"speckling" poems
Goodnight.
The evening has arrived and the Sun has become weary
Goodnight
The stars have come to reclaim the deepest blue
Speckling across the dark wide blanket of the cosmos
Goodnight
The daylight has faded and your energy has been taxed
Perhaps it was a productive day....
perhaps not
But the evening calls and the night follows
The mysticism and superstition is heralded by cricket calls
Reality becomes enervated now, rest your head on the pillow.
Nirvana inside of the null............................
Finally, Goodnight.
Jul 25, 2012
Jul 25, 2012 at 3:40 PM UTC
What you don't see
is the way I wait,
watching her braid
worries in her hair
speckling small daisies,
my eyes like tumblers
gulping her in swigs
as she perches glasses
on the arch of her nose,
and then we'll take
a photo
to remark on how
we were back then
and now.
Jun 2, 2014
Jun 2, 2014 at 7:06 PM UTC
Honeysuckle running deep in nostril's recollection
Wafting nectar dripping in air, please stop
Must stay present, no time for memory swap
Sneaking in, yellowed dreams, desirous confection
O purgatory, keep me still, deviate no such inflection
Causeway flash backing egg yolk, and lemon spectrum
Road lined in runners, speckling scintillation
This loose maddening of honeysuckle titillation
Reverse your tendril's twist, quivers an ungated septum
Covers, green to yellow transitions, honeysuckle bedlam
I cannot dance down this lane for fear of you
Your ringlets curl, clasp, coil me
On such road of alluvial soil I see
How can I? Must I, escape steer of dew?
You're honeysuckle memory of all I knew
Mar 9, 2016
Mar 9, 2016 at 9:58 AM UTC
*for T.M.R.
our "fellow" southern friend*
the southern way,
she-poet
teaches me
via long distance
breaking of the
braking neural inhibitions of
the loudest silences
that only humans can
mistress
photos, stories,
Facebook posts
how the earth rebirths
taking unasked
unwitting but wisely
both of us
to be refreshed,
so verily
the southern way
sharing worldly
southern words
betraying a
more than
passing
(how I hate that word)
expertise
in spring colors
glorious to every sense,
best described
as nature's way to humanize what we wordily call
hopeful,
self-betraying herself by the
she -poets
innate
southern ways
calls me
northern boy
in a
true voice,
raconteuring,
quick retorting
always in the midst of
d r a wling stories,
about all crazy frogs
of Columbia County,
jumping multiple courses
all about
she-poets navigating
life erratic,
half ecstatic
yet singularity colored,
characteristic of a
ninety percent southern
Tennessee whiskey blues
hear clear
she-poets
welcoming swirling
undertow undertones
lying just above the calmest
morning water surface glistening
words betraying nothing,
yet saying
all in
between, in
pauses of
speckling sun drops spectacular
she-poet
has her places
in woods, knolls and
rarely visited mountains
where cold brooks and cold beers
southern sooth
in ways
I will likely,
wanting but unable,
never learn
to hear clear
the southern way
is never flex,
nerve never
never bend, smile,
still fighting
the prior lost cause
ignore the
cracks coverup
until and when
the afternoon sun
ceases to warm
the orchard porch
daylighting no longer
when no one is around
she-poet
weeps out loud alone
in the
southern way
and I,
northern boy,
student witness,
having obtained
a learner's permit
for her teachings
re
the southern wayfaring ways
of living life
weep along side
in my unsatisfactory
northern way,
learning that,
who knew,
tears are also
glue
anywhere
Apr 12, 2015
Apr 12, 2015 at 8:08 AM UTC
1.
Your specimen:
the cat.
He lies, a stretched out
blob of
whirring, whizzing particles:
You can’t see them –
he can.
2.
His fur is
dried old carpet
left out on a front lawn:
homeless,
floorless;
waiting to be claimed.
3.
His eyes are
blank marbles
flicked by sticky fingers
in a game.
You won them
by cheating,
and stole them but they
turned to mush
in your hands, they
fell through your fingers, and
stained them with purple:
it would not wash off.
It grew:
an omnipresent reminder
trickling down your arms,
pooling at your elbows.
4.
You raise the scalpel:
it is a crescent moon
speckling down to
illicit behaviour
below.
5.
The portraits on the walls
applaud
when you make the first
CUT.
and reveal the
gooey caramel
dripping, circulating, inside.
It sticks to
the blade, forming
clumps of purple
that harden to a
crystallised-honey form.
6.
Later you sleep
with the cat;
he lies on your bed
and purrs
(does he purr?)
and you label the jars:
“Dissection 15”.
