"stations" poems
Is that what we wake up to every day?
Fast food and gas stations are forever stamped in the corners of my eyes as they are looking through the glass of minimum wage to the red flashing lights of a man hoping to get back to his children safely.
Is life is a pointed dagger then my blade is rusted and dull when I wonder why I even try some days.
Do I dare defend my pride and still demand something more than this? Is this a call for engines in the air or wings made of wax? Death would be more alive than waking up to another day of shampoo commercials and microwave dinners.
You are always whispering in my ear though dear and telling me that you're more than just a particle flown into my imagination from a world so oh very different than ours.
Are your eyes as bright as I imagine? Will the glare from them blind me from the tax collectors whip and will your laughter drown out the screams of onlookers who are throwing peanuts through the bars at my feet?
Will your kiss melt me and cause me to fall into wind like leaves in a storm, a tornado of color and beauty..?
I lay in bed and my eyes close tightly, my breathing slows and thoughts drip into pits men drown themselves in, the murky waters of nihilistic cynicism...
Though my hand will still not be closed around yours when the sun rises, the whisper lets me know you are still awake and searching for me too...
Nov 15, 2012
Nov 15, 2012 at 2:23 PM UTC
the moon is a lesbian,
which i know because she has
kissed every inch of my body
more often than any lover
i've ever known.
i have watched the way
she kisses the ocean
and guides her gently home,
have seen her face reflected with love
in the ever-changing sparkling surface of the sea,
and i don't know any other word
to describe a love like that.
the day we smoked a joint in the woods
and then walked eight miles in the rain
to gas station coffee,
we passed two other gas stations on the way,
but you were holding my hand and
i didn't want it to stop.
you said
"you're beautiful"
and i said
~~~~
because you were the most remarkable
person i had ever seen,
leaned up against the hood of a stranger's car,
smoking a cigarette like a lesbian james dean.
you'd call yourself
"lesbian" sixteen times before breakfast
until it stopped sounding like venom
and started to sound like a prayer,
because how could i ever look at
love like this and feel anything
but holy?
my new church was the woods
by the river,
and i learned to worship
at the altar of your body.
you took me in your arms and you said,
"baby,
you're beautiful,"
and i told you i loved you
because beautiful had never
meant anything to me
except that i had something
people could take.
i heard "beautiful" from your lips and it sounded
like a blessing.
the moon is a lesbian because
she knows how to love without taking,
i have scarcely loved a man
who has learned how to love without taking,
that is not to say that no man
can love without taking,
but it is a skill that is learned
through a grief
that i have shared with every
queer woman i have ever met.
when you kissed me in the attic,
it was not the first time
i had been kissed,
but it was the first time that a touch
felt like a gift and not a punishment,
and it was the first time i understood
why people write love songs.
i wanted to write you a love song,
but after a lifetime afraid of my own voice,
all i could sing you were hymns.
not because i had made you an idol,
but because your hands on my body
made me feel clean for the first time.
the moon is a lesbian because
the night i stumbled out of
the apartment of the man
who only loved me when
he thought he could keep me,
blood on my lips and nowhere to go,
the moon kissed my fingertips
and she said,
"baby,
what took you so long?
welcome home."
Mar 27, 2017
Mar 27, 2017 at 11:25 AM UTC
The blue Arabian sea, the towering Western Ghats
This then is Kerala the most beautiful Indian state
Lush green hill stations, lowland paddy fields
All are in Kerala between the mountains and the sea
Fourty four rivers flow so water here for all
Exotic plants in abundance beside the waterfalls
Enchanting emerald back waters put here for your delight
The days are never long enough to view each wonderous site
Kerala is called gods own country, the reasons very clear
Wildlife abounds, exotic birds and sika deer
Here you will live longer than in any other state
Fresh food in abundance and low mortality rate
Why don't you come and visit this paradise on earth
And take away the memories that you will always cherish
Feb 20, 2014
Feb 20, 2014 at 3:22 PM UTC
Gold crown of Olympus, hair crown and
Skin gown. First we throw our bodies at
One another. Heaping piles of human soup.
Bold maneuvers, hands and mouths and
Boy meets girl lying down, on top, intertwined.
