"squiggles" poems
Situations find themselves unraveling uncontrollably,
picking at scabs of superiority,
delving into wide expanded pits of insecurity.
The master of masking change
would be the ever drifting reputation,
it leaves bitter, it brings hate.
May I express how much I hate?
Nothing squirms and squiggles uncontrollably
more, than watching reputations
crumble, due to fake superiority.
What do I want, change!
What does she want? Change, but she gets insecurity.
To understand the confliction, insecurity
must paint walls of peeling purple hate.
Well, something in you will change.
You may remain stubborn, uncontrollably
defending your sudden superiority,
you’re just choosing a rotten reputation.
I wish to fly you to a new nation, I mean shes breaking your reputation.
I’d like to find the spot in your mind resided by insecurity,
I know you’re not studded with superiority.
She’s finding a reason for everyone else to hate
the way you attract uncontrollably.
Nothing about you, in you, should change,
because this digs deeper than the change
her and my relationship took, than are used to be reputation
of adoring each other uncontrollably.
of ignoring that insecurity.
of the day she learned to hate,
spindling a slippery net of superiority.
Her comfort zone of a home lays in superiority,
I’d rather cry endlessly than change
by cultivating my hate
for her, for her debilitating take on your reputation.
Transperency touches insecurity
and you are broken, falling uncontrollably.
I will continue to hate her superiority, but that won’t reflect on her reputation.
You mustn’t change your disposition, but lose the grip on insecurity
Don’t you dare hate these words, they care, they love uncontrollably.
Jun 21, 2012
Jun 21, 2012 at 10:45 PM UTC
will little squiggles
of pixels organised in blocks
of "words" and "sentences" ever
come close to translating
a nuclear blast
in the
brain?
eye
thinks
not.
Jun 4, 2018
Jun 4, 2018 at 9:24 AM UTC
What in these symbols has power?
None of my letters could build you a tower,
But something within the screen of my phone
Has mass, has inertia, has song, has tone.
Where are the electric lines?
Neither hither nor thither, whichever one signs
But for some reason, I can't help but feel
That my electric lines are something more real.
What are the squiggles that wave from afar?
A symbolic cookie from an imagined jar?
Or are they a prize for forming a speak
That, through my squiggles, may squeak?
Jun 20, 2016
Jun 20, 2016 at 10:22 AM UTC
When I was younger I was very girly,
I wore dresses and leggings,
But never jeans.
I loved pink and purple,
And I loved sparkles and bows.
I was very girly,
But I hated dolls.
I drew on my sister's baby dolls with ballpoint pens,
Covering their foreheads with my cryptic squiggles.
I would strip my Polly Pockets,
And let them lay naked and ashamed on my bedroom floor.
I would take all the limbs off of my Barbies,
And rearrange them into disfigured beauty queens.
Fake people have always bothered me.
Jun 23, 2013
Jun 23, 2013 at 9:43 PM UTC
everyone individual
is so intricate,
yet we rush to peg them,
to label them,
to tell them who they are
if someone were to draw me,
i think they'd draw an outline
of my arms and legs
and form my lips
into a sweet smile
but if i were to draw myself,
i would darken the inner parts
of the outline with squiggles
and place a thousand different
expressions on my face
the more i meet people
and flip them inside out
to run my fingers along
the cracks of their beating heart,
the more i realize that
no one really is
"normal"
May 10, 2013
May 10, 2013 at 1:07 PM UTC
Boy left me feeling raw and pink, like the baby born a comma in the taxi
17 years ago. Boy left me feeling like Aunt, who didn’t know any better,
but still knew it all, and now she looks like a graveyard. When I was 14, I went
to her funeral, sat Shiva with her (my?) family, didn’t allow myself to cry, but I did.
Opened Photo Booth app. on my MacBook when I got home, because I didn’t know
what my tears looked like – I just wanted to see myself cry. I love crying,
and I love when other people cry. I think that I don’t like crying alone, but I do;
I keep people on speed dial, so that they can hear me cry. Boy used
to be on my speed dial. He and Aunt were the only ones who could
unravel my guts, but then Boy raveled them back up again. He gave me up
for the Girl with Brown Hair living in the next town over. She lives in a house
that quakes, and tilts. They say houses are like dogs. That people buy houses
that look like themselves. My house has a rich, bleeding door, and shingles
that try to bring me back to nature. I am the exception, although I do try
to bring myself back to nature. There is a forest in the back of my house –
it is brown, and deep, and swallows the monsters stuck in the squiggles
of my eyes. Last year, I went to the forest at night, and slept there. My mother
didn’t know. My father didn’t know. They’ll never know. My father
would have been okay with it, if I had asked. My father called himself
a pushover when writing his brain’s biography, and I murmured in agreement
when I read it. Or thought I read it, but I don’t know how to read properly yet.
