"sputter" poems
to my darling who feels she's not:
our separation is mere illusion.
truly, your pain strikes me as i write this;
your sensations of abandonment,
and the decisiveness they have caused,
bleed from my skin into the fibers of my clothes.
i am no longer clean.
i do not feel pure.
to my severed arm and shortened tendons:
destruction is merely another side of life.
out of disappearance comes all things-
without space, there would be nothing to contain us,
nothing to allow and enfold our beings' spirits,
and they would sputter and cease like my love's flame.
i am no longer yours.
i do not feel full.
to the farthest star that my eyes can see:
your light reaches me- i glimpse you!
in the perceived emptiness between us
there is no distance to be found;
around us exists the infinite potential for
further connection and deeper growth in closeness.
i am no longer alone.
i do not feel sorrow.
Mar 6, 2015
Mar 6, 2015 at 12:17 PM UTC
Twisted reeds sway gently in the wind as black seabirds slice the sky overhead.
Waves rolling one by one crash with increasing ferocity on to the rocky beach,
And I watch the red sun set fire to the spray while the tide encircles me.
Tugging at my feet, pulling me forward, it beckons for my consent. I give in,
And all is quiet even in such chaos. All is nightmarish and beautiful all the more.
The blood red horizon seers my retinas; freshly unleashed tears take to the sea.
These waves, such enormous swells, crash in on me; an unseen war is waging.
They press me down and back, and then drag me further into the endless blue.
Over and over again, repetition loses count, my outcries die prematurely.
Only seawater and air manage to sputter from my lips, cracked and worn.
Not a whisper can be heard out here in such a true state of despair, but not all
Castaways are without faith. The past I once cherished has been lost to the depths,
Yet a knowing tingle in my gut keeps me searching for a message hidden merely
'Neath the surface. Drifting deeper into my pain, I notice a curious thing:
The force of the waves lessening as I gracelessly surrender to Sorrow and the sea.
My feet torn by jagged rocks no longer felt, my eyelids blistered by the red
Eternal sunset, a few waves push me under before the siege of the sea falters and
I learn to ride the surf, taking each afront as it comes, whether predicted or
Suddenly upon me. My pain ebbs away slowly with the passing of each episode,
And with each wave I acknowledge my loss, relinquishing my burden.
Like so many desparinging hearts before me shipwrecked in the sea of tears,
I forcefully remind myself that one day the lush, inviting green shores of the
Other side of the sea will appear in my line of vision. Yet, for now, I let myself
Drift through the grief of grieving you, often unsure of whether I'm meant to float
Or should let myself sink toward the blackest crags of my mind. Here alone.
Apr 19, 2011
Apr 19, 2011 at 11:30 PM UTC
Around me architectural mastery:
sycamores, embankments, enduring ionic pillars.
I round a walkway bordered by trees,
enamel thawing, gliding off their low leaves.
Beneath the late-May’s pounding sun,
through the glittered trees’ reaches,
a gazebo crackles into sight.
Children in their prime, sunbathers, a wistful portraitist
encircle it carelessly:
a leisured chimney; the billows of life.
The foliage escapes into the river,
purplish, palpitating, cyclic creases
receive the dewy notes.
Kayaks licking acacia-gum-edged
ripples sputter and slip
through reverberations
of leveled white-water terraces.
Blackcurrants in clotted cream
slide on the plush lips of a young passerby.
The 8 above a doorway
dances motionless, silent in my periphery;
“Nicolas Cage just sold the spot”
pops from unknown lungs
inside the Circus crowd.
Unacknowledged, half-proud
hands built the Roman baths
alone, closed-in by such grace,
forgotten, then as now.
I wander these ancestral lanes
more or less alone, the same.