Skittish moves on a tryst. Wet fingers of freshly
Tendered infinite decibel pleasure screams.
Streamers above a long rooting movement.
Overture of Aphrodite. Sparkling, glitter woman,
Legs pressed tightly to the chest,
Loose appendages intertwined. Intersticed dactyls
In rapture, soothing. Bodies build to one heart's beat.
Two muses fused together. If I wasn't afraid I'd wake you up
I'd slip on my shoes and make a tropical fruit fondue.
Stage two:
Ice cream lover's delight. Opus to brown sugar.
To swimming again, a pursed lurking of lips
In the academy of the pastoral commonwealth.
We eat at our stations of the sublime. Today which was
A day of discord- you nursed me back to the land of the living.
Stage three:
***
Stage four.
***
Stage five:
As we earn our pageantry to take
Stride on this Earth, and string a
Great bow of eager success among all of us,
You, me, them. While I continue to
Gaze at you. If not dinner, perhaps a
Cup of tea instead.
May 17, 2014
May 17, 2014 at 4:35 AM UTC
Listen to the machines meditate.
Touch their buttons and turn them on.
Plug into the charged thoughts
of your radio
statically in between stations,
or the electric fan
buzzing its soothing breeze,
humming vibrantly against your brain
like a relaxing massage from an absent soul.
Movements of the world outside masked
in a mechanical bubble of unnatural dreams.
Aug 7, 2014
Aug 7, 2014 at 3:53 AM UTC
Hometown boys today aren’t like the ones my grandmother remembers.
Back then they looked like decent folk.
Hair combed, pants the right size,
always greeting with “Excuse me, miss.”
But today, most of them ain’t worth your while.
Standing in shadows, lurking by the train stations.
Looking like criminals.
There’s no formality or decency with these boys.
“Hey, girl! Where you goin’?”
M’ name ain’t girl. You aren’t supposed to answer these kind.
“Hey! You hear me talkin’a you?”
These are the kind of men who you’re supposed to run from.
So relaxed and limp
like snakes.
Not a care in the world.
Up on their high horses when they can’t even find the **** saddle.
Who the hell do they think they are?
Hometown boys ain’t nothing like they were
decades ago.
The kind you bring home to meet your mama and your sister.
The kind that bring sunflowers on Sundays.
The kind that call you late at night
just to see if you made it home safe and sound.
The kind that sadly go unnoticed today.
So few of them left.
So few of the sweet old-fashioned boys.
The kind that never call you ‘gull’.
They don’t come out much these days.
Probably looked at all the other hometown boys
and decided to throw in the towel and stay home.
Pity.
Jan 11, 2013
Jan 11, 2013 at 6:09 PM UTC
Rose, Sunflower, and Lily
decided to get in a war train,
A sunflower was fearless and believes’ she can turn this journey into peace,
Rose was afraid to see everything red like her skin,
But a lily carries just pray with her fragrance,
A journey begins from Lahore,
People were rushed to get in the war train,
Lily asks Rose, Why they are in War train?
Rose says; I don’t know?
Lily was afraid,
She felt’ that her presence won’t change anything,
This train was on its way to Delhi,
Delhi, where people are already in a War train,
And Lahore to Delhi start believing that war is a solution,
But’ Solution of what?
The solution to destroy every rose, sunflower, and lily,
The solution to making every drop of water as poisoned,
The desire to see bloodshed,
The desire to stop playing children's in the parks,
The desire to not let grow a single crop in the soil of mother earth,
The desire to war for sake of war,
A solution comes from the songs of peace,
From the chances to let grow the roses, sunflowers, and lilies,
Swords, Bombs, Bullets, Jet planes and Nuke are not the solutions,
They are the end of all hope,
Hope to live in a love with a rose,
Hope to start a morning with a sunflower,
Hope to sleep with the pray as a beautiful lily,
But the question is who will stop this war train?
Many stations pass,
But none care to stop the war train,
And people of both side,
Just closed their eyes and souls
for nothing but for War,
They did not care; this war train is carrying the message of End,
But Rose, Sunflower, and Lily now knows, this is not their fault of believing,
It’s a fault of war train frenzy,
If this train won’t stop here
then each glimpse of life will be gone forever and ever!