Apr 25, 2014
Apr 25, 2014 at 4:15 AM UTC
your face illuminated in the moonlight,
glowing, soft and gentle features—
who were you, i wonder?
the stars above us speckling the sky,
i lean on your side, pain in your eyes,
and through your hurt i realize,
you glance at me, afraid, unsure.
my heart is stricken, my mind, it aches;
the surroundings were no match to your beauty.
i draw my hand meekly to yours,
our fingertips touch, i begin to slow back,
you're scared now, drawing weary breaths,
yet you held my hand, and i felt so real.
closing my eyes, sinking deeper into your arms,
and letting the night encase us both,
the sky felt true and memories numb,
but i knew it was all a dream.
Feb 1, 2019
Feb 1, 2019 at 11:18 AM UTC
I was lying in bed last night staring up
at the stars speckling the celestial indigo heavens
like glittery sprinkles across a birthday cake
and I thought to myself:
Where the hell is the ceiling?
Dec 12, 2014
Dec 12, 2014 at 9:35 PM UTC
I shed a body or two off
Back when I was in the "Times."
The speckling of my sharpest bones
Was in order
and I still didn't want to go home.
I just wanted to shine.
I just wanted to live like ivory
and dance in the minty ice cream cone
That's melting down your left wrist.
While in the other hand there was this little slip
A piece of paper with a note
About how God can change your life and
Others lives if you can just pray right
and then pay the standing Black Jack off by the closed door.
Would you like anymore
Wisdom from an old bag of grass
Or the company of a church *****
I want to shed roses out of the garden
and into my mind.
I just want to tell you that you're not mine
and you never will be and
I will never be happy again
Not like I was when
I had no hidden grin
Or when I had no scar on my chest from beating him
Or any manly hair on my chinny chin chin.
I've shined out and timed out of the server.
The service calls me so
I put a gun in my mouth
and sing them the anthem of their nations glow:
The anthem of a lunatic
Praying on a twelve gauge
To bring me back in again.
Bruised teeth and busted lips.
A black smudge down the right side
And your **** are looking back at me.
To make things a little bit harder,
I almost stopped to shudder and erase that last part but I can't now
For it has made its mark.
Trash can journey number six.
Are you in to this?
Nov 20, 2013
Nov 20, 2013 at 5:57 PM UTC
For background - read "The Frumpy Tale of Riley River Duck"
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the frigid winters of June
With the snow scattering over the crystal lagoon
Puffy white frost pillows covered the ground
The sunshine making them glitter all around
Riley sat with a piping hot cup of tea
Conversing eloquently with Cecelia the flea
The happy duck sat, blankets covering her slick feathers
Helping her brave even the harshest weathers
Out of nowhere came a huge “thump”
Causing Riley to jump
She waddled to the window
Just to see a cloud of dust and kindle
An avalanche slowly slithered along
The beast heaved, wicked and strong
Flicking up ice, draping the sun with a gown
Speckling, flickering and finally glittering down
Outside came a muffled scream
It could’ve been from a dream
Riley rushed outside
With the sun her only guide
She saw a **** of snow wiggle and grow
How was anyone to know?
That the avalanche had awoken an animal
Cory the angry camel
See the snow and lumber
Woke him up from his slumber
Along with the snow, his temper seemed to grow
And his **** was in a frump
Riley waddled out
To settle this bout
She pleaded and reasoned him to see
That the snow was very fun to throw
All the animals of the Great Oak Tree crowded around the fight
Till the day turned into night
Cory was smiling and laughing, his mood lifted
As his big hooves sifted
He lifted up a snowball, and threw it into the sky
Riley could only watch it fly…
It hit her in the beak
So her mouth was too cold to speak
She looked in shock
As Cory ran amok
The camel had won the fight
Just as the day turned to night
The day came to an end
And Cory couldn’t help but pretend
That he wasn’t happy that he won
Throwing snow was very fun
Riley saved the day
In the late winters of May
She took Cory into her house
Quiet as a mouse….