Jul 4, 2012
Jul 4, 2012 at 7:55 AM UTC
Oh how I melt and stutter
Oh how I sputter and gush
Over girls
I just love them so, so much
Hair and faces
Ripe for pets and kisses
And loving caresses
Necks and chests
Oh how loving them is the best
******* and stomachs
Warm and soft
Beautiful and sweet
I love girls from their heads to their feet
Dark or light I don’t care
This heart of mine loves them beyond all compare
Mar 13, 2019
Mar 13, 2019 at 10:06 AM UTC
Control
Like love
Is indifferent
To race, color or age
I see upright monkeys
With honed, lunatic, pestilent
Expressions
Around endless corners
living out-
and hosing down somberly-
Frequency dreams
Battery life sputter drains
that whip with sardonic torment-
Beat with blood-bathed smiles
Laughing to slow vertiginous rhythm
in captivating faces
Take, take, take-
To receive such
an empty promise
And I've lost interest
in this silent war
We've constructed
so dizzily
Feb 18, 2015
Feb 18, 2015 at 4:22 PM UTC
she hovers over the handwritten letter
with maniacal grin gripping her face
as she devours his texted words
with weeping eyes
and she sings in unnatural tones a child's lullaby in some
forgotten french dialect
delightful reflections in song of the garden gate
leaning broken onto the rough hewn path
where the soulless cherubs cherish their seed
in haphazard rows cherub faces sling silent tears
and labour at the desires never felt and
the dark soils never fertile
seeking redemptions in the rebirth of the harvest moon
which decorates the far wall of the tomb
the cherubs brief delighted laughters
soon sputter and fail
as in the dying light of day
reveals that they must labour yet another day
to no useful end
she lives in this place
a cottage of straw with dark windows
and a wood stained door
she sits on its porch with knitting in hand
weaving futures for her beloved cherubs
weaving pasts for her own
she devoured him like she did his words
and came home to roost
like her innocent faced dragoons
she will someday march forth with this army of doom
but today she is content to be contrite
knitting porridge and whey wall hangings
from the tables of the
steampunk princess
Feb 19, 2014
Feb 19, 2014 at 6:27 AM UTC
A broken down Chevy-
Doesn’t that sound like a country song?
My broken down Chevy
Is where my life started and I began to belong.
That little pickup stayed true to its name.
It could pick up and take me anywhere,
Or we could park in a field and I could write,
To me it was all the same.
Being behind its leather wheel
Was a freedom I’ll forever cherish.
Eighteen with nowhere to be
Except driving my Chevy, every joy I could feel.
When I lost my job
I gained an eviction.
But I still had my Chevy
And I had its bed to sleep in.
There was no work in my small town.
I knew I had to leave,
Just my Chevy and me.
We traveled for days to the biggest city we found.
By the time we arrived
My Chevy had begun to sputter,
It shook, it moaned, it stopped.
And there on the highway, my Chevy died.
I knew this day would come-
My Chevy was a ’57.
But it carried me hundreds of miles
To the city in which my new life had begun.
A broken down Chevy-
Doesn’t that sound like a country song?
My broken down Chevy
Is where my life started and I began to belong.
I left it there on the highway.
With no job and only pocket change
I couldn’t keep my beloved Chevy
By towing it anyway.
Now I’m twenty-five
And the head of a publishing company.
I married an artist who always supported me.
Today he waited at home with a surprise.
My broken down Chevy,
Fully restored and brought back to life,
Was in the driveway
With a note taped to the window with the key.
“I believe this is yours
And may I say she’s beautiful!
I found your Chevy on the side of the highway.
Gosh I think it’s been six or seven years!”
“My father was always handy with cars
And he taught me his trade.
I towed your Chevy and meant to sell it
Once I had fixed it up to shine like stars.”
“As I was cleaning the compartments out
I found your old journal
Full of letters you wrote to yourself
And bible verses, all about perseverance, no doubt.”
“Your story inspired me.
It honestly rocked me to my core.
I had lost all hope in myself and the world.
I was fighting cancer, you see.”
“I read your journal every day, every page.
And the more I read, the more I believed
In those verses you treasured so.
I continued restoring your truck, and last year I got saved.”
“My cancer was gone, seemingly overnight.
The doctors couldn’t believe it!
And honestly
Neither could I!”
“I thank God every day
For the story He gave you,
And I thank Him
Because you broke down on that highway.”
“Now I’m returning this Chevy to you.
She shines like a diamond and runs like a river.
I hope you can forgive me but I am keeping your journal-
My granddaughter is fighting cancer now too.”
“Please pray for her and I’ll keep you in my prayers always.
Thank you for being the person you are.
Goodbye and thank you again, my friend.