By; Nida Mahmoed.
Mar 1, 2019
Mar 1, 2019 at 11:53 AM UTC
the hustle and bustle
of the morning shuffle
it's just enough
to keep you up
the stations and terminals
are coated
with sleep walkers
and sleep talkers
waiting for the inspiration
to come to life
that they always find
at the bottom
of empty coffee mugs
and tea cups
Nov 23, 2014
Nov 23, 2014 at 3:24 PM UTC
abandon ship, this ***** sinking!
why? captain goes down too...
so man your stations at the lifeboats
its a long swim home
kiss those lips like you're new favorite drug
**** stick and party favors
take another hit babe...it doesn't matter
the world'll stop if only an hour
come back! quit shaking, oh GOD you're not dead!
come on baby wake up! please GOD! come back!
i know you're shaking babe please stop
you scare me
we'll get help baby i promise
i swear
i knew this would happen its always the same
i was there first; now we're both trapped in this hell
do you remember what it felt like to have to have it
that burn in your gut
hands shaking still?
its been years for me too...
we're all poisoned
we're all dead
we all sing
its all dread
you're so crazy
Sep 17, 2010
Sep 17, 2010 at 8:05 PM UTC
“Yorkshire! Yorkshire!” I hear the EDL scream,
as if somehow the county, relates to their regime?
Trying to push on others their far right views,
and tainting Yorkshire with their taboos
cos Yorkshire to me, is whatever the **** I want it to be,
I do love a bit of local pride...
maybe to revel in the comfort it provides,
and even though stereotypes say we're tight,
as well as stubborn, argumentative (they're prolly right),
But I'd rather that, than be uptight,
like a stereotypical southerner might
I recently read a quote from Stuart Maconie,
“England has a bottom half,
but there isn't a south, in the same way there's a north”
The North in the south means desolation,
A cultural wasteland with deserted stations,
a place built on violent, aggressive foundations,
With mid summer Arctic temperature fluctuations,
Nothing that comes close to a nation....
But that's not what I see,
To be from the north means good fish and chips,
with tomato sauce and vinegar, it's glory on the lips,
I see people willing to lend a hand,
A honest chat about the weather as you stand at a bus stop
that you never planned,
It doesn't matter whether it's a cob, bun, bap, barm or roll,
Or that the north was ****** over by the outsourcing of coal,
Or your opinion that we're all just sat on the dole, drinking tea out of a ***** bowl.
We should still all have a similar goal,
To have a good time,
and not hurt a soul
Sometimes I do like to revel in the divide,
but I'll always welcome people from the other side,
Acceptance is not sin,
and if you let it,
it generally ends up with a win : win
What's Yorkshire to you? I haven't got a clue... but come sit down so we can have a chat and a brew! And hopefully we'll both learn something we never knew.
Oct 8, 2014
Oct 8, 2014 at 12:33 PM UTC
We are a puzzle with missing parts
That is why we make art
It is a healing start
We are all dream chasers
Until pencil meets eraser
Until boat meets glacier
Reality we must face her
When we sacrifice imagination
For societal integration
We search for placation
In lonely play stations
And through vacation
We experience migration
When the results are doubtful
And the response a drought mold
Because people are skeptical
Until there's a shiny scepter sold
Then you're put on a pedestal
And have your pecker pulled
By various industry tools
Loading you like a mule
With expensive jewels
Art must be the only motive
Not climbing any totem
Because once you're dead
Your art can still be read
Audiences may still be fed
But there's a frivolous influence
So you must be vigilant and prudent
To cut that from your life
So art may be your wife
That works to end strife
Yet that kind of help
You can't put on a shelf
I strive to make my art timeless
Though my pockets are dimeless
We live in a world of depression
That carries the risk of regression
My art could help push past it
Now that would be classic
Nov 18, 2017
Nov 18, 2017 at 5:43 AM UTC
As my mind goes crazy
My clock beats faster
And the dam protruding from my face can't hold back the Red Sea any longer.
Everything that was once pure becomes stained
Stained with my sorrow
Stained with my love stations ooze
And in the midst of all of this insanity I start to question whether my body even wants to feel whole heartedly sad.
