"staleness" poems
Maybe some doubt is exactly what I need;
the staleness may be temporary,
the hollow self-perceived.
I know being humble is exactly what I need;
forgetting who I have been
and seeing who I can be.
Maybe this monocracy is really what I need;
a self-governed dictatorship
that disqualifies my needs.
I hope feeling insecure is exactly what I need;
a push from behind will only make
a non-believer be believed.
But, maybe decision describes my every need;
without the aid of a constant bicker
and without putting off some heat.
I feel that this disclosure
of the real life I should lead,
may bring back the epic epicenters of things I can't believe.
But, maybe it's this doubt
that fringes the end of human being.
Or maybe its the chattering
of hate I've built while teething.
Or maybe its the "no one"
that stands beneath my feet.
Or maybe its the "no one"
that hovers over me.
This is doubt pure and true-
and I know it wants a piece of you.
Jul 20, 2010
Jul 20, 2010 at 1:38 AM UTC
I favour the deep, impenetrable truth of the jungle
Over the smooth ride over sleek black rubber;
The ***** disturbing, demented disorder;
The distortions of the lights we bathe on,
Over outward alignments and the staleness of systems.
I favour the cheap, rugged, bittersweet taste
Of a late night's substandard drink,
In the midst of true lights and shadows
And the uncertainty they cast upon us,
Over the orderly and satisfactory--
The dead pleasures and securities that
Exist nowhere but in feeble projections.
I favour the basic, primeval, animal grunt--
The dirt, the dizziness of true treading
Across the muddy shallows--,
Over the clattering of an overflowed,
Certain mind.
I favour doubt, earnest doubt,
Unpalatable doubt, inescapable doubt--
A smile in a pitch-black room,
A journey on a lukewarm air balloon,
A half-finished sentence in a half-serious gloom--,
Over hasty conclusions and tainted allusions.
I favour the endearing messiness of reality;
The chaos of light and dreams;
The mystery, so out of reach,
Of you and me and the space in-between;
The stained, torn, shattered, burnt,
Twisted texture we find ourselves upon,
Over the smooth, marble-white,
Sterile surface where false certainties
Slide, grinning, before they find themselves
On an impending collision with the infectious hesitation of the ground.
I favour the acknowledging look
Straight into the eye;
A ladder with one step;
A race with no competitors;
A contentment without resentment;
A bread on your table that's good enough,
That doesn't tease you and promise you more,
And more,
And more,
So that you forget what you should really care for,
What lies deep under your skin,
What stirs up the dormant contents of your guts--
You climb to the hilltop
Which finally allows you to have
A peek at the next one.
I favour uncertainty and risk,
And walking too close to the edge;
I favour barely enough,
And cutting it too close;
I favour throwing all excess over the board,
And lowering standards;
I favour the taste of imminent failure
And the adrenaline of a heart-wakening sprint;
I favour meagre means
And big dreams, free of currencies;
For they all remind me what the world
Really looks like,
Who I really am,
And what the winter-night winds
Really feel like.
I favour the ways of nature, often erratic,
***** ugly and convoluted,
Often dumbfounding,
Unintentionally intelligent and mysterious,
Over the ways of fear-ridden constructions,
For there is no such thing
As a straight line.
