"stagger" poems
My heart lay bleeding at my feet
I stare as you tear it apart.
I stagger back as you take your walk alone.
You say you're off balance,
So I go and the sides are even again.
You won't miss me when I'm gone.
You were my best friend and more.
I still want to be your friend, too.
But I need time to heal my heart.
You're not really gone, but to me you are and I miss you.
And I know you're not coming back.
So I'll see you around and we'll say hello.
I try, but can't put into words:
The sound of my heart shattering
The sight of the permanently gray skies etched into my mind
The feeling of your arms... I'll never feel again
The scent of the tears on my face
And the taste of them in my mouth
But my senses are numb.
I notice these things, but don't really feel them.
Isn't it tragic?
Oct 27, 2011
Oct 27, 2011 at 4:36 PM UTC
I know that like a breath you consume me with every fiber of being
a need within me you fulfill
i stagger to keep up with you
the fragmented pieces of choices we have to make
our life before our hearts
our hearts lying upon the alter
our hands up in the air saying we surrender
we surrender to the life that is judging our motives
we just want bliss in the in-betweens of our love spells
our hazy kisses and our deep hugs
tug on heartstrings
while our fists collide
with a fight that meets at the corner
of compromise and patience
our love is patience
our life is in need of patience
and compromise
only words can conquer
communication in the least is the most
and it brings us closer
May 23, 2014
May 23, 2014 at 3:42 AM UTC
I remember the history well:
The soldiers and politicians emerged
With briefcases and guns
And celebrations on city nights.
They scoured the mess
Reviewed our history
Saw the executions at dawn
Then signed with secret policemen
And decided something
Had to be done.
They scoured the mess
Resurrected old blue-prints
Of vicious times
Tracked the shapes of sinking cities
And learned at last
That nothing can be avoided
And so avoided everything.
I remember the history well.
2
We emerged from our ******* mounds
Discovered a view of the sky
As the air danced in heat.
Through the view of the city
In flames, we rewound times
Of executions at beaches.
Salt streamed down our brows.
Everywhere stagger victims of rigged elections
Monolithic accidents on hungry roads
The infinite web of ethnic politics
Power-dreams of fevered winds.
The nation was a map stitched
From the grabbing of future flesh
And became a rush through
Historical slime
3
We emerged on edge
Of time future
With bright fumes
From burning towers.
The fumes lit political rallies.
We started a war
Ended it
And dreamed about our chance.
Fat fish eat little fish
Big ones arrange executions
And armed robberies.
Our ******* shapes us all.
I remember the history well.
The tiger’s snarl is bought
In currencies of silence.
Eggs grow large:
A monstrous face is hatched.
On the edge of time future
I am a boy
With running sores
Of remember history
Watching the stitches widen
Waiting for the volcano’s laughter
In the fevered winds
Hearing the gnash
Of those who will join us
At the mighty gateways
With new blue-prints
With dew as seal
And fire as constant
And a trail through time past
To us
Who remember the history well.
We weave words on red
And sing on the edge of blue.
And with our nerves primed
We shall spin silk from *******
And frame time with our resolve.
________
Source:
http://www.universeofpoetry.org/nigeria.shtml
17.4k
The tide collects it all by morning;
The drama and the ***** napalmed across the path.
The scenes at second warning for most had been swept away
Before they wiped the sand from their shoes.
Empty cans of Dutch and Tuborg slouched on the dunes
Are tight-lipped about the Velvet Strand's secret ecosystem;
An underground microcosm;
A peripheral cluster of seething emotions drowned.
Memories of those years - although some expired,
The vestiges take pride of place - hold a cosmic clump of smells,
Tastes, firsts, goosebumps, hangovers, and ends.
I never before understood what I was holding on to.
Winters down in the shelters nearly killed us but we
Huddled through the cold, lit cheap firelogs and
Found our oblivion. It didn't take much for me to develop
A stagger - tolerance for a lot of things was learned later.
I narrowly recall my first taste of poor judgement and
Hazy-headed stargazing. Six cans of Stonehouse
Dry cider - most of which ended up on the hillside -
Was a ridiculous endeavour that will always be sublime.