Mar 10, 2013
Mar 10, 2013 at 1:20 PM UTC
written with Mohamed Nasir
please check him out he is such a talented peot
As I was young running underneath the shower
Droplets speckling my face Ike water freckles
I ran across the watery lane in the fountain of
My youth
I ran naked wet under the sprinkler's arches
Hooray! Hooray! Hooray! I shouted
Joyfully as Archimedes found truth and naked
He ran down the street of Athens
Eurica! Eurica! Eurica! He shouted
Then I heard someone call my name
And shake me up
"Get up," my mother said
"You wet your bed again," she said
I was dreaming in my wet dreams again
Nov 20, 2017
Nov 20, 2017 at 10:50 PM UTC
when we first met i pinched myself daily
i had not yet mastered lucid dreaming
but reality was just too unbelieveable
i'd left the mossy rock's shade in exchange for a view of the lake
fearing my skin would bake i retreated
my biggest mistake
i could not find my way back to the dark path
so i sat in a field and let the sun beat my back
brown to black, speckling white as i peeled
uneven, unhappy, unmatched
the shade had never truly hurt me in the past
i became drawn by the unknown, by physical attraction
though i may once again find my rock, the contentment i felt with it once is apt to end
the lake whispers my name but i know it just wants to drown me in its depths
Aug 9, 2013
Aug 9, 2013 at 2:13 PM UTC
We roll
on the magic carpet into the outward reaches
to wrap abound bodies in communal hugs
atop magical tye-dye mountains and black and white rivers
of Peter Max the hushed whisper of
red bird hair ***** into a conversation
flying further into the horizon that is my dawn light glowing chest.
We roll
over each other on the floor sofa laughing,
like you see in the movies
of delinquent bohemians celebrating life with beers and
pills you swallow. Feels like the puppet strings
on our wings have withered; free to flail.
We roll
our bodies & eyes
backward-forward-sideways together with the music
wryly dancing as the world turns into a desert--
every molecule in our bodies warms--slowly,
like a hot bubble bath,
the earth takes its time spinning....
unlike our Sufi brains still rolling
rolling
and rolling like a stone down a hill betwixt a meadow
between two excited lovers in a cliched scene where
they are running toward each other--
naked with tattoos on their arms
and a smattering of neon orange and blue paint speckling their bodies
while they wear a native american headdress and Ray-Bans.
Jun 28, 2013
Jun 28, 2013 at 11:05 PM UTC
N Y’s serrated skyline,
a pale blue sleeps on teal.
But cut out
the distant end of it
and something of that shade
might wake
from under there, I feel.
The cross which I tend
to see is nearer than
N Y. It is rusting
an old green garden on it
and there is much strangely
colored gray living in
the winding motions above it.
The last of the sun, it dying
again pours libations of
pink upon the summit.
The view is far to me
yet brings me close
to a sky’s permeation.
(Been dragging me forward
a while now to its edge,
this now ever wasting.)
This is much like the way
the Torre fell through
my eyes, pending inward
upon some mind, which
I tried to catch in my gray
gray matter (sitting next
to her) like that was
the last essential task.
I said keep it keep it.
Did not keep it. It passed.
The blue is changing now—
lighter, paler, ghost-like.
If you were here
you would know the color.
(It is the sheet spread over
when things are lifted
as if born.) Lights, smaller
than skin water specs
begin to glimmer.
A breath is a crumpled
thing, used and used but
never wasted. When I
breathe to breathe I
remember to keep
breathing. And when the
world enters my lungs,
I can choose when to
exhale time—if I breathe
to breathe.
More speckling of sky skin.
The shades are fading, darker.
Suffused under, the clouds
congregate in covers.
The Brooklyn museum
is some pantheon upon
my roman hill from here.
The street lamps flame
orange as if it all was a
constant procession
towards the unceremonious
entrance, through the changing
gates, to the unknowing
home of being.
(The blue has fallen
from the sky and dropped
onto the roofs.)
The impossibly colored
clouds smoke up in
one heap from the end,
still the same distance—
far away. (But there still
is blue behind me.
A blue has kept away
from the end.
The cross has blackened.)
I wish not to leave this
Brooklyn roof. But I have
chosen to sleep on a bed.
One day
I will sleep on a roof.
Mar 27, 2012
Mar 27, 2012 at 8:21 PM UTC
it’s more than just a happy song
i don’t know how to write a poem when i’m happy
but if i did, it would be called "strawberry swing"
i’ve had this title in my head for two years now
because an unexplained feeling always engulfs me when i hear that song
probably because it reminds me of that day
we went to the lake
but funny enough
that’s what i remember the least
what do i remember?
well, first, i remember turning into the wrong parking lot
hoping we were lost
so we could stay there longer
hoping the forecast for rain would hit
so we could “sit in the car and wait for it to blow over”
i remember the curving country roads that you drove around
(probably a little too fast—but that’s okay, it added to the thrill, to the excitement in my heart)
that wound for miles with no end in sight
which i was perfectly fine with
as i sat in the passenger seat listening to you hum along to the playlist we made together
i remember it was late june, early summer
warm enough to have the windows down
warm enough to see the sun dance across the windshield before speckling our skin, our eyes with light
the same sun that i noticed, for the first time, called your freckles out of hiding
warm enough for the car to get just a little bit too hot once we returned
but i didn’t care as long as you were in it
i remember having a conversation and being surprised that you were looking at me while i spoke
nodding your head along
smiling
inquiring
interested in me
i remember thinking that was a new feeling
i remember the closer and closer we got to home
the more and more excuses i tried to come up with in my head to get you to stay
how many red lights could we hit?
do you need to fill up on gas?
will all the street parking outside my house be full?
