strength and dedication that makes bodybuilding work
This would be the message that the vintage Bodybuilding Wax Museum would convey
Bodybuilding exposure in every way
A vintage bodybuilding wax museum encouraging people to give Bodybuilding a try
I am quite sure there are questions of why
It is the intensity with effort that would make one cry
But the most important aspect would be “Stay away from drugs”
This should be captured on every souvenir mug
If anyone is caught taking drugs, we will just pull the plug
Well vintage bodybuilding wax museum it does have appeal
Now if we could just make it happen being for real.
Dec 29, 2015
Dec 29, 2015 at 7:32 PM UTC
What if she gives you her smile again ?
Is she gonna feel for a while without pain ?
What if you put her in your dreams tonight ?
Is she gonna stay until it's bright ?
What if you offer her your heart ?
Are you never gonna be apart ?
What if you try to pacify the butterfly ?
Is she gonna want to fly with you ?
What if you share her the rest of your life ?
Are you gonna accept as you are each other ?
You are still right here and waiting for her,
You were both in, you hope not too much.
What if she is still ignoring you ?
Will you just walk away and say goodbye ?
You are both out, you fear too much,
Just keep breathing for a while.
Because she will be always your half,
In that souvenir of her sparkling smile.
Jul 9, 2015
Jul 9, 2015 at 6:41 AM UTC
the sun beams out of every single one of your pores
and i’ve never seen a smile quite as convincing as yours
but one day the pictures painted in your eyes will crack;
maybe stumble and fall and i’ve never seen a face as sincere
and pure. the world is your oyster, your catfish and squid
and your delicate soul is a masterpiece, it is.
i don’t wanna see your veins blow up in your wrist
or your hand pulling your hair out, tainted with fear
your life isn’t a movie it’s a merry-go-round and the
sickness you feel will one day die down, just hold on
to hope because it’s all we have left, hold on to my
jacket, my sweater, my vest.
i’m not a prophet nor a saint, not an angel at all
i’m merely a souvenir of disjointed, brooding thoughts
but you’re captivating and like a gust of wind, i’ll
hold your hand and take care of the strings that
are attached to you, like a puppet of beauty, don’t
let your heartache deface your sanity
because i know you’re tired
and aching
and scared
but take my hand, hold it tight and walk with me
into candlelight.
Jun 27, 2014
Jun 27, 2014 at 9:25 AM UTC
"A patient man bides his time,"
Theodore tells the man in the mirror
Tomorrow, all the levees will break
And all the fables will be told
Of distant Decembers and forgotten fathers
Livelihoods will be threatened
And remorse will fall by the wayside
He watches as icicles on the awning
Melt away into puddles on the ground
"Warmer every day," he thinks to himself
He hangs up his scarf and overcoat
The way a simple man, with complex demons, is wont to do
And as his wants devolve into needs
And as all his anchors deteriorate to rust
Her smile unnerves a once-settled man
To think of the quality of glove necessary
To hold onto the wagon in this day and age
So Theodore pulls the door to,
Leaving Chopin's "Horseman" to gallop in peace
And in pieces
He watches her from across the courtyard
"Such sweet bliss in her footsteps," he sighs
And it seems to him as if the snow dissipates
Just from the warmth in her steady gait
Just from the radiation behind her brown eyes
He slides open the dresser drawer
A haven for scattered trinkets, odds, and ends
A place of respite for the weary souvenir
There, amidst all the corroded memories
Lies a corroded pistol, unspoken and unburnished
"And a lonely man drinks his wine,"
Theodore says, as intrepidly as he is capable
For there is a time when fathers stop teaching
A time when mothers stop singing
And a place where the sins stop searching
A last breath is deeply inhaled
But never again will find its escape
With a thud that echoes to Seymour Street
Theodore crumples to the cold wooden floor,
A simple man, finally free of complex demons
Jan 25, 2023
Jan 25, 2023 at 1:19 PM UTC
I drift lifeless in this weary night
Not cognizant of these dark ways
A tear in my eye blurs my sight
Souvenir of bright, beautiful days
I hear the sound of leaves, dry
Crushed like my life, torn apart
Like a soft, muffled cry
I hear their echo in my heart
I turned around with a firm belief
Of someone in this way unknown
But the sight multiplied my grief
An empty road with a shadow of my own
I looked up at the moon profound
Prepared I was to shout aloud
At this happiness I just found
When she hid behind a chunk of cloud
Dec 29, 2014
Dec 29, 2014 at 7:48 AM UTC
My childhood was alluring days,
I miss those days in many ways.
I was so adorable on those days
And delightful like sun rays,
When I was a child,
My heart was painted with full of colours
And filled with beautiful imagination.
The whole world was like a pearl to me.
It was the most happiest days of past.