At the heart of it, I did it to impress a girl;
The one every boy has or has had that sticks;
Who holds your firsts and your hands and makes
Things simple if only for her complexity;
The one that never fails to bring upon digression when
Pens are involved. Revisiting reminiscence on a jarring note,
I think of my Junior Cert exams and a cross-dressed man
Exposing himself to two uniformed boys behind the public toilets.
This one doesn't stir the joy of the others.
This one I wish would dissolve;
An ugly, awkward blotch on a childhood.
Luckily fondness trumps disgust when recalling that place
Because of sunrises and sunsets absorbed from the roof.
The Summers spent jumping the gap and drowning in the
Heat of the sun were everything.
The fugitive sand between our toes and under finger nails
Became an accepted nuisance, a part of the territory;
A lingering grain or two to drag you back.
I miss waking up with the smell of last night's faded fire.
May 3, 2015
May 3, 2015 at 8:22 PM UTC
Dawn in New York has
four columns of mire
and a hurricane of black pigeons
splashing in the putrid waters.
Dawn in New York groans
on enormous fire escapes
searching between the angles
for spikenards of drafted anguish.
Dawn arrives and no one receives it in his mouth
because morning and hope are impossible there:
sometimes the furious swarming coins
penetrate like drills and devour abandoned children.
Those who go out early know in their bones
there will be no paradise or loves that bloom and die:
they know they will be mired in numbers and laws,
in mindless games, in fruitless labors.
The light is buried under chains and noises
in the impudent challenge of rootless science.
And crowds stagger sleeplessly through the boroughs
as if they had just escaped a shipwreck of blood.
12.7k
We fall,
and hard,
and in the shadows,
***** ourselves on snags,
that tear our clothes;
grazed and cut,
we stagger on -
Impressions, ideas, fancies!
Of these have we been disabused.
But is this spring,
come again?
Lovely,
yesterday,
in the bright sunlight,
to see you,
felt green hat in among the photo clouds,
apple suedes on the gallery's dank floor.
Melvyn,
and I,
merrily circling with you the light cloud images,
my nostrils full of pollen spikes.
The pictures:
wisps of trailing dreams churning in ‘scapes of infinite blue;
dark clouds,
in amongst them,
too.
Photographs in two time places
caught;
at once, all:
the other and t'other.
So excitement swells,
and everything besides us quells,
because the knowing of itself,
knows,
and dares beyond the frames;
to skirt knowingly the unsaid;
to want beyond the wounded past,
to pull things,
once again,
inside out.
In whimsy’s currents flow these thoughts,
these feelings,
these drives;
swirling in eddies,
so that as you sit,
on a summer’s day,
it moves,
a mirror to everything above.
The wavelets on the surface,
hammered into shape,
burn, bite and dazzle;
the sun’s flames leaping and dancing on ripples.
In the basement,
on the concrete,
your Y proneness shifts,
releasing knees on black-clad thighs;
two pendulums swinging,
brushing;
yawing metronomes in the cool,
coolness of my desultory thoughts.
Oh, what am I saying?
Feelings like reveries walk along these silver lips straying languorously.
These myths are too soon made,
carried one to the next,
one-on-one,
until contained no longer,
become new truths.
Jun 25, 2018
Jun 25, 2018 at 8:40 PM UTC
Walking along,
Stopping to pick the ripened berries
The sweet sour taste entices the senses.
Cars passing quickly
My feet stagger on
Slowly falling into the tempo.
My thoughts wander
My troubles arise.
I reach a split in this mental road
Should I go left?
Should I go right?
Should I just turn around and give up?
I’m at the dead end
Looking over a cliff to the rough water below.
Maybe I should just jump in.
Feel the cold daggers against my skin.
The water draws me in
Welcoming me
Beckoning me.
Telling me to jump.
Should I take this leap into the unknown?
Prepare myself for the worst.
In order appreciate the best.
I need some help,
A lighthouse in the distance
The light giving guidance
Offering peace
Breaking though the night.
Where is my lighthouse?
Is there one?
Or is this the dead end.
Dec 12, 2012
Dec 12, 2012 at 3:03 PM UTC
I stagger out of the Paradise Rock Club. 11:04pm.