Like your broken down Chevy,
We’ve been made new; we’re eternally saved!”
Jul 14, 2016
Jul 14, 2016 at 11:47 AM UTC
Odd flashes of light blurring everything
Uncomfortable in my skin
Hearts about to implode
with megatons behind it
Colors smearing together as I blink
Just one little pill
"to even you out."
"It'll make you happy again."
Make them happy is what it seems
Kick this habit
my happiness means nothing
you are in very serious trouble Muscles tightly constricted Hands turn from gods gifted tools to
useless mangled mounds of bone and flesh and just like that it seems to slow and sputter to a halt.
Nothing like was mentioned on the label.
Feb 27, 2015
Feb 27, 2015 at 1:02 AM UTC
High above the Canyon’s edge,
Far above the ancient clay,
The helicopter hovers there
Like a dragonfly at play.
With my jet pack on my back
I coolly, calmly step away.
Gain separation from the blades,
Freefall starts my epic day.
On stubby wings the jet packs fire
I’m Daedalus in the morning light.
I soar across the canyon’s rim.
Laughing like some hell born sprite
One hundred eighty miles an hour,
The wind whips cold despite the sun
I glide toward my landing zone
The jet packs sputter and are done.
My parachute has been deployed
My guide ropes turn me for my drop.
My wings are just a dead weight now
I touch down one the Mesa top.
At Kitty Hawk that fateful day.
This must be what the brothers felt
Kindred souls who sought to fly
By using wings that wouldn’t melt..
Jan 4, 2012
Jan 4, 2012 at 10:43 PM UTC
I
The stars are double-weighted tonight.
bulging, beating, they sink
from their proper lurches.
One by one across the murky
evening they sputter out.
What natural light remains
seeps from that subtly gaudy
bauble of a moon.
II
Peeled eucalyptus, ice-plant, new-mown summer grass,
dandelion, sloping hill, carved stone bench,
the view, the reflected city-light off the bay water,
white-washed near-tenements.
I am firmly locked up, chained in a bone cage
of chemically manipulated cranial plates;
serotonin, synapses, dopamine, dendrite
create a web like seaweed constricting the sea;
this computer of a head calculates, oscillates,
and processes the sensory.
III
My body is a tattered jib sail
flowing in the light sprinkling rain:
the simmer of the gale:
a hollow cathedral abandoned
by the believers:
a vessel for my marrow:
an imaginary catalyst for profundity:
an incarceration: a hull of particles
arrested: some part of an experience.
Aug 25, 2012
Aug 25, 2012 at 1:46 PM UTC
I was shocked, confused, bewildered
As I entered Heaven's door,
Not by the beauty of it all,
Nor the lights or its décor.
But it was the folks in heaven
Who made me sputter and gasp --
The thieves, the liars, the sinners,
The alcoholics and the trash.
There stood the kid from seventh grade
Who swiped my lunch money twice.
Next to him was my old neighbor
Who never said anything nice.
Bob, who I always thought
Was rotting away in hell,
Was sitting pretty on cloud nine,
Looking incredibly well.
I nudged Jesus, 'what's the deal?
'I would love to hear Your take.
'how'd all these sinners get up here?
'God must've made a mistake.'
'And why is everyone so quiet,
'so somber -- give me a clue.'
'hush, child,' He said,
'They're all in shock!
'No one thought they'd see you.'
Unknown Author
Jun 27, 2015
Jun 27, 2015 at 9:03 AM UTC
I am an umbrella, a rain jacket,
For the Cinderella, a stored away packet,
Till the day the skies sputter rain.
I am a tool box, a first aid kit lain
In a dark, webs-infested dusty corner,
Touching no light; seeing no cleaner.
The kitchen accident and toys’ breakdown
Are such welcome picnics to the town.
Could have been a willow, nor am I a pillow
To cry on in times of immense pains in kilo
And to hug out of a heart exploding joy.
But I am a bomb-shelter, a floating life buoy,
A tower of refuge in times of need;
A furrow-deserted land planted no seed,
Awaiting to be useful again in season,
Not Jesus, but bearing a crystal reason
To be also a rock in that weary land.