And yet it's my wish to be numb,
But my desire of honesty
And love gives no allowance for
Feeling nothing.
Mar 16, 2015
Mar 16, 2015 at 3:29 AM UTC
Before I looked forward, I looked at the sky
I looked at birds whose numbers will die
I looked at the plane threatened with tragedy
I observed the moon conquered by humanity
Before I looked forward, I looked to my right
I looked at the gas stations that filled me with fright
I saw the grass littered with trash
I looked at the stores begging for cash
And before I looked forward, I looked to the ground
I looked at the bubblegum blackened and browned
I saw the asphalt crumbling fast
I looked at the coal which once was vast
So before I looked forward, I looked right behind
I looked at the coal burnt sky drifting high
I saw the foundations of our nations
I looked at the people ignoring the implications
Then I looked up, and I looked straight forward
I looked for an end to all our horrors
I saw that soon it would all be done
And I looked forward, and I saw the sun.
Oct 30, 2017
Oct 30, 2017 at 7:23 AM UTC
1. Never enter the pool by the stairs
2. Don’t ever dumb it down
3. Talk to seniors
4. Don’t pose with alcohol
5. Don’t pose with drugs
6. Don’t pose with ********
7. Don’t make out with ******** on video
8. Don’t make out with anyone on video
9. Eat your vegetables
10. If you can drink your vegetables
11. Don’t ever smoke
12. Read a lot
13. Carry your mom’s groceries (she carried you for 9 months)
14. Know at least 1 good joke
15. Surround yourself with smart people with ambitions in life
16. Don’t wander around with people who don’t know what they’re doing
17. Brush your teeth 3 times a day
18. Read a lot
19. One day learn to dance to cringy *** songs because it’s better than awkwardly sitting on the side by yourself
20. Don’t dress slutty (be as slutty as you want but don’t act it)
21. Be elitist
22. Don’t litter
23. Learn your national anthem
24. Always buy the railway stations in monopoly
25. Try and eat dinner on the table
26. Consent is cool
27. Don’t talk in movies
28. Don’t call people between 11pm-11am
29. Always open the card first
30. Never save the wrapping paper
31. If your wrong mid argument chance your name and move cities
32. Talk to your grandparents more
33. Thank the bus driver
34. Tip the pizza guy
35. Buy a silk robe to sleep in
36. Don’t lie to your doctor
37. Be proud of your music taste
38. Don’t gate crash parties pls
39. Educate ignorant people
40. Look hot for yourself
41. Hookup with people who genuinely give a **** about you
42. Its ok to show up to parties by yourself
43. Watch every good detective movies from 1987
44. Learn to have fun without alcohol
45. Once again cigarettes aren’t cool
46. Don’t sneak onto public transport – buy a ******* nol card
47. Don’t take life too seriously
Sep 3, 2015
Sep 3, 2015 at 1:44 PM UTC
mean beam bottom ***** without reluctance.
\\ air above \\
since forever baby boy: since forever liquid sparkler.
he has sense
& peanut butter jelly geography to his page.
his romance is of the west.
his eyes are of dandelions kicked & to the wind.
he moves like ancient turtle migration.
reaches feet to sidewalk \\ sand to depths \\ ride \\
night:
velcro-tightened mind withstanding.
party lights, ***** willows, retro punch, he
is orpheus descending: with all the elements positioned just so.
\\ jellyfish electric \\
he says he likes the loneliness.
he says it’s the water.
& so he moves \\ wills himself into the next measure.
liquid resolute bits.
so move \\ orca \\
curl of eye \\ so ride \\ black rollo wave \\
basilica \\ & \\
coral reaches below \\\\\
he likes to tell it, with warmed exaggeration.
slow-motion buffalo stampede. ride the railroads free & easy.
orange glowing bars of elsewhere. oscillating seal calls.
oily portland hipsters howling on the beach. those
juno cheeked rosy-red lips.
somewhere, sister getting married.
spring, summer, fall, winter, spring.
africa girl on a branch of a tree of a forest, overlooking elephant burial grounds.
color & white material:
plantations, gas stations, diners, & sharks.
this is the morning lunar \\
sweet blue beach of the old & awakening.
he crawls out & into her breaks.
her deep heights & bombora reef. the serotonin
functions twice, exposed between thin tissues of warm-blooded neurochemistry.
human, shown.
he is as a raw page, blank, yet
dipped \\
\\ so ride \\ bulbous waves of air mother agua \\
ride \\ &
\\ ride \\ &
brew by light these occurrences forever.