42 degrees. Short sleeves, no jacket; I give zero *****
I have experienced something beyond words, but I'll try
In 50 minutes it will be All Hallow's Eve, a Monday
Due and not yet begun I have an essay on James Joyce and
A reckoning on the occult, inner mysteries of the CPU.
Again, I give zero *****
The last hour and a half were the best possible use of my time.
Not 5 miles away, people I sympathize with
are protesting the failure of America,
But tonight I have seen her undeniable beauty:
904, as the fire code rates, packed in to the inch
A choir united, the director:
A man who tonight skipped his Aunt Steph's funeral at her request
To be here
To direct us in each anthem.
In hopeful, truthful noise
Our hoarse and untrained voices combine
And as Mr. Key observes, against all odds, against all reason
Make the most beautiful sound.
D.B. Guy
Slightly drunk, tears in my eyes
On the Green Line
11:17pm
Nov 3, 2012
Nov 3, 2012 at 3:12 AM UTC
Forth flashed the serpent streak of steel,
Consummate crown of man's device;
Down crashed upon an immobile
And brainless barrier of ice.
Courage!
The grey gods shoot a laughing lip: -
Let not faith founder with the ship!
We reel before the blows of fate;
Our stout souls stagger at the shock.
Oh! there is Something ultimate
Fixed faster than the living rock.
Courage!
Catastrophe beyond belief
Harden our hearts to fear and grief!
The gods upon the Titans shower
Their high intolerable scorn;
But no god knoweth in what hour
A new Prometheus may be born.
Courage!
Man to his doom goes driving down;
A crown of thorns is still a crown!
No power of nature shall withstand
At last the spirit of mankind:
It is not built upon the sand;
It is not wastrel to the wind.
Courage!
Disaster and destruction tend
To taller triumph in the end.
5.9k
Such dissatisfaction
For so little reason.
Much complaining & whining,
Crying & begging;
Pulling hair, tight fists
And gnashing teeth.
Consumer Zombies stagger
Into the Stop & Shop,
Shop & Go,
Buy More For Less-
Sale, Sale, Sale!
Salivating glands & bug eyes;
Our hands grab more than
Can possibly be seen.
Our skin stretches tight
As white elephants stampede.
Why can’t we all
Just Stop & think?
Take a drink of the cool morning
Air and buy in the sunrise?
© Lesley Wood
Feb 15, 2017
Feb 15, 2017 at 2:55 AM UTC
An animal shriek
in the snowiest silence
is swallowed by eyes deep and brown,
not like mine.
Which're shallow and icy and
clouded with Sundays
shrugged off of shoulders
from peak down to plain.
These mornings are silent,
constructed from cinder blocks;
skeletal, rusting--yet inwardly
wailing.
Why in the world can't I set those shouts free
when the achiest Mondays release
all their caltrops
and I stagger through work weeks
on sore, shredded feet?
It's because of the way
that your shrieks echo off
of my wrought iron eyelids
when frost fills your veins.
It's because of the way
that I melt every Thursday
and wash down the side
of the night in cold sheets.
I can't shout out loud
and I can't melt the quiet
that screams from the mountains
to snow on the prairie below.
Feb 1, 2015
Feb 1, 2015 at 2:51 PM UTC
Funny how these small things happen
Little ripples in the pond
Spooky turtles poised for snapping
Just beneath the sweet reflection/
Funny how we seldom notice
What we do to cause reaction
What effects we leave behind us
As we blindly stagger on/
Funny how the Big Things linger
All disguised as normal silent
Meanwhile little ripples grow
While we lean back, smiling, napping/
Meanwhile all those spooky turtles
Gather down there in the cold
Surfing upside down to bite us...
(Little things get bigger.... Honest!)
Sep 24, 2013
Sep 24, 2013 at 12:16 AM UTC
I grew up in South Auckland, Takanini
the only Pakeha in the caravan park,
I learnt how to be tall, smart and skinny
how to raise the end of my sentences in an arc.
At school, we were told words held power;
but for teachers words were flowers,
and my friend Cruz had two brothers
Harley and Davidson - they belonged to Black Power,
their fists tattooed with something like “Smother”.
But there was never violence on our street, gang was family;
I usually never felt more at home around Bourbon,
loud Reggae, bags of **** and men so manly
they’d cry over love, and I wouldn’t get a word in.