Jan 9, 2019
Jan 9, 2019 at 2:31 PM UTC
when you're out of work
a new kind of dictionary defined,
old filters replaced, perspectives refined
take the respite resort word
the "weekend,"
when you are unemployed,
it starts on a Monday,
and runs seven days consecutive,
and the words
"week"and "end" can no longer be married,
for each,
just a new cuss word
when you're out of work,
the sweet small spaces of your home,
revised by the architect
of the mind,
somehow sudden, two sizes smaller,
fewer doors and windows,
light and air, hesitant to enter,
no Vermeer here,
staleness re-covers everything,
new is worn, and worn is
you
when you are fired,
you comprehend the word's meaning clearer,
now, your every thought feels like twelves cylinders firing,
you've become
furnaced, tempered,
dressed daily in an orange yellow colored
jumpsuit, with UNEMPLOYED
across a bent back,
self-censoring the spoken and the unspoken,
when you have no work,
everything important is twice the work,
believing, now a chore,
loving, a labor lost
when you're unemployed
a new kind of dictionary defined,
old filters replaced, perspectives refined,
many words excised,
so few required,
so few desired,
they as well,
rank, and unemployable,
and everything reads
left to right
Aug 30, 2015
Aug 30, 2015 at 7:55 AM UTC
Your Toxin
Always
Brings Sorrows
Of The Undead
That Always
Keep Tears
Crying
For The Dead
Toxins
Perfume
Your Blood
With Staleness
Of The Night
Your Pawprints
Never Could
Be The Same
Without
Your Toxin
You Feel Pain
You Hold It
Like A
Child
That You Cannot
Hold On
Forever
~Paris Styron~
Toxic
Black Roses
Grind
Between
Your Furry
Toes
With Despair
With Grief
That Always
Bleeds
In My Heart
That Cannot
Grow Apart
I Am A
Leech
That Cannot
Go Away
Because
I Carry
Your Diseases
Away
Infected
Pawprint
Message Of
The Day
Of The Night
~Paris Styron~
Aug 20, 2014
Aug 20, 2014 at 7:52 AM UTC
I pulled a piece of string
from my sleeve,
watched it float to the ground,
collecting itself into a small circle.
The ring reminded me of days past
when I thought that was what I wanted-
that ring.
How odd
that such an ordinary string
on such an arbitrary day
could teach me about myself
in one split second,
pointing out that the ring
was never what I wanted,
never what I needed.
The wind blew the flowers around me
and tossed up my hair
yet the ring remained,
stagnant,
unmoved,
a praxis,
like the boy who still hoped for the promise
of a ring.
So I collected my things
and rose from my spot between those two Hydrangea bushes,
stepped over the ring
and continued on my way,
movement from the
staleness of monogamy
to the chaos of something more.
Always moving
to something more.
Sep 24, 2012
Sep 24, 2012 at 4:29 PM UTC
Still sleep warm,
I am coaxed into
consciousness
by your fingers lazily
grazing the elastic
of my underwear.
That smooth plateau
between the mountains
of my hipbones: home.
Overnight, my shirt
has ridden up, too hot
in the California nights
neither of us are used to
yet, proven by the pool
of sweat beneath my
lower back. The sticky
staleness of my skin
matches yours.
We are anything but
a disaster, and still,
I am a fault line. Feeling
the tremors rumble low
in my belly, your overheating
hands the magma forcing
plates apart, revealing
the new earth beneath.
There's danger in my inhale,
the risk of being shaken to
the core and unfixable.
Yet not even an earthquake
could divide us: love.
V. K.
Jul 23, 2015
Jul 23, 2015 at 1:57 PM UTC
The poet's manuscripts
are preserved for posterity
with odd bits of his personal things
historical than literary
immortalized with passage of time
as his timeless work
perfumed in air conditioned staleness
letters sent and received
the mortal mind sending poems
desiring to be published
and outside on a falling winter day
in a dog's head
the crumbling desire
for a crumb of bread.
Dec 19, 2016
Dec 19, 2016 at 8:15 AM UTC
Stolen warmth gone for now, followed by melancholic uneventful sounds. When I walk, I walk away from seeing. Everything I thought I might've been. This skin trying to fly away from me, like a misplaced shadow searching for a body to shrug off its grief. Bending, arcing, aching thumbs that have too much memory to allow them any fun. The old time might have agreed, with the girl lost for at least three weeks. Sugar and a can of milk condensed, heated up over campfire coals in the woods near Libereć.
Twice I'm too scared to talk. After a boxing match with a raging bull. Staleness lingers over these sweating hips, where half a moon quaffs down Verdi's Requiems. I told you I'm hiding in the jungle now. Through these cufflinks I speak through a startled jowl. First that dying tone, the startling sound of a fading D Minor song. The mines of the forest grieve, until the hours born sell the rights to sleep. Taken and away from grief, where wiggling children's fingers are seen. Only to find the child was not a realty.