Mar 28, 2014
Mar 28, 2014 at 4:41 AM UTC
every train going out
leaves behind so much grief of separation.
no arriving train brings,
enough sunshine to compensate it
Jan 23, 2012
Jan 23, 2012 at 11:30 PM UTC
The rain drapes the windshield in sheets
and the radio doesn't reach any stations
cold integrity darkens the interior
of Alex's rusty crimson Camaro
it's never this quiet on the highway
sliding between light and lightning
laid bare by a flash across the sky
naked at the sound of thunder
what use is running away
if all you can do is drive.
Jul 22, 2018
Jul 22, 2018 at 11:16 PM UTC
what's the point of buying a portrait if you are blind?
nothing i would see is worth my precious time—
just more metal, bad skin, and tired, jealous eyes
senseless sensibility is a cold kettle boiling,
nonsense steam fogs up the jaded glass.
draw a picture with your finger,
smile as it fades to apathy,
all that lovely water turned to gas.
i lick my palms to play pretend with illness,
stay in bed with the quilt kicked off-kilter,
crawling with the brood of the six-legged past;
they are eating the nests of the threatened, bitter future
change the cable channels in my brain,
but only stations two and five are clear,
and eight if a wire coat-hanger antenna
is bent at an angle from my dominant ear
so i can sit, content, and watch the weather
sneaking in exhaust from every orifice
gets me passed out stupid every time;
a coping mechanism,
coated **** between the gears,
and only this pollution left behind.
Jun 23, 2012
Jun 23, 2012 at 11:13 PM UTC
As you set out for Ithaka
hope the journey is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
angry Poseidon - don't be afraid of them:
you'll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
wild Poseidon - you won't encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.
Hope the voyage is a long one.
may there be many a summer morning when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you come into harbours seen for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind -
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to gather stores of knowledge from their scholars.
Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you are destined for.
But do not hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you are old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.
Ithaka gave you the marvellous journey.
without her you would not have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.
And if you find her poor, Ithaka won't have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you will have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.
4.6k
I met you at the station
you said wanted to go anywhere but here.
I said to look for the tracks that
are the most uninviting. You
took my arm. I wished for
something better and here it came,
disguised by dirt, dislocation and greying days.
Your ticket says no return but
mine is undefined, watchful, ready
to bolt or to linger. You say you love
the stations from afar.
There's not much of me
requested, but the splinters that you
do, I gift hopelessly. The
smallest glimpse of light approaching
filtered through dank, oppressive air
are superior, surely? than finite life
exhausted watching the dark.
By the night you amplify,
when you have enjoyed my fill and
left with little but fingerprints and
recollections, casting parallel shadows
on directions that await.
I give you almost everything
except for the words that
travel nowhere but my head.
You gave me the signal
a briefest flash of red
that stopped this in its tracks.
May 16, 2015
May 16, 2015 at 6:04 AM UTC
Do we have any idea?
Have we even got a clue?
Can it be that we don't give a ****
what others are going through.
Are we so wrapped up in selfish mode?
So devoted to our own.
That we should sit back and watch
as others are gnawed down to the bone.
Should it be that our own offspring
if they were cast away so far?
Would we worry about that pipeline
bringing fuel to run our car?
Or would we stand aloft in horror
as they were thrown unto the ground?
Or for fuel thats cheap and plentiful,
is it ok to make no sound?
We hear about disasters.
Tsunami strikes upon Japan.
Earthquakes raging out in Haiti
Watch death befall our fellow man.
Throw donations in a bucket
at the supermarket doors,
then forget because of shopping.
but we have paid towards their cause.
Could you ever even fathom?
Your children crying as they play,
not for Barbies or Play-stations
but for the pain to go away.