(so we can circle the block
even 5 more seconds will suffice)
well, we sat there for a while
you wanted to stay longer
making small talk like we did for months
neither of us wanted to leave
what are you doing later?
have you heard this song?
are you free any other days this week?
but we didn’t want this week
we wanted today
right now
this moment
it’s such a perfect day
May 23, 2023
May 23, 2023 at 11:35 PM UTC
1
I will drive you to the beach today,
Because winter has outstayed its welcome.
We have no tolerance for rude guests.
After all, it’s been a pair of months since
We had our last snowball fight.
We can undress to the least amount of
Decent clothing the law permits.
We will take sandals that clap our heels
Uniformly with our strides through the sand.
I’ve already packed our wicker picnic basket.
We will have ham and cheese on white bread,
Because we both agree peanut butter is unpleasant to smell.
We’ve cuddled all winter long to keep warm. Now,
We want to hold each other for the innocent pleasure
Spring promises. Now, we’re going to the beach.
2
She and I held our anticipation together
With every rotation of our odometer.
We—together—would enjoy the simple pleasure
Of watching the overbearing nines
Give way to a fresh thousand.
She pretended the AM stations
Received alien transmissions at the ends
Of the dials. When we listened, we heard music.
She had the idea to buy one another
New bathing suits. Now, I wear too short blue trunks
With green dots, speckling me like an ill duck.
3
Skipping, and kicking up sand with uncommon grace,
The sun began to set as she pranced around
Our fire. The blaze was burning out, as the sky
Took the light away. I could only barely make out
The purple of her new one-piece, that so starkly
Contrasted with her pale legs.
As the sun almost hid beneath the west, like a fawn
Her silhouette casually strolled my way.
She held her head to the stars, presenting
All of her neck. The only sounds we heard
Were the tide and her toes crunching sand.
She stopped, just toe lengths in front of me,
Arching her head back, as if deep in thought.
Her mouth opened like a growing crater
And when, in her shadow, I joined her skyward stare,
We—together—both watched the Moon come out.
Jun 5, 2010
Jun 5, 2010 at 8:00 AM UTC
First a disclaimer:
My god is not
necessarily
yours, but she is
undeniably
hungry for a comfort-food
snack of peanut butter
and Fluff brand
whipped marshmallow spread.
(Yeah, I know,
nasty stuff, yet
every god has her quirks)
She's actually
more demiurge,
needy and enduring
a dangerously dull day
ideating at the office
that gets worse when
she opens the gripe-box
to unfold a complaint
pasted in ransom-note letters:
"Too stingy with praise.
Resent the ego stroking
going one way."
"Can't stroke what you ain't got,"
she cracks, tipping back
a cold glass of froth-topped milk.
The bubbling laughter
seizes her
mid-swallow, and
caught up by
a soul-clearing cough,
stars spray out speckling
black tile in a no-longer dark
part of the universe
we call home.
Jun 18, 2010
Jun 18, 2010 at 5:15 PM UTC
Speckling drops, of bathwater- lovely evening rain.
Patter melodically against
my open window frame.
The water touches me not,
for my roof with gutters and onings.
But the dewy breeze saturates my room
like my face to an ocean breeze.
Mother Waters, send her daughters
to my window this spring night singing.
Distant puddle patterning ploops,
diameters mass expanses on the suburban streets.
The trees, the smile as they absorb the
moisture their brittle bones need.
Oh how I pitied the trees,
when the cold stripped and broke their branches
my heart grew sorrowful & weak.
The deserve to be enveloped, by this
unplanned storm.