Let your hands make amends to me, whether you're here for the pistachio ice cream or vanilla almond dream. Princess pleas for a pauper's being.
Looks like the child bit off half it's tongue, to ignore all inquiries into where its gone. Minute games and clauses of flesh, I tie her up using her own belt. Chasing The Rockies for a festive blue, then I gorge myself while she enrolled me too. Quiet bandits filled with starlight.
Sep 22, 2017
Sep 22, 2017 at 3:46 AM UTC
Between the long plain that reaches over to London eye,
and over again to the ornaments that lay under the sky-
the city opens up its zero chorus of blackness within light flys;
I’ll never be up here again-
on another night where the staleness seems to have been flashed
away;
- I lay back and accept the clean wounds of space between wind pulse;
the campus sits as a passed morning meaning that I can stay up
here until I need to go, migrants of vehicle sound beaten by
a flock passing below the polluted white clouds- I’d welcome
security to find me; I’d give them the most genuine
‘hands up’ at this point;
I’ve taken enough neon in to know that it was worth it. The ache
in my body is night breeze, any losses are about 100m down,
lung and heart happy to stare- I doubt there’ll
be a hoo har- my mind licks over the clear void of the campus
and rests back; it seems worth it just to sleep,
just here, but I’ve gotta climb back down too
and even that thought,
is sent back-germinated
from the stars
as if the symbols of their light,
are more warnings,
to accept their open room
as my own;
without question,
less I quit,
and dive now
too.
Jul 22, 2013
Jul 22, 2013 at 3:26 PM UTC
There were little ways, once, when things could sparkle and spread the light
just like I spread your legs
then.
Away I could turn,
and feel your eyes on me,
the breath for breathing in always fresh and free between us,
the staleness now punctuating every sentence, drooling from my lips
and off away somewhere…
nowhere.
The infant
me lying next to the mother
of you in the creeping sun
running away over the edge of the world
like Magellan.
I could chase it,
I would,
I swear I will,
if you would ask it,
and I would tumble over that dark cusp
and off into a six-year terror of death and disease,
just to return,
spinning the Earth under my feet,
pushing it with my hands like paddles,
kicking it back with toes,
sweating bleeding shaking
and collapsing
back into
you.
Aug 24, 2012
Aug 24, 2012 at 3:48 AM UTC
I am emptiness
I have a heart that beats, but no musical echo rhythmic to the rhapsody of life
I have eyes that see, but murky grey scenes abound, no rainbow splendour
I hear, but pitch and tone flat-line, no cacophony tuned with life’s harmony
I smell staleness, bitterness, no glory in aroma
I touch numbly, textured satin elusive
I am emptiness
Apr 14, 2015
Apr 14, 2015 at 9:28 AM UTC
The dream world built with pack of cards,
Stood always strong with the blessings of lord;
The wind of reality was never to touch,
So strong was the emotional clutch;
Love and faith played hide and seek,
Trying to reach a relation at mountain peak;
The eyes closed with full of dreams,
Never cared to wake up with clues of light beam;
The fairy land lying below the feet,
Started to feel the tremors of reality heat;
The cracks begotten by the tremors,
Let thee to have feelingless quivers;
The heaviness in the air was so strong,
that thou were found in the arms of wrong;
Eyes left wide open with sour and paleness,
Reaching the state of lifeless staleness;
The sea of tears dried up,
Leaving behind the salty death cup;
Before the eyes wake up from the dream,
A divine helping hand showed the path of river stream;
To purify self from the shadows of guilt,
And raise as a new soul rebuilt;
Finding the path between dream world and real world,
the search is on to reach the glory unfurled;
Keeping the packs of cards intact,
the dream world of cards is still on for the soul to reenact.
