"starchy" poems
Alien among aliens,
Fanning delicate fins to promenade
A prim coquette and starchy cavalier
Trimmed and tined in ossein finery,
Sipping shrimp cocktails, dancing demure
Circles before blushing coral courts,
Holding hinds in groves of turtle grass
Until the paisley bodies
Bump bellies, and she imbues his pocket
With inklings marooned in dreaming Pegasus.
Aug 15, 2010
Aug 15, 2010 at 11:10 AM UTC
A bag of potatoes and a baseball bat.
Is merely a sack of starchy vegetables and a sculpted metal stick.
But on this blustering evening a bag of potatoes and a baseball bat meant an infinity more than that.
In this fleeting moment, I felt solidarity with the fact that life doesn't make sense.
I looked at you in your adjacent flesh ridden essence and smiled at this opportunity to connect.
The bat clashing with the pock eyed potato skin.
Our existences colliding with ebb and flow of a maniac pulsation.
This is not merely a hackneyed show of baseball bat on a bag of potatoes.
This is a boy and a girl realizing that this ever sacred moment holds more gravity than merely a bag of potatoes and a baseball bat.
It's just that we can't conjure what makes it so rich and ever splendid... so thus it must be
rich and ever splendid as the potato is launched into flight igniting the curiously enraptured mind of boy and girl witnessing baseball bat on potato
Dec 17, 2016
Dec 17, 2016 at 2:28 AM UTC
Anxiety is the colour red like the stinging remnants of my tears that have passed,
Anxiety tastes like black coffee at three am,
Anxiety smells like a drip of my nosebleed that just wont fade,
Anxiety sounds like the constant pounding in my pluse,
Anxiety feels like the lump in my throat from the starchy medication,
Anxiety is my hidden enemy.
Sep 24, 2013
Sep 24, 2013 at 12:54 PM UTC
The hospital took his smell away
***** him of his humanity
Stripped him of his identity
White sheets, too clean
If he could he'd take paint &
Splash it on the walls, on the
perfect cracks on the ceiling
he'd run down the silent hallways
impersonating a banshee
reveling in each breath that he took
but the plague came & took his breath away
his face blends in with his starchy pillow
the hospital vines are curling up
his legs now & his face is
weathering like his Ophelietic bed
wherein he drowns, never dreaming
They roll him away now
Down the hall
Towards the elevator light;
He has lost this fight.
Dec 16, 2015
Dec 16, 2015 at 1:03 PM UTC
the noodles
sit in the warm,
steamy water
they've turned
soft and mushy
left in too long
why? well,
you see,
this person who
wanted to eat them
suddenly had an
intrusive thought;
this caused this person
to get anxious
about eating
so the noodles
were abandoned
in the starchy water
left there
to drown
Jun 10, 2019
Jun 10, 2019 at 7:04 PM UTC
Should it be disconcerting that
Your words
Drip and droop
Oozing unintelligible lumps
Starchy and dry
Running through
My fingers
I rearrange to make sense of it
Distracted
Your nose over here
Your **** up here
Your intellect on the
board
bored
******* bored
Feb 3, 2015
Feb 3, 2015 at 7:41 PM UTC
I can recall a simpler time
when just spelling was the problem.
But now D.C. has doubled down
and is really scraping bottom.
What did the humble Potato do
To draw Pelosi’s ire.?
Why are white potatoes banned
From school lunches I inquire?
Sweet Potatoes are welcome still
on school kids’ lunchtime plates.
But Idaho’s may not be served-
That makes Michelle irate.
Baked, mashed or fried There’s good inside
the humble white potato.
Potatoes of color are welcome too
upon my dinner table.
The Tuber is a starchy treat
with vitamins and fiber.
Whatever will the Irish eat
If you toss it in the Tiber?
Jun 15, 2014
Jun 15, 2014 at 10:17 AM UTC
I tried to make pasta salad for dinner
but my "healthy" pasta was spoiled.
The only little critters known to man that are able to microscopically sneak in to prepackaged wheat have won again.
So I settled.
I figured I'd make up for my starchy negativity by using "veganaise",
but,
of course,
it tumbled out of the fridge that day in my absence
And shattered.
....So I settled.
Cleaning the kitchen behind my
half-satisfying
yet
I- ate-too-much-of it anyway
meal shattered my glass across the tile,
Persistent tiny shards
just jutting from the grout
like my bruised confidence after trying to clean my soul
of the filth that holds me hostage.
As of today I've gone without car insurance for a month
I've been absent from school
because my attendance is hard-wired to my lack of a
functioning.....wallet.