All in the world, would agree when I say
that we are blessed
with this warm April rain
Apr 13, 2014
Apr 13, 2014 at 10:48 AM UTC
slight music
quite instrumentals slither through the space
now an ethereal silence and a curled, gnarled hand rest at the table
weather-worn pockmarked face twitch
a common occurrence
a scene worthy of a masterful painter
the air sighs, not in sound but in feeling
it is demure, languid,
a seamless bond of hunched figure and wispy breaths
a heart feels light and hollow with pulsating winds surrounding it
a man's hide tingles, prickles
pores gently widen in anticipation
a boxed room
a shackle room
dark, yet for the dim lantern
and a speckling of pinpoints in ever shifting pupils
patterns shift with tightening skin, hackles raised
billowing smoke against snarling and jolting
our West is not kind
a child stumbles with its chittering and chattering, back into its hole
an equalizer delicately rocks upon the floor
hot in its despondence and billowing smoke barrel
the metal becomes cold, uncaring; what despair was impacted upon it has left, as is the same with all objects subject to human emotion
Old blood sleeps in the shackled room
with chattering mumbling children in their holes
life is but glorious process, while we all wish for results
how deplorable
Apr 3, 2010
Apr 3, 2010 at 4:16 PM UTC
The snow outside my small window had just started to fall again
coating the frozen grass with a fresh white blanket that only encouraged me to stay snuggled up in my bed
under layers of fuzzy fabric. The sounds outside that condensation covered window
started to fade as my alarm clock ticked to another early hour of the morning.
I should be sleeping
but instead I'm trying to study notecards for my anatomy exam in-between checking my phone
hoping you responded to that message
I sent a thirty seconds ago.
One minute,
two,
four
minutes later I’m struggling to remember where a protein is made
because I can’t drag my eyes away from the same, black screen that’s been staring back at me
since I sent that message five and a half minutes ago.
I give up on memorizing the functions of an organelle and turn out my light
trying not to focus in on how your hair would look
with little white flakes speckling it.
Eight minutes
after I was picturing the outline of your face, imagining the perfection in every curve and line
I’m comforted by the faint scent of cigarettes on your skin and your hands grabbing my hips
as your body pushes against mine. I forget all about the snow
coming in through the opened window beside where we were
whispering back and forth in the dark room only illuminated by a random car passing by the building.
Breathing in deeply attempting to flood my brain with what I was feeling,
kissing the nicotine seeping up through your skin, praying it circulates through my blood
and holds me over until the next time the snow comes down
and you blanket me like the white powder covering the frozen ground outside.
Feb 19, 2017
Feb 19, 2017 at 12:00 PM UTC
Your delicate hand
slide into mine,
and as we strolled,
I lost track of time.
We kissed in the rain,
and drove the cold away.
Wild flowers have returned
to where the little girls play.
Sun streams through the trees
speckling the ground.
I used to feel lost,
but now I feel found.
The winter has thawed,
and with it our doubts.
Any wrinkle of reservation
has been smoothed out.
The summer air rises,
an improv quartet plays.
Children are laughing and shrieking
as a make-shift sprinkler sprays.
It’s east Harlem in the park,
with you by my side.
I awoke so happy,
my smile had nowhere to hide.
Nov 30, 2018
Nov 30, 2018 at 10:36 AM UTC
I am a child of the stars
Conceived from stardust
And sketched from the kisses of Orion.
I am a child of Jupiter
Formulated from the amber streaks that pinch my frame together
And the unknown beneath the surface.
I am the child of the Milky Way
From the exploding stars that burrowed in my eyes and my heart
And the nebulas that are trying to piece themselves together.
I am a part of the sky that happened to fall down and bruise my skin with dirt
From the bones under the grass
And the charcoal smudges speckling my back.
I am a child of the black hole
Whispered into my ear and filled my brain with darkness
And rests in the bottom of my stomach.
I am a child of the sun
That puts the warmth in my body
And fight the darkness in my head.
I am the child of the stars
Conceived from stardust.
Watch me shine.
May 2, 2016
May 2, 2016 at 10:44 AM UTC
Lately I've been waiting.
Waiting for the trees to lose
their leaves, for the clouds to release
their snow, for April showers to summon
buttercups from the soil.
Autumn builds a cathedral above
my impatient head as light
shimmers through fallow branches
while the sycamores blossom orange.
Till winter's bustling breeze
pushes up daisies, and summer returns
to my arms (unnoticed and sudden).
I'll wait on whoever moves
the universal chess pieces to
exile the frost speckling my yard.
Sitting on edge, as spring's
raspberry sunset grazes the tree line
(and allergies drip from my nose),
I try to spy a lightening bug--
any trace or sign
of summer.
She'll arrive late May,
with curls toss'd like the sea and
blue eyes two shades lighter
than a cloudless sky.
Treasure her while she lingers,
notice how her bonfires consider
your friends' faces with a wild blaze--
dim, but bright all the same.
Let the sun brown your shoulders,
moving through each day she tucks away
with adoration. Forgive her
for fading, for she's pulled by the wrists on
Galaxy's timeline.
She'll throw back her head
with a laugh that says,
"You don't know me,
and never will."
Then she'll leave you
waiting all year long.
Jan 24, 2014
Jan 24, 2014 at 3:14 PM UTC