"sporadically" poems
For an hour and a half I sit on the floor
holding a piece of shaped cardboard.
I turn it round and round to show all side
while holding a paper plate of paints.
He holds the brush like he holds his pencils
“wrong.”
He pays attention to the cartoon at his lap
and sporadically looks at the tip of the brush.
Colors are scattered with no rhyme and reasons
and brush strokes are seen without hesitation.
He paints and paints and saps his little energy
to make a Christmas present for his little sister.
Dec 17, 2015
Dec 17, 2015 at 11:43 PM UTC
Weary is the wanderer who travels with no true destination,
Hesitant is the past he's abandoned home,
Unconscious is his pursuit with no avail,
Forgotten is her memory as he treads sporadically; endless turmoil.
Jan 7, 2023
Jan 7, 2023 at 4:08 PM UTC
I've never felt so dumb
You made me feel awful, awful, awful and so **** dumb
I've never felt so naive
Like a fiddle that has been played
Using me as a sort of middleman
to cause your loved one pain
Using me so sporadically
You are clearly insane
Innocent Bystander
take advantage of me
a little kindness
take advantage of me
I should have read the warning signs
There must have been an omen in the sky
How could I not hear the sirens
over your deliberate silence
Innocent Bystander
take advantage of me
what could go wrong
take advantage of me
assuming the best
take advantage of me
You took advantage of me
May 14, 2013
May 14, 2013 at 12:35 AM UTC
In my absence
My mind has been doing back-flips,
back-spins and hand-springs.
They really should be called head-springs.'
Off a spring board I began vaulting.
Trying to spin, tumble, turn des pairs
of thoughts stuck in the landing area
Threw a little french in there for ya.
Grasping at hysteria asymmetrically with sanity
must be stronger than anxiety. Like a glass coat, it blankets me
however you can see to the core, translucent rings of a tree.
Walking the balance beam
between life and suicide sporadically.
Being pushed on both sides by a jet stream
Surviving is a pipe dream because we are all dying.
Once again I am on the floor. However,
I am implored to look forward by poetic neighbors.
All I gotta do is knock on their door and they'll gladly give me a cup of esprit de corps.
More french, Au revoir
May 17, 2013
May 17, 2013 at 3:44 PM UTC
"Wala pay sulod atong sako Nay.”
Sack of rice is empty
Stomach rumbling mercilessly
Mind is hazy, breathing sporadically
Cold porridge is a feast.
“Go home!” says Mama sternly
Frantic, frightened, panicky
Rocks hurled, bullets fly
Blood splatters; running aimlessly
We dodge our way to safety
Cold porridge is a feast.
“I will not,” I say adamantly
She looks at the sack mournfully
Empty. Devoid of sanity.
Cold porridge is a feast.
“We’ll get some soon. Don’t worry.”
“I don’t believe you.”
I feel weak, I am crabby
I’m staying despite this misery
Cold porridge is a feast.
Childlike will, piety of soul
Purity of intention, pursuit of living whole
Cold porridge is a feast.
Nov 1, 2016
Nov 1, 2016 at 6:56 AM UTC
Travelling by foot in whatever weather
I took to walking the gardens' route,
With single lens reflex camera
Still able to take the sort of pictures
That stop the eyes from wandering.
Photos in black and white
Where contrasts given a subtlety
Slowly revealing the depths
Of the familiar.
And into the park
Where rain, recently fallen,
Drenches the lens with jewels
Dropping from tree and cloud,
Sporadically,
Catching the light
With its rainbow spectrum
And collecting moments
Of nature's splendour
Into unnoticed places.