Aug 1, 2014
Aug 1, 2014 at 12:53 AM UTC
I. nope.
II.
long-windedness verbosity
diffuseness prolixity
wordiness rambling
circuity discursiveness
redundancy tautology
tediousness verbiage
verboseness length
longevity permanence
garrulity windiness
volubility circumlocution
expansiveness babbling
periphrasis gushing
blathering protractedness
waffling lengthiness
iteration repetition
prating prattling
jabbering digressiveness
dreariness tedium
deadliness wandering
repetitiousness repetitiveness
pleonasm convolution
logorrhoea boringness
maundering superfluity
duplication tiresomeness
monotony reiteration
gabbiness informality
mouthiness diffusion
logorrhea wordage
blah-blah dryness
dullness boredom
sameness loquaciousness
talkativeness loquacity
freeness orotundity
roundaboutness breadth
gobbledegook gassiness
wittering multiloquence
perissology big mouth
gift of the gab garrulousness
staleness tallness
Aug 19, 2019
Aug 19, 2019 at 9:38 AM UTC
Always a gray sky
Filled with something
That'll stay there -
Rain or snow -
Could be thunder
It won't share.
Whatever
Would come cursed,
Pain or joy not to know.
Though when it
Empties
Even barren hearts
Sometime see beauty
In soft snow flakes
Masking dull landscapes;
Springtime downpours
Clean
Staleness from air
For hours,
Making amends for trouble.
That release
Could connect us.
Feb 27, 2010
Feb 27, 2010 at 3:33 PM UTC
On the stool
A pedistal for the fool hearted
Jilted and the shamed.
Made out to be the villian
In the drama you named
"Life"
On the stool, perched and poised
To lift one more glass with the boys
But they're not here
To gaze on him
On the stool
Head in one hand
Brew clenched hard
As the few drops left
Hit the sandy tongue
On the stool
Belly full of forgetfulness
He stands
To **** away his hopes
Of being with you
Getting accustomed to
"Alone"
On the stool
Consuming another glass or forgotten memories
Will he ever leave this place
Of shame and disgrace
And open the doors to face
The cold yet familiar embrace
Of failure and be left with the taste
Of stale beer and old tobacco?
May 10, 2013
May 10, 2013 at 1:37 AM UTC
My heart writhes of pain, in the chilling fire
The fire for which she gathered, tinder
My quill and his ink froze, in the chilling fire
The fire which she gathered for my pyre.
My vellum sits bone-dry, in the chilling fire
Her fire, which burns my voices to cinder
Every fortnight, I see her glistening eyes
Reciting a monotonous sonnet of grey
That sonnet would never ever suffice
In sheathing me from her stagnant voice
As she smothers my final embers of life
As she “graces” me staleness from life’s fray
Her brushed hair, smooth in bronze.
Her florid face, baroque and supple.
Her lips, curled to a fluttering smile
Her gait, silent, steady and subtle
Her eyes, icy daggers skewering my heart
Her fingertips, flames freezing my breathe
I await in void as her hand rests on mine
Glaring the gloaming sky with heavy eyes
She drained my soul into a dead mine.
But... she birthed my precious Daphne
A shallow stream began from my dry eyes
“I miss our waltz, I always did, Ania.”
The ink on my quill began its flows
My heart repose, as my Ania mellows.
But sorrow, clutch me, she was my Ania
I shall see her very soon, in our meadows
We will have our Final Waltz, Ania
Yes, Ania; Our joyous waltz to Follia.
Aug 19, 2020
Aug 19, 2020 at 2:28 AM UTC
Kitchen appliances hum softly,
logs shift in the stove, an uneasy chorus.
The shower sings too, softly, faintly.
I wish you and I were tangled together
in this inky night.
All of the others would cease to exist,
even the body dancing under the cascade of water,
the body which may or may not have been invited in.
The fire flares up, burns with an indescribable vibrancy.
I can almost see your face close to mine,
lit up by the flickering of the flames,
a shadowdance with all the intricate details of you.
Liplocked, bedlocked, lovelocked.
I have never wanted anything so much
as I want this profound happiness with you.
Even here, alone in this dingy room, I feel it,
the shapes it creates in the staleness of the air,
the near-tangible texture that it holds.
Mar 23, 2010
Mar 23, 2010 at 3:06 AM UTC
She worships you. Your sinful indulgence and all.
She laps up your grey blood
and nourishes her flab on your staleness.