But I miss those days in many ways.
I played with my childhood friends and brothers.
I played with different types of toys and flowers.
They are like my lovers.
My life filled with happiness and joy.
Those days was heaven for me.
First day my mother left her hand,
She went away with a crying face
It broke my heart in many ways.
It was the first step to my kinder garten.
It was a new atmosphere for me.
I cried and played with ***** mud
And mud caked to my new shoes.
I miss all the fun and beauty of my eyes.
In my childhood i wished for many things.
Now I wish ,I want my funniest childhood days.
I realise they were the big things to me.
All are going through many stages in life.
The day I found my little tricycle in the backyard.
My mind run backward fastly.
Like a super car and all my memories shuffled,
Until I reach the memories of evergreen childhood.
Childhood is the best or world to all.
Everyone want to be a child atleast one day.
I want back my lamp,
To remove the darkness of world.
Music is inside in everyone's heart,
But It won't show out in some case.
Like childhood memories are inside us,
But still it keep fade in our heart.
Never stop playing, screeming, laughing,
It will carry your childhood with you.
We never and ever become older,
We all have an endless breathing and stages.
It can't take back and go back.
Look the world with child eye.
It seems more beautiful than anything.
Reminiscence of childhood were the dreams
That stayed with you after you woke.
Childhood is being carefully held like a glass.
My anguish wishes to be a youngster,
I want my souvenir back and
Blow it Up into a bubble and live inside it forever. ?
Dec 30, 2016
Dec 30, 2016 at 8:42 AM UTC
F*ck the postcards and dried mangoes, baby.
The prayers in The Philippines,
The prayers from and by Filipinos,
will be the best souvenir one can ever get.
The Prayers in The Philippines, by the Filipinos
are what has been keeping our islands, vintas and mangroves afloat
and why more new islands have been popping up like moles.
The Prayers in The Philippines, by the Filipinos
are what has been keeping the storms, typhoons and hurricanes all but a joke.
Another one? Bring it on and on and once more.
The Prayers in The Philippines, by the Filipinos
are what has been putting earthquakes and tsunamis to shame.
My grandmothers have been through worse,
what's a little bit of motion and shake?
The Prayers in The Philippines, by the Filipinos
are what has been keeping this country a curse and a miracle;
why we have mountains that we have today,
why and how they're shaped that way.
Despite the chaos of politics, corruption and news of crimes...
Why we have oceans that are bright blue
and how they could make a weary traveler or a desolate native feel brand new.
Despite the familiar dangers and age-old stereotypes...
The Prayers in The Philippines, by the Filipinos
are what has been holding Filipinos together,
be it with each other or to fight through another day for much longer.
The Prayers in The Philippines, by the Filipinos
are what has been keeping this country ever magical and mystical,
even if some days it's harder to feel that way.
The Prayers in The Philippines, by the Filipinos
are the reason why I'm here, why I exist,
why I'm alive and kicking,
full of dreams and spite and hope, writing,
the reason why I'm full of life, full of love
and will keep on living and loving.
I will live and die saying my prayers
in The Philippines,
as a Filipino,
for The Philippines
and for other Filipinos.
Dec 7, 2023
Dec 7, 2023 at 2:03 AM UTC
She sat there alone
Under his table
Like a puppy waiting
For a piece of bone
She always ask herself-
Should she stop waiting
Or should she continue believing?
Now she's here sitting
From a distance, waiting
That he will take a look
At the small souvenir she left
Under his table
Before she walk away...
May 20, 2014
May 20, 2014 at 3:59 AM UTC
Patiently waiting for the perfect light.
Glassy lake, wind, clouds, perfection’s near
as the moment dwindles into night.
Captured moments prove that you’re alive, a height
of feeling between depths of time and fear
that living casts only imperfect light.
But the moment missed is like a face out of sight
that against all logic you hope will appear
from around a corner, framed by the night.
Technology offers consolation in its sleight
of hand: Digitally correct the analog here
and now, counterfeit the perfect light.
Yet you want more than the remastered byte.
You want the flash between waiting and souvenir,
Self and spectacle fused, reality felt right.
And so you wait for what’s passing out of sight,
the collision between soon and too late, sheer
threads connecting to the perfect light
before the moment dwindles into night.
May 28, 2019
May 28, 2019 at 8:56 PM UTC
My house will be filled with the things that I love;
Goldfish, dandelions,
Green sofas, Greek mythology,
Books of psychology.
Books. Lots of books with lots of words.
Multiple copies of the really good books too.
All stacked to the ceiling
on bookshelves adequate to
The height of the house
All equivalent to
My love of the place I’ll call home.
A sock monkey here or there,
pillows and throw blankets.
Pictures of Lake Louise, and a souvenir
If I’m ever lucky enough to go there.