Love Mary ***
Mar 24, 2018
Mar 24, 2018 at 7:35 AM UTC
Bluebell Lucy danced in fantastic flames, taught by shamanic figures
when the winter nights grew tiresome
and lonely boys ran passionately in village streets
She stood on ancient structures and sang her song with uttermost vigor
even after mild paranoia sets in, she stands statuesque
breathing harmonic, listening intently to the cloud's chatter
Her cobalt lashes flickered adroitly when she scanned the sky atop her locks
and let the coming rains wash through that azure mane
until the kiss of eternal gratitude arrived from a stray bird
On cobble stone paving, her heels were worn and dampened, she nimbly strides
how beautiful it is to see a spirit so free
and the obstinate world yields to her alone
Loosely, Lucy with a cerulean aura, gathers the injured and feral in alabaster arms
she is yagé and the world hallucinates because of her
a subtle enlightenment she gives to onlookers and thieves
Camu Camu sprouting from the wells she digs with bare hands in midnight moonlight
her compatriots, the beasts of lost tribes, look onwards
and she wails a verse on hemerocallis singular sensation
The flower that she is, a wild one that grows sporadically to enhance the beauty of existence
and everybody incomprehensible in thoughts when she speaks
because she is love when love had died so many suns ago
Dec 12, 2013
Dec 12, 2013 at 3:35 PM UTC
In the broken kitchen chair he sits
Weeping the tears of a killer
Face buried into the palms of his grisly hands
He sobs uncontrollably for he knows what these hands have done
He cries as a child might having seen his parents murdered
Gasping and struggling to draw in a full breath
Snot running from his nose, curling over the stubble of his upper lip
With a clenched fist he wipes this away
Rage building in his veins, hatred, and remorse
His face grows red as he shakes uncontrollably with anger
Unsure of what to do with himself he rises quickly to his feet
His chair crashing back to the floor behind him
He paces the kitchen back and forth
Feet padding monotonously over checkered linoleum
Suddenly, abruptly, he stops, his gaze drifting to the counter top
As he catches sight of the skinless corpse he screams
A blood curdling scream that chills to the bone
Unable to bare the sight of his disembodied victim any longer
He barrels out of the kitchen
Crashing through doors, splinters of wood marking his trail
In the bathroom he now stands
Sulking in shame before a ***** mirror, staring down at his bare feet
Slowly, he raises his head, eyes squeezed shut
Fearing to find what he might see when he opens them
He pauses here for several moments, collecting his thoughts
Breathing deeply, hoarsely, sporadically huffing
Mustering all of his courage, he makes this final leap, opening his eyes
In the mirror before him he sees all too clearly himself
Wearing a skin that is not his own
Face, hands, feet, all that are exposed
His own pale skin standing out in bold contradiction
To the beautifully bronzed hollow man that he wears
His pale and bony knuckles crash repeatedly into the face of the mirror
Over and over again the thud and the crunch
Broken skin and shattered glass
Blood now smeared across what little reflective surface remains
At last he can see himself no more
Slumping down into a ball on the floor
He sits alone and rocks
The mere shell of a man remains
With dripping hands he tears away a patch of flesh from his thigh
Groping the floor blindly his hand closes over a shard of glass
He is now far too numb to feel pain, dead inside
Gripping tightly to the broken glass this broken man begins to write
Carving his apology into his thigh
Feb 3, 2014
Feb 3, 2014 at 1:36 PM UTC
An empath
Just a ProSonderer
Nothing more
But quick to learn
every human’s soul
will be instinctively felt
just as the breeze flows
through that open window
A soul
it’s wandering to your heart’s beat
on rare occasion it deviates from the tune
nothing more
—Because you don’t acknowledge
its existence yet;
Could you truly expect to progress
in finding your soul’s mate
when you don’t even know your spirit’s home?—
A pair of souls is always made from a single star
so when you find another
that renders your talkative self speechless
or leaves your smooth conversing ways to only a stutter
Find another that leaves you in awe and wonder
that makes your chest feel comfort in the ache
when you're longing not only at midnight
but in public midday for that other
if its a flame
that just won't fade
no matter how long you stay
tell yourself to not push this one away
you're not in danger anymore
let that person breach your barricades
allow them a chance to understand your spirit’s ways
you'll soon stop automatically
encouraging them to go
the day will arrive when you won’t be itching to show them the door
chances are you'll find
nothing's worth more
then an empath finding their
lone star soul in their own time
And as a sondering empath
I understand having that
(impenetrably
-fragile only to a certain fine-tuned touch-
translucent but sporadically opaque)
guard with others
Seems like a darkly humored folklore
a normal person’s usual day
is just a daunting notion due to exhaustion from feeling everyone's emotion
but when you meet that one
you won't just understand their soul
you'll have a brand new reading
and it’ll feel horrifyingly confusing
just remember there's a first time for everything
when that someone intuitively understands you.