On her weaknesses and confessions you elevate yourself.
Higher.
The altar cracks.
She darts to heel your splinter but her limbs are broken under the collapse.
Upset at her lack of agency and engrossed in prayer she drowns herself in her own tears unknowingly.
In the end your ***** amassed.
An unexpected end to a story of fatherly shepherding.
See not every story has a Noah and his Arc,
most end with the egotistical on the altar, and the saints martyred in the gutter.
Sacrifice is still bloodshed.
Aug 11, 2019
Aug 11, 2019 at 11:58 AM UTC
You stood with Ingrid
on the grounds
at the back
of the bombed out
butcher’s shop
on Harper Road
she looked anxiously
about her
her eyes large
behind her
wire framed glasses
are we allowed to be here?
she said
I don’t suppose so
you replied
but who’s to know?
and you walked along
the broken up pathway
to the back
where there was a huge
refrigerator with the door open
she looked in
her hands holding
each other nervously
what if someone got locked in?
she said
the lock’s busted
you said
you can’t be locked in
she looked at the lock handle
which had been
broken off at the end
you peered
in the back door
of the shop
smelling the staleness
and damp and ****
where some old *****
had probably slept the night
or used it as a ******
what’s that smell?
she said
holding her nose
between finger
and thumb
some tramps
****** in here
I suspect
you said
he’s not still here is he?
she whispered
no he’s long gone
they don’t hang around
in daylight
you said
she didn’t look
convinced
and leaned close to you
taking your arm
don't worry
you said
I've got my six shooter
in my pocket
and you patted
your jacket pocket
she looked through the door
you moved inside
and took her with you
her hand clutching
your arm tighter
Holy Mary Mother God
you heard her whisper
you entered the shop
and looked around
at the empty shelves
and the discoloured slab
where they used
to cut up the meat
her hand gripped
you tightly
as you moved into
the passageway
she whispered more
holy words
her eyes large
her small fingers
almost white
on your arm
don’t worry
you said
I’ll not let anything
happen to you
she looked up the stairs
that led up
from the passageway
what’s up there?
she asked
bedrooms and living room
I expect
you said
you climbed the stairs slowly
she held your hand
following behind
you listened for any sounds
her breathing laboured
her hand tight in yours
at the top of the landing
there were three doors
and an open space
where there was a lavatory
and a broken sink
you took her in
through one of the doors
into a room
where the roof
had a huge hole
showing the sky
in the corner
was a discarded bed
with broken springs
and a wardrobe
with the doors hanging off
you took her
to the window
and looked out
onto Harper Road
you smelt her near you
that mixture
of peppermint
and dampness
like one not quite dried out
after rainfall
you both watched
the traffic go by
her hand rubbing
against yours
her 9year old skin
against your
9 year old skin
Innocent as daisies
no sense of trespass
or grasp of sin.
Jul 9, 2013
Jul 9, 2013 at 3:41 AM UTC
The neighbors seem so vivacious
As they mull about outside my window,
Sun kissing their skin.
The mothers cling to their children,
And sweat clings to the aching muscles of workers
As they bustle,
Hustling mattresses out of the house
And building supplies in.
We exchange cautious smiles
As I sit here in the staleness of my room,
The monotony of this routine.
They are so alive.
I wish I was too.
Mar 7, 2021
Mar 7, 2021 at 2:34 PM UTC
Marcus has gone, off
on some campaign
on Caesar's orders,
Annona is glad,
the bed has more space,
his smell of wine
and sweat and maleness
has left with him.
The bedding is fresh,
where he once lay his head
Amy lies now, her smaller
frame occupies his space,
her eyes gazing at Annona
sensing Annona's hands
feel along her tender thigh.
Not in her own lonely bed
now, but here in her mistress's
bed, here with warmth and
love and holds and kisses.
Annona senses Amy's breath
as she draws near, warm and
fresh not of wine or staleness,
she feels along Amy's flesh,
her fingertips smoothing as
she goes, kisses the lips and
cheeks and neck and downward
moves in slow passion, lips
planting kisses as she goes.