I can’t keep characters in my head. I eat characters
for breakfast, along with Nutella. I’m 5’5”, and weigh 130 lbs., and buckle over
when I walk, because my crying weighs 50 lbs., so I push the Nutella
out of my stomach. The Nutella is in Boy’s stomach. Probably in
Girl with Brown Hair’s stomach now, too. I miss Aunt. I wish
she could eat Nutella with me. Next week, I’ll bring a jar of it to her grave,
and a camera. Cry and have a photo shoot, maybe, because I don’t know any better.
Sep 22, 2012
Sep 22, 2012 at 10:30 AM UTC
twenty six shapes,
empty spaces too,
dots and tailed dots,
squiggles,
syntax, usage,
certain rules,
phonetics,
with this simple toolbox
we present the sum of human expression
up to and including this one
Jan 14, 2014
Jan 14, 2014 at 12:25 AM UTC
A mask looms over me and covers my face.
"Count backwards from 100."
My mouth feels like cotton--
My tongue weighs a ton.
I am falling backwards into an orange fuzz.
Pink and yellow squiggles bounce around me.
A blue one whispers to me,
"Give her more. She's waking up."
When I finally open my eyes,
I ask for it.
I see it in my mind's eye:
Brown, fuzzy
But I want to see the other side--
I imagine that it looks like the back of an eyelid.
I want to hold it and pet it and love it forever-- warm velvet and slime all in one piece of skin--
A most precious part of me that they have removed
It was unsightly
It might have caused cancer
I will never get it back
When I miss it, I touch my scar and am thankful for it.
They can't take me away completely.
Something still remains.
Apr 5, 2015
Apr 5, 2015 at 6:55 PM UTC
Once, in a long while,
I go somewhere new in my mind,
shapes take form where voice can’t affect
and my words become hieroglyphs.
It’s when pictures seem more natural than inky squiggles.
because, what’s more natural than shape?
What’s more poetic than an image words don’t capture,
can’t capture, never will—capture?
Despite the decades,
I still have not heard the perfect words
to describe summer skies on clear nights,
God knows I’ve tried,
he’s heard me whispering,
chanting phrase after phrase upwards
as they crash against the stars,
floating, fixed in open defiance of my calls,
immune to my attempts to trap them on paper.
But you can only try to define the infinite in so many ways,
before losing yourself to what is, ultimately,
indescribable.
Jan 19, 2018
Jan 19, 2018 at 10:11 AM UTC
Shapelessness of Love
I am a logical person
I think in polygons and geometry
But you come around and the shapes fall apart
Into meaningless squiggles on a page.
There is nothing more beautiful than the shapelessness of love.
Sep 22, 2021
Sep 22, 2021 at 3:29 PM UTC
I forced my razor knife down
into an anniversary coffee cup
crammed with pens, pencils,
two pairs of scissors, and one
roll of color film I'm afraid
to develop. I jammed it in blade-
up so I'd have to deal
with the hard part first
like a blank page before
an accidental tongue slip
drips ink and makes the page
pretty. Some tree I've never met
and some pink dye died for me
to cover this pressed pulp
in illegible squiggles;
and I'll be
damned if I let it down.
'cause I'm drawn to things
without opinions. Sketchbooks,
inkwells, rubber band bracelets,
a mixed-nut dragonfly rested
on my trampoline net. // Cut it
free // cut it loose.
Find a brick behind the shed
and smash it dead,—preteen me—
young Wordsworth me.
I pulled the sepia tape from Queen
cassettes and finished the glossy
plastic off with a vise grip in Dad's truck.
Old Brucey had mustard pinstripes
down the driver's side, all the way down
to the Germania General Store.
He was a blur to me before I could buy
my own Dreamsicles. Passing the chicken feed
and the resident, caged dachshund couple,
I saw his face for the first time. Seventeen-years-
old, staring at my grandpa through picture
and plate glass panes.
The angels he swore were real—the ones he payed,
praised, and prayed for every Sunday and everyday
the sun shined and everyday it didn't—
were now less deserving of heaven.
Jan 14, 2015
Jan 14, 2015 at 1:00 AM UTC
are the tattoos I etched
to mark my recovery.
And boy, did it hurt.
The white squiggles at my hips
wink at me every time I look down.
Don't look down!
As if.
I swear, they conspire with each other.
I'll never forget the very first one.
Shiny. Indignant.