Jan 23, 2018
Jan 23, 2018 at 7:14 AM UTC
Waning dappled moonlight mantles
the margin at the wild-wood edge
Stiff tufts of summer dried grass spears
sporadically sway — raking against
the scarlet poison oak leaves
gently sweeping away the moonlit silence
airing the sounds of velvet antlers rubbing
barkless mountain willow trunks bare
Subtle nuances constantly animate
twilights rhythm; heaven flickers
upon a dark umbrage of forest pillars
softly as a candlelight’s fluttering glow
evanescing half way across the sky;
the sparse illumined clouds stream through
the lambent halo around the rutting moon
fleeting in the blink of sleepless eyes
and like the silent touch of a talisman,
transfixed eyes are entranced by all
the restless night disrobes,
captured and cocooned by the seeker’s
awakened senses
An erratic, familiar feral bark peals haughtily;
a pack of maturing spring pups yip, bellow and shriek
in youthful pursuit; the howling report back,
ignited by the scent of a rabbit's paling squeal,
aroused by the pulse of brother wolf
rippling deeply through their blood
The dried grass game-trail crackles towards the ridge top:
an aging full moon is not enough skylight
to see beyond a seeker’s stirring silent reverie
the coyote choir’s sudden reveling echoes rekindling
an extraordinary sheltering intimacy within;
bending slithers of moonlight into a dull moonlight mantle
but I can feel its weight breaking me ,... forlorn I can't physically
reach out to touch them in an absolving moment —
understanding love was always the purpose of being ,...
futilely repining — I can't face myself alone again
harlon rivers ... October 2019
.
Oct 21, 2019
Oct 21, 2019 at 8:39 PM UTC
Drawn on strings of moonlight visions are whispered in love notes and poetry
Future brushstrokes on the echoes of eternity
Enigmas in candid but if you look closely
Sun petals
Soft tempos
Giving solace and solstice to the sun-kissed and weary
Delicate and hardly above skylines and kiss me’s
Daydreams and the uncanny act of tripping on galaxies never lasts through the laughter and the sadness in the symmetry
Despite the next level of genesis in trinity
Stands the heretic consumed with the brevity of setting free
Amassed and exhumed the expanses of longevity
Sporadically bloomed now the tragic is ahead of dreams and shivers in the night
Unparalleled and strung by kites and carousels and river streams
Never made of sense in seems the abstract is the kin that breathes in metaphors and similes
Terraforms and then it leaves entranced within lost reverie
Such is love and loss and finding peace
And across the stars I’m still finding me
Jun 26, 2015
Jun 26, 2015 at 2:24 PM UTC
Pick up one grain of sand from the Atlantic coast
Carried it to the Pacific coast and set it down
Repeat until every last grain has been moved
This is but a drop of time in the bucket of eternity
In the overall scheme of the universe
We are equivalent to a single subatomic particle
Spinning sporadically inside one of the many atom
Which make up a single grain of sand
Yet the possession of our soul somehow
Makes us very significant!
Sep 16, 2014
Sep 16, 2014 at 11:20 AM UTC
Driving down the road
I experienced the glow
Of daytime's luxurious light
That was until it became night
Now that night has happened
A light follows me from the darkness
It pervades my rear view mirror
It's blinding magnitude magnifies upon reflection
The light intimidates me
Like the time
I didn't know what to say
And you had nothing to say
So we went our separate ways
Traveling alone
The light seems brighter
It's constant peering presence disturbs me
I feel this condemning nightlight is my jury
Like the time
The ****** I injected landed me in jail
I used it to sedate the voice that I failed
When you saw my love and bailed because I'm male
I drive lonely and high
There's an exasperated sigh
When the lights gets closer
I feel it may bring closure
Like the time
You entered my vehicle
To protect me from the light
I confused your compassion for love
I felt so stupid
When foolish fits me like a glove
I feel so putrid
The odds of someone being gay are slim
So why when my hopes are dashed
Must I crumble into idiotic ash?
My eyes grow larger
As death's sights grow smaller
And death's light grows taller
My mistakes create magnification
And I begin to drive erratically
When you are my love's activation
I continue to die sporadically
Sep 17, 2017
Sep 17, 2017 at 5:26 AM UTC
*Wild native branches - A jungle-green canopy sheltering this ever-flowing stream that runs rapidly,
most steadily, to and fro my heart.
Ancient autumn leaves weaved into an intricate, detailed, complex, rustic carpet, concealing paths and footprints leading in and out of my mind.
Forty two springs worth of magnificent arrays of wildflowers decorate each serene scene bordering this stream - each cluster a chapter of my life.
These scattered wild arrangements, with their heavenly scent, delight my senses - they are most pleasing to my mind's eye.
There's gold dust, nuggets, and precious gemstones, hidden in the gravel, they're also buried in the bedrock of this stream, and in the river that it feeds.
This stream is a constant source, feeding my hungry heart and mind.