I am a handkerchief in a man’s hand;
Ironically stuffed useless in the back pocket,
To blow away flu mucus off the nosy socket,
Or wipe the intermittently rare solitary tears
That graces the dry eyes from heartbreak fears.
I am not a flowerbed; I am a mango tree;
Having no admirers save the monkeys, free
To shelter, mate, play and make all merry,
Spring has come with flowers and I draw very
Much attention; the promise of fruits abundance,
Needed, loved, and embraced in a scarce annual chance.
I am an audience for the sad breaking news;
The princess’s Eulogizer in dilemma to possible views,
I am a lawnmower in her abandoned backyard,
A joker of little importance in her game play card.
I am a muzzled ox treading the corn;
A mockery of treasure, glittering scorn,
In her darkest times, the cherished glow-worm;
An apologetic shelter in the times of storm.
Feb 13, 2012
Feb 13, 2012 at 2:59 AM UTC
You open your mouth
And sputter your poison
Dissolving into others' ears
Climbing it's way up
Up into their brains
Just like a tumor
I hear the rumors
That resurface too often
And explain the truth
Denial, they tell me,
Just proves it's true
What do they know?
My mind is mine
My thoughts are mine
And I like to
Keep them that way
But you reach in
And grab the truth
Then spin it with
Your snake tongue into
Your weaponous poisonous acid
Contaminating other peoples minds
You're supposed to be
A friend of mine
Until you join in
Why won't you stand
Stand up for me
Set it all straight
Because I can't deny
Or it's considered true
Jun 24, 2015
Jun 24, 2015 at 10:35 AM UTC
Tallow
The candle and I bear witness
to the long, lone, and restless night.
With a match, we bring ourselves to light
brilliant reminders of finer days past.
forced forth
out of love
not meant to last,
We complement each other in our fading vigilance,
twisting,
smoldering,
struggling
we fall,
exhausted or, dripping
We grow ever small.
Used,
they saw the one true answer,
and so it was
the only light.
No will,
no arms
with which to fight,
no rival to the endless stars, the all shared night
a sky that taught the world to dance.
Symbols of hope and knowledge
not brought into this world by chance.
To flicker and hiss or claim our right.
Wax sealed the deed and blinded our sight.
Born to burn and ever so fast.
Brilliant reminders of those finer days past,
wrought for a purpose,
understanding, it was never to last.
Illuminations are made,
in shadow we cast.
Those that sputter and waver,
gutter and wane,
flee before storms, slip from the reins.
Yet from us,
the lights still glow,
revealing the truths the Greats longed to know.
Some writhe .
Others twinkle
I smoke
and then fall
until there is nothing left
of us at all.
Here but once, and once alone
Is it just once, and all from a spark?
Our essence is , YEARNING
not Dawn, nor the Dark.
Feb 6, 2025
Feb 6, 2025 at 12:48 PM UTC
The frothy waves reflect everything
As they are kissed by the pale blue sky and the liquid gold that descends on the horizon
The waves start of as graygreen, then white as they crest
And as they extend for their five second lifespan on the dark sand
They turn a brilliant baby blue touched with a burning orange of the now fading sun.
I watched and waited
Anticipated what might happen when you pulled into the parking lot
Cold hands shoved deep into my pockets, feeling around for what I was supposed to say
Ideas ping-ponged back and forth but no poetry escaped my pursing lips
Even as you pulled into the parking lot,
Let your engine cough and sputter like all the things that I tried to say to you that night
Tried to hide inside myself as I sat in the passenger seat
Confused, conflicted, jaded, manipulated
I let my mouth run like the Nile,
But it didn’t matter a word I said…
You were beautiful like the ocean
But unlike the frothy waves that reflect the pale blue sky and liquid gold that they are kissed by
You reflected nothing as you pulled away from my lips
Your hands still wrapped around my waist
Tugging at my jacket’s zipper
Because I already bare my soul, so why not bare my body, too
For you…I wouldn’t have thought twice
Following the advice of my two best friends,
I was more naughty than nice for once in my life I went in for the **** and I got
Stabbed
Clearly it was a simple and sincere mistake to make
Out with your best friend
and into the pants of her closest classmate, mister I-don’t-date-friends:
I hope you’re happy how this ends.