I hugged my skeleton and wept.
Now I've grown accustomed
not to the deliberate finality of dropping my gaze
mesmerized by my slow evolution,
but to looking up.
I look at eyes and mouths
instead of the impossible circumferences
above my knees,
the ever shifting law.
Stretch marks
are the tattoos I etched
to mark my recovery.
Do I regret them?
Oh, a little bit always.
But it's sure as hell a story worth remembering.
I take up more colour than I used to,
and these- these are the lines that will never be filled in.
I earned them.
Mar 30, 2013
Mar 30, 2013 at 10:04 PM UTC
What I ink to my page is not poetry,
There is not rhythm or rhyme, nor reason.
The empire state is no structure to my art.
What stains my page is not creativity,
Squiggles and lines leave marks from my mind.
The blank canvas does not lead to my masterpiece.
Words are my patchwork quilt,
Adjectives and nouns thread together my memoirs.
There's no glamour in my prose.
What I ink to my page is not poetry,
nor is it my intellect or wisdom.
What I ink to my page is life.
Aug 14, 2015
Aug 14, 2015 at 12:03 PM UTC
If you could be quiet
hang your beliefs by the door
sit down beside this poem
that leans in
to whisper:
“right now at this very moment
even before I finish this sentence
someone is dying unjustly,
or hungry, or is not you—
privy to these squiggles
I form with my mouth,
because reading is as alien to them
as poverty is to you,
there is something terribly wrong
and absurd about this life.”
If you think about this too hard,
like I do…sometimes,
breathing becomes awkward.
Sep 16, 2012
Sep 16, 2012 at 1:36 AM UTC
Ambiguously, he was boggled, beguiled by garbled goggles while giggling out the squiggles, to wiggle the signals free.
Deliberately dallying in the Plato piety of proprietary philosophies, he, dastardly deemed, disaster to be, damaging, to the laughter in the chatter of the baggage handlers to another plane.
Manhandler of a plastered paradise, partly in slices, of silly little vices of sacrifices, that shall suffice with vice grips on the lips of the negative with the spices of nicety.
Lavished in lividly living uP the misgivings of lesserly lessons, blessing the blasphemy, in passionate tuck ins, snuck in, upon drunken hunkering in the bunkers of spunkier spiels.
Languid longevity's of luscious lettering, lest will we, count our kills, never ever to leave a life festering in lectured structuring, besting the busy debuts, of flukless frugality, lucidly, counting the calories of calamity, and randomly rhyming without reason in season-less rain clouds, only allowed to put the umbrella away, and fade in play to the part, where we impart patience on the persona from the coma of commonality.
Immaculately conceived, perceived as a ***** who adores hollow hearts, as we, haphazardly heap on the hilarity, in hepatidal waves, through fazes of the common wealth.
Smile in stealth, love no one else, but self and end up in health, at a lonely age in staged stimuli, reminding me why i'm alive, and not allowed to die, while on rewind through the hard times, to smile on the last lines of laser driven lifelines, laughing at the fragile signs on the finer wines, as they break on the bowes of holy boats in bouts against the sea.
Spewing randomly, he, finds satisfactory solutions to the strengthening of his constitution in loosened blue spells, to dispel his ruthless tendrils from your ears.
The fears fueling the finality in his fractured mentality of maniacal travesties laughing at me.
Its just me, unjustly adjusting for the combustion of the build.
Its lovely here.
Laughing in the lashes.
Signing my entrapment's.
Lapsing out the masses and forming from the ashes of smashed happiness, as it unclasps before my eyes.
Sometimes
It just feels right to be alive.
Dec 24, 2012
Dec 24, 2012 at 2:26 AM UTC
I misplaced myself,
just like,
my favorite,
pen.
The mirror,
it’s broken,
a lack,
of reflection.
I’m not,
too sure,
what happened,
but I lost,
phone signal,
and my steps,
I didn’t print,
a mapquest.
My glasses broke,
I thought,
I made it,
home,
I’ll stay in bed,
I promise.
That’s just,
a tree,
instead,
blurred from,
reality.
This isn’t fair,
I didn’t ask,
for this,
she did,
I’m not,
her,
she’s already,
dead.
The mirror,
it’s broken,
I’m here,
instead.
A game,
I forgot,
the rules,
to play.
I don’t think,
this is something,
you could,
possibly,
understand.
From a person,
who isn’t,
a person,
just a bunch,
of swirls,
and squiggles,
that forgot,
how to,
get home.
Feb 22, 2023
Feb 22, 2023 at 9:15 AM UTC
Ambiguously, he was boggled, beguiled by garbled goggles while giggling out the squiggles, to wiggle the signals free.