I got caught in the rain this evening
wondering how long I've got before defeat
catches me by more than a single strand hair,
drowning me in a thunderstorm of
uncontrollable emotion,
pattering and piercing my consciousness so hard
that when I finally got indoors,
I approached my filth with open arms of surrender--
soaked,
sitting,
And settled.
Jul 15, 2014
Jul 15, 2014 at 9:52 PM UTC
No town homes in my hometown
We throw up and we throw down
Drinks pour up, tears pour down
No outlet in this port town
Glass crumbs and shards
elephant-skinned sidewalks smeared with tomato paste
the streets remember
potato-tipped death machines
starchy falsetto bullets
the cracking
window
skull
smushy hamburger meat brain
meet bullet—meet steering wheel—meet
ster
e
o
my little brother stays in a shelter
on American and California
where babies
sit themselves
change
is a dollar short
and DST
stands for daylight shootings time
Grandfather time
please stroke your shredded wheat goatee just a little longer
postpone apocalyptic
soon the children will hop skotch on chalked body silhouettes
and jumprope with bungie cord intestines
But not him
my little commando
he will find a way out
depart from home plate
three strikes carved on a flaming chariot
soaring through the sky like barbasol jet streams
the great
escape
Apr 14, 2013
Apr 14, 2013 at 7:34 PM UTC
'Pets and Palates'
he had only two real loves
ducks and waffles
this was highly disconcerting
to his parents
who tried to distance their boy
from these strange affectations
by buying him a precious pet goose
named Berchunice
and putting him on a steady diet
of pancakes
and their various
international counterparts
needless to say
he didn't live to a great age
as a matter of fact
he died at twenty-two and a smidge
because while pets generally extend and enrich life
caring for a goose you despise
and dining on starchy carbs
seriously inhibits life expectancy
his passing was terribly unfortunate
as was the life his parents had forced upon him
if they hadn't forced these changes on him
had they merely accepted
perhaps
encouraged even
this love of ducks and waffles
their lovely lad
would have
efficiently and economically
solved global warming
in an effort to protect
the best interest
of his friends
the ducks
and in his downtime
he would have put
a major dent
in the world hunger problem
with a highly adaptable
waffle recipe
too bad.
Feb 13, 2010
Feb 13, 2010 at 6:26 PM UTC
Jean-kneed trees and boring brown shoes
Fuzzy cuddle fabrics in muddy subtle blues
Bumble words above like buzzing baby bees
Sticky-fingered nonsense and distant mysteries
Table-gum unders like grubby colored stars
Sticky-starchy name tags to tell us who we are
Untouched wishes flustered and everything is new
Laughing candles blown-out from a two-foot view
Dec 10, 2013
Dec 10, 2013 at 12:20 AM UTC
It’s early,
shutters yawn open
drawing in an already spirited sun.
I reluctantly roam
an unchartered narrow maze
of whitewashed walls.
Fingers squeeze
a mint mil Pesetas banknote
and list, written in my mother’s
stern and starchy hand.
I am the outsider,
inside and out.
I inhale
pine dust, bins and septic tanks,
I exhale
a huff of childhood hopelessness.
Shadows startle me
with machine gun Catalan.
I didn’t hear the rumble of the water truck.
Didn’t look right when I crossed the road.
Didn’t thank the stranger who saved me,
until now.
Jan 8, 2021
Jan 8, 2021 at 10:09 AM UTC
How much liquid must collect
in one space before we call it a flood?
Cause the current's picking up
on me & no one seems to notice
Have you ever felt
your ribs shifting
around inside of you?
No pain,
just an acute awareness
that you are in fact
nothing more than
a contrivance of instruments
working together to exist,
To live,
To stay
That's kinda how it feels when
you're trying to catch your breath
but the oxygen can't find your lungs...
It feels like
Knowing
Knowing
that you are
Fragile
And there's fear
but it's quiet---
muffled like
your wheezing
When he left that morning
I actually felt his absence,
In my hands-
The emptiness was tangible
For the first time-
I reached for the back of his shirt
and he shook me away before
I could pull him into me
His cheap detergent
left a starchy film
on my finger tips
And I knew
that was the last time
Like when the faucet runs cold
Before you're finished bathing
- You feel ***** all day
I felt ***** all day
I just want to know
Less
I don't want to be so
Full of all of this
He smells like
salt water
He smells like
cherry incense
He smells like
soft cologne
And
a lit cigarette
He smells like
fresh winter air-
His skin is warm
But his kiss is cold
I couldn't
Stop
The drifting
I couldn't
Stop
The wandering
I couldn't
Stop
The leaving
He was never
Going to
Stay
Why am I like this,
Still to this day?