The sea swallows the sun
Leaving only but a pale orange afterglow.
May 9, 2013
May 9, 2013 at 10:44 AM UTC
Deep breaths are rare
More often ash drags through the streets
I see those eyes on top of every mountain peak
I used to look away when yours and mine would meet
We'd watch wrinkled heartbeats sputter-crash against concrete
You held me firm and hollow for a flawless month
I left my heart to blister in the August sun
I'd soon let it dry up before those blinding sunshine eyes
If it meant I'd get to kiss your ink and collar one last time
Close enough to singe my hair, but turn my body gold
You're my midnight fireball
Impossible to hold
Aug 24, 2014
Aug 24, 2014 at 7:18 PM UTC
We’ll light the wedding candle
Each year upon this night.
Remembering why as years speed by
We first stood to make this light.
Not for a love that’s ever true
Or a smile that ever cheers.
Not for the sick or crummy days
Or to share and conquer fears.
It’s for the days we forget to love
and when aggravations start to weigh.
It’s for the times we’ve both ******* up
But have chosen to love again a new way.
The candle will burn and the wax melt.
Someday, the wick will sputter and gutter out.
But it’s just a reminder and can be replaced
As long as we remember what it’s all about.
Jan 17, 2017
Jan 17, 2017 at 1:14 AM UTC
While driving down a country road
One dark and lonely night
My engine began to spit and sputter
From a strange and mysterious light
I saw this little green spaceman
With antennas on his head
He was standing beside my window
And this is what he said
"Take me to your leader,
Or we will end your life"
So I did exactly what he said
And I took him to my wife
When I got home my wife was mad
And asked me where I've been
I told her about my crazy night
And about those little green men
She asked if I'd been drinking
And I don't drink a drop
About that time that spaceman yelled,
"Okay now, everybody stop"
Now my wife was really ******
And said, "Who do you think you are?"
She grabbed him by his spaceman ear
And drug him from that car
Now, there she was in curlers
With that spaceman by his ear
I think he might have peed himself
As he stood there in all his fear
Now you may not believe my story
But I've got a souvenir
When they beamed that spaceman back to his ship
My wife held on to his ear
So if you ever see a UFO
Don't scream and run for your life
Just take him to your leader
And by leader I mean, my wife
Oct 20, 2010
Oct 20, 2010 at 1:30 PM UTC
Ode to Victory
Steel and rain-splattered chrome
Shield the gyroscopic Dharma Wheels
That just keep on spinning,
Keeping me Upright,
Flying through the air.
I am Sonic
My dominion is the horizon
Between desire, destination and the rumbling between my thighs.
My engine is as powerful as my mind.
As strong as 80 Horses that pull me over this curve of Earth.
Victory, you succumb to my hands,
And the shift of my weight on your saddle
We are living gravity together:
Whitman’s body-electric,
Just beneath the ***** aroma of engine oil and gasoline.
Riding on the back of the California black striped serpent
From San Diego to Santa Rosa
To the very edge of madness
And back again,
Victory, you deliver me from myself,
You growl when I awaken you in the morning,
Nearly choking on your petrol cough.
Occasionally, you sputter complaints at me when I ride you up that hill
But your joy at reaching the summit
Is the sweet surrender to a gravity we both crave.
Victory, your piercing gaze illuminates the night.
All fog of air & mind flee desperate before your flight.
You are the clear sky after the rain: the clarity before thought or rhyme
Our momentum keeps us running ahead,
Out of reach, of God and death and time.
©Igor Goldkind 2017
Oct 20, 2017
Oct 20, 2017 at 5:13 PM UTC
Flies in the haze morning sputter and splay.
Water drops from leaves rolling with the blown
Blades. The windy whoo of the owls fade,
Blue buried eyes cradled in the hollow
Trees, the swamps seeker is quietly rustled,
Wings of panoply, spangle-speckle the wind,
Over the flames of autumn, talons thistle,
Crown the dominion of the fall, fade in
Sporting meadows colour, till the dive,
Balm of field, marsh, all ignites. Lever pale
Winds finger through the leaves gravely
And rake as you raid, shoulders that burning vale,
Casualties of insect, the lemming song sings
Mouse and vole flash, dark, sparkles the clearing.