Deliberately dallying in the Plato piety of proprietary philosophies, he, dastardly deemed, disaster to be, damaging, to the laughter in the chatter of the baggage handlers to another plane.
Manhandler of a plastered paradise, partly in slices, of silly little vices of sacrifices, that shall suffice with vice grips on the lips of the negative with the spices of nicety.
Lavished in lividly living uP the misgivings of lesserly lessons, blessing the blasphemy, in passionate tuck ins, snuck in, upon drunken hunkering in the bunkers of spunkier spiels.
Languid longevity's of luscious lettering, lest will we, count our kills, never ever to leave a life festering in lectured structuring, besting the busy debuts, of flukless frugality, lucidly, counting the calories of calamity, and randomly rhyming without reason in season-less rain clouds, only allowed to put the umbrella away, and fade in play to the part, where we impart patience on the persona from the coma of commonality.
Immaculately conceived, perceived as a ***** who adores hollow hearts, as we, haphazardly heap on the hilarity, in hepatidal waves, through fazes of the common wealth.
Smile in stealth, love no one else, but self and end up in health, at a lonely age in staged stimuli, reminding me why i'm alive, and not allowed to die, while on rewind through the hard times, to smile on the last lines of laser driven lifelines, laughing at the fragile signs on the finer wines, as they break on the bowes of holy boats in bouts against the sea.
Spewing randomly, he, finds satisfactory solutions to the strengthening of his constitution in loosened blue spells, to dispel his ruthless tendrils from your ears.
The fears fueling the finality in his fractured mentality of maniacal travesties laughing at me.
Its just me, unjustly adjusting for the combustion of the build.
Its lovely here.
Laughing in the lashes.
Signing my entrapment's.
Lapsing out the masses and forming from the ashes of smashed happiness, as it unclasps before my eyes.
Sometimes
It just feels right to be alive.
Apr 9, 2013
Apr 9, 2013 at 11:37 PM UTC
I put my earbuds in and sting my open wounds with stories
I wander through the library, mausoleum of time
Oldness, dust, that faint smell with no name
I open a book in Danish, squiggles and dots
This must be what a child feels like before they can read
My soul is leaking out of my sides, I clasp them tight
As I attempt to imprison my wandering soul, it slips out my mouth
Into these ancient creations of another
I must read to find it
I must find it
It weathers storms on a glassy sea
It wanders in darkness and burns in the light
It jumps off the precipice of possibility
It was screaming and I forgot to listen
I just put in my earbuds and stung in with stories
Until it became one
*Oh my soul I must honor thee, in black and white you illusive remain.
Constantly moving but staying the same.
Freedom you found, freedom these pages contain.
But I am not with thee in flesh I remain.
Sorting through words for which I have no name
Lost in the translation that made the mundane*
Dec 14, 2016
Dec 14, 2016 at 12:27 AM UTC
Don't move.
The air is rich with magic.
The words that so recently dropped from the poet's lips
Now hold you transfixed, as if they were
The words to a spell of binding
Freezing you to your seat and reminding you
That the pen is still mightier than the sword.
You sit, unwilling to stir, because you know all too well
That the minute you move, you'll break the spell
And the shell constructed from the lines of verse
Will shatter like someone touched the magic with a curse
And the world will come rushing back in.
A single rustle is all it takes for the world to reawaken
And the spell to break. But as the mystic moment fades away,
You pray that some of the magic will stay
And cling to you like stray cobwebs,
Trailing the beauty of the words that were spoken
So that others might be touched by the magic that awoke
In the few moments you took to step away from the world.
But whether or not the magic leaves a trail for others,
It will not fail to nestle itself inside your head
And every night you spend tossing sleepless in bed
The words will be turning over and over--
They will dissociate and scramble and regenerate
Until at last they precipitate into a new brand of magic.
Then the day will come when you, too, will stand
In that sacred space before a crowd of eager young faces--
Or perhaps just sit and spend some time with a single friend--
And you will hold in your hand a paper
Filled with the dots, lines, and squiggles
That are the visual representation
Of this creation of yours, this poetic summation
Of the beauty that has invaded your soul
And forced its way out again.
As you draw your first breath, you begin weaving the net
That will set the stage for you to upset their status quo
And transport them to a place from which you know
They will return wanting more.
Then you will speak the words
And pass the magic on.