Never asking for the latest
made by Hamleys or Mattel
rather just an handfull of food
to help beat the starvation battle.
Wash it down with poison water
from a river filled with ****
or collect in rusty tin cans
from a worn and stagnant pit.
If this was the plight of our children
things would surely be said.
We would try to move a mountain
rather than our young be dead.
Could you ever really imagine?
Could you ever really get,
that a million hits on You-Tube
turn endangered species into pets?
What if someone could ask on face-book
about your daughter or your son,
saying"It looks so cute and cuddly,
"go on e-bay and buy me one."
If only we could all be happy,
not feel a need to own the place.
If we could learn to be contented
by a childs smiling face.
Treat the world with awe and wonder.
Treat its creatures with respect.
Treat each other in this same way.
Treat nobody with neglect.
Then perhaps we may push together,
make our Governments do right.
Let's lead the World with people power,
no more starvation or blight.
Let's be less materialistic
let us have a life of worh
Not by owning all we see,
rather sharing this our earth.
Aug 26, 2014
Aug 26, 2014 at 10:51 AM UTC
Talk-show queen
Oprah Winfrey with her entourage
is going to Australia
and it’s timely now for a quick Colbert Report
on the state of the colony of Australia
Colony?
Yes, that’s right
Australia is still a British colony -
How else do you explain it?
as the Head of Government in Australia
is still the British Monarchy
and her Majesty, the Queen of Great Britain,
has her representative
a Governor-General in Australia;
and the Aussie national media faithfully reports
that Prince Philip is a God in some remote island
and the TV stations broadcast visions of
which British Prince kissed which of their latest fancy
And so, Oprah, welcome to the Colony
Ah, yes, and the Chinese migrants coming in
are surprised to learn of Australia’s status
at citizenship ceremonies
and the young man explains to his grandma:
“Oh, Foreign Devil still control Australia;
sad, Chairman Mao did not Liberate Australia.”
And Indian migrants, much to their disappointment
are heard to remark:
“Oh no – does this mean we still have
to go through another fight for freedom as in 1947?”
But then they are consoled by the fact
that a Gandhi only comes once in 200 years
so we can all still get on with our lives
and the nation will continue
to eat burgers and enjoy barbecues and hop like kangaroos
until such things may happen…
Ah well, dear talk-show Queen Oprah Winfrey
and her entourage
this ends our report on the sovereign nation down under:
Happy Stay in Her British Majesty’s Colony
Sep 23, 2010
Sep 23, 2010 at 12:16 PM UTC
It is occult, maybe, that we are twins
but not of Gemini
how you know
which streets to turn left at
while I have the names and no context
how you still smell like cinnamon
although I never saw you
rub powder against your skin.
We are in the same city now
we have the same radio stations.
I see you the way I see the outline of
a boot when I can’t touch slumber
not ethereal
but almost reduced to such a shape
a barbershop’s swirling bulb
stretched and sunnier when no one has
entered in some time.
Everything is magic
in desperation, everything is similar.
Apr 18, 2013
Apr 18, 2013 at 5:21 PM UTC
Writing you these words, cause I have been thinking about you all day. Love to watch her go; I rather to watch you hours on end, every second of every day. You resolution, is purely evolution - I get so carried away. But unlike those Play stations, you don't take things the wrong way. Your hardware driving me crazy, been on my mind all day. Putting you in all the right positions, my edition of feng shui. Take a mental picture and keep it stored away so when I finally get to see you, take full control, and do things the right way. If it was up to me, you wouldn't know the difference between night and day. Close the blinds, lock the door, unplug the phone, and lets play; you do, everything, I say. Pushing your buttons, cause I love it when you act this way. you are the only thing in this world that does exactly what I say. there for me when I need sum action; after a stressful day. You relieve me so quickly; even if its just a quickie. That's why I will always need you, my Xbox 360.
May 17, 2014
May 17, 2014 at 7:39 AM UTC
Games played at train stations
As we all just slide by
Our weathered eyes
Begin to crack.
We’ve dried up.
Become husks
As we drown in lassitude
“To the End!” we cried!
Jun 28, 2018
Jun 28, 2018 at 3:15 AM UTC