I will print poetry, frame it, put it on my walls.
My walls will be yellow gray and blue,
I will have a boombox with speakers that go BOOM
(but at night it will sing me to sleep
with many sweet lullabies).
And it’s music will fade to the sound of voices
Voices of people I love and admire
Who can walk through the door,
of the place I aspire
To make my own,
To share and not waste
With the precious presence of others
And their ideas
And hopes and dreams
So if you aren't a thing I love,
You have to leave.
I’ll probably have a lot of lamps too.
Nov 23, 2012
Nov 23, 2012 at 4:24 PM UTC
Motel moons, left of face
In room 12, a thing named Grace
She's missing ***** & he's missing eggs-
Band-Aids on the neck
Royal Hawaiian
Big Ad's A-Flyin' (Bye!)
Cowboys in black dusters
And aliens in track suits
Drinking coffee with the common man
Blue-hooded and faceless, walks by again
Third-reel-real headshot,
Kept as a souvenir by an FBI actor
A man can do a lot with his chin
Uncle Sam's tonic & gin
Not made to be an Earthling
Not fit to be an alien
Stars are flickering lights
On Big Empty nights
Three days in the desert
Minus pie sauce in the sky
What's in the blue suitcase?
Why the blue bowling shoes to get to that place?
"Just get on the bus, Gus...
... And get yourself free"
Blue-sky clouds on black
Whipped cream & jack
The United States of Aliens
And a Person in a circle
Nov 25, 2011
Nov 25, 2011 at 9:19 PM UTC
The poem of the mind in the act of finding
What will suffice. It has not always had
To find: the scene was set; it repeated what
Was in the script.
Then the theatre was changed
To something else. Its past was a souvenir.
It has to be living, to learn the speech of the place.
It has to face the men of the time and to meet
The women of the time. It has to think about war
And it has to find what will suffice. It has
To construct a new stage. It has to be on that stage,
And, like an insatiable actor, slowly and
With meditation, speak words that in the ear,
In the delicatest ear of the mind, repeat,
Exactly, that which it wants to hear, at the sound
Of which, an invisible audience listens,
Not to the play, but to itself, expressed
In an emotion as of two people, as of two
Emotions becoming one. The actor is
A metaphysician in the dark, twanging
An instrument, twanging a wiry string that gives
Sounds passing through sudden rightnesses, wholly
Containing the mind, below which it cannot descend,
Beyond which it has no will to rise.
It must
Be the finding of a satisfaction, and may
Be of a man skating, a woman dancing, a woman
Combing. The poem of the act of the mind.
3.3k
.
And I stumble on across the barren land,
the mist, like a shroud, about me swirls,
chipped flint rocks assault my bare feet,
an endless quarry of slate grey, my world.
So the curtain of sadness and submission falls,
covering my mind with an opaque funeral drape,
the hazy images of the isolated and desolate,
forming the features of depressions landscape.
Vaguely felt, the invasion of another waits,
blind and innocent in a palace of real fear,
set free to roam in a strange arid topography,
desperate times pause for vision to be clear.
A stark scene viewed through teardrops frozen,
by ice winds of piercing calamity and despair,
of a place exclusive to the disaffected and lonely,
the last retreat for an exhausted mind to repair.
And this is my world where the haunted party,
leave me be with my cold mists and grey stone,
the frozen tear for a souvenir means everything,
my special gift, the feeling of being utterly alone.
© Pagan Paul (24/01/18)
Jan 24, 2018
Jan 24, 2018 at 7:09 AM UTC
~
*Another green world
reels them in
unfledged
lovers
they yearn
to be hydro-electric
cascading over
emerald and stone
floating along
with the water hyacinth
where they evaporate
but do not falter
in the naked spring
of continuously November
jumping off
a bridge above ecosystem
a new frontier
under their nose
as souvenir:
pioneers to the fall
and yet all they really
need to remember is
this is where they
first made love*
~
Feb 6, 2022
Feb 6, 2022 at 1:21 PM UTC
1324
I send you a decrepit flower
That nature sent to me
At parting—she was going south
And I designed to stay—
Her motive for the souvenir
If sentiment for me
Or circumstances prudential
Withheld invincibly—
3.2k
I'm not an artist but I've opened up galleries with your name painted all over the walls
they're a souvenir encoded in brush strokes of downward spirals and rose tinted tunnel vision
the lights are blaring and my sight is blurred by tears and the street lamp flickers, almost sympathetically
a street lamp can understand, so why can't you?
Feb 15, 2015
Feb 15, 2015 at 12:48 PM UTC
Green glass
but it's French
which makes it
verre vert.
The French should like that.
They appreciate
their jeux de mots.
Not a statue
of a man
but it could be.
Not a piece of art at all
except
I have made it so
by saying it is one.