The river that is fed by this stream
is my soul - this ever-flowing stream is a corridor which runs to and fro my heart; it carries the oxygen in my blood, through my veins.
Whilst manoeuvering around the stepping-stones that are laid-out sporadically, most beautifully, but imperfectly, across this stream,
THEY, double cross me;
A highway, used to get to where THEY are going, time and time again.
~By Lady R.F ©2016*
Oct 28, 2016
Oct 28, 2016 at 7:59 PM UTC
I can't walk in
flowered printed heels
I've watched you study yourself in
the mirror
steady neck leading down to
gentle shoulders and halcyon hands
sour ideas filling my brain I'm
imagining my hands
sweetening your concerned
soft-muscled legs
into certainty
bronze-brown strands of curly hair
on dark grey seats
I sense dancing trees behind me
and savor the beautiful bitterness
of abyssal secrets
on my saccharine tongue
your collar bones are silken
and veiled with Taurus-led
misunderstandings.
mine are always veiled with
uncertainty and
sporadically veiled with
you
Feb 25, 2016
Feb 25, 2016 at 10:21 PM UTC
i wonder
how we managed
to convince our hands
not to hold onto each other
when we said goodbye.
now, i'm writing
inside this flying can;
thinking this might be the closest
to a home.
these small seats,
with even smaller legs space.
these funny-shaped windows,
where all you can see are
white clouds,
and sporadically
some lights.
tiny houses,
with even tinier people.
and us,
tiny giants,
reading overpriced perfume catalogs,
listening to mispronounced english,
using disposable low-fidelity headphones,
inside low-light low-love low-cost
low-everything
airplanes.
Feb 23, 2021
Feb 23, 2021 at 9:35 AM UTC
Technical issues
Malfunctioning wires
The power sporadically
Comes, then expires
As quick as the rains
In cascades upon town
Serenade me to sleep
As they crash all around
And depart to the chirping
Of crickets in thickets
Of dense foliage
As the canopy glistens
Bejeweled in the dews’
Opalescent sun rays
As the colobus leap
To and fro as they play
On display is a wilderness
Otherworld bliss
And the people as natural
Components subsist
Off the land that has nourished them
Centuries old
Now a part of their story
Mine set to unfold
Sep 15, 2018
Sep 15, 2018 at 1:03 PM UTC
Dusk and dust envelop this intriguing Amish couple,
as she watches through the windshield of her parked car.
She's been observing sporadically for well on seven weeks,
as they've taken the old relic of a house
from disrepair to today's refurbished splendor.
It will be their home.
Away in the adjacent field, his straw hat barely visible,
an elder guides a team of Belgians five across
from the furrows of the tract toward the dying sunlight.
She follows them with her eyes, marveling their magnificence
and his unassuming control of their power.
They are the source of the dust.
Outside the house another Amish woman, perhaps
their mother, unhanging clothes, while a baby
plays upon a blanket on the ground. Black bonnet on her head,
flowing soft blue dress, and bib apron, she works
serenely as the sun melts warmly down the western sky,
leaving in its wake the dusk.
Dwindling moments of a day that mark a turning point
for the young couple and their unseen spectator.
For them a place to make a loving home amongst
their brethren and for her a revelation in her life.
She's committed once again to love's entanglements.
Dusk and dust have claimed another.
Feb 25, 2012
Feb 25, 2012 at 4:16 AM UTC
I was told happiness is ubiquitous,
Growing up, found it to be scarce-
Like a desert's mirage.
I was told men love once,
Growing up, realised it happens sporadically-
Like a drizzle's dance.
But when did I actually grow up?
Was it when my heart ached for beauties all around
Or when it was limerence that I sought?
A companion to cherish.
Perhaps it was the solitary confinement
When truth whispered softly in the dark,
That growing up is not about success and failure
Rather a journey of life embracing life's unknown adventures.
Sep 20, 2025
Sep 20, 2025 at 5:02 AM UTC
I have eyes of glass, you say,
Like a Victorian stuffed animal.
Your eyes betray your anguish
Strained or swimming.
Carnal snarl
Canines for ripping
Curiosity killed the cat,
How evading and paradoxical
When it is plain we are animal,
Grappling bodies.
When your eyes swim with pain and confusion
Regularly and sporadically
I am left at sea, afraid of water
Seaweed choking despair,
You are too busy drowning
To hold my hand
I am but fingertips
Sliding under
Drowned
Sep 30, 2013
Sep 30, 2013 at 2:27 PM UTC
The Last Kiss
Since Nan died the black dog circles, the scent of grief in its nostrils, waiting, sensing my vulnerability.