Amy kisses the head, the two
shoulders, the ******* feeling
a deep openness and entering
a thousand dreams explode
and flash, and words reduced
to ahh and oohs into the night.
Marcus had gone to his war,
Annona lies in Amy's arms,
feeling the safety of a lover's
hold, knowing the risk if sounds
are heard or someone comes
and sees their love or kisses
touched, but there she lies as
ship in harbour, resting after a
****** journey through rough
seas and knowing Amy's thinking
as does she: more more, yes please.
Jan 29, 2016
Jan 29, 2016 at 3:23 AM UTC
When you
Twisted, Roasted and Burnt
the sourness of that breath of my life,
Did you wonder if my eyes were quoting you
Or the dirge of a distant land,
Did you not pause to breathe that breath,
Lest I might inhale your sweaty stale
Sweet Breath!
Were you wearing the gloves of a shrunken leather,
That you made off my hairy skin
And its sweaty *****
Did you glare deep into my eyes and toes,
Wondering if I was the untouchable
You had
enslaved for granted for a dozen years,
till my sour soul would breathe the last of your charred breath.
You had hammered me to fit into the holes of your *** with none a friction,
So that you could keep yourself warm, wet and nourished always inside me.
Weren't you glad when you rubbed my back,
When I purged with a distinct death moaning under your nose
Did you slap me because I disturbed your sleep purging endless every other minute?
Or just that I stank the staleness of your *** growing inside me?
I could do nothing my Staleheart Lover
But **** that blob of rotten animal *** of yours,
And die myself after this verse,
Cause
I simply could not love that red big *** that ran my blood and my flesh,
I just couldn't breathe no more, lest it breathed a fragrant life into me
And I forget the hatred I nourished with my soul,
So, I shut me as well as the heavy blob called my child!
So that I just couldn't let anyone conclude the it,
This blob,
The baby,
as one pretty mistake of us.
Dec 8, 2014
Dec 8, 2014 at 5:34 AM UTC
Me - “My Mum’s getting worried” skinny
You - “God I want you right now” beautiful
Us - “Are they hanging a painting up?” loud
It’s release kindled with belief
that you could find that corresponding jigsaw piece
and I’m a corner piece - easy
and you are an outdoor cat - hardly tame
in that pair of black workout pants
and that flowing dark hair
You are like Spanish
beautiful, strange thing I can’t get my tongue around
I’m like somebody lmaoing on a chat room
efficient with my lack of substance
laying on the bed watching you get dressed
I drag on my imaginary post-coital
because I know you hate the smell of the real thing
unless its staleness is imprinted deep in my clothes
this disease has no known cure
the way the images slideshow their way behind my eyes
the way my blood is rerouted
every time I catch a smell of your sweat
or a memory of your taste
like faces on passing trains -
eyes locked momentarily
I went from student to drop out to student to lover of life
if life were a metaphor for the way you move those hips
you said you don’t know how to dance
well your tongue must’ve been taking night classes
maybe one day I’ll ask your last name
maybe one night you’ll say mine like a confession
but until then, special little stranger, keep bringing that *** over to my place
Mar 28, 2014
Mar 28, 2014 at 3:18 PM UTC
Have you ever felt them?
As you close your eyes and their lips meet yours?
And you're weightless.
Or have you gone looking in the wrong places
and the wrong times...
Only to feel a staleness and nausea
Like drinking old soda
Jul 8, 2015
Jul 8, 2015 at 6:38 PM UTC
Sun sears the surface of skin, previously flushed in cool, that lasted months.
Its light shines on a book of folded pages left from a stale summer,
dusted and ageing.
Eyes will never see the words: underlined, erased, written, and sealed through the pain of every day of the staleness.
They will stay absorbed in a placid world of four corners, their own words bouncing back on the walls.
Egotistical filters shield those I loved away.
The coolness of winter fills the spaces of the air; eventually dies,
as I thaw out and remember the bitter memory of the staleness.
A book I read over and over again, pages I fold and leaf like I can show them to you.
And a summer I'm trying to face forward.
Jun 8, 2019
Jun 8, 2019 at 7:45 PM UTC