Though my Father votes National and thinks Michael Laws is right
so moves us to Dunedin where it’s ninety percent white.
I stopped reading Lenin and picked up Rousseau
became a vegetarian, thought it was so cool you know,
even wrote a blog that discussed rise from below.
But I’ll never know below again
until I’m drunk in an old shed at 3am on a school night
singing along to Bob Marley in Maori,
sunk deep into the mattress propped against the Harley,
the one you and I would cruise on until dawn together
as police took to the streets in riot gear -
we’d get lost in the country and learn to smother
our thoughts in starlight then stagger over,
listen in to the darkness,
and just slowly breathe
the crisp, cool air of the kiwi tundra.
They say New Zealand has two flags,
but in the country, when you’re blazed
on the benefit, ****** on the disdain
for positive discrimination, you can pick out
all the small bright koru unfurling in the stars.
Oct 25, 2013
Oct 25, 2013 at 4:52 AM UTC
Monet was painting up my vision
while the droves were driven out.
We stepped out to the derision
of a tenor waterspout.
The town outside is dancing
in the ruddy neon hues
and I’m ****** whilst Amsterdam-ing
by the slam-dunk cognac blues.
And a cap was shaking coppers
in an out cove by the way,
where instruments and owners
had begun to play.
The bar stools are all swaying
whilst the festival ensues,
and I’m ****** whilst Amsterdam-ing
by the slam-dunk cognac blues.
With the rhythm of the rimjhim
and the stamping our feet
we sing our drunken-whim hymn
whilst we stagger down the street.
And we had sunken five; still sinking
Im strung out, slammed, and stinking
Four sheets to the wind and freaking
about what I had to lose.
so that’s when I got to thinking
had an inkling to the linking
between my errant drinking
and the slam-dunk cognac blues…
Aug 12, 2015
Aug 12, 2015 at 6:37 PM UTC
Maybe begging you to stay was the reason
it was 5:30 a.m. and you told me I wasn't the one
and all of these poems are ******** and have nothing to do with anything that is going on in my head
but three months ago I tried to **** myself and you wouldn't answer your phone.
when you saw me the next night you told me everyone has bad days.
With beer in hand and stagger to your walk I believed you
Cause you were right,
everyone has bad days, I would never deny anyone of that
even my bad days are better than others
I have never had my stomach pumped,
I have never drank till I have passed out
I have never been in a car accident
but I have tasted the cold bitter remnants of what love was supposed to be after swallowing one too many pills
I have opened my skin in the attempt rid my blood of you
I have stained sheet after sheet with what I thought beautiful was,
still all I can hear is you preaching that it's just another bad day
Mar 25, 2015
Mar 25, 2015 at 12:48 PM UTC
Stumble forth on rubber legs
When drink perfumes your breath
Search the sky with bleary eyes
And salvage what is left:
Still breathing, speaking, seeing
Still marveling the stars
Still gagging out weak poetry
And tripping out of bars.
One foot before the other
Stagger, step and sway
The wind that croons soft music
Lulls the grief away
Dec 3, 2014
Dec 3, 2014 at 10:08 PM UTC
Each battle their swords clash
mighty men stagger back,
with every hack and slash
little cracks break into those blades.
Each force of energy carves a new path--
victories told by this warriors tale of sand
beads of red spill openly,
and more brown rocks turned into blood
they are the clear sign
to a samurai's way to end.
A jar on the counter filled to the brim--
layers of dust coat the outside
within the hearts of mighty men
whom were slain all by one man;
now he old and gray living in a younger age.
His only wish was to be a true
samurai, one to turn into sand,
to become part of the trophy case--
sword in hand and a slight bow
he does the honorable way,
to join his samurai men.
May 9, 2015
May 9, 2015 at 6:29 AM UTC
come closer.
I won’t waste breath on lullabies.
I’ve gnawed the years,
spat blood and marrow.
If you want the taste,
the true taste,
take it alone.
Drink alone.
Stagger the road alone.
Laugh till your ribs split—alone.
Howl till your lungs tear—alone.
And when sin claws your door,
let it in,
alone.
Alone is the blade.
Alone is the wound.
Alone is the grave.
Guard your fire,
your shame,
your cursed name.