Jun 2, 2012
Jun 2, 2012 at 2:31 PM UTC
i pull the cord
a sputter and a spit
he
she
it
tells me,
let the grass grow under
your feet
pick no
weeds
let the leaves lie where
they fall
put a lounge chair
on the front lawn
sunbathe naked
***** the neighbors)
throw the empty
beer cans
into the street
and when the cops come.
laugh.
pick a mountain
any mountain
climb up through
the ice and snow
and when
you get to the top
of the mountain
keep climbing
Jul 13, 2018
Jul 13, 2018 at 4:10 PM UTC
There are so many of these girls
bright, lovely pretty young things who’ve suddenly—
(like it was a choice)
taken to all this madness of reading books,
drinking fancy tea and pretending that
they didn’t care about boys or clothes.
well i’m your messenger from the future
your ghost of Christmas past
Let me tell you now that i’ve always been the girl who
Was lonely in high school
Who preferred her books to nights out spent partying
and drank hot cocoa by the liter
and never once considered herself lovely or pretty
that was until i traded in my precious uniqueness
for the generic, unoriginal cutout that i superficially am now
i skipped meals for weighed almonds
put on heels pretending to be tall and cool
but i still stumbled and hoped no one saw me
boys came and talked to me but all i could manage was
awkward sputter that was a sad excuse for words
or else talk to them about books,
politics, social issues and science
until they walked away afraid their eyes telling me
She’s crazy.
let me tell you now, honey
being a geek isn’t cool
whatever trend or substance you’re on forget it
geeks are awkward
****** weirdos with their own language
who blurt out random fandom quotes and references
they’ve known by heart since they were ten.
If you think it’s fun to be the only one laughing
at a joke you were sure everyone knew
of to get stared at like a madman
for speaking klingon, elvish, harry potter, star wars, Dr. Who.
it’s not silly child, my lovely
for in all their uncoolness
geeks actually think they’re cool
well i’m your messenger from the future
your ghost of Christmas past
Let me tell you now that no amount of make-up
can hide the fact that you still preferred Kafka and Bukowski
over cigarettes and alcohol and clublights and you
(not really sure about this one, i like alcohol and cigarettes too)
Jan 23, 2014
Jan 23, 2014 at 9:20 AM UTC
aggression must be denied.
****** Pol *** The Duke,
Kim Jong, Mugabe, Fidel Castro,
Saparmurat Niyazov,
the living bad the dead.
XiJinping
proudly announces in
November 2013,
the year of our lord,
they are doing away with
labor camps in China.
******** total,
renamed them
drug rehabilitation centers.
evil must be refuted.
who will call them out?
not us.
coming home from the opera,
some big **** SUV,
played chicken
with me.
I refused to let
him cut in the line.
He followed me
for ten blocks,
honking his *******
till he quit,
cause I would not give
the satisfaction of letting him
spit and sputter.
Took the woman home.
Went out looking for him.
searched hundred blocks.
found him, took out my jack.
(trust me I did not key his car).
when he saw what I had done,
I quoted him Verdi's Rigoletto:
He is crime, I am punishment.
you see opera ain't for *******
aggression must be denied
locally, before it becomes
a national treasure.
Dec 8, 2013
Dec 8, 2013 at 4:23 AM UTC
IT is something to face the sun and know you are free.
To hold your head in the shafts of daylight slanting the earth
And know your heart has kept a promise and the blood runs clean:
It is something.
To go one day of your life among all men with clean hands,
Clean for the day book today and the record of the after days,
Held at your side proud, satisfied to the last, and ready,
So to have clean hands:
God, it is something,
One day of life so
And a memory fastened till the stars sputter out
And a love washed as white linen in the noon drying.
Yes, go find the men of clean hands one day and see the life, the memory, the love they have, to stay longer than the plunging sea wets the shores or the fires heave under the crust of the earth.
O yes, clean hands is the chant and only one man knows its sob and its undersong and he dies clenching the secret more to him than any woman or chum.
And O the great brave men, the silent little brave men, proud of their hands-clutching the knuckles of their fingers into fists ready for death and the dark, ready for life and the fight, the pay and the memories-O the men proud of their hands.
1.5k