Regret sits heavily on my shoulders, for words said and not said, for journeys not taken, for wasted opportunities, for unsaid goodbyes.
Denial prods me unexpectedly, the reality hard to accept, where is she?
Self pity nags at me, an indulgence not to be tolerated, but it creeps in.
Remorse visits me; could I have done more to ease her mental pain?
Loneliness engulfs me in the quiet times, the darker hours; activity and light loosen its hold.
Anger irks me; it arrives sporadically without real reason.
These emotions, relentless, unyielding, almost my constant companions, take turns to envelop me in a dark mantle called grief, which must be worn, sometimes pushed aside, but never removed, a reminder of the debt which is owed, and paid out of love, with copious tears, but hard to bear.
Life is not the same since Nan died, but she is embedded in my mind, where I go she goes, etched deeply is the memory of our last kiss as she lay still and cold.
Apr 21, 2016
Apr 21, 2016 at 6:36 PM UTC
I offer you my apologies, Esther
for I had to **** her.
She was a poet, you see,
and she was consuming you,
corrupting you,
turning you inside out,
b a c k w a r d s
so that
when you screamed,
your mouth let loose a torrent of letters that sprayed the walls in ink, left them soaked for days
and when you cried,
your eyes wept love letters in Shakespearean verse and suicide notes in Hemingway prose
and when you sang,
you did so sporadically, your voice breaking—into irregular cadence and—rhythm—in the middle—of your—sentences—
and when you were silent
it was because you were too busy pleasing her, dreaming up things that didn’t exist, obsessing over some poem that wouldn’t let you sleep.
And so I had to save you, Esther
she was turning you into a poet, you see,
and I had to save you.
I’d offer you my condolences
but I doubt you’d take them
after I wrapped your poem around her neck
and tore out her inky guts
and gouged out her sleepless eyes
and shoved her under my bed
so that I could smell her carcass as I slept
and know you were saved.
So I offer you my apologies, Esther,
for I had to **** her.
She was a poet, you see, and she was killing you.
Oct 5, 2018
Oct 5, 2018 at 6:08 PM UTC
The thought of it horrifies me,
Even more so than what death entails,
It forces me to sporadically awaken.
I visualize myself taken away to a cold grotto,
Where I'm violated by strangers
And alienated, rather than uplifted,
For an unknown duration of time
I knew what might happen,
The consuming fervor,
My behavior will not be understood
Haven't I alienated myself all along?
Was it not I who voluntarily auditioned
For the infamous role of the outcast
As well as the acclaimed role of the golden child?
The critics may write their reviews of my performances
My petite hands peruse
Through the drawer's treasure,
The prescription pill bottle is
Considered as a future reference.
(c) 2014 Brandon Antonio Smith
8/2/14
Oct 3, 2014
Oct 3, 2014 at 1:00 PM UTC
How to approach something so intangible, with little cellular to describe to my nerves
How to make verbal something so emotional, based on psychology and civil construction
How to perceive myself appropriately despite the eroding drips that pierce progress and old photos I cling to with such immaturity
These questions all are for the same goal, that progression of the self, all those substantial, cerebral, sensual and societal realisations that I yearn for
And yet... I sit, making delusional dreams come true in screens, I sit, making deep intellectual arguments for causes that aren't my own, I sit, researching complicated **** ups and ****** withs the powerful inflict in their attempts to balance a system born broken and biased
Screens are our new ****** it seems, as we reject religion our screens let us forget that the world continues around us, or encourage us not to care
And I come to this self consciousness, this ironic hypocritical reprehension
Because I really enjoy what all these creative minds and years of work and beauteous ideas have given me, but with the same hypocritical tone, despise my compulsion to stare into pixels
As I indulge this self awareness, I know I will continue with the same mental obesity of consumption tomorrow
And there will be no hypocritical self evaluation, just self involved enjoyment
Until the moments come when I am left alone with my mind
Self conscious, reflective, feeling as the time has been lost, but my mind is too tranquilised with pixel and poster representations of reality to notice
This won't change but...
Maybe if I take some time to turn pages rather than press buttons, and stare at sunsets rather than screens
That self evaluative journey I've ignored and returned to sporadically in the reflective yet warm darkness would be less intimidating
And if nothing else, on those days where reality lies next to me filling my cerebral stomach with the undeniably existential
I might feel a bit better about those days lost to other people's stories
Dec 11, 2013
Dec 11, 2013 at 7:24 PM UTC