No one carries it for you.
No one shares the dirt.
When the earth shuts its jaw,
it swallows each skull
alone.
Sep 10, 2025
Sep 10, 2025 at 8:28 PM UTC
Plunging beneath the surface
And as it all finally settles
So does silence
Being broken only by the sound of my breath
The bubbles bursting from my lips
Tentatively stagger toward the surface
I go deeper
As far as I can before my breath runs out
Toward an inaccessible deep blueness
Where a whole new world awaits me
Out of reach from the shimmering luster above
Past the rigid rocks
Moving gently forward
A school of shiny fish scatters at my arrival
The seaweed dances around
Ensnaring any foolish enough to wander too close
I’m running out of air
The time is too short
Back to where I’m from
Beyond the wild and beautifully unexplored world below me
I am wistful to part
Because time
Is what makes it so special
Apr 9, 2012
Apr 9, 2012 at 8:22 PM UTC
*
I stared into the shadows
of a lover’s distant past
Heard whispers in the darkness
of the spell her heart did cast
As it raked across my feelings
and I cried out in the night
When this smile I was wearing
fit a little bit too tight
With her painted nails of crimson
like the color of my blood
She clawed at my emotions
as the silhouettes did flood
This morning found believing
that our time is filled with fate
Where I find my voice is screaming,
please don’t tell me it’s too late
She collected every promise
on the worries I did call
For she wanted me to know that
I could never have it all
Still I crawled into the silence
with my eyes so open wide
And together we were drowning
in the motion of the tide
In her arms now spun the seconds
of the minutes I could spare
Like a clock that’s steady ticking
darkened rhythms sent to share
Drinking thirsty from the fountain
as her finger it did press
On the chrome implanted wishes
of an early moon confess
For her smile was infectious
as it hid her ***** deeds
When I fell intoxicated
still to stagger in these needs
Tried to gaze off in the distance
but my vision could not stay
I was trapped in her seduction
and I could not look away*
Oct 5, 2016
Oct 5, 2016 at 4:44 PM UTC
The crew of ****** all hide their own secret loneliness. At every port the deserted dance halls beckon, and there they dance with familiar ghosts. At twelve midnight sharp the spirits disappear along with the tuxedoed band and the music dies leaving red white and blue tinsel, miniature plastic flags, and balloons that glide and bounce to a solitary, prolonged note.
The sailors cease spinning and their arms drop to their sides. They drown in bottles of *** in search of solace. They rarely find barely a taste. And so, in frustration they fight and draw first and last bloods. Now, in scuffed shoes and torn clothes, with damaged pride, they stagger arm in arm back to ship.
The water laps and licks it’s tongue like a cat at cream and the crew whisper breath rings in the chilly air.
Master Chief Petty matron mother waits on deck, rolling pin in hand, kicking backsides into cabins.
The ship bobs and dips in rhythm to sailors heaving snoring chests, and there they sleep, fly catching open mouthed, hugging their pillows in desert island dreams.