Its qualities
are visual
and tactile at once
the material heavy
(over a kilo)
not so much transparent
as translucent
the colour
from under the sea
the surface curved
smooth
glossy
the shape functional
admirably suited for its purpose
its name
embossed on the back
(or the front?)
giving a clue.
L' ÉLECTRO VERRE
redundant insulator
from an overhead power cable
found object
(objet trouvé)
from the garden
of friends
in the Alpes-Maritimes.
This souvenir
potential paperweight
ornament
sculpture
is more than all of these.
Souvenir after all
is French for memory.
Sep 22, 2016
Sep 22, 2016 at 12:21 PM UTC
Get in your feet!
Pick up the pace!
Run, Runner! Run, Runner!
Run, Runner! Run, Runner!
Move your feet one towards the other!
Don't let yourself be slaughtered!
Run, Runner! Run, Runner!
Run, Runner! Run, Runner!
Run, with your numbed legs!
Run, with your shortened breaths!
Run, run while you still can!
Run, Runner! Run, Runner!
Don't trip or tumble over!
Or else it'll be over!
Look straight ahead! Don't look back!
Run, Runner! Run, Runner!
Oh no! He took his last breath!
Oh no! He tumbled down!
Oh no! He's coming! He's coming!
Run, Runner! Dead, Runner!
He took him by his legs!
He fell unconsciously!
Oh no! What will He do?
Dead, Runner! Dead Runner!
He took his head as an ornament;
He fed his carcass to the dogs;
He put his shoes as a souvenir;
Dead, Runner. Dead, Runner.
May 18, 2016
May 18, 2016 at 10:25 PM UTC
Louder than Monsters
By: Calla Fuqua
I can’t unhear your ignorance, I can’t unsee your belligerence,
The potential difference you swore you’d make, and the carnivorous path
You chose to take.
You are louder than monsters.
Heaven must scare you and your desire to dissipate,
Your chance to incriminate, the problems you exacerbate,
I can’t articulate your need to intoxicate.
Your laughter is louder than monsters.
You fabricat your pity you pretend to give, as you wait for me to forgive,
That night I have to relive when I dream, of our short lived view of how happiness seemed.
Back then how could I have known that you were louder than monsters.
Your grip on me becomes tighter, the more your desire for me expires,
The more you secretly become a liar, and the more I ask myself why her?
Her voicemails are louder than monsters.
I end up on the floor, after you hit me and you swore,
You don’t say I love you anymore, the way you used to before,
And now I’m just your little ***** you pretend to love as if it’s a chore.
Your silence is louder than monsters.
I pray for you and the guilt you must feel, screaming out our window,
frantic to appeal, for the pain you caused solely so you could heal.
Your lies are louder than monsters.
You laugh when I say no, giving me a messed up world you pretend to know,
Now it’s my turn to outgrow you and your plateau, the one you promised
To let go. While I undergo the pain you overflow.
My screams are louder than monsters.
I still tell myself you love me after you throw your fists, holding tight to my wrists,
As I keep allowing the crimes you commit, to become imprints from the pain you inflict.
This pain is louder than monsters.
Now, nobody seems sincere, every scar is like a souvenir, You leave me speechless, when you sip your beer, like you didn’t just make my whole world disappear,
You say you are not louder than monsters.
All I can do now is reminisce, look back on moments like our first kiss,
Before you led me into this abyss, before I was unable to dismiss the thought,
“What kind of monster does this?”
Someone who doesn’t know he is louder than monsters.
I dream about the day I can throw out your ashtray, The day
I can cast away you whole, no more arms to control my body’s soul,
A day where I no longer have to be your wife,
A day where I can play a character in my own life.
A day where love is louder than monsters
Apr 15, 2019
Apr 15, 2019 at 2:01 PM UTC
i am lying on my stomach
after having spent hours propped up on my elbows
spent hours reading, sunbathing
spent hours getting drunk and tired in the sun
i am outside our new chicago home
in a courtyard belonging to only us
i am sprawled on the transparent blue plastic of my past
the cerulean beach chair that never made it to a single beach.
its plastic wound and woven around the metal
like nothing i’ve ever seen before
and i fall asleep
and i’m awakened by the raindrops on the low of my bare back
but it is not raining
and i wake up naked, inside, in your arms as you tap out a tune on me
and the blue chair that we put in the shower
when my brother was too weak to stand
because my brother was too weak to stand
is nowhere to be found
even when he went to live in the hospital
that chair
gathered rust
in a closed, dripping shower
we threw it out
it reminded us of a hard time
he was our only surviving souvenir
i miss the chair
and i miss the person he was before it all
before he gathered all this rust
Jan 31, 2021
Jan 31, 2021 at 3:21 PM UTC