Feb 22, 2013
Feb 22, 2013 at 4:09 AM UTC
I’m from sunshine and bird call mornings
cat stretching on flannel sheets
tasting the sun with my skin
welcoming the dewy grass
and the wet bricks
and the fresh air
I’m from cloudy skies and redwood trees
alarm clock wake up calls
frozen morning breath
sunshine on squiggles
and beach views
and forest adventures
I’m from wanderlust and airplanes
opening my eyes to a new place everyday
from the unknown to the awesome
taking in all that I can
I’m from rain forests
waking up to sticky-sweet-hot air and mosquito netting
enjoying the symphony of birds and bugs
and the lights of the fireflies at night
welcoming the abundance of colors
and the wondrous creatures
and the tall tall trees
I’m from fast cities
waking up to car horns and street hawkers
starting the day with street sounds and street smells
coexisting with the rest of the beating heart that is a big city
navigating the veins of streets
with their loads of cars
living in tiny rooms
and big buildings
I’m from deserts
motionless morning air and sunburns and tans
with their glorious sand dunes
and their hot sunny days
their honeycomb color
and their unbelievable sunsets
I am from here
I am from this world
from this glorious green and blue orb
I wake up everyday
to any number of things
not knowing what I will find
and always ready for that adventure
Mar 14, 2011
Mar 14, 2011 at 10:09 AM UTC
It’s the year of you and don’t you forget.
Where happiness sits at the top of the list; but
smiles are reserved for those who deserve
the gems of your affection, shining so bright.
You’ll embrace those that enrich your existence.
The guardian angels and mad hatters, who
make your soul tap dance to the music of the mighty,
whilst unleashing a belly laugh like no other.
You’re a working woman who’s a work in progress.
Learning the art of adulthood
whilst darting in and out of Neverland,
a commute full of surprises.
You’ll see the light, or maybe just sense.
Realising that grades don’t measure success,
those pointless paper squiggles have nothing
on you.
It’s the year of you and you should be excited.
Because great things lie ahead for the
dreamers with a passion, so open your eyes
and get ready.
© Sarah Mullaney
May 4, 2016
May 4, 2016 at 3:10 PM UTC
My darling. My sunshine. My love.
Right now you are across from me,
Eyebrows furrowed, nose deep in a book
With words and lines I will never truly comprehend,
I’ve tried, but they merely appear as squiggles.
And I keep falling in love with you,
With each blink of those gorgeous eyelashes.
With each breath I hear faintly but presently.
With each twitch your mouth dives in concentration.
With each flip of the page,
I keep falling in love with you.
I love you for the little things. The eskimo kisses, the inside jokes, the phone calls everyday, the brief but electric touches, the conversations, the way you remember things I’ve said years ago, how you wrap my hair around your fingers, how “I love you” sounds from your lips.
And as I watch you,
Concentrating. Focusing. Being that brilliant man I fell in love with years ago,
You have no idea I’m writing this.
I smile,
For maybe you’ll know. Or maybe you won’t.
But it won’t matter. Because I love you.
Sep 30, 2012
Sep 30, 2012 at 1:40 AM UTC
folding the pages to an escape
consume the clarity
worth the calories?
cut cut cut
you ate. You stupid *****
the edible woman.
girl, interrupted.
my eyes track along the shapes of my sanctity
a little train to my escape
i run as fast as my eyes can carry me.
isolated in my alphabets
my bell jar.
the Grecian shapes have fenced around me
but I'm snug as a gun.
and i cannot force myself to my own conceit.
Seamus Heaney
Shakespeare
my true friends.
listen to me. Speak to me
through their squiggles and stories.
who don't ask me to eat.
Dec 26, 2013
Dec 26, 2013 at 7:11 AM UTC
i was walking
humming that song
about neapolitan dreams
looking at all the dried worms
on the hot sidewalk.
the rain makes them run away
from their homes
trying not to drown
but then the sun
comes
and shrivels them up:
little broken
flat
squiggles
on the sidewalk
what a *****
trick...
suddenly
i found
one that was barely
alive
struggling
trying to dig into
the scorching cement
i don't even like worms
i think they're gross
but i picked him up
put him in the dirt
covered him with some grass
to protect him from the sun
because i know how it feels
to be far from home
trying to get away
from a frightening
place
Apr 17, 2013
Apr 17, 2013 at 11:39 AM UTC
emptiness looking for tenants
a library with no books
being read
but full of people talking.
the starfish dancing
in whirlpools of fire
slabs of light underbelly
spineless me
reading landfall
lurking in other poet minds
watching metaphors
like meteors
bounce off innocent images
some ******* will graffiti
the walls and windows
we will need to decipher those squiggles
as art
guessing. guessing
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 2 months ago
Jun 30, 2014
Jun 30, 2014 at 5:11 PM UTC