Copyright Marc Hawkins 2009
Sep 11, 2017
Sep 11, 2017 at 3:24 PM UTC
I say **** kanye **** kanye **** kanye yea yea eeeee
I say **** kanye **** kanye **** kanye yea yea eeeee
I say **** kanye **** kanye **** kanye yea yea eeeee
I say **** kanye **** kanye **** kanye yea yea eeeee
So many sellouts claimin' they real when they only want a mass stage appeal
****** swear they be down for the hood? but how while living lavish in the white neighborhoods?
This ***** turned scooby doo ****** where the **** are you? You loosin' ya black views
How the **** you gone say slavery was a choice I remember when you had a voice
Ever since you called Bush out it seems like got drained out
Gallons of blood a spiritual transfusion ***** ya loosin'
Ever since your lips ****** on that white ******* **** **** them Kkkhardashians say it louder once the mic enter my hands enemies get the sweatin' cuz of my verbal weapon
yeah ya been coming out makes me doubt
No wonder why they call you gay fish half of them ******* is really *******
In the celebrity world where boys is girls and girls is boys seduced by the evilness that swirls life ain't about diamonds and pearls
Pandoras box dusty as **** so no need to throw a fit Kanye I got a black polished AK' forty seven ready to send you to heaven
No ladder leaning on a stagger soon to end up a plastic bagger
Coroner's dinner deaths the winner while ya visions growing thinner
**** what ya stand for I take you back through the "wire" throw gasoline all over you then light a fire burning your empire
**** your kids and ya legacy none of us admire
Your coonery I'll crown you with thorns full of barbed wire til your soul transpires
Yeah punk ***** so
I say **** kanye **** kanye **** kanye yea yea eeeee
I say **** kanye **** kanye **** kanye yea yea eeeee
I say **** kanye **** kanye **** kanye yea yea eeeee
I say **** kanye **** kanye **** kanye yea yea eeeee
Also **** them white ***** kkkhardashian once again letting you know how they do brothers in
****** go crazy or end up in the pen or another gender trend
**** making friends **** chasin' ends
And if you wanna join kanye ya casket ready soon to be tucked in ....
Night night you ***** ******* die slow
May 2, 2018
May 2, 2018 at 10:31 AM UTC
you do not need to be quiet.
you do not need to expose your heart
to this brutal world to feed its ugly desire.
you only need to walk into the wilderness of your soul
and breathe, succumb to the silence in your heart;
rebel and provoke, then embrace the soft despair
of your broken body and heal; in the miles
of broken road between your heart and mine, repent;
cry a little and scream, for the valley will echo
in redemption and uplift you into the timberline
and up again to the highest point above the valley floor
until the sun whips its fingers across your face and you stagger,
kneel, then pray in your enlightened state;
you will smile when you come home
to the craggy rocks and dusty rivers
and the tender patches of moss along the boulders;
you will tease the tall grasses and the buttercups
and the sunflowers with your fingers
and push deep through the mud with your toes;
here, silence is forgiving.
May 7, 2013
May 7, 2013 at 10:22 PM UTC
FIRST
Be it a girl, or one of the boys,
It is scarlet all over its avoirdupois,
It is red, it is boiled; could the obstetrician
Have possibly been a lobstertrician?
His degrees and credentials were hunky-dory,
But how's for an infantile inventory?
Here's the prodigy, here's the miracle!
Whether its head is oval or spherical,
You rejoice to find it has only one,
Having dreaded a two-headed daughter or son;
Here's the phenomenon all complete,
It's got two hands, it's got two feet,
Only natural, but pleasing, because
For months you have dreamed of flippers or claws.
Furthermore, it is fully equipped:
Fingers and toes with nails are tipped;
It's even got eyes, and a mouth clear cut;
When the mouth comes open the eyes go shut,
When the eyes go shut, the breath is loosed
And the presence of lungs can be deduced.
Let the rockets flash and the cannon thunder,
This child is a marvel, a matchless wonder.
A staggering child, a child astounding,
Dazzling, diaperless, dumbfounding,
Stupendous, miraculous, unsurpassed,
A child to stagger and flabbergast,
Bright as a button, sharp as a thorn,
And the only perfect one ever born.
SECOND
Arrived this evening at half-past nine.
Everybody is doing fine.
Is it a boy, or quite the reverse?
You can call in the morning and ask the nurse.
3.4k
I never knew his real name and my youthful imagination named him uncle funky the peanut man as bagged peanuts burnt were hopefully sold from a makeshift stand now on this June 2013 morning my mind slowly opens the door of youthful memory and I see soiled pants turned over shoes old hat crooked atop long gray hair brown hands waiting for a dollar exchange as funk clings to the untended skin like fleas on a homeless dog whiffs released randomly would stagger a prime boxer the times changed with the town sweeping uncle funky away with yesterday and the past of bygone days and I wonder and it is"t a very pleasant wonder whatever happened to uncle funky?
ut to be sold hopefully from a makeshift stand now on this june 2013 morning my mind opens the door of youthful memory and I see clearly soiled pants and shirt old hat atop of unseen hair brown hands waiting for a dollar exchange as funk clings to the unbathed skin like fleas on a homeless dog whiff released would stagger a prime boxer the times changed with the town sweeping uncle funky away with yesterday and the past of bygone days but I wonder and it isn"t a very pleasant wonder whatever happened to uncle funky the peanut man?
Jun 15, 2013
Jun 15, 2013 at 4:23 PM UTC