Jul 19, 2016
Jul 19, 2016 at 12:17 PM UTC
his bed was cold
and made of tombstone
and his sheets were starchy and made my skin crawl..
but
i still layed in the grave he dug for me
and
i shut off the lights in my head
And I sealed my eyelids shut with ice
so the rivers of emotion wouldn't seap through.
he had bought my skin for the night
he had bought my soul
so I layed there
trying to dream up an excuse to escape the reality of his skin on mine
and
In my dream
I had built a house
a really pretty house
out of sticks and stones that can't break my bones
and in a place where the sun always shined
but now that I'm waking up
the woods rotting and there's maggots in the floor boards
from all the girls innocence that you murdered here
and all the walls and doors that I built up
you tore down
how am I supposed to hide
from a monster like you
In a place reduced to wood chips..?
And now since all the ***** hit the fan
and youre six feet under my skin
do you mind telling me
why you call your bed your tombstone
while you're very much alive and breathing
and i'm the one left dead?
Aug 8, 2015
Aug 8, 2015 at 1:00 AM UTC
He sat in his chair with his back to the fire,
He deliberately sought to make the air chill,
His hand on the paper lover's pink with desire,
But his method of savagery not lust but the quill.
His starchy stiff collar was tightly ill-fitting,
His shoes chafed his ankles but he did not care,
His breathing was hot in the cool of the evening,
His fingers streaked ink through his long wavy hair.
He scowled at the pen and he frowned at the paper,
The writer accursed his impotent art,
He wrote with great ease those magnificent ballads,
But useless he felt at affairs of the heart.
He rose and he cast all the sheets of fine paper,
Into the fire and he winced at the heat,
He lit up his pipe, eyes smarting at the vapour,
And bitterly cursed this impossible feat.
For who but a fool smitten for a princess,
An admirer for now but soon to be queen,
When he just a poet and a poor one nonetheless,
And dandy Prince Albert just arrived on the scene.
He slouched at his desk and once more made a scribble,
Decided to write the biggest lie he could call,
For who but a fool would believe in such drivel,
“Better to have loved and lost than not loved at all.”
Oct 12, 2017
Oct 12, 2017 at 3:45 PM UTC
You make me seek out sharp Dixon Ticonderoga pencils
with thick dollops of pink cream on their tops,
to write in the smudged lead;
as words dance across starchy parchment,
smeared by more than the base of my hand.
I want to see the thin, bold lines of black ink
from a satisfactory pen;
loop and curve into the twisting characters of your name.
I want a sharp pencil, and a good pen.
One in each hand;
to clear my mind.
Jul 10, 2012
Jul 10, 2012 at 1:10 AM UTC
I imagine parting your lips would feel like dipping my hands into a bag of uncooked
rice,
starchy sweet,
falling between my fingers, yielding.
I imagine you holding my papercut wrists, my papercut heart together with trembly
hands, scotch tape and just enough pressure to fill up the spaces,
just for a little while.
Baby girl, you’d say, when I’d consider asking you to help me pick up the pieces.
Carrying them carefully, like a bird’s egg,
like the day no backward glances were cast,
eyes set, head set, a measured pace.
Stop it, dewdrop, as I held my breath, waiting for the pieces to drop again,
tiny cracks multiplying into a pattern like the afghan at the foot of my bed,
the way my hands splintered when you held them in yours.
Listen: imagine the landscapes that fill our bodies--
the curves where I would nestle my head,
the warm folds where I’d hide,
the sinkholes and leaks you’d try to patch up, to stop up.
Listen to me, honeysuckle girl.
Your elbows are too sharp,
like the point of blades that fit so snugly into your hand—
that feel like they were once part of you, but left;
no backward glances cast.
Imagine this love-crumb:
let me file you down,
I like it when you’re soft.
Then it doesn’t feel like you’ll shatter when I touch you—
Listen,
just fold up, baby girl.
Apr 25, 2015
Apr 25, 2015 at 4:57 PM UTC
The stiff cold
In the air today, and
I was thinking what I might like
To become
Of me once I’m good
And dead.
There are really so many options, but right now,
I think I’d prefer
To be cremated,
Or something like that.
A starchy cotton jacket was
Such a bad idea,
Now I’m cold!
Sheer buildings leaning
Over me, on almost all sides.
Are crematoriums like that?
Must be, here,
I suppose...
But how warm I bet they are
And then you slip into death
At the end of it all and into
Those lovely, gorgeous urns.
Feb 5, 2010
Feb 5, 2010 at 12:05 PM UTC
Her mouth was carved
By a knife,
Now an open wound, all it does is
Bleed
Sour blood onto her starchy bed sheets,
Her friends are few and fleeting, unaware that her
Clicking Chiclet teeth saw the light of day
Long before they were meant to, how the ragged corners of her smile
Scab when she is still.
Feb 8, 2014
Feb 8, 2014 at 11:49 PM UTC
I remember the constant tightness in my left side,
weakness in my fragile small frame,
those part of my life seem so dark and gloomy back then
He would every so often say to me: all you have left of you is
those black eyes peas’ eyes: are you going to make it to seven?
I recalled sitting on the big rock near the front porch in tears,
and watch as my friends in their starchy white shirts
and cut seams skirt headed to Clifton hill primary school
He saw the sad look on my face that morning
“we shall be leaving soon”, he said with a faint smile
I hated our long trips; my little feet would hang over the cross bar
Sometimes, I took turns walking the long stretch of road
exercising my weak legs, before I reach our destination.
My favorite breakfast before our trip was two soft boil eggs,
a slice of bread soak in bay leaves tea with chocolate powder:
I would be literally frozen with fear each time
I visit the doctor’s office: tears would flow;
I hate the weekly section, I held on to my father’s hand for dear life
I can still hear my cousin voice saying to me
You are so lucky not having to go to school
I envied her at that moment in time, I rather to be there in my
little corner of the room, playing with my silly putty or revising my time tables, instead there I was being poke with pine needles
I guess my childhood illness scared my mother to death
because she never tried to hide her feeling toward me
on the other hand, my father saw that distant looks in my eyes
Somehow, he knew I would made the transition to adulthood
Despite what others thought of my situation?
My morning therapy section consist
of building up strength very gradually to my left side:
a simple task like squeezing half of a tennis ball was so difficult for me
I tried as hard as I could each time: just to see that smile on my father’s face
While the doctor would say, one more time, one more time:
Concentration and skill was his aim, mine was to hurry up and go home
Going back in time to observe ...the past helps
Jun 29, 2015
Jun 29, 2015 at 7:45 AM UTC
What is all this blather about dawn
And the lies about loving sunrise?
There is very little fun going on.
It doesn’t it make me wealthy and wise.
It’s often cold except in summer.
It’s still mostly dark, not quite light.
Stumbling around is a ******
And, in my opinion, it’s not right.
What the heck is wrong with bed,
Letting the whole world get up first
Enjoying more dreams in my head,
Before experiencing morning thirst?
Why can’t I let the winos rise up
And move away from my doorstep
Before I try to find my getup
And take my outside first step?
Unless I make it at home, no good
Food is offered in American diners.
They sell no roughage, as they should.
They think health food is for whiners.
Nothing green, not much but meat
Mostly on offer is coffee and sugar;
Fried, and starchy stuff on the street.
Finding food besides that is a ******
So, no thanks, I much prefer to stay
With dreams of retirement in my head
Until later on in the bright light of day
Snuggled, sleeping in my comfy bed.
I don’t want to wake while it’s still dark.
There is nothing much of dawn I like.
Joggers go on and run in the park.
All of you early risers: go take a hike.
Nov 7, 2017
Nov 7, 2017 at 12:06 PM UTC
I want to paint you a picture
of a spaghetti cloud
raining meatballs
and the marinara dripping
off starchy tendrils
like dew off a tilted blade
of summer's finest grass.
I want to paint you a picture
of a feline thunderbolt
with its' hair on end
and the screeching
echoing loudly
like the persistent mews
of an unfed kitten.
I want to paint you a picture
of a lost little girl
with her hairbow missing
and her eyes
opened quite wide
like an owl
who has gone blind.
Nov 1, 2016
Nov 1, 2016 at 10:24 AM UTC
the fiery ember-glow of the appointed hour
beckons the hour-hand closer
starchy, stiffened footsteps
of the structured ticktock routine
fracture first then crumble into powder
swept away by stampede winds
forget it then
the charred and brittle caress
of the silver-for-chains bargain
instead there will be
lemon and lilac-flower music
sand dune and landslide gestures
and heavy maple-syrup glances
deep into a crude-oil quicksand night.
Jun 19, 2015
Jun 19, 2015 at 11:04 PM UTC